#yeah they might be easily manipulated and justify their wrongful actions through love of their family but they also ATE!

[kutana]

kitana so slay they call her cuntana

scorpions pussy pop so loud call him scorpussy

[kyoupann]

Hi, besties! I’m back to talk about Encanto and Encanto only because I’m tired of non-latinos/Hispanics posting their bland ass opinions on a movie they definitely did not care to understand <3 ( warning: spoilers, I guess)

1. "Abuela was evil and didn't deserve to be forgiven that quickly"

Amix, did we even watch the same movie? Because to me Alma wasn't forgiven on the spot. Not one of them said "sure abuelita don’t worry we still love you." And the thing is, in a toxic Hispanic household, you won't get an apology so easily. Alma admitted how she fucked up and that is a huge step for them as a family to start figuring out their own shit and how each member contributed to the cracks appearing. The moment where they all come together to rebuild their Casita is a perfect depiction of that; it takes days, months and years to pick up the pieces and put it back together, and maybe just then they can start healing.

Alma deserved to realise how much pain she was putting her family through and be given the opportunity to try to be better, and saying otherwise is interpreting the movie to fit your ideal ending. And the thing is, Alma had no malicious intent in her words and actions, once you know what happened to her, you notice everything she does and says is tightly tied to her traumatic past: bestie watched her town be invaded, her husband brutally murdered while holding her newborn triplets, became the leader of a whole ass new town the next morning and was probably never given the time to mourn.

And before any of y’all Abuela-haters come to me to say trauma is never an excuse: yeah, abuse can’t be justified under any circumstances, however, if you want to criticise Abuela’s character, you have to look where she is coming from. It’s not a matter of it’s fair or not, because in real life these situations most of the time are never fair to anyone involved.

2. "Omg, everyone was so mean towards Mirabel and Bruno, how could anyone allow that? That's so fucked up!"

Oh, wow, the privilege of watching a movie about intergenerational trauma and not noticing the trauma. Qusiese, chicaaa, pero no pudiese. LMAO I was going to go into how Alma, Isabela and Pepa treated Mirabel, but I feel that’ll be better left alone in their separate posts because it’s a lot. Instead I’m just going to explain why I think “We don’t talk about Bruno” was an attempt to protect Bruno from people shit-talking him even more.

It’s undeniable that the Madrigal family is obviously the equivalent of royalty in Encanto. They are a public figure and Abuela specifically works her ass off trying to maintain that image (yeah, by manipulating her family into being of service but). Because if shit went down, then she’d find herself having to flee her home again. Big yikes, nope.

Now, imagine, your youngest and only son who can see the future comes up with a prophecy about your home/family so bad that he runs away. Bruno may have done nothing wrong, but his disappearance brought a bad image to the family. So what did the family had to do to save face? Not talk about him. And more than it being a “fuck Bruno, all my homies hate Bruno” move, it is more of a “Hey, this is a sensitive topic and we as a family have decided to speak no more of it, thanks!” move, not only to cope with his absence, but to prevent townsfolk from also talking about him. It might not have been the nicest thing to do, but so was Bruno’s leaving without saying more. Please, stop infantilizing grown-ass men.

3. “The magic doesn’t make any sense”

HI, Welcome to Magical Realism! It does not need to make sense to you. It is what it is in its own world and its inhabitants accept it. If y’all can watch Marvel movies and eat that shit up as if it were the most complex worldbuilding in existence, then you can absolutely believe that miracles are a commonly accepted occurrence in this world.

What creates a miracle is not really important, because throughout the movie we’re not trying to make a new one, but to preserve the one that already Alma manifested. What determines what kind of gift each character gets is not important, or at the very least I’d think you’d be able to assume that it’s something related to their personality or a skill they excelled at. Being utterly rude, if you whine over how the magic doesn’t make any sense, I feel like you’re the type of person who wants to have every single thing explained in detail because you’re simply too lazy to use your imagination.

I find the magic in this movie very adequate to its context; in Latin-America, when you talk about a miracle it’s something of religious origin that cannot be explained by science (as opposed to English, in which it can be simply boiled down to something extraordinary). Additionally, “Milagro” is also used to refer to religious charms that can be carried on your person for protection and good luck. So, the candle serves as both types of miracles and I find that so damn cool.

Now, I’m not blindly in love with this movie to deny the fact that it definitely should’ve explored its world and characters so much more. It’s not perfect, but it’s definitely one of the best movies the mouse has made in years and I do hope it gets some kind of show or whatever; it’s got the perfect elements for it.

P.d: do yourself a huge favour and listen to the Spanish version of Dos Oruguitas <3<3<3

[abbybubbls]

A Character Study of Actor Mark (and others)

This is something I’ve had in my mind for quite a while. Since everybody’s going on a late Actor Mark craze lately, I’ve noticed that some people have been forgetting that Actor Mark is... well... an asshole. I won’t name any names, just know that I have no ill will towards people who view him differently, they can do whatever they want with their favorite characters, I just wanna go on a bit of a tangent, so... here we go.

