#also this will seem unrelated but I have very strong views about people who believe in astrology - it’s a gateway to believing in other bs

[lifeascaty]

The thing about the internet is that sometimes you see something being reblogged by 30,000+ people as fact and it’s completely factually inaccurate but if you point that out you’ll look like you’re supporting something or someone that the internet is gleefully hating

The internet masses are free to dislike whatever they want but can we at least be factually accurate about it!!!

[biblioflyer]

Raffi & JL before the fall, The Raffi Controversy, Picard s1e3 Rewatch.

Who was Raffi before she became the messy person we meet fourteen years after Mars? One flashback isn’t much, but it may be richer in detail than one might expect at first glance. Of course this is also a story that is still being written and those caveats definitely apply.

This is part of a series of essays reevaluating Star Trek Picard and interrogating the widely held fandom criticism that Picard made the Federation into a Dystopia.

It is worth recalling that season three is apparently exploring Raffi’s backstory to some degree or another and a more fuller picture of the character and her place within the narrative and the setting is coming into view.

The Raffi we see immediately after Mars seems extremely impressive. She correctly anticipated every objection Starfleet Command would raise to a renewed effort to evacuate Romulan space. She seems like a very effective aide de camp to Picard. As nicknames go, I wasn’t super fond of J.L., but the familiarity hints at a strong working relationship and that Picard allows Raffi a degree of latitude that perhaps other subordinates haven’t had.

Why might that be? My theory is that Picard’s secret hobby is adopting strays. That is to say, he’s the sort of classical command officer who is defined by his ability to spot talent in rough crewmen who are struggling to apply their gifts in Starfleet and for Starfleet to recognize those gifts. 

This archetypal character loves to rehabilitate troubled officers less through force of unrelenting discipline, but by recognizing that some people need to not just be told what the rules are and be punished for breaking but instead need to understand them and believe in the rules (and themselves.) See also Commander William Adama and Kara Thrace, or Honor Harrington and….everyone she encounters (don’t @ me about David Weber, I’m well aware he and his body of work are.....a bit complicated, I just think the character of Honor embodies this archetype well.)

This is precisely the situation that defines Seven and Shaw’s relationship in Season 3. Seven knows the rules but doesn’t value them, Shaw understands the rules but is so submissive to authority that it makes him incredibly reluctant to act outside his mandate or follow his conscience.

While the timeline of Raffi’s life is vague, when she is questioning Picard about the outcome of the meeting with Starfleet Command and anticipating his success, she presents as oriented, intelligent, and driven. Season three provides a bit more context as well for the circumstances in which she found herself in Starfleet, but I am on the fence as to whether including it here represents “cheating” and if it makes judging season one on its own merits unfair.

To allude to season three without spoiling it, it's implied that Raffi has always possessed an inner darkness inclined towards quickly becoming irritated with small minds who can’t see what she sees and Starfleet seems to have been an opportunity to either start over or put her skills towards a higher purpose.

Her breaking point, at least in this scene, seems to be Picard’s resignation and the collapse of the Romulan relief effort. She quickly becomes angry and turns on Picard, infuriated by the hubris of him believing he was indispensable. She lashes out, citing a future for him comfortably retiring to Chateau Picard and writing his memoirs and compares it to her own future, which she immediately assumes to be bleak.

One might be justified in assuming that Raffi has not had the best of luck with commanding officers, whereas Picard had the finesse to coax her talents out of her while tolerating or disarming her more difficult traits. Alternately, Raffi is a person adrift without a clear purpose to focus her energies upon.

As I've alluded to a few times, I've known and loved a few Raffis. Getting through the outer defenses is challenging. Riding the maelstrom even tougher. They are more deserving of patience and compassion than they know, but they'd be a whole lot easier to appreciate if they could know it.

[newyorksfinest]

People are not destroying men, nor desperately trying to be men. People who are born as men, but assigned a female body just want bodies and other social identifiers that match with the gender identity they are.

If you already understand this concept about gender identities not matching the sex you were born as, then you also must understand that there are stages to these transitions as well. A trans woman does not change her name, shave her body, learn makeup, grow her hair out, receive HRT, get vocal training, and get surgery all at once. It’s a lengthy process from one identity to the next. Is it that unrealistic for you to believe that somebody might feel most comfortable at one of these in between stages?

There’s a difference between dysphoria and dysmorphia. Gender *dysphoria* refers to a feeling of unease with the way you’re being physically perceived by yourself or others. Body *dysmorphia* refers to having a skewed and distorted view of your body and perceiving very minor flaws as severe flaws.

I personally don’t have a strong tie to a gender identity. I flip flop between just cis and gnc. Some days I experience a great discomfort wearing skirts or dresses and have to present more masculine to feel comfortable. I genuinely believe that the push for gender non conformance comes from the extra push toward typical gender roles. Growing up, I was told that women had to shave their legs, and if I didn’t, that was manly. Or if I grew any facial hair that was manly. Or that not wanting kids meant I was not feminine. People attribute masculine and feminine labels to every trait. Voice too deep? You must be a man. Hair too long? You must be a woman. Hands too big? Must be a man. Ad nauseum.

Maybe if we could understand that gender presentation is a spectrum, and that humans are always a mix of feminine and masculine traits completely unrelated to their biological sex, then we wouldn’t push people out of male or female identities. But because people like you push so hard for “what is a man nowadays anyway!?” and need this for sure definition, any biological male that doesn’t fit that definition feels like they have to be Other. They’re definitely not a woman, but now they must not be a man either because you all tell them so!! Hence why being in between seems so “trendy” to you.

Don’t worry, men will continue to be men. But now men uncomfortable with being a man will no longer live lifetimes of discomfort. There are still men and women, no one is taking that from you. But now there are other people too because none of us fit in the tidy holes you made too small to fit all of the rest of us.

[adenthemage]

Okay fine I’ll do it

[rattles you]

Tell me your thoughts on Bishop!!!!!!! I wanna hear!!!

— Trauma

[Is rattled!!]

Oh boy I am so sorry my dear friend but as it happens pushing the Bishop button is even worse than pushing the OC button. I have done extensive historical research for this asshole, and I am totally using this ask as an excuse to infodump about it. God Forgive Me for the length this post is about to be.

Anyway before I get into all that, first the catalyst! The thing that got the part of my brain dedicated to analyzing Agent Bishop turning in the first place: in the post I tagged, you brought up the idea of how much power Bishop actually has, which is something I find super interesting! To me, there are two especially relevant pieces of evidence to consider, and they are as follows:

The first and most compelling to me is that Bishop seems to report directly to the president, which suggests-- as far as I can tell-- that he is pretty high-ranking within the government, or at least takes some priority in getting meetings with important people. It was also shown, briefly, that Bishop worked directly with at least one other president in the past, very early in America's development iirc. However, we know for a fact he does not outrank the president and relies on them for funding, so we can at least draw a hard line there. (There is another discussion to be had from Bishop's relationship to the presidents, which I'll come back around to after this point.)

Second, the level of technology at EPF's disposal. Now, some of it can be said to come from scrapped alien tech and indeed I think some of it is very much implied to be so. But it's clear from the numerous bases, modes of transport and level of defenses that EPF is and has been well-funded. The amount of resources at Bishop's disposal is kinda crazy, and he is also able to fund his own research projects, when the money's not used on the field.

There might also be something to be said of Bishop plausibly being head of EPF for 200 years, and being implied to have founded it. It could suggest a high level of trust and effectiveness, though that's more speculation than evidence. Otherwise, that's mostly why I feel Bishop and EPF do indeed have pretty strong influence within America and its government (wish I could say I had any solid thoughts on his influence outside of the US but tbh what we have suggests he absolutely does not lmao)

As for how Bishop may view the Justice Force, I think your read on it-- him not having much concern because they originate from Earth-- is pretty accurate. Bishop's main priority is protecting Earth from forces outside of it. When it comes to strife within, he doesn't seem too bothered. Despite his greater goals aligning morally good in theory, he very much believes the ends justify the means, and we've seen him dismissive of possibly causing the deaths of innocents because there would be overall long-term benefits. (Which is also why I think an invalid reasoning would be that he leaves JF be because they help people; he doesn't really care about the plight of the individual.)

Them appearing clearly humanoid helps, of course. He is definitely also xenophobic.

On that note, actually! It's also worth noting his interest in the turtles wanes a little after getting their DNA. After that first confrontation most subsequent run-ins with him tend to be the turtles crashing in on an unrelated op. Would he be chill with them getting endorsed by JF, though, that I'm not so sure ghdgdg. There might be a case to be made that vigilantes who regularly screw with government operations should not be getting a JF stamp of approval, and I think he's vindictive enough to press that.

Also on that note I just wish we got to see Bishop's thoughts on those more fantastical parts of the 03 universe more. How much is he aware of the Y'Lyntians and other non-human races native to earth? How aware is he of other dimensions, and did his knowledge and/or protocols change following the events of Turtles Forever? How about time travel and Time Keepers and all that? Given s5 I'm inclined to say he has some awareness of chi, mystics, and/or spirits because he's armed and ready with an arsenal of weapons that are effective against True Shredder's ghost demon army. Things to consider.

Also also! To loop back around on the presidents point: one thing I found really interesting about that is that it suggests the American government has Bishop on record as being alive for 200+ years and counting. So I think it's funny to imagine that after a certain point, every new president has to be sworn to secrecy and let in on the fact that yeah, one of the black ops leaders is functionally immortal, he reports directly to you, have fun.

Anyway those are all the thoughts I had based on that one segment from the radio post ghdvshs I warned you I warned you it's ridiculous

At this juncture I will now be rambling about various other observations, until the event that tumblr forcibly stills my hand:

-Bishop will chameleon into whatever his job requires of him. This is something that became obvious to me (and my captive audience of friends left to suffer my liveblogging my watchthroughs on discord,) after finally learning what the fuck was up with Bishop in Fast Forward. When I originally watched through, I was having trouble reconciling this Bishop with the one I knew and loved, even with the explanation we were given to why he changed his tune. So I posed my issue to The Gang (captive audience) and we stumbled upon a Great Truth on the nature of Agent John Bishop

Bishop, at his core, is fueled by the trauma he experienced when he was abducted so long ago, and it turned into a strong motivation to keep Earth safe so no one would ever have to experience that again (and also revenge. Revenge was a big part of it, too. But I digress.) At the core, Bishop's motivations are morally-good. And here's the other thing about Bishop, he's willing to throw away ANYTHING to achieve his goals. Nothing is sacred, not even human lives. As such, it follows Bishop will become whatever is most needed of him to accomplish his goals, too, including overhauling his behavior. This has likely already taken place numerous times in the "present," given Bishop comes from a different time period and would have to be constantly adapting to modern etiquettes and sensibilities. But this becomes even more likely in the event that he wanted to achieve and maintain an elected position, like the presidency he holds in Fast Forward. And indeed he succeeds, as we hear through Cody that he's extremely well-respected and beloved by the public.

I think it is very likely a majority of the Bishop we see in FF is a well-practiced act to become as personable as possible. He decided the best way to protect Earth was to ally with other planets, and chameleoned himself into the perfect ambassador in order to achieve this. So because his ultimate goal aligns morally-good, he became good in pursuit of it, despite his true nature (which is a sadistic mfer.) I also think it's way funnier to think FF Bishop is constantly surpressing urges to choose violence.

And piggybacking off of that, the other really interesting idea here is that Bishop's ultimate goal will create a world were people like himself will have no place. Bishop is, again, a sadistic fuck, he enjoys inflicting suffering on others. And here he's so effectively created an era of peace that even staged wrestling is considered violent and barbaric. How bored out of his mind must he be on the regular? How must he feel knowing he can never sate those violent tendencies or the world he built will turn on him in a heartbeat? What keeps him working for the same goals regardless?

(I still think the execution was clunky in FF despite how great the ideas behind it are. Are you telling me Bishop isn't internally obsessing over how the fuck the turtles just showed up 100 years in the future looking like teenagers still? You telling me the turtles don't listen to Bishop go 'hey guys I'm good now want to work with me :)' and don't immediately have 20 million alarm bells going off cuz that is DEFINITELY A TRAP and HOW IS BISHOP HERE if he has access to time travel that's REALLY BAD)

-Despite being an antagonist, Bishop almost always succeeds. THIS RIGHT HERE is one of the things I find most fascinating about Bishop as a character. Motherfucker can't stop winning. And it's especially interesting because as an agent in the story he is aligned to nobody but himself; he's just as likely to come into conflict with the turtles as he is to pick a fight with one of their enemies. Sometimes he does both at once!

But like, when it comes to the greater goals Bishop sets out to accomplish his success rate is pretty damn high. The Slayer might be the most overt failure, he got skewered and his creation ran off to live with the rats so rip to that one. But like, he succeeds in getting the turtles' DNA samples, he succeeds in tricking the president into giving him more funding, he's able to blackmail fuckin Oroku Saki, he's able to trick the turtles into doing his dirty work, and so on and so forth. This goes hand-in-hand with his chameleon abilities. He is ruthless, willing to sacrifice anything to win, and he has been shown very capable of thinking outside the box. I think the fact that he's from a different time and lived through so many cultural shifts has a big part in the latter.

Also, this guy takes on 6+v1 odds multiple times and holds his own. Like what the hell. I could go into a whole other thing about his fighting style but this is gonna be long enough as it is-- all I'll say on that point for now is that Splinter is the only character shown to consistently give him trouble in a fight, which has an amazing effect of hyping both of them up.

-Bishop must have some level of medical background. This is mostly just speculation based on the fact that, when we're first introduced to Bishop and he's trying to perform vivisection on the guys, he's the only one in the room. I imagine you don't want to screw up your samples with something like a vivsection? Though I can't say I'm terribly knowledgable on the subject, considering the vested interest he has in actually getting the samples, I doubt he cleared the room without knowing he'd be able to do so. (The other reason is definitely just for his own sadistic thrills, of course.)

-I mentioned before, but Bishop seems to be lenient with scientists, even those not under his employ. Obv he's pretty indulgent with Stockman despite his attitude (at least, as close as Bishop can get to Not Terrible,) and he remains as loyal to keeping Stockman employed as Stockman is willing to stay in EPF. Bishop is also shown to have some level of respect or acknowledgment for both Donny and Leatherhead's intelligence, and iirc he's also seen to have some investment in Dr Chaplin Not Dying in s5.

This also could suggest Bishop is just a good employer in general, which I think would be a funny contrast to how we usually see him portrayed.

-Bishop's current accent is probably not his original one. This has no bearing on anything, but John Bishop was born in 1773 and they did not talk like we do, now. I'm not sure if he would develop a contemporary accent naturally, since he has been alive and actively working with people this entire time, or if this would be something he'd had to have worked to change intentionally.

-After running the math, Bishop was probably about 43 when he stopped aging.

-Who tf is the monster to Bishop?? Seriously this is going to haunt me forever we never get any closure on that and it's the closest we see to Bishop having a personal life or connections outside of just his work. One thing I've extrapolated from this, though, is that he was probably working on a way to reverse whatever transformed that man, and this meant he actually had a bit of a head-start on a formula to reverse mutations when the outbreak happened. 

-Despite my opining for more Bishop content, I actually love how ambiguous a lot of his personal information is. It makes him stand out as an audience member, especially before they reveal anything about him and we see this dude just get up and walk off being impaled through the chest. It also just enforces a sense that nobody really knows him. We're only even privy to the fact that he's from the 18th century because it's an opening stinger for an episode, none of the other characters are aware of it. I love that.

-If you ever need some vibes for playing out a scene with Bishop, I cannot recommend the Utopia soundtrack enough. Monarch's Pyramid, To You All Kids Will Come, Meditative Chaos, and Jessica Gets Off are the ones I give the most listens.

-Given how very little we're shown of Bishop outside the context of EPF, I'm partial to thinking he literally never takes a break. Every waking moment he's working, he hasn't had a vacation day in 200 years. That's just a headcanon, though.

-Whenever Bishop appears on-screen, you can usually bet the show is about to dip 20 shades darker. This is initially what got me so invested in him, he's a harbinger for when the show's like Get Fucking Ready.

