#that literally happened in the show so it’s almost a correct quote | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

darklinaforever · 6 months

Text

For people who say Tentoo isn't the Doctor because "he would be half Donna's" on pretext he "sound / look like her", specifically because of this moment :

Well... admire almost the same scene down to the head movements, but with different dialogues :

As for the "Oi", yes, often said by Donna :

youtube

Now admire the 10th Doctor who has also already used this expression :

youtube

The only thing the Doctor did in relation to Donna was echo Donna's tone of voice. Which, if you know the Doctor Who universe, is not the first time this has happened :

Oh, and he also stole her this expression :

youtube

Which can either always be explained by the voice thing we just said (the most logical). Or maybe it's because the Doctor is simply imitating the behavior of his companions... Hello Clara :

You could even theorize that Ten's tongue tics come from Rose (I mean... David Tennant outright said that Ten imprinted on Rose. So thinking that isn't that crazy) :

I'm not even the only one who thinks so :

The tone of voice and the expression "Well isn't that wizard ?" are literally the only noticeable changes and they are minimal compared to the other regenerations ! Other than those two things, Tentoo acts like he always acted as the Doctor / Ten (including the way he speaks) :

Even in official audios with Tentoo (from what I know), those two things are literally always the only differences ! In fact, if I'm not mistaken, it's even just the famous expression "Well isn't that wizard ?" which is listed as being the only difference in Tentoo since Metacrisis / Regeneration (don't hesitate to correct me about this subject in the comments if I'm wrong ! I really need to listen to these audios). Which is logical that he only has minimal changes, since the essential symbolic goal of Tentoo was that the Doctor no longer changes, to remain Rose's Doctor :

Afterwards the only thing Tentoo lacks is having said "Allons-y !", and "Molto Bene !". And since he keeps his "Oh yes !", "Oi !", "Brilliant !", "Ha !" even "Well...", and according to the "Empire of the Wolf" comic, he also kept "What ?!" (Oh, and also his glasses) So, I think it's pretty obvious that he kept it "Allons-y !" and "Molto Bene !" too. (In addition to having, as shown above, kept all of his physical ticks)

Ten himself doesn't say all these expressions in the episode JE. He only says "Brilliant", and that makes sense, because we're not going to make a character say all of his cult quotes in one and the same episode. The individual being doesn't work like that. The only reason why Tentoo throws out so many of these expressions is precisely to make the public understand that he is still the Doctor we knew ! But obviously that wasn't enough for some...

Beyond that to return to Donna and the Doctor, they have always looked alike anyway. What are two more similarities ? Evidence from one of my old posts :

And why does it look the same ? Because brotherly relationship :

What the metacrisis essentially allowed was to make them real brothers and sisters at the biological / DNA level. And I don't know if you have brothers and sisters, or if you know someone who has brothers and sisters, but similar ways of speaking in tone, and having expressions in common, that happens a lot among brothers and sisters. The fact that they literally only have one expression in common is a miracle. And then frankly a minimal addition when you consider how similar the Doctor and Donna have always been.

Essentially the Doctor didn't want to change, he wanted to remain Rose's Doctor and he did. He remained the same physically, in his vocal expressions and body gestures. But ironically he added a little of the impulsivity of his ninth incarnation with whom Rose fell in love, and finally definitively concretized the brother/sister bond he had with Donna, from a human point of view, on the biological plan. But since the body has no real importance for the Doctor, he kept something more tangible from her, namely, a fondness for the way she spoke (as he did with Rose, but in a less present way), especially since he will technically never be able to see her again. And all that, well it’s very beautiful.

56 notes · View notes

thatdebaterguy · 2 months

Note

Usually I would go anon but I am at the point where I don't care what people think anymore. I would rather be honest and have these people off my blog than keep doing it in secret.

Anyways, I was scrolling through a post (because I hate myself). Tumblr wouldn't let me put the link for some reason:

This isn't the whole post, but 2/3 of it. It's about how Israel was "tricking" children into picking up bombs that looked like food cans. Someone corrected this in the comment section.

And in response to the correction (there was more than one person correcting):

This is a massive issue I've seen with that side of the conflict. They don't care if the information they spread is true as long as it fits the narrative of "Palestine = weak, helpless, 100% good and pure victim. Israel: evil, colonists, eats Palestine babies for breakfast." And it's almost scary the lack of critical thinking to make sure everything fits into this mindset.

I once corrected someone's mistranslation on Pinterest of all places, where someone said a Hebrew translation was ""May this (bomb) lands on innocent people". It was just the company name. I was attacked and told I was a "genocidal zionist" and there was my favorite, "well it doesn't matter if it's true or not, it's what they mean".

So basically, "yeah it doesn't matter if it's fake information, it fits with MY beliefs, so it's okay."

I hate the Pro-Palestinian cult.

It is genuinely depressing to see blatant misinformation spread, for example I've been given the link to a site that takes supposed quotes from Israeli officials completely out of context, half the time a complete lie, and told it's some kind of proof Israel is the epitome of moral sin, despite being the most equal state in the middle east. I saw this post and saw another one debunking how the imagine has been altered in a misleading way, just as I saw a post of a server room that's linked to a Hamas database under an UNRWA facility, and someone said it powered a solar panel. Keep in mind they didn't lie for the Palestinian civilians, that was to straight up cover for Hamas.

The screenshot of someone calling Hamas 'freedom fighters' is actually scary.

this is the first thing you see when you search for the ideology of Hamas. Yk the worst part? This would be called zionist propaganda just because it says Hamas have committed terrorism, and October 7th happened. These are literal facts though, Hamas are proud of October 7th, proud of killing thousands, kidnapping hundreds, committing acts of terrorism. If you have any sense of morality, you cannot defend Hamas, even if you see them as on the right side or as freedom fighters, their methods alone make them a monstrous organisation. They wear plain civilian clothes in war, a war crime, they have been verified to use civilian buildings for cover, a war crime, they've killed thousands of innocents purposefully, a war crime, they've openly called for the annexation and occupation of Israel, a sovereign country with millions of ethnic Jews who would be 3rd class citizens in a Hamas ruled Palestine.

Israel doesn't want Gaza. They don't want to destroy it, to own it, they wish they never had to hear about it again, let alone invade it to remove Hamas from power. And the fact that people are scared to voice their beliefs against a literal terror group, against misinformation, is insane. You know, the only reason I'm on Israel's side is because when it comes to debates I follow the science, the figures, the statistics, a fixed code of morality and logic, and that leads to me to Israel because they've never instigated a conflict in their entire history, they've voluntarily surrendered land in pursuit of peace, aided the countries that have invaded them, they're by the definition not committing genocide, they're legally and factually in a war of self defence to topple an extremist dictatorial government, the figures show as far as modern urban warfare goes, the civilian-military death ratio is lower than most conflicts, they factually have a historical claim to the land, they built Tel Aviv, built Jerusalem, 400,000 Jews lived the region of Israel before its existence as a modern state, it just all points to Israel.

But I support the people of Palestine, I empathise with them, I want them to be free of the dictators who lead them to this war and suffering they must endure, and I pray they'll get the liberation they deserve. They deserve better than the nightmare of a government that rule over Gaza. And yet none of the Palestinian supporters protest Hamas. They don't realise, protesting against Hamas doesn't weaken the right for civilians to receive aid, because they're forced into this mindset that the Palestinian government and movement has always been one of perfect ineffable morality and one that you must be insanely villainous to even have any contradicting thoughts on. I'm a more conservative guy who's best friend of 4 years recently told me that they're genderfluid, in a polyamorous relationship with a trans man, and have a 'fursona' but since I know they're a person with good intentions in life I support them in finding happiness and getting better. I'd say that makes me fairly open minded, without tooting my own horn too much. But I will never be open to the idea that Hamas have ever wanted what's best for Palestine. Their actions are selfish, their goals are psychopathic, their behaviour is unwarranted, and their care for being a successful governing body is minimal. Gaza, whether prospering before October 7th or not, was legally an independent, sovereign region of the nation of Palestine, who have their own government, constitution, voting system, currencies they operate with, culture, freedom of movement, unless it's to Israel of course, and have been so since Israel pulled out of Gaza.

Israel actually occupied Gaza once. It was better maintained, the people were more looked after. In the years before Israel pulled out of Gaza, the Palestinian economy grew by the largest margin in at least 20 years, and then under Hamas, became incredibly stagnant, with foreign aid being the only thing propping it up. They let unemployment skyrocket despite the opening of more high tech facilities, once again thanks to foreign aid. Now, Israel doesn't want Gaza back, nor should they have it, but when the people of the nationality that Hamas wish to destroy, governed their land even better despite not even being the sovereign owners of that land and just the occupiers, it says a lot. Don't be afraid to speak out against Hamas, since you have no love for the Palestinian people if you don't want them to be free from the suffering Hamas has brought.

#israel #politics #palestine #gaza #current events #hamas

15 notes · View notes

ms-cartoon · 1 year

Text

Seen the few sneak peaks of some upcoming episodes of HB. We might meet Moxxie’s family (mainly his father). Sorry if I’m being nitpicky, but I was kinda expecting his father to be a little bit different from his son, as well as have a different voice. It’s like he’s a literal clone of Moxxie but slightly taller with a deeper and cunning tone in his voice. And from what I’ve heard, he’s supposed to be a mobster or just apart of some kind of dangerous gang (correct me if I’m wrong). So yeah, I think his appearance should be a little bit different, more tough if anything.

Blitzo stays an a**hole to his co-workers I see. Even after that DeEp and HeArTwArMiNg conversation, he had with Moxxie back in season 1 ep 6 (Which didn’t hit deep at all). You think that after he humiliated himself in episode 7, he’d dial it back with his behavior. But I guess Viv can’t have a comedy without someone unnecessarily being a jerk.

We finally get to hear Andre’s voice. He actually sounded exactly how I imagined; almost deep and haughty. I guess it’s made clear that he and Stella have a good relationship. I’ve seen some comics that show that Andre was possibly very mean to Stella during her childhood which probably would explain her behavior and why she acts so cynically.

He and Stella are having a discussion with Stolas, and Andre brings up that Stella deserves something since Stolas cheated on her?? Which makes no sense to me?? Cuz, yes, Stolas did cheat, but why would Stella even care?!! The show already made it clear that she never even liked Stolas from the start. She didn’t even like being married to him and was only throwing fits and getting him killed simply because she was petty and liked tormenting him. What exactly does Andre and Stella hope to gain from this anyway? Neither of these two even out-rank Stolas. And what exactly has the divorce done that caused any harm to the Goetia’s. When Stella confronted Stolas, she made it seem like the divorce was gonna be a huge issue, but as far as I know... it did nothing. And they already had Octavia who’s in her late-teens, so what’s the threat here??

If they’re gonna keep bringing up the cheating, then maybe they shouldn’t have retconned Stella as a character and kept it to where she is only pissed about the affair. Maybe not have her be an evil b*tch since birth and hate Stolas for whatever reason?

Idk man!! Make it make sense!!!

We also finally get to see Barbie, Blitzo’s sister. I thought those two had a decent sibling relationship as most of us did, but it turns out... those two had a falling out as well. Barbie says, and I quote “Come on, Blitzo! Haven’t you f*cked up my life enough already??”

Jeezus!! Another one??

First, it was Fizz, then Verosika, and now his own sister!!? I mean, it’s expected, cuz Blitzo is an a** and he definitely deserves it, but is he seriously that much of a bad influence he screwed up his own sister’s life? Like, is she just over-exaggerating it?? What did he do that was so screwed up, she started to despise him? Hopefully, she won’t be like Verosika or even Stella; just straight-up petty and b*tchy for no reason. I know I’m wrong though.

