#but I do think that canon supports interpreting many of the protagonists as people of color

[jennaimmortal]

Musings on OFMD Season 2

I’m feeling a bit sad today for the OFMD writers. After rewatching S1 & 2 a couple times, it’s become blatantly clear to me that Izzy’s arc this season was a very obvious love letter to both Izzy fans & the great Con O’Neil. Izzy was very clearly written to be an obstacle to Ed’s healing & personal growth, a snare that Ed needed to be freed from, albeit with plenty of nuance hiding under the surface. It would have been much easier for them to kill Izzy off while he was still the toxic, abusive, sadomasochistic terror of S1E10.

Instead of taking the easy route, though, the writers flipped the trope on its head! They utilized every bit of the potential buried beneath Izzy’s super fucked up shell. This season Izzy got

• a fully fleshed out redemption complete with terrible consequences of his 1x10 actions

• a realization of the possibility of another way of thinking & existing that he’d spent all of S1 running from & trying to destroy,

• genuine love & support from his crew mates which he was actually able to accept,

• exploration of the long abandoned softer side of his nature,

• an apology from Ed w/o first offering one of his own,

• a powerful, devastatingly poignant speech that mentally demolished a new nemesis, and finally

• a beautiful, meaningful death in the arms of the man he’d dedicated so much of his life to, known that he was truly loved by him & completely accepting of the fact that Ed’s love was not in the form he’d always hoped for.

It was so much more than we could have hoped for, and was very obviously done in service to the MANY fans that had fallen in love with Izzy even after S1, as well as to give Con a storyline worthy of his immense talent. Considering the face that Izzy was never going to end up becoming the show’s third protagonist, it was more than we could have hoped for!

OFMD has two protagonists, Stede & Ed. All the secondary character narratives that haven’t directly involved Ed and/or Stede have been icing on the cake, but the cake has always been the Gentlebeard love story. I feel like some people forget this, expecting them to treat the secondary characters as if it were an ensemble show instead of a show with leads.

Izzy’s arc really was an amazing gift! The writers gave us this incredible journey for Izzy this season, and what did a disgraceful number of people do? They attacked David directly, insulted the entire show, the writers, & other characters, even wishing actual harm & misery to other characters or even to David himself!

While I know that comparatively speaking, the percentage of show fans who reacted this way was relatively small, it was still an astounding amount of hatred & vitriol thrown at the people who had obviously worked very hard to give Izzy fans something beautiful to hold on to after his inevitable death. Much of the discourse honestly shocked me, considering the fact that OFMD isn’t even an adaptation of another work.

When fans get angry at shows written as adaptations of books, it’s a bit more understandable for them to have extreme reactions. They’ve had certain ideas and headcanons about characters they’ve felt very strongly about for a long time. It can be really jarring & painful when expectations like that aren’t met, the characters or plots are taken in totally different directions, or even excluded entirely.

OFMD, however, is an original creation. This is David Jenkins’s story. These are David Jenkins’s characters. He knows his story, his plotlines, his characters far better than anyone else does because they came from HIS brain! So while we as fans can have our own interpretations & head canons, they are always going to be at risk of being proven totally wrong by the ACTUAL canon.

One of the worst aspects of fandoms, in my opinion, is the way people become so proprietary over the story & characters, insisting that their own interpretations & theories are the only correct ones, which is exactly what happened with Izzy. Fans’ individual & collective interpretations, theories, hopes, & other head canons became concrete & true in their minds. So much so that when the actual story didn’t meet those expectations, so many of them lashed out in some truly unpleasant, sometimes hateful ways.

My only hope is that the rest of the fandom’s love, appreciation, constructive criticism, heartbreak, pain, joy, & excitement has been enough to drown out the deluge of vitriolic comments directed at David & the other writers.

If you stuck with me through this unintentionally long diatribe, thank you! Maybe take a moment to give the writers some comments or replies on social media, showing your love! I know I will!

#our flag means death #ofmd #ed teach #ofmd s2 spoilers #ofmd season 2 #ofmd s2 #ofmd izzy #izzy hands

[powerpolyculeshowdown]

know of any shows with positive poly representation? everything I've seen either kills a part of the polycule, or they break up and the two with the most chemistry end up together in the end

i dont watch a lot of shows, but here's what i learned from running this:

the main one that has been recommended here by other followers is Leverage, the polycule even won the first showdown! from my understanding, in the original show they werent able to make it explicitly canon but the writers confirmed it's a polycule, and people mentioned a newer version but i know less about that.

the polycule from The Expanse just got second place in the canon showdown! so thats another one

I was told Siren is good but to not watch season 2 iirc cause thats where they do exactly what u dont wanna see (end the polycule in favor of a couple) but alot of Leverage fans recommended that one as well

Sens8 has one canon polycule and one trio that can also be interpreted as one, but arent confirmed canon. The canon polycule had to be rushed because netflix cancelled the show, but i hear its still v good!

If you count podcasts as shows, Penumbra Podcast Second Citadel has also been highly recommended and ive heard amazing things about the polycule in that one!

And idk if you only mean live action but if you include cartoons, there's Amphibia! How canon it is has been oftenly debated in my notes so i cant advocate much but a lot of ppl seem to feel like the show heavily supports that as a possible direction for the relationship of the protagonists?

those are the ones i can remember right now, im sure if you keep an eye on the notes to this ask there will probably be other recommendations! i also have the tag #polyam rep (which ill add to this ask since tumblr's search function likes to act up) with lots of recommendations by many different people, not all of them are tv shows, i think most are books? but still worth it to check it out imo

the only media with canon polycules i personally consumed have been two webcomics (Charity Case and Shootaround), one book (Iron Widow), and a game (Hades), also a spanish movie i watched before i knew what a polycule was and idk its name :( so yeah unfortunately i dont have too many personal recs, and none for shows, but i hope you find smth in the replies or in the polyam rep tag!

#polyasks #polyam rep #leverage #siren #the expanse #sense8 #second citadel #amphibia #long post

[sleepy-moron]

I stand before you today good people of Tumblr to answer a very important question: Why gay Mike Wheeler? This isn't going to be an explanation as to what evidence there is to support this claim because many people have covered the topic way better than I could, it's more of me attempting to explain why I personally am so interested by this interpretation of stranger things.

Okay so I've loosely followed the stranger things community on and off since around fall of 2016?? While I've had occasional brief periods of hyperfixation on the series, it's never been THE hyperfixation for me. That is until we started getting the bigger promo material for season four in October. I fell into a theory post rabbit hole and eventually wound up binge reading a bunch of byler meta posts.....and now I am extremely invested, as evidenced by me even making this post.

The funny thing is I never really had strong feelings about Mike as a character other than him being an asshole in season 3 prior to this. I thought he was generally a likeable enough protagonist(because he arguably fills the role of an 80s kid hero better than anyone else+ he is always relevant in that part of the storyline for the first three seasons) for the kind of story the show is trying to tell, albeit not a particularly interesting one. But Mike being gay changes that, and not for the "you only like the character because they're gay" reasons some people are going to claim. Well it does have to do with that but it really isn't that cut and dry of an answer.

Mike being canonically gay would make him an incredibly subversive character, and I don't mean that in a "wow it's so rare to have a character realize they're gay gradually over the course of a work of fiction" way, I mean it's arguably a subversion of a lot of tropes and story conventions common to works like stranger things. I'd argue that if Mike being gay is indeed the intended reading of his character, that this makes him one of the strongest links between a characters personal arc and the overall thematics of a show I've seen in recent memory.

This begs the question: what is stranger things even about on a thematic level. I personally believe that the biggest takeaways are about the power of love and compassion in the face of adversity, and that people (particularly people in positions of power) are the real monsters for encouraging the suffering and pressure to conform to societal norms at the price of your own happiness. I think most people who have watched the show would agree on these being major themes so I'm not going to explain how the story shows these themes.

Mike (and his hypothetical sexuality and relationship with Will) tie in with these themes pretty damn perfectly. The bond these two share is always linked to the main supernatural threat of the season, and in the first two seasons Mike caring about Will to the extent he does is a big factor in taking down the physical threat of the season. Season 3 is a little different, as a big conflict of the season is Mike ignoring people in favor of kissing El, and Will is by far the character we see impacted the most by this. This conflict is the whole reason nobody besides Dustin gets involved with the mall Russians, and Mike and Will literally have their big fight right before the characters realize the mind flayer is back.

Now that we know how important their relationship is, let's run through how many themes this arc would connect to. These two deciding to go against the very real pressures of society to do what makes them happy, as which is also an act of love/care, and would likely help them fight against the upside down at an unspecified later point in the series. This even works on a meta level, as this also subverts real society's expectations on how the plot of shows like stranger things go. Mike not ending up with El would be a big subversion already but him ending up with Will instead inverts so many tropes. It means the main girl character in advertisement doesn't end up with the guy she's closest with, a gay character isn't in unrequited pining for a hero who's straight, and it also means that no longer being in a relationship with someone is automatically an unhappy ending. Additionally it subverts the idea of needing a relationship to be happy and the idea that relationship plotlines can't be just as relevant to the story of an action/non melodrama show as any other kind of side plot can be. So this boils down to subverting audience expectations based on cinematic conventions to stay true to the story being told, and that story ultimately being about compassion and love overcoming all opposition.

I just think that's the kind of story people need to see sometimes, and it would be huge to see a show this popular do something like this, and I really think that just how well this storyline would fit the show in addition to all the subtext is really why people are so attached to this idea.

#byler #stranger things #stranger things 4 #byler tumblr #gay mike wheeler #mike wheeler is gay #oh boy this is a doozy of a ramble essay #i just had a lot of feelings and kinda just threw all of them into a post #hopefully this is somewhat coherent??? #this is the text equivalent of what goes through my head when i become overwhelmed by feelings about a piece of media #to which i then lie on the floor for several hours until i become a function person again

[nightswatchdisbandmentera]

Me seeing the ask game: *cracks knuckles* Let's go.

I hope you don't mind answering all of these 😅.

1.

6.

8.

9.

10.

12.

13.

16.

20.

21.

22.

24.

25.

Have a nice day!

I won’t answer all of them haha. I had no time to write that much plus I wanted to actually give hOt TaKeS.

8 common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

I’ll start of by saying that I’m not one who wants to police other people’s interpretations of the text. BUT I will say this: Jon is not a below average swordsman! He’s not even average. He may not have many on page feats, but he’s only been in less than a handful of serious fights and they were against middle aged men with decades of experience over him. People like to bring up his loss to Mance, but this fight was against a man who managed to unite the wildling tribes under his rule; Mance is a highly skilled warrior.

Remember, Jon is 15-16 years old when most of these fights are happening. So he’s still young and growing. People will also say “oh, but Jaime Lannister was a god at that age”. Honestly, who cares? How many characters are comparable to Jaime at any age? It’s such a dumb comparison. I’ve even seen people argue that a 13 year old Peck is better than Jon and huh? Jon hasn’t won over any knights….because he’s not encountering them in the first place.

It’s clear that GRRM holds Jon’s skill in high regard. I mean the first Jon POV chapter established him as a noted swordsman. It also clear that Jon isn’t meant to be the warrior type. He’s a deconstruction of the archetypal fantasy protagonist. GRRM has chosen to build his political skills, so he’s not putting much of a focus on how well he swings his sword. That doesn’t mean though that he doesn’t have any skill at all. Just that it’s not the main focus of his character. But I think this fandom generally has the most wretched discourse when it comes to this stuff. Like people on Reddit this past week tried to argue that Brienne is overrated…Brienne, of all people. It’s just insane to me that people think they know more than the guy who wrote the damn books.

13 worst blorboficiation

Has got to be Kevan Lannister. Not so much on tumblr, but it’s a disease in some of the other communities. For whatever reason, he’s quite beloved. And this is rather strange because he is very much complicit in the corrupt Lannister regime. And as far as we know, he’s also fully supported Tywin in everything (which includes legitimate war crimes). He has his moments where he is shown to actually care for family members (e.g., Lancel, Tyrion), and that makes him a delightfully complex character. He’s also really funny. But we shouldn’t ignore his really bad traits. I’ve had to suffer a bunch of “Kevan Lannister is the best guy ever” posts on Reddit, and it’s absolutely maddening. That’s not to say that we can’t like “bad” people! Heck, Cersei is one of my faves. But it’s weird how certain characters get a pass for doing problematic things (e.g., Kevan or even Bobby B), and other characters get lambasted for the most tame things imaginable. It’s just the hypocrisy that’s annoying.

16 you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

Powerscaling lol. It can be fun, but the people who engage in these discussions can be so tedious and boring. Tiktok and Reddit are full of this. “Who is the greatest fighter”, “who is the best warrior”, “this is why prime Robert low diffs Barristan Selmy”, and it’s the same old arguments every time. I think we should get more creative with powerscaling if we have to do it. Like “who has the best 🛌 skills”. Let’s at least argue over something fun, damn.

22 your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores

This is going to be twofold:

- On tumblr? Easily Jon’s relationship with magic. In fact, people on here will go out of their way to argue that it’s actually not important to the plot, which is absolutely bonkers. Beyond warging, there’s a lot of weird magical stuff going on with Jon that should be put under the microscope. And I’d even argue that Jon’s a pretty special warg and cannot be compared to the other Stark kids (even Bran) because of how his powers manifest. Ghost is also obviously one of the most special animal familiars in the series (maybe even THE most special one), but no one ever talks about how special he is. A lot of people seem to believe that Jon will be KiTN, but it’s insane how we don’t talk about why it’s magically important for him to rule the North, considering his deep connections to Northern mysticism, religion, and lore.

