#some people often interpret link as coming from a broken family or one of his parents being an asshole or something and i'm like | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

aifastic · 1 year

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I posted 61 times in 2022

34 posts created (56%)

27 posts reblogged (44%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@tf2spyzine

@aifastic

@helmetpartyweek

@sodafrog13

@keyxonomy

I tagged 49 of my posts in 2022

Only 20% of my posts had no tags

#team fortress 2 - 27 posts

#fanart - 15 posts

#fanfiction - 13 posts

#fanzines - 8 posts

#soldier - 8 posts

#spy - 8 posts

#helmet party - 7 posts

#ocs - 6 posts

#tf2 spy - 5 posts

#fanzine - 5 posts

Longest Tag: 98 characters

#[as in the show not the ship but you can interpret whatever; it's as open as in the series i hope]

My Top Posts in 2022:

Sweet Victory

I always feel like I’m not delivering to you, Tumblr pals (the only thing you get are my AO3 links and--Mildly crappy? Slightly good? Drawings fdshjkfsd) and I need to win time before sleeping because my cat is sleeping on my bed lol so, I decided to write a little something for uhhh whoever likes helmet party here (hi :D/)

A/N: It’s a modern!AU, teacher-mechanic!AU fluffy piece :Oc I hope you all like it!

Enjoy!

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Dell is particulary busy around summer time.

It is at times like these when he regrets that the only thing his many PhD’s have only landed him at the family’s mechanic business. He’d love filling these cars with modifications--improvements, that’s for sure--but not only does that not pay the bills, it’d land him in prison, most probably. So, he keeps fixing cars--and he’s darn good at it, if the clientele amount has anything to say.

And the beginning of summer’s always been a busy season, as most people wants to do their holiday trips, or get their car fixed for their yearly vehicle inspection. So, the cars keep coming and going at an almost unmanageable pace. Well, almost. Thank God he’s a practical man and has an efficient schedule--and insomnia, but he’s not sure he’d count that as a blessing.

As it is, he’s now working on an issue that’s pretty easy to solve. This car’s alternator is broken and needs to be replaced, and the old lady who owns it can’t do it herself. He’ll give her a discount because heck, Mrs. Patterson always brings him the best apple pie in town--probably in the whole country. He works with the promise of one of them in mind, whistling a merry tune.

“Engie!”

Dell almost hits his head with the hood of the car. “Darn, boy, can’t you announce yourself or something?”

“I did,” says Jeremy, the shop assistant he recently hired to manage the huge income of clients. “But you were lost in there. I had to yell my lungs out!”

“I was busy,” Dell says under his breath in annoyance. “Alright, son. Why did ya call me?”

“Someone’s come to see ya!” Jeremy’s teasing grin tells him that it definitely wasn’t Mrs. Patterson.

Oh. Oh!

He slams the hood of the car closed. “Let him in, would ya? Wait!” Jeremy stops on his tracks and looks at him. “Am I too much of a mess?”

“The usual, pally,” Jeremy says with a wink, and disappears through the door. Heck, the usual isn’t good but it’ll have to do--hell if he’s going to get caught looking at himself in a mirror in front of--

“Dell!” Jane yelled happily.

Dell almost jumps again, but he collects himself in time. “Jane!” he smiles, arms wide open. He’s always glad that the PE teacher has time to stop at his workshop. His breath almost leaves him as he’s hugged enthusiastically by Jane. “Whoa!” he says, patting Jane’s back. “Not that I ain’t glad to see ya too, pardner, but what’s the occasion?”

“The team classified!” Jane says, backing away a bit but still holding Dell at arm’s length.

Dell’s eyes go wide. His smile turns into a whole grin. “That’s amazing, Jane! Congrats!”

“Thank you, private!” Some people say Jane didn’t come back wholly from the war. They call him Soldier behind his back--and in front of him, to be honest, as he often takes it as a compliment. Dell’s gotten used to his brand of speaking since ages ago. “I am very proud of them! They crushed the other team! They will get any sponsorship they want! And they deserve it!”

“And it’s all thanks to you, pardner,” Dell says with a warm smile. Jane looks at him under his ever-present cap, caught off-guard. He suddenly backs away, to Dell’s dismay. “I, uh, I came to deliver the good news! And to make good of my promise!”

Dell is confused now. “Wait, what promise?”

Jane is getting progressively redder by the minute. “I... I... IpromisedTavishI’dtakeyouunadateifwe--”

“Wait a minute, Jane! Slower! Deep breaths, and try again.”

“I. Promised Tavish that. If we won the tournament I... I’d take you on a--” He murmurs: ”A date.”

“A what?” asks Dell, not daring to hope.

“A date!” Jane yells. “Quality time! A picnic or a candlelit dinner and possible smooching ahead! Only if you want to!”

“Gosh, finally!” Jeremy’s voice could be heard from the front counter. They both go beet red.

See the full post

18 notes - Posted February 26, 2022

Recovered use of my tablet and first thing I did to warm up was relining this on "blue pen"

Practicing hair was fun!

[Original]

18 notes - Posted January 8, 2022

Fictober Day 01 - “I chose you.” Fandom: Team Fortress 2 (game) Characters: Medic (TF2), Heavy (TF2), OC’s Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Friends to Enemies, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, (maybe?) - Freeform, enemies au

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“You chose death over–”

"I chose you."

The silence becomes almost asphyxiating–or is that the giant gap in his lungs? Misha’s contract, finally, has been fulfilled, his enemy lying on the brink of death in his arms. He can now secure his mother, find his sisters, take revenge on the rest of his employers, destroy them all. Do whatever he wants. And Misha should be feeling like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders, but instead, it seems Medic has put new chains on the heart of the man he least wanted to hurt.

18 notes - Posted October 1, 2022

The shoe of gum himself 👞🔍🎉

21 notes - Posted June 14, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

I made a dumbass meme

28 notes - Posted February 8, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

0 notes

becomingbts · 3 years

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Time heals (sometimes) - Teaser 1

Summary: 6 years ago, (Y/N) thought that she was finally taking her life into her hands, leaving behind a toxic and abusive relationship with a man who taught her she’d never be worthy of love. However, it became hard to ignore his words when she met her seven soulmates who rejected her without even giving her a chance to prove herself. It took (Y/N) 3 years to realize that it wouldn’t be her end. She would live on to prove them all wrong; she would become what they all thought she wasn’t: someone worthy of love. And as she stands proudly on the stage, under the burning spotlights and the applause and the cries of the delirious crowd, she feels alive. Alive, just like the bond she believed to be broken.

Pairings: Y/N x OT7

GENRE: Soulmate AU!, Idol Y/NAU!, semi social-media AU!, ANGST (mainly), fluff, romance, maybe smut in the series.

Ask or comment to be tagged!

Warnings: The series is going to be heavy with a lot of personal experiences mixed into the fiction, so this is going to be kind of therapeutic for me. Please, consider not reading the series if you are not comfortable with: abandonment issues, anxiety, panic attacks, depression, self-harm (not descriptive and only part of MC’s past), suicide thoughts (in the past), toxic behavior, toxic and abusive relationship (in the past), depreciating self-talk and low self-esteem, a lot of curse, physical and mental pain, near death experience situation (in the past), and maybe smut scenes (happy ending though, but it will probably be quite the ride).

NOTE: I was thinking of “Moonchild” and for some reasons, some memories I’d prefer to have forgotten came back to my mind and instead of making a full-blown panic attack like I used to, I thought that it would make a great plot if I mingled that with a soulmate and idol verse and that’s how I started going into it. This is going to be loaded with personal experiences, even if they’ll probably be a bit differently explained compared to what I experienced. Despite the heavy themes and many warnings, I hope you guys will like it. I think I really needed to write it. It will be a semisocial media AU!, because I like the idea of being to write some of their conversations through texts. However, I do plan on fully writing most of it. Though, you’ll have some updates about their social medias as I will update their profiles soon after you see this. I will probably mix a lot of different media for this story such as songs written and produced by myself. I’ll upload for real MC’s EP. So expect a lot for this story. Please take well care, feedback is always very warmly welcomed, it helps me to write for real. If you need to talk to someone, my dms are always opened and if you really don’t feel well, please call urgency numbers.

Thank you for reading,

-Dolly

"And we will close our night show with the most awaited segment! The audience jumped during the commercial break, it's amazing how many people just joined us! Welcome to our interview segment and especially, welcome and thank you so much for being with us Moon!”

"Of course, thank you for having me on your radio show."

"Thank you for coming! I have to mention that this is your very first interview with another media than your usual personal platforms like Vlive, YouTube, or Instagram, so we are honored to be the first ones to greet you! Do you plan on making more activities outside your personal schedule for the promotion of your new album?"

"If I may be honest, not really. I'm the most comfortable in my own safe zone and I tend to try not to get out of it too often. It might close some doors to me but I'm comfortable with my fans that way. However, I often listen to this radio show and a lot of my fans were enthusiastic about that so I thought: why not."

"Ah, thank you so much, it means a lot! Your fans are indeed a strong community and they support you whether you go to TV shows or not. Besides, you've been a very active artist on social media and your whole career started on YouTube and SoundCloud before you signed to your current agency. We have to congratulate you on your journey! It's barely been two years but here you are, with your second EP 'People'! Congratulations on the release!"

"Thank you very much."

“For our listeners who might not know who Moon is, I’m going to introduce her to you: Moon, your real name is (Y/N), you were born on August 4th, 1998, Incheon and your mother was American so you pursued your studies in America. You have been taking online classes since the start of your career at the HULT, university of Florida, and even recently got your Business Bachelor, now aiming for a Ph.D. You started your journey on Youtube, uploading covers and vlogs until you finally started producing your own songs, releasing them on Soundcloud. You started gaining a lot of followers; thus, you started on other social media such as Twitter or Instagram. One year ago, you release your first EP called ‘BALANCE’ which is the reason why the music label BigHit reached to you and asked you if you wanted to sign with them. Did I get everything right?”

“You are. It feels like you know my life better than I do.”

"Ah not at all, but thank you, I am glad that I didn’t say something wrong! Would you mind sharing the concept of this EP? Many of your fans probably already know but maybe some of our daily listeners might not!"

"Of course. As you said, 'People' is my second EP, yet the first to be studio recorded. Signing with BigHit is a big step in my career and it created a lot of changes, hence I decided to focus on the people I have met, stayed with, became close to, or detached myself from… This is dedicated to the people who changed my life, whether they intended to or not. It could be interpreted as my social life diary in a way."

"I see, many of your fans have said that the album held a very distinct duality, with a bright and a much darker side that made quite the storm on social media. ‘Y/N our Moon’ and ‘MOONISBACK’ trended for a few nights on Twitter. Do you have anything you'd like to say about that?"

"I guess it was a surprise because this mini-album is really raw and uncensored. I didn't try to sugarcoat it nor to romanticize my experiences. I hope it brings comfort to people who haven't been feeling well. Because I think that it’s always easy to say that it's going to be okay to someone who’s not feeling well. Everything doesn’t suddenly become okay. And it's fine to be hurting, you can learn to live with this pain and move on while still hoping for better days. There is no end to hopes, and this is why my EP has a brighter side to it. Not everything is always a vast cold ocean. Sometimes, there are small or big waves that come crashing into our universe and they form something that we couldn't have imagined. They bring a little piece of sunshine in life and it helps to move on. So I hope that people who are struggling know that, despite how insignificant I might be, there is a person that understands and can relate to their struggles. I hope it can comfort them, even just slightly, to know that they are not alone."

"That's a beautiful way to put it."

"Ah, thank you."

"I have to ask because I'm really curious and I’m definitely not the only one: a lot of your fans have been theorizing about who could your title track ‘TIME’ be about? I have to ask you on the behalf of everyone. Is it okay for me to break the mystery?"

"Time is a track that shouldn’t have made it to the EP. It’s a bit like a fit of personal anger that I didn’t know I needed to let out.”

“Your anger was definitely heard and understood. People have been curious about the addressee of the song especially because of the line ‘maybe it’s time I finally let go of you’. So can you tell us who is it about?”

“Uh...Time was written for my seven soulmates who rejected me years ago."

"Seven!?"

"Yeah, it's a lot I know.”

“Is that why you have covered your soul mark with this tattoo on your arm? Netizens talked about it a lot; normally idols tend to cover their arm from the public eyes to avoid for their soulmates’ names to be known, but instead, you were proudly showing your tattooed arm, fully covering what might be under the ink. Many people assumed that it meant that you didn’t have a soulmate at all.”

“Well, I decided to cover the mark because there was no reason for me to keep it without hurting myself. I decided that I have been hurt enough to let myself take a rest. I didn’t see the point in hiding my arm either, I’m proud of my tattoo, I mean; it’s really a beautiful piece in my opinion. But to answer the assumptions, I don’t consider that I have soulmates anymore, hence why the tattoo as well."

"This is really a heartbreaking story, it must have been extremely hard. Breaking a soul bond is immensely dangerous, my link with my husband already itches when I spend the day away from him, so seven soul bonds? It must have been terrible."

"It was, but the most important is where I am now. I'm not lingering on that anymore because they made their choices and I thus made mine. I just hope that they all are healthy and happy where they are."

"I have to say I'm really impressed (Y/N)-shi, you really have a delicate and caring soul. I probably wouldn't be able to have such soft words about your soulmates had I been in your shoes."

"I think living the actual experience made me reflect on myself a lot. I'm comfortable where I am now, I'm able to do music and make what I love. I have nothing to complain about, I'm surrounded by lovely and supportive fans, I have the best manager I could have ever hoped for and a warm and healthy family. I don't need more on my side."

"I'm glad you are happy then. Many of your fans have pointed out it's really hard to make you smile and some wonder if you are happy, especially after the release of ‘TIME’, I don’t blame some of your fans for being worried."

"Ahhh, is smiling the only way to prove that we are happy? I believe my words are usually a bit more impactful than my facial expressions. I have to admit that I don't often smile, it's not a bad thing, at least I don't think so, but I just don't feel the need to smile when I don’t feel like it. Besides, I get shy easily when I expose my emotions too much."

"It's hard to imagine you being shy but at the same time now that I have you in front of me, our listeners cannot see you, but I definitely feel that you have a very shy and reserved aura despite the energy you give off when you are on stage. It’s not unfriendly either, but you’re just very soft-spoken and quiet in everything you do. Like when you came in, I barely heard you entering at all; you’re just silently making your way without a fuss, it’s really endearing, to be honest."

"Ah... I’ve been told that my stage persona and the ‘me’ in real life were two different entities but I don’t really think it’s true. I'm extremely introverted and it doesn't really mix well with the stage. So I just put it on the side for the people who came to see me and deserve to see more than a 24 years old woman who has troubles speaking without stuttering in front of other people."

"You stutter when you have to speak in front of other people?"

"Sometimes it happens when I’m nervous, and I’m very often nervous. Like right now, I’m extremely nervous. But it's something I'm working on."

"Well it's definitely paying off because I couldn't sense that you were nervous at all, just very calm and soft, but I wouldn’t be able to imagine you being nervous enough to stutter."

"A lot of artists actually have stage fright, most of them just don't want to admit it because it doesn't sound sexy when you tell your fans you're actually shaking before going up there for the show."

"This is very true, but it's refreshing to hear it from someone who actually lives through that rather than fan theories."

"That's understandable."

"Our time is coming to the end, do you have anything you would like to add before we sadly get our mics taken away?"

"Oh uhm, everyone, my new mini-album 'People' came out very recently and yet it already received a lot of love so I want to thank you for that. This EP was a very personal project and I was worried about how it would be welcomed but you all made me realize that I have nothing to fear because we'll always find someone who can relate to our stories. As long as I can help even one person with my songs, then it's enough for me. Thank you for listening to me and my voice. I hope we'll be able to meet soon. Love you my fans and non-fans as well, please take well care of yourselves in those times. Be careful and stay safe. Wear your mask!"

“Thank you so much Moon for being with us tonight. Our time was short but I really enjoyed it, I hope our listeners were able to feel that very warm presence of yours through the mic. ‘Give Me A Song’ of Moon’s EP ‘People’ will now be playing and we will see each other tomorrow night with IU for the release of her new album LILAC. Take care!”

Comments or Ask to be tagged!

Uploaded : 08/04/2021

261 notes · View notes

wolfstar-in-color · 3 years

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July Colorful Column: Remus is a Crip, and We Can Write Him Better.

There is one thing that can get me to close a fic so voraciously I don’t even make sure I’m not closing other essential tabs in the process. It doesn’t matter how much I’m loving the fic, how well written I think it is, or how desperately I want to know how it ends. Once I read this sentence, I am done.

It’s written in a variety of different ways, but it always goes something like this: “You don’t want me,” Remus said, “I am too sick/broken/poor/old/[insert chosen self-demeaning adjective here].”