Also, I see that she and Moxxie are fighting... wonder what that’s about. Probably something dumb.

And I also see that Blitzo and Fizz are having a talk. Not sure what it’s about. It was only a few seconds of Fizz talking. But from what I can assume, they might be discussing their relationship as friends (or ex-friends), maybe having a slight argument? Don’t know if those two are ever gonna reconcile in the end. All I know is that this kind of arc should’ve been explored way before we got into Stolas’s backstory with Blitzo (which we clearly don’t give the slightest sh*t about.) What happened with Fizz and Blitzo that caused the two to split up seems way more interesting than how Stolas and Blitzo met.

Here’s another thing that caught my eye (and y’all this one’s my favorite to laugh at). Stolas is shown being kidnapped by Striker, tied up n all, and even stabbed with a dagger!?

.......

I’m sorry, but are we just gonna forget that Stolas is a POWERFUL FREAKIN’ DEMON??? The same guy that can do this -

And this -

And even turn into THIS -

..... Like, are we sure he’s more powerful than Alastor??? What’s the point of him being a powerful demon prince if all he’s useful for is being a damsel in distress??? Less than 3 times Stolas is shown to be powerful when the plot says so, which is almost NEVER!!! It’s irritating!

Ugh! I just know I’m gonna go through hell watching this (no pun intended). And I’ve already seen the last few recent leaks to these episodes. This just adds on to the ridiculous bull.

#Helluva Boss #critique #critisism #hazbin hotel critique #SpindleHorse critical #anti stolitz #anti helluva boss #anti stolas #anti blitzo

108 notes · View notes

i-love-side-characters · 1 year

Text

my official gleanings thoughts <3

story 1: the first swing

also quick fact i probably won't do this for all the stories, just the ones i like the best, but idk that might change who knows

•·················•·················••·················•·················••·················•·················•

page 1: the poem?? absolutely snazzy i love it so much. particularly the second verse: "those before you are in awe / they cannot imagine what your next move will be / you carry yourself as balanced and poised as a performer dancing brutally among them" is so reminiscent of goddard's values and really ties into the idea that curie was seeking that high life that goddard also looked for. the parallels between the two of them are insane and i love that we can see how two different ideologies stemmed from people who were similar. it pushes the theme that decisions are what make us who we are. joelle shusterman?? loml

page 6: i like that shusterman (from the get-go) is showing how people treat scythes. like actually bowing is crazy.

page 7: "it is a scythe's prerogative to give random tasks to random people." irks me tbh and it cements the fact that most scythes do believe that they are worthy of handing out such tasks, which we know is not the case. also the "some scythes play to the crowd, some scythes don't." is almost word for word a phrase in scythe (book 1) and so that's awesome that he called it back to show how little the scythedom has changed

page 8: SHE DYED HER HAIR SILVER?? ALSO HER PARENTS WERE TONISTS TOO???

page 10: "...and toosdai riggle, because she liked saying the name." love that he emphasised her more playful and younger side. i think it helps us differentiate the older from the younger curie and it shows us how she's changed

page 13: love love love that they showed how quickly the scythedom moves on. going from the topic of potentially killing the president to a debate between scythes armstrong, armstrong, and armstrong is a vast difference. in addition to that, i love that shusterman shows how little the scythedom wants to change. now that all of these scythes are in positions of power, they don't want to advance the world. they are willing to let midmerica fall into ruin as long as they can live their lives the way that want. they want to make it the thunderhead's problem even though curie correctly brings up the fact that the thunderhead can't do anything.

page 14: "but death was death, and blood was blood." an interesting statement but idk what i wanna say about it so

page 15: CAT!!

page 16: "but not all justice had such a pleasing aesthetic..." shusterman you're my favourite person ever. that's such a fantastic quote and it's so applicable to the world today. many people aren't willing to take the steps required in order to serve justice because it is so so messy. which is why we see politicians making promises in order to gain votes, and then not doing anything because it's hard. then the individuals who have been wronged are essentially forgotten, and groups or people who attempt to change the situation are looked down on by society, and are mocked and villainised for attempting to get justice. i'm thinking things like first nations movements, the black panthers, etc., but if i'm wrong please correct me!

page 21: "palming a security pad, which, by law, had to yield to her." it's not just the security pad babes literally the entire world has to yield to her. but it is an odd thing to write in so i think shusty knew that.

page 22: "humanity has given me the right to do as i whatever i please." the parallels between goddard and curie are killing me omg. the scythe mentality that every person believes and understands what they are doing is so wrong. people are terrified to their core of scythes because they know that being given the right to kill is something that should have never happened. not to mention that the people who are picked to become scythes are not chosen by a neutral party like the thunderhead, but by OTHER SCYTHES. other scythes pick and choose who gets to essentially become a god in this society!! this is why they end up with the old and new guards because each scythe looks for people who will hold their values and essentially turns them into themselves so that they can leave behind a legacy when they die. scythe curie's quote "for [choosing an apprentice] is a form of vanity [...] 'be the new me, so that the old me can leave this world satisfied.'" (177, scythe) is literally a direct example of it. essentially this means that no one in regular society has ever had an opinion on who will be a scythe and who won't!! humanity quite literally didn't give curie the right to do whatever she pleases. this is so insane because it shows how little humanity and ruling systems have changed.

page 25: up until now i actually thought that the writing was pretty stilted and odd, it seemed like shusty was getting back into the rhythm of scythe, but curie's "speech" is so perfect omg. it's like two lines but it captures her reasoning and drive and shows us that she truly believed that what she did was right. also the president was right and wrong about her regretting what she did. yes, she did regret it, but mainly because it was rash and uncalculated, not because she didn't think it was right. even the thunderhead was completely on board with it. QUOTE FROM THUNDERHEAD CAFE SCENE

page 26: "it gave her a persona she was motivated to grow out of." that's such an interesting line because we know that yes, she does grow out of it eventually. again my brain is like half making a connection but not fully so i don't know how to articulate my thoughts.

thoughts: that was wonderful curie my dear i miss you so much. but i really like that the story emphasised how she's changed overtime and the lessons she's learned. one thing that worked great was that she showed how she was ridiculed at the start (for the colour of her robe, her hair, faraday) and so that was also a motivator in what she finally did. overall, it did a great job of presenting curie's commanding and take-charge nature, and i loved it. one thing i didn't like about it was the writing, just at the beginning. it didn't really flow as nicely as i was used to and everything seemed to be in a series of steps rather than a flowing motif. her entering the white house was very "first this happened, then this happened, then this happened" but it really pulled together at the end so i'm not annoyed at all. loved it.

thanks guys!!

∼ akki <3

#not main content #arc of a scythe #aoas #scythe curie #aoas curie #gleanings #aoas gleanings #gleanings spoilers

25 notes · View notes

aurorechaton · 8 months

Text

Controversial and/or aggressive brambleclaw take for the warrior cats fandom incoming...

Let me just say that I won't argue any further on this. I haven't read the newest arcs, and I don't want to. I tried reading the arc with Alderheart and Twigbranch twice, and I still couldn't tell you what happened. I literally blocked it out both times.

I've been a warrior cats kid for my entire life. It was the first multi-book series I red on my own, I read the main arcs 7-10 times in roughly 4 years, trust me, I was OBSESSED.

But I was never a part of online fandom culture. I lived under a rock, I didn't have any social media, I barely saw the animations on youtube, and I never looked any deeper. I think that's why I'm so horrified by the fandom take on everything to do with the leafpool-squilf-brambleclaw/star-hawkfrost-the three-etc. thing.

CONTEXT:

When I was a child, I loved leafpool. I was never a big fan of squilf, and I can admit that may cloud some of my takes. I am going to arguably be defending Brambleclaw up until the end of the fourth arc, but I don't think I'll be doing it in the way you think?

THE ROOT OF THE ISSUE:

I was genuinely SO MAD , while the sisters were warning Brambleclaw not to interact with Hawkfrost.

While we as an audience know that they were correct to do so, I related heavily to Bramble's need to connect with family. Maybe it was the way I vividly remembered how Firestar kept thinking about how Bramble looked like Tiger I, maybe it was everything that Tawny went through, maybe it was just my intense need to see warrior cats who overcame prejudice, but I hated the way Leafpool approached the whole situation. Rather than attempt to connect with Bramble, her clanmate, and the tom courting her sister, she only interacted with him to speak badly about Hawkfrost. She literally had her in with Moth, right there. She almost always stuck her foot in her mouth, failed to provide much evidence, or to connect with him on an emotional level.

FACTS v FEELINGS, + my attempt to fight what I think are the most prevalent views? If you don't think this way, this post isn't about you.

Squilf's arguments were more convincing, but facts and logic won't win when what you are arguing against is emotional connections. It certainly didn't for Leafpool, or any cat with a cross-clan relationship who KNEW it was only hurting them. You can't out-logic the heart. I should think we all know that.

I believe the moonkitti video, (which I will being using as a rough reference, since it helpfully gives direct quotes,) about Bramblestar was the most aggravating for this particular reason. The excerpts given in the video often take such a lens that is presumably only about facts, when warrior cats is a soap opera, it's about the emotional connections. Squilf, for example, tells Bramble that Leaf doesn't Like Hawk, but admits she hadn't bothered asking why, and questions why Bramble would ever feel an emotional connection with his half-brother. I find this extremely hypocritical. Bramble has shown himself to be extremely obsessed with the way the clan sees him, his father, and the connection between them. Squilf should know by now that Bramble feels much stronger about keeping his connection with Tawny that vice versa. Moonkitti also implies that because Squilf doesn't even imply something, it's the same as denying it, which, pointedly she doesn't do. (not five minutes later, the video also shows an excerpt where Bramble doesn't tell Squilf something, and she immediately takes this as a sign of hostility and rejection. He didn't imply that with his voice, posture, or words, and they literally just had an argument. Bramble is clearly just insecure and in his own head. She's supposed to be the more socially adjusted one.)

When he jumps immediately to emotional responses, so does she, claiming that Bramble clearly doesn't know anything about her, but clearly the same goes the other way around, so I find this extremely wild. I could understand her offense in the moment, but it goes round and round like this every time, and at no point does she attempt to clear the air on a previous conversation in a patient or genuine way. I'm not saying she has to, but I think it is something at least worth noting. While everyone agrees she's attempting to reconcile with him, I would argue she does it it the worst way possible for him specifically.

Bramble is willing to accept her apologies, and will apologize himself later, but just because he's willing to forgive doesn't mean he's over it, and he's clearly been slow to trust anyone with what happens in his head. Mans spends way too much time thinking if you ask me. Was the most annoying part of the series. She then tells him off for gossiping with Hawk at a gathering. And yes, what they were saying was rude, but Squilf makes it sound paradoxically like disliking Onewisker's decision is somehow being disloyal to Thunderclan, because Onewisker is friendly to the clan, and also only unacceptable because he was discussing it with Hawkfrost. Plenty of cats in previous books would have been considered grumpy but loyal for expressing those kinds of opinions. I find it odd that she tells him off for criticizing someone he has no moral or personal allegiance to. She also deflects every question he asks her, no matter how genuine or asinine, which honestly does feel like an implication.

Which is why I don't like seeing Squilf as the sole victim here. Yes, she's a victim. Considering that when she realizes she still wants Bramble, she's been given a great out and he has made no attempt at winning her favor again (no honeymoon phase), and then she doesn't even bring up her issues with Hawkfrost again (supposedly the catalyst for all of this). This doesn't feel like her being manipulated back into a relationship; this feels like shitty writing. The fact that the narrative makes no move to actually reconcile them is not Bramble's fault, it's the Erins.

