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proxissima · 5 months

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Least favorite Ozai take you know (you can also name more if you like too)

Even after taking a thorough break from the ATLA fandom in the past year, that Ozai "isn't the sharpest tool in the shed", that people seem to think that he's the dumbest member in the royal family is the take that came to my mind immediately, and it's the one that I still abhor to this day.

Dishonourable mention goes to Ozai being also the most talentless and/or weakest firebender, which tends to go hand-in-hand with the above-mentioned take.

People who spout this nonsense with such confidence make me wonder if they even watched the same show as the rest of us or if they transferred here from some parallel universe, because what part about Ozai shooting lightning like fireworks during Sozin's comet, what part about him sensing the end of a total eclipse in a bunker deep in the earth, from his inner fire alone (all while regular firebending soldiers hadn't even noticed that their bending was gone in the first place!!), what part about Ozai being the only person that was able to summon lightning from both hands simultaneously (in the OG show tbf), near instantaneously and with just a sliver of the sun (never mind that by this point there were only two other people in the world that were even able to generate lightning and neither were on his level), gave the impression that he's an unskilled or untalented fighter?

And that's just listing his feats regarding his lightning, not even his general technique and bending.

Ozai is both powerful AND capable of extreme precision, something people also just love to ignore when they're forced to admit that Ozai is no chump in the power department.

EOS Azula would absolutely NOT defeat prime Ozai and Iroh would at least have a hard time with him. Jeong Jeong, however, is decisively getting smoked, never mind anyone less than a master; some people need to come down from cloud cuckoo land.

On a side note, I like how in the bottom right picture, it looks like Ozai is bending blue fire when he's unleashing huge lightning bolts in reality.

Another take I despise is the common notion that Ozai wanted to have Zuko dead since his birth, or that he couldn't wait to kill his infant son, which is factually wrong. Even the comics, despite instigating this whole mess, made it clear that Ozai wasn't that bad.

Okay, further tonal whiplash incoming, but there's another topic on my mind. That's your warning.

I also used to hate the notion that Ozai is a rapist and that the relationship between him and Ursa was one of constant abuse. (I think it was a bold move of Bryke and generally everyone to portray Iroh, of all people, as the polar opposite and a demure character, considering his history with women... but Iroh is a whole different can of worms.) Let it be said that I still think the plot of the comics is complete horse-shit in that regard, so my opinion on that hasn't changed.

However, I won't lie and say that there isn't a certain, morbid appeal in Ozai using sex as a weapon to exert control over people.

There was a fic, I think it was called Queens and Consorts that portrayed Ozai's manipulative and subtle side quite well, where each chapter is written from a different woman's perspective that all are either in or have some business with the royal family. Ursa felt unloved, but when it turned out that she was the only one Ozai truly loved? *Chef's kiss*. The fic deals with the inner workings of not just the royal family but also the political intricacies of the royal court in a captivating manner. I remember it being worth a read, but I digress.

Back to my original point though, I do also have to give Dominion credit where it's due, because the particular chapter, chapters? where Ursa departs, written from her POV, were an interesting read that gave insight into Ozai's character and their toxic and abusive relationship. I liked that Ursa was actually in love with him, but turned to despise him all the same. One part that has stuck with me was, paraphrased, how Ozai would sometimes forcefully take her, but she would spread her legs for him willingly on enough other occasions.

The abuse, in general, is a touchy topic and it's a delicate balance to strike, between giving Ozai edges, without taking away from his humanity entirely, and avoiding making it grotesquely obscene, but if done right, it can add a whole lot of complexity to their dynamic. Needless to say, the comics busted it miserably. Like, so thoroughly, a twelve year old could come up with a more cohesive and interesting plot.

I think this type of characterisation of Ozai works best, when it's not just him, but also the rest of the family to be depicted to have extremely dubious morals that serve as a reminder why exactly no one was objecting to perpetuating a century-long war their ancestor started, but also why practically every member of the following generations was either willing to carry out a genocide/mass murders on their own, have successfully done so, or were actively endorsing it. (It's certainly noteworthy that we know nothing about Lu Ten's mother, and that any of Iroh's past in the military has been carefully tiptoed around in all official portrayals post-ATLA.)

All of this being said, I don't get it when Ozai is the one portrayed as this depraved, sadistic rapist, all while characters like Azulon and especially Iroh, out of all people, are treated as the bastion of moral superiority in the meantime, or something, like they'd genuinely be outraged by... (marital) rape and abuse. These two. It's a bold assumption at best.

It's just kind of a pointless endeavour, trying to apply modern-day (western) morals on the setting ATLA takes place in and pretending [favourite] characters would hold those same values and act accordingly, when it's more comparable to the late 19th century. (Yes, there's enough people on stan Twitter and Reddit who actually seem to forget about this)

Obligatory disclaimer that I've got nothing against modern AUs or whatever. I just don't like it when people are genuinely pretending that is how characters would be thinking in canon.

#thoughts #tw sa mention #tw rape mention #inbox #ozai #ursa #iroh #atla

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piedpiperart · 1 year

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All Might can suck it, in ur Monster AU comic! >:(

Heck yeah!!

He can also suck it in a few other comics too lol, not that I hate all might but,,, he’s just not,, the best,, person. There’s just so much of his shady actions in canon to use as groundwork here.

Granted he’s a great hero, most of the time. He’s really only good at being the big muscle for villains that can take a punch. He’s not great at the smaller parts of his job, like investigating and calling ambulances and working with the police.

Not to mention he’s a bad teacher/parent. Not saying he doesn’t care but he clearly values hero work over teaching and parenting. You can see he doesn’t really understand what the kids actually need of him until later. It’s why the class was so thrown off by all might giving actual good advise (via the book in his pocket). So he’s not bad and he wants to do the right thing and he doesn’t actually commit to learning how to do the right thing until later.

But! I often portray him as though he has no want/need to understand, and only thinks of heroism and crime in black and white. You can draw a lot of parallels to Batman and Superman here. For example, Superman is usually called for big over the top fights. He’s a heavy hitter, that’s his specialty. I have never ever seen him actually try to mentor anyone until he actually gets Jon (and Kon kinda). He starts out pretty bad with Kon in most versions, and often with other heroes because his views on things and people are usually set in a black and white view.

Batman on the other hand is very much good with kids. (Most of the time) (im ignoring the times where he’s abusive or whatever) (think Wayne family adventures version) He values the safety of kids and knows the intricacies of crime, much like Aizawa and underground heroes. You don’t always call them for heavy hitters, you call them for intel gathering, deep rooted and systematic issues like drug rings and trafficking. Stuff Superman wouldn’t get too into because his focus is on defeating the clearly evil alien invasions, etc.

So I think All Might has potential to be good in more ways than just being a heavy hitter, but in my comics I always see Aizawa as more of a parental role for kids because he’s not a black and white person. He deals with kids daily as a teacher and cares about making sure they can protect themselves. Stuff all might doesnt have experience with (but he learns later) and in my comics thats just how I think All Might would be to an extreme black and white perspective.

With the quirk thing, you can always see in the anime and manga that All Might values strength most. He thinks the more power you have the better off you are. That’s why he thinks Quirkless can’t be a hero, he overlooks other types of quirks in trainings and focuses on strength to win battles rather than smarts. He encourages Izuku to stop thinking and just punch stuff. No idea how to teach kids.

So in my Monster comic All Might is played up to where he views not only crime but also quirks in that black and white vision. Scary villain quirks are bad, weak quirks are useless, strength quirks are heroic, mutant quirks are creepy and scary and villainous, etc. So of course Monster quirk Izuku is seeing the brunt of that type of viewpoint and discrimination.

All might thinks he’s doing the kid a favor by telling him to hide his quirk and not cause trouble. Still sees himself as a hero and one giving solid advice on life. He’s very much wrong but he doesn’t see it.

Anyways sorry that got super long, hope this was at least interesting to read or helped in some way to explain😅

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thenightlymartini · 1 year

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Any headcanons on how the couples are on family gatherings?

Doing a content warning here and at the start for sake of convenience:

CW: mentions of the Korean War, very vague mention of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, censored cuss words, mention of England and France's imperialistic and colonialism pasts, vague mention/insinuation of 20th century tragedies in East Asia and other historical events of East Asia

So, this will heavily depend on if it is in universe or in an AU where one can fiddle with family dynamics a bit. For those who just want the actual content, skip to the dotted line and read after it (content warning will be just above the dotted line), for I'm going to be discussing a little.

Personally, back when I first watched Hetalia (I think back in 2010 or 2011) I mostly based my experiences of what was popular in the fandom on Youtube videos, since I didn't go to Deviantart nor knew about Tumblr by that point. So, I did adopt, very early on, what I thought was popular for family groups, but I've since matured enough to be more nuanced about them. Ones like FACE I still subscribe to in a sense because of the historical content, but East Asia I no longer think of it in terms of early Hetalia fandom due to the intricacies and complexity that are the interpersonal relations throughout history. I view it more like, from an outsider's perspective, it looks like a big brother taking care of multiple siblings, but inside there are a lot of power dynamics and is like multiple games of chess in the form of politics and military flexing up until the 20th century, with lots of double meanings and this particular dynamic shines brighter when China is teaching.

Some of the East Asians may have viewed the dynamic closer to a kinship than others, but they all eventually became aware of the politics and what it meant to be a nation and their views on family is more complicated. For brevity sake I'm focusing on just the Koreas and will give some detail on the others when they are talked about. South Korea (keep in mind this is very early in both the Koreas' history when they were the chibi-equivalents), I think, was a little more naïve in the beginning simply because it was a dynamic he never experienced before and was more prone to taking things at face value prior to fully understanding what it means to be a nation and the politics of immortal relations, such as being taken in by China and living with him for a time was more than just out of the kindness of the Chinese man's heart. North Korea was a little more aware of the power dynamics and politics than his twin, but he lacked the experience and knowledge on how to deal with it at the time and was generally just more self-aware knowing there wasn't much he himself could do. NK did get closer to China on a more mentor level and calls him "brother" more out of respect than actually thinking of him as family. Basically anything dealings with Japan, with East Asia on a whole, barring one or two countries, is heavily politicized and less family gathering after the 20th century, while dealings with China can sometimes get politicized if the wrong topic comes up.

With that cleared up, it's time to delve into question at hand. And this going to be a long one. Also I finally figured out how to change font styles on here so I might have gone overboard with it with experimentation.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Kimchiburger:

SK meeting FACE and subsequent family gatherings:

SK tends to be very quiet and shy if it is with people he has not been around a lot or knows well, especially early after his war with NK where he no longer has his twin to be there as emotional support. He vaguely knew England and France due to the UN and them sending troops as well to his country, as well as knowing what they did to most of Asia thanks to imperialism and colonialism, so he was very hesitant around them. He knows they are what America considers family, but that doesn't stop him from being very cautious regardless early on. Canada, on the other hand, he was pretty excited to see again, since he knew the quieter nation before even meeting America and hadn't seen him in a while.

France he got along with fairly well after the first initial awkwardness that was the context of he is now America's boyfriend with the American's family. France was a bit too touchy for his liking and made some rude comments from his cultural perspective, but the Frenchman never went too far and was pretty quick to correct mistakes if the other was offended, though was prone to unsolicited advice that embarrassed both himself and America. Canada hadn't changed much and was able to get SK out of his shell faster than the other two, as well as just provided general tips on how to handle America when he gets to be too much.

England was the rough one in the beginning, both personality wise and just because England kept giving him this "stink-eye" or highly judgmental look over every little thing he did or say. He later learned from France that England was just extremely protective over America, even after independence, and was just making sure that SK wasn't going to end up breaking the American's heart and was a good fit. He still didn't care for England's poor attitude most of the time along with his tsundere tendencies (he hated using Japan's word for it, but it was a pretty apt description and he lacked a better word for it). They did bond a bit more when he introduced his cooking to England, who was actually pretty receptive to it to America's shock. England had been used to India's cuisine so he wasn't too fazed by the spice, and both were shocked that they had some similar foods, such as Korean sundae and English black pudding. Although this was also the time when SK figured out England was not the greatest cook (but baking he was generally okay at, if a little rusty or needed some work considering not all of his scones would come out like hockey pucks).

Once SK got comfortable, these family gatherings became quite entertaining and SK often felt included or was part of the family at that point. France and him were prone to baking and sharing recipes a lot (I was inspired by those videos on Youtube of Korean street food and baking), England and him were more prone to quiet talks and tea (which was a welcome reprieve from some of the more neurotic family tendencies) unless England got into a rant over something, and Canada and him often were more boisterous than anyone thought they would be. Add America to that mix and it was always chaotic between the three of them. France figured out that letting the three of them compete in video games was the best way to make sure the North American nations and the Korean wouldn't end up destroying something or end up with the police knocking at their door. Though England got more and more flabbergasted once he realized just how similar both SK and America were, meaning double the headaches were going to happen.

I'm saving America's interactions with East Asia for after getting through RusNK, because they share the same event.

RusNK:

North Korea and the Kievan Rus Trio:

North Korea knew from Russia that he had two sisters and that Russia was the middle of the three. He vaguely got to know them through political meetings, but outside of politics he didn't know much considering he spent most of his time either at home, with China, or with Russia. So when Russia proposes that he gets to know his sisters personally one day, he just kind of rolled with it figuring that it couldn't hurt and might benefit political relations more if he did. He did not count on how... "interesting" the family gathering would be, for lack of a better word.

He thought Ukraine was quite a strong and dependable young woman, though a little too emotional at times. He could tell she became the substitute mother of the trio with how doting she was. A lot of the cooking for the family was actually done with everyone there and was a family tradition, so he learned quite a bit from her about the family traditions and that she was definitely the better cook out of them, though he wouldn't admit that to Russia. She was generally more welcoming and warm towards him, but he could tell she got nervous at times because she didn't want to end up offending him or Russia on accident, whether through fear of politics or simply because Russia can be quite intimidating when mad. NK learned some of the more embarrassing parts of her, such as when the story came up, from Ukraine herself, about how she tried to advise Russia on how to make friends ("show them your boobs" episode for anyone confused), and thus became slightly weirded out.

That weirded out feeling intensified when he finally got to know Belarus, especially with how attached she was to Russia. NK thinks Belarus didn't quite understand the meaning behind the "marrying" Russia, since he was told she had been doing that since she was fairly little, but he absolutely hated how Belarus would but in when he and Russia would get too close or cuddly. He had half a mind to tell her off about how he is Russia's boyfriend and he can do what he damn well pleases, but he knew better than to say stuff like that for it would more than likely come back around through politics and his boss would get mad at him for angering an ally. It seemed at some point Russia pulled Belarus aside and must have gave her a stern talking to, because part way through the first meeting she eventually let up on her antics. He was much more aware of the atmosphere around the trio, and came to the conclusion that, though this family is weird, they do care about each other and they are definitely not ones he should ever anger.

