#although i somehow underestimated just how much i love to blab

[plusultraetc]

for the dvd commentary meme: show me where to find the silver lining, from:

“It could be broken,” Aizawa says.

to:

“Recovery Girl,” he says. “Now.”

Tysm for sending an ask!! You are so good at picking out like. the FIRST scene I wrote in a fic omg (I went back to at least Draft 2 and this scene remained almost entirely unchanged for the 14-ish months I was making tiny, picky edits to this fic!)

also I am stealing your & @blinkeasy's format for these, whoops <3

“It could be broken,” Aizawa says. Because you landed on it like an idiot, he doesn’t need to point out. “You’re not doing yourself any favors waiting for it to start swelling.” He tilts his head a little more and Hitoshi fights the juvenile urge to hold the injury away from him. “Scratch that. It is swelling. We’re going to see Recovery Girl.” “What?” Hitoshi gapes as Aizawa stands. “I don’t need to see Recovery Girl.” When his mentor only looks at him, one eyebrow raised, he says, “I don’t. I just leaned on it too hard, but it doesn’t even hurt now.”

First thing that comes to mind here is that I worried a lot about Shinsou's characterization in this fic being inconsistent with the rest of the expansion pack--too outwardly expressive, and somewhat childish. We've seen Shinsou in pain & beating himself up before, and most of the time he gets quiet, which is... kind of the opposite of what he does in this section, and more in line with his behavior later in the fic. But in the end, I let him have a moment because 1) he did just literally break his wrist, and the surprise is both somewhat masking the pain and making him act out a little; and 2) he is sixteen lol. He's also a lot harsher on himself in this one than he is in almost* any other fic I've written from his POV, for reasons I will inevitably yap about in a moment.

*I say almost because I have another all-but-finished Shinsou fic hanging out in my docs in which he confronts the relationship between his quirk and other people more directly and 😬

This lie very clearly doesn’t go over as smoothly. “It’s swelling,” Aizawa repeats flatly. “Sprains swell.” “It’s red.” Hitoshi looks back at his wrist, which is actually inflating kind of fast and is most definitely a specific shade of early-bruising red. There is a chance, however slim, that Recovery Girl should look at it. But—

Skip this little paragraph to avoid a kind of gross fact!! I chose the word "inflating" here based very much on a real injury I witnessed (everyone was ultimately okay, obv, it was just kind of freaky to see in real time)

"There is a chance, however slim, that Recovery Girl should look at it" makes me laugh every time I read it. I love referencing memes in Shinsou's internal monologue specifically, although I do sometimes fear the ones I choose are too dated for someone his age. Then again, MHA is set in sci-fi superhero future Japan, so I try not to worry too much about whether or not my memes are accurate lol

“I can go after training.” Aizawa’s expression flattens with one of those hard-to-read emotions, but in this case it might be a close neighbor of exasperation. “I’m letting you go early today,” he says, and Hitoshi’s heart sinks. “Therefore it is now after training. Get up.” “I can keep working,” he insists. He casts around for an argument that isn’t I bet you don’t send people like Midoriya to Recovery Girl in the middle of class because they fell down, even though what he wants to say is I bet you don’t send people like Midoriya to Recovery Girl in the middle of class because they fell down, or maybe I’m not made of glass just because I’m not in the Hero Course yet and I thought that’s why you agreed to train me, so what gives? “I can still move my fingers. It’s not broken.”  

Okay I actually love the Midoriya comparison in this paragraph so much. I've talked about this before, but I really enjoy his & Shinsou's dynamic--as mirror characters, as occasional rivals, and eventually, as friends. At this point, Midoriya is very much the bar Shinsou measures his Hero Course aspirations against after Midoriya knocked him out of the Sports Festival tournament, which is ironic, because they have more in common than Shinsou could possibly know. (This is another reason that I find it incredibly funny when they see each other again at the joint training exercise and are both immediately like REMATCH REMATCH REMATCH.)

I also love the Midoriya mention bc like. Early on in the series, Aizawa spent a lot of time telling Midoriya to stop breaking his own bones and trying to discourage him from relying on that 'strategy.' Shinsou says 'why can Midoriya break his arm and keep training >:(' and Aizawa replies 'my quirk was literally introduced in a scene in which I stopped him from doing that, try again'

(I feel like Aizawa has strong but complicated opinions about training with, or to the point of, physical injury. For no reason. Something something experience, something something necessity.)

