nobody's home

[identityflawed]

alright. to everyone who has tagged me in posts and sent anonymous asks regarding the post i made, message received.

i didn’t realize how serious the situation would get, and reacted badly on multiple different counts as a result.

it’s been made incredibly clear to me that the post(s) i made were not only mistakes, but incredibly rude ones at that. i wish i could say it was the heat of the moment, but it’s more like i just didn’t understand the potential damage of making a negative review on a fanwork on my own blog. a lot of you have explained that it is more than just that, but when i made it, that’s what it was to me.

i now realize that fanwork is more than just that: it’s hard work and time spent, and free art for the public. regardless of my opinion on its quality, it is someone’s brainchild and should be treated with respect in all shapes and forms. negativity serves no purpose, and constructive criticism should be worded in a thoughtful manner to encourage improvement, not shame.

i will take the hit on my end. i underestimated the severity of my words; i didn’t realize that my initial post would inspire many other blogs to go up in arms. at most i was expecting disagreement with my opinion, which i can tolerate. i wasn’t expecting cruel statements in my asks or vulgar insults against me as a person, and people wishing terrible things on me for the rest of my life, telling me to off myself, etc. but these are the consequences of my actions, it seems.

i can respect everyone’s devotion to maintaining a healthy, positive community. i realize i took it all too far. i’ve taken what everyone has said to heart and i will be more considerate in the future. i now understand it’s not always necessary to voice my opinions.

one thing: it wasn’t a friend who told me to write a better version of anything. i feel the need to address that specifically because it’s genuinely not true no matter how you phrase it. the person who told me to do it, twice, was someone who vehemently disagreed with my post. obviously my reaction to that was uncalled for, i just wanted to clear it up so no one is called out undeservedly. this is on me and me alone.

in an attempt to clean up the mess i’ve made, i’ll be taking down the review.

im sorry, again, for all the trouble and for my unkind behavior, and i hardly expect to get off scot-free here, but i’ll be backing off because i clearly have a problem with handling this kind of thing and would rather not exacerbate this any further.

[nothingbizzare]

You have a good heart

[fox-trot]

MANDALORIAN DIVERSITY (Source: karentraviss.com (web.archive.org))

Q: Is it true that some of the Mandalorians in your LEGACY OF THE FORCE books are gay?

KT: Yes.

Goran Beviin and Medrit Vasur are a gay couple. Homosexual men. Call it what you like, they're in a same-sex marriage.

Mandalorians are different colours, too. Black Mandos, brown Mandos, all kinds of Mandos. Some are from other species, not just humans. They're all ages, all types, and some of them are disabled. Because so many of them are soldiers, Mandos know all about dealing with disability.

The gay Mandos - like the rest of the Mandalorian cast - are in the series because I think the Star Wars galaxy, with millions of worlds and species, is probably more diverse than just a regular vanilla diet of straight, good-looking, able-bodied white folk with red hair and emerald eyes or whatever.

So I decided it was time SW had its first gay characters, because it was dumb for such a rich universe like that to be so narrow and unreal.

And I say that as a straight white able-bodied woman.

Because whatever your personal prejudices, we live in a diverse world, and people you don't happen to like because of colour or orientation or age or gender are not going to vanish because you don't accept them. I don't like slave-owners and people who think decapitating another being is casual work, but I still write about them, because they're there in the SW universe.

If you didn't spot that Goran and Medrit are queer - well, maybe you were only looking for pink armour, limp wrists, and mincing walks, not hard-as-nails mercenaries and armoursmiths. But none of the gay men I know are mincing pink-clad queens, so...I wrote what I saw around me. Real people who just happen to prefer their own gender.

And I wrote it as a detail rather than a major issue on which a plot hung.

Kids won't spot it and ask awkward questions that their parents might not be ready to answer. But for the mature reader, it's there, and Goran and Medrit aren't just close friends. They're an old married couple with adopted kids and grandchildren, just a regular and unremarkable part of the Mandalorian community.

Because Mandalorians don't give a toss what you do in your private life as long as you follow the basic rules about clan and looking after your kids properly. So...no big deal.

