#there’s a lot to speculate about in her backstory. why was her sister the one chosen? did the queen kill her to keep the throne to herself?

[17mujipens]

i saw a video about the Queen in Dungeon Meshi and her skin colour. and people in the comments had all sorts of theories on why she and Flamela have such dark skin. and it made me realise that a lot of people haven’t seen this page of the Adventurers Bible:

#people were saying they’re dark elves (in universe that’s actually a sort of outdated term for elves who do ancient magic) #that they thought it was a weird reference to minstrel shows (not really my place to speak on it #but they are drawn like all the other characters just a flipped colour scheme) #that they’re drow (maybe design was inspired by that but that’s it) #dungeon meshi #delicious in dungeon #flamela #there’s a lot to speculate about in her backstory. why was her sister the one chosen? did the queen kill her to keep the throne to herself? #how was it growing up separated from her twin but still so obviously a royal? #also to note. the very first Queen we see. why is her ear mangled like that? interesting

[stem-sister-scuffle]

STEM SISTER SCUFFLE: ROUND 2 MASHUP 8

Raphella La Cognizi (The Mechanisms) vs Entrapta Princess of Dryl (Netflix She-Ra and the Princesses of Power)

Raphella La Cognizi is an... Everything Scientist! (people said "all sciences"... also she loves magnets)

Entrapta Princess of Dryl is a Roboticist, Programmer and First Ones' Tech Historian/Archaeologist!

Why you should vote for each contestant:

Raphella La Cognizi:

"All of them, probably, focused on chemistry and biology if I had to guess. She's the science officer of the Mechanisms, a band of immortal space pirates. They regularly blow up planets for fun. Raphaella designs them better bombs, tortures poor captives, tortures and vivisects her crewmates, etc. I love her also"

"it's unclear--she's a mad scientist archetype more than anything! she does, however, really like magnets. she's an immortal space pirate. she possibly made herself immortal. she's autistic To me. i love her so much. as cruel and brutal as she is... science!"

"everything? the more unethical the better, although she does really like magnets. Immortal space pirate! so she's got all the time in the universe to do science. until she dies, of course, which happens when (spoilers) she decides to fly beyond the event horizon of a black hole to find out what's on the other side. She's the science officer on her starship, which is just a badass job in general, and she's got WINGS. the wings are mechanical and the reason she's immortal. we don't know for certain if she was born with wings and they were replaced, or if she just went "wings sound fun!" and built some, or much of anything about her backstory. But! speculation is rife and there is a nonzero chance she's immortal because she experimented on herself, which is fun. Also she's just *really pretty*, ok, and has the voice of an angel. She is as cruel and brutal as she is science."

"shes immortal she has time to do all the sciences. well. she does die after like 10 millennia but even that is a final science project! she throws herself into a black hole, maybe to die, maybe to learn something new :) your honor i love her"

"SHES IMMORTAL SHES A MURDERER SHE DOES EXPERIMENTS ON HER IMMORTAL CREWMATES SHE LIKES MAGNETS SHES ***GAY*** shes my beloved"

Entrapta Princess of Dryl:

"She builds robots!!! She's curious and inquisitive!! She loves her robots!! She has the coolest hair and also I want to be her bestie. She's an absolute love"

"autism :)"

"Builds robots and computers for fun and companionship. Can take apart and understand almost any tech she is presented with. Autism lever set to max and I love her. Mandatory boob window in all her outfits and I've never related harder to a character."

"autistic icon, amazing inventor and app round excellent character"

"she has prehensile hair it’s literally the best thing i’ve ever seen in my life, it’s never once acknowledged by any of the characters as abnormal or explained in any way i’m literally obsessed with it. also autism queen"

"PIGTAILS!!!! autism"

"Entrapta is very bubbly and positive. She never lets anything like losing her friends or going to the bad side or getting put on a death-sentence island stop her from scientific pursuits! She actually drives a lot of the conflict in the story, as she explains the technological backstory of the world, and helps both sides be better at fighting. She loves data, doing experiments, and the scientific method. She's also in love with space. She is an autistic queen <3"

"phenomenal canon autism representation without being weird & shitty. also she’s so strange & wonderful & relatable in so so many ways. my computer is named Darla bc that’s what she named the AI for the spaceship in s5"

"She is THE science queen because she loves science so much and her love of it is INFECTIOUS. I don’t know anything about science but Entrapta makes it seem like the coolest thing in the universe. I love her"

"She ourple. I luv her"

"She's so passionate about her work. Takes through notes! Figured out how to hack her home planet!!! She's autistic as hell and I like her overalls."

"You won’t get autism like this anywhere else bestie"

"amoral mad scientist who flips between the good guys and bad guys, loves building so many inventions, ends up converting the head bad guy (for most of the series) to good through the power of love"

"She has outfitted her entire castle to be a maze, and installed electronic locks on some. Her staff seems to be mostly robots she has built herself. In good part reverse engineering or adapting ancient tech found on the planet. She's incredible at what she does and personally fixes, invents and builds a wide range of stuff from space ships to portals to a prosthetic exoskeleton to trackers to war machines. She can do it all. Autism win! Girlie has been criticised for being treated childlike or being unable to understand those around her to a ridiculous degree, but I'm honestly just glad she's not a Sheldon Cooper. Her favorite bots have personalities and therefore implied AI (but not the shitty kind), which means she's pretty fucking good at software too. She likes tiny foods."

"So very autistic about technology. Initially believes robots are way better than people, eventually makes human friends but also very much still has robot friends (I love Emily so much). Gets so excited about finding new First One's tech. Also her happy spinning around in a space suit in that one season 5 episode heals my heart every time I watch it"

"She's the planet's leading expert on ancient tech (sci-fi/fantasy universe) and develops most of the tech in the show and is very autistic about it. i love her"

"She is fun and funky. Chaotic neutral. Definitely some autism coding going on, which is very charming. She has a pet robot? It is cute"

"Bc she is ENTRAPTA!! No srsly she is such a well-written character. At times kinda morally grey but always lovable and great and she is truly amazing at what she does!! I'm pretty sure she's already been submitted but I wanted to make sure :)"

#stem sister scuffle #round 2 #raphella la cognizi #the mechanisms #entrapta #spop entrapta #she ra #netflix she ra #spop

[saraanzu]

bsd speculation: what’s up with this girl in bram’s flashback from 107.5, and what can we learn about her from dracula?

(prefacing this with some rambling… actual analysis starts after the readmore)

107.5 came out the same day as the s5 trailer and it was right after an exciting mersault chapter which is the vastly more popular pov and it was a whopping 9 pages - it was bound to be disliked. I won’t pretend a 9-page chapter isn’t disappointing (no idea why recent chapters have been so short - I hope they get a bit longer again when s5 is done airing?) and I think it’s fine to prefer the mersault storyline but I’ve also seen some god-awful takes about this chapter.

aya and bram aren’t side characters! they have been core to bsd’s plot ever since their introductions (in aya’s case, her re-introduction) and you can dislike them all you want but it’s objectively incorrect to claim they aren’t important to the story.

I also don’t agree with the take that 107.5 didn’t further the plot at all - obviously not a lot can happen in, again, 9 pages (that’s 1/3 the length of 107!) but aya deciding to remove bram’s sword and him actually encouraging her to do it even when he doesn’t believe it’s possible and previously told her not to is a huge turning point in the story! 107.5 certainly isn’t a favorite of mine but I will say we’ve had (slightly) longer chapters in recent months that had more exposition and setup with less plot.

I’ve seen some people worry that, because bram pictures someone who looks like aya in what’s presumably a wedding dress, bram and aya’s relationship is going in a creepy direction. I want to make it clear that no matter who this flashback girl is, even if she’s bram’s dead lover and/or aya in a previous life, I highly highly doubt that anything weird is going to happen between bram and aya. their relationship hasn’t been set up like that at all, in fact bram has parallels with aya’s father and he explicitly sees her as a child (more on that later) (look. bsd is not above using some Weird Tropes. in particular, the tanizakis and mori come to mind (and in mori’s case, it doesn’t even really function as a reference to the irl author - vitas sexualis has nothing to do with pedophillia!) but it’s important to mention that, while I wish those tropes weren’t in bsd at all because they’re unnecessary and add nothing of value to the characters, they are ultimately gags and nothing more. they don’t really set a precedent for how weird asagiri is willing to get when it comes to legitimately serious plot points.)

okay! got it all out of my system here’s the actual post

part 1: the dress

personally, when I first read 107.5, I didn’t think this girl was in a wedding dress. my initial assumption was “this must be bram’s daughter, she’s wearing some sort of tiara and bram was a nobleman”. but looking at it again, it does resemble one, and we should consider how bram’s backstory might reference dracula.

“the brides of dracula” are three seductive vampire ladies who live in count dracula’s castle and attempt to feed on jonathan harker early on in the book before being stopped by dracula, who chastises them for trying to eat harker and feeds them a human baby instead.

while they are known as dracula’s brides in pop culture and are often portrayed as such in movie adaptations, they go unnamed in the original novel and their relation to dracula is unclear. from what we see of them they refer to each other as “sisters”, although perhaps not in the literal sense. two of them have dark hair and are described as having similar facial features to dracula while the third is blonde, which may imply the third is dracula’s wife and the other two are his daughters. I imagine they’re pretty vague and mysterious on purpose, they could be dracula’s wives/sisters/daughters, or even just some vampire ladies crashing at his house.

however, I don’t think we should disregard details exclusive to adaptations of dracula and only focus on the original book when thinking about bsd. film adaptations of the book are actually more influential on dracula’s perception in pop-culture than the book itself, so it’s not unlikely that asagiri would reference elements that appeared in adaptations but not the novel.

so, because of “the brides of dracula”, I think it’s quite possible this girl is indeed a bride. she does look a bit young for it, but I’ve seen others say they think she looks older than aya, so I guess that’s subjective (and people would get married younger in bram’s time I suppose).

that doesn’t mean she has to be bram’s bride - again, the “brides” in the original novel have no explicit relation to dracula and could easily be his daughters or sisters, and I really do think her being his daughter instead makes more sense thematically.

part 2: her relation to bram

I believe bram subtly parallels aya’s father in a few ways. aya’s dad is verbally and physically abusive, and he berates aya for not being good at traditionally feminine activities. he doesn’t see her for what she is, a child, and instead expects her to be a perfect traditional woman.

right before we see this flashback, bram is surprised by aya’s age, and comments that she is “too young to even use a spinning wheel” (also a traditionally feminine activity). both of them question aya’s desire/ability to be an ally of justice but for different reasons: aya’s father finds it unladylike while bram finds it too big a task for a little girl (he is also sleepy)

I didn’t understand the point of this scene’s inclusion before, but in retrospect I think it serves as foreshadowing for bram’s flashback and demonstrates how he and aya’s father both associate aya with dead people, but this causes them to treat her differently.

aya will never live up to her father’s expectations because she can’t compete with his idealized memories of the dead. her own accomplishments are irrelevant in his eyes because she isn’t enough like the wife and daughter he lost. I suspect his grief is part of the reason he’s so horrible to her in the first place.

it’s the opposite case with bram. in his eyes aya does compare to someone who he remembers fondly, and the end of 107.5 implies that’s the very reason he’s okay with aya pulling the sword out.

