#and then it turns around and goes so yeah heres this characters trauma revolving being a slave and the revolution that the entire plot has

[pierriots]

just found out the worst thing in the world and its that one piece is actually good

[beevean]

Man its just that the average nfcv fan vision of the belmonts is a human centipede. You grab the og belmonts, you kno the good hearted almost superhuman warriors who fought and killed Dracula time and time again, let nfcv turn them into regular vampire hunters that are framed as morally gray bc "muh poor vampires :(", and who are cynical jerks that don't do much of anything. And then you let the fandom bully them into the ground bc haha loser men and muh girlbosses.

And its kinda weird bc its also often making fun of them due to their traumas? Like yea maybe alcoholism due to losing your entire family at a young age isnt a joke you know. Or seeing your mother get killed in front of you as a child. Yes ofc you can make fun of dark stuff i'd be lynched as a hypocrite if i said you cant, but the way its done and how continuous it is... irrespectful? Like they dont respect the serious aspects of the character and legit think they suck for having horrible things happen to them? Im bad at gauging jokes like that but... yea (they just dont know how to bully fictional characters unlike us who throw Isaac off a 10 stories building everyday <3)

In any case, N! Trevor and N! Richter do not deserve that sort of treatment already, and much less their mainline counterparts :/

And regarding girlbosses, they way ppl need to put down their men to show how cool the girls are just, reeks of insecurity to me? Why does having a "loser dumb wife guy" makes her a girlboss? Why would a confident gal need a loser to take care of instead of a good partner were both compliment eachother's strong and weak points? Maybe im being a bit dramatic here, but it carries off a similar mentality to sexist guys that need to put down their gal's accomplishments to feel well Plus, the way how fandoms still revolve around said loser guys and how a lot of the times the writing itself makes the girlboss character a compliment or a motivation for the man without depth for herself makes it all feel performative. Just write a normal character with character traits who happens to be a woman ffs :/

It's incredible. NFCV alone feels like a shitty fanfiction, full of those fanfic tropes that would make me close immediately: flanderization, wimpification of "pretty" male characters, thirsting, juvenile wit, spotlight-stealing OCs, gratuituous sex and SA treated with the finesse of a charging hippo. Then you let the fandom fandomify this shitty fanfic even more, and the result is just a disaster, a kiddie pool of the most baffling misconceptions you could see.

Just to make one example, Trevor in the games is a noble but ruthless hunter, both friendly and fierce, fighting for mankind yet wanting respect yet gladly giving credit to his friends; in the show, he's a washed out Bojack Horseman-esque asshole, who despite his cynicism admittedly attempts to do the right thing when push comes to shove; and according to fandom he's pretty much a funny penis man with two braincells, Sypha and Alucard. the scene where he punches Dracula and he goes "you must be the Belmont" became a meme for a reason :^)

And yeah you're right that the fandom doesn't seem to. like the Belmonts much. But then again, they're acting like the show wants them to :) The writing doesn't take Trevor's alcoholism seriously, so they don't, alcoholism is a funny joke that makes people silly and just a tad pathetic (and it's not a serious addiction and symptom of larger problems no sir). Richter is a goofball who cries in a corny way, so it's easy to laugh at him - and that's when fans don't say that Julia deserved to die for being a "colonizer". Lenore is sexualized to hell and back, so the fans thirst for her and they think that Hector must thirst for her too, and look, wasn't her death so prettly tragic, maybe she was a good person after all!

The way fandoms treat girl characters nowadays is... barely an improvement over the 2000s when Amy would be called a slut for having a backless dress. Now it's all about how stronk and kewl and queens and girlbosses they are. And you can't criticize the writing of a female character because "just say you hate women 🙄", even when the said character is a female victim of abuse who was written by a molester as a smug radfem whose personality never goes beyond "i want to steal from men because men bad" *coughcoughcough*

The show itself is regressive when it comes to its female characters. They're all the damn same. They're either spunky sassy gals who put their men in their place, or evil but hot dommy mommies (Striga and Morana don't fit the mold because they're not characters). Most of them are magic users, even those who in the games were normal women. I will forever stand by my point that Annette did not need to be a metal bender, and if the writers truly cared, they could have fleshed out the skeleton provided by RoB. But they didn't. Because girl power!!! but only if you're conventionally "badass" and have a "strong" attitude.

[waspsarebetterthanbeesanyways]

Danny Phantom x Octopath Traveler, Danny is Therion AU. Big Octopath Traveler 1 spoilers ahead.

After reveal gone wrong, Danny goes into the Infinite Realms and gets yeeted into Orsterra via natural portal. The portal promptly closes, leaving him stranded. Danny isn’t doing the best physically — if this is one where Danny has Therion’s looks I figure he’d be stuck in ghost form with his powers shorted out, or something along those lines. Danny can’t read Orsterra’s language and he looks like a fucked up druggie when you can’t see his scars, so he’s not having any luck getting an honest job, and he’s just having a terrible time all around. So of course he turns to stealing to get by.

Eventually he gets arrested, gets thrown in the gaol, and meets Darius. Therion’s backstory happens ✨jazz hands✨. So when Darius yeets Danny!Therion off the cliff, he survives by having his powers reactivate at the last second.

For balancing purposes I figure I’d have his powers still be kind of chintzy still, like maybe he can’t use them without absorbing energy from other people (tying into Thief class skills.)

This still allows Danny!Therion to completely fuck with canon though.

Like in Chapter 1 Therion, Danny!Therion sees Heathcote and grabs the dragonstone and goes invisible and intangible and leaves. Heathcote and Cordelia are having aneurysms because their last Important Magical MacGuffin just fuckin poofed out of existence. Meanwhile Danny!Therion has no earthly clue why people keep trying to kill him, and wrongly assumes it’s because they know he’s a ghost.

I figure if canon needs to be kept intact, Danny!Therion could steal the Chapter 2 dragonstone on request of that one scholar dude (can’t remember name.) Alternatively, maybe Darius gets it and tracks down Danny!Therion for the one he’s got. I don’t know, I just want Danny!Therion to completely fuck with Darius. Like Darius tries to fondle Danny!Therion’s shoulder creepily like he does in canon but Danny!Therion goes intangible and puts on his most disturbing eldritch act. “You couldn’t kill what was already dead, Darius,” or, “Did you really never think I’d come back to haunt you?” And then he turns into a shadow with way to many teeth or something. I just want Darius to have nightmares about it for the rest of his life. The bitch deserves it.

Bonus points for Cyrus being completely convinced Danny!Therion is some sort of undead automaton and trying to figure out which of his traveling companions is an evil necromancer. Maybe Alfyn was the second character in the group and Cyrus hears that Danny!Therion helped Alfyn with the snake problem in Alfyn Chapter 1 and misinterprets that. Just, I definitely want Cyrus to think it’s Alfyn or Ophelia or Tressa i.e. one of the cinnamon rolls. On the angst side, we have Danny!Therion being dehumanized again, with an extra side dish of his scientist specific trauma!

And my last ideas revolve around the various ghosts Octopath Traveler could produce. Like, Primrose’s dad? The old King of Hornburg? Lots of options here. Maybe Orsterra’s gods are ghosts? So we get ghost fights for the advanced classes and maybe Danny!Therion meets Aelfric and is all like “oh yeah dude’s great” and just baffles and astounds Ophelia and the church crowd.

[erodasfishtacos]

harry adores yn with his entire being and i can tell that she loves him just as much but the poor thing is just so scared, and by what you have showed us she has a fair reason to have struggles

Through Hell and Back

warnings: cheating, mentions of domestic violence, this could just be overall triggering if you have experienced trauma or family struggles.

this is a very important blurb to understand dynamic and history of the characters.

PLEASE let me know your thoughts.

—

Harry’s out at a bachelor party for his friend, Jack, at a noisy bar downtown where there is a mechanical bull and half-naked waitresses.

His phone rings at two-thirty in the morning, he already knows who it is and why she’s calling him so late.

He steps outside the noisy bar, “Hi puppy, y’alright?”

Harry already knew she wasn’t.

Her voice is shaky, “Er, are you still out at the bachelor party?”

If he says yes, she’ll just try to say have fun and was just calling to check in - a lie because she felt like such an inconvenience at all times.

“No, just got home,” He lied smoothly, he could hear her trying to hide a sniffle - she must have had a bad dream.

Every since she started trauma therapy, they’d been getting worse, as she worked through her struggles with a therapist.

—

“I-I don’t want to g-go in,” YN whimpers as she sits in Harry’s passenger side outside the clinic, “I can’t talk about it.”

“Baby, you need to do this. You need to talk to someone who’s trained to help you, okay? You promised you’d try it f’me,” He hums, rubbing a thumb over her wet cheekbone.

She shakes her head stubbornly, “It’s all going to come back.”

“Yes, it will. Because you didn’t work through it, you repressed it. There is a difference, okay?” Harry’s heart feels like it’s being ripped in two as YN looks like a caged animal.

YN squeezes Harry’s hand so hard it hurts but he doesn’t mind, he can feel her fear being shared through the rough touch.

She wipes her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater, “Please, H. I don’t want to remember.”

He sighs softly, “I would never force you to do something you don’t want to do. If you really want to leave, we can.”

YN searches his eyes, sees his sadness and she knows she has to push through because she loves him so much, “Will you walk me in?”

“Of course, s’fucking proud of you. My strong girl,” Harry praises, kissing the top of her head, and shutting off the car.

He walks her in, watches her as she hesitantly goes back in with her new therapist, and sits in the waiting room for the hour and a half until she comes out.

He does that every week without miss.

Drives her, walks her in, sits in the waiting room, and then drives her home.

She doesn’t usually talk much after the sessions, her eyes swollen and puffy which is a telltale sign she cried during the appointment.

Harry holds her hand on the ride home, sometimes draws her a bath or tucks her in for a nap under his covers.

One day, after therapy, they crawled into his bed together. She hadn’t said one word since she walked out of the office but she looks tiredly at Harry.

“Why?”

Harry frowns, “Why what?”

She hides her face into the fluffy pillow, words mumbled, “Why do you want me? I’m so broken.”

“Hey,” Harry responds loudly, pulling her up and giving her a serious look, “You are not broken. Even if you were, I’d love every broken piece, okay? I want you because I’m so in love with you it doesn’t make sense.”

YN shakes her head, “I don’t deserve you. You-you have to drive me to therapy every week, leave work early, have to make it up the next day.”

And well, his heart breaks a little because she truly believes that.

Harry grips her jaw, gently, “If you need to go to therapy for the rest of your life, I’ll drive you until I’m ninety. I’ll drive you five days a week if you need it.”

He continues,“I don’t deserve you, sweet girl. Strongest, bravest, most resilient person I’ve ever met. You are my soulmate and I believe that wholeheartedly.”

“I want to nap now,” She whispers, crawling back into her shell where she’s safe from the world, from facing her fears.

Harry just stares at her, the girl he’s had a crush on since fourth grade, the girl he’d been in love with since ninth.

When she felt broken, well so did he.

—

“Mum, I want to do more for her,” Harry cries to his mother one night at dinner after school.

“I know you do, Harry. There is only so much you can do. She has parents tha-“

“Those aren’t parents, mum! You know that!” He shouts angrily, “I need to do more for her. Help her!”

Anne looks at him with a soft, understanding expression, “You’re doing all you can, Harry.”

—

He was still doing all he can.

“I wa-was wondering if you wanted to come over and watch a movie?” YN acts casual despite the tremor but he won’t call her on it - on the phone at least.

“I’d love to pup, I’ll be over on a tick,” already walking away from the busy bar.

Harry can hear the relief in her voice when she says, “Okay, I’ll see you soon.”

When he uses his key to open the door, she sat on her couch with all the lights in the house on, not one off.

“Oh, pet,” Harry murmurs, all the blinds were drawn shut and he knew she’d already triple checked that the windows were locked - despite the state of the art security system he had installed for her.

“Um, so are we feeling a scary movie or romcom?” She ignores his words, picking up the remote, and pulling up Netflix.

He flicks a couple of the bright lights off until it’s normal dim and he sits next to her on the couch, taking the remote and turning off the television.

“Talk t’me,” Harry coaxes, unraveling her from the heavy weighted blanket, and tugging her into his chest.

“M’fine,” YN lies on a choked whimper.

“Y’safe, you know I’d never let anythin’ happen to you . Please puppy, tell me,” He’s not to manly to beg for her to open up.

He allows her to nuzzle her face into his neck, “He cam-came back an-and he -,” her voice drops, “broke in here and I wo-woke up as he was opening my door.”

Harry holds her for a very long time that night.

-

With Harry and her therapist’s constant encouragement she’d been able to be more open and up front with Harry - which made him feel unexaplainably proud of her.

Anna almost fucked everything up, all the hard work without even realizing it.

It was nearly three in the morning this time.

Harry was stuck at Anna’s house with her and her friends for a movie night.

He’d gotten up to go to the bathroom when his phone rings.

Anna sees who it is and picks it up, “What do you want? Harry’s busy and doesn’t have time for you right now. You know it’s not all about you, right?”

Then she hangs up, all of her and her friends giggling at how she just treated YN.

Harry is unaware of the call for a few minutes when he gets back until he gets a text from YN.

I’m sorry I bothered you. I am okay. Have fun tonight x

He scrolls through his phone in confusion until he sees the call, he glares over at Anna, “Did you answer my phone?”

She has a cocky look on her face, “Yeah, I told YN that the world doesn’t revolve around her and to leave us alone.”

All the friends are giggling - but that comes to an abrupt halt when Harry stands up, knocking over the little table of drinks with his anger, “Where the fuck did you get the idea that you could touch my phone, let alone answer it?”

All of them are quiet.

He scoffs, “Now all you annoying prats are going shut up? Get the fuck out of my way,” he orders to Anna who’s pouting.

“C’mon, it was a joke. Don’t leave,” She whines, grabbing at Harry’s arm which he instantly rips out of her grip.

“Don’t touch me. I can’t fuckin’ stand you,” He tells her honestly before storming out of her house without a look back at her teary face.

-

When he arrives at YN’s house, a book is automatically been hurled at the front door when he opens it, then another.

“Hey, puppy, stop tha’. S’just me, you’re okay. S’just me,” He coos, rearming the security system to make her feel better.

She is only in one of his shirts with the company logo on it and soft cotton boy shorts, hair frizzy atop her head.

