#bc she's just trying. she's not here for wars or fighting or conflict

[apollos-boyfriend]

icarus pretty pls explain as much as u can of jaidens pov (and roiers if u can) i have no time at all and i wanna feel ur emoceans

YES i am late to answer but here is the gist of what happened (under the cut because OH BOY this got long):

jaiden spent the first hour-ish of stream out with bobby trying to find onions bc she needed them to make him roast chicken and complete the task of feeding the egg a food that starts with r. because of this, she and bobby were somewhat far away from the main area when things started going to shit

when she heard what was going on, she ran back home, both to have a bunker to hunker down in, and because tilin was still in their home due to having stayed over the night prior for a sleepover

tilin's still asleep when she gets back. bad drops by and further explains some of the situation. jaiden is Extremely panicked, but is reassured by roier messaging that he'll be logging on soon

tilin wakes up as bad drops by again. bad explains that he's going to go out and try to talk some sense into charlie, leaving dapper with jaiden for his safety. jaiden is now alone with three eggs and a madman on the loose.

one of the eggs asks what's going on. she cautiously explains that there was an accident with juanaflippa, and that her father is dealing with it in a less-than-ideal way. she herds the three down into the basement (behind a locked door for safety), distracting them by giving them seeds to plant and trying to not let her anxieties show for the sake of the kids

roier logs on. jaiden instantly runs out to greet him (attempts to, at the least, as he doesn't spawn in their house), hurriedly explaining the situation and the state of things. roier nearly instantly calms most of her worries, assuring her that they'll be alright. the eggs can defend themselves. charlie is just one man desperate for love and family. he's more dangerous to himself than he is to them.

bad and fit return to the house. there are now four eggs within.

charlie arrives. he's kind of instantly taken down by everyone in the house, rendered down to half a heart as they take him outside to talk him down. he places down a landmine that jaiden accidentally steps on, luckily only killing him. they remove all mines and weapons from his body in case he returns for them

everyone somewhat disperses. tilin stays with roier, jaiden, and bobby, not fully sure where their dad is (and not fully sure if they want to get back to him). the four of them sit around the campfire as roier tells the kids stories, which eventually turns into the two adults discussing tilin's current situation.

roier and jaiden end up coming to the conclusion of adopting tilin in a sort of co-parenting way. they're not taking them away from quackity, but also naming themselves as their caretakers and welcoming them into their family

bobby does not like this. bobby is very happy with being an only child. he starts a fight with tilin, one that he ends up winning, leading to tilin's death message appearing in chat. jaiden and roier quickly revive them, calming the two eggs down. roier chides bobby, saying he's plenty loved by both of them, and them taking in tilin doesn't mean they'll love him any less. there's no reason to be jealous.

quackity reaches out to jaiden, basically announcing a war against her and roier. because of charlie messaging him earlier, he mistakenly believes that she and roier have kidnapped tilin and are torturing them (further pushed by their death message in chat). jaiden tries to explain the situation, but quackity won't hear it

they return to the group, questioning quackity's rage. charlie admits to having given q the idea while in his rage, and the group sets out to find q so charlie can explain the situation (my memory gets a bit hazy on the sequence of events from here on out, so i apologize as things may be out of order)

they find q and explain the situation. he no longer wants to kill roier and jaiden, but the tension is still there.

the group discusses the prospect of bringing juanaflippa back through a trial. jaiden breaks off at points to hang around tilin, who reveals their fears that their dad doesn't love them, and how they only want a family in the sense that bobby, roier, and jaiden have. jaiden attempts to assure them that that's not the case, that quackity does love them (he was SO worried when he thought they were kidnapped), but tilin doesn't feel fully convinced.

after asking like, everyone else and being turned down, charlie asks if jaiden will be his lawyer for the trial on wednesday. she agrees, despite having no knowledge of the law. she wants to help charlie in any way she can, and vows to do her best.

as everyone once again split up to go their separate ways, roier and jaiden talk. most importantly, jaiden questions why spreen is allowed into their basement, when she wasn't given permissions until the night prior. roier explains the full situation, from starting it as a community house to spreen killing his dog, and how he vows to get his revenge. jaiden listens intently, assuring him that she's on his side and will be there to back him up and support him when he needs it. they name themselves as the only normal family of the server.

returning to quackity, jaiden finds him and charlie drinking. quackity semi-snaps at tilin, stating that he's trying his best, he's just busy, okay? jaiden semi-snaps back, bringing up that tilin doesn't even think he loves them, and that when tilin jumped off the wall earlier, he didn't even go to revive them--she and charlie did. fit breaks the tense atmosphere by yelling "OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" in the background

jaiden walks a drunk charlie home, tucking him into bed. the two recite a bedtime story together (a decade in blue by eiffel 65) until the sun rises.

[randomnameless]

Why do the FEH devs insist on ignoring Nabatean lore so much?

I recently had a surprisingly cordial discussion on redshit with someone about the "nabateans = colonisers" take, and one of the main points raised was that the game was purposedly foggy around Nabateans/Sothis/their story because it would obviously favor a certain narrative (and thus make another narrative look, uh, not that marketable anymore).

To be honest, we still ended up with a product that had a lead go "this race and its blood* is the reason why the world sucks" and yet that lead is still marketable enough to have raunchy cipher cards and 5 FEH alts, so I actually wonder if, while pissing on that lore had that purpose, it was ultimately pointless since Supreme Leader can still sell goodies despite her incarnation in FE16.

And not only Supreme Leader - but the entirety of WC where we basically have 70% of the cast crying/complaining about their "mixed blood" or lack of and basically adding their 10 cents to the "this race and its blood is the reason why the world sucks".

I mean, can you imagine Sylvain selling any goodies and alts if Flayn replied to his "wah wah people only are kind to me and want to fuck me because I have Nabatean blood :(" by some uncharacteristic "good for you, I have to hide my ears, had to dye my hair, have to lie about my family because if the truth is found out about my identity, I will be hunted and vivisected like an animal and harvested for parts by people who call my kin abominations - just like what happens in the game where the same people who call my kin "abominations" ally with a classmate who calls me a creature and pretends I am incapable of human feelings based on my race".

FE Fodlan's main selling point is its cast of students, for various reasons, but even if I tried to kid myself, Nopes and FEH made it clears : students are the main selling point.

If you spare more time and attention to the Nabatean plot/lore, the students either grow from "likeable" to "despicable" or worse, you won't gaf about them because yeah sure, Hilda might be upset because people expect things from her due to her crust, but it would feel like a "peanut" compared to Seteth's irrational (granted, it's not so irrational since GW exists) fear that Flayn's newest friends would dissect her if they learnt she was a Nabatean, and being conflicted by finally letting her have human friends and form bonds she crave, or protect her due to the trauma from the genocide of their species.

Don't get me wrong, I love peanuts, I mean, not everyone can have a tragik of loaded backstory!

And yet, given how this verse's DNA is "can you fight against the red emperor who uwus about you", they had to add copious amounts of Earl Grey to their games so there's no clear-cut factions :

The "Your alien blood and its influence on the world corrupted it, so I want to reform it under my command" vs "I don't want to die and you oppose me due to my race and side with the people who genocided my kin"

is turned to :

"Your alien blood Crests and its your church's influence on the world corrupted it, so I want to reform it under my command"

"I don't want to die and you oppose me due to my race and side with the people who genocided my kin"

Sprinkle with the cast's hammering here and there that the "reforms" might be needed - but never develop on what they are - and add a few baseless and groundless takes as a toping (basically everything Claude says about tolerance and the general "isolationism/foreign policy" stuff) and you get FE Fodlan where the Red Emperor's war isn't seen as the catastrophe it is in the other entries from the series!

Now, for FEH...

FWIW, the F!F!Billy's trailer had them try to explain that Sothis was a bit pissed about her slaughtered/massacred children when Nopes never gave any reason about why she was pissed - maybe on Billy's behalf bcs Jerry's dead, but come on, she would indeed deserve the medal of the worst parent in the franchise if that was the case, since Billy can murder her daughter without Sothis taking over ! - but given that they cannot write/go against the source game those characters are from.

