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feanorianethicsdepartment · 3 years

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Alright, I read your recent post and need to know - what is your interpretation of Maglor’s relationship with the twins?

askjdhslkjag my biggest self-inflicted problem in this fandom is that my take on maglor, elrond, and elros' relationship is so intensely detailed and specific i am forever tormented by none of the fic i read ever quite getting it right (from my perspective; i’ve read plenty of fic that presents a good interpretation on their own terms, it’s just never mine.) it’s simultaneously way darker than the fluffy kidnap dads stuff and nowhere near as black-and-white awful as the anti-fëanorian crowd likes to paint it, it’s messy and complicated and surrounded by darkness, and yet there’s also a sincere connection within it which mostly serves to make all those complications worse. angry teenage elrond is angry for a great many reasons, and the circumstances around him being raised by kinslayers account for at least half of them. there’s lots of complexity here, and i don’t see it in fic nearly as often as i’d like

(warning: the post... feathers? i already have an internet friend called faeiri this could be awkward - anyway, the post she’s talking about includes the line ‘everyone is wrong about kidnap dads except me.’ this post follows on from that in being as much a commentary about why various popular interpretations of both how the kidnapdoption went and the way people subsequently characterise the twins just don’t work for me as it is a setting out of my own ideas. i’m not really interested in getting into discourse here, i’m just trying to get my thoughts down. i’ve read fic with these interpretations before that i’ve liked, even, don’t take this as a Condemnation, aight? also this turned out long as hell, so i’m putting it under a cut)

i can never buy entirely fluffy depictions of kidnap dads

which isn’t to say i don’t read them! sometimes all i want is something sweet, for these kids to get to be happy for once. it’s not like i think their time with the fëanorians was completely devoid of laughter

it’s just. the pet names, the special days out, the home-cooked meals, it can get so treacly it stops feeling like the characters they are in the situation they’re in and turns into Generic Found Family #272

it soaks out all the complexity - which is the thing i am here for - and acts like oh, these kids were never in any danger, they were perfectly happy being abducted by the people who murdered everyone they knew, there’s nothing possibly questionable about this relationship at all

and... yeah. that’s not the characters i know. that’s not the context i know they belong to

i just can’t forget the circumstances that led them to meet

rivers of blood, the air filled with screams, a town ablaze, a woman choosing to die. every interaction the three of them have is going to proceed from that nightmare

(sidenote: i tend to hold it was maglor that raised the twins, with maedhros looming ominously in the background not really getting involved. it’s mostly personal preference, i’ve been in and out of the fandom since before this kidnap dads thing blew up and when i joined that was a perfectly standard reading)

(also the cave thing was a dumb idea, old man, if only because it implies beleriand had streams safe enough for children to play in at that point. the way it separates the twins from the third kinslaying is also something i don’t particularly vibe with)

probably my least favourite angle i’ve seen on the situation (edged out only by ‘maglor was actively abusive towards the twins’ which no no no no no no no no NO) is the idea that maglor (and/or maedhros, append as necessary) took the twins specifically to raise them

like, i get where it’s coming from, but it makes maglor come off as really creepy

(i have read fics where it is indeed played off as really creepy, but that’s not a maglor i have any interest in reading about)

(’mags 100% bad’ is just as facile a take to me as ‘mags 100% good’)

even if you’re saying maglor took them in because they had no one left to take care of them - i highly doubt they were the only children the fëanorians orphaned at sirion. idk, it always makes maglor seem much less sympathetic than i think it’s meant to

i prefer to think of it as more... organic? something that evolved, not something that was preordained. them growing closer gradually, the twins finding an adult who might maybe be on their side, maglor becoming invested in them almost by accident

and then the twins are so comfortable with the second scariest monster in amon ereb they frequently sass him off and maglor’s gotten so used to not hurting them he’s not even thinking about it any more. no one’s quite sure how it happened, but they’ve made a Connection

‘wait aren’t they a murderous warlord of questionable mental stability and a pair of terrified small children who’ve lost everyone they ever knew? isn’t that kinda fucked up?’ yup! that’s the point! complexity!

another idea i don’t like is the idea that maglor was an objectively better parent to the twins than eärendil or elwing

other people have talked about this already, i won’t rehash the whole thing. i will say that while i don’t think elwing was a perfect parent - someone so young, in such a horrible situation, i wouldn’t blame her for screwing up - i do think she (and eärendil) did the best by them they possibly could

this is one of the few things they have in common with maglor

something i come across now and again is the idea that sure, elwing and eärendil weren’t abusive or horrible or anything, but they were a couple of basically-teenagers with so many other responsibilities, there was only so much they could do. maglor, on the other hand, is an experienced adult who could take much better care of the twins

and...

first off, it’s not like mags doesn’t have a job. he’s a warlord, he has a fortress to help run, military shit to handle, lots of other stuff that needs to get done to stop everyone from starving or getting eaten by orcs. i feel like sirion had enough of a government there was plenty of opportunity for elwing to take days off and play with her kids, but in the fëanorian camp nobody really has the time to chase after a couple of toddlers, least of all one of the last points on the command network. they just don’t have the people any more

(seriously, the twins getting a formal education with tutors and classes and shit is a weirdly specific pet peeve of mine. this is a band of renegades, not a royal household; if there’s anyone left with those kinds of skills they almost certainly have more important things to do)

more than that, though - well, a quick glance through my late stage fëanorians tag should tell you a lot about what i think maglor’s mental state is like at this point. he is so accustomed to violence death means nothing to him, he’s lost most of his capacity for genuinely positive emotion to an endless century of defeat and despair, he hates everything in the universe, especially himself, he’s only able to keep functioning through a truly astounding amount of denial, and he covers it all up with a layer of snark and feigned apathy, which he defends aggressively because he’s subconsciously realised that if it breaks he’ll have absolutely nothing left

(maedhros, for the record, is... i’d say more stable, but at a lower point. maglor may interact with the world mostly through cold stares and mocking laughter, but at least his mind is firmly rooted in the present)

(on the other hand, at least maedhros lets himself be aware of what they are and where their road will lead)

which... this doesn’t mean maglor doesn’t try to be kind to the twins, or rein in his worst impulses around them

there’s just so little of him left but the weapon

he stalks through the halls like a portent of death and gets into hours-long screaming matches with maedhros and has definitely killed people in front of the twins

not even as, like, a deliberate attempt to scare them, but because when you solve most of your problems by stabbing them it’s pretty much a given that people who spend a lot of time around you are going to see you do it at least once

and sometimes, he curls up in an empty hallway, and weeps

... suffice it to say i don’t think elwing’s the more preoccupied, or the less mentally ill, parent here

just. in general, the fëanorians aren’t cackling boogeymen, but they’re not particularly nice either

no one has the energy left for that. not these isolated and weary soldiers at the end of a long losing war and the beginning of the end of the world. they don’t really bother to guard the kids against them escaping. where else are they going to go?

the sheer despair that must have been in the fëanorian camp after sirion, the knowledge that the cause cannot be fulfilled, that they are utterly forsaken, that they’re really just waiting to die -

it can’t have been a happy place to grow up in, under the shadow of loss and grief and deeds unrepentable, and the slow march of inevitable defeat

they would have had a better childhood if they stayed in sirion, raised by people who knew how to hope

but that isn’t the childhood they had. and despite everything i’ve said, i don’t think that childhood was an entirely awful one

yeah, see, this is where the other side of my self-inflicted fandom catch-22 comes in. just as much of the pro-kidnap dads stuff comes off as overly saccharine and simplified to me, i find much of the anti-kidnap dads stuff equally simplistic in the opposite direction

the idea that maglor and the fëanorians never meant anything to elros and elrond, that they had no effect on the people they became at all, that it was just a horrible thing that happened when they were children, easily thrown in the rear-view mirror...

that’s even more impossible to me than the idea that life with the fëanorians was 100% fluffy and nice

like, i’ve seen the take that elros and elrond hated the fëanorians from start to finish. they were perfect little sindarin princes, loyal to their people and the memory of doriath, spurning every scrap of kindness offered to them and knowing just what to say to twist the knife into the kinslayers’ wounds

... dude. they were six. hell, given their peredhelness, mentally they could easily have been younger

what six year old has a firm grasp of their ethnic identity? what six year old is fully aware of their place in history? what six year old would understand the politics that led to their situation?

don’t get me wrong, i can see hatred in there. but something else that doesn’t get acknowledged alongside it often enough is the fear

some of the stuff i’ve read feels like it gives the kids too much power in the situation. they’re perfectly happy to talk back to and belittle the people who burned down their hometown and killed everyone they ever knew, like miniature adults who don’t feel threatened at all

and, like, six. i can see them going for insults as a defensive measure, but it is defensive. it’s covering up fear, not coming from secure disdain

(and a lot of those insults sound, again, like things an adult who’s already familiar with the fëanorians would say, not a scared child who’s lost almost everything. why would a six year old raised by sindar and gondolindrim know what the noldolantë is, let alone what it means to maglor?)

(... i’m just ranting about this one fic that’s been ruffling my feathers for five years straight now, aren’t i)

i mean, i write elrond as the world’s angriest teenager, who snipes at maglor pretty much constantly, but the thing about angry teenage elrond is that he’s angry teenage elrond

he’s spent long enough with the fëanorians he has a pretty secure position within the camp, and he knows that maglor won’t hurt him from a decade and change of maglor not, in fact, hurting him

but as a small and terrified child abducted by the monsters his mother had nightmares about? he fluctuated wildly between ‘randomly guessing at things to say that wouldn’t get him killed’ ‘screaming at maglor to go away in words rarely more complicated than that’ 'desperately trying not to do or say anything in the hopes of not being noticed’ and ‘hiding’

(and i don’t think the twins were never in any danger from the fëanorians, either. quite besides the point that before they started orbiting maglor nobody was really sure what to do with them... well, they wouldn’t be the first children of thingol’s line the minions took revenge on)

(fortunately for them, maglor did, in fact, take them under his wing. by this point even their own followers are shit scared of the last two sons of fëanor, nobody’s going to mess with their stuff and risk getting mauled. tactically, it was a pretty good decision for a couple of toddlers)

more to the point, i feel like a child that young, in a situation that horrible, wouldn’t reject any kindness they were offered, any soothing touch in a universe of terror

in a world full of big scary monsters, the best way to survive is to get the biggest scariest monster possible to protect you. that’s how elros rationalises it when they’re, like, eight, mentally, but at the time they were just latching on to the only person around them who seemed to care about them

that’s how it started, on their end. two very young very scared children lost in a neverending nightmare clinging tightly to the lone outstretched pair of hands

as for maglor...

i’ve called mags evil before, but i see that as more of a... technical term? he is evil because he did the murder, he remains evil because he won’t stop doing the murder. hot take: murder bad

but that doesn’t make him, like, a moustache-twirling saturday morning cartoon villain. he is deeply unhappy with the position he’s in and the person he’s become, and he’s always trying not to take that final step over the edge

it’s not that i can’t see a maglor who is abusive or manipulative or who sees the twins more as objects than people. it’s just that that characterisation is one i am profoundly uninterested in. i do occasionally read fic with it, but it never enters my own headcanons

horrible people can do good things!! kinslayers can do good things!! the fallen are capable of humanity!! people can do both good and evil things at the same time, because people are complicated!! maglor is not psychologically incapable of actually taking pity on these kids!!!!

it’s... again, complexity. the fëanorians straddle the line between black and white, which is a lot less sharp in the legendarium than it’s sometimes characterised as. it’s what draws me to their characters so much, why i have so many stupid headcanons about them. pretending they fall firmly on either side of the line is my real fandom pet peeve

and, like, this moment? this sincere connection between a bloodstained warlord and two children who will grow up to be great and kind in equal measure? i may not entirely like the direction the fandom’s taken it recently, but that beat, that relationship, it still gets me

so no, i don’t think elrond and elros’ years with the fëanorians were an endless cavalcade of abuse and misery. i think there was love there, despite the darkness all around them

an old, tired monster, and the two tiny children it protects

maglor never hurts the twins, not ever, not once. his claws are sharp and his fangs are keen, if he so much as swatted them he’d rip them in half. instead he folds down the razor edges of his being, interacting with them ever so carefully. he has nightmares of suddenly tearing into their skin

seriously, the power differential between them is so great, maglor so much as raising his voice would break any trust they have in this horribly dangerous creature. fics where he does corporal punishment always get the side-eye from me

the mood of their relationship is... i find it hard to put into words. melancholy, maybe, like a sunny afternoon a few days before the end of the world. three people who’ve lost so much finding what respite they can in each other as the world slowly crumbles around them

there are times when it feels like the three of them exist in a world of their own, marked out by the edges of the firelight. maglor telling stories of the stars, elros giving relaxed irreverent commentary, elrond getting a few moments to just be, all their troubles kept at bay

they are the last two lights in a world sunk into darkness, the last two living beings he does not on some level hate. he will tear his own heart out before he sees them in pain

he teaches them to ride, he teaches them to read, he gives them everything he still has left. the twins should never have been in this situation, maglor probably isn’t entirely fit to take care of them, but it is what it is, and they take what love they can

(maglor depends on the twins emotionally a bit more than any adult should rely on any child. he’s still very much the caretaker in their relationship, but that relationship is the only one he has left that’s not stained by a century of rage and grief. he’s obsessed with them, maedhros tells him frequently. maglor’s standard response to this is to try to gouge maedhros’ eyes out)

(that particular darker side to their relationship, where maglor’s attachment to the twins turns into a desperate possessiveness - that’s not something i think i’ve ever seen in fic. which is a shame, it feels much closer to my own characterisation than the standard ways this relationship gets maleficised. darker, in a different way than usual. horribly compelling in its plausibility)

however you want to read it, i don’t think you can deny this is a relationship that defines elrond and elros’ childhood. they were raised in the woods by a pack of kinslayers, the text is quite clear on this

but i’ve seen a lot of talk about how elros and elrond are only sirion’s children. they are completely 100% sindarin, they love and forgive eärendil and elwing thoroughly and without question, they identify with doriath over - even gondolin, let alone tirion. the fëanorians - the people who raised them - had zero effect on the people they grew into and the selves they created

and that, more than anything else, i find utterly unbelievable

look, i get what this is a reaction to. a lot of the kidnap dads stuff paints the fëanorians as elrond and elros’ ‘real’ family, and i’ve already talked about what i think of the idea that maglor-and-possibly-also-maedhros were better parents than eärendil and elwing. i think it’s reductive and overly optimistic and just a little too neat

but to say instead that elrond and elros held no great love in their hearts for maglor, no lingering affinity with the fëanorians, no influence on their identity from the people they grew up around, none at all? that after it happened they just left it behind and resumed being the same people they were in sirion?

that strikes me as just as much an oversimplification. it sands down all the potential rough edges of their identity, all that inconvenient complexity that stops them from fitting into any well-defined box, and replaces it with a nice safe simple self-conception i find just as flat and boring as declaring them 100% fëanorian

we can quibble over who they call ‘father’ (i personally find that whole debate kinda petty) but denying that it was actually maglor who was the closest thing they knew to a parent for most of their childhoods, and that that would, in fact, affect the way they thought of themselves and their family, elides so many interesting possibilities out of existence

(i’m not even going to get into the most braindead take i have ever heard on the subject, namely that because their time with the fëanorians was such a small fraction of elrond’s total lifespan it was like being kidnapped for two weeks as a toddler and had no greater significance than that. do you not understand what childhood is????)

like, i tend to think of elrond as a child as being very loudly not-a-fëanorian. elros is more willing to go with the flow - hey, if the creepy kinslayer wants kids, elros is happy to play into that in order to not be murdered - but elrond is very firm that he’s not happy to be here and he doesn’t belong with them

(this is after they get over their initial terror, of course, when they’ve realised they won’t be fed to the orcs for the tiniest slight. even so, elrond only really gets shirty about it around people he’s comfortable with, whose reactions he can reasonably guess at. naturally, the first person he does it to is maglor)

elros calls maglor their father exactly once, when they’re... maybe early preteens? this is because elrond hears him do it and immediately loses his shit. they have a dad, elrond says, in tears, and a mum, and any day now their real parents are going to come to pick them up and take them home

... right?

it gets harder to believe as the years roll on, as their memories of sirion fade, as they find their own places within the host, as maglor watches over them as they grow. elrond still mentally sets himself apart from the fëanorians, but it’s more of an effort every year. life in the fëanorian camp is the only one he’s ever really known. he can barely remember his mother’s voice

then the war of wrath starts, and the fëanorian host drifts closer to the army of valinor, and the twins come into contact with non-fëanorians for the first time in forever, and it becomes clear just how obviously fëanorian elrond is. he always insisted he wasn’t like the kinslayers at all, but he dresses like them, talks like them, fights like them

the myth cycles the edain tell are almost completely unfamiliar to him, he barely remembers the shape of the songs of lost doriath. even these sarcastic commentary and subversive reinterpretations he made of maglor’s stories - those were still maglor’s stories! he’s been trying to guess at the person he was meant to be, but it’s growing nightmarishly blatant how little elrond ever knew about him

instead, the people he was born to are as alien to him as the orcs of morgoth. he is a fëanorian, through and through

