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jasmines-library · 5 months

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Hello sugar <3! (im very sorry if theres any spelling errors, english isnt my first language <3)

I would love to request some angst/comfort with the batfam? Maybe with the reader (tw: sa, rape) struggling with some sexual assault/rape issues, something they haven't told the family yet? The reader acting different for weeks, months even, and the whole family being suspicious and noticing their sudden fear of being cornered, touches and certain smells maybe?

its totally fair if you don't feel like it, I just really really love your way of writing the characters, and your writing over all. I swear, i swallowed your whole page in the matter of a few hours, I loved every second!

Kristy, Are You Doing Okay?

Note: My gosh im so sorry this literally took me over a month to get to, but it's here. I'm so glad you like my page and thank you for requesting! (Title name from song)

Warnings: SA, r*pe (non explicit but this fic deals with the aftermath. Please read with caution.), Panic attack of sorts.

Word count: 2.1K

⛤ BATFAM MASTERLIST ⛤

Please remember, if you are ever struggling you are not alone. It may be difficult at first but there are many places for you to reach out to, many of which are anonymous and do not need the involement of of name, if you are just needing for someone to talk to. There will always be someone out there to help you. As an alternative, my DM’s are always open for a chat! Remember: You are loved and you are so much stronger than you realise.

⛤

You hadn’t meant to drift away. It sort of just…happened. And it wasn’t even something you were conscious of really. The thoughts were just constantly there and you couldn’t shake the feeling of his hands roaming all over his body; the ghostly touch of his fingers lingering flush against your skin, burning an invisible bruise into your flesh. You tried to shy away from it but it was always there, buried into the front of your mind festering away like an old, unforgotten wound oozing with pus and blood that would only create more problems the longer it was left.

The night it happened was cold and bitter. A shallow fog had cast itself over the city as you staggered back to the manor with makeup running carelessly down your face. You shut yourself away, turning the lock on your door and burying yourself under the covers to try and shy away from the situation. But it never left. It just kept growing, weeding its way back through the open cracks like a stubborn plant that refused to leave no matter how many times you doused it with poison. You didn’t sleep that night. And you didn’t leave your room the day after. In fact the only time anyone saw you that day was when you slunk downstairs in the middle of the night to try and revive the growling of your stomach without having to see anyone when you bumped into Tim who was finally dragging himself up to bed. The interaction was odd. At first he thought that you had just been busy all day and that was why no one had seen you: It wasn't uncommon for one of you to disappear into your room for a few days to catch up on school work or to finally get more than 4 hours of sleep. But something about you was off. You were quiet and lacking that charisma that usually shone from you. You were jumpy too, recoiling as soon as Tim rounded the corner unexpectedly.

When you finally managed to bring yourself out of your room, you were still withdrawn. Instead of donning your normal seat next to Jason at the table, you sat at the end alone pushing your food aimlessly around the plate until someone had finished eating and you took that as a cue to leave. You didn’t mean to leave them in the dark. Really, you didn’t but the thoughts crept into your mind every time they got near. Every hand outstretched sent a shiver crawling down the nape of your neck as if someone was running an ice cold digit along your spine. The thoughts were worse. Intruding. Obnoxious. You felt so…dirty. And your mind seemed to like to make sure you remembered that. You couldn’t help but feel like somehow the whole situation was your fault, which of course it wasn’t, but you were stuck with being guilt ridden; trapped within your walls.

Your skittishness didn’t go unnoticed. The boys tried many times to talk to you or to get you alone, but each time one of them hastily trailed after you as you slunk out of a room you would pick up your pace until they got the hint and stopped dejectedly in the halls. You had just skittered off into another part of the manor when Damian decided he had finally had enough.

He pushed his way back into the library rather frustratedly, stomping his feet so hard against the floor that they continued to pound through the room even as he moved from the polished wood to the carpet amongst the centre of the room. His brothers were still lounging around the room, their legs slung carelessly over the arms of the chairs or folded beneath them as they engrossed themselves in their phones or an ever growing pile of books. They barely even acknowledged that Damian had even returned from his pursuit of use, besides lifting their gaze as he huffed his way back into the room.

“Something is wrong with Y/N.” Damian declared, planting his feet into the carpet in the centre of the room and placing his hands on his hips.

Dick felt as though he could laugh. Damian’s statement was so obvious that you may as well have had a huge, yellow sign above your head that screamed ‘i’m not okay.’ It didn't matter how much effort you put into trying to hide the bags that dropped across your skin, or the way that you couldn’t stand to be in the same room with any of them for too long without your skin crawling, they were prominent amongst your saddened features. “Yeah, No shit.”he said, looking up from his phone that he had been mindlessly scrolling on to distract himself from the feeling that gnawed at his gut.

The room fell into a pregnant silence before Damians angry scoff broke the silence.

“That’s it? That’s all you’re going to say?” He spat. “You’re not worried?”

Jason pushed himself up onto his forearms and spoke out defensively. “Of course we’re worried… It’s just…”

“What?”

“She won’t let us help her, Dami.” Tim said. “We’ve tried, but each time she’s run.”

“Well then try harder!” He said. It was unusual for the youngest Wayne to react this way when it came to his siblings. But, then again it was unusual for you to shy away like this and although Damian would never admit it, he had a soft spot for you and seeing you hurting like this killed him a little inside.

“Damian.” Dick reprimanded sternly.

He sighed and swallowed thickly. “I’m sorry. I just can’t see them suffering like this anymore.”

There was a general agreement between the four of them. Tim chewed away at his bottom lip as he thought for a moment. “What do you propose we do?”

The whole room seemed to think together as one for a moment.

“We corner them.” Damian said. It might have seemed cruel, but it was the only thing he could think of that would stop you from slipping away again. “If they keep running there’s no way we’re going to be able to help, so we just have to compromise.”

You knew that Jason was behind you. You could hear his careful footsteps, evenly spaced by his long strides as he tried to catch your attention. He was loitering outside of your room, trying to catch you as you left. It surprised you to see him as you peeled open the door. You had flashed him as much of a grin as you could muster up as he greeted you, trying to draw you into a one sided conversation that you were itching to get away from the moment it started. You tried to remind yourself that it was just Jason. That he wasn’t going to hurt you. But your mind still thought it was funny to play cruel tricks on you and soon you were making up a poor excuse and fleeing down the halls.

You didn’t make it far though before you collided with a tall figure marching down the other end of the corridor, who braced his hands on your shoulders. Yelping at the unexpected contact you spun on your heel to turn back the way you came only for your breath to get stuck in your throat when you were met with the red of Jason’s shirt. When you backed up, you collided with the eldest vigilante again. Spinning around frantically, you searched for a way out. There was none.

You were trapped.

The thought consumed you quickly, dragging you down like a ton of bricks tied to your ankles until you were drowning in the thought of being imprisoned again. It was all you could think of. It screamed throughout your mind, pumped in your blood. It was nauseating. You could see the other two approaching and panic set into your already scrambled mind. You weaved, trying desperately to spot an exit but the two vigilantes were much bigger than you and their hefty frames took up most of the corridor.

“No. No no no.” You rambled as your heart rate skyrocketed and your breathing came in sporadic, panicked gasps.

Tim furrowed his brow. He didn’t think you would react like this. He reached out to grasp your forearms to ease your shaking body, but you nearly screamed, yanking your arms away from him and backing up against the wall.

“Don’t touch me!” You stuttered, barely audible between your spiralling state. Fat, hot tears tracked along your face as you sunk to the ground to bury your face within your knees which you clutched to your chest.

The four boys exchanged an anxious glance.

“Y/N…”

“Please…” You gasped. “Stay away from me. I-I can’t anymore… no more. Please.”

“Y/N? What's wrong?” Dick queried. “Talk to us, please. We want to help.”

“No…” You whimpered.

Damian squatted down beside you resting on the balls of his feet before reaching out slowly towards you, ignoring the warning glance that Jason sent his way, and placing it gently on your shoulder.

Flinching, you squeezed your eyes shut. He could feel the way you trembled like a leaf under his touch but he didn’t let go.

“It’s just me Y/N. It’s Dami.”

You registered his words, but you still felt like you were back in that room. You allowed your body to relax just the smallest amount.

“It’s just us, kid. You’re okay.” Dick cooed.

You sniffled. The four of them were crouched around you now.

“You can trust us.”

Your body tensed as you were hit with reminders of that night. The way he had led you away to commit his act of betrayal that would cut deeper than a thousand knives.

“That’s what he said.” You hiccuped.

“Who?” Tim asked tenderly. “Talk to us Y/N.”

You shook your head, biting down on your lip. You didn’t want to bring up the memory stuck in your mind.

“Kid… we can’t help you if we don’t know what’s happening.”

“He- he… took me away from the crowds… He said to trust him- and I thought I could. B-but then he-” Your voice split into an unholy sob.

“Oh..Y/N/N…” Dick said, suddenly understanding.

“I can’t stop thinking about it. I can still feel him. Hear him. Just make it stop please!.” You begged, sobbing into your hands.”

“It’s okay. You’re safe.” He told you, reaching out gently to place a hand on your forearm, you tensed slightly but didn’t pull away. “We’re not going to let anyone hurt you. Ever.”

“We promise.”

You peeled your head away from your arms to reveal your bloodshot, teary eyes. From close up they could see how clearly the ordeal had taken a toll on you. Not just on your body but your mind too.

It took some convincing and a lot of gentle touches of reassurance to get you off of the floor, but the four of them managed to ease you back into your room. They refused to leave you alone after that. Insisting that at least one of them stay by your side at all times until you decided on your own terms that you were ready to take the next step in your recovery and stay the night alone. It was a slow process, but each small milestone made them extremely proud of you. They were there when you awoke suddenly in the middle of the night, crying and shaking, and they were there when you managed to move forwards too. They were there to remind you that recovery isn’t linear, and that it was okay to move backwards. It’s all part of the process. The four of them showed you a different kind of gentleness that you had never seen before, and they tried their hardest to bring a smile to your face everyday. And it was their kindness that began to wash away those feelings. It was them who made you realise that you were loved, strong and would find your way back from the darkness and into the light.