Anyway. I think about him too much. I intend to rewatch 03 after finishing my binge of 87 and compile even more observations, too, so maybe I'll have even more to say by then, who knows loL. In the meantime please take some extra Bishop doodles from my sketchbook and this moodboard of what my discord ramble box has looked like for the past few months

[funkymbtifiction]

hey Charity! i’ve got a few things on my mind about some of the enneagram triads i was thinking about earlier:

1. withdrawn, assertive, superego: i tend to picture withdrawn types as being literally withdrawn (reserved, shy, quiet) due to some of the triad descriptions so when i come across a bubbly soc 9 for instance i’ll sometimes mistake them for a 2. and superego types are described as very responsible, organized, orderly.. which may be the case if they’re 1s but i was reading enneatype structure recently and naranjo seemed to view type 2s as quite undisciplined and a bit hedonistic, he likened them to 7s at one point. how can you generally tell if someone is withdrawn if they’re outgoing and friendly or superego if they’re disorganized and careless? or assertive types who are on the quieter and more reserved side (like ISP 7s for instance who may have lower energy for continuous external stimulation due to being introverts)

2. gut/heart: can’t strong emotions produce a physical sensation that can feel like a gut instinct? how can you discern if you’re acting from your gut or off of emotions? or is heart triad less about acting off emotions and more about acting with an image in mind and therefore more calculated than acting purely off emotions?

3. rejection/frustration: what’s the difference between rejecting needs and being frustrated needs aren’t met? in both cases, you’re feeling that the needs arent met (vs an attachment type who i believe? feels their needs are met and is therefore attaching to what they feel is meeting them) so it it really just a matter of rejection types deciding not to care about the needs not being met/deciding they don’t need them anyway vs frustration types not wanting to accept that and being upset about it?

by the way, unrelated but i really enjoyed the new style you tried out the other day comparing and contrasting the two characters! seeing how characters can potentially make the same choices for totally different reasons (or clash due to different priorities and perceptions) is helpful and interesting :)

Focus less on behavior and more on looking beyond that behavior to see what is motivating it. Withdrawn means “I move away from you to solve my own problems and don’t rely on you.” It can mean they are shy and wait to be approached (in introverts) but it also means “I shut you out to get my needs met… by myself!” You can have a socially outgoing 9 who is still going to shut down and push people away when something bad happens in their life, because they trust themselves to deal with it and it doesn’t occur to them to involve you. Super-ego has a mentality of “should.” They have moral judgments about other people and how they are behaving, what the right thing is to do, how they ought to live, etc. They also over-think all the time in their respective centers (2s, about relationships; 6s, about everything; 1s, about being perfect.) Assertive types can be introverted, but it’s still “I will get my way. You will get out of my way.”  Identify the behavior, and then ask yourself why they are doing this—to avoid pain, to reach a goal, to avoid being vulnerable, etc? Is this 2 prideful in that she is the center of everyone’s world and necessary to their well-being (“you need me to show you how to be successful and popular!”) or is she a 7 who just wants to avoid pain?

Yes, some people make emotional decisions. If torn between gut and emotions… ask yourself if there’s anger involved. If not, they are not a gut type. Gut types are driven by anger; anger is their foremost emotion and what springs them into action. They are mad, all the time. Even the sweet little 9s who say they aren’t mad are still upset at being taken advantage of by the world, because they refuse to take up space in it. And yes, image types do focus a great deal on managing how you perceive them.

I see rejection vs. frustration as this – rejection types ‘reject’ their own vulnerability in order to believe something about themselves; the 5 doesn’t need you, they are fully independent; the 2 doesn’t need other people (but they need me, or their lives would fall apart!); the 8 doesn’t need to be vulnerable (I cover it up with toughness and warn other people not to be soft). They assume their needs won’t be met by others and so prematurely reject that as a possibility; whereas frustration types are getting their needs met by others, but are refusing to let that make them happy, by insisting there is something ‘wrong.’ 1s are angry that this isn’t more perfect; 4s are refusing to accept what exists for a fantasy of a different version of reality that is more meaningful to them; 7s are choosing to be restless as a response to their sense that everything could be more idealized/better/magical.

Thanks for your feedback. So far it’s been positive in terms of people liking that style. You’ll see more posts in that manner coming soon!

[thechekhov]

Hi! I saw on a post that you're agender and I'm kinda questioning my gender (again) but what interested me more about that post was that you said you believe that gender is a social construct and I'm not really familiar with that theory. I was wondering if you could explain to me what the whole idea is? (bc I kinda only feel like a have a gender in social situations? In my head, my dreams and how I picture myself in the future, I'm genderless idjskahwksjejensj) Sorry for bothering you if I did.

This is a BIG topic and it opens a LOT of wormholes. 

We’re gonna do this in pie slice statements that will hopefully help explain what I mean. Please keep in mind I’m going to simplify many things for the sake of readability.

1) What is a social construct? 

Social constructs are ideas that are negotiated by social groups. Something being a social construct does not make it ‘not real’. 

For example, money is a social construct. Yes, we have cash - coins, credit cards - but these are physical props that are REPRESENTATIVE of the idea of currency. You have some form of credit to your name - the money is a socially agreed-upon idea of value being represented by bills in your hand, by numbers in your bank account. 

[Description: Two humanoid figures are standing side by side. The right-side figure is holding a rock in its hand. 

Right side figure: Let’s agree that this shiny rock is worth 2 sheep.

Left side figure: Sounds fake but ok.]

Technically, countries are also social constructs. We, as a society, negotiate what a country is, and this can be changed.

[Description: Two figures are standing on either side of a dotted line drawn on the ground. The left figure is pointing down at it while the right figure watches, its arms crossed.

Left figure: Let’s pretend that everything on this side of the imaginary line is mine.

Right figure: ...ok but my house is over there.

Left figure: ... for 3 shiny rocks you can come visit.]

Does that mean canada isn’t real? No. (I mean, obviously canada ISN’T real, but we all agree to pretend it is.) The thing that makes it real is that we are in agreement, and all follow the social rules of pretend to make it seem like the Canadian border, the idea of Canadian citizenship, etc... is an objective fact. (It’s not. These are in fact, negotiable limits and parameters. We have laws in place to define it in legal terms, but those laws can be changed, or may change in the minds of communities. That’s why it’s a construct.)

By that same token, I hold the view that gender, as we largely perceive it in modern society, is a construct. Why? Because it is not inherent; we, as a society, negotiate its meaning. 

2) What is gender? 

People will probably fight me on this and that’s fine, but here’s my (simplified) understanding of gender (from someone who personally has none)

Gender is a social category negotiated by cultures based on your assigned or desired role in your community that influences, among many other things, your physical appearance, your role in family units, your expected position in jobs, etc. 

How I think it happened:

[Description: Two figures are standing on either side of the panel, both holding children-looking figures. The one on the left is wearing purple. The one on the right is wearing green.

Green figure: Hey, I’ve got an idea. What if we separate the babies into two groups based on physical traits they have no control over?

Purple figure: Wh-- okay...?

Green figure: And then limit the jobs they can do and the community ritual involvement available to them based on that!

Purple figure: ... I feel like this is going to backfire on us someday.

Green figure: Nah, it’ll be fine.

The past panel is a dramatic closeup on the purple figure’s face - which is featureless - betraying a deeply doubtful emotion. It says nothing.]

Important points to remember: what gender looks like, what the limits are, what the expectations are... are not inherent to any human biology. We make up gender roles. This is evident in the fact that across the world, gender roles differ by culture. The positions people of a certain gender are allowed to take up are different. What is perceived to be ‘girly’ or ‘boyish’ is different across cultures. 

Simply speaking - currently the (western) model we have, dumbed down, is:

You are assigned male at birth because of physical characteristics

You are raised being told to ‘toughen up’ and ‘boys don’t cry’ and encouraged not to show emotions

You are taught to wear male-coded clothes and discouraged from female-coded fashion choices

You are given more opportunities to participate in sports, encouraged to engage in physical activity, etc

You are not expected to need time off for child-rearing 

Here’s where gender as it works in society breaks down into being not a real thing but instead something we thought up: 

Nothing about having a penis necessitates wearing pants. Nothing about having XY chromosomes means you need to keep your hair short. Nothing about your genome makes the experience of nail-polish different for any human being. 

All of these are arbitrary traits we decided were allowed or not allowed to a specific group of people based on entirely unrelated physiology. 

Even if we delve deeper, there is MORE variation among individuals of the same ‘sex’ than there are, on average, of members of the ‘opposite sex’ when compared to each other. 

Many people use the excuse ‘women are physically not as strong as men’ to say that this has an evolutionary aspect driving these cultural, historical, socially-constructed gender requirements. 

But if there was a physical reasoning behind the culturally-set gender-limited job expectations, then we actually WOULDN’T need a traditional binary gender system to sort ourselves into categories. It would simply be decided as a meritocracy - stronger individuals, regardless of gender, would be given physically-demanding jobs. (Also we know that many jobs thought to be ‘traditionally male’ are just the result of sexist bullshit, so this reasoning doesn’t fly any further than I can throw it which is, coincidentally, not very far. Politics is one such area. Doctors are another. We can go on but I think you get my drift.)

My own example of this is an anecdote when my grandparents came to visit my partner and I in Japan. While we were driving down to Tokyo, my grandmother - who has a PhD in entomology - began to say that driving is a masculine activity and women shouldn’t be driving as it was ‘un-woman-like’. My partner almost immediately fired back that in Japan, studying insects or having any interest in them whatsoever was considered a heavily masculine-coded activity. In Russia, there is no such assignment, and my grandmother was left silently blinking in confusion, unable to come up with any excuse except ‘well, all cultures are different, I suppose...’

Do either of these things inherently have a gendered aspect? Of course not! But we assign gendered ideals to them anyway.

3) If gender is made up and constructed by society, then does that mean trans people aren’t real?

No.

Even if you agree that gender is a social construct, trans people are still real. TERFs don’t get a pass. Why? 

Because gender - as a social construct - still affects our everyday lives, dictates our social position in our community. Transitioning is still a thing that has to happen. The fact that you are NOT easily able to decide your own gender and are ostracized for wanting to transition, abused for dressing the way you want to be perceived, and bullied for wanting people to refer to you with different pronouns - all those are the effects of a social construct that has very REAL impact on our lives.

This is also why I dislike defining trans-ness by dysphoria. Because transgender people are not only their suffering - the suffering is coming from the outside!! Many trans people remember not being concerned about their gender identity in their childhood, because they did not yet perceive the world as being hostile to their desire to fulfil a specific role in society. The issues and self-hatred and dysphoria begins when they express wanting to be themselves - a life which they are forbidden from pursuing based on physical characteristics they were born with.

Does this mean we should try to remove gender from society? If we constructed it, we can deconstruct it, right?

Realistically, I highly doubt this is possible. Gender is so ingrained in our daily lives that it would be difficult. Nor, I would say, would it be necessary to achieve world peace. 

Having social groups - having gender - isn’t inherently a bad thing. The bad thing is when we limit those social groups to specific basic human rights, like voting, or when we forbid them from transitioning from one to another based on things that are out of their control. 

Also, I’m not saying genitals and secondary sexual characteristics aren’t real. Please don’t bother sending me that angry message, I’ll ignore it, I promise. 

But the concept of gender IS something we thought up and maintain and negotiate with each other to this very day. It’s not granted to us by a higher power, nor is it a constant, unchanging thing. It’s a part of the human experience and like everything, it has the potential to evolve - as a concept in our communal memory, as well as on an individual level, for people who feel they want to be perceived differently. 

Thanks for coming to my TEDtalk!

[purgemarchlockdown]

I LOVE IT WHEN CHARACTERS PERPETUATE THE CYCLE OF ABUSE-I cannot say that out loud-

It really doesn't seem like Kotoko Doesn't Believe evil can change, or is at least is disillusioned with that concept.

Shall we replace the poor soul, and the miserable delusion “I didn’t mean to offend”, “I won’t do it again” How many wins in a row?

It really seems like something happened to her that caused her to lose a lot of faith in people and maybe even a bit of fear. She's detached herself from the people around her and is isolated from all of them, unable to really view them as anything other than potential threats or innocent weaklings.

That isn't to say Kotoko isn't idealistic though, she's still chasing an ideal of saviorhood and justice, an ideal that's ultimately self-destructive and harms more than it helps.

(Oh? What is this Completely Unrelated picture of Utena Tenjou idolizing the role of a prince, a role that perpetuates the cycle of abuse and fosters an unhealthy hierarchy of power from the 90s anime Revolutionary Girl Utena doing here?) (I am a menace who should be stopped) This separation of the weak from the strong, the innocent from the guilty, the victim from the savior is very much a thing here.

T1Q4: When did you start learning martial arts? A: In elementary school, perhaps. Without enough power, you can't enforce justice and do the right thing, can you?

These distinct categories and roles that assign who has the Power to change the world, and who has to stand and watch.

"Innocent weaklings should just shut up and let me protect them!" "As the long-awaited hero."

It also helps that having this power makes her feel good. Like she can actually do something against the evils that she hates so much.

It's fun that Kotoko is so angry about how things never change since I consider Kotoko pretty unchanging, she refuses to relent, refuses to self-reflect. She must be right, this must be the way, she's so tired and has harmed and been harmed so much that if she was wrong it means she did All Of This for nothing.

I want to be drowning in the knowledge that I am right

Certified Coffin Moment in my opinion, I love girls trapped in cycles.

On Amane: Funnily enough Amane really won't change, Amane almost died multiple times and refused to let go of herself.

T2Q13: If you could be reborn, would you still choose to be yourself? A: Obviously.

Even after all the nonsense she's been though Amane refuses to stop being herself, so yeah, she won't change. Not in a Coffin way though, since by refusing to let herself die she cracks a hole in the cycle of abuse and death she's trapped in and gives her an avenue for a better life but you get what I mean-

…you ever think about how that sort of “no mercy” worldview of Kotoko’s is something Amane knows very well, even if it was pretending to be love. “You have to be punished to grow” “evildoers must be punished” are ideas she’s quite familiar with.

No mercy for the sinners and Amane Knows that she isn’t a saint. She and Kotoko are so similar and yet Kotoko was going to punish her. Being a kid doesn’t exclude you from needing to be “saved.”

T2Q9: What does love mean to you?

A: To spread mercy without limits.

I wonder how Kotoko would feel if she was faced with how similar she is to the people who hurt Amane in a lot of ways. I wonder if she’d be willing to face it in the first place.

[a-d-curtis]

Incense

“Are you really that excited about this?” Katara asked, laughing at her husband, ‘the mighty Avatar’, and the giddy way he trotted next to her.

The two walked together hand in hand through the red-tapestried halls of the Firelord’s palace, Katara leading the way to this oft-visited location, navigating which corridors to take, effortlessly winding her way through the mammoth palace like it was a well worn path.  

As Aang turned his grey eyes upon her, Katara noted the way his eyes still shone with excitement as they did back when they were kids, even though the smile-lines beside his eyes stayed in more permanent creases now. “Well, I should say so!” he teased, “After you’ve withheld this little pleasure from me all of these years. Yes! Yes, I’m excited to finally be invited to join you!”

Katara stifled a laugh, the sound coming out more as a snort. “Really, Aang? Really?! I just never knew you wanted to come.”

“What?! Why would you think that I wouldn’t want to come?!”

“Well…” Katara began as they rounded the final corner and a woman in a red and gold robe opened the door to the room for them. “I guess I just never thought you would have any… interest in this particular thing.”

Aang looked affronted. “But you’ve come here with everyone else over the years, Katara! Mai, Sokka, even Zuko when he can relax long enough to take a break. You brought Kya even when she was just a little kid, and Bumi can’t seem to get enough!”

Katara turned toward her husband teasingly. “Well, they all, you know…” she rose up on her tiptoes and ran a hand over the smooth arch of her husband’s bald head as she finished, “have hair.” Her eyes laughed even when her mouth held it back.

Aang looked insulted. “Who says you need to have hair!?”

Katara couldn’t hold back her laugh anymore. “Well, it is a hair wash, Aang!”

Aang smirked at her, stroking his beard. “I have hair.”

Katara slapped him playfully across the chest. “You need it on your head, you doofus!”

Aang’s forehead creased as his puppy-dog eyes looked at her dolefully. “Well you took everyone else… I just felt left out.”

