#you can certainly do it without ignoring everything good about those characters

[itsabouttimex2]

Sooooo... How do you feel about the season 5?

In short? Mid. 6-6.5/10.

In long…?

A severely rushed season that bit off way more than it could chew. A season that had the characters pull powers from their asses more frequently than ever before. A season that had shitty “dramatic” moments for the sake of having dramatic moments. A season that lampshades issues instead of fixing them. A season with so, so much wasted potential.

It basically boils down: everything they wanted to do COULD have been good, but they just didn’t have the time.

I’ll go into some varied details below. I’d also like to make clear- I’ll be tagging all of my Season Five Posts with “Lego Monkie Kid Season 5” and “LMK Spoilers” until August 1st. Then the gloves are coming off and I’ll stop tagging them.

(I still liked the season, for what it’s worth- and you can watch it in full here! I’ve got some drafts and bots cooking as we speak!)

This was a cute send-off to Flying Bark! It was nice of them to acknowledge, in some way, everything that those dears did for the show- because Lego Monkie Kid would NOT be where it is without them.

Significantly less cute-

The absolute kick in the fucking face that constantly superimposing old footage over newer, worse footage is.

You don’t want us to be constantly reminded of the animation downgrade- that’s the literal last thing that anyone wants. Why would you constantly remind us that it used to be better?

What the fuck does this accomplish? Okay, let’s make comparisons, cause that’s the only thing that can result from pulling this shit-

This is what happens when you constantly reference the older, superior content.

PEOPLE CONSTANTLY NOTICE THAT YOUR CONTENT IS WORSE.

Also, why is it so saturated? How do you make a Lego Minifigure look like he has jaundice?

It’s just a bad look to constantly reference content you can’t live up to. I’m hoping they’ll just recreate old content instead of sloppily pasting it into the background of the show- it’ll be less jarring.

Alright, what else…

———

Yay, I called it! Nuwa is not MK’s “loving though bereft mommy”! Which I had been guessing ever since the Celestial Pagoda leaked, actually-

I mean, come on. He’s literally stealing the stones away from her as she reaches to take them back.

And the Season confirmed it! Nuwa might’ve be been MK’s creator, but she certainly wasn’t his momma.

And you know how the series subtlety clues you in to how little she cares about her “son”?

Nuwa didn’t give him a name. She had hundreds, maybe thousands of years to think on it- but no. No name.

We mortals name our pets, our vehicles, our art. We love them enough to bestow monikers.

Nuwa didn’t even bother to name her own sapient mortal creation.

But when he makes a move against her, does something she doesn’t want, takes destiny into his own hands?

She calls out to him with one word- not “son”. Not “MK”.

Nuwa angrily calls him “mortal”.

Becuase that’s all he ever was to her, really. A mortal pawn. A handmade puppet.

Someone designed to fulfill a sacrifice. Even though her intentions were good, MK’s sole purpose by her hand was to shoulder the weight of the world like a good little hero.

So… a potential “villain” in the making?

———

Lampshading the fact that you’re doing the “macguffin hunt” again does not excuse doing the “macguffin hunt” again.

Lampshading the “apocalypse after apocalypse” plots doesn’t make them any less exhausting.

Lampshading Macaque’s lack of narrative consequences does not undo the awkward and weak redemption arc.

———

They changed Mei “no longer wielding” the Samadhi fire, I guess.

Ignore that she never displayed a hint of concern or sorrow over “losing it” because now she’s sad and worried (after backlash from the fans over her losing it) about losing it.

Like, Subodhi knows so much about the world and the universe that he’s aware of his existence in the ink scroll- but he gets Mei not having an interplanetary level threat inside her wrong?

I smell a retcon.

———

Macaque’s redemption arc is still shit. I’ve got a whole rant queued to release soon, actually- I imagine it might be the final time I comment on his arc until Season Six.

To put it short- Macaque still falls upwards into redemption. No pushback or difficulty or introspection. He’s just a magically better person without any onscreen development to make the change believable.

But they reference this at one point?

Sun Wukong points out that Macaque escapes the trial without any punishment, and is just allowed to mope in place of an actual consequence.

So maaaaaayybeeeee they’ll do something in Season Six? I’ve lost all faith that he’ll ever be an interesting character again, though.

He’s essentially just “brooding rival #80058”. Instead of being a character that calls back to Seasons 1-3, from 4 onwards he’s just a brand new dude who totally didn’t commit any atrocities with a smile on his face- and he’s a worse and more boring character for it.

———

If I haven’t misjudged the intent, I think Monkie Kid will be going back to being an episodic series for the extent of Season Six. Again, they lampshade the “apocalypse after apocalypse” thing, yeah?

And now they have a perfect formula- find someone who’s having trouble with their new power, and help them.

And we might see Bai He again???

Let’s hope for a good breather season!

———

Rest in piss Li Jing their asses did NOT cook with you sorry papa

You could’ve been interesting in the writers didn’t try to pull a “loving father” bait and switch after you got like four scenes of being a raw jackass

If they were going to deviate from the source material and make you a good dad couldn’t it have just been:

“Li Jing, you were not invited to the trial!”

“STF that monkey son of a bitch hurt my baby boy-“

“Father I’m 300-“

“Hush son, let daddy take care of this- that monkey son of a bitch hurt my baby boy when he stole the Samadhi fire map!”

Maybe next season you’ll get to be interesting, hun.

(I’m still writing for Lotusfam though)

———

Drama for the sake of drama. 0/10 scene. Could’ve just had the interruption come AFTER they held hands, but no. Gotta drag shit out for the shippers or whatever. There was no reason to prolong this reunion.

I’m really not a fan of the “just wait another season for it”, mentality. Stop stretching shit out. You had a chance to do something sweet and heartwarming, and chose not to for the sake of trying to drag a conclusion out.

Ugh.

———

Characters just pull powers out of their ass for the sake of forcing dramatic scenes.

THESE ARE DOGSHIT SCENES

THIS MAKES NO FUCKING SENSE. THIS IS DONE SOLELY FOR THE SALE OF “MUH DRAMATIC FINALE” AND IS BAD

ITS BAD WRITING TO HAVE CHARACTERS PULL NEW MAGICAL POWERS OUT OF THEIR ASSES FOR THE SAKE OF DRAMA

IF WUKONG HAD THIS POWER FROM THE START HE SHOULD’VE USED IT AGAINST HIS FUCKING LETHAL ENEMIES AND NOT SAVED IT FOR HIS PRECIOUS STUDENT

MK NEVER LEARNED TO USE THE FILLET SPELL. THE WRITERS PULLED IT OUT OF THEIR ASS TO FORCE DRAMA BY HAVING MK TORTURE HIS MENTOR LONGER THAN EVEN THEIR ACTING ENEMY LI JING DID WITH A CIRCLET THAT IS CANONICALLY TIGHTER THAN HIS FIRST

WE SEE HOW FAST HE IS WHEN HE FIGHTS THE AZURE LION

MK CAN MOVE FASTER THAN WUKONG

HE COULD’VE BEATEN HIM THERE IN AN EQUALLY CLIMATIC RACE

I FEEL NOTHING WHEN I WATCH THIS BECAUSE IT IS FORCED DRAMA FOR THE SAKE OF DRAMA

—————————————————

💚💚💚

[highfantasy-soul]

BACK ON MY HEATHER BASHING!