They tried a bit, with B!Supreme Leader and Hegemongard's FB, but then it stopped (because she had no "new unit" released since then lol) and I can understand why : Hegemongard came out before the Supreme Emblem, and Hegemongard hates dragons who are seen/perceived as gods by some of their human followers. Come FE17, and now Supreme Emblem accepts Alear because they are "one of the good ones". We can come up with HCs and details and talk about what are emblems or if Hegemongard's views were only hers at the end of AM all day long... But imo, Doylist wise, it still feels it's a retcon because the devs from the main games tried to scrap and remove the most "controversial" traits she had.

For the other characters... Well, you see what Marianne is in FEH (but even in her base games), she's one of the few characters who reacts - in a way - to the partial history about relics and demonic beasts and all... only to give sad uwus to Maurice.

FE16 (and Nopes) refused to have any "student" character react to the Nabatean lore/reveal, about what are relics and all. There are no lines, Claude shared some knowledge in the explore section of VW's last chapter, but we don't have anyone muse or think or even talk about what are relics, what are crests, and what kind of fuckery their ancestors or the ancient humans of Fodlan did.

With that in mind, FEH can't do much : either they write Marianne in a retcon-y way like what happened for Hegemongard (and they're not afraid to piss on characterisation, look at Lyon!), or they flanderise her "character" and develop her around 3 lines she had in the game in her paralogue, and continue to give sad uwus about Momo when he was at best a guy who slaughtered and murdered so much that he abused the Nabatean turned into a relic to the point where he turned in a demonic beast even if he had a matching crest, or at worst, had been part of Nemesis's piñata party in Zanado and was something of a genocider.

Tldr :

Why FE Fodlan never gaf about Nabateans : earl grey + the marketable cast has to stay marketable and you can't sell peanuts at the same price you'd sell swordfish

Why FEH dgaf about Nabatean lore : they can't afford to retcon characters + they have to sell peanut alts with the same seasoning they had in their base game.

For what it's worth though, I think FEH is more daring than the base game(s) given how they gave more lines and screentime to Rhea - through her different alts - than GW. And they even designed her Halloween!alt's lines to piss on some of Claude's assertions, while the various FB involving members of the church also - indirectly - reply to some accusations thrown their way in FE16 when, FE16, never gave them an opportunity or lines to explain that those takes were full of dung.

*"but random, maybe she doesn't know that the crests she often decries is "dragon blood"!"

It's highly debatable, especially given what she and Hubert throw to Billy in CF - but even if she doesn't, Doylist wise we still have a character who, knowingly or not, says "this race and its blood* is the reason why the world sucks" and who is never called out on her prejudice. That's more of an issue regarding the general writing though, she has to be a red emperor and took pages from Ashnard's book, and yet, the player must still feel bad and want to romance her, so her mindest/goal cannot be looked at too closely, because, I guess, even the devs thought it would be difficult to romance her (thus sell goodies!) if more light was shed on the "blood from this race corrupts our people" schtick -> which in turn would also make characters whose backstory and gimmick rely on "crying about crests" be way less likeable, thus marketable and able to sell goodies.

[animazi]

icl i fundamentally disagree with the 'oh the acolyte shows anakin could have left the order anyway actually so he's so much worse bc he had an easy way out the whole time' discussions I've been seeing, because, like. literally why is this even a topic of discussion? ok ok hang with me here, I'm doing a list.

there is literally nothing in the prequels that suggests this is ever an option for him. up until shmi's death he is happy with the order - most of the problems he expresses come specifically from his relationship with obi-wan not the jedi generally, so why would he want to leave. once shmi dies, sure I getcha. his mum died and the jedi have a significant hand in that, and then he immediately breaks the code and does a massacre. however, and some may have missed this, its a fairly small plot point, the clone wars begin. anakin is not only never characterised as the sort of guy who would back out of this conflict (esp since he was involved from the get go), but also there is literally no time between anything - aotc and rots take place over such short time spans, comparatively; we see quite literally All the events happening at once.

so why doesn't he quit in tcw/rots? again. there is a war on and he is directly involved. tcw shows him as having made personal connections with the clones, and if there's one thing about anakin that everyone should be able to agree on its that he sure has attachments. also, again, rots takes place over such a short span of time and he is fairly clearly not in the best place in like fucking any of it

it probably wouldn't even fix anything bro. anakin is not the central turning point of the war, not really. that's palpatine. with or without anakin palpatine still gets the war, and realistically if anakin leaves the order then war breaks out, he is going to turn to palpatine as one of the only people he is close to, and ergo probably falls anyway. maybe he doesn't kill the younglings but like. shit still happens, jedi still get order 66'd

No Please Understand One Busy And Isolated Woman Is Not A Full Support Network Stop It. ok so. padme isolation is something that I fully see in the films. I will not yap on about that now, but take it as read for this point (although. even if she has a great and healthy support network that is not the issue! you are still saying that padme, who has a very busy job and her own life regardless, should functionally drop everything to support anakin). a key part of support networks is that they are a network aka not one woman. look me dead in the eyes and think anakin and obi-wan (already not having a great communicative relationship) are still talking after he leaves. go on. try. realistically speaking once the war starts anakin is in an, if anything, worse position - his fatherbrothermentor is out there fighting and he cannot help, his wife is barely home, the senate is always busy, and he is so so jobless (again. here is where palpatine would swoop in...bro cannot win fr fr). and Again, One (1) Padme Should Not Be Responsible For Dealing With The Entirely Of Anakin's Issues. stop it.

I don't actually have a full point 5 rn I just like it when the numbers do this :3

so bonus not-quite point: tcw and the acolyte both explicitly say the jedi don't prep you for the outside world if you leave the order, transferable skills etc etc BUT ALSO does your ex-jedi have any records of employment? any space gcses or a-levels or space degrees? a letter of recommendation? are they actually skilled enough in say mechanics/engineering to be able to survive in a world where droids exist and clearly have a huge presence in those sectors? any any money to help them get a flat or smth (not applicable in anakin's case but worth saying anyway)?

in short. I don't think it's a fair point to make when criticising anakin. it relies on a really weird reading of the prequels that misses a) the war, b) palpatine, c) the inherent misogyny of putting the wellbeing of anakin, guy who is hanging on the same thread as my sanity after exam week, entirely in the hands of one woman, d) the lack of regard for how support networks are, in fact, networks, e) how fast everything happens in the prequels

[mae-i-scribble]

I rewatched a few of the early episodes of spyfam today bc getting to see the movie gave me an itch to scratch, and in particular episode two made me finally able to conceptualize what about fandom twiyor that irks me so deeply. If you like widespread fandom interpretations of them I would uh, look away bc none of my opinions on it are positive.

Episode 2 of the spyfam anime remains one of my favorites because of all the little flourishes the studios add to sell you on Yor as a character while also expanding a bit on the manga's original commentary on the stigma that follows older single women. What draws Yor and Loid together as a family is that neither of them are capable of having conventional relationships. Both of them are war orphans forced to grow up far too soon and who threw away aspects of their humanity to fight for what they believe to be a better world. While Loid's position as a spy and mastery of deception allows him to avoid the stigmas that would come from the ordinary person discovering what he does, that is not something that holds true for Yor, whose weakest point is that she simply cannot understand "normal." She's aware of the way her coworkers demean her and insult her but can do nothing about it because her only conflict resolution skill is murder. She is constantly reminded that she is an outsider, hence why Loid's declaration at the party is so meaningful to her, and what convinces her to ask him to continue the facade as a married couple.

Underneath it all however, is a quiet showcase of amatonormativity that drove both Loid and Yor to their arrangement. Eden requires a student to have a perfectly nuclear family. Societal conventions dictate that Yor, happily single at 27, is someone pathetic (to her coworkers) or someone in need of help (to her brother). Marriage is an expectation that Yor is pressured to commit to, and a societal requirement that Loid must uphold for the sake of his mission. And while this showcase begins in episode 2 it is something that spyfam continues to highlight when it comes to the expectations both Loid and Yor struggle to meet when they try to hard/become to anxious over what is "expected" as a married couple vs what the other person is actually thinking/feeling.

