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kiranxrys · 4 years

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hmm... ds9 characters by which kate bush song i think they are:

julian - the man with the child in his eyes

kira - hounds of love

jadzia - jig of life

ezri - cloudbusting

garak - waking the witch

sisko - hello earth

miles - this woman’s work

worf - army dreamers

nog - running up that hill

jake - breathing

odo - suspended in gaffa

quark - wuthering heights

and actually you know what not that anyone cares but over 1000 words of ridiculous over-analyzing explanations under the cut bc i feel like it

julian - the man with the child in his eyes

bush wrote the song about a man in whom a younger protagonist notices a youthful quality, a sort of childlike awe for the world. this really speaks to me about julian’s character, who seems to repress this side of himself throughout the show in order to earn the respect of others. to me he really is “the man with the child in his eyes”. it’s also a very sweet and loving song that reflects the way i feel about his character.

kira - hounds of love

hounds of love definitely has a more romantic leaning, filled with a girl’s story from uncertainty about love to embracing it joyfully. analyzing this from kira’s perspective, though, to me this might be more of a story about her uncertainty with vulnerability, “what was following [her]” that she was “hiding from” being her trauma and her past. the song is upbeat and gives the sense of entering a new, exciting world filled with possibility. that’s kira’s path of recovery starting from the beginning of the story to me. particularly bush’s final cries of “i need love” ring true for me for kira. she is entirely mature and strong and experienced at the start of ds9. her journey is about learning to let go.

jadzia - jig of life

jadzia’s bush song being jig of life is a bit ironic, in a sense, as jig of life is about survival. jig of life is about fighting to let your future self live even when the present seems hopeless. maybe that’s what makes it so powerful to me as a song for jadzia. the song describes the future life and children she never got to have (or maybe did, depending on your AU ideas). the desperate cry of jig of life’s protagonist’s future self “never, never, never, never, never let me go! [...] let me live!”, as well as the song’s exploration of time and different versions of oneself really speaks to me for jadzia’s character.

ezri - cloudbusting

what initially drew me to this song in ezri’s regard was its strange optimism given the subject matter. without getting into the historical specifics, bush wrote the song from the perspective of the son of a psychoanalyst, exploring the memories of his eccentric and troubled father. looking more closely, i would say the concept of having someone else “here in my head” connects to her struggles with becoming joined to the dax symbiot. i like the idea how “everytime it rains” (every time things get dark) that voice is there for her “like the sun coming out”. the declaration “i just know that something good is going to happen” rings true for me for ezri.

garak - waking the witch

waking the witch is one of bush’s weirder songs, it’s very disjointed and confused in a striking kind of way, a stage in bush’s story of a girl drowning and lost at sea. the protagonist in waking the witch is this girl who, in a strange hallucination, finds herself on trial for witchcraft. the song deals with guilt and innocence as a threatening, demonic voice presses the protagonist for a confession. several key emotions connect this song with garak for me - guilt, paranoia, fear, hopelessness as she finds “a stone around [her] leg” that drags her down. “i question your innocence”, the voice tells her. “guilty, guilty, guilty!” declare the court. “well, are you responsible for your actions?” the voice asks. meanwhile the protagonist pleads (“bless me father for i have sinned” - perhaps a connection to tain, “help me, help me baby, talk to me, talk to me, please talk to me” - this terrified desperation reminds me of garak in his darkest moments). waking the witch to me represents garak’s inner turmoil and sense of guilt.

sisko - hello earth

oof, hello earth. this song is a true masterpiece. like waking the witch and jig of life, it’s a part of the story of the drowning girl. hello earth is towards the end of the story, as she struggles to survive. the awe for the world and the sense of detachment between the protagonist and her physical universe in the song reminds me of sisko’s connection to the prophets. he “[watches] storms start to form over” his country (in this case, ds9, bajor, the alpha quadrant) but “can’t do anything, just watch them swing with the wind out to sea”. when voices demand of the protagonist to “get out of the waves, get out of the water”, to me that is benjamin’s loved ones pleading with him to return from the figurative world of the prophets. “murderer! murderer of calm!” voices accuse. i interpret this as sisko’s guilt over the regrettable things he has had do over the years, such as the events of in the pale moonlight. the song ends with a phrase, spoken by bush in german - “deeper, deeper, somewhere in the depth there is light”. sisko has this determined optimism, this conviction in what he stands for and what he can achieve.

miles - this woman’s work

this woman’s work is a song in which a husband fears for his wife as she gives birth to their baby, looking back on their time together and finding regret. you can see the connection here. but while the idea of “i know you have a little life in you yet, i know you have a lot of strength left” can be read as being directed at keiko, i think it can also apply to miles himself. it may be a bit of a joke, but christ, miles has gone through the most - ‘hard time’, especially, comes to mind. even before the dominion war, he’s been through horrific conflict, but he still holds on and keeps fighting with his determined attitude. he’s a repressed person. “[he] should be crying but [he] just can’t let it show”. he’s still clinging to life, even after all this time.

worf - army dreamers

army dreamers is a war song. it’s also a war song about a younger soldier, told from the perspective of his mother, who has died. she imagines what her son could’ve been, wondering what she could’ve done to save him from this fate. on one hand, this does connect for me to worf’s continuous ‘loss’ (of both people and things) throughout his time in both tng and ds9. but i think in a way worf also is, or is afraid of being, the young soldier in the story. army dreamers connects to klingon warriorship and the horrific loss of war - “oh, what a waste of all them army dreamers”. of any kate bush song, this was the one in which i felt him the most.

nog - running up that hill

god, running up that hill. truly peak kate bush. there’s a lot here that i connect to nog. first of all, running up that hill is a song that carries so much weight, seems to touch upon themes of great burdens and struggles, something nog certainly experiences. but bush’s intended meaning with the song was a reflection upon how people from different groups (here men and women) struggle to understand each other, and if only they could “get [god] to swap [their] places”. this speaks to me of nog’s experience as a ferengi, the first ferengi in starfleet. if only those around him could understand him better - this goes both for being ferengi and for being traumatized - he would be running up that hill “with no problems”.

jake - breathing

breathing is one of my favourite bush songs of all time. it’s a true masterpiece. here she takes on the persona of a baby in its mother’s womb, aware of a world outside that has descended into nuclear destruction and the horrors former generations have inflicted upon the earth. jake is the face of the next generation in ds9, growing from child to adult, but if the dominion war goes wrong, what world will he be left with by those who came before? at the end of breathing, bush’s protagonist, joined by other voices, desperately pleads with those above - “oh, god, please leave us something to breathe!”. i connect this song to jake’s place as this next generation, as well as (unlike nog) an outsider in the war.

odo - suspended in gaffa

i deliberated for a long time about which kate bush song could fit odo’s story. i chose suspended in gaffa because it explores a concept of experiencing something wondrous (in this case, witnessing god) and then not being able to experience it again, trapped by one’s unworthiness. the song’s protagonist is desperate to be rewarded - “can i have it all now?” i connect this with odo’s intrinsic desire and struggle to experience the great link, to be with his people, as well as other aspects like to be accepted by others and at peace with himself.

quark - wuthering heights

yeah.

