#i don't hate or dislike it so its all good in my book | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

hailucy · 7 months

Note

hi! saw that youre taking requests! could i have a theo x slytherin reader, where they both dislike eachother but are part of the same friend group, so pansy locks them up somewhere?

Not Him | t.n

pairing: theodore nott x reader

summary: Theo and you have a strong dislike towards each other which results in you guys arguing about everything. Your friends get tired of your constant arguing and decide to do something about it.

warning: Its not really slytherin reader but they are friends with the slytherin group,bickering and years of unresolved tension(but not for long;), mentions of firewhiskey

words: 1.3k

taglist: @dvarlinggg @bellysbeach @clioscauseforconcernbylovejoy

a/n: here you go!!! it's my first one shot so I hope you like it. I hope I did the request justice! criticism is very much welcome and my requests are open!!

"No, that's wrong! Obviously, Slytherin is gonna win against Gryffindor!"

"Nott, you and I both know that Gryffindor beat the Ravenclaws, all i'm saying is that they're good"

"Not better than us."

"Well... you nearly lost against Hufflepuff"

"Yeah, nearly-"

"OKAY, I HAVE HAD ENOUGH OF YOU TWO," Pansy exclaims while stomping towards you and Theodore. Her face twists in anger and annoyance as she starts waving her hands around, "Do you two not know how to have a single conversation without arguing?!"

"Yes actually I do, however, I'm not so sure about l/n," Theodore smirks and looks at you in a cocky manner.

"Watch it, Nott, I'm sure you've never been taught manners," you say as you flick your hair back and lean back with a glare.

Pansy watches the whole interaction and realises that something must be done. Then she gets it. One brilliant idea.

She turns towards the rest of the group and loudly announces, "My dorm, 10 o'clock, bring drinks and snacks." She then walks off with a smirk on her face.

"What is she planning?" Mattheo groans.

☆☆☆

You're in your dorm thinking about what to wear to Pansy's little get-together. Theodore's going to be there... oh how you hate him, with a raging passion. His cocky attitude and dumb opinions. You hated how he had to argue with every statement you made and how he would tease your every action. You hated his perfect hair and his heavenly eyes. You hated how he made you feel, the butterflies you felt in your stomach whenever you argued and the hotness your face felt when he leaned in to state his point.

Were you ever going to tell anyone how you felt? No. Were you ever going to admit your feelings to him? Hell no. He definitely didn't feel anything towards you and you weren't going to embarrass yourself, especially not in front of him.

Just then Pansy bursts into your room without a care in the world. "Sure Pansy you can come in, thanks for asking" you say sarcastically.

"Boooo whatever. There's a more important discussion that we need to have."

"And what is that?"

"That thing you and Theo have going on."

You face scrunches in confusion, "What are you talking about?"

"You sooooo have something for him and he has something for you and you guys need to sort it out because the rest of us are getting tired of it," she states as she goes to your wardrobe and picks some stuff out for you to wear.

"Wait- what- no- what? I don't have a thing for Theo, I mean he's attractive but his personality ruins that. He gets on my nerves" you stutter as you walk towards your bed and grab the clothes Pansy threw on it.

Pansy stares at you dumbfounded, "Whenever you argue and he turns around you get a dumb lovesick smile on your face. Also, his personality isn't bad, he's the one who gave you that book you were so excited about receiving on your birthday."

You stop in your tracks and turn around. "THAT WAS HIM?" You remember receiving that gift, it just appeared on your bed with no note from the giver. It was a book that you picked up on a trip to the bookshop at Hogsmeade however you didn't end up getting it. Theodore was there but he was busy picking up his own books and arguing about some book that you both had read. You didn't realise that he noticed you put it down after realising that you forgot your money in your dorm.

"Yes that was him, and he's done so many other things that you've failed to notice but I digress. Put on your outfit and hurry up, it's nearly 10." She gives you a kiss on the cheek and, after dropping all that information, leaves the room.

☆☆☆

You enter Pansy's dorm and are immediately greeted with the smell of firewhiskey and the sound of music. Lorenzo appears next to you and throws his arm over your shoulder, "Hey! Come on everyone is waiting for you!" He leads you to everyone sitting on the floor and everyone greets you except Theodore who looks at you up and down his eyes clouded with a feeling you have no time to decipher as Pansy pulls you to floor and stands up to announce something.

"Let's play a game" groans are heard from some of the boys " I suggest seven minutes in heaven!"

"Well since your hosting Pans then i guess we've got to," Blaise sighs

"Absolutely right, Blaise," she says as she grabs an empty firewhiskey bottle and puts it in the middle of the circle. She sits beside Draco and flicks her wand to spin the bottle. The only sound in the room was the bottle against the ground, everyone was holding their breath in anticipation.

The bottle slows down and points at... you and Theodore. All the other boys start howling and you look up and see Theodore already looking at you. Your breath catches and your stomach turns as he looks at you with mixed feelings. One specific feeling being longing.

"Fuck," you mutter, trying to find a way out of this situation.

"Something wrong, princess" he smirks while standing up and heading to Pansy's closet. You sigh dreading what was to come but knowing there was no way out. Getting up, you walk past Pansy and send her a glare while she just laughs at you.

You walk into the cramped closet and see Theo looking a little nervous while squashed, which makes you giggle a little. He notices you and immediately removes any emotion on his face and puts on a smug look. You hesitantly sit opposite Theo, knees touching due to the lack of space in the closet.

"I don't even know what they expect us to do," you say.

"Kiss maybe," he says lowly yet holds eye contact with you.

"In their dreams maybe," you scoff yet your heart beats faster and you look away from his searing eye contact. You start picking at your nails but suddenly a hand covers yours, making you look up at Theo's hypnotising eyes.

"Maybe not," he looks down from your eyes and glances at your lips.

"Theo..."

"Don't tell me that you don't want this to," he whispers your name.

"I... I do" you look at his soft, pink lips and move slightly closer and he does the same thing.

"Good," and then his lips crashes into yours as he pulls you into his lap. Your fingers run through his hair as quiet moans and whimpers are released by the both of you.

He releases your lips from his captivating touch and pants out, "God, do you know how long I've wanted to do that."

"Oh shut up," you blush as you pull him back into the kiss. His hands move all over and come to a rest on your hips to pull you closer. You bite on his bottom lip which he lets out a groan to.

Unaware of the time that has passed a loud banging on the door pulled you two apart quickly. The door then opened showing the grinning group.

"What happened here?" Pansy said knowingly, elbowing the unfortunate person next to her which happened to be Enzo.

"Piss off, Pansy," Theo said sticking his hand out to help you up which you gratefully accepted after he had stood up and dusted his trousers off.

"Now Theo personally I think you should thank me," Pansy laughs.

Theodore walks by her with a blushing face and you in hand who is equally as flustered. "We're leaving."

#my first one shot!!#theodore nott x reader #theodore nott #harry potter #slytherin boys #theodore nott x you #theo nott x reader #theo nott x y/n #theo nott imagine #theo nott x you

376 notes · View notes

the-most-pathetic-edge-marquis · 15 days

Note

oops omg in my delirious ranting i forgot to ask you the question i originally meant to send lmao

would love to get your thoughts on Nesta & Cassian's relationship! your thoughts on its dynamics, its current state, its future, etc! any parallels you've found, or anything you find between them that makes you think it doesn't work - anything! i find the dynamic fascinating but i wish there was more than just "haha they drive each other CRAZy they MUST be mates!"

(i haven't read the 5th book but i'm ok if there are spoilers)

okay, if by 5th book you mean A Court of Silver Flames: apologies, i Have To talk about it, because it is the source of most of my Cassian/Nesta thoughts, so there will be spoilers. if you're talking about a different book and not counting the Christmas Special Novella TM as book 4...there's a 5th book??

also, as always, i have written entirely too much. thank you for enabling me on my red-string conspiracy rants.

let's see...this is really interesting, because conceptually i also see so many FASCINATING elements to Nesta and Cassian's relationship, especially thematically and in terms of the ways they mirror each other.

but then reading it within the context of the books themselves just makes it so. incredibly. frustrating.

first of all, what you said about "haha they drive each other CRAZY" is so real--i feel like it was an enemies to lovers story that devolved to centering around very shallow banter and hatefucking that is then still supposed to be seen as something super profound and lifelong for the two of them?

plus the way "mate bonds" are executed within the ACOTAR series frustrates me to no end...plus there's so much misogyny and white feminism and heteronormativity and poor depictions of mental health and abuse baked into the series under this progressive veneer that it for some reason gets...plus getting into the realm of wild speculation, i feel like a) sarah j maas legitimately dislikes Nesta and thinks she deserves the in-universe hate and b) sarah j maas is an only child.

so when i try to analyze Nesta and Cassian's relationship, it's just so difficult for me to separate it from all the rest of that. especially having read A Court of Silver Flames. a book that somehow filled me with more rage than breaking dawn? i did not think that was possible

another note: all of my quotes below are just cited to chapters, because i have an...um...let's call it the Kiera-Knightley-in-the-ocean-in-a-liking-girls-awakening-outfit copy of the ACOTAR series and i'm pretty sure the pages don't line up super well.

anyway, let's dig more into the good/compelling:

1. nesta is very squarely in My Type of female characters, and it's clearly cassian's type too.

aloof and mean and full of cold rage, wearing femininity like armor, with a spine of steel and a too-sharp tongue and undying loyalty to a very very select few soft characters...i LOVE LOVE LOVE that character premise, every goddamn time. and i love that cassian (in theory. according to what he says. not necessarily what he does.) sees that and loves it and doesn't want her to change. that fire is the reason he loves her, and was even when she was human! he's perfectly willing to dash himself up against it, because he sees a reflection of himself there! like:

"'You can keep that sharpness I like so much, that boldness and fearlessness. I don’t want you to ever lose those things, to cage yourself.' 'But I still don’t know how to fix myself.' 'There’s nothing broken to be fixed...'" -ACOSF, Chp. 50

!!!!

(now, do cassian's actions actually line up with that? mmm, debatable, but i think that's definitely more authorial blind spots than intent, and i like the theory!)

2. i am not immune to the:

"His voice was rough as he said, 'Five hundred years ago, I fought on battlefields not far from this house. I fought beside human and faerie alike, bled beside them. I will stand on that battlefield again, Nesta Archeron, to protect this house—your people. I can think of no better way to end my existence than to defend those who need it most.' I watched a tear slide down Nesta’s cheek. And I watched as Cassian reached up a hand to wipe it away. She did not flinch from his touch." -ACOMAF, Chp. 57

3. i go absolutely feral every time i think too hard about the thematic lines you can draw between nesta and cassian.

nesta, who has made herself cold and untouchable and absolutely unwilling to yield to anyone, clinging to the symbols of status and perfect upper-class femininity because those were the only weapon she was taught how to wield...and cassian, who is all fire and fury and raw passion, seeing himself as the blade that bathes himself in blood at rhys' command without being able to understand why and just trusting that rhys knows best, defining himself constantly as a base-born bastard who is only good at the fight...it's SO FASCINATING.

they have parallel experiences that in practice were entirely different because of the social circumstances in which they were born!

(also the way both of their mothers and their deaths play into it???? nesta was shaped by her mother's presence and cassian by his mother's absence???? both of them see their mother's death as a defining moment, except nesta responds with retreating further into that cool passive cruelty and cassian massacres an entire village...HELLO????)

