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heinzpilsner · 3 months

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Annnd here's another issue of the "autistic nerd trying make sense of the Southern Raiders zutara narrative on her own" series, because of course it is

I need to write all those posts to regain my honor, don't judge me

You know, my main point of confusion in relation to tSR episode always was this: "Why exactly Katara forgave Zuko in the end? What changed between them during this trip? By which intricate mechanism such a stressful and unfruitful trip was able to improve Katara's relationship with a boy she supposedly hated just days ago so drastically?"

(Spoiler: I finally found the answer!)

All of my hypotheses for a long time didn't sound convincing to me though:

1) Did Katara forgive Zuko because he helped her in her revenge in general?

Obviously, facing Yon Rha didn't really resulted in Katara being happy or satisfied. Quite the contrary, it was a rather unpleasant trip - a trip she spent with a person she supposedly barely tolerated. You'd think, by association, it would make her dislike Zuko even more than before, not forgive him. So, not likely.

2) Did Katara forgive Zuko because after the trip, she was no longer linking* her "mother loss"-connected anger with him, as Zuko guessed?

But... why the association would break? Or anger would subside? Just as a result of yelling at Yon Rha? Sounds like bullshit to me:

- Katara is still angry at Yon Rha in the end of the episode, because anger management doesn't really work like this;

- Katara's anger at Yon Rha, her anger at the Fire Nation and her anger at Zuko, while associatively united, are three separate entities, hence they require individual specific approach to them anyway.

(*associative nature of Katara's anger towards Zuko could be true in itself though - after Ba Sing Se disaster, she linked him in her mind to both "mother" and "most traumatic experiences related to the Fire Nation").

3) Did she forgive Zuko because during the trip he fought so readily against his own nation?

Doesn't sound convincing - he already fought guards at the Boiling Rock and his own sister previously, and Katara was only angrier at him afterwards.

4) Did she forgive him because he sided with her against Aang's preaching?

Not enough in itself, especially considering her supposed hatred towards Zuko.

5) Did she forgive him because he called her mother a brave woman? Not enough in itself. And how dare he comment on her mother at all after his betrayal anyway? The nerve! Just another reason for Katara to be angry, it seems. Except... She really wasn't, for some reason. Hmmm.

(Why she decided to tell him the story of her mother's death at this point at all? Wasn't she supposed to merely tolerate his presence? What a truuuly confusing mystery!)

6) Did she forgive Zuko because he fought so enthusiastically on her behalf?

Also doubtful. Such an enthusiasm from a person you don't like (or even hate) would only be unpleasant, and 'mr and mrs smith" synchronicity of movements with him would feel disturbing. Who does he think he is?! If Katara hates him, it is not Zuko's place to act like this. It also wasn't his place to wait all night in front of Katara's tent - that would be creepy af. This kind of behaviour would work against him in her eyes, not for his benefit. So nope, no forgiveness.

(Unless, of course... She didn't really hate him as much as she made it seem in the first place? Buuut it's too early to settle on this explanation, hehe.)

7) Did she forgive him because he didn't comment at her bloodbending?

Not enough in itself. And it only shows what an awful, awful person he truly is anyway.

8) Did she forgive him because of something that happened after Yon Rha - something the audience didn't get to see?

Well, in all seriousness, that just wouldn't be a good storytelling move. So, nope, bad hypothesis. (Could be true within universe though).

9) Oops. The last hypothesis I have is a romantic one I mentioned in my different post. In short - Katara was angry at Zuko because he didn't seem to realise the importance of their connection in Ba Sing Se for her. But when he offered to revenge her mother, it was a signal he finally understood. Hence, she forgave him.

So, in the end, we have two convicing hypotheses at our hands (6 и 9):

- one which works only under condition that Katara didn't really hate Zuko at the start of the trip;

- downright romantic one;

And several satellite ones, each of which implies Zuko's full acceptance of Katara.

So... Here's my answer, I guess.

I basically came to the same conclusion about the nature of zutara interaction in tSR as before, just by different path. And I didn't even have to use romantic framing as an argument this time, which is a big improvement in my books, lol.

The only question left though - if Katara didn't really hate Zuko, why she lashed out at him after their escape from the Western Air Temple?

Well, I'd guess that Katara was generally frustrated at this point. By Azula's attack, by the new separation of her family, by need to hide and run, by war, by the whole situation, really. She was pissed. So she lashed out at the only Fire Nation person around. Basically, it wasn't something personal at this point (...Until Zuko decided that to ask her why she doesn't trust him like all the normal people do is a good idea lol. Oh boy).

Something like this, I guess.

Now I wonder if the writer of the episode meant it to be read that way, or she just wasn't so good at psychology, and all those implications were purely coincidental, lol.

Or maybe it's me who isn't good at psychology, and all I just said was no more than a load of bullshit induced by my lack of sleep?

Well, who knows.

Definitely not me. I'm not a psychologist - I'm a Melon Lord, Bwahahaha!

(... No, really, I'm not a psychologist, don't trust me)

#atla #zutara #zuko #katara

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beautifulpersonpeach · 6 months

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Hello BBP can you please please tell me what do you mean when you say Jimin confounds his solo fans with Jimin biased armys? I've seen solos say Jimin has addressed them by saying "my fans and army" or something like that (I tried looking for the source of that pic and haven't found it). And I remember Jin saying he would be in trouble if he says something to Jimin since he has a lot of fans. Also that one pic that solos use of Jimin drawing fans with "BTS" and "PJM" banners (I know the source of that one). I think ksolos also used what he said in the Festa Dinner about the meaning of Army and Fans to their favor but to this day I have no idea what he meant with those words. I don't know korean, so that's something I don't understand. So based on those things to me it seemed like he knew of the existence of solos or fans who like him the most. It seems I could be missing many things that's why I would like your help with this. This may seem like a little thing but with how akgaes are moving these days, I would like your opinion. Bc akgaes act like they don't need validation and selflessly support their fave even if they would hate them for disliking BTS, but then they would show me proof of Jimin validating them. So they do need the validation after all. Did Jimin validate them by mistake because he confuses them?

***

Hi Anon,

I believe what I actually said is that Jimin confounds his solo stans and many Jimin-biased ARMYs. Not with. Meaning he tends to confuse or bewilder them with his actions. At the time, I was referring to how I'd often get asks from Jimin biases asking why he acts in certain ways such as being shy or not posting on social media; or how often his solo stans would rain hell over him not having/doing something, only for it to be revealed that he didn't actually want it. Such as the OSTs and more recently, him not posting the BB cake he received despite all the chaos from PJMs.

Time and time again I'd see his solos wonder why he doesn't act in-line with their expectations, why he's not active, why he doesn't insist for this or that, why he doesn't push more. They usually conclude that he must be a pushover, overly selfless, 'too kind for his own good', or some sort of sacrificial lamb. When his actions, to me at least, actually reveal the opposite. That's what I meant, Anon.

But more to your point, Jimin has mentioned ‘fans’ and ARMYs before, but typically in a way where it's clear he uses them interchangeably, meaning he's not actually referring to akgaes. During Festa, the first person who said "fans and ARMY" was actually Namjoon, when they were talking about the red line connecting them and their tattoos. He used it in a way to mean two different groups of people. Later during the dinner, Jimin said he hopes the meaning of what it is to be ARMY (their fan) doesn't change in Chapter 2, but contrary to Namjoon's usage, Jimin used those terms (i.e. "fan" and "ARMY") interchangeably. So if solos wanted to pick any member's words as the basis for their validation, they'd be better off choosing RM, than Jimin. When Jimin wrote PJM he was of course referring to himself as those letters are his initials. So in that example too, he was referring to the connection he (PJM) has with his fans (ARMY), not referring to two groups of fans.

Anyway, the members are all aware that they have solo stans. They know what akgaes are, just as they know what sasaengs are, and sometimes they loosely acknowledge them, but generally make the point to credit ARMY for their success. Jimin more than most members to that point.

I personally find it kinda… you know, lame, when ARMYs stress that they’re recognized and loved by BTS and solos aren’t. Because, as you’ve noticed:

1. Solos don’t actually care what their chosen idol thinks. If they did they’d listen to him, respect his choices and not seek to interlope or control him, which by definition they do. Their solo stanning experience is more to help regulate their own emotions regarding the object of their obsession, than actually loving Jimin. So while they’d love to be acknowledged by him, they’re fine to not have that co-sign because their actions are really more for them than for him. So ARMYs pointing out that a member mentions ARMY rather than ‘fans’ might hurt an akgae, but for most of them they wouldn’t really care.

2. Too many ARMYs use the label as a 'get out of jail' card to get away with truly abhorrent behaviour. Both towards the members and towards other people in fan spaces.

3. The members do acknowledge that they have solo stans. Just not often or directly, and sometimes those references are even negative (such as when they stress gratitude to their 'real' fans who respect their bond and choices for example).

BTS in general toe a fine line with their mentioning of akgae fandoms, they recognize there are people who like only them in the group, but they are usually very deliberate about crediting their success to one entity: ARMY.

#bts #bts chapter 2 #bts army #bts fandom #bts solo stans #fandom discourse #fandom behaviour #jimin #namjoon

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marveltaughtmetoread · 1 year

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Okay, I didn't think I would have state this but I have now been accused of it multiple times by Pro-Jedi stans so here it is

Just because I think the downfall of the Jedi was inevitable doesn't mean I think it was right or good

The Jedi did not deserve to be slaughtered, let alone the younglings, the younglings were innocent and the Jedi still deserved to live

I may see the Jedi as bad and flawed but they didn't deserve to die for it, nobody deserves to die for their sins

However, I still view the Jedi's downfall as inevitable, why, because the tragedy part of the Prequels is honestly compelling

The Prequels is about a young boy full of "negative" emotions, found "too late" for the Jedi to save him, manipulated by one of the few people he is closed to, and failed by an institution that doesn't know how to help him (because whether you liked the Jedi or not, it was clear they couldn't help him, why is where we disagree), and unchallenged by the woman who loves him (Padme tried her best but quite frankly they were too distant from each other, and that's part of the tragedy)

He was thrust into violence and tragedy so he wrought violence and tragedy

This is compelling, it's execution might not be the best, but how can you look at this and not think Anakin's downfall was inevitable, how can you look at this and not wish there was a way to save them but know, because the tragedy is well thought out, that there was no way to stop it without fundamentally changing the story

That's a good tragedy, that's how they work

We don't have to think it's good to see it as inevitable, in fact the entire point of a tragedy is that we don't see it as good, we are saddened by it, but we also understand that there was nothing that could be done to stop it

It's like with Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, or Oedipus Rex getting the crown was never going to override Macbeth's guilt, Romeo and Juliet were never going to be allowed to be happy because of their families' strife, and Oedipus was always going to kill his father and marry his mother, these stories are tragic because we wished we could change the ending but know we can't, the story is already set in stone before there is a chance to change it and that's what makes them compelling

The fact that I say the downfall of the Jedi is inevitable is a testament to George Lucas'ability to craft a good story, for all I dunk on him for his many, many mistakes and bad choices with the Prequels, I genuinely think the bare bones of his story, like the characters and the plot where good

The downfall of the Jedi is tragic, it is supposed to sadden you and leave you wishing you could change it, and a good story leaves you feeling upset whilst also feeling that the ending is a natural progression of the story, me saying it is inevitable shows that I think it was a natural progression, it shows I think George Lucas actually did something well, it reveals nothing about my personal beliefs on the morality of the in canon events

