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xjulixred45x · 6 months

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Big Bro Gojo! Reader find out about Megumi and Tsumiki. Ft Kugisaki and Itadori!

This part is pretty long!

First part for context

first of all, thanks to @shootinglove14 for giving me the idea for this adorable drabble, thanks sweetie!

Now, moving on to the topic, I think Big Bro Reader would know about Megumi's existence shortly after he has his talk with Satoru (after the breakup of KFC) and confesses that, that Touji told him that he had a son, as if He would wait for his brother to tell him what he should do. Big Bro at first, I'm not going to lie, is too angry at Touji for almost killing his little brother to think clearly, so he tells him to do what he thinks is right.

which in Satoru's mind translated to: "do what your brother would have done" and knowing that under normal circumstances Big Bro Reader would not hesitate to take in a child in need (ESPECIALLY if Big Bro already has children of his own) Satoru He decides that he will do the same.

so, he goes to get Megumi (and additionally Tsumiki), takes them with him and introduces them to his older brother as the children he had been telling them about :D (completely ignoring the fact that he warned him with, like, 5 minutes of before they arrived and that it was supposed to be just ONE SON)

but as soon as Big Bro Reader sees them, any kind of dislike towards Touji or resentment IS CRUSHED and replaced with pity when he sees how small they are, he very much regrets having thought the way he did when he saw how they lived, and begins to treat them like his normal friendly self, almost like his own children.

As Megumi and Tsumiki grow up, Big Bro reader is a very important figure in their lives, mainly because he has the tact that Satoru doesn't have, he is cuddly without being annoying, he is much more respectful, how could they not love him? especially in the case of Megumi, who tries to help him with his abandonment issues.

With Tsumiki he becomes close through things like housework, Reader is a deconstructed man, he helps his wife and Tsumiki in everything he can😤 and even teaches her some tricks that he has learned in the Gojo house (cooking, laundry, embroidery, self-defense, the man is a box of surprises).

overall Tsumiki sees her friendly personality supported by someone like Big Bro reader who is almost the same. She sees him as a great man and definitely a good example of a man, father and husband.

Megumi, as I already said, likes Big Bro Reader more in the sense that he has much more tact and respect for what others say, that already gives him many points, but he also gets attached very quickly to him because of how good he is. general that he is, but he doesn't take shit from anyone. Big Bro reader will be gentle, yes, but he can't stand disrespect and is definitely someone who can hold a grudge, can empathize with it.

but Big Bro's fatherly and uninterested attitude was definitely what made him love him so much, they can bond through things like board games, Big Bro teaches him how to be a gentleman, go out to parks together with the Divine dogs, teach them Gojo clan techniques, etc.

By the time they grow up, they see Big Bro Reader as a kind of secondary father, but if Big Bro already has children, they will be their guardians and help Reader take care of them. when Tsumiki happens, Reader is the FIRST to run to the hospital and comfort Megumi, he is the one who occasionally prepares her a homemade lunch for school, he is the one who Megumi goes to visit when she has the opportunity (aside from Tsumiki) to tell him of his day.

Big Bro reader is one of the few people (if not the only one) who feels like he will never abandon him, and gives him a genuine and warm feeling of security that he wishes he had before. He loves it very much.

Megumi becomes an unofficial part of Big Bro's family, his wife even has a guest room tailored to his tastes (and for his divine dogs), she has some of his favorite snacks in the pantry, and MY GOD, when he comes over of surprise and Reader's children are going to greet him with "welcome home Megumi-nisaaaaaan!" Megumi could DIE THERE AND DIE HAPPY.

They even leave him a space at the table (Big Bro's wife always gives him extra portions because according to her "he is very thin") and he can feel calm. simple peace of mind.

Gojo's brother is amazing.

and eventually thanks to this and being the fucking sensei's brother, he would also meet Nobara and Itadori.

Itadori would meet Big Bro reader before Nobara, he would probably even be either 1- one of the people Itadori would go on his first missions with or 2- one of the few people Gojo trusted to let him know that Yuji wasn't dead.

Let's go for both.

Itadori was VERY surprised to see the difference in attitude between his Sensei and his brother, but he still saw that Big Bro Reader was someone very respectable, even adorable! always bragging about his family and Gojo-sensei also started showing him his own photos of his nephews/nieces (Big Bro's children) and even some photos from when they were young, it was very wholesome.

I can see Big Bro joining Itadori in his movie marathons (especially after the incident with Junpei), inviting him to his house to meet his family, even staying for dinner. For Yuji everything is so...NEW, a whole family, functional and happy, how does he do it? but ends up thanking him very much for the experience (even giving him a hug that Reader gladly returns).

Itadori goes with Big bro reader if he needs more sentimental or emotional advice, since Big bro is something like his guide in that sense, his reference point for what he would like to have, and although Itadori is a walking green flag , sometimes doesn't understand certain situations, and wants to become as friendly and supportive as big bro reader.

Imagine Itadori and Megumi babysitting Big Bro reader's children! I imagine that they are half angels and half Gojo(xd) so they would have to be very careful with that. Megumi would absolutely LOVE to see children drawing pictures or talking about their family, if they draw him a picture of him, he will cry (even if it is the ugliest thing ever drawn, he will hang it on the refrigerator, NO BUTS)

Itadori stays more with Big Bro reader's wife (if she is there) and helps her with things like shopping bags and wanting to know more about the children to be a better babysitter with Megumi (although he knows them better so not much problem).

And when Big bro reader comes Back and the kids go running to give their dad the "welcome home!" Call, Itadori swears his heart MELTS.

Sensei's brother is very kind. Is what he thinks whathever the topic of Big bro is bring up.

Nobara would probably meet Big Bro after Itadori's "death", and at first she didn't think much of him (except that he dressed VERY well) until she learned that he was Gojo-Sensei's older brother. and honestly? She didn't believe it.

It couldn't be!! IT HAD TO BE A JOKE! How did someone like his sensei have someone so friendly as a brother? Or was Reader hiding his own idiotic side? It took photos from when they were young and a lot of insistence for her to finally believe that they were even related.

Definitely at first she was a little alert because of the friendly way Big Bro Reader acted, but eventually she was able to let her guard down when she realized that he wasn't planning anything shady, on the contrary, he wanted to be with them in a difficult moment like what he was doing. It was losing a partner. Nobara could respect him for that.

and he believed that he must be the proudest man in the world, because he always showed off his family, especially his children. At first Nobara found him somewhat annoying, but it didn't take long before she got on the train of enthusiasm for the achievements of Big Bro's children.

If Big Bro has a bad fashion sense, Nobara is ON A MISSION to change that, no ifs and buts. They won't go away until you at least know basic color theory.

Overall Nobara is happy to be a girl around Big Bro reader and have good mental support at this school. Sensei's brother is great.

Thank you for reading!❤️

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mdhwrites · 1 month

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thoughts on camila?

So I've talked about how she is just as a character before. I think as a character, she's as sweet as a saint and I like her in isolation. However, and this is what I want to focus on more because of an element I'll get to, she's a bad character in the context of The Owl House for the same reason King and Eda are: What is she doing in this story? How does she add to it?

Camila makes Luz look a fucking terrible as a human being. Almost EVERYTHING we see in the human frankly makes Luz like a terrible human being because that's the genre that The Owl House is a part of: Modern Isekai. Like most Modern Isekai, it's a story about a nerdy person who has no real prospects in real life and would rather live in their fantasies getting to go do that. Luz has a power that no one else has, gets to be with the prettiest, most popular, richest girl in the new world. She gets to stand up to a corrupt system but it never actually bothers her so she can just have fun shenanigans for the vast majority of the run time. She even fights an Evil Emperor which is almost as generic as a Demonic Lord as far as fantasy villains go. Honestly, TOH being isekai is probably a large part of why it was green lit (and frankly, same goes for Amphibia) since while it's not critically acclaimed, isekai is still one of the most popular genres of anime out there and the popular ones have made money hand over fist.

For most stories in this genre, they A: stay in the fantasy realm, TOH isn't fucking special people but also B: have a terrible home life in part to justify that desire and decision. There's also elements of wish fulfillment to its target demographic which is actually kind of important here. That your life sucks so you deserve to escape from it, just like this person. That terrible homelife in turn turns into a payoff for the audience because it can be used to highlight just how much better this world is and how much better off for everyone the MC is in this new world.

Camila doesn't really work for that though, does she? Something the show itself acknowledges with Yesterday's Lie. "You had it good." Hell, in that episode we have Camila wanting Vee to keep Luz's stuff because she knows those things are important to her daughter. Even in the first episode, Camila just wants Luz to make friends. She could fail to learn ANY life skills and stay just as weird at the camp (which she presumably needed to go to to not be EXPELLED for what she did) and Camila would happy if she was in a new Discord group with some friends. That is how low the fucking bar is for Camila's expectations of Luz and somehow THAT was too much. That was, as Camila will apologize for, multiple times, pushing her daughter away or repressing her.

That doesn't function for a Modern Isekai story... It functions for an old school isekai like Amphibia is. Old school isekai after all featured a lot more character growth, a lot more of the other world being an abstraction of problems the person was facing in the real world and had to learn how to deal with. As such, they usually ended with the main character going home a better person and putting their fantasies behind them. Not admonishing them but recognizing that staying there isn't what's best for them.

Camila's character for one of those is AMAZING. Like it could genuinely have led to one of the best deconstructions of the modern isekai protagonist. It's like the ass hat protag from Far Cry 3 (not saying this is handled well btw in that) who still wants to be bigger and more cool and seen as strong by those around him while he already has a smoking hot fiance, lives his life doing dangerous stunts, is really attractive himself and could just coast for the rest of his life. It doesn't fulfill his image and fantasy of what a 'man' is so fuck all of that, I need to go kill people and take over this native tribe! Which hurk, again, it's not done well, but it was trying to deconstruct this sort of fantasy. This sort of escapism that says the image in your mind is ALWAYS more important than those actually around you.

It could have highlighted how things are never as bad as they seem and wanting to escape always hurts someone and always is selfish... But for that, the show would have had to be willing to say one needs to learn to respect reality over fantasy. This could either be done by Luz learning that treating everything like one of japanese animu is a bad thing or they could do it through doubling down and showcasing after Yesterday's Lie that Luz is a genuinely terrible, selfish person who only views the promise she made to her mom as requiring her to give up the world she likes, not the damage she did to her mom.

Which I phrase because they literally did that. They changed the ending promise scene of Yesterday's Lie from being about their complex relationship to just being a summary of the stakes. "Come home, never come back." It's a narrative cheat to welcome anyone back from the mid season hiatus and that is frankly the BEST way to read it for Luz's character because otherwise she changed a conflict mostly about the pain she inflicted on her mom purely to the consequences and that's not really a thing a good person does.

But then the series ends with her having both worlds, getting to literally be Azura finally, quoting the damn book and just ENTIRELY admitting that it's not an OC, it's her replacing Azura, and it's all just fucking awful. In part because, like with the Liar Reveal stuff I talked about with TOH, it's a subversion without a new payoff. They try VERY HARD to give a new payoff but it's not earned. People adore the "I just want to be understood" moment but it ONLY functions in that moment from a meta perspective of it being a neurodivergent girl seeking understanding because who, especially of the people Luz cares about, hasn't shown her understanding in the past SEASON? SHE HAS A GIRLFRIEND WHO IS WAY BETTER AT IT THEN HER!

And so Camila is just this contradictory sore spot that goes right back around to "Man, our target audience would really love it if their parents would tell them explicitly that they don't need to grow as people or even try to understand others or how they may hurt them, literally but instead that their comfort is all that matters." It goes right back to being all about modern isekai's worst element: Wish fulfillment. Bland, obvious, pandering wish fulfillment.

And I COULD end the blog right there... But I said I had a reason to wanted to answer it like this. Admittedly, it expanded from what I expected so sorry for the long blog but here's the real tragedy: The moment of Luz recontextualizing Yesterday's Lie's promise should have been AMAZING to me. After all... It's the part of Luz I loved writing the most.

Yep, more of that celebrating ten years of writing stuff to talk about one of the elements of my TOH writing that I genuinely am very proud of: Luz being a scared, anxious teenager who doesn't read the world correctly. One who is held back because she thinks if she isn't scared, she'll be hurt or, more importantly, hurt others.

I know a lot of people will tell me that TOH didn't do that and like... gestures at everything above and SO many other elements like how Luz has two token moments implying she's been traumatized from bullying that doesn't read with how she was for the entirety of the first season, or up to those points in the second for that matter, AT ALL. She doesn't actually have that sort of fear or anxiety. She's too selfish and self serving for it. Her needs always come above others and that's not the compelling part of this to me, nor is the self protection element.

No, it comes from the fact that you have to actually care what others think for it to torture you, like most teenagers do. That disappointing someone would be essentially the same as stabbing them. In The Power of Love, I got a lot of people to go from "This is cute" to "Okay, you have my attention" with chapter 3: Ru-Luz (which reading back... Some of my transition lines are not working there. Why did I think they did? Brain moving too fast I suspect like usual or trying too hard). Despite the pun, it's not a fun chapter. It ends with her listed rules that are actually nice, like telling her to be herself, but a final rule that, so as to keep the voices in her head, the things others have told her, quiet she must follow. "Treat Amity like anyone else, even if that means breaking other rules." And one of those voices is said to be Camila's.

I don't leave it there though. Through complications, it's very explicitly revealed that, well... Luz is a teen. Everything is world ending for her. That she's taken small comments or momentary frustrations, or just straight up misread things, so as to have them attack her and form her view of how others perceive her (along with having been genuinely bullied). That her mom does adore her and would accept any part of her but she can't believe that, not with how she is now. And that leads to really highlighting an element of Lumischa that I've always loved: Boscha as Amity and Luz's rock. Someone who is honest enough that neither worry about if she's holding back on her opinion. And you know what happens?