... yeah, elrond (and/or elros) having an absolutely massive identity crisis upon being reintroduced to his quote-unquote ‘true kin’ is another angle i’d love to see in fic that i don’t think i’ve ever come across. all those potential grey areas around who they are and who they’re supposed to be sound utterly fascinating, and i think it’s the complexity i hate to see elided over the most

i really, really doubt they could effortlessly slot back into being eärendil and elwing’s children. not when they’ve been surrounded by, lived alongside, been raised by the people who were supposed to enemies for most of their lives

they just don’t fit into that box any more. they can’t

speaking of eärendil and elwing, while i do agree that they both (especially elwing) get a lot more flak than they deserve, i don’t agree that therefore elrond and elros were never the slightest bit mad at them and fully forgave them for everything with no reservations

because, well, they were left behind. elwing had no other choice, but they were still left behind; it led to the world being saved, but they were still left behind. all the best intentions in the universe don’t erase the weeks and months and years of waiting, of a hope that grew thinner and frailer until it finally quietly broke

that’s a real hurt, and a real grievance. even if the twins rationally understand that their parents were making the best out of their terrible situation, you can’t logic away emotions like that. it’s perfectly possible for them to know they have no reason to resent eärendil or elwing, and yet still harbour that bitterness and pain

(i did write a thing once where elrond loudly rejects eärendil as his father in favour of maglor, but something i didn’t add in that i probably should have is that elrond later regretted doing that)

(not like, several centuries later, when he’d grown old and wise. two hours later, when he’d calmed down. but he was still legitimately angry at eärendil, because the one thing angry teenage elrond was not lacking in was reasons to be mad at the adults around him, and before he could figure out if he had anything less furious to say the hosts of the valar left middle-earth behind)

(it’s another element to the tragedy of the whole thing. in that particular story, which is mostly aiming for maximum pain, the only thing elrond’s birth parents know about their son for thousands of years is that he hates them)

(and he doesn’t, not really. you can’t hate someone you’ve never known)

not that i think they couldn’t ever make up with their parents! fics where elrond and his birth parents work past all the things that lie between them and form a functional familial bond despite it all give me life. i just don’t like the idea that there’s nothing difficult for them to work past

i don’t like the idea that elrond and elros would naturally, effortlessly identify with the mother they last saw when they were six and the people they only vaguely remember. i can see them doing it as a political move, i can see them going for it as a deliberate personal choice, but i can’t seeing it being immediate and automatic and easy

no matter how great a pair of heroes eärendil and elwing are, that doesn’t change the fact that to elrond and elros, they’re at most a few scattered memories and a collection of far-off stories. and so long as the twins stay in middle-earth, they’re never going to draw any closer

compared to the dynamic, multifaceted, personal, and deep bonds they have with the fëanorians - who, and i know i keep saying this but i think it gets tossed aside way more casually than it should, are the people who actually raised them, their birth parents must feel like a distant idea

and that’s why i can never buy interpretations of elrond as 100% sindarin, a pure son of doriath, with no messy grey areas or awkward jagged edges to his identity. given everything we know about his life, it seems almost cartoonishly simplistic

honestly it seems like a narrative a bunch of old doriathrin nobles trying to manouevre elrond into being high king of the sindar or something would propagate. it's neat and nice and tidy, something that’d be much more convenient for everyone if elrond did feel that way

but i just don’t see how he can. this narrative is easy and simple in a way real people never are, it ignores all the forces pulling him apart. elrond being uncomplicatedly sindarin with the life he lives and the people he's close to - that doesn’t make any sense to me

which isn’t to say i think he’s 100% noldorin, from either a gondolindrim or a fëanorian perspective. (i find it a little more believable, given, again, who he grew up around and who he hangs out with, but it’s still a bit too reductive for my tastes.) it’s also not to say i couldn’t believe an elrond who made an active choice to emphasise his sindarin heritage

it’s not how i think of him, but it works. i don’t have a problem with other people interpreting the complexities of the twins’ identities differently

i just have a problem with people acting like it doesn’t exist

in general i think there’s a lot untapped potential that gets left behind when you declare the twins, separately or together, as All One Thing

they’re descended from half the noble houses of beleriand, and they have deep personal ties to most of the rest. they belong to all of the free peoples even the dwarves, somehow, probably and i feel like that was kind of the old man’s point? so many peoples meet in them, to say they wholly belong to any one species is probably an oversimplification

they sit at a crossroads of potential identities, and rather than narrowing down their worldviews to one single path, they take the hard road and choose all of them. that’s what you need to do, if you want to change the world

and, to bring this back to my ostensible topic, in my estimation at least this mélange of possible selves does include them as fëanorians! it’s not overpowering, but it’s certainly there, and the adults they grow into long after they’ve left the host still bear influence from their childhood

nothing super obvious, nothing that wouldn’t stand out if you didn’t know what to look for, but there’s something almost incandescent in how fiercely elros reaches out for his dreams

there’s something almost defiant in elrond’s drive to be as kind as summer

as for who they publically claim as their family... honestly, it depends. while it’s usually more tactically prudent for elros to connect himself to his various human ancestors, on occasion he does find a use for his free in with the elf mafia, and elrond, code switcher par excellence, is famously the son of whoever is most politically convenient at the moment, which is rarely, but not never, maglor

(in the privacy of their own minds, well, eärendil and elwing may have been the parents elros was supposed to have, but maglor was the parent he actually had, and elros doesn’t particularly care to mope over what might have been. elrond, for his part, figures that after all the shit maglor has put him through, the least that bastard owes him is a father)

but honestly? i think before any of their mountain of identities, before thinking of themselves as sindarin or gondolindel or hadorian or haladin or fëanorian or anything, elrond and elros identify as themselves

they are peredhil, they are númenóreans, they are whoever they make themselves to be. that’s how elrond finally resolved his identity, figured out who he was and found something past the pain and the rage

he wasn’t doriathrin, or gondolindrin, or falathrin, or fëanorian, or whatever else. he was elrond, no more and no less

and that person, elrond, could be whatever he chose to be

... elros came to a similar conclusion, with much less sturm und drang that he’s willing to admit. being able to go ‘hey, i can’t possibly be biased towards any one of your cultures, because i’m descended from all of you and i was raised by murderelves’ makes it a lot easier to unite people around your personal banner, turns out

the stories other people tried to force on them shattered into pieces, and the peredhel twins were free to shape themselves into anything they could dream of

and as the new world struggles alive, these lost children of an Age of death begin to bloom into their full glorious selves -

i just. i love the poetry of that. despite every single shadow that hangs over their past, despite all the clashing notes pulling them apart, they harmonise it all into a greater, kinder theme, determined to make their world a better place in whatever way they can

they fail, of course, but so do all things. the inevitable march of entropy doesn’t diminish the long millennia they (and their descendants) held onto the light

and their growing up in the fëanorian host definitely had a huge effect on the noble lords they became. you can see it in elros’ loud ambition to create a land of happiness and hope, elrond’s quiet resolve to heal all the hurts inflicted by this marred reality

it wasn’t a perfect time by any means, but neither was it a nightmare. it was what it was, a desperate existence at the edge of a knife where, nevertheless, they were loved

even after years upon decades upon centuries have passed, it’s hard for the wise king and the honourable sage to separate out and identify all the conflicting emotions swirling around their childhood. they never knew eärendil or elwing, true, but they also never really knew maglor

not as equals, not as adults, not as people who could truly understand him. he disappeared into the fog of history, leaving only childhood memories of razor-sharp, gentle hands

it’s messy and it’s complicated and getting any real closure would be like shoving their way through a thornbush with bare hands even if elrond could find the shithead, and yet at the core of it all, there is light. not the brightest of lights, maybe, but an enduring one

that contrast, above all, that note of warmth amidst the shadows, is what fascinates me so much about their relationship. three screwed up people in a screwed up world, finding a little peace with each other

and the fact that somehow, it does have a good ending - the children grow up magnificent and compassionate and just, they become exemplars of all their peoples, lodestars of the new world born out of the ashes of the old - that makes it seem to me like this relationship must have contained some fragment of happiness

but, fuck, all the darkness that surrounds that love, all the tangled-up emotions its existence necessitates, all the prefabricated self-identities it can never slot into - nothing about it is simple, nothing about it is easy, and i find that utterly enthralling. especially how, despite everything, that flickering light never goes out

well, i don’t think it does, anyway. my take on this relationship is both complicated enough no one else ever quite gets it right and well-defined enough every single ‘error’ in other people’s interpretations sticks out like a kinslayer in rivendell

it is an entirely self-inflicted problem, i will admit. other people are allowed to interpret those complexities differently from me, and it’s entirely my own fault i lack the :waves hands around nebulously: to write my own hypothetical fic on the subject at a pace faster than glacial

still, though. i do wish there was more fic out there that engaged with these complexities. a lot of the common fandom interpretations of this relationship just sweep it all away

#ask #my terrible headcanons #elros #elrond #maglor #elwing #earendil #feanorians #niphredilien #yellow feathered faerie #putting your old url in the tags for archival purposes #post nyanyannya askbox clearout #ironically it turned out almost as long as the songfic that clogged up my askbox in the first place #and it is DONE #fuck this took forever to write #stayed up late just to get it out the door so i don't have to think about it any more #this is a long ramble and i'm pretty sure the end is just me repeating myself ad nausem sorry #i'll admit to a certain pro-feanorian bias in my interpretation #but i also don't want elros and elrond to just. live in a neverending horrorshow for decades #the silm's cruel enough we don't need that #narratively i feel like elrond being All Of The Elves is a good mirror for elros being All Of The Humans #but it didn't really fit the angle i was going for #bleck #let's see how many followers i lose for this

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hamliet · 3 years

Text

Not Agaaain! - Or, Hawks Will Have To Choose Twice Over

Large parts of this meta are taken from a conversation with the always-wise @aspoonofsugar, who is herself not a huge BNHA fan, but keeps up with it mostly so that I can blather to her constantly.

I think I’ve already been quite clear that I think it an odd narrative choice to teaming up with the hero commission to save Dabi. While the text has strongly indicated Touya will be saved eventually, I don’t quite see how the top three heroic symbols can play a role.

Shouto himself to Enji that he cannot earn his family back through being a hero, but instead by being a father:

Like, does anybody think Enji should be able to have it all--the esteem of heroes and the commission and his family? When the entire narrative has set it up as either/or, as a choice Enji will have to make since he made it previously and chose... poorly?

Even in this chapter, Best Jeanist is focused on what to say to the public, not on, you know, the actual revelations. It’s a focus on leaving the past in the past, because “things are different now.”

Except that attitude is precisely what Dabi was calling out:

And it isn’t only stated by Dabi, but by Natsuo:

And also by Deku himself:

Which isn’t to say that isn’t where Dabi’s arc will probably go eventually (moving on) but is to say the wounds from Dabi’s past are still very much festering, and literally so.

You gotta treat these wounds, not leave them to heal on their own, because some wounds are too deep to heal on their own. Touya most likely fell into the wrong hands after burning in the forest (Ujiko seeming a likely suspect) that might have fixed him up in the present, but did nothing to address the actual circumstances that led to him self-immolating in the woods. He needs to learn emotional regulation and have his pain acknowledged, not ignored (the symbolism is again very literal):

So how do we do this? Because the heroes right now seem to be sweeping things under the rug again which worked so well the first time. And maybe this is supposed to happen and we have to suspend disbelief because BNHA is kinda like that sometimes. But I’m not so sure, and frankly I hope not because it’s... not awesome writing, and I’d like BNHA to be well done.

So how does this connect to Twice and Hawks? Well, Hawks is clearly thinking about Twice in these panels:

However, Hawks still isn’t realizing his own role in what happened; it’s simplistic and self-centered, which has kinda been Hawks’ thing since his introduction.

Hawks directly states that he’s projecting onto the Todorokis this chapter:

Now, projection isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and I don’t doubt he sincerely wants to help his mentor. I do doubt his rationale. To quote Sugar-chan,

instead of fixing his own issues, he is trying to fix his childhood idol. I think the revelations about Endeavor have actually shaken Hawks, but he is not acknowledging them.

He’s not getting to the route of his own problems: the hero commission exploiting him and his own choice to kill Twice.

Let’s examine why Hawks seems to have latched onto Twice so hard. They have quite a bit in common: they grew up traumatized and impoverished, but one had their quirk lead others to save them and one did not. Twice was also mentally unstable and believed he was the cause of the League’s problems (self-centered in a sense, but not in a negative connoted way); it sounds not only similar to Hawks, but to Tomie. I mean, he legit makes Twice the exact same offer the hero commission gave him and Tomie.

Hawks killing what represents the part of himself that wasn’t saved does not typically indicate good things in terms of character development. Unlike when Enji killed High End, Twice is not Hawks’ negative qualities, but is instead also his good qualities. Hawks even says he wants to be like Twice:

Hawks’ having killed Twice might very well impede his goal to help the Todorokis. Dabi and the League don’t have any reason to trust Hawks and have some very good reasons not to; double-agent role aside, Hawks offered a chance to Twice and then when Twice didn’t take it (because Hawks wasn’t actually listening to what Twice wanted: to save his friends), Hawks stabbed him in the back, quite literally.

Dabi was even there for that; why would he trust Hawks is genuine? Why would he trust his family if they’re working with Hawks?

There’s little indication that Hawks sees seeking to save Touya as anything different than his quest to save Twice, and writing-wise, he kind of shouldn’t. Hawks has had absolutely no consequences to deter him from following the same route. Unless the past only dies for Hawks or he’s gotten from Point A to Point B of realizing the past matters offscreen (since he’s literally said it doesn’t since his introductory chapter):

Given the prominence of Twice’s death (not just in the narrative, but it had a volume cover devoted to it; you’d think it’d be pivotal) this does not seem like awesome writing, so I’m going to assume that this is setting up a future conflict for Hawks rather than resolving one.

So what happens when Dabi refuses to be saved, which seems almost certain to happen? (Also for people who might be nervous about that: rejecting redemption several times is a staple of a redemption arc.) What will Hawks do then?

How will that differ from what Shouto would do? (If Shouto’s endgame would be to follow Hawks’ lead, then it doesn’t make much sense to have Hawks admiring Shouto instead of the other way around, nor for a character introduced halfway through to demonstrate how to solve the problem midway through the story when killing villains isn’t really new or unique).

Unless Hawks gets those consequences, why would he make a different choice than the one he made last time he was driven into a corner?

#bnha meta #mha meta #bnha 303 #mha 303 #hawks #takami keigo #hawks icarus theory #todoroki shouto #todoroki touya #todoroki enji #todoroki natsuo #best jeanist #dabi #twice #bubaigawara jin #bnha theory #mha theory

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blookmallow · 3 years

Text

hi i binged through all of salad fingers for the first time in like 8 years and im fixating again here are. My Theories. pls talk to me if anyone else has Thoughts or wants to discuss things. this is really long i am sorry :’ )

also shout out to the salad fingers wiki for helping me keep track of details and also for this

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thought: salad fingers is not violent on purpose he did not mean to kill that kid

this is less a theory and more “if you slander my boy with accusations i will Get you” but listen. i see people going “but he mURDERED A CHILD!!” because of the oven incident but listen. listen to me. he didnt mean to and cannot be held to the same standard of morality and understanding consequences as a. person who isn’t..... in whatever situation and mental state he has going on

- yes, the kid getting trapped in the oven was his fault. but it was not intentional or malicious and i sincerely doubt he understands what happened or why.

he was asking for help reaching the fish (there’s no reason to believe he wasn’t just genuinely asking for help. he tears up in gratitude. theres no evidence of him Tricking People Maliciously in any other context i do not believe he would do that) and was distracted by the rusty nail, causing him to let go of the door. it wasn’t “he cares more about rust than about a child’s life” or something, i dont think he can actually hold “hey look at that i gotta check that out” and “i need to hold the door open so the child doesn’t get hurt” in his head at the same time, rust is his favorite stim/an impulse thing that takes over everything else and his perception of reality and the things going on around him changes very quickly and easily. more on that later. but the important point here is it wasn’t a malicious plot, or a neglectful careless action, he literally did not realize letting go of the door would cause harm

he stabbed himself accidentally with the nail and passed out for a while (the fact that he immediately bled that much is concerning too, he probably has hemophilia which is. a medical condition outside of his control, as well) and after all that he had completely forgotten about the child altogether (and says “i must have dozed off” so he doesn’t even understand he passed out. and might not remember the nail thing in the first place)

we don’t see what happened after this, we don’t know how he responds when he investigates the fish and inevitably finds an unexpected charred corpse in there, but i guarantee he won’t remember why its in there or understand that its a corpse. we dont see it again so its. entirely possible he didnt recognize it as a person and either just disposed of it or, uh, ate it. but if he did, it wasn’t with the knowledge and comprehension of it being A Corpse or the memory of how it got there

theory: on salad fingers and memory / comprehension of death and consequences

more on that subject

- we see him frequently doing things and then immediately forgetting he did it or forgetting what was happening. he accidentally squishes the bug (which also was not malicious or intentional, he intended to pet it but just. went too hard) and has no understanding either that its dead, or that he killed it. she has gone flat and gooey for some unknown reason. that’s strange. she needs to go have a wash, that’s no way to be.

he eats the jeremy fisher puppet at one point and then immediately goes “where have you gotten to??”