Aizawa eyes Hitoshi’s wrist skeptically. “If it’s hurting you, it doesn’t matter if it’s not broken.” “I can still train.” Even to his own ears, he’s sounding a little hysterical. Logical, he reminds himself. Aizawa likes logical. He tamps down on his rising panic and a surprising, irrational flare of anger, and tries a different tack. “What if I get hurt on patrol when I’m a pro? Or in a fight? I’m going to need to learn to work around it.”

The key word for me in this section is 'surprising.' Shinsou doesn't really know why he's lashing out at Aizawa right now; he's aware, of course, that tensions have been running high at UA and beyond since the training camp disaster, the Kamino Incident, and All Might's retirement, but it's really hard in the moment to realize just how much that background anxiety is influencing his day-to-day thoughts and feelings. I talked about this a little in the end notes, but I really wanted to touch on that subtle, end-of-an-era anxiety in this fic, although I go back and forth on how effective I was at doing so.

It also feels relevant to mention that, in the wake of the All Might vs AFO fight & in spite of Aizawa's later comment about pain and injury being more temporary than ever due to quirks like Recovery Girl's, Shinsou's mind immediately goes to the idea of getting hurt and having no choice but to keep going, keep fighting, anyway.

Aizawa’s eyes narrow, his mouth a thin line. “You’re not a pro hero right now,” he says, a note of steel in his voice. “You’re a student—my student.” “Yeah, well,” Hitoshi says, clipped. “Your students get hurt all the time.” The words surprise him almost as much as they surprise Aizawa. Unnervingly, Hitoshi sees his surprise—a flicker across his face, fleeting but obvious in a way that’s almost uncomfortable. The regret hits him like a bus, flattens his own anger beneath its metaphorical tires, but it’s too late. Aizawa’s expression closes down faster than UA’s security wall when someone trips the alarm.

I REALLY LOVE THE UA SECURITY WALL METAPHOR. It's one of those things that I think both sets the tone & utilizes the setting at once--like, the first 'very fast thing' that this teenager would think of is the big metal wall that can spring up around his school at any given moment, just in case villains attack them. Again.

Also: surprised Pikachu Aizawa. I actually reblogged a post a couple days ago that featured surprised Aizawa dot gif, which is like. Kinda close to the expression I was picturing here lol. I feel like the key word 'surprising' thing applies here as well--Aizawa and Shinsou have settled into a certain rapport since they started training together, and this is definitely an out-of-character outburst that just so happens to relate to the thing Aizawa has definitely been beating himself up over for weeks, if not months. Fortunately, as Aizawa teaches teenagers, he's also pretty used to their outbursts.

“I didn’t mean—” he starts, but Aizawa cuts him off. “Recovery Girl,” he says. “Now.”

Shinsou very much interprets Aizawa's shortness here as anger, but really, this is the Let Aizawa Rest fic. We've talked before about how USJ and the training camp are like, Aizawa's worst fears made real, and now this man is just a big ball of exhaustion and validated paranoia dragging himself from life-and-death responsibility to life-and-death responsibility. Not only do I not really see him taking offense to what Shinsou said, but even if he did, he just. Doesn't have the energy to. The kid is right, after all :(

[nyangibun]

GoT S07E03 Thoughts

And here we go again.

As always, these are my rambling nonsensical thoughts on the episode, but disclaimer, my stream lagged so i missed maybe 30 seconds to maybe a minute of the episode. Let’s begin. 

Jon and Tyrion’s conversations had to be some of my favourite scenes from this episode. That shared smile between them when Jon first lands on Dragonstone and they greet each other was so pure. There is potential for a great friendship between them. They both have an understanding for each other that they don’t share with anyone else. Jon as a bastard and Tyrion as a dwarf. This was evident in earlier seasons too, but more so now that they have both found their places in the world. They respect each other, but they’re fighting for very different causes (and for different reasons) and I wonder if this fledgling friendship will become a point of contention for them later in the story.

Anyway, I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t say that one of my favourite scenes had to be Tyrion and Jon’s conversation about Sansa. What I loved about this scene was although it was fleeting, it still gave us Jonsa feels (if you’re inclined to read the scene this way anyhow). 

When Tyrion says, “does she miss me terribly?” Jon is very quiet and they let that silence play on long enough for it to be a significant marker in a conversation. Jon didn’t want to talk about it. It wasn’t an awkward silence; it was absolutely an annoyed, aggravated silence. And then what’s great is that Tyrion immediately went on the defensive and says that the marriage was never consummated. 

