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sapphic-agent · 1 month

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Let's Talk About How Book 3 Ruined Aang

If you've seen any of my prior ATLA posts, you know that I don't hate Aang. In fact, I quite liked him in Books 1 and 2. He was flawed, as all characters should be, but the show didn't shy away from those flaws or justify them. He was called out for burning Katara and rushing his firebending, Sokka and Katara were rightfully upset when he hid Hakoda's letter, he willingly owns up to the fact that his actions helped drive Toph away, and his entire arc after losing Appa and finding hope again in The Serpent's Path was beautifully done.

(Hell, even in The Great Divide Katara says what Aang did was wrong and he agrees. It's played for comedy, but the show still makes the effort to point out that what he did wasn't the right thing to do. You're just meant to understand that he was fed up and acted off of that)

Those flaws and mistakes were addressed and improved upon and helped Aang to grow as a character.

But for some reason, that aspect of Aang's character was completely flipped in Book 3.

The best examples of this are in both TDBS and EIP. Both the show and the fandom are too quick to brush off that Aang kissed Katara twice without her consent, one of which after she explicitly said she was confused about her feelings.

(And yes, she is angry in response and Aang calls himself an idiot. But after this, it isn't really addressed. They go on like nothing happened for the rest of the episode. Aang's lamentation comes from screwing things up with her romantically, not that he violated boundaries)

The show never really addressed why what he did was wrong. Not only because he wasn't given consent, but also because both times he isn't thinking about what Katara wants. In both instances, Aang is only thinking about himself and his feelings. This is something that persists through a lot of the third book. And by Sozin's Comet it ultimately ruins any character development he had built up in the second book.

One thing I feel was completely disregarded was the concept of having to let go of Katara in order to master the Avatar State.

For me, the implication wasn't that he had to give up love or happiness necessarily. He was emotionally attached to and reliant on Katara, to the point where she was needed to stop him from hurting everyone around him and himself. This is obviously detrimental to his functionality as the Avatar. And the point of him "letting her go" wasn't that he had to stop caring about her, it was that his emotional dependency on her was stopping him from being the Avatar he needed to be and that was what needed to be fixed. I don't even think it's about the Avatar State itself, it's about being able to keep your emotions and duty as the Avatar separate.

(If you look at Roku, he loved and had a wife. It wasn't his love for her that messed everything up, it was his attachment to Sozin. He wasn't able to let Sozin go and not only did he lose his life for it, the world suffered for it. It's the unhealthy attachments that seem to be detrimental, not love itself)

And Aang realizes that in the catacombs, which is how he's able to easily enter the Avatar State and seemingly control it. He let Katara go.

So then why does it seem like his attachment to Katara is not only stronger, but worse in mannerism? He liked Katara in Books 1 and 2- obviously- but he was never overly jealous of Jet or Haru. He only makes one harmless comment in Book 2 when Sokka suggests Katara kiss Jet.

But suddenly he's insanely jealous of Zuko (to the point of getting frustrated with Katara over it), off the basis of the actions of actors in a clearly misrepresentative play. Katara showed a lot more interest in Jet and Aang was completely fine with it.

(Speaking of EIP, Aang's reaction to being played by a woman was interesting. He wore a flower crown in The Cave of Two Lovers. He wove Katara a flower necklace. He wore Kyoshi's clothes and makeup and made a funny girl voice. He willingly responded to Twinkle Toes and had no issue being called that. And for some reason he's genuinely upset about being played by a woman? Aang in Books 1 and 2 would have laughed and enjoyed the show like Toph did. His aversion to feminity felt vastly out of character)

I guess my point is, why did that change? Why was Aang letting go of Katara suddenly irrelevant to the Avatar State? It felt like him letting go was supposed to be a major part of his development. Why did that stop?

Myself and many others have talked about The Southern Raiders. The jist of my thought process about it is his assumption that he knew what was best for Katara. And the episode doesn't really call out why he was wrong. Maybe sparing Yon Rha was better for Katara, maybe it wasn't (the only one who's allowed to make that choice is her). Pushing forgiveness? That was wrong. But the episode has Zuko say that Aang was right when the course of action Katara took wasn't what Aang suggested.

Katara's lesson here was that killing him wouldn't bring back her mother or mend the pain she was going through and that Yon Rha wasn't worth the effort. That's what she realizes. Not that she needed to embrace forgiveness. How could she ever forgive that? The episode saying Aang was right wasn't true. Yes she forgives Zuko, but that wasn't what Aang was talking about. He was specifically talking about Yon Rha.

And that was wrong. Aang can choose the path of forgiveness, that's fine. That's his choice. But dismissing Katara's trauma in favor of his morals and upbringing wasn't okay.

I know it sounds like this is just bashing Kataang. But it's not simply because I don't like Kataang, in my opinion it brings down Aang's character too, not just Katara's. But let's steer away from Kataang and Katara for a minute.

The one thing that solidifies Aang's character being ruined in Book 3 for me is the fact that he- at the end of the story- does the same thing he did in the beginning.

He runs away when things get hard.

Aang couldn't make the choice between his duty and his morals. So he ran. Maybe it wasn't intentional, but subconsciously he wanted an out. And this is really disappointing when one of the things he was firm about in Book 2 was not running anymore. His character went backwards here and that's not even getting into the real issue in Sozin's Comet.

There's been contention about the Lion Turtle intervention. For many- including myself- it's very deus ex machina to save Aang from having to make a hard decision. And that in turn doesn't reflect kindly on his character.

Everyone- Sokka, Zuko, Roku, Kyoshi, Kuruk, and Yangchen (who was another Airbender and was raised with the same beliefs he was and would understand which was the whole point of him talking to her)- told him he had to kill Ozai. They all told him it was the only way. And he refused to listen to any of them, rotating through his past lives until he was given the answer he wanted.

And before anyone says that I'm bashing Aang for following his culture, I'm not. Ending the war peacefully, in my opinion, wasn't the problem. In a way, I think it allowed the world to heal properly. However, that doesn't make up for the fact that Aang refused to make a choice and face the consequences of that choice. Instead, he's given an out at the very last second.

Even if he couldn't kill Ozai and someone else had to deliver the final blow, that would have been better than the Lion Turtle showing up and giving him a power no one's ever had before. It would have been a good compromise, he doesn't have to have blood directly on his hands but what needs to be done needs to still get done. It would also show that being the Avatar isn't a burden he has to bear alone. That when things get hard, he can't run away but he can rely on the people closest to him to help him through hard decisions.

All these issues aren't necessarily a problem with Aang. Aang prior to Book 3 didn't have most of these problems. This is a problem with the way he was handled

#aang critical #anti aang #tagging just in case #i don't want aang stans accusing me of cross tagging #it's really not anti aang tho #long post #anti bryke #this is their fault #look how they massacred my boy #anti kataang #katara deserved better #she's not the focus here #but i thought I'd add that there #character analysis #atla critical #anti book 3 #which is kind of an exaggeration #because a lot of book 3 is great #it's just most of the latter half

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kehideni · 2 years

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Ok, so since this movie is about Leo, let’s talk about his thematic journey.

The future scene is thematically our jumpstart but also a warning that the characters’ don’t get to see, they get to hear about with the help of Casey.

The flaw of Leo which starts the actual story is his narcissistic tendencies.

(Interesting that filmtherapy just released a video about narcissism, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1NUZ0XspA4&t=1416s )

Leo, thinking he peed the ocean and bringing Raph down in the meantime loses the key, not only that but when he gets rightfully called out for it he also makes a joke of the matter -> punishment is Casey telling them what he did very much so could end the world. Verbal warning.

At this point all was not lost, like Raph said they know where the key is, they just need to get there fast enough.

Secondary mistake: very un-ninja-like Leo announces their presence. Immediate punishment -> Krang successfully leave their imprisonment.

Third mistake (and yes it IS a mistake): Instead of listening to Raph - again - he listens to Casey. You may think this bought them time, but later on the movie they stopped everything Krang brought forth and if at that time Raph wasn’t infested they very well could have won without prolonged fighting. Had they touched base again, made the very same plan they made at the end, they would have very highly likely won. Immediate and worse punishment of all -> he had to watch Raph fix his mistake. (Sidenote: stupid little blue turtle... this action of Raph’s doesn’t have to do with heroism, but everything with what he told you previously about: Raph wants his loved ones safe and even if you were fighting you are still his brother. He saved you because you are his brother.)

Fourth mistake is blaming Casey for a choice he himself made. Immediate punishment -> hearing that Casey finds his choice a good one. (Not gonna go into what that implies about Casey and the life he had to lead)

Fifth mistake is getting obsessed with wanting to clear his conscience. Immediate punishment -> losing Casey’s respect.

This punishment gets rectified fast because he let’s go of his ego and admits that he needs his family. He gets Casey’s respect back. But that isn’t the core issue is it?

Sixth punishment, BUT WAIT! He didn’t do anything wrong now? Yes, but he didn’t fix anything either. Sixth punishment: Eventhough they made it to Raph’s location it turns out Raph has been infested. (Keep close attention to his facial expressions throughout this scene, exspecially after Krang answered to Mikey with “Improved him.” refering to what he did with Raph.)

Seventh punishment- DENI?! WTF? AGAIN?! -yes, don’t interrupt me, this one is more of a thematical mocking than punishment but still. SEVENTH PUNISHMENT! Raph beats them and takes the key to Krang who with this now has his whole arsenal.

And we reach our turning point. Leo realises that he can’t just have what he wants when he wants. Now he is objective focused rather than “What i want” focused. “This isn’t about me” His reward: a solid plan.

(He and his brothers get to the ship where he faces Raph. Bonus nice little detail here:

You see that Krang’s throne is a dragon head right? He isn’t facing the real danger yet.)

If you watched the video they mention that narcissistic people have a hard time showing empathy, Leo rectifies that here:

NOW, he understands Raph and what he wanted to say all along.

“When i see what’s happening to you, what’s happening to them i realized it wasn’t about me. You didn’t yell because you were mad, you were yelling because you were scared.” Scared for them, scared of what would happen to them if he made a wrong move.

Leo’s reward:

Bonus: awwww lookit’ his happy face

His thematic journey actually ends here, since the rest of the movie is him proving that it wasn’t just one good-willed gesture. He beat Krang with what he learned from Raphael.

He implemented what he learned

And his reward:

Final bonus: Krang’s state of mind represented in the background:

#ROTTMNT #so anyways i recommend you watch it #it's a good movie #nothing incredibly mind boggingly innovative #just a well done movie

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isnt-it-pretty · 1 year

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So, me and my friend have this AU and we have progressively adopted more of your ideas into it BUT, the main difference is me and him being passionate unenjoyers of Kavethem (And also we made Kaveh transfem) In this au, we have forcefully given them a divorce The concept is: Cyno and Kaveh were best friends in the Akademiya. Kaveh defended Cyno whenever possible, even when Cyno couldn't return the favor because Kaveh was decently popular. After Kaveh's dad died and his mom left, Kaveh was desperate for physical affection. Something Cyno is not very useful for. So, he grew closer to Alhaitham. Alhaitham wasn't exactly good at physical affection either, but he had no issue with letting Kaveh cuddle him while he worked, or being pestered by Kaveh. At first, at least. Cyno graduated early, leaving Kaveh basically alone with Alhaitham. Cyno had things going on with the matra, and he was often too busy to talk to Kaveh. Kaveh didn't mind particularly, but this pushed him closer to Alhaitham. And that was the first issue, for both of them. Kaveh would cling to Alhaitham like he was the only thing in the world, but whenever Cyno could hang out with him, he would get so distracted talking to Cyno that he would practically ignore Alhaitham. He would apologize, but never quite change. Alhaitham was offended by this, and rightfully so. By this time, they were dating. A kind of puppy love, that had them both blind to the others flaws. Kaveh assumed Alhaitham's derogatory comments towards him were just jokes, and Alhaitham assumed Kaveh neglecting their relationship for his best friend was nothing to worry about. They just kind of progressed forward in their relationship, unconcerned about anything. They were engaged by the time they were 17, and got married by the time they were 18. Cyno asked Kaveh if he thought things were going too fast, and Kaveh quickly got defensive. It went on like this for a while, Alhaitham continuing to make harsh comments towards Kaveh, leaving him feeling humiliated.

And then, their relationship just broke. There wasn't a fight, they both knew at this point there was nothing they could do to fix this. Kaveh just took Mehrak and told Alhaitham he was leaving. Maybe both of them knew he was leaving for forever, maybe they didn't. Either way, Alhaitham simply said "Okay."

Since Kaveh and Alhaitham were married basically the moment they turned 18, the two of them never had any room to develop as people. So now there's mid-late 20s Kaveh who's figuring herself out, like Tighnari and Cyno had space to do as teenagers because they didn't start dating until they had graduated the Akademiya. The fastest part of their relationship was when they were suddenly Collei's dads. And even then, they both agreed not to rush it, because all three of them wanted to take it slow.

I'm so sorry this is entirely irrelevant to any of your work but I just need some thoughts on this and I love your work awdghdwagd

Nice! Creativity is always great and I'm do glad when people ade creative, even if it never gets written.

You could have Kaveh move in with Cyno if you needed a place for him to move after getting a divorce. The sort of situation where he shows up at Cyno's place with nothing but the clothes on his back and Mehrak. Cyno would probably welcome him.

I'm not sure what sort of thoughts you're looking for from me so I'm sorry if this isn't it! I really hope you and your friend continue to have fun with it though ❤️❤️❤️

#asks

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littlewildwolves · 2 years

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Part II (September 13, 2022)

This city is quite small. And I picture it vividly. It delights me the most when I drive past a place where we’ve been together. The person I love is everywhere in this city, fragments of them, they’ve been here before, they sat on that bench, they flicked a cigarette away in that street. Their universe is a part of mine, I am truly theirs and they are truly mine and it gives me purpose. The world is drenched in light, the city is hopeful, the bus drives smoothly. I exist, I exist. Beyond reasonable doubt, there is no need to look for myself in the mirror, to cut into my skin or to pinch me. A person remembers me and I love them. They won’t hurt me anymore. My fear of abandonment can finally rest and I think to myself, what a beautiful world, what a lively world that I live in.