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frail-and-freakish · 1 year

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today, april 11th, is the anniversary of Mel Baggs' death. Mel Baggs was one of the early founders of the neurodiversity movement and believed that no one was too disabled for human rights, something that modern nd movements fail to understand to this day. sie was so instrumental to my understanding of literally everything. sie died from medical ableism and neglect during the beginning of the pandemic. we would be nowhere fucking near where we are now without hir. i've decided to make a masterlist of some of my favorite posts of hirs, organized into different categories.

(some of these are listed in more than one category because they overlap so much)

here are some of the "essentials" (what you might have already read by hir/should read first):

hir memorial site hosted by ASAN:

In My Language

the oak manifesto

There is ableism at the heart of your oppression, no matter what your oppression might be

Getting The Truth Out (many pages, parody of bad autism awareness campaign called "getting the word out")

the meaning of self-advocacy

what makes institutions bad

aspie supremacy can kill

here are some of hir beautiful writings on perceiving/communicating with hir environment as an autistic person, and on communication in general:

up in the clouds and down in the valley: my richness and yours

distance underthought

the naked mechanisms of echolalia

empty mirrors and redwoods

the fireworks are interesting

hir tumblr tag #sensing (@withasmoothroundstone)

on personhood and who has the authority to take it away:

being an unperson

what it means to be real

empty mirrors and redwoods

on institutions and the I/DD service system:

caregiver abuse takes many forms

"i don't know that person's program"

what my home means to me

dd service system tag

god help the critic of the dawn: glamour and its fallout

what makes institutions bad

post on the JRC

outposts in our heads

on online social justice communities/their inaccessibility:

Your politics have a problem when they contradict the real-life experiences of the people they're supposed to be about.

politics, ethics and mental widgets

hir tumblr tags #outside the wall and #little packages (@withasmoothroundstone)

misc:

The Bones My Family Gave Me

Please violate only one stereotype at a time

My sort of people, just as real as theirs.

Reviving the concept of cousins

gender tag

this is hir poems and creative works:

this is hir writing on autistics.org:

may hir memory be a blessing/revolution.

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deripmaver · 10 months

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What’s The Point Of Elaine?

There are three eras of Casca in Berserk so far: Golden Age, Elaine, and Revived Casca. I find that within the fandom, Elaine is written off as not particularly worth analysis, that she just represents a transition state between the real Cascas, pre-eclipse and now revived.

I do in some ways understand this feeling - Miura has said that in developing the story of Berserk, he ultimately decided in keeping Casca alive only because he needed a way to keep Guts’ rage intact, and not let the sands of time dull his need for revenge. This comes from an interview with Miura from 2017, that he spared Casca because she makes sure Guts never forgets the Eclipse. If I may editorialize, though, I think there are narrative reasons to keep a character alive, but that doesn’t mean said character isn’t being independently developed and doesn’t have their own inner world, especially when Miura has said repeatedly he’s trying to write real people and not archetypes. If I may also be snarky for a moment, considering one of my first interactions on Berserk tumblr had someone arguing that Casca stans read too much into Miura’s quote on her recovery to the point where you can’t even really assume he intended to have her recover - perhaps it’s reading too much into this quote to extrapolate that “Casca remained alive to fuel Guts’ anger = Casca as a character is only a plot device for Guts and Miura had no intention of developing her outside of that.”

Another reason to overlook her as a character that I do understand: Elaine is completely voiceless. She literally does not speak except for baby-ish noises from the time after eclipse until chapter 355, practically 275 chapters. For all of that time, we are given no indicating of how Casca is processing the eclipse (or not processing) - and so in some ways Elaine is just a narrative place holder as Kentaro Miura found his footing with her recovery.

My intention with this post is to show that it is possible to gain a bit of insight into Casca’s feelings and emotions as Elaine from some key moments, even though she is never given a voice. Much like (in my opinion lol but also I’m right) Beast of Darkness is just a facet of Guts’ mind and not a separate being, ditto Femto for Griffith, Elaine is Casca, and she’s being written as Casca, just a shallow and surface level version of her.

Elaine has these few shining moments where Casca comes through, showing that deep inside her mind, Casca is there, a terrified little sprite shielded by this childish outer shell, hiding from the world. First, when she jumps down the cliff during Conviction Arc:

Next, when she kills the men who attempt to rape her during the Winter’s Journey.

I won’t post any more panels from that chapter lol. It would be better if there was just... A look into her mind during those moments, just for an instant. What made the actual Casca come through in those moments? How did she feel, suddenly being back in her body, in a world infinitely more terrifying than the one before she regressed? What happened to make her go back in, in her safe little cocoon of Elaine?

Another moment where Casca comes through just for a moment is, in my opinion, one of the most powerful in the series:

Casca has run to Griffith on the Hill of Swords. It’s not clear why - perhaps she remembers their closeness before the eclipse, or perhaps she’s being drawn to the moonlight boy, her son, in his body. All of a sudden, the unstable rock wall cracks, sending boulders tumbling towards her, and Guts isn’t close enough to get to her in time...

But Griffith is.

He protects her from the falling rocks, and we get the page posted above. This is the first time Casca has seen Griffith since he raped her during the eclipse. She starts to shake and sweat with him holding her still, her noises becoming terrified. She reaches out to him with a trembling hand, her eyes filling with tears. Her brand lets out a burst of blood, and her trauma and terror overwhelms her, while Griffith stares down at her impassively. Casca is still in there, and being confronted by her rapist again, she is absolutely terrified. This, to me, says so much about Casca in this state. Again, if we only could have gotten a glimpse into her mind at the moment, even if it was through the jumbled confusion of Elaine. I think it would have added so much.

I kept waiting for this scene to happen again with Casca revived, but at this point it hasn’t happened. Even with Casca in Falconia it hasn’t happened. MAYBE ONE DAYYYYYY.

There’s a particular look Casca gets when she’s terrified and dissociated, and that remains constant from the Golden Age, to Elaine, to post-revival.

I also especially like that second panel, when she first wakes up as Elaine because her first instinct when terrified is to attack and bite Guts. It feels like a very Casca thing to do, and in fact that’s more or less what happens on their first meeting in the Golden Age, just a tragic perversion of it. Also, her expression is so similar to the one she made when she was begging Judeau not to die.

I think it’s worth noting that the impacts of Elaine on Casca are ongoing, and unlike some of the discussion I’ve seen, I don’t think anything that’s happened to her as Elaine will be brushed aside. As Elaine, we’re first introduced to her because she is absolutely terrified of all men, even her companions.

This is reflected in the corridor of dreams, in my view, with the very unsubtle penis monsters (which I won’t post an image of LOL) - the association of men with sexual violence and sexual assault. Her close companions as Elaine were majority women, and this remained true after her revival. By the time Guts and Casca were reunited in Conviction arc, she seemed to have lost some of her mistrust of men, and him in particular - but of course that didn’t last long.

There’s also this imagery of her in a coffin, which is again reflected in the corridor of dreams.

Finally, and most interestingly, in chapter 372 it was pointed out to me that it seems Casca remembers her ordeal at the Tower of Conviction, and being surrounded by Falconia’s soldiers reminds her of the mob trying to burn her at the stake.

There’s a lot to say also about Casca and Guts’ relationship and how his assault of her as Elaine impacted it, but I think that’s been discussed elsewhere and better than what I could. My point in writing this is to show that Miura was writing Elaine as Casca, and that there are moments where Casca seems to come to the surface and break through the protective façade. I think it could have only helped to give us just a brief glimpse into her mind in those moments, and it’s a detriment that there was nothing. In looking at the panels of Elaine, I think we can get a sense of where Casca’s recovery might go.

Interestingly, most of the moments I’ve shown here happen from before Farnese and co. join the group, and as the later arcs drag on I feel like Elaine gets goofier and less serious of a character, kind of like chestnut puck. Still, I still hold out hope that with Casca revived, even if she is in Falconia, we’ll start to see her process what happened to her as Elaine - especially if she comes across Luca and the girls, as I’m sure she will.

Must protecc

#berserk meta #berserk #casca berserk #casca #gutsca

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phoenix-downer · 1 year

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Thanks for answering in such a timely manner and I completely understand that! I know you did great work post KH3 when people were making a fuss about the localizations and you don’t have a bias in your translations so I thought you were the best person to reach out to! There was a few bits in Riku’s telling of KH3 talking about how the guardians were saved that had me questioning a few things.

Here Riku is talking about the defeat and revival of the guardians and I was wondering if in this sentence he confirms that it was specifically only Sora and Kairi that were responsible for restoring them? Many have speculated Riku played a part in the process but to me it seems even Riku himself refutes the idea in this sentence if that makes sense?

And the other line I wanted to ask about was the last line of the page. The rough translation I got was this was the beginning of sora and kairi who were separated’s story.

I have rough translations of both but I was wondering how to translate them more naturally? Thanks in advance for your time I really do appreciate it! I had planned on making a tweet on the manner but I will respect your rules 100% and just keep the information here in the asks! ✨

Sure, thanks for the ask! Here's a transcription of the Japanese version, then the Romaji version followed by a rather literal English version and then a more naturalistic version.

Excerpt 1:

JP: そしてキーブレード墓場で、俺たちはマスターゼアノートの戦いに挑むが、敗北した…はずだった。

ソラとカイリの思いが俺たちを引き戻す。

Romaji: Soshite kīburēdo hakaba de, oretachi wa masutā zeanōto no tatakai ni tanomu ga, haiboku shita... hazudatta.

Sora to kairi no omoi ga oretachi o hikimodosu.

EN: And at (the) Keyblade Graveyard, we challenge Master Xehanort to (a) battle, but (we) were defeated... (or at least that's what) was supposed to happen.

Sora and Kairi's thoughts/feelings bring us back.

