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formereldestdaughter · 2 months

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ok wait i need to hear more of your thoughts on peeta owning a bakery....

This is one of those rare times where I’m pretty sure this anon isn’t someone I know personally bc I’ve subjected anyone who will listen to my rant about the Peeta Bakery Headcanon. Anyway, you’re gonna regret asking this anon bc there are fucking Layers here.

I know this is probably a controversial take based on the number of fics where I’ve seen it, but I simply do not think that Peeta would open a commercial bakery after Mockingjay!! Like on a metatextual level, I don’t think it really fits with the point of the ending of the series. It actually sort of fascinates me that it’s just such a common headcanon because the ending of Mockingjay is exceedingly vague. I think that vagueness invites us, as readers, to imagine a better world post-revolution. A world where Katniss would feel confident that her children would be safe from injustice, where she’d feel confident that her children would never know want the way she did as a child. A just world. A kinder world. Can a capitalist society ever be just? Is a capitalist society where a disabled teenager has no other means to subsist himself (or feels like there’s no other way he can be a contributing member of his community) really the post-revolution world we dream of? Is that really the best we can imagine?

(This got so insanely long I’m adding a read more lmao)

I get that showing a better world is not always the point of post-mockingjay headcanons/fics. Like there are plenty of really great post-mockingjay fics I’ve seen where, yeah, part of the fic is that society like ISN’T all that different or all that much better. I’ve seen that really well done! Hell, I’ve written them myself! It’s easy to imagine how a lot of aspects of society would not get an overhaul, a lot of the same structural inequalities would continue to exist. One headcanon that really stuck with me (I can’t remember which fic it was from) was that Peeta sells basically mail order baked goods to people on the Capitol, sending them iced cakes and pastries by train, because there are still people who were “fans” of theirs during the Games. And idk this doesn’t actually have much to do with my point lol but I liked it because it’s kind of fucked up and like! Yeah! It makes sense! If he needed money that would be a good way to make it! War often makes people rich, often for horrible reasons, and often it’s people who already have capital in the first place.

Anyway, more about the hypothetical bakery because alright. I bring up the fact that “yeah society not being all that different post-revolution and still being an unjust capitalist hellscape” could be a reason why Peeta re-opens a bakery because that’s actually never the types of fics where I see the bakery headcanon. Fics where Peeta opens a bakery are usually trying to make the exact opposite point. Like. Things are getting better, now he can open a bakery! Look at how much better the world is now, plus he’s got a bakery! Peeta is healing, that’s why he can open a bakery now! And I am so, so sorry to inform everyone who’s never had the grave misfortune of owning a family business, but there is truly nothing further from the truth lmao. Like just putting aside the immense amount of emotional baggage that Peeta has about his family, running a small business is an insane amount of work in any context and being a baker especially is physically grueling and involves early hours (and long hours) that aren’t really the best fit with the multiple ways that Peeta is disabled now. (I could go into this more because I have a lot of thoughts. But I will spare you.). I also think it’s seen throughout the books that Peeta is someone who needs time to pursue creative outlets to process his feelings and someone who values leisure and values quality time with his loved ones. And having grown up in his family’s bakery, I think he’d understand the reality that running a bakery wouldn’t leave much space of those pursuits and wouldn’t leave much space for him to have the things that keep him healthy and stable. I think he’d know that the way he is now— after two Games and the war and unspeakable torture at the hands of a dictator—isn’t compatible with the lifestyle necessary for running a commercial bakery.

And tbh with that in mind, I don’t think he’d push himself to re-open a business (one that would be a constant reminder of his dead family and his complicated relationships with them that got no closure) that would require him to sacrifice his physical and emotional well-being. Like I think he might look into the possibility, I think he might even start trying to open a bakery out of a sense of obligation/duty, maybe harboring some idea that this is who he was supposed to be, who he would've been without the Games, or that it’s this last piece of his family that can live on, or that it’s this last connection to his family so he can’t let it die too. But ultimately, I think any attempt to open a bakery wouldn’t get very far. Maybe he'd start wading into the logistical nightmare that is small business ownership and realize it's not for him (because it's probably also true that as much as him and his brothers were involved in the business, there's almost certainly parts they weren't involved with and didn't see, i.e., filing taxes). Or maybe looking into opening a bakery— how triggering it is, the stress of it— causes a downward spiral. Maybe he hates how much he's worrying everyone by unraveling. Maybe having a breakdown from the stress of just trying to open a bakery makes him realize, yeah, maybe in another life he would have ran his family’s bakery but the way he is now just doesn’t work with running a bakery, not without great sacrifices he's not willing to make. I just can’t see a bakery coming to fruition.

I know a lot of fics include Peeta deciding to reopen a bakery as a big step in his healing or include him rebuilding a bakery as part of his healing process but honestly, I think the opposite would be more true: I think Peeta either trying/failing to open a bakery or ultimately deciding not to open a bakery would be hugely healing for him. I think it would be a huge part of him accepting the way he is now as a person, his new limitations but also his strengths. I think it would be a huge part of him accepting the way his life his now and accepting that he likes his life the way it is, that he’s satisfied with his life without needing to own a bakery. I think it would be an important part of him coming to terms with the loss of his family. I think he knows he can never have things back as they were and I don’t think he would try to recreate them, especially because his family’s legacy isn’t a business. I think he’s emotionally intelligent enough and self reflective enough to realize that what mattered to him about the bakery— taking care of others by feeding them, being integrated into his community and being actively involved in it, brightening people’s days with delightful things whether that’s beautiful cakes or hearty food or delicious treats— and the things he learned from his family through the bakery, are things that he can carry on in other meaningful ways.

(Do you regret sending this ask yet, anon? Because if not, you will soon. I’m not done yet. There’s more.)

I wasn’t really sure where to put this next part in what is rapidly becoming an essay because it sort of combines the points about like “what do we imagine a post-mockingjay society to look like” with the practical difficulties of starting this bakery but here’s another thing: do people really think that the Mellarks owned the land the bakery was on?? Like, sure, the merchants are the petit bourgeois of Twelve but I still don’t imagine they really own anything. In a society where houses are assigned to people upon marriage, where property ownership and capital are so closely interconnected with citizenship (as shown by the Plinths who, by having immense capital, are able to leave their District and become citizens of the Capitol) do people really think the Mellarks would be allowed to own the land their bakery is on?? I always imagined it sort of like a tenant farming situation: the Capitol gives them the raw materials for the bakery and in return the bakery give them some absurdly high portion of their profits, or the Capitol sells them a year’s supply of raw materials at a premium on credit and at the end of the year the Mellarks have to use the money they made with those materials to pay it back, except it’s never enough to turn a profit so they always have to buy next year’s materials on credit and the cycle continues.

We (understandably) get a really skewed view of the merchant class through Katniss’s perspective so I can see why people come to the conclusion that his family owned the property and, as the last surviving member, he would’ve inherited it. I’ve seen the inheritance thing in fics a lot or a hand wavey “well Twelve was decimated to no one owns anything anymore so it can be his” or even like an almost sort of reparations type situation where he’s entitled to the land as a surviving refugee of Twelve. But I don’t know. I guess I don’t think it fits with everything else we know about Panem that the Mellarks would’ve owned that land and I think the question of whether the government would’ve let him take ownership of the land post-revolution brings up a lot of issues about the structure of society post-Mockingjay that I find more interesting to explore in other ways, especially when, from an emotional perspective, 1) I find the idea of Peeta not opening a bakery more compelling and 2) I don’t think it really fits his character arc by the end of Mockingjay to reopen a bakery, as I went on about at length above lol.

