#if you also interpret all of this differently that's totally cool and i recognize that my views are not universal

[catgirledteach]

tw suicide and spoilers for the finale

i'm really trying to see the positive in the finale but it just sits sour in my stomach. again i dont want to get bogged down completely by izzy's death as there was so much else in the finale that i genuinely loved, but this event really gets to me for a specific reason

as someone who has dealt with suicidal thoughts in the past i am genuinely upset if this is how izzy's story ends. and even more upset that it seems to be framed as 'meant to be' and 'simply unavoidable.' the first three episodes REALLY drove home izzy's belief that he had nothing to live for - he wanted to die and he very explicitly tried to kill himself. and i was glad they portrayed that at the time and even more encouraged when in episodes 4 through 7 it seemed like he was recovering mentally and emotionally. he was portrayed as having found purpose beyond serving someone who didn't love him back, accepting parts of himself he was previously ashamed of, getting support from people around him, etc. it truly was reading to me like an incredible portrayal of someone finally valuing their own life that they had been so ready to throw away before now

and then all of the sudden in the finale it feels like all of that is ripped away. he repeatedly says he doesn't care if he dies, that he's ready to go, and it all feels so upsetting considering where he started the season. and yes i can absolutely see the argument that now he was dying for the cause of protecting the legacy of piracy, but was he though? was that necessary for them to all escape? and more importantly does that change the fact that izzy was still completely ready to put his life in danger again for the sake of other people's safety? part of the comfort of found family is also learning to value your well-being and safety the same way those around you do, at least to me. and his lines about being surrounded by family ring incredibly hollow when the family surrounding him doesn't seem to be upset by his willingness to sacrifice himself for no particular reason.

as someone who is in a far better place than i was two or even one year ago, this hurt and it hurt deeply and a story that once felt like a safe space is one i no longer feel like i can trust. even if a third season comes out (and at this point i think i would still watch it if it came out) i can no longer relax when watching because i can no longer have faith that there will be a happy ending for characters i believe deserve one.

olu says the line about jim in episode three, 'we're best friends. family. someone i'd like to see grow old just like all my other friends.' to me this means i want to see my friends, my family, die in peace in their own time. the audience is watching a supposedly comforting romcom and one would assume they want to see the family that's been built onscreen have happy endings. i know it may sound extreme but it feels like a betrayal. personally it felt like the story was telling me, 'this is the only way it could have ended for izzy. he wanted to die because he was convinced he would never live happily and in the end he was right,' and luckily i'm at a point now where i refuse to believe that's true. that someone can go so far down their path of self hatred that the only way for their story to end is in their untimely death. and in a way i'm glad that i'm as upset as i am because it means i do not buy into that narrative for myself. i still value every other positive lessons and introspection this show has given me, but this is certainly a misstep that i don't know if i can ever truly forgive, and it has certainly tainted the story forever for me.

#if you're also upset i'm sorry #if you also interpret all of this differently that's totally cool and i recognize that my views are not universal #but if you are upset i encourage you to do whatever you need to do to process aside from taking out your negative emotions on others #log off if you need block any tags you need to block don't feel obligated to engage #i may or may not respond to any responses to this post and i hope anyone reading or responding understands that #be well friends and take care of yourselves #and whatever happens next with ofmd i am still so grateful for the friends ive made through this fandom and the happy moments had before no #and i plan to still hold on to those even if some of yall have to take a break for a while i get it and i'll be here #tw suicide #ofmd #ofmd spoilers #i might delete later

[love-takes-work]

Hey I’ve been thinking a lot about fusions in Steven universe as a huge fan myself but I have one big problem with Stevonnie, and that’s how mature and icky alot of the plots with them are, for example all of kevin, Lars throw away sorta crush etc. I was just curious because I read your steg post and I found it really interesting and agreed with it!

I was just curious as someone who looks way more into the show what’s your take on the topic of stevonnie and how or why they differ so much from steg!

I don't think Lars was shown as a "throw away crush"--both he and Sadie had a dazzled reaction when Stevonnie walked into the donut shop, and it was Sadie who blushed and insisted the donuts were on the house. Not only Sadie and Lars but Sour Cream and everyone who saw them at the rave were enchanted with Stevonnie.

But if you were a little grossed out by the "maturity" of that episode, you'll be very happy to know that was intentional! When speaking about the episode's intent, Rebecca Sugar said it's about how it feels to suddenly find the world responding to you differently when you're going through puberty and you suddenly have an attractive/adult body and people are presenting you with opportunities you're not familiar with and not ready for. And treating you like you should like it when you hardly even know what it is. Expecting you to play a game when you don't know the rules. A quote of Rebecca's from an interview:

"Stevonnie challenges gender norms as an individual, but also serves as a metaphor for all the terrifying firsts in a first relationship, and what it feels like to hit puberty and suddenly find yourself with the body of an adult, how quickly that happens, how it feels to have a new power over people, or to suddenly find yourself objectified, all for seemingly no reason since you’re still just you… "

You see Stevonnie just kinda enjoying that Lars and Sadie don't recognize them and treat them like something incredible and special when Connie's never been cool and Steven's always been sort of tolerated or humored by the young adults in town. But then when Kevin enters the picture it's scary. "This dance isn't fun!" They had pictures in their head of how cool a dance party would be but the actual reality of it was super uncomfortable and unforeseen.

I remember reading a LOT of disturbed reactions to this episode on a message board from when it first came out. Some of the (straight) men said they just weren't used to being the POV character while being unwillingly objectified by a strange man in a club, and had never viscerally understood until this episode why that seemed SO creepy. And a lot of the women, on the other hand, recognized it from personal experience instantly. There are several scenes that have the viewer actually seeming to see what Stevonnie sees, including when Kevin is looking them up and down.

The episode is about some of the joy and terror of that experience, from the point of view of the experience.

Some folks have wondered why Stevonnie doesn't appear to have any duplicated limbs or eyes, especially after we found out from Steg that looking totally humanoid is not a side effect of being three quarters human. I think part of the reason they made that design choice is that Stevonnie was meant to be seen during their debut venture as a stunning, magnetic person, and if they'd looked alien at all we might have interpreted the stares and gasps as reactions to a weird sight instead of a gorgeous stranger. (And it's super nice to see them interpreted by guys and gals as attractive, though Kevin clearly sees them as a girl at first and addresses them as such.)

That said, maybe they have a duplication that doesn't show. I like to headcanon that they might have two hearts. <3

#steven universe #fusions #my su analysis #stevonnie #myblog

[reptil-enjoyer]

Talking about the concept art of Heath (G3)

Hey, so his concept art dropped today in the morning i think, and i wanted to say my opinion about it xP

(This is just me being autistic part 1000 of the series called my life)

Honestly i LOVE those two designs, favs out of the six

The dark eyes of the second? Its looks so cool, it kinda fits way more on the idea of Heath beign the son of the 'Ruler of the Underworld' (Did they call him Satan or Devil or Hades in the show??). Its more edgy looking, it would clash with the personality he has maybe? Like in a good way

Not a fan of the more redish orange of the first, but it fits pretty god with the darkers spots (i think its like magna chunks?? Im gonna call it that). Those parts, chunks, spots, whatever, they can be interpreted as a skin condition he has, and this SO important to me, you NEVER see characters with that, because its hard to animate or "non important", but to a person like me (I have seborrheic dermatitis!) It means a lot.

I still don't understand why did they choose those colours for his clothes, it stands out but in an awful way, the light blue shouldn't be the main colour for his hoodie, it should be the complimentary one, and making the flames in orange to red gradient doesn't help AT ALL

Those two, the first one mostly, are the only ones that you can look at them and get Heath vibes, like you can recognize its Heath (lanky body shape, expressions and pose he's doing help with this too)

I dont like those two i am SO sorry

I like that they went with more accesories with these, really liking the metal chain honestly (and the earrings!), and the black nails too, it fits him

I prefer the design with the buzzcut, i actually tend to use that as a HC in my drawings, still don't know why they didn't give him one in the show, because his bald head when his fire goes out doesnt look right at all :/

His design looks so good with black, it makes the fire stand out in a good way, his shorts and shoes look way better in here. But the vest? Im sorry, tge idea its cool but it fuck ups his silluette, hes too square looking, and it gives off a totally different vibe. Also the long pants with the same exact design as the shirt? It doesn't look good

HE COULD HAVE BEEN EMO IN CANON 😔 (this is a reference to a HC of G1 Heath)

Those two are difficult, because I like them, they look good, truly they do, but the way they are drawn, like, their body shape? Mostly his face, he looks WAY older, like he looks idk 17? 18?

He looks so good with long hair i must say

In general, they give off more older brother/sibling of Heath; he doesn't look or give Heath vibes, nothing, nada

-

AND THAT WAS MOSTLY MY OPINION, SORRY THIS WAS SO LONG GOD, i muat say that different aspects of those designs would be better by separate, but bringing 'all the good parts' of those 6 designs isn't the solution to anything, at least in my eyes, thats all :P

#remd original #long post #monster high g3 #monster high #heath burns #top diez personas fans de Heath. nunero uno. yo. nunero dos. yo. numerl tres. yo #PERDON #no soy normal ☝🤓 #soy el actually durante todo este coso

[will-o-the-witch]

Question: How are spirits closed? Do they request/agree to being only interacted with by people in a certain culture/practice/whatever?

It's been confusing me. Even if humans consider it closed, the spirit gets the final say, right? If they choose to accept the interactions then isn't it okay?

For a vague non-specific example, X is a spiritual entity from Religion Z, a closed religion, but Human who is not initiated into or generally hasn't been accepted into Religion Z reaches out to X. X goes to Human and agrees to work with them and/or is okay with their worship or honoring of them. Human is generally not too looked up to for taking something from Religion Z without any of the believers permission despite X directly saying it's okay to Human. Could this situation hypothetically happen? There'd be likely no good way to prove X actually was okay just taking the person's word, but it still was given the green light, just not by people.

Sorry if I come off rude, I've been scared to ask someone and I'm just very confused about this. Of course I wouldn't ever try, I'm confused by appropriation and it's difference with appreciation and whatnot so I just avoid it altogether but actually asking should give me some decent ideas and I can't just keep myself ignorant with this stuck on my mind. Thanks and sorry if this is an uncomfortable type of ask you don't have to answer if you don't want ♥︎

Hello!

You pointed out one of the big issues in your question- how do you know X said anything about it? We can't even really prove X exists, and our experiences are completely personal and subjective. Human saying "X told me it was okay" doesn't exonerate them; it says "Sorry Religion Z, I just understand X better than you do and I'm taking their (non-verifiable, filtered through my own mind) word over yours."

Even before X "weighs in," though, Human has already crossed the line. Closed traditions are closed for a reason (precise reason will vary) and these boundaries need to be respected. We are often very marginalized people who have to fiercely protect our cultural traditions from either getting completely eradicated or bastardized/commodified/watered down into nothingness. That's why cultural appropriation is an issue to begin with (and it DOES have a real negayive impact.) In this scenario, Human has decided their personal, subjective spirituality is more valuable than respecting Religion Z. Human has shown they feel entitled to aspects of Z, despite having little to no connection with the culture and not going through the proper channels to educate oneself. By saying "X told me it was okay," they're also saying they recognize it's a problem, but would rather ignore these marginalized voices in favor of their personal, subjective, cultutally-disconnected interpretation of this entity that just so happens to tell them exactly what they want to hear. Human has demonstrated they are more concerned with "keeping up appearances" than actual justice and respect for the PEOPLE of Z. It was never about X to begin with.

APPRECIATION is 100% totally fine! Human can totally think X is cool, learn about X from reliable sources, talk about X, feel motivated/inspired by aspects of X, that's all welcome and fine. The problem comes when Human feels entitled to actually work with X and effectively claim them as their own, violating these cultural boundaries.

[twilightmalachite]

MIRAGE - Epilogue 3

Author: Akira

Characters: Yuuta, Hinata

Translator: Mika Enstars

"(…Is this really ok? Will everything be alright? Isn’t everyone watching gonna be taken aback thinking what’s all this all of a sudden?)"

[Read on my blog for the best viewing experience with Oi~ssu ♪]

Season: Winter

Location: Volcano Island Stage

Hinata & Yuuta: “~…♪”

Hinata: “…Alright! We as 2wink are honored to have the privilege to perform Volcano Island’s famous opening song for our second appearance!”