“Y’have another nightmare?” Harry asks softly, all the lights were on again, every single one.

YN clenches her jaw, “No.”

He hardens his expression too, “I was in the bathroom when she answered that call. As soon as I found out, I came over here. Don’t be sour with me.”

“I didn’t have a nightmare.”

“I know y’bloody lying because your legs are still tremblin’. Now cut the bullshit and talk t’me, we’re not going backwards,” Harry tells her seriously, with all firmness he can muster.

“I love you.”

It takes him aback. YN told him how much she adored him but it was something that didn’t come easy for her.

To hear it flat out, well….he nearly almost melted on the floor into a pile of goop.

“I love you too, puppy.”

She takes a deep breathe, “It’s been that same nightmare, but it’s not really a nightmare? It’s a flashback to…”

YN swallows before she continues, “Remember when….when I ran from my parent’s house to yours and my dad came and found me…”

Harry doesn’t want to remember but he does.

—-

“Harry, he-he just pulled up,” YN cries, peeking out his window, “I don’t want to go home.”

“Harry, he’s screaming at your mum. I have to go.”

“Harry, I have to go before he does something stupid. I’ll be okay, I promise.”

“Harry, don’t cry. I’ll be fine, he’s just really upset. I’ll just deal with it and it will be over before we know it, okay?”

——

“I remember,” He wavers like he normally doesn’t, feeling like a helpless sixteen year old again.

It was moments like this were no matter how hard he wanted to be angry or scream at her for making their relationship so difficult, that he couldn’t be.

How could he blame her for her commitment issues?

Why she struggles to trust?

Why she never feels good enough?

“I’m sorry to bring that up-“

“Do not apologize,” Harry interrupts, “I want to know everything you experience or feel no matter how traumatic or upsetting.”

YN despite her own struggles, when she heard Harry say things like that…well she knew full heartedly that he loves her with no conditions.

She knew this was so hard on him, “I am so in love with you, H.”

His eyes automatically soften and he reacts like he’s being praised. His face lights up without him even knowing it does.

“I’ve been in love with you since I was sixteen, thank you for being my person. I appreciate everything you do for me.”

It was something she had been also working on in therapy, expressing gratitude- specifically to Harry.

And it works because Harry actually starts tearing up, eyes watering with emotion, “I love you. I’d walk through hell and back for you.”

He would and he has.

[the-ghost-king]

About the cupid scene, Nico was forced to come out, but its also made very clear that Cupid is the bad guy. So is Aphrodite to an extent. They have a twisted and fundamental misunderstanding of love and how it works for mortals. I get that people could be mad about how Nico was forced to come out and putting him through more emotional trauma, but I also think its very realistic in showing how callous and cruel the gods understanding of love is.

I am reminded of the quote by Madeline Miller, "There is no law that gods must be fair..."

I also understand why the scene might be traumatic for other young LGBTQ+ readers, I've seen a lot of people talk about the fear of being outed in regards to them reading that scene as a kid. I completely respect their feelings on that, and I understand that as well. However, as someone who had been forcibly outed once before reading that scene, that scene really helped heal me. I don't think the Cupid scene is inherently homophobic, and I'm often bothered by the lack of nuance regarding around how it's handled.

I recognize it's a very emotional scene, and that people may have a hard time fully separating their emotions from that scene, but at the same time if there's a group of people saying "hey I understand why you disliked this scene but it was really helpful to me as a child because of the different experiences I had" maybe slow the breaks and hear what others also in the community have to say before determining if the scene is homophobic. You don't have to like the scene, and yeah maybe the scene did hurt you but that doesn't make it homophobic.

I want to specify on my word choice there a little closer, because of course outing someone is an act of homophobia, and the scene is homophobic in that sense. However often times the conversation about homophobia in this scene goes to "Rick was homophobic for writing this" where personally I would say this scene toes the line at being too far without ever crossing it. Some people may think this depiction crosses the line into "Rick was homophobic for writing this" which is fine, but just because something depicted homophobia and hurt you doesn't mean it was homophobic. Something doesn't have to out rightly be stated to be bad, in order to be read as bad*, and the Cupid scene does a wonderful job of depicting this.

I talk here about how Nico is shown what love is, and how love is treated by Nico, and how it affects his character. I think it's important to note that Nico's entire storyline can essentially be encompassed in an Orpheus-like or Odyssey-like tale. Nico's undergone this huge emotional and physical labor all in the name of having some form of unconditional love. I think that post is a really important read in the context of this one because I very carefully outline how love shapes Nico and how Nico shape and chooses his own definition of love, but I want to specifically dig into the Cupid scene on this post.

The big criticism often seen is "it's homophobic" which I covered above, and I want to clarify I'm not upset with or mad at or trying to tell anyone they can't dislike it or even say you can't say it's homophobic (my words on my one post are a bit off I'll admit) but the problem I have is when people believe they hold a moral high ground for thinking it's homophobic, or they remove all nuance from the discussion with "it's homophobic". Which is frustrating and annoying because it's a very complex scene, and it really changes Nico's arc and personality and it does help characterize him.

The big reason it shapes him so much is because of the other largest reason the scene is criticized, Cupid's behavior. What often fails to be recognized in those scenes is that Cupid is intentionally painted as the villain, this is very important to the scene.

In the context of this scene Nico makes an unspoken choice, a choice of "what is love to me?". I talk about how Nico claims his narrative in BoTL when he overcomes Minos, and he partially peaks that arc by convincing Gods to join the final battle of TLO. Following that arc however, Nico falls into his second arc, his crush on Percy was important in PJO, but not as important as it is in HoO.

By HoO Nico's entire character revolves around Percy, how to help Percy, how to aid Percy, etc. All of this has to do with Nico's crush on Percy, but also as an act of repayment because Nico hurt Percy- Nico lied to him about knowing him at New Rome in SoN, and he goes to Tartarus shortly after... This mirrors what Percy did after Hades tricked Nico... Percy choked Nico because he was upset with him, so Nico tried to win back Percy's affection by bathing him in the river.

The Cupid Scene is the resolution of Nico's arc, he is essentially given a choice- Cupid or Jason?

For this reason, we do see Nico recognize love for what it has been vs how it could be.

Cupid is there to represent what love is, to Nico love is brutal, and painful, and a lot of hard work... Nico has made himself utilitarian in love simply because it is the only way he can find any affection. Love to Nico is about flaying yourself for the benefit of others, to trample any and all parts of yourself simply to appease those you care for, because you want them to love you so much as you love them. The parallels I could draw between Nico and Orpheus, or Nico and Odysseus... I'd be here a long while...

In that scene Jason represents the alternative form of love which Nico chooses after his interaction with Cupid.

Jason says during the scene that he "preferred Piper's idea of love" which has to do with kindness and caring, etc, and then Jason becomes the embodiment of that idea during the scene- which showcases the alternative of what love can be, thus making Jason a personification of love in the context of that scene.

Jason looks to Nico, he doesn't ask for more, he simply looks to Nico with understanding and acknowledges him for who he is, and he does the exact opposite of what Nico expects:

Jason loves Nico where he is, without conditions, without forcing Nico to become something more. Jason didn’t force Nico to say more than what was necessary for him to understand, Jason looked at Nico and he called Nico brave.

Cupid is a more volatile form of love than Aphrodite, Cupid shoots arrows that makes people animals, that can make a god grow insane, but Aphrodite's form of love is about acceptance and humanity (think to how she picked Ares over Hephaestus even if it was perhaps "wrong")- both are about truth but one is about force and the other about acceptance.

When Nico walks out of there, he makes his choice- he is forced to come out yes, Cupid is wrong for doing this, but Jason again stays a figure of love in Nico's life. Jason basically says, "Good job, I know that was hard, thank you for sharing and let me know if you need anything, people will care about you and understand you," again and again and again to Nico, he doesn't tell Nico he has to come out, and he agrees to keep it between them for now. Jason is love as acceptance, Jason is the first person who unconditionally loves Nico, and that's the choice.

Will Nico accept unconditional love? If the answer is no, then Cupid wins and Nico is denying himself. If the answer is yes, then Jason and Nico win, and Nico no longer needs to make himself utilitarian in love in order to be loved.

The choice is made with Reyna and Hedge, most specifically Reyna.

When he accidentally comes out to them, and they accept him without making a big deal of it, without show, just that acknowledgement and "thank you for sharing" and Nico accepts their words and friendship still- Nico made his choice then to accept the love he was being freely given.

“He carried so much sadness and loneliness, so much heartache. Yet he put his mission first. He persevered. Reyna respected that. She understood that. She'd never been a touchy-feely person, but she had the strangest desire to drape her cloak over Nico's shoulders and tuck him in. She mentally chided herself. He was a comrade, not her little brother. He wouldn't appreciate the gesture.”

This is where we see the slow and steady, and healthy, end to Nico's arc in regards to love really grow into itself, and he begins to heal. He no longer sees such an intense need to make himself utilitarian for love, and he begins to heal from his internalized homophobia too.

(Internalized homophobia discussions with Nico also bother me too often times, people too often assume you can't date while struggling with internalized homophobia or at least very heavy handedly imply that which is just not true... You may have some issues in your relationship, but you can work through the internalized homophobia while building a new relationship and be just fine. Also to assume someone has an unhealthy relationship because of internalized homophobia is weird and lowkey reinforces the idea that "broken" people don't need love, but also does a huge disservice to so many LGBTQ+ people who are happily married/themselves but still struggle with these feelings, and to see a healthy relationship depiction despite someone in that relationship struggling with internalized homophobia is fine and good actually. As long as the individual can recognize what they're dealing with, and work through it in a healthy and constructive manner, then there's nothing wrong there...)

When I started this post to be honest I thought I would have a lot more to say, it's a scene that touched and changed me so deeply as a person, and beyond that in a more objective experience it completely changes Nico's character, by turning his arc around and beginning his healing process. To be honest, there probably is more to be said on it, I just haven't found the words yet... I know parts of this post are clunky and in a year I'm going to read this and see all the places it could be better but for now I'm content with it.

Whether or not someone considers the scene homophobic is a subjective experience, but I think this is a very well written scene purely for the characterization and symbolism, intentional or otherwise. I don't really care that much to debate if it's truly a homophobic scene or not, I can see both why people say it is and why people say it isn't and that can be culminated into "people have different needs" and "minorities aren't a monolith". Personally my much larger complaint is the complete lack of nuance and insight scenes like this are handled with, not the matter of personal opinion an individual reaches on the scene.

*the post uses the word "adult audience" and yes, fair point, children should not be able to decipher symbolism to the extent adults can. But older children and young teens, which the RRverse series are sold for, is when critical thinking skills and media analysis do begin to become parts of classroom curriculum. The scene does an excellent job of not outright stating Cupid is evil, but of depicting that in a very clear cut way.

[getoutofmyjaneway]

Beta Cannon: the Pre Voyager Era of Kathryn Janeway | Mosaic v The Autobiography of Kathryn Janeway

This weekend, I got a copy of the Autobiography of Kathryn Janeway from a local book store. For how frequently we speak about Mosaic in the community (despite having some flaws) I was shocked that I had not heard a lot about this book and assumed it was a bad thing. And yeah in some regards it was (see @mia-cooper’s post on the subject). I have a lot of feelings (I’ll post a proper review at a later point) but one thing that did stick out to me is the divergence from what we have considered Beta Canon, aka, the extended universe of Star Treks told through novels, short stories, video games, etc. After completing the novel, I jumped right into my old standby copy of Mosaic, which has dictated a lot of Janeway’s back story since 96. Both of these novels cover the beginnings of Janeway’s life and how she was shaped into the woman we know. 

TLDR The Autobiography of Kathryn Janeway changes a lot of things for no reason. Some of these are for the good. Some for the bad. And some, for like no good reason at all, like it was fine as it was, and was accepted cannon for like 25 years, but sure fine whatever.

I will mention that, as Mosaic has been a book in my library and I have read it too many times, so of course, I do have a bias toward it. Additionally, I feel like it is fair to mention here that authors of Fanfiction have leaned on this as their bibles since 1996 as Mosaic is written by Jeri Taylor, one of the show-runners for Voyager. Because of its connection with a showrunner, Mosaic is also integrated into the canon of the show. It seems that most points that are taken from Mosaic in the Autobiography are only included because of their existence in cannon material.

Anyway, this review is going to focus on the characters that shape Kathryn and I will end with my final thoughts. This is long so to respect your dash, you are going to have to click keep reading. You’re welcome.

Obligatory Spoiler Warning for ALL of Mosaic, chapter 13 of Pathways, and chapters 1-7 of The Autobiography of Kathryn Janeway

Edward Janeway

In all media, I feel like we can safely say that Kathryn Janeway is in fact a daddy’s girl. Her relationship with her father is very important to her, so it is interesting to see how it is portrayed very differently in both novels. In Mosaic, a lot of the highlights of Janeway’s earlier years revolve around time spent with him. From giving her special attention after ‘Your Sister’ was born, to consoling her after her losing tennis match and subsequent walk home in the rain, and trips to Mars, Kathryn mentions great fondness of quality time spent. In the Autobiography of Kathryn Janeway he is more described as an absent father, one that she always wanted to see and please. When he was home, she wanted all of his attention and to impress him greatly. She wished to follow in his footsteps after gaining a love of flight and the stars with a plane ride and a telescope he gave her. He tried to prepare her by detaining the events of the current conflict with Cardassia and inviting Starfleet brass over for dinner. Overall, in her early childhood, it makes more sense for Edward to not be around often. There is not a lot of conflict between the sources, other than the details of the aforementioned tennis match and different childhood nicknames.  

Edward is in a crash aboard an experimental ship on Tau Ceti Prime which leads to his death. This is where the big differences begin. In Mosaic, Kathryn and her fiancé are also on board. In  Autobiography of Kathryn Janeway, Kathryn is still on the Al-Batani. The fall out of this event has a great effect on Kathryn of course in both novels. As this is a missive shaping event of Kathryn’s life, I felt it very jarring to be changed. This moment shaped Janeway and gives us good context for why she handles situations the way she does. I see this trauma and I understand her character better, for dealing with the loss of two of the most important people in her life all at once.