Now, what the fuck does this have to do with fandom you ask? Here's the thing. Spyfam reached the broad range of anime fans when it exploded in popularity, which is when I started engaging with it beyond just comments on the latest manga chapters. Modern fandom already has the issue of classifying ships into tropes rather than actually like, shipping characters as they are. And that's exactly what happened with twiyor. People began going "oh my gosh this is the moment she fell for loid," "oh he's so in love with her just look at him," before we had even reached episode 10. Which was incredibly frustrating to me because clearly Loid and Yor are not anywhere near in love that soon in the story- and the basis for that frustration starts in episode 2 for me. Because Loid and Yor's marriage is one that is unconventional from the very beginning, and it is that factor that defines their dynamic an allows them to function as healthily and sweetly as they do. People don't need to be in love to be married or to be a parental unit. None of that requires romantic love, it is simply an expectation of our society, the same sort of expectation that cripples Yor and makes her think she has to find a partner, then that she has to find a husband to appease those around her. Seeing that completely erased in a large portion of art/commentary/fics written about them angers me because its something baked into the foundation of their dynamic and something I feel enhances them as a potential romantic pairing rather than detracts from it. But we can't have that because of course a man and woman living together and caring for a kid fell in love almost immediately.

And don't even get me started on how people misinterpret Loid for their far more romantic interpretations of his motivations and relationship with Anya and Yor or else I will start losing teeth from how hard I am clenching my jaw

[mixelation]

some kushina jr/tobirama thoughts

they meet mid-to-late teens bc kushina jr has no planning skills and they invented time and dimension hopping with no way to get home, so they just show up and realize they've fucked up and now they live in the woods. the senju-uchiha war is still in full swing, and the only relevant difference between this timeline and canon is tobirama is a woman

tobirama's personality is NOT all that different, and she fucking hates uchiha. she runs into kushina jr and tries to murder them even as kushina jr flaps their arms around and tries to explain they're from the future. uh huh. nice try. tobirama fails to kill them though, and kushina jr unfortunately remembers tobirama is supposed to be a time-space jutsu expert so they won't leave her ALONE

tobirama: anija i have gained my own annoying uchiha, but this one is delusional

madara: who in the fuck is this. i've never seen them before in my life

kushina jr: (jazz hands) time traveler....!!

tobirama: what the fuck

now tobirama wants to know how this was even possible >:( get BACK HERE, kushina----!!

i'm thinking the main effect the gender change has for tobirama is that she has a lot more social pressure to be a certain way than before. kunoichi ARE expected to fight and screwing around with experimental jutsu is fine, but also she's expected to be pretty and traditionally feminine for her future husband and gets more comments about how she's wasting her time if experiments don't work immediately (which they rarely do because that's just how experimentation is). she's discouraged from seeking leadership positions except in very specific domestic ways even though she's often the most competent person in the room. men get weird at her when she's stronger, smarter, and faster than them in a way men don't get about other men. she keeps getting scolded for rude speech. which like... all that is not going to stop her, but now she's grumpier and more aggressive

also bc tobirama is someone who likes clearly defining rules and then sticking to them, i think she'd have a lot of internal conflict about her expected role As A Woman versus what she would LIKE her role to be.

kushina jr is very open to just babbling about the future, and tobirama finds herself, like.... extremely curious about it despite herself. both as like someone who likes having knowledge for the sake of knowledge, but also in this horrible disney princess way where she kind of wishes she'd been born in kushina jr's time. yes please tell her more about fulfilling clan duties without having to give birth

anyway kushina jr figures out how to leave after a couple months but they fucked up in that because they went to tobirama for help, tobirama now ALSO knows how to timeline jump and obviously she follows. after all, they don't know the rules of time travel, and kushina jr might fuck EVERYTHING UP

tobirama: we should identify some timelines were don't care about fucking over and run some experiments

kushina jr, who grew up hearing stuff like that all the time: yeah okay sure

i don't think any version of tobirama thinks super hard about romance but i can see her watching someone flirt with kushina jr and suddenly feeling blind jealous that is VERY alarming. like no she has never once before considered dating until hashirama picks out her husband to strategically marry to strengthen the clan or whatever is going to happen, but also, kushina jr is HER annoying uchiha in the woods

kushina jr after they become Official: i know you'll be busy being hokage and all, but i was kind of hoping you'd help me run the uchiha clan too

tobirama, brain completely shutting down: wait. wait. what

kushina jr: like when we get married?

tobirama: WHAT

kushina jr: did i not tell you i'm the heir

tobirama: WHAT THE FUCK

tobirama is not emotionally prepared for "marry," let alone "marry the uchiha clan heir from the future." she is so emotionally unprepared for this sentence she forgets to remember they probably wouldn't let a woman be hokage for at least a few decades. if anyone is going to have two jobs across two timelines, it's going to be tobirama---

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

So you've mentioned before that Zuko doesn't show any sexist behaviors but I'd like to point out a few scene just to see how you feel about them.

"You have quite the appitite for a girl." A very tropey sexist statement (which, yes, is played for laughs and I don't think he meant it as an insult but it does show that he has an idea of how girls either should be or usually are)

"Nice try Avatar, but these little girls can't save you." I can't really recall him ever saying anything similar about male warriors? I know there aren't really a lot of examples of male warriors that Zuko fights, but it still feels very,,, pointed and focused on the girls part.

"I'll save you from the pirates." "Looks like somebody found herself a master." These are both very patronizing lines that he says toward Katara, but he never says anything similar to Sokka or Aang (Aang I can dismiss bc he's just a prize, not an 'enemy', plus, Zuko tends to go for racist comments instead) or like, any other male, ever?

"I thought girls liked these kinds of things." Once again, is played for laughs at social ineptitude but again, shows a 'all girls are the same' mindset

Him picking at Ty Lee also felt very misogynistic to me? Like he was looking down of feminine behavior.

"What is with you?" As he is frusterated that Katara hasn't automatically forgiven him, yet to Aang he is very humble and genuinely tries to prove himself as well as accepting the lack of forgiveness as just due and offering himself as prisoner. Again, he just doesn't show the same amount of respect to Katara as he does to Aang or Sokka.

Like, any of these on their own, I could dismiss for one reason or another, but when the examples pile up it shows itself as a pattern of viewing women as intrinsically different from men, expectant of 'womanly behavior', dismissive of feminimity, and dismissive of female threats.

I love Zuko, but I definitely see this as one of his flaws and something he's got to get over along with the rest of the bullshit he was indoctrinated with. (Which is one reason I love his and Katara's friendship because like, if there was anyone who's Not Gonna Stand For That Shit, it's Katara ksbdjdnd)

Let me split the difference here

Not sexist, just an asshole

Zuko picked on Ty Lee because, much like IROH, she was a cheery person that was trying to get Zuko to lighten up or at least stop with all the unnecessary rage, angst and aggressiveness. We also see him get pissed at ALL OF HIS FRIENDS and physically attacking Aang in the finale because they're goofing around instead worrying about the war like he is.

When Zuko thinks happiness is not acceptable, he lashes out at any living thing. Boy literally snapped at a frog for not indulging in his angst to confront his current/former enemies and apologize to them. It's really not fair to act like he was picking on Ty Lee in particular, and that the ONLY reason for it was "girly girl" - especially when "The Beach" literally has Zuko himself reach the conclusion that he is lashing out at everyone else to deal with the fact that he's angry at HIMSELF, HIS actions, HIS doubts, HIS conflicting feelings. This is not about Ty Lee at all.

The same can be said about his entitlement to Katara's forgiveness. He offered to be the prisoner of ALL OF THEM when he was trying to make amends, and when they all rejected him, Katara very much included, he accept it.

Then Toph, Aang and Sokka all came around, forgived and befriended him. Everyone was chill with him. Everyone, except Katara. She was the odd one out, the constant reminder that it was not gonna be that easy to let the past stay in the past.

Zuko was trying his best to be a better person, but old habits die hard, and there was a person not doing what was more convenient for him, so he threw a tantrum. There is nothing special about that person being Katara, or any girl.

"Looks like somebody found herself a master" was also not at all about gender. Zuko mocked Aang for being "just a child" and for not having a father. He also humiliated Sokka in the first episode. OF COURSE he'd try to taunt Katara during fights.

And she DID get a master. We saw it happen. Aang was already a master of air (the element he used the most in fights), Sokka only got one in book 3. Their power-level remained the same, Katara's changed, right after she reached the North Pole, specifically to look for a waterbending master - for Aang, sure, but it's her element too, and Zuko KNOWS that she stole a scroll and used to teach herself. Zuko connecting the dots is not him assuming that a woman can only improve if she has the help of a man, it's just him having a brain.