But this is not life of course and I have a tendency to fall deeply, and possessively in love with people who are emotionally unavailable. As if the universe were (and rightfully so) punishing me for my greed for having asked for too much. An entire life of another person to make me aware of my own. So I write, I write to keep the monsters away. I awkwardly plagiarize other people’s work, build their sentences into my own hoping no one notices. Once again, what I have and carry is not enough, I re-read my essays and cringe at the pointlessness of my sentences. I’ve walked in circles all my life, this is in fact something I’m particularly good at without any ambition or having to try. It’s quite funny my right food heavily points inwards as I walk, as if my own body was trying to push me to walk in a circle. And so do I write. Just recycling the same words over and over again. As if I’m trying to write outside of my usual territory, but just keep writing the same thing in a different fond. I write circles around me. So at some point I go back to people, to make my cave more homely and then of course, if I write, it’s only about them and almost delusional, because I am delusional about them. The void is always there, and I find myself dreaming of a house and children, a husband, flowers and a tree with a swing, but I know it will be there still. I’m not talking about a void that sucks everything into its darkness and distorts it. I’m really just talking about an empty room that I make comfortable for myself because although there is a decently nice house around it, it’s the only room I seem to stay in, but I know my expectations for love will always be beyond anything reasonable and my hopes for my happiness are a sick joke. And with every new person I fall in love with, my attempts to keep them with me grow more desperate and pathetic and my heart only breaks worse and worse. But to make a bus ride more bearable, or a miserable day, I will keep doing it over and over again, finding that thing, to not have to deal with feeling and caring about nothing at all most of my life. There must be something wrong with me, truly, to have such an anonymous sense of self. No sense of self at all in a way. And I wonder if people notice this when they try to return my love but I’m too smooth of a surface to hold, just a silly shapeless thing that jumps out of your hands as soon as you try to grasp it. In the book, Le Parfum, the protagonist gets so cruelly and romantically fixated on other people’s scent so he can remain oblivious to the fact he doesn’t have a scent of his own. I think this is me in a way, with my absence of self, or sense of self. It’s quite hopeless in fact, if your greatest flaw is genetically not something you can fix on your own. You rely deeply and desperately on something other than you. And the very thing you lack and need is what turns people off from giving it to you. But how I love people, and how bravely I try to get them to love me back, is also my favorite thing about me. Because in reality the possessiveness fades once they lay next to me, and my fear of abandonment can momentarily rest. Then I wish God and the stars for them, even if happy is far removed from me. As I trace their skin with my fingers. And think to myself, what a beautiful world, what a lively world that I live in.

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wowsoboring · 3 years

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Deconstructing baseless Harry Potter arguments #1: Harmony Edition

There’s a very helpful account on instagram (this instagram page merely gathers toxic harmony shippers, they don’t ship Harmione or hate all Harmione shippers, please don’t send them hate, show them love and support) where you can essentially find stupid fucking bashers who make baseless arguments. I’m all for Harmione shippers, as long as they don’t denounce Romione, bash Ron and just peacefully co-exist. To my pleasure, such people are out there: they just dont seem to be seen as often as the ones that are not nice. Maybe all I see is the mean people and the majority is nice, but in this post, I am attacking those who make baseless claims and bash Ron/Romione/Hinny/Ginny. I don’t myself hate all Harmione shippers. On top of that, as a Romione/Ron fan, i do acknowledge Ron’s character flaws along with Hermione’s and I hold them on the same pedestal.

This is copied directly from my own instagram page, granger.weasley_ on ig.

Anyways let's get deconstructing

rebuttal:

Yeah okay mf; maybe don’t compare real-life relationships with fucking fictional ones. Your relationship going wrong has nothing to do with Ron/Hermione. It has everything to do with you and your ex: the *real life* people involved in it.

rebuttal:

The weird subreddits and discord servers also seem to have a lot of die-hard Harmione “non-canon” shippers. They bash Ron and Romione (along with Ginny and Hinny) with a burning passion without any objective sense of remorse. They ignore all the merits of Ron’s character and bash him to push their agenda. They can’t even do so much as fucking acknowledge any of Hermione’s character flaws but still somehow manage to fixate on that one time when 11 year old Ron just shit-talked one line while Hermione had just publicly humiliated him in front of the Charms class and practically shouted at him for doing the spell wrong just before. I personally don’t because Hermione was 11 too and wasn’t that good at social cues that early on, which is more than okay. Neither am I.

Only a few people in the Romione fandom bash Hermione. And it’s not like Harmione shippers (most, not all!) don’t bash Ron and Ginny remorselessly, right? The fucking hypocrisy.

If someone considers Ron as the best member of the trio, it is their own opinion and not a fact. I do that. If you consider Harry and Hermione as the best member of the trio or in the whole wizarding world, most people don’t give a flying fuck and probably won’t argue with you because it is simply an opinion. That will only happen when you pass that off as a fact.

Statistically speaking, most (not FUCKING all) Harmione moments are in the movies. The weird dance scene especially. The passionate kiss that happens in Ron’s vision, shit like that. Ron is pushed to the sidelines in the last set of movies while Harry and Hermione show each other endless love and support. “I’ll go with you”. The books on the other hand, describe Harry and Hermione as siblings multiple times, with very little Harmione references.

rebuttal:

So you don't want us to fixate on the large majority of Harmione shippers who do the exact same thing, just kissing Hermione's and Harry's ass and hating on Ron. However you will fixate on people who are most likely not EVEN bashing or hating but pointing out a few character flaws in Hermione in a fair and unbiased way. I would know, I'm a huge fan of Hermione as an individual character (in the books). The only criticism I've seen of Hermione to this day has not been bashing. In the comment section of my own fics (shameless plug) I've seen some Hermione bashing. On an ao3 comment section. And I've seen so damn fucking many people bashing Ron, Ginny, the Weasleys etc. and garner tens and thousands of upvotes on quora.

What does Ron even need excusing for? The running away incident and Krum. What does Hermione need excusing for? Canaries, contributing to Ron's insecurities by making him jealous through Cormac and Krum even though she didn't even like them (especially not Cormac, she fucking hated him). Ron wore a locket that literally highlighted his fatal flaw (insecurity) in an echo chamber. Harry kept getting annoyed when Ron wanted to check in on his family. Harry asked Ron to leave; Ron didn't say that shit in the books about Harry's parents being dead: that was plain shock value.

And sorry for repeating myself but I have seen quite a few Harmione shippers bash Ron and Ginny and excuse every single thing Harry and Hermione have done.

37 upvotes on this weird comment that makes no sense? Echo chamber alert! You know what us Romione/Ron fans all have in common? We have never experienced such an echo chamber. I made a pro Ron/Romione post on reddit and got a considerable amount of people who bashed Ron and Romione in the comments.

The amount of Hermione haters is very few compared to Ron bashers. Nobody hates Hermione for being independent, determined, etc. We dislike perfect movie Hermione who’s an unrealistic image of females and seems like some sort of agenda than a real woman. Most Romione shippers/Ron fans and book fans in general (except for you apparently) dislike movie Hermione and still are fans of realistic book Hermione. Most, not all. In general, we do not claim anyone who does the exact same thing to Harry and Hermione that these sorts of Harmione shippers do to Ron, Romione, Hinny and Ginny. I say this on the behalf of all Romione shippers and Ron fans.

Ron's not a bitchy lay-about drama causing loser. That's Steve Kloves's movie Ron. In the books Ron is realistic and simplistic and apologizes whenever he causes problems. He acts up substantially twice in a span of 7 years where he is also a hormone-fuelled teenager.

This is so contradictory and juxtaposed to the point of near delusion. First you talk about how Romione shippers bash Hermione and then you bash Ron as a Harmione shipper. Mate, fighting fire with fire will get you called a hypocrite. Fix yourself.

So the movies are fine when they work according to your agenda? And yes how dare he add such a (fake) chemistry fuelled moment between Harry and Hermione while defeating the entire purpose and groundwork for Romione, the sadness caused by Ron leaving and so many more things? Those Harmione moments you mention seem friendship -esque more than anything else.

Steve Kloves's moments ruined many things while just paying fan service to the Harmione fans he'd birthed through years in the course of 6 movies where he showed Ron as a, how you so eloquently describe it, lay - about drama causing bitchy loser, Harry as one dimensional and Hermione as a zero - dimensional Mary Sue who might as well be the main titular character. Obviously Harmione fans such as yourself don't see the problem with it as it fits your narrative

We do care about Harry and Hermione at large. Most Romione shippers rightfully bash Draco, Pansy, etc. not particularly Harry and Hermione, that's quite rare. Harry and Hermione can get along without Ron as friends. Ron and Harry can also get along without. Hermione as friend. So can Hermione and Ron without Harry as friends or more. I don't understand your point and how what you said is any different than Romione or Ronarry’s friendship.

Constant arguing is not what they do. They bicker, they apologize, and sometimes they just do it for the heck of it. They are argumentative teenager. Opposites attract doesn't work in the sense of fire and ice, it works in the case of Brownie and ice-cream. Ron is passionate, laid back and insecure. Hermione's passionate, a workaholic and not as insecure. Ron can help her get calm and composed and get her to give herself a break. Hermione can motivate Ron and re - enforce his confidence.

It wouldn't be step incest. Harry and Ginny do not regard each other as siblings. They do not look similar whatsoever. And a Harmione shipper also bashes Hinny and Ginny along with Ron and Romione? Checks out

" that fucked up Harmony" hahaha. What?

Are you literally going to date someone on the basis of what Harry Potter ships they prefer? That is so shallow end depraved. Your Harry Potter ship preferences should not be the groundwork for your dating life. Please understand that. Harry Potter is a fictional world which is not real. Hogwarts doesn't exist. Magic doesn't exist. I sound like a Dursley but that's what it is: a fictional realm with fictional character. I would personally not give a fuck if my best friend or significant other was a Harmione shipper. In the case of them being a Ron basher, I would ignore it as if it was just a minor inconvenience and something we wouldn't be discussing and that's how it should be with you. Fuck BuzzFeed, your opinion on what Harry Potter ship / character is your favorite says squat about your personality and relationship with others in a romantic or platonic context. But who cares? Live your life however you want. I'll be stoic.

It's not opposites attract rubbish or high school opposites attract. Ron and Hermione aren't polar opposites like I said, they are a bit different but similar too in many ways. They have a lot more in common than Harry and Hermione. Ron and Harry have the most in common. Both Ron and Hermione are passionate, loving, argumentative, caring, etc. Your argument lacks substance. It's biased trash. And what does “obhwf " mean?

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at the end of the day, i’m just an annoyed teenager. I try my best to be open-minded to people but only as long as they are too. I tried to use my brain more than my feelings for this post.

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skunked-up-kicks · 3 years

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About Allison yeah. I think people acknowledge she’s a bit ableist and classist but they erase the fact she was fine/complicit with Seth’s homophobia and treatment of Nicky (tbh it seems like all the upperclassmen were??) + what that post said. This isn’t hate I love Allison! But I think she’s much more interesting as a character with flaws that make sense with her upbringing and backstory rather than just #girlboss.

okay my response to this is ungodly long so, if you're interested...

1. her ableism

the thing is when people do acknowledge her ableism it's always with how she treats andrew (which makes sense cause it's the most obvious, and they're not wrong) but it kinda results in an issue. the way these fics that acknowledge this usually go is that allison calls andrew 'monster' and maybe talks about how he's 'psychotic' or something. then it goes one of few ways:

1) neil tells her (and usually all the upperclassmen as they get grouped together seeing as they all do this) not to speak about andrew like that, maybe he threatens her or something. the problem with this is that he's just scaring her into being silent, her mindset doesn't actually change.

2) neil gives a speech about how andrew is actually good, and generally how he's 'not as bad as she thinks' or something. now correct me if i'm wrong, but the issue i see with this is that, it's not actually telling her that her mindset about people with mental illnesses and/or trauma is wrong- just that andrew isn't the right person to direct her ableism too, but there are people out there who are 'as bad as she thinks'. it's kinda like the attitude that as long as andrew does enough to redeem himself he can be treated as human and not a 'monster' which is... yeah.

3) basically the same issue as the last one, andrew proves he's actually good because allison and the others see him do something outwardly affectionate. thereby proving he is actually all good now.

sometimes fics have a mix of these but basically the thing is that her ableism is never actually 'fixed' (for lack of a better word). most that happens is that it's no longer directed at andrew, but this is a worldview that she has, it's not just a dislike of andrew- realistically it's not just isolated to him.

to clarify though, i'm genuinely not intending to shame people who write these fics cause they are acknowledging her ableism, which is good. and similar with how people approach aarons homophobia, it's incredibly hard to write someone overcoming a prejudice. i certainly couldn't do it, and realistically maybe it's not somethìng that can be done in a fic. given that often it's a long-term process where you have to check yourself often.

it's especially complicated because she somehow needs to come to the realization that villifying andrew isn't right because despite the wrong that he has done- and he has done wrong, we can't deny that- he is still a person deserving of at least the deceny to not be compared to a monster and dehumanised in that way. she needs to realise that while andrew shouldn't do those things and can be called out for it, that the way he acts is a product of his trauma. BUT he is still responsible for his actions, and while she can rightfully choose to not associate with andrew, she shouldn't discourage others from doing so in the way that she does. it really is complicated and there's a lot of nuance there which makes it a hard topic to deal with cause... how do you write someone learning that?

but yeah, that's my thoughts on that.

2. her classism

i honestly don't see people acknowledge this a lot? i think one of the ways we see it manifest is how she talks about the way neil dresses... and in fics she often insists neil buys better clothes, usually more expensive ones. which is portrayed usually as her being a caring friend, which i get, but i think neil would actually find this really annoying lol.

i think an interesting way to look at her classism would be in her and dans relationship given the extreme differences they grew up. same thing with her relationship with seth, as he grew up poor too.

with seth, she might have sometimes been ashamed of the way he acted and dressed, maybe of the way he spoke too...? i can picture them fighting over that and her being a bitch about it. she would probably speak badly about the place seth grew up in too..

with dan, i feel like dan might get frustrated when allison, for example, doesn't know how much ordinary things cost (a thing a lot of celebs have shown to have no knowledge of). or dan might even get jealous or angry at the way allison can just throw away her moneyvand buy things carelessly (think of her reaction when her car got trashed, she could just get another 'toy'), while she was brought up saving money at any instance she could.

not much to say on this tbh... i think it would be cool to see this explored a bit more though.

