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amuseoffyre · 6 months

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There's something poetic about the way Stede and Ed's journeys in S1 and S2 are cycling around each other. They're circling in towards a point where they will meet as themselves, but right now, they've both come in with so many preconceptions and illusions of who and what they are within their own worlds and each others.

Ed aspires to a better life and believes that Stede has that with his all his quirky, fun, weird little things ("you got it all figured out"). He willfully chooses to ignore why a rich man might actually find some kind of comfort and safety in the world of piracy, convinced by the end of S1 that it was all about Bonnet's playthings and that "we were just playing pirates".

He doesn't hear Stede when Stede says he "very much does know" what it feels like to be treading water, waiting to drown, because to him, Stede is something he wants to be. He doesn't see the flaws and the cracks and the trauma underlying it all.

Likewise, Stede does get to meet Ed as Ed first and foremost, but when he finds out he's Blackbeard, there is a kind of fanboy joy about just how cool and fascinating and brilliant his idol is.

Even though Ed tells him how he's struggling, the fact that Ed keeps on mentioning that it's boring is the thing that Stede latches onto. He does the treasure hunt to keep Ed from getting bored, he shows him things to spark his interest and entertain him.

They both get a storyline where they get to cross the streams and experience each other's world: Ed gets to be Jeff the Accountant in a fancy party ship and Stede becomes the Legendary Gentleman Pirate in the Republic. In both situations, it seems perfect and fun and fantastic, but the shine comes off and the issues are still there, simmering beneath, and never get addressed.

And the thing is that is makes perfect sense for both of them to squash down all the stuff that's actually bothering them. For Ed, being vulnerable is a danger, it's showing your belly to someone who may be an enemy, it's baring your throat and in a world where trust is a rare commodity, he absolutely does not trust anyone.

He says himself he only ever told one person about killing his dad and even then, it only came on the back of being triggered into a horrendous panic attack and Stede coming after him to comfort him (and hoooee, that speaks a lot for Ed going after Stede in 2x06). He's suppressed it and contained it and lets it sit there and fester, layers of scar tissue and self-loathing forming over it.

It's also why he sits with his issues on his own, talks to the people who have been around him the longest and makes his decision on his own. He is used to operating as a single entity without having to take into consideration how his actions and decisions impact on other people. He's only just learned how to take accountability for his actions like 2 days ago.

Stede, on the other hand, has told no one anything about what's going on inside his head. When we have the flashbacks with his father, we can see why: every time he expressed an opinion about his thoughts and wishes and ideas, he was shot down. By the time he was married off, he has learned to couch his negative reactions in passive statements instead of saying exactly what he's feeling.

And even when his past is brought up, like when Nigel brings up the story of the rowboat, he tries to brush it off and pretend he doesn't know what they're talking about. He prefers to bottle up the guilt, shame and inadequacy he feels and keep them locked away because he's spent a lifetime being ridiculed for his feelings and emotions and expressing them with the risk of being shot down in flames terrifies him.

He did express himself directly once in S1: his rant about drinking and being pelted by coconuts and not liking Ed when he's like this and the same day, Ed chose to leave him, so he doubles down.

We see him trying to maintain the facade that he's doing well, even in the letters he writes to Ed. Everything is about how they're getting on and that he hopes to see him, but when it all falls apart, the negative emotions are only addressed to the Wanted poster.

It's very telling that he only confides in a handful of people about how he's feeling across both seasons and they are Mary, Zheng and Anne. Mary, it comes on the back of a murder attempt. Zheng, it comes after he's told the crew got rid of Ed. And Anne it's when he and Ed are still butting emotional heads and it takes that forced hand to make him actually come out and express his real emotions to Ed for the first time in person.

There's something poignant about them both trying to find their way to this idea of the man they love, but both being so caught up in the illusion they've built around them that they go straight past them.

Ed has become what Stede was in S1: the man who dropped his entire life, his partner, his family and his world to go and follow a career he has no experience of because it feels safer than where he is right now. And Stede has become exactly what he thought he needed to be, to be worthy of Ed: a fearsome legendary pirate in all the ways he criticised Ed in 1x06.

"I don't like who you are around this guy," he says about Ed when he's in Jack's company, and Ed tells him "This is who I am. This is me" and now, Stede has become that. He's emulated that. This is who Ed said he is. Only he finds Ed, giddy and accepted and finally, finally considering himself Ed's equal, and Ed tells him "I don't know who I am" and leaves him.

They've been so caught up in their perceptions of this idea of who their partner is that they haven't actually looked beneath the the facade.

And a big part of the problem is that neither of them know who they are. They know who they're 'meant' to be according to the society around them and the people who shaped them ("nothing but a weak-handed, soft-hearted, lily-livered little rich boy" and "not those kind of people"). They know who they've been told to be.

Before they can go any further, they need to figure themselves out and what that means for them and their relationship with each other.

#ofmd s2 #ofmd meta #stede bonnet #ed teach #long post

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blue-b-bro · 4 months

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My s2 au rambling

It's 2am and I should be working on my paper soooo

Listen. So we leave the break up boat angst as it is. I can't deprive my babygirl of his suicide attempt (it's my depression bias, ok?). BUT. No traumatizing Lucius. It was unnecessary, they didn't commit to it anyway, they just tormented our boy for nothing, so no, no trauma for Lucius. He got somehow rescued shortly after being thrown over board or something. He isn't traumatized, but he's seriously pissed at Ed. (he's not with Zheng in this au atm or Stede uses different ship to get to the Revenge idk)

The rest of e1-3 can stay the same I guess... Ed gets resurrected by the power of love and hope, but then remembers Stede hurt him and tells him to fuck off. Now, what if Ed went ashore with only Buttons? Like, I get people being unsatisfied that they turned him into a seagull, and so we didn't have him anymore, but I find his scene with Ed in the forest really touching.

So Ed meets Anne and Mary and he can realize he doesn't want a relationship like theirs, how forcing yourself to be something else for your partner would just end up in both of you hating each other. Ed calls Mary out, Anne burns it all down, Buttons is there. Buttons transforms into a seagull, proving to Ed that change is possible, you just have to believe. But now he's alone in the forest, so he goes back to Anne and Mary and they go, somehow, to the Republic of Pirates, Mary and Anne to get back to piracy and Ed decides to visit Jackie (since we know they're friends).

[DRAFT: what about them finding Zheng on their way? Like on a sea, somehow. Let's say they were traveling in a dinghy and were let on board. I want Lucius to be somehow there and he and Ed being awkward, Ed trying to avoid him, because he doesn't know how to deal with this kind of situation and Lucius being pissed. Ed also could help as a navigator with his cloud knowledge, he could be their Buttons! Ed could help with towels and actually like it, but Lucius would be suspicious, because last time he saw Ed acting like that he almost died. Ed just tries to chill, tries to figure his shit up, but is haunted by his guilt and self hatred, he tries to not think about it. Lucius starts to notice him hiding his negative feelings, acting as if everything is fine and peachy, "look I'm folding stuff". He doesn't care about Ed, doesn't want to, but as time goes by, his empathy starts to make him not being able to just ignore Ed's suffering. They were friends, kinda, before. He knows how emotional Ed actually is. Jim also almost killed Lucius, but they were fine after that, so maybe he could cut some slack... He begrudgingly tries to talk to Ed, but he obviously says everything is fine. Ed actually avoids any kindness, feeling like a monster after everything he did, which only makes him more miserable. He tortured Izzy, he traumatized his crew... Stede came back, but should he? Maybe it would be better if he never came back, if they left him to die there...

Idk how to go there, but I want Lucius to help Ed deal with his emotions, knowing that Lucius is the emotionally intelligent one, and was helping him like this in the past. He wouldn't be so nice to him as before, still keeping a grudge, but he's too empathetic to just ignore him. Lucius gets to know how twisted Ed's coping mechanisms are and how lost he is, they get to know each other better (Lucius always knowing who he is vs Ed just starting to discover that).

MEANWHILE Stede and Izzy could have the same adventures as e4-5 (I guess idk what to make Stede do in this version of e4, but idc rn). Stede and Izzy could bond and have more interactions with the crew. I'd also love to see more of whatever that gaze Izzy gave Stede in "Bonnet, we need to go" scene. Izzy realizing his life could be different, better (just like Ed in s1e4), Stede getting attached to Izzy. I also want there to be addressed how Izzy tries to ignore Ed, ignore his existence. How he never talks about him. I'd love for them to have a talk similar to that one in e3 ("Allright Bonnet, have it your way"), where it comes out that they both feel responsible for what happened with Ed, like, how Stede feels responsible for Everything that happened, and Izzy'd be like "oh fuck off" and try to persuade him, it's him who's guilty, somehow comforting each other that way.

Oh! And Stede's crew could be trying to find Lucius. They'd have their adventures, but while searching for Lucius. And also Oluwande could help the break up crew with their trauma, since he's the most emotionally intelligent in this group.

So yeah, Ed and Lucius could become friends and Lucius could help Ed with the whole self identity thing and Stede and Izzy also could become friends (they could go into pining direction, but I wouldn't make them boyfriends at this point, it's too soon), Stede and the crew could help Izzy becoming his own person and developing some self worth as a human being, and Izzy could help Stede realize he doesn't have to be something he isn't just to please other people, because Izzy was the one to see Stede in his more cringe moments but also the surprisingly successful ones (he and Oluwande). Izzy knows what's under the mask Stede puts on around other people, that he isn't so nice or composed as he'd like people to see him, and so his acceptance of Stede would be so meaningful +Izzy's a cool pirate so also that.

Dunno what next, but for calypso's birthday and Ned Low's attack I'd like Ed and Lucius to be with the crew, because I want Ed's angst and I liked the idea with this being Lupete wedding. And it'd be bad to make a party before finding Lucius.]