I think Moonkitti best exemplifies my frustration with this particular issue by saying "when he, again, criticizes her for being distrusting and being rude to Hawkfrost", which, in this situation, she was actually directly attacking HIM, almost more so than Hawkfrost. From his point of view, I wonder if it doesn't sound exactly like that. (She will continue to do this. It will only get worse.) Instead of Leaf and Squilf being worried Bramble is being dragged into this while he's emotionally vulnerable, they both begin to berate him instead of connecting with him. Why does anyone think that should work for them? They may be objectively right, but their arguments are not at all persuading. (Proabably on purpose, damn Erins shakes fist)

Not Defending Everything, OBVIOUSLY:

In the next line, of course, Bramble says he'd never choose someone else over her. (and if I were to fix this the only way fandom can, I'd interpret this to be a showcase of his desperate need to be trusted; a false promise to return that trust. In context I think the Erins mean this literally, so... eh, not a great moment for him, no.) This, I think we can safely say is objectively false in that moment, although not outright malicious.

In this case, the relationship is abusive not due to the will of the individuals, but because of the outside pressures of the horrible system the Erins have built that must not be questioned. When the Erins make terrible narrative decisions to defend their biased world-building, we're supposed to blame them, and work to remedy the situation within the fandom, not accept it as gospel. It's what we do with Hollyleaf and Ashfur, or any of their decisions about where dead cats go.

Yes, Bramble is horrible to Squilf, Warrior Cats is an inherently misogynistic story, this is hardly the first time toms treat their mates horribly. Given my experience with warriors, in none of the 7 times I read through this arc, even disliking the relationship, did it seem particularly toxic because of Bramble. Usually, it was Squilf being forced into courting because of the expectations of clan life, and Bramble doing what a lot of other toms did; flirting with her, seeing her as incapable of defending herself, especially from other men, etc.

SOCIAL INTERACTIONS IN WARRIORS:

I've seen people ragging on the fact that Bramble hesitated to free Firestar, despite the fact that he was being actively manipulated, something shady was going on in his clan, he was isolated, and was afraid that Fire would accuse him, something that from his earlier distrust of Bramble as a kit because of his EYES, might even seem reasonable when Hawkfrost seemed (before that point) to be the perfect example of people only seeing their pelts. He also has a right to hesitate to figure out what to do next, seeing as Hawkfrost clearly wasn't just going to let this go? Idk, pretty nit-picky in both directions.

Before the journey over the mountains, Bramble only has an established relationship (From his perspective) with Tawny and maybe squilf? Even they are pretty distant. Bramble is never shown hanging out with other cats in the clan, or even thinking about particular cats he wants to get back to. If I didn't know about the third and fourth arcs I would have told you that Bramble's arc would only be resolved by connecting with Fire, or by leaving the clan entirely. Personally, I would have had Leafpool be his draw back to the clan, a brown tabby, Firestar's daughter, a calm and intensely caring cat, who cares so much about family and her clan, I wanted to see Fire basically become Bramble's surrogate father in the second arc it HURT.

On the other side, Ashfur IS set up with a sort of clique (although it quickly disintegrates because by this point the Erins were done writing genuine friendships outside of siblings.), and does appear to be close with other cats before his introduction. We have no reason to believe his is insecure about his relationships with others, and no reason to believe his reputation in the clan is in any danger (even if it's just in his own head). This is what, to me, separates the two sides of our love triangle. Bramble almost always backs off the second he sees Squilf with another cat, and I believe that if the Erins were less stubborn, or Brambleclaw had any other friends, their relationship might well have died out naturally. Ashfur on the other hand is just a creep. I don't like him, never did.

I don't think any of Bramble's actions make him nonredeemable until after Mudclaw's coup. Even after that, I found him mostly reacting in the way someone who's been ostracized, and whose clan is probably eyeing him with suspicion at the moment, which, near as I can tell, is literally his greatest fear. With the added patented warriors misogyny on top of course. People keep questioning his loyalty, so he becomes a hardass about putting the clan first, particularly pointing it the woman who he's desperate to prove wrong and also strangely overprotective of, that's pretty on brand for Warriors.

While I honestly don't think the Erins meant to set all of this up like this, I think there are some compelling narrative threads to Bramble's story in the second arc. I think author bias accidentally reflected some very real trauma that can come from the pressures patriarchy puts on men. But, again, this is the ERINS book, obviously there are lots of flaws to be found. Not even the characters that are meant to be perfect are without some semblance of bigotry. I find the specific hate borne towards Bramble to be the result of the fandom's pent up frustrations with the writing of this arc and the waffling characterization, rather than an honest reflection of how people felt when they were first forced to interpret this character. I do not think this is the only cat this happened to. I think Dovewing got similarly shafted by the fandom. I think she was one of the few "anxious" cats that felt somewhat authentic. (Again, ignoring everything with Tiger II, assume I didn't even read all that)

TL;DR:

OBVIOUSLY I DID NOT SHIP THESE TWO, I DO NOT LIKE THEIR RELATIONSHIP. (I think they should be surrogate siblings, and if someone could feed that delusion I should be ever so thankful)

I do not think their relationship actually had a power imbalance in the earlier arcs. Squilf has her father's favor and trust, as well as her sister, a medicine cat. If she at any point actually felt like Brambleclaw was a legit threat or bully, she had the option to do more than just avoid him. She never lets anyone else stand up for her, though. I think it's unfair to say that just because she didn't leverage her power, that she didn't have any. Were she a more viscous or cornered cat, she had the ammunition to sway the clan against Bramble. Their relationship didn't start until both of them were old enough to be warriors, even if Squilf was an apprentice when they set out, and Bramble had no say over her actions away from the clan. Squilf often makes this clear.

I think the abuse seen in their relationship is only more obvious to the reader as the Erins attempt to write their way around a willful woman without rethinking their bias against women. I do not think it is any more pronounced than many other warriors relationships. I think that Squilf's sudden change to submissive and powerless is a direct result of her perceived motherhood in the Erins eyes.

I think people forget that Brambleclaw's personal story is about trust and acceptance, making the fact that Squilf lied to him at any point push him to his most emotional extremes. Considering the entire third and fourth arc is just a whole bunch of secrets and espionage, I think it's telling that he's at worst, a petty bully or paranoid and cold deputy. (Also, I don't think anyone brings up the fact that STARCLAN INTERVENED when trying to defend Squilf in story? like, that feels like a big deal in our judgement of her, but I don't think any of them are privy to that info??) I'd argue his statement when he makes her deputy "there's no one I trust more" is the first time he extends trust willingly and freely to someone outside of his bloodline, and I wish this were treated by the narrative as a resolution to a lot of his character issues.

All this to say I believe there are charitable ways to interpret his actions, and I don't see people doing that?

Mostly, I just want to see Bramble convincingly written like someone with cptsd and who is crushingly isolated, rather than an arrogant prick.

Also, why didn't Leaf talk to Bramble, like, way more????

#erin hunter warriors #warrior cats #omen of the stars #squirrelflight #brambleclaw #bramblestar #warrior cats discourse #hot take #power of three #warriors ships #warriors discourse #warriors misogyny #bad writing #character writing #terrible people

6 notes · View notes

alltheselights · 2 years

Note

Help me to understand something or give me an explanation. How is it possible that Louis having all that promo with interviews, playlists and a big fandom his numbers are so bad, worse than singers that nobody knows, have no fans and don’t promote their music? Literally his song didn't enter the charts. Could it be that the general public don't like his music or have no interest in him? I can't find any other explanation… it’s just so frustrating.

It’s an exaggeration to say that his numbers are as bad as unknown singers when that’s obviously not true, but to correct what you’re saying here, Louis actually doesn’t have good promo or a lot of promo.

In the UK, he did almost no TV interviews, and those that he did do were with shows watched by people who are not in Louis’ target audience (like Lorraine, which has a largely older audience). These interviews were never accompanied by performances. Much of the UK media focuses on Louis’ personal life or demeans him, like that BBC article where the interviewer takes Louis’ quotes and intersperses them with insults, backhanded compliments, and inaccurate stats. Louis’ done a few interviews with radio stations in India and Australia, for example, and also didn’t perform the song. In the United States, he did one nighttime talk show and a few morning radio shows, which is good, but now he is repeating the mistakes of Walls promo by touring small radio stations across the United States that don’t even play his song and doing listening parties with existing fans who would have bought his music anyway.

Louis’ fanbase is not good at streaming and he doesn’t have streams from the general public that would boost those numbers. To get that general public support, the general public has to actually see you and hear your music. That means appearances and performances on talk shows like Fallon and Kimmel in the United States, or Norton and Ross in the UK. That means interviews and performances on large radio stations that BMG pushes to actually put Louis’ song in rotation rather than playing it once when he’s on and never again. That means Louis performing at events and festivals. That means Louis posting promo updates and magazine covers to his actual account rather than that information being posted on LTHQ’s accounts with tens of millions fewer followers. That means Louis doing more promo in some of the places that love him most, such as South America and Mexico. That means BMG and Matt Vines having a strategy beyond listening parties and catering to stalkers and expecting fans to be able to stream to a level that would allow Louis to match artists who receive massive streaming support from casual fans and the general public. That means Louis and those around him focusing on actually promoting him and his music rather than other bands and artists, as he often does in interviews and on social media, and what they did with that F1 playlist which didn’t include any his own damn songs until days later.

None of those things are happening.

Fans are also endlessly exhausted by Louis’ team’s incompetence, which means they love and support Louis and want him to excel, but feel helpless to make a real difference when his own label and management seem to be failing at every turn. Bitterness, disappointment, frustration, and exhaustion are all disastrous emotions for a fanbase to be feeling a few weeks after a song release and less than two months from the album release.

Louis’ numbers are not because he has amazing promo and just isn’t clicking with the public. Louis’ numbers are because after years of sabotage in the industry by Sony and those associated with it, he needs a team with the gumption, creativity, intelligence, and determination to put in the work that’s needed to get his music out there and improve his image. At least from what we’ve seen so far, Louis’ team is not up for that challenge.

#okay gotta work now #i'll answer more l8er #asks

20 notes · View notes

pebblysand · 1 year

Note

Heyy Jo! Hope you're doing well! I have a question.... Do u believe Harry should have moved on and dated other girls and finally settled with someone. I mean he deserves the best and in fact ginny was the one who dumped him. She was never there for him, but Harry was always trying to help ginny in every way possible. It kinda breaks my heart to watch Harry getting hurt every time ginny does something, that she was knowingly hurting him. I know she's traumatized but then couldn't she have trusted Harry, knowing that he loves her. I kinda felt that ginny didn't care much about Harry as much as he loved her. Please correct me if I am wrong...

Also I lovvve your works so much. I love the fact that Castles is so well structured and nuanced. Happy holidays! ❤

hi anon! thanks for your message.

i don't mean this rudely but i am So Confused here. i mean, harry did date someone else... 🤔. i also would very much dispute the fact that ginny wasn't there for him. she supported him during the trials, when he broke up with mia, she got all his friends and family involved to create the terrace at grimmauld, she sought him out and actively showed him she'd made a mistake breaking up with him...

to your point about her not "trusting" him with her trauma at the start, i think she very much explains this in a lot of her letters (wanting to put things behind her, pretending it didn't exist, etc.). i'm not sure what else to say about it, to be honest :). maybe there's something in your question i'm not getting? sorry ^^.

as a side note, i always find it interesting that fanon seems to see ginny as someone who talks about traumatic things and likes to pour her heart out/discuss everything. in the books, she literally goes through hell in book 2 and never brings it up ever again bar one time where she does so incredibly matter-of-factly and to help harry determine if he is being possessed. that's why the "lucky you" quote is so interesting - cause it's so rare. she is definitely good at bringing out harry out of his shell/giving him the support (but also tough love) he often needs, but she's rarely ever someone who talks about herself. and, i think at the start of castles, the reason why she doesn't get him to talk about what happened to him last year is a) she can't bear it - can't bear the idea he almost died, etc., and b) she knows that if he talks, he'll expect her to talk, cause she knows him, knows he's curious and so the status quo functions better for the two of them.