Yuuta: “Peace, peace~!”

Hinata: “Anyhow, allow me to introduce ourselves again! We are 2wink, the twin idols affiliated with Cosmic Production!”

“I’m the older twin, Aoi Hinata!”

Yuuta: “I’m Aoi Yuuta, the younger one.”

Hinata: “Where’s your vigor, Yuuta-kun!?”

Yuuta: “I’m doing what I need to do, aren’t I?”

“Our gimmick may be how nobody can tell who is who, but…”

“Since you’ve already appeared on Volcano Island by yourself, Aniki, it seems we’ve each gotten our own fans now.”

Hinata: “You hear that~? We each have our own fans now! We’re beyond grateful!”

Yuuta: "Though, it’s more that only you have your own fans, thanks to your head start on Volcano Island.”

“At our regular live performances, these fans kept mistaking me as Aniki, and would cheer out “Hinata-kun~! ♪”, even!”

Hinata: “Nobody really wins in cases like that, don’t they? So we’re gonna give playing more distinct characters from each other a try, starting now!”

“The more sunny older brother Hinata, and the gloomy little brother Yuuta-kun!”

Yuuta: “Gloomy gives a bad impression. Can’t you say something more like, I don’t know, cool?”

Hinata: “…As you can see, this is Yuuta-kun, my little brother who does nothing but complain!”

Yuuta: “Oh, come on.”

Hinata: “Yuuta-kun also took the opportunity to switch up his hairstyle a bit! Whaddya think? Now it’s even easier to tell us apart!”

Yuuta: “Of course, it’d be even better if you loved both of us as “2wink”, but I hope that through this, both of us will have more fans from now on!”

Hinata: “Yup! ♪ It’s somethin’ a lil’ bit different than our previous style, however I hope you continue to support us as we hope to shine brighter than ever before!”

“This was the older brother, Hinata!”

Yuuta: “And the little brother, Yuuta. ♪”

Hinata & Yuuta: “And the both of us together makes 2wink~! ☆”

“♪~♪~♪”

Hinata: (…Is this really ok? Will everything be alright? Isn’t everyone watching gonna be taken aback thinking what’s all this all of a sudden?)

Yuuta: (There’s no point in questioning it now! We’re just following what the producer told us to do.)

Hinata: (Right… Though, Oogami-senpai did tell us that this producer might be able to understand how we feel.)

Yuuta: (He wasn’t what I expected at all! Threw me in for a complete loop! And I had totally mustered up all my courage I could, and arrived at the meeting with my heart racing to give him the “Aoi Byakuya” disguise test—)

Hinata: (“So you that’s the direction you guys’ style is going in, huh! Are you hoping to bring out your individuality? Very, very good!”)

(“We staff at Volcano Island will do everything in our power to cooperate!”)

Yuuta: (That’s right! Exactly like that! I wasn’t able to mess with him at all! He just interpreted in a weirdly positive way!)

(…Well, he made a good first impression. He saw right through “Aoi Byakuya” and recognized “Aoi Yuuta but with a different hairstyle” at first glance.)

Hinata: (I don’t think he even suspected a thing. I think he probably really is taking us seriously, and just wants to do a proper job producing us, y’know.)

(That’s what a producer does, right?)

(He’ll do whatever it takes to reach success, and has been ever since the time he was active. He’d never miss out on an opportunity.)

(For idols, that’s just the natural thing to do. That’s even why I appeared on Volcano Island in the first place.)

(If you’re an idol, of course you’re going to want to seize the opportunity…)

(That request really was 100% in good faith, wasn’t it? They had only one slot to invite only one person—nothing more.)

Yuuta: (I dunno… I have a feeling that by doing that, he was testing us. If we were too fixated on appearing as twins, and instead refused to perform on the show that time…)

(Then it’d mean that 2wink wasn’t willing to do whatever it takes to succeed. In other words, he’d decide we were different creatures than him, and would lose interest in us.)

(We’d be deemed unworthy of being produced by him, basically.)

(That’s the feeling I got, y’know? He looked at us with the insight of a professional, the same gaze as the Vice Prez.)

Hinata: (Seems like you really hate being tested like that, Yuuta-kun. Didn’t you end up getting along with him really well?)

Yuuta: (I don’t have any reason to hate it. I’m just pissed that I was gonna test him, but he ended up testing me in the end.)

(That guy’s real serious as a producer, and challenged us to a fight.)

(But y’know, that’s exactly what I’ve been hoping for. I’ve been looking for someone who’d face us properly as equal business partners, someone who’d give it their all.)

(So, I have a feeling that once he recognizes someone, he’ll never desert them by any means. He does what he says he’ll do, and as such he’s giving his all to properly produce us.)

(Calling him a talented producer is no exaggeration. That’s why he’s in great demand; in that sense, we’re lucky to be even spared the time in the first place.)

(That being said, there’s no such thing as a perfect track record. There’s no guarantee that this strategy of differentiating ourselves will succeed.)

(But for now, I’d like to ride this wave.)

(I’m done with shutting myself away, bitterly grumbling and complaining, and making my friends and family worry. I’ll move forward. I’ll dive right in and make my mark on this world.)

(…I listened to the CD you passed on to, Aniki.)

Hinata: (Ah, the song the producer wrote and performed back when he was active? How was it, tell me!)

Yuuta: (It was fucking amazing.)

Hinata: (I know, right~! It was sooo amazing!)

Yuuta: (Yeah. It’s frustrating to admit, but it really was. It was a sparkling and refreshing idol song that blew away all of my grudges.)

(But despite being so good, it got buried and forgotten without anyone taking notice of it. This industry we live in is so cruel.)

(In order to fulfill his wish to be noticed in this heavily competitive idol industry, he relied on other people’s light.)

(So as a result, he comes off as having a reputation as an opportunistic bastard.)

(If people say that, then so be it. What’s so wrong with wanting someone to notice you, to love you?)

(And so, that guy used all that frustration as a springboard to ensure that this time, people will notice what he has to offer… And he produced with all of his might.)

(He brought idols out into the shining sun, to make sure they didn’t get buried like he did.)

(I too want to shine beautifully, and reflect that brilliance.)

(I don’t want to keep feeling depressed every day, whenever I look in the mirror.)

(So, I won’t become someone nobody knows, like Byakuya Aoi—)

Yuuta: (—Instead, I’ll become someone I can be proud of, someone I can love! I’ll become Aoi Yuuta!)

(Whether it’s changing my hairstyle or my character, I’ll do whatever it takes! I refuse to give up, not ‘til I’m dead!)

(For I, Aoi Yuuta, vow to earn a place in all your memories!)

“♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪”

[ ☆ ]

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#mirage #scout #translation

[fakecrfan]

Why do you think the fandom is so staunchly defensible when it comes to Jon? Don't get me wrong I love the guy but primarily because he's such a mess, that's what makes his character so interesting to me you know!? But I don't understand why it's so hard for the fandom to recognize that he can be a shitty human being sometimes to the point where they go completely insane and say subtly misogynistic things to the girls or downplay the trauma of stalking. Like even the narrative doesn't try to hide it, so I really don't understand where this enthusiastic attachment comes from.

Well, if I have to get veeeeery technical--it varies from individual to individual. "The fandom" is not a singular entity after all, so every Jon stan is going to be their own individual cocktail of Reasons. But if I were to paint a very broad, approximate brush there would a few different trends that I think account for most of it.

1: Main character bias. Viewpoint is a very powerful narrative tool and audiences are usually primed to agree with the protagonist's actions because they've spent more time with them. You’ve listened to Jon talk, scream, cry, struggle with fear and paranoia for hours, so you’re inclined to take his side over characters you’ve only known for 20 minutes tops.

2: Projection. "Jon is like me!" This causes the person to invest in Jon to the point that seeing criticism about him feels like a personal attack on themselves. Not necessarily irrational if said character is actually getting criticized for traits that you have. If Jon is getting criticized for shoving away someone who touches him, and you’ve done that, part of you will jump to go “well hey now--”

3: Trouble/discomfort in liking characters who have done wrong. If you like a character, but also hate things like inconsiderateness, selfishness, stalking, etc. then this creates discomfort. In order to resolve it, you have to stop liking the character, decide that wrongdoing won't stop your enjoyment, or decide that nothing the character did was selfish, inconsiderate, staking, etc. The last option is the easiest.

4: Tumblr fandom culture. The general method of interacting with a text on this website is what I would call a "blorbo sports team" mentality. Everyone on here picks their Boy and then spends a bunch of time hyping him up and tearing down everyone else as though he needs to win an election. Posts that are like “Meta: here is something Blorbo does that makes him good and cool” will get lots of traction.

It’s in good fun and I actually find it endearing, but on the flip side it’s all encompassing, making it difficult to interact with the text in any other way. So if you want to have fun and make friends it’s easier if you just pick a boy and start handing out pamphlets. Anything that you say will get interpreted as either For or Against the chosen Boy anyway, so you might as well go with the flow and group together with other people with similar taste in Boy as you.

(Note: I say Boy because 98% of the characters who get this treatment are men. There is definitely a gendered element to this kind of stanning.)

Pretty wild stuff, right? Good thing I can see through all that. Anyway now let me tell you about our lord and savior Gertrude Robinson, who I definitely don’t project onto, and whose flaws I totally love because I’m cool like that but also most of those murders and arson incidents weren’t that bad. Here, take a look at my pamphlet.

[kiisaes]

ah, i meant bakudeku just as bakugou and deku in that exactly bakudeku moment, so, i know that your art is of them but they feel a little different from how the canon characters feel to me so... hm, idk. obviously it is all personal interpretations, and i totally agree that that‘s like the point :D or one of them lol? it‘s at least super fun, and i think it‘s cool that people branch out like they do as well, watching the same source material but taking away different things from it and idealizing it in different ways for how they‘d want things to be. saying bakudeku really didn‘t make sense in that moment; that refers to the ship. sorry for the confusion!

(also just to clarify, i‘m rly sorry cause i feel like that‘s weird now too (me going i‘m reconsidering and then going no i‘m good, that doesn‘t rly make sense), what i meant with that is that looking at your art it‘s so clear that they‘re in love so when i look at it i‘m like ah no i see it!, which is kinda dumb ig cause it is ship art like duh. anyway. god that rly doesn‘t make sense at all, cause i just thought yeah i see it in that moment bc i recognize them in the art but then they‘re also in love and that‘s true. but i just said that i don‘t see them as i see the canon characters. i‘m really sorry, i‘ll think it through next time before starting conversations to make sure i don‘t just find out actually i contradict exactly what i said before in the middle of it, i‘m so sorry and so glad the anon feature is a thing lmao. sorry for dumping this messiness in your ask box! and more canon kirishima & bakugou content that i could watch and interpret my ideal kiribaku into would be great hehe, i‘m happy to hear you like an idea of them together too :D and i keep looking at the mangas whenever i‘m in my local bookshop but i feel like it would just be so much money lol, so i haven‘t bought any yet. but yeah, the art style is definitely super super cool :D (not that it would be any less so if i didn‘t agree, tis all obvs also subjective))

again, sorry for the length and sorry for the absolute mess, and thank you for sharing your art :,)🤍

ohh ok! so basically what i'm hearing is that u like bkdk but in the context of mostly fan art (with all of its fan interpretations), not in the actual series? bc if so that's understandable too — fan content will always dramatize a relationship more than what's present in canon and might make it seem more appealing LOL

haha i have no problem with ppl not liking bkdk as a ship or choosing not to ship it for any particular reason, so no worries! i know lots of bkdks can get pretty territorial over their ship tho, so for ur best interest, i'd recommend not going up to random bkdk artists and talking about krbk out of nowhere ^^' i've met a staggering amount of bkdks who don't like krbk at all (the same way i've met lots of krbks who hate bkdk) so probably best to make sure the bkdk is ok with other ships including bkg and deku. it's smart to play it safe — this fandom is already barely keeping it together with ship discourses and i wouldn't want u caught in the crossfire ( ；´Д｀)

despite the severe amount of bkdk i draw, i am a multishipper, so i don't particularly take much offense to these anon asks. as long as u don't come in slandering what i like then u're good lol. i have few notps so it'd always be nice to see more interactions between characters in the manga :') canon krbk has been pretty dry for ... maybe around 2 years now? oh god. which sucks, but hopefully they'll get some stuff soon !!! rooting for u and ur fellow krbks !!!

and u can read the manga online! i used to use bokunoheromanga.com, but it seems to have trouble with showing older chapter pages — or maybe it's just me. now i just use VIZ for every new update but there are definitely sites dedicated to posting the mha manga chapters whenever they come out! (i only buy certain volumes if they have specific arcs or scenes i like lol)

#asks for becki #kiribaku mention

[candied-cae]

I know almost every single person in the OFMD fandom is interpreting Izzy a little bit different. Aka we're all spotting different amounts of, or focusing differently on, these traits:

Being a literal homophobe and racist

In love with Ed and jealous

Just trying to do his fucking job seriously and no one is helping

Sexually frustrated bc he's been trying to get topped by Ed for years

Obsessed with having total control over everyone around him

Mad/Worried about Ed suddenly changing in a way he doesn't understand

etc.