3. complicit in homophobia

someone made a post on here about how allison would be the type of girl to preach equality while having a homophobic boyfriend... and yeah.. that's it really lol, hit the nail on the head.

again, a lot of people make her very progressive and woke, and i think this is tied to the very common hc of her being bi. (despite the fact that when betting on neils sexuality she doesn't consider bi an option which makes me think she is canonically straight..). i think it's hard for people to address the fact that she is complicit in homophobia while also headcanonning her as bi, cause it seems like she wouldn't be if she actually was bi. from my knowledge, bi women (and bi ppl in general) not being supportive of gay people and/or not standing up against homophobia isn't really a common issue? (pls correct me if i am wrong though) usually prejudice goes the other way due to the biphobia in the LGBTQ+ community. so it's hard to think about and write about.

when it comes to the other upperclassmen, i seem to remember dan and matt standing up against seth? though i could be remembering that wrong or getting it confused with a fic.

4. #girlboss

i highly agree with you that she really does just get reduced to just a #girlboss a LOT. and i think the same thing happens with the other female characters... i mean, just look at katelyn. there's no evidence that she is some kind of badass but many want to make her one.. but she can be an interesting character without having to fit this ideal #girlboss.

i understand wanting to make female characters cool and badass but in the process it feels like we're losing variety... i personally don't want the exact same personality and way of acting plastered onto every female character.

a strong female character is not defined by how much they can kick a guy in the balls but rather how well they are written, and to be written well they need flaws. and when making female characters #girlbosses we usually lose the flaws :(

like you said, this isn't to hate on allison. i just think sometimes we miss the parts of her character that make her truly interesting.. and i think that's a real shame..

anyway, i think that that's all that i had to say lol. if you read up till this point, thank you! and thank you for the ask anon :)

#oof this was long lol #ask #mine #aftg #allison reynolds #cw ableism #cw biphobia #cw homophobia #cw classism #i think thats everything..?

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catboylupin · 3 years

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you have rly interesting takes abt wolfstar!! I was wondering if you had any head canons about the Prank like why Sirius did it and what Remus' reaction was?

hello and thank you and i’m So sorry that this has been sitting in my drafts for like Weeks at this point.... i’m physically incapable of doing anything intellectually demanding in a timely matter and this is such a hard topic because, like, i don’t know!! i’m not very well acquainted with the Fandom Mythology surrounding the Prank or the mainstream interpretation of events so i really don’t know what to make of it, especially in terms of sirius’s motivation. here are a few things that i referenced when typing this all out: meta meta/fic fic beautiful art

the first thing that is interesting to me, and something to keep in the back of our minds when thinking about this, is that when discussing the prank in the shack during PoA, sirius says that “it served [snape] right.”

also i think that the song hospital by the modern lovers possesses some outstanding post Prank vibes...

ok so re: sirius’s motivation. i don’t know. i think it was a combination of things. i don’t even think that sirius entirely knew why he did it, or what there was to gain.

i guess the thing to sort out is to what extent sirius factored remus into the equation. was he not thinking about remus at all and how it would affect him and just wanted to hurt snape because he hated him, or was he like “this is for remus and remus will think it’s funny too”?

i think that he felt slightly goaded by snape because snape was being a massive asshole trying to get them expelled, and he also just did not like him at all. like, the most obvious motivation or end goal in sirius telling him is that he just wanted to scare snape so he would leave them alone and also it would be a little funny because hahaha he is a slimey wizard nazi (at age 15/16 do you think sirius would be politically advanced enough to have a ‘punching nazis’ outlook on snape? i don’t know)

and i don’t think that he ever seriously thought that remus would react well (like, how could he? sirius had to have known that remus’s worst fear ever was hurting someone). and he was literally risking the entire school finding out he was a werewolf. but maybe a small part of sirius was like “take that snape!! that’s what you get for bullying my beautiful mysterious friend!! remus will love this lol”

but i think the thing that makes the most sense is that he wasn’t thinking about remus that much and didn’t think he would react well.

and here i where you can start thinking about sirius’s upbringing and how that affected how he viewed werewolves/remus.

i think that sirius was probably raised surrounded by some pretty intense anti-werewolf beliefs and he dealt with remus being a werewolf by 1. separating remus from the wolf and 2. kind of like romanticizing it. so much of sirius’s attraction to remus stemmed from this sort of fascination.. james was so similar to sirius and generally uncomplicated, but remus, even though he was kind of weird looking, always sort of elicited this morbid curiosity from him. and he saw remus’s lycanthropy as something he could fix, or at least help (see: the animagus thing, my personal headcanon that he was very into taking care of remus during their relationship). remus was his tragic werewolf friend. but remus never thought that sirius understood his lycanthropy the way remus wanted him to, that there was always this sort of tension, a lingering sense of “you think you’re so different from your family, but you’re not really.”

sirius could have thought that snape actually knew about remus and wanted to make him prove that he knew, like: “sirius, i know what remus’s secret is, hint hint wink wink” “okay, if you really know then go to the shrieking shack,” like snape kind of goaded sirius into telling him, and sirius thought that he would know better. but that is just such a profoundly stupid thing for sirius to do, and i feel like putting too much blame on snape is being too generous to sirius.

leescoresbies has an interesting headcanon that the prank happened around the time sirius ran away from home and he was thus was very emotionally volatile. and so it was in part a result of sirius’s trauma/anger/joy, and i like that idea, those emotions had to have been a factor. and if you are someone that has a really hard time reconciling with sirius’s shitty behavior as a teen, that’s kind of an easy/ canon compliant way of saying “yeah, he was an asshole, but there was also this other thing going on...etc.” however, i don’t think that was the only reason, or even the main reason. i think that sirius is a deeply flawed person and thinking about the prank from the perspective of said flawed-ness makes his and remus’s relationship all the more complicated/interesting.

and unfortunately a lot of this sort of boils down to whether or not sirius wanted to kill or seriously injure snape. those were the stakes he was dealing with in this situation. i don’t think that sirius wanted to kill him, just because that’s not really the sort of thing teenagers do, you know. and, as further evidenced by how he treated kreacher, sirius doesn’t always treat those he considers lesser than him with any sort of respect. maybe sirius just didn’t care that much about whether or not he died. he knew on an intellectual level that he was sending snape to his likely death, but maybe he just didn’t make that calculation in the moment? like sirius was so used to not facing consequences that maybe he thought things wouldn’t turn out that badly.

i can understand, maybe, in sirius’s version of events, in his own reckless, teenage narrative, that he thought it would be okay to hurt snape. but remus? did he seriously fail to make the calculation that he would be turning him into a murderer? what sirius did was such a major, major trespass of trust/friendship in a way that is actually sort of unforgivable.

doesn’t sirius say in PoA “i’d rather die than betray my friends!” ? well, he did : / he betrayed remus..

and i think that remus would be massively upset and i don’t think he ever really completely forgave him.

when did this happen? 5th or 6th year? i think that by this time remus would kind of be relegated to a state of melodramatic, shame-ridden misery that came along with being sort of in love with sirius. and so the prank really tore him apart, because of course it would. remus was so used to being defined by his lycanthropy, used to facing discrimination, and his friends were his one refuge from that. but then sirius who he loved used him basically as a means to an end. what sirius did was incredibly exploitative— he exploited remus’s marginalized identity for personal gain without thinking about how it would affect him. and i think that remus really did care about him enough to want to forgive him. he probably felt like he had to forgive him (his friends were too important for him to lose, and, importantly, there was probably this feeling of “i am a werewolf and therefore i need to be extraordinarily forgiving in order to be perceived as non threatening, and this is just how the world treats people like me and i can’t and shouldn’t fight back”). and those are just such deeply fucked up feelings to feel towards a friend, especially one you admire and have a major soul crushing crush on.

i think that there was a period of time after the fact when they weren’t really talking, remus was very rightfully upset, everyone was angry at sirius... i think that sirius apologized, but sort of begrudgingly. because twenty years later he still thought that snape got what he deserved.

at times i think that remus was someone who saw his relationships as very transactional. and initially he felt in debt to the other marauders because of the animagus thing and just because they were his friends. and, as dear @direwolf-summer said in this post, the prank changed the dynamic between remus and sirius: remus was no longer the one in debt, sirius was. and that is such an interesting point. remus starts demanding more from him and he finally feels that, even though sirius was really popular and closer to james or whatever, they were on even standing. this is how he was able to be more forward about his feelings— sirius stopped being this precious object who demanded endless patience in order to retain as a friend (or so he thought, this is remus’s insecurity showing). he stopped feeling so bad about having a crush on sirius. he’d be like “fuck you sirius. i’m in love with you. deal with it and you have to be nice about it in order to repay your debts.” like he wouldn’t say that out loud but it would be in his internal monologue and he would kinda hint at it.

there’s that line in eclipse and transit where remus says: “You say one thing and do another and half the time you don’t even try to say it, it’s like, I don’t know, like you’re daring me to leave. And everything—every single thing Sirius, it all comes back to January of sixth year, whether you’ll ever admit it or not. Or whether you even realize it” and i think it’s fitting. during fights remus probably would bring it up, and sirius would fail to understand why remus never got over it. like, sirius: “i apologized i was 15!!” and remus: “this is bigger than just that, what you did was emblematic of your flaws as a person and how even though you understand me more than almost anyone else you still don’t understand me completely and it frustrates me!!! and also i feel like you never fully understood that what you did was extraordinary fucked up.”

and i think that remus was so in love with sirius that he did forgive him, or otherwise allowed his love and affection to forget about it. but it was always bubbling under the surface...and that’s why their relationship was sort of volatile, that’s why he was so willing to believe that sirius was the spy (as in, “he betrayed me, why wouldn’t he have betrayed james and lily?”)

now i’m remembering when, in one of the snape’s memory /pensieve / flashback scenes in OotP, sirius says “i wish it was the full moon” and remus says, darkly, “you might.” now, we don’t know if that scene takes place before or after the Prank (before probably? idk), but i feel like it further compounds the extent to which sirius seems woefully unaware that remus is a werewolf and it’s not something he can separate from himself and that lycanthropy impacts every facet of his life. sirius came to understand it as just some fun thing to do every month. his sort of ignorance towards other people’s needs and experiences is also further evidenced by how he treated harry like he was james. sirius has a pretty good track record of taking other people’s pain and making into something for him to enjoy. and he doesn’t do so in a way that is entirely selfish either, i think he really thought he was helping harry and remus. maybe it all goes back to his family and childhood trauma or something (doesn’t everything? “it all started one afternoon in the 1960s..”)

#i have vague thoughts about other things but that's the extent to which i am capable of articulating my feelings #this is all gibberish isn't it? idk. no tldr im forcing you to read all my illegible brain soup #wolfstar #wolfstar meta #the prank #ask #meta #this is the thing i got done today i guess i'm a genius!!! if i finish my overdue econ ia i will be god!!!!!!!#op

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akatsuki-ryuu · 3 years

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Soowon, this idiot

I’ve seen a lot of discourse over this guy in the fandom (some think he’s entirely justified and deserves all the love, some can’t quite forgive him, some have mixed opinions), so I wanted to pitch in with my thoughts on him.

Brownie Points:

Seeing his treatment of Yona right after her mother died makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. Even when he was so young, he had been so kind, and I can’t forget that (I reckon Yona can’t, either)

He’s unbelievably charming? That disarming disposition of his also makes him a dangerous adversary, as we’ve seen in how he deals with high-ranking people, both from Kouka - Guen-Tae! - and other countries

This guy was born for the role of someone in a position of authority. He’s amazingly good at dealing with people and settling matters. He was able to suppress the countries around Kouka with minimal bloodshed (except for Xing, that credit goes to Yona & co. He wasn’t able to see how Yu-Hon’s actions were abominable)

He’s good at the politics game (again, goes back to his attitude and skill in handling people and winning them over)

He’s selfless to a fault. This is exceptionally good for his country, as its strength and safety is his greatest priority. Also good for his people, as he actually seems to care about the inner workings too (like when he went to the Chi’Shin to fix the economy, Awa to check on trafficking, and Suika for the Nadai). This isn’t so good for anyone who personally values him, because they can never be his priority. You can’t count on him to be by your side. Also, it’s terrifying how manipulative and scheming he can be. (By manipulative I mean he can bend the situation so that it fits his desired outcome)

The way he cared for his mother right after supporting Yona. It breaks my heart to see what he had to deal with at such a young age.

He’s humble. That’s been made clear on multiple occasions, both when he was younger and now that he’s king.

His genius. Now, I’m no expert on battle strategies and tactics, but this guy is taking win after win.

He’s generally a good king. It must be said. There are a few things I don’t agree with him on, like the Xing matter, how he’s dealing w Yona, her dragons, and Hak right now in the castle, and how he became king in the first place. Otherwise, for Kouka, he is a great king. If not for Hak (and the entire plot), I would’ve liked to see him as King to Yona’s Queen.

Things I can’t forgive him for:

Along with Il, he failed Yona. With the prowess of someone who dedicated a whole decade to scheming for a coup, he couldn’t find a subtle way to train her and make her a better princess. (we see her now and know for a fact that she’s capable, but her father failed in terms of raising her to be a princess and Soowon, who has his eyes on royal affairs, hadn’t tried to see if having Yona rightfully on the throne is a viable option)

He didn’t try to subtly get Yona & Hak on his side. Of course, Il had his eyes on Soowon, so he can’t just as well directly tell them about his plans, but we see Yona now, and unlike Soowon, she is clearly able to realize her father’s wrongdoings, and she desperately tries to fix them. Who’s to say that if Soowon (indirectly) tried to open her eyes to the world she wouldn’t have tried something with her father? Her father believed she was the rightful ruler; if Soowon asked him to step down, he wouldn’t, but if the rightful sovereign (Yona) asked him to step down so she could assume her throne, wasn’t that what he wanted to happen eventually anyway? He was just a placeholder till Hiryuu reclaims his throne. Goes back to point 1 of failing her. She’s capable both in morals (she genuinely, desperately wants justice, righteousness, and the good of the people) and skills (does this need any explanation? Look at what she’s done with the help of her dragons and Yoon and Hak: getting Shin-Ah out of the mountains, Awa with Kumji, helping the fire tribe villages regain life, getting rid of the Nadai in the water tribe, helping Yoon with his Iza seeds for the fire tribe, protecting Lily in Sei, winning over the princesses of Xing and preventing a war, and much more that I can’t remember off the top of my head) All she needed was the actual training necessary to gain the skills required of a ruler (and for someone to remove her blindfold, of course, and that could’ve been Soowon, in a way other than he did)

We know that he chose the time to kill Il bc he had been told that Yona doesn’t make a habit of visiting her father at night, which means that Soowon initially intended to appear innocent in Yona’s eyes and she shouldn’t have been a witness. Therefore, she would’ve remained a princess. Did he plan on having her quietly twirling her hair, thinking of nothing but beautiful kimonos, and longing to see him as she did when she was a princess? Was she not counted in his plans at all? Did he not actually want her to be a princess in action as well as name? How was that to happen if he didn’t train her, since he had a whole coup squad with him that he was willing to work with? It amazes me that he has such connections and didn’t consider making Yona (and Hak!) one of them. As Min-Soo said, her power in gaining the favor of the tribes’ people is truly formidable.

