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found--family · 2 years ago

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i finally finished Bridgewater season 2!

(i know i'm way behind but i was listening on my drive to and from work but then i lost my job and suddenly listening at home felt weird but i binged the last handful of eps this long weekend so now i wanna share some thoughts..)

best finale bits:

- realising francine was spn alumn/battlestar galactica's tricia helfer (wish I'd realised this sooner bc i think i would've enjoyed her character more)

- jeremy becoming an unexpected father to a time travelling kid he spent the whole season vocally not giving a shit about (serious s13!grieving!dean vibes here)

- the setup for season 3! would love to get some pov from folks in the fae realm!

best s2 bits:

- aside from misha, soni has been my fave thing about this series (his voice acting is So Good) and this season we got more vippin and more of him interacting with other characters!

- learning more about jeremy: he visited fairyland as a kid! he was a teen wiccan! he just wants a friend! he's happy without a partner and kids! (the phonecall to his british colleague was a fave scene)

- peyton! wish we'd gotten more of her, hope she returns next season.

- more hillary! she's not in it much but we got a few long scenes with her and it was great to hear her flex her voice acting chops.

- tudyk! i was sceptical at first (i'd really been looking forward to fillion) but he was stellar. his distinct voice is perfect for voice acting and his vocal control and timing was really superb. his and misha's scenes were a highlight but there were also a few delightful and emotional scenes with other characters (including a makeover!)

- MONSTERS. one of the huge draws of this podcast for me was the supernatural element. this season had a bunch of different creatures appear and there were mentions of way more that had me googling and learning so much (yay fic fodder!)

a few s2 cons (imho):

- this season is a lot compared to season 1. more characters, more plot, more at stake. it was hard to keep up with what was going on specifically with all the fae stuff. i had to relisten to numerous scenes multiple times to grasp what was happening.

- it kinda feels like season 1 was written not knowing how everything would play out bc all the fae stuff feels shoehorned into the relevant parts of the s1 narrative. they make it work but some explanations seemed like a bit of a stretch.

- as much as i love her on-screen, i didn't really enjoy helfer in this. i don't know whether it's because i found her character annoying from the jump or if it was her vocal style being a little too overdramatic and on the nose (that could've been a director's decision in which case it makes sense, but i really didn't enjoy her personality as the legend tripper or her almost comical portrayal as fae)

- the finale was a lot of exposition, and it got very convoluted with different characters wanting to sacrifice themselves over each other, and the whole fae deal thing was still unclear and confusing despite being explained. tbh i was bored for most of it.

- the first 19 minutes of the finale was an uninterrupted convo between jeremy and francine. that's too long, it's half the damn episode. and francine was doing most of the talking (almost monologuing) and since she's the badguy of the season it felt like a poor choice (or maybe that's just my bias for not liking her portrayal?)

- anne and thomas going through the portal made total sense and I'm glad that's what happened bc thomas was sick and anne had missed her life BUT that made all the arguments over who should go that much more pointless. the arguments felt like filler, going round in circles with people ignoring each other's sound reasoning.

- there were quite a few noticeable editing mistakes this season: chopped dialogue poorly stitched together, misspoken words, and dead air that did nothing to set the tone but instead felt like they hadn't bothered fixing.

closing thoughts:

i preferred the mystery of season 1. this season was a lot of focus on the how's and why's of all the monster and fae stuff with character studies crammed between, whereas season 1 was more concise in the investigation and character focus and there was always room to wonder what was going on (i preferred that) but there was also room for the narrative to breathe; season 2 is crowded. it's a lot of fast dialogue and info dumping, a lot of characters - some interesting, some annoying, a few pointless. I'd listen again for clarity and enjoyment of particular scenes and dynamics, but more often than not i found myself confused, left with more questions than answers, and therefore not being able to enjoy the journey. there were definite high points, including the many monster cameos, but it lost that eery feel that season 1 did so well; this season felt like multiple genres rolled into one with all of them fighting for dominance - horror, fantasy, drama, mystery - whereas season 1 melded themes and genres effortlessly. season 2 also didn't have the emotional chords that season 1 played so beautifully (I'm looking at you, emotional jeremy realising his whole life was a lie) the finale should've been a tear-jerker, it wasn't.

it's always hard to follow the success of a first season, especially when the second decides to explain all the mysteries season 1 set up - and given how season 1 ended there was a lot that needed explaining. unfortunately (for me) the story felt caught up in the details and yet it explained things without explaining things leaving me wanting for clarity that never came. often it didn't bother setting the tone (or an intriguing tone) and more characters meant less misha which is always disheartening.

i'm looking forward to season 3 with papa!jeremy(?) and fae realm content (I'd love more fae) i just hope they can recapture the thematic feel of season 1 (it can be a different vibe but it has to permeate the narrative) and refocus on our main folk (jeremy, vippin, anne, thomas, olivia) instead of introducing too many new characters and elements that will steal more scene time.

#Bridgewater #thoughts #spoilers #honest review

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mrsgojosatoru · 2 years ago

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Wrt woc Daenerys, I’ve pictured her as not-white since book 1 because with Khal Drogo she rides in the hot desert sun everyday, yet there’s never any mention of a sun burn or any damage to her skin. The only description of her skin after riding through the Dothraki desert and Red Waste calls her ‘pale.’ I’m mixed but light skinned, and even I’d get sunburnt if I was riding through a desert everyday with no shade. Imo Dany is definitely a woman of color, plus her story just makes more sense that way.

Actually there's a description of her in book one that describes her as so tanned she's mistaken for Dothraki! Let me trot out my copy of AGOT real quick.

“The merchant must have taken her for Dothraki, with her clothes and her oiled hair and sun-browned skin.”

So there is actually our first description of Daenerys after traveling in the sun for days on end.

And her story does make more sense. She's a refugee, a daughter of a diaspora, a slave who rises to power, who lifts others up along the way, she given the exotic / erotic treatment through the text AND the author. Her childhood is absent from the start of the series unlike other girls close to her age in the books (Sansa/Arya both loose their childhood in book one but Dany never had it.)

I'm mixed, I'd also get burned unless I built up my time in the sun gradually like I used to when I was a little kid. (Where I was definitely sun-browned.) It could be part of Dany's "I don't get burned" mythos, but also the text describes her skin as sun-browned. And this description of her skin is I believe the first one the text includes.

Other descriptions often call Daenerys "fair and lovely" and fair can of course mean having a light complexion, but it can also mean just which Daenerys certainly is.

Also at the end of the day it doesn't really matter what GRRM wrote, if enough women of color feel a connection to her story and want to perform a subversive reading to include themselves in a narrative where our only other characters are either not POV characters, killed for the sake of white narratives, and/or subjected to racist writing then we as people of color get to do that. It's not death of the author, it's audience reception theory, and we are allowed to make things ours because we want to.

She's ours. Haters can deal with it.

#Daenerys Tagaryen #woc daenerys #i need a tag for it at this point

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moscarific · 1 month ago

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Yuletide Letter 2024!

Dear Exceptional Human,

I am beyond delighted that you’re writing for me! I’m a gold star Yuletide participant: I’ve signed up every year, and written at least one story every year, since the challenge began. That’s great news for you, because over the years, I’ve learned that the best Yuletide gifts are the ones that weren’t quite what I had expected, and also that gifts are satisfying and joyful for me as long as it’s clear that the author put effort and care into them. Basically, as long as you avoid my Do Not Wants and run spell check, I’m going to be over the moon with excitement at whatever you write for me.

If you weren't assigned to me and want to write me a treat, you are a fucking hero. I love you and your bonus story already.

My biggest non-obvious DNW is babyfic. No pregnancy, no babies, no little kids. I’m also a grumpy Jew, so I’d prefer not to receive stories with strong Christmas or winter holiday themes. The “five things” format is not my favorite. Please don’t center your story around ships that I did not ask for. All of these global DNWs are also in my sign-up.

But I like a lot more things than I dislike! I usually read my Yuletide gift(s) while riding the L down to Chinatown for my family’s annual dim sum feast, so please give me something to make me smile, laugh out loud at, or feel uncomfortably aroused by on public transportation. Porn is optional, obviously, but: oral sex, eroticized hands, exhibitionism, shower sex, gender play. I like experimental structures and styles, as well as more standard ones, and I am fine with whatever POV and tense you choose. If you are the kind of person who does multimedia or interactive fiction, or just clever footnotes, I am all for that. I love worldbuilding, whether it’s adding detail to a sprawling superhero universe or fleshing out the local color of a small American town. I like stories that stick close to canon or present interesting “what if” canon divergences, and I also like superhero and In Space AUs.

I tend to write the fic I want to see in the world, and you’ll get a good sense of me by browsing my AO3 account. My AO3 bookmarks are way out of date, but they still work as a recs list, and therefore a great way to see what kinds of fic appeal to me and make me happy.

Here are the individual requests from my sign-up, with a little more detail added here and there.

Poor Things (2023): Bella Baxter, Max McCandles, Harry Astley, Toinette

This movie hints at so many stories that aren't told, and I love its whimsical worldbuilding. Its found-family ending is delightful and pushes all of my buttons, and I would love a story in which any or all of the requested characters explore what it means to create a family on their own terms. I've set this one to "gift must feature one or more of my chosen character tags," so feel free to focus on whomever you'd like, or to incorporate all four requested characters. Since Harry disappears from the narrative after the cruise ship sequence, how does he reunite with Bella and join her family? How do Max and Toinette build a relationship of their own, sexual/romantic or otherwise? How does Bella continue to develop now that her mental maturity matches her body's? I love how sex-crazed the film is, and I'm good with canon-consistent gore and body horror, with some boundaries noted in my DNW list. The world of the movie runs on its own logic, and science works differently there - a worldbuilding element that explores this would interest me, too.

DNW: Stories centered around pregnancy, babies, or raising children. Strong Christmas/winter holiday themes. Phonetic representations of accents or “broken English” used for comedy. Extensive, graphic descriptions of homophobic, transphobic, racist, or sexual violence. Focusing only on opposite-sex romantic or sexual relationships in a way that undermines the queer and polyamorous canon ending of the film. Sex involving wound penetration or stump fucking. Sex involving non-sentient animals or characters who cannot consent because of medical alteration.

Inside Out (Pixar Movies): Riley Andersen, Val Ortiz

Guess who watched Inside Out 2 and came away shipping it? If that's also you, then give me the sweet, age-appropriate hockey girl romance that the movie definitely suggests. How do Riley's emotions handle her first romance? Or depict it from inside Val's head, and show us what her emotional dashboard looks like. A story centered around Val doesn't have to be romantic - provide her backstory, give her a challenge as hockey team captain, or find another creative way to explore her emotions and mindscape. Or write a romance where the two characters are older, meeting in adulthood, and show how their minds have gained complexity as they've matured. The conceit of little emotion creatures inside people's heads is a big part of the appeal for me, so please find some way to incorporate them, even if the focus of the story is on the outside world.

DNW: Stories centered around pregnancy, babies, or raising children. Strong Christmas/winter holiday themes. Phonetic representations of accents or “broken English” used for comedy (I’m especially sensitive to this when it comes to native Spanish speakers). Explicit sex between young teenagers. While a transgender awakening, an exploration of mental health difficulties, or a story about neurodivergent mindscapes would all be interesting in this fandom, they're not what I want for my gift.