Gretchen Janeway

The Autobiography of Kathryn Janeway was good to Gretchen Janeway as her character is basically a blank slate. We know little about her from Mosaic as it mostly focuses on Kathryn’s relationship with her father (and other male influences in her life). It is nice to learn more things about Grechen as with Edward’s job, it is likely that Kathryn was mainly raised by her. Other than being an artist, she also wrote some of the Flotter holos and wrote a number of children’s stories about the people of Bajor during the occupation. She does a lot of humanitarian work with the refugees from Bajor during the occupation. She loves to garden and get her daughters involved. She has a close bond with Phoebe due to their overlapping interests, but you can tell that she strives to support her in what she does. Overall, I like getting know Gretchen to be someone of than Kathryn’s mother.

Phoebe Janeway

 I was shocked when researching Memory Alpha for this review, Phoebe is never named in any Cannon media up to this point (Star Trek Prodigy could very well change this). We know Janeway has a sister and she is an artist, but that is it. Both novels keep her very similar personality-wise. In both stories, Kathryn is not looking forward to being a big sister. They also both mourn the loss of their father together. In Mosaic, she is not mentioned much. Kathryn tells her she is not old enough on an off planet trip and Phoebe plays pranks on her. The Autobiography of Kathryn Janeway goes much more into depth. They don’t get along when they are younger. They fight a lot. I feel this is a very realistic portrayal of real siblings, vying for attention and approval, snapping when they don’t get their way.  They both excel at what they do, Kathryn in her studies and Phoebe through her art. They seem to need to one-up each other at every turn.  As they grow up, they grow closer together, as many siblings do. Points added for giving Phoebe a wife, something which has been included in a lot of fanfiction. Overall, there are no big conflicting points.

Mark Johnson

Kathryn’s fiance at the time of the Voyager’s disappearance, Mark is a very different part of Kathryn’s life in both novels. In Mosaic, he is a childhood friend and went by his middle name Hobbs. Seemingly always two steps behind Kathryn, he did a lot of the same activities that she did, tennis and swimming in the underground cave systems. He did these poorly, and this makes Kathryn always look down upon him. They reconnected after her father’s death and she fell head-over-heels for him. Personally, I always felt this was a little uncharacteristic of Kathryn, to run away from her responsibilities to be with a man. It just seems very out of character and has always bothered me. The  Autobiography of Kathryn Janeway takes a completely different approach. She meets Mark as a friend of Pheobe and her wife as a widower. They hit it off and they fall hard. You can see the conflict in Kathryn as she debates how to move forward with a relationship as they have different outlooks on life. She has a drive to explore but does not want to be an absent parent. She debates quitting, which I don’t think is something Janeway would have ever done. Overall she decides to accept Mark’s proposal just before taking command of Voyager. This makes the Dear John situation a lot more believable as it makes sense that he would want to move on with his life much quicker. Overall, I have to just ask, why? I know Mark doesn’t have a lot of character, but why change basically their whole relationship dynamic? 

Justin Tighe

Justin is a character I actually like for selfish reasons. This explains why I was very miffed that he was nowhere to be seen in the Autobiography of Kathryn Janeway. Justin is Kathryn’s first love, they were coworkers, engaged and in love, and dies in the same accident that takes her father. As a person who always wanted Chakotay and Janeway to get together, this incident perfectly gives the reason. She is afraid to get romantically involved with a crew member because of the nature of the job. This dynamic is seen between Picard and Nella Daren in TNG very well. Kathryn has learned the hard way that she can lose a person under her command and how it feels when you are in love with that person. In early Voyager, you can see she isolates herself from the crew and it takes time for her to get comfortable. And during Night she relapses to her old ways. This is the way I have always justified Janeway’s reluctance to have a romantic relationship during their time in the Delta Quadrant. By understanding her background, I have a lot of respect for that choice. Her relationship with Justin really shaped how she handles relationships and without the impact he had on her life, it actually makes her character weaker.

Owen Paris

Owen is Kathryn’s mentor. In Mosaic, they meet as he is reviewing her junior honors thesis advisor on massive compact halo objects. From here they gained a relationship built on respect and learning. It makes sense that, as he was her personal mentor, that she would be close with his family, and why she would seek out Tom as a person to bring with her to the Badlands mission. In the Autobiography of Kathryn Janeway, she does not meet him until she is on the Al-Batani. This doesn’t only weaken her relationship with Admiral Paris, but moreover weakens her relationship with Tom. If he was her superior officer, why would she develop such a ‘big sister’ mentality to Tom if she didn’t have as many opportunities to meet him?

Tuvok

Mosaic does not go too much in depth with Tuvok and Janeway’s relationship, but its sister novel Pathways does. In Pathways, Tuvok meets Janeway when he is an ensign under her command of the USS Bonestell. The Bonestell and the Billings, two ships that Janeway served on, tend to get confused a lot. Most sources have Janeway’s first command as the Voyager, Including Voyager itself -  “It doesn't seem like my first command is shaping up the way I expected,” Janeway Shattered. The Autobiography of Kathryn Janeway has her and Tuvok meet on the Al-Batani. I actually really like the dynamic between them, as they grow to respect each other over a much longer period of time. I also like that, though Janeway climbs through the ranks, it does not change their relationship dynamic as she still relies on him and asks him advice as if they were equals. I think giving them a longer time to build their relationship. Also would like to note that Janeway and Tuvok also had a friendship with the original CMO of Voyager, Dr. Fitzgerald. I always wanted to know more about the Pre-Caretaker crew and I would have loved to see this dynamic and how the grief of losing a close personal friend in the Caretaker incident would impact them both.

Also I feel obligated to shout out the Janeway and Tuvok story in Star Trek Waypoint One-Shot. I need to get around to doing a series retrospective, but this short story I have not seen anyone talk about and I love it so much. Please read Waypoint. Okay next.

Other characters

Cheb - Janeway’s boyfriend in Mosaic. He was kind of an asshole and got her into trouble. He is not in the Autobiography of Kathryn Janeway and I see no problem with this.

Boothby - “[he is the] head groundskeeper at Starfleet Academy. When I was a cadet, he used to give me fresh roses for my quarters,” Janeway Revulsion. Boothby is not in Mosaic. In the Autobiography of Kathryn Janeway, it is explained that her mother loved to garden and this was something that Boothby did as a gradian figure to make her feel at home and destress. Makes sense.

Aisha - A childhood friend of Katheryn’s. Only in the Autobiography of Kathryn Janeway. Mosaic has this weird thing about highlighting the relationships with only the men in her life, so it is nice to see her have some other female friends.

Nexa - Katheryn’s roommate at the Academy.  Only in the Autobiography of Kathryn Janeway. Nexa helps broaden Kathryn’s horizons by helping to learn about Exoliguisticts, first contact, and the Betazoid culture. Again nice to see her have other female friends.

Riker - Yes they go on a date in Mosaic. He is not mentioned in the  Autobiography of Kathryn Janeway. I know he is a gag character but I still liked it.

-----------------------

Final Thoughts

A lot of characters were changed between these two novels. There is a lot to like and a lot to hate. I really like what the Autobiography of Kathryn Janeway did with characters like Tuvok and Gretchen Janeway. Other characters were not so lucky (Justin, sweetie I’m so sorry that they would erase you like that, oh my god). It’s a mixed bag, but one thing I need say is... why?

We have had a good thing going here with the established canon as is. Mosaic (and Pathways) is the foundation of which the last 25 years of fanworks and the relaunch novels are based on. Why change history when it is already written?

Always, would love to hear your thoughts and thank you for reading my novel of a post. I will see you in the full review.

[memoriashell]

with age comes wisdom ( or at the very least, entirely unneccessary celebrations )

Characters /  Pairing: Fukawa Touko / Naegi Komaru ( focused ), Syo / Komaru, Warriors of Hope

crossposted on ao3

Notes: happy @tokomaruweek week everyone!! i love these funky wlw so i am going to try and have some stuff up this week, but i probably won’t manage to do the whole week / i'll go back to do the ones i miss afterwards? we’ll see.

for today i decided to combine the birthdays + warriors of hope prompts.

i’m also just ignoring canon’s timeline bc god knows i did not want to figure out that bs sorry dr3 ily but i dont love you that much just know it is somewhere post sdr2 / pre dr3 probably?

i also use they/them for syo ( nonbinary hc ) and while there aren’t any specific trauma mentions, given the group of characters this revolves around, there’s refrences to the fact they have shit lives. and some lighthearted murder jokes and self-deprication?

Summary: nothing says happy birthday quite like babysitting her ( favorite ) group of brats

It’s just her luck that this would happen— a coincidence for sure, but that doesn’t make Touko any happier about the whole thing.

This is the situation: they don’t usually see the ( former ) Warriors of Hope much. The kids stay on their side of Towa, and her and Komaru tend to stick closer to the adults. The adults are the ones that need to be kept under supervision, in her opinion. Not that the kids are blameless, but is there much reasoning with brainwashed kids? No. Of course not. Are the adults also practically brainwashed and hard to reason with. Yes. Would this all be easier if Future Foundation was involved? Yes. Yes it would, but for obvious reasons they are not ( they have all agreed to omit some information from public record for the sake of those involved, and right now Naegi’s stunt with the Remnants have Future Foundation’s attention away from them ).

Sometimes Komaru takes some of the things that they get over to the kids because things are rough enough as it is, and Syo will go with her because they can keep the Monokuma off their tracks better. Or you know, because Syo is generally more helpful to Komaru when it comes to things like that. She’s not jealous.

Allegedly— Touko does not know this for a fact herself since she hadn’t been fronting, and only learns this second hand while she is in the middle of typing up a report to send back to the foundation— Kotoko is the one to bring it up, casually handing off some of her share of the cookies Komaru had made for them, to Jataro. An early birthday present, she had said ( pointedly ignoring Nagisa, who’d pointed out she had given Jataro the ones he hated ), before turning to Komaru to ask if they could throw a party. A small one. With no murder, because that would be ‘totally not adorbs’. And no adults, because they stink ( it goes unsaid that Komaru and Touko themselves are the clear exception to this rule, which is some kind of progress, supposedly ).

That seemed like a fairly reasonable request, according to Komaru, who’s only response was to ask when his birthday was. And then accidentally lets it slip that hey, that’s the week that Touko-chan’s birthday is! And that’s how Touko finds out that apparently, she’s having a joint birthday party with the kids because Masaru managed to turn a party into a competition, somehow? Touko has no clue what that actually entails, because Komaru refuses to elaborate.

( Also, at one point before leaving, Komaru had tried asking Jataro if there was anything she could get him; to which he’d remarked, “A new mask?”

...Yeah, Touko can’t blame her for not knowing what to say to that, even if Komaru had spun it as not the most self-deprecating thing he could have said, which was an improvement? She personally disagrees, but whatever )

Here, she should point out the obvious fact that she does not want to really celebrate her birthday, let alone have a party for it. Because those kind of things lean so far into the zone of things Touko doesn’t really know how to handle, that it makes her close to uncomfortable. And if— if she had humored herself in imagining how she would ideally spend her birthday this year; quite frankly, it would be very quiet and boring and only with Komaru. Not with a group of ten year olds. Ten year olds that she might think of rather fondly, but ten year old brats all the same.

( It’s not like she has any alive friends: if Touko acknowledges the other survivors, justifiably they are too busy with more important matters to fuss over a birthday. They aren’t kids anymore. Some of them hadn’t ever really been like normal kids to begin with, but that’s besides the point )

“Look at the bright side,” She starts, and she bites back a snide what bright side and remark about how that’s all Komaru’s good at ( it’s not. She’s more talented than she gives herself credit for ). “None of you probably have really positive memories when it comes to birthdays or parties, so even if it isn’t the greatest, at least the bar to please should be pretty easy to clear!”

Touko thinks she probably gets the point she is trying to make here, but Komaru’s complete and utter lack of tact doesn’t make for the best delivery. “Are you trying to...to make me feel bad? S-So sorry my life was complete sh-shit growing up.”

“No! That’s not what I meant at all!” Komaru pouts at her. “Does that mean you’re not interested in having a party?”

It’s not like she’s so cold-hearted and selfish that she’s going to say no to that. Well, no, that’s not quite true, Touko might be just that; but it doesn’t really matter either way, because Komaru gives her best kicked dog impression, so she says ( a less than enthusiastic ) no, she doesn’t mind, yes you can have a party; even if she thinks she’ll probably regret that choice.

Okay, if you are to be honest with herself, some part of Touko that never got to be a normal child doesn’t entirely mind the thought of a party, even if it’s...not the most ideal scenario, the impractical fantasy situation that lives in her head. But if she says that aloud, Komaru will either take it too seriously, use it as an excuse to celebrate things more often, or something else that probably has consequences that she doesn’t want to think about. And also admittedly because if she says it aloud, she has to acknowledge it, and maybe she doesn't want to get her hopes up over something as stupid as a party.

( There’s also the fact that, deep in her extremely repressed memories of Hope’s Peak before the tragedy, she does remember parties. Birthdays. Celebrating things with her classmates, if somewhat forcibly so. She has no desire to remember those things, so those feelings remain repressed with most of her trauma )

It’s easy to not acknowledge any of that when she has to deal with the sudden onslaught of a headache that is Syo forcing themselves into their shared headspace, hand rubbing at her temples. Not trying to co-front, she can tell they aren’t trying to snatch control from her ( for now ), just forcing her to pay attention to them. It works, even though Touko has told them to not do this specifically because of how irritating it is for her.

I could scare the kids into cooperating? It’ll save us a headache and a half! Syo offers, maybe too eagerly. Their ideas of scare and cooperate are probably different from her own. Still. She also knows Syo is aware of more than they are letting on, given that they had been present when this conversation had occurred, but she doesn’t think she’ll get much out of them in that regard.

No. Touko tells them firmly. It’ll be counterproductive, Komaru won’t let you do that, and they’re all traumatized enough without you adding to that.

Boo, you sure about that? Consider it a birthday gift from me!

No. She repeats herself sternly, and she feels them withdraw a bit after that. Ugh, Syo hasn’t had a chance to front much recently, now that she thinks about it. Since they usually only take over when she’s in danger, and she hasn’t really been in ( as much ) danger now that things are starting to calm down. Well, relatively speaking. Syo is probably just looking for an excuse to be allowed to front, since it’s probably rough going from being very present to rarely getting the chance to be out: akin to going cold turkey on an addiction. That’s not exactly her fault ( or theirs ), but maybe she’ll ask Komaru if she’d be okay with hanging out with Syo more, if only to placate them a little, before they try something more drastic.