You’re familiar with the trope. The trope is canonical. And if you’ve been around the wolfstar fandom for longer than a few minutes, you’ve read the trope. Maybe you love the trope! Maybe you’ve written the trope! Maybe you’re about to stop reading this column, because the trope rings true to you and you feel a little attacked!

Now, let’s get one thing out of the way right now: I am not saying the trope is wrong. I am not saying it’s bad. I am not saying we should stop writing it. We all have things we don’t like to see in our chosen fics. Maybe you can’t stand Leather Jacket Motorbike Sirius? Maybe you think Elbow Patch Remus is overdone? Or maybe your pet peeves are based in something a little deeper - maybe you think Poor Latino Remus is an irresponsible depiction, or that PWPs are too reductive? Whatever it is, we all have our things.

Let me tell you about my thing. When I first became very ill several years ago, there were various low points in which I felt I had become inherently unlovable. This is, more or less, a normal reaction. When your body stops doing things it used to be able to do - or starts doing things you were quite alright without, thank you very much - it changes the way you relate to your body. You don’t want to hear my whole disability history, so yada yada yada, most people eventually come to accept their limitations. It’s a very painful existence, one in which you constantly tell yourself your disability has transformed you into a burdensome, unworthy member of society, and if nothing else, it’s not terribly sustainable. Being disabled takes grit! It takes power! It takes a truly absurd amount of medical self-advocacy! Hating yourself? Thinking yourself unworthy of love? No one has time for that.

Of course, I’m being hyperbolic. Plenty of disabled people struggle with these feelings many years into their disabilities, and never really get over them. But here’s the thing. We experience those stories ALL THE TIME. Remember Rain Man? Or Million Dollar Baby? Or that one with the actress from Game of Thrones and that British actor who seemed like he was going to have a promising career but then didn't? Those are all stories about sad, bitter disabled people and their sad, bitter lives, two out of three of which end in the character completing suicide because they simply couldn’t imagine having to live as a disabled person. (I mean, come on media, I get that we're less likely to enjoy a leisurely Saturday hike, but our parking is SUBLIME.) When was the last time you engaged with media that depicted a happy disabled person? A complex disabled person? A disabled person who has sex? No really, these aren’t hypothetical questions, can you please drop a rec in the notes?? Because I am desperate.

There are lots of problems with this trope, and they’ve been discussed ad nauseam by people with PhDs. I’m not actually interested in talking about how this trope leads to a more prevalent societal idea that disabled people are unworthy of love, or contributes to the kind of political thought processes that keep disabled people purposefully disenfranchised. I’m just a bitch on Tumblr, and I have a bone to pick: the thing I really hate about the trope? It’s boring. I’m bored. You know how, like, halfway through Grey’s Anatomy you realized they were just recycling the same plot points over and over again and there was just no WAY anyone working at a hospital prone to THAT MANY disasters would stay on staff? It's like that. I love a recycled trope as much as the next person (There Was Only One Bed, anyone?). But I need. Something. Else.

Remus is disabled. BOLD claim. WILD speculation. Except, not really. You simply - no matter how you flip it, slice it, puree it, or deconstruct it - cannot tell me Remus Lupin is not disabled. Most of us, by this point, are probably familiar with the way that One Canonical Author intended One Dashing Werewolf to be “a metaphor for those illnesses that carry stigma, like HIV and AIDS” [I’m sorry to link you to an outside source quoting She Who Must Not Be Named, but we’re professionals here]. Which is... a thing. It’s been discussed. And, listen, there’s no denying that this parallel is a problematic interpretation of people who have HIV/AIDS and all such similar “those illnesses” (though I’ll admit that I, too, am perennially apt to turn into a raging beast liable to harm anything that crosses my path, but that’s more linked to the at-least-once-monthly recollection that One Day At A Time got cancelled). Critiques aside, Remus Lupin is a character who - due to a condition that affects him physically, mentally, emotionally, and intellectually - is repeatedly marginalized, oppressed, denied political and social power, and ostracized due to unfounded fear that he is infectious to others. Does that sound familiar?

We’re not going to argue about whether or not “Remus is canonically disabled as fuck” is a fair reading. And the reason we’re not going to argue about whether or not it’s a fair reading is because I haven’t read canon in 10-plus years and you will win the argument. Canon is only marginally relevant here. The icon of this blog is brown, curly haired Remus Lupin kissing his trans boyfriend, Sirius Black. We are obviously not too terribly invested in canon. The wolfstar fandom is now a community with over 25,000 AO3 fics, entire careers launched from drawing or writing or cosplaying this non-canonical pairing. We love to play around here with storylines and universes and races and genders and sexualities and all kinds of things, but most of the time? Remus is still disabled. He’s disabled as a werewolf in canon-compliant works, he’s disabled in the AUs where he was injured or abused or kidnapped or harmed as a child, he’s disabled in the stories that read him as chronically ill or bipolar or traumatized or blind or Deaf. I’d go so far as to say that he is one of very few characters in the Wide Wonderful World of media who is, in as close to his essence as one can be, always disabled. And that means? Don’t shoot the messenger... but we could stand to be a tiny bit more responsible with how we portray him.

Disabled people are complicated. As much as I’d like to pretend we are always level-headed, confident, and ready to assert our inherent worth, we are still just humans. We have bad days. We doubt our worth. We sometimes go out with guys who complain about our steroid-induced weight gain (it was a long time ago, Tumblr, okay??). But, we also have joy and fun and good days and sex and happiness and families and so many other things.

Remus is a disabled character, and as such, it’s only fair that he’d have those unworthy moments. But - I propose - Remus is also a crip. What is a crip? A crip - like a queer - is someone who eschews the limited boundaries placed on their bodies, who rejects a hierarchy of oppression in favor of an intersectional analysis of lived experience, who isn’t interested in being the tragic figure responsible for helping people with dominant identities realize how good they have it. Crips interpret their disabilities however they want, rethinking bodies and medicine and pleasure and pain and even time itself. Crips are political, community-minded, and in search of liberation.

Remus is a character who struggles with his disability, sure. But he’s also a character who leverages his physical condition to attempt to shift communities towards his political leanings, advocates for the rights of those who share his physical condition, and has super hot sex with his wrongfully convicted boyfriend ultimately goes on to build community and family. Having a condition that quite literally cripples you, over which you have no control, and through which you are often read as a social pariah? That’s disability. But using said condition as a means through which to build advocacy and community? Now that’s some crip shit.

Personally, I love disabled!Remus Lupin. But I love crip!Remus Lupin even more. I’d love to see more of a Remus who owns his disability, who covets what makes him unique, and who never ever again tells a potential romantic partner they are too good for him because of his disability. This trope - unlike There Was Only One Bed! - sometimes actually hurts to read. Where’s Remus who thinks a potential romantic partner isn’t good enough for him? Where’s Remus who insists his partners learn more about his condition in order to treat him properly? Where’s sexy wheelchair user Remus? Where’s Remus who uses his werewolf transformations as an excuse to travel the world? Where’s crip Remus??

We don’t have to put “you don’t want me” Remus entirely to bed. It is but one of many repeated tropes that are - in the words of The Hot Priest from Fleabag - morally a bit dubious. And let’s face it - we don’t always come to fandom for its moral superiority (as much as we sometimes like to think we do).

This is not a condemnation - it is an invitation. Able-bodied folks are all but an injury, illness, or couple decades away from being disabled. And when you get here, I sincerely hope you don’t waste your time on “you don’t want me”ing back and forth with the people you love. I’m inviting you to come to the crip side now. We have snacks, and without all the “you don’t want me” talk, we get to the juicy parts much faster.

Colorfully,

Mod Theo

#wolfstar #disability in fandom #disabled remus #crip remus #please write me some crip remus #I beg of you #fandom meta

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doppel-drop-distance · 3 years

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Doppel Spotlight: Giovanna

Surprise~!

I know, I know, about time, right? The hypothetical Soul Gem has broken, and the Doppel Spotlights are back from the dead! Er…temporarily, anyway. I can’t say for certain how many more of these I’m up to doing just yet. It’s a bit too early for me to make any big estimates or guarantees. But! This Doppel analysis has sat here unfinished for quite some time now! And you all have shown such lovely support that I couldn’t help but be excited looking at all this old material again. So as a gift to you all, let’s finally analyze the Doppel of our main protagonist, Iroha Tamaki!

This analysis will contain spoilers for all of Magia Record’s first arc! This does include anime-specific content, as I will be discussing certain scenes from Episodes 5 and 7! You have been warned!

Let’s dive in, shall we?

GIOVANNA

Doppel of Silence

Feature: Cuckoo

“The master of this emotion is aware of how pitiful her Doppel is and refuses to look at it. This Doppel wordlessly wraps around and strangles anything it doesn't want to hear as it continues its search for something to fill the hole in its heart. While it should be calling for someone, it is cowardly and afraid of acknowledging the reality it has concealed, and so it remains, silently covering its ears.”

It's been a while, so how about we start things off with a little refresher?

Both Giovanna and Campanella’s names are direct references to Night on the Galactic Railroad, a Japanese novel written by Kenji Miyazawa. In the story, a shy boy named Giovanni travels on a star-bound train with his close friend, Campanella. To keep things brief, I’ll leave most of the general plot details out. However, if you’d like a lengthier summary, I suggest reading the summary I provided in the previous Doppel Spotlight, which is linked here.

I should also mention I actually located an English-translated copy of Night on the Galactic Railroad! As a result, I can quote the story directly, although I cannot guarantee the accuracy of the translations or my own interpretations. Please keep that in mind as you read!

The opening scene of the novel establishes early on that Giovanni is a reserved, self-conscious boy. In class, he is certain he knows the answer to the teacher’s question. However, when called on, he doubts himself and stays silent, bringing upon the jeers of his classmates. Campanella, who also raised his hand for the question, willingly chooses not to answer, despite also knowing, in order to show some sympathy for the flustered Giovanni.

This opening scene is likely what is referenced in Giovanna’s nature as the Doppel of silence. Giovanni stays silent out of self-doubt, and as a result believes himself to be pathetic. Iroha also silences herself in her own way, being very passive, self-conscious, and reserved at the beginning of her story. And, true to that comparison, her Doppel’s reflections of insecurity make her feel pitiful, to the point where she refuses to look at it.

Giovanni’s character can also be representative of Iroha’s inner loneliness. With his mother sickly and his father out of the house, Giovanni is too occupied with taking jobs and caring for his family to have time to talk. More often, he is bullied by his peers. The only exception is with Campanella, who doesn’t bully him, and even sympathizes with him. As Giovanni and Campanella travel on the Galactic Railroad, Giovanni’s loneliness is at its clearest. Campanella begins talking to Kaoru, another passenger on the train, and Giovanni becomes morose with jealousy. See this quote here:

“Is there really nobody who will stick with me to the edges of the universe and beyond? Campanella just sits there jabbering away with that little girl, and it hurts me more than anybody knows.”

Iroha is also incredibly lonely, deep down. She lives on her own, with parents away on business trips. The anime implies she doesn’t have a lot of friends either, with her classmates talking behind her back instead. Worst of all, her sister, who she values more than anyone else, is completely absent, Iroha being the only one that remembers that she exists. Such relationships sound awfully lonely, don’t they? It’s only through her bond with Yachiyo and the rest of Mikazuki Villa that Iroha grows into her own, letting her optimism, warmth, and confidence shine through.

Giovanna’s connections to Giovanni tie her quite close to Campanella, Yachiyo’s Doppel. And, well, Yachiyo is certainly not the kind and sympathetic Campanella at first meet. Her first encounter with Iroha is cold, brutally honest, and fully intent on keeping Iroha out at any cost. We learn later on that this attitude is a wall Yachiyo puts up to protect people – that she believes the people that get close to her die, and that she still struggles with the guilt of her past. Yet, it is Iroha who shows sympathy to Yachiyo, breaking down that wall between them. For example, let’s take a look at Chapter Six. After a trip to the Memory Museum Uwasa, Yachiyo has been reminded of the death in her life and is reflexively closing herself off again to keep Iroha safe. Iroha once shriveled up in response to Yachiyo’s intimidating rejection, but now, as her friend, she isn’t having it. She says this:

“You saying there’s nothing you can do to help Tsuruno and the others… It makes me feel sad…Lonely…We fought together all this time…But more than that, I’m angry. I’m angry with you, Yachiyo...”

“I’m your friend, Yachiyo. And as your friend, I’m going to take out that Uwasa, all on my own! I’m going to be the one to protect you. I’ll smash this made-up idea you have of me sacrificing myself for you!”

Just as Giovanni interprets his journey with Campanella as a sign to stay diligent in life, Iroha’s friendship with Yachiyo allows her to steady her own resolve and fight adamantly. Their namesake connection is a sign of their bond, and their newfound devotion to fight together and protect each other.

To wrap up this Galactic Railroad talk, have you noticed that in many of the anime’s early episodes, Iroha is riding on a train? In fact, it is on a train that Iroha is whisked away to Zenobia’s Barrier in Kamihama, where she meets Yachiyo for the first time. Perhaps a stretch, but a fun little detail regardless.

Anyway, there’s far more to Giovanna than story connections! Giovanna’s silent nature reflects a lot of Iroha’s character struggles: mainly, her feelings of denial, and her inclination towards self-sacrifice.

“This Doppel wordlessly wraps around and strangles anything it doesn't want to hear as it continues its search for something to fill the hole in its heart. While it should be calling for someone, it is cowardly and afraid of acknowledging the reality it has concealed, and so it remains, silently covering its ears.”

When you think of someone “strangling anything it doesn’t want to hear”, concealing their own reality and being afraid of acknowledging it...well, that sounds a lot like someone who doesn’t want to accept the truth.

Iroha shows quite a bit of denial in her search for Ui. The odds are stacked against her for a lot of Arc 1. She finds little to no clues wherever she searches, and the Ui she encounters from the Uwasa of the Commoner’s Horse is only a fake. Iroha is certain that Touka and Nemu, Ui’s closest friends, will remember Ui. But, they do not, and only ridicule Iroha for her seemingly impossible set of memories. Throughout Chapter Ten she is belittled for sticking to her goals. She’s ensured on all fronts that Touka and Nemu aren’t believing her, and that there’s nothing she can do to change their minds. But, no matter how many times Iroha is told by the world that she’s believing in a lie, she never lets her belief go.

“I’m still going. No matter what you say. I’m bringing Ui back with me…She’s the whole reason I came back to Kamihama.”

This stubborn determination, when twisted by the corrupt perception of a Witch, is far more like paranoid desire: an aching, fearful need to find whatever is missing in her heart and get rid of whatever threatens it.

Following this, let’s talk about Giovanna’s feature: a cuckoo. Cuckoos are solitary birds, shy and secretive, and best known for their calls. Yet, Giovanna’s beak is tied up with cloth. She cannot call for anyone. Her journey to find Ui is painted as one of futility: Giovanna searches and searches for the one she’s longed for, but in the end, is too afraid to call out to her.

Here’s a fun detail, by the way:

In Episode 5, when Iroha summons her Doppel for the first time, Giovanna actually does not have bandages around her beak (which is why she’s able to let out that high-pitched shriek):

In future appearances, however, Giovanna does have the bandages around her beak.

Come to think of it, Giovanna looks rather... different in her first appearance, doesn’t she? Not only is her beak not bandaged, but her colors are a lot redder and more decayed, her cloak is worn and full of holes, and the crown around her head is gone. This may just be a stylistic choice for Iroha’s first Doppel, but I can’t help but wonder if it’s a sign for something else. Maybe that Giovanna is angry with the Commoner’s Horse Uwasa for projecting an illusion of Ui? Giovanna does fight a lot more aggressively here than in any other appearance, after all - she wraps the Uwasa up and drills into it with her beak. Meanwhile, in her second appearance, she only attacks an Uwasa with her bandages.

Giovanna’s unwillingness to call for others actually brings up an interesting facet of Iroha’s character: her sacrificial devotion. The reason that Iroha unleashes her Doppel in Episode 5 is because she neglects her own needs in favor of others. She believes that she must be strong on her own to find Ui, a thought reflected by her own Doppel’s words in Episode 7:

“Stronger…If you don’t become strong, you won’t be able to find anything! Cover your ears! Shut those eyes! Silence determines fate!”

When Iroha fails to find Ui within the Uwasa of the Commoner’s Horse, she is filled with despair. Ui was right before her eyes, proving the beliefs that even she may have begun to doubt. Yet, in that same instant she recognizes the Ui she sees is nothing but an illusion the Uwasa projected for her. So close, and yet so far. When Iroha begins to succumb to her despair, she even mentions that it might’ve been from the shock of not seeing Ui.