Mammoth Club RPF: Max LaDue, Molly McCormack, Alan McCormack

I love this married team of theme park YouTubers and their cohost/best friend Max. I'm listing my shippy/romantic option first because something has to go first, but I'm equally excited about my gen prompt. The only thing that would make Mammoth Club better is if the OT3 were real, so make my Yuletide bi and write me that ship. When and how did they become a polycule? How do they balance the dynamic with their working relationship, and is it the same in their private lives as on YouTube and Twitch? How many dirty Disney puns can you get into one work of fan fiction? Their work takes them into a lot of situations that could create relationship tension as well as escalate romance, so use those travel settings: cramped cruise ship rooms, secret fireworks viewing points, long international flights, soggy rainstorm days in the Magic Kingdom. Alternatively, send the Mammoth Club team to visit and review a place outside of their usual roster of theme parks and branded tourist attractions. Take them to your hometown and have them try every restaurant. Or imagine them traveling to a fictional tourist destination: what do they think of Star Trek's Risa, Naboo's Lake Country, or The Good Place? Molly and Max are the big personalities, but Alan's low-key enthusiasm and excellent shirt collection are my favorite - and he's the emotional linchpin of the trio.

DNW: Stories centered around pregnancy, babies, or raising children. Strong Christmas/winter holiday themes, including stories set during theme park holiday events - although other theme park holidays, such as Halloween, are fine. Phonetic representations of accents or “broken English” used for comedy. Using your fic as a soapbox about the awfulness of Disney as a corporation or the real-life horrors of traveling to Florida these days, although passing mentions are fine. Sex involving character costumes, or sexualization of character costumes (basically, no hardcore furry business - non-costume merch is fine).

Poker Face (TV 2023): Charlie Cale

Charlie Cale immediately became one of my favorite TV detectives ever, and what I want from fic is simply more of her, solving mysteries in her quirky way. Basically, I want casefic, however you want to define that. Set the story in your hometown and bring it to life for me, or highlight a subculture you know a lot about. Or give me drag queens, figure skaters, or Disney theme parks, the weird cultures that are close to my heart. Crossovers with other fandoms are welcome, especially if they feature Charlie inserted into other media, solving a murder in that universe. (Poker Face in Discworld? Poker face on Deep Space Nine?) Keep the show’s dry wit and down-to-earth tone as much as you can, and feel free to play with time and tell the story out of order, as the show often does. Explore how Charlie’s lie detector powers and her talent for crime-solving have affected her, and how these abilities work in her head. What I’m looking for is a lost episode of Poker Face - either one that could be an actual episode of the show, or something improbable but fun.

This is a repeat request from last year, because I still want it.

DNW: Stories centered around pregnancy, babies, or raising children. Strong Christmas/winter holiday themes. Extensive, graphic descriptions of homophobic, transphobic, racist, or sexual violence. Phonetic representations of accents or “broken English” used for comedy (I’m especially sensitive to this when it comes to native Spanish speakers). Copaganda - depictions of the police as exceptionally noble or heroic, above the law, or justified in violence or manipulation. I’m not interested in more than passing references to romantic relationships for Charlie.

#yuletide #yuletide 2024 #yuletide letter

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wheeler-things · 2 years ago

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Regarding Will…

Honestly, as a former teenage gay boy myself— it’s potentially possible that Will missing the point of Mike’s weirdness could be down to him thinking that if Mike’s being weird it’s about Will. Like, most of the weirdness all season that Will saw could be chalked up in his mind to “Mike is straight and simultaneously worried about El (explains the not eating which Will only seemed to clock after Mike and El fought) and potentially interested in restarting his FRIENDSHIP with Will (as Mike stated in his apology), but simultaneously uncomfortable with some stuff either because he suspects Will’s feelings or because he’s just Straight and Growing Up (explains the lack of contact, the failed airport hug, the “we’re friends, we’re FRIENDS”)”.

Of course, as an audience WE know that (assuming this show is worth analyzing at all re. care put into background details/subtle implications) the read I outlined above is not accurate. But I think that’s why it’s significant that Will takes note of Nancy saying that Mike’s room is a mess— because that’s the first thing he’s heard which indicates something is wrong with Mike, which, from his POV, cannot be chalked up to Mike simply having issues with both El and Will as a function of straight puberty. But even that’s not something that he would immediately connect to the supernatural.

ALSO… we have a bit of a bird’s eye view here, which Will doesn’t have. Specifically, I’m pretty sure that every time Will’s Henry sense went off in s3, Mike was there, but so was Lucas (which may explain why Lucas was religiously grouped with them + went with Mike to apologize when his slight was much smaller than Mike’s, etc.). This pattern is broken in s4 of course, where he senses Henry with Mike there but not Lucas. But from Will’s perspective, as someone who cannot see the narrative implications of what’s going on/cannot see the other information suggesting there may be something fishy up with Mike… it’s understandable that he hasn’t put that piece together yet.

Additionally… romantic feelings notwithstanding, Mike is Will’s best friend. Moreover, as many have pointed out before, the Upside Down and its monsters are some pretty clear metaphors for the darker sides of queerness/queerphobia/being in the closet— particularly where Will is involved (this is one of the narrative reasons why I think that, if they ARE planning to make Mike queer, there’s no way he isn’t SOMEHOW going to be directly involved with the Upside Down). All of which is to say… a pretty common feeling among queer kids with crushes on people they already love as friends is a feeling of “I wish they were gay/queer too, but GOD what sort of monster am I? Wishing something like that on someone I love?”… which, using similar logic… I suspect that if Will ever did have any suspicions/flashes of intuition regarding Mike’s possible possession/UD connection, his internal monologue would be very similar— “am I stupid? Do I want someone to understand SO BADLY that I’m imagining Mike being hurt by that place now? Am I so evil that I’d wish that sort of thing on him??”… which, unfortunately, I suspect is a direct mirror of what he would probably think to himself if he at any point had a flash of insight/suspicions regarding Mike’s potential queerness and/or feelings towards Will.

Or. I mean. I could be thinking about this too hard, and the real answer is just that Will is too twisted up by Henry/his own experiences to put the pieces together (if Mike is possessed though, I DO firmly believe that was a key reason why the Byers had to adopt El and move away— it’s the only way El and Will didn’t immediately notice how Wrong things were getting with Mike).

more ominous lyrics that point towards mike being possessed and spying on el, hopper being onto something when he said what was happening in this relationship was not normal and not okay and very wrong, and mike not being able to solve this problem by himself

honestly, mike was acting so weird in this scene. he's not usually that disrespectful of adults who he actually does respect, and hopper's definitely earned that by now after saving will, protecting el, that one time he was there for mike during a breakdown, and just letting mike hang out in the cabin every day for six months

vecna was probably trying to head off hopper's speech because it would've gotten mike thinking and communicating and getting help and bringing the real problem to people's (i think, most importantly, el's) attention way too early

the hoppers almost got there. meanwhile the byers (including el) actually did figure it out in season 4, even with vecna's interference. actually kind of because of vecna's interference, because they know mike well enough to immediately notice when he's acting weird and at least start to wonder why instead of just brushing it off as insignificant

jonathan and el know. joyce wasn't around mike for long enough but she noticed that something's up, and so did murray, hilariously enough. he'd been in the same room as mike literally once before and i doubt they've ever directly interacted, but he still noticed more than 95% of the people in mike's life have

will is clueless for some reason. to be fair, he didn't have his vecna senses outside of hawkins, but even when he did have them in season 3 and kept getting spooky feelings around mike, he still didn't put the pieces together. he's probably too busy projecting his idea of "normalcy" onto mike to wonder if the consistent inconsistency is something supernatural, just like the audience

we know will can't keep secrets from mike (painting notwishstanding, because that was the first one and it's bound to come out soon), so if he knew he wouldn't be able to pair up with mike in season 5 because he'd let something slip and then vecna would know they're onto him. that would possibly endanger mike and definitely leave him alone without any emotional support, which is essential to maintaining your own existence while possessed

#mike wheeler #will byers #possessiongate

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une-nuit-pour-se-souvenir · 3 years ago

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The Dragon has Three Heads

"Three heads of the dragon... yes... but the third will not necessarily BE a Targaryen..."

~ GRRM @ at some convention

The conclusion is simple. The heads of the dragon refer to people and while the two are Targaryens, the third might not be one.

We can ignore anything that says this group of things are of different things (for example, I've seen "two Targaryens plus a concept"), as that makes no narrative sense. The key is exactly that last sentence, the third one may not be a Targaryen, which implies the three heads are all people and that two are Targaryens and the third is not quite one. Therefore, these three dragon heads must refer to people associated with dragon, with two of them being Targaryens but the last one not necessarily being one.

The most popular theory is that the two Targaryens are Danerys Targaryen and Jon Snow, with the third being the youngster that claims to be Aegon VI Targaryen and appears first in ADWD. This identification ignores the narrative framework for both Aegon VI Targareyn and Jon Snow.

On one hand, Aegon is often associated with kingly imagery (for example, the chapter he's introduced starts with six chests, the kid himself is introduced as standing at a higher ground than the rest, and ends with a turtle who is said to witness the birth of kings), he's accompanied by a lot associated with his parents such as Jon Connington (his father's hand of the kind) and some dornish / royne people (his mother's land and culture). Another thing to note is that Varys introduces him as the real thing to a dying man.

Moreover, there is at least one "baby switch" story that shadows this one, a prince baby being switched with a nobody, sent away to protect against a Baratheon. In specific, Mance Rayder's son (the wildling "king") being switched with Gilly's son, then sent South for protection against another Baratheon, which is notably a plan concocted by Jon Snow (another of Rhaegar's kids, as if preparing him and the reader to "believe" such a scenario is possible).

On the other hand, Jon Snow's core character revolves around two facts, that he is a bastard and that he loves his Stark family. The reveal that he's not Eddard Stark's bastard but Lyanna Stark's child doesn't erase the latter, as he's a Stark through his mother. Still, the nature of Rhaegar and Lyanna's relationship may erase the former. If Jon is illegitimate, that doesn't erase the former, but if he's legitimate somehow (Targaryens are said to take multiple wives), that erases the former and replaces it another. It can go either way.

Moreover, there is at least one "legitimized bastard" story that shadows this one. In specific, Jon Snow is offered to be legitimised both by Stannis Baratheon (something that is a true temptation, as it would give him everything he secretely longed for all his life), but also by Robb's will as it names Jon Snow as his heir over sisters and that's only possible through legitimising him. It's my conviction that "the rule of three" applies, therefore that Jon will reject Robb's will like he rejected Stannis' offer, but will have a third legitimization opportunity and that this time around he'll acept.

To be more specific and in contrast with Aegon, who's introduced with kingly imagery, Jon is introduced with bastardy imagery. Bran introduces him into the narratve as his bastard brother, while Jon's first POV chapter starts with him musing that he's a bastard. While Jon has "kingly" imagery, it doesn't come associated with imagery from his father's side, and seems to be self-contained to the North (for example, the first inside joke is "kings hiding under the snow" or Mormont's crow calling him king while he's at the wall). Jon's hidden parentage comes along with prince imagery instead (for example, the anti-parallel with bastard prince Joffrey). With my conviction explained above, I do believe it will come to Aegon legitimising Jon as his heir until he has kids (a parallel to Robb's will). Most (if not all) foreshadowing falls into place. Aegon VI is king, Jon is the (bastard) prince. An example would be Sansa's "Glory to your betrothed," Ser Arys answered at once. (...) "He is the dragon's heir." which fits with Jon as Aegon's heir.