Katara laughed again shaking her head in baffled amusement. “All you had to do was tell me you wanted to come."

Aang smiled a flirtatious, one-sided grin. “I figured this was an exclusive ‘by invitation only’ activity.”

Katara laughed and linked her arm through the crook of Aang’s elbow, leading him further into the palace spa. With her other hand she gestured magnanimously “Well then, here you are! The very ‘exclusive’ Palace Hair Wash!”

Before them was a reception room with dimmed lights and a strong aroma of orchids.  The calming sound of trickling water could be traced to a fountain that fell from high on the back wall, running over a slanted stone slab carved in the shape of two flying dragons. At the bottom the water ran into a trench that split and continued down two small creeks lined with smoothed stones on either side of the room, creating a cheery trickling sound as it passed. Around the perimeter of the spa heavy red curtains hung covering the entrances to several smaller rooms. A few of the curtains were tied back with thick gold ropes revealing massage tables or big tubs of water within the lowly-lit rooms. In the center of the room stood an elaborately carved golden colored desk, with an elegant, overly made-up elderly woman sitting behind it.

As Katara and Aang approached the center desk, the woman stood with prim stiffness. The elderly woman bowed slightly in Fire Nation custom, the large, ornate black hairpiece on her head tipping forward, causing the beaded strings that hung from either side of her hairpiece to clink softly. “Master Katara, you come again,” she greets with formal curtness. Then turning towards Aang, “And you, Avatar,” her sharp golden eyes darting to his tattoos, her voice laced with cool decorum, “We are honored to have your presence among us.”

Aang bowed to her, replying with jovial warmth, “I’m happy to be here!”

Katara tipped her head to the woman, her voice a bit cooler than usual, “Thank you Madam Uriko. My husband and I have come for a hair wash.”

“Of course,” the woman responded with a smile restricted to just her red painted lips, her eyes still sharp. She waved her large sleeve once and a young woman in red robes rushed forward from where she had stood quietly at the back of the room. “As always,” Madam Uriko’s barbed voice spoke, her piercing eyes not leaving them, “we are at your service.”

As the young woman led Aang and Katara away, Aang glanced back over his shoulder toward Madam Uriko, and shivered. “Is it just me, or does she feel predatory somehow?” Aang asked Katara in a hushed whisper.

Katara leaned in towards Aang whispering, “Madam Uriko has been in charge of this place for decades. One of the old relics of an older time. She’s harmless, just still seeped in beliefs of Fire Nation supremacy. I think it hackles her that Zuko allows non-Fire Nation royalty to use the spa…”

Aang’s brow furrowed for a moment, and Katara guessed at what he was thinking. The two had lamented frequently together of how difficult it was to change the perceptions of those who had been raised on war propaganda. Their little band of child warriors had been able to stop the fighting almost overnight, but the perpetuation of racism, animosity and false-ideologies were much harder to eliminate.

Katara knew that Aang sorrowed, not only for his lost people and culture, but also for the way that even the memory of them had been defiled. Despite Zuko’s efforts to reform education in the Fire Nation to teach the Air Nomad genocide accurately, it was still common to encounter people who still believed the lies taught during the war. It churned Katara’s stomach to know that in 100 years of Fire Nation propaganda, the people had been taught that the Air Nomads were the aggressors, that they had been war-mongers and child-stealers, who swooped in on their flying creatures to slaughter parents and carry away the children of helpless villagers.

Katara still remembers the first time Aang had been called a baby-eater from a terrified old granny. They were in one of the more remote Fire Nation islands, when the old woman had run and swooped up her toddling grandson who had been watching Aang juggle leaves in an airball for a bunch of the local kids. They had still been kids back then, and Katara had confronted the woman, yelling passionately in defense of her boyfriend and the Air Nomads. But Aang had just turned and walked away. When Katara caught up to him, she had listened as Aang quietly recounted a seemingly unrelated story of trying to comfort his crying friend, Samten, when he’d accidentally stepped on a scorpi-beetle while playing airball. Aang told how the two of them had carefully scooped what was left of the tiny squished bug onto a pipa leaf, and performed their best approximation of the “Soaring of the Dead” ritual to send the soul of the scorpi-beetle on gentle breezes into his next life, praying for it to be a good life, full of freedom and enlightenment. Katara and Aang hadn’t talked about what the woman had called him, and he didn’t bring it up again. But Katara knew that the Air Nomads, the memory of whom Sozin and his children slandered, were real people to Aang. They were his culture and heritage, yes; but they were also individuals he had known.

The contrast of what the peaceful Air Nomads had been, and how they were remembered was devastatingly unfair.

In an effort to distract Aang from whatever thoughts he might be slipping into, and pull him back into the present, Katara decided to share a piece of juicy gossip. Pulling on their linked arms to bring Aang’s ear down closer to her, she spoke in a conspiratorial whisper, “Rumor has it Madam Uriko was, um, very close, with Fire Lord Azulon.” The implication of her words caused Aang to wrinkle his nose in disgust. Katara continued, “She’s been working in this spa since she was a young woman, and has bragged to me more than once about how Lord Azulon used to come to her for ‘solace’ from his heavy duties as Fire Lord.”

Aang grimaced comically. And Katara laughed at his expression as she continued, “Madam Uriko is just one of those unchangeable parts of Fire Nation imperialism. I asked Zuko why he keeps her around, and he told me that she technically hasn’t done anything wrong (apart from being super creepy), so he can’t really get rid of her. Aaaand,” Katara dragged the word out with a smirk, “frankly I suspect Zuko is intimidated by her.”

Aang chuckled and chanced a glance back towards the woman again as their host untied the golden rope holding the curtain to their room open. The Madam’s narrowed golden gaze was still on them as the heavy red curtain fell across the doorway, obscuring her from view. “I can see why…” Aang said with a commiserating shudder.

Aang stood still a moment longer, before brightening excitedly, rubbing his hands together eagerly as he said enthusiastically, “Well! Lets bring on this famous hair wash!”

……………….

“So that’s when Zuko gave me that fancy hairbrush set. It was in retribution for the pocket lighters Sokka and I both got him for his birthday.”

Aang spoke from his place lying on the hair wash bed next to hers. Katara smiled as she opened one eye to glance his way, appreciating the large bubbly lather his spa worker had managed to lather on his baldhead. Katara had stifled a laugh at the woman’s expression when Aang had initially lain down, her hands hovering unsurely over his baldhead. But he had smiled affably up at her saying, “I’m sure you’ll figure it out” with a wink. Apparently she had figured it out, because Aang had spent the last twenty minutes sighing in pleasure at the experience.

“Well I really appreciated that gift from Zuko,” Katara said smugly as she closed her eyes again, enjoying the feeling of the spa worker’s hands in her hair as she massaged her scalp and combed out her long tresses in the warm flowing water. “I still use that brush to this day. You’ve got to admit, even with a gag gift, Zuko gives quality.”

Aang chuckled from his place on the hair wash bed next to hers. “Oh absolutely. I kept one of the combs from that set for years, remember?”

Katara laughed again, “Oh yes, I remember. You kept it in your pocket for the sole purpose of pulling it out and combing your beard whenever Zuko was giving a serious speech.”

“I remember fondly the special way he’d glare whenever that comb came out!” Aang laughed jovially.

Katara turned her head to look at her husband again, who now had a warm folded washcloth over his eyes. Even so his hands still gestured animatedly while he talked, his spa worker needing to dodge an especially enthusiastic hand here or there.

Katara smiled as she settled back into her hair wash, sighing in relaxation. She really did love a good palace hair wash – the calm of the dimmed lights, the smell of the flower water and the oils they used in her hair, the sound of the warm water running over her scalp as the woman massaged the base of her neck – it was a little piece of heaven! It was fun to share it with Aang this time.

“Was that before or after Sokka gave Toph those dark glasses?” Katara asked lazily.

“Before, I think,” Aang replied as he sighed again, clearly relishing his ‘sans-hair-head-wash’.

Katara smiled. “Sokka had thought that would be so funny, giving our favorite Blind Bandit sunglasses. Little did he know that she would wear them proudly. Before long, nearly every police officer in Republic City owned a pair.”

Aang chucked. “But that wasn’t nearly as big a backfire as the time I gave a single chopstick to Zuko.”

“Remind me again how a single chopstick is a useless gift for a firebender?”

“Oh it wasn’t because he’s a firebender, Katara! It’s because a single chopstick is useless to anyone! … Or so I thought…” Aang said with chagrin, “But that was before Zuko handed the chopstick to Mai, who with a flick of her arm managed to skewer it securely in the cushion I was sitting on, squarely between my thighs!” Katara could hear the shudder in his voice. “That was before we’d had Tenzin, Katara! Do you know what that could have meant?! For an instant I’d thought that was the end of the Air Nomads for good!”

Katara snorted, knowing full well that Mai would have had that little threat in mind when she threw the chopstick. Although it had taken some time for Katara to warm up to Mai, she now fully appreciated the understated, off-kilter wit of the dark-humored Fire Lady.

“But I thought I had her the next time when I gave her a bag of bison-fur yarn-balls.” Katara could hear the irritation in Aang’s voice when he continued, “Who knew she could make even those hurt…?”

A small snicker had Katara glancing up at the woman washing her hair. Apparently their talking was amusing to those washing their hair; these women undoubtedly would have encountered Mai here as well, and perhaps could appreciate the image of their Fire Lady harassing the Avatar.

But the woman’s mirthful expression hurriedly returned to a professional neutral when the curtain opened and Madam Uriko entered.

The old woman moved gracefully as she stopped in front of the shrine at the front of the small room. Removing a small pressed incense cone from a pouch at her waist, Madam Uriko lit the cone with a small snap of her fingers. Katara was mildly surprised; she hadn’t known that Madam Uriko was a firebender.

“Well Sokka’s birthday is coming up soon, and I’ve got to get him something really useless.” Aang continued talking, probably unaware that Madam Uriko had entered the room.

Madam Uriko lifted the elaborately carved lid of a brass incense burner standing on three spindly legs on the shrine and placed the lit incense pellet inside. After replacing the lid and folding her hands delicately in front of her, Madam Uriko breathed deeply, firebending to coax the fragranced smoke out through the intricate pattern of holes in the lid.

Katara looked toward her husband, washcloth still over his eyes, still moving his hands dramatically as he continued to talk, maybe a bit too loudly. Madam Uriko sent a disdainful look his direction.

“And not useless like that art kit we gave him a few years back,” Aang continued. “I mean, he loved that gift! Sokka completely failed to see any of the irony we all saw when we got it for him…”

Katara decided to ignore the Madam and closed her eyes again, breathing deeply to take in the relaxing aroma of the incense. Katara loved this smell. “You could try finding one of those cloud reading books Aunt Wu used to tell the future…” Katara suggested.

“Hey, that’s not a bad idea, Katara! I’m sure he would— Wait!” Katara heard Aang’s hair washer gasp in surprise. Katara’s eyes sprung open to see Aang sitting up abruptly on the side of the bed, water running down his back from his wet head, the washcloth falling to the floor.

“What is that smell…?” Aang asked, an unexplained apprehension in his voice. Then pointing at the incense burner, he addressed the Madam. “What’s in that burner?”

“It’s incense, Master Avatar,” Madam Uriko said condescendingly. “Surely you’ve smelled incense before.”

Aang ignored her rudeness, and closed his eyes breathing in the scent deeply. His forehead furrowed slightly above his closed eyelids. Katara watched his expression carefully, troubled by her husband’s sudden intensity. Katara noticed Aang swallow thickly, this brows arching in… longing? Sadness? Why was Aang reacting this way?

“Sweetie?” Katara asked softly. But he ignored her, turning instead towards Madam Uriko with a sudden fire in his eyes.

“Where did you get that incense?!” Aang demanded of the woman.

“Get it?” the woman replied coolly, uncowed by Aang’s aggressive tone. “Why it comes from the spa’s private stores. We’ve been burning this incense here in the palace spa for generations. It was a favorite of Firelord Sozin. And of his son, Firelord Azulon.” Madam Uriko said the name like a caress.

Aang took another halted inhale before quickly standing and pushing past the woman, unceremoniously ripping the lid off the burner and tipping the burning cone into his hand. Katara watched his back stiffen visually.

Katara sat up, concerned, her hair washer reaching forward to wring her hair as best she could as water streamed down Katara’s back from her heavy wet hair. But Katara ignored it. “Aang?” she asked anxiously. “What’s wrong?”

Aang turned towards Madam Uriko, holding the cone up in his fingers. “How did this get here?!” He shook it once angrily at her. “This doesn’t belong here!”

Katara was unaccustomed to seeing Aang this heated. He was notoriously even-tempered, and almost never lost his cool. To see Aang this upset alarmed Katara. “Aang?!”

Aang finally turned his eyes toward his wife, anger burning behind them. “This belongs to the Air Nomads!” Aang declared furiously. “See!” Aang turned the cone over, revealing one air spiral symbol pressed into the bottom of the cone. Turning back towards Madam Uriko Aang’s voice nearly yelled, “You have no business having this!”

Madam Uriko stepped back, her expression now clearly daunted by Aang’s intensity. “I assure you, this comes from the palace stores…” she stammered, trying to keep her composure. “It’s been here from before I began working here… as a young woman… I assure you, we--”

Aang’s nose wrinkled in a snarl as he cut her off, “This belongs to the Air Nomads! This is… was… sacred to us!”

And with that Aang fisted the incense in his hand and stormed from the room, knocking the brass burner over with his arm and leaving everyone’s clothes rippling in a stiff wind left in his wake.

…………..

It was late when Katara finally heard the snap of Aang’s glider on the balcony of their guest room in the Fire Palace. The sun had set hours ago, and it was now late enough that the moon had nearly completed her arch across the sky and now hung low over the crest of the volcanic rim of the Caldera, sending her ghostly silver light sideways into their room.

Katara was lying in bed. But she hadn’t slept.

After Aang had stormed out of the Palace spa earlier this evening, Katara had run after him. But even as she had searched for Aang, Katara knew that trying to catch up with a fleeing airbender was futile. The best she could hope for would be to find him wherever he stopped.

Katara had checked with Appa first, but the bison was snoring lazily in his favorite place in the courtyard of the stables, undisturbed. Katara checked their room, the garden, and even the rooftop. No Aang. But Aang’s glider was gone, so Katara knew that the best she could do was wait for him to return.

Knowing this didn’t keep her from being irritated with her husband. And concerned, of course. Mostly concerned. Katara hadn’t seen Aang this upset in years, not since they were very young. She wondered what it was about the incense that had upset him enough to run like he was a child again?

She now lay quietly in their bed and waited as her husband crept noiselessly into their room, his footsteps silent. She watched his profile as he propped his staff carefully against the wall, and removed a satchel from his chest, setting it noiselessly on the ground. The moon’s iridescent glow was on his back, his face in shadow.

“Aang…?”

His shadow stilled.

“I’m sorry, Katara. I’d hoped you were asleep.”

Katara let out a breath from the darkness inside their room. Did he really think she could sleep without knowing where he was and that he was okay? Had twenty years of marriage taught him nothing?

Aang spoke softly from just inside the doorway, his face still in shadowy profile. “I’m sorry I left so rudely this evening. And I’m sorry it is so late…”

Katara wasn’t angry anymore, well not very angry anyway, mostly just concerned. His apologies were secondary to his wellbeing to her at the moment. But she didn’t say anything, sensing that he wasn’t finished.

“I shouldn’t have lost my temper like that. It wasn’t fair to you, and it wasn’t fair to those women doing their jobs at the spa either. I’ll return tomorrow and apologize.”

Something in his voice told Katara that as sincere as his words were, there was a much heavier burden behind them. But he didn’t say anything more. Just stood there facing the darkness, the light of the moon highlighting the blue line on the back of his head, making it look almost silver.

“I just needed some time to… uh, to work through some things.” Aang finally turned towards her, the light now illuminating half of his face. Katara caught her breath at the sadness in expression. Despite the shimmering moonlight, no light danced in Aang’s eye as it usually did. Instead his eyes looked at her with a dark forlorn blackness.

“Oh Aang,” Katara murmured as she pushed the blankets off of her and swept over to him in the darkness, her bare feet cold on the polished floor. “I’ve just been worried. Where were you?”