More naturalistic version: And at the Keyblade Graveyard, we challenged Master Xehanort to a battle, but we were defeated... or at least that's what should've happened.

Sora and Kairi's feelings brought us back.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To answer your question, based on Riku's words here and the grammatical structures he uses, it's clear he gives Sora and Kairi credit for restoring everyone to life. He doesn't take credit at all but groups himself in with the people who were brought back by using oretachi, "us/we," as the direct object of hikimodosu, "restore/bring back," which is indicated by the direct object marker o. And just to make things really clear, the subject in this sentence is Sora to Kairi no omoi, "Sora and Kairi's thoughts/feelings," which is marked by the ga subject marker particle and indicates that Sora and Kairi's thoughts/feelings are what brought "us" (Riku included) back.

And just to be fair, the start of this section is a quote from Riku to Sora at the Keyblade Graveyard:

JP ソラ　俺は信じてる

EN Sora, you don’t believe that.

TR Sora, I believe (in you).

JP おまえはあきらめない

EN I know you don’t.

TR You won’t give up/You haven’t given up.

I could see Riku's quote being... creatively interpreted into giving him credit for helping rescue everyone as well, given how he encouraged Sora not to give up, but Sora kinda gave up anyway once Riku died, and (granted I haven't played KH3 in a while so I'm going off of memory here, so take my interpretation with a grain of salt), it wasn't really till Sora heard from Chirithy in The Final World that Kairi was fighting with all her heart to keep him alive that he really regained his drive.

Plus, taking credit for rescuing everyone is not at all the sense I get from Riku's words here. If anything, he places all the credit with Sora and Kairi for reviving everyone and doesn't try to take it for himself. The inclusion of his quote at the top almost gives me the vibe that he's thinking, see, I knew Sora wouldn't give up, I believed in him, and he's proven me right with how he and Kairi brought everyone back. In the next sentence he does talk about how he defeated Ansem and how the others defeated the various Xehanort vessels, which tracks exactly with what we see in the game, but he does not take credit for everyone being revived; that was Sora and Kairi's doing. He's come a long way from how arrogant he was in KH1, and this excerpt really shows his growth and his admiration for his friends.

Additional Notes: A few interesting grammar points: I was doing some quick research, and 戦いに挑む with its use of the ni particle gives the impression that the battle was already scheduled or planned (which makes sense, given the themes of fate in KH3 and Xehanort's machinations).

Hazudatta means something like "should've happened" or "was expected to happen." In other words, Riku is making it clear that they should've lost the battle and would have if it weren't for Sora and Kairi.

The word I translated as "thoughts/feelings," omoi, can mean a variety of things; here's the full definition from jisho.org to give you an idea of the nuance here:

And then the compound verb, hikimodosu, is interesting because if you look at the kanji it literally means "pull + return," and together the meaning is exactly what you'd think: to bring back, to restore, to return, to reinstate. There's this image inherently built into the meaning of the verb of the subject pulling the object back to itself (and in this case Sora and Kairi's feelings are pulling their friends out of the abyss and back to them, back to life).

Riku uses a different verb, hikimodosu, than Sora uses in Blank Points to talk about wanting to rescue his friends, but I thought it was interesting all the same because it's another -modosu compound verb, torimodoshi. Sora is the one wanting to "take back" his friends, and Riku is speaking of the same act but as being on the receiving end of it ("we were pulled/brought back" by "Sora and Kairi's thoughts/feelings" vs. Sora telling Kairi in Blank Points he "has to go and take back/recover all that is connected to him" aka his friends). Not anything huge or groundbreaking, I just thought it was kinda neat.

Excerpt 2:

JP: そして俺たちは見知らぬ世界でマスター・ゼアノートと戦い勝利する。だがそれはソラとカイリ、ふたりが離れ離れになる物語の始まりだった。

Romaji: Soshite oretachi wa misharanu sekai de masutā zeanōto to tatakai shōri suru. Daga sore wa sora to kairi, futari ga hanarebanare ni naru monogatari no hajimari datta.

EN: And in a strange/unfamiliar world, we fight with Master Xehanort and win. But for Sora and Kairi, that was the start of the story of the two of them becoming separated.

More naturalistic translation: And in a strange world, we fought Master Xehanort and won. But for Sora and Kairi, it was the start of the story of their separation from each other.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I find it really interesting how Riku frames this, like the next arc of Sora's story is centered on his separation from Kairi. He contrasts the victory against Xehanort with the separation of Sora and Kairi and speaks of that separation in terms of it being the beginning of a story. Also, the quote at the beginning of this section in gold is one of Sora's lines at the end of KH3...

JP ううん　俺はこのまま行くよ

EN No, I know what to do.

TR No. I’ll go on from here.

...which is what Sora says right before he goes after Kairi. One story ends as another begins. I think a big part of Sora's next story arc will be his reunion with Kairi, just going off of how everything has been set up and how Riku refers to his separation from Kairi here.

Additional Notes: This is just linguistic nerdery so feel free to skip it lol but in case anyone wants to read more about Japanese linguistics:

Mishiranu strikes me as a set expression that originated in an older form of the language but continues to be used today, as it preserves the older form of the negative verb conjugation shiranu instead of using the more modern shiranai. It's something I want to do more research on to see if my hunch is correct or completely off, so off I go lol.

Hanarebanare is a word that exhibits the rendaku phenomenon where a word repeats in Japanese, and in its repeated second form the voiceless obstruent consonant that starts the word becomes voiced ("h" used to be pronounced as "p" in Japanese, and "b" is said in the exact same position of the mouth/lips as "p," only with voicing, so I wonder if this word was originally panarebanare and then the "p" became "h" over time after the rendaku occurred, and now I've found another rabbit hole to look into lol).

Anyway, thank you for the ask Star! Hope that helped with your questions ❤️

(Ninja edit: I realized I inserted a particle where there wasn't one in the second excerpt and updated my translation slightly to account for it--no major changes to the meaning, just wanted to more accurately reflect the grammatical structures).

#kingdom hearts #sokai #sora #kairi #kh translation #kh analysis #phoenix translates #phoenix-downer #unchained-star #long post

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theneighborhoodwatch · 7 months

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The neighborhood map changed again! I'm not sure if the black thing (to borrow a Madeline L'Engle term) under Home has grown anymore. Some things I notice are Poppy's house's windows shut, Barnaby's pawprints, vines growing on the roof of Frank's house, and lots of sidewalk chalk doodles presumably from Julie (and maybe Wally drew Frank's face?).

I've noticed subtle changes to the neighborhood in previous updates too, but with more continuing to happen, as well as content we've gotten this Halloween update, I have a feeling these neighborhood changes are more... current than we might have previously thought.

This is a bit of a long shot, but I think everyone in Welcome Home is active, at least somewhat. Some characters are more aware than others. Maybe they're "waking up"; we've had two puppets, Wally through his doodles and Sally through the Halloween record, speak directly to us now.

In the secret bug audio, found on the transcript page for the Halloween record, the puppets mention that the spooky storytelling went well, as if it's a direct follow-up to the Halloween record. It's a discrepancy, sure, but perhaps not an unfounded one. Maybe the neighborhood's stuck in some sort of limbo between the present and the past, and only now, with the WHRP, Q/A, and us discovering it, is it literally reviving in front of our eyes.

correct me if i'm wrong, but uh - weren't all of those map details present from before the halloween update? i'm looking at these screenshots and my older captures of the map to compare, but i can't find any differences. i'm pretty sure the map's the same, aside from julie and frank's character cards changing to make it more explicit that they were intended as a couple in-universe (haha, knowing what we know, that's not worrying at all. /s)

anyways, to get to the Meat of this ask: i don't sally was speaking to us in the storybook record, just the neighbors As A Group, but i definitely think this update makes it a Lot more likely that home (the town) kind of exists, like, Outside of linear time? that it isn't so much that there's a divide between the stuff that was produced Then and what we see in the present day so much as it is that the stuff that the WHRP is uncovering is like, a window into what's going on in home Right Now, whether they realize it or not (and something may be actively blocking them from realizing??? not sure if it's that or if it's simply willful ignorance; i suppose we'll see.)

i'm reminded of a couple posts i made a little while ago, about the possibility that welcome home as a proper show never Actually existed, and the stuff that the WHRP's digging up is welcome home's attempts to will itself into reality anyway, for lack of a better description. but it also suffers from being tethered to a single person/group of people's Vision of it instead of being allowed to be an ever-evolving thing, or only being allowed to evolve in a Specific way. i dunno. i just kept thinking about that the entire time i was reading through this update.

anyways i'm also thinking about the way wally's eye-eating ability was represented in that post-storybook tape. i kind of like that it seems to be almost Overwhelming for him, like he hasn't gotten much of an opportunity to try it out before (if he's gotten any opportunity) and is like "oh. Oh. Oh. I Get It Now. holy shit." i don't have much to add onto that and that's just how i see it as of the time of this writing, but i would feel foolish if i didn't make note of it for later.

#pastelalleycat #ask #welcome home #wh speculation

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elffees · 4 months

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Frontiers of Pandora made me realize how much I hate Jake S*lly

So I watched a No-Commentary lets play of Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora and have a lot of thoughts.

Disclaimer #1: I am a WOC, but I am not indigenous. I absolutely encourage indigenous peoples to add onto this post and share their thoughts.

Disclaimer #2: There is going to be an abundance of Jake S*lly hate in this post. I just ask that if you are a fan of Jake, and still choose to read my post, that you do so in good faith and out of genuine curiosity. Please don't read my post with the sole intent to shoot it down.

Overarching Problems with the Avatar Franchise

Okay so, time to actually get into the post.

To start off, the entire Avatar franchise has problems. Regardless if it's the video games, comics, movies, or what have you. Ableist tropes, racist tropes, misogynistic tropes, my god there are a bunch. These problems with the franchise have been talked about for literal decades now though, so I'll link a few of their pieces here.