When she witnessed the murder, he was the one to raise his sword against her. I wished he would have just demanded her death as necessary by a guard or something, but it struck deep that he himself held the sword at first. (Not that I liked that he tried to murder her in the first place)

Soowon is blind to his father’s flaws. In fact, he looks up to him in both right and wrong, to the point where he can’t admit that what Yu-Hon did to those Xing captives was truly detestable and dishonorable.

He was plotting for a decade, and he knew for a fact that he was going to betray his friends and trample over their entire world - still, he made no effort to break away from them; he remained close, so he betrayed them as a dear, precious friend rather than a distant childhood memory, and therefore his betrayal hurts much more. This is my biggest problem with him, tbf. As soon as he knew that there’s a great chance he’s gonna betray them like that, he lost his right to their friendship, warmth, trust, care, and affection - as great a king as he is, he is a terrible friend.

What Hak thought in a chapter of the Xing arc: how Soowon was able to stomach making Yona’s day and then destroying her entire world that same night. Now, I believe both Il and Yu-Hon deserved to die, but Yona (and likewise, Soowon) didn’t deserve the tragedies that befell them (sins of the father, anyone?)

He’s a good king for Kouka, but he’s willing to subjugate other countries (unfavorable terms in the treaty with Xing) in order to strengthen his own. Any one who has lived in a country that has been oppressed/colonized by another can see what’s wrong with this.

In conclusion,

The og trio’s relationship will likely never go back to how it was, and though the thought is heartbreaking, I actually don’t want it to. I love Yona, and I always got the feeling that she cared far too much for Soowon while he didn’t hold her in high regard, and I don’t like that. It may just be his selflessness in how he prioritizes his country, but I wish he’d value Yona and Hak more. I’d like to see a heartfelt moment between the three sometime before the story ends (I pray it never ends).

What are your thoughts on this?

Note: this opinion covers info up until before the current castle arc

#akatsuki no yona #yona of the dawn #dawn of yona #Yona #soowon #suwon #soo-won #su-won #sooyona #hakyona #hak #hhb #happy hungry bunch #min-soo #nadai #soo won #su won

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nostalgiaruinedme · 3 years

Text

OK LISTEN UP OR DONT IDC I wanna talk about my other tmnt fic ideas so im gonna do that. If u guys find any interesting feel free to send asks about them. That'll probably encourage me to get to work on them 😂

Oh and please mind any spelling or grammar typos. I just got a new phone and am still getting used to the new keyboard.

(Also if any of yall steal em im gonna fight ya. I got a katana and i dont know how to use it but I WILL try)

1. Rise Leo Leader Problems fic

Leo is the new leader of the team, and so far its going great! Well, mostly—Leos really insecure about his leadership abilities and doesnt feel prepared, but its mostly going ok?... Until Mikey gets injured due to a flaw in Leos plan. So, he freaks out and blames himself.

Leo decides if he has to be the leader, hes gonna need a better way to lead. So he looks to mystic abilities. He ends up going to the Hidden City to find a witch by the name of Ms Wander, known to grant mystic abilities to those who truely need them. He manages to get the power to see into the future, which is perfect for him and his plans! The downside is that the power is fueled by his very soul, and she warns him to only use it when he truely, truely needs it. But Leo finds himself using the ability more and more, just to make sure none of his plans will leave his brothers injured.... Once, twice.... It cant hurt to just use it before every single mission, right? His declining health is probably completely unrelated...

2. 2012 Raph actually leaves fic

Frustrated with the cautiousness of his brothers, Raphael finally leaves to go be a vigilante on his own. Hes tired of his brothers holding him back and if hes on his own, he'll really get stuff done!

I dont have as much plot planned for this one but his relationship with his brothers is really bad in this universe, but its mostly due to his own problems with himself. He even makes his own makeshift lair and doesnt even sleep at home anymore, and barely believes his family cares for him since he kinda feels like he abandoned them (nevermind he's still following them in secret every mission just to make sure they're safe). It gets worse when the Foot kidnaps raph, preparing to use him as leverage against his family, and he tells them it wont work—he abandoned them. They wont even notice, and even if they did they should just leave him be. Or at least, thats what he thinks.

Him having his own place is important tho because at one point I want Mikey to show up there missing him and wanting to have a sleepover-

3. 2012 Leo's """recovery""" backfires fic

GOD WHAT WAS THAT??!! "your pain is all in your mind" "oh hey my leg is better!! " No!!!! That's not how injuries work!! Coma!!! Broken bones!!! No!!!

So here's my fix it fic: the pain really was all in his mind, but the damage was real. It's months later, and Leos leg is bad again. It doesn't hurt, but he can barely walk anymore! His brothers finally figure out what happened to advance his healing so fast.

Turns out, in the spirit realm he was just able to disconnect his mind from feeling the pain of his injuries —they're still there. And he's been using his leg for months now, and the damage is so so so bad but he just can't feel it. Donnie is rightfully pissed at Splinter and the deer spirit for convincing him he was healed, when all of this really just made it worse. Hes not even sure if Leo is going to be able to walk again ever now.

4. 2012 Raphael Brainworm Arc but Better fic

(Can u tell I like mind control fics?)

OK they really did NOT use the brainworms to their full potential. Especially on Raph.

In this fic, Shredder realizes how useful it would be to not reveal that Raph is under his control, and sends him back to his brothers for info and to be an insider. I actually have a lot planned for this one and don't wanna reveal too much but there's a lot of Raph sabotaging all their missions and angst when they realize "oh shit he's been mind controlled for weeks???". Rockwell and Slash are also controlled for longer than in canon too, but the main focus is on Raph who is fighting against the brainworm the whole time, trying to give hints to his brothers so they'll figure it out, but the mind control is strong.

#OK that was fun I really wanted to talk about these ideas #tmnt #tmnt 2012 #rottmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #teenage mutant ninja turtles 2012 #teenage mutant ninja turtles #tmnt fanfiction #tmnt fic

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olivieblake · 3 years

Note

KSIGJICNRJCNEHCBD HELLO HELLO WELCOME TO THE HELL THAT IS KNOWING ZUTARA IS EVERYTHING AND SHOULD HAVE BEEN WRITTEN AS SUCH !!!! wow i love that you are as angry as i was (and am every rewatch? yikes) this is amazing i knew you're my favorite but yeah wow man this really. confirms it whew high five

yeah it’s pretty wild how I knew this was what happened and was already bracing for it and yet STILL got completely misled by the narrative??? MEN I tell you MEN. I’m also going to use this ask as a method to reply to some of the other commentary if you don’t mind since this seems like a good place for communal frustration (here is my original post for anyone scrolling around lost)

@meg-hemmings: I agree with all of ur thoughts and I would TOTALLY read anything you wrote for Zutara … your writing is among my absolute favorite ever and I think you would write the Zutara dynamic so beautifully!

@one-man-propaganda-machine: I am - begging - you to write it yourself.

I... am not going to make promises, but I may have to. I want something very specific and that never bodes well for me. I doubt it would be more than a one-shot, but there are multiple scenes that could have occurred between episodes that would flesh out what was there (and of course I’d cut the final 15 seconds of the show, much like another epilogue I loathe and ignore)

@deifiliaa: omg atla discourse in 2021; olivie, i’d love to see what your character tier list looks like now that you’ve finished the series 👀

I’m going to put azula at the top. not because she’s a good person obviously but she’s FULL. OF. HITS. every time she’s on the screen the narrative gets immediately more interesting. she’s savvy and self-assured and I love it. her ending depressed me although I like that it was kind of about the loss of her two best friends? if that had been more of a focus I think I would have enjoyed it more but yeah, losing mai and ty lee could have been rightfully devastating. who among us is not totally obliterated by friend breakups. I also really loved uncle iroh; if anything that’s why I wasn’t invested in zuko’s storyline until close to the end, because watching him disappoint his uncle was very difficult (I get it, he’s a teenager, he’s growing and evolving and whatnot, but also I am closer to being his uncle than to being him so like, yeah). I also hope the peter pan revenge guy (JET that’s his name, sorry pregnancy kills my brain cells) did hook up with both katara and zuko. I love that journey for all three of them. I wanted more time with mai than we got, so there wasn’t quite enough there to love... but I was very down with ty lee interfering on her behalf. what a pivotal moment

of the core characters I think I was quickest to love sokka; the episode where he apologizes to suki and asks her to train him cemented it for me. I think it’s a big deal to show boys apologizing on-screen and owning their misconceptions. I like katara a lot—she’s what a lot of people do with fanon hermione. toph is also great, and part of me feels there is a strong basis for a ship with aang that balances their opposing energy, though I also like the idea of them being platonic besties. aang is... twelve. pretty much every time he was on the screen mr blake (a teacher) was like “man, aang is such a seventh grader,” so it was nice how convincing that was for his emotional journey, but at the same time it was hard to forget he was in seventh grade. appa and momo are STARS. I am sure I have mentioned this before but mr blake really loves animals and he was devastated by appa’s kidnapping; he hugged our dog for about ten minutes after aang found appa. after he decided I was zuko, he speculated that he is closest to aang but he’s not happy about it lol. “ugh, aang and I are such boring pacifists” was I believe his take on the subject

@libbynico, who for some reason I can’t tag: so true! katara was literally something like a mother/older sister figure to aang the entire time, but whatever

yeah, I think it really sucks that katara, as the emotionally nurturing character, felt shoved into the role of love interest. it’s everything wrong with the distribution of emotional labor in male-female relationships but sure, WHATEVER, apparently nobody thought to ask me in 2008

@touslesnoms: I liked “such selfish prayers” by andromeda3116 if you ever decide to read zutara after the series; the worst prisoner by emletish is super funny too

thanks for the recs! I will take them. I do want something very specific so I will be accepting recs until I find it lol. or until I lose composure and write it (yeah this is me WITH my composure, no wonder mr blake thinks I’m zuko, “I’m never happy” indeed)

@gaeleria: THANK YOU!!! Ugh omg that “I’m confused” kiss scene made me actively hate the ending. I knew ahead of time they were endgame, so I tried to make myself accept it early on. Like, I really didn’t like the pairing, but I wasn’t going to be emotionally invested in the romance and it was just going to be like, whatevs. AND THEN THEY WROTE THAT SCENE??! 1000% no. What was even the point of that scene? If they had written it to make Aang have some introspection and realize it’s not all about him, Katara’s feelings matter too, or even apologize, or anything… but no, there was literally no point to that scene. No character growth, it was never mentioned again. Ugh.

this is in answer to both you and beloved @zabbini: yeah this was a fuck-up for sure lol. I think it may come down to editing for time; the series is very irregularly paced, what with the majority of the action taking place in the final three episodes of a 16 episode season. or maybe it’s just because MEN CAN’T BE TRUSTED TO WRITE ROMANCE but either way yeah this was a real misstep and just truly, truly reeked of a particular (white) male attitude about how women think and what they owe. had a bad day, dudes? buy a gun, kiss your forever girl, do whatever you want and it’s fine! (I’m exaggerating but barely)

in terms of what’s so angering for me: a character like katara who previously had tons of agency was robbed of it when it came to her romantic arc, which is just really upsetting. and to be fair, I was equally upset when zuko instantly agreed to the agni kai with azula because it was like okay well katara’s extremely valuable, as you know, but now you want her to just sit on the sidelines...? (more of a story flaw than a relationship flaw, but my chest sunk a little at the idea that katara was going to sit by and watch as an accessory to zuko’s story when she’s a crucial weapon in their collective fight. what a waste, right?)

it’s also especially hard to buy into the aang thing when zuko’s method of problem-solving on katara’s behalf is there for comparison. he asks her what she needs in order to find closure and then from there, does everything necessary to get it without having to be asked twice. versus aang, who is a twelve-year-old pair of rogue lips who never wins any of his fights without the aid of phenomenal cosmic powers...? ugh I’m getting off track but in the end there’s just a complete lack of understanding what female audiences want, though again, I don’t think they were really considering that at all. which I guess is... fair, it’s not the point of the show, but then why make the ending romantic at all? to show that their brand of hero gets everything he wants, I guess

in conclusion in 2008 I’m not sure the industry was capable of doing better, which sucks but isn’t surprising. still, it does fit the components of “stuff I write fics for,” which is I enjoyed most of it but find myself enraged by slivers I compulsively need to fix—WHICH IS STILL NOT A PROMISE but ugh I can already feel myself giving in

#avatar the last airbender #zabbini

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shinidamachu · 4 years

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No Place I Would Rather Be

Summary: We're a thousand miles from comfort. We have traveled land and sea. But as long as you are with me, there's no place I'd rather be. Word Count: 3.617 Genre: fluff Fandom: InuYasha Pairing: Inukag Format: oneshot AO3 Link: 🌹 Fanfic.Net Link: 🌹

Boredom was eating him alive.

Days had passed without a single lead about the jewel fragments. So much that their little group had disbanded for the time being. Sango went back to what was left of her old village. It had been a while since she last paid homage to their dead. Kirara, of course, was her loyal company — and also ride. Miroku was visiting Mushin’s Temple, as if the place hadn't been profaned enough, already. Shippo was still around, but keeping his distance due to InuYasha’s stormy mood.

The frustration of it all got him desperately wishing for some kind — any kind — of action. Something that didn’t involve sulking under a tree and watching time crawl. Every second of this idleness meant another second Naraku was out there, still breathing. Collecting the shards was a small mean to achieve a bigger, imperative ending. It gave him purpose, a sense of getting closer to his ultimate goal step by step. Waiting got them nowhere. It only granted him to be alone with his thoughts and the combination was nothing but disastrous.

Lucky for him, his private source of distraction was not too far away.

Kagome was humming a foreign tune, the same one she liked to sing whenever she was happy. Following the melody was almost mandatory. InuYasha didn’t realize what he was doing until he arrived to the other side of it, where the girl thumbed through her hair in a futile attempt to tame her hair, the lake’s surface a natural mirror at her convenience. InuYasha made his presence known before his own reflection joined hers.

“It’s no use, ya know.”

“Jerk!”