Combined, this interpreation suggests that the popular theory is actually backwards: Aegon VI is the real thing while Jon Snow is the Blackfyre (bastard Targaryen). This is in accordance to the way the text is presented.

House of Undying

"THe dragon has three heads" is referenced for the first time to Danerys Targaryen in a prophetic inducing Shade of the Evening tripping out at the House of Undying.

The man had her brother's hair, but he was taller, and his eyes were a dark indigo rather than lilac. "Aegon," he said to a woman nursing a newborn babe in a great wooden bed. "What better name for a king?"

"Will you make a song for him?" the woman asked.

"He has a song," the man replied. "He is the prince that was promised, and his is the song of ice and fire." He looked up when he said it and his eyes met Dany's, and it seemed as if he saw her standing there beyond the door. "There must be one more," he said, though whether he was speaking to her or the woman in the bed she could not say. "The dragon has three heads." He went to the window seat, picked up a harp, and ran his fingers lightly over its silvery strings. Sweet sadness filled the room as man and wife and babe faded like the morning mist, only the music lingering behind to speed her on her way.

I'll say that whatever the House of Undying shows, may not be reality. Rhaegar wanting to fulfill some prophecy with three kids is not referenced anywhere else, except this moment which is the equivalent of a very bad drug trip. It's worth mentioning though, Ratgar saw a comet in the sky and thought he should impregnate his wife, against medical advice because she who was recovering from giving birth his first child. It could be, but it could not be.

Regardless, what's important to note is what's being prophetized. Much like GRRM's convention remark, Rhaegar identifies the three heads as people. So far so good. However, he also gives us an order: omitted Rhaenys as she was born already, Aegon in mother's lap, Danerys when Rhaegar looks up to "see" her at the door, then finally Jon when he says "there must be one more". On one hand, Rhaenys was murdered and Danerys is in this as well, so the conclusion is that the former "replaced" the latter in the prophecy. On the other hand, if this had been a real memory, than Rhaegar would have two legitimate kids at the time (Rhaenys and Aegon) such saying "there must be one more" suggests a third child (Jon), which goes well with GRRM saying "the third may not be a Targaryen". So in order, we have Aegon, Danerys, Jon.

Danerys later reflects upon what this prophecy means and comes the conclusion that these heads are supposed to be people. This is because the Targaryen coat-of-arms is a dragon with three heads, each head representing three Targaryens.

"The dragon has three heads," she sighed. "Do you know what that means, Jorah?"

"Your Grace? The sigil of House Targaryen is a three-headed dragon, red on black."

"I know that. But there are no three-headed dragons."

"The three heads were Aegon and his sisters."

(...)

"Prince Aegon was Rhaegar's heir by Elia of Dorne," Ser Jorah said. "But if he was this prince that was promised, the promise was broken along with his skull when the Lannisters dashed his head against a wall."

"I remember," Dany said sadly. "They murdered Rhaegar's daughter as well, the little princess. Rhaenys, she was named, like Aegon's sister. There was no Visenya, but he said the dragon has three heads. What is the song of ice and fire?"

(...)

"Your Grace," he conceded, "the dragon has three heads, remember? You have wondered at that, ever since you heard it from the warlocks in the House of Dust. Well, here's your meaning: Balerion, Meraxes, and Vhagar, ridden by Aegon, Rhaenys, and Visenya. The three-headed dragon of House Targaryen—three dragons, and three riders."

(...)

When Brown Ben left, she lay back on her cushions. "If you were grown," she told Drogon, scratching him between the horns, "I'd fly you over the walls and melt that harpy down to slag." But it would be years before her dragons were large enough to ride. And when they are, who shall ride them? The dragon has three heads, but I have only one.

(...)

"No dragon has ever had three heads except on shields and banners," Armen the Acolyte said firmly. "That was a heraldic charge, no more. Furthermore, the Targaryens are all dead."

"Not all," said Alleras. "The Beggar King had a sister."

(...)

"The dragon must have three heads," he wailed, "but I am too old and frail to be one of them. I should be with her, showing her the way, but my body has betrayed me."

The prophecies in ASOIAF are always misunderstood. Danerys is no exception, as she's wrongly identifing people and their motives. One thing is for sure in all these mentions though, the "dragon heads" are meant to be people and one of them is Danerys.

Danerys thinks these three dragons are supposed to mimic the original trio, with herself as Aegon and two men she'll take as lovers as the two sister wives. This is where the misunderstanding is, because it's obvious from the framework that is backwards.

These at least she could rely on, or so she hoped . . . and Brown Ben Plumm as well, solid Ben with his grey-white hair and weathered face, so beloved of her dragons. And Daario beside him, glittering in gold. Daario and Ben Plumm, Grey Worm, Irri, Jhiqui, Missandei . . . as she looked at them Dany found herself wondering which of them would betray her next.

The dragon has three heads. There are two men in the world who I can trust, if I can find them. I will not be alone then. We will be three against the world, like Aegon and his sisters.

Danerys is a dumb bitch and the text shows us exactly how. The idea of Danerys being betrayed comes together with the other two heads. They're not lovers, they're betrayers. It occurs again in ADWD as she's in the Dothraki Sea, contemplentanting if the "king" betrayed her and a wolf answers in the distance.

The framework fits this foiled scenario. The original trio was a man married to both his sisters, but only he became king (later, only the man could rule according to Targaryen law). In contrast, Danerys is a woman (foil) and both her brothers are dead (foil), whom are replaced with nephews that have a bigger claim than her (foil) and whom will not be involved / married with her (foil).

It's also thematically relevant and poignant for the trios to be foiled. The Targaryen king dynasty started with an alliance between three dragons, it's fitting that it ends with a war between three dragons. It's what they've been threatening all along with the Dance of the Dragons after all.

#anti daenerys targaryen #queue

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crimeronan · 4 years ago

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Can you explain the appeal of Julian Blackthorn? This is a genuine question because I read the books and came away utterly bored by him and unconvinced of his moral greyness as opposed to like, Adam Parrish’s. He seemed so one dimensional to me but I want to know if I’m Wrong TM considering I tend to be very very biased toward my favourite characters and bored by the rest, and my favourites were Mark and Kieran. So maybe I just didn’t pay him enough attention??

it’s been a while since i wrote any earnest tsc meta but cringe culture is dead and the chance to infodump about my julian thoughts has me vibrating where i’m sitting so. yes okay.

technical stuff

(aka: things pertaining to How The Story Is Constructed)

cassandra clare’s characterization has become much stronger just in general since she first began writing the series like twenty years ago

perhaps most importantly: the more recent stuff i’ve read from her has involved characters who actually grow, change, and learn from their past mistakes

rather than repeating the same stupid decisions over and over again

and over and over and over some more

seriously take a shot every time someone in tmi miscommunicates or self-destructs in ways They Have Learned Not To Do for no real reason. u will die of alcohol poisoning

in tda this shines ESPECIALLY with the evolution of mark, kieran, and cristina’s relationship, but that’s a separate post

clare’s trademark is also the angsty traumatized jerkass love interest with a secret heart of gold

the woman is almost singlehandedly responsible for draco in leather pants and the proliferation of this kind of character type in fandom and teen lit. this isn’t a criticism it’s me marveling at how if you commit hard enough to a single trope you truly can change the world. follow your dreams

sad jackass with a heart of gold isn’t an Inherently Problematic Character Type

but poorly done it can lead to relationship dynamics in which one partner is constantly being hurt by and then forgiving the other despite them making no real effort to change, because they are narratively absolved due to being sad

(there’s a lot of this with earlier jace content. in some ways i think will was later created specifically to be a same-archetype protagonist who actually does get called on his shit and grow. that’s also another post)

also if all of your sexy male love interests are tortured jackasses with a heart of gold then people start calling you a one-trick pony

enter julian blackthorn!

from the very start everything about him is designed to be the INVERSE of the heart of gold jackass. which immediately makes him interesting just from a meta perspective

(mark and kieran are also both alternate angles on this time-honored archetype. mark gets the heart of gold and kieran gets the jackass and then they’re both much more deeply messy than that. yet another post)

julian is kind, self-sacrificing, empathetic, artistic, emotionally supportive, responsible, and favored by old grannies everywhere

so a completely nonthreatening milquetoast guy, right

immediately forgettable if you’re only here for the dramatic conflicts and shithead antics of clare’s other protags

except that he is A Mess

and that he has structured his priorities very carefully, and they are as selfless as you expect from The Hero (TM) but they are also Not Heroic (TM) and they do not align with the moral framework The Hero (TM) is supposed to use

moral ambiguity in characters always exists in relation to their narratives imo. you mention adam parrish - trc’s narrative already mucks around in different ethical shades of gray, and adam falls on the canon scale about where julian does on his canon scale. both more willing than the average pov character to do the ruthless thing or make the fucked-up choice if the ends justify the means; both with an intensely strong sense of internal priorities that they adhere to at all costs, both so unbelievably fucking down for murder; etc

i do think there are ways julian’s choices could have been pushed even further, but considering the number of readers who hate his guts already, i can see why clare opted not to go for the most controversial possible conflicts

so we’re flipping the narrative

instead of seeing this angsty bad boy and peeling back the layers of his trauma to find his heart of gold, we’re seeing the put-together selfless family man and peeling back the layers of his Responsibility Mask to expose the rotting husk underneath

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

THAT IS FUN AS FUCK

then when julian DOES lash out in hurtful, uncontrolled ways, he has significantly more narrative justification for it than most of clare’s protagonists (will elaborate in characterization thoughts)

julian is also interesting as fuck because of how his struggles allow for a more in-depth look at the failings of shadowhunter society, something that’s also sorely lacking in clare’s earlier work

his apparent amorality is simply the result of him making pragmatic and impossible choices because he has been faced with fucked-up ethical dilemmas since age 12 Because Society Has Failed Him

which opens the door for narrative exploration of how and why he’s been failed so badly & what needs to change

i also love that he has such a coldly calculated way of analyzing situations and allowing harm to occur when need be, bc a lot of clare’s early protagonists have such a bad case of Rush In And Get Myself Killed Because I’ve Got Feelings About Impulsive Heroism syndrome that i wanna push them in front of a truck

probably there’s other meta narrative stuff i could say but i’m stopping myself and moving on to character analysis

characterization stuff

(aka: reasons why i’m also attached to him in a vacuum)

i don’t read him as one-dimensional at all tbh

u may feel the narrative pushes “ruthless julian blackthorn” too much without delivering enough actual ruthless julian But i don’t think that’s the same as having only one dimension

from the get-go, the big question centered on julian is always “how far are you willing to go?” and the narrative pushes the stakes slowly higher and higher to continuously test julian’s “the price is always justified” mindset

he has a far more layered and realistic response to trauma than clare’s early protagonists - trauma affects every single aspect of his personality and how he conducts himself, and the effects vary depending on the circumstances

his conviction that he has to be the perfect parent to his siblings because they will fall apart if they see him show weakness?? rooted in how he feels like he’s fallen apart since losing the stable adult support he once relied upon

his willingness to hurt semi-innocent people, commit coldblooded murder, manipulate people using political leverage, allow harm to befall any stranger if it protects his family?? rooted in how he has already had to ask himself how much he’s willing to sacrifice, and how his family is his only source of stability when the world has never done Shit for him

his conviction that he has a darker heart than anyone else because he killed his possessed father, even though intellectually he knows he was saving his brother’s life?? rooted in having no means of processing this trauma and being unable to voice his feelings for fear of backlash from a deeply non-understanding society

the way he represses every single negative emotion he ever has, to the point where emma - his actual literal magic soulmate who can feel his emotions - is startled to find him hurting or angry?? once again all about how he has to be the perfect father or he’s failed completely

the way his anger is so totally disproportionate to different situations and the way his negative emotions can only come out in completely uncontrolled breaks?? all that repression baybey. this kid has not processed a single bad feeling in five years. every single real grievance and petty annoyance has been festering indefinitely inside him like a slowly spreading infection

julian’s arc involves him needing to get thru being his worst self to actually start to heal

as in, he has to actually learn to acknowledge his feelings, take care of himself, lean on his family, and let other people take some responsibility

he also has to learn that in his quest to be the perfect emotionally controlled authority figure, he has not actually learned how to control or deal with his emotions. like. At Fucking All. good god

the narrative setup is also about asking “how far are you willing to go?” until the answer is finally “not this far. not this far”

and once he reaches that point, he has to reevaluate everything about how he weighs his priorities and morals and plans, etc

