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dangermousie · 3 years

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CFC Chapter 54

“A crashing car?” Ahahahaha I see you, Meatbun. But it was indeed an utter pileup!

I know I commented on this passage in its various iterations eight billion times already but I still have more to say. And it’s that XQC taking so long to realize that even though HY is young, his emotions and feelings are as genuine and strong as those of anyone older is so realistic - people do tend to think that especially with regard to children - think of a reaction of an adult to a three year old crying over ice cream they dropped. It’s all amused even if not meanly so. Because to an adult with vastly more experience, this is not a big deal. But what that forgets is that whether it’s ridiculous to someone else or not, to the person at issue that is a real feeling, AND that of course a person can only feel through the lens of their experience - what else is there? Emotions aren’t any less valid because they are informed by lesser or different experience.

Honestly, to me so far this is one of the driving messages of the novel - everyone is in their own world of issues and pain and none of these characters can truly look through the lens of another person and it would be so much better if they did. To XQC, for so long, He Yu’s strong feelings (and we know so many of these feelings are awful - despair, and self-loathing, and loneliness) never quite felt real and therefore never quite felt fully valid. And by the time it wasn’t the case, it was too late.

But the same is true for He Yu - he is so concentrated on his own grievances and his own pain, he cannot perceive others’ different issues. In He Yu’s mind, he’s the winner and always champion of Misery Olympics and while he’s had a horrible time of it, that doesn’t mean other people didn’t either just in different ways. Whether because of his condition, his issues or just his age, HY is not empathetic in the least.

And think about it - XQC does not have a horrible illness. He does not have unfeeling parents. But he had to watch his beloved parents brutally murdered in front of his eyes at 13 (!!!!) and then had to raise a 5 year old by himself. Is it worse or better than HY’s trauma? That’s a matter of opinion but what there is no question about is that is a different type of trauma and a different type of scar. Or think about the patient in the asylum whose name I am too lazy to look up - her life is such a theater of horrors that to me, it makes the combined issues of HY and XQC seem small, though once again that’s subjective. Nobody wins when people start this sort of competition.

My heart breaks for XQC but also - I am sorry - if/when HY x XQC hook up again (how? I have no idea! But that is one of the joys of Meatbun - I both have no idea how/where it’s going and utterly trust her), please have He Yu read up and learn things because Good God. You should not be in major pain the morning after unless you are into pain and XQC clearly is not!

The other thing is the bit about XQC forcing himself to walk in his usual ramrod-straight manner is the moment I went utterly gone for him. I mean, I liked him and found him interesting before. But this is the thing that flipped that invisible switch for me and I went rabid and irrational and now I am Team XQC and I don’t care what he wants and does from now on, he should have it. It’s so small but so real. My mother and her mother were both big on straight posture. And one of the reasons they gave was when you walk with good posture - you look confident but also it makes you feel confident and stronger. And I’ve actually found it to be true - when you throw your shoulders back and straighten your neck and hold your head up, it does not just give others a signal, it gives a signal to your own brain. So to see XQC insist on doing it, despite being emotionally and physically shattered - because of his pride refusing to give up, because he’s so unbending, but also this being some sort of instinctive armor, just hits straight through the heart.

OK, I laughed at HY as a fucking machine. But also, this is another point in the whole “everyone has issues” narrative and HY’s life could be worse. HY, with all his other issues, can pay an insane amount, an amount that XQC could not pay in a million years, so easily. It’s not even a blip to him. Hell, the fact that he forgot to pay speaks to that - I can see forgetting to pay a friend a couple of bucks back right away because it’s not much money. HY forgets because it does not loom in his mind. And this rich lifestyle is instinctive, is ingrained in him. I think he’d find it hard to be poor.

THAT is what he’s thinking about? Priorities are...

The sole good thing that came out of this insanity is that XQC is getting in touch with his emotions, even if those emotions are (rightly) rage. He’s too closed off from them normally.

The fact that you slept with a man should be secondary to the fact that you drugged and raped him, but here we are...

To me, this sums up He Yu as a moral wasteland. To still, when sober and past his fit and not under influence of wine, to still feel excitement over his revenge and to somehow twist it that it’s XQC’s fault for being raped by He Yu is !!!!!!!!!

(I suppose if I were charitable, I’d assume that the disquiet is small stirrings of almost dead conscience and his “he deserved it” is an attempt to justify the unjustifiable to himself, but I honestly don’t want to think so because I am so angry at him. Not until I see some more evidence. I don’t feel like being indulgent with He Yu since he’s indulgent with himself enough for two.)

1. The fact that you can tell from the picture XQC got taken by a man (I am gonna defer to Meatbun’s expertise here) definitely points to the fact that the pictures are going to be used for something bad later - because if it’s just oh XQC had sex, so what, he’s single what’s the big deal. But like this it becomes a different matter. No idea if it will be used for HY or XQC or both, and by whom (money is on Duan and co, but after the way HY went off, I would never say HY himself won’t use it badly somehow) but knowing Meatbun, it will go for maximum damage.

2. Ruthless? Perhaps. Unfeeling? Hmmmm. I am not He Yu’s biggest fan atm but that’s a wonderfully misleading adjective here. He does still seem to be in shock. And fixating.

3. The whole “hahahaha XQC is a hypocrite when he was all ‘I am not interested in sex’“ is - I am not sure if HY is just short-circuiting (fine) or using a rapist justification/rolling in a sea of toxic toxicity (not fine) because I am sorry, that’s totally like “he/she had a reaction, can’t be rape” writ large. Yeah, sure he had a reaction - you poured drugs down his throat. That has nothing to do with his default preferences or his actual state. THE FUCK?!

Anyway, we end on the whole “u mad bro?” bit and you know what strikes me? HY was all “I am done, we are done, my revenge is complete I don’t care” but here he is, still desperately seeking and craving reaction and interaction from XQC.

I remain utterly puzzled as to how these two will ever be a couple except for a couple being defined as “two mutually homicidal people.” Leaving aside everything else, I am willing to accept HY is in the closet - clearly whatever his orientation is, it includes men. But I do not get that sense from XQC at all. When he’s not drugged, he’s barely interested in sex with anyone and I do not get the sense he’s in the closet either. Chances of anyone, let alone He Yu, who is both a man and someone who raped him to humiliate him, being able to entice him into sexual encounters voluntarily is about the chance of me going to visit Mars. Meatbun loves doing insane things so I can’t wait.

PS I know people use the term psychopath all the time casually but ummm, I think He Yu may actually be one? When he has his father (!!!) on speakerphone, calmly carrying a conversation with the man as he’s raping his father’s friend in the club as he talks (!!!!!) that is...in RL I’d be “team lock him up for life, there is something so basic broken in him that it can’t be fixed.” Like - the hell? The ability to put things on different shelves so much is not in the same country as sane (it makes me think of 2ha and TXJ banging CWN being the curtain while performing court business but TXJ was bona fide clinically insane and also this is worse because this is his actual freaking father omg.) Of course, only time will tell whether it’s evidence of him being irreparably incapable of normalcy in terms of living in the world/interacting with others or it was an extreme psychotic (in casual parlance not medical one) break because most people are capable of truly horrific stuff if certain levers are pushed and his default is saner. It’s the question, isn’t it? Whether He Yu’s factory default setting is the monster of the previous chapters or the kid who’d cut his wrists so as not to hurt others.

Anyway, this novel is a terrifying roller coaster ride and I love having strong emotions.

#cnovel #meatbun doesn't eat meat #case file compendium

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thinkingisadangerouspastime · 3 years

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what do you think of aang's comments in "the southern raiders" and what they meant to katara? I watched that episode recently with my sister who dislikes atla, and assessed similar things to what certain people of the fandom are saying: "aang didn't understand her", "aang was pushing his beliefs onto her", "it didn't seem like he knew her", etc. she was more fair than those people of course because she did say it was realistic that he'd be so worried since she recognizes that he does love her.

Honestly those arguments are all,, tired. They’re outdated. They’re boring. They’re wrong. They’re a result of a fundamental misunderstanding of A:TLA canon. This isn’t to say that those who genuinely, truly believe these arguments are terrible people (obviously not lmao), but somewhere along the line they had a seed planted in their mind that posits them to have inherent dislike for Aang. And honestly? I just feel sorry for them, because not understanding and appreciating Aang means their A:TLA experience really can’t be that great. But I digress!

“aang didn’t understand her”

Oh, what’s the post? Right - “Fandom once again forgets that Aang is the sole survivor of genocide.” Aang understands better than anyone else what Katara is going through*. There is a direct parallel between Aang finding Gyatso’s skeleton and Katara finding Kya’s body. I’m not going to sit here and argue which was more traumatizing (literally can’t stand when people do that) because you can’t quantify grief like that, but it cannot be denied that Aang has experienced something incredibly similar to what Katara has gone through: the loss of a close parental figure followed by finding said parent’s corpse. Not only that, but Aang and Katara both share a unique sense of helplessness intertwined with their grief regarding their parental figures’ deaths. For Katara, there are the questions of:

- what if I wasn’t a waterbender

- what if I had run a little faster

- what if I had fought against Yon Rha back then

All leading to “Could I have saved her?” For Aang, there are the questions of:

- what if I wasn’t the Avatar

- what if I hadn’t run away

- what if I had stayed to fight the Fire Nation back then

All leading to “Could I have saved him?” Both of them feel incredibly guilty on a personal level about the death of their parental figures, thus blaming themselves. Katara tries to push it off onto Zuko/the Fire Nation and Aang tries to suppress it entirely, but ultimately it is revealed how closely they hold responsibility to their chests. For Aang, it comes out in “The Storm.” For Katara, it comes out in “The Southern Raiders.” So, bullshit that Aang doesn’t understand Katara! He understands her grief better than anyone.

Also, many, many people have gone into this before, but Aang’s example of Appa being stolen was not callous/rude/etc. Appa was the last living piece of his culture. Appa is not “just a pet.” People who insist so are the actual ones being callous, not Aang. And, as Aang himself says, “How do you think I felt about the Fire Nation when I found out what happened to my people?” Aang has experienced more hurt at the hands of the Fire Nation than anyone. There’s a great meta here that delves into Aang’s experiences as the sole survivor of genocide. I don’t understand how someone could acknowledge all that Aang has lost (read: he has lost everything) and then argue that he doesn’t understand Katara’s pain. Like, what? Do you have no sense of empathy?

But most importantly, from Katara herself: “Thanks for understanding, Aang.” She says this after her initial dismissal of him. So take it from the source, my friend - Katara believed Aang understood her. Who are we to argue?

*The only exception perhaps being Sokka, since Kya was indeed his mother, too, but it is worth noting that Sokka did not have the same experience of seeing Kya’s dead body or feeling the intense self-blame that Katara did.

“aang was pushing his beliefs onto her”

It is SO funny how those SAME people have NO problem with everyone in the Gaang telling Aang to kill Ozai the finale! Y’know, when they were disregarding the pacifistic beliefs of his people in exchange for emphasizing their, ahem, more aggressive ones? SO funny! I’m laughing SO hard right now!

Heavy sarcasm, in case it wasn’t obvious. They’re hypocrites and they know it.

But, more importantly, Aang was not pushing his beliefs onto her? At all?? Tell me where in the episode Aang:

- refused to let Katara go after Yon Rha

- told Katara what she was doing was wrong

- told Katara that HE was right and that SHE needed to listen to HIM

Here’s the thing: none of that ever happened! Not only does Aang accept that Katara needs to go (see: “I wasn’t planning to [stop you]. This is a journey you need to take. You need to face this man.”), but he allows her to take Appa on her journey. Appa, the last living piece of his culture. Aang has incredible trust in Katara, and his choice to send Appa with her (essentially sending a piece of himself with her) demonstrates this fact clearly. That should end the discussion point blank, but I guess I’ll break down the lines people seem to have issues with:

1) “It’s okay, because I forgive you. [Pauses.] That give you any ideas?”

Honestly, the criticism this line gets is laughable to me. People use it to argue that Aang was being disrespectful to Katara’s feelings and?? I hate to break it to them, but you HAVE to look at the context a line is in if you’re going to judge it. That is Analysis 101: Context is Everything. This moment is used to break tension. That type of scenario is an entire literary trope, okay? A:TLA did not invent it! Shakespeare literally did it in Romeo and Juliet when he had Peter argue with musicians about something stupid after Juliet’s “death.” The whole point is to break tension before more serious scenes. In R&J, it is before the lovers kill themselves, and in A:TLA, it is before Katara leaves with Zuko to confront Yon Rha. That’s why there’s another moment just like it at the end of that scene! Y’know, Sokka asking to borrow Momo for no reason? It breaks tension! It’s a moment of respite before weighty scenes! It’s incredibly common in every form of media! This is what no Humanities classes did to some of y’all, I swear to God. So yeah, Aang was not disrespecting Katara’s feelings with this. It’s just a tension-breaker. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news for those who devoutly believed it was a sign of Aang being a Horrible Person. You were wrong, ain’t no big thing, go drink some water and stay hydrated okay darlings?

2) “I don’t think so. I think it’s about getting revenge.”

Um, a major point of “The Southern Raiders” is that Aang was right about Katara’s initial drive to face Yon Rha? It was a quest for revenge? Katara literally bloodbends, an ability she was forced to learn and essentially feels cursed to bear? Also, nowhere here does Aang tell Katara she was a horrible person for feeling angry and wanting revenge. He simply brings her attention to the reality that what she’s currently seeking is revenge. He’s worried about her. She’s his best friend! He loves her! He doesn’t want her to kill Yon Rha because he knows that for Katara to have blood on her hands from a revenge quest would hurt her tremendously. (As a matter of fact, the audience knows - or should know - this, too.) So, sorry that Aang expresses concern for her? Apparently not wanting your best friend to murder someone is forcing your beliefs onto them? Damn. Y’all are harsh these days.

3) “The monks used to say that revenge is like a two-headed rat viper. While you watch your enemy go down, you’re being poisoned yourself.” // “Katara, you do have a choice: forgiveness.” // “No, it’s not. It's easy to do nothing, but it’s hard to forgive.” // “But when you do, please don’t choose revenge. Let your anger out, and then let it go. Forgive him.”

I put all the forgiveness quotes together since people tend to complain about them as a whole. But like,, I really don’t see how this is Aang forcing his beliefs onto her? He asks her to choose forgiveness. And just speaking plainly: on an emotional level, it is better for someone to forgive than to murder. Killing someone is not easy, even if you hate that person with every bone in your body, and it will mentally scar whomever does it. Y’all know this! It’s obvious! I shouldn’t have to say it! But Aang knows this, too, and thus he doesn’t want to see Katara kill Yon Rha and perhaps kill a part of herself in the process. Katara is not a killer. I’m not arguing about whether she could have or even if she wanted to, because you know what, she admits she was tempted, but Katara is not a killer. An FMA quote is very fitting here:

“Your hands weren’t meant to kill. They were meant to give life.”

Why should Katara have to live with a man’s murder on her conscience, especially when his death would be a result of fruitless revenge? The answer is simple: she shouldn’t, and Aang doesn’t want her to. Katara is a warrior. A healer. A leader. A friend. But not a killer.

Anyways. Back to my point: Aang is not forcing his beliefs onto her here. He’s offering her another option, the option she ends up choosing, albeit she extends forgiveness to Zuko instead. And Prince Holier-Than-Thou (jk love you Zuzu) acknowledges it himself: “You [Aang] were right about what Katara needed.” Aang didn’t force anything on Katara here. He reminded her of her choices, he reminded her about the consequences of revenge, and he reminded her about the value of forgiveness. Never once did he tell her she had to forgive Yon Rha or else. And when it came down to it, he stepped aside, and he let her go, because he knew this was a journey she needed to take. So… He actually did the exact opposite of forcing his beliefs onto her! He respected her feelings and let her make her own decision! Seriously, how many pairs of anti-Aang goggles do people have to wear to genuinely believe otherwise??

“it didn't seem like he knew her”

Ohhhhhh my God this is SO close to one of the actual points of the episode! So close!! It’s not that Aang didn’t know her; it’s that Katara wasn’t acting like herself. I’ve talked about it before here and here, but Katara was incredibly consumed by her emotions in “The Southern Raiders.” It’s why she ignores Zuko the entire time before they leave on Appa! It’s why she makes that callous comment to Sokka about their mother that we know she never would have made normally! She is drowning in grief about her mother’s absence, guilt regarding her mother’s death, and anger about Zuko (she still does not trust him, and yet he can lead her to her mother’s killer; I don’t know about y’all, but that is really freaking difficult to reconcile). So when Aang compares her to Jet, it’s not a far-off description. She is acting like Jet, because she’s consumed by grief and hurt and anger and she’s not acting like herself. It is instrumental, too, that Katara isn’t acting like herself, because it makes her decision not to pursue revenge and instead offer a second third chance to Zuko even more profound. “I’m proud of you,” Aang tells her, and damn! The audience is, too! I was incredibly proud of her for finding her way out of what can be a bottomless spiral for some people. So again, it wasn’t that Aang didn’t know her. It was that Katara wasn’t acting like herself (I guess meaning… no one knew her?).

