#--is Canon Accurate in its characterization of him even if in general i think it's pretty Thematically Weird 2 have chosen Mig Specifically

[maxdibert]

yeah, people love to act like w0lfstar are some canon queer icons when in the actual canon Sirius had posters of bikini clad women on his walls and mocked his former classmate for being a crybaby (Snivellus) well into his adulthood, while Remus got a younger woman pregnant and then bolted in fear of the responsibility. none of which means they couldn't be gay or bi! but all of which points to neither of them being the soft uwu boys that fanon likes to dream them up as. all of these character traits are the things that make them even remotely interesting, and I'll never understand the impulse to remove them in order to make them more palatable or nicer. they were assholes too!

Wolfstar is a ship as old as the fandom itself, but its characterization of the characters used to be much more accurate. Back in the late 00s, there wasn’t this kind of twink Sirius who had been turned into a completely different character by stripping away all his essential traits, including the fact that he was always described in the books as the epitome of traditional masculinity: the tallest of them all (not just of the Marauders, but in general; he was taller than most of the characters, and Rowling constantly compares his height with others), the most violent, the most attractive, the one who made the girls sigh, the one with posters of women in bikinis in his room, the one who had A HUGE MOTORCYCLE, FOR GOD'S SAKE. I mean, Rowling really makes an effort to emphasize all these things at various points in the story—she likes to dwell on how handsome, masculine, and handsome, and once again, handsome, Sirius Black was. She repeats it like eighty times. In fact, she repeats it as often as she repeats that Severus is ugly, slouched, and looks like a shadow. Sirius and Severus are described in great detail, both ironically with completely different physiques and diametrically opposed appearances. With the other Marauders, you know certain things, but there isn’t the same emphasis as there is with Sirius. Rowling wants you to know that Sirius Black was incredibly handsome, super tall, a rebellious tough guy with a motorcycle, and that he had posters of naked women in his room. She wants you to know that he was a guy who performed his masculinity in a very heteronormative way. Could he have liked men? Sure, we won’t rule it out, anything is possible, but you can like men and still be a tough guy—those things aren’t mutually exclusive. And I don’t know if Sirius was straight, bisexual, or gay; that’s not something specified, but regardless of his sexual preferences, he was a tough guy. And Rowling stamps that fact into your brain all the time.

This was something that was respected in the old Wolfstar. They respected this Sirius Black, and they also respected that he had very problematic, violent attitudes and was a questionable person. They also tried to stay a bit more true to the Remus of canon, who had this pathological need for acceptance and was a bit cowardly, etc. There was an intention to keep the characters in character, and while Wolfstar has never made sense to me as a pairing because 1) if Sirius had an obsession with one of his friends or was emotionally attached to anyone, it was James, and 2) he always treated Remus like shit and didn’t even care that he might end up in prison for killing a fellow student, just as he was the first to distrust him during the war, and 3) Remus went on to live his life, married a young girl, got her pregnant, and almost abandoned her, showing us that he was the worst kind of hetero but also the best example of an insecure hetero guy, the truth is I didn’t mind that pairing because I always say that people can ship whatever they want and I always respect that.

But what they’ve done now with the characters... I mean, I don’t care who ships who; everyone can ship whoever they want with whoever they want. It’s a free world, and I’m really one of those people who thinks that as long as it doesn’t involve minors with old people, everything is fine. But, seriously, they’ve destroyed the characters, they’ve mutilated them. I don’t know who this person is that I sometimes read about in some posts, but it’s not Sirius Black, it’s not the Sirius Black from the books, and the Sirius Black from the books is a character with a lot of depth who could be very complex if treated properly. But instead of exploiting his essence, which is so inconsistent, full of cynicism, double standards, and pure hypocrisy, they’ve turned him into some kind of... I don’t know, a cheap character from a Netflix tabloid series that lasts five seasons with terrible plots just for the aesthetic. He seems like he’s come straight out of Elite, like, what a cringe.

Destroying Remus’s character also seems like a huge slap in the face to me. Hello? Is this really your queer icon? A man who, at 38, gets a 25-year-old girl pregnant and then runs off? Seriously, don’t you realize that you’re making the most heteroproblematic guy in the entire saga into a sort of symbol of the LGBTQ+ community? I just don’t get it. I mean, at least portray him for what he was, it doesn’t matter, it makes him more interesting.

I don’t know what the hell has happened to this fandom. I’ve never liked the Marauders, but their fandom was bearable years ago. People used to keep the personalities and traits of the characters. And the physical appearance too, because this new generation even invents that, turning Sirius into a gnome or something, I don’t know, lol. I really don’t know what the hell has happened in recent years, but that place is unbearable now—not only because it’s full of toxic people or because it glorifies abusive rich kids, or because most of them have a super classist background, but because they’ve destroyed characters that, while you might not like them, at least the reasons you didn’t like them were the same ones that allowed for interesting dynamics. Or to make interesting analyses. Or to read interesting metas. Now, it’s all reduced to seeing who fits more with a magical version of Sex Education, and it’s not only cringey but it also takes away all the charm of the characters.

[darkestmetamorphosis]

2, 6, 8, 12 >:3c

Answers under the cut because this got looong and a little spicy >////<

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2: a compelling argument for why your fave would never top or bottom

I've hinted at some of my thoughts on this before, but here is all the deep lore (as deep as Alucard in Trevor)

(None of this should in any way be taken to mean that Trevor exclusively bottoms. He absolutely does top sometimes and if you're already asking what he does with that whip if he's not a dom and/or top with Alucard, the answer is Hector. He's doing Hector.)

Why Alucard Would Never Bottom: a dissertation

Exhibit A: Spite

Alucard's portrayal in netflixvania has done irrevocable damage to how his character is perceived by the fandom as a whole, and this is one of many reasons why. 

I refuse to acknowledge what Warren Ellis did to him and I refuse to acknowledge his rapist ocs as canon. It cannot be proof of Alucard's sexuality (I think he is bisexual for entirely different reasons, based solely on the characters I ship him with in cv3 and sotn) or what he actually does like doing in the bedroom, because it's a rape scene written by a sex pest.

I'm also refuting it out of spite for migratory slash fandoms latching onto trevorcard for the wrong reasons and forcing them into the seme/uke mold. I can't even really call it flanderization when it's not an exaggeration of traits they actually have, it's just wildly out of character. I have a deep-seated personal seething hatred of ukefication in general, and especially when it comes to pretty bishounen. 

It's even worse when it's my comfort character who I somewhat relate and project onto and aspire to be as pretty as him and I WOULD NEVER DO THAT. (For personal reasons to do with me being ftm and dysphoric as hell and hating the stereotypes about it. I don't hc Alucard as trans but I know there's fans who do SOLELY because he's pretty and/or because they decided bottom=trans because of the aforementioned nfcv shit and I hate it. If vampires were real I would let them bite me though. I'm only a masochistic slut for vampires ok)

Also we just need more pretty boys topping stronk manly men ok

Exhibit B: Actual serious reasoning based on what I can extrapolate about his characterization based on the games and vampire lore in general

A very common headcanon which while I don't entirely agree with, is more accurate than how nfcv and its fans portray him, is that Alucard is aroace. And I can somewhat see it, though I see it more in the sense that I think he would be more interested in pseudo-sexual intimacy than actual sex. The sexiest of all forms of pseudo-sex is a vampire's bite (citation NOT needed). I'd go so far as to call it a type of BDSM. Feeding would be the ultimate act of love and intimacy for him, and I don't think it's something he does lightly; only with the humans who love and trust him implicitly.

Additionally, I think he'd be more interested in sex while feeding than sex by itself; both of them at once being filled with the other's warmth.

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6: which ship fans are the most annoying?

I've curated my dash enough to not see any of it on tumblr, but trephacard shippers still manage to annoy me by cluttering up the tags for the games on ao3. The sheer amount of fics that get filtered out when I filter it out is just depressing. They get all three of them completely wrong (which is mostly the shows writers fault but they still get compressed even further into flanderized molds) They're sleeping on Grant when they could be sleeping with Grant and leaving him out of the polycule is an instant red flag that it's a netflixvania fic

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8: common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

The common headcanon that Alucard is oblivious to or disinterested in romance. I'd like to think he does reciprocate Maria's and the curse polycule's feelings. It's not that he doesn't want to be with any of them, but that he keeps his distance and goes to sleep out of a misguided desire to protect them from himself and believing he doesn't belong with humans because of the vampire half of himself; all the while pining that they cannot be together. I don't think that was an easy decision for him to make.

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12:  the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them

I know she is beloved in our corner of the fandom here but Julia

I feel like outside of here, people just see her as Hector's obligatory love interest or as a replacement for Rosaly. She is so much more than that. I feel like there is so much that CoD only hints at on a surface level.

I've been thinking more thoughts about her lately, admittedly in relation to Isaactor-centric fic ideas but I feel like she's taken on more of a distinct personality that cannot be interchangeable with any other character.

I think anyone who appreciates Isaac should appreciate her too; I'd like to think they're not as different as they seem in CoD

[lesbiananya]

I’ve been very nervous sending a message because I’m a aroace trans dude and… I’m very out of the target demographic for the fic. However, I’ve been keeping up with it for months, and after that one message I felt like it was important to say something and voice my support.

I’ve been going through a very rough patch the last few weeks. I’ve dealt with the loss of two of my cats and its been very hard for me. But reading your fic has really helped me get through it. Even though its a fictional scenario, seeing Anya go through this immense, unfathomable hardship and being as strong as she is handling it - and having a potential route for her to have a better ending with Y/N - means a lot to me. Its silly, but the story makes me feel like I can endure my own hardships, even if they feel all encompassing and suffocating.

I’m at a point now that reading your fic helps me get to bed at night lol. Its like my bi nightly bedtime story. I just view Y/N as another character rather than an extension of myself (I was worried about gender dysphoria but actually reading the story isn’t very dysphoric for me at all) and just get lost in your writing, which is something not many fanfic writers achieve for me.

Also, as a writer myself, the way you portray the characters is awesome and is the most canon accurate representation I’ve seen of them so far. I ADORE the banter between Y/N, Anya, and Daisuke especially, and the way you portray Jimmy is perfect. Swansea I also feel like tends to get mischaracterized by the fandom but you’ve really nailed him too which is awesome!

Tysm for sharing your works <33 I look forward to reading future updates

hello there! thank you so much for the lovely ask! i really appreciate you reaching out!

i welcome anyone of any demographic (ideally adults, though) to read my fics. even though the target audience is, of course, sapphic women, anyone can read my stuff. 💙 i think it's good to empathize with the experiences of women—fellow human beings—regardless of gender! and as you said, Y/N can always be perceived as a second person character otherwise.

i'm really touched that my writing has had such an emotional impact on you! hearing that it's immersive and in-character by others' standards makes me so happy! and i'm very sorry to hear about the passing of your cats. it's so nice to know that my fic has brought you comfort in these tough times. a happy ending to my fic is on the way, even if there's a lot of hardship to get through first!

also, thank you for the kind words about my characterization for the other characters! even though anya is evidently my favorite, the cast of mouthwashing in general is a lot of fun to explore. even the characters i don't like are compelling to write (like jimmy, hate the guy haha)

overall i really appreciate your ask! thank you again! and if you like what i write, never be afraid to reach out. i read and try my best to respond to every single comment, ask, and DM. the support means the world to me!

[egg-emperor]

Honest to god, what happened in Sonic 3 only works because its Jimbotnik for 1 and not exactly canon to the games, for 2 we actually kinda see Eggman get praise from kin that's supposedly like him (Gerald) while still wanting to be an asshole so its not like this is changing him, and for 3 this was a risky ass move but the execution worked which resulted in this particular Eggman being humanized while also remaining an asshole. In short, the sonic movies successfully offered a different flavor of Eggman that Ian Flynn failed to do in the IDW comics while also not being Eggdad.

Clearly this iteration of Robotnik has never been your speed since you're a games!Eggman purist (With exceptions), but his wide praise is not unjustified because clearly something was done right.

I'm not saying it doesn't work in the realm of movie jimbotnik. I always felt that he was egotistical in the more classic secretly insecure with a chip on their shoulder type narcissist way, that game Eggman rather uniquely differs from by being genuinely secure and confident in his feelings of superiority. There's posts of me saying that about movie 1. It seems consistent within the movies, I'm just not personally a fan but it doesn't need to be for me

I just don't like when people see them as one in the same, when game Eggman is very different in just about every conceivable way, from his appearance to personality, childhood, beliefs, outlook, and expression. Which should be obvious but there are people who argue he's accurate to the games as a reason they think he's good but it's just not true. But I'm sure there are reasons people like him that don't depend on trying to say it's accurate

Frontiers' way of humanizing was much better fit for game Egg for because it doesn't go with him being insecure in childhood, only implying he was as bratty, confident and felt entitled to all the attention he wanted back then too because his narcissism and feelings of superiority already existed and was genuine and that's why he was bitter. And his value for Sage is also based on his ego for how she exists as proof of his genius

While a lot of the aspects of jimbotnik's arc kind of happen for the opposite reason- because he didn't feel that he got enough and that he's undesirable and insecure and wants to be able to bond with someone like Gerald and get attention that makes him feel more secure and validated in being able to relate to him and get his approval. The type of insecurity and developments jimbotnik has just wouldn't work with game Eggman, all I'm saying

Also, to say nothing about my own personal thoughts on adaptions and such, popularity isn't everything in general. In the Sonic movies/jimbotnik's case, there are many legitimate admitted reasons by people that make up big parts of why it's popular, that have nothing to do with writing/characterization/quality that lead to many liking it regardless. But people are entitled to their opinions of thinking the latter are good too

I'm not going to speak on whether it's unjustified or not as that's a matter of opinion and subjective on the grounds of adaptions that tend to divert from game canon (even though I personally wish for one game accurate adaption). I'm only relaying the facts of the differences between game Eggman and jimbotnik and saying the former is my personal preference and I personally wouldn't want him to be like jimbotnik and I'm happy he's not, as the things he has that jimbotnik does not are my reasons for liking him in the first place

[bytedykes]

Hewwo! Yue Qingyuan seems to be a special guy to you, so him for the ask game ✌️

Sexuality Headcanon: gay but i think he's too depressed to date. he has emotional erectile dysfunction

Gender Headcanon: cis man 😔 ive thought about transfem yqy before too but i dont really see him going anywhere with it. he doesnt have time for self exploration he has a sect to run and also all this unspeakable misery

A ship I have with said character: hehe... mqf/yqy... i like them... its really niche but @pathos-logical and i initially thought of it as a joke but it's so serious now. doctor sexy x worst patient EVERRR !! i dont have anything concrete to say about this ship they just eat my brain

A BROTP I have with said character: i actually really like his canon relationship with sqq, even though we only ever really see how sqq thinks of him. yqy reminds sqq of his own older brother which i think is really sweet and also sad :( i also think yqy would like sqq as his own person, if it ever came out that sqq isnt sj. i mean he already likes him but like independently of shen jiu i do think they could have a good relationship

A NOTP I have with said character: QI/JIU. i don't ship them. words cannot communicate how much i don't ship them. i knowww that they're in a danmei fitting all the bl tropes but like i don't want it and i don't see it and i just do not ship it. i find them much much more compelling as a platonic relationship. fandom has also highkey ruined any warm feelings i might have had toward romantic yqy/sj because of the way people popularly portray them - i think the way a lot of people write qi/jiu is very sj-centric and often not very in line with what i think is accurate yqy characterization (also i don't like sj for similar fandom mischaracterization reasons but w/e). but that's just my opinion !

