#but i totally understand him
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i relate to jan so much because nace jordan is my celebrity crush too
#it's kinda embarrassing because i don't remember this ever happening#the things this man does to me need to be studied because he makes me absolutely feral#i have to bite on my hand so i don't scream every time one of THOSE photos is dropped#he also seems like the sweetest person ever#who is also capable of looking like he's about to throw you on bed and absolutely destroy you??#yes please#nace jordan the man you are#nace jordan#joker out#also#jan saying that was insane btw#but i totally understand him
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Mel's protection should have saved Viktor too, and she's trying to figure out why it didn't
(Editing to add: see this post for details on the Mel's armor/shield theory)
S2 ep1 shows a circle of protected stone where Mel and Jayce were during the explosion. My theory is that Mel's magic armor activated and saved them both. It seems like it casts a sphere of protection around wherever Mel is.
The center of this circle is not Mel's seat - it's Jayce's. She ran to Jayce to save him.
No other Councilors were in range of Mel's protection, so they all got hurt or killed.
But Viktor was, in Jayce's words, "right next to" him. He was easily within Mel's circle of protection.
1) Viktor tried to run and mistakenly left the circle of protection. But are we meant to believe that Viktor, close to dying already and using a crutch, would have outrun Mel?
2) Viktor's augmented body clashes with Mel's
Why does Mel try to touch Viktor in episode 1? It seems like a throwaway moment, but not even Jayce touches him in this scene. So why Mel?
She's curious. And possibly, feeling responsible. She's wondering why her protection didn't work.
Is this Hexcore brand of the Arcane trying to reach out to Mel? Or trying to defend itself from her?
Mel was trying to protect both Jayce and Viktor, which is reflected in how she holds Jayce as well as Viktor's cane when she promises to protect Hextech:
But if, for example, Mel's magic is Solari in origin, and Viktor's is from the Void - or the Arcane equivalent of similar opposing forces - then it's possible that their magic rejects or hurts one another. So Mel's circle of protection either rejected Viktor, or was what hurt Viktor, and not the explosion.
#arcane#melvik#meljayvik#mel medarda#viktor#viktor arcane#jayce talis#mel arcane#spoilers#arcane spoilers#arcane s2#guys i'm freaking out somebody sedate me#mel and viktor are absolutely going to interact after this#but i don't know how that's gonna go I JUST DON'T KNOW#she totally is thinking that her armor should have protected him as well and she doesn't understand whyyyyy ughughughughughhguhgu#and here jayce is with his survivor's guilt and mel is just like -it shouldn't have been this way- uuuuggghhhh
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Odysseus really pulled out the "I'm not locked in here with you, you're locked in here with me" card on a god!!!
#nobody is doing it like him#not what i expected from the saga#but giving jorge inspiration i understand it#also poseidon totally has that coming#epic#epic the musical#odyseuss#poseidon#jorge rivera herrans#steven rodriguez
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Comfort and safety and such things
This one was actually a commission! I had a lot of fun working with such a cute concept
#payneland#dead boy detectives#dbda#edwin x charles#everyone's favorite side character: the office couch#if one can even call it that#listen listen my girlfriend reads to me all the time#words cannot explain how comforting and lovely it is#i totally understand charles giving up paradise for the boy who read to him#so while working on this one I kept thinking about how much love there is in the act of reading to someone#cutie if you're reading this I love you thanks for always reading to me
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okay, fiiine... your sister's not so bad, goggles.
#daske art#vat7k#tangled the series#varian and the 7 kingdoms#vatsk#varian and the seven kingdoms#vat7k hugo#hugo rottewange#tangled#tts#this show and its many many animal sidekicks amirite#first step on earning hugo's good side: liking olivia#and i just know raps would be g u s h i n g meeting olivia#curiously asking how she operates with enthusiasm#and that prbbly kinda surprises hugo cuz on the surface to him#she didnt look like the type to be interested on machinery#but surprise surprise she understands the work field he and varian works on a decent amount#and he totally didnt expect that but color him curious and intrigued
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Sukuna is Peak Gap Moe. I’ll never be over this. This bastard talks tough, eats people, and kills like a woodchipper and yet…he is a poetic little sap. Getting mad over an improper haikus, the misidentification of flowers…and confessing his feelings to Gojo Satoru under several layers of wordplay no one except those well-versed in ancient Japanese would catch.
I've been over this in greater detail in Sukuna's Negative Rizz, but @tangsakura added more context in the replies to that post, making Sukuna's use of 凡夫 (bonpu) for Gojo even gayer.
In summary, 凡夫 (bonpu) can be translated as painfully ordinary or unenlightened. But in the individual kanji readings, 凡 is mediocre and 夫 is husband. You could read this as Sukuna calling Gojo his mediocre husband. And that's just the modern readings! The ancient readings...