Also, you’re gonna have to create a “flaw” counter because I use the word a LOT here.

Let’s get this out of the way; Actor Mark is flawed. Seriously flawed. He’s egotistical, he’s selfish, he only cares about notoriety, he’s a megalomaniac at best. And some people would assume that the Actor has been innocent before the Mansion messed him up after Celine left him, but... not really.

The Mansion pointed out the Actor’s flaws for a long time, and made those flaws more apparent when he was at his highest and lowest points in his life, making him more of an asshole within these moments. It wasn’t towards JUST the Actor though. It’d be towards William (eccentric, being too much of a hopeless romantic), Celine (using people, overprotective, short temper) and yes, even our innocent angel baby Damien himself (confusion, mostly). Almost every character in this series has flaws, but of course, the Actor is most apparent, even when we don’t see him that much.

Then again, the Actor is that kind of character you can guess what he’s like RIGHT when you look at him at first glance. Rich, has a big ego, arrogant, keeps secrets, etc.

I mean... the Actor was ALWAYS like this, it’s just that it’s more pointed out and apparent when there are defining moments in his life. He’s an asshole!

I’m not saying that the Actor is an asshole ALL the time, though. I’m pretty sure he’s had his moments of doing good, but... not a whole lot has been seen of him doing any good at all. We only hear that he’s helped Damien become a mayor, he gave up everything (maybe a bit too much) for Celine when they were married, “reaching out” to William while hiding his spite... and that’s really it. I mean... he gave Abe a job, too... I guess... 4 good deeds the Actor has done! Yaaaayyy...?

Anyway, what I’m getting at is that Mark (not Actor Mark, our boy the man of the hour Mark Fischbach himself) said that he doesn’t believe in 100% good flawless people. Almost every character he’s played and created have things wrong with them.

Let’s use our boy Wilford Warfstache as an example.

Wilford is playful, colorful, excited, curious, and is in constant need of looking for adventure and fun. But he is also very trigger-happy, easily distracted, violent, VERY forgetful, he selfishly runs away from his responsibilities (hence him blowing “BUBBLES!” in the GIF above), and he’s so traumatized and out of touch with reality that he just makes his own as he goes with no worries whatsoever.

Now, Wilford has been my most favorite Ego for a LONG time, and as much as I love portraying him as a cute soft playful idiot, I never forget that he does have a lot of things wrong with him, so I don’t make him too innocent and naive. He’s too far gone to even try and turn back to the way he was, and I absolutely LOVE that concept, and I think it fits very well with somebody like Wilford. His backstory and his problems and are what make me love him so much because he’s such a fun but complex character.

There is a degree as to how many problems that the character has and to see if that character really is a good person or not. There is always this middle ground between the black and white, there’s the morally gray area. You can create a grid of white, gray, and black, and list every Ego with ALL of the flaws that each of them have, and you can put them in whatever area depending on which one has the most problems. And of course, Actor Mark has a lot of them.

The Actor does have every right to be upset that Celine left him for William, but never to the point where he wants revenge on them. The Actor is too prideful and so up his own ass that the Mansion made his flaws more apparent than ever for YEARS, and he’s so spiteful and CONVINCED that he deserves to be more happy than anybody else that (justifiably?) did him wrong.

This is when some people assume that the Actor is the victim, and I don’t agree with them at all, but I can see where they’re coming from. The Actor became depressed that Celine left him, he was all by himself in the Mansion losing his mind, and he can be a very sympathetic character. And yes, when you look through his perspective, you can see why he’s so upset to the point of taking revenge on William for “stealing” Celine away from him, when really Celine probably had every right to leave the Actor for William anyway. She did say that she was never comfortable in the Mansion, and she was probably used by the Actor just for attention.

I’m not saying that it was a great decision for Celine to leave without saying anything. I mean, she could have just said she wanted a divorce because she felt uncomfortable with her surroundings and liked William much more, and if the Actor wouldn’t be so spiteful, he’d let her go. But of course, that doesn’t happen, so all my hopes and dreams for a nicer ending are crushed (I’m just kidding, I ADORE the ending we’ve gotten).

Where was I? Oh yeah, people thinking that the Actor is the victim... The more that I think about it... he’s really not. He brought it upon himself to be spiteful and brought misery to his friends instead of trying to move on from it. Sure, he doesn’t have to forgive them, but he should have at least tried to move on.

There is this VERY important statement that Mark has mentioned during his DAMIEN Explanation stream that most people seem to forget: The Actor never apologized for his actions once.

Let’s go back to our boy Warfy for a sec.

In Wilford ‘MOTHERLOVING’ Warfstache, even though Wilford may not remember a whole lot of Abe, he knows that he might have done something wrong to him, and apologizes wholeheartedly (with a squeak hug and everything)! He admits that he’s done some bad things even though he doesn’t remember them, or even know that he’s done them at all. He apologizes and is willing to move on from his previous mistakes, though of course he might know he’ll make more down the road.