A random headcanon: i think he would be sooo good with babies i think it would be awesome to put a baby in that man's arms and have him hold it for a while. also a mandated beach vacation wouldn't fix him but it would greatly benefit him. also i think he has chronic pain from xs + the qi deviation and his spirit veins are all fucked up and who does he talk about this with? no one <3 <3 <3 #1 sufferer in silence

General Opinion over said character: i fucking love this mankjghilsadhkads IM SUCH A SUCKER for fucked up tragic characters who are stuck in a pit of eternal misery ok i eat that shit uppp. i really like how yqy's narrative is that ultimately he did his best and tried so hard and failed anyway and then could never bring himself to defend himself despite it not being his fault and that's the tragedy. he blames himself so so bad and he will never say anything because he doesnt feel he deserves to!!! the decades long miscommunication with the person who matters most to him is also soooo. ugh. he makes me crazyyy!!! i really like how he's a very flawed, complex person, who is kind and caring but also the #1 enabler on this goddamn mountain. his indirect treatment of lbh is really interesting to me too. i love yqy he sucks so bad <333

ty for the ask!!! you're right he IS a special guy to me and i love him soo much <3

[fantastic-mr-corvid]

Fanfic EOY asks! 💕

3. favorite line/scene you wrote this year

13. favorite writing song/artist/album of this year

15. something you learned this year

19. any new fics to start next year

OOh tyy Dujour! last two questions are under the readmore<3

3. favorite line/scene you wrote this year

I thought this would be really hard but the end of old habits die hard, hope for a better future dies faster. its also my fav fic, partly bc it has its own emotional arc in it and so works better stand alone than a lot of my other fics that are so focused on two ocs dynamic. I really need to write more like that for Muro & Conficcare, the deep care they have despite Conficcares their issues and how Conficcare still seeks comfort from Muro no matter whats happened even if he resents himself for it. Picking one line is hard bc its my favorite because of how the lines all build together. And also bc Conficcare is spiralling and Muro isnt the best with his words they dont sound great out of context. That aside, i think its this one:

Conficcare is smiling through his tears now, staring at his best friend as he looks the most like himself in years, passionate words spilling from his mouth and he decries the whole world for treating his family wrong.

13. favorite writing song/artist/album of this year

My Utena amvs playlists on youtube or the just song equivalent on spotify! for the letter of the question, its a toss up between Bruce Springsteen who i listened to a lot while writing in the first half of the year and is tied for artist with most songs on the Celia/Elena playlist and Human Algebra, the album i named Muros stand after and one of the strongest musical inspirations

15. something you learned this year

How much fun writing a world you control! or more accurately: when you created all the characters you are using 😅 Anxiety over characterization is a bitch and having them be my creations really helped. more generally, i learned just how much i love writing because of getting to write exactly what i wanted and being really self indulgent without worrying about canon, and how my writing is good if i enjoy it, not when numbers go up

19. any new fics to start next year

Start [posting] Rage hopefully😂😭? Jokes aside i have the Conficcare Trauma FicTM next on my multichapter fic list, which should be shorter as its more of a 3+1 of the aftermath of some of Conficcares trauma as a pre/teen. Its gonna be heavy, though much more focused on the aftermaths. I've talked a lot about Celia & Conficcares bond and this covers the events that turn Celia from the kid who sits next to him and he helps, to this golden warm savior and safe space for him in his darkest hours, so hopefully i can write it well enough to justify that!

I also want to do some more domestic fics but those tend to be more spontaneous and i dont really plan them in advance.

[lananiscorner]

for the fic writing ask game! 🔥✅️⛔️

Thank you for your ask, pathetic-gamer!

(And shame on tumblr for no longer notifying me of new asks, now I have to go through my backlog to see what else I missed. x_x)

🔥 what’s something that’s currently going really well?

This is actually going to sound really underwhelming, but it's important for me: I'm getting better of fully disconnecting from work (much of my job requires being on Discord and Reddit, which I also use privately, so disconnecting is HARD), which in turn has given me more time to catch up on my backlogs and regain some energy for writing. I also finally played Skyrim not too long ago, after having had it in my library for 10 years, so that gave me a new boost of creative inspiration. I wanna go back to writing over the Christmas holidays.

✅ list one or two favorite lines you’ve written and explain why they’re your favorite

Oof, I'd have to go back and re-read everything I ever wrote to make a 100% accurate decision on that, but two that come to my mind right away:

First, from "In This Strange Land of Many Gods", Lambert, as he realizes that he likely won't be able to save anyone else except his son:

How many nightmares was his son going to have of this night? The important thing is that he will live to have nightmares.

It is essentially all of Lambert's feelings about the events of that night and the effect it will have on his kid bottled into two sentences. Peak efficient writing here.

From "No Good Nephilim", Strife reflecting on his own nature and his choices shortly before his death:

No proper nephilim ever died without a weapon in their hand. Well... Strife took the shallowest breath that had ever meant to be deep. When had he ever been a good nepilim? When he had been born weak... delicate? When he had questioned Absalom and the Firstborn at every turn? When he had deserted his kin before Eden and gone to the Council? When he had slaughtered them? When he had helped save humanity rather than destroy them? When they had taught him compassion and kindness and humility? Strife discarded the heavy adamantine that rested on his hand and closed his fist. Death would just have to live with the fact that Strife had been a disappointment from start to finish. Even in the hour of his demise.

This scene actually made me cry while I was writing it, both because I was killing off one of my favorite characters in a drawn-out, painful and yet thematically and plot-appropriate manner, but also because I always like to say that nephilim in Darksiders have more in common with humans than anybody else, and I think there is something deeply poetic about Strife accepting his flaws, accepting his choices, and accepting his humanity in the hour of his death.

⛔️ whats something you try to avoid in your work?

Content-wise, I basically never write things that are not-safe-for-work in a sexual nature. Not because I'm a prude (I can write smut if I have to), but because 1) I generally find the platonic relationships between characters more interesting and 2) I work in a public-facing job at the moment, so I'm a lot more selective about what I post in general. I also don't write poetry or crossovers (with very rare exceptions). Last but not least, unless the express purpose of a scene/fic is to be canon-divergent, I try to stay canon-compliant as much as possible (e.g. if the entire point of the story is "what if Byleth had immediately killed Edel in Sothis' tomb when she revealed herself as the Flame Emperor", then that is obviously canon-divergent and its the entire point of the story, but I will try to keep anything that came before that as well as everyone's characterization as close to canon as possible).

[gauntletqueen]

Okay so! I saw Across The Spider-Verse. I wanna say some lil thoughts. First off, without spoilers:

I thought the first movie had prepared me for how visually captivating and groundbreaking this one would be and I was WRONG. They took it SO much further in this one and it is SPECTACULAR. The way they play much more with the art style depending on the spidey-person and the universe is incredibly fun to see and impressive to think about.

Now for a LOT of thoughts concerning spoilers:

I am SO glad that they used the fact that it's a two-parter to take the time with its story. Plenty of slower moments, room for talking, etc. I knew it was gonna be a To Be Continued, but was worried the movie would be at a break-neck speed to cram in as much story as possible like with the fuckin uuuh avengers movie with Purplo The Mean Man, and I am SO GLAD!!! That they didn't!!!

Next off I was never a fan of Peni's design in the first movie. It felt too much like that "trying to be anime" thing that western cartoons had going for a while, and I can now only imagine that the creators had planned from the start to have her grow into her comic book design between movies, which is VERY GOOD. (I had already assumed that SP//DR's design would be comic accurate in this movie after its destruction but it's nice to see :> )

On that topic, I do thing it's a bit of a shame that Peni, Noir and Ham didn't get to be in this movie, really. I understand why! Use this one to flesh out the new important characters (and they are very good especially Hobie) so it doesn't feel cluttered when you put them all together in the third one. But I was looking forward to seeing them...

Now let's have a little intermission. (it's relevant I promise) Please meet Carapace, my Spider-Sona, who I created after I had gone to see the first movie back in 2018:

I won't bore yall with the details, but basically she got her powers due to outside intervention causing a shift in her universe. Her getting these powers resulted in that universe's Peter Parker, the one who was supposed to be Spidey, to die. Carapace is characterized as sticking very closely to her own morals even if it might harm in the long run, even when people tell her and show her what she is doing is dangerous, and eventually this leads her actions, as well as her very existence to endanger the entire multiverse despite her best efforts.

So. you know. I thought that was interesting. Given. Yknow. The movie

Okay moving on. Spider-Gwen is the only spidey comic series I've actively read, so seeing her story and her artstyle explored more in this movie was a delight! It's also just really nice how she's more of a pivotal character this time around, given a lot more focus. I'm happy about that :> (also can't believe we now know why she has sneakers in fortnite wow)

The Spot! Was spoiled for me. But not like, in much detail? I had, after seeing fanart against my will, pieced together that he was the guy that got a bagel thrown at him in the first movie, and that he had something to do with "Canon". Now as someone who's read homestuck, and has consumed modern media in general, the use of the word Canon worried me. I was worried they'd break the fourth wall and get all annoyingly meta and stuff. BUT they didn't! They did get meta with it, talking about the canon events that make a spidey-person, but never broke the fourth wall. It was handled carefully and it works! Maybe that's why Ham isn't present in this movie... He'd definitely ruin that now that I think about it. As for The Spot, he's not the most compelling villain. He's funny! it's a funny concept for a villain origin. "Just take this one-off gag from the first movie and turn him into the main villain." But by doing that, by making him Funny and Pretty Dumb In Concept, and then turning him into an Actual Real Threat whose motive is that nobody takes him seriously, it WORKS. We the audience are PART OF THE PROBLEM kinda I dunno I thought it was neat.

Miguel is mean to Miles >:| Stoopid poopoo head >:| (but it's cool that he's like a parallel to Kingpin from the first movie)

As for the whole "different versions of the movie in different theaters" thing, that was spoiled for me, thoughI didn't know what was different heading in. Apparently it's like, Lyla doing some funny little bits? Whatever. I can only assume needing to re-animate perfectly good scenes for no reason other than "aah gotcha! Neat right??" is definitely something that contributed to the reported terrible working conditions and crunch during production. It's a fun reminder that even a film that is so strongly about art, about pushing back against conformity and those that want to control you, is still being made by a giant corporation, and according to that corporation, the workers don't matter, only the product's ability to money. I can only hope that the animators get enough time to work normally on Beyond the Spider-Verse, which I'm sure will be also a phenomenal movie despite the higher ups' demands, just like this one.

Also they said ASS and CRAP in it!! Wow!!!!

[m1ckeyb3rry]

FHE JUSTIN BIEBER GIF CRYINNGGGGGG LAMAOAOAOAOAO im assuming its the sae oaeu cooking rn

LMAOSOA YOUR POST trust I take all of your ramblings as rewards your brain is fr so big all of these fire ideas >>>>> ok but the pokemon au is so good…extraordinary….exquisite….remarkable (if you’ve watched as much pokemon as i have you’ll probably get this but if not just take it at face value) the Barou sibling angst is actually my fav

LMAOO YOUR MOM AND HER BROTHER THATS SO ACCURATE

ISAGIS HAIR I feel bad for his hair and his hair alone they always weirdly slick it back or comb it up and he looks like a middle aged man

IM CRYING “I cry but because I have to deal with his shit” LMFAOOO yuki fr tweaking atp or repeatedly saying his mantra in his head trying to keep his sanity like “god never gives us more than we can handle god never gives up more than we can handle god never-“

LMAAOA NO IT MAKES SENSE my brain just grouped up the letters that way that I had to double take ok so we’ve had kaneshiro possesses Mira moment and we get canon characterization of kiyora it’s time to freaky Friday reverse you should take over kaneshiro and write bllk i fr wish Karasu actually scored more literally my exact thoughts like “ARE YOU A STRIKER???” Channeling my inner ego…..but agreed glad he still at least has SOME presence and is consistently shown active in game

Bro kurona was so random…like with epinagi and s2 you can see them sneakily trying to add him in the bg cameoing to make him feel relevant but he fr was dropped out of nowhere like wdym the one who ranked fourth in second selection who we’ve never even seen a glimpse of and didn’t do anything in u20 is suddenly good friends with Isagi and others and gets field time HUH his first appearance is quite literally in BM when he’s holding the iPad showing Isagi Kunigami new stats (yk it’s bad when I rmr this info off the top of my head) something about the wording “using religion and blindness” has me laughing so hard LMAOOOO it’s giving that one meme “I’ve got the power of god and anime on my side” except it’s god and optic neuropathy UAHSHSHA ok but on a serious note that fr would go so hard like let’s expand on his character please….id honestly love to see more of him as he was shown in the LN because nel yuki is SO diff than what he actually seems to be based off the LN but anyways…

Kunigami being the main rival makes sm sense tbh when I first read I thought he WAS going to be the main rival but no it’s Kaiser ig….wait the morally greyness of wildcard being discussed would fr be so interesting…..guys….also ness is one of my least fav characters tbh so slander him all you want LMAOO gotta agree w some dudebros he’s fr a Kaiser glazer you’re fr cooking though….we gotta get you in touch with kaneshiro asap

LMAO REAL I also (clearly) enjoy bllk quite a bit but yes many things to be improved…sometimes I think to myself if only I was an Isagi Rin or Kaiser stan I’d be having the time of my life but alas we cannot be MEDIOCRE

Wait the terminally ill route fits his character fr….where he’d be unwilling to tell his family about it because he wants to strive to be the best despite it and won’t settle for a comfy life…I can also see him getting murdered though LOL either way I’m sure it’ll be good (even though he’s dying oops)

Yeah I lowk forgot people who have such audacity exist the Tullia hate kinda insane and just generally when people comment “he’s mine [chafacter] better get away from my man” ICK imagine in the tags you just put every reader pairing possible as a jic disclaimer like “reader and Tullia talk to men so beware!”