I was already pretty firmly in the "Izzy is overall a bad person but also he's seems to be a lil in love with his boss in a way that's entertaining" camp, But as I'm rewatching it - I think I'm going further into "Izzy is just a bad person who's obsessed with control".

A little point of this, is when Ed tells him to go to the Republic of Pirates and bring Stede in so he can meet him, and he starts saying no. Izzy sighs and asks Edward if they could "just send the boys" to do it. Idk fam, but if Izzy was super in love with Edward, why not do the stuff he tells you to do? Even if it's a little inconvenient, you might follow command without hesitation to prove how good you are and do the job well to earn praise. But no, he tries to push back on the orders, and tries to change Edward's mind on how to do things. But he doesn't push too far; to stay in control, Edward can't doubt him.

But the main part that convinced me, is because I'm remembering that he was totally fine with Edward literally abandoning the pirate life, as long as he killed Stede to do it and left his legacy and his crew to Izzy. That doesn't really seem like a thing someone who's in love with his captain would be cool with. He's also not super effected when Ed seems genuinely interested in the idea of killing himself because he's so bored. That's something you should be concerned about if you love someone.

Those are things you might be less distraught by if your primary focus is just amassing power.

He definitely could've convinced himself that he had a right to Edward, that he was the only one who knew what was good for him, that Izzy Hands deserved to tell Edward what to do. So when Edward starts rebelling, it makes him furious. Here he is, having spent so many years of his life dedicated to proving to Edward that he was to be listened to, and now Edward won't listen. He's going off and making friends with people who are telling him not to follow Izzy's rules, he's not making good on his promise to step down and pass the throne to Izzy, and Izzy's being disrespected by the other people on the ship.

The only control he (sort of) has left is over Ivan and Fang, so when he decided to try and scare Edward back into following his orders, he pulls the two of them to his side and has an intervention so they can not only accuse him of being weak, but guilt trip him as well. And it still doesn't work.

So obviously he's lost his emotional hold on Edward, so he'll just have to physically take it back, enter the plan to defeat Stede in combat so he'll have to be respected and followed again. And then that doesn't work.

So he sends Calico Jack, someone Edward has known even longer than him, to ease him back into Izzy's open arms. That doesn't work.

Even when they are about to watch Stede be killed by the British Navy, even then Edward jumps in the way and calls for an act of grace...

He completely lost control of Edward.

He thought he'd be able to get it back when he proved that he knew better and was better than Stede Bonnet, but that didn't matter to Ed. Ed leaves to join the King's forces for 10 years, and there's no sloppy emotions about it, and idk about you, but if the guy I was in love with was abandoning every part of him I recognized for someone I thought was unworthy and I believed I may not see him for 10 years, or ever again: I'd be a mess, despite my best efforts. But Izzy's not, because Izzy never really cared about Edward, he cared about being in charge. And when Edward and Stede leave, he's left in charge. But he does a pretty shit job of it. And when the crew is about to kill him and retake their control, Edward returns, and spares him. That's his in.

Edward was emotional, alone, soft, and hurt now, Izzy would be able to regain control here. Easily. All he needed to do was rial him up, scare him just enough that he closes off again. Goes back to being the dutiful Blackbeard who does the job and doesn't waste time with all the emotional stuff. And when they're alone again Izzy is able to string him to follow orders easily. When you've been manipulating someone for years, and they finally lost the things they we using to escape, it's second nature to do what'll bring them back to heel.

Even when Ed hears the crew who loves him calling for him to come back on deck for fun, he's alone in those captain quarters mulling over what Izzy said to him.

And yeah, Izzy is prolly hot for the power Blackbeard has, but I don't think it's really anything close to love, it's an attraction to this force he's sure he has command over.

P.s. Shout out to this post by @bellasmommyissues: I started this draft over a week ago and wasn't really sure if I was going to finish it, especially since it's a sorta unpopular take... But I saw their post and it convinced me I wasn't crazy for seeing more of Izzy's love of control vs love of Blackbeard, so I sat down and finished the damn thing.

More OMFD

#Cae Has Lots of Feelings About Our Flag Means Death #if you saw this and my last post: yeah I'm in my hating Izzy hours #He's definitely a funny little guy to watch get bent outta shape and stuff #but every time I actually sit down and think about him... #I wanna punch a brick wall until every bone in my hands are shattered #and it may be because I'm a ridiculously moral person #like middle of the road. morally gray. or just BAD people stress me out so much #I can't fathom wanting to actually hurt people emotionally or physically #And to watch characters do the stuff that Izzy does - it makes me wanna commit arson #so yeah #obviously pretty much all of this is headcanon #interpret the show how you want #this is my take on it #if you wanna believe Izzy is just a sweet lil guy who's just a lil repressed #go off I guess #but there's a lot of parts about his character that read far more sinister in intentions to me #Our Flag Means Death #OFMD #Our Flag Means Death Season 1 Spoilers #Edward #Edward Teach #Blackbeard #Izzy Hands #Israel Hands #Izzy Critical #Gentlebeard #Stede Bonnet #The Gentleman Pirate #Izzy Hands anti #Izzy Hands Character Analysis

[marley-manson]

I love all your MASH posts! Do you have any thoughts to share on the varying ways the characters relate to queerness?

Thank you so much <3

You bet I do! I hope what you’re looking for here is a bunch of sexuality and gender related headcanons, because that’s what I’ve got.

None of these are hard and fast when it comes to like, writing fic or whatever, and there’s obviously room for a ton of different interpretations which is cool, but this is kind of like the default lens I watch the show through lol. Also I prioritize the show’s vibe over strict notions of historical accuracy wrt homophobia, but at the same time based on a couple books I’ve read it’s not necessarily historically inaccurate for a military unit to have a bunch of barely closeted people and for no one to really care lol, from what I’ve read it really varied depending on the unit and COs. It got dicier in the 50s as opposed to the early 40s with some official policy changes and the lavender scare, but probably still not impossible, at least according to anecdotal evidence.

Also obviously since this is based on mountains of gay jokes it’s not going to completely fit every moment in every episode, but ykw, the implications are still a lot more consistent than you’d probably expect lol.

So anyway. This got long so it’s under a cut.

Hawkeye:

Bi, has known it for a long time, and is perfectly secure and comfortable with it. I like to think he favours men a little over women, like a kinsey 4.5. No real reason, but it’s my headcanon so there.

Was somewhat into the gay scene back in the states, has had lots of anonymous sex and short term flings and maybe couple longer term male partners.

Carlye knows he's bi though he was probably monogamous while he was with her (I say this because their first scene together reads so strongly to me like he's trying to imply he's with BJ now to save face after learning she's married lmao).

On the slightly effeminate side but doesn't play it up much (I'm differentiating this from the onslaught of combatative jokes, I'm talking mannerisms and speech patterns), though he's happy to lean into queeny stereotypes a little to piss people off. Very nearly canonically a bottom lol, though I can see him occasionally switching, and very nearly canonically into tall, broad guys with a sense of humour, full lips, a nice ass, and a big dick based on the shoe size jokes.

I think his dad knows and is relatively cool about it too. I don't see it causing a lot of drama in his life, I think he's one of the lucky ones, which contributes to his relative lack of fear.

Though that said one headcanon I have is that some kind of close call with nearly getting caught or accused and discharged happened between season 7+8, which is why he tones it down so much in late Mash.

Hm what else... I just posted about this lol but after the war I can see him getting more politically engaged and casually joining the gay communist scene.

Trapper:

Also bi and knows it, more careful and discrete about it (back in the states) what with presumably being from a pretty catholic family and being married. My logic is if the jokes are Hawkeye's bi evidence, then Trapper with almost the same amount and as a totally game participant has the same evidence, but he does have a more conscious of consequences vibe to me.

I’m torn on whether Trapper was somewhat into the gay scene stateside, or if his experience was mainly just anonymous sex while cruising. I could see an argument for the latter being more realistic and plausible, BUT I’m kind of enamoured with the idea of Trapper being just as out, in the old school ‘part of a community’ sense, as Hawkeye. It could even be a fun nod to their original book backstory where they’d coincidentally met once at a football game - except they vaguely recognize each other from the Boston bar scene lol. Maybe they fucked in a bathroom stall once.

Either way I like to think he and Hawkeye started hooking up almost immediately, then became friends, then caught feelings, and Hawkeye was the first guy Trapper ever had romantic feelings for. It doesn't perfectly fit every moment - eg if you take their exchange at the end of George (what secrets do you have in your past?) as a gay reference, which I mean considering the context it's impossible not to, that implies Trapper doesn't officially know, but it ain't about the exacting details, it's about the Vibes.

Henry:

Mildly bi swinger. He's still cheating on his wife and vice versa because they're supposed to only fuck other people as a couple. Maybe doesn't really think of himself as bi bc it’s group sex, at least at first. I'm pretty sure someone was deliberately implying some of this lol, c'mon I saw Dear Dad 3, and he gets some of the most eyebrow raising gay jokes and moments.

(One of my favourite jokes: Henry makes a PA announcement about a meeting at 0700 hours. “Is that AD or BC?” "I don't know, I never could tell with Henry." Note that AC/DC was contemporary slang for bi.)

Also has a crush on Klinger, obviously.

Klinger:

Bi and nonbinary, initially repressed about both. Comes to terms with being bi partway through the show since he's clearly hooking up with Radar by season 4, so. I like to think he had sex with Trapper at some point in season 3 too, and idgaf about Laverne here. Maybe he figures it doesn’t count if it’s with dudes. Comes to terms with his gender much later, post-canon. Would probably consider himself a transvestite, historically speaking.

Like the way he still wears his pink housecoat, complete with a bow sometimes, even after dropping the section 8 attempts? The fur coat too? In one of the most recent episodes I rewatched, in season 10, he had a bra in his footlocker, and in a season 9 episode he had pink heels stashed in one of the file cabinets, uncommented on. Soon Lee wants to see him in a dress. It all fits.

I think after he gets back to the states he opens a dress shop, slowly and organically starts acquiring a discrete trans and drag queen clientele since he's very skilled at altering women's clothes to fit a masculine build, makes some friends, gets invited to some events, and starts fully embracing his femininity.

Margaret:

I kinda like the repressed lesbian take. Her attraction to men always feels so forced and performative, like she's trying so hard to fit a role. I can also see her as bi, but I vote lesbian. I think she fucked women in college, including Lorraine, and has told herself it was just an immature phase since. Also repressed butch. Someday she finally gets that crewcut.

Radar:

Repressed gay or bi with some internalized homophobia, but chills out about it eventually. I mean come on, that scene where he gets offended when changing in front of Hawkeye? His typical noooo stoooop reactions to the gay jokes in general? Klinger was his plausible deniability dude where he could be like 'it's not gay bc i think of him as a girl.' They break it off somewhere in season 5.

Father Mulcahy:

Gay but a catholic priest, so off limits. Knows he's gay but doesn't act on it. Chill with all the gay vibes around the 4077 in accordance with his fairly live and let live attitude, regardless of whether that actually makes much sense for him as a Catholic. Whatever, there’s always exceptions to common rules and maybe he’s one of them.

Frank:

Repressed bi, but not all that repressed. Like he knows it, but denies it in his head in a way that doesn't even convince himself, like reciting a rote platitude. Internalized homophobia up to here. Would absolutely still date a guy if anyone likeable ever expressed genuine interest because he's that desperate for approval and easily malleable.

BJ:

I tend to favour the repressed gay or bi take. I see the reasoning, it makes sense to me, and it’s a fun way to watch the show. It fits what I percieve as his initial awkwardness with Hawkeye’s gay jokes in his first few seasons, including occasional no homo style defensiveness, or bringing up his own masculinity, etc. Also the way he doesn’t seem to notice that Hawkeye is blatantly hitting on him at the airport bar. The gay read in particular fits the way his fixation on his family is explicitly framed as a coping mechanism too.