Native Media Theory's critique video

"Avatar: The Way of Water" and the Question of Indigenous Representation

Native News Online's article about JaCam's horribly ignorant comment and ATWOW

Avatar: The Way of Water or How NOT to Make Indigenous Futurism Movies

Old, New, Borrowed and Blue: Compulsory Able-bodiedness and Whiteness in Avatar

Avatar's Approach to Ableism Misses the Mark

There are hundreds of other sources from all areas of the internet. It would be impossible for me to list them all. Fortunately, they're very easy to find if you want to know more.

What I want to talk about is the game Frontiers of Pandora that just released in December 2023, and how it changed my perspective on the movies, at least the first movie since I have yet to watch the second.

Frontiers of Pandora

(I will try my best to be as spoiler-free as possible, but there will be segments where I'll dive into them. I will put a warning ahead of time.)

Just so we're all on the same page, I'll briefly summarize FOP's premise.

Spoiler-Free Summary

As an infant, the playable character, an unnamed Na'vi, was taken by a project group of the RDA known as "TAP", The Ambassador Program. You are not alone, a significant number of Na'vi children, all from the newly introduced Sarentu Clan, were taken as well. It's made clear in the opening that TAP's initial goal was to raise Na'vi children and teach them human culture to "bridge the gap" between their two peoples. And then once ready, they would be sent back out into Pandora to serve as "ambassadors" for Na'vi-Human relations. You were to be mainly taught by Alma Cortez, TAP's Co-founder and a skilled xenobiologist, who notably spends more time in her Avatar body than in her original one.

As time passed and relations between the Na'vi and the RDA became more hostile, the taken Sarentu children were taught to use human weapons. Heavily implied to be trained to fight against other Na'vi to defend RDA resources, instead of the original intention to serve as "peaceful ambassadors".

The player's journey starts when the character is a teenager, around 16 to 18 years old. The final battle in the first movie causes a massive uproar to all RDA facilities, including TAP's. The administrator and founder, John Mercer, ordered the entire program and building to be abandoned. Part of that abandonment is ordering the execution of the playable character and all of the other Sarentu children.

Your character, and some of the others, are saved by Alma, who killed the soldiers that were assigned to kill you. Then, seemingly acting on impulse with no solid plans for your survival, put you and the others into a cryo-induced coma. With the plan that you would all be woken up when it was safe.

There is a misunderstanding and long story short, the Sarentu children do not get woken up until 16 years later. Your revival is when the game is officially put into the player's hands.

Just from the premise, it's clear the plot is based off the real life horror of Native American Boarding Schools. (I'm really curious how Indigenous viewers feel about this portrayal. I've tried to look up perspectives, but have had difficulty finding any. Probably because the game is so new.)

The Sarentu were taken as children, physically and psychologically abused whenever they interacted with Na'vi culture in any way, were told daily that the program was "for their own good", and were generally viewed as "property" owned by TAP and John Mercer.

We learn later in the game that in the early days of the program, the children suffered conditions so grotesque that the oldest of them admit to repressing the full events of what happened to stay sane. What we were already told about their upbringing is repulsive to hear, so to find out that there was more that was so traumatic and horrible, the characters can't even bring themselves to remember it let alone talk about it...

Basically, your character's backstory is fucked up. Very much so.

After experiencing all that, once your character wakes up from cryo sleep and rushes to the outdoors for the first time in approximately 32+ years, you get to the heart of the story.

Frontiers of Pandora is about the playable character reclaiming and rediscovering a culture that's been stripped from them. The character has the help of a predominantly human resistance group (known creatively as "The Resistance"), but the majority of the game is the character meeting and getting to know various Na'vi clans. From the Aranahe in Kinglor Forest, to the Zeswa in the Upper Plains, to the Kame'tire in the Clouded Forest.

And throughout the world, there are remnants of your character's lost people. There are Sarentu artifacts scattered all over the map where the character can regain lost knowledge from their Clan's way of life.

Fortunately, there are still Na'vi from the other three clans that have personally met the Sarentu before you. And they are EXTREMELY eager to tell you of their experiences with your people and how they used to interact with each other. There's even a character who is heavily implied to have known the playable character's mother, a fact we only learn after he playfully requests we gather ingredients and make a unique dish, not knowing until after we've tried it, that we were just taught how to make a meal our mother used to. A quest you don't expect to evoke tears until you're already crying.

You have the ability to use human weapons and wear human clothing if you wish, but that is optional. You can, and many players have, opt for a "full Na'vi playthrough" where you only use Na'vi weapons and dress in Na'vi attire (You can even dress in Sarentu-specific attire for full immersion!) There are no choices, so you can't choose to not interact with the Resistance, but you can spend as little time as possible with other humans, only needing to return for quick updates before going back out into Pandora with other Na'vi.

I say all this to say, the game is heavily about the Na'vi and reclaiming one's culture after it's been attempted to be destroyed. Watching this journey play out made me realize the potential Avatar has, and helped me better understand my biggest gripe with the movies. It's Jake Sully.

The Whitest Savior to Ever Whitely Save

After finishing the FOP playthrough, I decided to rewatch the first movie to see if I'd feel differently about it. And boy did I!

I could talk all day about how the tiniest similarities got to me. I laughed watching the ferocious pack of viperwolves, after seeing players frantically try to outrun them in Kinglor Forest. The harrowing climb up the ikran rookery, and thinking about the Sarentu's own sinking self esteem as they struggle to prove themselves to their eventual bonded. Even the floating mountains as the characters in the movie weave through them and Trudy uses them for cover, connecting it to all the times I've seen FOP players and ikrans rest on them or gather resources from their peaks.

The comparisons are endless.

But the biggest contrast and glaring stain is Jake's entire character.

Like Jake, the Sarentu (the playable character) has to learn how to maneuver a world they are not used to. Unlike Jake, it's clear the protagonist actually develops an appreciation and love for the world around them.

RELATIONSHIPS TO OTHER NA'VI

Even overlooking the WS trope for a minute (which we will touch on!), it comes across as though Jake only begins to side with the Omatikaya after enjoying the adrenaline rush of their way of life, and falling in love with Neytiri. But we never see Jake actually bonding with any other Na'vi besides her in the first movie.

He grows into calling them "brother" and "sister", and has a few throwaway lines of knowing of other Na'vi, but we don't actually see him develop any positive relationships with anyone other than Neytiri (who is very much given the Love Interest Angle where majority of her scenes are about Jake or have Jake in them. Even during her father's death scene, Jake made an appearance!!! Go away for a millisecond I am begging!) Even his supposed arc with Tsu'tey is rushed as all hell, and only happens because Jake ~miraculously~ becomes Toruk Makto. A feat that makes the Omatikaya gain respect for him en masse, despite them just calling for his death after learning he played a major role in the destruction of their Hometree.

In comparison, the Sarentu not only gets to know the culture, customs, and day-to-day lives of the Na'vi they meet, they also get to befriend them.

Now since I've watched a let's play, I haven't seen all that the game offers. But I have seen a lot of side activities in the Kinglor Forest.

Your character bonds with the other Sarentu children and with members of other massacred clans. They also create relationships with members of large clans: from as monumental of events as helping expose a corrupt olo'eyktan and bringing a shamed tsahik back to power, to as intimate as attending as funeral / "letting go" ceremony for a deceased ikran, to as simple as helping restore a weaver's low self esteem. Your character not only helps stop the RDA, but they also truly develop connections with other Na'vi. More than one!

Obviously, there can't be a full exploration of Jake simply making friends in a film because there just isn't enough time. But we could've seen him bonding with at least a few other Na'vi besides his love interest. For the franchise and sequel to be so Na'vi-focused, it wouldn't have hurt the first movie to detract some screentime from RDA characters, and give it to more Na'vi who we could've continued on with.

RELATIONSHIP TO THE WORLD AND TO EYWA

Another gripe I have with Jake's character is that he seems to hardly appreciate Pandora's wildlife or the Na'vi's connection to Eywa.

During Iknimaya, once he creates the bond, he refers to the ikran as "mine", despite the numerous times Neytiri has said no creature on Pandora can "belong" to anyone. It is a mutual bond based on respect, not taming a pet. Despite this lesson, Jake clearly still viewed it as such. We're not even told if the ikran Jake bonded with has a name, not in the film anyway. I had to find out through google that he named it, simply, "Bob".

And in the finale when connecting to Eywa, Jake asks for her help in the final battle. But while doing so, he's still uncertain if she's even "real" or "actually listening". Even now, he continues to doubt Na'vi beliefs (despite it literally being Grace's dying words!!)

In comparison, the Sarentu's journey up the ikran rookery to form a bond... it's emotional to say the least.

There is a desperation in your character's voice. Not of impatience, but of declining self esteem. A worry that you won't be chosen because you will not be deemed worthy. Because you are not Na'vi enough due to your upbringing. As you go up, an Aranahe character that guides you, Eetu, tells you of his experience and how calming it was. And that makes the character more nervous because of how stressful it's been for them so far.

But then you finally get close enough to approach. The ikran finally allows you to, and you meet eyes and...

I do not know how they managed to capture care and affection so perfectly but they did. The journey up the rookery is intense and nerve wracking. But once you get chosen, you the player IMMEDIATELY knows (just like Eetu said) because the ikran looks at you as though she's already prepared to give her life for yours. Many players have expressed that this segment legitimately made them cry because of how palpable the bond is.

And then Eetu says that she has placed full trust in you. And you know he's right because you can feel it. You can see it. But then he says now it's time for you to place full trust in her, and he "helps" you accomplish this by pushing you off the cliff!!!!! And it's scary! And terrifying! And you call out for her to help and you're still falling!! But then she catches you, and the next thing you know you're experiencing probably one of the most heartwarming scenes of the entire game.

The Sarentu is not yelling commands such as "shut up and fly straight". It is truly a psychological bond. You are not an owner and she is not a vehicle. You are not a tamer and she is not a mindless beast. You fly together as one. You are one.