I always found the rival characters so funny like why are you jumping me when I’m trying to get to the next city no I don’t wanna battle you rn LMAOO it’s funny in how like every version you end up teaming up and double battling the villain team somehow but the way they come and go was always so funny to me

When you first said may I thought you meant May from pokemon but now I realize…anyways love Tullia sooo glad to have her alive!!

LMAOOOO Lowk I had a subconscious thought like galvanthla interesting choice (i personally collected joltiks bc they looked cute LMFAO) Isagi the most basic of basics so an all basic team is perfect for him LOL I mean hey you gotta have an op basic pokemon somewhere right I already consider infernape relatively more niche amongst most popular pokemon too LOL

Otoya using his pokemon as chick magnets is so real LMAOO I wanna analyze the breloom yuki vibe like why does it work so well

Nagi fr got the short end of the stick omg LMAOO ofc it had to be a fire type too for once thank you reo for spoiling him HSHSH

SHSHSBD THATS TOO CUTE I bet chigiri would take sm time grooming and caring for his rapidash too (in line with what we talked about for his hair and skin LOL) sometimes I forget you make money from battling LMAOOO like yeah I just beat your pokemon up now hand me my check

REAL BUT LMAOOO the light blue team never fails for him honestly when in doubt just match the hair color I can definitely see him genuinely having an aurorus and ice types though maybe he’s like (I like them calm and cold unlike my parents) hiori running a fossil pokemon conservation wait id never thought of that that’s also so real….atp this should just be an expanded universe that exists time to world build (on that note imagine Aryu grooms and styles pokemon for coordinators and especially furfrou, I forgot exact which gen you were into pkmn until oops I’ll elaborate if you didn’t get to kalos/xyz)

LMAOOOOO i was already linking up aiku and Brock the moment you brought him in lowk that interaction set up you have is so pkmn verse coded its great

I SECOND THAT if no other inspo comes out lowk pokemon au….guys…..also Noel noa being the actual champion while reos dad just holds the title is actually such an interesting dynamic and would work so well

SHSHS sounds like you’ve got it all down still praying for your safety though all those experiences in one lifetime is crazy

HAHAHA I LOVE THE CHATTER reading the convo responses brings me just as much joy as reading ur actual fics im always down for yap sessions

- Karasu anon

LMAOOO that’s just me irl tbh like i hope that’s what you picture when you think of me 🤩 surprisingly it wasn’t in reference to the oaeu!! someone had just posted that they wished there were more otoya fics because they’ve read all of them already and i was like “just working…working hard to please you” because i am an occasional otoya writer for sure

OMG MR REMARKABLE (i forget if he had an actual name KFNSJSN my brother and i always just called him mr remarkable he’s like that elderly man who has a tv show or smth right??) and HAHA tyyyy 🥹

maybe they do it like that to distinguish him from rin or smth?? idk but it’s specifically only isagi who gets the horrendous hairdos they don’t give ANYONE else that treatment 😭 i fr feel bad for the guy even though idgaf abt him…

bllk karasu’s like “can we switch places” because a universe where otoya’s not as much of a dumbass AND he has the chance to rizz up reader is the universe for him (he def is so pressed that hollyhock karasu never made any moves LMAOOO “wdym you lost her to OTOYA” and hollyhock karasu is like “i never wanted her in the first place 🤔” so bllk karasu is like “WHAT”)

HAHAHA possessed by kaneshiro fr i felt his energy flowing through me in that moment 😭 someone needs to get me on the phone with him like idk much about soccer BUT i can definitely cook in terms of characters and plot!!

I REMEMBER WHEN KURONA FIRST SHOWED UP I HAD TO REREAD THE CHAPTER BECAUSE I THOUGHT I JUST MISSED HIS INTRODUCTION 😭 agreed there’s such a discrepancy between ln/third selection/u20 yukimiya and nel yukimiya!! especially with that rlly cool panel of him in the u20 game where they’re like “his style of soccer is street soccer 😰⁉️” and he looks gorgeous af i was looking forward to more elaboration on that!! like really showing how he plays differently compared to the other players (maybe giving him some special weapon because of that kinda like metavision) it also could’ve been a really cool point of connection between him and kaiser given that both of them kind of learned how to play soccer in unconventional ways…but alas…here we are

NO BECAUSE KUNIGAMI VS ISAGI RIVALRY COULD’VE BEEN SO GOOD it would’ve built up the hype for kuni sm more and him feel much more relevant imo!! honestly along with wanting to know what wc is all about i’ve always wanted to know noel noa’s reaction to it…like his biggest rival from the past has destroyed this child’s body and life and future in order to make a copy of him THAT’S LEGIT INSANE??? kaneshiro could’ve given us such a scrumptious kuni and noa dynamic and then he just didn’t 😭

honestly i think one of the main problems w bllk is that kaneshiro is spreading the cast too thin and making people care about too many characters but it’s impossible to effectively manage such a huge cast given the premise of the story and still have emotional impact when stuff happens to them and that also means that characters aside from the protagonist aren’t given a ton of fleshing out (this is relatively common in shounen sadly…jjk had a similar issue but almost to the next level) where by focusing on lesser characters and just giving them insane depth the story would’ve felt much stronger ☝🏻 like realistically there’s 0 reason for kurona to exist in nel when reo (as per our earlier convos) or yukimiya could’ve easily taken that role and had their characters developed much more!! kiyora could also have been replaced with yukimiya (as much as i love him) and tbh?? get sendou out of ubers and focus more on aryu (how’d he go from number 2 in scoring goals to a defensive player?? flesh him out more instead of sendou literally nobody cares abt him…hot take but only memorable u20 players were aiku sae and shidou the rest did not need to be there), get rid of tokimitsu entirely (show how his nervous personality doesn’t jive with egoism) and give zantetsu + karasu more opportunities to shine in pxg (honestly if they wanted to keep the cutthroat feel of second selection then get rid of nanase too and show how kindness doesn’t cut it in bllk where you need to be insane; that way the cast is still large but these characters aren’t fighting for a main spot they’re more naruhaya-esque) 😰 and another hot take but they should’ve saved all of the other ng11s besides sae until the world cup arc (so no kaiser and lorenzo in nel) to really build the hype and stakes of the wc because rn it’s like…ok the bllkers have already managed to beat lorenzo and the whole kaisagi rivalry is going on so the ng11s don’t feel as threatening?? whereas they could’ve been a really cool obstacle in the wc and would’ve provided a baddie of the week feel and higher stakes without it being boring or random since they’ve been so foreshadowed already with sae

i agree i rlly like the terminally ill aspect it also explains why his pokémon are willing to go along with his possessed body (they’re not able to accept that he’s gone) as well as why isagi knows so much without him being a villain…it’s also just sad to think about like he didn’t want his family to worry about him but he wanted to accomplish his goals so he just pushed forward until he literally couldn’t anymore 😭 also now i’m realizing lowkey kunigami would fit better in barou’s role (given the whole canonical wildcard thing being similar to the possession) however idc because i like barou more

yeahhh unfortunately fandom people can be a little weird to say the least and especially now that i have a decent amt of followers i know there are going to be interesting individuals in my comments so it’s not even worth it to not tag…okay but hear me out i wasn’t even thinking about this when i assigned teams (nagi got his team based on cuddly fluffy vibes and barou got his team as all dark types because of his “villain king” thing and reader was forced to have one of the same pokémon as him for the sibling theme…of barou’s team i liked houndoom the most so that’s what reader got) BUT the parallels between nagi’s starter being arcanine and reader’s being houndoom kinda go crazy?? like they both have huge fiery dogs but as per the pokédex arcanine symbolizes loyalty justice protection etc and houndoom is like death hell horror and whatnot 😭 however as we know nagi’s aura is death and reader’s character’s main theme is love (for barou, for her pokémon, etc) so narratively nagi x reader would be so good…especially if they’re each other’s “rivals” but they’re not really rivals and half of the time are helping each other out…there’s a vision here and it’s cooking imo 🤩 ALSO i’m thinking…hear me out…karasu reminds reader of barou so he becomes like her surrogate older brother while they’re searching for barou and reader is the annoying little sibling karasu never had which makes him respect yayoi more and teaches him responsibility and maturity which in turn makes yayoi finally respect him too 🤔

honestly galvantula is such a random pokémon but realistically in terms of type matchups it’s absolutely CARRYING reader against barou’s team considering dark is weak to bug 😭 honestly it’s such a cool little pokémon i think it’s so fun for her to have it on her team!! and the gyarados plot line is going to be so entertaining (basically she gets scammed into trading a freshly caught pokémon for a magikarp and shenanigans ensue) that i think the basicness is excusable

otoya constantly getting girls via his fairy type pokémon vs reader and tullia being like “ladies STAY AWAY” who wins 😭⁉️ and agreed breloom + yuki goes so hard…tbh i rlly like steelix and yuki too it works surprisingly well

no literally justice for nagi 😭 the way the government did NOT gaf abt him is crazy like they could’ve at least given him a water type (although tbf he’s meant to show how the pokémon training system takes advantage of people so it makes sense) honestly though i love his character in this au he goes through sm development and his slowburn w the reader will be legendary fr

YOU KNOWWWW chigiri’s rapidash is SPARKLING he def takes such meticulous care of all of his pokémon (same w reo) whereas nagi’s just like eh as long as they’re healthy 😄 KFNJSSB so like manshine trio will be chilling and in their downtime reo will be brushing his cinccino and chigiri will be polishing his rapidash’s hooves meanwhile nagi’s arcanine is rolling in a pile of mud somewhere having the time of its life

hiori and ice types just go so well together (even though he only has one on his team I think 😭) and agreed i can see him retiring from battling after his arc w reader and co and following his actual passion of helping endangered pokémon instead of listening to his parents (maybe karasu inspires him because he also stood up to his family [yayoi] and that gives hiori the courage to do the same)

gen six is where i left off!! i played gen seven (namely moon and a bit of ultra moon) but i didn’t like them that much so as far as i and this au are concerned the pokémon verse ended with xy/oras 🤩 omg wait aryu as a pokémon groomer slays…maybe he’s the one yuki takes his pokémon to before contests?? and perhaps the itoshi bros are mentioned in passing as gym leaders in another region…kaiser as noel noa’s apprentice who’s going to be a new e4 member like isagi (but a bitchier one who never knew barou and never directly interacts with reader) and same with bachira + kunigami (kaiser to replace noel noa, bachira to replace lavinho, kunigami to replace chris prince, and isagi to replace snuffy) there’s just so many different roles that characters can play!! the world building would be so fun

LMAOO honestly aiku trying to be the rizzler but getting cock blocked by big bros otoya and karasu is so funny to me ���� also speaking of brock link ups since we know karasu and reader are like a sibling duo i’m imagining otoya and tullia to have that brock and croagunk dynamic where she just punches him whenever he flirts with girls because he’s so cringe it’s embarrassing 😰 speaking of tullia atm i’m think she’ll likely end up with either chigiri (since he’ll probably pull up quite frequently as a nagi companion so there’s ample time for development), isagi (since he’s a classic tullia pairing and all), or maybe even hiori?? like her and hiori really hit it off and after the main story is over instead of becoming a show/competition breeder like she planned she decides to go back to his nature preserve and help in breeding for species conservation or something 🤔 many many options fr

NO BECAUSE LISTEN THE TIK TOK AUDIOS ARE BURSTING WITH POTENTIAL FOR THE POKÉMON AU i’m getting soooo many ideas for the story now!! like the entire gyarados arc, the aegislash arc (this one goes crazy because it’s basically “reader and nagi somehow end up in a period drama for an entire arc” yet it makes perfect sense given the pokémon verse and the backstory), EVERYTHING with barou especially the final fight between the cousins (i’ve decided they’ll be cousins but as close as siblings!! so y/n’s mother is barou’s father’s sister and her houndoom is barou’s houndoom’s sister so it’s like three generations of brother/sister-esque bonds making up the story), the random evil team encounters…i’m sure you saw but i put requests on hold for a few reasons: so i can finish the ones i have, work on the oaeu, AND also start this story hopefully!! also i want to deny people from requesting for a bit so the hype is built for my 1k event whenever we reach that milestone FJDJSJSJ

LMAOOO the craziest thing is that’s not even scratching the surface unfortunately i have had many insane experiences with men i’m sure you’ll hear about more whenever they’re relevant to the convo 😭 and YESSS i love chatting w you hehe always a little rush of dopamine when i see the little “anonymous asked you a question” notification on my phone (when tumblr isn’t an OPP and actually gives the me the notifs) 🥹

[cool-island-songs]

Craig Tucker Character Analysis: Canon Overview, Pt. 2

This is part two of my character analysis of Craig Tucker, beloved fictional 10-year-old and devoted nose-picker. You can find part one here. This section begins by juxtaposing Cartman and Craig and goes on to cover the emergence of Craig and those guys (hereinafter CATG) as a rival gang for the main four, and further developments from there.

After Craig’s canon character analysis is complete (only one part remains), I intend to do the same for Tweek before diving into their fanon portrayals throughout the years, and the way their relationship dynamics have generally changed over time within fan works. For now, more Craig:

Craig vs. Cartman

While still in his bird-flippin’ phase, Craig is pitted against Tweek by the main four in “Tweek vs. Craig” because they both get in trouble often and the boys want to see who’s tougher. Here, as in “Pandemic” (S12E10) later on, the irony is that they themselves are far worse-behaved than Craig. He’s a discipline case, but the main four (and Cartman in particular) have committed far more egregious acts.

They know when they’ve done something wrong and, often at Cartman’s behest, take the extra steps to stay out of trouble. By contrast, Craig seems to have genuine difficulty with impulse control and with adapting his behavior to what’s appropriate for the setting; consequently, he is unable to keep himself out of trouble in the same way the main four can, so he looks worse on paper.

Cartman often knowingly engages in immoral acts that he rationalizes to himself because he’s always the hero in his own mind, a process thoroughly detailed in “Fishsticks” (S13E05). Episodes like “Toilet Paper” (S07E03), “Casa Bonita” (S07E11), “Two Days Before the Day After Tomorrow” (S09E08), and “The Magic Bush” (S18E05) provide a different explanation for Cartman’s mindset when keeping out of trouble; in these, he’s shown to have serious problems with empathy and only understands he’s done something wrong in the sense that he knows he’d get in trouble if anyone were to find out he was responsible.

Analyzing Cartman would have to be its own extremely long post, as his characterization re: his bad deeds is hardly consistent. Sometimes his ego requires him to believe he’s the good guy, he’s got a hot beefcake bod, everyone really likes him (see: his speech at the end of “Breast Cancer Show Ever”, S12E09); and sometimes he’s Tony Montana in the speech from Scarface he recites in the talent show in “Erection Day” (S09E07): “You need people like me! You need people like me so you can point your f*cking finger and say, ‘That’s the bad guy!’”

