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deadsetobsessions · 4 months

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Alley Drunk! Danny AU- Part 1

[Pt.2] [Pt.3] [Pt.4]

To not turn into a giant raging asshole hell bent on murdering people and destroying the world after everyone he loved died, Danny had ran from Amity with his chosen vice.

A bottle. That’s right. Even after Jazz’s talks about alcoholism as a poor coping mechanism as a form of self harm, he still chose alcohol. Or maybe that’s why he picked it, because it reminded him of her, right before the booze took the sting of grief off of her memory. He was never really all that good at listening to Jazz.

And now she’s gone, so it’s moot point. Danny really hated Nasty Burger.

Danny made it all the way to Gotham, bottle constantly glued to his hand. It’s better than Vlad’s creep-o-self looming over him all of the time. He bummed out on the streets, fitting into crime alley like a native. Danny learned to pickpocket. Not much, just enough for a bottle when his ran out. He stayed human. At first he tried to convince himself that it was because he didn’t want to be perceived as a meta in a city where Batman notoriously disliked metas. Then, as he sunk deeper, he admitted to himself in a shameful curl of a whisper that it was really because alcohol affected his human side much easier.

Ghosts need an ungodly amount of alcohol to even get slightly buzzed. Danny’s human side? Only one full bottle the shittiest tequila he could find could even hope to be more than buzzed. It sucked.

He’s spent two years being an alcoholic that didn’t actually get that drunk. Technically, underage drinking was a crime. But then again, so was being a vigilante ghost. So, whatever. He does what he can to dull the grief. Mostly, he slept on covered and hidden nooks on top of Crime Alley’s roofs. Gotham city had taken pity on him and cleared her smog clouds when he was awake at night. Stargazing helped, at least. It gave him a little hope. It gave him a little wish to change and better and live like he wants. But then the night ends and when the day comes, Jazz isn’t there. Sam isn’t there. Tucker isn’t there. His mom and dad are not there.

Danny always went back to the bottle, in the end. Not that it did much.

Which was why, when he saw three looming figures over a tiny child, Danny’s saving people thing flared with a vengeance and his surprised ectoplasm burned what little buzz he had achieved by downing most of the bottle away, leaving him stone cold sober and pissed.

Danny sighed, dumping the rest of the nasty tasting liquid out. There’s no point drinking that little.

He approached the trio, who were beating up an actual child. Ancients, he hated Crime Alley sometimes.

“Give me your shit, you little punk!” Asshole 1 decided to say like a typical mugger, raising his leg to kick the curled up kid below. Danny doesn’t let him land the kick, smashing the bottle on the asshole’s head before any of them clocked his presence. He pivots, pushing a bit of that extra strength he normally keeps on a tight leash into his hands, and punched the other two in a quick fashion, knocking them out.

With that taken care of, Danny turned back to the kid who was still curled up. Danny sighed again, the trembles in small shoulders plucking on his heartstrings.

“You okay, kid?”

The kid uncurls, and Danny stared. Holy shit, is he looking into a mirror? Blue eyes, black hair, and tanned skin. Holy shit, he’s even got similar jaws to Danny.

“Huh.”

The kid flinched.

“Y-y’er the drunk,” the kid flinched again, eyes darting to the broken bottle still clenched in Danny’s hand. “I- I ain’t got money, honest. Please-”

Danny blinked down at the kid, brain connecting the dots after so long without actual interaction. He’s panicking and staring at the bottle in Danny’s hand like it’ll kill him. Danny raised the bottle and the kid closed his mouth with a click, terror worming its way into the kid’s eyes.

“I wasn’t going to mug you myself, kid.”

“But- y’er the- the Alley drunk.”

Danny blinked. Did he get a reputation without knowing again? Goddammit.

“I guess. Am I famous or somethin’?”

“Nobody- nobody fucks wit’ ya.”

“I also don’t hurt kids.”

“…”

The kid stared at him dubiously and with a sinking feeling, Danny realized that maybe the kid already had some terrible experiences with a heavy drunken hand. He promptly chucks the bottle further into the alley.

“I drink, yes. But I’m also not the kind of scum that would lay hands on a kid, let alone anyone that didn’t provoke it first.”

“Oh.” The kid uncurled more, looking at Danny warily, more at ease now that the bottle has left the chat.

“Yeah. I’m Danny. Stone cold sober, right now.”

“…”

Danny waited.

“Peters.”

“Okay. Peters, do you wanna take their shit?” Danny pointed a thumb at the knocked out would-be-muggers behind him.

“Y… yeah, sure. What’s my cut?”

“All of it.”

Peters stared.

Danny shrugged and started looting.

"Y'er so fuckin' weird."

----

See, the thing is, Danny hadn't anticipated saving Peters- "'s actually Jason"- would result in having a duckling following him around. The kid, Jason, glared at everyone who even looked at them wrong. But that's not the problem, because Danny could take anyone who took issue with Jason's looks, it's more like there's a child following him around now and Danny doesn't want to be the reason Jason turns into an alcoholic. It's- well, it made him cut down on the drinking. He even got jobs- legitimate jobs that sucks out his his poor ectoplasmic soul.

Why? Because Jason's apparently homeless. While that's something Danny's okay with for himself, he can't ever condone that for an actual child. Jason's walking around in threadbare clothes and thin soled shoes in the middle of Fall, for Ancient's sake.

Danny grumbles as he piled a bunch of clothes into the shopping bag as he checked out. Gotham's Walmart is a different kind of hell, but Danny feels right at home.

Sure, the work might suck out his soul and he might hate being sober, but Jason's face every time he comes home to an actual place to live, warm clothes, and food was worth everything.

#danny phantom #dc x dp #DCxDP #dpxdc #jason todd #batman #crime alley #Danny: im gonna be an alcoholic #also Danny: a child needs help and I don’t drink anymore #Danny phantom’s saving people thing #drunk danny #alcoholic danny #but not for long #danny adopts jason todd #jason todd follows his big brother into being a vigilante #kind of #he becomes robin #but gets rescued by his long suffering brother every once and a while #alley drunk! Danny AU

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itsclydebitches · 1 year

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Totally agree with your take on The Blacklist “(…) I’m watching the stupidest plot-line man ever devised, or a character suddenly did a 180 with no explanation, and yeah that makes the meta-writing part of my brain seethe and bite her imaginary pillow to muffle screams of rage… but then the characters have A Moment™, or there’s an actually well done twist, or we get an action sequence that yeah, is pretty silly when all is said and done, but it’s fun and I remember why I want to watch this show through to the end.” is exactly how I feel when watching lol

You know, I'm two episodes from finishing Season Three and while killing time today my poor brain was trying to unpack the roller coaster that has been Liz's opinion of Red lately:

Grows quite close while on the run, to the point where she'll impulse hug him and seek comfort in other ways following traumatic situations (like almost being shot). Fantastic. Love to see it. Makes perfect sense given 2+ years of interactions, revelations, and Liz's current circumstances.

Gets her life back and immediately decides that she wants Red out. Okaaaay. I've never questioned the whole 'I want a normal life and you make that impossible' perspective, but you'd think that everything they'd gone through would change her stance a bit from what we've seen in Seasons One and Two.

They settle back into working together non-stop, but Liz simultaneously insists that she doesn't want him around, a contradictory desire that's been a problem since the show's start and is pretty much ignored instead of being resolved. (Which, given the show's premise that requires them working together, should be resolved by Liz changing her stance on what a 'normal' life means. Which is what I THOUGHT we'd accomplished post-fugitive plot-line).

We get a series of episodes where Liz is literally pushing him away in the first half and then, like, holding his hand in the second??

Is completely adamant that she can't have a kid because Red is in her life.

Decides to keep the kid in large part because Red insists she should have the child in her life.

'Omg, Red, you need to stay away you're not safe for my family!'

'Omg, Red, I'm so happy you came to the wedding! :D'

Has pretty normal (for them) interactions surrounding the wedding debacle, including quippy dialogue and making light of horrifying situations. We're on familiar ground.

Is, again, her normal self where she (understandably) is pissed about shit like giving birth in a night club, but ultimately caves to the insanity that is her life.

Takes a hard turn into full-blown fury. No, you can't hold my baby. Get out. Get away.

A few minutes later Liz is falling into a coma and holds Red's hand: "Oh, Raymond. I do love..." Use of 'love.' Use of 'do.' Use of the first name. Supposed last words. Blah-de-blah I'm about six years behind and fans have analyzed that scene way better than I ever could.

Okay so Liz has been conflicted in a lot of non-persuasive ways and yeah, so much of this is contradictory/nonsensical, BUT if we're charitable we can write a lot of it off as traumatic venting and when the chips are down these are her real feelings--

Psych! She apparently faked this whole thing to try and achieve her normal life.

(Don't even get me started on stuff like the long scenes of Tom grieving when, from what I understand, he was in on the plan the whole time? You should only show the audience moments of 'grief' when he's around other people so we can later understand it as an act! Showing the viewer private moments of him talking to Agnus when he has no reason to hide what he really knows/feels in that moment doesn't work!!)

So I'm quietly seething at the absurdity and lost potential, heading home all, "That's it. I've got better shows to watch. I'm finishing this ONE EPISODE and then we are done, Blacklist."

The episode:

[Aram is the cutest cutie to ever cute, adorably blundering his way through working with Tom]

[Cooper stands his ground and announces to friend and enemy alike that he'll never stop trying to get justice for Liz]

[Red pulls a legitimately impressive one-over on the bad guy du jour]

[Unexpected moment of relief when a background character nobody survives a bomb]

[Dembe exists]

"FINE. I'LL KEEP WATCHING. ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?"

(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻

#Blacklist #The Blacklist #mymetas

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furys-burn · 2 years

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meta + anger | @madefate

Not to be cliche and dramatic but; “Why does tragedy exist? Because you are full of rage. Why are you full of rage? Because you are full of grief.”

The point Luke broke was when he realized how powerful his Father was and how weak he was. How any of them could have stepped in, that Apollo could have tried something to heal her, that Hermes could have lifted him out of his crib and given him to Camp before anything even happened. To have a father who could fly over the world but is too ashamed to face his “favorite” son. To reach out for him, apologize, try. Of course it is more complicated than that but in matters of heartbreak the nuance dies with it.

Then Thalia died, one of two people he ever considered truly family, and he was gone in a pool of grief and mourning that Kronos fed until it became rage and injustice. He got lost in it and this idea of justice and “redemption” that the Thalia he knew became a martyr against her wishes and Annabeth left behind in the wreckage. He fucked up and thought that through this rage he could find some peace or even answers but instead it just resulted in what he had being lost too.

More than anything, his rage comes from the fact that his fate was decided when he was born. When Hermes fell in love with May. When a prophecy was written and it changed the top three forever. When Percy stepped off a bus after killing his math teacher and saw three old women cut a string of a project that would never be finished.

Wouldn’t you be angry too dying knowing this was your destiny and that the gods never wanted to save you? Never could. Because Luke would always join Kronos, Luke always betray the gods and his friends, Luke always watches Thalia die on half blood hill, and his father always watches from a distance. He was the sacrifice for a new era of Demigods and maybe he got what he wanted but when did he ask for it in the first place?

#text #»⌛—Luke Castellan | MUSINGS.

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brodependent · 3 years

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Sam loves Dean as much as Dean loves Sam: a meta

Much as I love reading good meta, I don’t often write meta. Thus please accept my apologies if this is mediocre, and let me start with a simple topic sentence:

Sam loves Dean as much as Dean loves Sam.

A little longer, now: Sam is even better at loving Dean than Dean is at loving Sam because of Dean’s profound and abiding love for Sam.

Confusing, right? But not really.

We all know how Dean lives and breathes SammySammySammywatchoutforSammy. It’s his defining mission, his ultimate purpose, or, as a therapist might say, his “core belief.” But sometimes I think that we allow adult!Dean too little autonomy. We assume that he can’t help himself: he’s locked into this single-minded focus, on loving and protecting the only family he has left.

That sells Dean short. (Hang in there, I promise I’ll get to Sam in a moment.)

Even people who have been forced into a certain way of life have choices. Even people who have been told who they are all their life have choices. Dean tells us, in Season 14, I’m good with who I am--and I, for one, believe him. Whether we follow canon all the way to 15x17, when Dean is finally brought back from the edge of his desire for revenge against Chuck by his love for Sam (the only thing that’s “real”), or whether we keep to season 1 when Dean said--that’s all we have...that’s all I have... and I want us to be a family again and as long as I’m around, nothing bad is gonna happen to you--Dean has always accepted his role as Sam’s big brother. Dean’s life is unabashedly Sam-centric. He’d change a lot of things, but in the end he’d change nothing, because he wouldn’t change that.