On the flip side: literally who cares!! Do whatever you want!! Headcanon whatever you want!! I get why people go for the bakery!! It’s fun, it’s wholesome, it’s a built in bakery AU that isn’t even an AU. It doesn’t matter if it’s practical or realistic!! It doesn’t need to be practical or realistic!! It’s fanfic of a dystopian YA series!! My unfortunate affliction is that I grew up in a family that owned a restaurant and that I have multiple degrees in the social sciences so I can’t see the bakery without being like “What about the overheard? What about the start up costs? Who’s spending long nights balancing the books? Is Peeta covering shifts when an employee calls in sick? Is Peeta the sole person working there until the bakery is open long enough (often a year or more) to start turning a profit? How does that sleep schedule work with his nightmares? How does that work with Katniss’s nightmares? What happens when he has an episode and suddenly needs to take the day off before he has any employees? Does the bakery just remain closed for the day? Can the profit margins withstand regular unexpected closures? Can the supplies withstand regular unexpected closures?” And if the answer is “Elliott none of those things matter he’s not doing the bakery because he needs the money but because he wants to”, then my question is why does he want to? Does he not get the same sort of satisfaction out of feeding his loved ones? Doesn’t Peeta seem like someone who would rather give away baked goods than sell them?? Doesn’t Peeta seem like someone who would prefer to make cakes for people’s special occasions upon and then when they insist on paying him for it, he only lets them “pay for the ingredients” which actually cost significantly more than he says they did??

So yeah my point is that it’s a matter of personal taste! It doesn’t fit the way I see the series but that doesn’t mean it’s like wrong, I’m not an authority on Peeta lmao.

It’s also a matter of personal taste in the sense that I find the themes that most resonate with me at the end of Mockingjay (and the end of Peeta’s arc specifically) more interesting to explore in other ways. Grief, living with loss, relearning yourself, finding hope, figuring out your place in a dramatically different world when you don’t even know who you are anymore, healing, building a new life after such complete and total destruction of your old life— those are all things I find compelling about the end of Mockingjay but for me the bakery isn’t the most compelling way to explore them.

Not to say I find the concept of the bakery totally uninteresting. I have this fic about Johanna that I’ll probably never finish where the point sort of is that, yeah, her life really isn’t all that much better after the war. It’s been years at this point and she’s still miserable and she doesn’t know how to be a person but by the end she’s trying to figure it out. And towards the end, Peeta tells her that he’s spent years sort of passively, half-heartedly trying to figure out how to inherit the land his family’s bakery was on, only to find out it was never theirs in the first place. They’d been renting it the whole time and he’d never even known as a kid. So he sort of passively, half-heartedly went on another wild goose chase to find the owner and now, finally, after years of writing to various government agencies and being sent in circles and things being barely functional, he’s managed to track down the owner. Now it’s owned by the daughter of the man who owned it when he was a kid because the original owner (who was likely up to some sketchy war crime shit) died during the war and she inherited it (the irony…). He got in contact with her and asked how much it would take for her to sell it and she told him she’s not interested in selling but in light of the situation, in light of the fact that he’d have to build a new building in order to operate a bakery, that she’d cut him a deal— she’d only require 50% of the bakery’s profits as rent instead of the 80% his family used to pay. And of course Johanna is outraged, that’s not right, the owner shouldn’t be allowed to do that, they should do something about it, they should fight back. And Peeta is like. Not interested. He was actually sort of relieved that opening wasn’t very feasible. Getting the answer was a lightbulb moment where he saw that over the years of trying to look into this, he’s built a life that he likes— one where he’s stable, where his loved ones are stable, where he’s cared for and can care for others— and he doesn’t really want to change it drastically by opening a bakery anyway. He just needed an answer, one way or another, before he could get some closure and move on. (And the point of the conversation is Johanna is having her own lightbulb moment that it’s okay to move on, it’s okay to change, it’s not a betrayal of the people and things she’s lost but that’s not my point here!!).

But anyway. That’s obviously not about running the bakery— it’s about the choice to not run one.

Anyway!! Anyway… are you satisfied anon? Is this what you wanted?

Lastly, here is my most important qualm with the bakery headcanon: must Peeta be gainfully employed? Is it not enough for him to be Katniss’s boytoy? Can’t he just paint and garden and bake and hang out with his girlfriend all day? Is that really too much to ask?

#peeta mellark #thg #the hunger games #the hunger games meta #anyway wow this got so long and I literally read it through one (1) time so uhhh sorry if this makes no sense!!#as I was doing my one read through and realized that one of my other thoughts on this is that yeah I can much more easily see the #headcanon that peeta like sells baked goods (probably at cost with no profit) out of his kitchen because that’s much more flexible #and I think that would work a lot better with what like I guess I’d call his psychiatric disability post mockingjay #and how he’d certainly want to take care of Katniss too #like that sort of flexibility makes a lot more sense for him and it’s like. if he doesn’t bake for a few days or however long then it’s fin #it’s not a formal brick and mortar business #it’s just something he’s doing because it’s a way to be involved with people and a way to do something he’s passionate about #without there being waste and while covering some of the costs #and he doesn’t have to like keep books or do payroll or any of the things I can’t see him being very passionate about #as far as like bakery management goes Lmao he can just bake!!#but then I started getting into this whole thing about how that quote-unquote ‘running a business’ like that (informally from your house)#is actually a really common practice for people living in poverty so probably something that Katniss and peeta would’ve been familiar wirh #anyway and then this whole rant about how the emphasis on the brick and mortar bakery often goes hand in hand with #this widespread fandom thing of having a fundamental misunderstanding of how rural poverty works and what it looks like #but then I was too deep into it and said you know what? never mind! and deleted it lmao

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forestmossling · 28 days

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this is really good. like. very good.

i adore every trope that falls under the category of “something horrible is unmade in a way that the people who were affected by it are still aware of it” so the whole concept of this series enticed me from the beginning, but when i actually read it it was so much more. i can’t say i feel any strong deep emotions about chrissy, even though i love seeing her character explored, but this was absolutely amazing. she was so alive (pun only partially intended) and real and almost tangible in the things she went through and dealt with and that was seriously great. writers making chrissy to eddie what robin is to steve slowly but surely becomes one of my favorite tropes, because it’s just really fucking great is what it is. and here it was shown so well: eddie being so tactile with her (i love a touch-starved motherfucker seeing as i am one as well), the way they went through unimaginable horrors together and found each other in the aftermath to build a beautiful life out of the shambles of their previous ones. so just- yeah.

i was reading the buckingham part like this 🫣 because i felt exactly what chrissy felt right after robin accidentally said “i love you” but it didn’t end with me having a cool beautiful girlfriend because the girl did in fact pull away after the time i assume she figured out i was attracted to her so… yeah. i promise i don’t avoid sapphic fics on purpose, it’s just that i am an afab non-binary who is mostly attracted to women so these fics just make me see all the things i want, but don’t have and that just ruins my whole escapism jam, sorry. it was still incredibly sweet and nice and i loved how their getting-together story played out.

and while buckingham was all nice and sweet and tentative bubblegum sweet romance, the steddie was so fucking real. i feel like i’m using the word real too much in this, but that’s just because it perfectly encompasses the way i felt reading this, the steddie part especially. i read a lot of steddie fics, and a lot of them are a bit exaggerated, dramatic and overly fictionalized, which, that’s not me throwing shade, i definitely love that about them, but this felt incredibly realistic. grounded. the way both of them dealt with their trauma, the way they didn’t immediately fall into an easy relationship of any kind right after what happened, the way they were awkward and unsure, but again, in such a realistic, grounded, mature, dare i say, way. i just love them a lot and i love them in this series a lot too.

also, eddie going bonkers because steve bit an apple after eddie was eating it is soo eddie like he would definitely not be chill about it.

anyway, 1623459/10, am recommending. thank you for this amazing work, @walkingsaladshooter.