#did i really just write 1.5k of analyzing how kate bush lyrics connect to star trek lmao #if you (like most people) don't listen to kate bush IM SORRY but i hope at least you found this interesting dsjksjksk #just trust that i'm right on this okay #ds9 #analysis #cami.txt

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belloinfernum-rp · 4 years

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Narcissa Black

Age- 23

Chosen Faceclaim- Sarah Gadon

Loyalty- Neutral

Former House- Slytherin

Occupation- Philanthropist/Socialite

Label- The Braggart

Aesthetic- Long baths with rose petals, dislikes confrontation, hopeless romantic, silk robes.

Traits- + Charming + Ambitious + Clever - Manipulative - Vain - Secretive

Key Points

From her earliest years, Druella prided herself in her youngest’s well-mannered, calm-tempered demeanour — The perfect diction, the perfect smile, just the right way of not getting stains on expensive dresses. Narcissa’s childhood was less one of a happy child and more akin to that of a pretty, untouchable image (an image which, paradoxically, was not quite herself and that she had to live up to). Images are seen and not heard, trapped in a set point in time which would be the only thing ever remembered of them — The thought is small, reductive and frightening; that Narcissa will always be the fair-headed girl with immaculate dresses, expertly placed hair locks and pretty smile growing on her lips ( inviting, almost friendly behind the unattainable coldness of her soul, caught deep within her pretty blue eyes. Her pretty blue eyes and her pretty smile and her pretty dress and her pretty hair and her pretty manners; that adjective taking over her life, making it feel cramped and empty at the same time ). It is not so much that Narcissa aspires for more. After all, she has never known anything else but being the youngest of three — the one who had to be perfect when her other siblings and cousins were not, who was never berated or out of line, who seemed to fade into the greater than life entity that was the House of Black. She was not Cissy Black, then, she was the legacy she had to uphold, heavy on her tiny shoulders and heavier on her heart, coming with the intrinsic knowledge that all of these reasons that made her special and pretty and perfect were also the reasons why she would never be valued by her family as something other than a pawn, traded off in marriage for an alliance. A perfect pawn, but a pawn all the same — A spare, where Bellatrix was her father’s rightful heir. Even as a young child, even with Andromeda’s positive presence in her life, Narcissa could tell this was how it all worked. She was not stupid, she could perfectly make out the part they all expected her to rise up to and the fact she had no choice in the matter whatsoever. And so she played the part for all her life. She figured then that perhaps this was what love and devotion were all about — following the family’s path, heading the family’s comments, not because she had to but because she persevered in that mind-set despite of it all. Self-abnegation, a quality she has much less of now that she has figured out not only how to play the part but also how to play the game.

Being the last of her offsprings left at home during the school year, Druella took to parading Narcissa around pureblood society, an attempt less at connecting with her own daughter and more at reinforcing her image as a homemaker ( an image which practical, to-the-point, ambitious Druella at times seemed to not match, but Cissy knew better than to question her mother. If she was particularly well-behaved her mother would entertain her in practicing French, a language her side of the family had very distant ties to, instead of her usual straight-forward replies and reminders her daughter’s tutor was coming soon ). Then, Narcissa was also expected to smile and keep quiet unless spoken to, which would then only require a sweet smile and clever answer. One might think, then, that Narcissa honed her social skills through her mother’s connections, playing with the children of other witches whose company Druella cared to be seen in. While this is for the most part true, her mother’s behaviour never truly gave Narcissa much to learn or to observe, her ways always engrained deep inside the young witch’s soul as if it were a brand ( the Black family stamp, its crest proudly metaphorically marking Narcissa as one of its own ). Cygnus Black the Third’s manner ( walk, posture, speech pattern ) was far more intriguing for the youngest Black sister who understood that by being the last to leave and the most overlooked, she would also have the strategic advantage of being the one who could easily observe and take in her father’s taste for the political. This is perhaps the first time Narcissa would ever grant herself the right to form a fully fleshed out thought ( an idea, concept, something to hold on to ) of her own, without her parents’ will and her sisters’ opinions clouding her own judgement. From this moment forward, the blonde swore to her future self that she should not allow people to so easily manipulate her, a promise which she believes she has kept for the most part ( doing things out of love does not count. It is not manipulation, it is her choice ).

The Sorting Hat is perhaps the first entity to truly acknowledge her own complexity ( She is eleven, she is worried. All her family has been in Slytherin and she cannot defect from that rule. She almost feels incredibly small on that stool, and then hears a whisper that she seem to have more potential and ambition than what first glance would tell you. Slytherin, of course ). And then little Cissy Black ( fragile, pretty, well-mannered Cissy Black ) is free — Free to be her own person, to use her time at Hogwarts to perfect herself and her magic in a way which interests and benefits only her, not her family. And Narcissa has perhaps the most comforting realization of all and does not do any of that ( does not want to do any of that ). She is a Black, and it is an honour to bear the family name, and she will be nothing short of the perfect, focused student everyone expects her to be. Too busy romanticizing her sisters’time at Hogwarts, Narcissa assumed hers would mirror theirs in a transcendently self-defining way, but now that she is here, it becomes apparent she does not want any of that. The part that was written for her was made that way for a reason, and though she had always respected it and understood it, it is the first time in her life in which she genuinely looks forward to it. There is safety, security and comfort in this path she knows so well — And this is what Narcissa craves. Her parents had not made her the heir, like Bellatrix, or the spare, like Andromeda ( though she had once believed she shared Andy’s burden ). They had, albeit perhaps unwillingly, made her a politician — Someone who would grow into an elegant, poised, respected socialite who would never have to worry about her position at the top of their community so long as she fulfilled her duties and married well.