With all of these feelings, all of this disappointment and despair, who does Iroha use her only Grief Seed on? Yachiyo, of course. At this point in the story, Iroha wants to be friends with Yachiyo, but they are not seen as equals. She is not comfortable enough to open up to Yachiyo about her feelings, and neither is Yachiyo with her own. Yet, Iroha still sacrifices herself to keep Yachiyo from falling to despair. And by staying silent about her own woes, Iroha falls to her despair for the first time, summoning her Doppel.

Let’s keep this topic in mind and focus on something I haven’t addressed before: the Magia Archive artbook! There are some production notes in here that provide insights on the meaning and symbolism behind a Doppel. Unfortunately, I don’t know Japanese, but I did find a translation of Giovanna’s section, courtesy of @greenyvertekins. Here is a small piece from it that I would like to highlight:

“The motif is a bird flute and a saint with a rabbit-like appearance.”

The theme of a “saint” struck me as a little odd, at first. I wasn’t sure where I was supposed to get that idea from her design. But, it did lead me to a unique little find, which is probably a stretch, but maybe kind of cool anyway?

(credit to Silvermoon424 on Reddit for the scan!)

It’s a bit harder to see in the official art, but that crown circling Giovanna’s head – to me, it sort of looks like a crown of thorns. A crown of thorns is a very striking sign of self-sacrifice.

And sure, this is the stretchiest stretch that ever stretched, but those drop-like patterns on Giovanna’s body are red, and kind of look like drops of blood, right? Beads of blood that have also been associated with the crown of thorns, r-right? Right…?

Phew…I’ve been going on for a while, haven’t I? Is this…is this longer than the first one? I don’t even know anymore…Let’s silently wrap this up with one more, fun little stretch on my part.

Both cuckoos and bunnies, which are elements of Giovanna’s design, are symbolically representative of spring. Spring is cherry blossom season in Japan, and the Eternal Sakura Uwasa lives near a cherry blossom tree only said to bloom when Touka, Nemu, Ui and Iroha are united again. At the end of the event Cherry Blossom Dreams, the Eternal Sakura even remarks that “spring can finally begin” because they are all together. So, if you squint really hard, maaaaybe the springtime connections here are representative of Iroha, Touka, Nemu, and Ui’s union under the cherry blossom tree. But probably not. I’m just having some fun.

And, that’s it! That’s all I’ve got for Giovanna! Wow! That sure was something!

I hope you all enjoyed my silly little analysis! I know some of these connections are a bit loose, but I like drawing whatever parallels I can with what understanding I have, haha. It was great to write one of these again and share it with you all!

If you have any of your own thoughts, additions, or corrections, do send them along! I would love to hear other interpretations!

#magia record #doppel spotlight #iroha tamaki #giovanna

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theepitomeofamess · 3 years

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hey y'all, i'm working on this project i'm really excited about and i wanted to share some of it.

it's basically just a retelling of Ares mythology (i know that this probably sounds a lot like knock off madeline miller, but just hear me out) focusing on the parts that don't paint him like an angry meathead -- the version of his myth where he's raised by Priapus and taught to dance long before fighting, how he is one of the few male gods to care for his children and respect women, the story of his daughter Alcippe (which, if you don't know it, trigger warning for sexual assault and murder if you look it up), and the idea that his anger stems from depression caused by being hated by his supposed father and ostracized by any god who wanted to stay on Zeus' good side (hello projecting :^D).

Anyway, i wanna share some ideas i have about Ares as a character (in no way trying to be disrespectful to the deity, my apologies if it comes off that way). I've got a long list of ideas under the cut, I'd love to get some feedback (@witch19, you know I'd love your opinion on all this)

so a big concept i want to work with is tattoos. from what i understand, tattoos were a sign of punishment in ancient greece, used to mark slaves and criminals so they could be identified or continually punished. there's a story (link here) of athenians tattooing athena's owl on ancient samians after a defeat, ares decided to take on the same punishment as the men he had helped in the battle. as he grows into himself and his confidence, the tattoo grows with him from athena's pygmy owl to an eagle owl, which became one of his sacred animals in some versions of his mythology. he started getting even more as he started viewing them as a sign of strength rather than punishment, and especially when he learned of emperors tattooing gladiators, who he often helped and identified with

the owl is his first tattoo, but his favorite is a honeycomb over his heart. there are a lot of bees on the comb, with aphrodite being the queen directly over his heart. there's a bee for each of his children, and a drone with a broken wing for Hephaestus (Aphrodite actually gets a matching queen bee on the back of her hand so when she puts her hand over his heart, the bee is still there)

maybe another tattoo is a peacock feather for his mother? maybe it's covering a Lichtenberg figure he got from one of zeus' fits of rage?? maybe idk???

speaking of scars, he gains a scar for every one that's gained by a soldier. it doesn't matter what side the soldier is on, it doesn't matter how minor the wound is, he bleeds with every soldier in every fight he's involved in, feels their pain. armor does nothing to stop it -- it never even gets scuffed.

because it never gets hit and therefore looks brand new, ares doesn't actually like wearing his armor. it gives the impression that he's never been in a fight. he'd rather just wear his tunic.

he's actually much more of a romantic person than a sexual one. he's not asexual (bisexual, actually), he's just a big softy and craves a softer, more genuine connection. that's why he doesn't take as many lovers, why he doesn't have casual sex, and why he takes his time romancing aphrodite. he really enjoys the soft, quiet intimacy.

the first time he met aphrodite, he asked her to dance. no one was dancing except servant girls/nymphs, and they were not on the same page at first. aphrodite thought "dancing" was an innuendo (like what zeus and poseidon have done before), and ares wasn't catching on to the fact that she thought he meant sex. poor boy just wanted to dance, and it took some talking in circles, but he did get his dance. aphrodite loved how fun and innocent it was.

dancing is an outlet for him. he loves it. he spent his whole childhood with priapus dancing, and still enjoys it to no end. this influences his build (where a lot of the gods -- zeus, poseidon, etc. -- are more bulky and lumbering, ares is very lean, limber, and light on his feet)

he keeps a garden. it was part of being raised by priapus in the mortal world -- they grew their own food, and it's a hobby that followed ares into adulthood. besides, growing his own food means that, while he doesn't get as many offerings, he still gets the good stuff. the garden has a beehive that aphrodite loves helping with. all of his children are spoiled with mortal food before they are ever old enough or well known enough to get an offering from the mortal world

he refuses the idea that zeus is his father. he believes the version of the story that he was conceived by hera alone through pure spite and rage -- this is the version that athena tells him, and he tends to believe athena before anyone else.

speaking of, he actually gets along with a lot of the gods. he and athena, though constantly pitted against each other, have a pretty good relationship and she is often a comfort for him. they will often sit together in no man's land after a battle, and she will often comfort him if it was a particularly bloody one. at the end of the day, in her mind, she's his big sister. she actually used to (against zeus' wishes) go visit ares at priapus' home and read him stories.

apollo actually really enjoys hanging out with him -- ares dances to apollo's music and apollo is the one that gives ares his tattoos, a form of art that apollo doesn't get to practice otherwise.

he sees hades a lot more than a lot of people, as he often helps thanatos in escorting killed battalions to the underworld, spending the entire time ensuring them that even if they did not achieve victory, they brought honor to their homes and families. hades doesn't have favorite nephews/neices, but given how ares has been ostracized in a way that hades can find familiar, he empathizes with him quite a bit.

he and hephaestus actually would have been very close if they were allowed to have a childhood together and didn't have mutual jealousy, and actually have some really sweet moments. ares trusts hephaestus wholly with the wellbeing of aphrodite and his children, knowing that he will take care of them in his stead if he needs to.

still working out the kinks on this idea, but the dryad Harmonia is born from the tree that grows from ares' tears for Alcippe. she offers to help him create an entire society of daughters for him, ones that live away from the threat of men. daughters that know well how to protect themselves from those who threaten and attack them. (like i said, i'm still working on this idea, i'm not even sure if the amazons will be included, but i like thinking about the different ways that this could be interpreted/used)

maybe in that same vein of harmonia and the tree, ares crafts eros' bow himself (maybe with some help from hephaestus and his experienced craftsmanship?) from a branch of harmonia's tree? maybe he strings it with his own heartstring, left dangling loose, irreparable after the heartbreak of Alcippe?

okay so clearly i have a lot of ideas regarding this project. any and all writers, mythology lovers, narrative flippers, please let me know of any further interest or ideas about this!

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aspoonofsugar · 3 years

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The “One” Divided Into “Two”

Hello anons, hello friend,

these asks can be answered together!

First of all:

Hello! I just want to say that I love your RWBY metas! So I'm wondering, have you ever done metas about Emerald and Mercury?

Thank you! And yes, I have written a little bit about Mercury and Emerald here. I would also recommend this wonderful meta by @hamliet because it has an interesting Mercury theory in it.

Now. this answer is gonna mix some analysis with speculation because Emerald and Mercury’s story must still enter its climax. Once it does and we are given a specific interpretative key I will be happy to write more metas on them!

I’ll start with this:

Those two are so out of place in Salem's faction and the last look they share made me doubt that Mercury is rotten to the core and more of a kid who didnt know what he's in for. Since Em has switched sides, is it possible that Merc might follow? I really like him, so I'm hoping that he won't go down like Watts.

In my opinion, yes and here is why.

CHILDREN LOST IN A NARRATIVE

1) Emerald and Mercury have been child-coded since their first appearance:

Roman: Oh, look! She sent the kids again! This is turning out just like the divorce!

2) Both have received a save the cat moment early on:

Emerald: It's almost sad.

Mercury: Emerald, get up, we need to go. (...) Emerald!

Both child-coding and save the cat moments are often used to make characters more sympathetic and this applies to both Emerald and Mercury, even more so than Cinder.

This is why, for example, the major death they are directly involved in:

turns out to be a temporary one.

As a side note, I like thinking of Emerald and Mercury as the Cat and the Fox in Penny’s story since they act as false friends to the main cast, betray them and cause Penny’s first death. Moreover, in the novel, both characters end up suffering consequences for their life-styles. The two murder kids are the same:

At the same time, details about Emerald and Mercury’s backgrounds and motivations are given to the viewers pretty early on:

We are shown Cinder recruiting both and these scenes clearly paint them as two vulnerable kids that get manipulated and groomed:

Raven: Two children you’ve tricked into following you.

Emerald is presented as a scaredy cat and Cinder wins her over by promising the bare minumum aka some security and basic care.

Mercury is given even less aka a narrative to keep himself together:

Cinder: And you're his son. We saw your fight from the treeline. He's taught you well.

Mercury: Guess so.

Cinder: What's your name?

Mercury: Mercury.

Cinder: Mercury... Tell me, are you anything like your father?

Mercury: All my life, my father trained me to be a killer, an assassin like him. And then moments after I killed him, you two showed up looking for someone with my exact skills. Just felt like it was meant to be.

Cinder praises his abilities and frames his trauma as something that makes him strong, not broken. And Mercury has completely embraced this narrative since then.

In short, Emerald and Mercury are framed as two kids lost in an illusory narrative Cinder has crafted. That said, they are also characters in a proper narrative and they are given sympathetic backgrounds and positive qualities that hint they can be better than they currently are.

In particular, Emerald should overcome her emotional dependence on others to make the right thing:

In both volume 3 and volume 8 she is shown the destruction of a city. However, the first time she puts distance between herself and others’ pain, as symbolically conveyed by her looking from above. In volume 8, though, she is shown the same pain up close and she can’t ignore it anymore. This is why the others drag Emerald towards the people crying and light invades the screen when she finally meets the sheltered crew. She is forced to face an uncomfortable truth she wants to ignore.

Mercury should instead let himself depend on others more. He should open up to others and fight for his one positive bond:

Mercury: Back off, freak.

Which leads us to:

What do you like most about Emerald and Mercury's relationship and bond as it is explored in RWBY?

EMERCURY: COMPLEMENTARITY

Emerald and Mercury’s bond being a key one is conveyed both symbolically and in terms of their respective abilities.

When it comes to their abilities, I have written about it in the meta linked above:

In short, Emerald mostly relies on her semblance, while Mercury mostly relies on his legs and fighting prowess.

This detail adds to the idea that Emerald and Mercury have been acting as a unit and have been complementing each other. Emerald acts as the “soul” and Mercury as the “body”.

The soul is one’s personal essence (like the semblance). It is where (once again) wishes reside. The body is what protects the soul and is animated by instincts and self-survival.

They complement each other. This complementarity is shown in Emerald and Mercury’s fights.

In the Vytal festival, Mercury takes on both Coco and Yatsuhashi for a short while, so that Emerald can size her chance to fight Coco at her own terms (and she wins by using her semblance).

In the Battle of Heaven, Emerald uses her semblance to help Mercury fight and, in a sense, she compensates for his lack of one:

The human soul is about wishes, but also duties:

Penny: I feel like I wish I could do both the things I need to do and the things I want to do. Is that normal?

One must accept their feelings, but also struggle with them:

Winter: But yes Penny, we must still acknowledge our personal feelings, wrestle with them. It ensures us that we’re on the right path. It’s what makes us human.

And must do the right thing out of their own free will:

Winter: Penny. The general is making hard choices so we don’t have to.

This is Emerald’s personal struggle. She must let go of her feelings for Cinder and fight her own fear in order to do the right thing.

The human body lets people feel both others’ warmth:

And others’ cruelty:

However, Mercury refuses to feel both. He refuses to truly process his own trauma and pushes his feelings of care for Emerald away:

As far as their symbolism goes, they are linked in at least three different ways.

1) One of the attributes of the Roman god Mercury is that he is the protector of thieves and Emerald’s surname capitalized means thief. What is more:

Mercury: Ooh, Emerald! Master thief! Please don't take my money! I barely have enough to get by!

2) Mercury/Hermes is also the god of alchemy and the one who wrote the Emerald Tablet aka a tablet with the truth of alchemy on it. You, @hamliet, have written a meta on it, so I won’t add more.

3) According to at least some traditions, emerald is the gemstone associated with the planet Mercury.

So, it is clear the two characters are meant to be important in each other’s arcs.

Let’s now look at Emerald and Mercury’s bond, as it is explored through their interactions.

Mercury clearly cares about Emerald and gets along well with her. She is the only person he shows vulnerability to.

This is what their scene in Lost is about:

Emerald: Why did you come with us, the night Cinder and I found you?

Mercury: Why are you asking--

Emerald: Just answer the question.

Emerald is trying to open herself up and wants Mercury to open up too. This is why she gets annoyed when Mercury gives her a superficial answer. Still, in that conversation, Mercury is genuinelly trying to answer Emerald’s feelings:

Mercury: I'm sorry you didn't have a mommy that loved you, but I had a father who hated me! He never went easy on me! Every day of training was a beating. And when I unlocked my Semblance, he stole it with his! "This is a crutch!" "This makes you weak!" He told me I could have it back when I was strong. So I got strong, but I never got it back! I've had to work harder than anyone to get where I am. You may not like it here without Cinder, but I think I'm right where I'm supposed to be!

Here, Mercury is telling Emerald details of his past he would not be sharing if he did not trust her. He can’t let himself be completely vulnerable, though, so he discloses them by lashing out at Emerald. He mixes violence with authentic vulnerability and also with care:

Mercury: Cinder doesn't care about you! She doesn't care about either of us!

He has seen how self-destructive Emerald can get when it comes to Cinder:

And he is trying to have Emerald move on from her obsession.

However, Mercury’s small steps towards opening up and caring for another person are constantly challenged:

Tyrian: Oh yes, the world is mean, and I'm a big, bad man now just like the others.

Mercury: How long have you been standing there?!

The moment he opens up to Emerald, Tyrian appears to threathen and mock him.

Mercury’s positive development lies in accepting his own feelings of pain and in sharing them with others, so that he can be helped. However, the environment he is in goes in the way of it:

Emerald: Mercury, I wanted to...

Here, Emerald is trying to either apologize to Mercury for their fight or to at least check out on him. Still, Mercury is not listening to her because he is too frightened by what Salem is doing.

Mercury’s current struggle is conveyed in a nutshell by the glance he gives to his left in Midnight:

Is he looking at Emerald out of concern?

Or at Salem out of caution?

It is not clear. Still, what is sure is that Mercury should focus on Emerald, but Salem goes in the way. He deep down wants to care about others, but he is too scared to do so:

Tyrian: All you ever learned was pain and violence, and now you're too afraid to leave it. Such a tragedy.

At the same time, Mercury is for Emerald what she has been looking for in Cinder:

Emerald: We don't need him! Everything was going fine!

She initially refuses him, but it is clear that with time Mercury becomes the thing most similar to a family Emerald has:

She has been so fixated on Cinder and on how she can be worthy of Cinder’s love that she has missed how much Mercury has tried to protect her all along.

