#obviously it's not exactly the same since other peoples' kids vs their own

[blackat-t7t]

Thoughts on sexuality within clone culture

This has been sitting in my drafts for almost a year, so I'm just gonna throw it out here.

Warning for clone/clone relationships (arguably incest or pseudo-incest), frank discussion of masturbation and sexuality in children, also discussion of military power imbalance and age-gaps and how those things can lead to abuse

So- it's normal, developmentally, for small kids to explore their own and each other's bodies (tho maybe among clones the curiosity is satisfied earlier, given that they're all the same). The Kaminoans are used to- not raising children exactly, but overseeing their development. They're probably aware that small clones from any cloning project might touch themselves or "play doctor" with eachother, and consider it a waste of time better spent in training.

Like every child, the clones would have to be taught that you have to wear clothes in public, you can't stick your hand in your pants in public, you don't stick your hand down anyone else's pants at all. I'd imagine it's harder to teach the concept of "public" vs "private" parts or activities when... they don't actually have any privacy. Barracks, showers, changing rooms, they're always with other clones. So maybe "public" comes to mean "around natborns" to them. (This has interesting implications for clone-only spaces that aren't what we would think of as private, like break/rec rooms.)

Most of the "self-exploration" probably stops after the curiosity is satisfied, though of course, once the hormones hit, it comes back with a vengeance. Given that they all have the same body and are always around each other, hearing or seeing a brother masturbate wouldn't be that big of a deal. And helping a brother with his boner wouldn't be that different from helping him practice a sparring move. It's something that they know not to do in public (which is to say, not in front of natborns). But between brothers, it's just a fact of life.

Romantically, though-- They don't have any peers besides clones, they've never seen another child or teenager who wasn't a clone. All of their meaningful relationships are with other clones. (Sure, a handful might be close to one trainer or another, but most of them wouldn't, just based on numbers.) And, naturally, some of these close relationships become what you would call romantic. It's hard to define, since it isn't like they have any kind of frame of reference- they don't exactly watch a lot of teen drama holos. Where is the line between your favorite brother and your boyfriend? What's the difference between a brother you share a friendly handjob with, and a "friend with benefits", and a boyfriend?

Obviously, they're going to have brothers they're closer to, brothers they're more comfortable offering a hand(job), or asking for one. And probably most of them would have a best friend who is their go-to person for that. (Though there are surely some interesting stories to tell about rivals with sexual tension, who spar until they're bloody and then jerk eachother off in the showers.) But for most of them, it's probably not an exclusive thing, or even something that would occur to them to make exclusive. That probably makes it even harder to try to draw a line between "this person/these people are my boyfriends" and "these people aren't".

Though, some of them are going to have lower libidos than others. Some are going to prefer to deal with their erections themselves. They'll still have brothers that they're closest to. Does that make it easier or harder to draw a line between friend and boyfriend/partner?

And how much of a concept of "partner" would they even have? Would they have seen trainers or kaminoans who were couples? Would they have watched or read holos that involved families where the parents are clearly a couple, or rimance holos where two people become a couple? Maybe they'd make assumtions like "a family is two or more people who decide to train cadets together", while the romantic aspect goes completely over their heads.

The concept of incest would probably be really hard for them to wrap their heads around. Like, why would the people you're closest to not be appropriate people to have sex with? Why would you direct your attention outside of your family? (What counts as outside your family for a clone? Is it outside of your batch? Outside of your squad, once you're all shuffled around? Outside your batallion? Or would it have to be a natborn?) And given that clones are so used to natborns looking down on them, seeing them as things instead of people, the idea that they're supposed to pursue relationships with natborns, trust a natborn with their heart and body, is probably very intimidating, at least at first.

That's not necessarily to say that all sexual relationships between clones are perfectly healthy. You could have superior officers ordering their subordinates to provide sexual favors. And when this is all they know, would they even conceptualize it as abuse? Sure, they may not want to follow those orders, but they probably have plenty of non-sexual orders they don't particularly want to follow either.

I like to think most of the clones wouldn't stand for that, though. There's a line between orders that are necessary for the mission or for unit cohesiveness, and orders that only benefit the one giving them. The commanders wouldn't let the captains under them order their men to do something that hurts them and doesn't help the war effort. Even as a punishment, certain things are off limits. (They all know what it's like to be treated like an object. Most of them don't want to treat their brothers that way, and won't let other brothers do it either.)

And if giving a brother a handjob isn't any different from helping them perfect a sparring move, then what kind of relationships might you see between older and younger clones? Help with training becomes help in the showers, guidance in bed. Maybe it's transactional, blowjobs in exchange for extra tutoring, or maybe it's just an extension of that mentor-mentee relationship. Who else would they trust to teach them these things? Sometimes, the older one probably has good intentions, just wants them both to feel good and safe, wants to give the younger some experience that they can take to their next relationship.

Sometimes, they don't. Sometimes they know they can pressure and guilt and blackmail that younger clone into doing whatever they want, including things that brothers who can refuse, would refuse.

I like to think these relationships would be watched closely by the oldest brothers, to make sure the one being taught is going along willingly.

Related:

Ramble/ficlet on clones' ideas about clone/clone relationships

Ramble/ficlet on clones' thoughts about breastfeeding and how that plays into clone/clone relationships

#cloneship #clonecest #cloneshipping #abuse cw #a blackat-t7t original #blackat-t7t's rambles and ficlets

[raifuujin]

M27 Spoilers

Okay, so. My thoughts.

First off, the cousins thing. I'll be honest, I fully thought the movie was going to go with a common ancestor route instead of the more direct dad's being brothers. Obviously that didn't turn out, but considering they also brought in Okita and his face, it would have made a lot more sense to just go further back and also leave explanation for the other same-face Gosho boys that are scattered around. But I guess that wouldn't have been dramatic enough, so oh well.

I'd still probably ship KaiShin. The cousins thing really doesn't bother me when they don't even know (because nobody in this series talks about any family until it has maximum audience whammy). I see some people who are lamenting, because it makes things uncomfortable for them, and that's fair. I don't see it quite as bad as like. Leia and Luke from Star Wars, or the more personal Layton and Descole from PL, both pairs being direct siblings instead of first cousins, but plenty of people still probably view it as too close. Also, if anyone is familiar with the hiimdaisy Ace Attorney comic with Apollo and Trucy and Phoenix is supposed to tell them they're related and Does Not time it well. -finger guns- It would make a great parody comic idea for this KaiShin situation. (I might do it myself if no one else does, but would Not be soon.)

Other people bring up that Gosho mentioned much, much earlier that there was a reason Kaito and Shinichi look alike. Which I did remember, but the thing about that is. That I don't trust Gosho in the slightest. Like, did he actually plan out Yuusaku and Toichi's separated twins backstory at that time, or did he have a general idea that he'd be making them familial related somewhere in their tree? Some people truly thought Kaito and Shinichi could be the brothers, with the Kuroba's adopting for some various fandom-created reasons. Or other, far more dramatic direct relation. Could Gosho's comment have just been him making a joke that the 'reason' was him thinking about them having the same inspiration? How serious was he meant to be taken 20 years ago?

Many people saying 'of course they're related, they look exactly alike':

1) Sameface syndrome with characters goes well beyond Kaito and Shinichi. There were so many protoypes of characters, or just matching looks to character types, of course not everyone is gonna hop on the 'well duh, they must be related' train. It's nice to feel vindication for headcanoning them as family, but don't make it sound like people are stupid for being upset. There's very little to tell what's lampshading and teasing vs 'no, really, they're gonna be related to each other'.

2) The common ancestor explanation would have worked perfectly fine, and honestly, the fact that Toichi and Yuusaku are twin brothers separated through divorce who happen to both have stayed in the Tokyo area (mostly) while both being internationally famous and maintaining contact with each other and sending gifts even when one of them is publicly dead. Sounds goddamn stupid. (The brothers idea would probably have been fine and plausible, it was all that Extra that pushed it into 'okay just stop, this sounds like a load of contrived bullshit'. How did no one during the 'reveal' of that go 'um, I know this is how you want this connection to go, but can we make it sound more plausible/real?')

Because, Gosho clearly didn't plan on them being related all along. That's probably what actually bothers be about the contrived connection (since the real impact to KaiShin is relatively small). It's very obvious that he just drew his male protags for quite a few stories looking very similar. (Usually in his image, to an extent, though that's usually just mentioned for Kaito, specifically.) It was also clear that when he had Kid make a surprise appearance in DC, there really wasn't supposed to be a connection. Did he come up with it on his own? Only after people asked about it? Did he go 'you know, I might could connect the two for fun'? I don't know. I don't trust a man who created Sera's concept based on a cool female detective and wrapped her up with Akai and made the whole stupid family thing, and who changed Amuro's planned role as a bad guy on a whim because he was too cool to be bad, to have actually planned out this family connection all along.

And even with all that, there's also the issue of revealing this information in a movie. People have had arguments about movie canonicity for years, and yet this all gets mentioned for cinema shock value. I don't mind the using extra characters, or making things more action packed than the manga would allow, or even stupid things like Kidnichi 200 times. But this? This is asking for chaos. It feels like a big clusterfuck of yes, no, maybe, for how important this is going to be going forward, because we don't even know if Gosho means to make use of this info for the mangas at all, or if it's going to remain background information from a movie that may or may not even be relevant to know. Except as a wink to the audience and a middle finger to shippers, I guess.

(There are pluses to this, which is general thinking about the implications of this family dynamic and how chaotic things could actually get or how things got to be how they are already. I'd like to know what exactly Yuusaku knows about his brother's status and if his 'friend from interpol' could be used to connect to Toichi's whole. Legally died but is still alive and being an a-hole to his son by letting him go into the profession that was trying to kill him.) ((Yes, we're still gonna murder Toi, especially since his amnesia out is clearly off the table. We don't know enough about what Yuusaku knows, but I can't even say he's on thin ice because the chances of him knowing a lot about Kaito's situation is too damn high to let him off the hook.))

...Anyway, that's obviously the main drama, but side note that I'm also mad because movie being canon or not aside (I adopt movies as canon, especially newer ones, but people can also ignore them without loosing manga compliance really), the issue I have is the further blurring of MK and DC connection. At this point, it literally is just Akako being the crux of the 'are they the same universe or aren't they' argument, and it's literally never gonna get answered because Gosho refuses to even let her show up in DC for anything. You truly can argue either way when she's just not shown. And even though it won't happen, it's to a point where they feel so obviously the same universe that I hope Gosho just let's Akako do a cameo at the end of DC just to mess with people. But regardless, making MK only characters directly related to DC characters is. Maddening for that whole argument. (Sure, Toichi has appeared in DC before, however, the movie goes out of the way to add that extra 'fuck you' to the audience by revealing not just Toichi being alive and texting Yuusaku casually, but the reveal is in his fucking. Corbeau outfit. Which. Corbeau is 1000% MK only knowledge, so there's not getting around that no one would know that character unless they've read MK.)

And last note, the one other spoiler I've seen mentioned is the failed Heizuha confession and just. The reasons for failing get dumber and dumber and just add to the mess of spoilers coming from this movie. Oh no, Iori, the former government agent dude working for the rich girl love rival for Heiji's affection, dropped a flashbomb at the exact time Heiji confessed, so Kazuha never heard it. I don't think the spoilers I saw ever clarified if he was doing something and it was coincidence, or if it was intentional, but. God the fails being turned into elaborate jokes is getting. Ridiculous. I don't even care if they get together in canon, I'm not super invested in the ship, but I feel like even if I did want them to get together, there's. Literally zero hope for any build ups at this point. You can't keep leading up to it and pulling it away, people are gonna stop caring. At this point, half the people invested are just going to give an exasperated 'finally' when it happens, instead of actually being excited at this point, it's just tiring.

I hope the rest of the movie is at least entertaining. Fun action packed eye-candy fluff to help numb the stupid 'important' scenes. Spoilers might feel ick, but it's in a vacuum of reading words about scenes on their own. (Which probably won't change the Yuusaku scene at all, but Heiji's confession is. Probably an 'okay, here we go, what happens this time' thing that's better if you're already just there for entertainment.)

Edit: Someone has now basically confirmed with their own watch that the movie is fun, and the bombshell of lore is at the very end.

#dc spoilers #That's one post V: #Maybe I'll wait until all the MK chapters are out to make a post about. The thing going on there #I also am not a fan of that writing for being a lazy made-up-when-people-showed-interest-in-something. Thing

[linkspooky]

Hi! I saw your tags about Tara in Teen Titans comics--I'm only familiar with the cartoon series. How do your feelings about Tara compare in the show vs. the comics? I ask since I noticed you mentioned that Tara never really cared about BB, which I think is obviously changed in the show, and I wonder how you feel about that.

They're both good? They're both good! I think one thing people forget about comic book characters vs. adaptations of comic book characters, is that comic books were always intended to be a collaborative medium that builds on itself through the work of multiple authors and interpretations. Thus, you can have multiple versions of the same character who have the same core but don't really have to be exactly the same. This is why it is kind of silly when people get upset animated adaptations make changes from the original source material because that's kind of the point, in a collaborative medium, you're going to get another author's take on the same character.

Since you asked I can give you an analysis on the core ideas of Teen Cartoon Terra vs. Comics Terra, and also her relationship with Beast Boy in both versions.

1. GWEN STACY

So, I once talked about how Terra was always intended by her creators to die, but that's not necessarily offensive or fridging her character because Terra's still a character with a lot of narrative agency. Terra is the main character of her story, it's just her story happens to be a tragedy. That is true for both versions.

Before the start of the story her fate is sealed. This is what you call doomed by the narrative. George Wolfram and Glen Murakami have both given interviews explaining as such. Albeit, for different reasons.

Comics Terra was essentially made to deconstruct a lot of comic book tropes. I lovingly call her "Asshole Kitty Pryde." From conception she was going to be the spunky new kid with mutant powers who joined the titans at fifteen and immediately became friends with everyone... except she was evil all along.

George’s strength was he also understood the characters 100 percent as I did so there was never any question. He knew. We had talked enough about the characters to know we were exactly on the same page with them. So I said, “Everyone keeps complaining that we’re like the X-Men” and the X-Men had just gotten Kitty Pryde. I said, “Why don’t we really screw around with them completely?” — this is the fans — “…and make them think we’re stealing Kitty Pryde only she’s gonna be bad from Day One.”

Of course this is where authorial intent differs from like, what actually ended up happening in the story. Worlfram's intent was to always make Terra have no reason for her actions, the tragic backstory she feeds the teen titans is kind of embellished and made up, she decided to become a mercenary all on her own, she wants to work with Slade and is even trying to seduce him. However, Terra still comes off as horribly tragic despite their intentions and other authors have since then picked up on their subtext.

Like, I genuienly think the intention was to just write her as pure evil, but instead what they got was writing her as a bad victim. That is, the kind of victim that presents incredibly unsavory and unlikable reactions to their abuse instead of either being kinder than their abusers, remaining pure and chaste like Cinderella or just waiting to be saved. Terra's not a passive victim nor is she waiting for sympathy, she hurts people the way she has been hurt, she maipulates the way she has been manipulated. Terra's been beaten down and now her goal is to come out on top. I believe the reason why she came out this way has a lot to do with Perez and Wolfram sticking to their guns and never giving her a redemption arc.

The very first time we see her, she’s trying to blow up the Statue of Liberty. It’s just that all the fans assumed because we went out of our way to make her cute — but not too cute, with the buck teeth and everything — everyone would assume that she was gonna become good by the end and that was never the case.

First thing, we made a promise that day that we would never renege on our view that she’d never become good. It’s sometimes hard to do that with characters you like. You want them to become good or something like that. But we never liked the character enough—because we knew what we were doing with her—we never allowed ourselves to fall for the character. Because that’s bad. That’s bad storytelling. You’re doing what you want as a fan at that particular point, not as the creators. The fans had to accept what we were doing and not do the same stories that they had read 14,000 times before. You know, at Marvel, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch were villains who became good guys and I could go through a whole list of ’em.

Their commitment to the bit meant that Terra’s story became what was essentially Greek tragedy at that point. Terra was always fall and because of that, Wolfram and Perez dedicate a lot of time in the story showing the audience exactly what all of her flaws are and why those flaws are the reason for that fall. They committed to their creative decisions when writing this character, which is why Terra ends up being such a strong character, especially for the time. Of course there were female villains, but they weren’t really allowed to be complex victims to the degree that Terra is, have her entire range of negative traits, have her flaws fully on display and then still have it be a tragic ending when she does not get saved. 

Gwen Stacy was always going to die, and Terra was never going to be redeemed. I do not believe either of those cases are fridging because sometimes characters die in fiction, and sometimes they contribute more ot the story dead than they do alive. Terra’s the first real loss for the Teen Titans, it also came on the cusp of a time in DC where teenage superheroes and sidekicks started to die (Cough, Cough, Jason Todd). Under the Red Hood and Judas Contract are such effective and lasting comic book storylines because they are such tightly written tragedies  yes... both of them depict a bad victim who does not get saved (even though that is the whole point of both arcs). 

Terra is in fact, probably more comparable to Under the Red Hood Jason than she is Gwen Stacy because she is number one a teenager with problems who probably should not have been made a superhero in the first place, and two a trauma victim who copes by manipulation and violence to try to reclaim control of their lives. But, to bring the Gwen Stacy comparison back. Gwen Stacy was always going to die, Terra was always going to die, but unlike Gwen Stacy Terra is not anyone’s love interest she is the protagonist. Peter Parker fails to save Gwen because the Green Goblin attacked her, she was killed to hurt Peter Parker. Terra pulls the arena down on herself and buries herself alive in Samson and Delilah-esque fashion at the end of her own personal tragic arc. 

To get to the real differences between the two characters though, characterization wise, I think both versions start with the same central concept, this is a troubled teenager who should never have been made a hero. 

Terra is a deeply troubled teen, however the way she copes in both versions are wildly different, almost opposite. I like to say cartoon Terra has like, at any moment five different personalities, while comics Terra has no personality. 

2. Runaway Girl

To elaborate on this, cartoon Terra’s entire character revolves around how unstable her sense of self is, due to never having any stability in her life. The cartoon is actually very purposeful in showing in both imagery and metaphor Terra’s splintered sense of self. The first few lines of dialogue introducing her are this. 

“She’s not in trouble, she was leading it into a trap.”  “Question is, who is she?” Slade: “Don’t get too attached my young friend, I saw her first.” 

Said by the Titans and then Slade. Even in the first lines introducing her, not only is the question of who she is asked, but Slade immediately tries to claim her from the titans. Later on in the show, the way Terra acts around the Teen Titans as a group, the way Terra acts when she is with Slade, the way Terra acts when alone with Beast Boy, the way Terra acts when alone with Raven are all wildly different versions of herself, to the point where it’s hard to believe she’s the same girl sometimes. 

This is even apparent in the first episode before Slade even gets to her. Terra insists that she enjoys sleeping outside, she enjoys running from place to place, she doesn’t really want a place to stay for the night, she’s presenting herself as some sort of self-reliant and worldly traveler instead of what she really is, a homeless runaway kid. Terra is attempting to appear calm, cool, and responsible and she is absolutely none of these things, and she’s pretty transparent about it too. She cool girls herself so people will like her. The second she is alone in Beast Boy and loses control of her powers for 30 seconds, she immediately crashes, starts berating herself and her self esteem sinks to the bottom of the ocean. 

Trust, is something constantly brought up again and again with Terra’s character though I would say Terra despite literally being the main character of an arc called the Judas Contract, despite betrayal being the one thing she is known for... always sees herself as getting betrayed first. Which is why she overreacts to the perception that Beast Boy broke a promise to keep her powers safe in the first episode. Terra doesn’t trust people at all. Though, to trust people and form healthy relationships with them, you actually have to be a fully developed and well-rounded person which Terra is not. Terra is basically a foster kid who has been through several families before this, waiting for her current one to dump her. She has interanlized the idea that there is something wrong with her that makes this rejection happen, but she doesn’t know how to fix it, or how to be better the kind of person that can have those healthy friendships so she dedicates herself into hiding those flaws instead. 