#eddie munson #chrissy cunningham #platonic soulmates hellcheer #steddie #steve harrington #platonic stobin #robin buckley #buckingham #steddie fic rec #stranger things fic #steddie fic #stranger things #fic rec #ao3

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hot-take-tournament · 2 months

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HOT COLD TAKE TOURNAMENT!

Submission 644 & 746 (64.1% validated)

buggy isn't hot

he’s just not. look at him. yeah yeah he’s got tits and a detachable dick but he’s so cringe and fail. i would not fuck him personally.

buggy the clown is not fucking hot

HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN. HAVE YOU LAID EYES ON HIM. i’m extremely homosexual for men and yet i have not even an inch of attraction to this little blue haired and pronouned bastard. yes he has three boyfriends but if you see me as one of them shoot me, that’s an evil clone, i would never willingly put my penis inside of buggothy theodore clownsworth.

Submission 515 (63.7% validated)

if you must ship Jesus with one of his disciples then at least ship him with John

look I'm a Christian (but like not the bad kind) and I don't personally ship Jesus with anyone cause that feels a bit too much rpf-y for me but I see people (jokingly, I assume, for the most part, but also this is the internet so I know some people are very serious about this) ship Jesus with either Judas or Peter and like....... tell me your knowledge of the Bible is the few Bible stories you remembered from sunday school as a kid without telling me that your knowledge of the Bible is the few Bible stories you remembered from sunday school as a kid. like yeah sure there's all these great stories about these guys that kids learn about! everyone who has some basic knowledge of the whole easter deal knows Judas and if you've learned any stories about Jesus with the disciples then you probably know about Peter. but like........ John is the guy. like go read the book of John if you don't believe me. like this is the guy who is canonically (fun reminder that the term "canon" originates from people discussing the Bible long long ago) "the disciple who Jesus loved." like Sufjan Stevens, king of "is he talking about his boyfriend or Jesus" refers to John & Jesus' relationships in his song "John My Beloved" which is hella gay and like it's all right there!!!!!! like this is so strange for me to be invested in because I'm not like someone who actively ships them but like if I wasn't religious and all I would be all over this and the fact that people keep being like "hehe Jesus and Judas~~~" when there's like no textual evidence for that!!! it's just people seeing the kiss of betrayal and liking some dramatic stuff!!! and the people who bring up Peter instead are the same!!! like you're just applying fanfic tropes to a dynamic and deciding that you like it instead of like looking at what's actually there in canon!!!!!!!! like at least do cool blasphemy or whatever I hate that I care about this. I hate that I wrote all of this. I have no dog in this fight. whoever wins I lose because I don't want to care about this in any way but I do and it's horrible and I just wish people would at least talk about the guy who when having to read his gospel like a year ago for something, I was left with the thought of "huh....... if I didn't know any better I'd say that there was something going on here"

Propaganda is always encouraged!

And remember to reblog your favourite polls for exposure!

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tavina-writes · 1 year

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LXC would've gotten disbarred

After I kind of drifted away from the cnovel translation forum I used to be a part of, like, a decade ago, I thought to myself: my translator days are over! I will not translate stuff again! The post about if NMJ has hobbies (found here if you want to see it) was merely a blip on the radar of “not translating anything.”

Alas, I appear to have descended into a new pit, and that is seeing things in the other translations of mdzs and going back to the Chinese to look at things, discussing with @autumnslantern and just, translating snippets of this book and then deciding to share the results.

In this case, it’s a passage from Chapter 73, which is doing the rounds again, but I’ve most commonly seen as evidence for “LXC really wanted to say something about the treatment of the Wens but got steamrolled by NMJ’s objections” and I kind of just want to wave at the title of this post because if Chinese Novel!Xichen had been my defense lawyer, I would fire him. I would want him disbarred lol. I love him but this was not a shiny moment of Xichen getting steamrolled.

Again, this appears like it will get long, so meta under the cut:

The passage in question in this one, which is early on in Chapter 73:

The fantranslation I have access to says this:

Lan XiChen responded a moment later, “I have heard of Wen Qing’s name a few times. I do not remember her having participated in any of the Sunshot Campaign’s crimes.”

Nie MingJue, “But she’s never stopped them either.”

Lan XiChen, “Wen Qing was one of Wen RuoHan’s most trusted people. How could she have stopped them?”

Nie MingJue spoke coldly, “If she responded with only silence and not opposition when the Wen Sect was causing mayhem, it’s the same as indifference. She shouldn’t have been so disillusioned as to hope that she could be treated with respect when the Wen Sect was doing evil and be unwilling to suffer the consequences and pay the price when the Wen Sect was wiped out.”

Lan XiChen knew that because of what happened to his father, Nie MingJue abhorred Wen-dogs more than anything, especially with how intolerable he was toward evil. Lan XiChen didn’t say anything else.

One of the sect leaders spoke up, “What Sect Leader Nie said is quite right. Besides, Wen Qing is one of Wen RuoHan’s most trusted people. You’re telling me she never participated? Well I don’t buy it. Is there any Wen-dog without a single drop of blood on their hands? Maybe it’s just that we haven’t found out about it yet!”

The Chinese text that these passages correspond to is this:

蓝曦臣沉吟道：“这位温情的大名我知晓几分，似乎没听说她参与过射日之征中任何一场凶案的。”

聂明玦道：“可她也没有阻拦过。”

蓝曦臣道：“温情是温若寒的亲信之一，如何能阻拦？”

聂明玦冷冷地道：“既然在温氏作恶时只是沉默而不反对，那就等同于袖手旁观。总不能妄想只在温氏兴风作浪时享受优待，温氏覆灭了就不肯承担苦果付出代价。”

蓝曦臣知道，因家仇之故，对温狗聂明玦是最为痛恨，他又是完全容不得沙子的性情，便不再言语。一名家主道：“聂宗主此言正是。况且温情既然是温若寒的亲信，说她没参与过？我是不信的。温狗哪个手上不沾几条人命？也许只是没被我们发现而已！”

Which I got from this source on the internet. At some point I should invest in buying an actual physical copy of this text, but I spent my discretionary Chinese book money on a great copy of Yanxi Palace so I’ll have to wait on my physical MDZS copy.

Anyway, what follows are a bunch of screenshots of the translation process of this section and then some cleanup and a basic summary.

Idk about you all, but I do not call someone a pejorative equivalent of WRH’s toady/crony/trusted ally, while saying “why would she stop his horrible crimes!” and then think that my good friend would have to “turn a blind eye” if we were to let her off when I’m trying very hard to defend her against the masses but am getting steamrolled into agreeing that she probably deserved it.

Indeed, the two things that LXC says in this scene are: “I have heard briefly of Wen Qing’s reputation, it does not appear that she personally murdered anyone…” and “she’s a crony of WRH, how would she have stopped his atrocities?”

Now, I actually like him more after realizing this fact, because he was being mildly bitchy about this! And honestly, given that the Wen burned down his house and killed his dad and killed a bunch of Lan cultivators and broke Wangji’s leg and kidnapped Wangji and nearly killed Xichen himself and he had to flee with a bunch of their sacred texts…I’d say he’s earned the right to be bitchy about them.

But also if I were Wen Qing depending on Zewu-jun for his excellent defense lawyering skills at my criminal trial I would want him disbarred. And also fired.