- Elsewhere: the parallels between Jon and Bran. They’re essentially the same character base split into two (Seoman Snowlack, Frodo, King Arthur, Paul and Leto Atreides, Odin, etc). Both arcs parallel each other and are heading to the same destination, but the details will be different. This is getting to my last point, but I firmly believe we’re getting an ending with both King Jon and King Bran. I like to think of them as two competing but complementary sides of King Arthur’s tale. Jon is the one that is true to legend, as he follows the archetypal hidden prince-to-king trope. Jon is essentially “what if Arthur actually went on his hero’s/knightly quest?”Bran is the subverted one, where young Arthur gets a little detour; so “what if Arthur didn’t go on the hero’s/knightly quest but instead had to take up a job as a part time wizard?” Both will end up kings, just as Arthur did, but it will be different versions of the legend.

- Also: WTF is up with the Watch/Wall? What magic was used to build the Wall and who built it? Why can’t dragons cross? And why can’t wights cross either? What magic dictates that? What’s up with the Nightfort? Why does one only need to say part of the vows to open the gate? And what’s up with the NW vows? Why do they give Lightbringer vibes?! Is the NW Lightbringer? The NW is directly credited with the ending of the Long Night so was the last hero a member of the original group? Who was he? What happened to him after? If the last hero inspired AA then did the NW (and their vows) inspire tales of his flaming sword? And why did the relationship between the Watch and the CoF fizzle out? When did it fizzle out? And who are the LCs whose tenures have not been recorded? Why did they only start recording in the 600s (iirc)? What other history has been lost over time? Who was the Night King? Where did his half-human children go? Need that old man to answer these stat

25 common fandom complaint that you're sick of hearing

Several people will block me for this…but King Bran. Look, I get that Bran isn’t the most popular character out there. But so many people convinced themselves that he would die in that cave or he would amount to nothing which is very, very strange. And it also doesn’t help that a lot of the complaints reek of ableism.

GRRM obviously considers Bran to be central to this series. He is the first viewpoint character (and potentially the last one). He is the most magical character in the story. The scene that birthed ASOIAF came about because of Bran. It’s also said that GRRM considered writing the books through Bran’s POV but decided against it pretty quickly.

Anyone who paid attention to Bran’s story would know that we’re going to get some huge payoff to his story. In fact, I think it’s safer to assume that kingship has always been in the cards for him. I think most of us Bran stans thought he’d be KiTN (actually some of us over at Westeros.org thought he’d end up as the final Lord of Harrenhal). I never once considered King of all Westeros but I’ve had time to think about it ever since the show ended and I’m like, “duh!”. It’s thematically relevant and sound for Bran to end up king. We’re about to enter into a winter apocalypse but Bran’s direwolf is called Summer. Not only is he the representation of summer (which means renewal, rejuvenation, etc.), but he’s also fashioned after the Fisher King. He is also the second coming of Brandon the Builder - who constructed castles all over Westeros, not just the North; and if legends are true, this happened after the Long Night. He’s following after the footsteps of the Last Hero, and is the only other character apart from Jon who is actually fighting in the front lines against the Others. He’s going to be super important!

I can understand some of the questions people having regarding King Bran, mainly those of a political nature. But we’re left with two books. And two books is plenty to move the necessary pieces for Bran’s crowning. Hell, did people expect that Dany would be Queen of Meereen as they started reading ASOS? Most didn’t. A lot can happen in two books. A lot can happen in a singular book. GRRM has enough time to set up a scenario on which Bran is the only one left to rule.

I personally think that the apocalypse will essentially destroy Westeros as we know it, leading to the creation of a new kingdom(s). D&D botched the GoT ending so people have a hard time seeing the thematic weight of a boy who represents summer rising to kingship, but the books lay enough groundwork imo. And I think ACOK shows us that Bran, despite his age, would make a wise ruler. So I’m all for King Bran. Not only is it thematically sound, but I love the idea of a disabled kid rising to power at the end since we don’t see that in a lot of fantasy.

#asoiaf #ask game #jon snow #bran stark #kevan lannister

[horizon-verizon]

In the book, Aemond seems to have quite an obsession with Daemon. Where do you think it comes from, and how would you interpret/characterize it ?

I’m still thinking about it in ways that aren’t already know or talked about in the current fandom and here on Tumblr. So bear with me here. I might do many edits on this post in the immediate and far futures.

*Update* I was right.

In all and of the two, Daemon acts more out of love than Aemond does, even with him being as violent and brutal as he is. Daemon is flawed and cruel, while Aemond is evil and cruel, though both are ambitious. They both acted out of a lack of love or attentions or recognition at some point.

By and large, Aemond is a character who finds his personhood only through disenfranchising others. He is the potently evil shadow of Daemon. Aemond is a character who lacks love or a true understanding of respect and considers Daemon the beast to slay to solidify and validate his own existence, worthiness, and masculinity.

A)

Aemond is Daemon’s narrative and literary foil. 

A foil is:

a literary device designed to illustrate or reveal information, traits, values, or motivations of one character through the comparison and contrast of another character. A literary foil character serves the purpose of drawing attention to the qualities of another character, frequently the protagonist. This is effective as a means of developing a deeper understanding of a character by emphasizing their strengths and weaknesses. In addition, a literary foil allows writers to create a counterpart for the protagonist that puts their actions and choices in context.

B)

Both

They are both fighters with skill. Both are brutal and willing to get violent (but in different ways and reasons). Both are Targaryens and proud of it. Both want the throne or a strong claim to it. Both are second sons tasked with the role of supporting their older, not-very-competent or completely incompetent brother to keep or gain the throne and are passionate about it (for different reasons). Both squirm with the thought that their existence and purpose is to support such brothers but for different reasons.

And as @theblackqveen says, they even both have a connection to Visenya the Conqueror through her dragon and her sword.

Daemon

1)

Daemon is uncaring of not-family people. Not hateful, just uncaring and thus willing to spill their blood if that will bring him results (Jaime Lannister).  Canonically (not HotD), he is a charismatic, violent, and ambitious man.  He creates the gold cloaks and inspires the preexisting city guardsmen into believing in their own validity and strengths by revamping their looks, etc.

His mother died when he was 3 from labor complications. Unlike Viserys who seemed to have responded to this by being too much a people pleaser, Daemon sought to completely look out for a small set of people he would think of as his family or “close ones”. 

Baelon’s grief would have inspired such reactions from his sons--Viserys to be eager and affectionate, obviously caring. He wants to believe that hospitality and following a sense of duty to those around him will bring him love or contentment. He may have found it difficult not to judge Daemon for taking a “misguided” approach or path, so when Daemon disagrees with him or disobeys his order or does something that is conventionally upsetting, he may have found it difficult to relate to Daemon or see things from his persepctive. While Daemon would, in my mind, is outwardly or superficially crotchety and unwilling to seek/initiate obvious intimacy but needing to be validated through his family and loved ones. However, he doesn’t think words or hugs brings comfort or favorable outcomes--he depends on action. 

So he develops his own moral compass that is just adjusted to “do these people act like I matter to them and do they matter to me” all the fucking time because he comes from a dwindled, fraught lineage (Rhaenys' death in Dorne; Aenys' conflicts and stress with the Faith; the Faith; the conflict with Maegor and threat towards Jaehaerys/Alysanne; the internal issues in Jaehaerys' early reign and Rogar Baratheon; Aemond, Baelon, Alyssa, Viserra, Daella, Daenerys-- nearly all Jaehaerys and Alysanne's children die & Jaehaerys' political focus on the Targ's dominance-survival). That plus he wants to, in some way, bring glory, prosperity, and more power to his house.

Daemon and Viserys would have still received the genuine love of their father, Baelon, and would have grown up together as caring brothers, enough that they would know they loved each other. We have reason to believe that his upbringing was still loving and that he maybe thought himself his brother and father’s caretakers. If not in traditional sense, in that he is the one who will do “what it takes” to keep them afloat. In his mind. Especially after his father passes form a “burst belly”, leaving him and Viserys alone. Seeing how Viserys is so eager for validation and willing to have others have a say in what he does, it makes sense that he falls into this protector role even deeper.

2)

He also wanted to be an example of excellence and make a name for himself, especially with being a second son and without a clear, solid inheritance of authority. Second sons in this feudal society are thought of as “spares” in one sense, since if their older brothers die they can take their place and inherit the family resources and the authority over the house. so he’d have felt more pressure to prove himself in the shadow of his brother (while he wasn’t much of a warrior or inclined to develop physical prowess, Viserys was also considered quite attractive before he gained weight).

3)

He supports Viserys in that he was wiling to use a group of fighters to go against Corlys and his group for Viserys’ claim before Jaehaerys I called for the Great Council of 101 A.C:

Reports had reached the court that Corlys Velaryon was massing ships and men on Driftmark to “defend the rights” of his son, Laenor, whilst Daemon Targaryen, a hot-tempered and quarrelsome young man of twenty, had gathered his own band of sworn swords in support of his brother, Viserys. A violent struggle for succession was likely no matter who the Old King named to succeed him.

(Fire and Blood; A Question of Succession)

Yet, at 16 Alysanne marries him to Rhea Royce (the Runestone heir), and while this was a good practical marriage for creating more ties to the Vale and setting up Daemon with some money through his wife’s properties, etc., Daemon did not like the atmosphere, look, anything of the Vale, probably how far away it was from King’s Landing/Viserys--thus the emotional and physical isolation. That he was basically sidelined by his family, kept apart.

He likely thought that since Viserys already had Aemma Arryn (the person who even was the scion of the Lord of the Vale, he himself didn't need to also marry another Vale woman not of his choosing). [headcanon]

Viserys did not let him annul his marriage to Rhea despite its failure. Viserys is directly involved with Mysaria losing her child with Daemon when he forced Daemon to bring back the dragon egg and send her off to Lys:

When he learned that his concubine was pregnant, Prince Daemon presented her with a dragon’s egg, but in this he again went too far and woke his brother’s wroth. King Viserys commanded him to return the egg, send his whore away, and return to his lawful wife, or else be attainted as a traitor. The prince obeyed, though with ill grace, dispatching Mysaria (eggless) back to Lys, whilst he himself flew to Runestone in the Vale and the unwelcome company of his “bronze bitch.” But Mysaria lost her child during a storm on the narrow sea. When word reached Prince Daemon he spoke no syllable of grief, but his heart hardened against the king, his brother. Thereafter he spoke of King Viserys only with disdain, and began to brood day and night on the succession.

(Fire and Blood; A Question of Succession)

4)

He was also not at all attracted to his new wife. So now he knows what it’s like to be a political tool, or he feels like more of a device than a person part of something “great”? (I say somewhat facetiously, he still is a feudal man who is very proud of his aristocratic lineage throughout all 3 of his marriages)

And so their marriage becomes barren (no kids). She comes to hates him too for not loving her home, for openly showing his disdain for it and for her, and perhaps she feels he is unwilling to do his duty like her and she feels resentment towards him and his ability to just fuck off while also being happier with him gone [headcanon].

Daemon doesn’t and never has considered her “family”, is the point nor ever to be in the same league as him, not just because she wasn't royal. Partially because Targs are and have been considered unique and nation-movers right from the Conquest in broader Westerosi culture. She is not a Targ or someone he can think of as his match or someone he thinks could do as much a a Targ can, which presents very interesting questions as to whether or not his pride can be equated to Lannister exceptionalism...I'd say that, eh. The Targs have put their money where their mouth was in most of their generations (and we the readers know that like the Starks but more apparent, the Targs are the closest to being magical beings or have the closest access to real magic) while the Lannisters are more famous and powerful in the main storyline bc of Tywin's reputation gained from the Rains of Castamere/friendship with Aerys II (a Targ) and Steffon Baratheon [the allegiance gives power trio for a while that reflected back on Tywin]. So there's a level of him not believing that they could ever relate to each other. He might have thought it was like trying to get an elephant to mate with a zebra.

I don't think that we should tell people they shouldn't dislike him for that bc yes his person can read as arrogant and he's still a prince/male who has a lot of benefits over a woman like Rhea (but not the authority she has over her own men as a female ruler in her own right, which some might argue grinds his gears more as a second son and this is actually a very interesting and valid thought...but I also doesn't think it bothered him for long to have a wife who has more practical power over others than him since his marriage to Rhaenyra saw no attempts of him barrowing over her, so that would support the idea that Rhea having this wasn't really the issue). But considering how

Still, it's not because of anything she did to him, but because she was someone who enables him to be in a position that he really does not want to be in and he believes it’s unlikely that he’d ever get any sort of glory or power all the way in the Vale, away from King’s Landing, away from the throne. It’s also probable that she also had a very different--sort of "duty is everything, sacrifice your pleasure and making compromises aside"--personality than his, thus convincing him even less to actually try to forge some sort of bond with her. Stern, but too serious, punctilious, and [for him] overly tradition-bound and scrupulous. But who knows?! [headcanon]

Laena and Rhaneyra, though? They both obviously had a lot more in common with him other than being dragonriders than he ever did with Rhea. Laena has her adventurous-ness and some daring, and Rhaenyra has pride and that “restlessness” that Viserys of HotD mentions, that unwillingness to accept a lot or assignment. They are also both his closer blood relatives, real family (remember that he grew up alone with his brother and father, a small set emotionally dependent on each other but also probably not that expressive). Those marriages were better for him, both personally and politically.

Daemon also named his kids after loved people in his life or people who will give love to his daughters.

“Baela” -- “Baelon”. “Rhaena” -- “Rhaenys”.

Viserys (II) after Daemon's own brother, Rhaenyra after her father, and both to spite/oppose Alicent & give their son the cloak of Targ-ness and kingliness: out of pride/love, the latter the stranger reason while the former the icing on the cake.

Aegon (III) after Aegon the Conqueror (king-liness and house pride) & to spite/oppose Alicent.

"Visenya", after the woman who loved her siblings and son and put them first over herself or the realm.

5)

He strategizes more logically than Aemond does and is less prone to act on his anger. Contrast this QUOTE with THIS and THIS.

6)

He specifically distrusts other houses and nonfamily bc the Targs are the pinnacle of power with their dragons, conqueror past, and prestige. He knows other lords--like Otto and pretty much all the mentioned Hightowers (think Maegor, Ceryse Hightower, and the High Septon at the time)--will always have their own agendas.

