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blackswaneuroparedux · 4 years ago

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The Bunad: roots of a nationalist symbol

The bunad is a Norwegian folk costume which exists in many regional varieties. A symbol of rootedness and belonging both local and national, the bunad is ubiquituous on Constitution Day, 17 May, but it is also used at other festive occasions. Although it is far more widespread among women than men, male bunads have become common in some social circles.

Can anyone wear a bunad? Is it a real bunad if it is made in China? Is it a symbol of origin and roots or a nationalistic symbol?

It is estimated that Norwegians own altogether 2.5 million bunads, worth more than 40 billion kroner (€500 million). In other words, one in two citizens owns a bunad, and they are expensive garments with embroideries and filigree silver ornaments, consisting of several components often including aprons, headdresses, scarves or shawls. You could easily buy a few prestigious and beautiful dresses from famous designers for the cost of a single bunad. Moreover, bunad ownership and use has grown fast in the last few decades.

The increased popularity of bunads could be put down to the growing prosperity of the population of oil-rich Norway in general. But this is hardly the whole story. A symbol of Norwegianness, rootedness and regional origins, wearing a bunad is a statement about identity. Non-Norwegians are often puzzled by its widespread use, since folk dresses are associated with minorities in other parts of Europe. Perhaps the Norwegian identity is essentially a minority identity, even though independence was achieved through a bloodless secession from the Swedish–Norwegian union in 1905.

The ongoing story of the bunad is complex and involves claims and counter-claims about authenticity, the feared and respected ‘bunad police’ and a vivid popular discourse about who has the moral right to wear which bunad. The right not to wear a bunad is generally tolerated, but there is no strong and visible cosmopolitan discourse dismissing the widespread love of folk costumes as antediluvian, reactionary, nationalist and possibly racist. Yet there is no consensus concerning which dresses should be classified as sufficiently authentic and what the criteria are and it has led to controversies.

The bunad is a particular kind of festive dress. The term is a neologism based on an archaic dialect word, introduced in urban circles by the author and nationalist activist Hulda Garborg in her pamphlet Norsk klædebunad in 1903. Writing during a feverish phase of Norwegian nationalism just ahead of independence, Garborg argued the need for a truly Norwegian and regional form of formal dress. She collected and systematised what she saw as intact and useful regional bunad traditions, and even designed some bunads herself. Interestingly, Garborg never denied the syncretic and partly invented character of the new, traditionalist folk costume. She nevertheless emphasised its role as a marker of rural, Norwegian identity.

A relevant distinction can be drawn between a bunad and a folk costume. Folk costumes are everyday and festive clothes which were traditionally worn by peasants in southern Norway, and – like certain kinds of peasant food – have been recontextualised and upgraded more recently as formal dress. Bunads, on the contrary, are reconstructed and re-designed – sometimes very nearly purely invented – costumes designed from the early 20th century onwards, and are used at occasions such as Christmas Eve, Constitution Day, weddings and other major social events, although not at funerals: bunads are bright and joyful garments. Some bunads represent minor adjustments (‘upgradings’ and modernisations) of the original folk costume, while the link is less obvious or absent in other cases.

The bunad is an important traditionalist symbol of modern Norwegianness. Most of these costumes are related to regional and minority folk costumes from Central and Eastern Europe, and the German influence has often been commented upon. More importantly, the bunad confirms Norwegian identity as an essentially rural one, where personal integrity is linked to roots and regional origins. However, 18th and 19th century peasants would often wear European-style dress at formal occasions such as weddings, or they might wear a folk costume, which gradually went out of use. In other words, there is a clear element of modern invention, which nobody denies, not only in the currently widespread use of bunads, but also in their design.

What exactly, then, is a bunad? One possible answer widely accepted is: a festive dress associated with a regional Norwegian tradition, accepted by the Bunad and Folk Costume Council as such, and widely recognised as a bunad by the public. Its popularity as a symbol of tradition has increased proportionally with the modernisation and urbanisation of Norway in the last hundred years, thereby saying something essential about the politics and poetics of identity in modern societies, where the quest for rootedness in the past increases with de facto uprootedness.

In contemporary society, many if not most individuals have two, three or four options: they can legitimately wear a bunad designed in the place where they live, in the place where they grew up, or in one of their parents’ places of origin. They cannot, however, legitimately wear a bunad from wherever they fancy. Of course, they could buy it, but their friends and relatives might frown.

Norwegians who live in the heart of urban cities and have no real rural roots are sometimes unaware of people in the heart of Bunad Norway who are deeply offended. These rural Norwegians as they see it have no time for West End ladies who claim Telemark ancestry when they buy the perhaps greatest status symbol of all bunads, namely the expensive and exclusive East Telemark bunad. They also disapprove of people wearing gold chains and earrings with their bunads.