(and, he also isn't very keen on sharing tbh. he wants her side of the story, without giving his).

#castles #asked and answered

4 notes · View notes

dmclemblems · 2 years

Note

I agree with the other anon tbh. And I don’t want to spend 60 dollars on a game that’s basically licking Edelgard’s boots for the sake of one excellent route, but at the same time I can never look at AM the same way again and it makes me feel unhappy about Fódlan in general, so I don’t know what to do now because I don’t really read fic, but I hate Edelgard, I don’t really care for Shez or Arval, and the church is an even bigger afterthought in Hopes

When the game was first coming out I wasn’t sure if I wanted to spend that kind of money on it either. I wound up getting it as a gift because the game came out less than a month after my birthday, so my family pre-ordered it for me.

Imo the best thing to do is just remember this is an AU and that no matter what happened in it, AM is still the real version of events (likewise with the other two routes). When it comes to how I see AG fitting in with AM, I see it as parts of the characters that could exist in AM. Even though the circumstances don’t give us the same things, for example, Sylvain has it in him to be the person he is in AG post game in AM. I like to think that’s the person he would grow into. With relationships, we’re just seeing more possibilities and can just shrug and pretend they happened anyway (like Ingrid talking with Rodrigue about tactics. We can just figure that kind of conversation happened at some point after they met up with him).

AG is more of a version of AM that looks at the story as “what if everything was almost perfect”. I imagine things could’ve gone similarly in the timeskip if Byleth hadn’t been hit by Thales in that cutscene, because Byleth’s presence probably would’ve played the same general role as Shez’s. I think Dimitri would still be in need of immediate help with his mentality, but if Byleth, with Sothis’ power, was still present in those five years, there’s probably something or various things that would’ve changed along the way.

Also, with the way Duscur was integrated into Faerghus’ army, it really is just a “what if everything was working out and sooner” scenario. It’s a combination of all the best/better possibilities that didn’t have a chance to happen in AM. It’s a bunch of things we wanted, so it’s easy to look at AM and miss those things. They basically gave us everything we could’ve possibly really wanted in AG, especially Dimitri being able to have a big support system and have his friends take care of him and his duties when he’s unable to (such as the times he literally passes out from pushing himself too much).

I think the best way to think of it is just that AM is the real deal and AG is more of just, what if we got what we wanted. I had so many headcanons for a good few characters that actually got confirmed as backstory or did happen during AG, so it was fun to have that while considering how much of the backstory must have happened pre-Houses timeline (for example, Dimitri’s backstory with Rufus. Houses gives us far fewer details and just kind of leaves it at them not getting along, so you could choose to ignore AG’s explanation or consider it backstory canon since it’s prior to the Houses timeline).

At the very least I’m glad we got some extra details about Duscur because I think it will be nice to replay AM and have all those answers in mind while going back through all the in-game discussions of it. With AG’s events in mind, I think it holds a whole lot more weight how much Rodrigue actually managed to find out about the incident. He does say, quoted, “I exhausted every last resource I had to investigate what took place there”. What he talks to Gilbert about in that conversation actually shows now that he really did delve deeply into this, because all his worries were correct and between AM and AG, we find out the details but also that all his fears were well founded.

Rodrigue probably has a very good network considering his position and standing in Faerghus, and like he said, he lost a son (and his best friend) during that incident, so it makes sense that he did whatever he could to investigate what happened. We get a general idea that he’s right in AM and that Patricia wasn’t targeted, and then in AG it tells us exactly what that was all about. It takes what we know and expands on it when AM didn’t have room to do so (presumably because the writers didn’t have the time or space within Houses to go over it more). Basically I think it’s just something we can keep in mind during replays and have the full story this time.

Obviously that’s not true of everything, but I think for backstory related topics it’s really helpful to have for hindsight. To learn about what happened in Duscur was probably difficult even for Rodrigue considering it involved TWS. I’m sure they did what they could to cover their tracks. Anything Rodrigue found out wouldn’t be easy to get knowledge of. We also have Rufus’ side of the story and learn that he did have involvement, while in AM we just hear from Cornelia that it was a rumor that she was using to execute Dimitri over. Now we know that actually did happen, and even though Dimitri didn’t kill Rufus like she claimed, we do know the writers didn’t just leave her claim about Rufus as a throwaway line from AM.

Maybe if you replay AM you’ll feel differently and feel better about it too. Sometimes it just takes replaying something to remember how much you enjoyed it before. For me AG is more of an extension of AM with things added to make the story work. I also wound up loving some characters even more than I already did (like, you know, how I talk about Rodrigue 400 times a week now instead of 250 😛).

Also, as far as Claude goes, I’m always going to relieved to see him in AM again and not have to go through almost every single character besides Dimitri not trusting him). I’m pretty sure if Claude had a choice, he’d go chill in AM (no cold Faerghus chill pun intended) and not AG.

AG is just an extension of what we already have, but it couldn’t exist without Houses/AM. AM can exist without AG.

I’m not sure if it’ll make you feel better about AM, but I hope you’ll be able to play it again and enjoy it like before!

#DCE Ask

2 notes · View notes

supreme-burrito · 2 years

Text

So since I have posted deepfakes of my site manager on this blog and no one from work has found out I have tumblr, I am assuming it is safe. So I will tell you all the story of how I single handedly put the smack down on a MARS Wrigley manufacturing facility.

It is no secret- I work in food manufacturing in quality assurance and we make a certain ingredient for MARS. Heck we are possibly the only supplier for this one ingredient. So I get an email about some MARS employees finding these burnt pieces in their system while they were running our product through it and MARS is DETERMINED to say ‘HAHA this came from YOUR FACILITY, not OURS because our facility is PERFECT in EVERY WAY!’. Me, my boss, and our site manager start vigorously trying to deduce how this could happen on our end, and we can’t find jack crap. By pictures alone, nobody has seen this before. So eventually after a few phone calls we say ‘send us the stuff you found’.

I, a very brave individual, eat some of the stuff (it is some weird burnt shit) and I go ‘I have eaten this before, not here at work but SOMEWHERE, and it kinda tastes like chocolate. Let me point out there is no chocolate in the stuff we send to MARS. It’s a thing with a few ingredients in it. Couple days later my site manager comes to me and says ‘send it out for analysis so we can figure out what this is’. And for one of the rare instances, my $40k chemistry degree is useful. I emailed an expert just to confirm the correct test was chosen, and I send it off for chemical testing.

We get the testing back and we have one final call where I show off the report where the materials found in the burnt shit have no connection to our facility, but have multiple connections to MARS’s facility (I don’t say this to MARS but with two hours of research it is pretty obviously that it is). I even say (and I quote to a degre) ‘these two ingredients that have similar names are completely different because of this reason’ and the site manager for this MARS facility literally says the SCIENTIFIC DATA IN FRONT OF HIM IS BULLSHIT and hangs up on the call (he says ‘yo I got another meeting bye as his way of his disbelief that they had someone competent on the investigation team, okay?’ Even my boss has called me Sherlock Holmes.). I am frothing mad at this point. They just say ‘yeah we’ll consult our specialists because we believe Wikipedia is a shitty source of information and can’t be trusted’. Joke’s on you. Wikipedia is more trustworthy than three quarters of the internet combined.

HOWEVER DESPITE MY ANGER IN THE MOMENT, it has been nearly a month since that call and MARS has not come back to us in regards to this incident. Not even a conclusion or explanation as to exactly where this burnt shit came from.

It’s almost like they didn’t want to admit defeat to us because they got shut down by someone who has a very feminine voice and is a lot smarter than them and has a $40k chemistry degree.

And that is how I put the smack down on MARS manufacturing facility.

Like this if you want to hear more insane insider stories from the US food manufacturing industry. I have been a part of it for over five years now and I have a few good tales to tell.

You all remember the Honey Smacks salmonella fiasco back in 2018? I was indirectly effected by this. In a positive way, of course.

0 notes

shirubae · 2 years

Text

Shining Hope: The Sonic Forces Analysis

Silver plays a small role in Sonic Forces. His presence is explained in a supplementary comic, so we'll take a look at that too.

Stress Test

Silver's future is again in ruins, this time due to the conquest of Dr. Eggman (apparently he’s that bad of a ruler). Silver travels back in time to warn the past, unsure of what exactly Eggman did, and finds Knuckles on Angel Island. It's interesting that he goes to Knuckles first, of all people; the two had a spotty relationship in Rivals, so they must have made up.

Silver's not nearly as solemn as usual. He shows a vulnerable, almost innocent desperation. He also didn't come back to fix the future by himself, but rather to alert the others. He has developed a deeper trust for the people of the past, but is still worried.

He and Knux fight a Phantom Ruby apparition of Chaos, then head out to warn everyone else. Evidently, this warning wasn't enough, since Eggman still conquers 99% of the world.

But the fight isn't over yet! Still determined to correct the future, Silver joins Knuckles in the Resistance against the Eggman Empire.

The Resistance

Six months into the conflict, Silver and the Resistance discuss the dire situation since Sonic's capture. This is where Silver's characterization is a little off, especially in the English localization.

In Japanese, Vector bemoans that the Resistance fighters are becoming “timid”, so Silver challenges that he’s not immune to fear either. This is pretty in-character for a warrior like Silver.

But in English, Silver instead says: "Despair is a luxury we don't have." While radically different, it’s not a huge leap. Silver has seen more doomed futures than anyone, and he knows the twisted comfort of giving up. But he's also seen that those futures can change with hope! He's just being a little harsh.

Next, in Japanese, Amy prays that Sonic is still out there. Silver tempers her expectations, replying:

“I wish I could believe that, but the reality is... Sonic is not here. And Tails... he’s still missing. Now we have to do this without them.” - Silver (JP)

It's like an extension of Blaze’s advice in Sonic 06, claiming they must do what they can instead of wallowing. But in English, it gets weird:

"I'm an optimist, but I'm also a realist. Sonic is gone, Amy. And Tails is... Tails has just lost it. If we’re going to win, we have to do it without them." - Silver (EN)

Silver goes on to speak about inspiring the people against all odds. Then he meets the newly-recruited Avatar, and upon learning Sonic is alive, helps storm the Death Egg. This is the beginning of Silver being described fighting off-screen, which happens a lot in Forces.

Okay. Besides oddly implying that Tails has gone crazy since Sonic was captured...

Silver has never been a realist! His existence defies reality, from his physics-bending psychokinesis to his time-bending war with fate. Not to mention the hypocrisy; Silver literally just said they can't give in to despair. Giving up on Sonic and Tails, believing one dead and the other useless, sounds a lot like despair! In contrast, the Japanese line is much less defeatist and more hopeful, as Silver should be.

Hope Against Infinite

We later see Silver attacked by Infinite in the Mystic Jungle. He's cornered, but also realizes he’s the only Resistance member left with any chance of rivaling Infinite, and so chooses to fight.