Connecting to Eywa is also an emotional experience. Whenever the Sarentu connects to the Tarsyu (their clan's method), they're able to communicate with their ancestors, specifically the founder of the Sarentu, Entu. Sometimes in depth and sometimes only vaguely. But whenever a connection is made, the Sarentu walks away with something gained.

In comparison, it's debatable if Jake experiences anything at all when he connects to the Omatikaya's Tree of Souls. I suppose this can be left up to lore though. Maybe he just doesn't feel anything because he doesn't have Na'vi ancestors? Maybe it's because his kuru is artificially made and not naturally born? I don't know! The possibilities of why are endless, and probably answered somewhere in bonus Avatar content.

What my issue is, is that Jake doesn't seem to care whether he has a connection to Eywa or not, despite Eywa being a pretty significant part of Na'vi culture overall. If he's able to feel something when connecting to her, he has no reaction. And if he isn't able to feel anything, he still has no reaction over missing out on something significant to their way of life.

When the Sarentu children connect to Eywa for the VERY first time in 32 years, there is an air of both anxiety and excitement. One of them even voices that they're worried Eywa and their ancestors won't accept them for not being raised like "true Na'vi" (as you can see, this is a reoccuring theme in the game. Who can be referred to as "true Na'vi"). After the connection is made, there are mixed reactions. But at least there are reactions. Jake has none.

(Please note again: I am only referring to the 2009 movie in this post because that was everyone's first intro into Avatar. I am not referring to any comics or books or etc. that may dive deeper into these topics. If they do, great! That doesn't negate how lackluster the movie is. As the original source material, it should be able to stand on its own, and it clearly can't.)

"The Savior The Na'vi Needed" I Guess

I've already linked articles above about how inappropriate it is that a white actor + character "is the only one" that can help these "poor, defenseless, and naive" Indigenous / coded characters of color "defeat" colonization. Many many many people have have touched on this problematic storyline. It's very disturbing.

So speaking not from a Doylist perspective, but from a Watsonian one, Human Marine Jake is still an immensely odd choice to be Eywa's + the Omatikaya's Chosen One.

It's implied Eywa "chose" Jake because he'd be able to save Pandora. But the Omatikaya were literally going to DIE had Eywa not called on all of the animals to come to their aid. They would've lost following Jake.

The only thing he managed to do that was unique was unite the clans. Which he only accomplishes due to the lazy writing of becoming Toruk Makto. The implication that no Na'vi in generations EVER considered just jumping on Toruk's back. Or if there were other Na'vi that tried it, that none of them ever succeeded, but Jake, who is still new to the world and animals of Pandora, would know how to expertly bond with a creature as ferocious as that, better than every other Na'vi since Neytiri's grandfather.

Not to mention the absolute amnesia everyone gets once he does. His former betrayal is completely forgotten about, never to be mentioned again.

Neytiri no longer cares that Jake massively lied and used her, because he's Toruk Makto.

Tsu'tey no longer cares that Jake knowingly mated with his betrothed and spied on their people's way of life, because Jake's Toruk Makto.

None of the other Omatikaya (who are terrifyingly written without any individuality whatsoever) care their Hometree was just destroyed and their Olo'eyktan killed due to Jake's betrayal, because he's Toruk Makto.

It all just gets washed down the drain, like the sheer chaos Jake's actions caused no longer matter. Because he's Toruk Makto, the Chosen One. No further action required. No heartfelt apologies, no intimate discussions, no anything.

Jake jumps on Toruk, and that's that.

So not only were they actively losing following behind Jake's leadership, but he was only able to rally the clans due to shoddy writing choices. So WHY did Eywa choose this specific man, who was just actively working against her, to be the one the Na'vi are supposed to follow??

On top of all that, the implication of the Omatikaya needing Jake to survive is... dubious to say the least. It is not only literally racist, but also incredibly infantilizing to the Na'vi. The implication that they couldn't have come up with effective strategies without being ordered around by a person who's initial goal was to help destroy them.

"In siding with the ‘natives’, Jake and Grace play a central role in what can essentially be deemed as a form of anti-colonial resistance. What is crucial in this telling for the fight for Na’vi tribal and ecological survival is the ways in which anti-colonial resistance becomes legitimized through the ‘other’ becoming human." [...] "The Na’vi, like other colonized peoples, are denied of their own agency, and resistance only becomes valid and possible within a colonial paradigm of acceptability. As a result the Na’vi become dependent on Jake, the white, male, human, ethnographic anthropologist as saviour, leading them to a freedom in which he had helped threaten in the first place. [...] The Na’vi come to exist suspended by space, time and tradition and the role of Jake and Grace as anthropologists too occupy a place in colonial history that play into both liberal and much more conservative agendas." (Why Avatar is a Truly Dangerous Film)

Neytiri Should've Been the True Lead

Rewatching the first movie after Frontiers of Pandora, I not only had a much greater appreciation for Pandora, but much more distaste for Jake as the leading character.

While watching, I found myself thinking at SEVERAL points, "This would've been so good if Neytiri had been the focal protagonist." And the longer the film went on, the more the feeling settled in.

As the daughter of the Olo'eyktan and Tsahik, who better to lead her people to victory after her father's death? (You could argue Tsu'tey since he was supposed to be Eytukan's successor anyway. Either are valid options!) Neytiri's great grandfather was the last Toruk Makto, who better to become TM of their generation than one of his direct descendants? Neytiri holds great respect for Eywa and was destined to be the next Tsahik after Mo'at, so why couldn't she be the one who Eywa guides all of Pandoran wildlife to follow behind?

Just why oh why do all of these important roles in the narrative have to belong to Jake?????? Why couldn't they belong to a Na'vi character themselves?

This is not to say Jake should've been completely erased from the story. I do think him having some relevance still would've been fine, especially given he's a disabled man. I just wish his role had been that of an ally, a side character, or at most a deuteragonist second to Neytiri. Because there is weight in gaining insider information from a privileged ally.

I just wish that Jake hadn't been the lead character who's POV we follow. I wish it had been from the perspective of one of the actual Na'vi characters that were being oppressed.

BONUS: FOP Just Solves A Lot of the Issues I Had with Avatar

White / Human Saviour

Explained above.

Random Chosen One

The Sarentu playable character helps out, and is invited to help, not because they were spiritually chosen by "a deity they don't even believe in" unlike Jake. The Sarentu helps simply because they want to. Full stop. They see the injustices the RDA is enacting against Pandora, and simply choose to help put a stop to them. Because it is wrong.

That's it.

It's 1000x more admirable in my opinion. To choose to help rather than being a Chosen One destined to do so.

You can argue that since Jake seems to not even believe in Eywa, that he does help based on choice alone. But like I covered earlier, he only does so after he's deemed the Na'vi (or more specifically Neytiri) worthy of being saved. Not because they have the inherent right to live as they wish. No, he didn't consider them worthy of helping until after he decided they were.

The Conflicting Ethics Behind 'Avatars'

I don't know much about all of the side quests in the game so if there are any other avatars, then I don't know about them. But based on what I've seen of the main storyline, FOP handles the dubious topic of 'avatars' much better than the movie does. Because personally, I've always found the concept disturbing.

"At least in other white savior movies, they don’t sugarcoat the whiteness nor did they reward the whiteness with the ultimate prize." [...] "Apparently as a reward for being such a good white savior (that was originally a double agent for Colonel Scarface to get operational intel on them so the army could blow their magic god tree to Hell), Jake gets permanently transformed into one of the Na’vi via his Avatar." "Just imagine '8 Mile' if Eminem beat Sam Wilson and the rest of the Free World at the Shelter so badly, Future [...] took out his fairy godbrother wand and turned Rabbit into a brother. That’s the kool-aid that James Cameron is essentially selling." (Battle to the Bottom: The Blue-faced White Savior ‘Avatar’ Is Even Worse Than ‘After Earth’)

The concept of 'avatars' (in the way Avatar writes them) has always freaked me the hell out. Especially when Jake begins referring to humans as "the Sky People" as though he wasn't one of them just the day before.

FOP handles this subject much better in my opinion because the character of Alma, who is the Sarentu's former teacher at TAP and who is the current leader of the Western Resistance, has great attachment to her avatar body. To the point where many Resistance members have never seen her in her original body.

Later in the story when things begin looking up for the Na'vi and for the Sarentu children, Alma starts using phrases such as "our resistance" and referring to lost Sarentu artifacts that have been reclaimed as coming "back to us", and other like-minded words. And when she does this, she is IMMEDIATELY called out on it.

Alma is not Sarentu nor is she Na'vi, and although she plants her consciousness into the body of a lookalike, she is still, first and foremost, a human. And no matter how much she may try to forget that, how much she may wish to distance herself from the crimes of her people, the characters do not hold her hand and allow her to do so. The game makes it known that while she is doing the right thing now, she has no right to cram herself into a culture and people by jumping into their skin and playing pretend.

[ SPOILER WARNING ]

And the way this arc is resolved? By Alma losing her avatar form and being forced to confront the truth of who she is, a human that was complicit in the oppression of the Na'vi, most specifically the Sarentu.

The Sarentu do not get on their hands and knees and kiss Alma's feet for the ways she's helped them (now). No, SOME of them let her know they appreciate the good she's done, but that ultimately, there needs to be distance. That they are still their own people and need to rebuild without her interference. This clearly hurts Alma, but like an actually good ally, she respects the boundaries made and eventually backs off. The separation is a peaceful one.

[ SPOILER END ]

Alma does not become their Chosen Hero after she defects from the RDA. She is not given a standing ovation. And she is not even given a "thanks" from all of the Sarentu, some of them proceed to hate her guts. The reactions towards Alma, a former RDA member who defected to aid the Na'vi's survival, are wonderfully and realistically mixed.

Because, like the character So'lek says at the beginning of the game, the Na'vi are not a monolith. They are not all the same, nor will they all have the same views.