The show is doing such a great job accurately depicting irl people in this superhero show - from Fisk being an obvious Trump (but most certainly he's not the only foul, hateful, violent rich guy who's taken governmental power to expand his control), Daniel being 100% Musk and Trump bootlickers who think they can still be friends with people they harm (BB) as long as they 'aren't an asshole' about it, to Heather.

Heather Heather Heather - the most insidious real world parallel that I think a lot of people are actually missing.

She's the liberal who says 'ugh, white supremacists and antifa are the SAAAMMEEE', 'I can't tell the difference between leftists and alt-right Nazis!!!!!', 'Well if Trump says he's against rapist undocumented ppl, then I'm going to take him at his word and give him carte blanche to do whatever!!!!!! That doesn't make me a bad persooonnnn!!!!', 'You're showing signs of grief and actually angry about injustice in the world??? UUhhhhh, that's actually abusive toward MEEEEEE and you need to STOOPPP????? You're so mentally IILLLL if you're reacting negatively to the rise of fascism?????? Just like, get some help???????', 'A fascist evil mob boss who has harmed you in the past just invaded mine and your privacy by showing up at our private residence without permission and you're RAISING YOUR VOICE ABOUT IITTTTT????? AAAHHHHH ABBUUUUSEEEEEE!!!!!'

She's the 'reasonable' one. She's the therapist. She's the 'logical and polite' one. Matt is the aggressive violent one who just needs to chill out about injustice.

I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt in earlier episodes where she goes straight to kissing Matt instead of talking with him when he expressed frustration over Leroy's case - maybe she didn't want to therapize him and wanted to give him space to express his frustrations without her trying to 'fix' it for him. Give him space and address it later, or open the door for him to really talk about it if he wanted to.

If that's what she had been doing, cool, fine. It's not her job to 'fix' Matt and his frustrations about his job.

However, if that's ALL she ever does and ACTIVELY tries to get him to stop seeking justice and speaking out about the harm Fisk causes (and the good vigilantes have done), then that crosses the line. Her passivity wasn't a choice to not push in the moment - it is a permanent choice to NEVER engage critically with Fisk and his policies. To choose ignorance in the difference between those using violence to protect against evil and those using violence to PERPETRATE evil.

She's the liberal who wants everything to be polite, to be soft-spoken, to deny the aid those doing the hard work have provided you. "*I* saved myself from Muse" completely ignoring any help from those you've deemed 'undeserving'. That IF you are to protest injustice, you can only sit silently wearing a pink suit - to stand up and SAY something deserves a censure.

Honestly, the writing of her character is so real that it's frustrating as hell. We know people exactly like her. We see them every day. And we see what that leads to.

[neroniiii]

Yura's words here have definitely helped define the fandom perception of Hiruhiko. He uses very blunt language, it serves a narrative purpose of solidifying the impression we were able to intuit from Hiruhiko himself (his impatience in regards to the preparations the Hishaku were taking, him referring to his fight with Chihiro as "playing", his inconsiderate attitude toward the Hishaku's mission), and becomes the context through which we interpret everything else he does (not being able to "get" Chihiro's perspective on killing, calling his preparation for a rematch without both arms the moment where his fight with Chihiro was "getting good", rejecting Kuguri's teachings on how to use a sword properly in favor of feelscrafting, etc.)

From the perspective of every Hishaku member we've seen of him, even the ones who hold no animosity towards him, Hiruhiko is foolish, lazy and spoiled, and simple-minded. He's childish. And of course, the audience will have been primed to believe this about him. Kagurabachi defines its characters through the perceptions other people have of them. Despite considering himself a monster, Chihiro is surrounded by people who were directly affected by his kindness. Despite believing that her existence causes others to suffer, Iori's universal consideration of others saved Ikura, and gave him the determination to save her. But Hiruhiko's situation subverts this. The Hishaku don't see Hiruhiko as a person, he was always meant to act as a tool for them, so Hiruhiko having his own desires gets in the way of their expectations for him.

So this... discharacterization of Hiruhiko by the Hishaku persists through Yura, in a very sneaky way. Because indeed, not having very much exposure to the world makes you immature. That lack of experience doesn't allow one to create and refine their own perspectives to view it with. Hiruhiko is indeed immature in that way. But it's important to consider how Yura assesses things; He calls Chihiro "too green to harvest", his growth is the result of those "seeds of hatred (sown) all those years ago". There's an acknowledgement of Chihiro's potential, that in some way he will provide "nourishment" to the Hishaku, though it's unachievable now due to Chihiro's ignorance of the situation. Yura describes Hiruhiko as immature in the same way he describes Chihiro as green, he certainly didn't spend a decade raising Hiruhiko as a member of the Hishaku just to have him wield two enchanted blades.

Hiruhiko has potential that's waiting to be realized, and to that end Yura seeks to completely remove the notion that Hiruhiko could be connected with anybody. Yura, who can read Seiichi Samura like a book, doesn't do anything to alleviate Hiruhiko's suicidal ideation, despite knowing him for far longer and having the power to offer him the proper resources. Yura continuously reinforces Hiruhiko's nihilism- his contempt for everyone and everything in the world- teaching him to treat people as objects, giving him the words to further separate himself from humanity, not letting him experience the world on his own, only letting him navigate a relationship where he and the other were already set up to not be able to understand each other.

In the way that a child's social value being measured through their obedience (masked as maturity) makes any defiance from those expectations result in them being considered as less worthy of respect, Hiruhiko's want for autonomy and connection- things that would make him less of a tool and more of a person- makes him immature.

[sometimesraven]

re: the ableism in Dot and Bubble

I understand it almost certainly wasn't Rusty's intention for the "can't walk without the arrows" thing to be ableist, but the implications are there and it was so, so hard to watch.

As I said while liveblogging, I've noted that reliance on tech like Google Maps has caused a regression in skills like navigation and a frustrating refusal to even try. I'm frequently faced with that fact as I live somewhere you have to use your eyes to see and most fast food delivery drivers just Cannot Find Us bc the GPS goes wild and they can't follow the directions I always give them so I inevitably have to go out to find them myself. Believe me, I know what he was going for with that part of the script.

