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moiraineswife · 4 years ago

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To Care - A Stormlight Fic

*clears throat* SPOILERS. RHYTHM OF WAR SPOILERS. HERE. THERE. EVERYWHERE IN THIS POST. BANISH IT FROM YOUR SIGHT.

Okay.

Fic time:

Title: To Care

Summary: Set towards the end of Rhythm of War. Wit’s POV. This is a fic of three parts, really. The first part involves Wit's internal monologue on how fabulous Jasnah is. The second part involves Wit and Ivory's dialogue of how fabulous Jasnah is. The third part involves Wit impressing on Jasnah how fabulous she is. AKA: Jasnah falls asleep for five minutes, Wit gets incredibly soft, Ivory becomes slightly protective, and we all agree Jasnah is the best thing since sliced bread.

Teaser: It surprised him how truly and deeply fond he felt of her, looking down at her now.

It had been quite a few centuries now since he’d allowed himself to enter into such a dalliance. Although this was dallying into a far stronger alliance between the two of them than that.

That may be cause for concern, but looking at her now, it was hard to feel concern for anything.

She was truly wondrous. All people were their own flavour of unique experience, but they were not always a good one. Jasnah Kholin had excelled in this area, as in so many others, and was nothing short of exquisite.

Link: ao3

Commission Link: Have me write other cosmere characters

Jasnah looked younger when she slept. Such was a cliche, and though he knew it was inevitable, as after so much of human history no idea could truly be original any more, he did try to avoid the more frequently used ones.

This was just an idle thought, however, not required to do any real work in thrilling or entertaining. Just for him. In this small, quiet moment, in a war camp in Emul, it was precisely what he needed to hear. How convenient that his thoughts were always there to think the things he needed to.

Gently, he brushed the hair away from her face, admiring the softened lines of it. She was truly a beautiful woman. The Shard that had crafted her ancestors way back when ought to feel proud of themselves. She was a true masterwork.

It surprised him how truly and deeply fond he felt of her, looking down at her now.

Head pillowed on an enormously thick book she had been studying, which felt appropriate. Her fingers flexed slightly, their tips brushing over the lines of text, as if she could still feel them, even in dreams. The spiky lines like heartbeat readouts elsewhere in the Cosmere. The life of its author still extended in these dry pages and thin lines.

It had been quite a few centuries now since he’d allowed himself to enter into such a dalliance. Although this was dallying into a far stronger alliance between the two of them than that. That may be cause for concern, but looking at her now, it was hard to feel concern for anything.

He had a deep love for humanity. It would not have been possible to continue doing as he did had he not. The weight of it all would have torn him down millenia ago had he not always had the good hearts of people like Jasnah Kholin to help buoy him up and support him.

And she did have a good heart. Far too few people saw that in her. They saw only the carefully sculpted mask she had crafted for herself over time. They heard her words, and read her analysis and essays, but they did not see what drove them, what drove her.

Jasnah Kholin was a good woman, and she deserved far better than him.

It was selfish, this thing he had embarked upon with her. It was always selfish, whenever he took partners. There was always somewhere else he needed to be, something else that would have to be more important to him.

Jasnah seemed to understand that, so far. She had asked, naturally, and he had deflected her. That had irritated her, but in a way that only made her eager for more. Secrets were to Jasnah Kholin as flesh and blood were to others. They made her, gave her substance, something to sink the teeth into.

Lately, she had merely requesting that he inform her in advance if he was about to disappear on one of his little trips, so she might set aside time to write out her own insults for the meetings she had the next day.

Truly delightful.

She was captivating, fiercely intelligent, with a wit near as sharp as his own, barely in need of him at all at court. Or in general, really.

She had taken eagerly to the information he had provided on other planets, Realmatic Theory, and other staples of the Cosmere that most took some time to adjust to.

Within a few days, she’d been theorising with him, helping him compose letters to the other Shards, and asking deep, insightful questions that had frankly amazed him. Which was difficult to do at his point.

Spectacular.

She’d talked of accompanying him, if he would permit it. Increasingly he was thinking that he would. He had rarely done so in the past. It complicated the already complicated process of worldhopping. But for her...For her he might just make the exception.

Not now, of course, she’d said firmly, with Roshar in such peril. But afterwards. If this world was saved, and she managed to survive that process. Once Alethkar had a more democratic system of rule in place that meant she was no longer needed, she wanted to go with him.

He had opened up a whole new galaxy of other worlds, cultures, magics, and peoples to her. Instead of being overwhelmed, she had just seen it as another area for her to study and explore and learn about.

The thrill in her eyes when he talked of different worlds, the sheer joy he could see just behind the veil of composure shielding her violet eyes...A man could become addicted to that

His fingers rested gently on her head, watching her in her peace. She deserved these moments of respite. Would that the Cosmere be willing to grant her them more often.

No nightmares for now it seemed. She tried to hide them from him when they happened, not yet trusting him to seek comfort and reassurance from. Ivory did that for her.

He had not let on that her efforts to keep him in the dark had been anything other than successful. It would only serve to upset her further, and he had no wish to do that. She had enough pressure on her as it was.

This woman had been burned, burned nearly away to nothing, by those she had loved and trusted in the past. It would take her time to fully trust him. If she ever could. He would be neither surprised, nor offended, if she was no longer capable of fully trusting him. Or, indeed, anyone.

Save Ivory, of course.

As if summoned by this thought, Ivory changed his form, growing to a visible size, standing on the back of Jasah’s chair, watching him with impenetrable eyes, arms folded.

“I mean her no harm, my friend,” Wit said lightly.

That was true. He did not mean her harm. He never meant anyone harm. But there were times when it was necessary. Terrible, but necessary.

The Cosmere could be a cruel, harsh place, and no-one knew that better than him.

No-one knew better, either, that being prevented from physically hurting someone, had not limited his capacity for causing pain. Even to those he loved. Especially to them.

Wounds to the body would, if given the proper time and motivation, heal themselves. Wounds to the heart, and the soul, though? Well, no force in the Cosmere he knew of had yet found a way to repair that damage.

Jasnah herself was proof of that. She hid her scars well, but he knew they lingered.

“I know that this is,” Ivory said simply, in that odd clipped way of the inkspren, “But she has asked that I watch over her when she sleeps. And I do this for her. Always.”

“You do it very well,” Wit said, with a small bow.

He doubted any understood the depth of the bond Jasnah shared with Ivory. He didn’t think even she realised precisely what it meant to her. And wouldn’t unless it were taken away. He hoped, which he was not often in the business of doing these days, she never found out.

“She fears not what is,” Ivory said brusquely, with an air that implied he felt he had to explain Jasnah, which was oddly endearing, "But what might.”

Wit nodded, fingers carding gently through Jasnah’s soft black hair again, “She is wise,” he said, quietly, “And cautious.”

“She is afraid,” Ivory returned bluntly.

As far as whimsical conversation partners went, even Design was better than an inkspren.

He considered that. A hasty assessment, perhaps. Her own personal design seemed to revolve around vexing him in every way imaginable. At least Ivory made an effort. And wasn’t a monster.

“Does she fear me?” Wit asked, curious.

Ivory studied him for a long moment, expression inscrutable. Even for a spren.

“No,” he said, finally, “Though only recently is this not,” he added, and Wit nodded.

“She’s decided to trust me, then?” he asked quietly, thinking how much harder this answer might make it to pull the pin on the grenade Roshar may yet have to be to protect the rest of the Cosmere.

“No,” Ivory said, “Not this. She has decided to allow you close enough so that she may determine if you are fully worthy of trust.”

Wit nodded again, considering that, “She is a very wise woman,” he said, and Ivory nodded firmly in agreement.

Neither added that her wisdom had come at a terrible price.

Wit cocked his head, struck by a thought, and said, “And you, Ivory? Do you trust me? You are bonded to her, your opinion on this matters almost as much to me as her own.”

Again Ivory studied him with that inscrutable obsidian face of his. In an uncharacteristic move, he allowed his shape to grow to his full size, standing eye to eye with Wit. It was a strangely disconcerting, even threatening gesture. He so rarely even revealed himself to any but Jasnah.

“Your intentions for her, they are,” Ivory said, staring directly into his eyes.

Inkspren often emphasised the last word of a phrase, the certain intonation of which gave all kinds of meaning. Unfortunately humans were not good at recognising these things. Usually.

“They are,” Wit agreed.

“You seek your own bond with her,” Ivory said, crossing his arms, “A human bond. This is not like the Radiant bond. It is less. But still close. Close enough to burn, to hurt, to rip.”

Wit nodded, and the spren stared at him again.

“She is, to me,” he said quietly, and his voice became strangely much more human, much more emotional than Wit had ever heard from one of his kind before.

“Importance. She has much importance to me,” he went on, apparently realising he needed to clarify that last sentiment.

He frowned in his odd way, all sharp lines and harsh gestures.

“It was not supposed to be so,” he said.

His eyes drifted back down to Jasnah, expression softening. As much as it could, on an inkspren.

“The warnings were, from my kind, and many others. Humans were dangerous. Not to be trusted. She would destroy me, it was known. I tried to keep a distance. To not care. To be as spren. No passion. No feeling. These are things of men. If she were to kill me, I would make it hurt less, by not caring.”

“How did that work out for you, Ivory?” Wit asked, the corners of his lips quirking up in a half-smile.

“It did not,” Ivory replied flatly, “She is special,” he said, voice quiet again as he rested his fingers gently on her head, a gesture that was almost affectionate. “Special to me. Special to Roshar. Special.” He looked up at Wit and said, with intensity, “She should be special to you, also.”

“She is,” Wit said, with unreserved sincerity.

Ivory nodded sharply, “This is right,” he said. “She is lonely, I know this,” he continued, words more careful now, “Perhaps I should not tell you. But this is something you know already.”

The words were not a question. Inkspren did not do questions, on the whole. They made statements and if they were incorrect, they expected you to simply adjust your reality to make them correct, rather than point out their potential flaw.

“She wants for someone who can understand her. A companion. A bond. A human bond,” he said. “I am important to her. This is. But I am spren. I cannot do for her as you can. This is well. This is good.”

He met Wit’s eyes again, and there was an almost imperceptible shift in his posture, in his bearing. It became protective, almost offensive, with how he positioned himself between Jasnah and Wit.

“I also cannot hurt her as you can,” he said softly, “And you can. She is like spren, but she is not. I understand now,” he looked up at Wit again, and there was warning in his voice this time as he repeated once more, “She is important. She is.”

Well. Wit had been threatened, warned, chased, yelled at, punched, stabbed, and even shot at by those who sought to impress upon him what they thought of his potential to harm their loved ones which he had taken into his bed and, less frequently, his heart.

This was the first time he’d been warned off by a splinter of the divine powers of creation. It was a rather persuasive argument, all things considered. Definitely top five, in his estimation, and in this case his estimation was the only estimation, so top five it was.

“It happens,” Wit said quietly, stepping over to the easy chair he’d been lounging on and picking up the soft blanket strewn across it, “That I agree with you wholeheartedly, Ivory.”

The spren had shrunk back to his diminutive form again, so when he turned, he was apparently addressing empty air. That was fine. He’d given many a performance to the empty air before, and it had always been a most satisfactory audience. Very low rates of heckling.

“She is very important,” he said, gently draping the blanket around her.

He sighed, watching Jasnah as she shifted slightly in her sleep, face creasing for a moment, before she settled again.

“And I was not supposed to care, either,” he murmured, more to himself than Ivory. “Emotions are not very good at doing as they’re supposed to, however, and they never have been. You’d have thought, after all this time, I’d be able to make them do as I please, but no. They have a will entirely their own. Particularly when it concerns Jasnah Kholin.”

He shook his head, and, though he could no longer see it, imagined Ivory’s stiff nod of affirmation at that.

“I never intended it. Who could have imagined, even I? When I met her stumbling out of her perpendicularity somewhere so far from civilisation or thought the cartographers hadn’t even bothered to name it, I never thought that something like this was in our future." He glanced up at Ivory and smiled slightly, “Especially when she pointed you as a shardblade at my throat.”

Feeling. True feeling. It had been some time since he'd allowed himself to become emotionally tangled with another. And never on a system as on the brink as Roshar. But. Well. Jasnah was Jasnah. They should really make that an official Alethi idiom.

"Much like your good self I found that I did. And I do. What a damnable woman,” he added, fondly, tucking the edges of the blanket around her.

Jasnah stirred as he did so, then flinched and sat up too suddenly, the blanket falling away. He took a step back, to avoid crowding her, and raised his hands,

“Fear not!” he cried, in dramatic tones, “‘Tis only I! Your trusty companion Wit!”

She sighed, rubbing her temples, which was a common response to him.

These people had no sense of theatre on this planet. He’d have to found the appropriate guild. If Roshar survived long enough, that was, it’d be his top priority. The brave new world would need theatre if it were to survive with any level of decency.

“How long was I asleep?” she asked, looking around blearily for the clock Navani had sent her.

Wonderful woman, truly, not least because she had produced Jasnah. And fabulous though her latest fabrials were, giving Jasnah a clock so she could more accurately stress about precisely how many minutes per day she wasted doing things like ‘eating’ and ‘breathing’ had perhaps not been the wisest thing she’d ever done.

Wit had now purposefully lost or broken three of the damn things, but she just wouldn’t take the hint and kept sending them more.

“Not long enough,” he returned, stepping deftly to the side and shoving the clock fabrial off the desk and onto the floor, covering the thump it made with a cough.

Ivory frowned slightly at him, at a visible size again on Jasnah’s desk. Wit shrugged and widened his eyes innocently. Ivory said nothing.

Always knew I liked that spren, he thought, with a smirk.

Jasnah glowered at him. She did have an excellent glower. He’d have to try and encourage her to sit for a portrait of it at some point. Scholars in the future could learn so much by studying it.

“Wit,” she said, as though he was stupid.

Maybe he was. Provoking Jasnah Kholin was probably one of the top five ways to get yourself killed on Roshar. She ranked just behind chasmfiends. Her lack of mandibles really did a number on her statistics in that one.

It truly took a very special kind of person to know his vast wealth and knowledge of the Cosmere and still be able to speak to him with that kind of tone. It was excellent.

He grinned at her.

She just sighed, very heavily this time, and the weight of exhaustion seemed to crumple her as she said, tiredly, “What time is it?”