It’s a strange thing to say, especially when they were so friendly earlier. Wouldn’t it be safe to assume that if Jon had any suspicions that Tyrion had hurt/touched Sansa against her will that exchange would’ve gone very differently? There was clearly no need to mention it at all, but yet Tyrion did and Jon’s response was “I didn’t ask” in a clearly annoyed tone that suggested if this topic didn’t end soon someone was going to get choked out. Either Jon really hates the thought of Sansa with another man he turned into grumpy kitten Jon or he doesn’t want to think about his sister having sex at all. But bear with me here, if it’s the latter, why have this dialogue at all? There’s no narrative reasoning for this whatsoever unless Jonsa is a real possibility in the future and we’re supposed to continue to think about Jon, Sansa and ‘sex’ in the same line of thought.  

Okay, okay, admittedly my shipping goggles are on, but I still maintain the fact that it’s a weird piece of dialogue to have. If all they wanted to do was establish Sansa as a real political player, they could’ve cut that entire 2-3 lines out and just went straight into:

“She’s smarter than she lets on.”

“She’s starting to let on.”

And now that we’re onto the topic, I absolutely believe the mention of Sansa’s intelligence here serves two purposes. The first is to establish Sansa as a real political player here. She’s been underestimated by everyone in Westeros, but she’s far smarter than anyone gives her credit for (yes, even Jon).

In fact, jumping straight to Winterfell, you are given a whole scene of Sansa demonstrating that intelligence – not only in keeping everyone fed, but in keeping the soldiers protected. She understands what it takes to rule. But what I love about this sequence of scenes is Littlefinger praising her then going on to claim to know Cersei better than everyone and Sansa just shutting him down, saying she knows her better. Once again, we’re being forced to consider all that Sansa’s learned from Cersei. She just didn’t learn how to play the game but she learned Cersei herself. If anyone can outplay Cersei, we’re being led to believe it’s Sansa. 

Why I think this is important is how this episode also demonstrated that Cersei is once again one of the smartest and most devious rulers in Westeros. She completely outmaneuvered Tyrion, Daenerys and Olenna. People think her ‘madness’ from losing her children will make her weaker, but she’s still as shrewd as ever. She is very much Tywin’s daughter, but she’s much more ruthless. Tyrion may be smart, but thus far? He’s not as smart as his sister. 

But who is? 

Well, there’s a ‘queen’ in the North who is, and the more I think about it, the more I think this quote is actually referring to Sansa: 

“Aye. Queen you shall be… until there comes another, younger and more beautiful, to cast you down and take all that you hold dear.”

Because Cersei is right. Dany is a revolutionary, not a ruler. She can conquer and free slaves, but she doesn’t know how to rule. She’s not nearly as intelligent as Cersei in playing the Westerosi game, but Sansa is. She’s learned from the very best after all. Whether I’m wrong or right, I am convinced Sansa’s role in this war will be far greater than just ruling Winterfell in Jon’s stead. 

Its second purpose is basically to reaffirm Jon’s faith and trust in Sansa and her judgement. But what I found interesting is the way he says it is almost in an exasperated way, like he knows she is and she continues to “twist him in a way no one else can” because she’s too smart for her own good. But alas, the shipping goggles are on, so take that what you will. 

Now onto the big anticipated meeting. Honestly, I enjoyed Jon and Dany’s interactions. The juxtaposition of them as individuals and rulers were pronounced in the last episode, but they were even more glaringly so in this one. While Dany continues to talk about her rightful place and her indignation that he refuses to acknowledge what is hers, Jon continues to fight for his people and the war up North. I mean that’s just the thing, isn’t it? Every mention of Dany being this benevolent ruler who cares about the people doesn’t actually come from Dany. She doesn’t actually say she wants to save the people of Westeros. It’s always someone else because maybe, just maybe it’s not really her true purpose here in Westeros. Yes, I don’t believe she would be indifferent to the loss of innocent lives, but if it was the only way to get her to that throne, wouldn’t you think she’d do it? Wouldn’t Dany say ‘to hell with all of it’ and fly her dragons and burn everything in sight for that throne? If it was her only option, she would choose herself over the people. 

Hell, she even says it. After her speech about all she’s overcome, she says the only way she’s endured any of that was because of her faith in herself. While it’s a good speech if you take out the context, Dany’s survived and persevered this long because of her unwavering belief in her birthright, which was to rule on the Iron Throne. Everything else comes second to that. And I refuse to believe that the ultimate hero of the story is someone who believes themselves a hero and entitled to a kingdom. 