By contrast, Craig is arguably amoral and somewhat violence- and anger-prone on his worst behavior, more of a neutral, uninvolved party most of the time, and a rational, compromise-minded problem-solver at his best in terms of his treatment of others. He’s not motivated by doing what he thinks is most morally righteous, like Tweek, Kyle and Jimmy are (all three of whom put lawful as their alignment in their character sheets in TFBW, while Craig put neutral).

In the amusement park scene in “Put It Down” (S21E02), this difference in motivations causes the tension between Tweek and Craig to boil over. It becomes clear that Craig considers being rational and even-tempered his highest virtue (though this isn’t an entirely accurate self-perception as he’s fairly easily provoked at times), and he’s frustrated when Tweek’s lack of positive response to his reasoning makes him become more emotional, like Tweek.

He also encourages Jimmy to compromise with Cartman in “Fishsticks” (S13E05), and disagrees with Kyle over whether it matters that Cartman didn’t actually write any of the joke. Tweek’s line in TFBW about justice over evil is comically melodramatic, but also reveals a greater truth about their dynamic – not that Craig is evil, but that he’s not driven by the pursuit of the most moral good. Craig is more of a utilitarian and a pragmatist.

In “Le Petit Tourette” (S11E0), Cartman and Craig both think Tourette’s syndrome (or, more accurately, having a swearing tic) makes you cool as hell, but Cartman uses his (limited) knowledge of it to put forth a mockery of Tourette’s for his own gratification (like being able to degrade Kyle’s mom to her face with impunity). By contrast, Craig is so genuinely enamored of Thomas’s ability to swear without getting in trouble that he wants nothing more than to bask in it vicariously. The joke here is that Craig is such a messed-up kid, he truly just loves swearing for its own sake. He’s gay for swearing.

Cartman manipulates Craig for his own gain in “Tweek vs. Craig”, all of the main four use him for his birthday money in “Pandemic”, and Cartman mimics and exploits Thomas’s condition for his own sick pleasure in “Le Petit Tourette”. Craig wouldn’t think to do any of those things and he wouldn’t get a kick out of it in the way Cartman does. He’s more of a simple schoolyard bully, at least in the early seasons. He’s shown to be a gossip in “Bass to Mouth” (S15E10), seems to want to keep abreast of developments in “Breast Cancer Show Ever” in that he is instrumental in gathering and relaying information to the involved parties, and is often petty - but he’s not manipulative. Even if he wanted to manipulate, he likely wouldn’t have the necessary people skills to pull it off. He will, however, engage in a Cartman scheme when it benefits him, even if it’s wildly immoral, as in “Crack Baby Basketball Association” (S15E05).

Emergence of Craig as Stan’s Foil, CATG as Rival Group

Starting in “South Park Is Gay”, Craig becomes more of a foil for Stan and is shown to have his own clique like Stan has in Kyle, Cartman, and Kenny. Stan and Craig look similar and both lead their respective groups, and in “Lil’ Crime Stoppers” (S07E06), the black-haired kid leading the rival gang of “FBI agents” introduces himself as Agent Tucker.

This kid is clearly not Craig, as he has a different hairline and puts on some kind of old-timey detective voice that, frankly, Craig could never pull off. Craig doesn’t have a lot of range in terms of vocal expression, and none of those guys are CATG members. Nevertheless, the show sets the stage for a recurrent rival group, and then we get them just two episodes later in “South Park Is Gay” in the form of these fab metro boys:

Craig is sometimes an antagonist and sometimes an ally to the main four, but he is not one of the main four, and the show is by and large told from their perspective. This may be why Craig is sometimes actually a dick, and sometimes inordinately reasonable and 100% correct in his very blunt assessments of the situation at hand. South Park’s characterization also isn’t terribly consistent and Craig began as a background character, so these appearances in season 7 and 8 may have been attempts to situate him (and some of the other children) in some relation to the main four so that they could be used to create conflict and drive plot lines.

As an antagonist to the main four, Craig can be quite aggressive and combative in his tone. In “Quest for Ratings” (S08E11), Craig is socially dominant, acts confident and assertive, and seems to thrive off of one-upping Stan and his crew (which notably includes Jimmy, Butters, and Token). Stan’s group is similarly motivated by the desire to one-up Craig as they immediately lose interest in doing their school news show once they beat him in the ratings. At one point in the episode, Craig approaches Stan and his crew at Whistlin’ Willy’s in effect to mock them for their show having been canceled and to brag about his “overall deal” with the school. Similarly, when Stan and his crew acquire ninja weapons in “Good Times with Weapons” (S08E01), they immediately head to Craig’s house to brag and show them off, which triggers Craig’s competitive nature and ultimately leads to the Legendary Battle of Tokugata.

The dynamic between the two groups is competitive on both sides, but this dynamic does not remain antagonistic for very long. Several season 9 episodes feature Craig (and other boys in the class) working with the main four in some capacity, such as in “The Death of Eric Cartman” (S09E06) when all the boys ignore Cartman for being such a dick all the time, in “Marjorine” (S09E09) when all the boys work together to infiltrate Heidi’s sleepover to obtain a cootie catcher, and in “Free Willzyx“ (S09E13) where the boys all work together to get that space whale back to his home on the moon. Craig is also as unenthusiastic about baseball as all the other boys in “The Losing Edge” (S09E05), though he does still take the opportunity to yell at Stan, but this shift in the dynamic between Craig/CATG and Stan/the main four holds steady. The antagonism that rears its head between Craig and the main four at various points in the series, notably in the “Pandemic” two-parter (S12E10-11), seems based more on ideological differences. Craig objects to the way the main four get themselves into increasingly more ridiculous situations and refuse to examine their own role in escalating such situations.

He hasn’t been a real antagonist since the Black Friday trilogy (S17E07-9) (and even then, he was arguably just a catalyst for the real conflict to emerge among the main four), and is now more of a reluctant, naysaying ally to the group. He will join up to have something to do, as seems to be the case in the games, or if it’s something Tweek wants or needs, such as in “Splatty Tomato” (S21E10). He now also has his own episodes with Tweek (i.e., “Put It Down”, S21E02) or B-plots within episodes (i.e., “Buddha Box”, S22E08), ever since “Tweek x Craig” (S19E06) when they became a canon couple (in at least some capacity, depending on one’s interpretation of the ending).

Craig Tucker: Dick Supreme

Even outside of the dynamics between their groups, Craig himself takes issue with much of what the main four do and periodically objects to the way they approach problems generally. The way he expresses his disapproval varies depending on the degree of social power he has over the boys at the given moment, though also depending on whether Craig is in his nemesis or his ally era. In “Quest for Ratings”, Craig is quick-witted, responding immediately when Stan tells him his idea took “this much thought” that that’s still “this much more than [Stan] had.”

On the other hand, in “Professor Chaos” (S06E06), Craig clearly fails to join in on the “playful” insults the main four engage in regularly, adding “Oh, uh – you guys are dumb” after Kyle and Cartman exchange their typical “fatass” and “stupid Jew” epithets. It seems likely his ability to insult people is contingent on his actually feeling negatively towards them, and in this episode, he is trying to join their gang.

Later on, in the season 12 episodes “Pandemic” and “Pandemic 2: The Startling”, Craig is highly effective at putting down the main four, but he’s not even really insulting them. He’s just telling it like it is, and this becomes a central feature of Craig’s character that fans seem to enjoy and connect with, and (perhaps for this reason) is subsequently incorporated into his character more often.

For example, he calmly and matter-of-factly shows Stan up for thinking any 80s music is going to be “cool” and kickass in their search for Ike in “Splatty Tomato”. As in “Pandemic”, where Craig’s critique of the main four is ultimately aimed at the show itself, his criticism in “Splatty Tomato” also serves as a meta-critique on the trend of popular contemporary franchises set in the 80s using “cool” 80s music rather than what was actually on the radio at the time.

His well-loved “Peru” one-liner two episodes later in “Elementary School Music” (S12E13) similarly breaks the typical cartoon format wherein plots from episodes past are typically forgotten in the episodes that follow. It is also funny for the same reasons his criticisms of the gang in Pandemic are funny; they actually were in Peru - he’s just stating facts.

In the “Pandemic” episodes, Craig serves a similar role to Frank Grimes in the Simpsons episode “Homer’s Enemy” (S08E23), in the sense that he forces the viewer to consider whether the main characters are just, and whether the viewer is justified in rooting for them. But whereas Frank Grimes is incensed throughout the episode that Homer has such a good life despite his unbelievable sloth and stupidity, Craig acts as though he is merely inconvenienced by the main four’s inability to disengage from outlandish situations.

He expresses his displeasure in slow, monotone statements that only cut deep because they’re true (“you guys are jerks” is not exactly roast material), and because we never considered they might be viewed unfavorably by their peers. Craig is also a vehicle for the show’s own self-critique, and the show churns out increasingly more outlandish twists to prove him wrong, in a way.

Nevertheless, he remains unflappable (”Okay, now there's sparks shooting out of my eyes.”), and maintains that none of this stuff is normal and that the main four are the common denominator. When it turns out Craig is part of an ancient Incan prophecy, they argue that he’s actually responsible for some of this nonsense, not them, but he keeps his cool and, in essence, chooses to opt out.

________________________

That was part 2! Thank you for reading - I was surprised at the big response to part 1, but because people seem willing to read long posts in a way I hadn’t anticipated, I’ve made changes to the course of my analysis after this canon Craig series.

My initial plan was to do canon and then fanon analysis of just Craig, but I’m really interested in how Creek has developed as a ship. So, as I mentioned at the start of the post, I will do a Tweek canon character analysis next and then get into how their fanon portrayals have evolved over the years - as individuals, and as a couple. I’m glad to make this change bc canon Tweek is instrumental in the changes Craig’s character has undergone in canon and in fanon. And also I just love him, ok???

Part 3 - coming soon to a dash near you, maybe - covers Craig’s characterization in the mid-late teen seasons and in Stick of Truth, and then gets into his character development in “Tweek x Craig” and going forward from that point.

[probably-haven]

after binge reading i have come to a new revelation: I’m not a fan of most Xiaoven fanfics

Don’t get me wrong, I love the ship and its one of my favorite to think about.... but most of the fanfiction for the ship just- doesn’t sit right with me for a number of reasons. 

Disclaimer: these are personal opinions from my own taste and are in no way an attack against any authors out there, because frankly fanfic authors are great and not like i could do better lol. As these are personal opinions, I acknowledge here and now that a number of people disagree and that they are under no obligation to change their opinions in any way as it is not and never will be my intention to tell others what they should be thinking That said- read at your own risk if you want- meh, anyway-

time to share some opinions that have been on my mind lately

The biggest reason.... is how they handle Xiao. And I don’t even mean mischaracterization because Xiao is such a complex and yet simultaneously simple character that as long as you’re somewhere in the range of “Xiao vibes” it’s really hard to write him out of character because of his complexities. What I mean is something that i actually completely agree with as being accurate to his character. In nearly every single fanfic I’ve seen, there is some element of idolization that Xiao has for Venti, or for the sake of reference, Barbatos. He tends to think himself beneath Barbatos and/or indebted to him, whether that be because he’s an archon, because he saved him, or simply because of Xiao’s tendency to dehumanize(yes i see the irony in that word usage) himself.  This by itself isn’t an issue but its often how this trait of his is treated.

Imma just list a few ways I’ve seen this be handled within Xiaoven fics. - It isn’t handled, it’s just there and accepted as a part of who he is in the story - It isn’t handled but his trait is treated as source of humor within the story - Venti(and others) roll with it (finding humor in it, just cant change it, encouraging it, making jokes about it, etc.) - Venti takes advantage of it(whether accidentally or purposely) - it’s actually addressed(by Venti or someone else or the narration- can go a number of ways, but just- even a brief reference to the fact that its not a good mindset fits in here) - savior!Venti(Where venti disagrees with it but the way it’s written gives off “god among mortals” vibes- like he’s just being humble and truly is above him in reality) - its the focus of the story  - not directly addressed but shown to be destructive.  - they chose not to not include this in the story’s characterization of Xiao(just saying that this is valid ahead of time) Theres others but i have a lot already.  Note that I tend to read more ‘serious-toned’(idk if that makes sense) fics so that may skew my perception

Now there’s a few that i have issues with on their own- both instances of it not being handled, Venti(and others) rolling with it, Venti takes advantage of it(purposely(and without good intent)), and savior!Venti. Xiao not only has this trait, but he is unfamiliar with what is normal in relationships or emotions as a result of isolation and inexperience. He is also either not aware of or not concerned with what is considered strictly “healthy.” Combining these makes for a rather dangerous combination and just accepting it as “oh he’s just like that, it’s who he is” or making it out to be something funny- It’s not wrong or bad by any means necessarily, and I could still possibly enjoy it to an extent depending on a series of different factors, but its- not as often.  Even in the case where I do enjoy reading it however, I would still feel uncomfortable sharing it with or recommending it to others because in the first instance it feels like normalizing a destructive and dangerous mindset, and in the second case it does the same while simultaneously making a joke of it. It’s the same deal with Venti or other characters rolling with it, but that’s probably gonna be mentioned later too. Not to say that this is a “wrong” way to handle it, that it makes the fic bad, or that authors even are normalizing anything by doing so, just that in my specific instance- not a fan. 

I’ll get to the others when i talk more about Venti, but for now: It’s the focus of the story. I think I saw like... 2? where the story was like- focused on this and why its a problem which- power to them, address those real world problems like a boss- but also i wouldn’t actively seek it out or anything- like, good job, but doing so just leaves it open neutrally for other factors to decide how good a story i think it is. 

not directly addressed but shown to be destructive. You’d think i wouldn’t like this- but frankly in fanfiction not everyone wants to address every character flaw verbally because it can through off story, narration, dialogue, and general flow to do so. This can be with an event, an action, a dialogue, a mere comment, making it actually fit into the it’s actually addressed category except that its- subtle enough to make its own category. plus i live for show not tell- in everything- its a thing. im- very much a fan of when the fics do this but the subtlety is easy to miss and its not common so- 

It’s actually adressed- doesnt have to be a lot- just mention anywhere or imply anywhere that maybe idolizing someone as a god and savior and being in a relationship with them while having little knowledge of standards, emotions, relationships, or healthy behaviors in general- maybe isnt the smartest idea in the word. (”Call me Venti, not Barbatos” by itself is not enough to fit in this category tho as a note)

-

Now lets talk about Venti...

uh.... those who have followed me for awhile will probably already know this but... I have a lot of opinions on Venti and a pretty- “niche(?)” perception of his characterization that isn’t shared by a lot of others- so I don’t actually read as much Venti fanfic in general as you might expect because I often end up disagreeing with how writers portray him, which again, in no way is their characterization wrong, but- “their perceived truth” conflicts with “my perceived truth” and by extent so does the characterization, though neither is any more correct than the other from an objective point of view, if that makes sense... but anyways now that that’s said, moving on before this becomes a philosophy lecture, as fun as that would be for me.  I’ll try to keep my “perceived truth” out of this for the first bit. 