4. you know what? shout-out to nesta weaponizing cassian's care for and promise to her to save his life...

and ONLY his life, when he would've willingly and gladly died with his legion!!! and then feeling guilty about it after the fact! (maybe even guiltier than he does!) that's SUCH a fascinating thing to have between two characters.

how do you go forward loving someone when you feel unspeakably guilty about what you did in the name of that love? you saved their life because you love them! you hate yourself for saving their life! you still love them!

okay, that's my quota for complimenting the acotar series this decade:

1. all of the things that i talked about above are. um. not central parts of the entire 700+ page book that is allegedly cassian and nesta's grand love story?

like--don't get me wrong, they're there. i'm not pulling those elements out of nowhere. but the central focus of that book seems to be...i honestly don't even know. it's like, part nesta's "recovery" (i will not rant here about that), larger part Nesta's Inspiring Fitness Journey TM, part The Thinnest Villain Plotline Of All Time (guys that mortal queen was NEVER going to be able to get into the prison that rhys has to give you permission to get into. she would've just fucking died. it would've been fine. also the mortal queens' motivations are just so shallow and incoherent to me), for some reason part Feyre's Pregnancy Journey TM, and large, large part...

nesta and cassian bantering in increasingly bland ways and having tragically the closest sjm gets to kink because they're being a little bit mean and commanding with each other, but nowhere near enough to actually be interesting to me? and obviously i don't have anything against smut in the fairy smut series, but i feel like it takes up way more of this book than actual interesting relationship beats between nesta and cassian, and it's really frustrating!

like here, have a screenshot from my notes app from my first reading of this book, which i feel like summarizes a lot of my feelings related to that and in general about the "romance" she builds for them:

also why does she write about toes so much when she's writing erotic scenes it's not even like a character-specific thing it's in all the books i noticed it and now i can't stop seeing it, any time a female character is horny her toes curl it's such a stupid specific phrase

2. i cannot separate the romance between nesta and cassian from my deep, profound hatred of the premise of ACOSF, the way it depicts recovery and mental illness, and nesta's lack of agency throughout it.

(i will rant about this now! oops.)

first, i am at my funniest and wisest in the notes app:

but seriously! cassian is just so horribly, consistently cruel to nesta throughout this book, specifically around her grief, her physical condition, and her mental health issues, especially around eating.

"His hazel eyes guttered. 'Not eating won’t bring your father back.' 'That has nothing to do with this,' she hissed. 'Nothing.' He braced his forearms on the table. 'We’re going to cut the bullshit. You think I haven’t gone through what you’re dealing with?'" -ACOSF, Chp. 5

"Cassian asked, 'What stair did you make it to?' 'One hundred eleven.' Nesta didn’t rise. 'Pathetic.'" -ACOSF, Chp. 8

"'I knew you didn’t have much muscle,' Cassian observed as Nesta lay belly-down on the ground, having collapsed onto her front after trying to hold a full-body plank, 'but this is absolutely pathetic.'" -ACOSF, Chp. 16

and Nesta clearly internalizes all of this, because these phrases recur in her narration over and over and over.

"She was pathetic for being so weak. Pathetic for now being unable to walk so much as a step without grimacing" -Chp. 13

“'They are when you’re as out of shape as I am.' A pathetic weakling" -Chp. 15

"She punched that thought out of herself, too. That pathetic, selfish thought. Just as all of her was pathetic, and selfish, and hateful." -Chp. 40

(i did leave out the "everyone hates you" conversation, because to be fair to Cassian, that's a moment where he's overwhelmed, and he does later apologize and walk it back and that's a genuine moment of growth for the two of them--which imo is just proof that he could be doing better in all these other situations!)

even the scenes where nesta and cassian are on the mountain, allegedly nesta's turning point, just make me so incredibly sad and frustrated on her behalf.

(even leaving aside the question of whether nesta was right to tell feyre about the pregnancy killing her, or how much it matters that she did it out of anger, or even if everyone is right to be mad at nesta which obviously im on nesta's side because FEYRE DESERVED TO KNOW LIKE WHAT THE FUCK DUDE WHO CARES IF SHE ONLY DID IT 'TO HURT FEYRE' FEYRE ISN'T MAD! HAVE YOU NEVER HAD A SIBLING???? SAYING THINGS TO HURT BECAUSE YOU LOVE THEM IS LITERALLY 99% OF IT!!!! AND ALSO CASSIAN AND LITERALLY EVERY OTHER CHARACTER IN THIS BOOK GET TO SAY HORRIBLE THINGS TO NESTA OUT OF ANGER, RHYSAND LITERALLY THREATENS TO KILL HER FOR TELLING HER SISTER THE TRUTH ABOUT HER OWN PREGNANCY? i hate these quotes.)

(all quotes here come from chapters 47-50, the mountain sequence.)

cassian is saying things "quietly--coldly" with "nothing kind in his face", "nothing warm in it. No challenge or light. Just solid, stonecold warrior", an "icy, amused gleam in Cassian’s eye" as he makes her carry a way-too-heavy pack...and just silence! he doesn't speak to her at all! and she sits there and thinks she deserves it! ("Let him drive her into the ground, let him make her walk and act the servant. It wouldn’t fix anything. Wouldn’t fix her."; "She deserved to be turned into bloody mist by Rhysand. Wished Cassian had not come to save her.")

meanwhile in cassian's head, he's sitting there shocked that she's suicidal, ("Cassian knew that Nesta often hated herself. But he’d never known she hated herself enough to want to … not exist anymore." BOY YOU'RE DUMB AS SHIT), hoping for her to be healed...and still making the explicit choice not to comfort her! ("Instinct bellowed at him to wrap himself around her, to comfort and soothe, but another voice, an ancient and wise voice, whispered to keep going. One more mountain, that voice said. Just one more mountain.")

it just like...makes me so goddamn miserable, and i feel like it undercuts everything in their relationship.

nesta collapses because she wasn't drinking water and cassian rushes over and gives her water and carries her to safety?

cool, the reason she wasn't drinking water in the first place is because he TOLD her no breaks and because, again, she thinks she deserves to be destroyed over the thing he's told her he's angry about! (also he yells at her, of course.)

cassian, over the course of this book, helps guide nesta toward healing and coming into her full power and ability as a warrior, who can then empower other women to do the same?

sure, but he does it by bullying her, assuming he knows best when he has no idea what she's actually going through and won't bother to ask, and being cruel and absent allegedly because she needs to "save herself."

and, of course, all of this is in the circumstances rhys and feyre have created where the only alternative nesta has to being locked in a house with cassian and going along with whatever he asks of her is literal fucking exile with the possibility of death. ("So, yes: Nesta might technically be able to return to the human lands, but she would find no companionship there, no warm welcome or town that would accept her. Wherever she was able to find a place to live, she would be essentially housebound, confined to the grounds of her home for fear of human prejudices." -Chp. 2)

and look. there are a lot of caveats that can be made, (and have been by the acotar fandom), and some that i can even sort of get behind.

the one i find most compelling: nesta is definitely shutting cassian out, hard, and intentionally doing it in ways that she knows will hurt him so that her self-isolation will be most effective. she isn't really in a place, especially at the start of the book, where she wants to get better, and she is willing to be mean in the process of accomplishing that. and i do see the appeal of cassian being willing to be "mean" back! that said...i don't know, the tone of it still doesn't personally land super well with me.

and yes, it is 100% more interesting and better fiction when characters in a book respond imperfectly to mental health issues. not every character should talk like a therapist, or like they've been to therapy! it's more fun when cassian is messy and responds imperfectly and gets mad! he's entitled to feel whatever frustrations he does!

but sarah j maas so obviously doesn't think that's what's going on here. what cassian does "works," in the fiction. in the story, he turns nesta's life around, to the point where she starts helping other people, and in the triumphant climactic fight of the entire novel exclaims "because my mate taught me well!" as she wins. nesta thinks that he's good and perfect and she doesn't deserve him for...the entire story. she bows to amren and begs forgiveness, when amren is the first person to tell her that she's literally "a pathetic waste of life." like, i think we're supposed to believe that nesta is pathetic and has to choose to be "better" and that's just...your mileage may vary, but i personally hate it.

to address some other semi-common talking points that frustrate me even more...

yes, mental illness does not excuse someone's behavior and you still need to be held accountable, even if your actions come from a place of hurt and mental illness! but...this isn't holding nesta accountable. even leaving aside the question of accountable for what, there is a difference between holding someone accountable and just being cruel, and i can't help but put this firmly in the second category. calling someone "pathetic" doesn't actually help them improve their treatment of others in any way. also, it's not like nesta isn't aware and critical of her impact on other people (arguably too critical, but again, i'm a bit of a nesta defender by way of hating Rhysand with my whole heart), she is in fact deeply aware and unable to change alone because it comes from a place of trauma! (and being surrounded by a bunch of controlling ultra-powerful centuries-old also traumatized politicians who fucking suck.)

and yes, mental health care is not always nice and flowery. sometimes there's nothing you can do, because ultimately people do have to save themselves! sometimes you do have to let someone break down before they will accept help! sometimes, speaking as someone who has been extremely mentally ill for a very long time, you need someone who's going to say "that's pretty fucked up, dude," or that it's a little ridiculous to be scared of how permanent tattoos are when you have the number of self-harm scars that you do, or even jokes about you being terrible and unforgivable when you apologize for something like asking to hang out or interrupting over the phone by accident! but those a) require a degree of trust, consent, existing relationship, and shared experience and b) are not what cassian is doing. tonally, contextually, it is obviously different.

also, you know what? the acotar series sells itself hugely on being a YA series--sort of; the marketing has definitely shifted now, like, I've seen ACOSF in adult sections, but when the first three came out, it was definitely YA-marketed, that's how i found it, and there are a lot of teenagers reading it still--anyway--a YA series that deals seriously with mental health issues, recovery, and abuse.

and if it wants to sell itself on that, it should do better.

i first read this series when i was 15. and i completely missed all of the ways that rhys is manipulative and controlling! i took the author at her word that he was a feminist, and feyre had choice and agency!

ACOSF didn't exist yet, but i really truly am afraid of how 15-year-old me, who was struggling with an eating disorder (among other things), would have internalized parts of this book.

so yeah, in summary: i can't in good conscience enjoy nesta and cassian's relationship when so much of it is these moments of cassian reinforcing nesta's self-hatred, and being just outright cruel to her in her weakest moments, and the narrative justifying it.

(also sorry, one more thing: the way that this makes nesta's physical "training," and getting physically in shape, into a solution for her eating disorder? there are many ex-ballerinas, myself included, who'd like a word about that. physical fitness and over-exercise is actually also a huge piece of disordered eating! okay, sorry, i'm actually done now.)

3. yeesh, that was heavy. let's do something more fun:

listen. first of all. nesta is bi as hell and SO INTO GWYN. LOOK AT THIS.

"Nesta looked at her from under lowered brows again. 'Get out of my sight.' Gwyn grinned, a broad, bright thing that showed most of her teeth and made her eyes sparkle in a way Nesta knew her own never had. 'Oh, you’re good.' Gwyn turned back to the stacks. 'Really good.' She vanished into the gloom. … Quiet settled around her, as if Gwyn had been a summer storm that blew in and evaporated within a moment." -Chp. 9

"Nesta allowed herself to listen--to savor the pure, sweet voice that rose and fell with sinuous ease. Gwyn's hair seemed to glow brighter with her song, skin radiating a beckoning light. Drawing any listener in." -Chp. 13

"The only bit of color and sound came from Gwyn." -Chp. 13

"Nesta closed her eyes, leaning into the music, shutting out one sense in order to luxuriate in the sound of her friend. Something beckoned in Gwyn’s song, in a way the others’ hadn’t. Like Gwyn was calling only to her, her voice full of sunshine and joy and unshakable determination. Nesta had never heard a voice like Gwyn’s..." -Chp. 52

"Gwyn bared her teeth. 'I refuse to leave you here.' ...Nesta said to Gwyn, “It is the only way.” Gwyn screamed, 'IT IS NOT THE ONLY WAY!' And then she was sobbing. 'I will not abandon you to them. They will kill you.' 'You need to go,' Nesta said, even as her hands began shaking. 'Now.' 'No,' Gwyn wept. 'No, I won’t. I’ll face it with you.' Something deep in Nesta’s chest cracked. Cracked open completely, and what lay within bloomed, full and bright and pure. She wrapped her arms around Gwyn. Let her friend sob into her chest. 'I’ll face it with you,' Gwyn whispered, over and over again. 'Promise me we’ll face it together.' Nesta couldn’t stop her tears then. The chill wind froze them on her cheeks. 'I promise,' she breathed, stroking Gwyn’s matted hair. 'I promise.'" -Chp. 69

NESTA YOU HAVE TO AT LEAST CONSIDER THE POSSIBILITY--

and then, @r-biter put me onto the "Cassian is a trans woman" headcanon and i have never looked back. it's mostly from the Mor situation and the "lesbian dating a trans woman before either of them have realized" dynamic, which is just so incredibly fun to me (because i lived it? perhaps). but there's also a good amount of...where does that deep, personal rage about girls not being able to train come from? what could lie underneath seeing your body as only a blade, honing it as a weapon and nothing else, excruciating command and control of it, and still seeing yourself as too rough and too much and a brute to be controlled?

can't i just have cool badass butch as hell six-foot-whatever-absurd-number trans women in fiction?

so yes, my ideal view of the future of nesta and cassian's relationship is that they break up, nesta dates some women, cassian does some introspection and comes out as a woman, and maybe the two of them end up back together, but maybe they don't and they have incredibly funny divorced-friends energy for the rest of time.