he even briefly forgets hubert cumberdale’s name and immediately comes up with another one without realizing it, and then later goes back to hubert cumberdale again with no mention of barbara logan-price

he refers to the same little yellow guy as “young child” and also Auntie Bainbridge later on. he keeps up the fantasy of... whatever the fuck yvonne was being his child for a pretty long time but then when he arrives at “auntie bainbridge” ‘s house he suddenly forgets why he’s there, and even apparently forgets what yvonne is and uses ‘her’ as a window rag instead and never mentions it again (I also don’t think she was in the sandwich at the end either. it’s hard to see but the sandwich contents are vaguely brown and theres a visible lump in the black goo behind him. i like the idea that the lil yellow guy made the sandwich for him)

salad fingers is constantly subconsciously adjusting his reality to fit Whatever Makes The Most Sense At The Time and does not consistently remember things (sometimes even major things. he remembers his puppets the most consistently and still even forgets hubert’s name) or have a concept of cause and effect

i think he possibly has some sense of recognition, “I’ve seen this person before,” but doesn’t always remember Why he knows them, and his mind just automatically fills in the blank with whatever makes sense to him. he doesn’t remember who the yellow guy is, but knows he knows them Somehow, so, ah, of course, it must be auntie bainbridge out for her sunday stroll :) and he knows he’s there for a reason, but not what that reason was, so he decides it must be time to clean the windows

- milford cubicle was already dead when salad fingers opens the door, but he has no idea that hes dead. this isn’t even a cause for concern. my, he must be tired, that’s all. he kept milford there until he rotted away, too, so there was never a point where he realized anything was wrong (until he became skeleton. more on That later too)

- he finds a corpse buried in the yard and rather than confronting the confusing and alarming reality of that situation, why it must be kenneth, back from the great war! at no point does he understand kenneth is definitely dead

theory: kenneth vs glass brother

i think he really did have a brother named kenneth who probably died in the war. could be some subconscious connection between “recognizing” a corpse as his brother, but i dont think he realizes any of that. i think the glass family is probably a trauma based hallucination, but a... well, reflection. pun not exactly intended lmao. on how his real family was and how they treated him

i dont think glass brother is the same brother as kenneth, since salad fingers interacts with them completely differently

kenneth is a corpse that salad fingers projects a personality on and speaks for, while glass brother seems independent and malicious toward him. i think he had a good relationship with kenneth (so, when salad fingers imagines that he’s here, it’s cause for celebration and he’s projecting onto something inert and “safe”) and also had another brother (who was probably his twin) who bullied him and acted violently, so when that trauma resurfaces, he hallucinates a vicious Other that he cannot control or speak for.

it also tracks that the abusive brother was his twin - he sees himself reflected in the mirror, and something in his own face reminds him of that lost brother until it “becomes” him

he refers to kenneth as his younger brother, and sees him as a being that does not look like him, while glass brother is literally his reflection, so it would make sense if he had one identical twin and one younger brother

ive seen theories that he had a real sister named bordois too, but i think him calling the bug “little sister” was just. a term of endearment or one of his little odd language quirks, he seemed to be talking to it more like a pet than like a sibling

theory: regarding mable

- ok people are saying salad fingers killed mable at the picnic but i Really Don’t Think He Did

we never see him acting out violently when he gets scared. he tends to try to escape situations that stress him out, he shrinks, he cries, he goes into his cupboard (which is. incredibly upsetting given the fact he was almost definitely abused by his family)

he takes on a kind of Authoritative Tone often, he gets sort of ruffled up and disdainful toward things, but that’s not what he does when he’s scared

when he’s actually distressed (rather than irritated) he tends to break down and retreat. this includes when other independent beings act in ways that unsettle and upset him

so i dont know where the “he freaked out and killed her” idea is coming from. he suddenly goes from outside at the picnic to having a breakdown in his house so. he most likely just ran

i think the Only time we see him act out violently is when he decides he has to punish marjory for not getting a haircut like he asked - he tears her hair out, but for me that scene was particularly concerning because it was so unlike him. that was an anger response, not a fear response, though, and he tends to be harsher toward things that he’s actually controlling (I don’t think we ever see him decide to Discipline something that was independent from him other than the horses, and he didnt hurt them)

ordinarily when something irritates him he just goes “hmph! so distasteful. how rude. i shan’t have this behavior, you know” but doesn’t really actually do anything about it, and moves on

anyway we never see mable again so i think either he freaked out and ran away and she just didn’t come back, or he scared her and she ran away, or both

there’s a dress visible briefly when salad fingers is making his Flesh Boy which could be mable’s (he did comment he liked it) but it’s not 100% clear, and that doesn’t necessarily mean he KILLED her for it. she could have changed into something else and left it somewhere and he found it. she could have died under unrelated circumstances, and salad fingers found her - he doesn’t comprehend death, so. probably he decided they’ve made amends now and she’s given him her dress as a token of friendship, or something

i dont think it really looks that significantly like hers but the fact that it stands out so distinctly from the rest of the Pile could mean something

but i just feel like if he had killed her we would’ve seen her corpse again, he doesn’t have a concept of murder, or death at all, or consequences, and his memory doesn’t hold out that consistently, so if he killed her, he probably would have calmed down later and then forgotten what he did and came up with a new way to explain the corpse in front of him - oh, how rude of me, mable’s here dozing right off and i havent even offered her a blanket. let’s get you to bed

like, he probably would have dragged her home with him, with the intention of being a good friend/host to his guest, not understanding what happened. he kept milford cubicle around a really long time

it wouldn’t be like him to have any concept of hiding the evidence

speaking of milford

theory: regarding milford cubicle

salad fingers keeps milford’s corpse around until it starts rotting, and then after a very confusing series of events, the corpse is suddenly a skeleton, which surprisingly alarms salad fingers considerably, and then he goes out to find a whole bunch of himselves eating various bits of gore. they give him a present, which is a hat very clearly made of milford’s skin

my conclusion: salad fingers, in some kind of dissociative fugue state, skinned and ate the remains of milford cubicle himself and turned the remaining skin into a hat. he also saves some of it to make hubert cumberdale (the real boy) later as well, probably forgetting where it came from. he does not realize he’s done this or remember doing it, so his scrambled mind tries to make sense of it with other selves eating unknown flesh, and a lovely hat appearing (which he doesn’t seem to notice is made of flesh)

you can also see milford’s original name tag in the drawer later on when he’s building the flesh boy, so. he kept that after the mysterious disappearance of milford’s flesh, apparently. more evidence that that skin is probably also his

some other scattered thoughts regarding the most recent string of episodes and salad fingers’ mental state:

ive been trying to figure out what the fuckhell happened with the yvonne incident and everything that happened in the birthday episode

im really concerned for salad fingers’ health and mental state, as it seems to be deteriorating

some yvonne theories ive seen:

1. he ate the burned corpse of the kid who died in the oven, and it made him very sick, which ultimately resulted in a charred mass he couldn’t digest - he steadily gets worse, until his body finally ejects it (yvonne’s “birth”) and after that his health starts to recover again. since the oven incident happens really early on, all the times he mentions his stomach being upset after that until he becomes deathly ill would make sense, so i think this is plausible

2. the hair he found in the cupboard was actually a parasitic worm that grew in his stomach after he ate it and became yvonne. i think this is Possible, it is a really strangely wormy looking hair, but it doesn’t move and he mentions stomach pains before this, so it seems less likely to me

3. i also saw the concept that salad fingers is a trans man who suffered a miscarriage at some point in his past and yvonne represents that, and i can definitely see where the idea is coming from but i do think something really physically happened to him in the present time, i dont think it was all a trauma-based hallucination, since the yellow guy reacts to the black ooze and something was definitely making him severely ill

so. i Don’t Know what the fuck that was about but i think the burnt corpse theory makes the most sense

on that note: there’s a lot of cannibalism imagery in salad fingers

we have no IDEA where he’s getting food from. im pretty sure its been confirmed that he is Not a zombie, we see him bleed, pass out, sleep, etc so it seems like he must be a living person who has ordinary needs. but we see him eat... his own puppets. hairs. sand. the soup glass mother instructed him to make, which made him very sick. he has a working oven but doesn’t seem to have consistent access to water. he had a fish somehow but who knows where it came from. it’s very likely he doesn’t get food often and some of his hallucinations and mood swings could be caused by starvation (and when he does eat, it’s things that are outright inedible or probably not good for him)

the burned corpse disappears and is never mentioned again (though salad fingers is very sick afterward). milford’s flesh disappears and salad fingers violently hallucinates multiple selves gorging themselves on unknown flesh

and what concerns me the most about that is that he loses a lot of time in that episode

he passes out in the woods and when he wakes up, it looks like a shit ton of time has passed

we don’t know how much is reality and how much is his warped perception, but it looks like a tree has grown and his physical condition has deteriorated

he looks really, really unhealthy and haggard for the rest of the episode

i think he had a huge dissociative episode and lost possibly weeks of time, probably due to starvation, and he ate milford cubicle and very possibly other people as well

so my question is. how often does this happen to him

and what happens to him during that state? does he become violent and dangerous without being aware of it when he returns to himself again? or has he just been ravenously scavenging corpses when he gets desperate enough?

its possible dr papanak is another personality he has, one that’s “buried out in the woods” that he becomes when he’s in a really, really bad mental and physical state

he looks much better in the next episode (though that’s also when he has his outburst with marjory. could be that he’s still staving off the violent urges/hasn’t fully come back to himself after the last incident) and I’m really hoping the fact that he was able to finally stand up to his family (at least in some sense) and smash the mirrors could mean he’s making steps toward recovery after whatever the hell all that was

there’s not really much space to do anything with his life or get much help given the circumstances but watching him slowly losing himself even more is Awful :(

i hope we get more episodes im so desperate for more information now

lastly, some random observations

i tried to read this newspaper and it looks like it’s actually written in french, which is interesting given that salad fingers seems to be british (but fond of france, and seems to speak french or at least knows one phrase)

i wonder where he got this, or whether it ever meant something significant to him

theres a lot of evidence that he can’t read (takes no notice of the “harry” nametag and immediately names him something else, “reads” a letter that is actually a newspaper clipping in another language he’s holding upside down, “writes” a letter that is just scribbles) so i dont think he learned his one french phrase from this or anything but, still. vaguely interesting. maybe he has been to france before and brought this back with him for some reason. maybe he’s actually in post apocalyptic france and was just originally from england. We Don’t Know

theres a weird little face in the. heater? whatever that is in the background for a second and i dont like it

salad fingers leaves horace in charge, but then sees him (as a live horse) in the woods, but then comes back to find him both still on the shelf (as a toy) and in the room (as a live horse, now with his, uh, surgery scars) but doesn’t seem to notice this and doesn’t comment on it

i dont know what the hell that means other than possibly his reality is even less consistent and logical than usual/a reflection on his mental state deteriorating

#salad fingers #pinned #media analysis

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drakenxemma · 3 years

Note

Hello sweetie! 🌸 A lot of people in the fandom say that Draken and Inupi become friends 'cause Draken starts seeing Emma in Inupi, because of his looks. What do you think? I'd like to know your opinion on this. I hope I've made the point. Anyway thank you so much for keeping drakemma very much alive. 😘 You're amazing. 💌

Hi, anon❣ Thank you so much for the question. Before I answer, I'd like to make clear that, as always, this is just my personal and humble opinion, I may be wrong and I'm very open to different views.

I've read this idea around a lot, too, and I find it very interesting, but, to be honest, I'm not sure I am of the same opinion, firstly because I cannot see how this is supported in canon (and in fact I think it's not at all), and secondly because I don't think I like the idea of Inui being mistaken for someone else once again, it'd be unnecessarily sad and cruel. But let me explain why I'm saying this.

First of all, as we know, Koko used to see Akane in Seishu. Now, Koko and Seishu's backstory explains very well how and why that happened: Koko is traumatized by Akane's death, feels guilty for mistaking the two siblings and for saving Seishu instead of her when the fire happened (the severe burns will eventually led her to death), so he ends up overlaying and projecting the idea of Akane on her brother, cancelling Seishu's persona for years in the process, perpetrating pain and affliction to Seishu and to himself (Koko and Seishu's relationship makes me want to cry, seriously, it is one of the creepiest and saddest stories in tokrev in my opinion, both of them are consumed with trauma, both end up harming each other and suffer like hell, and both deserve better...).

Anyway, what I'm trying to say here is that, from a narrative standpoint, Koko seeing Akane in Seishu is directly connected to Seishu being both Koko's friend and Akane's brother, the three characters are connected and it's exactly this link what "allows" Koko's trauma to evolve in that specific way and to cause such bad consequences on Seishu. Now, let's just imagine the exact same story, but with Seishu not being Akane's brother: what would happen in this scenery from a narrative point of view? Would Koko equally lose Akane? Yes, he would. Would Koko equally suffer trauma? Yes, he would. Would Koko's trauma equally evolve in a tragic and devastating way? Yes, it would. Would Koko's trauma affect Seishu? No, it wouldn't. It wouldn't demage Seishu specifically in that case because Seishu would not be part of the scheme. Indeed, in canon, Seishu pays the price of Koko's trauma because he is simultaneously Koko's friend and Akane's brother and because he was saved "by mistake", which leads Koko to feel guilty and to lose his mind. In summary my point is: all of this happens because sadly the three characters (Koko, Seishu, Akane) were linked, Seishu's only fault is being, in Koko's eyes, what's left of Akane.

On the contrary, Draken and Emma have nothing to do with Inui, they don't have a common backstory or anything. What would be the point in repeating the same instance in which the poor Seishu is made invisible by someone else's suffering once again? Especially when this someone else is not correlated to him in any way. From a narrative standpoint, it just doesn't make sense. Draken, unlike Koko, would have ZERO reasons to project the image of his lost love on Inui. Actually blond hair is the only thing that Seishu and Emma have in common and I really think it'd be not enough to justify such a behavior on Draken's part.

In the end, I'd like to add what is, according to me, the reason why Draken and Inui become friends, the reason why their friendship lasts and they support each other and and help each other. As we know, to some extent Seishu used to take advantage of Koko's abilities in making money to reach some of his goals in Black Dragons. When Seishu and Koko part ways and Seishu is left without that "money machine", he has to learn how to be "financially independent" and I think here comes his friendship with Draken. Inui, thanks to Draken and the bike shop, learns how to make money by himself with an honest job. Probably Draken and Seishu created a solid friendship working side by side over time. I guess it's just as simple as that. I think Inui respects Draken a lot because he finds in him a healthy friend, someone trustworthy. At the same time I think Draken respects Inui because he finds in him an emotionally recovering person, someone who is trying to deal with past mistakes, sufferings and regrets, just like he's doing himself. I think Draken genuinely respects Seishu for who he is and that's the kind of friendship someone with Seishu's past deserves. It makes sense. I truly doubt Draken is unconsciously searching for a replacement for Emma, I doubt he's looking for her in other people. It'd be totally out of character and inconsistent with the way he deals with Emma's death, in my opinion. While Koko's trauma and pain led him to delirium and to see Akane in a different person, Draken faces trauma in a healthier way, he succeeds in doing something for himself, he focuses on his career and, as we know by now, he goes as far as still fighting to bring Mikey back and to protect his friends. In other words, Draken misses Emma, loves Emma, suffers for losing her, but he manages to go on with his life because he knows that's what Emma would want. Admitting that he sees her in Inui would mean admitting that Draken is actually very much out of control (like Koko was) and I don't think that's the case.

That's why I just can't see Draken doing the same thing Koko did to Seishu: the two just face pain and loss differently, which is totally realistic because different people deal with trauma in very different ways.

Having said that, I'd like to make it clear that I don't mean to say one is not excusable while the other is simply exemplary. Trauma is trauma, I wouldn't go as far as depicting Koko as a total and irredeemable monster: he was deeply demaged and corrupted, he needed help, just like many other characters. The fact that on the contrary Draken succeeds in not doing such things, despite having undergone similar pain, is again indicative of the fact that trauma is trauma and people face it differently depending on the circumstances and many other factors (let's not forget that there's a timeline in which Draken is on death row for killing people and according to Takemichi he did that to avenge Emma's death). This is a very prevalent message in tokyo revengers, we can see how different characters with backstories and traumatic pasts ends up totally demaged, recovered or (partially) redeemed. I'm glad the author conveyed such a message, to be honest.

I also think, on an additional note, that separating Koko and Seishu was for the best and maybe, once they've fully recovered, they can finally have a sincere and genuine friendship where Koko sees Seishu exactly for who is and where Seishu forgives a redeemed Koko. Or I'd also like for them to be healthier individuals and care for each other, whilst staying separated.

#tokyo revengers #drakemma #draken #ken ryuguji #emma sano #draken x emma #inui seishu #hajime kokonoi #inui akane #tokyo revengers spoilers #tokyo revengers my comment and analysis #g. replies #ask #anonymous

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linkspooky · 4 years

Text

Kunikida + Oda: Death of a Good Man

While Kunikida and Oda have never met in canon they are characters with a lot in common. They both essentially play the same role, as the moral center of their respective groups (particularly acting as a conscience for Dazai). They both share the same strengths and weaknesses. However, one lives and one dies. MORE UNDER THE CUT.

1. Relationship with Dazai

Dazai is a character who has trouble seeing himself as a person. That is, he doesn’t see himself as the same as everyone else. (His ability is titled No Longer Human, surprise, surprise). Oda says as much to Dazai, that traditional values like good or evil don’t really mean that much to him.