Future meetings are much more scarce, especially after the fall of the Soviet Union and tightening up of NK's own nation. Currently, though he only admits to himself and not aloud due to politics and current events, but he very much admires how strong, tenacious, and smart Ukraine is, and that is when he learns that she is probably the scariest of the trio when provoked. He somewhat wishes she wasn't so cold to him now, but that is thanks to politics and himself basically becoming the world's pariah and knows it is outside of his control. He finds he misses those winter nights when the trio and him would laugh and have dinner together or celebrate the trio's shared holidays, mostly because he himself would even forget the greater politics that dominate their lives and simply live as themselves and cherish the fond memories.

Kimchiubrger and RusNK:

America, Russia, and East Asia "family" gatherings:

SK had to explain a lot of the "family" dynamics to America because he was really hesitant at bringing America around them. Considering America has had numerous dealings with his neighbors, both good and bad, it wasn't like he was meeting them for the first time, but that meant there was so much more baggage to go through and this was in a context of introducing the boyfriend to the family. America semi-understood SK's explanations, considering how complex and intricate East Asia's relations with each other are and how much history played a part, but he at least knew how nervous SK was with this gathering more out of the political games that were bound to happen. Also, SK was not 100% sure if North Korea would be there, which would throw so many wrenches into the issue that he might as well have been in a hardware store.

Likewise, Russia was taught about the dynamics, and he himself was more understanding at the chess game that was East Asian relations. NK was fine bringing Russia around the other East Asians, especially China, but was very wary of if SK was going to show, since it was common for only one of them to be at these gatherings because they despised each other that much and it never ended well if both of them so happened to be there. Since he and SK never communicated about these meetings, it tended to fall to China to make sure neither were there at the same time, meaning he would invite each Korea every other gathering.

Well, both Koreas didn't expect the absolute worse case scenario: both show up with America and Russia to a gathering (with China's permission), AND China's boss got whiff of the gathering and told China he had to invite Japan as well for "political relations". So Japan being there was the badly made icing on this already disastrous cake from both Koreas' perspectives. They just hoped their respective boyfriend's understood to not embarrass them or cause a fight.

Thankfully, China was in a more "f!ck politics, get along of I'll make you" kind of mood and laid down the law very clearly and quickly. Hong Kong and, surprisingly, Taiwan were there, as well as Macau, so Russia and America got treated to the full extent of the chaos that can be when all of East Asia is in one room. Apparently the favorite pass time was ragging on China, much to China's chagrin. Particular favorite subjects to rile China up and poke fun of were his age and old man tendencies. Russia and America couldn't help but stay silent and look on in shock, wonder, and trepidation at how much sass and shade was being thrown around in teasing manners. They also were eyeing the wok and bamboo stick in the corner knowing just how dangerous China could be with them if he got out of hand.

Eventually, Japan got sassy and told China he was more than happy to take him to a nursing home after China made a comment about his age and forgot where he put a few of the drinks he bought for the occasion. This lead to America, before SK could stop him, saying how Japan shouldn't throw stones when he himself has a glass house since he's heard Japan complain multiple times about how he had a bad back and was getting to old for some of the antics he got wrapped up in. This gained him points with most of East Asia as many laughed at how true it was (even SK and NK had to try and stifle their laughs) while Japan was too shocked to speak until he made a vague threat towards America that he would get his revenge later without exactly divulging how he would do so. This lead to Russia making a comment about what might happen if both China and Japan were put into the same nursing home, which quickly spiraled into hypothetical discussions with lots of teasing. Both Koreas were really silent during most of the exchange, often either too occupied keeping an eye on their respective boyfriends or were too dumbfounded at how well America and Russia easily fitted themselves in.

At some point the topic of Mahjong comes up and America gets really interested in it. A snide comment from Russia about how real Mahjong is different from the one played on Microsoft computers sent both Koreas on edge, especially when America fires back that he knows they are different. Thankfully, America continued with asking to be taught how to actually play it and learn, to which the previous hostility evaporated when China had both he and Russia (since he knows Russia doesn't know sh!t about Mahjong himself) learn with him and Japan, with Macau serving as a guide for America and Russia for the first few games. China waved the Koreas away and told them to go help Taiwan and Hong Kong get the food ready in the other room, much to the hesitance of both Koreas. China definitely took the opportunity to not so subtly tell both America and Russia that he still cares for the twins, despite politics and history, and that if they themselves hurt the two in anyway shape or form he would be more than happy to murder them in their homes, politics and international relations be d!mned. First few seconds Russia and America didn't take the threat too seriously until they see that Japan didn't even bat an eye at the threat and remarked how much more tame China was being about it, then they realized he was serious and they were definitely more scared.

NK and SK were constantly peeking around the corner from the kitchen to check in on their boyfriends, often accidentally silently communicating with each other when one of them went to check. Taiwan found it absolutely adorable that they were that concerned, while Hong Kong rolled his eyes at how love clearly changed the twins far too much, even making a comment about how those two aren't themselves if they aren't actively adding to the chaos. NK, being more resistant to the teasing, usually made off-handed comments on how he was just making sure blood wasn't being spilt rather than out of actual concern, but everyone could see right through it.

It gave a moment for both Koreas to reflect on their respective twin's relationship with their boyfriends. SK noticed how, though not being the most PDA couple, NK and Russia had much more subtler ways of checking in on the other and showing affection, such as Russia occasionally holding NK's hand and rubbing small circles over the knuckles or NK leaning into the other and providing much more eye contact than he's seen the other do in a lifetime. Even the small smiles and stilted laughs coming from them during the night made SK start to soften on them. He may not approve of his brother's choice in partner (as he knows NK doesn't approve of America), but he could tell they truly cared about the other and was a little happy that Russia could get NK to smile and laugh more, since he can't be there to do it now. Likewise, NK, though absolutely despising America, slowly started accepting that he could tell SK was happy with him, from the way they easily shared laughs and smiles to how he could easily see the adoration in their eyes when they looked at each other. As much as he doubted and refused to trust America, he knew from their interactions that America was very much wearing his heart on his sleeve for his brother and was borderline willing to be the other's servant with constantly getting him anything he need during the night. He started accepting, despite his personal issues with America, that the American was kind of what he knew SK needed now that he himself couldn't be there to support the younger twin. If he were to ever make serious progress in mending his and SK's relationship on a personal level, he knew he had to start with easing up on the two of them, so he became less snippy and sarcastic with them later. It's a start, at least.

Commieburger:

This headcannon has to have the major asterisk of this is a "what if" scenario in normal universe since they are having to be super secretive about their relationship and may not reveal they are in one outside of the ones who need to know (SK and Canada) until super later in the relationship or when political improvements occur. With that said, this is a "what if" scenario of when East Asia and the rest of FACE learn of their relationship on the grounds that they are slowly letting it be known they are together:

East Asia Gathering:

The whole idea was partially pushed by South Korea, who by that point already knew of their relationship for a while now, with the excuse that it was only going to be a matter of time before they found out and it would probably be better if they were told rather than found out through something more scandalous. North and America were quite hesitant, especially with telling China and Japan considering their power and involvement in East Asia, but decided that they should know at some point so long as they are sworn to secrecy and partially agreed with SK's logic. Ideally, they would have liked to only tell China, and maybe Japan for security purposes, but it was not going to be easy for Hong Kong and Taiwan to not know since they all were in the same circles. SK was even willing to share black mail material in order to make sure the others wouldn't tell a soul about their relationship.

South Korea pushed China to have a family gathering and only having Japan, Taiwan, and Hong Kong join them, not really telling him about the fact that America and North Korea would be joining them. He had to make a deal with China that as long as he got them to go then he himself would take care of hosting and cooking, which was definitely going to be a chore and a half but knew China wouldn't turn that down.

When the day came, North and America purposefully came later once all the others had gathered. When South welcomed them in, China immediately tried reprimanding the two for trying to involve SK in whatever shenanigans or arguments they started this time while he was trying to host family and clearly had a lot to do right now, assuming that was why those two were there at the same time. NK basically very briskly told him they were here to tell them all something and to gather everyone to make it easier, clearly wanting to just get this over with, while America was uncharacteristically quiet and clearly felt and looked awkward.

When they told them (mostly NK just spat it out in the bluntest way possible), Hong Kong and Taiwan seriously thought it was a joke SK, NK, and America were in on. Japan initially thought so too, but knowing America's cues, ticks, and seeing how generally awkward the bigger nation was, he quickly realized it wasn't one and was silent in surprise. China seemed puzzled slightly until he admitted that it actually made sense considering he noticed their usual arguments lacked the normal amount of bite in them this past year (which shocked NK and America that China actually noticed somewhat, though clearly didn't realize how long this had been going on). Hong Kong and Taiwan didn't start believing it until they saw SK didn't react at all to the announcement, not even a hint of a smile that would normally give away that it was a prank. That's when Taiwan asks SK directly if he had already known, which SK admitted to knowing for several years now.

That's when everyone is just dumbfounded that NK and America had been going out for so long without anyone knowing. China made a comment about how the two were clever, but not clever enough to pull a fast one on himself since he has seen so much in his 4000 years, which led to America saying "technically, you thought we had something going on for only the past year, so we actually did pull one over your eyes". NK promptly elbowed him in the ribs to shut him up.

Cue essentially a game of 20 questions because NK and America are just bombarded for the next half hour trying to explain things. SK quietly handed his twin a bottle of soju, knowing this was going to be a long night. Eventually America pipes up after a subtle comment from Japan about them both playing with fire keeping this under wraps, saying how they both have known that for a while and the one thing they ask of them all is to just stay quiet about it since the main reason they told them was that it would be better to hear from them rather than through someone else.

Rest of the night was semi-awkward and NK hated having the spotlight like that for that long, so America and him took their leave. They didn't leave before China pulled them aside to let them know America is welcome at the next family gathering.

Future gatherings were much more tolerable. During the times when America could sneak by and join them, the couple were much more relaxed once they were used to now being in a situation where they didn't need to hide their relationship. America was much more prone to holding the other by the waist or just having an arm over NK's shoulders, along with being his boisterous self. It still baffled East Asia to see these two as a pair considering how opposite they acted, but it was more interesting to see NK soften up in ways they didn't think the nation could. Though Taiwan was privy to some of the cuter moments between the couple since she and NK used to have a fairly solid friendship a while back and honestly was the most relaxed person out of the family that wouldn't make a big scene when they did anything remotely couple-y.

FACE:

After letting North's side know about their relationship, America had to do some convincing to get NK to agree to let England and France know, using the same excuse that it would probably be better they know from them rather than through a scandal or rumors. Canada already knew, but America wanted Canada over anyways because he was going to need as much back up as possible, for he feared England's reaction the most.

Canada had very little interaction with North Korea, outside of politics and war, and really only knew that his brother was dating him, so he was suspicious of the other in general. Since it had been several years, and these two were still together, he softened a little, but not by much. He definitely knew England was not going to take it well and knew he needed to be there to act as peacekeeper and to restrain the Englishman if need be. As much as he figured the reaction would be justified, he didn't want America to take the brunt of it alone and NK was too unpredictable for his taste to trust he would be fine or to not escalate arguments.

While they were waiting for England and France to arrive, Canada started learning a lot more about how America and NK acted together. America was not shy about PDA, at least in front of Canada, and it was kind of intriguing to see the difference in how NK reacted. He noticed the tone and general vibe NK gave off was completely different around America, like it was softer or more affectionate rather than being defensive and having a generally dangerous aura. Sure, NK elbowed him in the ribs when America got too excited with his hugs, but it was far better than Canada thought would happen. He got an idea of the softer side of NK when America's anxiety finally caught up with him and the Korean was almost like a mother hen with how much care he was showing. It made Canada accept that these two definitely had a mutual love towards each other, and his suspicions died down.

Now, when America and Canada sat England and France down for the talk, NK was a lot more hesitant but wasn't going to leave America on his own (especially since America stuck right by him when they told his side of the family), so he was semi-hiding around the corner so that he was close enough to at least listen in and be right there if needed. Canada agreed that NK's immediate presence would have set alarm bells off for England and France, and it would be best to break it to them when they were calm and not already on edge.

When America told England and France, they both seriously thought it was joke, even laughing (England laughing the hardest) and saying how he really needed to come up with something more believable than that. When NK spoke about it being true and stepped out (America not so subtly shifted to the side so that he was partially in front of NK cause he felt an immediate need to protect), France was more dumbfounded but more accepting if a bit skeptical (love is love, c'est la vie) while England went from confusion, to shock, to rage. If it weren't for Canada holding England down, he probably would have lunged at NK and America.

England went OFF on them, with his main focus being directed towards NK and how this was clearly just a plot involving his government and that America is an absolute idiot for believing otherwise. It was at this point that NK, in the calmest and level-headed tone despite being on the very edge of losing his temper that sent shivers down all the nations' spines, told England right off that not only is the idea of a plot so ludicrous that even his own leader would laugh at it, but that it was entirely wrong. He goes right on to say that he is risking his own well-being and safety and is completely willing to toe that line because his love for Alfred is stronger than his own suspicions and fear of his own government. NK tells England, with maybe a foot distance between them and America holding NK back from going any closer, that he can hate him as much as he wants, he can even still choose to not accept that they are in a relationship, but he will make sure England walks away knowing two things: this relationship has nothing to do with politics and that his attitude and throwing a fit because of his hatred will not change the fact that they are dating and will continue to date. This was a curtesy so that they knew from the horse's mouth rather than from someone else; acceptance was never expected. Continuing on, NK states how he can even hate England himself as much as he wants, but that he will be tolerant of him regardless since he will not force America to cut him out of his life, and that all that he expects from England is to be treated the same. As if that wasn't enough, NK had to add that, yeah, America can be an idiot, but he's his idiot, so don't call him that or he will be more than happy to punch England in the face.

So, the first meeting with FACE did not go well, especially with England. In private, that confrontation took so much out of NK that he was visibly shaking from nerves and emotionally drained afterwards. Canada and France absolutely had more respect for NK himself after that (France couldn't help but gush at how romantic it was and how it was like a classic scene out of a romance movie/drama). After some time to stew, England grew a grudging respect as well, though it never stopped future interactions between NK and himself at later gatherings from being super tense.