This is why Hazel is important for Emerald’s development:

Hazel: No more Gretchens, boy.

His sacrifice is about breaking his personal cycle of pain. His story starts with Gretchen dying when she was only a girl and it ends with him preventing another girl’s death. At the same time, he also helps breaking the cyle of abuse between Emerald and Cinder.

Emerald is told the truth about her relationship with Cinder by Mercury. Moreover, it seems something finally clicks for her here:

She observes Salem’s manipulation of Cinder and understands Cinder has been manipulating her in the same way.

However, it is thanks to Hazel’s sacrifice that Emerald sees what a genuine parental bond should be like. It should be about the parent protecting the child:

Hazel: What Gretchen would have done. And that starts with getting you away from here. Both of you.

And not the child protecting the parent:

Emerald: I know I can’t beat you. But I can fill that thing full of holes before you take me down.

It should be about the parent caring for the child unconditionally:

Hazel: Go.

And not about the child working hard to gain a parent’s love:

Cinder: You… You brought me back here. We failed.

Emerald: Cinder, you were hurt. I was just trying to help.

At the same time, Hazel’s death has taught Emerald the pain of losing a loved one:

And has forced Emerald to stand on her own two legs:

Oscar: I've seen what you can do, Emerald. However this fight ends, we could really use someone like you.

She can’t be protected forever, but she should start protecting others. She is powerful enough to do so and she must accept this responsibility.

I think Emerald could be key to Mercury's redemption

I think so too. Emerald saving Mercury is the perfect objective for her personal arc. It forces her to act as the savior instead of the one being saved.

Moreover, Mercury told her the truth about herself:

Mercury: You're in denial.

So Emerald might do the same for Mercury. This would also fit with her being the Emerald Tablet. The Tablet is written by Mercury to convey the truth to the world. Here, it might very well be the inverse: the Emerald Tablet might convey the truth to Mercury.

In general, Mercury and Tyrian’s foiling has to pay off, just like Emerald and Hazel’s:

The set-up is there for Tyrian and Mercury’s subplot to be about breaking cycles as well. Mercury’s story is about a child left alone with his abuser. Nobody comes to save him, so Mercury is forced to save himself by killing Marcus. Still, this only leads to him being stuck in the idea he is nothing, but an extension of his father. Right now, the cycle is repeating, but it is possible this time things will go differently because there is at least one person who cares about him.

Not only that, but (and this is nothing, but a baseless theory) even Qrow (aka a character who has unfinished business with Tyrian) might be a thematic fit to help Mercury:

Mercury: Bad hair, used a scythe, and smelled like my dad after a long day. It was him.

After all, Mercury himself draws a comparison between Qrow and his father since they are both alcoholic. However, Qrow has started a journey of rehabilitation for the sake of his nieces and their friends.

Qrow sees himself as bad for others and fundamentally unlucky because of his background and his semblance. So, his third fight with Tyrian being about saving a kid, who, in a sense, is even less lucky than him and has no semblance might be thematically fitting.

Despite it all, Qrow found a family and a place to belong and he might help Mercury find his (Emerald) as well.

SEMBLANCE OF THE SELF

Got no gun But I gleam like a blade and I'm harder than iron

Delusion I'll steal til your blind and defeat you from inside your mind

Emerald’s best weapon is her semblance, while Mercury’s semblance was stolen, so he could become a weapon.

This difference symbolizes their respective reactions to abuse.

Emerald uses her illusions as a coping mechanism.

This mechanism is well conveyed in CEM’s fight against Amber:

On one hand, Emerald creates a child version of herself who is well dressed and owns a bike. It is a rich version of Emerald because she must think that is the kind of child others would stop by to help. She does not believe she is likable or lovable. This is why she makes an illusory alter-ego, which is both true (she deep down is a crying child) and false (she is a street rat with nothing).

In general, this is Emerald’s way to approach others:

Emerald: Just left the stadium after your amazing fight! You guys were awesome!

Ren: Because she's scared. Just like us..

Emerald: Or maybe because I know how to get out of here. Anybody coming?

She either fakes an overly friendly demeanor or acts tougher than she is. In any case, she hides her true self.

On the other hand, Emerald is symbolically trapping herself in an illusion together with Amber. Amber can’t see the dangerous thief in front of her, but Emerald too can’t see the generous woman who is offering food to a crying child:

Cinder: Follow me, and you’ll never be hungry again.

Cinder promises Emerald food and love and this lie makes the girl unable to see the genuine article when it is right there.

So Emerald tricks both others and herself. This is how she survives abuse.

This is why she keeps believing in Cinder while she is gone:

Emerald: You’re here! I knew you’d co--

And this is why symbolically her semblance grows stronger in an abusive environment:

Emerald: I’ve been working on my Semblance. I can help. I won’t tell anybody.

Salem: You really have been honing that Semblance of yours.

After all, this is when Emerald gets a “power-up”:

She has just lost Cinder and finds herself stuck with Salem. Her reaction is to have a breakdown and to project an illusion in the minds of nine people, when she had previously stated she could only do one/two minds at most.

Mercury weaponizes his trauma.

This is why his legs are Mercury’s true weapon, while Talaria is there just to cover and embellish the pain and ugliness under it.

Mercury fights Amber with only its bare legs because symbolically his trauma is still fresh and he has yet to work out a structured coping mechanism to it. His meeting with Cinder is the first step in this construction that evolves in the following months and is still evolving:

In CEM’s fight against Amber, Mercury uses his unfeeling legs to whitstand the violence of the elements:

Fire

Earth and Water

Air

He goes through the whole cycle without feeling any pain simply because his trauma has made him unfeeling:

I'm the one That was ripped from the earth and exposed to the sun

Marcus has literally turned Mercury into Iron:

But I gleam like a blade and I'm harder than iron

Still, the point is that mercury as a metal is not as hard as iron, but (in the alchemical scale of metals) is way more refined and closer to gold. Mercury can be better than his father, but his way to survive abuse is to repress himself.

This is why his semblance was stolen by his abuser. It is because abuse has taken away Mercury’s personhood.

So, both Emerald and Mercury face abuse by masking or repressing themselves. The difference is a matter of degree. Mercury can suppress his emotions and needs more, while Emerald can’t.

Theirs is a foiling about feeling too much to the point of self-harm and of feeling too little to the point of negation.

So, Emerald must struggle with her feelings not to be controlled by them, while Mercury must aknowledge them.

Emerald’s Hallucinations is a Semblance of The Self because it hides both Emerald herself and the truth.

This is interesting because, as stated above, the Emerald Tablet should convey the truth about alchemy. However, Emerald’s environment has turned her into an inversion of herself:

I'm the one Who rose out of filth and was loved by no-one

She is a gemstone, but is currently covered in dirt. She needs to polish herself, so she can shine and fit better in her allusion.

Mercury’s stolen semblance is a Semblance of The Self because it is linked to Mercury’s self-expression, which he must claim back.

Until then, he is bound to be stuck in an abusive cycle as nothing, but a weapon.

In general, there is some symbolism around Mercury which needs unpacking:

Mercury quoting Marcus:"This is a crutch!" "This makes you weak!"

Firstly, he has clearly interiorized what his father told him here. He refuses the idea of weakness and crutches to the point that his prosthetics, which are literal crutches get turned into weapons and even covered by other weapons. However, this refusal of crutches means Mercury can’t heal. After all, crutches, bandages and treatment are necessary to become healthy once again.

Secondly, there is this:

I'll run circles round ya, I can touch the sky

The God Mercury’s main attribute is that he can overcome any boundary. He can go wherever he wants in no time. However, Mercury is the opposite because no matter what, he can’t leave his abusive environment. This has to do once again with his father’s abuse which culminated with Marcus taking Mercury’s legs. This is symbolically why Mercury is trapped.

Like for Emerald, Mercury’s arc should be about growing into his allusion, so that he can finally be free.

Still, how to turn Emerald and Mercury in the positive versions of their allusions? The answer has to do with this question:

(I think Emerald could be key to) maybe Cinder's (redemption) too

I’M THE ONE

Emerald and Mercury are two parts of the individual (body and soul) and two parts of a Huntsman (semblance and weapon):

Ren: A common philosophy is that a warrior's Semblance is a part of who they are.

Ruby: Just weapons? They're an extension of ourselves! They're a part of us! Oh, they're so cool.

Together they make a unit. Together they make Cinder. They are two sides of her trauma, her two sins:

Emerald: Actually, I was wondering, do you have any copies of "The Thief and The Butcher"?

And the wounds behind those sins.

This is why Cinder takes them in, but also why she abuses them.

She uses them as weapons:

In CEM’s fight against Amber she lets them go in first and has them take the majority of Amber’s hits.

Not only that, but she uses them as “red herrings” she hides behind.

She acts as if Amber’s blow takes her out of the fight, while Amber focuses on Mercury who resists her attack:

She has Emerald display her semblance at full force, so that the girl becomes Amber’s first target:

She makes her own illusion where Emerald and Mercury are her smokescreen.

However, her two disciples are not just things she can use as she pleases. They are two people who depend on her:

Mercury: You mean--

Emerald: She's alive?

They are literally two kids she takes in framing their relationship as parental/hierarchical hence she is responsible for them.

However, she fails them and leaves them in a dangerous environment. This is why they both leave her out of self-survival.

Narratively, Emerald and Mercury are two kids that must grow up. Right now, they are in some kind of adolescent phase. They have started their emancipation from their “parent”, but they have still to grow until they’ll be able to truly face Cinder.

It will probably be in this confrontation that they will affirm their growth. Right now, Cinder does not need to be coddled, but to be called out. Both Neo and Watts try to, but Cinder ignores them and retaliates against them. She needs a call out she can’t ignore and Emerald and Mercury are too rooted in who she deep down is for her to be unaffected by them.

At the same time, it would mark Mercury and Emerald’s first step into adulthood. Only then they can stop being a “half” and can truly become “one”, so a whole person.

#rwby #rwby meta #emercury #emerald sustrai #mercury black #cinder fall #my meta #asksfullofsugar #anonymous #hamliet #murder kids #rwby murder kids

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a-long-walk-in-the-forest · 2 years

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Gaara’s Astrology Analysis

I was working on an extensive astrology post for Sasuke, Itachi, Naruto, Sakura and Karin and while in the process of doing that I also got some of Gaara, Suigetsu and Kakashi’s placements, but adding them to my other post would make it far too long so I’m making a few brief post like the one I previously did for Karin about them for now.

This post will be focused on Gaara’s placements. As per usual, the sun is canon, the moon was calculated based on Naruto’s moon and the rest were calculated based on Sasuke’s placements. His chart isn’t complete (particularly since I don’t have any guesses for his ascendant so I can’t say anything on his house placements). I haven’t checked his natal aspects but I did have a look at synastry for confirmation. Natal aspects and composite and all that will be in a more extensive post in the future.

Gaara’s placements:

sun in capricorn 28 degrees

moon in leo 16, 18, 20, 22, 26 or 27 degrees

venus in sagittarius 11 degrees

mars in libra 29 degrees

saturn in cancer 20 degrees

neptune in libra 24 degrees

pluto in aquarius 18 degrees

That venus in sagittarius mixed with mars in libra really makes sense for that scene in the chuunin exams where he was like “I’ll still kill you all and I need more blood but I’ll pour more energy to make sure it doesn’t hurt much and it’s a quick death. There’s probably a bit of pluto doing something too but I’m not sure what yet.

Also the whole “self-love” thing and wanting to be adored along with a moon in leo is simply perfect.

He’s kind of short so I was wondering if he has some type of mercury influence on his ascendant/first house but I need to consider a lot of things in order to get an estimate for his ascendant so lets leave it for now.

Degree Interpretation (by Donna Walter Henson and Kozminsky):

cap 28 (sun):

People who will rule or direct others; industrious planner; enjoys life in his or her own way.

Denotes one of conservative and contemplative mind, aspiring, purposeful, and retentive, who mends the broken chains which link the past to the present, and who sees in the coming dawn a reflection of the remote past. He gains honor and esteem, but is not free from sadness. His ideals will be injured by events, expected perhaps in all but intensity. It is a symbol of Comparison.

can 20 (saturn):

A brilliant mind with aptitude for many things; degree of limitation and hindrance; one with this is often right but at variance with those in power; may gain fame or notoriety; often acts on impulse, but his family may be a stabilizing influence; threatens difficulty though literary work; accidents, blows, stabs.

Denotes one who is over venturesome and liable to fall into grave mistakes and errors. He should be exceedingly careful of his conduct and endeavor by strength of will to moderate an impulsiveness which if allowed to grow will bring into form all the threatenings of this peculiar degree. Self-mastery and the forcing of self to obey the power of his spirit should be his chief care in life. It is a symbol of Hastiness.

lib 24 (neptune):

Musical ability; usually a progressive person; foresighted; sagacious; has many good ideas, though they may seem strange to most people of his time.

Denotes an attractive person who is in danger of being held in the chains of sense and at the will of others. His nature is impulsive and artistic, restless and pleasure-loving. His desires are strong and may run riot with his reason. There is a leaning to the artificial, the theatre, and the dance, and a very sensuous love of earth life. It is a symbol of Vacillation.

lib 29 (mars):

Clairvoyance, a seeker after truth, much given to meditation.

Denotes one who will have to wake up else he will be elbowed out of everything by others more vigorous. He is possessed of good mental qualities, is well-mannered and good-natured, but he allows others to take advantage of him, and he will suffer from deceit and unfairness. It is a symbol of Sluggishness.

sag 11 (venus):

Science, practical art work, fond of skating, boxing or other athletic sports, or the Venus type with a pleasant personality. 9-13 Sagittarius sometimes denotes peculiar dreams; criminal tendencies; properly losses; accidents.

Denotes one of a vicious temperament who is liable to be obsessed and used by the dark forces. A strong and beneficent power over him may transmute his nature and aid him to overcome ill fate, but evil is more likely to attend him and make him her victim. It is a symbol of Overthrowing.

aqu 18 (pluto):

Musical ability; medical fields gain and recognition in any field; good intellect; well adapted to literary work.

Denotes one who has a graceful method of expressing his thoughts and who will reach his place when life’s midway has passed. He will accomplish much, and his words will ring so that many will stop to listen. His actions harmonize with his beliefs, and his soul is serene. It is a symbol of Proclaiming.

leo (Moon):

A person of considerable ability; often considered odd or peculiar; cares little about the world’s opinion; does his own work in his won way; a careful speculator; good sense of perception.

Denotes one of understanding and power of purpose who is gifted with fine perception and a lively imagination. As a theorist he is generally correct in his deductions and he can quickly clothe his thoughts in material dress. It is a symbol of Knowledge.

Medical, fields, people who rebel against existing conditions and usually do something about it, dramatic, religious, or prophetic tendencies are not unusual.

Denotes a man of compelling will and magnetic force who stops at nothing to carry out his ambitions. He rises to power through blood or tears or both. He wields and binds, and those whom he binds will bleed, for his work is the work of materialistic pride which dissolves in the fires of hate. It is a symbol of Compulsion.

Medical fields; danger from animals; faith; homicidal tendency; abstinence of indulgence often applies to use of food and drink; found in religious charts; astrology; power of expression; cold, heartless, bombastic, destructive, but with artistic perceptions and facility.

Denotes one of mystical mind who is attracted to the ritualistic and ceremonial. The mind is capable of serious thought, seeing miracles in actions which to others seem quite commonplace. With him romance, poetry, and wonderment travel. It is a symbol of Mysticism.

Medical fields; projecting and the arts; comedians; clowns and entertainers (actors); teachers; astrology; humanity; healing (doctors, actors, comics); appendicitis; homicidal tendency; rulers and leaders.

Denotes a rouser of men, one destined for action, who will bring light and benefit to mankind. His way will not be without its roughness, and many times he will be weary. Then the sound of the horn will rouse him to an understanding of his work and he will see the light. It is a symbol of Incitement.

Astrology; musical or linguistic ability, especially with 29-30 degree Gemini or Sagittarius; or 7-8 deg Aries or Libra; ready to seize opportunities; usually has intellectual friends.

Denotes one who will be compelled to gain experience through suffering, losses, and deceit. He is sincere and affectionate, and will sacrifice much to help another. He is aided, patronized, and advanced, and from his former sufferings his fame springs. It is a symbol of Approval.

Astrology; occult; gamblers; music; painting; losses and many dangers; wisdom; artistic appreciation; great aptitude and many good ideas; can take others’ ideas and improve on them; neurasthenia; associated with criminal tendencies, poisons, suicide; rising; military preferment and riches; violent, a tendency to violent and intemperate behavior. If a military officer, danger of murder and mutiny by his soldiers, especially when rising; although physically active, one which planet here lives much of the life mentally; they want the world to cooperate with them; great readers on all subjects; exercises tact and discrimination in the ordinary affairs of life; always have a need for more money no matter how much they have; dream many dreams and sometimes gain fame or money by pushing their ideas

Denotes one who will exercise discrimination in the affairs of daily life; one who will possess tact, understanding, and diplomacy, and a peculiar magnetic aura which enables him to bring quarrelling units to a peaceful union. It is a symbol of Conciliation.

