lovelymoira

hapiness is a butterfly sideblog- @moiraluvrr

[lovelymoira]

a major reason geto is so interesting as an antagonist is because within a story centered around heroic sorcerers, he is attempting to save the sorcerers themselves instead of the people. he thinks what he's doing benefits them, benefits the world essentially.

the purpose of a jujutsu sorcerer is to be a savior, and he fits that role to a T. however who he's 'saving' is actually flipped.

where this distinction stemmed from was him always seeming to lack a purpose within the sorcerer world, and his inherent thought process where he makes a clear line between "regular" people and sorcerers, emphasizing non-sorcerer inferiority.

geto, before the Riko mission, found himself coherent to sorcerer ideology. but i think its important to note that this belief doesn't really have much backing to it. He simply states that its a "duty" of theirs to protect "weaker" people- the word duty implying that this is something that's been told to him, not something which he's set on believing.

thats especially highlighted when he gives riko a choice as to what she wants. he's not set on this belief- which is actually an admirable trait in the case with riko. everyone deserves that choice.

then the whole fiasco happens with toji, but thats not really his turning point. his turning point is when he sees all those non-sorcerers who support riko's death and thats when he strictly begins his distinction of how non-sorcerers are cruel, and morally inferior. that they don't understand the sacrifices sorcerers have made, that they don't have gratitude or empathy. that, toppled with the two girls he saves/adopts, and witnessing the death of that one kid (forgot his name) who wanted to save people as per jujutsu sorcerer ideology.

one of the reasons gojo goes the opposite way in his path is because he actually had the strength to defeat toji at the end which makes him believe in honing his skills to prevent future incidences. while gojo also hates those non-sorcerers that applauded riko's death, he doesn't have to put himself through the same situation again & again in a way? geto does.

geto, while consuming curses, has to consistently remind himself of jujutsu ideology of protecting non-sorcerers, despite the plethora of negative experiences he's had with non-sorcerers in the first place. for him it was a lonely, endless cycle, and most importantly, lacked purpose.

the thing with geto is that he feels so deeply. he doesn't want other sorcerers to go through the depressive states he went through; he wants to get rid of the source of evil, which to him lies within regular people.

he found that same 'savior' purpose elsewhere, being a savior to his own people (in his eyes: more superior people) by eradicating the non-sorcerers (the inferior).

he's so interesting aaaaaa. also the way he twists his immoral actions/justifies them even more so. anyways onwards to genocide for him!

[exactly-another-one-piece-blog]

Friendly reminder that One Piece is a series in which there is a tyrannical evil empire that has encompassed the entire known world for 800 years (crushing or enslaving all who oppose them) AND there is a plucky revolutionary army who fights them, headed by the protagonist’s father and older brother… and the protagonist in question is literally just out there vibing with his found family and not starting fights with the government but always finishing them

[lovelymoira]

I agree sm on ur tags. That’s exactly why Luffy consistently mentions that he’s not a 'hero' because op has a huge emphasis on the grey area of ethics/government and how fundamentally hard it is to categorize people as 'good' or 'bad'.

Luffy in almost every situation is meant to be this neutral force; as in, he only opposes the government to a certain degree. He’ll take a stance against the government but that’s never going to be his goal. I’m not that far into OP but it’s how I’ve viewed it so far.

And when it comes to Luffy, politically, it’s genuinely one the hardest things to define what his stance is. And that is, because, he doesn’t fall to the extremes of any of these ideologies.

Call him an anarchist, a communist, sure, but he doesn’t advocate and force these ideologies upon anyone.

He’s like a secular humanist, he embraces morality & ethics when necessary. And yet, he never fails to not fall on the extreme of being a humanist either. He’s just one big blend of everything, though one piece does have more of a standing in leftist ideas more so.

He’s apolitical in a sense, but his actions say otherwise. He’s fluid like that.

[lovelymoira]

i think the funniest things about the naruto franchise is that both the "morally right" characters and "morally flawed" characters follow the same ideal: that the end justifies the means. there's practically no distinction between the two.

characters such as itachi will go as far as to commit genocide for the village, naruto never doing anything he promises as long as his village maintains power, tobirama enforcing the idea of child soldiers through his establishment of the academy for the village (portrayed positively) while characters such as sasuke wanting vengeance through killing for reforming the village, fuguku wanting a coup détat to get rid of injustices against his people, madara/obito ready for wars upon wars so they can achieve peace (portrayed negatively). there are many more examples btw.