Though there was one time when NK and England had a temporary truce at a gathering where America was being excessively idiotic. It went like this:

America does/says something that makes the 5th or so stupidest thing he has done or said today.

NK, about to lose it: I'm about ready to chuck this encyclopedia at your head if you don't smarten up!

England, whose also had enough: Don't aim for his head, you'll only make him worse by losing what little brain cells he has left. Aim for the shins, he'll learn quicker that way.

France: You two are absolutely terrifying when you're both on the same page.

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bazzybelle · 8 months

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I'd love to hear you nerd out about more history! Could you do 10, 17, and 21 please?

Hello! Hello! Thank you for the wonderful ask! I will gladly nerd out about history some more! :D

10) Pieces of art (paintings, sculptures, lithographies, etc) related to history you like most (post an image of them).

Oh snap... this is an unfair question. There are so many pieces of art that I love so much. I am going to focus on three specific pieces (technically four, but the last two are meant to be a pair).

La Primavera - Sandro Botticelli

Yeah yeah, I chose a Renaissance piece... No surprises there. But guys, just LOOK AT THIS PAINTING! This is my all time favourite painting. I was so fortunate enough to have seen this painting in person in 2008, and I straight up cried. I have a cross-stitched version of this painting that I keep above my bed. This painting is everything to me. Look at the details of all the flowers, the welcoming, yet stern gaze of the central Venus character, the playful, yet mournful look of the three Graces. You can spend an hour looking at this painting and STILL find something to talk about.

The School Of Athens - Raphael

Jesus Christ, you guys... look at this fucking painting. Ok so, during The Renaissance, artists started to play around with perspective, adding depth to their paintings. A result would be the level of detail you get in pieces such as this. Look at the arches all the way in the back. You can almost believe that this painting goes on forever. It's insane.

Now, the people. This is just a Who's Who of important philosophers, mathematicians, and thinkers in history such as Euclid, Ptolemy, and most famously Plato and Aristotle (who occupy the centre of the fresco). Ok, let's take a closer look at Plato and Aristotle, because this shit BLOWS MY MIND! Plato, renowed philosopher, is pointing up to the heavens, while Aristotle, natural scientist and mathematician, is pointing to the ground... to Earth. THE DETAILS!

The Mosaics of The Basilica of San Vitale - Ravenna

So the Byzantines were well known for their beautiful, intricate mosaics. If you have a minute, seriously look them up, they are breathtaking. But these two are probably some of the most famous. They depict the Emperor Justinian with his entourage, on one side, and his Consort, the Empress Theodora with her attendants on the other. The level of intricacy and detail in these pieces is astounding, considering they were made with teeny tine pieces of stone and glass. Like what the actual hell?!

17) What historical item would you like to own?

xD I've answered this question twice. So this time, I've asked my husband. We went on a massive tangent about owning original copies of famous works, and then how owning the original Gutenberg printing press would be cool. We then talked about famous sculptures and buildings that were destroyed, like the Chryselephantine Statues of Zeus and Athena, the Library and Lighthouse of Alexandria.

He then shouted out "I WANT THE ELGIN MARBLES BACK FROM THE BRITISH! OH AND THE TEMPLES THE GERMANS STOLE!"

He also wants the Mask of Agamemnon. Said it'd be a pretty cool addition to our library.

21) Historical game?

I also answered this question, and in that ask, I answered Age Of Empires II, which remains the best strategy/building game in my opinion.

But I did a little digging to try and jog my memory a little bit, and I cannot believe I didn't even think about Assassin's Creed II. It takes place during the Renaissance for fuck's sake. Now, I never actually played this game, because I prefer to watch other people play (I like the stories, and don't want to deal with how much I suck at video games). I've read up on the story of the game and have watched a few scenes of game play and oh my God, it's a great game!

ASK ME THE HISTORY QUESTIONS!

Questions already answered: 4, 5, 9, 10, 13 (but I don't mind giving more random facts :D), 16, 17, 21, 27, 29.

#belle babbles #history asks #I have been having way to much fun with these #it's been so nice to get reacquainted with my love of history #ask me the things

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volot · 2 years

Text

was going over a conversation i had where i touched upon some of the intricacies of volo’s relationship with violence, and while this post exists, i feel like it’s still worth jotting these down and sharing them here.

so in this post, i brought some of his complicated, messy feelings about violence to light; to summarize, i’d basically detailed how he isn’t inherently violent as a person and dislikes it when it is ‘senseless’ or ‘unjust’, but he has no qualms with it when he views it as righteous / just from his own perspective. and i still stand by that wholeheartedly. i’d mentioned there is a threshold for when he believes a situation calls for it, which i’ll get to later.

this is, sneakily enough, a callback i’d made to giratina. giratina is referred to as a raging being, both in the eng and jpn scripts, which i also associate with volo, who is angry with the world and his situation. but what it is also referred to in the guidebook as is having a ‘gentle temperament.’ from what i’ve been told and read, this means that giratina won’t strike unless it feels threatened / is provoked enough to strike first. it isn’t naturally inclined to it without reason: it has no objections towards doing so, but it is not recklessly destructive just because it can be. there is purpose towards its violence.

...which is what i think is the case for volo, too. he says outright that he’s “not above using force” -- and that’s true! he isn’t at all. he’s not above it, he’s not going to hesitate when he deems it the utmost necessity, there is no problem in sinking to that level. because his ambition, and because of the dehumanization of others - particularly those who stand in his way or have served in some way to earn his ire - doesn’t seem it a problem, only a means to the end; ruthlessness manifests in the want and the will to do anything to reach his goals.

but that also doesn’t mean he’s going to brute force his way through everything. he’s not going to resort to it just because. like i said above and in that post, he isn’t violent without a reason: whether it’s an actual one, or some delusional one he’s made up in his head from how he perceives the situation at hand, because they are a threat to him, because it is his divine justice to do so, because you have wronged him in some way, whatever reason he’s applied to it.

to put it plainly, it’s just not his go-to. it’s not his preferred method of dealing with things. volo is a very methodical and calculated character -- in this post ( tw: mentions of stalking ), i talked about how every time he shows up, he always has an alibi, there is always reason to doubt the idea that he’s purposefully following you around, he does a lot of things to make you toss away all suspicions you might have about his character, including coming to your aid in your most desperate hour. he prefers to manipulate slowly over time to get what he wants -- sure, he can be a little pushy sometimes, but not in a way that is too much: he makes it come off as harmless, giddy and excited badgering, spouting please and almost begging you to indulge him; like he’s trying to wear you down, being endearing almost, gives you reason to cast aside your hesitance. he knows brutality and force won’t get him anywhere unless it is the only option that will viably work, and in that case, he isn’t above going to those means. but people work with you so much better if you are amiable, humble, friendly, charming, etc which is what he presents himself to be.

there were many instances during the story where he had the protagonist completely isolated and in his trust. if he hated them so, if he believed them an obstruction to his plan, then couldn’t he just gotten rid of them earlier on? saved himself the trouble? well... yes and no. yes, he could have -- but no, he wasn’t going to, because he knew they had use to him. he talks about how he’d hate to lose you, how being buddy-buddy with you is a good investment for him in the long-run: and he states that very forthright too, all while sweetening up the words to make them seem completely harmless. he means it.

so it’s only at the temple, at the end of it all, the moment where he believes he is about to meet arceus and everything is falling to place and you’ve run your course of use that he finally, finally resorts to it: and even then, he was still using the threat and idea of force to manipulate in the beginning, rather than immediately jumping to it when he could have. this is again another avenue of his calculation: he’s saying these things to goad you on ( he knows this must be hurting you, freaking you out - you thought you guys were friends, he’s using this shock as an advantage point ), because he doesn’t want you to just give him the plates - the battle atop mt. coronet is purposeful, it serves as a bid to arceus, he’s showing arceus that he’s the chosen, that it’s him, and he’ll beat you and prove he is righteous and the chosen one. he’ll savor the absolute thrill of knowing he could beat you down, you who stole his dream from him and quelled the power of the nobles, as an ultimate show of strength, willpower, and devotion. the ultimate testament that he was right.

so of course when you’ve wiped out his team, when he believes you have arceus’s blessing, he jumps right to it; he doesn’t demand a round 2, he outright tells giratina to strike you down and not your pokemon, and i’m sure the only reason why it became a battle outside of you know, game mechanics and the protagonist having to win in a video game is because you still had pokemon alive to defend and ward off giratina’s attack.

tl;dr: if he’s ever violent towards a muse on this blog... there is definitely a reason for why he’s resorting to that in the first place.

#hc.#study.#ooc.#does this post make sense... idk it made a lot more sense in my head but translating it on paper is ???#then again i've talked about how his thought processes are... meant to be confusing to read / interpret because they legitimately. are. like #some people just have wildly and weirdly working ways of dealing with things and thinking about things #it doesn't make sense to anyone rational because it's not Supposed to. he's not supposed to #love this blog's vibe where i swing between 'aw he's being so funny and charming :] i gotta talk about how much he fucking Sucks' and 'oh #he's Rancid and deplorable he needs to flash the charm and tragic backstory to make it Worse'#violence cw

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dreamteamspace · 4 years

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So this stream I got a bit confused with what was going on with the whole spiel with schlatt and dream, and I dont actually think theres a traitor. However if there was one why not niki ya know? I mean, he kept saying how it would be way more unexpected than eret in the independance war, and literally everyone so far has been thought of as a potential traitor to pogtopia,, except well,, why not niki? She also had this letter to her "dear friend" that sounded like a new turn for her character and idk man why not?

Alright I’m a very texting type of person and you’ve got my started on my hyperfixation here we go-

My thoughts on the whole situation and why I think Fundy is the traitor:

I think from Dream’s perspective: Everything makes sense. I’m HIGHLY certain that Schlatt’s deal, which Dream said is “Something Wilbur and Tommy would never give him”, was that L’Manburg will either cease to exist (become part of the Dream SMP, and we know neither Wilbur not Tommy would ever do that), or that Dream would essentially become leader of it.

That’s why, in this flip situation, if he wins, he wins all of it. This also makes sense, as Dream is 100% alright with Wilbur just blowing it up, too: Because essentially he achieves the very same thing: L’Maburg/Manburg is no more.

Dream is absolutely right that he was never on their side or really on anybody’s side. Dream is his own side. It’s his server. He IS the Dream SMP, in that sense, just like Tommy is the spearhead of the rebellion right now.

I’m also fairly certain Dream will pull a lot more people than they think into this, and I think they ALSO know, in a meta-way, that they won’t be fighting only Schlatt and Dream and one traitor. He’s just letting them wallow in their security, although I have to say he LOVES dipping in his dramatic implications about what he’s doing or will do. In this case, he might’ve managed to keep quiet to let them think they’re safe.

So for Dream: Either they win, and L’Manburg is his/no more, or Wilbur sees they start losing, and L’Manburg is also no more. Honestly? He just has to make Wilbur panic hard enough to hit that button... and then he wins. It would be bad if he loses, though, so I do think he’ll pull together for this. He’s very competitive.

(Lot more juicy theory as to who the traitor is under the cut)

I predict that a good portion of BadboyHalo, Georgenotfound, Sapnap, Punz, potentially also people like Thunder or Alyssa?, are going to join Dream’s side. Sam seems close to the rebellion, but he’s also friends with George and Sapnap, but I just can’t see those two seriously fighting against Dream. If the stakes really are high, they’ll flip over to him, although I also can’t see them convincing Sam.

Most likely, George and Sapnap are just going to stay out of it entirely, and let Sam fight on the side of the rebellion. Maybe the current pet war might change that, though, say if Sapnap develops a new hatred against Tommy or even Sam? (I dont know what the pet war’s at atm but didn’t Sapnap and Sam fight over pets?), he would join in on Dream’s side. George? I have no idea. Most likely he just won’t be there. He doesn’t want to go against Sam (Who provides him with like. Everything), but he also doesn’t wanna fight Dream. IF he fights, though, I’m tempted to say he’d be on Dream’s side, but I’m honestly not up to date enough on his streams to say for certain.

As for the traitor: I actually haven’t seen Niki’s letter (to my great regret, I saw the news float around though), since I’m very focused on watching Tommy and Wilbur’s POVs. Honestly, if it’s Niki? That would be MASSIVELY surprising, and the biggest brain move I’ve ever seen. It’s possible, but I honestly don’t think it’s likely.

They’ve kept their characters fairly consistent, and while this IS kindof meta to say, I don’t think (with how things are atm), that Niki would betray L’Manburg, UNLESS she’s doing a double-agent thing and plans on tricking Dream in the end. That I could potentially see happening.

But knowing that she changed the anthem from Wilbur’s posessive “My L’Manburg” to just “L’Manburg”, that she’s been loyal even when they kinda half left her alone with Schlatt to tax her, and even during the pet wars she never strikes blood, but rather takes hostages and wants a sincere apology... I don’t see it right now. Then again, I don’t watch Niki’s streams on the SMP, so I could be wrong, as I’m not quite familiar with the intricacies of her character on the SMP besides the surface level.

On on hand... I also doubt whether there is a traitor at all, and Dream is just hoping to drive them apart and make sure they don’t get things done as efficiently as they could, because they’re busy pointing fingers at eachother, suspecting eachother, potentially even throwing somebody out once the tension between them snaps.

He needs to win this fight. If he does, he gets EVERYTHING. What they think of him after that point doesn’t matter, so the lie doesn’t matter. They can laugh at him afterwards, but he’ll still have won. I don’t know how many actually highly important details Dream would drop into conversation like that.

Consider, he does have a traitor. Why would he tell them he has one there? Why tell them that they’ll never guess? It just sows chaos in their group, and that’s what he wants. If he DID have one, he might just not say anything.

On the other hand: He might just be dramatic like that honestly. We all know they’re meta-fighting for the next spot in a sad-ist animatic, so Dream could very well be taking a more active role to insert himself into the story and cause some drama. Even if he DOES have a traitor on the inside, saying it still sows chaos. It’s a little risky, but if it really is something they won’t guess, then the chance that they’ll suspect the wrong person might be high enough, and make it worth it.

If he DOES actually have a traitor, my top sus are honestly Fundy, Tubbo, and maybe Ponk. I’m very sure it’s NOT Wilbur, Tommy, Sam, or Quackity.