[stealingpotatoes]

AU where Anakin and Owen are actually brothers like we deserved in the films. Nothing about the plot changes it just makes everything like 20% sadder. (Plus space wizard farmer family shenanigans).

I honestly believe half-brother Owen could give Anakin enough of a reality check for this to be a fix-it au LOL

(commission info // tip jar!)

[bardan-jusik]

here is my biggest complaint about the animated star wars shows (the clone wars and the bad batch, no comment on rebels)

before i even get started, i know these are kids shows told in 20 minute episodes, and that the reason for my beef is because the 2008 clone wars show was focusing primarily on the jedi, and didnt have the time/wasnt interested in treating the GAR as an actual military and needed to appeal to a young audience. i get that. i do. now with that out of the way im going to bitch and moan unapologetically about how X Thing Ruined Star Wars, because that's the fandom's national sport, ok?

the shows treat the GAR like a high school. everyone is somewhat childish (to appeal to the young audience). disobeying orders is something cool heroes do. (ANAKIN.) improvisation is treated as a fun and cool tactic that generally works out after a whacky adventure, not something you do as a last resort when your actual plan fails. main character's competency is primarily shown through their enemies (and sometimes their minor character allies) suddenly becoming inexplicably stupid.

'good soldiers follow orders' becomes a terrifying signal that a character has lost their agency. 'when have we ever followed orders?' becomes a rallying cry and heroic last words.

when youve written a military THAT badly, how are you supposed to force your beloved characters to follow Order 66? well, you're kind of stuck with mind control.

it didnt have to be this way 😭😭

[identityflawed]

out of pure curiosity (because i agree that the clone wars didn’t accurately portray several things, but i’m not an expert on military accuracy so i know better than to debate on it), can i ask how you would’ve changed tcw to make it more accurate to an actual military?

[bardan-jusik]

ABSOLUTELY thank you for asking, this post is barely going to answer your question, sorry in advance

so my problems are mostly nitpicking narrative decisions and how characters act. i have my complaints about things on the organizational and aesthetic levels (fives and echo becoming ARCs but not actually ARCs, ahsoka being a 14 year old in a tube top) but i'm going to try and limit myself to writing decisions because i think that's a way bigger issue than if they're using the term 'ARC trooper' correctly

and instead of just running my mouth about a show i haven't watched in years, i'm going to watch S1E5: Rookies (aka the rishi outpost episode) and talk about stuff as it comes up. this is one of my favorite episodes so surely i can't find that much to complain about, right? (haha. sorry in advance)

the intro is good. it's established that the rishi outpost is manned largely by clones who were deployed early. character introductions, the sergeant tells everybody to get ready for some officers who are coming to inspect the base. anakin is disregarding his personal well-being because he's obsessed with finding grievous.

we make it a full 4:30 in before i have a significant complaint. there's a meteor shower, and under cover of the meteor shower, a huge droid infiltration ship lands and begins to take over the outpost. the single sentry outside is overpowered by the droids who apparently fuckin teleport there from where they landed? the droids get into the base with basically no resistance. did you guys have, idk, proximity alarms? external cameras beyond the doorbell? y'all have some kind of radar, has this droid ship been camping out in the vicinity waiting for a meteor shower to use as cover? I HAVE LOGISTICAL QUESTIONS AND I KNOW I'M NOT GONNA GET ANSWERS

the droids are in the base. one of the clones attempts to 'sound the alarm' and finds 'they've disabled the beacon.' what? the droids clearly haven't totally cut power to the station, we have lights and atmosphere and stuff. how did they specifically turn off JUST the alarm system without actually having taken over the base yet?

ok fine whatever. on we go

the sergeant is killed, telling the boys to get a message to the fleet and warn them. the droids begin to cut through the door, and now we have grown ass men in the conveniently-grown-ass-men-sized vents. by the way at NO point in this entire episode are long range communications even mentioned. 'lets radio the fleet' is not a possibility that is touched on even once, not even in a 'dammit the droids are jamming our signal' kind of way

the droids immediately know four clones escaped, and the droid commander says they dont matter. why. why. were their orders not to kill everyone on the base? is there a number of clones droids consider trivial? why have THAT dialogue instead of having the droids believe they've killed everyone if you want them to not pursue our boys? OKAY WHATEVER

hard cut to general grievous' ship where general grievous tells the droids to keep rishi outpost sending an 'all clear' signal so nobody will notice the enemy fleet approaching the kamino system. and ventress is already on kamino as a spy.