The reason why Valyrian dragonslords literally kept it in the family was to keep their control of the dragons within their respective families so people like the Lannisters (Queen Dowager Rhaena, Jaehaerys' and Alysanne's older sister) or some nondragonlord Vlayrian family couldn't then acquire dragons to use them against them.

Again, bc he and his brother and father became their own unit--and then it was just him and Viserys--that sense of needing to stick together against others would and did only strengthen.

Aemond

1)

Aemond, by contrast, has little justified reason to hate Rhaenyra like Daemon hated or grew emotionally distant from Viserys. 

While Alicent taught him to hate her, he still grew up with the assumption that he could and should destroy/rape people because his male, trueborness allows him to. His preoccupation with his maleness makes him think that he should usurp the heir, even though the law and precedent of “King’s word is law” (Viserys naming Rhaenyra as his heir and never straying) justifies his & the Greens’ treasonous actions. 

Daemon, though he hated that Viserys named Rhaenyra as heir and not him, never actively tried to depose her or his own brother. Does Daemon have his own classist entitlement and ambitions, of course! He's a very proud prince in a feudal system with a family/house with a relatively short but twisted past as monarchs. He is also the person who walked around with non-nobles like a smallfolk in KL, like those in the City's Watch and inspired people to want to follow him.

2)

While Aemond grew up dragonless for 10 years, he was surrounded by family and Hightower supporters since birth who show no sign of mistreating him, at all -- unlike in the show. He does claim Vhagar he at 10, which is impressive (while cradle-bonding is not as impressive, nor did he surpass Rhaenyra, who claimed Syrax at 7. Just saying).

He has a history where his mother teaches him and his siblings to see Rhaenyra as unfit because she has extramarital/maybe premarital sex with unassigned men and gave birth to illegitimate children. The V boys, in Alicent’s eyes, don’t deserve to live or inherit the throne because of what the Faith says about bastards and because they are in the way of her own hous, herown, and her children’s power. Bastards are socially stigmatized and unfavorable because they are believed to be inherently untrustworthy and evil (Faith of the Seven). 

By having bastards, Rhaenyra acts “unwomanly” and against the standards set for her gender–how can she be a good ruler?! 

To him, Rhaenyra is a whore and an inferior person, her sons lesser than himself because their bio parents weren’t married (rumored but we know who the daddy is, not that it matters), and duty and custom goes above everything else, as Alicent teaches him.

3)

So it is Aemond’s duty to make sure that Aegon gets the throne, and for that to happen, Rhaenyra needs to go. Preferably violently. Alicent and Otto both emphasized this to him and Aegon practically since birth, and he would have grown up with this being understood as his main and single purpose. Daemon is what he sees as the obstacle to that goal.

However, Daemon supported more out of love and regard for what he believes would maintain his family's lives and power than duty and to prove his own male privilege. But Aemond sees in Daemon a competitor and his only worthy rival because of those similarities I just listed under “Both” as well as being the person who supports the enemy of the Greens (maybe not the Visenya bit...I doubt Aemond ever seriously thought about how they share a piece of her or her beyond the idea that she was a “witch”, even though he rode her dragon and they both have a strong hand in usurping a rightful heir [Maegor vs Aegon the Uncrowned]).

And with Aemond, perhaps following duty and acting out his role, like Daemon, is a way for him to claim some sort of love from his family, but as @hamliet says, I think love is a transaction for the Hightowers and reinforced that lack in Aemond, creating a cycle of dependency and focus on gaining power through his privilege.

EDIT #1 (inspired by mononijikayu's reblog HERE):

Daemon grew up knowing Alysanne was a huge part of making policies and supporting Jaehaerys' rule; his mother, Alyssa, was a Targ woman known for her actively practicing agency, and his father Baelon never married again after her, preferring to keep the memory of her close and continue to make sure she lived on; and he grew around Rhaenys since they were both children.

Part of his deal with Rhea Royce, therefore, was that he disliked that she was totally emotionally incompatible with him (his own parents were Dragonriders and we as people/humans can and often try to find partners that match the arrangement our *healthy* parents had...if he wants to marry in the traditional Targ way [we remember that Westerosi lords are allowed and did marry first cousins], it is not discriminatory as much as it is almost typical of a nobleman to want to marry within traditions...there is no real indication that he hated Rhea's entire person just because of her looks in the book and after inspecting the context but it certainly was his excuse).

#daemon and aemond #daemon vs aemond #asoiaf asks to me #daemon's characterization #aemond's characterization #fire and blood characters #fire and blood comment #literature elements #foils in literature #viserys i's characterization #baelon targaryen's characterization #baelon targaryen #baelon targaryen (Jaehaerys i's son) #byronic hero #daemon and rhea royce #anti hero #Fire and Blood #asoiaf

[middle-earth-mythopoeia]

I think there is a great deal of benefit in accepting that we don't honestly know what Tolkien felt about a good many subjects, or how he'd imagine them in or not in his world - and that has exactly zero bearing in whether *we* can take his world and imagine it however we want, and include the people we wish, and enjoy the fantasy just as much with or without the author's "intent".

The reason for this is that it puts the onus on proving that Tolkien *might* have thought *something* based on *this obscure quote* in order to justify including it when the honest truth is we need no greater justification than it makes us happy to do so.

I am not in the slightest against using quotes or passages to support things, but I do want to say that it may in fact be counterproductive at times to allowing true unfettered inclusion if a suitably vague quote cannot be found to support it.

Hi anon, thanks for the ask! I'm not sure which post of mine sparked this, but I think I get where you're coming from.

The point you're making is actually why in my posts about racial diversity in Tolkien, gay characters in Tolkien, and trans characters in Tolkien I made a disclaimer of sorts that you don't need permission from the source material to interpret it in the way that feels right to you.

But the reason I do think it's worthwhile to make these posts (even though I see the value of what you're saying) is that I feel like a lot of people in fandom genuinely don't know how open the source material is to these interpretations.

For instance, as I write in one of the linked posts, there's a misconception that Tolkien only drew on Northern European myths, languages and cultures, and this leads people to believe that his protagonists all have to be white. It's an uninformed and ultimately incorrect conclusion to draw, but it's still very widespread.

Likewise, a lot of people just assume that because of the time period and his religion that Tolkien must have been a homophobe, and they think he'd be horrified if gay people, I don't know, saw themselves in his characters? But I'd be willing to bet that lots of LOTR fans literally don't even know that Tolkien had multiple gay friends. (Heck, I've been a Tolkien fan for ages and I found out about his friendship with Mary Renault this week, although I already knew about W.H. Auden.)

So I guess the reason I write these posts is that I like to challenge the prevailing assumptions that Tolkien's world has to be straight, white, etc.

It also makes the exclusionists really mad. Of course, they can never refute what I say, they just froth at the mouth, because how dare I imagine any of Tolkien's characters as gay, bisexual, asexual, trans, or any race other than white.

But aside from a few miserable trolls making fools of themselves in my notes, the responses I've received to these posts have been overwhelmingly positive. So, thank you, followers!

Back to the question at hand, I think you're right that there is a benefit to accepting that in many cases we don't really know what Tolkien thought about many different topics. Fans have spent decades theorizing about obscure and contradictory facets of canon, and we will spend decades more doing the same, and we will never really know a lot of things. Which is okay!

I guess part of this hinges, though, on what you mean by a vague quote. The quote I cited in my post about trans characters is maybe obscure, although I hesitate to call anything obscure in the Silmarillion fandom. But the fact that Tolkien was friends with gay people isn't a vague quote or something, it's just a fact. The fact that Tolkien based Minas Tirith in part on the Byzantine Empire and in part on Ancient Egypt isn't a vague quote, it's a fact. Does that make sense?

(I'm linking to these posts because I really explain what I'm saying better there.)

I wrote the post on racial diversity in Tolkien in part because I was so sick of people calling themselves "Tolkien purists" and insisting that Middle-earth is exclusively white, and I wanted to set the record straight and say that no, you are not Tolkien purists. (The same goes for the homophobes etc.)

That's really where I'm coming from with my posts on these issues.

#asks #thanks for the discussion #my writing

[chiefmysticmia]

Why I Read Cassie Cage from Mortal Kombat as a Lesbian

(p.s apologies if the formatting is awful on here I honestly don’t know how to do it properly HAHA)

Hi! So I’ve been getting into Mortal Kombat recently and a character that particularly caught my eye was Cassie Cage. I’m not sure why but I absolutely adore her character and whilst reading into her backstory, the story modes of MKX and MK11 (which I have yet to finish) and her intros, I have noticed a lot of her traits relate to both my own and other’s experiences as a lesbian.

For context I myself am a lesbian, and during my coming out journey I have discovered many things about myself that I originally thought were universal experiences until I started reading up on lesbianism and the experiences of other lesbians in discovering their identities. I could just be reading into Cassie’s character a bit too much (or projecting onto her), but I think one of the reasons I find comfort in her character is because of these traits.

So! I’ve decided to make a post going into more detail about this because it’s pride month and I have nothing better to do with my time, plus I love talking about my interpretations of characters.

(Just as a disclaimer, I’m absolutely not saying ‘“all these things mean that Cassie is a canon lesbian and any other interpretation is wrong!!!”. Nor am I forcing anyone to agree with me. Her sexuality isn’t confirmed at all. This is just how I, a lesbian, interpret her and I am open to other points of view. Any lesbiphobia and general LGBTQphobia will be deleted)

Cassie in Mortal Kombat X

To start with, I want to discuss how Cassie was presented in MKX.

I read this post the other day, and it put how I felt about Cassie in MKX versus MK11 very well. Unfortunately, queer/queer-coded characters are often full of stereotypes, and MKX Cassie fit in pretty well with the typical stereotypes lesbians face, i.e her lack of traditional femininity and her cocky attitude. Also, the fact that when Johnny said he was worried when she started dating, Cassie responded with “Afraid I’d come home with someone like you?”, with no gender specified. The fact that she shows no romantic interest in men whilst sporting those stereotypes speaks volumes in my opinion. I believe that in MKX, Cassie was intended to be queer-coded, but NRS backed out in MK11 after fans started to pick up on this.

Of course this doesn’t mean queer characters who fit into the stereotypes are inherently bad. I absolutely love characters who are lesbians and are portrayed similarly to Cassie.

I’m gonna use this opportunity to talk about the link (or lack of) between lesbianism and womanhood:

Due to the severe amount of misogyny and sexism in history, womanhood has almost exclusively revolved around empowering men. Thankfully, this is nowhere near as bad as it was years ago, but it still impacts all AFAB people and transfem people in one way or another

Lesbian is the only sexuality that doesn’t involve men at all. In a society where men are considered ‘superior’ to women, this makes our experiences in the LGBTQ community unique to others. All sexualities experience their own unique problems, discrimination, prejudice etc, and ours tends to revolve around the fact that we are non-men who are not attracted to men. Therefore, having a female/non-binary character who does not show any signs of attraction to men makes that character somewhat relatable to lesbians. Growing up, almost all the female protagonists and supporting characters we see in media end up with a man or are at least attracted to one. We lesbians had barely any characters whom we could look at and see ourselves in.

Obviously I am not saying that the discrimination lesbians face is worse or even comparable to the rest of the LGBTQ+ community. I’m just stating how it affects us in society.

How does this relate to Cassie, you may ask? Well:

Like I mentioned before, MKX Cassie doesn’t show any sign of being attracted to men, unlike a majority of female Mortal Kombat characters (Kitana, Sonya, Jade etc). Obviously this alone did not mean she was inherently a lesbian, but that along with the typical ‘masculine girl’ stereotype gave an implication that she was meant to be queer. Whilst I do not fully identify as female (I do not label my gender but I go by she/they pronouns), I am much more feminine than masculine in the way I present myself, yet I was still able to see aspects of myself in Cassie because of this.

Obviously, not all lesbians are ‘masculine’ and not all straight women are ‘feminine’. It’s just unfortunate that stereotypes play a big part in queer-coding.

tldr; Cassie’s lack of traditional femininity and attraction to male characters, despite being stereotypical, gives us lesbians something to relate to which we don’t often get in media

I think that’s all I have to say for this section, so let’s move on!

How Cassie changed in Mortal Kombat 11

Unlike the huge time skip between MK9 and MKX, the events of MK11 take place soon after those of MKX. However, Cassie’s character changed significantly; she became much more ‘typically feminine’ (long hair, makeup, painted nails etc). Whilst I love both versions of her, it is clear that the reason NRS changed her was partly due to the rumours of her being a lesbian for a number of reasons.

Now obviously if she was intended to be lesbian-coded, this could be a good thing as she would no longer represent as many stereotypes as she did. However, NRS added in a random boyfriend (or ex, we don’t know) who has absolutely no plot relevance, which leads me to believe that the only reason Dylan (or ‘Bob’ according to Sonya) was added into one intro between Cassie and Sonya was to combat the rumours that Cassie was a lesbian. Obviously lesbians can have dated/been attracted to men in the past, that doesn’t mean we’re any less valid, but the fact that Dylan was mentioned makes me think it had something to do with players picking up on Cassie being queer-coded. I’ll touch on this intro later on in the post because I have some things to say about it (not necessarily negative).

There was also the instance of Cassie apparently stealing Jacqui’s prom date, which I honestly cannot see Cassie doing out of genuine spite. Going by my lesbian headcanon, it seems more like an unobtainable, unrealistic crush, which a lot of lesbians experience and hold on to to try and convince themselves that they aren’t lesbians.

Cassie also had barely any interactions with female characters who weren’t her mother or Jacqui (who is technically family to her). If what I’ve theorised so far is correct, this could’ve been done to avoid fans shipping Cassie with other women (shoutout to Frost x Cassie shippers, y’all have an admirable amount of willpower).

tldr; The changes to Cassie in MK11 seem like they had something to do with the rumours that she was a lesbian amongst fans, leaving me to believe she was originally intended to be queer in MKX but NRS backed out of it in MK11.