“Irrelevant,” he said simply, gathering up the blanket she had dropped, so rudely, to the floor in her haste to ensure he wasn’t a dangerous assassin come to murder her while she napped.

“Time is very relevant, Wit,” she said, frowning.

“Relative?” he said, lightly, “Why yes, I believe it is. In theory, at least. Relevant? Far less than you might think.”

“I think that it’s very relevant, Wit,” she said, not even pausing to appreciate his rather fantastic word play.

This situation was more dire than he’d first feared.

“I have meetings. If I don’t turn up on time I don’t think the other monarchs will accept ‘the time wasn’t relevant to me’ as an appropriate reason.”

“Peace, Jasnah,” he said gently, “It’s still late, you were barely asleep an hour.”

She relaxed visibly, then straightened in her seat and reached at once for her pen and notes.

Without looking at him again she said, “Good. Can you fetch me the scout reports of enemy troop movements? I need to consult them to properly formulate a strategy to present later today.”

“Jasnah,” he murmured, gently, laying a hand on her shoulder, “You need to sleep.”

“I believe I just did,” she replied flatly.

“For less than an hour.”

“Which was more than I should have allowed myself. I’m growing sloppy, indeed,” she said smoothly.

Damnable woman. It should not be permissible by law anywhere in the Cosmere to argue so well with him moments after waking up.

“Jasnah,” he said again, more firmly this time, stepping deliberately between her and the desk so she was forced to give him her full attention instead of continuing to make notes.

She glowered at him in a way that told him quite clearly she was strongly considering soulcasting him to smoke just to get him out of her way.

Well. Let her try. He could be just as damnable and frustrating as she could. More so, since he’d made a habit of it for quite a bit longer than she had.

“Who am I, Jasnah?” he asked, lightly.

“You’re Wit,” she replied, with a cold glare that told him she was not in the mood for his games.

“Quite correct!” he replied, in a perky tone he knew would vex her delightfully, “I am your Wit. I exist to provide wit to the throne of Alethkar. And that means that when you are being decidedly witless, it is my sworn duty to step in and help you.”

“I don’t need help, Wit,” she said, firmly.

Somewhere, wherever she happened to be frolicking at the moment, Design hummed in pleasure at that blatant lie.

“You haven’t slept in four days,” he told her, sternly, “The bags under your eyes are becoming quite pronounced, and that’s really hurting my attraction to you, don’t you know.”

“I have Stormlight, Wit,” she said, irritably, “I don’t need to sleep.”

“As a point of fact, my dear,” he replied calmly, steadily resisting her attempts to move him out of her way, “That’s blatantly untrue. And I know that you know this, as I heard you tell Sigzil yourself the other day when he was taking too many shifts on guard.

"Stormlight enhances your body. It allows you to push it beyond the normal limits and sustain that for a time. Eventually, however, no matter how much Stormlight you pour into yourself, you will snap from the pressure, and it will make a rather large mess that you won’t be able to fix by pouring more Investiture into it.”

She sighed, looking older than her years, and yet younger all at once. Lost. Almost helpless. And so, so exhausted.

He crouched down in front of her, putting himself at eye-level, and reached out to gently cup her cheek in his hand.

“You need to rest,” he told her quietly, stroking her cheek with his thumb, “You deserve to rest. You have done enough for now.”

She seemed to melt a little into his touch even as she deflated, all of her arrogant posturing lost to the storms that he knew raged inside her.

“I can’t, Wit,” she murmured, voice cracking slightly from fatigue and fear.

He smiled sadly and arched up to kiss her forehead, “You can,” he said, gently, “You shall. I will take care of anything you ask of me tonight in your stead. Whatever you wish to do with this time, I shall do it for you, while you sleep.”

He raised a finger, as a faint twinkle dared to flicker in her eyes, and he forestalled her protest.

“And if you refuse to sleep, I shall in turn refuse to do anything productive whatsoever. I will simply stand in this corner and recite Scadrian hymns until you are driven past the point of patience and forced to murder me. Which will be a real pest to deal with and mean a lot of extra paperwork. So by not sleeping you will, in fact, accomplish less than you would otherwise.”

She sighed heavily again and said, “You aren’t going to let this drop, are you?”

“Not even for a moment,” he replied, brightly.

She closed her eyes, then glanced down at her shoulder. A moment later, Ivory’s voice spoke, projected loudly enough for Wit to hear as well.

“I am in agreement with your Wit,” he said simply.

He always called him ‘your Wit’ which was oddly endearing.

“Humans need to sleep. This is, Jasnah. You know that this is.”

She groaned, rubbing her eyes, “I can’t argue with both of you, I-”

“Wondrous!” Wit exclaimed, interrupting her.

He sprang up then gently nudged her to rise and began undoing the buttons on her havah. She frowned at him, batting away his attentive fingers.

“I’m tired, Wit,” she said, irritably, “Not incompetent. I don’t need you to undress me.”

“Humour me, dearest one,” he said lightly, “Permit me this one duty so that I may retain illusions of my contributions to this partnership we have embarked upon together.”

“Your contributions amount to far more than your ability to undo buttons, Wit,” she said flatly, “If that was the only thing you’d been able to offer me I would never have put up with you for so long.”

That was strangely sweet. In a very Jasnah sort of way. Which was, of course, the best kind.

He smiled, and continued what he was doing, saying quietly, “I’m trying to teach you a very important lifeskill that you seem, as a byproduct of your own chronic over competence at everything you’ve ever attempted, to have completely missed out on.”

“Which is what?” she asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

“How to relax for one storming minute, you impossible woman,” he said fondly, earning himself another truly magnificent glare.

In return, he kissed the tip of her nose. That only caused her to roll her eyes at him, but she did so with a slight smile, so he considered this a victory on his end.

She stood still, obviously grudgingly, with no expectation that this would work, but she allowed him to minister to her.

He did so, gently easing her from her havah, taking the time to massage her cramped, knotted muscles as he did so, relieving the tension from them, peppering light, affectionate kisses over her as he did so.

She had a great many areas of skill and knowledge, but it was clear she had no idea how to allow other people to take care of her.

She was a swift learner in this, as in most things, however, and within five minutes, she was pliant, and comfortable beneath his touch, her eyes closed, her expression more at peace once again.

He knew better than to suggest she bathe before sleeping. She had a strictly scheduled bath time in the mornings, and deviated from it only after battle or other, similar exertions. Or if he warned her of it in advance and gained her permission to be spontaneously romantic later that evening.

So he merely fetched her night gown from the closet and eased her into it, followed at once by her robe, which she wore each night. He knew it had hidden gems sewn into the hems to provide Stormlight for her in an emergency. Prudent, but a sad insight into what life had forced her to do in order to survive it.

He guided her to the bed and sat her down, then began to undo her braids, gently and expertly removing the pins and twists. As well he should be able to, given that he had put them up for her that morning.

Her shoulders slumped again, but this time in relaxation, rather than exhaustion, and he counted that as a small win. They needed those in these trying times.

“Thank you, Wit,” she murmured, sleepily, as he moved on to brushing out her long black hair. With fifty precise strokes, as it had been a long, tiring day for her.

He pressed a soft, tender kiss to the back of her neck and said nothing. Now as not the time for grandstanding and loud affirmations of his own brilliance. Those would wait until the morning, when she was rested enough to appreciate them.

Finally, he set aside his brush, peeled back the covers, and guided her to lie down. Then he settled in behind her, putting his arms around her and drawing her close.

She looked at him over her shoulder, frowning slightly, “I thought you said you intended to do the work I wanted to get done tonight, so that I could rest while still being prepared?”

“I did say that,” he agreed, “And I shall fulfil my promise to you. Once you’re firmly asleep. Until then, I still fear a relapse of your earlier stubborn behaviour, and must therefore snuggle you into submission.”

She rolled her eyes, but settled back down and didn’t protest further.

She liked cuddling with him. He’d determined that much. Though she wouldn’t allow them both to fall asleep this way. Once they started getting ready to drift off, on the rare occasion she did drift off, she would nudge him away. Apparently he moved in his sleep and this was irksome.

Her little quirks were all rather endearing to him. They made her her, for without them she would not be Jasnah, and he would not be nearly as fond of her.

“Make sure that you do fetch those scout reports,” she said, her voice already becoming thick with tiredness. “And draft a response for Queen Fen regarding the state of the war in Emul as it stands now. And-” she broke off, stifling a yawn, “And be sure to take some notes on the current strategy we’ve been using, I feel there is a way to improve it. And-”

She continued to mumble until sleep finally claimed her and dragged her away from her constant work and worries. He held her for a time afterwards, enjoying her warmth, the peaceful sound of her rhythmic breathing, the softening of her features as she fully relaxed.

Then he gently extracted himself from the embrace and set about doing what she had requested of him.

As he did so, he noticed Ivory settle into place on the headboard above where Jasnah slept, keeping watch over her. She had not asked him to do that. She did not have to. She knew that he would, and that was evidently enough for her.

He doubted she would have slept at all the past six years without the spren to watch over her.

Wit nodded to Ivory, and the spren nodded back, an understanding passing between them. Together, whatever else was happening, they would teach this woman how to let herself be cared for again.

***

#Jasnah Kholin #Hoid #Ivory #Stormlight Archive #Rhythm of War #Rhythm of War Spoilers #RoW Spoilers #stormlight fic #jasnah x wit #jasnah x wit fic #my fic #jasnah x ivory #listen every time i write ivory and jasnah in a fic together i cry SO HARD #HE'S A GOOD SPREN #AND HE /LOVES/ HER DAMMIT #we've had like 2 scenes of ivory in 4 books #and in one of them he's a sword #but i have absolutely extrapolated a whole entire personality and relationship from that #and both of them boil down to: jasnah kholin is wonderful and i'd die for her #which is coincidentally how i feel #honestly this fic could be retitled: taryn projects their intense love of jasnah onto wit and ivory and makes them talk abt it #it was very cathartic #i enjoyed it greatly #these two DESERVE the domestic fluff okay #i'd be lying if i said i wasn't going to post more at some point #and i won't lie to u #bc it will happen #i've already written it #long post

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utilitycaster · 2 years ago

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this is fully hitting the wasp's nest so if you don't post it, i get it but like...i wish more of fandom was open to interacting with the material as presented than forcing into their preferred narratives. I like imodna as a concept. I've been interested in it since c3e1 and I'm intrigued to see where it may or may not go. But I would absolutely rather read your takes after an episode than the imodna fans because you're not trying to force every character action so its fit a specific narrative

Hey anon!

I really appreciate this! I hope you don’t mind me using it as a jumping off point to talk about a lot of general fandom response thoughts that have been percolating for a while, but I do want to answer you specifically which is that I’m incredibly grateful you told me. I do this too! I like to follow people who have different favorite characters or ships but who are engaging thoughtfully with canon. I genuinely have a much, much better understanding of Veth, whom I always liked but often struggled to get, because over time I've followed a number of people for whom she was one of their favorites and who write good meta about her.

With that said, people can engage how they want! It’s entirely valid to interpret things through shipping goggles/only watch because you want two characters to kiss (and you can want them to kiss for no reason other than "it would be gay”), or to like or dislike characters based on surface details. It’s just that like…to me, meta based on canon, or talking about the narrative and themes is saying “this is what I see, and I’m explaining it to you in the hopes that you can understand what I see, even if you don’t see it the same way” and shipping goggle interpretations are, ultimately, preaching to the choir. Like, honestly, I was never terribly into it, but I gave Imodna a shot! It hasn’t delivered on anything that specifically interests me and I’m more invested in other relationships for them right now. I'm also still open to things happening in canon in the future that would change my mind. But I'm not personally interested in forcing them to be together at all costs. Honestly, even for things I really, really ship, I never feel that way, because in the end I'm more interested in watching a story.

This could be a whole treatise - honestly the starting point for a lot of these thoughts is that masters’ thesis on toxic fandom behaviors w/r/t shipping that went around - but I’ll keep it relatively short here and if anyone wants me to elaborate on anything here, they can ask.

Basically, as I said above, there are lots of different ways to engage with the text, and the vast majority are valid, but looking at the canon and writing about conclusions drawn from it, or even writing fic that is deeply based in canon and makes smart extrapolations from it, are a way to make your own feelings about the text accessible to others. Saying “I think Blorbo 1 and Blorbo 2 should kiss with tongue” is not. It’s just as genuine and valid to say! I take it in good faith that the speaker truly wants Blorbos 1 and 2 to kiss with tongue! But If I don’t already agree, it’s not going to convince me because it’s not an argument. And, to be honest, if that’s a really common fandom feeling, and I don’t particularly care for Blorbo 1 and Blorbo 2’s dynamic, I might write about the limitations I see in it from canon (on my own blog, to be clear, not as a reblog or anything obnoxious like that). And, if I do that, I don’t mind if someone looks at what I wrote, and says “anyway, I think Blorbo 1 and Blorbo 2 should kiss with tongue”, and continues along their way, and ignores or blocks me and finds like-minded people! I only mind if they start directly engaging with me with the intent of convincing me, without putting in the effort to provide arguments tailored specifically to me. And even then…does it matter if I don’t want Blorbo 1 and Blorbo 2 to kiss with tongue? I don’t have any more control over this happening or not happening in canon than you do.

I think there are two big reasons why discourse can get so fraught and vicious. The first is that I think a lot of people who aren’t writing in terms of narrative, canon, and argument have very personal feelings about characters, which is good and valid! But they then see a dislike of that character as a dislike of them, which isn’t actually true, both because what makes a good character or interesting ship is not the same as what makes a good real-world person or healthy relationship (insert Anna Karenina line here); and because one person’s dislike of a character can be for different reasons than why someone else relates to the character (eg: the reasons I didn’t vibe with Molly were because he was often flaky and manipulative. If you relate to Molly but it’s because you’re genderfluid and do circus acrobatics and tarot readings, then our feelings are not in contradiction; we’re just responding to different things about him). I also think some people see a preference for one character over another, even if the person expressing the preference likes both characters, as an attack on their favorite. That, to be honest, is just really stupid and they should work through that.