Luz and Boscha get multiple chapters of Boscha providing the wake up call she needs. Of her chipping away at those fears that others may be secretly hating her because here is bad bitch Boscha telling her to shut up because she's better than she thinks she is. It's blunt enough to actually make an impact, harsh enough that it still addresses the fuck up, and is something no else would do. Not even Amity because Amity is her own ball of anxieties who's worried about the wrong move upsetting people. I would have ADORED this element actually being a thing for Luz and you know, maybe leading to a Power of Friendship moment with all of them backing her up and giving her the confidence she needs for something. Instead we get her ignoring what she's claiming to be worried about (making mistakes) and then getting a power up when her mom tells her that she should have quite literally never criticized anything about her daughter which is not what a good parent does. Even my Boscha will still call out that Luz did make a mistake if she did, just then also point that she's being over dramatic about it because no one hates her because of it.

I also want to give a shout out to this essentially being an element of my Luz for Ruff Secret as well (original version too) as an essentially tragic element to the majority of the story. Camila clearly accepts parts of her daughter in that story that their wider community doesn't but Camila is also critically still a part of that community which is Christian. She's very devout even, going every week to church. There is nothing except coming out to Camila that will ever make Luz not just assume that being gay will not get her disowned because of the fears in her head and because of those same fears, she'll never come out of the closet. She has clearly never even been willing to approach the topic with her mom about it. It does payoff in the end though with Camila freaking out WAY harder about Amity being a werewolf and the danger that puts her daughter in than of Luz being gay because why would you judge something as incredible as love?

It's not new, I've seen some other things take similar approaches, but it uses the age of the character and society to actually amplify the emotions and make the angst more justified. Make what normally just be "I can't confess, what if she says no?" more dramatic while also managing to tie the two romantic leads together in their conflicts since Amity is dealing with something she sees as a curse, as a primal sin that could only ever hurt others, just like Luz is. And just like Luz, it's actually in repressing and rejecting that side of her that Amity does end up hurting someone but that someone is herself.

All while still managing to be one of the funniest stories I've ever written. I ADORE Ruff Secrets. Crises Girlfriends may be my most personal story but I still think Ruff Secrets is my best story. Period. Which is frankly a miracle since it was a snap start based on a joke a someone made.

So yeah, I like Camila conceptually. I think there was a lot you could do with her. Any direction though would have required TOH to be at least as grounded as Amphibia, let alone ANYWHERE near as grounded as the fandom thinks it is. As is, she's a subversion that doesn't add anything and actively hurts what is a very normal fantasy story.

As such, she's a bad character because what you add to a narrative does matter to that metric unless you are actively ignoring that part of a character's purpose for existing. That's just less useful to a writer though because it means you add a tool to your toolbox without understanding how to use that tool which is always dangerous as any professional mechanic or engineer may tell you.

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I will admit that I fidget at praising myself so much like this. I know I've used my own works as examples in the past but it always makes me feel awkward. It especially never helps that it likely comes across as, justifiably, saying I could have done X better. There's a big difference though between "In this context I DID X better" and "If I had made X, I WOULD have done it better." Situation, context, and just the creative process can always muddie things and doesn't even mean the same writer will always tackle the same subjects as well every time. It's just a part of the process.

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

#the owl house criticism #toh critical #toh #the owl house #luz noceda #camila noceda

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befemininenow · 10 months

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Deconstructing the sissy in you (part 1)

Note: This note contains a lot of sissy captions from blogs that no longer exist. This isn’t meant for sissies who are still into the “lifestyle”; everyone has their thing. It’s for those who wish to distance themselves from something that does not correlate with their femininity, but has trouble shaking away their past. Being feminine is something rewarding and should never be humiliating. It’s part of who we are as people. However, take this note with a grain of salt. If you need real help, please consult an actual therapist in your area who is specialized in gender identity.

You ask yourself in tears “How did this all started? What can I do to go back?” as you’re viewing yourself in the mirror all dressed up in pink and frills, blonde wig, heavy makeup, and a cast down there. Your desire was to look as feminine as possible, not some kind of doll that others would poke fun at and admire. You know in your mind you’re a girl, a trans girl. But out of fear of being ostracized by everyone, you wish you can go back, burn every trace of the “sissy lifestyle” you were lured into, and come out to the world as a vanilla trans girl. Well, I’m here to tell you the truth: You can’t go back (theoretically speaking). However, there is a way for you to freshly start over again (realistically speaking). And it all starts by jogging your memory to the beginning.

You always had a thing for “feminization”, which is the process of incorporating feminine aspects towards any person regardless of identity. For a while, you enjoyed viewing others submit to “forced feminization” through transformation sequences because of a sense of dominance. It wasn’t until you realized that you deeply wanted to be like the “victims” and started to visualize yourself as a girl.

You secretly had feminine characteristics that you tried to oppress to avoid being called names. You know the ones: “sissy”, “f@ggit”, “wimp”, “pussy”, “girl”. That last word is what you hated being called, yet you did “manly” activities to prove your maleness. Outside, they saw you as a potential alpha. But inside, you were somebody else.

The MTF transformations in your feed weren’t enough anymore and suddenly you wanted something a little more real. Shortly later, you found out about trans women models and actresses in the underground scene and it threw you off at first. “They exist? I thought they were just fiction?”. Then, you started looking at MTF timelines, articles about trans people, and even a few videos about the transitioning process, including surgeries. It feels intense and scary; you don’t know if you want this. How painful would it be to give up “down there” for a rack “up there”? “Is there any alternative safer than that?”

Then, out of nowhere on your social feed, you see this image:

It resonates with you! That’s who you wish to be inside! She’s hot, and a dream babe! But more importantly, you wish to have a body like hers!

You click on the link and wonder where this image came from and you realize you’re in a blog full of “feminization captions”. You’ve always been a fan of TG captions and are open-minded for anything new. All of a sudden, you find another caption you like:

OMG! Another hot chick! “But why do I feel like I want to be her instead?” You look at the caption folder and they seem intriguing. Eventually, you found your answer:

“Feminization? I need that now!” You sent a DM to the caption blog’s inbox and asked how the “feminization process” works. The person behinds it send you this picture:

You thank the person so much and ask if they are this person or if they know them. Although their blog doesn’t exist anymore, they ask you to find a “mistress” who specializes in feminization. It took you a while, but you eventually found a sympathetic one and not too long after, the process slowly began.

At first, they’re quite innocent and truthful. You are a guy after all.

Then, they became a little more deep.

A little too deep...

Soon, they started to make you think deeper...

They’re right. Trying heels isn’t “gay”, nor is trying on her set.

Soon, your dreams became more “feminine” after several hypnos, captions, and training.

In a matter of time, your desires started to change...

“Wait, that’s not true! Or, maybe it is now, idk.”

“Sissy!? Ok, I need to stop this now. I am not a sissy!”

“Well, I do like being a girl, but I’m not sure about being called a sissy...”

“Umm.. mmm....”

Your sexuality started to shift. Men were suddenly so hot...

You never thought yourself with a guy, but then you started dating them, pleasing them, getting rammed by them, daydreaming of them. Your attraction to girls eroded as time went by.

But something has also been in your mind as you went deep into the “sissy lifestyle” these mistresses and besties encouraged you be part of. Something that resonates more with who you really want to be. Something more serious and life-changing:

You realize all what you have did was more of a distraction and less of what you deem “feminization”. Sure, the pleasure was great. The makeovers were amazing. The name callings were quite flattering. But what you really wanted to be was more in touch with your feminine side. What you really wanted was to become a woman:

(stay tuned for part 2)

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goblins-riddles-or-frocks · 5 months

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In case you haven’t already been asked, can I please hear the soapbox about Aleksander being a direct take on Edward Cullen?

(Also your meta is astonishingly well written and well thought out and a delight to read!)

Thank you so much! That’s so sweet! Not to be vain, but well I am simply vain and like hearing that lol.

This is a fandom I’ve mostly avoided interacting with people in because I feel like there seems to be a very strong dichotomy between people who absolutely loathe the Darkling and all aspects of the villain ship and judge any engagement with it or conversely people who loooove him but are like “He’s never done anything wrong in his life ever and Alina’s actually evil and ungrateful for running away from him”

So I’ve mostly just been quietly posting fic in my own corner for as long as I’ve been on the periphery of the fandom. The current meta thing happened on accident but it’s been fun and I enjoy getting asks!

Anyway, this took me awhile to get to because I’ve been trying to figure out how to best articulate my thoughts beyond what I already generally said in that other post:

[Shadow and Bone was probably being written] towards the tail end of the post Twilight paranormal, and specifically vampire, romance boom. It was not at all uncommon to see unironic romances focusing on impressionable teenaged protagonists with poor self esteem, getting with 100+ year old love interests who, in singling them out (for their “maturity” and discontent from their peer group) validate their self worth, but also completely isolate and impose their own values on them.

The first half of the very first TGT book follows those same tropes pretty closely, and the initial romance heavy book marketing was basically indistinguishable from that crop of books.

To be clear, I think wish fulfillment stories are fine lol, but it’s really interesting to think of SaB (and the Darkling!) as a deliberate deconstruction in response to those trends.

So that does sum up my thoughts generally. But to get into it in more depth, let’s talk about Twilight.

Stories featuring teen protagonists and immortal love interests are older than Twilight, of course. But I’d argue that Twilight codified and popularized a particular version where the point is validation of self worth through the romance.

Comparing it to 90s versions of similar plotlines, BTVS, Vampire Diaries (the books), and Silver Kiss all have teen/immortal romances but the protagonist is already mostly self actualized or previously singled out as special in some way. It’s not dependent on the love interest noticing the protagonist to signify that she’s deserving of attention? If that makes sense? The romances instead hinge more on the protagonist having some sort of brush with death or other source of morbidity that allows her to feel kinship with the vampire and relate to him.

(I’m using specific pronouns because this is such a gendered and heterosexual genre and story type. I’d argue gender roles are an inherent part of how it functions)

With BTVS it’s Buffy’s entire alter life as a slayer and the violence and loneliness of it that her peers could never understand. Vampire Diaries and Silver Kiss both focus on loss of a parent(s) and the jarring alienation of grief.

Conversely, Twilight opens with Bella as an aggressively ordinary and unassuming girl. The narrative is very explicit about her not feeling very pretty or special in any way. She’s dissatisfied with her life because she constantly puts everyone else in it first, and though she is forever self sacrificing she also isn’t very vocal about it, so she gets no meaningful acknowledgement for how much she tries to do.

It’s also worth noting that Bella being the new addition to a very small town and all attention being on her is also a prominent part of the first book, so it’s really about superficial attention vs someone really Seeing Her. This is reinforced by her coming to Edward’s attention at all because a) he inexplicably can’t read her thoughts and b) her blood smells really good and is testing his morals and self control lmfao. Because again both of these things are superficial forms of attention and specialness and the particularly tasty blood— imo primarily being a very Mormon metaphor for violent sexual desire/impulses in men— is in-universe just overtly negative attention. But they fall in love despite all that, because she is pure enough and nice enough and interesting enough on her own merits that he sees past all that to who she is as a person.

Whether or not these themes are consciously employed, Twilight is inextricable imo from Stephenie Meyer’s Mormonism and that sort of very conservative perspective. In a way, the romance in Twilight becomes a metaphor for an inherently violent man (It’s not his fault though! He’s just cursed with sinful urges!) being faced with how pure and secretly special the protagonist is and being floored enough by it to instead fall in love with her. It’s about seeing her humanity and it being so shockingly unique to him apparently that it eclipses his predisposition to see her simply as one of three existing categories: an NPC, prey, OR despised temptation who exists solely to challenge his morals.

This is further explored by the werewolves as an incredibly racist mirror to this, and Emily as an example of someone whose violent spouse was not able to hold back… perhaps because she simply wasn’t special enough… or honestly perhaps because she didn’t see the value of their relationship and (iirc) didn’t want anything to do with him. Their relationship is apparently idyllic once she’s chosen to stay 😬 but that’s tangential.

This element of violence is something that the biggest and most well known Twilight imitator, Fifty Shades of Grey, definitely picked up on. (Unfortunately I’m also going to talk about Fifty Shades a fair bit to compare and contrast!) Where, its incredibly flawed swapping out of vampirism for perceived sexual deviance in the form of terrible BDSM etiquette lmao and just outright trauma notwithstanding, the main premise is just overtly “What if you were SO pure and sweet that an abusive and overtly sadistic man who is going out of his way to not see your personhood was forced to confront you as a human being and fell in love with you, enough so to change his ways entirely”

All this being said, I don’t think Twilight’s biggest impact on the paranormal romance genre as a touchstone was really as a metaphor for… uh being good enough to not be victimized by a man lmao. At least not all the time. I’d argue the most popularly recycled tropes are just that of an unassuming protagonist with low self esteem, who’s never really acknowledged by her peers, having her worth validated by an immortal creature. This validation comes from a hot immortal love interest being framed as inherently better and cooler than the guys all the other girls are dating, but also because immortality means that this older and more worldly character presumably has a much higher standard to clear! If this character is saying that the protagonist is shockingly special and interesting and worthy of love, next to all of her peers that he doesn’t even notice at all, that must both be true and a good thing. In this way, the love interest’s values, either inadvertently or deliberately, are the only values that matter. And rising to that standard is usually synonymous with isolation from one’s peers and even viewing them as lesser.