So you can read this line from Sukuna as the following:
“You were born in an era without me and hailed as 'The Strongest'
1) And yet you turned out to be…painfully ordinary.”
2) And yet you turned out to be…unenlightened.”
3) And yet you turned out to be…a mediocre husband/wife/spouse.”
4) And yet you turned out to be…the ordinary one who could stand by my side.”
Sukuna seems to be saying these things all at once. (It’s no different than the Megumi Activities wordplay he uses with Enchain. Alt. link if the Twitter dies.) Gojo apparently makes him feel very conflicted. He’s boring, he can do better, he shouldn’t even call himself the Honored One, he’s his equal, they’re married. The irony here is that no one except Sukuna can understand this.
#cactus shut up#Also he said this live on TV and the chapter ended on ''the one who will teach you love is…''#I’m isolating this from Sukuna’s Negative Rizz because I want more people to see and understand Sukuna called Gojo his wife.#Well his girlhusband boywife spouse who is also totally mid and ordinary and the one who could stand by his side.#When the ''Sukuna is having dead wife flashbacks'' is no longer a joke.#I am once again asking. When the everloving fudge did Sukuna decide they were married.#I understand wedding ceremonies weren’t really a thing in the Heian Era. But what the hell Sukuna.#What a fudging sap. I hate him. I’m going to call him slurs.#When I say this motherfudger is Beatrice I’m serious.#He killed Gojo by making him the center of his world and expected this physics major to understand the abstract symbolism of the violence.#Sukuna doesn’t know what to do with his feelings for Gojo and he made it everyone’s problem.#Gege’s toxic doomed yaoi has me Obsessed.#sukugo#ryomen sukuna#jujutsu kaisen#jjk spoilers
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I AM SO NORMAL ABOUT HIM
Evil!Sun my beloved (Edit// This Evil!Sun is from TSAMS and is not an AU of mine guys)
Bonus doodle
#NO NO LISTEN#I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR AN EVIL SUN DIMENSION FOR SO LONG#AND YOU BET I SCREAMED WHEN I SAW YESTERDAYS UPLOAD#AND I FUCKING LOVE HIM SO MUCH YOU DON'T EVEN UNDERSTAND#alright i'm calming down now#I am totally normal about him guys haha (lie)#I really like the fact that he was actually like#really smart#maybe even smarter than moon#and I love how he just#doesn't give a shit#at all#euuuugh#he <3#/p#Honestly seemed more morally gray than evil if anything#and i feel like moon just kinda#started throwing insults at him#at random#like i'll be honest some of the things he called him didn't really make sense to me#but hey maybe that's just me#oh god this is getting kinda long uhm#wooly draws stuff#tsams#the sun and moon show#tsams spoilers#tsams sun#tsams evil sun#sundrop#wooly's stupid brainrot
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Hannibal
#and I understand him completely#will is so fine#i love him#Hannibal better know how to fight#he totally knows how to fight#im toast#he’s gonna serve me on toast#to will#hannibal nbc#hannibal#will graham#lgbt#gay#hannigram#mlm#i love gay people#lol
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I am definetly in the minority here, but I was always so deeply touched by Mai's confession during that scene.
There's just something about Mai's confession that makes me feel so unbearably sad. I think the first thing that hits me is just how... empty she seems in this situation compared to the rest of the Firesome Foursome. Zuko is angry™️ and lashing out, Ty Lee is sad and concerned and Azula is posturing. But Mai is just so devoid of even sadness around her chidlhood trauma.
It's sort of like she shut down emotionally to some extent, (even more than usual) especially after her fight with Zuko.
This is quite a common reaction to arguments from someone who was raised to be obedient and non-confrontational, so I'm not surprised she was acting like this.
Analysing Mai's behaviour on the beach is interesting.
She seems to try to reach out to Zuko in her own, tepid little way by greeting him, but clams back up when he asks her where "her new boyfriend" was. This leads to her smacking his hand away when he tries to reach out to her by asking if she's cold. They're both trying to mend the bridge, but end up escalating the conflict further.
She remains silent for a good while, but does speak up in order to defend Ty Lee from Zuko lashing out. Despite this, when Zuko persists, Mai doesn't push the issue, perhaps due to her upbringing to be placid.
Due to this, I find it intriguing when Mai mocks Ty Lee for attention seeking, since she had attempted to defend Ty Lee from Zuko's ridicule. But perhaps its due to jealousy or frustration by Ty Lee's freely expressed sorrow and trauma that made Mai lash out in her own way.
Or it's just because the writers didn't know how to jump from Ty Lee's traumadump to Mai's lol
This is where we get into the meat and potatoes of Mai's confession.
Ty Lee bites back at Mai and parrots Zuko's opinion of Mai being "a big blah" as he said.