Infinite treats Silver like no big deal, boasting that he doesn't mind defeating random heroes to snuff out hope. In Japanese, Silver rebuts: "There's always hope, as long as you cling to it!" (a very Silver quote). His heartfelt hope challenges Infinite's crushing despair.

During their scuffle, Silver knocks the Phantom Ruby prototype loose for the Avatar to find later. This is the event that turns the tide of the war, the reason why Silver had to come back in time to change the future. He doesn't know it yet, but his mission has been accomplished!

It seems Infinite is about to finish him off, but Sonic intervenes. Silver doesn’t seem amazed by Sonic’s reappearance, defiantly attempting to stand and help despite his injuries. Finally, he tags out to let Sonic have a rematch with Infinite.

Then the Finale...?

Silver does some stuff off-screen for a while. The next we see of him is in the army at the climactic Eggman Empire Fortress battle. He helps the Chaotix fight some Ruby illusions, bringing to mind his friendships with Espio and Vector.

Upon Eggman’s defeat, Silver and Amy celebrate together. It’s nice to see them on such good terms.

Silver implies he's going to stick around to help rebuild before returning home. He's last seen talking with Tails in Resistance HQ - interesting, since the two haven't interacted much, outside of Silver mugging him for Rings back in Rivals 2 lol.

Conclusion

Silver in Forces is just okay. He’s a flat character, but is an effective force of hope for the Resistance. Though he's a little out-of-character in English and doesn't get much to actually do, his presence doesn't make the game any worse. He's a harmless addition to this lukewarm plot.

#sonic forces #silver the hedgehog #infinite the jackal #sonic #analysis

62 notes · View notes

cqlfeels · 3 years

Text

@lansplaining encouraged me to finish this random meta nobody asked for, so let's talk about Meng Yao, Meng Shi, and 孟母三遷 (mèng mǔ sān qiān), a proverb about good parenting.

A warning: this is super long (even for me!) and is less quality meta and more my ADHD brain jumping around a maze of loosely related ideas. Proceed with caution!

Let me start by briefly going through why I decided to write this, because it’s important. In haunting Meng Shi’s tag in my starvation for Meng Shi content, I’ve multiple times come across the idea that Meng Shi pushed Meng Yao too hard, that she should’ve been more careful with teaching him to seek his father’s approval at any cost, and that she was too naïve. I’ve never reblogged this kind of post because 1) I personally think it’s rude to go out of your way to ramble about how much you disagree with someone on their own post and 2) if this was an isolated incident I wouldn't care either way, so I didn’t want to direct this rant at anyone in particular. It’s more to do with a tendency, primarily (as far as I can tell) from fans who haven’t had much contact with Chinese culture, to oversimplify Meng Shi and make her relationship with Meng Yao slightly disturbing, and I think part of it is due to CQL basically cutting out her entire storyline (so fans simply don’t have info about her to assess her fairly) and part is due to misunderstanding what a good parent is supposed to act like in the context of Ancient China.

[Of course, Ancient China is not a very useful historical concept, not any more than “ye olde Europe” - things change a lot based on time and place - but you know. It’s fantasy. Extremely broad trends are okay in this case.]

Anyway, the idea behind the posts I mentioned is, basically, that Meng Shi (usually through no fault of her own) is to blame for Meng Yao’s obsession with power, since his desire for approval was inherited from lessons she taught him. Just to start with, I’d argue that Meng Yao isn’t power-hungry as much as he craves security and respect, but that’s a different meta. Let’s assume that she really did teach him to be Like That. Was she wrong to do so? I’m not looking for “does that make for a happy, well-adjusted childhood?” or “would you raise your own son as Meng Shi did?” - I’m trying to figure out, would she have been considered a bad mother in the context of the society she lived in? I don’t think she would’ve.

It is surprisingly hard to find texts about the obligations of parents in Ancient China. Their main obligation is to raise filial children, but I feel like that’s not very useful: whether or not parents are good parents, children are expected to be filial, so a child being filial really says more about the child than about the parent. Maybe the parent completely missed the mark and society at large was what taught the child to be filial!

We can assume, of course, that parents were to raise good people, and that by learning what a good person looked like, we could figure out whether the parent was successful, but once again, I feel like that’s pinning things on the outcome, not on the process - the best of parents can end up with an awful kid and vice versa.

While thinking about all this, it took me a frankly embarrassing amount of time to remember the story of Mother Meng and Meng Zi, but once I did, it wouldn’t leave my mind - in part because the Meng here is the exact same Meng of Meng Shi and Meng Yao (yay! fun if useless parallel!), and in part because this is a story about how a woman can successfully raise a son by herself.

Okay, so important note: one of the most influential ancient Chinese thinkers is Meng Zi (孟子 Mèng Zǐ), who is known in the West as Mencius. If you've never heard of him - he's perhaps second in importance only to Confucius. When Mencius was still a young child, his father died, so he was raised by his mother, who is usually known only as Mother Meng (in Chinese, 孟母 Mèng Mǔ.)

Mother Meng's story is told in Biographies of Exemplary Women (列女傳 Liènǚ Zhuàn), which for around 2000 years beginning around the 18th century BCE, was the most commonly used book used to educate women. The book is divided into sections, each one showing a different way women could be honorable and good. Mother Meng's story is told in the Maternal Models section (母儀傳 Mǔ Yí Zhuàn.) The story has a few parts, some of which I'll quote, always from Kinney's 2014 translation.

Before I go on to quote it, though, I'd like to establish that Mother Meng's story is so, so famous that even if Meng Shi had never read this particular book, I'm almost certain she would've been familiar with at least the outlines of Mother Meng's story. I'm not cherry picking a suitable chapter from the book, I'm literally going with the most famous story in it because Meng Shi would be most likely to know this one if she knew no other story.

Okay, the first part of the tale takes place when Mencius is a young boy and Mother Meng is a widow raising him.

The mother of Meng Ke of Zou [a different name for Mencius] was called Mother Meng. She lived near a graveyard. During Mencius’ youth, he enjoyed playing among the tombs, romping about pretending to prepare the ground for burials. Mother Meng said, “This is not the place to raise my son.” She therefore moved away and settled beside the marketplace. But there he liked to play at displaying and selling wares like a merchant. Again Mother Meng said, “This is not the place to raise my son,” and once more left and settled beside a school. There, however, he played at setting out sacrificial vessels, bowing, yielding, entering, and withdrawing. His mother said, “This, indeed, is where I can raise my son!” and settled there. When Mencius grew up, he studied the Six Arts, and finally became known as a great classicist. A man of discernment would say, “Mother Meng was good at gradual transformation.”

According to the translator's footnote, "gradual transformation" is "a childrearing technique, whereby a child is morally formed through daily exposure to correct models of behavior."

From this story comes the proverb 孟母三遷 (Mèng Mǔ sān qiān) - "Mother Meng moved three times." It's come to mean that a parent - especially the mother of a male child - should spare no efforts to provide an environment that will give their child a good education, paying particular attention to what models are surrounding them.

I'm sure I don't need to say if Meng Shi was at all familiar with this proverb (and she would probably be), she must have been very stressed out over literally raising her son in a brothel. (Here I must mention sex workers in ancient China were often essentially owned by the brothels, so literally "moving three times" wasn't really an option for Meng Shi even if she could miraculously pick up another trade.) Meng Shi did however at least try to surround Meng Yao with the accomplishments appropriate for the son of a cultivator:

Xiao-Meng, are you still learning those things lately? [...] The things your mom wants you to learn, things like calligraphy, etiquette, swordsmanship, meditation… How are those things going? [...] His mom’s raising him as a young master of a wealthy family. She taught him how to read and write, bought him all those swordsmanship pamphlets, and even wants to send him to school.

Meng Yao actually talks a little bit about “those swordsmanship pamphlets” in the only time in canon he directly shares memories about this mother:

Lan XiChen, “Your [guqin] skills are also considered quite fine outside of Gusu. Were they taught by your mother?”

Jin GuangYao, “No. I taught myself by watching others. She never taught me such things. She only taught me reading and writing, and bought a handful of expensive sword and cultivation guides for me to practice.”

Lan XiChen seemed surprised, “Sword and cultivation guides?”

Jin GuangYao, “Brother, you haven’t seen them before, have you? Those small booklets sold by the common folk. First jumbled sketches of human figures, then deliberately mystified captions.”

Lan XiChen shook his head, smiling. Jin GuangYao shook his head as well, “All of them are scams, especially to fool women like my mother and ignorant children. You won’t lose anything by practicing them, but you definitely won’t gain anything either.”

He sighed in a rueful way, “But how could my mother have known this? She bought them no matter how expensive they were, saying that if I returned to see my father in the future, I had to see him with as much competence as possible so that I don’t fall behind. All of the money was spent on this.”

See what’s happening? Meng Shi cannot physically take Meng Yao to cultivators, but she spares no efforts in giving him the closest thing she possibly can -- figuratively, we might say she moved three times.

Of course, these booklets don’t work, but as Meng Yao says, how could she have known this? The cultivation world is very closed off - think of how the entire Mo household gathers to see Lan juniors, and how Wei Wuxian mentions once that “Cultivation families, in the eyes of common folk, are like people favored by God, mysterious yet noble.” Not just noble, but mysterious. That tracks, too - I mean, they live in inaccessible households and mostly leave to night hunt or visit each other, neither of which is an activity that would allow commoners to get much more than an occasional glimpse of them.

Now, if Meng Shi doesn’t even know that a pearl for Jin Guangshan was just a trinket, if she doesn’t know even the wealth of a major sect, how can she read booklets and decide whether that’s genuine cultivation or not? All that she sees is a chance for Meng Yao to be surrounded by the ideas and skills of the people she wants him to emulate - cultivators - and therefore she does everything she can to get him that chance. Mother Meng moved three times.

Okay, but maybe the argument is not “Meng Shi shouldn’t have pushed Meng Yao to cultivation” but rather “she should’ve pushed him, just not too hard." To that, I present another tale from Mencius' childhood:

Once, when Mencius was young, he returned home after finishing his lessons and found his mother spinning. She asked him, “How far did you get in your studies today?” Mencius replied, “I’m in about the same place as I was before.” Mother Meng thereupon took up a knife and cut her weaving. Mencius was alarmed and asked her to explain. Mother Meng said, “Your abandoning your study is like my cutting this weaving. A man of discernment studies in order to establish a name and inquires to become broadly knowledgeable. By this means, when he is at rest, he can maintain tranquility and when he is active, he can keep trouble at a distance. If now you abandon your studies, you will not escape a life of menial servitude and will lack the means to keep yourself from misfortune. How is this different from weaving and spinning to eat? If one abandons these tasks midway, how can one clothe one’s husband and child and avoid being perpetually short of food? If a woman abandons that with which she nourishes others and a man is careless about cultivating his virtue, if they don’t become brigands or thieves, then they will end up as slaves or servants.” Mencius was afraid. Morning and evening he studied hard without ceasing. He served Zisi [a great scholar whose grandfather was Confucius] as his teacher and then became one of the most renowned classicists in the world.

Notice that Mother Meng moved three times to ensure Mencius would have the highest of aspirations - to become a scholar. But just aspiration isn’t enough. Not by any means. Now that Mencius is actually studying, Mother Meng is willing to take an extreme action to ensure he's taking it seriously. Mencius doesn't have a father to smooth his path to success. He has to learn that aspiring to greatness isn't enough. He'll have to put in the effort as if his life depended on it. And if he doesn't persist in his hard work, everything he's done thus far will be useless. Sounds like a lesson imparted on young Meng Yao, doesn’t it?