“I, uh, flew north for a while. Found a small island. Really small. Almost all rocks. I just needed some space to, um… to…”

“Meditate?”

“… well… I did some of that too...” Aang looked down and to the side, a little sheepishly. “But I might have spent most of the time breaking things. Throwing around fire and rocks to cool off a bit.”

Aang looked at her penitently. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have run off. I shouldn’t have worried you.”

“Oh Aang, I don’t need anymore apologies.” Katara reached up with her warm hand to touch his face in concern. “But please, let me know how I can help you. Why were you so upset? Why do you look so…  so sad?”

Aang brought his hand up between them, opening to reveal the small incense cone from earlier lying benignly on his palm.

“This,” Aang spoke softly, his shoulders slumping, as though the burden of a nation weighed on him.

Katara swallowed a lump in her own throat, remembering that it did.

Katara reached forward, picking up the small pressed cone with her fingers. She ran the pad of her forefinger over the small air swirl stamped into the bottom of it before looking back up at him. “What is it Aang? You said it belonged to the Air Nomads?”

“Yes.” Aang’s brow creased and he took a steadying breath before he continued, trying to explain. “This incense is something I haven’t smelled in… well since before. But it’s a scent I will never forget. One I thought I would never smell again.”

Aang took the incense from Katara, and with a snap of his fingers a flare of yellow heat illuminated their faces for a moment as he lit the end of it. They both watched as a tiny stream of smoke began to trail upward in lazy loops, filling the space with the rich aroma of cedar resin and cardamom, and with a fragrance unnamed but potent, both light and substantial, like the air and the mountains themselves.

“This smell is unmistakable for me.” Aang said as he closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, his brow softening in memory. “The monks lit this incense during the Ceremony of Mastership. I was wrapped in this scent for ten days while Master Dun and his assistants bestowed my tattoos. Breathing this incense helped fortify me through the, uh, difficult parts of the ceremony; it deepened my meditation.”

Aang swirled a hand lightly above the incense, airbending the smoke into an upward spiral, his eyes unfocused, drifting into the past. “Of course I knew the smell before I ever got my own tattoos. It was part of the ceremony we all participated in to unveil a newly tattooed Master Airbender. Wisps of it were often in the air of my childhood.” A small smile appeared on Aang’s cheek. “But that day… when I got my own tattoos… this smell meant belonging. It was completion. It was a connection to the spirit of Air itself, a bond I shared with all the other Masters.”

Katara watched her husband carefully, her heart throbbing with the pain of knowing that even Aang’s happiest memories were so often undercut with grief.

Aang let out a long breath, relaxing just a bit. “The tattooing ceremony was one of the most spiritual events in my life – back in a time when I knew nothing about being the Avatar; when my greatest aspiration in life was to be a monk, simple and at peace. I tasted that future that day, that peace.��

Katara ached as his shoulders sagged once more and he said quietly, “Of course it didn’t last…”

Aang sighed, looking down at the incense. “I thought this was lost, just like so many parts of my culture. I’m trying to be grateful to have this at all…”

He hesitated. So Katara prompted him, “But?”

“But sometimes I just miss them so much…”

Aang looked sadly into Katara’s eyes. “I would never want you to think that I’m not happy with our life together – I am! Our family, the kids, you in my life, is better than I could ever have asked for.”

Katara took his hand, “But that doesn’t change what you’ve lost, Sweetie. It doesn’t make it all better.”

Aang swallowed, and nodded. “Sometimes I forget. I don’t think about them for a while. Just live in the moment. It’s easier that way. Then it doesn’t hurt so much. I can just move on with my life. Sometimes I believe that I really have moved past it.” He smiled again, despite the wetness in his eyes. “Sometimes it feels like it was all a dream anyway, like my childhood was someone else’s… like maybe it wasn’t even real.”

Aang stood silently for a moment, before looking back down at the incense in his hand. “But when I smelled this today, it all came back to me in an instant. Like I was there again! And they were there, and we were worshipping and celebrating together.” Aang’s face crumpled in grief, his voice a whisper. “For a split second they were all alive again.”

Katara’s heart lurched for Aang, but before she could touch him Aang’s anguish suddenly turned to anger, his face scowling as his words cut out fiercely. “But who knew that all this time our ceremonial incense has been used as ambiance for our, our murderer’s bathhouse!?”

Katara took a surprised step back as Aang’s hand fisted tightly around the incense, his hand turning hotly to flame and crushing the little cone.

“That they used it as perfume for when they bedded their concubines!?”

The flame danced angrily in his eyes as he seethed.

But Aang extinguished the flame, letting it die as quickly as it had flared, the anger in his face dissipating with it, replaced by that same dark sadness.

“What does this,” Aang looked sadly down at the smoking ash in his hand, “teach us about about Sozin’s destruction of the Air Nomads?” A large tear rolled down Aang’s cheek as he closed his eyes tightly. “That apparently Sozin liked how we smelled when we burned.”

A sob caught in Katara’s throat as she scrubbed at the tears she hadn’t realized were falling down her own face. Katara pushed down her own temper that was threatening to flare. One thing she had learned over the course of their marriage, was that when one of them was struggling, the other needed to be strong. And she needed to be calm and strong if she was to help Aang today. Otherwise, she knew him, and he would feel the need to focus on her. But this was all about him right now.

She reached for Aang, wrapping her arms around him. After a moment, Aang grasped her tightly back, bowing his head to lay his chin over her shoulder.

He shook; and so did she. Crying together for the disgrace and tragedy and uselessness of it all.

“Oh Aang,” Katara whispered into his neck, compassion welling within her. She pulled him closer to her, even as a sob shuddering through his body as he gripped her, holding onto Katara as if to remind himself that not _everyone_was gone, he hadn’t lost it all.

“I don’t want to feel this way. I don’t want to hate them.”

Katara nodded against him. “I know, Aang.”

It’s easy to do nothing. It’s hard to forgive. Words that Aang had spoken to her long ago. And Aang didn’t just spout these words — he lived them. Katara had seen how Aang had chosen forgiveness, over and over again, even-- no especially-- when it was hard.

What many people mistakenly thought -- even herself, before the end of the war -- was that forgiveness came naturally for Aang, or that somehow it was easier for him. But after years of living with this good man, what she had come to learn is that forgiveness was only easier for him because he practiced it all the time. He believed it in, and worked at it everyday.

But sometimes it was still hard.

Katara held him tighter, telling him through her embrace that he is not alone, and that she is here. That she bears this burden with him.

Forgiveness was hard, but he didn’t have to do it alone.

……………

Katara inhaled deeply. She didn’t need to look around at the many smoking burners lining the back of the ceremonial hall to know that the incense was there. The smell was incredible! Enveloping the entire room in its fragrance like the embrace of a supportive friend.

It had been ten years since Aang had disconcertedly discovered that for generations the Fire Nation royalty had been using the Air Nomad’s sacred incense in their palace spa. Although Zuko, Aang and Katara had all tired their best to uncover how the royal family had gotten a hold of the incense in the first place, they were never able to find anything conclusive. Procurement of a conquered people’s incense was apparently not significant enough to merit any documentation.

However, with the help of a surprisingly accommodating Madam Uriko, they were able to study the remaining cones and records in the spa stores. Apparently the royal chandler during the early period of Azulon’s rule, had studied the incense himself, and written out his own recipe. It was likely that the modern cones in the spa had not been made by Air Nomads at all, but had been replicates made by chandler himself. Katara and Aang had wondered in length together about why the royal chandler would continue to include the air nomad symbol on the bottom of each incense cone he made – perhaps he had done it as his own small rebellion against the Fire Nation’s campaigns? Or perhaps he had wanted to keep record of the incense cultural roots? Or perhaps he had just done it to more authentically mimic the original? – there was no way to know. But Aang liked to think that perhaps the chandler had known an Air Nomad personally, perhaps had lost a friend, and maybe he included the symbol in memory of what was lost.  

The discovery of the chandler’s recipe had been an incredible find for Aang. He and the acolytes had worked hard to replicate the recipe, and now were fully capable of making their own incense. A scent Aang had thought was lost to time and tragedy, was now a viable part of the new Air Nation’s culture once again!

And now it was time to finally use it for its original purpose. Tenzin was being unveiled a Master Airbender today!

The anointment was a big day for Tenzin; big enough that Kya had delayed leaving on an extended trip she had planned, and Bumi had even taken leave from his service in the United Republic of Nations so he could be present.

However, important event or not, Katara had had to roll her eyes at her grown children’s antics. It seemed that the act of simply stepping foot back on Air Temple Island caused Bumi to reverted from ‘distinguished soldier’ to ‘annoying older brother’ instantly. Even though no one except Aang and his tattooing assistants had been allowed to see Tenzin since his Ceremony of Mastership had begun ten days previous, this hadn’t stopped Bumi from teasing Tenzin from through the closed door. He would gleefully call in suggestions to his dad about how to modify Tenzin’s tats to be a little more interesting. It didn’t help that Aang would flippantly play along, before seeming to remember that this was a sacred ceremony, and finally tell Bumi to get lost.

In addition to bothering his younger brother, Bumi had also taken to flirting with Kya’s girlfriend. While this was mildly amusing to Katara, it was seriously beginning to irritate Kya. Katara tried to remind Kya that Bumi flirted with everyone, while also sternly admonishing Bumi to cool it.

As much as Katara loved having everyone together again, she had to admit that keeping harmony in her small family of strong personalities was harder than it looked. Where was the docile, peacemaking child they so desperately needed? Whenever she would ask, Aang would only stifle a smile and raise his hands in surrender, jokingly claiming that he was not the one to blame for their children’s temperaments! And as exasperated as she might feel, Katara had to laugh at herself, knowing that he wasn’t wrong.

In preparation for the tattooing ceremony, Aang had called in two different tattoo artists – one from the earth kingdom and one from the fire nation, both reportedly the best tattooist in their perspective nations – to help teach Aang how to give Tenzin his tattoos. As Tenzin had neared the end of his training, Aang had admitted to Katara that just being ‘the Last Airbender’ didn’t automatically make him an expert on all Airbender skills. “Giving someone their tattoos is very different than being on the other side of the needle, Katara!” he had worried out loud. The closer Tenzin had gotten to mastership, the more nervous Aang got about how to bestow his tattoos. It was Katara who had suggested he ask for help.

After consulting with the tattoo experts, Aang had told Katara later that although their methods were different than what the Air Nomads had done over a hundred years ago, they seemed to understand enough of the process to take the details and tools he remembered and turn them into a working process. One of them even offered to give Tenzin his tattoos herself. Aang had declined, but expressed how grateful he was for to them for teaching him how.

The night before the commencement of Tenzin’s Ceremony of Mastership, Katara didn’t know who was more anxious: Tenzin or Aang? They were both bundles of nerves, but expressed their apprehension in characteristically different ways: Tenzin tried to hide his concern behind stoic meditation, while Aang couldn’t hold still, needing to “take a little run around the island” about ten times before bedtime.

When Aang had come in to bed the first night after beginning Tenzin’s tattoos, the smell of incense strong on his clothes and body, Katara had asked how it had gone. “I got better at it as the day went on.” Aang had replied. Then with a self-depreciating chuckle he added, “Hopefully nobody will look too closely at the back of Tenzin’s thigh…”

But the process had gone better from there, and ten days later, Katara now sat with Bumi and Kya on cushions near the front of the ceremonial room on Air Temple Island awaiting Tenzin’s anointing.

Katara was immensely proud of Tenzin, and all of his studious hard work. She knew he was aware of the burden he was born with, and in some ways she was sorry to have her son shouldering such a responsibility, but she was proud of the way he took it seriously. She knew Aang worried that Tenzin was ‘too serious’, but Katara, as a serious student of her own bending art, could not be more proud of his diligence and discipline.

Katara had often reflected on the irony that, of her three children, the one that was the least silly and carefree, the one who was a homebody with the seeming least amount of nomadic drive, was the one born with airbending. She’d wondered if perhaps it was meant to be; that airbending could be a way for Tenzin and his father to bond, when their personalities were so singularly opposite.

But as her mind wandered over these thoughts a hush fell over the audience, and she turned to see Aang and Tenzin, wearing a long hooded cloak, walk into the room and down the center aisle to the raised dais. Tears pricked at Katara’s eyes as the tall hooded form of her youngest son knelt reverently at the center of the stage. She looked at her husband, dressed in a formal yellow robe not unlike the one he had worn to Zuko’s coronation, and, catching his eye, noted that Aang’s eyes were also moist with emotion.

Katara cried for most of the ceremony. The image of Tenzin removing his hood to reveal a new blue arrow on his forehead brought a loud sob from her. Kya reached an arm over her shoulders, while Bumi refrained from being irreverent (which was more than Katara would have expected from him). From then on the rest of the ceremony was one big tear-clouded blur.

But the smell of the burning incense was potent and clear, and got even stronger as she felt it swirl around her, ruffling her clothes and inciting the song of the many wind chimes hung throughout the room.

Katara drank in the aroma carried on the wind. Despite the way the incense had found its way back to Aang, Katara couldn’t help but be grateful for this piece of Aang’s culture, of her family’s culture, that had been restored. Aang had admitted to Katara that although for a long time it had bothered him that his people’s sacred incense had been dishonored, he was grateful it had been. At least this way it had been preserved.

Katara breathed in deeply, taking in this scent that was both ancient and new. And something powerful stirred with in her.

Perhaps it was the power of the scent in the air, coupled with the way the wind chimes sang, but as Katara closed her eyes and breathed in deeply, she felt a spiritual tingling across her body, as though they were not alone. Like perhaps the energy of the Air Nomads, the ancestors of her children, were there and rejoicing with them as the first airbender in well over a hundred years, was anointed a Master.

…………….

A/N: I don’t know about you, but sometimes the smell of something can bring back very vivid memories/emotion for me. That was the genesis for this story.

(P.S. Also, I really do have a bald friend who loves getting hair washes. ;)

..................

Other works in this series:

Chant

Artifacts

[rawliverandcigarettes]

If you're still willing to do the character meme, I won't ask about Aria since you already discussed her at length not that long ago, but /is/ there a character you would like to talk about but which is, shall we say, less obvious than Mordin ? Basically, [Insert Character Here] for the meme. No pressure though.

Hey, thank you for the freedom (and so very sorry about how late I am ;_;)! I pondered a lot about who I wanted to ramble around, and I think I've been in a big Miranda mood lately so I'm going to talk about Miss Lawson!

favorite thing about them: her relationship with expectations and accomplishment/self-definition. The more I replay the game, the more that specific aspect of her deeply touches me, to the point where I discover myself relating to her more than with any other character in the games. She’s at once trying to follow an impossible blueprint, being expected to behave perfectly because she was “made that way” (whatever perfect means, in this instance the weirdly fetishist definition of a weird rich white guy), but at the same time if she expresses these controlling behaviors towards herself or others, she’s bossy and unlikeable. It’s almost like she’s been made to play a game she cannot win! (not to excuse the shitty controlling things she does to Shepard’s body and the fact she’s literally in a pro-human terrorist ring, but this mess does make a lot of sense with who she is, her envy, how she was shaped) Her relationship to Oriana is also very sweet (I almost always shed a tear at the end of her loyalty mission, I don’t know why this gets me when it’s so hard to get to my tearducts in videogames!!!), because in a way it’s also about Miranda showing herself compassion, and revealing her yearning at a second chance she’ll never have but can only offer to someone else.

least favorite thing about them: unoriginal, but the fixation on the butt? It’s a fanbase thing pushed by the game and its weird fixation on it, but... yeah, while I don’t mind that she uses her sexuality as a form of powermove (people are going to be gross about her anyway, may as well own it and make it do work for her, I get that), I think the fixation on the butt iiis weird and quite deshumanizing and it completely glosses over her great boobs COME ON PEOPLE

favorite line: I don’t remember the specifics, but the entire dialogue where she talks about the complex relationship she has with envy. Envy of Shepard, envy of Mordin, envy of everyone who was allowed and encouraged to express their full potential without feeling like they own all their accomplishments to the person who made them, and all their failures to themselves. She was designed to shine, and then made to step in the shadow of, mostly, “greater men” (her father, TIM, even MShep in the “default” way ME2 was marketed). This sucks!!!! I feel that so bad!!!!  

brOTP: I mentioned her and Mordin in Mordin’s ask, and I still enjoy that quite a lot! I also saw several mentions of Miranda and Grunt bonding over being “made”, and I am won over. This is very cute. But to be honest she strikes me as severely lonely because she’s crippled with her inner battle against herself and can be cold and offputting as a mean to assess control, so I think it takes her a long time to open up to anyone in the Normandy crew --especially since nobody likes her really. Perhaps she could have courteous exchanges with people like Samara or Thane, but I don’t see her baring her soul to any of them before perhaps late in ME3 (Citadel DLC and such). I like the potential of what her relationship to Oriana could end up looking like too, obviously!