The girl glared at him and retaliated by splashing water on his direction — of which he easily dodged. InuYasha had to admit her reaction was justified, given his past tendency to be utterly unkind to her. This time, however, although his tone wasn’t devoided of casual teasing, he was being completely honest. When you spend sunrise to sunset with someone for so long, it was inevitable learning a thing or two about them. Kagome had a wild hair. Not in a bad way, but it sure had its own will. Especially in the humidity, which was definitely the case of that afternoon. To an outside viewer, the strands could pass as straight. Noticing the shy waves at the end and how they used to stand out after getting wet was a privilege for the few allowed to look closer — a privilege InuYasha cherished. She always had her hair down and he liked that she did. It was destined to be free, to go with the wind. And it had grown a hell of a lot since they first met. The half demon wondered if Kagome was aware of how much. He certainly was.

Then she got up, revealing clothes that were undoubtedly new to his eyes. It was one piece, all lime flowers and malleable fabric against her cream skin. A bit longer than what she usually cared to wear, but leaving her arms and shoulders at plain sight in compensation. The view was thrilling, until his eyes caught the yellow backpack laying by her feet, causing his grin to falter. He understood the implication behind it, even if the question had yet to pass his lips.

“What’s with the weird kimono?”

“Oh, this.” Kagome lowered her gaze, inspecting for herself. Her combative attitude swiftly turning into a cautious posture. “It’s a sundress. I’ve been meaning to ask… can you please give me a ride to the well? I’m going home.”

There it was.

Somehow, getting his suspicions confirmed did nothing to prevent the scowl from forming on his face.

“Thought the school thing were over for the summer.”

“Well, yes...”

“Then why the fuck ya going home for? We still have plenty of supplies!”

“Because I promised I’d go to the movies with Hojo and now that we’re on vacation I don’t have excuses not to go, anymore. My grandpa literally ran out of diseases I could have. And what’s the point, anyway? Jewel hunting is going through a dry spell, everyone left… and I haven’t seen my family in weeks.”

Half of what she said didn’t make any sense to him and InuYasha positively hated the half that did.

“What if something comes up? I can’t see the damn shards like you do.” He argued.

“You jump through the well and get me.” She shrugged, as if the idea was highly unlikely. InuYasha opened his mouth to list the many, many reasons her solution was flawed. She bit him to the punch. “Listen, it’s not a big deal. I’ll be back tomorrow. I bet Miroku and Sango won’t even be here yet.”

It wasn’t fair.

In general, storming off to her era was Kagome’s way of punishing him for being a massive asshole. He got that. To tell the truth, more often than not he deserved it. But InuYasha was in his best behavior — despite feeling rightfully entitled to throw a tantrum, given the circumstances — precisely because he needed her close. He needed her to stay. Picturing Kagome hanging out with someone else instead was the worst kind of self torture. Would she change her mind if he swallowed his pride long enough to say so? Would he ever get the guts to let it out? She hadn’t invited him to come along. Was this Hojo guy really that important to her? More than InuYasha was? Trying to talk her out of it was a dangerous move. He’d put his foot in his mouth, she’d put his face on the ground. That’s what they did.

Either his expression betrayed the turmoil inside or Kagome became too good at figuring him out. Whatever it was, her smile shined, reassuring and warm.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be so quick, you won’t have time to miss me.”

“Who says I’d miss ya?” He dismissed, his indifference unconvincing even to himself.

InuYasha perceived another presence approaching. Shippo. His arrival couldn’t be more providential. Kagome had a soft spot for the brat. If anyone could get her to stay, it was him.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s just the runt.”

Like he had been announced, the kid emerged from the trees in a hurry, Kagome’s bow and quiver looking gigantic on his tiny hands.

“Kagome! InuYasha!”

“Shippo-chan! What’s going on?” She asked, as soon as the boy reached them.

“There are rumors of a jewel fragment, two villages to the west.” He explained, with the pomposity the information called for. “Kaede sent me.” His chin was up high, like the statement added a final hint of importance to the message. “Here,” continued the kit, offering Kagome her weapon in a formal manner.

She hesitated.

“Kagome, let’s go!” InuYasha was prepared to move at the sound of the word ‘jewel’, their earlier argument happily buried and forgotten.

“Wait! Don’t you think it’s strange? For days we had no leads, and now, just when we splitted up…”

“Yeah, well, so what if it’s a trap? It wouldn’t be the first.”

Coward that he was, Naraku resorted to the nastiests schemes in order to get what he wanted. His disgusting fingers laid on every happenstance that had ever caused them harm. What choice did InuYasha have, though? Ruse or not ruse, he had to check it. Regardless of anyone else’s help, it was his duty to get vengeance on the bastard — for Kikyo, for himself — and Kagome knew that.

She sighed and took the bow and arrows from the fox’s hold.

“Thank you so much, Shippo-chan! Now can you do me another favor?”

“Anything!”

“Go back to Kaede. Tell her InuYasha and I are on our way.”

“I’m not coming with you?” He whined, as confused as InuYasha. They never traveled without the child.

“That’s right. We don’t know how dangerous this may be. I need you to stay and if we don’t come back tomorrow by noon, get Miroku and Sango and send them to us. Can you do that for me?”

Shippo resolutely nodded .

“I won’t let you down, Kagome.”

“I know you won’t.”

And through the same path he had appeared he went. Kagome fixed a pleading glance at InuYasha.

“Can I at least change clothes before we g—”

“No time to waste.” He said, grabbing Kagome and her bag to leap towards west.

Kagome was whistling that same song again.

It took him an enormous amount of self restraint not to whistle along.

He was happy. So wonderfully happy. It was astonishing, the effect that tiny, bossy human girl had over his humor. The fact they were following the possible whereabouts of a lost jewel piece also played a role on his attitude swing, there was no denying that. But even if this turns out to be nothing at all, it would be a small price to pay in exchange of spending more time with her.

“Weren’t you mad about not coming home just now?”

His curiosity was genuine. Kagome had been angry since they left and InuYasha would be the person to know. She had two kind of anger. The one he could hear and the one he could feel. Even though she had been unusually silent, her frustration was palpable at first. Mercifully, it seemed to fade away the more ground they covered. Her one complaint was the soreness that too many hours on the same position inflicted upon the muscles, which was why they were both walking. As a rule, he was strictly opposite to anything that might slow them down, and the human pace was unbearable once you had a taste of demonic speed. Running free, with trees and people alike turning into a blur on each side of him, was an unparalleled sensation, amplified tenfold whenever Kagome was riding his back. He didn’t regret giving in, though. They weren’t far from their destination, after all. In addition, her comfort came to be a priority, despite him still being unaware as to when or how.

“Well… yeah, but… what can I do, right? Besides, I haven’t realized how much I missed this.”

Clueless, InuYasha searched their surroundings, unsuccessfully intending to spot what she could possibly be referring to.

“Whatcha talkin’ about?”

“This!” She spinned around, open arms and face to the sky, chasing daylight like a sunflower, the movement bringing her garment to life. “You. Me. An adventure. Don’t get me wrong, I love Shippo and the others, I’m glad they joined us. It just feels like we haven’t had as much quality time together as we used to, after they did.”

“Y-you miss that?”

She shook her head up and down with enthusiasm and a content smile fought its way across his lips.

“I know we could hang out in Kaede’s village, but it’s not the same as going out. O-on a trip, I mean.”

Although InuYasha couldn’t make out why her cheeks were suddenly burning red, he did see the logic her reasoning, and the feeling was mutual. There was a certain level of closeness only the road could provide. No curious eyes. No sly comments. No need to explain themselves. InuYasha had missed that as well.

He often played with the thought of stealing her away, of placate his selfish thirst for her undivided attention. Not once had he imagined Kagome would be as eager to go as he was to take her. Regardless, the timing wasn’t right. It never was. From the moment they met, they were tossed into a mission and there was hardly space for anything else. So he settled for whatever he could get until it was over.

“Why would you miss those trips? It ain’t like I was nice to ya back then.”

It didn’t make sense to him that she would. His memories were of a spoiled little girl, complaining about the bugs and her aching legs and the fact she hadn’t bathed in days. There was no escaping InuYasha’s share of responsibility on the issue. He could have made her life easier, had he bothered to. But at the beginning he saw Kagome as a potential threat he would eventually get rid off. How could he have guessed, after the many betrayals he had endured through the years, that his heart would be safe on her hands?

Kagome limited herself to a shrug.

“You are now.” She stated, as if it made up for his unexcusable former behavior. Her unconditional forgiveness amazed him, no matter how regularly she had shown it to him. “Also, it feels like old times.”

“It doesn’t unless you get kidnapped, somehow.”

“It happened once or twice!”

“Keh! Stop kidding yourself.”

“Shut up.”

“You shut up.”

“No, shut up. I’m sensing a shard and it’s moving away.”

Wordlessly, InuYasha returned the backpack to her and offered her his back.

They raced at full gallop, Kagome guiding their course. The forest transitioned into arid highland, where dirt, thorns and rocky surfaces took place.

“Hey, you!” Kagome yelled at the youkai emerging in their camp of vision. Their target. Over his shoulder, the startled creature sneaked a peek at them and increased speed. Growling, InuYasha matched his rhythm. “Wait up! We won’t hurt you.”

“I’m pretty sure Imma hurt him.”

“Give the jewel fragment to us peacefully and you’ll be free to go!” She went on, his snide remarks as ignored by her as her plead was by the demon. InuYasha’s patience was wearing thin. Now that the rumors turned out to be true, his focus was entirely aimed at the task at hand.

“Are those fancy arrows of yours just for show?”

Kagome let out a deep breath. Shooting was her last ressource. She preferred to sort things out with words first. It rarely worked. Still she always tried.

“I suppose we have no choice.”

The arrow hit the creature in the calf and his groan of pain reverberated through the field. Not lethal, but enough of a nuisance to make him drop the run. InuYasha closed the distance between them within seconds. Kagome climbed off him and together they inspected their opponent.

On the floor, a possum demon hissed and exhibited his fangs at them, his ugly face twisting in agony while he pulled the arrow out. A cascate of blood immediately flowed from the wound. InuYasha was not fooled by it. Being a full youkai, he would be healed soon.

“Where is it?” InuYasha asked Kagome, not daring to leave the bastard out of his sight.

“His belly.”

“Step away, you filthy half breed!”

“Excuse me?” Kagome defied, any trace of courtesy forgotten.

“That was quite the damage she did on ya, there.” InuYasha released Tessaiga from its sheath as he approached the fallen man. “Think I can top it, though.”

“Step away, I said!”

His fear was palpable. InuYasha could feel it. See it. Smell it.

Smell it.

Faster than realization, the odor filled his lungs. It burned his nostrils, his throat. He could taste the toxic substance on his tongue. It was unbearable. And gasping for air only resulted in the pungent scent flooding him further, overwhelming his senses. A defense mechanism, he thought, his vision blurring, his knees giving in. I’m going to faint. No. No, no, no, no, no. Kagome. He had to protect Kagome.

There was a cry of his name.

And then an awful lot of darkness.

InuYasha came to abruptly, uncertain and alarmed by the new reality.

In one minute, the sun was up and he was succumbing, his consciousness leaving him to drift. In the next, he was awake and crickets sang the night’s arrival.

It was tempting to think he had dreamt the whole thing. A stupid, ridiculous, crazy ass dream. However, the lingering smell left no room for argument. It happened. The scent was weaker. Fading. But was there, overpowered by a significantly nicer aroma. A familiar one, sweet on the nose and soothing to the soul. Kagome’s.

He was lying half naked in her sleeping bag.

Sitting up, InuYasha seeked for the priestess, desperate to make sure for himself she was safe and sound.

The fragile light of her modern lantern illuminated the cavern that sheltered them. At its entrance, a girl rested — her silhouette contoured by a starry sky.

“Kagome.”

“You’re awake!”

She rushed to him, tripping over her own eagerness. Her beautiful clothes were dirty and a bit ripped at the hem. A small scratch cut her cheek, remnants of dry blood tainting her skin.

“Are you alright? What happened?”

“I’m fine!” Kagome kneeled in front of him, a gesture he appreciated. There was no peace for him without an up close inspection of her well being. “I purified the demon after you blacked out. Turns out it was a trap. Thousands of Naraku’s second-class demons came for the shard when I took him down. I tried to purify those too, but more of them kept coming and I ran out of arrows, so I casted a barrier and—”

“You casted a barrier?”

InuYasha was beyond impressed. Barriers required great power and discipline. Even from Kaede or the monk. Kagome had apparently done it all by herself. Effortlessly. On the spot.

“To be honest, I don’t know how I did it. I just… I saw you lying there and I… anyway, the barrier purified the ones who touched it. Eventually they all died or left. How are you feeling?”

InuYasha didn’t answer the question.

“I’m sorry, Kagome, that you couldn’t rely on me.”

Guilt pulsed within him like a heartbeat. Constant and compulsory, expanding the outcomes of its work through every inch of his body.

“It’s not your fault. Your nose is too keen, of course you’d be affected the most.”

“But you got hurt!”

“In the thorns. I was careless. Don’t worry about it, it’s not even going to leave a scar.”

“It shouldn’t have even happened. I’m supposed be the one protecting you, not the other way around.”

It could have been worse. InuYasha should be grateful for that. He wasn’t. It could have been worse. And he wouldn’t be able to help her, to save her from this insignificant peril while she had already saved him in every conceivable way there was for a person to be saved.

“I’m not as helpless as I used to be, you know? I’ve grown a lot.” She had a point. InuYasha himself had told her that much, once. Kagome had faced scarier dangers than that. And she could absolutely take them. But he didn’t want her to have to. “Not to mention, it was totally worth it.”

As a proof, she exhibited a jewel fragment, glowing in the healthiest shade of pink.

“You got it!” InuYasha captured the shard, glancing at every angle of it in awe.

“Don’t act so surprised.”

Kagome went for her backpack and came back, falling on her knees again. Her hand dove in and emerged holding the glass container in which they kept the other pieces. She opened it and tilted the receiver to InuYasha, hinting for him to do the honors.

It was as if she had been waiting for him so they could do it together.

As if it was their private, sacred ritual.

He did as she wanted, mirroring her satisfied smile.

“Where’s my haori?”

“Oh! I… I put it away.” Blushing, Kagome tore her gaze from his and InuYasha followed it to a corner of the cave, where a huddle of scarlet fabric laid forgotten. “I figured you’d heal faster with that smell gone and your haori is soaked on it. Sorry.”