“Everything okay? That was Syo, right?” She hears Komaru ask after a few minutes, and Touko rubs her eyes and blinks. “You looked a little frustrated.”

She considers telling her the truth, but no point in getting her concerned over nothing. She’d like to figure out what she wants to negotiate with Syo firstm so she’ll leave that conversation for another time. “Fine. They just...ugh, just wanted to make sure I was okay with it.”

“And you are okay with it, right? You aren’t agreeing just because I asked?” Touko thinks she begged more than she asked, but she’s pretty sure Komaru will only sulk if she brings that up.

“I wouldn’t let you if, if I was really opposed to it.” Probably. She...trusted Komaru, or something like that, so she figures she’d probably be more honest with herself and not mentally torture herself by putting herself through something she has no interest in. “But...what are you even planning on doing to celebrate? I can’t im-imagine we’ve really got much around here that we can use for a party.”

“Ah. Uhm.” Komaru looks a little embarrassed at that. “About that. I was kind of hoping you and Syo might help pitch in. You don’t mind, right?”

You’re hopeless, she wants to mutter, but—

Yeah!!!! Syo wakes right back up upon being mentioned, no sense of self awareness at all, much to your annoyance, but it’s not like you completely disagree with the feeling that is shared between you two.

“You— You really bit off more than you could chew, hm...? Good thing this wasn’t supposed t-t-to be a surprise.” She quips, leaning over to peer at the paper she’d been making her notes on. “We’ll help, just tell us what we...what we need to do.”

“Thank you, Touko-chan! And Syo too!” Komaru sounds somewhere mixed between grateful and relieved, and casually plants a kiss on her cheek as if it’s no big deal—

She said my name last, so the kiss was for me! She knows Syo is intentionally trying to provoke her and get a rise out of her ( yeah, a rising sense of jealousy ), but puts that aside for the time being because Komaru’s blabbering on like nothing happened.

“I know we probably won’t have the whole day to ourselves to do whatever—” Correctomundo, Dekomaru! “— but I’ll make it up to you on your birthday, okay? We’ll do something that you want.”

“You don't...there’s no need for that.” She forces out between gritted teeth, trying to ignore the flustered feeling in the pit of her stomach, chewing around a fingernail ( what an unattractive sight to follow that ). “Because— ugh, don’t repeat th-this, okay? What I want to do is spend time with...with you. That’s all. So don’t go...you don’t need to go out of your way trying to do s-s-something over the top. Stick to being normal.”

“Really? You’re sure?” Komaru sounds a little uncertain, but happy enough to pull her into a hug, despite her grumbled complaint. “Oh, but Syo has their own birthday, don’t they? So I should probably ask them what they want as well, right?”

“Don’t make me repeat m-myself. It’s embarrassing...” Touko huffs, but lets herself be held against her side, just for a moment. It’s nice, though she won’t admit it ( it is better than any real gift that she could receive ). Syo is kind enough to back off long enough to let her have this moment. “You can ask them later— focus on, on what you need to plan.”

By something short of a miracle, they are able to pull together a party that is not a complete disaster, even if Komaru probably has a point when she says the bar to clear is a pretty low standard for all parties involved. The closest she has to an actual concern is the very narrowly avoided fight that almost breaks out when Masaru and Kotoko fight over which one of them should give their present first— which is apparently the competitive aspect of the party? It’s probably meant to be heartwarming, if it were not such a foreign thing to Touko. Which Nagisa is quick to put an end to: because this is how they would treat Monaca, which is not inherently healthy, and she’s glad that at least one of them can recognize that fact now. Jataro spends the entirety of the fight trying to hide behind her long skirt and, relatable kid, and rubs the top of his head while Komaru tries to both scold them for fighting and appease them because they’re, well. Kids. Who still need to learn some things and have time to unlearn things.

So yeah, it’s a good party— for not being on her actual birthday, she’ll consider it one of the better memories Touko has associated with the day. The start of many, she’d like to hope.

[the-everqueen]

why i disliked “the traitor baru cormorant”

so...recently i read Seth Dickinson’s The Traitor Baru Cormorant. i bought it thinking, Cool, an insightful fantasy series for me to get into while i wait to hear whether i passed my qualifying exams! i have some time before the semester starts! 

and then i absolutely hated it and spent every minute cataloguing what i thought Dickinson got wrong.

...uh, if you want to get the tl;dr of the liveblog i gave the gf, here’s the top three reasons i disliked this book:

1) not a fan of the “strong female character” trope

yes, Baru doesn’t sling around a sword or shoot arrows better than Anyone In The Whole World. but Dickinson IMMEDIATELY tells us (not shows, tells) that she’s good at math, she’s clever at picking apart strategic scenarios, she’s a savant. (tbh, i don’t love how he shows this, either, with the standard child-prodigy-who-catches-the-attention-of-a-powerful-adult trope.) in Dickinson’s crafted world, her math skills aren’t entirely unusual: women (for...some reason?) are stereotyped as being good at calculations, despite also being aligned with hysteria and too many emotions. this bothers me more than it’s probably supposed to, because the sexism in this novel doesn’t really seem to follow an internal logic. i guess it’s so we can have a woman as the protagonist? also...hoo boy...her “savant” characterization bothers me because...she’s heavily coded as South East Asian (...maaaybe Philippines or Native Hawaii, but as i’ll get to later, Dickinson doesn’t make a huge distinction). uh...model minority stereotypes anyone? yes, within the text, plenty of people associated with the Empire comment that it’s impressive someone of her background got into a position of power so young. at the same time, i’m sure that sounds familiar to so many Asian-identified people! the constant tightrope of being expected to perform to a certain (white, Western) standard while also being Othered. mostly this bothers me because Baru is also characterized as...a sellout for the Empire. sure, her stated goal is to undo the Empire from within, but [MAJOR SPOILERS] in the end it appears that her actual goal was to attain enough power that the Empire would let her be a benevolent dictator over her home island? and it’s only after a major PERSONAL betrayal that she revises this plan? [END SPOILERS] Baru also assimilates without much pain or sacrifice. she hardly ever thinks about her parents or her childhood home. she willingly strips herself of cultural signifiers and adapts to Empire norms (apart from being a closeted lesbian, which...yeah, i’ll get to that, too). and it’s not that Dickinson doesn’t TRY to make her a nuanced character, but...to me, it feels so painfully obvious that this is not his experience. it feels almost...voyeuristic. 

...much like his descriptions of wlw desire!

2) we get it, you read Foucault

the categories of sexual deviance are based entirely on a Western Victorian-era medical discourse around non-heterosexual forms of desire, but Dickinson ignores the network of sociocultural, religious, and historical contexts that contributed to that specific kind of discourse. he uses the terms “tribadism” and “sodomy” but those ideas CANNOT EXIST outside a Euro-American Christian context. yes, a huge part of the 19th century involved the pathologization of sexual and romantic desire (or lack thereof). but that in turn goes back to a history of medicine that relied on the “scientific method” as a means of studying and dissecting the human body--and that method in itself is a product of Enlightenment thinking. Theorist Sylvia Wynter (whomst everyone should read, imho) discusses how the Enlightenment attempted to make the Human (represented by a cisgender, heteronormative, white man) an agent of the State economy. every categorization of so-called deviance goes back to white supremacist attempts to define themselves as ‘human’ against a nonwhite, non-Christian Other. and IN TURN that was ultimately founded on anti-Black, anti-Indigenous racism. at this point it’s a meme in academic circles to mention Foucault, because so many scholars don’t go any further in engaging with his ideas or acknowledge their limits. but SERIOUSLY. Dickinson crafts the Masquerade as this psuedo-scientific empire that’s furthering erasure of native cultures, but...where did these ideas come from? who created them? what was the justification that gave them power? [MINOR SPOILER] blaming the Empire’s ideology on a handful of people behind the Mask who crafted this entire system makes me...uncomfortable, to say the least. part of what gives imperialism its power is that a lot of ordinary people buy in to its ideas, because it aligns with dominant belief systems or gives them some sense of advantage. 

also speaking of cultural erasure...

3) culture is more than set dressing

again, to reiterate: Baru does NOT think back to her childhood home for longer than a couple passing sentences at various points in the narrative. but even though the early chapters literally take place on her home island, i don’t get a sense of...lived experience. this is true of ALL of the fantasy analogues Dickinson has created in his Empire. i felt uncomfortably aware of the real world counterparts that Dickinson was drawing inspiration from. at the same time...there are basically no details to really breathe life into these various fantasy cultures. i HATE the trope of “fantasy Asia” or “fantasy Africa” or “fantasy Middle East” that’s rampant among white male sff writers. Dickinson does not get points from me for basically just expanding that to “fantasy South East Asia,” “fantasy Mongolia,” “fantasy South America,” and... “fantasy Africa,” plus some European cultures crammed in there. he’s VERY OBVIOUSLY drawing on those languages for names, but otherwise there’s no real sense of their religious practices, the nuances of their cultures, the differences between those cultures (besides physiological, which...oh god). part of that is probably supposed to be justified by “well, the Empire just erased it!!!” but that’s not an excuse imho. 

also...in making the Empire the ultimate signifier of the evils of imperialism...Dickinson kind of leans into the “noble savage” stereotype. Baru’s home island is portrayed as this idyllic environment where no one is shamed for who they love and gender doesn’t determine destiny and there are no major conflicts. (there is a minor nod to some infighting, but this is mostly a “weakness” that the Masquerade uses as an excuse to obliterate a whole tribe.) Dickinson justifies young Baru’s immediate assimilation as her attempt to figure out the Masquerade’s power from within, but given that the Masquerade presumably killed one of her dads and her mom maybe advocates a guerilla resistance...it’s weird that Baru basically abandons her family without a second thought. yeah, i get that she’s a kid when the Masquerade takes over the island, but...that’s still a hugely traumatic experience! the layers of trauma and conditioning and violence that go into this level of colonization are almost entirely externalized. 

(later it’s implied that Baru might qualify as a psychopath, and tbh that feels like an excuse for why we haven’t gotten any sense of her inner world, not to mention kind of offensive.) 

this isn’t exhaustive but...

it’s not that i don’t think white people shouldn’t ever address POC experiences in their books. just...if your entire trilogy is going to revolve around IMPERIALISM IS BAD, ACTUALLY, maybe you should contribute to the discourse that Black, Brown, and Indigenous authors have already done. reading this book made me so, so angry. i did not feel represented! i felt like i was being talked down to, both on a critical theory level AND on a craft level. there are SO MANY books by actual BIPOC and minority authors that have done this better. N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth Trilogy and her current Cities series. Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti trilogy. Leigh Bardugo’s Ninth House remains one of the more powerful novels i’ve read on how The System Is Out To Destroy You, That Is The Point. (Bardugo is non-practicing Spanish and Moroccan Jewish on one side of her family, and her character Alex is mixed and comes from a Jewish background!) 

...

there’s not really a point to this. i get a lot of people have raved about this book. good for them. if that’s you, no judgment. i’m not trying to argue IF YOU LIKED THIS YOU ARE PROBLEMATIC. i’m just kind of enraged that a white dude wrote about a Brown lesbian under a colonial empire and that THIS Brown lesbian under a colonial empire couldn’t even get behind the representation. also kind of annoyed that it’s the Empire of Masks and Dickinson either hasn’t read Fanon or didn’t see fit to slip in a Fanon reference, which like. missed opportunity. 

[vannahfanfics]

Hey, so I’m sure this is no surprise as my love for sokka knows no bounds! Can I request a fluff alphabet for him plz~

This took a long time to get to so thank you for your boundless patience! TT.TT Here’s your fluff alphabet for our lovely Sokka! :D 

Fluff Alphabet- Sokka

A-   Activities: How do they spend their time with their s/o?

Sokka doesn’t really care what they’re doing, as long as his s/o is there! Still, he won’t deny that his favorite pastime is just snuggling up to his s/o and hanging out. As much as he is a fun-loving guy, there’s just something so intimate and special about simply enjoying one another’s presences. Offer a night in, and this boy can’t turn it down!

B-    Body: What does this character appreciate about their s/o? What part of their body are they most proud of, and in reverse, what body part are they ashamed of and how do they respond to their s/o gushing over it?

Sokka will worship every inch of his s/o no question, but he’s got a particular affinity for his s/o’s hands. This boy just loves to hold hands; he’ll do so every chance he gets. He also likes to kiss all over the fingers, the tops of their hands, and their palms while whispering sweet nothings to his lover. One wouldn’t think it with how goofy he is, but Sokka can be very smooth when he wants to be.

Sokka’s pretty proud of his physique. He’s not a muscle-bound monster, but he’s toned and fit. He will definitely get a swelled ego when his s/o compliments his muscles, flexing proudly for them to encourage them to touch the hard-earned parts of his body. However, this can be a sore spot for Sokka, too. Sometimes he’s a little disgruntled that he’s leaner and more toned rather than some big strong brute. He’ll perk right up when his s/o starts showering him in praises and traveling the landscape of his body with appreciative touches. He’ll instantly fall back to that snarky, confident self! Nothing can keep this boy down for long.

C-    Cuddles: Is this character a cuddler? What is their favorite way to cuddle?

Sokka loves, loves, loves to cuddle! If he’s got his arms around his s/o, he’s a happy man! Sokka will cuddle all ways he can- spooning, having his s/o seated in his lap while he bear-hugs them from behind, having his s/o cling to them like a spider monkey while they sleep. He is so clingy and needy, but his s/o can rest assured that they will be showered in affection and love!

D-   Dreams: How do they picture their future with their s/o?

Sokka definitely dreams of a domestic life with his s/o! He loves the idea of getting married and settling down to have some children. They are his entire world, and accordingly, his future revolves around them.

E-    Equivalence: Is this character the dominant force in the relationship, are they passive, or is the relationship more or less even?

Sokka can be a bit overbearing and bull-headed, but in a relationship, he tries to maintain an equal responsibility. With someone who’s as confident and independent as he is, he sometimes might grow a little passive, because he honestly respects his partner for calling the shots. There is a lot of open communication and mutual respect.

F-    Fights: How does this character respond to arguments with their s/o? What would they fight about, and who would cave and apologize first?