OTP: honestly I really like a well-made Miranda/Jack. It can absolutely have this catty/porny “hot girls fighting” vibe which is not mine personally, but I think having Miranda reconciling with her own story of objectification/grooming at the hands of Cerberus alongside Jack is interesting, as well as allowing herself some leeway and tap into more spontaneity would really help. Jack, on the other hand, might need someone stabler to allow for her growth, and someone she can also somewhat hold accountable. I feel like that’s a delicate thread and I’m not even sure this would be the kind of relationship that *should* last given how intricately linked Jack’s history of trauma is to Miranda, but I enjoy the idea of a post-war relationship that takes slow steps and allow both of them to calm down, reconsider and heal. I saw mentions of Miranda and Kaidan, and I don’t hate it either! I think he would pair with her quite well, be a good support and they could have a nice equal relationship. Miranda and Jacob could be a thing? But I don’t entirely understand what their dynamic would have been like so I’m left grabbing at straws here (and she seems to be quite formal towards Jacob all things considered so I’m wondering what that even looked like).

nOTP: I don’t really have one. Even the really bad ones (like Illusive ManXMiranda) could be interesting if written well, even if they are repulsive in other aspects. I guess her relationship with MShep can irk me if “poorly written”, as it can absolutely make her that femme fatale prize of MShep that deny her that equal recognition I understand her to crave.

random headcanon: I HC that, despite being quite dominant in the ME2 love scene, her romantic behavior would be a little more muted once she trusts her partner (I believe she did that whole show to impress Shepard and try to control/maintain a sense of superiority because she’s afraid to be crushed by a stronger force than her, as mentioned above). I think she needs to be vulnerable in private and strong in public to be at her more confident/healthiest mentally, but I’m not even sure she’s ready to express that desire to herself yet (or maybe by mid ME3).

unpopular opinion: I’m not sold on Miranda wanting a “normal life” necessarily as presented in the Citadel DLC? I think she does need to relax and stop putting so much pressure on herself for sure, but I still believe she also wants to become her own beacon, the hero of her own causes, defined by herself. I wish we could have seen her become a little more of that before the end of the game (like the organizer of a movement aiming at taking down Cerberus from the inside-out, something like that, unrelated to her father/her genetics). I don’t know how I feel about us telling her (especially in the romance) to “just chill out and have a normal life”, while in ME2 she had trouble with finding her own success and didn’t ask to be made lesser. She didn’t want to be normal for its own sake, she wanted to be normal so she could exist without the shadow of everyone that defined her getting in the way (I also believe that’s why Cerberus’ views spoke to her, as warped and messed up as they are --their goal is very much about self-definition, at any cost). But it’s possible I’m projecting, I wouldn’t put it past me. :) :) :)

(From: https://rawliverandcigarettes.tumblr.com/post/659045472796803072/mushroom-cookie-bears-send-me-a-character-and)

[manggaetteokkie]

Why 2HA adaptation might not be as bad as we think...

Okay so BL novel “The Husky and His White Cat Shizun” (chinese title: “二哈和他的白猫师尊”) aka 2HA is getting a live adaption which will be called “Immortality” (“皓衣行”). I know that usually, fans of original works are less than excited about this kinds of news and with good reasons. The issue is that those who buy the IP rights to a novel simply see its popularity and think that they can profit off of it without actually trying to understand the reason behind its popularity. Too often, BL fans see themselves forced to endure any of the following: 1) sex change of one of the male leads, 2) creation of a random female love interest, 3) turning a happy end into a bad end, 4) adding a bunch of scenes unrelated to our main pair that ends up dragging the series, 5) turning romance into brotherly affection... the list goes on and on. Sometimes, companies think that as long as they film any two guys together and sell a bit of physical touching here and there, fans will jump on it like rabid dogs which... is kinda stupid because, y’know, we have eyes (and standards) too.

So obviously, with the unprecedented popularity that came with the release of The Untamed, even more producers are starting to see the potential of danmei (BL) novels and with it came an onslaught of IP rights being bought and adapted. The list is pretty extensive, with some big names that I’m sure anyone who’s even slightly in the Chinese BL novel community has heard of before. Of course, included in that list, with the casting for the leads done and filming underway, is 2HA.

Quick overview of the story for those of you that don’t know: the story is set in the POV of the “gong” (top), a character named Mo Ran (also known as Mo Weiyu) who is the disciple of Chu Wanning, the “shou” (bottom) of our story. In his original life, Mo Ran had become the Emperor of the cultivation world through slaughter and tyranny, with the only one ever coming close to stopping him being his shizun, Chu Wanning, who eventually lost his life trying to stop him. After achieving the top by committing pretty much all crimes and sins known to men, weary and tired, Mo Ran decides to take his own life and ends it all. Unexpectedly, instead of dying and going to Hell, he transmigrated to the first year he became a disciple. As a thirty-something man in the body of a teen, he decides to do things right this time around and save the one he couldn’t save the first time around. As he goes through life a second time, truth after truths reveal themselves, with the biggest surprise being that the Shizun he hated so much in his previous life, and who Mo Ran thought hated/scorned him, actually turned out to be protecting him the entire time. 

Mo Ran, in his past life, was powerful, cruel, merciless and arrogant. There was nothing he could not obtain and he knew it. He was cynical, had a very jaded view of the world and was kind of unstable (lots of mood swings and temper tantrums). After his rebirth, he still maintained some of the arrogance and cynicism, but is more mischievous, confident and cheeky. He is very much like a husky, looks kind of scary and big, but can be extremely loyal to the ones he recognizes and can be a bit dumb sometimes. Chu Wanning on the other hand, is an unflappable person with a frost-like exterior, but a heart of gold. Basically, he cares a lot but it’s easier for him to look like he doesn’t than to voice his feelings. He gets embarrassed easily and covers his embarrassment using anger. He is extremely strong, likes peace and quiet, and always abides by the rules. 

Their relationship is kind of complicated. Initially, Mo Ran was in love with a fellow disciple called Shi Mei (despite the word meaning junior female disciple in Chinese, it’s actually the name of a male character). In the original timeline, Shi Mei died and that was the start of Mo Ran’s decline. After his rebirth, Mo Ran decides that he will do everything in his power to prevent Shi Mei from dying again. Don’t be mistaken though, Shi Mei is NOT the male lead. You’ll see as you read more that despite being in love with Shi Mei, Mo Ran is pretty obsessed with Chu Wanning because their relationship was kind of... complicated in the original timeline.

This is pretty much the premise for the story, but do be warned that it goes much deeper and darker than what you might expect (it’s rated R-18 for a reason). So why exactly am I writing all of this? To put it simply, I just kind of want to hype up the series and its adaptation a little, or at least, pique enough interest to give the live action adaptation a chance. Not gonna lie, when I heard 2HA was getting adapted, I was pretty skeptical because how. Mo Ran and Chu Wanning had a pretty physical relationship in the pre-rebirth timeline and that’s partially where the obsession that Mo Ran feels towards Chu Wanning stems from. There’s just basically a lot of unresolved sexual tension between them throughout the novel that I simply couldn’t see getting adapted. However, after thinking about it and reevaluating things from a low-expectations-standpoint, I think it might actually be possible to film something close enough to the original work. Here are some of the factors that influenced my opinion:

First, the series is set to air for 50 episodes (just like The Untamed). Why is the number of episodes important? Because it will determine how closely the adaptation will follow the original story and how much random stuff they can fit into it. Let’s take a step back and evaluate: 2HA’s novel has 311 chapters + extras while MDZS has 113 + extras. Obviously, people might have an issue with the number of episodes (”How are you going to air the same amount of episodes for a series that’s thrice as long??”) but I think it’s a good amount. Why? Because it pretty much guarantees a solid pacing that’ll keep the story moving forward without stagnating. I don’t think there is too much to worry in terms of too much source material being cut because quite a few chapters are R-18/romantic lining scenes that would not have gotten adapted anyways. Once those get deleted, I think 50 episodes is an acceptable amount.

Second, the entire production seems to be solid. The rights were actually bought by Tencent who, if you forgot, was also responsible for The Untamed. With prior success, I believe that they now have a pretty solid idea of how things should be run. Also, the CGI and world-design team is the same one as for Ashes of Love, which has me pretty stoked because while CG in chinese dramas has always been a hit or miss, Ashes of Love is definitely amongst some of the best I’ve seen (see below for examples). (P.S. there are also rumours that Lin Hai, the one responsible for The Untamed’s OST, might be working on 2HA but this is mere speculation at this point.) Overall, 2HA is looking to be like the most high-profile and expensive BL adaption yet.

Third and finally, the casting.

Holy.

Okay.

This is what has me the most hyped. 

Let’s start with Shi Mei, who will be portrayed by actress Chen Yao (or Sebrina Chen).

I know I’ve said that despite the name, Shi Mei is a male. As it turns out, likely for censorship reasons, “Immortality” could not escape from the clutches of the dreaded sex change so they went ahead and turned him into a girl. While not ideal, in my opinion, it actually works out pretty nicely here. In this case, it means that Mo Ran is in love with a female character which would further draw censorship’s attention away from the fact that Mo Ran really has a thing for his beautiful shizun. While it would have been perfect if everything could go according to source material, the fact that it’s Shi Mei that went through a sex change actually works pretty favourably in the grand scheme of things. Not to mention the actress set to play Shi Mei has some good experience acting similar roles so overall, I say that I trust her.

Next, we have Chu Wanning who will be played by Luo Yunxi (or Leo Luo).

For this character, I have no worries whatsoever. If you’re unfamiliar with this actor, I highly recommend you give Ashes of Love a try. He played the 2nd lead and ugh. He’s so good at playing beautiful and elegant characters that are forced to undergo a ton of suffering and pain. Luo Yunxi used to be a professional ballet dancer so he moves with grace and his fight scenes are amazing to watch. Also, he has great control over his facial expressions. He’s able to act out characters that suffer a lot without making them seem weak or powerless. Even the way he cries can be considered both beautiful and heartbreaking.

Finally, we have Mo Ran who will be portrayed by Chen Feiyu (or Arthur Chen).

Mo Ran is an extremely complex character. From pre-rebirth’s insanity and arrogance, to post-rebirth’s hope and reservation, to post-revelation’s love and devotion, the actor’s going to have a lot on his plate. Originally, when I first googled him, I thought that while he’d manage to pull off post-rebirth teen!Mo Ran fairly well given how clean and refreshing his face looks, he’d have a harder time pulling off pre-rebirth’s arrogance, craziness and general “hardness”. However, after seeing some costume designs and makeup edits, I think that the boy might just pull it off. Also, while the actor is nowhere near as solid as Luo Yunxi is, it seems that he’s willing to put in extra time and effort (as seen by his Weibo post about how he’d been studying the source material) to make up for it. I think that with enough dedication, he might just be able to pull it off.

(Psssst! By the way, keeping this strictly between you and me, another reason why I’m such a fan of this pair is because of the height difference. I mean just look at this?? Their height difference is pretty much bang on with the novel height difference after Mo Ran grew past Chu Wanning’s height. Not to mention, don’t tell me you see this and don’t automatically picture a the big dorky puppy following his reserved and cool master around?)

So yeah, all of this just to say that it might be okay to kind of have some expectations for 2HA. I really want to keep my own expectations down as low as possible given the amount of times we’ve been burned but I want to remain hopeful that, with the success of The Untamed, it can pave the way for better and more faithful danmei adaptations, with 2HA being one of them.

[justice4sasuke]

Sorry to be sending you more opinions but there was something you said a little while ago that I just couldn’t get out of my head so here we go; you said, “you don’t have to forgive your abuser, but you can if you want.” And I agree with that sentiment 100%. I’ve been in the position of needing to decide which option to go with in the past, or should I say I haven’t actually decided yet because there can be SO much nuance involved in making that call. Sometimes it’s very simple, sometimes it’s anything but. And there’s no moral right or wrong answer, it’s about picking which option is healthier for you personally. Neither option makes you weak or strong, righteous or in the wrong (1/3)

Now that being said, I am painfully conscious of the fact that the narrative of, “forgiving your abuser makes you a good/kind/better person or whatever,” is pushed the absolute hardest in children’s and YA media, more than any other circle of media. It’s incredible how much and how often this is the only option presented to kids. I see this in shounen manga especially. And there’s a really famous example of an American children’s cartoon that does this which I could name but I won’t. I recognize that shounen does this a lot because WSJ has a sort of on the down low comic’s code thing going on (2/3)

And if Sasuke were real, I’d have no problem with him making the decision to forgive Itachi. And I’m not going to pretend that it doesn’t make sense character or story wise for him to do so. Hell, if I were in his position I might even make the same choice (then again I might not. I can only compare my experiences to his, but I can’t know them). Anyways I get it. But I also know, deep deep down in my traumatized bones, that a major reason why Kishimoto makes this decision FOR Sasuke as a character, is because it’s part of his crusade against the concept of “~hAtReD~” as it presents itself in victims. The only person who gives Sasuke permission to be hurt and angry EVER is Itachi (if I’m remembering the climax of this arc correctly), and I think that’s super important. And it makes perfect sense that Sasuke’s decision in response is to actually forgive him. But I also KNOW that he’s not allowed to choose otherwise. This is a big hand of the author moment imo (2/3) (p.s. you can wait however long you want to respond to this I don’t mind and I don’t want to overwhelm you especially when this could be more relevant later)

I’m always a proponent of recognizing WHY authors make the decisions they do, but I’m not sure it matters much when it comes to Sasuke’s decision to forgive Itachi. 

First I’ll say I find it very hard to parse what Kishimoto actually thinks or feels about anything. This could be because I do not know or speak Japanese or because I don’t seek out content that involves Kishimoto talking about his work. But then again I don’t go looking for author interviews a lot, but I’ve still managed to absorb some information that makes me feel like I know a bit more about the authors. Oda the author of One Piece does multiple Question Corners in each volume of the manga when it comes out that really gives you a feel for who he is as an artist and person and what he thinks. Araki the author of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure has ever-changing interests and those interests bleed through in his work (a moment where that occurred to me that I found particularly amusing was at the end of one of the part 4 volumes Araki says he got a cat encyclopedia and that or the next volume then has a lot of drawings of cats and explanations about their behavior so you’re like well Araki I can tell). Or even a series I don’t even like because it’s miserable like Attack on Titan I’ve absorbed enough through cultural osmosis to know the author has said enough war crime apologist shit that the fascist wet dream that he portrays is intentional. 

But Kishimoto...I don’t know what he thinks if I’m honest. Does he really resent people with natural talent for things? Does he think everything bad is just hatred and we need to forgive to get over it? Does he think the state is more important than any person or group of people? You could make these assertions based on his writing maybe but Kishimoto’s writing is so flimsy and so many things change throughout the course of Naruto’s story I would just as soon believe every statement he makes about worldview is an accident. In fact Naruto’s blandness and unrelenting stereotypical shounen characteristic of never giving up could lead me to believe there is no heart in his writing whatsoever. Or hell, the end! Where all the main kid characters end up together as much as possible when you follow a two boys one girl rule and are bound by heteronormativity. None of the pairings had an ounce of heart behind them and some of them were fucking /jokes/ (Shikmaru and Temari maybe had a drop of heart to it based on things that happened in part 1 only). I don’t feel I can say Kishimoto’s opinions come through on anything he writes if he’s going to be so careless with what he does. (Yes, I know there is an argument for him being wrung dry by the manga making machine at the end, but that goes along with my point: does Kishimoto intend anything he writes).