Ponk doesn’t seem like the type of person to be reliable enough. He’s just kinda in it for the ride, and he’s too quiet to set a focus on. I don’t think Dream even considered him on the side of the rebellion for certain until today. It is, however, still possible. Tommy seems to trust him, and he’s not in deep enough for them to intently interrogate him on his loyalty, cause they know he’s more laid back when it comes to that. He feels only half in the rp to begin with, just wanting to fuck around with everyone. And then, BOOM, he’s actually been playing a massive role this whole time. It’s a little bit of a safe target, too, albeit a little underwhelming.

Tubbo... listen. We all love Tubbo. Tommy loves Tubbo, and we know Tubbo cares greatly for Tommy. Tubbo also seems(?) to care for L’Manburg. But I just....

It’s Tubbo, man. I have no idea. He seemed SO close to ACTUALLY flipping over to Schlatt before the festival. Everyone keeps pushing him around like this innocent tiny kid when he has the biggest third eye out of everyone and is the only one actually doing any work.

Tubbo has stated before that his official motivation is that he just wants peace for everyone. He just doesn’t want to fight and wants to do fun stuff. So of course he sounds horrified at the prospect of having to hunt down Tommy after Tommy was exiled, but happily went along with the festival. He was excited to do his speech. Schlatt actually placed responsability on them for once. He truly did seem happy about that.

It doesn’t matter as much to Tubbo who’s who. What matters is that the fighting preferrably stops, and they all just have a good time. Dream gave the line “I’m very convincing”, so I think he did actually have to convince the traitor, if there is one, to join his side. It wasn’t automatic.

Technically speaking, if L’Manburg is no more, and they’re all part of the Dream SMP again, doesn’t the fighting stop? If there’s no nation to fight over, then there’s no reason to fight. If L’Manburg is no more, then Schlatt has 0 power, and if Dream takes over, he could’ve promised to un-exile Tommy and Wilbur. And then they’re all part of the Dream SMP! No more fighting! Everyone’s on the same side!

Tubbo seems to care less for nations or sides, and much more for people, and for the people around them to be happy. His switch to enthusiasm at Schlatt’s festival came quickly, because many of the people he cared about still partook in it, and he never did hurt Tommy, because he does care about him.

But Tubbo DID say the line “may the festival begin” after his speech, and they knew what that would start. So why? In a way, I think Tubbo waged his options. Who does he care about more? Tommy, to his knowledge, is on Wilbur’s side. He might’ve decided in a moment of uncertainty that Wilbur and Tommy’s opinions of him are more important to them than the opinions of the other people there. Mostly Tommy, because we know those two would die for eachother. They chose Tommy over everyone else at that festival, potentially even over their own motivations, over their own gut.

Fundy, in fact, has MANY reasons to be the traitor, but isn’t quite obvious in that sense. They thought he was a traitor, actually, but once he showed them his diary, he essentially convinced all of them very certainly that he’s not the traitor, and they believed him. Dream joined the call later, so it’s possible he heard that part or Fundy told him about it (They’ve all been known to listen in on convos sometimes to know whats going in. They have to in order to build a good story line.)

Fundy has all the reasons. Reason number one, to me, is Fundywastaken. It’s canon in the Dream SMP lore, they just surprisingly haven’t done anything with it. During the independance war, that wasn’t a thing yet, and since they ARE a thing in canon now... they’ve never actually fought eachother. In fact, as things are now? We’re EXPECTING to see Dream fight his canon fiancé. Fundy officially joined the fight when Tommy asked him, confirming that they can count on him and that he will fight. We know for certain that Dream will fight.

If Fundy isn’t the traitor and doesn’t become one, then Dream and Fundy are inevitably meeting in battle on the 16th.

Consider his storyline: We’ve all been highly expecting Fundy to either punch Wilbur in the face or at LEAST be dissapointed in him or SOMETHING. He hasn’t, as far as I’m aware. He’s just standing there near him, very very quietly, giving a firm but quiet “yes” when Tommy asked him if they could count on him.

Fundy hasn’t expressed much to Wilbur at all, despite heving been left alone with Schlatt by him, despite how much he deserves to be angry at him for being patronized and not trusted with anything.

And, y’know... He’s officially Dream’s fiancé. The others don’t seem to know yet, and I don’t know how many people do know or not. It’s possible they just don’t know, and of course Dream wouldn’t tell them anything, not even tell anyone, this close before a fight. Dream might not even tell his close allies out of fear that the information could spread or that they could turn on him.

So honestly... Fundy seems the most likely for me to be the traitor, especially because there’s been plenty of foreshadowing for it, there’s a good setup, he has good reasons, and it wouldn’t seem like a cheap plottwist, but rather a gradual change.

Not to mention that meta-wise, Fundy has been actively involved in the rp and been dropping some pretty good lines himself. This isn’t something that Dream would have some non-rping person do.

I’m also kindof sure it’s not Technoblade, because Dream laughed it off and half-indicated that it is (Tommy: “I bet it’s Technoblade” Dream, cracking up: “I didn’t say that, you said that”), because he profits from doing so. He profits from them thinking Technoblade is the traitor. And also I really, really don’t think Techno would team up with Dream in this rp. Then again, Dream recently proclaimed to be on the side of chaos.... so who truly knows? I’ll definitly be surprised if it’s Techno, but I suppose it is a possibility. I just don’t think Techno can be convinced to much of anything, unless of course all it took was saying “Hey it’s Schlatt and Me against like 6 people so if we want an actual fight for once-” “Finally some bloodshed and war. I’m in”. I mean, I doubt it, but I’m leaving the possibility open.

TLDR: Dream wins if he wins the fight OR if Wilbur blows everything up. The traitor is likely either Fundy, Ponk or Tubbo, and I think there will be more people fighting on Dream’s side than just Schlatt and one traitor.

#mcyt #dream smp #mcytblr #dreamwastaken #itsfundy #fundywastaken #fwt #tubbo #nihachu #wilbur soot #dreamteamspace speaks

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letterboxd · 3 years

Photo

Third Language.

With her debut film Farewell Amor out now following a successful journey on the festival circuit, Tanzanian-American writer and director Ekwa Msangi tells Selome Hailu about the third language of music, growing up on knockoffs of the Rambo franchise, and her favorite African filmmakers.

There’s a subtle musicality central to the way Ekwa Msangi carries herself. She finds melodies in her words: “You hum the ‘m’,” she says when asked how to pronounce her last name. “Mmm-sangi.” And perhaps to a more subconscious degree, she speaks with rhythm, too: “I do think, and I know, and I can see…” she trails off, ruminating on how much hope she feels for the future of Black filmmaking. Naturally, this musical quality meanders into her work.

Farewell Amor is a quiet film, except for when it isn’t. Three Angolan immigrants revolve around each other in an awkward orbit, each trying to make sense of their dynamic now that they’ve left their home behind. Kept apart for seventeen years by the bureaucratic intricacies of war and paperwork, Walter (Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine) is finally joined by his wife Esther (Zainab Jah) and daughter Sylvia (Jayme Lawson—soon to be seen as Bella Reál in The Batman) in New York City. But they don’t know each other anymore and spend much of their time in silence, until music and dance burst forward as a chance at common ground.

Msangi’s screenplay never dwells on the technicalities of the family’s struggle against the American immigration system. Instead, it plunges into softer, more personal after-effects of dreams deferred. Walter’s walls bear a faded calendar with Barack Obama’s face on it, even though his empty apartment complicates the “hope” the president promised people like him. When his family arrives at long last, Esther wears a silver cross pendant, having made sense of these years as a married-yet-single mother by drawing closer—almost too close—to religion. Sylvia barely speaks at all, caught between a faith that isn’t hers and a home that isn’t either.

Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine and Nana Mensah in ‘Farewell Amor’. / Photo courtesy IFC Films

The film’s triptych structure emerged after Msangi spent months grappling with how to create a feature-length screenplay out of her original short film. “Having just come off of the short, I was focusing on Walter’s story. But [I] didn’t think that was the most original story I could tell,” she says. “And then, out of indecision between whether I should make it Walter’s or Sylvia’s story, I decided to just do both. Initially it was two perspectives that I was looking at. But I realized that Esther’s story was really the linchpin for both of their stories, and it wouldn’t make sense not to have hers.”

Giving Walter, Esther and Sylvia their own chapters makes Farewell Amor a stronger film than if it had followed a singular, traditional protagonist. Extreme conservatism in one chapter is revealed as a desire to avoid pain in another; one character’s cramped living room is another’s space to dance freely. Writing on Letterboxd, Tabby points out how the three-part narrative structure grants meaningful subjectivity to characters who deserve it: “It’s so easy for Westernized perspectives to steamroll over films that deal in cultural disparities and thematics, but Farewell Amor takes important steps in showing all sides of the story,” she writes. “It was refreshing to see [the characters] each given the space to exist.”

This layering of voices happens in the camerawork, too. Each section of the narrative is marked with a visual language of its own, complete with specific color palettes and cinematographic techniques. Msangi thinks fondly about the work she put in with cinematographer Bruce Francis Cole to make the chapters distinct. “For Walter’s, it’s sort of a slow cinema, where there’s a lot of still framing. It’s almost like he’s stuck, you know? Stuck in the frame between two surfaces, two hard surfaces, a window frame, a door frame. And in Sylvia’s, we wanted to have it reflect her livelihood, her restlessness. All handheld cameras, all movement. And then for Esther, she’s very observant. She’s been taking everything in, almost in an investigative style, but also a little bit romantic. She’s romanticized this setup, so a lot of close shots, a lot of soft lighting.”

Jayme Lawson as Sylvia in ‘Farewell Amor’. / Photo courtesy IFC Films

Music gives Farewell Amor a cohesion across the different storylines. “Music is, for these characters in particular, and for me, kind of a third language,” Msangi says. “It gives you a glimpse under the covers, what’s under the sheets.” The soundtrack underscores strong performances from Mwine, Jah and Lawson, lending depth to their quietude and vibrance to their movement. Msangi also notes how sound became a cornerstone of her collaboration with the actors: “As I was writing from different perspectives, in order to help me get into each character’s skin, I would listen to the music that they would be interested in.” She later shared these playlists with the actors, using the songs to communicate what words couldn’t.

Msangi has a good laugh as she tries to think about the major films that inspired her to become a filmmaker. “You know, I don’t have that. Well, I do have that, but not for the reasons that most of my film peers have,” she says. Growing up in East Africa in the ’80s and ’90s, little to none of the programming on television was local. What did kids watch instead? “We watched Rambo for probably ten years straight, and then Rambo knockoffs for another ten years after that. I decided to become a filmmaker because of horrible Rambo knockoff films.”

“I grew up surrounded by such colorful and delightful and interesting and funny people,” Msangi says. “And none of that was reflected anywhere in the media.” As she grew older, she sought out African films she couldn’t access in her youth. Now, they’re some of her highest recommendations. Ousmane Sembène is the first African director whose filmography she ever got the chance to dive into. Sembène’s 50-year career has garnered him the affectionate title of ‘Father of African film’ among many critics and scholars, who laud him for his dramas, including Black Girl and Camp de Thiaroye. Msangi, however, finds herself taken with his unique sense of humor. She has also been inspired by Safi Faye, another Senegalese director, who became the first sub-Saharan African woman to attain commercial distribution in 1975—and whose film Mossane portrays sexual intimacy with an openness Msangi hadn’t seen elsewhere.

Writer-director Ekwa Msangi. / Photo courtesy IFC Films

In Farewell Amor, Sylvia’s chapter reads like a compacted coming-of-age film. Msangi points to South African director Darrell James Roodt’s Sarafina! as an influence in that regard. “It was showing for two weeks in Nairobi, and I lined up for four hours to watch,” she says about the film, a drama about youth involvement in the 1976 Soweto uprising. “Even though it’s from a different part of the continent, I’d never seen young African teenagers on a screen before.” More recently, she has loved 2011 TIFF breakout and Oscar contender Death for Sale by Moroccan director Faouzi Bensaïdi, and Radha Blank’s The Forty-Year-Old Version is her favorite film of 2020. She’s hopeful about the future of Black American cinema: Ava DuVernay and Ryan Coogler are two of her favorite working directors.

Msangi’s selections are wide in range, but there’s still one thing holding them together: themes of vulnerability, community and celebration of identity, across different decades and genres. In fact, her approach to watching movies isn’t far off from the way she made her own—Farewell Amor maps concurrent experiences of disparate people, and Msangi’s tastes seem driven by the same balance of vastness and specificity.

“I’m a filmmaker who really abhors working on the same kind of story over and over again, the same genre, the same kinds of characters,” she says. “So I’m not going to make my career just telling stories about immigrants or about, you know, their wretched troubles,” she laughs. “I don’t want to do that.”

Msangi’s next project will be an African-American period piece; beyond that, she hopes to make films in several locations: the Caribbean, Europe and all over the African continent. “I really would like to just have a lot of fun with my career. You know? Because it’s a fun and magical industry that we work in! The work that we do in creating these stories and hopes and dreams—we create magic, so it should be fun.”

Related content

Adam Davie’s Black Life on Film list

Shachar’s 20 Films by Black Directors 2021 Challenge

Screenpaige’s list of Black Women in Film

Follow Selome on Letterboxd

‘Farewell Amor’ is out now in select theaters and on demand through IFC.

#ekwa msangi #jayme lawson #farewell amor #african cinema #black filmmaker #black director #directed by women #52 films by women #female director #black woman director #american film #drama #romance #dance film #angolan cinema #angola #letterboxd

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kissjane · 3 years

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So, yeah, uh, I am alive! I missed a bunch of Wednesdays and Fridays... But something is coming, and I am really excited about it! It won’t be too long now...

Also, for all the missed snippets I owe you I will give you something long-ish from something called “Literature AU” I started long ago and may not ever finish. This whole conversation (and almost the whole AU, really) was inspired by the excellent a measure of stars by @lepetitepeach (in the process of being translated into Portuguese by @awake-dreamer18). This snippet consists almost exclusively of test messages, but I am not nifty enough to make it look nice, so you’ll have to deal with it as is.

~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~ ~~~~~

Lucas Why are all these literary characters so absolutely drab?

Eliott could not let Lucas make such blatantly false statements unchallenged.

Eliott Are you insane? They are anything but! Most of them are written so delicately, full of details and intricacies and complexities, with conflicting emotions and ideals and interests, battling internal and external demons – just like real people! Remember how Antigone had to weigh up the love for her sister, her uncle, her fiancé with the love for her brother? How can you decide which love is bigger, Lucas? That’s not drab!

Lucas Uh. Okay, sorry. You are right. Wow, you’re really passionate about this, aren’t you? 😉 I’ll agree they are not drab. Just so… unrelatable?