In conclusion, literally all of these anti-Aang arguments regarding TSR are exhausting and so easily disprovable. The fact that they somehow manage to live on is evidence that people just want excuses to hate Aang, plain and simple. Like, it’s so easy to just say you don’t vibe with his character? You don’t have to pull BS excuses to “justify” it? I don’t vibe with Ty Lee as much as I do other characters (although I have recently grown much more fond of her; bless the Renaissance for more Mailee content, even if some of it is just a Zukka byproduct), but y’all don’t see me twisting her sacrifice in “Boiling Rock” to make it seem like it was selfish or something (mostly because, spoiler alert, it wasn’t). Like, you can say Aang isn’t your favorite and move on instead of using the same boring rhetoric over and over and over that just makes it look like you lack critical thinking. :/

TL;DR - Aang’s comments to Katara in “The Southern Raiders” came from a place of concern. A place of wisdom. A place of love. And honestly? I think Katara realizes this, and she’s grateful to him all the more for it.

#if y'all even mention zuko on this post i will stomp you to death with my hooves. this is not about who understood katara better!!#this is solely addressing bs anti aang arguments #aang #katara #atla #avatar the last airbender #adding line break after i post btw!!#atla meta #atla analysis #the southern raiders #yon rha #amy answers #amy analyzes #queenaleesbiggestfan-writes

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daydreamreality · 3 years

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Thinking about actor availability, and how that affects my perception of Jess and how strongly I feel about shipping Literati.

Really thought this would only be a few paragraphs going over the points where Jess could have disappeared never to be seen again, but it turned into a freaking essay so LONG POST warning if you decide to click ahead.

If the last we saw of Jess was hanging up the phone in the season 3 finale: "Well, it was fun ride while it lasted. That's about how I thought this would end." Still have a lot empathy for this kid and wish him well, but you screwed with Rory's heart like I knew would happen. Was that intentional? No. But he was so immature, out of control with his emotions, zero communication skills, not trusting in others...the list of reasons why he wasn't ready for a serious relationship, even if the feelings were serious, goes on. There was no way Rory wasn't going to end up as collateral damage in his personal breakdown that I could feel was going to happen. And this is the thought I had as a teenager with no dating experience watching this show for the first time. Did I want to date him? Hell no! I could see that trainwreck from a mile away. Rory was naïve to put her heart in his trust but that's part of her good qualities - she's sees the best in people and champions for them. I could go on a tangent about why exactly Jess was such an important character to me when I first watched the show (and probably why he stuck around unconsciously until I decided on a whim to rewatch GG in lockdown) but...I don't know, maybe some other time.

In the context of the entire show, I would look back at the relationship as my favorite one to watch of Rory's in the series (The build-up! The connection! Their deep belief in and respect for each other! The angst!) and Jess being a really fun character to root for (and yell at) but endgame? It was a short lived but important relationship. It’s fun to think about what ifs and how circumstances could have changed to make it work, but we can move on.

The ill-fated spin-off: I have no idea what this show would have been about except focusing on Jess and Jimmy and I’m not about to theorize. I still like Jess at this point so it would probably make me like him more since we’re getting a deeper dive into his character, but in regard to shipping him with Rory, this opinion would not change unless he all of sudden showed some great maturity. But I doubt this show would have even gotten a whole season so that probably wouldn’t happen. And then he’s living in California…this is too much, moving on.

If the last we see of Jess is in season 4: About the same feeling as above. Life, as expected, has not been treating Jess well. At all. His jadedness and hostility is at an all-time high when he shows up to get his car. Do I see the reasons informing his behavior and have empathy (once again, for a KID)? Yes, but he's also being a jerk. "The years don't seem to have hardened you." Well this year sure has!

I love the "I love you" scene but too little too late, buddy. That's probably why I love it, it's all a bit hopeless. Just keep shoveling the angst at me. I do like fics where this scene is reimagined with Rory running after him to give him a piece of her mind or Jess finding some other words to say (I really feel like he had more to say there but got overwhelmed), and coming to a tentative reconciliation: exchanging numbers, "don't fall off the face of the earth," but getting back together? No. You hurt her and you're feeling the consequences. Rory is not obligated or responsible to reciprocate those feelings, nor is she in a place to do that right now.

But season 4 does cement that Luke and Jess's relationship is one of my favorites in the entire show. There's probably a whole other post in me regarding that so I'll keep it brief. Because of his respect for Luke, Jess makes tentative steps towards maturing in interpersonal relationships. He shows some vulnerability and honesty with a veil of sarcasm and awkwardness because, well, it's JESS.

But then of course this all goes to hell when applied to Rory. Sometimes I like to think how this dorm scene would have gone down if Rory stepped back for a second and went, "Hold on. You're not making any sense, chill out," and they could have talked a bit and had a similar reconciliation like I said above because I really think that’s all he was going for - to talk to her, apologize, and make an attempt at reciprocation like he did with Luke. But getting back together here? Canonically, he hasn't made enough progress. He set aside his personal feelings to be in his mother's wedding and used the knowledge from the self-help book to apologize to Luke, but I don't think the book's message has sunk in all the way yet and he’s still got a massive chip on his shoulder preventing him from making a good life for himself. Getting rejected by Rory here is an important moment and I really like it. It's fun to think about the AU if Rory had said yes (hello road trip!), but it's very in-character for her to not be able to handle Jess's crisis and just shouting "NO, make it stop." This is one of my proudest of Rory moments: Protect your heart girl, he ain't ready. The seeds have been planted that Jess will continue to grow and I wish him well on his journey. Endgame material? Nah. Goodbye forever, take care my friend...

Even though this scene doesn't feel like closure at all, I really thought this was the end of Jess Mariano. So imagine my surprise when -

SEASON 6: HE'S BACK. Coming out of the shadows, [literally] it's Jess Marianoooo *air horns* *confetti* *jazz hands* *Jess rolls his eyes at the fanfare*

Alright, that's out of my system. But for real that's what my mind did at this point. For context, the way I watched this show for the first time was getting the DVDs from the library while a couple of seasons were still on the air; when a new season was available to borrow, I would rewatch all the seasons up to the current point so my memories and favorite parts of the show are seasons 1-4. Because I was not bingeing the show all the way through, seeing Jess here seemingly so different didn’t feel out of place. A shock, yes! A happy surprise. But nothing about him seemed OOC. A year had gone by, we’d seen some signs of maturity in him, and getting rejected by Rory was a big kick in the ass for him to start making bigger changes in his life. I really cannot emphasize how satisfying and sensical his positive character development felt to me.

The slight maturity we see in season 4 in its full potential. Jess is still Jess: guarded, self-deprecating, and a bit prickly but he shows a sense of calm and feeling more comfortable in his skin. This is really satisfying to see as someone who always "knew" there was a kind and capable heart underneath the exterior just like Rory did, and that tough guy, must protect myself at all costs posturing has melted away. But that side of him isn't gone, it's not like the writing did a complete 180 on his character. I love this. He's just...more at peace with himself but he's not a different person, and he's found something to direct his focus and intellect on. He's made his peace with Luke, and now he has something of worth to show Rory to try to mend that hurt as well.

Yes, it would have been nice to see how and why he decided to write a book and work in publishing but this course of events is not out of left field, nor is Jess enough of a main character at this point for scenes like this to be necessary to the show unless they were tied to Luke and showing another side of him. Jess has shown in the past that he has a good work ethic if he feels it is worth it. The problem wasn't him being lazy, just poor decision making and focusing on RIGHT NOW, "I need to get out of Stars Hollow and live my life," and not considering the consequences of his actions. Which as an immature kid whose life had told him he can only depend on himself...not out of the ordinary. The dude’s life passion is literature and has probably read every book he can get his hands on, it’s not crazy that he had his own story in him.

Here is where Literati becomes endgame material for me. Prior to the revival it was always my feeling that post-series they would reconnect while Rory was on the campaign or afterwards. It would be low drama (except for Lorelai criticism), slowly gaining trust in each other again, and eventually starting a committed relationship within a year or two of being friends with sexual tension (lol). They made their adolescent mistakes, hurt each other, but learned from it and started over on infinitely better footing.

The match just makes sense to me at this point for many reasons; I don't feel like I need to list them all out because you can go to any pro-Literati post and I'll probably agree with the majority of the points. The biggest issue they had was timing: “Right heart, wrong time.” I like especially how they even out each other's more extreme personality traits. For example, Rory learning from Jess to consider her own feelings instead of sacrificing herself for others, and Jess considering others before himself all the time. Or professionally, I can see Jess encouraging her to step away from her ultra-organized, “everything has to be just so” ways when it benefits her to seize an opportunity right now, don’t worry about the details, you got this. Maybe Jess has another book in him, but his self-deprecation and disorganization prevent him from getting it done but Rory helps him be more objective and focused. There’s this…synergistic energy I feel with the two of them: they’re great by themselves, but form something better together.

Judging from Rory's reactions towards him in this season, I don't think it's OOC for her to have romantic feelings for him again. She's extremely proud of his accomplishments and not unhappy to see him (not holding a grudge). They fall back into their comfortable dynamic even if it makes them both a bit nervous. Now some could argue that this means that Rory only wants to be friends with him but...when have Jess and Rory ever been just friends? If "Another Year in the Life" comes out (I've got serious doubts but would love to be proved wrong) and Rory rejects him or he's not even a part of it, fine! But I just don't see anything in canon that says explicitly she'll never feel romantic towards him again.

Now the kiss...there's a lot of ways to read that scene. Do I think Jess was in the right to assume "everything is fixed" as a go ahead? No. But that's part of why he is such an engaging character: he's impulsive and acts in accordance to his feelings, and yes, this gets himself and others in trouble.

Do I think Rory purposefully went to the open house to "use" Jess to get back at Logan? No. I think she genuinely wanted to support him, and Logan being out of town meant she wouldn't have to explain why it was important for her to go. I see the kiss paralleling the one in 2x22 but instead of Rory not being able to hold her feelings in any longer, Jess initiates. The way I see it is she was unaware she still had lingering feelings towards him (not out of nowhere, I mean their relationship has "unfinished business" written all over it) and that scared the crap out of her, just like at the end of season 2. So she runs away to the "safe space" that is being with Logan. Because she's in love with Logan, she has a sense of obligation towards him, and Rory has shown many times that she does not react well to change and highly emotional situations.

Is this scene a deal breaker for a future relationship between them? I don't think so. Jess says that he isn't sorry she came, which I take as "I'll never be sorry to see you no matter the context." Yes, this hurt him and made him pretty mad, but I don't think he's holding a grudge against her for this; even in the moment he's more concerned that someone cheated on her and her safety getting to her car. He sets a boundary that he doesn't deserve his feelings to be pushed around like this and Rory agrees. Not that I condone this sort of tit-for-tat hurting of each other (which I don't think Rory was going for in the first place) but it's almost like...that cycle is now broken. The whole scene is so open ended, it doesn't feel like a "good bye forever" to Jess.

"But Rory is so in love with Logan!" I don't know about you, but that "I'm in love with him despite all the bad he's done..." sounds so defeated and sad. It's almost like she's resigned herself to being in love with Logan. The first time I watched this, I thought this was foreshadowing that the relationship was on its last legs. To keep them together, Logan almost dies so Rory will bury her hurt out of guilt for holding a grudge against him. She is completely entitled to feeling hurt by Logan's actions, and I hate that she feels like she has to do this. But it happened, moving on.

"But Rory is a cheater!" When I think about Rory's characteristics, "cheater" doesn't make the list. She feels entitled to the men that she's loved and this isn’t super great behavior, but I don't view her as inherently unfaithful or okay with cheating. I give her leeway on the season 2 Jess kiss because she was a teenager with a lot of conflicting emotions and everything around her was pushing her to stay with Dean. The season 4 Dean debacle...she was still very young and naïve. I put most of the blame on Dean for manipulating her; I say most because if Rory really wanted to be with him, she should have been more sure of the status of his marriage, but I repeat: he manipulated her and she was very young and naïve. I dare to say she has been conditioned to view Dean as nothing but safe and trustworthy so why wouldn't she believe him... Season 4 was all about her being out of sorts when away from the Stars Hollow bubble and trying to reclaim some normalcy. Narratively, I see why this makes sense and I don't think the intention was to say “Rory is okay with cheating,” but to show very explicitly that Rory isn't perfect. This show goes to extremes, at this point I kind of just accept it and don't jump to "this person/character is terrible!" Certain characteristics and behaviors I have less patience for (mild) or will make me lose all respect for a character (extreme - honestly very few GG characters fall into this category for me); you may feel differently and that's fine. When other plot points in this series are much more bizarre and OOC, while this turn of events makes me uncomfortable and angry, at least it makes sense to me.

The 6x18 kiss I've already said that I don't think Rory had premeditated intent to cheat on Logan judging from the fact that Jess initiated it; yes, she went with it nor was it a complete surprise, I get this. The "I couldn't even cheat on him..." line I think is an outburst of guilt and regret, not her saying she had a plan in mind. Maybe I'm being too soft on her, I don't know...she did stay there late but maybe she just got lost in the book while waiting to say bye. We've seen her not know how to deal with conflicting emotions and change to her status quo, and attempt to distract herself when life isn't panning out the way she wants and not think about the consequences in the moment, so I don't find this scene OOC or intentionally cruel. The revival...I don’t think I can even go there right now because it would just be me screaming incoherently about how much I hate "full circle" and how bizarre the entire thing was. Maybe something of value would eventually come out with a lot of editing. XD

This isn’t to say I’m 100% on Rory’s side all the time. Pretty much every character in this show has at some point made me smile, made me laugh (generally with them, but some characters it’s more like at), made me want to give them a hug, made me roll my eyes, and made me want to throw something at them. That’s why I love it so much! Even if the drama is turned up to 1000, I still get the sense that these characters are human. My favs end up on my “will protect at all costs” and “shit” lists throughout the series, no one is immune. Except Lane. She really is the best person in this entire show. #JusticeForLaneKim

If ASP had written season 7: (Remember there being some sort of theme to this post? Only two episodes in s6, but Jess sure does make an impact.) I bet Jess would show up at some point. MV is loyal to the creators and not the show, if it was important for Jess to be there I’m sure his shooting schedule would have been accounted for. Storyline would have been similar to the revival because AYITL is ASPs season she didn’t get to do without considering how time passing affects the characters (I’M STILL SALTY) except Rory is at Yale and I think the book was a new idea. Shipping as endgame doesn’t change, and I bet there wouldn’t be a nice little Literati ending because we’ve got to end it the same way, right? I don't even need them to be together at the end because Rory has greater plans to focus on, but just a moment! One moment is all I asked for... I don’t know if this makes me mad because I felt like the narrative had been pushing us along this path for so long even if actual "endgame" was going to be offscreen or if I kind of like just having it in my imagination. Little bit of column A, little bit of column B. In any case, it could have been cool to see Jess present for the birth of his half-sister and giving Luke some support.

Like I said, I'm not touching AYITL right now. The whole starting point of this was, "huh, if MV never came back to the show, how would I feel about Jess and Literati?" And he was in it so it doesn't really fit into this even though we've gone on a meandering journey as pieces of discourse that have never sat right with me but didn't quite know how to express that disagreement until now popped in my mind. So there you go. If you’ve made it to end, claps to you, what a champ.

At the end of the day, Literati is the ship that makes me feel the most things, it's kind of just a gut thing. This really isn't any sort of argument just an outpouring of love for the show and these characters. I don't know how well that's communicated, but hey, I try. I’ve got a lot of nostalgia for the pairing and I always viewed Jess as being Rory’s, and only Rory’s, choice.

#Gilmore Girls #Literati #rory x jess #Jess Mariano #I've been writing and editing this for 2 weeks and just accidentally pressed post and uhhhh #I don’t think there's more you can do self #Just run with it

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thejustmaiden · 4 years

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Jaken = Rin's Dad?

Okay, is this how a daughter treats their so-called father?

Most definitely not.

Rin and Jaken's relationship clearly screams of your typical sibling rivalry punctuated with cute and silly moments of playful bickering.