All of that up there is leading into a point, but let me get part two out first. I don’t know if I fully agree with your take because forgiving Itachi isn’t what makes Sasuke “good” in the eyes of the narrative. Sasuke forgiving Itachi is important in terms of how we talk about their relationship but in the eyes of the narrative it is a foregone conclusion. There is some anger and resentment still after Sasuke learns the truth about Itachi, but there’s also still a ton of love and hero-worship there. By the time Itachi says “you should choose your own path” and “no matter what you do from now on I’ll always love you”, Sasuke’s forgiveness has already been granted and after that Sasuke’s journey is more about trying to reconcile his world view. And after Sasuke resurrects the hokages and gets the love story of the ages learns about the founding of Konoha, in true Kishimoto fashion, it seems like Sasuke is going to be a “good” guy now only to have him doing things that seem “evil” during the war and then after Kaguya is defeated he lays out his revolution plan which the manga views as “evil”. Kishimoto puts so little emphasis on forgiveness and explicitly keeps Sasuke in the “wrong” until the end of the manga so I don’t think anyone is expected or intended to see forgiveness as the way to be better. I think we kind of reverse engineer the forgiveness topic by bringing up the point of Sasuke possibly not forgiving Itachi when that’s not even a question in the manga. 

This brings us back to Kishimoto’s thoughts and intentions because is the fact that forgiveness or not is not even considered an author conscious decision, that forgiveness is the right choice? Or was forgiveness just the obvious choice because how Sasuke’s character was built out? I don’t think any of us can say because like I said above I think Kishimoto’s actual feelings and goals with his work are hard to pin down. 

Also I know this whole blog is about extrapolating and looking outside the framing, but one of the manga’s biggest faults it how is railroads you into what you’re “supposed” to feel and you only don’t feel that way if you give what you’re reading a second thought. And we’re not being railroaded into “Sasuke forgives Itachi so he’s better now”. We’re railroaded into “Sasuke needs to learn more about ninja world” which railroads into “Sasuke is going to help in the war but uh oh is he still bad guy??”. Like once again forgiveness isn’t even a topic of thought in this manga.

I guess I spent over an hour thinking and writing this to say I think the notion that Sasuke is being made to forgive Itachi is so out of the realm of intention or what the point of Itachi and Sasuke’s relationship is I’m going to Death of the Author it and say I think Sasuke chooses to forgive Itachi and that’s his choice. Thinking about whether Sasuke HAD to forgive Itachi because the author wanted it that way is missing the point. But that’s not to say we can’t discuss the implications of choosing forgiveness towards abusers in media, just that I think that is entirely outside the realm of the author’s thinking (with my above caveat that I have no idea what Kishimoto feels about anything). And I think these conversations aren’t really coming out because of the manga, but because of how we are thinking about the manga which is already outside Kishimoto’s intention. I mean I think Sasuke is right so obviously I’m outside Kishimoto’s intention based on his framing. 

Side note in regards to rules at WSJ I hear about shit people aren’t allowed to do there and no doubt there are rules but I’m very 🤔 about what are they really because Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure got very violent even in its shounen jump days and this isn’t about /abuse/ exactly but One Piece did have a character that couldn’t forgive their oppressors and wasn’t demonized for it and was treated with understanding. So I’m wondering what exactly these rules are supposed to be.

[rose-lily-hale]

Hi! I consider Rose one of my faves, but there are two things that have been on my mind for many years. First, she says death would be a happier ending than her vampire life, so why doesn't she do what Edward tried to do in NM and end to her vampire life? And second, why does she seem to respect Carlisle so much (e.g. backing down during the MS argument despite her strong views) when he's the one who changed her? Hoping that you (and maybe other Rose stans) could help me understand her better!

Hi Hi! For the first part she was depressed with her immortal life for different reasons.,,

First she was changed at a very traumatic time, and if we go with smeyer’s statement that vampires are unchanging mentally/physically/emotional at the time the venom stops their heart, you have to take in the violation she went through, so at the time she would have been with so many negative emotions rage/hate/fear/sadness/betrayal/ and she’s feeling all of these as she’s dying. Then you go and add on the physical pain of the assault to the unrelenting physical pain of being changed. That would definitely spin anyone into a whirlwind of suicidal ideation.  

Second, upon being changed she is thrust into this new, weird family and can have no contact with her biological family or human friends. So not only has she been through all this insurmountable trauma she has no one familiar to turn too. Yes she has these new people, but they’re not her people.

Third, (I honestly don’t know if Carlisle was thinking this when he changed her, but we know he thought of the possibility after) her being a mate for Edward. Just imagine that after all you’ve been through they’re nudging you toward this guy, who can not only read your every single thought but looks down upon you because of them. Looks down on you cause you are thinking things about yourself that you were taught your whole life to think.

Fourth, speaking on things she was taught her whole life, she wanted an 'All-American Family’ a husband to take care of and share a life of ‘bliss’ a couple kids maybe a pet and a little white picket fence. She’s taught her whole life this is what she should want and what she should strive for, and then BAM almost every single bit of it is ripped away one miserable night. Husband? Few are far in between (different species and all). Kids? Nope. None biological. Adopt kids? Ehhh maybe (but how do you explain the not aging and diet? according to the Volturi law if they know they have to be turned or killed, and we know how Rosalie feels). Foster kids? Most reasonable option (but make sure everyone has their blood lust under control cause kids play rough and they are clumsy). Pet? Animals are scared of vampires. White picket fence? Maybe for a few years before you have to move because of never aging. 

So she has a lot to over come, who’s to say she never had to idea of going to the Volturi? But in all her darkness she finds dear sweet Emmett that has a pure face, and needing to be saved so she does the unthinkable(to her) and asks Carlisle to change him and give him a second chance. This big teddy bear sees her as and angel and wants nothing more than to make her happy. Plus her new family became her found family and “Hey maybe this immortal life isn’t that bad, but having everything ripped away at the beginning wouldn’t wish it upon others.”

_____

As to your second question, I must say I haven’t read MS so I don’t know the details. However I do believe, misguided as their start was, she does see him as a father figure, that with being from the time period she was and Smeyer’s own writing views, they take on the “father knows best” mentality. But I also personally think Carlisle changing Emmett was a big corner stone of her respecting him.

-----

Others feel free to add on!

[autumnblogs]

Day 13: Double Mobius Reacharound

https://homestuck.com/story/2073

Of all the characters in Homestuck, Sollux’s self-hatred is probably the most exaggerated, exacerbated no doubt by his role in the death of his girlfriend and his psychic brain. I like him, he’s an alright guy, and I wish I had more to say about him to be honest. I guess if there was one thing I was going to say about him, I think I said it already - Sollux serves as a mirror image of Dave, and Sollux’s decision to bow out early probably foreshadows the way that Dave will eventually decide that fighting is not for him.

More after the break.

https://homestuck.com/story/2082

How does Paradox Space know which angel to use? This is a bit of an odd moment. Maybe I’m missing the refrance, but I’ve never quite understood why Terezi reacts this way, with all of the additional periods. Sollux seems quizzical, but Terezi doesn’t react.

Also, this is the first in a serious of lines I’m going to be examining in relation to Aradia. Keep that on the back of your thinkpan.

https://homestuck.com/story/2085

Sollux and Aradia have a very sweet, tragic little relationship, and even though it doesn’t last into the longterm, I’ve always enjoyed these two together.

https://homestuck.com/story/2101

Whether retroactively, or intentionally, the sensual scantily clad fairies in Tavros’ room are a lot more noticeable on re-reads. Tavros has a pretty unassuming demeanor, and I’m not here to trash him pointlessly, but I think that Tavros has some pretty troubling patterns of behavior that can go unexamined because of the fact that he’s a victim. More on that as we go.

https://homestuck.com/story/2112

Far from a passing fancy, Tavros’ interest in animals does seem to be genuine. I wonder if he had a little farm with a bunch of these critters. We never get to see much of his other Fiduspawn if he has any.

https://homestuck.com/story/2114

Karkat and Tavros both do this, which I think is interesting because of the fact that they have opposite relationships with sleep and dreaming - Tavros spends most of his time in game asleep and dreaming of Prospit, Karkat has horrible insomnia.

https://homestuck.com/story/2122

Our very first conversation with Vriska has her tune in pretty much entirely to bully Tavros. The interesting thing is, while Vriska’s treatment of Tavros is pretty objectively bad, the way that she harasses him is actually pretty closely in line with the way that other trolls treat their friends, mutual aggression and nastiness. Vriska’s aggression isn’t addressed at someone who’s responding in kind though - Tavros is gentle where other trolls are vicious, deferential where other trolls are assertive. It’s this contrast that makes the shamefulness of Vriska’s behavior obvious to pretty much everyone but her.

https://homestuck.com/story/2123

Gamzee and Tavros are a ship tease that didn’t really end up going anywhere, but one of the things I think is interesting is the way Gamzee’s language goes from extremely lackadaisical and chill to kind of energetically violent around Tavros. Most of the time, Gamzee’s pretty laidback, but there’s a lot of language relating to murder in Gamzee’s enthusiasm here.

https://homestuck.com/story/2127

While Terezi’s Dragon doesn’t really have much of a choice in terms of its relative absence from her life, the sparse communication between the two and emotional distance is, I think, a parallel with Rose.

https://homestuck.com/story/2128

Because of the fact that we don’t get as much of a look into the Trolls’ home lives, it’s less easy to narrow down what their “finer” anxieties are, but it’s clear that they follow the same pattern of having their sleeping selves wake up as a result of internal synthesis of some kind - confronting their subconscious anxieties, and consciously accepting a part of their reality that they’ve been deliberately shutting out.

There’s probably a number of things that were instrumental to waking up for Terezi, not the least of which is accepting that Vriska is not the friend that Terezi thought she was - waking up to the fact that she was being used by an abuser in a co-dependent relationship. Coming to terms with her blindness could represent growth into a healthier sense of self, one where she finds validation internally and in healthy friend and family relationships. All that being said, her relationship with Vriska is still her most important relationship, and realizing that a problem exists is only the first step in solving it.

https://homestuck.com/story/2134

Time to stop being cagey about it, I guess. I have long viewed Aradia’s story as being one that is about surviving depression, which I say as a depression survivor. I relate heavily to the language that Homestuck uses to describe Aradia’s lack of passion and lack of enjoyment of things that she used to enjoy - especially the way that she lashes out destructively to try and alleviate her boredom and frustration.

https://homestuck.com/story/2137

On an unrelated note, Aradia has the Crosbytop. I believe I’m starting to remember how it got into her hands.

https://homestuck.com/story/2139

I’ve always thought that it’s interesting that Kanaya’s language directly mirrors Karkat’s from when he was harassing Jade, but their sentiment is almost precisely the opposite. She borrows another Karkatism almost immediately. So pretty much from the word go, we’re clued into the fact that Kanaya and Karkat have some relationship with each other that goes beyond the purely familiar, in the same way that Dave and John’s tendency to mirror each other’s language helps us to understand their friendship.

For a girl who doesn’t feel too many emotions, Aradia can be pretty sassy.

https://homestuck.com/story/2144

I have a friend who’s a bit of a Vriska kinnie (and feel like I’m pretty Vriska-esque myself), and one of the things that we both do that I’m seeing in Vriska here is fill dead air with chatter. I could be reading into it a little, but I think it should be a clue that Vriska is an intensely anxious kind of character.

https://homestuck.com/story/2145

In a parallel to Sollux’s introduction, we can’t immediately be Vriska. We couldn’t be Sollux because he was too busy stewing in his own self-criticism. There’s a push and pull going on between Vriska’s narcissism and her over-the-top self-deprecation.

https://homestuck.com/story/2150

I might be pulling this out of my ass, but I feel like there’s a case to be made for Aradia and Vriska actually being pretty strong parallels to each other - the only two trolls to get the tiger, faciliitators of destiny, devil-may-care grave-robbers. I don’t actually have a fully formed thought to really draw the two together, but I feel like there’s really something there. The way that Aradia puts Sollux to sleep here in order to ensure that the Right Disasters befall him is parallel to the way that Vriska puts people to sleep at clever points to make sure that Jack is created, and so on and so forth.

Maybe in the same way that Sollux serves as a parallel to Dave and helps us to understand what the right decision is for Dave, Aradia parallels Vriska and helps us to understand that roughly the same things are good for the two of them. Much later, (Vriska) basically chooses the same path of staying out of harm’s way and trying to enjoy the rest of her relatively eternal existence.

https://homestuck.com/story/2161

As soon as Karkat talks about Kanaya with anyone else, he further reinforces there is a friendship between the two of them.

Another quick note, as long as we’re here, I’ve kind of been putting this off, but I suppose with the one and only use of “autistic” as an insult in the comic, it’s finally time for me to bring this up:

Homestuck has a pretty problematic relationship with victims of abuse and people suffering from mental and physical disabilities. While on the one hand like, almost all of Homestuck’s main characters are disabled and abuse sufferers in some way or another, there are a lot of ways in which it’s not so charitable to them.

Some of it is stuff like this - early Homestuck uses the word retarded a lot as an insult, and has this single instance of autistic - all in all, that kind of language is problematic but in and of itself, not too egregious - Homestuck is a product of its time in that respect.

Stuff that I take issue with is more subtle - mostly stuff surrounding Jake and Tavros. I’ll have more to say on it later, but I wanted to find a good natural time to bring it up, and now seemed like a fine time.

https://homestuck.com/story/2162

Nepeta and Equius give us some information that helps grow our understanding of troll culture. We’ve already had some conversation about whose blood is better than whose from Sollux, but Equius starts to help us understand that some trolls take blood color extremely seriously.

These kids may not replicate the social anxieties of earthlings 1:1 but they still have plenty of things to be anxious about. The more I read Hiveswap the more I become convinced that most of these characters were never people we were meant to become terribly invested in - a lot of the function of the trolls, from a narrative perspective, is to give us parallels to the human main characters and insight into their lives, as well as to give us exposition on just how Sburb works exactly. And then most of them are pretty promptly killed off or put on a bus once their purpose is served (or in order to serve their purpose!)

Back to the subject of the social anxieties that the trolls have to deal with, Alternia is all about hierarchy baby.

https://homestuck.com/story/2173

Vriska may be a born cheater, but I’ve always sort of gotten the impression, based on the killer nature of FLARPING which is alluded to plenty in other situations, that if she’s cheating here, it may be the kind of cheating that is encouraged.

Between that and the way that Tavros and Aradia were discussing the “True Spirit of Flarping,” I can’t help but remember a description of the way propaganda works from some time ago. Propaganda doesn’t usually follow the story arc we are accustomed to, where we start with a character or characters who do not yet possess the tools or abilities they need to succeed, grow to overcome their weakness, and then overcome the problem that they couldn’t before.

Propaganda, instead, introduces us to characters who are already strong, facing enemies who are weak, or problems who are easy. They are strong because they are the heroes! Their enemies are weak. And the function of it is to intimidate the enemies of the person putting out the propaganda, and to rile up aggressive sentiment in those who are on the side of the propagandist.

We’ve already talked about how, in Homestuck “roleplaying” in both its more figurative and literal uses, is a way in which characters act out society’s expectations for them. In that way, I can’t help but view FLARPING as something of a propaganda tool itself, and one that’s pretty integral to Vriska’s way of thinking throughout the comic.

You’re either someone who is strong, or someone who is weak, and if you’re strong, you’re one of the victors, if you’re weak, you’re one of the losers, and you deserve whatever the victors decide what to do with you.

What I guess I’m building up to here is that there are real world societies that Troll Culture seems like an exaggerated parody of - particularly the more militaristic aspects of the Romans, and the Spartans. I’m going to wait for another time to write down all my thoughts about them, because this is turning into a bit of an essay, but suffice to say, it’s probably going to coincide with the one about Patriarchy whenever I get around to it.

https://homestuck.com/story/2175

There’s an interesting thing going on here between the way that Tavros is drawn (nearly identical to his imagine spot about flying around on Prospit), and the way that his erratic behavior isn’t actually all that different from the way characters normally do absurd and dangerous things here.