“D-don’t apologize, stupid. It was the right call.” To feel useful — and to occupy his brain with something other than the image of Kagome undressing him — InuYasha searched her backpack for the first aid kit, a tool from her era he was sadly too intimate with. “Now let’s take care of this cut.”

“Okay. You have to g—”

“I know what to do. I’ve seen you do it a thousand times.” Her lips parted, and InuYasha added: “Don’t act so surprised.”

He cleaned the wound with cotton, water and soap, then used a different ball of cotton to carefully apply the content of a smelly little bottle to the extension of it. Kagome hissed, but he ignored it in favor of wrapping it all up with a band-aid. To ensure it was properly stretched, he gently ran his thumb through it, allowing the touch to linger more than necessary and his stare to go from her cheek to her eyes.

Her eyes.

The most stunning maze.

Let yourself get in, you are sure to get lost.

She blinked before he could, keeping them closed and leaning into his palm, her hand lifting to cover and caress his.

It would be so easy to grip her chin. To turn her face to him. To bring her to his lips.

So easy to steal a kiss.

Why do the easiest actions have to carry the most difficult consequences?

Clearing his throat, InuYasha transformed present into a loving memory.

“Take some rest. We leave first thing tomorrow.”

“Sounds good to me.”

On the way to claim Kagome’s prior guarding position by the entrance of the cave, InuYasha collected Tessaiga while she busied herself with getting cozy inside the sleeping bag.

“Kagome?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

“InuYasha, I think we’re way past saying thank you for saving each other’s lives.”

“No, not for that. I mean, for that too, but... for coming. For staying by my side.”

“Stupid.” She mocked him, her voice lethargic as exhaustion finally caught up to her. “Where else would I be?”

A/N: this was some serious self indulgent bullshit. I regret nothing.

@inukag-week here is another piece of contribution. Kind of merged the Loyalty and the Instinct prompts here. Oops.

#Inukag Week #InuYasha #Inukag #Kagome #Kagome Higurashi #My writing #Inukag Fluff #Inukag Oneshot #Inukag Fanfiction

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rosethi · 4 years

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s2e09 Kyoru SO MANY FEELS and HOLY I just realized Kana+Hatori (Kanatori?) is a foil to Kyoru

I have waited so many years for this adaptation so here’s all the brilliant things that I’m crying about (a lot of them things that I’ve seen other people mention!)

Also in the midst of editing this I finally realized why Kana was written so similarly to Tohru, and how Kanatori’s past tragedy is a perfect foil to Kyoru. Everyone loves how tragically romantic their story is and rightfully blames Akito for ruining their happiness, but it is much harder to see the dark messages about their relationship that is subtlely conveyed through contrast with Kyoru.

First, the resemblances:

Kind-hearted outside girl and initially withdrawn cursed boy fall in love

Girl find out about curse and accepts boy

Boy with miserable life becomes softer and happier

Akito disapproves

Deconstruction of tropes

Early on in the story, Kanatori is established as a trope that kyoru then spends the entire story deconstructing.

“love is like spring”

Kanatori : love is often compared to a blooming spring season, which Fruits Basket uses explicitly as a metaphor for Hatori’s love. Hatori calls Hana his spring, and their relationship follows a clear direction from meeting in winter, blossoming in spring, and wilting in winter. Hatori’s heart is reflected in this arc as he goes from having an untouched heart, to loving passionately, to breaking his heart and leaving it in seemingly eternal winter. Kana and Hatori’s relationship is ephemeral like the seasons, their happiness only lasting two months and knowing each other for one year. Their love follows the more common relationship trope of having the life-changing experience of falling in love dramatically.

Kyoru: In contrast, Kyo and Tohru’s relationship is a slow burn with no discernible beginning (or end). The episode begins with kyoru during autumn, followed by a more recent scene at the beach during the summer. Kyo wonders when his feelings started because he can’t place a time. By the time that he realizes that he loves Tohru, it feels as if he has always loved her from the start. Their love is all-encompassing over all seasons of the year, because it’s their daily happiness from being with each other that gradually and unknowingly turns to love. It re-enforces the idea that the most important thing that Tohru did is to just stay and live life together with Kyo. This also leads to deconstruction of the next trope...

“love heals all”

Kanatori: Once again Hatori and Kana’s relationship serves as a foil to Kyoru. Kana shows how self-defeating and tragic love can be if the relationship is based on healing and fixing each other. Hatori lived an apathetic existence of being duty-bound to his curse. Kana "healed” Hatori with love, accepting his curse and filling him with hope of happiness that he once thought impossible. Hatori wept, feeling like he’s “forgiven and saved for the first time in his life”. It is Akito who reminds them that Kana’s love isn’t going to fix Hatori’s problems, ruining their relationship by pointing out its flawed beliefs. Akito knows that both are looking for salvation from the curse in their love, so he easily ruins their relationship by pointing out how Kana is unable to save Hatori, screaming at her “you’re not wanted / you can’t even break the curse!” Akito then goes further and scars Hatori, which is the piece that truly broke Kana and her love with Hatori irreparably. Kana believed her love is meant heal Hatori and protect him, but instead permanently hurt him. Due to the nature of their love, Kana was driven into an unforgivable position that she failed their duty to protect her loved one from harm. Hatori’s eye is not going to heal back with any amount of love, and so Hana spirals into despair until her memory is wiped. Her final words to Hatori is the core of their tragedy: “I’m sorry I failed to protect you.” Their story highlights the unrealistic ideals of healing love as a fragile relationship foundation. It is romantic and beautiful, but easily destroyed through the uncontrollable circumstances of life. If the purpose of a relationship is protecting and healing each other, it is so very easy to fail.

Kyoru: Kyo specifically says that Tohru didn’t heal him and cure all his problems - the most important thing she did was to stay by his side everyday, sharing life side by side. There’s no misplace romanticism on magically fixing your partner’s problems or taking away their pain. They experienced and shared small everyday joys. Kyoru is sweet and perfect because their love is born from their tiny daily gestures of love and happiness instead of grand dramatic events. Thanks to her parents’ relationship with each other and Tohru’s relationship with her mom, Tohru understands how central sharing lives together is to personal relationships, and it’s why she offered it to Kyo during the True Form arc. On the other hand, while Kyo doesn’t expect Tohru to heal or protect him, demands these unrealistic expectations from himself to consider himself “worthy” of being with her. Kyo is driven by the same romantic notions of protecting that Kana was for the majority of the story. His misguided self-expectation becomes the primary obstacle to their relationship.

perfect protagonist

Akito’s criticism of Tohru - that “she’s too perfect” - is partially a stand-in for the audience criticisms. Tohru is considered a boring, flawless, doormat. But that too is being slowly deconstructed... Tohru’s quirks with her mom’s photo and her dedication towards her mom’s memory are being revealed as grief coping mechanisms. In fact, many of her personality traits are revealed to be coping mechanisms for past personal tragedies.

Other points:

Tohru was so happy for Kyo and he didn’t correct her...he didn’t want to worry or trouble her...and he assuaged her worries for him at the end of the day in the same way.

the “hentai” looking ropes: represents the bonds that ties the zodiac spirits together. They look purpled and corrupted now, like how the zodiac bonds became a curse and burden over time.

the first thing Kyo thought when he was called to see Akito was that Tohru was going to be left alone.

When she’s finally left alone, Tohru goes to the beach and makes sandcastles... compare this to New Year’s Eve, when Tohru was left alone at the start of the night, she sat with her mom’s photo and cried.

Manga spoilers under cut:

Other bits about the episode:

“I don’t want to take anything away from her anymore”: Kyo feeling at fault for his mother’s suicide paralleling with his guilt of feeling responsible for Kyoko’s death. He’s been internally fighting the accusations that he’s the one reason for his mother’s death most of his life. Then Kyoko’s death happens and crushes him so immensely that, to go on living, he had to redirect his self-hatred into a singular goal of hating and defeating Yuki. He feels responsible for taking away Tohru’s most important person, her mother, which inadvertently leads to her involvement in the Sohma family. Shigure was really the one responsible for Tohru’s involvement, but Kyo only knows of his own involvement. From his POV, he’s unworthy of being with Tohru since he ruined her life and took away her mom. He has personally experienced the loss of his mom and wishes for many many reasons that she had not died, further intensifying the guilt he feels over Tohru’s mom. Knowing how much Tohru loves and respects her mom, if Kyoko said that she won’t forgive Kyo...no wonder he feels like he doesn’t deserve to be with Tohru.

Akito is calling Tohru a monster because she accepts and has a close relationship with Kyo. Anyone who accepts Kyo is both treated as a saint for tolerating a monster and a monster for accepting a monster - he has already experienced this with his mother and with Kazuma. His mom was the most affected, being constantly blamed and derided for bringing a monster into existence until she committed suicide. He was raised to believe that anyone would be worse off by having a relationship with him because he is a monster, not to mention be gossiped about maliciously by others. Tohru being with him would cause others to think of her badly, for others to call her a monster...and he loves her too much to bring her down with him.

Resolution to “love heals all” trope for Kyoru:

Tohru’s way of loving Kyo, living life candidly with him, was exactly what Kyo needed (and vice versa, of course). We’ve seen Kyo reject other unhealthy forms of love: He didn’t want Kagura’s love borne of pity, and he found his mom’s blind love suffocating for both of them.

Kyo’s final character development and resolution hinges on coming to terms with a more mature understanding of how to love someone. Kyo sees himself unworthy of Tohru’s love because he fails at protecting her: he wasn’t able to find little lost Tohru, he wasn’t able to save Kyoko from the car crash, and he wasn’t there to save Tohru from a landslide. These are circumstances beyond his control, just like how Akito injuring Hatori’s eye was beyond Kana’s control. We first hear about his disappointment at failing to protect Tohru after Akito’s confrontation with Tohru at the beach house. After Akito leaves, we see that Kyo was held back from joining the confrontation by Haru, and he calls himself incompetent for being unable to protect Tohru from Akito. LIke Kana, Kyo imprisons himself into the unforgivable position that he has a duty to protect his loved one, and yet circumstances both within and without his control still occurs and hurts Tohru. He feels guiltiest for not doing more to save Kyoko, thereby feeling like he personally caused Tohru to lose her mom. Unless Kyoko comes back from the dead, Kyo has trapped himself into never being worthy of Tohru.

Fortunately for Kyo, Yuki is having none of his shit. Yuki is the one who finally literally punches through Kyo’s romantic idealism and makes Kyo realize how immature his idea of love is. Kyo wants to be Tohru’s prince in shining armor but is utterly bested by Yuki when it comes to grand heroics. Yuki is the prince archetype who finds little lost Tohru, saves Tohru from living in a tent, retrieves her belongings from a landslide, and shows up at her relatives’ to whisk her home. In Kyo’s mind, this makes Yuki more suitable and worthy of Tohru, and Yuki is the one who gets fed up with Kyo’s self-deprecating and unrealistic mindset. “Who do you think you are, a superhero? Would you only be satisfied if you could save somebody from a car crash, or save someone from a landslide? You’ve been protecting her, haven’t you? You’ve been with her daily, making her happy, isn’t that protecting her? Do you think it were the same if I were with her?” Kyo had to learn that being with someone and making them happy every day is far more significant and precious than heroics. Seemingly insignificant actions are in fact *special* things that only he can do for Tohru. Takaya-sensei’s message on healthy love is so consistently woven throughout Fruits Basket.

#fruits basket #kyoru #kyo sohma #tohru honda #fruits basket spoilers #with every edit this post grows longer god help me #hatori sohma #kana sohma

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sillyfudgemonkeys · 4 years

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Late to the slapping discourse but I think another thing is, well, p much everybody, be they makoto fans or haters, despise that confidant, especially due to eiko hogging up so much screentime, so seeing makoto slap her was likely pretty cathartic

sfdjkhla I get where ya coming from anon, but sorry you just reignited this fury inside me again I’mma just rant (not at you, just at the void that is tumblr, I’m just mad and I have more to say about this topic apparently laskfdj;af Just know you didn’t do anything wrong, but your ask did make me think of something new so yay!). Tho tbh, I’ve seen other Mako haters hate that she slaps Eiko for my similar reasons (aka Mako is a pretty bad person who gets away with some bad shit because she’s an main character and we need to be “on her side”). But I don’t think that slap should’ve been viewed as cathartic (tho I get WHY people do), or the fact that it is showcases a big (writing) problem.

(also sorry this is all over the place, I’m writing it very quickly, while quickly reviewing her CoOp, before I go to bed)

Y’all know I hate Makoto, and I think her CoOp is hot garbage, but I don’t actually blame Eiko for it tbh (I mean Ryuji/Anne’s are just fine with juggling other chars, despite having their own issues.....not so much are because of said side chars, it’s other things but again the side chars are juggled just fine with Anne/Ryu). I don’t really hate the char, I think she’s fine. She’s a pretty friendly person, maybe a tad airheadish but she’s not mean (at least she doesn’t say mean things without a reason). Hell I think she does her role pretty fine, it’s Makoto who fails to overcome flaws (mostly her hotheadedness and applying these new view points she’s learned).

If the writers intended Makoto’s slap to be cathartic no offense but fuck those writers yo. Because it showcases Makoto really is unable to understand any other person’s mindset (at least in practice), does her own selfish shit, and gets rewarded even tho she hurt someone or failed to actually do the bare min to make up for shit she’s done (like the Kamo arc, sorry but you had her say it yourself writers “it’s not that I couldn’t do anything, it’s that I just didn’t care enough” your whole “adults make me do things I don’t want to/they are mean :(” bs doesn’t mesh well, you don’t actually resolve or address the flaw of that char, you just shoved responsibility onto someone else....with that something else isn’t really explored/expanded upon either). Basically, if that slap was cathartic, I think the writers failed....I mean they already did fail with them actually writing that slap in, but they failed at their theme/moral to boot.

So when I have Makoto, who’s CoOp literally starts out with her wanting to learn new perspectives (and you know, maybe kinda learning a little EMPATHY) it’s hard to argue she learned that shit when she literally is unable to do just that and slaps someone. As well as reinforce the fact SHE SHOULDN’T BE IN THE POSITION SHE IS IN (aka our planner/advisor/whatever). 1) It shows she can’t control her emotions (and if we’re gonna give Ryu shit, she def deserves it too), 2) she can’t come up with a gd plan to save her life (the best plan the PT came up with was the first dungeon in PQ2 and guess what? She wasn’t a part of it, gee I’d be shocked but....I’m not).