I also don't see Anakin as a good person, contrary to what some might believe, I don't think killing people, even if they are those I dislike, makes you a good person, personally I think it makes you an awful person, who should be held to account for committing genocide against an entire group of people

But Anakin's morality is not why I find his character compelling the character, I find his character compelling because he is a good example of how repressed emotions only leads to more suffering, but that doesn't make him forgivable, his reasons behind committing genocide doesn't negate the fact that it is still genocide, having motivations and complexities just makes him interesting

I can find the character compelling without agreeing with them morally, in fact I enjoy his character because I don't agree with him but I can see how he ended up the way he did and it makes him compelling to watch

And I really, really don't think he was redeemed by killing Palpatine and saving Luke at the end of the Original Trilogy, this man directly and on-screen killed children, probably directly murdered millions, if not billions, and was indirectly responsible for hell knows how many deaths, turning against his master should have been the start of his very long and never ending road to redemption not the end but Lucas clearly has a different worldview than me so here we are

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roxannepolice · 9 months

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A little bit of GOS2 criticism crossed my dash, mostly of the not like the book variety (not plot-wise, obviously, only in the sense that it went away from the spirit of the book). Leaving aside the fact as a Stanley Kubrick* fan I don't find this a compelling argument at all, I'm really not raging against the fact that there are people who dislike the things I like, not even blocking anyone, that's for politics, filtering serves just perfectly. But I think I see a pattern in the criticisms original/classic material fans levy against adaptations/continuations in Good Omens (that sometimes includes the first season too), Doctor Who and Sherlock Holmes fandoms. If you bite your way through the overgrow of whatever social policy is on the menu it boils down to overfocusing on characters, and in the case of GO overfocusing on characters that aren't even strictly protagonists. And if you've followed me for a while you may have noticed that this sometimes annoys me, too. Sometimes I dress it in fancy wording of precession of simulacrae, sometimes I just bitch about TTC. So I started thinking about why it doesn't bother me, and in fact is a thing that fills me with insane feuertrunkenness** when done right - by which I mostly mean 2nd season of Sherlock, RTD/early Moffat era of Doctor Who, and the 2nd season of Good Omens. So, obviously, I started thinking of Francisco de Goya y Lucientes.

Say hello to my icon and one of most favourite works of visual arts. The simple truth about Goya is that he was an absolute genius in realistic painting. He was flexing away his way across the Spanish court with his compositions, and fabrics, and wrinkles, and light work. He was straight up academically and technically brilliant. He was a product of the European fashion of the time. And yet he could also, especially as his own health and political situation in the country deteriorated, he could also do so. much. drama. So much vision, so much phantasmagoric nightmares. So much introspection. Without even for a moment falling down the chute of sentimentalist navel gazing that the romantic era so often went down.

I don't really like periodization, good art is good art, but paradigmatic shifts are definitely a thing. And there are those amazing artists who bring the older, more established, more as Jung would put it, externalized paradigm to perfection and push it further without losing the sight of it. This is Goya, this is Botticelli, this is Goethe, this is very late Mozart, this is Beethoven. Wagner is a great example because there's this definite moment around the Flying Dutchman and Lohengrin when he finds his style without overpompousing it. And this is an extremely difficult rope to walk! Falling down the rabbit hole of overthinking your own work, and especially overthinking pop cultural phenomena is way way wayyyy too easy for anyone to walk it. The temptation to overpower them is way too strong for mere mortals to resist it.

But it is possible. RTD showed it is possible to do so for over 50 hours of material. The point be that the drama, the sturm und drung and lebenschmertz and whatnot emerge naturally from the story, rather than fitting the story specifically to make it dramatic and navel gazy. It'll be a bit mean now, but it's the difference between the self made tragedy of the last of the time lords and a literal species ready to change reality to find out the Doctor's true name, which matters, but not, but does.

And I think Neilman did hit that sweet spot in the second season. Yes, people are complaining about Aziraphale and Crowley coming off as "too important", especially Crowley***, which is completely contrary to the book, but this remains elegantly within the realms of interpretation. It's introspective and dramatic without navel gazing and tragedy for tragedy's sake. And knowing his other works I feel fairly confident he won't be falling off that rope.

And I wouldn't be a McLuhanist if I didn't mention that television is a medium naturally more likely to focus on characters because of its episodic character (stories end, banter is forever) and the fact it was the first medium where characters were literally at people's homes.

* Don't inform me that he wasn't the nicest person but was a veritable nightmare to work with, I mean his FILMS.

** Sorry for the German vocab, but what can I say, they really made a point when they started splashing words together.

*** My three cents on pre-fall Crowley's archangelic status is that I still like the inversion and irony, but I liked it better when the theory was getting excommunicated as *checks notes* too classist, rather than sth you vagued Neilman about on Tumblr.

#tw: negativity #some i guess? more criticism but anyway #good omens #good omens season 2 #doctor who #bbc sherlock #cultural ramblings #do other cultures even have digressive poems? think sheherezade telling a story venturing into another story venturing into another story #neil gaiman #rtd #sorry just needed to vent #long post

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bestruction · 3 years

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How it’d be to watch animes with them

A/N: While i’m working on my Mikasa x reader royal au, this little idea came to my mind. I tried to put the links when i mentioned a specific scene and speak a little about the anime in case you don’t know it. So here it’s:

Warnings: Me exposing my otaku self, mentions of 18+ animes (Not hentais)

Eren - Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai: Tensai-tachi no Renai Zunousen (13+)

A / N: The main characters like each other, but none wants to confess because being the person who takes the first step would also represent being the defeated person. The anime develops in a series of plans that both elaborate to make the other confess their love.

Warnings: None

It was his idea to watch an anime together since the two of you liked it a lot. You saw no harm and agreed to go to sleep with your boyfriend on Friday night. So, you would have the dawn and the weekend to see everything.

“We could watch One piece! Everybody likes"

“In three days ?! We will not finish even if we do not take breaks ”

"Naruto then?"

“Haven't you seen it all five times or more?

"But it is a classic!"

"It is also too long!"

He would sulk when he saw you reject each of his suggestions for being too big animes. The truth was, he was trying to convince you to stay longer. After much searching in the catalog, you choose to watch a short comedy of 12 episodes.

Biggest mistake ever

Eren is already annoying by nature, and after watching Kaguya-sama's two seasons he would spend the day and night trying to get you to confess to him EVEN IF YOU'VE BEEN IN LOVE FOR TWO YEARS AND HE HAS BEEN THE FIRST TO DECLARE. HIT HIM, PLEASE.

"Do you think that using such a low trick will make me give in?"

“Eren, I just got out of the shower. What trick? Wear an outfit? ”

“Showing off your skin won't make you win”

If you wanted to play with him, great. You are going to spend the day in this little game until he gets tired and just hugs you or something because he can't spend a lot of time without touching you. But if you didn't want to, just you could use that touchy side of him against him too.

"Maybe I shouldn't show you anything else then"

"Yes, of course, do- Wait what?"

"You heard"

“NO, BABE! YOU WON! I CONFESS! I LOVE YOU"

Watching anime with him would be quite an experience. For being very verbal, Eren would be the type of person who doesn't shut up watching anything. Especially, something that makes him laugh. You would see him laughing out loud and throwing himself back on the couch or on you, whether you were with him or not. You may even complain, but it would be fun to see him react to everything as immediately and naturally as an unfiltered child.

He will sing ALL the openings for the rest of the days around the house until you are humming some without realizing it.

For some reason, can I imagine him doing Chika dance ?? Yes, please film this big bear dancing like a little girl.

Levi - Death parade

A / N: Do you want to cry and hurt yourself? This is the right place. Death Parade is a story about what happens after death. The characters are sent to mysterious bars where they will be judged to decide the fate of the souls themselves. (18+)

Warnings: Suicide, depressive themes, mentions of rape and domestic violence

I don't see Levi watching many animes. In fact, I don't see him watching much anything at all. He would be the type of person who can't spend a lot of time in front of the television without feeling like he's wasting time. Which would result in a very selective and demanding taste.

He would always read the reviews about the film, and after watching it, he would make his own. Ever. No exceptions. Unlike Impossible-to-be-quiet-Eren, Levi would be silent to be able to capture and understand all the details. This is interesting because getting his attention is a difficult task. But once it's done, he is 100% focused on the story and immersed in the characters.

So, after reading about it, he would agree to watch Death Parade with you.

He would have low expectations at first, and if the anime failed to hold his very difficult attention in three episodes, he wouldn't even try with the rest.

So when in the first episode, all suspense and doubts left to the viewer entered Ackerman's head, he would finish the other 11 without realizing it.

As a rational person, he would love things that make him think and reflect on the proposed theme. In the case: Life and death.

For some reason, I imagine him as someone who would like to study and read philosophy as a hobby and that he would love Nietzsche? So, you could expect deep conversations after each episode.

But without any arrogance, humanity's strongest soldier might not be the most talkative man in humanity, but surely when he opened his mouth to it, it wouldn’t be to show himself off with something that he knows and you don’t. On the contrary, he would be more than happy to explain if you asked and added your opinion.

He wouldn't cry, but he would be touched by the way the emotions were shown and created in the characters.

He would probably see the scene where Decim cries more than once for being impressed with how the pain of a character who is supposedly not flesh and blood is expressed so well.

And after the anime is over, you would always see him listening to the music of the ice skating scene around the house while doing something.

When you were finished watching everything, you would talk again about the anime. You lying on his chest and he touching his hair, smelling him.

"Do you believe in reincarnation, Levi?"

“If so, I wouldn't go back to this shit a second time. No matter what they offered me ”

"Levi!"

"Unless it was to have you again"

“What a cliché” He would roll his eyes after hearing your response “But I like clichés”

Again, he wouldn't cry, but he would be thinking about how ephemeral things can be, including being alive. Then you can expect a more touchy Levi for a few days.

Jean - Banana Fish

N / A: Another one to cry and get hurt. Banana Fish is way more than just a story about one character just is hard to define. So in case, you didn’t watch it, here’s the trailer. (18+)

warnings: pedophilia, rape, violence, drugs, your heart being destroyed

You know that guy who says that no yaoi is good, it's just a way to feed a bunch of fujoshi and stuff like that? Jean. It's him. I just know it. So when you suggested Banana Fish and said it was a BL / yaoi, he would probably laugh and ignore the idea.

But after insisting a little and showing him the many compliments that both the anime and the manga received, he would accept.

At first, he wouldn't pay much attention. He really thought it would be just another bad anime. But by the end of the first episode, he would be too involved in the story to stop.

I think he would love crime novels for the same reason that Levi: To think. Try to find out how things are going to end and pick up any clues that the author has left about the ending. So the plot would hold him so much because he would make a ton of theories about the end.

He will ship Ash and Eiji with all his soul. I mean, how can he not ship? To see an anime in which the physical touch between the couple doesn't really happen and still builds a well-developed and healthy relationship would be a new experience for him.

Jean is somewhat similar to Eren in this respect. So you can expect to see him huffing in anger, cursing one of the characters, throwing a pillow away, or using it to hide a tear or two that he would let go of you. The kind of person who gets emotionally involved with the things he watches.

He would cry an entire river after watching the last episode and deny it later.