The second, and this is where this does get more judgmental, is that I think that sometimes, people who are responding to surface things or relatability attempt to make arguments that inappropriately co-opt the language of social justice (not that it’s inappropriate to use social justice language when apt in fandom, but like…keep it systemic and about patterns), or which are inconsistent. To use an example, during Campaign 2, I remember receiving two different anons, one in which someone basically said “funny how Essek is granted the grace that Astrid never is; fandoms hate women”; and one in which someone said “funny how Astrid is granted the grace that Essek never is; fandoms hate characters of color”, and the real answer is that Astrid and Essek are very similar but do have key differences and if the criticisms of Astrid or Essek are rooted in misogyny or racism, respectively, then that’s worth pointing out, but I think it’s really unhealthy and unkind to assume people don’t like something because they’re bigoted (and indeed, this demonstrates a no-win situation with two characters each of whom is a member of an oppressed group, so that no matter whom people prefer you can always make this accusation, which means it’s meaningless without evidence.) And, if someone says in your inbox “well I don’t like Essek because he’s a wizard who is interested in power”, then it is valid to say “ok, well, then why are you arguing that I should like Astrid, a wizard who is interested in power?” because you’re pointing out the flaws in their argument. (sidebar: I, personally, like both Essek and Astrid. This is purely for illustrative purposes.)

Anyway I think the conclusion to be made is like, everyone may like what they like, but if it’s important to you that other people like what you like, you need to put in the work, and also, it’s worth examining why this is important to you...but it's that kind of thinking that makes people insist on certain narratives rather than just watching the show, because they are trying to prove themselves right rather than providing predictions and opinions, sitting back, and seeing if they come to pass.

#answered #Anonymous #cr discourse #more in the sense that it is discourse on the discourse #long post #i am going for the vibe of that bourdain post I just reblogged tbh #on fandom

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duplicitcus · 3 years ago

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8/9/17/20/21 :3{

What’s the worst thing about the canon you are writing?

The absolute goddamn lack of any further lore. Like, we get the Covenant of Primus, which is literally just Alpha Trion and Optimus' baby fanfiction put together. We really don't get any detailed insights to other aspects of other cultures, and only a lot of surface details. Even with the comics and G1, there was more extrapolation there than there is in Primeverse. IDW did a magnificent job, and I would have LOVED to see them tackle that particular verse as well in the comics.

I felt like if they had- we would have gotten an amazing view into things, even if we hadn't agreed with all of it. But, no- we got a dumbass director that wanted to kill off the main cast so he could shoehorn in Beast Wars, because that's what he wanted instead of the other.

=_= So irritated at that.

Have you tweaked the character from canon? If so, what did you tweak?

Uh. Yeah. Considerably.

Soundwave is no longer in the Shadowzone, and I'm ignoring RID2015 entirely. That series, while having some good points- is... not even in my canon. (About my only plus was that it had Jazz in a semi-competent manner- but Hasbro's fucked that up twice so.) Soundwave is also back to his gladiator size, and has at least two of his symbiotes back- as opposed to Laserbeak.

Also, they have personalities again.

Are there any ships you can’t stand, why?

I have several - but I'll post the main ones here. Optimus/Starscream - The tendency to turn Starscream into a mewling idiot who needs protecting, and Optimus as the strong hero that wescues his widdle waifu from the Big Bad Abusive™ Megatron. Like, I get that's a thing- but it's a trope that's been overdone so bad that it's just... Ew. Like, if we're going to go with this angle- then let Starscream save himself. Show how bad ass he is, let him goddamn shine.

I just... having been in an abusive relationship a couple of times myself, it just rankles under my skin. And if that's your thing, go for it- but it's not for me. Just... nah, brah. Miss me with that.

Rodimus/Thunderclash- This just... I can't find the appeal in it. Just from how the characters interacted in the comics, and the way that the plotlines run? I just... I can't wrap my head around it, and usually- the plot is at the expense of really making other characters OOC for the sake of the Relationship™.

Getaway/anyone- Bruh, he's a fantastic character, and a well-done villain- but I just can't see him in a relationship.

If you could sum up your character with one sentence, what would it be?

Single father of five runs whole goddamn household of army on two cups of coffee and spite.

Which song do you feel describes your character the most and why?

You're Gonna Go Far Kid - The Offspring

:) The lyrics speak for themselves.

Just, being able to manipulate people to do what he wants by staying in the shadows.

Slowly out of line, and drifting closer in your sight So play it out, I'm wide awake, it's a scene about me There's something in your way and now someone is gonna pay And if you can't get what you want, well, it's all because of me

#meme answer!#character answers

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chemicalpink · 4 years ago

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Hey, I hope you are doing good this was a thing that was wondering me so there are lot of bts future spouse /soulmate/twinflame videos being made on youtube and honestly everyone is being psychic like it has become a shitshow and what was previously just for curiosity fun and entertainment are becoming extremely emotionally invested in the topic especially for maknae line soulmate it would be interesting if the can do a tarot reading or your spiritual experience why is the future spouse saga turning ugly and does universe what us to know something through it !? Because it's becoming pretty crazy right now

Okay so I believe that yes, the spiritual part has a lot to do behind this occurrence, but I also think its roots lay on psicosocial matters and honestly I could go on for days about this but I’ll try to restrict it to a few points that you’ve mentioned

Why all of a sudden everyone seems to be tarot readers/astrologers/psychic?

The capitalism behind celebrities and how does that play a part in what is going on?

Are these people accurate at all?

How does energy shifting play a part in this?

Is the soulmate journey even something a third person would be able to note?

But first a Disclaimer: this opinion/rant is based on my experience with spirituality, I am obviously a mere mortal, so I do not hold the absolute truth. Spirituality is a constant learning process and it is open to discussion and interpretation of each person. I am also now a proud sociologist graduate that specialises in a lot of the stuff that has to do with what anon is asking, I’m a social behaviouralist applied to the entertainment industry as well but I’ll also provide my resources in the end.

A/N: Some of you might not yet be ready to read all of this, if I see ANY of you trying to start beef with me, even after the disclaimer, I'm gonna block you. If you want to talk more about it or want to discuss it further, DO SO OFF ANON. ISTG you’ve been warned, I’ve been working on this for the longest time, it even has resources to back all of it up! I’m so glad anon asked, I’m done being diplomatic on this topic (I know people that usually ask stuff are so respectful and i love you guys for it, this note is for those people that regularly jump on my asks to stir things up)

You guys are in for a whole academic article if you decide to read this

SO FUN AND EXCITINGGGG Let us start with behavioural economics as our base to understand the whole phenomenon, it's such a broad and kinda complex concept (especially since I’m trying to extrapolate it to this particular scenario) so let me do my best. It has a lot to do with trend following, although at least to me, it's unclear how exactly this content came to be (soulmate readings, channeling messages, etc) I am guessing it had something to do with an intersectionality between the general spirituality boom that we’ve met with during the pandemic and some person that just as any other marketable opportunity, saw a bridge between fandom life and this spiritual life (both prominent trends in the last two years or so) and honestly, it worked perfectly, whatever their initial intentions were, they threw out a new “product” and it kind of sold itself, two different trends coming together… turned into a behavioural game theory where if you played the part that allows your content to be consumed, you’ll get rewarded for it. In more simple words, tarot meets fandoms (alternatively, tarot meets BTS) is great as it is! but the fan behaviour (which we’ll talk about in a bit) positions the most private parts of the celebrities’ lives to be much more interesting than things that we are already able to see (personal experience, love readings do so much better than idk career readings and it all comes down to behavioural trends of perceiving ‘love’ as something very intimate)

Now, this is where we’ll begin to talk about capitalism as a whole, even in non-monetary systems like social media, where it takes more of a rewarding system via likes, views, reblogs, etc. The whole principle of us living in such a system is being aspirational, we see others profiting off of something, we might want to reach out and do the same so we can profit ourselves, which honestly, I think is what happened with the whole BTS soulmate readings boom, they get a lot of attention, and as a basic market law, as demand goes up and a few people that initially did these readings are no longer capable to satisfy the need of the people wanting to know all the tea, there are market opportunities for other people to do the same thing and increase the offer, although since this whole theory is behavioural, it is very context-dependant, which ends up not following the principle of the consumers being rational about how much and what content they consume, they just sort of consume all of it, regardless of whether the content creator is qualified to offer such content or not, which ultimately only adds onto a never ending cycle of more people claiming they are tarot readers/astrologers/psychics and fear nothing because this is the internet, you don't really have to enter any qualifications to be able to create content, whether someone is reliable in internet terms is basically all about how many likes they’ve got (which is why I always tell you guys to please consume content responsible).

When it comes to accuracy- I guess that’s the hardest part of all, we can’t just have pointers that would automatically tells us if someone’s craft is valid or not, since everyone’s craft is different all craft is valid to a certain extent (you can easily find scammers of course but that’s another story) what we can have are personal standards and deciding what content to consume or whose content to consume, but that’s entirely a personal decision and since so many people are invested in it- it seems really hard that these “market tendencies” might change any time soon. On that same note of accuracy, I really feel the need to talk about a major occurrence I’ve come across in this whole soulmate scene, minors. Now, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with being a minor and approaching spirituality (I was very much a minor when I started) but there’s a huge difference between just playing around and deciding to create content for the whole world to have access to. Of course I’m aware not all tarot readers in the BTS fandom are minors, and ARMY is very diverse and even if they were only minors it would be wrong to invalidate them, but we can’t ignore the statistics of it when touching this particular topic, according to 2020 data, 50,31% of ARMY are below 18 years old, and 42,59% are between 18-29 but why is this important? because the exact historical and economic moment we are living in mainly impacts these two age groups, thus making all 92,90% of ARMY a potential target to consuming or falling in a behavioural game theory of creating this content without them necessarily being qualified for it. But hey, why do you keep talking about the importance of being qualified? Glad you asked, creating spiritual content all comes down to one amazing term: accountability.

And this will explore two main phases of it, one applicable for that 50,31% that could potentially be drawn to create spiritual content and other for the 42,59% that could potentially be dragged to creating that content without much spiritual knowledge. For the first one, it has a lot to do with cognitive aspects, young people tend to do stuff without much further thought about how their actions impact other people, which, as they should, they are kids, they shouldn’t have to worry too much about emotional responsibility as us adults do, furthermore, they are in life stages where they can’t really comprehend many abstract concepts that we later learn in life, and spirituality is one of those concepts, so they tend to just have fun with it with no regards on how their content might impact other minors (this is where the whole feeding a false scenario that is potentially delusional in exchange of more views, likes comes into play) on a more spiritual level, they also aren’t able to comprehend the boundaries of the celebrities they’re reading for, us readers have to always be careful about the information we give out since it is not ours to give. As for the second group, some of this is still applicable since theorists consider a full cognitive maturity until 23 years of age, but since it is very intersectional itself, i would found it more to a spiritual responsibility, since they are young adults, and if they haven’t been spiritually guided as kids, they’re most probably eager to learn and just awakening yet to some of them the drive to this spirituality is content creation instead of inner work, so they get their hands on a tarot deck, might kind of read a few things, call it a day and start reading for BTS (note: not all of them, I’m aware)

As for the maknae line being the most sought out people with this content, I guess it kinda makes sense now that I’ve said all of the information above, maknae line is closest to the age group of 92,90% of ARMY, so they instantly become more marketable to this content creation and the whole Game Theory that we are seeing. With all that being said, and just adding a note coming from my own spiritual experience, soulmates in any form are a difficult topic for a third person to prode, which is why I, personally, tend to not touch that topic, love is one hell of a concept, especially since we all have different conceptions of love and interpersonal relationships. I do know for a fact that there’s only so far we can go in terms of fated connections, like with astrology, but even then, we would have to know their birth times exactly (so we can check for any indicator or a soulmate connection), and/or compare BTS with the rest of the world’s population in order to accurately tell if someone has a soulmate synastry/overlay/composite with them. Also, soulmate journeys are intimate and we are all just fans, what right do we even have to look for things that do not and will never belong to us?

This is why I’m always telling you guys to PLEASE consume content responsibly! Really! Us content consumers also have our part to play that can help us get more accurate, more drama-free content

REFERENCES (what? you thought I was joking? they’re in alphabetical order)

ARMYCENSUS 2020

Loewenstein, G., O’Donoghue, T., & Rabin, M. (2003). Projection bias in predicting future utility. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 118(4), 1209-1248.

March, J. G. (1978). Bounded rationality, ambiguity, and the engineering of choice. The Bell Journal of Economics, 9(2), 587-608.

Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1991). Culture and the self: Implications for cognition, emotion and motivation Psychological Review, 98, 224-253.

Mazar, N., Amir, O., & Ariely, D. (2008). The dishonesty of honest people: A theory of self-concept maintenance. Journal of Marketing Research, 45(6), 633-644.

Murphy, S. T., & Zajonc, R. B. (1993). Affect, cognition, and awareness: Affective priming with optimal and suboptimal stimulus exposures. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 723-729.

Samson, A., & Voyer, B. (2014). Emergency purchasing situations: Implications for consumer decision-making. Journal of Economic Psychology, 44, 21-33.

Schwartz, B. (2004). The paradox of choice: Why more is less. New York: Ecco.

Shah, A. K., & Oppenheimer, D. M. (2008). Heuristics made easy: an effort-reduction framework. Psychological Bulletin, 134(2), 207-222.

Thaler, R. H. (2015). Misbehaving: The making of behavioral economics. Allen Lane.

Thaler, R. H. (2008). Mental accounting and consumer choice. Marketing Science, 27, 15-25.

Wood, W., & Neal, D. T. (2009). The habitual consumer. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 19, 579-592.

#i really said: thesis? wHERE #im sorry i jump at any given opportunity to rant #especially if it gives me an opportunity to share knowledge with you guys

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ineffable-endearments · 4 years ago

Text

Okay. Now I'm going to submit some theories about how I think Crowley and Aziraphale specifically are going to go in the future of Good Omens.

Again, this post is not really...specific theorizing about plot events. It's big-picture stuff.

With that said, this post will get a bit heavy at times, in the sense that it will contain opinions that not everyone will like. It drifted into rambling about queerbaiting and all that stuff. I'm not going to spam anyone's dashboard with drama over it, but it's very possible someone else might try. It's also not really a negative post, depending on what you want to hear, I suppose. But if you're only in the mood to read fluff today, you'll probably want to pass it up.

Oh! Also it's very long, and sexuality is discussed in a vague way that doesn't involve any story elements or body parts.

For starters, I don't think Good Omens 2 - or even 3, if that comes about - is going to have anything explicitly sexual or romantic between the two of them, where "explicit" is things like the characters giving outright definitions of their relationship or outright discussing exactly what goes on between them, either on or off-screen. I also don't think there's going to be kissing or "hooking up" (come on...that person on Twitter shouldn't have even asked). Those actions are too blatant for what Neil has already said about the series. While they technically leave some room for interpretation, they probably don't leave enough.