He isn't mocking her for being a girl that needed to be taught by a man, he is mocking her for thinking she could defeat him, even after a power up - typical battle taunt, that Zuko engages in ALL the time, with basically every foe he goes up against.

And that also ties into:

Not sexist, just "Villain Talk"

Taunts like calling the Kyoshi Warriors "little girls" that can't protect the Avatar, or mocking Katara for finding herself in a situation of "damsel in distress" with the pirates, COULD reveal that Zuko is sexist and, much like Sokka and Pakku, didn't believe women could be competent fighters... if we didn't know him.

Zuko literally grew up with AZULA, someone who, in his own words, is a prodigy that is good at everything, does stuff with ease, and can be compared to the freaking Avatar. He and Iroh literally agree that it's less dangerous to risk it all traveling through the Earth Kingdom than risking being captured by her.

He never has any issue or doubt regarding Azula, Mai and Ty Lee as fighters. He doesn't throw a tantrum over needing June's help with his new plan to capture Aang. He SAYS he doesn't respect Katara as a fighter, but he's constantly in battle mode whenever he's around the any member of the Gaang, yes, even Katara, by herself.

Zuko, as a villain, says shit he doesn't mean ALL THE TIME. We see him use Ozai's line of "I'll teach you respect" against a member of his own crew, and say that the safety of said crew doesn't matter - and then go and save the guy's life. He says he'll give Zhao a scar, and doesn't do it even after Zhao tells him to AND calls him a coward.

Zuko thinks he needs to be aggressive, piss people off, and even be downright cruel, because that's what he was taught - but deep down that's not what he wants to be, nor what he already is. The same applies to his lines that imply he doesn't think women can be competent fighters. He knows that's not true, but he thinks he needs to act like that, to "play that role" because he literally was disfigured for NOT being cruel, for NOT treating people as disposable, for NOT wanting to fight, for NOT posturing as "macho", for NOT acting like he was better than everyone.

Sexist VS Sixteen/Clueless

"You have quite the appitite for a girl" and "I thought girls liked these kinds of things" feel, to me, like more of a result of Zuko being VERY clueless about social interactions and kind of relying on "tried and tested" stuff that most people around him tend to say/expect.

If you want to count that as being sexist instead of just said something sexist without meaning to, fine - but then it's time to revoke Katara's crown of "feminist queen." She was super happy when Toph joined the Gaang because she wanted someone to agree with her that some of Sokka and Aang's jokes/behaviors were immature and/or gross. TOPH. The character that is very clearly not all that feminine when she has a say on the matter and is the time to literally spit during a fight to show her disdain for the oponent, something Katara was already supposed to have learned two episoddes before.

And while you didn't mention that line, in the finale, when Zuko asks Katara to help him "put Azula in her place", Katara doesn't snap at him for supposedly being sexist (and I personally don't think this was about gender, just about their bitter rivalry and that idea that he can only truly succeed if she fails, and vice-versa) but a lot of the "Zuko is sexist" uses that as evidence, yet they never seem to care that, according to that interpretation of the scene, Katara is being complicit in Zuko's sexism towards his sister.

Oh, and Sokka, who was supposed to have unlearned sexism after the Kyoshi episode, told Aang not to answer to "twikle toes" because it wasn't manly. He also told him that, to win a girl over, you can't be too nice. It's played off for jokes and meant to make him look clueless, just like Zuko's scene with Jin.

If we're gonna call Zuko sexist for passing comments that are nowhere near as relevant as the way he is shown to consistently not treat women differently than he treats men, we're gonna have to do the same to every character - and reach the conclusion that even Katara is sexist.

Now, onto the inevitable question of:

"Does that mean the show itself is sexist?"

As some of you might have noticed, I tend to place "said something that can be taken as sexist" in a different category to "legitimately has sexist beliefs/behaviors on a very constant basis." I know that's not how everyone looks at these things, but I genuinely think it's the most accurate way to describe the nuances of it all.

I'd say Avatar is a show that has MOMENTS that could be seen as a little sexist, but overall it very clearly, and proudly, took the stance of "women deserve as much respect as men", and fully expected the audience to see the characters as equals, with the things like their genders not mattering to how one thinks of them. For that, I'd say it's unfair to label it as sexist just because of the odd questionable scene. It's taking the exceptions and trying to pass them off as the rule.

And I think the same logic applies to Zuko as a character. He has moments in which he might demonstrate some light sexism (or even intentionally fake sexism to piss someone off), but if you look at the real context and pattern, it's clear that even as a villain he never actually seem to treat women differently from men - it just so happens that when he was a bad guy he, naturally, wasn't used to treat people well. He was a jerk, but he was a jerk to EVERYBODY, all the time, no distinction made.

[juryokunojikan]

help i finished bridge arc and i'm having zoomies. dumping everything here to avoid flooding the tag.

i love how the story emphasize all the time that sekirei have a "should be" that has been deeply instilled in them and that totally screw them up. how this is taken by them as a fact that determines whether they are worthy of live or worthy of love or whatever. how the official narrative (master of the winner will have the world in their hands) ultimately taints whatever good there might be in the bond between sekirei and ashikabi. etc etc.

and then you have all those instances and characters trying to do better and reshaping that goddamit narrative into something more breathable for everyone. like how kazehana makes clear that even the weakest of them was born to love or when tsukiumi realizes that she resents Kuno because she dares to easily take what tsukiumi perceives as a merit-based reward, and by the end of the arc "forgives" her (and herself?) for this "weakness".

and, you see, one of the things that sold me on this manga is how Minato accepts and validates the feelings of the sekirei that are involved with him as something genuine and important no matter how insane the whole situation must be from his pov.

man doesn't overestimate himself, always tries to rise to the occasion and is even willing to negotiate things that he probably took for granted all his life (like his own monogamy, as he does in the finale, granting the North a happy ending and effectively destoying me and my ability to enjoy any other harem series).

look at them. I would go to war for them.

In the end, it all keeps coming back to the idea that the Sekirei are bound to a great suffering but are also capable of great love and Minato understands that fact right away. Sometimes in the middle of reading I am hit with these thoughts and ughhhh I love this young man so much, he must be one of my favorite main characters ever. It hurts me to see that he was so disliked by the fanbase.

and yet (you can beat me with a stick here) these early arcs also show how subtly but steadily he's forming some ideas about the ashikabi's right to "master" the sekirei without even realizing how bad it is, all while being encouraged by matsu and other characters to become a stronger ashikabi. like how it's bad that he can't "keep his pieces under control", or how they fucking hunted down tsukiumi or how during kazehana's winging he goes from desiring her to desiring her powers (again the struggle between love and fight) in one single page.

Its important to highlight this bc it's a point of conflict that will culminate during the next arc with Homura in charge of calling him out.

.

Now some assorted things unrelated to the above:

At the beginning of the arc we have Tsukiumi wanting to unveil the veiled sekirei for fighting dishonestly when a couple of volumes before she chose to preserve Homura's identity because for her taking advantage of a fallen rival is not the honorable thing to do. she's like a samurai who part-times as a waifu I love her so much.

Uzume, my poor girl. how scared must she have been in this moment. last time she made a deal it was with higa.

Leaving aside the obvious suicidal ideation and the fact that chapter covers aren't always canon, i was always intrigued by this homura with painted nails. Did he paint them himself? or did anyone else paint them for him? does he still do it? I know dysphoria well enough to know why he would stop doing it, but did he used to enjoy it? and where did the crest come from? Is the MBI sending nail art stickers to their overpowered alien warriors to keep them in a good mood while they're forced to kill each other? obsessed with the implications.

There's a long way to go until Musubi frees all Sekirei, including those who didn't fight until the end. for now she keeps establishing herself as a bearer of bonds/wishes just like yume was. no one else thought to ask Kuno what she wanted!

and speaking of what, I'm going to let it sink in that this sweet sweet girl died with her body lacerated not once but twice. What a fun and light-hearted story. fuck.

[saturnniidae]

astrid for the character ask game?

(p.s deya you are so cool)

YAYAUAY I LOVE YAMMERING ABKJT ASTRID (ALSO TYSM???)