Meanwhile, another frequent trope in the genre is controlling behavior. This is typically just there as a way to highlight how much the love interest loves the protagonist, and maybe as a way to introduce some desirable undertones of danger/conflict. In Twilight’s defense, while Edward imposing his own values on Bella entirely, constantly ignoring the very few boundaries she sets, and being all around a controlling creep isn’t treated with a real understanding of its gravity, it’s also not presented wholly uncritically. There is a (very drawn out) arc over the course of the series where she allows her identity to be subsumed into him and existing only in terms of their relationship, but by the last book she does actually push back on plenty of his hard and fast rules— if still in that fundamentally conservative and Mormon way. She keeps the baby he doesn’t want; she gets to turn into a vampire and stay with him forever; her experience with vampirism ISN’T his experience with vampirism ie mindless bloodthirstiness lol; she doesn’t need to fake her death; her family and friends can continue to be a part of her life. But Twilight imitators usually don’t get that far!

So let’s finally circle back around to Shadow and Bone:

First of all let’s talk about its early marketing. Shadow and Bone’s earlier title was the Gathering Dark and iirc the first round of ARCs were even sent out with that title and this cover:

Notice the paranormal romance tagline of “A dark heart. A pure soul. A love that will last forever.”

Meanwhile this was the official blurb it was initially released with:

“Surrounded by enemies, the once-great nation of Ravka has been torn in two by the Shadow Fold, a swath of near impenetrable darkness crawling with monsters who feast on human flesh. Now its fate may rest on the shoulders of one lonely refugee.

Alina Starkov has never been good at anything. But when her regiment is attacked on the Fold and her best friend is brutally injured, Alina reveals a dormant power that saves his life—a power that could be the key to setting her war-ravaged country free. Wrenched from everything she knows, Alina is whisked away to the royal court to be trained as a member of the Grisha, the magical elite led by the mysterious Darkling.

Yet nothing in this lavish world is what it seems. With darkness looming and an entire kingdom depending on her untamed power, Alina will have to confront the secrets of the Grisha . . . and the secrets of her heart.”

And this additional very romance novel blurb that was on some other marketing material:

“Alina, a pale, lonely orphan, discovers a unique power that thrusts her into the the world of the kingdom's magical elite - the Grisha. Could she be the key to setting Ravka free?

The Darkling, a man of seductive charm and terrifying power. If Aline is to fulfill her destiny, she must unlock her gift and face up to her dangerous attraction to him.

But what of Mal, Alina's childhood best friend? Why can't she forget him?”

ALSO here is the romance heavy book trailer:

Fans of Darklina as an endgame ship will argue that this was indicative of there being an earlier romance focused version where they were intended to end up together. I… highly doubt that personally.

In all interviews, even the earliest ones, where Leigh Bardugo talks about the story and the characters and how she came up with them, she talks about it from a perspective that sounds in keeping with how the plot played out, as in, the Darkling existing to be a literal villain.

I think all this just places SaB as a Madoka Magica, or Doki Doki Literature Club type deconstruction where deceptive marketing is simply working very hard to preserve the twist.

I think the story itself engages with Twilight pretty directly. Alina, as a youthful ingenue protagonist with low self esteem, a feeling of alienation from her peers, and feeling constantly overlooked by everyone, including her childhood best friend who she’s in love with, fits into the starting point of paranormal romance protagonist really well. The question of superficial attention is even addressed by her being discovered as the Sun Summoner and having so many sudden expectations thrust upon her.

Her gaining the Darkling’s attention specifically is initially framed in a fairly similar way to The Tropes. He is the aloof hot immortal teenager, who for the purposes of the deconstruction, everyone already even knows is at least over a hundred years old. Moreover he’s essentially treated like their (desirable….) school principal lmao to just really hammer home that his opinions matter More but also to make it feel vaguely weird.

There are a lot of moments in early SaB where the Darkling singles Alina out in a way that’s meant to look flattering at face value but that she’s quietly a little unnerved by. Off the top of my head, there’s the bit where the Grisha students are arguing over who Alina will walk with (when presented to the Tsar perhaps?) and the Darkling sweeps in and is like “she will walk with me.” Obviously, when he keeps trying to single her out by allowing her to wear black, which is his personal super special color that no one else gets to wear. When Zoya, as Thee popular girl, gets called into the principal’s office and he reprimands her for shfhff breaking Alina’s ribs (I love Zoya so much), and in the way it is ostensibly a win for Alina— Zoya isn’t the favorite girl anymore— but it’s also so obvious, in a way that’s very accessible to modern teens, that he is NOT their peer. Like, in universe we know that he is their commander and has rank over everyone. But that’s a fantasy element that probably doesn’t mean much to your average teenager. Meanwhile there’s a strong 1:1 analogue for him being like a real adult in their lives, when they are deliberately framed as teenagers. And it’s genuinely unsettling!

(Worth noting that mid 2000s YA also had a fair number of uncritical teacher romances. Because in those again there is the element of the protagonist’s worth and maturity being enforced by this more experienced and cooler adult finding her desirable)

I feel like the grooming in SaB while genuinely the most integral and interesting element of the entire trilogy to me, is also in some ways the most poorly accomplished. Probably some sort of mix of debut clumsiness and what I feel like might be discomfort with the topic preventing Bardugo from really getting into it. But of the successful and subtler moments, something that stands out to me is Alina not feeling like she can talk about the Darkling kissing her by the lake. And then trying to downplay it like “he probably kisses a bunch of Grisha girls”

Like. If he is going around kissing teenaged students under his command that is WEIRD that is a RED FLAG lmao.

But Alina just doesn’t have that frame of reference! While slightly unsettled by his attention she is mostly, genuinely flattered by it. He believes in her! He doesn’t know why he cares about her opinions of him but he does 🥺🥺 She’s somehow, successfully managed to cut through his aloofness by virtue of her specialness, and seeing into his angst about making up for his ancestor’s crimes, and believing in his madcap quest to get an even specialer amplifier necklace (lol) for her so that they can save the world together! The first half of S&B follows the logic of a Twilight imitator paranormal romance very solidly.

I think it’s also really interesting how the Darkling’s scary shadow powers, and the concept of there being an ancestor/dark legacy separate from him that he supposedly wants to prove he’s better than works as an analogue for vampirism. There’s a pretty direct 1:1 of “It looks like he’s dangerous, but don’t worry it’s just a bad reputation. It’s not his fault and he feels really bad about it.” So it’s really clever imo when the reveal is that there is no ancestor, there is no separation, it was all him all along, he did it on purpose and he is not sorry! He is dangerous to her and it’s literally his own choice to be that way.

So if the Edward type is a love interest whose violence/danger is something that is inherent to him, but it’s also not his fault at all, and it’s something that can be overcome by Bella’s personal purity and goodness, the Darkling is completely the opposite.

The threat he poses to Alina is entirely of his own volition. It’s a cold and calculated choice to seduce her, and later to try to magically enslave her. Likewise it’s, in my opinion, absolutely integral to the story that his obsession isn’t with her as a person at all, it’s with what she represents. He can be faced with her, in all her vulnerability and complexity, as a genuine human being and simply not care to stop himself from wanting to hurt her or subjugate her. Her opinions and her personality do not matter.

She cannot simply love him into no longer posing a threat to her! It doesn’t work like that!

Anyway, as promised (threatened?) earlier I have some Fifty Shades of Grey thoughts pertaining to Shadow and Bone too. While Fifty Shades doesn’t have the immortal/magical aspect at all, it’s painfully blatant Twilight fanfic, and so Christian Grey still embodies this love interest type fairly perfectly.

And it’s just really interesting to read with the context of it being a contemporary example of the sort of thing SaB is riffing off of and presenting critically, where those same things here are presented to be desirable.

There is an instance in FSOG where the protagonist’s friend is warning her to be careful about the love interest— while still laughing about how hot he is. And it is simply meant to make him seem thrilling and desirable!

But it feels almost like a 1:1 with Genya warning Alina in SaB where the warning is very literal. And compare that to the direct line drawn between Genya being preyed on by the Tsar and Alina being preyed on by the Darkling. They’re very different circumstances, but when there’s the overt and explicitly stated theme of “Be careful of powerful men” I can’t see how these two plot threads existing in the same book and presented in the same breath aren’t meant to be read as in conversation with each other.

There are also similar beats during Ana and Christian’s (stilted! very clumsy!) conversations where she strongly has the vibe of a kid at the principal’s office, unsure if she’s going to be scolded, and getting very flustered every time he makes her feel special in whatever small way.

Which is very similar to early Darklina interactions. Like I said before, the grooming was definitely the weakest part of SaB even though it’s simultaneously (imo) the most interesting/important aspect. But both books being varying degrees of bad just make them even more comparable to me?

It’s just intriguing to see vaguely similar things play out with clearly different awarenesses and intent in terms of what the main takeaway from these beats is meant to be.

Also! Again as yikes as Fifty Shades replacing vampirism with BDSM is, [insert joke about Christian Grey being a shitty dom vs the Darkling’s sexually charged desire to put Alina in a magic collar and fetters, and to get her to submit to him]

Sorry this was kind of all over the place but I hope that answers your question?

#very likely I’ll think of more stuff later but let’s keep it at this for now #grishaverse #darklina #alarkling #shadow and bone #twilight #i ramble sometimes #all the bendy punctuations #meta #*writer’s cap*

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boylikeanangel · 2 years

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hi! I'm super curious about why you headcanon ed as transfem. no hate, just wondering!

hii omg thanks for your interest!! I'm gonna apologise in advance because I have a horrible feeling this is gonna be really long and disorganised cuz there is so much to cover especially when you've put as much thought and time into creating a whole series-wide transfem reading of ed as my friends and I have and it all feels like completely vital information but I'll do my best to put it succinctly!! (again I'm gonna be using she/her pronouns for ed throughout this whole post, so disclaimer for that to avoid confusion <3)

so first of all I think it's important to recognise that in a lot of ways our flag means death is a study of and a deconstruction of masculinity, and furthermore a criticism of western ideals of masculinity and how it's inherently toxic and how that pressures men into acting a certain way, particularly how it affects queer men's freedom to present as their authentic selves. it denounces these rigid ideals of what "being a man" is and celebrates unconventional forms of masculinity. most obviously with this we see stede struggle with not fitting into these expectations placed on him and how his character arc is largely in part about coming to embrace his masculinity on his own terms as something fundamentally queer - he defines his masculinity by how he as a man loves another man. and we see blackbeard's crew as a whole uphold "ideal" masculinity, but fang and ivan are able to break away from that performance by being accepted by the revenge crew and we see who they are as people outside of those restraints, and we see izzy try desperately to uphold the ideals of hypermasculinity by constantly throwing his weight around, and most importantly, by asserting dominance and aggression over men that he believes do not fit into those ideals. he has to uphold the honour of "blackbeard" (this world's glowing standard of masculinity) by beating down men who don't fit into his definition of what a man should be. by recognising that the show as a whole is constantly telling us that the kind of masculinity perpetuated by the myth of blackbeard and piracy as a whole is fundamentally toxic, some really interesting questions get raised about ed and what masculinity means to her and how she feels about being the posterchild for it.

to put it simply, she hates it. it's fucking suffocating. it's absolutely destroying her. "blackbeard" is a prison for her, she is literally introduced to us as a legend (the ideal of masculinity) of the pirating world (a culture of toxic masculinity) disillusioned with her entire existence, and is just wishing to be anything else. "blackbeard" embodies everything defined as masculine in this world, and we learn immediately that ed is absolutely nothing like what everyone would believe her to be, and that she hates having to be like that all the time. masculinity has never been anything more than a performance for her. ed's entire arc is about her having an identity crisis and trying to understand what being "blackbeard" and being "edward" means to her, and when blackbeard is inherently tied to a hypermasculine gender expression, which she openly hates performing, and on the other hand, she takes so much delight in getting to be "edward" instead, you can really start to see the pieces coming together about her gender identity I think. when "blackbeard" is synonymous with "Man" (with a capital M) in this show, to immediately tell us that ed HATES being blackbeard sure does make you think!!!

getting into the events of the actual show now, I think honestly all you need to do to see ed's arc as a trans narrative is to go into it with an open mind and just like. allow yourself to read into things through that lens while you're watching. I cannot stress enough how EASY it is to read ed and her actions as inherently trans once you decide you're gonna try to see it like that on a rewatch. take ed and stede's first official meeting, for example: stede wakes to find ed sitting over him, and ed assumes stede's gonna recognise her as blackbeard immediately, only he doesn't. by not assuming she is blackbeard, stede inadvertently opens up a window of opportunity for ed to define herself as something different for once, to be known to One person as the person she actually wants to be. so she introduces herself as "ed", her REAL name, and I really cannot see this as anything except a trans person taking the leap into trying out a new identity with the first person who gives them the opportunity. and THEN stede leads her into his closet, where ed gets to realise her interest in fashion for the first time, and then reality comes crashing through the walls and reminds ed that she's not out to anyone else yet. she has to tell stede she's not who she said she was, if you'll forgive my phrasing (because that IS who she is, but she has to tell stede now that that's not the whole truth of the matter. she has to do damage control now). and. this is literally a coming out scene. "I'm blackbeard" is literally her saying "I'm not who I told you I was". and the beauty of this is that stede doesn't treat her any different after making this discovery. he continues to call her ed. he knows more about her now, but that doesn't change who she is and he continues to respect the fact she introduced herself as "ed" and recognises this is the name she actually wants to be called. (the scene after this where they swap clothes and stede gets to be The Ideal Man for a day and ed gets to separate herself from that, literally giving her masculinity over to someone that doesn't believe he's masculine enough, is extra lovely in a t4t transfem ed and transmasc stede reading but that's a post for another day). meeting stede is literally her first step into finding herself and finally having the freedom to explore her gender identity and expression, safe in the knowledge that stede and by extension his crew will accept her.