I don’t necessarily see bram as a father figure to aya (to me he’s more of a weird creature who’s sort of grown fond of her after being unwillingly dragged around… but hey, who says that can’t be a dad?) but I do think it’s possible that this mystery girl was bram’s daughter in the past because of how he parallels aya’s father.

(note: she has normal human ears rather than pointy ones, but bram was turned into a vampire by his ability and wasn’t bitten or born as one, so I don’t know if he’d necessarily pass down his vampirism to his children. he also may have developed his ability after becoming a father, or his daughter could even be adopted).

part 3: her relation to aya

the most common idea I’ve seen to explain the resemblance between these two is that aya is a reincarnation of this flashback girl. introducing reincarnation out of nowhere seems a bit random even for bsd, but surprisingly this theory does have some basis.

in the movie bram stoker’s dracula (1992), the character mina harker, jonathan’s fiancé, is a reincarnation of dracula’s long-dead lover, elisabeta. dracula recognizes her as a reincarnation due to their resemblance and mina agrees to assist him, still harboring feelings and memories from her past life. it’s fairly common for dracula adaptations to portray dracula and/or mina as having romantic feelings for each other, but this isn’t really the case in the novel, and elisabeta is entirely an invention of this particular movie.

so, aya being a reincarnation of a girl bram once knew could work as a reference to this. I did say previously that I think it’s possible asagiri will reference adaptations of dracula and not just the novel, but I’m not so sure he would make something specific to one particular adaptation a major part of bram’s backstory.

personally, I’m partial to the idea that aya’s ability will be introduced soon, and her resemblance to this flashback girl may have something to do with it. (the ability idea and reincarnation idea aren’t inherently contradictory, aya’s ability could very well be reincarnation)

this theory by @jo-dieeee suggests that aya’s ability is called mirror, due to the discussion of mirrors in 107.5 and the book above.

mirror: the fiction and essays of koda aya isn’t actually a book written by irl koda, nor is it just a collection of her stories. it was written by ann sherif and discusses koda’s life and works, including some translations of her short stories in the second part. however, the existence of this book and aya emphasizing mirrors in 107.5 is quite an interesting coincidence! whether or not it’s called mirror, I’m fairly confident an ability reveal is coming up.

it’s also worth bringing up that aya’s resemblance to this mystery firl might not have a supernatural explanation at all. it could easily be an artistic choice simply made to indicate that bram is reminiscing about someone who aya reminds him of. I’m not too into the reincarnation idea myself.

#I’m assuming the panel is a flashback and not bram’s imagination of the future because the caption at the end of the chapter says “remember” #hoping to start making meta posts like this more often… it’s difficult for me to put my thoughts like this into words though #I wrote this post over the course of a week hence why it’s two weeks late #bsd #bungo stray dogs #bungou stray dogs #aya koda #bram stoker #aya bsd #bram bsd #talk tag #jo’s meta

[aemiron-main]

what if henry just ends up having killed people instead of it being edward creel or whoever that is because that is a whole new character youve invented babe.......................

also are you gonna keep stanning henrys ass if he truly does turn out to be a murderer who killed his own family because he decided to play god and punish them (including his sister. who is a child) for past mistakes

im pretty sure you said you think virginias abusive or something but im curious. what if youre wrong

“a whole new character you invented” babe he’s in the show. you can read his name and backstory on the screen in front off your eyes right now. open netflix. pause during the indianapolis gazette scene. and read alllllll the details of edward that are completely different from henry. i didn’t just make them up. they are In The Show. It’s not even like, speculation. It’s literally written there word for word in front of our very eyes. It’s Right There.

As usual though, people like you can never be bothered to read even one of the 1526384848484 posts I’ve made regarding Edward and/or the multiple 001s we see during NINA (all of which can be easily accessed from my pinned post). It’s clear that you’re not actually interested in having a nuanced discussion about the topic because if you were interested in nuanced discussion about it, you would have read the posts, and it’d be pretty clear to you that Edward isn’t just someone that I made up. Like it or not, his name and backstory and family and details of how long he lived in Hawkins is written on screen in S4. He’s there.

And two things about this question a.) so what if i was going to continue stanning? what are you going to do, explode me with your mind??? and b.) this is a redundant question because he didn’t kill his own family to try to play god and punish them, the evidence (and if you’d actually read any of my creel murders posts before whining in my inbox you would know this) overwhelmingly supports the idea that Henry didn’t kill his family/the only member he MIGHT have killed is his mother, and based on what we learn about him and his mother, her death was very much deserved because his choice was “kill your mom who is trying to send you to live with a pedophile scientist for the rest of your life” or “live with a pedophile scientist for the rest of your life”.

How did he supposedly trance Victor and kill alice at the same time? Why don’t we see Alice’s death? If he was so dead-set on punishing them, why doesn’t he ever actually give any indication of what he was supposedly punishing Alice for?

And just an interesting sidenote re: the Creel murders, I was listening to an interview with Kevin L Johnson last night (who plays Young Victor), and he said that when filming the multiple versions of the murders, he overhead Sean Levy talking about how there was “one version where Henry wasnt the one killing Virginia and one where it seems like he might be the one doing it,” so neither of the scenes in the show were intended to definitively portray Henry as the murderer. And this wasn’t just something Kevin was told as a coverup or something, it was something that he overheard that he wasn’t supposed to overhear, and what they did tell him on the matter/why they were recording two different versions of the scene was “incase we try to go a different direction,” but then as we all found out, they DID use both scenes.

And I know I’ve talked before about how the main focus should be what’s in the show rather than interviews etc, but again, this interview/the talk of Henry not definitively being the murderer completely lines up with what I’ve already analyzed from the show & how it doesn’t make sense for Henry to be the one doing things & how Hawkins Lab was very likely watching the Creels/messing with them from day 1 at the house. Both of the scenes of Virginia’s death/the murders leave a LOT of room for doubt about Henry being the perpetrator- and it’s intentional!!!! Because he’s not!!!!

And who gives a fuck if I’m wrong???? Are the Stranger Things Police going to arrest me????? Should i throw myself off of a cliff dramatically??? What sort of answer are you fishing for here, anon?? I don’t know about you, but I’m more than capable of handling being wrong- I just don’t think that I’m wrong as of right now.

Like if I’m wrong so what!!! The world goes on!!!! I won’t explode into a billion little teeny tiny pieces!! I had fun analyzing!! Who cares!!! Are you betting on me or something, anon?? Is that why you’re so worried about me being wrong?? Or- do you have 💕💕feelings 💕💕 for me, anon?? Are you worried that if i explode into a million little pieces if I’m wrong that we won’t be able to sail off into the sunset together?? 🥺🥺🥺🥺 rest assured, anon, our honeymoon in france is safe, as even if I’m wrong, nothing bad is going to happen and I’ll still be there on the beach waiting for you…

#stranger things #st anons #edward creel #henry creel #creel murders

[utilitycaster]

I would read a post about Ashton’s treatment by fandom, because I’m seeing the signs of another Beau/Jester vs Jester/Fjord explosion with coming if Ashton has and communicates romantic feelings toward Laudna and I wish fandom was self-aware enough to not do that again…

It’s interesting too, I feel like the two characters who have the strongest connections across the party and also the deepest mysteries still unaddressed in their backstories are Ashton and Chetney. For a fandom that loves “found family” and speculating on open ended backstory, they feel weirdly under-appreciated.

So to start I do want to assure everyone that if something's in my tags it's probably fair game to ask about; I have spiked bat proficiency.

Specific to Ashton: what's interesting is that early on, Ashton's queerness was this sacrosanct thing involving a lot of people's projections over their idea of punk (which I discussed at length here; do note this post is 10 months old and characterization marches on). There were also abundant headcanons about Ashton having disabilities due to their injuries long before it was confirmed in 3x35 that they experienced chronic pain. One of the early popular ships was also Ashton/Fearne, given their early thievery from each other and Fearne's interest in Ashton's skull. It continues to be a ship with some degree of fandom support.

Pretty much as soon as Ashton and Laudna started to interact more, Ashton's queerness either was shunted into "actually, he is 100% gay" or was fully ignored, and a masc-presenting nb person was rewritten as someone cis and heterosexual for being interested in a woman. The fact that, as far as I can tell, the first person in the party outside of FCG that Ashton voluntarily let touch them was Laudna (when comforting her following the Taste of Tal'Dorei pot holder purchase in 3x25) - which Ashton encouraged - is generally ignored in favor of Ashton and Orym's first one-on-one conversation in which Orym asks Ashton if it's ok to hug him, a full 15 episodes later, does not go without notice. (As is the fact that Ashton gave, as an example, "You sometimes start making out with someone's sister" in episode 3x9).

Essentially, Ashton's queer identity and personal relationships are conveniently reshaped so as to support ships someone wants and make impossible those they don't want...even if it conflicts with their own previous Ashton ships with women. When, in truth, all we know is that Ashton uses he/they pronouns and has shown some general interest in people of various genders.

The chronic pain, meanwhile, is interesting because after it initially I haven't seen it mentioned much lately except in the context of shipping (and primarily shipping Ashton with Orym, and primarily in the sense of 'Orym's the only one allowed to touch them' which as discussed is patently false). It's actually really interesting you mention Chetney and Ashton being particularly compelling because firstly, I agree, and secondly, it feels like a lot of fans of Ashton...really just use them as a cudgel against Chetney? Like, I do actually go into the main tag with some regularity and sometimes even the Ashton tag, and you may recall that there was extensive discourse about how Ashton should get turmoil...but I really don't recall any discussion about Ashton needing a mobility aid before that, and discussion of them needing a mobility aid pretty much vanished once the matter was settled. (I also think that Ashton/Fearne is a ship with plenty of textual support, but it took off in a particularly weird way once Fearne started to flirt back with Chetney; frankly my feeling on that whole situation is in fact to turn the triangle into a throuple but that's besides the point). Like, people seem to weirdly pit the two against each other in a way that feels wholly out of line with their friendly rivalry in-game. I honestly don't know why that is, and would love to know.

Anyway in summary Ashton is, in fact, a queer disabled lower-class punk, and it's great, but people keep saying how cool that is and then primarily engage with all of it solely to bolster or block ships or knock down other characters, even twisting the character's depiction in ways that are reductive in terms of disability and biphobic/at times transphobic in terms of queer identity to do so, which sucks. It also feels that as things like his chronic pain have been made canonical, people who were into similar headcanons have been less likely to engage, which is a pattern I've seen a lot and always raises red flags for me.

#answered #pawthorn #burr-ell #cr tag

[everythingsinred]

Let's Talk About NatsuMikan: Mikan (pt. 17)

I know it's been a while. I don't really wanna apologize because... well... it's not my fault. I had a lot of stuff happening in my life recently. Nothing too huge but I've been so tired that writing this essay was simply too much. It's a pretty challenging project, actually, and it takes up a lot of time and energy, so I had to take a short break until I felt like I could resume posting.

Anyway, this is the Discovering Natsume Arc, and would you look at that, we left off just as Mikan was learning his tragic backstory, finally after all this time. Today we'll see just how far Mikan is willing to go to protect him and his happiness.

<- Prev Next ->

Chapter Sixty-Five

It would be super-cool if I could analyze Mikan’s real-time reaction to the whole story, but that’s not the way the story is presented to us, so I can’t. All I can analyze is what I see. More than that would be speculation… fanfiction. Anyway!