She is invited to attend the Slug Club with some of her cohorts, which she uses to her best advantage as a networking event, forging bonds and collecting information with and about people who could prove useful or otherwise significant once she would be done with her education. She sets herself up for the perfect life, a life which would not entirely depend on the match and marriage that would be made for her — A life that would benefit whoever her husband would end up being. As per her mother’s teaching, the blonde never let go of her air of purity, sitting pretty and quiet — But pretty and quiet were the façade, the pureblood trademark which hid her agendas and desires ( and worries ) in an effortless way. Narcissa is just about ready to start her life when events take a different turn, tainting this overall masterful use of the popularity given to her because of her family name forever and devastating her even more. Andromeda leaves home. No. Andromeda is dead, dead to her and to the rest of her family, not even a footnote in the blonde’s story where she used to be a main character. And Narcissa aches for things to be different, for Andy to come back and say this was all a weird and intricate prank played on Aunt Walburga, but it never happens. And soon, too soon, Sirius follows through the door Andromeda has opened, and Narcissa does not know what to tell Regulus. She does not even know what to tell herself. Narcissa’s ghosts are now people of flesh and bones and feelings she should not and does not want to be feeling, instead of the immaterial figures roaming Hogwarts.)

Graduation is a lackluster event in the midst of a war where sides have already been chosen for her. There is no joy, no feeling of accomplishment, just a tick on the predetermined path of her life, an insurance her betrothed will have an educated wife. They are all underestimating her, but that is quite alright. Narcissa wants to be underestimated, to lay low. It’s the only way she might save at least a small piece of herself to be hers and hers alone. And of course, the blonde is proud to fulfil her duty — Proud to make alliances for the great and most noble House of Black, and the Malfoy heir is intriguing enough that she feels she has no reason to complain. But being the poster child for pureblood excellence and being herself, at least just a little, are not mutually exclusive. Besides, she likes the excellence — Likes the parties and the pretty dresses and the expensive jewelry and the imported wine; likes to tell people of her family’s French heritage, on her mother’s side, and how beautiful Paris was the last time she went; likes to be looked at and envied and adored. She is selling a very specific brand of life, one that everyone should feel envious of and wish was their own. And she is doing it perfectly — The only missing link is the grand, scintillating wedding which would be the envy of all.

She sometimes wishes it all could be different, of course — Wishes her neutrality in the conflict were more honest than it currently is, wishes she could marry for love and have work like any other witches her age and wishes she could pick up that quill and write to Andromeda. But where would be the prestige and fulfilment in that?

Connections

Bellatrix Lestrange- Sister.

Lucius Malfoy- Betrothed.

Andromeda Tonks- Sister, estranged.

Regulus Black- Cousin.

Sirius Black - Cousin, estranged.

#narcissa malfoy #narcissa black #lucissa #marauders era #marauders rp #marauders era rp #marauders roleplay #marauders #harry potter rp #hp rp #female #character #slytherin #neutral #taken #ftaken #staken #ntaken

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saferincages · 6 years

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(you might say we are encouraged to love)

I received an ask requesting I make this response its own post in full (which of course I don’t mind doing!) so here it is:

An anon in the original post asked why, “Anakin/Vader is seen as interesting for women,” and that could be a bit of a loaded question, but I think there’s a definite rationale behind it. The way it was phrased made me think of a post I saw which addressed the fundamental split between Anakin and Vader as seen by certain audiences, why Anakin is treated by many derisively because there’s an element of the “heroine’s journey” that happens in relation to his arc and the struggles he goes through. It’s here and it’s really interesting in its entirety. “The constant barrage of degradation and trauma and unfairness of a system that benefits at your expense and refuses to validate you for it. And some of that he might have been able to reconcile by “growing up,” the same way a lot of us learn to come to terms with social fuckery, but Anakin doesn’t get the space to do that. He gets a giant bundle of unaddressed trauma and psychological issues and handed a kind of ambiguous destiny about needing to save the entire universe.” <- Imagine the burden of that, and they put it on a child and then give him zero structure to cope with it.

I’m also going to add this comment from that post because I think it’s worthwhile to note: if someone makes you angry and you show anger with your very own face you are weak, you have lost face, you have shown yourself vain and driven by a selfish, animal, irrational, feminine urge to defend yourself; but if you show anger without a face, if you show it unpersonally (the less it’s connected to direct accusation or a specific ill), especially in order to execute a role, then you suddenly appear to be the one in the position of strength, because you can no longer be directly accused of selfishness. The more you can cloak anger in the guise of necessity, the more you meet the societal expectation to be dispassionate, rational, always controlled - the more justification and legitimacy and power to you, even though this mode of anger is often more destructive than the first. This dynamic, assuming it exists as I’ve hypothesized it, is why I think Anakin codes as feminine to many, while Vader appeals to a certain masculine ideal.

Basically, the gist of it is that the emotional turmoil, the trauma, the way he’s exploited for his talents or what he can provide others, the way his agency is stripped repeatedly from him again and again tends to not be the way “male” hero journeys are told. It’s feminine coding (unfortunately) for those themes to be explored. For those emotions to be plumbed and portrayed with a substantive sense of sorrow and helplessness in the central male hero - it is not the “macho” standard. Why they thought they’d get a macho, unyielding masculine power trip from Anakin Skywalker remains a mystery to me, this is the same series where its original hero, Luke (who is his son! of course there were going to be essential parallels and contrasts between them), purposefully throws his weapon away and refuses to fight, and is characterized by his capacity for intrinsic compassion rather than any outer physical strength (even Han is much less of a “macho” guy than dudebros tend to make him out to be - not only because he’s unmistakably the person in distress who has to be rescued from capture in ROTJ, he has a lot of interesting facets that break down that ‘scoundrel’ stereotype, but I digress other than to say I love the OT, and the subtle distinctions in Luke, Leia, and Han that make them break the molds of expectation). SW fundamentally rejected toxic masculinity and the suppression of emotions from its inception, Luke’s loving triumph and role as redeemer only happens because he refuses to listen when he’s told to give up on his friends or on his belief that there’s good in his father, his softness is his ultimate strength. Anakin was never going to be some epitome of tough masculinity, and George Lucas knew exactly what he was doing crafting him in that way. The audiences who wanted Bad Seed Anakin from the beginning didn’t know how to reconcile this sensitive, kind-hearted, exceedingly bright kid, with their spawn of the Dark Side notions, and I think, unfortunately, far too many then either rejected him completely or refused to understand what the central points in his characterization are about.