there's myriad other moments that scream "trans" to me about ed, to name a few: referring to god as "she" but also being very clearly calling herself god at the same time (she's literally dropping hints that she wants to be called "she"), referring to herself as "a young waif" (which whilst can mean both a boy or a girl, is commonly only used to describe girls), telling izzy "actually I do want to be called edward from now on" (blackbeard is literally her deadname babes!!!). but the transcoding really does kick itself into high gear in the finale. I'll run through why I see her arc in the final two episodes as a blatantly trans narrative for you:

before I go on, it's important to keep in mind that "blackbeard" is a performance of masculinity. "blackbeard" is this world's shining example of what it means to be a man. "beard" being the operative word here. it's the most obvious visual signifier of masculinity. it's literally in the name - blackbeard's beard is THE thing that makes him who he is. so when ed is finally torn away from piracy and the first thing she does is shave her beard off, what does this say? especially when she isn't even bothered by it. in fact, she's happy to be rid of that persona! despite her circumstances, she's happier in the few scenes at the academy than we've ever seen her. a literal weight has been lifted along with the beard, she's lighter, less nervous, more expressive, literally contented to just be allowed to be "edward" for the first time in her life. she has finally broken free of her perpetual performance of hypermasculinity. the loss the facial hair is a clear and obvious way of showing to us, visually, this change in her mindset about her identity. she doesn't have to hide anymore. and then when she comes back to the revenge, even after having her heart broken, she continues going by ed. she's had a taste of freedom and she doesn't want to give it up. she renounces the name "blackbeard" entirely and starts going by edward exclusively.

but of course, this doesn't last. I'm gonna have to link to another post here, which was actually THE post that got me first thinking about transfem ed, a great breakdown of the "avalanche" scene by @/all-chickens-are-trans here, which explains how the confrontation with izzy episode 10 was about izzy mocking ed for not performing masculinity to his standards and literally triggering ed's detransition better than I ever could. and yes, to clarify - this is ed detransitioning by becoming blackbeard again. there's SO much visual symbolism already in this scene that's been pointed out, but the bits I wanna focus on are 1) ed LITERALLY DRAWING HER BEARD BACK ON (the thing that defines her masculinity in her eyes!!), which calls back to lucius in episode 2 saying "not all beards are actual beards". in that context he was talking about jim's fake beard hiding the fact they're not a man, and an implied proverbial beard that lucius probably had to hide his gayness. if we consider "beards" within the show as a wider metaphor for hiding an intrinsic part of yourself, whether it be pertaining to your gender or your sexuality, ed shaving hers off and then drawing it back on to play the role of blackbeard after she's verbally abused for not being masculine enough really does tell you a lot; and 2) something that dyl @lucius-spriggs pointed out about the shot of her strapping her gun back onto her belt - throughout the show and in several promo images the placement of ed's gun has made for some....very comical, it has to be said, phallic imagery, but when you consider the gun as a visual stand-in for that, her literally strapping it back onto herself after being without her weapons for the whole episode is. chilling. she's literally suiting up to "become a man" again. if you view this scene as one dealing with ed's transness and izzy attacking her for it, the "there he is" line becomes so haunting. "I serve blackbeard, not edward" is literally izzy saying ed is only safe as long as she puts back on that beard and starts performing masculinity to his standards again.

I guess the main point I want to make here is that ed's character arc largely centres around her identity crisis, namely that she doesn't really have a concrete sense of identity because she's only ever been allowed to be "blackbeard" her entire adult life, a suffocating performance of ideal masculinity that leaves no room for exploration of any other kinds of gender presentation. you see her constantly struggle with her lack of sense of self throughout the show with the way she throws around different names and personas for herself - "jeff the accountant", "the kraken", etc. - and then, in the finale, landing on "edward" after finally being given the chance to fully embrace that name when she gets sent to the academy. edward is who she wants to be, and to see her finally find an identity that makes her happy and feels like HER is so heartwarming after understanding in such visceral, heartwrenching detail how lost she felt when she couldn't perform "blackbeard" anymore despite the pressure to keep doing so, and it's so distressing to watch her be attacked for that and be forced back into being something she desperately does not want to be after she got a taste of that freedom. I guess what I'm saying is that when you consider ed's character arc and subsequent identity crisis in conjunction with the wider themes this show has of deconstructing masculinity, lifting up feminine men and trans people, and embracing queerness in all its forms, it becomes all the more compelling when you allow yourself to read her arc as a trans narrative.

I'd also like to clarify here for those confused that I'm not saying I think ed is a trans woman! there's a huge distinction between trans woman and transfem, and ed being transfem does not invalidate or take away from her identity as a gay man. transfem gay men DO exist, gay men have embraced overt femininity and done things like use she/her pronouns and medically transition for a long time and that doesn't stop them from still being gay men. what's important to understand here that in the world presented to us in the show, "blackbeard" is synonymous with "man" (he's literally the definition of what a man should be according to the rules of piracy), and by ed renouncing that identity that makes her arc inherently transfeminine. she's renouncing her masculinity and the performance of it. this is also why she's going by edward still instead of an entirely new (read: female) name, and why that is still empowering for her even if it's technically a man's name. "edward" is not necessarily female now, it's just the person she has always been underneath that hypermasculine facade, which is someone who just happens to love femininity. when she says she's happy to just be edward, all she means is that she's finally free of having to pretend to be a man, or at least what her world considers manly. "edward" loves doing laundry and singing and wearing pink and building blanket forts and kissing. it doesn't mean she's a woman now, just that she finally has the freedom to embrace something other than hypermasculinity. it's more about the empowerment of her breaking away from a constant performance of masculinity. femininity is empowering for her because it's something she's never been able to explore before, something so far removed from everything she's been forced to be for as long as she can remember. that doesn't make her any less of a gay man!

I think I totally failed at the whole "succinct" thing here so I'm gonna wrap it up now but if anyone has any follow up questions or wants to hear more of my thoughts then please don't hesitate to ask. I also think the likelihood of something like this ever being confirmed out loud in the show is pretty low, so if you're still confused or you simply can't see it I don't think you have anything to worry about. this is just one way of reading her character that makes a lot of sense to me and I get really emotional thinking about. considering it's 1717, the extent to which a canonically transfem ed could "transition" would be pretty limited, though I think it would be neat to see her playing around with pronouns and trying out different styles of dressing next season if they decided to lean more into this. basically I just think it's a really interesting and compelling way to read her character and you actually do not have to do any work to see it past just going into the show with an open mind. I love transfem ed. she's my best friend and I hope I inspired you to read more into this idea yourself <3

#thanks to the besties in the discord for helping me work on this and betaing it for me ilysm #our flag means death #meta tag #ask

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yandere-monoma · 5 months

Text

good evening i am warming up for the 3(+????) killswitch updates i have planned for this coming week so KYM 3 COMMENTARY

chapter 3 (the flashback) was originally meant to just be 'the rising action', a large, large, large chapter of build up before not only getting to the pregnancy reveal, but also detailing all of rose's reactions to it and her whole attempt to redeem herself through motherhood, only to end with a cliffhanger about her subsequent miscarriage. however, i went batshit, got too lost in the sauce and the chapter ended up being SO long before i even got to half of what i had planned, so chapter 3 was split into two halves. it's actually so interesting watching how a piece's word count can grow in that regard, like, i feel like with pacing i am just following this invisible flow and i can sense when i just need to cut it off and i don't really have a choice in the matter. which makes it especially funny when a piece just gets longer and longer and longer and then suddenly it's 10k+ words, god

the flashback was also what i considered at the time to be my final moment to really detail as many of my headcanons about how rose was raised as i could, since i knew the rest of the fic would be laser focused on the pregnancy plot. there were so many details i wanted the audience to have, especially because the pain of building and developing a world that never really gets shown is so painful ARGH

it was a difficult chapter to write for a number of reasons. like, from the first line, i was STRUGGLING

the chapter promptly starts:

and it was... interesting, to say the least, to finally sit there and put a number to what was happening... the topic of CSA is something i write about a lot, but i actually have a huge tendency to avoid listing ages when i do so. i love ambiguity and also adding specifics like that actively make me uncomfortable HAHA i think it makes it too real and makes me actually process what i'm actually writing about, which i'm usually largely disconnected to (i have little to no visual imagination when i read, so, really, the only reason i'm capable of writing this kind of shit without getting grossed out myself is cuz it's all just words to me). so it was an interesting challenge to actually pinpoint an age. it's a large reason behind the 'something bad happens' revelation happens later on. i was incredibly unwilling to specify what age rose was when the sexual abuse happened, both because of that discomfort and also just because of indecision. i don't actually know when bro first started attacking rose in that way. or any of my strider, really. i don't really care to know. HGJFKGS

also

it's interesting to see >rose: scream as it is right now because it's one of those bits that left me unsatisfied to leave as is. maybe one day i'll double back and fix it hsdjfkgsdg initially there was meant to be a stronger and more obvious parallel between rose seeing her menstrual blood for the first time and rose seeing the blood from her miscarriage. at the very least, the commands were originally planned to be identical, but since this chapter's beginning and chap 4's ending are just too different, i abandoned it as an idea. but now... after the fact... oh how i CRAVE it... KJGFLS

this part also brings up another reason why this chapter was so awkward and so difficult. i don't keep it secret from anyone that i just have a big fetish for angst and whump SHDFJGSDF kym isn't meant to be a ~deconstruction~ of anything. if anything, it's more me going 'damn i wish rose got whump fics. she would get so many if she was a boy/a strider. HEY WAIT A SECOND-'....

but a lot of what i'm writing about in this chapter isn't actually fueled by horny. i very much lack a menstruation fetish. in fact, anything involving reproduction is very 🧍‍♂️which is why having an entire plot arc that revolved around it was CRAAAAAAAZY... i got off to NOOOOOONE of that what do you MEEEEAN

it is actually so funny being slightly awkward about writing period blood when you literally write about dicks-in-guts on like a monthly basis HAHA anyway... WORTH it for the carrie reference that part was so sooo important to me

i rewatched carrie so much for this scene HAHA

i love writing bro i hope my love for writing bro really shines in this fic because god i love writing him he's probably my fave hs muse ever

whenever i mention bro's jeans being too tight pls know it's because once i saw him described in a fic as a middle aged man stuffed into an old pair of skinny jeans and it never left me, especially after becoming that very thing. also pls know that whenever i talk about his jeans being too tight it's because i'm gay i'm gay i'm gay and i'm thinking about his thighs and ass and cock

that's you! you're the joke!!!! idk why i adore that line but it was so fun to write

interesting conundrum sparked in this interaction that would haunt me for a couple of chapters after this one. i have thought too many thoughts about how bro should refer to rose. it was all too tempting to have him drop a 'sis' every now and then for that same sense of casual bro-ness but god it's not casual enough in a lot of ways... the lack of plosives stood out to me too much for some pretentious reason and i think in a way it was actually too accepting of her gender to ever be allowed. 'kid' is gender neutral which is as much freedom as bro can possibly allow her. rose is only granted her womanhood when it's being used against her, otherwise she's forcibly deemed masculine or neutral, depending on what suits him more

(which is double interesting because that's a phenomenon that is ESPECIALLY forced upon women of color... i don't actually utilize any race hcs in this fic because my strilonde race hcs tend to be very fluid but damn... kinda wish i did just for that)

quick shout-out to the DVD menu line a few paragraphs down from here yeah that was a purposeful reference to eat your young, it is very important to me that the rose strider character study also reads exactly like a dave strider character study because bro as a character is STATIC, he is repetitive, he is doomed to repeat the same abuse towards his victim no matter who he aims it at. rose and dave and jade and john will all have to face that same moment in the living room where the tv is on and bro is leaning way too close and he shatters their childhood forever by kissing them for the first time. the reason why they get on that couch will vary, bro and rose are watching carrie, bro and dave are watching shitty comedies for ironic reasons, maybe bro and jade are watching cartoons, maybe bro and john are watching childhood tapes while bro tries to prove some crazy insane point. it is always on that fucking couch that bro decides they are grown enough to start™

'Bro’s arms coming around you to squeeze just a little bit as it comes to an end' i fucking LOVE writing 'good' bro moments i LOVE writing bro sprinkling those masculine gestures of affection i love making him ruffle someone's hair or pat them too hard on the shoulder or give them a little side hug. i love when he is not just a stone cold freak sociopath TM he is a human capable of showing love who even enjoys doling it out at any opportunity. it is so so fun and also it drives me crazy

fun fact i'm actually incredibly shit at understanding how the hell the striderian mind games are even supposed to work. it means a lot that people say i nailed it with the carrie thing cuz ngl this is the only way i could make it click in my head. for me, so much of what bro claims in irony isn't, he's just like that genuinely and the mind game is the fact that he just lies and omits info and makes you wonder what's fake and what's not. to me bro strider works because he is a manchild who spends every waking moment crafting a fantasy land and making it a reality, following every fancy and whim he has. for me, he takes the concept of seeing a fictional character and going 'MOOD' and deciding to wear similar clothes or adopt a similar posture and he goes above and beyond. bro being a 'fan' of SAW and creating traps in his house is an example of that to me. he thought they were cool and decided to incorporate it in his irl. and since what's cool to HIM should be cool to his super cool kid too, he just assumes they have the same approach as he does. which is why he sees rose and goes, oh yes, i gotta re-enact every great womanTM horror through her. she's gonna love and appreciate the FUCK out of that.

speaking of that, bro and rose being likened to jigsaw and amanda doesnt really happen enough for my tASTES HELLOOoOOoooo