Sokka can be a little arrogant and stubborn, so sometimes, this can lead to strain between Sokka and his s/o. Usually, fights involve around Sokka being a little protective of his s/o; he has faith in them, but he’d hate for them to be needlessly reckless. Fights are pretty standard, shouting back and forth, but Sokka would never throw things and would never lay a hand on his s/o. When it is clear to him that he can’t get through to his s/o, he’ll excuse himself to go take a walk and clear his head. He’ll come back cooled down and more willing to see his s/o’s point of view.

G-   Gratitude: How does this character show their s/o that they are grateful?

Handmade gifts, 100%. We all know Sokka has an interest in art, and so he is always surprising his s/o with hand-carved trinkets, beaded bracelets, and cute little drawings. Giving his s/o something that he crafted specifically for them is just his way of showing his deep love and appreciation for them.

H-   Honeymoon: If this character had a honeymoon with their s/o, where would they go?

Ember Island! Sokka heard all about it from Zuko and has wanted to take a trip there for a while. It’s nice and relaxing and romantic at first, but pretty soon word gets out and the Gaang crashes the honeymoon. He releases his frustrations by absolutely stomping everyone in a beach volleyball game.

I-      Insecurity: What is this character insecure about? How do they deal with their insecurities with their s/o?

Sokka sometimes worries that someone bigger and better will come along and steal his s/o out from under him. This makes him try to overcompensate sometimes, which can grate his s/o. It takes some occasional reassurance and sweet-talking to ease Sokka’s insecurities. He wants his s/o to be happy, but secretly he’s a little selfish and wants his s/o to be happy with him.

J-      Jealousy: Is this character the jealous type? How do they deal with being jealous?

Oh, yeah. Sokka gets jealous. If he and his s/o are out and his s/o is just so radiant that they catch someone else’s attention, he is going to be so sore about it. Sokka is grumpy and clingy when he’s jealous. He’ll be all over his s/o, hugging and kissing them and following them around like a lost puppy. It’s endearing, honestly. When his s/o gets a little annoyed with his clinginess, he’ll just bat his pretty eyes and croon about how much he loves them, and it’s kinda hard to be irritated with him when he’s just so dang adorable.

K-   Kiss: What does the character want their first kiss to be like with their s/o? How does it end up happening?

Sokka is totally the type to obsess over the “right” moment. He’ll plan it in meticulous detail, setting it up around a romantic date, but when the moment comes, he’ll get super flustered. He’ll blush bright red and just stare at his s/o’s mouth like it’s an unsolvable puzzle. Eventually, when questioned, he’ll bashfully admit that he wants to kiss them. He’s a lot smoother during the actual act; it’s a super sweet and exhilarating kiss!

L-    Love Confession: How does this character first profess their love to their s/o?

He’ll start off with a cheesy pick-up line, purely for comedic effect because at this point, he and his s/o have been dating a long time. He loves to make his s/o laugh, and it’ll throw his s/o off the scent of what he’s about to do next. He’ll grab their hands and look deep into their eyes, and then just tell them how he really feels. He’s not the most eloquent guy at moments like these, so he’ll fluster and stumble a bit, but he’ll get it out. It’s super sweet!

M-  Marriage: How does this character view marriage? What is their ideal wedding like?

Sokka totally wants to get married! He fantasizes about the day he’ll propose with a hand-carved necklace. Sokka would of course honor the wishes of his bride, but he can’t deny he dreams of a traditional Water Tribe wedding. He wouldn’t mind combining the traditions of his bride into the mix, too, if they happen to hail from somewhere else. Honestly, he just wants to seal his bond to his beloved, so as long as this guy can profess his undying love to his partner, he’s all for it.

N-   Nicknames: What does this character like to call their s/o?

Sokka hates gushy nicknames; hearing how his sister goes on and on with them drives him nuts. So, he’s pretty simple with the pet names- “babe” is usually his go-to, but when he’s feeling a little more in love, he’ll drop a “honey” or “baby.” When he’s in a teasing mood, he’ll call his s/o “sweetcheeks” or “babycakes” just to fluster them.

O-   On Cloud Nine: What is this character like when they’re in love? Is it obvious to others, or are they good at hiding it?

Oh, no. There’s no hiding when Sokka’s head-over-heels. He’ll be daydreaming about them 24/7, and his friends will constantly have to snap him out of it. He is totally spacey and clumsy when he’s in love because his s/o just dominates his mind, especially in the beginning.

P-    PDA: Does this character like PDA? If so, what kinds of things do they do in public to show off their s/o?

Sokka’s not to into PDA, because he just doesn’t like couples who are all over each other, but he does love to hold hands. Whenever he and his s/o are out somewhere, his hand it glued to theirs. It’s very rare for him to peck them on the cheek and even rarer to kiss them on the mouth, but it happens sometimes, when he’s in a good mood.

Q-   Quirks: What random traits or quirks does this character have that positively affect the relationship?

Sokka’s sense of humor definitely makes the relationship fun and interesting. He’ll randomly hit on his s/o with cheesy pick-up lines, no matter how long they’ve been dating. When his s/o is angry with him or sad, he’ll start cracking totally corny jokes until they smile.

R-    Romance: Is this character a hopeless romantic, or a bit on the low-key side? Are they cliché when it comes to romantic gestures, or can they get a little bit creative?

Sokka is totally a hopeless romantic. He won’t admit it aloud, ever, but he loves being in love and doting on his s/o. Sokka is very imaginative, so most of his gestures are personal and creative. Of course, he knows the importance of tried-and-true methods, so sometimes he’ll surprise his s/o with something classic like jewelry or flowers.

S-    Secrets: Are there any secrets they hide from their s/o? If so, how do they deal with it when those secrets finally come out?

Sokka doesn’t have any secrets per se, but he does find it hard to talk about the death of his mother. It’s something that haunts him. Eventually, his s/o can coax it out of him and talk him through his trauma. He’ll feel much better with his s/o reassuring his feelings.

T-    Thrill: Does this character prefer routine in their relationship, or do they like to shake things up every once in a while?

Sokka’s kind of a meticulous guy, so he prefers routine in the relationship. However, he knows that spontaneity is important to keep the fun alive, so he’ll plan impromptu outings and fun little dates.

U-   Understanding: Is this character level-headed and empathetic toward their partner, or do they sometimes have trouble figuring them out, which leads to some butting heads?

Sokka is usually very in tune with his partner and knows how they work. Every once in a while, his s/o will do or say something that causes them to butt heads. It’s usually something that triggers Sokka’s protective nature. But, for the most part, dating Sokka is pretty smooth sailing.

V-   Value: How does this character value their relationship with their s/o? How does it hold in comparison to their goals, ambitions, etc.?

At first, Sokka’s own personal ambitions outweigh his relationship. However, after some time, his goals become intertwined with his s/o. He wants to achieve them to make them proud. At that point, his relationship is his pride, joy, and motivation.

W-  Wild Card: Any random fluff headcanon that does not fall within the other categories!

Sokka writes poems for his s/o. They’re usually silly things to make them laugh; he’ll leave them places for them to find and just make their day.

X-   XOXO: How does this character show affection?

Physical touch and gifts, 100%. When they are alone, Sokka is clinging to his s/o like a koala bear, getting as much skin-to-skin contact as he can. He just loves the clingy intimacy! As I mentioned before, he loves to make stuff for his s/o. It’s his chief way of displaying affection, because he’s not one for honeyed words or eloquent sweet nothings.

Y-   Yearning: How does this character deal with time apart with their s/o?

Mopey. Mopeyyyy. Makes everyone around him miserably because he is a whiny mopey baby. He hates any prolonged time apart from his s/o. At first, he’s pretty good at hiding it and will go off to sulk by himself, but after too long, he craves attention and will start flopping around and whining to anyone who’ll listen. As soon as his s/o is back, he’s attaching himself to them like a leech, PDA be damned.

Z-    Zeal: Is this character willing to great lengths for their relationship? If so, how far, and how long does it take to get to this point?

Sokka will literally throw hands with an entire army for his s/o after about a good six months of dating. Anyone hurts his s/o and he is a man on a mission to wipe out anything and everything that made them cry. His s/o is the world to him.

[spookyc]

*spoilers for danganronpa goodbye despair*

Okay well it seems like you guys wanna hear about the AU so here i go, i'll warn yall now, this is probably gonna be pretty long. Also, tw for death. Okay so, all of the dr 2 cast being ultimate despairs was always a twist i really enjoyed, however I found myself really puzzled at imaging some of these kids being ultimate despairs, like how did Nekomaru become scarred enough to kill people or what about Hiyoko or Mahiru? This line of questioning eventually led me to Ibuki, a character, like the previously mentioned, I couldn't see being an ultimate despair. Ibuki already was a character I enjoyed thinking about because we know so little about her, most stuff we just have to infer due to her backstory being practically nonexistent. So naturally because of the circumstances surrounding her character, I figured i'd take some liberties with her despair arc as well and so far, this is how it goes.

So, Ibuki is a character who was essentially already developed before she even appeared in the game. She's got a strong will, a charming personality, and she doesn't care about others opinions of her. Even her entire free time events all revolve around Hajime, which is completely different from every other character. This means that something extremely awful would have to happen to Ibuki to get her to crack, or rather many awful things in one day. For Ibuki, I decided to take the killing joke approach, Ibuki's one bad day- I mean it spans over a couple of days but it's essentially the same concept.

The beginning of her descent takes place after Sato's death. While Ibuki wasn't as close with Sato as Mahiru was, they were still friends and her death cuts deep. The prospect that another student, most likely Fuyuhiko, committed this act only makes the situation worse. Yet, even in the face of this sorrow, Ibuki still tries her best to cheer the others up. However, her idea does not go as planned.

Mahiru refuses to speak to her at all, she's cut herself off completely from the group and makes an effort to distance herself from them. Hiyoko, shaken by the death of Sato and the loss of Mahiru, turns bitter and hostile. She lashes out at Ibuki, stating that no song of hers would bring Sato or Mahiru back. Lastly, Ibuki turns to Mikan, believing her to be her final hope. What she doesn't expect is Mikan's response.

Mikan, a depressed mess after Sato's death, wants nothing to do with Ibuki. Tears stain her cheeks and turn her eyes red, and when Ibuki attempts to comfort her she lashes out, asking Ibuki if she even cares about Sato's death. Ibuki states that of course she does but Mikan doesn't listen, "C-can't you think of anything else but p-pitying everyone around you?" "Aren't you sad?" "B-besides, there's no point anyway, not when we're broken up like th-this." Those words were like a stab in the gut to Ibuki, was that what this was? Was this just Ibuki's own way of grieving? Helping everyone else who she felt was worse off? And Mikan had a point, no matter how hard Ibuki tried, the group would never get back together, not like this.

And so, she left Mikan alone and in a depressed haze she reflected on what to do, now that her friends were gone. Then she thought back to only a few years ago, to the band she used to be in. She wondered how they were doing now, without her. And with nothing better to do she decided to plan a meetup, maybe they could catch up. What's the worse that could happen? So, with the only hope left within her, she made her way to the music room, their planned meeting place.

Ibuki's hands quivered at the door handle, remembering what had happened there only a few days before. She shook it off though, and pulled the door open with her best forced smile. It didn't take long for that smile to vanish. What Ibuki was greeted with when she opened the doors was nothing less than pure massacre. Lying on the stage lit by a spotlight were the bodies of her old band members.

Blood covered the stage, painting the wood a deep crimson. Their bodies were horribly brutalized, each one looked like they had suffered heavy physical trauma to the head and most were worse off than that. Legs bruised and twisted in awful angles, jaws broken and dangling from their heads by the sinew, eyes knocked from their bloody sockets. But that wasn't the worst of it. Lying in the center of all the bodies was a metal bat decorated in red and gore. And behind all of the girls was a symbol in blood streaming down the walls. A symbol of a bull skull. The Kuzuryu Clan's symbol.

Ibuki couldn't take it any longer. The sadness, the loneliness, the anguish of death. She couldn't take it any longer. She collapsed to the ground, tears streaming down her face, tears she had held inside for far too long. They felt like fire burning her cheeks. Rage, sorrow and grief, they all combined into a single emotion. She wiped her tears and her eyes became ignited with a dull wrath.

She walked to the stage and lifted the disgusting metal bat. And then, gripping it firmly in her hands, she reeled back and struck the bloodied wall. Then she struck again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. Andagainandagain- until finally, the wall broke. The wall crumbled beneath her abuse and she could see the symbol no longer. That emotion was revenge.

As she backed away from her destruction, she tossed the bat aside and she gave one last look at the rubble. Her eyes then grew dull completely, devoid of anything but the fiery orbs of revenge. She had fully given in to her despair and she would make sure Fuyuhiko knew about it.

Wow kinda got a bit into it near the end there but yeah this is essentially my idea. tldr: Ibuki loses sato and her attempts to cheer everyone up ends in vain, as their friendship dies with sato. So, in an attempt to get her life together she tries to reconnect with her old band members only to find them all brutally murdered supposedly by the same culprit behind sato's murder, fuyuhiko. In actuality, this was simply planted evidence by the real killer, Junko, who heard about sato's murder as well as ibuki's meeting and decided to, "intervene." This is what I see as her descent into despair, but I also have plans for her time as an ultimate despair, if yall like this is i may continue with it.

[dames-de-talon]

CONSENSUAL HORRIBLE THINGS: Safety negotiation in RP

I got my first taste of Nordic-style LARPing at an event called The Night in Question in Austin. It was a rules-lite Vampire the Masquerade LARP set in the 1990′s revolving around a Sabbat mass embrace. I won’t go into the details, but if you google it, you’ll see pretty dang quick that it gets really messy really fast. While doing this, I realized something: 

All collaborative work is based in consent.

We understand the concept of consent within a sexual context- anything less than an enthusiastic yes is a no- but we do not often apply those rules to other delicate content. When running a LARP, these things all seem very straightforward- you have to negotiate physical contact (both romantic and non) and violence at all times because you are dealing with another physical person. 

But, in an online context (where you can not see the physical tells of someone being uncomfortable) the check-in system is harder to maintain. This does not mean, however, that it is any less important. So, here are some tips and thoughts on negotiating, writing, and portraying problematic content. All the guts of this is under the cut because it is a LONG POST. 

STEP ONE: THE INITIATION: Things are booping along in your scene and you and your partner come to a crossroads where you can tell some shit is about to go down. The first step is to talk to your partner. Message them, say “Yo, I think some shit is about to go down and I want to know how to proceed.” 