The fact that this narratively would have made no sense (if Anakin had been “born bad,” then there would have been no miraculously surviving glimpse of light for Luke to save - I’ve said this before, but imagine how profoundly essential to his true self that goodness had to be for it to even exist any more at that point, after all he’d suffered, after all he’d done. the OT tells us more than once what a good man Anakin Skywalker was, it’s part of what makes the father reveal as powerful as it is - if we hadn’t heard the fragments of stories about Luke’s father, it wouldn’t be nearly as shocking, but we KNOW he was a hero, an admirable man, a good friend). I can’t fathom how tricky telling the prequels had to have been to that extent - the audience knows what will happen in the end, it’s a foregone conclusion, we know he will fall, we know Vader will be created, we know the Empire will rise (though that would have happened even if Anakin had remained in the light, which is a whole other discussion). So the question became, who is this person? What influenced him? What shaped his destiny? And that ended up being a far more complex and morally fraught and stirringly emotional story than just “badass Jedi becomes badass Sith lord.”

That talented, highly intelligent boy is taken in by the Jedi after he has already developed independent thought and very intricate emotional dimension - the argument that he’s “too old” to be trained is because he’s not malleable enough to be indoctrinated the way Jedi usually treat the children they take. They may blame this on his attachment to Shmi, but she’s not the problem (if anything, had they not been so unfeeling and rigid, and had they freed her and allowed her to at least stay in contact with her son while he was training because it was a special case - they’re the ones who stick that “Chosen One” mantle on him, you’re telling me they couldn’t make an exception? but no, because they put that weight on him and then never help him carry it and constantly undermine it and question and mistrust him - Anakin would have been stronger in his training, and he would never have fallen to the Dark Side at all. There are so many moments, over and over, where his fall could have been averted, and everyone fails him to the bitter end, when he fails himself).

And so he is traumatized, due to years of abuse and difficulties as a slave, due to having to leave his mother behind because the Jedi would not free her, due to being told to repress his emotions over and over again when he is, at his core, an intuitive and perceptively empathetic person (he wants to uphold that central tenet of his training - “compassion, which I would define as unconditional love, is central to a Jedi’s life”), yet he’s made to feel he is broken/wrong/constantly insufficient. He’s wounded by abandonment issues and lack of validation and the human connection/affection he craved, and he develops an (understandable) angry streak, he’s socially awkward due to the specific constraints/isolation of a Jedi’s life and due to the fact that they tried to stamp out what made him uniquely himself, which makes him continually conflicted with a never-ending pulse of anxiety (see absolutely ANY moment where he breaks down emotionally, and you’ll see him say something to the effect of “I’m a Jedi, I know I’m better than than this,” “I’m a Jedi, I’m not supposed to want [whatever very basic human thing he wants, because they make him feel like he can’t even ask for or accept scraps of decency]” - they fracture his sense of his own humanity, Padme tries to validate those feelings but that Code is a constant stumbling block in his mind). He is troubled by fear and the constant press of grief (I would argue he has PTSD at the very least), and all around he’s met by mistrust and sabotage.

Male heroes shouldn’t be treated as infallible in their own narratives (none of them are that, as no character of whatever gender/origin is, as none of us are), but at the very least we usually see them treated with respect by others. Anakin often gets no such luxury. He’s treated the way we frequently see women treated, and that treatment comes from the same rotten core - the idea that emotions are weak, that expressing them makes you lesser, that crying is a sign of deficiency, that fragility of any kind cannot be tolerated. Anakin is even the hopeless romantic in this situation - Padme, while gracious and warmhearted, is much more pragmatic and tries to reason her way out of her blossoming love for him until she’s of the belief that it doesn’t matter anyway because they’re about to die, and she wants him to know the truth before they do. (I’d also like to note that the closest people to him all speak their love aloud when they’re at the point of death - Shmi when he finds her bound and tortured with the Tuskens, Padme in the Arena, Obi-Wan watching him burn on Mustafar, and how unbearably sad is that? even though his mother had said it before, even though he got to hear it many times again from Padme - and it’s her last entreaty to him - we shouldn’t be pushed to the brink of death to express it). Anakin is the one gazing at her dreamily and tearing up about it and professing earnest, dramatic love in front of the fireplace (idc what anyone says about the dialogue, the way he expresses himself is entirely sincere, it’s the rawness of that sincerity that I think makes people uncomfortable bc it’s unexpected), she’s the one who talks about living in reality. She, too, has been taught to guard and temper her emotions from her time as a child queen and the years she’s spent navigating the murky political waters of the Senate, but she’s become adept at it, unlike Anakin. If anything, they’re the only person the other has with whom they can be truly genuine and unafraid of exposing the recesses of their hearts, they’re the only safe place the other has, it’s no wonder they give themselves over to that, and the fact that they do is beautiful, it’s not wrong (which I have more cohesive thoughts on here and it was the underlying thesis of my heart poured into the super long playlist for them too /linking all the things). They see the joy and spirit in the other that no one else ever sees, and they make a home there.