Some fans get very het up about the codependent aspect of this. Others (in my opinion, rightly) defend it. There’s scads of meta on why the Winchester dynamic IS necessary for their mythic role in the narrative, and their human role in the narrative (more importantly), so I won’t write that meta now. All I’m saying is what I think you already know: Dean lives for Sam, his baby brother, and despite the grief, the growing pains, the occasional cruelty of desperate love, Dean said it all when he told Sam (and us), Don’t you ever think that there is anything, past or present that I would put in front of you.

So where does that leave Sam, and his love for Dean? Let’s start with that line I just quoted. Building on the above, Dean’s goal in life is to give Sam a life. He wants Sam to be happy. He wants him to be free. He also wants to keep him by his side forever, to control him for safety and comfort’s sake, and sometimes those instincts of a frightened-child-turned-traumatized-man win out. Dean isn’t perfect. Dean’s full of contradictions. But time and again he goes back to stone number one: what he can do for Sam. What he can offer Sam, by being the grunt, by standing in harm’s way.

When we begin the story, Sam has succeeded in the path Dean helped carve for him. I’m not taking all the credit from Sam here, and giving it Dean: merely pointing out that Dean stepped into traditional parental roles and helped send Sam into adulthood, even though that meant Sam leaving him. We know that the night Sam left for Stanford was one of the worst of Dean’s life, but even in mid-season 1, Dean tells Sam he’s proud of him. You always know what you want. You stand up to Dad. Hell, sometimes I wish I--

(this, of course, is beautifully echoed in the series finale itself)

Dean is telling Sam what so many parents tell their children: you have gone places I never could, accomplished goals I never could, grown in grace and understanding like I never could. At least, I like to think that’s what the best parents tell their children.

To Dean, Sam is always the one with more hope. More wholeness. More options. To Sam, Dean is stone number one.

You asked how Sam loves Dean, and my answer is: just look. Look at how Sam goes out into the world young, stands up to their father, makes his own decisions, fights back against Dean’s own nihilistic narrative through their primary losses and setbacks. Dean gave Sam the safety to build a better worldview than Dean himself has, and Sam turns that right back around and tries to give it to Dean.

What do you think my job is? You’re my big brother--there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.

I can’t lose you.

You’re not a grunt, Dean, you’re a genius.

This is my life. I love it. But I can’t do it without my brother. I don’t want to do it without my brother.

I am going to save my brother. And then I’m going to kill you dead.

If you ever need to talk about anything with anybody, you got somebody right here next to you.

I believe in us.

This is just a small collection of Sam quotes showing his love for Dean. A small collection showing the persistent theme of Sam’s persistence. He knows that pushing chick-flick moments and emotional conversations can get jokes for a dime a dozen, and even the occasional punch thrown his way. He keeps at it anyway. When Sam knows Dean’s hurting, he wants to help. He’d do anything to help. He won’t sit around and see his brother turn into an embittered killer (season 2), go to hell for saving his life (season 3), take on the Trials (season 8), be irrevocably corrupted by the Mark of Cain (seasons 9-10), let him despair (seasons 11 and 13), let him sacrifice himself to an archangel’s grave (season 14), or let him lose his goodness to the whims of a vicious god (season 15). Sam fights for Dean with full use of his considerable gifts--intelligence, rationality, resourcefulness, and yes, the occasional blind rage. Sam looks to Dean, first as a leader, then as a judge, and finally as an equal. Sam has been looking up to Dean since he was four, yes, but over the course of the show he comes to look at Dean. With love, peace, understanding, humor, pain...whatever their inimitable connection requires.

The quotes I noted above also reveal Sam’s own conflicts rear up. Sam and Dean (again, in my opinion) are equally developed characters. Both have flaws and inconsistencies. Both have struggles inherent to their personalities and upbringings, distinct from those imposed on them by supernatural forces.

Sam had a glimpse of a different life, once. He had the smarts, he had the drive, he had the sheer stubbornness to live a different life than John or Azazel or hell, even Lucifer had planned for him. But also in Sam--innate in Sam--is his core of goodness and compassion and the principle of doing right, which leads him back into the life and to soul-crushing sacrifice again and again.

Sam breaks and is broken. Sam suffers and ages and spends more time in hell than even Dean, who went to protect him.

But what keeps Sam going? Dean. Dean can’t live without Sam. We know that. The flip side is that Sam doesn’t want to live without Dean. Importantly, I think, he has more choice in the matter. Dean focused his whole childhood identity on giving Sam a life that meant he had choices, even if Dean didn’t know he was doing that. Sam can move through more crowds, more roles, more relationships. He has a better education, he has a more powerful ability to intellectually reason and detach. He would have made a great lawyer. Yet he casts all this aside out of sheer willpower, choosing instead to love Dean and live with Dean through the chaos of their lives, and to go near mad when Dean is gone. Consider Sam in season 4, Sam in season 10...Sam in season 8 trying to atone for the very choice that Dean (the best part of Dean) wanted him to make, even if the real muddle of Dean’s psyche couldn’t forgive him, for a time, for making it.

All of this leads us to the finale.

You said you wish Sam had said I love you back to Dean in the finale. I argue that he did. He made his love perfectly clear to Dean in that moment by holding his hand, by looking in his eyes. He said, you can go now, when all he wanted was for Dean to stay.

The best part of Dean wanted Sam to have happiness and freedom. At the end of his life, Dean was finally able to communicate that without fear or reservation.

But the bittersweet brilliance of that moment is that Sam--the Stanford boy who went to hell and back, who saved the world, brought down one god and raised another--no longer wanted any kind of happiness or freedom that didn’t include the one person who’d been by his side all along. Dean was giving his blessing for a path that didn’t beckon Sam anymore. And yet: Sam said yes to it out of the love for Dean. Sam went out of that barn, out of the bunker, out of that day and that year and that decade and into the next and the next, out of love for Dean. Sam loved Dean by living. He loved Dean by raising another Winchester. He loved Dean by holding all their contradictions, flaws, and heroisms in his heart (in their car), until he’d done what he set out to do many times over.

Then he met Dean on a mended bridge, dressed in old clothes that said: I was happiest at the beginning. I was happiest when we could be brothers again. I took my time getting here anyway, because I know that was what you wanted. I took my time so that we could be happiest now.

If that isn’t love, I don’t know what is.

#my meta #meta #spn meta #the epic love story of sam and dean #sam winchester #dean winchester #spn positive #spn #supernatural #carry on #spn finale #sam loves dean as much as dean love sam #winchesters #sam n dean #sam and dean

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comradekatara · 3 years

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the gaang + how well they would do on the infinity train?

this is suuuper hard because there are so many factors to take into consideration. first is obviously the train itself. the train's function in a metanarrative sense is to serve as a vehicle for storytelling, dissecting & deconstructing the process of a narrative and how a character's arc is propelled by their circumstances. the train supposedly functions to improve its passengers, and yet we also know that The Train is a deeply flawed mechanism that can corrupt and further traumatize its passengers just as much as it can "fix" them. when the train invites you in with the single-minded goal of getting your number to zero, assuming you ever disembark, you're probably gonna be left with even more trauma than when you arrived, or at the very least, weirder trauma.

grace wanted to be seen, but instead of learning to value herself for her own intrinsic worth instead of relying on validation from those around her, she was enabled by that validation and literally started a cult. likewise, since jet is basically a less heinous version of simon, i see him taking a similar path to the apex (though he would of course name them the freedom fighters) trying to overthrow the tyrannical one-one and reinstate the True Conductor. he would think his path is righteous. he would think he is protecting those kids from evil. who knows what would happen once he learns the truth.

then there is the matter of what the train wants from you. the train arrives at a pivotal moment in one's life, when they are at an emotional crossroads and need a catalyst for growth. for example, jesse's problem was relatively small (because he is perfect) but hurting his brother caused him emotional turmoil nonetheless, so the train stepped in. this means that to answer this question properly, i would have to answer not only when the train arrives for them, but why, and seeing that every single atla character carries massive amounts of baggage (most of it flavors of trauma that infinity train has not addressed), this proves extremely difficult. i have to identify the most narratively satisfying moment in each character's lives to have the train arrive, and then i have to make assumptions about which cars would propel them which way (emotionally). you're asking me to outline nine different fanfictions.

only jet's character feels similar enough to any of the characters we've seen in infinity train for me to even have an inkling as to what path he would take. while sokka and tulip are quite similar as people (rational, scientific yet creative thinkers who over-rely on logic over feeling, are deeply loyal, and instinctually blame themselves for the problems caused by others), their character arcs themselves have little in common. both aang and hazel experience a tragic loss of pure, childhood innocence (which is why i cry over both of them every day), but in relatively dissimilar ways (at least appa gets to return to aang). min-gi and zuko are both pressured by their upbringings to conform to a standard that makes them miserable to please their parents, only to ultimately embrace their own passion & truth... but not only do those arcs play out completely differently, zuko and min-gi are completely different people, and if anything, zuko's approach to life is far more like ryan's (ie, jumping off a cliff and hoping he lands on his feet).

but what i think you're really asking, at the end of the day, is how emotionally mature, self-aware, and capable of positive growth is each atla character? because how am i supposed to know what the train would do to their psyches, considering each external situation would shape them differently, and unless i'm supposed to meticulously craft fanfiction for each one of them (which i wouldn't be opposed to doing, but only for one character, i simply cannot do all nine – also, i'm surprised infinity train AUs aren't more common, but then again i'm not particularly familiar with fanficition, so maybe it is!), it would only be an approximation, in which i identify their core problem (which again, is not how real people work, or even how atla characters work, but how The Train works) and then analyze how long it would take for each of them to solve said problem.

so, that was a very long-winded preface. without further ado:

aang's main problem is that he keeps running away from his problems, which is to say, distracting himself from the enormity of his grief. personally, i would say his coping mechanism isn't the worst. after all, he experiences so much world-shattering pain in such a short span of time, and he does deserve to preserve his childhood and his innocence for as long as possible. but, for the purposes of the narrative, the train must necessarily disagree. he must confront his grief head-on, without distracting himself from it or flying into a destructive rage that he'd only regret later. it also depends on who his companions are. with katara by his side, he can get through anything (and vice versa), but it's unclear who will be there to guide him through his pain. that said, i know he'd make it through okay. he's aang. he has to.

katara lives in a fairytale. like i said with aang, that's not really a bad thing. she's a great kid with big dreams and a big heart. she wants to save the world, and – guess what! – she does. but living in a storybook strips one's worldview of the nuances of life, not simply the harsh realities of the world, but also the full extent of one's personhood, outside of simply the black and white worldview of heroes and villains. katara's apotheosis is when she confronts yon rha, looks him in the eyes, and sees a human being staring back at her, another human being. she is no longer in a revenge tale. she is out of stories to tell herself. (life doesn't make narrative sense.) ironically, the train is a metaphor for storytelling, so katara coming to realize that she isn't in a story would both be confusingly meta and also fucking brilliant (if i do say so, personally). i don't know how exactly it would play out, but by god i would pay to see it.

in many ways, sokka is remarkably open-minded, and in many ways, sokka is extremely stubborn. i think he'd come to terms with his own emotional growth (which would be rooted in learning his own self-worth) faster than he'd come to terms with the train itself. "okay, fine, yeah, i deserve love regardless of what i can do for other people, but WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS PLACE?!?!?" his journey through the train is actually everyone else's dream experience on the train. passengers and denizens alike keep falling in love with him (or at the very least, admiring him more than they've ever admired anyone they've ever met), but he doesn't even notice because he's too busy being extremely suspicious of everything he comes into contact with. yes, he'll solve your problems and puzzles and help people and make meaningful connections and eventually he might start to realize that he is worth something even when he's alone, even (especially) when he's being unconventional or "weird" or "selfish." but even once he does get his door, does he walk through it? oh no, he takes it apart and tries to figure out how it just created a fucking portal. so while he would technically "do" quite well, he is never leaving that fucking train. rip sokka.

well, toph needs to learn to accept and embrace her own vulnerability. she definitely goes through that same crystal karaoke car tulip did. that, or the train just tortures her by putting her in increasingly more painful situations in which she must ask for help. but that's too awful to even think about, so i'm just gonna say she has to sing karaoke.

zuko needs to learn to trust his instincts and his own internal moral compass instead of the external pressures being forced upon him by his Father (capital F to emphasize that his nation & his father – aka the patriarchy – are one & the same for him, lmao). and he would fail. a lot. but eventually he would realize that his number goes down when he lets himself be himself, and he would leave the train happy. he probably also gets a bunch of cute little talking animal companions to guide him through. he deserves it.

the train appears to suki while she's having a breakdown in solitary confinement at the boiling rock. she finds healthy ways to cope with being put through hell while on the train, and by the time she gets off, she's being let out of solitary. it is a very rewarding experience, and one that she can swear wasn't just some hallucination. she's constantly telling herself yes, of course it was just a hallucination.... but still... it felt so real....

if i had to diagnose azula with one singular problem that plagues her at the core of her very being, it would have to be her fear of rejection. but it's not good enough to just keep having train cars reject azula, she has to accept that rejection, instead of just intimidating people into submission after the fact. she needs to understand why she is being rejected, and be fine with it, and learn from it, instead of letting her lack of universal perfection in every area anyone could ever excel in shake her to her very core. when ty lee proved that she secured the affections of dumb stupid boys better than azula ever could, she did an arson to cope (which of course is still very valid of her uwu). azula needs to learn to come in second place, third place, even last place, and shrug it off, think to herself, "hopefully i'll do better next time, and if not, that's okay also," and once that happens, everything else will fall into place. though maybe she could read bell hooks or smth at some point on the train cuz i think that could help too.

mai needs to stop being so goddamn depressed all the time. has she tried lexapro, or perhaps using a lightbox in winter? her favorite coping mechanism, knives, only helps her feel something some of the time, but most (if not all) of the time she's still being expected to play a part. has she tried, like, being herself? i heard from zuko (you know, the guy? from the train?) that "being yourself" works wonders. so the train gives her that opportunity. and she actually even enjoys herself for once in her miserable fucking life.

omg there must've been some sort of mistake ty lee was totally sent here by accident because she's actually super happy all the time and doesn't have any problems!!!!!!!! jk, can u even imagine? ty lee hates her life too, she just doesn't go around advertising it like mai does with her big dyke boots and depressing eyeliner. but apparently she also needs to learn how to "be herself," whatever that means. as if life isn't a constant performance, you know, like jacques said or whatever. she sees mai on the train. she rolls her big beautiful brown eyes. "oh god, not you too."

