#bcs that in it of itself is an interpretation within an interpretation LOL
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
loudmound · 11 months ago
Text
i remember when i was like 15-16 years old, and i was woobifying the hell out of lapis lazuli from land of the lustrous. i looked on a relatively well-known blog within that fanbase complaining about said woobification. they did not name names, but i knew that it was about me. LMAO
12 notes · View notes
Text
if azula needs redeeming, why wasnt she?
i read this analysis of Azuko? Zukla? idk but a critique of their sibling dynamic, particularly within the context of doomed siblings, and tho i don’t agree with it, it’s a testament to its writer that there’s innate value in carving out my thoughts from their own.
so a lot of my disagreement boils down to the fact that the way the analysis construed zuko & azula, from characterizing them as doomed siblings, to the way azula’s breakdown is framed, is a problem of taste and inferences, and how these interpretive elements can be incongruent with technical aspects like intent, convention, medium, or the functional mechanics of art overall.
firstly, i think its very important to highlight that while elite art is holistic and multifaceted, it is doubly focused and premeditated, and its constituents all occupy a purpose and position within it, as they are narrative elements first and foremost. which complicates things when creation and consumption are both such human, evocative processes, but i think looking at the rudimentary layers of a story are the north stars in subjective landscapes like this. and most salient of these, is the story’s anti-colonial roots, centering indigeneity explicitly, and the cultural, spiritual and earthly relationships therein, with the main conflict being restoring the dignity and autonomy of the subjugated, alongside the internal work and opposition that are necessitated in doing so. everything stems from that, and though there is complexity and nuance therein, and the story itself is immensely liberal in execution, it is also ultimately a good vs bad narrative, which it has every right to be, bc colonialism is bad, and colonialists are bad.
therefore, atla inherently adheres to convention, and has a preestablished idealistic framework. to illustrate this, it utilizes two central characters, both encapsulations of the dualistic nature of oppressor and the oppressed, and navigated thusly as foils to one another. zuko is thereby, the deuteragonist, and the depth or lack thereof, of his environment are equally conditioned by his position, as the confines of the kid’s tv medium, serialization as well as narrative structuring itself, craft him. kill your darlings and all that lol.
however, these positionalities, while abiding convention, are not binary, and while conclusive, they are not absolutist. zuko for example, is antithetical to a Madonna, stressed by him even having a redemption to realize, and azula too is done an injustice by any reduction to a whore / imperfect victim archetype. this compartmentalization, is luckily ill-fitting in accommodating their totality, and doesn’t incorporate the fact that consequence, in avatar, is not a condemnation of personhood, but a retaliation to action, and has mangled indiscriminately, with azula’s case actually, being the reclamation of principles and in-world intentionality.
to begin with, zuko, while most recognized for his redemption, is not functionally the redemptive character™, he’s an example of the sacrifice, sincerity and labor that are inherent to anti-colonial action facilitated by an absconding oppressor, of the inborn empathy and active resistance that are needed for a system to change, and how you don’t just get there through platitudes or amicability. those thematic niceties are ofc inherent to his story bc he’s fleshed out and the things that inspired him thusly are too, but that emotional and relational floweriness is a consequence of his actions, not their driving force (being embraced by imperial idolization, by his royal family, was not fulfilling), what drove him is a fundamental and intrinsic ideological disdain for the imperialist war machine — it was ultimately, an abstraction of self – by acting in service of others, which unlike letting imperialist standards (e.g. chauvinism and parasitism and “honor”) puppeteer him as an instrument of violence, is ironically, an act of true autonomy and discernment. deriving your value from mutualism and earning one’s stature, instead of asserting yourself on others and letting corrosive and paternalistic worldviews (and by extension the selfishness & self absorption i.e “honor” innate to that) rule your destiny.
azula, however, is meant to be an inversion of that, is meant to reflect what happens when you reject morality or connection, instead letting control and superiority entrap you. she is explicitly a cautionary tale, which also comes with its own oversights and inelegant implications, but she likewise, greatly exemplifies the internal decay and loneliness inherent to alienating yourself through cruelty and stratification. and is it not possible then that a girl who has valued herself by what she can inflict on others, would then have the very sanctity of existence warped at no longer being able to dominate, no longer deemed the ideal? is infection not a thing that savages, before it spreads? in this way, azula is poignant.
as the more intimate face of imperialism, she is humanized in her parasitism, but it is not used to soften her behavior, nor is it used to hand her redemption. it is not smth that she is owed for the very coincidence of her birth or blood, its earned, and she did not earn nor want it.
so when a character that suggested the utter evisceration of marginalized groups, and thereafter tried to murder a personification of colonial survivor’s guilt and endangered practices, is consequently left to mourn her superiority, just as her father before her, its smth we sympathize with within reasonable boundaries. when her brother, who she abused, doesn’t martyr himself to azula’s interiority, instead laboring towards his own destiny and happiness, rather than the genesis of azula’s redemption, that is not inconsistency, it’s peace. its making peace despite the fact that some would rather rot in the entrails of imperialism than afford its victims value, would rather hurt others, and in turn themselves, than embrace healing and progress
— (plus inflicting his values may not in fact heal, when healing is not inherently uniform, and growing is not innately moralistic).
now, there’s a whole nurture vs nature angle to this as well and these ontological arguments are often touchy, yes zuko had ursa and iroh. yes zuko was forced to challenge his preconceptions, but zuko wasn’t diametric to these things, and the supplementations he did receive were always compensatory. zuko was deemed genetically inferior by ozai and thusly ostracized, hence ursa’s gentle partiality, zuko was then mutilated and exiled, and naturally needed supervision, which was provided by an overseer who mirrored his disgrace. if denied these safeguards zuko would’ve been denied even palliative care, whereas azula was perceived as needing none when she was revered positionally and familialy.
yes being pit against zuko was toxic and destructive but its not at all equivocal to the outright abuse zuko suffered. ofc the threat of it was implicit but those who abet or orbit abusers are not inherently under threat, and i think azula is characterized similarly. it's not fear that colors her outburst against ozai, nor coerces her silence, its entitlement and a sanctifying of hierarchies: “i deserve to be by your side.” - it’s respect that earns her silence and it’s the promise of respect that goads her acquiescence, the prospect of accumulation. this is ofc not a healthy mindset to have bc azula hinges her value on perfection, performance and status, and it's evident how the pressure of that collapsed her, but it was a pressure she had embraced before. it was her adeptness that ozai latched onto, and before the inviolability of it was challenged, azula took advantage of her nature, she weaponized it, and it was that eagerness that ozai exploited.
as viewers we process this as the objectification it is, but its reality, is a systemic natured dehumanization, ingrained in any culture that seeks to mechanize its constituents (which is all societies actually. we are all complicit). ozai thinks he is honing her as did his father and his colonialist forefathers prior, and herein is not abuse in the conventional sense, but rather a tradition of commodification that extricates skill and hegemonizes personhood, it’s an existential death necessitated by imperialism. it’s the death of agency. azula embraced this necrotic philosophy until she was confronted with the consequences of her rot, and *that’s* what she got. consequences. of which she was spared throughout.
it was never personal.
sure we get glimpses of her humanity, her vulnerability, but they’re paltry and muddied too by an undercurrent of duplicitousness. azula flaunts zuko’s impending demise, yet later, includes him in her outings. azula relishes zuko’s mutilation, but also fetches him from the beach house. she falsely welcomes zuko back, then implores he join her sincerely. and azula shares her pain from ursa yet spurns softness still, from MaiKo’s juvenile fondness to ursa’s own guiding attempts. azula is ceaselessly cruel to zuko, then spontaneously benevolent to him once he has seemingly subsumed the apparatus of colonialism. and gives him credit for killing the avatar, yet shows a sly inclination of his revival. this isn’t to insinuate that azula is ontologically evil or that she’s an unnuanced, mono-faceted individual. and she was a child. yet zuko’s youth didn’t spare him from the grotesque terrors of death and alienation, and it didn’t temper her perpetual antagonism and bloodlust, she is demonstrably self-serving, and this is evidenced throughout.
this is not to shame her in her passivity, nor an expectation that she martyr herself or even commiserate with her brother. rather, her downfall is a reaping of autonomy, made subject to the tendency of one’s active leanings. in which the choice of her sibling abuse exacerbated her societal abuse, all festering, foremost, the abuse of her own soul.
so, relatedly, is it not possible that a character of her cunning, who emotionally degraded her own sibling while gleefully championing his attempted imprisonment, before graduating to attempted murder by preparing to electrocute him while he was enfeebled on the ship, then later tried to kill aang, tried to kill katara, gloated abt intending to kill zuko at the air temple, injured iroh while making her escape from the gaang + zuko. also endangered and coerced ty lee into joining her, imprisoned mai, nearly killed zuko as he tried to save katara (which was likely her intent, or at least meant to cripple zuko’s composure — dishonoring the agni kai) — need i go on. azula’s benevolence is conditional, and consistently transactional, and so is it not possible then that she gauged zuko’s swaying allegiances against her own armaments - when faced with iroh, a waterbending master, an earthbending master with groundbreaking abilities (>_-), and the literal avatar, after observing their – plus aang’s growth, and having been cornered before, then decided rather, that having another asset, puppet, contingency plan, in her pocket wouldn’t hurt.
maybe she was being benevolent, or maybe, azula, who too sat in liberated territory and was gifted a chance for growth and morality, rejected that chance over the value therein, tenderized for extraction, parasitizing instead. maybe azula too, was acting in the imperialist tradition of exploitation. maybe she holds the capacity for compassion and care — which we have gleaned regardless — but the tangentials and hypotheticals of the world are often not what is actualized, and they are not a thing that can be affected. empathy is an active pursuit, and it is mutualistic, provisional — and so there is not a ‘who’ of azula’s redemption, but a what, the ‘what’ that is to be influenced. the personalization of one’s own form, of an internal receptiveness to commiserate with. bc as is, azula is merely a husk of colonialism, and being a husk of colonialism is meant to be sad, its deliberately tragic, unflinchingly pitiable. disorienting. life shattering. that’s what you’re meant to feel, it is not an inadvertence of zuko’s arc, and it is not a coincidence of the narrative.