#lan xichen #nie mingjue #so i have no real bad feelings about the fan translation or the official i just thought the chinese was really fun to read!#my meta #my posts #my translation #anyway if I were Wen Qing I would want him fired #and possibly prevented from defense lawyering for anyone else

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hazelnut-u-out · 2 years

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Rick losing his original family makes me even sadder when I think about the fact that Morty and Summer are basically his kids. He lives with them and takes a much more active role in their lives than most grandparents. He's also pretty much raising Morty (he's doing a terrible job lmao, but he is.) He lost all his children. He lost Jerry, too.

yeahhhhh, 100%.

he’s morty’s primary caregiver at this point, and it kind of feels like the first time in his life morty has ever actually had a primary care giver.

i mentioned this in one of my other posts, but for the longest time after the s5 finale/s6 premier i assumed that rick would pop into the s1 prime dimension on occasion to see if prime had come back, and ran into little morty then. that entire assumption relies on the the inference that morty was pretty heavily neglected and left to his own devices, even at such a young age.

i mean, who in their right mind would leave their baby completely alone in the front hallway while they’re learning to walk?

we ofc don’t know if that’s how rick really knew a morty baby, but it really says something that that’s what someone would immediately deduce.

morty himself even confronts beth about the neglect in “a rickconvenient mort,” and we have plenty of scenes (like in “raising gazorpazorp”) that are open about the neglectful/horrible parents beth and jerry are. even though jerry is shown to be more affectionate towards the kids, he’s always been too busy orbiting beth to be a decent father. (you could also get into the state of morty’s room compared to the rest of the house, or even summer’s room. it’s full of childlike toys and posters because he’s really just a little boy, but there’s mold and mildewy spots- even though he keeps his room relatively tidy.)

one scene that really stuck out to me is when rick takes morty to school in “juricksic mort.” it seems like rick has been one of the people making sure that morty gets there for a while now, considering how the whole scene goes down. (which, what a great contrast from his character in s1. he’s gone from making excuses to justify ruining morty’s education to making sure he gets there on time.)

“rick! mom’s working and dad’s still asleep! i’m gonna be late.” “… just get the keys.”

no pushback from rick at all, just casually taking morty to school. i also like the detail that rick is up that early in the morning, like he’s part of the smith family weekly morning rush routine. he’s just relaxed after summer’s off to school and beth’s at work, drinking some beer and watching the news.

that really seems like rick’s been taking morty to school everyday, or at least often. it’s also a great example of a moment where rick steps up as the “dad” or “patriarch” of the house to fill in for jerry again.

rick doing household chores and shaking his head at the kids in disappointment in “final desmithation” is something that makes me feel like rick is more of a parental figure to the kids than the actual smith parents, too.

(rick sanchez in his matriarch era lol)

(i also just love this little scene of him drinking wine with beth while she plays “operation” and the kids sit around. it’s such a sweet little detail that makes me think about what a subtle act of affection it is to drink wine with her because that’s her drink of choice. it’s also reminiscent of rick “making up for lost time” with his little girl, because it’s horse operation. some things never change- like your daughter playing with horse toys while you watch and have a little drink- even if you’re an old man and she has kids of her own now.)

another episode that i think really embodies rick being the only one who goes out of his way to care about/look after the kids is “rickmancing the stone.” sure, he has that whole blurb about how summer is completely replaceable, but he never actually tries to replace them with versions of themselves from other realities. he just kind of tries to buy time and hopes that they’ll eventually want to come back.

i love the scene where he says, “we need to get you guys home so you can properly deal with your parents’ divorce!”

it seems so genuine to me. he’s a dick, but he’s a dick that’s worried about his grandkids.

being a nurturing father figure, especially with children, is something that seems to come naturally to rick. it’s like part of his nature that’s just been waiting to peek out, even though he’s a jaded old asshole now. “a different kind of rick,” exactly.

#rick and morty #rick sanchez #morty smith #asks

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meenawrites · 1 year

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Neytiri and Spider

As part of my Spider brainrot, I can't help but keep thinking his relationship to Neytiri.

While I wholeheartedly disagree with Neytiri's treatment of Spider throughout his life, seeing as he was a CHILD and not responsible for anything that happened to her or her people, I GET IT. Spider is a physical manifestation of Neytiri's trauma, a trauma trigger if you will. And he's around her and her family as long as possible every day, and her kids are always with him. It must be hard to watch considering everything she's gone through with the loss of her sister, her father, the destruction of her home. I can't get behind her attitude towards Spider but I understand it.

I have to think though that Neytiri has to have SOME self-awareness of Spider not actually being responsible for her trauma, and just being a kid. I think if she had no awareness whatsoever, she would have absolutely forbade him to play with her kids or even get near the Na'vi at all. I'm sure she could do it. But I think the part of her brain that could still think clearly about Spider through her cloud of hatred was the one to concede to Jake about Spider playing with her kids and allowing him close by. Especially later when the RDA returns, I'm sure her trauma was re-triggered and it had to have soured her tolerance of Spider, but we still see him at High Camp interacting with the kids and touching their ikrans as they dismount after the attack on the train. I think she's too deeply affected by what she has been through and has not really had time to process it, so tolerance and leniency is all she feels she can offer Spider during his life.

But she clearly didn't tolerate him enough to go back for him when he got captured by the RDA (neither did Jake but that's for another post). In my mind, I think she saw her family in danger, prioritized, and decided Spider wasn't one of her priorities. Which again is understandable given her experiences but still wrong towards a child.

But the moment in the movie that really gets me thinking hard on Neytiri's relation to Spider is the moment on the boat when she has a knife to his throat. Again, a horrible thing to do to Spider for so many reasons, but I GET IT. Kiri was being held at knifepoint, she'd just lost the child that made her a mother, and she wasn't about to lose her second. I think Neytiri had every intention of going through with her threat if Quarritch didn't release Kiri. I really do. We all know that Neytiri is as ruthless as she is passionate and loving, and I really think that in that state of rage and grief and fear, she would have killed Spider had Kiri not been returned to her.

But then she cuts Spider's chest, and I am very tempted to think that that action, actually drawing Spider's blood, was somewhat of a wakeup call for her in that 'what was she doing threatening a child? A child who's known her all his life?' But she can't back down yet because Kiri hasn't been released. The reason I think she had this kind of light bulb moment upon cutting him is because of the fact that she pushes Spider BEHIND HER when Kiri is released. She could have easily been rid of this presence in her life that is a constant reminder of her pain and loss, could have just surrendered him to Quarritch, but she decides instead to push him behind her protectively. In my mind, I think it's maybe an inkling of Neytiri's motherly instinct kicking in, that no matter her distaste for the kid, he was still a child, and she would never hand over a child to the demon himself. I also think that the shock of actually hurting Spider made her really LISTEN to Spider and Kiri begging for each other's lives, and realize that if she did this, Kiri would never forgive her, Spider had no care for himself in the face of Kiri's danger, and she would have committed a crime so great Eywa wouldn't forgive her for it.

That is to me, how I view that moment on the boat. I think that Neytiri and Spider's relationship is very interesting because of how loaded it is, and I really hope that subsequent movies actually develop their relationship in an interesting direction instead of a flat continuation of her hatred for him. Their relationship has the potential to be incredibly nuanced and tender if given the chance and developed properly. I hope that this moment and Neteyam's death become some sort of catalyst for her to re-examine her relationship with Spider and what she has put him through. Like, the realization that this boy is only a year older than Neteyam who died in a war he was too young to fight in and that Spider is also too young to fight in and be responsible for is what I want to happen. I also see them finding some alliance in the fact that they would both do anything for Kiri.