I really enjoy thinking that BJ knows Hawkeye is into men and specifically into him by like, around season 7/8. Maybe not a sudden realizaton, but a sort of gradual understanding. It adds a certain je ne sais quoi to their late series interactions, and feels oddly appropriate.

I like to think he realizes he’s not straight in whichever way and is in love with Hawkeye about a year or two after going home lol, amid a crumbling marriage. But I don’t endgame ship them, so I think this revelation comes too late, Hawkeye has already moved on, and he goes back to San Francisco and either saves his marriage or finds himself a nice boyfriend.

Charles:

Gay, aware but possibly refuses to act on it due to internalized homophobia and ~respectability~, or if he does, he’s very discrete and careful. On the hunt for a suitable lavender marriage.

Potter:

He’s the token straight to me, sorry.

Random related thoughts:

I think Hawkeye and Trapper and Henry and Klinger fostered the carefree anything goes atmosphere of the 4077 just by being the way they are and being chill.

I like to think there was a gay poker night once a month. Zale accidentally crashed it in Pay Day. Klinger goes even though he doesn't consider himself anything but a straight man at first, but he's always down for a poker game and he points out that he fits in just fine.

Whenever new lgbt people arrive at the 4077 they go to either Hawkeye or Klinger first since they’re so loud, and early on Klinger might point them in Hawkeye’s direction, and Hawkeye tells them where the Seoul + Tokyo bars are and invites them to the poker game.

I think Hawkeye's subplot in Of Moose and Men was coded homophobia. Textually it was the officer being offended that Hawkeye is insubordinate, but come on, "I don't want that man touching me," followed by a sex joke about Hawkeye giving him a sedative in the ass? Followed by dude continually being disturbed by him? They really made "goof off" sound like a slur lol. Rally Round the Flagg Boys also had a milder version of this with communist substituted. Idk if it’s intentional in either case, but the vibes were there.

Margaret found out that Hawkeye’s bi at some point not long after they slept together. I could see him coming out to her during one of their heart to hearts, honestly, maybe even by accident. Maybe it helps her come to terms with her own sexuality too.

By season 4 Hawkeye and Klinger are both aware of each others’ sexualities and sort of bond over being the only 2 somewhat out guys left in the main cast. The way they start hanging out more, for a while Hawkeye’s gay jokes come out more in scenes with Klinger than in scenes with BJ, and just in general their mid-show interactions tend to have that ‘the two out cousins at the family reunion’ solidarity vibe.

I think Hawkeye thinks BJ is straight throughout the whole run of the show, but also knows BJ is sort of using him as a platonic wife replacement. Actually I think Hawkeye encouraged it early on while lowkey trying to seduce him, eventually had to be like ‘damn guess he’s straight after all,’ but by now it’s too late to reverse course and so he’s stuck pining in this weird pseudo romantic friendship.

Aaaand okay I have to stop at some point so I’m sure I have more but let’s call it good.

#mash #text post #marley on mash #thank you for the question and sorry this took a day but considering how long it is i'm sure you can see why lol #ask #hawkeye mash #trapper mash #bj mash #henry mash #margaret mash #radar mash #klinger mash #charles mash #mulcahy mash #ship hb #ship ht #mash gs

[whitebr]

Dragon Cookie Headcanons

I said I’d make a post about my Pitaya headcanons but I’m going to go a bit further with that and just list headcanons for ALL the playable dragons (so far). There’s a lot of me just taking the bits and pieces of canon I like and tossing the rest aside here, so this is very much an AU because I want cool dragons that aren’t totally horrible people. Biggest difference here is that the dragons are nicer than they are in canon. Anyways, I’m putting the rest of this post under the cut thing so it doesn’t take up a huge chunk of the page.

General Headcanons

They’re all pretty tall compared to cookies.

They squabble a bit over how they treat their followers sometimes.

They all give Pitaya a bit of friendly pokes regarding their lack of a major following.

The dragons are naturally immune to Lychee’s charm magic.

They can all purr. I don’t have an explanation for this other than it’s cute.

Pitaya

He/They pronouns. (Based on how the Red Dragon is referred to as male but I’ve been using they/them for Pitaya for so long since they were announced that it’s a habit for me.)

Mild himbo energy.

Loves sparring.

Considers anyone that beats them to be a worthy opponent.

Thus, the easiest(?) way to impress them is to kick their ass in a fight.

Acts tough, but is actually a big softie around those close to them.

Threaten their friends at your own risk.

They have fluffy hair. Super soft, but kind of messy.

Gives great hugs.

Doesn’t hate Knight for cutting off the tip of their tail, but does check in to make sure he’s taking good care of it.

The warmest of the dragons physically, great for winter cuddles.

Purrs if you scratch their chin in just the right spot, but only if you’re close to them.

Doesn’t like Ananas’ ego, but is able to put it aside if push comes to shove.

Very physically affectionate and loves cuddling.

Ananas

He/They pronouns. (The wiki says Ananas is nonbinary but everyone seems to interpret Ananas as masculine so why not both?)

Still has a bit of an ego.

Does not know what a jpeg is.

Adopted Mango as his son.

“Are ya winnin’ son?” kinda guy.

Doesn’t get along with Pitaya, but is willing to put that kind of thing aside when it really matters.

Taller than Pitaya, but thinner.

Likes sculpting.

Tends to express affection in the form of gifts and such.

Threaten Mango and die.

Lotus

She/They pronouns. (Their gender is unspecified so I’m just going with they/them and also the gender vibes the dragons give off in general. Lotus in particular gives me mom vibes.)

Mom energy.

Dotes on her followers and especially Hydrangea.

Kind of lazy, preferring to relax in her home.

Expresses affection and love verbally, but doesn’t say no to cuddles.

Knows more about pop culture than she lets on.

This tends to manifest in her playing a song from something and looking to see if anyone recognizes it.

Fiercely protective of her paradise and the cookies that live within it.

You know she really likes you when she wraps her tail around you gently and nuzzles you.

Lychee

She/They pronouns. (I honestly think Lychee could fit as a guy or a gal or something else altogether but for the sake of evenness I’m givin’ ‘em she/they please don’t hang me in the notes.)

Absolute gremlin.

Attention hog.

Basically the little sibling of the dragon group.

She and Lotus disagree a lot over the whole “mind controlling cookies” thing.

Despite this, she makes sure to treat her servants well.

Same thing goes for the monsters.

She absolutely spoils Fluffles. (The monster in her concept art.)

#cookie run #cookie run ovenbreak #pitaya dragon cookie #ananas dragon cookie #lotus dragon cookie #lychee dragon cookie #headcanons #canon is a cup of bitter black coffee and i'm adding lots of cream and sugar to it #can you guys tell i like the gentle giant character type yet #i'm tired of mean and evil dragons #let them be nice

[demonslayedher]

Dream Analysis of Mugen Ressha

Spoilers for the movie, while it does not depart from the plot of the manga, they made adaptational choices which I may refer to within.

While Enmu has control over what kind of dream his victims see, ultimately, he would have no way of knowing all of the details of his victims' lives, so we can assume that he is prompting his victims to fill in a lot of the details themselves. These are the worlds they surround themselves with consciously, but their untouchable unconscious spaces say just as much.

I've said some of this before, but these dream sequences give us so much to say about Inosuke, Zenitsu, Kyojuro, and Tanjiro.

Into the dream: Did that "Rengoku-aniki" thing really happen???? It's animated like a fever dream (or drawn like a typical Gotouge-being-Gotouge panel), but both the movie and the manga leave this inconclusive. It can be interpreted two ways: 1. The two other demons were there all along as decoys, set to appear only when Enmu's blood technique slowly started to take effect so that they'd let their guard down. In this way, we'd know that the boys had a true way of witnessing Kyojuro's prowess and a true bonding moment, thereby making his death hit all the harder later. This would also mean that one of the cars was totally unusable for passengers, and many of the passengers were already thoroughly spooked before falling into sleep. It would also imply that they were all super excited, thoroughly relieved, returned to their seats, and then just passed out.

2. The moment the tickets were clipped, Enmu's very, very, very realistic dreams took immediate effect, but he still needed time before it took effect enough that their guards would go down. If this is the case, then it implies the following: 1. Enmu's illusions can be shared 2. Everyone syncs extremely well together to have all been sucked in by the same illusion (it's possible it was only Tanjiro's, but since we get in everyone's heads a little in this part, I believe they all experienced the same thing). Reacting in ways so true to how they would in waking like, they learned as much about each other as truthfully as they would have if they were fighting while awake. 3. The "Rengoku-aniki" thing is the moment they're falling into a deeper stage of sleep, when any bizarre thing will make sense. They've lost any sense of holding back and are embracing the emotions as they hit them. Even if that was all a dream, the bond formed was very real. But then, as they fall deep, they fall into their own headspaces. Inosuke: I love how bombastic this dream is. It moves at a very fast pace, and everything revolves around Inosuke. He is physically much larger than Ponjiro, Chuuitsu, and Pyonko, who clearly follow him as their leader, the most powerful person in this cave exploring world full of wonder and excitement. True to life, these underlings can at times be frustrating or stupid, but there is no one else Inosuke would rather have at his side to take on a hugely impressive foe. It's a relatively simplistic world, what Inosuke really cares about is his place in it, and who is there.

Taking it a step deeper, he should not be able to manifest in his self-conscious space, but Gotouge attributes his and Zenitsu's ability to do this and protect their cores from intruders to their strong senses of self. What's telling is that his subconscious space is practically identical to his conscious dream space; like there is no breakage between one stage of reality and the next. In its Zen-like simplicity Inosuke's mind is never at odds with itself, its interpretation of reality is fluid and seamless. However, being at this deeper state brings us to a deeper state of self actualization, with Inosuke manifesting closer to the ideal beast he views himself as.

Now, with Inosuke being so fully invested in what he sees as reality, he's still got a carry-over effect from dream after waking up, which one could interpret as not having fully shaken the effects of Enmu's blood technique. After all, Zenitsu simply never broke out of it, Tanjiro had to kill himself in his dreams each time to fully snap out of it, and Kyojuro was the only one powerful enough to have broken through its effects through his own willpower. When Tanjiro says the train is a demon, he buzzes with "I was right!" (a conviction that only got stronger in his dream), and Inosuke's declarations of being the boss and Tanjiro being his underling are indignantly plentiful and he fully believes what he is saying every time he brings it up, even if he's aware that he's no longer in the cave exploring dream. But, given that Inosuke is so at peace with his own version of reality, it's also just as likely that his conviction of being The Boss was also only compounded by the dream, and all that dream did was give him a more fun setting in which to play around in. But, what was so fun about the dream, what made him sleep-giggle with pleasure, was that everyone else was finally getting with the program and recognizing him as the boss, as they should. Finally. It's so frustrating in real life that he has to keep reminding them to get it right. Get it, Santaro?? GOOD. Zenitsu: What I love here is the contrast between subconscious and conscious space. Both of them have the same theme melody, but played in very, very different ways. They also both play with the same core desire in very different ways as well. Is it so much to ask that he can just spend some time alone with the girl he loves?? If we jump straight to the pitch black unconscious space, he specifies to the intruder that only Nezuko is allowed there. Not just girls in general, not a close friend like Tanjiro, only the one girl he loves, and even then, you'd have to love someone a lot to invite them into the deepest, darkest corners of your soul. And it is a very, very, very, very dark corner. Zenitsu's spent most of his life building that dark, pessimistic personality, compounded by the treatment he's always received throughout his life and what he believes about himself at his core. He's ugly and depraved there, and very defensive. Because he holds himself in such darkness, that makes him desire the bright, happy, completely idealistic world of his conscious dream world. It's rich with detail and warm and he knows it well, that places is the first place he ever felt someone have hope for him; it's Jiichan's home, that sunny place with delicious peaches and full of clovers and lush greenery and a charming stream. Of course he'd want to show it all to Nezuko, she deserves to see such a happy, pretty place! And, while the world is idealized and happy, Nezuko is e-x-t-r-e-m-e-l-y cute and actually wants to hang out with him too. She's willing no hold his hand, none of the girls who dated (read: used) Zenitsu in the past were ever willing to hold his hand. He even gets to show her that he can be cool, and she likes it!! She looks him in the eyes and is totally honest about enjoying his company!!