#My au is so cool :D #No joke I'm having so much fun it actually may become coherent enough one day to become a short fic lol #Ofmd #Ofmd s2 #Ofmd au #our flag means death #lucius spriggs #edward teach #stizzy #stede bonnet #izzy hands

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weedplantar · 1 year

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Okay I am sort of drunk but I am getting mad over the way Marcy was treated post true colors. Her trauma was NEVER addressed, she was so scared of being alone that she ran away and took her friends with her. She's not stupid, she genuinely thought that an unknown potentially dangerous situation in another world she knew NOTHING about was better than staying with her parents and being alone in a new state. She lived with so much fear and guilt every single day, which got even worse when Sasha and Anne's relationship suffered severely. She had to watch what she perceived as Anne choosing her new frog family over her. The new family she thought she had, Andrias, manipulated and tricked her and took advantage of the vulnerable state she was in. She was THIRTEEN. She was stabbed and possessed and fighting a battle inside her own head while grappling with her guilt while the core used her body to commit so many atrocities in the world she loved and vowed to take care of. "She" as Darcy cut off Grime's arm and nearly killed him, she almost killed her best friend and severely wounded her. She woke up from possession scared and confused and upset, and she had like 5 seconds to process, not even, before she had to go fight an entirely new battle against the very thing that had violated her body and mind like that for a long period of time. She bled GREEN blood and it was never addressed again. The only reason Olivia and Yunan wanted to save her from the rejuvenation tank in the first place was because they believed she could help them stop Andrias because of her intelligence, rather than the fact that she's a 13 year old child wounded and imprisoned. Her worst fear was being alone and abandoned and drifting from her friends, and all of that came true multiple times, and she didn't even get to process and breathe. And I know people are like "well shes not the main character" and like first of all that's debatable because the show centers around Anne and all the people she loves and how those relationships intertwine and interact with each other as they grow and change, and also Sasha is on the same level as Marcy (if there are levels) and SHE got some time to process and grow. Turning point was a huge episode for her, and O&Y should have been as crucial to Marcy's character, but we only got to see her emotions on a superficial level. She never got time to grieve her friendships, her trauma, her mistakes, she was just put on the back burner and used as a plot device throughout s3. Please someone give Marcy a warm blanket, a hug, a cup of soup, and some time to lose her shit and process what happened in amphibia.

#this probably doesnt make sense but !!!!#amphibia #marcy wu

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meta-squash · 1 year

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Okay, second In The Flesh Meta of the day.

I just keep thinking about the way that time is utilized in this show. I’m thinking mostly about series 1 here, because the timeline for series 2 is slightly fuzzier.

The five year gap between the Rising and Kieren coming back is, I think, one of the most important uses of time in series one.

It’s not a short enough time that Kieren’s family are still in the throes of fresh grief over his death or fresh trauma over the existence of the undead, but it’s also not so long that they ever became comfortable with his absence. They still kept his room, they don’t seem to have established any major routines that pass through the gaps that he left when he died. And the whole rehabilitation thing has been in existence for like a year, long enough that it’s still new but it’s not new-new and they understand the basics of it. They obviously have knowledge from the news or whatever about treated PDS, so they’re not quite so uncertain about Kieren.

At the start of the series, the Walker family all have had enough time to be at least somewhat familiar with each of these uncomfortable concepts.

Which is not so with Kieren. While he’s had his time at the treatment centre to reacclimate and get used to his new physical state, emotionally he’s still where he was when he died, plus this other new stuff on top. So the family’s uncertainty and wobbliness comes from the disruption of becoming familiar with certain states of existence, whereas Kieren’s problems come from being unable to even be familiar with anything in the first place.

Kieren and his family are on different timelines in series 1. They’re thinking of moving at the beginning so Kieren doesn’t have to return to Roarton, so they’re somewhat aware of how it’s going to be for him in terms of the past. But they kind of expect him to be where they are to some extent (in that strange but less volatile middle area between fresh pain and tolerable acceptance); instead he’s still mostly where he was when he died (still mostly fresh grief, confusion, loneliness and feeling lost). The problem is they see the past as the past while to Kieren it’s still practically the present. Half the reason he’s trapped in the cycle of “it’s becoming just like it was before and I don’t know how to change it” is because he never really left that trajectory in the first place. He killed himself feeling grief and anger and alienation and loneliness and when he comes to five years have passed but he doesn’t really remember them so it’s like they didn’t happen. And when he returns to Roarton he only gets like...barely two days before everything goes through the same exact cycle again and he’s confronted with the trauma of losing Rick a second time and Amy the first time and he’s back to being lonely and outcast and in pain. The however many months at the treatment centre don’t count because half of that is acclimating to his own physical state and jumping through rehab hurdles etc, completely separate from the circumstances of his hometown and the emotional triggers it holds.

So while Kieren’s family has had those five years to ruminate over all the why’s and how’s and various ‘if only we’d done x’ things regarding Kieren’s suicide, Kieren hasn’t had that sort of time. To him, it’s as though he killed himself, was awakened the next day, spent some months in hospital not really addressing his act of suicide, and then he’s back to exactly the same circumstances as before without the benefit of time to dull his emotional or mental state.

So Kieren and his family are to some extent on different timelines of trauma, although Kieren’s flashbacks mean that he’s technically dealing with two different timelines of trauma, in that emotionally it is as though Ricks death and therefore his own only occurred some months ago, but he also now has to contend with the knowledge of his actions in his untreated state and the guilt of that.

But Rick’s return and his second death merge the two, because suddenly the timeline becomes a mirror of itself, even to the point of Kieren dying a second time, not literally but metaphorically as he goes to the cave after Rick’s murder, and then his own death in the cave is re-enacted by his father at the end. But Kieren’s metaphorical death through his retreat to the cave and his father’s memory means that this time he doesn’t have to die in actuality, and he’s able to process his grief in a better way.

That means that by the time Amy returns with Simon a little under a year later, he has much more stable footing. Which is important because it means in series 2, his mental and emotional timeline is pretty much linear, and Simon is the one slipping all over the place.

#in the flesh #in the flesh meta #bbc in the flesh #itf

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worldsokayestdragon · 11 months

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so I never learned my lesson about getting attached to supernatural characters that aren't Sam and Dean so Jack became my late in the game new favorite and I am outraged by how badly the narrative treated him!

truly the most heinous shit happens to him constantly, and it's never even about his character development or story arc because the writers don't care enough to give him his own arc. like I said on that other post season 13 is entirely about traumatizing as much as possible as fast as possible (because that's the only way they know to make characters interesting) while also using him to advance the plot with all the apocalypse world Lucifer vs. Michael round 2 stuff.

then in season 14 the overarching plot is so weak and all over the place that it barely even feels like they're using him for that so much as hurting Jack to hurt Sam and Dean and Cas. he gets sick so they have to go through the pain of losing a child. it's discussed in those terms way more than how Jack feels about it is brought up. he gets brought back with the Lilly Sunder spell so they'll have to grapple with whether risking his soul to save his life was the right call. they say they're going to let him decide but the whole situation with the empty makes it so he doesn't really have any options while also letting them set up Cas dying/destiel confession in what should be an episode about Jack.

him choosing to burn out his soul to kill Michael and save the others could have been a big moment for him, but the way they wrote him up to that point made it a little unclear if he fully understood how dangerous loosing his soul could be (which I mean is fair. his only reference for someone without a soul is Donatello who was always nice to him, Jack wasn't born yet for soulless Sam or Amara leaving a bunch of soulless people around, and he was in apocalypse world when Donatello went crazy. he's physically 18ish and chronologically 2 so as much as he's a smart person and not actually a baby you can't really expect him to have the best understanding of consequences and his own mortality. him not fully getting the risk could also be interesting for his character but they didn't commit to that either, they just had him say he got it while repeatedly using his powers and never seeming all that concerned about it.) the show focuses so much more on the Winchesters and Cas being worried and guilty about his soul than having Jack react to or deal with that loss.

and then he kills Mary. the one thing he was always afraid of, the one thing he never wanted to do, was hurt his family. and the writers made him lose control for one second and kill one of the most important people in his life and break the hearts of all the other people he loves. and again it's all about hurting Sam and Dean to drive them to try and contain or kill him, while also driving a wedge between Dean and Cas. like of course, of course, that's devastating for Sam and Dean, I'm not trying to minimize that. but even after Jack gets his soul back his trauma and grief around it are never addressed. even his guilt is only touched on so far as it's the motivation for him sacrificing himself for them again. directly afterwards when talking to Rowena and imaginary Lucifer he's horrified and maybe not sad or guilty exactly (no soul) but he obviously understands the magnitude of what he did. but then for some reason when he's talking to Sam and Dean in Jack in the Box he's very casual and dismissive, all like well it was an accident, anyway let's move on. that scene is really the only time he acts like a lot of the other soulless characters. for the most part he seems to understand emotions and morals much better than anyone else without a soul, and almost feel a little even if it's not the same as someone with a soul. (I think the angel grace mitigates some of the effects of not having a soul. angels don't have souls but do have the capacity to feel and tell right from wrong. Jack tells Donatello that he feels different but doesn't feel nothing, and I think that's because the emotions coming from the grace are different than the ones from a soul and it takes practice to identify and develop them to be as strong as what he was used to.) it feels like between Mary acting pretty out of character during her last scene and Jack being so weird about it when he talks to the boys I suspect Chuck was supposed to have been meddling before he actually showed back up, but they never outright say that. regardless they fridged Mary Winchester for the second time and forced Jack through his worse nightmare because they needed to motivate Dean with pain.

his second death was explicitly meant to punish the rest of team free will. Dean couldn't and wouldn't kill Jack, so Chuck did it to hurt his dad's. they wouldn't play his little game so Jack had to die so they'd learn their lesson about defying him. even when he was dead his corpse gets puppeted around to hurt the others. like I also like belphegor as a character, he's bitchy and funny, but narratively making him possess Jack's body was just a way to hurt Cas specifically. (Sam and Dean were way less bothered. maybe the whole casifer situation had numbed them a bit to the horror of working with something evil that has your loved ones face for the greater good.)

then when he comes back it's all "kill yourself to save the world" which is a pretty common plot point for supernatural, but it's also "die to absolve your sins, it's the only way Dean will ever forgive you" which I find significantly more fucked up. and then that plan fails, and Cas dies so Jack loses the only parent who never gave up on him, and then he becomes God.

and Jack becoming god is like...it doesn't really work any of the themes of the show, and it also is the worst way to end his story. he's always been powerful, but he's only ever cared about that in as much as his powers can help his family. when he loses them he's upset because he can't protect the people he loves anymore, not because he isn't special or whatever. all he wants is to be with the people he loves without having to worry about his powers hurting them. and the end they came up with for his story is to get a massive power boost and have to leave his family so he can "be everywhere" or whatever. it's so dumb!

this post got super long, and I'm sure that people have already said all of this better than me, but it's driving me nuts. I just love Jack so much, he's such a good character, and supernatural has so many instances of wasted potential, but Jack's story could have been amazing if there were more than three or four episodes that treated him as an actual character instead of a plot device or a prop for other characters stories.