Ty Lee : Well, what's your excuse, Mai? You were an only child for fifteen years, but even with all that attention, your aura is this dingy, pasty, gray ... Mai : I don't believe in auras. Zuko: Yeah, you don't believe in anything. Mai : Oh, well, I'm sorry I can't be as high-strung and crazy as the rest of you. Zuko: I'm sorry, too. I wish you would be high-strung and crazy for once instead of keeping all your feelings bottled up inside. She just called your aura dingy. Are you gonna take that?
I think what's interesting here is that while Ty Lee saw Mai as recieving the attention Ty Lee had craved, Mai seemed to receive less loving, parental attention, and more scrutiny. Mai's parents also seem to be actually rather neglectful emotionally towards Mai and them just leaving Tom Tom unsupervised behind a screen in Omashu leaves me questioning if they actually cared that much.
Mai deflects, not adressing Ty Lee's question, but rather focusing on the nebulous concept of auras instead. When Zuko butts in, trying to rile her up, Mai gives a sarcastic apology. I find it very interesting that she sets hereself so aside from the others in terms of her not being "high strung and crazy", because it really shows the difference in Mai's upbringing and that of her companions. Azula and Zuko were raised to be leaders and fighters, and their "firebender instincts" were encouraged, while Ty Lee persumably had to compete for attention with her siblings. While Mai was raised with the :be seen and not heard" mentality.
Now is also a good time to mention that I think Mai has almost comically obvious signs of depression, which wouldn't be a stretch.
Zuko calling Mai out for not getting angry over Ty Lee insulting her aura leads me to my next point. Persumably, being a child raised by parents like Michi and Ukano, Mai wasn't allowed to voice her discomfort, offence or upset. Hell we see this in Omashu when Mai complains about being bored and Michi basically shuts her down and tells her to enjoy it.
I mean look at the expression Michi gives Mai when she starts complaining about being bored, a very normal teenager thing to do.
And when Mai finally does speak her mind, it is no less heartwrenching.
Mai : What do you want from me? You want a teary confession about how hard my childhood was? Well, it wasn't. I was a rich only child who got anything I wanted... as long as I behaved and sat still, and didn't speak unless spoken to. My mother said I had to keep out of trouble. We had my dad's political career to think about.
The first thing that jumps out at us is how Mai presents her trauma. She doesn't explicitly express any pain or sadness, despite it being rather obvious to us. This is in stark contrast to the rest of the group. Ty Lee and Zuko are both very open about their negative emotions, hell, even Azula admits that Ursa's actions hurt her.
But Mai? Mai kneecaps her complaint. This can also be seen as an effect of her upbringing. No complaining, no making herself inconvenient for mom and dad.
We also see the theme of conditional love, an implied idea that Michi and Ukano would only give Mai affection or gifts if she acted the way they wanted her to. Now conditional love from people who are meant to raise you will fuck you up.
The comics also add that Michi actively told Mai scary stories about the Kemurimage to keep her in line. Now, telling kids stories about magical beings to get them to behave isn't anything new, but it appears to be so bad that Mai had nightmares over it. Also we're in a world where spirits actually exist, evil chidnapper spirits don't seem too far out the realm of possibility.
Also as someone who got raised by a heavily Catholic mother who made me believe I would burn in hell for an eternity if I even mildly displeased her, I do sympathise
Azula: Well, that's it, then. You have a controlling mother who had certain expectations, and if you strayed from them, you were shut down. That's why you're afraid to care about anything, and why you can't express yourself. Mai : You want me to express myself? [Stands up and yells.] Leave me alone! Zuko: I like it when you express yourself. [Approaching, attempting to put a hand on her shoulder.] Mai : Don't touch me! I'm still mad at you. Zuko: My life hasn't been that easy either, Mai. Mai: Whatever. That doesn't excuse the way you've been acting.
I love when Mai yells at Azula for frying to psychoanalyse her. Like Azula was right, but it understandably upset Mai, and it's a good thing she expressed that. It means she's growing.
I also do adore that Mai does not let Zuko get away with acting out, particularly towards her. I like that the writer's didn't just have Mai give Zuko a free pass because he had a shitty life and she actively called him out on his actions. It's probably my favourite part of their relationship. And Mai expressing so much anger and upset is a perfect crescendo to her little scene.
I don't know why but Mai confession scene just holds so much weight and emotion for me, I can't help but feel something whenever I watch it.
Also, side note, I find it an interesting detail that Azula's confession only came after the fire was extinguished. Perhaps it wasn't intentional but it kinda feels like its symbolising that the light "went out" for Azula (at least narrativewise) and that while Zuko, Ty Lee and Mai would be able to get out of their shitty situations and from under the Fire Nation's influence, she would not.