Ruka’s story ends and the girls finally have a chance to react. Mikan had been hearing about this fire, about Natsume being a criminal and murderer, since she first came to the academy. Reo said that the fire Natsume set was the reason he got sent to the school, why he’d been placed in the DA class. But now she knows the truth. He’s no criminal. He didn’t set the fire. He took the blame himself to protect his sister.

Hadn’t Ruka told her a while ago that Natsume was the kind of person who always puts others before himself? At the time, Mikan struggled to fully fathom that because her view of Natsume was limited to what he wanted her to see. If Mikan listened to Natsume, trusted that how he came off was how he really was, then she wouldn’t feel romantically towards him now. And maybe Mikan would have listened if Ruka hadn’t been there to challenge her. Mikan knows now that Natsume has been sacrificing himself his whole life, that every day at the academy is a sacrifice he makes for his sister. So, yes, Ruka was completely right about Natsume being a selfless person.

Mikan had been slowly seeing small glimpses that he was right before, but now she knows the full extent of it.

Natsume has to do horrible missions for the school. Because Aoi is being held over his head, he has no choice but to comply. And all the while, Ruka’s star rank has been going up, a symbol of Natsume’s suffering. And Ruka can’t do anything but watch helplessly.

This puts things into perspective.

Mikan had always known that Ruka must care about Natsume a lot to defend him so fervently, but now she can see there’s more to it. Ruka defends Natsume and his reputation because he feels like he can’t protect him in a way that matters. This is all he can do for his friend, stick up for him. 

And Natsume’s experience with the DA class, his strategic knowledge, his dark life, his disdain for the academy, his suicide attempt--it all makes sense now. The puzzle that is Natsume has been solved after all this time. 

And I think it’s important that Ruka is the one to destroy the mystery. Gakuen Alice is so much a story about friendship and love and bonds, more than a story about magic or corruption. Human beings don’t exist in a vacuum. Personality traits are always tied to human interaction. Natsume sharing his own backstory is out of character, but Ruka doing it for him is an act of love. And that makes Natsume look better too, and always has. He has someone who loves him, who sees a lot of good in him. So Mikan has always had Ruka’s voice in her head from the beginning, the voice of somebody who loves Natsume. And now she knows everything, told from the loving and fiercely protective perspective of his very best friend.

In any case, Mikan is trembling with rage. She screams her disapproval at the school.

It's an institutional problem, actually. It would take a while to get into.

Mikan has known from the beginning, partly because Natsume warned her, that this school has a darkness to it, that it’s more than just a wacky academy for weirdo kids. But its darkness has transcended the abstract now. It’s no longer hypothetical. “It’s unfair,” she says, and of course she’s right. Natsume never did anything to deserve what happened to him. He did good and noble things and was taken advantage of ever since. 

“No more,” she decides to herself. She won’t let the school do what they want with Natsume anymore. This is a vow of protection. She is swearing, via her internal monologue, that she won’t allow Natsume to be hurt anymore. In particular, she says, “I won’t let them do what they want with Natsume’s future… with our futures anymore!” 

This could mean anything!!! I guess my job is to explain some possibilities. It depends on who you think the “our” in question is.

The most likely explanation is that Natsume’s case seems to be the worst, that is that the school’s mistreatment of him is the apex of their general mistreatment of children. Holding them accountable for what they’re doing to Natsume, thus saving his future, is key to helping all the students, thus saving “our futures.” Here, “our” would refer to all academy students. Pretty simple. Pretty likely.

Or it could be a little more personal. “Our” could mean this little group that has set out to save Natsume, all his good friends who care about him. If they save Natsume, they’ll all be happier, because they all love Natsume and want him to be okay. Thus their futures would be secured as well. After all, Ruka is suffering because Natsume is suffering. Obviously, the fate of friends is intertwined. All of them will suffer if Natsume continues to suffer.

Or it could be very personal. “Our” could refer to Mikan and Natsume. This is internal monologue, after all, so it doesn’t need to be bold and inspiring to other characters. Mikan has been thinking of the ESP’s warning/threat during all of this, thinking that Natsume could be the “something important” she might lose if she’s not careful. If Natsume disappears forever, her own future will suffer too. But she doesn’t want anybody to take anything important from her. She refuses to allow the ESP to steal Natsume from her. One consistent fear of Mikan's is the threat of losing Natsume--specifically him. In the future, she is at risk of losing other loved ones, but Natsume's connection to the DA class, his life-shortening alice, and his martyr complex all make him the biggest risk.

It’s probably a mixture of all of those things. In any case, Mikan refuses to let Natsume be hurt anymore, so she and Hotaru rush off to find him and protect him from Persona.

Chapter Sixty-Six

The team decides to split up because the path divides three ways. Ruka is a bit surprised by how determined Mikan and Hotaru are, but they seem to be equally invested in helping Natsume, all three of them. 

Mikan’s path involves descending dark stairs. She thinks about Natsume being in a place like this, all on his own, trapped forever. It’s sweet to see her so concerned about him. It’s easy to be like Sumire during the Reo Arc and just assume that he knows what he’s doing because he always acts like he knows what he’s doing. But Natsume was lured here, tricked, which means he’s just as overwhelmed as she is. He doesn’t have a plan because he didn’t even know what he was walking into. 

Crying about these scans looking like someone broke a ink pen all over them...

Turns out that Mikan’s path leads to a dungeon, where she meets a very cute girl. They hit it off right away, but Mikan is confused about why a random girl would be locked up in a dungeon for seemingly no reason. When the girl reaches up to touch her face and then comments that Mikan is cute too, pieces start coming together. This girl is blind and Mikan quickly figures out she’s Aoi, Natsume’s lost little sister. 

Aoi has apparently been gaslit and manipulated about her position and even her own identity after losing her memories. She talks about Persona like he’s helping her and doesn’t consider herself a prisoner even though the cell door is locked. She’s been getting “treatment” for her eyes and is “allowed” to work to repay the favor, even though the person she’s working for is the person who blinded her in the first place.

Mikan catches on pretty quick that Aoi has the complete wrong idea about her situation and tries to explain to Aoi that Persona is not the kind man he’s tried to make himself out to be and that there’s a lot she doesn’t know, that she should be going to school with the other Alices, not locked away in a dungeon. But Aoi defends Persona, saying he used to live in this very dungeon, and had a very sad life. Persona is comforted by Aoi, who claims she is not an Alice.

But Mikan remembers from Ruka’s story that Aoi had always been smiling, always upbeat and cheerful. But this girl in front of her isn’t smiling, because Persona stole her smile away from her, just like he stole away Natsume and Ruka’s smiles. She wants to help Aoi get her memories back and promises that she’ll help her escape, so that she can be reunited with people who truly love her. 

Mikan doesn’t know Aoi very well. They just met, and all she really knows about her she learned from Ruka’s story. But they hit it off, and Aoi is innocent. She doesn’t deserve to be locked up. But there’s something more to it. Aoi is precious to Natsume, who went through a great deal of trouble on the off-chance he might be able to save his sister. Mikan wants to help him too, to reunite him with somebody he loves. Just like at Christmas, when Mikan was at least partially motivated by the thought of Natsume when she yelped Youichi, she's still thinking of him now.

It's lovely to see how strong her love for Natsume is through this exchange.

Hotaru calls her to let her know she and Ruka have found Natsume and suddenly Mikan is reinvigorated. She can’t let Aoi out herself because she’s locked up, but she can bring Natsume here. She promises to come back soon with somebody Aoi loves and takes off, eager to see Natsume again, to tell him that she’s found his precious sister. “The hope he’s been searching for” is so close, she thinks. 

And, yes, obviously anybody would be excited to tell the relative of a kidnapping victim that they’ve found the person, but this is tinged with the extra flavor of Mikan’s affection for Natsume, her desire to protect his happiness and to see him happy. He’s been upset and miserable for so long, worrying about his sister for years. It’s hard not to believe that Natsume will feel instant relief to see his sister safe and sound, maybe even smiling. It all seems so close, like everything is coming together. The happy ending is right around the corner.

But when she actually rounds the corner, there’s a fight instead. Her friends are up against a formidable opponent. It’s very cold in this hallway, and obviously something important is happening. But when Natsume turns around and calls her name, that’s important too.

This is the first time she’s seen him since she learned his tragic backstory, since she’s fully discovered him. She already cared about him, obviously, but she can’t help but view him in a new light now. He’s not just kind on occasion, his whole life has been molded from his selflessness. He has suffered and struggled for years and now she knows. 

It always feels so important... So it must be.

To be honest, I think this is the point where Mikan (whether she will ever admit it to herself or not) is fully in love with Natsume. Now that she fully understands his motivations, her affection has reached new heights, and seeing him for the first time since learning all this new stuff about him takes her aback. Because this moment carries weight. She looks at him and it matters. 

But she doesn’t have the privilege of lingering in the moment because the fight is still going on. They’re fighting against an ice alice, against somebody used to the basement. Natsume’s fire alice is a good defense, and he calls to Mikan for assistance. Together, he says, they can stop her without hurting her. 

Very nice!

Mikan always struggles with feeling like her alice carries worth. It is a consistent insecurity. But just like Natsume turned to her during the Z Arc and expected her to contribute, he now is asking for her help. His alice can only hurt. But hers can protect, even their opponent. This is also important. Lots of important stuff going on here.

Then Mikan sees that their opponent is Nobara, who doesn’t look like herself. Nobara, who had been concerned about them, about Natsume. Nobara, who’d warned Mikan to get Natsume out of there. Nobara, who had led Tsubasa to help them. Nobara, Mikan’s sweet friend.

All it takes is a bit of nullification and Mikan calling out her name for Nobara to snap out of it, suddenly emotional and horrified. Just like with Youichi, Mikan can see another example of the struggle DA kids go through. They’re pitted against each other, made to fight, put in dangerous situations, treated like weapons, hypnotized into a state where they can finally be made to commit violence.

Nobara runs away, ashamed, but nobody can chase after her, because Persona and Yakumo are still there, emerging from the shadows.

Chapter Sixty-Seven

Mikan asks Persona what he had done to Nobara, but he only laughs her off. It’s Natsume who explains, who tells her that Nobara is put into a trance for missions because she can’t be made to hurt people normally.

That other personality brought out by the trance state is why people call her the “Ice Princess,” why she’s notorious and feared throughout the school. In the state, she can be cold and heartless, blindly and emotionlessly carrying out orders. All the DA class kids have unfair reputations forced upon them. Nobara, the Ice Princess. Natsume, the criminal Black Cat. Mikan is angry that Persona has gotten away with taking advantage of kids for so long, unchecked.

Persona announces that Natsume lost the “deal,” so he’ll be locked up forever without ever seeing his sister again. But Mikan won’t allow that. Aoi is so close. A happy future has to be waiting for them, still, especially for Natsume. Natsume has suffered enough, and she will no longer allow his life to be at the mercy of a sadistic child abuser. 

He’s her partner, after all.

Mouse... Rat... I don't know what it is.

Ruka saves her in the knick of time from Persona’s alice, unfortunately resulting in the untimely demise of one of his rats. They can all see Persona’s alice clearly now. The reader likely already has an idea of what his alice is from the end of Chapter 27, when he threatened Natsume. A dead plant, then. A dead rat now. Furthermore, he’s unmoved by the damage he’s caused. Undoubtedly, Ruka and the others are horrified, not just to see the alice in action, but also to witness the loss of life. But Persona’s only bothered by the fact that he hadn’t managed to kill Mikan.