(i also like that emma has a perpendicular arc in which she’s always the one tempering julian and telling him “no we can’t go that far” until she’s willing to do something horrific that he absolutely won’t and HE has to stop HER. very sexy)

it’s also just really nice to have a character who’s learned to relate so well to literally every single member of his family while still having a very detached ruthless interior consciousness. i have similar feelings about how adam teaches himself to love people, but with julian it’s spelled out more explicitly in canon & it’s a more central character theme

i’m sure i’m also forgetting stuff here but this post is long enough so i’m gonna say good enough

and like i said in the tags on my other post, there are things i’d personally write differently if it were my story - plot points i’d shift, character contrasts i’d up, themes i’d explore differently, pacing i’d adjust, etc. i have plenty of ways i could be nitpicky and editorial about the effectiveness of julian’s arc. but i also don’t feel like writing them out at the moment & none of my critiques on effectiveness have an impact on the core appeal of his character 2 me. he’s so fucking good

#replies #tsc #tda #julian blackthorn #meta #long post #ungodly long post.#shadowhunters #Anonymous

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flowerflamestars · 4 years ago

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Main Issues with Feysand's leadership: it mostly consists on rather inmature, underdeveloped strategy that would in no way get a world leader very far in the real world (see: 'i schooled my face into a look of boredom'), seem content in making enemies left to right as long as they never have to step down from the pedestal that they've built, and see Illyria as a necessary evil, like wtf. In conclusion, Rhysand is a governor for Velaris, but is not fit to be the ruler of the Night Court.

Rounding caveat, because I know I’m going to get shouty: the dividing line between ToG and ACOTAR is that tog is a fantasy series with romance, and acotar is a romance series in a fantasy world. They’re not the same. I’d be totally fine with how the world building in acotar is v handywavy, because it’s still accomplishing what the books set out to do (tell a love story, hello acomaf) but- BUT, it’s not consistent. And that inconsistency wildly undermines the characters.

And god, if Rhysand as a ruler isn’t the heart of ???? spirit.

We’re not going to talk about how the plot of acotar only makes sense backwards (Hey, Rhys, why did you want to kidnap every month a powerless mortal girl???), we’re just going to talk about reputation.

So Rhys is a villain who we learn isn’t actually evil. A classic. He was made to do terrible things by Amarantha! He sacrificed himself to save his friends! Of course the High Lords hate him, they think he sided with the enemy.

That could have been the whole thing- the layers pulled back, Rhysand also a victim, a reason for the world to hate him but for Feyre to see otherwise.

OKAY BUT- then we learn? that Rhysand has been playing Evil Scary Jackass in all political situations? for his entire reign? that’s just what he does?

Round two: Rhys had to be Amarantha’s because he had to “shield the knowledge” of his friends and his capitol? city.

BUT- other people Under the Mountain, also accessible to Amarantha, know the IC??? have been acquainted with them for years? They’re not a secret. Mor was almost married out, Az and Cas are legendary, Amren is a story people tell.

And all those people are probably incentivized by the fact that, you know, they think Rhysand is an evil traitor.

Furthermore: guess who willing cooperated with Amarantha? The Court of Nightmares. Recall who, surprise in acowar, knows all about Velaris: Keir.

Round three: Sexy Evil Cosplay, wherein we learn that not only instead of just keeping it together in politics Rhys has adopted an entire secondary persona, we learn he also...uses this persona...to scare all the other highborn faeries into submission....so he? never has to talk to them?

BUT ALSO: this whole thing is undermined by, once more, Keir.

The whole game on the throne is to instill fear/ control of Keir. The whole Second Face. But Keir knows about Velaris? Keir knows exactly what Rhys stands for because Rhys and Cassian tried to rescue Morrigan from the Court of Nightmares when they were teens. Hell, Keir probably knew Rhys when Rhys was a kid.

It’s almost like eventually the person you pretend to be becomes who you are.

I think the Political Rhys vs Real Rhys started out as a plot point, but in character became this: not someone separate at all, but actually, Rhysand’s coping mechanism for making shitty choices.

See: if everyone in the Court of Nightmares bows, I’m ruling them. It doesn’t matter that women are being sold, that there’s servants and presumably totally normal people trapped in a mountain they can’t leave with people I think are monsters.

Let’s jump to Illyria.

How much easier is it, for Rhysand, half-Illyrian himself, to align wholly with the High Fae and say: no, it’s Illyria’s fault. They’re savages, they’re barbarians.

Easy as being a dick to other powerful men because it’s fun when they can’t fight back.

If the blame isn’t his, he keeps his army. He doesn’t have to fight a civil war that might swallow him whole, considering Illyria is the army he controls vs the High Fae soldiers left entirely under Keir’s rule.

If it’s Illyria’s fault he can successfully reimagine the past as he clearly needs to (someday, I’ll make a whole ass post about Rhysand’s mommy issues and how they creepily bleed into Feyre’s characterization, but one thing at a time).

If it’s Illyria’s fault, he can’t be mad about his Mother, daughter of a warrior race, offering him up for brutal, dangerous training. It’s the fault of Illyria. He doesn’t have to imagine he was learning those things, fighting in the mud, because it was the only way his mother could pass the legacy, could say, look, this is where I come from and someday you will have the power to make it better for your sister, for everyone.

He LOVED his mother. He wears the sacred tattoos, manifests wings, has Illyrian “brothers”.

But- It’s Illyria’s fault, so Rhys didn’t fail, Rhys is doing his duty by keeping them in line.

Which brings us to the war.

I’m unclear on why only the Night Court knew Hybern was coming, but let’s just accept that.

But it’s all about the Public Face, moving in the shadows, the two Rhysands. So for the months Feyre is wasting away with Tamlin, planning her wedding Rhys...doesn’t warn anyone. Doesn’t whisper to the other High Lords to shore up defenses.

He makes a plan contingent on 1)that creepy deal with Feyre that he can now both justify and doesn’t want to enforce knowing she’s his mate, and 2) long lost magical objects no one knows the location of, and that don’t belong to him.

Rhys got SO used to the All-Knowing Dickbag face, it’s like he started believing he was all knowing. He’s one of seven Lords, but he doesn’t talk to any of them, on the off chance they don’t do exactly as he says. He steals from Tarquin, a young High Lord kind enough to take a chance on him. He tricks Mor. He lies to...everyone?

And then it’s a big deal, a failure on their part, when at the FINAL HOUR AND LAST MOMENT BEFORE ALL OUT WAR, AFTER THE SECOND INVASION HAS ALREADY COMMENCED, when the High Lords don’t jump to trust Rhys.

A step back, a Feyre tangent: Feyre, younger, also deeply traumatized, falls into this hard. Rhys tells her he’s the underdog, and she believes it. He’s SO SO SO powerful he can take the voice of another High Lord, Feyre herself thinks he’s so magical the gap between him and his contemporaries is like that between humans and high fae-

But hey wait, they don’t trust him because he’s been a dick for five hundred years.

But hey wait, they came as their true selves, they don’t trust him while he’s WEARING ILLYRIAN WINGS- IT’S BECAUSE HE’S DIFFERENT-

No, it is not, but Feyre’s POV sort of wants us to think so.

And that’s where everything sort of falls apart.

The act of power has stopped being an act- it’s just their actions now. And they do not know how to stop.

Because they are in control, and they have to go on for the war. They have to keep making decisions, even if they’ve lost the thread, because they want to survive.

But they do survive.

And it turns out, even after that, they can’t put down the masks fused to their faces, because the act is the only thing keeping them together.

So the balls to the wall, We Must have the High Ground Even at Our Own Dinner Parties, The Center MUST Hold shit just keeps going: tearing down Lucien because he chose something that wasn’t their Court. Letting Illyria crumble because they don’t need the army right now. Banishing Nesta because she’ll never bow to authority.

All the weird, incestuous feeling inter IC drama.

But they’re the underdogs! the Heroes! It’s not their fault!

So they spend their time in Velaris, charmingly hanging out like they’re normal people, thinking they’re better because power is wielded on an unimaginable personal scale.

Rhys loves his people! Rhys sacrificed!

Rhys...careened from one war/disaster to the next, and then settled down to play house?

The narrative cannot decide: is Rhys really an underdog, devoted to his people? How about he helps every other city that Amarantha destroyed?

Is Rhys a Normal Guy who just wants to walk on pretty cobblestone and have a cute, happy family? Maybe, there should be a government so he isn’t solely responsible for everything?

Is Rhys the Lord of Darkness Redeemed by LOVE? Cool, let’s have him maybe he honest with Feyre exactly once, OR, at least talk about how him dying made her go off the rails and try to fix that with a bandage that isn’t baby shaped before Feyre’s 22nd birthday.

Canonically, becoming High Lord is a mystical, magical endowment. That then, for the most part, functions as some kind of mashup Monarchy/ Feudal Lordship.

If that’s what it is, why can’t we lean into that? Rhys who does want a normal happy life with Feyre, trapped by the weight of immovable magic destiny.

King Rhys, duty bound to his bloodline and his people, torn between different ways to rule.

Hell, Rhysand who really is a monster, because maybe Faeries are monstrous by human standards, who shows Feyre the beauty that lies beneath the brutality in a magic, surreal world where everyone is terrifying, but even monsters love.

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cappymightwrite · 4 years ago

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Thank you for your reply! Loved your opinion. I think fandom generally underestimated Sansa importance in narrative or in larger game. For them she didn't fit into bill. Like she won't go to North or retake WF because it seems impossible or she won't end up important in last books. Fans always gave characters secondary in her arc more importance than her. Show is considered fanfiction to prove she isn't important. It's sad because she has more potential than fans think.

No problem and thank you! Glad you liked it :D Yeah, I completely agree and though I’ve read posts discussing why people hate/misinterpret Sansa’s character/arc, why they dismiss her significance/reduce her worth, I do always come back to a thought I had when I first got into GoT/ASOIAF.