Venti’s response to this: 

He rolls with it: this depends on the mood of the fanfiction. If they dont put a lot of stress on that trait of Xiao’s it totally fine but if the trait seems to be a major part of Xiao’s character, it seems like normalization once more. (more on this later)

he takes advantage of it purposely: if its an AU or something and Venti’s like a villain(i saw a few) then- villain venti isnt my cup of tea but i have no qualms. If they don’t portray Venti in a negative light while having him take advantage however that’s a bit uncomfortable to read for me because it feels like normalizing taking advantage of that mindset as well as the mindset itself. However, i did see a number of instances of Venti using it as leverage for like- self care- which i definitely have no qualms. Xiao: [insert probably destructive idolizing statement about being indebt] Venti: How bout you pay me back by actually sleeping for once smh or other variations are okay and depending on the vibe are actually a really fun dynamic as long as it doesnt turn into romanticizing or normalizing it, y’know?

Venti accidentally taking advantage of it.... I love angst- and in most of these theres a sense of guilt when he realizes- and i just think thats a lovely way of addressing the dangers of such a mindset for both sides. As long as it doesn’t keep repeating to the point of romanticization its totally cool to read in my eyes(not irl ofc). If Venti never realizes he accidentally took or is taking advantage it feels a bit like normalization, and if he does but just- doesn’t care thats- a rip.

savior!Venti...... i- i hate. the story giving off vibes that Xiao’s mindset is technically correct while Venti oh so humbly tells him to treat him as an equal like the wonderful and charitable person he is.... i just- no. of course thats over dramatizing it- I think the main thing that gives it this vibe is when Venti doesn’t seem either concerned, surprised, uncomfortable, or otherwise have a negative feeling towards Xiao’s mindset. Just- it makes the whole thing weird in my eyes when Venti doesnt really seem to have his own reason to oppose the mindset idk- 

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fact time!

Venti is the god of freedom. His backstory is freeing Mondstadt from a god’s tyrannical reign. His origin is a windsprite, just another breeze bringing changes for the better. His form is a nameless boy who played an instrument and then died, thus failing at his only dream and only ever accomplishing anything because of the help of others. He slept for a thousand years after the archon war to avoid putting Mond under the rule of yet another tyrannical god. He only even became a god because Andrius chose to let him. He wouldn’t have even had that chance if the nameless bard had survived, he’d remain just another wind while his friend ascended to godhood. Venti sacrifices his own power for his people’s freedom. 

now that I’ve laid out a number of canon facts, time for opinions:

Venti has little to no desire to be seen as a god. He thrives in, comes from, and emphasizes a lack of superiority in quite nearly everything. The first Ragnvindir, who canonically turned his back on Venti after Decarabian’s fall, likely did so because one- he anticipated power would corrupt and Venti would soon become just another tyrannical god, two- he suspected Venti used the nameless bard in an attempt to rise to godhood, or three- idk insert other possibilities to acknowledge again that i could totally be wrong.

Look me in the eyes and tell me Venti wouldnt trade godhood for his friend in an instant. His godhood was only granted to him because his friend died and could easily serve to constantly remind him of what could have been and what he lost. Venti takes no enjoyment from being seen as superior and in my opinion, I feel that it could actually make him largely uncomfortable when his divinity and abilities as an archon get involved-

also self promotion for my favorite posts- check out #archon war era venti if thats interesting to you

so anyway Venti rolling with it or making jokes about it just doesn’t sit right with me.- 

-

Okay! enough talking about that mindset!

idk- i have... a few/lot of other gripes and stuff or just things that kinda throw off the vibe for me but that’s the main one plus my general personal pickiness when it come to Venti fanfics- but this has gotten long enough already- 

idk i just felt like rambling about it and i haven’t done a long post in a while so-

again, I love the ship and its actually one of my favorites- just the fanfic isnt my thing..... that doesn’t mean i don’t still love it and come up with a whole ton of brainrot and ideas on it tho lmao

[well-in-all-honesty-i]

TW: Suicide

OKAY SO- I wanted to talk about Mafuyu and Yuki’s relationship and why it ended the way it did. I should preface this by saying that the majority of this, although somewhat supported by canon, is my own personal headcanon and speculation. I’ve been surrounded by a lot of people who I believe Yuki to be similar to, but I am not 100% accurate or well versed and this is mostly just from what I’ve gotten from those situations. Also, a lot of questionable grammar-I type like I speak, which doesn't translate well haha.

So I want to chunk this into 3 big pieces because I enjoy organizing things: Yuki’s childhood, how that affected his personality as a young adult, and how both of these lead to his eventual death.

Starting off with his childhood:

This one is heavy speculation (as most of this is-but this bit is particularly so) since there isn’t much canon to support this-or provide a lot of insight. But, what little we do know is that 1) Yuki’s father wasn’t present in his life-probably even before Mafuyu’s father had been jailed-and that, 2) Yuki and his father shared the same bull-headedness (?) and pride that Saeko believes led to his death.

I personally believe that Yuki’s father was someone who might have struggled with some sort of mental illness, as well as has had a problem with alcohol abuse. I also imagine that he probably disappeared or passed-either due to some sort of alcohol-related problem or suicide.

Saeko, from how she is characterized in the story, seems to be a very strong-willed and assertive person. In the aftermath of Yuki’s death, she's relatively composed and seems to have almost expected this to happen, although maybe not in the specific way it did. [Ex: When she tells Mafuyu that Yuki was always the type of person to die in a chicken race (a competition of pride, of sorts, that usually ends badly) and when she mentions him being similar to his father in that sense.]

In the flashbacks in the anime, when Mafuyu tells Yuki that his father beats him when he talks, Yuki’s response of ‘You know, a real father doesn’t do that.’ doesn’t sound like something a small child’s first response would be. It’s a bit of a reach-but considering that, as well as how prompt the response from his mother seemed to be (when Mafuyu’s father was jailed-not much time seems to have passed, and since both of their mothers are present, I've always assumed that Yuki's mother found out through her son and acted accordingly.),- it would make sense that Yuki might have some prior experience with this. Especially if his mother had gone through something similar-she probably would’ve warned him very strongly against the ideal his father had set, making Yuki want to be very far from that.

Speaking of which-I assume that Yuki probably had a very rough-if short-lived-relationship with his father when he was around. Given the stuff above, his father was probably someone who was emotionally volatile and tended to lose control when upset. If he had an alcohol problem, he might’ve caused a financial strain that fell onto Saeko as well.

Since his father was out of the picture and Saeko herself wasn't around as much as Yuki might've needed, it would have made him both very independent from his parents and adults in general, while also heavily reliant on Mafuyu (Hiiragi quotes both Mafuyu and Yuki to have been latchkey kids who found comfort in each other), both of which twist into the situation he found himself in later in life.

Leading into his teen years:

Yuki, as a young adult, is very independent-he works multiple jobs to pay for the expenses of being in a band, makes a point to avoid drinking, and is very affectionate towards Mafuyu. I'm not too sure about the reasoning behind why the four friends chose the high schools they did, but if Yuki's mother didn't directly influence that decision it's likely it was a choice made in direct relation to their band.

There's also very little interference from any adults in Yuki's life-namely, his mother. As someone who was probably very busy working as a single mother to support the two of them, her mentality was just to support him monetarily and let Mafuyu provide the emotional support in her place.

I think she also assumed her attempts wouldn't have been well received-most people noted how close Yuki and Mafuyu were and seemed to always assume that they had each other handled and that nobody had to worry about either of them because of it. In every way, it was simply easier to show Yuki she cared by not interfering and letting him hold the reigns of his own life.

A big indicator of this idea for me what when Saeko talked about how Yuki ordered his own ramen, the type he liked. It's a small thing, but it started me to read because it highlighted the amount of input his mother had on his life; which was very little. I don't know if he even used her money or chose to use the extra from his jobs to pay for it, but either way, it sort of put their relationship into perspective.

The impact it had:

Yuki probably had a lot of resentment towards his father, or, at the very least, a desire to turn out different. And oftentimes when a person is very strongly trying to avoid turning out like someone, they ignore or avoid acknowledging the similarities, rather than accepting and working on them to properly change. Without a strong parental/adult figure in his life, he wouldn't have considered insight beyond his own experiences. He's characterized to be moody and domineering, and Mafuyu is too soft-spoken to have brought up most issues until it reached its boiling point.

I believe Yuki might have had Borderline Personality Disorder to a mild extent. Some symptoms of BPD are mood swings, impulsivity, impaired social relationships, and a distorted self-image. They usually have thoughts of suicide or self-harming tendencies. When they feel insecure in relationships, in which they’re usually very, very invested, they tend to lash out or do rash things to keep them close.

Based on my relationships with the borderline people in my life, I've noticed that they usually bounce between having great confidence in themselves, to being incredibly insecure. It's hard to explain specifically, but they walk a fine line of being insecure and also maintaining a painfully strong ego, which makes them react very strongly when provoked, intentionally or not. Yuki and Mafuyu have a different type of relationship than I do with those people in my life which, for the two of them, means that Mafuyu probably had to provide lots of emotional support for Yuki, while also under the mild threat of Yuki coming to harm by his own actions.

Being with someone with these tendencies who is also unaware of them is very draining, especially for someone as mild and soft-spoken as Mafuyu is. Yuki tended to lead their relationship and was probably very noticeable when upset-and for someone who might not be used to speaking up or someone who has low self-confidence, it is difficult to bring up things. It doesn't feel safe if you don't know exactly how it would be received. Especially if they are the person you are closest to, it can be anxiety-inducing to try and bring up problems that don't seem to be incredibly important or unavoidable.

So, long story short-Yuki was closed off to receiving any kind of proper advice or criticism that would've saved him. Another symptom of BPD, as mentioned before, is suicidal ideation. So, if all these things are combined, it's a lot easier to see how he, surrounded by only his thoughts and ideas, would make the choice to take his own life when provoked.

It wasn't specifically that Mafuyu had caused his death, but more that he just sent him over the edge he had been teetering on for a long while. He was like his father in the sense that they had the same flaws that just came from different places. Yuki's pride came from the flip side of his insecurities and his own early independence, and his mental health issues as a whole are probably hereditary. The specificities of his death, where Yuki drinks after avoiding alcohol for his entire life, feels like he failed in his effort to avoid being like his father. He was different as a person but in the end, their flaws aligned and brought them to their end in parallels to each other.

Calling back to what his mom said-it doesn't feel unexpected. It is shocking, but not a surprise. Yuki was fiercely independent and wanted to learn and do new things, all on his own-including his own death and whatever follows after.

[I wrote this a while back and didn’t really like how most of it was speculation and hard to prove-but decided to post it anyway because I spent too much time on it lol.

Like I said before, most of this is just my head canons, but I hope it made sense! Feel free to add on with your stuff/arguments/headcanons :)]

[otnesse]

Commentary on Peace Walker’s lionization of Che Guevara

Well, guys, as I promised earlier, I’m going to do coverage on a particularly infamous aspect of Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker, and quite frankly if you ask me, one of its worst elements. Sorry for the delay, didn’t realize that Peace Walker was actually released on April 29 in Japan and not the 30th. I’m basically going to cover the game’s lionization of Che Guevara in the various briefing files, and in particular Big Boss and Kazuhira Miller’s lionizing of that monster. For a bit of background, Peace Walker was the second canon PSP entry into the Metal Gear series, after Portable Ops (yes, Portable Ops is in fact canon, and if you ask me was a superior game to Peace Walker in terms of story and characterizations at least, but I digress…). The game has some controversial elements, namely it being very overtly anti-American even by its usual standards, not to mention pushing left-wing values to a far greater degree. One of these values is in the blatant promotion of Che Guevara in the briefing files (in the main story itself, ie, strictly going by the actual missions you undergo, the Che love was at least limited to the Sandinistas and to Vladimir Zadornov, with it being left ambiguous as to whether Snake and Miller actually were fond of him, and while you could argue that the Sandinistas’ sympathetic portrayal could point toward a promotion, Zadornov’s promotion was definitely meant to be a negative since he was planning on having Big Boss reenact Che’s well deserved execution after successfully changing Peace Walker’s target to Cuba in a disinformation op. The Briefing Files, however, aside from obviously Amanda and Chico, members of the Sandinistas, they also had Big Boss and Miller singing praises for that jerk.).

My commentary is on how Big Boss and Miller’s promotion of the guy was a complete and total betrayal of their characters, and also a betrayal of the explicit themes of the game, and also how it’s just one sign of Kojima just being a hack writer, not to mention was extremely poorly done even if we were to assume Kojima intended for Big Boss and Miller to be seen as the villains.

Out of character

For the first part, I’ll cover how the gushing for Che Guevara was completely out of character for Big Boss, and especially for Kazuhira Miller, aka, Master Miller from MG2 and MGS, not just going by past entries, but even when taking into account Peace Walker itself and any supplementary materials. I’ll give separate sections for the two of them, since it’s going to be lengthy.

Big Boss

For Big Boss, I’ll acknowledge that he was meant to be the main villain in the MSX2 games, or at least the main antagonist. However, his singing praises for Che Guevara even knowing that tidbit still didn’t make any sense at all, for a variety of reasons. First off, the games, namely Metal Gear Solid 2, strongly implied that Big Boss adhered to a more, for lack of a better term, right wing outlook. For starters, the New York Mirror review for Nastasha Romanenko’s book gave brief coverage on the official reports of what went down on Shadow Moses. In particular, as you can see with the screencaps down below, they specifically called the Sons of Big Boss a “radical right-wing group”, and the group itself for all intents and purposes, was modeled after Big Boss (even Liquid, despite hating his father, nevertheless was influenced by his ideology).

And then we get into the character Solidus, who unlike Liquid, or even Solid Snake, practically idolized his “father” (I put it in quotes since Solidus is a clone of Big Boss, as are Liquid and Solid), to the extent that he was practically ecstatic that Raiden shot out his eye and made him look even MORE like his dad. Aside from that, as you can see below with these screencaps, he was also depicted as a proto-Tea Party type, heck, a proto-MAGA type even, basically wanting America to return to the way the Founding Fathers envisioned it. There’s definitely no way Solidus would have been the type to sing praises for a scumbag like Che Guevara, knowing that, and considering his idolization of Big Boss, it’s also unlikely Big Boss would have sang praises for that creep either.