Terra: You don’t belong with the Titans. Terra: You don’t know anything about you. Slade: On the contrary Terra, I know everything about you. I’ve been watching you for some time. I know why you’re always running away. I know your secret, little girl.

This is also why she runs from the Titans to Slade. It’s a question I see commonly asked about cartoon Terra, if she’s meant to be more sympathetic than comic books Terra why does she willingly go to Slade instead of staying with the Titans? Which is a silly question, because you might as well be asking why do grooming victims get groomed? Why don’t they just know that groomers are bad people?

Teenagers are not grownups. Especially not Terra, a bastard child rejected by her parents who has been on the run for however many years. Terra is a teenager and a severely underdeveloped teenager at that, and she has learned to survive on the streets yes, but that’s not really the same as learning to be a functional person, who can have healthy relationships with people, and control their emotions. Children actually require parents to nurture and teach them and raise them up to be more functional adults, and they also require the stability adults in their lives provide them. 

Terra goes to Slade because he is an adult who is promising to be there for her, and give her control and stability which are things adults in her life have failed to give her. She can’t trust the Titans to give her these things because they are children one as Slade needles her into believing they cannot understand or help her, and two the way Terra has lived her life up to this point a transactional relationship with Slade makes more sense to her head than the found family the Teen Titans have based on love and trust because Terra is a stranger to both of those concepts. 

Terra is also someone who has little control over her life in general, which is why cartoon Terra is so passive in comparison to comic book Terra. In the episode Betrayal itself, Terra keeps her foot in the door about the actual betrayal the whole way, and seems to change her mind on what she wants several time. Because Terra has five different personalities. Ginger Terra, Sporty Terra, Posh Terra, Scary Terra, and Baby Terra. Terra doesn't have a cohesive sense of self so she's entirely reactive, she just does what she thinks will keep her safe in the moment. Terra wants safety and control of her powers so she goes to Slade. Terra feels guilty about what she does for the Titans so she tries to run away from Slade for the moment. Beast Boy asks her out on a date, but because Terra's betraying the Titans that night Terra says no. Five minutes later, Terra says yes. She is constantly changing her mind and contradicting herself like this.

Which is where we get to the greatest contradiction this episode, Terra betrays the titans and clearly feels guilty about it,b ut instead of say telling the Titans what she did or coming clean she just runs away. Which is where we get to the extremely subtle imagery of Terra in a house of mirrors.

Terra can't face her reflection over and over again, because she can't face herself, because she has no sense of self. She doesn't know why she does these things, but she's done them now, and she's stuck with those choices.

Terra: Beast Boy, I'm so sorry. I never meant for any of this to happen. Beast Boy: Then why did you let it? Terra: I don't know okay, I don't know. Slade he helped me. He saved me from myself. He said I owed him. Beast Boy: So, it was all just a game. You were just pretending. Terra: No. You said you'd be my friend no matter what, remember?

This is also Terra's most honest display of remorse, and the exact moment Terra gets rejected, crying and begging for forgiveness for what she's done and after that is the point where she goes full villain. Terra goes from baby Terra, to Scary Terra. A lot of who cartoon Terra is born from fear of moments like this where she is rejected. Terra was the one who tricked Beast Boy and Beast Boy is rightfully upset of course, but in Terra's mind only able to see her own hurt feelings Beast Boy is the one who broke the promise to her. Terra internalizes the fact she cannot be forgiven at that point and seeing no other recourse goes full villain and insists she feels no guilt, she wanted to destroy the titans to begin with, it was all a lie. The complete inversion of how she acted in the betrayal episode. Terra is manipulative, spiteful, hungry for power and yes she's capable of being all of those things but one important thing is.

The second, the second Slade starts mistreating her and beating her Terra immediately wants out. It turns out it's not power or control Terra wanted at all with Slade, but the idea of safety he provided her. The moment it becomes unsafe for her she tries to leave again, because Terra is a child desperately seeking safety in a world that feels unsafe for her, and she'll find it by crushing people she perceives to be a threat if she has to.

That is Terra in a nutshell, she doesn't feel safe anywhere, or with anybody. She has no stable foundation. She is the human embodiment of the tower card in Tarot. No matter how hard she tries to trust others and trust in return, because those are basic human urges we all have, she ends up falling down. It's interesting for a character who is so famous for betrayal, how much of her arc shows she clearly wants to be accepted and trusted by others, and gets hurt at the idea of their rejection. Even the day she literally betrayed Beast Boy before taking him out on a date she asks him this.

Terra: Do you trust me? Beast Boy: More than anyone I've ever met.

I would say Terra's inability to trust doesn't come from the fact she's a bad person or a bad victim, but because she doesn't have the tools to form healthy relationships because of how seriously neglected a child she is. A part of the tragedy of Terra is because Terra cannot save herself, because she is a child. Just like how the Titans have such difficulty saving her, because they are children too and they're not really emotionally prepared to save a person as morally grey and as in need as Terra, and the only adult in the situation is Slade who is there to take advantage.

Transitioning too. Comics Terra, while cartoon Terra has too much personality, Comics Terra has too little. She was written to be a sociopath, and that's not really my term that's how the writers describe her though I can dig up evidence she shows clear signs of being capable of having attachment to people. I'd say rather than a sociopath she's more written as an enigma. Terra's motives are spurious, her actions are inconsistent, she seems to be driven by spite. She is an incredibly angry kid with a chip on her shoulder who seems to be capable of anything.

Cartoon Terra is trying to play along with other peopel's expectations to her, while comics Terra rejects everyone's expectations. She loathes cute teenage girl superheroes. She finds dressing up in costumes and fighting crime to be ridiculous in the first place. Though, I would say despite saying she clearly hates the titans, literally the next panel she displays some affection for Kid Flash.

Comics Terra isn't completely unfeeling, she's capable of forming connections to people, she has a fondness for Geo-Force her brother, Kid Flash, and sort of for Beast Boy she just never fully forms relationships with them.

Terra's not really even maintaining much of a cover with the Titans, because both with Slade and the Titans she is a rude, belligerent raunchy kid who is trying to constantly get into other people's faces. Terra is all of those things, she just when she is alone with Slade also pretends she is an adult, in an adult relationship with him. (Cough, cough, grooming victim. A victim of sexual grooming in this sense too).

Terra's written to be a sociopath yeah, or at least her writers tried too but I'd say she's more a character who the audience has little to no idea what is going on in her head. A lot of her is left ambiguous. Considering her backstory though, the rejected bastard of a king, someone who is working as a mercenary at fifteen, she clearly has not had a good life. Just like cartoon Terra she is lacking a sense of self.

However, instead of eschewing her agency, Terra takes her agency from other people. Cartoon Terra is good at manipulating when she wants to be, but Comics Terra sees the world in terms of every relatonship is transactional and based on manipulation, the world is winners and losers, the world is about who is on top and who is on the bottom. Terra lacks no real goal, or purpose, no friend, no home no loved ones she really only wants to crawl up on top of others if she has to.

Which is exactly why she gets into a relationship with Slade. Comics Terra seems to think her and Slade are equals, and that she is manipulating and using him as much as he is using her. The tragedy in this case arises from the fact that you know, Terra is a fifteen year old girl and Slade is three times her age.

There's an entire chapter where we follow around Terra montiofring people with contacts, and she's going about the titans daily lives just, telling Slade how much she hates them the whole time, but then she stops to ask Garfield why he's constantly being rude to other people and seems genuinely interested in listening to him talk about his feelings.

Terra's only out for herself, she is out to define herself and not let anyone else tell her who she is and who she should be. Terra's selfishness makes sense though considering the situation she is, she's either made to feel nothing like how she was with her family, or she is being sexually groomed by a guy three times her age. Her response to that, her extreme self interest and only caring about her own survival really is her way of fighting back against a world that she sees as trying to wear her down.

And that's a key part of her character Terra is a grooming victim who is also a bad victim. She's being groomed and her way of reclaiming her agency is to insist she wants sex, she wants to hurt people, that actually she's the one manipulating Slade. It's all Terra trying to assert control in a situation where she has none. I don't know if you know this, but a fifteen year old can't manipulate a guy in his fifties who has been doing this for years. Terra also, projects a lot of her hate for her situation and her lot at life at the Titans.

They did not do anything wrong to her, but at the same time she's pretty cosntantly unhappy with them, she complains none of them like her, she complains about their lack of trust, I believe that's less Terra trying to infiltrate them and more Terra herself either believing she cannot fit in anyhwere or as a person who only believes in transactional relationships and manipulation just not understanding how family works.

Terra also acts like dangerously unstable at all times, there's a point in the comics where Beast Boy gets way too aggressive with his flriting, that he full on triggers what resembles a PTSD response in her and she tries to bury him alive.

At times like this when Terra is made to feel she's either not the one with the power here, or being looked down upon she asserts herself with violence to desperately try to regain control. It is not healthy by any means, but it is still the behavior of someone who is coping incredibly poorly. Terra relies on fear and control to make herself feel safe at times like this, because she's not been shown love early on in her life and by this point she genuinely does not understand it. And also I cannot emphasize this enough as a victim of sexual grooming, Terra is pretty much not ever safe, or in a situation where she has bodily agency or control.

Terra in the cartoon dies in a heroic sacrifice, whereas Terra in the comics dies because she loses control of her power and essentially suicides. If anything the tragedy here is that Terra is someone who never learned to be a girl properly, nor was she appreciated as a human being and because of that she formed her entire sense of self around her powers. She is a child, and never having been allowed to be one, and not knowing how to live in this world, form relationships with people, trust and be trusted she dies as a child. Terra once again has nothing solid to build herself on, and because of that the tower falls down.

3. Terra and Beast Boy

In the cartoon Terra and Beast Boy are clearly meant to be in a relatoinship, in the comics Terra claims to have hated him all along, but arguably she could have been fond of him.

In both versions the relationship is entirely wrong headed from the start. A lot of it has to do with Beast Boy's flaws as a character. I wrote on and on how immature of an individual Terra is, and Beast Boy as the youngest on the team shares many of those immature and selfish traits. IN the comic itself that seems to be the reason why Beast Boy and Terra are paired together, they are the closest in age, she is the new girl and the trope Terra is made to deconstruct is the cute comic book love interest.

Comic book Garfield is almost more immature than cartoon Garfield, and on top of that is a full blown male chauvinist. A lot of people do not like Wolfram/Perez Beast Boy, I kind of love him because he doesn't understand woman's boundaries and thinks he desperately needs to get into a relationship and makes them uncomfortable because he sees his flriting as harmless to them... you know like a teenage boy. Unlike most characters like this that appear in media, this quality of Beast Boy's is something that gets called out on all the time.

Terra and Beast Boy do have something in common in that they are both outsiders to the group, they are the youngest so no one takes them seriously, they are almost always stuck together, there's a scene where they're both getting tutored by a tutor Garfield's rich father hired and they're both such ADD kids no one wants to be there. She does have at least one genuine moment of connection like this one.

Their immaturity is what makes them the most similiar, but they go about the inferiority they feel towards other people in opposite ways, Terra sets out to try to prove that she is better than other people by asserting herself, while Beast Boy tries to bend over backwards to win their love.

Terra sympathizes with Beast Boy because they share the same root cause of the issue, but they cope in opposite ways and because of that she looks down on him as just another kid. Which is something Terra is desperately trying to prove she is not. Terra genuinely does go out of her way to kiss him which shows this conversation at least affected her, she has moments of being genuine around Beast Boy, but I think this and every version of Beast Boy is too immature to ever reach her. Because to return to the male chauvinist aspect of Beast Boy's character, not long after this scene he full on triggers Terra by coming on way too hard to her.

Beast Boy wants a girlfriend, to validate his feelings, to make him feel special when he feels like he is the only kid, and the one most often left behind in a group of adults. He tries to make Terra into his love interest and Terra does not want to play that role at all. There are moments where Terra is genuine with Beast Boy, and he might have been able to reach her, but Beast Boy is so obssessed with the image of Terra he has built in his head and the idea of having her he's never able to even come close to her.

Beast Boy cannot understand Terra with any sort of nuance whatsoever, because she's a woman who doesn't really want to play along with any image of her in his mind.

Their cartoon relationship is much less destructive, but really suffers from the same fundamental problem. Both the episode "Terra" and the episode "Betrayal" feature Beast Boy trying to make Terra a promise that he cannot keep. The first time he promises to keep her powers a secret, he actually keeps that one but the perception that he's betrayed her is what makes Terra run. The second time Beast Boy promises to accept her no matter what she does, only to reject her when she is openly weeping and apologizing at his feet out of remorse.

Like, if you wanted to save Terra. To convince her to turn back to the side of good there was never a time more ideal than that but Beast Boy spits in her face. Because while he's a hero he's also a fifteen year old boy feeling hurt and betrayed. This is Beast Boy's Orpheus turning back to look at Eurydice moment.

Terra: Beast Boy, I'm so sorry. I never meant for any of this to happen. Beast Boy: Then why did you let it? Terra: I don't know okay, I don't know. Slade he helped me. He saved me from myself. He said I owed him. Beast Boy: So, it was all just a game. You were just pretending. Terra: No. You said you'd be my friend no matter what, remember? Beast Boy: Slade was right, you don't have any friends.

Beast Boy's attraction to Terra is sort of instant and a kiddie crush, but any relationship they might have had is broken by the time Terra runs away at the end of their first episode together. Afterwards Terra has already betrayed the Titans, and Beast Boy is clinging to the girl Terra appeared to be the first time they met.

Beast Boy doesn't really fully comprehend Terra, which is why the literal last episode of the series is Beast Boy stalking Terra all day long and insisting that he knows her best, and he knows certain things about her and acting confused when she tells him that she was never that way, she never liked sleeping outside, she wasn't the girl he thought she was.

I went to great length to show how Terra's emotional immaturity results in her constant flip-flopping and contradiction, but Beast Boy shows the exact same behavior. Beast Boy in the cartoon tries to play roles to Terra that he is not emotionally mature enough to play. While at the same time. The first is he tries to be the one protecting her, the one guaranteeing her stability. In the first episode he is the one who stays with Terra and calms her down after Slade triggers her into nearly causing an earthquake.

At the same time by the end of that episode he's unable to make Terra stay because she's so hurt at the idea he betrayed one secret. Beast Boy is also the same person who one episode ago told Terra that she didn't have any friends to her face when she was crying and apologizing and just left her there, and the very next episode gets angry when the titans say Terra is irredeemable. Beast Boy that was you. You said that, to her face.

Beast Boy: Terra, you're our friend. Terra: I don't have any friends, remember?

Beast Boy wants to act like a hero saving Terra, but he's not that great of a hero, nor is he emotionally mature enough to do that. Which is why we get this behavior of Beast Boy, first reaching out to save her, and then resorting to victim blaming when he feels like he can't save her. He jumps between I am Terra's best friend, I know she was there all along, to just Terra doesn't have any friends. Terra you wanted to do these things, it was your choice. There's no consistency in Beast Boy's actions, because Beast Boy doesn't really know what to do he is vulnerable and desperate, because a person who he cares about has hurt him, and is also hurting.

Beast Boy is once again trying to put Terra into a simple and easy to understand box. He is acting like the hero of the story, and she flips between his villain and his love interest when that's not the case. Terra's more focused on Terra herself, she cares about Beast Boy but she's also just trying to survive. Beast Boy is a little bit too focused on his relationship with Terra, and like the validation he wants to get from her that he can't look at Terra as a whole person, or realize from an outsider's perspective she's a kid in dire need of saving. Well he does at times, but like I said he flips between advocating for never giving up on her, and victim blaming her because Terra is not easy to understand and he cannot make up his mind.

Terra is the main character of her own story and Beast Boy doesn't know how to comprehend her that way, or set himself aside to look at things from Terra's perspective because he's fifteen and stuck inside his own head with all those adolescent feelings and hormones.

In both versions, I think Beast Boy mistakes what could have been a strong friendship for romance because he is obsessed with getting into a relationship without really understanding what that entails. Beast Boy not being a good boyfriend at fifteen is actually perfectly understandable, the whole tragedy of the Judas Contract in general is that just like Terra is too immature to save herself from her situation, the Titans also just being kids are too young to save her.

They also both try to jump into a relationship without building a solid friendship first, because they both need love and stability and have no idea how relationships are supposed to work. It's like they both fell in love with the people they were when they first met and the relationship never evolved. They are similar and there is a connection, but rather than the things they have in common bringing them together, it drives them apart.

#beast boy #tara markov #terra #teen titans #teen titans meta #tt meta #new teen titans #terra markov #terra teen titans #garfield logan #bbterra #beast boy x terra #judas contract #metasks

[speakergame]

What's the ROs are like as parents? Maybe also how Li and Seb are like as parents together(poly)?

honestly, the answer would be pretty much the same as it is here :)

#speaker game #asks #obviously it's not exactly the same since other peoples' kids vs their own #but the answers are similar enough #Anonymous

[panlight]

i think one of meyer's biggest problems (i mean aside from the obvious) is that to her, the characters in her book that aren't bella and edward are just set dressing. she doesn't understand that anybody could see esme, for example, as a tragic character whose human life was defined by loss and abuse, because to her, she's just a plot device. she's The Mom, full-stop. jacob's imprinting doesn't register as horrifying because renesbait is the perfect daughter who deserves the perfect happy ending (a doting husband and probably kids), and jacob is just perfect for her! he's big and strong and loyal, and he won't age and die on her! she doesn't seem to get that people could see these characters as anything other than vehicles for bella and edward's story (and renesbait's, down the line). she has exactly one (1) story that she wants to tell, and anything else is just flavor text.

though to be fair, this started as her personal fantasy. when she got a book deal, she then had to go and beef up the story, which i think is where a lot of the worst stuff comes from.

Yeah, pretty much this.

And this is why romance novels and rom-coms that focus on just one couple (vs an ensemble like Love Actually or something), usually have a pretty limited cast because, who cares? The point is the relationship between the two leads, you don't really need or want anything else. Maybe a quirky or sassy friend (Alice) and a rival (Jacob) or some sort of inconvenient girlfriend/fiancee/ex (sort of Tanya? but not really) and that's all you really need. Family might exist for funny meeting-the-parents scenes but you don't need a backstory on the parents. You don't need a backstory on the quirky friend.

But after she invented Edward, she said she couldn't imagine him without a family. He MUST have a sister like Alice. But that's not enough. SM is from a big family, Edward deserves a big family, so then she invents all these other characters to be The Mom and The Father Figure/Mentor, then The Big Brother. Then oops, Quirky Sister and Big Brother need romantic partners, so here comes Mean Sister and The Vampire-y One. And now you have this huge cast with thinly sketched (but interesting!!!) histories that she doesn't plan to actually DO much of anything with, they just exist to be The Family. None of them have a story arc of their own. I mean I guess there's sort of "Rosalie learns to like Bella" but that's still Bella-centric and is more about Bella's fantasy of a perfect forever family. Does Jasper improve his control? Is Alice vicariously living through Bella's human experiences meaningful? Does Carlisle successfully convince others to try vegetarianism? Who knows, who cares, not the point.

And then she just keeps adding more characters! The cast of the Twilight novels is huge; it's like a Harry Potter universe of characters when the storyline is a pretty insular romance. She invents all these fascinating characters who can turn into wolves and then again, doesn't follow through with anything. Does Leah find peace? Do she and Emily mend their friendship? Who is Embry's father? Doesn't matter. Not relevant to Bella's story.

There's the Volturi, who at first to seem to be about world building and lore, but then they just sit on there thrones so much they've started to petrify. They literally don't do anything! And again, to tell this story you maybe need like one leader and one scary weaponized vamp, but we get THREE leaders and a whole bunch of named vampires with different powers who again, never really get to do much of anything. What's the point of the history between Amun and Demetri when it's never mentioned at all?