In DAMIEN, the Actor is so far up his own ass that he doesn’t think all the horrible things he’s done to Damien, Celine, and Will are even that horrible. He’s thinking that his actions are somehow justifiable because of his tragic backstory, thinking he’s the hero. “My humble upbringing, my tragic backstory... There’s no other role for me to play!”

The Actor SAYS he’s come to Damien to apologize, but he doesn’t say sorry once. He never says “I’m sorry for what you had to go through” or “Yeah I might have gone a bit too far with you” or anything that would even remotely count as an apology. He only says “Things weren’t according to plan, some mistakes were made, it was supposed to go like this but then I found another way around it”.

He’s more focused on his own plan more than what happened to his friends DURING the plan. The Actor is SO convinced that he is the hero of his story that he NEVER admits that he is in the wrong of what he’s done to Damien and Celine, but he says he’s willing to move on from the past... when he’s really not.

He loses his temper very quickly whenever he mentions the past and he keeps snapping at Damien. When he “casts” Damien as the main villain of his story (even though Damien has done absolutely NOTHING against him besides not agreeing that he was good enough for Celine), Damien refuses and wants to live in peace, and then the Actor gets pissed off more, practically forcing Damien into the role of a villain.

You know who admitted that they’re wrong?

A LOT of people have had mixed feelings about Celine ever since her debut. Even I wasn’t so sure if I liked her when I first saw her. Nothing like some decent writing and character development can’t fix!

Mark has stated that in Who Killed Markiplier?, Celine had no real clear motivation than just “controlling people” and “doing seer things”, so he wanted to do more with her in DAMIEN.

Here’s some stuff we now know more about Celine;

1. She is overprotective towards Damien, and wants him to be safe within the body they both are forced to share.

2. She is Damien’s twin sister (ten minutes older)!

3. She REALLY wants the Actor dead after what he’s done to her and Damien.

4. She is a badass queen and has GREAT aim with her ax.

5. Her survival skills are to the max.

6. Her kickassery cannot be contained.

7. She has used people to protect herself and her brother... and admits it.

I am not saying that manipulation is a good thing, I myself am very gullible and I don’t like being used just to feel idiotic in the end. But of course, when you look into Celine’s perspective, you can see that she has controlled people for a very good reason, even though Damien is literally the same age as her and can take care of himself... but she wants to keep him safe anyway. Celine admits this in her lowest point, Damien lets her sleep after all that she’s done for him.

Here is the way I see it; If you don’t honestly and truly admit that you are in the wrong and don’t take responsibility for your actions, then you are not ready to move on from your past mistakes.

Just like everybody, we all make mistakes, and it’s our responsibility to make sure we can evolve from these mistakes instead of ignoring them or focusing too much on them at the same time.

Wilford is ignoring his mistakes entirely, but he still apologizes anyway without taking full responsibility for his actions and lets somebody else do it for him.

Celine does a good mix of both ignoring and focusing a lot on her mistakes, admitting that she is wrong and tries to take responsibility for it by letting Damien take the wheel.

Actor Mark, as well as Wilford, is ignoring his mistakes like mad, but doesn’t apologize at all.

And this is why I love the Actor as a character. I know, right? I’ve talked in SO MUCH detail about how and why the Actor is a horrible person and I just said I love him as a character! Well, much like Wilford, I have a strong adoration for characters that are ridiculously flawed, and we go deep into their pasts to find out why they’re the way they are.

Actor Mark really is the embodiment of a vengeful tragedy, and his entire character is so complex and interesting to look into...

and now people are treating him like an uwu soft angel boy, but this trend is gonna end soon, I’m sure. Not the love of the Actor, but the uwu soft angel boy part of the trend because... he’s not that at all.

Anyway, Actor Mark is not the hero, he’s an irredeemable douche bag, and I love him anyway. Let me know if there’s any more details about him that I’ve missed!

Buh-bye~

- Abby

[rickyriddle]

Monaca: is she redeemable?

Hello! For once this post won’t be about AnR. I’m going to do an analysis of a certain character that is mainly hated in Danganronpa, yet I actually like. If you read the title of this post you already know who it is: Towa Monaca. I will be discussing a specific point about her and how it is related to either or not she can be redeemed. Take note that it is my opinion and that you’re free to disagree.

I’ll begin roughly about the point I want to debate about Monaca. She’s a psychopath. Well, at least it is what I believe she is. First, let’s discuss what is a psychopath, because a lot of people are using that term wrongly, usually to describe crazy evil characters that kill people. First off, psychopaths aren’t crazy. They are actually quite rational and they are in control of themselves, they know what they are doing. If the character is acting crazy then the term you may be looking could be psychotic. Not the same as psychopaths. Psychotic people are considered criminally not responsible for their crimes, while psychopaths are.