Sadly, Mikan never gets the chance to tell Natsume herself that she’s found his sister, that they can be reunited. Instead, amnesiac Aoi is mysteriously free from her dungeon and blindly making her way through the halls, calling out to Mikan and to Persona. Natsume is shocked to see her, quickly approaching her. But when he calls out to her, she asks him who he is. She can’t recognize his voice and asks for Persona instead. 

Natsume is hurt, and Mikan can tell. That’s unacceptable. They’re supposed to have a happy reunion. Natsume is supposed to smile, relieved that his sister is safe. They’re supposed to remember each other, to hug maybe. 

That has gotta hurt.

So she pleads with Aoi to remember her precious brother, Natsume. 

Mikan uses the word “precious” or “important” or something along those lines a lot in reference to Natsume and Aoi and their joined suffering. It’s true that Natsume and Aoi should be precious to each other, on the basis of being siblings who love each other. But it’s brought up so often, especially from Mikan’s side, I can’t help but feel like this issue is personal for her. Aoi is precious in large part because she’s precious to Natsume, because she’s the key to Natsume’s happiness, in Mikan’s view. And Natsume has to be precious to Aoi because he’s precious to her. Aoi has to love him, because Mikan does. Aoi has to remember her brother, because Mikan can’t imagine forgetting him. 

Mikan’s desperation for them to properly reunite is an act of love.

They’re again interrupted by the fight. Yakumo takes advantage of the distraction to have a bug bite Hotaru, Ruka, and Mikan. Though Hotaru and Ruka are bitten on the neck, effectively paralyzing them momentarily, Mikan manages to protect herself just in time to be bitten on the hand instead.

Persona tries to manipulate Aoi again, accusing Natsume of being the one who injured her and had her lose her memories. It’s infuriating that he’s constantly lying, but Natsume just stands in front of his sister to protect her anyway, making a declaration that he will protect her this time. And Aoi remembers him.

He protects her, the way he always has, and that triggers her memories. 

Persona uses his power while they’re distracted, and Mikan, who was perhaps pretending to be fully paralyzed up ‘til now, finally moves. She pushes Natsume and Aoi out the way and uses her nullification. But the barrier is impeding her alice too, meaning she has to use a lot of her power in order to be effective. 

Mikan has been desperate for them to reunite (for Natsume to be happy), and she isn’t about to let Persona ruin things, especially the very moment that Aoi has finally remembered her brother. There’s a lot of reasons why Mikan acts the way she does in this scene, but the most overarching theme here is protecting Natsume’s happiness, from the way she sees it. 

Not on Mikan's watch!

That’s why, when Persona walks right up to the Hyuuga siblings to attack them, when Natsume stands in front of Aoi to protect her, when things are looking dire, Mikan steps in.

From her point of view, all of Natsume’s suffering so far has been a direct result of Persona’s actions. This is, of course, true to some extent. Persona is undoubtedly a child abuser in multiple ways and feels no remorse in kidnapping, extortion, assault, and even murder, as shown in this scene. But getting rid of Persona wouldn’t necessarily eliminate all of Natsume’s issues, either. Persona may be a villain, but he’s just another employee. I bring this all up because even though Mikan might fancy herself a little more in the know after hearing Ruka’s story, she’s still naive. She still thinks there’s some way she can fix everything by herself, some way of unlocking the path to a perfectly happy ending for the people she loves. Persona causes Natsume to suffer. Ergo, getting Persona out of the picture would mean Natsume could be happy, right? 

There is the fact that they are currently threatened by Persona in the sense that he intends to lock Natsume up forever, and thus defeating him is the key to ensuring Natsume’s (relative) freedom. But my previous point still stands. She still has a pretty idealistic view of things, even after everything. 

I know Natsume's the one whose thoughts are on the page right now, but it also fits Mikan's point of view right now, and her desire to protect Natsume for once.

Thus she tackles Persona. I’d mentioned before that Mikan’s alice seems to work best through physical contact or at least some degree of proximity. The one exception was when she nullified Yuka’s stealing alice so she wouldn’t take Natsume’s alice. Down here in the basement, with the barrier alice, Mikan needs the proximity more than ever. Persona has a powerful alice, so it only makes sense that she would need to fully tackle him to prevent him from using it. Though Mikan was able to stop him from using the alice on the Hyuuga siblings, his mask fell off, and because of the physical contact, Mikan got a full hit of his power.

Persona gloats about this. If she had been smart or hadn’t been such a busybody, they’d all have only faced the smoke he gives off, which wouldn’t have been life-threatening. But the physical touch, especially without the mask, made it sure that Mikan wouldn’t survive. He tells her that it’s too late now; she is certainly going to die.

So precious she would die for it.

I think Persona’s alice being a little vague and mysterious up to now was important. The only previous hints we had as to what his power might be were only revealed through other characters’ interactions with him, namely Natsume or Narumi. We get only small glimpses throughout the manga, but his power remains mysterious anyway. But Mikan never got those glimpses. She’s entirely in the dark, entirely oblivious. She saw that mouse die, so she knows they’re up against a dangerous villain, but she was still ignorant to how his alice functioned. Mikan wasn’t trying to be cocky or full of herself, as Persona suggests. Instead, she uses her alice the way it works the best, hoping to be as effective as possible so she could protect the people she loves. The problem was that by using her alice to the best of its ability, she invited Persona to use his alice the same.

In short, ignorance can cause a lot of grief for a person. But, really, how could Mikan have known? The real message here is nobody can ever be fully informed on any decision they make. I guess.

Conclusion

Next time (tomorrow), we'll try to wrap up this arc and see how far Mikan will go now that she's already pretty much cemented her incoming death. Whoops!

Yeah. This might be a short post but tomorrow's will probably be pretty long and to be honest, today was a wreck for me. One of my cats was having some concerning symptoms so I had to take her to the vet and I have cried so much in the past couple days about it. It's okay--she'll be fine now. But OOF. Big day for me.

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#gakuen alice #alice academy #ga #sakura mikan #mikan sakura #natsume hyuuga #hyuuga natsume #my meta #ga meta #ga meta: nm #ga meta: manga #ga meta: manga nm #let's talk about natsumikan #let's talk about natsumikan: mikan #ill fix up the links tomorrow. im rly not in the mood rn (the next/prev links is prolly the most tedious part of these posts lol) #im tired!!!!!! so tired!!!!!! #couldnt find a good quality color version of the title image. that was in one part that is. so. #nm: m song of the day is... #cant take my eyes off you by..... well the og is frankie valli so we'll go with him #cuz of when she sees him for the first time in a while get it? #IM SO TIRED #and the scans are so terrible!!!! im crying!!!! today has not been good on my soul. goodbye #if there's errors then there's errors. i'm too weak rn

[vicky82gargoylesfan]

My Thoughts on X-Men 97 Episode Tolerance is Extinction Part 1

Another great episode, the action and fighting scenes were awesome. Nightcrawler was amazing in this episode.

Spoilers

Oh Cool Professor X is back in the line up but no Storm yet.

Hmm, Jean has her hair up. I'm glad to see her and Scott are working things out now.

Cool cameo of future Polaris and Rachel.

Oh damn, so the Genosha Massacre had to happen, so they can't stop it with time travel.

Oh damn, Bastion leaked the news that Xavier is alive.

Oh no, Rogue is still out, possibly in a coma. I did have a feeling she would still be unconscious, as she wasn't seen in any of the new shots from the final trailer. It looks like she not physically injured, as Wolverine can heal her. But it looks like she's affected mentally.

I just love this interaction between Nightcrawler and Jean. Jean telling him that even though Cable is not her son but she has all of Madelyne Pryor's memories of being pregnant with him but he is Madelyne's blood and we can see her getting a bit teary eyed. Nightcrawler telling her Blood is Blood, family is choice, as he was abandoned by Mystique and says Rogue is his adopted sister and are close.

Erm, why is Magneto strapped to an X and in his underwear?

Oh you stupid Woman, Val Cooper is alive and working for Bastion but it does seem to not know what Bastion's plans are.

Trish arrives to apologise to Beast, i'm surprised she was allowed in the "basement area" of the Mansion.

Cyclops, Jean and Cable find out more about Bastion. Jean using Psychometry on finding out Bastion's backstory was awesome. His parent's were seen in the 2 part episode One Man's Worth.

Oh wow Dr Doom!!! With the speculation that we could be getting Onslaught, does this mean The Fantastic 4 could make an appearance in season 2.

Sorry I don't know much about Zemo.

Oh my gosh!!!!! Bastion has got prime Sentinels everywhere, he even changed his own Mother into one. So they are mostly sleeper cells, some people volunteered and most were done against there will.

Oh Damn!! even Trish is one and even took out Beast.

Love the transition between scenes.

Morph changing into Juggernaut was pretty cool.

Jubilee and Roberto being chased in the mall by these Prime Sentinels, is a little similar to Jubilee being chased by Sentinels in the 1st episode of the original series.

Wolverine fighting Prime Sentinels in the sky was great.

The Prime Sentinels watching Rogue was creepy

Wolverine and Nightcrawler fighting the Prime Sentinels was awesome, love seeing Nightcrawler using 3 swords. Also as the humans are robots, they can go nuts in slicing them up without being too graphic. But they are so tough they can put themselves back together.

Awww, Nightcrawler is protecting his sister and teleporting the Sentinels out the room.

Seeing inside Nightcrawler's teleportation was amazing.

Roberto has been using the Danger Room to control his powers and learn to fly, which is pretty cool since he doesn't live at the Mansion but is allowed use there facilities.

Lol at Jean being a parent and putting seatbelt on Cable.

Another Blackbird destroyed, love that Cyclops keeps his car in it.

Love the Summer's family moment here with Cable shooting the Sentinels, Jean controlling the car and Cyclops blasting through the mountain.

Love the fist bump between Father and Son

Oh man, Roberto's Mother is bitch, she let the Sentinels take her Son and Jubilee away.

Val let Magneto go, she knows that what Bastion is doing is wrong. I just love her monologue and says Magneto is Right.

LOL Magneto flying to the North Pole in his underwear is hilarious.

Oh wow!!! Magneto just used a EMP to shut down the world, which is actually bad, as it would kill millions of people.

Holy Crap!!! Spiderman!!!!!

Oh wow, Silver Samurai and Omega Red.

At least the Prime Sentinels have been taken down, I wonder if they will change back to humans again. I know they were in the comics but these ones are lot different.

I just love that Wolverine and Morph are drinking beer.

He's back, pretty funny that he crashes his spaceship into the mansion, making it even more destroyed.

Professor X "I hope, I'm not too late" LOL, yeah bit late yeah.

Love Morph's smiling at seeing Xavier back.

Xavier calling back his X-Men gave me goosebumps.

Can't wait for next episode and hopefully Storm will be back.

#x men #x men 97

[cassifictional]

I just want to know Sevika’s past that’s all I’ve ever wanted in life

She has SO much potential as a character!! The writers set up her story so far really well, I would be so dissapointed if they didn't take their chances to explore Sevika's past a little more. A flashback would be so cool. Maybe from when she was a young adult or something.