Eliott Some, maybe. But most of them are human just like all of us. Surely you can relate to some of them? What are you reading now?

Lucas “Reading” is maybe too big a word. But I am leafing through the summary of Pride and Prejudice. Ugh. Stupid Elisabeth. And what’s the deal about Mr Darcy anyway? Everybody loves him because he’s rich? Very superficial, Eliott.

Eliott … Maybe read the actual book, Lucas. Elisabeth doesn’t love Mr. Darcy because he’s rich, but because he is honourable, and caring, and kind, and not trying to control her.

Lucas Okay. But still. I don’t see the appeal myself. They should really have a gay guy look into this.

Eliott Huh?

Lucas A gay guy, Eliott. Straighties don’t understand the appeal of any man, and women are obviously not right in the head to fawn over Mr. Darcy like that. So we need a gay’s perspective.

Eliott Well, I’m not straight, do I count?

Lucas Oh. Sorry. You’re not?

Eliott No. Is that a problem?

Lucas In case it wasn’t clear from my previous texts, I’m gay. So not a problem. I just thought Imane said something about a girlfriend.

Eliott You and Imane talked about me?

Lucas No! Uhm, no. Just came up, I guess. But, no girlfriend then?

Eliott An ex-girlfriend. I’m pan.

Lucas Oh. Okay. Well. Then you see the need for a non-straight perspective.

Eliott I suppose you might be right. Although there are some gay writers featured in the course. Oscar Wilde, for example.

Lucas Did he write about any gay characters?

Eliott Not in so many words. Maybe you have a point.

Lucas Eliott, my dear friend, you should have realized by now I usually have. So, gay Pride and prejudice? You in? I mean… We should write it. I’m sure we’d make it so much better.

Eliott You haven’t even read the book, Lucas. I don’t think you’re qualified to judge whether our hypothetical gay version would be any better.

Lucas Is that your way of saying you don’t want to work on it with me? Come on, Eliott! I’m hurt. I already have the proud and prejudiced down! All you’d have to do is actually write the book. You could use my dating life as inspiration. It’s worse than Elizabeth Bennet’s. Gay P&P might be a horror story.

#i write things #literature AU #making up for all the missed #Writer's Choice Wednesday #Fan Choice Friday

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hmgfanfic · 3 years

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Talk about all the Fillory worldbuilding in LQoF, please :)

THIS IS INEXCUSABLY LATE. I’m so sorry!

And I wish I could say it was just my scatterbrainedness, which is definitely a constant factor, but it was also that when you sent this, I was deeeeeeeep into writing the final few chapters of Little Quirks of Fate and I was kind of... in my head about it. It took a lot longer to finish than I had planned (a cardinal sin to my particular combo of severe ADHD and Type-A personality) and I was spending excessive amounts of time making sure I figured out a satisfying ending by my own exacting standards, so I just didn’t have the headspace to think through my early process yet. Very sorry about that :( But now that I’m finally done, I’m excited to look back! So if you’ll indulge me a very late answer, I’d be tickled. 💗

Long ramblings and major fic spoilers under the cut.

The truth is a lot the world building came down to character stuff foremost, followed closely by my preferences as a writer. I adapted the world to the story I wanted to tell, while using the little bits of information we’re given in canon as a baseline, rather than building the story around the world. And that was a lot more fulfilling for me, since I only really love worldbuilding through the lens of character, rather than as an exercise unto itself (though it’s super fun once you get rolling.)

To explain what I mean by that, you need to know that Little Quirks of Fate was originally going to be a oneshot. My plan was about 25-30k (lol) of a pure S2 retelling, only with Quentin in the role of Fen. It was also going to take a much more traditional enemies-to-lovers’ path—with Quentin as an active member of the FU Fighters—and the whole thing was going to be in his POV. Also, they weren’t even going to kiss until after the bank heist (which, yes, was going to be a thing here), but that got abandoned the fastest in favor of trying my hand at smut. But two things made me realize I needed to significantly shift course:

1) I was struggling to make Quentin actually feel like Quentin. I wrote this very atmospheric early scene at the FU Fighters encampment, with lots of description of the bonfires and the way their shirts dyed in Fillorian red looked like blood (you get it.) It took place in the black of night, shrouded in secrecy, and when Bayler questioned Quentin about his new husband, Quentin said something like, “He’s a drunk idiot, we have the advantage.” It was all very lush and dramatic, but it really, really, really didn’t feel like Q in any recognizable way to me. Now, I’m not someone who thinks Q needs to be a precious sweetheart all the time, but what I was writing didn’t have his idiosyncrasies or a motivation that felt true to who I feel he is.

2) The draft was DEFINITELY missing Eliot’s story and his perspective. I certainly don’t think Eliot’s POV is always necessary (sometimes not having his direct thoughts heightens tension in romance especially), but it felt really necessary here, to fill in the gaps of what Quentin was assuming and also—more importantly—because the events were just as impactful on him, but in a very different way. So I knew I was missing half the narrative, but that meant I would need to deal more explicitly with the Beast (i.e., Mike, the most devastating storyline to me, personally) and I really, really didn’t want to do that.

My first step in making a more recognizable Quentin was figuring out a way he could more or less use the same syntax that he does on the show. Voice is the first way I connect with a character, so while many writers in this fandom thrive at modifying speech patterns and keeping the heart of a character alive, keeping close to Quentin’s canon speech was an easy fix for me in a story I was excited to get rolling. Sort of like the old adage of uplifting your strengths before putting outsize energy into things you struggle with.

The easiest way I could think to give him the same syntax was to figure out a way Quentin spent some significant time on Earth during his formative years. And once I rewatched 2x06 and was reminded that Ess went to Phillips Exeter Academy for high school, I lost my damn mind. I started sketching out ways that Quentin could get there too and that’s how I built out the idea of Umber brokering a marriage deal with the actual landmass of Coldwater Cove, which included an education opportunity for the boys (in a nod to Fillory’s patriarchal nature), and also the reason why Umber did that, which was to take advantage of his brother’s orgy mistake with the first Children of Earth to usher in a more productive and orderly Fillory. So that created a whole new set of rules and essentially a whole new world for me to play with... all for the sake of Quentin getting to say “fuck.” It was that important to me. :p

And as I worked through all that, I realized I also wanted to give Q magic, since Quentin’s relationship with magic is something I’m interested in. But I had read on ye olde Tumblr that the reason Illario uses a wand in 2x06 is a nod to the books, where Fillorians specifically aren’t Magicians and that’s the rationale for the Children of Earth royalty. And while I generally see the books as interesting supplemental material with zero bearing on the television show canon, I still said to myself, “Self, wouldn’t it be kind of funny if Quentin was the only native born Fillorian who had magic and so the FU Fighters believe he’s the chosen true High King, but instead of it being because he’s ~special~, it’s because Umber made a clerical error? Lol! Hilarious!”

So while all my questions for how to explain all THAT spun out into more and more detail, at the same time...

I caved to the idea that this story was going to be a No Beast AU, just like my last two stories, mostly because I really couldn’t bring myself to deal with the Mike of it all, even tangentially. I could have just changed that single element, but I’m not a half-measure gal! But I still wanted to stick with the vague background theme of Fillory = adulthood from a questing perspective and I wanted Julia leading the charge this time, but without the sexual assault that occurs in canon. So obviously, the answer was avenging all of the murdered and cannibalized “grown-ups,” i.e., master Magicians, by seeking out help from the gods in a balanced Fillory free from the devastation of the Beast. Duh! ;)

So then, like anyone would do, I rewatched every episode up to 4x11 that makes a mention of Fillory and took about twenty pages of notes on the canon worldbuilding, along with an analysis of how much a particular piece of information would be impacted or not by balance in the realm. For instance, the existence of geraniums (per The Fillorian Candidate and Tick’s misunderstanding of “power plants”) and the lack of diamonds as a precious stone (per the River Watcher not knowing the value of Margo’s earrings in Knight of Crowns) struck me as static facts unaffected by Ember’s reign of chaos. But I shifted the overall feel of Fillory to one that’s more functional and a lot more bureaucratic, leaning on things like the existence of socialized health/vision/dental insurance (the idea of which is canonical, per a petition from the beavers requesting dental coverage from acting High King Josh in Ramifications), strict taxation plans, and an overall sense of thriving Ceremony to show Umber’s influence.

Basically, I wanted Eliot to inherit a much, much easier Fillory to rule—especially with the highly educated Quentin as a built-in and passionate advisor—mostly so it wouldn’t completely strain credulity when a lot of his energy goes toward his love life rather than the intricacies of ruling (though Margo would say he still favored his personal life more than he should have, and she wasn’t... wrong. He wants to be a husband more than a king!) But I specifically made it so most of the chaotic elements were played as whimsical (sorry) quirky shit or smaller hints of greater injustice (see: Ember getting rid of STDs, but still letting magic-poor citizens die of sepsis because that’s too boring to deal with), all while a cataclysmic danger lurked under the surface.

After that, I just filled in details as they worked with character stuff and plot stuff, and I tried to make sure they didn’t contradict each other in a way that couldn’t be chalked up to “chaos.” I basically lived with the Fillory map open all the time and also took screenshots of Benedict’s map of Loria, which gave me alternate ideas for the overall feel of the landmass rather than just the kingdom. And pretty much that’s the basic process I used to create the world! It was extremely fun, and I learned a lot, though I’m *definitely* focusing on some pure relationship kind of stuff for a while because... oof, sometimes it was a lot.

Annnnnnnd if you’re still with me, here’s some stray observations, for funsies:

I wanted Quentin and Eliot’s starting points to be more mature than in the show. Quentin when we’re introduced to him as an adult in LQoF is a lot more jaded and cautious than S1 Q, which is because in this world, his S1 mentality happened while he was on Earth and came to a head during the throes of his fucked up relationship with Bayler. Similarly, Eliot had already gone through a lot of shit too, and was much more self-actualized by the time he agreed to be High King here than in the show. It was still out of desperation for purpose, but not coming out of a direct trauma spiral. I think if they had been younger, both in age and mentality, the story wouldn’t have worked because they would’ve blown it up day two. They’re both still disasters, as we like to say, which is why the... everything happens, but they’re not disasters in the exact same way as in early canon. I thought of them as closer to their S3 selves, pre-Mosaic.

While I mostly kept Quentin’s syntax the same as on the show, I did change it up in some ways to reflect his Fillorian upbringing. The most obvious was replacing “goddamn” with “godsdamned” and “Jesus” with “Hades,” but I also made him slow on the Earth idiomatic uptake and slightly more likely to use passive voice and less likely to use contractions, especially early on and especially when speaking with Fen. He also said slightly out of date things even for someone who last remembered 1999, since Earth was still overwhelming despite his immersion. E.g.: In the epilogue, he asks Eliot if he can spend some time “Googling the World Wide Web” instead of watching Gossip Girl together, even though by 1999 most people were saying “on-line” or “the internet” by a pretty wide margin. But in my mind, the first term he learned was World Wide Web and he stuck to it like glue.

I originally had a full-blown coronation scene, where Quentin helped Eliot with the answers to the 90s questions via subtle charades, such as flapping his hands at his sides to give him the answer “Wings” (and Eliot was eventually going to Eliot-Logically use that moment to argue to Quentin that maybe Q really is the true High King since he was the one who actually answered the Knight’s questions, etc.), but I cut it and only showed bits and pieces in flashbacks because it didn’t really matter. They had to treat it seriously because it was An Event in this version of balanced/un-Beasted Fillory, with a full audience bearing witness, but the whole thrust of the external plot was about dismantling that moment and the concept of monarchy in general, so giving it too much weight outside of the Eliot and Julia friendship felt disingenuous to the story I was telling.

This is also why it was important to me that Margo hated the title High King Eliot the Kind, even though I only brought it up textually once or twice. But in my view, she fucking hated it and never came around to it. Which isn’t because she doesn’t think Eliot is kind, it’s that it felt like a simplification of all that he is, and the coronation ceremony in general felt similarly shallow. It wasn’t just the four of them working out their shit on the beach; it was true ceremony after a year of questing toil and a lot lingering uncertainty/resentments (especially regarding Julia), so it was too Big Shiny Happy Bow to her.

Yet on the same theme, my greatest regret was not being able to work in the fact that Margo’s title for Penny (King Penny the Persistent) was supposed to be half-sincere and half-sex joke. She did genuinely admire that he stuck it out even through his initial heartbreak because he gives a shit about his people underneath it all, but—and this is a very important headcanon to me—she admired his dedication to the art of the female orgasm even more.

I was originally also going to include the One Day More sequence with way more details—such as Umber taking the Javert lines, Ember taking the Thenardier lines, Bayler taking the Enjolras lines, and Penny taking the Marius lines, but... uh... writing a musical number is apparently not in my skill set. Also, honestly, the weirdness of the original is its whole charm and so I didn’t want to improve upon perfection. See also, in a more serious way: Eliot bowing to High King Margo on the Muntjac, the events of Plan B, and Quentin & Penny in the Flying Forest. Would not touch it!

My favorite Fillorian detail was either the guy who sent a citizen petition requesting a “smidgen” of Eliot’s earwax for an undisclosed purpose, or the use of the verb “to peg” to describe a Pegasus flock greeting an outsider with honor. They encapsulate the obscene yet pristine feel I always tried to give Fillory.

My favorite subtle(-ish?) ironic moment is Ess, the heir to a hereditary monarchy, taking Quentin to task for not honoring the anarchy patch on his high school backpack. In general, I don’t like everything being neatly resolved, including on an overarching world level. And I very strongly felt they had ZERO business meddling in Loria, so it left some fun-to-me unanswered questions. Will Ess usher in democracy for Loria based on his experiences on Earth? Maybe! Maybe not, since tradition’s a hell of a drug and Loria has its own history and complexities. Who knows?

I misread the town name Sutton as Sultan on the map the first time I referenced Bayler’s hometown (Sultan’s Ridge), but instead of going back to fix it, I just made it a sister town. Whatever!

I do not know how Quentin got a full bookshelf of Earth literature back to Fillory with him. Magic, I guess. (That’s the answer to anything I didn’t totally think through.)

I occasionally get asked whether Quentin and Fen were physically related. The answer is no, though it doesn’t totally matter. But I intended heart-cousins to be more like close family friends. (Though I actually originally had a joke where Eliot still wasn’t sure by the epilogue, but it didn’t land/feel realistic so I cut it.)