Some synastry for confirmation:

He noticed Sasuke quickly and immediately established a connection with him with both of them being on each others radar while he pretty much ignores Naruto initially but later, Naruto manages to influence him and he grows a bit attached to Naruto as a result and this narrative does show itself in this chart make up.

He seems more on the emotionally driven side than the logical side, similar to Naruto. This shows up in his chart as well since he shares a lot of internal signs with Naruto, albeit with differing planets (they also both like gardening).

There was also his interaction with Sasuke at the kage summit where he tried to read him and they could communicate better than Sasuke and Naruto were managing at the time as he got Sasuke to actually listen to what he has to say but he didn’t manage to influence him or really get him (granted he didn’t have the necessary context but still).

He has his sun conjunct Sasuke’s ascendant which means he is more likely to notice him immediately and establish rapport, On the other hand, he has his moon (comforts, emotions, vulnerability) in the same sign as Naruto’s ascendant and saturn and Sasuke’s sun and mercury. This shows the way the relate to him emotionally to an extent as he could see himself in Sasuke in the emotional sense while Naruto could perceive and influence his emotions but not without him lashing out first. I personally think that he has his moon later in leo and it isn’t forming an aspect to either of their leo placements. His moon is closer to Sasuke’s 12th degree mercury compared to Naruto’s 5 degree ascendant which again, shows how he connected more instantly with Sasuke while his connection with Naruto took time and specific circumstances.

On the other hand, his moon is aspecting Naruto’s pluto, moon, mars, sun, venus (out of sign) and mercury so that immense influence Naruto has on him to the point of worship makes sense (although there needs to be more stuff for that then just moon but it’s certainly a contributing factor). His neptune is also making a lot of significant aspects to Naruto’s planets which is a sign of idealization and can lead to worship, idolization and projection.

He has more internal connections to Naruto compared to Sasuke as he has his venus in the same sign as Naruto’s mars (they aren’t forming an aspect) and his mars is in the same sign as Naruto’s stellium (sun, mercury and neptune). There are also plenty of aspects.

His pluto is aspecting Naruto’s sun, moon and mercury (all soft aspects) while he is forming hard pluto aspects to Sasuke’s moon, mercury and mars.

Something else that I’ve notices is how his mars exactly sextiles Naruto’s venus and how his venus semi-sextiles Sasuke’s mars.

Saturn would be another thing to look at but I’m going to leave it here for now.

He has mostly harmonious aspects to Naruto’s chart and he seems to be the type who prefers harmonious aspects (I don’t think that is the case with Naruto since he has a moon in aries and a fire mars along with his venus in scorpio and pluto in the 7th, extremely harmonious types of relationships would likely bore him, and I’m talking about relationships in a neutral sense just incase you read this and think I'm talking about romance or something of that nature).

We have established that while his connection to Sasuke was more immediate, he ultimately has more connecting him to Naruto and I think the composites should also reflect that but I haven’t gotten around to drawing them yet so that remains to be seen.

So to conclude, this chart seems to fit him pretty well.

#Gaara #naruto astrology #n-astro

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chaoticmessmultistan · 3 years

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So as a fairly new Atiny, I've been watching the ATEEZ videos and I've decided to try to interpret the storyline as how I see it. Please bear in mind that I am watching a playlist in chronological order that has been put together by someone on YouTube and these notes have been made without seeing the videos ahead of this one.

I have a basic understanding so far of Halateez but it's really not that much so please be patient with my probably wrong interpretation.

Fever Part 1 Diary Film

Opening

HALATEEZ Hongjoong gives Hongjoong the hourglass. Could this mean some sort of temptation?

The hourglass sand is moving upwards suggesting a reversal of time or something similar, manipulating time.

Hongjoong's dream

Outside a TV/Radio shop

Many TV screens show images of crowds in white. Some also show a single person.

"the world inside the television that cannot be reached. the world they live in and the world that I live in is blocked. just like the see-through glass"

There is something that HJ can see and wants but cannot reach. Televised events are often ideal to those who watch them.

New scene inside a building made of what seems to be shipping container metal.

HJ enters and closes the door behind him.

Shards of broken mirror are seen on the ground, reflecting HJ.

The building is shown to be a room in disarray with mess everywhere. It's confusing and looks abandoned.

" my dreams, my friends and my family. can I find them again"

HJ opens a wallet to show a photo of what seems to be a family. There are 7 people in the photo. Is dream Hongjoong searching for his 7 members?

The hourglass comes into view, bright among everything else. The sand in it moves downwards and the items in the room begin to float.

Earlier the hourglass seemed unusual in an ordinary setting, now the surroundings are behaving out of the ordinary while the hourglass behaves as expected.

This suggests that the hourglass is not connected to everything, it is from somewhere else. As this is Hongjoong's dream, it suggests the hourglass is something very different to what he is used to or comfortable with.

It is also possible that this is not in fact a dream brought about by sleep but rather a representation of HJ's aspirations to move ahead in life

Here is the link to my other thoughts from other parts I've seen so far

#ateez #ateez hongjoong #kim hongjoong #halateez #atz #ateez storyline #fever part 1 diary film #hongjoongs dream

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beyond-far-horizons · 4 years

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Katara’s potential in LOK and importance of older female role-models in life and fiction

This was not meant to turn into a meta and yet has done! Just a disclaimer I’m still working my way through The Legend of Korra but have mostly been spoiled by reading some great analysis on here. So this isn’t meant to be a comprehensive take and also isn’t meant to disrespect the people who like Legend of Korra or this particular aspect of it. It’s just a subject very close to my heart and my work as a creative practitioner, student of psychology and media analyst, so I really wanted to discuss it.

Contains some spoilers esp for Season 1.

So I’m biting the bullet and getting into LoK despite reservations. I overall really loved Avatar the Last Airbender and Katara is one of my favourite characters. I admit one of my biggest issues with starting LoK was hearing how her character and agency were drastically reduced compared to the original series.

Now I know LoK gets a lot of flak for a variety of reasons and it was always going to be hard following such a beloved series as A:TLA and trying to do something different. However I’m actually enjoying certain aspects including Korra herself, despite the fact she can be bratty and immature at times (which squares with her age and upbringing). I also find the premise of the Equalists and especially their mysterious, terrifying leader Amon really interesting and I just wish the creators had done more with that plot line. (I forever seem to be going on about missed potential in the stories I consume!)

However the more I continue the more I’m annoyed because I realised we were robbed of Badass Grandma!Katara and also more matrilineal mentoring/bonding between her and Korra.

Spoilers but I wanted to see Katara go toe to toe with the villains esp give her being intimately connected to their history. I wanted to see her deal with the shadows of the past, the history of trauma associated with bloodbending and the Fire Nation and also the very intriguing points Season 1 was trying to make about the role of bender vs non-bender and the Avatar themselves. All things Katara was deeply involved with as someone who experienced inequality firsthand, fought relentlessly to abolish it and was the previous Avatar’s finder, teacher and later his wife.

Katara being Aang’s first mentor and implied to be Korra’s waterbendering tutor adds yet another dimension and potential to explore. That whole relationship must be strange for everyone involved but I’m always a sucker for female bonds, found family and intergenerational friendships.

I know LoK is about the new cast taking over - Tenzin fills the role of Korra’s mentor figure onscreen and is loved by many. There are lots of ways to tell a story and the creators focused on Korra’s issues with airbending to contrast her personality and development with Aang’s, as well as to flesh out Aang’s family and the rebuilding of the Air Nomads.

Yet I miss the potential of seeing wise fierce mentor!Katara on screen. We fans love callbacks, so seeing Katara in action as she used to be would be a joy, and older more powerful characters need not overshadow younger ones. For example Uncle Iroh was beloved and integral in A:TLA despite the fact we saw very little of his backstory. He didn’t take over Zuko’s journey, he aided and complemented it. Plus Toph gets her chance to shine.

There was so much to play with, especially in Season 1 (and would have been a nice reference to Aang meeting Katara first and then Zuko and Toph later). So much contrast between Katara’s experience with Hama, her thoughts about her mother, Gran Gran and the reintroduction of South Water Style. The trauma of bad parental/mentor relationships vs the good examples one can use to alchemise negative patterns that A:TLA was known for (see Iroh, Zuko and Ozai for reference). I don’t want to get too far into spoiler territory but all of this links back to Katara, Hama and Water Tribe and I would have loved to see a further exploration of that and a contrast between her loving bond and fear for Korra vs the villains’ and their education. This would have created more depth between Korra and Amon and co (and wow do I wish that dynamic was explored further - does she even know what happens to him??), and between Katara and Korra and their respective journeys to shoulder their burdens and mature as people and women.

Just think about all those juicy, angsty callbacks we could have done to Hama’s haunting episode! How Katara could have decided to be a better mentor than Hama was to her. (Katara was always a good mentor but if there was any issues in her relationship with Korra re Aang etc this could have been a good place for dramatic tension and resolution.) Of course for all we know this did happen but we don’t see it because we don’t get to see Katara’s training with Korra or much of Katara at all in LoK apart from her failing to heal Korra.

Plus I adore badass ladies and badass grandmas, I have loads in my original fiction. I love people defying stereotypes and sadly there is still a lack of stories not only depicting a range of female role-models but female mentoring and matrilineal bonding.

Read the incredible bestseller Women Who Run with the Wolves by Jungian analyst Clarissa Pinkola Estés if you want to learn more about the power of storytelling, myth and female hero journeys and initiation. A key part of that book is how women have been historically and psychologically undervalued and harmed by the prevailing culture for centuries. Also how it has broken matrilineal lines of wisdom and support and distorted cultural values of how girls and women (not to mention boys and men) view the Feminine. This leaks down into our modern day stories via inherited psychological conditioning and unexamined tropes.

For example - how many ‘wise old men’ figures can you think of in pop culture, myth, fairytale, religion? Quite a few I’d imagine. Now contrast that with the ‘wise old woman’ archetype...I guessing not as many. I’m sure you’ll find a few but I bet more often the words that come to mind are ‘witch’, ‘sorceress’, ‘crone’ etc.

The Fairy Godmother (I gave you that one for free;) ) is an exception but she is a watered down version of the powerful, ambivalent figures of folklore such as Baba Yaga. Trust me if the Yaga was your mentor, as she was to Vasalisa in the fairytale Vasalisa the Wise/the Beautiful, you ain’t coming out of that encounter with a crystal slipper, you’re coming out it with a burning skull that incinerates your enemies and I’d like to see that tale popularised!

As mentioned Katara did feature in Korra’s life as a support, a vague mentor figure and a healer - in fact she is the one that initiates Korra’s heroine journey by supporting her decision to leave the stifling confines of her compound, go to Republic City alone and learn airbending. She also offers emotional and medical support during Korra’s traumatic recovery later on in the series. But mostly Katara’s involvement is at the peripheries of The Legend of Korra except when she was failing to heal her.

This isn’t to say that comfort and softness in female relationships are lesser than battle prowess or mental fortitude. Or that failure always bad, it is human and can be a powerful narrative tool for character development. I’m not interested in the infallible ‘Strong Female Character’ stereotype and neither is Estés. Her book illustrates that the Feminine encapsulates all of these qualities and many more and looking at the original Katara she was a perfect example of that. She was empathetic, intelligent, powerful, fierce, devoted, flawed, playful, angry.

I guess what I’m saying is that I miss that Katara and I miss the opportunity of seeing Korra interact with and learn from that Katara, especially as they have so much in common in terms of shared history, powers, culture and even looks. I’m also missing the opportunity of seeing that Katara battle Amon and all the drama and backstory that could have ensued from those encounters! After all Katara took on her mother’s killer, Hama and the Fire Nation (including one angsty honour-obsessed Fire Prince and his powerful sister), you’re telling me she would have just let Korra, her family and friends be in grave danger in the name of ‘leaving it to the kids’ ESPECIALLY since her own history turned out to be so deeply connected to all of this? Nah...

It’s important for girls* to see a range of wholesome female characters and dynamics play out in their media from an early age, especially to rework and combat the historic negative tropes that our culture is still steeped in. It’s also important to address the devaluing of the elderly, in particular elderly women. The Legend of Korra does in fact build on this from Avatar the Last Airbender by having an even greater range of capable women and girls across ages and morality spectrum. Korra herself (who I’m liking a lot more than I thought I would), is a real stereotype breaker. Toph I’ve heard fulfils the ‘wise old (crotchy) woman’ archetype later in the series. I just wish, given how much I adore A:TLA’s Katara, that we could have seen her shine in an elder role too.

(*I use terms like ‘girls’, ‘woman/women’ and ‘feminine’. I mean these to also include a broad interpretation of the Feminine than just the hetero/cis-normative one, but sometimes it helps when critiquing something to narrow things down esp something so already psychologically complex in a simple meta.)

#katara #legend of korra #lok #atla #pro katara #my meta #meta #my writing #jungian psychology #korra #amon #feminism #storytelling #avatar the last airbender #I just wanna see Katara fight Amon damn it I don't care who wins as long as it's a MASSIVE fight #also want to see either Katara save Korra or Korra save Katara #and some proper bonding and badass tuition #and then dunno waterbenders both hero and villain learn and grow and rebuild the Tribe

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mary-tudor · 4 years

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~HENRY TUDOR: A SOCIOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION.~

Today, I'll be discussing a character who left his mark in History, fathering a dynasty whose most proeminent members were his (second) son Henry VIII and his granddaughter Elizabeth I. Often overshadowed by his descendants, Henry's own deeds as a king and as an individual of his own days have been neglected until recently, when efforts from British historians have been working hard to change that.

The reason why I decided to bring him here was not only due to personal affections, though they certainly helped it, but because there are aspects overlapped in social structures that shaped him. In other words: what's Henry Tudor as a sociological individual? Can we point him out as a constant foreigner or someone whose socialization process were strongly marked by the addition of two different societies?

Henry Tudor was born in Pembroke, located in Wales, in January 28th 1457. His mother was Margaret Beaufort, a proeminent lady whose grandfather John Beaufort was the son of John of Gaunt, son in turn of King Edward III of England. The duke of Lancaster fathered four ilegitimated children (who were legitimated in posterity) by his (third marriage to his then) lover Katheryn Swynford, amongst whom John Beaufort was the oldest. Therefore, Henry was 3x grandson. to the duke and, despite what some might argue when Henry IV became king, in great deal to inherite the throne. Well, it's not my intention to deepen the discussion as to Henry's legitimacy or the Beauforts.

Though his father's ancestry, Henry's blood led him to the royal house of Valois. His paternal grandmother, Katherine de Valois, was the sister of Isabella, who had been the second wife of the ill-fated king Richard II. She was also descended of Louis IX and his spanish wife, Blanche de Castille. Henry was also a royal man from the Welsh lands, as Owain Tudor, his grandfather, was related to several princes of Wales. By all these I said, the first thing one might think (considering 15th century and it’s nobility) Henry would receive a proper education due to his status. However, this would not happen in the strict sense of the word. Let us not forget that England was collapsing by the time of Henry Tudor's birth and his childhood. Why am I using the word 'collapse' to qualify the civil war we know named as wars of the roses?

Émile Durkheim, a french sociologist, would write several centuries later, about how a society is formed: he compared it to the working of a human body. If the head, the brain of our body does not work well, what happens? The body will not work well, certainly. Neither would the head work well if other parts hurt somehow. Although if you did break a leg, you could still make use of your brain, but as a whole how limited wouldn't you be? He'd also say that when the human body, or as he called, the society was sick, it was because of the social structures which imposed the human being to the point where there would be no individuality, no matter of choice.

Such created social facts that were completely external (althoug well internalized through means of a process we call socialization) but coercitive. If they are not working, what does this mean? That soon another social facts will be replacing the former one. But between one and another, we have a "very sickly" society. Taking this understanding back to England's 15th century, it is not difficult to see what Durkheim was talking about.

The king was the head of the English body. If we have here two kings fighting over one crown, fighting over the rule of an entire body... Well, then? We have the collapse, a civil war that lasted for the next 30 years. Here, it's less about discussing who started what but why they did what they did, and the explanation for it. Power is power. It's crystal clear, and a statement that, however simple might it sound, points to the obvious. Factions that fought for power intended to dominate others, using the concept very well developed by sociologists as Pierre Bourdieu and Norbert Elias. This domination is a large field, a concept that embrace all sorts of it. Looking back to England's latter half of the century, domination was peril. The head was about to explode. The society was ill... and dominated by it.

