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cheshiresense · 5 years

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For the headcanon thing if I'm not too late. Headcanons for FemIchigo/Kisuke ship?

Lol you didn’t give me an AU? Guess I could throw them in the canon verse but the events wouldn’t be much dif imo. But let’s see how this goes.

Edit: Welp. This got long.

1. Ichigo keeps her hair long because of her mom. Masaki had long hair, and even if it’s not the exact same colour, Ichigo grows her own hair out in her honour, as a reminder of the one time she failed to protect her precious people and just because she’s never met anyone with hair as pretty as her mom’s.

The first time she gets into a serious fight with Shinigami, that dick Renji uses it against her. He grabs her hair, and taunts her with it, and in the end, she kicks his ass, but then his dick boss shows up and just about kills her. When she wakes up at the Shouten, she’s half-naked, wrapped in bandages, and her hair’s been sliced ragged, left in uneven strands around her shoulders where before it had reached her waist. Urahara is nice enough to cut and style it for her. He tells her he only knows how to cut it one way because a good friend of his used to wear her hair short. It’s cute enough, and at the end of the day, Ichigo would much rather keep her life than her hair, but she also locks herself in the bathroom later that night and has a good cry about it. It’s stupid, it’s just hair, it’ll grow back, but it still feels a little like losing her mother all over again. She gives herself twenty minutes, and then she gets her shit together because she has to go save Rukia, and Urahara promised to make her strong enough so she needs to get some sleep more than anything else right now. When she gets back to her room though, the rest of the Shouten is still silent but there’s a tray of tea by her futon, still hot, and too sweet to have been made by Tessai. Ichigo doesn’t even like tea, but it’s a surprisingly kind, amusingly awkward gesture from a man who knows too much and tells her too little. She drinks it all, making a face at the taste but appreciating the warmth that spreads all the way to her fingertips, and when she lies back down and closes her eyes, sleep comes easier this time.

2. Kisuke’s the one who carries her back to the Shouten after she defeats Aizen and subsequently collapses in the aftermath. He thinks it would’ve been easier if she’d been born a boy. She’s tall for her age and gender, but she feels more fragile like this, her shoulders narrower than her usual larger-than-life personality would suggest, her frame less sturdy. Even her bones feel more delicate. Then again, she’s still only sixteen and she’s already lost half her soul in a war she should never have had to fight in the first place, and a good chunk of that blame can be laid squarely at Kisuke’s feet, so maybe boy or girl, it wouldn’t have made a difference anyway. She’s light enough that Kisuke can carry her without difficulty, but her weight still feels like shackles around his wrists, tied to an anchor at the bottom of the ocean, like the worst of his sins given life, and Kisuke hadn’t ever thought that would be something he’d have trouble bearing until now. But the least he can do is carry her home, so that’s what he does. He takes her back to the Shouten and cleans her up and heals her– it’s a routine he’s uncomfortably familiar with these days. He doesn’t know if she’s ever consciously realized it, but he’s seen her naked enough times to feel like a pervert. He was Onmitsukidou, and he’s seen Yoruichi change in front of him enough times that the female body doesn’t make him blink, but Ichigo’s young - old enough to have developed curves, young enough that his hands shouldn’t be anywhere near her (figuratively or literally) - but there’s nobody else to do it, Yoruichi is always inconveniently away, so Kisuke keeps his eyes and hands well within professional range, runs a bath for her that takes care of most of the dirt and sweat and blood so he only has to make sure she doesn’t drown, and then whisks her off back to bed where he can bandage up what his Kidou can’t heal before settling down to monitor her reiatsu levels.

She remains in a coma for a month. Kisuke is the one who takes care of her, from fresh bedding to sponge baths to IV-fed fluids, even trimming her hair when it starts looking too shaggy (she’s growing it out again, so he doesn’t cut more than what he has to). By the time she opens her eyes, Kisuke’s just relieved she wakes at all, and it doesn’t seem like she’s (physically) much worse for wear so at least his caretaking skills aren’t terrible. All the discomfort in the world can be tolerated if it means Ichigo remains as healthy as she can possibly be.

3. Ichigo doesn’t see or hear from Urahara or any other Shinigami for the next seventeen months, and she tries not to let it get to her. She still sees her human friends at school, even if she’s no longer welcome in a large part of their daily lives, and Shinigami probably don’t think a year and a half is all that long. Besides, at the end of the day, she knew most of her Shinigami acquaintances for a handful of months tops; that’s hardly grounds for eternal friendship. She’s hurt by their absence, but she keeps herself busy with school, with homework, with the part-time job she finds just to fill the hours in-between. She gets good at ignoring the fact that she knows where her friends go after school, knows where her sisters go, and that she can no longer follow them. Urahara doesn’t wear a gigai after all, and it wouldn’t be fair to ask him to. He probably has better things to do too now that the war is over and Ichigo has done her duty.

So it’s been seventeen months of mind-numbing (soul-wrenching) monotony, and then she gains a stalker. She would never have chased that thief down if she had known Ginjou Kuugou was so… greasy. She doesn’t just mean his hair either; everything about him oozes an oily sort of charm that sets off every alarm bell her mom drilled into her head about Stranger Danger, Female Edition, and it becomes clear very quickly that Ginjou is exactly the sort of man who just won’t take no for an answer. He follows her around, flirts like he thinks she finds him attractive, keeps inviting her out for a meal, even tracks her down at work, and Ichigo’s just about had it with him after he “bumps” into her while she’s walking home from doing the grocery-shopping, because she may not be a Shinigami anymore but she sure as hell still knows how to defend herself and kick a creep in the balls when he dares to sling a too-proprietary arm around her waist, as if he has any right.

As it turns out though, she doesn’t have to. Ginjou gets about half a second to touch her, still blathering on about having something interesting to show her if she lets him treat her to some ramen, and then he’s being ripped away from her, abruptly enough to tear a shout from him, and Ichigo spins around just in time to see Urahara twist Ginjou’s arm behind him at a painful-looking angle before slamming him face-first into a nearby wall.

Ichigo doesn’t think she’s ever seen Urahara so… openly violent before. She can’t stop staring for a long moment, because that casual, effortless strength is… not something Ichigo would mind seeing again. If nothing else, it’s clearly effective (and pointedly ignores the voice that says she isn’t staring because it’s effective). The look on his face though is positively serene, if you don’t count the ominous shadow that his hat is somehow casting over his eyes.

“I do believe Kurosaki-san has asked you to stop harassing her,” the shopkeeper says in tones so airily cheerful only an idiot would buy the act. Ginjou doesn’t reply anyway. He can’t. Urahara’s yanked his arm up high enough to let him simultaneously choke the life out of the guy, his hand about as movable as stone as it pins Ginjou’s wrist to the back of his neck and his neck to the brick wall.

“Hey,” Ichigo says, and then stops, because on one hand, this guy probably doesn’t deserve to be straight-up murdered, but also if anyone in Ichigo’s life can kill a human and make the corpse disappear, it would be Urahara.

But Urahara glances at her, then shrugs a little and releases Ginjou, only to knock him over the head with his cane, hard enough to send him crumpling to the ground in an unconscious heap. There’s a moment of silence after that, and then Ichigo remembers to be irritated because she’s no one’s damsel in distress. “I could’ve handled him, you know.”

It comes out sharper than even she intends, but the sight of him reminds her of how long she hasn’t seen him or any of her other Shinigami friends, and it’s hard to remain mature about it when one of them is suddenly right in front of her again. Urahara, because he’s Urahara, just rakes a too-discerning eye over her like he can see right through her annoyance to the root of it. His expression tightens with something Ichigo can’t name, but all he does is incline his head in acknowledgement even as he smiles in a way that makes her want to punch him. “Of course, Kurosaki-san, but what kind of gentleman would I be if I didn’t interfere?”

Ichigo gives him the flat unimpressed look that deserves, Urahara’s smile twitches into something more genuinely amused, and for a second, it almost feels as if no time at all has passed since the last time they’d shared an actual conversation. Then Ginjou groans, Ichigo bristles irritably, and Urahara’s smile fades.

“Kurosaki-san,” He calls out before Ichigo can do more than turn away. “There are some things you need to know. But perhaps we can take this off the streets first? Come back to my Shouten; I will explain everything there.”

Ichigo turns back, scowling suspiciously at the blond, then down at greasy stalker. Great. She should’ve known; of course it would be Shinigami business that actually dragged Urahara out of his shop and into his first interaction with Ichigo after seventeen months of radio silence. But… if Urahara is willing to explain just what greasy stalker wanted to drag her into, Ichigo would be an idiot to turn him down.

“Fine,” She grumbles. “I’m using your fridge though. I’ve got ice-cream in here and it’s gonna melt before I get home at this rate.”

Urahara beams at her and hefts greasy stalker over his shoulder before ushering her to the Shouten. True to his word, he tells her about the Fullbringers who’ve invaded Karakura, and he tells her that the Shinigami have been monitoring the situation, and then he tells her he has a way to return her powers and soul-spirits to her. He shows her the sword, engraved with a bunch of intricate symbols she can’t even begin to decipher, and it thrums with so much power even she can feel it. She has a sudden epiphany that it must’ve taken even a genius like Urahara quite a while to make something like this, because she’d asked around, before she’d lost the ability to see Shinigami, and she knows for a fact that fixing her soul should’ve been impossible. The realization that Urahara must’ve been working on this for the past seventeen months goes a long way to soothing any fair or unfair feelings she had towards him, even if she also thinks he could’ve just told her. But she thinks that, and then she thinks that Urahara probably didn’t because he hadn’t wanted to get her hopes up for nothing. It’s stupid, but so is the way he eases the sword through her chest as gently as possible, as if it makes a difference at all when that first jolt of foreign reiatsu to her system still hurts like a bitch. She thinks she can forgive stupidity though if it’s coming from him. Not that she’ll ever tell him that.

In the aftermath, the Fullbringers disappear one by one, and nobody says anything but an increasingly manically cheerful Urahara gets a lot of wary side-eyes from the Shinigami trooping through Karakura over the next couple of weeks. It’s Rukia (Rukia who never so much as passed on a how-are-you, and Ichigo doesn’t blame her, but she’s never going to forget it either) who tells her later about Urahara kneeling in front of all the Gotei’s captains and lieutenants and begging them to help, who bowed his head through the Captain-Commander’s orders to keep the sword back until a powerless Ichigo has drawn out all the Fullbringers, only to immediately disobey as soon as he got the reiatsu he needed from them.

Ichigo asks, of course, just once, why. True to form, Urahara doesn’t give her a straight answer, he shrugs and lies instead, “Well it isn’t as if there’s anything else they can do to little old me in exile, is there?” But for just a moment, he also looks directly at Ichigo, his gaze steady and calm and unyielding, like there was never anything else he could’ve done, like choosing Ichigo over the Gotei was a decision made as easily as he breathed.

Much, much later, looking back, Ichigo thinks maybe that was the moment she first fell just a little bit in love.