However.

When you exaggerate that point to the tune of "she literally cannot walk" without the aid, and then instead of it being deeply disturbing to the two 'kind, helpful' characters (Doc n Ruby), they actively roll their eyes at her and it's played as an "omg how stupid is she" moment, you have to see how that looks.

Let's reframe it: someone you've met was raised in a cult. A very insular, very strict cult that they literally have never seen outside of. At this point in time you know nothing about them but you do know they're in a very insular, very closed-off society. One day they tell you they have no idea how to,,,,,, idk, wash themselves without assistance. If your first instinct is to laugh at them and roll your eyes like they're overexaggerating, you're an ableist.

I struggle to believe anyone like the Doctor wouldn't perhaps initially react with confusion/incredulity but then, after realising this person is 100% serious, go "oh my god that's horrible okay uh let me try to walk you through this and teach you how".

It's a horrible, cynical response that would maybe track if at this point the characters already knew she was an entitled pissbaby. But they don't and that's why it comes across so terribly.

Especially when there's no indication that this is a side-effect of her entitlement and she's literally insulting herself "I'm so stupid!" and genuinely upset and frustrated that she can't even walk in the face of actual death. And yes, she miraculously can walk again once she meets Ricky but it wasn't because she was ignoring the Doctor's advice because racism because he had not given her any. She had literally zero clue how to walk without assistance until Ricky guided her.

This isn't a refusal to learn a skill based on entitlement, this isn't a heavy-handed metaphor, you have given this girl a disability (even if it is psychosomatic, it is still a disability). And in a time where social media + youth entitlement is being blamed for an increase of ADHD, Autism, chronic illness and DID diagnosis-seekers (among other things, but those are the ones people are most aggressive against) that just does not look good At All.

Russel could easily have made it so that they just had no idea how to navigate without the bubble and refused to learn.

Maybe at first show it as genuine frustration on Lindy's part that she can't find anything without guidance but slowly show that no, she's perfectly capable, she just doesn't care to learn.

Hell, you could have everything play out the same way but have her genuinely get offered help to begin with by the Doctor and ignore it, only for Ricky to say the same thing to her later and she gets it immediately.

Idk, anything beyond literally disabling her. The show does a great job at humanising her before showing us that she was a monster all along, but I feel like Rusty himself forgot that he was still representing a Whole Entire Person (something that people on all ends of the political spectrum do All The Time: "person is bad therefore [___ism] is okay in this instance". Ableism especially)

[pluckyredhead]

ur post abt the green lantern’s political leanings was so interesting!! can you do one for the bat family? (but only if u wanna!!)

Honestly, I can't, because their politics are so incoherent.

Like, take Bruce. (And again, like with the Lanterns, I'm talking about canon here, not how I wish things were.) On the one hand, you would imagine he's pretty progressive, right? He's almost certainly a single issue voter and that single issue is gun control. He believes in rehabilitating criminals and in fact a lot of Wayne Enterprises hires are formerly incarcerated people. He is an active philanthropist who pours money into schools, orphanages, hospitals, public spaces, and the arts. These are all leftist values!

And yet the modern Batman is also a completely unrestrained violent anarchic-libertarian power fantasy. Bruce has invented his own law, which he enacts and enforces completely arbitrarily, however he feels like doing so. He obeys the laws he wants to obey and ignores the ones he doesn't care about, while insisting he is law-abiding. He tortures people literally constantly and considers it righteous. He uses the profits from his publicly traded company to become a one-man military industrial complex. (The emissions from the fucking Batmobile alone...!) He illegally surveils the entire city and sometimes the entire planet (Brother Eye, anyone?) because he has decided that his moral authority overrides literally anyone's right to privacy, anywhere. He allows his defeated foes to be locked up indefinitely regardless of their mental state in an institution that would make any qualified mental health professional run screaming in the opposite direction. He's sexist. All of these things sit on the right of the political spectrum, but imagine me pointing to the right like Charlie from It's Always Sunny pointing to his murder board.

And none of the Batfamily is any better. Some of them are honestly worse in certain aspects. Dick was a cop. Jason loves guns. Babs and Tim are even more in love with surveillance than Bruce is. Remember when Tim wanted to replace the police with, like, a Bat-army??? BECAUSE I DO.

It's not really "their fault," as much as anything can be a fictional character's fault. It's the result of being written by writers who are, for the most part, consciously trying to write the Bats as good Samaritans, but are also living in a world where we have had our brains warped by all of our blockbusters being funded by the US military, in a medium where badassery is prized above everything else, and so all this really problematic shit spills out onto the comics page without being questioned. It's also kind of a boiling frog situation: i.e. Batman has always had a cool car, so as he got tougher and tougher, of course that car would eventually become a tank, and no one stopped to go "Wait, what the fuck? What the fuck? How is this billionaire driving a tank around helping anyone???" I guess god bless Zack Snyder for inadvertently highlighting how fucking stupid and counterproductive a Batman taken to his worst extremes is.

To be clear, I don't think this is what most writers are trying to do with Batman (some of them are, but fuck those guys). But it's what happens when all you care about is rule of cool, and the more I think about it the more I'm like...shit, maybe Alan Moore was right and superheroes are just stupid.

Anyway in conclusion, comic book writers should consider the ramifications of what they're writing occasionally. But Bruce Wayne probably still votes blue, at least.

[sarabethsilver]

I just want to say that I love your posts about the whole Luke/Jess dynamic!! In my opinion, you are spot on everything.👏

Because yes, Luke was a good father to April and a good father figure to Rory but that doesn't mean that he was that to Jess too…in fact I will say that most of the time he was a complete jerk to Jess by often yelling and being angry at him (there are very few episodes where Luke speaks with a normal tone to him), treating him like a criminal, never showing him any love and comfort, being occasionally physical abusive to him, stealing his car, kicking him out when he actually needed him the most and caring more about him (not) graduating than his feelings about meeting his father, sending him back to NY knowing that Liz “is a wack job”, not caring that “he travelled” aka was homeless for months and had to sleep in a car-and he cared more about Rory than about his nephew in that situation, not listening to him the few times he actually is open to speak about how he feels. On top of that, ignoring that, HE kicked Jess out.

And then blaming, yelling, and insulting him because he didn't want to go to his abuser’s fourth wedding.

Like, I’m not saying that Luke didn't love Jess, because yes, he did, but he wasn't good at showing it. And I understand that he also had traumatic experiences, and didn’t know how to handle a teenager, but in the end, he was just one more adult that rejected Jess. That’s why I don’t understand when people say: “Luke was the only one that was always there for Jess” or “Jess has to be thankful for Luke” like NO just because he let him live in an apartment where he had zero privacy doesn't mean that “he was always there for him,“ especially when he remembered Jess that he can only live there if he graduates. Even without the Walmart job, there is no guarantee that a traumatized teenager will graduate. I really hate how the writers want us to believe that Luke was such a hero here. And yes, I like that “hug scene,“ but Jess deserved and needed that hug so much sooner, and he never got it.