“Whether you’re on the side that takes lives, or the side that saves them nothing beyond your own expectations will happen. Nothing in this world can fill the hole that is your loneliness. You will wander for eternity.”

...

“Be on the side that saves people. If both sides are the same, then choose to be a good person.” - Osamu Dazai and the Dark Era

It’s not that Dazai is a sociopath, or even unfeeling, it’s just that he is so distanced from his own humanity, and from other people. He genuinely believes he can’t feel the same way as they do. Dazai even described the way he saw himself to Fyodor.

Dazai tells Fyodor that he feels like he’s sperate from everyone else. It’s like he’s the player, and everybody else is pieces on the game board. But, even though he might come up with strategies and move the pieces, he’s not really the one changing things, or affecting other people’s lives because he’s not right there in the middle of things he’s far away.

Dazai even flashes back to Oda and Gide’s final showdown when trying to explain this feeling to Fyodor. Oda his closest and only friend at the time, who he could not reach out to and save. Dazai believes he can’t touch other people, he can’t reach out and save them, because he sees himself as lacking in feelings or a heart. Which is why, Dazai relies on the people around him. Dazai attached himself to Oda when he was in the Mafia, and then again to Kunikida when he was detective agency to essentially act as his heart, his external conscience for him. That’s the relationship he shares with both of them. It’s why the first two light novels are essentially about Dazai, but narrated from the point of view of his partner at the time. Light novel one is about his partnership with Kunikida, and Light Novel 2 is about his friendship with Oda back in the dark age. The connection between them is that both Oda, and Kunikida are good, just men who have tried to understand Dazai in one way or another.

The events of both light novels even mirror each other to an extent. Entrance exam is about Dazai joining the agency, Dark Era is about Dazai leaving the mafia. Entrance exam is about Kunikida failing to understand Dazai, but learning to trust him anyway. Dark Era is about Oda being the only one who fully understands Dazai, but then not listening to him at the end of the story. They both end with a symbolic death, Oda commits double suicide with Gide, whereas Kunikida pretends to shoot Dazai in order to follow his plan.

Dazai’s a master strategist, but he’s not a leader of men, nor does he have any particular ideals he stands for. Dazai was given a position of leadership within the port mafia, and not only did he spend the entire time tormenting his closest subordinate but he didn’t care about the lives of his subordinates the way Chuuya does.

Dazai sees Kunikida as someone having the ideals he does not have, therefore doing what he cannot, and being what he cannot be to others. This is a role Oda used to serve as his one and only friend. However, while they occupy the same spot as Dazai’s most trusted person their relationships with him are very different.

Kunikida is very combative with Dazai and always fighting against him. He personally expects Dazai to be better in all aspects. He scolds him for being lazy and neglecting his work. When Dazai messes with other people or manipulates them, it’s Kunikida who is the first to get frustrated with him. Kunikida also, tends to lack a fundamental understanding of Dazai. It’s a running joke that he’s always a step behind him (he’s the last person to find out Dazai was a mafia member when everyone else already knew). The literal first thing established about their relationship in the first chapter, is that they are constantly fighting with each other. They barely make it through a dinner with Atsushi.

However, Kunikida also listens to Dazai when it’s important. It’s the other way around with Oda, Oda is someone who does fundamentally understand who Dazai really is deep down. However, at the same time Oda doesn’t really try to exert any influence over Dazai until the very end of his life. Their relationship was defined by being distant to one another, and not asking questions.

The reason why Ango and I were able to be by his side was that we understood the solitude that surrounded him, and we never stepped inside it no matter how close we stood.

But in that moment, I kind of regretted not stepping in and invading that solitude.

Dazai Osamu and the Dark Era.

Him, Ango and Dazai could only keep meeting as the Buraiha at the Lupin bar if they pretended to not know anything about what each other did outside of the bar. They’re different in one main aspect, Kunikida fights Dazai, and Oda doesn’t start fighting until it’s almost far too late.

2. Living and Dying for One’s Ideals

One more direct parallel between the two is that Kunikida and Oda are both characters who strive to live up to the ideal they find in a book. Literally. Kunikida obsessively writes out his ideals in his notebook where he has his whole future planned out.

What are ideals? There are innumerable answers to that question. One could say it’s merely a term, or an idea, or perhaps even the soruce of all meaning. But if you ask me, the answer is obvious. It’s the word written on the cover of my notebook. My notebook has all the answers. It is my creed, my master, and a prophet that guides me. At times, it can either be a weapon ro a solution. Ideals. Everything I am is written in this notebook which I always carry with me. My entire future lies within it - Osamu Dazai’s Entrance Exam

Oda picked up a book and loved it so much he wanted to write the ending for himself.

After worrying about it for so long, I came to one conclusion. “Then you write what happens next.” I decided to write about it myself. I would become a novelist, and write a story about why the man stopped killing. But to become a novelist, I needed to sincerely know what it meant to live. So, I stopped killing. - Osamu Dazai and the Dark Era.

Kunikida and Oda are both characters who find their will to live for the future within the pages of a book. Which makes sense as both characters struggle with lofty ideals and a harsh reality. Oda and Kunikida are characters written about the struggle to be a good man, in a world that is not good. To hold ideals, in a world that is not ideal. This once again ties back to what Dazai said to Fyodor, God isn’t perfect harmony, he’s illogical and absurd.

The world isn’t ideal and orderly. It’s extremely, extremely messy. Kunikida and Oda are both characters who strive to be better, and want the world to be better and because of that they fall into conflict. However, Oda lost his fight, and Kunikida is still fighting. Part of why Dazai got so attached to Kunikida is also because he saw Oda’s ideals within Kunikida, and knew that carrying those ideals could crush him so easily.

“Justice is a weapon. It can be used to harm, but it cannot protect and save others.” -Osamu Dazai’s Entrance Exams

The meanings of Dazai’s words are clear when you look at them in the context of what he learned after losing Oda. Oda decided to throw his life away to avenge the children after Gide. He achieved justice then. However, nobody was saved. The children were already dead. Oda himself wasn’t saved. Dazai lost his only friend.

“Something?” I looked at Dazai. “There isn’t anything, Dazai. It’s all over. Everything. Whatever else happens now is meaningless - just like I’m about to do. AM I wrong?” “Odasaku...” Dazai said softly. “Forgive me for the absurd wording but - don’t go. Find something to rely on. Expect good things to happen from here on out. There’s gotta be soemthing...”

[...]

Oda’s march against Gide isn’t just tragic, it’s a deliberate choice. It was a suiide. He’s given several oppurtunities to just walk away, or wait for something else to give him a reason to live and he doesn’t. His final actions hurt more than they helped. Yes, he did save Dazai in a way by throwing his life away, but Dazai also lost the person who could understand him. Oda could have lived. He could have done more if he had lived. Dazai even says so in dead apple, saving people is the more beautiful path, but you have to be alive to see that beauty.

This is also why Kunikida and Oda have such a connection to Dazai. Underneath their struggles to be a good man they are both constantly dealing with suicidal feelings.

Kunikida is far more fragile than he lets on. Part of the reason he attaches himself to ideals rather than people, is because caring about people hurts, and he is so afraid of failing the people in his life (the same way Oda eventually failed to protect the children) that he can’t admit the depth to which he cares about them.

Kunikida struggles to save everyone in front of him, but that’s also because Kunikida is internally someone who is very fragile. He can’t handle the loss, especially losing those he is close to. When Atsushi is hospitalized after his first fight with Akutagawa, he pretends to be unconcerned. When Atsushi wants to save Kyoka, Kunikida tries to persuade him to not save her. Oda and Kunikida are both avoidant characters, Oda avoided ever stepping inside of Dazai’s loneliness, and Kunikida avoids getting close to others because they fear the people they cannot save. Kunikida cares so much and so deeply, that he’s completely shattered when he fails someone.

Every strategy by the detective agency’s enemies relies on crushing Kunikida because he’s the easiest target. When he fails like this he wants to give up. Kunikida and Oda have this dark underside to their actions where they’re fighting continually to be better, but when they fail, they long to throw their lives away and give up the struggle.

Part of the reason they’re attracted to Dazai is deep down Kunikida and Oda both have the same suicidal feelings. Kunikida knows that his ideals will never live up to the reality.

However, secretly he longs to fail so he won’t have to struggle against it anymore.

“I let go of Dazai. I understand what he’s aying. Perhaps righteousness isn’t something you seek in others, but something you search for inside of yourself. Even then... Miss Sasaki is dead, and so is Rokuzo. All I’ve found in my search for righteousness within myself is a sense of hopelessness.”

Osamu Dazai’s Entrance Exam

The question is can you continue to live? Even if you fail over and over again to do better. Even if the things you try to protect all die. Kunikida’s arc so far mirrors Oda’s. The things he told himself he would protect, he failed to. The promises he made, he breaks. He said he was never going to watch a child die in front of him, and then it happens.

He said he was never going to fail to protect the agency again, but then the agency became the victims of the hunting dogs, and Kunikida had to go completely on the run. He said he was going to throw himself away in a big bang against the hunting dogs to show his ideals would never fail, and instead.

He even loses his ideals and his ability to write in the notebook. So, what is the difference between Kunikida and Oda that allows Kunikida to keep struggling where Oda did not. I think it’s not really a difference between them, so much as it’s a difference between Dazai. Dazai’s grown since then and realized his mistakes with Oda, and because of that doesn’t stay at a comfortable distance from Kunikida.

Dazai has grown enough between then and now he’s able to reach people who feel similiarly to him. He understood the suicidal feelings of both Kunikida, and Oda, but he didn’t reach out to Oda until it was too late. However, Dazai has grown to the point where he not only understands Kunikida’s struggle and sympathizes with him, but he’s also able to say the words he couldn’t say to Oda until it was too late.

There’s no such thing as a point of no return. There is no point where everything is already over. Even if you fail to protect someone, even if you fail to protect everyone.

"Anything I would never want to lose will be lost. It is given that everything that is worth wanting will be lost the moment I obtain it. There's nothing worth pursuing at the cost of prolonging life of suffering."

Dazai is still the same person that said this. Deep down that’s what Kunikida and Oda both fear, that after Oda failed the orphans, that after Kunikida could not save an innocent child in front of them, that no matter how hard they fought all of their attempts to protect someone would fail that way. At which point their fighting seemed to become meaningless.

Dazai knowing those feelings has moved past that lament. He still believes that the struggle may be meaningless, but he reassures them that they can keep fighting anyway.

If there’s no great glorious ideal to live for, if nothing we do matters, than all that matters is what we do. The world isn’t good, the world will never be as good as we want it to be, yet Kunikida can still strive to be good in the face of that.

#dazai osamu #kunikida doppo #oda sakunosuke #odasaku #bungou stray dogs #bsd meta #bungou stray dogs meta #bungou stray dogs theory #bungou stray dogs analysis

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glowyjellyfish · 3 years

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Okay, I am sure somebody else somewhere has thought of this, but I was just watching the ending in an LP and had a bunch of thoughts and it all sort of came together like this.

Sephiroth wants to never die. He’s also ferociously lonely and has a horror-hunger-level need to belong somewhere, while simultaneously knowing in his gut that he does not, cannot belong with 99.99% of people on the planet. Back at Nibelheim, he found out the surface-level stuff about Jenova and lost his shit, assuming it was accurate that she was an Ancient and probably getting some influence from her. So during his first meltdown--he believed he was an artificially created Ancient, and wanted to kill all the humans and take the planet back for the ancients. Again, he was probably being manipulated by Jenova at this time, but it’s unclear how much that could influence his emotions and behavior. Then he was thrown into the Lifestream, where he undoubtedly learned the full truth of his own creation. He then supplants Jenova’s will, because she barely has one and he is a person with feelings, and turns all her powers towards his new goal of smash meteor into planet and become god. I’ll have to recheck dialogue, but if I’m not mistaken he doesn’t actually want to completely destroy the whole planet. His intention is to kill every living thing on the planet, absorb all the lifestream, and… make a new planet? Use the power to travel through space like jenova? Idk. I like the former for my theory, because then I can conclude he assumes he would of course belong to a new world of his own creation that he reigns over like a god. But I can’t remember how thoroughly he described what he wanted to do after Meteor.

So. He’s prevented from completing that goal by the events of the OG/compilation, but he cannot fully be killed either and just hangs out isolated in the lifestream until the Planet dies, much later. Sephiroth cannot have the actual planet actually dying. That makes him die too. So he uses a mix of Jenova and Lifestream powers to go back in time. He can’t change history himself, that’s part of the planet and he isn’t, and for the same reason he can’t really affect the whispers, although he can stir them up. So he has to use his influence over Cloud and other Sephiroth clones to achieve his current goal of never dying. And he genuinely believes that his interests and Cloud’s interests align for this. Why, Sephiroth is actually trying to save the planet! That’s what Cloud does! ...not to mention that throughout his entire life, Cloud as the sole successful Sephiroth clone is the closest thing Sephiroth feels he has to a peer in the entire history of the planet. I am not familiar with Genesis and Angeal, but for the sake of this theory I have to assume that Sephiroth preferred to dismiss them as clearly inferior for dying rather than feel any grief or closeness or anything. He has come to respect Cloud because Cloud’s the only one who has repeatedly been able to defeat him. Therefore, I think he’s being as sincere as he can when he’s talking to Cloud throughout Remake. Manipulative, yes. Not telling him everything, of course. But if there’s one thing I have noticed about Sephiroth’s character over the course of 25 years of playing the OG, it’s that he is not actually particularly interested in outright lying. The main time he is believed to be lying, it’s unclear whether he even realized at that point that Cloud was the same soldier that was at Nibelheim, and if he did he might not have realized how much of Cloud’s persona was still him and not just a weird Jenova-crafted show. I think the Zack stuff is very likely things Sephiroth is attempting to offer Cloud, or things Cloud subconsciously changed without fully realizing what he was doing.

Anyway, the main reason I really like this whole theory is that a. This places Sephiroth and his worldview in direct opposition to Aerith. Aerith is connected to the Planet and must accept the inevitability of her own death as well as the Planet’s. Sephiroth is isolated from the Planet and refuses to accept any such thing. Which I feel could lead to some very interesting push and pull on Cloud, as Sephiroth could very well attempt to push Cloud to save Aerith, trying to get Cloud in a headspace of refusing to accept death, while Aerith would insist on letting go for the greater good and the natural order. (Not that Sephiroth will in any way try to avoid killing her. He can’t change the past, and the point isn’t “let Aerith live”, the point is “make Cloud change things to save her, make Cloud change things to save everything forever including me”). And b. it does as much fleshing out of Sephiroth and his development and motives as the Remake has done for every other character so far. In my opinion, Sephiroth is not and should not be portrayed as a flat evil villain. He’s cold, disconnected, cruel, and inhuman, but in a lot of ways he is still very human. I have felt for ages that it was Sephiroth’s very human emotions that made his will strong enough to completely supplant Jenova’s will in her own cells, and his freak out in Nibelheim was a very human reaction acted out with terrifyingly inhuman strength.

...anyway that’s just where I’m at with Remake Sephiroth right now. My opinion will probably change again next time I play through, and I will probably be wrong no matter how much I like any of my own theories, but I’m enjoying the ride. It’ll be fun to test this theory again the actual remake dialogue and see if it holds up.

(Sephiroth, I accept I am very likely wrong about. Certain other characters? My god I hope I’m right about Reeve, I will be so disappointed if my remake-inspired rethinking him through is too far off the mark.)

#ff7r #ff7 remake #final fantasy 7 remake #FF7r theory #Ff7r Sephiroth #ff7 spoilers

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themusikabox · 4 years

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Elegy for a Rat

“A strange occurrence leads to an equally strange first meeting.”

Dedicated to @gasolineghuleh, for inspiring me to get up and write for the first time in almost a decade! This is actually heavily based on an experience I had several years ago; unfortunately, this was a somewhat unhappy story, and while I’ve tried not to make it too graphic in the retelling, reader discretion is advised.

Content Warning: Animal Death

SFW, Word count 1,530

The night was warm, and the streetlights shone off the asphalt, still wet from the rain earlier in the day. You were on your way home from a raid on the local mini-mart, a pint of ice cream swaying by your side. You usually didn’t like to head out so late in the day on your own, preferring not to tempt fate, but you lived in a fairly safe part of the city, and for good measure you did not have any music playing to keep yourself that much more aware of your surroundings. Besides, it had been a hell of a week - you deserved a little indulgence, right?

The walk had been without incident so far, and you were making your way across the well-lit parking lot to your apartment block when some movement in the gutter caught your eye. As you paused to focus, you realized quickly that it was a large, brown rat. That in and of itself wasn’t so strange; racoons got in the dumpsters around here all the time, and the residents occasionally complained of mice problems, so it stood to reason that there would be rats around as well. No, what had grabbed your attention was its behavior; as it scurried up the groove of the gutter, it would leap up onto the curb for a while before leaping back down, back and forth, back and forth. Frankly, you were a little astounded - you had never seen a wild animal do something like this for no apparent reason before. Was it playing?