4. Somewhere between the Quincy War and Yoruichi and Tessai moving back to Soul Society and the kids deciding they want to experience high school and normal life at the Kurosaki household, Kisuke wakes up one morning to Ichigo cooking breakfast in his kitchen and realizes he’s sharing a house with a twenty-year-old college student whose Gargantas make for the easiest commute to and from school in the history of public transportation. He stands in the doorway for a long minute, just watching her go through the motions that have become routine at the Shouten for… months now. Ever since he survived the war by the skin of his teeth and ended up half-blind because Benihime is only a quick, crude fix when Kisuke doesn’t know the exact makeup of whatever he’s restructuring. He’d had to study that, and then get some hands-on practice, before finally re-restructuring his eyes one more time. Ichigo had been a big help. Kisuke had had difficulties reading, along with dizzy spells and crippling headaches, so even though she didn’t understand everything, she also spent long hours with him, reading out loud and taking down notes for him, cooking for him and keeping his house clean and even manning the shopfront for him when Tessai was busy with the Kidou Corps. And then, once he was better… well, apparently she’d just never moved back out, and Kisuke had liked the company (has always liked her company) that he’d obliviously taken her presence here for granted.

She turns around now, probably sensing him. Her hair’s almost as long as it used to be back when they’d first met, but she’s tied it up into a messy bun. She’s still in pajama pants and one of his shirts because she likes the larger size and she keeps stealing them and Kisuke doesn’t mind, he has more than enough.

Maybe he should’ve minded.

“Hey,” Ichigo greets around a stifled yawn. “Food’s almost done. Could you set the table?”

Kisuke makes an agreeable noise and starts pulling down tableware from the cupboards. The coffee’s also done so he pours a mug, and then prepares the tea with the water that’s just finished boiling. Five minutes later, they’re seated around the table, Ichigo grumbling memorized literature quotes into her coffee because she has finals next week, and Kisuke just… watches her. They’ve thrown the porch doors open because it’s summer and the morning breeze is nice. Ichigo has her back to it, and the sunrise that frames her head like a halo gilds her bright hair gold. When she finally sets her coffee down, she looks up and catches his eye, and even as her eyebrows go up in an unspoken question, the smile that blooms across her face at the same time is as much a reflex as it is genuine, like the mere sight of him is something to be happy about, and Kisuke is helpless to do anything but smile back.

Shit, he thinks, far too late. I’m definitely going to hell.

5. “I’m definitely going to hell,” he moans into the table. Yoruichi, because she is first and foremost a terrible best friend, is too busy laughing at him to console him. At least she came prepared with the sake when he called her in a panic once Ichigo had left for class.

“Took you long enough,” Yoruichi chortles, like this isn’t a Big Problem. “Tessai thought for sure you’d realize she’s practically your wife-” Kisuke winces. “-when she went off to college and still went back to the Shouten every night. But I’ve known you longer so I figured it would take you a while before it clicked.”

“We are roommates,” He hisses vehemently, downing another cup of alcohol before pouring himself some more. “I’ve never- Yoruichi-san, I would never- I wouldn’t-”

“Well that was obvious too,” Yoruichi snorts, but her gold eyes are suddenly a lot less amused a lot more focused, acute and unblinking on his face. “But you know, if she’s old enough to kill for you, then she’s old enough to fuck.”

Kisuke freezes, and then straightens, and he has never looked at Yoruichi the way he does now, but there’s ice in his veins and a knot of flash-fire rage and black-fanged guilt clawing up his gut, and he couldn’t stop the crass words if he wanted to, “She was old enough to kill for me at fifteen; was she old enough to fuck then too?”

Yoruichi doesn’t even flinch, just pins him with a burning look sharp enough to cut. “Well you didn’t wanna fuck her then, did you? But she’s an adult now, and she can make her own choices, and I know you suck at human-ing so I’m gonna go ahead and give you a piece of advice in advance and hopefully save everyone a lot of needless drama - in general, people don’t like it when you make decisions for them because you think you know better. So before you panic even more and start pushing her away ‘for her own good’ but really actually because you freaked out about having feelings, maybe, just maybe, ask her what she wants.” She grins like a tiger that has its prey cornered. “Ichigo’s not stupid. Even I don’t know if she knows about your gigantic crush yet, she’s surprisingly closed off about personal issues, but let me just remind you, Kisuke - she didn’t sit at my bedside, or Shinji’s, or even Rukia’s, after the war, and you know full we were all laid out for days, if not from injuries then exhaustion.” She leans forward and snags the front of his Shihakushou to give him a hard shake. “Are you listening to me, Kisuke? She cares about you, and you care about her, and I have not seen you this happy in a very, very long time.” She glares at him, daring him to argue. “Even if nothing comes from this, even if you just stay friends, don’t you dare fuck this up for yourself. You’ve got a good thing here. She’s good for you, and she makes you happy. And it’s not a crime to be happy, Kisuke.”

She lets him go. Kisuke doesn’t move for a long minute, and this time, Yoruichi waits him out. “…What if I’m not good for her though?”

Yoruichi clicks her tongue and reaches for her own sake again, limbs going feline-languid once more. “That’s for her to decide. She’s got a decent head on her shoulders, Kisuke; if you really were poison for her like you seem to think you are every damn turn of the moon, she would’ve dropped you a long time ago.” She pauses to take a swig, and then she kicks him under the table hard enough to make him yelp. “Now quit being a coward, drink your damn sake, and then go home and be disgustingly domestic with your roommate when she gets back. And if after all this crap you put me through, you still end up hurting her, I’m gonna tell Kuukaku, and she’ll make you wish you were just dead.”

Kisuke thinks about that for a moment, remembers some of the antics Kuukaku used to get up to with Yoruichi, and internally cringes. “Right,” he sighs. Yoruichi rolls her eyes at him, and he sighs again. Well, he supposes he should’ve known better than to get any sympathy from Yoruichi. He also mulls over what she’s said though, and… well. If nothing else, Ichigo’s choices are her own. Kisuke’s manipulated her into a war once already. He can’t - he won’t - do it to her again, for anything.

He downs the last of his alcohol and this time dares to hope.

6. They never actually sit down and lay all their cards on the table and talk about it. It’s not in either of their natures; Ichigo prefers actions, and ninety percent of Kisuke’s words have always been used to deflect and manipulate. But, for Ichigo, the Shouten becomes home. She never moves out (and yes, she knew what she was doing when she packed up most of her belongings and carted them over to the shop), and at first, it was just to help because Kisuke was so badly injured from the war, but the longer she stayed, the harder it was to think about leaving again for good. When Kisuke hadn’t said anything even after he’d fully recovered, she took it as permission to stay, and of course that didn’t do anything to make her like him less. She enjoys his company, likes reading in his labs while he fiddles with his experiments, likes surprising him with new recipes, likes being surprised when he modifies or creates yet another Kidou spell for her monstrous levels of reiatsu so that it won’t blow up when she tries it. She likes that he always tucks her into bed if she falls asleep at her desk studying, and she likes that he trusts her enough to walk around without wearing his hat all the time. She likes that between her strength and adaptability and his creativity and cunning, they’re more or less evenly matched in a spar, and the harder she pushes him, the more thrilled he gets at having to work for his victories. She likes that he comes home one day with something both new and still familiar in his eyes when he looks at her, and a month later, on her birthday, he takes her halfway across the world to a rare book convention with a focus on Shakespeare, and halfway through that, his hand swings out to tangle her fingers with his own.

They never really talk about it, but Ichigo migrates into his bedroom one night and never sleeps in her own room again. They take things slow, honestly more for Kisuke’s benefit than her own, but she doesn’t mind because mostly, she just likes having Kisuke there, with her. He still treats her like glass sometimes, like something priceless he’s afraid to smudge just by touching it. Those days, Ichigo sprawls across him with all her weight and stays there until he wraps himself more firmly around her, usually dozing off while Ichigo works on a draft of her first book.

They don’t talk about it. But they don’t have to, to know what they mean to each other.

#headcanon meme: answered #bleach #uraichi #urahara kisuke #kurosaki ichigo #fem ichigo #fandommaniac2401 #headcanon

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loopy777 · 4 years

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I love your two Ursas analysis! If we ignore The Search and take the hints from canon, like her laughing at the siege of Ba Sing Se, do you have a HC for the night Azulon died/where she was all those years? I almost think it’s most plausible that she died or was otherwise incapacitated. And do you think she ever had a “the FN is evil” epiphany or it was limited to “you can’t kill Zuko”? Do you think Ozai abused her, or was just unloving? Maybe he saw no purpose to abusing her, unlike the kids

Ah, Ursa headcanons. Everyone’s got a set. For me, though, it was less about headcanon than it was about trying to solve the mystery I thought the AtLA cartoon had been setting up. Since ‘The Search’ revealed that there were no real answers to be had, I’ve speculated a bit on what I’d like to see, but I haven’t done much with those ideas since they by their nature contradict canon.

So, my Ursa...

A noble by birth, with her relation to Roku known but not discussed. Sozin and Azulon could have very easily made a pariah out of the family by simply ignoring them and allowing the rest of Fire Nation society antagonize them in a display of performative loyalty. However, Sozin instead reached out to Roku’s family, explaining that Roku was a traitor but surely his family is loyal to the crown and looking to prove it to avoid any unpleasantness. They agreed, and so Roku’s family became almost entirely dependent on the Fire Lord’s goodwill and protection. The one alliance they maintained for themselves was with the Fire Sages, as the family had been honored by them for producing the Avatar, even after Roku and Sozin had their falling out. Sozin had been politically pressuring the Sages throughout his life, trying to make them a tool of the crown, and the Sages in turn maintained good relations with Roku’s family to try to keep some independence. Quite a few of Roku’s family had even become Sages, over the decades.

(This didn’t really work, but it left enough ‘good’ Sages in the organization that when Zuko becomes Fire Lord, he doesn’t have to disband the whole organization, just purge the leadership who had been tools of his father. It very much helps that he’s a distant relation to a lot of these better sages, and that is one of the few smooth elements of his first few years in power.)

When Azulon suggested that the youngest daughter, however, would make a good match for Ozai instead of wasting her life in some dusty temple, they readily agreed and handed her over. Ursa herself was fine with this, as she appreciated the Royal Family’s protection as much as the rest of her clan, and preferred noble society anyway. Plus, back then Ozai made an effort to be charming. Ursa herself was happy as a Fire Nation heiress, and was known to argue passionately about the need to liberate the poor oppressed women of the Water Tribes, who were owned as property by their husbands! My Ursa was a Firebender, and had trained at the Royal Fire Academy for Girls, but the strength of her flames was never matched by her skill or technique. She just never had the stomach for duels or fighting, hence leaning more towards a scholarly education and perhaps a future as a Sage. But getting to be a princess is even better, especially since the war would probably be over soon. She could help raise the Prince(ss) Governors who would rule over the colonies, influencing the world for the better. And she also found Ozai very attractive. Rawr!

Ozai himself I consider to have always been narcissistic jerk. When he was a kid and young teen, this was readily apparent. As he moved into adulthood, he learned how to hide it behind a facade, but more discerning folks could tell that he was just using friendliness and flattery to win allies. Ursa, sadly, was not that perceptive, so she rather liked Ozai, even into the first few years of the marriage.

Then Zuko came along.