With that being said, I still enjoy their dynamic when I need a good laugh, seeing them both ranting, annoyed with people, being sarcastic. There are many good moments, and when I remember that these are all fictional characters😅 but if we are overanalyzing everything, I have to say that the older I get, the more I struggle with the character of Luke in his behavior towards Jess. 

Thank you! I appreciate this feedback, since I'm always trying (and failing) to tread lightly when I critically examine their relationship. Luke is beloved here, and I get it! I love him too! I enjoy Luke and Jess' relationship on a superficial level. I laugh at their funny moments, and my heart swells at their tender moments. But as soon as I look a little deeper, their relationship looks pretty fractured to me.

I get it, Luke was thrust into an impossible scenario when Jess showed up. I don't fault him for making mistakes along the way. But forget the complexities of "how do you build trust with a teenager who has never been able to trust adults"... Luke never even gets there. What about the basics? Jess needed kindness, safety, and stability. And he just doesn't get that from Luke. Constantly yelling, pushing Jess around, repeatedly mocking, threatening eviction, and then actually kicking Jess out isn't kind, safe, or secure. And those behaviors aren't the outliers - that's Luke's baseline behavior toward Jess. The moments of kindness are the rarities, and those moments are often surrounded with mocking or rejection.

S4 is, by far, the worst. Because at that point, Jess is no longer living with Luke. He's not disrupting Luke's daily life. He's not asking Luke for ANYTHING. But for some reason, Luke goes out of his way to be unkind to Jess... and for what? What's the moral of that story? Because it's CERTAINLY not to have us examine Luke's mistakes with Jess, the writers never go there. Am I meant to believe that Jess needed abandonment, heaps of anger, and continual mocking to... grow, or something? And this is the season I'm supposed to melt at the "reconciliation" between Luke and Jess?

Maybe we're both overanalyzing! Because, like I said, I enjoy their relationship at a superficial level. But also... Luke and Jess are not superficial characters. We see painful, vulnerable moments between them. Jess' arc is serious and evocative, and he's treated like an important character even when he returns as a guest star. So I can't just look at Jess and Luke's relationship on a superficial level. The writers wanted me to see Luke as the "hero" who saved Jess, and they gave me all these moments to supposedly demonstrate that, so I'm sure as hell gonna examine those moments!

EDITED because I'll add that I don't ever view Luke as abusive to Jess. And I think they DO have moments of kindness and comforting. Those are real, and that's what the audience is responding to when we fall in love with them. But imo the moments of kindness are few and far between, and they are not enough to balance out the baseline of irritability Luke puts out there.

[rubinaitoart]

Let’s forget the part where I couldn’t read.

So, as an extremely jaded Heimerdinger main, why should I watch Arcane? And why is every single person I know irl trying to convince me to watch a series spawned from the bane of my existence?

(My memory has been wiped.)

Ignoring its origins for a moment: I'm not going to overhype the show, because as much as I personally love it, there's always a chance it won't be your cup of tea. It's incredibly fast-paced, there's virtually no filler, it's incredibly detail-heavy to the point you may end up needing to rewatch parts just to catch everything--all things that could make or break the viewing experience for someone. My cousin wasn't really able to get into the show for the first reason. However, if those are all things you have no trouble with or even enjoy, I think you'll find it's a damn good series.

There's three main things that I think are the biggest selling points for Arcane universally, being:

Animation

Soundtrack

Character Design

You'll notice I didn't put writing or relationships down; the writing attracts a lot of criticism, and the relationships have spawned a fair amount of discourse. However: while the plot writing is certainly the main subject of scrutiny, the character writing is some of the best I've seen in a long time.

(I'm placing a cut here because this is going to be a long post)

Animation

It's absolute eye-candy. Fortiche has been behind some amazing cinematics and music videos for Riot already, but their work on Arcane is on a whole other level; you can tell why it cost $250 million USD to produce from the art alone. They've blended together 3d and 2d animation and it just works so well. Nearly every frame could be framed and put into an art gallery, the absolute care and passion and effort just blows everything else out of the water.

Soundtrack

You've got two categories of Arcane music:

The score, which features the work of Ray Chen, Kelci Han, Alex Seaver, Andrew Kierszenbaum, and Christian Linke. (There may be others; I'm just glancing at what's listed on the Wiki and Spotify.)

And, the soundtrack, which features a large range of different artists from Woodkid to Twenty One Pilots to Sting and many, many others. As far as I can tell, every single song has meaning to the show, it's not just mood music. The lyrics relate directly to the characters and the events occurring.

All of it is fantastic. Combined with the animation, you could effectively tell the story without needing any dialogue. Which personally, I think makes a great soundtrack & score.

Character Design

The character design is phenomenal. You could argue this falls under 'animation' but I really think it deserves its own spotlight. The designs for the champions in League itself work fine for the game; exaggerated proportions and more obvious detailing are needed, because the finer details will get lost in the actual gameplay. It's very exaggerated, cartoonish, and has a sort of comic book feel in the way they play up both the male and female characters appearances in a borderline sexual manner.

Riot/Fortiche really changed it up for Arcane. They created a very diverse cast in both race, sexuality, and gender roles; and their individual designs reflect their personalities amazingly, better than I think their League designs do if I can throw in my two cents about that. But they're also still recognizable, which is the important part. You know Vi is Vi, Jayce is still clearly Jayce, Jinx is Jinx, etc.

(Viktor's design was changed up pretty drastically, but that's a whole other can of worms that I'm not going to open right now.)

I could keep going but I'm running out of steam on this post. I do think it's a show that you should give a try; when I watched the first season, I had no idea it had any connection to League of Legends and it stands on its own phenomenally.

Also: Heimerdinger is one of my favorite characters in the show, his design is great. I think you'll enjoy seeing him too, if you give it a chance.

[old-lemon-tree]

What’s your personal opinion on Mary Linton and about her and Arthur’s relationship? I really like your takes and I am curious.

It’s disheartening to see how many people get irritated at others simply for believing that Mary isn’t always the nicest to Arthur. Even when those opinions of people DOESN’T come from a place of coddling Arthur, or even denying that Mary had her own struggles and how it was understandable why she did what she did. I defend women’s rights and wrongs a lot of the time but the reaction can be overly defensive if someone were to just do a serious take on their own opinion of Mary and her actions.