Curiosity got the better of you, and you decided to follow it (not too close, you remind yourself, it is still a wild animal after all). As you closed the gap, though, something seemed to be “off” about the rat’s movements. From a distance, it had indeed looked like it was jumping to and fro, but as you drew closer, the movements appeared more erratic, less purposeful, for lack of a better word. It started to make its way away from the gutter, and yet it continued to jump about as before, which definitely struck you as strange, given the lack of obstacles. By the time you were a couple meters away, it hit you why this looked so odd.

It wasn’t jumping; it was spasming, hard.

“Oh no…” you breathed, heart breaking at the realization. The rat’s movements were slowing now, as it tried to make its way back to the gutter again with a new, unsteady wobble. It stopped for a moment, its rapid breathing apparent to you even from a distance. One more advance was attempted before it stopped again, collapsing against the wall of the curb. It was still breathing a mile a minute, but it was beginning to slow, and you realized with horror that something dark was oozing from its mouth between shuddering breaths.

You found yourself edging closer to the poor creature. Logically, you knew this was a bad idea on multiple counts; spasms most likely meant it was sick, either from disease or from poison (a possibility that made you shudder), and coupling that with a natural instinct to avoid the large creature looming over it, the rat could very well lash out and try to bite you. And yet, a sentimental part of you didn’t have the heart to just leave it. It felt cruel, somehow, to abandon it to die alone now that you have seen it and acknowledged its presence. So you continued your advance, slowly so as not to startle it, and kept a good meter away for both your safety and its peace of mind.

“You poor thing… you didn’t deserve this at all, did you?” you murmured sadly. “I wish I had realized sooner, though I guess that wouldn’t have done you too much good, would it?”

You continued these mindless attempts at comfort until a polite cough snapped you out of your reverie. Your head whipped up with a startled flinch in the direction of the interruption. There was a man standing there, whose approach you had somehow missed even in the silence of the night. To be fair, he was clad head to toe in a black-as-night cassock, and his mousey-brown hair was topped off with what appeared to be a biretta (something was not-quite-right about its shape, but in the dim light you couldn’t put your finger on what, exactly). A priest, perhaps? You knew there was a Catholic church nearby, but you doubted there was a connection; most priests you were familiar with did not look like Vincent Price had an unfortunate liquid-eyeliner accident. He raised his gloved hands in truce - the universal signal for “I realize this is creepy but I swear I’m not trying to be.”

“Ah, scusami, I was just taking a walk, I didn’t mean to, eh…” The man’s eyes darted between you and the rat, his confusion apparent. “...Interrupt? Might I ask what you are doing?”

“Oh! I, uh…” You felt your cheeks heat as you mentally scrambled for an explanation. Deciding there really was no way to salvage this interaction without looking at least a little weird, honesty felt like the best way forward. You gesture to the fallen creature.

“I noticed this rat was behaving strangely, so I was watching him for a while, and, well…” A sweeping motion towards the macabre scene, as if to punctuate your point. “He’s dying, and I didn’t want to just leave him alone.” At this point, you’re just trying not to squirm under this man’s scrutiny.

“‘Behaving strangely?’ Strange how, if I may ask?”

“He… he was jumping about, or at least I thought he was at first, but after a while I realized that it was convulsions. I can’t believe I had thought he was having a good time,” you added guiltily.

“Saint Vitus’ Dance,” he murmured thoughtfully, almost so soft that you didn’t catch it. “A frightening way to go, if you cannot understand what is happening to you.”

“I think that’s why I wanted to stay,” you confessed. “Being able to control your own movement is pretty much the most basic free will you can have, and even that was getting robbed of him.”

After a moment of silence, he nodded (as though making up his mind - about you, perhaps?), walked closer, and joined you in kneeling a polite distance away. More silence followed as the pair of you watched the rat’s breathing slowed and, eventually, stopped completely. Your breath left you heavily as you nodded sadly at this final moment.

The sensation of your phone buzzing in your pocket ripped you out of this (oddly peaceful) moment. You checked the screen, and flinched guiltily upon realizing it was your roommate checking in on you - you should have been home ten minutes ago. You quickly tapped out a reply assuring your continued survival, then stood, wincing slightly from the strain of crouching for so long.

“Shit, that completely got away from me. I’m sorry, I really need to get going.” You glanced once more at the now-deceased rat. “I feel a little bad just leaving him there, but… he’s not in the road, so he shouldn’t get squashed, and I don’t think the local cats will want to bother him now. Maybe I can move him in the morning.”

“Are you planning on giving him a funeral?” the man asked, brows raised. His tone seemed genuinely curious rather than mocking, which you privately appreciated.

“Not exactly… This may sound silly, but it feels presumptive to bury a wild animal. I was only really planning on moving him to some grass, maybe by some trees to hide him a little better. Something nicer than concrete, at any rate. Anyway, it was… nice? To meet you, Mister, uh…”

“Ah, dove sono le mie maniere? I am Copia. Cardinal Copia, technically, but under these circumstances, I think the niceties aren’t needed.” Your expression must have betrayed you, because “Eh, not that kind of Cardinal,” was quickly appended to this introduction. You gave your own name, though just a first name for now - this was quite the unorthodox bonding experience, and while he did seem okay, if eccentric, caution never hurt anybody. To his credit, Copia did not try to press you for more information.

“Perhaps I’ll see you at the memorial?” you offered, half serious. To your surprise, this was met with a small but nonetheless sincere smile.

“I would like that very much. It’s not often that I meet one who would show such esteem to a rat.” There was something self-deprecating in his expression that suggested he wasn’t just talking of literal rodents. “A domani, then?”

“A domani,” you replied, smiling at his awkward charm in spite of yourself. A final nod was exchanged between the two of you, then you parted, heading in opposite directions.

What a weird night, you thought to yourself. What a weird guy, for that matter.

Still, when you showed up the next morning with a shoebox to transport the mercifully untampered-with “St. Vitus”, you had to admit you were happy to see the good Cardinal waiting as promised, funeral lily in hand.

#gasolineghuleh #the band ghost #cardinal copia #musika writes #cw: animal death

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solitaire-dreams · 4 years

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Cycles and Scales: An analysis of Hananene’s Progression Pt 1

Because tumblr seemed to hate over 10 pictures in one text post. Wth?!

Cycles and Scales Part 2 <--

Hello, fellow shippers! I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for the support on my other meta discussing the true chance of a Hananene kiss.

The attention on that post has encouraged me to complete this analysis (since I mentioned I planned to write a larger post, and I don’t want to fall flat on a written statement dozens have seen. Anxiety~)

Regardless, I still really enjoyed writing my analysis to give my two cents on the progression of Hanako and Nene’s relationship, and feel free to add your interpretations after reading.

This post will cover the first two topics (which will be explained below), since...

The rest of the text will be under the cut since it includes SPOILERS for...let’s say the latest manga chapter to be safe.

Thus, let us pull back the curtain and begin.

For the sake of organization, I will describe how this post is going to be divided. There are four main topics to be discussed. First, is the general cycle I have witnessed in terms of Hananene moments. Second, will be a...progression bar?? Timeline?? Basically topic 2 will discuss how Hanako’s feelings towards Nene have progressed in phases from “only friends” to “sh*t I’m in love”. Topic 3 is the inverse discussing the progression of Yashiro’s feelings. Finally, I plan to conclude with some brief thoughts on the next steps in their relationship.

Unfortunately, as mentioned before, the secret guidelines of tumblr text posts deemed the original analysis too long. Thus, this post only discusses topics 1 & 2.

So, without further ado, let’s begin.

1: The Hananene Whirlpool (TM of Solitaire)

Alright, so full discretion, I’m probably not the first person to notice this pattern, but I am the first person I know to properly summarize it.

So what is the Hananene Whirlpool?

And what’s a whirlpool doing here??

I chose this term over cycle because cycles can remain in roughly the same place when going back to a point. However, Hananene’s relationship doesn’t work like that. Each cycle pulls them deeper and deeper into their feelings, much like a whirlpool that sucks any objects trapped in it closer to the centre.

Here’s an artist rendition of the phenomena:

And now the artist’s statement:

As the visual attempts to depict, there are six stages in this whirlpool of ever increasing feelings.

1) Yashiro acquires a (pretty valid tbh) concern about the events or revelations of a trip into a boundary.

2) This is the one step that varies, but it accomplishes the same end purpose. Either Yashiro will approach Hanako about her new concern or Hanako will check in on Yashiro since she’s been avoiding him (’cause of the aforementioned concern). Both methods get Hanako and Yashiro in the same place to chat.

3) Once together, Yashiro brings up that new concern that has been weighing on or bothering her...She’s emotionally troubled, okay. This is important! Because...

4) Hanako makes himself more vulnerable in order to boost Yashiro’s mood.

5) This causes a romantic atmosphere since Hanako has temporarily taken off the mask he hides behind, allowing deeper feelings to bleed through and Yashiro to witness this.

6) So, Hanako has to murder the mood in cold blood. Love letter letdowns, Christmas tree hair in summer, and being shoved off a fricking cloud. Anything to try and restore the distance between them.

It somewhat works...But it’s an undeniable fact that the two are getting closer. And I can prove it with the next topics!

2: Hanako’s Feelings ~ A Timeline

For these timelines, there are three major stages that classify their feelings towards the other.

“Only Friends”

“Highschool Crush”

“Oh scales I’m in love”

While one might expect Hanako’s feelings to be the most difficult to determine and thus more interesting, it is quite the opposite.

If you notice, we rarely ever get any sort of internal monologue from our ghost boy. I can’t think of one canon scenario where this happened (I could be mistaken). Therefore, the feelings Hanako holds towards Yashiro are represented by actions over words. And the body cannot lie as easily as the mind, making his true feelings easier to figure out.

Disclaimer: I will not be counting the past Amanes in this timeline. There has been no canon evidence that he consciously remembers Yashiro’s time travel shenanigans, and so the impact of those events on his feelings remain unclear.

With that out of the way, let me bring up a surprising take:

Hanako only started having a crush on Yashiro towards the end of chapter 1.

It’s tempting to believe that Hanako already liked Yashiro before or not long after their first meeting due to this line:

However, I would like to bring up two points. First, this line doesn’t gain a super romantic context until he connects it to himself in particular.

Secondly, I don’t know about you, but I had friends who would say things like “Anybody would do for you, huh?” to tease them or give them a reality check. It’s not an inherently shippy phrase until Hanako makes it such.

Though, this implies that his feelings have changed throughout the chapter. When exactly? I’d argue it’s...right...here...

A running trend that occurs before Hanako allows himself to get closer to Yashiro tends to be her being upset...often because of our No 7.

Guilt.

It’s a core part of Hanako’s character. Whatever happened that led to Tsukasa’s death clearly weighs on him, despite evidence of being abused and mistreated--a situation that could cause many to snap.

He is terrified and regretful for how he has and can hurt others, and this is a key reason why he wears his more lighthearted mask. So, when he sees a girl that he clearly respects by this point and knows has less than a year to live be genuinely heartbroken about what he did...it was bound to trigger his overwhelming guilt. Then, the response of attempting amends for his actions leads him to try and stop and/or check in on her. Only to see she didn’t give her Senpai the scale. Since she learned the error of her ways. Another amendable attribute that attracts enough attention for assistant assignment.

Plus, a highschool crush.

It’s honestly more simple to tell that he’s started to crush on her after this point from his increasingly flirty behaviour.

Pinning her against a wall, “You have me,”, that “magic spell”...

An important thing to note is that his actions are...overly flirty...in a way that makes you question their sincerity. Capitalizing on his previously established trait of being a jokester, he’s able to play off these actions as teasing. Nothing serious. Probably because he already understands a longterm relationship between the two would be nearly unobtainable. At least, he’s able squeeze out the most romantic moments he can without worrying about a real relationship.

Yashiro has made it extremely clear she’s not his type,

So he’ll just reject him right?

This is where we cross over into L-O-V-E territory dear readers.

You can probably guess what scene I’ll cite as the change, but the seeds of the shift are planted all the way back in chapter 5.

The Misaki Stairs is the first point of the story in which Yashiro is truly in danger, subject to the extreme power and control Mysteries hold over their domain. At that moment, Hanako was powerless and there was a decent chance he couldn’t reach Yashiro in time. He did--thankfully--but the whole experience noticeably rattled him. To the point where he does this:

Decidedly more suggestive than his previous actions and containing a protection spell both contribute to the idea that Yashiro’s close calls at the Misaki Stairs were what spurred him to do this.

Blah, blah, blah. I think we all remember what happens after this, Hanako digging his own grave after going a step too far.

He doesn’t realize this mistake right after the kiss though, with his comment about the confession tree keeping up his trend of flirty behaviour.

It is only at the following moment in Chapter 8 does the realization strike him and the true transformation begins.

Yashiro is upset because of him (dejavu) Because she was expecting, was wanting, an actual confession.

Hanako is noticeably caught off guard for most of this scene, gaping in shock and stammering out a seemingly half-baked excuse for the kiss on the cheek.

Yashiro wanted a confession. Yashiro might return any romantic feelings he has (something previously thought impossible). Yashiro is crying. And it’s all his fault.

So, what does he do?

For the first time in the series, Hanako takes off his mask, allowing himself to be vulnerable and fully honest with her. He opens himself up, and the chance Yashiro could like him back props that the door slightly open. Though his ever increasing feelings for her become enough to push the door even wider open.

We can confirm his behaviour changed after this event since this pretty much marks the decline of the constant flirting from Hanako’s side. It still holds on for a bit into the 4 PM Bookstacks, but it’s rough once per chapter frequency beforehand has certainly diminished. Plus, after this point marks the casual contact that’s trademark to the ship.

Adding that the Hananene Whirlpool does not start until after the 4 PM Bookstacks--the first boundary visited after the Confession Tree chapter--and it requires Hanako to open up and not maintain a joking front, I think we have our winner.

This concludes the end of the first half of this post. Please wait patiently for pt 2 (it’sprobablyoutatthispointbutstill)

#jibaku shounen hanako kun #jshk #jshk spoilers #hanako kun #yashiro nene #hananene #analysis #theory #manga cap #original

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hydrospanners · 4 years

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DARK ROMANCE

an interview with @meonlyred‘s Lucwayn Tal Sivron for Port & Planet Magazine

(click images for full size; full text of interview under the cut) Thank you to @meonlyred for collaborating with me on this project. She is responsible for the character, and posing for the pictures, and the answers to all the interview questions. I had the time of my life making this with you.

You may know him as a Wrath, as a warrior, as the handsome shadow behind the Alliance Commander -- Sith Lord Lucwayn Tal Sivron is all of these things, but as I learned in the peculiar intimacy of a hangar bay photoset one early autumn afternoon on Odessen, he is not only these things.

The secretive Alliance base is a place where legends come alive, and Lord Lucwayn is no exception. Shrouded as he is in stories of battle and bloodshed and some of the most salacious gossip this side of the Perlemmian, it’s easy to be surprised by the raw, seductive humanity of the man who met me in that hangar bay with a lazy smile and a bottle of Zakuulan wine.

Already styled for his later photoshoot, Lord Lucwayn arrives to our interview harnessed in gold and draped in luxurious scarlet, a tantalizing garment perfectly designed to accentuate the hard planes and ripe swells of musculature across his exquisitely sculpted form. He is a vision of temptation, a forbidden fruit you can’t help wanting to taste, and the coy glint in his eye suggests he knows it.

He is a man who drips with confidence, whose every languid movement is full of promise--a promise that could be for pain just as easily as for pleasure. I am immediately captivated by him, as is everyone on the set that day..

For a Sith, Lord Lucwayn is patient with me as I remember how to form words so I can ask about the human being and his very human (or Twi’lek, as it were) connections beneath the glamor and the legend. The following interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

PORT & PLANET: It’s been a busy couple of months here on Odessen. Do you and your wife have big plans for the Festival of Love or are you going to keep things lowkey this year?

SIVRON: Vette and I take every opportunity we can to have celebrations. The Festival of Love is a particular favorite of ours. Since we had to be apart for so long, there is a lot of celebrating to catch up on.

PORT & PLANET: How are the two of you planning to celebrate?

SIVRON: [Smiles devilishly] Music, wine, and fine food. Then a very long evening privately, maybe with an extra friend or two.

PORT & PLANET: So the rumors about you two having an open marriage are true?

SIVRON: It's funny how many people assume we're kidding. It's been part of our relationship since the beginning. Something we have communicated with each other extensively. I might have been with many but I have only ever loved one, my wife.

PORT & PLANET: Do the two of you have any… frequent guests?

SIVRON: Not as many as you might think. And not the ones you might think. Usually it's one time appearances.

PORT & PLANET: Anyone in particular you’re courting for The Festival of Love?

SIVRON: [Winks] That remains to be seen. Have to talk it over with Vette first.

PORT & PLANET: There are lots of rumors that you’ve had the Commander of the Alliance in your bed. Any truth to that?

SIVRON: The Commander is a lovely and bold woman. Anyone would be lucky to be invited to her bed. But I won't sully the reputation of a Jedi or that of our leader by answering that.

His words may be coy, but the smile that creeps across Lord Lucwayn’s face as he speaks of the Commander is so genuine I’m almost moved by it. It’s clear to see where the rumors of their sexual relationship come from--there’s a deep fondness there, an even deeper respect--but it seems he would be playing a different kind of coy if there was any truth to them. If the Commander is sleeping with someone on her staff, it probably isn’t Lord Lucwayn Tal Sivron.