But that’s beside the point. Then, if psychopaths aren’t just crazy killers, what are they? The best way to describe them would be social predator. They can look pretty normal, they wear some kind of mask of normalcy, to fit in society. They are incapable of having empathy or remorse for their actions. They are usually quite charismatic, manipulative, deceitful and controlling, and incapable to feel fear. Unlike popular belief, most of them aren’t murderers. Some of them become CEO, and are actually quite good at it. Psychopathy is also called anti-social personality disorder. Sociopathy is also called that way but it’s not totally the same as psychopaths. Both are incapable of empathy, but psychopaths are born that way, sociopaths are made. But in both case it can be a mix of nature and nurture. Which will be important when we’ll talk about Monaca’s case.

So why do I think Monaca is a psychopath? Well, through the game Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girl, Monaca exhibit a lot of psychopathic tendencies. She clearly lacks empathy and shows no remorse over her crimes, she quite charismatic, she’s manipulative, she likes to control others and is emotionally shallow. But she’s also sadistic and cruel, and enjoy others’ pain. She as no sympathy for anyone, not even her own allies. But some might tell me it’s because of her tragic past, that she’s actually a sociopath because she was “made” that way. Like I said earlier, both disorders can be a mix of nature and nurture. And sociopaths tend to be more impulsive and emotionally driven. Monaca is actually pretty cold and rational. Most of Monaca’s emotion was pretty much fake, to manipulate others into doing what she wanted, but I think that deep down she’s actually emotionally shallow. I believe Monaca’s psychopathic traits are nature, she’s born with them. But traits like sadism and cruelty would have been developed due to her bad childhood. So the current Monaca was made, and she would probably not have turned that way without her past, but I believe she would have still been a psychopath.

Without her bad childhood, Monaca would have probably ended up being the type of psychopath who becomes successful CEO. Shen wouldn’t have been a murderous mastermind who find joy in others misery and pain. But she would have been incapable of having genuine empathy for others and would have no issues using manipulation to her own benefit. But her past had an impact on her. The neglect and abuse made her dangerous, this is what made her murderous. And since she is a psychopath, the result was disastrous.

You may think that Monaca’s behaviour is solely the result of her childhood. Let me disagree. Unlike the other Warriors of Hope, Monaca’s past is never used in the story to excuse or justify her actions. And the other Warriors of Hope never showed any murderous tendencies before meeting Junko, while Monaca actually tried to kill her friends by making them commit suicide, for fun. So yeah, we got a little girl who wants to cause the death of her friends for fun. And Junko isn’t responsible for that at all. Whatever your past, a child would usually not plan the death of their friends. You really need to lack empathy to even think about doing that, and for fun. It’s probably her past that made her dangerous like that, but to me it has to be mixed with a disorder to actually think of doing that. And given her traits, psychopathy seems like the most plausible option. And I also think that Monaca’s past increased her psychopathic traits. For example, she learned to lie and manipulate at a early age when she had to fake being injured to gain sympathy. Usually it can take a lot of time for a psychopath to build their mask and their social skills, but Monaca is still a child. So I think her past helped her to build those earlier than a regular psychopath. If Monaca wasn’t a psychopath, then her past would have simply made her a liar and a manipulator, but not a murderer who enjoy others pain and misery.

I said that Monaca was emotionally shallow, even those she had a lot of tantrum in the game. But I’m pretty sure those were fake. She was just doing that to manipulate others. We can see how emotionally emotive she was when she was trying to manipulate Komaru into destroying the controller. Monaca was switching emotions all the time, one time she was crying, begging, being afraid, then suddenly smiling. All of those emotions were clearly fake, Monaca was actually pretty calm and in control of herself in the inside. It showed how emotionally shallow and manipulative Monaca is. She’s also quite charismatic, she easily charmed the Warriors of Hope into doing her bidding, She also had no problem using their weakness against them, like using Kotoko trauma or Nagisa’s love for her. It shows how cruel she is and how she lacks empathy, even for her own “friends”.

Then what about her relationship with Junko? She clearly seems to love Junko and hold her in respect. But is really love? We never saw Monaca actually be sad over Junko’s death. She was obsessed by Junko, but I think it wasn’t out of genuine love, more like envy. Junko had everything Monaca didn’t. Junko was loved, she was powerful, and she had the mean to accomplish her goal. Monaca wanted to have what Junko had, be like her. But Junko and Monaca’s goal was quite different. Junko wanted despair for the sake of despair, even for herself, while Monaca mostly wanted to cause despair to others for the sake of making them suffer. Unlike Monaca, Junko isn’t a psychopath. Junko is her own type of fucked up that I’ll keep for another analysis, maybe (someone told me she probably had a mix of defeating personality disorder, Narcissistic personality disorder and Borderline Personality disorder and I agree). So in a way, Monaca used Junko, she was her model yes, but also a mean for her own ambition. Making others suffer like, because herself has suffered. Interesting point, most psychopaths had a complicated relationship with their mothers, especially serial killers. Monaca’s mother abandoned her.