This doesn’t apply to those ACTUAL misogynistic/ignorant people who are completely blind to Mary’s struggles and are mainly mad at Mary because she’s a woman or/and that she didn’t somehow end up sleeping with Arthur because he helped her. 😒

Most people understand that Mary was a woman of her time and had valid reasons for her actions, but it should still be okay to acknowledge that she had flaws in the way she treated Arthur, not always but at times. Recognizing that doesn’t mean that they’re seeing her as some villain. It’s just means accepting that, like everyone else in the story, she’s a complex and imperfect character and should be allowed to be critiqued and praised, as long as it’s kept respectful.

I’m not under the belief that people should just agree with my and other’s opinions/beliefs, but it is saddening to see people brush off any sort of deep dive into her character (with the little time we got to see her) as some sort of jealousy or misogynistic behavior. She’s a cool character and I love her! I don’t think that she treated Arthur badly in general, just pointing out on even with all her reasons, she isn’t perfect and that’s okay! Fandoms and deep dives go hand in hand, so it’s strange to just brush her off as some saint or a demon — when in reality she’s a woman of her time, that was written to have flaws as well as goodness.

My personal opinion is that they really were never meant to be. And even if Arthur had survived, I don’t think she would’ve been the best match for him, nor him for her.

Their relationship is stained by a past we unfortunately don’t get to see, and a distance in views neither of them can overcome. It’s not even about worldviews. It’s pretty clear they see the world very differently, but that could change given time—Arthur does change his worldview towards the end of the game. But the trouble here is that Mary is not willing to change the way she sees Arthur, just as Arthur will never outlive the way he idolizes Mary.

Mary would never trust Arthur to be a “civil man” because her image of him is stained by their past. This is something you see commonly in couples, especially the ones that slowly fade out of love.

“I don’t know you anymore” is just a way of saying “You’re no longer the version of you that I once knew.”

Arthur could potentially be perfect, and do everything he needs to please Mary. Mary will still hold on to her fear that, one day, he will just saddle up and go on his merry way, returning to a life on the run without ever looking back. That’s what he’d said he’s always been, that’s the very belief that put a dampen to their relationship in the first place. Mary will never truly trust him, and seeing him as a changed man will just make her feel like she's living with a stranger.

Arthur, on his part, doesn’t really see Mary as a person.

This may sound harsh and heartless, but it's a sentiment mainly born of grief. Arthur lost Mary, and in losing her, he created a perfect version of her that could save him from the pain of loneliness. Mary is too perfect for a man like him, of course he lost her.

Arthur may respect her, listen to her, he certainly likes her in many ways. But would be willing to accept that Mary is more than what he writes in his journal? Could he stand her nastier side? The grumpy one that doesn’t really wanna joke right now, or that’s not always so kind when something goes wrong. All these normal aspects of a person that Arthur never had the chance to experience, because they never tried to build a life together.

There would be trust issues here, also. Mary already left him once, what’s stopping her from leaving him again? Arthur’s a pleaser at heart, so he would probably do his best to keep up with anything she asks of him (not talking about excessive demands here, just normal couple things). But as we said before, Mary wouldn’t be satisfied. And Arthur would be left feeling like a fool, forever falling short in her eyes.

As for the fandom experience, I've came to the conclusion that if people want to believe something I'm no one to change their mind. And if they want to call me a degenerate because I like a character they hate, or I hate a character they love, or don't care about a character at all— well, that's really a them problem, isn't it?

[val-of-the-north]

Wanted to pop in and just say thanks for all your hard work with lore posts! Elden Ring is such a tough game to get a grasp on, leaving so many things up to interpretation. But in the end, there are also things solidly backed by actual lore, and you do such a great job of referencing and adhering to that canon pretty objectively. We all have our biases when we read this info, which leads us into the realm of interpretation. But when posters like you go to lengths to outline canon lore with screencaps and images to back your interpretations up, it's not just helping me see how you reached a conclusion but also laying the info out clearly so I can decide if I agree with that conclusion.

There's a lot of info that gets missed or plain old ignored in favor of either villifying/woobifying characters depending on what people think of them. And then sometimes people make these huge leaps from A to B that are just mystifying and seem to be purely based on "this sounds good to me so it must be right". It's refreshing to see someone trying hard to just present the facts and go from there, without these leaps of faith and desire to change the characters in one direction or another. It's easy to think you're reading things objectively while still clearly interpreting everything with a certain bias that will paint your favs/unfavs in a better/worse light, so your more neutral efforts are a breath of fresh air!

Hey! That's very sweet to find in my inbox... I am glad people appreciate the way I write my lore posts. I strive to be very objective when I tackle these topics, so I am very glad it's noticeable. I still have room for improvement, I will not lie, but I am surely getting better and better! The use of more images in my claims is something I started to pick up on recently, though believe it or not, I used to do it a looooong time ago too, for sillier stories lol. Now they are here to stay though, and they provide a very neat way to space out posts too.

I am honestly really flattered with your words ahahahah. Characters are probably the hardest ones to keep a purely objective lens on, as I do have my own personal opinions and headcanons on them as well as certain events that involve them… regardless, I try my absolute best to not rely too much on those and simply on things I have structured those headcanons after.

Of course, depending on what the lore I am discussing is about, I will be focusing and highlighting particular aspects over others, because I can't make an entire character study every time one is needed. Things would get really bloated and not as understandable really fast! I also avoid fandom tropes like the plague unless I am purposefully making a meme lol. I do dislike when meme/flanderized versions of characters end up popping up in genuine lore analysis (like "absolutely worthless fool" Godrick and "completely irredeemable fiend" Miquella, but there are many more)

To conclude... thank you so much for this! It was certainly a breath of fresh air that I needed too eheh... but I guess since we are talking about lore posts, I could tease that the next thing I wanna tackle has to do with the soul and body in Elden Ring! It's a topic that has fascinated me for some time, and the DLC actually helped me piece together some stuff I had missed from base game! I will try to make it as good as it can possibly be!

[sehtoast]

Is it me or not many people simp for Homelander compared to other villains? It’s like people can’t say they find him hot without getting jumped and i just don’t understand why? There’re villains who have done way worse and people still like them so why is it any different with Homelander, he is literally fictional and never harmed anyone in real life. What do you think is the reason?

Prepare yourself. This is gonna be a long one lol:

For what it’s worth, I feel like a lot more people do simp for him than are open about it for exactly what you just said. I’ve rarely seen fandoms respond to people liking a character the way people jump at us for liking Homelander.  The amount of hate mail I've received and seen others get and the genuinely FOUL things that have been said are just absolutely crazy. Like I’ve seen less kickback for people simping for real-world mass shooters and serial killers than I have for fans of Homie, which is WILD but yeah!!

I think it’s because Kripke decided to make him a Trump allegory that makes people so quick to jump us over it honestly. I feel like if he wasn’t, a LOT more people would openly like him too. 