Favorite thing about her: the way she cares so deeply for people but is bad at showing it and has the most diabolical case of cuteness aggression I fear I've ever seen. She expresses her love for her friends through actions like protecting them.

Least favorite thing: How she only has like one episode (the flighttmare episode where shes trying to regain her famliys honor. off the top of my head) dedicated solely to her, and all her other development being linked to Hiccup in some way and how she's slowly just reduced to 'supportive gf' in the later movies.

Favorite line: "Our parents war is about to become ours! Figure out which side you're on." Because it just tells you so much about her character. She's essentially a child soldier, well they all are, but the others still goof off, yknow, like kids are supposed to?? Astrid allows herself 0 moments of weakness (respite) and puts everything before herself to ensure berks safety.

BrOTP: I already talked about her and Snotlout, so how about her and Fishlegs? Like they their moments of silliness in that one rtte ep where he helped her look for a betrothal gift and her helping him protect the dramillions. It shows they have such a bond you'd think would be kind of unlikely but then it's like. Never talked about again and it makes me mad bc they're such best friends :(

(let Astrid have friends outside of Hiccup challenge: FAILED)

OTP: Her and Hiccup. Or Heather. Heathstrid is more of a 'it's cute and makes sense' ship than one I'm genuinely invested in tbh bc I don't think Heather needs a love interest, so ig hiccstrid since I'm more invested in it. (or specifically the version that lives in my head)

NOTP: idk. I saw her shipped with viggo once. That was Interesting (boo throws tomatoes👎👎)

Random headcanon:

Now knowing their war with the dragons was essentially pointless, she feels like she wasted her childhood. Had someone only realized and ended it sooner, she wouldn't have spent all her time training instead of being happy. Also she's trans <33

(Astrid child soldier Hofferson you grew up too fast. The dragon war ended only for her to be thrust into another conflict (war with viggo) shortly after but it's not like she's complaining. I feel like she spent so much time training to fight, she barely knows how to just. Be.)

Also. She keeps a little handkerchief in that pouch on her belt to wipe her hands after holding Hiccup's. Sweaty ass palms.

Also also, I feel like she has a slightly strained relationship with her parents and siblings and her uncle is her closest famliy member.

Unpopular opinion:

Sheshould get to be silly and be allowed to kind of suck sometimes. Let her be kind of a bitch with no remorse!!! let her be goofy sometimes!!!

Song I associate her with:

There's a few

Crab - Alex g (specifically her and Hiccup in the 1st movie and before it), The Wedding List - Kate Bush and The Calling - The Amazing Devil

(I've always interpreting The Calling as moving on from a desire to please and being blinded to other important aspects of life due to to one's obsession with strength, reflecting on that and starting anew which I feel fits her)

Favorite picture:

She looks so happy here it makes my chest hurt (gotnf is fhe best depiction of Astrid in all of httyd outside the first movie. I'll die in this hill)

[running-with-the-feels]

okay, yall, the existence of MK1 is pissing me off again, not bc it's bad necessarily, bc it does introduce a lot of interesting concepts and character dynamics, but bc I don't think there was really a need for another re-boot and NRS imploding their continuity (again) makes it really hard to get invested in their characters bc I know they're just gonna get reset after a handful of games that don't even really give them satisfying character arcs and it annoys me that MK11 was used pretty much solely to set that up rather than paying off the character arcs and conflicts I was invested in (like the revenants)

That being said, here are my ideas fr what MK11 could have been that didn't end in a reboot

Another tournament, Havik is the main antagonist of the MKX blood ties comics and all he wands is endless and eternal chaos so have him declare Mortal Kombat between Earthrealm and Chaosrealm. This lets us see the kombat kids face what their parents did and also lets us see how characters react to the idea of another thousand year war. Bc Havik is Havik, you can even have him get impatient and do a rule change like Shao Khan did if you want to avoid having to carry that story into the next game. Plus, Kuai Liang, Takeda, and Hanzo have beef (and some trauma) related to Havik so you can play around with that. You can use this to bring back a lot of old characters too, and even add some new ones (not Kronika she was annoying and pointless and could have been replaced by a necklace without really affecting the story all that much, she's only just Barely not whatever the non sexy version of a sexy lamp is)

Or, if you're really attached to the idea of characters interacting with their past selves (Fair, its a really cool idea) Have the elder gods sense some looming threat on the horizon and declare a trial for Earthrrealm's defenders to ensure that they are ready. Maybe Raiden protests, bc the trial used to train champions until he saw too many die to it so he abandoned it which gives us a reason to like him. But the the defenders have to go through various challenges, one of which is facing down and coming to terms with their past selves, which lets us see this concept used more and with more characters (which is good, bc it was a Good Idea!) and creates the interesting possibility of having a trial ending as well as a tower ending so you can have other characters who aren't in story mode do this too. To add stakes, you could have the gods offer a boon (heh) to whoever completes the trial where they will do them one favor, so then you can have Hanzo want to resurrect his family and clan, Kuai Liang want to resurrect his brother and then they work together to do it only to find out that the boon only goes to whoever completed the trial first so they fight about it, each trying to offer it to the other out of guilt, which helps solidify how close the two are now and how far their friendship has become

Or, if you really wanna do timeline fuckery, just have a handful of characters get tossed into another timeline bc of the revenants and need to find their way home. You can have them meet their alt selves and you can introduce new concepts and character dynamics, without destroying the ones we know and love as the characters will eventually go home in the end. You could even have the characters get tossed into different timelines, so Subscorp in one, Cageblade in another, the kombat kids somewhere else, and watch them each navigate that and try to find one another to get home. Maybe each timeline has a piece of whatever artifact sent them to the different timeline and they all need to find the pieces and their alt selves either help or hinder.

DARK RAIDEN, why go through all the effort to set that up (especially when it makes So Much Sense for his character) only to do nothing with it? Have the amulet corrupt him beyond what the defenders can tolerate so they all make a plan in secret to recover something that will fix him and then trap him so they can use it on him, maybe leading to the revenants getting fixed and revived or even just allying with Earthrealm temporarily in order to get revenge on the god. Then, once they've fixed Raiden the revenants could try to kill him leading to a battle between them and the defenders.

Or, again, if timeline fuckery is your jam, send a handful of characters back into the past, either to MK9 (which might not work as NRS technically already did that) or before, or hell even mkx. Then you have the characters trying to navigate getting back to their time only to come into conflict bc some of them (Kuai Liang, Hanzo, probs Kung Jin) want to change things so their loved ones live or better choices are made and others (Johnny, Sonya, maybe even Cassie) want to keep them the same so that their lives take the same path, AND you can have them interacting with their past selves in some really interesting ways

Similarly, that same idea, but instead of the present selves getting knocked back to Meet their past selves, they just get tossed back into their past self's bodies with no idea what's going on. So then they're all separated and trying to figure out how they got here and what to do next with each getting different pieces of the puzzle. This lends itself to some really interesting character moments bc can you imagine Kuai Liang waking up in the Old Lin Kuei again? Can you imagine how terrifying and triggering that would be for him? Or Hanzo waking up in the Shirai Ryu before the attack, able to actual save his family (whether he succeeds or not both have interesting potential)? Or Kung Lao at MK9 suddenly remembering dying in the arena (in a truly stupid way like you're telling me Raiden saw SHAO FUCKING KHAN walk up behind the guy who just beat some of his best warriors and is gloating about it and just decided not to say anything? Just assumed the LITERAL TYRANT had innocent intentions? Come on. Either I'm supposed to like Raiden, in which case GIVE ME A FUCKING REASON TOO, or I'm not in which case stop pretending he's a saint.) and being a revenant and having to navigate that?

