#lol that tangential opinion really got away from me
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Hi! Love the blog, it’s great to revel in everything Bleach! I have two questions that have been plaguing me since I reread the manga in the past few months, and I was hoping you (or your followers) could help me. Spoilers for TYBW below!
What did Aizen (or his henchmen) take from Matsumoto for Gin to go to such lengths to avenge her?
And, spoiler:
What happened to Yachiru in the TYBW-arc? Was she the embodiment of Zaraki’s zanpakuto in the end?
Thank you!
We’re glad you’re enjoying the blog! <3
The Matsumoto question is so funny to me, because that’s a topic I’ve seen people discuss with absolute certitude what was taken and what the outcomes would be, and I have always confused because none of it was at all the impression I’d come away with. And I was like, damn, what did I miss??? How could I do you so wrong, Matsumoto, my baby girl, one of my very top blorbos??
The “funny” part comes from me immediately thinking “maybe we have fundamentally different assumptions about the nature of the soul” instead of thinking the MUCH MORE LIKELY, NORMAL, AND CORRECT thing, which is “oh, they read CFYOW and I haven’t.”
Because the version of this discussion I tend see is:
Aizen took a part of Matsumoto’s soul
—> which means she is missing part of her soul
—> which means she’ll probably never be able to achieve bankai
—> ultimate tragedy
I don’t get this train of logic. I don’t mean that as like, a “rawr they’re so wrong and I’m so right” thing. It’s just an interpretation so far beyond my ken my brain short circuits and I quietly let what meager thoughts I do have fall from my head, and then I forget about them.
Below the cut, 12 paragraphs of tangential talk of souls and bankai, and 4 paragraphs directly addressing the questions in the ask. Feel free to scroll to the bottom for those!
I BELIEVE the CFYOW connection here is Aizen explaining bits of Soul King (in Matsumoto’s case, a Nail) found their way into a bunch of people’s souls, and Aizen took it out of Matsumoto and fed it to his Hougyoku. Something something Fullbringers, too, but I’m not the person to ask about this because in addition to not having read CFYOW, I am also not personally interested in the Soul King or the Hougyoku or the Fullbringers. But this CFYOW info does make other people’s discussions of this make a lot more sense to me!!
All the same, the reason my brain jumped to “different interpretations of the nature of the soul!” is because I don’t think I can personally conceptualize “missing” a *part* of a soul? In my mind, a soul is a soul or it’s not; there’s no decimals involved. Why I’d have this mentally locked in, of all things, I don’t know. I’m not a theist IRL, but apparently this is just How Fictional Souls work.
In my mind, a soul is like a worm, or a liver. Cut out a part of it, and it just keeps worming, or liver-ing, and its state of being and function are basically unchanged. You can’t have <I>part</I> of a soul; it’s either a soul or it’s not. The thing that got cut off is a shed item that has no definition. (Maybe what I actually have a strong opinion about is Matsumoto being a full, self-actualized, undiminished person, irrespective of her traumas.)
As far as Bleach goes, I don’t think we’ve had any canon mentions of souls that don’t exist as whole integrals (e.g. Pluses or Minuses). I mean, Fracciones, LOL, but that’s not really… those are not what I am talking about. XDD And the aforementioned Soul King body parts, but Soul King gonna Soul King. We’ve seen souls dissipate into motes, but I feel like that’s a transition from being a soul into being reishi motes that are Not Soul that will probably reconstitute into some other soul at some later point. The notion of giving someone your shinigami power and why that’s so illegal might factor in here, but those mechanics seem different, too.
There are lots of different interpretations of the nature of the soul, of course, and entire theologies dedicated to these questions. But I think the soul interpretation I like the best and that I think tracks with what we know about zanapakutou is that a soul is not a rigid, singular thing. It’s more a fluid series of occurrences and experiences bound together relationally, which I feel like tracks with the development of a shinigami’s relationship to their zanapakutou; there’s some base that you need to hear the name of, or some extant entity you need to come to understand, but beyond that your bankai (and to be honest, probably the higher-level development of your shikai) is going to be created of your experiences and desires and values and all these things that area part of your wily and ever-shifting but irreducible soul fabric.
Again, that’s just me and what I think is most interesting to think about. Of all the things that could have umpteen different interpretations, I think souls are high on the list!
But thinking about the whole bankai discussion I see sometimes, here’s why it’s just not something I think about in that way:
1) Everyone we know and their hamster has bankai, sure, but I think one of the big schisms between our perception of this world as readers and the lived experience of shinigami in this world is that bankai is incredibly rare, a largely unknown quantity, and probably not something the average denizen of Soul Society or even Joe Shinigami thinks a lot about in their day-to-day. Bankai is the exception, not the expectation.
Most shinigami don’t even have *shikai* and even people like Iemura, who as afar as we’ve seen is basically useless, is a cream of the crop shinigami, skill-wise. Unless you’re Ichigo being bullied into achieving bankai in three days (or Hisagi also being bullied into bankai for some Kensei reason), I feel like shinigami don’t go around thinking “this is why you don’t have bankai” because no one really expects that’s something to expect to be able to achieve. It’d be like going around thinking, “What part of my soul is missing that I can’t win a Nobel Prize?”
2) Maybe I’m just a bad Bleach fan, but I don’t really see a lot of value in achieving bankai, anyway. I mean, for the self-actualization, absolutely! But there is more than one route to self-actualization and I don’t think that not having bankai bars you from other routes. Bankai is a perfect storm of aptitudes and training and self-sorting, not an end-all. If it’s not in your practice, it’s not in your practice. I don’t feel like it’s the Soul Society equivalent of becoming a Pokemon Master, where it’s every ten-year old’s dream, a thing that’s purportedly normal and reasonable to want and achieve.
That reality is important to me, because I feel like it marks the distance between what is highlighted in our experience of Bleach as a plot-driven narrative and the Joe Shinigami experience of mulling about in the background, and that kind of thing really tickles me. Love it.
Okay, Matsumoto’s definitely not a background character. But even for VCs! Most PhDs don’t strive for MacArthur Genius Awards, and the implication isn’t that you’re unambitious or a deficient scholar if you never earn one. I dunno. I understand the trauma/tragedy of having bankai stolen, as in TYBW. What a mindfuck! D: But I don’t respond to “never having achieved bankai” in the same way.
But that’s all a huge tangent!
What did Aizen take from Matsumoto, for Gin to go to such lengths to avenge her?
For me, the question isn’t “what” did he take; what was this important thing. I think it’s the act of taking—the audacity of feeling justified and empowered to do so. To use the souls of Rukongai for one’s own end, as though they are a resource and not a people.
What happened to Yachiru in the TYBW-arc?
Lots of interpretations here, as well. I’ll share what has always been my perception. Yachiru has always seemed, to me, an entity unto herself. “Child-like,” to a degree, but also nothing like a child, and not treated as a child. But also not treated as other shinigami—there seems to be some understanding that she is an entity unto herself. Don’t question it, just work with it. Which, for all the Gotei’s failures, is something they’re actually pretty good at. They know Yachiru is not really the normative shinigami, but she’s Yachiru, and they’re rolling with it. The same goes for Nemu.
She’s probably one of those things that I mentioned above, for which there is no real definition or designation, because she exists outside of the matrix. She is not a soul; she is not a sword; yet she is also both of those things. Yeah, I think she’s part of Zaraki’s sword, but not in ways that are equivalent to the Zabimaru spirit Renji speaks to in the Soul Society arc; or to dragon-Hyourinmaru, or to the humanoid Zanpakutou spirits in the Zanpakutou Rebellion Arc.
She is Yachiru.
#NB: i wrote the first part of this ask in february while Going Through It and have opted to just post-it as is#because i didn't want to think about february anymore and decided i would prefer to live with the dust and mess of this response instead#apologies for the long response time!#matsumoto rangiku#kusajishi yachiru#no brain just bleach#asks#holy shoot i fixed a typo and tumblr changed where the cut in this post was! sorry about that. it's fixed now and much shorter b4 the cut
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Thank you @yespolkadotkitty for tagging me 😘
Name: Mary
Fandoms: Currently, pretty much just the Pedro Pascal Cinematic Universe, though I also seek out and read fics for lots of other movies and shows I watch. I used to write fic in a couple of other fandoms like... a decade ago.
Most popular oneshot: On tumblr it’s When I Think About You (bodyguard!Javi). On AO3 it’s You’re In Your Own Way Again (Din/Omera sappy lovemaking).
Most popular multichapter: I don’t exactly consider any of my fics multichapter because I’ve never gone into a fic with the intention of making it something other than a oneshot. But there have been a handful where I’ve liked the concept enough to follow up with more. On AO3 the most popular are my two Din/Paz fics.
Actual worst part of writing: Writer’s block. When you want to write but the words won’t come and it feels like they never will. Miserable.
How you choose your titles: lol oh I take it back--choosing titles is the worst part of writing 😂 Usually I take them from a song lyric or saying/phrase that feels on theme.
Do you outline: Ummmm no not really. At least not in the sense of sitting down and writing out, this happens and then this happens and then this, before starting the draft. Sometimes midway through a draft I either get stuck or don’t have time to write properly, and I switch to a rougher, stream of consciousness format just to get the shape down before cleaning it up/filling it out later.
Ideas I probably won’t get around to, but wouldn’t it be nice?: I feel like my mind just went blank, lol. I don’t really want to write off any ideas as “I probably won’t get around to” them but it’s more like, they are just the vaguest glimmer of an idea that either I’m not equipped to write or aren’t fleshed out enough to really be something so instead I just talk about them at length in DMs with friends. These include Edwardian space gigolo!Ezra and an enemies-to-lovers fic featuring Marcus Pike and the rival college classmate-turned-international-art-thief who he chases down only to fall in love with (this one is co-owned by @pedropascallion) (also actually I really do want to write that one). Most of my other ideas I am still fooling myself into thinking I actually will get around to some day.
Callouts @ Me: Why so many babyfics???? Why is everything so soft and sappy? Whennnnn are you going to explore your characters’ darker sides?
Best writing traits: Ooh, I don’t know. Self-analysis makes me uncomfortable. I really like focusing on detail and small expressions of intimacy, I guess.