There’s more to add, but I’m gonna break them up into different sections. Moving on:

The Intro referencing ‘Dylan’

(FYI: This part is more of a headcanon/me projecting rather than actual canonical evidence)

Like I said above, in one of the Cassie versus Sonya fight intros, a character called ‘Dylan’ (AKA ‘Bob’) is mentioned and implied to be either a current or previous romantic interest of Cassie’s.

Dylan has no plot relevance and, like I and others have theorised, exists to combat the rumours of Cassie being a lesbian.

However, what Sonya says about him (“Why learn his name if he’s not sticking around?”) implies that the relationship between him and Cassie is doomed. This line implies that Cassie has a history of relationships that end poorly, to the point where Sonya doesn’t know the name of her daughter’s current love interest. Obviously this could mean that Cassie struggles to keep stable relationships (possibly due to her parents’ divorce when she was young, which I can relate to), but since this is a lesbian headcanon I’m going to take a different interpretation.

A lot of lesbians experience ‘compulsory heterosexuality’, AKA comphet. This is term, originally coined by Adrienne Rich in her essay ‘Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence’ is used to describe the idea that in a heteronormative society, lesbians subconsciously devalue their relationships with other non-men, as AFAB people and even transfem people’s existence has majorly revolved around men in the past. Comphet comes in many forms and can feel like expecting yourself to date a man to feel worthy, forcing yourself to have crushes on men and many other ways that I cannot list on here because we’d be here all day.

Cassie being unable to keep stable relationships with men could be seen as comphet; dating men but not actually feeling a proper connection to them, leading to the relationship ending in disaster (another example being Cassie stealing Jacqui’s prom date). Considering NRS seems to have no problem confirming characters as bi, I’m sure that if Cassie had dated women in the past they would confirm that, which leads me to believe that all Cassie’s past relationships have been with men.

Again, this could just be me projecting onto her, but I find a lot of comfort in headcanoning Cassie to have comphet. It makes sense to me.

I was actually talking about this with my friend the other day and we came up with some funny hypothetical dialogue:

Cassie: “No woman really has any connection to the guys they date right? Like it’s all just for show, right you guys?”

The rest of the Kombat Kids: “…Um…”

*Takeda eyes Jacqui, who is profusely shaking her head to assure him that that is not, in fact, how most women feel*

tldr; Cassie’s relationship with Dylan was comphet because I experience comphet and I said so (/hj)

“But Mortal Kombat has confirmed Kung Jin, Mileena and Tanya to be LGBTQ+, why would they avoid doing the same with Cassie?”

This is a fair point: if there are confirmed gay and bisexual characters in MK, why would they not confirm a character to be a lesbian? Well…

As I previously stated, lesbianism is the only orientation that men cannot be involved in at all. In a society where men have power over non-men, lesbians are often excluded even by our own community (speaking from experience).

Sapphic relationships are often idealised and not seen as ‘proper’ relationships. I have seen many lesbians + other sapphic people who go through awful breakups be shocked because of how they’re always made out to be ‘perfect’. This is deeply rooted in misogyny, as AFAB people have always been seen as ‘dainty and fragile’ and in need of a man to complete them. This deeply affects transfem sapphics, too.

Considering Mortal Kombat is a series of fighting games, confirming a character to be a lesbian could make the character seem inferior to the rest of the fighters due to the fact that they wouldn’t need a man to ‘complete’ them. This is probably why NRS backed out of Cassie’s queer-coding after MKX; if they continued with it, people would expect her to end up in an idealised sapphic relationship, which could change how players, especially cishet men, view her and make her much less popular amongst fans.

Whilst Tanya and Mileena are confirmed to be WLW, they’re both bisexual. I’m so happy this series has really good bi representation, but unfortunately a lot of media is afraid to include lesbians due to backlash from certain cishet men who fetishise us and/or get unnecessarily angry when their favourite media includes lesbian characters.

Similarly, Kung Jin is confirmed to be gay. I think he is one of the best gay characters I’ve seen in media, because it’s not his whole character development; he just happens to be gay and I think that kind of representation is something we need more of for ALL members of the LGBTQ+ community. However games like Mortal Kombat tend to have a male-dominated fanbase, and many will see themselves in certain characters. I’ve seen many cisgender straight (usually homophobic) adult men treat female characters like objects (doesn’t help that they’re often hypersexualised, especially women of colour) and get extremely defensive if someone sees a female character as queer. Again, this could be why NRS changed Cassie in MK11; they could lose a lot of their male audience if those men could no longer ‘ship’ themselves with a confirmed lesbian, though this wouldn’t stop them fetishising her.

Speaking of Kung Jin, I love how he and Cassie are frienemies. They give off gay/lesbian hostility energy and I love it.

tldr; Because of misogyny, lesbians are fetishised, slandered and not seen as valid by straight men who want to gatekeep female characters, which is why lesbian rep is hard to find because companies want to keep their male audience. Therefore, it’s easier for them to make a sapphic character bi/pan/etc rather than a lesbian.

Other Things That Aren’t Totally Canon/Relevant but I Think Should Be Mentioned Anyways

This section is just gonna be various things that I think are amusing and will use to back up my headcanon.

First up, we got this MK11 Cassie skin:

Apologies for the atrocious quality, but this skin reminded me of the colours of the lesbian flag so I colour-picked them. This is proof that she’s a lesbian /j (Ik the colours are kinda off but I promise this is is meant to look like the sunset flag and not the lipstick flag. Pls do not use the lipstick flag, it’s transphobic)

Secondly, this line during one of Cassie’s intros with Sheeva (PS I am absolutely not implying that I ship them, I’m just pointing out this line and nothing more):

I know this is meant to be a pun, but it makes me cackle so much. ‘Girl Crush’ yes totally straight /s

I’ve reached the image limit unfortunately, but her and Frost’s fight in the MKX comics was insanely homoerotic, too.

I think that’s it so far, but I may add to this section in the future.

Conclusion

Phew, that was a LOT,,, Once again this is just for fun and I’m open to all other interpretations of Cassie and her character. I just like to analyse and relate myself to my favourite characters, lol.

I do hope that one day lesbian characters are more common in media like MK, but we still have a lot of work to do in order to make that happen.

Thank you so much for reading if you made it this far! <3

#mortal kombat #cassie cage #number 1 lesbian cassie theorist strikes again #lesbian #lgbtq #mortal kombat 11 #mortal kombat x #character analysis #lesbian coding #izzie’s rambles #sonya blade

[ben-wisehart]

Hi! I LOVE your SVSSS meta, it's always so well thought out<3 At the very bottom of your BingQiu meta post you mention that LBH is gay. I had interpreted his sexuality in SV as like, he could be attracted to anyone (evidenced by his huge harem in PIDW) but after falling for SQQ, he wasn't interested in anyone else. What leads you to believe that LBH is gay and not bi or pan? (I don't have a strong opinion either way, I'm just interested in hearing your take if you feel like talking about it!)

the post anon is referring to

Oh man I've had this one stewing in my brain for days. I DEFINITELY feel like talking about it.

So here's my obligatory disclaimer that media should be enjoyable first and foremost, and if someone reading this enjoys seeing Binghe as bi or pan, I think you should continue to do so regardless of whether or not it's supported by canon.

To be honest, while I don't read either Luo Binghe or Shen Qingqiu as mspec, I'd probably have an easier time believing it of Binghe than SQQ. SQQ's feelings and attitudes toward women come across very much like your pretty stock-standard compulsory heterosexuality; he talks a lot about how he's straight and wants a girlfriend, but try to name one single woman he's actually attracted to and you come up short. In practice, he's constantly making excuses why any given woman who crosses his mind isn't suitable for him: usually it's "they belong to the protagonist" or maybe "she's too intimidating", and he never seems to realise that these things...don't actually preclude him from finding them attractive.

To Shen Qingqiu, simply not being attracted to a woman is very easy and he genuinely doesn't realise that that isn't normal for straight guys. It's why he finds it so confusing why so many people like PIDW despite all the terrible sex scenes. Even when Madam Meiyin (a woman whose predictions he's just described as infallible) is describing his literal destined partner, he tries to picture a woman who fits that description and immediately dismisses the prediction out of hand because she's unrealistic and would obviously go to Binghe anyway.

I think it's really telling that his favourite female lead in PIDW was Liu Mingyan—the only one who never got sex scenes with the character he was actually attracted to. Like. Seriously. His favourite wife was the one he never had to read having straight sex with Binghe. The lack of sex scenes gave her room to breathe and grow as her own character; Shen Yuan talks about how he thinks she should get "pushed down" but I'm willing to bet that if that had actually happened and she'd ended up in the same ridiculous sex scenarios as the other wives, his fondness for her as a character would have mysteriously dried up.

I don't think I have a specific moment I can refer to for this, but you also just...get the impression that even though Binghe is obviously the person SQQ finds most attractive, he's still capable of finding other guys hot. With Liu Qingge in particular Shen Qingqiu spends a hilarious amount of time fixating on what a Pretty Boy(TM) he is compared to how the PIDW fandom liked to portray him. Tianlang-Jun, Gongyi Xiao...even Shang Qinghua he describes as "handsome with an air of sleaziness" in his first appearance. I'm not saying SQQ wants to bone each of these guys, but it does make you kind of feel like a man's general attractiveness is something he takes note of. He does also describe female characters as pretty, so there's an element of it that's just...the POV character relaying the other characters' appearances to the audience, but with the female characters he's usually describing them as they appeared in PIDW, and I sincerely doubt PIDW ever took much time to establish that any given male character was nice to look at.

Anyway. I'm digressing.

As for Binghe...

God, even when I'm trying to talk about Binghe I'm talking about Shen Qingqiu, aren't I??😔

The problem with Binghe, I think, is that he fixates so heavily on Shen Qingqiu to the point of obsession. Like, sure, it's hard to imagine Binghe (as we know him in SVSSS) being attracted to a woman, but it's equally hard to imagine him being attracted to a man that isn't Shen Qingqiu. He just has such singular focus on the person he's fallen for that you might just as well label him "shizunsexual" as anything else.

So if you heard that he married a man in one timeline and a bunch of women in another, and took this information in isolation, you probably could conclude that Binghe is a bi/pan dude who just got really invested in one specific person to an extent that it permanently blinded him to anyone else he might have otherwise shown an interest in, and that this one specific person just happened to be a man.

However, I do think it was MXTX's intention for Binghe to be specifically read as gay, and not just because she's a BL author with a fondness for making her romantic leads only ever have feelings for one single person (and by extension, one gender) in their lives. The Bing-ge extra just doesn't make sense to me if Bing-ge was genuinely attracted to women. And the story overall, I think, makes more sense when that's not the case as well.

Firstly, I want to emphasise that Airplane didn't originally plan for Binghe to be gay. This is a common misconception that I think stems from his teasing remarks to SQQ in the last chapter. In truth, his original plan was for Binghe to not have a love interest. Binghe was supposed to be a tragic protagonist destined to die alone and unloved. Airplane might have added all the wives in for fanservice, and it's obvious that he thinks he's been writing a straight character since he seems genuinely shocked and even upset(??) when he finds out Binghe is gay in real life, but...at the story's core, Binghe having a loving, positive relationship with someone who meets his emotional needs was not part of the plan at any point.

I want to pull up a quote that I think is incredibly telling. This is how Shen Qingqiu describes the scene in PIDW in which Binghe loses his virginity:

The girl thought, "Since I'm about to die, I must leave behind some memories to ensure that my life won't have been in vain. I don't have many days left, after all, so I won't suppress my feelings anymore."

Then, using her weak and fragile body, she pushed Luo Binghe down.

Luo Binghe put up a brief show of resistance before telling himself "She did it all for my sake. I don't have the heart to reject her final wish." He yielded, still half-reluctant, and went along with it...

(Vol 1 Page 143 of the official translation)

Which is just...utterly tragic. I do want to be clear that it's perfectly normal for men to not actually want sex all the time, even with the gender that they're attracted to. Even if Binghe were totally straight it wouldn't be weird that he didn't want to have sex with Qin Wanyue in a life-or-death scenario like the one above. This scene on its own isn't proof that Binghe doesn't like women, but I think it does show that Bing-ge didn't start out chasing women indiscriminately; his very first time was being pressured into it.

Here's the thing. Bing-ge had no positive male figures in his life, especially when he was young. All the men he encountered were indifferent to him at best or outright cruel at worst. He spent his formative years alone with no permanent caregiver. The Meng Mo arc suggests he was on his own until the age of four or five, and that he was regularly beaten on the streets, usually by men. Once his mother took him in, she became his safety and his shelter; it was the two of them against the world. When he loses her, he resolves to join a cultivation clan to get stronger, and is immediately chosen by a graceful and talented immortal—his dream! For the first time, little Luo Binghe allows himself to believe there's going to be somebody else in his life who will protect and mentor him—but then the harsh reality is dumped on his head and he's alone again. His new Shizun punishes him harshly and encourages others to bully him. His shixiongs are only too happy to oblige. His sect leader turns a blind eye to his abuse.

But Ning Yingying...Ning Yingying is naive and a bit tactless and sometimes her interference causes him more problems than it solves, but she's well meaning, she seems to like having him around, and she's the only person who will stand up for him despite everyone telling her not to. In PIDW, she was the person he trusted the most during his time at Qing Jing Peak. Admittedly not a very high bar, but he has a friend. And then the others. Liu Mingyan, Sha Hualing, Qin Wanyue, the Little Palace Mistress...these are people who make him feel wanted. Needed.

It's a really interesting and frankly tragic mirror to Shen Jiu, who was also abused by men and for whom women became his safety. It's also interesting in the ways that they differ. He goes to brothels to sleep so he won't be around men, but there's nothing to suggest Shen Jiu actually turned to having sex with women for comfort in the way that Binghe did. Shen Jiu closes himself off completely from forming relationships with other people, even superficial ones, while Binghe can't seem to stop forming new connections, even if they never manage to satisfy him in the way he really wants.