Ozai was consistently disappointed in Zuko, and he blamed Ursa for that. He wasn’t a full-on monster to her, and never laid a hand on her, but he no longer went to the effort of charming her. Ursa managed to fool herself about this, making excuses for Ozai’s behavior even as their marriage cooled. She managed to stick it out long enough to produce Azula, which initially placated Ozai. Azula was everything Zuko was not. However, this did not save the marriage, because Ozai now had what he wanted, and saw no further need for Ursa. Again, he didn’t bully her, but he made no effort to hide his lack of real interest in her. The marriage was soon in name only, with little interaction between them. Ursa began to see Ozai for what he was, especially with his treatment of Zuko, and began to fear the influence he was having on Azula. This distance did help shield her as Ozai grew crueler and more of a bully as his efforts gain power were thwarted by his clumsiness. The palace and Caldera City are big enough that Ursa was able to avoid him most of the time, and they never shared a suite unless actively trying to have children, even early in the marriage.

However, there was little else Ursa could do. Ozai was not favored by Azulon, but challenging the authority of anyone in the Royal Family would have brought swift and terrible reprisal. Ursa tried to shield Zuko as best she could, and continued to play the part of Wife and Princess in official appearances like social gatherings or audiences with the Fire Lord. She sometimes went over the line in trying to protect her children, which Ozai would punish with cruelties, to the point of mental and emotional abuse, and sometimes physical intimidation, but he was too careful (so far) to risk his reputation by attacking his wife. For that, Iroh was indirectly the one to thank, as he had been a loving family man before the death of his wife, which Azulon approved of, and Ozai was trying to look better than his brother in the eyes of their father.

It all eventually came to a head in events portrayed in the flashbacks of ‘Zuko Alone.’ I headcanon that Ursa outright stabbed Azulon to death, to the point where she ruined a good set of her clothes with bloodstains. And then she confessed her crime to the Crimson Guard and Fire Sages. She should have been put to death for treason and murder, and she was prepared for that, but she and Ozai had concocted a better scheme. Ursa called in every favor her family had earned from the Sages to talk to the leadership in the middle of the night. She and Ozai pointed out that Iroh had taken a dim view of the corruption of the Sages and had battled them politically, and told them bluntly that Ozai was their best bet for surviving as an organization. They suggested the Sages should lie about Azulon’s last wishes and pronounce Ozai as the next Fire Lord. In exchange, Ozai would merely banish Ursa as failure of a wife and cover up her crime, so that her family would not have to suffer shame or even outright execution for producing a regicidal traitor. No one would speak of what had happened, no one would get in trouble, and Ozai would be Fire Lord and keep the current system running smoothly. Everyone agreed.

I always figured that Ursa had to have been banished, because in the scene where she says goodbye to Zuko, she’s wearing a dark hooded cloak. That’s universal visual language for “This character is fleeing into the night.”

I also assumed that everyone (important) knew Azulon had been murdered because of the fishy way Ozai was made Fire Lord by the Sages. Even if they believed Azulon had died of natural causes, where did it come from that he had named Ozai as the new crown prince shortly before his death? I doubt a forged note that no one had ever seen before the night of the guy’s death would be considered very reliable. So I thought there had to be a conspiracy that included the Sages; they were at least in on faking Ozai’s claim, and so why wouldn’t they also be in on the murder? And once all the people in power are perpetrating a conspiracy, the evidence doesn’t matter; the truth becomes whatever they want it to be.

Where Ursa goes after that, though, is a lot more nebulous. The way the cartoon finale had Zuko confront Ozai with, “Where- is- my- mother?” implies that Ozai might actually know, or at least have an idea where to start looking. I also think it would cheapen the power of that scene to have Ozai wiggle out of giving any information. So Ozai has to give Zuko something to go on there, but he also said, “Perhaps,” when Zuko asked during the Day of Black Sun if Ursa lives. So I figure Ursa had to have been banished from the Fire Nation, and Ozai knows either where she left from or her initial destination, but nothing else.

I never formed a solid headcanon about whether Ursa is still alive, though. This is the point where my interest ends, since the comics gave us a completely different Ursa character and mystery, and I expect many Avatar fans are interested in fic that outright contradicts canon. If she lives, I think it would be more interesting if she is indeed a typical Fire Nation imperialist, but I don’t think she would actively oppose Zuko’s agenda. It would simply inform their dynamic and create conflict between them. It would be a new challenge for Zuko to overcome in terms of his family. And it might even be a vector for Azula and Ursa to hash out their problems, with Ursa considering that she might almost prefer Azula to have become Fire Lord. But ultimately, Ursa could realize that Azula’s ways are only destructive, and see that the kindness she always liked in Zuko has to extend to all people of the world, not just the Fire Nation.

But there’s also a compelling story in Ursa being dead by the time Zuko tracks her down. Perhaps she died in the war, somehow. Whether Ursa is a racist or not doesn’t matter as much in this scenario. But It could fuel Zuko’s desire to somehow reconcile with Azula, since there’s nothing else from his past that he can save.

So that’s the stuff I came up with.

#haylestorming

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locked-behind-the-walls · 4 years

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Reviews of Some Nova’s Fics

I have been on the (non-fiction) writing kick as of recently, which finally lead to me writing some fic reviews. I've been planning to start writing reviews for B7 fic for a long time, but those plans mostly involved some highbrow "New Wave" gen in the vein of the stories published in The Aquitar Files. Of course, this means that when I did write some reviews, they were about the stories of the classic slashfic author beloved by the fandom. :D

Why Nova? While I like her, she's far from being my favorite B7 author, in slash or in all the fic. I think she's just easy to write about, for me at least - there are a lot of things that I like about her, and a lot of things that frustrate me, and they often are in the same story. Her writing has a lot of clearly discernible patterns and tropes, and I find it much easier to write about them than about the subtleties and nuances of relationships between the characters; I may say that while I like reading both gen and shippy fics of all types, I may tend to write about even the shippy fics in the same way I write about gen. I also probably tend to "accentuate the negative", not because my feelings about this author are mostly negative, but because I find it easier - and more entertaining - to write about the things I dislike than about the things I like.

Let's start? Be warned, those reviews contain spoilers and discussions of heavy subjects. The fics I read and reviewed here: Delinquent, Avon at the Window, Five Easy Pieces and a More Difficult One, Town Mouse, Country Mouse, Love Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry, Before and After, Why I Can't Stand Vila Restal, Prime Suspect, Time and Fevers, Outlaws and In-Laws.

Delinquent

This was the first Nova's fic that I read and one of my favorite ones so far. It has some problems - while I like good boy/bad boy pairs, I think she sometimes tries too hard to shove Blake and Avon into these roles; the way Avon regains his rebelliousness after getting together with Blake felt too abrupt, almost comically so (I know that Magical Healing Cock is a thing; perhaps we should come up with the B7-specific version, Magical Class-Consciousness Rising Cock); and, of course, "undesirable associates" gets repeated ad nauseum. But I just find the idea of Avon being Blake's childhood hero so adorable, and it's for sure one of the most original takes on "they knew each other pre-canon" trope in this fandom. It's interesting to review it after reading other Nova's fics - now I can clearly discern some tropes and headcanons she used in many other fics, e.g. exploring characters' backstories, accentuated differences in Blake's and Avon's upbringing, love restoring the fighting spirit in characters and so on.

Five Easy Pieces and a More Difficult One

I... frankly don't remember that well the more psychological parts of this one, even though I read it not so long ago. What I remember well is all that sex and the bit with the uprising, which sums up my priorities quite accurately. (The sex was damn good. And so was the uprising.) In my defense I must say that it's one of those "faux-casual sex turns into emotional commitment" fics, so sex and romance are interwoven very closely here, even by the fanfiction standards. It's also quite trope-heavy, going through several slash cliches, and as someone who's not a fan of many slash cliches I can say that it's done in pleasantly non-cringy way (except the first part, which was somewhat cringy. I think nothing can redeem Visiting a Gay Planet and Trying to Fit In for me, except maybe outright parodies).

Town Mouse, Country Mouse

Another story about Blake's and Avon's very different upbringings, the one that probably got the most stylized, most deliberate and most extreme about emphasizing these differences. I found the sordidness too sordid and the cutesiness too cutesy, but it was probably the point.

Love Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry

Oh right. One of my least favorite tropes of all times is using other people as cannon fodder to showcase your Great Romance, and this fic is this trope in spades. Nova clearly likes it - she uses it in several fics, sometimes with several people. That's where we would't agree, I guess. Avon killing himself is another thing which we would't agree on. I get it that Avon have seen (and done) some shit, but the only case in which I can imagine him killing himself is, ironically, if he shared Blake's idealism - it would make such a hellish mix with his personality that it might get just too difficult to bear. This one is not the major point of disagreement and I think can be written convincingly, but here it just comes off as too dramatic. I liked the Vila voice, though, it was pleasant to read and created interesting interplay with the grim backstory and not exactly sunny main story.

Before and After

The only thing I liked about this fic is that Avon got put against the wall for killing Blake. (This review will surely gain me a lot of friends in the fandom.) It was bold and quite cathartic. But of course, here it was because he wanted it - he's too cool to just be shot, apparently. I can also add half a point for the homophobia thing - I don't mind exploring this subject matter in slash, and don't even mind portraying main characters as homophobic, it could be done in an interesting and nuanced manner, but here I felt like it was only somewhat interesting, but mostly felt forced and just made them too unsympathetic. Apart from that, it's just way too similar to Love Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry, except now Deva is also dragged into the Not As Good As performance.

Avon at the Window

Ouch. I guess we are supposed to read this one in non-quite-serious, kinky way, because otherwise the situation described here becomes just way too appalling and overshadows any enjoyment one could derive from characters getting together. On the other hand, at least here Avon's Horrible Past is not as jarring as in Outlaws and In-Laws, because this fic is much more angstier and here it's more a center of the story. Nova is very unsubtle at laying out the angst here, crude even - and effective, considering that from all her fics, I remember this one the most and it provoked the strongest emotional response. It's a controversial trope, and I'm not a fan of how she engages with it, but in its own way, it worked.

What I dislike, however, is that Blake is basically mischaracterized for the sake of angst. I can see him to be uncomfortable with prostitution, but I can't see him react in such over-the-top judgemental and aggressive manner. I think it would be more realistic - and more interesting - if he tried to be understanding, but was making such poor job of it, being so clearly not okay with the whole situation despite trying to be, and it eventually lead to falling out between them. I believe he at least would bother to learn more about it and would knew how old Avon was at that time! And then I would be able to buy his more bitter and aggressive behavior PGP because well, Avon shot him, he has the right to be upset, and besides he did seem more bitter and aggressive in general in the last episode. As I said, Nova is very unsubtle here and sometimes it hurts the quality of the fic. Also, while treating domes and space stations as ordinary cities under the open sky is a very common trope in Blake's 7 fanfiction, it also one of my least favorite ones and here it's truly egregious in the bits set in the Space City.

The part I liked the most is the one where they are discussing the book about the prostitution. Nova can be very good in sociopolitical stuff, and those ARE the themes where I wouldn't mind her to be unsubtle, but alas, there is too little of it in this fic.

Why I Can't Stand Vila Restal

At this point it started to read like several other fics, some of them Nova's and some of them not. I don't have much to say about this story - it's easy to read and the sex is good, but there is just nothing new about it. Also, Blake is too paternalistic in this one, which can be done well but I just don't dig it, especially in sex scenes.

Prime Suspect

Another fic that I mostly forgot soon after reading. Blake playing detective was fun, and the resolution was deliciously wacky - but what I love about Nova is that she's not afraid of wackiness. Orac bashing is probably the only sort of character bashing I can stand, and no, that's not because it's not alive, it's because it's such an asshole. (I like Orac anyway).