PORT & PLANET: Then what about her rumored lover? People say you’ve had him in your bed too.

SIVRON: [Mutters into his wine glass] Not for lack of trying. [Aloud] Our spymaster seems to be too in love with his work to have time for extracurricular activities.

He gives the spymaster’s “work” such a particular emphasis, with such a twinkle in his eye, I can’t help wondering if this is yet another thing Lord Lucwayn is trying to say without saying. I can’t help wondering if he cultivates this air of secrecy for his own protection, for the Alliance’s protection, or merely because he knows how much more irresistible the air of mystery makes him. I find the reasons don’t matter; I’m drawn in by all the things he isn’t saying and desperate to hear him not say more.

PORT & PLANET: Any names of note you can drop that have been guests in your bed? Before or after your marriage. You’ve got quite a reputation.

SIVRON: If you know my reputation then you probably already know that answer. Some like to brag and some like to lie. Allow them to keep their boast.

PORT & PLANET: Alright, alright. Point taken. But I’ve been speaking with some of the former Imperials around the base and they tell me you were married once before Vette. Is that true?

SIVRON: Not entirely correct. I was engaged to be married. My family was very traditional even among the Sith and arranged a marriage between the Sivrons and the Novarrs for political and lineage purposes.

PORT & PLANET: But then you met Vette?

SIVRON: I met Vette on Korriban. She was instrumental in helping me complete my trials there. I don't think I would have succeeded without her.

PORT & PLANET: That’s a pretty powerful statement for a Sith. When did you first realize you loved her?

SIVRON: As with all good things it took time. It was a gradual realization that came from a thousand little things.

PORT & PLANET: When did you tell her you loved her?

SIVRON: Short answer: when the moment was right. With the position I'm in, I wanted to make sure it was something I was ready to say and she was ready to hear.

There is a weight to his voice as he tells me about the history of his romance with his wife that suggests yet more being left unsaid, both things that trouble him and things that delight him, but pressing Lord Lucwayn for details doesn’t make him any more forthright. And there’s probably a reason Vette declined to join us for this interview.

PORT & PLANET: Did you ever worry about your relationship being used against you?

SIVRON: Within the Empire there are many things that can be used against you. I didn't get in the position I’m in by being unable to circumvent or quell such obstacles. I also know that Vette is more than capable.

PORT & PLANET: Which one of you proposed? Did either of you have cold feet? What was your wedding like?

SIVRON: [Chuckles] I proposed but it was Vette who told me to do so. No cold feet, only swept ones. As for the wedding, Vette wanted a traditional Twi'lek wedding. It's a long ceremony that took most of the day, consisting of a ritual bathing, tea service, and a sermon given in Ryl. Truly I think the Twi'lek take the honor of having the most elaborate weddings.

If the sudden sincerity in his smile when he discussed the Commander was a surprise, then the way Lord Lucwayn seems to melt when he speaks about his wife is downright shocking. His words about Vette are tender, but cannot even begin to capture the softness in his eyes or the earnest affection in his smile. It’s an incongruous sight on a man who ripples with barely restrained power and drips with sexual energy, but it’s no less magnetic than anything else he does. I can’t look away.

PORT & PLANET: So what are your favorite things about Vette? What makes her the match of a Sith Lord?

SIVRON: [Grins] Vette is as adventurous as I am both in the bed and out. I can always count on her to get us into the most delightful trouble.

PORT & PLANET: And if we asked Vette, what would she say she loves most about you?

SIVRON: I think she would tell you that I have the best ass in the galaxy.

PORT & PLANET: The two of you spent five years apart while you were held prisoner by Zakuul. What was it like seeing each other again after so much time?

SIVRON: [Smiles fondly] I had tried to be romantic, launching into something about crossing the span of stars and time to be by her side again. But my love had other plans for me.

PORT & PLANET: So you like making grand gestures. What’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever done for Vette?

SIVRON: Vette has a passion for reclaiming Twi'lek artifacts. There have been many times I have helped her "persuade" art dealers to part with some of their ill-attained collections.

PORT & PLANET: What’s the most romantic thing she’s ever done for you?

SIVRON: I'd like to give a vague answer about everything she does being romantic to me. It isn't too far from the truth. It is a wonder that she has chosen me.

PORT & PLANET: It sounds like the two of you have a really great relationship. Any advice for the newlyweds out there?

SIVRON: Communication is always the key to any relationship. Talk and be honest with each other about every preference you have, from food to sex. They say the Force brings people together, but it takes work to stay together.

It isn’t until the interview is long concluded and the dazzle of watching him pose for the holocams has finally faded that I realize how little new information I actually got out of Lord Lucwayn Tal Sivron. He is a master of half-truths and distraction, wielding that charming smile and alluring gaze as expertly as he wields his lightsaber.

All his powers of misdirection and secrecy still are not enough to overcome his passion for his wife. I can’t know if he meant to let me see the depth of his love for her, but it was impossible not to see it as he spoke of Vette. It was so present, so apparent in his every look and gesture, I could swear I fell a little bit in love with her myself.

It’s reassuring to know that beneath the power that swirls around him like a storm, beneath the stories and the gossip and the duties of his position in the Alliance, Lord Lucwayn Tal Sivron is a man with a heart that beats for love, just like the rest of us.

#swtor #sith warrior #lucwayn tal sivron #swtor fic #swtor edit #hydrostuff #hydroswstuff #hydroedits #hydroswedits #hydrofic #hydroswfic #port & planet

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ramblings-of-a-mad-cat · 4 years

Text

If you have sent me an Ask in the last thirty-six hours or so, This post is for you.

I was almost entirely done with answering all your beloved messages, when Tumblr decided to crash. Lost all the paragraphs of my rambling (which is why I’m no longer taking chances and am typing this on Google Docs) and even worse, the Asks seem to have been eaten by Tumblr’s great void. They’re gone, and nothing I’ve tried seems to work to get them back. Thankfully, I’m fresh off of responding, so I’ll try to summarize with one big epic post. Apologies for the inconvenience and unusual style, blame the Tumblr Overlords.

WARNING: If you don’t read the data-mines and don’t want spoilers, do not go beyond this point. This mainly concerns The Quidditch Cup.

There were a couple of Asks about Ismelda, someone talked about the head-canon that she’s secretly blonde and dyes her hair. Which I agree with, and really like. It would tie in to how Ismelda saw Penny as being no different from her sister. It would be a sign of her trying to spite her parents and distance herself from her family, to the point of even looking like them. I also think it would echo with Beatrice and how she changed her look to reinvent herself and be less of a “Mini Penny.” Another message was talking about her parents, wondering why they would ever visit her at Hogwarts given how they were portrayed. After all, they’re not about to be the next Ethan Parkin, are they? Not going to turn around and be well-meaning, but oblivious. I think it’s far more likely that they would visit her sister at Hogwarts, and it would be pure chance that Ismelda was there at the same time - if there was indeed any overlap where both sisters were at school. But that’s the real question of the hour - just what is the sister like? After all, it’s not her fault that she’s the favorite, right? Newt Scamander was estranged from his brother, who was engaged to his ex-girlfriend. From that description alone, we might think he was awful, but he wasn’t. Theseus was genuinely caring, he just didn’t know how to connect with Newt. We might have a similar situation on our hands here. Or, who knows, the sister might be the “Dudley” to Ismelda’s “Harry.” She was compared to both Emily and Penny, if memory serves. But until such a time that we meet her, we have no way of knowing who she’s really more like. Psst, Jam City, you getting this down? This would be a great TLSQ, to have Ismelda come face to face with her sister. Could perhaps end with, oh I dunno, befriending her? Just a thought…

I saw another Ask talking about how Beatrice would go back and forth between MC and Jae during their detention and how adorable it was to see her all flustered and excited, how it looked like she was gushing to MC “He’s so dreamy” and things of the like. It’s making me wish they would come back to this sub-plot because it’s funny as hell and a good way, again, to tie in Ismelda. She also fancied someone she had no chance with, she was also jealous of another person. (Chiara might not actually have a thing with Jae, but if memory serves, Beatrice is shown to be jealous of them talking anyway.)

There was an Ask that talked about punching Barnaby’s father in the face. Or at least, the idea of doing so. But regrettably, he is in Azkaban and it cannot be done. Well, maybe not by MC, but someone who was already there could do it. New head-canon, Sirius decked him on his way out. It happened, I don’t make the rules.

@guppygirl I read the first chapter of your fic! Do you know what you’ve done to me, do you know how many feelz it gave me to see Rowan alive and well and acting so sweet? You nailed their character and I love the inclusion of their parents! Maya’s reactions make just want to give her a hug. Everyone should check out the fanfic on her page, seriously!

I believe there was an Ask lamenting that the Festival TLSQ didn’t come out this week, and believe me friend, I’m right there clowning with you. It seems like every week now, we think, “Okay, this time it will come out, they can’t delay it anymore.” And we’re always wrong. Here I am just starting to worry that my far-fetched theory about them shelving it until next year because it’s no longer “seasonal” isn’t so far-fetched after all…

But the vast majority of messages that were lost were, as I’m sure you can guess, about the data-mined House Cup for Season 2. I wrote a lot about it and I do indeed have some thoughts and feelings.

Before I get into anything else, can I just say...that first scene with Ethan where he meets MC. I don’t think it’s possible for me to ever dislike Skye. All it ever takes is one vulnerable moment to erase any doubts and have me back in her corner. And you cannot tell me that Ethan knowing everything about MC because “Isn’t this the best mate you always talk about?” Didn’t melt your heart or at least give you feelz. Think back to how hurt Skye was when MC befriended Rath - to the point of snapping a broomstick in half. This is just proof of what I’ve been saying. She has no social skills and hardly any friends. Of course she sees MC as her bestie. The poor thing, oh my god, it’s adorable...

Ethan Parkin….I’m not a fan, even now. As I heard, he’s not as bad as we all feared he would be. He definitely has his moments. Still...he’s still pretty annoying. Ethan is basically a less obnoxious version of Lockhart, who actually has the talent to back it up. But I didn’t like how he involved himself in the practice and took over deciding who should be leader. Seriously, if he knows the game this well then he should know we already have a leader assigned. That’s what a Captain is. He was quite rude to Orion and while his pressuring Skye might have been inadvertent, it was still his fault. He’s also an extremely violent Quidditch player, which I’m not a fan of (Although apparently Penny is? The fuck?) I get that he would never cross the line into cheating, but I’m not impressed by how he lied. Didn’t give his team credit. And seriously...is cheating morally inferior to harming another player in a “legal” way? I guess it’s just a Quidditch culture thing, but I’m not here for it.

Orion’s reaction to Ethan, though? God I loved it. He took everything completely in stride, had the maturity to say that no, he was happy to learn from a Quidditch master. His concern wasn’t about his ego, it was about Skye’s feelings. Because once again, he’s the only one with the empathy to realize what she might be going through. Orion’s response was measured and thoughtful and god, I love him so much. Side note: Were they seriously debating whether or not keeping Ethan around to learn his mystery move was worth it, even if it was stressing Skye out? My dudes, this is the exact same mistake you made during the Rath TLSQ. Involving someone who doesn’t need to be involved, just for the sake of a potential advantage in a meaningless sports game, regardless of how much it will hurt someone who is supposed to be our friend. Screw that.

Folks were talking about Erika Rath. Someone brought up how hilarious it was in a previous chapter to see Andre actually tell her to be quiet, and for her to do so. And yeah, I agree. It’s a testament to how close their friendship must really be (Sorry, Depressed Erika Anon) I mean, most people wouldn’t dare say that to her. And I don’t think she’d have such a calm and passive reaction to just anyone. It’s unconventional, but their relationship is a sweet one. Overall, they’re involving Rath more and I’m quite glad of it. Seeing her proud of MC is heartwarming. Seeing her become more of a main character is great - I mean, she is one of the main four, after all. Face Paint Kid is a background character, as much as I love him. Penny is only here to develop Skye, and Andre is only here to develop Rath. There was also an interesting comparison made between her and Ethan, about how they both play pretty violently. Still not a fan of this. Maybe that’s one of the reasons that I’m mostly indifferent to Rath. But I’m coming around on her.

This was a lovely place to cap off Skye’s character arc. Seeing MC stand up to Ethan (although I wish you could be firm without having to say that stupid “You’re off the team, Parkin!” line) was especially cathartic, and it’s clear that Skye appreciates it. She’s happier by the end, and has actually communicated with her father. I would sincerely like it if Season 3 focused on, say, Murphy a little more. He hasn’t gotten any development since the first half of Season 1. Even Orion got some development in this TLSQ. But...make no mistake, we’re not done hearing about Skye. I know that no one wants to hear this, but...they slipped in that line about her wishing she could play Rath. She still hates her. That hasn’t been resolved. Oh well, at least it’s an opportunity to further flesh out Rath. There’s also the possibility that, if they do give focus to Orion, it might be that Season 3 is his last hurrah. I hope he stays for the entire story, but even if they don’t want to confirm character ages...he could very well graduate. If he does, there’s going to be a story-line about choosing his successor. And again, I know that nobody wants to see this happen, but...the only candidates who matter in the story are MC and Skye. So they could be pitted against each other again. But I hope that won’t happen.

Curse you, Tumblr. Oh well, it should be safe to send in Asks again because I’m quite literally going to copy them onto a Google Doc from now on just to be safe. If I missed out on one that you sent in, please feel free to let me know or re-send it. I’ve also seen people taking screenshots of their Asks and then responding to the picture instead of just responding outright. Might do that too...thank you for your patience, this has been a doozy.

#Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery #Fandom Asks #HPHM Quidditch #HPHM Datamines #Skye Parkin #Ethan Parkin #Orion Amari #Erika Rath #Murphy McNully #Ismelda Murk #Barnaby Lee #Beatrice Haywood

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very-grownup · 3 years

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THE YEAR IS 2020 AND I WATCHED NEON GENESIS EVANGELION FOR THE FIRST TIME, PART 10

Episode 22.

We're getting an Asuka episode? Well this will be a delightful change of pace, I think, because I am incapable of learning.

The exact details of how wrong I was under the cut.

You know what all the dead mom vibes in this show needed? SUICIDE AND A CREEPY DOLL.

There are flashbacks to Asuka, somberfaced and small staring through a window at her hospitalized mother who is whispering endearment to a doll she calls Asuka. This condition has something to do with Asuka's mother being too consumed by her work to be a mother. This is also why Asuka's mother kills herself: poor work-mom balance. Does Asuka's father, who loudly fucks a doctor in a medical supply closet within earshot of young Asuka, carry any blame for this? Have a great big shrug!

There's a flashback to Asuka and fuckin' Kaji (I will never be free of him) having a very one sided conversation, lying on their backs and looking at the stars, talking about Asuka going to Japan with her EVA and meeting other pilots including A BOY. Asuka declares her lack of interest in boys her own age, even if they also pilot giant robots, and her interest not in men, but in Kaji. Her great interest in Kaji and her willingness to do anything he's up for as part if her bid for his attention and adulthood. Fuckin' Kaji slithers over the bar by turning down the 14-year-old's blatant sexual overture. This is the only boundary he sets and he does it in the laziest way when in a just universe his refusal to fuck a teenager would not need to be commended because no one WOULD. I'm glad he doesn't but I hate that I have to be glad, you know?

This jumble of flashbacks is to establish that Asuka is having a pretty shitty time! Her sync rates with her EVA are plummeting; Misato doesn't know what to do and Ritsuko doesn't care and also seems to be ready to fire this teenage girl for poor robot performance.

Asuka is acutely conscious of being 'beaten' by Shinji and Rei post Shinji's month-long sabbatical being absorbed by his EVA, which is pretty understandable because NERV does a poor job of hiding how ready to write her off they are.

My understanding of the flow of these episodes is becoming increasingly less coherent. At some point there's a shot of young Asuka standing in front of the grave for I guess her mother who had the surname? Middle name? I DON'T KNOW BUT IT SAYS ZEPPELIN ON THE GRAVESTONE OKAY.

There are some shots of the creepy doll having its head wrenched off and being held by its head.

Mainly, Asuka's /so angry/. The coping mechanism she learned in the wake of her childhood trauma was about the ineffectiveness of tears and so everything is redirected into anger. She's angry living with Misato and Shinji. She's angry when Misato asks her to answer the phone. She's angry because she knows Misato and Kaji were a thing (but she doesn't know that fuckin' Kaji is fuckin' dead and Misato doesn't share the information - maybe she can't). She's angry when Shinji answers the phone instead, without being asked. She's angry Shinji's polite.

The phone call is for her, from Germany, from her mother (stepmother, she reveals, after the fact), and a bright, chipper, incomprehensible one-sided German telephone conversation ensues. A flashback to destroying a toy from her 'new' mother.

Shinji watches this conversation he cannot understand (but does any teenage boy feel like he understands any conversation conducted by a teenage girl?) but expresses genuine, sweet longing for what appears to be a functional familial relationship. Certainly Asuka's conversation with her stepmother is probably longer than every word exchanged between Shinji and his father in the entirety of Shinji's life.

Shinji's genuine interest in Asuka's family life prompts a sincere and unguarded response from Asuka about how uncomfortable living with her father and stepmother was before she catches herself and is angry at Shinji for briefly seeing a real Asuka, and herself for being real.