Anakin becomes an esteemed general not only because he’s awesome in battle and strong in the Force and a gifted pilot and a skilled leader (all of which are true), but because he shows those around him respect, and great care. So, yet again, there’s a subversion of what might have been expected. No one is expendable to him. He views the Clone troops as individual human beings. He mourns their losses (many of the Jedi, with their no attachments rhetoric, allow the Clones to be used without much hesitation or thought for their status as sentient beings born and bred and programmed to die in war, but Anakin was a slave. He comprehends their status more than anyone else could). Anakin is a celebrated hero to the public, and in private is being chewed up by fear and uncertainty. Anakin is devoted to and completely in love with his wife, but has to keep it a secret. Anakin still craves freedom that even being a Jedi has not afforded him, because of their rigor. Anakin still desperately has to scrape for even the bare minimum of approval from the authority figures around him - even his closest mentor and friend, Obi-Wan, while they are irrevocably bonded and care for each other in a myriad of important ways, often doesn’t understand him and dismisses his feelings, refuses to advocate for/stand up for him when he needs it, or tells him to calm down. I’m surprised they never tell him he’s being hysterical when he gets upset, but the connotation of being told to “calm down” when angry or sorrowful or frustrated is something most women can identify with all too well. His desperate desire to protect Padme as everything begins to curl and smoke and turn to ash around him has a very clear nurturing aspect to it underneath the layers of terror and frustration and building paranoia - all he really wants is to be able to protect and care for his family, all he hopes is to save them and have a life with them away from all the war and the political in-fighting and the stifling Order. He’d quit right that second but he needs help due to his nightmares, and no one is willing to give it to him. (Except, ostensibly, Palpatine, who has been grooming him and deftly manipulating him and warping his perceptions since he was a child, all under the guise of magnanimous, almost paternal, care. Palpatine is brilliant in his machinations, perfectly cunning in his evil. He knows exactly how to slip in and break people, and he plays Anakin to the furthest extreme. I’m not saying Anakin doesn’t have choices, he does, and he makes the worst possible ones, but Palpatine pulls the strings in a way that makes him feel that he has no agency - and in truth, he does have very little agency throughout every step of his arc, marrying Padme and loving her in spite of the rules is one of the only independent choices he ever makes that isn’t an order, a demand, a fulfilling of duty - and Palpatine poises himself as the answer to all the problems, if Anakin does as he’s told. He’s been hard-wired to take orders for too long. He is so damaged by this point, and so distrusting - Hayden said something once about how Anakin is still very naive in ROTS, even after what he’s been through in the war, he’s still so young and unknowing about many things, and then his naivete is shattered by complete and utter disillusionment, and that shock is terrible and incomprehensible for him, so he clings to the one source of power he’s given, and it’s catastrophic). He is haunted by grief and impeded by fear of loss, and it drags him into an abyss. We watch all of this happen with bated breath, we see everyone fail him, we see every moment where he could have been helped, we see every path he could take if only he had the ability to stand up for himself and had been given the tools to cope with his psychological and emotional baggage, we see that he very nearly turns back, up until the death knell at the end. We know it’s coming from the moment they land on Tatooine and meet him and decide to make him a Jedi. We know, and we still hope for it to turn out differently. We know, and it still breaks our hearts.

I don’t want to make blanket statements about typical male viewers vs. typical female viewers, that’s too dismissive of a stance to take, but on a seemingly wider scale, I don’t think many of the former (especially the ones who were either older fans or who were teenagers themselves at the time) were as interested in political nuance and a tale of abiding love and a young man burdened with more than should ever have been put on his shoulders. Since the question was basically “why does he appeal to women,” (and not just cishet women) I imagine that the answer to that varies greatly depending on any one perceptive outlook, but has a similar core in each case of us wishing we could help change the outcome, even though we know we can’t, and of wanting to understand his actions and his pain, wanting to see his positive choices and his goodness validated, wanting to see him learn healthy strategies, wanting to see his love flourish, wanting to see him freed from the shackles he drags with him, from childhood to Jedi to Vader. The crush of the standards of society and expectation on him may speak to many. He is never liberated (until his final moments of free breath). His choices are either taken or horrifically tainted. His voice is drowned out by those more powerful around him. His talents and intelligence go largely unrecognized. His good, expansive heart is treated like a hindrance. The depth of his empathy and love is underestimated - and that, in the end, is important, because that underestimation, ending with Palpatine, becomes the Dark Side’s ultimate downfall and undoing. Vader may literally pick up an electric Palpatine and throw him down a reactor shaft, but that physical action is the final answer to a much more complete emotional and spiritual journey. He throws him down and the chains go with the slave master, and for the first time, certainly since before he lost Padme, his heart is unfettered, his love is reciprocated, and he is offered a true voice, a moment of his true self, a sliver of forgiveness, before being embraced again by the transcendence of the light. It is his act of rebellion, it is his own personal revolution, his final blow in the war. The entirety of the arc hinges upon him in that moment, Luke has been valorous and immeasurably valuable, but he’s done all he can do - the final choice is Anakin’s (and it’s such an interesting case because where else have we ever been able to fear and appreciate a villain, and then totally transform and re-contextualize him?). He is in that moment, indeed, the Chosen One.

All these facets are fascinating to watch unfold if you’re willing to be open-minded and heartfelt and sympathetic to the journey, if you’re willing to dig into the complex depth of his pathos.

I remember seeing AOTC as a teenager, and my love was Padme, she was where I was invested, I identified with her, I loved her kindness and her bravery and her sense of honor and justice, I loved that her femininity did not in any way diminish her and was an asset, I loved that, while she takes charge and has the fortitude to rush headlong to the rescue, while she can fight and tote a gun and blast a droid army as well as anyone, her superpowers are her intellect and her giving heart and gentle spirit. I totally get why Anakin holds onto the thread of hope she gives to him for all of those years, and why he falls in love with her as he does, but since I felt a lot of the story through her eyes, I understood why she was drawn to and fell in love with him, too. He’s dynamic and a bit reckless, he’s courageous, but he’s vulnerable and needs support, he’s deeply troubled but also radiantly ebullient at times (the scene in the meadow where she’s so touched by the carefree joy he exhibits, how it delights her and takes her aback, because she’s almost forgotten what it is to feel that, she’s almost forgotten other people could, and here he is, warm and teasing and spirited), he is often guileless, especially with her, he’s fervent and loving in a way she’s never seen or experienced, and that love is given with abandon to her. Who…wouldn’t fall in love with that? It’s a gravitational pull. AOTC impacted me in certain other personal ways as well, I was trying to understand some nascent hollows of grief (Anakin losing his mother as he does was very affecting and heartwrenching for me, at the time I’d lost my grandfather to whom I was quite close, and I’m also really close to my own mom, so his woe had an echo to me), but that vision that I specifically had of their love, the way I interpreted it (which I may not have had words for at the time, but I certainly had the emotional response) was a dear and formative thing.