she is a trajectory within herself, and her fate is a whole within itself. just as zuko labors towards rectifying his nation bc he needs to, bc there is value in dismantling colonialism, not bc the imperialists are owed it, but bc everyone else is. zuko also watches, not with apathy or boredom as his sister implodes at this, but with pity, with grief, bc azula manipulated herself a bed of corpses, and it is not him who must choose not to lie in it. when healing is intentional, is active, and zuko has chosen to heal. when azula cannot be handheld and shielded from her war crimes and systemic violence bc she wasn’t hugged enough as a child. zuko too lost a core sense of support mournfully young, and moreover at many points in his development journey, but the inclination that told him to speak up in the war room is doubly the same inclination that told him to afford jin affection, or help the earth kingdom family, and save his crew member in the storm, despite this very vulnerability catalyzing his banishment.
azula had friends and she had adoration and she had paternalistic validation, but contentment is unattainable when accumulation is your driving force. and the only thing left to cannibalize is yourself. with this, azula’s downfall was not only inevitable, it was natural, foretold even. and just as iroh doesn’t adhere to whatever deficits were sewn unwittingly into ozai, nor is it demanded — it also isn’t azula’s fallibilities that now damn her. azula isn’t the “bad sibling”, devoid of nuance, she’s the bad person™. despite it all.
katara has ptsd and toph is blind, sokka is a non-bender and zuko was deemed handicapped then maimed thereafter, instability is not azula’s punishment, its an externalization of her decay, and its meant to be unrelenting and all-encompassing, because abstraction and objectification are totalitarian afflictions. likewise, her condemnation is not a consequence of gender marginalization, tho the undertones of spoilt brat tropes and somehow unconventional, inevitably crazed women sully our palates. we taste bias even where it perishes, even as the fire nation is seemingly meritocratic, and unabashed, imperfect girls are idealized story-wide. from toph to azula herself, who may be conflated for a sanist archetype, yet challenges gender roles and infantilization in her prowess and militancy, as she’s sterile and calculating and impassive, where zuko is feeble and undermined, aimless, emotional. she is far beyond any trope, contrivance or embellishment, and doesn’t flourish or encumber zuko’s arc, as he equally isn’t made to for her’s.
azula is a force beyond zuko, until she can no longer deny him, and azula haunts zuko until she doesn’t, until her own crossroads loom, her contrived dualism of failure or victor, aggressor and victim. and she is forced then to reckon with loss. azula’s end is not a reductionism at hands other than her own, her fall is not zuko’s win, nor does the show frame it gloriously, there is no joy in her misery, no minimization of her tragedy, from the score to the tone, in her chilling, animalistic pules, azula languishes in her self-destruction, and it is one entirely independent of zuko. with this, we are shown azula’s nuance, the unthinking allyship she inspired, yet the coercion and dereliction it veiled. the camaraderie and kindness she offered, to warn zuko against visiting iroh, to credit him unduly, yet the threat it masked, to stay unadulterated, to stay unctuous. the vilification she detested, and yet the love she scorned for its fragility and irrepressibility. ursa doesn’t confirm azula’s worst fears, ironically, sadistically, any love she may have held haunts her, is nearly derisory. impossible.
and while no debate exists that ursa neglected azula, or that she failed her duty to nurture and cater her parenting to azula’s needs and interiority, the factors that complicated that, such as ozai’s own domineering hold, alienated mother and child from any means of cultivating real love, and thusly the influences azula did ingest were brutality, unchallenged in nature, entirely singular. it’s a self-flagellation, a ritualistic and sustained self alienation, amputating any vulnerability, all perceived pluralities.
so azula, despite not consistently having her perspective expressed, still encompasses the products of colonial rearing, and its destructiveness isn’t meant to be contested, sugarcoated, not with others and not with the self. fascism has denied us azula the person, and that may be a consequence of format, but it isn’t a consequence of the narrative. nor realism. we are meant to acknowledge azula’s complexities in the intentionality of their artful crafting, while not undermining that architects of oppression still bleed. one can see themselves in azula’s struggles, in the humanity of her endeavors, while not decontextualizing the tenets of her positionality, while not undermining that every character that claimed their redemption, did so by choosing another, by loving.
and azula’s journey to love, to embracing her own humanity, is a journey solely her own. this isn’t to say that she doesn’t deserve support or guidance or love or care, but that’s not the point. that wasn’t the intent of her character, and that wasn’t the thematic priority of the show. it's an extrapolation. bc some ppl suck and that’s ok. and there are ppl you cannot help and that is ok. and sometimes the ppl you love will suffer, and that has to be ok. bc sometimes you choose yourself, sometimes you choose what you can, and that is ok. it is okay to grow, and it is ok to move on. that’s the point. it is ok to spit out the poison. forgive any tactlessness therein, but it’s a tough pill, and its meant to have an aftertaste.
however, it's not cynicism that one is meant to internalize, and it's not intended to inspire fatalism either, although the symbology of azula’s toxicity is excised, the human struggles she encapsulated remain, the intimacy of our empathy persists, and it will color the fire nation’s vices and pitfalls. bc when one can’t just will away indoctrination, as we saw with both azula and zuko, and even still with paku or toph’s parents, as hierarchies are intersectional and multifaceted, and in the trials of decolonization there will thusly be azulas’, but there will also be zukos’, and pakus’, and sokkas’. all with their very intimate, equally human complexes to confront, unravel and rectify. just as there sit your perspectives, as there too exist my own influences.
and while zuko may merely be a beneficiary of the prevailing zeitgeist (tho imperialism explicitly requires non-consent lol), where azula once functioned, and he may be no more ontologically owed redemption than azula, or deserving love over her, when in the forever-war of subjugation, it isn’t abt ontology or criteria, nor logicisms or hypotheticals, its abt action. so zuko tries. and that resistance, that anti-colonial praxis, is a good start, it’s the most meaningful start. zuko isn’t king, or redeemed, bc he’s genetically “good”, its bc he tries. that’s the point. not how efficient he is or how proficiently he embodies apparatus.
reparation. that’s. the point. the triumph of resistance juxtaposing the tragedy of complacency. bc nothing is immutable, and so nothing is too far gone.
.
.
Besides… it’s only a kid’s show heh.
24 notes · View notes
emmabirb8 · 8 months ago
Text
I've been an Invader Zim fan since 2011.
I was 15-16 at that time, and though I did thoroughly enjoy the show, I was not mature enough to really get it. Sure, it was funny, but I didn't pick up on the subtleties and style of humor beyond the surface level. I liked the wackiness and the characters, but I SURELY wasn't at a point of being able to deconstruct themes or analyze character motivations and narratives (like I very much enjoy doing now). I remember discovering an artist on DeviantArt who drew cute ZaGr stuff, so that was the pairing I liked too. I didn't think too deeply about much, and honestly, I don't think the majority of fans (if they were my age or younger, that is) did either. Everything was taken as dumb and silly for the most part, and that IS truthfully a major component of the show itself.
Getting back into Invader Zim within this past year though, I'm looking at it through a WILDLY different lens. I like Invader Zim for what it is and how it's intended to be perceived. I like that the show is meant to be dark, satirical, and tragic at the same time that it's silly, chaotic, and nonsensical. Almost everything that happens onscreen is written in to be funny above all else. (I've mentioned before that I've been watching Jhonen's Twitch streams for a while now, and I have a MUCH better understanding of his sense of humor bc of that. IZ makes way more sense if you can sorta see things from JV's perspective, lol.)
But at the same time, I also like Invader Zim for what it offers in terms of interpretation and what it can imply (intentionally or not). There is genuinely SO MUCH DEPTH to this dorky lil cartoon that a casual viewer wouldn't immediately pick up on. And a lot of that depth, I think, was not woven in purposely. The show itself was never meant to be taken so seriously. Nevertheless, I'm constantly fascinated by what IZ implies about good and evil, the nature of general society, and especially how it goes about demonstrating the devastating effects of social isolation and bullying. Meta for this series is always pretty damn *chef's kiss.* And what's even more interesting is how viewers manipulate canon to expand upon this world and these characters.
Given that I've come to understand Invader Zim better, I've also grown very fond of ZaDr. Now, while I wouldn't want to see this pairing happen in canon material, I love the potential it possesses in transformative contexts.
In reality, I get that these characters were intended to have a deep hatred for one another and a never-ending rivalry for the sake of comedy and not much else. It's an extraterrestrial perpetually throwing hands with a 12 year old because he's incompetent and his plans often fail. And that's funny. That's the point. But beyond that, canonically, these are two characters who are mirrors of each other; they're both treated like garbage by their respective peers, and they both crave acknowledgment, validation, and a sense of purpose. Throughout their story, they find they're only able to obtain these things from each other, so as a consequence of their similar personalities, they become utterly, unhingedly obsessed with each other (to a sometimes unhealthy degree). They are undeniably forever intertwined by design of how the show is set up.
And because of that, shipping of these characters was, frankly, inevitable in fandom spaces. I myself fell victim to their appeal too. (Sorry, Jhonen. 😅)
I'm not gonna go into any discourse surrounding this pairing because there's already PLENTY of that to go around online. Everyone has their own opinion on the subject, and that's fine. I respect that. Point is, even though I understand and appreciate what Zim and Dib are supposed to be in the context of the show, I also enjoy the idea of them as friends and romantic partners outside of and beyond the confines of canon.
And that's something that I think many fans who are biased toward ZaDr would also agree with! Actually, I'd say the majority of people who ship characters in ANY media would concur. We like the idea of seeing how specific relationships could develop over time and/or within different settings and circumstances. It's NOT always about wanting to see a relationship unfold on screen or in fan works strictly adhering to canon. It's about stretching canon, or in some cases, scratching canon entirely however you see fit! Who cares! It's fiction!
