#As you can see I am . very much disregarding the canon again but honestly what's being missed

[splattales]

That sure was a Side Order, huh.

#As you can see I am . very much disregarding the canon again but honestly what's being missed #anyway the Side Order DLC is a videogame that OTH Marina made. there you go. It references 8's time in the metro #but with less direct trauma and more involvement from marina and pearl #Slushie #Pansy #Ribbon #Primrose #Artpost #plotpost

[imperiuswrecked]

People seem to do anything to make Namor the villain. I think he’s misunderstood and pretty neat.

The sooner people let go of the "Hero or Villain" mentality when it comes to Namor, the better.

Namor isn't good or bad, he's simply Namor. With all the complexities it comes with being Namor. I've seen many people call him a villain, but they're wrong, he's an anti-hero, but he's also a king. Namor knows sometimes he’s a monster to others but all that matters is the protection of his people. Anti-heros have their own moral code.

Are you a Hero, Namor? Or are you a Monster? I’m a King. So I’m both.

Atlantis Attacks (2020) #1

I am King of Atlantis. I must protect my citizens, whatever the risk! You can spend your days being a “Hero” living in a world of moral absolutes, but when you have a civilization to defend, sometimes there is nothing but gray!

Sub-Mariner (2007) #4

Answering this here because it’s basically the same:

Was Namor being too much in the film? Is going after someones parent worse than one of their subjects? Wdyt???

In Avengers Arena (2013) #15 Namor orders and carries out the execution of of two traitors of Atlantis. He speaks to their daughter whom he had just orphaned.

“I did not summon you here to punish you for your parents treachery. These crimes are theirs alone. Nor am I asking you to forgive me their deaths. You’ve earned your contempt. Keep it. But I do hope you will accept one last gift from your King. A lesson to be learned from this mess. Trust in yourself and no one else. You’ll be less often disappointed.”

Namor doesn’t go after people because he’s a murderer, or some psychopath, or evil. He always has a reason for his actions. There were consequences for the actions others took as well.

To Namor, Ramonda threatened the lives of his subjects, one of her Wakandan Agents, Nakia, killed his people on Ramonda’s orders to do whatever it took to find Riri and Shuri and bring them home (Namor didn’t kidnap her, Shuri asked to go). Why is Ramonda’s life worth more than the lives of two of Namor’s people? Where is the scale to measure lives to see which is more just than the other in this case? I see a lot of people say Namor is wrong but it’s just like how people treat Namor in comic fandom. They view Namor’s actions from the perspective of humans, but Namor was never a human hero. Comic and now MCU fandom always disregards the lives of Atlanteans/Talokanil as canon fodder because they are just another subject, but to Namor each one of them is a person he swore to protect.

I was actually very surprised by Coogler going that far because not only does it stay true to Namor’s core character but it also meant Coogler understood that Namor isn’t going to pull his punches, or soften his actions. Namor will do anything, will take on any burden, will bloody his hands, if it means his people are safe and thriving. For Namor to do anything less would be a great disservice to his character. Yes, it’s terrible what he did, but the way Namor views it, it’s justified. Honestly I see people upset that Namor got into Queen Ramonda’s face but isn’t some innocent bystander in this, she is a POWER, she is a Queen, she commands a Nation, and Namor’s every interaction and response to her was because he understands she is the most powerful person on the surface.

This movie forces people to think, and once again alot of people missed the point completely and didn’t see that Wakanda and Talokan both have a common enemy who pulled the strings/set into motion their clashes. I know the “American/French want Vibranium” wasn’t a flashy part of the movie but it’s their actions of seeking to destabilize and then steal resources from the nations that got this whole thing started.

If people want to come and be annoying in my inbox about me “not caring that Ramonda was murdered by Namor” and that I’m “excusing a murderer because he’s hot”, just don’t bother. I look at things very analytically when it comes to character meta and these are fictional characters. If you can’t understand by now that me understanding the viewpoint of fictional characters motivations doesn’t mean I condone murder, then you really shouldn’t be in fandom.

#namor #mcu namor #black panther wakanda forever spoilers #namor the sub mariner #mcu namora #queen ramonda #princess shuri #hulk #amadeus cho #avengers arena #black panther: wakanda forever #imp answers

[secondhand-snow]

Your Lukas Matsson and your Jeryd Mencken are so exquisitely written. Both are so perverted and so perfectly Canon, that I find myself wanting to know everything that goes inside their heads, all of their secret motivations and their plans with their corresponding women. Like, what's going to happen with the married Mencken and his ATN lady friend, how is he caring and mean?Would he even consider making it public? What about his image and his campaign?And Matsonn and the youngest Roy? Did he started seeing her as a power play? Is he gonna hit on Shiv? He's so crazy, I love him. And the other Jeryd and the arranged marriage, does he love her? Or will he back out of the deal before Logan's 6 feet under? How did they even got together? Was he already divorced in this verse? Or he had never married? Too involved in climbing up to the top of the political ladder? So many questions...Gahhhh!!!

thank you so much!! i am so so happy you're enjoying my work and you find it so engaging!!

honestly all valid questions that have varying answers. lukas's fic is ongoing, so those q's will definitely be revealed in time! and agreed, im so in love w him too, he's our husband for real

my mencken works will probably end up getting part 2's or sequels, so hopefully those will satisfy your curiosity (whenever they end up getting released lol). also also, i really like to leave stuff up to audience perception!! like even if i think one way about it, that doesn't mean you can't have a different idea! but i will try to answer a few here for you now!

so for the mencken from a question, (a promise) i see him as being technically married and with his wife publicly, but that's the extent of their marriage. like they don't sleep in the same bed and they have zero intimacy, but in public they're the perfect american couple for his image. tbh i don't think mencken's wife would really care if she found out. mencken is also too concerned about his perception and his career to make their relationship public, maybe if he was in his second term as president and not worried about re election he would make it more open. to me, caring and mean is about both the sex and the relationship. jeryd is no bullshit and very straight forward, so i really feel like he can disregard feelings a lot in his relationships. but at the same time, he's also obsessive so he really cares about what his partner is doing, who they're talking to, what they're thinking, etc. mencken can fuck really rough and mean, degrading and pulling hair and spanking. or he can fuck really intimately and caring, overstimulating and making you beg and kissing you sloppily.

for arranged marriage mencken, i feel like he's divorced in this universe? or like officially still married but separated or in the process of getting a divorce. i think he met reader either through work with the roys or maybe at the future freedom summit (the conservative political conference in s3 e6). this mencken is still super into his political career like he is canonically, but is maybe a little more caring than other menckens i've written lol.

hope that answers some of what you asked, thanks again for the support!! ♡

#asks #succession #lukas matsson #jeryd mencken #snow's headcanons

[silvysartfulness]

1, 2, 12, 16 and 22 for the ask game! No particular fandom, up to you.

the character everyone gets wrong

Gonna say a toss-up between Xiao Xingchen and Xue Yang here.Guess it depends on whether you mean in fic or just in The Discourse in general?

I see so so many bad takes on Xue Yang, especially people utterly glossing over his trauma, and... I'm happy for you guys, I guess, who've apparently never known trauma and what it does to a person? It's not a matter of Xue Yang deciding to be a murderous asshole because he broke a finger once. It's that his entire personality and the way his mind works were brutally shaped by severe abuse and trauma at a very young age. You don't have to like him or at all condone his actions, but have a little compassion, for fuck's sake.

As for Xiao Xingchen... I don't know which rubs me the wrong way the most, the "lol XXC can't do math" crowd claiming he's outright stupid, or the "lol XXC was raised by hippies" who utterly disregard his whole cultural context. Personally not at all a fan of mean (dom) Xiao Xingchen either, I just can't see it work with his canon personality, but to each their own, I guess. I won't read it, though.

2. a compelling argument for why your fave would never top or bottom

Hmmm. That's actually a tough one, because I hc Xue Yang (And Xiao Xingchen for that matter) as rather fluid switches without particular preference as long as things are sexy and feel good.

I guess you could argue that Xue Yang would be wary about who he'd let top him because of his rough and precarious childhood and how badly the world's hurt him, but then, the boy also has a self-destructive high-risk-behaviour streak a mile wide, so.

I guess the closest I can get is that I don't think Song Lan enjoys the idea of bottoming, partly because of his more ingrained ideas of masculinity and femininity and the power roles he feels are inherent in topping/bottoming, but more importantly because he already struggles with physical touch, and the idea of being held down, touched and "trapped" in any way during sex is a bit scary. Not to say he wouldn't come around to it, but it'd take a lot more mulling over - and gentle experimentation. 😏

I already answered 12, so moving on to 16. you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

Oh man, is this my cue to mutter about mean dom Xiao Xingchen again? Like, I get the appeal of exploring characters far outside their canon constraints, I really do, and if mean dom Xiao Xingchen tickles your metaphorical pickle, by all means, have fun! I just personal really dislike it. (I am super grateful to all writers out there who have started tagging for it, though! It makes it easier to avoid - and find, for those who are into it. Everyone wins!)

As for pairings, I just don't like SangCheng or XiCheng, they both feel very pair-the-spares to me, and are just... Mm. Not for me. Honestly, funnily enough, SongXiao goes here, too, 95% of the time. I pretty much only like these two as part of SXX - I don't know if it is because of many SongXiao shippers' way of treating Xue Yang like dirt, or just because the two characters on their own don't interest me much, but yeah. On the whole, I won't read fic for just SongXiao unless recommended by people I trust, and I'll only like/reblog art if it's very pretty and doesn't imply dead Xue Yang.

I also really don't like most modern au BDSM fic? So much of it reads like a wholesome manual - and I'm sure for people in that scene, it's really hot! It just doesn't do anything at all for me, except give me secondhand embarrassment. If sex is going to be a bit painful and having undertones of dominance and submission, i want it to be very, very real, borderline dangerous and not done for play or politely negotiated beforehand. Gimme the hot mess or nothing.

(Mandatory disclaimer that these are just my personal squicks and mehs, not passing any judgment on anyone who does like them! My Kink Is Not Your Kink And That's Okay, and ship and let ship. ✌)

I already answered 22, too, but... Hm. I'm sure I can think of more if I try...

22. your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores

I think Xue Yang's and a-Qing's relationship is a lot more complicated than a lot of people seem to want to think! Especially for those who've only watched CQL, where a lot of the Yi City arc was either cut or angled to make it into more of a psychological thriller - but they were a family! All three of them, and in the text there is such clear evidence that they all really cared about each other! Even Xue Yang.

A-Qing stole his candy without fear, asked him "why were you like that when you were little??" when he told the first half of the story of his childhood trauma. When she claimed to have been bullied to the point of crying, he protectively told her how to defend herself and made her apple bunnies to cheer her up. Even after Xiao Xingchen's death (and he must have known by then that she was the one who sold him out) one of the things he did while cleaning the house was to make her bed, waiting for her to come back home.

Not least of all, Wang Haoxuan said in his in-character farewell note that Xue Yang would have protected a-Qing as long as their happy 'dream' in Yi City lasted.

They ended horribly, yes, causing each others' deaths, but there was a time where they cared deeply about each other and looked out for each other, and that still matters.

#violence ask game #asksilvy #untamed artfulness #thank you for asking! #♥

[uppastthejelliclemoon]

Hi! Sorry, I really mean no harm and I don't want to start any discourse at all, but I saw your Platoria post from a few days ago, (wait, December 4th?! And it's December 11th now?! How time flies! *cry*) and saw that you said, it was one of the most underrated ships in the fandom. Sorry, but it seems like it's one of the most popular! I know it's the third most popular ship on ao3. So I was just wondering what you meant by that. It's a great ship tho!

hi hon!!!

honestly ty so much for asking this, and you're so polite about it, which means a lot lol

so i talked about it a lot here (which may or may not have been the post you're referring to!) but i really appreciate you asking me to elaborate, because yes, from glancing at the AO3, i absolutely can see why you would think it's one of the most popular!

and before i get into this post, i first want to say that i am in NO WAY bashing the ships that i am mentioning. i love all of these ships, i think they're wonderful, but i also think it's important to recognize this issue. so please do not come for me saying that i'm shitting on people's ships.

going into the Platoria tag on Ao3, however, the top stories aren't even Platoria-centric. It's either gen pairings listed first (like non-ship), or it's Tuggoffelees or another major pairing. Or the pairing is part of a larger work, like a bunch of one-shots compiled together!