So all of this to know if Monaca can be redeem or not. Well, to be short, I don’t think she can be redeemed. Monaca can’t have empathy or remorse regarding her action, making it almost impossible for her to have redemption. If she ever apologizes, that wouldn’t be sincere. At best she could realize that what she did was wrong without feeling bad about it and decided that it wouldn’t be in her best interest to be a villain and pretend she wants to change. But it wouldn’t be genuine and therefore, not a real redemption. She can’t change her true nature, but she could change her behaviour to get what she wants.

So in conclusion, even if Monaca’s past did shape her into the monster she is, there is a part that she was born with, so even without her past she would have been a psychopath. Just not the dangerous and murderous type. And if she wasn’t born as a psychopath, she wouldn’t have been as worst as she is now. And that makes her, in my eyes, unredeemable.

So that’s all. I hope you like this analysis, if you have any comments don’t hesitate to tell me, either you agree or disagree with me. Thanks for reading.

[dalishious]

(Replying to this post)

@gangsterofoz I’m... not really sure... where to begin... I suppose by just saying I’m kind of stunned you wrote all this in response to me point out Cassandra was wrong about something and the writers’ reasons are ridiculously transparent?

Well it makes sense that Cass would try really hard to convince herself of the Chantry’s justified actions - it’s not that she’s purposely trying to condemn the elves, she just does not want to see the evils and mistakes of an institution she has pretty much built her adult life on. A life that allowed her to follow a path she felt was befitting of her skills and soul. And like many people with religion, they cannot seperate the institutional failures and serious misconducts from the faith.

I absolutely agree it is in character for Cassandra to be ignorant about this, given other things she has said expressing refusal to acknowledge elven point of views. But it’s not a good quality for her to have. And as @faerunner already said, the big problem isn’t that Cassandra has this point of view, it’s that this is the only point of view we hear. Dorian shares it too. But here is no argument. We’re just supposed to accept this comment, despite as I pointed out in that post, it is inaccurate.

Religions by their nature need to be deontological - meaning it can’t have flaws and inconsistencies. It needs to be by its nature always ‘true’ to its core messages and therefore exists philosophically in the realm of black in white. When in reality, it’s in the moral grey area as much as everything else. The people within it can be flawed, as Cass we know really prefers focusing on, but she manages to largely not see (at least historical actions not really the more recent ones) as the failures of people - individuals - not her faith, not the group. Which is fundamentally just inaccurate as no one can commit genocide or invasion without the willing consent and support of the group as a majority. Im so glad you pointed this out - it’s just more credit to brilliant character construction and intimate understanding of how people justify religious evils.

Hey maybe don’t paint every single belief system with the same Christian/Catholic brush because that’s not true?

I would argue that Cassandra is almost equally bad at recognizing the failures of people in recent times as well. 

It’s really like they researched the morality, psychology of Crusaders or Renaissance religious figures who maintained justification of the Crusades. I love Cass but she like everyone in the games (and like all brilliant series that study the flaws of politics and religions like Game of Thrones) is seriously flawed. Cass is not evil, she’s just reacting to an inherited childhood situation, she’s doing what she needs to to feel safe and valid.

LOL I think you are giving BioWare way to much credit, but yes, a comparison between Exalted Marches and the Crusades can definitely be made. It’s just a shame that, as the whole point of that post, they didn’t spend just as much time on how the victims felt.

Like Dorian and Varric opposing consistently undermine the traditionalism and omnipotence of institutions in an attempt to be independent from them and therefore safe because hierarchies and institutions have so consistently not only failed but seriously harmed them on such an intimate level (the Dwarven caste system/way of life and Tevinter as a society). Varric and Dorian still find admiration or use for aspects of their childhood societies but it’s their flaws that have made them view those institutions the way they do in the time of Inquisition.

You are comparing Dorian opposing tyranny to Cassandra defending it?

It’s so clever - because we don’t judge these figures as historical persons through a lens of fact but we get to know them so intimately. They become real persons for whom we see our actions make consequences directly. It puts us in the position of leaders of Catholicism during the Crusades - it perhaps says, “It is more difficult to condemn people you’ve come to know because they are real and thus it makes taking moral action much more difficult.”

HOLY FUCK.

No. No, I absolutely judge through facts, and you know, general morality. No, it absolutely does not make it more difficult to condemn a character saying something wrong when they are in fact, 100% wrong. 

It’s like when Tyrion kills Tywin - he basically plunges the entire political system of a really powerful nation/continent into chaos - like fuck you now everything’s going to go to shit and the White Walkers are going to so easily come and kill everybody ! But man who didn’t want Tyrion to kill to Tywin? We were all on his side when that happened. But through a historical lens, the boy did some serious damage to the citizens of the country. Not that Tywin was a brilliant moral leader but one could argue at least the country wasn’t plunged into political factionalism and thus unable to successfully defend itself against the ice boys.