For me personally, I enjoy ZaDr because its attributes fall into so many trope categories that I've come to adore over the years (ones that I either wasn't aware of when I was younger, or that I didn't enjoy in the same intensity as I do now). Zim and Dib are, or could be, depending on context:
Codependent toxic soulmates
Human x non-human
Shared history
Classic enemies to lovers (or, as I often prefer it, enemies to friends to lovers)
Bicker couple
Battle couple, when put in the right setting for it
Violence as a love language
Smol and tol
The wild card paired with the rational one, the best part about this being that sometimes the more rational one is Dib, and sometimes it's Zim bc they're both a special flavor of insane
Make each other worse/stupider when together, tho oddly, they also kinda bring out the best in each other too
And, my personal favorites, the potential for hurt/comfort and angst with a happy ending, with the comfort and happiness aspects ultimately coming from each other
I like what these characters could be, to and for each other, apart from their roles in the show.
I would never want to explore a dynamic between Zim and Dib that goes beyond "frenemies" territory in canon (because that doesn't fit what the show is, and I do appreciate the integrity of Jhonen's vision). The subtle foundation for them is there, it's just that it can't really work unless a few key details are changed or manipulated, and, well...
I sure as hell like exploring every bit of that expanded potential in fan works because it's fun to imagine the various directions things could go if they were different!
This isn't me, like... trying to defend my (or anyone else's) enjoyment of this particular ship or trying to convince people to like it. Or the show for that matter! To each their own, truly. And I'm obv aware of the controversy ZaDr often incites and why. Everyone has valid reasons for liking OR not liking it, and I accept differing viewpoints on it. It's a touchy, nuanced subject to be sure. But this isn't about that.
I don't really know what this is, actually, aside from a very long very weird essay, lol. I just wanted to process why and how all of this works for me with my changed perspective from when I was first introduced to Invader Zim in my teens up until now.
It's strange, looking back. I didn't get ZaDr years ago. But I do now, and so much of it, at least from my perspective, has to do with taking the crumbs present in canon (that are undeniably there, whether you choose to acknowledge them or not, and whether they're intentional or not) and absolutely running with them to the ends of your own wild imagination.
(ZaDr content is always tagged appropriately on my blog. Pls use tag blocking functions if needed.)
54 notes · View notes
kiwibongos · 7 months ago
Text
im writing Something for a little fic and i was putting stuff in my notes for later on and it really just made me realize like how fucked up hajime is after all the Horrors. like, emotionally. him rediscovering emotions entirely. (maybe someone has talked abt this before, i just wanna store this here)
because when he's less of a hollow shell, all there is is grief and guilt in his brain. but then as time goes on, he slowly rediscovers what it means to be human, and learns these feelings again one by one. and it has to be such an agonizing process too ? and when they do happen, theyre all extremely overwhelming, out of the blue, and most likely even caused by really small things. my dude will eat a stale piece of bread or even smell expired dairy products, suddenly relearn disgust and feel ABSOLUTELY nauseous and just hurl over lmaoo
but for as for more serious topics, like properly feeling anger again, it'd be ticked off by little shit, bc he doesn't wanna lose control like that cause the frustration doubles. it'd get bad when he makes a mistake too. he'd freak the hell out, because izuru was the embodiment of perfection, of every talent cultivated into one single brain, so he *cant* mess up, but its too much for him to handle cause he's so used to being under that obligation and expectation, but now that he's losing his stability over all that, when he messes up just *slightly*, he feels ashamed and tries to fix it as fast as possible, whether or not its a big deal. itd definitely be really hard to get out of the mindset that, even though hes not izuru anymore, he has to be perfect. to him, he has to stay that way. cause if he fails at all, then he can't protect his friends anymore. does that make sense. the pressure would be literally crushing
also shock/surprise/excitement. everything was predictable and boring to him as izuru, so obviously all of that is still a huge issue that still lingers within him after the simulation, so he'd probably overcome that first and be caught off guard a lot bc, well, he's learning to be hajime again, he's not *exactly* the op superhuman genius anymore (in my head at least. cause when two minds practically mash together weirdly it creates a horrible hit-or-miss concoction lol) so even basic things become brand new to him, and hes fascinated and curious by everyone and everything. not like hes never seen it before, but its like hes experiencing it for the first time, even if its just mundane tasks in life, new methods and alternatives to things, etc. he's generally a very observant guy, and would also pick up on little traits and habits from all his friends. i have the feeling people would rub off on him extremely easily
love, serenity and happiness itself would be extremely hard to tackle and learn, or even notice? i think of so many scenarios of how this could happen. cause like sure he can feel joy, he can be glad, proud, relieved, and smile because his friends are there. but he's still yet to experience what happiness truly is, what it means to him, and it's not something he can do alone. so it just takes a while for that big boom to happen. perhaps its up to interpretation how it happens, go for it idc i have alot of scenarios stirring up in my brain, but overall, i think him actually bursting with happiness and feeling genuine peace within himself, and realize hes grateful for the life he has, and the future he got to choose, would probably be caused in the process of moving to jabberwock island. just seeing all his friends on the boat and knowing they've made it this far, and theyre going to be starting a new life on this island, and that theyre safe, would be enough to just like hit him. like Ough. and thats when he actually consciously realizes that he's happy, when every other waking moment, there's been some kind of empty pit in his stomach eating at him for so long
on top of all of this, he cant really control his emotions very well, either. thats also another massive con to all of it, and a downside of relearning these things because of how strongly they came swinging back. its alot to handle. even if theres so much knowledge packed in his brain, one little thing like that could be enough to make him bluescreen. so he ends up just going on autopilot or stuffing all of it away, just to make the bad stuff stop. (it becomes a very unhealthy habit that bites him in the ass later. everyone is mad at him for not taking care of himself. hajime is then swaddled into a blanket with a kiss on the forehead)
anyway theres probably more to add and id get into the nitty gritty of specific shit but i had to impulsively dump this here so might as well put up the basics. makes me so excited to work on this fic more, even if its in a more somber, different context, i just love to think about hajime and how he works through his emotions and picking up his old traits. yknow, being himself. but at the same time he isn't doing it alone. let my boy be happy. let him find himself again and move on from izuru
24 notes · View notes
loth-creatures · 1 year ago
Note
Knowing how much Ahsoka struggled to be Sabine's master --- would she get advice from Kanan when she visits Lothal? Most likely giant wolf to giant wolf??
Wellll see I kinda ditched the entire Jedi!Sabine narrative. Listen if they HAD to go that direction, I believe they could have done it well but they really did not (to put it generously), and while I've considered trying to do it better myself, at the end of the day I wish they just hadn't done that at all.
Tldr: Ahsoka and Kanan probably will have a giant wolf to giant wolf conversation but idk if it'll be about looking out for Sabine or searching for Ezra or what
So this is my tentative and unrefined interpretation of Ahsoka and Sabine's relationship for SWW Ahsoka, aka roughly how I imagined it would be like before that damn show ever came out (sorry in advance this spiraled all over the place. I meant to elaborate a little bit and then I couldn't stop. I tried to keep it concise but. There's a lot to unpack that I didn't expect to have to unpack in order to get to the point lol)
First and foremost Sabine isn't fucking Force-sensitive. Ahsoka teaches her a lot about the Jedi, and continues her lightsaber training, and I think Jedi teachings and excercises can have a lot of value to ordinary people! But she's not trying to be a Jedi. Ahsoka does feel mentorly instincts towards Sabine, partly bc she knows what she's going through as a very young veteren and genocide survivor. Partly bc she does feel the need to pass her knowledge on to someone. Partly bc deep down Ahsoka is pretty damn lonely too, and Sabine is very family-shaped. And also because wolfwalkers stick together.
They call her Ahsoka's 'practice padawan' as a joke. Huyang is like. You really ought to find a Padawan one of these days. And Ahsoka's like. Why would I need a Padawan I have Sabine. And Huyang is like. Listen I'm very happy to have Sabine with us but you ought to get a real Padawan.
But how could Ahsoka ever take on a student while she's still wrangling with whether or not she wants to be a Jedi? Which, they never actually show her making a decision on that. Or rather there's really no transition between "I am no Jedi" and whatever she's got going on in the show which. Long story short, I hated it. Ass writing. In my personal opinion.
I think I’m just gonna lean into the idea that she feels like she can't truly be a Jedi whether she wants to or not bc she was trained to be a soldier instead, combined with the fear of Anakin's darkness manifesting in herself, distrust of his training, etc. Up until the point where she decides to put Anakin behind her for good and trust in her own experiences, during her WBW adventure (which goes way differently in my head but I will elaborate on that later. Maybe.) But for the purposes of this au, she doesn't even commit to being a Jedi again until dying for the 3rd(?) time and honestly maybe she still doesn't. Maybe it takes all the way to wet puppy Shin dropping in her lap that she sees her path as a Jedi path. Idk.
Ahsoka's arc is not an aspect of the story I expected to address in depth myself so idk how much I'm gonna get into it within the comic itself. It's hard to go over every issue bc lothwolfwalkers is just an anthology series adapting small chunks of the timeline that I find work well with the wolfwalking, and I'm trying not to make more work for myself than I have to, bc I already have plenty. Rewrite is maybe a strong word, when I'm just cherry picking what I liked from the ahsoka show and adjusting what I didn't like in a way that keeps the overall plot intact for simplicity sake. I will eventually write an official detailed ahsoka-from-my-head post, but the comics will just be little scenes based on that.
Anyway,
Regarding Sabine and Ahsoka's falling out. It doesn’t happen. In fact I think Ahsoka will take Sabine under her wing after the fall of Mandalore and they just immediately start looking for Ezra in the unknown regions, bc Sabine is like hey I have nothing left here can we go look for my brother now. They don't find anything. Eventually Ahsoka gets wrapped up in other business and Sabine ends up back on Lothal depressed as fuck (despite Kanan, Hera, and Zeb's best efforts to be there for her, infinitely more than what is depicted in the show) until Ahsoka finds the map and shows up for round 2. Or smth like that.
Side note: I am going to declare the Wrens MIA not dead. Because I hate hate hate that they were unceremoniously killed off screen and wasted the way they were. I guess I could just unkill them completely but well I am a sucker for that angst and something about the devastation of that reveal seared it so deep in my head that I can't imagine the story without it now (thanks for that Dave. Fuck you Dave.) So uh, they're trapped on Mandalore with those other survivors from Mando S3. After Sabine's already left for Peridea they manage to finally get off Mandalore due to S3 events and track down Hera and are like WHERE IS SABINE. Cue Clan Wren Ghost Crew team up to get their fucking kids back. Though everyone will probably make it back on their own before they figure out a way to hop galaxies.