He just wants someone to want him back. He wants to belong in the sunshine too. So, even if he had it in him to wake up from Enmu's blood technique, who can blame him for staying there? (You know, besides Tanjiro, who has been desperately screaming for them all to wake up and help him protect the passengers. Zzzzz, five more minutes, Tanjiro, zzzzzzz----) Kyojuro: This... isn't really a happy dream. Kyojuro has accepted a lot of sad parts of his reality so wholeheartedly that he doesn't seek the comfort of a dream in which his mother is still alive, or a dream in which his father is proud of him. Instead, what Kyojuro was looking for was the chance to go back and say more to Senjuro. This implies that on the real day he knelt in that room, while his father faced away and read the book* while Kyojuro told him all about how he defeated Lower Moon Two and became a Pillar, and was met with his father's heartbreakingly unenthusiastic reply, he later went outside and...

...didn't say any words of comfort to Senjuro.

This regret, that he didn't do more for his brother whom he knew was hurting in his own silent ways this whole time, was what sat most bothersomely in Kyojuro's otherwise peacefully self-assured psyche (or fired-up psyche, if you go by his subconscious space) . It makes sense that in his dying wishes, the first thing he requests is that Tanjiro do this in his stead. *Speaking of that book, Kyojuro had forgotten about it until his memories pulled together to create the details of the dream, which was why he thought to mention it to Tanjiro later. This shows that Enmu is not an architect of people's dreams, he only sets them in motion. How believable they are depends on each victim. (Totally unrelated, I love the design of the Rengoku estate's garden??? It's primarily evergreen and unflowering trees, meaning it stays relatively steadfast throughout the year, a garden designed in samurai villa taste. Plus the details of the house also fit really well, I think??? Would need to review research of buke-yashiki architecture to say more.) Tanjiro: ...*deep breath* This boy really, really wants to go home. Like, the climax of the movie is amazing and all, but it's the scenes with Tanjiro's family that make me cry. Ugh, where do I start. Enmu probably just grabs on to whatever thread of a desire a person has, and then he just tugs on it and says "this way, let's go really far in this direction, show me where it goes, hmm, okay, nice, lovely. Have fun here, I've now seen enough to write my own angsty version for later." So... so I'm just going to work backwards a moment. Enmu screwed up here, thinking he could really read the depth of Tanjiro's family and his feelings for them. He thought he could make a convincing version of these "characters" cry and shove Tanjiro around and speak meanly to him and make him feel shame. And the cut to that dream, OH MY GOSH, truly horrific sound and color change. But Tanjiro's sees through it so fast that he wakes up immediately and uses that anger at how Enmu wrote them to cut off his "head." You screwed up, Enmu, you blew it, maybe other people would very so blown down by the shock that they wouldn't question how unreal that dream sequence is, but Tanjiro has honed his fighting spirit so much that it's been nagging him even throughout his happy dream. And he really, really, really wants to stay in that happy dream. Like, even though he's on guard at the beginning, so much so that he only focuses on the familiar feeling of a demon being around and does not notice the familiar landscape AT ALL. But the moment Hanako and Shigeru step in, convincingly made from Tanjiro's memories and unedited by Enmu, Tanjiro throws that all away in an instant. As he says when he's trying, after trying and trying and trying to rip himself away from the dream, he was never even supposed to had left this world. He was never supposed to had touched anything like a sword, they were all supposed to stay there together, living their simple life. If things hadn't gone wrong that one night. Tanjiro cares deeply about his mission, he's adopted his training deeply, he has serious desire to improve, which is why his subconsciously keeps trying to call himself back to reality, but it's so hard, because this is where he wants to be, and it's even harder because it feels so real. It's a little peeve of mine when families with lots of little siblings are written to be too angelic and idealistic, and there is some of that with the "let's make sembei, yaaaay" scene, but... but that's actually pretty true. I'm giving myself away with how close this hits to home, but it's a dynamic in a lot of large families, especially large families pretty happy to stay to themselves and people who live the same sort of conservative, traditional lifestyle, to foster in the older siblings some pride in taking care of the little ones and helping create that happy world for them, even if taking care of little kids can be rough. It's not to say that things are always happy and fluffy, they're not, and that's not to say even

happy kids don't resent being in a large family sometimes. But there's plenty of moments in daily life, especially in the presence of small children, that you get swept up into a sillier, happy, caretaker side of yourself, and since you all grow up with these silly moments together, you're going to naturally fall into into some silly, scripted-feeling moments of "then I'll be in charge of eating the sembei!" "no faaaaair!". So, I'll give the sembei scene a pass because that IS a moment that happens in years of moments with the same posse of kiddos around you all the time. But it's also so striking to me how each of Tanjiro's siblings, however idealized, has their own personality. The traits are so subtle but consistent and Tanjiro knows all of them. They pick up on things about each other, they grow realistically annoyed and surprised and concerned and scared like they would if they were real instead of only Tanjiro's memories of them. Those kids feel so real to me, even if they are annoyingly overidealized in some parts as Tanjiro is letting himself get swept away. And just when he's managing to part from it to go face reality, Enmu makes more attack: he brings in Nezuko, trying to make it feel like there's no point in Tanjiro running at all. She's fine. There's nothing left for him to fight for. Everything's fine. And all over again, Tanjiro just stops. He KNOWS it's not real, but he's hurting so much to hear her voice again that he just sto-o-o-o-ps. And his desire to stay with the others catches up to him all over again, and he's tempted all over again to stay, EVEN KNOWING IT'S NOT REAL and there are very, very, very pressing matters to attend to. Even if it was all a little happy and idealized, more than anything, it felt like life always did. It's telling that when Tanjiro finally, FINALLY pulls away from that that time, he doesn't look back, and the family stops chasing him. This is Tanjiro accepting reality, however much it hurts. He's already had a couple years to accept this, but it was all overwhelming to get such a vivid taste of it again.

Tanjiro wants to do well to his organization and honor Urokodaki's training and avenge the fallen and prevent anyone else from being hurt and see an end to Kibutsuji Muzan and make Nezuko human again, but more than anything, he wants that simple life. And it's so, so heartwarming that at the end of the manga, he gets it.

It's not the same. It'll never be the same.

He never wanted a life with a sword, but he's been working so hard at it anyway.

#my heart is broken and it's Kamado Tanjiro's fault #KnY Fandom Theories and Meta #Mugen Ressha Hen #Kamado Tanjiro #Kamado Tanjirou #Agatsuma Zenitsu #Hashibira Inosuke #Rengoku Kyoujurou #Rengoku Kyojuro

[the-ferocious-kittyrose]

My complicated opinion on Keith Kogane

Keith Kogane is definitely one of the more popular characters in the VLD fandom. People love brooding emo bad boys.

My feelings on Keith are... complicated. I definitely don’t hate him. I have a lot of problems with the character but I don’t think I could ever bring myself to actually hate him. Mainly because I kinda relate to him. We both have problems controlling our emotions, interacting with people, and making friends.

And we both have trouble believing there are people who truly have our best interests at heart and won’t abandon us because we’re a burden.

What I do hate is the way his character was written and the way it negatively impacted the characters around him.

There are definitely a lot of factors that contributed to VLD ending up the way it did. But to me, Keith and the writers insistence on pushing him to the forefront was the poison that killed the show.

Ok, before we get into this whole rant I feel like I should talk about the things I do like about Keith.

I like the premise of Keith’s character. He’s half Galra and never really fit in on Earth. He didn’t act like the other “normal” kids so kids made fun of him and adults didn’t want to deal with him. So in order to protect himself from the pain of rejection he would put up a tough angry facade and push people away and reject them before they could reject him.

This is something that really resonates with me personally having grown up neurodivergent. It’s awful growing up in a world that isn’t made for people like you and not knowing how to interact with or connect with your peers. Especially when you don’t know why you’re like that.

You learn to avoid social interaction because it always ends up negative. You put up walls because you don’t feel like anybody understands you or what you’re going through.

I know the writers probably didn’t intend to code Keith as neurodivergent. They just wanted Keith to be a hothead with abandonment issues, but nonetheless, this interpretation means a lot to me.

I also really like his relationship with Shiro. Keith is so used to being left behind and abandoned that when he meets someone like Shiro who’s patient and genuinely cares it’s new and strange. He’s so ready for Shiro to abandon him, even telling Shiro to send him back to the home, but Shiro refuses to leave him and tells Keith ethat he’s never going to give up on him.

It’s also interesting to see how their relationship develops over time. It’s clear Keith trusts Shiro, but you can tell that that fear of abandonment is still there deep down. In S2, Keith tells Shiro that he’s like a brother to him, and then in season 6, he takes the extra step and tells Shiro that he IS his brother and that he loves him. And for someone like Keith, telling their friend they love them is a big scary thing.

And also it’s just great to see a platonic “I love you,” especially between two guys. Don’t be afraid to tell your bros you love them!!!

Now let’s talk about the stuff I didn’t like.

Keith doesn’t have much going for him in terms of personality. He’s just sorta brooding and serious all the time. He does make jokes occasionally but it’s rare. The writers were more focused on making him cool and badass rather than fun.

I always loved the idea of Keith as a cocky carefree asshole who doesn’t give a shit about rules/laws and is kinda rude/aggressive but has a heart of gold deep down and would do anything for the people he cares about. (Just like a cat.)

I would also make him more alien esc. In terms of design I like the idea of Keith having red eyes with narrow pupils and fangs. And also just small things like the way he walks and holds himself. He growls and bears his teeth when he’s angry, his hair puffs up when scared, he’s fast and agile, disappearing and reappearing without making much noise, small things.

Then you have his race and sexuality. I have no doubt in my mind that Keith was intended to be a straight white dude. A lot of people see him as gay and Asian but there’s no evidence for this in canon. Acxa was originally intended to be his love interest and his race was never mentioned in canon. His name isn’t even Kogane in canon. (And the race of the voice actor doesn’t equal the race of the character. If that was the case Shiro, Hunk, and Lance would be white.)

They should’ve totally made Keith Japanese like he was in the original. It would’ve been so easy! Just canonize Kogane as his last name and have the book say he’s half Japanese half Galra. They could’ve also done what they did with Shiro and keep his og GoLion name. Just have him be Akira Kogane. Definitely cooler than “Keith.”

And as for his sexuality, I definitely think they should’ve had Keith be gay. But well get to that Later...

I also don’t like how they handled the whole Krolia thing. Not only was it crazy rushed, but it completely goes against the shows theme of found family.

Keith’s arc should’ve been about overcoming his abandonment issues and learning to accept the paladins as family. But instead they just get rid of the abandonment issues by just giving him his mom back.

I know a lot of people love Krolia but I don’t feel like she should’ve been introduced in anything other than flashbacks. Because Keith’s mom isn’t really that important. The show is about found family and friendship, not blood relation.

You can definitely have Keith learn about his mom and his family, but I feel like giving him his mom back was too much.

Personally, I always headcanoned that Kolivan was Keith’s grandfather or just a close friend of Krolia’s, and when Keith showed up at the Blade’s base Kolivan recognized the blade as his Krolia’s. Keith could learn about his mom through Kolivan telling him about her, how she was a great person and warrior who died fighting to make the universe a safer place for her son.

Another thing I didn’t like was the whole Keith leaving the team for the Blades thing. I know why he did it, he felt like the team was gonna reject him, he wanted to be more useful, and wanted to learn about his family, but I feel like you could’ve touched on all that without having him abandon his team.

One of the biggest problems with the show is that they did a bad job at establishing the paladins as friends, they feel like coworkers more than anything, and I feel like Keith being absent for two seasons contributed to that.

And his absence is hardly addressed. The team forms Voltron perfectly without him and no one ever says they miss him. Keith doesn’t even seem like he missed them after being gone for two years.

And a lot of the weight was taken out of that Keith v Kuron fight by the fact that Keith and Kuron hardly interacted.

That whole thing amounted to four things, Keith meeting Krolia (which I don’t think should’ve happened), them finding the colony (which was a dumb plot I don’t think should’ve happened), Keith aging up two years (which was weird and unnecessary), and Keith meeting Kosmo (which is... complicated).

I don’t think this plot was necessary. Keith should’ve stayed with his team.

Then you have his relationship with Lance. I know people are very sensitive about this topic. People have very strong opinions about whether or not Keith and Lance were intended to be romantically coded.

