#also our kids acting liminal
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Gotham-Amity Co-op AU Part 3
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“Hola beauties, and welcome back to Fashionable History, I’m Paulina,”
“And I’m Star, and on this channel, we teach you how to be at the height of fashion, no matter what time period you find yourself in.”
“Now for our long-time viewers who missed our community posts, you might be wondering about the change in location. Well, we are moving up in the world. That’s right, fam, we are officially-
“College girlies!” The two shouted into the camera.
“Ah, such a big step,” ‘Star’ sighed.
“Indeed it is. And to celebrate, let us dress up like we’re going to meet the queen of fashion herself: Marie Antoinette!”
***
“So you would think it would be hard to demonstrate Amity Park’s weirdness while no longer living there, but you would be wrong,” a black man said into the camera while walking down a hallway, his glasses fallen ever so slightly down his nose. There were voices in the background progressively getting louder. “You see, Danny’s mentor popped by this morning, and apparently, he decided that the perfect way to tutor Danny and piss off his bosses at the same time was to allow a bunch of college kids to summon a historical figure of their choosing to discuss their area of expertise. Once a week.
“Jazz got to go first.”
The black man stopped in a doorway. Much clearer in the background was a woman’s even voice. “And Jazz, being the future psychologist that she is, picked the most sex-obsessed man in history.”
The camera flipped to show a young red-head sitting across an older man with a white beard in a blue three piece suit. In the background was a younger man, his blue eyes glazed over as he sat there sipping from his mug, his head of black hair bobbing as he fought to stay awake. Really, it wouldn’t gather a second glance, except for the tiny detail that the older man’s skin was as green as a sunburnt person’s was red.
“-indeed homosexuality is not an illness, and in fact the only link between it and mental health has been observed to be caused by familial and community reactions.”
“That is good to hear. Indeed, many people throughout history were homosexual, and a lot of them did not show any other signs of mental illnesses.”
“It is. However, with the recent pushes for public acceptance of those not heterosexual, many have come forward with sexual orientations beyond just hetero and homosexuality, including those that are attracted to both men and women at the same time, as well as those who experience no sexual attraction or are completely repulsed by the idea of anything sexual.”
The camera flipped back to the first man. “She is explaining how psychology has developed in the last 100 years without trying to rip apart Freud’s work.
“This isn’t even the first time something like this has happened. Occasionally, we’d get guest speakers that would turn out to be some famous author or pioneer in their field. It’s how our English teacher got his copy of the Tempest signed by the original author. I think this might be the first one that won’t end in a raid by government idiots in white, though.
“So yeah, we occasionally get to talk to dead celebrities and don’t bat an eye at it. Amity Park is very weird.”
***
“Danny! You left your cups in the sink again!”
“How can you tell it’s mine?”
“They’re glowing green and you’re the only one that drinks ectoplasm! Now take care of them before you bring the food to life again!”
“Fine…”
The camera pans over to a goth woman giving the camera a flat look. On screen, there’s some text that reads: ‘When your boyfriend forgets to clean off his dishes after his mildly radioactive smoothies.’
***
“Urgh!” Just die you stupid, lazy skeleton!”
“How long is this attack going to be!”
“I don’t care, because when it’s finally my turn, I am going to stab the dust out of this depressed sack of bones!”
On screen was a couch, and on that couch sat 3 young adults, two women and one man. One of the women was Valarie Gray, US National Taekwondo Silver Medalist, was jabbing her thumb down on the d-pad of her controller, lips pulled back in a snarl. The other was Samantha Manson, more known for the TikTok channel Our Strange Lives. The man was a muscular blond. All three were focusing on the screen, their eyes emitting faint light and Valarie’s teeth seemed to be getting sharper.
Quietly a blond woman walked on screen, a backpack slung over her shoulder. The woman was Star Strong from Fashionable History.
“You guys are still streaming?”
“This boss is stupid difficult and Manson and Gray are the only ones willing to play.”
“What happened to the guys?”
“Fowley, Wes, Singh all had work. Fenton got to the first boss and then lost it because ‘Goat Mom just wanted to protect us’ before getting a call from his lil sis asking for help. Kwan is working on a lab with a guy from his chem class, and Kyle passed out a couple hours ago.”
“Stop dodging!”
“Wanna play?”
“Can’t. Going to the library to study for a calc exam I have coming up. See you guys later.”
“Later.”
“FUC-”
***
“And so, with this polaroid image, we have evidence to prove that-”
“Hey, Wes, do you have something I can use for a collage? Oh sweet, thanks bro!”
“What? No! Kyle! Get back with that! That was the proof I was going to use to prove the existence of Yetis!”
“Oh damn. This is some nice creature work! Danny, your friend has an incredible costume, man!”
“Thanks, Kyle! I’ll pass it on!”
***
Tim paused the video right as Wesley Weston stood to chase his older brother.
There.
The red-head’s eyes had a slight glow to them. Tim clicked over to the other images he had gathered of the Amity Park teens, all with their eyes glowing or other signs of something inhuman.
Tim had been introduced to this group by Stephanie when she found a martial arts demonstration Gray did that involved breaking multiple boards, all several feet above her head. Stephanie had meant it as a ‘check out his cool person doing what we’re doing,’ but Tim noticed something. All the boards were being held by seemingly the same person- or at least people dressed very similarly. And not in a way where they’re sitting on a ledge above Gray and are switching out the board each time she broke one. More that there were multiple companies of the same white glove all holding a board and all floating several feet above where they should have been. That was already a little weird, but it could’ve been some special effects or just a uniform.
No, what caught Tim’s attention was the quick glimpse of the face of one of the board holders. It was youthful- late teens- but with paper white hair that showed no signs of bleaching. Now these features would have been a thing to cement the mysterious person in Tim’s mind. But it wasn’t that.
No, what got Tim to do some digging to find out about a previously unknown supposed hero from a small town that has been blacked-out by the US government, was his eyes.
His calm, glowing Lazarus green eyes.
***
So we finally get a taste for the shenanigans our liminals are up to. Sam, Tucker, and Danny all share a TikTok where they show off how weird the other two are and how weird their town is. Wes is trying to prove cryptids exist, which Kyle ruins. Dash has a gaming stream that most often Kwan joins in on, and Paulina and Star do dress history. Oh, and Valarie is a national taekwondo because karate has only been an event for one Olympic games, but taekwondo has been an event since 2000 and Val seems more like a kicker than a thrower. Plus, I actually took taekwondo when I was younger.
We do get another Bat showing up at the end. There is absolutely no plot, however, so who knows where this is going. Certainly not me!
I'm still looking for names (please, I need them). As for majors:
Jazz-Psych (obviously)
Kyle- Liberal Arts (I wanna put him in accounting, but Liberal Arts works for now)
Tuck- Comp Sci
Danny- Poly Sci, minor in Astronomy
Sam- Double Poly Sci and Environmental Science
Val- Criminal Justice
Dash- Undecided (both me and him)
Kwan- Pre-Med for now, though he wants to do Child Development/Education
Paulina- Fashion Marketing
Star- Sports Science
Mikey- Music
Wes- Journalism
#liminal amity park#dp x dc crossover#danny fenton#paulina sanchez#dash baxter#sam manson#jazz fenton#tucker foley#valarie gray#star strong#wes weston#kyle weston#mikey#tim drake#finally some more dc#also our kids acting liminal#or at least they glow#danny drinks ectoplasm smoothies#amity park is weird#amity park/gotham co op#no beta we die like danny and jason#part 3 of idk how many still
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(Re)introducing the Author
I have two main series: a fantasy series called The Curious Tale and a sci-fi series called Galaxy Federal.
For those who are newer here, or wouldn't mind a refresher, here's a little about me and the kind of stories I write:
My name is Josh, pronouns they/he. (I am agender but I don't get upset if you gender me masculine; I do it myself sometimes out of force of habit.) I am 41 years old and live in Washington State not far from Seattle, in the beautiful but troubled United States. I am left-handed, hence my proudest epithet, The Sinistral, and I have been a writer for basically my entire life—even as a kid!
I published my first and so far only novel in 2015, Prelude to After The Hero, which you can currently buy as an e-book or read for free in HTML. Additionally, I have published countless worldbuilding articles and meta-discussions of my fiction over the years (see my previous post about Curious Tale Saturdays), and countless nonfiction essays and personal musings on my personal journal, which in more recent years I have updated much less frequently (but am still active on).
As an author I mostly write stories about "power" and "beauty." I'll have more to say about my specific stories over the next couple days when I do corresponding (re)introduction posts for The Curious Tale and Galaxy Federal, but the bottom line is that I am very interested in human potential, both at the individual and collective levels, and in the beauty of being alive and experiencing "the world," i.e. our material reality and our own headspaces within it. Other topics that interest me and frequently show up in my writing include justice, creation (both the acts and products of creating), civilization, Illumination (what many would call wisdom or "enlightenment"), ambition and desire, animism, and the poignance of the fleeting nature of all things.
I am fascinated by liminality and subliminality; boundaries; vast indoor spaces; megastructures; mysteriousness; "the magical"; surrealism; absurdism; nostalgia; pathos; journeys that do not involve backtracking; and other such things as generally might describe a vast world with hazy horizons lit in twilight. I also strive in my writing (less successfully, I fear) to convey a sense of mystery and wonder.
At the same time, I am also fascinated by human emotionality and subjective experience; personal relationships; the human condition and the human psyche; and narrative life arcs. Some who know me through my nonfiction or by talking to me in person have been surprised to see how passionate and emotional my fiction is.
My writing style tends to be long-winded and self-indulgent; deliberate and precise; esoteric and bespoke. I usually set a slow pace, and seldom indeed will I resort to cheap action or thrills. Most of my fiction is either long-form play-by-play scenes in high resolution, or Tolkienian epic narration far removed from the ground level.
With certain exceptions for key locations, I usually don't reuse a given location in a story; the locations are usually new from scene to scene, and thus there is a lot of environmental description throughout the whole length of my works and not just at the beginning. This creates a certain quality, where everything is always new, that I find engrossing.
In terms of the three most popular conventions, political intrigue, violence, and sex and romance: My writing mostly rejects the treacherous political intrigue genre conventions that are so prevalent in sci-fi and fantasy today, even though "politics" is definitely an integral part of my writing (and I am not shy about sharing my opinions, though I try to do so through specific characters rather than on narratorial authority). When it comes to violence, there is a lot of death and killing and suffering in my work, but I am not a big fan of writing extremely graphic violence and torture, mainly because I don't have the heart to dwell on it in great detail most of the time. (It's very draining for me.) And on the sex side of things, I eschew tacked-on romantic subplots and in general I would say that there's too much damned snogging in our contemporary storytelling, but I definitely do explore and depict matters of love and sex in my work in my own way—though not at a very high frequency, and, I would like to hope, never gratuitously. (Unless the gratuitousness is a tongue-in-cheek joke that we're all in on—which can be said of many other aspects of my writing as well.) I never write explicit, graphic sex scenes, although I do sometimes write sex scenes.