38 notes · View notes
l-crimson-l · 1 year ago
Note
Hello! I saw your post asking for Gundam thoughts, so here's mine: what's your take on the reading/interpretation that Suletta's story is a commentary/critique/reflection on both Lalah's and Marida's stories (I don't care about spoilers, so no worries about that)?
Ok so I haven’t thought about Lalah in a HOT minute so excuse me there but there was actually a couple parallels between G Witch and Unicorn.
Speaking about Marida specifically, it was really cool to see a different take on the clone angle. We see Marida, a long lost, forgotten and forsaken Puru clone abused by those who find her and quite literally chopped up to be singularly whatever her “Master” wants her to be. It’s gruesome and horrific but when we first see her she’s escaped some of that abuse and returned to her original purpose which is to be a pilot. Her new “Master” is also someone who doesn’t want to use her like her previous owners but is forced to send her out as a pilot due to circumstance.
Compare this to our first introduction to Suletta and we see a couple different similarities. While she didn’t have to suffer (as much) to get to where she is at the beginning of the show we find out later she also has a “Master” of her own: her mother. And within the course of the first episode she gains a relationship that will grow to guide her to her own happiness.
The more I think about them the more their arcs seem to start and end together but separate at the middle. Suletta is famously unsure about herself and just about every interaction she has with other people. Marida is cool and confident and knows what she is and needs to be for Neo Zeon and her “Master”. But each woman slowly finds out what they want is family to surround them. Suletta fights for her family, both for her wife and to save her sister and mother and to a lesser extent Earth House. Marida floats through life, settling in a place where she’s comfortable being used as a pilot bc it’s what she knows but the man she now calls her Master never wanted to be and actively dislikes being called that. It’s at the peak of Marida’s arc that we learn her “Master”, Suberoa Zinnerman, only wants to take care of her as his daughter, in place of the one he lost. Marida is no replacement, but she’s here and he’ll do what he can to keep her safe. Even if that means dangling from a single cable in the upper stratosphere.
These two ladies couldn’t be any more different from the outside, but where they differ they reflect one another, in how confident they are, how they try to attain their goals, but they each have the determination to reach their dreams and make them their own. You could argue Marida doesn’t get to keep her family, but as a Newtype, Marida gets to exist within time itself so she’s always going to be there.
This is making me want a spinoff of these two bc I just think they’d be a lot of fun. And I think Marida would help encourage Suletta to be more confident and sure of herself.
I don’t do a lot of these breakdowns but I hope it makes sense lol these two ladies begin and end at the same place but even where they differ they reflect one another and are joined in that way. And I think that’s neat. Two separate ways of getting to the same place. Give these ladies a hug (and a Marida some ice cream)
12 notes · View notes
roobylavender · 11 months ago
Note
This whole thread is so....
https://twitter.com/orikkunn/status/1754831427903074488?t=WbVE9Fu585pxZFXPbr_JlQ&s=19
It's pissing me off actually and I search the word hijab on their account and in one of their tweets they said "I think hijab is a bad thing" ??? I need non-muslims who speak on Islam without any knowledge to stfu
i'm going to apologize beforehand if this is upsetting in any way bc i'm sure you were expecting a different response but while i feel like op's wording could have been better in this thread specifically—i like their wording in this thread more—i do generally agree with them. i definitely understand there's a gut reaction to any critique of islamic practices esp in the context of modern orientalism and islamophobic sentiment, but i also think that muslims (and people of any religious faith, really) can simultaneously acknowledge that some criticisms of faith, while driven by racism and/or xenophobia, are also validly driven by a worthwhile contention with women's material circumstances over the course of history. in the other thread i linked above i think op is very much correct in that it's not constructive nor useful to criticize individual people. many individuals do choose to dress more modestly of their own volition and are privileged enough to have that available to them as a choice and nothing more bc of the environment they grow up in and the familial interpretation of religious tenets they're taught. but i don't think people are wrong when they acknowledge the larger context within which women are advised to dress modestly and how those standards of modest dress compare with those imposed on men in comparison. there's an undeniable dichotomy there and at least in my islamic upbringing i've been taught that the way some of these things diverge along the lines of gender is preordained and not meant to be perceived as inherently oppressive towards one gender or the other. a thing is simply bc it is. but religion isn't really something you can view within a vacuum much as that would be ideal. it is connected to the material circumstances of women in the real world and i do allow myself to sit with that reality even if it's weird to process at times bc i still consider myself a muslim and have no plans on ex-communicating myself
personally i like to dress modestly in the sense that i don't wear very exposing clothing. i've grown up wearing pants for my entire life. my parents are lax enough that i'm allowed to wear t-shirts but i can't wear anything where my armpits are directly exposed so that means no sleeveless tops. i can't wear anything with a deep neckline either unless i have a higher positioned undershirt on underneath. and again, i'm not particularly bothered by any of that. i do toe the line on a few occasions but generally i'm ok with how i dress bc by now i'm used to it. that being said, i know the reason i've come to be okay with dressing this way is bc it's how i was taught to dress, and towards the specific end of maintaining modesty and emphasizing on the shape of my figure as minimally as is possible without having to outright wear a bag lol. that is at large a structural reality of muslim practice towards women, regardless of what individual women choose to do in their own homes where they have the liberty to choose. and as i mentioned above, i do think we have to sit with that reality even if we acknowledge it opens us up to abuse by other people who may not have the best intentions. this is why, for example, i've really come to frown upon the way ex-muslims (esp when they're women) are almost mocked by the extant muslim community for logically reacting to patriarchal oppression under the guise of religion. bc at the outset, materially, there is no choice presented to these people. and even if there is ideologically a choice within the tenets of the religion itself, with respect to women in particular, there is still a defined gender dichotomy and hierarchy that cannot be denied and that is quite regularly used to perpetuate the oppression that many of them try to escape
what's hard to do and what requires a knowledgeable, concerted effort on our part as muslims is trying to balance the nuance of the oppression we are accessory to against the nuance of our own oppression for who we are. it's certainly cruel that we have to do so much to parse all of this because racist, xenophobic imperialists are incorrigible people who will co-opt anything if it's beneficial to them. but all the same, we do have that responsibility at minimum. we have to learn to sit in the uncomfortable reality that while many of us as individuals may choose to practice the way we do, that choice may yet be colored by how we grew up within organized religion, and it obscures our ability to recognize that while we think it's a choice for us as individuals, it's certainly not a choice on a structural level, and that's something we should vehemently argue against maintaining the status quo of
9 notes · View notes
kuiperror · 11 months ago
Note
TELL ME ABOUT THE CHIPMUNKS LORE. pretty please.
1st thank you for indulging me (even tho i asked lol) 2nd.maybe dont open this unless you want to get blasted with useless information + unimportant yet dearly held opinions + offtopic addendums + true sincerity. i tried to hold back guys im sorry. hold onto your hats im getting fucking crazy in here
firstly ill summarize and say that my "version" of the story of aatc [1] is basically just an idealized version of the "lore" the 1960s version gave us (i say "lore" in quotations bc there was. none lol).
now a lot of my ideas concerning the "lore" of story are interconnected to my opinions about the actual application of aatc media in real life . for instance, the story is set, vaguely, around the late 1950s - early to mid 1960s, like the irl "run" of the original chipmunks records. i personally believe that, as a real media franchise, aatc really has no reason to exist within our modern world with the technology we have today [2] so aatc as a fictional story is affected similarly. along with that, when the story is played out in the context of 1960s america it creates a richer thematical experience as the themes are compounded and expanded on. [3] a lot of the themes that i consider Essencial to the story deal with acceptance of differences and familial love and questioning of ones own humanity and sense of belonging, both within oneself and within the family unit and within larger society, and conservative 1960s suburban america is just a rlly good backdrop to place all of that. so basically i believe in the Contextuality of 1960s aatc and i love to allude to those contexts within the story.
another thing about my version is that i allow it to be inconsistent both with itself or with real life, just cuz it doesn't really have to be. for instance, this story has a floating timeline and i consider the chipmunk's ages to range from 8 - 10 years old— theodore is 8, alvin is 9, simon is 10. (simon is the oldest in the 1960s era idc who says what, i will die on this hill) however at the same time i think it would make the most sense for them to come from the same litter, which would make them all the same age. so i consider the chipmunks to be different ages while also considering they were born at the same time. i do have an in-world resolution for this discrepancy [4] but you get what im saying: my version of events is a little fictional story for me and me only so inconsistencies like that can be brushed over . mainly so i don't think too deeply about the logistics of things (cuz i tend to do that to avoid any possible criticism cuz i am Afraid of flaw) . like i'll catch myself being like "but how does the development of a real 8yo match theodore's behavior? 🤨" and i have to tell myself "bro.. this is a fictional cartoon world ur literally talking about a talking chipmunk its Not That Serious it doesn't have to be that realistic dude" so i just say its my own little play place and i get to do what i want :)
my version of the backstory of the chipmunks is not really all there in terms of external and internal consistency, but it mostly resembles the 1980s series' backstory where dave finds the chipmunks on his doorstep. (see [4] for entire story) i think that the months after dave took them in were honestly a p dark period for the family. i don't imagine dave had good support system and i think the mental struggle of suddenly caring for 3 incredibly strange children all the while fearing societal reactions to them (which restricted him from getting the help he needed) [5] definitely aged him. ithink hes like, early 30s when the chipmunks arrive, late 30s when the timeline "starts floating"... not as young as most (?) fans/iterations interpret him to be. i think that, before "the chipmunk song" was created, dave had raised the chipmunks for like.. 3-5ish years. what i'm saying is that dave definitely took in the chipmunks out of the kindness of his own heart and not cuz he wanted to capitalize on their singing prowess (aHEM looking at a certain movie 🤨)
also, i like to accentuate the animal-ness of the boys by taking real world information about chipmunks and applying it to them :) in general its a little bit of a pet peeve of mine when ppl just completely disregard the animal part of funny animal characters... esp with alvin and the chipmunks bc thats like. Their Whole Thing . they are chipmunks ? why do you just ignore that 😭
now i have talked a LOT about angsty stuff but i do want to make it clear that legit all this stuff is the subtext and background for interactions shown within the 1960s chipmunk media. the chipmunks are still happy kids who have fun and goof around and piss off david !! its just that they have fears and their own Issues like any real person.