“I was not crying. The cushion fabric made my eyes itch a lot ”

Show him again and he will cry the same amount and intensity

Armin - Haikyuu

A / N: Considering all the texts on Tumblr for haikyuu characters, I’m pretty sure you know what anime it’s lol (10+)

Armin is an otaku with a license card and no one can change my mind. He would probably start watching it as a child. So, his first animes would be everyone's classics: Naruto, Dragon Ball Z, Bleach, etc.

So it would be normal that as the vast majority, he would continue to have a preference for shounen when he grew up. So it would be your idea to see Haikyuu.

He would have low expectations because he thought it would be just another anime with cute characters for everyone to be thirsty as an inverted harem. And also because the synopsis does not create a strong impression, especially for those who consume shounen daily.

"So we are just gonna see a little boy trying to catch a ball?"

“It's gonna be good! Everyone is talking about it now ”

"Does he have some superpower?"

"No"

"Something scary?"

"Armin, just give a chance!"

He would like it. Did I say he would like it? Because he would love it. The atmosphere created and well developed with such a simple plot would hold his attention well. (Is it possible to dislike Hinata in the first episode?)

It would be a great anime for him to watch because 1. It is different from what he usually sees. Unlike shounen, Haikyuu deals only with real and tangible scenarios. Of course, still with that touch of anime, but it is very easy to recognize yourself in the characters and learn from them and therefore reflect on yourself as well.

It would be great to make him think about his own insecurities and how most of them were inside his head.

He would be so immersed in the anime universe that he would have to pause the game scenes because he would be too nervous waiting for the ball to fall.

You will probably see him taking a deep breath in each drawing scene of the characters and see him truly cheering for the team as if it were a real national game.

More than that, you will see his eyes full of tears when Yamaguchi hit the serve in the match against Aoba johsai.

In fact, Yamaguchi would be his favorite character. No discussions.

"I said it would be good"

"Shut up"

"Make me"

Mikasa - Heaven’s official blessing

A / N: I'm going to leave the trailer here because I don't know how to define it very well. It's a novel, but the story doesn't focus ONLY on that. (14+)

Okay, you didn't suggest. She did not suggest. So how do you end up watching together? You catch her watching when you come home by surprise lol

Until then, you would know that she watched some anime, but nothing romantic. Never. In fact, that was her little secret.

Although common sense is that Mikasa would be cold even in a modern au (and I agree in parts). I think she would be the type of person who loves to see the sweetest and softest things to melt alone on the couch without anyone seeing. A moment for herself and a part of her that she would not show to anyone.

You would already know about her romantic side, but seeing her under the covers sighing while watching the Netflix special episode is a totally different story.

Please don’t mock her!!. She would be red enough by the time she was discovered.

When she was less shy, she would ask if you want to watch with her. She would say she saw no problem watching it with you again since doing it with you would be a different experience.

If you accept, you would spend the rest of the night in the room sharing a blanket and absorbing the soft atmosphere, the soundtrack, and the Chinese culture so present in history.

She would not speak a lot because she was paying attention, but she would hug you all the time. In the romantic scenes, she would tighten her arms around you a little and sometimes left a kiss on your shoulder.

I think she could relate to Hua Cheng's way of loving. He is always there to protect, care for and see his lover even if sometimes Xie Lian doesn't even know.

And that is what she wants to show you, that more than a girlfriend, she is also someone you can count on.

Days later, you will see her reading the rest of the work around the house because she couldn't stand to wait for a second season.

And later, SURELY melting and vibrating while watching Mo Dao Zu Shi.

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shihalyfie · 2 years

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What do you think Ryō’s main personality traits are in Tamers besides just “badass”? I keep trying to remember his personality, but that’s all I can really remember about him. I don’t want to just label him “bland” because of how subtle this series can get, so I’m wondering what your thoughts are.

Tamers doesn't have as much of a severe subtlety issue as Adventure and 02 had, so we do unfortunately have to take most of what we see of Ryou at face value. Unfortunately, the games don't give anyone much to work with since story coherence wasn't really their big priority, and this was a limited-memory handheld game series from 1999-2001; those weren't really known for story. (For the record, a handful of stuff you'll see around English-speaking fandom or wikis regarding the games or Ryou in their context is either made up or headcanon at best. If you've read the actual transcriptions of the games or seen footage of them, they're very minimal.)

We do know that Ryou's personality in Tamers takes influence from his voice actor, Kanemaru Junichi (to the point it was implied he'd have a very different personality if he'd been in a 02 movie as originally planned), and Kanemaru has a very "bright and refreshing" personality that rubs off on everyone around him -- to wit, his personality influencing his roles extends to outside Digimon, and he's well-known for having played Sonic the Hedgehog in Japan. I think if you think about Sonic, you kind of get an idea -- Ryou doesn't seem to be as cocky as Sonic, but he has some of that overconfident self-assured atmosphere you'd also label "refreshing". On that note, Ruki labeling him as "refreshing" (sawayaka) with a sort of passive-aggressive nuance isn't exclusive to this usage; back during 02, Takeru having a sort of dodgy ^^ smiley and overly kind personality was also referred to by fans and staff as being somewhat of this, so I think you can kinda get the impression of what the nuances of that word are.

It also is true that Hirokazu and Kenta play up his apparent amazingness more than he does himself; he's pretty level-headed about the whole thing. He does talk back a little at Ruki giving him the cold shoulder, but it's not much more than anyone else would in a situation of someone acting like she did to you all of a sudden. (Other than the lack of context meaning most non-Japanese audience had no preexisting investment in Ryou, I also think the American English dub did kind of exacerbate any inclinations to dislike him because they changed a lot of the nuances to imply Rika was hung up over him "not remembering her" or whatnot and removes a lot of Ryou's general politeness/amiability, whereas in Japanese Ruki was rather more obviously initially off-put by his general "refreshing"-but-kind-of-dodgy personality while Ryou seemed genuinely interested in getting along normally.)

We do learn in episode 42 that he's not from Tokyo as the other kids are, but Fukuoka, up to speaking in fairly obvious Fukuoka dialect between himself and his dad, whom he seems to have a good relationship with. Said dad also deflected the paparazzi wanting Ryou to get some privacy, so it's inferable that neither are actually all that interested in him getting so much attention, and it ties into Ryou never coming off as particularly arrogant. Message in the Packet elaborates that he'd willingly rushed into the Digital World without a second thought to help Cyberdramon and confessed to having not thought through how this would worry his dad (the fact he singles out his dad specifically implies a mother may not be present). Contrary to how Hirokazu and Kenta frame it, he also acknowledges Ruki's talents, and while some of the things he says around her could be construed as teasing, he does have a point in that she's blatantly taking out a grudge against him (could have done without that one comment from Message in the Packet, but he follows it up with an apology and taking it back...but then again Message in the Packet is arguably more ship baity than anything in the base series about this issue).

I think the best way to see the situation surrounding Ryou in Tamers is that he was effectively the Digimon equivalent of Red in Pokémon. The first-generation Pokémon games gave you absolutely nothing to work with regarding Red besides him being a silent protagonist and lurking on a mountain at some point, but due to the fascination with the limited nature of the games, the fandom came to see him as some kind of memetic badass and would balk at the idea of him being portrayed as anything less (and indeed, official media that gives him much of a personality like Adventures or Origins is rare). On top of that, for all it seems like, Bandai wasn't particularly great at coordinating with Toei for all of this, and although there was a push from both Bandai and Toei ends to find a way to integrate anime and game canon together, the fact the games were being developed in parallel to the anime (with existing contradictions to Adventure and 02 already) meant that it seemed to be a losing battle to make them work together at all. Seki's infamous statement of Tamers Ryou being an amnesiac Adventure/02 Ryou was even admitted by a certain writer as something she was likely obligated to come up with in order to satisfy the interests of everyone involved, and I doubt that idea was seriously on the table when working on his character in Tamers. Other than Message in the Packet (which was penned by Konaka), Yoshimura was also apparently responsible for most of everything about Ryou's personality, and his portrayal there is a very specifically Tamers thing. So while this is just my speculation, I think, for similar reasons as Red, the Tamers anime staff was hesitant to be too aggressive with giving Ryou a portrayal that would contradict Bandai's portrayal too much or ruin fans' image of him, which means having to play it safe a bit.

#shiha's ask box #ree-fireparrot #digimon tamers

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softsebnbuckystan · 3 years

Text

Soul ties - Part 8 (Bucky Barnes au)

“No, I don't wanna know, Where you been or where you're goin'

But I know I won't be home, And you'll be on your own”

Maniac by Michael Sembello was blasting from Wanda's room as she was going through her closet, looking for something you could wear at the party. You were tapping your feet to the beat and shaking your head softly.

"This is perfect," Wanda said as she handed you jean shorts and a T-shirt. Finding something in your style had been hard, but the outfit turned out really cute on you. "And before you ask, I still have your plaid shirt if you want to wear that."

Your sister knew you too well ; or maybe it was just her ability to read minds. You were pretty sure it was a mix of both. You looked at your watch : five in the afternoon were already passed and you knew Nat was supposed to arrive soon, so you went to the kitchen after changing. Actually, she was already there.

"Nat!"

"Happy birthday, girl! How do you feel about hitting thirty, huh?"

"Surprisingly good, to be honest," you answered as you hug her tight. "I'm glad you came by."

"Me too. Steve told me pretty interesting news about some guy." She wiggled her brows, making you raise yours.

"Not that interesting. Yes, he is my supposed soulmate, but I got married last week, not matter how that's turning out."

"Yeah, sorry I couldn't be there, by the way. However, if I trust Steve's words..."

"Don't? Please." You smiled, making her laugh. You really must've sounded desperate, or in denial – or, once again, both.

"Fine. But I can't promise I'll hold back my thoughts."

"I know you won't," you joked. "Anyway, is the cake already here?" You asked Sam.

"No, Bucky's not back yet."

"Oh, alright. I thought since he left early..."

"He had stuff to do, apparently." He shrugged, showing he didn't know any more than you did. A smirk appeared on his face. "Miss him already?"

"Ugh, I hate you all."

"No, you don't!"

Everyone around you laughed and, frankly, you couldn't hold it in either. These people always had a way of making you forget about your problems, and Darren hadn't crossed your mind until now. Hours went by and more people arrived at the compound. It wasn't supposed to be a big party, but Tony was obviously unable to resist to Peter Parker asking if he could tag along. This kid loved being around here, maybe as much as you did. Once eight hours rang, almost everyone was there, except for Bucky. You were sure he'd eventually show up, even though you couldn't help but feel a little anxious while everyone shared champagne bottles.

"Alright, close your eyes," Sam said, dragging you out of your thoughts. He put his hands on your eyes as you giggled softly.

"What is it now, you asked?"

"Patience, lady."

You couldn't see anything – obviously – but you soon heard voices around you singing you a happy birthday. When Sam removed his hands, your eyes took some time to adjust to the sparkling candles on the big birthday cake. More importantly, it took you a second to recognise the man carrying it. Where had his hair gone?

"Your hair," you whispered once he was close enough.

He shrugged. "C'mon, the candles will melt if you don't blow them out." His own smile quickly spread to your face as you blew out your thirty candles. Everyone applauded and Bucky started cutting it so that people could help themselves. Once seated next to him, you took a bite of your own piece and closed your eyes in delight.

"Raspberries. I love those."

"Yeah, Wanda said it was your favourite," he told you before eating a chunk of cake. "How do you like the party so far?"

"I love it. Everyone I love is here, so I couldn't be happier, really." You didn't even think about what you were saying. Tony's champagne did that to you for sure.