Essentially, I want Neytiri to come to SEE Spider. I think that if James Cameron doesn't do that in the next movies, it's a dishonor to Neytiri's character and he would be making her into a flat character, which she most certainly is not.

#thanks for coming to my TED talk #I love Neytiri #But I disagree with her #But she's traumatized #As is Spider #I love him and he deserves loving parents #Spider needs to be wanted #spider socorro #Avatar 2 #Neytiri #Jake Sully #avatar the way of water

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katelynsimpsince2016 · 1 year

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I wouldn’t say outright terrible but like. It ain’t good. I’m just gonna bullet it to make things simpler since I’m horrible at explainin this sort of thing.

There’s the queerbaiting with Garrance, which immediately docks all the points I’d give them for a canonically queer character.

There’s the random tiny implications of characters possibly being queer that’re then never followed up on. For example, the fact that it’s implied Dante would’ve kissed Aaron even without being pushed. This isn’t bad per say, but it’s annoying.

There’s Katelyn who could’ve been good rep except she was given a girlfriend for two seconds and then to my knowledge her attraction to women was quite literally never mentioned again. I have no problem with her ending up with a guy and not a girl (<- Don’t quote me on this but I’m pretty sure that’d be biphobic if I did), the problem is that it feels like they just threw Katelyn in there for brownie points. Being queer isn’t and shouldn’t be a personality obviously, but it affects your life a little more than just what kind of person you date and that’s all we got with her.

There’s Vylad who’s canonically pansexual except people dislike his voiceactor, the only reason we know this, so they won’t acknowledge it.

There’s Melcinda which I can’t exactly comment on because I haven’t seen the part of the series that canonized it, but that’s also a problem. Starlight and When Angels Fall are very late seasons. I have seen every season prior and part of starlight, I did not know they canonized melcinda until someone else told me they did. Not that they can’t make characters queer late in the show, it’s just that we barely have any other queer characters before that.

There is Guy and Nate from love~love paradise. I don’t mind the characters but they are literally the buff guy x twink fanfiction stereotype. Why do we act like that was great representation.

So essentially: they have rep. they absolute have rep. but I will not give them any praise for it.

the rep they don’t have makes me want to bang my head against the wall.

the rep they do have is either in the teeny tiny details, briefly thrown in, literally not in the show outside of being confirmed from a possibly canon source, or so late game in the show that if you can’t sit through the, in my opinion, horridly written later seasons you won’t even know it’s canon.

It’s mostly wlw, which would not be a problem if the canon mlm rep we got wasn’t either barely present or just outright a stereotype. Garrance was queerbaiting, the implied queerness of other male characters (ex: Dante, Zane) is not acknowledged past that, Vylad’s sexuality was canonized outside of the show, Guy/Nate are a stereotype. The problem is that we have both wlw and mlm canon rep, but the mlm rep we have is of much poorer quality when it counts at all.

yeah you bring up some very good points - totally agree with you!

there clearly wasn’t much thought put into the queer rep and it’s definitely blink and you miss it kind of representation. basically if you either don’t pay attention at all times or watch all the content outside of the main seasons you will probably not pick up on it. for example,, katelyn’s girlfriend,, luca,, is introduced in the fcu series which isn’t a main mystreet season so some people may have missed that.

also about melcinda,, as someone who watched all of mystreet,, I can’t recall it being explicitly stated that they got together. i think it was alluded to and also in mini games but i can’t actually remember them becoming canon. i think it might’ve been something jess confirmed on twitter or something. so that definitely makes the rep even worse lol

also yeah how queer men are treated in mystreet is actually abhorrent. i never liked guy and nate because,, as you said,, they’re walking stereotypes. obviously,, there are relationships like that in real life but if in your work the only canonical gay male relationship is a literal stereotype then that’s definitely an issue. also not to mention garrance. i deserve compensation for that cuz i was legitimately convinced they were gonna get together in the end oml.

i could talk for hours about how katelyn’s sexuality was swept under the rug and how her relationships were just mishandled so much but to give jess some credit,, katelyn’s bisexuality doesn’t seem to be something that was just “shoved in”. ever since the side stories it was alluded to that katelyn was interested in women and she flirted with aphmau multiple times. although i don’t like how she turned out in the end i think there was an attempt,, just wish it was addressed in the main series. maybe katelyn could’ve had a conversation with another character about her sexuality or maybe she could’ve talked to her dad about it because that was literally a plot point that was never resolved.

#aphblr #aphmau #aphverse #mystreet #aphmau mystreet

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frankie-bell · 8 months

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You know the biggest misinformation Mika haters peddle about Ginoza is he hates her which is objectively,canonically false.Trust me if he hated her he wouldn’t open up about Kougami to her of all people.(That Citizen Kane convo was just chef’s kiss)..He wouldn’t deduct about Mika giving away Aoi Tsunemori’s location and keep it to himself..He wouldn’t try to change her perception about latent criminals by asking her what kind of crimes she thinks Yayoi might commit..There’s this manga extra where Mika was calling him to talk about a transaction with Frederica but even after the conversation was finished he just happily excused himself to talk to her in private(I think you’d be a hotpot boss too🥹).It’s so clear that she looks to him for guidance/comfort and he’s more than willing to provide that.She keeps calling him because she’d rather not talk to that horrible blonde and he keeps answering her when he doesn’t have to.My favourite part is his shit eating grin whenever he sees Mika..Like it’s so endearing..I don’t you can watch/read all that and just say it with confidence that Ginoza hates her.He so obviously likes her..

Yes, yes, YES to all of this. If you’ve made it through PP3 and *still* think that Ginoza hates Mika, then I have to believe you lack even the most basic form of media comprehension. Even in PP2, it’s clear he admires her confidence, conviction, and drive, although he doesn’t always think she’s using them correctly. Which is one of the reasons he takes such a vested interest in her — he likes her and doesn’t want to see her go down the same dark path he did. She can be a better version of him. And that’s just in PP2! By the time we get to Sinners of the System and PP3, it’s so obvious he finds her amusing and enjoys being around her. I know I mentioned this in a previous post, but Mika is the only person we ever see Ginoza tease or joke around with. Even if you don’t view their relationship as romantic, you can’t deny that there’s an unspoken fondness on both sides. They make a good team and genuinely care about each other.

Love that you mentioned the Citizen Kane scene from the novel, because it’s such a great example of Ginoza confiding in Mika — something we see him do several times throughout the series. If he didn’t like her, why would he talk to her about Kougami, or confess how guilty he still feels over his father’s death, or admit to the mistakes he himself made as an Inspector? Clearly, he feels safe with her. He doesn’t even talk to Akane about this stuff, and I think the reason why is pretty simple — after his demotion from Inspector to Enforcer, he placed her on a moral pedestal that makes her impossible to relate to, despite his devotion to her and her cause. But Mika, he can relate to. Mika, he can understand. She’s someone who reminds him of the person he used to be, someone he can trust and confide in, and that’s so important.

At this point, I’m convinced Mika haters are just ignoring canon because they can’t stand the fact that Ginoza actually likes her a lot.

#answered #anonymous #psycho pass #shimotsuki mika #ginoza nobuchika #ginomika #animanga #fandom discourse #you get me anon

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herlittlebunnyboy · 11 months

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So I thought about your post, the one who asks your followers to tell you about the book/movie/poem that changed our lives. And the thing with life changing art in my life is that it’s often not that great. Like I can talk your ear off about postmodernist Polish paintings and the queer film theory but the fact of the matter is that the media that often resonates the most with me is considered sub par. And I actually don’t mind it, but I do find it interesting.