I talked about this here, but to rephrase/reiterate, by the time ROTS came out, my life had shifted completely on its axis. I was still young, but my much dreamier teenage self was being beaten down and consumed by illness, and I was angry. Anger is not a natural emotion for me (guilt and self-blame tend to be where I bury anger), and I really didn’t know what to do with it. Everything felt unfair and uncertain, like there was no ground at all to stand on. I hurt all the time, literally and figuratively, I was in constant pain. I was lonely and frightened and sleep deprived and often had nightmares (this is still kind of true lol, as is the physical pain part). Padme was still my heart and touchstone - as she remains so to this day in this story - but suddenly I understood Anakin in a much more profound way, one I’ve held onto because he’s important to me and I love him. I felt his rage, his anguish, his desire to do something, anything, to somehow change or influence the situation, to rectify his nightmares, to cling to whatever might make a difference, might save him from being drowned in the dark and from losing everything that made him who he was as a person. Seeing him try and knowing he would fail was devastating, but also…relatable, in an abstract way (obviously not the violent parts, but thematically, I felt some measure of what it was to scramble up a foundation that is disappearing beneath you, that your expectations and dreams of what your life would be can vanish in disintegrating increments). All I wanted was for someone to help rescue him, because all I wanted was for someone to help rescue me. All I wanted was the hope that things could turn around - and there is hope in ROTS, despite the unending terror and tragedy, it’s never entirely gone, because Star Wars exists as a universe with the blazing stars of hope and love ever ignited at its center - but still, it was a very personally rooted emotional exploration for me, and I only started to deal with my own floundering anger when I saw how it might consume the true and loving and softer parts of me if I didn’t hold it back. (A few years later, I went through this again in an even worse way, and the source of that rage and despair was someone I cared for, and once I got through the worst bleak ugliness of it, there were a couple of stories I returned to in an attempt to gain newfound solace and comprehension, and Anakin and Padme were in there. My compassionate, hopeful heart was being torn by that fury, and I clawed my way back up from the brink of it because I knew I could die, not even necessarily figuratively, it was…a bad time, if I didn’t find my way out. Anakin’s story is a tragedy and a fable and a kind of warning - we should not deny or suppress our emotions or our authenticity, but we also cannot let it destroy us - and then ultimately his lesson is restorative, too, that we never lose the essential part of our souls, that we must allow ourselves to feel. Balance indeed).

As consistent and transparent as my love for Padme has always been, my Anakin emotions are actually so close and personal that I intentionally avoided ever exposing them for actual years, it’s like…basically in the past month that I’ve ever been truly honest about it on Tumblr, because exposing that felt like too much, but I don’t really care about keeping it quiet any more, and that’s very cathartic.

I myself am an incredibly emotional person, and I don’t believe that Anakin’s emotions are negative qualities, which I meant to underscore. In fact, his open emotions are an exquisite part of him, and it’s the Jedi who are wrong for trying to stamp that out, when his emotional abilities are part of what define him in his inherent goodness and his intellect and strength. He has an undying heart. For he and Luke both to stand as male heroes who represent such depth of feeling is really special, and vital to the story. Anakin is the most acutely human character in many respects, in his foibles and his inner strengths, in his losses and his longings and his ultimate return to his true self - that’s why we feel for him, that’s why we ache and fear for him, that’s why we rejoice for him in the end.

Other people could speak to the Vader part of it much better than I can, Vader’s an amazing and very interesting villain (the fact that, as Vader, Anakin is much more adhered to the Jedi code and way of thinking than he ever was as an actual Jedi, for example - he has an order to him, he is much more dispassionate, he is very adamant about the power of the Force - is endlessly intriguing, because he’s such a contradiction). I use this term for a different character, but I’m going to apply it here - Anakin is a poem of opposites. He is a center that can serve as either sun or black hole. He is a manifestation of love and light and heroism, he is a figure of imposing power and cold rage. He’s the meadow and the volcano. The question then becomes, how expansive are we? When we’re filled with the contradicting aspects of ourselves, how do we make them whole without falling apart? When we do fail, can we ever do anything to fix it? And the answers again will vary by individual, but to my mind - we’re infinite, and thus infinitely capable of, at any point, embracing our light, even if we’ve forgotten to have faith in it, and while we may not be able to fix every mistake or right every wrong, we can make a better choice and alter the path. The smallest of our actions can ripple and extend and are more incandescent than we know. That’s what he does, against all expectation. In the end, he is an archetype not only of a hero (be that fallen or chosen or divine), but of a wayward traveler come home, a heart rekindled, a soul set free to emerge victorious in the transcendent light.

In the final resonance of that story for me personally, I love him for being a representation of that journey, that no matter how long it takes to get there, how arduous it is - that things we lose can be found again, that with the decided act of compassion, pure, redemptive love can be held onto, that the light persists and that, even when it flickers most dimly, refuses to be extinguished, and can at any point illuminate not only ourselves, but can shine brightly enough to match the stars in the universe.

I hope this is at all cogent, here’s a gif for your patience ♥

#anakin skywalker #darth vader #sw meta #star wars #okay to reblog #(of course! <3)#this is so long i'm so sorry for anyone who's now seen it twice but i didn't want to ignore the very sweet message i got #(which i am honored by thank you for even asking and caring and being patient enough to read this spiel omg)#i tweaked some of the wording for clarity (i changed it in the original too) but otherwise it's basically the same #bubble wrap around my heart #*#encouraged to love #anyway i love him #and i love luke so much and that's a vital component here #luke's faith and kindness and important heroism exists for a reason #luke sees the truth and the good and he doesn't let it go and his spirit does not waver and is brightly right in the end #don't you dare try to tell me anakin wasn't always fundamentally good in the truest and most luminous parts of his heart #to do so is to not only undermine anakin but to invalidate luke and padme and i won't stand for that #i could write one of these for luke but i think he's getting really good defense from sharper minds than mine in many cases #i could write one of these for padme but she's also been getting quality recognition lately #so as far as any defense goes this is the best my exhausted little brain can do and i hope it does justice to the story in some small way #i'm so ill and out of it that i have no idea if this makes sense even after copy/pasting it and fixing it up but itried.jpg #long post for ts

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sapphicdalliances · 4 years

Text

Dear Chocolatier,

thank you so much for being here!! my sincere apologies for the lateness and messiness of this letter! sorry about my incredibly inconsistent capitalisation! it has been updated on the 9th of january.