Yes, Jaken may technically be her main provider, but that doesn't necessarily equate to him being more of a father than Sesshomaru. If anything, he demonstrates more of a brotherly love towards her. As we all know, parents (which Sesshomaru embodies more based on real life patterns and parallels) will leave their older more capable children in charge of looking after their younger brothers and sisters. In this case, that would mean making Jaken responsible for watching over Rin and protecting her if need be. Ah-Un offers protection, too. Think of it as Jaken as the big brother and Ah-Un as the family dog who are babysitting while Sesshomaru as the parent of the household is away at work or taking care of business. I mean, they literally fit that description to a tee and I'm dying at the accuracy of it all! 🤣👌

[Quick! Someone write up a modern au where Sesshomaru finally gets out to have a nice date night but everything goes wrong in the most spectacular way. Like maybe Rin and Jaken catch a ride on Ah-Un to go spy!]

I recently revisited some episodes from The Final Act, and I couldn't believe how many moments like this there were where Rin got after Jaken or when she would "put him in his place" so to speak. Obviously, all of it is mostly harmless. I was only surprised by how often it occurred, not to mention how Jaken would just stand there and take it. Towards a supposed father figure, Rin's behavior is downright unacceptable. There's a certain level of respect a child is expected to show their parents/guardians, and that's just not what I'm witnessing here between them. Like at all.

Rather their dynamic has the nature of some sibling relationships like I mentioned above. So I really wish fans would stop pretending otherwise, because based on what we know of father-daughter relationships- healthy ones at least- they don't appear anything like what Jaken and Rin have. If you could please provide me other examples of where we've seen similar portrayals in fiction or in real life, then perhaps I can get on board.

Look, that doesn't have to mean that because Jaken isn't her father then Sesshomaru must be. They can both be her caretakers without necessarily filling that traditional father role. I'm just saying that if we're going to start assigning titles to characters, let's make sure we are accurate and truthful in our assessments. If you're going to label anyone Rin's dad, then it needs to be Sesshomaru. Jaken doesn't have precedence over him in terms of fatherly attributes, that just wouldn't make sense.

After all, this isn't about what you want to see, this is about what Rin very likely sees. It's safe to assume that she views Sesshomaru more like a father than she does Jaken. She knows she's safe with him (broadly speaking lol) and that he'll come for her no matter what. That sense of security and comfort is what a child seeks and what they should always feel in a parent's presence. She trusts and even idolizes him, just as a young and innocent child tends to do with their parents. At that age, parents are perfect and could do no wrong in their child's eyes. Idk about you, but this describes perfectly how Rin is around Sesshomaru.

Rin adores him and will follow him anywhere- yes, even into danger! That's what the innocence and unconditional love of a child will bring them to do if necessary. Fortunately, at the end of The Final Act we learn Sesshomaru takes Kaede's advice when he realizes that leaving Rin with her in the village is in her best interests. That way she'd be able to lead a more normal and safer life alongside other humans. Remember, Sessrin shippers, that doesn't mean he wasn't still a part of her life and didn't witness her become a young woman over the years right before his very eyes. Therefore, if they eventually do become romantically involved, then most if not all of those gifts had intimate and seductive intentions and it essentially constitutes as child grooming.

I understand from a Sessrin shipper's point of view why it'd be so much easier to claim Jaken as the father. In doing so, they diminish Sesshomaru's role in her upbringing. By refusing to acknowledge the real role he had in helping raise Rin (short periods can be crucial and impressionable too esp. in a child's early years so yes they did assist in raising her not only Kaede), these shippers are better able to justify how their filial-like relationship evolved into a romantic one. So yeah, I get it, if I were a Sessrin shipper I'd probably do the same. It's one of the more plausible arguments available to them, after all. "Let's pin Jaken as the father to fend off antis!" is the best chance they've got, but even so, it's still not good enough. But if you insist Jaken is indeed like a father to Rin, then Sesshomaru is most certainly one too. Who says she can't have two fathers anyway?

The thing is however much you want to deny or downplay what Sesshomaru truly means to Rin and vice versa, nothing will ever change or hide the truth of the matter. Please, stop acting like they're only traveling companions and nothing more. Some of y'all even go so far as to say that they're like strangers. Knowing potentially little about a person is not equal to a lack of love and affection. Making big assumptions such as this to defend your ship is actually doing you more harm than good. Let me elaborate.

According to your reasoning, if that's all Rin ever was to him was a companion and Sesshomaru had no real attachment to her, then what precisely is the basis of your ship? Recall that Adult!Rin doesn't exist yet, thus we have no real idea what she will be like or if she's even alive. So how can you make comments like that but then go on later to say "they have such a unique and unbreakable bond" or "only Rin can be the mother because she's the only human he ever cared for" if all that time spent traveling together didn't amount to much in the first place like you claimed to believe beforehand? Do you see how your rationalizing is confusing?

Contrary to what some of you may think, I'm not just saying all this because I'm an anti and I'm obligated to disagree with you, or whatever other excuse you want to tell yourself. Believe it or not, I'm attempting to give as unbiased and objective of an analysis I can based on widely accepted interpretations of family dynamics, development, and any history we know of.

Of course I respect that at times fans will perceive things differently since that's bound to happen. What's hard for me to wrap my head around however is the unwillingness of some fans- not exclusively Sessrin shippers- to apply basic common sense and sound judgment to their observations and deductions.

Looking at all our facts, then taking the small handful of scenes Sesshomaru and Rin do share together into account, one can logically conclude that their dynamic is akin to one found in a typical parent-child relationship. If you still fail to recognize Sesshomaru as a parent to Rin, then that's fine too. In the end, that won't really change the fact that he'd still take on a role resembling an adult figure overseeing a young child's care and protection. Be it as a vassal, guardian, what have you. Plus, nobody is saying here that Sesshomaru doesn't make mistakes regarding Rin's general well-being, but so do all parents. Overall, I think the majority of us agree that Rin is in good hands. Whether it's in his direct company or in his occasional supervision from his frequent visits to the village.

In other words, it doesn't really matter what exact title you assign him in relation to Rin, as the distribution of power is all inherently the same with any and all adult-child relationships. That bond never changes once you've established it either, seeing as it's a special kind of connection one can only form with a child and a child alone.

I was a teacher for a few years, and speaking from personal experience, you don't need to be a parent, per se, to take on a role of authority in a child's life. I know without a doubt that I could never and will never view any of those kids I taught in a sexual/romantic light later down the road; yes, not even once they become grown-ups who are independent and more than capable of making their own decisions. Those of you who disagree are usually missing the whole point though, because we're not trying to dictate what Adult!Rin can and cannot do like many tend to accuse of us doing. This isn't a question of taking away from her autonomy nor does it fall under "purity culture," which is why people shouldn't continue jumping to these outrageous conclusions and really listen for a change. You're deflecting from the real issue here when you choose to misinterpret what we're saying by ignoring the problem we're actually referring to. You cannot present a valid counter-argument if you persist in twisting our words.

Bottom line: once these kids become old enough to pursue a sexual/romantic relationship, of course they have that right if they're ready. All we're trying to say is you guys ought to stop pushing forward this it's-completely-normal-to-want-to-bang-your-adoptive-dad-since-you're-an-adult-and-can-do-as-you-please agenda and not expect backlash. Ship it if you want, but please stop acting like their romance would be the epitome of a pure and healthy relationship.

Sesshomaru may not wear his heart on his sleeve, but it's foolish to presume he didn't actually care about Rin during their whole time together just because he didn't openly express his feelings until the very end. Surely everybody can comprehend that people handle and process their emotions differently. The way Sesshomaru chooses to is completely valid for the most part, so let's cut him some slack regarding this already.

What I'm trying to get at is that any child whose life you played an influential role in will always be a kid in a lot ways to you even when they're old and wrinkly. Just as they will always picture you as the loved one who guided and protected them when they were most vulnerable and couldn't always fend for themselves. Can't we relate this to children we know personally and apply it accordingly?

Finally, I want to end on this note. Could you kindly take a look at these two images below for a second?

The reason I ask is because of something I recently read that's relevant to the topic. There was this pro-sessrin tweet I saw that stated Rin trying to take care of Sesshomaru when they first met is what a mom would do for a child, which in their opinion, translates to Rin being more like a mother than a daughter if anything.

First off: are you freaking kidding me????

Seriously, so now children aren't allowed to tend to their sick or injured parents?! Parents are apparently superhuman and shouldn't be offered a helping hand from a child, even if they mean well and want to help their parent who's in pain?? Now this Twitter user was mostly being a smartass, but at the same time, it was evident they genuinely thought they offered a valid enough point that warranted no further explanation or clarification.

Secondly, by saying this Sessrin fans don't seem to realize that in actuality they're contradicting themselves and proving the point we've been trying to make all along. Glancing at the first picture and moving down to the second, the role of the one being cared for and the caretaker is reversed. So then by their own logic, Sesshomaru IS in fact like a father to Rin.

What it comes down to is the names you give to the roles these characters play aren't as crucial as the dynamic they share. The specific characteristics of that dynamic are what define the importance of said role, not so much the name in the role itself. So real father or not, Sesshomaru and Rin clearly mean a lot to each other. Close relationships are defined and solidified by the devotion and belonging they have to one another, not solely by the duration of time spent together and their proximity.

Well, that's a wrap! I hope you guys got something outta this blog, and that you enjoyed or found some portions of it interesting. I would love to hear your thoughts on the subject from this fandom, but only engage in conversation if you plan to be respectful. Thank you!

#inuyasha #hanyo no yashahime #sesshomaru #rin #jaken #anti sessrin #child grooming #family dynamics #parent child relationship

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dalekofchaos · 3 years

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Why is Gavin is more liked than North?

To me this is one of the dumbest aspects of the DBH fandom. Gavin has a bigger following and is practically woobified, but North is hated?

I don’t understand. For me Gavin is a one dimensional character, a stereotype. A unaccepting, racist white cop who is young and acts like a hotshot. I say he’s racist as we have no idea why he hates Androids. Like I can excuse Hank, who I feel neutral towards, as he has a reason. His son was being operated by an Android when he died. So I believe it’s a fair assessment

We have little to no information about Gavin. Like I looked at his wiki page and most of it is talking about small details like his name or who was his actor. He isn’t grumpily lovable because we see no type of golden heart like Hank. He’s always hostile towards Connor, no matter what. He doesn’t respect anyone, as his description states that he is hated by the whole police force for his attitude. There’s nothing good about him. He doesn’t even show up in the game that much and isn’t a compelling villain like Amanda, or even machine Connor.

Compare this to North, one of the most controversial and mostly hated by a big chunk of the fandom. They claim that it’s because she’s too violent, but Gavin could be more violent. They say she never gives humans a chance, yet Gavin never trusted Androids and still doesn’t by the end of the game, even if you do the peaceful ending. Would I call North racist towards humans? That’s a bit tricky and I put her in the same category as Hank with that, unlike Gavin which I’m 100% sure is racist towards at least Androids, as I cannot accuse him of anything else as I don’t know much about him.

Unlike Gavin, we know why North hates humans. She was a sex Android, only to be used as a toy, again and again. She would forget this encounters every two hours and never get to see the light of day. Eventually she got tired of being treated so poorly and became deviant. She strangled the man she was with and ran to Jericho. This is her deviancy story. We know why she hates humans. And I think it’s fair, if she never seen any type of good from humans, why would she like them?

Could you say that North is a poorly developed character? 100% because even though I like North, I’m well aware that she has some type of writing issue and can seem a bit irrational in her decisions, but we know more about her than Gavin. If you see Gavin as a better developed character than North, that’s complete bull as we know nothing about Gavin’s backstory and he isn’t even that compelling for the story. So if you hate that North is so poorly written, then I would say you probably would need to say the same thing about Gavin.

The only criticism of North that cannot also be applied to Gavin is that she is treated as a love interest and nothing more. That’s fair too and I won’t argue about that. I wish North could win the revolution if she was the leader of Jericho but David Cage isn’t ready for that type of power. That or she’s in the way of Markus and Simon, which seems irrational to hate a character that’s in the way of your ship when they have done nothing. Ship what you want, but hating a character that has the determinant relationship with one of the characters you ship with the other is too far, especially if you hate them as a couple so much, you can always just not do it. It’s a choice based game for a reason.

The other reason I would see if that Gavin is a guy and North is obviously a girl and we don’t need to have a discussion about that.

TL:DR: it’s crazy what treatment Gavin gets compared to North, who is hated by the majority of the fandom, when most of the reasons of hating her can also be applied to Gavin. This does not refer to those who hate both, as that’s fair because if you have a problem with violent people, then both of them fit the bill. I don’t want to say there’s a sexism issue, because I would like to believe otherwise, but it seems crazy with the aggressive hatred towards a character that I haven’t even seen the actual villains of the story, Todd and Zlatko, ever experience.

From this reddit post

#Detroit Become Human #North WR400 #North DBH #Gavin Reed

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tempestwind · 4 years

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Post-series Entrapta analysis:

Entrapta is hands-down one of my favorite characters on any medium ever. Her unbridled excitement over things is something I've tried hard to hold onto throughout my adult life. Her habit of talking endlessly about her topic of interest reminded me of my favorite aspects of my friends.

Her ability to humanize others is one of the most integral parts of the series. Yet her own inability to understand others is her biggest hurdle. Entrapta was written as autistic, with input from an autistic storyboard artist on the series, and that is an incredible form of representation and so important for people to see and experience.

With Entrapta, I think the theme is a cautionary one: "There will be so many people in life that you don't understand: even your own friends. Take the time to learn how to communicate with them, or else you could lose them in big and harmful ways."

Entrapta is not understood by those around her. Even her staff, who care openly about her, do not know how to relate to her. That isolation of living with people who don't understand sounds like something too many of my friends have struggled with. Queer and neurodivergent people spend so long feeling like they are isolated within a society that isn't like them, and they can feel that way for their whole lives, or until they find others like themselves, or others who can appreciate them as they are.

Entrapta is motivated by her special interest, but it is not her sole motivation. Tech is something she's brilliant at, something that always holds and delivers on promises, and something she can always improve upon: it's so much easier to understand than the nuances of people. Even at the Prom episode, she approaches it as another science experiment, because why wouldn't she continue to perform science and do research while there? But if people make her uncomfortable, why is she even at the party? I suspect that her desire to research the social situation comes from a motivation to understand other people better, and she correctly labels a lot of the behaviors she picks up on.

Entrapta is not clueless or antisocial. She loves making friends and she loves talking to people. But eventually, all of those friends leave her, and she hasn't figured out why. So she digs deeper into tech, because it's something she loves, something rewarding, and something that won't leave her.

Those abandonment issues are what Catra catches onto, and manipulates Entrapta into thinking (rightly so) that the other princesses aren't coming back for her. She convinces Entrapta that it's because she's broken and hard to understand, which are Entrapta's own insecurities. She insinuates that Entrapta will have a place with the Horde, but that message isn't clear enough. Entrapta doesn't follow Catra's script the way she expects, and it throws off Catra.

Entrapta sees all the tech and wants desperately to study it. This tech gives her so many opportunities. And the well-meaning people in her life who tried to hold her back are no longer going to stop her. Entrapta sees the tech in the Horde and sees an opportunity to do great things.

She isn't worried about sides because science doesn't have a side, she thinks. As long as she is researching and discovering new things, she can find fulfillment and do what she loves.

Entrapta trusts openly, and this leads to a lot of shenanigans throughout the series. There is a theme of her constantly walking into danger without any sense of self-preservation. (I do know that there are autistic children who have a tendency to wander or run away, but I don't know enough about that to go in-depth with that here.)

This tendency to not read the danger of a situation led her to holding the majority of the power in her situation while captive. She doesn't understand when she's being threatened, she doesn't see that people are insisting that they will harm her, because she's so focused on this goal-meets-rewards system that has been part of her existence throughout her life.

Because she doesn't pick up on those social cues, she isn't scared of Catra or the big bad (at the time), Hordak. Because she walks into his lab ("Sanctum") as she sees fit and doesn't react to his threats, Hordak is defenseless against her. And he sees her capabilities, he learns how powerful she can be... and how kind she can be.

One of my favorite situations between these two is a clash of love languages. Hordak saves Entrapta's life, but has damaged his armor. He proceeds to give her his Tragic Backstory. But Entrapta does not listen through to the end. She makes a point to say "I'm still listening," acknowledging that she is aware of how he wants to be listened to. However, she disappears into the air vent and Hordak looks pained by this.