Then all the visiting vampires. She obviously LOVES Garrett and Benjamin, you can just feel the "aren't these characters SO COOL?!" pulsing through the page. But other than Garrett's big speech [which feels weird because we only just met this guy. Usually a character who had been there since the beginning would have this moment, a moment that we had been building up to for four books. Maybe Carlisle gets to make his final plea for vegetarianism. Maybe Esme, always quiet, always on the sidelines, steps forward and surprises everyone with her defense of her family and their way of life. Maybe Jasper, the one who wasn't totally sold on this diet, who wouldn't have tried it at all if not for his gift basically forcing him to, gives an impassioned speech from the POV of a former human-blood-drinker that appeals to the other vampires better than any of the veggie-from-the-start Cullens could. But no, it's Garrett, whom we met like 50? 100? pages ago, but since we're told he's a Revolutionary, and a Patriot, that's all the weight we need], none of them really matter or do anything. Benjamin could have left Amun in the end and that would have been something, but, no. It's still Bella's shield that gets all the credit for saving the day. It's still her story and her fantasy. And that's fine! Certainly there are plenty of male-centered power fantasies where some average guy turns out to be the chosen one and better at something than the people who have trained for it for years and gets love and power in the end.

It's just weird that the story she wanted to tell was pretty much just Bella and Edward Fall in Love and Get Married and Bella is the Best Vampire and yet she invented all these other characters without giving them any larger purpose. They have backstories that SEEM relevant but never go anywhere. Esme having met Carlisle when she was a human teen never comes up. Carlisle's mother dying in childbirth is never mentioned during the debates over Bella's pregnancy. Emily's scars are clearly supposed to be a warning about the dangers of being involved with supernatural beings, but it's a warning Bella ignores (and that's not even getting into using the suffering of an Indigenous character to teach a white girl a lesson). Leah's dad only died so Edward could be confused about 'the funeral' and think it was Bella's; it's never really brought up otherwise. There's no reason the rest of the pack has to be so crappy to her, it doesn't go anywhere. How much would the main story really change if Edward were the only vampire and Jacob the only wolf? Sure, some plot beats would be different without Alice to predict things, or without the tension between the Sam and Jacob factions in BD, but overall you could tell basically the same story without literally everyone else.

#asks

[olderthannetfic]

I'm a Chinese, nationally and racially. Racial projection seems to be a common practice in western fandom, doesn't it? I find it a bit... weird to witness the drama ignited upon shipping individuals with different races, or the tendency to separate characters into different "colors" even though the world setting doesn't divide races like that. Such practice isn't a thing here. Mind explaining a bit on this phenomenon?

--

Sure, I can try. But of course, fish aren’t very good at explaining the water they swim in.

Americans aren’t good at detecting our own Americanness, and a lot of what you’re seeing is very much culturally American rather than Western in general. (In much of Europe, “race” is a concept used by racists, or so I’m told, unlike in the US where it’s seen more neutrally.) Majority group members (i.e. me, a white girl) aren’t usually the savviest about minority issues, but I’ll give it a shot.

The big picture is that most US race stuff boils down to our attempts to justify and maintain slavery and that dynamic being applied, awkwardly, to everyone else too, even years after we abolished slavery.

There’s a concept called the “one drop rule” where a person is “black” if they have even one drop of black blood.

We used to outlaw “interracial” marriage until quite recently. (That meant marriage between black people and white people with Asians and Hispanic people and others wedged in awkwardly.) Here’s the Wikipedia article on this, which contains the following map showing when we legalized interracial marriage. The red states are 1967.

That’s within living memory for a ton of people! Yellow is 1948 to 1967. This is just not very long ago at all. (Hell, we only fully banned slavery in 1865, which is also just not that long ago when it comes to human culture.)

Why did we have this bananas-crazy set of laws and this idiotic notion that one remote ancestor defines who you are? It boils down to slavery requiring a constant reaffirming that black people are all the same (and subhuman) while white people are all this completely separate category. The minute you start intermarrying, all of that breaks down. This was particularly important in our history because our system of slavery involved the kids of slaves being slaves and nobody really buying their way out. Globally, historically, there are other systems of slavery where there was more mobility or where enslaved people were debtors with a similar background to owners, and thus the people in power were less threatened by ambiguity in identity.

Post-slavery, this shit hung around because it was in the interests of the people in power to maintain a similar status quo where black people are fundamentally Other.

A lot of our obsession with who counts as what is simply a legacy of our racist past that produced our racist present.

--

The other big factor in American concepts of identity is that we see ourselves as a nation of immigrants (ignoring our indigenous peoples, as usual). A lot of people’s families arrived here relatively recently, and we often don’t have good records of exactly where they were from, even aside from enslaved people who obviously wouldn’t have those records. Plenty of people still identify with a general nationality (”Italian-American” and such), but the nuance the family might once have had (specific region of Italy, specific hometown) is often lost. Yeah, I know every place has immigrants, and lots of people don’t have good records, but the US is one of those countries where families have on average moved around a lot more and a lot more recently than some, and it affects our concepts of identity. I think some of the willingness to buy into the idea of “races” rather than “ethnicities” has to do with this flattening of identity.

New immigrant groups were often seen as Other and lesser, but over time, the ones who could manage it got added to our concept of “whiteness”, which gave them access to those same social and economic privileges.

Skin color is a big part of this. In a system that is founded on there being two categories, white owners and black slaves, skin color is obviously going to be about that rather than being more of a class marker like it is in a lot of the world.

But it’s not all about skin color since we have plenty of Europeans with somewhat darker skin who are seen as generically white here, while very pale Asians are not. I’m not super familiar with all of the history of anti-Asian racism in the US, but I think this persistent Otherness probably boils down to Western powers trying to justify colonial activities in Asia plus a bunch of religious bullshit about predominantly Christian nations vs. ones that are predominantly Buddhist or some other religion.

In fact, a lot of racist archetypes in English can be traced back to England’s earliest colonial efforts in Ireland. Justifying colonizing Those People because they’re subhuman and/or ignorant and in need of paternalistic rulers or religious conversion is at the bottom of a lot of racist notions. Ironic that we now see Irish people as clearly “white”.

--

There are a lot of racist porn tropes and racist cultural baggage here around the idea of black people being animalistic. Racist white people think black men want to rape/steal white women from white men. Black women get seen as hypersexual and aggressive. If this sounds like white people projecting in order to justify murder and rape... well, it is.

Similar tropes get applied to a lot of groups, often including Hispanic and Middle Eastern people, though East Asians come in more for creepy fantasies about endlessly submissive and promiscuous women. This nonsense already existed, but it was certainly not helped by WWII servicemen from here and their experiences in Asia. Again, it’s a projection to justify shitty behavior as what the party with less power was “asking for”.

In porn and even romance novels, this tends to turn up as a white character the audience is supposed to identify with paired with an exotic, mysterious Other or an animalistic sexy rapist Other.

A lot of fandoms are based on US media, so all of our racist bullshit does apply to the casting and writing of those, whether or not the fic is by Americans or replicating our racist porn tropes.

(Obviously, things get pretty hilarious and infuriating once Americans get into c-dramas and try to apply the exact same ideas unchanged to mainstream media about the majority group made by a huge and powerful country.)

--

Politically, within the US, white people have had most of the power most of the time. We also make up a big chunk of the population. (This is starting to change in some areas, which has assholes scared shitless.) This means that other groups tend to band together to accomplish shared political goals. They’re minorities here, so they get lumped together.

A lot of Americans become used to seeing the world in terms of “white people” who are powerful oppressors and “people of color” who are oppressed minorities. They’re trying to be progressive and help people with less power, and that’s good, but it obviously becomes awkward when it’s over-applied to looking at, say, China.

--

Now... fandom...

I find that fandom, in general, has a bad habit of holding things to double standards: queer things must be Good Representation™ even when they’re not being produced for that purpose. Same for ethnic minorities or any other minority. US-influenced parts of fandom (which includes a lot of English-speaking fandom) tend to not be very good at accepting that things are just fantasy. This has gotten worse in recent years.

As fandom has gotten more mainstream here, general media criticism about better representation (both in terms of number of characters and in terms of how they’re portrayed) has turned into fanfic criticism (not enough fics about ship X, too many about ship Y, problematic tropes that should not be applied to ship X, etc.). I find this extremely misguided considering the smaller reach of fandom but, more importantly, the lack of barriers to entry. If you think my AO3 fic sucks, you can make an account and post other fic that will be just as findable. You don’t need money or industry connections or to pass any particular hurdle to get your work out there too.

People also (understandably) tend to be hypersensitive to anything that looks like a racist porn trope. My feeling is that many of these are general porn tropes and people are reaching. There are specific tropes where black guys are given a huge dick as part of showing that they’re animalistic and hypersexual, but big dicks are really common in porn in general. The latter doesn’t automatically mean you’re doing the former unless there are other elements present. A/B/O or dubcon doesn’t mean it’s this racist trope either, not unless certain cliched elements are present. OTOH, it’s not hard for a/b/o tropes to feel close to “animalistic guy is rapey”, so I can see why it often bothers people.

A huge, huge, huge proportion of wank is “all rape fantasies are bad” crap too, which muddies the waters. I think a lot of people use “it’s racist” as an easy way to force others to agree with their incorrect claims that dubcon, noncon, a/b/o, etc. are fundamentally bad. Many fans, especially white fans, feel like they don’t know enough to refute claims of racism, so they cave to such arguments even when they’re transparently disingenuous.

--

Not everyone here thinks this way. I know plenty of people offline, particularly a lot of nonwhite people, who think fandom discourse is idiotic and that the people “protecting” people or characters of color are far more racist than the people writing “bad” fic or shipping the wrong thing.

But in general, I’d say that the stuff above is why a lot of us see the world as white people in power vs. everyone else as oppressed victims, interracial relationships as fraught, and porn about them as suspect. Basically, it’s people trying to be more progressive and aware but sometimes causing more harm than good when those attempts go awry.

#Anonymous

[umbralstars]

Honestly thinking about how any Crested Blaiddyd has to be super careful when interacting with the world.

They are physically stronger than practically everyone around them and very few people have a chance of getting anywhere close. Even others with a Crest likely can't match them because Blaiddyd's Crest is just built different. Anyone with Blaiddyd's Crest would need to be really careful even in spars because they could hurt someone even without weapons.

They would need to be cognizant in how much force they put behind anything not just when fighting. They would need to be careful when giving handshakes or hugs because any amount of force could easily hurt someone. They also seem to just have a hard time controlling that strength and honestly that makes a lot of sense. They live in a world that's not built for them in any way. Anywhere the Blaiddyd's reside has to be specialty built for them to accommodate their sheer strength.

Can you imagine a child who has that kind of strength? Like if their Crests show themselves really early a child with that much strength would honestly be dangerous to practically everything around them.All I can think about honestly is the scene in Hercules before he learns to control his strength and just destroys a whole fourm.

The only people they likely can interact with normally are Nabateans and other Blaiddyds. Maybe others with Crests if said Crest gives them some kind of physical strength boost. They probably need to learn as kids how exactly to interact with people and things just to make sure they don't destroy anything or hurt anyone. You can probably tell who has a Blaiddyd Crest and who doesn't off the way they carry themselves and interact with thing. They have to hold every besides specialty made items with a lighter hand, especially anything made out of glass. They probably barely touch people and only do so with the lightest possible pressure unless said person has previously shown how much they can handle. Honestly, they might feel really disconnected because or how much they need to restrain themselves from others.

TL;DR: Super strength wack and other people with the Blaiddyd Crest probably stick together/feel relieved when they meet another one cause "Holy Goddess finally someone who I don't need to handle like glass"

(PS: House Riegan? Totally has the same problem sometimes cause of the Blaiddyd blood they got running through their veins. The Blaiddyds and the Riegans probably have low levels of each other's Crests all the time because of the whole cadet brant vs senior branch situation, no telling when each Crest got into the system. It's my favorite headcanon to tie in with the Dragon Signs.

Basically both HB and HH have times where the other House's Crest manifests in the other, and since both Crests are so strong in the bloodline they can use each other's Relics far easier than other Crested bloodlines. Like to the point of being able to use Fallen Star and Atrocity to less powerful degrees. Hence why Claude gave Dimitri Failnaught on AM even though no one else should've been able to us it. Emyr actually gets Failnaught in my own personal AM route and uses it to great effectiveness though not as much as Claude would've been able to comparatively.

Obviously, no double Crests since that is a hard rule one cannot break outside of unnatural means. But what these two have going on is their blood not being enough to manifest a minor Crest but still strong enough to make the Relics recognize them. Can't say if other Houses have done this, so this is just me going off the canon example we do have.)

#fe3h #fire emblem three houses #fire emblem #fe3h headcanons #house blaiddyd #house von riegan #long post

[yumeka36]

Analysis on the absence of Elsa and the Northuldra in post-Frozen 2 stories

If you've been following post-Frozen 2 storybooks and comics as closely as I have over the past year and a half, you've probably noticed that the majority of stories take place in Arendelle and focus on Anna partaking in adventures with Kristoff, Olaf, and Sven. While Elsa has appeared alongside them in a few stories, as well as a couple of her own stories taking place in the forest with Olaf and Bruni, the ratio of "Anna stories" vs "Elsa stories" is pretty one-sided. And, while new characters introduced in Frozen 2 like Mattias, Halima, Bruni, and Nokk, have had some appearances in post-F2 stories, the Northuldra have had zero…not even mentions or cameos. I’ve been pondering on this topic quite a bit and finally got around to writing all my thoughts. This is a long and thorough analysis so sit back, enjoy, and put your thinking cap on...

The lack of Elsa in post-F2 stories is puzzling since both Anna and Elsa are fairly even when it comes to post-F2 content in general; all the post-F2 merch I've seen has both of them in equal amounts, and pictures of Elsa are always all over the magazine covers and paper craft pages that the comics come from. So it's not like she's being excluded from post-F2 merch overall, she's just noticeably absent from most of the comics and storybooks. Again, this is puzzling because post-F2 marketing gives the impression of "Anna's doing her thing in Arendelle" and "Elsa's doing her thing in the forest," so an equal number of stories for each sister, as well as a few where they do things together, seems like the most logical way to go. Yet the ratio of post-F2 stories currently looks something like this:

Stories featuring Anna in Arendelle with other characters (no Elsa) - 56%

Book & Comic: Anna getting a gift for the queen of Chatho

Book & Comic: Anna getting an official portrait as queen

Book: Mattias getting accustomed to Arendelle again

Comic: Anna and Mattias visit Halima

Comic: Anna and Kristoff make a bicycle for Olaf

Comic: The gang helps Olaf find a new nose

Comic: The gang celebrates the spring festival

Comic: Olaf minds the kingdom when Anna is sick

Book: The origin of Olaf, Kristoff, and Sven's epilogue outfits (this one is technically not post-F2, but I'm counting it since it's so close to the end of the movie. Also it’s an upcoming book, so no link yet)

Book: Arendelle celebrates the cloudberry festival

(out of these, Mattias has featured in about 17%)

Stories featuring Elsa with Anna and the rest of Frohana - 27%

Book: Anna awaits Elsa's visit after their initial parting

Book: Explore the North (this isn't a storybook but a collection of isolated scenes during and after F2; since some scenes are post-F2, I'm counting it)

Comic: Elsa visits Arendelle for charades

Comic: Anna and co. visit Elsa in the forest to help Bruni

Comic: Elsa visits Arendelle for the snowman competition

Stories featuring Elsa in the forest with the spirits (and Olaf, no Anna) - 17%

Book: Bruni's Big Adventure

Book: Elsa, Sven, and the spirits help Olaf find a unicorn

Book: Elsa helps restore balance in the forest that resulted from the misguided actions of some travelers

(out of these, Yelena, Honeymaren, Ryder, and/or other Northuldra have featured in 0%)

*Major shoutout to @chileanon​​ and @bigfrozenfan​​ for translating many of these stories that aren’t available in English*

(my percentages are based on the number of post-F2 stories released thus far, to my knowledge, in the form of comics or books. Some stories have both a comic and book version, as well as two different book iterations with only slight differences. In these cases, I'm counting them as one. Since comics are released sporadically and only in a few European countries, my number may be slightly off if there were any not brought to my attention on social media. I'm very active with finding information about post-F2 content, so I feel my numbers are fairly accurate. And again, I'm only counting stories that take place post-F2, or at least within the timeframe of the epilogue, not stories that take place during or before)

(I'd also like to point out that Olaf is the only character who has appeared in every single post-F2 story so far. It makes sense since he's a very marketable character for the kids and simple to write for. Though this probably wasn't the intention, I'm seeing him as a connection symbol between Anna and Elsa as they go about their new roles).

So what is the deal with these ratios? As I said, both Anna and Elsa have been evenly highlighted throughout all of Frozen 2's marketing, and continue to be to this day (and Elsa is arguably the more financially successful of the two and Disney knows it), so why is Anna so much more prevalent when it comes to post-F2 stories? And why are the Northuldra so left out? Obviously they wouldn't feature in a lot of stories since they're not main (and marketable) characters, but if Mattias can appear in a story or two, why can't the Northuldra at least get a mention? If someone hadn't seen Frozen 2 and read these post-movie stories, they would think the only residents of the forest are Elsa, the spirits, and some animals. Is there a reason for this? These are the kinds of questions I will examine and attempt to answer in this post.

But before I get to the meat of this analysis, please take note of the following disclaimers (I apologize for the length of the disclaimers, but they're important things to keep in mind):

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Disclaimers

- All of this is my own speculation based on the facts made public; namely, the content of the post-movie stories themselves. Since I have no insight into the coordination, publishing process, or other planning/logistics behind the creation of these stories, theorizing is all I can do. I don't know to what extent executives at Disney dictate what authors can and can't write in these stories, whether the authors actually have a lot of creative freedom yet choose to write the stories this way, or whether these outcomes vary depending on factors like country and story format. So I'm purely going off the limited knowledge I have and what I feel is most logical.

- Continuing from my previous point, unless you have some insider knowledge about the inner workings of Disney Publishing Worldwide, Disney Press, or whatever branch of Disney creates these post-movie stories, exactly who is responsible for the way they are is unknown. I could be wrong of course, but I doubt that Head of WDAS Jen Lee has the need to personally green light 6-12 page comic stories that get printed in a foreign language magazine read by, like, 1% of Frozen's worldwide audience. Even though Jen Lee and Chris Buck created the story and characters of Frozen, the franchise is owned by Disney firstly, and it's very likely other people at Disney provide approval for things like this in lieu of the filmmakers. It’s doubtful that the Frozen 2 filmmakers had any input into the creation of these post-movie stories, or even know that they exist. While the Frozen 2 filmmaking team is responsible for how Frozen 2 ended, they ended it in a way for post-stories to easily expand on the Frozen-verse like how I previously described; some stories featuring Anna as queen and interacting with the people of Arendelle, some stories featuring Elsa in the forest interacting with the spirits and the Northuldra, and some stories with them doing things together. And technically this is exactly what post-F2 stories have been doing–we have stories featuring Anna as queen, stories with Elsa in the forest, and stories of them doing things together…it's just that the proportion of "Anna stories" vs "Elsa stories" is surprisingly off, plus the complete absence of the Northuldra. And again, whether it was someone's decision that the stories should be this way, or whether it's just a weird coincidence, is unclear. Is there a particular person or persons from Disney's publishing branches pushing for the stories to be the way they are? Or is it the individual authors' decision? Or some combination of both…or some other factor entirely? Yes, higher ups at Disney have to provide approval for every official piece of media that gets released for their IPs, but who is "Disney" in this case? A manager/supervisor at Disney Press? Is it the same person who approves every new story or just some? Is it just one person who approves or is there some long chain of approval? And if so, how far up does it go...all the way up to someone who actually worked on Frozen 2, or does it stop before then? Does it vary by country? Does it vary whether the story is in comic or book format? There are a lot of unknowns in terms of how these stories come about, so please be mindful of that fact before assigning blame to any one person or group of people.