I don't know why, but the first thing that popped up in mind was that Sevika would have been the kind of teenager who never, ever did their homework. Tell me I'm wrong, I'll wait.

No, but really. I feel like there would be so many different ways the writers could go about telling her backstory. There's so much left up for interpretation here. Let me share some of my ideas:

I've seen people speculate that she was part of a large family with a lot of siblings. And for good reason, I think that would fit her character so well. The constant competition for the best food on the table, attention from parental figures, etc. Sevika clearly knows that you have to work hard if you want something and I feel like her childhood was at least partially responsible for that.

Obviously, with family comes loyalty. A lot of siblings also means a lot of potential to form strong bonds, somebody to always have your back. Family comes first. Though not all family has to be related by blood. Maybe just by similar values and struggles. Sound familair?

Hear me out, though. Sevika as an only child. Imagine her having to figure out the world all by herself. Having to rely on people outside of her direct family. She would learn that loyalty is not given freely, but earned.

No matter which one you prefer, I think she either has a lot of siblings or none. No one sister or two brothers or something, no. Either like ten siblings or zero.

Like I said earlier about her probably never doing her homework? I don't know how the education situation is in the undercity.. but as a student, I bet she was always one of the people hiding somewhere behind the school building, skipping class to smoke with her friends.

Somehow she still didn't fail all of her classes because she's secretly just really smart. Maybe she studies in secret at home. I wonder what her favorite subject would have been..

As a young adult I feel like she worked hard and partied even harder. Not so much anymore now probably, I hear partying hard starts to become more and more physically demanding once you're past 25 or something lol (can confirm..)

I bet she was so much fun at parties. I would 110% party with her

I hope this isn't too incoherent, I'm so fucking tired from work today lmao

#arcane #sevika #arcane sevika #arcane imagine #arcane imagines #arcane headcanon #arcane headcanons #headcanons #cat writes #not sure if this was just a random ask or a request for hcs or a fic #you're gonna have to be a lil more specific about what you want out of a request if it was one

[nexstage]

So, I've read Aaron Ehasz’s ideas for Azula’s redemption arc if there was a possibility for one but sadly there wasn't, and I like it, partially though. Why? Because there is only one tiny, backfiring and nagging problem with it: Zuko as Iroh 2.0 for Azula.

Like, ok, if there were another season of Avatar for Azula to be redeemed, I would love to see her trying to fix her relationship with Zuko and understand his POV while he does the same for her even with all the angsty fights, and a lot of trauma to recover from.

What I don't think it's a good idea is to have Zuko in the position of a second Iroh to help Azula recover and make amends with the people she has hurt. And I have a good explanation for this.

Number 1: Zuko is not emotionally ready

Look, he might have redeemed himself but the job of helping his sister whom he has a deeply complex and chaotic relationship is beyond his league. Heck, it was bad and irresponsible enough from the writers to free Iroh from any responsibility and put Zuko on the throne even though he has spent the majority of his time chasing Aang and then surviving in the Earth Kingdom which neglected his studies about politics and militia of the Fire Nation.

And don't make me start with the emotional baggage and other stuff he really needs to work on. There is a lot he still must take care of himself before having such a responsibility as the “redemption path” for Azula.

Besides, for him to be ready what Zuko needs is some time for himself to figure out who he is and what he wants. What's his purpose or the choices he has? The same goes for Azula. They need time and space for each other to find themselves after being abused and pitted against one another by Ozai for years. Because having your identity based on being superior to your sibling to not be punished or reach an unrealistic expectation is not healthy at all.

Number 2: Redemption arc or Plot Device arc?

In one of the ATLA posts I've made on Tumblr, I talked about how Azula’s framing in the show didn't let her be a relatable character or be genuinely complex because the ATLA crew wanted her to be just a standard cool villain; therefore, her tragic backstory and complexities were just accessories that could enhance others’ arca but not hers. Well, I think that post can be applied here because what would Azula’s redemption be if given the chance to be made for a new season? A proper way to deepen Azula’s character or just a way to put Zuko on a higher pedestal than the one he has?

I think the second option is the most plausible. Of course, it is speculation but with the show's framing of her character, her treatment by the hands of the comics, and how people have described her as irredeemable, evil, and sadistic while ignoring the environment, factors, and people that have made her this way, I doubt this redemption arc had been made for her character only and not to enlighten someone else.

And with how Ehasz has described it, my doubts have increased too: “At the deepest moment in her own abyss, she would have found: Zuko”, “Zuko -patient, forgiving, and unconditionally loving”. Yep, this seems more like an attempt to turn Zuko into Iroh 2.0 and Azula into Zuko 2.0, and her redemption arc into Zuko’s redemption arc 2.0.

Number 3: Showing off Zuko’s questionable traits

“Zuko -patient, forgiving, and unconditionally loving”, honestly, I don't know if Ehasz knows Zuko’s character at all and his dynamic with Azula from A to Z.

First, patient? Sure, Zuko has matured and it's normal to relapse in moments of stress but since when he is patient? He wanted to enter a storm in The Storm episode despite how dangerous it was and even fought one of his crew members when he scolded him for his recklessness. He attacked Aang for not training hard enough and not taking Ozai seriously even when Zuko didn't tell the Gaang about his father’s plans to burn the whole Earth Kingdom sooner. And let's not talk about how his character was handled in the comics.

Forgiving? This one is a bit difficult. I could just put that Zuko criticized Aang’s air nomads' beliefs about forgiveness and how forgiving the man that killed Katara’s mother was the same as doing nothing but I also take into account that Zuko said to Aang that he was right about violence not being the answer Katara needed to heal.

Forgiveness and Zuko are very complicated. Zuko has all the right to not forgive Ozai for all the pain he put him through or Azula for the animosity between them, but it would be interesting if he forgave her to have a new chance at siblinghood or just to have his own chance at healing.

However, it's a hard question to answer if he is forgiving. Let's not forget that Zuko, as the Blue Spirit, attacked the man that humiliated Iroh when they became EK refugees. But there is also the fact that even after Azula attacked Iroh in The Chase, Zuko didn't tell him “Uncle, we have to find Azula so we can avenge you”, instead he said, “I know what you're going to say: she's my sister and I should be trying to get along with her”. Now, according to this phrase, Zuko thinks Iroh has a better way to deal with Azula that doesn't involve violence even if he knows that if he doesn't improve his firebending, his chances against her will be slim. And because Iroh is the most amicable of the older fire brothers, Zuko trusts his judgment and experience about siblinghood.

Last but not least, unconditionally loving. That is very complicated to answer too because the only source of supposedly unconditional love was Ursa before she disappeared and then Iroh took her place but both favored Zuko over Azula for different reasons which isn't the best example for an impressionable child about how unconditional love is or should be.

Look, I’m not saying that Zuko cannot be any of those things but it takes time and effort, and perhaps that’s why Azula’s redemption is important for Ehasz because it would give Zuko the chance to show forgiveness, patience, and unconditional love when it should be about Azula and how she becomes a healthier and better person instead of being the plot device to show off Zuko’s traits.

Number 4: If not Zuko, then who?

Azula has been failed by the adults of her family in so many ways. Ozai abused her by turning her into a soldier and weapon; Ursa favored Zuko over her because he was easier to deal with and Ursa couldn’t find a common ground between them to understand her daughter; Iroh barely cared about her and then told Zuko to fight her two times even when the second one he had said earlier than if he fought Ozai it would feed the cycle of violence. Hypocrisy at its best, uh?

While Ursa is still hiding, I think the best option is Iroh as crazy as it is. Despite the bad blood between them, Azula and Iroh have a lot in common: they are the cunning, successful, and powerful prodigies of their fathers. Both were favored by Ozai and Azulon respectively. Both were affected negatively by the war: Azula’s whole childhood was robbed by Ozai when he started to mold her into a weapon, and Iroh lost Lu Ten which broke his will to fight in the Ba Sing Se Siege. Both create their own firebending moves and are excellent fighters.

It would be great to see how Iroh’s opinion of Azula gradually changes from negative to sorrowful and positive after understanding that she was also a victim of Ozai’s machinations and that her talents were twisted and abused for his gain and not the crazy girl that needed to be taken down like some kind of final boss from a video game or rabid animal.

It would also be fun a comradeship and respect between two jaded prodigies of the FN royal family. He could tell Azula about his adventures in the Spirit World and what he learned from the other nations, his adventures in the Earth Kingdom with Zuko as refugees which could be emphasized by Zuko explaining how terrible the war had affected the people.

About Ursa, if the comics didn't exist and the discovery of where she was and what she has been doing since her disappearance had been handled much better, I bet she would be distraught that one of her children had ended up in an asylum and her mental state is in such disarray. It would be the start for Ursa to reach out to Azula to make up for her shortcomings as a mother and have a common ground between them, to form a solid and healthy mother-daughter relationship.

And while Iroh and Ursa would be responsible to take care of her emotionally, she could meet other people in the Fire Nation to help her see the error of her ways and the wrongness of the war.

Her friends Mai and Tai Lee could be part of the team if they meet again and reconcile so Azula doesn't have to travel only with Iroh and Ursa but also with people her age. And the Gaang can be of help for her redemption too, though it will be much more difficult after what happened in the catacombs of Ba Sing Se.

All in all, those are the reason why Zuko as Iroh 2.0 for Azula’s redemption arc is a bad idea. I mean, he can be a part of her redemption arc, but if he is put on such a pedestal it would backfire for both of them. Better if she has a net of support and builds her own path post-war instead of being the copy-and-paste of Zuko’s redemption arc just to make him look better.

#ATLA meta #Zuko redemption arc #Azula redemption arc #zuko #azula #Aaron Ehasz critical

[superfrostydrawing]

Long Whitley rant warning

I reeeeeally need some Whitley insight and backstory, because as much as we go on about what would’ve been Whitley’s big moment in standing up to his abuser once and for all; I think I also see why this boy would honestly look up to the man in many cases.

As it is common, children often look up or tend to idealize a ceirtain figure in their life and more so when there are other ones that are toxic towards them.

So, like- ok let me explain.

Whitley doesn’t like his sisters because they left him with two abusive parents, that much is canon confirmed. They probably spent all their childhoods ignoring their younger brother and that hurt him.

Willow negleted him and casted him aside, leaving him alone mostly with Jacques. Sure she was there but that doesn’t mean she was present. She knowingly let her children indure the wrath of her husband, which for the record, got worse after Nicholas died.

If we take into account that Weiss was like 7 when her grandfather died they Whitley was just a baby, a little kid. He was born when the family was already crumbling and watched it fall apart when he was young, but because he was so young he can’t pinpoint a specific time when it all crashed down on them.

As far as he’s concerned it was always like this, and kids don’t know anything. They can’t comprehend the intricate and complicated bs that happens around him. But seeing the tense aura around him he probably grew up learning how to walk on eggshells. That’s why he’s so good at flying under the radar.

Ok, so. Willow and sisters, out of the picture. Jacques probably decided to monopolize his only son’s time and mind, completely enclosing him mentally towards the others in their family that were less subtle in their negative behaviour. He planted the idea that he was the only good figure in his life, that everyone else is bad and that although not perfect, he would never neglet him like the other’s did.

It all comes around on being alone. That’s why I strongly believe Whitley Schnee has both Attachment issues and  Abandonment issues.