I have no idea what you’re talking about because I stopped watching Game of Thrones after dragging myself through the second season; I found the story interesting enough, but the copious amount of gratuitous sex and also general shitty treatment of the few characters of colour and female characters was too much to continue. But I’m gonna go on a limb and guess this has nothing to do with anything in the post I made.

So yes Cass is super wrong but it also is 100% how she would manipulate herself to see that slice of history. I mean - how scary is that that a leader has that view sitting on the Sunburst Throne (if you pop her there)? You say, “well she’s got all these great qualities etc.” but then what are the ramifications of putting someone with some form of internalised racism in a position of power?

Oh gee, what a high-fantasy thought-provoking question that is. A person who gives zero shits about the people who’s land they settled on and now rule over. I wonder what the ramifications would be. It is so hard to wonder. I just don’t know. //Sarcasm

What if she in some years starts another Exalted March? Historically, we’d look at the Inquisitor and go, “What were you thinking!?”

Yeah I sure fucking would especially because my Inquisitor would never do that to her people.

But history doesn’t happen historically. People are biased and function through personal relationships, moving through the world within the framework of those dynamics. The moral of this section of the games is, you’re going to need to make decisions that will shape the world but you will struggle to make them unbiasedly. And the consequences of that can be cataclysmic. Anyway lol unintentional essay

This might be news to you, but sometimes making decisions using bias can be a good thing. It’s called having a moral conscious. So yes, as I have said a few times now, I will absolutely judge Cassandra for lacking one in this scene. And general history knowledge.

Anyway, this whole unintentional essay was almost entirely irrelevant to the point of my post, but whatever. Glad we could clear up that what Cassandra said here is a bad thing and bad things should be recognized as bad things, not unquestioned qualities.

[coldtomyflash]

Barry Allen: selfishness and survivor’s guilt

In light of 3x15, I wanna talk about Barry.

I want to talk about Barry who is emotionally blunted by trauma, at this point. A Barry who is selfish with others, who has been selfish with others, and why. Who fails to legitimately apologize for his wrongdoings, time and again. I want to talk about his hollowed-out shortcomings and where they come from. Not to excuse (never to excuse) how he sometimes treats and hurts others, but to explore that side of him as a character, because it polarizes fandom so damn much. Because people who love him miss or ignore it, and people who hate him can’t see around it.

So if you want to read a very long and winding analysis of where some of that comes from... let’s talk.

And first, we need talk about the fact that Barry cannot apologize to others about anything major. No really. The man does not say “I’m sorry” about big things. Lying to Iris for all of season 1? Does not apologize. Ever. He explains his reasoning and gets defensive and turns it back around on her (thankfully, she has none of that). He agrees, as is important with making amends, to change his behavior and to be honest moving forward. But he doesn’t apologize, and I think it’s because he doesn’t regret or feel remorse for his actions. Guilt, but not remorse.

He never apologizes for any of the times he’s lied to the team. He doesn’t apologize for the positions he’s put them in. He doesn’t say sorry to Cisco in 1x04 for overreacting and blowing up at him over the cold gun, and doesn’t say sorry to him a season later after pushing him to re-open a breach to E2 and having that royally backfire on them. In season 3, he doesn’t apologize to any of them for Flashpoint, doesn’t actually say “I’m sorry” ever -- not for Caitlin’s powers, not for Dante dying, not any of it.

Wow, huh?

What Barry does do, like with Iris, is change his behavior. Is strive to fix things. Is act. Is forgive. He has a huge capacity for forgiveness. You see it first with Cisco in 1x04 too -- Barry doesn’t apologize, but he also doesn’t need Cisco to, and that’s repeated again after Cisco gives Snart his identity in 1x16. Look how Barry treats ‘enemies’ (like Snart) who stop trying to hurt him and his pals, even post-betrayal. Look at how he ‘forgave’ Eobard while looking at Harry Wells because he couldn’t carry around the burden of his own hate. Look at how he forgave Harry for ‘betraying’ the team and trying to steal his speed, and did it quickly. Look at how he so easily put aside a year of frustration with Julian being a dick to him (maybe fairly) and getting him written up and taking his job. 

Barry doesn’t hold grudges, not except for massive (literally murder) type things. And in return, he expects others not to hold them against him. When they do... he is conflicted and confused and flounders about selfishly because he cannot handle that. He has no recourse for it. It’s not what he would do, so he doesn’t know how to fix it.

And maybe we should unpack why that is. I suspect it’s due to his childhood. After what happened with his parents, with the next 15 years of his life having that brand on his back, and believing in his father’s innocence when no one else would, Barry had to forgive people he loved for not believing him. For implicitly hurting him by trying to help him, by trying to convince him that he was wrong and sending him to therapy. Had to accept that Joe was doing his damn best even if it made him resentful and angry because he knew the damn truth and no one would believe him, not even the people he desperately needed to.