Personally, I do like Klance but I don’t believe they were romantically coded. I think if you want them to get together some things would have to go differently.

For example, the bonding moment. In canon, Lance tells Keith, “we make a good team.” I don’t see this as referring to him and Keith. I think he was talking about the whole team. If you want it to be about the two of them, I feel like it should be Lance telling Keith something like, “ya know, you’re not so bad after all,” and then Keith smiles and responds, “you’re not so bad yourself.”

Another example could be the scene where Lance comes to Keith with his insecurities. (Whether it’s as a leader or a friend.) This scene was weird in canon, Lance comes to Keith for advice and Keith basically tells him to just stop thinking about it.

I would prefer if Lance brought up to Keith how he doesn’t feel like he’s good enough or that he doesn’t have, “a thing,” and Keith is completely dumbfounded like, “what are you even talking about?” He goes on about all the good shit about Lance. Talks about how Blue chose him, how he’s a great shot, how he’s good at dealing with people, meanwhile Lance is standing there in shock as Keith says all these nice things about him.

Over all you would just have to develop their relationship more. More meaningful interactions. And if you want the relationship to be romantic you would have to establish that early on. Establish that one or both has romantic feelings for the other in like S1/S2 because if you wait too long it’s gonna feel forced/out of no where.

And then... you have the Black Paladin arc... I’m gonna be real with y’all, this is the arc that killed the show for me, for a few reasons.

One, even ignoring the whole quintessence bond thing, it makes no sense for Keith to be the bp. He doesn’t fit the role. I adore Shiro but choosing Keith as his successor was a dumb move. I get that he saw potential in Keith but they’re are fighting a war, there’s no room for favoritism.

Shiro should’ve chosen Allura as his successor. Not only does she have actual leadership experience, but you would only have one paladin in a new Lion instead of three.

If a lifeguard breaks his leg and can’t work, he should choose an experienced swimmers to take his place, not his little bro that’s still in water wings in the hopes that it’ll teach him to swim.

Two, Keith being the bp doesn’t help his arc. Keith’s arc is about overcoming his abandonment issues and learning to be a team player, he doesn’t need to be the leader for that.

VLD should’ve been about the paladins growing into the best versions of themselves they could be. Their development shown by unlocking new abilities in their respective lions, new forms for their bayards, and new Voltron bayard power ups. They shouldn’t have to change lions and themselves.

Keith and Red have a strong bond and work great together. Keith and Red are both temperamental, unpredictable, and have issues with trust. Keith having to fight to get Red to trust and open up to him mirrors how others have to fight to earn Keith’s trust and get him to let down his walls.

It would’ve been interesting to see them grow together. Keith has no emotional connection with Black.

We never even get to see them bond. Keith just suddenly becomes the “perfect” bp/leader because he got over his mommy issues

Three, it’s a MASSIVE disservice to Shiro’s character. Shiro put all the work in earning his position as the bp, he literally fits fought Zarkon on the astral plane to earn her trust, yet Keith is the true bp? What?

It sucks. Sendak told Shiro that a monster like him could never be a paladin and the writers went and proved him right. Hell Shiro didn’t even get to kill Sendak, Keith got that too.

And don’t tell me, “but he got the Atlas!” REALLY!? A massive Deus ex machina that required absolutely no effort from him to acquire!? Filled with a bunch of rando background characters no one gives a shit about!? You’re totally right, that 100% makes up for it.

I could go on and on about how the treatment of Shiro in this show (and fandom) is blatantly ableist but that’s a rant for another time.

It sucks. I want to like Keith! He had the potential to be an amazing character but the writers just kept on trying to turn him into something he wasn’t and it ruined him for me.

They kept trying to turn Keith into the main character and ignored that ALL the paladins are the main characters. It’s an ensemble cast! You don’t have to have everything come back to one guy.

#voltron #voltron legendary defender #voltron legendary discourse #vld #vld critical #keith kogane #keith vld #red paladin keith #klance #krolia #black paladin shiro #takashi shirogane #vld shiro #black lion #red lion #galra #galra keith #blade of marmora

[sometimesrosy]

Rosy that's fantastic news for your book!! I'm really happy for you. And just seeing "bellarke consum their love and even have grandkids" makes my heart full. Bob and Eliza said tthey were disappointed that 1/the charaters couldn't have kids in the end and that 2/ there was no hope. I totally agree with their interpretation of the end. Some people said the ending was super cool, and inkeeping with the whole show, and somehow hopeful. HOW WAS IT HOPEFUL?? the human race gets wiped out...

People said the ending was “super cool?” How?

Wait. I need to wrap my head around that. What are they looking at that seems super cool?

I actually don’t have a problem of the concept of transcendence that they worked on all season, nor Cadogan, the fake-spiritual, love-your-fellow-man-but-also-sacrifice-them-because-they-mean-nothing cult leader who favored his daughter, used his son, tossed his exwife into the apocalypse and killed Becca because she had power and knowledge beyond him.

Like, that could have been super cool if they’d kept him the villain, the antagonist, but instead they made him the protagonist who was, somehow, right about transcendence as if it wasn’t just another fucking doomsday cult that wanted humanity to end. I mean, it WAS just another fucking doomsday cult that wanted humanity to end, and the aliens vacuumed up humanity and allowed for no dissent. Here, have your perfect happy transcendence...but your body dies, the world ends, and humanity is gone. That is EXACTLY what ALIE did, and she was a villain. Perhaps a well meaning villain, but a terrifying villain.

How did the SAME story, get switched around to being some sort of victory for the state of humanity? How did the end of humanity, no chance to continue on, because they removed their ability to have children and carry on?

Why couldn’t they just fucking stay on The Ring if that was going to happen. At least they could have a small community up there.  But no. Without the info that our heroes brought, they wouldn’t have reached transcendence. 

That wasn’t transcendence. It was judgement day. Transcendence means you have worked your way to a higher state, and yes, it might be condescending and elitist, but you at least worked for it. And it wasn’t really a judgement day because they just took everybody, despite the fact that those idiots were fighting for no fucking reason. It was a PUNISHMENT day for Clarke, one of the only people who was actually TRYING to be better and do better. 

What was cool? The way the aliens brought back the people they cared for? Yes, that was cool. It wasn’t them of course, but some people would be impressed by the alien dressed up in the costume of their fav. I could see that being considered super cool. But honestly... that’s a story line that would have worked better in season 3 and in fact DID work remarkably well in season 3 when Lxa showed up in the COL. And it was ACTUALLY her, not some facsimile.

Was it cool to take away the agency of the hero of the story who we’ve been following for 7 years? Was it cool to erase the personality and motivation of our dual protagonist? Ok. So lets say you didn’t love Clarke or Bellamy. Octavia’s character was erased and she didn’t have a thing to do until the final battle, and then she got a romance that frankly made me uncomfortable but that’s taste. Echo was erased and she didn’t have a thing to do until the final battle. Raven was also erase although she got to be the one to convince the aliens that they weren’t totally awful beings. That was cool, but it seemed like a patch put on top of a story that had failed. The story being about how Clarke saves humanity, and Bellamy saves Clarke, which has been THE STORY FOR SIX YEARS. We spent six years building up a team with these two heroes who have been through so much shit and made the CHOICE to be the good guys, and in the end, Bellamy gives his power over to a charismatic obsessive leader (also happened in season 3 with Pike who was a great character and FAR better than Cadogan and actual sympathetic awful villain who thought he was saving his people while doing evil.) And Clarke actually becomes THE BAD GUY, who loses her sense of reason and commits violence due to loving too much-- a really tired, misogynistic storyline. Give women power and they go crazy. The hysterical woman. THIS DOES NOT FIT WITH CLARKE GRIFFIN. Also, we saw her go through that trauma of fear for her daughter, and she DID NOT GO CRAZY. Ruthless, yes. And then she worked through what she had done and recognized she was wrong and promised not to do that again. I honestly don’t know why she did it again.  Even if Bellamy betrayed her again, it didn’t make sense that she couldn’t work through it.

They had to keep the two characters apart in order have that ending happen. Why? Because Clarke acts as the center to Bellamy and Bellamy acts as the Center to Clarke. This season is the story of the FAILURE of the duo protagonists of the show. They separated them and broke them individually, and this meant they were unable to save the universe. 

Is it cool to make a show about heroes and then destroy them in the last season? But frame that destruction and the end of humanity as a VICTORY and positive ending? Maybe if you hate those characters and humanity and think there’s no hope for us anyway, so lets just burn it down.

Oh wait. I’m trying to figure out what’s SUPER COOL about that ending.

The purple sparkly aliens. Ok. How is that cool? That there’s actually an omnipotent alien out there that has the ability to just snap a whole race of people out of existence or into their big ole stew pot of consciousness.

1. Why? 2. How? 3. Where did that power come from? 4. Who are they? 5. What do they get out of erasing races and basically eating them?

Okay, putting aside the questions about how these omnipotent gods aliens came to be... is it possible they can be see as “super cool?” Let me go through.

1. Omnipotent aliens going through the universe, deciding when life forms were “ready” to be judged and then either wiping them out totally, or wiping them out totally but accepting their consciousnesses into their massive consciousness where they don’t want any “bad” lifeforms, which makes them now a higher lifeform but not at all what they once were. 

Cool/Not Cool. I dunno. Kind of seems like some sort of puritanical god who willy nilly decides if people are worthy of heaven. Will He, Nil He. That’s what that means. If we’re gonna get aliens at the last minute, I want aliens. I want to know who they are and what’s up with them. THAT’S the story. Those alien guys. Instead, the story was about the flotsam and jetsam at the end of humanity, either getting swept up into the god-form in the sky or being pounded to bits on the rocks. The heroes of our story have no say in what happens. They’re toast either way. Oh you mean we can be erased into nothing or erased into your hive mind? The only way this is cool is if you like nihilism. Which, yeah, some people do. NONE of their struggle over the past six years meant a damn thing. None of it. Their beliefs, their sacrifices, their mistakes, their heroism. It al reduces down to whether those sparkly purple aliens like them or not. That’s some bullshit. 

Not cool. 

2. Cadogan. Cult leader from the first apocalypse who conned the bulk of his followers and left them shady shelters that let them die. Kept the good stuff for his “best” followers. Paternalistic, obsessive, ruthless, megalomaniac framing his leadership and personality as “Love for Humanity,” while discarding every human who he deemed unworthy. Including his own family. Actually. Pretty cool.  AS A VILLAIN. Ending up at his cult colony in space hundreds of years later with thousands of years of development in time dilation. Cool. They’re creepy but make some bit of sense. Ok. Waking him up and then making him this fucking GURU who preaches love for humanity but sacrifices 99.9% of humanity all so that he can reach his mythical transcendence which is really the eradication of all humanity.... well, that’s actually cool. AS A VILLAIN. But somehow in the last season, Cadogan turned out to be the one who was right all along, and the story seemed to accept HIS concept that transcendence was the best thing that could happen to them, because humanity sucks and they always fight so they should be erase by paternalistic omnipotent gods. CADOGAN’S choices were the ones that were enacted. Bellamy gave his will to Cadogan and made CADOGAN’S choices, not his own. Never before in all the seasons did Bellamy “need it all to make sense.” He fucking KNEW it made no sense and he didn’t want to make those choices any more. And he did it to be a better person and make better choices and keep his family safe. The excuse they used for our hero to side with Cadogan did not fit. CADOGAN became the protagonist in the second half of the season. CADOGAN made all the choices that furthered the story. Our heroes were reduced to either brainwashed followers or ineffective, hysterical messes, our really not wanting anything to do with anyone’s salvation and just interested in their love life. It left Raven, Echo and Octavia to scramble around in the end and try to convince the purple sparkly gods not to erase them out of existence, just erase them and swallow them. :/ Cadogan as protagonist bringing humanity to “transcendence.”, Our supposed heroes as useless flotsam and jetsam floating around on the wreck of humanity whose choices and actions make no goddamn difference.

NOT COOL.