Time and Fevers

Other characters are dragged into Blake's and Avon's love lives to make a point about their love - again! Deva, this time, and Jenna, somewhat, and while I like Blake/Deva, but definitely not like this. At least some time is given to explore their relationship, though not much. I would have preferred if Jenna either got a larger role or wasn't mentioned at all - as it stands now, it's just too creepy. Did she also die? I think we just are not supposed to care. :(

I liked quite a lot of things about this fic. I have a weakness for the washed out, beaten down Blake, and this fic portrays him rather well. Characters are older than usual in this story, and it is also handled well. The theme of love giving you back your mojo is developed better than in Delinquent, even though it involves unfavorable comparisons with other relationship (but not explicitly so, thankfully). The angst is good and not overdramatic, but rather more muted and melancholic, which goes better with Blake's 7 fics. The stuff about sexual histories of the character was, like almost always in Nova's fics, one of the strongest points. However, some bits gave off the vibe that was too romcom-y, especially Dayna and Soolin acting like matchmakers - it's just so not my thing.

Outlaws and In-Laws

One of my favorite Nova's fics and so quintessentially her - very good and hot mess at the same time. It has a lot of themes which I like and most of which Nova generally does well: explorations of characters' pasts and their sexual histories; political themes, including sexual politics; quite a lot of worldbuilding and interesting original characters. That first time is one of my favorite ones, the sex is original, hot and not unrealistic at the same time. Even the cheesier parts didn't feel that bad (or maybe my love of the Gothic genre helped me to get through them). However, the mood of the first and the second part of the fic was just way too different, which again might have been the point, but I don't think that it works that well there. I agree with Aralias' review that Blake is too damn passive in the second part, and this that just felt like him abandoning Avon. I think it contributes to the sudden drop of temperature in the story, figuratively speaking. I also wish we spent more time with Blake's mom - she seemed like a fascinating character, and yet most of her arc was spent on wackiness and being an obstacle.

So, those are my reviews of Nova so far. Maybe I'll write more in the future after reading more fics, or maybe not. Of course, all those fics are also well-written, and easy to read, and have good characterizations, but other people already wrote about it. At this point I can describe Nova as an author who sticks strongly and noticeably to the tropes and headcanons that she likes, and some of them I like too, while others not so much. Her fics also have a lot of mood whiplash, some of which probably wasn't intended as such. I also got the impression that she's better in more lighthearted stories than in straightforward angst.

#blake's 7 #b7 #fanfic authors #fanfic reviews #my reviews #fanfic #b/a #blake/avon #nova

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healieas · 4 years

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levels of beholding feeding; aka, will this successfully feed me or the eye?; aka, there are actions that beholding avatars are likely to take that may not constitute life-sustaining feeding; aka, the illuminati food pyramid.

the post where i break down what i personally consider feeding the eye to entail, including things that fall under the eye’s “jurisdiction” ( remember that fears are malleable and bleed into each other, and the eye especially tends to overlap with everything else bc it is a gratuitous voyeuristic sack of fuck, but for the purposes of this post i am going to try to focus on what in and of itself is eye fear and if it overlaps well that’s just fun and sexy isn’t it ) but do not feed it, things that engender beholding behavior but are not in and of itself feeding, things that eye avatars need to do to maintain themselves, and things that make the eye sigh and go “ah yes that was great food.” also this does not detail beholding powers. i’m just talking about the food, man. the gifts the eye grants its avatars is another story.

first and foremost, what qualifies something as feeding the eye? how does the eye “eat”? if something falls under the following categories, it feeds the eye: fear of being watched, fear of being exposed, fear of being followed, or fear of having your secrets known to somebody else. if something falls under the following categories, it is eye-related behavior likely performed by avatars, but is not in and of itself “eye food”: pursuit of knowledge, especially at the cost of one’s own health or sanity. obviously the latter can enable the former if that pursuit of knowledge is at somebody else’s expense, but what separates the two categories for me is that, to keep the eye as an entity from spreading so thin to the point where anything can be construed as capital-b Beholding because it involves observation or information, is holding fast to the eye being a fear entity. i.e., something can technically be in the eye’s territory of knowledge, but it does not become eye-related unless there is an active element of horror. of course, what constitutes “horror” is subjective, but i think that narrows down the options and removes, say, doing a book report from beholding. tma has a tight thesis of beholding being the horror of watching something terrible and doing nothing to intervene, or the inherent evil of inaction when one is witnessing an atrocity.

therefore i’m going to make my grading for eye food the following. ( note that like... there’s grey area in between each level where, by taking a lower level to an extreme, you could slide it up to the next, etc. )

level one: are you watching in an obtrusive way? i.e., is this something you should be seeing? are you an active participant? or are you eavesdropping. things that fall into this category include people watching, listening in on conversations, or reading private correspondence. this is the fear of being watched / known against one’s will at play, but only one person ( the avatar ) knows the secrets, so it’s low-level feeding. just hoarding secrets unto oneself gives the avatar what i’d consider a steady drip of water, necessary for life and remaining active, but after an extended period of time with just water, you’re going to want for food.

something like following someone and making them feel watched as more than just a prickling on the neck for an extended period of time would probably start to actually feed the eye a bit, as was the case with the cursed mirror; someone with a constant and perhaps debilitating fear of being watched, facilitated by the actions of a beholding avatar, would advance to feeding the eye.

institutionalized watching in an obtrusive way, i.e. the lack of privacy afforded to inmates in a place like millbank, ratchets up to full eye feeding. again, the longer and more intense the watching, the more intense the fear produced, the more likely it’s going to drift up into actual feeding territory. but as a casual action, it’s not sustainable.

level two: are you revealing to the person that you know their secrets? to distinguish this from the above category, i’m talking about the situation with elias and daisy / martin / melanie -- digging out someone’s secrets and then throwing them in their face, making them feel the despair of being peeled open for examination. what puts this at a lower level than mass exposure is the fact that it is probably only the beholding avatar who’s getting anything out of this. this is semi-solid food to the eye, like a gelatin or pudding or other soft hospital food. you can sustain yourself on it, but try to go for any extreme period of time just doing this and you’re probably going to suffer from malnutrition ( if you want to talk to me about malnutrition and how it actually works, aka you’re getting plenty of calories but not all of the components you need, and historic examples of mass malnutrition, we can totally do that; but i want to make it clear for those that might think malnutrition is just like starvation lite, it’s not -- you can be eating a ton of food every day and if you have no variety and if it lacks the proper nutrients, you’re still going to suffer the adverse effects; all this detail to say that’s what happens to an eye avatar who only feeds by privately exposing someone’s secrets to their face, a slow and conscious wasting ).

constantly harassing someone about their secrets might make your diet a little more diverse, metaphorically, but this category really doesn’t have the same mobility as the previous one.

level three: are you making other people aware of the information you’ve gleaned? this is fear of exposure, where somebody is going to face the fallout and consequences of having something unsavory put on display for an audience. ( yes, this covers body image fears of people in the public eye, which is imo a flesh fear that the eye can also feed upon, but that’s an intense discussion for another post that needs to be handled with nuance. i only mention it to make it clear that like... it doesn’t even have to be something objectively horrid that’s exposed; if the person who is being put on display has a fear of being seen, that’s enough to put it in this category, because it is producing anxiety or discomfort. ) no need for bullet points! this gets more and more intense the wider the audience and the more people talk about it. this is solid beholding food with good nutrition! you could make a beholding career out of this! i’m certain that elias does some feeding by allowing students in to read the dirty laundry of named statement givers ( in addition to slurping the despair of visitors who aren’t going to be helped at all by the institute ). after all, statement givers frequently express fear of being pegged as “insane” or having experienced the denial, pity, or avoidance of their friends and family after their experiences. judgement cast upon vulnerability? eye food.

level four: taking a statement. this is sort of disconnected from the rest and may exist alongside them rather than above them, but canonically, reading and experiencing ( getting into character, allowing yourself to feel the presented emotions ) a statement feeds the eye. notice how jon works through tons of “statements” a week, documents gathered by the institute, but only reads one true statement a week on average. he “steps into the shoes” of the statement giver and re-experiences the terror, often while learning something about another entity and how it functions, increasing his own knowledge of the fear world. in my opinion, this is where we get into the eye simultaneously feeding on what’s offered and feeding on the avatar. jon is exhausted after reading a statement and needs to rest. multiple people state that it seems to take a lot out of him. he needs them to survive, but he also finds the experiences draining. this is a solid cooked meal, and the eye has the digestion of a snake, so if you get one of these a week? you’re good.

level five: taking a statement directly from another subject, though? that’s just feeding. cutting out the middle man and the mental transportation of reading a literary piece ( or listening to a tape, or watching a recording ) means that you just get to feed off the person’s fear, because you are peeling them open and knowing them. this does relate a bit to level two, which is why i said it’s probably more of a horizontal relationship, but the difference for me is that you are forcing them to give an account of their encounter with a fear, thus accumulating knowledge of a lived experience and of the other deities, and you are making a person feel known and exposed, often ( in canon ) in a way that’s abrupt and uncalled for. willing statement-givers do not seem to have the same reactions as the poor people jon yoinks in public. taking statements seems to be compulsory for archivists in particular. whether or not it impacts administrators ( elias ) in the same way is hard to discern. maybe not, or maybe that’s solved by having the institute function the way it does, because all those statements are technically elias’s. ( i also have opinions on how elias feeds every single day but we’ll get to that later. the fear machine of the institute. ) this is good food. this is gourmet. this is why the eye stans jon. feeding just off of direct statements is going to cause your own power to skyrocket because you are eating so well.

there are probably more examples of ways to feed, and if people wanna shoot me ims or asks like “is this proper eye feeding?” i’d be happy to answer with my own takes on the situation ( because these are my own takes lol you do not need to live or die by this headcanon I Just Think My Theory Is Sound Enough For This Blog ). but now we’ll look at behaviors that may indicate a propensity for beholding, or that keep a beholding avatar in shape without feeding them; the exercise counterpart to a healthy diet. presented in bullet point form because these are not as in-depth as the above.

an inclination towards extensive research. not just looking up what you need for a book report and nothing more, we’re talking about going down a rabbit hole of research frequently out of a desire to know more. because this does not necessarily produce a fear response and does not necessarily deal with witnessing horror, it is not feeding ( i think about the idea of true crime beholding avatars and i get a little woozy because like... could it work and be canon compliant? certainly. is it therefore a valid take? it sure is. is it something i’m willing to get into? no, because it makes me personally uncomfortable sadly, because i feel some kinda way about the glamorization of serial killers and so on, and though i think an interest in true crime can be pursued tastefully, it’s so nuanced and so Not Me in particular that i just don’t want to get into it, even if i acknowledge that it’s something that probably exists in the tma universe because the tma universe is uncomfortable horror! )

being a nosy bitch. are you always involved in other people’s business, especially drama? do you subscribe to tea spill youtube channels? are you prepared to drop a hot tweet about something shady a celebrity did? ( THIS IS NOT A CRITIQUE OF OR COMMENTARY ON CALLOUT CULTURE INB4, PLEASE I BEG YOU. ) you have the beholding inclination to dig and reveal secrets! awesome!