First a disclaimer: there will be spoilers for the book, but it did come out in 1999 so I feel that’s fair. Second I will only write about it, not the poem or the movie because unfortunately I’m incapable of being concise. The book that absolutely changed my life is a cliche classic, piece de resistance of 2010 tumblr - “The perks of being wallflower”. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with it, but if not it’s an epistolary novel in which the main character (who gives himself a pseudonym Charlie) writes to the mysterious person who is just described as someone who “is kind” and “does the right thing”. There is A LOT of amazing quotes and heartbreaking and inspiring parts of the book (it did help that my group of friends very much identified with the characters and got up to similar shenanigans), but the thing that changed my life is this. Throughout the book we figure out there is something wrong with Charlie, we don’t know what but we can sense that something happened that he doesn’t wanna tell this mystery person, something horrible. Eventually we find out it was CSA. Charlie loves the person who hurt him, fights with himself to reconcile the image of the person as a good, hurt individual and as an abuser. When I read this book I was 16teen and wouldn’t admit to myself how bad the things that happened to me were, because the people who did them weren’t some kind of monsters, hiding in dark alleys or under my bed. They were asking about school while eating dinner with me and letting me pick music while we drove. I thought they could either be good or bad and I didn’t think I could survive giving up on them. It made me realize that people can be good and bad and complicated and sometimes we need to hold all of this at the same time. My favorite quote from the book tho is this: “We accept the love we think we deserve”. I’ve been repeating this to myself for the last 12 years.

This! This is the honesty and openness that this world desperately needs. And I don't know why but when you said followers in the beginning I laughed, that's such a foreign feeling/concept to me, I'd much rather consider all the cool people on here as friends.

Now to dive into this I love the sentiment of "the thing with life changing art in my life is that it's often not that great", it really doesn't have to be, I feel like if you are solely judging your change and progress off of the high notes you are missing at least half of the notes. Lol as for not being concise, we have talked to each other enough to know we both lack conciseness, but that's okay. As for the book, I have heard of it before but never read it or experienced the other forms of it, so I will definitely add this to my reading list. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who constantly equates people and places from books to people and things in my real life.

I won't go too far into your past or story as we have talked off the center stage, but like always, I appreciate you opening up to me ❤️‍🩹. The duality of man is a concept that each and every person has to come to terms with eventually and can be a shocking idea or thought to wrestle with, especially with the ones we hold close and love. It's not hard to imagine a stranger with a complicated goodness and badness but to realize that parents, kids, or siblings can and do have this inner turmoil and struggle with the good and bad inside them can be eye opening.

As always, thank you for sharing insights into your life and thoughts with me, I really appreciate you.

#deep thoughts #duality of man #required reading #thank you ❤️‍🩹#conversations the world needs #i see you and i appreciate you!#friends around the world

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tk-duveraun · 1 year

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@pangolinheart i tried to write an ask and it got too long hahahaha lmaorip

You've activated my ADHD.

Coming up with interesting concepts for characters has never been a particular strong suit of mine (which is why I'm terrible at TTRPGs like D&D).

If you have attempted to play a TTRPG and felt like your character/your playing was boring that is not your fault. TTRPGs are a collaborative affair and the right DM for you could have pulled out the cool shit.

I actually did a write up on how to create a character last year.

I think it's likely you've been convinced by something in your life that you're not creative. Criticised too harshly, mean comments, comparing your own ideas unfavorably to people far more practiced, who knows.

Enjoying and participating so much in ask games shows that your creativity is there it just has to be teased out correctly. Like I said in my other ask, I have so much practice teasing out ideas. I've read so many books teaching me how to do it and I've spent years practicing the skill constantly (thanks ADHD).

Constraint breeds creativity. You know this because when you get a prompt in an ask box, you have an answer, but when you're asked "What's the cool thing about my OC?" you come up with nothing. That's just how human brains work with this kind of stuff!

It's hard to break down the process bc I have severe ADHD, but let me try.

So, personally, I try to design characters with "What would be funniest?"

So Lian is au'ra and all min sliders. So it would be funny if she had a bunch of younger brothers that were just GIANTS. Right? That's funny. Let's throw in more siblings because that makes it funnier, right?

So now the facts we have:

Lian is the oldest of 7 kids

Lian is the Warrior of Light

Lian can fight

Lian has the Echo

Lian is a Raen Au'ra

So we take these facts and run them past the list of potential character/personality archetypes

Eldest daughters are often portrayed as super responsible and protective. This can also come with resentment for having to have looked after their siblings.

So I like the first part, but I don't want resentment. Resentment isn't funny. What would be more funny? If she wanted to parent her siblings, but her parents were like "No, you're a CHILD" and didn't let her.

Now we have a character with a bunch of younger siblings who is a hero saving the realm and desperately wanted to be the mom to her sibs and now it's the Scions' problem. Mom-friend overdrive, especially with the twins.

Enter Estinien. He was my first choice wolmance. He's a horrible raccoon of a man and I love him so much.

So I start going through scenarios and it's not looking great. Mom-friend, mostly-well-adjusted Lian is just gonna end up being a kind of weird therapist to our raccoon man.

But you know what our raccoon man has that we can leverage? A dead family. .... .. :)

So, now Lian's family is dead, they have beautiful mutual survivor's guilt and are gonna fuck about it.

But wait, there's more! I just did the DRK quest. Ishgardians killed a bunch of au'ra for looking kinda dragon-y? :))))))))))))))))))

Estinien is openly hostile and aggressive towards Lian at first.

Well now we need some kind of explanation for what happened to Lian's family. What could kill off 9+ people in one fell swoop? Guess who's in Stormblood now :) Lian's from an underwater raen village. You know what is great at killing 9+ people in isolated villages? Disease :))))))))))))))))))))) Not gonna lie, COVID being on definitely contributed to this.

So Lian's family all died to illness. How did she survive? Was she not there? Zero percent chance she was not there. Too much filial piety for that. So she got sick, but didn't die.

Let's lean into it, take it one step further. Not only did she get sick, she was patient 0. Now the survivor's guilt is even guiltier.

She would have been considered severe bad luck at best by her village, so she feels she has to leave. Well, how does one, orphaned, get from under the sea near Yanxia to Eorzea? Not easily. It was difficult, she couldn't speak the language, she was surely set upon by bandits...

Over time these elements developed into the conceit that Lian can't die. She didn't die from the illness, she didn't die on the way to Eorzea or anything that came to that point.

And now I have something I can leverage into the Big Bang fic where Lian gets speared through at the end of The Vault, and fucking dies but also doesn't die and Haurchefant is super fucked up about it, because no one else seemed to notice or care. They just assumed she was fine.

What I'm getting at is, when I made Lian, I wasn't in the CC thinking "Okay, now the Blessing of Light makes her immune to death for reasons of enjoyable story :)"

I was in the CC thinking "Dragon girl!!!! Dragon girl from asia? Okay I am really into Cdramas, let's make her ~Chinese instead of ~Japanese like Yugiri, DRAGON :))))"

The rest came in increments over time. Taking each new idea and then leaning on it, squeezing it until I had the maximum interesting stuff come out.

Next time you do an ask game, when you write your answer, once you finish, read it again and go "okay, but how can I make this more extreme? More funny? More tragic? More cute?"

Just rinse and repeat and ta da your character is just as cool and complex as everyone else's!

#lian feng #character design #writing advice

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aimwigs · 4 months

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DADWIG!!!!!

another dadwig snippet from earlier in the timeline except this one is slightly less wholesome and also about parents splitting up... being a parent is not aways easy i fear

Lucy is only three, but Ludwig is pretty sure that she hates him.