The details of the magic frequency poisoning were DEFINITELY what I thought through the least. My main goal was to have something catastrophic happen to Fillory based in part from the historical actions of the Children of Earth and Ember, patently ridiculously but with lasting consequences. Hence, god orgy that took away Fillorian human magic and sent out a slow poisoning of the overall magic “frequency.” It sounds all well and good, but it’s definitely something that would fall apart with even the lightest bit of prodding. It serves it’s purpose though, so I figured the gaps could be filled in or politely ignored. ;)

This question was way too much fun and a helpful retrospective for me! Thank you so much for indulging me, many moons ago. 💗

#little quirks of fate #harri writes #anon asks #ze process #<3 thank you i love you #this one is a long post even for me #dialogue asker if you’re reading this you’re up next I promise!

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codenamesazanka · 4 years

Text

Well I attempted the essay and I got stuck on the first sentence, so have this very draft-y fic I wrote a while ago that somewhat encapsulates my feelings about Villains in a way similar to what the essay ideally would be like:

AU where somehow Spinner got caught by Heroes during Gigantomachia month; don’t ask me how, all I wanted was to write bits of scenes of Toshinori interacting with Spinner and pretending I know things about psychology.

“…no criminal record beyond League of Villains activity. So we brought in a de-radicalization specialist, but seeing how he’s refusing to talk, and with the Commission breathing down our necks, he’s probably going to be transferred to Tartarus the moment the prosecutor’s office gets through to the judge…”

Despite all his years as a Hero catching criminals and handing them over to the justice system, Toshinori never was too familiar with how the process actually worked. The paperwork he had to file was already a nightmare - the thought of learning the intricacies of the courts barely entered his mind. As the counselor beside him talked, he could only nod, nothing to say, attempting to roughly sketch out the path she was describing for the young man on the other side of the glass.

Iguchi Shuuichi had been given the full bind - maximum restraint and containment, every part of him that can and might move strapped down onto his chair; but he seemed to have shut himself away too. He sat with his shoulders hunched as much as they were allowed, face turned down and away from the rest of the world, eyes shut to everything around him. Since Toshinori had first seen him from the observation room about half-and-hour ago, Iguchi hadn't moved at all. It had been three days since his capture. Toshinori wondered if he had been as still as this the whole time.

“—Dr. Nakaya will do another session later this afternoon, but…” The counselor sighed. “It’s a pity. He’s probably the best candidate for the program too.”

“…You called it the “de-radicalization program,” correct?” Toshinori asked, turning to the counselor, who immediately gave him her full attention. “May I ask what exactly that is?”

“Of course, of course! Essentially it’s rehabilitation focused on having the individual reflect on their belief system and rejecting extremism. Allowing them to accept different perspectives and solutions, and understand how their current way of thinking is both harmful to society and themself.”

“That sounds a little too easy for this kind of situation.” Tsukauchi said, looking up from some notes he was taking. “Plus vague. How is that different from any other rehabilitation programs in prisons?”

And Toshinori had to agree with that. He looked back at Iguchi, still unmoving. “You said he was the “best candidate”. That means he’s different as well? From other Villains.”

“That’s what we hoped.” The counselor paused. “Have you read his profile yet?”

[…]

“Build a relationship with him?” Toshinori asked, frowning.

“Another way to put it is ‘treating him as a complex, multifaceted person’,” Dr. Nakaya said with a wry smile. “You see, Mr. Yagi, we think of terrorists - of Villains as single-minded boogeymen that have no history or future. But they’re human too, with a human brain and human emotions, motivations. Our program’s theory is that young people like Iguchi Shuuichi felt something significant lacking in his life, and in trying to fill that hole, they turn to philosophies like that of Stain.

Iguchi Shuuichi fits that model almost exactly. His family told me that he had been a hikikomori. For years. He was aimless, friendless, he ‘had no light’ in his eyes, as his mother said. Then suddenly Stain appeared on the news, and he became obsessed. In just a matter of weeks, he left home to dedicate his life to— to whatever the League is working towards. Interviews with your students said that he was fanatic when talking about Stain. So isn’t that a grand narrative? Having what seems like a noble purpose, having a group of people that would take him into the fold, believing he is doing something important. World-changing. There’s a reason research has shown that many terrorists and extremists got their start as young adults - it’s a time of change and possibilities, and it can be scary not knowing how you’ll spend the rest of your life.”

“So if you were to… become his friend…”

Dr. Nakaya chuckled, looking pleased. “We don’t have to necessarily be his friend, but if we show we are trying to understand him and we want to talk to him, that fulfills the social need - that people acknowledge us, are willing to spend time with us, want to share things with us. That should give us a cognitive opening - get him to lower his guard and defenses, which will make him more willing to listen to us too.”

Toshinori took note of the ‘we’s, but didn’t pursue it.

[…]

The list of Iguchi’s ‘likes’ included titles of video games, movies, and books. At least, Toshinori assumed they were titles; none of the words sounded familiar to him.

“He also apparently likes knives,” Dr. Nayaka said. “But I didn’t include that for obvious reasons. Well, I’m saving that and ‘Stain’ for last if this doesn’t work.”

“I don’t know anything about video games,” Toshinori said. He gave an embarrassed grin. “Though I guess I can ask him to explain them to me…”

“That list is just suggestions. Ask him about his favorite food, about his family. Tell a joke. Use your status as All Might.” She shrugged. “As long as you get him talking.”

[…]

The intercom buzzed. “You can leave now if you want, All Might.”

That felt like admitting defeat. Toshinori stayed in his chair. Nothing he was saying was working, nothing had worked, except…

He took a deep breath. “Shigaraki Tomura…”

And there it was again - Iguchi tensing up, breath quickening.

fulfills the social need - that people acknowledge us, are willing to spend time with us

want to share things with us

Toshinori said, “I knew Shigaraki Tomura—”

The intercom came on again, and this time it screamed. “You know that’s prohibited, All Might! He’s not allow— Ow, what—” The guard’s voice was suddenly replaced by Dr. Nakaya’s. “No, this is good, this is good! Keep going—” Then it was both voices, along with sounds of a scuffle, before it cut completely.

Iguchi looked at Toshinori with a great deal of suspicion and contempt. “I already told you that you’re not going to get anything out of me about him. No matter what you do or say or— or do to me.”

Toshinori paused, then smiled slightly. “You’re very loyal to him. That’s...good.”

There was an instant reaction, Iguchi’s facial expression giving away to what looked like shock and chagrin. He opened his mouth to say something, but then snapped it shut.

From behind Toshinori was the sound of someone pounding on glass and muffled yelling, but he ignored it.

make him more willing to listen to us

In some capacity, Iguchi Shuuichi cared, or at least had an interest in information about his leader. And that was something they had in common.

“I knew his grandmother.” Toshinori said, the words feeling rough in his throat as he forced them out. “Shigaraki’s grandmother. She was like a mother to me.”

It was like collapsing a wall. Toshinori spoke, and Iguchi stared at him, his defenses falling to reveal the vortex of emotions behind it, confusion, horror, anger, too many to distinguish.

“Had things been... different, maybe I would’ve— he’s her grandson, so I would’ve been like an—”

“Why are you telling me this?” Spinner asked. He sounded as uneasy as Toshinori felt. “What does this have to do—”

Toshinori found himself standing up. As if there was something urgent he had to do, something he must head for immediately. His body moved without him thinking—

“I want to help him.” Toshinori said. “I have to, I have to save him. There are— many things I have to do…for him, for Shigaraki Tomura. So please, young Iguchi, if there’s anything you know that can help…”

#nalslastworkingbraincell #nalwrites #fanfic #kinda #AU #Spinner #yagi Toshinori

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daily-dose-of-imagines · 4 years

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I LOVE YOUR YAKUZA AU 🥺🥺 TWAS WAITING FOR AN UPDATE EVERYDAY CAUSE THE WRITING IS IMMACULATE!!! Now all im thinking is Yakuza!Bruno and Yakuza!Koichi with more of an Info Breaker Reader? If that makes sense, kinda like an Izaya from Durarara type beat. If you are flooded with requests feel free to ignore this! Hope y’all are doing well!!

Hello anon~! I’m so glad that you love the AU so much! ;; aoiegn;aoireg ur too sweet omg I try my best bb~! And yes I totally get the idea you’re going for~! I hope these little head canons help you get a better picture~! hehe <3 I definitely did base this type of reader more off of Izaya, but I might tweak it just a bit for a more personalized touch~! I hope you like it anon~!

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ᴀ ᴛᴀꜱᴛᴇ ᴏꜰ ɪɴꜰᴏ | ʙʀᴜɴᴏ ʙᴜᴄᴄɪᴀʀᴀᴛɪ ; ᴋᴏɪᴄʜɪ ʜɪʀᴏꜱᴇ x ɪɴꜰᴏʙʀᴇᴀᴋᴇʀ!ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ | [𝕁𝕁𝔹𝔸] Yakuza!AU | Head Canons

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ʙʀᴜɴᴏ ʙᴜᴄᴄɪᴀʀᴀᴛɪ

Their first meeting is nothing short of a chaotic mess. Bruno, being the one who’s usually level-headed in any situation, is rather disoriented by what he bares witness to when he’s called upon to meet this, information breaker.

It’s a term that he, and many others within the Joestar and Passione organizations have rarely heard in passing. If anything, it’s almost considered as a sort of myth in the crime world, but seeing the person before him grinning at the amount of chaos and she made and the strange yet cocky air she held around her had him rethink the idea.

She’s nothing what he would’ve pictured for someone who enjoyed watching chaos run a muck around her. If anything, he would’ve thought she was a civilian on the street, but clearly seeing the situation before him told him otherwise.

To put it shortly, from Bruno’s perspective there’s fighting. Lots of it, though he isn’t exactly sure what was causing it, but with a quick glimpse and a grimace, the deduction comes to a simple case. Withdrawal....and if he was correct, the info breaker probably persuaded the addicts into fighting for a fix of it.

Turns out he wasn’t wrong, and he oddly enough is seated across from her. She wears a casual smile, but the intent behind her eyes says everything he needs to know, and he’s absolutely reluctant on asking for her information. No matter how useful it was. If there was one thing Bruno didn’t want to do, it was to have unwanted ties affiliated with both Passione and the Joestar family, but as of late it’s been getting more difficult in getting the information he desired, thus leading him to the situation now.

Now make no mistake, Bruno isn’t frightened or backed into a small space; rather he came to the info breaker in a bout of curiosity. The rumors he heard only feeding into his desire thus leading him to where he was.

Least to say, he’s absolutely floored by how she works. The intricacies of it and how utterly skilled she is in slipping from one facade to another was nothing short of commendable that in a weird way, he’s requested to do an exchange for her. A symbiotic relationship if you will. He gets the information he desires, and she is given more access to the estranged Joestar family.

Of course this deal is only set after a meeting with the Joestar siblings, and easy to say, she’s a part of the messenger team within a week. Though this doesn’t mean she’s tied down to the Joestar family, rather she has it to fall back on whenever her own spouting of information back fires on her.

ᴋᴏɪᴄʜɪ ʜɪʀᴏꜱᴇ

Very different from Bruno’s situation. He actually stumbles upon her after finishing one of his own missions. The clean-up team under the Higashikata faction having started on their duties. She’s skimming through her phone when he meets her, and initially thinks nothing of it until she says something that makes him stop where he is.

The information that falls from her lips has him confused, yet intrigued. She ends up giving him a ghost of a smile with a hint of a mischievous glint in her eyes before she slips him a simple, seemingly blank card.

The next, she’s gone and he can’t help but wonder who exactly she was and how she had gotten the information on his next target so quickly. More so, why did she suddenly give him the information. Out of the blue no less.

He meets her again when he’s seated at one of the quaint cafe’s in Morioh. He’s people watching, and studying up on some psychological and sociological patterns in a book he’s gotten from Jotaro when the older male had visited Joseph overseas.

She’s grinning at him when she seats herself. The casual conversation she makes almost has him break the facade he in place and can’t help but chuckle at her skill. The level of persuasion and charisma she held within a seemingly normal conversation told him exactly how she did her job and how effective it could be when put under the right pressure.

He matches her style. Charisma spilling from them both in their own unique ways that their little match ends in a sort of draw. She mentions how he could be a pretty good Info breaker himself, and he can’t help but wave the thought away. Instead he sets up his own bait.

Asking to study and watch her work left her albeit flustered, but she accepted nonetheless-- of course with her own little bait.

The pair end up having a sort of strange, yet strong relationship. Of course, Josuke and the other Joestar siblings are notified of the ordeal and are quite happy to have the connection to one of the very few and rare info breakers within the underground industry.

In all honesty, the pair work fluidly together. When assigned on a mission together--- really when Koichi asks for her to join him on a scouting and observation day-- the pair end up collecting information on the target within a day when it takes at most a week for other skilled assassins.

#jjba x reader #jjba imagines #bruno buccerati #bruno x reader #bruno buccellati x reader #bruno buccellati #koichi hirose #koichi hirose x reader #koichi x reader #yakuza au

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sparrowwritings · 3 years

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Final Fantasy 14 Writing Challenge Day Eleven: Heart of Gold

Day Ten -- Masterpost -- Day Twelve

As devoted to her work as she was, Moenbryda was well acquainted with noticing when others were paying attention to her. Then again, she thought as she gave a sidelong glance through the curtain of her hair at the two who were trying and failing to not be seen, at least they had innocent intentions.

Roger and Lara, the two Warriors of Light, were shoving each other and bickering in whispered tones. Their “hiding place” was just behind one of the bush planters that the Rising Stones had placed around it as more natural dividers. For as young as they were, the two would have to crouch to keep their heads from being spotted. They were too focused on their heated (if quiet) conversation to notice that it wasn’t concealing them at all anymore. From the way they were pointing, clearly it had something to do with her.

She might as well have some fun with them.

Gently easing herself out of her chair, Moenbryda padded over to the “hiding place” of the Warriors of Light. Neither of them sensed her as she got close enough to hear what they were talking about. “--don’t see what the big deal is, you should ask her!” Roger hissed.

“It’s your question, you need to ask.” Lara whispered back just as fiercely.

“Yeah but you ask this stuff way better than I do! And! I’m the one that keeps getting scared by him anyway so I shouldn’t have to ask!”

“All the more reason for you to do it, Roger! You’ve got to show you’re braver than that! Sh-she’ll just think it’s stupid if I ask.”