Entrapta comes back with the tools she needs to build Hordak new, better, stronger armor. Entrapta's love language is Acts of Service. Hordak doesn't understand that this is her motivation until she has performed the act. And from there, these two are finally in tune.

Hordak speaks of his imperfections and Entrapta tells him that, as a scientist, she loves imperfections. She thinks they are beautiful. In that moment, we see her through Hordak's eyes, and she is radiant, beautiful, and mature (she's near 30, but looks much younger), bathed in the light of their experiment.

She calls herself a failure as a means of relating to him. When he tries to compliment her, he doesn't know how to say his intent, but Entrapta sees through the useless words into the message: "Thanks, I like being friends with you too."

When Catra betrays her and sends her to Beast Island, Entrapta thinks this is another friendship gone awry. She falls into a depression because she's been abandoned yet again, but doesn't understand why.

The final season has a focus on Entrapta trying to redeem herself, but the other princesses are not willing or able to understand this until they finally talk. What seemed like Entrapta being reckless and difficult (to the point where they decided to put a leash on her) was actually her risking everything to help them. It wasn't until they took the leash off of her and let her lead the way, that she was finally able to achieve what she needed to. Rather than controlling her, her friends had to learn to let her lead the way: they did a wonderful job as damage control.

Entrapta began opening herself to other relationships after this, taking Wrong Hordak under her wing and teaching him all the social behaviors she had picked up on. She could communicate all of this with ease, as well, because they're all foreign things that she learned in order to relate to others better.

And she never gave up on Hordak, even though she wasn't sure if he was upset with her. Because this was someone who gave her freedom, helped her with science, and learned how to communicate with her.

It's important to be mindful of the individual needs of all the people in your life. You cannot control your friends into being different people. You cannot punish someone into being less neurodivergent. You can't closet someone into being less queer. Accepting people for who they are can be difficult and can lead to misunderstandings. Learning how to talk things out is one of the most important things you can do to be a better friend.

#entrapta #hordak #entrapdak #spop entrapta #spop #she-ra #she ra and the princesses of power #Entrapta is the best character #Scorpia is also the best character #they are both the best

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tuiyla · 4 years

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She-Ra’s like, really good, people

It’s been over a week since She-Ra season 5 came out and I binged it and this is not going to be coherent but I just want to rant about it a bit before writing some more structured metas. I deffo wanna write about Catradora and how I think SPoP is the true spiritual successor to the Avatar.

But first, let me just scream about how good this show is. I already started rewatching it, pretty much straight after finishing it, and I don’t rewatch tv shows often. The exception is Avatar (seen it like 15 times) and sitcoms. But She-Ra is so layered that I felt like I needed to watch it again just to appreciate the dynamics even more.

I already enjoyed the first season but it kept getting better and better. I’m not in love with the art style and it’s definitely for a younger demographic overall than my other favourite animated shows, but like any good kids’ show it balances tone well. It doesn’t talk down to its target demographic but also includes more traditionally mature themes in a digestible and entertaining way. Not all the jokes landed for me but as the series went on I learned to appreciate the tone and the type of humour She-Ra goes for.

It’s funny to me because this is definitely the type of show I would have rejected as a kid, with all the princesses I would have deemed it “too girly” and therefore not for me because screw gender roles. There’s a degree of internalized sexism to that, for sure, a rejection of the feminine because it’s always been seen as less somehow. But there’s also a truth that, at least in my childhood of the late 90s and early 00s, children’s media targeted at girls often had a poor quality to it, at least when compared to “boys’ stuff”.

She-Ra is not only a clever, heartfelt, complex story, it also transcends that binary of having to be either for girls or boys. I know most of modern animation rejects that as well, but She-Ra embraces so many traditionally feminine qualities while also going beyond gender roles and even the gender binary. This show is so queer, man, and I love it. It’s especially impressive when you consider the source material that was literally just the girly version of He-Man. I have no beef with 80s She-Ra, haven’t seen much of it, but this is such an upgrade.

That being said, I would have loved to watch She-Ra as a kid. I’m so incredibly envious of kids, aged around 10, who get to watch this show as they’re growing up. But I am so, so, so happy for them and for the future of animation that shows like She-Ra can be made now, that they’re being made. I’m going to go into spoilers soon, but just before that: She-Ra’s a perfectly enjoyable show in many aspects. I think the worldbuilding’s pretty cool, the story feels coherent and planned out, it’s lighthearted and so genuine. That’s the word that I ultimately choose to describe the series: genuine.

I feel like so much of TV aims to be dark and gritty nowadays, animation included, and though that’s slowly turning to dark comedy or a balance between fun and serious, it’s still the norm. At some point in the last decade, creators became terrified of being judged as cheesy. Even something like the MCU bathes in bathos to avoid being cheesy. But She-Ra proves that creators shouldn’t be afraid of being genuine, of basing characters and storylines on the simple power of love. Like, it’s such a cliché trope but I think that’s mostly because it has become stale.

Noelle Stevenson has talked about the importance of love in her story and I’m so grateful for that. Through, She-Ra, she’s truly proven how powerful love can be in a story and how it doesn’t have to be cheesy. It’s just so unabashedly genuine. The power of love and friendship literally saves the day several times but it’s always so genuine and more importantly it always makes sense that it doesn’t get boring. If the foundation wasn’t there, then I’d say “well this is just super cheesy”. But the show makes a point of building relationships and making them the focal point of the story.

Alright, so, spoilers because I need to talk about character arcs and THAT KISS and just everything. I really need to write more in depth about Adora and Catra and their relationship but for now I feel like it’s so important to appreciate how they’re developed. Everything from their shared childhood to their trauma with Shadow Weaver and the finding their way back to each other, it’s just *chef’s kiss*. It’s so well-written and believable. Ngl, I do have some minor issues with Catra’s redemption arc. Let’s just say that on a scale from Kylo Ren to Zuko, she’s definitely closer to Zuko. I also appreciate Shadow Weaver’s death scene and how it allows them to move on. I didn’t see that one as Death as Redemption and it shouldn’t be. Again and again the show made it clear that she was abuse towards both girls and nothing will negate that.

From what I can tell, the fandom really latched onto Catra, even when it wasn’t clear whether she’d get a redemption arc. I think that’s important, because unlike some characters in animation, Catra’s actions were almost always framed appropriately. There was always an understanding as to where she’s coming from, how she’s acting from a place of hurt, and yet her actions weren’t justified. They weren’t suddenly all okay just because she’s hurt, too. I especially loved in the season 3 finale when Adora was allowed to finally say no, to say that Catra’s actions were not her fault. That season as a whole was beautiful, like, episode three when Adora’s struggling so much and Catra has the opportunity for a better life but she still fails to choose her own happiness because she’s too bitter over SW and Adora? It’s poetic cinema. I love that angst, so well done.

It would be so easy to misfire in Catra’s storyline and either a) write off all the awful things she does because she’s just “misunderstood” or b) irredeemably stuck in her abusive environment with no hope of escape. They balanced quite well there and managed to handle such a complex character with delicacy. I’m quite happy with how Catra was portrayed because on the one hand, she’s painfully relatable to me and I assume to many others. The audience can see their own mistakes reflected in her character because we’ve all been too stubborn, done things out of spite, refused to acknowledge that we were wrong because we were hurting so much. At the same time, I always felt like the show gave me enough space to judge Catra’s actions and acknowledge that she was in the wrong. I honestly think I would have been a better adjusted teenager is if saw this show just before my angsty years, lol.

I’m going to write more about Adora at some other point but I love how vulnerable she’s allowed to be. Protagonists never used to be my favourite characters because they all seemed the same, with two major categories: the stereotypical male hero who can do no wrong or the angsty boi who can be shitty and the text still frames him as awesome. It’s only recently with series like The Legend of Korra and She-Ra that I go “damn, protagonists can be like that, huh.” Adora is a dumb jock who tries so hard and she deserves all the hugs in the world.

Also, Catradora? Breathtaking, amazing, groundbreaking. No doubt She-Ra needed shows like Adventure Time, LoK, Steven Universe and the likes to pave the way but still, it went there. I saw people be anxious about whether they were gonna be queerbaited, but I always, idk, knew? Trusted? That She-Ra would follow through. I didn’t wait six years for Bubbline to happen for Catradora to not get their big damn kiss. The series has been so effortlessly queer from the get-go that it just made sense that they were always heading there. I did see a gif of the kiss before watching s5 and ngl, that spoiler kind of bummed me out in a way that I wanted to be surprised. But even before I saw that I wasn’t worried. And the context of their journey in season 5? That cannot be spoiled by a simple gif. You have to experience that to fully appreciate it and that is the marker of good storytelling.

I understand that, though this should be the norm by now, Noelle Stevenson still had to be smart about how she approached the execs and she wasn’t sure this could happen. I cannot tell you how happy I am about what she said regarding how Catradora was so integral to the story that the execs couldn’t not allow it. That’s so brilliant, and it feels so natural in the story. Queer love saves the day and it’s not ambiguous, it cannot be censored because you lose a part of the story without it. You did it, Noelle, you funky little lesbian, what an icon. I can’t wait to see more stuff from her.

In other news, I appreciated other characters as well, like how all the princesses got to be different and awesome in their own unique way. Season 5 was great for so many characters, Mermista got so much to work with and Spinnerella and Netossa got so much more characterization than in previous seasons. Glimmer continued to be the third most important character in the story and I’m happy about all the relationships that also got to be canon. Good characters and dynamics all around, no wonder since the show is built on that.

Such a satisfying conclusion and one that makes you feel like this is just part one of a much bigger story. Such genuine, heartfelt moments, well-developed characters, complex themes explored in a respectful and digestible way, and such an unapologetically fun show. Melissa Fumero as a side character? Yes please. Catra’s new haircut? Heck yeah! She-Ra’s new design? Oh my.

I’m not even like, super into She-Ra, and I usually don’t write so much about things I only watch casually. But this show is so good and important that I had to rant. And I will write more about it eventually, but for now I needed to get all of this out. I’d give it a better structure but if I really get into I might never end up posting it so for now here, have this ramble of love. She-Ra, of all shows, deserves that.

#she-ra #spop #she-ra and the princesses of power #catradora #spop spoilers #my thoughts #that's pretty much it for now

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texasthegreatdestroyer · 3 years

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Just some theories and critcisms that I have the the recent two volumes.

Probably to start off from the beginning, Volume 7 was... interesting the say the least. Not that I hated it, because I didn't, I enjoyed many of the characters that they introduced to us, as well as I kinda enjoyed Penny making a come back, however I do have gripes about that, but I'll get into it a little further down the road. There was always one issue that I had with 7, and admitedly, it ruined one of the characters for me. Clover. A little bit of back story, when I first started watching 7, and Clover was properly introduced in the Dust Minds with Qrow, and the phrase "My semblance is good fortune." came out of his mouth, I instantly hated him, and for 2 main reasons. I knew the shippers were going to go crazy about it, and I just hated the potential connotations that came with it. I don't know about everyone else, but I love good and propper character growth. I was gonna be kinda pissy if they spent a whole volume trying to build Qrow's character up, only to solve his whole character arc by making his depression magically go poof with friendship, and that friend having a semblance to combat his own. Not matter what people want to believe, that's not good character growth. Genuinely sit down and think of the message behind that. It might as well be implying that if you can find that one person who builds you up, all of your problems will go away, and speaking from real life experience, it is not a good idea to have your happiness revolve around a singular person, because you never know when that person can back stab you, or just kick rocks.

What really broke my heart is that it took RT killing him off for me to actually take a deep look at Clover as a character for me to realize that I actually like him as a character, I just hated how they used him for plot device towards Qrow's developement. As much as I now like Clover, I'm glad that RT killed him off, because in the long run, it was better off that way for Qrow's sake, and again, the implications of their friend ship aren't entirely healthy, and is kind of ignorant to how much of an issue things like depression is. That shit doesn't just go away just because a person is introduced into the mix. In part it's also why I don't like Fair Game as a ship, because while cute in concept, it gets boring with a lot of the content that get's produced as it's mostly happy, cute, good times. It lacks in any real complexity because it's all honestly just cookie cutter romance, and it's not really all that fun to take in. In addition to that, the main issues I had mentioned before come into play. The idea that one person is so perfect while the other is fucked up in the head, that the fucked up one is heavily emotionally reliant on the other which is in fact not a healthy relationship for either member, and it would be terrifying to see how Qrow would pull himself together if he's even able to, in a scenario where they were long time romantic partners, and suddenly Clover just up and kicked rocks, or the relationship fell a part. In all honesty, it would potentially just destroy him. In general, I just think the lucky semblance thing was a dumb idea all together. I see why they did it in the grand scheme of things, but it annoyed me.

Then of course there's Robin. Let's be real, her semblance is story wrecking levels of broken. Like come on RT. Lie Detector semblance??? Really??? That is a power no mortal should ever have, and there's so many times that Robin could have broken the whole ass story just with the touch of another person's hand. (And no, just because Harriet didn't take her hand in Vol. 8 doesn't make the semblance concept any less stupid. If anything, it just makes it worse, because it shows that Harriet can't be trusted to act rationally in a situation she should realistically be able to act diplomatically towards. Grief is not an excuse when you're on the job.) I have the same issues with her that I had with Clover, it's that her semblance is damn near unneccessary.

Now to go into Volume 8, but not before giving a genuine criticism towards the whole series of RWBY. Why is it that the majority of the antagonistic characters have tragic back stories. Roman Torchwick was the only one who didn't have that sort of back story, and he wasn't even the main set of antags. Then of course there's Neo, but what good does that actually do when that's exactly what her future drives end up being is the tragic tale of her losing a close friend and associate. With Cinder, they pulled no punches, and oh my god, the song that goes with it. Like my god RT, could you slap the veiwers any harder with your dick obviousness? I hate that they gave easily the 2nd most fucked up character a sob story. It wasn't neccessary. The only good thing about it was when Wattz used her tragic past against her to put her in her place. There's no need to humanize someone who is so driven by hatred like that, as she's done so much fucked up shit to the main cast of characters that most if not all people wouldn't bat an eyelash at her, because it doesn't change her decision to intentionally be sadistic. And while on the topic of a Maiden, let's move to another. Penny. Volume 8 did her dirty. I'm all for bringing a character back, and I'm all for killing off a character for plot purpose, but the two don't fucking mix. Penny's death was redundant and unneccessary. What was the point of giving her a human body if she was just going to die within that same day? What was the point of bringing her back again if she was just going to die? Again? There's two routs RT should have taken. Either they should have killed her vol. 3 and had her stay dead, or she shouldn't have died in vol. 3, continued on as normal, and only then should she have died in vol. 8. Option number 2 is the ladder. I get what RT was trying to do with Penny's death, and I think it was a good concept, but god damn, this is Dragon Ball, we don't need redundant, pointless deaths. At least in vol. 8, there was a purpose behind Penny's death, but in vol. 3, Penny's death was more so unneccessary, and was only used to be a maryr for Ruby's cause. In fairness to them, you can't really expect them to fix what they had done years ago, but with full knowledge that this is what their plot meant they would have to do, they should have reconsidered the handing of their events for either Vol. 8, or both Vol 8 and 7 by removing Penny from it entirely.

Some additional criticisms that don't hold a lot of weight in the over all quality of the show, and more just some missed opportunities. Okay, so remember that whole speil Nora went on about having to find herself before she could be with Ren? Yeeeeeah, so why was it again that Jean had to be the one to fall into the abyss and not Nora or Ren??? Just putting that out there. If Nora and Ren needed to be seperate long enough for Nora to figure herself out, there's no real reason that they couldn't act on this. Because now instead, they're going to have to lean on each other even more so when news comes to them that the majority of their friends just got fucking dusted, and so they'll most likely be grieving together under the pretences that their friends are dead. Speaking of the abyss, fan theory time.

From what we've seen of this abyss that everyone has fallen into, it seems to be a fairly habitable pocket demention. With enough work, a civilization could possibly grow there. Where am I going with this? Well what do we know about Salem? She's a force to be reckoned with who could very potentially kill off the whole world with or without the help of the gods. We also know that she's immortal and cannot be killed. That doesn't however mean she can't be stopped. That's where the pocket demension comes into play. How do you fight off an immortal, blood thirsty, angry ex wife? By taking away everything she has to destroy in her path. You can't cause a mass genocide if there's no one to kill. And so that's where the pocket demension comes into play. What if that's how they stop Salem? By just leaving Remnant behind completely? They could take the staff back, and move all of Remnant's population into this dimension, and start new. In addition to that, they would need to take the staff of creation with them, meaning so much for collecting all four relics to blow up the planet. Now of course, there are some flaws with this theory, mainly in regards to carrying capacity of the area around them, rather or not the area is truly as inhabitable as it appears, and how safe the it actually is to live there. It's just more fodder for thought. What is RT planning with this pocket demension? Why are they so excited about Vol. 9 in regards to this? I'm really interested in how they're going about this, and hopefully the do a good job with it.