I DO think it's quite possible other characters will continue to define the relationship FOR them and Crowley and Aziraphale will continue to not deny it.

As far as the queerbaiting debate, "is Good Omens queerbaiting"...it's gonna depend how you define it. I always learned that queerbaiting was basically where the creators intentionally make it look like a character is gay or otherwise queer but then swap that character development out for a cis identity and hetero relationship at the end. The point is that the "bait" leads to queer audiences being actively hurt. That's the behavior that seems awful to me, and I don't see Neil and company doing that.

However, I think it's far and away the most likely option that it will be left up to interpretation whether Crowley and Aziraphale are, you know, a buddy duo or a romantic couple or some sort of ineffable queerness all their own off-screen. So if your definition of queerbaiting is "the characters seem gay to us, but homophobes can tell themselves they're not," then yes, I think that debate will follow us to our graves if we let it.

I am a cisgender, possibly straight (?? demi/bi? I might never find out) woman. There is absolutely no way I could ever tell anybody, ESPECIALLY not gay guys and nonbinary people - the people Crowley and Aziraphale tend to resemble the most - how to feel about their treatment in the story. All I can offer is that I'm one flawed individual and there are things I have the emotional capacity to handle and things I don't. Crowley and Aziraphale as both a canon construct and a fandom pairing mean an absurd amount to me, and I can't hang around in spaces where people are constantly talking about how my own interpretations of them are not enough, or how the story is written with ill intentions. I don't want to stop anybody from venting about it, but I am going to be removing myself from those situations.

I like to imagine 1990 NeilandTerry, or TerryandNeil, as a sort of two-headed God who came up with Crowley and Aziraphale, set them loose on Creation, and now are watching them get up to way more ridiculous stuff in the brains of their fans than they'd ever imagined in the first place. I like to imagine them watching, amused and bemused, as their creations fall in love in thousands of universes, and saying, "Well, we didn't specifically Plan for this, but we did promise free will."

This is psychoanalytical toward a public figure and is therefore a bit dangerous, so please take it with an entire mountain of salt, but I sometimes think perhaps Neil sees some of his and Terry's friendship in Crowley and Aziraphale, and suspect that he wants to reserve the possibility that they could be platonic because he and Terry were platonic, while at the same time leaving room for the fans to have their own interpretations, too. Because if there's one thing that comes up really frequently with Neil, it's his belief in imagination and how much stories matter to people. He can have his little corner of the universe where A and C reflect himself and Terry, and we can have...literally anything we want, as long as we're willing to extrapolate just a little bit from canon. It's not even that much extrapolation! It's just "Yes, they love each other, so what exactly does love mean to you?" and if love means kissing, well then, if we can think it, we can have it.

Given that Neil has written LGBT+ characters before, I think he has non-bigoted reasons for wanting Aziraphale and Crowley to remain undefined, and given even the small chance that those reasons may involve the grieving process for a dead friend, I believe it is unkind to argue with him about it or hold his reputation hostage over it.

With that said, do I want canon kissing/hooking up/all that stuff we put in fics? Listen, I can't deny that I do! Personally, I'd be over the moon. I'd probably be so happy I'd have to go to the hospital to get sorted out. Even the thought of it makes me giddy and light-headed, because that physicality is a part of my own experience of love.

However, there are a lot of people who would feel left behind if that happened. Ace and aro people in the fandom whose love for their friends and partners is just as strong as mine, but who are sex-repulsed or just don't want to see kissing on-screen. The loss of Crowley and Aziraphale as a pairing who are extremely easy to interpret as queerplatonic would be hurtful to them, and I do not want to see them hurt like that. I don't think Neil does, either.

So, once again, the "best for everyone" option becomes a really strong canon relationship based in both narrative function and profound affection, which has genuinely thoughtful queer undertones and leaves open the logical possibility for romantic or sexual encounters but does not insist that they must happen. People, especially fans who are super invested, tend to have an easier time imagining scenarios that take place off-screen (e.g. kissing, sex) than they have erasing scenarios that they've already seen in canon (e.g., if someone wished they could continue viewing it as an ace relationship but they were shown "hooking up"). Also, while relationships are super emotional and extremely subjective, I'd argue that in a long-term adult partnership, the non-sexual connection is more important than the sexual one. As a fan, I'd prefer to extrapolate "they love each other so maybe they'd have sex" rather than "they're sexually attracted to each other so maybe they'll intertwine their whole existences together."

It probably isn't necessary to add, but I will anyway: I'm aware that Good Omens is sort of sacrificing social leverage - the ability to whack homophobes over the head with canon if they try to deny the show's queerness - and is thus not really contributing to making specifically gay relationships more widely seen and accepted. However, I don't think all stories have to invest heavily in every social issue they touch on for them to still be meaningful. I also do think Good Omens is an excellent example of a relationship that is extremely profound without being heteronormative.

I don't think the next season is going to be a rom-com. It will likely not even be a "love story," where the definition of "love story" is "a story that follows the development of a relationship and employs certain plot beats to make its point." Remember that conflicts and breakups are key to love stories, so if it IS a love story, then we're going to have to watch the relationship get challenged in ways some of us might have thought were already resolved in season 1! And while that could be thrilling and ultimately very good, it would also be likely to undercut some of the careful headcanoning and analysis we've already done. Any sequel is going to do that to some degree, but a second love story would probably do it a lot, with interpretations that people are even more protective of.

I'm sort of thinking the next season is likely to be a fantasy-heavy mystery, only because those are the two concepts Neil's introduction led with - an angel with amnesia who presents Crowley and Aziraphale with a mystery. Crowley and Aziraphale's connection to each other can still absolutely be a major theme! It can still be the thread stitching the plot together! It just probably, in my opinion, won't escalate and escalate and escalate like it did in season 1. And it will probably be woven in there among a lot of other plot threads that are, in many moments, louder. Still, I'd love to be left with the impression of these two existences, the light and the dark, subtly becoming more intimate, subtly growing more comfortable in this shared place they've chosen in the universe, gradually starting to behave like they know they aren't alone in the world anymore, all while other things happen to and around them.

Nonsexual physical intimacy - a really great hug, or leaning together on the sofa, or a forehead touch, or something like those, something that could happen in a lot of different kinds of relationships but is undoubtedly based in deep trust and affection and a desire to be close...that's the dream, for me. Oh, how lovely it would be.

Of course, I could be just absolutely, embarrassingly wrong about all this. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

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genshin-djinn · 5 years ago

Text

Genshin Impact Chapter 1 Act 3: A Reaction.

Chapter 1 Act 3 is what took my experience with this game from “good game” to “masterpiece”.

THIS POST CONTAINS MANY, MANY SPOILERS FOR GENSHIN IMPACT CHAPTER 1: ACT 3

Genshin Impact has some problems— actually, it has a shit ton of problems. But during the fight against hordes of Fatui, with the Adepti channeling their abilities through my gang, flying through them as Oz, decimating them with Diluc— I just thought, this is the best time I’ve had in a mobile game in my life.

This game might not be perfect now— it’s only a quarter of the way done if we’re counting Karenri’ah. But it will be a fucking masterpiece once it’s all out. If this is the level of quality we’re getting for our archon quests, this game is going to be an amazing time on story alone.

KEQING

I love Keqing with all my heart. If she were alive today she would be a socialist here to topple the ruling 1%. When ningguang asked Aether who they trusted more, her or Keqing, I hit the Keqing button as fast as possible.

I think one of my favorite things about Keqing is that she’s so completely honest, which is unusual for a Liyue politician. If she doesn’t like something, she’ll speak out against it. If she thinks something else should be happening, she’ll make it happen. She can probably be deceitful at times, but in general she’s straightforwards in that she wants a government for the people and by the people.

I can’t wait for her story quest!

NINGGUANG

pretty.... voice pretty....

Ningguang is cool. Her JP voice is very pretty, like she could do ASMR videos online or smth. One thing I decidedly did not like about Ningguang is how her personality just ???? flips? In the middle of the quest, for no reason other than “because plot”.

It’s established that Ningguang cares about two things more than anything— the Jade palace and Mora. Why, then, would she destroy the Jade palace for the sake of Liyue? I get that she’s a good person at heart at all, but I want to see more of her indecision, her brain saying “mora” and her heart saying “Liyue”. The way she just flips on a dime isn’t really strange but it does contradict with her preexisting characterization.

Childe’s Boss Fight!

The section of this quest from Childe’s fight to the Adepti + Qixing battle is just nonstop adrenaline.

Childe is IMO a lot more fun than Dvalin (sorry Dvalin). I’m at WL5 and have a tendency to play fast and loose with important mechanics like.... dodging, for example.... and Childe’s Mask Electro form ended up destroying my team. I killed him with Guoba because everyone else besides Xiangling was dead. I

Another thing I really enjoy about Childe’s boss fight is that in the irrationalities of Childe as a character, it actually makes sense. Genshin is decent at making weekly bosses logical excursions— Andrius wants you to get stronger, Dvalin’s weekly fight is ~~all a dream~~; but tbh sometimes the weekly bosses don’t make sense. Andrius wants to train us, not murder us! How does dvalin, a dream slash memory that doesn’t exist, manage to knock someone out?

Childe as a weekly boss actually makes perfect sense. He’s an adrenaline junkie addicted to the thrill of fighting people— to put this in modern AU terms, he’s the guy who’s first in line to ride the rollercoaster that failed all of its health and safety checks. Childe wants to befriend the Traveler entirely because they’re stronger than him, so that he can fight them over and over again until he’s the strongest. Of course, this will never happen, because the Traveler is the MC and therefore is stronger than all others. However, in this way Childe being a repeatable boss makes 100% perfect sense— he actually wants to fight the Traveler again and again and again.

The one question I have about Childe is how in the living feck are the Fatui letting him join the Traveler and fight for them *against the Fatui*??? I think this might be touched on in Childe’s Story quest, which I’ll do in a bit, but like????? They let him keep his delusion and just walk over to Aether like “aight fam I’m on your team now”? How?

Jade Chamber/ Guizhong Ballista vs Sea Monster Fight!!

Basically, all my charged adrenaline from nearly dying to Childe just came to a head in this one huge fantastic fight.

And Xiao :)

I absolutely loved seeing the Adepti and the Qixing work together. This fight was probably my favorite fight in the whole game— the music was amazing (soundtrack where), the graphics were so nice, the adepti were so feckin cool, using everyone’s abilities was n I ce. My adrenaline was reaching its highest point at this fight and it was just perfect. It was just so fecking fun after days of WL5 pain, having to pop like five ultimates to kill one hillichurl, to be able to just demolish swathes of enemies with Fischl and Diluc, run around like a madman thanks to Xiao, have infinite health idr who did that for me but bless them, just absolutely destroy.

Ever since I hit WL5 I haven’t been able to really just go insane during a fight and stop caring about HP/ when to use skills/ dodging and this have me that opportunity.

Zhongli’s Deal

*punches Zhongli across the room with the power of being the player character* I love this man so much.

Zhongli Zhongli Zhongli Zhongli Zhongli. I AM VERY ANGRY AT HOW THE PLOT RESOLVED HIS STORYLINE. But it also makes a lot of sense. And I think, for once, Zhongli should be allowed to be selfish.

Because choosing to leave Liyue was a bit selfish. He’s leaving the country that adores him, loves him, gives him shit for free; to its own devices and then to a completely unknown fate once the new Geo Archon becomes god and takes over. But he made a frankly fantastic plan and can now leave the country, for now, in peace.

I was absolutely delighted to see Zhongli in Morax form. Making deals with La Signora, being a complete and utter puppet master who set this entire situation up and played Childe like a kazoo; but just like his dear friend Venti, I think Zhongli is happier when he’s just Zhongli, the eccentric mortal. He seems so much happier and so much more relaxed when he’s forgetting about mora and eating dinner with Aether and Paimon. Rex Lapis might have just put Liyue through the wringer, but he can now put down his 3000- year long reign and just be the happy, eccentric Zhongli.

Zhongli’s little bit of insecurity over being a “bourgeois parasite” makes perfect sense now— he doesn’t want to be seen as Morax, a superfluous god who’s using his name to get whatever he wants from the humans he watches over.

But also the part of my brain that feeds off lore nEEDS to KNOW what Zhongli got from Tsaritsa. What could be worth a gnosis? His own happiness isn’t enough— Tsaritsa is likely going to use his gnosis to try and destroy Liyue. What could be worth that?

My main thought would be either “someone’s protection” or “another gnosis”, but I don’t think the latter is possible. The former could be possible but doesn’t really make sense either— a) whose protection is worth putting an entire country, much less the world, in danger and b) the Fatui are out to kill everyone who isn’t Fatui, so they won’t agree to spare a major player in the war to come like that. Brain go brrr.

I’m very hyped for Zhongli’s story quest, which I think is coming with his banner on Dec 1, when Childe’s banner ends. I really hope that Zhongli visits Mondstadt and chills with Venti for a while, but anything with this guy would be fine lol.

LORE

We got a lot of lore this update and I am delighted by it.

Firstly, we get a tiny hint of how Visions are bestowed— “if a person shows true strength of will at a desperate and fateful moment in their life, the gods will look upon them with favor.” Vague but more than we had before.

Next we got some neat lore about Inazuma— firstly, that it’s led by a god named Baal and secondly that it steals everyone’s visions. I’m very hyped to visit because guess what fam aether doesn’t have a vision.

Final Thoughts

In case you can’t tell from my insane ramblings, I loved Chapter 1 Act 3 and I absolutely cannot wait to play through Childe’s story quest and Chapter 2 and beyond.

The Prologue in Mondstadt set the stage for Genshin. We started out in a fantasy environment with a fantasy tale of an immortal bard and a dragon. Mondstadt was an excellent introduction to the world of Genshin.

And now? We’re starting to build on that. Chapter 1 brings us another story of another god and their relationship with the country they watch over. Liyue is much less of a traditional fantasy setting and takes the darkness we saw in Mondstadt— a friendship ruined by manipulation and suffering— and build on it. Now we don’t just see the Fatui more often but we also see more of the Treasure Hoarders and the way both groups kidnap and experiment on humans.