"Everyone?"

"Of course, why do you ask?" You gave him a confused look before it dawned on you. "Oh, I know. Well if he's not here by now, I guess that means something."

"Well I'm not the one saying it. It's your night, anyway, so let's not talk about him and let you have fun." He gently poked your arm – you felt delighted, as it was him who'd made the move this time. It felt as if he was becoming more comfortable around you : you'd noticed he'd been laughing with you a lot more frequently these last few days.

"So, why the new haircut?"

"I wanted some change. New me, old me, I guess." He took a sip of his beer.

"I like it. Can I have some?" You pointed at the bottle. He gladly handed it to you ; damn, this man did not know what one beer might do to you, especially after champagne.

Wanda spotted you from across the room and stopped walking towards you, interrupting her conversation with Scott Lang.

"I hope that's your first drink tonight," she said with a grin. "You don't want to expose your party demon now, do you?"

You chuckled at Bucky's scared eyes. "I'm taking this back," he said, taking his beer back and finishing it.

"Don't worry, Bucky. I'm fine. I'm just a little more outgoing when I drink, that is all."

A screeching sound made you turn your head : Steve had just plugged a microphone into the speakers.

"Alright, so, as you all know, tonight's Y/n's thirtieth birthday. For the occasion, I'm sure she'll gladly treat us to a speech now."

If looks could kill, Steve would've died on the spot, super soldier or not. You never had inspiration for that kind of stuff.

"C'mon guys, she needs some encouragement," Sam chimed in.

Tony and Peter both whoo'ed at you with huge smiles, and you had no other choice than going on that improvised stage which consisted of the space between the speakers. You took the microphone from Steve's hand and Nat handed you a beer.

"Oh my, thanks for that," you said, chuckling. "I want to thank you all for coming. You might have known me for a while, or not, but hum...you guys are family. I couldn't be happier to celebrate thirty years on Earth with you." You raised your bottle in front of you. "To found family."

Everyone drank to that, and you jumped as Sam placed his hand on your shoulder and started speaking in another mic.

"So many emotions there, I love to see it. Now we're not done with you. Remember that night in Brooklyn?"

"Oh no."

"Oh, yeah... we're gonna do it. And you're gonna love it, don't you dare say otherwise."

You stared at Sam before downing your drink. He was damn right.

"Okay Scott, fire away!"

"Toniiight, I'm gonna have myself a real good time..." Sam started singing this fabulous bop as the music soared in the air. You obviously joined him right away.

"I'm burning through the skyyyyy, yeah." You probably were not singing right, but you couldn't have cared less. Everyone around you was singing – more like yelling – along and you finally let go of your last inhibitions. You were singing and dancing, pretending you were the international rock star giving a representation. For once, you saw a wide smile on Bucky's face that couldn't seem to go away, and you decided to have fun with him a little. You pointed at him and smiled as you basically jumped to the beat.

"I'm a sex machine ready to reload like an atom bomb about to oh, oh, oh, oh exploooode!"

He couldn't help but laugh and he even started tapping his feet to the beat as well. You went back to Sam and you ended the song back to back, definitely yelling more than you were actually singing.

"See, I told you you'd love it!" he exclaimed.

You laughed out loud before handing the mic to Scott. "You have fun now, I gotta rest for a sec."

You happily got back to Wanda and Bucky as Scott and Sam were joined by Peter to keep this improvised karaoke going. Your sister was less than surprised, since this wasn't the first party she had with you. Bucky, on the other hand...

"I didn't know you could do that," he said with a grin.

"What, absolutely slay the day with a mic in my hand? Hell yeah I can, only after some drinks though."

"Yeah, I don't know if your cheeks are this red from drinks, dancing or just regular blush."

You chuckled at his laugh, even placing your hand on his shoulder while doing so. When your eyes were done squinting from all the laughs, you froze.

"Darren, I-"

"That science guy let me in."

Bruce shot you a sorry look, raising his hands in the air. "He wouldn't let me ask you for your opinion first anyway."

Damn, you hadn't realised how much everyone disliked your husband. After all, no one had ever been rude to his face, unlike his friends. Bucky turned around to face him and crossed his arms over his chest : his smile was long gone now, as if it had been only a fever dream.

"You put on quite a show there."

"Wow, so not even a 'happy birthday', huh?" You didn't even look down this time : you stared at him, no trace of a smile on your lips. "When I said you could come if you wanted to, I didn't say that so you could come and be condescending."

"I'm not gonna wish you a happy birthday after I saw you hit on that guy in a fucking song!" he yelled, pointing at Bucky. Darren's anger was so unjustified that you would've laughed at him, hadn't you been remotely nice and equally angry at him.

Bucky didn't say a word as he slowly put Darren's hand down. You noticed he'd used his metal arm, even though you knew for a fact he was right handed and usually prioritised his dominant hand. That was quite passive-agressive ; you held back a smile.

"Do you even hear what you're saying?" Keeping your cool was not an option anymore, and you walked away from everyone. Contrary to Darren's belief, you didn't like 'putting on a show'.

"We're going home, now," he said firmly. "Your little crisis lasted long enough."

"My crisis? You've left me alone at home for days and now you expect me to come back? You're unbelievable, Darren. And you started pulling this shit before we were even engaged!"

"You never complained about this, so why do it now?"

"Because I can't take it anymore! Is that so hard to believe? Is it hard to understand that I want to be treated the way I deserve?"

You ran a hand through your hair, looking at Darren in disbelief as the anger in his eyes just grew harder.

"You know what?" you continued. "If you have nothing better to say, I might as well just go back to the people who really love me. As far as I'm concerned, this" — you gestured at the both of you – "is over."

You turned around, feeling a huge confidence boost that still wasn't strong enough to overcome your disappointment.

"What's that on your back?" His voice was so low compared to seconds earlier that you looked back at him.

"What?"

He walked up to you fast, but too slowly not to be noticed by Steve and Bucky, who'd been watching the scene carefully. Despite their obvious strength, they couldn't get to you before Darren violently lifted the back of your t-shirt, scratching your back with his nail at the same time. You let out a cry and next thing you knew, Darren was pinned against the wall, held back by Bucky's arm.

"You lied," he whispered. "You do have a tattoo."

Damn. You had always been careful to wear high waisted jeans. All it took was one careless pair of shorts. You had no answer to give to him, so Darren looked at Bucky instead.

"It's you. Right? I fucking knew it." He looked back at you. "I should've known you weren't to be trusted around other guys. You're such a-"

"I think you should leave." Steve had laid his hand on his friend's shoulder to try and calm him down. Bucky let go of your husband and shot you a side glance to check on you. You were crossing your arms on your chest and your eyes had never been more interested in the floor.

"Steve's right," you uttered. "You should go." You walked away with these words. You hadn't even noticed there was no longer any music playing in the room. Silence was oppressing and everyone seeing you cry was not an option. You walked to your room in daze. Once you felt the door closing behind you, you allowed yourself to break down. It was a knock on the door that made you tilt your head up a few minutes later.

--- You have no idea how excited I am for part 9!!! If I wasn't strictly following my self-imposed rule of having two unpublished chapters at all times, I would post it right away. x) I hope you liked this one!! Feel free to give me any notes you may have : I improve thanks to readers.

Message me if you want to be added to the tag list (seeing it grow is making me so happy)!

Tag list :

@ginger-swag-rapunzel @joscelyn02 @coniumalces @writehistorynotthegrocerylist @bluemoon-icecream @lady-loki-ren @simplybombshell

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes x y/n #sebastian stan #sebastian stan x reader #sebastian stan imagine #james bucky barnes #self insert #captain america #the falcon and the winter soldier #tfatws #cacw #catws #fanfiction #x y/n #bucky x y/n #bucky x you #bucky x reader

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thegayhimbo · 3 years

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I saw your reblog about Alcide, if you don't mind answering what are your personal thoughts on him?

Hi there. Sorry for the wait on this. I actually thought this was going to be a simple answer, but I realize there's a lot I wanted to say about the character in relation to how the fandom perceives him as opposed to how he actually comes off onscreen.

When I first saw the show, my feelings about Alcide ranged from okay at best to indifferent at worst. I didn't hate him, but I didn't care for him. He wasn't my favorite character on the show, and I found most of his story (and the werewolf plots) to be boring. I was actually surprised when I came online and found out he had a following with certain fans.

Upon rewatch, I'm still mostly indifferent to Alcide, but I lean a little more towards mildly disliking him now. And a lot of that has to do with how the fandom (especially people on Reddit) treat him vs how he actually comes across in the books and on the show.

I’ll start off by saying that I never liked Alcide in the books. He was an asshole, and most of the time he used Sookie to advance his position in the werewolf pack. What little relationship he had with Sookie felt one-sided on his part. It also doesn’t help that he unfairly blamed Sookie for stuff that was out of her control (like the death of Debbie in the books or the death of his father.) His attraction to Debbie in the books is also something that doesn’t reflect well on him. Contrary to the show’s portrayal, Debbie in the books was written as a one-dimensional psychopath with a jealous streak and no redeeming qualities. She’s basically a cartoon villain with no depth to her. The result is it’s hard to understand why Alcide got into a relationship with her in the first place, and it makes it look like he was just thinking with his dick. In other words, Book Alcide was nothing to brag about.

As for the show, like I said, I’m mostly apathetic to Alcide’s character (with a few exceptions that I will talk about in a minute) and I thought he was pointless. I know he was suppose to be a vehicle to introduce Sookie to the world of werewolves, but the way that was executed didn’t work. Common consensus in the fandom seems to be that the werewolf plots in both the books and the show were tedious and forgettable. It’s ironic because I know there are Alcide fans out there, but whenever I’ve asked them about what they thought of the werewolf stories, their responses range from “I don’t remember them” to “They were bad.” A lot of fans didn’t care for them. They could have been cut from the show without affecting the main story. That’s a problem because Alcide was usually involved in those stories, and the result is it was hard to care about him because of how non-compelling they were.

As for the character himself, I wasn’t impressed with him for a number of reasons.

First, there’s his relationship with women. I didn’t pick up on this the first time, but a rewatch has shown me how sexist Alcide came off during certain moments on the show. Case in point: His relationship with Debbie. One of the big conflicts between Alcide and Debbie on the show is that they both wanted different things. Alcide didn’t want kids and was fine not being in a werewolf pack. Debbie was the opposite where she did want kids and wanted to be a part of a community. Nothing wrong with that, but it was pretty clear from the get-go that this relationship was never going to work out. The problem though is that Alcide never seemed to recognize that, and kept trying to force Debbie to be something she didn’t want to be: A housewife who didn’t have kids, who was isolated except for her and Alcide, and who spoke softly and cooked meals for him. Basically the opposite of what Debbie was. And yes, I get that Debbie had a lot of problems and made really poor choices, but Alcide’s method of imposing his idea of what she should be was not the way to have handled that. It doesn’t help that he didn’t really seem to care about what she wanted because he thought he knew what was best for her. Like I said, that’s pretty sexist on his part.

And then there’s Sookie and how she factored into Alcide’s relationship with Debbie in seasons 3-4. I find it telling that when it comes to how this situation was handled, fans are eager to blame Sookie and Debbie for the whole mess that resulted in Alcide abjuring Debbie and Debbie getting killed by Sookie, but people rarely call out Alcide for his part in all of this. Personally though, I think Alcide bears some of the blame here for what happened.