#obeetlebeetle #fuck this took me over an hour to write #asks #the gaang and #analysis #AUs #synthesis #mailee infinity train au when.....#sokka is the only one who dies on the train. unfortunate. aunt wu was right once again.#god this question was hard #so many factors to consider #i want the mailee season tho #and i want it NOW!

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troquantary · 3 years

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Didyme, Part 2: Something, Something, Plato's Allegory of the Cave

Continuing from here, and we’re doing sub-parts for this bit. I’m genuinely surprised I had this much to say. (And fun fact, I almost lost the entire goddamn post, but fortunately I was copy-pasting into Word just in case. Not today, Satan.)

2.1. What Canon Tells Us

Didyme’s murder by Aro (and with Caius’ apparent assistance, either during or afterwards), is only mentioned on the page in Life and Death, the 10th Anniversary gender-swapped version of Twilight. Edythe/Edward mentions it briefly when discussing the painting of the leaders Carine/Carlisle brought back from Volterra, but it’s just background information with little narrative weight. I bring it up just to highlight Caius’ involvement and knowledge -- I’ll get back to that.

Now, here’s the “canon” backstory we have to work with. Per the illustrated guide, Didyme was Aro’s younger sister, and he turned her at some point after meeting Marcus, Caius, and Athenadora. Interestingly, the Guide doesn’t say anything about Aro returning to Didyme out of brotherly love; apparently he just wanted to see if she would have a powerful gift like his, only to be underwhelmed (”disappointed,” according to his Guide entry) by her actual ability -- she made people happy just by being around them. Then she and Marcus fell in love, sharing “the strongest romantic bond of any of the Volturi” (from Marcus’ Guide entry), and this prompted a suddenly very single Aro to seek out his own mate, Sulpicia. The Guide says Didyme “distracted” Marcus from Aro’s goals, and that the pair eventually made plans to split off on their own, leading Aro to murder Didyme so he could hold onto Marcus and his valuable gift. Although nothing written so far suggests that Aro even liked his sister, the Guide does state that Aro “truly loved her” and that his grief upon killing Didyme was genuine.

Apparently Caius’ role in all is was something Meyer thought up later, because none of the leaders’ Guide entries mention him being in on it. (You can’t see me, but I’m staring pointedly at Part One.)

2.2. Fuck Canon, Actually

(This just seemed like the funniest place for a cut. Continued below~)

I’ll be honest with you, person who’s persistent/unfortunate enough to still be here: very little about this murder scenario makes sense to me. I’m going to start with the “disappointing” nature of Didyme’s gift and that it was supposedly much less useful to Aro than Marcus’, because that’s just...stupid, frankly, and there’s no way Aro would have missed the inherent utility of Didyme’s gift. I don’t even have to read into anything to get this idea -- the Guide itself shows us how useful it is! It says right there in Marcus’ entry that Aro went off to turn Didyme, and returned with his sister, “along with the first members of the guard -- vampires who were drawn to Didyme’s aura of happiness.” That is a direct quote.

Just -- I practically shrieked when I read that. You’re telling me that Didyme’s gift was the stated reason their coven got its first subordinates, and I’m supposed to believe that Aro thought that was disappointing? Fuck off! Fuck off!! Even if Didyme’s happiness aura isn’t as powerful as Corin’s opium haze, well, Aro doesn’t have Corin yet, does he? He has every reason in the world to want to keep Didyme around, drawing other vampires to his cause -- even if most of those vampires aren’t gifted or skilled enough to join the guard, it’s still good PR.

At this early stage in the Volturi’s rise to power, it isn’t a good time to lose Didyme -- or any of his inner coven, really. Yet Aro apparently considered her disposable enough that he killed her. I can’t square this with what we know about Aro: that he’s still coherent despite holding god-knows how many people’s lives in his head; that he’s very intelligent; that he’s cunning, charming, and persuasive. Aro, once he learned they were thinking about leaving, would have tried to talk to Didyme and Marcus and done everything in his power to convince them to stay just a bit longer, until the Volturi’s position was more secure. And maybe he did; the timeline of all this is hazy, but nothing in the Guide suggests that Aro jumped straight to duplicity and murder. Clearly, though, whatever negotiations or arguments he presented failed. So what does their desire to leave the Volturi at this critical stage say about Didyme, or Marcus for that matter?

2.3. What It Says About Didyme and Marcus (Mostly Headcanon)

Brace yourself, because we’re into full headcanon territory now. To follow me, please refer to @therealvinelle ‘s meta about the larger mission of the Volturi and why they’re necessary, because I’m starting from the perspective that the Volturi are ultimately a force working in vampires’ and humans’ favor. While Meyer and the Guide would have you believe that Aro’s just power-hungry, actually looking at the impact of the Volturi and the benefits of enforcing secrecy shows that his broader vision isn’t just world domination, but establishing a world in which vampires and humans can both thrive and endure. There’s no way the rest of the inner coven was unaware of this goal; we know Aro talks a lot, so he’s certainly talked his coven’s ears off about this.

Now, we know very little about Marcus and what he was like before he was all dead inside. Based on what would be a logical balance of personalities, with Aro as lead decision-maker and Caius as ruthless enforcer, it seems likely that Marcus was originally the voice of reason and/or mercy. I also think Marcus would have had a strong sense of duty. The Guide says that Aro was the first friend Marcus had as a vampire, and I believe that Marcus cared about him very much and was committed to the Volturi. I think he would have been genuinely conflicted about leaving, especially considering the stabler, safer world the Volturi have been striving to build, and which they haven’t yet secured. Again, it’s a very bad time for any of the leadership to split off -- but in the end, Marcus and Didyme are going to do it anyway.

What for, though? Why leave? @theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin has an interesting take on that question here: that Didyme saw that she and Marcus would be locked into the Volturi life and a thankless existence for eternity and tried to opt out while she still could. I like it a lot, it’s a great post and that scenario makes sense, but the tone of it feels...too forgiving. Maybe that’s because I’m evil. But the way I see it, given the magnitude of the Volturi’s mission, and its (at best) very tenuous grip on power at the time Marcus and Didyme plan to leave (they haven’t even defeated the Romanians yet), jeopardizing the entire operation so that they can pursue their romance unburdened strikes me as...well, fundamentally selfish on some level, so much that I find myself side-eyeing Didyme and Marcus for it. Although to be clear, it’s not the desire to live their own lives apart from the Volturi that I find selfish, just the timing of their departure.

Honestly, I’d like not to vilify another female character if I don’t have to. Given everything I’ve just said, I see Didyme in much the same way as I see Bella: not a bad person, but someone with definite selfish tendencies. At best, she’s likely short-sighted or naive if she doesn’t see how leaving the Volturi at this stage is fucking them over in a big way. However, I hesitate to read into the happiness aura as a straightforward indication of Didyme’s fundamental goodness; I think she probably was kind, charming, and delightful to be around, hence the nature of her gift -- but that capacity for selfishness is still there. (I’m certain Meyer wants us to take her gift as proof of Didyme’s goodness, to reinforce how evil Aro is for killing her...but I think I’ve made my disdain for what Meyer wants me to think pretty clear.)

2.4. MURDER MOST FOUL

I am not saying it was justifiable or okay for Aro to murder his sister. I’m really not. It’s actually better, from a character standpoint, that it isn’t okay -- that Aro has to carry this with him for the rest of his life while Marcus sits in the throne next to him, reduced to a husk, so that in effect Aro has lost them both after all. It’s got that Greek tragedy element @theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin mentioned in her post. (Even better from that standpoint, the Guide implies that Aro found Chelsea relatively soon after killing Didyme, which compounds the tragedy.) I mean, it’s terrible, and it hurts me because I love Aro, but it’s compelling stuff.

What I am saying is, I can see how their insistence on leaving might have deeply hurt and offended him. And that brings me to my issue with the calculated murder scenario the Guide gives us -- I still think Didyme’s gift is too valuable for Aro to throw away by killing her in cold...venom (or whatever), even as the price for keeping Marcus in the fold. Plus, there’s the fact that Aro does love Didyme, and I imagine her gift makes it very difficult for people to think of harming her...when they’re calm, anyway.

Yeah, the only way I can really see the murder happening is if Aro killed Didyme in the heat of an argument about her leaving, possibly even by accident -- except you can’t accidentally kill a vampire, can you? It’s a very deliberate process wherein you have to dismember them and burn every piece, which also means it probably takes long enough that any irrational, overwhelming rage would wear off before you were done. But now that you’ve started....

I mean, at that point it would certainly be awkward to put your half-rubble sister back together, and Aro would be in a whole other load of shit even if he did. It’s possible, given what we’re told, that Aro could have lashed out and yanked Didyme’s head off before snapping out of it, only to realize that his sole option now is to finish the job. If he doesn’t kill Didyme now, she and Marcus won’t just leave, they’ll be sworn enemies of Aro from then on. And thanks to Didyme’s gift being the draw for a lot of the guard, and the inherently bad look of a leader who would brutally attack his own sister, a chunk of the guard would probably leave with them, destroying Aro’s plans. No, the only way to salvage it is to follow through.

Then Aro has to call in Caius for help with the cover-up, because it wasn’t actually planned and it’s just pure luck that no one walked in on the murder as it was happening.

And maybe Aro learns a hard lesson about learning to let people walk away, leaving the possibility open that they could be drawn in again. Because if Aro had just waited, he would have found Chelsea, and with her gift he could have had Marcus and Didyme back again.

Assuming everything didn’t fall apart as soon as they left, of course. But that’s a whole other what-if scenario.

#and those are my thoughts on didyme #...mostly #but i need a break now #twilight #twilight renaissance #twilight meta #i stared too long and the twilight abyss gazed back #didyme volturi #aro volturi #marcus volturi #sources cited:#therealvinelle #theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin #i'm going to go lie down

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sword-dad-fukuzawa · 3 years

Note

3 for the meta asks!!

>:000 CHES I WOULD DIE FOR YOU!!

Meta Asks

3. What is that one scene that you’ve always wanted to write but can’t be arsed to write all of the set-up and context it would need? (consider this permission to write it and/or share it anyway)

Well, as it happens, I have one such scene written! Warnings for mildly gory thoughts because Jiang Cheng happens to have a lot of pent up rage and aggression. This is supposed to be in the feral cats 'verse (with all the warnings that entails lmao) but I never got the motivation to flesh out the fic I had planned around this scene.

“I’ll kill you,” says Jiang Cheng hoarsely.

His teeth are mere inches from Wei Wuxian’s throat. He could do it. He could lean forward, cross the space between, and tear at those fragile veins pulsing so close to the surface of his skin. He wants to, he wants to so badly he can already taste Wei Wuxian’s blood in his mouth and feel it running down his chin. Let him sink his teeth into his brother’s throat, oh God, because he wants it more than he’s ever wanted anything.

But Xue Yang’s shadowy restraints are firm and unyielding. Jiang Cheng can’t cross that divide no matter how he struggles, and Wei Wuxian looks at him with a wide-eyed expression of hurt. Good. He knows that Jiang Cheng means it.

“Don’t make a decision you’ll regret,” Xue Yang says lowly, and Jiang Cheng has just enough leeway to turn his head slightly. He glares at Xue Yang, who glares right back at him with a fierce, unyielding expression.

“I do what I damn well please,” Jiang Cheng breathes. Summoning all of his considerable strength, he tears at the restraints made of resentful energy. They’re made of grief and anger and bitterness, aren’t they? All the failures and the regrets and the terrible, heart-wrenching agony of living.