More below the cut:

90% of the criticisms I see toward Homie fans is “he’s LITCHERALLY TRUMP” and/or something about Stormfront.  Some people go the “he’s a r*pist” route, which, sure, valid, but then this is not the same energy a lot of fans of r*pist characters have gotten.  I remember with shows like GoT, where characters could be any number of awful things (including r*pists), there wasn’t necessarily as much vilification of people for liking those characters, and, even though I didn’t watch much of the show, I know daaaaamn well we got some qualifiers in there.  That’s just an example, and there’s certainly others that prove the point. Soldier Boy was downright HORRIBLE to the women he was around, but we barely see criticism there and it's pretty heavily implied he's ignored consent many times in his own time given the way he treats women - plus we know he s*xually abused Gunpowder. Anyway, if that energy isn’t being directed in nearly the same capacity there or elsewhere, then it’s primarily likely to be either reason one or two, and I definitely would put my money on number one.  And like, being a Homelander enjoyer has not made me a Trump enjoyer. In fact, I have a pretty visceral reaction of disgust every time I see that rat bitch on the news lmao.  

Being a Homelander simp certainly does not mean we approve of his every act, but media morality police think this is not the case. I think a lot of people– and this was 100% exacerbated during covid shutdowns imo– have started to see media consumption as a form of morality and feel as though your enjoyment of something is a perfect spreadsheet of who you are as a person.  I mean, there have always been people like this, but it’s gotten worse and significantly more annoying in recent years.  I think the death of media literacy is also contributing heavily here because there being a lack of critical thinking associated with media consumption has so many people painting everything in a purely black and white context. Like this is good, this is bad, there is no middle ground in which people can consume this or appreciate that without it being a moral violation.  Which is… increasingly concerning lol.   

All media has problematic elements somewhere/somehow, and basically all characters do as well.  However, very few have the director jerking off and going “i’m SOOOOO smart for comparing him to trump omfg” and constantly shoving shoehorned political and social commentary into the script the way Kripke does (ask me how I felt about the transphobia ‘commentary’ this season and I will write you a thesis paper about how bad, ineffective, and mostly insulting to trans viewers it was). He’s so fired up to make the two a mirror image that even Antony Starr has said he’s sometimes checking Kripke and telling him that taking it too far reduces the character to one or two dimensional at best unless the comparisons directly relate to the narrative of the character.   The allegories have been effective in keeping people (for the most part) from viewing Homelander as a hero, but it’s also created a lot of senseless vitriol for people who actually do enjoy the character whether strictly because of the character himself or because they’re simping (I do both 😂).

So uh… that’s my extremely long two-cents. Hopefully it makes sense as I’m a little sleep deprived at the moment and just got out of a two hour long lecture lol

[biff-adventurer]

so... writing is hard. like, writing effectively is hard. it's easy to just write whatever comes to you without a second glance. that's fine if you're enjoying yourself! but to do that for years, unquestioningly, and then imply that you have high expectations of others... that is a deluded notion of your own skill level.

with less and less people using their critical thinking skills and losing them in the process, even RP spaces have become very polarizing and lack room for complicated and messy human relationships.

to be clear, when i say complicated, i don't mean: "my character has done unspeakable, horrible things and i must always play out those dark themes. people who don't want to roleplay them are weak, simple, or unreasonable. this is a high intellect exercise and absolutely not torture porn for the sake of it."

(i've actually seen a person like this)

complicated and messy mean, to me, that characters can be wrong about things for completely understandable reasons. that feelings make sense. that it's okay for characters to call out behaviours that they don't like, and that's not considered "drama". that truths they encounter are uncomfortable and don't ever get resolved. that it's okay for characters to be ignorant and then learn and grow, and for other characters to give them that opportunity, within reason.

all of that leads to character building and good stories. because RP isn't really about how well people write on a technical level. it's about how our characters interact to create unforgettable memories.

the sense of elitism that people feel about their unchallenged standards is really disheartening. i've encountered it a lot over the years. as someone who studied literature--expressly, how to read literature and determine its meaning--i witness these immature attitudes and i want to scream.

it's okay to feel good about your writing. it's unrealistic to think that your writing is at a high level without really taking a hard look at who you are, what you want, and why your words aren't reaching someone. this drives me insane. when anyone says they encountered a problem with your writing, it's not a personal attack. it means you didn't reach them. you failed. that is a hard pill to swallow, but it certainly isn't always the fault of the reader.

if you want to be a strong writer, you have to be able to accept the complexities in life. you have to accept that, despite everything you've personally experienced, you might be dead wrong. you can't let fear control you. the balance to be both strong in your convictions and constantly skeptical of all things is at the core of good writing. that's what makes stories good. that's what makes roleplays good. the technical aspects will inevitably follow.

don't let fear or ego control you. forge ahead.

[kuu-stuff]

28 December 2024

I've been in that weird tired and stressed state of mind for quite a while now. I can't find the trail I'm supposed to follow. It's not that I can't draw, but my art lately feels wrong. Even if it's not bad, I just don't feel anything good about it. I think about my old art and feel like I regressed. I tried to come back to an artstyle I was used to before, but it doesn't feel better. I simply didn't find the problem yet. I think about it day and night and it makes me so exhausted. If I could nap all day I would. It feels quite pathetic because I'm not doing anything hard lately and I'm complaining about such little things. But it's just not working, no matter how long I sit in front of my tablet, my pen in hand, I don't feel like I know what I'm doing, I don't feel like I have a single clue and it drives me crazy. I know that it happens at least once a year. Last year I spent like 3 month working almost exclusively on Remnants of our memories and a few weird digital painting projects. And back then too, I felt so wrong about my art and everything in general. Maybe it's seasonal depression or maybe pushing myself so much in October then trying to keep a steady rythme in November just messes up with my brain.

✰✰✰✰✰✰✰

I'm usually way more happier and more efficient when I manage to forget who I am. I repress every feeling I might have about myself or my past or even my present. I pretend being a character I'm not and daydream about stuff that has nothing to do with me. I started This time I can share it with you a few months ago and since it's a shameless self-insert I created to dwell on those repressed feelings and memories, it opened the whole can of worms and pushed me back into that whole spiraling problem I have. In a way it would certainly better to just leave the past to the past, since the past only brings me shame and self-sabotaging behaviors, but I wanna be able to express the pain and isolation I went through, I want to talk about myself without it feeling illegal or gross, because it's just a story, even if the feelings I wanna put into it are very real. But those feelings now keep coming back at any moment of the day, even when I'm not trying to think about the comic at all, because I spent so much time ignoring them for the few last years. I suppose that those kind of stuff need a long time to heal. I have so many mixed emotions about everything. I really only started to think about everything that happened to me when I entered adulthood. Then so many more stuff happened that I had to completely block it out of my mind to be able to work and hope for a better life. And now allowing myself to exist again is very painful. ✰✰✰✰✰✰✰ Maybe I am just depressed after all and that's why I can't draw much for the moment. Between scary emotions, realizations and watching videos talking about issues I've been dealing with it's hard to really focus on anything else. I just have a very hard time to not feel like my death would be a better thing for everyone than anything I could do. And why doing anything if the result would just be bad or not good enough. Feeling like a failed artist when it's the only good thing I have ever done in my life is quite soul crushing. I hope I will be able to finish my comics for the people who appreciate them and I hope that they won't be disappointed along the way. What am I if I can't even do that.