I think the members of the harem have varying levels of genuine care and love for Binghe. Unfortunately we don’t have the benefit of their POV and we only have brief allusions to what their individual relationships with Binghe were like in PIDW. Breaking down my exact thoughts on each wife would make this essay even more bloated than it already is and wouldn’t add much overall, but in general, I do think most of them were at least physically attracted to him. Some may have married him for political or social advantages, especially once he started to amass power and…eliminate their other options. Some might have wanted the safety and protection that came with being the Saintly Ruler’s wife. I think a good chunk of them were, consciously or not, using him in some way—but Bing-ge is so desperate for human connection (or at least a parody of it) that he doesn’t really care, especially as he spends more and more time using Xin Mo. If he's being taken advantage of, it’s not like he doesn’t have the resources to support it.

But there must have been women in the harem who genuinely loved him, who wished they could be more to him than just an interchangeable face in the crowd. There must have been women whose personalities meshed well with his. Women who earned his trust and his loyalty. Women whom, if Binghe were somebody with the capacity to have romantic feelings towards women, he would have fallen in love with.

And yet, all it took was a few days with Shen Qingqiu to change everything.

Now, I don’t think Bing-ge in the extra was gearing up to give up his harem unprompted. He wanted SQQ to come back with him. I do think that if Bingmei had simply never returned and provided a way back, Bing-ge wouldn’t have regretted the loss, and I also think that if SQQ had gone back with him to join the harem, Bing-ge would have never looked at another woman in his life, but these things aren’t outright stated in canon so I can’t in good conscience present them as indisputable fact. The fandom is pretty consistent on the belief that Bing-ge goes home with his worldview shaken and develops an obsession with SY, and I think that too, but the fact remains that we will never really know for sure how he moves on from that experience. I'm pointing all this out because I really do want to give mspec Binghe as much benefit of the doubt as I possibly can.

But god…I really just don’t see how it’s possible to read the Bingge vs Bingmei extras without coming to the conclusion that Bing-ge is a gay man who is experiencing a genuine positive connection with another man for the first time in his life. He’s hostile and standoffish when he doesn’t know what’s going on, but as soon as he understands the situation, he melts. He looks at Shen Qingqiu like he’s seeing him for the first time. He starts calling his name just because he can, because he likes hearing SQQ respond to him. He becomes drunk on it, unable to stop. He offers to cuddle him to sleep. For somebody who has never had intimate relations with a man before, he doesn’t even hesitate to start seducing him once he understands the situation. Everything is just perfect—right up until SQQ sees through his deception and the facade crumbles.

I don’t think Bing-ge knew he was gay before this point. How would he? Who could possibly have been a focal point for these feelings? The only male friendship we know he had was with Mobei-Jun, and even though Mobei-Jun is also a MLM, he’s not exactly Binghe’s type and they just don’t have the kind of dynamic Binghe needs in a relationship. He’s spent his entire life being the strong one, the one who saves the maiden, the one who carries the weight of the world on his back. So the relationship he truly craves, even if he doesn’t realise it, is one where he gets to be doted on and cared for. Where he gets his hair braided.

He finds that so suddenly in the Scum Villain world, and it shakes him to his core. He doesn’t know how to deal with it. He looks at his other self in a loving relationship with Shen Qingqiu and feels nauseated, but begs Shen Qingqiu to come back with him in the same breath. He doesn’t understand what’s different here, he just knows he doesn’t want to lose it.

Why am I so unwaveringly convinced that Binghe is gay? I’m going to bite the bullet and say It’s Just The Vibe, Your Honour. I guess you can argue that he could still technically like women even if he just never managed to connect with one the way he did with Shen Qingqiu, but there comes a point when you have to ask why you’re assuming a zebra instead of a horse. Narratively, Binghe being gay is the only answer that makes sense to me. The harem collectively serves as a sort of character foil to Shen Qingqiu, contrasting him as a love interest for Binghe. Binghe in PIDW was surrounded by an abundance of relationships but all of them were superficial and shallow, never able to completely satisfy him. Binghe in SV has one loving partner who actually fulfils his emotional needs, and it’s enough for him.

Sex God Binghe with a harem of beautiful women who obey his every whim is very explicitly the bad ending. It’s about the inherent brokenness of a man who would seek something like this. Amassing hundreds of wives isn’t actually something that normal straight guys want to do; most straight guys (most people) are much happier with a loving partner who supports them and actually connects with them on a deep, personal level. So having Binghe, the ultimate stallion, be somebody who isn’t even attracted to women just drives home the final point even more that this is a doomed behaviour that could never have made him happy.

There’s so much tragedy in the fact that this is the only way Bing-ge ever learned to get even a resemblance of emotional fulfilment. I maintain that a lot of his wives probably did care for him, even if they could never have played the role in his life that Shen Qingqiu did in the SV timeline. Being a harem master was the only way Bing-ge knew how to make himself feel wanted. And it’s sad. It’s really, really sad. I like to think that his foray into the SV universe might have served as a wake-up call for him, that he might have realised everything he’d built wasn’t making him happy and tried to find something else. Unfortunately, Binghe has learned such bad coping mechanisms that it’s easier to picture him trying to build a portal back into the SV world to kidnap the nice SQQ than, like, doing the normal thing of going out and finding a cute farm boy to settle down with, but we can only dream.

TL;DR Women were the only people Binghe was able to form positive relationships with, but I’m just not convinced there’s any real evidence in canon that he was actually attracted to them.

This is long enough so I'll stop here, but I might share this earlier post of mine from someone asking about Binghe's feelings about SJ as it feels somewhat relevant. This essay can be shared on twitter here. Feel free to check out my meta tag for other stuff I've written, too! (at this point, I might just make a specific svsss meta tag and be done with it)

Thanks for the question, anon!!

#svsss #luo binghe #luo bingge #meta #bingqiu #anon: hey would you mind sharing your thoughts on Binghe's sexuality? #me: I'd love to! (opens with a 500 word essay about shen qingqiu) #I'm gonna write a small follow-up to this maybe later tonight it's not part of the essay it's just something I want to acknowledge #if anyone is wondering this ended up being 2.8k words😐 #long post for ts #shen qingqiu #also thank you so much!!! I’m really happy you enjoy reading my ramblings hehe😅 #svsss meta

[richtofenz]

hello! so i wanted to get this out of the way cuz it’s important to me. 

as we all know, in codz, ultimis richtofen wears a nazi uniform. typically, that'd be immediately condemnable and anyone attempting to justify it would look like a real piece of shit, but richtofen's a special case because, while his nazi association is completely ret-conned within the storyline, to the extent he shouldn't even own a nazi party pin, let alone a uniform, that ret-con, for some reason, isn't extended to his character model in the later games. the nazi insignia are censored by bo3/bo4, but he's very clearly still wearing a ww2 german uniform.

richtofen, in world at war, does start off as a nazi. he's in the german army in that game. but by bo1, they'd come up with a storyline and realized they didn't want a nazi for a protagonist, so they completely changed his character. the richtofen we know so well is a scientist. he's not a soldier; he has no reason to be in that uniform. and he’s not a mengele-esque doctor anymore, either, as he was likely intended to be in WaW. he’s certainly not any type of SS officer (which i’ve seen some fanart make him and oh my g-d i hate that shit. what is wrong with people). group 935 works under the nazis after maxis decides to cut a deal for funding, yes, but richtofen canonically expresses disdain at this arrangement several times. 

but being governed by the nazis, as many german companies and organizations were during that era, doesn’t indicate allegiance, and it certainly doesn’t indicate that an individual shared the beliefs of the party. and, once more, as a scientist who wasn’t in the army, there’s legitimately no reason for him to be wearing that uniform. so logically, one can’t conclude he’s a nazi by his outfit alone because it doesn’t make sense, and even if you thought “he wouldn’t be wearing it if he didn’t feel at least neutral towards nazism”, again, that defies the audio logs that feature him subtly insulting the nazi regime. additionally, nolan north (his va) explicitly went on record saying richtofen’s not a nazi, which means, even if canon proof wasn’t enough for someone to be convinced, that’s word of god from the va, and, by proxy, from the rest of the people behind codz. 

the way i see it, yes, ultimis richtofen, after the mpd incident, is a murderous and sadistic bastard who probably wouldn’t feel strongly opposed to nazi atrocities. he’s hardly ethical and has very little empathy, so yeah, he probably wouldn’t be entirely anti-nazi. by that point, he becomes an opportunist who doesn’t care who he has to hurt to achieve his goals, so he certainly wouldn’t care about anyone who’s not in front of him. outside suffering would be irrelevant. but prior to that, regardless of one’s individual interpretation of him, consider this: richtofen was a queer man living in nazi-controlled territory. he’s also a scientist, and in the early 1930s, many of the most prominent and groundbreaking scientists of the time were jewish, and do you know what one of the first things the nazis did when they came to power was? they expelled all the jewish scientists from their research facilities, forcing many to flee to other countries so they could return to their work and continue to support their families. 

now, codz is a ridiculous storyline and it feels silly to look at it through this lens, but if we think of it realistically, how many jewish colleagues and friends did richtofen lose contact with? and if at any point he was active in germany’s once substantial gay scene (which, given his dialogue, i wouldn’t doubt), how many friends did he watch be imprisoned under paragraph 175, or even sent to camps? hell, it’s probable some of his 935 colleagues knew he wasn’t straight, it could’ve even been an open secret - imagine living in the fear that if he pissed someone at work off, he could get turned in and sent away? with the nazi funding, they could’ve even had officers on the 935 premises - that’d be scary enough on its own, but with post-mpd richtofen’s increased paranoia, too? g-d.

ultimis richtofen is so campy and silly and obnoxious that we forget, but he very likely used to be the similar to the primis richtofen everyone loves so much; all that anxiety and sadness, only living under oppressive nazi rule. he was queer and probably mentally ill (even before the mpd, imo, and then even more ‘visibly’ after, considering he suffered from psychosis-like symptoms) and, in my personal headcanon, neurodivergent too. after mpd corruption, i think he’d perceive nazi ideals as silly and petty and beneath him, but also not his concern, but before? they were an active threat. he was probably never the truly empathetic type, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t aware of the threat of the nazi regime, to him and his peers. additionally, both richtofens are stubborn, leader-types who hate being told what to do. no richtofen would appreciate fascism lol. AND, even if he wasn’t entirely empathetic to the people affected by the nazis, he’s still a proud german. he’d hate to see his beautiful country torn apart because of the ego and delusions of the raving warmongering monstrous piece of shit in power.

i wish, very much, that there was a canon explanation for his outfit. but in the absence of one, i’ve created my own. group 935 was sent POWs to experiment on, right? in my headcanon, they’d been sent some captured enemy spies, maybe brits, who’d been posing as german soldiers to set up ambushes. the uniforms had been confiscated upon arrival. after dealing with maxis, richtofen, knowing that prior to reaching a teleporter, he’d be leading three foreigners across nazi-occupied land, including an american and a soviet soldier, thought it’d be smart if he dressed up so he could fake being an officer if they encountered any german outposts. now, it doesn’t explain why he’s got the outfit on in the giant intro, although that’s especially never made sense. but i think it’s a sufficient explanation for the travesty that is the game never explaining it or just fucking fixing it. 

anyway. all that being said, i totally understand and respect anyone who dislikes ultimis richtofen. but he’s become pretty important to me and his outfit is like a smack in the face and i just wanted to get some thoughts on it out there. i wish more people drew him in his lab coat! he’s such good mad scientist rep, i wanna see him looking like one! gimme richtofen in a bloody labcoat laughing maniacally pls pls pls pls pls pls pls

#codz #edward richtofen #mine

[tomatograter]

The Dirkjake Meta masterpost

Let’s clear the most frequently asked question right off the bat:

“Is Dirkjake abusive?” | “Is Dirkjake toxic?”

No. Dirk and Jake’s romantic relationship is based on mutual interest and a supportive friendship established years prior to the events of the main story. What a reader experiences over the course of Homestuck act 6 is how their insecurities boil to an all-time high once the Game is afoot, aggravating some of their worst habits - Like Dirk’s inability to communicate honestly without hiding behind one of his splinters (may they be metaphorical or literal), and Jake’s practiced avoidance in the face of confronting and potentially upsetting one of his friends about their shitty behavior - until it ultimately leads to a breakup. But an imperfect first date does not abuse make. They were both barely 16, under ridiculously stressful and hopeless circumstances (over 5 months trapped inside a dead session populated only by ruin and decay!), and Homestuck ends on a note of reconnection, both of them making the choice to remain close after the immediate danger has been dealt with. I mean, at the end of the credits sequence they’ve made up, are nonsensically playing ball together, and have elected to share a home in the consort kingdom, so I don’t think this is an exaggeration.

Does Rose’s alcoholism in the Game Over timeline mean that Rosekan is abusive/toxic because Rose was not sober enough to consent on a routinely basis and her frequent slurring and fraught grasp on reality canonically upset Kanaya to the point of pushing her to scream? No. They’re teens in an imperfect relationship that is new to both of them, and at the end of Homestuck, they’ve also gone through a more forceful do-over.

Does Jade, June & Dave(sprite)’s friendship turning sour during their 3 year space trip held in extreme isolation, coinciding with jade and davesprite’s breakup, which upsets their dynamic enough that june threatens to beat him with her golden hammer in the middle of a morbid tantrum about how everything sucks mean that they’re not friends anymore and their relationship is toxic now? No. For similar reasons as those cited above.

Hell, the possibility of ‘Davekat’ was deemed abusive when it was still a weird and janky rarepair competing with the other two big Dave and Karkat ships. At the time, both fandom favorites set them up with the series’ protagonist, and Davekat was the ugly duckling. There were arguments about how it was ‘inherently toxic’ because they traded barbs on a daily basis, went after the same troll girl, suplexed one another onto a hard table, and Karkat’s perpetual screaming was cited as an *undoubtedly* grave trigger for Dave’s PTSD, among other threaded squabbles marking them as ‘permanently incompatible’. Through the course of act 6, Dave and Karkat’s bond eventually deepens, and they also end up together. Sensing a pattern here.