Various Na'vi characters in FOP have diverging opinions on the Human Resistance group. Some support them, some don't want to come within 10 feet of them. And both POVs are framed as valid by the narrative.

On the other hand in the 2009 movie, any Na'vi character that didn't immediately grow into liking Jake was ultimately punished by the writing.

Neytiri disliked Jake in the beginning of the movie, but as soon as Mo'at names her his teacher, a switch flips and all animosity is gone. She is still tough on him, that's just who she is, but it's clear any true ire is immediately washed away once she is given the role of 'teacher'. In comparison, Tsu'tey spends half the film irritated and distrustful of Jake. (And rightly so given that Jake is literally an RDA plant!!)

Like I've already said, Tsu'tey undergoes a blink-and-you'll-miss-it "arc" where once Jake becomes Toruk Makto, all negativity anyone held vanishes. Except Tsu'tey's timing is clearly too late, because the writing punishes his earlier animosity by killing him off in the final battle.

The same can be said for Eytukan, who was the one to suggest tying the avatars up after Jake reveals his initial goal. Eytukan's animosity is also punished with death, with him dying during the destruction of Hometree.

(It can also be said that these characters died both to punish them for their inability to "appreciate" Jake at a quicker pace, and to simply get them out of the way so Jake could become Olo'eyktan of the Omatikaya. Because how else could the White Human Savior become the leader of the people, if the leaders that were already there didn't "get out of the way" to make room?)

Conclusion

If you couldn't tell, I wasn't Avatar (2009)'s biggest fan my first time watching. For numerous reasons.

It wasn't until watching a playthrough of Frontiers of Pandora, that I realized a lot of my ire was towards Jake specifically (although there are many problems with the franchise as a whole), and if the story had just not been told from Jake's POV, and had been told from the POV of one of the Na'vi fighting for their home (Neytiri would be my first choice, Tsu'tey second), then I think I would've at least been able to enjoy it. It's hard for me to even watch Avatar (2009) because of how rampant the issues are in that movie. Or I suppose because of how central Jake is.

I wrote all this just to air out my thoughts. But if you're similar to me and felt like Avatar (2009) was "off", then I do suggest you take a look at Frontiers of Pandora and still see if you feel the same.

All this isn't to say FOP is the perfect game, mind you. It absolutely has flaws, ones that others have touched on and that I've noticed myself. But even with it's flaws, I'd take it's misgivings over Avatar (2009)'s atrocious ones any day.

#babbles #frontiers of pandora #anti jake sully #avatar frontiers of pandora #neytiri shouldve been the main protagonist #anti avatar #anti avatar 2009 #jake sully hate #post is moreso... pro FOP neutral Avatar anti jake?#tw*w isn't really included in this because i still have to finish it #also im not a hardcore Avatar fan so please forgive me if i mess up the terminology #long text post //#im trying to make sure this doesnt end up in any pro 'js' tags as much as possible #bc as much as i hate Jake its not like i want to shove this post in his fans' faces

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pebblysand · 2 months

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Is My Heart Still In It? (and further reflections ahead of the Page Pals Project)

Hey everyone, I hope that you're doing well. I am back in Ireland now, and just wanted to come on here to remind you of the castles re-read project that will be starting tomorrow (more info here if you want to join). I am very excited about this and look forward to receiving your thoughts and to talking about each chapter as we progress!

Additionally, as a lot of you also saw last week, I received a not-very-nice anon about chapter 21. At the outset, I want to state that my intention writing this isn't to revive the issue, or to stir shit up again. Anon apologised and even if they hadn't, they're allowed to think whatever they want to think. I know a lot of you were very upset on my behalf, and a lot of you DM-ed me last week, which was very kind, but I also think that anon was very well within their rights to have disliked the chapter. Word-vomiting it to my face probably wasn't the most productive way to go about this, and that was typical URL-badman behaviour, but it is a free country.

I haven't had a chance to re-read the chapter, but I also think it's pretty clear what this person disliked about it. There is a change of tone in chapter 21, and a change of pacing, that may have felt rushed to this person, which is probably why they didn't enjoy it. Again, that's not really the question, here.

I think the part of this anon that really stuck with me was the allegation that my heart wasn't "in it" anymore. Firstly, because at a very, face-value level, it's not true. I don't want to seem like I'm being full of myself, here, but I think it is pretty much acknowledged that I am someone who has a very strong work ethic. I spend hundreds of hours on each chapter, I edit, publish, edit after I publish, answer anons, answer comments - like, if there's one thing you cannot actually fault me on, it's the amount of dedication that I have put in this project. I can accept that maybe, when it comes to chapter 21 specifically, I did a little bit less editing than I usually do, which may have caused it to be a bit clunkier, but that was mostly because I was very keen on giving you a chapter before going on holiday, not because my heart wasn't "in it". My heart is in fact so "in it" that I wrote and published 43,000 words in less than a month, so stop it.

But also, on a different level, one that this anon probably didn't even anticipate, they were right. Because, I mentioned their message to my therapist, earlier this week, and said: "Do you think they can tell?"

To be fully transparent with you all, when it comes to castles, I've definitely had many moments of fluctuating motivation in the past four years. I think that when you are writing a story this size, for that much time, it's natural that you will experience ebbs and flows. The summers, I've noticed, have always been particularly hard. The summer of 2021, when everyone was coming at me about my characterisation and, afterwards, about the contents of chapter 8, made me want to give up more times than I can count. So much so that I didn't publish anything for six months after that. I can state very clearly that my heart was very much not in it, then. The summers of 2022 and 2023, when I basically wrote myself into the ground and burnt out by August because I was sleeping four hours a night for months, trying to manage writing and work, were also awful. Those who were here last summer will remember the post I wrote about how much I'd sacrificed for castles, and how much I considered giving up. My heart also wasn't in it, then.

By contrast, now, I'm feeling a lot better about this story. Its end is in sight and I'm so very proud of what I have achieved and what I have managed to pull through. I'm also about to embark onto writing a series of chapters that have literally existed in my head for years, and which I can't wait to share with you. Whilst I am a bit nervous about how the end will be received (which, again, is normal when you have poured that much of yourself into something), I can't wait to finally show you all where I was going with this. I'm so excited for us to finally be able to discuss Everything, and for this fic to be complete. I think that paradoxically when you look at what this anon was saying, I am on "high" when it comes to castles, at the moment. I am more motivated, and my heart is more "in it" than it has been for a long time.

So, why do I say that anon was also right? Well, because I'm grieving. Because like a parent who is watching their child age and move out for college, I'm watching this story edge closer and closer to being finished with a mixture of joy and pride, and grief. I've always felt that once a chapter is published, and once a story is finished, it no longer belongs to me, it belongs to the readers. And, right now, there are only three chapters left, which are my own. Soon, this story will have grown up into its own thing and it will belong to the people who read it for as long as there is a Harry Potter fandom, for as long as the internet exists, but it will no longer be just mine. And, so, when I say "Do you think they can tell?" I mean that. Can they tell in my words on the page that I'm saying goodbye, too? That maybe I am slowly trying to distance my heart from this thing that I've built little by little, because I'm hoping that the grief will hurt just a little bit less, when the time comes?

I love this story so much. I know that it means a lot to a lot of you, and I don't mean to diminish that reader experience in any way, but it means a lot to me, too. Probably in a very different way. This story has been my refuge, my baby, my best friend, my enemy, my lifeline, for four years now. And, I love the community it has brought together, stupid anons included, so I worry. About what it'll be like not having that. About whether people will be interested in my writing in the future. About the possibility that I might never experience this level of connection again. And, so, of course, I am happy and keen, and so excited to finish and share this with you. Also, I'm not going to lie, I'm very much looking forward to getting some of my free time back (haha) for the first time in years. But, I'm also grieving. And, maybe, like this anon accidentally suggested, you might be able to tell in my words, or you might not. Either way, I'm telling you: my heart is very much in it. It's just - learning to say goodbye.

So: join me on the re-read, starting tomorrow. Join me as I say goodbye. And, I can't say I won't cry, but I hope we'll all get where we need to be in the end. ❤️

#castles

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slusheeduck · 6 months

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Fictober 2023 Day 29 - Prompt: "Do I look like I knew that?" Fandom: Baldur's Gate 3

“Counterclockwise, counterclockwise!”

“I know it’s counterclockwise!” Falerin’s hands shook as he hastily unthreaded the purple seam, Astarion and Karlach hovering anxiously over his shoulders as he did. Gale…well, Gale’s projection after he had dropped—had said that this needed to be done within two days, but with the Netherese orb in his chest? They were not about to waste a single second.

Falerin finally finished unthreading the seam, and he pulled out the flute and the letter.

“Okay, so you play the notes now,” Karlach said. Falerin quickly passed the flute to Astarion.

“Why me?” the elf asked.

“I don’t know how to play a fucking flute!” Falerin snapped back.

“And you think I…ugh, fine, I do. What are the notes?”

“D. E. A. D.”

“Oh, ha, because he’s…”

“Yes, Karlach, we know he’s dead!” Astarion snapped, then huffed and played the four notes. In a flash of flame that sent all three stepping back, a magma mephit appeared.

“I’ss k’cha t’chiss n’aga?” it asked.

“K’ha’ssji’trach’ash,” Karlach replied.

“Oh, you got the chh part right,” Falerin murmured. “Well done.”

“D’a jah’jah s’um!” The mephit looked pleased, then looked over them expectantly. Karlach nudged Falerin.

“Fal, the letter,” she whispered.

“Right!” He held out the letter, trying not to get too close.

“M’ul t’ha m’esc.” The mephit leaned forward, and it blew a long stream of sulfur-scented air onto the letter. With a puff of smoke, it changed to a scroll. Falerin stared at it as the mephit spoke again, before it somersaulted out of sight in another flare of magma.

“All that for a spell scroll?” he asked. “I was ready to talk to Mystra herself with all that!” He shot Gale’s corpse—still lying prone just a few feet away—a dirty look. He shook his head, then huffed and opened it, reading the spell. As the parchment in his hands dissolved, Gale took a gasping breath and sat up.