#supernatural #jack kline #im ripping my hair out #they wouldn't just let him be happy for five minutes #but they also didn't bother to give him a real story arc #so all the suffering just feels pointless #the writers and show runners didn't care about him #but I care about him a whole lot

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line-of-fire · 1 year

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🖕 A headcanon relating to anger

From here! || Accepting!

So I love this so fucking much?? Perfect rambling material so hey, bonus content outside of the main timeline!

The most important thing to know is that Pixie has never been an angry person- far from it. Ever since she was young, she's always been this earnest, kind, idealistic person that just had so much patience and hope for the world. There wasn't ever really room in her heart for anger without legitimate justification.

And that's still true, to a certain extent. That's still who she is at her core, even if it's gone into hiding in a sense over the years as a result of her experiences. But even now, she's still difficult to really anger. Like I said, she's naturally incredibly patient, and at this point she's got a strong handle on her emotions, or at the very least letting them show, anger included.

But, there's still certain topics that shorten that fuse for her. Certain things she's still furious over, although more towards herself than anyone else. After all, she didn't sign those enlistment papers to kill, not originally. No, she signed her name on those dotted lines to make a difference, to help how she could.

Shitty parenting, either hearing about it or seeing the effects of it in others is a major one. It's a combination of her own strained relationship with her parents, as well as the fact that she's a mother herself, although with limited contact with her own daughter, and honestly I could go on about that situation, and I think I may have already done so in a previous post or one that's been put in the queue.

The other 'main' onse that can consistently get to her are just fucking with mechanics and truck drivers and their equipment. She has a lot of respect for them, and because of her own convoy-related trauma, she takes equipment maintenance incredibly seriously. As well as just, seeing young 'kids' (in her eyes anyone younger than 24) in the military.

And then there's the survivors guilt, her anger towards herself for not doing more, for her failure in saving her friends in a situation where none of them were in control.

And in a way, it extends to the Forgotten Soldier verse where all of the above holds true, with certain additions.

There, well, the simplest way to put it is that she's given much more to be angry about. And she is. Without a doubt. But she's kept a handle on it, for the sake of keeping up the appearance of being mentally fit for duty. Her rage is more directed towards her abandonment, how she was left for dead out of pure pettiness by somebody that was supposed to have her back. And how that "death" was covered up by her brother being murdered when he learned the truth. But, several years later, the anger has morphed into a certain bitterness she keeps behind closed doors.

The one constant throughout all this is the simple fact that bottled-up anger is much more dangerous than the anger that's addressed in a timely manner, given appropriate outlets. Because when that fuse is burned up, Pixie's anger is feral. Especially if she believes in her heart that whoever on the other end of it deserves the pain that comes with it. When she stops holding back, she stops holding back, and for anyone that knows her it's genuinely a little terrifying. An angry Pixie who's let herself go isn't somebody you want to be in front of or even next to.

The only exception is the Shadow Company timeline/AU. Phoenix is naturally a more angry person after the amnesia, and it's reflective of her more unstable mental state. Much of it can be seen as sort of 'echoes' from her experiences prior to the amnesia, but it's compounded by her anger over her memories and her past being stripped from her. And towards herself for not truly being able to get past that past that she wants to set aside in favor of her new identity that she's fought to forge and define for herself. She's also got a bit of a quicker temper as Phoenix, but in all honesty, it can be partially attributed to same brain injury that resulted in her amnesia.

#SIMMONS: behind the mask #headcanons: jot this down #asks: access granted #thanks for the ask! ^^#listen Pixie is my emotional support oc I love her to death and I could be here all day screaming about her #and all the different verses I use her in #UGH #your honor I love her #this was much longer than anticipated but shhh #resident rambler here free of charge all day and all night #:)#PIXIE: the forgotten soldier #might reblog w/ additions for Voitto and Wolf later #we shall see

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indiemovies · 2 years

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(in response) EXACTLY

canon nancy has been... through so much people-wise. apart from her blood family, nancy's had no one-on-one relationships survive, or end all that well

steve's out of high school, and it's pretty evident they don't spend much, if any at all, time together. jonathan's been in cali for a year, and the both of them are definitely aware things are sliding downhill. barb- well. barb and fred are pretty self explanatory. but the point is, ever since she lost barb, she hasn't really figured out how to be much of (and i mean this in the nicest way) a functioning member of human society

and honestly, it's not exactly clear if barb's death was the proper catalyst for this. because even before, nancy was struggling to maintain a balance between keeping her best friend + their relationship the same, and trying to date king steve. barb was absolutely right, nancy was acting Off and doing things that weren't true to herself

but after losing barb, nancy was. quick to spiral into place of depression and guilt and trying to deal with trauma while keeping her head above water and holding up appearances as virtually everyone around her, even those who were involved, seemingly moved on with their lives. idk what it was about nancy and barb, whether nancy loved barb or vice versa, or none of the above, but it seemed like that was her one true friendship. the only other times we see her hinting at having other friends is when she gets an invite handed to her at the door by tina, and when she tells her mom she's sleeping over at ally's or stacy's (though later we see karen. saying the wrong name which clearly implies that nancy doesn't talk much to her parents about said friends, because karen can keep track of mike's friends fairly well imo)

and exactly as you said !!!! fred's death dragged all of her insecurities and past traumas back up and into the open, and while she's trying to (once again) wrap all her interpersonal troubles up with duct tape and shove them in little boxes in her brain to deal with the more physical, earth-threatening issues at hand, robin hurricanes into her peripheral. so nancy starts to let robin in bit by bit, etc etc, and then. the finale. and of course nancy's gotta be the one (wo)manning the plan, because if she can do anything to make sure her loved ones aren't ripped away from her by this bastard, she will. except, the plan sorta goes to shit, through no fault of her own, and-

gOOD GOD WHEN WILL THE WRITERS PLEASE ADDRESS NANCY'S ONGOING TRAUMA WITH HER LOVED ONES !! because it seems like a good portion of the fandom writers are occupied kissing steve's ass (or having eddie kiss said ass) and yknow. there's nothing wrong with that ship, or having favorites who aren't nancy. but just... there's so much to explore and delve into, even if she's not always the easiest-to-love character. god this is so long and rambly i apologize

in conclusion, i love nancy wheeler, and i love her more for her flaws and the fact that she, badass who wields guns and kills monsters, hasn't quite figured out the living-a-normal-life part, especially when you try to throw her own emotions into the mix

SCREAMINGGGGG......THIS ALL OF THIS!!!!!!!! never apologize for sending a long nancy message to me bc it is truly the greatest gift anyone can bestow upon me and you are enabling to reciprocate by talking about nancy for a long time as well

ok um YES i agree with everything you said especially about stuff starting even before barb's death. i hate barb discourse (though i understand how the overhyping can lead to retroactive hatred) i just think the dismissal of either barb or nancy as a bad friend is just the most boring and lame way you can approach that dynamic. i love nancy going through normal teen girl struggles of wanting to be different but also wanting to fit in. and her relationship with barb being such a necessary element in this conflict. AND PEOPLE DONT UNDERSTAND THEY WERE LITERALLY CHILDHOOD GIRL BEST FRIENDS who were maybe intense and maybe had feelings for each other they could never quite understand. and that intensity can lead to things like jealousy/possessiveness/resistance to change. so maybe they were both bad friends or neither of them were but that doesn't even matter bc they were each other's best friend.

and i think post s1 nancy struggled so much trying to be a normal teen girl again. everything she longed for at the start of the show seems so frivolous to her now that she's experienced a loss that has shaken her. that's in part why her relationship with steve didnt work, it wasnt bc she associates his pool/their first time with barb's death (or at least it wasn't just that) it's that barb's death forced her to grow up and shattered the illusion of normalcy and complacency for her. she's like what did i use to want and why did i ever want that. and ever since mid-s2 then she's been gogogo, not stopping bc she knows the second she does 1)she has to face her own thoughts and feelings and 2) she feels like she has to protect people through her proactiveness, whether that's her loved ones or some innocent civilian being victimized by authority/government without accountability (does this make sense. she is a true for the people journalist imo) and so she can't stop.

but i really hope in the final season she can get a moment where she CAN stop. where someone makes her. sits her down and talks to her and tells her she doesn't have to responsible for everyone and every bad thing in the world. and i hope that person is EITHER robin or mike.

also i agree with you on that last point lol obviously anyone can like whoever they like (as long as it's not b*lly) and i like steve and eddie!!! but i feel like all of their scenes, characterizations, and possible backgrounds have been analyzed and talked about to hell and back. meanwhile nancy has not slept in 52 hours and is mean to people to keep them out so if she loses them it won't hurt as bad (but she still tries so desperately to save them) and acts more like an alert aggressive guard dog for her family rather than a daughter/sister atp and her face lights up when she finds her old stuffed animal and. no one is talking about it but she is literally THE CHARACTER OF ALL TIME. it's so annoying when people are like "i hate this character for [intentional character flaw/mistake that is literally what makes them so interesting]" GROW UP!!!

also it is going to be hilarious and sad when she shows up to emerson as this battle-hardened serious journalist freshman and she cant help but resent her roommate bc the worst thing that ever happened to her was her parents divorcing. nancy cannot be a functioning member of society at this point!!! and this leads perfectly into my "nancy gets laid off from a newspaper at age 27 and opens a supernatural detective agency" vision

#nancy wheeler you can shoot vecna with a shotgun but you cannot shoot your trauma!!!!!! confront it <3 #tldr; someone take away this girl's gun and hand her a dsm!!!!#asks like this make so happy i love talking about nancy and i love hearing what you have to say!#it is funny that shes so abrasive but shes the most desired woman in hawkins but she's sm more than her romantic relationships #answered #anonymous #nancy wheeler

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lonelier-version-of-you · 2 years

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Having one of those days where I think about how profoundly fucked up Henrik’s life actually is and how much the writers piled on to him, most of which was never properly actually addressed (or some of it was outright played for laughs, like his sexual assault in series 19).