Which reminds me: My stories tend to have a lot of "competency porn" in them; my characters are usually intelligent, thoughtful, and logical. Ignorance and luck are not big plot story drivers for me, generally.
My favored characters tend to be some combination of fat, left-handed, and female; and, of them, my central protagonists additionally tend to be extremely powerful, demigodlike individuals who are able to operate within their respective domains virtually without limitation. In critical respects my characters are only vaguely-defined; I usually avoid character archetype trope reinforcement, so my characters are ideally as internally diverse as real-world humans are...which means you can't actually know them right away. And that opens the door for you to project your own personality ideas onto them. Which...I suppose is a feature?
I have a cinematic mind, and I think my stories are best appreciated with a strong visual imagination. I try not to smother readers with too many unnecessary details, though I confess I am only partially successful at this and often find myself hanging on every word of my lengthy environmental descriptions. I think some of my most satisfied readers are those who enjoy digesting these elaborate visuals as a reward unto itself.
I am a big believer in the idea that obvious story setups should have payoffs, that narrative arcs should eventually be resolved, and that plots and subplots should be be highly interconnected. I am chiefly theme-driven in my writing, as opposed to character-driven or plot-driven, and oftentimes the central purpose of a given scene will be to express one particular idea (or more than one)—either a conceptual idea, or a specific moment in the story. If you read the Prelude and remember Silence's introduction, I wrote that entire scene just to be able to describe the image of Silence in silhouette standing against the evening sky, and her powerful, predator-like movement as she turns around.
Add it all up, and my stories are definitely out of the norm for today's fashions and quite possibly for any fashion in history. They are slow and heavy and long. Their vastness belies their thrilling internal intricacies and shapes. The characters are highly realistic. The plots tend to feel emergent and organic. Or at least I think so. I am very much "writing the stories I want to see."
My stories tend to be incredibly long. Like...just know that going in. There are many sources for "tight," "fast" writing in the world. I am not one of them.
Oh, one more thing: There are various types of representation that are important to me and which I don't see the current state of sci-fi and fantasy storytelling doing a good job of delivering, so I explicitly lean into that, on top of my natural proclivity to write these kinds of characters anyway. So, if you're ever reading a scene and you find that the demographics of the people in it are noticeably unusual for contemporary American fiction, that's why.
More about me as a person: When not writing, I am a fan of sunsets, sunrises, and twilight; clouds and water; saying "Merciful McGillicuddy!" a lot while sighing loudly; solving Wordle; trying mostly in vain to gain weight; and being a curious information sponge.
#The Curious Tale#Galaxy Federal#Silence Terlais#Author Bio#I have no idea if this is actually what people want to know about an author.#When I read author bios in books or on websites they're usually lamentably generic#“Sam likes to go fishing.”#“And owns two dogs and a hamster.”#That's great for you and all Sam but what does it really say?
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Spider-Man Read-Through 024: Shang...ri-La (GSSM 2, ASM 138-140)
MASTERPOST
Today's post features Fu-Manchu, a bromance, purple, a bear (<3) and psychic powers, woohoo!
In our first issue, Spider-Man faces (and then fights with) Shang-Chi, who you may now know from the MCU. Back when I was a kid, I heard of him through Giant-Size Spider-Man #2.
The story begins with Spidey interrupting thievery by men who soon die unexpectedly, just as they start telling our hero about their master (Shang-Chi... or is he?). I feel like that idea of criminals dying as soon as they're about to tell all secrets has already been used recently on the comics but I'm too lazy to look that up. Shang-Chi's the son of Fu Manchu, the actual baddie and a cliché of the West's vision of Asia.
[Sorry, I used Ctrl Z again on Tumblr and it removed like half my text ugh]
The issue's nice, it's an obvious imitation of typical kung-fu movies and it works much better than other SM 100% fighting issues.
Now, onto the main plot...
Here's how ASM 138 opens:
I'm putting those panels for two reasons:
to show Peter is still a handsome motherfucker (affectionate)
to appreciate the continuity! Last ish, Harry did blow up their condo, and there's consequences for that! It's great to see.
Peter calls each one of his acquaintances, but none can house him (not surprising considering how much of an ass he was after Gwen's death), except one... as Peter's last call is for his old frenemy Flash.
AND THUS BEGINS THE FLASH/PETER SHIP'S GOLDEN HOUR. Look at Peter in the third panel, acting like a school girl who just asked her crush out. You go, Pete! Go get him!
Gerry Conway and Ross Andru seemed quite attached to realism. Why not! I do appreciate the purple.
There's an ugly villain with mystical powers just waiting to feed on Peter's aura, but we've got more pressing matters, such as:
Boyfriends!!!
"Slugging", huh...
I'm probably putting too much panels, but this issue is plain gorgeous.
The villain's story is absolutely horrifying, just like the premise of his powers.
I'm sorry, I don't have many observation to give, it's just an interesting issue to me and visually quite gorgeous (purple pants!!!).
Charles S. LeCates thinks that the Jackal is actually Richard, the Kingpin's son. He's apparently the only one who had that thought! That's not a bad theory... but it's incorrect. Oh well! Other theories are: the Jackal isn't a costume and the Jackal is the thief who murdered Uncle Ben. Hmm! Still wrong.
In the opening pages of #139, Peter says it's been "a few months" since Gwen died and "three weeks" since he became Flash's roommate. His life has been pretty hectic!
Unfortunately for me, he's already found a new appartment thanks to Liz when I was fully ready to see some Peter/Flash shenanigans. They were too gay to be featured as roommates for more than a single issue!
The Grizzly suddenly attacks the Daily Bugle, but Jameson's not interested.
(He's still attacked anyway.)
Jameson is saved by Spidey, who ends up following the Grizzly as Peter...
Can I just say how much I love this ending? It's a great moment. A bit silly on Peter's part, but very gloomy. Frightening, actually. My child self was scared of the Jackal's hand jumpscare hahaha. It's very effective! The penultimate page is actually quite liminal.
This is also the end I was left with for at least a decade.
...Well, not exactly. See, I also read those little jewels:
The first one compiles issues 144-151, that is to say, most of our next batch (the OG Clone Saga), so I haven't read issues 140-143, but I still know what happens after that.
The second one, while I'm at it, covers issues 30-35 of ASM Vol. 2 (2001) and thus ends just after Peter reveals his secret identity to a certain somebody... and I still don't know how they react!!!!! Can't wait to get there in, like, ten years.
So we have a final issue in this batch, one that I've never read. What are we waiting for?
You know me, I'm always here to see Peter get manhandled.
Gorgeous gorgeous GORGEOUS colors. Ned's wearing a pink jacket! I love it. I love it so much. Hell yeah!
You can't see it, but I'm slurping deliciously because between the arm & hand p0rn, the whump, and the colors, I really love those panels.
Later, Flash helps Peter move in.
I think I remember her so I'm pretty sure she features in later issues. Hmm, a model... Is Marvel trying to introduce a rival to MJ?
Flash is very interested in her, but she's obviously much more into Peter.
So here's some more arms and colors, because we all deserve it.
Hoping the Jackal was bluffing, Peter tries removing his bracelet... and succeeds with the power of blue flames! I wish he hadn't been able to discard it so quickly, especially considering the Jackal should know Peter's quite smart...
...and also a joker.
Jameson isn't so bad himself. He ruined the Grizzly's wrestling career!
Following those revelations and a few gags, Spidey tracks down the Grizzly and proceeds to strip him.
With the Grizzly neutralized, Spidey assures him that someday, he'll get the Jackal.
OH MY GOD??????? I'M SO HYPED! WHAT THE HELL?!?!?!
Okay, before I close this post, please remember this panel for the next batch:
The Jackal sure looks agile... Who could it be?
#peter parker#flash thompson#amazing spider-man#spider-man#comics#comic books#peter/flash#whump#peter parker thirst#the grizzly#the jackal
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the random man that I slept with was so weird because he acted like he knew everything about this city-but actually it’s a small town (that i occupy)- that I would never know because i wasn’t from here. For example, he said “did you know that this town is actually run by the Chus” and I said, “yeah, my cousin’s wife, Margie, was actually married to Mr. Chu for sometime and has a kid with him, so like, I know that he runs most things out on the islands” and he was like “Oh.” AND I just feel like that really sums up my relationship to places, where I am somehow in the know about weird and specific things-such as town lore that is only known by a long time local- but I am disconnected from the a larger community because I am a WEIRDO who has a hard time connecting with the normie-core of the town.
In my hometown growing up, my parents are older (they had me in their late 30s/40s), so I grew up doing a lot of old timey, small town things. Such as twirling baton and competing in the state fair and having my parents run a fried chicken stand at our school district's fair for all the children under the age of 14. We would also have a lot of town events such as a chili cook off and an art fair that would close down the town square and draw people in from neighboring cities. But I also went to a high school that had over 2000 students and my graduating class was 600+. I feel as if I have always lived in a liminal space of life. I grew up in a small town but I also grew up in a large town but not enough to be a city, and I grew up in a historic house but not in a historic district and i grew up in the downtown of my city but was also a country girl who would ride four wheelers and cut wood in the summer to heat my house in the winter. I would spend my weekends at my lake house and my weekdays going to our clubhouse, i lived between being outside and inside and i have always been a girl trapped in a life of dichotomies. It has never allowed me to have 1 singular identity-definiing feature. Ultimately I know that this makes me a more complex individual. I just feel it is hard to describe the unique experience i have had without going into great detail. It is also hard to find identity with other unless they’ve also had older parents who never grew out of their lives they created in the 70s/80s and how that bleeds into your childhood.
It’s also highlighted in being a “elder” gen-z who grew up aspiring and interacting with millennials but also grew up getting a facebook at 10 and an instragram, at 13. My brain was hardwired differently. I feel like I will always been a liminal girl.
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I can’t possibly do this book justice in writing about it. It’s tied (with Human Acts) for my favorite book of 2022. I know this book is stylistically an inevitable favorite: it’s my preferred genre (realistic literary fiction), and it seems deliberately written for someone who derives glee from every literary allusion and who is waiting to draw intricate plot deductions (sometimes people try to get me to stop analyzing things I read/watch because “doesn’t that take the fun out of it?” No, that’s exactly where the fun is, I respond). While these characteristics certainly describe me and what I find most rewarding in literature, I’m not, however, a gamer, and I probably missed the joy of many allusions to games and gaming. Given the book’s masterful literary self-awareness, surely gaming is treated with similar deftness. In spite of this, I gained a new appreciation for the world-building of gaming, caught up in the incredible narratives and aesthetics, the haunting liminal space of the game world, the attention-to-detail in development (of Ichigo in particular).