There’s also the fact that in MGS3, he wasn’t fond of Communism at all, and had already interacted with a guy similar to Che in many respects (well, other than maybe in terms of sexuality), Colonel Yevgeny Borisovitch Volgin, as both were renowned sadists, and even directly attempted to cause nuclear war. In fact, even before the torture, Big Boss, more accurately Naked Snake at that time, learned a bit about Volgin’s past, in particular his involvement in Katyn, and presumably Bykivnia and Kurapaty as well due to EVA’s references to similar massacres occurring in Western Belarus and the Ukraine, as you can see below:

His reaction in that conversation with EVA, in particular Volgin’s personal role in executing those guys, had him downright horrified. Bear in mind that Che Guevara actually DID do several of those things himself, shot innocent and unarmed people, and if anything, unlike Volgin who at least allowed Snake to have weapons on hand to fight him, Che outright dithers when confronted with people using guns, even if they’re his own allies based on his interaction with Jorges Sotus, and to a lesser extent Jesus Carreras. It says a lot when even someone like Volgin, a psychopathic mutant, had more honor than Che Guevara. Plus, in Peace Walker, Big Boss when recalling the Cuban Missile Crisis implied that he blamed that event for his ultimately having to kill The Boss (with Miller even noting it was uncharacteristic of him to get into hypotheticals), as you can see in these screencaps below.

The reason that ties in to Che Guevara is because, believe it or not, Che is the reason why the CMC nearly caused the Cold War to become hot. He and Castro even attempted to launch nukes at the United States, and it actually spooked Khrushchev enough that he had to muzzle Che and agree to end the standoff with the United States via the Turkey Deal (or retrieving Sokolov). Knowing that bit, it’s extremely unlikely Big Boss would have been particularly fond of the guy who essentially set the ground for Operation Snake Eater and his having to kill The Boss. And that’s not even getting into how he tried to stop a nuke being launched not just once in the game, but TWICE, and the second time was a perfect opportunity for him to emulate Che Guevara and succeed where Che failed. When Paz hijacked ZEKE, she revealed that she intended to nuke the Eastern Seaboard and pin the blame on MSF under Cipher’s orders, and yet Big Boss fought her in an attempt to stop her. That definitely wouldn’t have been something Che Guevara would have done, and if anything, he bragged to the London Daily Worker that he WOULD have launched the nukes at America preemptively had they been allowed to remain.

Heck, in Portable Ops and even Peace Walker, or at least the backstory for those games, Big Boss specifically served western interests after Operation Snake Eater. In the former, Big Boss was revealed to have participated in the Mozambique War of Independence, and a comment made by Null, aka, Gray Fox, aka, Frank Jaegar, after being bested the second time around, implied that Big Boss had fought alongside the Portugese during that time (Jaegar at that time was siding with FRELIMO), as you can see from the following screencaps:

And in the tape detailing how he and Miller met (not to mention the extended version included in the Peace and Harmony Blues drama tape that was later included in the Japanese version of Ground Zeroes, specifically chapters 1 and 2), it was mentioned that Kazuhira Miller at the time was a mercenary operating with an implied communist rebel group in Colombia, while Big Boss was clearly siding with the Western-backed government.

I think the events proper for Peace Walker was the first time Big Boss explicitly sided with Communists (not counting Portable Ops, since it’s implied the Russian soldiers renounced their Communism after being abandoned by the Soviet government), and even there, he did it more out of his own personal motives of getting closure regarding The Boss’s true motives after learning she may have somehow survived Snake Eater than out of any liking of Mena/Zadornov’s objectives.

Besides, Big Boss is former CIA, and grunt or not, he'd still need to have at least some degree of knowledge about Che, namely stuff like how Che tried to commit to the Cuban Missile Crisis and make it a hot war, among other things like his instituting gulags in Cuba. And let's not forget, when Gene in Portable Ops tried to pull a similar stunt, Big Boss was genuinely horrified by what he was planning to do.

Kazuhira Miller

Now we get to Kazuhira Miller, aka, Master McDonnell Benedict Miller. Unlike Big Boss, Miller was consistently up to that point depicted as a good guy (probably the closest he got to engaging in villainy was in MGS1 regarding manipulating Snake into arming REX, and even there, he was dead three days before the events of the game, and that had been Liquid who did so). He was also shown to be a huge Che fanboy, and if anything he was depicted as being an even bigger fanboy than Big Boss himself in that game. And Peace Walker also retconned his origins by revealing he was in fact born in Japan with bi-racial ancestry (Japanese and American Caucasian), as he originally was third-generation Japanese American. He was made clear to have more love for America than his own home country of Japan, and only recognized the meaning of peace when talking to his hospitalized mom. He also was mentioned to have been influenced to get into the mercenary business by Yukio Mishima’s suicide, though he does imply that he wasn’t on the same political spectrum as him. Him singing praises for Che Guevara doesn’t work well at all, especially considering that he repeatedly stressed that they not allow another Cuban Missile Crisis to happen, and going by his comments in these screencaps below (in the same briefing file as Big Boss’s uncharacteristically going into hypotheticals, and if anything happened immediately before then), he was fully aware about how Japan itself was almost nuked again thanks to that event (with the only difference being that the Soviets were more likely to nuke them), as you can see with the following screencaps.

Having him sing praises for Che Guevara, whom as I pointed out earlier actually attempted to launch nukes and jumpstart World War III, comes across as ESPECIALLY distasteful knowing that bit, since it comes across as him basically cheering for the guy who tried to wipe out his fellow Japanese, to say little about the Americans, whom back then, he idolized. It would be the same thing as a Holocaust survivor singing praises for Adolf Hitler after narrowly surviving being killed by him. It also doesn’t match up at all with his characterization in MG2 or even MGS1 (and believe me, Liquid posing as Miller or not, his statements to Snake would have been what Miller himself would have said since Snake didn’t seem suspicious at all about him.), the latter regarding the bit about Meryl after she was captured. Even his not being fond of Japan doesn’t cut it, especially when, ignoring that he put that to the side after his mom was hospitalized, the character Sokolov ALSO wasn’t fond of the Soviet Union at all, risked crossing the iron curtain alongside his family to get away from it, and would have been free as a bird had the CMC not happened, and almost got away again until The Boss interfered. Even THERE, however, he still retained at least some degree of love for Russia itself, as when Gene decided to try to nuke Russia (or at least, that’s what Gene led everyone to believe at the time), he secretly went against Gene and adopted the alias of Ghost to aid Big Boss specifically to prevent a nuke from being launched there, being THAT against harming Russia despite hating the Soviet policies. I would have expected Miller to not be fond of Che Guevara at all for that reason.

Overall

The whole thing also didn’t work since if they were meant to be seen as heroes, it ticks off a whole lot of players who are fully aware of some of the crap Che Guevara caused and know his true nature, and regarding painting them as a villain, the problem is that the story DOESN’T depict them as villains for that. Heck, they don’t even STATE any bad things Che did other than maybe dying, and if anything, the way everyone was talking, you’d think he’d walk on water. If Kojima wanted to depict Big Boss and Miller as villains by having him sing praises for Che, the very least he could have done was make sure to specifically reference Che Guevara’s role in nearly causing the Cold War to go Hot by the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis and his being upset at the nukes being removed.

Apparently, if Kojima’s secretary is of any indication, the reason the Che love was in the game was because Kojima himself tried to force in his socio-political views into the game in blatant disregard for the narrative and characterizations therein, as you can see below with links (screencaps will have to be in an addendum post since, unfortunately, I've hit my limit regarding screencap postings):

https://twitter.com/Kaizerkunkun/status/900937994143649792

https://twitter.com/Kaizerkunkun/status/1179860611297153038

https://twitter.com/Kaizerkunkun/status/1190763430497542144

Themes

The Che praise doesn’t work too well with the themes either, since he was not a peaceful man, even called himself the opposite of Christ, and tried to start a nuclear war. It definitely goes against the stated themes of the game, which was peace, not to mention the anti-nuke themes of the overall franchise. Heck, if anything, specifically referencing Che’s attempt at nuking the US and causing Nuclear War, and by extension outright condemning him for it would have worked much better with the themes of anti-nukes, especially considering that they made sure to reference Vasily Arkhipov’s actions during the Cuban Missile Crisis at one point, not to mention referenced both Katyn and the fact that the Turkey silos were already rendered obsolete even before the Turkey Deal made removing them required due to the advent of nuclear subs in Snake Eater earlier. And without the references to that, or any other bad stuff, you’re literally left thinking that he must be a good guy. I’d know because I fell for that myself, especially after getting the game (I didn’t follow the briefing files, but I did follow the cutscenes on YouTube back when it was still in Japan, and I also was baffled as to how people were talking about Big Boss and Miller were Che fanboys since the cutscenes never even pointed in either direction, and if anything, Big Boss nearly being killed by Zadornov would probably point to him NOT liking Che afterwards due to nearly being forced into Che’s fate).

The only thing it did was just have Kojima force in his political and social views, and I’ll be blunt, that kind of crap is something I have distaste in, I hate having propaganda pushed onto me. Ironically, Kojima or at least the Benson books for MGS1 and MGS2, instilled that view onto me. So my anger at Kojima doing that, after learning what Che was truly like in one of the Politically Incorrect Books (either Vietnam War or the 1960s one), is very much personal as well as political and social.

Aftermath

Well, as I said, I did buy into the narrative around the time Peace Walker was released, but then I learned I was being tricked by Kojima after reading the PIG books. I’d argue that event definitely was a watershed event for me. Not only did it have me lose any respect I might have had for Kojima, it also influenced my outlook on life, left me becoming distrustful the second I started picking up how they’re trying to push an agenda instead of, say, actually teaching the material in college. It also may have influenced my later views on Star Wars and Disney’s Beauty and the Beast (specifically, George Luca’s open admission to basing the Ewoks/Rebels on the Vietcong, and especially modeling the Galactic Empire after American soldiers; and Linda Woolverton admitting that she was trying to push a radical feminist agenda in Beauty and the Beast, the same one she tried to push in that awful Maleficent movie. Though I also was becoming disturbed with Belle for reasons other than that bit due to researching the French Revolution, though I will acknowledge Big Boss and Kazuhira Miller’s fanboying of Che Guevara, and in particular their reference to Sartre and his infamously singing praises for Che as “the most complete human being of the century”, certainly worsened my views on Belle, thinking that she may turn out like Sartre and throw her lot with the Jacobins and other groups.). It also left me distrusting of whatever Metal Gear had to say, may have also led to my not liking Chris Redfield after Resident Evil 5, or heck, some of the more anti-American commentary in 5 and other games, and also Dead Rising. It also influenced my decision to become a Dead or Alive fan (especially when before, I wasn’t particularly fond of the game due to the fanservice stuff), and in particular a Tina and Bass fan. May have also influenced my later distaste of Greg Berlanti’s writing of Arrowverse shows, in particular Supergirl starting with Season 2 (though that also had Heroes Redemption as a factor, which predated Peace Walker, thanks to how it changed Claire Bennet).

[sk1fanfiction]

the many faces of tom riddle, part 2

 -you dislike frank dillane’s portrayal of tom riddle only because you don’t think he’s attractive-

FULL DISCLAIMER THAT THIS IS JUST MY OPINION OF A CHARACTER WHO DOESN’T HAVE THE STRONGEST CANON CHARACTERIZATION, AND THUS ALL THIS IS BASED ON MY CONCEPTUALIZATION (and this time, featuring a bit of armchair child psych from a student).

Wait, don’t clutch your pearls just yet. Compose yourself.

I am about to explain why it’s not actually that bad, and Dillane’s portrayal is vastly underappreciated.

I definitely agree that his portrayal comes off as ‘creepier’. It’s not helped by the stylistic decisions in the scene -- the smeary, green filter gives the scene a sinister quality. 

Even Slughorn looks suspect here, which is somewhat appropriate, given that he is complicit in this crime. 

Again, this scene is very much intended to be slightly off.

You’ll notice (and I’ll discuss this again when I talk about Coulson’s portrayal) that Dillane is almost always shot from at least slightly below, which makes the lower third of his face look bigger (and thus more menacing). The lighting also makes his eyes glow in a really unnatural way. There’s an echo-y effect to make his voice (and not Slughorn’s) sound unnerving.

People talk about how Coulson would have looked in this scene, and if he was filmed in the same way (monotone, smeary/shadowy filter, and always from below), he’d look a bit creepy, too.

But all of this, imo, is for a pretty good reason. Slughorn isn’t the POV character. Harry is. Harry is learning about how a young Lord Voldemort wheedled the secret of Horcruxes out of an unsuspecting teacher. Unlike in COS, he expects Riddle to be evil. And, so, Harry’s new perception of Tom Riddle literally colors how we perceive him.

Take this shot, for example: he does that head-tilt thing that Coulson does, and it’s actually... kind of... cute???

Imagine Dillane filmed from slightly above, like Coulson usually is, and it looks even more innocent. (I mean, come on, he does not look like he’s killed four people, does he?) It’s not hard to imagine teachers being taken in by this kind of act.

Even that little smirk he does when the camera (aka, Harry’s gaze) pans in, is for Harry’s benefit. No one else noticed that. 

However, I still fail to find this creepy, like, at all. Yes, it’s a fake smile, but he’s portraying a different side of Tom Riddle to Coulson. Whereas, in COS, he’s in his vindictive, murderous element, where he’s free to express himself, in this scene, Tom Riddle is doing what he does best -- manipulating and managing appearances. 

This entire scene is an act. And because Harry knows it’s an act, it should look a bit stilted. 

From the Hepzibah Smith scene in the books: Voldemort smiled mechanically and Hepzibah simpered.

So, Harry is pretty adept at parsing Tom’s fake expressions.

But just look at the expressiveness in his face: he goes from brooding, he blinks, and his entire face changes to this charming (fake) smile. 

At the risk of sounding elitist, I’m a bit tired of seeing the word ‘psychopath’, which is not an actual medical diagnosis recognised by any psychological or psychiatric institution, being tossed about, especially with reference to Tom Riddle (and from a neuroscience perspective, it’s doubly annoying). There’s no such thing as ‘insanity’ or ‘psychopathy’ or being ‘crazy.’

-although I use it too a shorthand in conversation to distinguish ‘canon’ Tom from his ‘softer’ OOC counterparts, I really shouldn’t-

Unfortunately, I’ve seen the ‘psychopath’ comment used time-and-time again as an excuse or a full explanation of ‘why Tom Riddle went evil’ (JKR in fact, has made a weird comment in an interview, basically saying that ‘psychopaths can’t be redeemed or learn adaptive coping skills’ or whatever), which really just goes to show the lack of understanding and compassion when personality disorders, especially, are concerned.

But what I like most about the opening of this scene, actually, is that first, listless expression. And this is where we get slightly into headcanon, but Tom Riddle is the opposite of a happy, mentally healthy teenager. By Dumbledore’s own admission, he has no real friends. He has no parental figures, no real attachments. Yes, he might derive some pride or enjoyment from being good at magic and top of his class and all that, but I really don’t think even Tom finds that truly fulfilling. There is nothing that makes him happy. 