Mond started to introduce us to the Fatui, but Liyue is where they really start bringing continuous plot relevance. Inversely, we saw much more of the Abyss Order in Mondstadt than we did in Liyue. I’m extremely disappointed we didn’t see any more of the Princess this chapter, but it makes sense given that Chapter 1 was really more about the Fatui than the Abyss Order.

All I’m trying to say is the Liyue arc was an excellent continuation to the stage Mondstadt’s arc set. Now, we’re on to the world of the Eternal Shogun, Baal! I’m really excited to meet new characters and experience new stories of Inazuma, but I hope we’ll continue to see Mondstadt and Liyue in the future. Mondstadt is likely going to be the most “boring” of the countries we experience, cuz it’s just so classically fantasy- themed, but it will always be the first country we explored in this world.

After Inazuma (if I had to take a shot in the dark, inazuma’s arc will take from December 23 to maybe March or April) we’ll go to Sumeru, which I am really extremely hyped for because it sounds extremely different from Mond and Liyue and we’ll meet Cyno and possibly even Collei! (just me extrapolating lol). I can’t wait to see where Genshin Impact goes story- wise, because its first major update has brought so much to the table.

#genshin impact #genshin spoilers #gi spoilers

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justice4sasuke · 4 years ago

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#another evening where i could be working on fic out the window #goodbye effort in thing i actually care about #i don't think madara and hashirama are a good love story ok #it is just endlessly amusing how the framing is an inch away from being romantic #ineptgay

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hiccanna-tidbits · 4 years ago

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5, 6, 7 & 8 for OTP asks with Hiccanna!!

HELL YEAH BRO

Soulmate AU: Who is eager to meet their soulmate? Who absolutely does not want to meet their soulmate?

Anna, hopeless romantic and “true love” fanatic that she is, is incredibly down to meet her soulmate. One of her biggest fears is being inherently unlovable and that no one will ever love her for who she is (parents dying and sister shunning you has to leave some abandonment issues babyyyy), so she takes a lot of comfort in the idea of a soulmate--at least one person is basically certain to love her, right?

Hiccup, meanwhile, is apathetic at best and annoyed by the idea of a higher power dictating who his girlfriend is at worst. Unlike Anna, he doesn’t really fear no one will ever really love him for who he is--rather, he just accepts it as fact. Growing up with no friends and an emotionally-distant father, Hiccup came to believe that he was never going to feel the kind of deep, boundless love he’d seen between other people--and he made his peace with it. Being a more introverted scientist and inventor-type, Hiccup tends to spend a lot of time alone anyways and believes (maybe not fully accurately) that he prefers it that way. Besides, the logician in him thinks the whole “magic cosmic soulmate” thing is probably bullshit, and he just can’t figure out how something like soulmates could ever be backed or supported by modern science. Ultimately, Hiccup figures he’s going to date who he’s going to date (if he can even find any girls who are interested, that is), and he really couldn’t care less what the stars have to say about it.

When Hiccup and Anna do finally meet, and eventually start dating (knowing how shy and awkward they’d both be about confessing, it would take months to years after them meeting to actually get together, even in a goddamn soulmate AU), it isn’t revealed that they’re soulmates right away. Maybe it’s revealed by their hearts glowing a certain color when they first realize they’re in love with the other person? Idk.

When Anna finds out they’re soulmates, she’s absolutely stoked. Like the girl probably runs around their home for a solid 15 minutes planning a soulmate reveal party or something. Hiccup, meanwhile, is just kind of like “Oh! Neat!” and then immediately goes back to whatever he was doing XD

Anna is a bit hurt that Hiccup is so, ah...unconcerned about them being literally destined to be together. She’s mainly worried that it means that he doesn’t like...cherish their connection enough and whatnot. After he picks up on the fact that she’s kind of upset about his definitive lack of a strong reaction to the whole thing, he explains to her that he didn’t really care because he’d 100% date Anna whether or not she was his soulmate. Saying their souls were deeply connected was basically just putting a formal title on what he already knew.

And Anna has to take a minute, because honestly? Hiccup confidently saying he’d be with her in any reality, even one where he risks angering cosmic forces to do so, is actually much more romantic than them being supposedly “fated for each other” since the beginning.

Single parent AU: Which one is the single parent? (Alt. if they’re both single parents: Which one is open to starting a new relationship from the start? Which one is never planning on finding love again… Until they meet the other and are instantly smitten?)

I think I’ll have Zephyr and Nuffink be the single parent kids because I Just Think They’re Neat! That, and I honestly can’t bear to make lovechildren for Anna with anyone but Hiccup XD (those of you who know me will know making Krist/anna lovechildren in any context is RIGHT OUT).

So in this AU things didn’t work out with Astrid and Hiccup is pretty heartbroken over it :( I imagine she ultimately left him because she wasn’t really feeling the spark anymore, and they have joint custody of the kids. Meanwhile, Hiccup and Anna were neighbors growing up, and were pretty close friends as kids until Anna moved away and they lost touch. She eventually comes back to their hometown as an adult, and she and Hiccup reconnect. They’re also both like “ah shit, my old buddy got HOT” XD

I actually think Anna and Zephyr would really hit it off, mainly because Anna sees a lot of what she loves the most about Hiccup in Zephyr. Zephyr has Hiccup’s anxiety, cynicism, inventive streak, overall social awkwardness--and because Anna knows Hiccup so well and knows how to best accommodate all of his quirks and oddities, it’s not hard for her to extrapolate how best to befriend a younger version of him XD Zephyr, meanwhile, has had trouble befriending kids her age due to her bluntness and general “nerdiness,” so she’s always happy to find someone who accepts her unconditionally and takes a genuine interest in her wacky inventions--even if it’s her dad’s new girlfriend, who by all accounts should be a weird person for her to get close to XD Zephyr also devours science books like they’re going out of style, and is very pleased that Anna is more than happy to listen to her ramble on and on about random science trivia. Zeph still loves her biological mom, for sure, but she starts thinking of Anna as a second mom. She brags to all the kids at school that she has two moms, which leaves them very confused and wondering if Astrid ended up marrying another woman after she divorced Hiccup (which, to be fair, wouldn’t be entirely out of character).

Nuffink, meanwhile, is a little more unsure about the whole situation, if mainly because I headcanon him as a bit of a mama’s boy. He doesn’t dislike Anna so much as he’s just...wary of her, and doesn’t know how to feel about his dad falling in love with someone who isn’t his mom. He also can’t help but feel out-of-place when he, Zephyr, Hiccup, and Anna go out on “family outings” because he kind of looks like he doesn’t belong. With her reddish-brown hair, her blue eyes, her aundance of freckles, and her fondness for wearing twin braids, Zephyr could definitely pass as Anna’s daughter (I’ve even seen Anna used as an older version of Zephyr in video edits, which is hilariously ironic). Although Nuffink has his dad’s eyes, he very much has his biological mom’s hair and doesn’t look like he’s related to Anna at all.

I think what helps them finally bond is that they both have a love of combat! Nuffink definitely does some kind of martial arts or fencing training if he can access it, and Anna is more than happy to teach him some swordplay and spar with him if he wants! Because Sword Anna is best Anna, fight me. Nuffink is also open-minded enough that hey, if his cool big sister likes someone that much, she can’t be that bad. Hiccup is just...continually super impressed with how much Anna knows about fighting--and it makes him fall all the more in love with her, because he loves that in a woman XD Once Nuffink warms up to Anna, he’s constantly trying to impress her ith how tough he is--mostly shown by him ramming his head into walls. Poor Anna worries about Nuffink a lot XD

I imagine there’s a little bit of tension between Anna and Astrid in this AU. Not really because Astrid resents Hiccup moving on--she’s actually pretty happy for Hiccup that he found someone better suited for him than her--but more because she worries Anna is trying to replace her as the kids’ “true mom” XD Anna, meanwhile, can’t help but resent Astrid a little for breaking Hiccup’s heart and doesn’t get why they kids can’t just have two moms! The more people who love them, the better, right???

I don’t imagine Anna and Hiccup having any biological kids in this AU, because I think two stepkids would be plenty for Anna! Of course, since Zephyr and Nuffink are Hiccup’s, she loves them with all her being and tries to be the best stepmom she can be. But I think having more than two kids would stress Anna’s ADHD ass the fuck out, and she doesn’t strike me as the sort of person who would feel a need to have biological kids with Hiccup if she already had Nuffink and Zephyr to parent. Our girl is perfectly happy adopting!

Doctor AU: Which one is the longsuffering doctor? Which one is the patient?

Hiccup is the long-suffering doctor, although not entirely by choice. Often he wonders if being a doctor is actually what he wanted, but his dad was like “WELL SON! YOU’RE SMART, SO YOU GOTTA BE A DOCTOR SO YOU MAKE BIG BUCKS!” (I’m headcanoning in this AU Stoick is a professional athlete of some kind, and has made BANK since he was young. He can’t really conceive of his son NOT pursuing a well-paid profession). Hiccup doesn’t really want to disappoint his rather intimidating dad, so he goes along with it.

It’s not that he dislikes it, when all is said and done. He does care about people and wants to help them, although he hides it underneath about 10 layers of snark. Still, it’s stressful and thankless work, and often he worries about whether he took the right path. Too late to pursue something else now, he supposes.

Then he meets Anna, rushed to the ICU with a collection of third-degree electrical burns. She tried to plug all of her Christmas light strings into the same power strip, and uh...it did not go well. Hiccup is there monitoring her vitals when she wakes up, and she just kind of wearily sighs and admits to him that living on her own wasn’t nearly as fun or exciting as she thought it would be. As it turned out, Anna had insisted she could be trusted with putting up her apartment’s holiday decorations, and she very much should not have been.

Anna ends up having to stay a couple weeks. She needs a small skin graft (yeah, she fucked herself up THAT bad), and then needs a bit of time for the surgery wounds to heal. Hiccup is assigned to do checkups on her regularly, and starts to look forward to it. Her perky disposition (despite being stuck in the hospital with burn wounds) is contagious, and she never fails to make him laugh after a long, draining shift. As stressful as his job is, Anna becomes his one respite.

He has to admit, it’s nice to have at least one thing to look forward to.

Hiccup is a little sad to see Anna go. Of course, bumbling, socially awkward foot-in-mouth fool that he is, he doesn’t have the courage to ask for her number so they can keep in touch. That would, uh...probably be unprofessional or something. Besides, it would probably crush his heart and soul if she was weirded out by his soft spot for her so like...maybe best not to even open himself up to the possibility.

Then, not two weeks later, Anna shows up at the hospital again--this time having broken three bones in a hiking accident. Apparently she got too excited about a particularly nice view, and toppled right off the top of a very steep bluff. He, once again, takes on her care, and is delighted (albeit guiltily) to have her back. He, once again, has something to make work not suck as much!

Oddly enough, this turns out to be the first of many hiking accidents. Anna comes in next month claiming to have nearly burned her arm off in a rogue campfire, and then again the next month claiming to have been mauled by a bear (although Hiccup is pretty sure those bleeding gashes were just left by a very big dog, and Anna is too embarrassed to admit it). Odder still, Hiccup distinctly remembers talking to Anna during her first hospital stay about how much he loved hiking and the outdoors, and now all of her new string of injuries just happen to be hiking-related. He can’t help but be baffled about how her insurance even covers all of this, but apparently having a family lineage distantly related to Norwegian royalty has its perks.

On roughly her 7th hospital stay, Hiccup finally gathers up the courage to ask Anna for her number, if only because he figures it would be nice for them to see each other without Anna having to nearly get herself killed first every time XD

Bodyguard AU: Who is the bodyguard? Who are they protecting? Which one is secretly pining for the other?

OMIGOD SO

I HAD AN IDEA FOR THIS

What if Anna was sent to bodyguard Hiccup in an AU where Arendelle is a lot more militaristic???

Basically what I'm thinking is that this is in an alternate timeline, Hiccup didn't injure Toothless's tail when he shot him down. The beginning of HTTYD plays out the same, but Toothless can still fly and just yeets off after Hiccup frees him, supposedly never to be seen again. However, this still leads Hiccup to believe he may not be dragon-fighting material after all. The poor boy still yearns to find a way to prove his worth to Berk, though.

As Hiccup gets older, his strength doesn't really improve, and it becomes clear to Stoick that he's always going to be pretty scrawny. Because of this, he's hesitant to put Hiccup in dragon training for the sake of his son's own safety--and hey, Hiccup seems to have lost interest in dragon-fighting anyhow, so it's not like Hiccup will fight him on it. Nonetheless, the dragon raids are getting worse, and Stoick worries about Hiccup being able to protect himself at all. Knowing most of the older villagers are busy with dragon-fighting and other jobs, and honestly doubting any of the village's teenagers would protect Hiccup if push came to shove, Stoick sends out an appeal of sorts to neighboring villages and kingdoms requesting a bodyguard for his skinny disaster of a son.

Back in Arendelle, shut-in princess Anna is surprised yet intrigued when a messenger from the Viking village of Berk shows up at Elsa's coronation. In a timeline where Hans and Anna don’t have their chance encounter, Hans sets his wooing sights on the newly-crowned Queen Elsa (and fails), and no push ends up being strong enough to make Elsa lose control of her powers at the ceremony. Anna, however, still feels hurt by her sister’s seemingly reasonless rebuke earlier in the evening and finds herself aching to explore the world outside her castle and be close with someone--anyone--again.

When the Viking messenger requests a bodyguard for the Chief of Berk’s son, Anna is quick to volunteer. The messenger scoffs at first, but to his surprise, the soft-looking princess isn’t entirely unqualified. She filled many of her long, empty childhood hours training with the Arendelle guard, and her swordplay is admirable. To prove her worth, Anna faces off with one of the Berkian warriors in a duel--and holds her own shockingly well. While Queen Elsa is hesitant to let her sister run off to a faraway nation, Anna vehemently insists that Arendelle doesn’t need two monarchs, and this will be great for diplomatic relations in the long run. Of course, she also longs to explore and get away from the place she’s been trapped her entire life, but Elsa doesn’t need to know that part.

When Anna arrives in Arendelle, Hiccup has absolutely no idea what to make of his new bodyguard. On the one hand, a girl who’s good with a sword is hot, and he’s long since given up on Astrid anyways. On the other hand, Hiccup is definitely irked that his dad sees him as so weak and incapable that he’s the only Viking in the village who needs a full-on bodyguard, and he hates feeling like he’s being babied and coddled (not that this is Anna’s fault). Still, his bodyguard is essentially the only person who’s ever seemed to actually want to be friends with him in...well, his whole life, and honestly? He’ll take it.