He was born to a neglectful father and a mentally ill, Holocaust survivor mother, inherited that intergenerational trauma from his mum, was sent to a boarding school in a whole other country as a child where he was canonically ostracised for being undiagnosed autistic and where he also definitely would've faced antisemitism, grew up queer at a time where homosexuality was outright illegal in Britain and considered a mental disorder in Sweden, grew up autistic at a time when next to nothing was known about autism (it wasn't even in the ICD until Henrik was well into his teens) so he just thought he was broken, was sexually abused as a teenager, had to deal with his mother’s suicide, was abandoned for months by his father (who made Henrik and Elisabet think he was dead by leaving a suicide note), found out his father betrayed the family, attempted suicide himself as a teen, came of age as a bisexual man during the AIDS crisis, attempted suicide again at uni, was taken hostage and had his life threatened, had to go home to Sweden to confront his dying father, lost a friend who was like a daughter to him, got in a car crash that could’ve killed him, had to treat his seriously injured colleagues after said car crash (including having to perform neurosurgery on one of them, when he hadn’t been a neurosurgeon in years), lost a friend who was like a son to him, lost a close friend from his young adult years in Sweden, was sexually assaulted and harassed and no one took him seriously about it, found out his son was committing medical malpractice that was killing people and had to report him for it despite knowing there was a chance he’d never see his family again if he did so, had to witness a friend who was like a son to him being hospitalised as a result of domestic violence injuries and felt guilty for not doing more to intervene sooner, dealt with his son coming back into his life which reminded Henrik of how he’d failed him, lost one of his closest friends from university, witnessed his son shooting up his workplace, witnessed another one of his closest friends nearly dying, witnessed his colleague being shot, witnessed his son being shot and dying a violent death right in front of him, had to deal with not only his own guilt about the situation but other people and the media blaming him, dealt with his daughter-in-law cutting him off from having any contact with his grandson for a long time because of this, had an emotional breakdown in the middle of his workplace, had to see his close friend undergo multiple major surgeries because his son shot her (and in fact Henrik had to operate on her himself once), another close friend he had romantic feelings for was hit by a car and then died, he discovered the love of his life was the one to kill her + had tried to kill Jac + was committing medical malpractice resulting in the deaths of numerous people, he then saw said love of his life drown himself right in front of Henrik, and instead of supporting him through this the people around him just brushed off his pain with a few cliche murmurings about how “it wasn’t your fault” because they cared more about pressuring him to take back a job he hated and that he had told them harmed his mental health, another one of his close friends nearly died, he was suddenly forced to start caring for his grandson which caused his trauma about Fredrik to resurface (although at least he did find some healing out of all of this, which you can’t say for literally everything else I’ve listed), a former colleague of his was presumed dead (although he found out she was alive eventually), a friend of his died from cancer, he went through a pandemic as a healthcare worker and probably lost a lot of patients all while likely struggling with his own OCD (he canonically has handwashing compulsions, remember...), he had to operate on a friend he saw as a son to him and said friend basically disowned him in the aftermath, he found out a man he had hired was a serial killer, he was forced to operate on his rapist twice, put his career at risk and broke the law by pushing his rapist up the transplant list just so his friend wouldn’t do it herself and put her own career at risk, found out his rapist had been going after more children and Henrik felt like it was his fault for not speaking out, opened up about his abuse only to not be believed, was forced to admit in the middle of his fucking workplace that he was raped, went through all the distress and re-traumatisation of reporting his abuser only for said abuser to die before the case ever went to trial, had to treat another victim of his abuser, had to help his friend’s son go to the police for the murder of his abuser, found out his friend had a brain tumour (the same thing his aforementioned surrogate daughter died of), was caught in a hospital bombing and could’ve died, found out a sexual abuser had been allowed to roam free and traffic children at the hospital he ran (though they never addressed how he’d feel about this for some reason except to have him brush it off with some remark about “resilience”... regardless, there’s no way he wouldn’t have felt really guilty about it), was physically harmed by a colleague with PTSD, had to confront his internalised homophobia and struggled to come out of the closet, and then, finally, even in the last ever episode of the show, one of his very closest friends died.

Oh, and I’m probably forgetting some stuff.

Especially in the final years of the show, Henrik’s name really did become synonymous with ‘trauma p*rn’. :/

#Holby City #Henrik Hanssen #tw;holocaust mention #tw;sexual abuse #tw;rape #tw;suicide #tw;abuse #tw;domestic violence mention #long post #this is an absolute wall of text but that's what happens when you give a character way too much trauma #see this is why i say he should have had a proper breakdown at some point

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blue-kyber · 2 years

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Something of a spoiler for Yune's past in "Out There: the 1K." When you give your characters a heavy dose of trauma, but also address that by giving them therapy.

This is a side bit and not in the book.

Felorians are more heavily employed due to their empathic powers, and their ability to see beyond someone's physical body to the person inside. They don't share human taboos, and appearance means very little to them. This is why any felorian going into the psychiatric field is hired for this job regardless of their gender. It doesn't matter. 18 year old Yune in the office of his assigned felorian therapist, Doctor Krenit Lahset.: "I have your word, right, doc?"

Doctor Krenit Lahset was an unorthadox, relaxed person who wore street clothes to work instead of crisp attire. He felt it made him more disarming along with his mental abilities. His demeanor and personality would be a good compliment to Yune's, which was one of the main reasons why he was assigned this darksider orphan within the first day the kid arrived: "Of course you do. I've been here for you for two years. Everything you say is confidential, Yune, you know that. Nothing leaves this room."

Yune sits on the sofa of the bright, friendly room, with his hands clasped between his knees. “I’ve thought about going back and freeing the others - a lot, actually. But despite how much I hate her for what she made all of us do, how much I despise the way she treated me like her favorite pet, how she had a plan B to keep me there if I got my crystal back, and how much I fantasized about ending her life in a creative number of ways, ...I can’t. I can't free them."

Doctor Lahset listens as his young patient gets up and walks to the window. The sunshine on the major metropolis of Seni doesn't matter to this kid. He can't see it. Right now, he'd willingly stepped into the dark with a tether to Lahset, trusting him to pull him back. Trust... something Yune always had a problem with. This is a major moment in the kid's healing. He had already entrusted him with a number of secrets - including his genetic defect, and the ena crystal he refused to have removed. He sensed a well of guilt and anger ebb and flow within Yune. "Why do you think you can't?"

"Because in the end - in the absolute end of it all - she got us out of that pipeline. The kids I grew up with that got sent to the yards are probably all dead by now. But those of us she enslaved, the few of us she kidnapped off the street and put that damn chip into; her plan B, - sure we faced danger, and some of us didn’t make it - they were caught by Quora Ness Security and sent to the yards anyway, or killed by another criminal group, or ran away and didn't get out of range of the trigger in time to avoid their nervous system being fried - the majority of us are still alive."

They had removed that neurodestabalizing chip a year prior when Yune finally told them about it. That's also when they found the crystal. Doctor Lahset felt that survivor's guilt build in the kid - a common emotion among darksiders. Most of the time, it was in regards to the keth attack thirteen years ago. Yune couldn't remember the attack. His was tied to what he experienced after that. Lahset had been working for two years to break this kid free from the cage he'd made for himself. He continued to listen with his famous felorian patience.

"I can't free them. I got lucky when I got out. Even if I could go back, break down the door, blow the place up into the void, and end that entire operation, it wouldn't matter. We were never wanted to begin with. They have nowhere else to go, and I can't stop the MEC from going after them. If they found out I'm still alive, they'd be after me. They technically still own me for the next two years."

Doctor Lahset knew this, and deliberately refused to report Yune to the MEC like he's supposed to do. He and the other felorian therapists made a pact to never report darksider orphans who came from the MEC run orphanages.

"I can't free them because she was right. She saved our lives.

Yune's fists and teeth clenched, "And I despise her even more for that.”

Tag list: @muddshadow @cedar-west @athenixrose @penspiration-writing @runningoutofbooks @tobiornottobithatisthequestion @roll-top-writing @subject-2-change @dreaming-in-seams @mismatchingart @midnights-melodiverse

#writing #writeblr #ott1k #out there the 1k #Yune actually talking about his past? LIES!#Yune - age 18 - talking to his assigned therapist at the place he escaped to when he was 16.#side stories #character back story #the expanded universe

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loominggaia · 2 years

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Here’s another what if. Noticing that just about all the guys have untreated trauma and mental health issues Evan hires a (competent) therapist to come in and help treat everyone. How do sessions with each of the guys go and who’s the most and least receptive to the therapist aid? What do they discover about themselves during these talks?

Oh man, I could write an entire story about this subject alone...I'll try to keep this as short as possible, but it's still going to be long so strap in.

Evan actually did hire a therapist in "Allmother's Gift", but only for Lukas. Dr. Jan is a telepath who specializes in trauma. She uses her powers to guide patients through their painful memories and resolve their feelings about them.

I think Dr. Jan would be a good fit for the rest of the crew as well, if only they would accept her help. Lukas refused any kind of therapy until things got really dire and his mental health issues began endangering not only his own life, but the lives of his friends too. This was explored in the story "Divine Executioner".

Evan: Evan realizes he's kind of screwed up and needs help, but he's paranoid about being shunned or hunted because of his lycanthropy, so he doesn't like to share his personal life with just anyone. He would really have to trust that therapist to open up to them. I think the most pressing issue they'd address is Evan's guilt complex over taking three innocent lives when he was young--including that of his own father. It's this guilt that inspired him to be a "Good Guy" in the first place. His obsessive need to do the right thing and fix the world is driven by his desire to make up for his sins, which he can't seem to forgive himself for. He seeks forgiveness from the universe itself, which of course he'll never receive.

Lukas: Lukas is already seeing Dr. Jan for his issues, and boy does he have a lot of them...The man is a human bucket overflowing with trauma. He suffered severe abuse from his mother as a child, and escaping her was just leaping out of the frying pan and into the fire, as he landed into the hands of ruthless bandits who enslaved and abused him further. Not to mention he's responsible for the death of his beloved childhood friend, who he shot with an arrow by accident, and this haunts him so badly that he can barely speak her name. He suffers from depression, severe insomnia, stress-induced migraines, irritability, and suicidal thoughts among other things. Of all the Freelance Good Guys, I'd say Lukas is in the most dire need of therapy, and thankfully he is receiving it as of "Allmother's Gift".

Glenvar: Oh boy, good freaking luck getting this guy into a clinic...He's so emotionally constipated that he refuses to cry in front of anyone, including his best friends. He won't open up to them about anything because as a child, he was scolded and called "weak" for shedding tears. So, expressing serious emotion is forbidden in Glenvar's mind. He copes either by getting violent or making jokes and laughing everything off. He would be immensely uncomfortable talking to a therapist. He wouldn't even entertain the idea. I think he would only do it if he was given some kind of ultimatum, like if Evan told him he has to attend therapy or else lose his job. And if he did, I think he and his therapist would mainly focus on the issue that he struggles to open up and be genuine.