Sansa doesn’t quite fit our escapist/fantasy driven ideal and *some* people do not like that. Because she isn’t a “badass” with fighting skills, she isn’t surrounded by overt myticism/prophecies/secret birthrights, doesn’t have dragons, loses her magic wolf, etc. She is typically feminine, a bit naive, but happy with her daydreams about knights and chivalry — it is very telling that we see the tourney of the Hand through her eyes, the person who would be most swept up by it (*cough* like the reader *cough*).

She also survives through her ordeals, but in a very realistic (and relatable) way I think, especially for a 11-13 year old girl. But notably not in a overtly daring, often reckless, fantasy hero way. Instead, she feigns loyalty to keep herself safe, she puts her trust in adults that she (mistakeningly) hopes will help her get back home, and she tries to romanticise her abuse to cushion her trauma, to avoid the pain of facing it head on. All of that makes complete sense to me. But for some reason people see her as passive, stupid, snotty, the evil (step)sister, lacking empathy(?!), unimportant, unnconnected to the rest of the Starks and Winterfell/the north. She really irks some people and is completely ignored by others who can’t see her for looking, and maybe it is because deep down they know that they themselves would not be the Arya or Jon or Tyrion or Bran or Dany of the story...they would be Sansa. They too would do whatever they could to survive, to keep their head done, to get home, all without the benefit of “badass” swordfighting skills, flying WMD, and what have you. But it’s her supposed “ordinariness” compared with other, grander/fantasical characters, that actually makes her extraordinary, which makes her so strong and compelling.

For me, it’s not a case of me relating to Sansa’s femininity, her romantic hopefulness, her relative innocence (although I do love those things about her), but more that I relate to her relatability. People give her a hard time for not seeing through Joff, for going to Cersei, for “going along” with LF, but come on! COME ON! When I was around her age I fully misjudged Chuck Bass from Gossip Girl to be a swoonworthy romantic lead, and that Chuck x Blair were “endgame”, only to then realise that no, he’s awful and their relationship was toxic as hell. I definitely put my faith in people that in hindsight I shouldn’t have, because I didn’t fully understand them at the time, or wanted to look past their faults/the ways they were treating me unkindly. I definitely had fights with my older brother, said he had a giant head/was a buttface (like Sansa calls Arya “horseface”), found him very irritating, and he teased me mercilessly etc. But now that we’re older we get on really well, because we had the space apart living elsewhere, doing other things, to really appreciate each other when we come back together again. I think people get so hung up on Arya and Sansa’s “bad” relationship, that maybe they forget that...it’s completely typical.

Because no one is immune to bad takes/judgements/brattiness when they are younger, or even when they are older(!), but growing up/living life is an exercise in learning and reassessment. So it’s bizarre to me that people don’t extend the same kindness/understanding towards Sansa (a child) that they presumably extended towards themselves growing up, or people they care about. Unless they were perfect people who always had perfect judgements and foresight...somehow I don’t think that’s the case though.

It’s weird...people better than me have written about how closely connected Sansa is to the North/Winterfell, that I don’t ever question it anymore. Narratively, it just makes sense. She’s a pov Stark, the "blood of Winterfell", and the Starks are the beating heart of the series, GRRM’s favourite house, where it all began. This girl who has suffered so much, been used repeatedly as a pawn, who says I want to go home over and over again, who (re)builds Winterfell out of snow, whose direwolf’s bones are buried there, who is learning to be a lady of a keep...how is she unimportant? I’d argue that all the Stark kids (+ Jon) are on a classic bildungsroman character journey. So how is she not going to matter? How is she not going to have a role to play in the rising up (after the downfall) of the Starks and the north? How? Why? Make it make sense people!

#sansa stark #sansa stark defence squad #asoiaf #cappy's thoughts #yesss people send me asks!

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demenior · 3 years ago

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Dem’s Big Post About The Spn Fics Part 2/2

aka The Wrap Up to celebrate To Exist Again and To Become a Man now being finished!

[Part 1 here]

This part will cover reader questions. Thank you to everyone who submitted some, and please feel free to continue asking if you have any. The series is VERY high-concept in areas and can be confusing. I’ll always answer as best I can without spoiling upcoming events <3

[Kid Cudi voice] now look at this:

HUGE thank you to @lookforaspoopynewangle for this amazing manip that I need everyone to see and love. Click here to reblog it and spread the joy.

InkofEmrys asked:

A couple random questions I'd throw at you: how far into TEA did you get/have a visual for the depth of Dean's struggle with himself and his sexuality that were happening in the background, which ended up being such a big theme in TBAM? Really, just; how much of Dean's perspective was already shaped in your mind as you wrote/began to develop TEA? And, when did the grounding principle of Dean trying not to be like his father when trying to chart this path with Sam first occur to you as something you wanted to really involve? Also, I'm really curious. (Read: bracing myself in mild fear). Whose perspective(s) do you think you'll end up writing the third work from?

From the getgo BOTH Sam n Dean’s stories were about how they had to find an identity outside of their fathers’ shadow. Almost immediately it was obvious that this was easy(er) for Sam, and life-altering for Dean. This is part of where I ultimately made the decision to split Sam and Dean’s stories because their narrative themes didn’t fit the same flow.

The explicit mantra of ‘I am not my father’ was a product of writing, and not intentional. I didn’t set out to make Sam or Dean specifically antagonistic to their father, because that is their Dad! They love him and miss him. But I did want to include just how difficult John made it to love him because he caused a lot of trauma to/for his children.

I’ve joked about this series being actually about Sam n Dean going through a secondary puberty of sorts. In the sense that, while John has been an absent father and they’ve been away from him most of their adult lives, while John was alive he had a huge presence over them and how they lived. One that continued to follow them after his death, and then by the time they were a few years away from that— they were facing down the apocalypse and had very little time for personal journeys other than ‘I love you enough to die for you’ and ‘I love you enough to let you die for me’. So this story is more about the time period where Sam and Dean have space to breathe and to realize ‘oh Dad’s not going to show up and force us to do what he wants anymore’ so they start poking around and finding out what they want to do and who they want to be

I knew from the beginning that a big aspect of Dean’s story would be dealing with feeling like he’d failed to honor his fathers’ memory by being queer, and not being het like he felt his father had forced him to be by raising Dean to be hypermasculine. It was also important to me to highlight that this was a closet of many factors, and not because John explicitly told Dean not to be queer. Things like the very hypermasculine hunter community, the period of time Dean grew up in, Dean’s intensive self-loathing and criticism of himself. What I didn’t expect was HOW MUCH story would come out of that. I fully intended Dean’s story, even in going back to “season 4” and working our way back to the events of TEA, to only be a little bit longer than Sam’s story.

While writing TEA I had the timeline of Dean’s pov in the back of my mind. I knew Cas was going to open the conversation (his ‘I love you’) to Dean early on, and I knew they wouldn’t be together-together until Sam walks in on their kiss (I hadn’t planned for that to be their first Real Kiss while writing TEA, but it worked out that way in TBAM), but I did know that Dean would have a pretty strong moment of realizing he was likely in love with Cas as well while they were in purgatory

Several povs will come into play in To Destroy a Man. I can tell you for certain that we will have rotating between Sam and Dean, and that the story will be set a few years after the events of TEA/TBAM

Anon asked:

Wrap up question: how did you decide to lead into Cas’s no-good-very-bad day the way you did? I feel like if I tried to write something as dramatic and intense as that I’d get seriously bogged down in trying to write a convincing set up. Why are the bros there? What case were they working on when they learned it was a trap? The way you wrote it I never even questioned any of those things- and that’s a sign of great writing imo! But I’d love to know more about your process for when you decide to go light on detail and when you choose to go deeper!

tl;dr: I made it boring af to know what they were doing!

But more to the point, one of the ‘weaknesses’ I highlighted about this fic, is that all the development happened in very tiny segments and little personal moments, rather than big flash n bang scenes all over the place. There was no driving plot beats to give a reader any footing to guess where the story would be going. This was a strength in that it meant I could surprise Sudden Action onto the story without warning— but it also had to be done wisely! You’ll note there are VERY few Surprise Action/Drama Moments: Sam shooting Naomi, when the leviathans swallow Dean, Sam corrupting Amy, and then Cas’ no-good-very-bad-day. Because most of the action has happened off screen, and the pace of the series is slow, suddenly leaping into action feels intense if only for the contrast!

In any case, all the details? Like: what was the case? Where are they” How far into investigating are they? I personally didn’t care about them. They were so inconsequential that it would have just wasted everyone’s time to spend a few paragraphs nicely laying out all of the information. I think the most I say (in ch25 of TBAM) is “They got notice of weird stuff that could be their kind of weird, so they went poking around.” Because I the writer don’t care that much, and because Dean the pov character doesn’t care that much about the info, then neither does the reader.

Light vs deep detail. A lot of it really came down to what I personally found interesting to write. Obviously self-reflection was a big theme in both stories. In Sam’s story I really wanted to write about magic! And explore magic. So most of Sam’s story deal with his magic powers or conversing with his hallucinations of Lucifer, rather than on details around him. In Dean’s I really wanted to explore a man caught between himself and the things he wants. It really came down to what deserved details and what didn’t!

Thank you all for reading! See ya soon <3

#the love it takes series #to exist again fic #to become a man fic #dem speaks

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oraclemilf · 5 years ago

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ok but i'm loving your takes on the female characters - like it's very disconcerting to watch this show with a lot of girls and then have almost none of them be actual friends, and when they interact they're either fighting or it's about a boy. a lot of them r reduced to stereotypes too like with sam and her "i'm not like other girls" spiel and paulina's... entire thing lol. i'd say at least valerie is well rounded but she never rly interacts with the other girls positively :/

“and like it's an older show where those kinds of messages were everywhere in kids media especially but it still sucks lol at least we can take what we like from fanon and totally change it into our own because butch really did them dirty” 2/2

Yeah exactly. Not to be feminist on main but holy fuck do the girls in DP have issues. Like I get the whole argument that “it's an early 2000s show what can you do” and “all of the characters were shittily written” but the reason most of the female characters are bad in DP is specifically because they were written through a misogynistic lens. Like the show presents itself as having strong female characters but really all they do to break the gender binary is being able to fight. (I will give them points for letting the girls get kicked and punched the same as the men but that is the ONLY praise they are getting out of me.)

To expand on the “takes” in my previous ask:

-Dora, Ember, Desiree, Kitty, and Spectra all had boy/appearance-based backstories. Like seriously, the only female ghost I can think of whose backstory wasn’t entirely based on a man was Pandora and she appears in literally one episode for literally half the episode. (Also if you look at the myth of Pandora it's literally about a woman created by the gods to be the downfall of man so she doesn’t get any feminism points either.) Like listen. I’m not arguing that all the female ghosts should be totally retconned so they never interact with men at all. In fact, I think Kitty,though she has a heteronormative ultimate power, Dora, and Desiree’s backstories work really well for their characters. But Ember and Spectra? Why should Ember die because “she was so sad she was stood up she slept through a house fire” wtf?That literally doesn’t really work with her musician motif at all? How would that even work? Bitch did you have no alarms? Nobody was screaming or anything? Like its so astronomically stupid. @grimgrinningghoul has some cool ideas for alternate Spectra motivations in this post so I really won’t get into that here but women being only motivated by their appearance is such a stale take.

