#in which ogre handwaves meta

[draugrbite]

the addams family meta

so i'm watching the 1960's show right now and what occurred to me is how much of what outsiders think is weird and 'kooky' is just... love. like, the addams family love each other, and they want each other to be happy, so they'll do kooky things like have a room set up for just toy traintracks because Gomez loves them (and also loves blowing them up, lol). there's a greenhouse full of deadly, meat(potentianly human?)-eating plants because Morticia loves them. when Pugsley strays from the 'dark' path and wants to be a boy scouts, sure they have a moment of doubt. and then that's gone and they do everything they can to make him feel accepted and loved.

the addams family love each other, and respect each other, and believe in each other. they support one another, and that's the weirdest thing of all.

like, they have weird hobbies, gothic tastes, are probably quasi-immortal but... they want you to be happy, too. if you ask they'll help you for nothing in return, and they'll probably have a grand time doing so.

they're kind people, open-minded, willing to change their minds if shown proof they're wrong. they're not convinced of their superiority, or think they know better. a lot of the hijinks that make others unhappy lierally only occur because those same others were too afraid of the addamses (just because there are some weird plants, or a traintrack, or Lurch is too tall) to ask them to stop, or quit, or whatever, or just told them they don't like a particular tea flavor (slight exxaggeration but basically correct).

the addams family like what they like, and they're not ashamed of it. they love each other, and they're not ashamed of it. they help each other, and they're not ashamed of it.

like i'm not saying they're not also weird people with weird biologies (Fester is literally a charging station for electronics) but that's entirely secondary. they're not weird because they're weird, they're weird because they accept that 'weirdness' and they accept your normalness too.

ngl, they're just kind people.

i've seen a couple of episodes of Wednesday and while it's not a bad show (like, it's visibly well-made) there is none of that kindness there. and i think it says a lot about us and the cynical individualism that is so prevaloent right now that we lose more and more kindness in every adaptation. and it's really a shame.

#in which ogre handwaves meta #the addams family #meta #addams family

[draugrbite]

what i find so fascinating about ATLA (and i'm sure this has been said before) is that it simultaeneously takes place in multiple eras. the fire nation is in the middle of an industrial revolution, the earth kingdom is both a feudal farming society and a emerging capitalistic (ba singe se) society and the water nation (?) is an isolationist traditionalist nation. it's especially fascinating how the world goes from this to then becoming basically a neo-liberalist wet dream in LOK.

like actually picturing how the world would work in the immediate years after the 100 year war ends is kind of ridiculous. you have all these wildly different cultures with wildly different societal hiearchies and beliefs paired with basically no resources after a 100 years of war, and somehow that ends up becoming LOK.

the culture shock is gotta be intense.

and then you have the grudges, the prejudices, the ingrained propaganda, and... like when i actually think about it, the aftermath of the war is kind of more interesting then the actual story in ATLA. because the story in ATLA is simple; it's a kids story. there's nothing wrong with that, but as an adult i'm at the age where i wanna know how you actually make this situtation livable.

they broke the world, you know. 100 years of wars is devastating to recourses, and there's gotta be literally nothing left. and ozai burned a shittonne of farmland so hello famine.

i also kind of wonder about the northern water tribe. like, they've been, presumably, completely isolated for almost a hundred years. what did that do to their immune system? they must have evolved new strains of diseases, mutations in the fricking common cold not known anywhere else. when they start interacting with outsiders, how many people died?

like diseases work quickly. how many diseases are katara and aang and sokka and appa, not to mention all the fire nation people, carryign with them when they invade the north pole. how many die in the aftermath of that, and how does it effect their society?

there is just so much to unpack here without even mentioning the impact of ba sing se's emerging capitalism getting its hands on the fire nation industrial revolution.