In fact, although some might perceive it as ‘creepy’, I think that listless expression is an accurate window into Tom’s psyche. 

I know people aren’t big on Freud, but I think that he does make some interesting points (also, cut the guy some slack for being relatively open-minded for the Victorian Era, and inventing psychoanalysis and while yes he did say some sexist stuff, good luck finding a field of science that isn’t male-focused and makes crazy generalizations about women, especially back in the day) about the possible origins of thanatophobia, the fear of death.

According to Freud, thanatophobia is a disguise for a deeper source of concern -- he did not believe that people were capable of conceptualizing their own death to that extent. Instead, he believed that this phobia was caused by unresolved childhood conflicts that the sufferer cannot come to terms with or express emotion towards.

Now, I know Freud almost always attributes mental distress to childhood experiences, but I think in this case, it really has some merit.

According to attachment theory, the basis of how we form attachments in adulthood is dictated by learning it from experiences with caregivers in the first two years of life. We know Tom was born in an orphanage, and that he didn’t cry much as a baby, and subsequently, probably received very little attention. Compounded with possible genetic factors and his caregivers being afraid or wary of his magical abilities, he later struggled to form attachments because of this -- I would actually go so far as to say that by the time Dumbledore meets him, Tom Riddle is severely depressed. 

And that flat affect and anhedonia, I think, comes over very well in Dillane’s portrayal. There’s kind of this resignation -- a very deep sadness and loneliness to his character.

Of course, he doesn’t derive any comfort or fulfillment from human interaction, because (to borrow the description from the Wikipedia article on ‘Reactive attachment disorder’, which Tom meets all the criteria for) he has a “grossly disturbed internal working model of relationships.” In other words, he is unresponsive to all offers of attachment because of this unacknowledged trauma.

(You could arguably class Tom as having an avoidant attachment style, but I think in his case the trauma and its effect on him are severe enough to call it disordered.)

RAD isn’t particularly well-characterized (especially neurologically) and quite new in the literature, but here are some links if anyone is interested in doing a bit of digging: Link 1 | Link 2 | Paper 1 | Paper 2

And, instead of trying to resolve this conflict in a healthy way, or at least recognize that this is why he can’t be happy and try to learn how to cope from there, he (a) represses the desire for human attachment and (b) funnels that negative emotion into being the fault of Death, the Grim Reaper (again, to borrow Freudian terms). 

And we all know how that turned out...

(And now, this should go without saying, but psychoanalyzing fictional characters has nothing to do with assigning a morality to mental disorders. Mental illness is neither a cause nor an excuse for criminal behavior -- in the same way that the cycle of violence is a phenomenon, not an excuse. Tom Riddle did not become a genocidal murderer because, in common parlance, he was a ‘psychopath’ -- he was not necessarily ‘predisposed’ to evil and could just as easily chosen to not follow the path that he did -- instead, he willingly made poor choices. This is a descriptive analysis, not a justification -- a ‘how’, not a ‘why’)

Here’s a Carl Jung quote that articulates it better:

“I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.”

Yes, he’s a bit stiff (and a lot more formal than in COS during his *conversation* with Harry). But, and here comes the controversial bit, this is appropriate for a portrayal of a schoolboy in the 1940s. The upright posture is accurate -- respectful, polite -- everything Tom Riddle would have been expected to be (and even Coulson, in that scene with Dumbledore in COS, is quite stiff). Even the way he looks at Slughorn and maintains eye contact is very *respectful.*

And, Dillane (I think he’s seventeen or eighteen here) actually looks like a believable sixteen-year-old. I’m sorry, I love Coulson’s portrayal as well, but he looks around nineteen in COS; so in HBP, he probably would have looked at least twenty-two or so. (Sorry, not sorry).

This may be influenced by my own interpretation of the character (because I imagine Tom always looks young for his age, and Dillane fits that archetype, but I don’t think that’s very popular), but I think young Tom Riddle is supposed to be *cute* and a bit stiff/shy/awkward (being charming and awkward is very much possible), if you consider the way Dippet and Slughorn treat him. 

To support this, he says very few words to Hepzibah Smith (in the book, that scene’s not in the movie), and is very... bashful and coy during the whole interaction? I think yes, he’s charismatic, but he’s not loud, suave, openly flirtatious or particularly verbose. Tom Riddle should have a quiet magnetism, and to me, that came across in Dillane’s portrayal.

"I'd be glad to see anything Miss Hepzibah shows me," said Voldemort quietly, and Hepzibah gave another girlish giggle.

...

"Are you all right, dear?"

"Oh yes," said Voldemort quietly. "Yes, I'm very well. ..."

Even the ‘ugly, greedy look’ described in the books, when Slughorn starts spilling his secrets, is there. This is how he’s supposed to look! Slughorn glimpses it, but doesn’t understand its significance. Harry does. 

“Slughorn looked deeply troubled now: He was gazing at Riddle as though he had never seen him plainly before, and Harry could tell that he was regretting entering into the conversation at all.”

Remember the context of this moment, as well: He’s just discovered how to create multiple Horcruxes. Excuse him for looking a bit creepy (if not now, then when?).

Here’s two direct quotes of Harry’s impression of Tom Riddle in that scene: 

“But Riddle's hunger was now apparent; his expression was greedy, he could no longer hide his longing.”

“Harry had glimpsed his face, which was full of that same wild happiness it had worn when he had first found out that he was a wizard, the sort of happiness that did not enhance his handsome features, but made them, somehow, less human. . . .”

Tom Riddle’s Horcruxes are a direct metaphor for his refusal to allow himself to heal from his trauma -- instead, he continues to inflict destruction on himself and others.

His desire to continue creating more Horcruxes sort of resounds with the fact that self-harm can also become a compulsion.

I’d also like to digress a bit to discuss the Gaunt Ring, while we’re at it. While we’ve talked about his attachment issues in general, this discussion is particularly pertinent to father figures. And while Tom’s attachment issues are extensive, I think there’s ample evidence that as a child, he craved acknowledgement and acceptance from a father figure -- the man who gave him the only thing Tom truly owned -- his name. He would have had a vaguely defined mother figure in Mrs. Cole, perhaps.

"You see that house upon the hillside, Potter? My father lived there. My mother, a witch who lived here in this village, fell in love with him. But he abandoned her when she told him what she was.... He didn’t like magic, my father ... He left her and returned to his Muggle parents before I was even born, Potter, and she died giving birth to me, leaving me to be raised in a Muggle orphanage ... but I vowed to find him ... I revenged myself upon him, that fool who gave me his name ... Tom Riddle. ..."

We know that by June of 1943 (COS flashback) Tom has already uncovered the truth of his parentage; he knows he is the Heir of Slytherin via the Gaunt line, and he describes himself to Dippet as ‘Half-blood, sir. Witch mother, Muggle father.’

In Part 1, I discussed the high probability that as a presumed ‘Mudblood’, Tom Riddle was treated rather poorly in Slytherin House. But by this scene in the fall of 1943, he is surrounded by a group of adoring hangers-on. Why?

In my opinion; the Gaunt Ring. We know that Tom stopped wearing it after school, so its sentimental value couldn’t have been that great. We know he likes to collect objects (which I believe stems from his attachment issues -- he seeks comfort in things instead of other people).

Signet rings (such as the one belonging to Tutankhamun seen above) were used to stamp legal documents and such, in order to certify someone’s identify -- like an e-certificate, if you will. Like Tutankhamun’s ring, the Gaunt Ring bears an identifying symbol -- Marvolo Gaunt tells us proudly that it bears the Peverell family crest.

By the Middle Ages, anyone of influence, including the nobility, wore a signet ring. Rings in antiquity were auspicious -- they signified power, legitimacy, and authority. And so, I believe that all the Sacred Twenty-Eight families would have worn these, too.

And so, bearing the Gaunt Ring would have established Tom Riddle, symbolically and in the eyes of the Sacred Twenty-Eight (his future supporters and followers), as the legitimate heir to the House of Gaunt. This is why, I believe, Tom coveted the ring as soon as he saw it -- not just because it was a family heirloom, and not just because he thought it was a pretty toy for his collection.

(He curses it so that no one else but him can wear the Gaunt Ring safely.)

This is why, to make the legitimization literal as well as symbolic, Tom murders his father and grandparents. It’s not just an act of vindictive, murderous rage due to his perception of being rejected by his father (although it is that, too). And so, Tom, abandoning his search for a father figure (and possibly also giving up on the possibility to allow himself to heal from his own personal trauma rather than continue to inflict it on others), ‘cleanses’ his bloodline, to make himself truly legitimate. It’s rather telling that instead of affirming his legitimacy as a Riddle, which would have put him in line for a nice inheritance, and hey -- money is money -- (thus accepting his half-blood status), he simply kills them all. He has done all the murdering he needs to become immortal (and he hasn’t had the discussion about multiple Horcruxes yet); but yet, he does it again. Frightening stuff. 

(Just look how the others look at Tom. All but the one to his left -- possibly Nott, Rosier, or Mulciber -- have their torsos turned towards him. Their attention is on him, while he knowingly regards the viewer/Harry. Tom seems a little uncomfortable with the attention.).

“And there were the half-dozen teenage boys sitting around Slughorn with Tom Riddle in the midst of them, Marvolo's gold-and-black ring gleaming on his finger.”

...

“Riddle smiled; the other boys laughed and cast him admiring looks.”

...

“Tom Riddle merely smiled as the others laughed again. Harry noticed that he was by no means the eldest of the group of boys, but that they all seemed to look to him as their leader.”

The ‘gang’ are true hangers-on; Tom doesn’t seem to pay them much attention. 

So, if not via careful flattery or charisma, the attraction must be status.

And perhaps yet more telling...

"I don't know that politics would suit me, sir," he said when the laughter had died away. "I don't have the right kind of background, for one thing." “A couple of the boys around him smirked at each other. Harry was sure they were enjoying a private joke, undoubtedly about what they knew, or suspected, regarding their gang leader's famous ancestor.”

That, in my opinion, is as good as we’re going to get as proof that Tom’s shiny new signet ring (and by extension, his new status) made a big impression on his fellow students.

So, when he returns to Hogwarts, he is ‘pureblood’. He is cleansed of his Muggle roots, and becomes the legitimate heir of the House of Gaunt, now well on his way to becoming Lord Voldemort...

Watch the scene again, with a critical eye, and imagine Slughorn’s perspective, instead of Harry’s. There’s nothing creepy about Tom Riddle... unless you know what he is...

Strip away all the effects of Harry’s gaze (and notice, here he’s still looking at Harry), and he’s quite the charmer, actually.

(I will concede that I don’t like the promotional images where they have him looking like he’s up to no good. And I do wish he blinked once in a while.)

My challenge to you: Rewatch the scene with an open mind, and let me know if you agree that Dillane’s portrayal comes off as depressive rather than ‘creepy.’ And if not, why do you dislike his portrayal?

[stark-tony]

today is my 22nd birthday so i’m celebrating by reccing 22 of my favorite fics and giving my general thoughts about them.

atla

 i'm still here by owedbetter (77.7, T, zutara) "You see me."And somehow, that makes all the difference.

thoughts: One of the first zutara fics i ever read and it’s still one of my absolute favorites. The characterization of all of the characters is superb and the gradual development of zuko and katara’s relationship is amazing.

 such selfish prayers by andromeda3116 (47.6k, T, zutara)  Katara's ambition, so long set aside for the good of others, breaks free and sets fire to her soul. Or, Katara has a vision of her canon future, casts it aside, and becomes a world-changing politician instead.

thoughts: while this fic is a zutara fic, the majority of this fic is centered on katara and her helping rebuild the world after the war and it does an astounding job of portraying just that. and honestly this probably has my favorite characterization of katara i’ve ever read in a fic.

 Southern Lights by colourwhirled (501.8k, M, zutara) A world where the Avatar has disappeared from memory. Where Sozin’s Conquest was successful. Where the unsteady order of the empire is threatened as members of the royal family are picked off one by one and lines are slowly drawn in the sand.One last chance for peace forces an unlikely alliance between a homesick waterbender, a carefree Air Nomad, a runaway Earth Kingdom heiress, and the fire lord's inscrutable son. Together they must learn to shed old enmities and become the balance they seek to restore to the world.OR:The avatar has four heads.x[[Chapter 4: "And always, his eyes, cautiously watching her. Even when he thinks she isn’t looking. It drives her mad"]]

thoughts: when i say i was unable to put this fic down i genuinely mean that. like i’m pretty sure i was hooked from the very first chapter and i never looked back.

bnha

  stickers and stars by aloneintherain (1.9k, G, gen) “Aizawa, are you sure I’m the best person for this job? There are a lot more qualified people on campus. People who have been teachers for years, and—”As All Might spoke, Midoriya Izuku crawled the length of the couch, ducked under All Might’s arm, and made himself comfortable on his lap. All Might’s hands rose into the air, as though unsure of what to with his arms now that he had a toddler curled against his stomach like a cat seeking the warmth of its owner.“Um,” All Might said.

thoughts: is it not enough to say ‘baby deku’ and leave it at that?

