Critical - Tumblr Posts
It's absolutely hypocritical bullshit that Shikamaru is allowed to take his revenge on Hidan because Hidan killed his TEACHER and that is viewed as okay because he lets his friends from Konoha help him (even though he basically straight up told Tsunade he was going to do it anyway when she discovered him sneaking out), but Sasuke is villainized for trying to avenge his MOTHER AND FATHER and ENTIRE CLAN who were killed by his brother in a (revealed later) orchestrated genocide. It's also absolute hypocritical bullshit that people in the fandom laud Shikamaru for killing Hidan and view it as being "cool", but say Sasuke is "emo" and a piece of shit because he wants to get justice for his family his own way and, once he learns the truth, wants to hold a fascist government responsible for their LITERAL crimes against humanity.
How anyone can think All That Matters is a healthy b/umbleby song is beyond me. Almost the entirety of the song is the singer (Yang) describing all the ways their partner/focus of the song has disappointed them and left them.
Examples:
“….but I can tell you in my heart I never thought you’d up and leave me without a trace to lead me”
“A look that makes me just hope I’ll believe your lies”
“…but you’re a path the longer I travel, the more I’m just defeated, the past mistakes repeated”
“I’ll risk it all again to have you near my side, another chance to let you destroy my pride”
“I feel like I’m running of energy, and you just take everything in stride, the way I feel to you is just no big deal, it’s sad but it’s true, the one thing I can count on is I can’t count on you”
…
How is this in any way a healthy relationship? Where the speaker is detailing in great length how the person they thought they could depend on left them and treats their feelings as expendable?
I love Blake and Yang as characters. But good god, a romantic relationship with these two is downright unhealthy. Yang has so many abandonment issues that she feels like Blake has only ever lied to her. That Blake has used her and her feelings, and abandoned her.
How is that healthy? How is that good for either of them?
also, this is probably a stupid complaint, but i hate that spop pushes the idea of “cats are mean and aggressive, it's in their nature”.
as someone who has raised a LOT of cats in their lifetime, i need y'all to understand that cats aren't inherently mean. they value their boundaries (like any human being. shocker!) but once you gain their trust, they are some of the most compassionate and empathetic creatures you can come across.
okay this is very minor but i still need to say it?? there are names used in atla that are vietnamese and i really wish they’d taken the extra step to pronounce it correctly?? they just . whitewashed the names and i wish more effort was put into making it phonetically correct. examples being ‘tho’ the swampbender is said to be “th-oh” when in vietnamese it’s closer to something like “t-ah” and the cover name katara gives toph when they’re undercover as earth kingdom girls is “dung” and they pronounce it as its written but it’s actually pronounced much closer to “young.” the reason i bring this up is because those two in particular are actual vietnamese names, and while i’m glad we were included, it would’ve been nice if they didn’t whitewash our names
if rwby ever gets rebooted, I think weiss's name should be pronounced with a v. also better writing maybe.
it's crazy that they've just spent 10+ years pronouncing weiss & yang's names wrong with no push back. american audacity tbh.
but yes, also better writing. & animation. & employee wages.
Nitpick November: 05
Can we talk about Ren’s name?
I just don’t understand… why? Until V4 it assumed that, since everyone called him Ren, his name was written in the typical Asian style of surname first, given name second. No one ever calls him Lie, and Ren is the name that goes into making the team name. We’re never given any indication that Ren isn’t his given name… until we get to V4 and suddenly we’re introduced to Li Ren and An Ren, completely overturning that idea.
Now I’m just left with the question, why does Ren go by his last name? We’re never given a reason for him to only use his family name, or any indication that he would have asked to be called only by his family name since everyone just immediately calls him Ren. Nora never calls him Lie, even in emotional moments where it would be appropriate. It just feels awkward, like it was meant to be surname given name, but RT realized literally no other character’s name is read that way and switched it to given name surname to be consistent… ignoring how weird it feels.
