Sometimes I think about Urianger's role in and feelings on the Thancred-Ryne dynamic and I think watching it kills him a bit inside. For several reasons.
Like, to begin with there's the guilt he's been carrying with him since he ushered Minfilia to the first, how he effectively killed the person Thancred cared about the most in the world and who's "death" ended up causing Ryne's entire Situation. He looks at what's happening between them and can only think "I caused this" even though that's not really true. No one person is responsible for this outcome, it's a culmination of several circumstances and the consequences of them. Logically, Urianger knows this. But it doesn't matter, because his guilt is overpowering his logic.
And also, like. What Thancred is doing here, the way he's knowingly letting Ryne be and stay hurt because he literally cannot bring himself to tell her his feelings, is the exact same mistake Urianger made with Moenbryda. Of course, the circumstances are vastly different, and the potential consequences to Thancred telling Ryne the wrong things or her misinterperating it is far greater (being a matter of literal life or death), it's still the same sort of paralysis they are trapped in.
And he knows it. He sees it. But he can't say or do anything about it, he doesn't have the right to. He acknowledges the mistake, but he hasn't really improved upon it yet. He still doesn't voice his thoughts and feelings as he should. He's also non-confrontational by nature, he doesn't argue or try to change peoples minds, he probably doesn't think he has any place to.
So, he tries to help in what little ways he can. Because he doesn't want it to become Monebryda again, he doesn't want to know he stole not one but two people from Thancred. So he does what he can. He tells Ryne little tidbits about Thancred, things that help her understand him but are safe to share. Nothing too deep, nothing too personal. Just small things, things that are purely factual, because he can't afford to give her a false image of who Thancred is. He teacher her fun and interesting things, because Thancred isn't in the mindset to provide her with non-essential skills.
I like to think Urianger has brought it up with Thancred at least once, during one of his stays. But nothing would've come of it. Not really. Unlike Y'shtola, Urianger isn't pushy, he'll bring it up once or twice and when he sees this won't go anywhere, he gives up. He wants to help, but he knows that persistance only does do much, and he is not the person who has the resiliance needed to push and push until Thancred finally budges (because he won't budge, it won't help anything but to sour things further by adding aditional stress to an already strained dynamic).
And like. Urianger gets it. He gets it because he's been the same way- not saying what he should to someone he loves more than anything else because she was meant to figure her life out herself, and 'steering' her in any direction by telling her his feelings (regardless of if the 'steering' is intention or not) will go against that. He gets it. He gets it and it's all the more painful for it. He knows it can't just be fixed by acknowledging it or with encouragement, something needs to happen to break the stasis.
I think this is probably why he stayed behind while they went off to Nabaath Areng. This is the very last chance they have to say what they want to, and he can't afford to be the anchor anymore. This is about them, not him, he can't let their resolution be buffed by his presence, so he stays behind. Which was probably for the best. Ryne got nervous when Urianger said he's staying behind, probably not too excited about being alone with Thancred (well, not alone, but WoL doesn't count) so soon after she had ran away crying. But she needs to be nervous. For anything positive to come out of this Thancred and Ryne both can't afford to be too relaxed. As sad as it is, the stress is necessary for anything to happen. He knows it. Does he like it? Absolutely not, but nor does he like his other plots. At least no one dies this time if it goes right.
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Adivinen quien al fin dibujo algo? Wich means I'm back baby!
Its not perfect (like everything I made), but I just love drawing comic-like-stuff, I get to relax more. I dont try to do the lines perfectly or the super accurate anatomy (mostly cause I dont know shit about anatomy at all) and also get to be more simple in the colors, wich helps cause I struggle making colors a lot.
I missed drawing my babies...but why did I drawing them like that? XD I swear...I think I should have seen some reference cause I totally change the way I draw the Burger Babys which is crazy for me XD
Now...is this an AU, is this them as teenagers, why is Louise working on Aplebees? Well I didnt put an exact age for the guys here, they could be 16 or 19 I dunno.
This is solely based on this post from @zer0ogravity I lmao with this and totally need it to draw it.
btw I from Latam, I didn't knew what Applebees was until making this comic so if Applebees dont look like this sorry.
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agh….. there are a lot of little things about kevin’s treatment in tkm especially that really hurt me, but the whole situation with telling wymack is the worst of it. give our boy a break 😭😭😭😭 he’s struggling!