In a LARP, someone would pop out of character and say something like “Negotiation: physical violence.” Then your partner can either accept (and the negotiation begins) or decline. 

IF YOU DECLINE: If your partner declines, you talk about what to do next. This might mean, unfortunately, that you end the scene there. This isn’t a bad thing, it just means that you can’t continue on the current route. This might mean that you backtrack a post or two to take a different route on the decision tree. It is always within a player’s right to stop the scene, but you must communicate that you need to do so. The temptation to ghost someone might be there but you can not do that. If you decline, you are saying “I’m not comfortable with this direction and I do not want it to go here.”

IF YOU ACCEPT: Congrats, you can now enter into negotiation for consensual horribleness. There are three levels of contact and acceptance to remember 1: Fade to Black: You fade to black on what is going to happen and pick up the scene in the aftermath of what happened. You and the other player negotiate and discuss what happened during that time OOC and then stamp a big ol’ seal of approval on it and go forward. In essence, this is “I’m cool with the content, I want it to happen, but I don’t want to play it out.” 

2. Fast-forward and highlights: It’s the written equivalent of pantomiming what happens. You give a little punctuated flavor-text and skip to the juicy bits. Time goes as fast or as slow as you need. This generally keeps explicit detail out, but you still kind of know what happens. The short form of this is “I’m cool with the content but we don’t need the full LOTR version.”

3: Full contact: This is the LARP equivalent of being cool with stage combat. This is explicit, you do not spare details. This is “I want to extended directors cut of what happens.”

STEP TWO: NEGOTIATING THE SCENE

So, you accepted the invitation: congrats! You have given your consent to negotiate problematic content! As with all things, you can meet the level of comfortable content of your partner, but you may never exceed it. For instance, person A is uncomfortable writing sex scenes, but person B is not. An exchange between these two players would probably go something like this. 

Person B: C1 and C2 are really into each other and I think this scene is headed towards sexy times, are you cool with that? Person A: I totally think they’re into each other, and I could totally see that happening. I don’t want to write it out, though. I think they’d be really sweet Person B: That’s cool! Where do you want to pick back up? Person A: Let’s pick back up after the deed is done. It’s my post, so I’ll get us to the time skip. 

conversely, the scene could go like this:

Person B: C1 and C2 are really into each other and I think this scene is headed towards sexy times, are you cool with that? Person A: Right now, my character isn’t in a sexy mood. She might flip her shit, she’s got a lot of trauma. She wants to, but she can’t.  Person B: Cool! We don’t have to go that route.  Person A: I do want to explore her yearning to feel that connection, though. I think we have the potential for a really emotional scene.  Person B: Awesome!   

The same logic applies to negotiating physical violence or general atrocities: A negotiation could look like this: 

Person A: Hey, just giving you a heads up, we’re headed in a general dangerous direction and my character isn’t a nice person. Since this is an interrogation scene, I need to know your limits Person B: Awesome! You can beat my character up, but don’t cut off any of their limbs or pull out their teeth. I also have a problem with eye gouging.  Person A: Are you cool with medical experimentation? Person B: Oh hell yeah, that’s awesome! Person A: Should we do that on screen or off-screen? Person B: We can do it on-screen, but keep it under the cut. Person A: Be sure to tag body horror when you post Person B: Solid, can do!

SINCE YOU ARE ALLOWED TO REVOKE CONSENT AT ANY TIME, tapping out can look like this:  Person B: Hey, you haven’t posted in a few days, is everything okay? Person A: I’m having a lot of fun, I just feel bad about having fun with this. I’m afraid my RP partners are going to think I’m a rampaging shitbeast for writing this Person B: Do you want to do something different? Person A: Let’s fast-forward a little and get to the aftermath

or

Person B: whoa, so it turns out that I thought I was okay with disembowelment, but I’m really squicked out right now Person A: Do you want to stop the scene? Person B: Yeah, we can fade to black.  Person A: would it be better if we walked back a couple posts and faded there? Person B: That’s a lot better Person A: Are you okay?  Person B: Yeah, LOL, but can we write some fluff for a thread or something so I can reset? Person A: Cool beans, that sounds fun! 

There’s a lot more to this, and I would love to write volumes about it, but at risk of rambling I will end it here. 

TL;DR: consent is important, negotiation is important, communication is important. if you can’t be responsible with horrible things, then don’t write them. 

[hydradrive]

Go Hellnalysis (aka : hydradrive gets mad at the fanbase for ignoring go’s ongoing 2 season long breakdown for like, 5+ paragraphs)

We are talking S1 foreshadowing as it relates to the facts of S2. As already mentioned, I think it sucks of the writers to do it to him like how it sucks how they treated Emma and Aoi throughout the entire series and reeks of colorism like. having your two darkest skinned characters be actively antagonistic as s2 goes on is a bad fucking look. 

But it’s there, and I am not happy that people defend Lightning weirdly when he treats people he knew for years badly, and then turn around and say wildly fucked up shit about Go.

I guess today is the day i Get Into It Again. I’ll be rehashing some of my points from my old thread on nac, so strap in i guess.

This is said to Playmaker in season two. 

‘After i lost to you’. 

So, by episode 4. And the text backs this up. The text in season one aligns.

In Go Onizuka VS Genome :

[ transcript for subbed text: 

Dr. Genome : Did your defeat at Playmaker’s hands force you to evolver? 

Go Onizuka : As much as I hate to admit it, yes. That was when everything changed. 

/end text screenshot id ]

That was when everything changed.

Let’s look at the rest of it, then. How it affected him, in the long-term. The Go Analysis... Is here.

MASSIVE CWs for discussion of canonical weight loss, brief discussion of disordered eating in the context of that, and a whole bunch of other stuff re: the brain hack that I don’t even know how to tag, really. medical? Basically, if you have any triggers relating to that, please exercise due diligence because I will not pull any punches about the implications.

tldr version :

This is real dialogue from Go Onizuka’s first (and only) duel against Revolver. 

No matter what he says trying to spin it a different way after this segment of text, that it’s about fighting for yourself, these statements exist, and they exist with the context given by his own words; that he was struggling, mental health-wise, when he said these words.

[ transcript for subbed text: 

Go Onizuka : Until now, I’ve battled in front of huge crowds. (There is a single beat frame, to indicate silence.) But I realized I’m all alone. There are no fans rooting for me here. I realized... We always duel alone. We fight for ourselves, not for anyone else. 

/end text screenshot id ]

But perhaps this isn’t compelling enough for people. Fine. Let’s go even further back.

[ transcript for subbed text for screen readers : Go Onizuka : It’s my fault that Makoto is in this condition. /end text screenshot id ]

Go has an easily seen habit of assuming the worst, and with regards to stuff like Makoto, blaming himself, to the point that if his manager hadn't said more on Makoto, he would've been going into VS Genome blaming himself for Makoto getting into duel monsters in the first place.

In episode 5 it was shown that with one loss he was entirely certain that nobody would care about him in any capacity:

But why?

... It’s brought up in one of the first episodes of the entire series.

[ transcript for subbed text for screen readers : 

Go Onizuka’s Manager : That’s exactly it. It’s a winner-take-all world, after all. 

/end text id. ]

And given an even more... depressing? Spin later, when Go thinks about it throughout S1 and S2 during his duel with Takeru:

[ transcript for screen readers : 

Before I was placed in the orphanage, I only relied on myself. The world I lived in was all about survival of the fittest. “You must protect yourself” was my credo. 

/ end text screenshot id ]

It’s genuinely that simple. He slipped back into his old way of surviving because the way he did in season one didn't. save him. it didn't save him from a duel he needed to win, not just for himself necessarily. he would have died if playmaker had lost. a lot of people would have. He was already starting to have these doubts about his entire reason d’etre for dueling, and his loss only further spurred it on.

It’s repeated, again and again:

[ transcript for screen readers :

Go Onizuka : For everyone to appreciate me, I must win! 

/end text screenshot id ]

That sentiment. “People won’t like me if I lose.” “People will abandon me, if I lose.” In his own words, his losses, losses in duels that were important, rotted him. And it /is/ true. His manager said he’d leave if he went to try and stop the Tower Of Hanoi and lost. And he followed through with it, by all implications. He didn’t come back until season 3. Keeping in mind that Go’s self-hatred spiral regarding guilt over in his mind dragging Makoto into the mess that was season one-era Hanoi shenanigans was only cut off because his manager and other people talked him out of it... Yeah.

This is before we bring in the other complicating factor : a certain little company, who never did anything good for anyone. A man, who despite supposedly being well-intentioned, did very little to help, until it reached the darkest point.

[ transcript for subbed text for screen readers, since that’s the primary important stuff : 

Akira Zaizen : But we don’t intend to acknowledge that the network was on the brink of destruction. So I ask you don’t cause the press to delve into this. 

/end text screencap id]

People focus so much on him yelling at the press because they keep asking about Playmaker but with this context?

[ transcript text for screen readers: 

Akira Zaizen: You’ll continue to be the focus of the press. /end text screenshot id ]

He’s not allowed to talk about how you nearly died.

He’s not allowed to talk about what really was at stake.

In fact, he’s not allowed to even act in a way that makes people even a little suspicious about what happened.

And yet.

‘But he could just ignore this advice’ . Not really. Go Onizuka’s platform was built in Link Vrains. Being the whistleblower about the actual danger of Link Vrains would not endear him to Sol, and potential backlash from Sol, from everything we know about the company? Hmm, gosh, wonder why that might be bad. Almost as if Go is basically a livestreamer who is at risk of having the video platform he exists on die.

It would be incredibly difficult to continue working under the public eye like that. The stress from that alone would start tearing someone to pieces.

Ergo, his decision to work for Sol Technologies as a bounty hunter. Both jobs now hinge on him currying favor with a horrible megacorporation, one just has less baggage from his past way of surviving and gives him the ability to talk a tiny bit more freely about things.

This is all the leadup, of course, to the ultimate lowest point. The duel chip. Brain hack.

[ transcript text for screen readers: ‘By implanting this duel chip, the brain’s thought capabilities expand.’ /end text screenshot id ]

[ transcript text for screen readers: 

Akira Zaizen: You can always refuse.

Go Onizuka : Your methods are dirty. You guide me to the gates of hell, but you don’t care what happens afterwards.  /end text screenshot id ] 

Let’s talk about the physical side-effects of the brain chip on Go Onizuka.

Me, personally? I genuinely wonder what came first; the most severe physical side-effects or a worsening of Go’s mental health that made him stop eating. 

It’s never stated what came first. We only see the mental health side effects of the chip in flashbacks initially.

I looked at one of the instances where Akira pulled go out of the sim wrt: the listed sys/dia ratios on-screen. They have those in certain shots, btw! They’re consistently really fucked up!

Here’s what those were, in one very notable instance:

... So, right off the bat, a heartrate of 195, huh.

And a sys/dia of 187/112 with a mean of 136. Wow! I wonder what that means for him!

I can tell you. 

He statistically would be in the range of having a hypertensive emergency. Having rates like this can damage your heart muscle when you don’t literally have a heart attack, hypertensive encephalopathy, ( which can cause dizziness and altered levels of consciousness, if we are getting into it.), kidney failure, coughing up blood...

I don’t want to speculate too much about why the Duel Chip caused this, but I will note that blood pressures like this sometimes come about as result of issues with the neuroendocrine system. This would tie in with a loss of appetite and some of the other things Go seems to canonically have had from the getgo of having the chip installed, and probably added on to his already pre-existing mental health stuff which I personally parsed as depression.

... I think this mostly covers the main points of what gets missed. Aka, literally all of his arc. Just, literally every piece of his arc. People miss all of it.

Also, to reiterate : it is NOT GOOD the way this is framed by the writers. it is loaded to, in a series heavily informed by the main character’s trauma, have a teenaged darker skin character ( Go is 19!! ) be portrayed as more erratic, etc etc. I do Not care about Lightning. He is a little robot, and while there is probably some ableism in the way trauma is represented therein as a corrupting force, it is far more worrying how Go is treated in terms of representation, and I am not going to bat for the guy who treated Haru like dogshit lmao. 

The fact that one of the two darker skinned MOC is given more obvious mental/physical illness signifiers in terms of symptoms to mark them as antagonists (when, again, Yusaku literally CANONICALLY HAS PTSD) fucking blows, and I’m going to personally fight the writers. 

But. I am also laying the blame at the fanbase’s feet for this shit, too. They literally ignored this to coo over Lightning. I’m going to bite them.

[inheritorofmemories-archive]

Twitter is not a good place and I have opinions.

Okay so, just visited Twitter to see how they like The Old Guard and please remind to never go there for anything more than artist’s posts and memes.

(This is more of a rant than a cohesive explanation of my thoughts but I won’t lose my time on Twitter for that and I still need to talk about it, so we’re here. Okay, here goes-)

Of course spoiler warning for the whole movie.

"it's bad, it's not creative, it's boring, there's no story apart from bad guys pharma and good guys mercenaries."

Did we watch the same movie?? It's like those Mad Max Fury Road reviews who kept saying "they leave and come back, no plot har har I’m very funny" when the whole point of the movie is about staying where you live and make this place better, not abandoning it because you risk abandoning your true self with the land (amongst other things the movies tries to say).

Yeah maybe the story is a bit seen, pharma and all. But the whole plot revolve around the Old Guards and their emotions. It's about a tired warrior finding hope, and a young immortal finding her place, and how to deal with loss and grief and solitude, it's about finding purpose in helping other because that's what human do, help each other. It's a lot more than fight scenes and bad pharma (which, maybe it's an old trope but it's still very true to this day, please keep portraying pharma CEO as comically bad because they are!)

It's like men can't understand a story unless there's lots of death and unnecessary trauma. Can't you enjoy a story about found family and hope and kindness for one another like everyone else?

Here are the critics I saw, and why I think it’s bullshit, point by point because I’m petty like that:

The characters are flat and two dimensional: I mean, no? Sure, Joe and Nicky are not the center of attention, and we see Booker tired and a traitor, and the human ones are bit glossed over (though we see enough to understand them, Copley and his wife, the scientist that thinks she’s helping humanity, etc.), but Andy and Nile are fully developed? What else do you need?