Idk, this is probably just rambling nonsense but I needed to get the ideas out so here ya go. I might think of more later and add them, so apologies in advance

[sugarsnappeases]

PLEASE tell me about marytunia. i have to know what this is

hi lovely!!!!

okay marytunia have recently been SO on my mind bc i saw @fernhelm tag a post w them the other day and i was like HOLD ON!! I SEE IT!! and THEN i had a vague recollection of jen talking about them one time last year at some point so the two of them have been subjected to some of my ramblings bc i was struck down by divine intervention like last week and have been obsessing a little....

but okay so for me the general vibe is very tangled up w the evans sisters dynamics and just lily in general which is all v ouch. i kinda see them actually as two parts of her life like petunia is a huge part lily’s childhood and mary is a huge part of lily’s time at hogwarts so she’s this presence between them even if she’s not actually there and there’s a lot of like resentment and yearning and jealousy etc etc

like petunia is fighting w herself the whole way through it (nothing i love more than some good old internal conflict) bc she shouldn’t want this!! she’s planned out a nice, perfect, normal life for herself that she’s convinced herself she has to like, she will like it, which doesn’t involve magic or witches or her sister and mary is really putting a spanner in the works and petunia shouldn’t want it, she can’t want it, but there’s just something so magnetic about mary that she can’t quite seem to escape, and it’s like maybe magic can be good?? can be beautiful?? bc mary is so beautiful?? but then also i think mary has complicated thoughts about magic which i’m not gonna get into here lol

but anyway mary is maybe just kinda curious at first i think. like maybe there’s some unrequited marylily so she has a bit of a crush and just wants to find out everything about lily and she has this sister and petunia’s just so interesting and it’s fun to try and get her to laugh at her jokes when she’s obviously trying to completely ignore her and she just finds herself slowly trying to get her attention every time she’s at the evans’ house, like she’s going there to see glimpses of petunia rather than to spend time w lily and she’s suddenly like oh!

and idk they’re just very interesting to me bc as i said resentment longing jealousy and like there’s vernon and dudley and the war and lily’s death and i just. like they really compel me yk??? there’s a lot of complexity there that i just wanna like dig my fingers into

[andiinaraethtash]

please tell me about your favorite wip ?

Dude that is like the hardest question you could ask. I'm gonna say top three (though one is a bit cheaty bc it's a series rather than a single wip, but none of the parts of the series are done, so the whole series is a series of wips. It counts).

To Ash and Dust--Okay, I love this one, and it has great angst and humor just built into it. Basically the premise is that the Battle at the Acropolis in BoO goes very, very badly, to the point that they completely lose, so the Fates, in what little time they have, basically do a massive loop with the threads of Fate for the surviving heroes--meaning, of course, Percy and Annabeth. They wake up like. A few weeks before Annabeth, Luke, Thalia, and Grover make it to camp, and of course Annabeth has very conflicting emotions about Luke, bc on the one hand, she did love him, and he did sorta redeem himself, but on the other he betrayed her and got so many of her friends killed. Percy, meanwhile, woke up at the apartment he and his mom, who is dating Gabe at this point, share, and immediately is like, "idk whats going on but i need to get somewhere safe" and so he sneaks out and calls a pegasus to take him to camp. He shows up, giving Chiron a heart attack followed by a migraine, refuses to tell him pretty much anything, just his name, and then waits until Annabeth and the others get there, and in the middle of the storm, proceeds to take down as many monsters as possible to get the other four into the safety of the camp. Bear in mind, he is seven. And a kinda scrawny seven at that. Annabeth's immediate reaction is to just kinda squawk, "Seaweed Brain?" and he grins and shoots back, "Hey, Wise Girl," and Thalia, whose pov that section is written from, is like. "wtf how does Annabeth know this kid, why is this seven-year-old kicking so much ass, and also holy Styx that is a seven-year-old--" That's about as far as I've written, but there are other fun moments in store, though I've yet to decide what to actually do with Luke. (Advice would be appreciated :D)

And Yet, a Second Try--This is the one I've been working on for the last couple of days, and I'm sort of going back to my roots here, with a Star Wars time travel au. Basically, Obi-Wan and Anakin both wake up, a few months after the year on the run happens, in their younger bodies (Obi-Wan is like. 19, and Anakin is three) but the last thing they remember is their respective deaths. Neither knows the other is back, and Obi-Wan doesn't know that Anakin redeemed himself. So Obi-Wan almost immediately sneaks off to Tatooine, so he can rescue Anakin and Shmi both, and of course Anakin is suspicious, bc why is Obi-Wan here now, he's not supposed to be here now, but he doesn't say anything... at least not until some of the other kids are talking and one of them echoes that line that Anakin says in TPM, the "no one can kill a Jedi" and Anakin just. Gets up and leaves without a word, and he vanishes in the three seconds Obi-Wan and Shmi don't have eyes on him, and Obi-Wan manages to find him and they kind of both realise that they remember the future, and there's a lot of crying. It's very cathartic.

The Obani Chronicles--so this is the wip series, and my gosh, when I say this is a labor of love, I mostly mean it's a labor. There are several parts to it, some that are like. Alternate universes to the main one? Anyway--It's focused on an oc of mine, Kestrel Obani, or Kes, who was a Padawan, friends with Cal and Caleb. When Order 66 went out, she barely managed to escape in a fighter, then commandeered a pirate ship in the middle of an asteroid belt, set the autopilot of the fighter she'd stolen to shoot through the belt so it would crash, and successfully faked her death. She manages to lie low until shortly before the events of JFO, when she gets turned over to the Inquisitors after having to use the Force to escape a fight against a gang on Nar Shaddaa. So she's in the Fortress Inquisitorius when Cal and Cere break in, and manages to escape in the chaos, meeting up with Cal and Cere, who don't recognize her immediately (it's been five years and escaping the cell she'd been in had required an explosion which had burnt the left side of her face, neck and shoulder). After they escape, Cal is unconscious (bc he got skewered by his own lightsaber) so there's no reunion, but Kes gets to meet Merrin and Oh, Boy, do I love their dynamic. Merrin doesn't trust her, and she doesn't trust Merrin, and then they just sorta bond over how danger-prone Cal is, and of course once Cal does wake up there's that whole reunion, and that's about the summary of the first part of the series. From there, the main storyline has like. Two more main parts, and one that kinda explains where Kes was during the events of the second game, bc I am not going to try to rewrite that, thank you very much. In part two, they get a group of visitors on Koboh who call themselves the Spectres, which is so much fun. Part three covers the events of Ahsoka, which I did rewrite a little bc I have Thoughts about how that would go if Kes and the others were involved. Anyway I love them all so much and as much as I want to share this series with everyone, literally none of the parts are finished, so...

[hasarjunadoneanythingwrong]

*PATIENTLY WAITS FOR THE INDIAN LOSTBELT KING REWRITE FOR YOU*

Concepts I’ve thought about

-theme of lostbelt focusing on ‘guilt and memory’ but like this time more obvious

-something something instead of it being ‘just’ the lokapala arjuna alter is unconsciously trying to recreate his own siblings/family with them, though this means instead of kubera/nezha the ashwins would be used possible w a twin servant, or they’d be moved over to asclepius and someone else would get yama

-lb appears to be stuck in the time right b4 the kurukhestra war, cycling over and over in an effort to ‘prevent’ it despite it already in f having

-ashwatthama actively chooses to join arjuna alters side? Instead of the torture thing, as an exploration/continuation of the theme of ‘guilt,’ deciding to side with the people he hurt even if they’re now in the wrong as well out of a desperate attempt to try and right something that could never be fixed out of a nostalgia for a relationship long lost

-parallels between lakshmi bai giving up her life for her country and the youth of hastinapur giving up theirs for theirs? Idk I just feel like some line could’ve been done. Especially bc she also left a young child behind

-karna being forced to confront what ‘good intentions poor execution’ truly means as he witnesses people he knew and respected become warped beyond recognition, being forced to acknowledge his own role in enabling the conflict, once again having to come to terms with his tendency to enable and prioritize his pride and own desires over his common sense

-by which i mean I’ve considered subbing out karna alter over douman just bc it would be funny to have the more og text canon warhawk karna see some fucked up arjuna and be like ‘hey you should keep doing that :)’ while his lancer version is in the bg like ‘bruh’

- focus on the repetitive nature of the cycles, how and why they were reset, what that meant for arjuna alter’s psyche. Really hammer in the increasing isolation and disconnect, and the growing agitation as the inherent nature of humans prevented a world with no conflict no matter what he did or how hard he tried. Talk about what happened to his family and the other gods, and the thousands of years ago. Do a this chair monologue idk something

-parallels between arjuna alter and Asha as people who’s families were torn apart, who struggle to conceptualize their grief as they can’t even remember it. Let them talk at some point.