I’m a simple bitch with simple tastes; here is a general summary of my preferences, and fandom-specific notes and prompts can be found further down!

I very much enjoy:

Fics that are short, but imply a longer, deeper verse; since this exchange is for short fics, but some of my prompts seem expansive, I just want to give you carte blanche permission to dip into an AU, splash around in it, and simply not provide additional details.

Comedic tones, slice-of-life, lighthearted fun, any amount of improbable romcom tropes

Am also on board with misunderstandings and drama as long as there is a happy ending!

I’m deeply okay with AUs, and most likely would be down for any modern, romcom, fantasy/fairytale, gender swap, or remix/crossover AUs you feel inspired to explore! My favourite settings include mundane/urban fantasy (witches! werewolves!), anachronism-stew-with-magic western fantasy jumbles, and disney’s Tangled.

Writing tropes I love:

Proposal fic

Wedding fic where the couple getting married is not the main couple

Outsider/third character POV of the main couple

Exes who are still in love/getting back together

Friends-with-benefits-with-feelings/did a bad job keeping it casual

Shipfic where two or more couples are contrasted

Oblique declarations of love/saying i love you without saying i love you

Provision and caretaking (acts of service!)

Aggressive matchmaking/wingmanning by an enthused friend

Hanahaki, or any other improbably dramatic instances of Cannot Spit It Out

Arranged marriage/fake marriage/fake dating

Epistolary fic

Regrettably I also love a/b/o, especially the kind that emphasises on scent safety and contains little to no actual sex

Art tropes I love, if you offered art:

Art where the characters look kind and fond

Fashion remixes – street fashion, cultural/traditional clothes, festival clothes, renfaire-esque clothes, beach photoshoot, get wild with it

Putting animal characteristics on one or both of them

Botanical motifs + celestial motifs

When plants grow directly out of people

The thing where character A is focused on something they’re doing or seeing, and the character B is focused only, wholly, desperately on A. please… the Gaze

Depictions of intimacy where faces are partially or fully hidden, but the body language is gentle

Characters SLEEPING next to each other, or comfortably doing separate activities in each other’s presence

If you wish to get frisky with your fills:

Yes!

Go for it!

I don’t have strong top/bottom preferences (and enjoy it when they switch or are otherwise generally equitable) so whatever you’re in the mood for is fine!

Kink tropes I very much enjoy include oral, restraints, praise kink, when proud characters cry during sex because they love their partners so much, and xeno tropes.

I love non-horny sex scenes; comedic, silly, charged, fraught, or simply affectionate exchanges that happen to include sex are my favourite. Feelings are the real kissing disease.

But like, if you wanna get horny about it.

Chase your bliss.

They simply must be in love.

I’m not as into:

Kidfic

First person narration

Soulmate AUs specifically

Kink wise, my only major squicks are incest, teacher/student, and public sex/getting caught, but i’m also not super keen on daddy kink, blood/piss/etc, or anything with blades or needles.

In general, please avoid:

Character death or serious/permanent injury

Animal abuse or death

Infidelity

Hopeless or downer endings

Fandom specific info:

Wotakoi

I love that this series has three couples in different stages of a relationship: one who’ve been together for years and love each other like well-worn grooves; one who have history but have only just recently begun a relationship and are discovering each other anew; and one who probably will not bring themselves to share a kiss for another 27 calendar years.

Narumi/Hirotaka: Honestly, the main couple of a series usually goes over my head a bit, but the more i thought about these two the more wretchedly fond of them I became. The thing I think of the most is how Narumi taught him how to smile as a child; how she did things that meant nothing to her, so easily does kindness come, but that meant so much to him; and how now that they are grown, he does things for her that take no effort, but shake her foundations. I think theirs is a love that grows quietly; something that cannot change the world, but can change them.

Koyanagi/Kabakura: My thoughts on these two are not complex, but they are deeply positive. I love how huge their personalities are, and how they fit around and against each other; I love the implication that despite their endless bickering, they are not an on-again-off-again kind of relationship, and have instead chosen each other over and over again for ten straight years. I love that despite everything, they are kind to each other, first and foremost; they find ways to apologise and to take care of each other, and treat each other gently in private.

Kou/Naoya: I love every ship in this manga equally but perhaps I love Kou/Naoya more equally than the other two? They are just so kind and so silly, and so sweet to each other in exactly the way both of them didn’t realise they were missing. I think about Naoya being told that Kou is “okay with being alone”, and realising that “okay with it” and “have accepted it” are different, and taking his little baby steps to fix it. I think about Kou giving Naoya every last drop of patience he’s trained himself not to accept, and doing so because it simply makes her happy. My only concern is that they are both bottoms. I don’t have a solution for this.

suggested prompts, fic:

- accidentally dating ft. Kou and Naoya, or, “and you’ve made out how many times now? Hmm. Yeah, that’s not technically a bromance.” - 5 times Hirotaka and Narumi almost, almost kissed, and 1 time they did; the unresolved romantic tension may kill me and it would be worth it - what Hirotaka and Narumi taught each other (apart from the more mundane gaming and life skills, i believe that she taught him how to smile and be loved by others, and he taught her how to be loved by herself!) - smutty domesticity ft. Koyanagi and Kabakura — a lazy Sunday, laundry in the sun, fucking on the couch, everything easy with familiarity - (addendum to above: pegging)

suggested prompts, art: - festival clothes - someone's getting married - naoya: *hands kou a tangerine* *hands kou a tangerine* *hands kou a tangerine* *hands kou a tangerine* *hands kou a t - red string of fate motifs

Or please do remix it with any of my general tropes listed above!