From its early chapters, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow leans on excellent prose and thorough, measured character development to succeed. The first half of the book lulls the reader into a false sense of security, sliding backward and forward in time as it develops the central characters of Sam and Sadie, as well as the figures who surround them: Anna Lee (Sam’s mom), Marx (roommate and producer), Zoe (Marx’s girlfriend), Sam’s Korean grandparents, Ant and Simon (dynamic, young techie couple), Sadie’s sister Alice, and Sadie’s Jewish grandmother Freda. These early chapters have some clever and thoughtful reveals in the plotting: we have to infer that Sam’s broken and mashed foot was the result of the car crash that killed his family, through their absence in these hospital scenes; there is the reveal of Anna and Sam’s hasty departure from New York for L.A. as another Anna Lee leaps to her death; we also confront the truth of Sadie’s depression (an abortion she had just before Sam reappeared in her life). These early chapters gather strength through realism.
Sam and Sadie are deeply flawed, incredibly relatable characters. As a brilliant young woman at MIT, Sadie struggles through her college relationship with her professor Dov (truly the worst, and the only character with whom I never sympathized). Sam sees in his reunion with Sadie the potential for a collaboration that will revolutionize the gaming world, and pursues reconnection after having cut her from his life when they were kids. Marx installs himself as perpetual cheerleader, and self-sacrificing friend, while also being a bit of a playboy who stays friends with all his exs through sheer charm and good will. Each character is, in turns, deeply relatable and utterly exasperating. These characters are real in their contradictions: Sam’s stubbornness about his disability and his refusal to let this define him (almost to a fault, as he risks his life, and lashes back at those who have his best interests at heart), Sadie’s fearless pride in making her holocaust-focused game Solution for her MIT classmates paired with her long-term fixation with securing Dov’s good opinion, Marx’s whimsical break-ups as he grows bored with people, yet loves Sam and Sadie unconditionally. It’s the time spent on characterization upfront that earns the devastating, beautiful second half of the book.
In the second half of the book, so many details from the first half (details that were seemingly trivial) return to the forefront. This seems less plot-driven and more a perspective on realism—focusing on the way we make meaning of our lives, holding onto and romanticizing particular moments and memories, imbuing objects with sentiment, relying on language to fills empty holes we cannot imagine ourselves falling into, yet do.
The section that vaults this book into life-changing, transcendent territory is the section called NPC. In a point of view shift from the rest of the book, this section is entirely first-person POV for Marx Watanabe. The character who has played third-wheel to Sam and Sadie throughout their professional relationship (and their complex, interwoven friendship, as well as Sadie and Marx eventually falling in love) suddenly takes center stage. It’s an apt metaphor. All of Marx’s theater background comes to bear, as he gets, for once, to play the main role. Later, after his death, Sadie immortalizes him in a game she designs, where the role of Macbeth is played by a tall handsome asian man (when Marx, in real life, was relegated to the role of Banquo). As Marx’s death story unfolds, interspersed with real-time events as he lies dying in a coma and moments from his complex history with his two closest friends, we receive a full reversal of ours and Sam’s expectations for the NPC. Sam calls Marx an NPC; we, too, dismiss him in comparison to the furiously vivacious Sam and Sadie for much of the book. Yet, the supporting role he played in life, and in death, is crucial, essential, and one of real agency. It’s our loss if we overlook the NPC.
This section beautifully and poignantly reframes and repurposes the early sections of the book: from the reappearance of Sadie’s EmilyBlaster game in the moment Marx is shot to the titular reference (I was waiting for it!) about how Marx wanted to name the gaming company (ultimately called Unfair Games) after his understanding of the promise of retries and redoes imbedded in the concept of a game. This section is an exercise in literary mastery and plotting, a shocking record of the violence humans are capable of, and a tear-jerking account of a single and unique life. Even though I knew, before reading this section, that Marx had been shot to death in an active shooter scenario at Unfair Games, I was not expecting the realism of this scene. I felt inside it. I felt the brutality of what humans are capable of, and I felt how human (instead of inhuman) we are in the face of, and in the perpetuation of, violence. I bawled my way through this section of the book and felt exhausted, wrung-out, after reading it. Every moment was charged and deliberate—the placement of the story of Sam and Marx’s early roommate-bonding over a rehearsal of the scene of Banquo’s death in Macbeth to the way the men who bring guns to Unfair are seeking Sam, striking back against the diversity he has embraced as the emblematic Mayor of Mapletown who grants gay marriages far ahead of his time.
The final section of the book is titled Freights and Grooves and connects to the Emily Dickinson poem quoted at the beginning of the book:
That Love is all there is,
Is all we know of Love;
It is enough, the freight should be
Proportioned to the groove.
This mysterious poem—little, monstrous—is explored at the heart of the book. What is love that it must hurt us? But it never hurts us too much—the hurt love causes, the weight of it, carves just so deeply a change in us. Love’s no more than we can handle and exactly all that we can take. Or perhaps this poem means that any love is unknowable in portion to the impossible, unnamable nature of that love? To name love, to know it, is to simplify it to a point that it no longer resembles the love itself. In this book, I loved how, at each turn, the connection between Sam and Sadie is unique love, love that transcends lovers, traumas, hurts, and losing touch. It’s love that is unknowable and all-knowing, and every time Sam tries to name it, to force it into something more familiar, are the moments that show how that romantic love would be a weak approximation of the enduring love these characters share.
#tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow#gabrielle zevin#literary fiction#literary gamer#emily dickinson poetry#excellent reading#12/26 books
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Teen Wolf Rewatch: Season 1, Episode 1—“Wolf Moon”
All right, party people, please prepare yourself for my morally grey and overly cynical rewatch of a show I both love and hate more than anything. Also, I’m a rambler and a ranter, so this is gonna be long, no doubt.
Also, fair warning, I am not a fan of Scott McCall, so if you’re a proud card-holding member of the Scott McCall Defense Squad (dumb name btw), I recommend that you keep on scrolling because you do not want to engage in discourse with me. I am a petty little bitch and absolutely will argue with you for the sake of arguing. Ya’ll get hilariously upset about people’s dislike of him, and it gives me great joy to see the absolutely pathetic length’s you’ll go to in order to protect this piece of shit ass character.
I know he can’t help it, but I could not stop staring at DOB’s stress herpes that appears intermittently throughout this episode. Like, you can almost track what order scenes were filmed in based on the size of the middle of his top lip. Poor baby was absolutely pressed on his first real acting gig, and his body was absolutely responding to it.
As someone who is from Northern California and has spent time in our wooded areas and forests, it is laughable to me how much these Georgia woods could not be mistaken for California forests in a police lineup. Like, I know they had to make do with what they had, but holy fuck, the foliage in these two states aren’t even fucking close, my dude.
I always love that Scott has a guitar in his room throughout the entirety of the show, but we never once find out whether or not this fool can actually play. Like, it’s literal set dressing, and it’s even more hilarious when you consider that Tyler Posey actually can and does play the guitar. They could have given Scott a cool little skill if they wanted, but they were like “eh, he does lacrosse, that’s enough character traits for Scott”.
Maybe Scott had a fucking asthma attack while looking for the body because he wouldn’t just shut the fuck up and stop complaining about the thing he wasn’t forced to do. Jesus christ, Scott, shut the fuck up. We get it. You don’t wanna be here. But then, like, why did you go?
I also love that they wanted us to believe that Scott was that severely asthmatic at the beginning, but they start the show by showing him putting on a pretty impressive pull-up show and having a pretty nice body before being bitten, like ???
I love the Sheriff shining a flashlight through the sparse trees in the woods like you can’t see everything out there. You could run blindfolded through these trees and not hit a single fucking thing because everything is so damn far apart.
On a related note to the point above, where the fuck did these deer just appear from?? They literally just come from some sort of liminal space that exists behind the trees. Is there a platform nine and three-quarters situation happening in the trees of Beacon Hills?
All of the dead bodies and crime scenes in this show are so clean, my god.
I would have beat the fucking freckles off of Jackson Whittemore for how he treats people, stg. Little fucking punk-ass rich could. Ugh.
I kind of vaguely recall that the reason BHHS is all about lacrosse is that Jeff Davis was trying way too hard to be different, but like…what fucking Northern California public high school is this meant to represent? I’m not saying that it doesn’t or can’t possibly exist, but I would say that the overwhelmingly popular sports in our area are still your basic ass football, baseball, and basketball. In these parts, that’s a rich kid sport. Some public schools have lacrosse teams, but they tend to be even less popular than soccer teams out this way.
So, I love Lydia (or, more so, I love what fans have postulated about her and built her up to be in fandom because she actually kinda sucks as a character with real dimension in the show), but like…she is the worst version of a popular hot chick ever. Lydia Martin is a straight-up bitch in the first season of this show. Like…what a shallow little cunty bitch.
Will continue in a reblog because apparently this has gone on too long and Tumblr likes to tell me what to do.
#thoughts#my thoughts#a rant#teen wolf#tws01e01 wolf moon#i swear i like this show guys#i just have a lot of thoughts feelings and opinions#scott mccall#jackson whittemore#lydia martin#allison argent#stiles stilinski#derek hale
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So I got home a little while ago, after going to the ER for heart things (i'm better now don't worry). While I was there, though, I spent a lot of time there just kinda waiting.
I've decided that the ER Waiting Room is like a Kafkaesque DMV, simultaneously very much a Liminal Space™ and yet also extremely Purpose-Built.
Even though what brought you there might be terrifying initially, the place itself is not innately scary. Once you've calmed down and you've been reassured you're not gonna die tonight, you just wait for your name to be called. And while you're waiting, you look around this miserable absurdity of a space.
No one wants to be there, in fact everyone (including the staff) would very much like to leave, but no one can. Everyone needs to wait to hear their name in this sterile-looking beige room.
There's a baby crying because his mother needs to leave, because she's here for the finger she hurt.
There's an older man feeling unwell next to you, in a hospital wheelchair.
There's a mother and son across from you, and the kid is coughing into his mask. Presumably they don't know what the cough is, hence the ER visit.
Two different people have been throwing up and been given emesis bags. Only one is still using theirs; the other threw up on the floor some time ago and has been moved to a different spot. You presume it was her getting wheeled over that dragged the vomit on the floor into something of a line. A staff member gets a length of the paper used to cover examination tables to cover it. You look over to that patient's new spot and she's dry-heaving on the floor.
Meanwhile, every single one of you has to pretend that waiting around in this nothing place is reasonable thing to do when in moderate distress. You have to act as if our brains evolved such that, when seeking care, we seek out the most uninspired of rooms for reassurances.
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The Fourth Wall
Definition: Like the barrier between the stage and audience, this separates the fictional universes from our world.
It isn’t a physical place, but more of a conceptual “membrane” or force that will repel any realworlders or cartoons from crossing from the real world to the imaginary world and vice-versa.
Who can cross the Fourth Wall?
There are exceptions. When a realworlder is called to the trivial world, they can easily find one of the liminal spots that transports them to the story worlds. Fictional characters who venture from their worlds often become a shade of themselves fi they find these liminal spots. Usually kids see them and become “imaginary friends”.