-Maddie legit says "behind every genius woman is a genius man" This is self explanatory really. Like come on girl seriously. But yeah, to elaborate on Maddie they could have had a great strong mother figure. I mean she was a scientist and a black belt for crying out loud! Then they kind of back track because you can’t make women too self-sufficient and have her practice traditional housewife roles, always take a back seat to Jack (even though she’s usually in the right) and have her put up with Vlad’s creepy advances far too much. Not ALL of these things are bad mind you and I probably wouldn’t mind her character too much besides for this one line but looking at it from a broader perspective it doesn’t really come together to make the best picture you know? Also, her sister Alicia - who was probably the most gender-non-conforming character in the show, is treated like she’s a joke or trashy by the narrative. (Don’t even get me started on the constant body-shaming either)

Paulina, Sam, Valerie, Jazz and Dani’s arcs all center around another male character (Danny) Ok this one is a tad more controversial because like yes, I understand Danny is the main character. It makes sense that most character growth is facilitated through him. Hell, even really progressive shows like Steven Universe filter character growth through the main male character. However, there are a couple key distinctions I’d like to point out. For example, Steven Universe has a Third-person limited omniscient POV. meaning all actions in SU are filtered directly through Steven’s perspective. This isn’t the case Danny Phantom, which has a Third-person objective POV, meaning that the story can follow many characters separate from each other, not just Danny. Also the female characters in Steven Universe are already 3 dimensional fully established characters without Steven and it’s even touched on in universe that the characters learn and grow without Steven’s help. This isn’t the case in DP. Paulina's main narrative shift is from being crazy about boys in general to being a devoted fan of Phantom. Sam’s whole arc is about getting together with Danny. Jazz’s arc is about learning how to best support Danny in ghost hunting. Val and Dani were probably two of the better female characters - despite still having Danny-centric arcs. Unfortunately, not only were their plans for character development cut short but any girl-power lines they may have had (something about there being no weak girls idk I’m too lazy to find it) feels fake and pander-y because of all the previous bad examples.

TL;DR I know it's easy to be like “who cares we don’t even respect canon anyway” but I think when source material perpetrates bad messages it’s important to view the content you are working with through a critical lens so you don’t maintain harmful ideas within your own work.

((sorry I hijacked your ask to get on a soap box but I had THOUGHTS about this topic))

#Danny Phantom #egg rants #oh tea #crit

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moscarific · 2 years ago

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Yuletide Letter 2022!

Dear Exceptional Human (or possibly Truly Remarkable AI),

I am beyond delighted that you're writing for me! I’m a gold star Yuletide participant: I’ve signed up every year, and written at least one story every year, since the challenge began. That’s great news for you, because over the years, I’ve learned that the best Yuletide gifts are the ones that weren’t quite what I had expected, and also that gifts are satisfying and joyful for me as long as it’s clear that the author put effort and care into them. Basically, as long as you avoid my Do Not Wants and run spell check, I’m going to be over the moon with excitement at whatever you write for me.

My biggest non-obvious DNW is babyfic. No pregnancy, no babies, no little kids. I’m also a grumpy Jew, so I’d prefer not to receive stories with strong Christmas themes. The “five things” format is not my favorite. Please don’t center your story around ships that I did not ask for.

While questions of race and sexuality are baked into all of my requests this year, I am not looking for issuefic centered around negotiating those identities. I'd rather read about queer and/or BIPOC folks doing stuff in the world. Should you bring up how race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, and body type figure into doing stuff? Yes, please. Should the entire fic be a Socratic dialogue about how marginalization impacts the characters' lives? Not my first choice.

But I like a lot more things than I dislike! I usually read my Yuletide gift(s) while riding the L down to Chinatown for my family's annual dim sum feast, so please give me something to make me smile, laugh out loud at, or feel uncomfortably aroused by on public transportation. Porn is optional, obviously, but: oral sex, eroticized hands, exhibitionism, shower sex, gender play. I like experimental structures and styles, as well as more standard ones, and I am fine with whatever POV and tense you choose. If you are the kind of person who does multimedia or interactive fiction, or just clever footnotes, I am all for that. I love worldbuilding, whether it's adding detail to a sprawling space opera universe or fleshing out the local color of a small Southern town. I like stories that stick close to canon or present interesting “what if” canon divergences, and I also like superhero and In Space AUs.

I tend to write the fic I want to see in the world, so you’ll get a good sense of me by browsing my AO3 account. My AO3 bookmarks are a recs list, and therefore a great way to see what kinds of fic appeal to me and make me happy.

Here are the individual requests from my sign-up, with a little more detail added here and there.

Barry (TV 2018): NoHo Hank, Cristobal Sifuentes

I love my quirky, funny murder show and its quirky, funny drug kingpins who made a great show even better in season 3 by falling in love with each other. Their romance is a laid-back and functional counterpoint to the turmoil of Barry and Sally, and I love that the power of love turned Hank into a goddamned superhero toward the end of the season. Physically, neither is a conventional leading man, and this makes their intimacy super hot to me - use their bodies and their desire for each other as it is, including Hank's alopecia. I'd be very happy with in-character fluff and/or porn that captures their dynamic and the tone of the show. The end of the season leads naturally into psychological and physical hurt/comfort, with an emphasis on the comfort side of that equation. I'd also enjoy a heist narrative that goes spectacularly wrong, a retelling of events from the show from their perspective, or an Actual Superpowers AU. If you're not enthusiastic about writing relationship-focused fic, lean into the heist/caper side of things or build backstory for one or both of the characters.

DNW: Stories centered around pregnancy, babies, or raising children. Strong Christmas/winter holiday themes. Featured or endgame romantic/sexual relationships other than Hank/Cristobal. Extensive, graphic descriptions of homophobic violence or sexual violence. Phonetic representations of accents or "broken English" used for comedy (I'm especially sensitive to this when it comes to native Spanish speakers).

The Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells: Murderbot, Asshole Research Transport

I have been devouring my way through this series, and all I want is more of these two dorks interacting. I absolutely ship them - on their own terms as two agender, asexual, aromantic beings with a tremendous need for reciprocal love and companionship. The far-future corporate-run space opera universe leaves huge scope and space for worldbuilding, both in its quotidian details and in the larger politics that Murderbot and ART often don't comprehend or care about. Since Murderbot's voice and unreliable perspective dominate the series, it would be cool to read a story in ART's voice. I would love a high-stakes story similar to the novels, but with ART as the primary hero and problem-solver. I would equally enjoy quieter, fluffier fic that shows the two characters building their relationship by bonding over serialized dramas or stuff that humans just don't understand.

DNW: Stories centered around pregnancy, babies, or raising children. Strong Christmas/winter holiday themes. Featured or endgame romantic/sexual relationships, period, for this fandom. A focus on intimate relationships other than Murderbot/ART. Sexual violence. Mundane, present-day, or historical AUs.

P-Valley (TV): Clifford "Uncle Clifford" Sayles, Lil Murda | LaMarques

Uncle Clifford/Lil Murda is one of the most romantic and real relationships I've seen on TV, and I want more of their journey together. Uncle Clifford's gender identity and presentation are so real and confident and complicated, and I love how her choice of wig and makeup (or choice not to wear them) communicate her state of mind. Lil Murda is the embodiment of "I Love How Men Love," and his evolving sense of himself as both a talented musician and a gay/queer man are portrayed with such humanity and realness. I love the two of them together in their quiet, playful, and sexy moments, and I also find them fascinating when their guarded and conflicted personalities create conflict and tension in their relationship. The lived-in world of Chucalissa is one of my favorite things about P-Valley, and I'd be delighted with fic that focuses on its quirks and history as seen through Uncle Clifford and/or Lil Murda's eyes. I don't know how you'd pull off a space opera or superhero AU, but if that challenge appeals to you, go for it. P-Valley does a beautiful job of weaving the COVID-19 pandemic into the narrative, so for this fandom and this fandom only, canon-consistent use of current events is welcome.

DNW: Stories centered around pregnancy, babies, or raising children. Strong Christmas/winter holiday themes. Featured or endgame romantic/sexual relationships other than Uncle Clifford/Lil Murda. Extensive, graphic descriptions of homophobic, transphobic, racist, or sexual violence. Misgendering characters or using non-canon pronouns for them. Phonetic representations of regional and AAVE accents.

Fire Island (Movie 2022): Max, Will, Noah

This is an either/or request, although I would prefer that all of my requested characters get at least a line or two. Max is the most underwritten character of the five friends in the movie, and I would love a story where he gets to shine in all his fat, black, femme, nerdy fabulousness. He's the opposite of the island's gym twink aesthetic in every way, but Noah says he gets more play than anyone else in the group - let's see that happen. I don't really ship him with any of the characters from the film, so feel free to pair him with an OC or a guest star from one of my other fandoms. Or tell a story about Max without a romantic focus that builds his backstory and point of view.

On the Noah/Will front, I love them and ship them and want them to be happy forever. How do they negotiate a long-distance relationship after the movie ends? How do they let down their emotional walls and deal with their hang-ups so they can be together? Go sexy, go silly, go angsty, go full Austen - just give me the next chapter in their love story.

DNW: Stories centered around pregnancy, babies, or raising children. Strong Christmas/winter holiday themes. Featured or endgame romantic/sexual relationships other than Noah/Will, Howie/Charlie, or Max/anybody. Extensive, graphic descriptions of homophobic, racist, or sexual violence. Misgendering characters or using non-canon pronouns for them.

#yuletide #yuletide 2022 #yuletide letter

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bluecoloreddreams · 4 years ago

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(Disclaimer: this contains spoilers for the Fruits Basket and Fruits Basket: Another manga, as well as taking into consideration tidbits from Takaya’s twitter.)

So, okay, first of all we have to address the YMMV aspect: Some people don’t like this ship. As long as they’re respectful, I have no beef with that. I’m well aware that some people cannot/choose not to make the distinction between “real life” and “fiction”— I have the luxury of this choice, so some of the “problematic” ships/character aspects within Furuba don’t bother me (for the most part). It’s fiction, and I’m aware of this.

Again, some people cannot/do not make this distinction, and that’s none of my business because that’s their personal life. I’m aware that people dislike aspects of Akigure, and that’s fine.

Personally? I’ve been reading Furuba since like, basically the dawn of time. I was reading scans on, like, MSN groups. I remember a friend at church (of all places) telling me about the Akito reveal because I was behind on updates. It’s literally engrained upon my shipping heart at this point.

(Headcanons ahoy! Like literally, this is all headcanon/my perspective on the series as a whole. YMMV/YKINMK/Dead Dove, the whole works, if you know you know

YES I wrote it like it’s an actual research paper because I have No Chill At All, please forgive me. It’s long and pretty rambling.)

Addressing the first elephant in the room: Given my limited interactions with the fandom, my impression of Akigure from a generalized fan POV is that it’s pretty divisive. Every episode she comes up there are “I hate this kid” comments and I cry

Akito is a favorite of mine, and it’s impossible for anime-only’s to make a deep, informed call on her character. On the other hand, a lot of manga-readers dislike her too.

So, why am I talking about whether or not people like Akito as a character?

I’m of the opinion that it impacts people’s ability to view her character arc as one that deserves a happy ending. That she doesn’t deserve to have love, happiness, or forgiveness, all of which are given to her when she and Shigure finally end up together on equal footing. (Do I think the way it’s rushed in the original Furuba ending? Yeah, but hey. Sensei had like a huge ensemble cast to wrap ends on. Now there’s Furubana to look to and it’s just chef’s kiss.)

There’s a mental aspect in this, involving the dichotomy between “reality” and “fiction”.