I’m by no means excusing what Vriska is doing here, but I think that between the fact that Tavros already wants to fly anyway, and the fact that again, characters do this kind of self-destructive thing in Homestuck all the time anyway, although to less of an exaggerated degree, Andrew is drawing a parallel between the narrative prompts from the Exiles, Vriska’s manipulations, and the intrusive thoughts that we already have on our own anyway.

Vriska manipulates Tavros the way that Doc Scratch manipulates her, although considerably clumsier, by getting him to do what he already wants to anyway.

https://homestuck.com/story/2177

That’s really all there is to say on the matter.

It’s like poetry, they rhyme.

In the same way that Bro manipulates Dave by imposing an idea of what it means to be a man on him - someone who can be beaten within an inch of his life, or beat someone else to within an inch of his life without batting an eye - Vriska tries to manipulate Tavros throughout his arc, and this kind of so-called “tough love” is just the start of it.

There’s a lot of supplementary material that delves deeper into Vriska’s rationale for her mistreatment of Tavros, but she makes it clear herself as we go through the comic that she at least justifies her mistreatment of Tavros by telling herself that the purpose of it is to toughen him up (so he can be one of the strong people, a winner who gets the girl.)

https://homestuck.com/story/2178

As he often is about what’s going on with other people when he’s distracted from thinking about himself by his own agitation, Karkat is probably right about Vriska - girls like her are a dime a dozen in the upper classes, and that’s the point. The point of troll society is to produce people like Vriska amongst the highbloods.

https://homestuck.com/story/2195

Let’s dig into Vriska’s self-stylization as an apocalypse buff for a second because it’s not something I think gets talked about a lot.

Apocalypticism is, in my estimation, kind of a form of generational narcissism. There are doomsayers in every generation, who claim that this is it - this new catastrophe, this new social situation, is the most important thing in the world to ever happen. The end is here. All of world history culminates in this.

I don’t mean to downplay the actual existential threats of our generation of course; climate change, late capitalism, that sort of thing. But I think Vriska’s Apocalypse Buffery fits pretty well into her need to be the most important person in Paradox Space all the time.

On another note, Luck in Homestuck is very closely related with a few concepts like Agency in Homestuck through the Aspect of Light. Terezi will later assert that luck doesn’t matter at all. What’s up with that?

Maybe Luck and Karma are two sides of the same coin (ha!) Both of them are pieces in the puzzle of Theodicy, that is to say, the metaphysics question of why there is bad in the world.

Someone like Vriska (at the beginning of her arc) would say that it’s happenstance - bad things and good things can happen to bad and good people, there’s no greater meaning behind it. Vriska has a hard time taking responsibility for her own actions - her locus of control is external, for the most part.

Terezi on the other hand mostly attributes everything to a person’s actions, hence the need to punish bad people, and reward good ones. Terezi would say that good things happen to good people, and bad things happen to bad people. Her locus of control is internal.

Maybe the answer is both motherfuckin’ things.

https://homestuck.com/story/2202

Just as Vriska’s introduction is through a conversation with her victim, so Doc Scratch’s introduction is through a conversation with his victim. Or at least, his most immediate victim.

It’s like poetry, they rhyme.

https://homestuck.com/story/2204

Kanaya pretty well sums up here what I was getting at when talking about Terezi and Vriska’s different locuses of control.

There’s no real good or bad luck here. Good luck for someone is bad luck for someone else, often enough. What “good luck” means to Vriska is that events go down the way that she personally wants them to.

And so, by seizing control and power in situations where she is helpless, the Thief of Light ensures that she always has all the luck.

Kanaya might not be right, by the way, not 100%. I’m not a stoic. You can’t just magically wish away suffering by deciding that actually, you’re 0k with it, anymore than Aradia can. Like I said, the truth probably lies somewhere between Luck and Karma.

https://homestuck.com/story/2207

While the terrifying violent monitor and the emotionally abusive manipulator are bifurcated, Vriska has a lot of the same emotional responses to her guardians as Dave does to his singular guardian - notice the similar, self-soothing language that Vriska’s narrative employs compared to the way that Dave self-sooths when trying to convince himself that the way Bro treats him is just fine and normal.

https://homestuck.com/story/2211

Equius to me is a super interesting character, because on the one hand, he’s a joke character Andrew uses to antagonize the audience by being gross but Andrew also uses him to say the quiet part loud - Homestuck is already, to begin with, a pretty lewd webcomic full of horny characters whose emotional hangups and destructive relationships with societal norms sabotage their chances at happiness. That’s all Equius is. His entire function from start to finish, aside from a source of ribald humor, is to draw attention to the fact that everyone in this comic is looking for comfort in someone else’s body, comfort from the way that unrealistic societal expectations and their attempts to live up to them don’t match up to what’s inside of their heart. Equius is a parody of Homestuck inside of Homestuck. Absurdly overpowered, ridiculously horny, all twisted up inside.

https://homestuck.com/story/2220

The language here that Equius uses - degenerate - is evocative of the sorts of right-wing authoritarian hate mongers that Equius’ ideology stands in for. Equius, of course, has doubts about said ideology, which he starts to express through transgressive relationships pretty much as soon as we meet him, like the one with Aradia. The fact that he can’t make sense of the warring ideas inside of him almost literally kills him.

https://homestuck.com/story/2221

Except that what kills him literally is a shitty clown.

I think what’s going on here is interesting, because if you want to read Equius as like, Homestuck in a nutshell, Equius’ ideological hangups are co-morbid with his sexual hangups, and resolving one set would probably go a long way toward resolving the other set. Equius is, for lack of a better term, a deviant. The sorts of things that excite him (here, viscerally) don’t match up with his idea of how troll society is supposed to be.

Equius and Gamzee are confronting each other with a different vision for what Troll Society is supposed to be like.

https://homestuck.com/story/2222

In stark contrast to the shallow and insincere hostility of Trolls who are actually friends with each other, Vriska and Equius maintain a veneer of social grace as they mutually plan to backstab each other.

https://homestuck.com/story/2237

Vriska is pretty clearly projecting here, but she’s also 100% right. I guess when you know somebody, you know them. Or it could be happenstance.

Her view of redemption is also transactional. “I will make things the way they were before, and things can go back to being the way that they were,” she seems to say. It’s a very legalistic view of it, and while it might have a place in a justice system, even the extremely legalistic Terezi can tell that that wouldn’t actually fix anything. Maybe the physical and emotional damage could be repaired in theory, but if the actors in the situation don’t change themselves in fundamental ways, this is all just going to recur in the future.

Forgiveness isn’t something an abuser can earn - nobody has the right to claim that they have restored a relationship that they destroyed in the first place by demonstrating token repentance.

https://homestuck.com/story/2238

If Andrew already had in mind that Equius should in some way be a part of the gestalt of souls that is Lord English, he’s foreshadowing it early here by comparing Equius’ voyeuristic habits to Scratch’s.

https://homestuck.com/story/2244

I’ll lay my cards on the table and say I think that Doc Scratch can present the facts 100% and still be dishonest. I’m a compatibilist - I think that Free Will and Accountability are compatible with the idea of a deterministic universe. Doc Scratch doesn’t have to talk anyone into anything, but the material conditions that led everyone to the decisions that they chose to make were orchestrated by Lord English. Scratch may not be making any decisions here that effect the outcomes, sure, but the game was rigged in his favor from the start.

Again, I’m not excusing Vriska’s actions here. But for the same reason that we wouldn’t blame Tavros for jumping off of a cliff just because trying to fly is something he already wanted to do to begin with, I think it’s clear to anyone with eyes that Doc Scratch is at least partially responsible for creating this little monster.

Vriska’s complicated. Let’s move on so this whole post doesn’t turn into more Vriskourse. That’s the last thing anyone needs.

https://homestuck.com/story/2258

You know you’re going to anyway.

I guess what intrigues me so much about this section is the gradation between manipulation and coercion.

https://homestuck.com/story/2263

Vriska might be a born cheater, but Doc Scratch is a sore loser.

She’s pretty easy to root for when she’s against him.

https://homestuck.com/story/2269

Man, Act 5 Act 1 is just absolutely lousy with conversation about choice and luck.

https://homestuck.com/story/2276

Part of what creates ambiguity in terms of how much Vriska’s choices are her nature versus the conditions that shaped it is on display here in her conversation with Aradia.

Vriska doesn’t really know how to interact with people positively, like, at all. Nobody’s ever taught her. She doesn’t know what it means to be a friend to someone. She doesn’t know what it means to help someone. She doesn’t know how to be loved or forgiven.

Is this like the scorpion and the frog? Or does she have free will? (I’ll give you a hint, it’s the second one.)

https://homestuck.com/story/2280

This whole sequence is just a delight. The trolls are really just such disaster people, and if I can be excused, it’s easy to put more emotional distance between myself and say, Equius, than it is between myself and Vriska and Terezi. Like I said, Equius says the quiet part out loud, so there’s really nothing much to analyze there.

Aradia’s inability to control the ribbits is part of a general mood of a lack of control that she has as a character. Vriska’s lack of control causes her to rage at the heavens and lash out at the people around her. Aradia is just 0k with it, and neither is a healthy coping strategy. The result is that the two of them break a lot of shit.

https://homestuck.com/story/2305

For the first time in his life, Karkat is not alone.

https://homestuck.com/story/2319

I could really be mistaken here, but the way this whole sequence is presented here really feels, on an archival reread, to be telling me, “You do not need to care about these characters.” Certainly they serve a function in the story, but with the exception of a few of them (literally only a third of them), they serve as tools in an authorial toolbox to help flesh out the setting - not so unlike the Carapacians actually, but with a lot more personality.

https://homestuck.com/story/2323

Kanaya is threefold one of the few of her kind, making her extra special. While she is closest with Rose, she’s a clear parallel to Jade, who if memory serves, suffered frequent accustations of being a Mary Sue early on. Kanaya’s level of specialness (in terms of combined rare factors) outcompetes even Jade’s. Probably a part of the playfully antagonistic style of Homestuck in general.

https://homestuck.com/story/2338

It slipped my mind earlier that the honey on Sollux’s hands was being directly juxtaposed with Dave’s blood on his own hands, and here Kanaya’s.  All three of them are, to some extent or another, contemplating their mortality. As Kanaya said just a few panels ago though, death is confusing without the finality. Just another way that Homestuck plays with the nomenclature of endings and beginnings and intermissions and brings into question the usefulness of those categories.

https://homestuck.com/story/2343

I have always enjoyed the dynamic that Kanaya and Eridan share with each other, and I wish there were more conversations of her just dunking on him.

Also of note in this little conversation is the way that Kanaya and John mirror each other’s language. This is an example though where they could not possibly be mirroring it the way that Dave and John might be when they’re talking about Bec, or the way that she and Karkat might be. They have, it seems, the same penchant for mischief.

https://homestuck.com/story/2345

Like her counterparts from Universe B, Kanaya’s preoccupation with relationships and personal contact is made manifest through her Squiddle Lunchtop.

https://homestuck.com/story/2350

Both of the main Pages in Homestuck are characters whose primary usefulness is seen through their ability to make friends and broker alliances. I suspect that being a Page in Sburb is to some extent a bit like being an ADC in League of Legends.

The ADC or Attack Damage Carry, if you’re not familiar with the nomenclature, is a character who starts the game weak, and remains vulnerable throughout such that the whole team has to play babysitter. If you think that sounds unappealing to play, you’d be right - it can be pretty hard to find someone willing to play ADC, especially with the popularity of high-risk high-reward Asassins (not so unlike a thief!) who are their direct counter.

In spite of their relative vlunerability, the ADC has absolutely dominated the meta of League of Legends for the past ten years for the simple reason that there is absolutely no substitute when it comes to controlling objectives.

Maybe Pages are a little bit like that. Frustrating to be one, frustrating to have one around, but extremely rewarding to invest in. It’s too bad nobody can be arsed to give them the emotional support they need to flourish. Too bad they have such... intractible character flaws.

https://homestuck.com/story/2356

Kanaya’s inability to stop mothering people sabotages her chance at winning Vriska’s affection - no doubt because Vriska has misread the situation as Kanaya being her romantic rival for Tavros’s attention. For the better, I guess, since Rosemary is my shit.

Trolls sure are weird.

https://homestuck.com/story/2369

Vriska has already figured out the point of Sburb, and perhaps the ultimate riddle, although she clearly hasn’t figured out the ramifications of it yet.

In any case, it should be clear how she has interpreted Sburb’s directive - authenticate your own existence through reproduction.

Being a winner, having self-worth, being able to justify your own existence means being strong enough, smart enough, pretty enough to shape the rest of existence in your own image.

She’s missing a critical detail, and its absence means she has it completely backwards.

https://homestuck.com/story/2370

We already know what is on the other side of the portal. Vriska is making herself out to be the final boss.

The final boss and the treasure are the same thing, in her mind.

The struggle is the objective.

The fighting is the point.

https://homestuck.com/story/2374

Just wanted to take a second to say that this whole sequence is so unnerving and horrible that I was sure she was going to murder, violate, and/or eat him, not necessarily in that order, the first time I read through this.

The sad reality is, this is the fucked up courtship ritual of a girl who has no idea how to be intimate with other people.

https://homestuck.com/story/2391

And that’s where we’ll pause for the night, having finished nearly 300 pages as promised.

Hope I wasn’t getting too lazy there at the end.

I’m enjoying my weekend.

Hope that yinz enjoy yours once it rolls around.

For now, Alive and Not Sober, Cam signing off.

[vulgarloon]

Loki is the marvel fandoms ho, ship him with anyone and it will, against all odds, somehow work.

Although I myself wouldn’t call Loki a hoe, because I realy like him as a character, I totally understand what you are talking about in the terms of fandom, and yeah, you are right! Loki in a fandom is a 100% hoe, I came across such unexpected, plot-unrelated and incomprehensible ships with Loki, which surprised even my filthy mind.

It is a very interesting phenomenon actually, and I’ve been thinking about it a lot. For Loki is not the only character who gets such reputation - many fandoms have that one intriguing, alluring character, for whom the majority of fans lusts, and who becomes a part of multiple ships (many of which are quite illogical from the canon’s plot point of view). Like Sans from Undertale, Dismas from Darkest Dungeon, Tom from svtfoe and so on, I’m pretty sure everyone can call a few characters from their fave fandoms.

And I’ve been wondering, why does this happen? What makes us want to see this single character in relationship and in a specific one (consider that each one of us believes their counterpart to that ‘heartbreaker’ character to be the one and only possible love interest, people can kill you for their otp!).

I’m not smart or something, but I think that when a character catches our attention (like Loki does, it seems that people can’t just be indifferent towards him, we feel something for him), we fall in love with them to some degree. We are interested in them, we like them, and as a result - we want them, because desire is human’s natural manifestation of the interest. It’s the same with objects - we don’t want to just look at something beautiful, we want to buy it, to have it, to own it. And since we can’t physically see, touch, have or even interact in any way with fictional characters we are interested in (as in real people, our brain can’t actually tell a difference, especially with such realistically portrayed characters as Loki), I believe we do it through other fictional characters from the same universe. And since we all are different and our love and romantic relationships concepts and patterns differ, we do it through different characters as well. Maybe it is easier and more satisfying for us to associate ourselves with one or another character, and so we choose them to ‘woo’ our fictional love interest. Or, reversed, to get metaphorically laid by this character we desire.

Call me big brain or dumb, idk, these are just my thoughts. Because I think this realy is very interesting. We spend a lot of time in these fictional worlds, and everything we do even here is as complicated, as it always is with humans. And isn’t it wonderful?

As for my own Loki-hoeing affairs, I am thorki stan, because their relationship seems interesting, arousing, I like their story, dynamics, all of the hate and love and passion flying between them. I love how different, yet close and intimate they are, how they can be such excellent counterparts to each other, how their traits and features are almost painfully antagonistic in their nature, and what kind of allience they could have together, their strong sides combined, and weak spots covered by each other. I am a crazy aesthete, and I simply LOVE how they look together, their palettes and bodies and faces and voices complementing one another. I’m truly in love with the idea that your partner is not your missing part, but your complement, that together you make something new and qualitatively different, and I have found it for myself in Thor and Loki ship. I’m aware that their relationship is far from healthy, but hey, that’s what fantasy is for - shipping beautiful, imperfect, wretched hot dudes.