#mai has the trauma that would usually have characters characterised as shy uwu beans but she's a lil emo and that's why ppl don't get it#mai get behind me i will defend you from the haters#see i totally understand why people chose zukos#because it makes me emotional everytime i watch it#but there's also another part of me that looks at him like: “well well well if it isn't the consequences of your own actions”#mai#avatar mai#atla mai#avatar#atla#avatar: the last airbender#avatar the last airbender#the last airbender#azula#zuko#ty lee#maiko
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So you're a go to source for all things Dick&Tim bros and you tend to write primarily from Dick's POV. So, odd question, but if you were to summarize their relationship from his POV in FIVE panels which panels would you pick? Keeping in mind that one specific aspect of their relationship that you love needs to be clearly represented by each panel (loyalty, trust etc). I hope this is a fun challenge and not an annoying question so if you don't want to answer that's cool! Have a wonderful day!
No more talk. The same thoughts run through two minds... (SotB 29) / You're my equal. My closest ally. (RR 1) / I can't stop thinking how much I rely on him. (GoG 3)
25 Feelings Dick Has About Tim
This was such a kind ask & a cool challenge which I totally failed; here are TWENTY-five panels of Dick's POV on Tim sdfdsfds Look, I got carried away! Marcia and Cindy! The boys!!
OKAY SO BEFORE I GET TO THE PANELS A FEW NOTES:
WARNING THAT THERE ARE SOME NEGATIVE EMOTIONS IN HERE because I love conflict but but but you gotta remember those are not the final word!! They are complicated people and sometimes they get mad at each other BUT ultimately their relationship is so hugely important in both their lives & they love each other and rely on each other so much -!!! <3
Also I have CONCLUDING THOUGHTS at the end about what Dick's POV leaves out (mostly: a lot of Dick defending & protecting & supporting Tim, which Dick does instinctively but isn't very self-aware about most of the time)
I have loosely organized my list into 5^5 format (5 categories with 5 examples each!), so if you want to skip to a relevant one, here are the categories!!
Below the cut:
I hate him and find him infuriating (#1-5)
On second thought, he's endearing & fun (#6-10)
Grief is complicated & he's all tangled up in mine (#11-15)
I love him & think highly of him (#16-20)
I rely on him & though it's hard for me, I trust him (#21-25)
I hate him and find him infuriating (#1 - 5)
1) He thinks he’s so smart and can psychoanalyze me and Bruce, but he doesn’t know me at all, he should get lost (New Titans 61)
2) He thinks he’s so smart and can psychoanalyze Bruce but he doesn’t know Bruce at all, he should get lost (Gotham Knights 26)
3) He is so nosy about stuff that is MY business (Robin 0)
4) He sounds like an insincere suck-up half the time... but okay, fine, if you push him he's got a sense of humor about it (New Titans 65)
5) I'm sure he's a better vigilante than me. It's my fault for being a failure, but I resent him anyway. (Nightwing 9 - Dick's having a nightmare)
On second thought, he's kinda endearing (#6-10)
6) He worries too much and gets anxious so easily, but it makes him fun to tease (Robin 67)
7) I'm not that competitive - okay, so maybe I'm a little competitive, I gotta make sure he doesn't get a swelled head (Prodigal)
8) I'm supposed to be his favorite! It is not cool for him to be fanboying over my not-girlfriend's not-boyfriend!! (Birds of Prey 19)
9) We have fun together. I can kick back and relax when it's just the two of us. Plus I get to boss him around a bit. (Prodigal)
10) He’s always trying to reassure me, and I guess it's a little comforting, but also he doesn’t really get it. Or me. He makes excuses that he shouldn't, because he doesn't understand that I suck. (Nightwing 64)
Grief is complicated and he's all tangled up in mine (#11 - 15)
11) He reminds me of everything I try not to think about. Sometimes the memories are so strong it hurts to look at him. (Batman 441)
12) WHY IS HE BEING IMPOSSIBLE ALL OF A SUDDEN??? THIS IS SO FRUSTRATING (Nightwing 139)
13) We're the same. He says all the things I don't let myself think about. It's like arguing with myself. (Nightwing 139)
14) He thinks he gets to tell me what to do but he doesn’t, fuck him (Battle for the Cowl)
15) Life sucks, so what. I sucked it up so he should too (RR 1)
I love him and think highly of him (#16 - 20)
16) He’s the closest thing to a brother I’ll ever have. If someone hurts him I will hurt them harder. (Nightwing 6)
17) I can't handle the idea of losing him. (Nightwing 97)
17) He’s so good and I’m not. I'm afraid I’m bad for him. (Nightwing 110)
18) He’s better than me, and it’s kind of a relief because I know no matter what he’ll be okay. (Gates of Gotham 3)
19) In my head he’s the responsible one. (Gotham Knights 10)
I rely on him, and though it's hard for me, I trust him (#20-25)
20) I know I have to trust him but I'm afraid he'll make the wrong choices and get hurt (Nightwing 139)
21) I'm sure I know what he should do because I see myself in him - not that I can take my own advice, but he should (Blackest Night 3)
22) I trust him. When I’m losing my grip on things, he pulls me back. (Gotham Knights 10)
23) I want him to trust me (Red Robin 12)
24) He can tell when I'm lying. Sometimes he sees my weaknesses better than I wish he did. (Detective Comics 874)
25) He’s always there when I need him. (Teen Titans / Outsiders Secret Files)
Final rambling thoughts:
TIM: Uhh, okay, so I'm just skimming this list - do you really trust me? you're not just saying that? - but anyway, I'm confused because you left some stuff out? Like some stuff that's kinda important? DICK: No? I think I got everything? TIM (starts counting on his fingers): The time I was having a bad day but then I called you. The time I got captured by Two-Face but then you saved me. The time I fell off a train but then you saved me. The time I fell off a building but then you saved me. The time I fell off a different building - DICK: I feel like you're trying to make some kind of point but I'm not sure what it could be.