Getting close to someone is like a gamble. Everyone he meets ends up leaving and that’s why he keeps interactions at two arms lenght to protect himself. The only person that hasn’t left him would be Jacques, not only that but also he give Whitley attention. It’s not a healthy one in the least, but it’s all he has. THAT’S WHY he was so devastated when Jacques got arrested.

Sure, he knew by then what an abusive jerk his father was, but the roots were planted so deep and had grown so srongly his attachment towards the man couldn’t just be shaken off so easily. And now the only person that never left him had abandoned him because of one of the sisters that never cared about him.

In no way I’m defending Jacques or hating on Weiss, I think that much is obvious, but I do blame them in the person that Whitley came out to be mentally.

There’s a lot of cases where kids are affected by the decitions of those fam members that left long ago in a toxic houshold. To feel safe they grab on to their abuser and idolize them in order to dodge punishment or are made to belive whatever their abuser tells them.

It’s a tricky subject to get into and I’m no psychologist but at least I had to try explaining from my point of view.

Lastly, what I’m trying to say is, I want Whitley backstory to see how his relationship with his father shaped his ideals and how he interacted with his mother and sisters before and after all hell broke loose.

it would help a lot and save me time from speculating and writing essays like this that are far more impressive than any homework I’ve ever done :’)

#Whitley schnee #schnee #Schnee Family #rwby theory #warning: long a$$ rant incoming #op is a whitley schnee apologist #is it obvious yet? #i cut myself short but i have so much to say-

[swarmofbees-butgay]

SPLATOON DLC THEORIES

THE DLC IS COMING OUT AND I AM SO EXCITED SO HERE ARE MY THEORIES

ALSO SPOILERS FOR GAMES SPLAT 2, 3, AND OCTO EXPANSION

We already know that it's gonna involve pearl & marina, but how? Well, I think she's probably the protagonist, or at the very least we get to see her backstory. Also my sister found out that into the light sounds super similar to the dlc music so!! Plus the images that flash up usually have her in it. Along with this, the protag looks kinda like younger her. My one quell is that I don't really know what's happening around her. Also Pearl is seen a lot in the images and so hopefully pearlina!!

Also Pearl is apparently wearing salmon run sunglasses according to my sister, and Splatoon 2 was very fixated on mind control so this game may be too!

The other theory I have is that this is....drumroll please....

AGENT FOUR!!!!!

"But isn't she an inkling?" You may ask

Well, I have the answer. She's a shape shifter! Mimic octopi to be specific.

(ALSO BEFORE I CONTINUE THE MIMIC IDEA CAME FROM SOMEONE ELSE'S FANART FROM A WHILE AGO)

Basically, the whole reason four is in inkopolis is because she escaped after seeing Marina and so many others do so as well, the twist being that she can basically become (or at least look like) an inkling at will. I have a whole character backstory for this that I might put in a different post! Some evidence for this though is that well, A: The uniform is different and B: The fact that 4 never speaks in the canon story of splat 2.

This may be because she doesn't speak inkling.

This is only speculation though, and definitely a reach.

Another theory is that this is a new agent!! I don't really have anything to add to this though lol.

I also think this could be Agent 8 again! Again, not much evidence here but I know I had backup for it I just can't remember lmao

Back to Agent 4 again, I think she will have some sort of part in the dlc (maybe a boss fight...)

And finally, where are they??????

I saw someone else say that this may be in the past, of tartar won. And I wanna talk about that.

Inkopolis looks kinda dead really in the trailer, all monochrome and run down. Like literally, you can see signs falling apart.

And it would make sense why our protag is an octo as well!! Assuming most octolings are still underground, they would probably be saved from the disaster. (This also assumes that the sanitized ink isn't like fooze where it kinda looks like it sinks into the earth a bit and makes a crater)

So yeah! I'm super excited if you can't tell for the dlc :>

#splatoon 3 #splatoon #splatoon 2 #octo expansion #marina #off the hook #Pearl #agent 4 #agent 8 #I really like splatoon....

[givemethepage]

Layers of Fear 2023: The Actor's Story, Chapter 3

First time through. I didn't realize I was gonna get ALL the backstory I just asked about yesterday. This queer narrative is so front and center and I'm here for it.

SPOILERS.

So so so so. This man is a war photographer, he loses an eye, but he's not a soldier so instead of a pension they give him a medal and call it a day. He's got a wife at home where he becomes a projectionist at a theater he doesn't own. Has a daughter. Real firecracker. Eye hurts. He drinks. You find his wooden eye at one point. Of course that would hurt. Why not glass? Wife gets pregnant, gets sick, dies in childbirth with their 2nd child, MAB. This guy misses his wife, sort of kind of maybe blames the younger child, or that's how it feels to the kid. They're timid, effeminate. This makes the dad ashamed. The older sister is protective of the little one, teaches them ways to cope. Roleplay, hiding. Stay in the dark, play a part. Masking. (See chapter 2 on masks lol,) The young kid doesn't want to do this, isn't great at it. Yet they're coached by the sister to be brave, strong, like her. She even models for him the rejection of traditional gender roles when he questions her choice to play the captain, who is a man in the film. So, playing pirates like the movie that runs in their theater, the sister plays the captain and creates the quartermaster role for the kid, but the kid, instead, decides to create this first mate character, Lucia: a femme pirate who is a lot like the sister, and "so proud" of the captain. And by the way, the sister has seen how the pirate movie ends, but the younger sibling hasn't, and she's sort of withholding it from them. The theater is falling apart and the owner won't invest. People aren't coming, nobody is getting paid. The father must have caught the kid dressing up as Lucia and gotten real mad: you find a belt, the dad becomes represented by the cyclops from the movie, and once you make it through a maze with his burning eye in pursuit, you find these flowers and learn that on the anniversary of his wife's death, which is also the young kid's birthday, he spends all his coin on the wife and forgets the kid. Note here that the dad says "I'm going, look after your brother." Like, maybe he's not coming back. But that's speculation. It's also shown that the sister found news relating to this ship, and has the initial dream to escape their life by sneaking aboard. And perhaps the most interesting bit during the pretend space mission, she reveals that she always knew her sibling had this actor's charisma, this ability to affect people. And that's why she always cultivated it. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't teach them to internalize her natural bravery, confidence, grounded sense of identity. "He could be anyone... But not me." Not the exact quote, but I think that's what that means.

And then! I found this weird box thing! When I got back to the cabin it went in the section with the Rat Queen lore note. There's an achievement about strange objects. This must be one. I must have missed some in the first 2 chapters. I know I missed a poster in ch 2. And when I touched it again in the cabin, the box got stuck on my flashlight hand! Glitch? Puzzle? Do I need more stuff? And then in the telescope I found another floating but, but it didn't appear in my room like the first two. I hate the feeling of missing stuff. But that's why I start in chapter mode.

And then here's what it says when I try to exit on the first floor. This must be dependent upon the choices I make during the decision points.

1. You run, but do you know the way?

2. You build one character. You destroy the other, but do you know which one is which?

3. You follow reason, you see through it. You cut away the strings.

4. You're not afraid to play your part. You accept the inevitable.

Very cool. I can't wait to see the opposite, to mix and match, to fail to decide later??

The Rat Queen does keep taunting the writer, comparing her to the young sibling. "You're just like him," etc.

I'm also really interested in the way the daughter has sympathy for the father, warning us that the monster is also hurting, much like the formless version of the actor. And we see a sort of formless version of the father as he's losing his identity. It's alllll connected. This game is great, and I'll say it again, just as rich as the Painter's story if not richer. It's so REAL and plausible. Not exaggerated, not reliant on egomanaiacal or melodramaritic personalities. So, onward! And then maybe I'll correct myself about details during the 2nd playthrough.

#layers of fear 2 #game analysis #the actor #layers of fear

[quidfree]

I didn't know you watched Stranger Things. I adore your MHA works a lot (your characters' designs, your worldbuilding ideas,... they all are brilliant), so I wanted to ask about ST a month ago when I started watching the show ( but didn't know for sure that you even knew about it so). So, what's your thoughts for Stranger Things? Did you read any analysis, like about the subtext, symbolism,... of it?

(btw I love Steve and Robin' friendship so much)

have a good day ^^

haha i don’t watch that many Popular Medias but i’ve watched s3-4 of stranger things yeah (don’t ask me why i haven’t watched s1-2)

also thank you re works <3 i do have many opinions abt stranger things but i’ll just drop a couple of random ones here or we’ll be here forever- if you want to talk abt specific things feel free to ask (s5, the will sexuality conundrum, ships, whatever)

first off you are correct steve and robin’s friendship is so great. wish we had more of their conversations this season but loved their rapport. robin’s coming out scene in s3 is one of my top 3 stranger things scenes.

my fav charas are probably… steve will max nancy? i like s3 robin more than s4 robin

i haven’t really read much Analysis of it actually... i feel like most of the things in the show are fairly surface level im not sure what i’d be reading into. then again somehow people still don’t think will is gay so maybe i’m making generous assumptions about people’s media analysis skills

i guess the Upside Down of it all is the ripest for theories but my honest stance there is that i don’t think the duffers actually know what they’re doing when it comes to their crafting the UD. the rules of the upside down are INSANELY inconsistent between seasons and episodes lol. why hopper got lung damage from the air there but steve’s been biting bats and getting strangled and getting chunks eaten out of him and just walking it off i do not know.

i think will and el should have scary sci-fi child vibes together & s5 should refocus on the s1-2 protags. i love the extended cast but i think the show is better when we have our Protagonists do Protagonist things. and noah schnapp should be acting beyond [tender emotional music] again!!!! even goddamn mike needs to step his ass up back into protagonist territory in s5 im tired of his s4 blandness

people speculate a lot abt the relationships in the show and like i said im not diving into all that unless asked but i am Tired of the nancy love triangle storyline we are 4 seasons into the show pls. 

my least fav plot line is probably ye old evil russians. like really. is that still fresh and groundbreaking in 2022. hopper’s storyline this season bored me so much. 

let me purge my followers of anyone who will take issue with this stance but fuuuuuck billy, one of those kylo ren loser charas whose following makes 0 sense to me hes literally insanely abusive to his kid sister and her friends of which he tries to kill the only black one like why are people ride or die for this man. i dont care that he has a sad backstory do you know how many people have sad backstories and aren’t like that. 

on the other hand i did love eddie this season altho i was at peace with him dying bc it spared steve. however i think his death scene was dumb and could have been done better. and i am sad they didn’t give us more of a steve bisexuality arc bc tbh it would actually fit his character. more interesting than steve pining after nancy again

I HATE THE TIMESKIP THEY DID AT THE END OF S4 !!! VERY LAME !!!

#qui parle #qui repond #anon #stranger things

[ilonga]

so I watched Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness last night and I have some thoughts:

Overall, I enjoyed it a lot more and I thought it was a lot better than Spider-Man NWH, the last MCU movie I watched. DS:MoM was a fairly entertaining watch overall. But I definitely agree with the comments I’ve seen that it... isn’t that great of a movie? The dialogue feels quite stilted, the plot jumpy and forced, and none of the characters particularly compelling except for Wanda, who’s just mainly fun to watch as the villain. That being said, the things I liked:

- Wanda: I was one of the people who was rooting for her to be revealed as the villain when Wandavision was originally airing because she’d be epic as an antagonist--and she was. Loved how unhinged she was here.