'This is how he loves you.' line that cracks me up because it's like. one of those lines/concepts that follows me into every piece about abuse if it gets long enough. the bizarreness of it. attempting to comprehend another person's perspective and squeeze it into your own even though trying to understand just harms you further in the process. it makes me aaaaaaaaaaaaa

And God made Eve from the rib of Adam and Eve was weak. And the curse was the curse of blood.

did you know that carrie has a musical. did you know i fucking love this song from this music. did you know i will sit and force a religious reference into anything and everything i write because i have so So many fetishes on the topic

You start imagining your brother’s rib plucked out, shiny and pretty, and growing enough flesh and arteries and bone to form a little girl. And you were made from him and you were made for him and you-

I'M INSAAAAAAANE adam and eve didn't have to go as hard as it did but Damn. Damn. yknow what people don't do religious striders enough considering the whole from the south bible belt thing. like i don't think they're christian in the slightest but they'd be entrenched in it, they'd be SURROUNDED in it and godhsdjfgsdfg (melts into a cummy puddle) anyway

SCREAMS INTO MY FIST I LOVE THIS SCENEEEEEEE

it is such an odd exchange it was so fun describing absolutely nothing about what was going on in either of their heads

another instance of manchild bro literally jumping for joy SO excited to get a laugh in with his (other) best friend

rose taking his horror movie reference and twisting it into another, trying to take control of the situation (most notably a horror movie where the villain is two antagonists pretending to be one, which is what rose would prefer their relationship to be like, an 'equal' symbiosis rather than one with a huge power dynamic like carrie and her mother)

the fact that yeah it's absolutely pig's blood god bro where did you even get that god you freak

we now get to >rose:bind which means i get to talk a shitload about rose's gender which was... HARD

because rose is very much not transmasc nor is she even particularly genderfluid or even butch and that is a very hard thing to convey in a very... queer audience. i won't get into the rant of it (because HOO i could rant) but i think sometimes in fandom, things get simplified or shoved into a box because it is something recognizable and relatable. i didn't want anything about rose's gender to be relatable. her sense of masculinity is something that was projected onto her and her sense of the feminine is something that was robbed from her and her entire identity is built upon that.

like, it was SUPER fun to play with this aspect of rose striderism because i usually do see her portrayed as butch or masc or just really punk/alt but it was very important for me that this wasn't something that she chose for herself and that it wasn't something that was really true to how she saw herself. dave's issues with masculinity was handed to him on a platter by bro and i wanted that for rose as well

so it was super important for me to talk about her binding. it was super important to explore it as something that was done to her, something that doesn't even really do anything for her as she does it, except fulfilling an aesthetic that was obviously given to her to uphold. it is another form of mutilation that she happily accepts and buys into.

ngl the mutilation is also a reference. i don't really write trans striders (i prefer trans lalondes tbh HJSKFG) but if/when i do, you better KNOW that they're never not thinking about cutting their titties off with their swords. it's their Thing.

You are now a twelve year old drug addict/you are now a twelve year old rat. This wasn't done on purpose but after this point, she never refers to herself as a 'girl'. she gets a quick mention at being bro's sister while lil cal's influence is still holding the narrative but after this point she's just referred to as rose in every 'introduction' sentence and ugfhdgfgd noice

shoutout to this section by the way i think i wrote it while losing my shit on my adhd meds HAHA. i always love the extra edge of mania that gets infused in my writing when i'm hyped up on them enough (i actually have a series on ao3 specifically and secretly dedicated to my Way Too Hyped Up On My Adderall writing, fun fact). this section is also a shoutout to the fact that i've just always been obsessed with psychology and these experiments are some examples of

like, the approach was: ok ricky imagine you're at a bar drunkenly explaining actual real life nature vs nurture experiments to an unwitting third party

Let me be warm. My life is darkness and all I want is a single dose of light.

note to self: steal that from myself and put it in a book wtf

rose's silly junkie era is so fun because it's me twisting alcoholic meteorstuck rose into the worst thing it could possibly be and she is so cute hjskgsdg

this part was so fun and what's SO fun about reading back on it is literally seeing the parts of the fic where, in the process of writing it, i went... wait let's go a step further WAIT wouldn't it be crazy if i did this or that. here is where i simultaneously realized, YES let's acknowledge within the fic that this is a FIC, let the narrator know about the trigger warnings and the summary. let the narrator understand and point out characterization. let the narrator take plot points and toss them out completely and tease their existence out despite their removal yESSSSS.

now, the latter is actually not the first time i've written that. it's something i've been practicing a lot lately, playing with unreliable narrators and the way they relay actions. playing with what is omitted rather than what is directly and incorrectly said. it's so fun GOD it's SOOOOOO fun to say something happened but not allow it to be studied even a little bit. it's so fun to spend an entire chapter detailing a list of years only to be like. oh yeah by the way, this whole time something else was happening that we just neglected to mention, oops, yeah. and it was such a perfect loophole for my own discomfort HJSKDF go me

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

this was the part of the fic that i was the MOST excited about. there was absoLUTELY no plan for it WHATSOEVER it appeared INCREDIBLY RANDOMLY after i was inspired and reminded by a random ass homestuck PLAY i found on ao3 (this one btw it's super good) that i'm also a playwright and i miss writing in a play format. SJDKFGSDFG. i love playing with format so MUCH and the first few inklings of this idea came from me wanting to use a BROTHER/SISTER format, completely stripping bro and rose's identity into nothing but their familial roles

and then i realized who'd be perfect to do just that

i believe this is the first time i also had to wrestle with what color to use on bro: which is something i tend to struggle with literally whenever i have to incorporate pesterchum colors for him. however, this fic really solidified it for me: as much as i love using orange for bro, it's important to use black for him because lil cal stole his color from him and stole what agency and 'character' he had. the black makes him a NPC, he's reduced to a default setting, and that's perfect. every time i remember that, the urge to put some likeness to dirk into him evaporates instantly

now, i've already talked about my approach to lil cal's characterization so i won't repeat much but i WILL do more to point out specific aspects of it

this part is funny cuz yes it's supposed to be a reference to arquius/equius but also it's a reference to me being really fucking gay for bro. caliborn/lil cal is also gay for bro but also it's just me. i'm the one who wants to kiss bro. i'm the one drooling about his sexy sexy Sexy tight shirt. it's ME.

this part is funny cuz caliborn is not gay for bro and i am Not a lolicon HJDKFGLSDFG

i hope how much fun and delight i was experiencing writing this scene shines through because it was the most fun and the MOST delightful

1)the injection line is super hot 2) reference to laugh track! i love bro feeling one way but being psychically tortured into acting another!! i love thinking about how that would look from the outside!!!!!!!

3) this is the start of the ASPECTS being highlighted in CAPS LOCK which i was INCREDIBLY TEMPTED to also format into their aspect colors but i was TOO FUCKING LAZY and was already doing a lot. it was an impulse that turned into a mini-challenge to me to see just how many aspects i could naturally fit into the prose without trying to force it, very much looking forward to seeing what that count looks like at the end

1)having to google drug safety phrases cuz i couldnt think of good ones off the top of my head was fun 2) who is the green? is the green caliborn or is it lord english or is it The Game? to me, the answer is, of course, all of the above, but especially The Game to me. again, this building and completely unplanned theme of Sburb being an entity capable of opinion and omniscience, and being nearly as much of a character capable of narration as Rose is... really started to solidify here, as lil cal, another inanimate object and another construct of The Game and another impossibility of paradox space, gets to suddenly narrate as well

which is rly what drives me crazy about KYM and what kill/switch has turned into. who or What the fuck is the narrator and what does it Mean to narrate within the context of the story. it isn't like the epilogues where someone is taking it consciously, so what? i can't wait to see if i ever have a specific answer for this, or if it will always just be the consequence of me just having so much fun in the writing process.

speaking of who is the narrator, who tf is the black caps vs the orange HJSDKFGDSG it's so so soooo fun playing with lil cal's ouroboros of possession. i love playing with meshing the two, like the black caps is the possessed narrator channeling lil cal's vibes as it channels any of it's hosts vibes, while the orange is lil cal's words straight from lil cal's lil bitch mouth

oh the SATISFACTION in getting to write the puppet bro moment. the SATISFACTION!!!!! writing this and getting to think and wonder just how many times lil cal has spoken through bro was so fUN

hey did yall know there's white font littered all throughout the fic because there's white font littered all throughout the fic and this is its first usage of it

i don't have specific thoughts (yet) about lil cal and his possible connections to doc scratch.

i do have thoughts about using the white in a way that would be hidden from most readers but still signified in a way for people to try and curiously try and find it. i attempted this by neglecting to white out the punctuation, leaving a big awkward space for a chosen few to hopefully consider poking at

bro slamming rose's head into a wall until she passes out and then regaining control of himself just in time for the effects of her drugs to hit him and passing out with a smile of pride on his face while lil cal (and the GAME) fucking pouts all tf over it. oh yeah baby. oh yeah this is what dreams are MADE of

VERY important speed-run of a VERY important rose strider hc

imo, rose is a better fighter than dave, right. she's better at becoming bro's protege than him. she's his perfect child. she's him.

so.

dave, in his failure, really only barely gets past lvl 1 of bro's intended training by the time sburb starts. maybe he's inching his way through lvl 2. he never even so much as gets a PEEK of lvl 3.

while rose is SOARING towards lvl 10. ok maybe that's a lil much. maybe she's at like 5 and a half. STILL.

i wanted to show that. i wanted to say YEAH not only is rose strifing but she strifes WAY more often than dave. i wanted to say yeah not ONLY is she getting attacked physically in the bathroom and kitchen but it's happening several times a day. i wanted to say yeah you thought shit was only physical and psychological??? hell nah bro started engaging in biochemical warfare against her body and she's all for it. i had this absolutely batshit hc about bro forcing rose to strife on roofies on a regular basis and it being something she (mostly) willfully encourages. GOD.

one thing i regret and mourn was that my pacing(???????) didn't allow all too much room to show rose befriending the other zetas and why she adores them so much. i think i summarized it enough with each friend brings a universe to you, but damn that is a premise that deserves a big long ramble

god what the hell is this AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA makes me so mad that bro is so cute with her JHKDFGSDFG this is just me shipping brose so goddamn hard, man... so goddamn hard...

also it was very fun to show bro literally handing rose some drugs on a silver platter after bashing her so often for them earlier. looking back, this is very much a moment where gamzee's influence on cal was absolutely in effect. he's affectionate and willing to share in the drug stash

another thing i regret not elaborating much on. although i think the sardonic nod at myself was super funny (yes it is so on the nose and obvious ooh so original a lolita reference in a het grooming fic) but i do wish i went more into detail about... rose attempting to find her femininity again and specifically the fact that this is happening because of what she's seen of jade and of women in media

(i dont think rose has read lolita but i do think she watched at least parts of the sexualized movie version)

(((man maybe i'll edit this bit cuz i do a lot with rape culture and how it affects rose but i'd love to add some porn culture thoughts as well... femininity and empowerment being joined with objectifying the self for men's benefit and rose attempting to lean into that as she tries to seduce bro because she is unaware of her appeal to him, a gay man)))

also, another laugh track moment, and another hc about bro and how he experiences attraction (and how it's been poisoned by lil cal)

Something in Bro’s face changes, then, the shift in possessive influence, gamzee losing what control he had over bro

You drape your arms around your brother’s shoulders. He grunts. “What are you doing?” bro returning, sluggishly reacting to what's happening, displeased with affection he didn't initiate and would consider weak

You kiss him on the cheek, girlish and soft. He grimaces. “Kid,” he warns. bro at the forefront. she does something 'girly', he reiterates and reinforces the gender neutral. it is a warning to stop before lil cal notices what's happening, and before she does something he'll really hate

You kiss him again, on the mouth this time. He pushes you away, disgusted. “The fuck?” bro continuing to be at the forefront, suddenly confronted with the fact that rose is attracted to him. as far as he is aware of, nothing he has done to her has ever been linked to 'attraction'. his assaults of her (as bro strider) at this point are a 'lesson'. they are not the result of a paraphilia. he is not attracted to his own child (the attraction is to power, it's to himself, it's ???????). the thought itself disturbs the fuck out of him. is he even aware of how much he has done at this point? does he even remember? is this bro at his purest, without any other influence or sickness manipulating his thoughts?