3. Character Storylines

Clarke’s storyline. NOT COOL. Bellamy’s storyline. NOT COOL. Octavia’s storyline. S.A COOL. S.B NOT COOL. Raven’s storyline. COOL. Echo’s storyline. S.A COOL. S.B NOT COOL. Murphy’s storyline. SUPER COOL. Emori’s storyline. SUPER COOL. Indra’s storyline.  COOL. Hope’s storyline. S.A COOL S.B NOT COOL. Jordan’s storyline. NOT COOL.  Diyoza’s storyline. COOL Gabriel’s storyline. COOL. Madi’s storyline. NOT COOL The grounders. Fucking morons. You really shouldn’t make a whole culture’s choices based around being absolutely too stupid to be allowed to live. EVEN when you get past xenophobia and learn about who they are and why they do things. NOT COOL. The culty people. Cool set up and world building. The society was dumb and had too many plot holes. MIDDLING SHEIDHEDA. NOT COOL. pointless plot device just used to make everyone forget everything they learned from 6 seasons. CADOGAN. COOL AS A VILLAIN. But he was the protagonist. So the ruination of the entire show and universe they created. NOT COOL.

SEASON A COOL OVERALL.  SEASON B NOT COOL. TOTAL SEASON NOT COOL

I think if people think the ending was supercool, they’ve never heard of a deus ex machina, and how that’s a BAD ending that is really just a cheat because you can’t figure out a way to get out of the story mess you made. 

I really hate post apocalyptic fiction that ends with no hope for humanity. JR kept telling us there was hope. I mean narratively, not in interviews, although he did that too, and in the last half season, he switched it around so they wouldn’t have hope, not even just our heroes, but all humanity. It was a bait and switch I did not appreciate. And I’m not talking about ships, I’m talking about the essential genre of the show. 

PS. thanks. I love my book and I hope someone picks it up so you all can read it. It also has elements of Han/Leia and another couple, Brashen/Althea from the Live Ship Traders book by Robin Hobb. They are, however, less traumatized than the characters in The 100. 

#RANT lol

[redxblueihateloveyou]

Hiiii!!! 💫💕🌸🥳

Can I bother with a question... I was (re)watching that zhang qiling edit (not today) - 'cause it's so cool, btw- and I wondered if Reboot Xiaoge’s your favourite one...? And if you're up to answering, what do you think about the other adaptations? Especially (our small bean) xiao yuliang's interpretation of xiaoge?

🤗🌺💐🐰💕

Hey, my precious patootie hehe ILY it always makes me very happy knowing that you rewatch my vids <3

lol dang it, I was kinda hoping to avoid this question, just because I feel like I'd find it hella hard to explain some things, but I'll try my best and hopefully it'll make some sense xD

I'll start from afar bc I wanna try to explain my reasonings, since I don't want to go without arguments into such highly debated question lolz. I talked about this a bit in my previous asks somewhere, but not broadly as to why that one guy hit all the right spots.

So throughout the books Wu Xie always does this wonderful thing, where he very tangibly describes the feeling he gets when Xiaoge is near, I mean like the aura around him. And he always somehow does it so colorful, that this mix of safety, assurance, calmness, composure and some things I can't quite put into one noun, that he brings to him, I think everyone who've read the books can recognize as this almost magical "Xiaoge feeling". It's not just the way he acts in some dangerous situations or smth like that. It's just everything. You either have it or you don't. And here goes my first argument... to me none of them, except for Huang Junjie and Yuliang have it.

I mean it's not even the obvious stuff, it's like the way they move during the action scenes, the way they even stand and hold themselves, the way they touch Wu Xie, the tone of their voices (both of which are like soothing as fuck), little things you'd think wouldn't matter, but when you watch it and all the puzzle pieces are together, you're like... fuck yeah, thats him.

Also not really that weighty of a point, but to me there's always a joy to see that the actor who plays the character not only gets what's he's playing, but also loves it, bc it's always seen on screen. Usually when some asked about the character they play and what they have in common for example they answer with obvious things like if some character is introverted they're like "well I also don't talk very much" or smth like that, you know what I mean. When I was watching interviews of Yuliang and Huang Junjie I was just smiling so much, bc they've said such things that made me go "yeah, Qiling is safe in their hands".

In Reboot case working in such close proximity with the author definitely also played a huge role here. Bc it kinda gets complicated in some aspects since the books are written from Wu Xie's point of view and you can't only base your picture on his perspective, just bc it's coming from a person who after being basically told "you're my whole world" goes "I'm just a person he randomly passes by in his long life" in his thoughts. Not only he's utterly clueless and dumb when it comes to all this, that he wouldn't notice the way Qiling looks at him and other things, its also not that kind of book, that would go "I suddenly caught poker face looking at me like I'm his whole existence" (and I honestly don't want it to be that book lmao). So you have to take into the account here stuff like what author says to get the whole picture, bc if you look at that from the point of Qiling's view for example, this shit takes a whole wild turn. So I really loved that in UN and Reboot ways of showing Qiling's feelings were well thought out and fit the timeline.

Bc it also works both ways, when it comes to other adaptations. Like Qiling is very and I mean ETREMELY hard to win over. We all know that it was a very long process of gaining his trust and even longer for him to fall for Wu Xie to the point of him being his everything. So what I want in those interpretations is for them to get at which point of their relationships what Xiaoge's behavior makes sense. I do not need any fanservice if it ruins the character, I'll just hate it. The thing that their feelings didn't come out of nowhere is what I LOVE about this ship, bc I'm not the kind of person who believes in "we love for nothing" thing and love at first sight thing (only "got hots for each other" at first sight), bc thats bull. Wu Xie became his everything after a long LONG process of getting to know each other. At the beginning tho he was the same stranger to him as everyone else. So what Reboot Qiling feels for Wu Xie is not what UN's Qiling feels for Wu Xie yet and what UN's Qiling feels for Wu Xie is not what Lost Tomb's Qiling feels for Wu Xie (which at that point was nothing). And I feel like not everyone gets the fact that you can totally wreck the character if you make him behave not the way he behaved in that particular time. Like for example, if someone would make a MDZS adaptation where at the very beginning of their relationships LZ treats WWX the way he treated him after the reincarnation just because "who cares, it's still LZ", that would be dumb af, see what I mean. So Xiaoge having a weakness for Wu Xie in part one is automatically not a Xiaoge to me, bc a huge part of his character and the thing NPSS speaks a lot about is just how IMPOSSIBLE it is for someone to catch his attention and how long it took Wu Xie to get there. So let's just say to me UN and Reboot Qilings for the first time didn't feel like some mashup or character summary/parody, they were Qilings the way they are supposed to be in that part of the story, bc it was the only times someone actually bothered to coordinate it.

Now as to why I prefer one to another. Xiaoge has this thing... the way he holds himself with other people, that is sometimes intentionally and sometimes unintentionally suppressing.

Like everyone knows that if you're a passerby, Qiling genuinely doesn't fucking care and would in fact be pretty harsh about it in terms of treating people like they do not deserve their attention. He won't be like "please, don't bother me", he simply ignored them like an empty space. He is also like that with acquaintances who in his opinion do not deserve his respect like that girl who went hysterical, bc she was upset that he was the only one who wasn't drooling on her like all other men on the crew, Chen Wenjin, Wu Xie's uncles and etc. He's not openly disrespectful unless they trigger him in some way (usually by trying to act superior or later on for not treating Wu Xie right), but if they do, he will in fact remind them their place in sometimes a very rude way, at times humiliating them in front of ppl bc he looks younger than them and talking starts.

He's always doing things on his own terms and hates being told what to do. Like he legit scared Chen Wenjin just with a look and the tone of his voice when he said "let go", when she tried to command him on the mission and grabbed him trying to lecture him about what he should or shouldn't do. That's why Wu Erbai didn't even try anything like this and let him do whatever he needed to do and equally lead the mission in Reboot. And why the scene where Wu Xie 'commands' "Xiaoge, come back" and he immediately listens holds another special place in my heart. Bc he NEVER and I mean NEVER allows such things to ANYONE.

So here I came to a point of why despite loving them both dearly, my favorite Xiaoge is Huang Junjie.

I have this dissonance with Yuliang's version when to me in many scenes it felt like he and Wu Xie are the same age. Like if he was Xiaoge, but in his 20s. In his interactions with Chen Wenjin the dynamics was turned upside down, with him being okay with her telling him what to do and just in general the way she behaved with him. Same as like I didn't always quite believe him to be on par with older generation or even Pangzi, it just felt like he was truly younger than them. Some scenes that I do find extremely cute just don't fit book Xiaoge at all, I'm talking about some moments like his face when Wu Xie gave him food, or him pouting and many things he's done, when you were going "uwu he's a baby". He just never gives me this feeling in the books ever, not just bc he's 100 years old, but sad fact here.. bc he's simply unable to behave that way. Like in the books you'll desperately want to shower him with love, but he's just... I can't quite explain, it's very sad.

I guess it's just you know these characters, who are like hundreds years old, but look like they're 18? I think you have to be very careful with how you write those, so you could deliver that. And in UN because of some changed dynamics and scenes I straight up forgot about it, until Wu Xie threw some joke like "he's an old man" in front of a restaurant.

In Reboot Xiaoge could make Wu Erbai stutter with one move, put Yuliang's version in the same scene, I just don't think it would've worked. Like I'm trying to imagine him telling UN's Wu Erbai what to do and having troubles already haha. Same as I don't think he's capable to be genuinely mad at Wu Xie, and HJJ nailed it esp in one of my fav when Wu Xie was laughing at Pangzi's joke about him catching cold. The look he gave him and how ZYL just retreated was priceless xD. And boy could Qiling get angry with him in the books!

Otherwise I didn't have any drastic fall outs there, like with Joseph's Wu Xie and Ah Ning's death, because that was just too much of a difference, but there were still moments where it was once again this the same scene completely different emotion thing. He was more tolerable to ppl in general here, more pliable. And 50% of the time he gave me the cute lost kitten type, which I just cannot connect with the feeling he gave me in the books. His personality is a cat type 100%, but like seriously "cute baby" is the last word combination I would ever apply to book Xiaoge, but with Yuliang's version it's easily applied. So small bean he is indeed. With Joseph and in UN it works incredibly perfect to me, but the way he is in UN is at times too gentle. And there are lots of scenes where Joseph himself looked at him in a way "you're too cute, let me pinch your cheeks" kind of way, or the way he like sat down next to him on the coast, he was a bit babying him at times. I can't imagine book pingxie doing that. It's just a whole different vibe, the way he takes care of him, the way he lets him take care of him... it's...uuuuuuuuu another vibe (see, I'm so good at explaining lmao).

It's also kinda funny to me, bc HJJ who's the smallest and who irl truly a kitten never once gave me that feeling on screen for some reason. The one babied and loved by every crew and old ppl, who was cutely hiding behind ZYL's back on set, who won't sue an ex who almost ruined his career bc of how stupid she is, bc he "didn't want to hurt her", who according to staff can't even step on a fly, whom CMH was petting for several minutes after he had to hit him with a prop brick bc he didn't wanna do it lmao. I was just like.. ok, this is hilarious, bc I in fact didn't expect him to be a small bean, so watching all the bts made me go LOOOOL. Probably ZYL acting like a 3 year old helped him transform and the age difference problem got lost lmao

As for other adaptations. You know I can't watch seriously "Lost Tomb", I think some ppl probably have some nostalgic feeling about it, but I'm sorry, to me it's fucking hilarious. Like I've already said it looks like some type of twilight parody thing or smth. Soft damselle Wu Xie esp killed me, bc 1st when he ever was that, 2nd in the first book he's salty af, I don't even know this dude in this interpretation, I was like who's this. YangYang I know him from other things, I really don't think it's his role. I know the script and everything is bad. I know the costume and hair are horrendously funny, but it's just I was watching him in those action scenes and was like no... just I'm sorry but I'm not feeling it. I simply just don't know what to say about the whole thing seriously, bc I don't even know where to start. 10 episodes of some salad finished with one mutilated scene from book 6 for no reason the fact that characters are weird themselves also I can't quite tell, did they really just meet or they imply smth else lmao.. I'm sorry, but I do not get it.

I've given LT2 another try after finishing all the books and I've dropped it half way through, Cheng Yi wasn't even close to how I pictured Xiaoge in any aspect. He in fact didn't do anything OOC or off the book or anything, I just was like "not my Qiling". Happens sometimes.

Explore with the note you already know how I feel about this lol let's just forget.