4. cassian...loves rhys more than nesta? and i feel like that's a significant problem for their relationship?

this is a far more watsonian analysis than anything else on this list, but i still feel like it's worth saying, because i have. SO MANY thoughts about the "Inner Circle" dynamic, and the character conflicts, and frankly abuse, that happens within the balance of the IC being set up as "family" but also being huge political movers with a very strict hierarchy and Rhysand having ultimate power and say...

which in the case of nesta and cassian, shows up in a lot of ways. sending Nesta to the House of Wind is Rhysand's idea and Cassian is willing to go along with it and take the heat; in the argument they have where he tells her everyone hates her, it's because she calls Rhysand an asshole; Rhysand threatens to kill Nesta when she tells Feyre about her pregnancy and all Cassian can do is get Nesta away, and he sympathizes with Rhys' feelings and reasons for doing it, as well as agreeing with him that Feyre shouldn't have been told; Cassian does vote to tell Nesta that she has Made extra-magical swords in opposition to Rhysand, but he also fully wants Rhys to become High King of Prythian and thinks Nesta's swords should be used toward that purpose, without giving any thought to what Nesta wants in the situation...

it's just honestly hard for me to see a relationship thriving in that situation, where ultimately Cassian will (it seems) always bow to Rhys' authority, and Rhys legitimately fucking hates Nesta. even with their "reconciliation" during the birth scene, i'm...i don't know. skeptical. what happens the next time there's a disagreement? (that High King plotline isn't going anywhere, unfortunately.)

and, to step out of in-universe dynamics for a moment, and into some personal speculation about the Doylist view of these things...i do think a lot of it is because Maas genuinely thinks Nesta was in the wrong, and people were right to resent her before she "redeemed" herself by her big sacrifice for Feyre? which is also deeply frustrating to me and affects my read of the Cassian/Nesta dynamic a lot.

just from events in the book--Nesta bowing to Amren and begging forgiveness; Nesta feeling guilt and shame about interacting with Mor and saying she understands why she is angry with her (when the thing Mor says about Nesta deserving to be in the Hewn City is like. SO fucked...in general, the comparison that is for some reason constantly running between Mor as like, a "good" survivor and Nesta as a bad one...i could write so much analysis about that alone); Nesta sacrificing her power for Feyre and Rhys then hugging her--it's clear that Maas to some extent views this as a redemption journey for Nesta and not just a healing one...

and I'm not convinced that was necessary?

like, a lot of people's problems seem to be her letting Feyre go into the woods, which is like...okay, yes, Feyre was fourteen, but Nesta was seventeen? she was also a child in this situation? and it sucks that she didn't step up, and she was definitely extremely petty in the first book...but so was Elain? and Elain is like, instantly forgiven for it? but Nesta is held to a higher standard? (the "nesta has the soul of an illyrian so i expect better from her" is so??? demeaning to both elain and nesta???) even when Feyre says she understands and forgives her?

ALSO, you know who ACTUALLY had an obligation to protect Feyre and failed? THEIR FUCKING DAD, WHO EVERYONE IS NOW DEIFYING AND JUDGING NESTA FOR NOT VISITING HIS GRAVE, LIKE--

and then there's...Nesta is cruel. she shuts people out. but i don't know, it feels deeply hypocritical to resent her for that when the centuries-old immortals she's surrounded by are regularly eviscerating people and making backhanded deals with each other's abusers (the way Rhys treats Mor is just like. SO wild) and lying to each other for no reason...and it's just the most insane double standard that we're expected to see them as perfect and nesta as irredeemable for being mean.

(a semi-related side note: i have to point out that the solstice book is so fucking funny because feyre's sitting there worrying about nesta drinking too much and every other page in that book is her and her friends drinking themselves to sleep. like, i get it, but also. girl.)

anyways, that was a lot of words about nesta's overarching treatment by the narrative, but to bring it back to her relationship with cassian specifically: i feel like she's never going to be justified out-of-universe, or liked in-universe, unless she just starts going along with what rhys and feyre want her to be and do, and that really sucks as a basis for her relationship with Cassian. and i don't think this is happening in canon as an exploration of the ways being royalty and political leadership and pressure like that fractures relationships, i think we're very very obviously supposed to love rhysand and see his inner circle as an idealized friendship group for feyre...which sucks for nesta!!!

also cassian azriel and rhys all just need to have a threesome at least once i think i think it would solve a lot of their problems like what do you MEAN you multiple times fucked girls in the same room as each other at the same time while you were growing up

5. gender roles speedrun roundup:

i often feel like reading the acotar series leaves me with a spectrum of reactions from "are straight people okay" to "yikes, gender roles," (there are no good options on this spectrum), which just makes me roll my eyes so hard at so many interactions between nesta and cassian.

i could write a lot here, or i could just toss you this quote:

"The first time she’d seen Cassian, she couldn’t take her eyes off him. She felt like she’d spent her life surrounded by boys, and then a man—a male, she supposed—had suddenly appeared. Everything about him had radiated that confident, arrogant masculinity. It had been heady and overwhelming, and all she’d wanted, all she’d wanted for so many months, was to touch him, smell him, taste him. Get close to that strength and throw everything she was against it because she knew he’d never break, never falter, never balk." -Chp. 10

like. what. is. what. do straight people really--

also i CANNOT take the use of male and female seriously there HAS to have been a better way to do that i just

to be more serious, there's also something really uncomfortable to me about nesta's view of cassian as the ideal of masculinity, and a fundamentally deeply good person (in opposition to her)...whereas we see so clearly from cassian's pov that he's just so deeply embedded in and surrounded by violence?

(i am never not thinking about the entire village that he slaughtered, and how he doesn't regret it, it took him ten years to "face" it but he doesn't regret it! apologies, i'm about to out myself as fundamentally A Star Wars Guy TM, but like...when anakin skywalker slaughters the entire village of people who murdered and assaulted his mother, it is--at least in theory, god those movies are bad--a very clear step into the dark side and the path that leads to him becoming the ultimate evil fascist imperial figurehead. whereas for cassian it's righteous and a step to him becoming "strong enough" to handle nesta!)

they are both a hopefully-unintentional weird racist exoticization of "tribal people" who mistreat women and get murdered for it written by white people though. god everything about the illyrians makes me feel so weird

the masculinity = violence thing is definitely not limited to cassian, (it's arguably worse with High Lord "get her out of here before i kill her for revealing that i was lying to my wife about her imminent death" Rhysand), so it's clearly an authorial thing seeping in, but it still makes me itch to dig my messy little fingers in and deconstruct it, you know?

so!

i'm sure i could write more, but this is already obscenely long--thank you for enabling me to write all of this! i hope it gave you a decent sense of my thought process...and i would love to hear any and all of your thoughts, i am as always so glad to be your friend in conspiracy-board-string meta and everything else.

#thank you so much for the ask!#acotar #acosf #nesta archeron #nesta x cassian #NESTA DESERVED BETTER FTW #also. is anyone surprised that this is the stance i took #because i'm sure not

55 notes · View notes

randomblack-girl · 2 years

Text

Astro notes 🧜🏾‍♀️

I noticed Saturn in the 9th house might show signs of religious issues like maybe religious beliefs were pushed onto them when they were young and this made them dislike religion or feel uncomfortable with it. I have this placement and I hate when people start talking to me about religion. Especially to fix my problems like girl God isn't gonna fix my crippling depression...enough

This could also show signs of going to college late or not wanting to. Maybe being conservative? But I haven't seen that, quite the opposite surprisingly.

Jupiter in the first house come off as nerdy or like they know a lot or very ditzy maybe both.

I've noticed sag risings, degrees, or jupiter rising have eye problems.

Saturn in the 6th house like to go on diets or they just do for some reason. And they stick to it they take their health seriously probably work out often too.

Pisces venus/5th house love anything with romance, fantasy, magic and spiritual stuff like Crystals. Here's some recommendations for yall 😍

Caraval by Stephanie Garber I love this book SO MUCH just read all 3 books and her other series once upon a broken heart eats too

Idc imma put it here...The Selection series and I don't wanna hear no slander 🙅🏾‍♀️

Now you see me- the movie I just watched it and omg why is it so good !?

I think the 5th house talks about music taste along with venus. My sister has a sag venus and listens to music in Spanish she also has Uranus in her 5th house and listens to pop. And I'd say music that isn't mainstream she loves Rina Sawayama and Rosalia.

I have pisces venus in my 5th house and I listen to mostly pop-indie music. I'm a pop and rnb girlie. I don't listen to mainstream music really and I kinda write mainstream artists off sometimes. My favorite artists are probably tyler the creator and willow. I also don't really "stan" anyone I really just listen to whatever is good. I rarely stick to an artist or have a favorite. I listen to one or two songs by one artist usually then move on its rare for me to like most of their music. I noticed something similar with my sister.

I have lilith in the 11th house and tell me why damn near my whole grade hated me 😻🤭. It was mostly guys too and I also experienced cyber bullying.

Lilith in the 6th house might show issues with their health or body. I knew someone who has this placement and they have diabetes. But it could just mean being insecure about their body.

Lilith in the 11th house are the ones sending and getting n*des too like unsolicited pictures or sexual comments. Maybe they do s*x work online or thought of it. Anything negative or sexual that includes the internet. Omg this placement reminds me of Kat from Euphoria!! Damn no wonder I related to her 💀

Chiron in the 9th house might show religious trauma. This is the placement for people who grew up in the black church...iykyk.

Venus in the 2nd house have nice lips like plump and little with a prominent cupids bow. My sister has this placement and she has such cute lips!

Capricorn rising and Saturn aspects to the asc tend to be skinny the type to eat whatever and never gain weight. It could be an insecurity I have Saturn square my asc and I've always been insecure about being skinny. I've also noticed they can be tall or look tall. Basically the tall and lanky type.

8th house neptune/pisces idk but something with drugs. May become addicted to substances, die from them, die in mysterious ways.

I knew someone with their sun in the 12th house and they talked about not knowing themself and being a different person to fit in.

Gemini moons love to read but they might struggle to actually read because of their other interests.

Moon in the 8th house might be like their mom. They might look like their mom or just be similar. Just a theory but maybe it would be like that with other planets like sun in the 8th house might be like the father, venus might be like their partner, mercury like their sibling. But I'm not sure.

Leo, 5th house placements, or sun dominant might love yellow, gold, and stuff with the sun. I'm sun dominant and love gold and sun jewelry I kinda refuse to wear silver unless I have to 🤭.

Moon people might love silver I know a guy who had moon in his first house who loved silver.

Capricorn rising/Saturn rising might have something with their bones. I know a guy who is cancer rising with Saturn in his first house who talked about getting silver grills. He also had pointy knees 😭 and his teeth were sharp, fang like? And he talked about hating them. He was also tall (he was so fine chile 😩) but we must stay focused!