SO THE THING IS, I put 25 panels in here and not a single one has Dick catching Tim when he’s falling!!! But I think that's a central motif of their relationship from Tim’s POV, not Dick’s. I love Dick, but in some ways I think he is spectacularly un-self-aware.
And I think he especially has a lot of blind spots about Tim. He kinda intermittently gets that Tim admires him, and he enjoys it in a playful I-get-to-boss-you-around way. But Dick tends to consistently underestimate all of his own good qualities & skills, and he meets Tim at a point in his life when he's especially down on himself & his abilities. And so he's unable to see his own influence on Tim, & therefore unable to fully understand a lot of Tim's priorities and loyalties and motivations, because you can't actually understand Tim without understanding Dick's impact on him. There's a fascinating moment in Bruce Wayne: Murderer when Dick's completely blindsided & upset to discover that Tim doesn't entirely trust Bruce, even though this has been a definitive fact of Tim's whole thing ever since he showed up with his Batman needs Robin theory, and Barbara has to actively remind Dick of the obvious-to-everyone-except-Dick fact that a lot of Tim's loyalty is to Dick, and Tim loves Bruce but feels free to be more wary of him. (And to give Bruce credit: this is not something he ever begrudges.) But anyway Babs points this out, and Dick manages to sorta process it for about five seconds, but he cannot actually accept it into his worldview so instead he discards it at the speed of light and goes off and has an argument with Tim instead sdfsfdsf
All of Dick's virtues - Dick's kindness at the circus and Dick's determination to fight through grief and Dick's rigid sense of morals and Dick's vigilante skills and every time Dick has ever backed Tim up or listened to him or protected him or saved him from something or just been casually kind to a stranger in Tim's presence etc etc etc - all these things loom really large in Tim's mental story of Who Dick Is, and What Dick And Tim's Relationship Is. Tim meets Dick before he meets Bruce, trusts Dick more than Bruce, aspires to be Robin instead of Batman. And so in Tim's default version of the story, Dick is the super-special and admirable hero and Tim is... nobody in particular, a tagalong outsider who's barely managing to be a hero, not part of Dick and Bruce's family and not part of their story, who, if he's VERY LUCKY and tries REALLY HARD, might be able to fight his way to proving himself and offering something to Dick that Dick will value, if Dick doesn't get fed up with him first.
But that's not Dick's version of the story!!!
Dick's version of the story is almost the exact opposite, a story where Dick's an outcast failure black sheep who's screwing up everything he tries, and meanwhile Tim is The Sudden New Perfect Robin Who's Better Than Me And Probably Bruce Loves Him More And Probably They Gossip About What A Loser I Am, mixed with a complicated edge of Tim Thinks He's So Smart But He Doesn't Know Me/Us At All. Dick gets much more attached to Tim over time, and Tim gets unnervingly better at the know-it-all psychoanalysis so then Dick gets to have complicated feelings about him being right instead of just annoyance at him for being wrong, plus Dick's relationship with Bruce improves a lot, so Tim stops feeling so threatening. But Dick never fundamentally changes his basic theory of their relationship in which Tim is highly impressive and capable, and Dick is not so much.