Anyways, those are just my thoughts on RWBY so far. Hopefully Vol. 9 does make up for the haphazard ending that was Vol. 8

#rwby spoilers

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applejacks1552 · 4 years

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PART 1:

So after my discussion on why Gambit would make a good parent in the 616, a few readers asked if I would do a write up for Rogue, his long time love interest and recent wife.

Now parenthood for Rogue is a little more complicated than for Gambit in several aspects, not the least of which being the complexities of portraying motherhood in media. The rather fraught politics around the role of women in society leaves the issue of if and when women should have children loaded with controversy and judgement from opposing sides. But let's take a look at what we know from comics canon and set those considerations aside for now.

A normal life

Given the limits her powers impose on her physically, throughout her comics career Rogue covets and idealizes a perception of normalcy far more than most of her fellow mutant teammates. She yearns for intimacy and touch and family. While the majority of the X-Women are fairly silent or ambivalent or even downright hostile toward the notion of starting a family, it's something Rogue has expressed interest in on panel more than once.

In Cable #20 during the Legion Quest storyline, the M'kraan crystal wave is coming and the world is about to end. Rogue asks Gambit if he'd ever thought about having a family … clearly something she herself is mourning in those last moments of life and in relation to what might have been with Gambit.

Later, in Uncanny X-Men #359, Rogue is desperate to be free of her powers, having recently come to experience physical intimacy firsthand while trapped powerless in Antarctica with Gambit. She tries to undergo a treatment claiming to cure mutation, but is stopped at the last moment by Mystique. While arguing with her, Rogue explicitly expresses the desire to have a child someday as part of the reason she wants to be free of her powers. It says a lot about how important this was to her that Rogue was ready to throw away her powers and risk a procedure she knew almost nothing about by an individual she doesn't even know she can trust.

Her aspirations are further expounded upon in the short prose story "Life Is But A Dream" by Stan Timmons from The Ultimate X-Men 1996 collection. In this tale, Rogue uses the Danger Room to simulate a normal suburban life with Gambit which includes a child they name Charlie. She thinks this will be a way to experience what she wants, yet fears she'll never have. Though ultimately Rogue cannot fully buy into the simulation, as it fails to live up to reality.

A Talent for Connecting

Rogue doesn't spend a significant time with younger team members or children early on in her career, probably because she is so concerned about harming others with her powers.

So when she finally gained control early in Mike Carey's X-Men: Legacy run, it opened up a whole new world of possibilities for Rogue and she found herself sliding readily into a mentorship role for many of the younger team members at Cyclops' suggestion. Her personal struggles with her own powers and her past along with her empathetic nature lent well to connecting with young mutants as seen in X-Men: Legacy #234.

Even as Legacy wound to a close under Cristos Gage, part of Rogue's decision to follow Wolverine during the Schism and become a senior staff member at the new Jean Grey School stemmed from her desire to continue helping the children. It really seemed like Rogue had found her calling and she felt strongly about protecting the kids and giving them the kind of life she didn't have growing up as she says in X-Men: Legacy 260-1.

Rogue eventually found herself called away from the X-Men and joined the Uncanny Avengers Unity Squad. But even in this era Rogue has a soft spot for kids.

In Deadpool #18, Rogue promises her teammate Wade Wilson (aka Deadpool) she'll be there for his daughter Ellie if it turns out she's a mutant.

New Possibilities

The Rogue and Gambit miniseries (2018) saw Rogue return to the X-Men and reunite with Gambit. Later in X-Men: Gold (2018) #30, Gambit proposes and they marry despite her powers still being a challenge.

In Mr. & Mrs. X (2018), Rogue is forced to confront her power control issues as she and Gambit run missions on their interrupted honeymoon, escape Mojoworld, and deal with an unruly Thieves Guild. By the end of the series she has regained control, potentially opening new doors for the couple. We also see Rogue and Remy serve as rescuers and caretakers for Xandra, the secret perception-warping child of Lilandra and Xavier, getting some insight into the trials and triumphs of parenthood. Rogue gets particular insight, as she gets to witness the bond between Cerise and Xandra.

The topic of children comes up throughout the run, from the joked conceit of Kitty trolling the newlyweds by making them babysit an egg, to Rogue teasing Gambit about his "baby fever" since Spiral's soul appears just to him as an infant. Both characters note that they "want it all" for their lives and by the end of this run, we know that Gambit seems hopeful for the possibility of parenthood someday and Rogue is at least open to considering it eventually. That "maybe" would have been a really nice place to leave it for a while, with that glimmer of distant hope.

However, we see a rather drastic 180 degree shift when we get to Excalibur (2019) by Tini Howard. Despite foreshadowing in the early part of the run, where Rogue mentions Krakoa's new law about making more mutants and Apocalypse waxes poetic about "the children of tonight's unions" while Gambit and Rogue hover in the background frame, followed by Rogue's suspicious floral coma and rumors about a secret costume, and then finally her escape from said coma by driving a sword into a mysterious energy emanating from her abdomen. Yes, despite all this ...

We later get an unexpected confession from Rogue in issue #6 during an otherwise steamy scene, in which she confirms the challenge pregnancy is for her and then claims an off panel nightmare led her to suddenly realize she doesn't want children now or maybe ever.

To say this seems incongruent with her previous portrayals and build up to this point, even as recently as Mr. and Mrs. X, would be an understatement. One can only speculate at the reasoning behind this decision. Why bring up and tease this subject if it serves no purpose? Editorial edict? Just to punt the subject down the line and take it off the table for now? To fake out the readership, only to spring a surprise on them later? To change Rogue's narrative completely to fit a perceived more modern lens? ... Only time will tell.

Continue to PART 2 ...

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rpbetter · 3 years

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Hey there, check out this pinned post first!

Thanks for visiting Roleplay Better, where I believe that you can fucking do better! That kind of language, however, is why it is important for you to read this post before proceeding.

This blog and its posts are meant for an adult RPing audience; be over legal, adult age in the USA, 18+. Do not interact by submitting, asking, reblogging, commenting, or liking unless you are over eighteen years of age. By interacting with RPB or me, Vespertine, you are assumed to be following this rule. If you are breaking this rule, you will be blocked.

I have that rule because this blog can/will/does address topics inappropriate for a younger audience. Those can include, but are not limited to:

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Don’t tumblr message me. Use the inbox or submit.

Due to recent events, I am changing this rule. It’s hard for me to receive messages unexpectedly, and I hate to imply that I’ll be able to get to these quicker because it isn’t the truth. Quicker, better responses come from the inbox. However, there have been too many incidents lately in which people needed to speak privately and had to make that a request. If you’re having a problem and need to vent, request sensitive advice, etc.? It’s alright, go ahead and drop me a PM, y’all. I’ll get back to you as soon as I am able. Please, do not be angry with me if I respond to inbox things or my queue is running! You’re important to me, I just might not have the requisite social cognition and energy you deserve at that time.

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About Vespertine

You can call me that, Vespertine. I’d rather you didn’t go with Vesper, but as it is unfortunately so likely to happen, I won’t feed you to the dogs over it either. RPB Mun is also acceptable.

I’m alright with either she/her or he/him, they/them is also fine. Apparently, that was big enough clue-in for the poor reading comp crowd, so while I feel it is not of importance, I’m nonbinary, yes.

Late 30′s, chronically ill but still working adult with neurodivergence. I’m both busy and Busy, and always sick. This limits my brain power and ability to be here. I have an active RP blog that I won’t be sharing to keep responsible distance. That is always going to be my priority, it is my primary hobby.

Please, don’t tumblr message me totally random things if we don’t have that kind of relationship! I’m too ill and busy, and it really fucks my nerves to have a bunch of messages/have to suddenly interact socially with people. Don’t do it. Use my inbox, use the submit, comment on posts. I cannot do random messages of “hey” and so forth.

I only do written RP, don’t expect me to understand much of anything from tabletop. I’ve RPed for the last 23 years consistently, on every platform from AOL chats to forums to messengers and here. I also don’t do RP in discord, so I’m sorry, but I can’t advise you much on anything with a word count, except to stop it for serious RP. Other than that, I promise you that I’ve seen the trends, the drama, the fandoms. I can give a lot of advice and perspective on a wide range of topics, situations, and characters! When I don’t have a clue at all, I’ll try to do enough research to give you an answer.

Do I come off as a horrible, strict asshole? I do! I’m not going to say that I am just a shy bean who is more scared of you than you are me. I’m not. I’m honestly feral, but have common decency, compassion, and sense. All of which are lacking in the general RPC. So, if you can inbox/common/otherwise interact with anyone else on this site, you can totally handle me!

Honesty and openness are policies.

And in the spirit of that, I repeat; you can fucking do better, tumblr RPC!

#pinned post #tumblr rpc #rph #rp help #rp advice #rpbetter

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whenwegounnoticed · 4 years

Text

My Turn To Talk About VioletVineyard, MVCreates, and the Glaring Problems of Power Imbalances.

Introduction

I have been on the fence about talking about my experiences, on one hand, because one of her mods and I are or maybe were (?) friends, and I valued their friendship but in recent light, I don’t know and because I want my main to be a safe place for other writeblrs and because I am afraid.

I was in VioletVineyard at the beginning of it -- and being in it did not feel good for reasons I could never put my finger on.

Let's talk about me and who I am first without giving myself away:

I have a disorder that makes expressing myself difficult, this is due to childhood trauma and a form of self preservation. My wording will be clunky because only recently, with the help of amazing friends, I'm learning the right verbage.

Now. Some of you will know who I am. Hello. Please keep me anonymous. Some of you might have a guess. Hello. Surprised? Maybe you're wrong. I don't know, I'm not in your head just as you're not in mine.

I have screenshots for some stuff and none for others. These are all personal experiences.

I will not be sharing the screenshots of those who were victims to respect their privacy.

Please bear with me. I know this will be long and rambly, but it’s how I make sense of my thoughts and brain.

VioletVineyard: Questionable Reality

I joined VV at the start of it, although it was already pretty big. I was excited! I admired many writeblrs who were in there and wanted to be friends with many of them. They were all so welcoming. And I felt, for a hot minute, like I belonged.

It was sprint of my freshman semester as a journalism major, and Mina reached out to me in the general chat, saying that if I needed help or wanted an In at some journalism company, to let her know because she knows people.

Great! Cool. A little odd but that was nice of her -- and.

That's how it starts.

A side: my friend has a theory that if people only present how perfect and amazingly nice they are, they likely are rotting on the inside. Nobody is ever perfect and always super nice, do not trust them. I do not subscribe to this but it is a thought in my mind now.

It took a week of me being there for the not right feeling set in.

First:

There was drama.

She would start it. She'd vague in the vent about someone and then outright state who she was talking about. And it would be about someone whose opinions she disagreed with. People would go and send anons or they'd bitch about whoever was the victim in the vent channel.

I don't remember if I participated but if I did, I am truly and genuinely sorry.

I think I got stressed two weeks in. I was already ill from invisible physical problems. The server felt horribly unmoderated.

I remember saying something because Mina was doing it again and being told,

"Then support in here."

Mostly innocent right? You support your friends, right?

It wouldn't have been a problem if:

The victim did something wrong.

Mina and this person weren't in their goddamn 30s or near that. They have a child, by the way.

The person was at least under 20.

From my scattered memory, the issue was OP either slightly vagued abt Mina or she just disgreed with OP.

Lots of red flags, right?

"But OP why did you stay?"

Emotional masochism? Fear? Because she, either knowingly or unknowingly cultivated this sort of atmosphere? I cannot speak for anyone else, but that's the reasoning for me.

There was, also, in the beginning, a hope that maybe things would change. Varying personalities, you know? And a desperate need for validation.

So, so wrong.

MVCreates & OP

So, get to the point OP. What happened to you?

A vague threat.

Mina....had Opinions. And opinions are just that, opinions but for her, they were fact. After all, she has her own reality and own story that helped form hers but some of hers were odd. Maybe not to most people who aren’t paying attention or didn’t notice the red flags ( “through rose colored glasses, all red flags just look like flags”) but they were definitely something.

She, for awhile, talked an awful lot about writeblr positivity. I could never really make sense of it -- she either supported it or was against it, from what I remember. (keep in mind, this was a little over a year ago and visually, I can see the gaudy green - red - yellow colors for pronoun preferences).

And I made a vague post about it and her. A few times. I was in the wrong for vaguing about her instead of just saying something up front.

Her response was, and I will paraphrase,

“Do you ever screenshot people vaguing about you just in case they enter a political career?”

I wish I had taken a screenshot. I’m sorry now that I did not. Maybe someone saw that, maybe they brushed it off. I don’t know.

From then on, I kept quiet about my thoughts and opinions because I did have plans to go into a political career -- but jokes on her, I plan on being a human rights officer for the United Nations lmao

Another incident (we’re almost done, I promise):

I was -- venting about gender dysphoria. I was Peak Suicidal at this point in time, just knowing what I was born with brought me to tears frequently. Mina had jumped into in the conversation and started talking about something vaguely related. She started talking about trans BIPOC experiences, which is great! Their experiences are things that need to be talked about because they are often thrown to the side for trans white people’s experiences and that is not okay.

I forget the middle part, it’s been over a year. It went from BIPOC experiences to something else, a conversation about gender? I don’t know. Maybe there’s someone out there who remembers. I doubt it though.

I remember saying, “I wish I would have been born with testicles and everything else because [I’m in hell?]” and she answered with,

“That would [mean / cause / ???? ] privilege.”

This person who has claimed she is non binary, claimed to be a trans ally and part of the trans community, said that to someone in the height of dysphoria and was suicidal.

You do not say that to someone who is experiencing gender dysphoria. To say that is transphobia. And yes, trans & non binary people can be transphobic. You are not exempt.

Violet Vineyard & Reprehensible Behaviors

Before I start this section, and I promise this is almost done, I just want to thank:

@radley-writes, @gingerly-writing, @lilquill, @sapiencenotes @rrrawrf-writes & many more who have come forward about their experiences, whether publicly and in private. It’s admirable and brave of you to do something I could not. @nuwuhorizons & @time-to-write-and-suffer have amazing documentation as well.

There isn’t much to say that hasn’t already been said and documented, but I can corroborate the bullying Mina and the mods engaged in -- the stuff Radley spoke about I did not know about -- and that makes me ill. I’m glad they owned up to what they did, and for that, thank you Radley. It shows you are a much bigger and better person.

I will not lie, however -- I was hurt and felt a bit ill when you talked about what the mods did. And it made me question and second guess a friendship I have (had?) with another mod. But I think that helped put some pieces of the puzzle together.

An incident that stands out to me (and honestly bothers me, so a few people have heard about this often and I’m sorry), very clearly and I have screenshots for but will not share to protect their privacy, was when they dogpiled someone who had been asking about writing a Jewish character. While they were falling into somewhat harmful stereotypes, VV was handling it.

Not well.

The person was a minor, for one -- teenagers make mistakes, they make them more if they’re not exposed to varying cultures and beliefs. And the person who was on the receiving end of this dogpile looked to be coming more and more unstable and all I could do is just. Grab screenshots of what I could.

And if you’re reading this, you know who you are, I am so sorry I didn’t say anything. That wasn’t right, the entire situation wasn’t okay. You shouldn’t have gone through that. I hope you find healing and peace.

A quick disclaimer: Violet Vineyard, as far as I know, didn’t have a lot of Jewish members. I know a mod was converting (but hadn’t yet) and I think I saw one or two people with the Star of David in their name or icon. That said, my paternal grandmother was Jewish and had been one of the few survivors of her family from the Holocaust. I cannot speak for the entire Jewish population, and I do not consider myself Jewish in religion but trust me when I say this:

YHWH would be disappointed in their (VV’s) behavior -- and if the moderator who is working on converting is genuine about converting, then I need them to think long and hard about what is happening. This isn’t what Judaism teaches. And if you’re reading this, ask yourself, would G-d condone the actions of your fellow ex mods?

Final Words

Oof, this was long, wasn’t it? Must have been hard to sit through because I ramble! So. What’s left for me to say?

Not a whole lot but still, a lot but the stuff I want to say are not my lived experiences. It is not my place to speak on behalf of anyone else involved in all of this. And that is okay.

But to the people who were involved with the recent drama and dogpiled a trans teenager and to those who helped bully many people in this community on behalf of the oh so great Mina,

my question is why?