PULLS OUT SOME MAPS. OKAY. SO.

here's the kamino system, here's the rishi system, right. the rishi outpost is on a moon in the rishi system but is SUPPOSED to be capable of detecting any threat coming towards kamino? with the radar system that DIDNT NOTICE A HUGE ASS DROID SHIP LANDING BECAUSE OF A METEOR SHOWER? that outpost is supposed to pick up on a fleet of ships OUTSIDE OF THE SYSTEM heading for A DIFFERENT SYSTEM? OKAY WHATEVER

at this point i'm beginning to think up a different version of this episode where the rishi outpost is a highly specialized astronomical observation station with like scientists and shit, owned by the rishii government (who are an avian species so that's cool), and they have a contract with the republic involving a clone detachment protecting the system in exchange for the outpost's monitoring capabilities. or something.

BACK TO VENTRESS BEING ON KAMINO AS A SPY- i have so many questions, such as, how the fuck did she get in unnoticed, how the fuck has she REMAINED unnoticed, and WHAT THE FUCK IS SHE DOING THERE. 'all the preparations for your invasion are in order' SABOTAGE? WHAT ARE WE TALKING ABOUT? general grievous like 'we are almost at the rendezvous point' WHO ARE YOU RENDEZVOUSING WITH. GIVE ME SOME CONCRETE INFORMATION INSTEAD OF THROWING AROUND OMINOUS MILITARY WORDS

k fine. back to the clones. cody and rex (who are running around doing inspections instead of leading their respective units? huh?) are coming into rishi station and a droid puts on a clone helmet and does a voice and tries to convince them to go away. when they control the station and could very easily just like, let them land and then go kill them with the huge number of droids that has already wiped out everybody on the station except for four troopers. whatever it's a setup for later fine. the droid signs off with 'roger roger' and rex's response is 'something's not right here' no shit man, perhaps the GIANT DROID INFILTRATION SHIP PARKED ON THE LAWN WILL FURTHER CLUE YOU IN

anyways cutup gets eaten by an eel and the general reaction is 'well damn. that's why we don't go outside i guess. lets slowly meander thisaways- oh hey look commander cody (were never told who the officers that would be arriving were)'

the droids allow cody and rex to land and approach the door, a droid comes out and tries to convince them to just leave. these droids have the programming to imitate a clone voice and wear armor but have no higher social programming than 'everything is fine, you can leave now!' okay. okay fine. the boys shoot a flare, rex shoots the commando droid, cody is surprised by this, finally the droids attack the two clones after easily overpowering roughly a dozen clones earlier

the droids do something that actually makes sense- blow up cody and rex's ship so they can't retreat and alert the rest of the GAR. good move droids. the droids then don't pursue cody and rex, assuming they got 'pulverized' in the explosion?? you fucking morons??

now we find out the rishi moon has a totally breathable atmosphere as cody and rex meet echo, fives, and hevy, and demand they take their helmets off. whatever its star wars everything has a breathable atmosphere. uhg. (the troopers hesitate over a direct order given to them by an officer they know of and respect who is pointing a blaster at them. okay.)

rex single-shots an eel right in the eye and introduces himself as 'the name's rex, but you'll call me captain, or sir' FINALLY SOME GOOD ASS MILITARY DECORUM AROUND HERE. now pUT YOUR FUCKING HELMET BACK ON. WHY ARE WE ALL TAKING OUR HELMETS OFF. STOP IT. echo gets a rishi eel blood handprint from rex, that's neat

cut to obiwan and anakin

we're just gonna go ahead and establish in episode 5 that anakin can't follow orders, that this tendency tends to rub off on others around him, and that he's derisive about SOPs and protocol. okay. great. i cannot stand this fuckin dude.

then rex impersonates a droid impersonating a clone which i won't complain about because it's funny

hey do you remember how minutes ago rex and cody couldn't beat the commando droids because their armor is too strong and their blasters weren't doing anything? no? neither do the writers i guess. they proceed to totally overpower yet more droids, one-shot-kills, twisting their heads off, generally blowing them to pieces with minimal trouble despite being unable to kill a single one earlier. ALSO PUT YOUR FUCKING HELMETS BACK ON I SWEAR TO GOD