#atla #avatar the last airbender #in which ogre handwaves meta

[draugrbite]

i've been doing some thinking (alt: wwx meta)

so, for some background, i was really, really into the wei wuxian/lan wanji (if there's a ship-name i've forgotten it) pairing for a good while. i'm talking from the time there were only 200 fics on AO3 to the time there was about 8000. i would refresh that page literally every single day and devour all the new fics i could get my grabby hands on.

i hate strongly dislike wei wuxian —and also lan wanji by association— with a ridicoulsly fierce passion now, to the point i even filter them out on my socials. and i think i finally have an answer for why.

wei wuxian is a trashfire (affectionally). he just is. if you pre-date the mdzs fandom from before the Untamed, you probably agree with me. if you joined the fandom through the Untamed then... i don't know, that's when i hit exit.

but, to put it simply, it's about accountability.

because wei wuxian is a trashfire. he makes poor choices born out of low self-esteem and a big ego. he thinks nothing of himself, and he thinks everyone else also thinks nothing of him because he thinks that and he's practically a genius, so he must be right, right?

he walks out on jiang cheng because he's certain it's the right thing to do and he expects jiang cheng to go along with it because he thinks it won't hurt jiang cheng that much, because low self-esteem.

wwx is a trashfire—he's flawed to his core. saying he's a straight-up good person is a lie, and it's one that damages his kind of fascinating characterization. he's a good person in the sense that he has strong morals, sure, but he persistently hurts others, even those he loves, out of a disregard for the consequences of his actions. he's kind of hilariously unable to plan long-term (which is also why he would be a horrible sect leader).

he's a flawed, complicated character and that's what i loved about him. and then... the Untamed happened.

and i don't wanna be petty (though i definitely can be) because to be fair i haven't watched that show—i got through the first 10 eps or so on jiang cheng but to be honest it was boring. it was dull, and it didn't catch my interest, and i moved on. simple.

but a lot of people liked it, and wwx in the Untamed is, to put it kindly, a way better person than in the book. or, well, he's framed as a much less flawed version, and the narrative supports this by making every one of his bad choices, and their consequences, somebody else's fault. it's a much less critical view of his part in his own actions, and where the blame lies. everything is a part of a conspiracy, and wwx is now an uncomplicated good guy who just got fucked over by The Evil Person™.

(note, i'm generalizing here and i'm aware of it. again, i haven't watched the full show, but this is what i got out of all those fanfics i read, and all that drama that was going on in the mdzs fandom before my interest popped like a balloon and i stopped paying attention)

and now we're back at the accountability part of it. because when you take away all of wwx's agency, when you deny him the ability to make his own choices, when his bad actions and the worst consequences are always somebody's elses fault, you're changing a core part of his character—the one i loved so much in the days of yore.

the narrative in the Untamed never held wwx accountable, and the wider fandom that built around the Untamed never did either, because uncomplicated good guys that are the underdogs despite the fun necromancy powers are like, cool, you know? (and wwx is cool, i'm not denying that.)

but... idk, i just have a lot of feelings about it. and i think a lot of it boils down to, when you're taking away wwx's ability to make poor choices out of his own volition, you're taking away his agency.

and characters with no agency are just boring.

#wei wuixan #mdzs #mdzs meta #in which ogre handwaves meta

[draugrbite]

Redoing my intro post for easier readability XD

Personal:

- call me Ren (this might change)

- I am a he/him (this might change)

- I am an adult and don't wish to interact with minors (this will not change)

- I don't always have the capacity for conversations and even when I do, I'll usually peter out pretty quickly

- I write very queer things, usually romance, slice-of-life, hopepunk or them all at once

- I am currently working on a gay gaslamp fantasy monster romance series as well as various standalone books that jump from contemporary romance to sci-fi, to apocalypses and etc.

This blog:

- had no clear subject but is probably most closely aligned with a writerblr at the moment

- I do not reblog things to this blog unless I am adding something to a post

- related, my reblogs are at @sojourningogre

- some of my tags are: ogre talk, ogre writes, am writing, writing, in which ogre handwaves meta

- I am open to tag games and the like

- I don't currently have wip specific tags for my projects but probably will soon (tbd)

- I carefully curate my following list to ensure my dash timeline does not move too quickly

Other places:

- dreamwidth = more formal blogging, usually also related to writing

- mastodon = more informal blogging both related to writing and not, am probably most active there

- twitch = streams games (currently Hades & Prey) and on the rare occasion some writing

- picarto = writing streams and on the rare occasion some drawing

Support:

- throne.com = my wishlist that's mostly full of very, very gay books

#ogre talk #writing #am writing #writer blog #writerblr #blog intro #writerblr intro #writing community #queer writers #writers on tumblr #writers of tumblr #romance author #gaslamp fantasy #writer #writeblr #writer community #writer intro