(and i will be the FIRST to admit that i do that, where i list Platoria even if it's a secondary ship in my stories!)

and honestly, saying that Platoria is the third most popular ship on Ao3 really doesn't mean that they're one of the most popular ships.

the Platoria tag has 76 stories.

The Cats the Musical fandom has 1,361 stories (as of when i'm making this post).

That means that the Platoria tag takes up less than 6% of the Cats the Musical fandom page on Ao3.

and like i said, that tag has stories that aren't even Platoria-centric, they're either a background couple or have a few stories within a collection of one-shots that also have other pairings.

While Victoria is a very well-beloved character in this fandom, Plato is almost always forgotten about. He's surprisingly one of the most underrated characters, which is a bit understandable, given that we barely see him in the second act of the show due to the actor needing to be in Macavity makeup + costume for the majority of the act.

also there was a whole thing a few years ago within this fandom where i saw a few people basically making Plato out to be this terrible manipulative character, JUST BECAUSE HIS ACTOR ALSO PLAYED MACAVITY, so i think people just don't think of Plato that much, which is so unfortunate.

and i know i always mention her when it comes to discussing this, but PLEASE go check out @munku-collar's posts about biphobia and bi erasure within the Cats fandom. it's incredibly pertinent to when i say that Platoria is underrated (as well as other m/f ships like Demestrap and Casslonzo).

m/f ships are either completely disregarded, ignored, or added in as an afterthought. Bringing up Ao3 again, Tuggoffelees has a whopping 404 fics (taking up about 29.5% of the Cats Fandom page), whereas the next biggest ship only has 198. That ship is Demestrap, which takes up about 14.5% of the page. I love Tuggoffelees, everyone knows that, but Demestrap is literally as canon as Cats the Musical can get. Yes it's wonderful when actors confirm that they're playing Tugger and Misto as a romantic pairing, but that's not how they're played all the time. But Demestrap is pretty much ALWAYS played as having romantic undertones, so I think the fact that the CANON m/f ships (Demestrap and Platoria) have less fics combined than Tuggoffelees says quite a lot.

Demestrap, Casslonzo, Platoria, Tuggelurina, those are all ships that are often pushed aside in favor of ships like Alonzostrap, Victeazer, Tuggoffelees. and i've seen instances within this fandom of people getting asks claiming that they're being homophobic or other wild accusations the SECOND that they say they prefer an m/f ship over one of the more popular m/m or f/f ships.

so from the outside, yes, it looks like Platoria is one of the most popular ships. but when you really look at it, it isn't.

#platoria #plato #victoria #cats the musical #fandom discourse #bi erasure

[kaiokentimesten]

YO! thank you so much for answering my ask! I know it’s a silly thing to say thanks for but honestly I was kinda a little nervous to ask initially and ty your response helped me a lot! :D

I hope you don’t mind but I also wanted to ask a little follow up- Cause my personal shot in the dark for what he got going on was his initial feelings of insecurity or resentment from others disregarding him making him prideful to not take the help when given- kinda like ‘oh so you’re just NOW helping me? Fuck off!’ Type of attitude. Am I correct or am I missing the dot a little?

I know this is going a little more into the personal hc or over-thinking territory, but I wanted to know what your take is on it! because I feel like the pieces are there for schlatt to have a complicated relationship with genuinely trusting people and opening up to them, I’m just not sure entirely if my train of thought is true to his character if that makes sense.

(Sorry that this is a weird question… I’m trying to write a fic that pairs c!schlatt up with an unlikely character- my own version/interpretation of michael B.- and trust is kinda a theme I wanted to see I could connect the dots with more)

-schlatt anon :)

Hi again anon!! Good to see you back! I’m always happy to talk about c!Schlatt with people so don’t worry about asking me questions! I love answering em :P Answer will again be under the cut

That’s a very interesting interpretation! I can definitely see that being a fairly solid headcanon. As for canon evidence and my own interpretation, though, it seems like he’s just always been prideful from the get-go. I mean, he was confident enough to randomly start his own party in the middle of an election. That, to me, shows a lot of pride. He never really asked for help, nor did he ever really accept it when it was given. In a way, he took the support around him for granted imo

As for themes of trust, though, there’s a lot to be said I think! Schlatt definitely has a lot of issues trusting people and genuinely opening up (he tends to fake introspection to get what he wants but that obviously doesn’t count). The only person he really seemed to genuinely open up to and trust, in my opinion, was Fundy. Which makes sense, since Fundy knew so much about Schlatt (as shared in A Spy’s Diary), and Schlatt seemed genuinely distraught when Fundy’s betrayal was revealed on November 16th (lashing out, hitting Fundy, shouting things like “who’s gonna lift dumbbells with me, man?!”, etc.) 

I think Schlatt felt the need to keep up appearances. He loved having that power both because it just felt good, but I think he also loved having it because it made him feel stronger than he actually was. Drinking protein, doing curls while talking to people, constantly belittling those around him and insinuating they’re weak, I think it was all—at least partly—done to compensate for how weak he was, you know? He was the Big Strong Man that couldn’t be touched, or at least he tried to make it seem that way. 

Schlatt was also just generally paranoid when it came to those around him. There’s this pretty good clip from Wilbur’s “techno and wilbur make cave better” stream where Tubbo is in Pogtopia, and Schlatt joins the call and demands to know where Tubbo is. From what I can remember, he does this a lot. He needs to know where everyone is at any given moment, because I think a part of him didn’t trust them one bit. Of course, he was right to, but he didn’t know that until later. Here’s the clip I was talking about, by the way. Keep watching until about 31:20. 

So yeah your interpretation isn’t completely unbelievable, but I think c!Schlatt’s trust issues mainly stem from his need to keep appearances, general paranoia, and his near constant inebriation 

#holleh.ask

[letstrywritingmaybe]

Just a random thought, since I love song fics… I wonder if I could somehow make a fic using my Spotify wrapped playlist as inspiration hmm… I’m gonna think out loud under the cut

Crash my car… so a meet ugly if it’s an AU (I love these!) but also lyrics could make it canon verse

Roses, need I say more, this is so CoAi vibes already. Lyrics probs more canon?

Bang, um… yeah okay probs canon divergence from the looks of things

Way less sad, labyrinth, know it all, lost, talk too much, maroon (oooo, as if I want already dreaming of a midnights album fic), close to you, 1 last cigarette, bummerland (cause we’re only going up from here. Okay this is like all my fics though), anti-hero, miss you a little, see through, blind, snow on the beach (okay but I did use a lyric already for the December fic…), American money (ngl always wanted to use this song as inspo cause of my bias of mirroring my golden otp), daphne blue (I don’t wanna talk about it! And I think we both know why! Wish it wasn’t automatic, the way I want you every time. Ugh this song man), loneliness for love (this song has always low key reminded me of my fav), karma (cause karma is her boyfriend!?!), songs I can’t listen too (my bias of superposition being their song), isabelle (hm… eh), love somebody (this one!!!), lavender haze (again the midnights album fic really should just be a thing), I like that, hate you + love you (ah yes the low key toxic vibe of it all. Why am I like this), SAD (clap your hands) (honestly probs more of a kaishi vibe but not very shippy really, but we’ll roll with it), you’re on your own kid, 2/14 (can’t fall in love tonight, well guess what pal! It’s happening!), 3 o’clock things (insomnia my old friend but also this ship doesn’t sleep I swear), choke (basically just die, which is such a mood), bejeweled (best believe my queen is still bejeweled and she can still make the whole place shimmer. And when they ask if she has a man? She can still say she doesn’t remember~ seriously this album fic when. Does someone else wanna be in charge of this cause I’m super intrigued by how people write using the same source but it always turns out different and I love that!), never a good time (the demise of the canon ship, there’s literally no good way for them to break up. They’re way too toxic and while obviously they shouldn’t work out, it’s annoying that I even have to figure a way to make amicable. I literally don’t even bother anymore. I hate canon), palm reader (got your crystals in your pocket like a drug dealer, bars. Love this line always), all my favorite songs (see the neon trees song cause that is the tie in), mastermind (most CoAi song off the album hands down), less than I do (I hope you feel blue, less than I do… did I really write a fic if I don’t make him suffer?), ghost story (see previous note), wave of you, question…?, Greek tragedy (she hits like ecstasy~), I think I like you (geezus Christ you think buddy!!! Literally I wanna scream every time cause why the fuck is he like this!!! HOW DO YOU NOT KNOW YOURE IN LOVE WITH MY QUEEN!!! I say as if he isn’t canonly dense as fuck when it comes to romance, it’s literally why I can’t deal with him sometimes and will only write him when he fucking is aware! As a hopeless romantic, it kills me to see him be so dumb about this kinda stuff), electric love, sweet nothing (okay I honestly see this more as kaishi but it’s cause I’m soft for them but also imagining it as CoAi is very cute too), strawberry sunscreen (she tastes like sunscreen and summertime, actually lots of feels about this… like you know when a summer fling is going to end cause it can’t last and you know it but you still keep going for it even. Living in the moment and falling more and being so happy and just disregarding the fallout that’s to come. Again just my feelings with this ship, the song does not give this vibe at all), run (need I say more, this is a theme for this ship), baby blue shades (hm… again I’m thinking more of symbolism but the song is not at all the way I’m making it out to be in my head)

midnight rain (ugh okay my fav song off the album but in regards to the ship there’s so much about this song man. And I never think of him, except on midnights like this. My whole heart. I guess sometimes we all get just what we wanted. I guess sometimes we all get some kind of haunted. Listen I’m a firm firm believe that they would absolutely be each other’s the one that got away and that just pains me so much), can you handle my love??, I ain’t worried, world’s smallest violin, vigilante shit, girl(you’re gonna take me back to a time when I loved and I mean it), animal(so look me in the eyes, am I someone else?)

you are the traffic (I actually have a fic with this as the title and it is not a great one. Not as messy as devour, but not great either. A terrible toxic relationship that should definitely end, but because it’s me… yeah…)

Dear reader, automatic (god I love the way you talk the way you feel baby), higher, blu (fall into your blue, what the hell is love if you’re in complete control, fighting it is hopeless, sinking in your ocean just like you designed me to do), would’ve could’ve should’ve (the regrets aspect but also John Mayer is a piece of shit, not fic related of course but I never liked him), Thelma + Louise, coming home, boys (got hungover from your words, in New York it’s the worst, all these nights are a blur), the Great War, superposition, cemetery (def not a shippy song but we’ll roll with the title), low key (see I only lie when I love you summary), Paris, I want it all (he’s the selfish one but he’s not wrong when it’s for her), love me like a friend (fwb fic when), song about you (see me always being on the song fic train), high Infidelity, stay next to me

Cringe (honestly could go one of two ways for me. Either more fuel for no canon ship or desperation for my ship. Again I write this all the time), still not dead (honestly the theme of the series if we’re just looking at the title here), bigger than the whole sky, wish you were sober, the other side of paradise (of all glass animal songs it was this one??? I wish you could see the naked truth… I guess), sunshine, glitch, choker (self-sabotage is a sweet romance)

tangerine (okay here’s another one, hm… honestly more of a failed ship song but perhaps a dramatic thing of this is what will happen to me if I miss out on keeping you), dancing in the kitchen

state of grace (okay I never liked the idea of writing a red album fic cause it is the ultimate breakup album and in my world my ship always works out. So really this is more for the canon ship, which I low key have put a lot of thought into and may just write it one day… but I don’t really wanna cause I do not care about the canon ship. But I literally have it all mapped out in my head. All 30 songs. But anyways this is the worthwhile fight I guess would be his stance for my queen if I’m making it for my ship)

My play (basically the perfect scenario, but we all know nothing ever goes to plan in the real world), lean on me, someday, red (see note about this being a canon ship break up album and my ship is absolutely not a red ship cause to me those do not last. I say as I have a red otp), drivers license (okay this does not apply to them at all, but we can roll with it in the way that we’re tying in the crash my car song. Am I bringing back the idea of an AU?), 18

Get away (okay I can’t. This has always been a kaishi song to me and I kinda still really wanna write this fic for them one day… but I guess we can roll with this as just the title, cause the lyrics are definitely more geared towards kaishi for me)

Message in a bottle (again we don’t need to go over this again, so title it is), record player (title), strawberries & cigarettes (basic but so what), find someone, run (but this one is for the one in Run To Change The End Game. I still need to finish that and perhaps add the joker and the queen, but for this purpose we’ll continue the theme of running away or not), new religion, everybody talks (in which as per usual in my fics, everyone ships them), (skipping this one cause it’s not my song but one of my brothers that made the list)

Treacherous (okay I know I said no red songs cause breakup album but… this to me has (still is) always been the most CoAi song Tay ever wrote so… yeah)

In conclusion, this would literally be every fic I’ve ever written so yeah. Totally doable

#cynful babbles #I probably won’t write this as one fic but it’s possible #mostly because I do kinda wanna write a midnights album fic #you know I bet I could be a consistent updater if I strictly wrote song fics

[drusilla-carstairs]

As a happy anniversary to Fearless (Taylor’s Version) I’m assigning a TSC character/ship to some Fearless TV songs!