He stared at her for a few seconds before he responded. “...so you’re whole reason why you won’t talk to her is because you think she’ll think you’re stupid. And that’s why you’ve been getting all blushy around--”

“I don’t! Get that blushy around her!!” Lara whisper-exclaimed, whilst her cheeks grew a darker and darker pink by the second. She seemed to be in the process of hiding her face behind her fingers while she rambled. “Moenbryda’s just! Really amazing and strong and smart and gosh all I did right was fight a few nasty things.”

It was a choice between giving away her position by laughing or giving away her position by commenting on the not-very-secret conversation happening right in front of her. Moenbryda chose the latter, if only to spare the girl’s feelings. “Well aren’t you just the sweetest thing.” Both Warriors of Light let out a very squeaky yelp before simultaneously running their backs into the planter they had been hiding behind. This had been the right call; Lara’s face had only become pinker instead of pale with shame. Moenbryda gave the two of them a wink. “Don’t knock what you’ve done, though. Primal slaying is far more impressive than what I’ve been up to.”

“N--you, uh,” Lara mumbled, her voice getting quieter with every attempt at a word. “R-roger wants to know why…”

Either in response to getting caught or as a reaction to save his best friend further embarrassment, Roger blurted, “Why is Urianger so weird?” Moenbryda blinked. He continued on when it was clear she had to think on an answer. “He talks in riddles and is always so serious and he always scares me cuz I forget he’s in the room half the time so like why is he like that?” His large green eyes stared up at her own silver ones. “The other Scions say you’re the closest to him, so...?”

What a question. “If I’m going to answer this, we’re going to be sitting at a table instead of crouching behind a planter. With some tea, preferably.” Moenbryda reached down and picked up both Warriors of Light by the arm until they were able to stand on their own. Roger had the more defined musculature, but otherwise the two young midlanders were pretty lightweight by her own standards. Lara was stuck in admiration again until the seawolf had sauntered past her quick enough that the girl had to scramble to catch up.

Not much longer after, the three of them sat at the round table that Moenbryda had taken over for her research. Books and papers were gathered up and set aside, far away from the cups of steaming hot tea that she’d poured. After getting settled in, she looked from boy to girl and back before raising a gray eyebrow. “So. You want to know why Urianger is as eccentric as he is.”

“W-well…” Roger couldn’t meet her gaze, instead scratching at the side of his face. “I just...don’t know much about him. All the other Scions trust him so I know he’s a good guy, but…” He trailed off.

“He’s like a really tall brown wall.” Lara finished for him. When the silver gaze came to rest on her own dark blue eyes, she fumbled for words again. “I-I mean, kind of like R-roger said he’s just...just really hard to guess at what he’s thinking. Even without the…”

“Pray tell, whatever dost thou meaneth, young Lara?” She fluttered her eyelids, putting a hand to her chest even while imitating Urianger’s usual tone. “Surely thou canst thinketh that this manner of speech be...obtuse?” That got a genuine giggle out of the girl. Nothing like making fun to offset nerves. “Surely one such as thee can fully grasp the intricacies of language far better than that of thine peers! Oh the youth of today hath fallen in scholarly pursuits! For shame!” The extra drama Moenbryda added got both of the teens to laugh. A success if she should say so herself.

“In all seriousness, though, Urianger has always been more in favor of keeping to himself than spending time with others. I’d say it was miraculous that he’s stayed this long in the company of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn, except that our Master Louisoix helped bring them together. And he’s grown fond of them since.” She blew at the hair that partially covered her face. “Ever loyal to those he deems worthy of loyalty is our dear Urianger.”

Lara and Roger looked to each other. There was something of a silent conversation between them before he seemed to lose and so spoke next. “Is that also why he sneaks up on people so easy? Because he keeps to himself a lot?”

She couldn’t stop the grin from growing on her face even if she wanted to. “He’s perfectly capable of making noise while he walks. I suspect he stays quiet around you purely for the amusement that comes when you discover him, though you’ll never be able to suss out that confession from him.”

“What!” Roger stood in his seat, getting dangerously close to spilling what was left of his tea.

“Did you not think him capable of humor?”

“Yes! I mean no! I mean--” The boy sat back down hard and dug his hands into his red hair as he stared at the table. “Oh my gods he’s been laughing at me this whole time.”

“Now now, he’d never laugh.” Moenbryda pointed out. “Smile, maybe, but definitely not when you could see him.”

“He can smile too?!”

“Wonder of wonders, I know.”

“Loyalty and humor…” Lara mused. “Well that’s two things we learned about him that we didn’t know before.” She carefully looked at the older woman out of the corner of her eye. “...Is there anything else you want to add?”

The possibilities of further embarrassing her childhood friend were laid out in front of her like a feast. Anecdotes from their shared past. Hilarious mistakes on his part while they were both under the tutelage of Louisoix. Odd quirks from childhood that he most certainly kept even after having not seen her in so long. Any of that could become ammo for the Warriors of Light to use in order to fluster and annoy him like he deserved after being particularly difficult to understand.

With a monumental amount of restraint, Moenbryda settled on a far more mature tact. Even Urianger would be proud, were he privy to her current thoughts.

“Loyalty and humor is fine and all, but one must take care if that’s all one knows about a person.” She took a sip of her still-warm tea. “A person of ill intent can still be loyal to their unrighteous cause. Humor can just as easily be derived from cruelty, not just harmless pranks.” Roger looked like he begged to differ, but she continued onward. “It’s the core of a person that one should look out for most of all. What they choose to do, again and again, when there is no reward to speak of or even if they are aware that the result will lead to negative consequences for themself.”

Looking between the two teens again, she smiled gently. “A concept you two are already familiar with, I’m sure.”

This time, the quiet was contemplative.

Lara spoke first. “But...we haven’t seen him doing a lot that involves his core. He’s always so...closed off. Or like he’s hiding, I guess.”

“Well then it’s good you came to speak to me about that.” Moenbryda winked. This time, the girl merely jumped instead of froze. “If I had to say any one phrase fit Urianger well, it would be that he ‘has a heart of gold.’”

“Really?” Roger piped up.

“Absolutely.” She nodded. “He will always put the wellbeing of others long before he thinks of himself. To his detriment in some cases, but admirable nonetheless.” Pointing a thick finger at the boy, she added, “Even his scare tactics, such as they are, are minor in nature. Enough to make you jump, but not enough for you to go for your weapon, right?”

It took him a moment to think back that far. When he finished, he sounded awestruck. “...yeah. That’s right.”

“See? You already had some of the evidence in front of you. All you both needed was a fresh perspective.”

Roger stared openly at Moenbryda before turning his gaze back to Lara. “No wonder you like her so much.”

The brief moment of respite for the girl’s poor face died as the pink came back in full force, even darkening into red in places. “Roger!” She shouted at him.

Moenbryda gave a happy sigh to herself and leaned back a little to drink her tea while the teens argued again. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the far more stealth experienced members of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn snickering at the scene.

She might not have known the Warriors of Light for long, but it was good to see that such responsibilities hadn’t weighed them down enough that they forgot how to be their own age. Now if only someone would stop pretending that he was twenty years older than he actually was around her every so often.

#Final Fantasy 14 #ff14 #final fantasy xiv #fanfiction #writing challenge #heart of gold #dual WoL AU #moenbryda #roger briden #lara marner #more adults making sure the kids are alright #it's too bad it's not gonna last but hey at least she tried #lara has the kind of crush where she doesn't know if she like likes bryda or if she just wants to *be* bryda #to be fair big and strong but really kind is very much lara's jam #but she *is* still a teen so it's all mixed up #it's just a shame that bryda ends up dying #moenbryda deserved more screentime dammit #eleven down twenty to go

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demonicintegrity · 4 years

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Thoughts from Homeworld Bound: Diamond edition

Okay I know how everyone realized the change your mind arc was kind of rushed, and how a lot of people felt like the Diamonds redemption was forced or just not very well fleshed out. This episode really fills that gap in. So long post incoming ft. Me because awake at 4 in the morning because of being startled awake and can’t go to bed.

Firstly, Yellow! Everyone’s already drawn the lines between the Diamonds’ powers flipping (and thus, how Pink did that going into Rose and how Steven is doing now) so I’m gonna focus on other things. I think Yellow is probably the most “redeemed” of the three. Yes, she and the other Diamonds just wanted to be close to Steven in the movie, but I think she’s moved past that point and improving because *she* wants to.

First it’s being all polite/not hurting/etc. then it’s her looking at her experiments and going “well that was cruel of me. Better make amends to that.” I doubt that was any outside influence coaxing her to do that. What takes it one step further is it’s not just making amends, it’s “hey I have this ability to help! Steven tell your friends if they want to get rid of their horns I’ll help them!” Which isn’t connected to her. (Well it is because she had a part in the corruption but it also really isn’t her problem to tackle beyond uncorrupting them) Yellows got some empathy to her now! She’s always had feelings but had the repressed to deal with Blue and get her work done. Now her tackling some new projects seems to be her way to working on improving her feelings towards herself and just in general. She seemed really happy and content! It also shows again how much of a work person she is, always wanting to do something. It use to be a schedule booked to the brim with checking on new batches of gems, colonizing, diplomatic matters, but now it’s one gem repairment after another. Which is pretty dedicated might I add?? Dude is finding as many shards as she can across multiple mini clusters to put them together. That’s dedication. That’s why out of all the Diamonds I think her redemption is most clear and most likely to please people.

Not to say the other Diamonds don’t have their redemption arc addressed too. Blue’s whole thing was “I’m in pain so you should be too” which is really selfish but also really relatable to a lot of people in many situations. Even if you’re not in grief, being severely hurt does make you want to lash out- which is why I think she was the fan-favorite for so long. She was sympathetic. Anyways, now that she’s happy she wants to make other gems happy too! Which is a noble intention to have and an amazing one to carry out. Blue making others happy show just how empathetic she can be, now in a good way. It seems very simple, give people a cloud and let them be happy- insert weed joke here- but it’s a bit more than that? She’s opened herself up to every gem and basically went “everything has hurt, everything might still hurt, let’s take a break from that and feel good.” Which is a very valid feeling to have, people often need a break from feeling bad to even consider getting better and that’s what Blue (and thus medication) represent. Yea she’s now the stoner mom, but because she’s not one to figure out the intricacies and nuances to solve. She just wants gems to feel better. Overall this makes her arc feel weird at first- because it seems to be the most “simple” of Diamonds but it turns out to suit her well. She’s well versed in emotions and was even wise enough to see that when her happy clouds don’t work, it’s probably something with Steven’s self-respect that needs addressing. Which has been an untackled part of Steven, how he has complicated feelings about himself and that includes how he has a hard time respecting himself when he’s not doing good all the time.

Then, White. The one every person felt was rushed and generally was just off. We saw in the movie she really did just want Steven, a connection to Pink, someone to tell her what to do, etc. so for her to open up and do things on her own is her doing the most in personal growth. She does this charity things on her own now, much as yellow and blue does, but it’s the most personal to her. Specifically with self respect and ones role in life, she was completely at a lost after CYM. She was hurt at not being perfect, hurt because of the pain she put on her family, and very much lost on what to do. Her figuring out how to manage all that is very difficult but also very telling at how much she’s grown. Her power to let gems use her body to “talk to themselves” and reflect is very personal, which is not only why she asks for consent from herself and the other party, but also shows how she’s grown from this dictator completely detached from her peers to *literally* seeing and feeling their perspective. It likely made her very uncomfortable at first, but her sticking with it shows she was persistent in learning how the other gems were feeling and how determine she was to make herself of use to them. I think while Yellow and Blue’s redemption arc are likely complete, White’s is probably more ongoing as she continues to humble herself through feeling different gem’s perspective. Also, Spinel!WD was visually terrifying despite being very comedic and no you can’t change my mind on that. What the hell.

Then of course there’s the obvious line drawn with the Diamonds being the most common coping mechanisms. Yellow is in physical appearance, though I also think it’s about her giving herself something to do. Doing something is a great way to relieve stress and feel better, which Yellow does a lot. Blue is drugs and how they make you feel happy- but not always complete. This is true for those who self-medicate with weed but also thought who’ve been prescribed antidepressants. Despite making you happy, it’s not the only thing you have to do get better. It doesn’t make you whole and in Steven’s case it doesn’t address the problem head on despite it being nice. Then there’s white, who represents meditation as well as introspection. Reflecting on yourself , whether you do it through meditating or by other means, helps you work through your emotions and also what exactly is the source of the problem. It helps you gain perspective on yourself and your situation and is useful for figuring out what you need to do in order to get better. Meditation is often the slapstick solution to many mental issues nowadays, but for those who can do it it can be very beneficial. It’s a good pair for white because it’s something not for everyone, as she doesn’t stick with all viewers well, but is still a good lesson nonetheless.

The best thing about the Diamonds showing different coping mechanisms is how they nicely show the good of it all and also how sometimes it’s not enough. Physical appearance doesn’t solve your issues, being happy doesn’t always address your issues, and introspection is really hard especially if you have intrusive thoughts. It’s a good show how these three in harmony are needed to improve one’s mental state, and that the balance is different for everyone. It’s also a good show how each Diamond has a role to play in improving all gems quality of life in Era 3.

Despite being a roller coaster of emotions, the episode does a great job showing what said coping mechanisms can do for you. Using Steven and Spinel as that catalyst of how it *can* help and what it *can* do vs what it can’t shows the viewer a lot. The Diamonds clearly helped spinel get a lot better, but it’s not quite enough for Steven, and that’s okay. For having to keep it all in 11 minutes it’s really well done!

Also, Steven needs therapy. Someone help him. I’m not okay. He’s not okay.

#long post #rambles #steven universe future

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threelivesthreeworlds · 3 years

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Anonymous asked: Hello sorry if I was unclear. What I meant to say is that most people have a superficial view on intimacy of any sort, and so while I love Tang Qi's portrayal of romance, I hate most people's physicality-obsessed interpretations. Dunno if it's a western thing, but fanfiction is so out of alignment with canon romance themes that the characters are barely recognisable anymore. (1/4)

Secondly, Most readers/viewers do not give characters like Yehua or Lian Song a chance before making stereotypical assumptions about them. I love their real personalities, flaws and all, but I hate the sheer hyperexaggeration the fandom makes out of it (e.g. hating on Ji Heng). People just cannot see a character as a whole but put them into one category or the other. (2/4)

Thirdly, I just added that I relate to Lian Song(depression etc) because I kinda share his views on romance/love and don't really care for physical aspects that much. I'm aware he's a playboy, but he's also not a stereotypical one (which is unfortunately how most people interpret him) so it's a relief that your blog instead backs up my interpretation of him with facts. (3/4)

Lastly, I'm so sorry for ranting in the Q & A section. Making several points with a word limit really compromises what I'm trying to say 😆. But the bottom line was that fandoms' misinterpretations of your favourite characters makes it hard to see them in an objective light again. (4/4)

(this 4th one came in after most of our answers were done, so we apologize if it comes off a little ??? we weren’t aware of the end goal for the anons received. We mean no ill-will in how we come across, just elaborating on things and we hope that’s alright with you. <3)

(Admin Lin): Hey! Thanks for sharing your opinions, though these anons are starting to get a little haughty for our own comfort to continue addressing. Both admins have our own grievances with the fandom / how it views particular characters (Ji Heng being a prime example here), however the fandom still offers plenty of good things from it. This is not only a western fandom “issue” (I say as this physicality isn’t necessarily an issue), it can be found in the eastern fandom as well for not only this series but others as well. Both admins are in fact western fandom despite Admin Ro being Asian.