And they could have easily given him a reason! After Kuroyuri, Ren could have explained that he wanted to go by his family name to honor his parents, to keep their memory alive after their deaths and to remind him why he fights - or, you know, given literally any reason for him to go solely by his last name - and maybe even after the Nuckelavee was killed, he could asked to be called Lie sometimes, feeling like he’s finally put his parents’ memory to peaceful rest and is ready to be more than just “Ren” again, to be Lie once more. Buuuuut they didn’t do any of that, and I’m here just thinking “I see that the council has made a decision, but I’m electing to ignore it.”
tbh the amitola thing will always be as funny to me as it is aggravating (i.e they got ilia’s last name off a baby naming website and it doesn’t even mean “rainbow”) because they completely looked over an interesting story/character beat had they just done a bit of research to know the name amitola actually means something closer to “like a blue sky.” you know who else is a faunus in the White Fang, who was traumatized by the SDC, and is in the same volume as her, who had a backstory with references TO a blue sky?
I’ve harped on this point before but like. yeah no I’m gonna keep doing that because IT WAS RIGHT THERE
The fact that, according to my limited knowledge, traditionally, temari (the toys) were often given to children from their parents on New Year's Day inside it the mother would have placed a small piece of paper with a goodwill wish for the child, a wish that’ll never be reveal to the child is just SO fitting for Temari as a character. The name just reveals a lot of her conception and subtleties in ways that I never stopped to think about.
Don’t know if it was intended or not but, damn. I am both angry at and amazed by Kishimoto at the same time. Details like these showed how much potential Temari had and that, if a little bit more developed, she could could have been even a better character than she already is.
Catra’s hair throughout She Ra and how it was not given the treatment it deserved: an essay
This is a more in depth analysis of Catra’s hair throughout She Ra, inspired by this post here and the replies on it. I highly recommend reading the replies, as they have excellent information about the horrible effects of imposed hair cutting on different cultures.
I do think that Prime cutting Catra’s hair could’ve been a really powerful statement on trauma and removed anatomy if they had properly explored it more. Hair is such a powerful way to convey the personality or emotions of another person, and should absolutely be utilized in this kind of storytelling, but you have to utilize it correctly.
For example, I think Catra removing her ear tufts because that’s how Shadow Weaver manipulates her is a really good way to show her emotional state; Catra starts losing pieces of herself and sometimes even removing said pieces of herself to try and protect herself.
However, She Ra has a problem in how they do this: They don’t show or really mention it in the show, at all.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but do they actually mention Catra cutting her hair tufts at all? They certainly don’t show it. Hell, I don’t remember any other characters really mentioning it.
Can you imagine how powerful it would’ve been to see Catra, so sick of abuse and manipulation, cut off her ear tufts at the sink or on top of her perch in the Fright Zone? Watch the hair sit on the floor or float away in the wind, Catra steel her face and smooth down her hair. We could’ve watched her leave those vulnerabilities in the bathroom, or climb down from her perch with a new steel in her gaze. There didn’t have to be dialogue about Shadow Weaver or anything, just Catra and her hair. It could’ve added more to her character.
Or they could’ve had Adora notice. You know, Catra’s best friend through childhood/enemy who would most definitely notice a change like that? They could’ve had Adora in some way mention them being gone, and you just see this brief change in Catra’s expression, or a slip up, or something that gives away what getting rid of the tufts meant to her.
These could’ve been so powerful. But instead it isn’t even addressed, only really explained outside of the show.
I do think that in Season 4, they do a good job of showing Catra trying to control her hair. She smooths it down whenever she gets frustrated or upset, or is in some way trying to control herself. It’s a developed anxious motion, something people with anxiety often have. I personally used to fiddle with my hair often, a nervous tick I developed as a child. I think it helps highlight how much she desperately craves control of herself, and her hair seems to be the only way she really can try.
Then Season 5 hits. And I honestly hate the fact that they don’t address Catra’s short hair. Prime cutting Catra’s hair is huge, because it removes the one thing throughout the show that she undoubtedly controlled. Beforehand, Catra cutting her hair was a sign of her trying to shed her past abuse. But with Prime, him cutting her hair is abuse. Him cutting her hair shows that she is without any anatomy while on Prime’s Ship. But again, the problem here is that they don’t address it on the show, and it’s really frustrating because there is so much they could’ve done with this. It could’ve set Catra’s redemption story apart because OP is correct, she did not get the choice.
Again, imagine a scene with Catra where she wakes up on the BFS’s ship. She starts panicking, but reaches up to smooth down her hair like she did literally ALL OF SEASON 4, but it stops once she gets to her neck. Imagine her scrambling for a mirror/reflective surface to see what she looks like, and the broken face when she realizes that the one thing she used to control is gone. Maybe have the faint whisper of Horde Prime in the background, or the ghost of scissors clipping together. A haunting wisp of memory.