'it looks like a separatist fleet!' echo says, conveniently spotting grievous' fleet right outside the window of this moon with his helmet binocs as they pass directly by this one moon on their way to a totally separate system

'we cant protect the outpost long against that army of clankers' the 2 dozen B-1s and 8 SBDs? after you guys totally demolished like 6 brand new commando droids? while you're defending and they're attacking? this outpost is shit if you have an easier time fighting your way in than defending it

'then we'll destroy the outpost instead' the entire thing? not just the console sending the all clear signal that you need to disrupt? the entire outpost? IF YOU. INSIST. I GUESS. 'EVERY THERMAL DETONATOR IN THE INVENTORY'?? CANISTERS OF HIGHLY EXPLOSIVE FUEL? WHAT ABOUT A HAMMER? YOU JUST NEED TO STOP THE ALL-CLEAR SIGNAL, NOT MAKE A NEW CRATER

(inhales) okay fine we're destroying the outpost

inspirational speech from rex where kamino is referred to as 'home' and not The Torment Nexus but 'kamino sucks and i dont understand why the clones in tcw and tbb are downright patriotic about it' is a topic for another time

they open the doors and immediately hose a huge amount of droids (why did you guys open the door? of your questionably-defendable outpost? you could have just not opened the door???? you could have used the huge amount of explosive you're packing into your own outpost on the ship- okay fine it looks cool i guess)

back with obiwan, who has still not received a transmission from cody, but states that this is fine because the base is still transmitting an all-clear signal and 'if something were wrong, cody would contact us' YOU ARE AN IDIOT SANDWICH

the droids begin to move into the outpost (how'd they open the front door again? don't ask me, or the writers, but the clones probably opened it again to chuck more grenades at them)

and then oh no, technical difficulties with the bomb. everybody else leaves through those conveniently-man-sized-tunnels, letting hevy stay behind solo to try and troubleshoot the bluetooth bomb's connection issues

meanwhile the droids (that they could have just left standing on the landing pad) are advancing through the base, and arrive at the supposedly abandoned operations center, and fully ignore the huge bomb on the floor

hevy ends up in a firefight, takes down an admirable amount of droids, and admittedly the line 'do we take prisoners?' 'i don't.' (detonates the bomb) goes really hard but how we got here is unfathomably stupid

pause to cry for hevy

now that the all-clear signal has stopped transmitting, the republic fleet teleports directly there within seconds, like before grievous has time to say 'oh shit lets get out of here,' seriously were they in orbit, how the fuck did they get here so fast

yaaayy the day is saved, fives and echo are heroes, personally recognized by generals kenobi and skywalker, with a medal ceremony and everything, rex recruits them both to the 501st, roll credits. i'm exhausted

long story short, even in one of my favorite episodes, everyone is a huge dumbass, nothing actually makes sense, power scales of the good guys vs the bad guys are fully at the whim of the plot, if you question anything you're going to have a bad time

the rishi outpost episode could make a REALLY good book, i just want it written like Hard Contact, where logistics are a focus and not just hand-waved as fits the plot

BUT AGAIN I KNOW THIS IS A SHOW FOR CHILDREN. I KNOW. I PROMISE I KNOW THAT. it's not really SUPPOSED to be military fiction

so what would i change about tcw? scrap the writer team, hire some people who know about military fiction, change the entire genre, age up the intended audience to like, young adult at least

[identityflawed]

LOL wow yeah i didn’t even notice half the stuff you were talking about until you actually said it! come to think of it, reading the clone wars movie novel vs the actual movie pointed out quite a few logistical issues 😭

like yes the jedi are not lifelong military leaders and can be forgiven for making weird tactical decisions (occasionally, anakin’s in his own world) but the clones are classically trained and probably would (at least as shinies like the members of domino squad) behave as classically trained soldiers and NOT whatever w saw in “rookies”

one thing, i guess, about separatist capability to infiltrate cherished republic strongholds (kamino and coruscant, most notably) without being noticed could be due to palpatine having complete access to all hyperspace lanes and being able to orchestrate these kinds of things that wouldn’t be feasibly possible unless your current leader was working a fake war.