Point being: Relationships in Homestuck are not an smooth-sailing affair, never have been, and through the many years of fandom many people have interpreted them in the worst possible ways, but that isn’t a guarantee of truth, just a matter of individual perception. 

And now you may be thinking, okay, I’m willing to humor the thought DirkJake isn’t as bad as the 2013 discourse posts written by fellow teens with a limited POV on relationships vehemently claimed it was, but I still don’t see what’s the big deal. These characters don’t make a lot of sense in my brain, individually or together.

Well, what the hell! That’s a topic I’ve been trying to breach for nearly 2 years now. Babbling intro notwithstanding, what follows is a collected list of Dirkjake meta accumulated over the years.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. “Why does Dirk remain interested in Jake in Act 7 and even into the Epilogues?”

2. Dirkjake was never like Tavris (On Jake’s Pesterquest)

(If you’d like an in-depth look at Jake’s PQ route and its major inconsistencies, click here)

3. Dirkjake and Vrisrezi as Narrative Mirrors

4. What would you say is the core of Dirkjake? 

5. The “S” in Spider-Girl is for Strider

6. Jake’s Narrative as a Gender-Non-Conforming Gay Man (I’m 100% serious and so is homestuck , actually)

(This also ties into how grandpa's & jake's marriages are flukes.)

7. Jake is a Gender Mimic

8. Did Dirk make up Jake’s romantic feelings?

9. On Jealousy: Jake Wants Dirk to Show His Feelings

10. Was it intentional for Homestuck to never show a Present Dirk/Present Jake log?

11. What’s your favorite bit of Dirkjake dialogue?

12. Okay, Dirkjake guy, What even makes you so interested in Dirkjake anyway? This doesn’t even sound like a real word anymore.

LOOSELY RELEVANT EXTRAS:  Jane’s crush on Jake is nothing but comphet (or: Jane as a GNC lesbian), and Jake’s poor treatment as a sexual assault survivor in the homestuck universe. (CSA/SA Warning)

NEW: Dirkjake and the different versions of The Princess Bride (+ and some excerpts)

#meta #homestuck #dirkjake #dirk strider #jake english #long post #dirkjake analysis #dirkjake meta

[tazlory]

The only reason I more than love Jiang Cheng - apart from him being very much my type in both looks and personality (yes, I know, I hate that I like people who mock my very existence too but eh I can't change it) and the very appealing potential of him having a softer side underneath all that prickliness that you have to work through to ever be able to see - has almost everything to do with him being a Sect Leader, or well, being responsible for many people's lives and a legacy and actually doing a great fucking job at it.

Because, personally, I believe that leadership in general, fundamentally changes a person, and I relate a bit too much with people who are kind of forced (peer pressured? put into a position that they know they aren't suited for or don't want at all because of insecurities or something by the expectations of people around them) into that kind of responsibility.

And well, this is the only reason why I disliked wwx being the protagonist (not him as a protagonist, mind you, because he's a wonderful one, just the fact that all the canon events are being told from his perspective) because the leadership thing isn't really explored, and by god, if it had then mdzs would forever be the most perfect work of art in the world in my opinion.

I mean there was potential for it - the 'what if Yilling Wei Sect was actually a thing?' and yes I love that, but a) canon already states that wwx had good leadership skills (and while reading him be a total badass in politics because of his observation skills would be really fucking delicious, I think I would want to read more about fucking up - something that you're truly at fault for - and then dealing with its consequences) and b) that neither he or the wen remnants survive the mob mentality thing long enough for it to be a concrete enough idea. I get why it didn't become a thing in the time they did have, because they just wanted to be left alone man. ah fuck here come the tears-

As far as I remember, Yunmeng Jiang as a sect flourished? (correct me if I'm wrong) and even if they had the advantage of 'being the one to get rid of the evil demonic cultivator even after having such personal ties' with how easily public opinion can be changed, I doubt it would have lasted long, especially in the face of Jiang Cheng's constant terrible personality so in the 13 or 16 years when wwx was dead, it wouldn't have meant much.

Which brings up the question of "how the fuck is Yunmeng Jiang still standing then if Jiang Cheng is majorly responsible for making the decisions" Only reasonable conclusion? Jiang Cheng was a good leader.

Again, being a good leader long-term does not equal being a good person (like jiang cheng was a good leader but he wasn't a good brother or a friend) but it does mean you have to be a decent human being that can empathize with other people, specifically the people you have to take care of, which means no, despite being an antagonist - Jiang Cheng wasn't a monster of the likes of Wen Ruohan and Jin Guangshan. He wasn't a tyrant (as far as I've interpreted, because I dont remember reading any instance of Jiang Cheng interacting with Yunmeng Jiang or vice versa my brain forgets easily except that they respect him. Not fear him to the point of following orders to protect their lives, because if they did then, while there won't be a war, people working under him defn wouldn't have helped bring Yunmeng to what it is or had been sob and there's no way a Sect can actually thrive with just capable leaders)

So Jiang Cheng, being a good leader, hence a decent person who successfully raised a child (with issues but hey nothing good friends and emotional support in the form of a resurrected uncle and a safe haven like Lotus Pier can't smooth over) is total badass for it too-

I'm getting off track but the point I want to make is that, I would give up my limbs to read any good content about Jiang Cheng fumbling through leadership and its burdens during those years wwx was dead and actually doing a good job (i mean, with his circumstances though I defn believe for every important battle he won, there were some battles he lost too)

It doesn't even have to be about Jiang Cheng - though I do have a soft spot for him, and I think that's major because while he was the antagonist in canon, wwx loved him for whatever reasons, and because of those nameless reasons, i fell in love with him too - anyone in a similar situation would be very fucking interesting.

NMJ -> similar in personality and circumstances to Jiang Cheng, with the added conflict of Wen Ruohan being alive and all the possibilities that brings in, handling a sect, raising his brother and being a general of a fucking war in his what? TWENTIES? and then dying, remembered as a righteous man (with generally no complaints or bad gossip) who died tragically? BRuh. Nmj is amazing. I love him.

LXC -> Since his personality is wildly different (kinda similar to how I think i would personally be as a leader ngl and maybe that's being kind of arrogant, but then again there are critical downsides to his methods) because there are expectations. Heavy ones, and ugh do expectations suck. jc and nmj may have like, lost the people whose opinions matter most to them but lxc hasn't, and the idea of him being terrified to someday make a bad enough decision that he wouldn't be able to face his uncle or his sect again hits me right in the feels. But he's a good sect leader despite of it, and that's very sexy of him.

NHS -> okay he's shit at being a leader. I have to say it. Nhs you defn fucked up. Unlike all the previous sect leaders, and unlike wwx, your reasons for doing what you did was personal revenge and it ruined your sect. But you know what? I love you for it. I love that you ended up doing things to avenge a man who would rather have chosen to die as painfully as he did again than be avenged through those methods. The idea of you not being able to ever look your brother in the eyes if he ever came back because of what you did, and then not regretting your terrible actions because its not like he's ever going to, is he is fucking painful and I live for it. You are defn not a decent human being, maybe the in between the extremity of wrh and the gray jc/nmj/jgy, but yknow what? I dont give a fuck. I love you.

JGY -> again wildly different but honestly I feel the same about him that i feel for Nhs. Quoting what I saw in a comic the other day, "a-yao deserves a little murder-"

Jin Ling -> i think most of the things said about nmj and jc covers him lol

Well this was a mess, but if you made it this far, please this is all a cry for help and maybe some begging as a last resort to suggest fics along this theme, because I am craving and searching and coming up empty-

if you have fics please recommend some T__T I will forever owe you my emotional stability

#mdzs #wei wuixan #jiang cheng #yunmeng jiang #nie mingjue #lan xichen #nie huaisang #jin guangyao #leadership #did i tag this right #ramblings #uhh i kinda gave up at the end #i am just. exhausted lol

[thinkingisadangerouspastime]

hi! i really like your posts and recently i came across some anti kataang arguments and i would like to see your opinion on that (if you want to answer because you must be very tired of answering those lol)

“i remember perfectly aang forcing himself into katara. not only once, but a lot of times. in that talk they were having during the play it was one of the moments aang was intrusive”

“i saw people saying that katara was jealous of aang with that kids in kyoshi island, which she obviously was not. she was annoyed at them”

“kataang had no development. it feels like a ship made out of nowhere”

“aang is completely obsessed with the idea of katara being his. proof is that episode were the guru tells him he has to let go of her and he choses to break the connection. it’s like: look what i did for you, you should stay with me. aang learning to let go would have been a evolution for his character”

“making them stay together in the end just because aang is the protagonist and has to stay with the girl is boring and adds nothing to the plot”

“he spend years after a girl that never felt the same for him”

hi anon! im very flattered you like my posts 🥰💛 and you’re not wrong that sometimes it gets a lil tiring addressing anti kataang arguments, but that’s because 90% of them are the same foolish rhetoric dressed up in a different costume, lol. i finally have some free time, so i’ll take a stab at these for you!

“i remember perfectly aang forcing himself into katara. not only once, but a lot of times. in that talk they were having during the play it was one of the moments aang was intrusive”

not gonna lie, this particular “argument” made me crack up laughing because they “remember perfectly… lots of times” but can only name one instance 😂 like i am on the floor, because trying to get away with that in a formal essay would earn them nothing more than a goose egg. you need evidence to support a claim, which this “claim” has none of. i mean,, when does aang force himself onto katara?? when katara initiates every cheek kiss they share?? when they are mutual participants in several shared hugs?? don’t get me started on DOBS - the Now or Never Kiss that falls under literally requires reciprocation from both parties, lol. but regarding the ever-so-infamous EIP episode they bring up:

This post talks specifically about EIP and the play’s portrayal of Aang and Katara (and how it cannot be used to define their relationship). This post explains the true source of Katara’s conflict in turning down Aang (i.e. the war itself and the risks the war presents for both of them) and why the EIP kiss did not “ruin” Kataang’s relationship. This post explains how the EIP kiss was resolved through narrative parallels. This post explains how the EIP kiss is so often blown out of proportion. This post explains how Aang did not “threaten” Katara in EIP (with some excellent commentary in the notes, too).

the fact of the matter is that yes, aang overstepped a boundary with katara there. no one has ever contested that because to do so would be to disregard canon, and here’s the thing about kataang shippers: we love atla canon. it gave us everything we wanted and more. (imo, that’s what anti kataangers don’t understand.) the EIP episode can be interpreted as a “low point” for many reasons, but the primary “takeaway” is that the play performed was imperialist propaganda that preyed on the gaang’s insecurities and demeaned them (much to the pleasure of the Fire Nation audience), which had negative consequences, one of which was aang kissing katara largely out of desperation. no one has ever excused that! thus, what i think isn’t clicking with anti kataangers is that aang and katara’s miscommunication in EIP is not a representation of their relationship being doomed to fail. aang made a mistake and immediately backed off without question or hesitation. katara has time to make her own decision and chooses to forgive him. doesn’t it strip more of katara’s agency away to conclude that katara could never ever ever forgive her best friend for a single mistake that - comparatively - could have been a whole lot worse?

(im just saying.)

“i saw people saying that katara was jealous of aang with that kids in kyoshi island, which she obviously was not. she was annoyed at them”

honestly, i have a question for whoever came up with this jfksjdasks. okay, yes, she was annoyed. that’s a given based on her exasperated eye rolls and sighs. but why was katara annoyed with them, hmm?

here’s my thing about katara’s feelings in this ep: jealousy and annoyance are not inherently the same, it’s true. a person can be annoyed without being jealous (obviously). as such, there are essentially two possible interpretations that have validity, although one in my opinion has greater weight in canon:

1. yes, it is possible to interpret katara’s annoyance that episode as being solely related to their delays on kyoshi island. one can reasonably argue that katara’s romantic feelings for aang were not as strong so early in the series (it’s only episode 4, after all, although lbr - she was Looking at aang’s tattoos in episode 1 lmao), and therefore the primary reason she was annoyed at the fangirls is because they were one of the causes extending their stay on the island when katara felt they needed to leave. it’s a fair interpretation.

2. a different and stronger interpretation, in my opinion, is that katara’s irritation was a product of both annoyance at their extended stay and jealousy of the fangirls’ obsession with aang. because here’s the thing about jealousy: it doesn’t have to be some extreme, exaggerated emotion/reaction! when katara gets jealous of on ji in book 3, she makes a single comment about aang and on ji dancing together. when aang gets jealous of jet in book 2 (because of sokka’s teasing), he, too, makes a single comment (i.e. that it would be a bad idea for katara to kiss jet). i bring these two moments up because they explicitly demonstrate within atla canon that reactions of jealousy do not have to be dramatique and outrageous, à la zuko throwing ruon-jian across the room in book 3, lmao. jealousy can be simple! kept to oneself! as such, katara’s disgruntled manner in that episode - which, might i add, is largely if not only shown in reaction to aang with the fangirls - can certainly be interpreted as a quieter form of jealousy akin to several other moments within canon.

more than that, however, if the writers did not at all want jealousy to be an interpretation on the table… why on earth would they have bothered to mention jealousy as a possibility? here’s the relevant excerpt from the episode transcript:

Koko: [Stomps her foot in annoyance and puts her hands on her hips, while another girl happily waves at Aang; irritated.] What’s taking you so long, Aangy?

Cut back to Aang and Katara; the former enthusiastically waves back at his awaiting fangirls, while the latter raises an eyebrow at the scene.

Katara: [Slightly mocking.] Aangy…

Aang: [Enthusiastically.] Just a second, Koko!

Katara: [Sarcastic.] “Simple monk,” huh? [Annoyed.] I thought you promised me that this Avatar stuff wouldn’t go to your head.

Aang: It didn’t. You know what I think? You just don’t want to come because you’re jealous.