Spicy Tangential Opinion: People should stop apologizing for their writing. Authors’ notes should never include “this isn’t very good but I hope you like it anyway” or anything to that effect. If you don’t like your writing enough to share, keep working on it before you post it! If you do want to share it, don’t hedge and try to cover for it by telling people you don’t think it’s any good, just let it be. If there is something specific you’re unsure about and want people’s opinion on, name it (e.g., “I’m not sure if the dialogue flows smoothly in this one, I would love to hear feedback about that!”) But I think there is some psychological defensiveness at play here where people feel presumptuous for imagining that anyone would want to read their writing and they try to protect themselves from external judgment by being the first to say: of course no one will want to read this, it’s terrible, I already know that. I find the best strategy to avoid letting those feelings overtake you is to A) remember that this whole thing is meant to be FUN, and that should be your focus, and B) find one person who you think actually will connect with and enjoy your writing, and let yourself care about their reaction but nobody else’s. If you imagine your target audience to be super small (just yourself, or just a few friends), it takes the pressure off of trying to write something that everybody in the world will love.
tagging some other people if they want to do this meme: @keeper0fthestars, @fleetwoodmac-tshirt, @pedropascallion
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Fic Writer Interview
@kurikaesu-haru tagged me! fun!!!
name: theworldunseen on Ao3
fandoms i write for: basically just jb, but i keep playing with writing a little Rebecca/Keeley Ted Lasso fic...
one-shot: Cruel Summer is the fan favorite oneshot, but obvious reasons. Send your thanks to Taylor Swift. I'm also fond of the Gilmore Girls-inspired Christmas one.
two-shot: the only two-shot i have is from 2017, when i wasn't even really in fandom! it's not ground breaking lol
most popular multi-chapter: far and away it is All Choked Up, which...I am grateful to this fic as the thing that got me into fandom and convinced me that I could write fiction and people would enjoy it! But I would change a lot of things now, and I'm sure it's only as popular as it is because I was updating while season eight aired.
actual worst part of writing: describing actions?? if i could, every fic would be a nora ephron movie of people eating dinner and discussing their feelings.
how you choose your chapter titles: almost always songs that i was listening to when writing. I Owe It All To You they were from the songs they danced to in the chapter.
do you outline: very vaguely?? like i might write the beats down as: "arguing, kissing, more arguing, break up, sad convo" or something, but not in any detail
ideas I probably won’t get around to but wouldn’t it be nice: will i ever finish my survivor au? u will not believe how close to done it is lol
callouts @ me: there was that one person who was pissed i wrote a fic where brienne had an abortion but everyone came to my defense which was very nice. and they were wrong so. who cares!
best writing traits: little quips! dialogue!
spicy tangential opinion(s):
too many people are obsessed with writing/reading a very flat, easily evil cersei. i'd rather not include her or barely include her instead of making her very comically and transparently mean
brienne is not confident about the way she looks but she is VERY confident about other things and i hate when that's not true in fic
i don't think brienne would be sexually dominant unless she and jaime had been in a relationship an extremely long time and gotten comfortable!!
Tagging: idk who did this already but if u didn't, do it!!
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So just out of curiosity, what inspired the whole Beacon Bay idea? What kind of sharks and dolphins are they? This entire thing is very intriguing to me and I can't wait to see more.
So first off, anyone who’s ever played soundingboard to my original stuff like Moukie or Adam can attest to the fact that I’m ocean obsessed, so there’s pretty much nothing I’m interested in that isn’t a mere two or three steps removed from an ocean/merfolk/sea witch AU in my head. Gimme anything and like, five minutes, and I can make it ocean themed. Space operas included. I grew up near the ocean, been surfing for ages though of course I haven’t in years, blah, but like. I’m a big fan of the deep blue sea. Its just....neat. ghaskfhalkfhla
So I’ve always had a bunch of ocean-set concepts. This particular AU came about from like, smashing a couple of them together to preserve them when my plans for doing original stuff with them fizzled out, at least for the time being. Cuz the other thing about me is the way some people like, take their fanfic and file off the serial numbers to turn it into original novels, I more often do the reverse, lmao. When I have something I can no longer do something with original-content-wise, for whatever reason, but I still like the idea, I turn it into fanfic so I can still play around with it whenever I want and like, have purpose to that, so I don’t feel like I’m wasting time by still ‘indulging’ in that concept or whatever.
Like my Batfandom fic By Lost Ways, as I’ve mentioned before....that actually started out as an original high fantasy novel set in my ‘Tales of the Citadel’ shared universe. BUT the setting ended up being similar enough to a sci-fi project I wanted I to move forward with, ‘Waveriders’ (the one with the sky pirates and the ATLA-style benders only instead of evoking the four classical elements, waveriders could each ‘hack’ a different kind of wavelength, that one) like....basically, the projects FELT similar enough in setting and various superficial elements that I started to feel derivative of myself moving forward with both, so I picked Waveriders and then recycled the setting and a lot of the plot of the sky-set fantasy novel for fanfic, just for fun.
Same thing here, though Beacon Bay is basically the mash-up of two different shelved original projects. Basically, its the plot of a CW-style show about teen sirens and the sea witch making like the Fagin to their Oliver Twists, from a pilot I wrote years ago.....it got some interest but I refused to make it less gay because lol have you met me, so it ultimately never went anywhere but I still liked the plot.
And then remember the werewolf books I mentioned awhile back, that had the mongoose shifters in them? LOL. Yeah, so I’d written two and a half novels in that series and had this whole expansive worldbuilding of twelve different shifter clans each with their own innate magic, patron deity/creator, etc, but all my agent and editor contacts at the time were like yeah sorry, shifters are over for now, and I was like wow, can’t believe cancel culture’s real and publishing cancelled werewolves, wtf, rude, and then I was like eh, still wanna play in this universe especially with the dolphins and shark shifters which I never even really got to in those books, so I’m just gonna air-lift them out of that and drop them smack in the middle of my CW siren plot and fanfic away to my heart’s content and call that ‘being productive’ when I feel like it.
Anyway, found family was a big theme of those books and the world-building I did there in general, because again, have you met me, I’m not predictable or anything (shhh, the word is consistent), and one of my initial things there was I wanted the various shifter types to all have innate magic, because for literally no real reason that I can discern other than Whimsy, I have always been Team Werewolf in vampires vs werewolves, and I was tired of werewolves always being by default the underdogs in those narratives. Even if that does make for a good pun.
SO, I wanted to come up with werewolf magic that felt natural and organic to werewolves, like nothing too flashy or obscure, but that would make them a legitimate threat even to other supernatural creatures. And I made it so each of the shifter types were granted an active and a passive magic by the god that created their type of shifter, and with werewolves, their active magic was that of the pack gestalt. I took the idea of ‘their whole is greater than the sum of their parts’ that TW kinda briefly touched on when presenting (but never really doing much with) the idea that the more wolves in a pack, the stronger that pack was.....and I decided okay what if being part of a pack upped stats all across the board AND all shifters have a SLIGHT innate resistance to magic, being innately magical beings themselves?
So a werewolf pack, with enough pack members, would thus not only be formidable in strength, speed, senses and speed of healing....but compound that innate shifter resistance to magic, which in a single shifter is negligible, like, just enough to make them slightly harder to track with magic or curse or whatever.....but in a whole werewolf pack, that adds up to make the pack effectively immune to foreign magic. Vampires can’t compel them, demons can’t possess them, witches can’t curse them, etc. So a lone werewolf, not part of a pack, is formidable, but nothing another supernatural being can’t take on. But a lone werewolf who IS part of a pack....different story entirely, because now most other supernatural beings, no matter what their USUAL strengths, are reduced to taking on that werewolf hand to hand, as their own supernatural gifts or spells or whatever, like, aren’t gonna do them any good against these particular foes. And werewolves are USED to fighting with just brute physical strength and attributes, which gives them the edge against opponents who are more used to being able to fall back on magic in battle.
But as much as I like sticking to a theme, I like to diversify that theme where possible, so when it came to the other shifter types, I wanted to similarly come up with ways where ‘the whole would be greater than the sum of their parts’ but in like, entirely different ways.
So with dolphin shifters, their ‘passive magic’ (in quotes cuz that’s not quite the right word for it but whatever) is that they’re all empaths, with their more active magic being weather manipulation. Their empathy is a two-way street....they project emotions as well as just feel other peoples’, which ties into the fact that their patron deity was Dionysus. Dolphin parties....legendary. But in an extremely wild, dangerous and Bacchanalian kinda way. In terms of Beacon Bay specifically, this is a bit of a problem for the BB dolphins, as the closest thing they had to an official Triton (the dolphin shifter version of an Alpha) was Peter, but they were like nope, not loving this guy, and kinda drove him out of town in the AU S1 backstory of this ‘verse, which means Scott and the others are kinda just making it up as they go along, and don’t really know the ins and outs of BEING dolphin shifters. (Derek is....elsewhere, in this. Mostly).
So bottom line is they have reputations around school for being loud obnoxious goofs and trouble-makers, constantly playing hooky and such, but its because they don’t really know HOW to safeguard against spilling their emotions onto everyone around them so they try and err on the side of being the life of the party whenever possible, as that’s better than the alternatives in their opinion. And when they’re just having bad days and bumming hard, the whole pod will just skip school and glomp around the bumming pod member whilst self-caring, rather than like, accidentally bum out the entire school.
But their weather manipulation magic is where the gestalt idea comes into play with them, as I love weather manipulating powers, but I didn’t want to make them all Ororo Munroe, y’know? Only Ororo Munroe can be Ororo Munroe. Don’t make me scoff. I’ll do it. I’ll scoff so hard. SO I went with the idea of weather control married to manipulating storms via song and was like, okay what if a dolphin pod is like, a symphony of shifters.
Basically, its like each individual dolphin shifter is a single voice in a chorus, and there’s magical equivalents of being a baritone, an alto, etc. Like, none of them can whip up a storm on their own. Its more that each of them can summon or conjure a PIECE of a storm with their song, with it being different for each of them....symptomatic of their magic as an expression of them as an individual. So for instance, Scott’s song is ‘tuned’ to lightning. He can call down a bolt of lightning from a clear blue sky.....but he can’t summon so much as a drop of rain to save his life. Literally. Its an actual plot point at one point. Whereas Isaac’s song is all about calling down rain, Boyd’s is more of an arctic wind, and Erica’s kinda summons a pressure front that in harmony with the two of theirs can whip up a mean waterspout. And then Corey’s all about conjuring fog banks with low visibility while Liam can whistle up a strong, gale-force wind but sucks at using his song as a precision instrument. Etc, etc. But the real magic is when they all use their voices and magic in concert....as a group, they can summon huge magical thunderstorms.
Also, one thing I love about using different kinds of shifters is the opportunity to explore enhanced supernatural senses that aren’t just keen sight, smell or hearing. So the dolphin shifters aren’t like wolf shifters in being able to detect chemosignals or anything like that....in fact, their sense of smell isn’t much different from anyone else’s. But they do have an ability to use what’s effectively supernatural echolocation even above water, and their sight is adapted for optimal viewing underwater, making them particularly good at seeing in the darkness even on land.
(Also, related but somewhat tangential to both the shifter senses and dolphin ‘voices’....all dolphin shifters have a strong talent for mimicry, but this isn’t technically a form of magic, more just a combination of their control over their voice and their keen senses of pitch, etc).
The shark shifters, on the other hand, have some of the keenest senses of all shifters. Not only is their sense of smell even better than a werewolf’s, they’re sensitive to changes in pressure, for one thing. Which means on land, they can even feel changes in atmospheric pressure.....so like, the shark shifters of Beacon Bay could be in math class and then ‘feel’ a sudden drop in air pressure and thus even before some strange weather phenomenon occurs, they’re groaning like ugh fucking A, what the hell did the damn dolphins do now.
Also, their magnetic field perception is such that they can kinda ‘sense’ when people are around, just by being aware of the approaching magnetic field of another living being.
And then with the sharks, I was looking for ways to lean into the associations we have with sharks and blood, but subvert them to be less macabre and more communal. And another big theme of mine in general is like, I am DETERMINED to go to my grave shouting at the top of my lungs “Its THE BLOOD OF THE COVENANT IS THICKER THAN THE WATER OF THE WOMB, NOT BLOOD IS THICKER THAN WATER, HOW DID PEOPLE GET THAT SO BACKWARDS ITS SUPPOSED TO BE THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF HOW ITS USUALLY STATED!”
Like, that’s just...HUGE pet peeve of mine. Its like nails on a chalkboard, lmfao, that drives me nuts. That phrase is usually cited by people using it to express like, the idea that there’s no greater force than family, specifically BIOLOGICAL, ‘blood’ relations, but its literally meant to be the exact opposite, that the blood of CHOSEN bonds, of covenants, of vows or promises, is a greater force than the water of the womb, ie being born of the same womb, as in biological siblings. The entire point of the phrase is biology ain’t shit, family is what we choose. And somehow it got turned ENTIRELY around.