Both the positively and negatively depicted characters have an emphasis in the idea of sacrifice for a greater good, in their own terms. this is why every character in the franchise is inherently fucked flawed. even characters such as sakura who don't give a shit about morality as long as they continue supporting the people close to them.

the end justifies the means thing is everywhere. thats why it really pisses me off when people paint certain characters such as SAY madara as v radical, or hashirama (lets not forget this man was ready to kill of people close to him for the village) as "right".

essentially all these characters would do very crappy things in order to make sense of their world. there is barely a distinction made between how good of a choice "morally right" characters make and "morally wrong" characters make because at the end of the day, the choice/action doesn't matter. the distinction is only found between if a character supports Konoha's government, or if they don't.

the distinction is found within the support of nationalist ideals.

[huffylemon]

[jehovahhthickness]

You would have to waterboard this information out of me …. 😭

[lovelymoira]

fine, i admit it

[lovelymoira]

lil rant but

Its so inaccurate for some people to label Geet's character from Jab we met as the 'manic pixie dream girl' type. its harmful to label her as that in the first place, but also false when actually looking at her character. the manic pixie dream girl stereotype quite literally implies that the female character has no purpose other than to help the male lead, along with creating a fantasy for the male audience.. this could not be far from the truth.

geet being extroverted and kind does not make her a manic pixie dream girl. that implies she's a one-dimensional character without any flaws or a character arc, whereas her arc is very apparent. Hell, the whole second part of the movie is about her character, Aditya had achieved what he wanted with his life after the conclusion of tum se hi.

Geet meanwhile teaches us about love & confidence, and her own lesson she learned at the end of the movie, (which was something she preached but never implied in her own life, one of her flaws) including self-love and making it a priority to take care of yourself and forming your own opinions to come to your happiness. She goes through a fallout and exhibits so much realness with her character.

One of the major things she overcomes is her sheer naivety. anshuman was right about her. she takes time however to grieve her bad decision and take responsibility for it was everything. she didn't go running back to aditya, she didn't go back to her family either. she understood that those were consequences she was meant to face alone.

going a little off topic from geet here but hell, the best part about this movie is that both aditya and geet developed as characters without one another. this sounds weird but let me explain. their character arcs are actually independent of another. in the absence of another, both of them make a conscience effort to be better.

heres an example: aditya doesn't dwell on geets absence. when she's gone, he takes his advice and through tum se hi we see that he puts in the effort into his company, his life, his self love. that enough is proof that she isn't some 'fantasy'. aditya is willing to let geet go if it means she'll be happier.

both of them have independent character arcs! While their development is intertwined, each character works on themselves independently.

this movie is everything to me <3

[lovelymoira]

you know what, I wish we got an episode dedicated to Sasuke which was similar to "Zuko Alone" from atla. Zuko alone is about introspection, yet so much of Sasuke's introspection happens off-screen. I would have loved to see it, his thoughts on the matter and his internal struggle; It being viewed more in-depth and not through naruto's eyes, who frankly, didn't understand him properly for most of the show.

[mostly-just-sasuke-blog-deactiv]

Hmm maybe. I was really disappointed in how atla handled Zuko in many ways, so I wouldn't want them to mishandle Sasuke the same way... Sasuke and Zuko and Sasuke are very different characters. Zuko was arrogant and did have a superiority complex as well as a lot of misunderstandings about how the world worked, but Sasuke is surprisingly humble, much more grounded, and not as naive or sheltered.

I could see an arc about his travels while he's trying to see the world as it is now that he was free from his burdens and trying to trust more. Depending on how it's done that could've been really interesting

[lovelymoira]

Interesting pov, I see exactly what you mean. Especially when it comes to how different sasuke and zuko really are. But I just wanted to ask what disappointed you in atla about zuko's character? How exactly was it mishandled? I'd like to see it from your side.