Katara: [Close-up; angrily.] Jealous? [More high pitched voice.] Of what?

Cut to a broader shot. Aang moves back slightly, when an irritated Katara resumes to ferociously stuff the basket with more fruits.

Aang: Jealous that we’re having so much fun without you.

Katara: [Irritated.] That’s ridiculous.

(sidebar, but can i just say that seeing “ferociously stuff” to describe putting fruits away is arguably the funniest thing i’ve ever read sjkdhsjalks)

to me, this excerpt alone all but proves katara’s irritation is a mixture of annoyance at the girls’ (and aang’s) behavior/their delayed departure and jealousy regarding how the fangirls’ fawn over aang. katara clearly demonstrates frustration at aang’s seeming lack of concern for their time crunch and how he’s letting his status get to his head (and remember, y’all: this is very early book 1 aang, he’s barely begun to truly reconcile what it means to be the avatar and the last airbender, which is understandable and a-okay! can’t have growth if he doesn’t start somewhere!). that checks out. but next thing you know, katara’s reaction proceeds to dramatically heighten when aang teases the idea of jealousy to her. again: why include this moment if jealousy was never on the table whatsoever as an interpretation for her feelings of irritation? why make katara’s response intensify so strongly if she’s not jealous even a little bit?

in sum, while i don’t think katara’s aggravation is solely fueled by jealousy, the episode itself points to jealousy as at least a part of it. simple!

“kataang had no development. it feels like a ship made out of nowhere”

this take screams willful ignorance, like did they even watch the whole show?? it’s not worth addressing over and over, ngl.

This post and this post explain how Katara’s feelings for Aang develop throughout the series. This post explains how Aang consistently supported Katara throughout the series. This post demonstrates how Kataang is literally ingrained in every episode.

“aang is completely obsessed with the idea of katara being his. proof is that episode were [sic] the guru tells him he has to let go of her and he choses [sic] to break the connection. it’s like: look what i did for you, you should stay with me. aang learning to let go would have been a evolution for his character”

“completely obsessed” h e l p i weep for the lack of brain cells 😭 it is so hard to just say “kataang isn’t my cup of tea” and go?? seriously?? i thought we were past making stuff up to support shipping agendas. lord help us. real quick:

This post explains how Aang never acted like he was “entitled” to Katara’s affections. This post explains how Katara and Aang do not “idolize” each other. This post and this post talk about Aang’s chakra being blocked and unblocked, and how it had to do with fear, not attachment. This post talks about Aang and the Avatar State, explicitly discussing “The Crossroads of Destiny” and the notion of attachment/letting Katara go.

okay, let’s take this claim one sentence at a time:

“the guru tells him [aang] he has to let go of her [katara] and he choses [sic] to break the connection.”

first of all. FIRST OF ALL. can you imagine the hellfire that would have rained down if aang hadn’t chosen to go rescue katara? here is a piece of the episode transcript:

… Right before he is able to completely open the final chakra and master the Avatar State, however, he hears a shriek from Katara and sees a vision of her in chains. At this, he jumps out of the energy sphere and runs away from the Avatar Spirit. The energy bridge that leads him there slowly vanishes behind him until it catches up and falls from underneath him, causing his image to plummet toward Earth. This cuts his connection to the Avatar State, which forces him back to reality.

Aang: Katara’s in danger! I have to go! [Prepares to exit.]

Pathik: No, Aang! By choosing attachment, you have locked the chakra! If you leave now, you won’t be able to go into the Avatar State at all!

Aang hesitates but leaves anyway, leaving Pathik concerned and disappointed.

aang chose to leave because katara was in danger. if he had chosen to stay,, dear god. the vitriol that would have been thrown around. “aang doesn’t really love katara! he chose not to save her!” “aang is so selfish and greedy! he chose power over love!” it’s literally a catch-22. damned if he does leave, damned if he doesn’t leave. #fandomlogic

anyways, yes, sure, aang chose to leave, which at the time broke the connection. he was indeed in avatar state limbo for a Hot Minute. whoop de do.

“it’s like: look what i did for you, you should stay with me.”

logical fallacy: ad hominem, hasty generalization, ∴ not worth our time 💛

“aang learning to let go would have been a [sic] evolution for his character”

i have amazing news for those who perpetuate this take. aang did let her go! he would not have been able to enter the avatar state in COD if he hadn’t! point blank, it is utterly untrue to pretend aang did not “let go” of his attachment to katara. now, im not going to get into the concept of “attachment” here and what it truly meant for aang to have “let katara go” in the book 2 finale (if it was good, bad, etc. etc.). there is a lot of material to work with there that would require like,, an entire post to dig into, if not more. the fact of the matter is that aang did let katara go, and the proof is that he successfully entered the avatar state before azula killed him. the above claim thus sits in complete contradiction to canon and is a moot point.

“making them stay together in the end just because aang is the protagonist and has to stay with the girl is boring and adds nothing to the plot”

“making them stay together” again, is it so hard for someone to just say “kataang isn’t my thing, im gonna stick to fanon pairings, but y’all have fun” i mean that really, really does not seem so difficult to me! also, “making” is a hilarious word to use just because,, atla is a work of fiction. in that respect, the writers “made” everything happen. you cannot escape their sphere of control.

anyways. that’s just funny to me lmao

but no, aang and katara did not get together in a romantic fashion just because aang was the lead male protagonist and katara was the lead female protagonist. i refer back to these posts from earlier:

This post and this post explain how Katara’s feelings for Aang develop throughout the series. This post explains how Aang consistently supported Katara throughout the series. This post demonstrates how Kataang is literally ingrained in every episode.

aang and katara got together because their relationship had been developed since episode 1, duh. reducing their relationship to “lead guy + lead girl” completely disregards the legwork done and the foundation laid for their romantic partnership. like, all someone has to do is rewatch the show 😂 and i hate to break it to whoever created that take, but to say kataang “adds nothing to the plot” again ignores how their relationship is one of the two most important in the show (the other being aang and zuko’s relationship as narrative foils). it is not a cheap coincidence that kataang embodies multiple complementary themes/motifs of atla: push and pull, yin and yang, air and water, oma and shu, etc. etc. their relationship adds emotional depth! how is that not relevant to the plot! atla is a show where just about every relationship is important in some regard (this post touches upon how aang alone transforms all of his friends - think of the bigger picture, then, and how every other dynamic weaves in a crucial thread to create the beautiful tapestry we call atla!).

my point is that kataang is relevant to the plot the way every relationship in atla is, whether or not someone ships/enjoys them. you cannot have a good show without having intimate relationships (emotionally, i mean). can you imagine if someone said zuko and iroh’s relationship wasn’t relevant to the plot?? there is a reason it is such a powerful moment when iroh and zuko reunite in the finale. similarly, there is a reason yue’s sacrifice and sokka’s consequential (and lasting) grief is so poignant. there is a reason it is so heartbreaking when katara and sokka have to leave behind their father at the beginning of tsr. to tie back to kataang, there is a reason it is so hard to watch katara dismiss aang in that same episode. there is a reason so many people are moved when katara pulls aang out of the avatar state when appa is stolen. there is a reason emotional reactions are incited during atla and it is because these relationships are so important!! i don’t care if someone thinks kataang is “boring” - that’s their opinion, they have a right to it. but to insist their relationship wasn’t relevant to the plot? to the story? when in fact it was a key component from episode 1?

are you kidding me?

“he spend years after a girl that never felt the same for him”

“years” lol doesn’t atla take place over the course of a year at most? pretty sure this person didn’t even watch the show 😂 for a third time, i refer to these posts:

This post and this post explain how Katara’s feelings for Aang develop throughout the series. This post explains how Aang consistently supported Katara throughout the series. This post demonstrates how Kataang is literally ingrained in every episode.

i hope i addressed these (nonsensical) arguments to your satisfaction, anon! a lot of them are the same tried-and-failed anti kataang arguments, smh. not to incite new discourse lmao, but it’d be nice if there was at least some variety 😂 thank you again for your kind words, my friend! 💛

#kataang #aang #katara #aanglove #atla #avatar the last airbender #atla analysis #kataangtag #amy answers #anon #amy analyzes

[princeescaluswords]

All this is just further proof that fandom is DEEP in their own, self indulgent crafted narrative/au that they assert as "canon". They actually HATE the show for subverting common tropes. No, the broody and attractive white man from a distinguished lineage isn't the hero. Nor is the snarky white sidekick. Fanfiction would have you believe Derek was kindly offering lessons to Scott, who rudely snubbed him. Stans whine about the "lost potential" of exploring the Hale Family, but it WAS NEVER ABOUT THEM!!!!

Your question struck me because it's so completely true. They claim to be looking at canon, but they really aren't.

One story I read this morning had Stiles joining the Hale Pack and ending his friendship with Scott because Scott 'neglected' him after Gerard kidnapped him in Master Plan (2x12), because the fact that Scott 'left with Allison and Chris' shows that Scott didn't care about Stiles at all.

Except that we don't see Scott leave with Allison and Chris. The next scene we see is Allison breaking up with Scott and we know it's the same night. But there's no indication that Scott didn't talk to Stiles after Jackson's resurrection. And it certainly seems that Stiles and Scott are in a pretty good situation with each other at the end of the season. Why would their minds go to "Scott didn't care that Stiles was kidnapped and hurt!?!?!"

Especially when their minds don't go there after Raving (2x08). It took you a moment to figure out what I was talking about, didn't you?

When Victoria is using poison gas to kill Scott, Derek, who is standing next to Stiles and his mountain ash line, has to shout at Stiles to break the line because he's sensed Scott is in trouble. And Stiles huffs and breaks the line. But we don't see Stiles ask Scott if he's okay. We don't see Stiles help find Scott. We don't see Stiles at the Animal Clinic while Deaton is taking care of Scott. Derek's there and waiting, but Stiles isn't.

Why don't their minds go to "Stiles is selfishly focused on his own needs and is neglecting Scott!?!?" Because it would be a ludicrous conclusion to draw; Stiles has demonstrated his care and feelings for Scott in the past just as Scott has demonstrated his care and feelings for Stiles in the past.

Now, this is a double standard, one of many, many, many double standards in a fandom that seems to relish them. And one could make the argument that it's a deliberate and conscious choice to ignore one scene in order to support their desired conclusions in another, but after reading enough well-meaning author's notes which talk about how they think that "Scott was a better friend than canon portrays," I think it might be something more troubling:

The fandom has been indoctrinated so deeply by the culture to see non-white characters as inherently not as good or as interesting as white characters that they can't really judge fairly.

I know that there are a lot of minority readers out there looking at each other and going 'duh, stupid white man is just figuring this out now!?!?!', so let me elaborate. I've always assigned a certain level of malicious self-interest to this before, that they chose to ignore scenes that run counter to their desired end -- they wanted the show to be about the Hales and Stiles, but, as you put it, it wasn't, so they were going to get back at the production.

But I'm beginning to suspect that white supremacy is so fully ingrained in the culture that it's become like an optical illusion. They literally cannot see the scenes that establish the idea that this is Scott's story and he's the lead protagonist.

As an immediate aside, no one should possibly interpret this as me arguing that white viewers have no obligation to overcome this narrative illusion or that minority viewers must teach them otherwise if they want to be able to participate fully in fandom. Individuals are responsible for their own behavior, regardless of cultural influences!

But it explains how often well-meaning people can come up with interpretations so essentially disproved by the narrative, again and again. People can say that they like Scott but believe that Scott somehow had less virtue, less talent or less claim to the focus within the story.

It's why they can argue that Scott had 'shit control' because he didn't follow Derek, when Scott literally surprised Derek with his control in Heart Monitor (1x06).

It's why they can argue that Scott was a poor student or can't keep a secret or can't bake or can't do any number of things it is assumed that white characters can do without question, how he is a lovable idiot without any positive qualities that weren't given to him by the Hales or Stiles.

It's why they can scold Scott for not being able to tell that Theo was a chimera infiltrator but forget that Derek couldn't tell that Deaton wasn't an alpha and couldn't tell that Jennifer was the Darach.

It's why they hate Deaton for insulting Derek once and not 'helping enough' but think Peter was the Sassiest Happy Fun Uncle who cared for his family so much.

It's why Kira is a placeholder and annoying, but Cora somehow wasn't.

It's why Monroe being slashed up by the Beast, forced to cover herself with her friend's body, and then having to wait there for the sheriff to find her is a 'stupid reason' to start hunting supernaturals, but Scott telling Stiles to go talk to his father about the person he killed and then decided to hide it is grounds for the end of the friendship if not outright revenge murder.

It's why Stiles could never ever trust Morrell because she worked with the Alpha Pack and promised to euthanize him to protect others, but he would love, love, love, love, and have Derek Hale's babies when Derek worked with Peter and spent an entire season trying to murder Lydia.

It's why they so strongly believed that the show should have ended with Alpha Derek and the Hale Family reclaiming their family's legacy, with all the little betas following them around.

It's why the subversive nature of having the hero be the earnest Latino and not the broody white antihero flies over their heads. It's why they conjure up elaborate and self-contradictory fantasies of unreliable narrators.

They just can't believe that this is Scott's story.

I'm finding it harder to believe that every one of these people is a malicious asshole who chooses to ignore canon so they can get their white power fantasy fix. It's exactly how it's been described.

#scott mccall #stiles stilinski #derek hale #scott mccall defense squad #fandom racism

[middle-earth-mythopoeia]

Tolkien’s canon supports a racially diverse portrayal of Middle-earth

I’m tired of people complaining about diversity in depictions of Tolkien’s work, and I’m tired of these people calling themselves “Tolkien purists”, as if they have canon on their side. They don’t. 

People who are actually Tolkien purists: have strong feelings about what the LOTR movies changed and omitted from the books; can quote the source material with scary levels of accuracy; have extremely strong opinions on obscure topics; probably taught themselves how to read tengwar... things like that.

People who are not Tolkien purists, and should never be called Tolkien purists: anyone arguing that all of Tolkien’s characters have to be portrayed by white people.