As for when it comes down to interpretations - Peach Blossoms is written in first person and hard to find on the western side of the internet; Yehua has an extra from his perspective but that’s the only direct contact we get with him that isn’t through Bai Qian’s eyes. Qian isn’t a romantic person nor does she necessarily find what he does romantic, she’s been engaged to him for so long she kind of considered their engagement troublesome due to her past experience with his Uncle Sang Ji. When it comes to the drama’s take of Yehua, we get a clearer idea of him but at the same time it’s easy to see where others can’t grasp him in his entirety or simplify things when in a fanfiction. Or, for the likes of me, knows what he’s like but can’t formulate a more articulate summary or introspective version of him because of his extensive complexities and in some ways, the knowledge of a Chinese household of some fashion to express the intricacies of his upbringing. It’s merely harder.

In the case of Lian Song - the Western fandom doesn’t have access to the information that can be found on this blog as easily because Lotus Step is in the middle of a hiatus but will continue serializing by next year. So, it’s no one’s fault for misunderstanding what kind of playboy he is since that was only addressed in the fall of last year and the dramas both make it clear he’s a playboy / amorous person but never elaborates on it. So it’s an easy assumption to make that he may be a typical playboy by fans of the other available media because he’s not featured beyond Yehua’s uncle or Donghua’s best friend with touches here and there of his connection to Cheng Yu. It’s only in his novel that we get to see a different side of him that will ultimately have a shift at some point to what we see 50,000 years down the line. So, I’m not actually bothered by this myself, personally. It is bound to happen because no one on the western side of the fandom has as much access or want to read an untranslated novel.

With TQ’s stance on romance writing, I will say the concept of eternal love or a love that lasts 3,000 lifetimes is a very Chinese one that unless one digs through it with patience and interest in Buddhism / other Eastern religions, that it can be a harder nuance to grasp for those unfamiliar.

(Admin Ro): We’re sorry you’ve had bad experiences with “fanon” material. We’re thankful that you like the content on this blog enough to comment on it! These are my opinions on the whole affair: as a Chinese woman who reads Chinese novels, from a perspective of writing tropes, hyper-exaggeration is already frequently utilized...in canon. And - from a personal standpoint, when the tropes hit right, I - don’t necessarily mind. Depth can be dug out of the text, but it’s understandable for people to simplify when they’re simply writing or analyzing for their enjoyment.

I’m ace, so maybe I understand, Nonny, when you say that you don’t care for the physical aspects of love. I personally, in my life, don’t necessarily want or need that kind of intimacy, and I don’t find myself straying into the smut tag too often to read about it as it stretches my comfort limits. Granted, I am not sex-repulsed, and it takes a great deal to upset me - however, if everything is in layers and someone enjoys writing smut, then they simply enjoy that layer. Romance isn’t less good and interpretations aren’t less good if there’s a degree of physicality in it. Heck, Admin Lins and I have discussed extensively the physicality of these books - we keep it off the blog 80% of the time because tagging, but it’s a present theme. And, all of us enjoy different things. At the end of the day I think we can’t say the tropes aren’t good when the tropes are the lead-ins that drew us into the more extensive stories.

Furthermore, a lot of what is on this blog is “read,”and I will never say my read of a character or a part of canon is “right” - or that it's “right”-er than someone else’s. Yes, there’s room for passionate debate as evidenced by many, many essays, but I’m not upset when I can’t change anyone’s mind. People are not automatically wrong when they disagree with me - even if there’s textual evidence, there is difference in interpretation of that textual evidence. I understand why fandom thinks the way it does - though, you’ll have to forgive me, my brain is 90% of the time focused on Pillow Book. Regardless, whether you walk out of a book thinking “this character has this much depth and this many flaws” or “this character is just a flat out antagonist” is very much dependent on you. Yes, we as a blog synthesize textual evidence to make that synthesis easier, but ultimately we are no better judges of anyone’s personality than anyone else out in the fandom.

Rather, I think sometimes for the sake of finding reasons or understanding, or when we look for evidence fitting our own assumptions about characters sometimes we lean into a softer read, maybe entirely without realizing it. This is a big no in the world of analytical writing for the sake of, ironically “objectivity” - but this is for enjoyment and not academia. There are times when textual evidence is untouched by the author's tone in terms of connotation and so when we take it for our reading and we have our pre-formed opinions we fall a little more between the lines. Admin Lins and I obviously differ in where this happens as we each have our own, minutely different vibes for characters in question. We know where our confirmation biases in interpretation might lie. Everyone has those.

Up till about February or March this year, I, like a lot of the rest of this fandom, wanted to roast Ji Heng on a spitfire. That is my bias. We are humans, and I think we are perhaps incapable of reading something and staying entirely objective to each character. I clawed my way out of my bias (I say ‘clawed’ because it was difficult), however, by looking at the book, looking at my own opinions, looking at other people’s opinions and asking myself: which parts of this is most likely to be true? I think the only way of striving toward objectivity in terms of portrayal is to consider other people’s portrayals, even if you don’t like them - and see if there’s any truth you can see past your bias. And to accept that truth, even if it’s a hard pill to swallow.

I guess what I have been trying to say, for this entire time, is that we are not the authority on what is and isn’t objective, on what is and isn’t right in these characters, interpretations, and this blog. We are glad to be an interpretation you enjoy - but that doesn’t mean the rest of the fandom who have different opinions are wrong or misinterpretations. I realize we can come across like that sometimes because we make salty memes and because we write long paragraph essays when we have opinions, but ultimately, no one is wrong. Our bubble of enjoyment is our bubble, and no one has to agree with us.

#three lives three worlds ten miles of peach blossoms #three lives three worlds the lotus step #Yehua #Lian Song #admin lin answers #admin ro answers

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myaekingheart · 4 years

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kakashi for the ask game! :D

Oh this is gonna be dangerous xD (and also really fucking long I’m so sorry lmfao)

send me a character and i’ll list...

favorite thing about them It’s so hard to pick, but I think his resilience. Kakashi has genuinely been through hell and back and yet he keeps going. His character development in Naruto is one of my absolute favorite things, the way he starts out as this seemingly apathetic but deep down very guarded character who ultimately grows to love his students and make peace with his past and finally find some happiness. He’s the man who lost everything and still keeps going and maybe it’s just because I, too, am a depressed bitch but that’s always bee super comforting to me and felt very reassuring. Like if Kakashi can hit rock bottom but pull himself up out of that pit and find happiness and success, then so can I.

least favorite thing about them I don’t even know if I have a least favorite thing about him. I honestly love everything about him. I guess the closest thing I can get to a least favorite thing would be that I wish we saw more of him goofing off and having tons of fun like when he and Guy raced in Shippuden. Hearing Kakashi laugh and joke around was just so good for my soul.

favorite line Oh no there are so many, I can’t pick just one. My favorite contenders are: “Leaf Village Secret Finger Jutsu: One Thousand Years of Death!” “Behind this mask...is another mask! Pretty cool, huh?” “I’m telling you this because you don’t get it. You think you get it which is not the same as actually getting it, get it?” “Those who break the rules are scum but those who would abandon a comrade are worse than scum” “I won’t allow my comrades to die. I’ll protect you with my life. Trust me.” “It’s like an acorn.” “Sorry I’m late, I’m afraid I got lost on the path of life.” “Sorry I’m late, a black cat crossed my path and I had to take the long way around.” “For those who follow the path of revenge, it never ends well. You’ll only tear yourself apart and even if you succeed and you get your revenge, what will you get then? Nothing. Emptiness.” “So it looks like neither of us have led a charmed life exactly. But still, we’re not all that bad off. At least you and I have found new comrades to help fill the void.” “Calm down, Naruto. Slow your breathing down” (mainly because this scene just gets me every time as someone who has had severe panic attacks for twenty years lmfao) There was also another “sorry I’m late” excuse that I don’t remember exactly and cannot for the life of me find but it was from a picture I saw somewhere, looked like it was maybe from a video game? Where Kakashi said something to genin Naruto and Sakura about the path of love or something? And they’re staring at him flustered pointing insisting “That’s...a lie!” Like I can recall the image clear as day in my head but I cannot for the life of me find it.

brOTP Hands down Guy. I mean, I ship them, too, but I just really love their friendship especially. Guy just really brings out the best in him and provides this really nice foil to Kakashi’s personality. I genuinely think Kakashi would’ve been done for if not for Guy’s loyalty and optimism. Their friendship is so fun and the two of them together never fail to make me smile.

OTP Does my KakashixOC ship count? Because if it does, then that’s my OTP. I have spent way too much time and energy on their relationship for it to not be. That probably sounds super cliche and maybe a little Mary-Sue-ish but I don’t even care, Rei and Kakashi are my magnus opum and I love them. I’m also just really, really proud of the way I’ve written their relationship. So much of their bond is informed by my own relationship with my fiance, and I think my own experiences have really evolved my understanding of what real intimacy in a romantic relationship looks like. It’s not so much about flowers and chocolates and date nights as it is about caring for and comforting the person you love, spending quality time with them, making them laugh and smile, being 110% yourself around them, and providing for them in their times of need. I have never written a relationship so real and specifically raw before, and there’s a lot of intricacies that I’ve worked in as well, that just overall make me incredibly proud of the progress I’ve made on their story, and proud of the story I’ve been creating for them in general. But if an OC ship doesn’t count for OTP, I really like Kakashi with Shizune, Guy, Yamato/Tenzo, and Iruka.

nOTP Oh god I have quite a few. I really don’t enjoy focusing on negatives nor do I want to start ship wars so I’ll keep these explanations brief. I can’t stand Kakashi and Sakura, the mere thought of it makes me *this close* to puking. I take big issue with ships in general between characters that met when one of them was a child and the other an adult, though. It just comes off incredibly pedophilic to me and makes me nauseous. The other big ship I take issue with is Kakashi and Rin but that’s more of a personal issue because their relationship, and Rin’s character in general, hit way too close to home (in a very warped and psychotically symbolic way) to some really traumatic stuff I dealt with in the past that took me years and lots of therapy to deal with, and it still trips me up to this day. It’s not anything that anyone in fandom has done or anyone who ships Kakashi and Rin with each other, it’s just a matter of me noticing parallels between the ship and my own trauma that make it incedibly hard for to tolerate content of it. Just to tack these on, as well, but I also really dislike him with Hanare from the filler episode and with Kahyo from the book Lightning in the Icy Sky. The romance with Hanare just felt really disingenuous to me like I can tolerate it, but it’s not my favorite. And as for Kahyo, I blame bad writing. The fact that the book was referring to her as “the woman who has Kakashi’s heart” literally within like two pages of them meeting really pissed me off. I couldn’t even finish the book so I can’t even speak on the rest of the relationship but I just got so turned off by the entire story in general because the romance was so unbelievable and abrupt. I feel like anyone who has read my fic, though, likely has picked up on my opinions on these, though. Not that I’m writing ship hate or anything because I’m not, but there have been little plot points here and there that have kind of touched on my feelings on these ships.

random headcanon I have way too many but here’s one of them, I guess, though this is more a musing than a headcanon. I think, when the war is over and Kakashi can finally catch his breath, he goes through a bit of an identity crisis as he comes to terms with the fact that he no longer has his sharingan. After all, he had Obito’s eye for almost twenty years. Learning to function without it is going to be incredibly difficult but not only that, so much of his identity was founded on his secondhand sharingan. Who even is he without it? Does he even recognize himself anymore? And how can he ever live up to the reputation he’s garnered over so many years now that the source of all of his power is gone for good? Yes, he was a prodigy before the sharingan and he is still capable without it, but it’s going to be a big change and take a huge toll on him and his perception of himself.

unpopular opinion I’m glad Kakashi has never been given an explicitly canon love interest. Honestly, I don’t want him to have one. As much as he deserves to find love and start a family with someone, from a fandom perspective I much prefer him being open and available. It creates a much more flexible interpretation of him and his love life so that we, the fans, can write him however we damn well please and I think that’s pretty fantastic. I think it’s safe to say that Kakashi is one of if not the most heavily shipped character in the fandom and everyone has very strong opinions on who he belongs with and even how he idenifies from a sexuality perspective. I can only imagine the uproar that would come from finally giving him a canon love interest because you absolutely cannot please everyone. In a way, I feel like Kakashi is just a character who belongs to all of us. He is something different for every single person in fandom whether that’s someone to look up to and seek guidance from, someone to protect and root for, someone to relate to and find comfort in, someone to love and/or lust after. Or in my case a precious emotional support ninja husbando. I don’t know if he would’ve had quite the same effect on fandom if he had been canonically shipped with someone from the get-go, but I’m grateful that he never was and I hope he never will be so he can continue playing the role in fandom that he has been for so many years. That probably sounds selfish, though, but I just really want him to remain a character that belongs to all of us and is not inhibited by canon in terms of who he loves and how he identifies.

song i associate with them Again, there’s so fucking many so I’m just gonna list some of my favorites. Sign by Flow Friendships by Pascal Letoublon Hospital for Souls by Bring Me the Horizon SCARECROW by My Chemical Romance Disguise by Motionless in White-- this is a big one, especially the line “sick of wearing a mask, sick of hiding my face, sick of every motherfucker that is in my way, sick of digging for answers while you bury the truth, fuck your method to my sadness, I will bury you” like it just reminds me of ANBU Kakashi specifically, but overall his character development in coming to terms with his past and crawling out of his depression, too.

favorite picture of them Again...there’s multiple x_x

#long post is long #i am so sorry lmfao #thank you for asking! <3 #kakashi hatake #naruto #my precious ninja husbando #ask memes #answered asks #kamek #ramblings

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