so yeah! thats my chipmunk lore!! ^^ i have a whole document about my version so im definitely. fucking insane about the chipmunks. if any other aatc fans are reading this please be nice to me 😦 i feel as though i am very much a weirdo in my sandbox all alone soo dont h8 me plz :)
and just to send it off with some silly lore here are some random headcanons for each character that i have taken straight from my lore document ^^
alvin: would 100% be a leash kid . just sayin (as a former leash kid myself)
alvin: takes after david musically— when he writes his own music and makes up little songs to himself it sounds very similar to the songs dave writes. alvin doesn't recognize this but dave definitely does :,)
alvin: insecure about his height and constantly reassures himself that he will have a growth spurt when hes older
simon: loves loves LOVEs non-conventional and instrumental music! especially those set in different modes
simon: astronaut kid he loves space and wants to b an astronaut . born at just the right time B)
simon: knows better than to follow along with alvin's troublemaking + rebelliousness, occasionally tries to push back, but often is just like. fuck it we ball and goes along with it, especially if its fun ^^
theodore: LOVES the technical aspect of music + the recording process . he will tell you all about the science behind how vinyl records work unprompted.
theodore: doesnt like to sing solos as much as his brothers do bc of past childhood asthma at age 3 and also because he can not stop himself from giggling when hes singing hes just so happy :)! (THIS ONE IS CANON 💥💥💥 SOURCE: UP ON THE HOUSETOP CHRISTMAS W THE CHIPMUNKS VOL 1 ‼️)
theodore: although he is the most naive of the bunch, he is not dumb . hes just a little kid who likes being silly !
dave: before taking the chipmunks in in his early 30s he was the world's most regular guy . wrote hits for other people, continues to do that occasionally into the boys's careers
dave: literally has a song for everything . he will do everything to a beat .
dave: embroiders and cross-stitches to regulate his anger + knows how to sew really well since he has 2 make all of the boys' clothes. (CANON ⁉️😍) also it was his decision to color-code and embroider their initials onto everything they wear lmfao
FOOTNOTES (color coded for your convenience!)
[1] - in this post i refer to the media franchise as "aatc" (alvin and the chipmunks) and refer to the actual trio of characters as "the chipmunks" to avoid confusion. i just want it to be said that i personally dont like to call the media franchise "alvin & the chipmunks" on account of the whole "uuu if alvins a chipmunk why is it called alvin & the chipmunks" joke, i personally prefer to call the franchise just "the chipmunks" as it is shorter and includes the 1960s era as for most of it the franchise went by several different iterations (if we lived in a perfect world the franchise would still be called "david seville and the chipmunks" . just saying)
[2] - back in the early 60s, combining pitch-shifted vocals and character-acting was an innovative technique that took real time, effort, knowledge and skill to achieve. but nowadays not only is the concept no longer fresh but literally anyone can create their own "chipmunk" vocals in a matter of minutes. the story & characters (also nostalgia) are really the only thing keeping the aatc franchise going, esp since that's what more modern iterations of aatc focus on rather than the actual music.
[3] - in the media outside of their albums (the alvin show & the dell comics, specifically) there is always an underlying theme of comparison between david and the boys and the 1960s concept of a nuclear american family. its not exactly an "Intentional" theme, it more or less comes with the (irl) time-period the original aatc media was created in. the seville household is, inherently, a subversion of the ideal of the "perfect family" that households were compared against and strived to be, even at the expense of their own comfort, ideals, safety, etc. this subversion can be played into for drama and angst in a richer, more plausible way than it would be if the story were set in a more modern time period, u know? but yeah i believe that, as a fictional story, aatc shouldn't be divorced from the context of the attitudes and values of what mainstream society thought a family should be in the 1960s.
[4] - essentially in my version of events, dave was given no information about the boys and he basically made up their ages. when david found them in his backyard, they were oversized chipmunks as large as your average cat. they all sort of acted like young human children, but they were a lot more... chipmunk than child. they could only babble— but the sounds were recognizable as human speech. dave was obviously freaked out and resolved to keep an eye on them whenever they were in his backyard. he really only resolved to take them in due to the fact that he could literally see them change throughout a single week. how i imagine the chipmunks' biology is that they are a mixture of human and chipmunk (not literally, mind you, more as a physiological, figurative thing) so they have the intelligence and development of a human while still doing certain things like undertaking hibernation, wanting to forage and stockpile and burrow, things like that. however their growth rate is incredibly fucked up, going from the actual size of a newborn baby chipmunk to the size of a human toddler within like, a year. with this rapid growth also comes more human-like intelligence. once they were actually living in his house, dave knew there was something human about them with these creatures so he couldn't just let them return to the wild, especially since they were becoming more and more dependent on him and more and more human-like as days passed... i definitely think there was a moment of pure clarity for dave where he realized like. wow, that's a child. these things are children. and they are relying on me to provide for them. they are absolutely attached to me by now. and i think i might actually be attached to them too. and thats when he decided to name them and truly care for them like any other human child. overtime the chipmunks slowed their growth rate and matched their developing rate with the same as an average human. the chipmunks don't remember much of their early childhood and nothing can really be disputed so davids word of what happened is gospel. And yeah thats their backstory basically. if you want more on dave's view point on the chipmunks and their fucked up growth process, you can read this post here :)
[5] - he overcame this, of course. he did not want the boys to think that he was ashamed of them. public school was a different story, however, and the boys were more-or-less in a state of homeschooling before the release of "the chipmunk song." knowing that most of their peers would actually look up to them rather than down upon them extremely reassured him.
13 notes · View notes
enginator2000 · 1 year ago
Note
What are your thoughts on Infidget (the ship of Infinite and Gadget the Wolf)?
i think its fine? i dont inherently dislike it or anything, and i dont mind seeing it from time to time. the only thing that i dont like is like, a lot of the shipping community's interpretations of it. and by that i mean the people that twinkify and feminize gadget into being a little wooby baby that cant do anything without his big strong man and infinite is just the stereotypical scary-on-the-outside soft-on-the-inside masc/male/im a man/im he him boyfriend. either that or gadget is fine and its just infinite who is extremely out of character. i had a lot of "he would not fucking say that" moments with infinite when infidget was at its most popular bc these kinds of depictions were everywhere and it was really annoying
the only version of infidget ive ever shipped was a lovers to friends to enemies to... somethings type deal where they dont go back to how they used to be by the end but its not vitriolic, they just outgrew each other in their own ways during the events of forces. that or their relationship cant get mended at all and theres no closure bc infinite dies or whatever like he did in canon. and i know this is the best version of infidget bc i made it up, thanks
i actually shipped it before forces even came out bc i thought that that was sort of the route that sonic team was going to take with tying the avatar into the story. it made sense to me for the avatar (or in this case gadget) to have some sort of previous history or connection with infinite bc in my onion, that makes their dynamic a little spicier and more compelling. in my version, gadget and infinite (then zero) used to be very close until zero started getting more involved with a local gang, the jackal squad, which began to drive a wedge between them until they got more and more distant from each other. and then some more time passes and gadget hasnt heard from zero for a long time and then the events of forces start. i think part of the idea was from this dialogue that we got to hear when footage of infinites second battle came out before the game itself:
Tumblr media
(image text reads as infinite saying "and those eyes.. i feel like we've met before.")
-which implied that the avatar and infinite had history. which was technically true, but it was within the timeline of the game bc it turned out he was referring to like. the flashback cutscene of the avatar being too scared to fight back the first time they ran into infinite before joining the resistance, so it wasnt what i was hoping for
another reason iirc was uhhhh whatshisface? sega scourge on youtube? they made a theory video about infinite getting his mind wiped by the ruby or something and that added fuel to the fire. its a really cool concept and while i dont think that the avatar wanting to avenge those they lost is necessarily bad, i feel like its just kind of meh for the kind of story forces was trying to tell, what with the friendship-is-cool themes and whatnot. so i thought the avatar/gadgets arc was going to be we get to find out how they and infinite (or at least just the former lol) know each other, and how infinite became infinite in the first place, and gadget wanted to both help put a stop to everything but also get his friend back through, you guessed it, the power of friendship. hooray! i read a really good fic that was like that called til we touch the sun on a03 (that fic still makes me go insane thinking about it) that went with a sidestory for gadget that was quite similar to what i just described
plus the idea of infinite and gadget having shared a past but only one of them remembers it and now has to deal with a monster that looks like who they used to be but is no longer the same in every other regard due to them going dark side (willingly or unwillingly) is super angsty. and i like my ships raw and some degree of brutal for the soul. it keeps me young
but yeah im overall neutral. tl;dr: infidget is a fine ship, i just wish it had more canon-supported flavour and i wish the majority of shippers would stop writing infinite so poorly to make him fit properly into their milquetoast domestic fluff romances, but whatever. we all get enjoyment out of different things, even if theyre wrong :3 (for safety reasons i have to disclose that the previous statement was a joke)
27 notes · View notes
caatws · 2 years ago
Note
Hello, idk if you have been asked this already, but do you think Gunn made it clear that Gamora is not a guardian despite her understanding Groot? And do you think that he made it clear in the movie (and on his tweet) that Gamora and Peter are never getting together at some point despite her understanding why she fell in love with him? I have seen some people claim she doesnt like him nor the guardians, and that Peter doesnt love this Gamora because its not his.