not that that excuses the vague language and planning. in war it’s all down to how you strategize and some of my favorite films/shows/novels have characters who actually outsmart their enemies instead of the plot paving the path for them

part of the reason i had such a hard time feeling the gravity of the war is because we so rarely (in tcw, at least) see how formidable a force the separatist army is. we hear about so many supposed republic losses but im just not SEEING them. not wishing brutality upon a kids show but maybe just … gravity. in war it is very, very rare to see an easy victory that doesn’t come at severe costs. my own prevailing complaint with the is how little they addressed wartime trauma for ANYONE.

that’s all. yeah idk

[bardan-jusik]

here is my biggest complaint about the animated star wars shows (the clone wars and the bad batch, no comment on rebels)

before i even get started, i know these are kids shows told in 20 minute episodes, and that the reason for my beef is because the 2008 clone wars show was focusing primarily on the jedi, and didnt have the time/wasnt interested in treating the GAR as an actual military and needed to appeal to a young audience. i get that. i do. now with that out of the way im going to bitch and moan unapologetically about how X Thing Ruined Star Wars, because that's the fandom's national sport, ok?

the shows treat the GAR like a high school. everyone is somewhat childish (to appeal to the young audience). disobeying orders is something cool heroes do. (ANAKIN.) improvisation is treated as a fun and cool tactic that generally works out after a whacky adventure, not something you do as a last resort when your actual plan fails. main character's competency is primarily shown through their enemies (and sometimes their minor character allies) suddenly becoming inexplicably stupid.

'good soldiers follow orders' becomes a terrifying signal that a character has lost their agency. 'when have we ever followed orders?' becomes a rallying cry and heroic last words.

when youve written a military THAT badly, how are you supposed to force your beloved characters to follow Order 66? well, you're kind of stuck with mind control.

it didnt have to be this way 😭😭

[identityflawed]

out of pure curiosity (because i agree that the clone wars didn’t accurately portray several things, but i’m not an expert on military accuracy so i know better than to debate on it), can i ask how you would’ve changed tcw to make it more accurate to an actual military?

[identityflawed]

something about being tremendously anxious for finals and then seeing a post that says “you will FAIL stop trying NOW” and it’s been reposted by someone you know

get me OUTTT

[heymetropolismadeyalook]

some thoughts on the bendis & maleev run of moon knight - decided to give this one a reread and see if i had any new thoughts on it. i did!

-> first of all, i didn’t like the choice to replace steven and jake with cap, spidey, and wolverine. i see where the thought was, and i get that it’s a new take on the character, but i really don’t think it worked for him. it’s an interesting concept, but it’s unsuited to the character as a whole, and beyond that, it doesn’t do him justice by erasing steven and jake; they are necessary parts to the character of moon knight, and by removing them entirely, you fundamentally lose part of what makes moon knight… well, moon knight. i think this could’ve been a very cool concept had it been a character like taskmaster hallucinating the heroes as he emulated their fighting styles, but it didn’t work for moon knight. bad decision overall.

-> this may just be a personal thing, but the plot felt stiff at times and unmotivating for large stretches of the comic - i think with moon knight, if you want to fully bring him into the picture, part of the comic needs to be very character driven, just due to the way he is, and unfortunately, i think bendis disregarded that part. otherwise, it was fairly solid and i think it could stand on its own as a crime comic had you gone in not knowing anything about moon knight.

-> bothered me a bit that echo’s death was essentially disregarded, but it does seem that it was also just retconned completely as she was alive in soule’s daredevil run??? really interesting i hate that bendis did that but thanks soule i guess

-> bugs me a bit that marc is the tv show exec rather than steven… who has a known interest in the arts…. who has capability as a businessman…. i think i like the tv show exec idea, it’s cute, it’s just enough that you can go ooooooh look this is cooler than it just being some random guy, but i don’t think marc is the guy you want on there.