Usually a fictional character can only interact with the world through their media’s fourth wall. For cartoons, video games, shows, or movies this is the tv screen. For books it’s the actual writing or physical book, so it’s hard to interact directly.
Sometimes, fictional characters from one creator will interact through fan art of themselves. The fan art or fan fiction isn’t binding on them (in other words Fanon will not become canon to them) but they can be affected by a lot of people believing the same ideas. Usually this Fanon effect will only affect the domain leader, and it doesn’t influence their behavior. They can chose to call attention to it, tell other characters, act it out, or ignore it completely.
The Fourth Wall and Junction
Think of the fourth wall as the cell wall to junction’s cytoplasm. Junction contains the domains and conceptual realm, and the fourth wall provides the barrier between it and the real world.
The only difference is the further you go into the Conceptual realm, the bigger it is. It also becomes less real as you go. Like Aslan’s country in Narnia: “further up and further in”
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Homestuck 12th Anniversary Fanwork Masterpost 🎱
4/13 has popped by like it does every year, and like every year, Homestuck fan content is born and/or updated for the occasion! This year was especially hefty, and since the algorithm loves to bury things from our line of sight, we decided to make a post featuring as many notable 4/13 fanworks as we could find!
Try to take a look at all of these below! This fandom is always brewing with talent!
TWITTER VERSION OF THIS POST
[FAN GAMES]
Friendsim 2 Trailer
New Game (+) Trailer
Midnight City Teaser Gameplay
DistantQuest Trailer
Strife Project (Rose Trailer)
Genesis Project Update
Befriendus Tease
[EVENTS]
The Homestuck Creators Guild Application
Stuck At Home 2021 Convention Date Reveal
413 Fund: A charity drive benefiting the ADAA
[ZINES]
The Zinestuck Zine Jam (32 Homestuck fanzines!)
Classpect Zine
[MUSIC]
Penumbra Phantasm by DBnet18
Candy Kids Solo Album - Yiffy Preview
Another Jungle (Famitracker VRC6 8-Bit Cover)
Elevatorstuck Full One Man Band
[GENERAL VIDEOS]
Let's Read Homestuck - Act 6 Intermission 4
Who Is Best Homestuck?
A Brief History of Homestuck
2021 SNAPD8s
CaseytheVA - Vriska & Karkat
CaseytheVA - Gamzee & Karkat
oh what a world - Homestuck lyricstuck
[S] G I R L
HSE: Karkat Vantas, Abraxian Tsundere
Jade: Enter Reanimated Teaser
[FANVENTURE UPD8s]
Act Omega
KittyQuest
Urban Systems Inc.
Failure to Launch
[HIGHLIGHTS]*
*These are things that don’t really fit into any of the above categories, be it because of medium, timing, etc, but we wanted them on here added anyways!
Liminal Space
JadeRose Comic
Thread of 4/13 Art! (you can also type #happy413 and #hs413 on twitter for more!)
The Unofficial Homestuck Collection (always share<3)
Act 8 Bonus Upd8 (Came out a few days after, but eh!)
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a short summary of my album CUTIEMARKS thematically
1. the things that bind us
sets up the premise of the whole album, narrated by kai. it describes the feeling of being bound by the thing that makes you """special""" and feeling trapped by the pressure of Cutiemarks
2. cutiemarks
breaking out of all of those feelings of being trapped and singing your heart out. discovering that life isn't just "set it and done".
3. bonnie
an exploration of closeted queerness, online relationships, and school-based traumas.
4. antonymph
being your absolute self regardless of judgement. the death of cringe culture and the birth of being unapologetically colourful (so long as your intentions are genuine).
5. lesbian ponies with weapons
taking antonymph's message to its fullest and denouncing a world of inequity and hatefulness.
6. syndicate
daydreaming and exploring the dark side of the mind without consequence. deals with anti-capitalism themes
7. wayfarer
an exploration of transness and unrequited love. understanding true love as something that deals with whats best for everyone involved and holding your actions to that.
8. i don't need to be fixed
a song about neurodivergence and the struggles of trying to interpret and evaluate social cues in the wake of a close friend's personal struggles.
9. protagonist syndrome
struggling with compassion and empathy for others and their lives while dealing with a lot of internal conflict and cynicism
10. isometrica
feelings of emotional isolation and falling out of developmental relationships, considering how few decisions led to where you are now. looking back on these things from a better, but still haunted, place.
11. nonexistent meet-cute
fantasizing about confronting someone in a jealous rage after having been emotionally/romantically toyed with in some way. it can also relate to confronting one's own abuser after many years of realizing they were manipulated.
12. atychiphobia
confronting the fear of failure and desiring to try things — both creatively and mechanically — without always having to strive for perfection.
13. harper
a song about mentorship and those who help us discover our passions and purposes in life, as well as recognizing that the concept of "family" is realistically never tied to blood and always tied to purely mutually experienced relationships.
14. how to kill a monster
recognizing that most of us come from a dark place and have acted egregiously in our pasts. to kill a monster is to kill that darkness.
15. imitation game
feigning positive feelings in the wake of social isolation and dysphoria as well as becoming hyper-observant of the people around you as a result of the silence.
16. honeymoon phase
an analysis of limerance and "love at first sight", the fakeness honeymoon love can be, and holding on too long until you feel stuck in the relationship that was once propelled by sheer limerance alone.
17. city of the silent
considering liminal spaces and their relationship to macabre feelings.
18. 37.6486° N, 122.4296° W
a song about overcoming a suicidal nature and recognizing the key relationships and places that are tied to that perseverance
19. the kid who kept running
carving a path for yourself in life, one that is uniquely yours. fantasizing about telling people in your past about where you are now and where you want to go.
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gaang + weyes blood
gonna respond for this one similarly to how i assigned the gaang songs from temple, since titanic rising is by far the album of hers i’ve listened to most.
a lot’s gonna change can apply to all them in various ways, but feels most obviously related to aang, seeing as his world undergoes the most massive change, losing nearly everything and everyone he knows. throughout the song, the narrator tells “you” (who is both a second person and the narrator herself) that “born in a century lost to memories” (quite literally in aang’s case) you must “learn to get by” and “try to leave it all behind,” which aang attempts through his escapist coping methods, but ultimately, just as aang must confront the past to end the war, the narrator amends her thesis: “let me change my words / show me where it hurts,” recognizing that one must acknowledge their grief regarding their past, now forever lost to destruction and to time.
andromeda feels extremely mai to me. throughout the show, she feels bored, aimless, depressed, and frustrated by her own inertia. she leaps at the opportunity to get out of occupied omashu and do violence with azula, but almost immediately decides that she’s bored of chasing the avatar around the world. (“lift the heart from the depths it's fallen to / we all want something new / but can't seem to follow through.”) then she returns to the fire nation with zuko, presumably assuming that her relationship with him will finally make her happy. but he doesn’t remotely give her what she needs, and she’s just as bored and frustrated as ever. (“something's better than nothing / or so that I thought / now I know it's just one dream / all these others gonna tear me apart.”) the first time she really feels any true passion is the indignation and hurt she feels upon his leaving with only a letter to show for it. but his commitment to his own ideals, rather than the mold of the perfect prince he was trying to squeeze himself into when in the fire nation with her, inspires her to actually take a stand and break out of her apathetic haze. and it is this moment that inspires ty lee to put her own cards on the table. (“love is calling / it's time to give to you / something you can hold onto / I dare you to try.”) mai’s first real action is rewarded, finally, with something real in return, which is all she’s ever wanted.
everyday reminds me most of katara. i know i’m of the minority opinion in this, but i still don’t think that even if katara and aang did get together in the final moments of the show that they would stay together forever. i could maybe see them getting back together at some point, but i don’t think they would or should stay in a committed & monogamous relationship throughout the entirety of their teens, and even their twenties. they’re both young, romantic, adventurous, attractive kids with their whole lives ahead of them! they deserve to have flings & short-term relationships, especially katara, who crushes on every attractive boy she sees (in true 14 year straight girl who has never known another teenage boy apart from her brother fashion). even if she does like aang, that doesn’t mean that she should be denied the formative teen experience of dating around and figuring out what she likes (as does aang in return). so i think this song represents a period where she’s gotten quite cynical about dating (another formative experience she deserves to have!) and feels a bit aimless when it comes to love. but imo that’s a healthy experience to have, and way more realistic than the idea that katara & aang were together since middle school with no hiccups in their relationship & got m*rried & had 3 babies. bleh. so yeah. messy straight girl rights!
something to believe is def a song for katara and also zuko. before the show’s events, they are both pinning all their hopes on this idea of the avatar, who will be their salvation. they’re both depressed and grieving, and their coping mechanism and response to the trauma they’ve experienced is a fervent drive and dedication to what is for all intents and purposes an impossible idea. they are both searching for the avatar (zuko more actively than katara, but it’s also no coincidence that her belief in his power and catalyst for change also makes her the one to raise him from his stasis), and once they find him, they believe in him even harder – the avatar, aang, becomes their drive and their will, he is the motivation they need to change the world. “something bigger and louder than these voices in me / something to believe.”
movies is also a very katara song. she is someone who relies on narratives to make sense of the world, and makes sense of her role in the world as being the hero in her own story. unlike aang, katara in many ways does fit the mold of an archetypal western hero, the daring, swashbuckling adventurer with a pure heart. she idealizes and romanticizes the world around her (“i know the meaning / i know the story / i know the glory / i love movies”), but that doesn’t necessarily mean she lives in a delusional fantasy. from a metatextual perspective, she is the narrator, she is the hero, she is quite literally the star of her own movie.
mirror forever reminds me of the relationship between mai and zuko. their relationship is ultimately disconnected by an artificial barrier, wherein they cannot communicate openly and honestly because neither of them wants to confront the truths about themselves that would change the nature of their relationship. they love the idea of their relationship more than they actually feel those feelings of romance or devotion for each other (“yes we love our love most of all”). they can’t be honest with each other if they both refuse to admit to themselves what they actually want. “oh baby, take a look in the mirror.”
wild time makes me think of zuko and aang’s arcs (and also katara, in a similar way). they shoulder these immense Destinies that are imposed on them by their ancestors and their place in history and they can feel the burden of that responsibility weighing down on them (“don’t cry, it’s a wild time to be alive”). enduring the pain and the grief of their childhoods (“burning much more than ever before”) and accepting that unjust pain and coming out stronger because of it (“let these changes make you more holy and true”), and changing the world so that no one will ever have to suffer in the way that they did again (“burning down the door”).
picture me better feels extremely sokka/yue to me. I know what the song is actually about, but it feels like it can apply so specifically to their relationship (the lines “don’t need no money when you’re around / and you’re making me act funny / can’t help to smile with those eyes that shine on me” is even such an apt description for the nature of their relationship in the nwt). not to mention the cosmic/celestial, ethereal/liminal imagery of “the stars and moon” and “the call from beyond.” the entire song feels like a conversation between them reflecting on having known each other (and potentially meeting again). an ode to their tragic, cosmic love story. </3
#the gaang and#synthesis#beemilys#asks#posts u spend multiple days on even tho one maybe two people will read it bc ur insane :)#atlamusic
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Spirited Away
I love this movie so much. It’s the first Studio Ghibli film I’ve ever watched, and it had haunted me until I rewatched it in high school (Yubaba is a scary lady for a three-year-old, don’t judge me).