honestly? looking at just the movie by itself, without everything happening irl, i don't think there's enough there to 100%, beyond a shadow of a doubt, prove or disprove gamora being a guardian. i do think the film asserts gamora is at "home" somewhere else now with the way the clip of her reuniting with the ravagers was included in the dog days are over sequence, seemingly to parallel it with mantis and peter leaving the gotg. (also this isn't fully related but i don't think we've ever gotten to see gamora have a group hug with the gotg or emote that way with them and i'm salty lol but 4 years passing offscreen before her death will do that to ya i guess)
i've also seen some ppl interpret the photo of everyone at the end as kind of a Look, She's Still One of Them In-Universe moment, but tbh that photo was giving me cast's last hoorah on their final project in this franchise together Ever more than any kind of message abt the in-universe character relationships. it was giving "omg it's everyone's last day on set in costume together!" rather than canon family photo to me. and i mean gunn may be detailed in his work but he isn't taylor swift lol. we aren't playing 3d chess to decode secret meta messages abt the canon through easter eggs here
standing by itself, again, i think the movie is left pretty open-ended, aside from peter returning in some form without the others in the future, but let's revisit That Tweet again for the sake of this ask:
Tumblr media
gunn is saying "you are 100% correct" to op interpreting the film as "quill accepting she isn't his gamora and leting go, while gamora understands how she was able to fall in love with him." i don't think this statement or the storyline suggested in the statement can fully prove or disprove whether peter and this gamora would ever fall in love in the future for certain, but it sounds like gunn probably had no plans to ever put them back together romantically - at least, not with this gamora. (but considering gamora and the rest of the gotg are done in the mcu but peter will be continuing solo in whatever form that takes, i think it's fair to say canon starmora is probably just going to remain a thing of the past)
and to make it clear, i Do think this was a solid arc for peter with This gamora considering the circumstances that vol 3 takes place within. it felt natural and like a rly good approach to grief, which i respected. if starmora had to get some sort canon send-off after one of them died, this was a pretty strong one to me.
the "you are 100% correct" part of this tweet with its implications for starmora was honestly never even part of my focus on or questions abt this tweet personally - it was the "real family" part that had me kinda ??????
bc i think that vibes kinda weirdly with the note the film ends on, since it seemed a lot more open-ended than gamora having a Real or Unreal family. and like i said before, it's the use of "real" here that sets up this binary of Real and Unreal Family or Real and Less Real family, and i think it's more than fair for gotg fans to not respond to the implied binary here very positively! and once we start connecting the irl dots of gunn's tweet with things like the gamora merch situation, the picture it starts to paint does not seem to favor gamora being A Member Of The GotG(TM)
but again, now that most of our gotg canon is done for good in the mainline mcu, i don't think we'll ever have a for-sure answer here one way or another, aside from whatever comes from peter's supposed future appearances
5 notes · View notes
mayabruhbruh · 4 months ago
Text
Oh man oh man😭😭 Jonathan lying about college acceptances, Joyce and Murray lying about Alaska, ROBIN "LYING"(hiding, technically) TO VICKIE RAHHHH the list goes on and on.
I think what all of these have in common is that they're all of characters that are lying to the people most important to them.
If they actually meant for this to be a continuity within the season (eg. a theme that gets referenced by a larger plotline) I think it could very well be something they intend to address subtly next season. By sort of singling out Mike in this instance, giving us something to want answered, it really seems to imply that it will show up later. In this specific case, the truth, I guess, as opposed to the lie he led with this season.
(To be clear, it's quite obvious in s4 that the lie has something to do with El and his inability to say the L word. As a matter of fact, the lie may as well have been the confession itself, but for now we're under the impression that he is the odd one out for some unspecified reason LOL.)
An example of this happening in previous seasons is season 3, when everyone was sort of acting unlike themselves. El was going to the mall, wearing unfamiliar bright clothing, trying too hard to be like Max. Mike was also wearing brighter clothing, ignoring things he used to love, and being abnormally teenager-ish. All of the kids were being annoyingly teen-ish lol. But in that season, I think they most singled out Will. By showing him as still stuck in his old ways and wanting to be kids and getting mad about all of the change going on, it made him the character that was distinctly different. They later addressed it with the plotline about getting older and additionally the one about his sexuality a season later.
Basically: "hmm, everyone here is being weird for some specific reason. wait, what about this guy? why isn't he being weird/what is his reason for being weird that we can't see?" lol.
This is just one of many theories that simply state that Mike's internal conflict is not over yet. It happened with Will, where we/the general audience assumed the plot of his coming-of-age was simply having to grapple with growing up, only for it to come flying back at us full-force with the acknowledgement of his sexuality. Giving reason to the conflicts shown in the previous season. That's what I can only assume they might also be doing here with Mike. But then again, a lot of my recent posts' basic points stem back to the fact that everything we don't know yet will be addressed next season. So there are plenty of other ways to back this up, in fact, you can see them on my page lmao, but this is just one of many ways to interpret it.
There is always a reason for patterns. In the case of screenwriting and storytelling, and the use hidden meanings within a framework to tell, it's true that plenty of things happen by accident and just happen to work out for the story. Apparently, based on how many surprise hints and patterns we see in the show that aren't always on purpose, there's really no way of telling what is intentional or not when it comes to theories that are this far from the objective fact. The Duffers are smart, but they also have a lot of happy accidents, I'd say.
Definitely keep that in mind, whether you're developing theories or reading up about them, there's always a certain spectrum that ranges not-so-vastly between plausible and wishful thinking. In the case of this post, it is RIIIIIIIGHT on that line about to cross into wishful thinking territory. Sorry lol.
Me theorizing solely off the desire for it to be true:
Tumblr media Tumblr media
To be clear, I try MY VERY BEST to avoid that LMFAO lmk if I'm doing a good job.
Thanks for reading!! Love hearing y'all's observations bc all perspectives are insightful and thought-provoking!! Feel free to drop your opinions/asks/etc. in my inbox and I'll offer my best response. LOVE YALL SO MUCH OKAY BYE.
thinking about that post i saw when s4 dropped about how every character was lying/hiding something during the season (lucas lied to jason, dustin lied about his grades, el lied about angela, will about the painting, max lied about her trauma, etc etc) and the only character who’s “lie” wasn’t ever shown directly was Mike’s
587 notes · View notes
voidsumbrella · 2 months ago
Text
rotating elden ring endings...
(under a cut because it got long lol)
i did most of my liveposting on twitter, so if you saw that you'll know that i:
tried/am trying to do¹ as much of the content as possible in my first run of the game
savescummed to see all 4 endings i had unlocked (fracture/duskborn/despair/stars)
Did Not Like Most Of Them.
im sure this is a common take, but going through this amazing intensive journey just for a 20 second cutscene was a huge letdown; im so glad i savescummed for the elden lord endings back to back, bc if i had fully replayed a longass game to see the same thing reskinned with almost no dialogue changes i would have been fucking furious. im a little less mad now- having fun in the dlc cemented the journey > destination aspect- but im still spending a lot of time analyzing the missed potential there.
from a purely technical perspective i guess it kind of makes sense that they had to be vague and brief. 90% of the story and worldbuilding is up to the player to find and interpret, and the 10% that's directly conveyed by the mandatory plot is nearly always colored by what perspective it's coming from- it would be hard to go into any detail about the repercussions of your actions without telling you information you're supposed to find on your own³. still, they could have at least shown more of the world than just leyendell. it's not like we don't do any mainline exploring.
the main wobbly bit for me is, obviously, the content of the endings. it fully makes sense that age of fracture is bland as shit. it's the ending you get if you, the player, don't engage with the world: you speak to who you have to and no one else, do what is asked of you and no more, accept what you are told without examining it or questioning it- and are rewarded with the cycle continuing. the ambiguous power of your rule has nothing to do with you, and the world remains suspended in its decay. same as it ever was. i didn't get the age of order ending⁴ but from what i can tell from external resources it also makes sense for that to be Off as well. the basis is that the cycle is perpetuated not just by marika and the golden order, but as an extension of the greater will itself, and things are only screwed up now because everyone up to now just didn't do it right. but, y'know, you're special, you're chosen, you understand it all- surely you'll be the one to succeed! and then you don't, because the world is like this by design.
blessing of despair being an elden lord ending makes substantially more sense in light of the dlc. granted, i had a lot of detail comprehension issues on this one, bc it didn't click for me that the curse was omen related⁵ until someone pointed it out way later and i checked the wiki. even then, it was still confusing as to how that existed within the existing power framework, because fucking with the rebirth cycle seems like it's going if not directly against the greater will's hold on things, then at least yanking it off course. but! the introduction of the hornsent makes it crystal clear that the notion of horns being a curse at all is a cultural thing⁶ specifically because marika has personal beef with them. spreading omen-ness as a ~horrifyingly evil defilement~ only works within the existing framework, and by itself doesn't require any significant structural changes. same shit as always, but more people have horns now.
that being said: this being an elden lord ending is boring as hell. like it works, it lines up lore-wise, but it's got a lot of missed potential. without retrofitting the dlc lore the closest tie the omens have is to the crucible itself, which is totally powerful enough to exist in opposition to the greater will, we could have had a total return to the primordial ending, that would have been really cool!! the tree could have sprouted horns!! dlc could imply the hornsent being revived as a culture in the way that age of stars implies the nox coming back!!!! it would be coooooool-
anyway. im bitter that the duskborn was an elden lord ending. im still sorting through the specifics of death/destined death/death getting split in half, so i don't have a concrete argument for why it's bullshit or what the alternative would be, i just think that quest was way too involved for it to get the same 20 seconds of nothing that the other 3 got. if you're going to kill off 3 of the best characters in the game you could at least have the decency to give some sort of payoff <- objective sentence written by someone with no biases. (¬_¬).
i completely get why people are Like That about ranni- she wasn't even my favorite character while i was playing, but my affection towards her skyrocketed because the age of stars ending is so blatantly The Good One!! that and lord of frenzied flame⁷ are the only two that are anything!!! it didn't have to be like this!!!!
this has completely devolved into bitching. oops. anyway. i don't really have a closing statement for this or anything, im just halfway through compiling a timeline/lore dump and wanted to jot down my thoughts, and then make them everyone else's problem lmao.