a desire to organize and preserve information. i think often about this one because one of the things about the ceaseless watcher is that it knows but does not comprehend. it is not interested in understanding or exploring the nuance of what it observes, which is what makes it so horrific. it doesn’t care, the only thing it’s invested in is watching fear and accumulating knowledge so that it can “say” it has more information than anybody else. this, i think, is why beholding tends to center itself around academic institutions. the idea of gatekeeping knowledge, of an ivory tower, is so beholding-appropriate because if you think about the implications then yes, it’s bad. hoarding knowledge and not allowing other people to learn is not a good thing, and that’s why beholding is so very into it. HOWEVER, I AM ALSO DEEPLY INVESTED IN THE IDEA THAT THIS IS WHAT SEPARATES THE FEAR GOD BEHOLDING FROM ITS HUMAN AVATARS. because the avatars are painfully human! michael is proof enough of that i think! even if avatars consider themselves a different species, at the very least “formerly-human” categorically, they were humans and still have human flaws and inclinations. one of these, for beholding avatars, is organization. it’s putting the puzzle pieces together ( unless you’re bad at it, i��m so sorry jon you’re really trying and i love you, but in this case i think that has more to do with jon’s tendency to shoot himself in the foot / put himself at a disadvantage because he is afraid than a beholding-wide thing ), because the human brain usually wants to understand things. it wants to draw meaning from things. even elias, probably the least human of the beholding avatars we see, has to organize the information he has and put separate stories together to form a larger picture, because functioning in the human world just necessitates doing that! you want to stop another ritual? you can’t just gather different pieces of information and not relate them to each other, you have to categorize them and draw conclusions. and, imo, this is what separates the human world from the post-apocalyptic world. the post-apocalyptic world does not require analysis or organization, it can simply be; that is reality as warped and controlled by the fear gods.

there’s probably more to this but i have talked so much, i think that’s enough for now. anyways i care so much about beholding and how it functions and this is actually my least academic bullshitty piece on it, so yay for that. usually i’m all “voyeurism and The Gaze and how it functions in society and especially media!” but today? today we just talk about good eats.

#➢ beauty is in the eye of the beholder ( headcanon. )#|| i put in a read more because i love you i really almost posted this without it.#|| i had to scramble back up and slap it on.

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handstitchedcircuitboards · 7 years

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Okay, I am totally digging your idea of the shimada dragons being eldritch horrors. How do they work besides being total agents of destruction? Can they converse with their hosts? Do they feel affection for them? Pls tell me ur headcanons. And hanzo having two dragons, oh boy. Is this still sticking with canon or is it veering off to au territory where the clan uses hanzo as a weapon? If we stick w/ the original timeline, obvs hanzo is still alive and kicking. But hes already nearing forty...

HELLO MY NEW FAVORITE PERSON PULL UPA CHAIR. YOU’RE LOOKING LOVELY, WOULD YOU LIKE A DRINK?

So, I tried to explain some of thisin a fic about Genji getting his dragon, but it’s not done because it’s beingsuper uncooperative. Imagine that, Genji being uncooperative. Anyway.

The whole exercise was essentiallyme and my friend trying to figure out how the fuck blizzard gets off havingliteral magic dragons in their (admittedly al-dente) sci-fi universe, and yeah,I’m trying to make it not directly conflict with canon or the current timeline.Luckily canon is pretty vague about a lot, so I have a big sandbox to play in.If it becomes explicit lore that they’re literally magic, I invite Chu orKaplan to fight me behind the nearest Denny’s. I’m pretty sure I can take them, what I lack in height I make up for in sheer rage.

So, I looked at the dragons, andbeing a terrible person who loves sad things, my first thought was “Those definitelygive you cancer. That’s some high energy bullshit. These Shimada guys are turbofucked.” Next question, what the fuck do weird glowing cancer snakes care abouta random subset of the Japanese population? Well there’s something, probablygenetic because it’s only just them, about them that’s of interest, there hasto be.

Enter, two of my favorite things,multiverse and aliens! This shows up a little bit in the Hellboy comics, Tanis, and The City at the End of Time(which should have been so much better than it was). Also, uh, cough, a fandomthat I spent waaay to much time in despite the many, many problems. Anyway, ifthe dragons aren’t from this universe and need some kind of conduit to comehere for Dragon Reasons, then the Shimada clan could be that conduit. Eitherit’s something about their genetics or something about the place they’re allliving, but something about these people made them more attuned to whateverwavelength the dragons are on. So I think the Shimadas themselves representthin spots between their universe and ours, with the Well being the crossoverpoint where it’s easier for the dragon and the host to entangle, and the entanglementlasts until the host dies. (Sidebar: That all grew out of the antenna model forontological dualism) (Sidebar: I think they’re only dragons because the ancientShimadas expected dragons so that’s what they got. They could be anything, and theyinhabit more than just 3-space. This is kind of the vibe I’m thinking of. If they’d shown up in medieval europe, they’d probably look like angels or saints.) It seemed weird to me that they’re just hereto kill. They could be eating people, or some facet of people (heat, electricalimpulses in the nervous system, etc.) but that seems super inefficient. There’senergy everywhere here, once the meat people let you in, why would you let thembe your gatekeepers? But that got me thinking, what if they’re here to getsomething and the Shimadas are acting as an antenna or foothold for them? Is theirkilling for the Shimadas more of a side effect? If they do need the Shimadas tobe alive, then it makes sense they would protect them.

Circling back to multiverse for amoment, what if their universe is dying, undergoing its heat death? They seem to be beings made of energy, atleast partially, (pulling from CatEoT, there were beings there whose minds transcendedmaterial form and were fucked whenthe heat death began.) Point of interest, there are supervoids in our universethat just seems weird. Fun fact, Earthis in the largest supervoid known to science, the KBC Void. What if the dragonsare actually here to strip mine energy and entropy and take it back to theiruniverse to keep it alive longer? A heat death is just the end of alldifference in energy levels, so if they’re stealing more energy from here tomaintain differentials to keep going, that would be a reason for them to behere that isn’t a weird crush on the Shimada clan.

Okay, but, uh, they’re killing thehosts. They give them cell-degrading radiation exposure when they manifest, becausethe Shimada doing the summoning is at ground zero for a second, roasting alive.Well, I don’t think the dragons actually grok that point! They’re beings madeof energy, and I think they mostly view the Shimadas as a web of heat and electricalimpulse and chemical activity, but I think very few of them understand them asconscious creatures because the way they think is so divergent. It’s like wonderingif your car has feelings. It’s real damn complicated, but is it thatcomplicated? Maybe, but probably not. So, like when your car squeals and you dosomething to fix it, that’s kind of like what the dragons are doing when themantra is repeated. But in using your car, you are damaging it through wear andtear, and that’s what the dragons are doing through repeated summoning. TheShimadas understand this as a kind of tit-for-tat, obviously the spirits wouldwant something so their lives must be it. And if this all started in prehistory youcan’t really blame them, when the conceptual framework for talking about the multiverse scientifically is so recent.

I don’t think they communicatelike humans do, through body language, touch, and vibrating the air withspecialized organs. I think they communicate feeling and intent more directly, probablywith energetic impulses. So, the mantras that the Shimadas recite (which varyfrom person to person) act as a sort of trigger or alert. Thinking about specific thingsexcites parts of the brain in a specific way, and there is some low levelelectric current involved. If the dragons learn to recognize that, kind of inthe way we recognize our phones have low battery because the meter changes,then they manifest and attack to protect their host. If the host dies theylose their foothold in this universe, so they do what they can to keep them alive.I don’t think the Shimadas grok that this is a side effect, I think theygenuinely believe them to be spirits. (My understanding is that a thought likethat wouldn’t be out of line with Shinto. A very devout Christian would believein angelic interference, for instance.) I do think the dragons recognize otherhosts, and try not to attack them generally if they’re in the line of fire, andthat the dragons, after a while, learn to pick out what their host thinks of asfoes. So, Genji’s dragon wouldn’t attack a friend (let’s say McCree is standingbeside him, providing covering fire) because it’s learned that the kind ofattention Genji is paying McCree is good attention, but will attack the guyjust as close trying to stab Genji, because that’s bad attention. It does takea while for that to set in, and some dragons are less discerning than others.

They can, however, learn to ‘talk’.They mostly just don’t bother. It’s a pain exciting the aural nerves in theright way, learning what the right way is, and they usually misinterpretfeelings when shared directly and dump a bunch of cortisol and freak out. Imaginetrying to learn to talk to your cat. (Spoilers for a fic I may never finish, Ithink Genji’s does talk to him. I think Genji has a very close relationshipwith his dragon, and that is basically unheard of. He’s a natural adorcist andlearned more from his dragon that the clan had in hundreds of years. Genji’sdragon is enamored with him, and Genji with her. It’s part of why he’s stillalive, she shielded him from a lot of the damage Hanzo’s dragons would havedone and shunted a lot energy away from his vitals because she learned from himwhat to protect. Genji would probably have just been burnt to a crisp if she’donly been on the offensive. She also helps soothe some of the phantom pain bypulling strings in his nervous system.)

(Okay, this section is pretty dark.)

Hanzo’s dragons think there’ssomething wrong with him. He keeps hunting down other hosts, making it harderto do their work, and keeps getting damaged. I don’t think Hanzo thinks hedeserves to do the honorable thing and kill himself directly, but I do thinkonce or twice he’s thrown down his weapons to let someone kill him, right afterGenji. His dragons won’t let it happen, they come on their own and attackeverything around him. They do not trust his judgement, and they’re harder forhim to summon and sometimes come when he doesn’t want. They don’t understandthe family politics that when into attacking Genji and then attacking the others,they think he’s just a malfunctioning machine they have to put up with.

(Uh, that’s over)

So, with two dragons, I do think theclan wanted him to be their weapon. I think, in the lull after the Crisis,there had been a kind of status quo with the various yakuza clans and Sojirowas content to maintain it. Others, now that they had a WMD in their pockets, wantedto expand territory and influence. Sojiro was like “HARD FUCKING PASS” and as long as he wasalive, he prevented Hanzo from going on more assassinations than necessary, and kepthim to more administrative things, even if that meant doing more work withdragons himself and dying faster. (Sidebar, I think the assassination thing iskind of a secret. Only people in the know would ask, and they don’t take money,they take favors. Money can be tracked. Favors can’t. Only the family is involved at any stage of planning orexecution. The client families and client organizations and random mooks haveno idea, because the rest of the clan’s business is grey market brokering or smuggling.) That’s also part of the reason the elders were so adamant Genji getin line, because if Hanzo died young they needed him to take charge. Sojirokind of let Genji be a useless fuckboy because it would keep Hanzo safer if hewas the only viable heir. It broke his heart to do it, because it ruined hisrelationship with Hanzo and the brothers’ relationship with each other, but hewasn’t going to bury Hanzo. Hanzo never puts it together, he thinks his dadjust liked Genji better and he wasn’t a good enough leader to bring him in line. Genji didn’t fuckingcare, because he was a spoiled brat, but kind of kens the truth in Nepal afterhaving to sit down and actually sort through his life and his choices.