- And lastly, again, I'm only focusing on post-F2 stories–stories that take place after the events of Frozen 2. I know that comics and books have come out after Frozen 2's release that take place during or before the events of the movie, such as a comic about Ryder helping Kristoff with the proposal and a book showing Frohana having a family game night prior to the movie. For this analysis, I'm only focusing on how the characters and franchise are presented post-movie, in brand new ways not yet explored in the actual canon of the movie. I'm more interested in seeing how these stories are shaping the franchise going forward in anticipation of new official canon content whenever it comes.

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So with all this in mind, let's keep analyzing…

Lack of Elsa

First I'm going to examine the main reasons I have for why we don't see Elsa as often in post-F2 stories:

Arendelle stories are easy and familiar: Personally, I think this is the most likely reason, especially for the comics. The comics are made as part of magazines released in a few European countries. They're simply extra selling points for the magazines, which contain other items that appeal to kids, like arts & crafts activities, and Elsa is always all over those even if she's not part of the comic. I would also venture to guess that the authors and artists who create the comics don't have a ton of time, or incentive, to weave together interesting stories. After years of releasing Frozen 1-based comics that almost always involve adventures in Arendelle, I'd imagine it's very easy for current Frozen comic writers to simply follow that formula, since it worked in the past and is easy and familiar. Sure, they could include Elsa in more of those stories, but if you look at it from the perspective of a comic writer with deadlines, if I could get away with writing an acceptable story without including an extra character to draw/write for, I would do that as much as I could. If Elsa is still in, like, 80% of the magazine, I think little kids would still be enticed to buy them even if she's absent from the comic stories. Obviously with Frozen 1, all the characters lived in Arendelle, so it wouldn't make sense to have a lot of stories without Elsa (though there were some). But now that Elsa is living elsewhere, her absence in these stories isn't as questionable, especially when she's still part of the magazine in general. While this logic applies more to the magazine comics than storybooks, I would still argue that the storybooks are also niche and are simply made to bring in a little extra revenue to small markets rather than a serious attempt to expand the canon.

So then the question becomes, why not show more stories of Elsa in the forest with the spirits and/or Northuldra? Those stories could be simple too, like a story about Elsa and the spirits helping Honeymaren find a lost baby reindeer or something like that. The reason for this could again boil down to Arendelle simply being an easier and more familiar setting to work with. If excluding Elsa from the comics has no affect on magazine sales, since she's already present in the rest of the magazine, why not just stick with a formula that works and takes less effort to write? Even if coming up with simple stories for Elsa in the forest isn't too difficult, Arendelle is a more recognizable and "glamorous" setting, especially for the magazine's target audience of little girls. Another key point is that Elsa's exact role in the forest was left much more open to interpretation at the end of the movie than Anna's role as queen. Being the queen of a kingdom is something easily identifiable, and again, easier to write for. Why risk depicting Elsa's activities in the forest in a way that could conflict with Disney's expectations (assuming someone with clout at Disney green lights these stories) when you can just stick with safe adventures in Arendelle?

Disconnect between stories and canon: This is more of a general statement about fandom interpretation of the comics and storybooks as serious depictions of post-movie canon: it's best to keep in mind that these stories are, again, simply made to bring in a little extra revenue for the franchise, as most of Frozen's earning are either from box office sales or toys/dolls and other merch. Most of the books and comics aren't made with a large, worldwide market in mind, so I'd hesitate to think that a lot of effort is put into creating stories that are true depictions of post-canon content that would perfectly align with a potential Frozen 3 or other future official releases. Many of the post-Frozen 1 stories released in books and comics contradict each other in minor ways, as well as the actual canon movies and shorts as well. This is unfortunately what happens when you have a franchise like Frozen that's owed by a company (Disney) and not an individual director, author, etc. Unlike, say, Harry Potter or Naruto, where the work is owned firstly by the original author who has say into practically every new media piece that's created for their franchise, lots of different people at Disney contribute to various pieces of Frozen media and bring their own interpretations into it…interpretations that could end up not aligning with each other or future canon content from the filmmakers. A few different authors write the post-F2 storybooks, and still different authors write the comics, and I doubt they collaborate to make sure everything in their respective mediums match up exactly, nor do they check in with the Frozen 2 filmmakers to make sure every story released is a clear representation of whatever vision the filmmakers have for not-yet-conceived post-F2 content. This might not be the case for a bigger production, like the Frozen novels such as Dangerous Secrets, and shorts like Olaf's Frozen Adventure, but it is for these little kiddy books and comics that a very small portion of the market even knows about. Even if someone at Disney has to approve them, as I mentioned in the disclaimer, we have no idea if it's the same person always approving, different people depending on country/format, or if there's some chain of people who provide approval. This spreading out of the Frozen-verse across different media formats and Disney branches unfortunately spells frustration for fans who are constantly trying to build one, coherent view of the franchise's world through the alignment of the comics, books, shorts, and movies. This is unavoidably the nature of the kind of franchise Frozen is–something that's owned by a multi-faceted behemoth like Disney rather than a single author, so there's going to be a disconnect between its media formats that are conceived by a variety of different minds at the company. In the end, everyone is free to decide what they do and don't consider canon, but don't be surprised when the image the storybook writing team has for Frozen ends up being different than what the filmmakers create years later.

The pandemic: While I don’t think the covid pandemic is the sole reason here, it could be a possible contributor. Manufacturing was compromised across various industries in 2020, and magazine/book publishing could have been one of them. Maybe Disney did have plans to create more post-F2 books in early 2020, but had to change those plans (among many other things) when the pandemic hit. Some possible evidence for this is that, for some of the storybooks at least, the European translations are based on the English versions, which means the English versions came first, and yet the English versions weren’t released until several months later, most not even in hardcover form. This could indicate a slowdown in this branch at Disney in the US, or at least a portion of it. The US did get some hardcover Frozen 2 books in 2020, like Explore the North, Bruni’s Big Adventure, and the Frozen 2 manga, but not as many as Europe, which is strange if these books started off in English first. Again, without any insight into the industry, I can only theorize, but I do believe the pandemic should at least be considered.

Disney restrictions for future canon: This is an optimistic reason, but one that I think is important to mention. A possible reason that Elsa is noticeably absent from post-F2 stories, but not F2 marketing in general, could be because Disney has future plans for exactly what her role as the fifth spirit is and they don't want to risk anything that portrays that role in a contradictory way. They might not know exactly what that role is yet, but they'd rather not risk retconning anything that's shown in official content, like the comics and storybooks. Since Elsa's role was left open to interpretation at the end of the movie, focusing too much on what she's doing everyday could inadvertently reveal things about her role that could be portrayed as expanding the canon, something that these stories aren't allowed to do. So perhaps the authors are told to downplay Elsa's activities in the forest as much as possible, so often they'd rather just exclude her altogether to make things easier. Of course, this is complete speculation, but I'd like to hope it's true if it means Disney has future plans for Frozen!

On that note, the only story released thus far that has a direct depiction of what Elsa does in the forest is Tales of Courage & Kindness, a digital book that was recently released as part of Disney's Ultimate Princess Celebration campaign. I feel like this book is slightly closer to canon than the other books and comics because it was promoted on various official Disney social media outlets (and was released in English, while many of the books and comics aren't). It depicts Elsa's role (one role she has at least) of helping the spirits protect the forest from outside influences that could throw off its balance. Again, this book is still pretty niche and we don't know if there was any collaboration between the filmmakers and the author of this story, so this depiction of Elsa's role could be downplayed in favor of something else in future canon content. But what I found most puzzling about it is that this book, which seemed to be written for slightly older children than most of the post-F2 storybooks, had a perfect opportunity to feature the Northuldra, since it takes place exclusively in the forest. And yet, there wasn't even a mention of them at all. Which leads to the next portion of this analysis…

Lack of Northuldra

Even though Elsa doesn't appear in as many post-movie storybooks and comics as Anna (for possible reasons I just discussed), she still features in some of them. The Northuldra, however, have not appeared in any post-F2 stories, even the few that take place in the forest. This is strange since the epilogue of Frozen 2 very clearly shows Elsa with the Northuldra at their camp, as well as with the spirits. But as far as post-movie stories, the most we've gotten is one line from Elsa in one of the comics (English version from the official UK magazine):

(thanks to Snow on Discord for sharing this with me)

We can assume the "anyone" she's referring to are the Northuldra who live in the forest (unless she's referring to the animals of the forest, lol. Also, why the heck are they calling Bruni an "it"? This is a prime example of what I mentioned before about the disconnect between the various branches at Disney. In the Bruni's Big Adventure book and other official content, Bruni is referred to as "he/him")

As a matter of fact, Olaf, who lives with Anna and the others in Arendelle, is more prevalent in the forest stories than the Northuldra! I feel like he's been added to these stories to give Elsa someone to talk to, since Bruni and the other spirits don't talk. But why not have her talk to Honeymaren, Ryder, or Yelena? I know all the kids love Olaf, but you'd think they could get away with having one story where Elsa interacts with the Northuldra, just like Anna has a couple of stories where most of her interactions were with Mattias. And like Elsa, the Northuldra aren't excluded from post-F2 overall as they're still seen occasionally in other merch. They're just not in any stories that are set post-F2. This exclusion of the Northuldra is very bizarre, so let's see what we can analyze for why it's like this…

The Northuldra aren't marketable characters: This would be a likely reason if it weren't for the fact that Mattias, who is also arguably not a marketable character, has appeared in a few post-F2 stories. In fact, many minor Arendellian characters often appear in the comics and storybooks…Halima has gotten more attention in these stories than the actual movie! So I think it's more than that, which leads to my next point…

The spirits are more marketable: This is probably why stories that feature Elsa in the forest aren't focused on the Northuldra. Again, assuming the stories in the books and comics are created just to bring in a little extra money and not as serious depictions of canon content in collaboration with the filmmakers, it makes a lot of sense to keep the focus on what sells the best. We know that (in terms of merch at least) Bruni and Nokk were the most popular new characters from Frozen 2, so why not have stories with Elsa in the forest focused on them? This doesn't contradict the ending of Frozen 2 after all. However, this doesn't explain why there's literally no mention of the Northuldra. Even if the stories focus on the spirits, they can at least show the Northuldra in the background or mention them here and there. Which then leads to my next point…

Few stories in the forest, so few chances: In conjunction with my previous two points, I think this is the main reason for the lack of Northuldra in post-F2 stories…there just hasn't been enough opportunities. First off, most post-F2 stories take place in Arendelle, so no reason for the Northuldra to be seen there (unless they wanted to depict Arendelle and Northuldra mingling with each other, but that concept is probably beyond the scope of the kiddy books and comics!) And as of now, there have only been four post-F2 stories that take place in the forest…

-Bruni's Big Adventure: this one gets a free pass because it's aimed at very little kids and literally just shows Bruni and Olaf goofing off, with Elsa making brief appearances at the beginning and end. The more descriptive European version does mention about Elsa living in the forest with the spirits and no mention of the Northuldra. But again, this book seems aimed at an even younger audience than the others, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the author needed to keep things very simple and only mention what’s important for the story at hand.

-A Day With Bruni comic: this one could have definitely shown some Northuldra in the background, or even mentioned them in Elsa's dialogue. I guess the idea was for the group to meet Elsa in a secluded area, since the story was about helping Bruni get his fire going again, which could be dangerous at a camp site. I still don't know why they weren't at least acknowledged in Elsa's dialogue, but that could have just been a conservative choice by the comic writer.

-A Unicorn for Olaf: while this book could have shown the Northuldra, since it features Elsa, Olaf, Sven, and the spirits travelling all around the forest, I kind of see why they didn't; the theme was that each spirit Olaf encountered helped him get closer to finding the unicorn–it's a simple and easy narrative for a little kid to follow, no need to complicate it by including extra characters (I know it's hard sometimes, but we have to keep the target audience for these stories in mind...it’s much more narrow than the movies!)

-Elsa's story in Tales of Courage & Kindness: out of all these stories, this was definitely the one where the Northuldra should have at least been acknowledged. The story features the forest getting disturbed/thrown off balance, so you would think Elsa would mention the Northuldra, the people living there, perhaps to ask if they know what's happening or if anything was wrong. Really strange that this wasn't the case…only reason I could think of is, again, insistence on simplifying Elsa's role in the forest as much as possible, which includes downplaying anything going on in the forest besides just her and the spirits. Maybe the book author wanted to include mention of the Northuldra, but then was told to edit that part out for simplicity's sake. In Anna's equivalent story in this book, Mattias is absent, which I found strange too. Maybe the author was instructed to keep things simple and not include extra characters if it's not necessary for the story (again, the target audience for this story is the general audience of little kids, not hardcore adult Frozen fanatics). But still more possible reasons for the Northuldra's exclusion from this story, and perhaps the others, could be as follows…

Disney restrictions on depictions of indigenous people: I'm not sure how valid this reason is, but we do know that the filmmaking team consulted with the Sami people about how the Northuldra were depicted in Frozen 2. So when it comes to depicting them in anything post-F2, perhaps Disney's being super sensitive. Maybe the image they want to avoid is "we got your approval to depict the Northuldra in Frozen 2, but as far as anything after that, we can do whatever we want." It wouldn't pay to consult with the Sami on all these little niche storybooks and comics, so why go through that hassle when it's very easy to just exclude the Northuldra from them? There are some flaws with this idea though, like where does Dangerous Secrets fit into this (it's not post-F2, but it's still content featuring the Northuldra in ways not shown in the movie). Then there's the fact that Disney doesn't have this restriction with their other movies that feature indigenous cultures, like Moana for example. But the argument there could be that Moana is a main character, so they literally couldn't have any post-movie stories if they had this restriction, so maybe different coordinating/negotiations took place in that case compared to Frozen 2.

The Northuldra are nomadic: This is a reasonable argument for why Elsa seems to often be alone with the spirits in the forest. But I feel like the movie tried to convey that the Northuldra live in the forest. They might travel around the forest to forage for food and set up camp at different locations, but they don't stray too far. In the movie's prologue, Agnarr does say that the forest was "home" to the Northuldra, and I don’t recall Dangerous Secrets giving any indication that they leave the forest for extended periods of time. But this is something that could definitely be addressed in future canon, I just don’t think there's enough evidence for it as of now.

Coincidence/author's choice: This applies not just to the absence of the Northuldra, but lack of Elsa in the post-movie stories as well…it could all just be a coincidence. Maybe the authors of these stories have freedom in terms of how they portray Elsa and whether or not they include the Northuldra, yet they simply are choosing not to. Their reasons for doing so could be what I've already discussed–stories in Arendelle are easier and more familiar, so why not stick with that when there's no consequences for it? And likewise, why continually include Elsa, an extra character to draw and write dialogue for, in the Arendelle stories when there's no need to anymore? Maybe tomorrow a new story will be announced that features Elsa in the forest interacting with the Northuldra and what I've said here becomes way less relevant? But I feel like it's not a total coincidence…like, maybe some countries are more restrictive than others, or some Disney branches are more restrictive, like the comics vs the storybooks. It's hard to say, but some of this could be coincidence for sure.

Conclusion

To summarize, there could be several reasons for why Elsa and the Northuldra aren't as prevalent in post-F2 stories, or it could just be a weird coincidence. I'm of the opinion that the authors of these stories keep the focus on adventures in Arendelle out of convenience and familiarity, since the books and comics are made just to bring in a little extra revenue from small markets. Elsa is still all over other Frozen 2 merch like dolls and toys, and that's where the bulk of the franchise's sales come from. The authors could be restricted by Disney in some way with how they depict Elsa's role in the forest, or whether or not they can include the Northuldra, so they often opt to just not have them in the stories, or just stick to the more marketable characters like Olaf and Bruni. Without any inside information about how Disney's publishing branch makes these stories, we can only speculate. But what I do know is that viewing these stories as an accurate image of what all future content for the franchise will be like is very premature. It's only been a year and a half since Frozen 2 (and only seven months since new animated content with Once Upon a Snowman). Even though that seems like a long time for fans, it's an extremely short time in terms of how long Disney takes to create new content for their animated films. Just look at how many years it took to announce new series’ for Princess and the Frog, Zootopia, and Moana? Monsters Inc. just got a new series ten years after its last movie, and Lion King, one of Disney's biggest hits, didn't get a series (The Lion Guard) until nearly twenty years after its sequel movie. Even if Disney seemingly abandons a franchise, they often come back to it in time, especially one as popular as Frozen. Unlike a franchise such as Star Wars that has a whole studio just for it, Frozen has to share resources with other Disney movies, which is why new content for their animated movies is spread out across so many years. And if we do get a Frozen 3 or a series on Disney+ however many years from now, there's a good chance it could portray the current status quo differently from these storybooks and comics, just like how the post-F1 stories feature a different status quo than now. Whether another change like this is good or bad has yet to be decided, but until it happens, I'd like to imagine it's something like this page from the Explore the North book (one of my favorite post-F2 images)

We see Anna and Elsa having fun together while Arendellains, Northuldra, and the spirits are learning to get along again...and honestly, nothing in these post-F2 stories I’ve discussed contradicts this scenario. Even if we don’t see the Northuldra in the stories that take place in the forest, that doesn’t mean they’re not there. Even if there’s fewer stories featuring Anna and Elsa together, that’s no indication of how often they get together in canon. As I discussed, there could be a number of reasons for why the post-F2 stories are as simplified and one-sided as they are...they’re only meant to extend the ending of the movie in minor ways, so that if Frozen 3 or other official canon content is released down the line, nothing will have to be seriously retconned. As I mentioned, a lot of hands at Disney touch these stories without paying mind to the fact that the filmmakers could conceive something different in the future, which is why I don’t take the post-F2 books and comics too seriously. I simply enjoy them for what they do offer and don’t get hung up about what they don’t offer.

#frozen #frozen 2 #frozen2 #disney frozen #frozen analysis #frozen comic #frozen books

[redxblueihateloveyou]

I'm surprised people see Tadashi as the victim in his relationship with Ainosuke, when it's Tadashi the one who time and time again takes away Ainosuke's agency, without being able to see that he is throwing him unto unhappiness. I can't help but think that if Tadashi was not working at Shindo's house, Ainosuke would have maybe left or broke with the family. But he can't do that if he wants the relationship with Tadashi going on, seing how Tadashi is set on enforcing the family rules...

Hmm.. I def agree with the fact that Tadashi is not what most fandom makes out of him, my man (I mean, Adam’s man) is a 100% Slytherin. But I disagree with blaming him for this, after all the revealed info. The environment they were both raised in made their situation complicated.

I like Tadashi a lot, he’s probably my fav thing about this anime, bc he’s a dark horse, and I’m once again surprised, that so little ppl see him for who he really is, portraying him as an innocent puppy, which he is definitely not.

Now to why I think both Tadashi and Adam are victims of the dad and aunties in this situation. 

We can of course say “if only they told each other how they really feel...”, but like we can say it about any love story really. Every author knows it’s no fun. The truth is that yes, they both hurt each other, and yes, if they were honest about their feelings things would’ve been different, but as I’ve already wrote under that “toxic” commentary on YT, lets look at the whole situation from both of their point of views:

We know that Adam when he was little always treated Tadashi as an equal, he never ever thought of him as someone lower than him and after their fall out, the only reason for this “harsh” treatment (well, besides their confirmed kink) was that Adam tried to get a reaction out of him, so Tadashi would stand up for himself, bc Ainosuke got mad about Tadashi caving to his dad’s wishes and abandoning him, when he needed him the most. 

But now, knowing the fact that Tadashi was his dad’s secretary and was under his control, let’s see it from his perspective: Tadashi wanted to stay by Adam’s side, Adam’s dad implied that if Tadashi did say smth, he’s gonna be.. well, dismissed and they won’t see each other ever again. That’s what caused Tadashi to stay silent in that moment. Ainosuke instead saw this as a “he’s not on my side” thing, well, because. Tadashi won’t tell him his problem, bc dad and aunties control everything, so even if he does tell him, what a teen would do really? He didn’t have any powers back then to make his dad do anything. 