It just showcases the poor writing ability of that writer. Makoto’s CoOp is about her learning new things about society and her peers she’s failing at, and ability to connect/understand the people around her....and at that freaking climax it just shows.....she didn’t learn shit. She’s been saying she did all CoOp, even basically says she understands why Eiko is acting that way, but what does she do with that info? Does’t apply it when confronting her and just reverts to bullheaded Makoto mode. It doesn’t matter what happens after, we don’t see her reconcile with Eiko, all that is off screen. In the climatic moment, she fails to accomplish the goal of what her CoOp set out to do....and she’s rewarded for it. She doesn’t realize why Eiko is upset, she doesn’t try to think of a backup plan in case her first one fails, she acts only on her own emotions in the moment. And no “her friend is in danger of prostitution so it’s now or never” is NOT a good excuse, you wanna know WHY? The freaking, change of heart part of the ENTIRE GD GAME! Any argument of “we can’t always use hear changes” goes out the gd window with like 90% of any problems we encounter when we can just go to the Metaverse (to even just interrogate tbh!). The only reason Anne/Yoshida work is because Anne’s we don’t know till the literal last second and by then it’s resolved itself, and Yoshida is dead set on fixing it himself! Makoto’s CoOp? No, that guy should be bumped from “shady boyfriend” to “yeah this guy is now on our request lists holy shit does he fit our MO”

But back to Eiko, yeah it’s great Makoto is expanding her horizons, so glad she knows what a cardigan is~! Too bad, despite actually knowing her friend’s circumstance and possibly why she’s acting that way, Makoto doesn’t approach it with the level of tact that is freaking needed. Showcasing she’s learnt nothing, nothing from her past mistakes, not from “these new viewpoints I’ve learnt,” nothing from knowing WHY her friend might be feeling this way. She literally just does what she’s been doing. She just has the smoke and mirrors benefit of saying “well I learnt a new viewpoint” but your actions speak louder than your words. You didn’t learn shit.

Wait....no I’m not giving Makoto enough credit, haha, you see she did learn something, at the beginning of the CoOp, and that’s actually not ignoring something shady going on. Unlike with the Kamo arc. My bad, so instead of seeing her bull her way through feeling “forced” to do something, we see her bulling her way through “caring” this time. But here’s the thing, that wasn’t her arc for this CoOp, her understanding other viewpoints was. She failed. Somehow she freaking failed. It’s a talent Makoto! It’s a real talent you have there!

You know why I think Makoto/Eiko thing pisses me off so much? I have a friend that reminds me a lot of Eiko. She’s nice, def a girly gal type person, as well as other things. She had just begun dating someone I deemed a red flag (not Tsukasa bad like selling yourself or that she was in any kinda danger, but still a “yeah you should know” kinda thing....like...I’d feel bad if I didn’t know about it and I was in her position kinda thing). And you know what I did? Did I take her out into public on a crowded street and yell at her and say you need to break up with him and when she got (pretty rightfully) defensive I then slapped her and got on my high horse and was like “I’m doing this for your own good! YOU don’t understand MY position, what I’M going through, but you need to know what I’m doing is for the BEST!”? No. That never crossed my freaking mind cause I’m not a psychopath. I instead, took her out for ice cream, sat in a more remote spot for privacy, and reassured her of her emotions and own autonomy and that I cared and that I understand she cares about things and I’m coming from a place of good faith and I wasn’t there to attack her, and then I broke the news to her. You know what she did? She laughed, was happy I was a normal human being with some tact, said she wished another friend of hers did what I did instead of through text. Said she’d take what I said into consideration. She broke up with him a few months later.....cause he was a twat apparently, but our friendship was well in tact and strengthened. And I was barely a year older than Makoto was at the time, AND a super awkward honor student AND my friendship with her was about as new as Mako’s and Eiko’s (AND we were very much opposites like those two hell even more so).

I dunno, it just would’ve been so much more impactful if Makoto, instead of slapping Eiko after she called Mako a “bitch.” Mako stepped forward (making everyone think she’s going to be physical but instead it showcases Makoto thinking rationally for once), looked Eiko in the eye and said “What you think of me is not all that I am. And even if you hate me, know I still think of you as my friend and will be here for you for whatever reason. But I won’t let you throw your life away, not for this scum of a human being. *turns to Tsukasa* Listen to me asshole, I say this not as some honor student, but as Eiko’s friend. You will be delivered justice, and you will apologize to Eiko and all the other girls who’s lives you’ve ruined” to which we either get Tsukasa’s name via asking around (low key Ichiko could probably help), or by getting it from Shadow!Eiko in the metaverse. The next rank we see Eiko and Mako making up, and Mako explains how she’s more than just an honor student (basically the shit she says after she slaps Eiko), and Eiko apologizes for all the mean things she said in the moment and how she felt afraid or whatever other stuff they wanna add to deepen her char or whatever. And we have a theme kept intact, and Eiko even learns about new perspectives (as well as reinforcing this whole moral/theme to the viewer)....but we legit get to see this development for her, and we learn how to do it with compassion and understanding and not ‘slap to be dramatic~!’ bs (because then it comes off as like....using force to change someone’s behavior.....and like????? probably not the best message ESP for P5′s setting). You can dislike Eiko, but the CoOp technically became just as much as her arc as Mako’s and the fact we don’t see the resolution is poor. (btw the “how/when” it would’ve taken place would’ve been rank 9 still, we just wouldn’t rank up till the mementos mission was done, that or restructure the link but the former is easier)

So....yeah....maybe it’s the fact that Makoto’s CoOP belittles how teens can actually resolve these problems. Maybe it’s the fact we’re supposed to root for Mako’s bad behavior. Maybe it’s the fact when it came down to the wire, Mako didn’t utilize the knowledge she has been bragging about getting over the CoOp. Maybe it’s the fact she resorted to violence when there was another avenue to take. Maybe it’s the fact we never see Makoto actually hit a bad guy/aggressor (instead we have to save her from those) but instead only see her hitting her so called friends. Maybe it’s the fact of her showcasing flaws that she shouldn’t have (her hotheadedness and shitty planning skills). Or maybe it’s the fact we root for a “cathartic slap” in favor of doing what this CoOp is supposed to be: teaching Makoto AND the viewer about learning to see someone else’s perspective, and coming up with a plan that we never would’ve thought of to help fix that issue. Sacrificing a big theme/moral of the CoOp for something “dramatic.”

But I don’t know why I should be shocked, this is P5. Contradictions everywhere, in the lore, in the themes, in the writing, in the morals. Just. Everywhere.

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whalohs · 5 years

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i’m back with meta.

( and then immediately i hecked up the tags, so deleting and reposting. sorry for the spam! )

let’s look at caleb and jester’s relationship, as mainly a retrospective of where it started. i’m also going to talk about where it has gone since, and how the heck we got here. not particularly shippy unless you ship it already (in which case i hope you enjoy the ship meta), and ready to discuss anything as long as you’re respectful about it.

as always, general disclaimer: for me, it’s more interesting for me to think “[character] would do this because [actions]”, rather than “[character] would do this because [player preferences]”. i can’t claim to know the critical role cast, and i think it does a disservice to their characters if i try to bring them in like that. a weird distinction, i know, but i always think it’s important to mention! i try to distance my meta from the cast, and take the character’s actions by their own merit.

anyway.

for all we joke about how ridiculous jester is or how much caleb was ready to run from the mighty nein, it’s hard to deny these two had a really, really rough start. jester was everything caleb didn’t want in a person, and caleb was someone jester never... really had experience with.

lemme explain, first with caleb’s perspective: caleb is running from trent & the cerberus assembly. the last thing he wanted was to be noticed or seen, let alone get his name out there in any way shape or form - and yet here comes the most silly, obnoxious, ready-to-turn-the-world-upside-down tiefling he has ever met, and he met molly at the same time.

naturally, he hates it. but it runs a deeper than having to travel with someone who doesn’t give a shit about discretion when caleb is discretion personified. i think when we dislike someone, it’s because we see parts of ourselves reflected in them; not necessarily all bad, but parts we have lost, never had, or don’t want to acknowledge.

it’s important to note that while caleb and jester are very different, there are parts that are shockingly similar; caleb started as a very hopeful, bright, and confident young man at the time he entered the assembly, not unlike where jester started in their adventures ( now is a different story, and i’ll get to that later ). they are both stubborn in their ideals and put a lot of faith in the people they care about ( caleb with nott, jester with the traveler, marion, and fjord ).

i would not be surprised if caleb sees a little bit of his younger self in jester. but the conflict occurs where he sees his younger self as a very flawed, terrible individual, while jester is not... that. he simultaneously wants to protect her from becoming jaded (as anyone with experience tends to want to), while also knowing she could make very awful mistakes (like he did) if left alone.

that said! jester is the way she is because she was able to foster her positivity, her hopes, and her ideals in a way that didn’t come and bite her in the ass. so it’s not “jester is caleb pre-development”, and more “jester and caleb are two different results due to different experiences from similar individuals”. unfortunately, caleb can’t think like that with the experiences he’s had, hence all of this.

i think that it’ll make more sense from jester’s perspective: jester’s living conditions weren’t perfect by any means, but they weren’t exactly trauma central, either. she had loving, kind people in her life that allowed her to develop by encouraging what she enjoyed, as opposed to molding her a specific way. again! she was able to grow the strong parts of her personality - her hopes, her positivity, her confidence - in a way that didn’t come and bite her in the ass. she doesn’t regret anything that she did, because she has never had a reason to.

you could say that she doesn’t have enough experience to see the negative consequences of her actions, and i both agree and disagree. experience doesn’t always equate to hardships; while failure is an important part of learning, it is not the only way you learn. caleb is not necessarily more experienced because he suffered negative consequences, but because he experienced more types of consequences.

that said, she is sorely lacking in some experiences! primarily in dealing with people with different wants and opinions than her. having a loving, encouraging, but ultimately sheltered environment likely means she got to have a lot of things her way. and we see a lot of that at the start of the campaign.

so the simplest way to say is: jester has never really had someone who dislikes her for who she is. she has never sat through a level of conflict resolution her and caleb needed, and so in an attempt to do things in the way that made the most sense for her, basically got off on the worst foot.

and so, you know, this goes on for a while. start of campaign two is hilariously turbulent for the both of them. caleb makes nice because he sees the benefit of someone like jester in a party (and not much else), and jester isn’t going to treat caleb any differently than she does anyone else. hence, friction.

then the money conversation / argument / caleb-smears-mud-on-his-face-out-of-spite happens. which i think really was a bigger turning point than we originally thought it would be (because the nature of the fight wasn’t too serious), mostly because caleb took forever to warm up to the party (disclaimer: i love caleb).

it’s interesting because it’s the one of the first times we actually see... any actual conflict involving jester. most people brush jester off as the quirky weirdo at first, and doesn’t take her opinions as seriously as others. that makes sense, and jester is fine with that! but that’s what makes caleb’s reaction to jester basically saying she grew up spoiled really fascinating.

he’s furious, and rightfully so. and caleb back then was keen on making sure he didn’t attract any attention, that unless she really struck a nerve he was just gonna nod and not think about it. but as we saw -- that’s not how it happened. i think he especially felt stung because he tried to help, because she had been distressed, but all of it backfired terribly.

so they fight. they’re upset at each other. caleb smears mud on his face then walks away and i think it hits jester on the head that oh, what she said without thinking really did upset someone, when she hadn’t meant to necessarily make them uncomfortable.

jester, for the limited social experiences she has, is a very empathetic person. it doesn’t take a lot from her to understand why he would have been upset by what she said, once she cares enough to consider it.

the remainder is a gradual, but noticeable change to where we are now; while it’s outdated and my opinions on details have changed, i did write a shorter meta on caleb and jester on an earlier episode point. i think the bulk of it stands true, though, so feel free to read that and then come back!

spoilers: they’re destroying me now.

a few things i did want to add: i think a lot about how out of all of the nein, the main people who notice jester’s slowly dwindling confidence are caleb and caduceus (beau, nott, and fjord notice it too, just in a slightly different way; and yasha is.... bring ashley back 2k19). caduceus pretty much has 3 million in insight so i’ll touch on that later, but fitting caleb in here is interesting!

mostly because he likely, again, experienced that dwindling confidence in finding his place in life, just in a more drastic way than jester; he pretty much hit rock bottom at the start of the campaign! he’s definitely projecting a little, but a lot of relationships are built on people projecting parts of themselves to others; it’s the easiest way to relate to another person.

as an aside: it really is cool, and speaks to his development a ton, that caleb’s motives for helping the party have become a lot more altruistic than when i wrote the post above. he cares about them now, very, very deeply, and i have a lot of thoughts on why! this just isn’t the post for ‘em; maybe next time.

how he comforts her has changed too. before it was a lot of [ throw frumpkin at her and hope it fixes the problem ]; his attempts at bringing the party together were definitely more material in nature, compared to now.

it’s also really, really good to see jester slowly starting to see the “imperfections” in caleb ( the ones that caleb sees, anyway ), and accept them wholeheartedly. again! she is an extremely empathetic person, and once they understood each other it became a lot easier for her to actually provide the support he needed.

it’s the subtle things; less jokes at his expense, and more ridiculous things in general. sharing porn with him because she thinks he’ll like it. and, a surplus of optimism about her outlook on life that seems to affect the top row a ton.

they’re all in love with her. i can tell. that’s okay, jester has two hands and a tail ( i had to ).

so, where are we now? it’s obvious enough to say that they’re friends, good friends at that! they care about each other a lot! caleb makes the softest faces at jester and jester grins so happily at him and they really do have a good thing going.

i think the biggest change in caleb is that he trusts her enough to rely on her for things outside of her abilities. i think a lot about the conversation they had recently after talking to the scourger, and how caleb let himself be comforted by jester instead of denying her attempts completely. it speaks to the level of emotional vulnerability he is comfortable showing to the group now.

that said: i definitely consider jester to be the group baseline for caleb. liam has mentioned multiple times that out of all of the nein, jester is the one person who he doesn’t want to share his past with. which, again, given the juxtaposition in their upbringing, makes a lot of sense!

but the fact that he’s willing to be vulnerable with someone he didn’t want to be vulnerable is huge. the fact that he doesn’t see her optimism and ridiculousness as a weakness for the group, and instead looks to use them as strengths (how they use polymorph is a huge example) is very different than beginning-of-campaign caleb.

the biggest change in jester is that her worldview has expanded to understand what caleb needs, and how that might be different than what she needs. it wasn’t as huge strides for jester as it was for caleb, but i think that makes sense! a lot of jester’s development is internal, and reflects a lot about what she thinks of herself, whereas caleb’s development has been very external, and how he is beginning to view the people around him ( and allowing himself to be viewed ).

but still! it’s huge! jester has two decades of solving problems a certain way, and being told that that way was all that she needed; but her ability to listen, comfort, and provide insight in ways that others in the group can’t thanks to her unique world view really helped shaped the types of conversations she had with him.

a really, really simple way to say this is that jester started taking caleb a lot more seriously. which i think is hilarious, because you’d think that’d be more fitting for caleb’s thoughts on jester. but once she started reaching out to him to understand, the tone of their relationship changed. it seems less caleb-indulges-jester-on-nonsense and two equals who indulge each other on ridiculous nonsense, if that makes sense?

oh that said: i do attribute a lot of caleb’s relationship changes with the party to the fact that he went through a lot of external development. definitely not the place for that here, maybe i’ll come back to it some day.

well i’m back and surprising no one i wrote like 2k words on critical role so welcome back, me. i’m rusty and rambly and i may have written things here that aren’t as poignant as i wish it was, so please forgive me if anything seems off!