- The Multiverse hopping: YES PLEASE LITERALLY MY FAVORITE TROPE. The Captain Carter cameo was spoiled for me beforehand and I did enjoy it, but WHY IS NOBODY TALKING ABOUT MARIA RAMBEAU AS CAPTAIN MARVEL!!! PERFECTION!!! SHE WAS SO BADASS!!! so glad to see my girl maria again, I missed herrr

- America Chavez: She was pretty fun! I think the movie could have made her more compelling but it is what it is. I liked her moms and I liked that her arc was left concluded but pretty open ended. Was the last battle with Wanda a little cheesy? Yeah, but not in an annoying way (to me, at least). More in a “yeah, I saw that coming” sort of way. I do wish we had gotten a bit more character work for her in a more natural way--the memory lane just suddenly revealing her backstory was really contrived.

- Wong: Icon. 

Things I didn’t like/was more ambivalent about:

- Dialogue: Felt super forced. Especially the jarring switches between “Marvel joke-y mode” and seriousness. A lot of the dialogue sounded a hell of a lot better in the trailer than it did in the actual movie.

- Plot: Mehhhhhhh

- Doctor Strange: He’s just... not a super compelling character. They kind of tried to give him a character arc here with him having to learn to open up and “being afraid of being vulnerable” and his whole “unhappiness” schtick but like... didn’t really put in the effort to see it through. And LMAO @ him getting a “not like other girls” moment 

- Also the Multiverse: They should have done SO MUCH more with it. This movie marketed itself as “different in tone from previous marvel movies” but it really wasn’t. At all. Why couldn’t they have thrown in more sci-fi/speculative stuff? What was stopping them? Another thing is that the movie forgets its own rules: if one of the rules of multiversial travel is that you “don’t know anything”, why would Doctor Strange assume that both he and Sinister Strange had a sister? What guarantees that? What guarentess that the sister died in both universes, and in the same way, at that? What even guarantees that every Doctor Strange became a doctor, and acquired his powers the same way? And joined the fight against Thanos? Just like... this movie is very tame in regard to the multiverse aspect which is disappointing.

- The horror aspect: Listen I’m a person who REFUSES to watch any horror but come on, this movie was so tame. WHERE was the spooky. WHERE. There was just a hint of horror-ish vibes, there could have been so much MORE

- Also Wanda?? I’m a bit conflicted on this. While I LOVED seeing her as an unhinged villain, it was definitely a complete 180 from where her character arc in Wandavision left her. It didn’t feel like a very natural turn of her character, more like she acted the way she did because it was plot-necessary. They just hopped from Point A from Point B with her and didn’t really explain how she got there other than “Darkhold corruption *hand-wave*”. And I don’t actually mind that all that much but what’s sticking on my mind now is that it undercuts Monica’s arc in Wandavision a ton, and Monica has a movie coming up soon. In Wandavision, Monica’s empathy and faith in Wanda is rewarded and proven right, and she wins because of it. Hayward is wrong to not listen to her, and villainous for his callous treatment of her, the trio, and of Wanda. But now this movie kind of... ends up doing the opposite? I hope it doesn’t impact Monica’s character too badly but idk at this point

- The action scenes: I know this isn’t a movie that’s intended to have impressive looking fight scenes since most of it is cgi magic but still... a lot of it looked awkward

- Sinister Strange: So... why did he decide to go around murdering Doctor Stranges? How did we get from Point A (all Doctor Stranges are depressed) to Point B (I must murder them for funsies). Not to mention that the battle between them was out-of-nowhere (why are they fighting with music? is this meant to be comedic?)

- Oh yeah and there was a lot of stopping and staring when characters were being chased. What was up with that.

- The Illuminati: WHY WOULD THEY CALL THEM THAT IT SOUNDS SO DUMB anyways. Their logic about Doctor Strange was... super inconsistent. “We have to kill our Doctor Strange because he’s a threat so we’ll keep him around until Thanos is defeated then murder him with his permission” to “this new Doctor Strange is also a threat because he’s a Doctor Strange even if he’s from the multiverse and we have no idea what his universe is likeso we should kill him” to “everyone makes mistakes :)” like. what. And their deaths were super glossed over. Like this universe’s Avengers were all just murdered and they’re pretty fucked now but we’re just gonna ignore that for the rest of the movie. RIP Earth 838 sucks to be you I guess. 

- America opened her first portal and lost her mothers because of a bee. I’m sorry but that’s too comedic to work as a serious moment. Definitely a jarring scene in terms of tone and they could have done a lot better with that moment.

- Christine: I’m fully ambivalent about her. 

And also there’s no way Wanda’s dead. 

Can’t think of anything else at the moment but yeah. Overall a 6 or 7/10 I’d say. Definitely a much more fun watch then NWH, because NWH was just infuriating.

#parti posts #doctor strange in the multiverse of madness spoilers #doctor strange in the multiverse of madness #mcu #wanda maximoff #doctor strange #america chavez #marvel #ds:mom

[nosignalformiles]

Name: Francis Mordaunt

Nickname: Frank or Frankie

Age and Birthday: Late-ish twenties

Height: 6ft

Pronouns and gender:  He/him, man

What they are: Some kind of dragon, he has no idea. I do, though. He’s a european dragon-blooded human. It’s in the ancestry, but he’s got no full dragon form.

Style and Appearance: Scruffy, shaggy hair, always a few days - minimum - of beard growth. Neat-ish glasses and clothing, but neat in a run down assistant professor at a community college way, not preppy.

Piercings and tattoos: None

Scars and distinguishing marks: Missing ring finger, missing left leg from just above the knee, and left eye. Surgery scars on the left side of his abdomen, and behind his left ear. Wears a prosthesis for his leg, and eye, but not the finger. Found it annoying. The eye is custom, catches light pretty realistically, and moves like a natural eye, but obviously the pupil can’t change, and its not impossible to notice if someone is trying. His leg is a bog standard basic insurance covered thing. It’s not great, it can hurt pretty bad, but it works.

FC: X

Personality: Can be arrogant and impatient, bossy even, but that’s more when hhe’s tired or busy, mostly very straight forward and friendly guy, who can be irritatingly level headed about things.

Abilities: Fireproof. Partial transformation into a semi-scaled and clawed form that doesn’t just breathe fire, but a sort of intense light as well. Thicker skin makes him harder to damage.

Weaknesses: Nothing special, can be harmed by everything not mentioned above.

Links:  Headcanons - Media  -  Fun Stuff  -  Playlist  -  Music  -  Threads

Other bits and pieces:

Likes: bird watching, bouldering, hiking, picking up neat rocks, dancing/clubbing. A lot of these things he hasn’t done since the accident because he is still not entirely past it yet, or found a reason to go. 

Was in an accident two years ago which left him with the injuries mentioned above.

Had inhuman, impossible, good fortune until his inuhman side woke up. It’s part of the magic to keep young dragons safe, successful, and thriving. There’s even speculation about old hero myths and tails potentially being unawoken dragons. Of course, the people speculating are dragons who think it would be cool. 

Does not have the biggest grasp on his inhumanity yet, is mostly ignoring it. It only comes out when he’s very excited or stressed out, another reason why he doesn’t leave Wellspring anymore, and even then barely goes out. 

Has been published in a handful of journals on vertebrate paleontology and some less focused geology and earth sciences publications. He will bring it up without being asked. 

Ego sometimes needs deflating. He knows he’s attractive, he knows he’s smart. 

Has an indoor cat named Minnie. 100% calls himself her dad.

Used to spend a lot of time in clubs, and raves, part of his whole wild good fortune and ridiculous ability to do everything and stay afloat. Doesn’t so much anymore, misses it. Can be found listening to house, breakbeats or euro-hardstyle while doing the most detailed still and focused work. Loud. So loud. If you’re next to him on a subway, you can hear his music. Does the awkward half dance shuffle when he thinks no one is paying attention and he’s listening to music.

Wears glasses. Has contacts, doesn’t use them.

He’s pansexual, but because of where and how he grew up, he’s not had a huge amount of experience with other men.

Long form backstory and bio (Least necessary read, you can skip these bits):

Raised entirely human, middle class family, in a larger town in Nassau County. Three younger sisters, parents around and still together. Sent to a catholic school because his parents thought it was a better option than local public schools, and the couldn’t afford private. (Just going to add this here, to dissuade any fear, his religious background, his opinions and experiences, are not intended to be in any way anti-religion in general, or anti-catholic. It’s not even likely to ever come up, but I can see it being mentioned here making people nervous, if you still are, and want to check in ooc please do! There would never be ill will about concerns being voiced.)

Everything in life seemed to go his way, he glided through every task and pressure with ease. Balancing a full social life while excelling at academics, with consistently high ranking state, and even multi-state level cross country and otherwise long distance running for track. He coasted into a university with a 9% admission rate, and got out the otherside six years later with not only an undergrad, but a combined MSc and PhD as well. He then got a job he was not the best qualified for, that gave him travel, adventure, and a level of danger he thought was acceptable and safe.

And then luck ran out. Then the crack formed and the cover meant to protect him, to keep him not just safe but so well cared for and preternaturally lucky, shattered. Fire and a light he couldn’t control, a panic to stop something going devastatingly wrong, open flames and oil rigs don’t get along. Were it not for the scales and claws, he wouldn’t have walked away from it at all, so what if it cost a leg, an eye, and a finger?

Except, that’s a hell of a paradigm shift to take on board after two and a half decades of impossibly good fortune. It all went away. He closed off, fell into a depression pit for months. Eventually he was convinced to go look at dogs at the shelter, something to get him out and about again, to make sure he always had company. Instead, he saw the fattest cat in the world and his heart melted. Minnie, the perfectly named fat fuck of a cat, gave him a bigger excuse to stay isolated, but also a reason to start looking for another job.

That’s how he found Wellspring. Someone intercepted his application to the NHM, recognizing his name from some other world gossip, and invited him out to see Wellspring’s musuem. It’s small, the only area open to visitors without appointment is still over crowded stacks and shelves of interesting bits and pieces. A lot of questionable taxidermy and wet specimens.

Behind the scenes was an entire building of archival roller racks. Cataloging as much of the fae realm's natural history, geology and ecology as possible. Something that so often goes un-explored in a world of magic.

Frank gave up gramercy park and a too small walk up for a still too small walk up, but at least it was in a small town with no take out options after 10pm. He definitely doesn’t regret it every time he’s suddenly hungry at 3am and nothing is open.

He knows Valentine, and frequently helps doing archival organization bs at the town hall records. He actually does know wtf went down with Cyren, but, because he has no real cultural knowledge or experience with fae or magic, he doesn’t GET it, at all. This lack of understanding has also gotten him in a lot of hot water when he tries to talk to people around Wellspring.

V basic non wellspring verse for him: Works in an archives and research center at either a decent university with a good earth studies and geology department, or a local natural history museum, lives in a tiny hole of a walk up apartment. Can be moved anywhere, including internationally, as needed.

#muse bios #i am less confident in my ability to pull this muse off after a decade #than i am in my ability to get marc going again #but he's here now #headcanon frankie #active muse

[linkspooky]

Shigaraki and Dabi

Heroes hurt their own families in order to help complete strangers. Words said by Shigaraki, and lived by Dabi. If you haven’t noticed, there’s quite a lot of parallels between the two of them. Especially their childhood selves, dark haired hero hopefuls whose hair turned white due to stress and eventually fell and became villains. They were the children closest to the heroes, the son of Endeavor, the grandson of Nana Shimura, and yet both of them fell through the cracks the hardest. Let’s talk about the foiling of these two, under the cut. 