And that’s when it all gone to shit, since they both were hurt for their own reasons. It’s easy to say leave the family, but 1stly nobody explained to Adam still that he’s physically and psychologically abused by his family, he sees it as them “loving him” and sadly also loves them, bc nobody told him, that love wasn’t supposed to be like that really. He definitely feels that smth is not right and feels emotionally exhausted there bc of this treatment, but did he ever consider leaving? I really don’t think so. He feels obligated to be worthy of a family, who “loves” him.

Do you think, for example, that Akashi Seijuro hates his dad for what he did to him? No. Does he understand that he wasn’t at fault for what happened to him and that his dad instead of comforting his child after his mother’s death, who was his only safe haven, made everything worse? I don’t think he does. Like his mom gave him basketball, an escape from all that family’s obligations and strictness. After her death, it was the only thing left that brought him joy, but his dad ruined even that, saying that if he’s gonna be bad at it/lose, he’d take it away from him too. Does Akashi see this as emotional abuse? No, he sees it like “well, I have to be the best bc I was born in such powerful family, so if my dad says that I must be best at everything, then I must.”

I personally hate such parents a lot. To me it doesn’t matter if Adam’s dad didn’t know about aunties hitting his child. Like if he was too busy to notice this and have no time for his kid and made his childhood miserable, it doesn’t make it any better really. 

Same as with Akashi’s dad. Some are like “he was probably also grieving about his wife”. Emm? He was like this from the beginning, bc he treated Akashi not as his son, but as his heir. And yes, that’s different things. Same with Endeavor and Todoroki. Your child is not your post production thing.

2ndly they were too young, even if they knew about each others feelings and he didn’t feel obligated and told everyone to fuck off, they’d be on the streets now, but also Adam’s dad doesn’t seem like a guy who’d leave them alone really. Also eloping seems very romantic, but I don’t think it is, esp when you’re teens. Did you want him to sell some expensive watch and go live on Hawaii or smth? Bc finding a decent job there would be difficult at this age, esp with everyone knowing who your dad is. Chen Ke from “Antidote” survived bc he was 27 and had connections and some great friends. Adam was in high school, where would he go exactly?

Now let’s go back to now. Obviously all this time it didn’t even cross Tadashi’s mind that for Ainosuke he comes first and that he would throw everyone under the bus to make Tadashi stay with him. As we see at the end, he legit believed that Adam was planning to send him to jail and didn’t get that he said it just to shaken he up and that he knew who he’d set up for this from the beginning. 

To Adam obviously it doesn’t matter whether they’re in a quarrel or not, he would never him go. Yes, he’s mad at him, he’s angry and hurt, but Tadashi’s still the person he needs the most, he’s still the person who brightens his days, even tho he deliberately behaves like he annoys him. He always looks at him and looks at him and looks at him, but then hisses smth to hurt him. Bc he knows that he needs him, but he also hates that he needs him, bc he thinks it’s unrequited.

And that’s how their classic romance goes in hellish circles. No one wants to talk as usual. Adam is mad Tadashi is like that bc his dad turned him into a slave with no opinion, while Tadashi is scared that Adam would be taken away from him bc of his ugly family. 

Now I still think that no one and I mean no one can take Tadashi from Adam now, he is his precious. So my plan is... if Tadashi made aunties do smth against him or to get rid of him, aunties will go for sure. The problem is Tadashi still doesn’t get that he comes first, so we’re stuck in this hell still.

So anyways, my point is Adam’s heart basically sings “you got a hold of me, don’t even know your power” to Tadashi, but he doesn’t hear it, bc of his insecurities, the way he was raised and his status. But yes, he holds all the power. He’s both Adam’s sanity and insanity. No matter how cheesy it sounds he was basically his only ray of sunshine in the darkness, if you take it away, that’s what it leads to, that’s why Ainosuke-sama needs more ppl who care for him. I don’t want anyone to die next time, just cause Tadashi and Adam fought about where to put their new couch lmao. I’m kidding, but you know what I mean. And kill the aunties, pls seriously, we need to be free.

Also ppl need to remember that like lots of animes/characters are parcially inspired by some other animes/characters, also the chosen seiyuus are also very important, there are lots of stuff like jokes and references, that creators use, from characters being fully inspired by smth like “Assassination classroom” characters based on KNB, to little stuff like Levi dressed in Akashi’s uniform in chibi AOT bc Hiroshi Kamiya. Utsumi already said before stuff like she sometimes think of a perfect voice for the character and then fully forms him, we also know her clear love for sports animes. So yes, I doubt Tadashi/Kuroko thing is a coincidence and even tho someone was like “zone? is this knb or smth?” I was like no, zone is actually a common thing in sports, even tho most associate it with KNB including me, it’s not like its their invention, but there were things inspired by this for sure, and from other sports animes too and no, I don’t mean the basic sports anime tropes, I mean, like way too specific things, some character designes, too. And yes, Langa appearence and personality wise is a rinharu child for real, I can literally split his scenes in “that’s Haru”, “that’s Rin”.

That’s why I’ve said that this situation in fandom reminds me of Kuroko/Akashi situation a lot, bc same as here in KNB ppl for some reason automatically thought that Kuroko is this innocent sheep and Akashi is the wolf (but also like it was Akashi who chose to dress as red riding hood, while Kuroko was a wolf lmao), not even seeing who is in reality more dangerous and who can easily control who. It just buffles me bc it’s not some deep analisys really. I mean once again there’s a reason for the saying that the sub holds all the power over the dom. 

And like just bc someone yells or threatens ppl constantly doesn’t necessarily mean he is a psycopatic killer, and just bc someone is quiet and doe-eyed, doesn’t mean he isn’t. I didn’t think we needed to explain this to someone, but aparently we do?

And it honestly kills me just how superficially ppl are watching things these days. It really gives me war flashbacks to stuff like the last mdzs s1 episode, where ppl started to comment things like “how LZ can be so heartless” lmao. Or that anonymous ask “do you think haru misses rin?”. Like you don’t see thing at all? Grey substance no needed, while watching things?

P.S. I also would die to see Adam vs Tadashi race just bc I for some reason can bet all my money, that it’s the same situation as with Akashi refusing to ankle break Kuroko, no matter how mad he is. I just can’t imagine Ainosuke hitting Tadashi in the face with a board. Like 100% sure he wouldn’t even try tbh.

#answered #anonymous #tadaai #tadashi kikuchi #shindo ainosuke #adam x tadashi #sk8 #sk8 the infinity #anime #this is what i think about these two at least

[marshmallowgoop]

Magic Kaito vs. Magic Kaito 1412

I’m not sure if I ever finished all twelve episodes, but I first watched at least a handful of the original Magic Kaito specials about a decade ago, and I remember really enjoying them. Superhero stories are among my favorites, and while both Magic Kaito and its sister series Detective Conan overlap with the genre in various ways—after all, Conan’s glasses were literally inspired by Clark Kent—Kaito’s flashy costume alone pushes his adventures more in that direction. So, maybe it’s no wonder that, back in the day, I kind of considered Magic Kaito my preferred series of the two.

Recently, I’ve got a reignited interest in the DCMK world (evidently). And it’s not a bad time to have a reignited interest, because English-language accessibility for this universe is much better now than it was ten years ago. Conan’s getting new movie dubs, and Kaito’s newer, expanded TV series, Magic Kaito 1412, is freely available on Crunchyroll. Obviously, I had to give it a shot.

I wasn’t impressed. Far from it. I chalked up my old fondness to nostalgia goggles. Kid the Phantom Thief is simply more enjoyable in Detective Conan than in his own thing, I figured.

But a few weeks ago, those old specials went up on Crunchyroll Germany. And it took me a while, but I finally decided to figure out the truth, once and for all. Have my tastes totally changed, or has Magic Kaito anime not always been Like That?

I was impressed. I watched all of one episode, and I enjoyed it so much more than 1412.

Which surprised me! Just examining the first episodes of both series, they’re honestly practically identical. They cover the same story beats almost exactly. Kaito’s introduction is even consistently him being disgusting to Aoko—behavior that, nauseatingly, convinced me that Mineta of the My Hero Academia series would actually be adored if he were conventionally attractive.

But as it turns out, that’s relevant to why the original Magic Kaito strikes me as far more palatable. Kaito’s actions towards Aoko are still indefensible in the old special, but he doesn’t repeat them on his teacher, and there are repercussions. Unlike in 1412, Kaito doesn’t get away with his harassment because his teacher finds him charming; in fact, Aoko even later notes that he “should be thankful [he] [wasn’t] expelled,” implying that he was indeed punished harshly for what he did. While Aoko assures Kaito’s mother that he didn’t get in trouble in 1412, in the original special, it’s clear that being cute isn’t enough to give him a free pass for disrupting class and being gross.

Further, in a more general sense, the tone of both series is of course goofy overall, but the characters in the old Magic Kaito feel much more like human beings than the cartoonish caricatures portrayed in 1412. A scene especially missing from the new show is a quiet one where Kaito and Aoko walk together after school. With the sun hanging low in the sky and a sparkling river flowing beside them, Kaito expresses his disappointment in how his magic trick didn’t exactly end as planned. “I guess I need to work on my finale,” he bemoans, but Aoko is more concerned with why he feels the need to pull these ridiculous stunts in the first place.

She quickly gets her answer. One of the exuberant little kids who had run by them earlier falls over and cries, and Kaito doesn’t hesitate to cheer him up with magic. And Aoko watches. She sees the way the little boy’s face lights up. She sees how he runs off again with renewed energy. And she smiles. She doesn’t say it, but the audience gets the message.

Oh. That’s why Kaito’s a magician. That’s why Aoko walks by his side.

I won’t claim to fully comprehend Kaito’s character. I haven’t read the manga, it’s been years since I’ve seen more than the first episode of these old specials, I’ve only watched about 20% of 1412, and for as much as I’ve been posting about Detective Conan lately, I’m (maybe humorously) about the farthest thing from current and would only be able to tell you about Kid’s first appearance in that show. But when Kaito returns to his empty home in the original series, and when he announces that he’s there to nobody at all, and when he welcomes himself back, all with a smile and a cheerfulness to his tone, I deeply feel his loneliness. I feel the weight of his lost father. I feel that, even if some of his tricks are inappropriate and inexcusable, he does them because he wants to make people laugh. He doesn’t want anyone to feel as sad and alone as he’s felt.

Maybe I missed it, but I didn’t get any of that from Magic Kaito 1412.

And they’re small things, they really are. But they make a world of difference. Even Jii, who really only becomes more than just a mysterious figure in the episode’s closing minutes, feels more like a tangible person in the special. He loudly gasps for breath after performing the magical, fantastical feats of his old friend, and it’s such a tiny, minuscule detail, but when watching, I feel it so strongly. I literally understand the strain of Toichi’s loss on Jii, too.

Beyond narrative decisions—and there are others that I much prefer in the old series, such as how Kaito links his failed magic trick to his father’s “poker face” philosophy, and how Kaito uses a successful variation of his earlier trick to escape the police as Kid the Phantom Thief—I also just simply prefer the original art style. Magic Kaito 1412 is slick and shiny and modern, but in being so, it strikes me as much more generic than the older-styled 2010 special. Shot compositions also feel more powerful in the first anime; just consider how differently the two series handle what is arguably the emotional height of the entire episode:

[Image descriptions: A series of four comparison images examining how the 2010 Magic Kaito series and the 2014 Magic Kaito 1412 portray the same sequence of events. In both, Kaito asks Jii, “Dad was murdered?! Was my dad... a thief? Was he Kid the Phantom Thief?” Kaito then says, “I see...” End image descriptions.]

While the dialogue is essentially unchanged, the old show’s use of close-ups expresses the tension of the scene spectacularly. You can see the terror in Kaito’s eyes. You can see how the thought of his father being a thief is so distressing that merely asking the question is painful and heartwrenching. You can see the sweat on Kaito’s face. You can see in great detail how much he struggles to grapple with this new truth.

Magic Kaito 1412 is significantly more distanced. And there’s power in that decision, too. The revelation is overwhelming. It’s hard to take. Kaito may want to get away from it, but he can’t.

However, I resonate more with how the original series handles the moment. Seeing how everything affects Kaito way up close speaks much more to me—and there are still some fantastic long shots, too:

[Image descriptions: Two screenshots from the original Magic Kaito series. Both are distanced long shots. In the first image, Kaito and Jii kneel on the ground. Kaito’s hands are on Jii’s shoulders. In the second image, Kaito stands, facing away from Jii, while Jii remains on the ground in shame. They wear identical outfits in both images, and their capes blow in the wind. End image descriptions.]

Gotta love those capes.

Overall, my feelings on Magic Kaito as a whole could probably be best described as somewhat mixed. And I’m kind of new here, and I don’t even know when it’s appropriate to use the #dcmk tag, so I of course don’t have the slightest clue about how popular or unpopular my opinion that the 2010 Magic Kaito series ranks above 2014′s Magic Kaito 1412 is. 

But skipping down memory lane and revisiting the old show was pleasantly surprising. Maybe my affection for Magic Kaito will never reach the highs it once had all those years ago, but it was almost comforting to find that my tastes haven’t changed all that much—rather, it’s Magic Kaito itself that’s changed.

#magic kaito #magic kaito 1412 #kaito kuroba #aoko nakamori #jii konosuke #dcmk #? lol like i said i don't know when it's appropriate to use that tag but i do talk about dc a bit here so? #mk critical #is that a tag? #honestly i was gonna try to avoid putting this in the tags because it's kind of critical but #it became like a legit essay and i'd like to hear other thoughts! and i hope it's not *that* negative? #anyway what is with me writing things i don't really plan on writing and not the things i do plan on writing ^^; #ramblings

[kacchanrawr]

Things I want to see in the future of MHA

(not just post-war stuff, but also the entire series. Some of these are kinda self-indulgent)

1. Endeavor and Hawks’ judgment

I honestly don’t know if I want to see them punished or pardoned. I’m interested in both of those so I’ll just trust Horikoshi on that one. But anyways, there’s no way they aren’t getting shit for this.

2. Whatever the ‘fake heroes’ are gonna do after this

Going back to Stain’s ideology about fake heroes. I agree with parts of it, there are a lot of people that become heroes without the conviction. They get into it by treating it the same way as any other office job, not as a mission to be well, heroes. But I don’t agree that they should be killed or eliminated. Being a hero for money isn’t inherently a bad thing, it’s when you let greed take over you to the point that you forget what it means to be a hero. Some of those ‘fake heroes’ like Mt. Lady who was originally in it for the fame and money have grown to become real heroes. Others who really have zero conviction, will probably quit after facing this amount of despair, like the guy in chapter 296.

3. The Todoroki family’s image

How will everyone else see the victims of the situation, Natsuo, Fuyumi, Rei and Shoto after this? Especially Shoto. Now that his past is out in the public, that will probably affect his future as a pro. Would his classmates and peers see him or treat him differently after this? Like out of pity or sympathy?

4. The public’s backlash in general

How will the public start viewing not just Endeavor, Hawks, and the Todoroki family, but all heroes? Will they lose faith in heroes? We know they kinda already are when UA had a lot of backlash when Bakugo was kidnapped. UA as well, will it get shut down?

5. Bakudeku’s talk

I don’t think their relationship is actually gonna stay the same after this whole ‘my body moved on its own because I care for you and wanted to save you so I just got stabbed and risked my life for you and even told you to stop trying to be so selfless and do everything by yourself’ thing. All Might also did foreshadow that they were gonna talk soon. Maybe we could get the long awaited Bakugo apology scene ? Though it feels way too soon. And if Hori feeds us Bakudekus even more I think we’re just gonna combust.

5. Deku’s character development

His mindset and view of the world will probably be way darker and even more serious after this. I also want to see how Bakugo getting hurt for his sake and saying “don’t play hero all by yourself” will affect him. We know that he has decided to become a hero that wouldn’t make anyone worry about him when he had a flashback of his mom crying and being worried for him. He decided that the solution to that is to be stronger, but now maybe he can learn that selflessness doesn’t necessarily mean that he has to carry all the weight by himself. But then there’s the 4th user’s quirk that will probably push him to be even more selfless.

6. Ochako’s development

Please please PLEASE let this girl have more development. The way her fight against Toga ended, and her seeing the grievous side of being a hero? Probably a set up for her development.

7. Basically the rest of the kids’ development?

Obviously it’s not just the people involved in the fight against Shigaraki, or Ochako that are gonna view the world differently after this. I wanna see how they will deal with this. Kirishima and Mina will probably be some of the highlights. Also Momo, since Midnight meant a lot to her when she was the one that trusted Momo to lead their classes in the battle against Gigantomachia.

8. Aizawa and Present Mic dealing with Midnight’s death

Those two are especially highlighted amongst all of the other UA staff members because they have a past with her, as shown in vigilantes. We saw their anger and sadness about Shirakumo, what more when it comes to Midnight?

9. The villains dealing with their losses

Yes, know Toga went on a rampage after Twice’s death, but how will she and deal with it in the long run? How about losing Mr. Compress? How will Shigaraki react to both of those, and having the other Paranormal Liberation Front members like Geten captured? Not just emotionally, but how about the loss in terms of strength and power?

10. Prison break arc

People have been talking about this for years, maybe ever since we knew All for One was only imprisoned and not killed. We’ll probably see it happen next chapter. Will it cause the public to lose even more faith in the hero system? How will it affect the villains? Will AFO be their boss now, or will they resist him and stay loyal to Shigaraki?

11. All for One vs Shigaraki

Related to the previous point. We know Shigaraki really doesn’t want AFO bossing him around. They’ll probably have a fight. Maybe Deku and Shigaraki vs AFO? Then they’ll go back to fighting each other once the common threat is gone. This doesn’t feel very likely, but it could be a way of interpreting Deku’s “you looked like you needed saving” at the end of chapter 295.

11. Deku’s arms?

I don’t know if I want him to lose them and get prosthetics, or get healed by Eri. It would be great to see him experience a major loss, but ability-wise and emotionally? Not so good for him, though that’s kinda the point. Also he might not be able to use OFA in his arms anymore and I kinda don’t wanna see that. Even if he can, will he be able to use it at 100%? So far, we’ve seen that the level of technology in MHA aren’t enough to withstand 100%

12. Deku mastering One for All

I wanna see him consistently use 100% without injuring himself. I want to see him do more with black whip, float and the fourth user’s quirk. I’m also curious about the other three quirks left.

13. Power buff for everyone else

I kinda don’t wanna see the MC getting so ahead of everyone else, to the point that they leave everyone else in the dust. But I know that it’s been established way earlier on that Deku will surpass everyone in terms of strength. Even now, Bakugo, one of the strongest in Class 1-A could barely catch up with 30% OFA. But from his internal dialogue in chapter 293, I’m guessing he already had a quirk evolution when he saw Deku at the verge of death. I want to see more details on that though.

14. Everyone else’s reaction to Bakugo’s sacrifice

It’s gonna be a big thing for his character and all, but I don’t think this is gonna happen because of well, everything else being a mess. But maybe at least All Might’s?

15. Deku’s father

I don’t want him to be a really big famous, important figure, or someone involved in this whole AFO vs OFA stuff. It will kinda ruin Deku’s character of like, ‘just an ordinary boy that was lucky and so his character arc is to be worthy of that blessing’. If Deku’s father was someone like that, that would mean he was the fated or chosen one in the first place anyways? But what else can Deku’s dad be? I honestly don’t know.

16. All Might’s death

I see so many people complain that he should’ve died in Kamino, but I disagree because saving that big moment for later was actually a good decision. We know he’s gonna die, he has death flags everywhere. But I wonder how exactly he will die, when he will die, and how big of an impact his death will have.