And so asking Dick about Tim is kinda like if you asked George Bailey to tell you about Harry Bailey in It's A Wonderful Life; like, you'll be there for five hours while he tells you how great Harry is, and how accomplished Harry is, and how he doesn't really get how or why Harry does the things he does, and maybe George does feel a little resentful or jealous sometimes, but that pales in comparison to all his admiration and trust for Harry who he loves so much, who's better than him in so many ways, and he's not gonna openly gripe but secretly he can't help but feel sometimes like he's such a failure in comparison to Harry, a perfect person who emerged fully formed from Zeus's head with all the virtues and also all the accomplishments, etc. etc. etc. --
-- and he will not actually remember the part where he changed and saved Harry's whole entire life unless you literally send him to an alternate timeline in order to force him to remember it. <3
#i enjoyed thinking about this so much i wrote a novel with All My Thoughts sorry sdfsdfs#tim drake#dick grayson#somewhat tangential but as i was writing this i was thinking about zahri's post#about how different types of stories offer different kinds of emotional payoffs#and i think for me for dick and tim the main two payoffs are:#1) someone who sees & understands your grief for deaths that will never get fixed or get better#and who will face your ghosts with you EVEN WHEN you're also mad at each other#2) someone who you look at and you see all the ways that you suck & he's better & you're a loser who's failed him etc etc#but it turns out that you're wrong. that you're good enough. not that none of the failures were real or that they were all in your head#but it turns out that it's okay that you didn't always immediately do or feel the right thing#and it's okay that you weren't perfect. you can fuck up six thousand ways & everything you did right will still matter#not because of making excuses or allowances or somebody pityingly trying to make you feel better#but because in the end the things you did right are just Genuinely More Valuable than anything you did wrong#all the times you tried & everything that you tried to give - everything you think wasn't good enough - it was.#IN OTHER WORDS they are both convinced they're not good enough & they are both wrong <3#anyway dick and tim are both INCREDIBLY SIMILAR and also CONSTANTLY misreading each other and i love that for them#and like. they will sometimes totally misread each other & then never figure out the part that they misunderstood#but then they manage to keep going anyway. we love each other on purpose <333#ask tag#dick&tim
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It's always been intriguing to me that, even when Elizabeth hates Darcy and thinks he's genuinely a monstrous, predatory human being, she does not ever perceive him as sexually predatory. In fact, literally no one in the novel suggests or believes he is sexually dangerous at any point. There's not the slightest hint of that as a factor in the rumors surrounding him, even though eighteenth-century fiction writers very often linked masculine villainy to a possibility of sexual predation in the subtext or just text*. Austen herself does this over and over when it comes to the true villains of her novels.
Even as a supposed villain, though, Darcy is broadly understood to be predatory and callous towards men who are weaker than him in status, power, and personality—with no real hint of sexual threat about it at all (certainly none towards women). Darcy's "villainy" is overwhelmingly about abusing his socioeconomic power over other men, like Wickham and Bingley. This can have secondhand effects on women's lives, but as collateral damage. Nobody thinks he's targeting women.
In addition, Elizabeth's interpretations of Darcy in the first half of the book tend to involve associating him with relatively prestigious women by contrast to the men in his life (he's seen as extremely dissimilar from his male friends and, as a villain, from his father). So Elizabeth understands Darcy-as-villain not in terms of the popular, often very sexualized images of masculine villainy at the time, but in terms of rich women she personally despises like Caroline Bingley and Lady Catherine de Bourgh (and even Georgiana Darcy; Elizabeth assumes a lot about Georgiana in service of her hatred of Darcy before ever meeting her).
The only people in Elizabeth's own community who side with Darcy at this time are, interestingly, both women, and likely the highest-status unmarried women in her community: Charlotte Lucas and Jane Bennet. Both have some temperamental affinities with Darcy, and while it's not clear if he recognizes this, he quietly approves of them without even knowing they've been sticking up for him behind the scenes.
This concept of Darcy-as-villain is not just Elizabeth's, either. Darcy is never seen by anyone as a sexual threat no matter how "bad" he's supposed to be. No one is concerned about any danger he might pose to their daughters or sisters. Kitty is afraid of him, but because she's easily intimidated rather than any sense of actual peril. Even another man, Mr Bennet, seems genuinely surprised to discover late in the novel that Darcy experiences attraction to anything other than his own ego.
I was thinking about this because of how often the concept of Darcy as an anti-hero before Elizabeth "fixes him" seems caught up in a hypermasculine, sexually dangerous, bad boy image of him that even people who actively hate him in the novel never subscribe to or remotely imply. Wickham doesn't suggest anything of the kind, Elizabeth doesn't, the various gossips of Meryton don't, Mr Bennet and the Gardiners don't, nobody does. If anything, he's perceived as cold and sexless.
Wickham in particular defines Darcy's villainy in opposition to the patriarchal ideal his father represented. Wickham's version of their history works to link Darcy to Lady Anne, Lady Catherine (primarily), and Georgiana rather than any kind of masculine sexuality. This version of Darcy is a villain who colludes with unsympathetic high-status women to harm men of less power than themselves, but villain!Darcy poses no direct threat to women of any kind.