-----
¹ not done with the dlc yet, my save got corrupted² partway through shadow keep and i had to restart from the backup i used to savescum. ² fun fact: if your computer crashes/shuts down unexpectedly while the save file is loading it irreparably fucks your data ³ a bitch can dream about what it would have been like if they filtered the ending dialogue by tracking exactly what you found and who you spoke to but that's a MASSIVE undertaking development wise, they were never gonna fucking do that. ⁴ corhyn left the hold and i forgot he existed lol. i tried to find him when i realized he was Actually Relevant, but i didn't immediately spot him and didn't care enough to try harder. sorry goldmask, im sure you're chill. or something. ⁵ i didn't visually parse the seedbeds as having horns, and since i didn't do seluvius's subquest or reload the area after getting the rune, i never got his armor, which tells you directly what was up. i kinda thought he was covered in teeth. ⁶ the game actually does a pretty decent job pointing out that the human vs nonhuman dichotomy is more like... tribalistic? there's probably a better word for it- than anything else. the misbegotten aren't attacking everyone on sight because they're animalistic ane inherently evil, they're violently rebelling because humans have been keeping them as slaves. the "not saints, just on the losing side of a war" comment leda makes applies to pretty much all sides, including the ones we relate to. ⁷ i'm actively avoiding looking into that one too much, because im planning on getting it my second playthrough and i want to go in with clean eyes. which is surprisingly easy to do, it's super split off from the stuff im trying to dissect.
1 note · View note
yourlostearring · 2 years ago
Text
not for nothing my astrology practice has really gotten soooo good following this recent saturn transit through aquarius/my natal 9th house like it’s kinda crazy lol… at the start of it around summer 2020 i was just starting to research traditional/ancient methods (albeit borderline obsessively lol) and now im like, casually casting loose predictions over a glass of wine using the most complicated timing techniques known to modern astrologers and layering that with transits rooted through the nativity itself….. like lmao…. i wont get too into it bc ill go on forever but the amount of people who have reached out to me within this last year or so to tell me something i predicted came to fruition during like the exact window of time i highlighted is so crazy to me!!! anyway lmaoooo idk the point of this post is that i kinda really wanna start an astrology blog on here just to have a concrete space to run rampant with all my silly little musings lol so like maybe that’ll be a thing in the near future even though ive been saying this for forever at this point but also!! saturn is in pisces people!! my natal house of reputation!!! so maybe changes are afoot for silly little girls such as i? we shall see lmao anywayyyy it’s not like it’ll gain a huge following (or any following) so im basically just shouting into the void at this point but yeah idk been practicing my ZR interpretation a lot lately so been feeling myself (my powers) a bit on this lovely tuesday afternoon i suppose :-) also jupiter just moved into taurus today and will subsequently trine all my earth placements which is something i have been looking forward to for MONTHS so let’s cheers to that ladies!!!!!!!
1 note · View note
eudaimonia83 · 1 year ago
Text
No one asked, but here’s my HC trying to reconcile this utter lapse in sense (one of many). Lol.
First of all, Feyre is only HL bc Rhysand decreed it so, not bc the magic chose her, and that should become painfully evident if she tries to impose her will on governing the country without asking her husband to glare menacingly at whoever denies her. Which she never does, except by grandstanding at the HL meeting and participating in military victories, and spending the revenue of the NC, so that’s convenient. 🙄 And that technically STILL leaves us with no High Ladies, because she has failed spectacularly to truly upset the established order. And despite the fact that the religion worships the Mother, the entire social and political system in Prythian is based on patriarchy and sexism.
Now, we do see this happen in the real world, so my brain immediately goes, okay, why? And how would that believably manifest among the Fae?
Most of the time when this happens it’s because of a reshuffling of the pillars of patriarchy, where one asserts more power over the others to try to regain hegemony. Religion is a powerful cultural influence, but while that contributes significantly toward the overall experience of reality, it is distinct from secular function. AND it is subject to constant renegotiation and interpretation. So what if this female-centric religion that clearly dominates Prythian is really a former sect that has become widely accepted? Perhaps an earlier orthodox version of this religion placed less importance on the role of the Mother.
And concurrently, what if the aristocracy that governs Prythian and the rules by which it operates are a holdover from an earlier age?
Then my brain goes, “aha. This dynamic would be kind of like how the Catholic Church legitimized and upheld the divine right of kings in exchange for material support?”
Well, yes. So perhaps this newer interpretation of religion was trying to establish itself a-few-thousand-years-gone-by, and in doing so, came to agreements where they manipulated the magic to choose only High Lords, who in the past might’ve been mighty military leaders or families who amassed significant wealth, and were probably headed by ambitious men/males.
We know the magic CAN be manipulated, because Ianthe did it when she and Lucien completed the Great Rite. It would appear to be difficult to do, because most other Fae seem to be subject to the magic and not manipulators of it. So perhaps the powerful priestesses are able to do this, and they put some restrictions in place in exchange for power or riches (maybe they negotiated to keep the feet of the Cauldron, or objects from the Dread Trove, or riches). In my mind that sets up an interesting conflict between existing power and potential challenges thereto.
Because what if these restrictions start to break down in the wake of the reforging of the Cauldron (a source of religious schism if there ever was one)? What if there’s a weakening of those restrictions, and the magic is freer to look elsewhere; and Viviane, or maybe Cresseida, or perhaps even Mor, are truly chosen by the magic instead? Oop. The world would tilt on its axis, at least for the High Lords. Chaos, panic, disorder! 😈 And I would rub my hands with glee but that’s beside the point.
ANYWAY, like I said, no one asked, but this is one of the thought experiments that I often daydream about. 😁 Feel free to rabbit-hole with me about how mating bonds would change (or not) in this scenario.
****ETA: I haven’t read CC and I’m monumentally uninterested in it, so I’m not talking about crossover-dependent details. Just reasons why this might have happened within the Prythian world.****
Why are there no other High Ladies?
This is a serious question and one that has bothering for a long fucking time. I know that it’s only done by SJM to glorify Fryer and Ricin blah, blah, blah, but ignoring them and all of their headassery, there’s no logical reason for women, I mean females to not inherit Special Cauldron Magic.
If the mating bond ensures that the coupling of a man and woman male and female will produce power offspring, doesn’t that imply that both partners are equal in power? For example, Kallias is Viviane’s mate, meaning that they have been fated (shudders) to create uber-powerful babies. Wouldn’t Viviane also possess power that is equal to his, a high lord’s?
It doesn’t make any fucking sense for the Mother or the Cauldron or whatever does the deciding to match him up with someone with less power. Therefore, the mates of High Lords (which I’m assuming are women females ugh because I just don’t believe SJM actually intended to include same sex mates) are just as fucking powerful as them.
And what the fuck happens when a High Lord has a daughter??? You mean to tell me that none of them have never had at least one daughter??? And even if they did, why would it just fucking skip them??? I am confusion.
82 notes · View notes
xiaq · 3 years ago
Note
Hi, I have a question re:sex and Christianity. Small background: I still go to church, and I still live with my parents even though I'm not much younger than you, because housing is very very expensive where I live (pretty common here, I would say about 2/3 of my friends live with their parents and we are decently privileged kids)
Anyway. How does one get over purity culture? To be clear, I've never been told in church not to have sex, I've never gotten the gendered lessons that you got. But I am terrified of having sex. My first real, multi-year relationship just ended and while there was hand stuff etc, there was never any p in v sex (lol I feel 12). But I still had insane anxiety about being pregnant despite being on bc. And I think its because I know my parents would be so disappointed if I had sex. And if I was pregnant I could imagine all the gossip. And honestly I think im from a pretty open church, b/c one of our previous ministers kids recently got married at 8 months pregnant and lots of church people were at the wedding and supportive and her parents were there and everything.
I dont even think I particularly like sex, i might be on the ace spectrum, but how do I remove it from all the anxiety that's tied to it so I can even give myself the chance to find out???
(Asking because it seems like you've been pretty open about purity culture/removing yourself from it)
CW for sex talk (again)
How does one get over purity culture?
Oh man. That really is the million-dollar question, huh? Obviously, I can only answer re my personal experiences, and this is something you should talk to a therapist about, but I can tell you how I’ve tackled it with my therapist at least.
Purity culture is, at its core, an ideology that is perpetuated by shame. If you’re indoctrinated into purity culture when you’re a kid, the concepts become baked into the way you construct your identity, your perception of self, and your perception of your sexuality. It’s practically intrinsic, by the time you’re an adult, to feel shame any time you’re reminded you have a body, much less a sexuality.
According to the chapels I sat through every week as a kid, a girl's body could be 3 things: an intentional stumbling block for men, an accidental stumbling block for men, or unnoticeable. Women were to strive for the third option so as to keep their (and their male friends/authority figures) purity intact. After all, if a boy, or even your male teacher, had impure thoughts about you, it was your fault for tempting them (which, holy shit. I still can’t believe that was a thing I bought into for so long. If my 45 yr old grown-ass teacher had impure thoughts because he could see my 12 yr old collarbone, that sure as hell wasn’t my fault. But I digress.) The Only time a woman’s body can be something else, is when she gives it to her husband, at which point she must suddenly flip the switch in her brain that she is now allowed to be a Sexual Being and she must perform Sexual Duties despite living in outright fear of her own body and sexuality for years (decades?) up until this point. Jesus take the wheel.
Purity culture isn’t a thing you can just decide to walk away from if you’ve grown up in it. Because its ideology is insidious and internalized. So first you need to submit to the fact that you’re going to be fucked up about sex. It sounds like you’re there. Second, you need to interrogate what you believe. If you’re leaving religion behind entirely, you’ll approach removing yourself from purity culture differently than if you still identify as a Christian. It sounds like you might be the latter, which meant, for me, separating what’s actually biblical and what’s shitty, contrived, doctrine that I was told is biblical but is actually more political than spiritual. This helps you address the shame issue.
You need to throw away I Kissed Dating Goodbye and Lady in Waiting and all those ridiculous books you read and reread in the hopes of somehow obtaining impossible marriage perfection and look into actual scripture interpreted within its historical context. I could write a book on this, but the TL;DR is that the text of the Bible was written, translated, curated, and changed multiple times over thousands of years by human beings with human biases and, often, personal and/or political agendas. It contradicts itself! Reading it as it is—a flawed historical document—rather than some sort of God-breathed perfect document—is incredibly freeing. When you do, you’ll probably realize that purity culture is bullshit on a spiritual level. Which is a good start, if that matters to you. Because any time you start to feel shame or guilt you can ask yourself: does God actually care if I wear a bikini or touch a dick I’m not married to? Probably not. Wear the bikini. Touch the dick.