[the-somwthing]

i actually dont know how to infodump this w/o it sounding like a garbled mess so you just have to bare with me

Evil Watchers is so fun so so so so so fun to me like on a surface level being like "we're above the players" but having layers of realizing stuff like "they have thoughts and feelings and honestly aren't very different than us" then continue to be evil despite this knowledge? I'll eat that up!

But also to have evil Grian is like omg! what a guy! But considering Martyn's leaky lil lore of the watchers not liking Grian he can't really be evil for the same cause so my brains racking up ideas of how Grian could be evil without supporting the watchers, so like

Watchers are evil for the sake of pushing the world forward, these things have to happen for (what the watchers might consider) the "greater good"

Whereas, Grian is evil in the sense of "these things have to happen for shits and giggles" (E.i. The Life Series, although if we're counting on Martyn's lore then the watchers created the life series and Grian's evil for the sake of fucking everything over for his own joy and pleasure)

But I think here is where the morally gray argument comes in, even with everything we're handed it's hard to make Grian evil and still work with evil watchers, it's hard to make the watchers seem like these horrible beings because on a more metaphorical sense /we/ are the watchers, we're crafting stories and headcanons and playing with these cubes like they're barbie dolls and we as people aren't evil cause we might kill off a character in a story, so I think, that might be where the morally gray watchers come in

(No clue if any of this stuff made any sense, it started off as me dumping a half-baked idea I've had hung up for a while then turned back to your morally gray vs evil watchers thing)

Well towards the end there you get back into my whole “us being the same as the watchers doesn’t make them less evil, since for us it’s just fiction but for them it’s real people, so if anything it just makes them less serious”, but ignoring that…

Grian is a little menace for sure. I still feel like him being totally evil ruins his interactions with other characters, but I certainly don’t mind him getting into the game to cause chaos and have fun, end up feeling really heartbroken by the bad things that happen to those he cares about, them coming out of it like “….that was fun actually. I’ll do it again” LMAO.

In my own personal headcanons, Grian can eat his own emotions from when he’s inside the game, which makes him want to cause suffering for himself (hence doing stupid things he’ll regret like killing his allies). Cuz his negative emotions from suffering in the game are so tasty 😋

There’s so many ways to make Grian look as weird and morally “wtf are you doing” as possible. Definitely have fun with it.

[microraptorreactor]

Im just. gonna hammer out some thoughts about Ep 17/18. Because man I have thoughts. Spoilers (and bad words) below the cut.

So the very base of the story, Golden Cheese herself, is fucking heartbreaking man. She's lost everything, her friends, her family, her kingdom, and it drove her insane. She built a massive digital city where everyone she lost can live in utmost luxury, but she still isolates herself to a small circle of cookies, probably to try keeping an airtight seal on the true nature of the kingdom. Her deepest desire is to keep her citizens happy and she'll do just about anything to achieve that. Because what is she without her treasure?

And her conversation with Rasine at the end TT-TT Those two bounce off each other so well. I hope they kiss.

And then there's Smoked Cheese!! God, after ep 17 I really wasn't sure about him, but he's such a fucking good character. He's just as scared as GC, if not more. But unlike GC, he's not quite as clouded by grief. He realizes that his god-queen is delusional, and quite possibly has realized for some time. OF COURSE, he'd flip his shit when he finds out DE is back and GC plans on doing nothing! He watched the kingdom burn down for the first time! And he has to watch these cookies who it's his job to protect, that he quite possibly grew up around, walk around like nothing's ever gone wrong. He has to keep up a facade that everything's fine and there isn't another massive threat looming over the city while his queen berates him for questioning her. He has every right to be angry and scared! And I can't particularly blame him for turning on her and airing out the truth. Trying to blow up the kingdom was 100% a dick move tho. But the scene where he's LITERALLY BEGGING GC TO KILL HIM??? It's my personal interpretation that he was terrified to go back to the Digital City, and therefore going back to ignoring all the trauma of the war.

Honestly, I feel like SC's whole villain ark might have been avoidable if GC and her little circle of friends sat down and had a heart-to-heart about the Dark Flour War, but that would require any of them to be emotionally vulnerable. Something that everyone in this kingdom is alergic to, apparently.

Mozarella cookie I certainly have. Feelings about. Her whole deal with erasing cookies memory so that they don't catch on to the digital kingdom is a detail I really like, but as a character, I just don't really care for her. It's probably just my personal taste, as I like the angsty characters and she just doesn't have that going on. I haven't finished the mineing missions story so maybe she has some in that. I feel the same way about Burnt/Basque Cheese, he's cool he just doesn't have enough going on in the backstory department for me to care.

Fettuchini Cookie's concept is terrifying. She's slowly losing herself to factors outside her control. There are literal bugs eating her brain. But the narrative doesn't really do anything with that? She's just kind of Olive Cookie's weird adopted child. To be fair the story is long enough, both chapters together clock in at about two and a half hours assuming that you have the best possible team. But she could have been so much more with that concept! Especially since she's playable instead of actually-really-important Smoked Cheese.

Olive Cookie is Olive Cookie. She's there to be an exposition archeologist. She serves her purpose in the story. I have no complaints about her. Y'all are being too harsh.

anyways, back to working on my OCs!

[navree]

Not sure if this has been asked, but if so then you're free to ignore this message. I was wondering if you could articulate why you like Aemond Targaryen as opposed to Daemon Targaryen. The latter seems to have more prominence in the story than the other.

I'm gonna go off the show, since that's what I'm currently more invested in when it comes to Dance stuff (I read all of F&B but the parts I reread the most are always about the Conquerors, as I love them).