(Note: Okay, so for the record, its not ‘somehow’, there’s actually a very clear reason for why that particular interpretation gained so much momentum, and that’s because for a long time it was conflated with an old German proverb from like a thousand years ago that basically translates to “kin-blood is not spoiled by water.” Which basically was meant to mean that nothing can ‘dilute’ blood relations, not time, not distance, not water. So that phrase DOES correspond to the idea that ‘blood is thicker than water.’ Problem is, there isn’t a direct trace from that particular proverb TO most USAGES of ‘blood is thicker than water,’ which when you throw in the OTHER phrase, which in its entirety is “the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb,” what you end up with is a lot of people SAYING that one when they actually MEAN to say ‘kin-blood is not spoiled by water’ and that’s where the meanings get switched. But I fucking digress. Per usual).
Anyway. So combine that particular pet peeve with my found family fixation AND the fact that this is about magic and magic means I can do whatever the hell I want, fuck your biological connections mwahahaha.....I decided to base shark magic on the idea of the blood-ties of family....but CHOSEN blood-ties, as in blood of the covenant ties.
What I mean is okay, so it first of all just made sense to me to have shark shifter communities be heavily focused around adoption, because like....let’s be real, shark shifters going around biting people to change them into shifters, and then people magically healing from....shark bites....was going to attract a lot more attention than people turning after being attacked by other types of shifters. Not to mention the fact that not only are shark attacks always big news, part of why they’re big news is because they’re actually pretty rare.
So, shark shifter communities were never really gonna propagate via lots of random shark shifter attacks turning people. So the way they DO expand and grow is by, well, family. Both biological AND adoption...as well as of course shark shifter communities taking in people who ARE attacked by rogue shark shifters, when that does happen.
But bottom line is, there’s an additional element in play in shark shifter communities, beyond just the gene pool....and that’s like, a magical tidepool of talents, let’s call it. Because I do love me some alliteration. But also tidepool of talents is just a cool phrase, IMO.
Anyway, the main part of shark shifter magic, and how THEIR whole is greater than the sum of their parts, is that any shark shifter can draw upon or channel the talents, skillsets or knowledge of anyone else in their communal family. And whenever that family gets added to, the talents, skillsets and knowledge of the new addition gets added to the pot, so to speak. So shark shifters are kinda all like Rogue, if Rogue’s focus was less on the superpowers of other people and more on things like Beast’s scientific knowledge, Cyclops’ strategic skills or Cable’s weapons expertise.
And then their ‘passive magic’ is a form of psychometry whenever they come into contact with blood. By touching even just a drop of someone’s blood, they can get a vision of how that blood was spilled or even get a sense of where the person who spilled it is now.
As to the types of sharks and dolphins they all are, for that I went with the thing about the shape you take reflects the person you are.....all the shifters here are full shifters, and there’s no genetic component to their shifting, its purely magical, so like....just because Peter turned the various dolphins of BB doesn’t mean they all turn into the same kind of dolphin he was. In fact, I don’t even know what kind of dolphin he was on account of I don’t really care tbh, lol. Whereas Erica’s an Atlantic spotted dolphin, Liam’s a pygmy killer whale which looks like an orca just tiny in comparison and is actually a dolphin, and I found that combination of factors hilarious, etc, etc.
Same thing with the shark shifters. Even among biological relations, there’s a ton of variety of shark types. Like the twins aren’t even the same type...Ethan’s a blue shark and Aiden’s a bull shark, Tracy’s a tiger shark and Hayden’s an angel shark. Danny’s actually a throwback to an unnamed prehistoric shark, not Megalodon big but big enough to shut up Jackson when he goes on about being a great white shark. Shark and crocodile shifters are the two oldest shifter clans, old enough that literal dinosaurs fall under the umbrella of their shifter type, and thus occasionally show up even in modern generations.
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Fic Writer Meme
Got tagged by the lovely and wonderful @defira85 to do this! So here I am!
Name
Fandoms
Most popular oneshot
Most popular multichapter
Actual worst part of writing
How you choose your titles
Do you outline
Ideas I probably won’t get around to, but wouldn’t it be nice?
Callouts @ Me
Best writing traits
Spicy Tangential Opinion
Name: Bekah, thegingerjedi on tumblr, SennyriNamis23 on just about every other platform. Sennyri Namis is the name of my Jedi Exile from KOTOR 2, and she’s just stuck with me ever since haha
Fandoms: I mean this very, VERY loosely. I write for franchises that I like and that inspire me, but generally speaking, I very rarely actually interact with The Fandom(TM) of anything. That being said, I write mostly for Star Wars (generally for the mmo, The Old Republic, and for KOTOR 2), but in the last year or so I’ve also been writing a bit for Dragon Age Inquisition. I’ve written a number of unpublished wish-fulfillment drabbles for the Witcher and the visual novel, When the Night Comes, as well.
Most Popular Oneshot: hold on, lemme bring up ao3... oh look at that, apparently it’s The Battle of Khoonda. The first fic I ever published online lol. It’s not really a true one-shot, but it’s just one chapter so that’s close enough. I’m not very good at just one scene haha
Most Popular Multichapter: This is apparently far and away A League of Extraordinary Women, which is my attempt to explain what happens in the five year gap between chapters 1 and 3 of KOTFE. I wrangle a cast of about a thousand and tbh I’m pretty proud of it. It was supposed to be one of four fics to go through KOTFE, KOTET, and after, but I got to chapter 11 of the second installment and petered out. Oops.
Actual Worst Part of Writing: Connecting the scenes I actually want to write. (Most of the time, I just don’t, but sometimes it’s necessary and when it is, I agonize over it)
How You Choose Your Titles: Oh it depends. Sometimes it’s song lyrics/titles, sometimes it’s whim, sometimes I start with a title in a moment of inspiration. So. Sorry, I have no advice for anyone.
Do You Outline: Generally, yes. Though I’ve also found that if I outline everything really in-depth, I’m far less likely to actually write the damn thing. It’s a delicate balance haha
Ideas You Probably Won’t Get Around To, But Wouldn’t It Be Nice?: Oh I daydream constantly about what Dorian and Ellior get up to after Trespasser in their romps around Tevinter, but I know anything I write will immediately be wrong when DA4 eventually comes out, so I just sit here in my own thoughts with a blank doc open hahahaha
Callouts @ Me: Just publish the shit, you coward. Also stop posting at 10 am EST no one is awake to read it.
Best Writing Traits: I really love creating characters with interesting backstories and personalities. I get really attached to them and I think that love is really obvious when I write, even if the character is a bad person haha. I am extremely bad at writing accents, but I think the ‘voices’ of my characters really shine through in my writing.
Spicy Tangential Opinion: I feel like I should have something here about writing for yourself and not for anyone else, but goddamn am I bad at that. I live off the validation of a comment on a fic, particularly if I don’t even know the person and they just genuinely like the thing I made. That’s not even spicy but it’s all I got other than the normal Spicy Opinion of interacting with The Fandom(TM) is not worth it. Curate your online experiences. Don’t hate-read. Don’t hate-blog, either. Just be chill, aight?
Uhhh I think Kirsty tagged most folks I know who write, but let’s also tag @hoiist and @merrybandofmurderers and @aearyn and anyone else who wants to it! Please implicate me and tag me as the one who told you to do it!
#the ginger speaks#long post#about the ginger#is that a tag i use???#who knows#certainly not me; the creator and curator of this blog#the ginger writes
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A Fanfic Writer Interview
tagged by @mandaloria314 💕
Name: Remington
Fandoms: The Mandalorian/Star Wars, previously wrote a lot of red dead redemption stuff
Two-shot: i've really only got oneshots or multi-chaptered works. i've considered doing dual multi-chapters though, each focusing on the pov of the other character, but that'd take a long time tbh!
Most popular multichapter: while there is still time, my bobadin fic- pride and joy. just a chapter away from finishing it.
Actual worst part of writing: probably the process of editing. it's so hard to just prune your own work, especially if you really like it but you know it'll be a better read if you cut parts out.
How you choose your titles: i often use snippets of poetry. i used to use a lot more lyrics than i do now, but lately i've preferred poetry references in titles! occasionally i've come across a phrase that just stuck, though. it's a total roll of the dice.
Do you outline: yeah, loosely. i make outlines in vague ways- mostly a mixture of specific scenes i want to happen, sentences i want people to say, important events, so on. and i really don't care if i look at it one day and say 'this doesn't work anymore', i'll just throw it out and re-outline.
Ideas I probably won’t get around to, but wouldn’t it be nice?: um, i'd like to write boba coming across finn as a child and taking him under his wing, teaching him all he knows, trying to be a good father figure. something with mace teaching depa about meditation. i'd love to write the better bo-katan and satine conflict that exists in my mind, and actually explore their estrangement, their motivations, their flaws, with both as villains tbh. i'd love to write something with saw/rex, as well, and i've got a little story in my mind with some forbidden love energy to it but we'll have to see how it goes lol.
Callouts @ me: you're so unpredictable! no schedule at all! get it together, man. have a set time every day that you want to write. have a plan! stick with it!
Best writing traits: i've heard i'm good at characterization? it's hard for me to think that about my own writing but people have told me so so i'm choosing to believe it. i love character work and exploring their motivations and feelings.
Spicy tangential opinion: comments mean the world and honestly are 90% of my motivation to keep writing. sometimes when you get to a point in a chapter where you just can't look at it anymore you've just gotta take a deep breath and post it. um, it really sucks when your works that you're proudest of happen to be those with the least engagement; if there's a writer you like and you see an under-read or under-kudos'd fic on their page, check it out! you never know how much it might mean to someone.
No pressure tagging: @meer-licht, @transfetts, @tarrevizsla uhhh, anyone else who wants to : )
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What are your thoughts on Sansa becoming queen in the north?
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I know you said you were gonna shut your mouth about Sansa but I've been dying to know what you think of her queen in the north moment T_T
*deep breath*
okay guys I waited a few days to see if my feelings somehow mellowed, if anything the contrary happened so at this point I’ll just go with it.
premise: book!sansa is one of my favorite characters. show!sansa is imvho not at all her book self anymore and I have disliked her writing and openly said it since S5 so please don’t take this as bashing because it comes from loving sansa, not the contrary. if you liked that scene or thought she had a nice ending please stop reading now and skip this post.
this say: I hated it, I hated how they framed the starks’s ending and I loathed how she was written this episode even moreso than this entire season which is saying all. specifically:
of course no one held her accountable for having betrayed jon’s trust and basically pulled a lf on him, but then again she had to be framed by the narrative as ‘she was right’ re dany which I found... really... in bad taste because I don’t think book!sansa would have ever done it, but I wasn’t expecting that;
her asking bran for nothern independence when the iron islands and dorne have been wanting them for centuries and no one batted an eyelid and it went like WELL SURE THE NORTH IS INDEPENDENT GO AWAY WE’RE COOL esp. when the king is a stark is out of this world ridiculous, but never mind that;
the fact that she basically went ‘lol shut up’ at edmure, her UNCLE, who has been hostage for years, who was the only arse lord in these books who risked a lot to have the smallfolk inside his castle and save them when everyone thought he was too *soft* and it was a bad political movie, when her mother’s house words are fucking FAMILY DUTY HONOR, in that frankly unsufferable smug way, about made me lose every last inch of fucks I had when it came to giving her writing some leeway. like, sansa stark ‘courtesy is a lady’s armor’ does that to her goddamned uncle who has literally bled and lost family members for her family and who ended up caught in the red wedding to help robb and cat and who has been a hostage for years also because he sided with them......... and she doesn’t even let him talk? when excuse me but he wouldn’t also have been a bad choice whatsoever at least he cares about the people? like fuck that noise that was it for me, that’s not sansa, that’s a bodysnatcher they made out of cersei/lf and dusted with some vague book characterization when they remember it and forgot it, and honestly I’m not here for that.
on the queen in the north scene:
.... it was fucking depressing?
and ooc?