He breathes harshly. Sweat pops into his forehead, a vein bulging to view above his shades. He looks agonized. lil cal possession! his brain is getting zapped to hell and back and lil cal is fucking screaming at him for allowing something so DISGUSTING to happen. he's not the only one disturbed now, vessel and host are both SO unhappy with this turn of events

he grabs you by the wrist and yanks with a sudden roar of “c'mere.” bro on his own isn't the type of person to raise his voice when he's angry. the violent change in volume here is courtesy of lil cal (leaning towards caliborn?), though he's still largely in control

It’s like you’ve been filled with candy. Bright, fizzy, fuzzy candy that sparkles and foams up like nothing you’ve ever seen. Bro throws you to the ground. He looms over you, huge and terrifying. He corrects you with a sudden, sinister snarl. “You are meat.” lil cal officially puppetering bro completely. candy/meat reference to trigger caliborn even further. why can lil cal read rose's mind???? because of their connection? and/or because of gamzee's chucklevoodoos and the fraction of that ability still held inside of him

“You’re defenseless,” he informs you, drawing a sword from his specibi. “You’re helpless.” rape culture rape culture. it's also interesting to see where kym bro's obsession with it comes from. caliborn's misogyny, sure, but equius, too, in his obsession with the hierarchy, with his fetishization of it and the power structures within it, which of course also fuels the 'attraction'. you're helpless and this is something that i will help you fix... also a sentiment leftover from dirk/hal.

he reaches down suddenly, snarling again, one hand closing around your throat and the other, well. at this point, bro is all action. he is a melting pot of impulses and commands. every aspect of lil cal shouting different things, parts of him rebelling against the intimacy and demanding it be twisted, other parts obsessed with correcting behavior through violence, other parts overwhelmed with arousal and being unable to cope with it otherwise. all at once. all at OOOOONCE. It’s funny to see the contortions on your brother’s face as he fucks you, the forced clench of his jaw, the gratification, the aaaaaaaaaaaaaall of it

'sober up jfc' was such a funny command because the jfc was added at the last minute cuz >rose: sober up just... sounded so bland on its own. needed more OOMPH after the insanity of the scene before

it's also an ode to how much i fucking love that fucking roof my god i could write 6487569045634563950634563 strife scenes forever and never get tired of them

which is another thing i find fun about the rose strider character study. it fills in blanks that i havent written in break and bind us. the thought that bro is aware enough of his own crimes to contemplate suicide more than once isssss GOD yeah... god yeah... i probably wont ever write it much with dave himself because it's already in kym but GOD!!!

this was me struggling to transition to the present JHKDFGSFG like god you get so caught in a feedback loop of insanity and adrenaline that sometimes it's hard to move away from it (which is why i largely write oneshots cuz then i dont have to AHAHA)

surpriiiiise... it was a surprise to me, too. again, the pregnancy plot came long after i had actually started the fic, and rose's 'sickness' was only ever meant to be mental at first. suddenly plotting this and connecting it back to the first chapter/summary felt so wild to do hjsdkfgs

and with that we have the YIKES and me going jesus christ that was the end of the chapter huh goddamnit this fic is way longer than i wanted godDamn. this chapter is insane and i love it so much god.

#verse: killswitch #fic: kill your masters #director's commentary #meta #rose strider

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gornackeaterofworlds · 3 months

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Know that I am gently batting you around for being amazing!

How about number 37 and 10 for any oc or oc’s of your choosing! ^W^

Know that I am consuming you whole in one big bite btw

10. If your character is an antagonist or something of the like, do they self-justify their actions? If so, how?

Marvel OCs:

Eva: She doesn't necessarily cross that territory once the lab holding her prisoner dissipated, but during training she did anything it took to make them happy, crossing any lines. When first brought into the program she'd refused, and so they found that if they hurt Evan, they could convince her to do what they wanted. So that's how she justifies any deed she feels guilty about throughout her life, that it's for Evan, to protect Evan, she gets to shuck the blame of the choice if it's for Evan.

Evan: He is a lot more intentionally morally grey than Eva. He was a terrified little boy before, but after learning about his dimension(9591), seeing Eva cause so much pain for his sake, spending years as a prisoner, he gets a very nihilistic streak. His mindset is that everything he does is just for his own survival, his own gain, and while it causes a little guilt, he rationalizes his actions with "it's worse for people in my/other dimension(s), so people here shouldn't complain." Refusing to allow empathy helps also.

TMNT OCs:

Anni: Huge antagonistic streak, but she swears nothing is her fault! It's all for a purpose, for the end goal! Illegal activities galore. Her defense? "The government sucks anyway." Emotional manipulation? "I simply had to, it's the only way to do/get [object]!" I don't think I made it very clear in my fic, and part of that was intentional, but she's a very manipulative, sly person. Though I'm taking a break, in one of the two posted chapters she manipulates Donnie into getting his phone number and getting to come over another day. Also outright coerces April into seeing the turtles, but that's worded more obviously. Barely thinks about the repercussions of these things until later, and it leads to deconstructing her child abuse.

Millie: It's all her traumatic past, promise!! Not a very big bad girl side, most of her "antagonistic" actions are more like lies by omission. Hiding things. Stealing. Doesn't like to burden others, especially her friends, with things that are so petty in comparison to their issues. Also slightly manipulative, but more of a "pulling very small specific strings to get the reaction she wants" way, like Anni's smaller manipulations. Rationalizes by playing dumb/ignoring it or just thinking that it's very small, inconsequential, but also doesn't want to haunt them.

37. What does your character want to change about themselves?

Marvel OCs:

Eva: Pre-main battle, slightly guiltily wishes she wasn't a mutant. Though for her, it's more about "if I wasn't special, I wouldn't have been brought to this dimension, and Evan wouldn't have gotten hurt because of me." Post-main battle, there's not a lot she'd change. Still holds onto that past sentiment, but in regards to the deceased 616 Eva instead of Evan. During this arc, she tries a lot of things and explores herself a lot, so there's a lot of self-love there.

Evan: Doesn't want to be a mutant, and this is very consistent throughout his life. He never goes back to 9591, but he's heard about it from other dimension-travelers and from Eva, who visited one time(and was veeery careful not to use her powers there). Terrified every day that the curse of that dimension will still affect him, so he's very hesitant to use his powers. Thankfully it doesn't affect his looks, so he can pretend, but because he's stuck by Eva's side, he's a little forced to use his powers on the team(though that ends after the main battle, since she's in the hospital, he kinda does whatever he wants and really likes being an average person)

TMNT OCs:

Anni: Her childhood her childhood her childhood. PLAGUED by "what if I was a normal civilian". Without getting into spoilers, she does eventually tone down the international criminal persona, even brokering a deal to go into witness protection while staying in New York(it helps that her main partner in crime(literally), her father, is dead)

Millie: Kinda...everything? In most iterations of Millie I've made, like for Rise, she doubles as a spidersona, and in those iterations she wishes she had been a normal human so she could've died with the rest of her dimension(she's a little stuck wandering the multiverse to find a dimension where the Krang lose..) In the iterations where she's typically not spiderman, like Bay, she'd probably change her looks or entire lifestyle to be prettier or more interesting. I'll admit she's a self insert bc I'm cringe shush. And that's what I'd change, so it applies to her as well.

#rottmnt #gornack text tag #gornack ask tag #marvel #marvel ocs #marvel oc #tmnt oc #tmnt ocs #rottmnt oc #gornack mouse tag #ask game #ask gornack

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myrfing · 1 year

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TO MEEEE its so weird that ppl hold venat against ""choosing" us when to me its like. its thanks to her blessing that we can explore and fight and thrive to our hearts content. she blessed us with echo so we can enjoy this game, this journey. whatever venat GET BEHIND MEEE

EXACTLYYYY AND IM GONNA GET WEIRD AND I KNOWWWW this is depending on how you want to read the story, but so much of what the “warrior of light” is to me from the beginning, far before I knew venat or knew of the ancients was that: we asked first. the hero walked into the light first and asked if they were needed. and I came and downloaded and opened this game and played it because I asked for something to do; so much of this story revolves around answering the PLAYER, it is wish fulfillment, it is a fantasy. from the beginning it has been reciprocal, and this is winked and nudged at by the very fact that the wol could literally be anybody. this story could not exist without the players; the wol could not exist without the story. they did not reject this idea and opt play the fantasy completely straightforwardedly, they embraced the double meaning—they wanted to utilize their medium of being an mmo in how they tell the story itself. I don’t think it’s “wrong” to view the story as a single layer thing with arrangable and discardable blocks, as its standalone reality WHICH IT IS, but it doesn’t change what was given to us. they translated this spirit into a fantasy tale where there is a hero who is only a hero because they appeared and said there’s things I want to experience here and there’s something worth saving here; I want to be here. keep telling the story. it is FOR THIS that the wol is given the mantle. not the inverse. not because the wol has to be whoever this specific person you made them up to be is; obviously not, we all have a different one. I know the story crosses twice in things like a whole plot where another timeline sacrifices everything To Save The WoL So They Can Save The World, and wholeheartedly embraces its immersion by trying to write a hero who has natural doubts and deconstructs heroism when embodied by a regular person with a human heart (BEFORE RECONSTRUCTING IT) but I do genuinely believe this was written in full faith that the player winks and nudges back about WHAT the WoL is. i think this is literally the integeral core of the concept of Azem also and their power and how it’s integrated into the game.

I would like to emphasize though that this is even reflected in the fact she doesnt even actually give us the echo; what it is is the power to communicate and see the story from a sort of omnipotent perspective of the reader that “we” and “the wol” always had and was awakened when we chose to press start. The ability to see the greater tapestry from observing its individual parts. Of course, in the game, it’s a magic ability to astral project into people’s pasts and futures LOL but like. YOU KNOW? WINK AND NUDGE?

Also, I just don’t think the wol suffers uniquely or more than anyone else. I know the game kind of hypes up particulars of the journey for them (of course; just because there’s a double meaning doesn’t mean we dont love the tale for what it is in all its drama) but it also says this…”heroism” it defines is a choice that literally everyone makes because everyone faces the core of what the wol faces. a farmer getting up to till the fields, an office worker clocking into another day, a child struggling in school, an old guy getting out of bed. which is the central theme we arrive at in ew: how do you choose to continue to exist in the face of the truth that there was no actual, magic, predestined meaning? What keeps you here, playing the game?

of course theres tons of people who, because they love the story too, don’t want this other meta layer; they want it to be a classical story where the reader is not a part of it. and i dont think there’s anything wrong then with saying alright then my WoL loathes being the WoL, it is an obligation they were thrust into in a fully literal sense, the world of hydaelyn is Just hydaelyn, and in this closed circle universe, they reject the themes of the story and go their own way. But i also kind of think this requires a total rewrite from like, heavensward onward. I don’t think there’s any reason for the wol to remain in the narrative that brings them to stormblood or shadowbringers or endwalker in the way they did if they decided this story wasn’t for them. because it’s only ever been there because we asked first for them to continue

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smolvenger · 1 year

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💜👎🏻and 💻 for the asks! 😁

Hello there! Thank you so much, it does mean a lot!🥺🥺 I love talking about my own writing because I’m obsessive about my own writing (I will legit get so into it that hours pass)

💜- three favorite lines

(Warning, me being a Will hater below. You have been warned. Just fast forward to the rest)

My three favorite lines that I’ve written on this blog/account and the fics associated with this (not including the stuff on @likesomekindofcheese) are

1. The Opening Line of Stella of Essex or The Vicar’s Wife Betrayed (my fix-it fic of The Essex Serpent where it’s told from Stella Ransome’s POV)

“My husband fingered another woman against a tree.”

The “tree” scene happens in the book and I am not 100% sure if it happens in the TV adaptation. But I thought it was a nice, punchy first line for a series to open with the cheating and then rewind in the fic and go through Stella’s early life and her falling in love and marrying Will…knowing the whole time that he’s eventually going to cheat on her. I love using Dramatic Irony like that in stories- reading and writing!

2. This passage from the first chapter of The Twelve Days which is Prince Hal or Henry V/Reader being in an arranged marriage. Reader is tossed into it and is secretly dreading being married off to a powerful man she knows little about.

“Besides, the more cynical side of your brain thought, you were being brought in as no more than a glorified broodmare for England”

I just am proud of “glorified broodmare for England” in terms of describing a Queen Consort.

3. This is from the second chapter of Miss Narracott and The Captain.

“Ain’t nothin’ that makes foolish men quiver like seeing a woman happy on her own terms!”

Just the part of me that’s into feminism discourse loves it and I like it’s the reader’s mother encouraging her to go after whatever makes her happy instead of trying to please others.

👎🏻- if you could change something in one of your works, what would you change and why?

Good question! I have several, but if we are sticking with one, I wish both the first chapter of The Twelve Days and I Say Nothing That Frightens Me was more detailed and got into things. Because at the time I was in a rush to write both and get them just done and posted because I crave getting things done and getting attention for it. But then there is a bit of a shock when the latter chapters have more details and descriptions in them!

💻- three works of yours that are must reads

1. Definitely The Twelve Days series- the arranged marriage between Hal and Reader! Because I love building a relationship and working in the confines of a different time period.

2. The Cure for Virginity (so far, of the “Tom’s Characters” fics I’ve written my most successful! And I’m proud of it 🥰)

3. It’s a tie and here is my reasoning

(Will hate below. Don’t like that then don’t read the next two paragraphs and go the stuff below)

Alternative One: Stella of Essex or The Vicar’s Wife Betrayed felt the most like my own book rather than a run of the mill fanfic, but I know it was very ballsy of me because 1) it’s not a Reader fic like I usually do and 2) I take a loved character (Will) and actually discuss and deconstruct how destructive his canon action of cheating on his wife actually is and he (as well as Cora too) actually is punished and held accountable for it! But I get that it’s spicy and controversial.

So I understand why it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. But that fic was my coping mechanism for my trigger about cheating and being traumatized by The Essex Serpent. That fic is like my baby- you insult it, you insult me.

(Will girlies and Lust Viarettes I offer you this cake as a peace offering)

Understanding that, It leaves the alternative choice!

Alternative Two: Summer in Majorca! Jonathan Pine with some fluff moments, angst, some humor I threw in, and even an attempt at smut at the end😁

(Hopefully these links work😭)

Link to The First Chapter of The Twelve Days

Link to Miss Narracott and The Captain Chapter Two

The Cure for Virginity

Stella of Essex Masterlist

Summer in Majorca

Thanks for asking and letting me monologue!

#Carrie speaks #Carrie writes #jonathan pine #jonathan pine my beloved #prince Hal my beloved #Prince Hal #Henry V #Henry V my beloved #James Nicholls #captain james nicholls x fem! reader #Captain James Nicholls my beloved

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notabled-noodle · 2 years

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hi!! ik you've read the communist manifesto and I plan to compile a list of books like it for my own reading, so do you have any recs?

hi! thank you so much for asking! this is going to be a kind of long post if that’s okay, because I want to give a little synopsis of each book so that you know what you’re getting into. but if you want a straight-up reading list:

Discourse on Inequality — Rousseau

Vindication of the Rights of Women — Wollstonecraft

Wealth of Nations — Adam Smith

Prison Notebooks — Gramsci

Neo-colonialism — Nkrumah

The Accumulation of Capital — Luxemburg

Why Not Socialism? — Cohen

so, first you’ve got the three main influences of Marx and Engels: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Adam Smith.