What were the values? What was the racionalization proccess of social action led by individuals that were not only individuals but a group? How would all of this affect Henry Tudor? It was not about merely blaming the capitalism, because such coercitive system wasn't present yet. But Henry was, directly or not, linked to the royal house of Plantagenets, whose eagerness for dominating one another and by extension the rest of the country would include him in the game.

"Game." For Durkheim, this would imply an agitation, like a wave of sea, from which no one could escape from. Let's not forget that Institutions created ideas, renewed them, shaped them to the practice whether to dominate the weaker or to defeat the stronger. Whatever the purpose, we here have the Church, not the religiosity, but the precursor of ideas would subdue individuals to share (or manipulate to their own goals anyways) values in order to keep determined mentality to it. But also, monarchy was too an institution which held control over the lives and deaths of thousands of people. A monarch, as we know, is never alone regardless of how "absolut" they could be in different times and contexts. They were not above the law, either. At least where the socialization process is concerned. For the monarch embodied the content which was the law back then. He was literally the law.

Furthermore, Henry's education would foresee this fighting, which I'm not merely referring to custody going from his mother to another, before finally staying under his uncle's responsibilities, as well as the civil war itself. (Anyone remembers Warwick executing Herbert before the boy?)

See, we all know and comprehend today what trauma are capable of doing to someone. Such experience is the main responsible for shaping ideas, values and even costumes. Now, a society which is very much sick by it's own values and moral costumes (a point here must be made: the public consciousness always preached for a warrior, strong king, but has no one thought how this "common sense", validated by a general expectation towards the head of society, was what led it to... well, for the lack of better word, suicide itself?

For it's widely accepted that weak kings do not last long. But that is when we deal with a good deal of expectations that, when turned to frustrations, bring awful results. If England's society was ill in it's very extreme sense of the word, was because the values they created turned against themselves and that would leave it's mark in a boy as Henry. And until the age of 14, he was still absorbing these concepts, these morals, values, costumes from institutions (let's not forget that a monarch shares such with the nobility that surrounds him, as was the case of House Lancaster,f.e) before he was casted out to Bretagne and, in posteriority, to France. Now, I believe you all know what was done whether in England or with our king during these 14 years spent outside his own country before he became king upon the victory settled on the battle of Bosworth field.

I am not interested in discussing historical facts. At least not now, as we are finally dealing with Henry Tudor as a social actor

----/-HENRY TUDOR: A FOREIGNER? AN EXILED? OR AN OUTCAST?--

These questions mobilized me as I came to read a text written by 19th century sociologist named Georg Simmel. He wrote an essay (pardon by any mistakes in translations done from here on) entitled "The Foreigner", in which he brings a sociological question at why foreigners are seen as strangers who are never entirely immersed in the society they attempt to be part in.

Here's an excerpt translated by me in which he explains it:

"Fixed within a determined social space, where it's constancy cross-border could be considered similar to the space, their position [the foreigner's] in it is largely determined by the fact of not belonging entirely to it, and their qualities cannot originate from it or come from it, nor even going in it." (SIMMEL, 2005: 1.)

Furthermore, he adds:

“The foreigner, however, is also an element of the group, no more different than the others and, at the same time, distincted from what we consider as the 'internal enemy'. They are an element in whose position imanent and of member comprehend, at the same time, one outsider and the other insider." (SIMMEL, 2005: 1).

Here's why Henry, as Earl of Richmond, was not well seen by the Britons and the French, in spite of being "accepted" by them. Never forget that he would still be seen as an outsider by his own fellows. As Richard III would call Henry a bastard, one could understand this accusation with sociological implications. English back then detested these foreigners and by the concept brought here by me from Simmel we can understand why. But we could also see being called a bastard as a way to point out Henry's localization. Where can the Earl of Richmond & soon-to-be king be located?

I have pointed this far the structures which were raised and caused a collapsed society to live broken in many, many ways and how this affected Henry this far. Seeing how foreigner he was, nonetheless, he did not belong neither to England (at first) nor to the Continent.

On that sense of word, says Simmel (2005: 3):

"A foreigner is seen and felt, then, from one side, as someone absolutely mobiled, a wanderer. As a subject who comes up every now and then through specific contacts and yet, singularly, does not find vinculated organically to anything or anyone, nominally, in regards to the established family, locals and profissionals”

Even though we find a dominant group of foreigners in France, as we are talking about of nobles displeased with the Yorkist cause and supporters of the Lancastrian House, they were not majority. Where can we locate Henry, then? We don't, because he was not a French and however well he could speak the language, it was not his birth language. The French culture was not passed nor naturalized by him through the teachings of a family or the church by the institutions: monarchy, church, family, parliament, etc; he would have been defeated a long time. But that he did manage to, using this popular expression, put things together and become the first king to die peacefully since Henry V, it tells us a lot. Not rarely an immigrant is accepted by a society whose demands are forced upon him, most of the times in aggressive ways. But it's not often either that we see a king occupying such place in society.

Indeed, one might say that kings as Henry II and the conquerors before him were too foreigners, but not in the sociological way I'm explaining. Because the social structures were different. Henry's government were settled in a more centralized ruling, far more just and peaceful, more economic and less concerned with waging wars than his antecessors. The need to migrate was not 'forced', neither 'imposed' and even back to the 11th and 12th centuries were motivated by different reasons. That's to accentuate how English society evolved throughout the centuries. And I used again and again Georg Simmel to prove my point about casting a sociological light towards Henry VII not as a historical character so distant of us and who remains an object of controversial discussions, but a man of his times who was forced to deal with expectations that placed him in social positions nearly opposed to one another to fulfill each role whether as king or as a man. For some reason, the broken society shaped Henry as an immigrant, but as history shows us, it was this immigrant who helped shape medieval society, directing it towards the age of Renaissance and in posteriority to Modern Age.

Finally, to close this thread I leave here another quote (translated to English by me) found in the text written by Simmel:

"The foreigner, strange to the group [he is in], is considered and seen as a non-belonging being, even if this individual is an organic member of the group whose uniform life comprehends every particular conditioning of this social [mean]. (...) [the foreigner] earns in certain groups of masses a proximity and distance that distinguishes quantities in each relationship, even in smaller portions. Where each marked relationship nduced to a mutual tension in specific relationships, strenghtening more formal relations out of respect to what's considered 'foreigner' of which are resulted." (SIMMEL, p 7).

Bibliography:

AMIN, Nathen. https://henrytudorsociety.com/

DURKHEIM, Émile. "The Division of Labor in Society”.

KANTOROWICZ, Ernst H.”The King’s Two Bodies: A Study in Medieavel Political Theology.”

PENN, Thomas. Winter King: Henry VII and the Dawn of Tudor England.

SIMMEL, Georg. The Foreigner. In: Soziologie. Untersuchungen über die Formen der Vergesellschaftung. Berlin. 1908.

#Henry VII #King Henry VII #Henry VII of England #sociology #socio-history #historical sociology #immigration #sociology of immigration #Henry Tudor #Tudor dynasty

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mizutoyama · 4 years

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Alice Beaumont Headcanons

Here is my list of headcanons for Alice, in order of the fics they appeared in.

Before Hogwarts

- Alice drew her letters to Santa, not knowing which language he spoke. (Broken Promise)

- She speaks French with her dad, English with her mom. (Broken Promise)

- Jacob didn’t show up for Christmas ’79 even if he knew his sister really wanted him there and had promised her he would be there before he left for Hogwarts. This was the first time Alice felt betrayed by her brother. She was 6. (Broken Promise)

- Alice’s parents always wanted their children to follow the rules and to be as perfect as can be, which was perceived by the kids as being strict. After Jacob disappears, her parents became overprotective. (Before Diagon Alley)

- Also after Jacob’s disappearance, Alice went to live with her Irish maternal grandmother, who lived in a Muggle village in Waterford County. (Before Diagon Alley…)

- Alice’s maternal grandmother is known in the village as a talented natural healer. She concocts basic potions to heal Muggles, technically not braking the Statute of Secrecy. (Before Diagon Alley…)

- While living in Ireland, Alice came to appreciate Muggles, as they didn’t associate her with Jacob. (Before Diagon Alley…)

- Receiving her letter from Hogwarts was bittersweet as it meant she would return to a world that would always link her to her brother. (Before Diagon Alley…)

Year 1

- Her mother and brother were in Ravenclaw. Her father went to Beauxbâtons. (On the Hogwarts Express)

- Alice doesn’t think all Slytherins are bad. (On the Hogwarts Express)

- During her first duel with Merula, she used Lumos and then stuffed her wand up Merula’s nose when the latter was busy criticizing her choice of spell, making it bleed. (Who’s the Best?)

- After her duel with Merula, Alice trained herself to be able to do some wandless magic to protect her friends from that bully. It wasn’t until her second year, after the Christmas Break, that she was able to effectively use wandless magic, which is still weaker than if she used a wand. (Summary of this headcanon)

- Alice thinks one problem that proponents of blood purity have not thought of is inbreeding. (Birds of a Feather)

- Alice can play the piano. (Socializing Ghosts)

Year 2

- Alice dressed up as a Ghostbuster during Halloween in her second year. (Who You Gonna Call?)

- Alice has a crap poker face. (An Unforeseen Complication)

Year 3

- Alice helps out at the infirmary. (Falling)

- Her first interaction with Charlie was her bumping into him in their first year and him just staring at her. (Falling)

- Alice doesn’t really like it when people make fun of what she’s reading. (Falling)

- She believes nothing is impossible. (Falling)

- Alice found one of her childhood drawings in the bin/trash can in Jacob’s room. (When the Sky Is Cloudy)

- Alice usually runs away when she is overwhelmed by her emotions. (When the Sky Is Cloudy)

- She likes to cry in empty corridors. (When the Sky Is Cloudy)

- She finds Barnaby’s presence soothing and doesn’t mind crying in front of him. (When the Sky Is Cloudy)

- Alice wanted to take Muggle Studies, but got distracted by the book she was reading when filling out the electives’ form and put a mark next to Divination instead. (Muggle Trouble)

- She borrows Penny’s Muggle Studies textbook to read it. (Muggle Trouble)

- She also reads Muggle textbooks during the summer. (Muggle Trouble)

- While not as fashion-obsessed as Andre, his influence as made her more aware of fashion and she can react strongly to ugly/weird outfits. (Fore Muggles Only)

- Alice is not super familiar with Muggle sports. (Fore Muggles Only)

- She thinks Chester is crazy for thinking she would make a good Prefect. (Can’t Wait)

Year 4

- Alice is familiar with televisions thanks to the time she spent in Ireland. (Video Games)

- She can be competitive. (Video Games)

- Alice LOVES mystery novels and TV shows. (Killing Innocence)

- She often wakes up in the middle of the night because of nightmares. (Killing Innocence)

- She has a close relationship with Tonks, to the point where she will “hit” her when Tonks is a bit too brutally honest. (CMDN)

- Alice can never quite hide her well-to-do-girl personality, even with band t-shirts and oversized flannel shirts. (CMDN)

- Alice is not a fan of Snape. Really not. (Autumn Cold)

- Rowan has a tendency to push Alice to her “full potential”, even when the poor girl is sick. (Autumn Cold)

- Alice gets help from Charlie in Care of Magical Creatures. (Study Buddy)

- Her scream is high-pitched. (Scream)

- Alice isn’t really bad with names, but there are some times she is, and when it happens, she’s really bad. (What’s in a Name?)

- Alice has some Muggle pop culture knowledge. (What’s in a Name?)

- While she became an animagus in her third year, she only told her friends (the ones not involved with the process) in her fourth year. (What’s in a Name?)

Year 5

- She is well liked by the Weasley family. (A New Prefect in the Family)

- She can get annoyed at Tonks and Tulip’s antics. (A New Prefect in the Family)

- Alice is really surprised she became a Prefect. (Something About Us)

- She has a tendency to confuse blushing with sunburns. (Something About Us)

- Being near Charlie has a relaxing effect on her and she’s less likely to have nightmare when he’s near her when she sleeps. (Something About Us)

- Charlie realizes his feelings for Alice during the summer before their 5th year. (Something About Us)

- Alice knows how to interpret rules to her advantage. (Hidden Truth)

- She hates it when people try to pry in other’s business (Hidden Truth)

- She kissed Charlie on the cheek before knowing she had feelings for him. (Hidden Truth)

- She lives in a terraced house in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London. (Fantasy at the Proms)

- There’s an extension charm on her closet, which is full of clothes. (Fantasy at the Proms)

- Andre continues to have an influence on her fashion sense. (Fantasy at the Proms)

- Andre used to throw various fashion magazine at her when he disapproved of her outfits, until one landed on her head. (Fantasy at the Proms)

- She enjoys classical music. (Fantasy at the Proms)

- She sometimes knows the name of certain things in French and has to concentrate to remember their name in English. (Fantasy at the Proms)

- She doesn’t trust Rakepick. (You’ve Got a Friend in Me)

- Alice really cares about her friend not missing out on good times. (You’ve Got a Friend in Me & Distraction)

- She’s definitely not a fan of Emily Tyler. (Distraction)

- She’s determined, even when it comes to small things. (Distraction)

- Alice acts like a big sister towards Barnaby. (Something There)

- Alice is blind to her own romantic feelings and romance in general. (Something There)

- Alice is not use to let others lead, to not have full control. (One Step Closer)

- Alice is not a natural at dancing; she needs plenty of guidance. (One Step Closer)

- Nobody take’s her position as a Prefect seriously. (Fashion Emergency)

- She forgets the world around her when she’s lost in her thought, which makes her appear rude sometimes. (Get Your Head in the Game)

- She’s not really familiar with Quidditch. (Get Your Head in the Game)

- She’s observant (outside of romance). (Get Your Head in the Game)

- She’s also quick to react to danger. (Get Your Head in the Game)

- Alice gets better at dancing thanks to Diego’s guidance. (Der Walzer von Alice)

- She likes skirts and dresses that twirl. (Of Quidditch and Ballgowns)

- She gives romantic advice based on works of fiction she has been exposed to, while remaining oblivious to the feelings Charlie has for her. (How Does She Know?)

- Her French grandmother is a descendant of French kings. (From Paris, with Love)

- Alice doesn’t like talking about her privileged background. (From Paris, with Love)

- She has a small manipulative side. (From Paris, with Love)

- Alice tries to prevent her friends from getting caught if they break a rule. (A Night to Remember Pt.1)

- She hates it when Tonks calls her a Sloane Ranger. (A Night to Remember Pt.1)

-Her love of fairytales as nothing to do with the love stories in them. (A Night to Remember Pt.1)

- The Celestial Ball is the beginning of her starting to realize her feelings for Charlie (A Night to Remember Pt.2 & My Fair Alice)

- She thinks Diego is a bit odd. (Drama King)

Year 6

- Alice never wants to disappoint, especially people she look up to. (A Momentary Lapse of Duty)

- She’s familiar with Muggle science. (A Momentary Lapse of Duty)

- She watched a few episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation because of Captain Jean-Luc Picard, someone with a French name who speaks English with a British accent. (A Momentary Lapse of Duty)

- Alice has a hard time accepting Rowan’s death and blames herself for it. (Grief Pt.1 & Pt.2)

- She’s afraid anyone too close to her will die. (Grief Pt. 2)

- She discovers the Room of Requirements on the night she is grieving alone. (Help Me Say Goodbye)

Year 7

- Alice doesn’t like wearing bikinis. (Hottest Spot South of Havana (Part 2))

- Alice loves old libraries. (A Wonderful Surprise)

Post Hogwarts

- Alice doesn’t know the real reason Charlie broke up with her. (Stolen Dance)

- Alice and Barnaby became closer. (Stolen Dance)

- She has a tendency to ramble on when she is nervous. (Stolen Dance)

#alice beaumont #jacob’s sibling #hphm mc #hogwarts mystery mc #headcanons #Headcanon #fun facts #mc facts

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illfoandillfie · 4 years

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Hi!! So I took a small class tonight about tarot cards and I’m SO EXCITED to start! Do you have any advice for somebody just starting out?

oh thats so cool, i’m excited for you! what sort of stuff did the class cover?

I’ve got 4 main points of advice but i’ve broken them down into smaller sections based on what i’ve used and what i’ve seen others talk about. Take what you feel works, ignore what you think won’t help or what sounds dumb or whatever. There are so many ways to approach tarot and what worked for me won’t necessarily work for you so test things out and play around with it. If you have any more questions about things i haven’t covered or if you want me to elaborate on anything or link some more resources please let me know!

Tip 1: Get a deck.

obvious place to start but having the cards is an easy first step lmao. there are also apps available if you can’t get a physical copy but being able to shuffle a physical decks will probably help you connect to it better.