I mean, I should believe that sansa stark, who in the books has spent all the time wanting her family back, who wants to name her children like her brothers, who does want children, who wants still her brave strong and gentle knight (btw, GOOD JOB FORGETTING THAT ROMANCE IS AN ESSENTIAL PART OF SANSA’S SL and that half of it is about finding out that *beauty* on the outside =/= inside, but hey, we went for the feminist TM narrative where strong women need no men and we forgot that it’s a fundamental part of what sansa wants), who only wants to go back home and be with her family........ gets her crowning achievement becoming queen in the north at a coronation where there’s literally no face she knows present, where her family isn’t present, where she’s utterly and totally alone doing the ice queen business when she’s not an ice queen in canon, with no friends at her side and no relatives and........ nothing? that’s it? I should be happy she’s on her own ruling the north without her sister or brothers or anyone she knew because she got her badass crowning moment and the north is independent when literally no stark in these books wanted it ned first and robb later, robb only took it because they elected him and couldn’t say no? because......... that was the only way for her to come out on top and having a throne is it when the entire underlying messages of these books is that thrones don’t mean shit and political power on your own is useless and corrupts you if you want it specifically and no one helps you with it?
sorry but I can’t buy that. I cannot. not at all. that’s not the character I signed up for, I didn’t sign up for the starks getting scattered in all four winds as if they don’t care at all for seeing each other again ever (THE PACK SURVIVES WHEN???), and the fact that it was a beautifully shot scene doesn’t mean I liked it for one second.
also: this entire thing reeks of a book storyline they most likely cut off with ten hatchets. specifically, that robb’s will exists and it had disinherited sansa and arya and made jon heir thinking bran and rickon were dead. like, you know what’s way more likely to happen? that jon gets hailed kitn because ROBB MADE HIM IT, davos shows up with rickon who DOESN’T DIE, jon then gets the show ending because that actually felt like a thing grrm might do, bran gets it the same (I’ll rant on it in another ask I’ll reply to asap) even if better-written, and sansa, who at this time has managed to come back to wf, has come into herself and has her family, stays there being rickon’s regent along with arya unless arya gets with gendry which I also think is endgame (this stark/baratheon marriage has to happen or not??) and plays a leading role without this bullshit single ice queen in the north storyline, possibly along with whoever it is the brave strong and gentle knight she ends up with, because that is not a thing d&d have realized, but a lot of *good* and strong female characters in these books have storylines that revolve about getting both what they want and the romance, but apparently it makes people weak? we just don’t know. that is a *sansa rules* ending that would make sense to me. not whatever the hell I watched in the finale, and believe me I’ll forever dislike it. the only good thing about it tangentially was that they didn’t drag brienne into it, and that’s everything I have to say on this subject. sorry but it wasn’t earned, it was built on giving her someone else’s storyline and on forcing sansa into being basically the nice/ethical version of cersei/lf and ignoring 85% of the themes in her arc and giving her an ending that’s all the contrary of what her book self wants, and I can’t bring myself to like it.
also, the edmure thing was really out of this world the most ooc thing in existence and if edmure doesn’t talk to her for the rest of his life no one would blame him, me first of all, and sure af catelyn tully was tearing her hair out in the afterlife asking herself where did her daughter end up. end of story.
ps: I know this is an unpopular opinion and I don’t have much interest in discussing it any further, so like.... take it for what it is. sorry but whichever way I look at it I can’t find any positives in it. :/
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Just curious what your point is then, (in that post about Good Omens rep) that you think the person who replied was missing? Because my own "no, not like that!" about the supposed lgbtq rep in Good Omens is precisely what I think they were getting at too: none of it is truly explicit, and i see no proof of intent in crafting it from Gaiman or anyone else officially creating for the show, and Gaiman himself sees it as just one way to interpret the text.
hey! thanks for being polite :) i may not have been as clear as i thought i was, lol.
from what i’ve seen there’s been no shying away from the “homoerotic” (for lack of a better term) tension between C&A, not from the actors or from neilman? i have seen gifs of tennant and sheen talking about C&A as a couple (i may be misremembering! but that was the impression i got) and neilman’s affirmation of queer interpretations since before the tv show was in the making is proof of intent to me, at least.
(side note: whatever sheen and tennant were acting, i don’t think that in and of itself is makes the rep canon...it’s about as canon as the hobbit fandom seems to think bagginshield is, lmao, which is to say “better than nothing but still not much”)
i’m not super plugged in to twitter, but neilman’s acceptance of everyone’s interpretations to me says: “yes, i am fully aware this reads as very queer; we may not have intended that when writing the book but we knew about it coming into the show and deliberately included it; however it would be inappropriate to claim that we planned this when writing the book and want to remain faithful to that aspect.”
Basically, he is doing the inverse of a JKR: not claiming retconned representation but actively encouraging queer interpretations. that doesn’t mean he’s going to dunk on people who see them as straight (though interpreting them as straight is...Beyond Me) because he’s not, idk, an Asshole,
i think neilman patting himself on the back in his responses to thanks from queer viewers is...egregious, tbh. but the backlash i’m seeing, claiming C&A as queerbaiting and neilman as homophobic, is fucking Always in response to him endorsing an a-spectrum reading of C&A’s relationship. some folks just Dont Want Aces And Aros To Have Nice Things!
looking at their relationship, i cannot say it is anything other than queer. the specifics of that queerness are left up to interpretation, but it is so fucking queer. and yes! explicit queer rep is good and important! but queer vagueness can be good representation too. that’s what i think this is, queer vagueness, not queerbaiting.
i find comfort in vague queerness, and queercoding too to some extent. as an aromantic asexual nonbinary person, the odds of me getting something to represent me in all those areas is Extremely Unlikely, so instead i cling to “vague” representation and implications.
it’s rare that i see queer vagueness done intentionally like it is in Good Omens; usually i end up projecting onto characters like Legolas or Luke Skywalker &etc that are also easily interpreted as gay but not written that way on purpose. (which is another tangential subject i have a Lot of opinions on, but let’s stay in our lane why don’t we)
i think we’ve focused so much on explicit queer rep (which again! is a good thing!) that we ignored characters and relationships that fall into gray spaces that are still very much nonnormative. those are good too, those are wide-reaching and provide ground for transformative works, those are also wonderful places for questioning people to experiment.
representation shouldn’t be one-size-fits-all. we should have lots of options. i see now, after writing this mini essay, that i jumped into that post with the idea that it was obvious that there’s more to representation than labels, but it isn’t obvious, and i hope my explanation makes sense.
also: there is ample canon evidence (within the book) for queerness on the part of C&A. aziraphale intentionally presents in a way that aligns himself with the gay community; angels and demons don’t have sex or gender unless they are really trying; the lack of sexual feelings is apparent and imo if you’re going to interpret their relationship as romantic (which is cool, even if it’s not my personal headcanon) you have to acknowledge that this is the only time either of them have had this experience (making them arospec)
ignoring all those things and getting mad about them not kissing is reductive of the queer experience. not every kind of queer is gay. nonbinary, ace, and arospec representation is queer representation. and there is more to any queer identity than just kissing; queer is identity and rebellion and community and self-expression and refusing to fit into the norm, all things that both crowley and aziraphale represent and embody. that in itself is (vague) queer representation, outside of their relationship.
i’ve written too many words and need to focus on the actual essay i have to turn in for class tomorrow, but i hope this makes sense!
#long post#............i don't want to get into a fight about this but i'm okay with good faith discussion so.#keep in mind if you want to talk to me that i Can't Shut Up and my responses will be long af like this one lmao#4-#5-#good omens#anon#answers
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The Bible, and Why Thoughts Should Be Separated from the Original Source and its Backers
(((Forewarning: This post is a stream of thought. Don’t read if you’re expecting something that avoids the tangential and has a coherent structure)))
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I don’t like hypocrisy--I’m guilty of it, as we all are, albeit I make it a point to avoid it. And, sure, there are other (IMO) worse traits a human being can have. But almost anybody would agree that hypocrisy is bad, and the hypocrite’s words are worthless at best, toxic at worst.
I understand the sentiment, but, for the sake of perspective, I would like to defend the hypocrite and morally defunct with this following post.
Now, being well aware of Tumblr’s main demographic make up, I’m sure most people on here aren’t big fans of the Bible.
Truth be told, if you look at the world through the lens of the disgruntled, orthodox Christians, their fears, grievances, and predictions ring quite true--I’m not saying I agree with them, I’m just saying, through their worldview, the notion that Christianity is losing ground steadily to sin and depravity has enough evidence (for them) to enforce this worldview firmly. Homosexuality running rampant, men and women rebelling against their “roles,” brown heretics invading their bastions of innocence to rape and pillage and steal jobs, hip hop becoming the most popular music to corrupt their children and brainwash them to do drugs and get piercings and show shoulders and kill babies and kneel for anthems, these same Jaxton’s and Peyton’s being forced by the Deep State Pedo-Ring to take a non-English language class and learn evolution, fiery Hell, they’re even calling this the “Common Era” instead of “Anno Domini.” I can see how the modern age looks like the setup for the Apocalypse, their Book of Revelation. The rapidly growing Internet, which was once an obscure, semi-useless sort of nerd thing, and then in popular movies for a decade or two was only referenced as some silly cat-joke platform, is slowly but surely becoming a very serious aspect of human life. You can’t make it far without a WiFi connection, not in society, not in business, not in leisure, nothing. And this new frontier, this fresh-faced future, here they have it the worst, constantly being belittled and called names and having mean science-y devil worshipers “debunk” their worldviews, whatever slimy libtard nonsense that all means.
Orthodox Christians that use a religion--a somewhat neutral thing--to justify their their bigotry, the sort of Christians that fit the of bedrock for an otherwise atheist and secular alt-right probably ensure, if anything, that liberally-inclined youngsters like myself push themselves as far away from Christianity as a whole as possible. Christianity is a sort of thing that people here in America almost thought synonymous with race; you were born into it, and you died with it. I mean, hey, people can’t seem to wrap their mind around the idea that Islam isn’t a race. People would identify as being Christian, even though they never went to church (save maybe Easter and/or Christmas), didn’t pray unless gramps was around, and never read a lick of the Bible, let alone mulled it over. Nowadays, there’s a growing portion of young people that aren’t just apathetic and passive with their family or culture’s religion, they’re proud to actively reject it.
Orthodox Christians have made a really bad name for themselves, their religion as a whole, their precious Bible, and, alongside it, anything and everything they associate themselves with, especially ideas and opinions.
(Quick disclaimer: I’m picking on Christianity right now, but insert whatever religious or spiritual beliefs you like. It just happens to be the biggest demographic here and easiest example that comes to mind for what I’m trying to achieve in this post. Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, paganism, Satanism, even atheism all are just ideas wreathed in metaphor (or “fact” when it comes to atheism) that are neutral on their lonesome, but are used for evil but society and the individual. Back to the program.)
For the most part, I’m like, “serves you dumbass chauvinists right,” but I wouldn’t have made this post if I didn’t have mixed feelings about the deeper implications and consequences.
QUICK TANGENT TIME!