Rousseau wrote about the general will, and how the concept of “civil society” is unnatural. Rousseau is… pretty unpalatable to most modern audiences, and he’s hard to read, so only read him if you’re really curious about where Marx was coming from.

Wollstonecraft wrote about gender — how women aren’t naturally weak-willed and men aren’t naturally strong. she came up with the idea that people become what society expects them to become. for her, the way out of this was free and equal access to education (abolishing private schools and single-sex schools)

Smith wrote Wealth of Nations, which is essentially the capitalist manifesto. you won’t find a lot of socialists recommending it because it’s very much not a socialist text. but I think it’s important because it tells us what communism/socialism is responding to, and why people thought that capitalism was a good idea in the first place

then there are the socialists/communists who came after the Communist Manifesto. my favourites are Gramsci, Nkrumah, and Luxemburg

Gramsci’s focus is less on the economic side of capitalism, and more on the social and cultural sides. he figured out that the communist revolution would have to come along with a lot of cultural change, because capitalism is really good at convincing people that capitalism is good and right

Nkrumah wrote about colonialism, and how the dynamic of capitalism is different in colonised nations than in coloniser nations. this is a really important piece of the puzzle that a lot of socialists ignore (which we really shouldn’t)

Luxemburg was killed by the unionists by being too radical, and if you read her work you'll see why. she thought that the introduction of the welfare state was a ploy by the bourgeoisie to appease the masses, and that real communists should be against anything that encourages people to support capitalist institutions. it goes way too far for my liking, but it's an interesting read

THEN there are the “no bullshit Marxists”. these people are a lot more modern (some of them are still alive). the main guy died in 2009 though, G.A Cohen. Cohen was a supporter of the Universal Basic Income, as a way to bridge the gap between unhealthy levels of capitalist competition and the true socialist nature of most people. his work does a really good job at deconstructing common counter-arguments to socialism, and while I may not agree with him on everything, I think it's a worthwhile read

BASICALLY there are lots of books, articles, and essays out there. it's up to you how deep you want to go down the socialist/communist rabbit hole. I wish you all the best in reading the Communist Manifesto (it's definitely a bit dense in parts!), and I hope that this long mess of an answer is helpful

#asks #socialism

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theblackinnkeeper · 6 months

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Was sakurajima bad for maki? A response to @linkspooky ( revision)

(Note this is a revision of a previous post meant to respond to linkspooky I looked over my previous objections and decided some of them weren’t good so I needed to make a change.). This is something I’ve been meaning to do all day and I’m going to do it now.a user on this platform named @linkspooky who makes meta’s on different forms of media she likes(mostly superhero comics and shonen manga) has answered an ask detailing her issues with the sakurajima colony arc in the culling games and I’m going to see if I can address them as well as offer a different perspective.now I used to be a follower of @linkspooky and I was a big fan of her meta’s but I decided to unfollow due to, A I felt I was bothering her with my asks and, B I felt I needed to start thinking for myself. Now after this my opinions on her meta’s haven’t aged well due to the fact that I feel that linkspooky has a habit of seeing the forest for the trees when it comes to her analyses. Now my perspective on sakurajima mostly comes from lighting446 for those of you who don’t know lightning is a translator for viz media who has done corrections on the original translations as well as translated other material. Now I doubt linkspooky will agree with his interpretation particularly due the fact the it doesn’t exactly match with her chain of analysis but I hope she’ll at least hear this out(rebuttal begins under the cut)

Now I disagree with the mai is mishandled part due to the fact that while there are some interesting things about mai there weren’t enough to get me as engaged with her as much as others and I don’t mind her dying for maki’s development I feel we’ve spent the right amount of time with mai for her death to feel right because i mean better to go out with a purpose than the to stay with no purpose that’s how I feel and it’s one of the biggest points of contention i have with linkspooky because every sibling dynamic has to be starfire and black fire if it isn’t it’s probably mishandled. Like I get it you have a favorite thats great and all but to hold it as this objective Standard that every good sibling vs bad sibling dynamic should be just feels irritating because it just makes you look picky it should be about what they can bring to the table with this one and if it’s good not if it’s exactly like my favorite dynamic cause if everything was like the subversion you hold so high in regard would just end up becoming old and stale but I’m getting off topic. The problem with this is that I don’t think the was any need to yes Mai’s death was tragic but is there any need to mourn since Mai’s final wish and her death were avenged not to mention maki has been changed after this I mean she’s much more stoic than she’s actually been compared to her hothead self previously(keep in mind the zenin clan massacre happens after Yuji and Megumi recruit Hakari)but you want her to be in a tragedy like situation but different people respond to loss in different ways not everything has to be a sob scene I mean Roy mustang character arc didn’t turn into a tragedy when maes huges died don’t get me wrong he was affected but he released All that anger and sorrow onto greed when he finally had him cornered(your probably going to bring up the subversive part of jjk but what you’re treating jjk like is more akin to a deconstruction then a subversion).so why can’t we use the same logic here

I feel the similarities stem from the fact that they are two people with similar powers created faced similar mistreatment and would prove to potentially be the zenin clans undoing (though maki was the one who followed up on that) and the fact that they succeeded in breaking away from the zenin clan.but why suggest maki attack random people in the first place when she has no reason to with toji it made sense for him to do that since he was angry at jujutsu society and was lashing out.but it doesn’t make since for maki since the cause of her trauma is removed she really has no reason for it now as well as the fact that toji’s trauma was allegedly worse.I can’t make a judgement on the trauma part but I’m pretty sure that not all trauma victims have to respond in the same way

Okay okay I’ll address the main issue now with This alternative perspective since I can’t do that without showing it to you

Now this was meant to refute linkspookies claim that this arc served no purpose other than to give maki a power up and I find it more believable than some of the jungian claims linkspooky makes since a lot of things in jujutsu kaisen have Buddhist influences so this being inspired by it sounds a tad more believable than some of spookies other stuff for reason that I feel that lightning is a tad more researched when in comes to the author I’ll also address some other objections. You claim that we are left with the same maki we received pre zenin clan really? I don’t recall maki ever being this stoic all the time I mean people respond to loss in different ways and you make it sound like maki should be bawling her eyes out. Kamo was going through this because his goal of reformation had been foiled add the fact that the only person who made him feel at home was dead and that’s why he acted like he was lost however maki’s goal was to become strong was to spite the zenin clan and unlike Kamo she avenged her sisters and it until she awakens that she overcomes Mai’s death so the sumo wrestling wasn’t for anything (sheesh for someone who frequently calls symbolism Buddhist ones never crossed you mind didn’t it).as far as the tragedy one goes we didn’t need to witness it because we did when i don’t know SHE DIES and as for the unhealthy thing it was for maki to wipe out the zenin clan we get this comment from her

Why keep complaining that nobody calls maki out for the massacre when maki herself admits that she could have handled it differently confirming what you been trying to say! And why do you say it was weird for mai to congratulate maki for killing naoya and the zenin clan when your sweet innocent angel mai who was simply the victim of a bad sister and a bad family who could do not wrong WAS THE ONE WHO SUGGESTED IT IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Okay @linkspooky I’ll admit I’m not going to be as friendly as I was in the original but this feels hypocritical because you question why people are saying that gojo’s death didn’t make since when you are practically doing similar things with mai death despite that looking back there were a few giveaways this feels like it was a hastily made rant that overlooks a few factors and details like you want maki to face punishment for what she did to the Zenin clan but when naoya arrives again the fact that this may be the stories way of saying that was bad idea seems to slip you head this seems to be because you want maki to be a violent psycho (because let me guess that’s more interesting). And you wish maki to mourn in an arc that’s about overcoming Mai’s death and you don’t seem to think that this signals the end of maki’s arc in the story and I’m just so frustrated because well I’ll use this quote to illustrate

You're the smartest person I ever met. But you're too stupid to see

That’s how I feel I I used to agree with almost everything you said but now I’m annoyed because so many things seem to go over your head I can’t take it anymore you want to disagree fine but please try and think things through before you criticize and I mean take into account other factors before you do this cause right now when i comes to your meta’s it feels like you’re so hung up on a certain detail not to mention (I’m going to brutally honest here) when it came to mai you put way too many eggs in the basket and acted upset when they broke I’m probably not going to be able to change you mind I’m probably just an idiot heck when I get this out you’re just going to brush me off as an idiot and ignore this but please just try to think about this more I mean you understand why Gojo died because the plot needed to move but with other characters it feels like they don’t get the same consideration just please hear me out.

#jujutsu kaisen #maki #maki zenin #toji #toji zenin #naoya #naoya zenin #Mai #Mai zenin #sakurajima colony #linkspooky #no hate to linkspooky #revision #response

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2n2n · 1 year

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Hey miss, there’s something I’ve been asking myself for a long time and I can’t find any answer… did Yako was rewarded for her own selfishness?

She wasn't, but that's a part of carrying a theme and letting it evolve over time; addressing it so early on for a reason, that being that we will come back to it repeatedly. I also think there's multiple ideas of what it means to be 'selfish'.

In many stories, the first instance of confronting something may be opposite to our eventual understanding of it. It's not a matter of inconsistency or contradiction, it's a matter of having to start somewhere, with any narrative. It'll show you many situations, and early on it will be more vague and broad, generally, to get just a kind of.... ecosystem going. Just observe a lot of situations. Observe where our mains are at. Staring Point!

[After all, at the beginning of this story, Hanako himself was pro-system, and the story framed Tsukasa as dangerous or villainous for opposing it; but by now, Hanako is also opposing the system, and we as readers are not fans of it either, and want to see it pulled apart. It's not that it's inconsistent in its belief vis-a-vis the system being good or bad or it being right or wrong to do this or that-- its that our understanding of the purpose of the system and what it does evolves over time, and we follow the perspective of ignorant Nene, who is also figuring out that something needs to change. Even though her and Hanako initially saw themselves as upholding the order. Everything complicates over time, and often, things we malign early on in a story will be deconstructed later-- was it right to lash out? Was it right to punish? Was destroying the yorishiro ever OK, now that we know all that we do? Would Nene have done things differently if she could start over? Would she handle Yako differently?]

When Nene confronts Yako about her selfishness, Nene is completely inexperienced in love. She's a humble, servile sort of girl, who will change her entire personality for the delusion of a relationship. She would toil to appease a boy, to gradually work her way into his good graces, if she had to. As a girl with few friends and little going on in her life... that is her idea of love. It's shallow. It's something she wants to have, as a romantic fantasy. She wants to get to be a person in love.

Of course a girl like this would see actions like Yako's as selfish and self-serving. Embarrassingly so.

Nene relates her crude high school crush experience to Yako's experience...

... but do you think that's accurate? Misaki died. Yako is desperately mourning someone gone. She is a kaii, a mystery, a creature blackmailed into servitude in the school via her attachment to something precious (by nature, that's related to her love). She isn't a dumb teenager working up her courage to ask out a boy she doesn't know just so she can have a boyfriend. Nene has a life ahead of her. What does Yako have? What are kaii's lives typically like, now that we're 100ch in?

Nene's love was selfish in the sense that it was impersonal and strictly self-serving,

but, Wanting something precious to you at all costs, even if it's not wanted by the other party, that's something Nene experiences firsthand, later. As much as Yako misses even being scolded by Misaki, Nene misses Hanako negging her and pestering her. Misses making him jealous. Because she's in love with him! She wants him back ... even though he's pushed her away willfully.

sidebar: How about Tsukasa, as well? How should we analyze his action of escaping Hanako's boundary, where Hanako had placed him, and challenging his frozen position as a mystery? Is that something Hanako wanted, or is it Tsukasa's selfish desire to learn more about Hanako? Is it wrong or bad for Tsukasa to wish to learn everything about Amane? Is it wrong for Nene to pursue knowledge about Hanako's past, against his will to keep his secrets, because she loves him, wants to know him? Much to think about....

When Nene forcefully visits Hanako in the far shore, despite his insistence she leave, his insistence that he doesn't want her here, she defends her reason for doing this--

That's not dissimilar to Yako's feeling. Nene simply wasn't in love, at the beginning of this manga. She didn't understand this demanding desperation. She understood her childish, shallow delusion of getting to have a boyfriend. She didn't really know what love can make you into.

Hanako of all people, would not reward behavior like Yako's-- he sees her as foolish, more than anything. Fighting back against something hopeless, pointless. She should know better, as a kaii, as a mystery... that's how Hanako feels.

Because Hanako himself (was?) is vividly nihilistic about fate.

Even the concept of 'bringing someone back' (even deformed, even twisted) like Yako wanted, is something Hanako finds foolish.

ME reading Yako's story, I felt for her pain, and the way her love had turned selfish made sense. Wanting someone back, even if it were only for them to hate you, because any attention at all, it's something, and it's them. It's even a fragment of them, and that's precious. You would love anything you could have back, wouldn't you? Hmm...

hmmm...

It's simply the early manga, and we can't tug at this too much just yet. Hanako absolutely won't. His entire deal is 'give up' at the start of this manga.

Yako is a good introduction to concepts we'll dive deeper into, later, with our protagonists.