-look if rama comes into the lostbelt asking about his wife you can at least superimpose her sprite in the sky at the end after arjuna alter dies and have her be like ‘cool I’m not mixed w 400 other gods now. Sorry I can’t hang love you bby xoxo’ like cmon

- I want to see arjuna alter get MAD. Make him cry and scream about how unfair it all is it’s bullshit that it was karna. I want him to rail again the unfairness of having to kill your kin, of how no matter how much you destroy it will never create peace, of how the world he was in was destined to head to a bloody war, just SOMETHING

-let us run koyanskya over w the shadowborder. For fun

-if we have to endure kiara’s 400 hour buddhism monologue then can’t rama explain some like, basic aspects of Hindu theology to us. Why hasn’t that happened yet. Huh?

- you know how the boss fights from Greece-> onwards have their name in that countries’s script? Yeah something in like Sanskrit for here pls

-let us have an actual dialogue w arjuna alter

-let us actually see douman and arjuna alter interact.

-idk fuckin uhhh if Krishna was the guy who allegedly junao was able to absorb everyone through can we like. See what his deal is? In a flashback? Please?

-mention gilgamesh flies his vimana wrong for me. personally

-have a third party who knew arjuna who isn’t karna/ashwa/biased there to talk about what he was like. Idk Bhisma drona someone just let us see more facets of him so we can understand how he got to this state

-hammer in the memory issues. Hammer in the fact arjuna alter’s body is breaking down around him, held together only by force of will. Hammer in the fact he is willing to die to try and save everyone. Really get that beaten in there.

-for me personally given that hindusim features reincarnation heavily it would be nice to at least acknowledge most of the people deleted are probably reentering the samsara (only enlightened people exit the cycle which a flawed being can’t be). He hasn’t necessarily abandoned these people even if he’s treating them wrong.

[gojuo]

I heard many people say that if the showrunners were good writers they would definitely make aegon and rhaenyra parallel each other. And tbh it's such an interesting take , because that would flesh out the conflict and make it very grey as it should have been. Also the fact that syrax is yellow and sunfyre is gold and you know... Gold and yellow are very similar so i think it's an interesting detail from GRRM. So what you think about this ? If u have given the chance to write their dynamic and how they parallel each other, how will u do it? I'm curious

Syrax and Sunfyre couldn’t be more different to be honest 😭 Syrax for starters is useless and lazy, never went out into battle, never hunted for her own food, forgot she could fly and breathe fire, essentially letting the mob of KL kill her, her one and only kill is Joffrey, etc. etc. She was worthless and did nothing during the entire Dance, mirroring her rider I guess 😭😭😭 Sunfyre contrary to that was a much younger dragon who DID ride out into battle, who DID hunt for his own food (balanced diet of other dragons, grand maesters and princesses #healthygainz), who has THE most dragon kills, who was horrifically injured but still kept on fighting kept on surviving who refused to die all to find his way back to Aegon and to help him achieve his goal of killing Rhaenyra, WHO SHOULD HAVE DIED TEN TIMES OVER BUT REFUSED TO ALL FOR AEGON BC SUNFYRE KNEW HIS BELOVED RIDER NEEDED THAT MONSTER DEAD AND HE COULDN'T LEAVE THIS WORLD BEFORE HE MADE SURE SHE WAS GETTING DIGESTED 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 Also exactly mirroring his rider...

Anyways this is about the dragons but dragons do resemble their riders so I feel like this would also be their dynamic. They’re just too different. Both in the book and in the show. In the book Rhaenyra is hungry for violence and makes the declaration of war first, she never cared for her siblings (always calling them her half-siblings), was gleeful when they died, when she was young in court she made fun of them along with Daemon to entertain herself, etc. Aegon in contrast had to be convinced to take up the crown, he says “What kind brother steals his sister’s throne?” (paraphrased, I don’t have the passage with me right now) when Criston tried to persuade him (RIP Kingmaker Cole, one of the most butchered Greens on the show), insinuating that he had resigned himself to being unwanted, only being convinced to ascend the throne himself because him and his entire family would have to be killed in order for Rhaenyra to have a smooth succession, etc. etc.

In the show they obviously tried to soften Rhaenyra’s canon ass personality bc they need their Daenerys 2.0, but then again, she was also beefing with her little 2-year-old brother on his birthday????? Like.. “No one is here for me,” she cries but they are at her baby brother’s birthday party ????? I’m fucking crying why was this grown woman so upset people were celebrating Aegon’s birthday, as if she herself didn’t get birthday parties every single year too 😭 Anyways show!Rhaenyra is less bloodthirsty and deliberately awful, but she still makes the declaration of war first, she still beefs with her baby brother, she still never makes an effort to get close to them (evidenced in the Driftmark episode), all in all she still doesn’t see them as family.

If the show was in my hands, I would have never whitewashed her character (bc she would be the antagonist and Alicent/Aegon the protag so lol) so if it was up to me, I would have had young Rhaenyra trying to bond with Aegon, but failing miserably because of her own feelings of doubt and insecurity of her position. And also, because Daemon is grooming her and slowly turning her against her siblings because he has his claws in her bc in my version of the show, Daemon would be the unequivocal villain of the series, serving no one but himself, not even Rhaenyra. Remember that he was starting with grooming her when she was 8 years old after being named heir. He, being as self-serving as he is, would have more chance of getting close to the throne as Rhaenyra’s King Consort than being uncle to King Aegon. (He doesn’t give a shit about her, he just cares about her power & title.) So Daemon would be poisoning young Rhaenyra against her siblings and since she would be feeling isolated in her younger years, fearing that her father would replace her with Alicent and their kids, it would be just way too easy for Daemon.

I think what I would do is that because of the big age gap between Rhaenyra & Aegon + Daemon always all up in her ear + her fucking off to Dragonstone for most of Aegon’s life, I would have had their characters be paralleled (Rhaenyra is loved by their dad and is the heir and has all his attention vs. Aegon is loved by the court + has better PR and Rhaenyra fears her position will go to him). Any interaction I would have them do would be extremely strained and filled with vitriol and resentment and bitterness, but I think what would be best for them is their interactions not being face-to-face but mostly through ranting about the other behind their backs. Aegon, whenever the family believes he’s fucked up and the frustration becomes too much for him, he’d just be like, “Who the hell cares what I do? Father only sees sister anyways/Sister-who-is-more-of-a-stranger-to-me is the one who will inherit everything that should have gone to me so why even bother?” etc. etc. such moments of vulnerability. For Rhaenyra, we would have such moments when she’s younger and Aegon is newly born. As a girl who’s lost her mother, who’s watching as her father is with a new wife, she would feel like she and the memory of her mother is getting replaced by Alicent & Aegon, and the fear of losing her only family (her dad) to someone that is not her and then also losing the inheritance her father gave her to someone that is also not her would make her a young and insecure girl, feeling isolated (perfect moment for Daemon to begin his grooming) and extremely hostile towards Aegon. As they grow older, Rhaenyra would see how Viserys cares so much for her and loves her whereas Aegon sees none of it, so she would be feeling vindicated and rub that in his face, only showing him apathy and spitefulness whenever they brush shoulders in passing. But what do I know, I’m just some girl writing fanfiction... Instead, the superior CondalHess are going to have their first and last interaction be when he kills her 🙃

[cladestruction]

rebel moon: some thoughts (very biased)

we're watching rebel moon with my dad. So far, I can't say I like it lol. it looks great (props to the entire CGI and editing team) and i can't lie, I always give extra points to just about any movie that says "imperialism bad !!!" which is, you know, a very low bar. buuut yeah, i need good characters. most of the time I'm happy with any character being as much as simply entertaining, not even necessarily the main character (though if your main character isn't interesting or complex or likeable, try a little harder please?). But this movie??? every secondary character is very interesting, which is great, but that's just not enough sadly. because you can't show me a character that is seemingly smart and strong and fast and oh has such a great dramatic past! and then you show me that same character doing very inconsistent stuff like idk: doing something as random as following the main character, who they've just met, through an adventure that is (and I'm sorry) so lazily justified.