She's angry at Japanese baths, she's angry at sharing bath water with Shinji and Misato, angry at washing her clothes in the same machine that washes their clothes, angry at using the same toilet they do, angry at breathing the same AIR they do. She's angry because she's on her period (and this is brought up by Misato as a possible reason she's having trouble with her EVA and immediately shot down by Ritsuko) and because Asuka's always angry it doesn't feel like clumsy 'girls be PMS-ing'. Maybe more significantly, she's angry AT her period. Angry about it happening, angry about it being something she can't control and that boys don't have to deal with, angry because it's a biological indicator of her ability to do something she has no desire to ever do ...

As an adult, living with grief and depression and my mother's death and my difficult relationship with my father, I feel great empathy for Shinji. But I remember /being/ Asuka. I remember being an angry teenage girl, angry at myself and my body and everyone around me. Asuka's got big Not Like Other Girls energy and for me, that goes hand in hand with the boiling adolescent anger, the desire to goad other teens into fights, because lashing out and physically hurting was more real and acceptable than inner turmoil that couldn't be kicked.

It feels like there's a lot packed into this episode, even though it's full of long, awkward moments like a prolonged, silent elevator ride with Asuka and Rei which culminates in Asuka slapping Rei for her serenity and certainty of her place in NERV.

Maybe it just feels like there's a lot because this glimpse into Asuka's inner life feels like such a direct look at the feelings of my own adolescence. Projection is powerful.

Asuka's EVA sync rates continue to fall and it's just casually dropped that more EVAs are being made, like, it sounds like a good dozen of a new EVAs in different countries and hey that sounds like a terrible idea after one recently went rogue and ate an angel and Shinji sort of. Asuka knows she's fucking up, she finds herself lashing out at her EVA and its weird green bug eyespots. It's a weapon, a doll, and a tool, and it doesn't need a heart to fulfill its purpose (which is how Asuka regards herself). It just needs to obey her (like how Rei obeys). There's this tangle of connection with Rei and Asuka and the EVA here. Asuka hates and envies Rei because Rei performs her duties unquestioningly, which is what Asuka wants from her EVA but also what she wants from herself in her operation of the EVA. But Rei is needed by NERV because of how she performs and Rei appears to perform as she does because she knows NERV needs her. There's a certainty and belonging Asuka longs for, much as Shinji longs for the family connection her projects onto Asuka's German telephone conversation

ANYWAY an angel ... attacks? I guess? But it's not there it's in orbit maybe and it's like someone made a toddler draw a bird in space made out of lightning. It's definitely a thing to throw giant robots at and is some kind of bad time but they don't want to send out Asuka. And they don't want to send out Shinji and it's not clear why, if it's because of the absorption month or the berserk eating of the last angel or Gendo deciding he values his son's life (HA HA HA no it's definitely not the last one don't worry I'm not that confused). So it'll have to be Rei and they'll have Asuka provide backup but holy shit Asuka is not down for that and she decides to try and take out the angel in space herself, launching her EVA without permission and getting ready to do a shooting with her giant EVA gun, but she misses.

And then ... okay ... so ... then the angel in space does some kind of Care Bare Sunbeam Stare down from space onto the EVA while Handel's Messiah plays. But that's not good, that's bad. I know, heavenly music and glowing golden light. But it's bad. It's a psychological attack. The angel is trying to understand humanity with its beam attack which I think is what happened to Shinji with the pancake angel but while Shinji got a weird near death experience and a message of love from his mother, Asuka is screaming, shooting her giant EVA gun until empty.

I'm interested in the contrasting ways Asuka and Shinji's EVAs move when berserking. Shinji's was like a wild animal, a cryptid, unsettling fluid and violent and destroying everything around it in displays of brutal violence and blood. Asuka's ... looks like a headache. Everything is bent and angled inwards, clutching and drawing in and once the gun is out of ammo, it looks like it's hurting itself or trying to fold in and make a smaller target for something outside.

The angel's Hallelujah chorus beam is an awful thing of preventing suppression of bad memories? Asuka remembers all the crying she did as a child and her mother trying to kill her and also begging her mother to let her die with her so they would still be mother and daughter. It's a lot (and also there's lots of creepy doll stuff which you know I'm always ready to be particularly upset by) and Asuka's inner Asuka is, if possible, even harsher to her than Shinji's inner Shinji, because Asuka's self-loathing is channeled into anger and it's easy to be angry at yourself, you know? It's ugly stuff, this perpetual motion machine of anger as protection of self resulting in anger because no one knows the real you but then you're angry because you can't be weak and show your true self ... If your only coping mechanism is anger then everything is anger and everything becomes anger and feeds anger and there's no room for anything else. Anger's big and can grow forever in a bad way and ... Asuka's not taking out the angel in space, obviously.

So Rei is sent to save the day (which will make Asuka angry) but even Rei can't hit the angel in space. So there's only one thing to do, apparently, even though doing it may cause the Third Impact which is what all this angel fight has been for the purpose of avoiding maybe? IT'S TIME TO SEND REI INTO THE ORANGE TANG OCEAN SUBBASEMENT WHERE THERE IS A NERV WARSHIP AND THE GIANT GLOWING RED CROSS WITH THE WHITE MANY EYED DANGLY ENDED BODY OF ADAM TREVOR TO GET THE SPEAR OF LONGINUS. Longinus is removed from Adam Trevor, like you do, and Longinus was the only thing keeping Adam Trevor ... dead? Inert? I don't know but the dangly bottom end bits get all pulsing and roiling and Akira and maybe become legs no time to dwell on this Rei's back to the surface. Rei throws Longinus at the angel in space and that does the trick I guess but she throws it so hard that the spear lands on the moon. I guess they don't have the spear of Longinus anymore and while I don't know why/if they needed it, they definitely seem to have been using it.

There's no more Handel and that's good but Longinus seems like something they maybe wanted to put back in the chest of the upsetting ever growing white figure on the cross in the tang ocean but I guess that's a problem for next week.

Asuka doesn't get absorbed into her EVA for any length of time and post-battle, Shinji tells her hunched form he's glad she's okay. Asuka hates him and would rather be dead than to live having been rescued by Rei.

I'm amazed Asuka had an episode to herself (cultural consciousness of this show is so strange, I'd presumed such importance from her, but she hasn't been in that much, really, and then often as comic relief) and her rage was given depth. This concludes my report on Episode 22 of Neon Genesis Evangelion.

#neon genesis evangelion report #fuckin' kaji

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littlesailorinthesun · 4 years

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manifesto no. 790: why nikki/bobo is the best ship

(Author’s note: The title is in jest. It’s just for fun!)

In this essay I will explore the appeal of why Nikki/Bobo is actually the most narratively interesting ship you could choose for Nikki and for Bobo. Note that I don't intend to bash other ships or cause ship wars, because if you know me, you know that I am a multishipper and I support and enjoy ships like Nikkimi. I just want to explain why I personally like Nikbo and why it is the most interesting one to me as it exists in canon. Also note that because of the way I experience "ships", romantic ships and platonic ships have a very blurred and sometimes nonexistent line for me.

Shared Experiences

Not only do Nikki and Bobo first meet at the very beginning of the story, they spend nearly 100% of Volume 1 together, and all of Nikki's moments in Miraland as she learns about the world and forms impressions are spent with Bobo. Because of this shared time together at the beginning of the game, a lot of base game items and early events also have interaction between them, outside of what you see in the main story. By and large, they spend their happiest moments together. (There are way too many of these moments to list! Thank you, writers, for all the wonderful interactions.)

Of course, they also go through low points together. The rebellion in Chapter 12 was one of the few times they were separated before Bobo's eventual departure, and Nikki refused to leave Royal City with Ace until both Bobo and Momo were back with her. Bobo went from uncontrollable crying in V1:12-2 to feeling entirely certain that Nikki would be able to get them out of the mess by V1:12-7. (After all, she's Nikki's biggest fangirl!) The opposite happens in V1:15-9, when it's Nikki who's crying and Bobo giving her the strength to get up and fight. Despite that this was likely part of Bobo's mission, she makes sure to ask if Nikki's okay after Nidhogg defeats her for the first time. Neither situation actually involves much comforting, but they are both there for each other during those moments.

Relationship Arc

To me this is what makes the ship very interesting. Nikki and Bobo do not have a static relationship. It's something that morphs and changes and develops as the story goes on. We all know the feeling of discovering that Bobo and Nikki's meeting was not a coincidence at all and that she was actually ordered to befriend Nikki! But beyond this we also know that Bobo realized quickly into her mission that she actually really did like Nikki, which is a driving force in Bobo's storyline. Without her genuine affection for Nikki, I think her story would have actually been very different.

On Nikki's side of things, she had her faith in Bobo tested in V1:19-5 when it was suggested that Bobo might have been putting Nikki in danger on purpose. Of course, this wasn't far from the truth given Bobo's mission, though we don't know if every instance brought up (like Bobo tripping in the League Till outpost) was on purpose. But Nikki is so loyal to Bobo that she refuses to believe that she could have done anything like that. Reflecting on the matter in her dreamweaver The Girl's Decision, she says to herself, "Maybe you have your own difficulties, but I have always believed in you. You are my best friend on the Miraland. Your sincere wishes and dear heart, I have never doubted them." She also realizes then that she did not know how much she would miss Bobo until she was gone, which I think is important for contextualizing some of the earlier chapters.

We see their "low point" in the relationship at the end of Sunflower in Long Night, when the True King, who has been successfully manipulating Bobo for what seems like a while, forbids her from reuniting with Nikki who is actively searching her out. Paralyzed, she listens as Nikki leaves, and wonders to herself if that was the last chance she'd get, to which the True King responds, in the most ominous and chilling line to end a Dreamweaver ever, "You're right. There's no turning back."

Nikki does eventually find out the truth in Brave New World, but by then she's seen the turmoil Bobo's been going through, and assures her that even if her goals were false, their time together was not, and that her memories were proof of their true and real connection. Their bond of shared experiences was so true that even the lies could not break it - even if it could shake it.

Personally, I just find it more interesting when the ships have, like, literally anything that might stand between them. The deception in this - even if it's a double layered deception where Bobo was only deceiving Nikki because she herself was being deceived - is a fun dynamic to me. They formed their relationship despite the factors that worked against them, Bobo's conflicting motivations and Nikki's being kept in the dark. In a story where many of Nikki's relationships just happen because she ran into them on the street, this is a really refreshing relationship: a dynamic story underlied by a beautifully simple bond.

Mutual Desire to Protect

Both characters are marked by their overwhelming desire to protect each other. It is natural that Nikki wants to protect Bobo. Nikki sees her at her absolute weakest, disappearing right before her eyes in the Cloud Realm due to her uncertain status in the real world. Of course, that's what prompts Nikki to make that promise that the writers will totally make her follow through on, because they would never ignore a plot detail involving a major character: "Bobo... I will find you... I won't leave you anymore, I will face everything with you. Wait for me."

But it's also very important that Bobo wants to protect Nikki just as much. Immediately after leaving Nikki, she's already worried about her, thinking: "Nikki, how are you doing? Are you safe now? Have you found any new clues? I'm sorry I didn't protect you." (This actually reminds me a lot of how Orlando will address Flynn while talking to himself.) She's put in an even more precarious situation because she was meant to involve Nikki in the disputes of the world, which inevitably meant that Nikki was put into danger, over and over.

In my point of view, I think this is why Bobo left. It's canon, as stated in Daymare Fairy Tale, that the gun was what caused her to leave, because it caused her to "wake from her dream" (presumably referring to the good times with Nikki). However, the specifics of this are where I lean into theoryville. I think Bobo did mean to trip in V1:19-4 and that's what caused her to realize her actions crossed a line. A gun was pointed at her - and, presumably, at the nearby Nikki - and she realized she could not protect Nikki and involve her in disputes at the same time. She could not complete her mission. There's another more personal reason she could have decided to leave, and that would be that the sight of a gun pointed at her brought up the trauma from the events surrounding the death of her father. Regardless, I don't think either interpretation - that it was related to endangering Nikki or that it was related to her personal trauma - is wrong, but rather, it is easy to read more into it than what's stated so I thought it was worth mentioning.

Their desire to protect each other continues into Brave New World, both the day and the night sections. Really, these two are basically in an endless "no let me protect u" battle. Bobo breaks through the possession of the True King twice, once in Day and once in Night. Both times, she tells Nikki to run, to leave Miraland and herself, so that at least she can be safe. Both times, Nikki responds by telling her she isn't going anywhere: "No matter what you want to do, I will be with you. [...] I choose to stay here to protect the Miraland and keep everyone's dreams and future, to also keep our precious memories. I will not let you face this all alone. Trust me!" Eventually Bobo does accept this and tells Nikki that she trusts her to protect her. I can't wait for Nikki to make good on that promise and find her!

Personalities, Compatibility, and Character Analysis

I realize I have not touched on why their personalities work together, so here are some thoughts on them as individuals. (I will lean into hypotheticals and headcanons here.)

I see Bobo as someone who indulges too much in escapism. She likes to pretend things are okay when they really, really aren't. We see a bit of this when she refuses to believe Nidhogg could have betrayed Lilith in Chapter 12, and of course it's sort of... the entire thing about why she spends so much time gallivanting around with Nikki. After this she's pretty much forced to understand and accept the realities of the world all at once, and I think this is a major component of her character development. Nikki is both a source of her escapism and the entire reason why it comes crashing down. I think, in a hypothetical post-canon context, Nikki could still be that type of person who could help distract Bobo from things for a while (because god knows that girl needs some comfort).

At the same time, just due to Nikki's nature, she wouldn't let Bobo wallow too much in the past. Nikki believes strongly in moving on and becoming the best version of herself. This is a theme mentioned in her most recent birthday suit, Sparkling Cupcake. More personally, she reflects on it in her dreamweaver. She recognizes that she used to be a passive person and vows to change that in order to better protect the people she loves. So I know she would also do her best to help Bobo, because that's just who Nikki is.

As I think about Nikki's main goals and motivations beyond this, I keep seeing one theme pop up over and over: she places a strong value on happy memories. (Really, I cannot overstate this - she talks about it all the time.) She treasures her memories of Miraland more than anything, so much that she is willing to face its impending destruction, because they mean so much to her. These memories are something crucial she and Bobo already share. It's why I think she would find true happiness with Bobo.

(I will also touch on the obvious things here, albeit briefly: they have shared interests, like cuteness, the color pink, and romance, and they... uh... quite obviously get along.)

Comparison to Nikkimi

Really, like I said, this is not an attempt to bash or put down any ship. Nikkimi is great (and canon), but there are a few things that frustrate me:

Their relationship is largely focused on Kimi, not Nikki. Nikki is the one who comforts and supports Kimi on her journey, and Kimi is not there for most of Nikki's moments of weakness, nor does she accompany her on her journey. Kimi doesn't even know Nikki isn't from Miraland until... the very last stage of Volume 1, 19-SS3.

They get together quickly and stay together with no major interpersonal challenges. While yes, this is definitely ideal in real life, it's just not that narratively interesting.

Concluding Thoughts

If there is anything that marks the earlier chapters, it's Bobo's sadness over still being single. Yet, I love the trope of when someone didn't realize the person they were looking for... was with them the whole time!

Bobo has so many countless lines where she is fangirling over Nikki that it is very easy to read more into that. I think people ship her and Kaja for this reason but oh my god there are just as many if not more where she is Nikki's cheerleader, constantly complimenting her and hyping her up to the people she meets (just open Dreamweaver for this).

And even if you still prefer Nikkimi, Bobo having unrequited feelings for Nikki is also pretty fun.

#love nikki #nikbo #nikki/bobo #love nikki lore #character: nikki #character: bobo

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astrologysvt · 4 years

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Chan’s Ideal Type - Natal Chart Reading

Happy Birthday Chan~ 🎉 Thank you for inventing kpop 💛posted early cuz i managed to get it done in time for when it’s actually his bday in korea!