Fearless - Malec - Starting off strong, a classic for a classic! Malec is Fearless. The Fearless rune is so important to their original TMI story and just,,, some on. “You pull me close and I’m a little more brave.”

Love Story - Sizzy - “Isabelle! Let down your raven hair!” Honestly who could do it better. If the Love Story final verse isn’t the Sizzy proposal I don’t want it.

Hey Stephen - Clace - Another perfect classic… sorry all the TMI ships are first but this is simply true.

White Horse - Cristina - “Stupid girl, I should’ve known, I should’ve known”. I just know Cristina blasted this song after her breakup with Diego )): “Begging for forgiveness, begging for me, just like I always wanted, but I’m so sorry”

You Belong With Me - Drias - Maybe I am biased but Drias would give the perfect friends to lovers, and I can already see Thias in the role of unnoticed but always there for Dru until she realizes.

Breathe - Ty - I’ve always taken this song in a more platonic sense than romantic—so if you take this as a Ty & Livvy or a Ty & Kit song, it fits post-TDA Ty horribly well.

Tell Me Why - Kamalanna - I am not anti-Kamalanna, but this song really hits all the issues of their current relationship. Anna’s mean streak and Kamala’s lack of communication…

You’re Not Sorry - Jocelyn - Master manipulator Valentine meets Jocelyn’s conviction and realization that he actually isn’t capable of love or change.

The Way I Loved You - Maia - Oh this song really gets Maia’s mixed feelings for Jordan, and subsequently her relationship with Bat.

Forever & Always - Wessa - The dramatic romanticism? The hot and cold of Will suppressing his emotions? The irony of the song title? Yeah.

The Best Day - Matthew - This song regularly makes me cry, and so does Matthew if I think about his relationship with his parents for too long 🥲

Change - the TWP gang - “The walls they put up to hold us back will fall down”!!! This group of teens is going to break the cycle of violence and corruption like none of their predecessors could and I’m already proud of them 💜

Jump Then Fall - Heline - (,: they’re perfect. “When people say things that bring you to your knees, I’ll catch you. The time is gonna come when you’re so mad you could cry, but I’ll hold you through the night until you smile.” It’s giving a partner who will follow you into banishment <3

Untouchable - Jemma - Forbidden love anyone? “In the middle of the night, when I’m in this dream, it’s like a million little stars spelling out your name” is equal to “I love you more than starlight”

Come In With The Rain - Kieran/Mark - “Talk to yourself, talk to the tears, talk to the man who put you here” This is Mark during Lady Midnight, when Kieran needs to learn to take his fears and insecurities out on the actual reason for them (his father). “I’ve watched you so long, screamed your name, I don’t know what else I can say”. Anyway, it’s Kieran and Mark before Kieran’s arc

The Other Side of The Door - Malec - I know they’re on here twice. I’m sorry. But this song is the Malec breakup. Like I’m convinced CC used it for inspiration. Magnus wanting Alec to make an effort and be everything for him? Magnus ignoring Alec’s efforts for his pride but not wanting him to go and leave him alone again?

Today Was A Fairytale - Ghost Writer - Okay, disregarding canon, Lucie deserves her fairytale romance, and I know Jesse would give it. This song sings of Lucie romanticizing their every move and I just,,,

Mr. Perfectly Fine - Jordelia - This song is very much a Cordelia perspective of James going from genuine with her to “Mr. Perfectly Fine” who has no feelings for her at all.

#I was gonna do all the songs but honestly some songs don’t fit #feel free to add if you have ideas tho !!! #the way that it took everything in me to not make it all malec. fearless is a malec album #tsc #the shadowhunters chronicles #the shadowhunter chronicles #the mortal instruments #the wicked powers #the infernal devices #the last hours #the dark artifices #clace #malec #Sizzy #Drias #cristina rosales #ty blackthorn #kamalanna #jocelyn fairchild #maia roberts #Wessa #matthew fairchild #heline #blackstairs #kierarktina #lucie herondale #lucie x jesse #jesse blackthorn #jordelia #taylor swift

[sophiapathic]

Sk8: The Infinity - A Take on Love

Because my six unfinished assignments can wait until I throw this into the void, scream for five hours and after my voice gets hoarse, I resort to watching the beach episode on loop until next Saturday.

This was entirely sparked by the recap episode, which really pressed the reak havoc and theorize button in my brain. I am truly losing my grip on reality. Help. I apologize in advance, creatures of Tumblr. 

Me right now:

Anyways... 

I saw people mention here and there screaming that “we need canon relationships and they will get trust issues if a romance isn’t confirmed by the end of the series”. I think that mindset is harmful to have in this case. You can’t really avoid being disappointed if you get into the series expecting it to deliver on your wishes of gay romances. So, this might be controversial, but stay with me please. The anime and manga are both confirmed to be based primarily about the characters themselves and of course the sport -skating. I was hoping to take a closer look at what the series intends to do with certain dynamics and relationships according to yours truly. I also want explain my reasoning behind it not being queerbaiting, though it being inherently queer-coded, through the current lense of the canon.

Sk8: The Infinity is unquestionably a love story.

We need to state the genres this series is in, because some of us tend to forget. It is in fact not a shounen-ai, not a yaoi, not a romance, not even a josei. Say it with me it is a series in: COMEDY and SPORTS.

(Source is the official US Sk8 website.) The spotlight is udoubtedly on skating and what it means. Another important highlight of the show is how the definition of the sport relates to the characters, and how vastly different they are from what we expect. For example, when we see Shadow first, we pigeonhole him into this vulgar indecent rock and roll persona, only to find out later that he is actually a stweetheart at a flower shop. Joe is another very good case study. When we first see him we think of him as a womanizer muscle-head, later we find out he has a heart of gold and is very emotionally intelligent. We’re also quick to judge Miya as the cold, unfeeling prodigy then we discover how lonely and normal he is on the inside. And so on and so on. 

The show continues to defy our expectations of what each character should be like. In a way it is about breaking the conventional stereotypical roles we subconsciously assign to certain looks. We see that even in anime, multifaceted characters can exist without distrupting or damaging the delicate dynamics of a traditional sports anime. We successfully established the second focal point of the series as disproving stereotypes and presenting strong, diverse and unexpected personalities.

How about the defition of skating? What does it mean in the context of Sk8: The Infinity then? Where does a love story come into the picture? Skating is repeatedly described as a ritual of love within the anime, an idea that our villian, Ad*m, is obessed with. In a sense skating is a language of love canonically.

Then skating itself is love. Throughout the series we see varied styles of skating therefore different ways of expressing love, affection. We get to experience several metaphorical ways of “being in love” through characters skating with each other. Each dynamic shows us a type of love. Healthy, disfunctional, outright abusive. 

The way Reiki teaches Langa to skate can be interpreted as a direct metaphor for someone learning to love again after losing a person close to them. Langa’s father has died and Reiki literally brings him out of his shell again. It can also be interpreted as a queer kid’s experience of a world of romance that feels similar to his previous one, that being snowboarding, yet it still being new and different. Skateboarding. When due to Reiki Langa’s potential is discovered and his hunger for more and more develops, especially next to Ad*m, Reiki’s main frustration stems from them not being well-matched or on equal footing anymore. He feels like he cannot give Langa what he needs anymore. Which would obviously go againts the literal description of a healthy romance. Two people with mutual respect who both bring equal assets to the table. He feels like he needs to catch-up to be with Langa again. The only thing he doesn’t consider is Langa’s deep appreciation of him and the fact that literally he was the one who helped Langa experince the feeling of love again.

Kojiro and Kaoru’s relationships, to me, is very much representative of two people  wanting to be in each other’s presence, but due to their different language of love, miscommunicating horribly. Them bantering and insulting each other is the only way they know what to do with the other. The only way they can ensure the other’s attention and eyes are on them. This has worked so far. They are literal opposites, but both have a very clear definition of their form of love. To Joe skating, or love itself, is about the feeling and going with the flow. Being spontaneous. Whereas for Cherry, every move needs to be calculated and executed perfectly in order to be “efficient”. Their frustration comes from both wanting different things from the other, but not communicating their need properly. Despite this, they stick together due to a magnetic pull they obviously feel towards the other. The attraction is there, the trust is there, they are even well-matched in skill as we see them neck-to-neck constantly. They could give each other what the other wants. Only if they could express themselves well... This is why Joe pushes Reiki towards reconciling with Langa. he wants them to not fall into the same trap of not stating their  needs and thoughts properly.

Now Ad*m and Langa are obviously problematic and I don’t really want to have to explain, honestly guys. I really don’t  (since I have trauma regarding this subject), but I need to go into this a little bit. This is a textbook toxic predatory relationship. Where the older, twisted, damaged person, has an obsession with a young, outstading child. He wants to lead him into “Paradise” and show his “Eve” what love is really about. (Ain’t that disgusting you guys...) His form of love is inflicting pain, so I really can’t imagine a scenario where he and his “Eve” live happily ever after and everything is fine and dandy. He needs someone who he can torture. He literally is looking for someone who can handle his way of expressing affection, his “love hug”, who has the same type of crazy eyes for adrenaline and danger. His Eve. In his distorted mind, this all makes sense and Langa is that someone he was looking for thoughout the years. The problem is, he disregards Langa’s side where the relationship becomes problematic.

Cherry and Ad*m during their younger years seems to be a very innocent infatuation on Kaoru’s end. It is a one-sided relationship where someone is in love with the idea of a person long gone. They were discovering the world of skating, or the world of love together with Ad*m taking the lead. Cherry immediately became infatuated with him, wanted to learn his love language, wanted to be at the same level he was. It probably started very innocent. At first, Ad*m being gentle, because that’s how Tadashi was with him too, then after whatever happened between those two, Ad*m, disappointed in the way of love, or skating, Tadashi showed him, returned to what his aunts taught him. Maybe after injuring Kaoru with the “love hug”, therefore eliminating him from being his potential partner, started looking for his “Eve”, gradually became more agressive in love as in skating. Kaoru was distraught and wanted the Ad*m he originally learned love from back. Holding out some hope even years after. Trained to get used to his “love hug”, to literally condition himself to be able to get close to him. Ad*m, however showed Cherry brutally that he truly cannot handle his way of love.

Ad*m and Tadashi. *sighs* As of this post, I don’t really have enough information to give you a good overview of what I see this relationship representing. As far as I can tell Ad*m was abused horribly and to ease the pain and make him forget, Tadashi showed his another way of expressing affection. Skating or love. Basically a first love gone horrible bad, scarring an already abused child and turning them into a monster. Tadashi himself reinstates this during one of the episodes. It was his fault that Ad*m turned out the way he did. Their love slowly became strongly abusive throughout the years. Tadashi is stuck in it because he feels like he deserves it. This is a metaphor for  dangers of an emotionally and physically abusive relationship, where one person feels responsible and the other is using power. Tadashi’s guilt keeps him next to his master and he even endures abuse, now he is trying to break out and show Ad*m he messed up and I think this could potentially be a good representation of how difficult that process truly is. 

As far as Reiki’s, Miya’s, Shadow’s skating goes. Their main arc relating to love is first and foremost learning to accept themselves and aprecciating their uniqe way and style of skating. Only after can they become people who can truly be accomplished in love/skating (in Miya’s case I’m obviously talking about platonic feelings). Each of them had a preconception of their persona in love/skating, which gets questioned heavily throughout the series. Miya gets defeated, Shadow’s soft side gets discovered, Reiki... well. I get sad. :c Even though he taught someone to love again, to appreciate life again, he ended up discovering how dissatisfied he truly is with himself... These three all need to learn to love every aspect of themselves to reach fulfillment and to really experience healthy human relationships.

Sk8: The Infinity is unquestionably a love story, without explicitly being a romance, meaning that it is a tale about love, both romantic, platonic and everything inbetween through a queer-coded lens, showing both dysfunctional, abusive and healthy relationships, ways to express emotions and even delves into self-love and the idea of nature versus nurture in the villian’s case.