There is absolutely zero argument that are a lot of things that Akito does that uh, listen, if it was IRL she’d be in jail! Jail for terror baby! Jail for life!

Fortunately, Fruits Basket is a work of fiction. These characters aren’t real, they’re idealized brushstrokes of human nature created to move a plot and a message along.

That’s why Akito and Shigure work as a couple and as characters:

They’re both incredibly deep characters that get passed off as one-dimensional by a lot of people (and the original anime, woof). Some of it is again, because anime-only fans just don’t have the whole story, since Akito’s arc is one that builds gradually until it hits a point where all hell breaks loose, which we are a ways away from.

So what’s the message that their relationship and characters are supposed to pass on?

Well, it breaks down into two categories: world building and thematic arcs. The latter is more important and what I’ll be focusing on, while the former is just a little spice that I, personally enjoy, and won’t really talk about in depth. (It’s that the magical realism in Furuba sets up the idea of soulmates, it’s just…. Something I enjoy and it’s really heacanony, so I can’t really justify spending more words on it!)

When discussing Fruits Baskets in any capacity, I feel like we must first keep in mind the thematic “lessons” of the series:

There is an inherent loneliness in living as a human being, since loss, grief, and hurt are indelible parts of the human experience, and learning to cope with these feelings in a compassionate manner is a life-long lesson

People react differently to the loneliness of existence, and their reactions are based upon their personalities, their upbringings, and their own choices

Everyone is capable of change and learning, if they choose to do so, however:

Personal agency is taught, but in the vacuum of positive reinforcement, the ability of a person to choose to be compassionate is stifled or outright inaccessible

Therefore, if you are not taught to deal with your grief and existence outside of others, your ability to connect may become warped, manipulative, or abusive, and this is not the fault of the child but instead the parental figure

Eventually, you will be aware of your actions, and then it is your burden to choose—some people do not take this choice (the head maid, Ren, Kyo’s bio dad, Rin’s parents, Sawa’s mother in Furubana)

Abuse has long lasting effects on the psyche and can be physical, emotional, and/or mental in nature and must be dealt with in order to grow as a person

“Dealt with” does not mean that it goes away, but that it is acknowledged and given a positive outlet (Yuki’s garden, Aaya’s shop, Rin’s art, Momiji’s violin playing)

Forgiveness is not linear

Forgiving yourself is a long and arduous process, and happens independent of other people’s forgiveness

This is really brought to the forefront in Fruits Basket: Another, when Shiki talks about how his mother interacts with the rest of the Sohma family. It’s shown she’s done what she can to make amends, but recognizes that while she can individually hold relationships with certain family members, as a whole, it's best if she allows them to be away from her.

This is a whole tangent on its own, but there’s a certain blanket of casual forgiveness given to Akito by the entirety of the shown Zodiac in Furubana, in that they trust that she’s raised a kind and thoughtful son and allow him the grace of his own family.

Again, in Takaya’s tweets post-series that acknowledges that Akito’s friends with Uo-chan, despite her relationship with Kureno (and it shows a depth of awareness on Kureno’s part that he stays away

People flourish in environments where love and positive reinforcement is given freely, even when people are in the wrong

This doesn’t mean that no one is ever scolded: see Komaki and Kakeru, Kisa and Hiro, Hatori chews out Shigure all the time, but never ceases being his confidant

So okay, that’s A Lot. But every single character in Furuba follows these themes in their own manner, because the series is about healing and learning how to heal from abuse, neglect, and isolation. Someone’s gonna have to be doing it. Point blank, the end, to tell a story there must be conflict, and boy howdy, there’s a lot of conflict in Furuba. Every personal thematic arc in the series ends up tying into a romantic one, because Furuba is a romcom drama.

There’s a loop that goes “personal betterment”->”crush”/”friendship”->”conflict”->”personal growth”/”relationship growth” in the series for every character. That’s the bread and butter of Furuba.

But anyway. To the question:

I love them because they work, they’re both their own people with their own narrative focuses, motivations, conflicts, and flaws. Both Shigure and Akito are believable in their own right in the context of Furuba, and I think Takaya did wonderfully in crafting a story where their personalities mesh well and give each other reasons to better themselves.

To talk about them together, you have to talk about them separately.

I’m gonna start with Shigure because, truthfully?

I just want to lament about how often he’s simply passed off as either comic relief or absolute trash. He’s so underestimated!

“He’s a joke of a grown man… He is reliable and I trust him.” (Another, v. 3)

He’s incredibly intelligent when it comes to interpersonal relationships, which is why he’s able to do what he does. He’s also incredibly kind—no one made him take in Yuki or Kyo or Tohru. He could have just went “ah, I’d prefer not to” and moved on. But he didn’t, made up some bullshit so Haru would feel like taking in Yuki was a transaction, and let me just tell you, I am the same age as Shigure and if you gave ME three teenagers to be the guardian of?! It would be a full on disaster.

He’s actually incredibly trustworthy (if he wants to be), insightful, and a genuinely good guardian despite his jokes and wisecracking.

He forced Kyo to go back to school, knowing full well it would be good for him. He lets a whole host of children run rampant through his home. Kids who actually enjoy his presence. He’s shown as having a good familial relationship with Rin (who tries to warp that for her own means), Kisa, Haru, and Momiji. His advice to Tohru is genuine, insightful, and ridiculously helpful.

Shigure is good with people. He gets up at the crack of dawn to drive Shiki to see Sawa in Furubana. He’s who Mutsuki and Hajime immediately go “holy shit you need to do something about this” to when they find out Shiki’s getting nasty notes about Akito. He’s who Shiki goes to when Sawa fell down the stairs as a child. As much as Shiki and the others make fun of Shigure, he’s obviously someone who’s trustworthy. And that’s not some new development, he’s always been trustworthy in regards to those he loves. No one asked him to show up to Tohru’s teacher conference, he volunteered. Like this dude loves people, he’s the dog spirit after all, and rightly so.

Does he have his own motivations? Of course! But so does everyone else in Furuba. He’s a complex character, man!

He laughs and jokes a lot because he’s projecting this image of a laid back, doofus. When you think about who he’s friends with, the whole middling goofball act makes a lot of sense. Just like some of Ayame’s over the top behavior is a defense mechanism, I believe that Shigure casts himself as a generally unappealing man to keep himself safe from advances when he was in school, but also to temper the wildly unequal personalities of his other two friends. He’s the sort of person who would just go “eh, whatever makes it easy”, and that’s just how he is.

He doesn’t mean the creepy school girl thing, it’s a bit and I think the only people who don’t realize he’s running a bit are Yuki, Kyo, and Tohru who are absolutely too stupid to realize he’s playing them for reactions. He thinks it’s funny.

Anyway:

When the older Zodiac had the dream of Shigure, Shigure is the only one who made the active choice to seek out that feeling. His soul was touched, and he decided that he wanted that and only that. This doesn’t necessarily mean he went full Jacob from Breaking Dawn, but it does mean he acknowledged there was a bond, and he wanted it.

When you get into the technicalities of the curse, it’s mentioned that their Zodiac spirits influence how they interact with Akito, and that going against her can cause physical and emotional pain. Yuki cries when meeting her, and it’s mentioned that that’s just the normal reaction for the Zodiacs.

It’s hard to say how much of their early interactions are influenced by the curse, but it’s obvious that Shigure has genuine fondness for her. She wasn’t always absolutely broken, as shown in Yuki’s backstory, and was a precocious child, one who sought affection openly.

Shigure has an indulgent personality, and is shown to love being adored. Guess who loves him! Akito! Guess who wants lots and lots of affection! Akito!

Their personalities are very well matched as they get older: They’re both intelligent and coy. They both have fairly sharp tongues when needed, and have no qualms about doing whatever it takes to get what they want.

Shigure wants Akito to be independent from the curse. He’s made it clear to her he doesn’t want to be her father, he doesn’t want to be her friend, he wants to be her lover. Those are boundaries that Akito’s never been given before, and his frankness with her and his jealousy with Kureno is something she agonizes over, simply because she’s never been given any sort of serious interpersonal boundaries, or repercussions for her actions. He’s always kept himself separate from her, because of those boundaries, even when they were children.

That’s important. It opens the door to the idea that her actions have consequences, and is a persistent nagging in the back of her mind.

“Even though you hadn’t realized it, I was waiting for that day.” (ch 101)

For the bulk of the series, the only person who sees Akito as a person separate from the curse, and sees a future where she can grow is Akito. He has an extraordinary amount of patience for her, and forgives her for a lot.

There are only two incidents that Shigure cannot forgive: Her sleeping with Kureno, and at the very end of the series, I’m of the full opinion that if Akito had pushed Tohru off the cliff, Shigure would have been done with her. Look at that expression, that is the look of someone who is toeing the line of throwing away all his hopes and dreams. If she really had pushed Tohru, I just...... The series would have taken a much darker tone.

OKAY that’s enough about our favorite terrible author! (Okay, an aside, Shigure, please share your work ethic, you goof off so much but you’ve published so many things…how…)

ONTO AKITO!

“I’ve finally realized… she hated her own shallowness all this time, from the very start.” // “It’s frightening because you have no choices.” (ch 121)

A lot of people dislike Akito because she, for the bulk of the manga, is violent, manipulative and just downright unpleasant. And that’s fine, but it’s not the point of her arc or the themes of the manga. (It is, however, the point of Rin’s: you don’t have to forgive everyone.)

She’s not the only violent person in the series. If we as readers can forgive Uo-chan and Kyoko, or even Hana-chan for her moment of violence, why can we not extend the same grace to Akito?

Violence is often shown as a knee-jerk reaction to fear and sadness: Kyoko, Uo, Hana, Kyo, Rin, and Akito all react violently to negative situations and feelings. Even Kisa reacts violently when she’s at her worst, biting both Haru and Tohru when she’s in her tiger form, which is shown to actually cause pain like a real tiger would. (It’s played for laughs, but has anyone been bitten for realsies by a house cat? That hurts! How much more would a house-cat sized tiger hurt!!!)

Out of all of them, Hanajima and Kisa are the only characters to show immediate remorse, because they have what the others don’t: A positive support system. Once positive role models and support systems are in place, all of the others begin to learn how to react differently and ease out of the knee-jerk reactions that were ingrained in them.

It’s made explicit in the manga that you have to be taught how to react positively, you have to learn and choose to be good, to be friendly, to love yourself outside of others’ perceptions of yourself. Look at Yuki’s arc. Look at Uo-chan’s. Kyoko’s.

Yuki sums it up nicely in the last chapter of the manga, where he tells Tohru that she taught the Zodiac how to become human. She allows them to grow into people who can make the choice to be loving, compassionate individuals.

Just because Akito doesn’t interact positively with Tohru for the bulk of the manga, it doesn’t make it any less true:

Akito is kept in a juvenile state of being: No one teaches her to suck it up, that the world exists outside of herself, that other people are people and not things. In fact, she’s actively encouraged to act the way she does. She’s incredibly broken, between the maids of the Sohma estate just… allowing her to do whatever the fuck she wants and her absolutely jacked up relationship with Ren and Akira. She has no moral compass at all. No one bothers to teach her that her actions have serious consequences.