I think it wasn’t until rewatching it a few more times and hearing snippets of Miyazaki talking about this film that I truly understood the importance of this story. Now, as an adult, I think I understand why it resonates with so many people and has such a strong nostalgia for many. It really is a coming-of-age story, focusing on a girl who—at the beginning—is shy and nervous and not very sure of herself. She is somewhat forcefully pushed to face demanding tasks head on, which in itself is tough for a young kid to do all on their own. But on top of that, she has to hold onto her name (Chihiro) and her yet-to-be-established identity in order to return to her real life. Her character development into a strong individual who still remains her childish self is awesome and I think very effectively pulls you into the story.
An interesting thing about this movie is how the characters (mainly Chihiro and her family) are motivated. In the “real world,” the character’s motivation stems from very mundane reasons, and those reasons are easily identifiable. The family moves to a new place and the parents are eager to explore and learn about the surrounding area, as many parents tend to do. Chihiro herself is apprehensive of new things and unfamiliar places in a way that is very common for children.
But once they enter the train station/clock tower and exit through the other side (a very obvious liminal space) the parents are motivated by some obsessive or unhealthy desire to explore. Their dismissal of social etiquette when they arrive at the only open restaurant is greedy and obnoxious. Meanwhile Chihiro feels uncomfortable by her parents’ behavior and has a strong urge to leave.
I think there are many ways to interpret this situation, but one I like is that children are still transitioning from relying mainly on instinct or vague ideas to making decisions based on what is considered appropriate or logical, a skill often learned from one’s parents. Therefore, in this situation where her parents are acting our of pure gluttony and greed, she feels this strong cognitive dissonance and confusion. I mean in the beginning, we see her mom scolding her for small things constantly, so she knows her mom to be a strict person with clear ideas of appropriateness. She clearly did not think eating food that they hadn’t had permission to eat was a smart decision, so it must have been shocking to see her mom abandon those ideas and pig out.
Yubaba also provides Chihiro with a plethora of arbitrary rules for right and wrong behavior, and seeing Chihiro be self-motivated and—politely—break those rules to help those she loves is very heartwarming and admirable. Navigating growing up can be very difficult for children, and I think this film does an effective job representing that difficulty.
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i recently remembered that my fic Liminality was actually part of a bigger story; it’s old and don’t think i will ever complete it, but since @thetpot left me a lovely comment i thought that i could share some of the parts i had written, as a treat.
the story is set in the post-canon world. aang is in his twenties, dealing with grief, ptsd and depression and his avatar responsibilities. on top of that, he realizes that he’s fallen in love with zuko and this causes him to break up with katara; a lot of angst and self-hatred follow, because he feels like he’s breaking the heart of the woman he loves and betraying his best friend too.
so, here are some snippets! note: they’re unedited and also not in chronological order.
[Aang speaks with Avatar Yangchen in the spirit world]
“Avatar Yangchen?”
“Hello, Aang. It seems I'm the one you turned to in your moment of need, this time.”
“Why, though? I didn't think about you, I just... needed someone to talk to, I guess. Someone who has nothing to do with all this.”
“You don't want to have this conversation with any of your friends.”
“They're too close to Katara and I don't want to force them to pick sides.”
“And Fire Lord Zuko is, of course, out of the question.”
“If I saw him now, I wouldn't be able to keep my mouth shut and I'd spill my guts and it would be embarrassing for both and that would only make things even worse... he doesn't deserve this. I'm the one who messed up.”
“Why do you think you messed up?”
“Why? I fell in love with my best friend! I hurt Katara and I'll hurt Zuko too if I don't learn to keep my feelings hidden! I should have hidden them better from the start!”
“Is this what would make you happy? Learning how to hide your feelings, having no one the wiser?”
“I wanted to marry Katara and make her happy for the rest of our lives, and now I ruined our relationship because I just had to be like this! My life couldn't be simple, oh no, I couldn't just be with her, I had to want more—of course I hurt her!”
“I see now the reason you chose me instead of Avatar Roku or Avatar Kyoshi, whether you were aware of it or not. You're missing something crucial... something that not even they would see.”
“What is it?”
“You're an Air Nomad, Aang.”
Aang waited. Since no explanation came, he spoke. “Well, yeah, that's kind of hard to miss.” He gestured at himself, “orange robes, bald head, tattoos—you know, the whole package. I don't see how it should change things, though.”
“You know that, but you forgot what it means. The love you carry in your heart is the truest expression of our heritage. You can't love like Katara does, because you were raised in the Air Temples and your heart knows no boundaries or shame. Most people would consider things like distance, social status, race or gender, but you never put meaning in such limitations. That's the way of Air Nomads, Aang, our way.”
“But Katara loves me too, who cares if she's not an Air Nomad!”
“While her love for you runs deep and fierce, she has a different understanding of what it means. Sometimes, as you experienced, this can cause conflict. Katara expected you to have romantic feelings for her and her only. You certainly love her and did your best to grant her wish in full, but by doing this you failed to see that chain for what it was and how it would hurt you both.”
“This sounds an awful lot like 'you're destined to hurt everyone and you better not try to have a relationship ever again'.”
“I'd say it's more like 'you seem to be naturally inclined to love more than one person in a romantic sense and your culture never repressed this attitude like others would have'.”
“Am I really not capable to feel romantic love for only one person? I think I can learn. I learned a lot of difficult things that opposed my Air Nomad nature, so why not this one? I want to be with Katara. I miss her so much...”
“But you also want to be with Zuko, don't you?”
“I... I can't be with him. That wouldn't be fair.”
“Why not?”
“I don't want to push my feelings on him. I never asked for this and he certainly didn't either!”
“It seems our conversation has come full circle. You insist that Zuko will reject your feelings, that they will cause him distress and pain, but that's an assumption on your part—quite the heavy one, at that. Do you trust your best friend so little?”
“Of course I trust Zuko, I trust him with my life! It's myself I don't trust, and I don't want to jeopardize our friendship!”
“And yet, you treat him like a fragile glass sculpture. The bond you share has weathered way worse than a love confession gone wrong. Zuko himself has weathered worse.”
[Zuko’s pov, reflecting on something that had happened with Aang. i don’t remember if i had a plan for it, but it’s possible that it was actually the Papaya Incident from another fic of mine, He gives me the holiday I needed all the time]
Pebbles lay scattered on the sand, round and shiny from the waves. He picked one up and rolled it between his fingers; it was black, a solid weight, and smooth to the touch when he ran his thumbs over it.
His mind wandered, lulled by the sound of the wind and the sea.
Things with Aang were going well. After the initial period of embarassment on both parts, they'd eventually reached a new stability and stopped obsessing over every little thing they did and said. The hot springs accident had helped a lot and Aang's sun-kissed nature had done the rest; Zuko'd let himself be led, knowing that his friend was the most vulnerable, not to mention the one he trusted to make the right decisions—way more than he trusted himself.
He remembered what the old ladies had told him years before about the Island. Without consciously realizing it before, those words were the reason why Zuko was there—sitting on the beach by himself, holding a rock and waiting for the magic to happen.
A tingling in the back of his head reminded that he didn't know what the water would bring ashore this time. There were still so many sharp angles in him for the sea to smooth over, so many questions that may or may not be best left unanswered.
Nonetheless, he stayed. He'd always been too stubborn for his own good.
He threw the pebble over the water and watched it skirt on the surface. One, two, three, then down with a small plop.
Things with Aang were going well, and yet Zuko was antsy. He'd adapted and was comfortable in their situation, but something had irremediably shifted the night before. Something that was probably brewing slow and deep since Aang's confession.
They weren't kids anymore. It used to be a nostalgic thought for Zuko; it reminded him of how many years had passed already, of the responsibilities on their shoulders. The difference in their ages didn't feel like a chasm anymore, especially since their roles put them on equal ground; they'd matured, losing a big chunk of the recklessness of youth. Zuko'd learned to hold his temper (most of the times) and Aang'd learned to be serious and diplomatic (when needed).
Now, though, their adulthood also held a different kind of weight and Zuko was running out of excuses not to notice.
The arch of Aang's impish grin, the vibrations of his laughter, the scratch of his beard on Zuko's cheek as he hugged him... they pulled at strings that any other friend couldn't reach. Aang had always been special. This was another layer of Zuko's defenses slowly being peeled away, another way in which Aang was turning his life upside down to make him discover new paths and new meaning.
Zuko had never been attracted to a man before, which meant that of course Aang had to be the exception.
There, he'd admitted it, in the privacy of his own head, with the burning circle of the setting sun as a witness. He was attracted to Aang. He was charismatic and funny and handsome and fuck if Zuko hadn't wanted to kiss him the day before.
[more flirting]
“I never noticed that the tattoos on your arms are separated from the one on the back... and I guess the ones on the legs are separate too,” Zuko pondered, lazily following the blue line that traced Aang's spine and disappeared under yellow fabric to reappear again on both of his thighs.
“You've seen me half naked a million times and you're noticing it now?” Aang asked, all cheek and impishness.
“Well, yes, I wasn't really looking though.”
“You weren't, but now you are?” Aang's smirk turned almost lecherous as he wiggled his eyebrows in the most theatrical flirting in history. “I'm flattered, darling, but if you want me to take my clothes off to, ah, 'see the tattoo' you have to wine and dine me first.”
“...you just said I've already seen you half naked and I certainly didn't wine and dine you first.”
“Ah, but that was different—now you're looking!”
“What if I was only pretending not to look?”
“Then you already owe me the wine and dining, even though proper behaviour would have been asking me out before the ogling. I'd say I expected better from the Fire Lord of all people, but I understand the irresistible appeal of my toned, hot body.” He stroke some poses to show off his muscles and Zuko busied himself with a thorough examinations of his own fingernails. It was nothing he hadn't already seen anyway, no need to stare while his friend acted like a dork and interpreted what seemed airbending forms with abandon, since he already knew how Aang looked, thank you very much.
Which is why he was completely unprepared for the sulking, cross-armed Airbender hovering so close that he could taste his body heat.
“Stop ignoring me! Rude!” Aang lamented as a truly wounded man.
It should have been exhausting to deal with all that unbridled shifting energy contained in a single person, the constant pull that kept Zuko's attention inside the vortex that was Aang... and yet, it wasn't, because Zuko wasn't alone in this. Since that day a lifetime ago under the fiery eyes of Dragons, they'd never stopped dancing—they danced and pulled at each other's strings, dug in deep darkness and broke down walls to let the light in.
No force on the Earth could have stopped the blush rising to Zuko's cheeks as the split-second realization brushed his thoughts and exploded with bursting colors.