Let’s say you have a...I don’t know...coworker, we’ll call him Fraxley (lol). So Fraxley isn’t most of everybody’s favorite. Ya’all work at a restaurant. He’s loud, obnoxious, entitled, immature, petty, judgmental, lazy, whiny, condescending, pretty much everything you’d dread in a coworker. But, one fateful day, you’re talking to your boss, Mrs. Boss. This is how it goes:
Mrs. Boss: “Man, did you see the table by the restrooms?”
You: “Uh, no, what happened?”
Mrs. Boss: “Some party of two parents and their kids had a birthday party...not only did they leave a huge mess, but nobody used coasters, and now there’s horrendous watermarks all over.”
You: “Reese’s Pieces, what?”
Mrs. Boss: “Yeah, like the parents didn’t stop them or nothing.”
You: “Damn...would degreaser or something help? I guess I’ll grab--”
Mrs. Boss: “No no no, see, that’s the real problem, we’re out of all our cleaners and we can’t get any in here until next Monday.”
You: “Ouch.”
Mrs. Boss: “I guess just scrub it as best as you can. If Ownerpeople comes in tonight and sees it in that state, they’ll lose their shit.”
You: “Okay, just let me see if--”
*Fraxley kicks open the front doors (letting in customers before you’re open), hocks a loogie on the window, flips a water bottle into the fryer, and blows Bongwater-flavor Juul clouds in your face that resemble Baroque architecture*
Fraxley: “Sup, bitches. Heard we got some fuckin’ tabletop probs.”
You: “Yeah.”
Mrs. Boss: “...Hi, Fraxley, could you--”
Fraxley: “Well, Brossolini, if you don’t want to be an epic NPC fuckin’ retard about it, toothpaste works great for watermarks on wood. Makes that bitch moannnn. J to the S, G.”
Mrs. Boss: “Fraxley, could you clock-in and put some ice in the bin?”
Fraxley: “UghhHHGHhh. What’s up with you, sour tits?”
Mrs. Boss. “Now.”
Fraxley: “Meesa no likey. *winks coyly at you* Later, buddy.”
. . .
So, the question is, what do you do?
Most people would ignore Fraxley, and for good reason. But his tip, his two cents, his wisdom (which, keep in mind, didn’t even originate from him!) shouldn’t be automatically discarded.
Here’s another quick example. Read some of these quotes:
“Words build bridges into unexplored regions.”
“The victor will never be asked if he told the truth.”
“He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future.”
“Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.”
Not my like, all-time-favorite, Earth-shattering, epiphany-inducing quotes, but still pretty wise, huh? Worth a mulling over? Worth soaking in, and applying to your life and your perspective, from time to time, eh? Certainly, I believe I can apply, say, the last quote, to current-day politics. I can apply the first one to nearly every single second of every single day.
I found these quotes by this Google search: “quotes from hitler”
Yep!
Words to me are kind of like children. The context of their parents is important, but, ultimately, they are their own individual beings, and shouldn’t be judged for neither the goodness nor the evil their parents have wrought on this world.
You see, sort of, what I’m trying to say about the Bible? Really, anybody and anything, but for this discussion, the Bible?
I have my own personal spiritual beliefs and worldview that I would like to think is particularly unique, one which doesn’t fit me smoothly into any predetermined box. When it comes to the events of the New and Old Testament, I have mixed feelings. The Old Testament...I believe nearly all of it is more or less a metaphor. As for the New Testament, I believe Jesus was alive. Less surely, I believe he was the most powerful human being we’ve witnessed (or an extraterrestrial/extradimensional being, or something), a practitioner of magic that we all have the potential for, deep down somewhere. He’s a Level 99 person, whereas most of us never get past Level 4 to 7 or something along those lines. I believe many of the events in Jesus’s life, as recorded, did happen, and along the way, some areas were perverted by both his humanly human apostles recording them, as well as the numerous translations and re-writes and edits that have happened in the last 2000 years, with a fat ol’ margin for both accidental error and malicious, egotistic inserts.
So as we can see, I’m already biased in part to favor some bits of the New Testament, and even be patient enough and curious enough to think about the Old Testament. It probably doesn’t help that I was raised Muslim, in America no less, so I probably have some learned sympathy for Abrahamic religions in general.
Now, I’ve only ever really dug into the Book of Mark, thanks in totality to an Intro to New Testament class I took in college (it was either that or some even more presumably boring garbage). As for the rest of the Bible, I know the general events (as most of us do) of the Old Testament, I was challenged to read a bit of the Book of Job during a (horrifying) Ouija experience, and other little bits here and there have come to me by chance. I’m no expert. But, my bias acknowledged, it really makes me sad that some people are never going to consider a single word in the Bible as anything other than a weapon that has been used against them. It has some excellent metaphors, lessons, and stories that not only can be applied in simple day-to-day life, but I have found myself applying to my understanding of human psychology and the human condition, of my internal journey towards actualization and self-understanding, of love and hate and chaos and order, and my understanding (or accepted lack thereof) of the universe and reality I inhabit, the life within it, and the events after.
What’s also important to add, is the Bible isn’t the skeleton of my beliefs and perspective. It’s not some major slice of the pie, it’s just a few Lego bricks in an enormous set that took me years to construct. Without it, sure, it’d likely be much the same, but in some ways, it wouldn’t. My fundamental ability to accept teachings from the Bible, both because of my subconscious bias for it and despite my growing conscious bias against it, are what have caused me to accept a wide berth of teachings, that, had I remained close-minded and say, only trusted celebrities I like and factual science (whatever the fuck factual means anymore), my enormous structure would instead be a trifling, misshapen, tragic little thing.
The same thing that allowed me to accept the Christian Bible, to just entertain its ideas, has also allowed me to garner wisdom and knowledge from all sorts of celebrities, musicians, artists, politicians, generals, prodigies, and scourges both in my day and age, and throughout history, not just the ones I happened to like but even the ones that struck me the wrong way.
I liked Sun Tzu, because why not, so I got to absorb bits of The Art of War, but I’ve also learned some wisdom from current day American generals who bomb my cousins. I never reached a high enough edge level at any point to consider entertaining Satanism into my lifestyle, but hey, Satanism has some interesting things worth a good mull, or even quoting in everyday conversation. People might look at me like I’m mad, but if you past the skins these jewels are shrouded in, you get to reap the intriguing beauty within, without compromising your core self in the process.
I watch an unhealthy amount of YouTube at times--when I’m at my highest functioning, I limit it to drives to and from work. I like a lot of progressives, unsociopathic intellectuals, hip-hop commentators, and the like (links on names): Shaun, Jeffrey Almonte, ContraPoints, Academy of Ideas, D Respect, hbomberguy, TD Hip Hop Media, probably a few others.
Emphasis on progressive. It’s hard for me to relate and appreciate much else--I don’t want someone mindlessly parroting pop-woke garbage, I just want someone with a little bit of soul and a lotta bit of brain, and I do well to forgive and forget when the aforementioned have opinions that differ from my own.
But, a while last month, I was recommended a channel: Alternative Hypothesis.
Now, silly ol’ me, read that as, “Oooh, someone who’s very likely counter-culture, possibly a little pretentious but let’s give’em a listen.”
Basically, emphasis on ALT.
I only got through about 5 or 6 videos, but see, that’s the thing. I could recognize the guy was well spoken, good at structuring a video and articulating a point. It wasn’t complete laughable swill like Ben Shapiro or Sargon of Akkad. This guy actually made me stop and think some pretty wild ass shit, like, “was slavery really that bad?” Fucking horrifying, right? Don’t get me wrong, I’m pretty sure I’m not a great debater, but I had enough sense to debunk his videos both logically and morally. But he really challenged me and my viewpoints. Made me stop in think. Now you might think, “well, it’s not like you’re black so you don’t exactly have a lot of eggs in that basket,” and I get why you’d think that. Even I double-checked myself on that. But I will let almost any of my core beliefs be challenged, and I don’t think that makes me a pushover or weak, morally or mentally or otherwise. If anything, it strengthens my resolve, and makes my beliefs feel more mine, and less insecure attempts to fit into a mold. I’ve let myself attack whites, suburbanites, Muslims, Arabs, rappers, specifically white rappers, writers, artists, men, the insecure, the dark (of head, not skin), the indecisive, Americans, talkers, introverts......these are all things that are me. If I’m critical of anyone at all, it’s me.
Funny thing, I actually vaguely remember a quote that went something like, “Don’t defend your attacks on your character you know are wrong, or you’ve already lost.”
I don’t really remember where that quote originated, whether it was the Bible or the Daily Stormer or Gandhi or Jake Paul, but it’s reminding myself right in this very second that I’m okay, I don’t need to justify shit, I going on a cutting-edge ramble or something, and I just need to be self-satisfied and go on my merry way. And I need that right now. I don’t care where it came from.
Go read the Bible. The same book (Book of Leviticus) that forsakes homosexuality does the same with eating fat, eating pigs, wearing mixed fabrics (aka wearing most of anything nowadays), cutting your hair, touching weirdly specific things, getting your red wings, adultery, incest, mixing crops, getting tattoos, blasphemy, and working on Sunday. Obviously, a load of this is trash. Don’t get hung up on the little ugly bits.
I recently finished reading Stranger in a Strange Land. The author obviously had a couple stupid worldviews, mainly general sexism and a part where a female character chimes in that 9 out of 10 rape victims were essentially asking for it. If I were the stereotypical over-sensitive, virtue-signalling young’un in today’s day and age, I would’ve thrown the book right then and there against a wall and lit the place on fire, vowing to purge every word I had read thus far from my mind. Instead, I kept reading, and the book is fucking amazing. I will look past the author’s glaring flaws, which we all have, and instead of sheltering myself from the real world, I got to add another excellent artwork to my experiences. Go read Stranger in a Strange Land, it’s about Martian Jesus.
Stop having knee-jerk reactions--if you’re forming a demonized version of me in your head when you read me writing phrases like “over-sensitive,” or “virtue-signalling,” or “knee-jerk,” or my imaginary character Fraxley saying “retard” or “bitch,” you’re doing yourself absolutely no favors, in the short nor the long term. The world and its wisdoms are not PC. You can retain your morals and still absorb a wealth of knowledge from an individual that might be the antithesis of your beliefs. I literally think true progressivism, minus all the ulterior motives and “justified” cruelty, is nearly synonymous with morality. If this post has upset you, please get your head out of your ass. I’m telling you because you need to hear it, not because I want to put you down or assert superiority or any dumb shit, I literally want to see you and our planet succeed.
I love you.
#bible#wisdom#judgement#open mind#progressiveyoutube#ideas#get your shit straight#pearl#reality#self love#quotes
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week #1 - organizing & outlining
So, just got through with my first week at uni. Only two lectures so far, both mostly full of introductions and occasional interruptions by a healthinspection team for corona. Honestly, didn’t learn anything I hadnt already in a levels, but thats ok. Introductory classes after all. I’m just hoping my one edge lasts when I’m in a class fullll of kids from families of law firms and politicians.
Right now I have a few questions I need to answer.
What do I give priority to here at the start?
How should I divide my studies up? What types of notes should I make? How should I go about this?
What resources do I need to pick and look for?
What is the purpose of this blog?
ANSWER #1
I have a lot to improve on. But to look at each thing is so overwhelming that it leaves me in a state of paralyis. So for now, Im listing them out in order of importance to me
> Get my shit in order. Collect my books, get my new laptop, and set up a good study space
> Figure out my routine. I hate routine. But without any good transport methods it becomes necessary. Two issues with this, one that my mom is difficult and doesnt give me a lot of control on my own schedule. Second is that the library has the texts, but my home has the laptop. I suppose I’ll start taking my ext hard drive but it’ll still be a tad inconvenient
> Make friends and connections. I really need to set up a study system, I like stuydying with people. I also need people to fall back on in case I miss lectures and the like. As much as I hate interacting with people who I can’t be myself around, it will be a necessity. Tangentially related, I need to figure out how I want to appear to others + buy some new clothes for God’s sake.