So, because Hanzo has fuckeddirectly off, he’s done less damage to himself with the dragons than he wouldhave otherwise, but he’s still getting sick. (For a long time, it was a realworry of Genji’s that Hanzo would die before he could kill him. And then, whenGenji forgave him, that’d it’d be too late.) Nobody in the clan actually doesanything to fucking TREAT the cancer, because they think it’s part of somemagic bargain. The dragons do not fucking care if you get chemo, Genji knows asmuch. So, Hanzo’s bought himself some time by running away (and killing otherShimadas by being sneaky rather than dragon fights when he can, since hisdragons are flaky, per the dark paragraph.) If Genji can bring Hanzo to Dr.Ziegler, she can absolutely get it under control. (He’s probably got someconcerning nodules, but not full blown malignant tumors in all of his him.) Hermethodologies could absolutely target and destroy cancerous cells and repair thedamage, if Hanzo will accept the treatment. So he’s not doomed, if he doesn’twant to be. (He’s trying to race liver failure and cancer on his own though, soGenji needs to get the lead out if he’s gonna put out this tire fire.)

I think I answered most of yourquestions? I love talking about this, so if you weren’t clear I’m happy toelaborate! Please forgive any spelling/grammar fuck ups, I wrote this all downkind of stream of consciousness.

#genji shimada #hanzo shimada #shimada dragons #overwatch meta #shimada meta #headcanon dump #dear anon ilu #i swear i didn't ask myself this question so i could squee #pinky swear even #ask answers

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rantsaboutponies · 6 years

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Season 7 Retrospective

Well, we’re between highly anticipated movie releases this weekend (for me, anyway), so it’s time for our annual look back over the season!

Good lord, the beginning of Season 7 seemed like so long ago. I could have sworn the Flurry Heart episode was last season. Maybe this has just been a really long year. Well...okay, yeah, I can certainly see why it would feel that way, given the year this has been.

With a rating of 4-9-13 (W-L-T), this season must have been better than the last one, even if it didn’t feel like it. Season 8 is forthcoming, so how long before Hasbro gives up and reboots the series again? Only time will tell.

So, here we are. From best to worst:

#1. “Secrets and Pies”: This episode was...good? Like, really, really good? Why? I don’t get it! I wouldn't be so confused if you guys did this more often! I swear, the next time this happens, I'm going to get whiplash!

#2. “Rock Solid Friendship”: To complement the really good Pinkie Pie episode, here’s an episode that was really good in every way except Pinkie Pie! They’re at exact opposite ends of the season, too. Maybe it’s an equivalent exchange thing.

#3. “Triple Threat”: I thought this episode did a pretty good job of avoiding the “why don’t you just tell them?” problem that virtually every episode of every sitcom runs into. We’ve already established that Thorax is a whiny little milquetoast weenie and that Ember is a heinous prick who doesn’t listen to anybody but herself. Hell, that was the entire reason for the conflict in the first place! Honestly, why would Spike try to reason with either of them?

#4. “To Change a Changeling”: If the monster hadn’t turned out to be a giant mole, the ending battle might have seemed a little more life-threatening. That, Starlight’s very, very stupid plan, and Pharynx’s abusive ass made this episode a little worse than it should have been. Apart from that, though, I liked it!

And now here’s the hardest part of the list: trying to figure out which “tie” episodes were slightly better or worse than all the others.

#5. “Once Upon a Zeppelin”: Yeah, Twilight’s parents were annoying (and idiots), but not to the point that I’m going to dread them ever showing up in any future episodes (unlikely as that is at this point). Plus, bringing back Iron Will actually seemed to have a point, and it helped that he didn’t have to “unlearn” his lesson from his first appearance just to make the current episode make sense.

#6. “Uncommon Bond”: This episode went out of its way to prove that yes, Starlight and Sunburst really do have only one thing in common. I would have expected the resolution to be the realization that the two of them liked more things than just that board game, but nope! Giant version! That’s it!

#7. “Daring Done?”: I was so distracted this episode that I forgot to mention that Pinkie Pie was actually acting like Pinkie Pie and not an annoying little shitbag! It was refreshing! But anyway, you’d think Daring-Do would have written enough books by this point to realize the obvious tropes this episode followed. The real challenge for her is going to be stretching this adventure out to novel-length.

#8. “Discordant Harmony”: I’m still not sure what made Discord think he needed to change a bunch of shit about his house to make Fluttershy happy. It looked the same way he made her house look every time he visited her. What did he think she was expecting?

#9. “A Health of Information”: This is the second episode in a row on this list where Fluttershy acted kind of like a doofus throughout the episode for no discernible reason. It also proved that unicorns are the solution to everything. Need to grab some moss from a swamp without falling in? Unicorn! Need to collect honey from the flash bees without going anywhere near them? Unicorn! Need to destroy an entire planet without breaking a sweat? Unicron!

#10 & #11. “Shadow Play (Parts 1 and 2)”: The first half fools you into thinking this isn’t just going to be a run-of-the-mill finale episode by promising you a halfway interesting quest before immediately giving you all the artifacts within a few minutes. Ha! Gotcha!

#12. “Hard to Say Anything”: I’d kind of hoped we were past the whole “two men competing for the trophy that is the personality-deprived female character” cliché, especially in a show designed for children, but I guess not. I mean, at least Big Mac and Feather do realize that’s what they’re doing by the end, but that doesn’t fix Sugar Belle’s “sexy lamp” issue.

#13. “A Royal Problem”: Has Twilight been of help to any friendship-related issues since she stopped being the main character? I think these episodes must be based on Twilight's memoirs, i.e. this isn't how things actually happened; this is how she remembers them happening. Here's what really happened during "Magical Mystery Cure":

Twilight Sparkle: So...I accidentally totally and completely fucked up my friends’ lives, but then I fixed it! That means I'm good at having friends, right?

Princess Celestia (sarcastically): Oh, yeah, you're a regular princess of friendship.

Twilight Sparkle: *gasp* Really?!

Princess Celestia: Oh, no, I didn't mean– Ah, crap, the music's already started. ♫ You've come such a long, long way... ♫

Princess Celestia (mentally): I've really got to stop using the word “princess” as an insult. This is the third one this week. I'm running out of castles! She'll just have to stay in the library until I can find another one.

#14. “All Bottled Up”: This episode is a perfect example of why the writers typically just don’t include characters in an episode if they have nothing to do in said episode. That escape room nonsense was just stupid. The six of you might be best friends, but you have never gotten along that well!

#15. “Celestial Advice”: Ugh, this one. “As a teacher, I have to send my student away. I don’t know exactly why I have to do that, but I’m sure I’ll figure the reason out later. Oh, wait, you don’t want to leave? Well, that changes everything! You can stay!” I think they were making this one up as they went along.

#16. “The Perfect Pear”: One of the emptiest “love” stories I’ve ever seen. This was an “attraction story”, if you can even call it that. This is another case where I’m positive that at least a hundred better fanfics had been written about this exact story before the episode was released. I get why people have headcanons about things now. Why wouldn’t you have a fanon when the canon is so...weak?

#17. “Honest Apple”: Once again, we have a brand-new writer for this episode. Kevin Lappin was very likely just given a slip of paper with “APPLEJACK = HONEST” written on it, which constituted the entire material he had to work with. That might explain why Applejack was such an unlikable prick for the entire episode.

Whoo... All right. Here we go.

#18. “A Flurry of Emotions”: If you don’t want to watch your kid (because, seriously, you’ve got better things to do), just show up at one of your relatives’ houses one day and dump it on them. They’ll have such a guilt trip that they’ll be glad to accept! But make sure it’s someone who’s completely unqualified for the job and has a mountain of other responsibilities first. That’s the best way!

#19. “Campfire Tales”: The fact that this episode was actually just a clunky setup for the finale might explain why all three stories sucked so hard. It’s this season’s The Mummy!

#20. “Not Asking for Trouble”: Now we’re going to get into the part of the list where I have to figure out which episodes are worse by balancing how much the episode irritated me in general with how toxic the moral is. Trust me, if your children’s show has a moral of “Do what you want to do for other people, regardless of what those people have explicitly told you not to do, because you’ll end up being right in the end. After all, people don’t know what they want!”, you’ve fucked up something awful.

#21. “Fluttershy Leans In”: I said in this review that this felt like the MLP version of The Fountainhead, but I only just recently realized that I also said the same thing about Season 5's "Canterlot Boutique". Given that the episodes were written by different people, this must be a storyline that creative types really like (even if it’s nothing more than a power fantasy).

#22. “It Isn’t the Mane Thing About You”: All right, you actually had a good idea with this one. Despite being the Element of Generosity, one of Rarity's main problems has always been her vanity. That means you pulled off the rare feat of making the moral both 1. something the character hasn't already learned in a previous episode and 2. something that a normal functioning member of society might not automatically possess. (There has been a distressing number of lessons in the past five seasons or so that don't fit one or both of these qualifications.) It's just a shame you crashed and burned so spectacularly by 1. turning the moral from “don't be vain” to “have confidence” (something Rarity has never struggled with AND which you have already had as the moral in MULTIPLE previous episodes) and 2. went about it in the most nonsensical way possible!

#23. “Parental Glideance”: This one was a little sickening. The “my parents are so embarrassing!” trope is bad enough, but you’re an adult, Rainbow Dash! Grow up! If the things your parents are doing embarrass you (or if they’re legitimately dangerous, like SHOOTING FIREWORKS OFF AT AN AIRSHOW), talk to them! You can do that without snapping and acting like a dick!

#24. “Forever Filly”: Holy crap, I have never wanted to punch a fictional cartoon character in the face as badly as I did in this episode. I don’t know what made Sweetie Belle act like such a little shit or why Rarity is so out of touch with her (seeing as Sweetie Belle would have had to have been about four to be into the stuff she was trying to do), but I hated this. Shove your black box experimental theater up your ass.

#25. “Marks and Recreation”: I got the sense from the beginning of the series that cutie marks were originally supposed to be something really deep and meaningful. I mean, they’re your passion. They represent that thing that you love so much and are so good at that you can spend the rest of your life doing it and wearing a permanent symbol of it on your body. Well, not anymore! Now it’s just some obligatory shit that you get because you have to and that doesn’t have any real meaning at all! Fuck you! Just...fuck you!

#26. “Fame and Misfortune”: Yeah, no surprise there. Holy shit, this was a painful experience. Like “Stranger Than Fan Fiction”, this was just embarrassing to watch. To quote somebody else, “...you don't get back at critics by attacking them, you do it by ignoring them and continuing to be awesome.” Hell, this episode's moral is contradicted by its own existence. “You shouldn't be affected by criticism of your work. That’s why I wrote this episode where all my critics are painted as raving lunatics and I am totally the victim!” The fact that this is the SECOND such episode is just pathetic. This one actually manages to be worse, though, because, unlike the earlier episode when it was just Quibble Pants being a dick, this one paints the ENTIRE fandom as either complaining whiners who hate everything or creepy stalkers who follow everywhere you go. Nothing says “we want you to keep watching” like insulting the few fans you have left right to their face!

Remember, next week is the review of the remaining six Equestria Girls: Summertime Shorts. Be there!