That is why I, personally don’t scream for a canon couple. To me, the show gets its main point about affection and love across, without making any of these relationships explicitly stated. Not to mention that it does justice to both of its assigned genres. Comedy and Sports as well. Yeah sure, I wouldn’t complain, but I think these dynamics are more than satisfying to watch, and much deeper than bishounens wanting to bang each other, which is, in my opinion, inherently sexualized. If they want, yeah they can confirm, make it canon without forcing it to be a center storyline. Hell, I would even be happy about it. I would clap with all of us. BUT, as the series currently is, I really see it taking the other route because of the above. This way audiences who want a yaoi or ikemen going at it, won’t be disappointed with the series when they find doesn’t revolve around that, straight viewers will just find it flamboyant, and people who look for subtext and want to read between the lines will certainly do that with the amount of crumbs and hints the writers gave us. 

We don’t need outright, written in black and white gay representation in Sk8 to experience very real types of love. The queer theme is secondary to me, just like queerness is, in most people’s lives. Yeah sure, it is a big thing, but not the only attribute a person has. My life doesn’t revolve around my queerness. I rarely talk about it. If I was a main character this would be a side-arc. Just like Sk8 doesn’t revolve around the characters coming out. It’s just them living their lives and possibly being queer while doing so. If you look at it this way, it is almost normalizing attraction between same-sex people by just showing it as regular love. If you can, why not interpret it this way, so it can be a liberating experience instead of a disappointing one.

Please don’t attack me! I am fragile and this is only my opinion. c:  *crawls back into her hole*

#sk8 cherry blossom #sk8 joe #sk8 the infinity #sk8 theory #sk8 langa #reiki kyan #langa hasegawa #kaoru sakurayashiki #kojiro nanjo #ad*m #tadashi #matcha blossom #renga #ranga #langa x reki #cherry blossom x joe #essay

[padfootastic]

it honestly truly baffles me how people completely disregard the devotion sirius showed to james. like it was honest to god devotion. i fully belive if james asked sirius to give his life he would do it in a fucking heartbeat for him. and this is all canon! the biggest petpeeve is when people sideline the importance of james in sirius's life and he's this happy go lucky dude like nope. bruh it's right there him saying he ran to james and the potters after everything happened. they were both each other's everything you have to understand that.and it's fine by so many of the wolfstar , Jily and jegulus authors it's honestly insane. like do you think lily had a chance with james if she was ever rude to sirius. and jegulus as well like please if you think james will ever side against sirus. he took sirius's side in the whomping willow prank for god's sake!!!! and like why are so many remus characterizations just james characteristic passed over to remus. like one of the fics was sirus ran to the lupins after running away from home and please that's a quintessential james and sirius scene don't convert it to wolfstar. there's a reason why sirius went mad after James and Lily's death cause he realised what happened and he how he helped in their dismise by trusting the wrong people. IT'S LITERALLY CANON THAT JAMES WAS THE ONLY ONE EVER WHO COULD REIGN IN SIRIUS WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT.

also don't even get me started on molly Weasley's he's not james. ma'am we know and sirius sure as fuck knows cause i can bet whenever he closes his eyes he sees james dead behind his eyes

and like sirius was saying he's not a child!!! how did she infer that he was doing antics he would have done with james when he said this statement

we, as readers know that Harry's not a child anymore he legit saw a classmate(crush, rip bi!harry) die infront of his eyes. i don't agree with a lot of statements given by the terf but gof was the first blood and the loss of innocence and it was back to the grim reality and harry is right in the middle of it he is not a child babes, he can't be and you mollycoddling him doesn't help. and if he had known things since the beginning his 5th year wouldn't have been such a clusterfuck of tragedies.

sorry for the rant, would be belive if i said i had a few more ready to go waiting for the right moment. i love them so much your honour

okay no ash absolutely no apologies allowed in my inbox 🔪🔪 please feel free to rant anytime and about anything, i am absolutely fkn blessed right now. i cannot tell u how much i enjoyed reading this!!!

it is devotion! and james did ask him the next best thing to that—sirius volunteered to be the bait in a situation he didn’t need to be in 😭😭 no one would’ve suspected wormtail anyway, but he still added another layer of confusion by putting his entire life at risk. that’s so. fuck. i can’t even imagine.

no but i was literally talking about this with someone today??? if ur in the mood to be super emotional, lemme recap it. sirius probably built his self esteem & moral compass around james (because of his upbringing + unlearning, he has a very fragile self image ) and his affirmations probably go something like ‘jamie thinks i’m worth it, jamie believes in me, jamie loves me, he thinks i can do this’ and that’s also why he tries so fkn hard to be the best godfather he can—because he never ever wants to disappoint james (he did once, during the prank, and it still haunts him the way james looked at him—a ‘i thought u were better than this’ expression on his face). like he doesn’t trust himself but his belief in james is unshakeable. also whatever u do, dont think about sirius trying to say these, over and over again to himself, in azkaban and failing because james isn’t here and it’s his fault and he can’t even do one thing right

and oh man, i was literally thinking about that lily thing today, there’s a line in shovel talk that’s basically lily saying she’s going on the date with james and sirius can’t do anything about it and he just looks at her in pity. because you know if he’d ever made his distaste known, james would’ve dropped the whole thing so fast.

yes yes yes!! james could rein sirius in but more importantly, sirius was the only one who could do the same for james. the boy’s head was too big for anyone but S to handle because he was a precious mix of arrogance and sensitivity (thanks effie & flea) and needed to be told things a certain way so he didn’t internalise them and form a complex and only sirius could do it perfectly.

i’m not even gonna touch molly weasley because she annoys me sm and i’ve ranted enough lol (there’s a reason why i have so many ootp era fics 💀)

#sirius black #james potter #harry potter #ash ur so valid for saying this #i hate that they treated harry like a child because it felt so fake #they don’t actually care about helping him—just wanna feel better about themselves #so much of that fuckfest could’ve been avoided if he’d just been included in proper communication and believed he had someone to talk to #also god yes the loss of innocence part is so real #i feel like the basilisk and the third task are so crucial to harry’s development #they’re some of my favorite scenes tbh #because it just really hits home how fkn ridiculous this kid’s life is #honestly i can keep screaming about how j&s are done so dirty all day long #because they didn’t have the greatest friendship the world had ever seen to be sidelined like this!!! #(lol someone needs to come restrain me before i jump out of my seat) #pen’s asks

[f3296]

Hi I just feel like I need to ramble and maybe some one else out there feels the same way. So in the AOT I’m not all that big on ships just because shipping really isn’t my thing but I do enjoy it to an extent. I consider myself to be a multi shipper because again the relationships in AOT are so complex and I love all the characters and their dynamics. My biggest “ship” would be Eurihan just because that trio to me is all sorts of fun and I love their dynamic.

But with that being said, I find myself to be drifting farther and farther away from the Eruri aspect just because as I continue to reread the manga and pay attention to the themes of the story canonically speaking I don’t actually see any “romance” between them. The Fannon concepts of Eruri are fun and beautifully tragic with the fan arts and stories especially in modern AU. They are a very attractive couple and I fully understand the hype but canonically speaking I just don’t see it anymore. I love their dynamic as a whole and brings such a complex look to both Levi and Erwins character that their friendship is something to admire.

And with that being said I feel their complexity of characters and their story gets lost within the fandom. I think the term that is used is “shipping goggles” when canon stuff of the original story gets lost or replaced for the sake of the ship. Which in this case I feel happens a lot in Eruri specifically.

Now I really don’t want people to feel I am bashing Eruri. I’m obviously a fan with my own fan art and my interactions with mutuals so please no one take offense. This is just a quirk I have in every fandom when canon material gets lost for the sake of a ship.

Specifically with Levi.

Now I understand my biases consider Levi is my favorite character and I truly Kin him. But when I watch edits or read DJs or even just scrolling through things like tumblr or Twitter I find myself avoiding the Eruri tags because I get so frustrated when all I see if Levi’s entire character being based around Erwin. The concept that Levi is only alive to fulfill Erwins promise or he only fights for Erwin and completely derailing his character to be centered around Erwin is frustrating.

Levi fights for all the scouts since the very beginning. When else first meet him and he promises the dying scout he would eradicate the Titans, this is a shared dream the scouts had and has said he will do what he can for All of them. Not just Erwin.

Now this isn’t to disregard Erwins importance to Levi. Erwin gave him a purpose to live, he was his friend and trusted comrade and felt he was the best for humanity. Erwin is important to Levi no one is saying other wise. He just isn’t the center of Levi’s world.

Levi trusted Erwin because he saw something bigger than himself and Levi wanted to help Erwin get there because Levi himself if a very loving and selfless character. This I find to be so beautiful of Levi’s (and mikasas) character.

When Levi learns the truth behind Erwins actions and his selfish reasons to fight for humanity was for the sake of seeing in the basement really sent Levi into turmoil. (I feel this is WITs fault for not expressing this properly in the anime) this is why he continued to pester and push Erwin to know his motives past the basement, because Levi wanted to believe he was this selfless leader he had been finessed into believing he was (because we can’t forget canonically speaking Erwin is a con man and enjoys gambling which makes him and great leader)

Levi tells Erwin to die so he would continue to go down with the facade he was a selfless leader and to continue to live up to the expectation. Levi accepted this fault of Erwin just as he had accepted the faults of all his comrades and their selfish actions.

Levi was canonically devoted to Erwin, but not in the romantic way.

Erwin also never expressed a “interest” in Levi in that matter outside of their friendship and Levi’s abilities. It also should keep in mind that Erwin was ultimately in love with Marie, and chose not to have a family and a wife (which he actually wanted) to avoid having a widow. We can head cannon all day long about how “he realized in his last moments” or “behind the scenes” or interpreting smart press stories a certain way to fit the narrative but it’s just important to remember the difference between cannon material and your own HCs.

Now I know a lot of people will read this and think “wow a levihan shipper wrote this” and you would be right I also ship levihan as well. And they are also not cannon in a relationship as well but the romantic implications for them specifically cannot be ignored because you don’t like them. Levi and Hange are canonically best friends. They are known as the “abnormals” of the scouts. They know each other the best. Their relationship is so complex it cannot be defined as a friendship. (Even Moblit admits he doesn’t have a bond with Hange like Levi does) and it’s okay if you just see them as friends, and I honestly don’t blame a lot of people who do considering WIT really bit the bullet with missing key Levi and Hange moments to better fit their dynamic (I’ve seen people say they aren’t even good friends and that breaks my heart they are besties )

And honestly why wouldn’t you want to ship levihan? This ship in my opinion is the least problematic with the least controversy to it. It’s comforting and sweet and gives a sense of love and family. It’s literally a best friends-> lovers trope. Their friendship is what makes this ship in my opinion so pure and honestly why I fall in love with it more everyday.

And I know some will say “what about Moblit?” And honestly, it bothers me how much he is used to argue levihan because I ultimately feel his character also gets dumbed down as a default for Hange just for shipping and it bothers me too.

*and honestly guys Hange and Moblit isn’t even that great in a ship since considering Moblit became an anxious alcoholic trying to take care of Hange and Hange would get so caught up with their work they wouldn’t even notice. NOTE: they obviously cared for each other as comrades and Moblit felt Hange was needed for humanities survival and cared for them obviously but just my opinion I don’t see that ship working in my opinion.

But in reality guys, I never saw any of these characters “getting together” because they’re soldiers. Their hearts were dedicated to the cause of saving humanity first so that’s the beauty of AOT and the ambiguity of the characters relationships with one another because ultimately they all have attributes to love and benefit each other. Even with the forest scene and the plane for Levi and Hange, I never expected A “happy ending” for them in the sense of platonic or romantic because that doesn’t fit their canon narratives. Levi was destined to be the last soldier standing and brings the complexity of being the perfect soldier with a human heart.

*though the implication of romantic feelings never being acted on were there because they indeed paralleled with eren and mikasa

Levi’s literally means “attached” he attaches himself to the people he cares about and dedicated his strength and ability to help others gain their hopes and dreams.

Erwin tragically lost his humanity to become the devil for the sake of humanity which ultimately left him fruitless to his venture.

Hange taking on the burden of making the tough decisions and shouldering the weight of the deaths of the soldiers and Erwins legacy left them feeling loss and useless until their sacrifice.

All these characters have such complexity to them, they are all deeper than their fannon ship and should be appreciated and the narrative shouldn’t be shifted for the sake of a ship.