Honestly, in some ways he gets it. It has to be confusing, to have your dad living at home one day and then halfway across Los Angeles the next, but he had kind of figured that she would be too young to be super affected by it. If anything, he was worried about Ryan, who’s more than halfway through kindergarten and definitely old enough to kind of understand the talk that they gave the girls about how the two of them aren’t in love anymore, which is the best oversimplification they can muster of what really happened between them.

Ryan is seemingly fine, though. She’s always been a smart, quiet kid. She seems sort of sad, which makes him feel like a horrible fucking person, but she also seems to get it— apparently, one of her friends has parents who don’t live together.

But Lucy fucking freaks out. According to QT, her behavior gets worse after he leaves, including hitting her sister over something as stupid as her putting a different show on the TV and upending her plate onto the ground because QT had the gall to put broccoli on it. This type of stuff was something they anticipated could happen; this is a huge change and they knew it might be something that the girls don’t really know how to process. Even though they both firmly believe it’ll be better for the two of them in the long run, that doesn’t change the fact that it’s difficult now.

What he doesn’t anticipate, though, is Lucy not even talking to him the first time that he has the girls over at Slime’s, where he’s staying until he can find a suitable place. She barely even looks at him.

The weird thing is, she doesn’t even seem that upset. She’s happy to run around and play with Ryan or chat away with Slime all fucking day— seriously, he’s pretty sure that kid loved him more than she loved Ludwig even before all this— but she won’t even acknowledge him.

“It’s a big fucking change. You just need to give her time,” Slime tells him. “Like did having divorced parents fucking blow sometimes? Yeah. Did I love my parents completely until the very end? Also yes. She’s a little kid. She’ll bounce back.”

It should be reassuring— QT said something similar, after all, and both of them actually are children of divorce— but he worries that maybe this will be different. What if she resents him forever? Sure, she’s too young to understand what’s really going on now but it’s not like that erases the fact that she’s going to have to grow up split between two different homes.

He figures that maybe a zoo trip will win her over. Part of Lucy’s idolization of Slime stems from their mutual love of monkeys and even though he’s busy today, she’ll surely still have a good time seeing all the animals. Plus, it’s a fun little day trip and he knows Nick and Aiden would probably both be down to go.

And maybe Lucy doesn’t seem any more focused on him than before, opting to ride around on Aiden’s shoulders all day as they zip from exhibit to exhibit but at least she’s having fun.

Things still seem off, though, and he can’t really shake that.

Ludwig decides to ask Nick who, despite only having a kid for a little over a year now, is like a superdad which is extra impressive given his equally awesome wife. It shouldn’t be surprising seeing as Nick is just someone who is generally competent in a lot of things, but he’s definitely a great fucking dad with everything you could ever need packed away in the diaper bag shoved in the bottom of the stroller he pushes around the zoo. His son sleeps inside, having worn himself out by the time they saw the dolphins.

“I wouldn’t sweat it, man. If she’s actually mad at you, I’m sure she’ll just get over it. Kids don’t hold grudges.” he tells him when he brings it up, both of them watching Aiden reading off the sign that they have posted next to the lions about their pack structure and eating habits to the girls. God, Aiden seriously needs to shave that stupid fucking mustache he’s been sporting recently.

“It’s been two weeks,” he reminds him because he’s pretty sure that’s a long fucking time for a three-year-old to hold a grudge.

Nick shrugs. “Yeah, and you fucking love her, bro. That’s what’s going to shine through in the end. She’s not even going to remember this shit when she’s older.”

It temporarily instills some confidence in him, up until he asks her what she wants for dinner in the car on the way home and she leans over to whisper into Ryan’s ear instead of replying to him directly. He didn’t know kids that young could be this fucking petty.

And then she gets into a fight at preschool the next week and QT calls him to pick her up since she has a meeting this afternoon and his schedule is generally more flexible.

He finds out when he gets there that she bit another girl because she was playing with a toy she wanted, which is usually grounds for a week's suspension but since her teachers are generally aware of her circumstances, they’re only sending her home for today. That doesn’t stop them from giving Ludwig dirty looks when he picks her up, though.

“You can’t be biting people,” he tells her with a sigh as he drives back towards Slime’s place. “Imagine if someone bit you. That would make you sad, wouldn’t it?”

When he looks in the rearview mirror, she’s looking out the car window with a quivering lip.

He tries again. “Did you really bite her just because she wouldn’t share with you?”

Lucy erupts into tears, wailing and sniffling in an instant. The only thing he can make out is, “I want Mom!”

Ludwig makes a show of taking a deep breath, gesturing with his hand to encourage her to take one too. She doesn’t.

“Mom is working right now. You get Dad instead.” He pulls off into a parking lot and parks so that he can turn around and face her. When he reaches over to wipe her tears away with his sleeve, she lets him even though she doesn’t stop crying.

“I want Mom,” she says again in a trembling voice, quieter this time. “Wanna go home.”

“I’m sorry,” he tells her, digging around for a tissue and handing it to her. She poorly attempts to wipe away the boogers under her nose. “Sometimes it’s gonna be Dad that picks you up and takes you to his house instead. Soon I’ll get a new house and you’ll get to pick out a brand new room. Isn’t that cool?”

She doesn’t look impressed. “Wanna go home.”

Fuck, this isn’t going to work. He’s always believed kids are much smarter than people give them credit for, but this conversation is beyond the scope of a three-year-old.

“Do you want to get ice cream?” he asks, knowing that it’s probably the worst thing you can do after your kid gets kicked out of school. He figures that it’s special circumstances. “This isn’t a reward. Biting is still bad,” he adds for good measure.

She lights up a little. “Strawberry?”

He nods, very seriously. “Strawberry.”

Lucy smiles at him for the first time since he moved out. “Strawberry!” she starts to chant.

Ludwig lets out a laugh as he pulls back onto the road and drives toward the ice cream shop. Maybe things will all be okay, just like his friends said. Maybe some one-on-one time was really all that they needed after all.

“I love you so so much, Lucy,” he tells her.

“I love strawberry,” she replies, and he takes it as a win.

#'ficlet' 'snippet' and then i continue to write stuff that i could probably just post on ao3 except this way i dont have to title it #dadwig #ludwig #my fic #answered #anonymous

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abiiors · 11 months

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All of this puts into perspective how parasocial loving a band/ celebrity is. I truly used to think I got Matty, but his silence on this (and the fact it even happened in the first place) confuses me. Like, when I was 16 and he was shouting about abortion on stage in Alabama, I thought: this guy gets it, that’s a true feminist.

And I know the podcast is post ironic and leftist. And I know ultimately Matty does care about women’s issues. But it annoys me that he can care, yet also be so flippant about women (especially woc). I guess it reminds me that, despite everything in his music and rousing speeches before songs, he really is just a white man… I don’t think I’m articulating this right. It’s like I, a woman, thought he was on my side and he is… but he can hop across the fence and laugh at some horrific jokes because his white man status affords him this. It affords him the option to care. Whereas women have no choice but to because it’s real for us.

I don’t believe he’s a Misogynist or a Racist, but he has become Apathetic. He says he disagrees with virtue signalling and expecting musicians to be morally woke, which I agree with, but I think it’s fair to expect consistency… you say you care, so care.

Previous anons are right: he knows that it’ll blow over if he stays silent, another privilege afforded to white men.