[mostly-just-sasuke-blog-deactiv]

Hmm ok, sure. But please bear in mind that I only watched through the whole show once and it's been several years, so if I'm remembering anything wrong that's probably why. And these are just my opinions, so I'm not saying everyone needs to agree or see it my way...

Here are my semi-coherent thoughts on how I felt Zuko's character was mishandled

In general I didn't like the pacing of atla. Things I thought should have been handled slow were rushed, and things that were focused on seemed to waste a lot of time... a lot of this was probably me looking for something different than what this show was, not because the show itself was bad. But I was often frustrated about what was given attention, and when, and what wasn't and why. There was a lot of contrived moments that seemed like the writers pulling strings rather than allowing the story to play itself out. It's hard to describe what I mean by this, so maybe this doesn't make sense.

But as for Zuko himself, I didn't think his transition was completely realistic, especially not without more moral support. But instead they made him into a woobie character to gain sympathy points. But I wanted more of the bad-assery he'd shown in earlier seasons. It seemed like they took away that and made him sucky to gain audience sympathy. But it just felt really unbalanced. Katara is literally the strongest waterbender, she doesn't even need more than like one day and is already beating the master guy (which i hated), Toph is literally basically the strongest earthbender, Sokka is at least a decent strategist, and Aang is the Avatar.... And Zuko kinda sucks at firebending. But I'll touch on this more later.

Aang and the gaang doing more to convince him would have tied him in more strongly to the others without the pointless and blatant "let's give each character an adventure episode with Zuko because it's what we have to do now" episodes. They wasted so much time, when they should have found a more natural way to do that. How about somewhat still proud Zuko actually talk with them and they learn more about each others lives? Then Zuko could grow and the Gaang could start seeing him as more human, and they could bond more naturally. It would have been a real test of Aang's views of the world and would have been a great way to build Aang's skill's in persuassion and peacemaking. Especially if Aang isn't always able to answer, or even struggled with some of the thing's zuko says. I would have liked to see more conversations/interactions between him and the Gaang to help him grow and to form bonds over that. Instead it's too abrupt. He gets humiliated a few times and pretty suddenly he has all the "right" views. And then begs them to accept him.

I wish the father wasn't such a cartoon villian (but then, it is a cartoon...). I'd have liked just a little more nuance and a little more struggle on Zuko's end emotionally and psychologically. Even as he decided that what the fire nation was doing was bad, in real life people will not immediately adopt the exact same ideology of the other side. Even kids with abusive parents still love their parents and will often try to protect them. His father's approval was so important to him for so long, that I don't buy him suddenly despising him like that. What if he'd tried to convince him instead? His moment of "you suck" to his dad just seemed like how a kid would write it. And since it's a kids show, I don't think it's a good idea to be teaching kids that seeing the difference between good and evil is so easy and obvious.

I wish he'd been given a little more to do after joining the gaang. This relates to what I said above about him sucking as a firebender, but he doesn't really do very much after changing sides. He was supposed to be Aang's teacher for firebending, but they didn't even let him do that. He and Aang had to both learn it from another source. This seems contrived and just irritated me. You mean to tell me all firebenders don't even know their own craft and have been doing it wrong for ages? You mean all firebenders are perpetually angry all the time? How did Zuko firebend before he got banished? He didn't seem angry back then. This was just stupid and took away whatever role Zuko had.

But the thing that I absolutely cannot forgive the show for, the thing that made me so mad, was the one thing i was waiting for, the one moment i thought they'd finally give him to let him shine was his battle with Azula. And yet they couldn't even let him have that, instead Katara had to come in and rescue him. They built up this epic rivalry and feud between them, they have Zuko learn a totally different way to firebend (ok, fine, whatever), show him how to lightning bend, talk about how much less talented he is and how he's always been overlooked compared with his sister... and he can't even beat his sister without a random third party stepping in to defeat her and save him. This would be comparable to Sakura coming into Sasuke and Itachi's fight and defeating Itachi in the end. Just no. Katara just had so much less stakes in this fight than Zuko. We already knew Katara is the best at everything, so her defeating Azula wasn't a big deal. The writers should have given her something else to do and Azula should have been defeated by Zuko. It would have shown why his new way of firebending was better and how he was a stronger person than her because he had to learn to do things the hard way. I just hated that Katara defeated Azula so much.