> Learn TOUCH TYPING. This will be essential if our exams will be given online. Even now I’m typing with jsut two fingers. god. Need to get a speed of 80wpm by the end of this year. Please.
ANSWER #2
I’ve got 5 notebooks so far: class notes, personal notes, cases and summaries, general notebook? [not so sure about this one], and I plan on buying a binder with loose paper to organize final notes. Another thing I need to consider is using OneNote, but that’ll be easier when I finally get my own laptop.
I’ll divide by subject, subjects into chapters, then each chapter as a whole into different aspects to study with.
Primary notes [study guide] + Extra material notes + core concepts and analysis.
Furthermore, summarize each chapter in my own words in an essay form. A blog post from an old LLB UoL graduate recommedned something similar.
Finally, do the activities and tasks at the end of the module.
Now, further along the road, I should start looking up past papers and examiners reports. I should regularly consult my professors too, ask them on my methods and clear up any confusion I may have in my core concepts. Perhaps I’ll find a purpose for that general notebook after all in this regard lol
ANSWER #3
I dont quite know why I asked myself that on this blog post... I’m already looking through the study guide for stuff to refer to. Must remind myself to consult professors on what material is most necessary as well.
ANSWER #4
A few things come to mind. i want this blog to motivate me, first of all.
Collect tips, advice, and resources
Weekly summaries of what I’ve done and how uni went and general areas I need to improve upon
Perhaps I should upload chapter summary essays on here too. If I type out my notes on cases as well I will post them here.
Links and stuff I find interesting
Organize my reading list and how far I am with them. Include them in my weekly updates. Perhaps my weekly updates should also contain my goals for the week
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WELL now that ive managed to spell all that out for myself, I think ill just talk about other stuff now.
the teachers seem nice. the criminal law prof does sound a bit intimidating but the lsm professor was very lax, and the contract law prof was very helpful in explanations and i had a talk with him about materials.
i met three people in class so far, janita, sofia, and zainab. i will try talking to them more, but theyre all rather shy in my opinion. i met an IR student called nawal, she was very sweet and likes makeup and fashion. we talked enthusiastically within moments of meeting one another, i cant even remember how many topics we bounced back and forth between. very easy to talk to, and she doesnt have an instagram so.. well not to be superficial , but that does my raise my opinion of her.
thats all for the personal section
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WEEKS GOALS
get laptop
make fee payment to uol
pester SWQ for study guide. i know he has some copies squirelled away i know it..!!!
ask about student gym + again pester SWQ abt the current library system cause.. wtf!
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READING
In order of importance
LSM UoL study guide [5/7]
Criminal Law UoLstudy guide [3/15]
Public Law UoL study guide [0/20]
Contract Law UoL study guide [0/17]
Learning Legal Rules [0/12]
I made it through 5 chapters with notes within a week. Assuming I can up the pace to about 6, I can manage to get halfway through the rest of these study guides within 3 or 4 weeks.
I only need to get halfway through, because I need to be slightly ahead of the class, not fully. Then I can focus on learning through textbooks, starting with LSM. It’s the most boring, so Id like it out of the way as soon as possible.
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i’m not gonna be a voltron blog by any means but since some people keep pestering me about my opinions re: s3 n 4 and i hate typing in that dweeby little IM box i’m gonna have to make a post about it
(^ me, complaining)
s3 was literally just a group therapy session and exposition dump with some action thrown in and s4 was just rapid fire plot over and over and over with maybe 1 episode’s worth of breathing room. it gave me whiplash. i’m actually glad they split this into half-seasons bc i dunno how people woulda handled this amount of weird pacing
i know a lot of people (including me lol) were upset allura didn’t get to be black paladin after shiro disappeared but honestly? seeing her in blue and bonding with blue and just being a paladin doing paladin things alongside the rest of the team WITHOUT having to carry the burden of leadership constantly was... a breath of fresh air compared to the first two seasons
it’s like they’re moving away from showing her as this ethereal being of pure light who is above such trivial things as trauma & instead portraying her as something vaguely human
also RIP all the fanfic of allura not interacting with the paladins ever, you will not be missed
speaking of not missing things, i honestly wasn’t too sad about keith being absent from a majority of s4
like i don’t hate keith but lbr he’s just the white boy protagonist who falls into success by having the right connections and has respect and plot relevance handed to him on a silver platter. he’s gone from the team now so @ s5 Prove Me Wrong but the keith-centricism that made me hate s2 still seems to be spreading across the series like a viral plague
WHY’D THEY EVEN MAKE KEITH THE LEADER IF ALLURA AND LANCE WERE GONNA CORRECT ALL HIS DECISIONS AND DO IT BETTER. DW JUST GO ALL OUT AND MAKE ONE OF THEM BP
i did like keith’s scenes in these seasons tho. at least i liked them better than the ones he had in s2, except for that one scene in the evil alteans ep where he said notallgalra ad verbatim. that shit was uh White
i wouldn’t call myself a klance shipper by any means but their s3 shit was cute. i kind of hate how lance does like 99% of the emotional labor esp since keith’s 1% of input also falls mighty flat but. whatever i’ll take it
i didn’t like allurance in s1-2 cuz i felt like they both had a really reductive view of one another, but it seems like the swap has enabled them to bond enough to remedy this and tbh? i’m here for that, and i’m NOT here for people denying he loves allura at this point lol. he loves the black princess guys!
i can’t get myself to be invested in lotor or his generals. like they’re a step above zarkon “generic doomsday villain” zarkon but they’re not really my thing & lotor is a bit snapey for my tastes
sexy young haggar being brown saved 2017
i kinda like matt in the same way i kinda liked my old neighbor’s 7yo son who insisted i come see his ant collection every time i got home from work. he was cute at first but i tired pretty quickly
RIP shatt 2016-2017
i’m super on the fence re: clone shiro but i’m leaning towards “nah”
feels like every time shiro is anything less than completely perfect and gentle and understanding at all times people jump to shout “SEE the real shiro would NEVER do something like this!!” like... sis
his new haircut sucks though. i didn’t like long hair on shiro either. i know i made fun of his abomination of a hairdo back in 2016 but i’ve opened my third eye and accepted that undercut shiro is the only valid shiro
the milkshake scene was amazing
LOTOR HAS NO RIGHT TO CRACK HIS ARMS LIKE THAT ON A CHILDREN’S SHOW!! WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT
hunk proceeds to not get any character focus. disappointed but not surprised. also tangentially related: who else is super bitter the “alfor was the yellow paladin” theory was jossed? wasted potential tbh, and i’m not a fan of pushing a hierarchy among the lions
the original paladins were kind of wasted potential in general but i love blaytz the gay merman and his cute galra boyfriend
that alternate reality episode can eat my ass but sven’s awful accent and the “take me to space hospital” were honestly so funny
did hunk really say “imma firin my laser” because if he did i’m gonna have to disown him immediately
allura’s magic saving the day in the finale broke me apart and rebuilt me anew & also how fire would it be if she becomes an actual magician à la haggar
[lance voice] allura remember in season 1 episode 9 when y
alfor creating supernaturally advanced one-of-a-kind war ships of unprecedented power and randomly making all of them cats is solid proof altea was a world of cat people. no wonder allura misses it
my prediction for s5 is keith and allura getting into kin drama
that is all
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Birds of Paradise [5/5]
Series: Joker Game
Characters: Amari/Tazaki; Hatano is there to judge the happy couple
Rating: G
Summary: Tazaki never found a reason to talk to the shopkeeper with the chestnut brown hair and god-like jawline – that was, until his pigeons attacked the flower display. (AKA The Flower Shop AU no one asked for)
Words: 2105 + bonus
Notes: Modern AU/Flower Shop AU; *slam duNKS MY KEYBOARD* it’s finally done!! I’m so sorry for such a delay, school started plus my insecurities hit hard orz but I’m finally done with this ;w; Please check AO3 for more notes plus some other notes tangentially related to my writings lol
ko-fi // Ch. 1 | Ch. 2 | Ch. 3 | Ch. 4 | You can read this on AO3! Thanks you guys so much for following this and reading, I hope you all enjoy~! ( ˊᵕˋ )♡.°⑅
Ch. 5: Truly Paradise
After so many failed and awkward attempts, Tazaki knew one thing and one thing only: this time around had to go perfectly.
Carrying the zinnias, primroses, cosmos and the mystery flowers as carefully as he could, Tazaki walked the path towards Persephone's once more with his darlings at his side. Giving a bouquet to a florist -- especially ones that weren't even fresh -- was a flimsy idea at most, but the best one he could come up with after much contemplation. All he had were some withering flowers and his beloved birds, but Tazaki was a handyman who knew how to use his resources. Perhaps it was cliché, perhaps it was dumb, but as Persephone's came into view, Tazaki decided that this was it.
That is, if his feet would let him walk through the door.
Just like so many times before, his breath hitched the moment he saw Amari through the window. Mundane as it was, seeing Amari tend to the flowers was a sight to behold. No one could deny that he was an attractive man, but there was so much more to him. It was the way that he put such care into his work, the way he acted so earnestly, and the way he treated everything with the utmost importance that Amari truly stood out. Tazaki couldn't thank his lucky stars enough that he'd gotten to know such a kind and gentle guy who was waving right at him -- hold up. Oh wait, oh no, oh God, he was waving at him.
Dammit. He really couldn't back out of this one.
"Okay, guys," Tazaki whispered, turning his back to the window. As discreetly as he could, he handed the bouquet of pressed flowers to his pigeons. "You know the plan, right?"
Like always, he'd practiced and practiced what he'd wanted to do but even now his doubts plagued him. Hearing the coos of his pigeons was all the answer he needed, though, reassuring and encouraging. Giving them a nod, he made an about face like a soldier heading off to battle and pushed open the door to Persephone's.
"Hey," Amari greeted him, his voice as sonorous as the bells that signaled his arrival. "You came."
"I'm a man of my word," Tazaki said, thankful Frate came bounding towards him to give him some time to get his life together.
"You're a bit earlier than I expected, though." Leaving his flowers at the counter, Amari walked towards him with his trademark smile on his face.
"Earlier is better than later in my opinion," Tazaki said, standing up once he finished petting Frate. "Besides, there's something... there's something I need to do first."
"Hm?" Amari cocked his head to the side.
Gulping for air, Tazaki reached for Amari's hands. He stopped short as his fingers hovered over his. His palms grew clammy as his nerves wracked through his body once more. Breathe in, breathe out, he told himself. Then, forcing himself to meet Amari's eyes, Tazaki took his hands in his. Here goes nothing --
"Would you go out with me?"
The second those words came out, Tazaki clamped his mouth shut. Oh goodness. Wait. Wait, wait, wait, that was supposed to go last. Behind him, he heard his birds fluttering and the bouquet rustling and he put a hand up to signal them to stand down. Before Amari could say anything, Tazaki quickly continued in an attempt to save himself.
"Uh, ever since I first saw you here, even before we actually met, I thought you were a really great guy," he said, steadily gaining confidence as he spoke. "This'll sound weird but I just had a gut feeling. And then... I actually got to know you. You're just... everything I expected and more." Here, he tightened his grip on Amari's hands but looked away. He could only imagine how red his face was with all the heat rushing up.