Imagine after that, maybe Adora or Bow mention her hair, and Catra freaks out. Glimmer goes and finds Catra later messing with her hair, freaking out because she’s never had hair like this before and it wasn’t her choice and she never gets to choose–
But Glimmer is there, and Glimmer’s had short hair for years. And Glimmer tells Catra that she’ll help her style it the way she wants, because she understands what it’s like to lose control to Horde Prime. They then show Catra deciding to cut it shorter with Glimmer’s help. Not only does it show her trying to have some agency over herself in this dire situation, but it shows her and Glimmer once again connecting over shared trauma and experiences. And maybe even after they fix up her hair, Catra is still allowed to mourn; she still reaches for the hair that isn’t there, or she starts looking for different ways to style it with Glimmer’s help. Maybe a few comments about her being excited to grow it out again.
Something like that could’ve been so good! I think that, acknowledging Catra’s emotions and actions when she changes herself, would’ve made her redemption so much better. Because here’s the main issue with Catra cutting her hair: in the show, it doesn’t add anything to her redemption.
For example, when Korra cuts her hair in Legend of Korra, that is her choice. She is the one making the change. It shows that she is the one working on herself, recovering from her trauma. Obviously Korra isn’t really going through a redemption arc like Catra, but they are still both going through significant changes after traumatic events.
However, in Catra’s case, what would’ve changed if Prime had left her hair the same? Nothing. Nobody mentioned it in the first place, it didn’t seem to affect Catra at all. He could’ve put her hair in a ponytail and still achieved the same end.
That’s what, at least to me, is really frustrating about Catra’s hair change in season 5 from a storyteller’s standpoint; in the show and to the characters, it doesn’t really add anything to her redemption. Whereas with the changes I stated above, it could’ve been a point of her trying to reclaim her anatomy, connecting with those around her, and a whole other load of things better writers than I could come up with. And this would’ve only been strengthened by better highlighting the changes she made to her hair in earlier seasons!
And finally, in the original post I linked up top, the replies talked a lot about how hair is so important to other cultures, and Prime cutting Catra’s hair without consent to make her fit in with his clones is incredibly similar to how white colonizers cut native people’s hair to force them to assimilate into white culture. She Ra could’ve been a commentary on how absolutely horrible and harmful this sort of practice is by showing how negatively it affects Catra. But it didn’t do any of that. It could’ve given Catra a new avenue of agency, but it didn’t. She Ra could’ve done so much more for this part of her redemption arc, and they could’ve started a discussion on the terrors of assimilation in colonization, but they didn’t.
Like I said up top, I highly recommend reading those replies on the original post to learn more and educate yourself about this topic. Thank you to anyone who read this, and I’m sorry it’s such a chunk of text. Once I saw the original post, I just couldn’t think about anything else til I wrote this beast of a text post.
and another thing
the whole long hair is only for really skilled ninjas. sure, alright (lets ignore how much of their outfits are impractical also), so sakura cuts her hair, and then ino cuts her hair, but then the time skip happens and inos hair is just long again??? bitch?? you couldve had her completely change her hairstyle, at least braid it up or something but no, had to keep her weird emo fringe and ass length hair.
made the entire thing pointless, which, yknow, pointlessness is kishis most consistent plot device so i guess that checks out. ino i dont blame you i love you this isnt your fault
Like mother, like daughter. I will always love their parallels
Cinder shouldn't use a bow. Her whole thing is glass/obsidian, which for those of you who've never had a window break, is famously inflexible. Everything to do with bows depends on flexibility — the arms have to bend to store energy, the string has to bend to draw back, even the arrow bends around the bowstaff when it's loosed and wobbles in flight.
Instead, Cinder should use throwing knives. It makes way more sense and fits her aesthetic better.
Thinking about Team 7, and how Kakashi succinctly summed up all their flaws as ninjas on day one of their genin training, I think of how much potential was really lost with the chosen ending for Naruto.
The team was an utter disaster on its face; Naruto was a prankster who lacked focus, Sakura was more concerned with staying in the teacher’s good graces than with team unity, and Sasuke was entirely wrapped up in his own pursuits.