#critical role #jester lavorre #caleb widogast #the mighty nein #widojest #sure lets tag the ship why not #not particularly shippy though #just good ol character analysis #anyway i love them #i wrote all this in one sitting then never saved it #so we're really living life on the edge today #yolo #meta meta meta #what if i didn't suck at tagging #why is tumblr so hard

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grisdidthis · 4 years

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CHAPTER ONE: FIRST SIGHT

AKA, blessed fucknuggets, why do these fools feel the need to put themselves through high school, my sources tell me that the US school system isn’t all that to begin with, what gives?

PREVIOUS ENTRIES

(Warning: this got long. Looooong. Hence, cut, so that I don’t murder your dash like Edward doesn’t murder Bella in this chapter.)

Welcome to the first entry of a live-read that no one asked for, in which I’ll go through the first chapter of Midnight Sun, i.e. a retelling of the first Twilight book from Edward Cullen’s POV. Not to be confused with Grey, a retelling of the first volume of a Twilight fanfic with the serial numbers filed off, or the Life and Death edition, a retelling of the first Twilight book in which Bella Swan is genderbent into a dude called Beau, who utters the immortal line “I knew I must look like a gorilla on a greyhound.” Which still tickles my humerus to this day.

I’ve waited for this novel to drop so long that at some point I’d stopped waiting. If by some freaky turn of chance you stumbled on this without knowing about the hoopla surrounding the publication, here’s a Wikipedia link. The gist is that the first few chapters of the WIP got leaked, the author got upset, the book got shelved until ??? and no further information about it was forthcoming until a while ago, when out of the blue arrive the news that it’s getting released in August.

My first thought was “Oh, yay, something actually NICE is happening this year!”

My second thought was “Please let it be good, so that I can laugh outrageously at [name redacted] for mocking my enjoyment of this series!” And. Look. I know what’s said about Twilight with regards to its literary merit and Stephenie Meyer’s abilities as a writer. A lot of it is admittedly accurate. However, the metrics by which I measure the value of a book are a) did it entertain me? and b) did I gain anything by having read it? And yeah, those are personal and subjective items, but objectivity is a lie, Jesus enjoys using toasters to take selfies, and if ten years ago I hadn’t been looking for a place to post my 50k+ epic Renesmee-centric fanfic, I wouldn’t have met the people who are currently my best friends.

Which is to say: I’m too attached to this series to give a fig what color the prose is. Deal.

And yet. Me hoping that Midnight Sun would be good, in a way that people who don’t have my level of emotional investment might acknowledge, wasn’t… that farfetched? Because the last book Meyer released before this one, The Chemist? Is an improvement on all her previous work. A huge improvement! It’s competently written! The characters read like they were intended to be flawed, messy people.

The main romance isn’t the kind of fucked up that Bella and Edward’s is, where you can pen treatises on why they’re omg so unhealthy. It’s the kind of fucked up where five seconds after meeting her love interest, the protagonist drugs him unconscious, kidnaps him, sticks a urinary catheter up his ding dong, straps him to a table and tortures him for information until the guy’s ex-CIA identical twin drops a plane on the barn they’re in and crashes through the ceiling all “HANDS OFF MY BABY BROTHER YOU DISCOUNT MATA HARI!”

Then they all make friends and go on a road trip together because a shady government organization is after them.

That’s not a fucked-up relationship that you write an essay analyzing the fucked-up-ness of. It’s something you stare at, stunned and, if you’re me, torn between thinking “Holy shit, this is so my brand of heroine!!!” and “How much crack was Auntie Steph on when she wrote this?” And it’s beautiful. I want ten more like it. So my hopes for Midnight Sun are tempered by the knowledge that, being a retelling of an established narrative, it can’t go all-out with the batshit. But I’m still optimistic that some part of it will give me that warm “Awww, you’ve come a long way from where we first met, author! Good on you!” feeling.

Now let’s (finally!) get started on the chapter proper.

…oh wait there’s an author’s note.

…uhm. Yeah. My dreams. About those. *fixed stare at faraway bonfire* Actually, let’s not talk about those and just move on to Edward Not Liking High School, thank you. Yeah. That’s good.

Edward Cullen doesn’t like high school. Edward doesn’t like that people think. Edward doesn’t like that the human student body is beside itself with the arrival of some new chick. Edward thinks his adopted siblings are super basic. (Rosalie = shallow, Emmett = simple, Jasper = psycho two seconds away from jumping off his chair and going on a rampage.) We don’t get to hear his utterly unbiased assessment of Alice, because she butts in and starts a one-sided telepathic convo about how Jasper is two seconds away from jumping off his chair and going on a rampage. You know. Normal sibling stuff.

WHY DO YOU PUT YOURSELF THROUGH THIS HASSLE, WHY!

(Let me take this opportunity to share my pet crack theory that Carlisle Cullen is secretly the most twisted, evil vampire in all of vampiredom, and that the sending the young ones to high school bit is something he does solely because he gets his evil fix by feasting on the emotional toil it inflicts on them. Also why he’s a doctor; he can ignore the call of blood, because being surrounded by the pain of patients and their loved ones already keeps him fed. I mean. He was chilling with the Volturi way back when, and Aro gives off a handsy vibe. No way he didn’t get his mind read in every which way, and if that happened - if he were reaaaalllyyyyy that nice, why would he still ping them as a threat of any kind?)

(This has holes in it, I know. And clashes with my other pet crack theory, which posits that the whole immortal child/Let’s Catch Them All: Cullen Edition was in fact the fallout of a Very Bad Italian Breakup, with Aro being the pissy ex who wants sole custody of the kids.)

Whatever. It still makes more sense than them going through “the inert state between active periods” when. My dudes! College is right there. Some places you can even sit out 90% of lectures and still get your diploma if you don’t feel like faking one, so Jasper would be all set! And you can pick different subjects! Diversify! Why must it always be med school rehashes, there are other worthy professions! And whole fields that are useless for getting-a-job purposes, but still interesting and enriching for those who have the luxury to pursue them. Let Emmett do Viking Studies, for fuck’s sake!

This amuses me much more than it rightfully should. I’m a child.

The Cullen clan tries to pep talk Jasper into not getting his murder on. Jasper is like OMG WILL YOU GUYS LAY OFF, while Edward is busy doing his judgy Edward thing and thinking to himself that Jasper should accept his limitations, that it’s a bad idea to have him at school at all, blah blah bleh, and you know what, I’m with you there, Ed.

Although we all know that this is just setup for the irony that will ensue as soon as Bella the Delicious klutzes her way into his line of smell.

Oh yah! Enter Bella. Edward can’t hear her thoughts. Jessica Stanley is a b-word. Edward wonders whether not being able to butt into the new girl’s head may be a red flag for vampire Alzheimer. Biology class next! The teacher is a man “of no more than average intellect” and, lord. It’s lucky that Edward is the mind reader in the family, because imagine if it were one of the others and they had to put up with listening to him bitch about the world at large, nonstop, at all hours of the day. And night, since these guys don’t sleep. Angela Webber is the only soul in the whole school whose thoughts have the Edward Cullen seal of approval. I feel sorry for her. I also feel this weird sense of hey, this all seems familiar in senses other than being a retelling, have I been here before?

Wait.

WAAAIIIIIITEEEEE.

*googles for the old version*

*runs first chapters through copyleaks*

*kubrick stare* MEYER, YOU LAZY SO AND SO, HOW COULD YOU!

*slams head on desk*

Well. At least I know what I’m in for. HONESTLY! It’s been. It’s been THIS MANY YEARS since the leaked version appeared, and that was a first draft, how in the… she’s way better than this, now! Was this novel produced in a terminal state of $#%CARING#NOT?&FOUND?! Is half of it just going to be the same old thing with a thin veneer of polish? I’m.

*sigh* You know what, I’m okay. We’re just going to call this first part a re-read. It’s been ten years, so I remember not a whole lot of the specifics, so at least I won’t be bored. BUT COME CHAPTER 13 I EXPECT TO BE SWEPT OFF MY FEET, DO YOU HEAR ME?!

Biology. Bella walks in right past a fan and gives Edward a throbbing throat boner. How awkward. Then she goes and sits right next to him and saucily tosses her hair around like he’s not actively plotting her murder and that of the rest of the class. The cheek of the thing!

Fortunately, Bella’s tasty ass is momentarily saved by a stiff breeze.

…I think we may have found the solution to Jasper’s control issues. The Cullens just need to start carrying air freshener around and spray the murder out of him every time he starts looking peckish. It would look weird if anyone else did it, but since they’re all pretty and rich, it’s more likely that the trend will catch on and cause Febreze sales to skyrocket.

Anyway. We’re not done victim-blaming Bella for…

…at least another couple of pages, but at least Edward gets his head out of his ass long enough to recall that hey, vampire! Oxygen is optional! But he still spends another lot of words grumbling about what a hassle it is to be forced to hold his breath in order to dampen his murderous urges. This is why you are a virgin, Edward. No, I don’t mean the planning the assassination a classmate’s assassination, plenty of serial killers still manage to get laid heaps, consensually, even! It’s the fact that you’re this much of a buzzkill that’s the issue.

Live, laugh, love, you dumbass disco ball!

Yep, he’s still on about how he’s going to kill her, totes kill her, he feral dangerous vampire, rawr. The miracle of adequate indoor airflow only got him to railroad a quartet of brain cells into thinking up smarter ways of snuffing Bella out. Now he wants to lure her to the forest. No, he’s going to kill her at home! He hates her! No, he hates himself and is projecting!

So he flees to his car, plays some calming music, breathes in and out and thinks about his family and how disappointed they’d be in him if he were to help himself to a Swan shake. Well, I’m nobody to shit talk anyone’s self-soothing routine. I’d probably throw in a truck of food + a bath, but he’s had 100+ years to figure out what coping mechanisms work for him, so let’s just let him do his-

Edward.

EDWARD.

…do you actually think this is an appropriate time to start a ginger-off with some random desk lady? Yes, we know you’re the One True Redhead To Rule Them All. (Though Kvothe from Name of the Wind may beg to differ, and I don’t know who would win that fight.) I mean, really? You pull this crap when you just barely talked yourself out of a murder? And then you call her eyes flat! What!

One of my favorite comic book series, Y the Last Man, features a scene where two characters discuss what it is that truly binds people together. One of them presents the argument that stronger bonds are formed not by shared love, but by shared hates. By which they mean not a kiss-kiss-slap-slap, enemies-to-lovers relationship dynamic, but like… you, being someone who really hates coleslaw, having a partner who likewise hates coleslaw, with whom you can indulge in tireless verbal roastings of coleslaw and who will never get tired of your complaining, because the fire of their loathing burns every bit as hot as yours.

I’ve always felt that this concept resonated with me deeply. And if you apply it to Bella and Edward, by its standards, they have the real deal. Go through the namesake chapter in Twilight-the-book, and you find Bella thinking similarly judgy thoughts, being irked by the same shit that no one normal would bat an eye to, going “Ugh!” and “Gah!” at everything that makes Edward wince internally. So their love will be eternal for sure. Perhaps not in an epic way. They’ll live boringly ever after, until they’re ancient and onion-skinned and lurking at passerby humans through the geraniums on their windowsill, exchanging “Holy crow, I can’t believe she bought a hydrogen engine car just to show off!” / “Awful! She should know that thinning the deer population so that they produce less flatulence is the most sound way of controlling toxic emissions!” And then probably gazing at one another like idiots for an ice age or two.

Edward wants to be moved out of Biology class. Goes back and forth with the desk lady, who obviously wants to tap that, because of course she does. Every hot-blooded woman within spitting distance must crave his alluring icicle, even as he mentally eviscerates every minuscule detail of their appearance.

Except Bella, because she’s soft, translucent, deep-eyed and edible. And, I mean. You can complain all you want about “you’re different from anyone else I’ve ever met, you’re SPECIAL, better, more beautiful, more everything!” being a dead horse of a trope so old and beaten that by all rights it should have turned to smelly glue, but. That pony is still kicking. And by kicking, I mean selling. And it sells because being made to feel special, even if it’s happening by proxy while you’re immersed into the thoughts of a fictional character, is nice. Readers enjoying that experience and seeking out fiction that provides it shouldn’t be considered so… mock-worthy as I’ve seen it be, in discussion of works that feature the trope prominently.

Which doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t be nicer if Edward’s narration were focused solely on elevating Bella, instead of also viciously kicking down everyone in the vicinity. Man, we get the message, okay? You don’t need to act like you’ve swallowed a Simon Cowell before coming in for school.

I swear, it’s almost a relief when Bella interrupts, heralding the triumphant return of the throat boner. Edward’s thoughts about the people around him are actually LESS gratuitously bitchy when he’s contemplating how to best murder them.

At least this time he is able to extract himself from the situation and flee speedily. (Which… in Biology, what exactly was preventing him from asking for a bathroom break? Or just saying he was feeling poorly and getting the fuck out of there?)

He meets the sibs. Only Alice has any clue of what is going on because visions, and she doesn’t explain anything to the others, who just stand there baffled while Edward decides to get his shiny ass in his shiny Volvo and run off to Alaska. Probably because it would ruin the serious mood of the scene if she told them and Jasper started doing happy cartwheels at the prospect of no longer being the only fuckup in the family.

END CHAPTER. Same time tomorrow, hopefully, and I’ll TRY to be less longwinded. Try.

#TWILIGHT #MIDNIGHT SUN #EDWARD CULLEN #GRISREADSMS #MIDNIGHT SUN SPOILERS

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