Levi didn’t fight to the end for just Erwin he did it for all of them.

So again, sorry for my rambles and I hope there will be those who read this and understand where I am coming from with this and understand though I will continue to ship all three, it still makes me sad I feel I can’t interact with some without them destroying entire characters for the sake of the ship.

So again love ships not ship wars. That’s the fun part when ships aren’t cannon you can just mix and match whenever you feel like it ❤️❤️

#levihan #I’m only tagging levihan just because I feel Eruris might hurt me lol #erurihan

[thinkingisadangerouspastime]

hi! i really like your posts and recently i came across some anti kataang arguments and i would like to see your opinion on that (if you want to answer because you must be very tired of answering those lol)

“i remember perfectly aang forcing himself into katara. not only once, but a lot of times. in that talk they were having during the play it was one of the moments aang was intrusive”

“i saw people saying that katara was jealous of aang with that kids in kyoshi island, which she obviously was not. she was annoyed at them”

“kataang had no development. it feels like a ship made out of nowhere”

“aang is completely obsessed with the idea of katara being his. proof is that episode were the guru tells him he has to let go of her and he choses to break the connection. it’s like: look what i did for you, you should stay with me. aang learning to let go would have been a evolution for his character”

“making them stay together in the end just because aang is the protagonist and has to stay with the girl is boring and adds nothing to the plot”

“he spend years after a girl that never felt the same for him”

hi anon! im very flattered you like my posts 🥰💛 and you’re not wrong that sometimes it gets a lil tiring addressing anti kataang arguments, but that’s because 90% of them are the same foolish rhetoric dressed up in a different costume, lol. i finally have some free time, so i’ll take a stab at these for you!

“i remember perfectly aang forcing himself into katara. not only once, but a lot of times. in that talk they were having during the play it was one of the moments aang was intrusive”

not gonna lie, this particular “argument” made me crack up laughing because they “remember perfectly… lots of times” but can only name one instance 😂 like i am on the floor, because trying to get away with that in a formal essay would earn them nothing more than a goose egg. you need evidence to support a claim, which this “claim” has none of. i mean,, when does aang force himself onto katara?? when katara initiates every cheek kiss they share?? when they are mutual participants in several shared hugs?? don’t get me started on DOBS - the Now or Never Kiss that falls under literally requires reciprocation from both parties, lol. but regarding the ever-so-infamous EIP episode they bring up:

This post talks specifically about EIP and the play’s portrayal of Aang and Katara (and how it cannot be used to define their relationship). This post explains the true source of Katara’s conflict in turning down Aang (i.e. the war itself and the risks the war presents for both of them) and why the EIP kiss did not “ruin” Kataang’s relationship. This post explains how the EIP kiss was resolved through narrative parallels. This post explains how the EIP kiss is so often blown out of proportion. This post explains how Aang did not “threaten” Katara in EIP (with some excellent commentary in the notes, too).

the fact of the matter is that yes, aang overstepped a boundary with katara there. no one has ever contested that because to do so would be to disregard canon, and here’s the thing about kataang shippers: we love atla canon. it gave us everything we wanted and more. (imo, that’s what anti kataangers don’t understand.) the EIP episode can be interpreted as a “low point” for many reasons, but the primary “takeaway” is that the play performed was imperialist propaganda that preyed on the gaang’s insecurities and demeaned them (much to the pleasure of the Fire Nation audience), which had negative consequences, one of which was aang kissing katara largely out of desperation. no one has ever excused that! thus, what i think isn’t clicking with anti kataangers is that aang and katara’s miscommunication in EIP is not a representation of their relationship being doomed to fail. aang made a mistake and immediately backed off without question or hesitation. katara has time to make her own decision and chooses to forgive him. doesn’t it strip more of katara’s agency away to conclude that katara could never ever ever forgive her best friend for a single mistake that - comparatively - could have been a whole lot worse?

(im just saying.)

“i saw people saying that katara was jealous of aang with that kids in kyoshi island, which she obviously was not. she was annoyed at them”

honestly, i have a question for whoever came up with this jfksjdasks. okay, yes, she was annoyed. that’s a given based on her exasperated eye rolls and sighs. but why was katara annoyed with them, hmm?

here’s my thing about katara’s feelings in this ep: jealousy and annoyance are not inherently the same, it’s true. a person can be annoyed without being jealous (obviously). as such, there are essentially two possible interpretations that have validity, although one in my opinion has greater weight in canon:

1. yes, it is possible to interpret katara’s annoyance that episode as being solely related to their delays on kyoshi island. one can reasonably argue that katara’s romantic feelings for aang were not as strong so early in the series (it’s only episode 4, after all, although lbr - she was Looking at aang’s tattoos in episode 1 lmao), and therefore the primary reason she was annoyed at the fangirls is because they were one of the causes extending their stay on the island when katara felt they needed to leave. it’s a fair interpretation.

2. a different and stronger interpretation, in my opinion, is that katara’s irritation was a product of both annoyance at their extended stay and jealousy of the fangirls’ obsession with aang. because here’s the thing about jealousy: it doesn’t have to be some extreme, exaggerated emotion/reaction! when katara gets jealous of on ji in book 3, she makes a single comment about aang and on ji dancing together. when aang gets jealous of jet in book 2 (because of sokka’s teasing), he, too, makes a single comment (i.e. that it would be a bad idea for katara to kiss jet). i bring these two moments up because they explicitly demonstrate within atla canon that reactions of jealousy do not have to be dramatique and outrageous, à la zuko throwing ruon-jian across the room in book 3, lmao. jealousy can be simple! kept to oneself! as such, katara’s disgruntled manner in that episode - which, might i add, is largely if not only shown in reaction to aang with the fangirls - can certainly be interpreted as a quieter form of jealousy akin to several other moments within canon.

more than that, however, if the writers did not at all want jealousy to be an interpretation on the table… why on earth would they have bothered to mention jealousy as a possibility? here’s the relevant excerpt from the episode transcript:

Koko: [Stomps her foot in annoyance and puts her hands on her hips, while another girl happily waves at Aang; irritated.] What’s taking you so long, Aangy?

Cut back to Aang and Katara; the former enthusiastically waves back at his awaiting fangirls, while the latter raises an eyebrow at the scene.

Katara: [Slightly mocking.] Aangy…

Aang: [Enthusiastically.] Just a second, Koko!

Katara: [Sarcastic.] “Simple monk,” huh? [Annoyed.] I thought you promised me that this Avatar stuff wouldn’t go to your head.

Aang: It didn’t. You know what I think? You just don’t want to come because you’re jealous.

Katara: [Close-up; angrily.] Jealous? [More high pitched voice.] Of what?

Cut to a broader shot. Aang moves back slightly, when an irritated Katara resumes to ferociously stuff the basket with more fruits.

Aang: Jealous that we’re having so much fun without you.

Katara: [Irritated.] That’s ridiculous.

(sidebar, but can i just say that seeing “ferociously stuff” to describe putting fruits away is arguably the funniest thing i’ve ever read sjkdhsjalks)

to me, this excerpt alone all but proves katara’s irritation is a mixture of annoyance at the girls’ (and aang’s) behavior/their delayed departure and jealousy regarding how the fangirls’ fawn over aang. katara clearly demonstrates frustration at aang’s seeming lack of concern for their time crunch and how he’s letting his status get to his head (and remember, y’all: this is very early book 1 aang, he’s barely begun to truly reconcile what it means to be the avatar and the last airbender, which is understandable and a-okay! can’t have growth if he doesn’t start somewhere!). that checks out. but next thing you know, katara’s reaction proceeds to dramatically heighten when aang teases the idea of jealousy to her. again: why include this moment if jealousy was never on the table whatsoever as an interpretation for her feelings of irritation? why make katara’s response intensify so strongly if she’s not jealous even a little bit?

in sum, while i don’t think katara’s aggravation is solely fueled by jealousy, the episode itself points to jealousy as at least a part of it. simple!

“kataang had no development. it feels like a ship made out of nowhere”

this take screams willful ignorance, like did they even watch the whole show?? it’s not worth addressing over and over, ngl.

This post and this post explain how Katara’s feelings for Aang develop throughout the series. This post explains how Aang consistently supported Katara throughout the series. This post demonstrates how Kataang is literally ingrained in every episode.

“aang is completely obsessed with the idea of katara being his. proof is that episode were [sic] the guru tells him he has to let go of her and he choses [sic] to break the connection. it’s like: look what i did for you, you should stay with me. aang learning to let go would have been a evolution for his character”

“completely obsessed” h e l p i weep for the lack of brain cells 😭 it is so hard to just say “kataang isn’t my cup of tea” and go?? seriously?? i thought we were past making stuff up to support shipping agendas. lord help us. real quick:

This post explains how Aang never acted like he was “entitled” to Katara’s affections. This post explains how Katara and Aang do not “idolize” each other. This post and this post talk about Aang’s chakra being blocked and unblocked, and how it had to do with fear, not attachment. This post talks about Aang and the Avatar State, explicitly discussing “The Crossroads of Destiny” and the notion of attachment/letting Katara go.

okay, let’s take this claim one sentence at a time:

“the guru tells him [aang] he has to let go of her [katara] and he choses [sic] to break the connection.”

first of all. FIRST OF ALL. can you imagine the hellfire that would have rained down if aang hadn’t chosen to go rescue katara? here is a piece of the episode transcript:

… Right before he is able to completely open the final chakra and master the Avatar State, however, he hears a shriek from Katara and sees a vision of her in chains. At this, he jumps out of the energy sphere and runs away from the Avatar Spirit. The energy bridge that leads him there slowly vanishes behind him until it catches up and falls from underneath him, causing his image to plummet toward Earth. This cuts his connection to the Avatar State, which forces him back to reality.

Aang: Katara’s in danger! I have to go! [Prepares to exit.]

Pathik: No, Aang! By choosing attachment, you have locked the chakra! If you leave now, you won’t be able to go into the Avatar State at all!

Aang hesitates but leaves anyway, leaving Pathik concerned and disappointed.

aang chose to leave because katara was in danger. if he had chosen to stay,, dear god. the vitriol that would have been thrown around. “aang doesn’t really love katara! he chose not to save her!” “aang is so selfish and greedy! he chose power over love!” it’s literally a catch-22. damned if he does leave, damned if he doesn’t leave. #fandomlogic

anyways, yes, sure, aang chose to leave, which at the time broke the connection. he was indeed in avatar state limbo for a Hot Minute. whoop de do.

“it’s like: look what i did for you, you should stay with me.”

logical fallacy: ad hominem, hasty generalization, ∴ not worth our time 💛

“aang learning to let go would have been a [sic] evolution for his character”

i have amazing news for those who perpetuate this take. aang did let her go! he would not have been able to enter the avatar state in COD if he hadn’t! point blank, it is utterly untrue to pretend aang did not “let go” of his attachment to katara. now, im not going to get into the concept of “attachment” here and what it truly meant for aang to have “let katara go” in the book 2 finale (if it was good, bad, etc. etc.). there is a lot of material to work with there that would require like,, an entire post to dig into, if not more. the fact of the matter is that aang did let katara go, and the proof is that he successfully entered the avatar state before azula killed him. the above claim thus sits in complete contradiction to canon and is a moot point.