A lot of fandom rage towards Meng Shi would apply to China's Best Mom Contender, Mother Meng. She gives her son big dreams, and teaches him how to go about achieving them in a society where failing is easier than succeeding. Yes, it's fair to say that Meng Shi taught Meng Yao to refuse to settle for anything less than being “Jin Guangshan's son, a respected cultivator.” Yes, it's also fair to say that she probably didn't allow him much time to play like children his age did. But unfortunately, in the world of MDZS, poor children probably wouldn't get to play anyhow, the difference is that they'd usually be working, not studying. Studying is a privilege! It’s a privilege Meng Yao could not afford but was given to him anyway, through his mother’s many sacrifices. We can even say that while she was alive, Meng Shi was trying to ensure Meng Yao would one day have a better life, at the expense of a fun childhood - and that's very Mother Meng of her, whatever our modern Western sensibilities might have to say about that.

Finally, I’d skip other tales (which show Mother Meng and an adult Mencius) and go straight to the poem that ends the Mother Meng section:

The mother of Mencius

Was able to teach, transform, judge, and discriminate.

With skill she selected a place to raise her son,

Prompting him to accord with the great principles.

When her son’s studies did not advance,

She cut her weaving to illustrate her point.

Her son then perfected his virtue;

His achievements rank as the crowning glory of his generation.

I’d like to focus on the last verse - “His achievements rank as the crowning glory of his generation.” All that Mother Meng wanted was for Mencius to not completely ruin his life, but he became great. You can so very easily see a parallel with how Meng Shi hoped Meng Yao would be a cultivator but he became Jin Guangyao, Chief Cultivator, styled Lianfang-zun, one of the Three Venerable, hero of the Sunshot Campaign.

Of course you can say “Jin Guangyao did many Very Wrong Things to get there, though!” Which, sure, okay, fair point. How many and how wrong depends on which canon we're discussing, and your own interpretation, but there’s no version of the story in which Jin Guangyao is 100% an innocent child uwu. But blaming that on Meng Shi is just... straight up weird? I don’t see anyone going “If Jiang Fengmian hadn’t adopted Wei Wuxian, he’d never have dared become Yiling Laozu!” and that’s pretty much the same logic. Would street kid Wei Wuxian have invented a new type of cultivation if he had never been taken in by the Jiang? Probably not, but raising undead armies is very much not something Jiang Fengmian could’ve predicted. In the same way, how could Meng Shi have predicted that teaching her pre-adolescent son “You are the son of a cultivator, act like one and earn your place in society” would’ve ultimately resulted in innocent deaths? How could she predict “You’re not destined to having the same horrible life I did, you can get something better than this” was a bad thing to teach? I quite honestly don’t know.

Finally, I'd like to point towards a much flimsier evidence that Meng Shi did great as a parent. And that is Meng Yao’s love. Nie Huaisang at some point comments Meng Shi is someone who Meng Yao "cherishes more than his life," and I think his assessment is correct.

Even putting aside the fact he built a whole temple to get his mother to reincarnate into a better life, and even putting aside how he refuses to flee the country without her remains, there's still crystal clear evidence that Meng Shi must've done something right. Because a lifetime of people using his mother to bully him doesn't seem to have made Meng Yao resent her. Had their relationship not have been very strong, odds are he'd feel bitter and/or ashamed of her. That doesn't seem to be the case. He's attached to her even decades after her death.

I want to be very careful with equating mutual affection with good parenting, though. When I was a rather rebellious teenager, my mother (in typical Chinese fashion) used to say that parents and children don't have to love each other as long as they're dutiful to each other, by which she meant that a parent-child relationship isn't informed by warm and fuzzy feelings, but by whether you'd be willing to do anything for each other. Specific to my case, she meant "I don't care if it makes you hate me, you will do as you're told because that's what's best for you." (That may also be the reason why people more familiar with Chinese culture see the Jiang family less as outright abusive and more as #complicated, but that's another meta.)

Whether your kid wants to hug you every time they see you is of no consequence to traditional Chinese thought - raising them to be the best they can is all that matters, because at the end of the day, you won't be around forever, but you can definitely set up your kid's life so that it goes smoothly and virtuously. How that's accomplished varies depending on many factors, but to have the goal be "I want my child to love me" rather than "I want to raise my child right" would've been considered selfish as hell.

So even if all that Meng Shi had given Meng Yao had been stern lessons about the need to go get his birthright, she would've still have been considered a good mother!! In fact, she would've been doing everything she was supposed to do, under extremely difficult conditions! (Remember the importance of environment? That Meng Yao grew up to want to be a cultivator despite having probably never even met one speaks wonders about Meng Shi's childrearing powers!!)

But just based off how over the top Meng Yao's filal dutifulness is, I'd go a step further and say that even as she did the impossible, she was also loving enough to inspire genuine affection. This is complicated because children who have present fathers could expect their mothers to be tender with them. The first century BCE text 禮記 Lǐ Jì or The Classic of Rites says that:

Here now is the affection of a father for his sons - he loves the worthy among them, and places on a lower level those who do not show ability; but that of a mother for them is such, that while she loves the worthy, she pities those who do not show ability - the mother deals with them on the ground of affection and not of showing them honour; the father, on the ground of showing them honour and not of affection.

But when the father figure is lacking for any reason, the mother must abandon her tenderness because someone must guide the child, and without a father, the role falls to the mother. A single or widowed mother had to be very careful to not smother their children with affection and raise useless, spoiled kids, or so it was thought. (The presence of Qingheng-jun and Lan Qiren is why Madame Lan can be so affectionate with the Lan boys, by the way - if she was raising them by herself she would've been expected to be much more practical. AUs where she just gets her kids and runs away could do very cool things with this idea. But I digress!)

Where was I? Oh, okay. Because Meng Yao seems to not just respect, but actively miss her, it seems that Meng Shi somehow managed to deal with her son on the ground of both honor and affection, to paraphrase.

So basically, all things considered, it seems not only would Meng Shi have been considered a great mom (if people could look past her being a prostitute, anyway) but she also went above and beyond the bare minimum. She truly spared no efforts on any front to make sure her son had everything your average gongzi would have - someone to teach him and someone to love him, access to education and confidence in his birthright. That she couldn't actually make him a cultivator, that she couldn't actually raise him in a proper home with no one being cruel to herself or him - that's immaterial. Even Mother Meng couldn't control what her neighbors did, only what she taught her son! The key point is Meng Shi tried. She did everything she could to educate her son right. You couldn't ask more of her, and quite honestly, you should probably be asking less.

Of course we can't err on the other extreme and say she was Perfect. Given MXTX only ever writes flawed characters, we can safely assume that if we'd known more about Meng Shi, we would've seen many flaws. Indeed, just the fact she didn't teach Meng Yao the guqin when he apparently wanted to learn it might point to some conflict we don't know enough to speculate about (maybe she focused too much on cultivation when Meng Yao's interests lay elsewhere? Maybe she wasn't able to sufficiently shelter him and he felt it'd be a burden to ask her to teach him anything? Maybe maybe maybe, go wild with your fics.) Nevertheless, I would never hold a female character to a higher ideal than a male character - if the male cast of MDZS can be a hot mess and still be admirable for what they're trying to do, then so can Meng Shi.

At the end of the day, when I look at Meng Shi - and I've made myself a document with all the references to her in the novel canon so I could easily contemplate her life and character - all I see is a woman every bit as determined and resourceful as her son, willing to do everything it took to raise her little boy into the sophisticated and ambitious man he became.

Finally, here's a fun little parallel that I'm 100% sure was unintentional but I still love. I said Meng Shi couldn't have moved three times. She couldn't, but I think maybe she taught her son he was worth moving three times for. Qinghe Nie. Qishan Wen. Lanling Jin. Isn't that super fun to think about?

Alternatively, tl;dr: Oh My God I Can't Believe We're Blaming Women For The Actions Of Their Adult Children In The Year Of Our Lord 2k21, Meng Shi Was Doing Her Best, Chill!

#drinking game #take a shot every time i say 'finally'#this post refused to let me get to the end of it lol #i think because i'm extremely salty about fanon stage mom meng shi #(to not say tiger mom meng shi which crosses into outright racism. but i'm giving people the benefit of the doubt)

157 notes · View notes

kob131 · 2 years

Text

My Thoughts on Certain RWBYtubers

Just gonna post this here to make this stuff known. I could also be completely wrong here. Go ahead and correct me if I’m wrong.

Fatmanfalling: I hate his videos. They are far too long with him just repeating the same fucking points over and over again. I would almost think they are long on purpose to make them hard to debunk as going through an hour and a half and debunking it point by point or analyzing it enough to properly condense it down is really hard.

But to be honest, I have a history with the guy. If you’ve seen that screenshot of his of a guy arguing about quality- that was me. I was not very mature when I began arguing in this fandom. I don’t really regret fighting him (he’s still a dumbass) but that doesn’t make what I did right.

Celtic Phoenix Productions: Maybe Fixing RWBY could be something if he would do something brave for once, remove all elements of RWBY and just go full on original. The lore and history videos could make something. But so long as it’s attached to RWBY as ‘RWBY but better’ it will never be anything but an inferior RWBY. Because to be something but better you have to conform to its niche because that defines what a piece of media is.

That’s why something like Berserk and TTGL can be so vastly different but still be great- they try to achieve different things. But with Fixing RWBY, it’s like Netflix’s Death Note and the original- doesn’t matter what qualities the first may have, it’s reliant on fulfilling the second and fails because it can’t. And I don’t think Celtic has enough humility to acknowledge that.

Calxyin: Her voice and demeanor give me a headache. Not likee one of frustration or hate but one of ‘your voice is too high and you’re too peppy’. I don’t talk about her much because it’s literally painful for me.

MuffinManDan: No idea if he’s still around but whether he’s positive or negative- I do not like him in the slightest. Unlike the others I mentioned or will mention where I can at least believe that they geniunely mean what they say, MuffinManDan’s actions proved to me he didn’t believe a word he said. He would misrepresent what the show said, what I said and what he said just to look good. And the moment it became more profitable for him to praise RWBY, he did just that.

MMD doesn’t even have what little credit I can give others.

Vexed Viewer: Vexed is what happens when you treat blatantly false crap as the second coming of Christ. His video tend to only work if you already agree with him or have no understanding of how media works. Seriously, his ‘Stupid For The Sake Of The Plot” videos break in half when you remember human error.

There was also that time where Vexed tried saying that Pietro putting part of his Aura in Penny and then calling her daughter was creepy...despite that being a common trope in man creating self aware creation stories. He also brought up race in that. Which...I have no idea how to interpret that as anything but racist. ... Moving on.

Unicorn of War: Political asshat who started sucking off the show when he felt pandered to (Bumbleby) and then stopped for whatever reason. His videos are also pretty simplistic and ill thought out whether good or bad. Also, he made Ciel Pietro’s daughter in his Volume 8 rewrite because, and I quote, ‘There’s the issue of a black man making a white girl as the default.’

... Remember when Monty said there was no Asia? I miss those days...

Hero Hei: Take everything I said about MMD, invert the flip about RWBY and add in clickbait and political bullshit. That’s HH.

Judgemental Critter and Twiins Iink: Grouping these two together-

Twiins Iink made a video about Adam stans not moving on, which is a stance I agree with...then made me play defense for them by how bad the video was. And Critter once said that scene of James in V7 E2 where he strides up to Oscar, thinking he’s Ozpin and clearly desperate for his leader...was ‘Dad energy’.

... And this is their average.

Overall- You should really just look for RWBY channels under 1k subscribers. They’re not likely to be super dumb or selling you what you want to hear.