P.S. To be fair here also maybe we should take into account the fact that some got luckier than other with "at which point" Xiaoge they're playing. Like for example, "Wrath of the Sea" and "Qingling Tree" books which is LT2 is not exactly you can say much about Qiling there, he trolls them there in the beginning (in a brilliant way that was totally lost in the adaptation) and he is there in "Wrath of Sea", but it's not the part that can make his character shine in any way, there's not much things happening there that would make you fall for him or get to know him; Yuliang grabbed the fattest piece bc it's middle several books, when they're always together and his character shines the most in terms of clues about past, opening up to Wu Xie and Pangzi, and there are many many events where you can get the picture of what kind of man he is; Huang Junjie grabbed my fav piece of utter devotion, where he's already fully and wholeheartedly belongs to Wu Xie, that I'm just weak for. So like... there's also that I guess xD.

#answered #jaecomments #zhang qiling #daomu biji #dmbj #lost tomb reboot #i still feel like i couldn't quite explain stuff lol #its a complicated question xD #do not kill me for my i guess weird opinions haha #huang junjie #xiao yuliang #lost tomb #pingxie

[hahanoiwont]

I have had Papyrus Thoughts. I have put them below the cut

been lookin through all the early snowdin scenes bc we're going to be lifting some dialogue hardcore...and Sans has this one line about Papyrus, "don't worry, he's not dangerous. even if he tries to be." what does that MEAN, SIR. is it that Papyrus has a lot of traps and puzzles that could be dangerous, but wouldn't use them to kill anybody? is it that Papyrus's ability to knock people out without killing them isn't the product of great control but just that he's literally incapable of killing people? does Sans straight up not know about Papyrus's combat abilities?? (incidentally that last one would explain why he's not there for the Papyrus battle--if he figures "oh my bro can't fight like at all" then he'd have no reason to expect a battle to take place, and it would be congruent with how he frankly kind of babies Papyrus, but also how would he not know)

anyway as interesting as any of those interpretations would be, i'm gonna say that Sans completely, hilariously underestimates his brother's capacity for violence. Papyrus has a couple of lines that imply that he's not necessarily a pacifist, or at least not opposed to enacting violence (even accounting for cultural differences, beating someone unconscious is in fact a violent act). And even without using all of his potential, he's obviously a strong fighter. but, according to Sans, "not dangerous." I mean he could be lying, but tbh it's way funnier if Sans '1 hit and he dies' 'will not fight come hell or high water' Undertale simply does not recognize that his extremely cool bro could possibly harm another person. Papyrus? Never!

This could possibly be true by a mix of Sans's impression that Papyrus is more ignorant than he actually is, combined with Sans's own values and his assumption that Papyrus shares them. I will argue to my grave that Sans is a pacifist (if a real-life person refused to fight unless they were not only the next victim of an actual genocide but also facing down the end of the world, I think we would still count them as a pacifist, actually! also the geno confrontation is much more narratively interesting if Sans is setting aside his own ideals to totally, viciously oppose them--from 0 to 100 on the violence scale because he has been backed into a corner and he has exactly one way to fight back so he's damned well going to give it everything he has); and Sans so clearly admires and loves Papyrus that a few things might be assumed--such as Papyrus being totally harmless, because Sans is pretty much harmless, and why would he assume his brother is more dangerous than he is? Besides this, Sans's 1 HP comes into consideration--even if Papyrus sees no issue with making friends by inflicting massive damage on one another, Sans would be an obvious exception, because if he roughhoused with Papyrus like that he would die instantly. So the only attacks Sans has faced from Papyrus have absolutely no intent to hit, much less harm. So, yeah, I do think that Sans wouldn't really think of Papyrus as someone capable of causing harm, because Sans has never seen it from him, and he's left to assume that Papyrus is like that all of the time.

so like. I am imagining that someone could tell Sans after a pacifist run, "hey your brother beat Frisk unconscious and put them in your garage to sleep it off." And Sans would straight up not believe them. like. "papyrus? nah, you're yanking my chain. what kind of guy do you think my brother is?"

Anyway I forgot where I was going with this, except that I think that Papyrus is absolutely willing to do a hit, and Sans would not believe this fact if anyone, including Papyrus, tried to tell him. Which then has the potential to set up the fun and interesting dynamic of, "My brother has horrible stats and doesn't even try to defend himself! I have to protect him so that no one takes advantage of this."/"my brother is a little naive, and he'd never hurt anyone, no matter what. i have to protect him so that no one takes advantage of this." because Sans and Papyrus are each other's opposites in so many ways that they can both think they're covering for each other's glaring weak spots, and they can both be totally correct about this. and totally wrong.

#undertale #writing tag #anyway ppl recognize that paps doesn't kill anyone regardless of playthrough #and that is a neat fact #but murder is not the end all be all of violence #like. if u look at the text you get when monsters are reduced to low health but not killed #it's not like they're cool and fine with it #they react much like a human beaten half to death would #papyrus is legit cool with just. beating someone up #he will begin to feel bad after he has beaten them unconscious twice #whereas sans will not make even a token attack if a single monster is spared #like even if he hates their guts he will let frisk/chara pass #idk i also think it's just funnier if sans if a pacifist and could literally witness papyrus kill a man like #eh i'm sure it was a misunderstanding. now excuse me #i need to go tell papyrus a painfully obvious lie so that he doesn't realize this misunderstanding has happened #how sad that that guy accidentally ran into a suspiciously bone shaped knife several times #i will do absolutely no further investigation of this

[dionysianfreak]

some spicy things I do in my practice because of ADHD

given that it's literally my brain, adhd takes over a lot of things in my life. it finds a way to wiggle into everything I do in both bad and good ways. it's just how it is being neurodivergent and it's just how life goes for me, but that doesn't mean it doesn't aid me in many ways. growing up we aren't taught about mental divergency. we're taught the abled and neurotypical way and that's it, but in truth neurodivergent people only struggle due to not having the resources to do things the way that'll let them work efficiently. so here is a list of ways my personal adhd effects my pagan practice and ways I incorporate it into my worship !

stimming

stimming ! i stim a LOT and sometimes, if the emotion I feel is strong enough, they turn to uncontrollable tics. this also means that when during things like rituals, I'll have to pause so I don't tic and ruin something. this is totally normal and okay ! I've never once had a problem with it, and the Gods just patiently waited for it to pass as it always does. we both know it's just something that happens and it's apart of me, it isn't something to be ashamed of or hide.

accepting stimming once I was diagnosed was also something I did as a devotional act to Dionysos ! instead of trying to mask or push down the urge to stim, I'd allow myself to just let it out. my stims vary between very overt to covert, and accepting the overt ones as normal was a feat worthy of devotion imo. you can also keep stim toys on your altar when you're not using them, if you wanted to.

time and schedules

consistent worship ????? never heard of her. same goes for offerings. sometimes I give 294894 offerings in a day and sometimes I've given one offering in a week, it just depends on my ever changing behavior. there's no need to be stuck on a schedule if you don't want to or even make one to begin with. when I first started out, I asked Hermès, Apollon, and Dionysos (who I worshipped at the time) if I should make a schedule and the no was so hard I haven't asked since. my worship is a part of my daily life, as just like I don't drive places every day I don't worship every day. both are still important in my life regardless if I'm actively doing it or not. if you stuggle with consistency, I urge you to speak with the Gods you worship and see if making things more fluid would help !

hyperfixation is also a pain in the ass sometimes, especially when it becomes something other than paganism. due to the free nature of my practice and that I've chosen to devote, it sometimes translates into "well I don't haveeee to do this" and suddenly poof, all the motivation is gone. it's VERY hard to come back when your brain is so wired on something else entirely, and I understand the feeling. during these times I personally do very small things to keep up. if I make dinner for myself, I'll offer a portion and eat with the Gods just to show that I'm participating even when I'm struggling to. the small things count.

RSD - Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria

my RSD is crippling in my life, and it's reach extends to paganism sometimes as well (if you're unaware, RSD is the extreme sensitivity to perceived rejection in any form). sometimes during readings I receive a card that I believe is saying something "negative". sometimes it's criticism, sometimes advice, sometimes it's a slap on the wrist, but no matter what it is in reality I'm at the mercy of my brain to interpret it. so this has lead to meltdowns, long depressive/anxious episodes, and crying fests when I think a deity is angry with me. it has gotten so bad before that delusions have appeared and made me believe false memories or feelings of hatred from the Gods.

it's so hard and I'm so sorry if anyone else has to deal with it. to help with this, I have to fight to remind myself that advice is not an attack. the Gods are trying to help me and, even if They were angry at me, I've made mistakes before and They've allowed me to grow from them. i also have a checklist of questions I ask myself to allow logic and reality back into my head. a few questions include "have i done anything recently that's worthy of anger from a God ?", "is this something that will last forever ?", and "is this a message that has something to teach me ?".

impulsiveness

ask most people with ADHD about being impulsive and you'll probably receive a nervous side glace. we're impulsive often, which can do a multitude of things in paganism. one, starting a devoting and never finishing it. i am SO guilty of this one, and it make me feel bad even now. i have plenty up unfinished plans, drawings, and other devotional items that look around and guilt me. I've been in this cycle for a year and I don't think I'll ever grow out of it, but from what I've noticed the Gods don't mind. doing some of a devotion is a wonderful feat, and the energy that took is a wonderful offering even if you don't finish it.

I'm sure other adhd people and probably some autistic people have been in the position of "I just discovered this new Deity and oh my god I NEED to worship them RIGHT NOW or I'll DIE". They're just SO COOL and you automatically feel a connection. then three weeks later you feel demotivated to worship Them and now you feel terrible about it. don't worry, me too. to help with this nowadays I personally honor for a bit then worship if the worship relationship doesn't involve any help between us. this is what I did with Pan, and it worked VERY well for me. i recognized our connection but I didn't feel the pressure to consistently worship Him.

back to the start of the second paragraph, if you're stuck in that situation just communicate with the Deity. it can be hard to admit you're wrong, especially with adhd. however, just sitting down and calling to Them to let them know how you feel and that you think you made a mistake is a huge communicative step !

demotivation

this. one. sucks. inbetween hyperfixations, being stressed out or anxious, going through a depressive episode, and more can cause very deep demotivation and loss of energy in people with ADHD and other disorders. sometimes I'll just lay in my floor with my headphones on for hours because I literally can't find the energy to get up. a lot of people worry that this directly conflicts with Paganism and would slow progress. i understand why it seems that way, especially since adhd is a very "GO FAST, DO THIS THING N O W" disorder. there's actually a few solutions here I can think of

devote your personal healing to the Gods as this can give your brain a "reward" and can help you personally feel better in many ways. after weeks without a shower, devote a bath to a Deity or maybe eat breakfast at Their altar if you haven't been eating much. allow Them to be your motivation

take a break entirely. paganism certrainly isn't a 24/7/365 commitment and your practice molds to your needs. if you're just absolutely knocked out and need rest, take a break. I've taken MANY breaks before. I've been forced on breaks too because the Gods noticed my mental health declining before I did. never feel ashamed for needing time for yourself

do multiple small things rather than big things. a little bit of your dinner when you eat, redecorate Their altar or space, listen to music that reminds you of Them, think of Them when you're out and about in case you see something. you can weave devotion into daily acts in order to reinforce mundane things you need to do and calm your mind about paganism.

and finally, miscellaneous list of other things I do that are too small for their own section.

if you need to keep track of divination readings, no need to write down every reading you've ever had in detail. you can voice record them as you go, take photos of the cards, or use apps like Labyrinthos that can act as a tarot log.

your altar doesn't need to look perfect, it should reflect your worship and your devotion to a Deity. this means if your altar looks like a mess, as mine ALWAYS do, it's perfectly okay ! clutter aesthetic altars are the most beautiful altars in my eyes, and they're so worthy of adoration. I've never once heard of a Deity disliking an altar, They appreciate our work to put in a space just for Them. let your altar look messy and wild as you want, altars don't need to be aesthetic or color coordinated

you see everywhere that many of us are devoted to one deity in particular or multiple, I fit in here too. i just wanted to say that you never have to devote to any Deity if you don't want to. you could worship when you need help from a specific Deity or worship a different deity every month. never feel like you have to tie yourself down just because other people feel comfortable doing so.

you don't have to celebrate every festival. it's okay to skip celebrations that don't really apply to you or are at an inconvenient time ! you could also reschedule if you find yourself wanting to celebrate but burnt out or busy.

#hellenism #pagan #Paganism #hellenic #hellenic worship #hellenic pagan #hellenistic polytheism #polytheist #polytheism #greek gods #deity #greek paganism #adhd #neurodivergent #neurodivergent pagan #tips and tricks