#avvy's JSHK

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ziskandra · 2 years

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papyrus ⇢ if you put your ‘on repeat’ playlist on shuffle, what’s the first song that comes up? what do you like about it / associate it with?

twisted palm tree ⇢ do you have a fictional villain you shouldn’t people say you'd like but you feel kinda meh about love regardless? (adjusted because most of your favs are fictional villains that Fandom says you shouldn't like)

papyrus: hilariously every song in my spotify on repeat playlist atm is from my meresino playlist. anyway the first that came up when I shuffled was rabbit hole by aviva

i swear I have whole AViVA albums on this playlist oops, listen this flavour of dark pop just works so well for them.

and as for why this song in particular:

I could say I'll take you

I could say I'll make you

But underneath all I plan to do, to do is break you

You could be my breakthrough

Watching demons wait 'til

I leave you, and they can initi-niti-nitiate you

[…]

I will always wait for you

I'll always be waiting

I will always follow you

'Cause you cannot escape me

Need I say more?

twisted palm tree: firstly can I just how much I love how that you had to twist this because loving villains I shouldn’t is basically my entire brand 🥲

It actually took me a while to think of a character that people assume I love that I don’t really have strong feelings about, and in the end the only answer I could come up with is Bellatrix Lestrange from HP (with the caveat that I don’t know how the fandom portrays her bc I don’t seek out content about her).

The reason I usually love villains is that I find them relatable — either because they remind me of the worst parts of myself, or because they remind me of people I’ve encountered irl, and I like deconstructing what makes people capable of such cruelty through the safer space of fiction because it makes me a) less vulnerable to manipulation irl and b) more sympathetic to people who I wouldn’t see eye-to-eye with. I think growing up as a Young Undiagnosed Autistic, I’ve always been mystified by the concept of being cruel on purpose, and I’ve always wanted to understand it more, and the reasons behind it (even if the reason is as simple as ‘maintaining the status quo because the person in power wishes to remain so’)

Anyway, yeah, I don’t find Bellatrix interesting for the same reasons I don’t find Voldemort interesting, but my favourite HP characters nonetheless are pretty revelatory about me: Dolores Umbridge, Rita Skeeter, Petunia Dursley … I am much more interested in analysing the type of cruelty I am more likely to encounter irl!

get to know me ask game

#asha answers #as a kid i was obsessed with umbridge to the point i dressed as her for book week #so nothing about me has really changed #except no-one called me an abuse apologist back then #honestly not to get too deep on main #but a part of the reason i’m fascinated by female villains in particular is because i did grow up with an abusive mother #and the coping mechanism that worked the best was humanising her #and it took me a long time for me to even acknowledge she was abusive #like it makes me feel uncomfortable to say now even tho she was even physically abusive towards me!#like the emotional abuse was worse but usually people recognise physical abuse more easily #so yeah it fucks me right off when people call randos on the internet abuse apologists because god forbid #anyone want to explore their own abuse in a safe space #a huge part of my healing was reconciling my own trauma was acknowledging my childhood abuse #and reconciling it with the fact i still wanted to repair my relationship with my mum #and that I HAD A CHOICE about whether to reconcile or not #and that I can love who she is now (after years of her own healing)#and still acknowledge that she Fucked Me Up #anyway agency is very important to me for obvious reasons #and if someone tells me i shouldn’t do something I wanna do it more oops #asha’s villain manifesto #mxkelsifer

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langernameohnebedeutung · 2 years

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what did you think of the finale? I thought this season was miles better than S2 and hoping so much for Jensen for the future if they make more

(spoilers, for anyone who hasn't seen it yet)

I mean, I'm still kind of sorting through it tbh, so this is just a random list of my thoughts and reactions. First thought: What a day for Starlight x Maeve! ...what a day for people who adopted Black Noir last week as their babey :(

In a way, I find it a bit hard to compare season 2 and season 3 because I think they are very different stories. Season 2 is a lot more about social commentary and symbolism and the media (though in a way it's always about the media, no The Media no The Boys), while season 3 is a lot more personal and emotional and about the characters. In fact, one thing I really liked about the finale is that it showed me how invested I had gotten in a wide range of storylines - even if I hadn't noticed how much certain characters had grown on me.

In season 2, Stormfront is basically this walking metaphor (which is also interesting to examine and especially during my rewatch, I found such interesting details like her earrings or stuff her followers say or do), so stuff like watching her getting a very undignified curb stomp from Kimiko, Maeve and Annie hits differently for a finale than what we got in this one where we actually see the emotional side of our characters. (Though I must say, the fight sequences, Annie's glow-up scene, the explosion and jump out of the window - again, what a day for Annie/Maeve - and all almost felt a little too MCU'ish in a not-parody way at times and kind of could have used a bit more of the The Boys vibe.) (Plus you get really weird scenes both in Herogasm and now in the finale where two characters are randomly fighting in the background while the others talk and stuff and on the one hand, that has that anti-climactic, deconstructing Boys vibe, but it's also a bit...weird tbh? I dunno, sometimes it felt a little like they weren't sure which way they wanted to go - whether they're being the funny superhero parody atm or whether they're taking themselves seriously. Though, I think for the stakes of this finale, it was the best decison to actually do take themselves seriously.)

What I definitely think this season did a lot better on was deliver an emotional punch and give us pay-offs on a lot of different characters' stories and background/backstories and it even has a great effect on the old scenes. For example, I rewatched the season 1 finale after the episode with Billy's childhood stories and it really changed the way I felt watching the scene where he and Homelander face-off with Stillwell and her child as their respective hostages.

I only rewatched season 2 very fleetingly, but there were several parts where I thought it had some really weird pacing and plot-priorities or felt kind of unbalanced or forced (for example, I wish we had spent a lot more time with Kimiko's brother, especially considering the ending he got). In this season, it felt a lot more organic, everyone had something to deal with - and I did enjoy how generational abuse/abuse getting passed-on was such a uniting theme for many characters.

Personally I'm pretty sure that they are going to bring back Soldier Boy - you don't put a character on ice for no reason - but I guess they're gonna have to find a new mission for him, with his team all gone.

Two things that have me a bit worried is:

How much sensitivity and skill they're going to have/not have about mixing streams with their very character related, very personal storylines and the social commentary. I feel like that might very easily go very, very wrong and stuff like this rivalry between Starlight-supporters and Homelander-supporters already had me a bit...on edge in that regard, though I think I'll need to do some more pondering to sort through this and to like...comprehensively put this problem into words. I just generally hope they're going to be smart and sensitive about this and not drink their own kool-aid too much.

Also I'm a bit worried about them turning Homelander's wire mother upbringing problem and the generational abuse thing in that family (or at least mishandling it in a way that kind of turns it) into some 'evil genes' thing. They really got to handle Ryan very cleverly as a character (a character that so far, has been very cookie-cutter) to really make this work. I think we have a good basis bc Homelander already kind of inflicted pretty much the same abuse on Ryan that Soldier Boy's father inflicted on him and that Homelander now (briefly) experienced from Soldier Boy, and I really hope they explore what that means for Ryan after everything he has been through - and the complicated feelings he has about Billy and Homelander. But I'm a bit worried that they'll fail to do this and make him some sort of Evil Child Supe who is More Powerful Even Than Homelander and becomes some...flying fascist Jamie Lannister. To me, the whole "Ryan and Homelander" storyline and the fall-out between Soldier Boy and Homelander already felt a little too rushed - like they wasted the the "disappointment"-punch a little by bringing it in after so few interactions between Homelander and Soldier Boy. It felt like they could have gone bigger.

I mean, that sounds really critical, but I also think that it packed a stronger punch than the last finale, I liked the note we ended on, it had some really great character moments (I really liked how Hughie's and Butcher's dynamic was handled especially in the last few episodes), we got some more word-building - and yeah, I had a good time! :)

#the boys #the boys spoilers #fandom

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immaturityofthomasastruc · 3 years

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The Chloe-Saga

Regarding the whole Chloe-situation: I don’t get it. Just what exactly makes Astruc not only hate a character of his creation to this extent but also makes him not stop giving her more and more prominence in the actual show? Like, in S1 she was the quintessential high school bully. Hates the main character, has the same love interest, causes a lot of “problems/villain of the week”. And guess what? That’s perfectly fine as an archetype. She fulfilled her purpose and it was fun whenever she got put down a notch. That some fans latched onto her and her being redeemed? That’s what a fandom does. It takes characters and gives them a new spin – that does not mean they like what a character in canon does, it means they want to explore those characters outside their bubble. With the identity-shenanigans going on, there even was a pre-build reason for why Chloe might question herself. In S2 we then got the full package of explanations for why Chloe’s Chloe. And while some of them were a bit much and Chloe still did a lot of bad things that might even exceed the “justifications”, Chloe became more than an archetype and more like a character with a clearer background and needs and wishes. What did Astruc expect? Even when we don’t buy her background AND think she went far beyond moral boundaries, there still is a lot more to latch onto. And in S3 and in S4 she got more focus and excuses. Fought of an Akuma. Was explicitly targeted by the big bad and more than once hurt by her idol. Got more family drama and focus on how her family affects people. If we are truly meant to hate Chloe and see not one bit of goodness (which Astruc tells us too) just why are we getting all that focus and excuses? As a one-dimensional schoolyard bully it would have been a lot easier to simply hate her. But that role is apparently Lila’s turf now… The way I see her character and development: One of her traits from the very beginning was how much she liked Ladybug and how much it hurt her whenever LB rejected or renounced her in a way she could not wave aside. She even literally dressed up as Ladybug! In S2 when her mother was introduced, what was one of the first things Chloe did? She sat besides her and mimicked every single movement. For me these were the defining moments of Chloe’s potential to be good. A girl who just really craves the attention of powerful female role models that she can model herself after. A girl who is way more insecure than her bratty face lets on. A girl who has not yet really found herself. Audrey’s entire character essentially is a grown-up Chloe. Petty and nasty and kicking down at every opportunity. Seeing how Chloe reacted to her, mimicked her, and just wanted to be recognized by her, I see most of Chloe’s character essentially as her modelling herself after her. Which is not helped by her father essentially being a rubberstamp with authority, Sabrina being an extended arm, and the butler…being a butler. Ladybug was the counter-weight. It was obvious Chloe cared about her and her opinion of her. She was still flawed and at times outright cruel but there was a hint of progress. Be it her later appearances as Queen Bee where she was either willing to listen (Maledictator) or act as part of the team (Heroe’s Day) or the entire “rejected an Akuma”-saga complete with shielding Sabrina without anything to gain from it. For me the most hurtful moment was when Marinette in her endless goodness reconciled mother and daughter. Because ultimately that was part of what made Chloe continue to model herself after Audrey and what made her stop questioning if Audrey truly is a woman to be emulated. Double hurtful because with Ladybug off her pedestal she was back as the sole role model and because this is yet another thing that can be construed as ultimately being Marinette’s fault (which I don’t believe in and absolutely hate!). We had all these things. Neglectful mother she wanted to emulate in the hopes to be recognized. Secondary role model that cast her out for reasons pertaining to her sins of the past and even before often rejected her for reasons Chloe couldn’t know about. A lot of enablers who either can’t or won’t tell her ‘no’ or 'stop that’ [and we know Chloe at least listens when the few people she cares about tell her]. This is not a condemnation story, that is a tragedy! Which is another thing I am weirded out about. How can Chloe be an irredeemable demon who has not a semblance of goodness in her and yet we are expected to feel stabbed in the heart by the S3-finale? Either she had the potential to be good and it was a tragedy it was not meant to be, or she is an obvious devil who nobody should feel for or with. We can’t have both! Should I feel betrayed or should I feel like that was just Chloe upping her Chloeness?

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According to what Astruc said, we were all supposed to feel betrayed by the Season 3 finale.

Chloe’s relationship with her mother is a real missed opportunity, as she was set up as a completely despicable person everyone hates, and of course, she reconciles with her while the writers never acknowledge the abuse. Seriously, Astruc doesn’t think Chloe being emotionally neglected by her mother for years to the point where she can’t even get her name right and developing a slight inferiority complex as a result counts as abuse.

THIS IS WHAT THOMAS ASTRUC ACTUALLY BELIEVES

Like you said, there have been plenty of plenty of irredeemable villains the audience still felt bad for when they were defeated because of how tragic their stories were.

Tai Lung from the original Kung Fu Panda is a good example. He was trained by Master Shifu, someone he saw as a father, and his skills grew, so did his desire for power. He saw not being granted the title of the Dragon Warrior as if he was denied something that was rightfully his. There’s also the fact that his desire to become the Dragon Warrior stemmed from his desire to make his father proud of him by achieving the greatest honor in Kung Fu.

Tai Lung: All I ever did, I did to make you PROUD! Tell me how proud you are, Shifu! Tell me! TELL ME!

Shifu: (quietly) I have always been proud of you. From the first moment, I've been... proud of you. And it was my pride that blinded me. I loved you too much to see what you were becoming... what I was turning you into. I'm s... I'm sorry.

Tai Lung: (hesitates for a moment before grabbing the injured Shifu) I don’t want your apology. I want my scroll!

Even though he stops for a second, Tai Lung still wants his power, ultimately shooting down the last chance he had at reconciling with his father. Both him and Shifu had problems that led to Tai Lung’s descent into villainy, but while one recognized his part, the other simply couldn’t comprehend he did anything wrong in the first place. THAT is how you do a tragic villain, not what we got with Chloe.

If Astruc wanted Chloe to be an irredeemable monster, he needed to show her meaner moments weren’t something to laugh at (something the show Kevin Can F**k Himself is doing a great job at in regards to the titular character by deconstructing sitcom cliches), and have the audience take her seriously as a threat, not a joke villain like in “Queen Banana”. If Chloe actually was a “deep character” like what Astruc obviously planned from the start, she should have been more than comic relief after betraying Ladybug.

#immaturity of thomas astruc #iota #thomas astruc #thomas astruc salt #chloe bourgeois #queen bee #queen b #marinette dupain cheng #ladybug #audrey bourgeois

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