1. Father Says No

Both Shigaraki and Dabi are characters who grew up in a strict, patriarchical household where the father was the head of the household and determined all the rules. 

The Shimura household was built by Koutarou, who held all the money, and therefore determined all the rules. The same can be said for the Todoroki household, which only came into being to fuel Enji’s ambitions. This is something Enji literally thinks, his first priority when having children was not to love and raise them, but to raise heirs that would carry on his quirk and make up for the weakness in it.

Enji also literally used his financial wealth and status to pressure her family into arranging a marriage. In the households, the patriarch is the ultimate authority and cannot be questioned. Koutarou sets the rules of the household because he has all the money. Endeavor sets the rules of the household because these children are there to be his heirs. Toya and Tenko both break the rules in their father’s households in some way and become scapegoats. 

Ironically, they break the rules in opposite ways. Tenko, because he wants to become a hero. 

Toya, because his flawof the flames being too harsh for his flame constitution and burning his own skin makes him unable to become a hero and carry on his father’s legacy.

Quick tangent to explain what I mean with Toya. This is speculation, because we haven’t been shown the exact details, so feel free to point and laugh at me if I’m wrong. Endeavor says (incorrectly) that if Toya had reached his goal for him, that all of his pent up negative emotions would have disappeared just like that. (They wouldn’t.)

Which means, Endeavor once again projected himself on his child. Toya was supposed to fix all Endeavor’s hurt feelings for him. So, when Toya failed at the training. When Toya wasn’t good enough. When Toya was flawed. 

Which means it’s likely, Toya went in Endeavor’s mind from being the one who could carry his dreams, to being the one that Endeavor could scapegoat to blame for his negative emotions. Which meant, at some point he tossed Toya aside. At that point he started treating Toya differently. Toya probably pushed himself more and more to try to go back to the way things used to be, which is probably why his hair turning white, he started to crawl to Natsu every day. 

There’s also a lot of similiarities and differences between their households. 

Enji wanted his children to be born heroes.  Koutarou’s rule was no heroes allowed. 

Shimura and Toya both had a sibling they would run to and confide in. For Shimura it was Hana, and for Toya it was Natsu. 

Shimura Tenko is the youngest sibling in the household. While Touya Todoroki was the oldest. 

On the surface, the Shimura household seems more comfortable than the Todoroki household. Shimura receives a lot of comfort from his other relatives, his grandparents, his mother, his sister. However, none of them really confronted the problem in the household and at the end of the day Tenko was still getting beaten. 

The Todoroki household also doesn’t seem like it was a place of much comfort for Toya. It really does seem from flashbacks that all he had to confide in when things started going wrong was Natsu (again feel free to taunt me cruelly if I’m wrong). 

So, you have Tenko who is quietly and gently denied by his family, and Toya who suffers all alone in his household, either getting beaten himself, pushing himself too hard in training, or hearing his father beat his mother and Shoto. 

However for both of them, it’s a gradual accumulation over time. The stress of the household overtakes them. Their hair turns from its original dark coloring to white from the sheer stress of it alone. They, as children, are made to bear the stress of their entire unhealthy household, because they are the scapegoat. 

Endeavor genuinely believes that if Toya had somehow lived up to his promise he would never have turned abusive. 

Kotaro believes that it was Tenko who was upsetting the peace of the household, because he would just not stop it with the hero talk. 

They both soak up all this stress until it explodes outward. However, the incidents that turned them from Tenko -> Shigaraki, and from Toya -> Dabi are entirely different. 

Toya committed what was essentially a suicide. He either staged his own death, or failed at his own suicide and survived. Tenko didn’t kill himself, he killed everyone else around him. Shigaraki destroyed the household that was denying him. 

To simplify the manner in which they lash out. Touya destroys himself, Tenko destroys other people, especially the ones he believes are oppressing him or his friends. 

Well you say, Dabi is trying to take down endeavor. However, Dabi still sees Endeavor and himself as one in the same. His flames are Endeavor’s flames.

One last thing, Dabi and Shigaraki are both marked by their father’s abuse. Dabi was burned by Endeavor’s flames. Dabi literally lives with third degree burns, looking like a living zombie. Then makes his burns even worse by using his flames in the self destructive manner Endeavor taught him. 

Not only does Shigaraki still carry the lip and eye scars from being beaten up with a gardening tool, but Kotaro’s hand reaching out to his face is a symbol that Shigaraki keeps on him literally to this day by wearing a hand over his face constantly. 

2. Friendship and Ideals

So I think all the subtle differences in their backgrounds is what leads to them expressing themselves differently as adults. There are several similarities between them, but I think hardcore Shigaraki fans can tell you all the reasons they prefer Shigaraki, and hardcore Dabi fans can do the same with Dabi. 

I think a lot of it has to do with their relationships to their families. Families define how you connect with other people.

Shigaraki was instructed to always keep his family close to him. He’s always confronting his own feelings about his family, his pain from his family, that’s why when he lashes out he also takes his own personal feelings and pushes them outwards. Shigaraki isn’t concerned with right or wrong, moreso, these are my feelings. I reject the society that rejects me. What Shigaraki is concerned first and foremost, is feelings. His own feelings of being rejected, and also the feelings of people who were rejected just like him. 

Shigaraki is the heart of his group. He’s the person they all rally around, because they gave him a place of belonging. And, Shigaraki has also expressed several times murderous monster that he is that he cares about the individual feelings of those closest to him. I won’t let you trample on Twice’s feelings, his first thing to do when waking up is order the league to be close to him. 

Unlike Dabi, we’ve also seen Shigaraki directly confront the feelings of his missing family once more. He forgives his sister, he tries to comfort his mom. He destroys his father again. He tells his family that he denies them. He tells his grandfather that he still hates her. 

I would say that Shigaraki carries those feelings with him, while Dabi dissociates himself from his feelings.Shigaraki directly confronts those feelings because Shigaraki is the heart, feelings are what matter more to him. 

Dabi has feelings, obviously. Dabi has feelings even if he processes them in a way that’s not easy and palatable. Everyone in fact has feelings (though sometimes I wish I didn’t). Everyone expresses things in their own way if not in the typical way. 

Dabi is completely closed off in regards to his own feelings. He’s not like Shigaraki who is open enough about them he’ll tell his backstory to the whole league on the spot. In fact that’s another difference, the league generally knows Shigaraki’s issues, when they had no idea about Dabi’s. 

When really there was no good reason not to tell them. What are they not going to be up for murdering the number one hero? 

Friendship is a priority for Shigaraki. Individualism is a priority for Dabi. 

Dabi’s feelings towards the league are a messed up jumble, but his behavior towards them is pretty consistent. He takes every oppurtunity he can to insist that he’s not a part of them, that they’re all crazy and he’s the only sane one, that he doesn’t care about their feelings. This can’t all be Dabi just being tsundere or whatever, it’s physical steps taken for Dabi to distance himself from others. 

Dabi’s individual goals are more important than his connections to other people. Shigaraki has no distinct goal besides empty lashing out and therefore connects to people with similiar hurt feelings than his. 

Remember, Dabi self destructs. It’s likely, Dabi sees himself as a martyr. An individual willing to burn himself to take down the society with him. He’s trying to die for some cause like stain. 

So before I develop on this tangent one more difference in similarity between them. Shigaraki’s family is dead. He can’t really do anything but carry on their feelings with him. Tomarau means, to mourn. 

Dabi on the other hand, his family is still alive.He could have before the whole killing spree just shown up on their front doorstep. The reason he hasn’t, is because he can’t forgive Endeavor’s sin.

Whatever pushed him this far, whether it be a strong sense of justice, or a desire for personal revenge. Dabi values that, more than he values his connections with other people, even his own family who is still alive. This is once again the complex way Dabi handles his feelings, it’s likely he pushes his family away, the same way he pushes the league away and doesn’t process them. That’s why he says I thought about it so much I went crazy. He just insists he doesn’t care, and doesn’t think instead. Shigaraki lives constantly confronting his own feelings, Dabi lives by avoiding them. 

Dabi is impersonal, aloof, and only ever thinks of himself as an individual. He will cooperate with others if it suits his needs, but the bond of the league hasn’t quite reached him yet. There’s a consequence for this. 

So twice dying was Hawks fault. Because Hawks you know, stabbed him. 

However you could say, Dabi’s planning centering all around himself, and what he can accomplish as an individual, meant he failed to accomplish that Twice might get hurt as a result of him letting Hawks into the league as a Spy. It’s an unintended consequence, but still a consequence. 

Dabi showed up to save Twice but couldn’t. Then afterwards Dabi uses Twice’s death in the most gratuiotious way possible. Dabi insists once again he doesn’t care, that he never cared about Twice except as a tool that would have made fighting the heroes a lot easier. 

Shigaraki destroys everything around him. He destroys for the sake of the people around him. Dabi destroys himself, his own feelings, he self destructs. When people get caught up in his flames they’re sacrifices for his cause. 

Their priorities and the way they lash out are different. Dabi cares more for ideals than people. Shigaraki cares more for people than ideals.

However, they don’t have to destroy each other. Shigaraki trusts Dabi. Shigaraki of all the members of the league (with Toga as well) is the heart, is the best at sympathizing with the pain of other people because he is constantly in pain himself. 

Dabi made a mistake and as a result Twice got killed. He gambled with too high of circumstances. Twice let a secret slip and invited the heroes to the League’s compound. Twice brought Chisaki for a meeting and because of that Magne died. This kind of scenario has happened before. Of course Dabi insists that his motivations were less pure than Twice’s, he didn’t care what happened to the rest of the league as long as he got the dirt he wanted for his big reveal.

I’m not suggesting that Dabi is secretly a sweetheart, or a misunderstood angsting teddy bear. Just that Dabi is currently closed off from all of his feelings, that’s why he denies too the feelings of people around him and their attempts to reach out for him. Dabi has refused the compansionship of the league. 

It doesn’t have to be like this. Characters can develop. Shigaraki especially has been shown to reach out to people multiple times. Kurogiri is fond of him. Himiko and Twice in their moment of weakness, are convinced to stay on Shigaraki’s side because he shows their face to them. Spinner basically questioned why he was even staying with the league at his lowest point when he thought they had no reason to be there, and it was Shigaraki who he found his cause in. 

Dabi is lacking something. He’s burned off and emotionally stunted his ability to develop connections with other people. 

Shigaraki is lacking something. He is, again and again, told that he needs a plan besides destroy everything. Shigaraki is very observant of the world, and understands the truth, but he can’t get people to listen. Unlike Dabi who planned to such an extent, that he literally made a live public broadcast to turn public opinion against Endeavor because that was more important than winning a fight. 

It’s true Dabi and Shigaraki could turn against each other, because Dabi doesn’t value people, because Shigaraki considers his lashing out more important than his ideals. They could also be the ones to balance each other out. We’re at an important turning point now, Dabi can either break off from the league now that his individual mission is compelte, or he can finally be reached by the league. 

I think Shigaraki might reach him, because even though they’re grown up so differently they started in the exact same place. They were both boys who wanted to be heroes, and just wanted one person to tell them it was okay, that they could be heroes too. 

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