26 notes · View notes

riddlecrux · 3 years

Text

The quiet power of emotions - a study of Azriel's feelings (part one)

I would love to preface this meta with my favorite disclaimer that everything I will discuss is based on what I have gathered from SJM writing. The quotes used in this post will serve as a starting point for further analysis. Additionally, I will use symbolism, metaphors, and literary device methods to build up my reasoning and beliefs. On another note, this, as usual, is strictly pro-Elriel meta. If they are not your cup of tea and you wish to comment, please be civil and bring arguments supported by the text.

I've wanted to study Azriel’s behavior in ACOFAS, since it's an official novella and it was translated and published in many countries. Since it has come to my attention that some people say that without Azriel's POV, Elriel wouldn't have anything to be based on (which is totally wrong) I decided to tackle Azriel's behavior and show how he had exhibited his feelings for Elain even before ACOSF came out. The scene I would like to start with this series (meta series if I may call it that way) is the one where Rhys and Azriel talk about Illyria, Jurian, and Vassa. Rhys constantly observes Azriel, and he decides to drop this.

“Send Lucien, then. As our human emissary.” I studied the tenseness in Azriel’s shoulders, the shadows veiling half of him from the sunlight. “Lucien is away right now.”

We can see that Azriel is uncomfortable. He's tense and he even shields himself from Rhys' prying gaze. It's all because Lucien was mentioned - which is a bit telling at this point.

Az’s brows rose. “Where?” I winked at him. “You’re my spymaster. Shouldn’t you know?”

Rhys is kind of testing the waters as well, you can say he's railing up Azriel to bring some reaction. However, the question is why would he? What is the reason behind this behavior? It came out of nowhere in the novella, so it's even more surprising to us to reflect upon it, taking into account what transpired in the bonus POV in ACOSF.

Az crossed his arms, face as elegant and cold as the legendary dagger at his side. “I don’t make a point of looking after his movements.” “Why?” Not a flicker of emotion. “He is Elain’s mate.”

I highlighted Azriel's body language because it's very important. Here we have the notion of crossing arms, which can mean that someone is anxious, resistant, tense, insecure, afraid, or defensive. As we can pinpoint some of these emotions are present in this particular scene - Azriel definitely shields himself up, not only by physically crossing arms but also in the indignation of his expressionless face. The fascinating thing is the addition of the comparison between Azriel's cold face and his legendary dagger - which only further solidifies that Truth Teller is in fact a big part of Shadowsinger. Summarizing up with what we got from these passages we have: - tenseness - obstructing oneself from the view - defensive stance - crossing arms - coldness - emotionless

I waited. “It would be an invasion of her privacy to track him.” To know when and if Lucien sought her out. What they did together.

Here comes my favorite part in this conversation - Rhys seeing himself in Azriel at that moment and Azriel keeping in mind Elain's privacy and agency. Some people try to paint Azriel as some sort of a toxic guy, who is so traumatized that he doesn't value anyone but himself. I'm wondering where this reasoning came from - since nothing exclusively supports that theory. It's clear that Azriel shows respect towards Elain, as stated above in the quotes - even if at this moment, he is clearly showing signs of jealousy. Which, once again is totally fine. All bat boys showed jealousy throughout the books, and every one of them loved their significant other with all their flaws and weaknesses. But going back to the quote, we are met with the assumption about Azriel's decision of not spying on Lucien - given by Rhysand. Nevertheless, something must have had triggered such response to Azriel's behavior and his stance - that's why I strongly believe that Rhys knew what Azriel felt like (in ACOFAS he's testing the waters, trying to see if his assumptions are right or wrong, in ACOSF he pulls a rank because of the consequences of the possible outcome with Lucien being so close.)

“You sure about that?” I asked quietly. Azriel’s Siphons guttered, the stones turning as dark and foreboding as the deepest sea. “Where did Lucien go.”

Rhys noticed and understood that his assumptions about Azriel's feelings and emotions are correct, that's why his tone changed. He is constantly observing and giving us very detailed descriptions of the changes undergoing in Azriel's persona while discussing Lucien (and inwardly Elain.) Now, let's look at the metaphor used to underline his emotions in relation to his Siphons. Azriel’s Siphons guttered, the stones turning as dark and foreboding as the deepest sea. - gutter - flicker and burn unsteadily - foreboding - a feeling that something bad will happen; fearful apprehension

SJM used these words in such a situation - a whole sentence that indicates turmoil that is happening inside Azriel. Behind his aloof expression, we got to know that his emotions are restless, that what he is experiencing is sound and present at this moment. We see that by the description of his Siphons - turning dark at the mention of Lucien's possible whereabouts. We don't necessarily know what Azriel thought - if it was apprehension connected to the possibility of Lucien being in the same house, near Elain, or even somewhere where Azriel wouldn't have expected him to be. Judging by the course of the conversation, I would be inclined to believe that it was thought of Lucien being close to Elain.

I straightened at the pure order in the words. But I said, voice slipping into a drawl, “He went to the Spring Court. He’ll be there for Solstice.”

As we are in Rhys POV we can see that he has been caught off guard by the way Azriel delivers his line, yet he masks it with a drawl. Was it because something that Rhys suspected came true? As in, for example, some validation about Azriel and Elain's relationship? We can guess, however, the text clearly states that Rhys was somehow surprised by the tone of his friend. The pure order is what initially made me reread ACOFAS and this scene few times since it carries a heavy chunk of foreshadowing, but also the weight of Azriel's emotions.

Azriel doesn't let anything on his face, which is almost devoid of emotions while talking to Rhys about Lucien - yet, we get so many descriptions about the way his tone changes, his body language, his Siphons, and gaze. Even if he doesn't show externally that he is feeling all those emotions, that doesn't mean that he lacks them. Because, clearly what we have in the text, suggests that Azriel exhibits symptoms of jealousy. This is completely understandable since in the books we get to know that he and Elain have already started getting to know each other off the pages. Another interesting thing is, how structured and written this scene is. We have an insight into Rhysand's thoughts and he is thinking about Feyre and Tamlin.

With Tamlin, it was more complicated than that. More complicated than I let myself usually dwell on. He was still in love with Feyre. I couldn’t blame him for it. Even if it made me want to rip out his throat. I shoved the thought away.

Rhysand acknowledges the fact that the whole thing with Tamlin is complicated, as he repeats in his mind - the situation was something that literally destroyed one of the Courts. It's also peculiar and worth noticing that Rhys is aware of the love Tamlin has for Feyre, and even if he knows that, he is ready to kill Tamlin.

In the contrast, the talk is about Azriel, Lucien, and... Elain. Another triangle that is, in fact, complicated.

“I’ll discuss Vassa and Jurian with Lucien when he returns. See if he’s up for another visit.” I angled my head. “Do you think he can handle being around Graysen?” Az’s expressionless face was precisely the reason he’d never lost to us at cards. “Why should I be the judge of that?”

Rhys asks about Lucien and how Azriel sees him behaving around Graysen, which in my opinion is another instance of testing Spymaster. I angled my head, which is what Rhysand does and synonym to angle is tilt. Once again we are going to look at what does body language says about it. It can indicate curiosity, suspicion, and in some cases even uncertainty. In this particular moment, I believe it's curiosity mixed with suspicion - Rhys has been observing Azriel the moment he changed the subject of the conversation to Lucien. We also have another description of Azriel's expressionless face - showing us, readers, that Rhys notes the changes in his behavior. Azriel even proceeds with questioning his friend about the purpose of that inquiry and how he of all people is the one who is capable of being a judge in this case. I think we can see it as some sort of dodging, stalling even.

“You mean to tell me that you weren’t bluffing when you said you didn’t track Lucien’s every movement?” Nothing. Absolutely nothing on that face, on his scent. The shadows, whatever the hell they were, hid too well. Too much. Azriel only said coldly, “If Lucien kills Graysen, then good riddance.”

Even if Azriel is described as expressionless and almost emotionless in this scene, we do see the moments when his feelings came up to the surface. Just like here, Azriel bottles down his anger and other emotions, letting out only his coldness. However, the question is why? Why so much iciness and apprehension? If the conversation and subjects of it weren't important to him, he would have probably behaved as usual - with his aloofness, but not necessarily hostility hid behind the frostiness. What's even more notable is the fact that Rhys comments about how his shadows hid his emotions/feelings, even on his scent. Azriel did it on purpose, he covered himself so he wouldn't be detected - or better to say to cover up his true emotions that Rhysand could have easily spotted. The biggest tell about it is the addition of "too much". If there wasn't anything to hide or the emotions under the cover were vain or small - Rhysand wouldn't have had added that thought.

No. Sort of. “I’d think bankrolling her apartment and drinking was gift enough.” Az ran a hand through his dark hair. “Are we …” Unusual for him to stumble with words. “Are we supposed to get the sisters presents?”

The conversation changes its topic - and Rhys starts to discuss sisters and presents. We see that Azriel's first reaction is rooted in body language. He is running his hand through his hair which suggests nervousness, frustration, stress, or even a sign of disagreement over whatever is being said. From all these things I think we can lean towards nervousness the most or even frustration - since just before that leap of the topic he was immersed deep down inside his feelings and tried to mask his true emotions about Lucien and Elain. Another thing is that Rhysand also notices that it's unusual for Azriel to stutter, stumble with his words which he does after he runs his hand through his hair. He's nervous.

“No,” I said, and meant it. Az seemed to loose a sigh of relief. Seemed to, since all but a breath of air passed from his lips. “I don’t think Nesta gives a shit, and I don’t think Elain expects to receive anything from us. I’d leave the sisters to exchange presents amongst themselves.” Az nodded distantly.

Rhysand doesn't even know if he can call Azriel's sigh a sigh since it seems that all it was, was just a short exhale. I do think that it was a sigh - of relief. However, we can speculate about what the relief is connected to. If it is for not buying gifts or maybe because the conversation steered in another direction and all these pent-up emotions, feelings, and even frustrations could finally be released? What's clear is that Azriel feels a lot, in this scene particularly. He is hiding it behind his shadows, obstructing it from Rhys, but also from the reader's point of view. Nevertheless, SJM used an enormous chunk of body language to show us what Azriel is feeling - jealousy. Another thing is that he seemed to think about what's being said about sisters and their gifts - because he was described to be nodding distantly.

Az nodded knowingly. He’d always understood me best—more than the others. Save my mate. Whether it was his gifts that allowed him to do so, or merely the fact that he and I were more similar than most realized, I’d never learned.

I love this quote and that it comes from Rhysand's POV as well. It shows that Rhysand knew and his suspicions were, in fact, correct - because he probably saw himself and his infatuation with Feyre in the way Azriel behaved with Elain. I do also think that it will come back in the next book - the bond between Azriel and Rhysand, and probably some of the small fallout because of what had happened with them in Azriel's POV. SJM put Lucien, Elain, and Azriel in here, while Rhysand thought about his situation with Feyre and Tamlin. Two triangles, two different, complicated outcomes, and relationships. Forbidden romance? Yes. Politically connected? Yes. Could start a war? Yes. There are so many similarities between them.

The thing with Azriel is that his feelings aren't over the top - he's not vocal about them. The power of his emotions lies in the quietness and his actions. If we sat back and looked at scenes in which he acts towards Mor or Elain, we can see that his strength in loving someone isn't connected to words, but rather than that - presence and behavior.

#elriel #pro elriel #elain and azriel #elain x azriel #pro azriel #elriel meta #elriel theory #azriel

135 notes · View notes

telehxhtrash · 4 years

Text

I tend to see a lot of people say that Togashi will leave things uncertain and ambiguous in between Killua and Gon, and while it’s a possibility, I honestly don’t think it’s the most likely thing to happen, and if it did, ambiguous wouldn’t be the correct term to call it.