Old friends, Jiang Cheng thinks grimly, and for the first time in his life, grasps hold of those emotions and pulls.

It’s the closest he’s ever gotten to demonic cultivation. But it pays off, and the restraints loosen for just a moment. He sees Wei Wuxian’s red eyes widen, sees Xue Yang stumble backward in surprise, as he lunges forward. He doesn’t even have Sandu at the ready. Zidian is too slow. All he has are his teeth and the burning, incoherent rage he feels, that he’s felt since Wei Wuxian toppled off the Burial Mounds so many years ago.

But at the last moment, he reconsiders. Jiang Cheng can’t say why. Maybe it’s the astonished, frightened look in Wei Wuxian’s eyes. Maybe it’s the inarticulate cry of frustration from Xue Yang, so utterly out of character. Hell, for all he knows, it’s the way the sun glances off the lake at the last second, blinding him slightly. Whatever it is, Jiang Cheng’s teeth snap shut just before the skin of Wei Wuxian’s neck and instead he twists forward, throwing his entire body weight behind his fist. He punches Wei Wuxian so hard there’s an audible cracking noise, throwing his head to the side and sending both of them stumbling.

Jiang Cheng’s knuckles sting in an entirely too satisfying way as he drags himself upright. He’s breathing heavily, like he’s just finished some long, harrowing race. He looks at Wei Wuxian and flexes his hand once, twice, just to make sure the knuckles are still working properly.

“You’re so fucking righteous,” he growls, and punches him again.

Jiang Cheng knows on an intellectual level that Wei Wuxian is a Devastation-level ghost king who can probably teleport out of the way of his silly mortal punches. He knows, then, that Wei Wuxian is allowing himself to be hit. And he knows that Wei Wuxian is exactly the sort of self-deprecating bastard to genuinely accept that getting hit is his due.

This does not pacify Jiang Cheng. In fact, this makes him want to punch him harder.

But he’s gotten in two very sizable down payments on the debt that Wei Wuxian owes him for breaking too many promises to count, and so after the second punch, Jiang Cheng lets himself stagger and fall on his ass in the dirt. His knuckles hurt, because Wei Wuxian has an unreasonably bony jaw.

“I hate you,” he tells Wei Wuxian, because he feels like it needs to be said. But it comes out more exhausted than vitriolic. He feels so, so tired, down to the bone.

Wei Wuxian, rubbing at his jaw with a slightly dazed expression, nods. “I didn’t expect any less,” he admits absently, and Jiang Cheng suddenly finds he absolutely has the motivation to get back up from the ground, lunge forward, and grab the collar of Wei Wuxian’s robes in his good hand.

“Then why,” he spits, full of a wild rage even he doesn’t understand, “did you come back?”

Why did you come back late? Why did you come back dead? Wei Wuxian, you son of a bitch, why didn’t you ever ask me for help back then?

Wei Wuxian’s hazy red eyes seem to focus on him then, and Jiang Cheng is subjected to his serious, deadset expression. But then he smiles, ruining it—because Wei Wuxian’s smile hasn’t changed a bit since they were children.

He still shines like the sun.

“Jiang Cheng, didn’t you know?” Wei Wuxian asks, his voice light and teasing somehow. “Lotus Pier is my home.”

Jiang Cheng finds, upon hearing this, that there’s a lump in his throat he desperately tries to swallow down.

“Wei Wuxian,” he curses, and looks away.

He’s not crying. He’s not. He’s the sect leader of Yunmeng Jiang and—

And he’s had a long day, and his brother is still dead even if he’s somehow standing right there, and he’s going to commit a murder. At least one murder. And Xue Yang will help him because he is definitely extracting recompense for that stunt with the restraints.

Jiang Cheng is not crying, and so he buries his face in his sleeve to hide the fact that he is not, in fact, crying.

Blessedly, Wei Wuxian doesn’t say anything. But Xue Yang has no such tact. He walks over, and Jiang Cheng can tell it’s him by the light, skittering way he walks.

“Jiang Wanyin, how did you break out of Xinyi’s restraints?” he asks.

Jiang Cheng doesn��t reply. But he hears a quiet thunking sound and a grunt of pain from Xue Yang.

“I stopped him from killing you,” Xue Yang retorts, presumably in response to getting whacked.

“Leave him be,” says Wei Wuxian, and the tenderness in the words nearly makes Jiang Cheng get back up to punch him again—sore knuckles be damned—but Xue Yang lets out such an obnoxious snort that he chokes on a wet laugh instead.

“‘Leave him be, Xue Yang,’” parrots Xue Yang in a high-pitched voice. “‘Save me from Jiang Wanyin, Xue Yang. Explain your Skull-Piercing Nails, Xue Yang. Lick my—”

Then there’s a sound like fabric rustling and Xue Yang is making muffled shrieking noises. The next thing Jiang Cheng hears is an indignant yelp from Wei Wuxian and the distinct, delighted sound of Xue Yang’s laughter.

“He bit me!” cries Wei Wuxian. “Are you—is he your guard dog?”

Jiang Cheng sighs, long and loud, and lifts his face carefully from his sleeve. “Down, Xue Chengmei,” he says, and Xue Yang smirks at him in a distinctly cat-like way.

Wei Wuxian squawks in outrage and Jiang Cheng, hearing that familiar sound, feels boneless and light. There’s a weight off his shoulders that he’d never noticed was there. Like he can breathe again.

#wei wuxian #meta asks #xue yang #jiang cheng #feral cats au #ches!!#enabler fam #xuecheng #xuechengxian #;)#the ot3 part is really eli's fault smh #mo dao zu shi #mdzs

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mothdalf · 4 years

Text

@finweanladiesweek

DAY ONE: Míriel Þerindë and Indis

I’ve depicted them both in their wedding gowns here, sort of two different moments in time linked together.

Under the cut is a VERY long head-canon/meta that eventually kind of turned into a fic, hidden in case you just want to focus on the art.

Indis is a Vanyar lady from the House of Ingwë, I like to think she was close in age to Finwë and they met when the Vanyar and Noldor first arrived in Valinor. They end up dancing and socialising at pretty much every event and are pretty good friends. That friendship has the potential to change into something romantic. But what’s the rush? They’re immortal. He’s a king, finally establishing a safe place for his people. There’s no danger here. No need to produce heirs. No need to marry the first person you dance with.

Míriel didn’t enter the picture until later. I like to think of her as half-Telerin hence her silver hair. Her parents were a Noldor nis and a Telerin ner who met during the great journey, her mother choosing to remain with her husband and the Teleri who lingered East of the sea. As a result Míriel was born on Tol Eressëa, and is quite a bit younger than Finwë and Indis.

Despite her typically Telerin looks, Míriel was a Noldor at heart and immersed herself in Noldorin culture and craft, soon settling on embroidery and weaving. She even journeyed to the House of Vairë to further her textiles skills and learn from the Vala and her Maiar.

I like the idea that many elves in Valinor follow a specific Valar, learning from them and acting as emissaries and ambassadors and links between them and the elves. Any elf can choose this (e.g. Celegorm and Oromë) but it is more common among the Vanyar. It just so happens that Indis is a devotee of Vairë.

So they meet in the House of Vairë. And they’re very different. Indis is philosophical, interested in the themes, and the music, and the history of Vairë’s tapestries; Míriel inspects the stitches with a magnifying glass, and has to be stopped more than once from teasing the fibres apart to see how they’re woven together.

Indis channels logic and a cool composure, very insightful and granted foresight in many matters. She’s mindful, and always present, finding pleasure in this very moment. Míriel buzzes with ideas, sometimes her head hurts and she can’t think straight because she HAS to work through this next project, move on to the next one, she can’t step away she can’t stop. And her composure can be obliterated by one blow to her pride.

But somehow the friendship works, opposites attract sometimes. And upon their return from the house of Vairë, Míriel invites Indis to Alqualondë. And after that they visit each other often, and share letters once Míriel has learned to write Sarati. And if those letters ever start to take on a more flirting tone- well there’s no rush for them either.

It’s on one of these visits that they run into Finwë, Indis introduces her new friend, and the rest is history. It’s only after this that Indis turns her keen insight on herself and has an “oh shhiiit” moment. And now her best friends are engaged and what is she supposed to do?

She helps Míriel dress for her wedding day, arranging jewels, combing her hair, lifting the heavy embroidered fabric of the wedding dress she worked for months on over her head, and finally placing her crown on top.

They’re happy. She’s happy for them. There’s no betrayal or tricks or seduction, just love. Besides it’s probably better Finwë marries a Noldor woman anyway.

So when Míriel announces that she’s expecting a baby, Indis is sure the dull foreboding she feels is nothing but jealousy from a deep part of herself that she tries to shut away. She watches and helps Míriel as she pours all her creative efforts into beautiful things for this baby. Toys and clothes and blankets and anything else she can think of. Indis teases that the child won’t have to repeat an outfit for at least 100years at this rate. They take a trip back to the place they met and work together at one of Vairë’s vast looms to make a tapestry mural for the nursery.

But soon the frenzied crafting starts to slow. And slow more. Until Míriel barely bothers to do anything. People who know her are worried, but she just takes her husbands hand and says that she’s tired, after all she is working on something special at the moment.

When Fëanáro is born Indis watches her friend scream and curse, and eventually weep with joy as she whispers to her husband “he’s the most perfect thing we’ve ever made”

Things do get better for a while. But Míriel’s eye starts to twitch when people congratulate Finwë on their son, until eventually she barks out “of course he’d get the credit! I only did all the hard work” in a rough, sarcastic laugh that’s so unlike her. She doesn’t go to any formal events after this.

She sobs to her husband that she’s frightened. She doesn’t know what’s wrong with her. She’s happy, except that she’s not. She finds no joy and no inspiration, she’s cold and tired and feels like she’s fading away.

Finwë suggests a trip away, so they go back to Míriels house in Alqualondë, and she doesn’t feel as watched, as judged, less angry and paranoid.

But the grief doesn’t lift. She can’t settle to work, she can’t find anything she wants to work on, her head is emptied of ideas and full of fog and she just wants to sleep.

Indis comes to visit them and finds Míriel in the nursery one evening, crying quietly. At first she won’t talk, simply saying that she doesn’t want to wake him, but the tears don’t stop and eventually she whimpers that she’s scared, and she’s disgusted with herself. Because she loves her son so much, but she can’t help but resent him. In some small dark part of her mind she’s angry with him, for taking her happy life away from her, taking her strength and her drive.

Indis takes her hands and pulls her to her feet and down the stairs to Finwë. “we’re going to Lorien. Tonight. Staying here isn’t helping her and she needs more than this.” She towers over both of them and there’s no arguing with her tone.

Irmo and Estë help all they can. Nienna helps more. Eventually Míriel calms. Almost eerily.

One night she calls Indis to the garden of Lorien. Míriel embraces her and kisses her cheeks and thanks her for her help. She holds her hands and tells her she’s sorry, but she’s made her choice.

Indis tried to change her mind. So does Finwë when he runs toward the sound of a raised voice. Not Míriel this time.

She asks Indis for a moment with her husband. And Indis runs to fetch Fëanáro.

She hands the baby to Míriel and asks how she can leave him, he needs her.

Míriel’s face crumples but her resolve doesn’t. “I’ve already given him everything I have”

She presses the baby into her husbands arms and kisses him before lying down on the stone bench and closing her eyes. Míriel sighs, finally feeling peaceful, and doesn’t breath again.

After the resulting uproar has died down, Indis doesn’t see Finwë very much. She visits occasionally and reads his letters about Fëanáro’s brilliant progress eagerly, but nothing is ever as it was.

When they meet again by accident on Oiolossë, it all comes back to them both. They’ve missed each other, they miss Miriel, but they don’t have to loose each other. So they fall in love, and she comes back with him to Tirion while they make a plan. Fëanáro (the equivalent of a 10yo) is wonderfully pleasant to her, he asks about his mother a lot, and shows her all the things he’s learning about and working on. He’s so like Miriel that Indis doesn’t know how Finwë stands it.

When they first tell him that they want to get married, he doesn’t think much of it, at least until he picks up on the gossip and controversy, it’s only then that he starts to realise that something is different.

Indis gets ready for her own wedding without her best friend.

Fëanáro doesn’t take the Statute well, and the problems start. He decides to move away to continue his studies. Indis is not invited to visit him when his Father is.

Finwë is terrified when Indis gets pregnant with their first child, but she’s not. “I am not Miriel. As much as some might wish that were the case.”

The relationship between Fëanáro and his half siblings is a whole separate post. But the things he says about her and her children hurt Indis.

Sometimes she wants to scream at him “I knew your mother! I was her friend! I lost her too! She would hate to hear you talk to me this way!” but she won’t. She can see how he feels and she understands why, but this doesn’t mean she takes the way he treats her children lightly, and he wishes Finwë would back her more in this. But she bares it, and she teaches her children to be kind.