#my little pony: friendship is magic #my little pony friendship is magic #my little pony #friendship is magic #mlp fim #mlp #fim #my little pony spoilers #mlp spoilers #spoilers #season 7 retrospective #retrospective

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sapphirescales · 7 years

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hey! i was wondering if you had any advice for anyone who has just joined the community? how to get interactions and stuff like that? i've just joined and i'm not really sure what to do or how to set myself up

hey there! i’m working off the assumption that you know some basics. i’ve been in the rp for years now so a lot of this is borne from my own experience roleplaying here and what i wish people told me way back. it’s a lil harsh but i hope you’ll find this helpful

anyways, here’s a crash course:

ic =/= ooc: what this means is that, before you start roleplaying, remember that things that happen in-character are not supposed to be a reflection of out of character feelings. so, for example, if someone’s muse absolutely hates your muse, that doesn’t mean that the writer hates you. just because you, personally, hate a muse doesn’t mean that your muse should either. your personal assumptions about another character are unrelated and shouldn’t be reflected in what your muse assumes about another character. for example, you might personally think that iro.nman is overrated but your character might idolise him or aspire to be like him or be completely neutral; it’s not the same thing.

standard roleplay etiquette: read through all of someone’s available pages before you follow them; if someone’s taken the time to write up all those pages, take the time to read them. even if you think you’re a Veteran Roleplayer, who has seen every variation that you can about someone’s pages, read them. don’t reblog their out of character posts / headcanons / graphics unless it’s marked as okay to reblog. during interactions try not to godmod or metagame your partners ( if you don’t know what that is, a quick google search will help you out ). sometimes, certain blogs might cool with you following them but aren’t open to interacting with your character for various reasons ( for e.g. if your muse is someone who is dead in their canon and they want to keep that a fixed point, they might not be open to interacting with your character, especially if they have set headcanons already ) or they might not be okay with you following them at all – that’s okay, there’s plenty of other fish in the sea. people come and go in the rp community fairly often. keep your head up.

writing samples: if you’re really new to the rpc, and you’ve never written with anyone before, people might not write with you simply because they have no idea how you write. it’s nerve-wracking but start with some posts that show off your understanding and insight for your character; write some drabbles, do some character-development related things. that will help you for when you actually do start writing as well, because you’ll have developed your muse a little bit more!

get some pages set up: your navigation page isn’t all that important. if you’re playing a canon muse, neither is your bio page necessarily. what is important, and what will tell people the things they need to know about your blog and characterisation, is a rules page and also a verses page. even if your verses page is very basic, and isn’t very detailed or super pretty, that’s okay! get the information out there about what you’re willing & open to write, establish your boundaries and show people you’ve put some thought into your character.

work hard on your character: roleplay is a hobby and i’m fairly certain that this is an unpopular opinion but if your character is underdeveloped – if their personality seems to change for no discernable reason between each person you thread, and your writing style is in constant flux, it makes it really difficult to understand and for people to want to know your character. you don’t have to have someone completely fully fledged out, but work on them, on understanding and exploring them and making them have depth and people will get more interested.

try not to ask for interactions specifically based on ships: ships are wonderful and fun and really great but it can be really disheartening ( especially for female muses ) if you come to them specifically for the sake of writing to ship. it’s happened to me so many times and it’s both a sign that sb hasn’t read my rules and that they don’t really care about my muse, they just want to focus on shallow writing. not everyone is interested in writing ships, and some people might not necessarily be interested in writing ships with you. that’s okay! ships will happen naturally and hugely dependent on writing chemistry; it’ll happen in time.

don’t impose your backstory on other people: this applies to all types of characters, but the ones i see it happening with the most are original characters. if your character’s backstory assumes that somebody else’s muse has done something to / for your muse before you’ve even interacted, you’re probably better of writing fanfiction. many people – including myself – consider this a form of godmodding.

stick to your guns: when you’re first starting out, it’s really easy to get sucked into doing threads that you personally feel like don’t go with your characterisation or isn’t headed where you want it to. feel free to drop them. stick to your character, and your interpretation. for example, when i was in the te//en wo//lf fandom, i was writing peter, and a lot of people were just looking for A Token Uncle to drag them, and not really interested in writing actual plots with me. it’s okay to want to write other threads; make your wishlist known.

roleplay is give and take: this is related to the one before but basically, don’t be selfish when you write, and don’t let others be selfish when they write with you. good threads that are enjoyable and memorable for both parties are threads where both partners ( or more, if you’re doing multi-player threads ) get to explore their characters and really build a character dynamic together.

mix things up sometimes: it’s okay to want character consistency but try to mix things up when you’re writing threads with people; no one wants to have sixteen of the same kind of threads, especially from one person. try and mix things up and put a different spin to them! it’ll be fun for you and fun for your writing partner, too.

don’t steal things from other people: whether that means headcanons, verses or the exact way they’ve done their theme. i’ve even known people to go through duplicates’ blogs and basically reblog all their non-rp posts from the source. i’ve seen all kinds of stuff stolen and i’m here to tell you that people will notice. they always notice, whether it takes 5 mins or 50 years, people will notice. don’t do it.

focus less on your follow count: some ppl will have thousands of followers and only write with two people; others will have much less and write with most of them. the number of followers you have doesn’t matter; we’re all here writing because we have a character that we love very very much, whether that character is someone we’ve created or someone already existing in media. your follow count is not reflective of the quality of your writing; the quality of your interactions reflects that. so focus on building your character and character dynamics.

ugly truth #1 – the muse you play will reflect the interactions and attention you get: i’ve been in about five to six different fandoms since 2009, and i’ve noticed one thing – if you play a canon character, you’re more likely to get followers v quickly compared to original characters, regardless of if they’re fandom or fandomless ocs. if your muse is a cis man, you’re more likely to gain followers very quickly compared to if you’re playing trans man, women, trans women or enby folks. if you play a white person, you’re more likely to gain followers compared to if you write a person of colour, especially black muses. if you play a muse that does not ship sexually with men ( e.g. a lesbian muse or an ace muse ), you’re less likely to get followers very quickly. it’s an ugly truth, but don’t be discouraged. there WILL be people who write with you, you DON’T have to change your character in any way to make them more palatable. keep loving your muse and people will love them in return, i promise.

ugly truth #2 – aesthetics matter: they’re not reflective of quality of writing but they are used, in this rpc as a whole, as a way to measure the amount of time and dedication you put into your character. you don’t have to go and code a theme from scratch or create your own psds – although some people do, and if you can / like to, good for you! – but try and set up a nice, clean theme with clear links that isn’t one of the preset themes on this website. it’ll help so, so much with getting interactions, even if your theme is really really plain. it’s unfortunate that aesthetics do matter but no community is perfect.

ugly truth #3 – the rpc isn’t pretty: there’s always really disgusting people lurking around. there’s callout posts flying back and forth to the point you don’t know who to believe. whilst one person says one thing is okay, someone else says it’s not. there’s other petty drama, vagues everywhere. it’s pretty nervewracking and hugely intimidating. it’s likely that you’ll get involved. it’s very likely that someone could call you out for something you’ve written that they find is a problem. the rpc isn’t pretty – but neither is real life, and because we’re a community of people, Real Life Issues ( like racism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia, biphobia, islamophobia, anti-semitism, ethnocentricism, etc etc ) often get carried over to the online community. it’s not a pretty reality, but it is a reality that you’ll have to deal with, just like you would have to in real life. if someone points out that you really messed up, it doesn’t matter how long ago you did that thing, find out how to apologise sincerely for the hurt you’ve caused, and apologise properly. if you’ve overstepped your bounds, apologise properly. if someone is throwing baseless accusations, defend yourself clearly and calmly and the people who matter will know and understand. if you see something someone else has said or done or written, which is offensive, talk to them first ( and, yes, this means if you’re white and you see a mutual doing a racist thing, you should definitely go and talk to them ). the rpc isn’t pretty at all, but it’s our community – and now it’s yours, too. you have a social responsibility to make the community safe.

the energy you put out is the energy you’ll receive: you’ve just joined the community but the community is huge and no one will necessarily go out to receive you. there’s no easy way to get interactions, but i firmly believe that the amount of time and effort you put out is what you’ll get in return. don’t just sit around waiting for other people to interact with you; make an effort. if they ask for compliments or constructive feedback, send something in. if they reblog memes and their blog is open to memes from non-mutuals, send something in. make starter calls, make open posts. ask for constructive feedback – maybe it’s something in your interpretation or the way you write that might put some people off ( and if it’s legitimate, think about it, and if it’s not or it’s something nitpicky, move on and find new people to follow ). i understand that it’s hugely nerve wracking – i’ve got anxiety as well, and i’m always nervous when following new people. in facti’m pretty guilty of this particular thing myself, even after all these years. but roleplaying isn’t like fic-writing; it’s necessary to interact with others. and, just like in real life, sometimes you just have to make the effort first and not keep track of how many times you’ve done it, and focus on the fact that you’ve got a ton of new friends and writing partners.

treat others how you want to be treated!!!

#queries. ▬ reconnaissance.#i'd prefer it if ppl don't rb this #i'm not Hugely Comfortable w putting myself out there abt this topic #idk why there's an influx of ppl asking me stuff suddenly but i will try 2 help ig #there's some other stuff i wanted to mention but i can't think of it rn #N E WAYS

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mild-lunacy · 7 years

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TFP explained (YMMV)

monalisa72 replied to your post: What is a plausible theory?

So looking at your older post, you talk about checking to see whether a theory fits the plot arc, whether a reading integrates with character development. What do you do when faced with a canon like TFP, where things have gone so off the rails that it seems we’re expected to suspend even the laws of physics? How do we determine what is a reasonable theory when faced with implausible canon?

This is hard for me to answer, ‘cause I have to assume and integrate a response that I just didn’t have as a viewer, myself. Still, I’ve been trying!

Basically: separate what’s implausible from what’s not your headcanon, a genre mismatch issue, or simply flawed execution of a fundamentally sound resolution on its own terms. A critique can coexist with comprehension, or seeing how a development does fit into Sherlock’s arc... even if it’s not the way I would have done it. I’m sure confused people would prefer more details, though.

The ‘laws of physics’ or genre issues.

Like I said in response to @marsdaydream’s post, I don’t think it’s so out of nowhere or shocking as all that, genre-wise; however, I admitted in response to @silentauroriamthereal’s plot-hole post that certain things (like, for example, jumping out of 221b) were hand-waved too easily, and we weren’t meant to think too much, which is lazy.

Basically: you’re not supposed to suspend physics, I think? Just... Mofftiss want the audience to squint a bit, but they did that in TAB and TLD too (just in different ways, so in that sense I find TFP continuous and/or the problem to have started around Series 3, as @porcupine-girl described). However, Series 3 and Series 4 have pretty significant genre continuity. Obviously, YMMV.

Moriarty use issues and/or why is it even ‘The Final Problem’, anyway.

I answered this in my comment on Ivy’s post. A lot of this is people being unhappy with how Moriarty is used, which I can only shrug at. I changed my mind about Moriarty being alive with TAB, and in my last farewell to that theory, I mentioned that it made sense that the ‘Act II villain’ would be a lot more grey than the Act I ‘black and white’ villain like Moriarty.

Essentially, in TFP, Moriarty is still 'the virus in the data' at Sherrinford just as he actually was at the end of HLV, so that TAB clearly provides a fair amount of foreshadowing in this regard.

Note: some people thought this meant Mary would be the Big Bad, but I thought this was unlikely ‘cause she was never really the type to think on a grand scale of villainy; she’s only concerned with herself, which is not how a Big Bad operates. Basically, like Ivy said, Mary just makes really bad knee-jerk decisions. Neither Moriarty nor Mary were cut out to be the ‘Final Problem’ in this show.

Eurus being too deus ex machina, out-of-nowhere and too powerful.