Gemini men will tell you anything chile...I was dating (this was middle school so I don't really claim him but anyway) this guy with a gemini venus. He told me he was into black girls (whole time he's racist) and ended up cheating on me with a white girl 😭. Now again this was middle school so take it with a grain of salt ig.

Idc what planets but having a lot of planets in the 4th house is usually not a good thing 😬. Most people with this I've noticed had a traumatic childhood.

#astro observations #zodiac signs #saturn placements #jupiter in the first house #4th house #astrology #Capricorn #leo #5th house #chiron #Lilith

1K notes · View notes

bonefall · 5 months

Note

Mr Bones, what are your opinions on the blurb for the Ivypool Super Edition? I'm disappointed it's another travelling book myself and I'm nervous how they will depict the strange animals mentioned knowing the Erin's track record.

Much as I am known for my Hateposts, I am a Chronic Liker. I am not as hard to please as it may seem, I have VERY low standards.

You know what happens if we get "strange creatures?" BB gets some NEW MAGIC BEASTS

IDK ABOUT YOU BUT IM READY FOR MORE MAGIC BEAFTS.

Soooo keep in mind I have a bit of a bias. I am both an optimist and a scavenger. If there's a cool idea to play with im usually happy lmaoo

Assorted thoughts though;

I also don't like the idea of ANOTHER travel book. Come on man. We had two travel books in the main series, the new content in Riverstar's Hng was all travel, and now ANOTHER one??

Just nuke the lake already if you hate it so much. Why can't they write the battle cats battling or something.

VERY interested in "ancient sins" being corrected. Are we going to get the badger thing addressed??

Or the rats or raccoons SkyClan dealt with?

Or, hell, the beavers?

I'm willing to be a little charitable after the introduction of the Park Cats. I've spoken about how I dislike them as-are, BUT, also spoken about how they're a step in the right direction, y'know?

Park cats are a dissatisfying but GOOD thing. So I'll hear this out.

I'm pretty neutral-positive on Ivypool. I like when girls are mean.

I have no strong feelings on her having a thing with grief. I think it's a good idea and a good plot to explore.

Glad to see that Bristlefrost's death isn't all for the sake of Rootspring though I'll tell you that! So, again, charitability here.

Legitimately interested in what wild shit the new team is going to do with "Strange Creatures." I thought they were going to leave the weird non-cat entities in the transition like Fallout and talking deathclaws.

(And as a talking deathclaw liker...)

MIND YOU I think it will be awful. But if it's funny or interesting in its awfulness I'm game.

My wild hope is that the strange beasts are pine martens. I think that would be cool.

#The name is still awful though... who the hell named this #Ivypool's Heart #You're really gonna pretend like wc fans don't see Someone's Heart and hear kill bill sirens?#Like. Ok #Bone babble

99 notes · View notes

hollowed-theory-hall · 2 months

Note

thoughts on the hp epilogue? i kinda hate it and don't really consider it canon but im curious what your opinion is.

I'm not a fan, I usually disregard it.

There are things I don't like about the epilogue and things I don't mind. My dislikes range from the usual suspects like Harry naming his son "Albus Severus" to some deeper things actually.

This ended up a bit long, so I'll add a read more here.

So, I'm going to divide this into two parts, things written in the epilogue itself, and the supposedly canon future of the characters that bother me, but technically it's not in the books and therefore easier to ignore.

Thoughts about the epilogue itself:

I actually don't mind the character dynamics between the golden trio in the epilogue, I actually like some of them (like Ron's comments about his muggle driver's test). I like Neville becoming an Herbology professor as well.

Now, for what I don't like...

The existence of the epilogue as a whole bothers me. I don't feel like the books necessarily needed one, at least not one like this. I would've preferred it to end on a hopeful note of rebuilding and changing house stereotypes and muggleborn treatment so there won't be another Voldemort. Not just jump 19 years later to show a society that didn't change any of its inherent problems (more on that in the next section). But the fact Albus is concerned about being sorted into Slytherin shows me nothing changed. House prejudice is still rampant, and the wizarding world still gawks at Harry. Ron mentions casting spells in broad daylight on a muggle for his driver's exam, so clearly muggles and the Statue of Secrecy are still a joke. It's like, complete and utter stagnation.

I also, don't actually want to see the second generation in canon. This is one of those things I think is better off to leave for fan spaces. The whole epilogue feels like a weird fanfic, it doesn't feel like a part of the books. It's even written in a different POV, that same third-person omnipotent that appears in the first chapter of books 1, 4, and 6. It just feels outside the books, I don't know how else to put it. It took me out of the story instead of leaving me satisfied with the ending.

I made it no secret I hate Dumbledore, so having Harry name his son after the two men who made his life hell, as much if not more than the Dursleys, just... it's just really gross. I hate thinking about it even.

I'm not the biggest fan of the names Hugo and Rose either, but that's my personal opinion.

The final problem I have with the epilogue itself is more subjective than the others, but also the most glaring for me, and that's Harry and Ginny. I just really didn't like them as a couple for multiple reasons that I want to make a whole post about actually (it's in the drafts, I'm working on it). But I didn't like the fact Harry married Ginny, I just really don't like them together. It's more of a me thing, and I'm sure fans who ship them together don't mind this, hence why I saved it for last, but it does bother me quite a bit.

And it's not that I dislike all of JK's canon pairings. I like Ron and Hermione, Bill and Fleur, Remus and Tonks, James and Lily — I like all of them well enough. It's Harry and Ginny that I have a problem with.

Thoughts about things JK said about the characters' futures (cursed child and Pottermore and a bit of the epilogue):

I don't like the Harry's and Hermione's careers, I think they are a disservice to the characters.

I go into more detail below about why the Ministry of Magic really really sucks, but with how the final books (5 and afterward) are all about how bad and corrupt the ministry is, it sits really wrong for me than Harry and Hermione go to work there.

And like, with as much as Harry is good in DADA and likes it, I don't think he'll actually enjoy being an Auror. Being an auror is more than just fighting dark wizards. It's filling out paperwork, dealing with bureaucracy, and having to obey his boss. Harry can't obey anyone, I can't see him working well in a hierarchical system that supports authority, it's the antithesis of a character who could resist the imperious curse on his first try because of how much he hates obeying. Personally, I think Harry should've removed the DADA teacher's curse and stayed at Hogwarts. Like, I see him as a DADA professor who often joins Aurors as, like, a special advisor or something. It'll give him more freedom and I think he'll like working with students and staying at Hogwarts.

As for Hermione, yes, she had SPEW, and I definitely think she would spend her life trying to improve creature rights, I just can't really see her becoming a minister. Hermione isn't about strategy (that was Ron), and she isn't about leading (that was Harry). Hermione is compassionate, and I do, as I mentioned, expect her to work for creature rights and improve the state of muggleborns in their society. But she's also a need, who loves reading and studying, I kinda feel she'd be more at home as an unspeakable rather than the minister. She just isn't a politician. Think about them breaking into Gringotts where she literally couldn't lie to save their lives.

Ron, I kinda like the idea of him trying to be an Auror and leaving after two years (honestly, Harry could have done the same and I would've been more willing to accept it). And I don't mind the idea of him helping George at Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, I understand why he'll want to do it. Both to get out of the limelight, to help George with Fred's loss that they all share (tbh I'm in denial about that), and the chill environment probably would be good for him after the war. I think Ron will have fun in such a profession, honestly. He's the only one where I can kinda see it.

I don't like the way the Wizarding World is portrayed in the epilogue as I mentioned above — like nothing changed.

In the final books in the series (but actually, we see hints of this in books 2 and 3 already) the ministry is repeatedly portrayed as corrupt and inherently discriminatory — both towards magical creatures and muggleborns.

I don't think I need to discuss House Elves and werewolves too much, as the books state the problems in the ministry’s treatment of these groups quite plainly. But what the books don't mention as much is how hard muggleborns who wish to stay in the Wizarding World have it.

While there are private professions like shop owners, broom makers, Quidditch players, authors, and such, most jobs in the Wizarding World are in the ministry. And you can't get a job in the ministry unless you have connections in the ministry. They run on nepotism and who-knows-who and not merit. This places all muggleborns, even ones like Hermione (if she wasn't a war hero) at a disadvantage when searching for a job after Hogwarts.

We see it with Tom Riddle (12 NEWTs, all O's, prefect, and head boy). Yes, Slughorn pulled some strings to get him job offers, but he preferred to work at Borgin and Butkes over the lowly ministry positions they were willing to give a muggleborn who got a recommendation! What do you think happens to the muggleborns without a close relationship with Slughorn or to students who were quiet but still got solid Os and Es. And we don't know if other teachers recommend students to the ministry.

And that's before I talk about how muggleborns are introduced to magic, which is abhorrent. Or the lack of care towards child abuse (cases like Harry, Voldemort, and Snape come to mind). Or wizards' condescension towards everything muggle. Even Arthur Weasley, who supposedly loves muggles, is incredibly condescending towards muggles and ill-informed about them.

This outlook on muggles is why the Statue of Secrecy is a joke. I mean, book 1 opens with Vernon seeing weird people in colorful cloaks celebrating Voldemort’s downfall. They have no subtlety. considering Ron confounded the examiner on his driver's test and Harry and his family walked with owls in a muggle train station, this didn't get better either...

Sorry for my rant about the ministry, but all this is to say, I don't like the idea of Harry and Hermione working in such a corrupt system that they both witnessed the damage of firsthand. And even if they did work there, I kinda expected them to change it. To actually put in the effort to improve the damaged system they had, and JK mentioned they did. But in the epilogue and any other material we see no signs of this improvement. Everything is still corrupt and running on connections and favors. Otherwise, Albus Potter wouldn't be scared of being sorted into Slytherin, that fact alone means the prejudices that are a huge problem in their world still exist.

The ministry's corruption was such a big plot point in the final books that it feels weird to me that it isn't addressed in any way in the epilogue itself. I mean, the reason Voldemort rose to power as easily as he did was because the ministry and their society were built to allow it.

My ideal epilogue will take place maybe a few months after the war, it'll show them rebuilding, and being hopeful for a future that'll now exist. Stop the house rivalries that do more damage than good and cease the discrimination against muggleborns and creatures, or at least take the first steps towards something better. And it'll show the couples together and the golden trio's friendship, but no second-generation stuff. I feel that wasn't necessary to get the point across. Which I don't feel it did. Like, it gave me the wrong kind of catharsis that I wasn't looking for, if that makes any sense. It just gave me answers to questions I didn't ask.

Tldr;

Sorry for my rambling, the epilogue and anything stated after the books isn't really canon in my head.

#harry potter #harry potter thoughts #hp #hp thoughts #harry potter epilogue #asks #anon ask #anonymous

49 notes · View notes

dazais-guardian-angel · 8 months

Text

Okay, a good amount of time has passed, and after having seen this post by @weretiger-be-my-horse , I've been turning it over and over in my brain going absolutely feral over this concept. I need to expand upon my thoughts on this idea and all the evidence there is pointing towards it, whether that be actual tangible things, or purely strong vibes I have.

First of all, full disclaimer: I did not like the season 5 finale, and how it wrapped up the DoA arc. To say that I "disliked" it is putting it extremely lightly, in fact -- I absolutely hated it, and I am still, to a degree, in disbelief that I actually even watched those 24 minutes with my own two eyes, and that it somehow wasn't a complete fever dream. While I'm not going to go in long-winded detail into all the ways that I feel like the finale almost completely bastardized all of its featured characters and destroyed any and all buildup we've had going on in this arc for 50 some chapters now, because that's not the main point of this post, I will not make any attempt to hide the fact that the theory-crafting I'm about to pose here is partly influenced and prompted by how much I hated the finale, and how much I desperately hope that it will not end up being manga canon. Therefore, if you enjoyed the finale — and that's fine! — and don't want to read any negativity about it, then I would not recommend reading any further (I mean, you've probably already left by this point, which is fair lol), While obviously it's important that I be as objective and unbiased as possible when explaining my thoughts, some of my negative feelings about the writing will be a part of this analysis, even if this isn't going to be a full-blown rant. Just know that if you proceed.