And as a kid who I suspect had a tendency to run off and do his own thing even before that, apologizing never mattered so much as accepting and moving forward. He got in fights at school and his mom chastised him with a smile while his dad came home and grinned because his son was doing what he thought was right and damn the consequences. So, so long as Barry’s doing what he believes is right, he doesn’t feel the need to say sorry. And that probably carried on through his preteen years of running off to visit his dad at Iron Heights without telling Joe where he was going and into his teens of breaking rules and skipping town to chase down a lead on ‘the impossible’ to skipping work to go to Starling City to do the same. ‘Better to ask forgiveness’ and by ‘forgiveness’ he means “I’m not actually sorry but I need you not to hate me because I believe what I’m doing is right”.

He had to stick to his guns hard and fast for so many of those years. To give an inch would be to give a mile, a slippery slope toward letting himself be convinced that maybe he was wrong about the man in the lightning and maybe he is wrong about his father. He can’t do that, can’t let himself. So he can’t apologize for who he is and what he’s doing because he’s doing it in the service of something he believes is greater than himself.

Barry Allen has always been a man with a cause. And I will posit that there is nothing more dangerous than a person who believes in a cause greater than oneself. 

He also got away with it, I should say. When he goes to apologize to Joe early season 1 for being an ass (with a “you’re not my real dad”) comment, Joe waves it away, and Barry’s apology is not so much “I’m sorry” as it is “you are the best father I could ask for”. He doesn’t express remorse but does contrition, and he makes amends not through self-abasement but through uplifting others. And that’s important too. It makes it clear he understands his own wrongdoings. Like with promising to be more honest with Iris, or like with forgiving Cisco for making a weapon that can hurt him and never again assuming betrayal (from Cisco) no matter what happens. Barry doesn’t regret, but he does change.

Which, wow, finally brings me to what I really wanted to talk about.

Notice how the further the seasons go, the less regret and remorse and guilt we see off of him? 

Not entirely, I mean. At the start of season 2, his guilt and remorse are so deep that he’s isolated himself, full of self-loathing and punishing himself and just a total wreck. He is sorry. But as soon as he has something he needs to do, an enemy to direct himself at, a cause? He begins to sacrifice almost anything in the service of that cause. He pushes and manipulates Cisco to re-open a breach to E2 even when Cisco clearly doesn’t want to and is scared of his own powers. 

Barry is harder by then. Has been through re-witnessing his mother’s death, the singularity, his massive survivor’s guilt (still has that by the way, hasn’t gone away, just getting sublimated), and having his back broken. Dude screams himself awake, according to Patty. He’s at the end of his rope and blind to how he’s pushing others.

But he’s not sorry for it. 

He’s been through so much hell he doesn’t even recognize it, not really. He recognizes that others aren’t maybe on board with what he wants to do, that Cisco is scared of his powers. He knows that. But he can’t empathize with it anymore, not with the emotional state he’s in. He sees what he’s sure needs to happen and he makes it so, using the tools at his disposal (i.e., emotional manipulation in the guise of a pep-talk, how very Eowells of him).

And that’s what I mean by trauma-blunted. Barry has been pushed to a place where repeated traumas have left him too emotionally exhausted to really process others’ pain or to empathize.

He’s still him. When Wally gets captured, he sacrifices his own speed with barely a second thought, because he’s still Barry Allen and the last thing he wants is for someone else to get hurt when he can stop it, but he doesn’t recognize the harm he can have on those around him, and he gets incredibly myopic about his own plans either because of ego or due to a lack of emotional and cognitive energy left to properly think them through.

And then, I mean, aside from a little fun of the speedforce telling him he’s basically Blessed(TM) pepping him up, he just gets traumatized further. Realizes he’s put Caitlin through hell after giving up his speed and therefore offering her no protection, has literally had his body eroded in trying to reclaim his powers, watches his father die in an incredibly triggering and traumatic way and is bound to have renewed guilt over that, and creates a time remnant of himself and literally watches it die (sublimating his own suicidal ideation?) as a means of saving the entire multiverse. No pressure. But he took the race with Zoom anyway because - again - he’s myopic as hell when it comes to doing things that serve his cause of heroic martyrdom (read: effacing himself to cope with survivor’s guilt) and ‘saving’ the people he loves.

So yeah, pressure, and trauma, and distortion of his own emotional space over time, to the point where everything he does by the end of season 2 is in the service of ‘saving’ someone by sacrificing himself, and damn the consequences or the harm he creates on the way. He has to see it on some level, but I don’t think he can process it.

And then he’s got a little vacation to cope with his insane amounts of grief and trauma because he has universe-bending powers that he hasn’t fully thought through the implications of.

And that choice? He didn’t have the capacity to make an even partway rational decision that evening. After watching himself die and after having his father die so recently, after everything that had happened, and the ridiculous amounts of loss he’d faced over the past year, summing into this feeling that no matter what he did, he couldn’t escape that survivor’s guilt or that pain, and couldn’t de-traumatize the people who’d been through it with him. So the only thing that made sense was that if he could erase it all.... he should.