Alaine: Alaine is really paranoid about the idea of someone "getting into her head". Considering her past, that isn't surprising. It would take a lot of convincing to get her in the door, but maybe she'd agree so long as one of her friends accompanied her during her sessions. Alaine is a strange case because unlike most mermaids, she actually remembers her time as an undine's thrall. She remembers every little detail because the divines Salina and Marina cured her amnesia, which was both a blessing and a curse. She remembers the faces of all the people she killed during her enslavement, all the children she kidnapped, all the chaos and damage she caused, and these things haunt her so much that she screams and thrashes in her sleep. She's also prone to fits of mania and paranoia, which can strike at any time. She lost most of her teenage years to this thralldom and never learned to be mature, so she can act really childish and volatile at times. Her therapist would probably want to address her sleeping issues first, then teach her ways to cope with her emotions when they get overwhelming. Because as she is, Alaine is quick to start screaming and hitting people when she's upset.

Jeimos: Jeimos would be very open to seeing a therapist. But they're also notoriously bad at taking care of themselves, so this therapy would have to be made as convenient as possible for them. If it's even slightly inconvenient they just won't attend, because this is a person who will starve themselves and hold their piss for 12 hours because they're too immersed in a project to get out of their seat for 5 minutes. Jeimos would need a therapist who specializes in body dysphoria and anxiety disorders. The root of Jeimos' gender issues isn't clear, but their anxiety definitely stems from their strict, oppressive upbringing. They were born and raised in one of the most oppressive empires on Looming Gaia, and on top of that, their parents put waaaaay too much academic pressure on them. Their mother was also severely schizophrenic which led to some level of abuse. Unintentional abuse, but abuse nonetheless. I think learning some simple coping skills for their anxiety would go a long way for them.

Isaac: Isaac is surprisingly well-adjusted, given the circumstances. But he still has some deep-rooted issues to work on. So deep, in fact, that he doesn't even know how to address them because his trauma is lost behind a wall of amnesia. He knows that he gets really anxious sometimes, but he can't figure out why. He knows that he has vivid nightmares that cause him to scream in his sleep and wet the bed, and he knows that certain things paralyze him with fear for seemingly no reason, but he can't trace the "why" back to anything in particular. When the minervae laid him to rest in the Trial of Titans, they took away all memory of his life before that day. But what they couldn't take away were all the feelings his body had developed during that life. The whole reason Karenza sealed him away in the first place was because he was developing PTSD from Disgrace's attacks against them. Isaac still has PTSD, except now he has no idea why. It would take one seriously skilled telepath to break through the minervae's amnesia spell.

Linde: Linde's life was largely uneventful...until the day it wasn't. Everything changed literally overnight when her parents were murdered right in front of her, then she was kidnapped and trafficked across the Serkel Desert by slavers. This was the most harrowing event of her life, and if she does have PTSD, this would definitely be why. She does show post-traumatic stress symptoms in "Body-Hopping" when talking about her mother, which implies that she hasn't fully accepted her parents' deaths yet. It's something she just avoids talking about because it hurts, but I think talking about it with a professional would be helpful to her. In addition, Linde was born with albinism, which is a taboo condition in her culture. It's so taboo that her parents had to send her to private school, because they feared she'd be murdered or kidnapped just for the color of her skin (and we all know how that plan turned out...) Linde hated her condition, not only because she lived in one of the sunniest climates on Looming Gaia, but because she believed it made her ugly. In "Pig Bait", she admits that she used to obsess over her looks and try to fix things about herself that were never broken, and it caused her a lot of distress. It seemed she overcame that on her own at some point, but addressing it with a therapist still wouldn't hurt.

Balthazaar: Balthazaar's a pretty easygoing guy. If someone suggested therapy and offered to pay for it, he'd probably do it. And god knows the man needs it, because currently the only coping skills he has are drinking himself sick and screwing prostitutes. He's experienced some harrowing things in his life, but didn't actually develop PTSD symptoms until "From the Ashes". He took everything in stride before that, but after his wife's death he just seemed to crumble into a sad, alcoholic mess. Feredil was basically the only family he had, so losing her was a devastating blow, even if their marriage was less-than-perfect (okay, it was downright terrible...) He would need a therapist who specializes in grief and loss to teach him how to deal with this better than he has been.

Skel: On the outside, Skel just seems like a regular ol' asshole. But on the inside, the man is a tangled-up spaghetti-ass mess of weird neuroses and psychological problems that even he doesn't understand. His childhood was...let's say, unusual. He was a slave for the royal family of Barha, but not really treated like a slave. He was treated like one of the family until it came time for the princess to marry. Skel and the princess happened to be in a long-term relationship, but she left him for a foreign prince anyway because, in her words, he was "just a slave". Skel got roundhouse-kicked right in the ego that day and it still aches. He hasn't resolved his feelings about it at all. He copes with it in strange ways that he isn't proud of, like secretly roleplaying as an elven princess and expressing bigotry towards elves. He also has a great deal of self-loathing over the simple fact that he's a goblin, as he believes goblins are inferior to other species. There's a lot going on with this guy, and the worst part is, he'd rather die than open up about it. I don't see any way to get him into therapy, to be honest. He's taking his issues with him to the grave.

Javaan: Javaan wouldn't be against therapy. He's pretty open about the hardships he's faced in his life, even to total strangers. He even brags about how he's managed to survive so much horrible shit. He's takes pride in himself, and honestly, he should. He's pretty damn resilient. But that doesn't mean he couldn't benefit from a little help, because although he doesn't express his trauma in the usual ways, it's definitely still there. He has dysfunctional habits like drinking too hard and being irresponsibly promiscuous in an attempt to fill a void left behind by the harrowing death of his mother. Javaan also feels guilt over the fact that he's the product of rape, and he's ashamed and disgusted by his father. He's ashamed to share blood with a person so cruel, and I think that's one of the first things that would be addressed with his therapist.

Elska: Sometimes it seems like Elska has no feelings at all, but that couldn't be further from the truth. She feels things very deeply, probably deeper than most. Unfortunately she has a lot of trouble expressing how she feels, so it can come out in explosive, violent, awkward, or otherwise inappropriate ways. She lost her entire clan to slavers, and I imagine there's a level of survivor's guilt that comes with that. She probably wouldn't resist therapy. But whoever her therapist was, they'd need a unique approach because Elska is a unique individual.

Mr. Ocean: While Mr. Ocean does have some mental health issues, at this point in his life I'd say the most urgent ones are physical and not psychological, meaning a therapist wouldn't do him much good. His brain is literally rotting, and this affects his mood and memory pretty severely at times. Any progress a therapist made with him would likely be forgotten after a short time. While I don't think a therapist would be very helpful to Mr. Ocean in the long-term, I think they could actually help him in the short-term. Just having someone there to calm him down when he's distressed or redirect him when he's about to make a bad decision certainly wouldn't hurt. Currently his friends play this role for him, though some are more successful at it than others.

Zeffer: He's not seeing a therapist. Nope. No way. Because if he opened up to them about the heinous things he's done, he'd have to kill them, and nobody wants that. Zeffer's childhood was a bit dysfunctional, as his mother was working all the time, his father was absent, and he basically had to raise himself in a really poor, crime-riddled city. But after he became a vampire, things got so much worse. His life just spiraled straight down into hell, and he endured sights and experiences so horrible that he refuses to speak them aloud. Zeffer is immensely paranoid to the point that he wouldn't trust anyone who tried to help him. Literally the only person he trusts is Evan, and that in itself is a symptom of mental sickness. This poor guy's mental health was doomed from the start, he never stood a chance.

Questions/Comments?

Lore Masterpost

#ask #askliterature

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alexsfictionaddiction · 3 months

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Review: Hot Springs Drive by Lindsay Hunter

I love a gripping domestic drama and that's what I was hoping for from this book. Although I was intrigued by the plot, all of the characters frustrated me and I would have liked certain characters to have had more screen time than they got.

Jackie is a mother of four boys, who finally has the body she has always wanted. She loved her best friend and next door neighbour Theresa as soon as she met her but she has also always coveted Theresa's quiet perfect life. Perhaps that's why she and Theresa's husband have started a passionate affair. When Theresa winds up dead, everyone knows who killed her but what are the real reasons why?

There are some strangely tender moments in the book where each of the couples remember how they began. It talks about how love changes over time and yet how it also manages to stay the same. There was quite a bit of bittersweetness in the book but as all of the characters were terrible, I didn't really find it all that sad!

After her death, Theresa's husband Adam is haunted by her and the guilt of his betrayal. It is his comeuppance for behaving so badly towards her and honestly, I was here for his guilt. Theresa came out on top in the end, even beyond the grave, and she deserved to.

It is sexually graphic and not in a romantic, sexy way, so I found the sex scenes pretty uncomfortable to read. I could see why Jackie did the things that she did in her circumstances but she still made terrible decisions. I think she was supposed to be quite relatable though and I didn't really get that.

Jackie also has a very serious eating disorder that she never seeks help for. She considers her hunger and weight loss to be positive things and it begins after she attends a weight loss group. I know that all of that will be really triggering for many readers, so it's definitely something that I think you should be aware of before diving into the book. However, I did agree with the weight loss group leader's comment that 'loneliness, boredom, fear, anxiety and trauma' are all hungers too. It was almost like she was telling Jackie to address the emotional problems in her life rather than shrinking her physical body and Jackie never took that advice.

Hot Springs Drive is a close-knit domestic noir with a small cast of characters. There is a lot of voyeurism, adultery and unsettling behaviour throughout the book and although, it was particularly intriguing because there wasn't really a mystery because we know about the murder from the beginning and when the culprit is revealed, it wasn't really that shocking. I think I'd have liked there to have been more twists and big revelations than there were, as it definitely fell flat as a domestic drama.

#hot springs drive #lindsay hunter #domestic drama #contemporary fiction #book review #review #books #bookworm

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marvelandimagine · 3 years

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I think some people mad about the arm is not necessarily about the fact that Ayo disabling the arm itself, it's more of the fact that it was not necessary and the fact that Bucky had no idea they can do that. If I were to be honest, I think it was not that necessary because Ayo is well capable of taking him down without having to disarm him and she is definitely not threatened by him. I think what some people find upsetting about that scene is the fact that it kinda comes off as Ayo putting Bucky in a position where it would make him feel like he doesn't have full control of his own body after all. The Wakandans, especially Ayo, T'Challa and Shuri had every right to feel betrayed and upset but the point is they should have told Bucky about how the arm can easily be disabled like that, they didn't know Bucky was going to set Zemo free when they gave him the arm and regardless of the things they have done for him and if they were ones who gave him the arm, they should have at least told him about it, because it's connected to him, it's a part of HIS body. It doesn't matter if it was necessary to disarm him or not, the point is they should have told him about it because apart from the fact that it's his body and that it was a bit insensitive given his history, it's also a point of vulnerability, and the fact that she did it in front of Walker (and possibly Zemo) --- people who can easily turn on Bucky, could easily that to their advantage and attempt to disable it themselves. Just my thoughts on it.