Something that’s been pointed out is that during seasons 3-4, Alcide has only known Sookie for a brief period of time. Season 3 for instance takes place over the course of 9-10 days whereas season 4 takes place over 10 days (October 21st-October 31st). That’s about 2-3 weeks at best. And yet, despite only knowing Sookie for about a week in season 3, and despite having been in love with Debbie for a number of years, he’s already pining for Sookie:

youtube

Now maybe you could argue that he saw Sookie as a replacement in season 3 because his relationship with Debbie deteriorated and he was heartbroken. However, that excuse doesn’t hold up in season 4 when he’s supposed to have repaired his relationship with Debbie during the year Sookie was gone in faerie-land, and yet he’s still lusting for Sookie despite only knowing her for a short period of time.

It’s so telling to me that only a few days after Debbie’s death in season 5, Alcide tries to have sex with Sookie when they’re both drunk, and he tells Sookie “I’ve waited so long for this.” It really puts his relationship with Debbie in a negative light, and calls into question whether he actually loved her at all.

I’m not saying that Debbie was blameless in this, and it doesn’t excuse her cheating on Alcide with Marcus or trying to kill Sookie, but it’s not like she didn’t notice Alcide was eyeing Sookie for some time. This was a woman who had hitched her sobriety onto Alcide and felt isolated and alone, and the man she was depending on was emotionally cheating on her. And rather than owning up to that, Alcide tries to gaslight Debbie into thinking she’s crazy and it’s all in her head. He literally says that to her when they’re in bed together, and it’s nasty.

What’s frustrating is this usually gets overlooked in the fandom when people talk about Alcide’s character, and he’s usually referred to in a sympathetic light whereas Debbie is blamed for being an unstable, violent whack-job whereas Sookie is blamed for being a house-wrecker, even though she was in a relationship with Eric at the time.

This is also one of the reasons I never liked Sookie/Alcide as a pairing, and why them getting together at the end of season 6 felt forced: Putting aside how their only sexual interaction up to that point was Alcide trying to have sex with Sookie one night when they were drunk and Sookie vomiting all over him, it was basically Sookie getting pigeon-hold into the role of domestic housewife for Alcide. And I’m sorry, but I find it unbelievable that they were together for 6 months and Sookie never once picked up on any unkind or dirty thoughts from Alcide during the time they were together until the season 7 premiere when that suddenly was a problem.

But even putting aside his relationships with Sookie and Debbie, the biggest problem I have with Alcide is he’s not a compelling character. He’s a character whose motivations and personality change when the plot demands it, and most of the time the writers didn’t know what to do with him and just stuck him in different stories with no rhyme or reason. It doesn’t help that he has no character development during his time on the show. There is no difference between the Alcide we meet in season 3 and the one we end up with in season 7. The result is I don’t care about him.

It’s funny because I’ve seen plenty of fans project these kind of criticisms onto Jason, but I actually think they apply more to Alcide than they do to Jason.

Jason actually had character development. He learned to become more responsible and be someone others could depend on. He began to move away from his womanizing behavior in the later seasons and eventually settled down and had a family. He re-evaluated his stance on supernaturals, and actually became an ally for them in several ways. There is a big difference between the person he was in season 1 and the man he became by season 7. If people missed that, or chose to ignore it, that’s on them, but it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

Alcide on the other hand..............what was his character development? How did he grow as a person? What did he learn from his relationships with Debbie or Sookie or Rikki? Or even from the whole werewolf pack nonsense? Cause I’m drawing a blank here. Was it suppose to be that pack life wasn’t for Alcide because it would turn him into a power-hungry asshole? I never got the impression that was a problem for him in the early seasons, and it was a contrived conflict that was manufactured for season 6. The show never did a good job fleshing out what his arc was suppose to be.

Also, say what you will about Jason’s stories, but at least they were memorable: Amy and Jason’s relationship. The Fellowship of the Sun. The werepanthers. Becoming a cop with Andy. His relationship with Jessica. His hunt for Warlow. I would also argue that each of these stories added something to Jason’s character, and helped him grow as a person. Alcide’s arc on the other hand.......................not so much. When I was rewatching, I had to take notes just to remember what was going on with the werewolves, and even when I was rewatching, I felt the overwhelming urge to hit the fast-forward button. That is how boring those scenes were. It says something that even Alcide wasn’t able to carry them.

TL;DR: I’m apathetic to Alcide (with a few moments where I find him unlikable), and I don’t think he was a good character. The werewolf plots were tedious at best and irritating at worst, and Alcide’s arc on the show wasn’t compelling or interesting. I don’t hate him the same way I hate characters like Bill, Hoyt, and Violet, but I don’t like him either.

#true blood #tgh opinions #alcide herveaux #debbie pelt #sookie stackhouse #jason stackhouse #happylittlepuppydog #the southern vampire mysteries

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lighthouseborna · 3 years

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mmkay so you know how the doc has this thing about killing people / he prefers to distance himself from it in a "it was out of my hands" sort of way, he tells the racnoss "then what happens next is your own doing" before he commits genocide, he won't pull the trigger but he will "get worse. Trick people into [pulling it themselves]", he likes to have a technicality where he can say That Wasn't My Fault, I Had No Choice. would henry's 'they're a monster' fall under the same category or would it be ... like his killing, would it be His Killing or would it be the 'natural course of events', they're a monster and therefore they Have To Die OR they're a monster and therefore I Will Kill Them. i don't know if this question is coming across but it's interesting to me so here i am

Ok so Ingrid's asking about (this post and its tags) for context and for the sake of answering this for my HC tag I'm also going to try to. Explain what (I'm pretty sure) this question is in case it's only clear to me because I speak Ingrid:

Like (character we're both familiar with I won't write the name of because tumblr's search function is too powerful), when Henry is [theoretically] pushed to killing, does his mindset shift the blame of the act to either the killed or some greater force, either way, in service of absolving him of responsibility for their death? Can he handle/confront murder as a personal action, or is his nature to find a way to separate it from himself?

And you know it's a good question because I have been noticing some common threads lately there are some real similarities that have cropped up and either they're written with a similar feel or I just accidentally assigned him the similarities lol, and then there's also the matter of how I phrased it, and... yeah it's a good question.

Especially considering -as I said- there's this line in the sand for Henry (which really comes down to my writing; there is..... a hint of it in the novel, I didn't pull it from nowhere, but I do feel I've exaggerated it) I was talking about where he goes from 'this is a person that I do not agree with and who is doing things that do not fit my definition of good' which may or may not warrant stopping them but ultimately just mean he considers them a very dark or different person from himself, to... 'this is not a person. People do not behave this way.' Granted, so far Salazar is... the only person he's actually met who he has categorized this way, probably. And his mental perception of Beckett and Jones would be similar, but only because they were often his childhood-story villains, so, while obviously dislikable, their villainy has been exaggerated to Henry by his own childhood imagination. Outside of these figures, two being aided by imagination and the third by a literal trauma response, he's never gotten to this point of thinking. It takes a lot. Honestly, he's old enough now that Jones and Beckett may not fall into this category the same way anymore, though you'd have to call his attention to that fact for it to be properly acknowledged. This was not the question - I was building to it but now I've lost how, the point is:

No. No I don't think he would.

You know he's not. He's not an accidental person. He's chaotic, and he's impulsive, and optimistic and so lucky so often. Be he doesn't... he doesn't nudge one thing for the sake of watching where the momentum carries the chaos, he charges for what he wants, does what he believes will set those things, specifically, in motion. Obviously not everything is going to just happen the way he wants it to, of course everyone experiences consequences they did not anticipate. But those random things aren't where he lives, he lives in intention. In drive. In doing. Do- is this making sense about how I feel it's connected? Like. Ripple pattern, butterfly effect, etc. sure that's just... part of making your choices but he makes his choices. And in this instance, that's... that's just what it is.

If Henry is at a point where his thinking becomes "this is not a man, this is a monster" it is not to say and so have killed themself by being one it is to explain "and that is why I have done what I have done." A justification, to be sure, and a fascinating peek at the way he otherizes what is contrary to him (why can it not just be a man who is evil, Henry? Why must something be inhuman to be dark? ((It's quite beautiful in a bad-thinking way, though, really. 'Humans are not this dark' you sweet, sweet summer child.))) but, ultimately, full responsibility. I don't think for a second he'd try to say there was no other path - too often the truth of life is that there are many paths you do not see until after something is done, and he knows this. I do not think for a second he'd try to remove something he did from himself - even if it's unpleasant, even when it is hard, and sometimes horrible, he did it, and that is as important to him when he doesn't like his choices as when he does. There may come a day when he disagrees with his past self, but nevertheless, he is him and he will not hide from himself. That's not his way. He does not bluff.

And ... I don't know if that he could get to this point, where he felt compelled to kill, without someone he cared about and/or himself being under active threat. Like you could be a nega-Henry, a person who believes in everything he does not and makes every choice he would never, but as long as that was just like. Existence for you? And didn't hinge on hurting his people? ... I mean he'd absolutely scowl and argue and fight but I don't think it would come to killing, from his side. Not at origin.

And it's not nice. It's not flattering. It's not enjoyable to do or pleasant knowledge to have of yourself, that there is a point at which you can kill. ...But I'm not even sure he's properly aware of it, at this juncture? While I fully believe he was, effectively and applicably, at this point with Salazar, he didn't reach immediately for it because it's not his first or even fifth or seventh or- nature, and more importantly (dynamically, thematically, etc.) he didn't have to. Jack and Barbossa saw to that (parents_defending_their_children.pdf). Salazar is dealt with without Henry having to step to that he could have been the one to do it. I'm not saying he wouldn't have I'm just saying this is also very important to the truth of Henry Turner; he is not alone and the people around him, for all his defense of them, for all his fighting on their behalf, will defend him so fiercely. too. And if he had stepped to this, and done what he believed to be the thing to do in that moment (Salazar does not stop unless he is dead - and even then......) it's important to note the way he would not expect it to change the defending. And that may be a large part of why he has no need to remove it from himself.

After all, he is His People First; if they could not handle Henry as capable of killing, I think he'd be far more likely to find a way to slough that responsibility - for their sake. But... I mean, he's a pirate. They all are.

#☩ there's a light that never goes out ( HEADCANON. )

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joeinfurnari · 4 years

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My Dinner with Andre

My Dinner with Andre might be one of the most difficult movies for many viewers to watch. The artsy crowd would call it minimalist while the more lowbrow among us would say it’s boring! There’s just so little to it that there is a valid case for both. The story is simply a struggling young playwright, Wally agrees to meet an acquaintance, Andre, for dinner at a nice restaurant in decaying New York city and conversation ensues. The end. But like so many things in life, My Dinner with Andre gives you so much more if you really listen closely. I recently watched it again and I forgot just how great it is and how it continues to speak to us today.

It’s so stark and unapologetic about being without plot that it’s become the subject of many pop culture parodies. I know there is a Simpson’s reference to it but I most enjoyed the episode of Community that spoofs it. You may think that this comes from a place of common dislike for the movie but it’s actually the opposite. The parodies just prove how influential and beloved it is. Why? For me, the appeal is the conversation itself. It’s been celebrated for being a complete fiction that does a great job at coming across as a documentary but that’s just appreciation on a formal level. It’s not just that they had a conversation that’s important, it’s what they talk about that matters. The content of that discussion is so important, the writers and filmmaker felt it merited being the subject of a film without any distraction. To say that Louis Malle created My Dinner with Andre for the iconoclasm alone, misses the point.