This all changes with the incident. Fëanáro can lash out, he can say cruel things, but he has never threatened one of her children before. And he never will again if he wants to keep his head on his shoulders. She hears the Valar’s judgement, and knows she will comfort Finwë over his sons banishment, as much as she is grateful for it.

The rage she feels when Finwë decides to go with him is cosmic. But it’s when she sees Nolofinwë’s face that she snaps. She tells him with eyes sharper than any sword that if he chooses to go, he can never come back to her. No matter what happens between his sons, she will never forgive him for what he’s doing to her’s.

The news of his death makes her heart hurt in the strangest way. She’s closed herself off from him but the pain bleeds through. At least now he can be with Miriel, she thinks. He made it clear where his heart truly lay when he left. She laughs until she sobs, then composes herself to comfort her children.

She nearly sends Fëanáro to reunite with his father in Mandos when he insights her children and grandchildren to follow him across the sea. She nearly faints when Arafinwë comes back baring tidings of the kinslaying, the streets Míriel showed her around littered with bodies and the beach they would walk along in the evening wet with blood.

Indis stands beside her youngest son when he’s crowned and moves back into her old rooms in Tirion, abandoned when Finwë left for Formenos. After all, she’s been a ruling queen for longer than Arafinwë has lived. She’ll make a good advisor.

In Mandos Míriel is faced by the life she chose to leave behind. First her husband, and then her son. She speaks with Finwë for a long time, and many hurts are healed, but they’ve both made choices they can’t take back. Míriel stands by her decision, she chose to stay, at least in part so Finwë could move on, they make their peace with other, and she encourages him to return and make peace with his other wife. News of their son’s death stops him. He knows that he will remain, it’s with Fëanáro that his heart truly lies, not Míriel, whatever Indis may think. So he appeals for her to be allowed to leave in his place, every inch the king as he points out that the statute will remain unbroken.

She is allowed to see Fëanáro once before she leaves. There are no words for how she feels. So sad, so proud. She’s so sorry to leave him again, but she promises to watch over his sons.

Míriel returns to life, but she doesn’t return to the life she left. She stays close to the halls, and goes to a timeless place, but one she knows well.

It just so happens that Indis is a devotee of Vairë.

So much is different, and there’s a lot to work through, and it’s hard. But being back where they began, with a new life for each of them, is made easier with this reprise of their youth.

And if, as their friendship blooms again into a new form, Míriel eventually asks about the specific wording of the statute, and what it means for them being the two living parts of this three person marriage, well- there’s no rush to figure it out.

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giftedeath · 4 months

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if ur a jungian shadow truther like me, s6 ep13 dead things is such a good culmination of all of her trauma ( + also her fear of becoming faith ) reflecting back at her through spike. this is probably an episode where we see buffy the lowest she's ever been ( suicidal, thinks her friends hate her bc she's not who she used to be, thinks she killed an innocent woman, her father figure's gone who's not even her /real/ father , who disappeared a long time ago, she's living and she doesn't wanna be, etc. ) and then there's spike who's literally representing all of that, who's saying ' it's fine it was an /accident/ you're not bad, and i got rid of the body for you. i did it, my hands are dirty, you're clean, you're fine. i'm evil and i'm the monster and you're still the good slayer ' and not only is it all about spuffy, and buffy hating herself so much but only feeling anything around spike, the shame of it bc she thinks its wrong even though it's the only thing that feels good, and hating him bc she hates herself bc he is everything that she's always been, or at least always has been capable of being. but it's also so about fuffy too, bc in this episode she really thinks that she's killed someone, and it's something that buffy has always been so strictly against. she can't just kill people bc she has that power, she has to use her power responsibly, can't give into the hedonism, bc then she'd be faith. we already saw that struggle in season three, but now it's coming back but it really is rearing its ugly head this season !! and more detrimental, bc it was always a fear and now it's a reality. and its worse too because faith spiraled into it, she had no one, had nothing, all she had was the trauma of being a slayer. and buffy doesn't understand that's also true for her. all she thinks about tho is how, even with all of my friends, even with all of this love and support, i'm still like this. i still ended up like her, and i don't even have a good excuse for it. its sad its so sad but its also so good , its so ... its why season six is so good

#why are you full of rage ? / because you are full of grief › meta.#i. suck the rot right out of my bloodstream › spike.#i. my reflection and i were like rival animals › faith.#spuffy and fuffy are the two most important ships to me bc i could talk about them forever #there's so much to unpack #and season six is such a good season bc the entire show wouldn't be as good without it #anyway #i'm here today and i'm writing !!!#may be a little quiet on disco tho bc i sometimes cannot focus on both isdjfcksjf #depression /#suicidal ideation /

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armorsleevedsinglehit · 3 years

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the huge shippuden music meta

no one asked for this but i’m gonna write it anyway. i’m going to focus primarily on the shippuden soundtrack here, but expect some references to the original series soundtrack as well. also before i begin i know approximately two (2) music so some of my terminology is probably going to be incorrect lol, it’s been a while since college. this is a general shippuden meta but it does focus on the uchiha clan, in particular sasuke and madara.

anyway, to start off, you can pretty easily divide the shippuden soundtrack into a few general categories:

traditional and/or acoustic

electric guitar tracks

some combination of these, plus orchestra hits aplenty

there are a few odd ducks here and there, but no worries, we’ll get to them. and then within these general categories we have a series of recurring character motifs (which can be a bit muddled, because certain themes are used for multiple characters. i assume that naruto (the show) isn’t necessarily scored the way a film would be, and so the directors just slapped whatever dramatic/sad/upbeat music they could find onto a scene, esp if it’s a filler ep, which definitely generates some confusion.) but characters and groups in shippuden DO sort of get their own motifs and themes, so here is my very basic list of those as well:

uzumaki clan and its descendants/allies: “emergence of talents/hyakkaryōran” has a very cool melody towards the end that comes back in “narukami/weeping god” and “shoryu/rising dragon”. we can basically call this the protagonist theme. naruto, sakura, kakashi, jiraiya, most of the konoha 11, and even minato get to claim this one. however, VERY interestingly, narukami is what plays when tobi (as madara) is telling sasuke about the glory days of the uchiha clan... possibly hinting at greater connections between the two clans???????????

akatsuki-related themes: i won’t link a ton of these because they’re super obvious. they’re often full of choir and organ (harkening back to orochimaru’s original series theme); they also tend to be slower. not always, though; look at crimson flames, a slapper if i ever heard one. prime example of akatsuki themes: girei, my FAVORITE bit of the shippuden soundtrack. UGH.

general shippuden themes: things like hurricane suite, heaven-shaking event, etc. most of the first ost goes in here. this category also contains the closest approximation to hashirama’s theme that i could find, experienced many battles and departure to the front lines, which both make me cry lol

there are other fun little motifs and bits and bobs that appear in this soundtrack that i won’t get into here for length (remind me to talk about the angelic herald of death sometime), but it’s a remarkably cohesive piece of work to the point where it gets repetitive sometimes; why are all the super interesting tracks unreleased!!!!??? anyway the purpose of this meta is to attempt to make sense of the way this soundtrack works. we’ll investigate sasuke primarily because i feel that he really ties the whole soundtrack together, and you can extrapolate a lot from the way his theme evolves.

sasuke’s theme (wandering/hyouhaku), yes the dramatic cowboy music theme, is this wonderfully atmospheric track that makes use of the kind of negative space between guitar strums to build up this aura, this Essence of Sasuke. this alone makes it stand apart from other mostly-acoustic pieces on the soundtrack, to me. the whole thing is just humming with this simmering frustration and melancholy and it really gives you a sense of sasuke as this tortured figure who has been severely wronged and experienced the world’s faults firsthand. notably, this version of sasuke’s theme lifts its opening notes (and structure, sorta) from sasuke’s original series theme, which i assume was on purpose. it shows that he’s grown jaded as he got older, i think.

anyway, as the inevitable battle between sasuke and itachi draws closer, we get our first variation on sasuke’s theme: black spot/kokuten. it has the same melody and structure as before, but features heavier guitars, more orchestration, and, in the final bars, notes that previously fell on 1 and 4 but now fall on 1 and 3, which bring a heightened sense of urgency to the whole thing. and more importantly, it ends without resolving itself? it leaves us hanging on this almost call-and-response bit with one wailing guitar after another, before winding the orchestration down and fizzling back down to the level of “wandering.” here we see a sasuke in progress, if you will, working towards a goal that some may find sinister, but he is determined if nothing else, and the instruments match his fervor. it’s roughly analogous to “crimson flames” in terms of intensity, but it’s very distinctly Sasuke.

there are several more variations of sasuke’s theme floating around, but the next one i want to talk about is this one called “sasuke’s ninja way,” apparently, never officially released but relentlessly employed by the anime directors. it takes a more subtle turn than “black spot,” but i don’t see it as a direct sequel to “wandering” for a few different reasons. i think it represents the dilemma sasuke found himself after finally killing itachi and learning the truth about him: the realization that this whole quest for power of his was never really about revenge on one specific person, but rather about reforming the shinobi world as a whole. it’s slower than “black spot,” yet darker, more ominous; it treads the same general path as “wandering” but with added electric guitar, and, notably, choir. recall that choir is often used for themes related to the akatsuki, which i think ties in neatly with sasuke’s motivations at this point. he, like nagato before him, wants to remake the world.

the final iteration of sasuke’s theme, “sasuke’s revolution/junkyousha,” brings it all together. the akatsuki is commonly represented through choir and organ, and this theme starts out with both of these cranked up to the max. this is (pardon the pun) sasuke’s rebirth, if you will. just combine the intensity of “girei,” the anger of “crimson flames,” and the determination of “emergence of talents” and you’re there. seriously: this culmination of sasuke’s character development basically pulls from every single facet of the soundtrack and produces this MASSIVELY rich piece full of anger and rage and hate and fury, while STILL managing to include the twangy guitar bits from “wandering” (which have gone back to 1 and 4!!). we also have someone going ham on a shamisen towards the end of the track, which calls to mind the shamisen solo from “emergence of talents” and other tracks. hinting at an eventual compromise with naruto, possibly?

anyway, i started out this meta trying to find a piece of the soundtrack that could serve as madara’s theme, but i wasn’t sure that one existed. i think the susano’o has a theme, and the uchiha clan has a theme, but....madara just doesn’t?? sure there are unreleased tracks like “legendary uchiha,” but i’d argue that doesn’t really go into his character as much as it just says “watch out for this fucking guy.”

but then i listened to hurricane suite one more time, and i was like HOLY SHIT THIS IS IT. for one thing, it’s long as fuck: this track is a whole journey. it really gives the impression of someone who has lived an impossibly long life and become jaded and cruel and hardened. i realize that the argument could be made that hurricane suite is sasuke’s theme, not madara’s, or that it’s a general shippuden theme and doesn’t represent one character in particular. and yes, i think both of these interpretations are correct. hurricane suite represents what sasuke could POTENTIALLY turn out to be, given his evolution from “wandering” to “black spot” to “sasuke’s ninja way” all the way to “sasuke’s revolution.” hurricane suite warns us that sasuke can (and very well may!) make the same mistakes madara did and end up destroying himself in the process. (the middle of “hurricane suite” GREATLY resembles “wandering.”) and recall that hurricane suite is used in the very first episode of shippuden: the episode where naruto encounters sasuke for the first time, AND- are you ready for this- when madara’s name is dropped for the first time in the series.

this is why i think that, along with it being a general shippuden theme, hurricane suite is also madara’s theme. shippuden as a whole is practically suffocating under the oppressive weight of madara’s presence, right from the very first episode. even before he’s introduced, he is VERY much there. so much of madara’s character is established before he even shows up. we hear so much about him from other characters (kurama, itachi, obito, hashirama), and as such our view of madara changes drastically over the course of the series. and guess what plays when itachi shows sasuke that genjutsu of madara stealing izuna’s eyes?

anyway, in my opinion and in my interpretation of the character, the music fits him perfectly. it starts out all low and choral with these slow ominous drums and deep strings, and this violin comes in that sounds like it’s weeping. we hear something like a heartbeat that grows darker over time, before the music comes to some sort of resolution, an inflection point, and the brass comes in heavy. NOW we’re dealing with the orchestra, three quarters of the way into the song, and we’ve got strings and drums set to a marching pace, more choral chanting, climbing strings and shamisen tumbling down the scales. it sounds like grief!!

and note that yes, this track is used in the very first episode of shippuden, during naruto and sasuke’s first encounter. but it is ALSO used during the scene in hashirama’s flashback when izuna is mortally wounded and madara makes the decision to abandon the clan on the battlefield to take care of him, despite his better judgment and hashirama’s offering of peace. the inflection point in the music represents a very real inflection point in madara’s life: the loss of his last brother. (it always comes back to that, doesn’t it.)