Thank you for sharing your perspective, anon!

I’m going to use this long-ass reply to address this stuff with Ayo and also voice some thoughts I’ve had over the past few weeks seeing people paint Bucky into being this complete soft and harmless human that needs 25-7 protection which I don’t jive with — and this is me, a complete Bucky stan.

Many moons ago, I saw a post that compared 1940s Bucky moving with stealth and a loaded gun on the train to the Winter Soldier doing the same thing, essentially discussing the similarities and debating how much of non-brainwashed Bucky was in the Soldier. And I think the fandom forgets or chooses to neglect the following when painting him as this fragile, peace-loving guy:

Bucky was an incredibly skilled sniper in the United States Army. His job is to eliminate threats in the most efficient way possible, and he’s good at it. HYDRA gets their hands on him and + the serum, this gets magnified. It wasn’t like HYDRA turned him into someone with the ability and mental capacity to kill — that was already there. The brainwashing and torture just carved out the rest of him to leave those honed skills and an amplified ruthlessness with no moral issues, no sense of self to contend with. That ruthlessness is part of Bucky, whether people like it or not.

When Bucky is outside of HYDRA for the first time and hiding in Civil War and gets attacked, he’s so brutal in his actions that Steve Rogers, the man who literally was ready to die to save Bucky and free him when no one else believed in the good in him, intervenes because “Buck, you’re going to kill someone.” Bucky responds that he’s not going to kill anyone, but the fact remains: with or without HYDRA control, Bucky has a strong capacity for violence that hovers on brutality — again, what’s the most efficient way to eliminate or neutralize a threat? Like, I don’t want to kill you, but I’ll knock your ass out with cinder blocks to the chest.

Bucky has a good heart, he’s loyal, he’s smart, he’s caring, he’s the longest-standing POW in history and was turned into a slave for decades, put through unimaginable trauma and torture and horror with no escape. Bucky is also a strong and incredibly skilled super soldier who has a bionic arm, is a trained sniper, is unnervingly precise with knives, and self-describes himself as “semi-stable.” Zemo notes in the bar that “it didn’t take Bucky long to get back into form,” and he’s right because the ruthlessness and skill of the Winter Soldier is a part of him and always has been. We see it when he has his hand around Zemo’s neck and tells him he will kill him, when he rips the glass from his hand and throws it across the room.

And I’m sure the Wakandans know all this about Bucky, this light and his ability for hard-to-stop violence, whether from talking to Steve and Bucky or doing their own homework. And they still choose to help him out of the goodness of their hearts because he’s been put through hell and they believe they have the capacity to help him and it’s the right thing to do — they’re betting more on those positive attributes. And they put a failsafe on his arm, a literal weapon, and chose not to tell him. You know why I think that shows how much they did care about him? Because they could’ve blatantly come out and said “Hey, we don’t trust you,” and hurt him outright, but they didn’t because they’re betting on the light in Bucky to outweigh the dark or any future manipulation. That it’s a worst-case scenario function they hope to never have to use — so they’re prepared if shit hits the fan, and if it doesn’t, Bucky doesn’t have to be hurt feeling like he can’t be trusted. I see no issues here, they’re just being cautious.

Now coming to Ayo, my QUEEN Ayo. From that beautiful, beautiful opening scene, we get to see her support, her reassurance, her belief that Bucky will be able to work through this, even when he doesn’t believe it himself. She watches him fight and struggle and cry, and you can feel the hope in her and how moved she is when she gets to tell him it worked, he did it — he’s free. And she says it not once, but twice. And you can hear not just the comfort, but the PRIDE and warmth in her voice directed to him, who I’m sure she’s watched throughout the whole deprogramming process and gotten to know and is happy to see him work through the pain and come out on the other side.

And then she sees that same individual make a decision in freeing Zemo that she perceives as a “fuck you” not just to her country, but to her, someone who was charged with protecting her king. She could’ve just disarmed Bucky the second they met up, but she doesn’t. She takes the time to explain her side and her feelings, her guilt and her shame, and basically implies that she feels betrayed by Bucky because Wakanda helped him and now he’s doing something that’s hurting her country. And still, she doesn’t attack or just go get Zemo. She gives Bucky the benefit of the doubt and a whole 8-hour American workday to do what he has to do because again, she believes in the best of him. And then that time limit runs up, and he chooses to get in her way.

And that’s the final straw. She’s angry, she’s guilty, she’s frustrated, and she feels betrayed hurt by someone I think she did respect and care about, someone whom she worked with and helped and supported when he was his most vulnerable. Did she “need” to disarm the arm to fight Bucky? Probably not. But is she doing it in the heat of battle and adrenaline and a whole bucket ton of emotions, including what she sees as the White Wolf blatantly disrespecting her country and her as a person and even friend and she just says fuck it, I’m done? You hurt us and me, and I’m going to hurt you back? Oh yeah. And Bucky looks shocked, not because he’s a poor fragile baby and “oh no, my arm, how could you?? my TrAumA”, but in the dual realization of “oh shit, how’d you do that?!” and “oh shit, I think I crossed a line here.” And also, I don’t think a single person in that room would be able to recreate the disabling sequence other than Ayo — it’s way too targeted and specific for someone like Walker to pick it up in the whole three seconds it took.

People need to stop reducing characters to these black and white extremes of soft and hard, of good and bad. Doing so completely devalues and ignores the REALITY of the complexity of being human, and Bucky and Ayo are both great examples of that played by stellar actors who portray that range and depth extremely well. End of the day, my thought is that the failsafe in the arm was justified and people need to stop coming for Ayo based on this ridiculous narrative that Bucky is too traumatized and sensitive and too much of a fave to ever be challenged or he’ll explode into dust. Boy deserves a life of freedom and healing and mental health support, but he’s also still a formidable opponent with the capacity for violence and skillset to kill. People are more than one thing.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk!!

#Bucky barnes #winter soldier #falcon and winter soldier #falcon and the winter solider spoilers #faws spoilers #faws #james bucky barnes #marvel #dora milaje #wakanda #Ayo #Steve Rogers #falcon and winter soldier spoilers #marvel fandom #I really went off on this one huh #fatws #fatws bucky #fatws ep 4 #fatws spoilers

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tamibae · 2 years

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It has been long since I did a analysis on NaLu. So today, I'm gonna give a close review on Natsu's personality and how his actions are sometimes wrong. Ik I can die for this ship but I'm not blind to any flaws. And today I'm bringing up one.

Wk that Natsu is an immature dork but he is NOT dumb in any way. He's fairly capable of understanding bonds as well as handling hard sitiations in his own way. He has done that many many times throughout the whole series yet he's often deemed as an idiot who's just as clueless as a yound child.

In case anyone forgot, I should remind you the times he was properly able to get the circumstances and solve the problem- the time when Lucy's guilt took her over bc of the Phantom Lord incident, when Erza went alone to fight Jellal, when Gray multiple times tried doing ICED SHELL, when Acno attacked Tenroujima, when Lucy got to know about Jude's death, when Lucy lost to Flare, when F.Lucy was grieving, when Lucy backhugged him after the Eclipse project was stopped, when Igneed died, when he saw Lucy's wall during Alvarez arc, when Lucy was conflicted on the thought if they could bring Gray back or not, when he fought Zeref and realised what Erza's words truely meant and from who they were from, when Ignia showed up, when he hurt Lucy by burning her, when Aquarius showed up during the fight with Nure Onna and ntm his beta heaven.

These are the notable moments when Natsu showed he is mature enough to understand a lots of things. Bookish knowledge doesn't always determine someone's intelligence.

Despite that, he has a lot of flaws in his character which aren't often addressed by people due to their favouritsm. Most of them are revolving Lucy and their very relationship.

Natsu is Lucy's best friend, the closest person besides her spirits. But for some reason (that only Mashima knows besides God) he has never talked to her about himself and his past/Igneel while Lucy being the open book she is, he knows everything about her family and past incidents. She has opened up to him multiple times which isn't the case for Natsu. If we take a close look, it's pretty unfair.

Mira's the one to tell her about Igneel, she got to know about Zeref through third party, even the reality of E.N.D was informed to her through Happy. Despite Igneel's death happening right before Lucy's eyes, Natsu never once talked to her about his emotions. Instead what did he do? He left her with a letter or a "will" as he himself mentioned because he needed some space....This was one of the worst execution of Mashima imo as it could've been turned into a big plot point for them but it DID NOT. Since Natsu never even apologised to Lucy or brought that up, I think I'm free to count it as a mistake on his part bc he didn't bother thinking about Lucy's feelings reagrding his absence for a fucking year. Yes, ofc he tried making up by bringing the guild together and comforting her but that doesn't change the fact that he indeed caused a rift in their bond.

Natsu's capable of handling emotional situations easily but failed more than just once to convey his feelings to Lucy when she brought up her own about his sudden leave, that too 2 times. Instead of sweating every time, he should've just stated reasons and his trauma about Igneel's death. It could've made Lucy's fakeout death even more impactful.

When he regained his consciousness after Erza stopped him and Gray from killing each other, why didn't he just confess to Lucy that E.N.D is none other than him and that he was ready to die along with Zeref? When he came back to her after defeating Acno, why didn't he just tell her his feelings regarding everything that had been going on with his past and Zeref?

Even when Happy brought up that he had burnt Lucy while going bersek, he apologised but instantly made a joke and ruined the built up tension. Why? Why couldn't he just tell her what he bad felt when Ignia's flames took him over? The recent Natsu vs Lucy plot has also become a wasted potential, instead of explaining how Lucy pressed his face in her boobs, why couldn't he just have a meaningful moment with her telling how scared he had been when he had failed to bring the real Lucy back?

Whenever Natsu has to face a different situation where it's about him and Lucy and things aren't normal, he doesn't know what to do? He becomes so much clueless and stands there sweating until someone else interrupts or he can think of a joke or Lucy herself backs away from confronting him. And It's one of the biggest reasons why he takes her for granted in their relationship bc he knows well that things will workout somehow between them.

The last chapter of the main series was a big proof of it, Natsu wanted to say something to her but NEVERMIND bc they're always gonna be together! While it indeed was a big development for Natsu but it again showed how he tends to avoid any difficult situation with Lucy. As long as she's with him, safe and sound what else does he need?