Whereas Jon was thrust into his position. He would choose the people over himself and that difference was emphasised by this quote they just had to repeat twice: 

“…took a knife in the heart for his people.”

Also, the fact that Jon cut Davos off before he could blab about Jon’s resurrection and Dany’s fixation on this feels highly foreboding. It’s definitely going to come back up, but in what way, I don’t know. 

Objectively speaking, I could see how Jon3rys could be hinted in this episode, as Jon and Dany come to understand each other, but personally, I believe it’s a tentative alliance at best that borders on an impasse rather than actual understanding. Right now, they can work because Dany has bigger fish to fry and Jon needs dragonglass. But when their objectives clash? What then? You could even see this opposition highlighted in the way they were filmed on that cliff. They’re standing together yet they’re facing opposite directions. They spend far more of that scene looking away from one another than looking eye to eye. Having their first one-on-one interaction being filmed in the light is also quite telling. The sun can be a symbolic source of goodness, but it can also be an oppressive force. Actually, it made me think of this quote from Albert Camus’ The Stranger: 

“The sky was already filled with light. The sun was beginning to bear down on the earth and it was getting hotter by the minute. I don’t know why we waited so long before getting under way. I was hot in my dark clothes […] it was inhuman and oppressive.“

Jon is a man of the North. His season is winter. I’ve said in previous metas that having Jon’s resurrection coincide with Winter’s arrival was symbolilc. Where usually in literature winter represents a time of stagnancy or even regression in the hero myth, for Jon, it represents rebirth and growth. Winter is a time for Starks. Having such sunlight bearing down on them in this scene (looking more like summer than winter) and Jon still wearing his furs seems to forewarn perhaps bad consequences with this alliance. 

For my Jonsa shippers, this is the exact opposite in how Jon and Sansa’s scenes are shot. They’re almost always in dimly lit areas or surrounded by candlelight, and snow is usually falling. Their reunion also coincided with Winter’s coming, so don’t despair if you are over Jon3rys meeting. 

Speaking of how scenes are shot, Sansa and Bran’s reunion couldn’t be more of a stark (ha ha) difference to Jon and Sansa’s. Yes, he was never going to run towards her, but she didn’t nuzzle him. I’ve always said the choice of having Sansa nuzzle Jon’s cheek was a bizarre one. It’s just odd. People don’t nuzzle their family members. But maybe she wasn’t in the nuzzling mood, fine. Go to the godswood scene though and there just seems to be such a distance between Sansa and Bran. I think that’s partially Bran being the Three-Eyed Raven as well because the distance was also entirely about who he is now as well.

Anyway, Clearly in the books Bran’s importance and power is more obvious, so they had to demonstrate somehow that Bran as the Three-Eyed Raven can see everything. But why does he bring up Sansa’s wedding? If they wanted to show off his power, they could have him bring anything else up, so why her wedding? Why bring up Ramsay at all? Shouldn’t Bran know better than that? Especially to tell her she looks beautiful that day after already implicitly saying he knows what Ramsay did to her. It feels unnecessarily cruel for Bran who, while seemingly distant, does love her. It has to serve a purpose for them to write that in. Perhaps foreshadowing a future wedding in the cards for Sansa? Perhaps a fake one to LF? Or maybe something further down the line where it’ll be the opposite of everything she had with Ramsay. No godswood, no beautiful white dress, no snow falling, but with someone she loves and who loves her. I don’t know but I’m just speculating here. 

Moving on to my favourite scene in the episode though: Cersei with Elaria. Honestly, Lena Heady is a phenomenal actress. Everyone is so focused on Cersei being this horrible evil villain, but you forget the real nuances to her character. When she asks Elaria why she killed Myrcella, it was delivered in such a vulnerable tone. You really, truly get a glimpse of the heartbroken, grieving mother who just tried to do her best for her children (whether that best was actually good or not), but then immediately after, you get the vindictive, cunning and formidable Cersei as she kisses Elaria’s daughter. It was amazing. Horrible but amazing. 

Second favourite scene had to be Olenna’s. What is there to say? She is the Dowager Queen of Badass Bitchery and Snarky Comebacks. Give me a great, complex female villain any day! I wouldn’t even call Olenna a villain tbh. But what I mean is I would 150% take morally grey or morally corrupt female characters over your atypical one-dimensional girl-next-door ones any day, week or month.  

Stray thoughts that I don’t have time/energy to write about:

Did anyone else get flirty vibes between Tyrion and Dany? 

And does anyone think Jorah’s “perhaps our paths will cross again” sound entirely too foreboding for Sam?