With that out of the way, let me continue.

So. In the aforementioned post, the theory presented is that the anime may be operating on an alternate timeline, and that this will become evident once we read the upcoming October chapter, wherein things will go completely differently post-chapter 110 than they do in the final episode — probably for the worse, with the s5 finale intending to lull us into a false sense of security and make us assume that everything in the manga arc finale will wrap up as smoothly and consequence-freely(? lol) as it did in the anime one. It also suggests that the Fukuchi we see at the very end that sskk are fighting came from the manga timeline, where he won, and that he used the Book to jump to a timeline where he lost, the anime one, proven by the fact that this Fukuchi is wearing a mask with the same design on it as the mask Fukuchi is wearing on the chapter 110 DoA color spread/title page.

First of all, I want to note the fact that it's not just the mask design that's the same: the entire outfit is roughly more or less the same as well. It's not completely 1-to-1, because the anime can never fully match the intricacies of Harukawa's beautiful outfit designs, and the Fukuchi in this scene has the kimono half-off because of the... super saiyan mode he's in, but most all of the main pieces of clothing are there. Any small inaccuracies could also be attributed to the fact that Harukawa probably didn't have this finalized art ready back when this episode was being made, so the animators wouldn't have had the complete design to work off of. But in general, because it's all so similar, I think we can quite confidently say that the ending episode Fukuchi is meant to be the one from this manga art.

Also, people have pointed this out, but it's worth mentioning that the mask Asagiri wore at Anime Expo in July was referencing this Fukuchi. It's not a crucial detail, but it just proves more that Asagiri is a gigantic fucking troll, and that he clearly wanted to draw attention to this Fukuchi design. It's important. He describes the mask here as made in the motif of an ellipses inside a speech bubble... could that perhaps be referencing meta aspects, like the Book?

Next, I want to talk about the even bigger elephant in the room, which to me is the most damning and undeniable piece of evidence there is of the anime operating on a completely separate timeline from the manga:

This Fucking Hand™️

As we all know, in the anime, Fyodor injures his hand when the password input device blows up, and as we all know, this does not happen in the manga. In the last episode, Dazai claims that the final nail in the coffin of his impromptu plan to kill Fyodor relied on this hand injury: because Fyodor couldn't pilot his escape helicopter himself, he would ask one of his Meursault vampires to do it for him, unaware that Bram and thus this vampire was now on the ADA's side, and said vampire could kill him while his guard was down.

Ignoring how utterly stupid and contrived this plan is when you stop and think about it for more than two seconds, the fact of the matter is that something that initially seemed like nothing more than an odd but inconsequential anime original addition ended up snowballing into being the entire reason one of the big bads was brought down. If Fyodor hadn't hurt his hand, he wouldn't have needed another pilot, and so the traitor vampire wouldn't have had an opportunity to get near him and kill him without him expecting it even though said vampire was presumably with him as they were leaving Meursault, and was probably already a traitor by then, so there was plenty opportunity for him to still die. not to mention by Chuuya's hands at literally any time he wanted to, because Chuuya was coherent the whole time. Also there's absolutely no way Dazai could have known exactly what Ranpo would do, no matter how smart he is and how much he trusts him. idk it's fucking dumb, just roll with it. Therefore, putting aside all other variables for now, we can conclude that, on the most basic level, this signifies that no hand wound = no death.

And let me tell you, this hand wound bothers me. It really, really does. Because they focus on it a LOT — they go out of their way to draw attention to it MULTIPLE TIMES, from the moment it first happens to the end of the season. Fyodor even talks about it to himself, about Dazai being able to cause him tangible, visible, bodily harm, (something that, again, as far as we've seen, has never happened in the manga). Hell, even after Fyodor's death, they're still drawing attention to it, because his right arm is all of him that survives, and Dazai picks it up and gives it to Nikolai to do his hilarious sad little gay fondling of it played completely straight even though there's nothing straight going on here at all! It's like it's a big red flashing sign at all times going "you see this injured hand? This is important. Are you picking up that it's important? Are you taking note of it?" Why is that? Obviously, it serves to give us the lore crumbs about Fyodor and "that man", but that's hardly the main, much more glaring reason, as I've already mentioned.

Fyodor doesn't hurt his hand in the manga. Fyodor won't die here in the manga. I am so dead serious by this point about this, and it's not just simply the fact that this was absolutely not at all the time for him to die, or the fact that his hand is the reason for his death in the anime in and of itself, but how much EMPHASIS they place on this, and on the hand in general. What would be the point of adding something like this, if it's not meant to alert us to the fact that it has a major impact on how the story plays out? We all know Bones: they struggle to get right and include everything that's already there in the source material; they would never go out of their way to add something this noteworthy if there wasn't a very good reason for it, if it wasn't absolutely necessary. I've seen a few people bring up the fact that Fyodor gets shot in the shoulder by Sigma and that that could lead to the same outcome in the manga, but I disagree: although he has blood on his shoulder in the manga, it seems like the bullet just grazed the top of it, because his arm and hand appears completely functional afterwards (not hanging limp by his side or anything). But that doesn't even matter, because this isn't even about the semantics/logistics of how the hand wound caused Fyodor's death because again, it's a stupid outcome, or what could serve as a substitute in the manga — thematically, this is a textbook example of the butterfly effect. Countless parallel universes exist within this series, ones where even the most minute differences lead to a majorly different outcome: this just happens to be one of them. There's no reason to think it isn't, and there's no reason to not think that the anime wants us to clue into the fact that things only went as smoothly as they did on the Meursault side because of this wound; in other words, that things will go very differently in the manga thanks to the absence of said wound. They wouldn't have added it in the first place and put such clearly deliberate emphasis on it otherwise.

Things are going to happen very differently in the manga, at least when it comes to the Meursault crew (but then, if you assume that, you then naturally assume it all will be very different). This is the only conclusion one can come to with the presentation of this anime-only wound, combined with the fact that parallel universes are a very real thing in BSD.

I'm going to go on a bit of a tangent, so bear with me. I play a lot of visual novels, and although such concepts aren't really as original now as they were a while ago, some of my favorite and some of the very best VNs out there are the ones that break the fourth wall and make the visual novel branching route format directly intertwined with the story: you know, the ones where the characters go "if only I had done things differently, maybe everything would have turned out better...!" in a wink wink nudge nudge moment, and the ones where the characters are aware of the different timelines, even, or even have the ability to gain information from their selves in said alternate timelines to influence events in their current one (I'm intentionally not naming the games I'm thinking of for the sake of spoilers, but if you know, you know lmao). It gets very meta in this regard, and this is how I started viewing BSD through the lens of ever since I first learned about Beast: like a visual novel with many branching routes, and only a few routes that feel entirely "right".

When I first read Dazai's Entrance Exam, I was struck by how unnerving the ending sequence in the abandoned hospital felt. Obviously, Kunikida's internal struggle over Sasaki's actions and motives is him still desperately clinging to his ideal world that does not exist, but the specific type of phrases he uses — "who is wrong?" "[who is] the cause of all this?" "there has to be an ideal world" "there has to be something, I'm sure of it" "There must have been something we could have done!" — and the framing of the scene in general, is eerily reminiscent of a bad ending in a visual novel, to me. There's a haunting, looming, bleak sense that a different outcome could have been achieved, if different decisions had been made, or if things outside of anyone's control had been different... and we know that this is true, because in Beast alone, Kunikida never goes through the Azure Messenger incident, because Dazai doesn't have his entrance exam. Hell, you could even consider the anime's version of the Azure Messenger arc an alternate timeline in of itself, if you really wanted to, long before we even arrive at season 5.

When it comes to Beast, this timeline has almost the opposite feeling of what I described above, that I've also encountered in visual novels: the idea of a "good route" or "good ending" that still doesn't feel quite earned, or as perfect as one would expect. Beast is presented as the "ideal" timeline purely for one sole reason: Oda is alive. It is the only timeline where he's alive, and keeping Oda alive is the ultimate goal Dazai wants to achieve, the only reason this timeline exists; therefore, disregarding all else, Beast should be the best timeline, because Oda's death is the greatest devastation in the series to date. We all want him to live, so why wouldn't the timeline where he does be the best one? And yet... of course, it isn't. Dazai is alone, and steeped in darkness and loneliness without Oda, and dies by the end of the story for Oda's continued living. Atsushi has Kyouka still, but he's suffering and more traumatized, and unable to heal while stuck in the mafia, and neither can Kyouka. Akutagawa is living a much better life in the ADA... but without his sister, and without what he has from his bond with Atsushi in canon, that isn't replicated in Beast. And Oda... Oda is alive, and he has his children and his novel, but there is a feeling that he is aimless, that something in his life is missing. He has everything he ever wanted, but all that means nothing without what he truly needs: Dazai, and his time with Dazai and Ango at the bar. In this way, things going well and us getting what we want — in this case, Oda living — goes against how it's supposed to be, the natural order, which is why it feels so hollow. In the specific visual novel I'm thinking of here as a comparison (again, shoutout if you know), there's an alternate ending that involves you inputting information you gain at the end of the game very early on in the game, wherein the protagonist now has memories of the future and is able to bypass and prevent all of the events that take place normally. This means that people who die or are hurt somehow in general are saved from that fate, and nothing bad ever occurs; everything wraps up neatly and nicely... but again, there's an undeniable, unsettling feeling of emptiness, of a victory that rings hollow, because what's the point if everything is simply handed to you easily, where's the sense of accomplishment, without any struggles to achieve said victories, or any growth along the way? How can it feel earned if one doesn't have to, in Dazai's words, "scream within the storm of uncertainty, and run with flowing blood"?

You can probably already see where I'm going with this.

This finale feels weird. Really, really weird. It feels too cheap, too simple, too unsatisfying. So much so, in fact, that for almost the entire runtime, as I was bombarded with resolution upon resolution one after another, I kept thinking "There's no way this can be real. Where's the catch? When is the "gotcha!" moment gonna happen? The "it was all a dream" reveal?". And this isn't just because I hated the writing, and that it really did feel like a fever dream watching fanfic levels of bad (actually, that's an insult to fanfic writers, tbh; they could do better) — no, it genuinely feels so incredibly fake. Even upon rewatching it and already knowing what happens, my brain still naturally keeps expecting some kinda of "sike, you THOUGHT!" moment to suddenly appear. It just.... feels "too good to be true". Dazai and Chuuya come out unscathed, and it's revealed that they were never in any real danger to begin with. Fyodor, one of our biggest threats, is dealt with supposedly for good (I say "supposedly" only because of the Jesus line, but if anything imo, I think that's just a hint that this won't be the canon ending in the manga, so in a sense he's going to "come back to life"), and Nikolai seems somewhat at peace with his death. The other biggest threat, Fukuchi, is also dealt with, and he and Fukuzawa get their final moment together of closure. Yes, Sigma is left in Meursault don't even get me started on how angry this alone makes me, and Fukuzawa loses Fukuchi, but overall, everything is portrayed in a positive light, and any negatives or losses are quickly glossed over. Everything is tied up nicely, neatly, and smoothly. ...And that is exactly what makes it feel so wrong, and hard to trust in.