I’m not trying to justify Flashpoint. It was a shitty fucking decision. But it’s part of this narrative.

Because when he realizes he’s made a mistake that someone else, yet again, might have to pay for, he back-pedals like whoa. Wally wasn’t even dead by the time Barry hit massive panic, enough to suddenly, for the first time, be considering re-changing the timeline. He finds out his memories are eroding and realizes that it’s either this timeline or the other -- this one where someone else is still going to suffer because of him, that there is always going to be suffering and guilt, and where he will lose all the parts of him (his memories) that have made him ‘him’.... or the other one, where everyone has already suffered, where everything was shit, but which feels ‘real’ in a way this timeline literally can’t yet, and where at least he has a reason for all the crippling pain he feels. Where at least his friends are by his side, and whole, even if nothing else and no one else is.

Which is why he can’t apologize for Flashpoint, or properly apologize for Caitlin’s powers, or Dante’s death. Why he can’t say the right thing and why he’s so up in his head and selfish about it. He chose it, he has to live with it, and as truly guilty and terrible as he feels, he doesn’t regret it. He doesn’t regret taking those six months to see his parents and he doesn’t regret ‘fixing’ the timeline either, even if he feels terrible that it’s hurting people he loves (and now that it caused Savitar). Another reason for self-loathing is not new to Barry Allen.

Whew.

Okay, that’s bringing me close to up to speed. But now look at Savitar showing up and Iris being in danger. And there’s literally not a damn thing Barry wouldn’t do to protect her. He didn’t want to tell her she was in danger but he also couldn’t lose her to his own dishonesty (remember, he did change his behavior after S1 and can be pressed to reveal the thing he wants least to talk about because he does love her and does change when he makes amends). 

But yeah, willing to do literally anything to save her. Good things, like marry her, and give Kid Flash opportunities to take out villains he can, just to change some headlines. And terrible things, like bully (almost force) Julian to be a voice for Savitar and to relive his own traumas and loss of autonomy just to eke out scraps of information that may or may not even be useful, just for a sense of progress.

And there’s no doubt that after everything that’s happened with Wally this season, Barry’s feeling guilty about that, and about Flashpoint!Wally still, and now he’s had to watch Iris die in the future and ‘knows’ it’s “his fault” (it’s no one’s fault but Savitar’s, but y’know, survivor’s guilt), and it’s like he barely registers that these things are added traumas he’s experiencing. Iris’s death is literally consuming him, from nightmares to proposals to little everyday details. He’s blunted to the people around him and as myopic as ever (yes Barry, propose to the love of your life under false pretences, that’ll go over great) and being harsh with Wally and everyone else.

And he’s self-aware, a little. He tells Wally that it’s not Wally, it’s him and his own worry about Iris consuming him. But that doesn’t stop him from pushing everyone anyway. Because... because he’d do it himself. Right? 

Barry “I have to try” Allen, who ran into a tornado and into a black hole simply because someone had to and he was the person who could. Barry “Cisco you need to open a breach to E2 even though you’re terrified and don’t want to” because that’s what you do, right? You charge headlong at the traumatic thing because it’s in service of a greater cause. You don’t stop for permission unless you have to in order to get what you need (definitely not for consent to take someone’s blood, like Jax and Henry Hewitt), and you don’t ask for apologies because you don’t regret pushing so long as you moved forward.

Barry has to move forward. If he didn’t, if he stopped for a moment, whenever he does stop for a moment, he falls apart. He was falling apart in S1 more than once because he would take a breather and realize the weight he was carrying. He stopped and took a breather in an alternate timeline and ruined the lives of half the people he knows in the process. He can’t afford to slow down, not with Iris’s death looming, not with how much he carries on his shoulders, how much larger his pile of shit to actually deal with has become.

Barry “I have to try” Allen who forced Julian to put on that headset because Julian’s trauma paled in comparison to the service of the greater cause, especially because that cause is saving Iris. Barry who expects others to forgive him for pushing because helping people (because self-sacrifice) trumps all else, in his mind. Who projects that mentality on those close to him (this is a real thing yo, egocentric biasing happens more with those closer to us) and assumes they feel the same and will therefore do the same as he would do. Cisco, Julian, whoever. Barry who maybe can’t realize right now, or hasn’t been able to realize in a while, that not everyone gets off on self-effacing ‘heroic martyrdom’ that puts them through more trauma, because not everyone copes with massive amounts of survivor’s guilt by continuously putting themselves in situations that will cause them pain and suffering justified by ‘helping’.

What I’m saying is... Barry’s headspace is fucked, guys. 

That’s why he acts the way he does and why he can’t stop to think about it or say sorry for it. He’s hardened and traumatized but too afraid to stop for a single second. He keeps making mistakes and he loathes himself for it but his only way to deal with that is to try harder and put himself through more, so that maybe one day he’ll have sacrificed enough to feel worthy of what he has, and the love he has.

Barry is selfish, and Barry is traumatized.