“making them stay together in the end just because aang is the protagonist and has to stay with the girl is boring and adds nothing to the plot”

“making them stay together” again, is it so hard for someone to just say “kataang isn’t my thing, im gonna stick to fanon pairings, but y’all have fun” i mean that really, really does not seem so difficult to me! also, “making” is a hilarious word to use just because,, atla is a work of fiction. in that respect, the writers “made” everything happen. you cannot escape their sphere of control.

anyways. that’s just funny to me lmao

but no, aang and katara did not get together in a romantic fashion just because aang was the lead male protagonist and katara was the lead female protagonist. i refer back to these posts from earlier:

This post and this post explain how Katara’s feelings for Aang develop throughout the series. This post explains how Aang consistently supported Katara throughout the series. This post demonstrates how Kataang is literally ingrained in every episode.

aang and katara got together because their relationship had been developed since episode 1, duh. reducing their relationship to “lead guy + lead girl” completely disregards the legwork done and the foundation laid for their romantic partnership. like, all someone has to do is rewatch the show 😂 and i hate to break it to whoever created that take, but to say kataang “adds nothing to the plot” again ignores how their relationship is one of the two most important in the show (the other being aang and zuko’s relationship as narrative foils). it is not a cheap coincidence that kataang embodies multiple complementary themes/motifs of atla: push and pull, yin and yang, air and water, oma and shu, etc. etc. their relationship adds emotional depth! how is that not relevant to the plot! atla is a show where just about every relationship is important in some regard (this post touches upon how aang alone transforms all of his friends - think of the bigger picture, then, and how every other dynamic weaves in a crucial thread to create the beautiful tapestry we call atla!).

my point is that kataang is relevant to the plot the way every relationship in atla is, whether or not someone ships/enjoys them. you cannot have a good show without having intimate relationships (emotionally, i mean). can you imagine if someone said zuko and iroh’s relationship wasn’t relevant to the plot?? there is a reason it is such a powerful moment when iroh and zuko reunite in the finale. similarly, there is a reason yue’s sacrifice and sokka’s consequential (and lasting) grief is so poignant. there is a reason it is so heartbreaking when katara and sokka have to leave behind their father at the beginning of tsr. to tie back to kataang, there is a reason it is so hard to watch katara dismiss aang in that same episode. there is a reason so many people are moved when katara pulls aang out of the avatar state when appa is stolen. there is a reason emotional reactions are incited during atla and it is because these relationships are so important!! i don’t care if someone thinks kataang is “boring” - that’s their opinion, they have a right to it. but to insist their relationship wasn’t relevant to the plot? to the story? when in fact it was a key component from episode 1?

are you kidding me?

“he spend years after a girl that never felt the same for him”

“years” lol doesn’t atla take place over the course of a year at most? pretty sure this person didn’t even watch the show 😂 for a third time, i refer to these posts:

This post and this post explain how Katara’s feelings for Aang develop throughout the series. This post explains how Aang consistently supported Katara throughout the series. This post demonstrates how Kataang is literally ingrained in every episode.

i hope i addressed these (nonsensical) arguments to your satisfaction, anon! a lot of them are the same tried-and-failed anti kataang arguments, smh. not to incite new discourse lmao, but it’d be nice if there was at least some variety 😂 thank you again for your kind words, my friend! 💛

#kataang #aang #katara #aanglove #atla #avatar the last airbender #atla analysis #kataangtag #amy answers #anon #amy analyzes

[traincat]

Disregard my last ask because the latest issue raised a troubling question that I, as a black man, feel the need to clarify with you, a woman. That whole whole Ned Leeds/Betty Brant business is sexual assault via deception right? Like you know more about Clones and Spider-Man 616 than I but I feel like that’s besides the point because it happened to Betty. She is carrying the child of whom she thought was her dead ex-husband. And Ned clone has to know he is a clone. He has to know. Unlike Ben and Kaine, he has the awareness and information of the Jackal and the awareness of his progenitor’s death.

Or am I reaching too far and reading too far into things?

I'm glad you came back and asked this specific question because it's definitely something I have a lot of thoughts on, and I’m glad you asked my thoughts on it as a woman because I think this is one of those comic book storylines that’s hard for me to divorce that fact from -- the fact that I’m a woman definitely plays into how I view this storyline specifically and how it effects me, in ways I don’t think were necessarily intended by some of the writers involved in its ongoing arc who were not looking at things from the same perspective I’m coming at them from. I definitely don't think you're reaching or reading too far into things -- I think that is what's being presented on the page, albeit likely without authorial intent. Just as like a general disclaimer, I'm not closely following Spencer's run for the sheer reason that I'm not enjoying it very much, although I'm aware of the general directions it's taking through friends and social media. But I actually think this Betty/Ned issue goes back pretty far.

First things first, I think Clone Conspiracy really wreaked havoc on how Spider-Man as a series has always handled clones. Pre-Clone Conspiracy, there was a very clear clone narrative going on: clones are their own person, they are not direct copies or replacements of the original. You see this with Ben Reilly and you see it with the Gwen Stacy clones. Clones are treated as their own individuals, even if they have to struggle to get to that point -- there's even an issue of Spider-Man Unlimited where Ben and Betty go on a date. Betty doesn't know that Ben is Peter's clone -- he's introduced as his cousin -- and they both reflect on how you can't go back to the way things were. So even though Ben has all of Peter's memories regarding his initial romance with Betty, the narrative makes it clear that Ben and Betty cannot recapture that connection or that exact relationship.

Here's where Clone Conspiracy changed everything, in my opinion for the worse: Clone Conspiracy's clone narrative is that these clones are, essentially, the original person. I believe the Marvel wiki still actually lists the end of Clone Conspiracy as 616 Gwen Stacy's issue of death instead of Amazing Spider-Man #121, because Clone Conspiracy treated that Gwen not simply as a clone with all of the same memories, but as essentially Gwen resurrected through a cloning process. The Billy Connors who was cloned is treated as the same Billy Connors who was killed by his father in Shed (Amazing Spider-Man #630-633). And the clone Ned is treated as the same as 616 Ned. This is a mess, to put it simply, because it goes against all the previous Spider-Man cloning narratives and, honestly, most popular sci-fi clone narratives, and it's seriously undermining decades of good Spider-Man storytelling in ways that Slott didn't address and that Spencer seems unwilling to. It probably wouldn't have been a very big deal -- a frustrating one, but not a big one -- if all of the clones had perished at the end of Clone Conspiracy, but they didn't. Billy Connors escaped, and it's immensely frustrating to me to see Peter treating the Connors family reunion as something he can tolerate when Curt Connors ate his kid, and the Ned clone slithered away in the gutters to, I assume, spite me personally.

Which brings us to the current Betty Brant storyline in Amazing Spider-Man, where Betty has showed up heavily pregnant and informed Peter that the child is Ned's.

Yeah, I would say this is in fact the worst possible part. (ASM (2018) #67) Just speaking for myself, I'm generally not anti-pregnancy or baby storylines in comics, but this one is making me very uncomfortable for reasons beside Spencer being apparently unable to find any way to fit Betty into his stories without her showing pregnant.

So I'm actually going to take this back way, way to when Betty and Ned first got married, with some explanation of who Ned Leeds is for the uninformed, because, especially with the MCU's Ned Leeds in the mix, he's not exactly the world's most well known Spider-Man character. (I’m sure @ubernegro, who is much more well read on Miles Morales’ canon than I am, has thoughts on how the MCU’s Ned borrowed heavily off the character of Ganke Lee with a 616 Peter Parker character’s name pasted over him.) Ned was initially introduced as Peter's competition for Betty's affections -- Ned was older than both Peter and Betty, a working reporter, and presented as the more "stable" option compared to Peter, who of course Betty vastly preferred before circumstances tore them apart. Ned and Betty married in Amazing Spider-Man #156 and jetsetted off to Europe for Ned's job. This is where the cracks in the marriage began. Betty later reveals that she felt abandoned by Ned in Europe, to the point where she was able to come back to New York without his immediate notice -- as a woman, it's very easy to read their relationship at this point as being one filled with, if not abuse, then emotional neglect. Betty and Peter have a quick extramarital affair at this point -- Peter has just broken up with Mary Jane and Betty claims she and Ned are separating -- that persists until Ned returns and punches Peter over it.

(ASM #193)

(ASM #229) Betty and Ned reconcile off panel shortly thereafter, but that's pretty far from the end of the story. It's implied that the problems Betty and Ned previously had start to develop again, namely that Betty feels abandoned by Ned, that he is inattentive and, again, as a woman, it's hard not to read it as emotional neglect, if not abuse -- yet. Betty does start another affair at this point, this time with Flash Thompson, and Ned starts acting strangely. It would later be retconned that he was suffering the effects of hypnotism by the Hobgoblin, but like I said, that's a retcon, and what was happening at the time was that Ned was acting erratically in part because he was the villainous Hobgoblin. Ned becomes controlling, threatening, and verbally and physically abusive towards Betty.

(ASM #284)

(ASM #283) "I suppose you think it's all right for a wife to cheat on her husband!" "No -- but I won't let you hurt her, either." Leaving aside that Peter also had an affair with Betty, something he's conveniently forgetting in the above panels, I've always really liked this exchange, because the narrative makes it clear through Peter's response to Ned that, whatever the audience may think of Betty for cheating on Ned, it is reprehensible for Ned to publicly humiliate her and/or physically abuse her as a response.

Then Ned Leeds dies in Spider-Man vs Wolverine and he's revealed as the Hobgoblin posthumously shortly thereafter and that remains canon for years and years until it's later retconned out, as comics are wont to do. But that's not really that important for this conversation -- my point being, at one point in Spider-Man canon, it's made fairly clear to the reader that Ned is an abusive husband. He emotionally neglected and abused Betty several times over and physically hurt her at least once on panel, with the clear intent that the reader should realize that he is physically hurting her. So for me as a reader and as a woman, this has always been a really uncomfortable relationship. I have a problem with later Spider-Man comics claiming that it's "not Ned's fault" that he abused Betty because of the retcon that he was hypnotized, and I have a problem with the MCU making Betty and Ned into a cute summer fling in Spider-Man: Far From Home, because I feel like Ned's clear abuse of Betty either gets excused or entirely glossed over. And I don’t think the initial abuse storyline is bad -- I think there’s some amount of value in portraying Betty as a woman who marries too young, who experiences a terrible marriage, and who then spends years recovering from that marriage, which was the case up until they retconned Ned’s abuse of her as a side effect of him being controlled by the real Hobgoblin. What I’m specifically uncomfortable with is the post-retcon attitude that since Ned didn’t really mean to abuse Betty, it’s perfectly fine to portray the relationship in a positive light when even before Ned’s abuse became physical that wasn’t the case. I think that’s ultimately really irresponsible storytelling.  As a reader, I’m not against soap opera style storylines -- someone getting impregnated by a cone of their ex-husband seems pretty par for the course. But there’s so much additional context here that I still haven’t entirely processed how I feel about this Betty storyline, except that what I feel isn’t positive.

So yes, I would agree with you when I say I think there’s quite a lot of deception involved in Betty’s pregnancy storyline -- the Ned clone didn’t tell her he was a clone, even though he had full knowledge of that fact, just as he had full knowledge of how badly the original Ned treated Betty over the course of their relationship -- that renders their sexual encounter and Betty’s pregnancy uncomfortable for me as a reader, to put it mildly. I don’t think it’s out of character for the Ned clone, given that he acts much like the original Ned: he’s selfish and controlling, withholding information from Betty to suit his own needs. The tragedy of Ned and Betty isn’t that Ned died, as more recent Spider-Man stories like to portray it -- including this one, where Betty doesn’t have the knowledge that a) the Ned she reunited with was a clone and not the original and b) that that clone later died. (ASM #816.) The tragedy is that writers continue to force Betty Brant into Ned Leeds storylines instead of letting her as a character grow past him, and that the only way Spencer thought to include her, one of the longest running Spider-Man characters, back in the story was to have her appear starry-eyed over carrying the child of (the clone of) her abusive ex-husband, and the tragedy is that nobody writing more recent Betty and Ned interactions seems to realize that Ned was a villain not because he was briefly the Hobgoblin but because of how he treated Betty. 

#betty brant #ned leeds #marvel comics #long post/ #wednesday spoilers #traincat talks comics #*replies

[will-byerz]

BPD MIKE WHEELER HEADCANONS!!

Disclaimer: these are all based on my own thoughts and experiences and in no way am I trying to harm or stigmatise anyone! If there are any issues with this please feel free to dm me and we can talk about it!

El is his Favourite Person

• Which is why he’s always so emotionally charged with her and why he tried to “call” her every day for a year when she was gone!

• This is also why he can’t play dnd anymore because she’s not into it, and why he can’t concentrate on anything else when they break up.

• the idealisation comes from him being a HUGE nerd (Star Wars merch etc in his basement) and El being 1) a GIRL!! Which is new to Mike cause he’s definitely never had a girl be interested in him before and 2) she’s consistently compared to ET in the show, like she’s an alien— and to his little nerd brain that’s so crazy!! He has an ‘alien’ girlfriend! He knows a real life super human!

• this is also why he’s desperate to grow up, because he wants to spend his life with her and imitate what he’s seen happen with his own family, aka he wants to create a nuclear family with her

• he would rather lie to her (nana is sick) than risk losing her for real, because the idea of that is so terribly painful that he’ll do anything it takes not to lose her again.

• constant phone calls to her house, constant visits to her, leaving early from meeting his friends so he can go spend time alone with her. (a/n when I was 14, I would hang out with my fp and my friends all the time and my favourite part of the day was when we would walk home together alone. I would look forward to home time just for that!)