Andy is a very old, very tired immortal that has a very complicated past (that we see a lot of) and her motivations, state of mind and thoughts are well explained (they all say she’s old, and tired, we know about Quynh; hell, Andy’s first line is about that) and we know she lost purpose, and she finds it within the film! She changes! Her character evolves in interactions to other but mostly Nile. Speaking of her- i know I’m repeating myself but what else do you need to consider a character not flat? She loves her family but doesn’t run to them because she’s not an idiot. She’s a fighter, a marine, a very competent one at that, but she still gets scared by being an immortal, she asks questions, she’s compassionate, she feels! All while being a bad ass fighter. She has agency, makes her own choices and choose her way, she has motivation and she know what she brings to the team and is not afraid of saying her thoughts and needs.

And even Booker and Nicky and Joe have full character, even if shown less. We have Booker’s back story, and we know he cares a lot despite all his hurt (he says he did it to help Andy die, which was still wrong and selfish, but he was genuinely trying to do something because he hurt so much). Nicky and Joe have a softer side, and sure it’s mostly conveyed through their own love story but they hug the other Guards and Nicky brings food for Andy and Joe jokes around (still thinking about that “faster than the elevator” line). Yeah it’s not a deep character study but it’s more than about half action movies today, and it’s enough in the story to make me care about all of them, even Copley. Although a lot of that may come form the actors too.

The fights scenes are bad: apparently they’re boring and do not do justice to the comics. I can’t speak for the last one, but boring? Again, did we watch the same movie? Yeah, there’s no big explosions and fire everywhere and collapsing buildings, but they’re not boring. I’m sorry my tastes are superior but I’d rather be shown the talents of a covert team of immortal warriors though discretion and efficiency. Why would they need explosions when they can juggle swords, axes, rifles and guns so smoothly you don’t even see a shift in their stance? See first fight in South Sudan. Why would I need collapsing buildings when I can have a team of fighters swapping weapons together like nothing? That scene at Merricks’s building where they all reload and change guns and the camera turns around and panel over all of them? That was dope and a very creative way to show how smooth they work together (with Nile added! So way to go to show the new group dynamics.) through a smooth and continuous camera movement. I could go on, but where did you see the boring fight scene. Yes there’s no cool lights and tricks a la John Wick, but if it did they would have complained it was a rip off, so...

The cinematography is bad: Just because it’s more understated doesn’t mean it’s bad. Yes, there’s no neon lights or cool shots like other might have (looking at you John Wick, since everyone seems to compare the two movie) but it serves the story. It’s because it’s so simple visually that you can get into the feelings and story. You don’t look at the light, you look at the actions and the faces. And honestly, I think it suits the Guards better. They look timeless, they fit in everywhere. A photography that’s striped down to the necessary only serves the story. I don’t see them in safe houses with a bunch of lights and modern furniture, just like I don’t see expensive shots and over the top choreography for them. As I said, they’re a covert team, they’re smooth and efficient, I like that the photography align on that and show them in simple shots.

tl;dr: Just because it’s simple doesn't mean it’s bad, sometimes that's what you need to work with the story and its characters and themes.

Not enough story and too much nothing to fill in: I mean, they die 12 minutes in, you get all the stakes, antagonist and themes in like 20 minutes, what else do you need? There’s break in the actions to expose plot and concept, but it never feels wrong or too much of a info dump, it’s fluid and natural because we’re following Nile into the immortal world.

Bad Pharma is Bad: Yeah, let’s talk about that. (Cautions, purely opinions, no real arguments to change someone’s mind here) I don’t care if it’s cliché, not when pharma in the US keep rising the price of Insulin every month, not when pharma all over the world send their faulty medicine to third world country because there’s no one that cares enough there, not when you know they purposefully don’t finance HIV researches because triple therapy gets them a lot of money, not when you hear about the experimentation and how they get their resources and literally everything that I’m not getting into right now. Who cares if they’re show as bad people once again, they are! You think CEO care about anything but money? If it feels wrong in the movie it’s because it is wrong.

Tell me no one in our world would kidnap and torture immortals to find their power. And don’t talk to me about bad representation of CEO and exceptions, I don’t care. One exception doesn’t make all the other suddenly better or worth the wrong they’re doing. So yeah, give me more cliché good guys fight bad CEO, I love it.

They did not use their concept enough: Again, where? To me, they did all they could with that concept, you get all the things you can only get with the concept, interesting and fun one. They are still afraid of dying one day, and even if they’re not (i.e. Andy or Booker) their brand of immortality doesn’t mean they’re not afraid of being captured: the Quynh scene happens literally just before Nicky and Joe are kidnapped exposing us the stake of being immortal, talk about good script work, right? Talking about fun trope: you have the millennium old couple that use to kill each other but now love each other, the classic ennemies to lovers we all love, you have the strategy of using your immortality to your advantage and destabilize your opponent: Nile walking into Merrick’s building and getting herself killed on purpose only to stand again and use the guard’s shock and lack of preparation against them, you have the fun references to real historical figures that comes with immortality: Rodin, Napoleon, etc...

I’ll link to this video I found that talks about this better than me, but basically, they did use their concept, a lot, and well.

The music: I can’t really say anything about that one. Maybe you don’t like the style they used, and that’s fair. To each their own. But it wasn’t too much like other Netflix’s movie (Looking at you 6 Underground. Four (4) song of the same artist in one movie?) but again, it’s Netflix, they use modern songs in their soudtracks, you should expect it. I didn’t bother with the lyrics accuracy to the actions, but each time the music fit well in tune and mood of the scene. And the actual score made for the movie was really good, not too much but still supported the actions and dialogues on screen like it should.

And my favorite yet, we’ve already seen it. I don’t have any smart answer to that apart from I’m sorry you’re a cishet, but found family is the superior trope and I hope you can one day see it too. Who cares if we’ve already seen it, it’s a different flavor! It’s no X-Men flavor, it’s Old Guard flavor and I love it. Have you heard of the Hero’s Journey? How Lord of the Ring, Star Wars and Harry Potter all have the basic same plot? And yet you can like all three of them for different reasons? Because they’re not the same flavors? Well, apply that to the immortal group of fighters and enjoy it.

Okay, that’s most of my thoughts on the film for now, but to make it short: it’s good and those people can’t appreciate good things that are more feelings and humanity than fist fights and nihilism. How dare a movie say we’re good and need each other and not end in a pathetic discovery that all the word deserves to burn.

[monkey-network]

to Defend Desti’s Death

I’m not particularly one to make major response posts like these, but I feel these thoughts I’ve had have simmered for quite a while now and I just wanted to get this off my chest. To some that may know, I’m a fan of the Anime Arc cuz honestly, it was fun and hype to sit through. On the look back, it still is, even with the noticeable drawbacks. But I won’t deny that the moment we fans know is divisive is one for a reason. For some, it was bad and other say it was good but frankly I haven’t seen many properly explain why. Which is where I want to come in momentarily, give my two cents on why Desti’s passing worked on an objective level.

Initially, and I hate doing this, but I gotta respond to the most notable saying of why it doesn’t work. So link here for the argument: https://todpolle.tumblr.com/post/185301760988/meme-gene-scene-how-to-kill-a-life. And I only wish to say, no hard feelings @todpolle. I’ll get to the main argument in a moment but I wanted to discuss the setup point where it revolves around the deaths of Avocato from Final Space and Gamma from Sonic Adventure. 

Now truly, I remember these passing moments fondly but I feel that comparing them to Desti’s death is noticeably unfair if we wanna talk contextually. Like if we’re taking both series to its full context, Final Space has the disadvantage where it resurrected Avocato while SMG4 kept Desti dead; the resurrection not only undercutting the weight of the initial departure but having not as much weight as before. Much as I like Avocato, having a “No One’s Ever Really Gone” approach to Final Space kinda devalued the idea that death is permanent for Gary and his friend, if only for a moment. If Desti’s resurrected later on, I’ll eat that crow, but that is doubtful. Though, if we take season 2 out the equation, it’s fair to say both deaths have their considered impacts with who it affects especially. 

I’ll express that a little later, but I want to move over to Gamma’s death where, and I hate to say this, it’s an unfair comparison all around cuz Gamma’s story doesn’t have the same set pieces as Desti’s because contextually his death was understandably sacrificial, he willingly self-destruct after knowing his true identity. Heck, you can’t even stack Gamma’s with Avocato’s because his heroic death meant something far different than the other two. Nah, I say the death reminiscent to Desti’s the most is with Aeris’ of Final Fantasy VII. But, I think it’s fair to first point out what this counter purposefully omitted: Desti’s character.

Now it would stand to believe the most we see of Desti aside the anime arc is “If Mario was in Splatoon 2”. But to say that is all to her character is being ignorant towards her character because the anime arc furthers expressed who Desti was as a character. She was prideful, no-nonsense, loves being a step of Meggy even when it means playing unfair. She was basically Meggy put to a logical extreme. In “Splatoon 2″, “Meggy’s Bootcamp”, and “Mario Showdown”, we see that seed of how much Meggy means to her as a rival and how focused she can be when it came to their rivalry, considering her the biggest threat in the Splatfest games. These traits are expanded in “The Splatfest Incident” where she is willing to her pride aside for a moment to help the gang find Meggy when she goes missing. The search for Meggy doesn’t throw away her hot-headedness and pride however, as we see in “The Inkling Disappearances” and “Mario and the Experiment” that she is more than willing to throw down regardless of what stands in her way, even to where she’s making her and Meggy’s escape into a challenge. 

More importantly, we get to see a soft side of her where she isn’t fully aloof and tries to be there for her team, or those she come to find as close as she gets. You get to see her bond with someone she wants to fight free and true to form. I say the writers did their job in giving us reason to stand with Desti, make us like her beyond being the Negachin. She’s much the better half to Meggy, the Zero of Megaman X, the being our main inkling girl strives to be in the right way. Now, I wanna talk about Aeris.

Aeris was a very cool character in my eye when playing FFVII. She’s not Tifa but she still had a badass charm to her, especially in the part where she and Cloud go a rescue/date to infiltrate a brothel that held Tifa hostage by helping Cloud disguise as a woman. It slows the game down in a good way, giving us some time to know Aeris. Like Cloud, you get to feel just as attached to her, in both the story and gameplay where she is a boss when it comes to magic. She shows herself as the one that helps Cloud shed his initial machismo and is a very considerate friend while they’re on the journey to escape Midgar. She certainly has more of a character than what most of the images on Google would make you believe. I’d say like with Aeris, the anime arc subtly make you invested in Desti. And like Desti, it happens...

Now I can say, yeah, this shouldn’t make sense. But really, as much sense as I wanted to wrap my brain around why this shouldn’t have happen, this emotionally got me every time. I say what makes this work, what makes Desti’s death worked, comparative to the previous mentioned, is how it worked it’s way both before and after the moment. For Aeris, you can feel the weight of her loss in our main characters in the story and in the gameplay where with her gone, it’s pretty hard to fill the void of what she excelled at. Put that with what we got to see of her which makes the loss all the more shocking. Which makes Cloud avenging her with his final conquering over Sephiroth all the more cathartic. Now I’m not saying Desti’s death had as much intentional thematic development as Aeris’s, but when you take into account how it is structurally, especially the aftermath, the oomph of it all feels just as real, feels respectfully impactful for what it did.

But before I get to my main point, I wanted to address another point against this case where “SMG4 was supposed to just be a comedy like Spongebob and such, this totally goes against that tonally.” Which, I don’t know what else to say beyond “Did we watch the same show?” I can understand not liking the 2nd half of the anime arc writing wise, but it’s not like the arc turned everything into a whole different show all together. We weren’t getting some Heavy Rain type melodrama shit, the tone of the 2nd half was clear, the objectives were there. It wasn’t that heavy-handed, it wasn’t that serious, they didn’t sacrifice the comedy all together for some oscar-bait Gotham brooding bullshit. A dumbass Monkey like myself could understand the direction the bros were going with that arc, regardless of whether I liked it or not. It is pretty myopic to think a series like this can’t and shouldn’t be anything else beyond a skinner box type comedy, because god forbid experimenting with the stories in lieu committing to a considerable routine most of your career to keep a certain mindset happy and buttfucking numb. *sigh* I apologize. To carry on...

I’ve talked about this before, so if you want here’s a link about the funeral scene of the arc’s final episode (quick read), but I wanna say that with Desti’s passing, they treat it with respect. They have their couple of jokes, but they don’t treat it like a joke; Desti's death would’ve been a lot more insulting to me if they didn’t take it as seriously. It showed that yeah, that shit hurt, it was not expected, and we’re with the gang as we see Meggy and them send her off, guns out. We’re with the characters where all that happens and it felt... organic. Like I said before, Desti was “someone who appeared to be distant and feisty but still had a heart. Someone who was among people that [grew to] care about her, in life and death.” Whether we consider it was for shock or not, she made her impact, it hit hard in the end, and they made the moment matter in the respective time.

And like Final Space, this affected the likes of Meggy the most, a character that had the most connection to Desti than the others, all while the others respect her grieving and trauma that came with it. Moments like “Something’s Up With Meggy” and “Mario Does the Chores” show that that stuck with her for real, and they don’t treat like some sick running gag. SMG4 mentions it not long afterward but respectably knew not to dwell on it for the rest of the year until “The Grand Festival” where it comes back as a soft, yet optimistic reminder.

Now I won’t say you can’t have your issue with the arc, I have my issues with it. But to say Desti’s death was crap was to objectively ignore the effort they put into making it a solid plot point, a solid heel turn for both Desti and Meggy. To ignore that they gave us a good character to basically just feel mad that they pulled the rug from under you. And I would’ve been mad too if killing her off was done poorly, but it wasn’t. The bros didn’t make a whole masterpiece, but they did what they set out to do and I say they pulled it off well for what it was. For who Desti was.

[starfaring-princelotor]

Ranting anon. I have a lot. I’ll try and split this into pieces. I wouldn’t say that Lotor was my absolute favorite character, but he was an enjoyable and interesting one. He was a more refined antagonist (not necessarily a villain) who had every capacity of being a great ally and friend. I won’t lie, I liked the idea of Allura and Lotor together, (1/?)

As a parallel to Zarkon and Honerva by being a Galra/Altean power couple that fought for good instead of evil. Lotor is clever and diplomatic and poised, so I honestly thought that he could help Allura cool down her impulsive nature and rash temper and help her become a good leader through example. (2/?)