What was a thirty year old woman, WHO HAS A CHILD, bullying a nineteen year old? Why was an almost thirty year old person with a toddler and one on the way involved in this as well?

Most or a decent handful of you were adults, some with children, some expecting.

And Mina,

You used your age and position to manipulate people and for that, I find you the most reprehensible. Castor did not deserve what happened, neither did the victim mentioned above. Nobody did.

I hope, in the end, you finally find happiness without having to lie about your talent and without having to manipulate people.

Thank you for listening and sticking around if you made it this far and didn’t bounce in the beginning.

I’ve said my part. If anyone wants to engage in constructive discussion or share their experiences, feel free to do so.

#vv drama #violetvineyard #violet vineyard #op

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facepalming-since-chernobyl · 4 years

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My brain is rotting

Maybe isntead

All dumb shit - (x)

“ Whether or not you believe Lena Luthor was behaving out of character on Supergirl season 5 or not, there’s no denying that Lena has a lot to make up for and make right on Supergirl season 6. “

yeah, out of character. She was never manipulated by her brother, never killed people,never threw a tantrum, never did morally wrong experiments, never was sure she is right when she wasn’t, was never blinded by her emotions, blah blah blah

It’s clear that there is a lot to be done with Lena Luthor during Supergirl season 6 after a season of her siding with her brother and the writers consistently destroying the relationship between Lena and Kara over the big Kryptonian secret.

What a lot? All they need to do is put the bitch in jail. Tell me, why Lena won’t admit on public she was hapily helping Lex with lobotomizing whole fucking humanity? That she kidnapped and enslaved people? Why? Because she KNOWS she would end in a jail. What makes her a fucking coward. What makes her redemption a SHIT.

If there’s any way to make sure this is done (and done correctly), it’s to bring Lena into the fold and give her a pivotal role in these stories. Let’s start by making her a super friend.

Pivotal. LOL. She HAD pivotal role in season 5 and that’s why this season SUCKED BALLS. And she was a superfriend. And guess what? She used Kara and manipulated them all, put them in DANGER, because she was butthurt.

Making things right needs to be Lena Luthor’s top priority on Supergirl season 6. She really screwed up. (I personally don’t agree with the narrative that the show painted of Lena’s actions, as it was very clear that her past abuse and trauma was clouding her judgment and she was actively being manipulated by one of her abusers, but nonetheless…) Her relationships are in shambles, but for the first time in her life, she has the chance to put the pieces back together.

I’m dyiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing. Her top priority should be going to police and confessing her crimes. But we all know she won’t, because she is a coward.

Sure, you don’t agree because Boo Hoo Hoo Luthor showed her true colors. Yeah, sure, she had traumatic past and Lex and Lilian abused her all the time, we just don’t know how exactly. Plus, sorry not sorry, your traumatic past don’t give you the rights to kidnap, enslave, manipulate, lie and torture people. And plan to lobotomize whole humanity because you are too poor to go to theraphy... WAIT.

STOP excusing abusers and toxic people’s behavior. It’s fucking disgusting. Especially when all what they have to do is cry (crocodile tears) and help to fix shit THEY CREATED. ONCE AGAIN.

The abuser she first SHOT IN COLD BLOOD and then happily work with, when he was magically brought to life, because oh yeah, he made Luthors look good. LOL

Her relationships are in shambles and it’s her fault. What first? She had that chances in s2.

Lena’s finally seen the light and the truth about who Lex and Lillian are, so it’s given her a new lease on life, one where she can begin to put her past behind her and move forward for the first time in her life. She can, hopefully, start to have a life that isn’t constantly dragged down by her family. And I think the best way to do this is to make her an official super friend.

I’m dyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyying. Lena shot Lex with cold blood because she knew who he was. And then she was still manipulated by him. For the THIRD TIME. And she had that life in STARCITY and she threw it away, because she wanted to be a LUTHOR. Once again, it’s on HER. She could walk away every fucking second. But she chose to stay. And do horrible

On this point I’m pretty sure she is a dumb bitch that can’t learn on her own experiences what makes me wonder about people calling her a genius.

Lena’s often kept out of the loop until the very end when she invents some life-saving device and stops the villain, which is tiresome and shows that the writers truly don’t understand the complexity of the character and how impactful her relationships with the other characters could be.

How many times the shit she “helped” to fix was HER fault? Because she knew better and didn’t listen to her friends? This is IN character and writers know exactly who she is. Sorry not sorry, canon.

I’m not saying that Kara and company are going to immediately trust Lena to be on their side and always do the right thing. That will be part of the tension of Lena joining the group at first, proving that she’s capable of helping them and being a positive addition to their group. With Lex on the loose (hopefully not for long), this provides the perfect opportunity to begin Supergirl season 6 with Lena in the fold, finding more reasons to keep her there along the way.

Sure, once again Superfriends need to offer their hand to their ABUSER and invate her to their circle. So she can fuck shit again. Positive addition, yeah - butthurt, complains, eternal bitching about how people call her Luthor, being always right, not listening to the others. But oh yeah, she can produce more kryptonite to torture Kara. Once again, why keep her? Put her in the jail, case close.

(...)now is the time that Supergirl seems to be relying heavily on the team element, and leaving Lena out would be disastrous. The entirety of the Lena vs. Kara story on season 5 could have been avoided if Lena was brought into the fold earlier (and seeing only a few alternate realities doesn’t convince me that there was no way Kara could have told Lena earlier… that’s a pathetically easy way out of the story and the writers surely know it).

Sure. Blame Kara once again for rightfully protecting herself. And sure, CANON can’t convince you that telling Lena earlier would have changed a shit. Some people can’t understand that Lena is the pathetic control freak and has to know everything, because if not boo hoo hoo, people call her a Luthor.

This is canon Lena Luthor. I’m sorry she doesn’t fit your headcanon.

And aside from Kara, Lena needs to work out her relationships with the others, too. She had minimal scenes with Alex — which is the second most important relationship to develop next to Kara and Lena’s on Supergirl season 6 — on season 5 and Brainy, too. But have Lena and Nia even been in a scene together? That’s a tragedy in and of itself. Plus, Kelly was the only one on good terms with Lena, and that could grow into a beautiful friendship, especially because of the relationship that Katie McGrath and Azie Tesfai share off-screen.

Her most important relationships are: her and her ego, her and her last name, her and her mommy issues, her and her brother. What she needs to develope is a fucking conscience.

And Jesus Christ, leave Nia out of her fucking clucthes, we don’t need her corrupting poor Dreamer (aside of the fact Dreamer is protective of Kara and is going to show Lena her middle finger in s6). Why we need being tortured but going through Lena making friends with everybody?

Lena’s been a series regular on the show for three seasons, yet she’s continuously the person left out. Nia’s a superhero and knew Kara’s identity before her, Kelly has close ties with Alex and Kara even if she’s not officially in on the secret yet, and Brainy instantaneously became part of the group when the Legion showed up during season 3. Because of the ridiculous good vs. evil story, Lena has not been allowed to grow and develop real relationships after three seasons. Supergirl season 6 must rectify that.

LOL, she was in the cricle. All the time. She just didn’t know Kara’s secret. But sure, it kept her form growing up *dyiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing*. All of the characters that knew earlier were worthy Kara’s trust. Canon showed Lena was and is not. She is ruled by her BUTTHURT. That’s the problem with Princess Lena. She was blinded by her emotions by MONTHS. And for sure it will happen again, because Miss Luthorgirl is unable to understand her own fucking flaws and blames everyone but herself.

After painting Lena out to be a villain for the entirety of season 5, Supergirl season 6 absolutely cannot follow their history of major interpersonal developments occurring off-screen with Lena, especially when it comes to her relationship with Kara.

Not painiting. She was the villain. Yeah, all we need is focusing on Lena’s being sad and uspet and Kara trying to fix shit again. Because we don’t suffer from it since s2.

Maybe instead of wasting time on a white privileged white bitch, who makes the same msiakes all the time and never paid for it, who kidnapped, tortured. enslaved and lobotomize people and her friends, let’s focus on dansen, developing Kelly, focusing more on Alex and Alex and Kara, giving Nia more screen time. I wonder, why the author thinks Lena and her whiny ass should get anything more?

This goes for all relationships, honestly, not just those involving Lena. While I do think everyone should get these moments on-screen, it absolutely has to happen with Lena if we’re going to believe her journey going forward. Making all of these moments happen off-screen is quite a bad habit that has constantly dragged Supergirl down, but should we actually get to see the emotions and growth exploring during Supergirl season 6, there’s a lot of potential, particularly because of how talented this cast is.

Sure. But the others, REAL representation, are not that important as Lena and her privileged ass. Who needs her journey going forward? She had her chance. She fucked it more than once.

And now, amazing how this person totally IGNORED that Lena kidnapped, killed, lobotomized, enslaved, tortured Kara and hurt her physically and emotionally like NO ONE EVER HAD, that she supported and happily worked with a mass murderer and terrorist, that she planned to DESTROY Kara and her family. Like all she did was some bad things, but it was not her fault that much, because her family abused her and Kara lied to her, what a crime!, let’s not talk about what she really has done. The shit since s2. The list is LONG. Because, ha ha haaaaaa, Lena doing bad things, while being “blinded by her emotions” is NOT only s5.

Lena Luthor is not a poor victim of circumstances and her family. Her crying and helping people fixing HER shit is not a redemption. Her apologizing to Kara is not REDEMPTION. All of she has done is still THERE. If she wants redemption, she needs to PAY for her SHIT and earn it.

The problem is, I don’t give a flying fuck anymore. She can rot in jail. And tbh, this is what she deserves.

Kara deserves better. Superfriends deserve better.

#anti lena luthor #anti sc #my shit #gmo lena #antilena

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cannoli-reader · 4 years

Text

Disability and rehabilitation pt. 2

So my last post about Jaime Lannister on this issue got a bit long, so I split them up. This is going to be the Wheel of Time one. And should not be long, because the Wheel of Time character I was thinking of is not nearly as significant to the series as Jaime is to his.

It’s Siuan. I know lots of people don’t see a redemption arc there, because a lot of them don’t think she needs one. All over the fandom, I see people raving about Siuan and how she’s so strong and lost so much and she keeps going. Okay. That’s true. But not all virtues are exclusive to good people. Courage does not make you a good person, for instance. Arguably, Sammael is pretty courageous. And neither does perseverance or tenacity. You have to apply those traits to something more than self-preservation or personal gain.

What I think happens with Siuan is that we get too small a sample of her actions in the beginning of the series, and find out more about her later, except the imposition of her disability rehabilitates her in the readers’ eyes, which in turn affects the hindsight view of the early books.

At the outset of the story, Siuan has been Amyrlin for about a decade, and despite the hagiography from her friends, she was not a very good one. Siuan is not a good leader, though she can be a very good advisor and would probably make a pretty competent bureaucrat. She is unquestionably intelligent with a good analytical mind, but that does not make her a leader. Off-setting these strengths is that she lacks vision. She works much better under a leader who has ideas she can work to bring to fruition. Unfortunately, she has an inordinate amount of pride as well. And when she rises far and fast, she ends up lacking any counter-balancing wisdom. She gets named Amyrlin at a very young age as a compromise candidate, but rather than walk softly, she takes it and runs, by all accounts being forceful in her manner, and controlling as well. In reaction to the discover of the Horn of Valere, she goes to Fal Dara herself, wreaking havoc on the surrounding environment to expedite her journey, only to bring the Black Ajah, including Liandrin and Alviarin, into the fortress which expedites the theft of the Horn.

The odd thing about Siuan’s carelessness in this regard is that she has known since shortly after getting the shawl about the Black Ajah, and worse, she herself surmised that they are aware of the Dragon’s rebirth and are actively taking measures to get rid of him. In spite of this, she is unable to give up her need to be in control, even when her position and her alienation of the Ajahs means she can’t control her personnel. Once the Black Ajah comes relatively into the open and she has to deal with it, she lets her paranoia take the wheel and, not being able to trust any Aes Sedai, nor to accept that there is nothing she can do, she hands over the investigation to three of the newest initiates of the Tower. She remains obsessed with the Black Ajah and ends up with a tunnel vision focus, to the exclusion of properly managing Tower politics.

Her absurd solution to the Black Ajah problem, of sending Accepted after them, helps bring her down. While in the case of sending Elayne into danger, she has provided herself with plausible deniability, at least her own satisfaction, she cannot control everyone’s interest in the Daughter-heir, including her brothers and Elaida. Siuan herself articulated the prestige Elaida has gained from bringing Elayne to the Tower, and the Red sister’s interest in Andor has cost her the Amyrlin Seat Siuan is certain Elaida wanted desperately. The flimsy excuses Siuan finds sufficient to foist off a mere queen who has historically been devoted to the Tower don’t hold up for her sons who are present all the time and are more loyal to their sister than the Aes Sedai, much less her own rival who is far more knowledgeable about Aes Sedai affairs.

It is her discontent with the situation that inspires Elaida to begin the legwork to depose Siuan. It is his hostility to Siuan for being kept at arm’s length that motivates Gawyn to help foil her allies’ counter-coup.

And this is also characteristic of Siuan, that she focuses on the top-down approach to problems. When she has a plan to unify Murandy under a strong king, and she anticipates her candidate’s habit of raiding into Andor could endanger the plan, she decides to keep Andor from fighting him. Her approach is to go to Morgase and force her to keep her troops away from the area of his depredations, to minimize the risk to him. Siuan grew up in a tyrannical nation that oppresses its people and then she moved to the hierarchy-obsessed White Tower, so to her way of thinking, all you have to do is give orders to your lessers, and that’s the end of it. She makes absolutely no accommodation to Morgase, does nothing to get her to buy in to Siuan’s program, offers her nothing that we know of in exchange for compelling her to commit an egregious dereliction of her duty to her subjects.

For all that she lays the blame for Morgase’s anger toward the Tower on Elayne leaving unexpectedly, maybe she would have accepted Elayne’s absence from Tar Valon, if she was not also dealing with the biggest headache of her reign, brought on by Siuan’s high-handed interference in her rule. The riots and demonstrations against Morgase and her relationship to Elaida and Tar Valon are blamed on the Whitecloaks stirring them up, but since when are they that competent? Eamon Valda was the one left in command in Caemlyn after Geofram Bornhald was recalled to Amador. Straight-arrow Galad runs rings around Valda in the PR game and we’re really supposed to believe he’s responsible for swaying public opinion in the capital against a beloved and long-reigning queen? But even if Bornhald got the ball rolling in the brief time he could have been in Caemlyn, there had to be some discontent for the Children to work off of, and Morgase abandoning her borders after a meeting with the Amyrlin Seat is the best reason we have to go off of. And of course, the Tower’s standard MO means she would not have bothered to walk back her command and let Morgase resume defending her borders after Siuan’s candidate is killed by an ordinary farmer who objected to being robbed, no matter how central the thief was to Aes Sedai plans.

It’s a major weakness of Siuan, that she thinks all she has to do is give orders. She really makes no allowance for differences of opinion, expecting those on her side to stay on her side and to accept her commands. She does not expect compelling Morgase to have domestic blowback. She does not expect her handling of Elayne to anger her family or to turn Elaida, who has a clearly demonstrated long-term interest in Elayne and Andor, against her. She does not expect her high-handed manner to incite sisters against her, or her secretive behavior to give credence to the arguments for deposing her, even though she knew being deposed was a possibility.

And part of that secrecy was kind of unnecessary. Siuan was the one who determined that the Black Ajah knew the Dragon was Reborn. Once she was Amyrlin, there was no further reason for secrecy, since the only people who didn’t know about it were the good guys. What’s more, it was, like the Murandy operation, not just wrong, but futile. The secrecy depended on no one being able to trace her to Rand, which in turn counted on people not remembering how close she had once been to the one sister who’d been with Rand at every turn. Even after Verin pointed out how obvious the whole setup was to anyone who had been paying attention, she still tried to maintain secrecy. And you can’t fault the Hall’s annoyance at being kept in the dark about the imminent apocalypse or the hubris of an Amyrlin a fifth the age of many of them presuming to manage Tarmon Gaidon and the Dragon Reborn all by herself.