People often say that Togashi likes to play with ambiguity when it comes to queer matters. Yes, Togashi likes to play with gender. We get to see that through Kite, Pitou and Kalluto in HxH (although its arguable because Kite is definitely not cis). But when Togashi decides that a character is queer, or that there is a relationship going on between two characters, he doesn’t leave it ambiguous.

Togashi has created queer characters in 3 of his main works : Yu Yu Hakusho, Level E and Hunter x Hunter. And everytime he created those characters, he made damn sure that everyone knew that these characters were queer. No room for any sort of ambiguity.

The first examples I have are from Yu Yu Hakusho, with a character named Miyuki, and the other is from Level E, with a character named Kyoko Mikihisa.

For these two characters, Togashi made it so that they emphasized themselves that they were trans. It’s painted extremely clearly, that they were born in the wrong body. There’s literally no room for any sort of ambiguity here.

Togashi could’ve easily kept things ambiguous. There are plenty of ways he could’ve done it, keeping the character’s gender confusing. But he didn’t. He made it EXTRA clear that these characters were trans. This is mostly why I genuinely don’t believe you can describe Togashi’s queer rep as “ambiguous”. Because when the characters tell you themselves that they are, it’s canon. It’s not ambiguous.

Now, sometimes, Togashi likes to play it more subtle. He doesn’t make his characters say “I’m gay” or “I’m trans”, but he finds another way to say it.

In YYH, Togashi wrote a gay character : Itsuki. And he’s canonically gay, because when talking about another man, Sensui, he mentions that he sees him as a lover.

It’s subtle. It’s not ambiguous.

Same thing for Alluka, Alluka never comes on screen and says “I’m a trans girl !”. The reason we know that Alluka is canonically a trans girl is because the Zoldycks insist on misgendering her, while Killua emphasizes that she’s a girl.

And once again, it’s subtle. Not ambiguous. Even though I’ve seen a lot of redditors say that “Alluka’s gender is ambiguous”, Togashi is literally doing his utmost to highlight subtly that yes, Alluka is a trans girl.

But subtlety is not canon’s enemy. Not everything has to be painted clearly for it to be canon. Sometimes, you just have to piece every little clue together yourself. Just because the word “trans” is never canonically stated in HxH concerning Alluka, it doesn’t make her any less of a trans girl. Because as the audience, we UNDERSTOOD from the subtext and from the clash in gendering that she is trans.

So, yes, Togashi likes to be subtle. But subtlety doesn’t make things any less canon.

I’m drifting a bit to non-queer matters, but I also want to talk about two relationships in Togashi’s work that were canonically romantic, but subtle.

The first is Meruem and Komugi. It’s canon that the nature of their relationship was romantic. They never did couple-y things, or even kissed. But it doesn’t make the nature of their relationship ambiguous. Because it was once again, subtle, but drowning in subtext that Togashi deliberately put there.

Togashi paralleled Killua saying that him dying with Gon would be a shinjuu (lover’s suicide), only for it to not happen in the end - but Togashi wanted to throw that word in. So we could have it at the back of our heads. Because when Meruem and Komugi died, it was a shinjuu. It was two lovers dying by the same method with the belief that they’d be united in the afterlife. Meruem only cared about spending his last moments playing with Komugi. They both said that they were only born to experience this moment, of being in pure bliss as they die together. When Komugi replies to Meruem and says that she’ll join him in death, she uses an old phrasing used to accept marriages proposals. They died holding hands.

It was subtle, but canon. Because of all these clues and all the subtext Togashi planted, it is undeniable that their relationship was romantic. And they never kissed, never said “i love you”, but we still know : and that’s the beauty of subtlety.

Because yes, romance can be subtle AND canon.

Another example of a canon romantic relationship that was never officialized by a kiss : Keiko and Yusuke in Yu Yu Hakusho. Correct me if I’m wrong, but while they kissed in the anime, they never kiss in the manga.

But a relationship doesn’t need to be canonized by a kiss. I’ve never seen/read YYH, but while I was doing research, I read that their relationship grew naturally over the course of the manga. That they grew together, were affectionate with each other, but never told each other the nature of their feelings. Until one specific moment towards the end of the manga where this happens:

All of this came naturally. No big confession, just a confirmation of what they both felt. And no kiss either ! No hand holding, no true “romantic” actions, either before or after that chapter. Just feelings. I’m quoting one of the post I used as reference, but “On one hand it's beautiful to finally hear it, but on the other, it's not even surprising. You find yourself caught off guard by how easily you're willing to accept that these two have felt this way throughout the entire series.”

And while it’s subtle, because you’d expect at least a kiss or something, it’s canon and undeniable that their relationship is romantic. It’s clear that the two of them are in love, even if they never kissed. Because it was clear from the beginning that this was where their relationship was going : all the building up to that one moment where they both basically tell each other “oh yeah, btw, i love you”. A simple confirmation of what they both knew, and of what we as readers knew too.

I guess my point is that Togashi can insist on the nature of his characters and relationships. He insisted that Miyuki, Mikihisa and Alluka were trans. But sometimes he also likes to be subtle, and not put everything plainly. But the subtlety doesn’t discredit its the canon legitimacy.

Now, onto what it means for Killua and Gon.

I emphasized that Togashi liked to highlight when his characters are queer. There are absolutely NO DOUBTS that Miyuki and Alluka are trans girls, Mikihisa a trans man and that Itsuki was gay. It’s in canon. But they were all brought up differently, and it was either confirmed by them saying it themselves or by the context and subtext surrounding their queer identity.

But Togashi never left it ambiguous. We always had canon confirmation that they were queer. What I’m saying is, there’s a very, very high probability that Killua is gay and in love with Gon. We’ve seen it in the incredible amount of subtext deliberately placed by Togashi. And like I said, Togashi never left the nature of his queer characters ambiguous. So it’s highly likely that Togashi will confirm in canon at some point that Killua is gay.

Now, while it’s likely Togashi will canonize Killua being queer plainly by either him saying it or subtext (just like Alluka), it doesn’t mean that his relationship with Gon will be canonized plainly too.

I mentioned earlier that Komugi/Meruem and Keiko/Yusuke’s relationships were subtle, while undeniably romantic. So maybe this will be the case for Killua and Gon’s relationship too. It looks like Togashi’s style for writing romance is show, not tell, thus making it a possibility that it’ll be the same for Killua and Gon.

But I can assert with 100% certainty that Togashi will NOT leave their relationship ambiguous. Maybe it’ll be subtle, but NOT ambiguous. Just like Meruem/Komugi and Yusuke/Keiko.

Killua and Gon’s relationship is the backbone of HxH, and it’s very clear that Togashi’s intent from the beginning of the story was to canonize it as a love story. When Togashi wrote Killua, he incorporated elements of Tanabata, a legend about two lovers, in his story, and made Tanabata his birthday. Togashi queer coded Killua from the beginning, and I honestly doubt that he would never canonize it, when it was his intent to queer code him from the beginning. He made the both of them have an extremely deep relationship, being each other’s most important person. Combine this with all the subtext, and yeah, it’s pretty clear that HxH is a love story.

So yes, Togashi wouldn’t leave ambiguous something he planned from the beginning of the story. Especially since HxH is his first chance at writing a manga and being able to do everything he wants with it. Especially when Togashi’s gay manga got turned down 30 years ago.

I mentioned Togashi never leaving stuff ambiguous, but rather either putting it plainly or more subtly. And honestly, I’m thinking it’s going to be a mix of both for Killua and Gon. A mix of subtlety and undeniable proof of the romantic nature of their relationship. Exactly like Yusuke and Keiko’s relationship.

I feel like Killua and Gon’s relationship perfectly mirrors Yusuke and Keiko’s, and I can totally picture it following the same patterns. By having their relationship grow even deeper as they reunite, with no explicit romantic gestures, just deep, deep feelings. Until ultimately, they both confirm it one way or another.

I could literally picture Gon turning to Killua, telling him out of the blue something they’ll do when they get married, Killua being confused but Gon saying something like “Well, I wanna get married to you Killua. Don’t you want to?” and Killua almost choking but saying that yeah, he’d like that. Plain and simple. No romantic gesture. No kiss, no hand holding, no feelings confession under the stars. Just a mutual assessment of what they both already knew.

But honestly, I’m saying all this to try and be objective, but I’m not in Togashi’s head. Togashi could also very much go absolutely crazy and make Killua and Gon share a kiss, hold hands, affirm their love out loud, Because it’s his first chance at being free to do what he wants with his manga. And because he’s been wanting to draw a gay manga for a while, he might want to emphasize that HxH is queer.

Especially when it seems like Togashi likes to incorporate shoujo elements in his work.

And as @/sincerelysamedt mentioned in her wonderful post, queer relationships are often dismissed as platonic in media, and that it’s important to overplay it to canonize it efficiently. And Togashi is probably aware of this. Hence Killua’s stuttering, blushing, the constant gay poetic lines Gon tells Killua about how he’s so glad he met him, Killua’s inner monologues comparing Gon to light itself, multiple characters highlighting their mutual love, a date under the stars where they mutually affirm their want to stay together and travel the world while they both blush.........Togashi didn’t have to go THIS hard, but he did.

These panels highlight the difference between the subtle relationships I talked about above. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think Togashi represented Yusuke or Keiko having internal monologues about how they wanted to stay with the other forever or poetically comparing each other to light. It proves that while Togashi likes to play it subtle, he's also not afraid to put extremely cliché shoujo tropes and heartfelt moments in his narrative too. Maybe he’s aware that internalized homophobia might pose a problem to the narrative he’s trying to convey, and thus he might be enclined to overplay it.

When you keep in mind that Togashi most likely wrote Killua and Gon with the intent of making their relationship a love story, you can see that he’s never really written with the intent of being ambiguous or even subtle, providing us with multiple intense scenes of mutual devotion. And that’s one thing that’s leading me to believe he wouldn’t shy away from delivering highly emotional scenes that would canonize their mutual love. Because their relationship has never truly been portrayed as subtle, or ambiguous, it’s just.... developing.

So yeah, it could go either way ! Either Togashi will decide to paint it subtly like every relationship he’s painted in the past, or he’ll either decide to go all out and maybe show us an extremely heartfelt confession under the stars, maybe even an on-screen kiss (the latter option being highly likely considering all the very emotional scenes between them we’ve already had) - (EDIT : i wrote a post on why i believe there’ll be an explicit confession if you want to read it !)

But one thing is certain : it will never stay ambiguous, because Togashi has never painted any of his queer characters or the relationships between his characters as ambiguous, Subtle, yes. Ambiguous, no.

#hxh #hxh meta #meta #my meta #killugon #ok hi hello this is my attempt at trying to stay optimistic #full disclaimer that i am not togashi and therefore i dont know wtf is gonna happen #but im pretty sure that togashi wouldnt leave this ambiguous #when u look at his past history and writing style and the context of hxh #when u see how apeshit he went with all the romantic scenes in hxh #imo killugon is not ambiguous its literally just developing #and togashi has NEVER left major relationships ambiguous in his works #he wouldnt leave the backbone of his manga ambiguous #especially when hes planned to canonize it from the beginning #hes just taking his time to portray it in a very heartfelt and natural way #but i have no doubt in my mind that by the end of hxh itll be undeniable #just like his past portrayal of relationships and queer characters #im HOPEFUL #and he might do like his wife did : emphasize the canon legitimacy in an interview

1K notes · View notes