17. The final battle

As in, the last battle of the entire series. Deku vs Shigaraki rematch, Ochako vs Toga, Shoto vs Dabi. And for Bakugo, well...... he doesn’t really have a villain nemesis? (Huh maybe I’ll talk about that some other time) But the best I could think of right now is Bakugo and Deku vs Shigaraki, like in Heroes Rising. If the Heroes Rising ending was the original series ending, maybe Hori was hinting that Bakugo and Deku will be fighting the final boss together?

18. Bakugo and Deku as a hero duo

Related to the previous point. Shipping lenses aside, I think there’s plenty of foreshadowing for that? Even if they wouldn’t officially be hero partners, I’m guessing they’re both gonna be important pillars. “Win to save, save to win”

19. The ending

I want to see how they will fix the broken hero society. I want to see Class 1-A as wonderful heroes. I want satisfying closure for the villains as well. What I don’t want to see is everyone getting married and having kids like Naruto, and those kids being the characters for a sequel series. I’m sorry but as much as I like a lot of the ships, I think that’s probably one of the worst endings possible. But a next generation sequel actually wouldn’t be that bad if the main characters were the established kid characters we already know and love, Eri, Kota, Katsuma and Mahoro. We can see through them how the new hero system/society works, and maybe all the smaller subtle stuff that they still need to patch up. Other than that, I don’t think there’s anything else good about it.

20. Deku becoming the greatest hero

Also very much related to the previous point but I only remembered it afterwards. We know it’s gonna happen, but how? Also notice that while Bakugo always says ‘number one hero’, Deku always just says ‘greatest hero’, which kinda aren’t the same thing. Maybe it’s just cuz I’m a Bakugo stan, but I don’t think it’s a good idea to just let the rival characters be content with number two? Either ‘Bakugo is the number one in ranking while Deku is the greatest hero’, or ‘Deku is the greatest and number one hero but their rivalry hasn’t ended and it’s a push-pull’ thing. Or just kill one of them (cough Bakugo cough) and it’ll be fine.

21. Other people finding out about OFA

I don't think it's going to stay a secret between Deku, Bakugo and All Might anymore. At the very least, the people involved in the fight against Shigaraki, like Shoto, Aizawa and Endeavor should be given an explanation on why Shigaraki was targeting Deku in particular. At worst, it becomes public news and Deku will now have to deal with a much a greater pressure of everyone expecting him to take up All Might's mantle. I'd rather go with the former, but the latter is also interesting I guess. Or if not those, they'd have to come up with a really good excuse.

Anyways that’s all I can think of for now? There’s probably way more at the back of my head. I’ll just edit whenever.

#mha chapter 296 #bnha chapter 296 #mha #my hero academia #bnha #bakudeku #bkdk #deku #bakugou katsuki #midoriya izuku #uraraka ochako #todoroki shouto #todoroki family is screwed #endeavor and ​hawks #just random ramblings #mha theories #well not really but kinda

[normal-thoughts-official]

what are your thoughts about izzy and alec’s sibling bond from the scenes we got from the show

i liked their relationship a lot, actually. which is not to say that it was flawless, but the flaws we got to see were honestly some of what made me the most interested in them. and then of course sh dropped it like a hot potato, but like... it was still pretty interesting to me

disclaimer that this is my own Abused Kid™ stuff projecting for sure, but i still think the way i see their relationship makes sense (or well, i'm not sure if i would say my parents were abusive, but they are quite a lot like the lightwoods in their own way and i definitely consider the lightwoods abusers, so it doesn't really matter that much). so like this will probably feature a fair amount of oversharing lol

anyway! so what i find really interesting and really like about alec and izzy's relationship is that despite the fact that them having abuser parents who honestly put them in very specific "kid who always fucks up" vs "kid who is expected to do everything perfect" roles, they managed to still be friends and on each other's side and have an overall very loving and supporting relationship. i think that's what attracted me to their sibling bond the most, because for decades me and my brother didn't really manage to be close or build a relationship precisely because of those roles. in our case, my brother was the fuckup kid, i was the kid who had to always be perfect (in my case, lowkey to "compensate" for him) and it led to him resenting me and being all but afraid of me because everything i did seemed to be so much better than him in my parent's eyes, so... yeah

so it always struck me as pretty interesting that alec and izzy seemed to be genuinely so close. izzy is one of the few people who gets alec to smile and who gets to ever touch alec, and although they have a lot of differences, it always came down way more to teasing than to actual fighting between them

but also - which is partially why i said that their flaws were part of what drew me to them the most - the tensions that emerged from that abusive background were very much there, and i found that pretty interesting

another disclaimer that i tend to relate to alec more, because i was in the same role as him, but also tend to be very forgiving towards izzy because i see my brother in her and i blame myself for our relationship way more than him since he was the weakest link there lol. but also in part i think i project unto her in the sense that i kept trying to make things easier to my brother, but i kept fucking up because i didn't fully understand his situation, and i definitely think that's what went on with izzy and alec

so let's get into the details of how the whole "fuckup kid" vs "golden kid" (and disclaimer before ppl come yell at me again: i'm not saying that alec was treated well by his parents or that they treated him like he was good enough, because they definitely didn't. i'm saying that when compared to izzy he was considered the kid that had potential, that could be trusted, and who had the most amount of pressure put unto. again, that was how i was treated by my parents, so miss me with the "wow you think alec had it easy?" shit because i know damn well he did not lol. the "golden kid" is an abuse archetype and therefore it means you are abused. calm down) thing affected their relationship in particular

so alec was the eldest, and i think from very early on he latched unto the expectations his parents had for him as a way to protect himself and make sense of the world. i was telling autistic alec anon just today how i think that the fact that shadowhunter culture was so black and white and gave alec such a clear sense of what he was supposed to do and who he was supposed to be kind of helped him navigate the world because it made it easier for him to figure out the path to follow when everything else was just so confusing and the expectations were so crushing and everything he felt was so complicated. i think alec's always known that he didn't conform, and because he didn't have a safe outlet to let that out, he decided to just go by the book to protect himself. which is valid

that being said, i think the other half of the reason why he decided to pursue the "perfect shadowhunter" existence so hard was exactly because of izzy (and later jace and max). because again, alec is the eldest, and he was already being crushed by expectations of upholding the lightwood name and following the rules and whatnot. like, maryse and robert basically expected their kids to undo all the shit they had done when they joined the circle, and they didn't even tell them that that was the reason, so they were probably just taught that they should do what the lightwoods said because and that was that. and because there were all these stakes that they didn't even understand or know about, the pressure was harder

and alec was already being taught to be a leader, and he loved his sister, so he probably wanted to shield her from all the pressure of those expectations, because he knew he was out there fucking killing himself for it. so i think part of the reason he tried so hard to be perfect was because, if he was perfect, izzy (and then jace and max) would get to breathe a little bit. alec is pretty self sacrificial and definitely has a tendency to shoulder suffering in the place of ppl he loves, so i don't think that's far fetched. also, we saw how alec literally shouldered all the blame for jace's fuckups, despite the fact that jace did it all behind alec's back and with alec telling him not to do it (i'm saying jace because from what i remember what got alec punished in particular was something that jace and clary did, not izzy, but izzy was definitely also going against whatever alec told her to and i have no doubt that he would shoulder the blame for her as well, although i don't think she would use that against him, unlike some people. but i digress). but alec just allowed himself to be punished for it like it was on him, so i think it makes sense to believe that alec tried to take the brunt of their parents' pressure so izzy wouldn't have to

and the thing is that i think that izzy... never realized that. i mean, i'm sure she realized that alec was trying way too hard to be what their parents expected of her, but she never realized that she was part of the reason. and she tried to get him to rebel a little bit because she thought that he needed it, and i mean, she was right, but what she didn't realize is that the fact that alec didn't rebel was so she could. not that izzy was not facing consequences for her rebelling, because we saw how maryse treated her versus how she treated alec and jace (it's very interesting to me also how once jace came into the picture he became an actual golden kid, not a "golden kid" like the abused kid who is put as impossibly better than the other one but still never good enough, but actually good enough, and how that was used to put alec in that position where he had to work even harder as well. but that's for another post)

and that's the frustrating part (and i think the part i relate to izzy for the most) because i think she was genuinely trying to help? but she never really understood alec. i was also talking earlier today (or was it yesterday? rip my time blindness but it was definitely recent) about how many people seem to understand alec's coming out story as an internalized homophobia story, and how i don't think that's how it was at all. i don't wanna repeat myself so if anyone's interested in that it's here. and the thing is, i think izzy made the same mistake. she falsely assumed that alec didn't rebel because he genuinely internalized that being gay was bad and because he was lying to himself about it, but that wasn't the case at all. alec knew he was gay and accepted that, he just decided to stay in the closet and live life that way. which obviously is horrible and traumatic, but it's different, and because izzy couldn't tell the difference, she made it worse

izzy kept trying to make alec "accept" himself, but alec didn't really have a problem accepting himself; he just wanted to keep that a secret to protect himself. but because she thought that he was in denial, she kept trying to push him to... not exactly admit because i wouldn't say she was all like "alec just say it you'll feel better" but to maybe "face" it, and alec interpreted that as her demanding that he came out of the closet, which he couldn't do. so he kept closing off and she kept interpreting that as him being in denial, so she kept pushing, and she made things infinitely worse for him even if i am 100% sure her intentions were good (just look at how protective she was of alec and magnus during the beginning of their relationship, or how she tried to get maryse and robert to marry her off instead of alec, or the difference between how clary and jace talked about it - "you're in love with jace"; "this is about your feelings" - and how izzy talked about it - "alec, it's okay") but as we say in brazil, hell is filled to the brim with good intentions

that is not to say that izzy didn't go on that straight shit from time to time ("we all got our things, don't we?" comes to mind, but i gotta say it really pisses me off how everyone talks about izzy being homophobic in that scene and completely ignores how openly racist alec was. like obviously both are fucked up, but yall clearly seem to think only one of these is a problem. but that's for another post) but i think that generally her intentions were always to get alec to be more comfortable with himself/happier. she noticed how much the lightwood's expectations were crushing him, but again, she didn't realize that alec was choosing to take the brunt of these. she didn't realize that he couldn't rebel like she did because of her. not until it was too late

i think izzy only started to realize that - particularly how much of her rebelling was only allowed because alec was there as a safe option so they couldn't afford to have a "fuckup child" even if obviously they still hated that they couldn't control izzy - when she tried to get the lightwoods to marry her instead of alec and they were like... lol? it's alec who's supposed to save the lightwood name, not you. you are worthless as a bride and as a peace offering

and that's when it hit her that alec was taking a role, a role that he had been effectively protecting her from having to take, but that also meant she couldn't help him

i think that's when she realized, because you can see the change in her behavior, you know - "you stood by me, so now i'm standing by you, big brother". she understood that alec was trying to protect her the same way she had tried to protect him and never realized, but that by trying to get alec to just stop without thinking about what the greater picture was for him, she was just making things harder for him. i think that was some very interesting growth we got to see

and on the other hand alec didn't realize that izzy had been trying to protect him as well. like i think that she definitely laid the whole "fuckup kid" thing too thick, which was partially for herself, like, basically embracing the role because she would never be good enough for the lightwoods so why not just accept that she was a fuckup and be everything they despised? but i think she also partially did it for alec, because she wanted to show him that it was okay. that there could be a life that wasn't just doing what your parents expected you to. and like, sure, she got treated like shit for it, and she faced some forms of abuse that alec didn't (mainly touch/affection withdrawal from what we got to see in the show, but also considerable more verbal degrading. again im not saying alec had it easy, especially because we know that the parts where maryse expressed "pride" over him were basically used to make him do what she wanted; but still, the difference in treatment is very clear), but she was still standing, so it was possible, see?

i don't even think this is something i had to defend a lot because she said it so many times? she was always telling alec that he could loosen up, that it was okay (she said the exact words "it's okay" many times). she had a kinda, idk, sassy attitude over it, generally treating it like a joke, but imo that was because she knew that if she talked about it in all seriousness alec would shut down, like he had many times. so i think by making it into a joke and playing the mindless "woo i don't care about anything" character she was trying to have that conversation in a more subtle way. at the very least, alec was amused

and i think a huge part of the fandom also misinterprets izzy as being exactly that shallow person who only thought about immediate gratification that she pretended to be but honestly i don't see that at all? throughout all of season 1, the single thing that drove izzy's character was her desire to protect alec, except for when she tried to save meliorn from him, which was like.... just the decent thing to do. and izzy is not a shallow character. she is not stupid. and she is not primarily driven by her own desires. that is not to say that izzy was never selfish (see: how she treated raphael, so much shit about sizzy), but she is not the kind of character who only does whatever the fuck she wants to because it sounds more fun that's jace and clary. most of the time, her primary motivation was to help alec or clary, aka people that she loves. i think that, like alec, she is the kind that only extends that protectiveness over the people closest to her and is not really the "helping everyone out" type, but she is also not completely self-absorbed like she pretended to be. and i don't think she even cared all that much about parties and whatnot. like when did we see her going to one on her own without it being a mission? when did we see izzy actually pursuing one night stands? that is not to say that these things are bad, but if izzy were that girl who only cares about sleeping around and having fun like she pretended to be, then one would think we would see her actually doing that instead of just performing that shallow mindless sexy girl stereotype?

and like look i know that she was written to be a sexy lamp or whatever but if the writers aren't gonna care enough about her to make that consistent and show her doing that beyond what she says i might as well go there and give her the depth that she deserves. especially because we got to see izzy talk about that so much. like her saying that one of the things that attracted her to raphael was that for once in her life it didn't feel like everything was all about sex. i find it appalling that people genuinely think that that's all she's about when she made it so clear that it bothered her. like imo izzy took on that role, again, to piss off her parents, and also because it was something that she was good at. she was good at being sexy and she got gratification and positive feedback over that, which she was obviously starved for since her own mother wouldn't even fucking hug her. it was the one thing she didn't fuck up at and that got her to feel like she was treasured, even if really she was just desired

not just that but izzy also consistently made hard choices for those she loved? like im not gonna say that izzy going to save meliorn from torture was anything less than the bare minimum but if she were that shallow self centered persona that only wanted to have fun and didn't care about the consequences she wouldn't have put so much on jeopardy to save them. or risk being deruned and losing everything so she could call the clave out on their bullshit. or break up with meliorn (someone we know she genuinely liked) so she could offer herself to be married off to someone in alec's place. the one thing that we know izzy would be miserable over, because that woman was not born to be no one's trophy wife. and she was fully ready and willing to throw her WHOLE life away for alec. that would be FOREVER. miss me with that "izzy is a shallow girl who only cares about herself and partying" shit

like to me it's very clear that that was a front (especially because the way she talked about it was SO over the top too, like, it sounded so fake. and when we got scenes of her talking to alec or to clary she was a wholly different person, way less confident, way softer. honestly izzy could have been such a great narrative about woc and hypersexualization and the traps of taking over that "femme fatale" role as a form of empowerment or whatever, but of course sh doesn't have the range for that) and i think that front was first and foremost for alec's sake. she was trying to break him out of the lightwood's brainwashing. what she didn't realize was that he wasn't brainwashed, he was making a choice between the very bad options that he had. and alec in turn didn't realize that izzy acted the way she did, in great part, for him, not for herself. i wouldn't say that alec bought that izzy was a shallow girl because we know how much he loves her and that he knows her better than anyone, but i think he also didn't realize she was trying to help/protect him

so it was such an interesting miscommunication issue and i would have loved to see that actually addressed and worked on, but alas. the most we ever got was them talking about being honest to each other about the yin fen. and izzy pretty much didn't get real plotlines or character development anyway daoijdaoij except for the absolute bullcrap that was the yin fen which i am not going to get into because it makes me so angry and i hate it so much

and then of course sh didn't really get into it and basically considered the problem solved once alec came out, which i mean, i guess does take that out of the way when it was the main miscommunication problem between them, but still, they should have had a talk and realized what a stupid dance they were both having and how they would have both benefitted from working together instead of in the name of each other. which is a frequent trope for alec in relationships anyway, too, so it could be a good introduction to these issues, but alas!

in short: i think both alec and izzy love each other very much, have each other's best interests at heart, but weren't really seeing each other as they were. and they both put a front for each other (izzy in particular) that made communication pretty much impossible. and they ended up not being very good for each other (particularly izzy for alec, but i think alec also made her feel alone and like he saw her as.. just some stupid girl, you know?), but i loved to see how these things were there simultaneously. the wanting to help each other and the effectively only making things worse. the love that was so present and so strong despite all of that. the way that they never became competitive or resented each other like kids who are raised with those dynamics usually get. i just love how there was so much going on and so many problems but still so much love between them. i really wished we got to see it actually get some sort of closure and more exploration, but. fuck me i guess

#ask #anonymous #long post #meta #izzy lightwood meta #alec lightwood meta #lightwood siblings #sh #anti alec lightwood #anti izzy lightwood #it's not really anti either of them but im tagging so ppl who cant stand ever seeing that ppl have flaws stay away #seriously if i get hate from an alec stan over that again im going to be so mad #go away #salt #anti jace herondale #anti clary fray #anti rizzy #anti sh #anti sh writers #yeah i think that's it #abuse tw #oversharing #a little bit #anti maryse lightwood #anti robert lightwood #ok NOW i think that's it

[lizacstuff]

Your thoughts on the epi? I thought it was a good episode overall. Serkan is acting the way I thought he would: he wants to be the perfect Dad, is scared she won't love him, is spoiling her but also teaching her things. I'm not quite sure why Kiraz isn't calling him Baba, maybe she needs time to adjust to calling him that. I have mixed emotions when it comes to the way Eda spied on Serkan. I understand she's worried but trust the man a little. No comments on Aydan and Ayfer! They are too much!

Hello! I liked the episode. It felt very light, very romcom-y and I thought it was very enjoyable to watch. Loved every minute of Serkan trying to be the ideal dad and I'm here for the Edser UST this ep brought. They want each other sooooo much. And, yes, Eda wants him, she wants him bad. I thought the custody thing at the end was silly and convoluted, but, hey, I'm totally here for the "they're not together and fighting their feelings, but forced to live together" trope so I will just ignore how unbelievable it would be for Edser to be drowning in hearteyes for each other all ep, getting along in regards to Kiraz, AND seemingly aware that Aydan/Ayfer were up to something and still allow a misunderstanding over their shenanigans to spiral to that nonsense degree.

Maybe the folks that think that Serkan & Eda were playing all the meddling family and friends are right, and they set it up beforehand, it's just that I've thought things were a fake out on this show so many times, only for them to be real, so at this point I'm operating under the assumption that this is just a romcom plot point to throw our romantic leads together and it's not worth examining it too closely.

I'll give my thoughts on the "Baba" vs "Serkan Bolat" thing and Eda's actions after we talk a bit about the B, C and D players... Thankfully we had plenty of Edser and Kiraz screen time this ep so the supporting stories didn't overwhelm the episode too much.

(much more under the cut)

That being said, who can we pay to get these people to mind their own f-cking business? LMAO. At least Engin and Piril weren't annoying and were actually trying to be helpful. I mean, Piril is still cancelled, but if she's not causing trouble now then she's not at the top of my shit list. However, I did laugh at her when she's sort of pleading with Serkan: "We've been friends for a long time, you'll understand why I did this." Um... what, Piril? You're sitting there approximately 72 hours after Serkan found out he has a child and he's already proven that he's ALL IN on being a father, and you expect Serkan to think you were right for hiding it from him? Cause why? He has already proven that any concerns you had about him rejecting Kiraz were invalid. The only thing wrong with Serkan's anger at Piril is that it will probably only last for that scene.

Anyone else think Kerem the assistant is an ass? Seriously, do they really want us to root for sweet Pina to be with this dickweasel? He's insecure, he thinks he knows it all, he's snarky and lashes out, he's vindictive. No thanks.