Even a more mature person like Gray was less determined about Juvia until the fact that Juvia has been waiting for him from the start and she won't always wait hit him. Imo, Juvina was one of the greatest push for GrUvia. While does Natsu realise this very thing? NO.

He has reached the level where he thinks Lucy is his own and if it's not him then it's nobody. I do like the little jealous and possessive moments bc they give away what Natsu feels inside but I also know his feelings aren't fair to Lucy. She's free to be with anyone, heck the type of boy she considers her prince-charming. She's not bound to Natsu if he doesn't date her officially.

But according to Natsu, Lucy is forbidden for any other male unless it's him lol. Jealousy is an extremely neg emotion and the root cause of it is selfishness. While this emotion is okay sometimes for couples and people who are in love with each other, Natsu is taking it a bit far. He is limiting her interactions based on people who might be a possible threat for him as a rival. If we recall the time when Dan was going crazy after Lucy and Natsu was just chilling there with no tension what so ever, that explains the difference. He actively chased off people who were hitting on Lucy even tho she wasn't even paying them attention. He aggressively yells at Elefseria bc he got inside Lucy's shirt but then proceeds to shove his own hand in. It's not okay for her to go in public in a towel but it's okay for him to see her naked? Him getting perverted thoughts about her is ok but when someone else does the same, it's NOT?

This is a wrong behavior, it would've been ok if he tried taking any initiative in their relationship but he DID NOT. He's just chilling thinking Lucy is for him and only HIM, there's no need to make a move on her bc Natsu won't let anybody do that.

I can't even begin to count how many more amazing things could've been done with NaLu. It's not that there's no stakes but it's that Mashima just wants to milk money through the ship aa much as possible. It's just that he's using our love for this ship.....

If you read the total thing, you'd know my frustration :")

#fairy tail #natsu dragneel #lucy heartfilia #nalu #natsu x lucy #fairy tail nalu #ft nalu #hiro mashima #fairy tail 100 years quest #nalu analysis

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army-of-mai-lovers · 3 years

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in which I get progressively angrier at the various tropes of atla fandom misogyny

tbh I think it would serve all of us to have a larger conversation about the specific ways misogyny manifests in this fandom, because I’ve seen a lot of people who characterize themselves as feminists, many of whom are women themselves, discuss the female characters of atla/lok in misogynistic ways, and people don’t talk about it enough.

disclaimer before I start: I’m not a woman, I’m an afab nonbinary person who is semi-closeted and thus often read as a woman. I’m speaking to things that I’ve seen that have made me uncomfy, but if any women (esp women existing along other axes of oppression, e.g. trans women, women of color, disabled women, etc) want to add onto this post, please do!

“This female character is a total badass but I’m not even a little bit interested in exploring her as a human being.”

I’ve seen a lot of people say of various female characters in atla/lok, “I love her! She’s such a badass!” now, this statement on its own isn’t misogynistic, but it represents a pretty pervasive form of misogyny that I’ve seen leveled in large part toward the canon female love interests of one or both of the members of a popular gay ship (*cough* zukka *cough*) I’m going to use Suki as an example of this because I see it with her most often, but it can honestly be applied to nearly every female character in atla/lok. Basically, people will say that they stan Suki, but when it comes time to engage with her as an actual character, they refuse to do it. I’ve seen meta after meta about Zuko’s redemption arc, but I so rarely see people engage with Suki on any level beyond “look at this cool fight scene!” and yeah, I love a cool Suki fight scene as much as anybody else, but I’m also interested in meta and headcanons and fics about who she is as a person, when she isn’t an accessory to Sokka’s development or doing something cool. of course, the material for this kind of engagement with Suki is scant considering she doesn’t have a canon backstory (yet) (don’t let me down Faith Erin Hicks counting on you girl) but with the way I’ve seen people in this fandom expand upon canon to flesh out male characters, I know y’all have it in you to do more with Suki, and with all the female characters, than you currently do. frankly, the most engagement I’ve seen with Suki in mainstream fandom is justifying either zukki (which again, is characterizing her in relation to male characters, one of whom she barely interacts with in canon) or one of the Suki wlw pairings. which brings me to--

“I conveniently ship this female character whose canon love interest is one of the members of my favorite non-canon ship with another female character! gay rights!”

now, I will admit, two of my favorite atla ships are yueki and mailee, and so I totally understand being interested in these characters’ dynamics, even if, as is the case with yueki, they’ve never interacted canonically. however, it becomes a problem for me when these ships are always in the background of a zukka fic. at some point, it becomes obvious that you like this ship because it gets either Zuko or Sokka’s female love interests out of the way, not because you actually think the characters would mesh well together. It’s bad form to dislike a female character because she gets in the way of your gay ship, so instead, you find another girl to pair her off with and call it a day. to be clear, I’m not saying that everybody who ships either mailee or yueki (or tysuki or maisuki or yumai or whatever other wlw rarepair involving Zuko or Sokka’s canon love interests) is nefariously trying to sideline a female character while acting publicly as if she’s is one of their faves--far from it--but it is noteworthy to me how difficult it is to find content that centers wlw ships, while it’s incredibly easy to find content that centers zukka in which mailee and/or yueki plays a background role.

also, notice how little traction wlw Katara ships gain in this fandom. when’s the last time you saw yuetara on your dash? there’s no reason for wlw Katara ships to gain traction in a fandom that is so focused on Zuko and Sokka getting together, bc she doesn’t present an immediate obstacle to that goal (at least, not an obstacle that can be overcome by pairing her up with a woman). if you are primarily interested in Zuko and Sokka’s relationship, and your queer readings of other female characters are motivated by a desire to get them out of the way for zukka, then Katara’s canon m/f relationship isn’t a threat to you, and thus, there’s no reason to read her as potentially queer. Or even, really, to think about her at all.

“Katara’s here but she’s not actually going to do anything, because deep down, I’m not interested in her as a person.”

the show has an enormous amount of textual evidence to support the claim that Sokka and Katara are integral parts of each other’s lives. so, she typically makes some kind of appearance in zukka content. sometimes, her presence in the story is as an actual character with layers and nuance, someone whom Sokka cares about and who cares about Sokka in return, but also has her own life and goals outside of her brother (or other male characters, for that matter.) sometimes, however, she’s just there because halfway through writing the author remembered that Sokka actually has a sister who’s a huge part of the show they’re writing fanfiction for, and then they proceed to show her having a meetcute with Aang or helping Sokka through an emotional problem, without expressing wants or desires outside of those characters. I’m honestly really surprised that I haven’t seen more people calling out the fact that so much of Katara’s personality in fanon revolves around her connections to men? she’s Aang’s girlfriend, she’s Sokka’s sister, she’s Zuko’s bestie. never mind that in canon she spends an enormous amount of time fighting against (anachronistic, Westernized) sexism to establish herself as a person in her own right, outside of these connections. and that in canon she has such interesting complex relationships with other female characters (e.g. Toph, Kanna, Hama, Korra if you want to write lok content) or that there are a plethora of characters with whom she could have interesting relationships with in fanon (Mai, Suki, Ty Lee, Yue, Smellerbee, and if you want to write lok content, Kya II, Lin, Asami, Senna, etc). to me, the lack of fandom material exploring Katara’s relationships with other women or with herself speak to a profound indifference to Katara as a character. I’m not saying you have to like Katara or include her in everything you write, but I am asking you to consider why you don’t find her interesting outside of her relationships with men.

“I hate Katara because she talks about her mother dying too often.”

this is something I’ve seen addressed by people far more qualified than I to address it, but I want to mention it here in part because when I asked people which fandom tropes they wanted me to talk about, this came up often, but also because I find it really disgusting that this is a thing that needs to be addressed at all. Y’all see a little girl who watched her mother be killed by the forces of an imperialist nation and say that she talks about it too much??? That is a formational, foundational event in a child’s life. Of course she’s going to talk about it. I’ve seen people say that she doesn’t talk about it that often, or that she only talks about it to connect with other victims of fn imperialism e.g. Jet and Haru, but frankly, she could speak about it every episode for no plot-significant reason whatsoever and I would still be angry to see people say she talks about it too much. And before you even bring up the Sokka comparison, people deal with grief in different ways. Sokka repressed a lot of his grief/channeled it into being the “man” of his village because he knew that they would come for Katara next if he gave them the opportunity. he probably would talk about his mother more if a) he didn’t feel massive guilt at not being able to remember what she looked like, and b) he was allowed to be a child processing the loss of his mother instead of having to become a tiny adult when Hakoda had to leave to help fight the fn. And this gets into an intersection with fandom racism, in that white fans (esp white American fans) are incapable of relating to the structural trauma that both Sokka and Katara experience and thus can’t see the ways in which structural trauma colors every single aspect of both of their characters, leading them to flatten nuance and to have some really bad takes. And you know what, speaking of bad fandom takes--

“Shitting on Mai because she gets in the way of my favorite Zuko ship is actually totally okay because she’s ~abusive~”

y’all WHAT.

ok listen, I get not liking maiko. I didn’t like it when I first got into fandom, and later I realized that while bryke cannot write romance to save their lives, fans who like maiko sure can, so I changed my tune. but if you still don’t like it, that’s fine. no skin off my back.

what IS skin off my back is taking instances in which Mai had justified anger toward Zuko, and turning it into “Mai abused Zuko.” do you not realize how ridiculous you sound? this is another thing where I get so angry about it that I don’t know how useful my analysis is actually going to be, but I’ll do my best. numerous people have noted how analysis of Mai and Zuko’s breakup in “The Beach” or Mai being justifiably angry with him at Boiling Rock or her asking for FUCKING FRUIT in “Nightmares and Daydreams” that says that all of these events were her trying to gain control over him is....ahhh...lacking in reading comprehension, but I’d like to go a step further and talk about why y’all are so intent on taking down a girl who doesn’t show emotion in normative ways. obviously, there’s a “Zuko can do no wrong” aspect to Mai criticism (which is super weird considering how his whole arc is about how he can do lots of wrong and he has to atone for the wrong that he’s done--but that’s a separate post.) But I also see slandering Mai for not expressing her emotions normatively and not putting up with Zuko’s shit and slandering Katara for “talking about her mother too often” as two sides of the same coin. In both cases, a female character expresses emotions that make you, the viewer, uncomfortable, and so instead of attempting to understand where those emotions may have come from and why they might be manifesting the way they are, y’all just throw the whole character away. this is another instance of people in the fandom being fundamentally disinterested in engaging with the female characters of atla in a real way, except instead of shallowly “stanning” Mai, y’all hate her. so we get to this point where female characters are flattened into one of two things: perfect queens who can do no wrong, or bitches. and that’s not who they are. that’s not who anyone is. but while we as a fandom are pretty good at understanding b1 Zuko’s actions as layered and multifaceted even though he’s essentially an asshole then, few are willing to lend the same grace to any female character, least of all Mai.

and what’s funny is sometimes this trope will intersect with “I conveniently ship this female character whose canon love interest is one of the members of my favorite non-canon ship with another female character! gay rights!”, so you’ll have someone actively calling Mai toxic/problematic/abusive, and at the same time ship her with Ty Lee? make it make sense! but then again, maybe that’s happening because y’all are fundamentally disinterested in Ty Lee as a character too.