#meta #madara uchiha #sasuke uchiha #uchiha clan #almost 2000 words churned out in one evening. [stares at fic] [sighs]#long post

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mysticalmuddle · 3 years

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Sorry if this has been asked before, but what got into asoiaf? Also, did you like Arya and Jonrya from the first read or did that come later? What do you think of Jon as a character? What are your top 10 favourite characters and moments? I aplologise for this avalanche of questions but I just couldn't help wanting to know more of my favourite asoiaf writer. PS: I adore your aesthetic, your blog and writing gives me an otherworldly feeling.

Hey no worries! Ask away <333

but what got you into asoiaf? I’ve always been into quasi-medieval fantasy, and picked up asoiaf a looooooooong time ago, when I was in middle school. It was so engagingly written that it never really left my brain since? That’s like, ten whole years rent free I’ve been thinking about these characters. What recently spurred me into like, engaging with the fandom/writing/etc was the lack of action in the Jonrya tag, and more specifically, the lack of stories updating that I was interested in, so I decided to make my own 😅

Also, did you like Arya and Jonrya from the first read or did that come later? Re: liking Jon and Arya right off the bat--Okay, so when I first read the series, I was Going Through It IRL, and identified a lot with Jon and his storyline? But I was also so not past the age of “girls going on insane dangerous adventures and being brave despite that” being massively appealing and all the Arya chapters were a satisfyingly more adult version of that genre. I’ll say I liked them both from the get-go, and it’s never really died down since, and I just learned over the years and rereads to appreciate more of the characters. (If I’d been a little older on that first read, I probably would have glommed onto Tyrion instead, and my fandom interactions now would be...vastly different 😂😂😂)

I guess I sort of shipped it from the moment I read ADWD. Like, I was super into Jon&Arya before then--that level of devotion is one of my fictional relationship draws--but ADWD really got me into it. There was just something so compelling about how often they think of each other, and how badly they want to be reunited again, in Arya’s chapters especially. But the whole passage with the Pink Letter just Fucked Me Up emotionally, and suddenly I was like, “They should reunite and kiss”. Over the years, my enthusiasm for the ship has increased, as my very old slushpile of unpublished fics can attest.

What do you think of Jon as a character? I think he’s an incredibly complex character, which is my favorite type of character! His struggles in the series against his own desires versus his sense of duty, especially framed in the narrative by popular thoughts about bastards, and how that affected his self esteem--he has to be more honorable, more clever, more dedicated just to make up for a facet of his own existence that he didn’t control and can’t change!--is something I just find so compelling. And, of course, his deeply intense love for Arya always gets me like 😍😍😍😍 I don’t have any huge takes on him though--I’m not a very thinky type person and everything I think about characters seems so hard to articulate unless I’m pouring it out into a fic (so I’m sorry if you wanted Takes! This Bitch Empty!)

What are your top 10 favourite characters?

Arya

Jon

Daenerys

Brienne

Tyrion

Missandei

Oberyn

Bran

Asha

Sansa

What are your top 10 favourite moments? Alright, these are in no particular order of preference, just listened as I remembered/googled exactly what books they took place in

1. When Brienne rescues Willow from the Bloody mummers, despite knowing that they’ll kill her for the attempt, AFFC-Brienne VII. No chance and no choice gives me chills every fucking time

2. When Arya kills Dareon and walks off with his boots, AFFC-Cat of the Canals. This moment has implications and speaks to Arya’s inability to let go of herself, even when all that being a Stark means in that moment is the gruesome work of justice, but I’ll be honest--I just like it because of how nonchalant and almost sassy she is when taking the boots afterwards, and how it speaks to her practicality.

3. When Jon reads the Pink Letter and loses his shit, ADWD-Jon XIII. I want my bride back … I want my bride back … I want my bride back …"I think we had best change the plan," Jon Snow said. Ohohohohhhoo!!! Juuuuust fuck me up GRRM!!

4. When Daenerys has breakfast with Missandei in Mereen and Missandei chides her into eating more, saying Daenerys is very small, ADWD-Daenerys VII. But also every Daenerys & Missandei interaction ever. Every time they speak to each other, you can just tell the level of care they have, and how they see each other as family over time!!!

5. When Arya travels with the Brotherhood Without Banners and gives water to the northern prisoners before watching as Anguy mercy-kills them, ASoS-Arya V. It’s a facet of Arya’s personality that imo, I think is ignored in metas and fics. She considers them her pack, and despite her disappointment in them, and her disgust at their crimes, still gives them water and finds them a quick, merciful death.

6. The dinner with the men of the Nightswatch and the discussion Bran and Robb have afterwards, about riding to the Wall to see Jon, and about whether their family will come back, AGoT-Bran IV This moment, I think, speaks to Robb’s characterization in a way that Catelyn’s POV chapters don’t touch very well. He’s so very young, despite everything, and trying his hardest, and well aware of the dangers his family is in, and how he’s falling short of saving them and there’s nothing he can do about that.

7. Oberyn during Tyrion’s trail by combat, and his arrogance and his rage, ASoS-Tyrion X. His demand that the Mountain say Elia’s name got me tearing up the first time I read it, not realizing what the cost of that justice would be for Oberyn himself. So much of ASoIaF deals with grief, and the consequences of obsessive grief, and this fit into the series so impeccably fucking well

8. Every single thing about Daenerys freeing the slaves at Astapor, ASoS-Daenerys III. One of the things I really didn’t appreciate in the show is how they changed the tone of that scene, very much altering it from Daenerys and her joy that she can do this thing, a balm after the horror she felt seeing the slaves and learning about the brutal training the Unsullied go through, into a moment that was just her being badass and powerful.

"Unsullied!" Dany galloped before them, her silver-gold braid flying behind her, her bell chiming with every stride. "Slay the Good Masters, slay the soldiers, slay every man who wears a tokar or holds a whip, but harm no child under twelve, and strike the chains off every slave you see." She raised the harpy's fingers in the air . . . and then she flung the scourge aside. "Freedom!" she sang out. "Dracarys! Dracarys!" "Dracarys!" they shouted back, the sweetest word she'd ever heard. "Dracarys! Dracarys!" And all around them slavers ran and sobbed and begged and died, and the dusty air was filled with spears and fire. "Dracarys!" they shouted back, the sweetest word she'd ever heard. "Dracarys! Dracarys!" And all around them slavers ran and sobbed and begged and died, and the dusty air was filled with spears and fire."Dracarys!" they shouted back, the sweetest word she'd ever heard. "Dracarys! Dracarys!" And all around them slavers ran and sobbed and begged and died, and the dusty air was filled with spears and fire. [Bold mine] The moment on the show was momentous, but this was-----vastly superior and far more indicative of her character.

9. Catelyn stopping the catspaw from killing Bran, AGoT-Catelyn III. Watching Catelyn emerge from the haze of her grief only to go full fucking ham feral and brutal protecting her child was like *chef’s kiss* There’s just such a cool contrast between her losing her shit talking with Robb a moment before, and then the actual fight, and then her busting out with: "The circumstances did not allow me to examine it closely, but I can vouch for its edge," Catelyn replied with a dry smile. "Why do you ask?"

10. This exchange: Alliser Thorne overheard him. "Lord Snow wants to take my place now." He sneered. "I'd have an easier time teaching a wolf to juggle than you will training this aurochs.""I'll take that wager, Ser Alliser," Jon said. "I'd love to see Ghost juggle." AGoT-Jon III. That’s the moment I knew I stanned Jon Snow irreparably, forever.

PS: I adore your aesthetic, your blog and writing gives me an otherworldly feeling. No u! For real, anon, that’s so fucking sweet of you to say 🥰🥰🥰 Hope I answered everything to your satisfaction, and feel free to come back and chat if the mood strikes ya!

#asks #Anonymous #read more because rip this got long

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dolores-lovesfruits · 4 years

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I read your meta on Yuki and Kyou and while the majority of it is on point, I have to disagree on the part where they have the same wavelength of trauma. Inmo, Yuki had it worse. He was isolated, abused and tortured in his room and he never gets to interact with his friends again. Even worse, he suffered long-term damage from Akito, Kyou and his mom. While I don't necessarily put down Kyou's issues, he still used Yuki as a scapegoat for his problems, which is childish and unacceptable.

Listen, I’m gonna be straight with you on this one because Idk if you’re stirring some shit but you’ve been sliding some similar posts in my asks three times already and it’s getting annoying so I hope you’ll be satisfied with my answer so you could stfu already.

First, I see how you didn’t comprehend the meaning of my post about them. The whole point was to get rid all of those ranking. Since I can feel that you don’t really have positive feelings towards Kyo, I’m gonna step out of my Momiji blanket for a while and be real with you.

Don’t you think it’s unfair to level Kyo with Akito and Yuki’s mom as someone who damaged Yuki’s mental health. You’re clearly painting him as an abuser as well. It’s kinda offensive, if you ask me. If you’re really putting Kyo in their level then that means you could also add Rin too there, right? For calling Yuki, “Akito’s toy” (note: don’t get me wrong, I like Rin and I’m just trying to prove a point) but of course, we don’t cause the majority of the cursed Sohmas all experienced different types of pain growing up. Back to Kyo, please see this on a lens of a child. If you’re raised hated in the world, everyone is constantly throwing off how unfortunate you are and you shouldn’t have been born, you think a CHILD would even have any idea what to do with a situation like this, especially when it’s not even his fault? Let me remind you that Kyo and Yuki were projected with a lot of verbal abuse as a KIDS. Sure, Kyo said something rude about Yuki when they were kids and extinguished a potential friendship between the two, but can you really blame him? Blame the Sohma system for implanting everyone including his fucking sperm donor to follow that abusive tradition to the point where Kyo (at 5) wanted to kill Yuki then himself just so he could he please someone.

Third, yes, it’s pretty messed up how Kyo used Yuki as a scapegoat but take note, he never explicitly mentioned to Yuki that he blamed him for Kyoko’s accident. All Yuki knew was Kyo hated his existence and fights him to become one of the zodiacs. Kyo’s hate on Yuki was a toxic one and in vice versa but he NEEDED it. After witnessing two deaths and getting “blamed” for it again; like his whole childhood didn’t revolved around that word right? Do you really think he would be able to go on. He’s suicidal for godsakes! Was it unfair of him to do that? Of course. But was it understandable? Absolutely. How about when Yuki started hating Kyo and began spiting some comments about his position as the cat because he was overcome with jealousy, do we blame Yuki? No! They were both victims of a fucking horrendous system. Can’t believe you’re disregarding the fact that they both made amends after releasing their pent-up frustration and started acting very civil towards another. Both of them are very aware how toxic their hate is from one another but it was never petty or childish, it's something so difficult to move on about especially when you’re still living in the shackles of its roots (the Sohma system) but it became a significant experience for them to grow as characters.

The point is THERE’S 👏NO 👏NEED 👏TO 👏COMPARE👏THEM 👏WHEN 👏THEY 👏ARE 👏BOTH 👏VICTIMS. They’re both equally traumatized and damaged individuals, it’s just that their coping mechanisms works differently, just like any other characters in fruits basket. I could do a similar post like this about Yuki if your ask is the other way around, for these two don’t deserved to be belittled on their problems. And wtf is “not on the same wavelength” all about? It’s not a fucking competition! The way you kept phrasing it is becoming really petty. I think this sort of context reminded me of Kakeru’s issue when he became blinded over his partner’s grief and went full rage against Tohru. Like he said, it’s not supposed to be “who had it worse?” I hope you can stop the pity wars between them. People like you are the reason why some mains kept pitting these two with each other. It’s not helping and don’t attack me like that again. I won’t entertain questions like these anymore (unless it’s about Momiji then I’ll definitely fight you).