• Seeing Max as a threat when it comes to El.

Pressure in home life/Origin(?)

• His dad is shown to be very withdrawn so there’s a lot of pressure there with growing up to look after his family and be an adult

• Due to Mike’s circumstances of being a guy in the 80’s, his emotions have probably been repressed so much in his household. I imagine because of this, the emotions he does feel are super duper intense/hard to handle, especially when his environment growing up was possibly invalidating due to him being the only son.

• We see a LOT of Mike’s feelings being shut down but either his parents or by the party. Aka a lot of “Mike! That’s not okay to say!” Or “Why would you say that?” And shutting down his thoughts— the way this manifests into his possible BPD is the inability to understand WHY what he has said or done is wrong. No one will explain to him why what he has said is bad, he’s just been told it was bad. Aka more repression!

• He can sometimes be blind to other people’s emotions/a little self centred. This is shown in the infamous Byler scene in season 3 when he’s outwardly harsh to Will, because he thinks Will is being insensitive to his intense feelings over his break up— so in the spur of the moment he says the most hurtful thing he can think of— insinuating that Will is gay and/or that’s a bad thing. Obviously he immediately regrets it and goes after Will, but this decision (like a lot of his other decisions) is very impulsive. He can also be cruel to other characters in the show, including his mom, Lucas, Max and Nancy.

• He blows up on his family quite a lot/has outbursts of anger! This is seen at the dinner table in quite a few episodes, or at El when she is “wrong” about Will being alive or when she accidentally hurts Lucas really bad and Mike has… a few choice words to say to her about it.

• Struggle with authoritative figures; Hopper. That’s all I’ll say.

• once again the disregard for his emotions from his family due to him being “the man of the house” or at least growing into that title as his dad becomes more and more distant.

He shows his love in extreme ways.

• a huge lack of self preservation skills (or even “suicidal” tendencies as the DSM-5 would call it) when he literally jumps off of a cliff to save Dustin from bullies with no regard for how this could hurt him. This is also an Impulsive behaviour!! He obviously cares so greatly about his friends that he is willing to do anything for them.

• Sleeping by Will’s bed when Will is struggling, ‘saving him’ on Halloween, constantly checking up on Will, obsessing over Will’s well being (especially before El becomes his FP). Don’t even get me started on the “Crazy together” scene!

• I think his saviour complex is to cover up an inferiority complex but that’s honestly off my own back I don’t have much to back that idea up.

• He’s beyond nasty to Max because he’s scared his friends will abandon him when she joins the party!

• trouble explaining his emotions! He feels a lot but struggles to label them— aka when he tries to tell El he loves her but can’t figure out what words to say, or even if he feels certain it is love.

• Gift giving to apologise (going to the mall and trying to find a gift for El)

• Suggesting that he is the only person that cares about El and her well being, which is obviously not true but it is very much black and white thinking.

• “what if you want to join another party?” Is also a very ‘please don’t abandon me’ line hdjjdksks

—

That’s all I can think of off of the top of my head for now, but I hope these make sense!

Another quick disclaimer; all of these head-canons are based off of the canon show plot, meaning Mike is 12-15 in this! Doctors will not diagnose anyone under 18 with BPD as a lot of the symptoms are similar to just normal teenage hormones and puberty and all that! I’m not saying he HAS got it, I’m just backing up my own hcs and coping!! I was diagnosed with BPD at 17 despite the under 18 rule, and I had been experiencing symptoms since I was very young!

#tw; mental illness #byler #byeler #stranger things #will byers #mike wheeler #BPD #mike wheeler kinnies #Mike wheeler BPD #stranger things headcanons #mental health #bpd rep #just my thoughts

[evanescentjasmine]

Writing Egypt and Egyptian Characters: Rusty Quill Gaming Edition

I’ve finally caught up with the Cairo arc of Rusty Quill Gaming, which I was anticipating and dreading both. Fiction set in my country usually reduces it to a caricature of itself, especially when it takes place in the Victorian era, but considering everything they’ve said in their metacasts I was hoping Rusty Quill Gaming was the exception.

It wasn’t. 

I’m aware the game world plays fast and loose with history and setting, but the problems in this case are more than just inaccuracies. However, because I want to help fic writers and artists be able to portray Hamid and his family well, this resource will be split into two parts. The first part will tackle details I’ve been asked about with regard to the setting; it may touch on things RQG went wrong, but I’m writing it primarily as a resource for artists and writers. The second part will be my criticism of RQG, and why I found the Cairo arc actively harmful. This includes discussions of Orientalism and some racist text.

I should also preface this by saying I’m not a historian. Everything I say in this resource is a combination of what I grew up with and what I remember from school, supplemented by Google and guesswork. I’ll be explaining my thought process throughout, which can help you see what’s actual history and what’s my extrapolation.

Part One: On Egypt

Historical Context:

Figuring out the history of Egypt in RQG terms is a bit complicated, so bear with me because this will take a while. 

In real-world history, Egypt was a Roman then Byzantine province from 30 BC to around the mid 600s AD, at which point the Arab conquest swept through and Egypt became Muslim. 

What this means is that when the Meritocrats took down Rome and took over the world, Egypt was still a Roman province. That gives us a several hundred year gap before the Arabs that may have maintained the same culture? Or morphed a little back to some pre-Ptolemaic Ancient Egyptian, given their Meritocrat, Apophis, is named after a great Pharaonic serpent?

Either way, given Hamid’s name and the fact they live in Cairo, the city built by the Arabs, we can assume the Arab conquest still happened somehow, despite having a Meritocrat in Egypt. Maybe a Meritocrat out there is Arab and settled in Egypt for a bit with or before Apophis? Maybe it took a couple-hundred years for the Meritocrats to get all the previous Roman areas under control? Maybe there was a whole war and the Arabs won and settled and eventually they got to a truce or got absorbed into Meritocratic lands?

Many Muslim dynasties ruled throughout the period from the mid 600s to the 1500s. Given the lack of Islam in this world, probably the Arabs were unified by some Pre-Islamic deity/deities and brought them over as well, because I refuse to just sweep everything under the broad Greek God rug. 

In the 1500s, another Muslim dynasty took over--this time, from outside of the country, which is why it’s considered separate from all the rest. At this point, Egypt became part of the Ottoman Empire until the 1800s, which is when the Mohammed Ali dynasty started to try and secede and rule independently. And there was a brief blip of the French occupation for two years around then as well.

And, of course, we can’t forget about British colonisation, which started in the late 1800s with a veiled protectorate.

Presumably, since France and Britain are also Meritocratic and it seems like Apophis is currently ruling, we can disregard everything from the Ottomans onward. This changes, or should change, a ton, because Ottoman rule informed a lot of things from fashion to slang to nobility and so on. 

What we’re left with is most likely a Cairo that is still Arab but with much more Pharaonic influence, as Apophis is in charge, as well as continuing Greek influence due to the Gods. I am not a Coptic Christian, so I cannot speak to how these changes in history and religions would affect the Coptic language and culture, but no doubt it would still be around.

There would also be a bigger, more long-standing connection to other Meritocratic countries. This explains why Hamid was British-educated and so many people speak such good English without a British occupation to create the power disparity that would make that necessary to rise in Egypt and such a mark of status. 

However, this presents several confusing and contradictory aspects of the world building:

Why doesn’t this go both ways? Why aren’t there people in England and France who know Arabic or are influenced by Egypt? All we get is that the Tahan family are big. That’s it. If these countries are equals, it sure doesn’t look like it.

If Apophis is pharaonic and Ancient Egyptian culture and knowledge are so ubiquitous...why would they hollow out a pyramid to put a bank inside? It’s a tomb. It’s made to bury dead kings in a way that follows possibly still-existing cultural and religious beliefs. It’s the equivalent of someone building a bank inside a mausoleum. It’s bizarre.

Relatedly, if Ancient Egyptian culture and knowledge are so ubiquitous, why is Carter mentioning the Rosetta Stone? Why would the knowledge necessary to translate hieroglyphics have been lost? 

I mention these questions so fic writers can keep them in mind while writing and, of course, it’s entirely possible to create a workaround. For example, maybe the Rosetta Stone is supposed to be translating something else, like an ancient hidden magic?

Describing Cairo:

I want to make one thing very clear: Cairo is not, despite Alex’s description, like Vegas. While we do certainly have hotels and casinos, to reduce the city to only that is very harmful for reasons I’ll go into at the end of this resource.

Cairo is a very old city with a mix of architectural styles and is very heavily Muslim in real life. In Arabic, its tagline is often “city of a thousand minarets,” so clearly RQG Cairo will be fairly different. Given Apophis’ influence, Ancient Egyptian styles might be more prevalent in Cairo, but very likely not in the form of pyramids unless those pyramids were for the dead. In real life, some buildings do incorporate Ancient Egyptian flavour, usually just in the form of lotus columns or hieroglyphs. These would only be found in public institutions, however,  or, frankly, tourist-bait. 

Residential buildings tend to be clustered very close together and, since it’s an old city, streets are crowded and winding as the city keeps building on itself and spilling out of its previous bounds. Estates do, of course, exist, but I’d suggest against using Bryn’s example of Alhambra as a setting for the Tahan home. Alhambra is a palace fortress in Spain and, although it’s Andalusian and therefore influenced by Muslim architecture, it’s very different than anything in Egypt. It’s as absurd as saying a posh British character lives in a house that’s basically Versailles and leaving it there. I’ve included images of some Egyptian residential estates below, all from the 1800s to early 1900s.

And here are some photos of Cairo in the 1800s:

As you can see, not quite Vegas.

A fic set in Cairo can certainly still have the Cairo strip with all the casinos, since that’s an aspect of canon, but a place like that would probably be geared more to tourists and foreigners than locals. So long you’re aware of this while writing, and that Cairo would exist beyond it, you should be fine. It might also be worth having characters explore the actual city.

Weather:

The stereotype is that Egypt is just hot and sand year-round. It isn’t. The further south you go, the hotter it will get, so that Upper Egypt (which is in the south, yeah), is hotter than Lower Egypt, which is where Cairo and Alexandria are. Alexandria, by virtue of being on the Mediterranean, has fairly cold (for us) and rainy winters and mild, humid summers. Cairo gets very occasional rain and has harsher summers but is also dryer.

And, of course, a thing to remember is that even in the depths of the desert, the morning might be quite warm but the night will be quite cold as well.

Sandstorm season (called khamaseen) takes place from April - May but in the middle of Cairo it’s more of an annoyance than anything else.

Language:

Since they speak Arabic, it’s important to note that spoken Egyptian Arabic is very different from written Classical Arabic. Egyptian is a mishmash of Arabic, Coptic, a bit of Greek, and a bit of French (and, in the real world, some Turkish too) all smashed together. Accents differ from city to city, and Cairene Arabic is best known for the fact we pronounce the letter jeem as geem (so all soft Gs are turned into hard Gs) and tend to replace the letter qaf with a glottal stop.

This means that a Cairene wouldn’t be called Jamal, they’d be Gamal. A Cairene would pronounce burqa as bur’a.

Since religion plays a big part in language, RQG Egyptian Arabic may be a bit different. For instance, the greeting most people associate with Arabic is “Assalam alaykum” but that’s very specifically Muslim or at least associated with Islam, and might not have been as wide-spread given...y’know, that Islam doesn’t exist. I’m not saying it’s incorrect to use, just explaining the context.

Alternatives could include “Sabah/masa’ el-kheir” which means “Good morning/evening,” and “Naharak/Naharik saeed” which is, “May you have a good day.”

Fashion:

Although this didn’t really feature in RQG, I’ve received a lot of questions about the period’s fashion and honestly it’s my favourite thing ever so I probably would have touched on it anyway. I’ll only go into broad strokes, as there are plenty of regional variations and, again, I’m no expert 

Women

Egyptian women covered their heads and sometimes their faces not out of religiosity but out of a cultural expectation of modesty. This may well have come about as a result of the Arab/Muslim cultural majority, as to my knowledge this wasn’t the case in the Greek and Roman periods, but women of all religions covered their heads so that would likely still be the case in RQG’s Arab Egypt.