But in the end, all we got was Lotor giving her an ego boost that in the end didn’t even matter because she dropped him like a hot potato in what feels like a forced “girl power!!” Moment. And I feel like that’s a big problem with how Allura’s character was handled. (3/?)

She’s meant to be this wise, kind, but fierce leader lady, but unlike say, Zelda (another warrior princess,) she doesn’t display the patience or level-headedness that Zelda does, despite people making numerous comparisons between the two. The argument that she’s inexperienced falls through halfway through the series at the very least. Allura never takes any steps to curb her temper or his pushy nature. (4/?)

And somehow no one calls her out on it! A big red flag for me was her reaction when Keith was revealed to be half galra and she just…turned fucking mean for no reason. And while Keith felt guilty for something he shouldn’t have felt guilty for, everyone else was…taking her side? (6/?)

And basically the matter is resolved by him mostly apologizing and her kind of mumbling a half-assed sorry. She was literally being racist to someone she called a friend right until she found out about his heritage. Despite him having done absolutely nothing to her. And no one called her out on it. That pissed me off. It feels like the paladins personalities suffered in order to make Allura look good. Like their moralities and personalities got tossed out the window to revolve around her. (8/8)

A forewarning to Lotura shippers, I never liked the ship in the first place, so if you are looking for validation about Lotura or even Allura herself, this rant is not for you. Allow me to pitch in my own two cents about myself, Allura, the Paladins, and the comparison referring to Zelda.

Anon, let me just say this first, I adore reading the asks you sent because all of it was basically the biggest problem I had with Allura the second she was revealed in Voltron. And the main reason for that? Was how she introduced herself by being a glaringly-obvious Princess-brat trope that does not think before she decides to speak. This was her first rash and impulsive act as a “royal” Princess.

This is why I have a hard time believing those who say Allura’s racism towards the Galra is valid because, I do not know about you, but being cryogenically frozen during the heat of war then waking up and thinking the main important thing to do is call someone’s ears hideous? What happened to “the war is still fresh in her mind”? And no, suddenly opening up a journal to remember “Oh, yeah, the war! Zarkon evil! I should be angry!” does not fly with me. 

I am not saying her trauma is not real, only her reaction to it is slightly misplaced. 

In any case, let us move on to the comparison of Allura and I being similar to Honerva and Zarkon. Oddly enough, I did not see this clicking at all in the show. Mostly because, in terms of what happened between them story-wise, Allura and I are more like Alfor and Zarkon. And this is just based off their relationship. Maybe I am a man who strives more for platonic relationships in shows aimed towards children, but I really did not feel the romance at all in Lotura. 

Not even with the sickening way she suddenly started pining after me at the realization that I am half-Altean.

And this is the big point in the show. Zarkon and Honerva loved each other not because of their race, but because they just do. Alfor and Zarkon? They both use their power as royals to achieve a greater good. Except, in the case of Allura, she chose to commit unspeakable acts of betrayal based on feelings. Sounds oddly familiar to Alfor, no? Sacrificing all of Altea to ensure she lives? Because he is such a good father, pure of heart who must protect his daughter at the expense of not one, but two entire planets. 

He loves her so much, he sacrificed his own people for her. That is why Allura is more like her father in that aspect. Both rulers let their feelings control their actions. Throughout the entire 8 seasons of Voltron, Allura has constantly gone either completely irrational or completely poised for the public, never in between. She does her self-sacrificing bit way too many times and, when she coincidentally lives afterwards, she puts herself on a pedestal as if she was right in her self-indulgent martyr actions.

Which she most certainly is not, because it is common knowledge that if you want to help people, you should be actively staying alive to do so. It is as though once she believed all “her” people died, she has no real purpose to stay around after her grand plan of eradicating all the “evil” Galra from space gets completed. I am sorry to say, or perhaps not, but she really does remind me of a terrible Mary Sue who can do no wrong. Alive or dead. 

And this shit? Gets brushed aside or ignored by a majority of the Paladins. I will go ahead and blame it that most of them are all very, very young and lack the experience to speak out against those in charge. In fact, the only two who spoke against her in any sense were Shiro and Keith, even Pidge for family reasons. Shiro when he wanted to support putting myself on the throne and Keith? Well, that is a bit more complicated. 

Anyone remember the scene where Keith kept telling Allura that he does not want to hear a lecture from her, and she does it anyways because she is just looking out for Voltron and emotionally guilting him is the best way to go about it? No? Oh, right, maybe it was because she acted like a mother admonishing him for “shirking” his responsibilities. I do not even need to go on about how much I heavily dislike one of the two female members mothering her teammates.

You know what would have been a great development here? If she supported him instead of “disciplining” him as if he stayed out past midnight. Maybe not even support him! Just be like “Okay, I know this is important for you, so tell us what we need to do to help you. We’re a team and as a team we will help you however we can.” 

In this sense, Shiro was trusting Keith and doing the right thing by giving him the space he needed to find himself. Allura, on the other hand, was pushy and ultimately did not care at all for him as a person, but him as a useful Paladin tool. If he was so revered as the Black Paladin, then should she not be, I do not know, following his orders by the T? Or is her role as a royal, Altean Princess whose spirit is connected to Voltron more important?

And even before all this, she believes her and Keith are supposedly buddies now since she gave a half-assed apology for being a racist cunt to him. No one, I guarantee you, no one forgets racist comments, regardless of repaired friendships. Especially when her cold-shoulder and outright blatant ignorance is being seen as “Oh, it’s okay for her to feel like this! What do we know, we’re just humans from Earth who have apparently never read a history book.”

Before I get into the nitty-gritty details about why comparing Zelda and Allura are the same people, let me just say this concerning Allura’s hot-headed temper and unchecked racism involving a relationship with myself. That shit does not work and Allura should have taken the time to sort herself out before mixing in a “loving” relationship with an Altean and Galran man. I am all for equal support in a couple, but she did nothing to support myself as a person because she never saw both sides of my heritage. 

Allura only saw Altean blood and hyperfixated on that alone. Which, do I even need to spell out how terrible it is to judge someone based on their appearance? Based on their race? Whether in a good or bad light, she once again goes from “I will not have some quiznaking Galra on my ship” to “Your mother was Honerva? You’re Altean!” mode. It is fine to be prideful, but she should have already known the dangers of being too prideful of one’s race. 

Considering she is a royal, considering she was raised with political knowledge, considering her father and the Emperor of the Galra Empire worked together, Allura should have been aware of her Achilles Heel and understand her responsibilities. 

Okay, now, Allura being like Zelda? 

Alright, I only played a handful of LoZ games, but even I know that Allura is absolutely nothing like Zelda, even with both of them having the Princess title. 

We already established that Allura is way too rash and irrational when under any duress. Even when shit is not going down, her way of thinking is very straight forward and linear, disregarding the bigger picture as a whole for her own closeted judgements. Allura has even ignored her royal advisor’s advice too many times to count, excusing her reasoning as “It’s the only way, Coran. I must do this.”

Zelda? Zelda does not, at all, follow Allura’s way of thinking. In fact, OoT has a similar plot to Allura and myself. Link skips 7 years of his life, wakes up to Hyrule being controlled by Ganondorf, and the Princess is MIA. Though, if any of you have played the game, then you know that the Princess was actively trying to save the kingdom. Not just Hylians, but Zoras and Gorons as well. 

And the way she accomplished this was by disguising herself as Sheik. Not because she was a coward, but because she knew the importance that came with being a Princess, the next heir to rule, and the one who has the Triforce of Wisdom under her control. Key word here: WISDOM. Something Allura did not display at all in the show. 

If we are comparing Zelda to any character, she is more like the exiled Prince than Allura herself. Both Zelda and myself have the wisdom and first-hand experience of suffering under active war. Both actively saved, or tried to save, those they came across. And both understood the political discourse that hurt everyone, not just one specific race. Everyone.

But if that is the case, then Link would be similar to Allura in the sense that they both woke up to disaster. The big difference between Link and Allura? Link would not have killed Sheik once he revealed himself to be Zelda. Not even because Sheik was being deceiving. Link would understand why Zelda had to hide for her own safety, because she was vital to the plan to restore balance to Hyrule. 

Even if Link was miffed about Zelda not being truthful? He knows that, under no circumstances, can they chance the risk to kill her over his own personal feelings.

“But that doesn’t mean Zelda never curbed her temper!”

In Twilight Princess, when the kingdom was already starting to fall under evil clutches, Zelda teams up with Midna, an exiled Princess of the Twilight world. I can not imagine how helpless Zelda felt in the face of Zant overthrowing the kingdom, but did she go off and leave the citizens to suffer for all of eternity? No. She accepted aid from those who were willing, even the Princess of the other world. 

And, on top of that, Zelda understood that Midna’s world and her own were like two sides of a coin. They must coexist with each other to achieve peace. In fact, I vaguely remember Zelda sacrificing herself to help Midna. Imagine that. Using your powers to help the “enemy” for the greater good. Tell me when Allura helped the Galra out of her own free will? Her own understanding that the Galra need her help just like every other race in the universe?

No, the BoM does not count. Not with her attitude shining through after her “Zarkon is in power because you guys are cowards!” spiel. Not when she begrudgingly helped save Warlord Lahn while simultaneously profiling him out of spite with “Did you buy those weapons or steal them?” And no, not when she built Sincline with myself with the intention to harvest unlimited quintessence then immediately turn around and aid in murdering me, the Emperor of the Galra Empire, over a weak accusation. 

Overall, Allura really is the type of person to barge into other people’s problems, claim “I am here to help you all!”, then throw a hissy fit when people ask for specific aid rather than follow her “My way or the highway” attitude. Terrible writing or not, she was always like this since the very beginning. It is kind of like…she had many chances to improve, but she just made her own situation worse and refused to stop to reflect upon herself.

[quinlinkin]

take it from me ( i’d be lost without you ) ↳ Q’s twdg writing challenge

character(s): aj, aasim, louis ship(s): aasim/louis ( lousim ) word count: 838 author’s note: so this doesn’t quite revolve around actually doing any hunting, but alas- lousim from little aj’s perspective is way too adorable lmao

[   ao3 link   ]

*credits to the wonderful @stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale​​​ for creating this challenge! you can view the entire prompt list + further details here. happy writing!!

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                                      day seven ; hunting.

AJ has always been an observant kid. He’s the type to ask questions about anything and everything under the sun, to endlessly wonder about how things work, or why people act in all the vastly different ways that they do. He is curious by nature, sometimes perhaps overbearingly so, and Clementine has undoubtedly dealt with her fair share of frustrations because of it.

Today, he’s been assigned on hunting duty for the first time since Clem’s accident. It’s no secret to anyone how positively excited he is to have earned her trust enough to officially join the others as a part of the group.

In his eyes, he’s one step closer to being all grown up.

So, he’s eagerly waiting by the front gates for his comrades to join him, his very own bow clutched securely in his hand. He’s proud to say that the recent archery lessons has produced some increasingly promising results. Aasim had even said so, himself.

Which, speaking of- He can see Aasim approaching now, and unsurprisingly, Louis trails closely behind him. Ever since coming back from the Delta’s boat, the two have practically been inseparable. AJ had asked Clem if it was because of all the trauma, and she had told him it was partly the reason why. Predictably, when he’d asked her about about the other reasons, she’d told him plain and simply; they were together now. The same way she and Violet were, as an example he could more easily understand.

AJ thought it was nice, that they had each other to depend on. He knew how happy Violet made Clem, how they always helped each other through the bad times, especially. He hoped it was the same for them, too.

“Hey, little dude,” Louis greets cheerfully, extending his fist out or AJ to bump it.

He does exactly that, grinning up at him. “Hi, Louis. Hi, Aasim.”

Aasim gives him a short wave. “Got your bow?”

AJ proudly holds up the object in question. “Yup. You got yours?”

Louis chuckles, and Aasim’s lips quirk up accordingly. “You bet.”

“Well, come on. We got lots of work to do.” As impatient as ever, he’s already pushing open the gate before waiting for any kind of response. Louis aids him in his efforts, even if AJ will always insist that he can do it all by himself.

It’s not five minutes into their trip that AJ’s curiosity peaks.

From what he can tell, Aasim and Louis liked to keep mostly to themselves. He’d only ever seen them kiss once, and apart from Louis slinging an arm around the other in what appeared to be more of a casual manner than anything else, they kept their displays of affection more or less on the down-low.

Naturally, when AJ catches sight of Louis’ hand slipping into Aasim’s as they walk together in front of him, it immediately catches his interest. So, he watches them. Head tilted and lips pursed, his eyes roam back and forth from their entwined fingers to their faces, where he can see them exchange the briefest of smiles and a few sparing laughs as Louis occasionally leans in to whisper something in Aasim’s direction, just quiet enough that AJ can’t hear.

Maybe it’s his budding curiosity. Or, maybe he’s simply growing irritated towards their continued hushed conversation, as if they’re completely oblivious to the fact that he remains right there behind them.

Either way, he finds himself blurting in the next moment; “Are you guys in love?”

Aasim trips over nothing. Louis’ head whips around so fast AJ wonders if it’ll fall right off his shoulders. They both end up gawking at him, until Louis finally manages to find his voice.

“What, uh… What makes you ask that…?”

AJ shrugs nonchalantly. “I dunno. Clem says she loves Violet. So… I was just wondering, I guess.”

Louis and Aasim blink at each other, both of their faces turning a slightly darker shade of red as the seconds tick by. AJ truly doesn’t understand the severity of his seemingly innocent question.

“Um…” Louis eventually goes on, considering that Aasim has apparently been stunned into silence. As AJ watches him, a sudden, indescribable look crosses over his features. “Yeah.”

That’s apparently more than enough to effectively snap Aasim out of his trance. Except, now he’s gawking at Louis instead of AJ as he blurts, “Yeah?”

Louis regards him with a certain amount of shyness that looks strange coming from him. “Well, I mean- I do… so… yeah…”

AJ, although observant towards a lot of things, is blissfully oblivious when it comes to others.

That’s all he needed to hear. His question has been answered, after all.

“Oh. Okay,” he says, brushing past the dazed pair to continue on down the trail. And as he goes along, he casually calls over his shoulder, the weight of the situation entirely lost upon him, “If we see any rabbits, can I be the first one to take a shot?”

Louis, despite himself, simply has to laugh.