It's always seemed to me that there's a very strong tendency among fans and academics to frame Darcy as this ultra-gendered figure with some kind of sexual menace going on, textually or subtextually. He's so often understood entirely in terms of masculinity and sexual desire, with his flaws closely tied to both (whether those flaws are his real ones, exaggerated, or entirely manufactured). Yet that doesn't seem to be his vibe to other characters in the story. There's a level at which he does not register to other characters as highly masculine in his affiliations, highly sexual, or in general as at all unsafe** to be around, even when they think he's a monster. And I kind of feel like this makes the revelations of his actual decency all along and his full-on heroism later easier to accept in the end.
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*The incompetently awful villain(?) in Sanditon, for instance, imagines himself another Lovelace (a reference to the famous rapist-villain of Samuel Richardson's Clarissa). Evelina's sheltered education and lack of protectors makes her vulnerable to sexual exploitation in Frances Burney's Evelina, though she ultimately manages to avoid it. There's frequently an element of sexual predation in Gothic novels even of very different kinds (e.g. Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho and Matthew Lewis's The Monk both lean into this, in their wildly dissimilar styles). William Godwin's novel Caleb Williams, a book mostly about the destructive evils of class hierarchies and landowning classes specifically, depicts the mutual obsession of the genteel villain Falkland and working class hero Caleb in notoriously homoerotic terms (Godwin himself added a preface in 1832 saying, "Falkland was my Bluebeard, who had perpetrated atrocious crimes ... Caleb Williams was the wife"). This list could go on for a very long time.
**Darcy is also not usually perceived by other characters as a particularly sexual, highly masculine person in a safe way, either, even once his true character is known. Elizabeth emphasizes the resilience of Darcy's love for her more than the passionate intensity they both evidently feel; in the later book, she does sometimes makes assumptions about his true feelings or intentions based on his gender, but these assumptions are pretty much invariably shown to be wrong. In general the cast is completely oblivious to the attraction he does feel; even Charlotte, who wonders about something in that quarter, ends up doubting her own suspicions and wonders if he's just very absent-minded.
The novel emphasizes that he is physically attractive, but it goes to pains to distinguish this from Wickham's sex appeal or the charisma of a Bingley or Fitzwilliam. Mr Bennet (as mentioned above) seems to have assumed Darcy is functionally asexual, insofar as he has a concept of that. Most of the fandom-beloved moments in which Darcy is framed as highly sexual, or where he himself is sexualized for the audience, are very significantly changed in adaptation or just invented altogether for the adaptations they appear in. Darcy watching Elizabeth after his bath in the 1995 is invented for that version, him snapping at Elizabeth in their debates out of UST is a persistent change from his smiling banter with her in the book, the fencing to purge his feelings is invented, the pond swim/wet shirt is invented. In the 2005 P&P, the instant reaction to Elizabeth is invented, the hand flex of repressed passion is invented, the Netherfield Ball dance as anything but an exercise in mutual frustration is invented, the near-kiss after the proposal in invented, etc. And in those as well, he's never presented as sexually predatory, not even as a "villain."
#self-indulgently long tangents even for me but i had Thoughts!#i almost appended a third footnote to the second footnote. rip#anghraine babbles#long post#fitzwilliam darcy#lady anne blogging#austen blogging#austen fanwank#ivory tower blogging#anghraine's meta#eighteenth century blogging#gender blogging#i do think it's interesting that associating his flaws with lady catherine's is honestly fair - she comes to wonder about this later#but lbr that is totally understandable! lady catherine is the awful parody version of him!#but the times when elizabeth's assumptions are highly inflected by Yes All Men Actually generalizations she's utterly wrong#it's not some horrible misdeed but it's not really fair#not because she's oppressing him (lmao) but because people don't work that way#not saying that p&p is some huge blow against gender essentialism but i do think it's FAR less friendly to it than its fans are
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when i said i wanted to understand whatever’s going on in ivan’s head, i didn’t mean like this 😭😭
#alnst ivan#alnst till#ivantill#alien stage#ooooh boy turns out ivan’s self esteem is pretty low in terms of love#makes total sense but it’s not what i expected from someone who looked so in control of what he wanted and was willing to pursue from till#he loves humbly which was my first intepretation of him before we even got round 3#it’s changed since then with more (mis)information leaked by vivinos to misdirect our understanding of him#so to get this clear dialogue of his final thoughts is really… clarifying#and terribly sad in a way#ivan loves till so much and is entirely aware that he hasn’t been the most gentle of suitors#god i have many thoughts about this#ahhh ivan baby your feelings aren’t shallow at all
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People be like GIVE KABRU BROWN EYES!!!! and I'm like nooooo that's where his trauma is stored!!!!
Like he was almost killed as a baby because of them. His mom had to take him and run. He was convinced he was either the child of a monster or of an affair for the longest time until Milsiril taught him about genetics and how, while rare, two parents with dark eyes and dark skin can give birth to a blue eyed child.