The two men seated at dinner are artists/playwrights and catch up on the long period since they last encountered each other. They’re not really friends and Wally even debates cancelling the dinner before ultimately opting to go. He’s a working writer and artist making ends meet in New York City while Andre has had a long hiatus from creative life spent on travel and self examination. Wally confirms their community speculation that Andre has money that allows his adventures. Andre at first spends dominates the conversation with anecdotes about mutual acquaintances and talks about some of the retreats and workshops he’s attended recently. Andre has dropped out of the arts and has been on a personal quest to find himself after becoming disillusioned with his life.

In the time since they last spoke Andre describes a crisis in his creative life. He left the theater and traveled to Poland where he spent time with strangers in the woods creating experimental theater. He didn’t speak or understand Polish and they didn’t understand English but the time spent together was transformative. What began for him as creative exploration in the woods forced him to act as himself and in so doing he was forced to examine his life and how he acts when he plays himself:

So, you follow the same law of improvisation…which is that you do whatever your impulse, as the character, tells you to do…but in this case, you are the character. So there's no imaginary situation to hide behind…and there's no other person to hide behind. What you're doing, in fact, is you're asking those same questions…that Stanislavsky said the actor should constantly ask himself as a character:

Who am I? Why am I here? Where do I come from, and where am I going?

But instead of applying them to a role, you apply them to yourself.

Andre tells more stories of his spiritual and creative adventures. For him, his journey to this dinner has been full of magic, mystery, serendipity and travel to exotic locations including India and even a Saharan Oasis. The restaurant is quite nice but it is still remarkably banal compared to Andre’s monstrous hallucinations and descriptions of his process of personal exploration. It culminates in a description of being buried alive in Montauk, NY. From that point on, Andre becomes surprised by his own reactions to things in his life. He even begins to look at himself and the sort of person who would spend his time the way he has. People in his life who he called friends, repulse him. Figures on television appear to be objectively horrible people. He says,

And I suddenly had this feeling I was just as creepy as they were…and that my whole life had been a sham…

…

I mean, I really feel that I'm just washed up, wiped out. I feel I've just squandered my life.

Moments later he goes on to say,

Well, you know, I may be in a very emotional state right now, Wally.…but since I've come back home I've just been finding the world we're living in…more and more upsetting.

It’s as though Andre has a new perception of the world that is in stark contrast to his former self. He’s alone in this perspective until he sees a woman working in the theater who recognizes the trouble on his face. Where everyone else he encountered commented on how great he looked, this woman somehow knew by looking at him, the emotional state he was in. Because of this woman’s recent loss of her mother, she was able to see him clearly. Andre says,

She didn't know anything about what I'd been going through. But the other people, what they saw was this tan, or this shirt…or the fact that the shirt goes well with the tan.

So they said, " Gee, you look wonderful." Now, they're living in an insane dreamworld.

They're not looking.

That seems very strange to me. Right, because they just didn'ts ee anything, somehow.…except, uh, the few little things that they wanted to see.

All of this has resonated with me very personally. I similarly feel as though my perspective on the world has shifted and it has made me incompatible with things as they are and people who aren’t looking. It’s as though my prior life was a dream, honestly. When I think of how I thought about the world and other people for most of my life, I also hate that prior self. I agree with Andre that that earlier version of myself inhabited an insane dreamworld. Andre describes it using the example of his dying mother. Although she was terminally ill and appeared only minutes away from death, the specialist was beaming at all the progress she was making. For this doctor, he had so narrowed his goals/perception to her arm that any healing on that front was cause for celebration. Insane.

I mean, we're just walking around in some kind of fog. I think we're all in a trance. We're walking around like zombies. I don't…I don't think we're even aware of ourselves or our own reaction to things.

We…We're just going around all day like unconscious machines…and meanwhile there's all of this rage and worry and uneasiness…just building up and building up inside us.

And later, Andre continues to describe this state of mind:

Isn't it amazing how often a doctor…will live up to our expectation of how a doctor should look? When you see a terrorist on television, he looks just like a terrorist. I mean, we live in a world in which fathers…or single people, or artists…are all trying to live up to someone's fantasy…of how a father, or a single person,or an artist should look and behave.

They all act as if they know exactly how they ought to conduct themselves…at every single moment…and they all seem totally self-confident.

For two men involved in theater, they are approaching the idea that who we fashion ourselves to be, is selected from clearly defined character behaviors and appearance. For an actor, it must be disturbing for there to be no leap between the actor and the character. Why is it that someone who adopts the role of artist in real life, chooses to look like what we expect? As average people in our world, we’re acting our roles as they have been defined for us by someone else. This should be alarming to everyone and not just Andre and Wally.

I mean, we just put no value at all on perceiving reality. I mean, on the contrary, this incredible emphasis that we all place now.…on our so-called careers…automatically makes perceiving reality a very low priority…because if your life is organized around trying to be successful in a career…well, it just doesn't matter what you perceive or what you experience. You can really sort of shut your mind off for years ahead, in a way. You can sort of turn on the automatic pilot.

How many of us are doing this right now? I did it for many years, always overlooking the here and now for some future reward that all of it was building towards. I also think if your focus is on a career, it’s less on the experience and wisdom needed to fully embody that role. This is why this is such a great film. It may not wow you with realistic explosions but it challenges you to question your view on your life and your world. You shouldn’t be content with the way things are. If you are, you are part of a very fortunate few and you may be overlooking much of the world to do so.

people's concentration is on their goals.…in their life they just live each moment by habit.

…

And if you're just operating by habit…then you're not really living. I mean, you know, in Sanskrit, the root of the verb " to be".…is the same as " to grow" or " to make grow. "

This is something I think about a lot. I live as a cartoonist dedicated to writing and drawing and designing and promoting and tweeting and posting and editing etc. in a driving need to produce, produce, produce. Am I really living? I don’t think so. It’s okay to admit it. This wasn’t a world of my creation but if I’m alive and active in it, I can change it. This film gave me a way to understand the things that I’ve gone through over the last few years. Without art, I wouldn’t have evidence that others have been where I stand. I feel less alone and more hopeful.

Wally talks about the need for escapism and comfort from art against the harsh reality of every day life. The choice is to create art that is comforting but for all its warmth, fails to acknowledge reality and might contribute to a collective disengaging with reality and most importantly, each other.

…we're starving because we're so cut off from contact with reality…that we're not getting any real sustenance,'cause we don't see the world. We don't see ourselves. We don't see how our actions affect other people.

This is heady stuff, for sure. All of this is to get us thinking about the nature of our lives and really see the things we’ve chosen for ourselves. To truly be free is to be able to think outside the characters and roles defined for us…even the ones we think we chose but didn’t create. Only by looking at ourselves honestly and as objectively as possible can we see how far from our own humanity we have come. Andre went through a personal crisis in which he went through a dramatization of his own death and rebirth. The fresh eyes this has given him as illuminated a very dark reality. There are no fancy distractions in this film because it is a battle cry for humanity’s future. Under the guise of a polite conversation about things most average people would discount as having no bearing on reality is actually about a fundamental reality that has changed without our conscious consent. His advise:

Get out of here.

…

the 1960s.…represented the last burst of the human being before he was extinguished…and that this is the beginning of the rest of the future, now…and that from now on there'll simply be all these robots walking around…feeling nothing, thinking nothing. And there'll be nobody left almost to remind them.…that there once was a species called a human being…with feelings and thoughts…and that history and memory are right now being erased…and soon nobody will really remember.…that life existed on the planet.

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theangrypokemaniac · 4 years

Text

Ma and Pa James's Second Biggest Fan (we plough a lonely furrow) continues to find Ma Jess's appeal mystifying, since everything about her is negative:

1. Signing up for Team Rocket suggests someone of a morally dubious character to start with, but the truth lies in the clothing, and she's in black!

Black!

It's code for her personality:

• Jessie wears white:

Pure, beautiful, innocent, sweet-natured, not really bad, dealt a severe hand in life but a fighter.

• Cassidy wears black:

EVIL!!! EVIL, EVIL, EEEEEEVUL!!! FOUL SIRENIC TEMPTRESS!!! EVIL HEARTLESS BITCH STEALING JAMES'S NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN WEEPINBELL!!!

Speaking of which:

2. She was Madame Boss's best agent.

You don't get there being kind.

To reach that standing requires hundreds of successful heists, and we aren't talking nicking gold bars. It's living things.

How many Pokémon do you imagine she stole with merciless efficiency?

How many children did she set upon, pinching every animal they had?

How many innocent lives did she ruin by depriving kids of the pets they loved, never to see them again, eaten away with the not-knowing and the false hope?

The glory of her reign ran on the fuel of blood and tears.

What fate do you envision awaited those Pokémon? It's not exchanging one master for another, it's entering slavery.

Jessie and James aren't the epitome of Team Rocket. They are minnows on the outskirts, despised and mocked by most of their fellow members. The actual group isn't particularly famous for prioritizing Pokémon welfare.

The preferable outcome is being handed out to agents to help catch other victims. Otherwise it's transformation into a war machine, forced to fight on and on to the point of exhaustion and death, no doubt tortured and tested on to boot.

What happens if they don't come up to scratch or are pushed for years until too aged and broken to be of any use? Are Team Rocket ready to pension them off to animal sanctuary?

As if. It's euthanasia or on to the streets to waste away, if not fed to the strongest first.

Ma Jess knew this and worse occurred thanks to her, yet paid it no mind, and felt not a single twinge of guilt in that time of service, then met her end trying to draw another Pokémon into imprisonment.

Some might say it was a case of what goes around, comes around. As her behaviour led to God knows how many Pokémon dying alone, leaving their loved ones to wonder and grieve, so in turn did she die alone in the snow, and Jessie had to carry on without her.

I'm not against Ma Jess, I neither feel like or dislike, but I don't understand how so many fans can happily overlook her murky past of inflicting pain, instead elevating her to a semi-divine tragic heroine, yet apparently Ma and Pa's heinous offences of not stealing and treating Pokémon well are beyond forgiveness.

3. It's the Red Ribbon Army! Save yourselves!

Jessie joined Team Rocket to follow in Ma's footsteps. James went with her. Both moved (upwardly in scale, downwardly in morals) from Sunny Town's gang of petty thief kids to a complex Mafia organisation stretching its wriggling tentacles around the world to crush the air from its lungs.

Why? Ma Jess's baleful influence led the two down that path.

Of course Jessie wants to copy Ma, how and where else can she feel close to her?

There's not even a grave to visit!

Rising in the ranks and Giovanni's favour is both to strike it rich and take her place, becoming Ma in essence. That would make her proud, which is all Jessie ever wanted.

What alternative is there? Stay with Chopper and Tyra forever, ekeing an existence pickpocketing and shoplifting, until mortality comes calling sooner than is welcome, or get loaded quickly and retire early?

James theoretically could've gone home at this point, but when it came to which angry redhead he preferred to beat him up, he chose Jessie.

He was henceforth obliged to go whenever she led, even if it meant following the ghost of her mother into the jaws of evil.

They have an excuse, but what was Ma's for getting involved?

However much they boast and revel in their wickedness, the motto proves the couple still believe themselves on a noble quest, despite everything to the contrary, and why?

Jessie isn't about to accept that Ma Jess, whom she's probably idolized as one of few people to love her and a role model of how a woman should be, was nasty or unpleasant. If she was in Team Rocket, it must be good, whatever the outer appearance.