-> characterization was slightly off, to me. marc didn’t feel like marc, and although he was funny and witty and really a great protagonist for this comic, he wasn’t marc.

overall just very unfortunate - bendis & maleev had an excellent daredevil run that got dark enough without going into miller (eugh) territory. this was a huge miss from them and i am a bit upset that it came down to this

[identityflawed]

[specialmouse-deactivated2025060]

Before hooking up with someone tell them “i’m… kinda weird down there. Like… you know in a lord of the rings type of way” and then refuse to elaborate

[estrogenesis-evangelion]

my shit glow when orcs are near

[identityflawed]

“bakugou spent 8 years funding midoriya’s hero career so he can catch up to him and midoriya still rejected his agency offer this sucks this sucks wahhhh”

hey guys! i don’t know if you remember anything about the story of mha, but bakugou bullied deku for about 10 years! that is more than 8! bakugou putting his money in was his apology. so what if midoriya took that and kept doing his own thing? he’s a whole human being and it was BAKUGOU who owed him for a decade of shit, not the other way around.

not to mention the fact that bakudeku shippers are pissed that the canon ship (you know, the one that was developed from their high school years) actually became canon. the anime/manga lover gay agenda is very real and i love it until you start bashing people for appreciating the nontoxic canon ship!

again, no hate to bkdk shippers, it’s a cool dynamic, but i can see why horikoshi didn’t go for it. what person in their right mind would fall for their 10yr bully lol, outside of fanfic ofc. if it was made canon you’d have an uprising of fans saying “horikoshi condones abusive relationships.” if we’re gonna flame this guy for anything let it be how he handled yaomomo’s costume design

that’s all

[identityflawed]

i’ll also readdress the entire situation between bakugou and deku in a more properly-worded post, right here, because i got a comment that was pretty thoughtful and wanted to include that in here:

mha is a shounen manga, which means it appeals to younger guys. it’s not ever really gonna be romance heavy (and if it is, it’s usually hetero romance), so that means the fans who aren’t younger guys and ARE looking for romance have a lot more freedom to ship freely and rare pair because there isn’t some heavy-hitting, angsty romance as the main storyline. in mha, you kind of have bkdk and togachako as the primary (from what i’ve seen of late) gay and sapphic fan ships. they both have a certain appeal to them because of the tropey nature of the character relationships: angry bully gains a heart and redeems himself with his past victim, tragic villain falls for the first girl to ever call her pretty.

but those ships probably aren’t gonna happen, and you have a higher chance of togachako being made canon in the “my one tragic, dead ex from highschool” way than bkdk because for young men (shounen), two pretty women together is more appealing then two men. because the women are pretty. this is self-explanatory, but it’s one of the reasons bkdk probably wouldn’t be made officially CANON.

more than that… deku and bakugou have always been really interlocked. all the time. and from my limited experience in shounen manga, the rival characters are ALWAYS this way because they push each other’s development and keep the action going. but from a less literary and more lesson-based standpoint, there’s merit in displaying growth away from people, even if it isn’t entirely a bad break(up). once you reach a time-skip where the main evil is defeated, the two rivals drift apart and form their own (straight) families but remain relatively close friends. the first example that comes to mind for me is narusasu, but there’s probably more. all i’m saying is that 1) it happens a lot in shounen and 2) it would probably serve bakugou well to build a life for himself outside of midoriya. no matter who you are, high levels of dedication are commendable but they aren’t healthy. bakugou spent his whole life sort of nagged by midoriya, then devoted to the idea of bringing this so-called “pebble” up to his level after everything that happened. it’s romantic, only if that’s what the author intended. otherwise it’s just a difficult run of emotion where bakugou can’t let go of the past for the future. (midoriya had a similar arc to this, rather inverted. needed to impress/surpass bakugou and then spent 8 years of his career with the man apologizing for his sins. more or less.)

idk if that makes total sense, but bakugou and midoriya are both grown men now. romance aside, u should consider that the best literary path for BOTH of them isn’t to remain interlocked until the end of time, it’s to pursue their own lives. this isn’t a romance manga. and if you really want to read into it and say bakugou’s offer was like an apology and a “can we go back to the way things used to be when we were really, really young, before i screwed it all up with my ego and pushed away the one person who cared about me in spite of everything” wrapped into one, you can say midoriya’s rejection was forgiveness and an “i appreciate everything you’ve done but i’m taking my own path now, because the last time we mentioned your hero agency i wanted to be just like you and now i want to be myself, whatever that means” wrapped into one.