I think maybe if Katara and Zuko were at least romantically attracted to one another it would have been slightly more understandable from a character perspective and have tied in better... but the writers wasted so much time making sure everyone knew they'd never end up together and couldn't let go of her and Aang together, which I personally never liked. I think this is why they kept Zuko apart from the Gaang for so long and had all his character development take place separated from them. And why his interactions with them seemed so off and stilted. I think the writers were letting too much of their own preferences dictate how they wrote the story to the point that it was really noticeable and it really irritated me.

------

Anyways, these are just my thoughts. In the end it's a pretty lighthearted kids show and i probably shouldn't have expected more. If I'd have kept my expectations lower I probably wouldn't have felt so let down and irritated by what the show actually was, rather than what I wanted. I really like character's struggling on the edge of good and bad, so all that being said, Zuko is still probably my favorite character of the show. But that's why i found his development so frustrating and annoying. In the end I just didn't like the show as much as everyone else seemed to.

[lovelymoira]

Okay I see, honestly valid points. About your most important criticism, having to do with the agni kai, I personally believe katara stepping into help zuko benefitted Zuko's character and arc rather than ruin/mishandle it. Zuko's arc is season 3 is all about Zuko struggling to figure out what's right and what's wrong, tying in with honor, aka what he's been trying to achieve for so long. Even when initially, he got everything he wanted, he didn't feel he was truly honorfull. Through the final battle, despite his surface level loss, he ended up taking that hit that azula threw at katara onto himself. He essentially sacrificed himself for katara and he began to truly step into what honor means at it's core, and more specifically redemption, or even the trust he wanted to establish with the gang. Honor for him isn't about winning or loosing a fight, it runs much deeper than that.

You're permitted to your own opinion though; in my own opinion, katara fighting azula and zuko loosing didn't bother me because he found his own meaning of honor after that fight. It was that emotional fight that pushed him for greatness and completed his arc in a sense. interesting opinion though.

[mostly-just-sasuke-blog-deactiv]

Yeah, I get that. Him sacrificing himself for her was something I forgot. But why couldn't he have had that lesson about honor before his fight with Azula, and still gotten a moment to shine fighting her? There was no reason for that to be done during that fight. The writers had plenty of time they wasted. But he was already very muted and humbled. He learned that lesson. I think his character arc earned this moment after building up his relationship with his sister so much. Katara stepping in and getting yet another win under her belt was just not necessary and way less meaningful. I wanted to see Zuko get a little more of his fire (pun intended) back. Like his personality lost a lot of what made it interesting. Katara is allowed to be angry and passionate, but Zuko can't? I just think he was made way too passive and also became kind of bland in the end.

But if you were satisfied with how it played out then that's good. Seems like a lot more people agree with that view and love what they did with Zuko than with mine. Honestly if I'd been younger when I first watched it I probably would have felt the same. As it is I've become more critical of narratives, and sometimes that is a bit of a curse when it comes to enjoying a fun story.

[lovelymoira]

Oh 100%.

You're very much valid for thinking that it was a waste. I would agree but I literally just enjoyed that fight between Azula & Katara sm I can't lol. so it doesn't even cut down to "writing" or "character-dev" for me atp. Like it does, but it's pretty subjective. cool talking to u. and yeah, the fiery aspect of Zuko's personality was lost and I'm sorta sad abt it too.

[lovelymoira]

Paxton's character arc is what never have I ever is ALL about.

As a character, he felt so flat during season 1, but season 2 was really his time to shine.

Never have I ever is all about acceptance, more specifically, self-acceptance. And almost every character in the show has their own arc linking to self-acceptance; while Devi struggles with finding acceptance in not only her cultural identity, but, dealing with grief invoked struggles within her identity, Fabiola struggles with her identity through being queer, Eleanor literally just had a whole arc about finding out who she was and separating herself from her mother, and her boyfriend. Nalini feels lost after her husband's death and soon comes to accept her daughter, etc.