And yeah I hate to criticize female characters. i know that sounds incredibly biased, but it's because the internet is full of men doing that shit and that's just annoying lol. buuut this girl is so... Nothing. I feel nothing for her. And don't get me wrong! She can be unlikeable (let girls be rude and cunts !!!) that is not a problem, but the fact that nobody seems to notice it IS a problem. it feels less like a story and more like a convenient and flawed script when you see this girl, who doesn't really do anything for others, being instantly followed but a bunch of characters who are somehow ready to go to war for her at the drop of a galactic hat! There's such a missed opportunity to actually develop that companionship, that loyalty. And the fact that it happens so suddenly, without the build up, makes it so boring. It's just convenient. It's cliche. It's lazy.

and while we are at it, characters like hers make me lose more and more faith on the "imperialism bad !!!" genre. To be fair, this is the first part of the saga, so she has a lot of growth left to do (hopefully), but I'm still allowed to feel pissed at how weird her story is. Because Politically, she's as consistent as a fart: she is a retired soldier, but not any soldier! she is actually a great warrior that fought for the empire!!! and the entire galaxy should know and fear her!!! Oh but she is also a victim so don't get mad at her. Yes, as a child she lost everything at the hands of the regime she then knowing helped perpetuate! Oh no!!! But now she lives a quiet and peaceful life away from conflict so it's okay, except it's not because conflict is here again. And oh what would she do, now that this planet she's been living in but doesn't feel entirely part of yet (bc of unresolved trauma I guess) is in danger??? Run. Exactly, she doesn't want to fight, because it's too painful. So bye everyone! Except she WILL fight!!! Oh what a hero! And now she's screaming at everyone else that doesn't want to fight for the exact same reasons as hers (or to be fair even better reasons than hers). That's right, this girl who just yesterday wasn't interested in fighting is now guilt tripping the real organized rebellion because she wants them to fight, not against the evil regime, no, she wants them to go help protect the crops of this one specific planet she has been living in for a couple of years now, because fuck every other planet I guess, things only matter when they reach your own house, right?

And I know not every character Must be from the very start an anti imperialist activist, full on rebel, whistleblower etc etc for a movie to work. That's what growth and character development are for. But this movie didn't give time for growth because, again, I can't believe the secondary characters are so ready to go to war just like that! The first movie already ended with the squad ready to go, meanwhile the main character is still the equivalent of a hollow egg: disappointing and honestly kind of weird.

[kiwibirdlafayette]

after the battles, yet we cannot win the war (its a mad multiverse out there that's for sure)

hi im back. its timeline time >:] very much still a work in progress, uhh only vague for that I don't wanna spoil Big Things (for no reason, this is really all for fun LMAO no one is gonna wanna produce this)

*obligatory disclaimer, all named characters are in reference to solely the RP characters, and have nothing to do with CCs

the stuff that happens after S2/before Isles isnt as important plus ive rambled about it before

During Isles tldr; Sonja revives Capsize with the help of Spark, Kristin, Phil and Ianite.

Tom returns to the present from Isles, literally falling from a rift and landing facefirst onto the deck of Capsize's boat

Jordan got taken by DreamXD into the DSMP to be trapped in the End Realm- long story short he finds Techno and Phil, they free him, he gets launched far from the Syndicate meeting room, roped into working for Wilburger and reconnects with Tubbo this is all the DSMP Sparklez stuff

When Techno's Syndicate has their ending (the canon one Phil wrote), Rux!Dianite (I'll just refer to him as Dia) uses the anomaly signal caused when Wilbur left to Utah to find Jordan and bring him home with Tubbo (Michael and Ranboo idk they fit in here somewhere im not on about writing this just yet)

Everyone's home yayyy Tom is doin his Mecha Dianite things, everyone's kinda gettin along (not really.. lots of uh. skeletons in the closet. Big Character Conflits). then Boom. Alice Syndicate (and Karl bc he deserves to get saved from whatever the fuck happens to him at the end of Isles im not that far yet LMAO anyways)

Basically. Big Frick. NoWhere (deity of multiverse) has discovered a force that is causing worlds to decay away (ooc: inactive SMPs) explaining why it seems Mianite is getting rotted despite Tom being there aka all 3 gods present

Leads them to Vault Hunters/Hermitcraft universe- long running, no decay, Vault Gods must know something

Tom gets sent there first. Cue confusion thing and him bein a little messed up with his attachment issues to Jordan after he just got his bf back, he fights Pete, gets kicked

X33n (aka deviser gaines who ditched everyone and reinvented himself) and Tubbo talk to VH!Ianite get Tom back, he talks to Vault Gods. Wendarr explains what the force was, now their worlds are untimed. This entity is like a mimic, its hard to find. Suggests they check Hermitcraft

Tom returns, the team prepares. Dia agrees to take Tom's place alongside the S1 siblings temporarily to let him investigate.

On the way to speak to the hermit gods or watchers, theyre intercepted by someone who looks like Martyn inthelittlewood (its not him) in the data streams who says they have information. Jokes on them. its a mimic, and sends them flying off their trail into a random vanilla world.

Its where Tucker went. theres also a witch there too shes chill

They catch up with Tucker, find out where he's been.

Conflict part 23, haven't fleshed this out but ends with Tucker agreeing to join them in their shenanigans one last time

Alice finds traces of the entity in a realm akin to Empires S2, its called Aitheaca.

Through her portal, Tom, Jordan, Sonja, Capsize and Tucker end up in Aitheaca, and are greeted by the fishy Watcher Merina and wither skeleton Cassell, who help them get to safety before Flash can find them

Wag is also there by a random coincidence, has just been hanging out with William and Mianite. Bro's just been travelling about the multiverse for fun

Most story takes place here; Martha's theory is the Ianite in this realm is housing the entity (Jordan agrees.. why else would his lady be evil and hellbent on keeping balance to the point of it being destructive?) Basically, them two's about to have a massive fucking wakeup call. Capsize is skeptical

Back home, Ianite, Dia and Mianite are trying to hold their crumbling realm together with the help of Spark, Mot Jeriah and Alyssa, going back n forth between Ruxomar to pick up quintessence. Its not gone well

Stuff ensues. How it ends? I really don't know yet...

and uh. I mean i do have more but its more spoilery but its for ending things which I'm still working out so yeeee But! That's the gist of it; I really wanna focus on themes of them having to understand things are temporary, the idea of things having to have an end, and when it ends, who will be there to start again with you.

[blookmallow]

my new vegas courier has become so special to me honestly

heres things ive decided about her. some of them. i have a WHOLE backstory/ongoing storyline but heres some of it

has some memory loss from the gunshot injury. probably has a few screws loose in general

im thinking she's originally from oklahoma (and sounds like it) if there's no. fallout lore reason she couldn't be but ive never heard anything about what post-war oklahoma is like

chainsmoker. drinks a lot but can handle it. bit of a mentats habit. she isn't Blatantly reckless, but doesn't really care much about her health either. once you've survived a shot in the head nothing really seems like that big of a risk anymore

general attitude of Anything Goes - whatever situations she finds herself in, she'll find herself out of, one way or another

has a very uncanny ability to solve problems by just asking nicely. she isn't particularly charming or witty - just very unsettlingly calm. something about her catches people off guard. she doesn't have anything to prove to anyone and has a reputation for being extremely difficult to kill. "pride's damn easy to swallow when y'keep it in a small enough pill"

nuka cola girl is her dream girl

isn't really on anyone's Side so much as just frequently shows up to defuse conflict. thinks the world would be a whole lot nicer if everyone stopped shooting at each other so much. works pretty closely with the NCR, but doesn't always agree with their politics. thinks they should be doing more with their resources than they are

fucking hates the legion so goddamn much. suffered some pretty bad trauma after the benny incident at the camp (i went for the machete duel bc i felt like 'if we have to do this im going to make it a fair fight this time' was the most in line with her character) after seeing how the slaves were living, having all those eyes on her and the brutality of the fight

big big soft spot for the king but she wont admit to it. can't bear to disappoint him and couldn't tell you why

started collecting pool balls at some point and it sort of developed into a compulsion and now she can't stop. mild kleptomania tendencies in general. likes odd and interesting objects

never goes anywhere without ed-e

frequently just jumps off railings/balconies because stairs take too long. this absolutely drives arcade up the wall and he hates trying to keep up with her

gives sarsaparilla stars to everyone she travels with and is weirdly insistent on them wearing it. she brought one for primm slim too. he loves it