[identityflawed]

“bakugou spent 8 years funding midoriya’s hero career so he can catch up to him and midoriya still rejected his agency offer this sucks this sucks wahhhh”

hey guys! i don’t know if you remember anything about the story of mha, but bakugou bullied deku for about 10 years! that is more than 8! bakugou putting his money in was his apology. so what if midoriya took that and kept doing his own thing? he’s a whole human being and it was BAKUGOU who owed him for a decade of shit, not the other way around.

not to mention the fact that bakudeku shippers are pissed that the canon ship (you know, the one that was developed from their high school years) actually became canon. the anime/manga lover gay agenda is very real and i love it until you start bashing people for appreciating the nontoxic canon ship!

again, no hate to bkdk shippers, it’s a cool dynamic, but i can see why horikoshi didn’t go for it. what person in their right mind would fall for their 10yr bully lol, outside of fanfic ofc. if it was made canon you’d have an uprising of fans saying “horikoshi condones abusive relationships.” if we’re gonna flame this guy for anything let it be how he handled yaomomo’s costume design

that’s all

[identityflawed]

men won an incredible victory when wentworth miller came out as gay if im jealous of them for anything its that

[identityflawed]

“arcane s2 was rushed they sidelined vi’s trauma and isha’s death”

please stop talking NOW. idk what you want from the writers but no, they’re not going to devote scenes solely to resolving or exposing trauma for a character whose entire internal drive is to push past their issues because there’s always something “bigger” at hand. vi is at war. her world is at war. from the get go, she has been a stagnant force and the lens through which the viewer navigated the post-s1act1 world because she was in prison and therefore knew very little about it. she remains stagnant because she has no questions about who she is, and the struggles she faces don’t actually give her an identity crisis — she has always been a big sister who protects others at the cost of herself.

trauma resolution scenes come when characters face an identity crisis from them, and are written in as a necessity to justify the choices they will make because of that event. you don’t need that with vi because she just doesn’t change. arcane won’t give you a scene that the story doesn’t need (though i think they have too much faith in their fanbase to read between the lines). vi is always that young girl who protects her sister and wants to live up to expectations. vi isn’t an incredibly self-reflective character and the narrative extends that. she’s emotionally impulsive in many ways and follows her heart before anything else with very little doubt or confusion (she owns up to her own faults and does it vocally and often to great emotional strain); that’s what makes her a great fighter and a great sister. her actions speak for her more than anything else, and she certainly doesn’t need dialogue or a full out addressing of her struggles to be a strong character. people are too hung up on their own projected dream of getting their problems solved and trauma fixed by sweet loving words to understand that in real life, and in WAR, it can’t be that simple.

and regarding isha. she’s a tragedy, but arcane fans fail to understand that loris and isha were not actual “characters” in the sense that they’ll be acknowledged and developed by the narrative. they are people in their own right, but they serve as planks for vi and jinx as surrogates who provided what they so badly wanted — an opportunity to protect and be protected when those were taken away from them at a young age. there’s a reason both these characters share resemblances with people from the sisters’ past; their deaths symbolize change. nobody talked about loris or isha’s death after it happened, because YOU DIDNT HAVE TO. it was so clear how terribly jinx was changed because of isha’s sacrifice; it was her turning point. nobody needs to say “damn it sucks that isha’s dead, i bet you’re grieving huh” in order for the viewers to get the picture. both isha and loris were war casualties who died trying to protect others while initially starting off as signifiers of moral goodness (in the innocence of a child and a compassionate enforcer who left when his job turned fascist).

all this to say that no, arcane is not a fanfic, despite what s2ep7 looks like. and it certainly isn’t over — it isn’t a clean ending because 1) that isn’t realistic and 2) there’s other regions to cover and characters to explore and reuse. you’re not gonna get everything you wanted to see, you’ll only get what you need to see. the writers didn’t sideline anyone. in fact, the reason you see them as developed enough in the first place is because of the writers understanding how to handle what they’re working with.