Spirits, he loved Aang.
Of course, this wasn't exactly new. However, it was the flavor of it, the quality of the burn, hot and vibrating and fierce, the senses amplified by the proximity of the wonderful man before him.
[Aang is acting strangely (bc of depression and all the rest) and the gaang notices]
Toph's inquisitive eyes didn't bear anything good for Aang. Her abilities always allowed her to slip into people's spaces, more often than not in a way that let her obtain blackmail material galore; his heartbeat quickened and he cursed himself because that was just what he needed, another incriminating piece of evidence in her probably already long list... for whatever his crime was.
Katara, Sokka and Suki stared at both of them, unsure of the meaning of their silent conversation.
Aang silently begged for some of his enemies to sweep through the windows and try to kill him. He would take them on all together if needed, as long as he could avoid hearing the next words out of the earthbender's mouth. Could he take a quick trip to the Spirit World? It seemed a nice option, to leave his unconscious body and his friends entirely behind.
Then, Toph opened her mouth.
“Out, Twinkletoes.”
She stomped a foot and raised her arms. Aang was catapulted out of the door, quickly and brutally, before he could realize that she was, in fact, being considerate and granting them privacy. Small mercies, indeed.
“Don't think I don't know that you know I know,” she announced as he pulled his arm until they entered the adjacent room. The ominous echo of the door closing made Aang discover that, mildly considerate Toph or not, in no way did he want to have this conversation.
“So, what's with you and Flame Boy there? Did he ask you to kill him again?”
Subtle as a ostrich horse mating call... or a boulder to the face.
“He didn't do anything, Toph,” Aang answered, trying to cover the giant tangle of mess in his chest with exasperation.
Toph, of course, wasn't fooled. “Makes sense, since he was acting normal—well, normal for his overdramatic royal ass.” She put her hands on her hips, legs apart in her best rooted stance. “So you're the one with the problem, and I bet he doesn't even know.”
“Please. I don't feel like talking about this.” The tiniest crack in his voice, as the surface of an iced lake that could break and swallow him up for a single misstep. His hand found his prayer beads and caressed them.
“Spill,” Toph ordered.
“I said no!” Aang shouted, “leave me alone!”
“While it's nice to meet your backbone again, I'm not going anywhere. Spill.”
Aang's blood was boiling. A distant part of him wondered if he was actually firebending from every pore of his body, like a human torch of anger. She taught him to stand his ground, didn't she? He was going to show her how good of a student he was. He didn't own her any explanation for anything. “Why do you have to be like this? It's always a game to you, poking and prodding at things that are not yours to know! Can't you see that I'm already miserable enough as it is?”
“I can see it quite well and I'm blind, Aang—that's exactly why I'm doing this! You've been moping anxiously and hiding it from everyone for months. I'm sick of your shit, you're obviously not managing to fix whatever the problem is, and you're going to tell me what's wrong right now!”
“Moping anxiously?” He laughed, an ugly sound, like scratching the bottom of a barrel. “So if I don't act all light-and-laughter every single moment of my life, you get 'sick of my shit'? How about you let me live and have emotions like a normal human being?”
“I would have bashed any other human being's head in for being so infuriating. You're lucky I'm trying to help you, though you don't seem to give a shit!”
The echoing silence constricted his chest. His temples pulsed. His eyes burned. They weren't getting anywhere, it was exhausting, he just wanted it to end.
“It's not just Zuko, isn't it?” Toph said too softly, after a too long pause. That gentleness didn't belong on her voice and Aang hated it.
“This isn't any of your business. I'm leaving,” Aang spat out.
He turned, ripped the door open and disappeared into the corridor; Toph didn't feel his footsteps—he'd probably airbended his way out of the building.
She shook his head, wide eyes staring into nothingness. “What the fuck is wrong with you, Twinkletoes?”
[follow-up to the previous scene]
“So, I may have royally fucked up,” Toph announced, spreading her arms in a dramatic fashion.
“What did you do to him?” Katara asked sharply. Toph registered her body humming with pent up energy, coiled and ready to snap.
“Yeah, what did you do? I haven't heard Aang raising his voice in years. You must have delivered some serious ass kicking,” Sokka added. At least it seemed like he wasn't sharpening his sword—not yet.
“I asked him what the hell's wrong and he blew up on me.”
Katara's eyebrows furrowed and she slowly asked, “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” Toph enunciated, “that he's acting weird. Weird as in he's got issues and he doesn't want to acknowledge them and he's shutting us out because he thinks that pretending to be fine is serving some sort of purpose when obviously it doesn't.”
Katara wasn't a ball of menacing vibrations anymore. In fact, she was unnaturally still—hesitating. “What do you mean, 'issues'?”
“Does he seem okay to you? Don't tell me you, of all people, haven't noticed! His responses are off, he speaks like he's reading from a script, he pulls out his magic avoidance tricks whenever we try to have any sort of meaningful interaction with him!”
“Of course I noticed,” Katara sighed. “I've been worried—really worried—since Bumi's funeral. I know that everyone mourns differently, but... he buried his friend and the next day he was already busy with some ambassador duty for the Northern Water Tribe. When I offered him support, he smiled and changed the subject. I thought that maybe Air Nomads have a different understanding of death, that this detachment is part of his culture. I should have trusted my intuition from the start instead of letting him sweep everything under the rug.”
[Aang and Katara break up]
“It's Zuko, isn't it.”
Aang squeezed his eyes shut. There was no hiding this. “Yes.”
“You clearly love him—it's so obvious now that I let myself see it.”
“Katara... I'm so sorry.”
“Please, don't. This is... I don't know what to say. Just—go to him, be happy together, whatever you need to do. Just go, Aang. I can't do this.”
He couldn't do this either. To see Katara, his strong, fierce Katara, with trembling lips and wet eyes was torture.
“I'm sorry,” he repeated, “I'm so sorry.”
He broke her heart. He loved her. He hurt her.
So he did what he always did: he ran away.
[Aang’s confession, first version]
“Aang, why didn't you tell me?”
“Tell you?” Aang questioned.
“About you and Katara,” Zuko answered. “I mean, you don't have to tell me, but apparently everyone else knew and I was the only one left out of the loop. Did I do something wrong?”
“No, Zuko. It's just...” Aang gestured weakly, like he was trying to conjure the right words from thin air.
Zuko waited for Aang to elaborate. It didn't happen. They kept feeding the turtleducks in silence, Zuko sitting cross-legged with his back propped on the tree and Aang with his pants rolled up and his feet in the water.
“Aang, I didn't want to pry or make you uncomfortable. It's your business—and Katara's, I guess... anyway, not mine. So, uh... sorry.” He scratched the back of his neck, self-consciously.
Silence, again, thick and full of undecipherable things.
When their eyes met, hundreds of lives dwelled behind Aang's gaze, heavy with unspeakable burdens. The eyes of the Avatar, reflections of a long, unbroken line of heroes and protectors. They had lived, they had seen.
Too much for Zuko, whose chest tightened in the struggle to catch his breath. What was happening? This Aang was so vulnerable, so... raw. Rarely had he seen his friend so close to unraveling.
“You don't have to apologize. You're right, I didn't tell you, but it wasn't because of something you did—it's because you're you, and I couldn't deal with it.”
“I'm... me? What is that supposed to mean?”
“I love you,” Aang said. “That's why Katara broke up with me, why I couldn't tell you. I love you and it's a mess.”
Aang's words might as well had been shouted, for how they left Zuko stranded and grasping at something, anything that was supposed to make sense of what he'd just heard. Because surely there was an explanation. Aang loved Katara to death and beyond. This was some kind of elaborate joke that Zuko hadn't caught up on.
“Come on, what really happened?”
Walls shut off any reaction from the Air Nomad. He was in business mode—imperturbable, collected, the perfect picture of the perfect hero; his smile was so fake it gave Zuko the creeps as he said: “I'm sorry. I shouldn't have burdened you with this. I'm leaving.”
This wasn't supposed to happen. It was happening all the same, though, and this was the crossroad where years of friendship could slip like water through Zuko's fingers if he didn't do something to stop it.
He was still petrified.
His hand moved and grabbed Aang's wrist and made him turn. They were face to face, touching yet almost unreachable. Almost.
“Don't go. I don't want you to—” leave me.
No flicker of acknowledgment from under Aang's façade of rocks and hollowness, though he'd stopped in his tracks and now stood there, staring, with Zuko still holding his wrist.
“I don't know what to say. This is... unexpected and I will probably need time to digest it, but please, don't go like this. We can talk.”
“I betrayed you.”
“What are you talking about?”
The façade was starting to fall apart.
“We were friends and I fell for you. You trusted me and I had to ruin everything with this. I'm sorry.”
What the hell? “Okay, you know what? Now I'm getting pissed,” Zuko growled. “You didn't ruin anything! Stop this fucking ridiculous guilt-trip right now!”
“This isn't a ridiculous guilt-trip!” Aang yelled, and there it was, the fire that burned down the walls.
“I'm shocked to discover that my best friend's in love with me since I had no fucking clue before this conversation, but guess what? It's not the end of the fucking world! You should know better, since you saved it once already!”
“How can you be okay with this?! It's creepy and it's wrong!”
“Do you want me to hate you? Because it seems like that's what you're waiting for, and you refuse to accept that I don't hate you at all!”
[Aang’s confession, second version]
“Why didn't you tell me that you and Katara broke up? I had to hear it fom Suki, of all people!”
“Oh. That. I, uh... kind of didn't want to tell you.”
“So it was on purpose! And you're evading my question.”
“It's... um. Complicated?”
“Did you cheat on her with Mai? I might have to challenge you to an Agni Kai for that.”
Aang choked on air, which made Zuko's eyebrows rise. “Please don't tell me you did it for real.”
“I didn't cheat on Katara, and especially not with Mai.”
“Thank Spirits. I wouldn't be able to win in a duel against you. So, what happened? Suki said she didn't know and she seemed sincere.”
“No one else knows, just me and Katara.”
“Is it a secret? I won't pry if it is.” He was so very curious, though—it was clear as the water from the pond in front of them.
“Definitely something that I wouldn't want people to know, yeah,” Aang said. He fidgeted, playing with his necklace and stroking its wooden shapes. “But you probably should.”
“I should?” The conversation was becoming weirder by the minute. “Well, tell me then.”
Zuko turned to face his friend and—was Aang blushing? The back of Zuko's neck prickled, a familiar yet undecipherable sensation. What was going on?
“Look, Zuko, I... uh...” Aang stuttered. He covered one of his eyes with a hand and took a deep, steadying breath, then muttered: “Ugh, it's like pulling teeth. Worse than learning Earthbending.”
Lacking a decent answer to that, Zuko waited for Aang to catch his thoughts, whatever they were.
Aang tried again. “You know we're friends, right?”
“Yeah,” Zuko replied, hesitant.
“I'm in love with you.”
“...what?”