Except Jessie and James are bad at being bad. They are not master criminals. All their plans fail, rendering them poor and starving in consequence. The inner circle of Team Rocket will always be barred to them because they lack the inner darkness it requires.

The joke is they flourish in any other occupation, whether that be Salon Rocquet, reporters, or flogging merchandise and food at the League. If employed elsewhere they'd be better off, but they have to stay because Jessie can't let go, or bear the thought she might be a disappointment to her mother's name. A different career looks unworthy by comparison.

What, so Ma and Pa have got no son because of Ma Jess? They just wanted him to be a gentleman!

If she hadn't set such a terrible example to her daughter she might have an increased quality of life, but then had she done so Ma wouldn't be dead in the first place.

4. Can't pick 'em can she?

What was it that first attracted Ma to Windy Miller? Does she go for the rustic charm, or the promise of a lifetime's supply of bread to feed the abundance of babies planned?

Don't do it, Ma! He's an alky!

Some birds are like that you see. It's the maternal instinct gone haywire. They find a local reprobate and somehow decide he's really a damaged soul crying out for love, the scapegoat of a cruel society.

He's not evil, he's just misunderstood!

This is why you get nutters wanting to marry the Yorkshire Ripper: they put his 'mischief' down to bad women mistreating his gentle heart, but they of course are devoted to his happiness. They can change him.

You don't know him like I do!

In their fantasy, under the influence of a 'proper' woman he'll transform in to a flower-picking hippie, but not too much, they still like him to be dangerously 'manly' (keeps 'em on their toes), then they can feel smugly superior and more truly female than the 'lesser' breed who failed to tame his sexy pashuns.

And if there's one thing Windy has in abundance, it's raw animal magnetism.

Stop it, Ma! You can't help those who don't want helping!

She put up with the boozing, the flour dust and his somewhat limited communication skills, but what really let him down was the company he kept.

Ever after she would insist Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble and Grub led him astray. That's firemen for yer.

Cuthbert? That name's died out.

Sure enough, some point after Ma Jess was stuffed up the spout, old Windy legged it back to Camberwick Green, like the rascal he is, and not a sweet penny piece did she receive in maintenance, the bastard.

At least Ma James got pregnant by a man who stood by her.

She wasn't married to Windy Miller!

Oh, you mean they were living over the brush? I see.

It's all in your head!

Do it my way, and we have Pa Jess. Do it yours, and we're back to a cavernous emptiness. Unless you can supply a picture of the 'real' (pffft) Pa Jess, this is the best available.

Anyway, 'Jessie Miller' just sounds right.

Coincidence? I think not.

5. She went to look for Mew dressed like this.

I could forgive it had she gone in her normal uniform, that's just whimsy, but to have made some effort emphasises that it's not enough!

Some part of her understood a mountain might be a bit parky out, but this was deemed sufficient coverage!

What happened?

She bloody died didn't she?!

6. Ma Boss points the way to doom.

Ma Jess was at least loyal to the mistress she served, but it was a wasted dedication. She squandered her life obeying a heartless virago who could cast aside apparently valued staff without a qualm, whatever thanks she owed them.

The millions Ma Jess accumulated for Madame are probably uncountable, yet she was so worthless that, when dispatched to the mountain, on her own, expected to catch a Legendary Pokémon, by herself, which many doubted even existed, and wasn't likely to come quietly, or put up with orders, but then didn't come back, Madame Boss allowed her only child to sink into poverty and the infamous 'care' of the State.

Everyone knows what goes on there. Entering a home has replaced the workhouse as the place of dread.

Jessie might have been killed or attacked and it didn't remotely concern Madame Boss, unwilling to spare a meagre fraction of her massive fortune to give the girl she made an orphan any comfort or security.

What did she matter? Her mother failed. Why reward that?

In her turn, Jessie became just as obsequious to an undeserving master, who went further than his mama and actively tried to murder her, and still she suffers to please him.

Team Rocket devoured her mother, and now it's swallowed her.

Oh, and Madame Boss got her way upon discovering Mew's fossil, so Ma Jess died for nothing.

7. This.

I'm not surprised Mew wouldn't go with Ma. She probably sensed the vivisection awaiting, and didn't give a toss about the avalanche in revenge.

Mew hasn't got where she is today falling for any old shallow promises from a stranger, thank you.

Suppose the mission had worked, with Mew caught and gift wrapped for Madame's delectation: what then?

Perhaps Mew's power, proving so impressive, would've pushed any cloning scheme aside, leaving Mewtwo unborn and Mew as the mightiest weapon. Or in greed Madame Boss demands more, and in arrogance the scientists promise the earth, the seas and the heavens.

Mew I could see subjected to some non-lethal form of dissection, just to understand how she ticked, that is if they could build the cage to hold her.

As they couldn't, and catching Mew was never a possibility, then Ma Jess's sacrificed herself on a fool's errand, which was obviously one from the outset. If Mew was easy to handle she'd have been captured long before now.

Either Ma dies, Mew's safe, but Madame Boss starts the cloning scheme anyway, or Ma's victorious, Mew is a tool of Team Rocket and the scientists have more sample to experiment upon. Mewtwo is still made, alongside short-lived creations and dozens of unseen freakish abominations preceding.

Now Mewtwo isn't what you call at peace with himself, nor has he received a particularly wholesome experience. One could think Ma indirectly caused that. Her branch of the project may have fizzled to cinders but she still played her role.

What would her legacy have been but to help bring forth the being that wiped out mankind? Where's the future for Jessie when there isn't one?

It's not her fault, but she died in the name of cloning a biological disaster, the creation of synthetic life leading to the destruction of it all.

8. Let's have a gander at Ma in the anime:

• Can afford rent.

• Can afford a tray.

• Can afford crockery.

• Can afford condiments to add flavour to food.

• Can't afford any actual food.

Something's wrong there.

I intended to include affording clothes too, but now I'm not so sure.

I never took Ma to be a brown-all-over kind of woman. At least she gave the fancy stuff to Jessie.

For years I've assumed she wore a brightly coloured jacket, but now I suspect it's a red one heavily patched up, because buying a replacement isn't an option.

Really old clothes are being mended with whatever can be salvaged from even more worn-out clobber.

Best agent Madame Boss has and she's practically living in her own filth.

Team Rocket takes care of its own, eh?

Oh no, let's not get a proper job, one that allows me to provide for my daughter and doesn't ask for my life. Let's stay in this one!

9. Look at Jessie's face!

By her own admission, being tricked into eating snow is the best thing that ever happened to her during an 'otherwise wretched childhood', to the extent she doesn't know it was wrong!

I don't hear Ma and Pa doing that. The only ice James got was an ice-cream sandwich.

What kind of infancy did Ma Jess give the girl for her to be nostalgic about almost dying of malnutrition?

If we say that's a foster mother as in the sub, it means Jessie's fondest memory is after Ma died, which is too brutal for me.

Yeah, thank goodness she's snuffed it.

You think Ma might have taught her not to eat snow! She left her so ill-prepared!

Consequently the sub version makes Ma Jess an awful creature, although I don't see why that Jessie would so desire to mimic a mom she apparently doesn't care about.

10. She's not even bloody here!

I have no picture to signify absence, therefore I must show whom she left behind.

Ma Jess is Pokémon's answer to Bobba Fett: background figure, barely involved, no information, dies early, yet became a fan favourite nevertheless.

If nothing really exists, what is there to like? Why are you contented weaving smoke?

When Rocketshippers put forward the manga as proof, the Anti-Ships used to insist that it 'didn't count' for being set in a 'separate universe'.

If that still goes, and only the contents of the anime apply to the anime, well then it's bye-bye to Ma Jess and Madame Boss, because they aren't real either.

I sometimes think that's true. However traumatic, would Jessie not have acknowledged her mother by now otherwise?

We grasp the characters all had two parents in a nebulous fashion, although not being real people means they don't 'technically' need them, but Ma Jess is the only one who vanished to be granted a face. Why is she then ignored?

She's briefly glimpsed in a passing scene of a single episode of the first series and is never seen or referenced again. The sub doesn't even have that. Where was the use in creating her if only to leave that thread of the tale billowing in the breeze?

We may decide her actions affect Jessie's but we're only imprinting assumptions. She might as well have remained unwritten for all that's made of her.

What we can glean doesn't bode well, irrespective of things left unmentioned.

Her one redeeming deed was dying, thus at least she didn't choose to abandon Jessie. We may presume she'd have stayed with her girl given the chance.

By my reckoning that puts her as Fifth-Best Mother Of Pokémon, behind Ma Brock, Ma James, Dame Ketchum and Ma Boss, in that order.

Then they're those who claim she never died, so she just pissed off like everyone else, rendering her devoid of a single positive quality.

This is the woman you sigh and agonise over for decades.

Ma and Pa are right there, man! Show 'em some love!

#team rocket #ma jessie #jessie's mom #jessie #jessie's dad #madame boss #mewtwo #kanto #snow way out!#the birth of mewtwo

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sillyfudgemonkeys · 5 years

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How can people say Haru's forgiven Goro when she verbally says ''I have no intention of forgiving you''. It really boggles my mind. And you get treated like some conspiracy theorist if you try to explain that scene to Goro apologists. I really don't get the fandom sometimes.

Yeah I don’t understand some stans. It’s totally possible to be pissed at two people at once, Goro pulled the trigger so she doesn’t like him. Shido ordered Goro to pull the trigger, so she doesn’t like that guy either. Maybe she dislikes Shido more, but that doesn’t downplay her dislike towards Goro into becoming “like.”

Haru fighting or offering to fight alongside Goro isn’t “forgiving him,” it’s “the enemy of my enemy is my ‘friend’” kinda thing (aka, we both have a common goal, and while we might not agree on everything or even like each other, it’s best we take down our shared enemy). As of P5, Haru does not forgive Goro, and that’s fine. It makes sense, Haru isn’t the bad guy if she dislikes Goro, Goro did the bad thing not Haru. It should be fine if Haru finds closure in not forgiving Goro (while I think it’s a fine message, I dislike that it feels like in media, you HAVE to forgive the person who did you wrong to move on…..you don’t and that’s cool! Bojack Horseman, and the last season of OITNB with Maria and Gloria are the only ones I feel like did this and did it pretty well…..you could argue Jessica Jones too I guess but it’s a bit more messy. And I kinda am fine if Haru never forgives Goro, it’s probably better for both their sakes).

P5R? Who knows, maybe she does, maybe she doesn’t. Her fighting along side him DOESN’T MEAN SHE FORGIVES HIM! It means that they are a reluctant team that need to fight for a common goal, it doesn’t mean there’s any forgiveness there. Hell, maybe NO ONE forgives Goro on the PT, but they still work together for the common goal.