I'm not sure if this will make sense, but to me, the finale is so incredibly poorly written that it almost feels.... intentional. It's so bad to the point of feeling self-aware in how bad it is, how unrealistically happy and convenient an ending it is. It had to end this neatly in order to rush to wrap up this arc for the season finale and not leave the last episode on a cliffhanger — which imo is chiefly the main reason it turned out this way, and, if this whole theory is true, Asagiri just used it to his advantage — and I'm not saying this was probably an effect Bones had in mind intentionally, I'm sure they just threw shit at the wall and went with whatever stuck, maaaaybe with some suggestions/approval from Asagiri, but the result is that you have a conclusion that contradicts so much of what was set up before and goes against so many character arcs, making some characters so out of character and even regressing in their development Dazai. I'm talking about Dazai abandoning Sigma, because he would never; hashtag #NOTMYDAZAI. Also Nikolai, Nikolai for most of that is so ooc I can't even begin to describe it oh my god. Everyone is OOC to a degree though lmao, and opens so many plot holes, to the point that it's impossible not to watch all that and get the feeling that it is subtly saying to you "did you really think it could be this easy? It feels wrong, doesn't it? It doesn't feel satisfying. It feels unearned." I find it incredibly interesting and suspicious in particular that they confirmed multiple theories people had about soukoku in Meursault: that Chuuya slowed the elevator's fall so that Dazai wouldn't die from it, that Chuuya slowed down the bullet so that it only penetrated Dazai's skin and not his skull, and that the both of them used Fyodor's camera angle to their advantage because they knew he wouldn't be able to see certain things from his view. I'm not saying that Asagiri trawled BSD twitter and tumblr after those chapters dropped for the most popular theories before the final episode was made lmao, there was no time for that (imagine though lol—), but I do think it's highly likely that he already had in mind exactly what theories would be made about these parts (I mean, the evidence for the gun scene was all there), and that Dazai rattling them off in his long monologue to Fyodor at the end is essentially him speaking to the audience and going "yeah, that's what you would predict, right? Those are the clichés, after all", much like him suggesting earlier that he can maybe bring Chuuya back to himself with a few moving words and the power of friendship, and Fyodor using the split personalities trope to fool Sigma. We expect these tropes to be true. Of course we'd fall for them, as Fyodor tells Sigma, especially if the evidence is right there. But Asagiri himself has explicitly said that he likes doing the opposite of what people expect. And so just because people predicted correctly with the three things I mentioned in this timeline... doesn't mean they'll be true in the manga's. Things happened how we wanted and expected it to, and everything turned out happily. So we can relax now, right? Everything will work out just as easily in the manga, right? Or... is the reason most of this finale feels so fake and unsettling and unsatisfying because it's meant to lull us into a false sense of security before all our heroes lose in the manga? Because deep down, we don't want an ending that's this simple, because we'd rather have a conclusion where our characters have struggled more and grown more and come out the better for it, and we know it?

After rewatching the episode a lot, and watching some other videos, and doing a lot of thinking, I am pretty confident in suspecting that the only part of this finale that is actually from manga canon, aside from Aya jumping off the building of course, is Fyodor and Nikolai's exchange after Fyodor leaves Meursault — specifically, them talking about Fyodor leaving Sigma behind, and their "new game" and Nikolai being excited at the prospect of it. This little conversation actually feels in character for them, and it's easy to tell this when contrasting it with everything that happens immediately after, wherein Fyodor is fatally stabbed, and Nikolai, completely at odds with what he was just talking about, just... stands there and watches Fyodor die while Dazai monologues lmao. I'm not sure if the helicopter is still a factor, but I would bet good money on Fyolai getting out of Meursault being manga canon, and that Dazai and Chuuya getting out as well and killing Fyodor + everything with FukuFuku, is part of the anime original ending, in order to wrap up everything positively. It makes much more sense if you think about, in reality (aka in the manga), Dazai and Chuuya still being left behind in Meursault (where they can eventually try to get Sigma), because none of it was an act and things did not go according to plan, and Fukuchi having an entirely different goal that doesn't feel so stupid and contradictory to his character, and Fukuzawa possibly dying — everyone seemingly loses, with Aya still being the last hope, perhaps by awakening her ability like we all speculated.

There's a youtuber I watch who covers BSD in-depth, despite being an anime-only (she reads the respective manga content after each season, though). Going into this finale, she knew about the fact that the anime had overtaken the manga, though she didn't know where the cutoff point was; despite that, however, she made predictions about what was from the manga so far and what was anime original, and it was almost entirely spot-on, based mostly on what she basically described as "anime original dialogue." She talked about how you can always tell when dialogue is veering into the realm of anime-original, because the sentences are very short, choppy, and slightly out of character, but generic enough to not be TOO out of character, and so that anyone can easily write said lines, even if they're not extremely familiar with the character like the original author would be. And when I heard this explanation, everything clicked — because so much of this finale has dialogue like that. The Fyolai scenes just feel peppered with it, around the lines I mentioned earlier, the Dazai dialogue does too, and ESPECIALLY shit at the end like Fukuchi and Fukuzawa exchanging the cliche death lines to end all death lines: "Are you there? I'm a little tired." "Rest up." That just isn't Bungou Stray Dogs. That isn't Asagiri. BSD is cheesy at times, yes, but it isn't like this; it's smarter. The dialogue is smarter, the explanations/plot twists are smarter, Asagiri is smarter, and the aforementioned youtuber I watched agreed. She's a pretty casual fan of the series, so if even she could pick up on these things, I think it speaks volumes.

I mentioned this briefly earlier, but this theory makes sense if you consider that this situation probably came about because of Bones wanting two seasons back-to-back when they did, and this arc being as long as it is. Season 3 aired in 2019, and I imagine Bones would have wanted season 4 in 2020, and might have then been willing to wait a bit longer for season 5 in order for more of this arc's manga chapters to come out — but then covid happened. Because of that, season 4 was delayed to 2023, creating the longest gap we've had between seasons, and I wouldn't at all be surprised if the delay made them want season 5 right together with it, after getting so far "behind", so to speak. S4 was announced in November of 2021, and roughly around that time, Asagiri was finishing up writing the plot of the DoA arc. If Bones came to him sometime in late 2021 and said they wanted two seasons now (so basically, one giant two cour season), Asagiri would know that not only of course would this arc not be finished publishing in the manga for a very long time yet, but that roughly 20ish episodes would not be enough to cover it all to the end, with this arc being longer than any arc the anime has adapted to date. Because of all this, and the arc manga chapters being nowhere near fully drawn to completion, he'd have to make a decision about what to do, and what to give Bones. Without ending season 5 on a massive cliffhanger that wouldn't be resolved for years until an eventual season 6, the only other option would be to rush towards an anime-original ending for the DoA arc.... and for Asagiri to take advantage of that, and integrate it into BSD's lore. Thereby creating a truly unique cross-media experience that utilizes the different mediums to create multiple timelines, that could make both the anime and manga interact with each other and become part of a bigger picture (not that you'd need to see both to get the full experience, mind you, just that it'd provide a little bonus if you did).... and would without a doubt be Asagiri's biggest surprise yet.

...I feel like at this point I'm starting to ramble, and my evidence become more and more incoherent and less substantial lmao, so I should probably end this post. 💀 Thank you if you've read this far, and hopefully it made some semblance of sense, despite not being structured very well; I know I promised at the start to try to be as objective as possible and curb my negative feelings, but I'm not sure how well I succeeded in that regard. If it weren't for the Fukuchi thing and the Fyodor hand thing, I probably wouldn't take how wrong and strange and bad the finale feels to me as serious evidence about it being an alternate timeline, especially since I seem to be one of the only people who actually hates all of it.... but combined with everything else, I am just so convinced of this theory being true. It started off as pure copium, but as more time has gone on, I fully, 100% believe in my bones (ha) that there is no way that finale is the same Bungou Stray Dogs I know and love, for so many reasons. It just isn't. It can't be. I know BSD better than this, I know Asagiri better than this, and I know that it's absolutely in the realm of possibility for him to cook up this whole scheme to completely blindside us with in the upcoming chapters, because that's exactly the kind of shit Mr. "Please Be Surprised!" himself would pull. If I end up being completely wrong, I guess I'm wrong, and you can laugh at me all you want then.... but I just know that ages ago people were teasing the idea of the anime operating on a different timeline from the manga, and I truly do think that only now are we finally seeing that idea come to fruition, as a setup for Asagiri going full-bore insanity with the Book in the upcoming arc(s). if I and the OP of that theory end up right, this will be the wildest time in the BSD fandom's history.

Like. I cannot even emphasize how hard they are trolling us at this point. Something is going on. Something is being cooked over there, the likes of which we've never seen before... and I don't think any of us are ready for it.

Oh yeah, and one last thing of note: both Fyodor and Nikolai here have their right arms hidden from view. Is that alluding to anything? I'm not sure. I also think that since chapter 110 was so short, next chapter will likely be 110.5 instead of 111, and if that's the case, this title spread could still technically be associated with the next chapter... wherein we might see this Fukuchi, who ends up wreaking havoc, right before he jumps to the timeline in the anime, as we see him at the end of the s5 finale.

I guess we'll find out on Tuesday.

#bungou stray dogs #meta #bsd season 5 #bsd s5 spoilers #alternatively titled 'when you copium so hard out of stewing in your denial anger and grief that it becomes reality'#is it still copium if there's strong evidence for it? idk #i DON'T know what i'll do if the stuff in this finale ends up being canon :))) make no mistake about that #but until the very moment the schrödinger's cat box is opened and i am forced to acknowledge it with my own two eyes in chapter 111/110.5 #i am choosing to stay calm and rational and look at things with a sound mind... and acknowledge all the signs that are there #of which there are so many #Asagiri is a troll. he has always been a troll and this is more evident than ever lately #and he would know that everyone who watched the finale would take it at face value #never expecting it to go completely differently in the manga #and he's so much smarter than what was in that finale. he would never write those things. i would stake my life on it.#i don't care how many flaws BSD does have that i do acknowledge; he is a good writer in so many ways and he is so much better than /that/#i could fill an entire BOOK (ha ha) with all of the reasons why this finale does not work. seriously it is a never-ending can of worms #of ooc characterizations and plot holes and abandoned threads and straight up CONTRADICTIONS with what has been stated before in the arc #with fukuchi's motivations and presentation; with things that were happening in meursault; just.... so much illogical shit in general #THE MACHINE HEALED THEIR WOUNDS??? ARE YOU FOR REAL????#*sigh* but i said i wasn't gonna rant alskdjgfkdls #tbh though the only REAL thing i need to know that the finale was anime only was what the youtuber i watch pointed out:#that Bram magically regenerated all his clothes. because if it were Asagiri Bram would be naked from the shoulders down fjdkslsaskd #...anyway. This theory is real and true. I am manifesting it into existence 🙏🙏🙏#Asagiri my man...... you have never let me down yet in all the years I've known your series. Please don't let me down now.#I'm trusting in you more than ever right now...... and your ability to blow all our minds in the best possible way #(guys i'm really really really scared deep down; please hold me hahaha ahahahahaaaa- *cries*)#this would the coolest thing in the history of ever though if it happened though. I am SO EXCITED FOR THE POSSIBILITY!!!!!#ASAGIRI YOU SICK AND TWISTED MF; HOW DARE YOU MAKE ME BEG FOR MY FAVES TO SUFFER JUST SO THAT THIS BAD WRITING DOESN'T BECOME REALITY!!!!!!#he knows exactly what he's doing *SCREAMS* :))))))))

75 notes · View notes

avelera · 1 year

Text

"I read it to find out what the fuss was about, and remained somewhat puzzled; it seemed a lively kid’s fantasy crossed with a school novel, good fare for its age group, but stylistically ordinary, imaginatively derivative, and ethically rather mean-spirited."

- Ursula K. Le Guin

It's been understandably popular to take pot-shots at Harry Potter lately because of JK Rowling's truly disgusting and reprehensible comments lately. This quote above by Le Guin, which I agreed with even while a teenager, got me thinking about my own views on the series and apropos to nothing, I felt this was a better place to expound upon them than Twitter.

I have a knee-jerk dislike of the very human condition of saying we, "Always knew something," after the fact, that we "Always knew" someone problematic™️ was problematic or we always knew this thing that was popular was Bad Art after it became less popular. I find it intellectually dishonest.

So I'll preface all of this by saying: I had minor issues with the Harry Potter series back when it came out that went against the mainstream view of it, in that I thought it had many good qualities as a book series, but not enough to warrant its popularity compared to other, similar YA and fantasy series. I was genuinely baffled by its superstar popularity but as a fantasy book reader in the days before it was easy to access online fandom, I would take what I could get and I certainly didn't mind fangirling about Harry Potter stuff with friends even if it wasn't my #1 favorite series of all time. I enjoyed the fanfic for Harry Potter immensely so that allowed me to sort of blend in with those who enjoyed its popularity. (Special shoutout to MY favorite Harry Potter book of all time, "Harry Potter and the Battle of Wills" by Jocelyn over on fanfiction.net, that was MY Harry Potter series lol.)