Nezha (2019)

So, wow, Nezha and Aobing are in love maybe? It drives me nuts to think about these two extremely powerful and extremely lonely boys finding each other by happenstance and instantly giving to each other something they’ve never had before. Sometimes you live most of your life without the presence of the other half of your literal soul and when you find him it’s like discovering true happiness for the first time, and that’s valid? Some people brazenly sacrifice themselves for the chance to spend a last moment with their soulmate to cope??

suggested prompts: - modern AU: delinquent Nezha and prim, proper exchange student Aobing - modern AU addendum: nobody believes Nezha when he says he’s got a hot boyfriend in Taiwan and thinks that he has made Aobing up - pwp with xeno tropes? yeah

suggested prompts, art: - lesbians AU. lesbians AU. AU where they are lesbians now. - mer aobing. mer aobing. AU where aobing is a mer-dragon now - KISSING - pwp with xeno tropes, again

Or please do remix it with any of my general tropes listed above!

Otoyomegatari

im skipping this section for now because i checked and im literally the only one who offered it. you’re not here to feed me otoyomegatari, and that’s fine.

Fire Emblem: Three Houses

i haven’t, uh, played this game? and i have not, in fact, watched anyone else play this game. but really, i don’t know that fire emblem is a thing you understand with your mind so much as it is a thing you feel with your soul. and i feel that ferdinand and hubert are in love.

fandom specific DNW: i am not a huge fan of how the game handled its fantasy racism, so if you could sort of avoid that whole situation, that’d be great. literally would love an AU where ingrid and hilda aren’t racist.

Ferdinand/Hubert: THEY LIKE EACH OTHER SO MUCH AND IT’S SO VERY EMBARRASSING FOR BOTH OF THEM, just terrible, i can barely bring myself to look upon it. An important part of their rls to me is that they both have other things they value far more than each other, on an intrinsic, instinctive level; it does not make them love each other less, just differently. They are both so very dramatic in different, equally stupid, ways. ferdinand has one dimple in his right cheek, emits UV rays when he smiles, and loves horses and singing. hubert is sexy but in a way mostly reminiscent of the empty shed skin of a venomous spider. together, they fight classism

Dimitri/Dedue: like this

Dimitri: I wouldn't be alive if it weren't for you Dedue: I wouldn't be alive if it weren't for YOU [5 years of soulful gazes and dimitri making increasingly drastic and ineffectual attempts at seduction]

Hilda/Claude + Hilda/Claude/Lorenz: the sex is good. the statecraft? even better. i love trios where all 3 characters love each other equally.

suggested prompts: - ferdinand and hubert making bare skin-on-hair contact and immediately bursting into flame - dedue: your highness, let me teach you how to garden. dimitri, internally: oh, to be a speck of wet soil clinging to the warm, calloused skin of dedue's hands! - gee claude, how come your mum lets you have TWO tops? - hilda, strapping it on: urgh you're making me WORK

suggested prompts, art-specific: - outfit swaps ALWAYS fun - modern AUs also always fun - horse

Or please do remix it with any of my general tropes listed above!

Haikyuu!!

changed my life, cured my depression, what can be said about it? fwiw i am completely caught up with the manga and indeed to remain caught up for the duration of this exchange so nws about spoilers; of course i am also happy if you want to play around earlier in the timeline!

suggested prompts: - kagehina or iwaoi dealing with LDR - kyouhaba are forced to cooperate on an innocuous, preferably wholesome task, such as gardening, or finding the owner of a lost dog, and it goes, As One Would Expect - bokukuroo + overheard phone conversation: and you've slept together how many times now? hmm. yeah, that's not technically a bromance (not in a no-homo way, just in a we-are-both-so-stupid-and-like-each-other-so-much-way) - actually that overheard phone conversation would work for any of these ships

suggested prompts, art-specific: - put some wings on some of them. now it's bird romance, which is for birds - (i lied, this isn't art-specific at all, wingfic is always welcome in any of its forms) - just pick up your whole boyfriend and carry him like that. give the smooch.

Or please do remix it with any of my general tropes listed above!

Ace Attorney

i laughed for 2 straight minutes about there being no klapollo in the noms but this is fine, narumitsu is good. a thing I think about a lot re: narumitsu is that they are one of those love stories where, like, yes they’re in love. that’s not the problem. no matter what conflicts arise, or for what reasons they cannot be together, the fact that they are in love, and choose to remain in love, is never even doubted. i just really want to assert that i do not personally believe that miles nor phoenix have ever done anything on purpose in their lives except continue to be in love with each other.

suggested prompts:

- proposal fic - wedding fic - attending-a-wedding fic (gumshoe & maggey, before they're married? apollo and klavier, after they're married? franziska and adrian? not terribly picky on the background couple here!) - wedding night fic and they're both 35 so just, honestly, the back pain - honeymoon fic - also anything from when they were little, standalone or in conjunction with/comparison to their adult lives!

suggested prompts, art-specific: - so what if phoenix is a liddol hedgehog and miles is a cat in a cravat. just a thought.

Or please do remix it with any of my general tropes listed above!

Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-Kun

seowaka: they are idiots, and they like each other very much, but they do not know. i love a tall crying boy and his short but much more powerful girlfriend.

chiyo/nozaki + chiyo/nozaki/mikorin: im rooting for her in the face of such overwhelming stupidity. one himbo is difficult enough to seduce but two. chiyo is a hero and a woman of rare courage. i like the pair and the trio equally; again, if you go with trio, it’s important that they all love each other please!

suggested prompts: - 5 times any of these ships went on a date without realising, and the time they realised - urban fantasy AU where Waka is a hapless monster hunter and Seo is an annoying but deeply harmless werewolf who’s been terrorizing his town?? - fairytale AU where Seo believes she must rescue the prince from the tower and deliver him back to the kingdom capital, and the prince, who had not realised he’d been kidnapped, thinks Seo is a usurper from a rival kingdom who must be supervised all the way back to the kingdom capital to be served her justice

suggested prompts, art-specific: - festival clothes… - nozaki carrying chiyo, who's carrying mikorin - (seo carrying waka) - waka sleeping peacefully in seo's presence… :'(

Or please do remix it with any of my general tropes listed above!

we made it through all the fandoms.

Thank you for making it to the end of this whole disaster; I hope at least one of the prompts sparked joy! The most important thing to me is that whatever you end up doing, you are able to enjoy the process at least somewhat, and deliver a creation that you like! I can also be found on twitter at @hawberries_ (for art) and @popplioikawa (for general ramblings). If you need some more inspo, I recommend going through my art tags for the selected ships because I put a lot of Opinions into my fanart.

#shit fuck im SO sorry i had to finish a DEADLINE #shut up phee #chocbox

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