His blue eyes are literally so important to his story keep them blue i'm begging you
#i totally understand the reasoning behind wanting him to have brown eyes#i get it really#but it's relevant to his story and not just a style choice#kabru#dunmeshi#delicious in dungeon#dungeon meshi spoilers#i guess?#yeah#delicious in dungeon spoilers#dungeon meshi
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me explaining why Will/Elizabeth/Jack love triangle was a perfect little one-movie arc that wasn't present in the final movie because it was never about choosing and instead just about dynamics and character development so they all outgrew it by then
#like first off will and elizabeth are having similar character arcs but in totally opposite directions#he loses himself and gets all sad the further into the world of piracy he gets. she blooms and becomes her best self and excels at it.#and both of their arcs are supervised by jack who is there to make fun of them until it's no longer funny#will is absolutely repulsed by him but also understands him more and more once he realizes he would do anything to get to his goal#elizabeth is absolutely repulsed by him but also wants to BE him. he is what she wishes she could be were she totally free#and her possible attraction to him is treated as FUNNY because it IS VERY RIDICULOUS. like why tf would she want this weird gross guy when#she has actual perfect loverboy will at home. well bc will just doesn't get her. he is sad and lost while she is thriving#and the only one who gets it is the old smelly clown over there. why is the compass pointing at him (bc she wants to be him so bad)#that movie is about the characters not knowing what they want. they are all at a crossroads and have to choose which way to go. so it makes#sense that the main characters have a push and pull dynamic between them!!! c'mon!!!! it is so cool!!!#eernatalk#also i know pirate king elizabeth awakened something in all of us but can i add. the look she gives jack when he stops kissing her bc of th#sound of the shackles. the way she bares her teeth like she is steeling herself for the ''you deserve to die i am not sorry for this''speec#WHEEEWW.... WHEW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Cale Henituse starts out not wanting to get beat up after transmigrating and his first plan of action is to save the Harris village from being annihilated. That was the first sign we all kinda missed about just how much of a good guy this guy is.
Like when I first read that part
Cale: I need to avoid getting beat up by the protagonist.
Me: pssshh that's easy. All you gotta do is avoid meeting him altogether.
Cale: *gets disappointed that the transmigrated to the day after the massacre*
Me: Just don't do anything and don't go in front of him. Let your father handle it.
Cale: *goes to teahouse waiting for Choi Han to arrive by the gates*
Me: Even if you do happen to bump into him, just don't say anything bad to provoke him.
Cale: *orchestrates a chance encounter with and feeds Choi Han* *takes care of the village folks' funeral*
Me: hold up this guy kinda—
He's too much of a kind soul to turn a blind eye to people. His concern is always based in saving as many lives as possible.
Most recently in the Central Plains, despite the fire power having so much of it's strength sealed and coughing up so much blood purifying living jiangshi Namgung Taewi, he still wanted to purify the ones they'd find in the future. Despite saying it was only so that they'd have more manpower, he decided on purifying them all even before he met Heavenly Demon and asked him to find a way for the purified ones to use martial arts with their upper and middle dantians (it wasn't like they'd be able to learn it and join in the fight against the Blood Cult immediately either).
Kim Roksoo... Cale... Has always been an endlessly kind person.
#I totally understand Lee Soo Hyuk and Choi Jung Soo's concern about leaving him on his own.#his lack of self awareness is what's getting in the way of his slacker life#lout of count’s family#lcf#tcf novel#trash of the count's family#cale henituse#tcf#cale#kim rok soo
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guess who finished tlok tonight and immediately had this come to him in a vision!!!!
#i. really like tlok. like a lot#i understand why people dont like it#and i can accept that OBJECTIVELY its not that great#but i had a fantastic time with it#anyways yeah. gay people#tbh. would not call zhu li and varrick normal. most queer straight couple on the planet.#hes a gay man. shes a lesbian. theyre in love. do you get it.#i dont have that many thoughts abt wuko. i really really like it though.#wu is like the webkinz milk cat to me. i need to throw him against a wall really hard.#and of course. korrasami. what is there to even say there#one thing i will say is before watching it i TOTALLY thought asami was a fire bender and also evil#like i kept thinking “yep this is when she turns evil and then theres enemies to lovers” but nope#not a bender or evil and honestly im glad#she totally wouldve been justified in becoming evil though. i sure wouldve#love her.so much#korra too ofc#i have SO MANY more thoughts but im gonna run out of space#last thing i will say is i am a guy who will just always prefer media i can criticize#love atla. but theres nothing there for me to really sink my teeth into or like bitch about#i love it when media is KIND OF BAD and i can RANT ANGRILLY about it#the legend of korra#tlok#legend of korra#korrasami#wuko#zhurrick#korra#asami sato#mako tlok#prince wu
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