This isn’t with the hijab we know today. It may have been a cloth or kerchief tied over their heads and then the melaya laf (which is larger cloth, almost a sheet) that they wrap around themselves and over their head, as follows: 

The black face-covering was called a burqa or bur’a (not the same as a Muslim burqa, which serves similar modesty functions but is a separate thing) or a yashmak and may have been opaque black, white, or netted, such as in this picture:

Underneath the melaya they would be wearing a long, loose, patterned dress:

Upper class Egyptian women tended to wear Western dresses with a white yashmak that covered their faces and heads. A yashmak is Turkish, however, and without Ottoman influence this style and name might not have caught on in Egypt.

Men

While the melaya laf and yashmak have disappeared from Egypt, the traditional men’s gallabeya and ammama, or turban, are still seen widely today. The gallabeya (or jellabiya, outside of Cairene Arabic) is a long, loose garment with wide sleeves and no collar. It’s in muted, neutral colours, usually lighter ones like white or beige in the summer and navy blue or grey in the winter. You’ll have seen examples of it in the pictures of Cairo above, and here’s another one: 

Middle to upper class men and civil servants, however, tended to wear English suits with a tarboosh, or fez. Since fezzes were also a result of Ottoman rule, RQG Egyptians might not wear them.

And yes, impressive moustaches were also very much the fashion.

Names:

The running joke is that Hamid’s name is unnecessarily long, but my name is longer, and I don’t think that’s particularly unusual. We don’t usually go around introducing ourselves with all of them, admittedly, and I’m not sure whether Hamid does this as a way to indicate he’s overly fancy or because Bryn doesn’t realise it, but four names is not long. My ID boasts five, and I know of at least one more.

Arabic naming conventions use patronymics for all children, regardless of gender. What this means is that my name and my brother’s name is identical except for our first. 

Mine is Jasmine + Dad’s name + his dad’s name + his dad’s name + his dad’s name

And my brother is also First name + Dad’s name + his dad’s name + his dad’s name + his dad’s name.

Egyptians do not typically have last names, but an important family may all choose to identify under a name and use that as their last, such as the Tahans. In my case, I use my fifth name as my last name and introduce myself in everyday life as Jasmine Fifth Name. Notably, my brother does not, and goes by First name + Dad’s name instead. This isn’t unusual. On paperwork, however, we still have the same name.

Additionally, Egyptian women do not take their husbands’ last names in marriage, nor do children take any of her names. 

I’m not sure why, according to the wiki, Hamid’s sisters seem to have taken their mother’s name. Following Arabic naming conventions, they would all be First Name Saleh Haroun al Tahan, and their father would be Saleh Haroun al Tahan. A possible workaround might be that halflings have their own naming conventions that mean daughters have matronymics and sons patronymics. 

A note to podficcers: please google name pronunciations beforehand because Alex and Bryn’s are actually often wrong. Ishak, for instance, is not pronounced Ee-shak. It’s Iss-haaq or Iss-haa’, because of quirks of the Egyptian accent I mentioned earlier.

Part Two: Criticism

I understand it can be difficult to portray a country different from yours with accuracy. I understand the RQG crew will not have had the perspective on Egypt and Cairo that I do by virtue of living here. I do also acknowledge that I’m sure none of this was actively malicious or on purpose.

But it doesn’t have to be on purpose to hurt, frankly, and given how often the RQG crew have talked about their responsibility with a game that’s intended for an audience, I expected better. Bryn has spoken about not wanting to fall into stereotypes for Hamid and, to be fair, by being a non-religious fancyboy Hamid does neatly avoid the religious zealot and the noble (or ignoble) savage routes. Unfortunately, he falls into another, which was hammered home by the portrayal of Cairo and the Tahans as a whole.

Our first glimpse of Cairo, after the sandstorm clears, describes it as “basically Vegas,” with hotels and garish casinos catering to the rich all along the “Cairo strip.” From then on, our only other images of Cairo are vast estates and a pyramid in the desert. 

The only named Egyptians we meet are the Tahan family, who are introduced through an absurdly lavish estate compared to the palace fortress of Alhambra, a gambling problem that apparently runs in the family, murder, and corruption, as the head of the family who has already covered up a crime for one son then turns himself in to protect the other.

Then, to top it all off, Hamid is apparently utterly incapable of understanding why letting his brother get away with murder is an issue until the paladins point it out.

Do you see the pattern, here?

I understand this was aiming to be a criticism of the rich and powerful, but the fact remains that the Tahans are the only representation of Egyptians we get. While this may not be harems and hand-chopping levels of Orientalism, the image presented is of Cairo as a den of excessive wealth and vice, and Egyptians as corrupt and immoral.

This isn’t new.

The Middle East and North Africa (as well as India and China and everywhere else considered “the Orient”) has often been tied to images of wealth and overt splendour, usually hand-in-hand with the Oriental despot and corruption. This view went beyond just fiction and influenced the policies with which we were ruled. 

Cromer, Consul-General of Egypt, wrote books called Modern Egypt. He had this to say about us:

“The mind of the Oriental, on the other hand, like his picturesque streets, is eminently wanting in symmetry. His reasoning is of the most slipshod description. . . . They are often incapable of drawing the most obvious conclusions from any simple premises of which they may admit the truth.”

In his opinion, our inability to follow logical reason led to us being inherently untruthful and, therefore, immoral. Similarly, British statesman Balfour was of the belief that:

 “Lord Cromer’s services during the past quarter of a century have raised Egypt from the lowest pitch of social and economic degradation until it now stands among Oriental nations, I believe, absolutely alone in its prosperity, financial and moral.”

Egypt was under British colonial rule from 1882 - 1952.

You can see, I hope, why a storyline focused on an Egyptian family’s corruption in an Egypt characterised almost entirely by its casinos and one lavish mansion was very uncomfortable. The fact Azu was one of the people trying to explain morality to Hamid keeps it from sliding into a clear East vs West dichotomy, but the fact remains this is a British show featuring British players and this is the story they chose to tell. 

The rest was just salt in the wound, really. 

I expect mispronounced names and pyramids and jokes about camels in most media, but rarely do the makers of said media then go on to pat themselves on the back for doing their “due diligence” on a metacast about sensitivity.

I see weird naming conventions and mispronounced names and “basically Vegas” and “crocodile steak” and “camel’s milk froyo” and I do not see due diligence.  

I see a setting that barely looked past Cleopatra and I do not see due diligence.

I see a storyline that shows only excess and immorality and corruption and I do not see due diligence.

I see a disregard for me and mine, and I do not appreciate it. 

Literature I’ve referred to in writing this criticism:

Orientalism (1978), by Edward W. Said

Orientalism in the Victorian Era (2017), a paper by Valerie Kennedy

Orientalism in American Cinema: Providing an Historical and Geographical Context for PostColonial Theory (2010), a thesis by Samuel Scurry 

Popular Culture, Orientalism, and Edward Said (2012), an article by Robert Irwin

#rusty quill gaming #rqg #hamid saleh haroun al tahan #resource #criticism #orientalism #representation #long post

[constellaj]

16

Please talk more about your reboot!

16: If you could change anything in the show, what would you change?

okay so how i would re-do CANON is completely different from how i would talk abt a reboot so im gonna touch on a couple things in both contexts! the reason for the difference is canon rewrites imply i can go back in time and introduce dp fresh and new, before anyone knows what it is; but for a reboot, id be working with an audience that has a better understanding of the source material, so i dont need to spend as much time explaining, but i also need to keep everything recognizable

Valerie

REWRITE: i would def make it more danny's fault that her dad lost his job, like danny was intentionally being reckless and shattered some security stuff, and he has a whole mini lesson about learning to not just run in guns blazing. i would probably remove the dating stuff with her and danny (and tuckers crush) too, I think them wanting to be good friends is good enough for freshman year

REBOOT: the fandom already knows valerie exists, so i would actually skip the whole shades-of-gray introductory episode and have her be present as the huntress from day 1-- probably even before danny got his powers. cujo is also HER dog, and her backstory-- we'd find out in like, season 1, that a natural ghost portal (maybe one wulf opened) ripped open on her dog and killed him, and since then shes had a vendetta against ghosts cause of how reckless they are and their disregard for life-- of course, cujo isnt actually dead. cujo is a halfa. a puby halfa. anyway instead of a hoverboard she actually rides cujo around cause he can fly and its big and epic. valerie has BEEN amity parks ghost-eradicating superhero for at least a year (tho shes been in the shadows abt it) and her hatred towards danny actually just becomes really petty, like them flying next to each other chasing skulker just going "I got this. no I got this. no I got this" and they just get in each others' way and its a mutual grudge.

BOTH: i am NOT keeping in vlad giving her the suit to watch danny under any circumstances. it was only utilized half assedly in canon (when vlad couldve just had an invisible duplicate watching him instead) anyway, and I dont have any reason to keep it in a reboot either. instead i want her tech to be a combination of half-stolen and half-gerryrigged stuff and she slowly slowly learns how to build her own.

I also dont want anyone knowing her secret identity, except maybe her dad, and sam or tucker. i think it works better if danny isnt privy to this magic info

Freakshow

REWRITE: i would honestly just remove him. the episodes hes in arent particularly interesting, theyre just generic "we need a plot about x" filler and he's not compelling enough a character (at least in writing) to carry a better plot that another antagonist couldnt. i'm serious

REBOOT: unfortunately in a reboot he's gonna have to pop up somewhere or else ppl will be like "where IS HE" so I'm going to stick with running some kind of ghost circus, maybe a few occult things, but cut out a lot of the spooky magical knowledge and mcguffin stuff. maybe i could make him like, someone from vlad/jack/maddies college who always felt pushed around by them and so he has a vendetta? and theyd be the only reason he even learned abt ghosts in the first place. idk in either way I want to force him into being irredeemable but also include LYDIA (the tattoo girl ghost) way more-- I want to give her an arc that ends in her tossing freakshow aside and running off to be a ghost vigilante.

BOTH: dear god the infinity gauntlet is stupid that needs to GO AWAY. especially for the reboot cause it would exist in a post-mcu world and way too many people would complain about it

Vlad

REWRITE: amp him up to a far more sinister and villainous character. the crushing on maddie isnt enough, I want to show him on-screen performing experiments on ghosts and himself, dismissing everyone else cause he thinks hes smarter than them. i want him to be actively sabotaging the fentons at every turn. i would also clarify that he doesnt actually want danny as a son, but as a trophy-- a line where danny says something along the lines of "you don't want a son. you want a slave". i want to make him a character who wants to destroy the entire planet and put it in the ghost zone so he can be the true ghost king and i want to make this all evident from day one. if i'm writing a series villain you can bet i'm going to write a GOOD one. less petty drama here and more actual stakes.

REBOOT: it seems silly but sense with reboot we have the benefit of hindsight and recognizing that vlad wasn't a big series villain, theres no way i'd actually go back and write him to be such. for starters, of course, theres the fact that anything he does would really be an exaggerated part of the original, and it would bore an audience to see the same story again-- theres also the fact that it doesnt seem right to take a character who was treated as a joke half the time and suddenly make them big and important. no, instead for my reboot i want to lean into the petty gay uncle vibe. he had a crush on jack and now just casually insults him. he moves mansions every now and again by just haunting the family who lives in the one he wants, and taking over-- i mean, who is gonna believe that an actual ghost haunted you. he dislikes danny not because he has some concept of 'evil' and 'good' but bc danny is just too damn active. of course he actually does care about danny and his safety deep down, it's just on the surface they have very conflicting motivations-- not to mention that danny has been raised on legends from his parents of the villainous Wisconsin Ghost, who has to be stopped at all costs.

BOTH: i want jack and maddie to KNOW he's a half ghost and to actively be hunting him down for it, maybe bc they think hes possessed, or been a ghost tricking them this whole time, or the victim of a tragic lab accident who needs to be put to rest, etc. whatever the case it will give vlad actual tangible reason to despise them and genuinely suspect they dont have dannys best interests at heart. i think it would be neat if vlad was cynical and every time danny hit him with the "I'll expose us both. at least theyll still love ME" vlad could be like in the back of his head "oh god theyre going to kill this child"

Dani

REWRITE: cut her out. we don't need her character at all. maybe replace her with a more ominous shadow duplicate / clone that actually looks like danny himself and doesnt really have a name? you could probably combine her and dark dans characters for their arcs

REBOOT: instead of a clone from vlad, she's a guys in white creation using some of dannys dna after he was captured (and vlad broke him out bc he was like "ugh i guess i have to save this child")

BOTH: vlad actually cares abt her (duh), shes nonbinary (double duh), she gets the funny dissolve into goo powers

i had more i thought i was gonna write but this post is already very long and also im running out of coherency for this LUL

#ask #danny phantom #long post #adpRewrite