#dc comics#dc#batman#bruce wayne#batfam#tim drake#batfamily#dick grayson#dc fanart
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Italy
seen from United States
seen from Malaysia
seen from El Salvador
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from Maldives
seen from China
seen from Sweden
seen from China
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from Sweden
seen from Australia
seen from Singapore
seen from United States
seen from South Korea
seen from Algeria
My partner made me an alligator shaped cake for my birthday!! <3 Look at this funky dude. He's perfect.
He's matcha flavored too!!
i know turning red literally just came out but i don’t wanna hear y’all saying ming was the villain like y’all did for alma in encanto.
yes, they both interfered with mei wanting to see 4*town and mirabel wanting to learn how to save the family magic, respectively. but if you’re going to call ming and alma anything, they’re the antagonists—not the villains.
antagonists are characters whose intentions clash with the protagonist. it’s simply a plot role and the protagonist’s main opponent.
villains are characters who tend to be evil, with evil intentions. they generally have a negative impact on other characters.
a villain of the story is often the antagonist, but not every antagonist is a villain.
they’re not the same thing.
—
now that we got that out of the way, let’s look at ming and turning red in particular.
ming (and therefore, mei) is an a member of an chinese-canadian immigrant family. what generation immigrant ming is was never explicitly mentioned in the film, but i don’t think i need that information to be able to explain this. i’m going to write the rest of this under the assumption that ming is 2nd-gen bc her mom lives close enough to be able to visit, but i could be wrong.
so some time towards the beginning of the movie, the whole whole history with mei’s ancestors and red pandas is revealed. it is implied that this history began in china, so some time between when the first ancestor (i forgot her name) lived and the beginning of the movie, ming’s mother moved to canada and set up a life there for herself and her family. then ming and her generation was born, and, later, mei was born.
the madrigal family in encanto had a similar backstory—not in content, but in structure. assuming ming is a 2nd-gen immigrant, ming’s mother (mei’s grandmother) and alma were the first generation to move to somewhere new due to some circumstance in their life or their hometown. and that’s difficult.
imagine being the first person in your family to build your life somewhere completely new to you. you’re leaving your family behind, risking everything just to have a better life. and, if you decide to have kids, you hope to pass your hard-earned fortune on to them and make sure they have a life that’s easier than yours.
now here’s the thing: you might be passing on some of the worse parts of what you picked up as well.
as i said about immigrating, that shit is difficult. it’s traumatizing. when you’re trying to build your life somewhere that you barely know, it’s not surprising that you can internalize whatever trauma they experience during that period of time. and more often than not, you may not even notice how how you pass that down to your kids.
this is called intergenerational trauma.
the signs of it may not be obvious to someone who isn’t aware of it, but it doesn’t hide the fact that it’s there. and it may not even manifest in the form of physical child abuse. not once did ming hit mei during the movie, so we can skip that last part.
what ming did do to mei, however, was be a helicopter mom—overbearing, overprotective, and just a bit over the line. but it was all with good intentions and to make sure mei was doing okay at school. she never meant to embarrass mei, even though that’s what ended up happening.
and not to mention the putting down anything mei likes that ming doesn’t see as useful to mei!! she thinks mei’s friends are a bad influence! and half the plot revolves around a popular boy band that mei is obsessed with!!!!
ming wants mei to have a successful life and one that was easier than hers was. it’s clear through her actions: putting mei through violin lessons, having box upon box of pads ready for mei because she thought mei got her first period, letting her join the “after school club” that was really just mei raising money for the 4*town concert (but ming didn’t know that!), randomly bringing mei a tray of dumplings (bc if your love language with your kid isn’t giving them snacks or cut-up fruit r u really an asian immigrant parent /j).
is it good that she’s looking out for her daughter? yes. but does it also mean she’ll immediately render Normal Teenager Things as useless or even detrimental to mei’s future? also yes!! i know this bc i’m a child of asian immigrants and it happened to me when i was mei’s age! (it still kind of happens but that’s another rant for another day) and trust me, hearing your parents constantly put down the hobbies and artists you like is not fun!!!
now, going back to this:
the signs of [intergenerational trauma] may not be obvious to someone who isn’t aware of it, but it doesn’t hide the fact that it’s there.
what makes ming the antagonist but not the villain is revealed towards the end of the movie. mei finds herself back in the astral realm after performing the ritual on ming to return her red panda spirit. she finds a teen version of ming, crying bc she got in a fight with her mom. this is when mei realizes ming felt exactly the same way that she did at one point.
because ming’s mom was the exact same way.
the overbearing yet well-meaning pushing your kid to be successful, but immediately dismissing anything that doesn’t fit your vision of said success — that happened to ming too. ming just never realized she was doing the exact same thing to her own daughter.
yes, ming never wanted to hurt mei, or make her so upset that she begins to pull away. most immigrant parents don’t.
and yes, intention ≠ impact. no matter how good-intentioned ming was, she still hurt mei at the end of the day. those two statements can and should co-exist.
but ming was never the villain. she was just unconsciously repeating the behaviors her mother pushed onto her.
because that was all she knew growing up.
What's your favourite Kirby Enemy?
Anything that is NOT a boss - For now I'm looking for the small beans (Scarfy, Blade, etc).
Please drop them in my askbox <3
WIP = in work/work queue
TBA = finished, will be posted soon
Current List:
Knuckle Joe
Key Dee
Bio Spark
Scarfy
Waddle Doo
Galbos
Ringle
Broom Hatter
Birdon (TBA)
Burning Leo (TBA)
Snooter (TBA)
Halcandra Dee (WIP)
Spynum (WIP)
Staman (WIP)
Simirror (WIP)
Wheelie (WIP)
Plasma Wisp (WIP)
omg tumblr fixed my acc
moots can u see this?
REMINDER FOR ME TO POST MY FIC TEASER TODAY
TUMBLR ISNT LETTING ME REPLY TO COMMENTS OR DM ANYBODY 😭 is anyone else having this problem or does tumblr just hate me
every time i listen to waiting for us i get an overwhelming urge to write an angst while lying in bed at 2am with tears streaming down my face
out of all the things maleficent could’ve cursed sleeping beauty with why did she choose death and not mildly inconveniencing her for the rest of her life
she could’ve said some shit like “starting on your sixteenth birthday both sides of your pillow shall always be warm” or “you shall always somehow step in water whenever you have socks on” or “you will never get your shower or drinking water to the right temperature no matter how hard you try” but noooooo