SO MEAN TO HIM i was just talking to luni liaisun about this yesterday but the way kevin is blamed for so many things that are not at all his fault (neil going to evermore out of his own volition, kayleigh hiding that he's wymack's son, neil asking him to lie about his past and not tell the foxes that he's the butcher's son) and subsequently isolated from the group because of that is insane LOL i think kevin and andrew get a pretty similar treatment from the upperclassmen but by the end of tkm andrew has been 'humanized' to them through neil while kevin hasnt yet shown the threshold of humanity needed to be treated like a person worthy of grace and understanding
this is mostly a personal opinion and can be totally disregarded from canon intentions but to me kevin's isolation from the foxes is very relevant to my own experiences of navigating the world while noticeably neurodivergent, and its one of the things that brought me closer to kevin's character in the first place. i think while reading it is easy to agree with how the world at large (and even kevin himself at times) thinks kevin is, but kevin's crime really is that he's weird even among people who are weird; he's annoying and he's overinvested and he's programmed and when you're neurodivergent that's three of the top reasons why people choose to deny you kindness and humanity and understanding. i'm not sure where i was going with this and i'm not the best at articulating my thoughts on this subject, and of course kevin is annoying and intense, but that's not. illegal. you know? a person being annoying to you shouldn't make them an easy target for all of your frustrations and that's, ultimately, a very Autistic Experience
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i think part of the resistance i’ve seen in response to the view of ed as an abuse victim—not just the view of izzy as someone who abused ed, but of ed as someone who was abused by him, as opposed to interpretations that pursue an image of Nuance and Complexity (unnecessarily, because their dynamic has heaps of both, but there seems to be a popular impulse to conflate complexity with shared culpability) by characterizing their relationship as being toxic/unhealthy in equal reciprocity, or as “mutually abusive” (oxymoron)—i definitely see the influence of racism there, but i think the racism is also working to amplify an adjacent issue where we tend to receive very specific cultural messaging about What An Abuse Victim Looks Like, and ed is excluded from a lot of that criteria.
he’s outspoken. he’s boisterous. he’s Very Cool and he Wears Leather. he’s physically bigger and browner than the person mistreating him. he spends the first season with a big grey beard, he’s covered in tattoos, he projects the image of A Man’s Man, to say nothing of his being a man in the first place. we see him get aggressive and we see him get angry (and sometimes we even see both at the same time). we see moments where he’s surly, prickly, insensitive, arrogant. his survival techniques and trauma responses incur collateral damage to other people, and in the second season this extends into affecting people we actually sympathize with. he’s extremely private about expressing fear. without examination, his professional relationship to izzy seems to position him as the one with the power slanted in his favor.
most damningly, we see him react multiple times to izzy’s abuse with physical violence. this is behavior that gets referenced all the time in the construction of narratives condemning subjects of physical abuse, let alone emotional abuse. which is why writing that intends for its audience to interpret a character as being unambiguously A Victim Of Abuse will often, for simplicity’s sake, avoid showing the character regularly engaging in anything of the kind.
and again, all of these departures from the image of The Model Victim are compounded by his being a man of color.
without any of the shorthand designed to point a big flashing arrow at his mistreatment, all we have left to work with are the words and actions we see from ed and izzy onscreen. who instigates conflict, and how does the other respond? how are they able or allowed to respond? how do we see them speak about each other to outside parties? does one go out of their way to control or isolate the other? what consequences does either party stand to face in saying “no” to the other? in acting against the other’s wishes? in trying to leave the relationship? when either of them attempts these things, how do we see the other respond?
i realize and appreciate what people are driving at when they garnish their analysis with disclaimers that they’re not saying ed’s just a poor innocent abuse victim, they’re not saying he’s a perfect angel who’s never done anything wrong, and that’s true, but these are points already contained implicitly in statements like “this show’s protagonists act like human people” and “ed’s emotional struggles are portrayed in a realistic and believable way.” my assumption is that these disclaimers are anticipatory responses to worst-faith interpretations of any discussion that attributes any victim status to ed whatsoever, so i definitely sympathize with their inclusion, but a (very small) part of me still worries about them potentially reflecting or reinforcing a belief that there is any way for someone to behave towards their abuser that imparts a responsibility for them to make right whatever damage the abuser receives, or for that matter any degree of ambiguity over their status as an abuse victim in the first place.
part of what i find so gratifying about ed as a character is that i don’t feel like the show’s writing is pressuring me to consider that ambiguity at all. which was a really nice thing for me to discover!
and tbh—did using ed to deconstruct The Model Victim even factor into the writers’ agenda?? ive got no clue. im guessing no? ??maybe?? probably not?? but if you create a main character whose central premise is that he feels trapped in a performance of exaggerated masculinity that he’s desperate to escape, and then you set him up with a character premised on embodying a tangible obstacle against that escape, then i guess that’s the natural shape your story’s gonna be inclined to take
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a post about fic updates! so the fics im currently juggling are dog teeth, tams, and of course, taob. my original plan was to start posting the second installment of the dog teeth series by sometime in april, bc it's the fic im most into atm and i already have the first chapter done, i just want to bank another one or two because once i start posting it i want to KEEP posting it with regular updates, hopefully every 2 weeks like with kaiein. HOWEVER this will put my atla fics on a back burner. april is a good writing time for me (PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE) bc i have the entire month off from uni to prep for may exam season, and i always want to write when im procrastinating my degree. which is. it's own thing im sure i'll graduate it's fine i'm fine. so if i focus on dog teeth, neither tams nor taob will get focus until like. june. which is par for the course with taob but im NOT happy about doing with tams.
SO my thought process was i can either be normal about this and just accept it's literally my final year at uni and im trying to graduate and it doesn't matter if updates are slow on ANY fics, or i can do my usual and implement an insane deadline that i somehow always make by the skin of my teeth. can you guess what i went with?
and thus i present unto the crowd my tentative plan: have the next taob chapter done by middle of april (im aware this is quite hand-wavey but it gives me a month to work with, so in my head this means anything between april 10th-20th), have the next tams chapter done by the end of april, and dog teeth can follow.
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