And the problem here is that all this stuff is backstory. Some of it we don’t learn until after she is deposed, and some of it we only learn the full ramifications of once we have a better grounding in the political realities of the setting. When Siuan is brought down in The Shadow Rising, our perspective is from her and Min. In Siuan��s mind, of course, she’s the put-upon hero, and her frustrations are reasonable feelings, certainly not an exhibition of entitled expectation that things will go her way. When Elaida reveals that the Hall has voted her out of office, Siuan’s retort is basically “How dare you use politics against me!” Her indignation that Elaida chose a favorable ground for fighting, that she chose to acquire allies rather than taking on Siuan alone in a personal confrontation where Siuan has all the advantage is either so astoundingly naïve as to disqualify her from ever holding office or a breathtaking piece of hypocrisy given the extent to which Siuan stretches her authority and the rules which put her above other sisters. Not to mention the tactics she will later coach Egwene to employ against people who are her ideological allies. But without the hindsight we get from seeing a greater pattern of Siuan’s behavior as well as a deeper look at the politics of the series, she seems like a frank and well-intentioned leader who has been brought down by treachery. In Min’s chapters, we only have Siuan’s presentation of herself and her position, as Min, like the reader, lacks much personal experience of the Amyrlin to see beyond it. And Siuan frames her actions as helping Rand. Which, yeah, she thinks she is doing, but just because she thinks it does not make it true. I’m pretty sure Min’s actions in Tar Valon would have been radically different if she could have been a fly on the wall in Fal Dara when Siuan told Rand that his purpose for existing is to be her tool.

And then Siuan gets stilled, hence the disability, and redemption in the eyes of those readers who were rubbed the wrong way by her attitude. The journey to Salidar has her one of three women traveling alone and vulnerable to violence and danger, not to mention ending up facing a trial for stuff for which she and her friends were not responsible, and then she gets to Salidar and runs smack into the prejudice of Aes Sedai against those who are not. Her old friends treat her as a lesser being, her qualities that have nothing to do with her channeling, and which are thus unaffected by her disability, are suddenly dismissed and she is treated like some ignorant hick. All of this makes her the sympathetic underdog, and from the reader’s simplistic binary view of “Elaida, bad: anti-Elaida, good,” Siuan looks good and the reluctance of the Aes Sedai to go to war against the Tower is inexcusable, so her deceptions and manipulations are seen to be for a good cause.

But what casual readers miss is that Siuan is still making the same mistakes. She still thinks, despite her awful track record to date that it’s right and good that she control the Tower’s agenda, as she plans to put a puppet on the Amyrlin Seat to be controlled by a council she herself can manipulate. What I have never seen anyone question is, if she thought Egwene was ignorant enough to be manipulated and controlled by the council and second-hand by her, why on earth did Siuan give her a blanket writ of authority and send her off to hunt Black sisters with only a blocked wilder to manage her? Also, Egwene’s state of mind, courtesy of her Seanchan captivity, evident in her actions outside of Tar Valon and her intractability in the short time she was in the Tower, made that a particularly bad choice.

Furthermore, the meta argument in favor of Salidar over Elaida is that Elaida will try to control Rand, and while the sisters in Salidar have a similar mindset, the protagonists of that arc (Nynaeve, Elayne, Egwene, and incredibly, Siuan) believe otherwise and will prevent it. And yet, to get her foot in the door, and access to power in Salidar, Siuan trades knowledge Rand’s whereabouts to the ruling council. Their response was to send the incredibly arrogant Kiruna and Bera to find Rand, with their only apparent selection criterion being the number of warders the pair could bring on a trip to the Aiel Waste. Later on, she manipulates the choice of which of Rand’s friends to send with the embassy, sending Min whom she believes to be more under her thumb and willing to spy on Rand for her, instead of Elayne, which compounds Elayne’s political problems when she goes to take the throne.

Again, Siuan’s intentions get buried by the fact that she throws in with Egwene and honestly does her best to help, but it was not really her choice, or only her choice insofar as she decided to accept it as her own idea instead of fighting a futile battle. What actually happened was that she let a wilder with little regard for the Tower or Siuan personally see through her decoy tactic, because she still has not learned that when she pretends to not be collaborating with a long-time BFF, someone is going to realize the truth. As a result, Nynaeve has both insight into Siuan’s activities in Salidar, and the willingness to use that knowledge against her, as well as having incurred a debt beyond repayment by restoring her channeling ability. Siuan cannot say ‘no’ to Nynaeve, and Elayne is politically shrewd enough that she’ll spot attempts to wiggle around her which Nynaeve won’t. So Siuan’s chances of manipulating or controlling Egwene are pretty much nil with Nynaeve and Elayne at her back. Her only hope for influence is to throw herself entirely into Egwene’s cause and reap the rewards. Not unlike Asmodean with Rand or the Forsaken in general with the Dark One.

And what about her work with Egwene? While it’s true she provided indispensable political tutelage and strategy, it’s basically the inverse of her own tenure as Amyrlin, where her supposedly good agenda was derailed by her political failure. In this case, the excellent performance she coaches Egwene to in the political sphere belies the fact that they have no good agenda. For one thing, they completely ignore the outside world that both of them presume the Tower has the right to order and control. When a course of action is proposed in the Hall regarding the Black Tower, a topic of not insignificant interest to Aes Sedai (especially Aes Sedai following a woman who publicly told a group of people concerned about the presence of male channelers in their lands “We got this, mind your own business”), Egwene sits mute through the session of the Hall, because neither her own views nor Siuan’s teaching account for a policy for the Black Tower.

The sole agenda for which Siuan and Egwene are engaging in all these political machinations among the rebels is a military campaign against the White Tower, which is utterly wrong, and probably an unjust war on its own. Egwene will even later repudiate the whole campaign and denounce the very act of marching against the White Tower and besieging Tar Valon…after she has had some time away from Siuan, and Siuan’s own actions have soured Egwene on her counsel. So either Siuan primed and aimed Egwene to plan and execute a military rebellion against the Amyrlin Seat, or else Egwene had the idea on her own and Siuan blithely went along with it and actively abetted the plan instead of counseling against it or trying to moderate it.

What it very much looks like is that Siuan leaned into revenge more than fixing a problem. Starting a war within the White Tower cannot be a good way to reuniting it, as people note several times over the course of the conflict when the issue of pushing the fight to an extreme comes up, but it is a better way to make sure that Elaida goes down. After all, if they are making war on Elaida personally, the end result of the war has to be Elaida’s downfall, and a declared war against her makes it much less likely Elaida will retain power under a negotiated settlement. And that, more than anything is Siuan’s agenda. Just as Elaida is really out for her own glorification when she thinks about saving the Tower, Siuan’s first priority is taking out Elaida.

If saving the Tower was the priority that could still be done within the system. At the point when Siuan arrives in Salidar and a negotiated settlement is still on the table for the dissenters gathered there, Elaida has not been in a position to do much damage. What she has begun doing is driving apart the coalition that brought her to the Amyrlin Seat. If the rebels got some concessions in return for their coming back, there would be no external threat to the Tower to rally support to Elaida when her actions become more extreme under Alviarin’s direction. There would be an opposition party in the Hall to vote against her more outrageous actions. Once out of the Hall, Elaida can’t keep holding sittings with only her own faction present, and she has been wearing away that faction with her own Siuan-like behavior.

As it is, in the same book where Siuan reaches Salidar, Elaida has promulgated a blanket amnesty to any sisters who return, so the future issue of the punishments she decrees, such as abolishing the Blue Ajah, is not a factor. Those only become so when Siuan lies about Elaida and the Red Ajah, and begins spreading the story that they created false dragons. And knowing it’s a lie, knowing the Tower’s tradition of covering for fellow sisters and presenting a united front to the world, of not airing their dirty laundry to outsiders, can you blame Elaida? The funny thing is, Siuan herself was outraged when Rand repeated the same story to her. How did she expect Elaida to react? Just as she did. Siuan provoked Elaida into the same indignant reaction she herself felt, for exactly the aim of getting her to lash out, and force the rebels to stay the course out of fear. And as with much of Siuan’s actions in Salidar, you have to say “Smart move. But how does it help?” Is provoking the Amyrlin Seat to acts of tyranny conducive to unifying humanity on the verge of Tarmon Gaidon? Is maintaining the division between sisters to the benefit of the Tower? Clearly not. The only one to benefit is someone who cares much less about those issues than she does about toppling from power the woman who bested her at Tower politics and whose teaching style she resents from when she was a novice and Accepted.

Other lovely advice Siuan gives Egwene is to murder Nicola and Areina for not being protagonists. Because pretty much everything Nicola pulls to try to get ahead is very similar to Egwene. And you can’t even say she’s wrong. She’s almost 25 years old. She had a job and a fiancé. This is a grown woman by any standard you care to name, and if she is willing to take the risks of being forced, she has the right to make that call for herself. Especially with Tarmon Gaidon just around the corner. A considerably better option than sending away girls with enough strength to reach the shawl, just because they are too boy-crazy to make good Aes Sedai, as Siuan did with Else Grinwell. I’m pretty sure Vandene’s assessment the book before she did so was that the Tower would need every novice capable of lighting a candle, as long as they weren’t too interested in good-looking men, right?

But because of mere political inconvenience, Siuan wants to murder Nicola, removing one of the strongest living initiates in the Tower, not to mention one who’s pretty clever, and capable of outmaneuvering sisters, on top of the sheer evil of the notion. And ethically, by assuming all authority over a novice’s actions and choices, by infantilizing her as the Tower does, treating them as literal children, the Tower has a responsibility to protect them as if they were children in truth. Murdering Nicola is as profound a betrayal of the White Tower’s duties as the crime she slanders Elaida for committing.

And speaking of slander, in a world where oaths are taken seriously, where they are sufficient grounds to alter the sentence of a convicted criminal, Siuan swore an oath never to tell a lie. And promptly broke it the moment she was physically capable of doing so. She did not put conditions on the Oaths when she swore them, there was no expiration date, no proviso that she would only live up to them so long as she held a certain status. She not only broke her oath; she did so to abuse others’ trust because they thought that it still held.

As an example of her teaching Egwene how to be Amyrlin, not just what to do, there is the discussion after Moghedian escapes. Egwene, in a moment of panic, commits an egregious violation of tradecraft to meet Siuan and Leane for no real practical gain, and demands they conduct an investigation that will further endanger their covers. Ostensibly, the subject of the investigation is Egwene’s runaway servant, which just might cause people to start wondering at the attention the issue is getting. And there is nothing to be gained by it either. As Siuan points out, none of them know what the Forsaken look like and there is nothing that could be done with anything they do learn about whoever released Moghedian. Egwene slaps down Siuan, demanding to know if the mere reassurance she would get from having slightly more knowledge than she currently does is too much to ask. But it kind of is, considering how many stand to suffer if Egwene goes down. If Egwene can reprimand Nynaeve & Elayne for endangering her (and by extension, her whole faction’s) political position by a bargain with the Sea Folk that is nonetheless a positive good for the world, how much more does she deserve a reprimand for something equally dangerous to that position with nothing to be gained by the risk? Okay, but she’s still learning. Whose job is it to set her straight on that? Siuan’s. And what does Siuan tell her? That she was right to flip out on Siuan, that no one may be impertinent to the Amyrlin Seat!

Before Siuan started filling Egwene’s head with nonsense like that, Egwene understood the need for people to treat rulers and leaders like normal human beings. That is was important for her friends to treat her like their friend, instead of their office. That rulers needed to be told the truth, even if they did not like it. We see in the same book where Siuan tells Egwene not to let anyone be rude to her, Cadsuane being deliberately rude to tell Rand things he needs to hear, because he’s not going to listen to people being deferential and obsequious. Leane tried respect on coming into the tent with “Mother, this is unwise,“ and Egwne’s response is IDGaF. She needs to hear when she’s doing something stupid, but Siuan doubles down on the Amyrlin being above normal human interaction, not least because she’s defending her own track record of arrogance and entitlement.

Recall that when Anaiya brought up her behavior as Amyrlin when she first arrived in Salidar, stating that she abused her authority and forced people to do what she wanted, Siuan’s reaction is to scoff that the Amyrlin can’t treat every sister like a buddy. Except that’s not what Anaiya was saying at all. Siuan was acting like respect and basic courtesy are special favors to close friends. Her reaction is more like a child using a semantic digression rather than reflect on what they did wrong. Why does she think people listened to Elaida as they did not to all the other opponents of Amyrlins who wanted to depose one? Either all but two other Amyrlins who managed to not get deposed DID treat people like girlhood pals, or else Siuan’s behavior was considerably worse than merely failing to be besties.

Just about the only positive thing we know Siuan did as Amyrlin was create the title ‘Mistress of the Kitchens’. I suppose you could count raising the Wondergirls to Accepted, but that’s more of a Doylist good idea. From the point of view of the White Tower and forming girls into proper Aes Sedai it was a tragic blunder, and Siuan had no intention of undermining the process or protecting the girls from being conditioned into obedient sisters. She just thought that her commands took precedence over 3,000 years’ institutional experience in indoctrination.

Siuan Sanche is a rude, petulant bully, who would destroy the White Tower or the authority of the Amyrlin Seat if she cannot hold them herself. She does a poor job teaching Egwene, who reaches her greatest heights after getting away from her teaching, and blames the Siuan-led rescue in defiance of her standing orders for her inability to reunite the Tower without a fight. Upon her triumph, Egwene publicly denounces and repudiates the course of action to which Siuan counseled her. When she held power herself, Siuan presided over a world going to the dogs, and engendered resentment against the Tower and its interference in others’ affairs. Her control-freak mentality and utter lack of subtlety or diplomacy gave the Shadow opportunities to steal the Horn of Valere and break the White Tower, and they were far and away the biggest fans of her efforts to exacerbate and prolong the division.

But to all-too-many WoT fans, Siuan is an amazing person for going on and keeping up the fight in spite of all she lost. Yes. Those are great qualities. And Eamon Valda is a blademaster, with all the discipline, dedication and perseverance that achievement entails. What matters most about skills and personal qualities is the use to which you put them. You don’t get a pass for putting skills to bad use, for striving for unworthy goals, just because you’ve suddenly lost an ability you once took for granted. Siuan learns nothing from her loss, other than perhaps some lessons about practical politics that might have helped her avoid the loss in the first place. She continues barreling down her path in the assumption that she knows best and she has the right to do whatever she can get away with because she knows best. All her disability really does is rehabilitate her in the eyes of the fandom, and cover over her many, many mistakes and the reasons why the Pattern removed her from power as its own champion was rising to fix the mess that was in part her doing.

#wheel of time #siuan sanche #aes sedai

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doof-doofblog · 3 years

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"Hello, Sis!"

Tuesday 6th April 2021

Hello again everyone! Wow! Feels like it's been a while since I last posted, I had a very busy week last week and again this week being back at work! I'm sure you must all be happy regarding the lockdown easing ever so slowly! I've come to the realisation that now I'm back to the day job, my posts will have to be done in the evenings, so I apologise if some of them seem late from now on. I'm planning on possibly doing another blog post tomorrow and then a double on Thursday in an attempt to catch up! I know the majority of you have already seen last week's episodes, it seems I have a lot of catching up to do!

We know that things are supposed to be kicking off this week (commencing 12th April) due to the return of Nancy Carter and the possible outcome of Kush's trial? I do have a fear Kush may be killed off and become another victim of Gray's but I am hoping that that doesn't happen! But before we can even begin to get excited about it, I need to post about the episodes that you guys have seen, but unfortunately I haven't.

So without further ado, I'm going to begin chatting about Isaac. It seems that Sheree seems to have overstepped the mark regarding both Lola and Patrick. I mean of course she is acting as the concerned Mum and Wife, but she needs to realise that there are some things she can't interfere with. Patrick has been offered the opportunity to go on blood thinners as an experiment for stroke victims - (at least that's the jist I got from it anyway!) - but Sheree is standing her ground claiming she doesn't want her husband to take part in it, purely because she fears for his health. Again, I can understand her concern but she can't stop Patrick from doing something he may want to do, considering he's already suffered two strokes whilst on the Square, he'll want to do his part in helping other victims.

But also where Lola is concerned, Sheree is still interfering in her son's relationship, for a brief moment it looked as if she had scared poor Lola off! Finally Isaac has sat his Mum down and told her straight to stop interfering with everybody's lives, even claiming that some times she can come across as controlling, even though her concern comes from a good place. For the first time in a long time, Isaac is feeling ready to enter another relationship, and he informs her Mum that with Lola, it feels right, he's slowly falling for her and there could be chance that she is feeling the same and the relationship could become serious?!