So here's the thing, it's easy to say, "I always hated Harry Potter" or "I always knew it was trash" and that's a lie. For me, the truth is:

I enjoyed Harry Potter much like I did many of the fantasy series of its day.

What they had going for them was their pacing, whimsy, and inherent mystery structure in the first 3 books. They're fast, fun, easy reads with a likable protagonist. They are not bad books. But as Le Guin says, they're stylistically ordinary and imaginatively derivative. There's a lot of books like them.

I did not think the books were better than Pratchett, or Gaiman, or Garth Nix, or Dianne Wynn Jones, or any of the many other fantasy authors I was reading at the time. I was confused by their popularity as compared to better books like Pratchett's Discworld which, while popular, never got a theme park made for them in terms of order of magnitude popularity.

Now, JK Rowling on the other hand I had some issues with from the start, if not the ones that emerged later with her being a bigot. It is worth mentioning for the sake of intellectual honesty that decades ago, she gave a lot to charity and was a voice for tolerance in the early 00's when Bush/Blair, the Iraq War, etc were in full swing. It makes it all the more heartbreaking and baffling to see her swing towards bigotry on LGBT+ issues. Truly, a lot of young people first learned to stand up to fascism and be accepting of those different from them because of Harry Potter, just like they did reading the Ender's Game series by Orson Scott Card, and in both cases it's absolutely heartbreaking and so very confusing to see these authors fall to the very dark side they wrote against in their books. I have no answer for how or why this happened. I don't say this to make an excuse for either of them, simply to express confusion and mourn the loss of someone who was once a voice for some level of good in the world.

Now, my issues with JK Rowling were writerly, and they are the ones I feel somewhat empowered to say I "always knew" and "always had an issue with" and that, like the worst sort of hipster, "I talked about before it was cool".

Really my dislike began when JKR very famously said in the early 00s that she didn't read any fantasy before writing Harry Potter. Considering how derivative it is (heck, Neil Gaiman already had a YA series about a black-haired wizard boy with a scar) it left one wondering if she was lying or she truly was that ignorant in the genre in which she wrote. Either way, not a good look, and it soured me towards her pretty permanently as an author.

Terry Pratchett, the author I would actually follow into Hell, criticized her for this comment and got a lot of flack for it, asking how in the world she could not realize she was writing fantasy. This solidified my opinion of her as something of a hack, even if she had stumbled upon a winning story. Neil Gaiman also chimed in saying he didn't feel ripped off but seemed to tacitly agree with Pratchett that her lack of institutional knowledge about fantasy was odd.

As a big fantasy fan of the early 00s, I can say that fantasy was still a bit of a forbidden genre (at least in the Anglosphere), one not taken seriously. So for JK Rowling to be asked if she wrote fantasy had a layer of nuance, basically she was being asked if she meant to write a fantasy novel, ie, in a "lesser" genre, barely above dime story penny dreadfuls in value.

No one literary would admit to writing fantasy at the time, it was a whole thing where if you admitted to writing fantasy you were "downgraded" as an author in terms of prestige (Stephen King went through a lot of this). BUT, if a fantasy book achieved popularity, it was labeled as "literary" so the literary folks could claim ownership of the quality genre fiction, and never have to admit that "literary" is a genre and not a mark of quality (a deep-seated rage button issue for me and a rant for another day).

So when JK Rowling said, "She didn't know she was writing fantasy." That meant something. And what it meant was she was throwing the rest of the genre under the damn bus. With her visibility she could have helped actively tear down the biases against fantasy (something she did indirectly with the popularity of her books). Or she could have simply had humility and said she wasn't as versed in the genre as she should be given where her book ended up being shelved, but there's a lot of good works there and she's honored to be among them.

She did neither. She stuck to her ignorance (what would become a common trait of hers, apparently) and did very little to elevate others in the genre, or the genre itself, and indeed, seemed to try to distance herself from it in what was the safe move at the time.

I cannot stress enough how intellectual dishonest, arrogant, and safe it was for popular writers who got dubbed "literary" when they were in fact writing genre fiction to cleave to that title of literary, guard it jealously, and refuse to acknowledge that literary is a genre of its own, not a mark of quality. To be labeled "genre fiction" was to be considered "lesser" and that stigma is still out there, though much lessened by the wave that began with the Lord of the Rings movies, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, and the Marvel films making so much money and really setting up genre fiction to at least be seen as lucrative if not artistic. We have come a long way from how fantasy was viewed 20 years ago.

JK Rowling also said she wrote no other books before Harry Potter. That's another puzzling instance where either she's lying, sold her soul to the Devil (and hey, maybe she did and he's collecting by making her turn into a frothing bigot), or was simply a more lucky and less skilled writer than people realized. Every writer has a closet full of short stories and novels they've written before publishing their first work. I can't stress enough how bizarre it is for her to claim she never wrote anything else before putting pen to paper with Harry Potter, that simply does not happen. Then again, her later books make it seem more likely that is true.

Writerly aside, but JK Rowling is utter garbage at structure. She lucked into the perfect scaffolding for a basic plot with the Harry Potter school year, but as Fantastic Beasts and her other, non-school based plot structures reveal, she didn't realize what a crutch that was for her because the woman does not and has not learned how to build a plot that isn't strung up on the structure of a school year for building tension and story beats.

Look, JK Rowling has always been a weird author. She really did come out of nowhere in terms of previous works. She doesn't acknowledge her peers in the genre that built her fortune, not even to confess that while she didn't know about them, she's now learning about a wonderful rich genre out there. She went the other direction and disavowed fantasy (it's possible she backtracked since and had nice things to say about the fantasy genre, I'd love to hear it if so).

There was in fact always subtle bigotry and a ton of tokenism in the Harry Potter books. That said, in the 90s, that was pretty par for the course, and she deserved some kudos for making the books so explicitly about fighting fascism, even if I'm not sure she fully understood her own themes.

To say these books were unpopular or that they had no writerly merit at all is intellectually dishonest. They were popular for a reason, mostly because they're fun. However, they were not unique, there were many like them, she got very lucky and it's bizarre how little she's acknowledged this or her peers. Of all the negative tendencies any human has, I'm shocked and dismayed that her tendency to stick to her ignorance like she did with the wider fantasy genre is the one that won out and was transferred to LGBT+ issues, to the point of doing active damage to her works and brand. But as her attempts to branch out from Harry Potter have further confirmed, JK Rowling was always a stylistically ordinary writer. Her mean-spiritedness didn't stand out as much in the 90s but it absolutely does now and it's ugly how she leaned more into sticking with the moral heights she reached at that time rather than trying to learn and grow as a person.

JK Rowling went full Whedon and figured because she was slightly ahead of the curve in the late 90s that she had nothing more to learn and it hurts when people who are creative, people whose job it is to have empathy for other walks of life, never learn or grow and stick to their old laurels that are increasingly out of date. I personally don't think myself as a hardcore Harry Potter fan, I have no horse in this race for the redemption or lack thereof of JK Rowling or the book series. I can only offer my view as a fantasy writer and someone who grew up through the cultural phenomenon of these books.

But, as usual, Ursula Le Guin was right, I agreed with her then, and her words have only borne out more and more with time.

#jk rowling critical #hp meta #hp critical

319 notes · View notes

angelllcakes · 10 months

Note

wooo!!! requests are open! how about shy crushes with chan? i could only imagine how the members would push him to make a move 😭

also, your rules post isn’t showing up for some reason! i’m not sure if it’s just me :((

hope you’re doing well!

arghhh those darn rules >:(

i have a feeling its because i altered my username, but i fixed the link and hopefully it's back up! thank you for being so considerate and acknowledging them though! i rly appreciate you bb 💗

as for this request, you couldn't have sent a better ask for me to jump back in with! but i realized i might have read the prompt wrong about half way in hehe... i hope this still meets your expectations!

just around the corner

with dino x femreader

warnings/announcements: insecure, quiet reader, mild language, ridiculously immature children in good looking, grown men’s bodies. SEUNGKWAN IS BLOND 😏😩 this is also based in a school setting, however ages or grades are not mentioned.

WORD COUNT: 1k

As someone who considers themselves not quite as "outgoing" as they'd like to be, public spaces have always haunted you by the idea of being extremely uncomfortable. It isn't the company of others that you particularly dislike, nor is it the fact that you feel the need to be alone. Sometimes, the silence that lingers in the air between small talk or with close friends is all you need to process your thoughts, and perhaps you need a bit more of that silence when the boy you find just ahead passes you by once again. He crosses through your path at exactly 7:43am each morning, sending you the most contagious smile before disappearing into his classroom. It's the same, small notion he does that makes you lose all grasp of your feelings, yet you always react so flusteredly, as if it's the first time you laid eyes on him all over again.

You wonder how he manages to find you each day, considering your schedules overlap and cycle in completely different agendas. You know for certain it's because of your class' small size, making each student familiar with one another at the very least, yet you like the idea of it being caused by fate, in the hopes that his charm is followed by a more meaningful reason rather than just out of the kindness of his heart. Chan in fact does look for you between the crowds of rushing students, desperately trying to speak with you through his bashful gazes and quick grins, but he doesn't necessarily hate the way your cheeks grown warm for him either. You give him a fraction more of the confidence he wishes for.

Yet as soon as he enters his homeroom, all hopes of his confidence disappear when he comes face to face with three of his closest friends, whom he currently wants to bury alive as they reenact the previous scene between the two of you. Their chuckles are filled with nothing but support and brotherly love for him, and as Chan's book makes contact with the blonde's face, his two followers emit an even louder laugh.

"Yah, quit messing up my look Chan!'

"Your face is already unfixable, give me a damn break."

Seungkwan scoffs lightheartedly before finding his seat as the bell echoes through the building, peeking over Chan's desk for another genuine, but mostly annoying attempt to pry at his love life.

"Are you going to actually go for her today? Or wallow in your own shyness again? If you don't do anything besides look at her the poor girls gonna file a restraining order."

Wonwoo opens an ear to the conversation from his desk, curious of Chan’s response.

In all honesty, the constant pestering by his friends encouraging him to make a move is endearing. Yet they don't understand you the way Chan does, and it makes him slightly agitated over how poorly they capture you as they play jokes with him. They haven't seen the way your shoulders lose their tension as you exit busy elevators, or how your smile which, he didn't think was capable of shining brighter than it already does, stretches a little farther after you leave loud groups or chaotic scenes.

It’s the small, more calmer things you find joy in, and you've made Chan see the brighter, more positive side of life too.

So ultimately he gathers his courage, finding you seated on a bench once the final bell signals it's students home for the day. He figured choosing to find you in peace and away from the busy crowds of your environment would calm your nerves, and save him from public humiliation if all things backfired. Opting to begin through small talk, and getting to know you little by little was his original plan, but how well will that work for him? He prepared a fail-proof scenario for a fail proof guy... And Chan, well he isn't as fail proof as he dreamed of.

If almost tripping onto your lap wasn't too close of a call to failure, almost spilling his drink over your outfit and choking on his own spit mid stutter were definitely warnings that he should apologize, backtrack his entire plan, and go scream into his bedroom pillow. However another thing about Chan is that he wasn't a quitter, and was determined to knock down this wall between you two.

That was always what you admired about him most, his desire to succeed. He helped you believe in yourself, and for all his ‘mistakes’ you’d continue to feel overwhelmed with love. You lean closer, just a few inches from his darkening crimson cheeks.

“Was their something you wanted to talk to me about Chan?”

and from the second his name rolls off your lips, his grin instantly grows wider.