The can of worms had been opened and Zuko could only listen and stare, mouth agape, as the Air Nomad barreled on. “One day I realized that what I felt for you was different than friendship and—I'd always chalked that up to you being you, you know? You've always been special to me, but it's such a tender feeling and it scared me a little, and when I talked about it to Katara she got mad and cried and broke up with me. So, uh, that's what happened.”
Turtleducks paddled happily on the water, the mother guiding her little offspring in swaying curves to peck at the breadcrumbs the two men had thrown for them. There was so much green in the garden, so much peace and sweet birdsongs. Time had no weight nor shape here.
It was Zuko's turn to be utterly uneloquent.
“That's... not what I was expecting. At all.” A memory suddenly surfaced and his face coloured. “Wait, so that time at the hot springs—you did it on purpose?”
“What? Spirits, Zuko, no!”
“Well, what should I think? You come here and you tell me that you're in love with me since who knows how long, I'm sort of freaking out right now!”
“Nothing changed! If you didn't realize before I told you, why are you so worried?”
“I—it's weird, okay?” Zuko bellowed. “And you can't say nothing changed, you've been in love with Katara for so long, and now you're not, and you love me!”
“But I do love Katara.”
“What? How?”
“What do you mean, 'how'?”
“Well, it's either one or the other, no? You must have a... preference or something for her or me.” He paused. “I can't believe I'm having this conversation.”
The sky was immensely blue, the perfect day for a ride on Appa, and Aang, too, couldn't believe he was having this conversation—but, surreal as it was, it was also necessary. Zuko was proving the point Avatar Yang Chen had made to Aang years before: Air Nomads had a particular outlook on life and love that clashed with the other cultures'.
So, it was the moment where Aang had to explain love to his (other) beloved all over again.
“I don't have a 'preference', I really love you both... there's no way to compare because you're not Katara and Katara isn't you, and in any case I don't care because you're both fundamental, irreplaceable elements in my life. I'm not expecting you to love me back, but it's very important to me to be your friend.” He touched Zuko's arm softly, a question for reassurance, and his voice was clear but low. “Can we be friends? You know—after this?”
The stutter followed by a lack of words, Zuko's averted eyes... they fed the pit in Aang's stomach, a slime-covered, abyss-dwelling monster, but he couldn't—wouldn't—force his hand. This was it, yet another crucial moment in their lives that made them or broke them.
“Your friendship has survived worse,” Avatar Yang Chen had said, so Aang closed his eyes and waited for the monster to strike or leave. I've survived worse, too. I'll be okay.
When Zuko got up and started pacing, Aang decided that focusing his own attention on something else was the best way to leave him space. It's a good sign that he didn't punch me in the face, right? He wouldn't still be here and pacing if he hated me. That doesn't sound like Zuko, he's way too impulsive to not explode in a situation like this. He's probably confused, and stuff. Yes.
He let his eyes wander, a bit more hopeful. Focusing on something else... like the turtleducks, who looked inviting indeed, all tiny and fluffed up and cute.
He took a piece of bread from the satchel and spread the crumbs in the grass in front of him with all the art he could muster; satisfied, he watched and waited. C'mon, there's food here! Delicious bread, just for you! Momo would have been on the loaf way before it was pulled out from the bag. They barely deigned him and his prize a glance. Rude! But he still wanted to pet them, because they were adorable. Making sounds to attract them would interrupt Zuko's brooding.
What to do?
Perhaps they wouldn't shy away if he got closer.
A man on a mission, Aang creeped towards the edge of the pond, slow and silent like the trained monk he was. One of his targets seemed to notice him and tilted its head curiously. Hello, little one. By some miracle, it started to head in Aang's direction.
[Bumi’s funeral]
It was more of a drizzle than rain, really. Tiny, steady droplets of water pelted softly Aang's smooth head and bare arms. The sky was partecipating in their mourning like the kind old friend that it was.
Omashu's mail service wasn't operative; a gentle stream slid down the railing instead. Bumi would have loved to slide on the now wet road—he probably did it every time the occasion arose, Aang mused.
Except now Bumi rested, too still, in an elaborately carved yet solid wooden box and wouldn't go sliding in the mail system ever again.
The King of Omashu was dead.
Bumi was dead, and with him the last person who'd survived from Aang's life before the iceberg. Now he was with the others, and they weren't gone... but they weren't with Aang either. They were spirits now. No one, not a single one would walk on Earth anymore—they would play in the crowded, sunny courtyard in the Air Nomad's memories, to be remembered and cherished with smiling faces and bright hearts.
[Aang and Aunt Wu aka the fortuneteller]
“First Katara, then Guru Pathik, then you! Why is everyone like this? Why can't anyone just give me a straight answer for once, instead of acting like my life is a series of riddles to solve? This 'fated Avatar' thing's gotten old and I'm tired of it!” He can barely breathe, his own element betraying him, and his voice cracks as the wood of a funeral pyre as he goes on. “Is this what I saved the world for? Giving everyone else a future where they belong, by sacrificing mine?”
“An interesting question, Avatar.”
“MY NAME IS AANG!” he yells, desperate, selfish as the day he was born, when all he cared for was survival; he feels stripped as raw and defenseless as then, tender skin in a world too bright and big, unable to carry himself through it and crying his heart out to fill his lungs with life.
He grits his teeth, suffocating the instinct to spill more useless words that he won't be able to take back.
#zukaang#this is so old but it's still kind of good#so i'm sharing#avatar the last airbender#fanfic#yay writing
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OC-tober Day 2: Glass
aaaaaaand now onto the OTHER focal point of this month, the a3 fancompany kids! my beloved children...
this particular post focuses on who i affectionately refer to as “the core four”: the first three actors and the co-director/final actor, and i guess the rest of the (initial) staff is there too. set not too long after eri gets recruited i guess? that weird liminal period between actors.
Aiko bangs her spoon on her glass with enough force that Bee really wouldn’t be surprised if it shattered on the spot. (Nana would throw a fit, and no one wants an angry director, so for Aiko’s own sake it better not break.) “Alright, everyone, I’d like to offer a toast!”
“Um, Aiko,” Eri asks cautiously, sipping at her own glass of wine, “aren’t you too young to drink?”
She giggles. “Oh, yeah, definitely. This is just juice Touya fetched for me.”
Touya grins in a way Bee has very quickly come to recognize means that Aiko will face vengeance for their request (in the form of pictures of Sakuya, no doubt).
Sayuri downs her own glass. “Huh, didn’t take you for a drinker, Eri. Thought you were a bit too goody-goody for that.”
Eri doesn’t (visibly) react to Sayuri’s comment, though whether that’s from shyness or from a quick adjustment to Sayuri’s general no-bullshit policy is beyond Bee’s guess. “Not often,” she replies. “Special occasions. And I’d say this counts as one.”
“And back on track we go!” Aiko holds their glass up to the sky. “To Iolite Company, and the killer plays we’re gonna put on!” She grins. “Between our directors and my theater expertise, we’re set for life!”
“You’re still in college and I’d hardly call you an expert,” Sayuri mutters, lifting her glass all the same.
Bee raises their glass, but they can’t help but think... “Okay, maybe we shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves. We only have three actors and no stage, so I don’t really think we’re ready for full plays...”
“We could be if you wanted to act instead of using the director’s chair as a crutch,” Sayuri replies as she refills her glass for the third time. (Wow, okay, deep cut. And what on earth is her alcohol tolerance?!)
Bee rolls their eyes. “I’m fine with directing.” (Not untrue, but Sayuri’s comment about their director status...also not untrue.) “Honestly, you’ve been hanging out with Tsuzuru too much.”
“If I’m gonna be our script writer, I gotta learn from the best.” Sayuri frowns. “And probably stop him from passing out.”
“Good luck,” Touya mumbles.
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So............ Episode 39 is a fever dream xD I think the writers were high. It’s probably better enjoyed while high as well, if you’re not eight years old. Bahahaha.
But HEY they really went for it. They were like, this is the concept, we are not backing down, YOU’RE GONNA LIKE IT OR ELSE. Man. Ballsy.
I can’t say whether this episode was Good or Not Good - I think it’s more in the liminal zone of “you wish you could forget but never can” memedome. Lol
It’s a Jou ep and we can say, for sure, that the episode certainly embodies Jou’s potential *cackles*
Note: Episode 40 won’t air until 3/21.
Pic of the Day is Taichi because, as usual, I capped him too much.
Taichi: Pretty sure we all just ate hallucinogenic mushrooms by accident but just gonna smile through it
More below!
First Tailmon lectures the kids on the importance of taking a break to rest. Basically, Tailmon is me. Hey, writers, are you reading my blog? Lol.
They pull up to what turns out to be a Digimon burger restaurant. The fact that Palmon didn’t know what burgers until they went to the simulated human world is dealt with pretty much by saying she just doesn’t get around much lol.
They find many Digimon enjoying burgers made by the Digimon after my heart, Burgermon.
The Squirtle Squad is there too.
Taichi also is me.
Sora comments on how this place reminds her of a place from home, to which Mimi responds that she’s never been there as she usually travels by plane ??????????????????????
I know she’s rich but does she take a plane to the grocery store xD
The kids st down to enjoy some burgers, all except for Yamato, Koushirou, and Hikari, who didn’t listen to Tailmon’s lecture and are still working. Even Tailmon doesn’t take her own advice.
Jou suddenly notices something strange. He stands, glasses shining.
Jou: Why is no one eating the fries!
Taichi: I’m eating them.
Jou: i dON’T MEAN YOU!!!!!
His blood pressure skyrockets. Fries are the main reason to go to a burger joint. Why is no one eating the fries??
Taichi: Like I said, I’m eating them.
Jou: NOT EVERYTHING’S ABOUT YOU!
Meanwhile, Yamato’s group realizes Komondomon is very dirty when he accidentally creates a small sandstorm out of his fur. They meet another Komondomon who is sparkly and bishie and find out there’s a car wash service by Lunamon nearby, so they take Komondomon to get washed.
HEY WRITERS, YOU’RE READING MY BLOG RIGHT??? I asked for this before. Bahahaha. BATHE KOMONDOMON 2021
Lunamon also tries to bathe Gabumon, but he’s not interested.
Gabumon: I don’t need a bath!
Yamato: Uh, are you sure?
Jou’s indignation over the not eating of the fries turns out to be because, sometimes after cram school he sneaks off to a burger restaurant and eats fries and just has a moment for himself before he goes home. His special time with fries keeps him sane in a cold, cruel world.
Then this abomination appears. Potemon. He both is a potato and loves eating potatoes. Uh. That’s. That’s kinda wack
Jou instantly clicks with Potemon due to their mutual love for potatoes. I thought we’d get an explanation like “no one here eats fries because we save them all for Potemon” or something, but it seems like... Potemon is really the only one who likes them... idk man this episode makes no sense
Then Burgermon makes a sad announcement... They’re going to discontinue the fries!
Burgermon: Selling fries is a net loss for us because no one eats them.