As Isaac instruct his Mum to kind of back off, Lola appears to have escaped to the Vic. Oh and once again Peter seems it's necessary to poke his nose into business that has nothing to do with him! Urgh, I really don't know about any one else, but for me personally - Peter is one of the worst characters the soap has right now, not in the sense of villainy, but just as a whole - his attitude towards his family, thinking he's the big I AM, urgh I don't like him, I really don't! Something has to change with this Peter I think, what about you guys?! Do you agree or do you think I'm being a little bit harsh? Either way he insults Lola and manages to persuade her to tell him what's on her mind. Believing he's a trusted friend, Lola confides in Peter, informing him about Isaac's diagnosis - something I fear she will possibly live to regret. But after her meeting with Peter, she eventually meets up with Isaac in the club and he informs her to not let his Mother scare her off, Isaac has full control over his illness right now and there would be no way for Lola to trigger any kind of breakdown. Let's hope things remain this way, right? But something is telling me that with all this positivity and reassuring that Isaac is fine and he has everything under control, something is telling me that eventually Isaac will have some form of breakdown and hopefully EastEnders will be able to have an opportunity to portray what having schizophrenia is really like!

Oooooo and what is this?! A possible new love interest for Bernie?! It's about bloody time!!! So, I'm sure the majority of you know that the Taylor family have taken in a new dog named Banjo after finding him on the streets and assuming he was a stray. Unfortunately, since the dog has been in their possession, some flyers advertising the lost dog have been spreading around the Square. Mitch was the first one to notice them, but not wanting to break his young daughter's heart, after their new family member has brought her so much happiness, he disposed of the flyer and never said a word about it to his family.

Now after this young girl seems to catch her eye on the Square, denying to Bailey that she's does not have a crush on her, she claims that she was just interested in the girl's flyer's. As Bailey goads her to ask for one, Bernadette comes to realise what the girl is advertising. (Also just zooming through the end credits of the episode now, there happen to be two female names of who this young lady could be - "Clara" or "Molly" - It'll be interesting if she was to show up again!) Taking the flyer back home, Bernie sadly informs her Mum and Mitch that a girl is out there looking for her dog, who they happen to have living with them, and his name isn't Banjo, it's Ziggy!

At first it seems the Taylor's are in a bit of a denial, it's understandable that they've grown to love the dog, but when Karen calls him by the name "Ziggy", the dog automatically responds. Bernie claims that they have to do the right thing and return the dog to it's rightful owner, however Mitch is looking deeply suspicious as Karen realises that he knew about the flyer's a couple of weeks ago and never said anything. He claims he didn't want to break Bailey's heart after all the loss she's had in recent months. It's then that Karen happens to agree with Mitch and states that the dog will be staying with them. They instruct Bernie to call the girl up and give her false story about the dog. Poor Bernadette isn't one for lying, so it's quite funny and yet sweet when she attempts to make up a story about the dog being lashed into a van to the unknown female. But it seems the girl can see right through Bernie and claims that she saw the way she was looking at her in the Square and offers to buy her a drink. Even though Bernie is already hiding the fact that she has her dog, could this be the start of new relationship for her?!

Ooh yea, so Ruby and Lily are still at loggerheads with each other! After devastatingly realising that Lily has cut her deceased Mum's wedding dress to pieces, Ruby is demanding that Lily leaves the house. Even though Lily isn't Ruby's biggest fan right now, it's clear that she had no idea that the dress belonged to her Mum, but it turns out she might've known that it was a special piece of clothing as Ruby states the dress was kept in a box at the back of her cupboard.

As Martin sends his daughter upstairs to get changed out of Ruby's clothes, he begins to think of some kind of punishment for his daughter, informing his wife that Lily is simply just missing her Mum. However it seems that Ruby's day goes from bad to worse, after discovering the state of her Mother's ripped dress, she informs her husband that she got a call from the clinic. It turns out the Ruby could most likely have endometriosis and that their fears about not having any more children is more likely. Devastatingly, endometriosis is severe and it could mean that she may not be able to have any more children in the future, sadly the one she lost might've been her only chance of being a Mum.

Understandably devastated for his wife, Martin realises he needs to do something to cheer her up. As Lily recovers from changing out of Ruby's clothes, Martin informs Ruby that Lily's punishment is to give her no access to any electronics for a week, and in an attempt to make things up to Ruby, Lily "apparently" has offered to give up her birthday money if it means there could be a way to salvage the ruined wedding dress. Ruby is visibly touched by the kind gesture, claiming that she didn't mean what she said about wanting her to move out, she claims that being her Stepmother - she'll always have a place to stay with them. Lily just simply smiles.

As Martin informs his wife of bubble bath waiting for her upstairs, Ruby thanks her Stepdaughter once again and leaves the room. As Martin follows, giving her the thumbs-up, it seems as if they think Lily will be okay and there'll be no more issues, but from the look on Lily's face, she really doesn't seem happy. Something was telling me that maybe she was being forced to apologise to Ruby? She clearly didn't mean her apology, is she still going to make Ruby's life a living nightmare?!

Oh Jean!!! Poor Jean!! I know I mentioned it in the last post, but I'm going to mention it again, I cannot applaud Gillian Wright enough for her performance as Jean! Jean clearly isn't coping with having her daughter back inside again while she's suffering a terminal illness, all she wants really is to be back with her daughter. As everyone gathers and sees the commotion, Sharon comes to realise that the only reason Jean is acting this way and holding herself up in the vehicle is because she wants to be with her daughter.

In an attempt to get Jean out of the van, Sharon pleads to the police to let her talk to her softly. As she approaches the fragile woman in the vehicle, she explains that even though she understands how Jean is feeling, the actions she's currently doing won't help her in any way. Even though Jean wants to be arrested in an attempt to be with her daughter, Sharon informs her that if she was to get arrested and put in prison, there is no guaranteed chance that she'd end up in the same prison as Stacey, in hindsight the only thing she'd get out of it is probably a criminal record and a hefty fine.

Realising her mistake and that possibly her actions may not get her close to her daughter, Jean agrees to switch off the engine and leave the vehicle. Now the next scene between Sharon and Jean I found funny but really touching also, I don't know why but I've loved the friendship that they've begun to build with these two characters. Two women I never thought would have each other's backs, but it seems that they are both struggling with things in their personal life, and I just LOVED how they both fell about laughing about the outcome of things, Sharon realising she's a single Mother with no money and how Jean has almost corrupted her new gym business. I found the scene really heart-warming as both the women agreed that sometimes shouting out to life itself is sometimes the only thing they have left?

I just loved it, it was as if they have a mutual understanding of each other and they found some common ground. Jean opened up to Sharon and Sharon opened up to Jean, even informing her about discovering a long lost brother that she's still unsure of whether to contact or not. But as Jean claims that having family around you is one of the most important things, Sharon seems to see it as another man in her life who she doesn't really need and decides to bin the phone number.

However, later as Sharon unfortunately misses her date with Kheerat and ends up drinking alone, Jean excitedly approaches her new found friend, even though she appears excited she also seems a little nervous and jittery. Admitting she might've overstepped the mark, she repeats the fact that Sharon needs her family around her and considering she hasn't got that many members of her family left ..... ?! Sharon questions what Jean has done and it's only when they get out onto the Square they see a car pulling up and stepping out of it, appears Zack! Jean only contacted her brother! But the interesting thing that gets me, Zack greets Sharon by calling her "Sis!" - last time he saw her, he had no idea who she was, just another person who attended his Dad's funeral, does this mean that Jean informed about Sharon's true identity?!

Either way, I'm super excited to see what happens next, I'll be sure to follow up this post with another one tomorrow. I once again apologise for this being super late, I'm going to try my very best to catch up, regardless at being back to the day job! Thank you all for reading! I hope you enjoy the rest of your evening. Please feel free to leave me any messages or comments about EastEnders and I'll happily reply! Love you all xXx

#eastenders #isaac baptiste #sheree trueman #patrick trueman #lolapearce #bernadettetaylor #baileybaker #mitchbaker #karentaylor #rubyfowler #martinfowler #lilyslater #jeanslater #staceyslater #sharonwatts #zackhudson

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bloomandcoffee · 4 years

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Fe3h ABO headcanons

So yesterday I had a lot of fun in the anon meme writing some ABO worldbuilding for FE3H. Some of it was inspired by the amazing @theeeveetamer. I decided to post it here for easier access, and in case anyone wanted to read them/get some inspiration/play in the sandbox.

All questions and comments are welcome!

Let's start shall we?

Faerghus

Faerghus has a tradition to not give a fuck about omegas. Loog was an omega, and all Blaiddyds are as well. Omegas can inherit and can be leaders of their houses or clans. They prize Chivalry and Duty above all else, and with the harsh conditions of Faerghus they can't afford the privilege to dismiss a third of their population. All are trained to fight before they learn how to write, no exceptions. If they want to partake in the battlefield, become part of the royal guard, command armies? They can.

Which means of course Faerghus is the nation expert on omega nature, heats and all subtle intricacies of omegan behavior and its relation with other spectrums. As a nation that values righteous fury and devotion (to the King) Omegas are very prized as well because of their emotions and relentlessness when it comes to protecting their own. This clashes with the other nations and their concept on what is the proper omega behavior. Faerghan omegas find it stiffling to not be openly passionate and determined in the presence of people from the Alliance or the Empire.

Alpha/Omega unions is most desired between crest bearing nobles because they needs the crests (remember The crest of Gautier is the only thing between Faerghus and a Sreng invasion) and a huge litter will up the chances of getting one. But it is far more common outside the nobility for omegas to mate with Betas.

Betas and alphas too are held in high regard, but for different things. There's no hierarchy based on the ABO designation, but on political nobility designation and chivalry.

The Empire has made a long effort to scrub from history the fact that an omega rallied an army, fought the empire head on, and won somewhat successfully. That is, people on the Empire and Leicester (to a lesser degree) belive Loog was an alpha, while it is is common knowledge in Faerghus that Loog was an omega.

Adrestian Empire

The Empire is very conservative with ABO designations. Alphas on top, betas as servants/retainers and omegas ought to be quiet, domestic and be a perfect wife (see Bernadetta).

Omegas cannot inherit Houses, not even if they have crests (See Mercedes' mom) and while it is common knowledge in the Empire that it is not a woman's fault if the child they bear lacks a crest (or is an omega) it is still fairly common to be shunned culturally.

It is fairly recent that the Empire has allowed omegas to enter in fights, though many nobles would first have them married than allow an Omega of the Family join the battlefield and "decrease their value" (because what if they get scars and become undesirable?!), and those that do usually expect the omega to bring home a respectable wellbred mate.

Of course this doesn't mean that the empire never had noteworthy omegas in their ranks, but they easily scrubbed their designation (or outright changed them) when they excelled in fields that were deemed inappropiate. I.e. an omega excelling in the arts was fantastic, but one that excelled in martial arts and warfare was a disaster.

(It also goes the other way around, an alpha that excells in arts but is mediocre in the activities the Empire demands alphas to excell in is a disappointment, and many families have either disinherited their alpha children or tried their best to hide the shame.)

As for alphas, they are on top, call the shots and have all the rights -but so are their responsibilities. They must excel in the areas that the Empire has traditionally viewed as given for alphas like science, politics, diplomacy, warfare, management and such. The field is extremely competitive (alpha women are held to a higher standard because the Empire made the notion that Seiros was an alpha woman, so they all are compared to her) and a perfect manners and form of conduct is expected at all times.

This means of course that the Empire has the leading knowledge on alpha supressors, because they can't have their alphas behave like beasts. They are civilized individuals, the land where Seiros and the four saints lived, they must lead by example!

(There's a black market for omega suppressors as well. It moves better in the lower classes, but has higher profit margin in the businesses in the noble class)

Leicester Alliance

The Alliance being mainly a mercantile and business nation holds Betas in higher regard. Time is money and businesses that get postponed because someone got a heat/rut is money lost. The logistics of the whole thing are a nightmare for merchants, and after the third time a big negotiation or deal got frozen because of the biology of one of the parties some rules just had to be set.

So betas that don't have to get into this biological mess are valuable. Though it is also fairly common for commnfolk to procure alpha and omega suppresants to be able to conduct businesses as well.

The only people that look down on the use of suppresors are some noble families because the willful ingestion of something that impairs your body is not very noblesse obligue. They think it is either addictive like alcohol, or poisonous.

It is not uncommon to hear the rumor that ingesting suppresors will leave you sterile as a means to dissuade noble omegas from consuming them. (Of course that doesn't mean they won't ingest them from time to time when there's one big summit or deal on the line. The excuse of "oh it seems my rut/heat is coming late this time" is fairly common)

Nobles of course employ trusted beta families to close negotiations in their name, and it is a major honor for a beta family to be adopted into the noble family as their main negotiator.

The Alliance also gets a few cultural cues from both Faerghus and Adrestia. Namely that Alphas should be exemplar and omegas should use their passion to excel in the arts (which includes oratory and negotiation), but in all Alliance fashion the reason why they shouldd excel is because they must make up for the time they are impaired to support the Alliance.

Also all nobles should act in a maner befitting to their station, which means of course that alphas are hold to the manners and etiquette standards of Adrestian alphas (but without the help from suppresors) and omegas should be outspoken and passionate but in a diplomatic and well mannered way that doesn't include outbursts or displays that can be considered shameful.

Garreg Mach

Garreg Mach has everyone on suppressors, and is very liberal with contraceptives as well. There is no ABO orientation shaming because everyone is a child of Sothis and the monastery is a refuge for everyone, and those serving within the church or in the Knights of Seiros should be available at all times to reprieve and help those in need. (Of course this is mainly because Nabateans don't have ABO designations and what better way to hide it than to have everyone be the same?)

Because they are not affiliated to the church, it cannot force any of the students on suppresors. However they make it available for anyone who wants to have them, and make the transaction discreet and private. It is not uncommon for students to go to a "confessional" and leave with suppresors.

Of course the Monastery also has repurposed heat rooms and rut rooms, but they aren't many. The academy does ask the students to give their rut/heat schedules to the administration so they can properly manage the heat/rut rooms and avoid inconveniences.

As for some people:

Dimitri is an omega. But what has (and had) the Kingdom worried for a long time was the fact that he hadn't presented at the proper age (13) but at 17. (This of course is related to his extreme PTSD, survivor's guilt and the almost mortal injuries he sustained in Duscur and while saving Dedue) His heats are terribly irregular and painful. There's also the fear that he might be sterile given how late he presented and the issue with his heats. He believes he can't be a proper omega on top of not being able to be a proper prince, and that it is one more sin that has to be added to his shame.

(Of course in full Dimitri fashion, he buried all that self loathing and insecurity behind a princely smile)

Claude is an alpha passing as a beta with the aid of suppressors because he needs all the advantages he can get in the Alliance. No one really knows because he was presented as a Beta in the Alliance. (Judith knows of course, and complains that it is a pain in the ass to procure the exact brand of alpha suppresors because not all of Fodlan's suppresors work on someone that is used to Almyran suppresors). He finds it fascinating the strange cultural concepts pertaining ABO in the different countries and Almyra.

(Almyra does have a respect for omegas, with a myth that mostly resembles that of Amazons. Claude has a laugh when he realizes the fabled amazons live in a cold Kingdom and not a tropical island)

Edelgard is an omega turned alpha by Agarthan experimentation, because Adrestia cannot have an omega emperor. Among the mess of things she has, there's some internalized omegaphobia, and part of her hatred with the church stems from the fact that Seiros was an alpha (and never realizes that the Alpha Seiros thing was all Adrestia propaganda).

Lysithea is an omega turned beta. A failed Agarthan experiment (they wanted alpha) but the Ordelia family still took the small victory because Betas are more valuable in the Alliance. She doesn't care much about ABO, though it stings when an omega she knows goes into heat, and is more worried about curing herself.

Ferdinand is in fact an omega on permanent suppresors who knows very well that the only reason he's Ferdinand von Aegir is because he's the only legitimate heir. His competitive behavior and manners is he overcompensating and an attempt to hide the secret.

(Also because I love the idea of two of the most prominent and greatest minds of the empire being fucked over by Adrestia's ABO expectations)

Lorenz is an alpha born out of Beta and Omega parents, who is trying very much to prove that being an alpha in the Alliance should be an asset instead of a burden. He will stop at nothing to do so, but has a pouch of alpha suppresors that taunt him every night.

Marianne is an omega, but she is on suppresors. Margrave von Edmund justified it by saying that the suppresors helped Marianne's health given that her heats were irregular. But in fact, while her heats were irregular, she has them because her heats react strongly with her crest. It was usual for her to vomit blood or destroy the whole omega heat room. That's also another reason why she's terrified of her crest.

#fe3h #abo #Fe Faerghus #fe Adrestian Empire #Fe Leicester Alliance #fe Garreg Mach #fe dimitri #Fe Claude #fe ferdinand #fe lysithea #fe marianne #fe lorenz #headcanon #picking up the omega Blaiddyd agenda

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