Paxton's arc fits the exact criteria. He was so lost with who he truly was, especially after he lost the one thing he was good at: swimming. He struggles to accept that he could do better in school, especially with his parent's lack of confidence in his abilities. He also definitely projects his own insecurities onto his own sister, especially the way he wants to give her the confidence that his own parents never had in him.

Enough about this though. Cultural identity. Though never have I ever hasn't touched too much upon cultural identity, it's already hinted that Devi may just explore this within season 4.

Paxton Hall Yoshida knew almost nothing about his family's history, and his way of being confident in himself truly didn't just come from him "going above and beyond on that extra credit assignment"; it, in fact, came from him confronting his identity of being half-Japanese. Talking about his identity had led him to achieve his goal of going above and beyond in school, AND, also culturally accepting himself. Especially the way Trent had been doing the whole "oh I didn't know you were Japanese bs" for a while. It just goes to show how out of touch Paxton was with his culture & history.

Love him sm. While I have my own personal thoughts about his romance with Devi, there's no denying he's well written, and that his arc may have hit close to home for a lot of people.

[lovelymoira]

small lady psyche character study for yall!!

I absolutely adore her. In ever way shape or form.

I feel like in the beginning, it was SO easy for a lot of people to dislike her carefree personality, especially because of her showcased naivety. often times, these characters can't form their own opinions and people find it hard to either a. relate to characters such as this or b. in general find shyer personalities annoying and would rather be geared towards 'badass female characters' such as Medea, etc.

This development she has mirrors that of what the public usually likes, on a basic level. Yet, so much of Psyche's personality remains the same. That is why her development felt so NATURAL, so relatable; she had drawbacks to her old self. My favorite thing about it is simply the way it's done. Keep in mind, that we barely know anything about Psyches BACKSTORY, yet she is such a deep and meaningful character.

Trust

Lady Psyche's main development comes through her change in how trustful she is, that issue stemming from living her life completely sheltered from the outside world. When she is exposed to Eros's wrongdoings to her, she stops mindlessly trusting others and instead thinks first before letting her kind actions get taken advantage of.

Lady Psyche, however, has never once let her drop in trust levels allow her to become a mean person. Her kind actions have remained and always have remained. Obviously, it's easy to display distrustfulness with her development, especially when it comes to Eros and consecutively, Eros's spy maid. But what's interesting is that she also focuses more on building trust; displaying the utterly positive part of her development on the simple idea of trust.

For so many of the chapters, whenever we see her, we see her building up trust with her servants, forming meaningful connections, ones that run deeper than a simple 'oh I'm kind to you and I expect you to be kind to me back'. she gets to know them all on that level, and her relationship with one of the male servants is extremely highlighted as well.

Along with the positives of her trustfulness, she feels held back by her continuous attachment to Eros. Of course, when you've spent most of your years attached to a figurehead, it's 100% hard to let it go. And this is what makes her development feel so natural.

Knowledge

Whenever Lady Psyche and Lady Medea switch bodies, it's easy to notice her lack of knowledge or skills that Lady Medea possesses. Bringing up the fact that she grew up sheltered again, there's obviously going to be a lack of proper education, one that Lady Medea would have, say, possessed.

But as time passes by of her being inside Lady Medea's body, we always see her make a continuous effort to learn more about politics, become more socially aware, etc. This is something we barely saw Psyche do before.

All this has essentially has to do with trust; built up trust with Lady Medea, and her broken trust with the world.

[lovelymoira]

Vivi is one of the most influential op character's to luffys development & in general:

She taught him about taking non-violent approaches in certain situations because luffy's ideals were so reckless to began with. But where their interesting dynamic steps in is that vivi herself is wrong in a sense. Her ideals are flawed. Taking a non-violent approach in certain situations brings no fruit, it only regurgitates the cycle of oppression & abuse because you don't necessarily stand up for yourself with force. And thus Luffy teaches her that in certain situations you need to stray away from naivety and fight back together.

They both help each other, representing two different sides of the extreme and how to find middle ground between them.

And what I find even more amazing is that in skypiea, following alabasta, during the whole Bellamy BS, luffy refuses to fight back; this is painted in regards to Shanks. However, exactly what Vivi taught him in the previous saga was showcased there. I refuse to believe that Vivi didn't play a role in Luffy's decision here.