In many ways, that’s a valid critique. I do wish they’d set it up better and planned out the show better in general. I agree with @girlofthemirror about Moffat and Gatiss’s intent and the entire interest in Sherlock’s origins being difficult to accomplish in an open-ended serialized context, so this is partly an issue with execution, and partly a structural concern.

I still agree with Ivy that TFP plausibly addressed Sherlock’s relationship and intimacy issues as part of his arc, so it’s not out-of-nowhere and it fits, even if it’s a retcon and therefore distasteful.

Sherlock’s childhood issues and/or his arc being in response to Eurus being too much of a retcon, not enough attention paid to realism.

As I mentioned re: Eurus, I’m probably most sympathetic to this. It is a retcon, and it is problematic structurally. Still, as I said about this earlier, what ‘made’ Sherlock the way he is was always a question (particularly in TAB), and so there was set-up. As I agreed later in the thread, you can critique the writing, you can say this is an unfortunate direction for them to have gone, but past trauma has certainly been a hinted at potential for awhile now (see: Redbeard in TSoT).

The issue with realism and the trauma not being shown continuously... that’s more about personal priorities. If one’s suspension of disbelief breaks based on psychological realism and the lack thereof, that’s more or less a genre mismatch thing. I still respect @porcupine-girl’s argument that a Sherlock Holmes story also requires really strong ‘archplot’ type causality because of his very nature as a force of deductive reasoning. All I can say is that while I relate, it’s still a personal priority as a Holmes fan. Sherlock the character in BBC Sherlock has never really been as fundamentally rational as ACD Holmes (see: Sherlock’s presentation of himself as a pirate in TFP). BBC Sherlock is a ridiculous man in a ridiculous show, more or less.

As in the thread critiquing TFP on these grounds, I still have mixed feelings about this. It depends so much on what kind of thing you consider to be ‘enough’ or the right kind or degree of realism, and I don’t think stories are necessary to judge on that metric in any case.

Some of people’s responses are probably generated in part because Sherlock has only shown continuous and intense psychological consequences in response to John, because John is his ‘conductor of light’ in all ways, realistic or not. Still, for what it’s worth, Victor mirrors John.

The ‘plot holes’ like John’s chained feet (or John’s letter in TST).

I’ve explained why I don’t think the letter is an instance of ‘Chekhov’s gun’ or even a plot-hole (though it depends how you define it). Overall, sometimes there are definitely some (or many) plot-holes, but it’s a genre and/or writing style thing which has always been there on Sherlock. Trying to fill in plot-holes to force the plot to line up too much is probably less rational than letting them be, but YMMV.

In general, I agree with many details in @thecutteralicia’s comment in that list of people’s nitpicks of the show, particularly that they are often simply opinions in disguise (though we obviously disagree on actual fandom-related opinions).

The characterization stuff like Sherlock not following ‘Vatican Cameos’ or John not being worried enough about Sherlock’s solution to the John vs Mycroft scenario at Sherrinford, Sherlock being called ‘the adult’, etc.

The two of them being in ‘soldier mode’ explains a lot; like I said initially, I read TFP as John being back to the ‘good old days’ after they’d resolved their major issues at the end of TLD, so what do people really expect? This is definitely an issue with people’s characterization headcanons conflicting.

As for Sherlock... initially I said that this is just Sherlock still thinking he can handle it himself when push comes to shove (he didn’t lose all his old flaws), but you can also argue that’s Eurus’s canonical effect in play.

Sherlock being called ‘the adult’ by his mum when she’s mad at Mycroft doesn’t seem too surprising to me. She’s upset with Mycroft. (Of course, a lot of things don’t seem too surprising or implausible to me... the same old caveat.)

Sherlock and John’s relationship overall being too shallow/not close enough compared to the other eps.

This is more subjective, obviously. All I can say is that I didn’t see it that way, and I still agree with Ivy that the natural conclusion of TLD is implicit Johnlock, which makes them a solid unit and a ‘family’ in TFP. Even in the platonic partnership sense, they are not as distant or estranged as they have been in Series 3 and most of Series for by TFP.

Specifically, they have planned their little prank on Mycroft together and it was John’s idea (which is huge!) The sheer casualness of Sherlock saying John’s family and John accepting it is unprecedented, even if it’s always been true. And John actually calling Sherlock to watch the emotionally-loaded second message from Mary, because they share these things, they’re honest with each other now... and they coparent. That isn’t shallow. That is real intimacy, sans drama.

I also agree with Ivy that the Johnlock-friendly reading certainly requires one to fill some blanks and read between the lines, and this requires one to either disregard what they say or simply focus entirely on the text. One can certainly do that easily enough, even if I find the lack of confirmation frustrating and problematic. So yeah, once again, as with any shippy reading issue, YMMV (although I still think Johnlock is unique in the way it makes the story work).

In the case of BBC Sherlock, Authorial Intent is very hard to discern properly and is only important socially in fandom. It definitely seems like intent and what’s on the actual show have... diverged at some point. It’s certainly quite possible to disregard it and see Johnlock in TFP, and I have done an implicit Johnlock reading myself.

The use of Mary and/or Mary narrating the last few minutes.

I agree with Ivy that the narration isn’t a big deal, and ‘someone had to narrate it’. I realize that plenty of people think John ‘should’ have narrated for various reasons, but that is an opinion. It is not a fact.

Mary’s resolution in TST was complicated in many ways, and reasonable people may disagree. Only addressing her role in TFP: it was minor. YMMV.

The marketing and Series 4/TFP promotion mismatch and/or TFP not ‘making history’.

I wouldn’t trust promos; promos aren’t really trying to be honest and reflect what actually happens so much as drum up excitement. In regards to the specific promo pic promoting TFP, it does make sense on the metaphorical level as a reflection of the plot.

I also find it plausible that Mofftiss would have thought that the new take on Holmes’s past is groundbreaking, because I think they’re kind of self-involved, like @gloriascott93 suggested.

Well, this is probably more or less the best I can do. I’m definitely still game for answering more specific questions or concerns if people have any. I do have more caveats about the limitations of anyone explicating plausibility in a text as polarizing as this one, though. At certain point, the divergence in fannish priorities and in the audience response is just too deep. Alas.

Still, understanding and integrating other people’s responses to fiction was always sort of my hobby in fandom, so I tried. However, there’s only so far I can go in like, addressing the concerns of people who fundamentally process things differently and/or have fundamentally different expectations for fiction or interpretations of the characters. Like, for example, do you think Ivy and Archie’s debate about Mary can ever be resolved? I use that as an example because these are probably the two people in fandom whose readings of canon I trust the most deeply and have relied on in my own analysis the most frequently. I suppose that’s more evidence there’s something insidious about Series 4, something wrong, if two people whose readings I always respect and admire so deeply can be so far apart.

At the same time... I feel like a lot of the stuff Archie said there is colored by her subjective response to Mary and her brand of manipulativeness/emotional abusiveness to John (and Sherlock). That’s a valid response, but it also a subjective issue that colors analysis, surely. With Ivy, she’s on the other end of the spectrum, closer to where I am-- focused heavily on pure close reading, trying to see what the characters are trying to say, what sense can be made of their behavior with the intent to integrate it into an arc. So I myself do see both their perspectives as valid, but at the same time, I’m pretty sure they’re irreconcilable. To get to Ivy’s reading, I think one needs that underlying desire and the openness to being wrong or having an incomplete reading, not to mention a blissful disregard for Authorial Intent. Basically, I think reader/viewer response and their inherent biases count for as much as the textual inadequacies and actual continuity of characterization or plot issues.

Anyway, like I’ve said, I get that TFP ‘feels’ wrong to people on a very basic level, but I also think there’s very good structural reasons why it’s not. However, I definitely think the writing has pretty deep-rooted structural problems, and I take @girlofthemirror and @plaidadder’s critique of the self-indulgent writing as well as the pacing issues @plaidadder highlights in TFP seriously. This, even though I align with Ivy’s reading of TFP and its ‘purpose’. I see all these problems, but that doesn’t mean I don’t understand or that I didn’t enjoy it. As I said to start with, I feel that critique is separate from understanding or enjoyment-- mostly because I can separate what I wanted or expected from what I can understand, or even see in the context of the larger arc if I reevaluated some of my assumptions, like with Mary. Like I said about this sort of analysis earlier, this is a difficult and drawn-out process that sometimes involves simply... changing your mind about things that were dear to you. You have to be willing to do that in order to integrate things that give you trouble initially, basically.

I think that for most people who’re not as obsessively committed to the process as I am, the cognitive dissonance that truly recalibrating one’s reading to fit new canon requires is probably too painful. I tried to redo my reading of ASiB recently, and that wasn’t so bad, but I’d already given up on the explicitly Johnlocky reading by that point. I think I’d be more upset if I could convince myself that Sherlock was into Irene for real or was straight somehow, but that’s... not possible. If nothing else, ASiB is too ambiguous and all the suggestiveness is between John and Sherlock if you take even a peek beneath the surface. No surprises there. Still, that’s pretty typical: there’s usually good news to go with the bad news. It depends how far you’re willing to bend and how genuinely interested you are in what the show is ‘really’ like, stripped of many of the preconceptions behind the stuff you may have liked about it to start with.

For example, with most of the Johnlocky readings-- some were probably not there and/or it wasn’t that straightforward, while some of it was actually blatant, like Gatiss intentionally ‘flirting with homoeroticism’. Some things were certainly unintentional, and some weren’t the work of Mofftiss but apparently added in by the actors. There’s an alchemy involved in what makes up the show, beyond anything I ever imagined, that’s for sure. In a way, that makes it more beautiful to me, though. That’s true even though I’m still annoyed at being seen as the crazy one. Johnlock is like that tree falling in the forest: if no one notices, admits, or cares that you’re being rigorous and rational, does it matter?

Well... it does to me? I just putter along, one piece of the puzzle at a time.

In the end, a reasonable theory is about integration into the arc secondarily. First, any solid theory has to simply be reasonable. In other words, ideally, it’s the most elegant, least elaborate explanation for the facts as they develop. There’s usually at least a thin path from A to B that’s visible within the plot or characterization if you discard some underlying assumptions about the characters or the text. For example, as Ivy said so eloquently, John was in character in TLD, because that potential was always there, even if I agree with @materialofonebeing’s point that the show didn’t have to go there. But it is what it is, so here we are. Canon acceptance is the first step.

Essentially, canon can sometimes overturn or redefine itself, but a plausible theory still can’t overturn canon, or it becomes unreasonable and/or transformative. In other words, it becomes fanon rather than simply a close reading of the text. I do realize that TFP has retconned a lot of what seemed pretty solid about the show, so you have to simply decide to accept canon absolutely and redefine the puzzle. The puzzle itself may change: that is the prerogative of an ongoing canon, in that it can always ask the audience to expand their parameters for understanding. The audience can refuse and break the reader/author contract, or attempt to walk the new path even if it’s not in an expected or desired direction. If the new parameters hold together on the surface level first and foremost, then it works (even if it’s not ideal).

I’m really well-practiced at adjusting my expectations and recalibrating in response to new data, basically, so in general this means I can adjust what ‘plausibility’ means to some degree. YMMV.

#sherlock meta #the great divergence #the final problem #analysis kink #series 4 #sherlock's arc #eurus #sherlock feels #critical thinking #narrative #characterization #sherlock spoilers

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