Anna, meanwhile, still aching for love and connections of really any kind, is nigh-instantly smitten. His brains, his creativity, his constant snide jokes, his snark-coated good heart, his weird, messy hairdo--all of it has an 18-year-old Anna completely over the moon. Hiccup, feeling hopeless in the world of romance after being rejected by Astrid, is honestly just relieved to finally have a friend--to the point that it doesn’t even occur to him that Anna’s a girlfriend option.

Not long after she arrives in Berk, Anna is put into dragon training to prepare for raids. She does a bit of training of her own with Hiccup, teaching him some swordplay to try and boost his confidence. It’s not hard to tell that he has mixed feelings about having to have a protector, and Anna hopes that by teaching him some basic fighting skills he can at least feel a little better if he’s ever in a situation where she isn’t there to defend him.

As she gets deeper into her dragon training, Anna asks Hiccup why he never gave dragon training a go. Granted, him being as physically small as he is would be a disadvantage, but he could still learn to hold his own decently well using speed and stealth. It would help him be able to protect himself, if nothing else. Hiccup seems very reluctant to talk about the whole subject, but he says Anna needs to trust that he knows he can’t kill dragons. He tends to give the shortest answers possible to her questions, and nigh-instantly changes the subject. When Anna presses too much, he gets snippy.

As they get closer, Hiccup finally opens up to Anna about the time he shot down a Night Fury and couldn’t bring himself to make the final kill. He admits to cutting the creature free, and how the dragon nearly killed him--only to spare Hiccup just as Hiccup had spared him. “I saw more than just a ruthless killer when I looked into that dragon’s eye,” Hiccup tells her. “I saw myself. I think there’s so much more to them than anyone knows, but...you’re the only person I feel like would actually give me the benefit of the doubt on that.”

During the next raid, Anna pays closer attention to the dragons than before. She watches how they interact with the villagers, and notice that they never seem to go out of their way to go after people. They only fight Vikings when Vikings initiate, and the dragons’ main concern always seems to be taking sheep and fish. Left to their own devices, they don’t seem to want to hurt anyone.

Unfortunately, Anna standing off to the side and trying to watch what all the dragons are doing leaves her distracted--and vulnerable. She’s not prepared for a camouflaged changewing to melt out of the wall behind her, whipping around and backing her into a corner. Anna grabs for her sword but can hardly move, frozen in terror as the massive dragon stares her down.

She holds up an arm, bracing herself for a wall of fire, but none comes. There’s a swish of wings and a gust of wind blows her back. When she looks up, the dragon is gone.

It would’ve been beyond easy for the dragon to kill her. The creature clearly saw her--could have taken advantage in her moment of frozen stupor and burned her to a crisp. And yet...the dragon spared her. Just like the Night Fury had spared Hiccup.

Anna realizes Hiccup might be onto something.

Together, Hiccup and Anna decide they’re going to get to the bottom of what dragons are really like--and why they’re stealing the village’s food. While claiming to go out for “battle practice,” Hiccup and Anna track down dragons and study them in secret--observing them, writing about them, seeing how they behave and how they interact with one another. They’re surprised by what they see: left to their own devices, dragons are good-natured and compassionate, and they take care of their own. Strangely, they never seem to feed the stolen food to their young. Hiccup predicts they’re not actually keeping it for themselves, and taking it somewhere nigh unreachable for humans. For what actual purpose is anyone’s guess.

Anna starts using the info she gathers observing dragons with Hiccup in dragon-training. She finds ways to sooth them and calm them down in the ring by using things they seem to enjoy in the wild. Scented grass, bits of fish, soft touches, slow, gentle movements. The village marvels at her newfound skills, and can’t help but wonder where she developed such a knack for controlling dragons despite spending basically all her time around “Stoick’s little runt.” She couldn’t be training with him, of all people...could she? Astrid, for one, is definitely none too pleased about her spot at the top of the class being threatened.

Meanwhile, Anna and Hiccup can’t help but grow fond of the dragons they watch. They start becoming more bold, and leaving snacks of trout and mutton for the scaled creatures. Anna is delighted when the food ends up attracting none other than what she’s pretty sure is the same changewing who spared her, as well as a curious snaptrapper. She’s never gotten to see a snaptrapper up close before, and is completely undeterred by the triple-jawed four heads. Rather, she is far more preoccupied with coming up with the perfect name for each head.

“Omigod, he’s so PRETTY! And he smells like CHOCOLATE!”

“...you know they probably emit that scent to lure in prey so they can slice it in three, right?”

“CHOCOLATE, HICCUP!!!”

With each new meal, the local dragons grow more and more comfortable with Hiccup and Anna. After a while, the changewing and the snaptrapper even let Anna touch their noses. Anna falls in love with watching the changewing seem to melt around the forest as she camouflages, and rolling in the mud with the snaptrapper after a summer storm. Hiccup starts catching what seems to be glimpses of the Night Fury he freed, and it appears that the curious creature has come back to investigate him.

The Night Fury appears more and more, drawn in by Hiccup’s trout feast. Hiccup notices the dragon’s wing is injured, likely shot by someone from the village. Although he’s not completely helpless, he’s having trouble. Hiccup sets to work on his most daring project yet--making a “brace” of sorts that can mend the ripped wing.

When Hiccup and Anna attempt to distract the Night Fury long enough to climb up and put the wing brace on, something unexpected happens. The dragon shoots up to the sky, both unwitting passengers clinging onto his tail for dear life.

Once they get their bearings and clamber up to his back, the Night Fury (who Hiccup has nicknamed “Toothless” for his retractable teeth) takes them on a flight through the clouds. Unable to help herself, Anna laces her arms around Hiccup’s waist--if only so she can supposedly “hold on better.”

Hiccup, of course, still doesn’t get it.

The flight takes a sinister turn when Toothless takes them to the dragon nest, and Hiccup finally gets his answer about where all of the villages food has been going--to their queen. Unsure what to do or how to free their new friends from the Red Death, Hiccup and Anna promise each other one thing or sure--none of the rest of Berk can know about the dragon nest. If they attack it, it spells disaster for both dragons and Vikings--not to mention the question of how they got there is sure to dig up their secret dragon-related activities as of late.

With each dragon raid, Anna finds herself more and more reluctant to fight dragons--especially now that she knows what’s actually going on. She only does the bare minimum to protect the food and the village, never going out of her way to attack a dragon or landing a killing blow (although by this point, she’d definitely be skilled enough to). During one particularly intense raid, Anna is finding it harder and harder to fend dragons off without doing lethal damage. While driving out a particularly tenacious monstrous nightmare, Anna happens upon the same changewing she’s befriended in the forest, limping to safety.

It would be incredibly easy to finish the dragon off, but Anna refuses. The dragon knows she’s beat, and so Anna lets her leave without so much as a swing of the princess’s sword.

Unfortunately, Astrid sees.

After the raid, Astrid storms up to Anna and chews her out in front of the whole village, yelling about how weak she was to not go for a dragon kill when she had the chance. It turns out Astrid’s also been noticing Anna going intentionally easy on the dragons, and how much the Arendelle princess seems to hold back when fighting him. Astrid knows it’s not physical incompetence, or a lack of skill--she’s seen Anna subdue plenty of dragons in training.

No, it seems to be the princess’s heart that’s weak. Her kingdom must be nothing but a bunch of bleeding-hearted morons, and she’ll never be tough enough to really belong in Berk.

As he watches Astrid yell and the Berkians all turn to sneer at the scene, Hiccup feels a sudden rush of protectiveness for his friend. Tears are starting to form in the corners of her eyes, and something gives in him seeing her subjected to the very ostracization that left him completely alone for so many years.

He walks up beside Anna, and suddenly he’s shouting like he’s never quite had the courage to before.

“You’re wrong, Astrid! You’re all wrong!”

Before long, he’s spilling everything--how dragons are intelligent and caring creatures, how they’re only stealing food to feed a ruthless queen, how he’s sure humans have killed far more dragons than vice versa. The village stares, horrified. When Stoick storms forward, Hiccup and Anna know it’s nothing good.

Stoick is disgusted. The very bodyguard he had brought all the way out to Berk to give his son strength did nothing but fill Hiccup’s head with softness and dangerous lies. He banishes Anna, warning her never to set foot in Berk or speak to his son again.

Hiccup will not have it. He says if Anna’s leaving, he’s coming with her. He’s made his choice, and he’s standing by the only person who ever really treated him with unconditional love and kindness.

“Fine,” Stoick says simply. “We’ll be rid of two traitors, then.”

Cast out from Berk, Hiccup and Anna find themselves with a new mission: Find the nest before the rest of Berk does, and take out the Red Death once and for all.

With the help of Toothless, the Changewing (who Anna has nicknamed “Flicker”), and the Snaptrapper (whose heads Anna have very creatively named Leafy, Greeny, Spiky, and Badbreath. It’s beyond Hiccup how she tells all of them apart, but she’s very adamant about which is which.), they find the dragon hive again, and attempt the impossible--attacking the queen. It seems hopeless at first, but once more and more malcontented dragons see what they’re doing, they join in and rebel.

It’s a tough fight, but the two humans and the revolting dragons come out on top. Not before the Red Death has one last hurrah, though--letting out a final, massive blast of fire that knocks Hiccup askew and sends him tumbling down into the flames. Toothless, Flicker, Anna, and the Snaptrapper dive after, and are quickly engulfed in red and orange.

Meanwhile, the Berkians have sent out ships following Hiccup, Anna, and their dragons, guessing the nest is where they were headed. By the time they get there, the fight is over--and Stoick and Gobber just manage to catch a glimpse of Hiccup plummeting into the flames.

Anna screams Hiccup’s name until the smoke burns her throat so much she can’t anymore. She remembers swooping underneath him and just managing to grab hold of his limp body before everything goes dark.

When she comes to later, it’s still dark--but she feels something soft and warm in her arms, and feels scales pressed against her back. Her arm is searing with pain, but she barely notices it as her eyes adjust to the darkness. Hiccup is curled up against her--groaning, but alive.

Not sure she’ll ever get another chance, she puts a hand on his cheek and finally tells him the truth. “I love you.”

He opens his eyes and looks, gaze shocked until a slow realization washes over him. He smiles. “I love you, too.”

They both pass out, still wrapped up in each other.

When the flames clear, Stoick sees what looks like a pile of dragons, all pressed together with their wings folded in. Slowly, they lift their wings to reveal two humans--charred in places, but alive.

Wracked with guilt, Stoick realizes he was wrong. Hiccup’s new bodyguard helped his son become stronger and braver than the chief of Berk ever imagined.

It turns out taking down the queen saved the dragons and the humans, and thanks to Hiccup, Anna, and their dragon friends, Berk will never have to worry about dragon raids again.

It turns out Hiccup’s leg and Anna’s arm didn’t quite make it out of the fire. Luckily, Gobber has always been handy at prosthetics--and Hiccup manages to make a fairly dextrous and functional metal hand for Anna. Anna is utterly delighted with how cool it looks.

After the whole Red Death incident, it’s decided that Hiccup is probably competent enough that he doesn’t need his own bodyguard anymore. Nonetheless, Anna is welcome to stay in Berk as long as she likes. And with new dragon friends and an incredibly cute new boyfriend, she’s not going anywhere anytime soon!

***

This is in reference to this post! I’ve already done these questions for Moanida. Theoretically still willing to do any questions I haven’t yet for Hiccanna and Moanida, although these were exhausting to write out so I might not give as long of answers XD

#hiccanna #hiccup x anna #anna x hiccup #hiccup #anna #otp questions #hiccup haddock #princess anna #hiccupxanna #annaxhiccup #rotbtd #rotbtfd #httyd #frozen #crossover

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wintergreenmedley · 5 years ago

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Re: Jort Stuart, Anime, and "Character Assassination"

So obviously there's a lot of todo in the Hamefura fandom regarding distinctions between anime!geordo and respective iterations of his character in other mediums, and while I do think that difference does exist, I'm also not inclined to feel it's nearly as vast a disparity as some make it out to be?

Keeping in mind that I started with the anime and got into the LN from there, so my whole pov may be skewed in the eyes of some, but the majority of those differences aren't incredibly substantial so much as they could be easily chalked up to mere differences in perspective and subsequent framing. (big exception being material that is anime exclusive, the only real notable thing here being the scene in the magic book which I will not comment on other than to say it feels pretty easily derived from geord's overall characterization).

Take the first kiss scene at Katarina's party. There's a sinister vibe in his words that isn't *quite* present in the respective versions of the scene, one that comes from the literal framing and the delivery of the line "Someday I will have *all* of you." But versions of that line are, of course, present in the "official" translation of the manga AND LN. Along with:

• The confersation starting with his absolute refusal to break his engagement.

• His knocking over Katarina (to demonstrate his power over hers).

• Making that disparity verbal ("You really are defenseless, etc.)

• Stealing a kiss without her awareness or knowledge.

Whether his comment in the 3rd point reads as protective or potentially threatening is gonna change depending on the person, but the important point I think is that the real difference here between what we see in the anime and written here (and remember this is the very first scene with Geordo as we will know him for the remainder of the series, it more or less serves as an introduction to his and Katarina's dynamic for the rest of the first "Fortune Lover" arc) is only a matter of how these already questionable moments are framed.

And I think there's something else to be said to just about what Katarina's relationship is to him conpared to the others. Katarina is notably kind and naive to a fault; She keeps him around because she does regard him as a friend, despite the immediate danger she sees in him. It's interesting that this danger is exclusive to Geordo and Keith, as they are the characters to whom her doom flags are attached to start with, but notably only Geordo has the capacity to murder her with deliberation in any of the bad ends. He poses (in Katarina's mind) an immediate threat to her safety, and ironically the bond that ultimately keeps her within Geordo's vicinity is the very thing that she fears will inevitably cause him to act in such a way.