For ideal types, I’m not going to be doing specific placements of their ideal partner. Instead, I’m gonna be listing personality traits I think would mesh well with them, as well as focus on their needs and the kind of person who could meet them. what this reading cannot account for is the compromising the members would do on their end for their s/o. so just keep in mind this is only half of the whole picture!

someone very smart.

he’s a very communicative person.

he wants to discuss and have an exchange of knowledge and passion thanks to that aqua sun and mercury.

with a sag influence there is a desire to surround himself with knowledge, and i think he’d be very attracted to someone who could be considered a professional/expert in their field.

he’d not only really respect it, but it’d feel exciting to know and communicate with someone who is so deeply involved in a career/lifestyle different from his.

he’d love to pick their brain, and it would generally make him feel like his life is being enriched.

sag also adds a desire for travel as it expands ones perspective.

so derived from that, he may want to be with someone who is both not in the entertainment biz as well as someone potentially from a different country/culture.

chan is a really interesting mix being of very knowledgable and curious (aqua/sag), passionate and active (sag), dedicated and stubborn (aqua/scorpio), mixed with this very thoughtful and emotional influence (pisces/scorpio).

he has a very well-rounded chart (potentially tunnel visioned) but he’s a very sincere guy.

he’s present on almost all fronts, and isn’t very afraid of emotions or emotional intensity.

so he wants someone with a great deal of intelligence, as well as emotional intelligence.

he’s also very honest, and with this brings a very low tolerance for people who may be overly concerned with appearances.

this is due to his aquarius influence valuing individuality over conformity, as well as his scorpio mars that gives him a very keen eye for shallowness.

it’s not that he wouldn’t like someone who looked/dressed a certain way, but if he felt as though there was something blocking him from gaining his s/o’s full attention, or something preventing them from leveling with him -- that’d really frustrate him.

so with this kind of “truth-seeking” attitude about life, he’s going to want someone very upfront, honest, and unapologetic in how they carried themselves/acted with him.

not even in a sense of them being rebellious or super eccentric, he just wants someone who doesn’t feel the need to put up any fronts around him or has a perception of what they should be together vs. to others.

if he feels like there is a wall, he’s not going to have a lot of patience in trying to accommodate that in his daily life.

this is also emphasized by his pisces influence, but not necessarily in a discerning “ur being fake” sense.

he is incredibly intuitive in relationships because of his pisces venus, and this makes him conscious of other people’s energies.

so he’s very hyperaware if he feels like there is this wall, as it’d feel like there is this connection error to him. he’s very quick to notice if their energies are being withheld/directed elsewhere.

layers, on the other hand, are very different from walls.

his scorpio mars loves people with depth, both emotionally and intellectually.

his s/o should be very complex & have a bunch of different sides to them as he loves feeling like he’s delving deeper and seeing parts of his s/o only he can see.

his s/o should be very open to deep and philosophical conversations.

they should also be different enough from him that there is a feeling of discovery as they get to know each other, as well as a decent amount of friction/push back as this is very rewarding to a scorpio/aqua influence.

but with this sense of difference/friction.

it’s interesting because with a well-rounded chart like his, he’s obviously able to get along with people similar to him, while also having this ability to communicate and empathize with people much different from him as well.

and so, personally, i think there are a bunch of factors in dino’s chart that point towards him being attracted to those very different.

one of them being, with his rising in aries, this puts his descendent in libra.

i’ve been talking a lot about descendants but i haven’t really gotten too much into what they mean.

so your rising sign is very highly linked not only to your identity, but to your perspective and to your approach on life/people.

it’s the energy you excert.

with aries in his rising this makes him a very straightforward, ambitious, energetic, and excitable person.

his approach to life is very hands-on.

and so if you think about your rising as a kind of magnetic pole, on the exact opposite side of it is an energy that is intrinsically attracted to your rising sign in order to balance it out.

so on the opposite side of his rising you have this very diplomatic, intellectual, and easygoing presence through libra.

this is the descendent, which is also the cusp for the 7th house which is the house of love, marriage, and partnership.

so having libra in his descendent/7th house signifies an incorporation of external energies to the self through partnership.

to me, there are a bunch of different interpretations/applications of it in a reading, but i generally tend to read it as compromise.

i see it as what this individual most likely needs to take into account when sharing their life with someone else.

for chan, this manifests as him learning to be more diplomatic and thoughtful than he initially feels inclined to be.

it’d be about thinking “other” when he’s more focused on thinking “me.”

so what this means for an ideal type can kind of go in a bunch of different ways, but i think the most simplest reading would be that he’d more than likely be drawn/destined to be with someone who is going to force him to think.

he’s going to want to be with someone who forces him to stop before acting, and to take into account the general group as opposed to his own agenda.

teaching him to think more broadly than simply what he can immediately affect.

and this more or less loops in his pisces venus.

his pisces venus is a very gentle, loving influence to have in relationships.

he’s an ultra empath, generally really impressionable and easily swayed as he’s super inclined to try and understand others.

this is an influence that can kind of throw his truth-seeking scorpio through a loop, as his pisces can be easily swayed by romance and emotion.

this danger is especially relevant considering the idealist/optimist that his sag moon is that makes him maybe not the most discerning of negative intent if someone is charismatic enough.

so this is an influence that both needs to be reeled in as well as embraced.

his s/o should be as equally emotionally open and very privy to non-verbal communication through affection and that emotional intelligence.

he wants a relationship where they’re able to understand what the other needs without putting it in so many words.

they should also able to understand when each other needs space.

but with that, he’d also really benefit being with someone who is grounded/realistic enough in their perspective to ensure that he doesn’t get lost in this super compassionate/sensitive part of him without him needing to shut it off entirely.

i also think this stabilizing influence in a s/o other is really important for him with this pisces venus as he may have a tendency to get lost in thoughts/emotions.

he is such an individualistic person thanks to this aqua/sag/scorpio, but his pisces may come in and create a sense of disillusion where he can lose his grasp on what that means for him especially in relationships.

so someone who really and genuinely loves him for him, who isn’t going to incorporate a sense of self-doubt/consciousness in how emotional he is, while also truly encouraging him to go out there and do his thing.

they should allow him to be all the things that come easily to him, may it be passion or emotion, while teaching him balance and stability.

his s/o other should reinforce his sense of self, not dilute it.

and now that i’m writing this i want to make a point in perspective.

in relationships, no one should ever feel “diluted” or that they need to compromise on what being themselves means.

but for dino, since his perspective is so individualistic, there are certain circumstances that he may view as restrictive that to others will not.

lets say for a cancer influence, these people really like security, company, and are pretty comfortable with the idea of being someone else’s person as this gives them a sense of belonging/purpose. these “restrictions” add to their sense of self

for an aquarius influence, this may seem a bit off-putting as they want the space/freedom to continue to pursue being their authentic self in whatever way that may mean to them. for this influence, these definitely feel more like restrictions.

i think it’s also really interesting doing this reading because i really get the sense he wants to look to his s/o other for strength, guidance, and knowledge.

and for that reason i can see him wanting to be with someone older.

as much as he wants to offer these energies to someone else, he may find it much more exciting to discover rather than impart.

i also think this is shown in his rising/descendent.

with his rising being in aries, the first sign of the astrological cycle, this gives him a very young perspective.

then you go to his descendent in libra, and there is a sense of maturing in relationships that i think is very indicative of that “older” influence.

“older” in quotations mainly because i don’t think it indicates a large age gap but rather more so just a dynamic.

but overall, chan is just a super kind guy.

he wants a relationship filled with compassion and intellectual understanding.

communication is an absolute pillar and his s/o should agree on that.

there’s a desire in him for stability, and this could be implemented through push-back, discussion, and contrast.

and i think if i had to narrow it down to one specific thing he desires in a relationship, that’d be variety.

he wants to learn and grow in relationships, and for his world to be ultimately broadened.

#seventeen #svt #dino #chan #seventeen scenarios #seventeen imagines #happy dino day #kpop_future_dinoday #don't even know if these tags are even meant for tumblr #but my god will i use them

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daresplaining · 4 years

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So, in one of your posts you mentioned that you could write a lot about the different contexts in which Danny introduces himself as Danny vs. the Iron Fist. Is there any chance we could ever read those thoughts. Thank you so much for running such an amazing blog; I love it.

I want to preface this with a general statement and apology:

This blog has slowed down a bit in the last… year? Ish? Possibly longer? And this is because life has gotten much more hectic for a variety of reasons. My wonderful co-blogger has been busy enough that she doesn’t really have time to blog anymore, and my life has been fairly chaotic as well. There are messages in the inbox that have been there for a really long time (this one included), and I want to assure you that they will be answered, and that this blog does, in fact, still welcome questions! Thank you all so much for your patience, hello to any new followers, keep on Daredevilling, wash your hands… and now, let’s talk about our boy Danny!

(Context: The post being referenced is this one.)

MCU Danny’s overall story arc orbited around concepts of identity. The entire first season of Iron Fist is an identity quest– Danny returns to Earth, has his identity as Danny Rand stripped away and fights to reclaim it, has his identity as the Iron Fist challenged and fights to defend that, and then is faced with the question of how to balance both of those identities– his adherence to the honor and duties of being the Iron Fist, but informed by his sensibilities and past life as Danny Rand. At the end of the season, he makes the wise choice to return to K’un-Lun to continue his training, to focus more on his role as an Immortal Weapon, only to discover that… something horrible has happened to his home. The truth of what actually happened to K’un-Lun was a mystery that was never answered, and remains for me one of these shows’ most frustrating cliffhangers. But regardless, this discovery is a bomb dropped in the middle of his identity quest. He believes his home was invaded, and it’s notable that his traumatic nightmares of his parents’ deaths are replaced by nightmares of K’un-Lun’s destruction. He feels he cannot fully claim the title of Iron Fist anymore because he has failed in his duties. He has failed his family, his home, the people he was supposed to protect. But he also clings to that identity more tightly than ever as he commits every moment of his life to righting that wrong, to fixing this unforgivable mistake. He is angry and grieving when we see him in The Defenders, his identity a painful, mixed-up thing, and this fact has to be taken into account as we look at the ways Danny introduces himself in that show.

Overall, my feeling is that I’m thinking a lot more about this than the writers were, but hey, it’s still fun to examine. Let’s take a look…

[ID: A screenshot of Danny Rand and Colleen Wing in a dark, green-tinged tunnel, kneeling next to an injured man (Shaft, a member of the Chaste).]

Danny (subtitle): “My name is Danny. I’m hunting members of the Hand.”

This, his first introduction in the show, is a telling one. He is here in a professional capacity as the Iron Fist, doing strictly Iron Fist business (hunting the Hand), fully embodying that identity, yet he doesn’t introduce himself as such. Instead, he’s just “Danny”. (Note: not “Danny Rand”. Danny’s association with the name Rand is another complicated topic that I’ll get back to later.) This is in spite of the fact that he has reason to assume, given that Shaft knows about the Hand, that he would know about the Iron Fist legacy as well.

This can be taken a few different ways. It’s possible that he’s using Danny as just as shorthand; it’s more personal, and he may want to put Shaft at ease by using his civilian name. Or, at this early stage, having now suffered yet another failure of being unable to protect Shaft, it could be reflective of the fact that he doesn’t feel worthy of the title. He is shocked when Shaft recognizes him as the Iron Fist– maybe because he didn’t think Shaft would be so informed, maybe because he is embarrassed and ashamed to be addressed as such.

[ID: Screenshot of Danny standing in Colleen’s dojo, arms folded, looking intensely sincere. He is speaking to Luke Cage (off-screen).]

Danny: “I’m the Immortal Iron Fist.”

And here we have the exact opposite. The above scene with Shaft is very intimate, personal, emotional. Danny is avoiding his Iron Fist identity, downplaying himself. Everything is very quiet and desperate and genuine.

Here, though… Danny is wearing a mask. He is introducing himself in a succinct, summarizing way; projecting an image, providing information. His personal feelings about his identity are completely absent from this scene, because no way in hell is he going to reveal that vulnerable side of himself to someone he barely knows and doesn’t trust (yet). He is also reacting to Luke’s behavior, which up until this point has been dismissive at best, violent at worst. Luke is a sore spot here: a person who Danny initially thought was working with the Hand, and who he struggled to beat in a fight. If Danny was ashamed before, he is extra humiliated now, standing in front of Luke and being scoffed at (“Oh, this is a joke. Come on”).

And so he presents himself as the powerful, in-control Iron Fist he doesn’t actually believe himself to be (“I can answer myself” etc.), throws down a Clif-Notes version of his backstory so Luke can understand who he is, what he was doing when they first met, and why he is a trustworthy ally/asset, and introduces himself with the most formal, intimidating version of his title. Danny is recovering from a bruised ego, and wants the unpleasantness out of the way so that he can continue with his mission– and if Luke is capable of helping, then he wants to make that connection with as little angst and fuss as possible. He needs Luke to know that he is the Iron Fist, even if he doesn’t feel like he actually is.

[ID: Screenshot of Danny strolling into the lobby of Midland Circle, wearing a business suit.]

Receptionist: “Name, please.”

Danny: “Daniel Rand, of Rand Enterprises.”

Having seen one mask, we now get to see the other– this one much more fabricated, though he pulls it off with STYLE. (That swagger! I love this scene.) This is Business Danny at his Business Danny-est: Daniel Rand of Rand Enterprises, wearing a tie and everything. Danny is not a businessperson, as he himself says. He has never been a businessperson. He has never wanted to be a businessperson. And, as he also readily admits, he is not a very good businessperson. But it’s a mask he tried on in IF Season One for identity quest purposes– to tether himself to the Rand name, his civilian identity, which was his sole remaining connection to Earth and which the Meachums were trying to rip away from him– and it’s a mask he now dons again, this time as a weapon against the Hand. His introduction here is just as much of a necessary facade as his introduction to Luke was in the previous example, but this one lacks the emotional baggage.

[ID: The same scene as previous; Danny is smirking coldly at the Midland Circle receptionist.]

Receptionist: “Are they expecting you?”

Danny: “[Chuckles softly] Not like this.”

Okay, sorry, I always say this when discussing this scene, but… DANG. Get ‘em.

[ID: Screenshot of Danny standing in a white-walled Midland Circle conference room, hands folded in front of him, his back to an open door. A whole bunch of people in suits are sitting at a long conference table in front of him, watching him speak.”

Danny: “My name is Danny Rand.”

The charade continues (though note the switch from “Daniel” to “Danny”. He is being just as formal and fake here, but he’s never really been a “Daniel” and it’s possible he says it without thinking). I talked about this moment in detail in the original post, regarding Danny’s strategy and the challenges he faces as his plan starts to go awry, so I won’t repeat myself here, but I will point out that Danny keeps this mask on for as long as he can, even after revealing that he knows they are the Hand, even after Alexandra shows up and starts behaving condescendingly toward him. He embodies the Danny Rand of Rand Enterprises identity for as long as possible, so that they don’t see him as a physical threat until he wants them to, and so that when the moment arrives, it can be as impactful as it needs to be. He wants them off their guard, unsettled, frightened.

[ID: A close-up of Danny from the shoulders up, same scene as above. He is resolute.]

Danny: “I am the Immortal Iron Fist, weapon of K’un-Lun.”

I think this is genuine. Yes, it’s a shock-and-awe tactic to tell the Hand who they’re really dealing with, but I also think that in this moment, Danny rediscovers some of his confidence. He believes that, after all of his shame and failures, he has found a plan that will work. He has finally tracked down the Hand, he has breached their defenses in a way they were not expecting, and he believes that he can now destroy them. And then he gets emotional. This is about honor and vengeance, and they need to know who it’s coming from and what they are paying for. “I am the Immortal Iron Fist, weapon of K’un-Lun”– he is retaking his ownership as defender of his city, because he needs to, because he believes he finally can. He has conviction in his identity as the Iron Fist for the first time since the last few episodes of his solo show. And man, it hurts so much to find out that he is wrong.

[ID: Screenshot of Danny, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, and Matt Murdock (in civvies with a grey scarf tied over his face), standing in a tight circle in a dimly-lit room (a restaurant). Danny is talking to Jessica.]

Danny: “Hey, I’m, uh… I’m Danny.”

Jessica: “Jessica.”

Here is our final scene of Danny introductions: the team dinner, in which he introduces himself to Jessica, and tries to do the same to Matt (who is being grumpy and incognito and therefore is unreceptive to introductions). This one doesn’t have the emotional complexity of the previous examples– Danny is super cheerful and endearing here, delighted to meet these other superheroes and to have found more allies, and he introduces himself with a healthy, informal “Danny”. The beginning of the team-up is the start of the breakdown of his character arc, but it’s a very cute scene regardless– a glimpse of the happy, well-adjusted (or at least adequately repressed) Danny that we had not seen in the MCU at this point since the beginning of IF Season One.

[ID: The same scene. The four of them are standing around a plate-laden table. Matt is leaning intently toward Danny with his hands on his hips, listening to him speak.]

Danny: “Sworn protector of K’un-Lun.”

Part of Danny’s relaxed-ness comes from his belief, again, that with these new allies, his revenge quest is achievable. He is also clearly relieved to have help. He introduces himself as just “Danny” initially– using the most informal and least baggage-laden version of his identity, forming a personal connection with them– and then introduces himself as the Immortal Iron Fist, “sworn protector of K’un-Lun” later, when he starts explaining his role in the fight against the Hand. He is very relaxed about referring to himself in this way here, partly because– again– his sense of self and security has been bolstered, he is feeling good and hopeful, and also, it’s just necessary context that he knows he needs to provide. Specifically, he refers to himself as such to Matt, because he has gathered at this point that Matt has Chaste connections, and therefore assumes that he knows about the Iron Fist legacy. Little does he suspect that overly-emotional Matt failed out of Chaste School before learning any of the important backstory, and is therefore clueless.

[ID: Screenshot of Misty Knight looking over Luke’s shoulder at something that clearly upsets her.]

Danny (off-screen): “You got a chair?”

Please indulge me for just a second: Am I bitter that we didn’t see Danny properly introduce himself to Misty? Am I bitter that their relationship was almost entirely neglected in these shows? Yes, just a little.

Anyway…

Overall, Danny’s emotional arc in this show suffered for the sake of the team-up, and I feel like there is not as much significance in these introductions– these shorthands for Danny’s identity struggles– as there should have been/would have been if this were his show. That said, I do think they are important, and I loved digging into this. Danny’s journey is one of my favorites out of all of the Netflix Marvel protagonists, and I love taking it apart and examining it.

Again, I’m sorry this post was so long delayed, and thank you for the question!

#apple-grass-and-smiles #Netflix Defenders #Iron Fist #Danny Rand #Asks #Commentary

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