“I love Ty Lee so much that I’m going to treat her like an infantilized hypersexual airhead!”

there are so many things happening in y’alls characterization of Ty Lee that I struggled to synthesize it into one quippy section header. on one hand, you have the hypersexualization, and on the other hand, you have the infantilization, which just makes the hypersexualization that much worse.

(of course, sexualizing or hypersexualizing ANY atla character is really not the move, considering that these are child characters in a children’s show, but then again, that’s a separate post.)

now, I understand how, from a very, very surface reading of the text, you could come to the conclusion that Ty Lee is an uncomplicated bimbo. if you grew up on Western media the way I did, you’ll know that Ty Lee has a lot of the character traits we associate with bimbos: the form-fitting pink crop top, the general conventional attractiveness, the ditzy dialogue. but if you think about it for more than three seconds, you’ll understand that Ty Lee has spent her whole life walking a tightrope, trying to please Azula and the rest of the royal family while also staying true to herself. Ty Lee and Azula’s relationship is a really complex and interesting topic that I don’t really have time to explore at the moment given how long this post is, but I’d argue that Ty Lee’s constant, vocal adulation is at least partially a product of learning to survive at court at an early age. Like Mai, she has been forced to regulate her emotions as a member of fn nobility, but unlike Mai, she also has six sisters who look exactly like her, so she has a motivation to be more peppy and more affectionate to stand out.

fandom does not do the work to understand Ty Lee. as is a theme with this post, fandom is actively disinterested in investigating female characters beyond a very surface level reading of them. Thus, fandom takes Ty Lee’s surface level qualities--her love of the color pink, her revealing standard outfit, and the fact that once she found a boy attractive and also once a lot of boys found her attractive--and they stretch this into “Ty Lee is basically Karen Smith from Mean Girls.” thus, Ty Lee is painted as a bimbo, or more specifically, as not smart, uncritically adoring of Azula (did y’all forget all the non-zukka bits of Boiling Rock?), and attractive to the point of hypersexualization. I saw somebody make a post that was like “I wish mailee was more popular but I’m also glad it isn’t because otherwise people would write it as Mai having to put up with her dumb gf” and honestly I have to agree!! this is one instance in which I’m glad that fandom doesn’t discuss one of my favorite characters that often because I hate the fanon interpretation of Ty Lee, I think it’s rooted in misogyny (particularly misogyny against East Asian women, which often takes the form of fetishizing them and viewing them only through a Western white male gaze)

(side note: here at army-of-mai-lovers, we stan bimbos. bimbos are fucking awesome. I personally don’t read Ty Lee as a bimbo, but if that’s you, that’s fucking awesome. keep doing what you’re doing, queen <3 or king or monarch, it’s 2021, anyone can be a bimbo, bitches <3)

“Toph can and will destroy everyone here with her bare hands because she’s a meathead who likes to murder people and that’s it!”

Toph is, and always has been, one of my favorite ATLA characters. My very first fic in fandom was about her, and she appears prominently in a lot of my other work as well. One thing that I am always struck by with Toph is how big a heart she has. She’s independent, yes, snarky, yes, but she cares about people--even the family that forced her to make herself smaller because they didn’t believe that their blind daughter could be powerful and strong. Her storyline is powerful and emotionally resonant, her bending is cool precisely because it’s based in a “wait and listen” approach instead of just smashing things indiscriminately, she’s great disabled rep, and overall one of the best characters in the show.

And in fandom, she gets flattened into “snarky murder child.”

So where does this come from? Well, as we all know, Toph was originally conceived of as a male character, and retained a lot of androgyny (or as the kids call it, Gender) when she was rewritten as a female character. There are a lot of cultural ideas about androgynous/butch women being violent, and people in fandom seem to connect that larger cultural narrative with some of Toph’s more violent moments in the show to create the meathead murder child trope, erasing her canon emotionality, softness, heart, and femininity in the process.

This is not to say that you shouldn’t write or characterize Toph as being violent or snarky at all ever, because yeah, Toph definitely did do Earth Rumbles a lot before joining the gaang, and yeah, Toph is definitely a sarcastic person who makes fun of her friends a lot. What I am saying is that people take these traits, sans the emotional logic, marry them to their conception of androgynous/butch women as violent/unemotional/uncaring, and thus create a caricature of Toph that is not at all up to snuff. When I see Toph as a side character in a fic (because yeah, Toph never gets to be a main character, because why would a fandom obsessed with one male character in particular ever make Toph a protagonist in her own right?) she’s making fun of people, killing people, pranking people, etc, etc. She’s never talking to people about her emotions, or palling around with her found family, or showing that she cares about her friends. Everything about her relationship with her parents, her disability, her relationship to Gender, and her love of her friends is shoved aside to focus on a version of Toph that is mean and uncaring because people have gotten it into their heads that androgynous/butch women are mean and uncaring.

again, we see a female character who does not emote normatively or in a way that makes you, the viewer, comfortable, and so you warp her character until she’s completely unrecognizable and flat. and for what?

Azula

no, I didn’t come up with a snappy name for this section, mainly because fanon interpretations of Azula and my own feelings toward the character are...complicated. I know there were some people who wanted me to write about Azula and the intersection of misogyny and ableism in fanon interpretations of her character, but I don’t think I can deliver on that because I personally am in a period of transition with how I see Azula. that is to say, while I still like her and believe that she can be redeemed, there is a lot of merit to disliking her. the whole point of this post is that the female characters of ATLA are complex people whom the fandom flattens into stereotypes that don’t hold up to scrutiny, or dislike for reasons that don’t make sense. Azula, however, is a different case. the rise of Azula defenders and Azula stans has led to this sentiment that Azula is a 14 y/o abuse victim who shouldn’t be held accountable for her actions. it seems to me that people are reacting to a long, horrible legacy of male ATLA fans armchair diagnosing Azula with various personality disorders (and suggesting that people with those personality disorders are inherently monstrous and unlovable which ahhhh....yikes) and then saying that those personality disorders make her unlovable, which is quite obviously bad. and hey, I get loving a character that everyone else hates and maybe getting so swept up in that love that you forget that your fave is complicated and has made some unsavory choices. it sucks that fanon takes these well-written, complex villains/antiheroes and turns them into monsters with no critical thought whatsoever. but the attitude among Azula stans that her redemption shouldn’t be hard, that her being a child excuses all of the bad things that she’s done, that she is owed redemption....all of that rubs me the wrong way. I might make another post about this in the future that discusses this in more depth, but as it stands now: while I understand that there is a legacy of misogynistic, ableist, unnuanced takes on Azula, the backlash to that does not take into account the people she hurt or the fact that in ATLA she does not make the choice to pursue redemption. and yes, Zuko had help in making that choice that Azula didn’t, and yes, Azula is a victim of abuse, but in a show about children who have gone through untold horrors and still work to better the lives of the people around them, that is not enough for me to uncritically stan her.

Conclusion

misogyny in this fandom runs rampant. while there are some tropes of fandom misogyny that are well-documented and have been debunked numerous times, there are other, subtler forms of misogyny that as far as I know have gone completely unchecked.

what I find so interesting about misogyny in atla fandom is that it’s clear that it’s perpetrated by people who are aware of fandom misogyny who are actively trying not to be misogynistic. when I first joined atla fandom last summer, memes about how zukka fandom was better than every other fandom because they didn’t hate the female characters who got in the way of their gay ship were extremely prevalent, and there was this sense that *this* fandom was going to model respectful, fun, feminist online fandom. not all of the topes I’ve outlined are exclusive to or even largely utilized in zukka fandom, but a lot of them are. I’ve been in and out of fandom since I was eleven years old, and most of the fandom spaces I’ve been in have been majority-female, and all of them have been incredibly misogynistic. and I always want to know why. why, in these communities created in large part by women, in large part for women, does misogyny run wild? what I realize now is that there’s never going to be a one-size fits all answer to that question. what’s true for 1D fandom on Wattpad in 2012 is absolutely not true for atla fandom on tumblr in 2021. the answers that I’ve cobbled together for previous fandoms don’t work here.

so, why is atla fandom like this? why did the dream of a feminist fandom almost entirely focused on the romantic relationship between two male characters fall apart? honestly, I think the notion that zukka fandom ever was this way was horrifically ignorant to begin with. from my very first moment in the fandom, I was seeing racism, widespread sexualization of minors, and yes, misogyny. these aspects of the fandom weren’t talked about as much as the crocverse or other, much more fun aspects. further, atla (specifically zukka) fandom misogyny often doesn’t look like the fandom misogyny we’ve become familiar with from like, Sherlock fandom or what have you. for the most part, people don’t actively hate Suki, they just “stan” without actually caring about her. they hate Mai because they believe in treating male victims of abuse equally. they’re not characterizing Toph poorly, they’re writing her as a “strong woman.” in short, people are misogynistic, and then invoke a shallow, incomplete interpretation of feminist theory to shield themselves from accusations of misogyny. it’s not unlike the way some people will invoke a shallow, incomplete interpretation of critical race theory to shield themselves from accusations of racism, or how they’ll talk about “freedom of speech” and “the suppression of women’s sexuality” to justify sexualizing minors. the performance of feminism and antiracism is what’s important, not the actual practice.

if you’ve made it this far, first off, hi, thanks so much for reading, I know this was a lot. second, I would seriously encourage you to be aware of these fandom tropes and to call them out when you see them. elevate the voices of fans who do the work of bringing the female characters of atla to life. invest in the wlw ships in this fandom. drop a kudos and a comment on a rangshi fic (please, drop a kudos and a comment on a rangshi fic). read some yuetara. let’s all be honest about where we are now, and try to do better in the future. I believe in us.

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