#fruits basket season 2 #fruits basket 2019 #fruits basket 2020 #fruits basket #fruits basket spoilers #fb #soma kyo #soma yuki #kyo sohma #yuki sohma #lola's thoughts #tw: suicide #tw: mental illness

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panharmonium · 4 years

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Hey! Loving the Merlin takes on ur blog, and I wanted to ask—what are your opinions on Morgana? Haven’t seen a lot of talk abt her. I loved her, esp in season 1, which is also my fav season cuz after that I feel like things started to make less and less sense, lmao. I understand her descent into villainy (mostly, but why does she start to hate Gwen so quickly? feel like that could’ve been handled better) but I would’ve loved to see some solidarity between her and merlin!!!!!

hi there! :D

so, i LOVE morgana. most of what i’ve said about her has been in the tags of gifsets that are now scattered haphazardly around my blog; i don’t think there are larger pieces yet besides my finale round-up (urgh lol), and most of that is just a function of time - i can’t possibly write expansive tracts of meta about every single merlin thing i love, because i love the whole show; i’d never leave my computer again. i generally sit down to write long essays about whatever grabs my mind at a particular moment, even though there are a bazillion other things out there i love just as much. XD

but with morgana, i also feel like part of the reason i haven’t written much about her is because up until three and a half weeks ago (....oh my god, was it THREE AND A HALF WEEKs??? IT FEELS LIKE A YEAR) i hadn’t even finished the series yet, and the whole time i was watching this show i was sort of...waiting to see whether they would finally tie her arc together. i didn’t feel like i could say too much about what was happening with her, because my evaluation of her arc was going to depend on where the writers finally chose to take it and whether they brought it to the place i thought it needed to go.

and...they didn’t, obviously, which is what i sort of suspected would happen, though i was trying to give them the benefit of the doubt all the way up until the end, because i don’t believe they ever wrote themselves into a corner with her. there were things they could have handled with more depth, definitely, but i do not believe that they ever dug themselves into a hole they couldn’t climb out of.

i. what happened to you, morgana

essentially my opinion (just mine; nobody else is obligated to share it) of morgana is this: that the series ended before her arc was over.

to me, season 5 was the nadir in our characters’ journeys. they had reached their lowest point, their...“darkest hour,” to quote the show itself. and in many familiar storytelling formats (the ones that have the most in common with bbc merlin, at least), we take our characters to a moment where they hit rock bottom, where everything is going wrong and things seem hopeless, and then we light a spark under their butts that starts the process where they fight their way out of it. the nadir isn’t the endpoint of the curve; it’s the point where characters start climbing their long, slow way out of the pit. it’s what they have to overcome in order to earn their eventual triumphant ending.

to me, season 5 was that nadir, for morgana and everyone else. i never would have imagined season 5 to be the final season of the show, if i hadn’t known it was beforehand. i would have read season 5 as the show’s ‘empire strikes back’ moment. the episode that ends with our team losing, but with a whole other episode remaining where they can fight to Make It Right.

i view merlin bbc as tantamount to a cancelled tv show, to be honest. i know that’s not necessarily what happened (though it does feel pretty weird that they officially announced S5 would be the final season only four weeks before the finale was about to air?? very bizarre), but regardless of the actual behind-the-scenes-whatever, the fact of the matter is that for me, the series doesn’t end. it stops. and those two things are not the same.

this is particularly relevant to morgana because, as you said, there are aspects of her character arc that weren’t handled as deftly as they could have been, but if the show had brought morgana’s arc to the place where it felt like they were going in 5.09, they could have rescued so much of what came before.

to get into more detail -

i think the biggest issue with morgana’s arc for me isn’t so much what she does, it’s what we’re not shown as she does it.

i fully believe that morgana would eventually start working to ensure uther’s downfall. (obviously. she’s been presented as the voice of moral authority on this show since episode one, and there’s no reason to believe that she wouldn’t ultimately start rebelling against the king’s oppressive policies.) i believe that she would reject arthur, eventually. and i believe that she would reject gwen, too. but i don’t believe the show illustrates enough how painful this would be for her, or how conflicted it would make her feel.

and again, as i said, there are my own personal opinions, couched in...some personal experience with certain kinds of family conflict - but i do understand where morgana’s bitterness toward arthur and gwen comes from. arthur, for all that he’s “a better man than [his] father,” never fully breaks with uther the way morgana does. he has his own little rebellions, yes, but ultimately he always falls in line. he tolerates his father’s actions even if he doesn’t necessarily agree with them, and he continues to support uther even after uther is revealed to have lied about being morgana’s illegitimate father. and because of this tacit acceptance of uther’s poor behavior, arthur reaps benefits and privileges galore. morgana is cast out with nothing, whereas arthur, who didn’t even take a stand for justice, wants for nothing. arthur is sitting pretty on the throne of camelot because he continued to bestow his honor and respect upon a man who deserved neither of those things, because he chose the villain of the series over his sister, even knowing what uther did to her. and that’s gutting, for her. he betrayed her.

(and there are things to be said on arthur’s end of this, too, of course - morgana doesn’t ever confide in him; she doesn’t come to him for help or give him a chance to even be informed about what happened to her before she jumps into invading camelot and dethroning uther - so for arthur, her sudden turnaround comes as a total shock, and HE feels betrayed, like he has no choice but to fight her - i mean, it’s just a big mess.)

but i understand why she hates him. he continues to stand with a man who did demonstrable evil, despite the harm that was specifically done to morgana herself. and by shutting up and letting atrocities be committed in front of him, arthur escapes the harm that morgana suffers for speaking up. i understand why morgana is so bitter about it.

and gwen is a very similar situation - from morgana’s point of view, gwen is playing the arthur to arthur’s uther. gwen sides with arthur over morgana, despite knowing full well that arthur’s policies harm people with magic. gwen abandons morgana for her love interest, and for morgana that’s just like - “why would you do that? i was your friend before he ever cared about you, i loved you before he ever did - don’t you see the evil he’s perpetuating? don’t you care what he does to people like me?”

that’s why morgana tells merlin, “don’t think i don’t understand loyalty just because i’ve got no one left to be loyal to.” she feels like everybody who supposedly cared for her ultimately dumped her because her situation interfered with their comfortable, morally uncomplicated lives. they weren’t willing to acknowledge what was done to her, and they stuck by the man responsible for it, and it seems incomprehensible to her, that they would make that choice, when his misdeeds are known and out in the open. i can’t blame her for wanting to raze the city to the ground.

HOWEVER.

while i believe that all these things are completely plausible, i don’t believe that the series shows us appropriately how these things would be tearing morgana apart inside, underneath the rage and the armored front of ‘you brought this on yourself, so burn in hell, i don’t care.’

there are moments where the show gets it right. when morgana wakes up after uther dies and says that she felt his pain - it’s not presented as gloating; she’s - almost confused. uncertain. like she doesn’t know what she feels. when she confronts arthur at the end of season 4 (i thought we were friends/as did i) there’s real pain under the surface there. when they confront each other at the beginning of season 5, too (what happened to you, morgana/i grew up) - you can feel the undercurrent of something deeper there, too. and that moment with mordred in 5.09, when he appeals to her humanity (i hope one day you will find the love and compassion which used to fill your heart) - that is an amazing scene. the show absolutely nails that moment. morgana hesitates. you can see the grief and the - the conflict written all over her face. it’s perfect. it’s exactly the turn i would have expected morgana’s arc to be taking, at that time in the series.

but then the show just stopped. and without taking morgana’s arc further - without following it through all the way to its conclusion - there’s never any resolution to all the ways the show dropped the ball earlier. all the moments where morgana appears to be just...evil-smirking her way through her revenge, the way she suddenly seems to have no feelings for gwen whatsoever, the utterly lost opportunity that was the “enchanted gwen” arc (which could have been such a powerful exploration of their broken relationship) - all those could have eventually made sense and fit into a narrative where morgana’s conflicted feelings finally begin to escape the stranglehold in which she has them choked, where we start to see the pain of these destroyed relationships rising to the surface.

i can understand how morgana would just - shut off her feelings about these people. she had to close her heart to them - the alternative would have been too painful. but underneath - we know it wouldn’t be that easy. we know it eats at her. and it’s just - so incredibly frustrating that the series was starting to go there - the moment with mordred in 5.09 feels like the beginning of morgana’s big crisis of faith - and then the show just Stops.

so the thing about morgana for me is that, like you said, the show does drop the ball on illustrating her quick descent into evil-villain territory, and they especially drop the ball on her break with gwen, but all of it could have been salvaged, if they had committed to following her arc all the way through to its conclusion. instead they chose to kill her (and everybody else, lol) just as her deep-rooted internal conflicts were finally starting to rise to the surface.

ii. we can find another way/there is no other way (aka the merlin problem)

i’ll say right up front that anything i say here is, as always, just my personal interpretation of things. this is not necessarily the One True Way this show is meant to be understood; it’s just my own preferred read.

i have definitely seen some things in my brief foray into internet fandom that are sort of...piling on merlin for abandoning morgana or “gaslighting” her, most of which seem to be centered around the beginning of episode 2.03, which is weird to me, because the whole point of that episode is that merlin does help morgana, in the end - he’s the one who doesn’t gaslight her. he defies gaius and takes her to the druids, specifically so they can tell her yes, she does have magic. he tries to distract the attacking knights in order to enable morgana to escape with the druids permanently, like she wants. and when the attempt fails, and they’re brought back to camelot, he comes to morgana’s chambers specifically to check on her and to assure her that he won’t reveal her secret to anyone, and she’s grateful for this - she thanks him, she’s appreciative of everything he did for her, she feels comforted to know the truth and to know that someone else knows it, too. this episode ends with their relationship at a high point - it’s overwhelmingly positive, and it doesn’t take a nosedive until 1.12, when morgana gets in way over her head and merlin thinks she’s trying to murder them all. (and even in that episode, it’s worth it to note, merlin is still covering for her magic in front of arthur, giving her chances.)

(and obviously also, of course, the end of that particular situation gets Real Bad Real Fast, which could be a whole post in and of itself, so let’s stay focused on the earlier eps, for now.)

the criticism of merlin in those earlier episodes seems to stem solely from the fact that he doesn’t out himself to morgana, which i can understand - i mean, i like the idea of a ‘merlin+morgana secret magic squad’ AU as much as anyone - but i’ll be honest and say that nowadays, i’m not quite as willing to condemn him for it as i might have been on my first viewing.

i’m not willing to condemn him for it at all, actually.

(and again - as i said, these are my own opinions! everybody else is welcome to have different opinions! we all engage with media differently, and there isn’t a right or wrong way to approach this situation, just whichever way feels best to you.)

so, for me, i’m not interested anymore in telling merlin that he should have revealed himself to anyone, at that point in the story. it would be different if he had been like - continuing to tell morgana ‘oh, no, you don’t have magic, don’t be crazy,’ or if he had been pretending to hate magic like everyone else so he could blend in, but he doesn’t do that, at the end of the episode. he sends her to the druids. he chases after her when he realizes she's in danger. he openly acknowledges her magic, he supports her in having it, he makes sure she knows she has nothing to fear from him. by the end of 2.03, he’s gone to great lengths to help her; he’s already made certain that she knows he’s on her side and that she can trust him. she clearly knows that he accepts her and that he supports her - those are his responsibilities to her as a fellow human and as a friend, and those are exactly the responsibilities he makes sure to fulfill. she knows her secret is safe with him.

now - whether or not merlin feels safe enough to out himself, after making sure morgana knows he accepts and supports her, is his own business.

i think there are a number of reasons why it wouldn’t be fair for me to criticize merlin for continuing to conceal his secret, the first of which is something i already mentioned in another piece - that a marginalized person’s first responsibility is to their own safety, when forced into hiding under oppressive social conditions. merlin isn’t obligated to reveal himself for anybody. he’s not obligated to put himself in danger out of some kind of...responsibility to the community. (not at this point, anyway. it gets more complicated later, as merlin becomes more powerful, which i also address in that other piece, but that’s all in the future for him and not relevant at this moment.)

i think it would be easy for me to forget that merlin isn’t safe, in the early seasons. we’re so used to thinking of merlin as ‘the greatest sorcerer to ever walk the earth,’ because that’s what we keep being told he’s going to become, but again, that’s all so far in the future for him. merlin in the early seasons can do some things with his abilities, but not consistently, and not to the level where we can reasonably expect him to resist the entirety of camelot’s army, if they were to come for him. merlin is in real danger, and he’s not evil for being unwilling to share a secret about himself that would ensure his death, if it somehow got back to the wrong people.

second - i don’t think it would be fair for me to discount merlin’s personal history, either. merlin’s life didn’t start in camelot, and he hasn’t even been in camelot for all that long, comparatively, by the time we get to S2. season one takes place over a few months, starting in either spring or summer and ending in the fall (after the referenced harvest in 1.10/1.11, but before winter sets in). the weather is nice by time season 2 starts, so we can probably assume that S2 takes place once winter has passed (although, it’s technically possible that S2 takes place over the same autumn as S1, I guess...but it’s not made clear to us, timeline-wise.) either way, we just really have to remember that merlin’s stay in camelot by the time we reach 2.03 is still this blip compared to the rest of his life.

it would be very easy for me to say that merlin should have told morgana, that there’s no way she would ever have given him up - and i probably would have said that very thing, after the first time i watched the show - but like - nowadays, i really think i have to step back from that certainty and be a little more gentle. we say we “know” that morgana wouldn’t have willingly betrayed merlin’s secret at that point, and sure, i agree, that’s probably true - but does merlin know that?

of course not!

i think he hopes that. i think he would dearly like to believe that. i also think merlin grew up in a situation where he couldn’t fully trust even the people he’d known all his life, with two (vital!!!) exceptions, and he has been in camelot with a bunch of brand-new people for less than a year, and he can’t be certain of them, however much he wants to be. (and that’s not even considering the possibility of accidental betrayals, or coerced ones - remember, the witchfinder shows up in S2 also, as just one example.)

remember that exchange merlin has with freya, later this season?