The controversial kiss from Chapter 11 of the anime is probably the one instance where the LN is unambiguously more generous, as it's not information we're given in the middle of Katarina's coma, but after the entire arc has resolved. We are told about it in a little "epilogue" chapter from Geordo's point of view. Unless we are to assume he is an unreliable narrator--entirely possible but in this case i have doubts--his feelings on the matter can presumably be taken at face value and are thus: He only considered it technically a kiss in hindsight. His intentions were noble, either that she'd wake up or at the very least recieve the water. He never told anyone else about for either selfish or unselfish reasons depending on what you make of his thought process. Does it make sense that a kiss was the only way to get her to take water? Not really. That's a much bigger question about how the author shapes reality and whether or not that qualifies as endorsement, But thats the rub I guess, :-/

The picture painted by the anime is more steadfast that other mediums have besn in its characterization of Geordo as intimidating/possessive to a potentially threatening degree. But I think the insinuation that it's a complete 180 shift from his manga and LN counterparts is... a bit of an exaggeration. Beyond the added scenes, it feels like everything we see in the anime is more or less fairly extrapolated from the sources, and the main difference is that in visualizing those scenes, it closed a gap of ambiguity from which the more favorable readings of his character had been formed.

#my next life as a villainess #my next life as a villainess all routes lead to doom #my next life as a villainess all routes lead to doom!#hamefura #destruction flag otome #bakarina #katarina claes #geordo stuart #otome game no hametsu flag shika nai akuyaku reijou ni tensei shiteshimatta

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waynedunlaptheorgandonor · 5 years ago

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ok, if i don’t write this im gonna lose my mind -cue dmx ‘party up’-

here is a ridiculously detailed analysis of why i am bordering on near certainty of caryl endgame, and how everything that’s been set up from the start of s9 (yes, even c@rzekiel and d@nnie) has been leading up to this

spoilers and long-winded analysis under the cut

let’s take this step-by-step, okay? starting with:

The Titles:

i have said this about a million times now, but the very first indication of caryl came from the new opening credits, where mmb’s name was very strategically placed above the graphic of daryl’s crossbow, what’s meant to symbolize henry’s pike, and a bunch of cherokee roses. it was foreshadowing, not only of henry’s death, but also how her relationship with daryl was going to unfold, and, bear with me here, the downfall of c@rzekiel. speaking of which, let’s go there

C@rzekiel:

i have also rambled about this, too, but the way that kang designed this relationship between zeke and carol was so brilliant, because it was never supposed to be real, but you weren’t able to fully see how until the whole story was laid out before us. (which goes with my belief that kang tells stories over long, connected archs, and not just “you know what would be fun to toss in here rn for some drama?”

carol

1. denied zeke’s proposal

2. never once told him she loved him

3. explicitly told those saviors she could have done without her ring (a line that had absolutely no need to be in there)

4. continuously rejected the title of queen

5. regularly visited daryl in the woods

6. said herself that all it was, was a fairytale. something i’ll delve into more when i talk about carol’s ptsd

but let me touch on how daryl plays into this. we know she regularly went out into the woods to be with daryl, and she did it because he was her tether back to reality. she was living a fantasy life, and knew deep down that it wasn’t real, but had to do it, for henry’s sake, and for the sake of her mental health, because at the time of the relationship, she had not remotely begun to deal with any of her grief

the first scene we get with her and zeke is directly after daryl saves zeke’s life, which is telling. and the first time we hear her talk about her feelings about zeke’s proposal she turned down it’s with daryl, and let us not forget that the script notes stated that daryl was experiencing jealousy about it. he never asked her not to, though, because he thought she was happy, and that was more important to him than her being with him. he was willing to give her up if it meant she was happy, like what kind of angst trope suffering is that?? -chefs kiss-

and we can’t forget that zeke canonically views daryl as a threat to his marriage (i mean, rightfully so). he literally tells daryl to back off his wife so that he can fix their marriage, because he knows carol is starting to go back to him

next!

flowers:

flowers have been being used as symbolism between these two across the past two seasons a bunch. flowers are in mmb’s title card. the first scene of carol/daryl in the time jump shows them seeing flowers. daryl brings carol a flower on the dinner tray. one of the upcoming episodes is “look at the flowers”. obviously the cherokee rose scene is iconic between them, and flowers to carol represent this weird dichotomy. on the one hand, they represent daryl comforting her and giving her hope, and on the other hand, they represent her downfall mentally from the grove. interesting that one of the threads throughout this current season is carol grappling between trying to stay grounded with daryl, and her losing herself to her grief

speaking of grief!

Carol’s PTSD:

people have bitched that kang is just telling carol’s same storyline all over again, to which i’m like, tf show are you watching?? here’s what kang has done. gimple dealt with carol by literally just locking her away in a house to mull over how terrible she is a person, while never once actually dealing with her grief, and then handed that over to kang as a boiling slop of diarrhea, and somehow kang managed to take that, perform alchemy, and turn it into delicious loving carol juice.

she had henry killed off to parallel sophia, yes, that’s true, but the /reason/ she did that is because she’s righting the wrongs that were done to carol by essentially rewriting her storyline the way it should have gone. carol has lost So Much. more than most, i think, and kang is like, “that would fuck someone up pretty fucking bad, i think, so let’s see her actually have to grapple with that.” kang stays true to the carol gimple created, in that her instinct is to run away (think boat), but she’s using daryl as a means of forcing her to confront her demons. the two of them, at any given time, are running away from their struggles, but daryl is finally at a place of stability, and so he’s taking carol by the hand and saying, “no. i’m not letting you do this again. you have to stay,” and carol does, because she loves him, but consequently she’s having to actually feel it (something she explicitly stated she “can’t let herself do”), and is now experiencing the consequences of it, and poor daryl is stuck trying to handle it. his entire plotline this season has revolved around trying to help carol heal her wounds so that they can finally be together the way they should have been ten years ago.

they should be together, and daryl shouldn’t be with anyone else? glad you asked, because that brings us to:

D@nnie:

i actually think that kang never meant to make daryl/connie a ship, bc nothing in season 9 really indicated anything more than a mutual respect, and part of me truly believes that she saw the reaction to the two of them, and was like, “you know what? i can work with this.”

carol is pushing daryl towards connie because she wants to take alpha down and knows she might go down with her and she needs to know daryl won’t be alone. that’s it. period. end of sentence.

but okay, let’s extrapolate. she asks him if he’s interested in connie, and daryl very, very bluntly says no. you can’t tell me that his answer was meant to be evasive. he delivered that line like straight up “no.” no room for debate about his feelings. if they wanted to leave room for doubt they would have had norman redo his delivery, because it is too obvious. he is shutting it down completely. and carol is like, “why not?” and /that’s/ when daryl gets evasive. very “don’t worry about it, why are you worrying about it, i’m not in love with you, shut up.”

fucking kills me, guys.

now the current spoilers about carol telling daryl to get angry at her for (supposedly/probably) killing connie furthers this belief that she wants daryl to pull away from her. because he’s her tether, she loves him, and as long as he still wants her around she can’t leave. she wants him to hate her, and daryl refuses. he’s pissed as all get out about what she did, sure, but he doesn’t hate her. also, the idea that daryl going back to try and save connie and magna means he’s in love with connie is absolutely baffling. have you met daryl? his instinct is to save people at all costs. he wouldn’t leave his friends stuck in a fucking cave, are you serious? just because connie is a woman doesn’t mean daryl wants to fuck her. he’s allowed to care about his friends.

but anyway, the point here is that every “d@nnie” spoiler has been music to my ears, bc not once has it been actually shippy. that first episode with the asl book and them together? it was supposed to juxtapose zeke and carol, and how carol and daryl immediately forgot about connie and zeke in order to be with each other. every other thing with connie has either been very cute and platonic, or has been carol trying to push her on daryl. -chefs kiss- my dudes, you’re worrying about nothing

Misc bc I’m Late for Work:

here are just a handful of other indicators that caryl is on the horizon

-the dream where she dreams she’s MARRIED TO DARYL, and the scenes where she wakes up in bed and looks over and he’s not there. why set that up if the end result isn’t going to be them together in bed?

-the bracelet/the acorns and what they symbolize

-the use of “we” (”we don’t sleep” “it was like that for us before all of this” “since when have we never been enough?” etc)

-their parallels to alpha/beta (see my other long-winded text post on that one)

-ten years worth of history between them!!! that kang understands and references (carol’s claustrophobic, look at the flowers, etc)

so anyway, i don’t have time to tie this up with a nice bow bc i really have to get to work, but this is all to say that i am very very confident about the caryl endgame. i think it’s being drawn out bc kang needs to right the wrongs done by gimple first, but that caryl is where she’s eventually headed. every spoiler has been 100% caryl positive to me. i am zen af, and i think you should be too.

i’ll add to this if i think of anything i missed, but here you go. caryl is endgame and they gon fuck

the end,

-diz

#caryl #caryl spoilers #twd s10 spoilers #dunlap tp

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everyone-needs-a-hoopoe · 5 years ago

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I wasnt sure to brother u with this. I dont see many analysis of asriel on this site. Can u make a post on the lil goatboy

hehe brother

a pretty big ask, but sure, i’ll give it a shot! i’m lazy so i’m not going to bother with screenshots. i’m going to try to keep away from headcanon and only talk about what canon supports.

we don’t have a lot on asriel himself prior to his death but we DO have a pretty nice amount on his family, and that’s very handy for getting an idea of how he might’ve been. asriel’s birth marked the date his parents began to die. we don’t know how aware he was of that, but i’m sure he can’t have been totally oblivious. he was marked from the beginning as the eventual sole leader of a deeply, deeply hopeless group of people, and that’s a whole lot to heap on a little kid’s plate! no matter how much toriel and asgore tried not to make it weigh on him too heavily, there’s no way he could totally avoid the awe, respect and hunger of his to-be subjects. if asgore “you are the future of humans and monsters” dreemurr treated asriel anything like he did chara, asriel was very aware of how much rested on his shoulders.

but we also have some less heavy stuff from toriel and asgore! toriel loves reading so much it’s very likely she fostered a love of it in asriel as well. (it’s very good to me imagining flowey on the service trying to live in the local library because he’s so excited about all the new books.) “a perfect day for a game of catch” is likely asgore thinking about how he used to play with his kids, so it’s possible that asriel was pretty active as well. there’s no computer or tv in home or new home, so he’s probably not very familiar with technology.

we know from the tapes that asriel was very keen on making home movies - he’s probably an aspiring director! the tapes have a lot of other fun details to them, like the fact that asriel is the one initiating play in each of them, not chara - asriel was never a passive follower after them. if anyone was a follower in their relationship, it would’ve been chara! i’m of the opinion that they were on more equal terms than that, but i think it could go either way.

from this it’s easy to extrapolate that asriel is generally a pretty confident person. he knows his position in the world, and it weighs on him, but also makes him feel powerful. you could take that further into bossiness and egotism and it would make perfect sense, i think. he’s a twelve-year-old prince, it makes a lot of sense for him to be a lot brattier than most people give him credit for.

it’s very common to portray asriel as a very soft and weepy sort, but i’ve come to disagree with that interpretation a lot. that comes from how he is at his absolute lowest point, after frisk has just turned him into a god and torn him down to mortality again, wrenched him out of his endless loop of torment and thrown him back into reality. he’s quiet and solemn and mournful because his entire world has come crashing down around him. he’s just properly processed for the first time ever that he’s a serial killer. this is how he gets in that type of situation, but it’s not a fair assessment of his general demeanour.

flowey’s behaviour doesn’t just come from nowhere. the mischievousness, the brattiness, the superiority complex, the curiosity - it all already existed, and was warped and blown out of proportion by a deeply traumatic situation. asriel threw away his old name and the persona of the prince who would save the world, and decided he would be the god of it instead, and play with it as he pleased.

once, he thought he could kill for his people, but in the end he was just a child and he died thinking he’d failed them all - and his parents, and his sibling, who died for nothing. guilt must weigh so heavily on this kid.

i got a little off track there, but i’m running out of steam so i’ll leave off with a pet peeve. one reason i really don’t like “resurrection” AUs for undertale is that, not only is asriel still around, i can’t imagine it being healthy for him to return to his old identity anyway. to him, the name and body of asriel is tied to so much trauma and failure and pressure - he wouldn’t be able to escape how his parents used to treat him. i think he deserves to move on from that, not be forced back into it. my ideal post-paci situation for him is getting a new body with hands and a new name, and being allowed to move forward rather than go back.

i don’t think he needs a soul either. trauma did a bad to him. he’ll be fine without empathy.

#jesus fucking christ this got long #it was fun though i miss thinking about undertale #hear it hurgling #asriel #arrow don't look //#Anonymous

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secretariatess · 4 years ago

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So for those who want to and haven’t yet played FFXV, this will contain spoilers. But I have to . . . . go on, for the lack of a better term . . . . about this.

So I finally completed chapter 10 of the game (somehow I drew up enough emotional resolve to finish it) and the relationship dynamics of the characters are something that I absolutely love, but in during chapter 10, I absolutely hated it.

I hated seeing Gladio getting all up in Noct’s face about not being able to move on from the events surrounding getting Leviathan’s blessing, and just staying mad at him. I even hated how he threw Ignis’s injury at him. The entire chapter, I was seething at Gladio for not having enough compassion for Noctis. And was glad when Ignis finally shut him down at the end of the chapter.

But for Noct and Gladio’s relationship and characters, it absolutely made sense in retrospect.

I have no doubt that the two of them were really good friends at the start of the game. But the background information given in the Brotherhood episodes show that out of the three of Noct’s close friends, Gladio and Noct were the ones who got off on the wrong foot at the beginning. And it’s because their personalities didn’t naturally mesh.

Noctis does not communicate well, and on top of that, he tends to bottle up his emotions. So he comes off as aloof and apathetic, even kind of flippant about his upcoming role as king. Some of this could probably be explained by the fact that Noctis was traumatized rather young. Gladio, on the other hand, was raised in a house with a history of protecting the royal line. A strong sense of duty was instilled in him from the very start, even the understanding that he may very well have to give up his life for the king (or prince, as it started out) despite his personal feelings of the royalty in question. This sense of duty was coupled with a strong and aggressive personality. Which all in all, works well for a bodyguard. But it didn’t sit well for him to see the future king acting rather reluctant about any kind of training required to be king and showing little care about the people around him. (Didn’t help that Noctis’ contrast was Regis, who was a well respected king.)

That dislike of Noctis wasn’t resolved until Gladio saw Noctis willingly take blame and punishment for sake of Iris, Gladio’s little sister, just so she wouldn’t get in trouble. It was then that Gladio realized that Noctis wasn’t everything he thought him to be, and that Noct wasn’t just a spoiled, lazy brat of a prince. (Though in fairness, and Noctis does get his fair share of teasing, he does have a lazy streak.) Thinking back on it, after that incident Gladio has a different approach to Noctis’s training. Gladio’s personality didn’t change, but his view of Noctis certainly did.