 Butterfly by aconstantstateofbladerunner (198.8k, T, gen) The first over-night trip off campus since the training camp was supposed to be a fun break from more intense work back home. But between a bleak introduction to chaos theory, a chilly reception from the locals, and the looming threat of a villain attack, Izuku has too much on his mind to properly enjoy the fresh air. But those worries are a light breeze compared to the hurricane that accompanies what he finds on the outskirts of town.Or rather, what finds him.

thoughts: it’s incredibly well written and the horror aspect is so good. also the dad might in it is top tier.

villain eradication plan 5C: let them attack budding heroes mothers, wait appropriate time for mother to defeat them (3.4k, G, toshinko)  Targetting the civilian families of hero students should be cakewalk. Pity they decided to go with Inko first.Or the one where Inko accidentally defeats the League of Villains.

thoughts: this fic is basically inko accidentally being a badass and it’s as hilarious and awesome as it sounds

 see it all in bloom by aloneintherain (57.2k, T,  tododeku, kiribaku, momojirou, bullying) Midoriya looked over the occupants of the room with butter soft eyes. “We should do this again. Seeing everyone in one place … it’s like we’re back in school again.”Todoroki said, “It feels like a family reunion.”(Social media fic, counting down the five months to Class 1-A's ten year reunion.) 

thoughts: this series deals with social media + the lives of class 1a after they become pro heroes and it is amazing.

 remember from here on in by aloneintherain (8.1k, G, gen) Aizawa glances from All Might to Midoriya quickly. It sounds impossible—he’s never heard of a quirk that can be handed down like a family heirloom—but at the same time, it makes perfect sense. Midoriya’s inability to use his quirk at the start of the year. The strange, familial relationship between All Might and Midoriya. The slow malnourishment of All Might’s body, like his power was being siphoned away.“You’re …” Aizawa begins.“I’m All Might’s successor.” Midoriya’s proud but shaky voice rings clearly down the empty corridor.Aizawa finds out about One for All. 

thoughts: this fic deals with one for all being revealed to aizawa + midoriya getting more quirks and it is amazing

could i but teach the hundredth part by terra_incognita (5.2k, G, gen) Ito Matsu knows three things about her neighbor, Mr. Yagi: he's very skinny, he's very kind, and he has enough children to overthrow the Japanese government.Or:All Might is retired, but his former students keep coming up with reasons to visit. 

thoughts: this fic is so lovely and i adore it so much

mcu

 the talk by parkrstark (3.1k, pepperony) “Wait, man, what’re you doin’?” Rhodey asked, leaning forward.“Giving the kid his talk before he goes off to college.” Duh.Rhodey blinked. “At 3am when you’re probably too drunk to even spell your name, months before he actually has to leave?”“Yeah.”Rhodey blinked again. “Okay.”

thoughts: this fic is absolutely hilarious and poor peter is suffering throughout all of it

 call you home by Madelinedear (19k, G, pepperony) sometimes family is who you're born with.and sometimes family is a spider boy, a rich not-dad, and a kickass aunt.(or; tony, may, and peter find a place in each other's lives)

thoughts: to me, this fic is the tony may co-parenting fic. like i honestly don’t think that anything can ever top it

I Never Lived 'Til I Lived In Your Light by losingmymindtonight (38.4k, T, pepperony, character death)  As the world shifts to make space for Morgan Stark, everyone around her shifts, too. (As it turns out, this also includes Peter Parker's sleep schedule.) 

thoughts: this fic is both fluffy goodness and heartwrenching angst and it handles both beautifully.

 Lazarus, come forth by iron_spider (47.9k, T, pepperony) Tony's mind is a chaotic mess but he remembers the moment—remembers his death, remembers the red hot pain and Peter screaming, Rhodey rushing to his side. How he knew he’d never see Pepper again—but they’d fixed it. They’d fixed the world, erased the lost time, set things right—and the kid was back. The kid was crying, the kid hated him for doing what he did, but he was back. He was alive.Tony Stark was dead. But now he’s breathing again, trying to think, gasping, hands tracing the box surrounding him, covering him, suffocating him.He’s in a coffin. He’s under the ground. He’s under the fucking ground.(Tony Stark dies defeating Thanos. But then he comes back to life. He has to find out how, why, and how to live again. And how to deal with the changes in the people he's coming back to.)

thoughts: although this fic was written and finished pre-endgame but to me this fic is the fix-it fic for film.

Identity Saga by KitCat992 (400.7k, T, pepperony) An organically developed, platonic slow-burn of Avengers-fam dynamic with a heavy hand of Irondad & Spiderson. Throw in an overdose of whump, a couple of cunning villains and a big-bad hiding in the shadows, and you got yourself this hot mess.

thoughts: i just love the avengers dynamic in this series and the whump is medically accurate which is amazing.

college applications: the biggest meme by sagemb (3.3k, T, pepperony) Tony covered his face with both hands and screamed very gently. “Can I just bribe the school to let Peter in?"

thoughts: this series is absolutely hilarious and i love it

hp  

 The Changeling + Armistice Series  by Annerb (586.6k, M, hinny, rape) Ginny is sorted into Slytherin. It takes her seven years to figure out why.

thoughts: this fic is absolutely golden and i adore it so so much. the characters are so well written and the worldbuilding in this fic is fantastic and it actually has an original aspect of hogwarts (aka the parlor) that i practially consider to be canon at this point. also the depiction of slytherin house + house unity in this fic is just *chef’s kiss*

 boy with a scar by dirgewithoutmusic (208.7k, T, hinny, romione, jily)  A series of "what if" rewrites of Harry Potter, books 1-7. Cross-posted from tumblr (ink-splotch).

thoughts: every single one of these fics are exquisitely written and i wish that i could experience the beauty of this series again for the very first time.

  Hogwarts, to welcome you home by gedsparrowhawk (FaceChanger) (11.1k, G, ginny) “You understand, Professor,” Harry began, after a moment, “that I don’t have my N.E.W.T.s. I never even finished seventh year. Between everything, I never had a chance the first time around, and then afterwards there didn’t seem to be much point. Hermione argued for it, of course, but I was so tired of Britain. So technically, I am completely unqualified for the position.”“Quite a way to begin an interview, Mr. Potter,” McGonagall said, dryly.Or, three years after the war, Harry Potter becomes Hogwarts' newest Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.

thoughts: this is my favorite harry as dada professor i’ve ever read. no doubt about it

 And the Unethical Binding Contract by justafandomfollower (14.6k, G, gen) AU. What if the Triwizard Tournament took place in Harry's first year, not his fourth? 

thoughts: this fic is beautifully written and i love the relationship that forms between harry, cedric, krum, and fleur.

Regulus Black and the Way Things Changed: A Not!Fic by imaginary_golux (8.8k, T, wolfstar) What if Regulus Black, and not Severus Snape, ended up being the turncoat Potions Master of Hogwarts?A not!fic written in bullet points, ignoring the Deathly Hallows entirely because they annoy me.Beta by my immensely patient Best Beloved, Turn_of_the_Sonic_Screw, and by the delightful starbirdrampant.

thoughts: this fic may be ooc at some points but it’s so funny that that makes up for it

spn

 Broadway Musical by Griftings (12.5k, M, destiel) This is the day that marked the Holy and Blessed Union of Dean Winchester and Jo Harvelle.The merging of prominent bloodlines is always a grand occurrence, but breeding pedigree hunter families like Winchester and Harvelle is something to be rejoiced. It is also something to be meticulously planned, which thankfully the Host is very good at.Or, the romantic comedy where Dean Winchester and Jo Harvelle are destined to get married, Castiel is given the task of playing matchmaker and fails terribly, the entire Heavenly Host becomes a sitcom audience, God warns against male pregnancy, and Jimmy Novak is incredibly unimpressed with angels in general.

thoughts: this fic is quite possibly the single most funniest thing i have ever read. like i was straight up cackling when i was reading some of the scenes.

  Down to Agincourt by seperis (1 million+, E, destiel) There is no such thing as a guarantee when it comes to war.The outcome's known. Why try? Return your rusty sword to battered sheath, bow your head and bend your stubborn knee. Why take the field when you cannot win the war? But Harry -- he went down to Agincourt.

--Harry Takes the Field by bratfarrar (AO3 link here.)

thoughts: this fic is an absolute work of art. the characterization dean and cas and all of the ocs is astounding the world building is immaculate and the writing is so detailed and in depth. a fair warning though to the first time reader as this fic can get very confusing at times but trust me it is worth it. 

[filipinoizukuu]

I saw your post about the FA's translations, and I totally agree. Sometimes, when they do not translate accurately, is to make it sound better or cooler in English, but it just ends up taking away a lot from the context and characters. We know how one of the most affected character interpretations is Katsuki's, a main character, no less. And Izuku and Katsuki's relationship too, which is something super super wrong, considering is deeply intertwined with the main plot of the series, thus if someone misinterpreted their dynamic, this person would miss a bigass chunk of the message the story has.

Here is the panel you mentioned before btw

I remember when I read this, only 10 or 11 chapters into the manga (?), and I was like "...I'm...pretty sure this guy didn't say that" khshsjdhs

OK FIRST OF ALL LMAO HELLO MANG!! THANK YOU SO MUCH AND DW ABOUT IT I TOTALLY GET WHAT YOU MEAN !!

(this is your warning for a long post ahead!)

In any case, I still think you're very correct on this! Not to ramble a bit, but Horikoshi's particular talent in developing the plot of MHA is actually very very brilliant and there are a lot of blink-and-you'll-miss-it details that together, assemble the big picture of what MHA is.

Translations are such an integral part of being able to understand foreign media. MHA or otherwise. The simplest of details say a lot about a character and often times make or break a series because everyone knows that strong character dynamics are what carry even the shittiest of plots.

First and foremost, I want to clarify that because of the nature of fan translations and the fact that most of it is volunteer work/ written out of pure enjoyment of the manga--we shouldn't judge these fan translators too harshly (if at all) for interpreting it the way they want to. FA, as far as I can tell, is a fan-based group that works out of donations.

The first thing I wanna bring up is that when it comes to fandom and its works, there are two types: Curatorial and Transformative. Now, the transformative part is something that must be very familiar to a lot of you. Fanfiction, fanart, and most headcanons fall under Transformative Works (i.e. AO3) because they are all about transforming the canon world to fit each individual's personal preferences. Meta-analysis posts and Character Breakdowns are also classified under this.

Curatorial on the other hand are fandom interactions made with the explicit purpose of being as close to canon material as possible. This is working out the logic of quirks, for example, or memorizing as much canon content about your favorite villain as possible. These are more cold, hard undeniable facts that lend themselves to the DIRECT VISION the creator/author had while making this media. If you were to ask me my opinion on this, this would be the moment where I tell you that the Curatorial side of fandom is where fan translations should (for the most part) fall under.

What people need to know though is that oftentimes, fan translations do not.

Translating isn't and has never been a one-is-to-one process. There are hundreds of thousands of aspects in a language that make it so that it isn't perfectly translatable. Colloquialisms to sayings to dialects, to just plain-out words that don't have a proper English translation to them! Manga is made by and for a Japanese audience, so obviously in a lot of instances, there will be cultural nuances that will not be understood by anyone who hasn't immersed themselves in Japanese culture/language.

So what does this mean then for fan scanlations?

It means that a vast majority of translators teach themselves to only get the essence of the message. They take the dialogue as they understand it and translate it to something of their interpretation. When language and cultural barriers exist, translators do what they can in order to make it understandable to the general populace. This means making their own executive decisions on how they see a character speaking. In example, if they see Todoroki using very direct and impersonal Japanese--one translator might interpret it to mean that Shouto is stiff and overly formal, while another may see it as him being rude and aloof.

The problem is, translators are fans just like us.

Like with the image Mang posted above, the translator based the usage of curse words off of their understanding of Bakugou's character. The lack of foul language in the original Japanese might have made the translator think "Oh. There just aren't enough Japanese cusses for his character." And took that as an initiative to make Bakugou's lines more colorful and violent because this was working off of the image Bakugou had had at this point in canon.

But Codi! You may cry. Wasn't it proven multiple times that Bakugou prefers concise and short lines? They should've known better!

Yes. Maybe they should've known better. But tell me honestly in your first watch-through of MHA, did you perfectly understand Bakugou's character either? Did you catch the whole 'direct and no flowery language' aspect of his language when you first saw Season 2?

Most people don't. I only really understood this fact after I'd read multiple discussions of it and even double-checked the manga myself. These are the kinds of things that only become noticeable with a sharp eye and some time to scrutiny. But the fact of the matter is that when it comes to fan translations, the clout and recognition are always going to go to who can post the quickest.

Am I excusing erroneous translations? A bit, I guess. It's hard for us to go in and expect translators to catch all these errors before release when we ourselves only catch these errors like 4 months in with a hundred times more canon context than these scanlation groups did at the time of its release.

Still, there are plenty of harms that come with faulty translations.

When a translation is more divorced from the original's meaning than usual, it creates a dissonance between what is actually happening versus what the audience sees is happening. This looks like decently-written character arcs being overruled and rejected by most of the readers because of how 'jarring' and 'clumsy' it seems. By the time translators had caught on to the fact that Bakugou was more than just a ticking time bomb, we were already several steps into showing how significantly he cares for Deku.

The characters affected most by these translation errors are often those with the most subtle and well-written character arcs. A single mistake in how the source material is translated can make or break the international reception of a certain character to everyone who isn't invested enough in them to look deeper into the canon source.

It creates hiccups in plots. Things that seem out of character but really aren't. Going back to MHA in specific, the way that inaccurate translations hurt both the 'curatorial' and 'transformative' parts of the fandom is that people have begun to cite them as proof of the main cast's characterization.

Bakugou and Todoroki are undeniably some of the biggest examples of mistranslation injustices.

Katsuki, in a lot of people's minds, has yet to break out of the 'overly-aggressive rival' archetype box that people had been placing him in since Season 1. One of the most amazing aspects and biggest downfalls of Hori's writing was that at first, nearly every character fit into a very neat stereotype for Shonen Animes (Deku being the talking-no-jutsu sunshine MC, Uraraka being the overly bubbly main girl, Todoroki being the aloof and formal rival). He made the audience make assumptions about everyone's characters and then pulled the rug beneath our feet when he revealed deeper sides of them to play around within canon.

What made this part about Horikoshi's set-up so good though were the many clues we were given from the very beginning that these characters were more than what they acted like. Even from the very first chapters, for example, we learn that Katsuki (as much as he acts like a delinquent) dislikes smoking because it could get him in trouble.

That is just a single instance of MHA's use of dialogue to subtly divert our expectations of a character.

Another example is when they replaced 318's dialogue of the Second User saying that Katsuki "completes" Deku with him saying that Katsuki merely "bolsters" him. This presents a different situation, as that line was meant to reinforce the importance of those two's relationship as well as complete the character foils that MHA is partially centered around. By downplaying their developed connection, it becomes harder for the MHA manga scanlations to justify any future significance these two's words have on each other without mottling the pacing of the story.

AKA, it butchers the plot.

With every new volume, there are dozens and dozens more of these hints and bits scattered around! So many cues and subtle foreshadowing at the trajectory of everyone's character arcs--yet mistranslations or inaccurate scans make it so that we don't notice them. This is what I mean when I said that some character arcs are being done great injustices.

Until now, many people can't accept that Katsuki Bakugou cares for anyone other than himself (much less his rival and MC, Izuku Midoriya), nor can they accept that Todoroki would ever willingly work by Endeavor's side. The bottom-line then becomes that because of people missing heavy bits of characterization that become very plot-significant in the future.

When it comes to the point where people can no longer accept or fit their interpretation of the earlier manga events to what is happening in canon, the point of a translation fails completely because it has lead people to follow an entirely different story.

TL;DR - Fan scans are hard. Translating is hard. Don't get too mad at fan translations, but also maybe don't treat them as the catch-all for how characters truly operate. Thanks.

Side note: DO NOT harass FA for any of these things. FA is actually a pretty legit and okay source for scans (they've been operating since like 2014 ffs), but regardless of that they still don't deserve to get flack for their work. You can have any opinion or perspective of canon that you want, I don't care. These are just my two (more like two million tbh) cents on translations. I suggest reading takes from actual Japanese audiences tbh if you wanna know more about the source material of MHA. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