#dino best boy <3 #seventeen dino #dino #svt dino #dino x reader #lee chan x reader #seventeen #seventeen lee chan #svt lee chan #lee chan #dino smut #dino seventeen #seventeen scenarios #seventeen fic #mingyu seventeen #seventeen chan

130 notes · View notes

jackoshadows · 1 year

Note

Hi, so I watched GoT+ am on asoiaf 1 rn and I have a Q about Dany; why is her character so divisive? I read meta by pro Dany fans and its "Dany's compassionate, self critical, a good ruler, a political reformer, frees slaves she'll be a hero at the end" and the antis "shes entitled, vengeful, profiter of slavery, a coloniser and GRRM wont validate a foreign invasion with nuclear weapons; hes anti war!!" Like, wHAt? Surely her character cant be THAT ambigious?! These are popular opposites??

Alright, I'll try to explain this from my perspective as a Jon Snow fan. However, this will be spoilery if you have read only one book. I would suggest reading all the books before joining in on discussions about the character.

It's a combination of things.

One is most definitely sexism. I don't throw that word around lightly having been constantly attacked as a ‘sexist dudebro who hates women’ for simply critiquing a female character.

Sexism in fandom is when female characters are held to different standards compared to their male counterparts. When female characters are critiqued or disliked for doing the same thing that male characters are often praised for doing. Daenerys is subjected to a lot of this which is especially evident in the books because she has a parallel arc of leadership with Jon Snow over at the Wall - the two characters at the ends of the world.

An example is right there in your ask. GRRM is anti-war and hence why would he validate Dany's invasion - She is therefore in the wrong. Okay. In which case why not extend that argument to every other main character in the series? GRRM is anti-war and therefore Robb Stark was wrong to wage war for Northern independence. GRRM is anti-war and therefore Jon Snow is wrong to help Stannis in his battle against the Boltons. GRRM is anti-war and therefore Tyrion is wrong to use wildfire and defeat Stannis at the battle of the blackwater. GRRM is anti-war and therefore Jon Snow is the villain of the battle at Castle Black.

I think the main thesis of GRRM’s argument in regard to his protagonists has been that there is no good or bad and instead they are all morally gray? Yeah war is bad and most of our protagonists engage in war and they are therefore morally grey characters. I mean, Jon Snow is over there taking child hostages that he has promised to behead - does that make him a baddie? Ned Stark took Theon as a child hostage. Is he a baddie? Our main characters all belong to noble houses in a feudal monarchy - a system of governance that GRRM relentlessly critiques in the books. Are they all baddies?

This double standard is particularly glaring when Dany's battles in Essos is about helping the little guy - the slaves who are under the worst kind of oppression. The WOT5K (War of the 5 Kings) on the other hand was about personal power, ravaged the land and lead to much devastation and suffering. However, for some strange reason when fandom discusses the books and the author being anti-war they focus particularly on Daenerys - that strange reason is sexism.

If you have watched GOT, I am sure you would have noticed those obvious double standards yourself.

Tyrion standing there making sad faces makes it look like Daenerys is doing something wrong when she executes the Tarlys - two treasonous traitors. However every other House does the same! Jon Snow executed the mutineers at the wall - even a child. After the battle of bastards, he mentions the Karstarks and Umbers having been killed in battle or else they would have been executed. Sansa wants to punish even their children!! But for some strange reason [(i.e) sexism] a female leader executing traitors is evil. That she does so without crying (Something the show runner David Benioff points out in an BTS interview) means she is evil. Jon not crying when killing people = badass, Dany not crying when killing people = evil.

Daenerys in battle with Jaime Lannister to get the Iron Throne = evil. Starks fighting against the Boltons to get Winterfell = Yay! Awesome. Thousands die in both battles - in one battle they die, burned by dragonfire. In the other one they are hacked to death and die with their guts hanging out. In both cases, people die.

The show quickly moves past Jaime Lannister, the Tarlys and their men massacring everyone of Olenna's men and piling their bodies high and sacking and looting the place. However, the show takes time to linger on Tyrion's sad face with the sad music and the men dying when Daenerys is attacking those same men on the battlefield.

I am not even getting into season 8 because it was so, so bad and full of puke inducing sexism that will need 10 pages to outline. I think you have got the gist of why sexism is such a large factor in how Dany's character is otherized and analyzed by fandom at large and made worse by Benioff and Weiss' rampant misogyny shining through in the show's writing.

I mentioned this in another post and I will say again - removing show Tyrion from show Daenerys' narrative would reduce the sexism in her story arc ten fold. He was D&D's mouthpiece in the series after season 5 - there to tell us that Dany was evil for doing all the things the male characters did.

And yes, Nuclear weapons are bad. Nuclear weapons can also be a deterrent and prevent war. Nuclear weapons can also be useful in a fantasy, magical world dealing with an existential apocalyptic threat. This is why I find one to one comparisons like these to be ridiculous. The Starks also have some fiercesome beasts that the author has indicated will be used in battle. Are we calling them evil?

The rest. Colonizer? They should look up what that means and whether it applies to Dany's story in Essos. Profiting off slavery? If one reads the books one knows this is blatantly untrue. Entitled and vengeful? No more than any of the other main characters who belong to noble houses in Westeros.

Daenerys has her flaws, not saying that she doesn't. That's what makes her a three-dimensional and relatable character. It's easy to criticize the character because she does self-reflect and introspect, is sometimes crippled by self-doubt and wants to do things differently and try different options - something that makes her human and real and very well written. Leadership is not easy and she’s 15 in the last book.

The other aspect is a flaw in the writing with respect to the setting of Daenerys' story in the series. She's the only main POV character in Essos until Arya and Tyrion get there in ADwD. And there is a lot of orientalism in GRRM's writing for Essos - meant to represent the East while Westeros represents the West.

There's much to say about how he writes the Dothraki as savage barbarians. While he gives POV characters for the Ironborn with Theon and Asha and characters like Mance, Tormund and Ygritte for the Freefolk, where's the equivalent of all that for the Dothraki? Oh but look, they are eating honeyed locusts! How exotic! There's lots of cartoonishly evil slavers who kill puppies! GRRM keeps otherizing their customs and culture as being savage and cruel and different - highlighted by the fact that we don't have a single Essosi POV giving us their side of things.

I do find GRRM's orientalism distasteful and off putting, especially as Essos is just a prop, a stepping stone for the characters before they move onto Westeros where the real story is happening. That is however a critique of the writing, not of the character. People tend to conflate the two. A middle aged white man writing in the nineties about a fantasy eastern world does not make Daenerys a 'white savior' or a 'colonizer' and it's clear from various interviews the author has given that this was not his intention either.

Daenerys is also the only Targaryen POV in the books. Think about that. The Starks have 6 POVs in the first book. The Lannisters get 3 by AFfC. The Greyjoys have 4, the Martells have 2. The only major house worse off than the Targaryens are the Baratheons with no POV characters.

We see Jon Snow through Arya and Bran’s POV. We see Arya through Jon’s. We get none of this for Dany. The Starks have a home and a loving family. Dany meanwhile is starting off the story at her lowest point - an abusive brother and forcefully married off to a Dothraki. While the Starks then end up losing that security, family members die, one of them is a hostage and the other is on the run - they still have memories of each other. Danerys meanwhile, slowly and painfully works her way to the top.

Reminds me of a post I responded to the other day, where the OP said that Arya and Jon cannot be underdogs because they are winners (Whatever that means). That’s the attitude that a lot of fandom has towards Daenerys - now that she is queen and has power, she has it easy compared to the likes of Sansa and the rest of the Starks. Ignoring that when the books started Daenerys was in a way worse position than any of the Starks.

This is a fandom that thinks that Sansa Stark deserves to be Queen in the North because she’s beautiful, has good manners and is a Stark. And this is the same fandom who think that Daenerys, who worked her way to the top - with no family to help, no happy childhood, no teachers, no security of food and shelter, who were beggars and on the run at one point - the Daenerys who is currently spending an entire book ruling a city state, making trade deals, dealing with an insurgency and famine, engaging in marriage diplomacy to sue for peace for the slaves she freed, that Daenerys is entitled. Do you agree?

I am a Jon Snow fan and even I can see how utterly ridiculous the fan discourse around Daenerys is. When the show was on, I was only posting about Jon and there was so much anti Dany stuff on the Jon Snow tags I had to wade into discussion about the character. And the more I defended her, the more I ended up re-reading her chapters, the more I ended up loving the character. There’s so much hypocrisy and sexist double standards where the character is concerned.

And I have not even touched upon the obnoxiousness that is ‘Jonsa’ - group of morons who think Sansa is the main character in a book series called A Song of Sansa and Sansa and Jon is secretly in love with Sansa who is going to be Queen with executioner/personal spymaster Arya Stark and her consort Jon Snow who will sexually manipulate and murder Daenerys for his great love Sansa.

Sansa fans make up the vast majority of asoiaf fans on Tumblr and the majority of them dislike Daenerys and Arya or see Dany as Sansa’s antagonist - even though these two characters have no connection in the books and I doubt they would ever interact. If you look at most of the anti Dany posts on here, they will be made by someone with a Sansa pfp. There are posts about how Jon will kill Dany or how Arya will kill Dany, and if you look at their blogs they will be big Sansa fans.

These are the same people who write essays on how Arya is not a real girl or is ‘male-coded’ or who write essays on how Daenerys only uses ‘threats and force’ whereas Sansa is apparently a political genius who uses ‘Soft Power’ - a foreign policy concept - because she talked down 13 year old idiot Joffrey that one time. When in the actual books, it’s Daenerys who has used Soft Power in her marriage diplomacy with Hizdahr and Sansa has never engaged in any kind of politics with actual adults.

Notice that these kinds of ‘metas’ are popularized by fandom bnfs using blogs like asoiafuniversity. There’s this very popular idea that’s propagated in fandom that Sansa is kind and compassionate when in the actual books there are more instances of kindness and compassion from Arya and from Daenerys. This is once again an example of how sexism and misogyny in this fandom has worked to give the wrong impressions of these characters. Arya and Daenerys are seen as more violent compared to Sansa even though Daenerys’ entire arc for two books has been about helping an oppressed population. The mind boggles!

It’s the same when it comes to love and romance. Arya and Daenerys are not considered worthy of love, romance and marriage because they are the wrong kind of girls. And let’s not bring age into this considering Sansa is 11 at the start of the books and she is the fandom bicycle shipped with every Tom, Dick and Harry.

I am not even getting into the slut-shaming and victim blaming that Daenerys gets in the fandom. There was actual discourse in this fandom on how Dany was not a good rape victim like Sansa because she brought up her rape in conversation! Daenerys is somehow seen as less than because she can’t possibly have children - that apparently makes her less of a woman and a bad partner for Jon Snow unlike Sansa Stark who will surely have ten babies!

The worst part is that’s it women who engage in this kind of discourse and the same women who turn around and gaslight the fandom into thinking that Sansa is unfairly targeted because of sexism.

There’s also the usual dislike from the fans of other characters.

There are Jon Snow fans who see him as the prophesied hero and main protagonist, who don’t like Daenerys coming over and taking away main character status. I personally think there is no one main character. IMO, Jon, Dany, Arya, Bran and Tyrion are all tier one main characters, who will work together against the Army of the Dead. [Note: This works the other way as well. I have seen Dany fans who dislike Jon Snow as well and think he is unimportant in the grand scheme of things]

There are Stannis Baratheon stans over on the Asoiaf subreddit who will excuse everything Stannis does - including burning people alive for his God - and then nitpick every single policy decision of Dany’s in order to argue she is evil or a bad ruler.

There are house Stark fans who hate House Targaryen and see them as in opposition to each other. There are fans who believe in Northern exceptionalism i.e the North is special and Dany is a threat to that specialness because she wants the 7K etc. etc.

This turned out to be a long post. On the whole, the answer to your question on why Daenerys is such a polarizing character is mainly because of sexism. There are other factors like the setting and isolation of her story, the lack of other POVs etc. The main reason though is sexism and ship wars.

#asks #ask

237 notes · View notes