But that imperfection opened the door for them to grow and develop, as, indeed, they began to when Sasuke chose to feed Naruto instead of adhering to a nonsensical rule for the sake of remaining a genin.
By virtue of their imperfections, they were the *perfect* team to take on Konoha’s rigid and decaying structure. Not only that, each member was an outsider. Sasuke was the only surviving member of a poorly understood and reviled clan. Sakura was from a non-shinobi family. Naruto was an outcast as both an unruly, untamed orphan and as a jinchuuriki.
The stage was set, then, not only for their personal development, their team development, but the development of shinobi society. After all, who is better qualified to confront an outdated social order than those who have been created by its chaos, those on its margins?
The fact that they do not is one of many, *many* reasons Naruto flops as a story right at the finish line.
Keep reading
on the topic of naruto girls some of you hide in the fact kishimoto did them dirty to dismiss actual canon development they had because it's easier for you to push your personal vendetta against these fictional women usually because of 1. a ship or 2. internalized misogyny
of course they weren't written like they deserved to and shippuden was hell for all the women but there's actual depth and development that a lot of them go through - they just don't get a proper closure or it turns shallow towards the end but like. sakura being insecure and using her intelligence and hard work to rise up and ending up being the STRONGEST kunoichi of her generation???? running a hospital, establishing mental health care for children, doing things by herself when she has been living in her teammates shadows in her youth?? that IS development, either you like it or not. i don't wanna hear any "what is there to like about sakura" like she's an empty character. you can dislike her for her personality but it's really weird if you act like she was just standing there when she was constantly crucial to the story.
same with how hinata has been abused all her life and it's literally the first relevant thing we learn about her, how the way she acts is VERY obviously a symptom of having her own father and family hating and pressuring her since she learned how to walk. even her infatuation with naruto is a product of having no one else to turn to; she admires the kid who stands up despite all odds and the first one to fully believe her capacity. and then when in the war she was leading the shinobi forces by herself when naruto was exhausted despite her years of social anxiety and trying to hide???? when she made a speech in front of absolutely everyone while experiencing grief??? that IS character development
i'm not here saying it's impossible to dislike them or that kishimoto did a great job, but some of you ride his misogyny too hard and don't even notice.
it's easy for anyone to make up for canon when it's lacking when we're talking about male characters or mlm ships - i see it all the time. background male characters being worshipped for having a pretty design only. with how naruto was written everyone is constantly choosing what to take as canon and what not, so they can have their arguments to defend their favorites and excuse bad writing but when it's the women? suddenly everything they ever did wrong makes them the devil
On an entirely different subject i hate bitches that direct critique at girls in shonen anime for being useless instead of directing that critique at the writers for creating girl characters and failing to do anything meaningful with them
Me: *checks my watch* Oh, whaddya know, it’s appreciate Katara o’ clock.
(every hour is appreciate Katara o’ clock but right now i was feeling extremely appreciative of her)
Glimmer doesn't deserve all the hate she gets. She's such a great character with such a fun personality, it sucks how they did her in Season 5, and it sucks how the fandom just likes to bash on her but then worship Catra.
One of my favorite Catra scenes is this quick moment in Shot in the Dark in which Melog appears threateningly behind the group, and Catra's immediate reaction is to push Glimmer and Bow out of the way and jump at Melog.
I wish we've seen more of this Catra. Rather than showing her being rude to everyone around her - including people she severely hurted - I wish we could have seen more of her actively caring about and protecting the people that surrounds her, close allies or randoms civilians ; it would have shown a real development of her chaotic personality and would have made it easier to accept her redemption.
Hi! I wish we could have seen more of this Catra as well.
I'd like to point out that my personal understanding of Melog as a "character" (bear with me here) is that she is a reflection of whatever is going through Catra's head... So, this "character" is essentially... Catra. Almost... talking to herself? Naturally, I could be missing the mark with Melog (who has never stood out to me in my first watch of the show, nor any of other time). I'm sure there's something to analyze there with, at least, this interpretation of Melog... What does it say about Catra...? Is she protecting the group... from herself?
Either way... What did stand to me about Melog was that she's introduced entirely too late have any lasting impact on Catra (and the narrative). Which is also to say that this moment of Catra being, uh, protective of her, um, friends? Also comes... entirely too late to have made any lasting impact.
But, yes, I wish we would have more of this. Earlier. Much earlier.