That being said, it did not mean Gladio had a perfect understanding of Noctis and everything that went on in his head. Nor did it mean that he and Noct shared the same perspective.

For Gladio, he could see that it was, yes, upsetting that Luna died, but Noctis now had the duty of wearing a powerful ring and continuing on in order to make sure Luna’s death wasn’t in vain. In Gladio’s eyes, the best way to mourn Luna was to tackle kingship head on. After all, that’s what he would have done.

But Noctis wasn’t Gladio. And he certainly didn’t process emotion like Gladio. Story-wise, he likely hadn’t gotten over his dad’s death (a fact that the marshal Cor recognized), the obliteration of his home still felt fresh, and he turned around to lose Luna, and woke up to find Ignis had been severely injured during Noct’s battle with Leviathan- something he blames himself for. To top that all off, he inherited his father’s ring of power; a ring that he had seen sap away Regis’s life. And he was expected to wear said ring. Emotionally, he had imploded. His entire life people had been preparing him to be king. But very few people, if any, actually prepared him for the emotional damage that would come with watching the people around him sacrifice themselves for his sake.

A fact that Gladio couldn’t understand and Noctis couldn’t explain.

As a result, Noctis’s drive and motivation to continue skidded to halt as he grappled with loss and fear. And Gladio saw that as disrespectful and cowardly.

The only person of that friend group who actually understood what was going on with Noctis was Ignis. Ignis had been one of those people who constantly pushed Noctis to be prepared to inherit the throne while Regis was still alive. But he was the only one to see Noctis have an actual breakdown from the stress and grief. And in that breakdown, Ignis found out that Noctis wasn’t trying to shy away from his duty of becoming king, but was having a hard time dealing with the fact that inheriting the throne meant having his father die. He and Noctis developed a relationship where Ignis recognized when to back off and when to give nudges.

Because of that, it made sense that Ignis was the one to end the fight between Gladio and Noctis. I mean, even if Prompto knew the full weight of what Noctis was feeling, he did not command enough respect from Gladio to get him to chill out. He tried at the start and was literally pushed away. I think Ignis may have let the fight carry on as long as it did because he was trying to cope with the fact that he wasn’t regaining his eyesight, and because he was probably hoping that the two would reconcile on their own. Or that if his eyesight returned, the tension would ease. It was only after he accepted the fact that his eyesight wouldn’t return that he shut down the fight.

Honestly, the whole thing felt rather natural. (I may or may not have been muttering under my breath every time Gladio said something to Noct in that episode.) And I found it particularly interesting how the tension between Noct and Gladio affected the whole group. There wasn’t any chipper banter during battles or while walking around. The photo quest Noctis was given wasn’t deferred to Prompto like those quests usually were.

And the writer in me is just giddy with the relationship dynamics between these characters. Like I said, I hated it in the moment. But I love how I can look at it go, “Yeah, that felt very true to their characters.”

So I don’t know if this was a rant, breakdown, analysis, or if I was just describing what was very easily extrapolated, but I just wanted to go on about it for a while.

#Adventures in Altissia

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commentaryvorg · 5 years ago

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Danganronpa V3 Commentary Extra: Rantaro’s Love Hotel Event

At one point I vaguely mentioned that I might make a post covering Rantaro’s Love Hotel event sometime. Unlike most of these events, Rantaro’s one is in fact very good, to the point that it might actually be my favourite piece of Rantaro content. So if I ever wanted to briefly talk about some of the things that are interesting about Rantaro that aren’t relevant in the main storyline, this is honestly the best way for me to do it.

(And maybe there’s also a not-so-Rantaro-specific reason I want to talk about this, too.)

Obligatory warning: this is side-mode bonus content, but I will be mentioning endgame spoilers; don’t read this if you haven’t finished the main story of the game.

First off, understanding this event requires knowledge of what we learn in Rantaro’s FTEs. So, while I don’t quite want to go out of my way to cover those line-by-line, here’s the gist of them for anyone who doesn’t know.

Rantaro’s family is fairly rich and travels around a lot, and one time while in a foreign country, he lost track of his little sister, who was supposed to be following behind him, and she vanished. Ever since then, he’s been doing everything he can to get her back, travelling all over the place and getting himself into all kinds of dangerous scenarios.

Rantaro feels as though his Ultimate should be something like Ultimate Useless Older Brother for letting this happen to his sister in the first place. But Shuichi concludes after hearing the story that maybe Rantaro’s actually the Ultimate Big Brother. It’s not Rantaro’s fault that he lost her, and he’s been trying so hard since then to get her back, essentially devoting his whole life to it, which sounds like the best kind of big brother there is.

After Shuichi agrees to use his detective skills to help Rantaro find his sister, Rantaro then casually adds that, oh by the way, he’s actually got twelve younger sisters who all went missing in similar ways on separate trips.

…And this is the point at which I go “yep, that backstory’s definitely fictional”. Letting it happen once could have been an accidental lapse of attention, sure. But after that, Rantaro would have been extra determined to protect his remaining sisters and not lose them too, so there’s absolutely no way he would have let it happen again eleven more times. That’s just wanton carelessness, as if Rantaro doesn’t actually give a damn about his sisters’ safety at all, which is very clearly the opposite of the truth about him. This only makes sense if it’s fake memories and never actually happened.

(But man, no wonder he hates himself, since he genuinely believes that he really did somehow just carelessly let that happen to every single one of his sisters like the worst big brother in the world.)

Rantaro’s backstory here doesn’t really have much bearing on his role in the canon plot, since his issues there are an entirely separate story fuelled by the whole Survivor Perk thing. Still, this does somewhat help explain why Rantaro is the type of person he is. He probably already had trouble trusting people and feeling like he deserved to be trusted even without the Survivor Perk handicap making it worse – recall fresh-out-of-season-52 Rantaro telling his future self to “trust no-one”. And yet, despite that, he also has a very strong instinct to look out for others and be protective like the big brother he is, hence trying to end the killing game despite his hesitation to trust anyone. His protective instinct might lean towards girls in particular, since they’d be more likely to remind him of his sisters – he did comment at one point that he was worried Kaede’s proactiveness might get her in trouble with Monokuma. (This is why I headcanon that the two survivors from season 52 were both girls; I just think it’d be fun if part of why Rantaro sacrificed himself for them was that they reminded him a little of his sisters and he wanted to protect them at least where he’d failed before.)

So anyway, Rantaro’s Love Hotel event, aka an event where Shuichi has to play the role of the subject’s “ideal fantasy”, which doesn’t have to mean something romantic, shock horror, because this one is entirely platonic. In it, Shuichi finds himself being treated as a student whom Rantaro is something like a private tutor for.

Rantaro: “That’s why you’re my favourite student. Good job! Good work, Shuichi!”

Shuichi: (As he showered me with praise, he lightly tussled my hair with a smile.) […] “R-Rantaro… I’m not a little kid…” (Even if this is his fantasy, it feels weird to be talked to like that.)

Rantaro: “…‘Rantaro,’ huh?”

(His tone had changed. He pulled his hand away, dejected.)

Rantaro: “Not that long ago… you were calling me ‘Big Brother.’”

Except it’s clearly more than that. Rantaro has come to think of this student as like a surrogate younger sibling figure, no doubt to fill the painful gap while his sisters are still missing.

It’s unclear, though, whether he actually has a student like this in real life. This could just be his fantasy of wanting to feel like a big brother again – a fantasy constrained by the unchangeable reality that his sisters are gone and it’s impossible for them to just magically be there, so his subconscious went for the most plausible alternative instead.

Rantaro: “Haha… I guess I made you hate me… didn’t I, Shuichi?”

Apparently Rantaro is all too liable to assume that any “younger sibling” of his would obviously turn to hating him at the slightest provocation. (His sisters must hate him for letting them fall into whatever awful situation they’re in right now, right? They’re definitely blaming it all on him.)

The reason for “Shuichi” supposedly hating Rantaro here is that Rantaro recently announced he’d be leaving on a trip soon – presumably another expedition to try and find his sisters – and can’t even say why.

(Shuichi doesn’t figure out that this is about his sisters, which I guess is because it’s possible to get this event without having done Rantaro’s FTEs in which Shuichi learns about that.)

Rantaro: “I know I’m being selfish, Shuichi. I’m sorry, but I want to shelter you from danger as much as I can…”

Shuichi: “What? Danger…?”

Rantaro: “Haha, whoops, guess I shouldn’t have said that… Forget it.”

Shuichi: “No, Rantaro, I won’t. Not with that look on your face…”

Rantaro: “Some teacher I am, huh? Making you worry about me…”

Obviously it’s terrible of Rantaro as a teacher (as a big brother) to make Shuichi worry about him. That’s not how things are supposed to go in this arrangement at all, so Shuichi should definitely just forget all about it and stop worrying.

(yes hello guess who this is beginning to remind me of, are you maybe starting to see that other reason I wanted to cover this event)

Rantaro: “But you don’t have to worry about a thing. Nothing will ever hurt you. I will protect you. I promise. No one precious to me will ever get hurt again.”

There is absolutely no way someone this fiercely protective would ever have let each of his precious little sisters disappear on him twelve times over. No way. It’s so cruel that Rantaro’s fake memories are making him believe he must secretly be the kind of callously careless person who would let it happen. He’s bound to feel like these assurances otherwise are really just empty words that he’ll always end up betraying when it matters, because he would have promised the same thing to eleven of his sisters, more and more fervently each time, and look what happened anyway.

Shuichi: “W-Wait, Rantaro!” (I don’t really understand, but here goes…) “That… That hurts me, Rantaro. Thinking about you carrying this burden all by yourself hurts me.”

Meanwhile, look at Shuichi hating to see someone he cares about carrying a burden all by themselves, and confronting that person with the fact that they’re hurting him by not letting him help. I wonder who else Shuichi might have said this to, hm? If only he’d known.

Shuichi: “Maybe you see me as just a student, so you don’t think I can protect you… But I don’t *want* to be sheltered and oblivious to everything.”

Rantaro: “Shuichi…”

And look at how Shuichi doesn’t want this person to be hiding their troubles from him in an attempt to protect him, because he can protect them too. This unbalanced arrangement of strictly one-directional help and support while the other person suffers alone was never what Shuichi signed up for.

(If only they’d realise that they need and deserve to be supported, and that needing it doesn’t mean they can’t still support others themselves.)

Shuichi: “Rantaro, you’re going to quit being my tutor, right? So I’m not just your student. I’m your *friend*. You can tell me anything. I know I can help you.”

Shuichi’s approach to this is exactly what he does in Kaito’s Harmonious Heart event and I love it. Rantaro’s trying to insist they have this tutor/student (big brother/little brother) relationship that means Rantaro has to hide all his worries and problems and bear all of that by himself to keep Shuichi safe and oblivious and not worried – but no. Shuichi is having none of that nonsense that puts so much extra undue pressure on Rantaro, because they are friends and he wants to help. Just like with Kaito – he sees this as the best, simplest way to get through to his friend and stop them being so goddamn selfless, and it is.

(Or, well, he and Rantaro might not even technically be friends in this Love Hotel event if Shuichi hasn’t done his FTEs. Still, Shuichi is playing this role of someone who views Rantaro as a tutor/big brother/friend, so he’s acting out what he would do if a person he cared about in that way was behaving like this. Sure, Rantaro never even mentioned that they’re specifically friends, but Shuichi extrapolated from the situation that obviously this person would consider Rantaro a friend as well as those other things. Shuichi is good.)

Rantaro: “Are you sure about this, Shuichi? You’re at the point of no return…

Shuichi: “I would never want you to face it alone, Rantaro…”

Rantaro: “You’ve really come into your own. Haha… Alright, I give up. I’ll tell you everything.”

Looks like it worked! Rantaro now has (in his fantasy) not just a surrogate little brother, but a friend and comrade who’s going to help him and be there for him as he searches for his sisters. Which is probably a lot more beneficial for him in the long run than just yet another younger sibling for him to feel like he’s letting down one way or another.

Rantaro: “Just… until the end of this lesson, can we act like nothing’s changed? The time that I’ve spent as your teacher… has been such a comfort to me.”

I also really like this, because it shows that Shuichi’s response to all this wasn’t Rantaro’s fantasy. Rantaro wanted to just re-experience the feeling of spending time with a younger sibling who’s safe and protected and is never ever going to get hurt or be in danger at all. And Shuichi essentially threw that out and told Rantaro not what he wanted to hear, but what he needed to hear – that he needs to stop being so selfless and let the people who care about him help him for once, because they don’t want him to be suffering alone and he deserves better than that.

This is a really great event because it’s a rare – and really well-done – showcase of Rantaro’s issues from his backstory. They’re some pretty fun issues, so it’s honestly a big shame that they’re basically not relevant at all in the main story and only even come up in bonus bits like this. (Granted, someone had to be the first to die, and the way it was done with Rantaro was probably one of the best ways to make that person still feel fairly narratively relevant and not like a complete throwaway – but it does sadly mean that most of his potential as a character and not as a mysterious plot device had to be squandered.)

But that’s not all; I also really like this event because of Shuichi’s role in it. From what little I gather of how these mostly-stupid Love Hotel scenes go, it probably doesn’t usually even matter that it’s Shuichi in them, because he’s just a placeholder forced to play this role no matter how uncomfortable it makes him and how unlike him it is. But in this one, Shuichi being here does make a difference. Not everyone would have responded to Rantaro’s situation like this, but Shuichi did, because he’s a really good friend who’d never want to let the people he cares about carry their burdens alone.

So not only is this a great event for showcasing Rantaro’s issues, but it’s also great for showing us how good and supportive of a friend Shuichi has the potential to be, even towards people who are stubbornly trying to put themselves in a one-sided protector role that has to carry burdens alone. Shuichi was always exactly the right kind of person to help Kaito with his problems, too – if only he’d known what Kaito was hiding from him in the first place.

(Also, man, if Rantaro had lived longer, he and Kaito could have had some very interesting interactions. I love how many characters in this story it’s possible to draw parallels and contrasts to Kaito with.)

#danganronpa #danganronpa v3 #drv3 #ndrv3 #commentary #salmon team #extra #(don't expect these extras to be regular or numerous; i just happened to want to talk about this)

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