So, part of it is that, quite simply, Daemon's a misogynistic ass and Aemond, as far as has been portrayed, isn't. I don't care for Daemon trying to groom his fourteen year old niece, I don't care for Daemon calling his wife misogynistic slurs when she didn't do anything except be married to him, I certainly don't care for him bashing her head in with a rock and getting away with it, I don't care for him trying to ruin Rhaenyra's reputation, I don't care for him then literally leaving her half naked in a brothel in a city notorious for being dangerous (she could have been raped, she could have been killed, the fact that she got back to the Red Keep without a scratch is a miracle), I don't care for him calling Alicent a whore because his half-rotting brother finally croaked, I don't care for his neglect of his children by Laena and even Laena herself (and I don't care for it in metaverse either, I really liked Daemon and Laena's book relationship and I hate how they screwed that AND how it's yet another example of how poorly the Velaryons, the only prominent characters of color, are being handled by the writers), and I definitely won't care for when he orchestrates Blood and Cheese to go after women who had fuck all to do with what happened to Lucerys's boring ass. He's a dick, which already isn't gonna endear me to him, and he's a sexist dick at that, and I don't like it.

Getting a bit deeper into it, my dislike of Daemon also comes from the fact that there's just nothing there. I've complained about this before, but everything that's actually interesting about Daemon seems to come primarily from stuff admitted about him after the fact or from Matt Smith's own acting choices beyond the script. In the actual writing of his character, he's an asshole and he wants to be king and he has a sexual obsession with his niece who he's known since she was a baby; that's it. It's left to the audience to then lean into Matt Smith's choices for the character, extrapolate what we can from creator interviews and some pretty heavy subtext, and then try to craft something ourselves. And even canon events about Daemon that I could get invested in, like his relationship with Nettles (problematic? yes, but it still tickles my fancy because there's a Lot there), just hasn't happened yet and isn't enough to get me pre-invested.

That's not the case with Aemond. The stuff about Aemond I enjoy and that endear me to him as a character, like his struggles with bullying, his bond with Vhagar, his contentious but ultimately loyal relationship with Aegon, his love for his mother, his internal issues surrounding justice denied and the need for retribution, even just his basic characterization in the four episodes we've seen him in, those are in the script. Those are integral parts of his character, that are present and visible and impactful to other characters and the story at large in the broader narrative. There is actual substance to Aemond as a character in a way there just isn't as Daemon. And even Daemon is going to be more "prominent" due to his connection to Rhaenyra, the storyline at the ready for Aemond is FAR more interesting than Daemon's. Daemon in season two is going to orchestrate the worst thing that happens in the Dance and then bounce around Westeros doing God knows what, the only thing I'm looking forward to from him are any interactions with Alys Rivers, but because I'm excited for her, not him. Aemond, on the other hand, has a lot of good set up. Because of his actions, he created an accident that he tried to avoid that has had profound repercussions on his family, and is tied to a horrible act that is going to affect the people closest to him. How is he going to deal with his emotions regarding his own culpability? How much hate and blame is he going to place on Daemon? On Rhaenyra? How will this impact his relationships with the people affected, his mother and his sister and his brother? How is this going to duel with his feelings of superiority, especially once he becomes Aegon's regent? What's gonna motivate him to take the regency but also never allow himself to be called king and remain steadfast for his brother? Is he going to enjoy it or not? We seem to be getting more stuff with him and Criston, how's that gonna be affected by Blood and Cheese and their subsequent military campaign together?

Like, see? There's so much more richness available for Aemond's character, because there's so much more to Aemond's character than Daemon's. Daemon may be more prominent, yes, but he's incredibly shallow on a writing level, and combined with the fact that he's mostly a shitty person, he becomes something I dislike (and I love characters who are shitty people, my favorite character in The Magnus Archives is Peter Lukas and I constantly blab about how I want his cruel sadism to be given more attention by the fandom). So prominence doesn't really factor into it for me, because there's just too much working against Daemon beyond that, and conversely, too much in Aemond's favor.

[cosmicroseflower]

I've dealt with enough "haters" negative people sipping on their hatergade, judgemental people in my lifetime that I can say what has worked for me dealing with them. First see it, okay, feel what trigger it invoked out of you, okay this is neutral & has no meaning. But thank you for letting me know I had a limiting belief within me about myself that caused me to feel this way. Then ignore it. Ignore the message, ignore the person.

Don't respond with hate. Just give yourself time to feel the rage or anything it made you feel. Then let it go. Oh well. So what. They don't really know you. They really don't. But thank them to yourself for helping you to see your own darkness, your own out of alignment emotions and thoughts about yourself. Then just don't give it permission to let it affect you negatively. Nurture your inner child with a parental voice. Tell yourself you are safe & it's safe to be you. You are none of those things they are projecting onto you. Just see them as an energy, as an energy of darkness that is having a not so good day, maybe even a terrible life. You've been there. You remember what that feels like.

Maybe you don't resonate with how they treat others but you can see they have enough self hatred, ignorance, unconscious, unaware, toxic tendencies to be acting that way. It's not what you're looking at but how you see it.

See it the way God/Source sees it. "Silly human having a human tantrum because they aren't getting my attention. They just need more love & compassion. Already forgiven. Already off the hook." Because love is the only way they can transform. But if you can't love them just yet, accept where they are at consciously. Always use it to help you in a positive way. Always use it for your benefit to inspire you to act on your highest excitement, or to prove to yourself that you're so much more than their limiting perception of who you are. But remember they are you. That is a reflection of you. It's okay if you can't stand that reflection of you. It's absolutely okay. Just try to accept what is happening but trust in your preferred reality of how you want to be treated & how you want your Earth to be like.

But remember that is an older reflection of who you used to be. Maybe not even in this lifetime, but another lifetime you were just like them in some way. Accept all the darkness you see out there. Forgive all the darkness you see out there. Never waste your time or your words on people who can't change. No reaction is the best reaction. I don't care how riled up you are. Do not respond. Because this teaches them a lesson and makes them even more angry they can't project onto you and get the kind of reaction they wanted from you. Just laugh until you feel better. They can get to anyone, they can trigger anyone into acting out of character but they can't get to you. It'll drive them crazy.

Let them underestimate your ability to be non reactive, because they are waiting for you to be negative and let them misjudge and mishandle you. Just make sure you remove your presence as soon as possible. And yes, some of us are very sensitive and it does affect us because we feel everything because we feel our emotions without numbing ourselves. We just want to love everyone but you have to remember not everyone has the same heart as you. You have permission to be soft with yourself and with them. In your softness lies your true power that keeps your thoughts and emotions in alignment with your highest self. In being brutal we temporary lower our vibration and match their energy.

Momentarily, you could think or say to them: "If you don't have enough self-awareness to watch what you say to me then certainly, I don't need to take anything you say about me personally because your mouth lacks discipline." They can't change until you change your perspective. They can't love you until you love you. Because it's your U-ni-verse. Everyone is all you. Just let it go and keep loving yourself and knowing who you are so that nothing really phases you because you're consistently inspecting limiting beliefs you have that are out of alignment with your true self. Master your emotions and become a very powerful being.