"You're so dedicated to everything you do, from taking care of the flowers, and the shop, and your daughter, and you're able to smile while doing all of it, and I really admire that about you and..." He paused. "I'm rambling now." He let out a nervous laugh, not once letting go of Amari. "But my point is... I like you. A lot. And... I was wondering if you'd go out with me?"
A pause. But there was something off and it wasn't Amari's lack of response.
"Hold on," Tazaki said, glancing behind him. He cleared his throat. "Ahem, I said: I was wondering if you'd go out with me."
Once again, his birds flapped their wings, popping up from behind him with the bouquet in their hold and flying towards Amari. The pounding of his heart drowned out the noise around him, the beating drumming in his ears. With much hesitation, Tazaki dared to look back up at Amari.
In spite of his expectations, a grin greeted him. Amari gazed at the bouquet the very same way he did his other flowers despite the fact that they were all pressed and dried, yellowed and old, the very same flora he'd given Tazaki not so long ago.
"You actually kept these?" Though Amari's voice was soft, it was enough to break through his internal screaming. Still holding onto Tazaki, Amari took the bouquet with his free hand and looked over it. As he turned the bouquet around back and forth, his grin only grew wider. "You took good care of them."
"Of course I did! You gave them to me, so they're special." While Tazaki spoke, Amari admired the flowers as if entranced by each petal, each stem, and each bud. "I always wanted to repay you so... I figured this was a way to start."
A bout of silence fell over them, but wonder and awe filled Amari's face much like Fukumoto at one of his idol concerts. Yet, Amari said nothing. He was probably wearing one of those polite smiles; he was a shopkeeper, he must be used to giving those. Welp, he said what he needed to say and Tazaki figured that was good enough. There were plenty of birds in the sky, after all --
"If that's the case,” Amari said, finally turning his chestnut brown eyes towards him. “How can I possibly say 'no' to you?"
Whoa.
That wasn't a rejection. Just to make sure he was hearing properly, Tazaki rubbed his ears.
"So... that's a 'yes'?"
"Today's a day for Emma, but --" Taking one of Tazaki's hands, Amari pressed a kiss against his knuckles. "-- I'd love for a day for just the two of us, yes."
There was that familiar wave of goosebumps with the feeling of Amari's lips on his skin. Tazaki's mind ceased to function, his heart ready to burst out of his chest. Before he could let everything sink in, the door bell chimed followed by the pitter-patter of small footsteps.
"Papa!" Jumping away from Amari, Tazaki turned to see Emma run in through the door, followed by a nonchalant Hatano who made a beeline to the break room. "Oh, and Mr. Tazaki, too! You're here!"
Snapping back into reality, Tazaki stumbled back as Emma rushed over and hugged him at his knees.
"A little birdie told me you'd be here today, so I thought I'd drop by," Tazaki said, patting her head.
"Yay! I learned a lotta cool things I can show you and I taught Frate how to do some tricks and oh, maybe we can go to the park later --"
"That sounds like fun, Emma," Tazaki said, trying to keep up with all she said. "But what does your Papa think about it?"
Emma clapped a hand against her cheeks, eyes widening as if she just remembered about him.
"Oh yeah!" Turning to Amari, she put on her puppy dog eyes. "Can we go out today, Papa? Please?"
Humming, Amari tapped the bouquet against his chin.
"Hm, I dunno..."
"Aw, please!"
"I suppose you've been a good girl lately, so... why not?" As Emma cheered, Amari ruffled her hair. "Just remember to treat Mr. Tazaki well, okay?"
"Yes, Papa~"
"Let me find a home for these flowers first, then we can head out, okay?" And with that, Amari winked, giving Tazaki a grin as he showed her the bouquet.
It was funny, Tazaki thought, that even though he was surrounded by flowers -- all bold and in full bloom, all standing tall and proud, all vibrant and striking -- none of them could possibly compare to Amari's smile.
"Don't you look happy."
Hatano's words cut Amari's whistling short as the two of them met at the entrance of the break room. Even when faced with Hatano's incredulous look and crossed arms, Amari's grin didn't falter.
"Yeah!" he said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "I feel great, actually."
Hatano huffed, half hearted as it may be. One of them had to be the responsible one here and it sure as hell wasn't gonna be Amari.
"Cool," he said. "That's swell and all, but what are we gonna do about the costs?"
"What do you mean?"
"The zinnias, the primroses, the cosmos?" With each flora Hatano listed, he increasingly stepped into Amari's space, pointing at the very same ones Amari held in his arms. "Not to mention the freaking birds of paradise," he said, throwing his hands up. "Why'd you even get those!? Y'know how expensive they are."
When Amari didn't respond immediately, Hatano followed his eyes to see Tazaki playing with Emma and his birds. He'd always known Amari to be air-headed, but he gazed at the sight with such intent that even Hatano couldn't bring it in himself to chide him.
"Birds of paradise," Amari said, fondness in his voice. "Symbolizing faithfulness, love, and thoughtfulness; freedom and a clear perspective on life."
Rolling his eyes, Hatano clicked his tongue. Of course he had to pull the flower symbolism card. He shouldn't have expected anything else from a florist of all people. How disgustingly... cute.
"Ugh, well, your dumb ass didn't let bird brain pay for the expenses and now we're just... kinda, y'know..." Hatano trailed off, gesturing as if to find the right words before giving Amari his best death glare. "Broke."
Still, Amari continued smiling and Hatano would've socked him right then if not for the "No Violence Around Emma" Rule.
"It'll work out," Amari said, patting Hatano's shoulder. Hatano face palmed.
"Sorry if I'm interrupting --" And there was the very same bird brain he'd been talking about, with Emma in his arms and his pigeons flocking around her. "-- I couldn't help overhear you guys but I think I have a way to pay you guys back."
"You do?" Hatano asked, rather flatly.
"Oh, share it!” Just like that, Amari’s attention was all on Tazaki.
"My birds," Tazaki said proudly. Hatano raised an eyebrow but, in his peripheral, could see Amari getting way too excited already. "We can use them as an attraction, get lots of people to come over with a show. They're a huge hit with the kids, especially."
A beat.
"Are you kidding me --"
"I like it!" Emma bounced excitedly in Tazaki's hold, his pigeons fluttering about from her outburst.
"And I like it, too," Amari said, not-so-subtly nudging Hatano. "Love it, even!"
"Really?" Tazaki's eyes widened.
"Of course!" Amari said, leaving Hatano's side to join Tazaki. "And you know what else we can do? We can..."
It was right there and then that Hatano zoned out, wanting no part in the planning despite knowing that he'd get roped into whatever these two decided on. Even so, Hatano's lips quirked up as he watched Amari and Tazaki chatter on. Amari's smile had been so tired lately, as if he'd break once he let his act down.
Running a flower shop didn't rake in much profit admittedly, and Amari had to take care of Emma on top of that. But once Tazaki entered the picture, Amari started glowing again, just like the time he'd adopted Emma. There was a lilt to his whistles, a bounce in his step, and the flowers seemed to grow brighter. Not that he'd ever say it out loud, but Hatano was glad Amari found someone to make him happy. And if this bird brain was all it took to make that airhead happy, then Hatano would gladly deal with it --
Crash!
"Kazuaki!"
"I'll pay you back --"
"No, it's okay --"
Clenching his teeth, Hatano tightened the tie of his apron. Amari's happiness, Hatano reminded himself, Amari's happiness.
bonus
“Hey, by the way,” Tazaki said. “What are these?”
“What’re what?” Amari said, raising an eyebrow.
“These.” Tazaki pointed towards the beak-like flowers. “They kinda look like birds of paradise,” he said, imitating the way birds of paradise hold themselves.
Amari laughed, getting more amusement out of this than he should be.
“Well, that’s what they are.”
“Birds?” Tazaki asked, head snapping towards them.
“Of paradise.”
“Like… the birds?”
Amari nodded.
“Like the birds.”
Tazaki blinked.
“Oh. ” That explained a lot. And why he kept getting the avians in his Google searches. “I’ve never seen them before, people don’t usually sell them.”
“They reminded me of a certain someone, so I ordered them,” Amari said rather casually, a contrast to the knowing smile on his face.
Opening his mouth, Tazaki was ready to ask about who it was until he’d realized who that certain someone was.
“I’m sure that certain someone loves them,” Tazaki said, his smile matching Amari’s. “But you know what that certain someone would really like?”
“What?”
“The actual birds.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Amari said, booping Tazaki’s nose. “Since according to another someone, we’re low on funds.”
“That’s fine.” Tazaki returned the favor then slipped his hand into Amari’s. “I suppose I already have them, anyways.”
“Yeah?”
“This shop is pretty much paradise, and my birds are here. So, birds of paradise.”
Amari gave him a long look before letting out a laugh.
“Right,” he said, squeezing Tazaki’s hand. “That’s exactly it.”
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You can respond to this privately or DM so it doesn't wind up in the tags. This is kind of a random question so forgive me. So, I've been doing a season 3 rewatch and I just landed on the episode where O beats the hell out of Bellamy and I was wondering, what if the situation was reversed? What if O got Clarke killed, would Bellamy have reacted the same way that she did?
Nah I don’t mind answering out in the open. What I have to say isn’t about character hate, it’s about the writers and pointing out the ignorant and, frankly, gross things that went into writing this scene in such an astonishingly un-self-aware way.
First of all, the answer to your questions is “no.” No, never, absolutely not, never in a million years, it never would have crossed the writers’ minds nor would it have crossed ours. Bellamy would never abuse Octavia physically, and it would never be written into the script. And those are 2 separate reasons - it completely contravenes everything about Bellamy’s character to suggest that he could lay a hand on the person he was compelled to physically protect since a young age, AND the writers would never have written an abuse scene where an older brother beats his younger sister, because it would have been completely unforgivable and disgusting. WHICH brings me to the discussion of the original scene.
My thoughts are below the cut. Abuse tw, obviously. And I don’t blame you for not wanting to read this because you’d rather pretend this scene never happened. I’m with you! Spare yourself. As for me, this ask triggered some Thoughts, so here we go...
Okay, so I think it’s really important to look at the Blake Abuse scene (and any scene in general) on multiple levels, as I hinted at above. First: from a character perspective. Is it in character? Does it make sense for the character? Second: From a narrative perspective. Does this scene work in the narrative? Is it earned and is the aftermath dealt with in a satisfying way? And, finally, Third: From a real-world writing perspective. As we know, TV does not exist in a vacuum, and writers bring their real-life biases, prejudice, etc. to their writing. In my opinion, responsible writing interrogates itself to prevent perpetuating tropes and racist/sexist/other “ist” writing. So let’s examine the Blake Abuse scene on these 3 levels.
1. The character perspective
Admittedly, this is a largely subjective level. One can easily make the argument that Octavia shouldn’t or wouldn’t have done that, but ultimately, I fall into the camp where I think that it is definitely plausible that, knowing what we do of the Blakes, this scene could go down like this. I don’t think it /had/ to, and I think it does derail where I was hoping Octavia’s arc was taking her (read: AWAY from abuser-ville), but it is definitely not outside the realm of possibility as far as her character goes.
Bellamy was Octavia’s ONLY real emotional outlet for sixteen years. Her joy, her pain, her frustration, sadness, humor, imagination, and anger was channeled at and through him. And Bellamy happily takes on that burden; his sister has no access to the outside, and so if the side affect of helping to socialize her is always taking the brunt of her emotions, so be it. This dynamic is part of the Blakes’ core codependency that makes them so dysfunctional in season 1. One of the sad parts about season 3, however, is that it seemingly undid all the progress that the Blakes made in s2, where Bellamy learned to respect her independence, and Octavia reaffirmed that he will always be her family.