It feels to me that Matty has been too overcome with the post-ironic, nihilistic culture that’s been cultivated online in recent years. He’s forgotten that it is important to care about people. It is important to not laugh at racist jokes, even if they are said in the context of irony and leftism. Because people’s feelings transcend whatever cultural commentary you’re attempting to take part in. This is something he addressed in ATPOAIM with Caveh Zahedi, where he says that the lore of John Burroughs is great, but his wife living would’ve been more important. Matty knows people should come before ‘art’. So he says all the right things, but I wish actions followed.

Ultimately, I suppose I am struggling to reconcile supporting a band that has become so passive. The 1975 were so significant in my development as a person- they were my teenage years. I sometimes miss who I thought Matty was because, as a 15 year old with no idea what I was doing, he became an anchor (I know you’re looking for salvation in the secular age, and all that). But that is all HUGELY parasocial. I’m an adult now and I think I’m going to distance myself from the band.

I’m an adult and today is a very sunny day so I’m going to get offline and get outside, rather than continue to partake in some discourse on a man I am coming to realise I never actually knew. It’s sad and the end of an era for me, but it’s just becoming too much hassle being so invested in this band! And yes, that does make me feel horrible because of what ICBMIL is about, but Matty won’t miss me, as an individual.

Anyway! Sorry for the rant. I hadn’t intended it to be so long, and maybe I shouldn’t have sent it to you and I should’ve just posted it. But I suppose this is kind of my closing statement on the 1975 because I’m going to deactivate my blog after this. Damn.

I’m so sorry about what you’re feeling rn <33

you articulated it really really well and it breaks my heart that someone who was so important to you once has disappointed you so thoroughly. your decision to not support them after all of this is completely valid and sure, you’re one person in the grand scheme of things but you matter and your feelings on this matter.

@trumanblackblog if you see nothing else on my blog, i sure hope you see this. and choose to do the right thing

i hope you have a great day and idk your blog but i hope you do come back to tumblr in the future <33

#asks #chatty asks #the 1975 #matty healy

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repo-net · 1 year

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Hi friend! As fun as Monaca was, it is good to see Nagisa is back! 💙 After “Monaca” ranked her friends, I’ve been wondering how you would rank the WOH in terms of your personal favorites? I’m assuming Nagisa is your favorite, but out of the others do you have a 2nd favorite, 3rd, 4th, 5th ect. or is it just Nagisa’s the best and the rest are kind of equal to you? (with the exception of perhaps Monaca?) Just curious but you don’t have to answer. Have a great day! 💕

Hello hello, thank you again for another ask! It was quite a fun week, I appreciated the small change in theme I took for a bit, but it's nice to finally have a refreshed and updated look again now that we're back to normal.

Ranking the Warriors of Hope, huh? I've been asked this question a few times before, but I'm not sure if I've done it here yet? I can't quite recall. I do have a personal ranking though that hasn't changed and likely won't ever change, but I'll skip number 1 since I think it's pretty obvious who's taking that spot.

5. Kotoko Utsugi

Kotoko's cute. I think she's entertaining and a lot of her lines hit the mark when she's actually allowed to have depth (something that DR tends to fail on), and she probably has my favorite design when it comes to the Warriors of Hope. Her personality is funny and I just wanna give her a hug because of the horrible messes she's been through.

But in the grand scheme of things and appreciating her overall character, I just can't overlook the clutter of mishandling of the themes in her writing. The game didn't treat it with nearly enough respect as they should've, from the weird as hell shots of her underwear, to the whole motivation machine... thing. I have an obvious issue with that entire segment, but I at least see why Kotoko would act in such a way. But the fact they turned it into a minigame...? With the instructions for it ending off by basically telling the player to not enjoy themselves too much? Leaves such a sour taste in my mouth.

For the same reason characters like Mikan are low on my tier lists (though I don't actually dislike or hate any character, the lowest grade I give is just a 'god, I really don't care at all'.), Kotoko gets the same grade. Fun character, horrible handling and presentation.

4. Jataro Kemuri

Y'know, there's a bit of a gap between Kotoko and this one. Not that big, but enough that I can decisively say every time someone asks me who my least favorite Warrior of Hope is, I would say the former. Anyways, moving on to Jataro. I think one reason he's over here is because he suffers from what I call "middle character syndrome", where he doesn't 'die' early enough like Masaru to leave a first impression, or someone late like Nagisa to really set you up for the climax. He's stuck in the unfortunate spot of having to follow up from who came first.

But that doesn't mean I don't like him. I think his trauma and backstory is one of the more unique ways of portraying mental abuse. While I think they could've done a better job of actually giving us time to digest his story and see more context in what really happened, I think his attitude (and his voice actor: god bless Michelle Ruff, she does an incredible job) and how he's so ruthless because he loves being hated is intriguing.

It's not enough to get him that high, but for what it's worth, I enjoyed Jataro while he was on screen and I wish we got to see more of him and Masaru, they badly needed more screentime. Speaking of which...

3. Masaru Daimon

Ah, here's the boy. If you thought my issue with Jataro's screentime was bad, man - Masaru's issues go way bigger than that. This poor fella gets a total of two scenes to shine in - the part where the Warriors of Hope introduce themselves, and his boss fight. If you wanna be generous and make it three, then we can count his supposed funeral, but as far as I'm concerned, the only one who got any sort of character build there was Nagisa and Monaca.

So why is Masaru so up high on my list despite the fact that he, y'know. Barely even existed? It's because he left his mark and set the tone well for the rest of his members to follow up on. Establishing himself as an arrogant, noisy brat that you just wanna pummel in his intro, with making a few lines here and there that make way for light-heartedness (wieners!). And then, he shows his weak heart. Beating his arm up (that scene was and still is hard to watch btw) and making subtle references easy enough for the viewer to make inferences from. Building what's coming.

That's what Masaru does. He lays the blueprints down for the rest of the kids, and that they all have reasons for turning the way they did. Being the first example is as important as closing off the story, and Masaru despite how little time he got was able to pass that test.

2. Monaca Towa

Yep, it's pretty obvious who my second favorite Warrior of Hope is if you've been paying attention to my blog, lol. Monaca is a horrible and terrifying child. She has done plenty of things wrong. I want nothing more than for her to receive her comeuppance and get what she deserves. And that's why pickle satan is my second favorite Warrior of Hope, my favorite villain/main antagonist in the series, and one of my favorite characters in general. And it all roots back to what I believe is most important in a character - presentation.

Believe me when I say this; a character that annoys the viewer will always be worse than a character that repulses them. You want them to think 'oh screw this guy, i hope they get owned and beat eventually', absolutely not 'oh screw this guy, get them off my screen, i don't wanna see this anymore'. You want to have the audience desire their demise, not be so irritated by them that they don't even wanna continue seeing the story anymore. Monaca plays her role of the despicable villain incredibly. She is so easy to hate in the ways that you wanna see her get destroyed.

I could go for a long, long while about Monaca and make a post of her own, honestly. Her dynamic with Nagisa is a one-sided tragedy (that I honestly think is more co-dependent than most people realize.) that ends with her pulling off one of the most horrid scenes in the series by mentally destroying the psyche of another character to the point he can't even muster the will to fight her anymore.

Her whole motive - it's initially believed that Monaca wants to be the next generation of Junko Enoshima herself, but the more you look into it, the more hints the story gives, until the buildup where the plan was for it to be Komaru all along... it's an excellent build and subversion that makes sense. Her writing works. Her character works. Everything clicks with Monaca. I just wish her arc ended more satisfyingly in DR3, even if the absurdity of it was pretty funny. Monaca's great. Love her and I'll always write about her.

Thanks again for sending the ask! I apologize this took a while, I've been busy these past few days in preparation of the upcoming school week. Hope to hear from you again, and have a great day!

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