I recommend something based on the Rider Waite Smith imagery because so much of the images inform the meanings of the cards and will help you learn - there are tonnes of different RWS decks out there, This one is quite bright, This one is a bit more muted in colour, This one has redone the art so it’s in the art nouveau style while keeping the RWS images, This one has modernised it so it’s not just white men on most of the cards

If you want some more suggestions for good decks for beginners I recommend watching THIS video or looking around youtube. Tarot readers/cardslingers/whatever you want to call them like showing off their collections. There are so many videos of people talking about which decks they own and showing off what the cards look like (even i made one lmao) so it’s a great way to get an idea of what a deck looks like and the size of the cards or even the weight of the cardstock they’re made with, even if you can’t physically touch them.

But the easiest way is to find a deck in your local bookstore and see how it feels for you. You want something you enjoy looking at, and that resonates for you because you’ll be able to connect with it easier

After that you can branch out if you want. Some readers only have one deck that they do everything with, others collect decks like people collect coins. Personally I like using different decks for different questions but a solid RWS deck will work for anything so if that’s all you feel you need then that’s cool too.

Tip 2: Start a Tarot Journal

this is what i did when i started. I bought a cheap notebook from the newsagency on my way to work and I dedicated 2 pages to every card. I titled them and then wrote down what the little white books that came with the decks i had said about each card as well as made notes on what imagery/symbolism was on each card. As I’ve learnt more I’ve added to these pages, observances i’ve made about when the cards are likely to appear, things i’ve seen other readers comment on (like someone i follow refers to the 5 of cups (i think) as the unrequited love card), relations to astrology, anything interesting i’ve read about the cards that i didn’t already have written down.

At the back end of the notebook I write down results for interviews i do with new decks

and i also have a section for particular spreads i like after all of the individual card pages but there are so many things you can write about in tarot journals.

i’ve seen some people do a daily card draw in the morning and write what the card could be referring to and then at the end of the day they write about what happened and how it related to the cards

I’ve seen others that try to relate song lyrics or movie quotes to each card to help them remember what the card means.

if you look for ideas on google or youtube i’m sure you’ll find examples of what people do with tarot journals.

Tip 3: Seek out info from other readers

One way to do this is books. There are so many book out there, especially for beginners, that talk about advice for reading cards, ways to help you learn the meanings, spreads that come in handy, etc. I read a book called Kitchen Table Tarot by Melissa Cynova when i was first learning and found it really helpful. But there are heaps of others out there too. Most bookstores will have a “new age” section so browse around and see if theres something you like the look of. Same goes for libraries. Or places like audible if you like audio books.

Podcasts are also a thing. I don’t have any specific recommendations but i’ve come across references to witchy podcasts so I’m sure there’d be something tarot specific out there.

Youtube is also brilliant. I love watching pick a card reading videos. It’s a really easy way to see how other readers interpret cards, what sort of systems they use. I like Siren Tarot and Charmed Intuition Tarot. They both read very differently. Siren uses multiple tarot decks in rows to figure out the story. Charmed is more likely to combine her tarot cards with oracle cards and she reads charms as well and sometimes uses a pendulum.

There’s also a witchy community on tumblr as well, so have a look around, maybe follow some people or lurk in tags.

Tip 4: Practice.

Read for yourself, asking different questions. Love life, career, friendship, family relationships, goals you have, whatever comes to mind. Do daily/weekly/monthly readings for yourself. Get a feel for how the cards operate. Start with one card, learn how to interpret it, what it might mean in relation to your question. Then add another couple of cards, see how the meaning gets clarified by what appears around it. Make notes as you go. This is where a journal comes in handy because if you write down what cards come up and what happens on those days you can start seeing patterns and that helps you understand the cards better next time they come up.

Read for others too. People you trust that you feel won’t make fun of you learning tarot or won’t talk shit about it. Close friends, family. Or, if you don’t have anyone irl, do what I did and let people ask for readings online. Start a specific blog for it if you want. It’s good if you know them irl because you can easily ask them how things turned out, see if you were on the money or if your interpretation was off then you can go back to what was drawn for them and see how it connects, if it does at all.

Don’t be afraid to read cards with the guidebook in your hand. That’s what they’re there for, to help you understand the cards. You can often get a sense of the card, if it’s positive or negative and what its meaning is, by looking at the imagery but use the books for as long as you need!

Create your own rituals around your cards. Some guides will tell you to sleep with your deck under your pillow or beside your bed so you can connect with it as you sleep, some will tell you to cleanse your deck in sunshine or moonlight or with smoke from a candle or by placing a specific type of crystal on top of it. Figure out what works for you. Cleansing can come in handy, especially if you do something that’s emotionally heavy, being able to clear that energy from your deck will give you better results in the next reading but if letting your deck sit in the moonlight sounds kinda crazy to you don’t do it. Personally, when i’m getting ready to do readings I light a candle and make a cup of tea or coffee. I’ll knock on the deck to wake it up and maybe pass it over the top of the candle if I feel like it. It’s about making a space you feel comfortable in.

Don’t read when you’re emotionally compromised. If you’re completely distressed and having the worst week of your life your results aren’t going to be as clear or accurate as if you’re in a more stable frame of mind. It’s why a lot of people like to meditate for a bit before they do readings. It lets them centre themselves and focus their energy on the cards.

Don’t be afraid of your intuition. If you draw a card and a phrase pops into your mind, include it in your reading. If you see something on the card, even if it’s a small image, and you feel like it’s important, mention it or note it down or whatever. It might seem like it comes from out of nowhere but it’s your intuition picking up on something small you might not even realise you’ve noticed.

#this got a little long oops #i just had a lot to say #and i've probably forgotten stuff lmao #i'm also going to start tagging this stuff as #tarot advice #so ya'll should be able to find it easily #if you ever want to #seriously tho #please feel free to come back and ask more questions or tell me if you try any of these and they work for you #i love the idea of helping baby tarot readers find their feet!#even if i'[d still class myself as a baby reader lmao #Anonymous

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46ammy · 4 years

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Primal Zodiac of the LU Links

So I was browsing through Tumblr when I found a link to Primal Astrology, in which it gives you a primal zodiac by combining your Chinese Zodiac (birth year) and your Zodiac constellation (birth month) signs, and I was fairly amused by how some parts were pretty accurate describing my personality.

Me being rather obsessed with LU, I decided to look up the Primal Zodiac signs for each Link in the LU verse, based on their release date of their “timeline-wise” first adventure (eg: Four= Minish cap)

Some of the descriptions I found pretty close to what the fandom depicts each Link’s personality, and some I kinda disagree/ not certain about.

Ones I agree for the most part:

Hyrule February 21, 1986 -> Pisces + Tiger = Stingray “those born under the sign ... are adventurous, humanitarian, generous, sincere, rebellious, and emotionally fragile all at the same time. .... but stingrays are also deep thinkers, dreamers, and idealists. ..... While they may spend a great deal of time lingering in the background, they are not afraid to stand up for themselves, and can be a very formidable opponent.... love intense conversations and ideas that they can share with others... tend to play whatever role suits them best in different social situations... attracted to mysterious people, places, and things... relish the unusual and unexplained...” (That’s how I see Hyrule for the most part)

Legend November 21, 1991 -> Scorpio + Sheep = Panda “...tend to be popular but loners, want to go with the flow but have to feel in charge of their own destiny, long to relax but are always working on projects.... Those born under this sign are quiet, collected, and focused, but can become obsessive, overly critical, and anxious if left alone for too long. ... aren’t very social by nature, but still enjoy having like-minded friends around. ... may not seem their nature, they are deep down romantics...” (while some may debate on the quiet part, I see that as him being quiet about himself, not sharing too much with others.)

Time November 21, 1998 -> Scorpio + Tiger = Honey badger “Powerful, passionate, and resilient ... fierce competitors who are not afraid to go after what they want. .... fearless in their conquests and will not back down to anyone. ... Deep down Honey badgers want something to live fore beyond mere day to day survival. Survival is easy for them, finding their place in the world is not. On the outside they come across as tough, mysterious, and unable to be broken, but inside they are actually quite fragile and complex. .... members of this sign are old souls who carry with them a deep wisdom that allows them to understand human nature. They inherently know what people want, which is why they are often so successful. ....spend a great deal of their time and energy pursuing their goals, and are almost always alone or leading a group. Those who do get to know them well discover that they are extremely loyal to their friends and actually have a surprisingly great (and shocking) sense of humor. When they relax they can be the surprise hit of the party.” (The Old man in a nutshell, for the most part)

Warriors August 14, 2014 -> Leo + Horse = Hyena “members of this sign strongly prefer to spend time in large groups of friends and families. ... very strong-willed sign with the ability to follow through on their promises and take what is theirs when necessary. .... have an easy charm about them that draws other people in. ... great at taking charge of situations, and are by far most comfortable when they are in charge. .... main weakness of Hyenas is their tendency to be self-centered. .... are highly likable, and tend to only conflict with others who challenge their social leadership. Even in social groups where everyone is equal, Hyenas tend to become the de facto leaders of the group simply because of their ease and charm.” (The Captain in a nutshell. ‘nough said.)

Wild March 3, 2017 -> Pisces + Rooster = Ocelot “keep others at a distance. ... don’t really want confrontation.... (but) enjoy the company of others quite a bit. They sometimes isolate themselves because it is the easiest, and sometimes the only, way to fully harness their immense creative power. .... can get things done, but in their own unique, visionary style. They truly don’t need others to succeed, but can benefit quite a bit from connecting to people in the real world. ... like to be inspired by new surroundings and new adventures.”

(I don’t completely agree with the keep others at a distance and they make a big front to do so, but one thing is that Wild’s personality can differ depending on the player’s play style, so I guess this may fit in some interpretations.)

Wind December 13, 2002 -> Sagittarius + Horse = Dove “Independent, energetic, and adventurous, .... love life and long for new experiences. ... always looking forward; they rarely dwell on the past. ... often restless, which can lead them to take risks in life. .... seem lucky because they are so optimistic. Even when they are feeling down, those born under this sign always manage to get back on track. They believe that they can have whatever they want if they work hard for it, and they are almost always right. .... They have tons of energy and never want to stop moving, which ironically causes them to miss out on many of life’s more subtle experiences. .... they are spirited, independent and have a tendency to speak bluntly, but they also have big hearts, great senses of humor, and a unique philosophy about life.” (he is a sailor and an explorer for new land, I do see Wind never wanting to stop moving)

Ones I’m not sure:

Sky

November 18, 2011 -> Scorpio + Rabbit = Koala “Emotional, powerful, and intense, .... It’s not that they are putting up a false front, it’s that they are trying to keep their tornado of emotions safely inside themselves. .... can seem harmless from a distance, but can be quite defensive if provoked or approached without caution. .... A tendency of this sign is to use passive aggression and subtle manipulation to get what they want. While they try their hardest to be convincing, they can’t help but wear their emotions on their sleeves. .... Koalas are deeply emotional, and on top of that they have a way of burying their feelings to keep them secret, even to themselves. .... When in their element, these individuals are surprisingly sweet, loving, caring, and even funny.” (I see Sky being sweet as his default emotion, that isn’t a surprising element of his personality. This description had a more negative connotation with the word “emotional” than positive for me. But if you look at it in a different angle, he may harbor some passive aggression.)

Four

November 4, 2004 -> Scorpio + Monkey = Raven

“ Strong, curious, and energetic, ... deepest desire is to overcome the odds, to triumph, and to prove themselves to the world. .... difficult to pin down. .... the Raven Spirit was considered a trickster - a sly and cunning individual who would often get what they wanted, or otherwise entertain themselves, through the intellectual manipulation of others. Powerful and unpredictable .... highly developed senses of humor... Loyal, gregarious, and funny, Ravens can be the life of the party or they can be self-absorbed, competitive, and negative. ... prefer to be big fish in a small pond, getting their fix of attention from those who know and understand them best.”

(Hmmm, Four is a difficult person to pin down his personality, he does have four separate ones if he wishes to use the ability of the Four Sword. Cunning, yes he is, but intellectual manipulation of others for his amusement? that sounds more like Shadow. Then again, Shadow did kinda come from Four...)

Twilight

November 19, 2006 -> Scorpio + Dog = Octopus

“Loyal, ambitious, and intense, ... prefer to deal in facts rather than emotions. ... can be fairly anti-social. To be more specific, they tend to be uncomfortable in most social situations. ... prefer time alone or with a couple of their closest friends with whom they share a great deal of the same ideals. .... The mind ... is both complex and contradictory. They are part rebel but part people-pleaser. They have deep reserves of inner strength but become nervous and uncertain at the slightest glitch in the plan.They are passive while temperamental, honest while secretive, .... internalize their negative feelings rather than expel them into the world, .... value loyalty, honor, and work ethic above all else. They often have difficulty creating their own happiness, mostly because they prioritize things like pride and power over peace and serenity. Always hardest on themselves... Socializing is not their strong suit,...”

(Socializing not being his strong suit? Anti-social? I don’t see it. Twilight is very good with children. You need to be able to do socializing to have smaller children adore you, like how the Ordon children adores Twilight in the game. Not emotional? Twilight is pretty emotional, I mean look at his expressions in TP!)

Those are my opinions. What do you guys think? (you can click the underlined hyperlinks to see the full profile for each sign)

#Primal Zodiac Signs #lu #linked universe #linkeduniverse #loz #which zodiac signs are each Links?#some fit some don't imo #click on the hyperlinks to see full profile of each sign

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dabistits · 5 years

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in the blood: connecting the backstories

With the arc concluded and what I imagine is pt 1, the pre-AFO bits, of Tomura’s backstory revealed, I thought I’d finally sum up one of the major points of this plot. Scattered throughout the arc were three major backstories—Himiko, Twice, Tomura—that could use some piecing together. It doesn’t seem like they were chosen at random or were primarily subordinated to good timing, and instead were written because they parallel and reinforce certain themes in Tenko’s past.

Here’s my typical disclaimer that these connections may not have been intentional at all, but, y’know. We’ll pretend Horikoshi is a competent writer and etc. etc. Of course, there’s also the question of what conclusion all these narrative threads points us towards, and I’m chronically afraid of making a wrong prediction so I won’t do that on this post lols (it’s also not 100% clear, which I’ll address). Nevertheless, I think it adds significance to consider Tomura’s past with the addition of framing it through the other two backstories, considering what they say about Quirks, society, and the characters’ internal processes about where they fit in the overall scheme of things.

(note: some screenshots below the cut contain mild gore!)

I. Quirk repression

We encounter this for the first time in the MLA arc through Himiko. Although we’re not privy to Himiko’s thoughts during the flashback, Curious makes an assertion that Redestro later repeats: that Quirks can, to some degree, influence a person’s disposition. Transform elicited in Himiko a desire to drink blood (in order to develop a bond of closeness), which was largely viewed as deviant, and she was pressured to suppress not only her impulse, but her Quirk as well. This idea of Quirk=disposition is also repeated with Tomura, who Redestro asserts is only capable of destruction.

Without being told Himiko’s perspective in the flashbacks, we don’t know how her experience with suppressing her desires went, nor whether she experienced any adverse physical effects from doing so. Tomura, however, is clearly stated (by AFO, so it’s worth taking with a grain of salt) to experience unbearable itchiness whenever he represses his urge to destroy, a sensation which only seems to abate when he uses Decay. So for the moment, the message seems quite clear: suppressing one’s Quirk is akin to suppressing one’s self, and even more drastically, there may be physical consequences to doing so.

On the flip side of Quirk repression, then, there’s Quirk liberation. That’s what the Metahuman Liberation Army is going for, of course, but the three characters discussed here also found relief through their Quirks: Himiko in finally shattering her mask, Twice creating his crime gang, and Tenko eliminating that which he hated. Embracing their Quirks is portrayed as a way in which they achieved not only emotional pleasure and fulfillment, but agency as well—an increase in control over their own lives and fates—finally allowing themselves to do what they were “meant” to. This is, supposedly, a move which empowers oneself.

II. Quirk trauma

But that’s not entirely true.

Just as Quirks can be liberating, they're shown to be harmful when used without restraint, turning against their wielder and instilling suffering. Twice’s clones eventually went out of control and began to fight each other for claim to the original, and Tenko’s Quirk awakening killed his entire family. Both experienced trauma involving the people closest to them, Twice being confronted with “his own” betrayal, while Tenko witnessed the deaths of his family at his own hands—in the aftermath, they’re both left completely and utterly alone, abandoned by those they believed they could rely on, with uncertain recollection about how events actually transpired.