Off the cuff, 2 am, sleep deprived rant about redemption arcs below:

IT didn’t forgive Adachi for what he did, but they sure as shit didn’t reject his help in Ultimax when shit hit the fan. But no one in the P4/Adachi fandom talk about how “he’s forgiven!” (I mean it’s def part of Adachi’s redemption arc tho). But Adachi’s redemption arc, and redemption arcs all together, their end goal isn’t always (and probably shouldn’t be) “To be forgiven by the people they perpetrated,” because it feels……icky? “Oh they said they forgive me so now I’m a good person because I got them to forgive me” feels…..wrong….. (It’s kinda what happens in Maria/Gloria’s confrontation scene, one was like “I’m trying to be a good person and change you should forgive me” and the other person was like “No, I don’t have to, you screwed me bad, you aren’t going to guilt me into forgiving you” basically). A redemption arc should be “I’m changing because I feel like I SHOULD become a better person, and it’s ok if the people I hurt don’t forgive me, maybe I don’t even forgive me either, but it keeps me from doing that ever again, and I should strive to continue being a good person and owning/making up for all the wrongs I’ve written because that’s the right thing I should do. I can start paying my debt back to society, maybe I’ll never pay it off, but that’s ok because this is what I feel like is the right thing to do.” Adachi isn’t the best person in the world (he’s a pretty bad guy, and is framed and treated like one), he’s still at the beginning stages of his redemption tbh too, but he chose to help a dumb tomato boi when he needed him and he saved the world of his own accord, to put his own life on the line to do all of that because he knew it was the right thing to do and in a way helps pay back his debt to society just a little (not all of it, but it’s a starting point). Steve from Stranger Things realizes his horrible behavior and proceeds to change it, and keep changing it for the better (like he gets better and better each season guys ;w;). Zuko from AtLA is similar as well (albeit slower and more internal conflict), slowly becoming a better person and trying to pay back what he did. Rurouni Kenshin is all about Kenshin trying to make up for everything he did during the war. Those characters, their redemption arcs are making up for their crimes/”crimes” (”” for Zuko/Steve I guess?), maybe they get forgiveness maybe they don’t. They become better people and are able to help payback what they had done before (Steve protects Nacy/Johnathan/Kids/Robin and puts his life on the line for them countless times, Kenshin doesn’t kill and tries to help MANY people, Zuko eventually trains and helps the Avatar and helps bring about world peace).

The thing about Goro is he didn’t get his redemption arc. Which sucks, but we can’t go around acting like it DID happen when it didn’t. I know some people view what happened to Goro as “you can’t help people who don’t want help” message, and I’d agree…….if it was actually written well (never even crossed my mind Atlus might’ve been doing that tbh, probably cause it feels like they are too busy trying to make Goro sympathetic instead of writing his character). It’s also funny considering Sho rejected help from IT/SOs harder, faster, stronger, and they still had “TAKE OUR FRIENDSHIP” shoved up his ass and down his throat so hard until he could FEEL the support and bond instilled in him (IN A GOD DAMN NIGHT NO LESS). I mean Ultimax did not do Sho justice either, but it’s odd Atlus would be trying to trying to go that route, esp when we’ve had worse cases, and P5′s dialogue feels on the contrary (in the end we kinda DID get through to Goro with him sacrificing himself to help us, which is why it feels a bit to the contrary, because it’s not so much “he wouldn’t accept help” but “it was too late for help in this case”).

Goro dying to protect the team isn’t redemption, I know the trope “redemption in death” but let’s be honest….all this shit happened so fast, even the CAST FORGOT about him. THEY FORGOT! How is that redemption???? P5R is most likely going to give us a Goro redemption, or at least a START to his redemption arc. And I’m really hoping it’s just a start, why? Adachi is still in police custody (apparently I don’t think he’s even been sentenced from what P5′s tv broadcast tells us) AFTER FOUR YEARS! FOUR! Four years for two murders, instigating a string of kidnapping cases and instigating a copycat murder (dunno if he can be charged for it, specifically the copycat stuff, but we all know all of that was totally his fault) that happened in ONE YEAR. One! Year! What about Goro? HE HAD THREE YEARS OF SHIT HE DID! THREE! Three years of, at the very least, psychotic breakdowns, with a decent number of mental shutdowns, plenty of lethal and non lethal casualties (we had 80 injuries in one day for one incident, JUST ONE INCIDENT). If Goro gets off easy, easier than Adachi, has his redemption arc cut short so we can just “forgive him!!! :((((” that is a disservice to his character, and to the other characters/people that he hurt. Yes Shido is a big part of why Goro did what he did (even if we argue why Goro listened to Shido, regardless he listened to Shido, their dynamic is a rant for another day), but that doesn’t diminish what either did, both should have to repay their debt to society.

/end rant (sorry gotta a little off topic there.... just…ksfjl;sajfkla I want an actual redemption, if we’re getting one it better be an ACTUAL one than just “oh look he’s sorry, they forgive him, nothing else he needs to do! :)” kinda bs, his fans deserve a good redemption arc).

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coldtomyflash · 7 years

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Why don't you ship Captain Canary?

That’s a complicated question with a complicated answer.

It’s hard because I’m compelled to be honest because I respect my anons enough to give a serious, honest answer to pretty much every ask I actually take the energy to respond to, but I feel like any person who would ask this doesn’t actually want my honest answer from it. Last time I answered a question about CC, I was accused of attacking the anon because I summarily disagreed with the points they were making and explained why.

So, if I say this question feels a bit like an accusation, I hope you understand that it’s because it makes me nervous to go into negative detail about another ship and to know that it can ruffle feathers even with the best intentions. I’ve always been 100% disinterested in bullshit like ship wars and I don’t consider CC as in any way counter to anything else. I just… don’t ship it.

But I’ll answer my reasons for why honestly, leave it out of the ship tags, and hopefully you respect my answer.

The reason I don’t ship CC is a mix of on-screen chemistry, characterization, Sara’s seeming genuine dislike of Len at the outset and lack of attraction to him throughout, and… the shippers.

To go into detail on those. Their on-screen chemistry is amazing, and to a certain extent, I do ship them. I ship roguecanary (len x mick x sara), or Len and Sara for a fling, a dirty make-out in a dark corner sometime, a quickie in a supply closet sometime. I also ship them in the sense that they could, in theory, be a much much slower burn. I genuinely thought they might have a slow progression across two seasons or so, back when it first looked like there might be something between them, that they had some mild flirting. I think I might of liked that, and I certainly wasn’t against it. Killing off Len kind of accelerated that timeline though, if it existed.

But what I don’t ‘ship’ about their on-screen chemistry is that it feels so much more like friendship to me than romance. And that’s fine for some people. But the same way I don’t ship sn*wb*rry because I literally cannot see them as anything other than friends, and simply do not see romantic chemistry there at all, I also don’t see any genuine romantic chemistry between Len and Sara. That they become friends is sort of undeniable and I loved to see them playing cards and having insight into one another, but I didn’t feel that needed to be romantic and I thought it was better off being what it was, simply.

Characterization-wise? Well, this isn’t anyone’s fault, but I was a pretty hard Nyssara shipper, so Sara’s prior characterization made me not want to ship her with anyone other than Nyssa for a while. I’ve finally relaxed off that after it became clear I’d never get to see them together again, but it was hard letting go of that canon ship. I also found the logical ship for Len to be with Mick, because of their amazing dynamic. I found their chemistry to veer more toward romantic than Len and Sara’s did half the time. Moving in sync, the angsty break up, literally willing to die for each other, having a little memento ring, inside words, Mick being the only one Len seemed to initiate contact with.

So none of that helped. But none of that made CC a nOTP either? I mean, it’s not really a nOTP across the board. like i said, i do ship roguecanary or len and sara for a fling or an open thing, a casual understanding.

But Sara disliking Len at the outset did make give me an anti-romance sense. And throughout the entire season, she seems disinterested in him romantically.

Contrary to people with shipper goggles on when they watch that deleted scene from the pilot, I see her being annoyed by him and like she finds him distasteful. they get along for a drink by the end of the episode and she’s teasing him, they get closer, but she also says that she literally doesn’t like him when they’re dying of the cold. teasing? maybe, idk, but it’s not really something you say to someone you’re crushing on. it just seems so very platonic and also like the notion of being with him makes her uncomfortable. it’s hard for me to read her otherwise. he alludes to his feelings about her when he’s deflecting talking about mick and she looks surprised then impassive, completely shutting it down. he mentions thinking of a future with her when she’s already upset and doesn’t want to talk to him and she… well she basically tells him to fuck off? but as a “soft” no instead of a hard no, because maybe she doesn’t have her feelings sorted out but now is obviously not the time and she’s not interested in pursuing things with him with how things stand.

but basically, she never demonstrates reciprocal interest in him at all. and we know that she’s not especially shy when it comes to expressing herself, her attractions, or her intentions. i know it would be more complicated with a teammate, but i don’t think she’d be dishonest about her feelings either; she values honesty far too much for that.

and this makes him a pursuant of a person who is totally uninterested in him, and that’s a place i’ve been? people uncomfortably trying to pursue their attraction to me when i’d shut them down already? it’s not a pleasant position to be in, after a while. and i trust that len’s not so much a creep that he’d push it after getting a clear answer from her, but it still wasn’t something i found… romantic? endearing? a little cute in the scene where he says “my feelings about you” when deflecting, but if he were pursuing it further after she gave him that “have to steal a kiss” line without getting a clear signal from her that she’d changed her stance, it would have actually pissed me off.

anyway… so there’s all that.

there’s also… if you look at that ask i linked above, that’s the type of thing that really pushes it into… i have the ship tag blacklisted because stuff like that annoys me. and look, it happens in the coldflash fandom too, and i ignore it then as well. i’m never a fan of reducing a character down to a ship, attributing their development to a single romantic relation, saying they’re “so in love” when they’re literally really not. and look, gifset edits for your fave ship are cute af, i get it. it’s fun to speculate how your ship’s characters are going to feel when they see each other again.

but i get asks about ‘don’t you think len would have died for sara as well as mick?’ and my answer is… literally no. i don’t. i don’t think that’s how they saw each other, or how deep they felt about each other. and given that the producers have literally said sara has basically moved on, posts making her arc this season about len, or about how him coming back is going to affect her, just make me sigh. but i’m a canon-compliant asshole with my meta even with shipper goggles on, most of the time.

and i’ve seen a lot of those shippers try to reduce len’s relationships with lisa, mick, and other characters (including, yes, barry, who was important to his arc preceding legends) to being lesser than his friendship with sara. that’s so discomfiting to me. and it’s even more discomfiting to me how they reduce all of sara’s best emotional moments to being about len? her overcoming the order to kill martin was aided by len but not about him. her decision to talk to mick in the brig and that awesome conversation and the emotional insight she had? i’m tired of seeing people make that about her feelings about len. that was a great moment for her. she has so many great moments like that. so many great relationships i wish the fandom would explore more, rather than focusing on just a single romance.

and… look, i’m a person who prefers things when they don’t go canon half the time. my canon vs. non-canon ships are radically different. i love WA in the flash and wanted it to be canon and it is, but i love CF just as much and would never want it to be canon. with CC, the ways i would’ve wanted it to be canon never happened, and the ways it’s romanticized and populized in the fandom tend to rub me the wrong way maybe because of that.

So… long answer there. but it’s really honest. i don’t hate CC, and i do respect the fandom and genuinely wish them all the best. these generalizations, as with any generalization, are obviously not going to apply to every shipper or every fic or every meta. but they’re trends i’ve personally encountered and opinions i’ve either seen in the tags or had to interact with and eventually, it slowly turned me off the ship as a major romantic pairing.

#long post #long post for ts #and no i'm not gonna go look up posts or sources to support any of this #or gifs or anything #this isn't a meta #it's a completely subjective and personal post #even if it is a long one #and i'm completely uninterested in arguing about it or in people trying to convince me otherwise #let me know if this needs more tags for anything #Anonymous #replies #anti captain canary

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