“My…my word, you did it!” he said, a wide smile on his face as he patted himself down. “Oh, it’s good to be alive.”

“It’s good to…it was your fault you died!” Falerin shot back. “You were the one who set off the trap!”

Gale’s giddiness at being alive subsided, and he gave a little cough as he pushed himself up to his feet. “Yes, well, shame on me, I suppose.”

“It was a little embarrassing,” Astarion added. “A book with gilded pages, in an abandoned tomb? It’s the definition of a honeypot.”

Gale rolled his eyes. “Do I look like I knew that?”

“Yes!” came the unanimous reply from the other three.

“You are literally the knowing-things guy,” Falerin said through his teeth. He rubbed his face. “Gods, that whole protocol was a nuisance. Why even go through all that for a scroll?”

Despite everything, Gale looked more than happy to explain. “I find that a healthy amount of theatrics—a voice from beyond, a magic flute, a friendly if highly combustible magma mephit—tends to make for a more compelling case.” He grinned at them. “If nothing else, I’m sure I piqued your curiosity.”

For a moment, the three others in the party just stared at Gale. Falerin finally blinked several times in succession.

“I’m gonna kill him,” he said.

There was just enough of a split-second pause for Karlach to grab him around the waist as he lunged, hands outstretched toward Gale’s throat.

“Easy, soldier!” she grunted out as Fal fought tooth and nail to get out of her grip, thrashing and cursing at Gale in his efforts to get at him.

“If you kill me now, you’ll just have to revive me again!” Gale said shakily, moving out of thrashing distance.

“Then I’ll kill you and bring you back with one of the fifteen other revivify scrolls we have between us!” Fictober 2023 Drabble Master Post

#fictober23 #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #astarion #gale of waterdeep #karlach #I know it's a scroll of true resurrection #Gale points that out later once Fal stops trying to throttle him #Also this is where Astarion was like 'You know maybe I do like this guy as more than a safety measure'#Fal got a big ol' 'Astarion approves.' in the corner of his eyesight #Also Halloween finally got the better of me and I'm behind #Today's prompt should be done today or early tomorrow #But still! Impressed with myself

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skysquid22 · 1 year

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What Makes Jotaro Kujo The Most Powerful Stand User

Sorta. Arguably he’s beaten out (with good reason) by GER Giorno and Johnny’s Act 4 Tusk in terms of power, but in-universe he’s considered to be the world’s most powerful Stand user both by characters within the text treating him as such and the overall narrative.

Case shut, post over it seems, but let’s dig a little deeper into the why… besides being the main character.

The above screenshot frames Jotaro as the most powerful Stand user, but he doesn’t even have the most powerful version of his Stand in Diamond is Unbreakable (it’s actually the weakest). The Stand stats page for Stone Ocean’s Star Platinum reveals that the most powerful version of Jotaro is “when Jotaro was in his prime (18 years old).”

Narratively, the most powerful Stand user is Jotaro at the very tail end of Stardust Crusaders, after he has gained Time Stop. This is his prime. Another way to pop the bubble on my own analysis here is point out that canon focuses on this moment because it’s right when he kills DIO. Very much usurping a king to take the crown.

But before the story ended, we saw Prime Jotaro do something else which I believe is (also) what makes him the most powerful Stand user in existence. It’s a small, almost forgotten moment. Tucked in between Jotaro learning about Kakyoin’s death and reviving his grandfather.

It’s the time when Jotaro tries the impossible.

SDC Time Stop Jotaro isn’t considered the most powerful Stand user because he’s in his physical prime with a powerful ability. He’s considered that because this was the very moment he decided to try. That’s what makes him the most powerful Stand user.

Which makes it all the more painful meaning that the times that Jotaro fails are the moments were he doesn’t try enough.

More analysis below the cut. Spoilers for part 6 btw.

There’s that common joke pointing out how ridiculous it is that Jotaro tells Josuke that “you can’t bring back a life once it’s lost” after Josuke’s grandfather dies because Jotaro was literally able to do just that. Sure, the circumstances were different especially with the vampire blood giving immortality, but Jotaro’s attempt was to see if flushing Joseph’s body back with his Joestar blood would revive him, with no intention to turn him vampiric (which it doesn’t. Or it does and Joseph gets the immortality but not the rest of the bad side effects. Joestar blood is too op pls fix in next patch dev team). Regardless, it’s pretty odd and perhaps unintentional parallel that two grandfathers tip the bucket and one survives and the other’s grandson is told that the dead will always remain dead.

Speaking from a in-universe perspective, Jotaro’s speech to Josuke should be taken at as the truth. Bruno dies against Diavolo during their first encounter, with him essentially living as a ghost(/soul) within his own withering corpse thanks to Giorno’s intervention. More obviously in Stone Ocean, when Pucci finds Perla’s body and gets a memory of DIO telling him that there’s no way to bring back the dead.

So the one exception of cheating death outright is in Joseph being revived by Jotaro. It could be explained by the aforementioned vampire/Joestar blood BS. It could be a simple retcon that got established in DiU so a situation like Joseph wouldn’t happen again. Both interpretations make sense and I would agree with both.

However, I would like to argue that Joseph’s miraculous survival is not a narrative oversight. His revival is proof of Jotaro’s power as a direct result of Jotaro’s willingness to try. Jotaro plans for DIO and Joseph’s body to be put into the same ambulance to return the Joestar blood back to his grandfather. It’s an idea he’s not even sure that works, he asks the doctors if it was possible to transfer blood between the corpses. Joseph is very much dead at this point. If Jotaro calling Joseph’s body a corpse and seeing his soul float off wasn’t enough proof, the doctors immediately call the revival plan impossible/useless.

I want to stress this is the worst night of Jotaro’s life.

Right before this scene happens he overhears the radio confirm that Kakyoin is dead. He went into the final fight with DIO knowing Avdol and Iggy were both dead, upping the pressure to keep the rest of his friends/family alive. He watched his grandfather die right in front of him and DIO promptly desecrate the corpse. If it weren’t for his own actions, Polnareff would be dead too. He doesn’t know if he killed DIO in time either, from his perspective his mom could’ve died before he could save her in time. (Ha. Time.)

I suppose, in a sea of despondent despair, there was no other options than to cling to the impossible. After all, against all odds, he was able to learn Time Stop and kill DIO. He had to make it worth it. He was there to save his family, his friends died to save his family, if Joseph or Holly died… well.

He wanted to beat the odds again. And he did. In a way, this is him beating fate or at the very least—fate was literally in his hands and he made the decision to bring his grandfather back no matter what.

In DiU and beyond, Jotaro becomes resigned to fate and thus the weakening of his power overall. If fate determined that his friends would die in Egypt, then that would lessen the weight of blame on him and put their deaths as more of an inevitability. Fate is final. You can’t change it.

Jotaro doesn’t feel pressured to act upon something until he has to, then he does what he needs to be done. In SDC he doesn’t really care about women until they need to be saved or protected. In DiU he says he “hates doing anything tiring” as he saved Koichi from Sheer Heart Attack. He doesn’t visit Jolyne until she’s in jail because of a plot against him (and he couldn’t let DIO’s resentment ruin his daughter’s life).

The actions he takes are what he believes to be the best option, but that option is probably a compromise, not an attempt at the best possible outcome. His treatment to Jolyne is the subject here. He focused his priorities on keeping his family safe by baiting his enemies to himself instead of them, instead of trying to find a compromise where he could be with his daughter and protect her. I can’t blame Jotaro for this decision, but I also can’t avoid the simple fact that he hurt himself and his family for being distant. When fate does catch up, as he expects it to, it bites him in the ass—the stubbornness of DIO’s followers outlived Jotaro’s and he ends up in a coma, unable to act and unable to protect his daughter.

I don’t mean to say that effort isn’t shown by him, he’s extremely observational and analytical and uses those skills to his advantage in practically every fight he’s in. I think the Anubis fight is good proof of that, being brought to his physical limits to the point he can’t move after it. He tries plenty, but it seems clear to me that he tends to only lose when he’s not trying hard enough.

He almost died to a rat because he didn’t plan ahead and figure that the bullets would ricochet. In Stone Ocean, his Time Stop isn’t long enough to save everyone from Made In Heaven. He didn’t maintain his prime Time Stop or sought to expand it, because that was DIO’s goal or, more simply, he didn’t bother to. He went ten years of not needing to use it until Josuke forces him to.

Even with his ability becoming duller in later parts, the story and characters still treat Jotaro like The Most Powerful Stand User. In DiU, after the culmination of the Gang’s efforts, it’s up to Jotaro to stop Kira from reactivating BtD. In Stone Ocean, it’s up to Jotaro to kill Pucci when no one else is literally able to. Stardust Crusaders’ final fight is when Jotaro is completely alone, when there’s no one left but him to stop DIO.

The narrative again and again reenforces the idea that Jotaro is the strongest Stand user in the story, that everything falls on his shoulders and he is the one to make sure the evil dies and who’s left, lives. Past part 3, the narrative continues to say that he’s the most powerful Stand user, but it’s also clear that it’s not true anymore. His Time Stop isn’t as strong as it was in his prime. He no longer lives up to the expectation he made for himself in the few minutes after he killed DIO.

That moment in the ambulance, that’s the moment Jotaro tries without the pressure of death—the dust has already settled—or his own sense of justice—the evil has been fought. Joseph is dead and DIO is dead. Out of the desire and the off chance that he could hear his grandfather share stupid trivia with him, Jotaro reaches for the impossible, the best possible outcome, and gets it.

After the end of Stardust Crusaders, Jotaro no longer is at his ‘prime’. For someone who hates useless things, he becomes what he deems as useless. He’ll live the rest of his life in the shadow of his own self, the self that proved that he could do the impossible.