The most important therapy session for me was when my therapist asked what I would do if I got to heaven and God was actually the God I’d been raised to fear. What would I do if he condemned me for being bisexual and having premarital sex and becoming educated, for arguing with men, and failing to isolate while menstruating, and wearing mixed fabrics? If Montero had come out at the point, I probably would have said I’d pole dance down to hell. Instead, I said I would spit on heaven’s gates. If a god that cruel and that pointlessly demeaning really exists—a god who would create in me condemned desire—I won't worship him. The good news is, I’m 99% sure he doesn’t exist. At the very least, he isn’t supported by scripture.
Okay. The final thing you need to do is figure out what you actually want, sexually speaking. This bit is probably the hardest. I’m still in the early stages of this myself. You say: “I dont even think I particularly like sex, i might be on the ace spectrum, but how do I remove it from all the anxiety that's tied to it so I can even give myself the chance to find out???” Bro, I wish I had an easy answer for you. For me, whenever I’m feeling anxious about Sex Things, I tell myself: 1. My God does not equate my worth to my sexual habits. 2. My partner does not equate my worth to my sexual habits. 3. I do not equate my worth to my sexual habits. It seems silly, but reminding myself of those three things is massively helpful. If, after I’ve sorted through those, I’m still anxious or uncomfortable, I stop doing the thing. I evaluate. Am I overwhelmed and I need to try again some other time? Do I just not like the thing? Sometimes it’s hard to tell. Sometimes you change your mind. Sometimes you just don’t know. That’s why having a partner who you trust and who’s willing to patiently explore your interests (and respect your disinterests) is so important. Half the battle, for me, was having a partner who told me they’d be ok with no sex at all. Because that took the pressure off me. If the bare minimum they need is nothing, then anything more than that is a bonus! Hooray! This is maybe TMI, but let me tell you. I thought I was asexual* right up until I was able to have moderately non-anxious sex. Never in my life did I think I would initiate a sexual situation but… I do now. It’s a fun thing to do with a person I love and, holy shit. I am furious that I nearly missed out on it.
Finally, re birth control: I don’t know how you can approach that fear in a way that works for you. If you don’t want to ever have penetrative sex, that’s fine! If that’s a point of anxiety you can’t get rid of, then don't push yourself to do it. If you find out you like other sex things, do the other sex things! If you don't like doing any sex things, don't do any sex things! Also, have you considered sleeping with people who can’t get you pregnant? Always an option if it’s an option you want to consider. ;)
Okay. I hope this was even a little bit helpful. Sorry if it’s a little convoluted, I typed it up in bursts during my work breaks.
*This is not at all to say that asexuality can be “fixed." Rather, it’s to say that things like purity culture can drastically confuse your sexuality in general. If you’re asexual, then this process is still important to discover what you like/dislike. Then you can be explicit about those necesities and find a partner who’s a good fit (if you want a partner at all, that is).
540 notes · View notes
cutemeat · 2 years ago
Note
you are so fucking correct for your interpretation of the orgy dream and reading it was not only cathartic and validating but also enlightening. the themes of dennis being the glue of the gang carry on throughout the entire show so this reading makes a lot of sense, not to mention charlie’s unavailability is a rly underrated part of his character when ppl talk abt him imo (or maybe i’m just an aro charlie truther </3). i love unreliable narrators and getting more insight into the other characters/relationships from a one-sided pov, and we rarely get such an explicitly isolated perspective. and not to rehash old topics, but i think you handle fucked up subjects (particularly the family aspect of this) really well. it’s hard to ignore bc of how intrinsic they are (for lack of a better word) to understand these characters, but it’s hard to talk abt when ppl don’t want to discuss those topics for actual analysis reasons. the way dennis reacted to dee showing up did not come off as a freudian slip at all to me, i enjoy your interpretation of his feelings of entanglement in the gang so much more. so thank you as always for sharing your thoughts, it’s a relief hearing abt these things in a way that feels respectful to the characters
Danny I'm SO glad you also feel the same way about charlie's unavailability!! it does feel like such a major aspect of his character that often goes overlooked, i don't think it's just a matter of u being an aro charlie truther cuz i rlly do see that super clearly in his writing! even if rcg dont kno what the term aro means or used it to describe charlie, i think that's basically what they were aiming for. he is written to be a pretty romance-averse character for sure!!
It doesn't seem like Charlie rlly has any desire to be in a long-term romantic relationship with anyone. But the thing is that doesn't mean he is not an interesting and substantial character cuz he cannot be paired up with anyone. N that's why he's worked best within Sunny's framework... over time ppl wind up annoyed w all the other characters cuz they have Foresaken the Formula of not making the show all about love n relationships-- which is one of the whole metaphors of s15 and esp in the finale!
Charlie seems to really enjoy the chase and the reward aspects (i.e. stalking the waitress, getting the idea in s6 from Dee to berate someone n break them down repeatedly so they sleep with you, eventually getting to do just that and then get her in bed after all that time before subsequently ghosting her when she wanted to get serious afterward) ... like he is really the only one who has successfully "D.E.N.N.I.S."d a woman lol... cuz he truly enjoys the 'conquest' more than the love. but he really doesn't like the commitment in the long-term. Even aside from DDL, he has shown this pattern of behavior long before that.
Like I said... I really don't think Charlie wants to be in a relationship with anyone. But also why would he?? He's never had an example in his life of how a committed romantic relationship in itself could be fulfilling. And the love he did have growing up from his mother was smothering, or he was made uncomfortable and violated by people like his Uncle Jack. He does not have a great track record with this shit seemingly until having met Mac?? And in the end.. Charlie n Mac become less compatible over time as adults than they were as kids, cuz as they grow up-- Mac has that desire to 'settle down' n have a romantic relationship with someone, whereas Charlie still doesn't n hates that Mac is seemingly "betraying" him by pursuing that kind of connection w someone instead of their constant n typical ways of scheming. It's just like where Frank was at when we met him in s2. (I sense Sunny taking the Gruesome Twosome in a direction where Charlie will reach a point like where Frank was at in s2 ep1 where he needed a change ... but instead of getting a sort of 'route to somewhat-redemption' like Frank, he gets one that takes him down a worse path) I mean, after a certain point you do begin to wonder why someone like Frank would enjoy Charlie's company in the first place lololol.. N that is made even more apparent as soon as Mac comes out, the way Charlie's demeanor towards him turns more and more sardonic. But again that's what makes it compelling in the first place, cuz it's actually pretty honest and accurate. It's a very realistic depiction considering this group of people they're working with.
I grew up around a side of my family that had a very similar type of dysfunctional dynamic that had this core of fear that revolved around trying to gain the approval of one person who was 'at the top of the pyramid' so to speak.. n how that could manifest on different levels so all this shit is super interesting to me n I'm rlly flattered that u thought my reading was a sound explanation for their behavior!!
Cuz sometimes it rlly does feel like all I'm doing is projecting rather than being able to just take from those experiences n use them as a point of reference to make some sense of this group of fictional assholes' behavior, so it's reassuring n honestly rlly rewarding anytime someone else gains something from my reading of the gang. <3
Like that evidence of Charlie being turned off by the thought of being engaged in a romantic relationship is so present so again I also don't understand how it constantly gets ignored?? Charlie gets extremely stressed out by dealing with other people's feelings and emotions, which is basically the foundation of relationships .. the ability to express those things and not feeling shut off or being shamed for doing that! So tbh it feels sort of disingenuous for me to pretend like Charlie would be this overly tender and caring lover or whatever lol. Cuz that doesn't mean he is not still an interesting and entertaining character?? Charlie doesn't need to be a viable love interest to be interesting.
I mean.. He created one of the most fan-beloved episodes of all time by being calculating n manipulative about a relationship. He wrote the entirety of The Nightman Cometh just so he could try to paint himself as this ultimate tragic figure with a traumatizing childhood who Waitress should just accept... Like yeah, yeah, he's a piece of shit but be with the poor guy anyway cuz 'oh look his life was just Really hard so can't you show him a little sympathy??' n had to put her in a situation where he thought she might just feel pressured enough into accepting his proposal in front of a huge crowd... Like... He is a piece of shit but that's what this show is about and it has created some of the most iconic episodes n storylines within it so that doesn't discredit Charlie as being a good character for this show LOL.
Cuz the other thing that I like is.. Charlie is not the "bad guy" for not having romantic feelings for anyone... He's the "bad guy" cuz he chooses to be an asshole repeatedly, but it has nothing to do w any of that low empathy/lack of desire to have romantic relationships. cuz Mac n Dennis are two very sensitive/emotional ppl at their cores and both are capable of having a romantic, loving relationship n yet that doesn't inherently make them better people. They are still huge assholes like Charlie is in their own ways, and end up deciding to just be bad people... Together. How romantic. LMAO...
and i lov how throughout the narrative, Dennis has consistently made a series of bad decisions that have only contributed to Charlie feeling worse and more alienated from people all bc Dennis can't stop projecting his own emotional experiences onto Charlie (tho tbh i'd say all of the gang does this... as they all are def more emotional than Charlie on a pretty consistent basis). Dennis refuses to see the world through Charlie's own individual pov which prevents him from being able to analyze Charlie's behavior in any meaningful or substantial way or in a way that could've maybe genuinely helped him in time. (i.e. just sending Charlie off with another rat stick to keep bashing rats in King of the Rats instead of trying to help Charlie in any way that stopped him from doing the type of labor that was clearly creating this very serious issue in Charlie's psyche n was making him become more n more detached emotionally all cuz the gang didn't wanna be the ones who do the Charlie Work..)
Like it's all a very simple theme at its core! But it's presented in very realistic ways even thru these very fucked up and over-the-top, satirical characters n thats so interestingggg
16 notes · View notes