Jroth apparently decided to throw all that development in the trash, however, once he realized he was going to write Ricky off the show for petty offscreen reasons. And so Lincoln’s death sets Octavia back months as far as her development - maybe even years - into the emotional equivalent of the fetal position. Meaning that, thrust back into an extremely emotionally vulnerable state, Octavia reverts to using Bellamy as her sole emotional outlet. Except that on the ground, Octavia has learned to express herself using violence, too, so that “emotional outlet” has now become a literal punching bag.
People act like Octavia beat up Bellamy because she blames him for Lincoln’s death - and I do think the fact that he was tangential to it made this possible - but ultimately this was less about dealing blame or some sick kind of justice and more about Octavia throwing a tantrum and channeling it all at her oldest, most reliable target. One who she knows wouldn’t ever fight back, even if he wasn’t chained to literal rock and one who, in this moment, she can comfortable link with Lincoln’s death.
And by the way, me explaining what makes this scene not out of the realm of possibility for Octavia does not equal me thinking it’s not gross so don’t even go there lol. So basically, yeah - this scene is arguably in character, as in, it’s not a hard leap to make for her.
The secondary (though perhaps less important to my overall point) element of characterization in this scene is Bellamy. I believe it is 100% absolutely in character for Bellamy to “allow” this beating to happen.* First of all, he’s a masochist, and this is an opportunity to receive a physical beating equal to the emotional one he has been giving himself and will continue to give himself through 3b. Mostly, however, Bellamy sees Octavia in this moment as “needing” this outlet - because of how they grew up, he recognizes immediately where she’s at and understands that wailing on him will give her relief of some kind. And Bellamy, fucked up by his childhood as he is, thinks that if he is giving Octavia something that she “needs,” it cannot possibly be wrong. Especially when it only comes at a cost to him - her needs have always, unquestionably come before his.
*I just want to note here that Bellamy only “allows” Octavia to beat him in the sense that his fucked up understanding of himself, his own culpability, and his relationship with his sister make him think this is ok/he deserves this. His “allowing” Octavia to do this is not some form of full consent that people can use to brush off the ugly implications of this scene - which unfortunately I have seen done. “Free and informed consent” is NOT a standard that can be applied to abuse, ever (not would it even be applicable in this situation). End note.*
So, ultimately, we the audience can see how wrong and fucked up Bellamy’s response to Octavia is, but I still think that it is in character. 3x10 is the most violent and twisted and horrible manifestation of the Blakes’ relationship possible, but I still think it can be justified as “in character.”
So let’s jump to level 2.
2. The narrative perspective
So this section will probably be short because in a way I think whether a scene works narratively is a combo of level 1 and level 3, and I’m talking about them in depth.
I will say though, that it’s really hard to tell if this scene works narratively because season 3′s narrative, especially before and around the midseason transition, is so fucking convoluted and, at times, just plain bad. We obviously know how terrible Bellamy’s 3a arc was, and that’s a hard thing to separate from this scene. Like, if Bellamy had been well-written up through 3x10 - even if they had kept elements of the Pike arc, or devoted enough screentime to explaining it - I think there would have been little to no reason for the audience or the narrative (or Octavia) to blame him for Lincoln’s death, since clearly that was something that Bellamy never wanted. But instead, we went into this scene with half the audience salivating for some kind of revenge, and Bellamy seemed like the best target since the narrative hadn’t really given him the time or space to argue his 3a case. But I digress - back to the narrative itself.
I think the narrative problems with this scene have less to do with the scene itself and more to do with the preceding episode and the scene’s aftermath. As in, it was sloppy writing to have to tie Bellamy up in 3x09 in order to have him chained at the beginning of 3x10 - I’m not sure it was narratively earned that no one trusted that Bellamy didn’t want Lincoln to DIE enough to let him help with their escape plan. But anyway - bygones, right? I’m not trying to dive into the minefield of “what percentage of Lincoln’s death is Bellamy responsible for” here lol.
And as far as the scene’s aftermath, it’s been pointed out before but it’s worth repeating: it makes zero narrative sense that Bellamy remains tied up and “the enemy” after Kane and company have re-accepted Bryan and Monty back into the fold. I suspect that this narrative wrinkle is meant to both 1) set up Clarke as the first person who “forgives” Bellamy and 2) possibly to make Octavia’a beating more about “””justice””” and less about her reversion to emotional infancy. So, when it comes to (2) especially, this scene has some narrative deficiencies.
Overall, however, the problems with this scene do not stem from its place in the narrative.
3. A “should I write this” and “how should I write this” perspective
Okay, so here’s where we get to part where I can barely keep my mf hat on.
Just because a scene is in character or could work narratively does NOT mean you should write it!!!!!!!!!!! As much as the 100 writers wish that their special snowflake writing was not impacted by their own real-word biases and as much as they wish that everyone watching could just shrug off their lived experiences or their oppression or their triggers or their, you know, awareness of anything happening in the world around them, THAT IS NOT THE CASE. Stories have weight, and impact, and when you as a writer do not interrogate your own writing or what you are putting onscreen, you are a) going to tell bad stories and b) going to be part of the The Problem (The Problem being perpetuating various forms of social oppression).
And look, this isn’t a censorship argument. The 100 delves into a lot of deep/controversial topics, and sometimes it drops the ball and sometimes it doesn’t. The way I see it, you can think about the Octavia Abuse scene in 2 ways. One - the scene remains in the show and its treated, explicitly and seriously, like the instance of abuse that it is. Two - you don’t! write! the mf! scene!
Because the Octavia abuse scene is ostensibly in character and not a complete aberration narrative-wise, the writers could have written this absolutely devastating scene if they were serious about taking on the issue of abuse. In doing so, however, they would have had to consciously give up on having the audience “root” for Octavia for a long while, until perhaps she could “earn” some type of redemption. They could have had other characters react more violently to the scene in front of them, instead of shrugging it off as “a family thing,” they could have had Clarke ask about it and call Octavia out, they could have - through whatever character they wanted - pointed out that Octavia using violence to deal with her feelings/relationship problems was becoming a disturbing pattern (with Lincoln, then with Indra, then with Bellamy).
Some might argue that this treatment in present in Octavia’s 3b arc. And yes, I am glad the show acknowledged Octavia’s burgeoning darkness by making her do “wrong” things in 3b and 4a, but their was WAY too much ambiguity in 3x10 and beyond regarding whether Octavia’s beating of Bellamy was the beginning of that very problematic turn or whether that was a one-off okay “just a sibling thing” dealing out “”justice”” after Lincoln died. And I know the argument is out there that “we don’t need the narrative to hand-feed us these messages” and yeah, that’s true - I’m a meta hoe and I don’t need to be hand held - but that argument falls by the wayside when, written in the script, the man who literally played the moral center of reason in 3a turned away from a scene of abuse with the thought “it’s a family thing.” The fact that the show did a terrible fucking job framing that scene is also apparent in the audience’s reaction - a huge portion of which was celebratory. Idk about anyone else, but I don’t think 50% of people out there are abuse apologists; no, the narrative set them up to feel Bellamy’s beating as cathartic, even deserved. The bottom line is, the writers had no idea how serious that scene was, and that was clear in the utter failure of the writing to satisfyingly or responsibly address it.
Now for the second level of bias that went woefully uninterrogated: Bellamy is the third person of color who shares a personal relationship with Octavia whom she has hit. A LOT has been said on this topic, so I really don’t feel the need to rehash it all here, but - this is the sign of a nearly all-white writers room that is so unwilling to believe that they, Good Liberal Whites, could possibly write a story that is racist. As we all (should) know, it is VERY easy, and practically unavoidable for us white people, to unintentionally perpetuate harmful tropes or write a racist story!! Checking yourself is necessary!! Hiring diverse writers rooms is necessary! Noticing and avoiding having a white girl hit 3 different poc in her story in an attempt to correct their behavior is necessary! Checking themselves, especially on the “how does this play on the racial level?” perspective is something that the 100 writers need to improve on, and is one more unexamined harmful element of the Blake Abuse scene.
Finally, finally, finally, to get to the part of your question, Abby, that sparked this whole rant in the first place. This scene is so deeply steeped in gender bias that it’s irremovable from how we view the scene, in my opinion (*note here* for everything I say going forward, assume this is compounded by and intersected by Octavia and Bellamy’s respective races, because that’s how these things work. I’m mostly focusing on gender in this section but if anyone has any thoughts about the intersectionality here please feel free to add). Had that scene been reversed, and Bellamy had beaten Octavia until he was too tired to raise his fist (hell, if he’d even hit her ONCE), I really can’t imagine the audience OR the narrative daring to treat it as anything other than totally horrifying and inexcusable abuse.
Had this scene occurred the other way around, we would not have been subjected to “well, did she deserve it?” or “he was hurting!” or “well it is her fault X is dead.” I don’t think there would have been any pushback on calling Bellamy’s actions as wrong, as disgusting, as inexcusable. I think because of this, the writers never would have written the scene the other way around - because to have Bellamy abuse Octavia, that would be unforgivable. But, clearly, having it the other way around isn’t.
This isn’t just the 100 writers’ fault either. There’s a double standard that exists across the entire industry (TV, books, movies) now, I think, where a certain type of White Feminism is being exercised where (especially white) girls being violent is empowering. To a certain extent, having women be physically capable, be able to defend themselves, be able to excel in a masculine-coded field like fighting is a feminist pursuit (and, speaking as a bi girl, can be hot as hell!). But it has, I think, often been twisted into this kind of gross justification to excuse badass women doing terrible things because it’s a badass trope-breaking woman doing it. And this isn’t a problem because I don’t think people should stan “problematic characters” - absolutely not. This is a problem because the violence of these women is not treated as problematic at all, or condemned at all - in fact it’s seen as “progressive.” The second (huge) problem is that this rule really only appears to apply to badass white women. And I think the 100 pretty clearly falls into this trap with Octavia (and several other characters I can think of). Whereas the show normally tries very hard to show the good and bad (mostly the bad) of violence and war, Octavia gets somewhat of a free pass, because ~feminism.*
*Note: this is a problem of both writing and fandom response, I think.
So now that I’ve basically failed to hold myself back from an indictment of the entire tv/movie industry as whole doing a shitty job moving past flimsy, one-dimensional, white feminism, let me get back to my original point, and your original question: No, Bellamy would not have reacted in the same way as Octavia were the situation reversed, nor would that scene have ever been written, for more reasons than one.
Moving forward, I remain extremely disappointed with the execution and lack of self-awareness that was present in the writing of that scene. It’s been a personal struggle for me, as someone who LOVED the Blakes, and always liked Octavia, to reconcile the scene with the show going forward, especially since it seems like this show will never address that scene in the way it deserved. Because I love this show and these characters, and because I don’t think the writers know that they were essentially normalizing, or condoning, abuse, (although intent really shouldn’t be an excuse), I am choosing to try to let go of the past and judge the characters based on the writing going forward, in the hopes that the writers may have learned from their past mistakes. Honestly, I don’t blame anyone for having an intense reaction to this scene- your reaction and your choices are your own and I can only speak to mine.
I’m truly sorry if you made it to the end of this meta, I didn’t realize I was holding all these feelings back. Writing about this scene was a cathartic experience, though, and I suddenly feel more ready for the baptismal cleanse of s4 than ever before.
#ask mj#bellamy blake#anti-octavia blake#the blakes#the 100 meta#i hate using anti tags but this isnt necessarily octavia positive....but honestly i like octavia i just *clenches fist* hate white feminism#also i should have a tag for *accidental meta*#mine#my meta#janefosters
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