“you can’t always trust people.”

“i know. that’s why i left home.”

merlin is not used to showing himself to people. he has been taught all his life to NEVER, EVER show himself to anybody. everyone in camelot who finds out about his magic finds out either by accident (like gaius or lancelot), or necessity (like freya and gilli - though gilli is interesting, because i think merlin’s decisions there are motivated precisely by the choices he didn’t make with morgana - which i’ll go into more later).

in twenty-odd years, merlin has only ever told one person about his magic. and even that generous assumption requires a little bit of inferencing for us to determine, though i think it’s likely enough, if not confirmable.

(i am, in case it’s unclear, referencing 1.10, when merlin is explaining to will why hunith sent him away to camelot: “when she found out you knew - she was so angry.” that, to me, has always been a signifier that merlin told will about his magic, as opposed to will finding out by coincidence. i know there are a lot of headcanons floating around out there about various...accidental situations that may have occurred which forced merlin to reveal his magic in front of will, and those are all obviously totally fun to play with, but after hearing this particular line - i never understood that to be the case, to be honest. we’ve seen hunith enough to have a pretty solid understanding of her character. she and merlin are always easy and gentle together, she’s so kind and calm and thoughtful - i can’t imagine that she wouldn’t have understood, if there had been some kind of accident that forced merlin’s hand. she’d be just as afraid for his future safety, of course, and she would have wished he’d told her right away, but she wouldn’t have been “so angry.”

...she might, however, have been “so angry” if she’d found out that merlin had specifically undermined every sacrifice she’d ever made to keep him safe/ignored every single one of her warnings/rejected every cautious thing she’d been telling him for his entire life and TOLD somebody about his magic when it wasn’t remotely necessary. that’s the only scenario i can imagine that would prompt merlin to say “she was SO angry” in that half-awed, half-intimidated tone, with that little headshake, like it was such a singular event, like it’s still formidable for him to remember.)

so anyway, that said - it’s too easy for me to say ‘he should have told morgana/gwaine/gwen etc; they would never have turned on him,’ as if it would have been such a simple thing for him to do, as if there were no dangers associated with their knowledge even if they would never have willingly given him up, as if he was refusing to do it because he didn’t want to, or because his fears were overblown, or because he was foolish for thinking they would ever hate him for his gifts. i think that really minimizes the reality of his struggle, and the danger of his situation. without the pressure of some crisis to force his hand, merlin has only ever willingly revealed himself to one person. that person is dead. that person died specifically ensuring that merlin could stay safe and hidden from the rest of the world, morgana included - merlin’s continued secrecy is a gift that was bought at an impossibly high price, and it’s not simple for him to contemplate squandering it, especially with no guarantee that things will turn out okay.

because there IS no guarantee that things will turn out okay! a lot of the “merlin should have told morgana” online talk centers around the idea that knowing about merlin’s magic would have kept morgana from feeling alone/betrayed, thus preventing her from turning to the “evil” methods she uses later, but again, i don’t think we actually know that at all. solidarity between merlin and morgana would have been a nice thing, definitely; i’d like to see that too, but i don’t think the fact that she and merlin are both magic-users would have guaranteed harmony between them. merlin and gilli are both magic-users, too, and merlin expects this to be enough to convince gilli to “see the light,” but the fact of the matter is that merlin and gilli just have very different ideas about what it means to do the right thing. merlin thinks it means biding his time and waiting for change to come from the top (because he’s been TOLD by greater powers that this is the right course of action, of course; let’s note again that merlin’s situation is extremely complicated) whereas gilli thinks that doing things merlin’s way makes merlin complicit with an unjust regime. gilli says ‘i shouldn’t haven’t to wait for someone else to give me my rights. i’m going to take them myself.’

the fact that merlin and gilli share a bond as magic-users doesn’t protect them from an ideological divide that puts them on different sides of the same struggle. i’m not sure that merlin and morgana wouldn’t have still ended up in the same situation, eventually, if merlin had chosen to out himself to her - but doing so would certainly have made him a thousand times more vulnerable to attack.

third - it’s also important to remember that if we’re going to hold merlin to this rigid ‘he should have told morgana everything/confided in her/trusted her at the expense of possibly his own life despite the fact that she exists at the completely opposite end of a rigid social hierarchy as him and he’s known her for less than a year’ then maybe we ought to raise the bar for morgana, as well. morgana is very clearly shown to trust and appreciate merlin at the end of 2.03, but by 2.11, when alvarr and mordred show up and convince her to steal the crystal of neahtid, she doesn’t hesitate or come to merlin at all, despite the fact that we never see him do anything to lose her trust between then and now. she never asks him for help, even when she’s uncertain about alvarr’s methods, and that leaves merlin in the dark, only privy to confusing images of her sneaking around and acting suspicious. and even with that, merlin doesn’t condemn her for what she does, the same way he doesn’t blame her when she tries to kill uther in 1.12 - he helps arthur retrieve the crystal, but he doesn’t give morgana up. and he doesn’t hold any kind of grudge, either - in the next episode, merlin doesn’t even suspect her, at first - he thinks it must be her magic protecting her; he doesn’t even consider the idea that she has anything to do with the illness, not until kilgharrah tells him.

and even after that, he STILL covers for her in front of arthur, and he gives her a chance to come clean to him - but she doesn’t take it.

i’m not condemning her for that - i get why she would be afraid to admit to such a big mess - she was in way over her head and didn’t know what to do. but if we’re going to cut morgana this much slack and accept her fears as a valid enough reason to block a potential moment of connection, then we have to accept that merlin’s fears were valid, too - morgana’s descent into “villainy” was not something we can pin solely on merlin’s already overburdened shoulders. the end of season 2 was not some kind of one-way failure.

in summary: merlin and morgana were trapped in an impossible situation. they were both victims of the same oppressive regime, and both of them had very real, very dangerous obstacles to letting themselves trust in and reach out to others, and i think pitting them against each other while forgetting who the real villain was is unfair to them both.

also, a brief postscript: circling back to the first section of this piece, where i talked about how season 5 just stopped before anyone’s arc was finished - merlin and morgana could have had so much more, if we’d gotten another season. their relationship is really in the pits, by season 5, but there is this deleted scene where arthur is reflecting on what happened to morgana and blaming himself, and merlin says arthur shouldn’t take the blame, that “there were others better placed to help morgana” (implicating, of course, himself) and that was SUCH a jumping off point for their story to have continued. merlin wanted to do better by her. he blamed himself for what happened to her. and morgana, for her part, was starting to question herself, as we saw during her confrontation with mordred in 5.09.

there were places for this relationship to go. it wasn’t a lost cause. but the writers decided that it made more sense to just...eliminate everybody at the exact moment when things were poised to possibly change.

the story wasn’t over at the end of season 5. but the show was, and i am always going to regret those many lost opportunities.

#the once and future slowburn #meta #replies #long post

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modernwizard · 4 years

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Why I love Dhawan Master #51: He’s played by Sacha Dhawan!

In no particular order, here is an illustrated list of reasons I love Sacha Dhawan’s Master, most of which boil down to the way that Sacha Dhawan so expertly embodies the Master to such a degree that we can look into this character’s mind as we never have before.

Find my full series under the HELP I WUVS HIM tag or at the why I love Dhawan Master tag.

Read more about my version of Dhawan Master/Thirteen [plus fam] in The Happy Famverse, a series of comic shorts about the domestic lives of [extended] Team TARDIS.

#51: He’s played by Sacha Dhawan!

Before I get to what I love about Sacha Dhawan, though, I have to talk about the thing I cannot stand about Dhawan Master. It’s also the thing that I cannot stand about Thirteen. Basically, the show [the BBC and writers and directors] refuses to deal with the fact that Sacha Dhawan is the first British Indian actor playing this character. He’s also playing opposite Jodie Whittaker, who’s the first White woman to play the character of the Doctor. I don’t give a fuck if Time Lords don’t do race and gender the way that Earthlings do; we’re dealing with two Earthling actors, a brown man and a white woman, whose casting is groundbreaking because of their race and gender. Their race and their gender are important. However, the show so strenuously avoids dealing with the race and gender of the Doctor and the Master that they end up in situations with unfortunately racial and gender-based implications.

Talking about Nazis, racism, misogyny, and rape below the cut.

@natalunasans @sclfmastery -- my sometime partners in meta...

Example #1: In Spyfall 2, the Master disguises himself as a Nazi officer [for some reason never adequately explained]. He’s hiding his true appearance under a perception filter. Toward the end, the Doctor messes up his perception filter, causing the Nazis to see that he’s not one of them and to attack him. The show presents this as the Master getting his just desserts; it’s even played for laughs, with the Master asking if they could just talk about this. “You’ve always struck me as such reasonable people...” Hah hah, Nazi oppression of non-white people is funny!

This episode nominally addresses race, insofar as the Master explains to the Doctor why the Nazis aren’t clocking him. That’s not really a discussion of race at all, though. An actual discussion of race in this bit would note that the white Doctor hides one Indian person, a woman, from the Nazis, but rats out another, a man, to them. It would also note that the Doctor’s outing of the Master to the Nazis exploits the fact that she’s a pretty blond white woman. Therefore she’s closer to the “Aryan archetype” that she says the Master doesn’t fit. Being closer to that archetype, she’s protected from the violence visited on people who don’t fit that archetype. In this bit, both the Doctor and the Master are using the Nazis for their own ends. The Doctor in particular seems to be trading on Nazi sexism and racism, using the Master’s color and gender against him.

Example #2: In The Timeless Children, the Master turns his penetration by the Cyberium into a sexualized encounter. [See #45: “He’s robosexual!” for details.] The Cyberium imparts to him all the knowledge compiled by the Cyber empire, so he also gains access to a vast amount of information. When he eroticizes penetration by the Cyberium then, he’s also eroticizing the acquisition of knowledge.

With this in mind, let’s take a look at what he does with the Doctor in The Timeless Children. He separates her from her fam under duress. He pins her down with a paralysis field. And then he forces her to learn about her past. This is clearly physical and psychological torture. It’s also a violation, done without her consent.

Furthermore, given the Master’s sexualization of stuff like this with the Cyberium, what he does to the Doctor here is also a sexualized violation. It’s particularly gross in terms of gender because we have a man pinning down a woman and forcing her to submit to something she does not want. If that sounds rapey, that’s because it is. It’s equally gross in terms of race because we have a brown man overpowering a white woman. This plays into stereotypes of non-white colonized people [especially men] as less civilized, lustier, and less in control of themselves than white colonizing people, especially white women, who are thought to be demure and innocent. In this example, the Master in particular seems to be trading on colonialist ideas of sex and race, using them against the Doctor.

And this is what I really can’t stand about Thirteen and Dhawan Master. The BBC’s inability to thoughtfully address their races, their genders, and how those inflect their interactions -- that failure writes both characters into really gross situations where they use racist/sexist beliefs and stereotypes to hurt each other. While the Master in particular has exploited racism, sexism, and a combination in the past [see Simm Master for copious detail], the show has portrayed this as bad and wrong. In this recent season, though, no one calls the Doctor out on the racist/sexist way she feeds the Master to the Nazis, and no one seems to have registered the particularly racist/sexist resonances of the Master’s torture of the Doctor in the last episode. Gross, show. Really gross.

I write about these failures for a reason. First of all, the intersections of race, class, and gender are on my mind as I, a white nonbinary person in the US, watch the Covid 19 pandemic and recent police brutality expose the racist, sexist, classist, etc., etc., etc. underpinnings of this society. Second of all, this particular mini essay requires writing about what I don’t like before I can explain what I do like.

I don’t like Dhawan Master as written and narratively presented. Because the show thinks that it can ignore his race and gender in conjunction with the Doctor’s, he comes off as an exceptionally gross racist/sexist in ways that the show never comments on. By the same token, Thirteen suffers from the same inability of the show to deal with the intersection of her race and gender [especially apparent in her scenes with Ruth Doctor].

All that said, I absolutely love Dhawan Master as played and interpreted by Sacha Dhawan. If you’ve been following my series, you know that I praise the actor for his thorough attention to detail and his skill in making the Master a very specific character who thinks in an unusual, multivocal way, exhibits many traits of neurodeviance, and clearly deals with several lifetimes’ worth of rage, pain, and grief. His focus on expressing what the character is thinking and feeling encourages the audience to try to understand the character and to commiserate. And he’s largely successful! It’s a testament to his talent and skill that he takes this character made so unintentionally GROSS by the show and turns him into someone perceived by many viewers as relatable and sympathetic.

#sacha dhawan #dhawan master #HELP I WUVS HIM #why I love Dhawan Master #doctor who #dw meta #racism #sexism #intersectional oppression #the bbc can't deal #gross and unfortunate implications #for both the doctor and the master #when good actors have bad material #ignoring the race and gender of your groundbreaking actors playing protagonist and antagonist is NOT a successful narrative strategy #nazis #colonialism

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