Taichi: But you don’t sell anything, it’s all free.
Burgermon: Yes but if we DID sell them it WOULD be a net loss because no one eats them
Then Hikari’s like “quit being so lazy!” and the others are like “you literally told us it’s important to rest” and Hikari’s group is like “KOMONDOMON NEEDS A BATH ALL PLAY AND NO WORK MAKES JACK A DULL BOY” and Taichi’s like “but my name is not Jack”
Gomamon tries to help Jou cheer up by reminding him of his image as a leader. Tailmon is surprised... but accepts her new leader lmao.
I mean, how could you not admire his authoritative figure?
There’s a running joke from this point about the word suberu (滑る) which means both to slip like in the tub and to flunk an exam. So, for Jou, it’s the equivalent of a curse word lol. Mimi is the number one offender, the little witch bahaha.
Potemon has gone to cry over not being able to be a cannibal anymore, until he is consumed by potato rage. His eyes glow red and he evolves to...
... Jagamon, another potato Digimon, but larger. He is a Perfect level WHAT. Does that mean Potemon was Adult level??? Or he was so upset he just jumped two levels in single go without any extra help from Millenniumon?? i think this guy might be the real Big Bad y’all
Jagamon throws potato bombs around and stuff starts to get wrecked.
Taichi: This seems like an overreaction!
Agumon: To be honest I get it. I’d probably act the same if I couldn’t have my favorite food anymore.
Taichi: But your favorite food is every food.
Burgermon and Lunamon bravely rush out to stop Jagamon, but then, when rescued by Taichi, instantly agree to turn tail and run bahaha.
Not to be outdone, Yamato rushes in to save this little guy, Pusurimon, who looks up at his hero with eyes full of wonder.
Taichi then asks Yamato to lead the evacuation which pretty much means “stop stealing my fans”
Meanwhile Birdramon... helps???... Blimpmon...
I didn’t even know there was a Blimpmon...
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised...
....
Jou realizes that Jagamon is Potemon and begs the others to help him save the little potato head.
Taichi notices that Lunamon’s bubbles are peculiarly strong for bubbles and stop the potato bombs from exploding. I mean, he and everyone else figures it out just by using their eyes. Jou then instantly takes over and starts giving orders like he’s a got a shrewd plan.
Jou: I have a plan!
Mimi: What is it?
Jou: Use the bubbles to stop the potato bombs from exploding!
Mimi: Funny, that was my plan too!
Jou... What a coincidence!
Tailmon receives Captain Jou’s orders and promptly evolves to Angewomon. She shoots her arrow into Zudomon’s hammer and tells Jou to infuse it with his strong feelings.
(A quick not funny aside - now we know Angewomon can do this. It makes perfect sense for both her abilities in 99 Adventure and the abilities we’ve seen from the holy Digimon thus far this season. Bit of a strange way to have it confirmed but xD)
Jou does just that, infusing Zudomon’s hammer with his passion for fries and the deep connection he felt with Potemon as potetomo “potato friends.” Then he freaking picks it up, leaps into the sky which has suddenly become dark and stormy even though it was blue five seconds ago, and slams it into Jagamon’s skull.
Jou: I AM THOR, SON OF ODIN, AND THIS IS MJOLNIR! YOU WILL RESPECT THE HAMMER!
Mimi: I THINK THIS MIGHT BE OVERKILL!
But it works. A swift blow to the head and Jagamon is back to his normal potato-loving self. We all just accept this.
They now have a surplus of potatoes, thanks to Jagamon’s power to spontaneously generate them. Never mind that they also EXPLODE. Apparently that does not affect how delicious they are to eat.
I figured at some point someone would say the reason the fries were being discontinued was due to lack of potatoes, and the arrival of Jagamon would solve all their problems. But if they ever did say anything that, I missed it. Was a bit odd.
The end!
So, YEAH, bonkers episode. But Jou is the hero we all want to be in our hearts. And everyone loves fries. Which makes this the most relatable episode yet lol.
Did I like it? No, not really. But I think that’s because I am not eight years old xD I do appreciate the Jou-related humor though. Def can’t say this episode was boring! And, among other things, nearly everyone got to talk do stuff - only Koushirou and Takeru didn’t have much of a role this time. And the joke with Tailmon accepting Jou as her leader was pretty funny and cute and I hope it sticks. And I really did love the way Jou relied on Mimi at the end - it was just silly, not meaningful in any way, but it was funny and my Joumi heart enjoyed it :P
Next episode, again, won’t air till 3/21, and it looks to be a Sora episode. (Last week I surmised that ep 40 would kick off the next big arc, but I had totally forgotten Sora hasn’t had “her episode” yet. Sorry Sora ;_;)
The preview looks light-hearted, though perhaps not quite as silly as this week.
First they will go to Jurassic Park!
Where Sora and Taichi will impress the dino bird kingdom with their soccer prowess!
And Mimi will continue to relax.
Jou: What happened to all play and no work makes Jack a dull boy?
Mimi: Um, excuse me, I’m a GIRL.
Koushirou: You all know you’re using that phrase the wrong way, right?
#fizz watches digimon 2020#digimon adventure:#digimon reboot#digimon adventure 2020#digi spoilers#digimon
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spent the morning chatting with @minipliny and looking up stuff about queer history (especially pre-colonial queer history) in hawaii/the pacific islands (it started with her talking about Richard Henry Dana and his time at sea) and here’s some cool stuff i found this morning and/or have collected over the scattered months of researching queer history + my rambling commentary (also disclaimer: i am not an expert or even remotely well-versed in any of this, this is just the ramblings of a queer brown kid, looking up queer history in other cultures that aren’t my own, and getting excited about it)
anyway, the bit that started the whole thing started with a bit pliny shared from from Dana’s book Two Years Before the Mast (which... i would like to get my hands on) talking about his aikāne here:
...but the other, who was my friend, and Aikane—Hope, was the most dreadful object I had ever seen in my life: his eyes sunken and dead, his cheeks fallen in against his teeth, his hands looking like claws; a dreadful cough, which seemed to rack his whole shattered system, a hollow whispering voice, and an entire inability to move himself. There he lay, upon a mat, on the ground, which was the only floor of the oven, with no medicine, no comforts, and no one to care for, or help him, but a few Kanakas, who were willing enough, but could do nothing. The sight of him made me sick, and faint. Poor fellow! During the four months that I lived upon the beach, we were continually together, both in work, and in our excursions in the woods, and upon the water. I really felt a strong affection for him, and preferred him to any of my own countrymen there; and I believe there was nothing which he would not have done for me. When I came into the oven he looked at me, held out his hand, and said, in a low voice, but with a delightful smile, "Aloha, Aikane! Aloha nui!" I comforted him as well as I could, and promised to ask the captain to help him from the medicine-chest, and told him I had no doubt the captain would do what he could for him, as he had worked in our employ for several years, both on shore and aboard our vessels on the coast. I went aboard and turned into my hammock, but I could not sleep.
(hope had fallen gravely ill at the time) and here:
Every Kanaka has one particular friend, whom he considers himself bound to do everything for, and with whom he has a sort of contract,—an alliance offensive and defensive,—and for whom he will often make the greatest sacrifices. This friend they call aikane; and for such did Hope adopt me. I do not believe I could have wanted anything which he had, that he would not have given me.
the wikipedia article on Hawaiian aikāne (“Moe aikāne relationships were sexual relationships in pre-colonial Hawai'i between aliʻi nui and the male and female kaukaualiʻi performing a hana lawelawe or expected service with no stigma attached.”) - plus some of my favorite bits from it:
“author Kanalu G. Terry Young states in his book; "Rethinking the Native Hawaiian Past" that these relationships were not bisexual in a social sense. These were relationships from the ʻōiwi wale times that held no stigmatism to the persons ʻano (one's nature or character). To call it a bisexual relationship is liking saying the children of multiple husbands from one Hawaiian mother were out of wedlock. For the time, the comparison is impossible.[1] These relationships are accepted as part of the history of ancient Hawaiian culture.”
anyway i do love that they talk about how like. When we talk about queer history esp nonwestern/precolonial queer history it’s really impossible to apply westernized ideas of sexuality on them because they just didn’t think of sexuality in the same way. there’s a (white, gay) tendency especially to lay some nebulous claim to all of “gay history” like it is all theirs for the taking, when so much of that history is... very explicitly not “gay” history, but something else, something pre-westernized conceptions of sex and sexuality, and trying to force our ways of thinking about those subjects onto precolonial society is in itself an act of colonialism.
(also i’m definitely going to see if any indie bookstores near me have that book bc i want to read more)
“During the late 19th and early 20th century, the word aikāne was "purified" of its sexual meaning by colonialism, and in print meant simply "friend", although in Hawaiian language publications its metaphorical meaning could mean either "friend" or "lover" without stigmatization.[7] ”
ah yes gotta love that. good good historical erasure.
the article also mentions Māhū:
“Although their roles are often conflated with aikāne in contemporary LGBT culture, the Māhū are in a social category of liminal gender. Māhū (in the middle) live in a space between the genders, and many live in the opposite gender to their birth.”
here’s an article from, i believe, actual native hawaiians on the subject as well, including these very tender lines (bolding is my own):
In the story of the great chief Lonoikamakahiki, a commoner from Kaua'i, Kapa'ihiahilina, became his aikane, after telling him "Aloha au ia 'oe, ukali mai nei." I love you, so I followed you here. Some of the best women's stories are found in the legend of Pele and her sister, Hi'iaka.
The saying was, He aikane, he punana na ke onaona. An aikane is haven made of loveliness.
And!! and this wonderful tumblr page (cw for use of the medicalized/outdated term for intersex) and their own documentary told from the story of “Hina Wong-Kalu, a transgender native Hawaiian teacher.” I haven’t yet watched the documentary since I just found it but I’m going to!
another post from their page
Indeed, the ship journals of Captain Cook, the first European to arrive in Hawai'i, recorded that all the kings of the islands had aikāne, or same-sex partners, and that chief Kalanikoa of Kaua'i even asked if one of the European sailors would become his lover – an honor for which he offered to pay six pigs. And when the great King Kamehameha, uniter of all Hawai'i, boarded Cookʻs ship, he brought aboard his aikāne, leaving his wives at home.
(cw in that link inside the quote for some cissexist and heterosexist language) i also just really love the implication of “hey i think you’re pretty have six whole pigs”
also just been reading a lot about similar concepts in other cultures (polynesian and otherwise -- here’s a few things i found) and it makes me happy to know about so much queer history that existed pre-colonization (and that still exists!!)
#queer history#lgbtq history#queer#lgbtq#history#long post#quasartalks#there's not a coherent point or anything that i'm trying to make#i just think this is cool#and wanted to share stuff i found#queer history is lovely and it makes me happy to read about#so#hope you enjoy#also definitely like... if you actually wanna know about this read the stuff linked/esp the stuff made by and for the actual groups in quest#in question*#not like#my incoherent and very much non-polynesian ramblings
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