Then it’s no coincidence either that Twice’s and Tomura’s chapters focus on arriving at the truth of their traumas. Twice, after having spent an indeterminate length of time trapped in the uncertainty of his own realness, is forced into confronting his fear of disappearing after Skeptic orders his arms broken; in surviving this, he’s able to confirm that he’s the original Twice, once and for all. Tomura is likewise pushed into recalling his repressed memories (let’s assume right now that they’re the real memories) as his last connections to his family—their hands—are destroyed one by one.

It’s through the discovery of this truth after being confronted with their greatest fears or insecurities that they’re able to embrace the full strength of their Quirks, returning to a default, ‘pre-trauma’ state. Twice is able to create doubles of himself once more, and Tomura becomes able to unleash a stronger version of Decay. While Himiko’s case is much less drastic, the new characteristic of Transform also seems to be linked to her reaffirmation of her ‘truth’ as well. Those ‘truths’ may sound positive or negative, motivated most obviously by self-preservation in Himiko’s case, self-actualization(?) in Tomura’s case, or protective instinct in Twice’s.

Personally, I place a lot of (if not most) importance on Twice’s motivation in this arc, because his past and desires most strongly encapsulate the themes we see repeated across all of these backstories:

III. Alienation and belonging

Perhaps the strongest thread that pervades these three stories (and Spinner’s too, which we have less to go on at the moment) is the feeling of alienation. The four of them found themselves constantly rejected by those around them: Spinner due to prejudice, Twice never getting support nor sympathy after being orphaned, and Himiko and Tenko in particular being denied by their own families, both of them compelled to stifle their own desires, whether it be to pursue her instincts or to voice his dreams. They were positioned as outsiders, set apart from everyone else.

That’s why I believe it’s significant that one of the primary purposes of this arc seems to be to bring the LOV more closely together, from Spinner’s questioning and renewed loyalty, to a central conflict of this arc plot being a rescue (among other schemes from the MLA, of course), to giving the LOV a way out of the aimlessness from the beginning of the arc. Of course, past alienation and present cohesiveness also contrast each other as narrative foils, and this is most clearly exemplified in Twice’s chapters because he’s babey, which more extensively linger on his feelings towards his current situation and friends, who he sees as a remedy to the loneliness of his past.

The other characters haven’t offered the same reflection towards the LOV, but it’s not a stretch to say that the group provides them with something that wider society could not. People who accept Himiko’s “normal,” who enable her to pursue her love (for good or ill); who take Spinner seriously despite being a mutant with a “useless” Quirk; and to some degree, even Tomura seems to have achieved what he once wanted. Tenko was a child who made friends with lonely kids, who wanted to be a hero, presumably to save others, but was rejected by his family at every turn and had no one save him at a time when he needed it most. And even though his life as Shimura Tenko is long gone, Tomura currently finds himself as the leader of a group of outcasts who are looking out for him, fighting through a small army to save one of their own. The irony is poetic.

IV. Tragedy or Agency?

Which begs the question: what do we do with this information and how do we interpret these characters? Are they just cruel and unrepentant villains, or should we sympathize with them as people rejected by a prejudiced society? Really, this arc offers room for both readings.

At one end, we have Himiko and Tomura, who view their decisions to become ‘villains’ as liberatory. Whether or not certain painful events in their lives affected their choices seems to matter very little to them, or perhaps those events were even a blessing for leading to the choices they made. They decided to embrace their natures even if those traits were violent, distrusted, and societally shunned, and they do not consider this eventuality as particularly unfortunate. Himiko rejects Curious’ interpretation of her life as pitiable, and Tomura likewise asserts to himself that he’s untroubled by the deaths of his family. They both represent their pasts as not a tragedy.

On the other hand, we have Twice, whose backstory chapter bears the maxim that also appears on the cover page of vol 24, and thus has the privilege of setting the tone for a major portion of this arc: “All it takes is one bad day.” Twice’s backstory (ironically enough) reads uniquely more self-aware than the others’, both about his own decisions, and about the conditions surrounding him (i.e. how other people’s decisions affected him). He was aware of the way others viewed him and how that caused his alienation—best exemplified by how disposable he was at his workplace—and of his reasons for pursuing a “solution” that only dug a deeper hole.

Thus, we have the “one bad day” part of the narrative. Twice, who was orphaned early on and isolated from his peers, got into a motorcycle accident with one of his firm’s clients. His boss hits him and fires him, leaving Twice aimless until he comes up with the idea to Double himself. Twice’s backstory interprets "one bad day” as a truism about instability, particularly in a society which appears to have few safety nets and a lot of prejudice—essentially, the chapter posits that one incident of bad luck can put someone on a worse path, especially when people act in their own interest instead of in sympathy or aid. Okay. See where this is going?

We’re presented with two narratives here: that ‘bad paths’ are either predetermined by an individual’s disposition and are liberating to embrace, or they are often the result of an individual’s circumstances and influenced by other people. Nature versus nurture. The arc does not definitively come down on either side, so I’ll stick to observations and limit on drawing conclusions.

Tenko’s backstory also fixates on a day. The turning point in his life was the day his parents’ rejection of his aspirations culminated in physical violence from his father, setting off the chain of events that led to Decay’s awakening and killing his family; in the aftermath, he was also further alienated in a busy city where no one stopped to help him until he was conveniently ‘found’ by AFO. The “one bad day” lies in the fact that Tenko was entirely salvageable; neither his hatred nor his fractured relationship with his family were conclusive in a five year old’s state of mind, and they both could have been remedied if they had the chance.

So that leaves us with two different takeaways. Can Tenko be thought of as having taken a turn for a better, more self-actualized existence—a not-tragedy—or was it indeed a set of circumstances that should rightfully be considered unfortunate because it was fixable? The resolution of this arc seems to come down pretty firmly on the side of the first interpretation: by embracing his destructive ‘nature,’ Tomura has awakened the full scope of Decay’s power, subdued the Meta Liberation Army, and gained their resources—he’s more influential than ever before, and he’s put himself at an advantageous position to take down hero society. So, clearly his internal monologue must be self-aware, because the narrative is rewarding him for embracing his purpose.

V. The League of Villains and Self-Destruction

But I do have a caveat to add, and it has to do with self-destruction. I’ve talked about Tomura and self-destruction, but that’s not really just a tendency limited to him. It proliferates in most (if not all?) of the LOV members, in more or less obvious ways. Spinner’s crisis of self-worth and subsequent seclusion was arguably self-destructive, as is Mr. Compress’ tendencies to run away from conflict. These are more metaphorical and without much elaboration yet. On the other hand, for a more literal take, there is Dabi, who burns himself alive whenever he uses his Quirk.

Himiko’s is somewhat a mix of both figurative and literal. Transform lets her take on someone else’s appearance, and she has an obsession with ‘becoming’ her objects of affection; it follows that if taken to the extreme and if she’s successful in 'becoming,’ she erases her own identity in the process. It’s no different than the ‘mask’ she assumed until middle school; she trades one mask for another, more appealing one, and her own ‘self’ is what gets destroyed.

Then there’s Twice. Double first started off as something that gave him comfort when he found himself utterly alone, but from there only lead to even more mistakes. Using his doubles to commit crimes as an ‘easy out,’ every decision Twice made thereafter piled on to conclude in his doubles’ murderfest. What began as comfort became the conduit for his own, literal, self-destruction as his doubles turned on each other.

Similarly, by the end of 239, Tomura has fully unleashed Decay. Like the first time he used it, he found it liberating, a release for all the emotions he experienced and repressed. Much like the rest who embraced their Quirks, it was a source of pleasure and comfort, but not without consequences: as shown by the damage one to his right arm, his body can’t sustain that kind of use. Decay too much, and there will be blowback in the form of starting to injure himself. It is, again, a form of literal self-destruction.

VI. To conclude:

The arc ends on a firm note about Tomura’s growth, and the direction thereof, concluding that Quirks affect innate drives which our antagonists have accepted and been rewarded for; however it follows on the heels of contradicting points about how that very acceptance and overindulgence ends in self-destruction. Our antagonists have been strongly linked together via backstory, highlighting the similar sources of conflict they’ve experienced. Familial strife, instinctive drives, the price of overindulgence, and the indifference of society are all elements that deeply influenced these characters, and their stories are continuations of how they conceptualize these elements with respect to their own senses of self. Again, assuming that we’re dealing with a competent writer, we can assume that these themes will be revisited as the story continues; namely, addressing to what degree a Quirk determines a person’s future (ideally, there should be a convergence of the messages brought up in this arc with those brought up with Shinsou and Monoma), coming to a resolution about the disputes of personal versus societal responsibility, and deciding how the narrative itself feels and wishes to convey about our antagonists and their struggles.

#shigaraki tomura #bubaigawara jin #toga himiko #shimura tenko #tomura shigaraki #jin bubaigawara #himiko toga #bnha meta #for those who want to know what to expect #2.4k words and 6 parts lulz...

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howwelldoyouknowyourmoon · 4 years

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The violent “peace-loving” messiah, Sun Myung Moon

▲ Sun Myung Moon liked to keep a heavy wooden stick ready, as seen above.

There are unconfirmed reports of leaders being beaten at East Garden and of Kim Won-pil being beaten so hard by Reverend Moon that he was hospitalized.

There is another unconfirmed report that a Japanese leader had his arm broken by Reverend Moon at a meeting in Alaska in July 1992 when the leader gave a report about the Press Conference which Black Heung Jin Nim / Cleopas Kundiona had just given in Tokyo. It was recorded by a Japanese national TV channel. Reverend Moon was furious. LINK to Cleopas 1992 conference video

Reverend Moon has reportedly been seen going into a leader’s meeting carrying his baseball bat. Others have apparently seen leaders lying on the floor in distress after such a meeting. There are many witnesses, but they are all keeping quiet.

At one church wedding in the 1970s Reverend Moon was allegedly not happy about how hard a Korean couple had beaten each other during their indemnity stick ceremony. Reverend Moon told the couple to beat each other a second round of three times each. He was still not satisfied and he took the stick and beat each of them hard himself. The couple could hardly walk out of the hall.

________________________________________

Reverend Sun Myung Moon

UNTITLED ADDRESS TO CONFERENCE OF U.S. AND INTERNATIONAL LEADERS

Tarrytown, New York, September 20, 1976 Translator – Col. Bo Hi Pak

“I will never retire. The only thing you can do to stop me is to leave no work for me to do. Do you think that if you do, I would hit you with a baseball bat and tell you to go away, stop blocking my way? Suppose I were to hit you with the baseball bat to stop you, bloodying your ear and breaking a bone or two, yet still you insisted on doing more work for Father.”

________________________________________

True Parents Birthday Pledge Ceremony

Reverend Sun Myung Moon New Yorker, February 13, 1997

“Your mission is only the territory of your relatives. How much easier it is for you compared to True Father’s course. You have absolutely no excuse. Those who have the confidence to fulfill your mission of accomplishing 3.6 couples Blessing this year, show your hands. (Applause) Father wants Reverend Kwak to keep a baseball bat in his hand all the time and if he sees anyone neglecting their mission in this regard then he can freely use it. Particularly those who are sleeping and hiding, Reverend Kwak’s baseball bat will fall upon you at any time. Father is ordering all of us to make our absolute commitment to Reverend Kwak to accomplish the 3.6 million couples Blessing this year.”

________________________________________

In the US, in the 1970s, Ken Sudo reportedly expressed fear of being beaten by Reverend Kwak when he had to fly to New York to give a report at a leader’s meeting.

________________________________________

Reverend Sun Myung Moon February 24, 1996, Sao Paolo, Brazil

“From today on, if you meet anybody around you who criticizes or judges True Family because of what is happening right now, you can hit them in the mouth. If anyone writes a wrong letter to True Family you can break their arm.”

Nansook Hong, Moon’s daughter-in-law, wrote in her tell-all book:

In The Shadow Of The Moons: My Life In The Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s Family

page 101 – “In Jin disapproved of my friendship with her sister but she could be nice to me herself when it suited her purpose. She came to me once, asking to borrow some clothes so she could sneak out that night. Her own room was next to her parents’ suite in the mansion and she did not want to risk running into Father. Why not? I asked. She told me that recently she had come into her room on tiptoe about 4:00 a.m. It was still dark. She thought she was in the clear, when she saw Father’s shadow in a chair across the room.

As Sun Myung Moon struck her over and over again, his daughter told me, he insisted he was hitting her out of love. It was not her first beating at Father’s hands. She said she wished she had the courage to go to the police and have Sun Myung Moon arrested for child abuse. I lent her my best blue jeans and a white angora sweater and tried to hide how shocked I was by her story.

As much as anything about my new life in the True Family, the antipathy between the Moon children and their parents stunned me. Early on, I was disabused of the idea that this was a warm and loving family. If they had reached a state of spiritual perfection, it was often hard to detect in their daily interactions with one another.”

....

pages 150-153 – “We all gathered to greet [The Black Heung Jin] at Father’s breakfast table. He was a thin black man of average height who spoke English better than Sun Myung Moon. He seemed to me intent on charming the True Family, in much the way a snake encircles and then swallows its prey. I was anxious to hear some concrete evidence that this man possessed the spirit of the boy I once knew. I was not to hear it. The Reverend Moon asked him standard theological questions that any member who had studied the Divine Principle could have answered. He offered no startling revelations or religious insights. Maybe what most impressed Father was his ability to quote from the speeches of Sun Myung Moon.

The Reverend and Mrs. Moon suggested that we children meet with the Black Heung Jin privately and report back to them on our impressions. It was an amazing meeting. Hyun Jin, Kook Jin, and Hyo Jin kept asking the stranger questions about their childhood. He could not answer any of them. He did not remember anything about his life on Earth, he told us. Instead of inspiring skepticism, the Black Heung Jin’s convenient memory loss was interpreted as a sign of his having left earthly concerns behind when he entered the Kingdom of Heaven. Everyone in the household embraced him and called him by their dead brother’s name. I avoided him and found myself thinking that I was living with either the stupidest or the most gullible people on earth. There was a third alternative I did not consider at the time: the Reverend Moon was using the Black Heung Jin for his own ends, just as he had used the American civil liberties community before him.

Sun Myung Moon seemed to take pleasure in the reports that filtered back to East Garden of the beatings being administered by the Black Heung Jin. He would laugh raucously if someone out of favor had been dealt an especially hard blow. No one outside the True Family was immune from the beatings. Leaders around the world tried to use their influence to be exempted from the Black Heung Jin’s confessional. My own father appealed in vain to the Reverend Kwak to avoid having to attend such a session.

The Black Heung Jin was a passing phenomenon in the Unification Church. Soon the mistresses he acquired were so numerous and the beatings he administered so severe that members began to complain. Mrs. Moon’s maid, Won Ju McDevitt, a Korean who married an American church member, appeared one morning with a blackened eye and covered with purple bruises. The Black Heung Jin had beaten her with a chair. He beat Bo Hi Pak – a man in his sixties – so badly that he was hospitalized for a week in Georgetown Hospital. He told doctors he had fallen down a flight of stairs. He later needed surgery to repair a blood vessel in his head.

Sun Myung Moon knew when to cut his losses. When you are the Messiah, it is easy to make a course correction. Once it became clear that he had to disassociate himself from the violence he had let loose on the membership, Sun Myung Moon simply announced that Heung Jin’s spirit had left the Zimbabwean’s body and ascended into Heaven. The Zimbabwean was not quite so ready to get off the gravy train. At last sighting, he had established a breakaway cult in Africa with himself in the role of Messiah.”

________________________________________

Eu Shin-hee was interviewed in the early 1990s. She was the cousin of Eu Hyo-won who wrote the 1957 Divine Principle.

Q.11: We heard that Sun Myung Moon always had different new women around to attend him. Wasn’t there any trouble among the women?

Eu: There was. Of course every woman is jealous and wants exclusive possession. Sometimes the women would get into intense fights. There were times when Sun Myung Moon punched these women. He would often end his personal relationships with women; when their bodies were used and their property was taken, they were driven out. I was one of those who were kicked out.

Q.12: Was the Six Mary system set up for swapping the women when he wanted a new one, or a wealthy one? Was Sun Myung Moon ordering the changes?

Eu: We didn’t know. One day five women were replaced and sent out of personal relationships with him, and then we talked to each other. We exchanged information and could find out that a really large number of women had been victimized. He impregnated virgins and let them give birth to children; he took the virtue from married women. Mothers and daughters were taken from families which then broke up. Rich people were robbed of their wealth and left almost naked. One after another I came to know of so many tragedies. Many people came to feel really indignant. I learned that Sun Myung Moon was a genuinely bad man.

This is an extract from: The Tragedy of the Six Marys, Chapter 7

________________________________________

LINK: Moon neglected and beat his own children. How did it affect them?

Black Heung Jin Nim – Violence in the Moon Church

Photo of Sun Myung Moon kicking his first wife

Bullied by Sun Myung Moon

#baseball bat #Sun Myung Moon #violence in the Moon church

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