She knows, in a roundabout way that hey, these people don’t like me. There’s a serious mental dissonance between what she latently knows—these are all people with no connection to her other than the bond of the curse. This is why Tohru is able to break through to her at the climax of the manga:

She knows she’s wrong, but no one has ever told her she’s wrong but understood why she’s doing it. Akito just didn’t have the words to explain herself. What do children do when they cannot communicate? They lash out. Kids will bite, scratch, yell, kick, fall to the floor and have screaming tantrums out of frustration. Eventually, most kids learn that there are other ways to express frustration, and move along. (Not all, though, but most.)

Akito was taught that this is acceptable, allowable, and is her right as god. She is actively broken and kept that way through the neglect of the Sohma family maids, Ren’s abuse, and how Akira framed her role in the Zodiac.

I can go on and on and on and on why the way Akito was treated for her role in the Zodiac by her parents and the rest of the Sohma estate was just awful. I hate it, it’s terrible, she never had a chance to learn and grow and be the genuinely thoughtful woman we know she grows into.

She doesn’t force her path of forgiveness onto others and is fully cognizant of what she did, the repercussions of her actions, and lives her entire life after the curse breaks trying to right what she did wrong.

“Even if she gets hurt, she says she deserves it. She tells me not to let it bother me, but… I’ve always, always loved her so much.” (Another, ch. 13)

Tohru opens the door for Akito. She extends her hand, offers her friendship despite having seen the absolute worst of Akito. She tells Akito that everyone is lonely, everyone wants bonds, and acknowledges Akito’s worst fears, that Akito herself is selfish and dirty for wanting something assured and unending because she, Tohru, herself is dirty and selfish. Tohru knows what Akito has done, knows she’s injured some of her beloved friends, had plans to lock up Kyo, hurt Hatori.

Tohru still forgives her. One of Tohru’s striking traits in the manga is that she is suffering, every day, she struggles with the grief of losing her mother and the fear of being alone in the world. Through nothing but her own empathy and realization that loneliness is universal, she’s able to forgive people. She forgives Akito and cares for her, and through Tohru, Akito is introduced to the realization that she’s been wrong and that maybe, she shouldn’t be forgiven.

Shigure also forgives her, and this is the crux of their ship.

To me, that itself is wildly important.

They’ve always circled around each other, and Shigure has always been waiting for Akito to be able to come to him again, in full control of her life and choices. He wants Akito the woman, not Akito the god.

He’s been waiting for the day Akito can meet him as an equal. Akito wants it too, and has wanted him to turn and see her for a very very long time. But she’s been terrified, the entire time, that when he does see her as herself, Shigure won’t like what he sees, and will leave. She’s aware of what she’s done post-curse, she’s aware of the impacts it will have on the former Zodiac members, and she’s aware that once the “bonds” of god and the animals is gone, there may not be anyone left for her.

Neither of them are under any illusions at the end of the series: Akito knows she has to atone for what she did, Shigure knows she has to learn to grow into a person who can function alone. They both know that there are people who are against them changing the oppressive structure of the Sohma family.

Neither of them care. There are things that they want, together, and it’s enough. There’s a whole new world for them to explore and learn about. And in Furubana, this is shown to be a lifelong effort on their parts:

“She said after meeting me, she learned so many things for the first time. She smiled happily as she said it.” (Another, #13)

To close, I’d like to take a moment to talk about the curse and Shigure, and how he set things in motion.

Without Shigure, the curse would have devolved on its own, yes, but the circumstances would not have allowed for the freedom the Zodiac had at the end of the manga. It would not have ended with Akito being able to learn and live freely. Allowing Tohru into the Sohma family cracked open a door to compassion and kindness none of them had ever experienced before, because the Sohma family seems to exist in a vacuum of stability and love.

It wasn’t that Shigure knew instantly that Tohru was kind and loving and thoughtful, if anything, his read on her was “completely normal, albeit strange, teenage girl who obviously has a rough life”. But she was normal, she was from outside the Sohmas, and he knew that was enough. No one in the family was stepping up to change the status quo and how stifling and abusive it was, so he did it himself.

He did it because he loved Akito.

Not because he felt bad for himself, or Hatori, or any of the others, but merely because he loved her to the point of manipulation. It backfired in his face, because he got a big ol’ dose of “loving and respecting” juice from Tohru, but he still got the end he wanted.

What I mean to say is best summarized in chapter 123:

“It would be nice to live in a kind world, without any troubles, without any fear, without hurting anybody, without ever being hurt, only doing the right thing. I wish I could reach this kind world by the shortest path possible. … “That’s wrong”, or “that’s stupid”: If it’s someone else’s life it’s so easy to make such irresponsible comments. ...It would be great, but it doesn’t exist. … Little by little, walking one step at a time, is all you can do.”

We get to experience the roughest part of the path with Akito and Shigure, we got to watch them be terrible people who were lonely and in want of love struggle and learn how to get up and move on.

They tease each other, Shigure is thoughtful of the distinction between “the person Akito was raised to be” and “the person who Akito is”. He’s seen her at her messiest, and she’s seen him at his most jealous. They still chose each other, despite the hurt they caused each other, and others. They make up for it, reflect, and live a life that demonstrates that they have learned. They have friends who are thoughtful and loving and would not hesitate to drop everything and help them, lend an ear when they’re frustrated, help them not to make the same mistakes.

And then we get to see them be wonderful, kind, thoughtful, loving parents in Furubana.

We got to see their adorable, kind, compassionate child be friends with the children of the people Akito hurt, because everyone in the former Zodiac’s family collectively decided “never again, no”.

Their child adores them. Shiki in Furubana #13 radiates love for Akito and Shigure the same way Mutsuki and Hajime do.

They are genuinely good parents, even when they tease Shiki, and I think that is testament for how good they are for each other and how much they’ve changed as adults.

I think that’s enough of a reason to ship them, don’t you?

#Mitkun writes stuff #fruits basket manga spoilers #fruits basket another #fruits basket spoilers #akigure #fruits basket akito #fruits basket shigure

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yellowocaballero · 4 years ago

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thoughts on writing gertrude? loved your latest evil con update :)

Oooh, thanks for asking. Truth be told that the story was the result of me stress-procrastinating on a large project at work due that day, so the writing process was basically me slapping the keyboard a few times for about two hours and then posting it without really even looking it over. See if you can catch ALL of the grammar mistakes, lmfao!!!

But it was a lot of fun to write a POV I’d never written before, especially one so different from everybody else’s. She’s also a very distinct personality and character, with a lot of ‘rules’ that I had to come up with on the spot, lol. What I really did enjoy was structuring the story similarly to some of the older TV shows I like, like Murder She Wrote or Columbo. I also adjusted the internal narration and the style to be a little more flowery or film noir, with a focus on evocative yet precise language and ruminations, because I needed to drive home that she and Agnes were absolutely pyromaniac girlfriends and that she felt very much A Certain Way over her that she was refusing to admit.

(Some characters ruminate and some characters don’t. As a writer, try to stay away from long rambling paragraphs about a character’s thoughts, because that’s dull as shit. However, whenever I write from the POV of Archivist!Sasha and Gertrude, these two people absolutely follow logical trains of thought compulsively as part of how they problem-solve or plan. They have constructive and directed trains of thought that they use to problem-solve/narrate the story. If you’re writing from Jon’s POV, he ALSO has these trains of thought, except they are nonconstructive, rambling, illogical, and soaked in stress and anxiety. I have Jon think about how he FEELS and I have Sasha and Gertrude think about what they’re DOING. But also avoid long paragraphs of internal narration cuz that shit’s boring lol.)

But writing from Gertrude’s POV was very interesting to me, because I couldn’t use her to give the audience emotional cues. Normally when you’re writing something gross you rely on both description/word choice and the POV to signal to the audience that it’s gross - the spider’s legs were luminescent, scratchy, carapaces, shifting and groaning under their unnatural weight, but more importantly Sasha felt bile rise in her throat and was hit by a stab of nausea. You can only get so scary actually describing something, you also have to lean on emotional cues through loaded language and other character reactions. But with Gertrude, the whole scene in Jon’s bedroom (that, to be clear, was a bedroom coated in giant spider webs containing a half-human half-spider teenager groaning in agony and lashing out violently) was described clinically and professionally. Because she’s a professional, and she just wasn’t fucking scared by it. Because we’re soaked in her POV, we aren’t scared either. The scariest thing to us is how much Jon is clearly suffering. But, on the flip side, when Jon’s acting and looking more human, the most normal and innocuous things he does becomes dangerous and threatening, because Gertrude’s running her little logic programs telling her that he’s dangerous.

Beyond the joys of POV, characterization wise: Gertrude brings narrative conflict wherever she goes because she is instantly half a step away from throwing down at any moment lol, which makes her perfect for instilling tension and conflict in a story. The main tension of that story was Gertrude and her distrust/horniness for Agnes, and Gertrude and her distrust of Jon - something she ultimately only dropped because she had decided to dismiss him as a threat (orrr diiddd sheeee....). Also, exploring her and Agnes’ relationship was FUN AS HELL, because I was constrained by how little these characters wanted to talk about what they were feeling. The ‘I’m only talking to you for business reasons’ thing was lifted from WTNV, which is the platonic ideal of romance. It was fun to also kind of explore from an outsider’s perspective how weird it is that a 60 year old fire messiah (she looks more like mid-twenties, it’s a testament to how Gertrude thinks of Agnes that she thinks of her as an older woman) is best friends with a teenager and they’re both very protective of another, younger, spider-teenager. Her relationship dynamics with the other characters are fun too: she denies it but Gerry is obviously like a nephew to her, she’s entrenched in a massive Will-they-won’t-they with Agnes, and she has people in her circle, but she obviously really doesn’t actually give a shit about or love anybody but herself. Gertrude cares about herself, and keeping the world safe, and that’s it.

AU notes: so basically what happened was that Agnes had her Crisis of Faith earlier than in canon, and she’s kept up very secret and limited communication with Gerry since the 1999 Evilcon (they were banned from any evilcons afterwards, so they never met up again as kids after that and they never saw Jon again). Instead of killing herself she decided to run away instead, so she asked for Gertrude’s help in torching any of her cult members who stopped her from leaving. They Fell In Love and had A Night of Passion and Spoke Longingly of Running Away Together before Gertrude’s sense of duty to her job made her break it off. Agnes is now enthusiastically trying to live out that ‘real life’ thing when she gets word that Jon’s spider-person transformation has started happening and that he had to run away, and is now homeless in London. Gerry’s been meaning to go ditch his mom and live with Agnes too, so basically Gerry and Agnes teamed up to go rescue Jon and falsify their identities so they can all try to live the normal life they never got. They’re best friends and continue living together until we see them all as adults in the main story. Agnes and Gerry are MUCH happier than in canon and Jon’s...well, he’s having a time of it, but he’ll end up alright! Right?

Also the only music I listened to while writing the whole thing was Billy Joel, Jim Croce, Hall and Oates, etc. :) Thanks for the q!!

#'golden brown' by the stranglers is my agnes/gertrude anthem and that's the tea #gertrude is such a bad person and she is so aware of that but you can tell she's the kind of bad person who thinks bad people are superior #to nice people #gertrude handshake meme jon: self centered af #also btw i kept it ambiguous what exactly was fucking happening in jon's weird little spider-brain #eg how much he was manipulating gertrude how much he was in control of himself etc #but rest assured the kid is going THRU IT and his spidermom is giving a lot of solutions which maybe arent so good #tma #my writing

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