And yeah, not to be horny on main, but I’m also kinda into those overpowering, dominating ‘do you yield’ kind of things, so thorki is my fav. Thank you for coming to my ted talk

[kitsoa]

So, about your Theory ...

So, we talked on Reddit a while ago, Kitsoa, and I have some more thoughts about your theory. It’s more rambling and longer than what I previously intended – my apologies for this.

Kitsoa- Hello again! I’ll reply in brief through quotes though I’m not interested in doing a solid defense of my theory. Mostly it’s a lot of creative stretching using the crumbs of the narrative and I’m not feeling particularly impassioned to bring out the counter citations nor do I think it necessary.

Also: I have written and re-iterated upon this meta theory of mine multiple times so if I am not referencing the correct Original Post in question that’s probably because I never bothered to do a big manifesto and I will take the fall for that confusion.

It’s certainly very interesting but parts of it seem to not only be unsupported but outright contradicted by the games. For instance, take your surmise that Xehanort’s villainy is motivated by his knowledge of the KH world as fictional and his self-knowledge that he has to play the role of the villain to create a conflict and thus sustain the universe. His actual speech in Re:Mind after Dark Road’s world tour points to something else:

“All around the world people live seemingly peaceful lives. They believe themselves to be moral and virtuous, but it’s all an act. Darkness lurks in the pit of everyone’s heart. Their light is a total farce. Those who are weak, and who desire greater power, simply strip the strong of their power, and convince themselves they’ve earned it. That’s how people become tainted by darkness. They believe what they want them to believe, using hollow reasons as justification. They repeat this cycle, and their darkness grows. No, its better they be ruled by darkness. People carry delusions of having power, but it’s a lie. They are but sheep pretending to be wolves. Though I can admit, I can understand why.”

This edgy little diatribe isn’t about the nature of the universe or Xehanort’s own origin … it’s about his view of human (or talking animal, w/e) nature. It’s a similar theme to his final speech in KH3, and ends not with him concluding that he needs to play the role of a villain to create conflict ,,, but that to prevent the KH universe collapsing into chaos, he needs to become its absolute godlike ruler. Which is what sets up the conflict, yes, but his goal isn’t explicitly to create conflict to keep the universe going.

Re: Xehanorts motive aligning with a meta-awareness on his ‘role’ as a villain. This is a theme I was definitely playing with. Xehanort is clearly symbolic of the corrupting pursuit of knowledge and we have a god-like encounter spark stranger behavior yet. It’s a fascinating trope yes? Corrupted by the Truth. Saving the world by sacrificing the world. That was my angle. The World Tour from Re:mind had him summarizing his villainous disdain and I’ll agree that it gives him no direction towards a ‘role’. But I also take note of the fact that this enlightenment comes directly from the actions of the chessmaster MoM who could feasibly manipulate Xehanort towards a conflict-sparking war. If Xehanort isn’t directly and consciously responsible for fulfilling the metacontextual requirements for a ‘story’ then MoM is. And as I’ve stated it probably comes from a more experimental god-mode type motive.

And again, your argument that time doesn’t really exist in the Disney worlds until Sora arrives and this is related to them literally being stories that he’s diving into. I don’t know where you get this from, at all. We go into Disney worlds and experience plots unrelated to the films (KH1 Olympus, Halloween Town); we go into Disney worlds in medias res (too many to count); we go into Disney worlds before the movie’s events take place (BBS Deep Space, Neverland); we even go into Disney worlds in-between or after the movies’ events (KH3 Toy Box, San Fransokyo). Which rather gets in the way of a simplistic “Sora arrives in the Disney world, time starts flowing forward and the movie starts” look at things. You’d previously characterized this as “every world has its unique story” which IMO would be a more reasonable way to look at things rather than the stronger “the worlds literally are the stories and nothing else”.

I’ll defend this a little. The entire concept of the Worlds as Stories demands only that we recognize a higher reality. A reader/audience/ creator relationship with the happenings. When I say ‘time doesn’t exist’ I’m saying it doesn’t matter. The only thing that does matter is the time spent there by Sora (or his subsidiaries). Time is going to move between visits but not at a pace that runs independently of Sora (and co). And all of the events within those worlds are unique to the source material-- on the virtue of having Sora. But when I say the worlds are the stories, I mean it... metaphysically. The relationship between the greater kh multi-verse (and no greater) and these literal planet world island things is that of stories given form. Most all of my KH musings come from the very simple concept that formless metaphysical concepts like love, bonds, imagination, memories etc are literal, tangible things. Tangible. In this, Worlds are not so much another universe equal to other universes. They are a story, fictional and potentially subservient to a greater reality. It’s only from that understanding that I add the extra layer upon KH (and Quadratum by later extension) itself. 

The exact logic behind this reasoning is cyclic. KH is a fictional story to the literal higher reality (us) and seeing how there's a parallel within the narrative, I just applied that logic within the universe and used my understanding of the ‘literal metaphysics’ theme going on with other lore concepts.

Power of Waking ejecting Sora into “real reality”: This analysis is based on the idea that Sora is “waking himself up” out of dream states until he “wakes up” out of KH reality into “real reality”. But YMX tells him (and implicitly us, via the conventions of this kind of villainous exposition) that Sora is repeating the same error he made in 3D and sending himself into the abyss at the bottom of the Realm of Darkness, not doing the opposite thing and “waking himself up” out of KH reality.

I’ll just punt Power of Waking stuff. There is a lot of stuff with the power but I take most of the speculation from the name and the results. There’s a big interweave of darkness that can support or deny my thoughts within the next sentence and I’m electing now to wait and see. Sora abuses the power of waking-- ends up in another reality. Waking--> realities--> dreams--> sleep. Run with the word association. I like to think the ambiguity with sleep and the darkness of abyss has more to say about the nature of reality as a whole ergo: “everything is a dream” concepts that are hard to swallow. What is waking up, if you find yourself deeper in sleep? Nonesense stuff like that.

MoM as Creator of the KH universe/Quadratum as the “higher reality”: Not only is he presented as a clear villain figure; given that the rest of the Foretellers are based on the Seven Deadly Sins, MoM as their leader would clearly represent the sin of pride. We also have him saying in Back Cover that he “might” disappear from the KH world, suggesting that it was beyond his control; and Luxu’s report suggests that the KH3 Keyblade War was engineered to open a means for him to return to the KH universe, presumably via Sora going to where he is in Quadratum/”unreality”.

I believe strongly in this still. MoM can be a villainous figure and at the mercy of universal laws while still being the Creator and denizen of a higher plane. I try not to dig into scenarios too much but follow me here: Creator of the world, literally self-inserts himself into a world of his own creation. He’s a verified Mad Scientist who of course likes to experiment and test his creations and he does so directly, physically, to them. There, he put them on auto-pilot and is watching Characterization carry on. I am not claiming that he is breaking the rules of his own universe and traveling in and out with ease. Nor am I saying if he is exercising any sort of Creator-granted power over their will. He’s there, he’s interacting with them, and he’s watching them. I find it to be an intentional obstaining of power. Self imposed limitations OR an understood sacrifice for this meddling (think, giving up ‘divine’ form to live amongst his ‘mortal’ creations in divine parallel. he is at the will of his universe but not out of control.)

When he says he ‘might’ disappear not only is he being vague on purpose to terrorize his high-strung apprentices but he’s made no indication that it’s something against his intention. And the actions taken by Luxu in formulating his return mean nothing to his plan or his ability or his potential Creator status. I can’t stress how Long Game I perceive MoM’s actions to be. All in the effort to observe, toy, and curate the perfect... something. And since I am talking about the literal nature of stories, I mean the ‘perfect’ story.

Also, we may note that if it was truly a “higher reality”, Quadratum wouldn’t be noted as the fictional Verum Rex video game in KH3 – there’d be no explicit sign at all of its existence, as it would be the higher reality generating the lower one. Which suggests that what may actually be the case, if the series is going meta, is that KH-verse and Quadratum view each other as fictional – in which case MoM would be somebody falsely claiming or believing to be the Creator, which makes sense in relation to the sin he represents.

Not that I’m saying KH-verse isn’t generated by a higher reality/being; but I don’t feel that the higher reality is Quadratum or that the higher being is MoM. There was a fairly interesting post on Reddit comparing KH to Plato’s world of the forms; in which case Kingdom Hearts would be the higher reality from which both regular KH-verse and Quadratum are generated. Or “unreality” really is a “lower reality” than the regular KH-verse, which TBF seems a bit less likely than “’reg. KH-verse’ and ‘unreality’ view each other as mutually fictional but are actually ontologically equal”.

I think my theory posts predate most of the Quadratum reveal so the details of the reveal haven’t been accounted for in my words but I did call it when breaking down Remind’s Yozora scenario. That said yes, I think there is a higher reality and I feel like you mentioned it outright. I see KH and Quadratum as equal fictional realities, segregated but connected through creator. Some of my earlier meta posts before re:mind saw Quadratum as the “higher reality” (or like “host reality”) until the presence of an author between them became apparent enough. We can potentially consider MoM=the author as a separate subject in this respect as it’s not entirely dependant on that reveal. Ultimately, my point in this caveat of the theory is that the relationship between KH and Quadratum strikes an intentionally meta-referential parallel to the actual creator Nomura. That’s an angle that is very audacious and I have full understanding in the denial but it’s my supporting evidence to a higher power within the re:mind secret episode alone.  As for the ‘unreality’ I literally think that is just a way for them to say ‘fictional’ without saying the word, not necessarily an indication of ‘rank’ (for lack of a better word). I use a little reverse logic on the reveal in Melody of Memory when I claim they are ‘equal fictional realities’. No one thinks to assume that they themselves are also “fake” so it;s not a stretch to believe that the reverse assumption could be true. This putting KH and Quadratum on the same level and almost guaranteeing a connection through a mutual creator. 

Now, you also talk about the Whispers in FF7R, but in that they’re in-universe contextualised as “guardians of destiny”, essentially manifestations of the Will of the Planet. Which just goes to show what I talked about earlier – the meta-level of a story can’t exist without a surface-level narrative. We know that the Whispers out-of-universe represent fan anger at changes to the plotline; but they’re presented as something in-universe, which can be defeated by in-universe forces (another reason I doubt it as it seems to leave no room for our heroes’ victory in the confrontation with MoM that’s being teased as the next saga).

I bring up the Whispers to note a synonymous use of the words ‘destiny’ and ‘fate’ to ‘story and ‘narrative’ Not explicitly of course, that would break the 4th wall, but its a subtext that's easier seen in a ‘remake’ because of direct references and deviations being drawn. I think the same synonymous use can be applied when brought up in KH because of their common creative entity.

Finally: How do you see this “metapocalypse” of yours playing out as an actual KH game? We know the conventions well enough by now – a trip through Disney worlds fighting monsters and villains in flashy shonen-style combat, being stalked and looked over ominously from afar by a council of villains with mysterious schemes. Then an invasion of the villains’ lair by the heroes with a final serving of flashy, SFX-heavy boss battles, a number of dramatic plot twists and arc resolutions, and an ending with the villains’ schemes having been at least forestalled. Then we get the ending credits; with an epilogue, a superboss and a secret ending all hinting at more to come.

Well I’m glad you asked! Honestly, I’m basically writing a fanfiction about it. I’m writing the story in part to engage some of these theories/speculations into a serviceable game narrative. So I’ll be vague:

Thematically: This breaking the 4th wall has the power to thematically drive home concepts of free will, defining your personhood and defying expectations. Furthermore, you have questions like... what makes something real? What makes it matter and what’s important? With growing up and the sanctity of youth being a constant struggle as the series and the characters age, the reverence in imagination and growing connections to things that aren’t stereotypically ‘real’ is a strong concept. If I were to break down the big message simply: As long as it’s real in your heart it doesn’t matter.

Overall, the reveal doesn’t really have to impact the basic formula. You can have Disney World Hopping and Villainous characters scheming and manipulating a greater force. I personally think the world-hopping parallel can become more direct with the context of it being movies/stories adding a different understanding of the process of visiting those worlds and meeting those characters. The episodes can be more about fate and predestination and can speak directly to the importance of the connections to those worlds. And the dramatic stakes are the literal threads of reality and godhood! 

If I am to be more detailed and imaginative (without substantial evidence)  I might say... MoM’s experiments in manipulating his own created world(s) are aiming to shape Sora (or 2nd favorite son Yozora) into some kind of perfect conduit for the marraige of reality and fiction and the success or failure of that process might weaponize his ability to connect with other hearts... real and not, all to the greater ascention of one chessmaster. 

(That’s not even mentioning how I have a personal reason to dislike it as it reminds me of an old theory that the KH plot was actually SRK imagining it all up in their childhood games or to put a darker twist on that idea, Sora dreaming it all up in a coma or while dying. I hated reading those ideas when I was younger and still do.)

I’m gonna sympathize hard with this. I hate ‘it was all just a dream’ theories. They are cheap and they trivialize the journey. That is not what this theory is saying. There is a higher reality in this concept and that is used as a proxy for our relationship with the series. The imagery of dreams is only a small facet of the reality/unreality theme so there is no ‘waking up’ or ‘end of story, goodbye’ attitude. The commentary is broader and it can potentially speak on the power of dreams and reality. The ‘realness’ of fake things. I’m sort of calling out KH for what it is: an imaginative story that expands upon what it means to truly experience stories.  Anyway, I rambled more than I thought. I haven’t written anything about KH in months so this was a little caffine shot for me. I’m not gonna be too stuck in the details and nor do I care exactly. I’m a story teller first and I just so happened to have predicted some things not so much because of the hints being dropped but because I understand some of the thematic intent behind the lore and certain narrative beats. The rest is just me having fun and finding the best reading. Sometimes I’m right. 

[spklvr]

A more accurate explanation

To explain myself publicly after all the debacle, I would appreaciate if those involved reblogged this, as I do care greatly about the wolfstar fandom and don’t care to be possibly ostracized because I phrased myself poorly due to making multiple unrelated points at once that got muddled together. 

1.I do believe that the strong focus on height differences in fanfiction and the frequent feminization of the shorter partner is overall problematic. Not on the level of individual works, but in fandom as a whole, as this portrays an inaccurate view of real queer relationships. That isn’t to say that you shouldn’t write or enjoy fics like this (by all means, do!), but rather that we should be conscious of it. I also never meant to make it seem as if I was calling out anyone for doing this - this is where my other point getting muddled with this point caused problems. I am not familiar with all the involved people’s works, and those I have read I truly enjoyed and had no issues with. 

2. From what I saw of their earlier conversations, @kattlupin and @remus-john-lupin, as well as an anon commenter, stated that it was wrong to headcanon Sirius as shorter, because this was due to the person doing so, needing him to be short in order to bottom. From this, I felt it was strange of them to make this comment as they, from what I can tell, consistently write Remus, the shorter one, as bottom. In this case, I never intended the conversation to be about gender presentation, or even why they choose to write Remus as bottom. Just that they do, and that it in my opinion was no different from writing Sirius as the shorter bottom. I personally also do not care which is taller, canon be damned, or who is top or bottom. I just took issue with the blanket statement. It later came to light, that what they truly had an issue with, was the hyperfeminized version of Sirius that often comes with him being shorter. I agree with them that this overall is problematic, though again not necessarily on the level of individual fics. I do not believe writing him as short, trans, genderfluid, or of different ethnic backgrounds is ever wrong, nor if it wasn’t as widespread, would I mind the hyperfeminized version. 

3. In the end, I leave this discussion with: be open minded, but also critical of what you read and why things are the way they are. And let people have their headcanons. They are fictional characters, and JKR lost her control privileges a long time ago for many different reasons. 

If you believe I’ve said anything that is problematic here, I am very willing to listen and either apologize or explain myself further. One point that came out entirely wrong last time was about my opinion on gender presentation in fanfiction, and I definitely do not have an issue with one character being more feminine or the couple traditionally heteronormative, or not heteronormative. It should be about what you enjoy writing and/or reading. I read and write stories like these too. My issue, if you will, is about how queer couples so frequently are written like this as if they are supposed to follow the heteronomative relationship standard, which I see as a problem in media in general. And it would be nice to continue to see queer, poly, ace, aro, etc. relationships, which I feel the wolfstar fandom has a great community of writers who does, but more never hurts!