As for Aydan and Ayfer. Ooph. As punishment for their unprecedented assery this episode they both need to be stranded on a desert island with only each other. Only then maybe they'll learn not to insert themselves by such underhanded means. They're both giant pains in the ass, but Ayfer still annoys me more than Aydan. Because here's the thing, once Edser is back together and Serkan is happy, Aydan will fully embrace Eda again, but I don't think the same can be said for Ayfer. Did you see some of the bitchy, sour faces Ayfer was making, taunting Eda about her soft spot for Serkan. She's insufferable.

Turning to the nonsense meddling custody plot line, Kemal and Seyfi were just following orders, but what is Melo's excuse? It's unfortunate that the narrative pulled her into this. Ayfer may have her head in the sand, and not really care what Eda wants, but Melo does and she knew that Eda wanted to cooperate with Serkan and bring him into Kiraz's life, she knew that Eda was about 2 seconds from melting every time she was near Serkan, and that they were likely on the cusp of rekindling their relationship. There is no way she should have been complicit in trying to get evidence against Serkan or visiting lawyers behind Eda's back.

However, even after being complicit in Ayfer's nonsense, she still deserves a helluva lot better than Burak. That guy was annoying af this episode. What exactly does he think he's doing? I'm sorry, in that situation you step back and give the people going through such a monumental life change some space. Again, it's not like it needs to be forever, but you don't try and monopolize the kid's time the night of and 2 days after she meets her long-lost father. He needs to fuck all he way off.

Also since Eda had no interest in this guy, why is he coming over to tuck in the kid EVERY night? I get that he's been good to Kiraz and they have a nice relationship, but that's soooo overkill, it's just not normal. Especially since they've said they've only been living there a year. The only reason for a dude to revolve his entire life around a kid like that is because he's actively trying to get in the mom's pants. So when it comes to Burak's intentions, Eda is as dense as Serkan used to be with Balca/Selin/Actress. Burak only took that level of interest and inserted himself into their lives because he wanted Eda, and Eda should realize that and have a frank conversation with him. Eda doesn't even have to be cognizant that she will inevitably get back together with Serkan, she already knows she has no interest in Burak. She should tell him. And if she's already told him (which it seems she might have from her comments to Ayfer and Melo) she should put some boundaries in place because his presence was ridiculous.

It still blows my mind that this sad sack thinks he has a shot with Eda. Seriously, while the dude isn't hideous, he's also not attractive and he has the personality of dead grass coupled with the charisma of warm mayonnaise. He's not worthy of either Eda or Melo. The scene of Melo and Burak walking on the beach made me a bit uncomfortable. They're totally setting that relationship up, but so far all we see is Melo obviously harboring feelings for him as Burak broods over his Eda delusions. We'll have to see how this plays out, but I feel like Burak didn't need to be this upset over Eda for the story to work, and it would be a lot easier to root for him with Melo if by episode 5 if he wasn't still actively trying, as Engin said, to take over Serkan's family.

On to Edser and the newly forming Bolat family unit. It's funny, I'm not someone who thinks a woman needs to take her husband's last name, I think people should do whatever they want, but for whatever reason I really, really want Eda and Kiraz to have his name. Maybe because I think they all crave having people to belong to in a sense. Serkan because he was unloved and sent overseas alone at such a young age, Eda because she was an orphan, Kiraz because she didn't have a dad in early childhood. So for that reason, I really do feel like it will be meaningful to have them tied together that way as a family unit. They belong to each other now (or they will soon).

Along those lines, you say you're not sure why Kiraz isn't calling him Baba, narratively, I think it's because that will be a big milestone in their relationship. When she feels comfortable enough, connected enough, and secure enough with him to do that, it's going to melt all of our hearts right out of our chests. If she'd done it right away it wouldn't feel as special as it's going to feel when it eventually happens because she feels it (not just because it's a fact).

As for her calling him Serkan Bolat, I think it's adorable. That's how she knew him before, it would be weird if she called him anything other than that or Baba, (like Serkan or Abi) because then it would be like she was settling on that, but calling him by his full name, which is such a part of his identity, is cute and charming and pays tribute to the interactions they had before they knew of their relationship, and it's a signal that it's only temporary. Baba is coming, don't worry.

Loved Kiraz showing Serkan her room and all of her things, and really loved Eda standing there, smiling, soaking it in. I've seen a lot of criticism of Eda in this episode and she did have a few moments that were unnecessarily harsh, but I think it's also valid to give her a minute to adjust because this is a lot of change in just a couple of days. While she now knows Serkan had understandable, and even noble, reasons for what he did and said, that still doesn't erase the heartbreak and pain he put her through, or the 5 years of being a single mother and not having anyone to consult or needing to consult anyone on decisions regarding Kiraz.

I do think, though, that we didn't see Eda give him enough credit when he covered for her lies to Kiraz. When Kiraz asked her why she didn't tell her Serkan Bolat was her father and then asked him when mom didn't answer, he could have easily told the truth and thrown Eda under the bus, big time, but instead he comes up with something that passes as an explanation, doesn't make anyone a villain, but also doesn't make him look great. I wish we'd seen Eda recognize that. It was a magnanimous gesture on his part, since he and Kiraz were the ones who were lied to for 5 years.

However, her running a bit hot and cold this episode makes sense. On one hand when she's around him her heart feels that strong orbital pull towards him. She loves him. She always has loved him, she always will love him. Just like with Serkan, that will not change, and obviously didn't after heartbreak and separation. But it also makes sense that at times her head takes over and with it the fear and the memory of the pain and she freezes up a bit. It doesn't ding her or their love, she just needs time to let herself believe that this is really happening. That Serkan is back, that he still loves her, that he loves their daughter and wants to be a father and form a family. From the way she recorded those videos, how many times do we think she dreamed of them being a happy family together? I'm guessing a lot. Now it's within her grasp and I think she just needs to be sure that Serkan is for real before she fully succumbs to this dream.

She also needs to get over her pride, I'm sure there's a part of her (Ayfer's voice) telling her a woman doesn't go back to a man who hurt her that badly. But as we saw, girlfriend was snuggling with his shirt, she still has it so bad for him. But, pro tip, Eda, he wanted to stay the night, wouldn't it be so much more fulfilling to snuggle with the real thing? I promise it would... just let him in. The lawn scene was hilarious. Kerem is really and truly a gifted physical comedian. We know how tight the timelines are on this show and they don't get to do a lot of takes, but his stumbling over the furniture and falling was flawlessly done. Hande was great too... that bat! Of course the sexual tension in the robes and towel scene was magnificent. When she first walked in wearing that towell I thought my man was going to combust. That look on his face, priceless.

Speaking of priceless, what first-day Baba makes his little girl's dreams come true like Serkan Bolat does? Staying up all night to build her flying house? MY HEART!

What a fantastic first gift. It was incredibly thoughtful, it was meaningful to the two of them, and it was also Serkan giving a piece of himself (using his skills in what he does best as an architect) to her.

Absolute perfection.

And how sweet that Serkan wanted to spend the day with her alone!?! I really liked that because we all know he loves Eda, he wants Eda back, and he will use any excuse to spend time with Eda. And he could have done that here, but he doesn't. So the fact that he wanted to spend the day alone with Kiraz, clearly illustrates that his interest in Kiraz, his desire to be her father stands on it's own. Kiraz is not just an excuse to get close to Eda, he is pursuing both relationships, and they are both important to him.

Also you said that you have mixed emotions on the way Eda spied on Serkan, that she doesn't trust him, but honestly I really don't think it's about that. She might have been a little discombobulated by the idea because the man has never really spent any time with children and here he's thrust into fatherhood, but she trusts him and knows Kiraz is safe with him. Honestly, I think her biggest driving factor in following them is FOMO.

She doesn't want to miss this! She has wondered what kind of father he might be for years, and now she wants to witness it. She wants to be there and see what he's like when he's spending time with her. She also wants to be a part of it, and a part of her might be a little jealous. For years she's been the only parent, and now another parental bond is forming and it's natural she is curious what that's going to look like.

Melo even sees through her during their conversations while they're out spying. Eda pretends it's because she's worried that Serkan doesn't know what he's doing, but Melo susses out that it's really because she missed Serkan. I think she really just wanted to be a part of it.

And her ulterior motives are exposed when she reacts with jealousy over the park moms and then with Hulya. She's jealous over Serkan, but also over what it might mean if Serkan had a woman in his life that's not Eda. (Real simple way to ensure that doesn't happen, Eda, just saying). On first watch it was a little frustrating to watch Eda be upset about Huyla and not have it cleared up immediately. However, on the second time through I found it incredibly enjoyable to watch. Hilarious even. Knowing that Serkan is going to let her off the hook just a few minutes later, and it's not going to be a drawn out misunderstanding, it's very fun to watch him just totally bask in her jealousy. The way he sits there and giggles and is just so chuffed at her display was very endearing. Since he's been celibate for 5 years, I suppose he's earned an incrediulous laugh at her thinking he has all these women on the line.

Eda is not wrong to be concerned about the Bolat's ability to spoil Kiraz with material things, Aydan can get out of control, however I can't be mad at the pony. The girl asked him if he had horses the first day they met, she said she wanted a dad like Serkan who had horses, he HAD to get her one she could actually ride! The girl was deprived of her father for 5 years because both of her parents are stubborn, so, let's be real, she kinda deserves a pony. Besides Eda should be more worried about the "spoiling" she gets from her camp, where she, Ayfer, Melo and Burak let her get away with constantly running away/running wild, eating ice cream whenever she wants, being rude to strangers etc. The fact that she's taught it's okay to knock a customer's water over without apologizing is more damaging to a forming personality than a pony. (Yes, that was another dig at Burak.) The point is, spoiling isn't only about material things, and from the glimpses we've seen of Baba Serkan he's already taught her about taking responsibility (confessing to breaking the window and apologizing), being self sufficient (tying shoelaces, putting pjs on herself), and setting behavioral boundaries (don't shoot arrows at people in hotels, you shouldn't hug strangers). He's going to be a very good influence in her life, because despite growing up with material privilege the man believes in hard work, effort and personal accountability.

Anyway, loved that when Serkan told Eda about dinner with Engin/Piril/Can she looked so secretly pleased when she casually agreed to go. I think that goes hand in hand with why she was spying, she won't let herself admit it, but she so badly wants them to do things as a family. That was part of her tug o' war this episode. Wanting that, but then suddenly worrying that maybe she shouldn't want that after everything that's happened, those feelings are helped along by Ayfer's judgemental looks and comments, and Burak trying to assert his place and Eda maybe feeling guilty.

Eda's behavior at dinner perfectly summarized the war going on between her head and heart this episode. First she fights with Serkan, going so far as to tell him she hates him, but the second she gets good news she flings herself into his arms. He's the person she wants to celebrate with, he's the person she wants congratulations from. So even if she was mad at him, she can't help herself. Also thank you Engin for telling Eda how Serkan lost weight and didn't come to work for months after she left. Those are important things for her to know. Also reinforced later by Aydan.

And thank you, Jan, for planting that fear of her dad leaving again with Kiraz, because it gave us sleep over at the Bolat house. It also gave us Kiraz asking Serkan if he will leave her. A good question and I'm glad we have Serkan's promise to never leave her. Just with the way tragedy (and meddling family members and obsessed stalkers) seems to find both Eda and Serkan, it's good he's made that promise. And it's good that he knows she needs that promise.

Now onto the secret room. I suppose if you're going to keep all of that and you have a large house, then you might as well keep it in a special room. This was a huge missing piece for Eda. Something tangible that she can see with her own two eyes that proves that he never forgot her and has been pining for her since the day they parted. I thought Eda was suitably touched by it all, and the fact that he got her gifts for every birthday. Anyone else think that they're going to get married on the beach and she's going to wear those flip-flops, that white dress, and the locket when they do? That's what sprung to my mind. The Neslihan scarf product placement made me roll my eyes, though.

To be honest I really didn't care what the gifts were, all I cared about was that thank you cheek kiss. I DIE. The birthday-present-thank-you cheek kiss he gave her in 7 is one of my all time favorite scenes and this parallel was a long time coming and wonderfully executed. And then they delivered on the USTy stare off where they clearly want to make out, but they're not quite there yet. It was going to have to be Eda that broke them out of it, because up to Serkan they either kiss or he stares at her for the rest of time.

Did anyone else feel a crick in their back, neck, legs at how Eda slept on that couch? Serkan was as comfy as can be, stretched out using her legs as a pillow and her torso as a blanket, lol. I wish the editors would have given us a couple of more seconds lingering on them all contorted like that. It was too precious. It would have been sweet if they'd had Kiraz find them and watch them for a minute before waking them up. Show the parent-trapping gears turning in her mind.

Buba absolutely deserved Serkan showing up to spoil his outing. And of course both ladies instantly gravitated to Serkan. I liked this scene because it gave us over-the-top BDE Serkan, a whiff of "Drain the pool" Serkan, the comedy of Engin and Serkan doing the Cyrano thing, and the obvious little "fish" measuring metaphor. But what I really liked was Eda telling him that he didn't need to try so hard to win Kiraz, that he just had to be himself. That was important and lovely, and illustrated to him that she really did want him to develop a good relationship with Kiraz.

The best moments of the episode for them, though, came during their family stargazing outing. Loved Serkan's extra safety precautions, including the mirror just so he can see her in the backseat. Though, if he's that concerned about it, maybe a larger car, lmao? Kiraz tricking them into kissing was an auspicious start to the evening, hopefully that's a taste of things to come. I'm here for her forcing the two of them into intimate situations.

The way Serkan was looking at the two of them throughout the stargazing was something else. He was looking at them with such longing. Like he couldn't believe they were so close, but he wanted them so badly. DUDE, they are right there, continue to play your cards right (and not let Ayfer and Aydan spoil things, spoiler alert, they do) and you're just days away from having everything you want. Loved that he changed the Apollo story to give it the happy ending he wants. Hopefully, that gave hope to any doomsdayers out there that think this show is going to end in tragedy. (Spoiler alert, it's not).

The only shame is that they have that nice (if not detached from reality conversation since they pretend they're not going to be together raising Kiraz) adult conversation about cooperating and working out how they're going to deal with Aydan and Ayfer, only for things to go totally off the rails during said conversations. As I said off the top of this marathon post, it was totally unbelievable in the context of the rest of the episode, but as I always say you can't take this show too seriously, and I prefer to just enjoy the situations as they come and not get too annoyed when they take these writing shortcuts to drive the plot. I plan on very much enjoying Eda and Serkan forced to live together while they're (or at least she) is still pretending they're not going to end up together. Looks like next week is another fun romcom romp, and I'm here for it!

#Sen Çal Kapımı #sen cal kapimi #edser #serkan bolat #eda yildiz #serkan x eda #sck episode discussion #edser discussion #sckask #sck 2x44 #sck 2x05 #asklizac #you knock on my door #love is in the air #anonymous

[incorrect-bkdk-quotes]

Hello! I hope it’s okay to ask you questions! I recently re-joined the fandom, bkdk being my main ship had me rewatch and re-read all of their moments! I have some doubts and wanted to ask you about them! We know that bakugou was insecure and punished deku for that. I never understood tho, where exactly is the correlation in this? Also, has he always been worried for deku? Should we see every past moment as him worrying for deku in his own toxic way? ( before actually realising what he felt? ) like when he didn’t want him to join U.A. ? worrying about the quirk? There are these things that I’m not so sure about and I know that are pretty important for them.. so I hope you can explain them to me! I’m sure there’s more I would like to ask, but I don’t even know if I have enough space for my ask eheh

Anon before you decide to hate me, pls understand that I wrote a v nice long meta on this and thought it had been uploaded and I was VERY confused to see that Tumblr just,,,, ate my post,,, :(

I want to rewrite everything I did, but idk if I'll manage to be that eloquent again gdi-

Anyway hello!! I joined the fandom pretty recently myself and I do relate to your experience of combing through the manga + show looking for any nods to your favourite characters and ships!

Before I start rambling, I would like to remind everyone that this is Art, and art is meant to be interpreted.

This is just how / interpreted the story, and it is definitely not the only way to interpret the material, nobody reads into the nuances exactly the same. Also this is bakugou centric bec that's what the anon asked, but dw I have put as much thought into izuku's side of the story too!

Correlation between Bakugou's insecurities and his treatment of Izuku

Ok so I think the correlation comes from the fact that Bakugou has been raised as a typical gifted child, being told he is the best and special and better than everyone else by all the adults or authority figures in his life. However he has also been raised to think that all his "special-ness" comes from his powerful quirk and not him intrinsically. How does he deal with this? By basing his entire identity around his quirk and his sheer power of course and ends up with a self esteem is based in what he can do, not who he is.

This leaves a gaping hole at the core, that's his biggest insecurity. "Who is he without the flashy quirk?" So instead of dealing with that (understandable, he's like what 5? when the quirk kicks in?), he accepts that this is just how the world is. He's just better. More worthy. And everyone will just have to deal with that fact. Not his problem.

Now comes in quirkless izuku, weaker than katsuki in everyway that he saw, but clinging to the same hopes, same ambitions that katsuki did, and it pisses him off while also scaring him. Not exactly in a sentimental i-secretly-worry-about-my-old-friend kind of way.

I just think he's intimidated by Izuku's hero spirit. His insecurity complex manifests as the question- Would he be as driven as Izuku is, to be a hero, if he didn't have the backing of his quirk? That's a hard fucking question that Katsuki is definitely not ready to ask himself. (Oh source? Uh the remedial arc dialogue "if you keep looking down on others, you'll never see your own weakness")

Everything about izuku challenges his perception of the world and he lashes out and tries to squash his own feelings of inadequacy.

And he is convinced Izuku can see through him, and that izuku thinks of himself as a better person and hero than katsuki. Which almost definitely fucks his already fragile self esteem.

Obviously he's wrong to do so. On the other hand he's a child, he's not emotionally mature enough to realise what he's thinking, or contemplate what he's saying before he's said it and that definitely fucks up his relationship with midoriya.

Should we see every past moment through the lens of bakugou being secretly worried for midoriya?

I don't know what we can and should do, I just know that I do not exactly do that. Bakugou wasn't a nice kid and that's just how it is. (What matters is that he worked on himself till he got better and he cares now. He's cared since the early days of watching Deku at UA I'd guess)

I will always view their interactions after UA began with leniency because they're both growing so much.

I do not know how universal this experience is, but a great change, something like going to college, or in this case high school, really Fucks with your world view.

Katsuki has always been the best, far outclassing his peers at everything he did. For the first time he is amongst other strong individuals who can keep up with him, including Deku. Katsuki's still brilliant, but he has to work for that number one spot. (I would go into how his inferiority complex makes it hard for him to accept anything but first spot but we don't have the time)

Just as importantly, Katsuki has also found something at UA, guidance from adults who still expect brilliance, but for more than simply due to his quirk. He also finally makes actual friends (yay bakuquad) who don't turn and flee at the first sign if trouble (.. yes I'm looking saltily at those kids from Aldera who ditched him withinn 2 seconds during that sludge villain attack)

To paraphrase from The Good Place "People change and grow when they receive external love and support, how can we hold it against them if they don't"

With so much changing in his life, is it that hard to believe that Katsuki Bakugou gets better as a hero and as a person?

I am not touching the manga, because idk how much you've read anon, (really the current arc just says it all so clearly!) but even before the end of Season 3, you can see the change in his behaviour.(Yes I'm talking about his acknowledgement of izuku's strength, and yeah Obviously I'm talking about the vulnerability he displays in Deku vs Kacchan 2.0)

And yeah like they say- "the best apology is changed behaviour"

[sorry anon, this veered a little off topic by the end but I hope I hit all your queries??]