#jjba #jojo’s bizarre adventure #jotaro kujo #stardust crusaders #stone ocean #diamond is unbreakable #character meta #skyspeaks #my writing

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mdhwrites · 8 months

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What did you think of Anne's sacrifice/death/rebirth, especially compared to Luz's? Do you think it's the sane Anne, or was she replaced by a copy?

So I've talked before about how the death/rebirth of Anne is beautiful. How death is the greatest change we as humans have to ever face and Anne embraces it to save the community she cared about. It's pitch perfect thematically and her understanding she's still a dumb teen and STILL embracing death instead of godhood not only helps keep the thematics on point but also is just great for her character.

As for the clone... Why does it matter? A large part of Amphibia's optimism with change is that our experiences shape us. That they and the people we have met along the way will always be a part of us and shape who we shall be. Since this Anne has all of her memories, all of her experiences, all of those connections... Why should we argue about whether the cells and the like are the same? That is Anne.

It's actually a fun parallel to the Ship of Theseus that doesn't require transfer of souls or the like. That is Anne because she has the spirit of Anne. The personality. The heart. She could be placed into a giant monster or a tiny robot and it would still be Anne. Arguing if she's the same or not is pointless.

Also, comparing it to Luz is laughable. TOH doesn't have themes that fit trying to portray death as an accidental thing you can't control, the only reason The Collector needs saving is due to stupid writing, the choice isn't hers and her going to see the Titan pretty much purely exists for LITERAL GOD to pat her on the head, give her a cookie, tell her she's special and then let her go. Hell, the fact that Luz gets given a choice barely works on a meta level, let alone a narrative one. Do you want to go back, save all your friends, be beloved by all and get to live out the same sort of consequence free fantasy you've always wanted to? Or do you want to die and let everyone you know die for no reason? Especially no reason when you've gone through THREE different character conclusions IN THIS SEASON about you forgiving yourself for your singular mistake that barely mattered to anything.

That is INFINITELY more stupid and meaningless than "Do you feel confident to control the fates of UNIVERSES or do you have humility and accept that you did good and are willing to die with that?" Because remember: Anne isn't revived because she asks to be. She's revived because her willingness to believe ANYONE can improve and no one is flawless, INCLUDING HER, convinces the god that hey, if I think she's ready now, just imagine what more life experience will do to her? Before she gets revived without it even actually being her choice. Though, she does say that she'd like to live again which stops it from being like the guardian is doing something she doesn't want.

It's beautiful and part of why I had to talk about how the fandom undersold it because sure, you can describe it as "Anne dies saving Amphibia and then is revived by god," but that is leaving out JUST how good the writing is. Then again, much of Amphibia looks just fine on paper but looking a little closer almost always yields so much more than you'd expect.

======+++++======

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

And finally a Twitter you can follow too!

#amphibia #anne boonchuy #amphibia finale

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el-tur-el · 1 month

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As I'm chipping away at this Zevlor fic, I thought it would be fun to give you a little glimpse behind the curtain of my creative process. (Nobody asked for this, I'm well aware, but I like talking about the how of things.)

There's a very specific ambience I'm trying to capture with this piece; heady, romantic, and intensely sincere in that bluegrass folksy indie type of way. At least some people will understand what I'm trying to say, I hope.

A lot of my writing relies on ambience while I'm piecing things together. I'm listening to a lot of folk music (specifically a revived version of the now long dead Spotify 'sexy as folk' playlist), and a lot of stuff with heavy string instrument usage. Cello and violin are playing a big part in the setup of all of this for me - I don't really have the words to explain why it feels right for Zevlor's character, it just kind of does. Classical with a modern edge, devotion with all of the intensity of an orchestral swell.

Expect the fic late this evening. I am still sick, and trying to wade through my porridge brain to get this done has been a surprisingly refreshing challenge! I'm literally too tired to be overly-critical of everything I'm putting down on the page, and it's letting me be a lot more free with my prose.

#shut up t #zevlor x tav #zevlor bg3

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bugeyedfreaks · 7 months

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Hi, hello! I have something to say.

For the fandom and the rowdyruff boys. I went through your page and found myself agreeing hardcore with a lot of your opinions about the fandom and ppgxrrb.

First of all, I have absolutely no idea of who came up with Butch growing up to be a massive pervert. Going off the show, wouldn't technically all three of the boys be massive perverts? They are all misogynistic slime balls who see girls as inferior.

Some things I think the fandom gets right; the boys are pretty. at least cute. For two reasons, 1; they are splitting images of the girls, so if the boys are ugly then so are the girls. 2, canonically, Bubbles has admitted that she finds Boomer "cute." Also despite the ass kicking handed to the girls in the first appearance of the rrb, Blossom and Bubbles fawn at the prospect of having kissed a boy.

Then again they kissed Harry.

Also, I think a good argument is kid rrb IS cute, but they get that sort of golden child treatment where all 3 of them just eventually end up burning out. They don't care to keep up with themselves and with how gross and mysoginistic they are, they become very unattractive very quickly. They rot, basically. Also if they were discord mods, they'd have kittens they brag their rrb title too.

I will also argue that there is nuance in the boys. Boomer atleast, which is funny because he is the least popular rrb. There are many instances where he is depicted as "naive", "child like" and even "gentle." Like yeah, he was the guy who wrote "Flowers are pretty... dumb" but when he was revived from Him, he was waving at butterflies and being taken advantage of by his brothers. If you wanna go deeper, in the comic the boys actually team up with the girls in one instance.

Still, I see the rowdyruff boys in the same vein as the gang green gang. It's like trying to defend Billy because he has that one episode where he saves the girls after setting them up, but it's like people forget that the girls still had to pummel him because... in the grand scheme of things, the guy is a shitty person! The rrb suffer from major pretty privellege and being the hetero counterparts of the girls, age included. Forget all the other side characters like Elmer, Mitch, Robin even mike! No the gorls grow up to want the boys because, 'they can change them!' Oh my gosh Bubbles suffers drastically from this.

And "the reds" are so toxic it's sad. It's like every fic with them is angsty and incredibly shallow. I never get why Blossom spends so much time running back to Brick. Oh yeah! It's because he's so big and hot now, with fiery red hair and a masculine jaw line, and is cunning and calculative and he suffers from severe mommy issues. He needs a woman like Blossom to show him how much of a prick he is! To put him in his place and tell other women off who have interest in him, because how could a woman lower her standards so much for a punk, Blossom would never (#FEMINISM). Then arranging "private visits" with him so they can make out and talk about how arrogant they both are because "ooh. We're so bad for each other but it feels soooo good. So deep. so bad."

I love how the fandom pretends Blossom is above it all, but still some how succumbs to him. "She can fix him guys! No really! We just have to make Blossom into an absolute self-contradicting prude and have Brick loosen up because... convenience!"

And people seriously bend the hell out of Butch to get him to work with Buttercup, more than 90% of the fics basically make him into a Mitch stand in with powers but this one is hotter2.0. bUTCH LITERALLY HAS NO CHARACTER AND HONESTLY, Buttercup has been repulsed by him many times. She'd yeet that guy so fast, and yet, somehow, the greens are the most popular couple I CAN NOOOOOOOOOT. Like how... really. Why does Butch get so much fanon development? The fandom tries so hard to make him into this character he simply is not! Like even going to the city of clipsville episode, the most salacious thing the fucker has done is "looked at a magazine and whistled!" But like how come Buttercup is so smitten by this that she never, once, snaps out of her "attraction" to the guy? Was this not the same issue Buttercup suffered from ACE.

Wouldn't the idea of being taken advantage of by a villain, turn Buttercup off!?

I just can not imagine Buttercup tolerating Butch- unless he is super hot now and she's internally attracted to him, because nobody gets her like this deprived fuck boy who is misunderstood, and actually a romantic guy who cares about her under it all and blood thirsty- excpet when Buttercup is around, because Buttercup can fix him and "he knows not to mess with her!"

It was so funny seeing the push back for the cw's take, when literally reading that script reminded me of all the fanfics I have had to dig through for YEARS now. I was just thinking "but isn't this what you guys WANT?" And some people were even fretting that it'd attract unwanted parts of society to the fandom. Um. I don't know if the ppg fandom is aware of this, but the fandom is already FLOODED with unwated fans, from fetish artists, to those Pintresest face claim boards that remind me of RIVERDALE, the games have already started!

That one slip of a comic, that was supposed to be a joke, of the boys handing the girls flowers and asking to be their boyfriends is way too meta.

Oh, wow, I didn’t know a lot about how some of the pairings are portrayed (obviously, since I don’t really explore that side of the fandom often) but… well, some of that certainly gave me psychic damage, especially the Blossom stuff. 🤢 I can’t even begin to express the pain I felt from reading all of that but this is the closest I can attempt to describe it with:

I agree that all of the boys would be huge pervs, but I think Butch at least being the perviest would track. If, being Buttercup’s counterpart, he also expresses extremes in his primal emotions, that would just be another primal emotion he’d express to the extreme. Just in super gross ways no girl would ever find appealing.

As for Billy, I will sort of defend him because, out of the entire gang, he has a peanut brain (affectionate), and I think, without the influence of the other guys, he would be a good boy. He still definitely needed to get punished for what he did to the girls though. 🤣 But yeah, I think the main difference between the GGG and the RRB is that, if separated, the GGG could… potentially… be good, and have been shown to have varied nuance, whereas the RRB are Pure Evil and Like That no matter what, and there’s like 100% less nuance to them.

But you’re so right about the CW thing, it really did feel a bit like the kind of stuff people have been writing for years. Also, yeah, wow, despite PPG fandom being rather fractured, it has unfortunately already suffered from a lot of, to put it politely, unpleasantness. If “unwanted” fans flooded in… well, what else is new? 😮‍💨

…man, there was a lot here, and I appreciate it all, and agree with a lot of it. Thank you for the ask! 💖

#also lol yes that comic is so perfect isn’t it?#haunting-song showed it to me and I was like #YEP #😆#oh ALSO boomer did not write the flowers thing #that was bubbles in disguise

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