[identityflawed]

very quick clarification

maddie saying to vi “i’m glad there are still good ones left” has NOTHING to do with the fucking undercity and was NOT a jab at vi’s status as a zaunite. it’s about the corruption in the enforcers (see marcus) and how vi has become an odd symbol for a “good” enforcer of law.

[identityflawed]

something about vi chasing her own monsters away to make powder feel safe and then signing on to be one of the monsters in jinx’s mind, with the horror movie-esque entrance with glowing eyes in the fog… really thoughtfully done

[identityflawed]

to every single arcane fan on the planet who is pissed at caitlyn for her actions in s2 act 1, please listen to me:

you are right to be pissed, that’s kind of the point, but hating her means you have to hate… like every other character. grief is a powerful factor in almost all of arcane and the motives of every character are based in something they’ve lost: whether it’s family, ideals, reputation, land, etc, they’re all dealing with loss and that causes them to act in morally-challenging ways. because that’s what grief does. a loss unthinkable causes actions unthinkable.

caitlyn joins the grief club a bit later than your other main characters, jinx and vi. but unlike jinx and vi, we actually see cait’s actions fresh off the block. the time cuts in act 1 only showed the clean-cut effects of losing their parents on the bridge, and then the new jinx and vi that occurred after the five (?) year time-skip after the explosion in the warehouse. you don’t see them when they’re full of raw grief and terror and illogical actions. you don’t see how severely vi was beaten in prison, how she must’ve lashed out in response to being taken away from her sister, how she continuously made the situation worse for herself because she felt like she deserved it, that she should’ve fought harder, been a better leader and a better sister. we don’t see jinx’s mental breakdowns afterwards, we don’t see how silco grooms her, how he uses her for his literal and emotional goals, how she’s shattered and how she pushes people away because of her own mistakes… but we’re seeing it with caitlyn, we’re seeing the rawness that comes with all of it, and we’re seeing how that impacts the narrative and other characters. people who haven’t grieved don’t seem to understand that it is like containing a storm, and you cannot do it by yourself, all of the time, and sometimes it gets out to other people if they press hard enough.

arcane is very cyclical in the way that all characters follow the same path, over and over again. caitlyn and jinx are following narrative paths, especially when you compare ambessa to silco. i do wonder if jinx knows that silco stabbed vander, that he was the one who ruined everything, hired the goons to jump them and scared her into dropping their haul from jayce’s workshop, etc. i wonder if the reason she continues to spiral is because she doesn’t know, and if caitlyn will get the same treatment with ambessa’s betrayals and her hand in the attack on the memorial.

whatever the case, you cannot defend jinx and hate caitlyn. they are not the same, i understand, but they are both products of massive grief that they blame themselves heavily for.

back to the idea of grief being a storm, because the most common gripe i see with caitlyn is how she promised vi she wouldn’t change, and then changed within a day. this isn’t… this is not an unreasonable course of action from caitlyn, given the situation and how she’s feeling. she is like… at most, a couple weeks out after her mother’s death. it is still an incredibly fresh wound, and she is sort of hinging her entire self-worth and identity on her ability to make the shot that resolves this feeling inside of her. she doesn’t get to make that shot, and fresh off of that miss, that realization that the fight is going to be prolonged and that vi is not as unattached to jinx as she says she is…

both of them made strange promises in that tunnel that they didn’t quite keep. how can you blame vi or caitlyn for picking their family over the girl they met less than a month ago? isha was a wildcard in that fight, but they both knew that caitlyn wouldn’t actually miss the shot. vi didn’t flinch when caitlyn shot 2 inches behind her, vi didn’t flinch when cait shot the gun out of isha’s hand, or the finger from jinx’s, etc, etc. it wasn’t about missing, it was the realization for vi that she can’t just cut herself off from her sister (especially when there’s signs that powder is still in there), that it is much easier said than done. and for cait, it was the realization that vi is not with her. that vi never changed.

that’s kind of the issue. vi didn’t want caitlyn to change, but caitlyn wanted vi to change, and they’re both in situations that demand change and stagnancy, respectively. see what i’m saying? does any of this make sense?

[identityflawed]

say, “men’s obsession with lesbians is really fucking weird,” and nobody bats an eye

say, “women’s obsession with gay men is really fucking weird,” and society goes wild