#bnha #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #my hero academy #bakudeku #bkdk #mha #bakugou katsuki #bakugou #katsuki #midoriya izuku #midoriya #izuku #deku #kacchan #bnha meta #bakugou meta #correct bnha #serious post #asks #2k #not a quote

[itcamefromthetoybox]

The Battling Busboy

“Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings,” Marvel Studios’ latest super hero film, just hit theaters, and with it came some great new toys! And this being a toy review blog… I’m sure you can gather where I’m going with this. We’re gonna review some toys! Now, last week, we did something a little different and reviewed a two-pack instead of one toy. Well, we’re doing it again! So let’s take a look at the “Shang-Chi vs. Death Dealer” set.

As of this writing, I haven’t seen the movie yet. With the COVID Delta variant on shelves and my health held together by little more than coffee and a desire to own tiny plastic things, I don’t feel super-duper about going to theaters any time soon. This means I don’t know much about these characters from the movies, especially since I’m avoiding spoilers, and everything I do know is from the comics.

In the comics, Shang-Chi was originally the son of famous literary villain Fu Manchu, and was created back when Marvel had the rights to the Fu-Manchu books and was looking to cash in on the kung-fu craze of the 70’s. Hell, the comic that eventually became Shang-Chi was originally going to be an adaptation of a show called “Kung-Fu.” Despite his dad being so obviously evil that it was cartoonish, Shang-Chi didn’t realize his dad was the bad guy until he was sent to kill Fu Manchu’s enemies from the book, at which point, Shang-Chi realized, “oh crap, my dad’s evil!” Later books would retcon out Fu Manchu, because he was literally the original racist stereotype for Chinese master villains, and replace him with… pretty much the same thing but with a new name, because Marvel was fine with the racism but had lost the book rights and didn’t want to get sued. The movies, however, were like, “yeah, racism and borderline copy right violations might cut into our profit margins.” So they made Shang-Chi’s father an updated version of Iron Man’s comic book arch foe The Mandarin. Shang-Chi has popped up throughout the years as an Avenger, a recurring friend of Spider-Man, the dude everyone who needs to learn martial arts goes to, and whenever there’s a massive crowd shot of heroes. He’s also had several one-shots, short stories, and mini series, all of which is not bad for a guy who has no super powers.

His enemy in this two-pack, his father’s henchman Death Dealer, was someone who I initially knew nothing about. But, it’s 2021 and Wikipedia is a thing, so that got fixed fast. In the comics, Death Dealer was a former member of British intelligence agency MI-6, who was also a spy for Shang-Chi’s father. Upon being discovered, he fled and was given a pretty great costume and sent to fight Shang-Chi, who he actually managed to capture. Shang-Chi managed to eventually escape and later fought Death Dealer at his dad’s base in China, where he actually killed the villain by burning him to death. Because fire is usually the answer to whatever problems you may face.

Now that we all know who the hell these people are, let’s talk toys! For the Shang-Chi movie, Marvel’s released a bunch of toys. Shocking, I know. There’s the highly articulated Marvel Legends line, aimed at collectors, two figures for the Marvel Titan Heroes line of simplified 12-inch figures, and a small line of 6-inch figures with different features, in addition to toy accessories and a toy dragon that looks awesome. The set we’re looking at is from the main toy line, where most of the figures have different gimmicks. In this case, Shang-Chi has the power to roundhouse kick anyone who pisses him off, and Death Dealer has the ability to get roundhouse kicked in the face, because the toy budget meant only one figure in this set got to do something cool.

When Shang-Chi does it, it looks cool. When I do it, my pants rip.

Both figures in this set look really great. Excellent sculpting, wonderful detailing, they just look really good. Since it’s his movie, we’ll talk about Shang-Chi first, though. His articulation is all around his shoulders and legs. He’s also got a ball jointed head, but the sculpting means he can’t look up, so not entirely sure why they didn’t just use a swivel joint here. He’s got no knee or elbow articulation, which is a shame, but that’s because this figure is all about his gimmick, which we’ll get to in a second.

Finally, a toy for all my stock photo needs.

First, I do want to talk about an issue I have with this figure. His hair feels like a more rubbery plastic than the rest of his head, which makes for a weird sensation to touch. I know that’s a minor complaint, but it really bothers me, especially since I also grabbed the other Shang-Chi in this line, and he doesn’t have this issue. I don’t know if it’s a weird quirk of the plastic used for this toy’s head or if the hair’s a separate piece that was attached, or what, but it does bother me and might bug anyone with a sensory issue you might want to give this to, so keep that in mind.

The quality of this picture matches how I feel when I touch the toy’s hair.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk about the gimmick. The way it works is that there is a spring-loaded swivel in Shang-Chi’s right thigh, directly next to his crotch. You raise his left leg into a kick position, turn his body on the swivel, and let go. There’s a button on the back of his right leg that’s meant to hold him in place until you’re ready for him to kick, but it doesn’t do that great a job holding him and also requires you to constantly hold it in to make use of it.

You must grip the handsome man’s strong, powerful thighs.

As for Death Dealer, like I said before, he is very well-detailed. I was delighted by that. His articulation, on the other hand, isn’t exactly stellar. He has excellent shoulders and a ball joint head, but the sculpting prevents him from looking up and he has no elbows. His legs have articulation, but it is really limited by his costume’s robes, which block the legs from moving too much, and he has no knees. His right hand has a dagger molded into it and his left hand is sculpted into a grabbing gesture, so he also can’t hold anything. He’s definitely the weaker figure in the set and is clearly here just so Shang-Chi can kick him in the face.

Who needs good leg articulation when you have an outfit like this?

Who exactly is this set for? Well, clearly, it’s for the kids. It has a fun gimmick with simple figures that are fun for kids to play with and have no accessories that can be lost. The packaging also has no screens or windows, so the figures come in the open, meaning kids can touch them in the stores. The set goes for about $15, which does feel like a fair price. Just keep in mind what I said about Death Dealer’s articulation and Shang-Chi’s hair. That’s all I have to say, so I’m signing off and wishing you happy toy hunting!

#MCU #marvel cinematic universe #Shang-Chi #Death Dealer #Toy #Toys #toy reviews #toy review #review #reviews #marvel #shang-chi and the legend of the ten rings

[shinhatigf]

a little bit insane ahsoka and luke au

the lovely @picazos-angsty-typist inspired me to just post my au ideas as opposed to giving them away, and this one is my absolute favorite! it's an au in which 19 year old ahsoka finds the time travel crystal from the lego star wars christmas special and is transported onto tatooine right before a new hope. then she gets to go along through the original trilogy and be best friends with luke! (this is honestly just an extremely convoluted way to get my favorite characters to be best friends. this au is for me <3.) extremely long elaborations and plot stuff in bullet points under the cut:

okay so 19 year old ahsoka! it would be about 2 years post order 66 and about 6-8 months since the ending of the ahsoka novel, so she's traveling the world and doing fulcrum things, attempting to build a rebellion with bail organa. this, naturally, means she needs to hide from the empire.

because it needs to be life day for the crystal to work, that's the day this all starts (in ahsoka's original timeline). ahsoka finds out randomly that it's life day, and has a moment remembering the day before order 66, before the empire. 

she gets into a skirmish with the empire close by kordoku, the planet with the time travel stone on it. she feels a pull from the force, like there's a safe haven on the planet below, so she lands and immediately knows why: she's in front of a jedi temple. she knows she'll be safe inside from the empire. she walks in, and seals the temple with the force

she picks up the weird rock thing in the middle of the room, as it's singing to her through the force. the second she touches it, a wormhole opens up, and she's dropped directly in the middle of a tatooinian sandstorm.

we the audience know that she's time traveled, but ahsoka has no clue. and as I'm assuming she doesn't have much experience wandering ancient abandoned jedi temples (in her time, very recently, they'd been populated and upkept), she wouldn't suspect she was hallucinating. she assumed the rock somehow teleported her, but the sand and the wind of the sandstorm make it impossible for her to find the rock. where before it had been singing to her through the force, she couldn't feel anything now.

she has no choice but to try and find shelter from the storm and wait it out. she finds a sort of cave, a small hideout, so she sets up her small camp. having nothing else to do, she opens herself up to the force to meditate, hoping to locate the rock and find more information about her new situation. however, she instead discovers something she wasn't expecting: the faint and utterly familiar force prescence of one obi-wan kenobi

it feels damaged and weak, almost as if he'd cut himself off from the force somewhat, but there was no denying that it was obi-wan. ahsoka thanked the force for sending her to the rock, as she assumes it had just sent her to obi-wan and nothing else.

during this force meditation, she also discovers the planet that she's on is tatooine. this heavily reminds her of anakin, hearing echoes of their conversation as they crossed the desert from what seems like a million years ago. 

once the storm settles, she makes her way through the tatooinian desert, and just as the suns are coming up and she knows she would need to find shelter, she happens upon the Lars farm.

she meets Owen and Beru Lars and their nephew, Luke. they are kind and good people, and do not hesitate to offer ahsoka a place to stay + some food and water. ahsoka rests up somewhat, but insists on helping them in return.

this part I haven't quite nailed out yet. tatooine side quest featuring ahsoka and luke doing whatever one does on a moisture farm. I assume ahsoka would offer technological help as she's a good mechanic (perks of master skywalker) so maybe they're going around and fixing vaporators?

that day and into the night, she and luke really hit it off. she learns more about tatooine and more about how they've been affect by the war. however from the way luke talks about it, the empire has been around as long as he can remember. this strikes ahsoka as extremely odd, and wonders what else is going on, but fixing things doesn't leave much room for another galaxy warping revelation, so she doesn't dwell on it immediately.

she and luke discuss kind of everything. they become buddies bc that's important to me. the next day, she tells them she's looking for obi-wan kenobi. "do you know someone named obi-wan kenobi?" luke does his little "do you think she means old ben kenobi?" number which is fun n nostalgic hehe.

owen seems to freeze. he hasn't heard that name in quite some time, and it doesn't exactly conjure pleasant memories. he reluctantly agrees to let luke point her in the right direction, and she buys a speeder from them (they try to give it to her but she insists on paying. ahsoka ftw)

ahsoka manages to avoid the tuskens on her way into the jundland wastes and runs into.... this really old dude. this is when she really has to confront the time travel of it all. she and obi-wan have a Talk. there's still a little bad blood between them considering obi-wan was on the council that condemned her without remorse or apology, but they're both so relieved to see the other alive.

ahsoka learns that it's been 19 years since order 66, since the empire took over. she remembers the day it happened, what only feels like 2 years ago to her.

she mentions that luke helped her find him, and obi-wan freezes. this obviously gets noticed by ahsoka, and obi-wan drops the real bomb on her: luke is anakin and padmé's son. obi-wan tells her that anakin died in order 66 and padmé died with the rebellion, that he's here both to hide out and to protect luke. she remarks in her head that the whole chosen one thing is ridiculous, that pinning the entire galaxy's hopes on a nineteen year old kid that up until now obi-wan has refused to even CONSIDER training (skywalker trauma lolz) but she can sense the strong emotions from him, that he wouldn't have it in him to stand up to the empire alone, so she drops it.

as to how padmé died: i hate the way that she dies in the prequels so I am deleting it. this is my canon. she actually survives and stays with the rebellion for a good 3-5 years before she's killed in a rebel vs. empire conflict. ahsoka is especially devastated to learn about her death from obi-wan (who bail organa risked communication with to tell him, as he was also close with padmé). 

she and obi-wan spar, both to get Ahsoka's mind off of the everything about this situation and because it's been so long since either of them have been around another jedi. it's cathartic for both of them. (ahsoka beats obi-wan easily btw haha)

obi-wan offers to officially knight her as a jedi knight, as that was what the council had intended after the whole fiasco and he says "you're just as experienced and powerful as I was when I was knighted." but ahsoka declines. she isn't ready to be considered a jedi yet, and may never be.

this is when a new hope really starts. obi-wan and ahsoka find luke unconscious in the jundland wastes, and that sequence goes pretty much the same. r2 is beeping and trilling like crazy because ahsoka!!!!!! that's one of his best friends!!!!!!! luke is like "you know this droid?" and ahsoka freezes, because how exactly does she explain to the nice dude she met yesterday that actually she's from 17 years in the past and was very close with both of his parents, who both were extremely close to r2?

she does in fact explain all of that to him when they get to obi-wan's house. she has no idea how she got here or why, but she did know anakin skywalker and padmé amidala naberrie, and tells him as much as she remembers about them. luke misses both of his parents like an ache in his chest, wishing more than anything he could have known them. 

obi-wan offers his own perspective on it, and tells how anakin died (which ahsoka is just as eager to know). obi-wan, on the spot, says that another jedi fell to the dark side and joined sidious, and that anakin died defending the temple. (he obviously couldn't say that vader was his pupil, because ahsoka would see through that immediately.)

luke asks why he couldn't have lived with his mother in the rebellion, but obi-wan says that she wanted him to be safe from the galactic conflict and stay with anakin's family. (which is partially true, but the whole sith-sensing-the-overly-powerful-skywalkers was a big factor as well.) obi-wan says he's truly sorry that luke never got to know her.

after learning about the message r2 brought, ahsoka knows she has to get to the rebellion however possible and rejoin the fight. obi-wan agrees, and gives his little elevator pitch to luke about becoming a jedi and joining the rebellion. when obi-wan gives luke the lightsaber, a million memories with anakin flash through ahsoka's head. luke still comes to same conclusion at the end of that conversation: he's willing to guide them out of tatooine, but he can't join the galactic conflict, at least not now. 

however, as they're leaving, they find the destroyed jawa crawler. luke, as before, realizes it means the stormtroopers found his family. ahsoka knows that only despair waits there for him, and urges him not to go, but when he doesn't back down hops in the speeder with him (for protection and emotional support). 

luke gets to have more emotions about the fact that the empire killed his /entire family./ ahsoka doesn't try and use it to convince him to go, only offers to help him bury them. she openly uses the force to move things around and make things easier, while luke is still in shock, almost numb. they're buried next to shmi and cliegg. 

luke is ANGRY at the empire. he is PISSED. he decides to go with them to fight not because he longs for adventure, but because he wants to hit the empire where it hurts. ahsoka can recognize that isn't the thought process of a jedi, but she feels the exact same way after learning about anakin and padmé. 

now it's mos eisley time. i feel like han would definitely like/admire ahsoka at first, but ahsoka would not like him. she finds him deplorable and a little annoying, and joins in on the whole bagging on the falcon jokes. this leads to han getting his feelings hurt and he's like fine :( we are not friends then >:(. 

the interesting thing is that chewie and ahsoka actually know each other! they were both kidnapped by bossk and hunted for sport in that one clone wars arc, so they're both like "oh hey person who was there for one of the most terrifying and traumatic times in my life! what's up!" they become fast friends yet again, and chewie is like "wow you did not age at all. are you sure you're not a wookiee?"

on the millennium falcon, she and obi-wan get started on luke's training. he asks her about his parents constantly (what they were like, what they did, where they came from, etc). she also talks about what the jedi were like (providing a less rose-colored-glasses perspective, but still with a lot of positives). 

she feel the same pain obi-wan does right before they get to alderaan, and can feel bail and breha organa in particular (having known them fairly well after the ahsoka novel). 

they get pulled into the death star's tractor beam. ahsoka can feel the cold and horrible presence of vader, a sick dread building in her the closer they get to it. they go to hide under the floorboards of the falcon. han knows how the empire operates better than anyone, which ahsoka is shocked to learn is much different than the Republic or the empire she remembers. (i imagine she lived in a more transitional period, so while the empire was terrible during her time, they were only getting started.)

she tries to go with obi-wan to shut off the power beam, but obi-wan still does his "I must go alone" little number. sensing the end of something, but not what it is, she hugs him goodbye. he's still obi-wan and she missed him dreadfully. he tells her to protect luke. 

she along with luke refuses to indulge han's obi-wan slander, and when han says "great at getting us into trouble!" she says "you should have met anakin."

then it's princess rescue time as it should be. that goes exactly the same except ahsoka is much better at defending them from the stormtroopers lol. leia still does the blasting and "somebody has to save our skins!" line because I love that

ahsoka can tell immediately that leia is padmé's daughter. she had probably heard of leia, being in the rebellion for about six months before time traveling, but now having met her it's completely obvious. she doesn't vocalize this immediately though, planning to discuss it with obi-wan. 

yes I'm keeping the garbage monster scene because I think it's funny :)

ahsoka goes with han and chewie after the stormtroopers while luke and leia head for the ship. also ahsoka + han banter because I think it's funny

she can see obi-wan and vader's fight (which I'm hoping will be a lot more like their fight in rots. a new hope is incredible but the lightsaber fights got way better as time went on. their final fight deserves to be epic). she tries to run and help obi-wan but luke pulls her back. "he can handle it," he says. "we need you to help us get to the falcon."

however when obi-wan is killed, both of them are distraught. his voice appears in ahsoka's head, telling her not to face vader yet, telling her to run. chewie literally has to hold her back and carry her to the ship. 

they blast their way out of the death star, none of them having the time to dwell on what just happened. 

ahsoka and luke are both numb. luke lost 3 parental figures in one day, and obi-wan's death after going through order 66 just brings it allll up again. leia is also hanging out in the numb dead parents circle, because her entire planet got blown up today and obi-wan's death just feels like another nail in the coffin. all three of them can sort of feel each other's emotions, and unconsciously they're comforting each other with the force. it's a healing moment for all three of them

han is kind of awkwardly standing in the background. "there wasn't anything any of you could have done," he says, in a rare show of emotion. (i like han wanting to help them despite his i-don't-care-about-anything facade.)

this doesn't stop him from saying he's only in it for the money later though. leia gets to blow up at him about it same as in the movie because she deserves it methinks.

they make it to the rebellion, and a few of the people who've been in it from the beginning recognize her (mon mothma maybe?). I also like the idea of ahsoka being something of rebellion legend, having been one of the last jedi who presumably died fighting the empire for the rebellion. 

also general hera syndulla gets to be there bc i love her. she is the one who shows the plans to the pilots and explains the plan. she also references the rogue one crew because i love them also. 

ahsoka in an x-wing with the red team attempting to blow up the death star. when vader makes an appearance, she can sense him in the starfighter nearby them, the same cold and evil presence. she personally goes to fight vader and defends the rest of the team from him, somehow falling into a perfect rhythm and anticipating every move. she doesn't kill him obviously, but she gets close. the things that happen stay the same: they sustain heavy casualties, she survives the battle, han comes back to save the day, luke is the one who blows up the death star.

luke, han, chewie, and ahsoka get medals in the end, because each of them were instrumental in the blowing up of the death star (and a lot more pilots survive thanks to Ahsoka's defense). there are references to the phineas and ferb star wars special because I want it. 

there's a bit after the official end of a new hope in which she's talking to Luke like "I can't stay. this isn't my timeline. I have to go back. and if I can go back, maybe I can try and save the jedi. maybe I can fix things." however luke changes her mind. "maybe you're in this timeline for a reason. maybe NOW is when you can change things. I would've died without you in the battle of yavin. plus, how am I supposed to become a jedi without you?" luke + leia + han + chewie + r2 + 3po all convince her to stay. they are all very attached to ahsoka at this point, and ahsoka realizes she doesn't really want to leave them either.

also. because the battle is over and they all have a moment to breathe, she tells leia that she's positive she's padmé and anakin's daughter too, not just because of the physical resemblence but also her force sensitivity. there's no doubt about it.

ahsoka agrees to train both of them in what she knows, though she warns that she wasn't a master or even a knight.

it ends with the whole crew hanging out on the falcon (han, leia, luke, chewie, r2, c-3po, and ahsoka)

those are my bullet points for the episode IV section of this! if people want to see where this goes in the rest of the trilogy let me know I have so many notes about this au

also tagging: @togrutanduin @padme--amygdala @bisexualobiwanrights @grimthejedisith @senator-nahberries you get to watch me lose my mind in real time <3

#word count: 3.0k #and this is only the first installment if I ever write this it's going to be so long #the original trilogy #ahsoka tano #luke skywalker #it's loving ahsoka hours #luke is my favorite himbo #my writing #? never used that tag before maybe I should? #ryn dot fic #ryn dot text