To start off with, most people already know that some characters in Tolkien’s works, like the Haradrim, are coded as people of color. But they’re generally unnamed antagonists and they appear in the story briefly. I want to talk about whether or not there are people of color among Middle-earth’s protagonists. And the answer is yes. 

So-called “Tolkien purists” often dismiss the idea that people of color exist in Middle-earth because, they argue, it’s a sort of “fantasy Europe.” The problem with this argument is that Europe has never been 100% white. So, this line of faulty reasoning can be ignored completely.

Second, Tolkien never stated that all of his heroes were white. Some of them, for example some of the hobbits, are described as having brown skin, which could apply to people of a variety of ethnicities. Others, such as the Elves, are described in ambiguous ways that could also describe people of various ethnicities. Other characters have no visual descriptions at all. People who think that all of Tolkien’s heroes must be white don’t actually have any grounds to prove it, and it reveals a lot more about them than it does about LOTR.

Third, people dismiss the idea that people of color exist in Middle-earth because, they argue, Tolkien based his stories on Northern European myths and cultures—and he did, although they should refer back to my first point: Europe has never been 100% white. But if you’re one of those people who says, “There can’t be people of color in Middle-earth, because Tolkien based his stories on myths from Northern Europe, and wanted to write a mythology for England!” then you’ve just revealed that you actually know very little about Tolkien’s worldbuilding.

Because, yes, Tolkien did draw inspiration from many Northern European myths, cultures, and languages, but he had other inspirations as well. According to one of his maps, Tolkien envisioned Gondor lying at about the latitude of Italy. Do you really think there’s no one of African or Middle-eastern descent in Italy? And that’s just the beginning. Tolkien also based the crown of Gondor on the crown of the Pharaohs of Egypt, and likened its architecture to Egyptian architecture—that means Gondor canonically takes aesthetic and cultural inspiration from an African kingdom. In a letter, Tolkien also identified Minas Tirith with the Byzantine Empire, which at one time included parts of modern-day Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, Kosovo, Albania, Greece, North Macedonia, Bulgaria, Romania, Crimea, Turkey, Cyprus, Crete, Sicily, Sardinia, Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria—if I haven’t missed any. He also drew inspiration for Adûnaic and Khuzdul from Hebrew. 

You can’t have it both ways: if you believe that Tolkien’s inspiration from Northern European myths, cultures, and languages means his characters have to be white, then you are forced to concede that if he also drew inspiration from North African and Middle-eastern civilizations, cultures, and languages, then some of his characters have to be people of color, too. You can’t use canon to prove that all of Tolkien’s protagonists were white, because he never said they were, and if you do some research, you’ll just find more and more evidence that actually fully supports a diverse Middle-earth. There is an undeniable influence on Tolkien’s worldbuilding from places outside of Northern Europe, and all of this would suggest that he envisioned at least some of his protagonists to be North African and Middle-eastern. Not only that, but people move around; the Byzantine Empire traded with China and India, and was most likely full of people from all over the place. 

I want to add that, although this post was sparked by the discussion going on about The Rings of Power, don’t mistake this for a gesture of support for the show. While I’m strongly in favor of more diversity in portrayals of Middle-earth, Amazon systematically discriminates against people of color and has sold racist material on their website for years, so they shouldn’t receive praise for doing the bare minimum to create a diverse cast. They’re selling the aesthetic of diversity in a fantasy world while remaining hostile to it in reality.

And I’ve said a lot about Amazon elsewhere, but the main point of this post is that people have no right to call themselves Tolkien purists if they think all the heroes of his stories have to be white. I will also note that so-called Tolkien purists are up in arms over the very idea of a Black Elf, but they don’t seem very concerned with Amazon’s significant changes to Tolkien’s actual stories—compressing the timeline of the Second Age, for instance, which is an extreme departure from canon. Anyone who’s more upset about people of color playing Elves and Dwarves than they are about changes to actual canon is not a Tolkien purist at all, and they don’t know very much about the canon they claim to respect.

As a final addition, I don’t think readers need permission from the source material to interpret the characters the way they want to. If you want to draw Tolkien’s characters as people of color, you don’t need to write a dissertation with footnotes proving that it’s exactly what he intended. But I do see a lot of people creating diverse fan art and saying, basically, “I don’t care if this contradicts canon!”—and there’s nothing wrong with that approach, but are you sure it contradicts canon? Or is canon actually quite vague and open to interpretation when it comes to characters’ ethnicities? It’s important for Tolkien fans to remember that the actual source material here is way more friendly to these interpretations than a lot of people believe, and we need to reject the exclusionist rhetoric of the so-called “purists” who think canon is on their side when they claim that Middle-earth is exclusively white. They’re wrong. Canon is not on their side.

#LOTR #Silmarillion #Tolkien #my writing #rings of power #<- tagging for blacklisting purposes #I've been wanting to write this post for a while #I saw another racist calling themselves a ''Tolkien purist'' and it made my blood boil #this whole nonsense of ''but but but Middle-earth has to be white because it's fantasy Europe!'' #is just racism trying to dress itself up as historical accuracy and failing #the idea that Europe has ever at any point in its history been EXCLUSIVELY white--that's the fantasy here #and it's a white supremacist fantasy without any root in reality #oh and also #this post isn't to say that Tolkien himself didn't have racist beliefs #he definitely had biases which manifested themselves in his writing--just look at the racialized descriptions of the Orcs #but I do think that canon supports interpreting many of the protagonists as people of color

[phoenixtakaramono]

Hi! :) I was reading your post about SQH in TUT and it got me thinking. Since this version also wrote SVSSS, when he transmigrates does he realize his "dream" was real? Also, you hinted that he recognizes SY as the same person who transmigrated into SQQ, so now I'm wondering if he tells SY that, and how SY would react to learning he's the protagonist of SVSSS in another universe. I just love thinking about how meta this could potentially get, haha.

Can't wait to find out more! Keep up the good work!

(Follow-Up Post to: Part I, Part II)

@the-legend-of-chel 👏👏👏 Luv, good to see you in my Asks! I’m glad to hear that you’re looking forward to finding out more in The Untold Tale! And thanks for your support and encouragement. 💖

(TUT ch1 - Excerpt)

You’re right. There is a lot of meta potential with older!Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky being the MXTX equivalent in this AU—or, rather, I like to imagine him growing up to be the Stephen King equivalent of modern day China with a prolific portfolio of written works (novels and short stories, and extras). In canon, he churned out a great number of words per chapter and in a speedy amount of time! Do you guys know how miraculous that is, as a writer? I envy him so much! To be able to churn out that much content in a short amount of time, and in a scheduled regimen, is amazing! That’s basically my angle having written this into the prologue of TUT. That’s partially the reason why I wrote ch1. I liked the idea of paying homage to SVSSS and saying that it’s an actual book series in TUT universe that Airplane wrote (as funny as the idea would be, I wasn’t about to let SY be the one to write it, lol, for intellectual property reasons since the PIDW characters belong to Airplane, which would necessitate SY changing names and character appearances if he published what we know as irl SVSSS, so the best I can give SY is saying he wrote his own PIDW fanfic which basically launched his novelist career because he’d realized, hey, I actually have a knack for writing and the ever so spiteful I feel like practically every writer has had this thought before: fine, if I don’t see what I want to read, then I’ll write it myself!)

(TUT ch1 - Excerpt)

We’re approaching TUT spoiler territory so skip below if you don’t wish to be spoiled.

TUT (Meta) Spoilers

I personally love meta. If I’m to be writing a lovestory to SVSSS, there will be attempts at meta thrown into TUT. And this is one of them:

Airplane did “dream” about canon SVSSS. He basically “dreamt” about his favorite black powder fan, Peerless Cucumber

changing events of Airplane’s biggest regret Proud Immortal Demon Way. (As a writer, it embarrasses me to read my old writing. So I imagine it could be the same for Airplane.) As an author, Airplane recognized what he dreamt had potential to be a commercial success as a danmei transmigration story so basically every time he woke up, he would write pieces of what he remembers in a dream journal when the memory was fresh in his brain. It also allowed Airplane the opportunity to show his readers through the perspective of SY! Shen Qingqiu what Airplane had originally wanted to write, but integrated in a way that blends seamlessly into the reading experience. He would’ve thought it was a bit weird and strange that his brain dreamt about his past critic—whom he’d considered a small celebrity in the PIDW forums back then—aka his anti-fan-turned-accomplished-novelist in the writing industry, so he felt embarrassed that his unconscious brain must have thought very highly of the man.

So Airplane omitted any mention of Peerless Cucumber from the final draft of SVSSS (if he mentioned both “Shen Yuan” and “Peerless Cucumber,” then even SY would be like, Hey, wait one moment....). This detail will be included in a later chapter, but did you know the name “Shen Yuan” has come up in other works? Let’s ignore the variations on the Chinese written characters for the name “Shen Yuan.” There was the evil older brother character Shen Yuan from The Rebirth of the Malicious Empress of Military Lineage, a side character named Shen Yuan from a C-drama (I think he was an old minister?), and there’s even an irl visual artist named Shen Yuan. Shen Yuan (Shen Garden) is also a famous romantic garden in Shaoxing, known for the love story between Lu You and Tang Wan.

(Shen Yuan Garden - Trip Advisor Review)

Basically “Shen Yuan” in itself is not a particularly uncommon name in China (imo I would not say it’s super popular either). So when SY saw his name mentioned once or twice in Airplane’s SVSSS—aka rebooted PIDW—during his read-through, he was like, Huh, what a strange coincidence. And then dismissed it as circumstantial and thought nothing of seeing his name come up in a cutsleeve novel as the new protagonist, haha. It’s like a book written by Anne Rice; one of the titles coincidentally has the same name as mine. Now, obviously the book and main character is not based or inspired by me; I just coincidentally share the same name. If I see books which have characters with my same first name, generally I like to read them and sometimes even collect them for my bookshelves. Because there’s something just so fun and interesting about seeing your own name in a fictional piece of work.

There’s also meta joke potential about Airplane dreaming of himself being transmigrated into the cannon fodder Shang Qinghua and seeing the romantic miscommunications between the younger version of himself (his self-insert essentially) and the fictional Mobei jūn character. I can certainly say seeing such dreams would make Airplane question his sexuality and awaken something dormant in him, haha. He’d realize he might not be not as straight as he thought he was, if his brain was capable of dreaming of SY!SQQ being crushed on by LBH, and SQH being crushed on by MBJ and essentially following MBJ around calling him “my king” this and “my king” that. He’ll be sweating bullets when he meets this world’s version of MBJ, because Airplane will definitely remember how the younger Self-Insert version of himself acted toward MBJ in the SVSSS world. (It’s the classic “Just because I dreamed about it happening doesn’t mean it’ll happen here, right? ...Right? Cucumber brother, you’re a fortuneteller! Please check our eight characters for me! I have to know my marriage compatibility with Mobei jūn!”)

In a later chapter, there will be the reveal where Airplane tells Shen Yuan that he “dreamt” of a universe where a younger version of Shen Yuan—having choked on mantou (馒头) (paying homage to the donghua) or just being transmigrated in general after raging at a younger ASTTS’s writing (paying homage to the books)—transmigrated into the Shen Qingqiu we know from SVSSS who married Bing mèi. Because I think it will be hilarious when TUT’s SY finds out about the true source of Airplane’s inspiration, and he’ll naturally freak out over the fact that this is the very same Bing gē from Airplane’s Bing-gē vs Bing-mèi extra and that he’s essentially somehow stumbled on the same path as the alternative younger SY!SQQ “from Airplane’s imagination.” I will leave this open to interpretation if this does show up (it’s just an idea I’m playing with) but I might hint that there might be a higher power at play which allowed Airplane a peek into another universe—which manifested as his dreams.

I very much like this dynamic (we might see this exchange, verbatim, in a future chapter in TUT):

SY/ LBH —> He gave him a disdainful gaze.

Airplane cried inwardly at the oppression and the feeling of being wronged.

Haha, none of this is really Airplane’s fault^ though. It’s a fun parallel and if I’m still motivated when we get to the wedding and consummation chapter, we might see an epilogue where SY and Bing gē from TUT meets SY!SQQ and Bing mèi maybe. Because I think it’ll be funny with the two LBHs getting into a shouting/ fighting match about who has the “superior Shen Yuan” while the two SYs just shake their heads at their silly husbands (and potentially TUT’s SY, as the older party, can impart his fortunetelling wisdom and advice to SY!SQQ).

Personally I can’t wait when we get to those chapters, because I know it’ll be entertaining to write, haha. Personally TUT is a fun project because there’s just so much meta potential that can be incorporated and I have a lot of fun imagining the scenarios.

*Note: like always, keep in mind that these are just my current thoughts. Details are subject to change; things aren’t considered official until they show up in the final draft on AO3. :)

The Novelists’ First Impressions

The first impression SY and Airplane will have of each other will be fun. Because in their perspective, written in my notes it’s essentially like:

(Airplane seeing SY):

His first reaction was shock. Shock because the mere mortal he used to be could not conceive so much charisma being emitted by this guy.

This is definitely a man who had put all of his stats into CHARISMA.

(SY seeing Airplane):

He's suspiciously good looking in ways that normal people are not.

Ah, the Cucumberplane friendship in TUT is going to be so much fun. Not only are these two older souls who transmigrated (both are mid-aged in this universe), they’re both accomplished novelists in their own right in the writing industry. Which means with these two being celestial beings, there’s so many clichés we can playfully poke fun at.

It also makes me laugh because imagine being SY, and seeing a guy (mortal!Airplane) who exudes the same energy as these two imperial princes GIFs:

#svsss #人渣反派自救系统 #shang qinghua #moshang #shen yuan #bingyuan #binggeyuan #the untold tale #phoenixtakaramono #ask #the-legend-of-chel #phoenix talks #reply #replied #answered #I’m almost done photobashing older SY #so there’s gonna be additional visual context #for how he appears in TUT (my headcanon at least)