There are frequent conflicts over authenticity framed within the bunad discourse itself. In the valley of Numedal, competition between two alternative bunads actually led to the creation of two distinct factions in the 17 May parade of 2002. Family members fell out with each other; local politicians groped for compromises. One of the alternatives, a simple folk costume, is woven in dark fabrics; the complex, reconstructed bunad sanctioned by the Bunad and Folk Costume Council is much more elaborate and colourful. The defenders of the simple costume argue that the new one, ‘overloaded with silver and embroideries’, is inappropriate and clearly inauthentic for a traditionally poor mountain valley; while the other faction see the simple bunad as sordid and joyless. Both factions claimed that their bunad was the most ancient one. The colourful and expensive alternative won in the end.

The bunad stirs up strong emotions. After the 17 May celebrations in 2001, Queen Sonja was criticised in public for wearing sunglasses with her bunad; in the same year, Crown Princess Mette-Marit was severely reprimanded in the press for wearing a purely invented ‘fantasy costume’ rather than an authentic bunad from her home region. She has since made amends, and now has several bunads to choose between (legitimate in her case, being princess of the whole realm), including an elaborate bunad from her home county of Vest-Agder in the far south of the country. Women are generally advised by the Bunad and Folk Costume Council not to wear makeup and earrings with their bunad.

Because of the wealth of detail, a proper bunad cannot be made industrially in its entirety. This partly accounts for its high market price. Moreover, the knowledge and skill required to make a bunad is considered a cultural, local form of knowledge – a kind of inalienable possession. In the spring of 2002, a conflict erupted between the traditionalists and a young entrepreneur who wanted a slice of the market. This conflict inadvertently brought the implicit ideology underlying the bunad to the public eye. The controversy is still alive today, with cultural arguments overlapping with the economic ones.

What happened was this. A young Norwegian of Chinese origin, who originally worked as a cook, began to take an interest in bunads. He took a bunad course, learning the basics of the craft. Before going into business, he changed his name from Aching to John Helge Dahl, realising that he would have little credibility as a bunad salesman with a Chinese name. (The current owner of the company founded by Dahl is nevertheless called You Hong Bei.)

Dahl founded a company called ‘Norske Bunader’ (Norwegian bunads), and then he did the outrageous thing, namely to contract dozens of Chinese seamstresses in Shanghai to do the stitching and embroidery. The fabrics were sent from Norway, and the completed garments were returned – at a much lower price than that of the Norwegian competition. He built the bunads himself. ‘To most people, it is the quality that counts,’ he says, ‘not who has done the embroidery’. Of course, he can offer bunads at a competitive price.

The Bunad and Folk Costume Council reacted strongly against Mr. Dahl, as did Husfliden. At one point the latter threatened to sue him for plagiarism, but since bunad designs are not copyrighted, they were likely to lose a court case. Their argument was that the craft amounted to a locally embedded kind of knowledge which did not travel well, comparing it to dialects. Talking about mass production and industrialisation of bunad production, they argued that the use of foreign labour leads to cultural flattening. The resulting products were said to have no hau, to use the anthropologist Marcel Mauss’s term for the ‘soul’ of an object.

Opinions bitterly divided people. Many who defended the traditionalists said that this concerns ‘personal knowledge’. Bunad embroidery was a kind of handwriting. They argued that when anyone can take a pattern, send it abroad, and make a good profit from the product, people will ask: ‘What is it that I am spending one or two months’ salary on?’ Many argued that this kind of garment would feel alienating, and that it would not satisfy people’s emotional need to build their own history into the garment.

Another argument concerns the low salaries in China, claiming that it was immoral to hire ‘underpaid women’ to do this kind of work. Dahl’s Shanghai seamstresses were paid what he described as a good salary in China, but which is a fraction of a comparable Norwegian salary. Yet others have said that it may be acceptable to employ immigrant women living in Norway, who may have assimilated some local skills, but not to employ foreign women living abroad.

Although the Dahl case was spectacular in that it simultaneously brought out both accusations of racism and controversy concerning criteria for authenticity, his business innovation was less original than it might seem. Several producers admit that they outsource parts of their production to the Baltic countries and elsewhere where wages are low, and even Husfliden has admitted that parts of their bunads are made industrially because of the high cost of labour in Norway.

The anxieties voiced by the critics of the outsourcing of bunad production are threefold: In a thoroughly neo-liberal society (anyone can wear what she wants; anyone can design and make bunads anywhere in the world), national identity suffers because regional roots are severed; economic interests suffer because prices go down; and the personal or emotional pole of the user suffers since the garments lose their special quality.

In what exactly does this ‘special quality’ consist? What is the nature of the considerable personal capital invested into clothes?

What is reaped from this investment is a handsome profit, an enhanced sense of community and visible boundaries to the outside world. Cultural property of this kind is intangible, it is legally oblique, and it is poised to lose against both the brisk efficiency of contemporary capitalism and against the individualism of free choice.

So the main question as I see it: is what price your heritage?

Put your secret/sacred knowledge online, and the spell is immediately broken.

This kind of knowledge has to be scarce, localised and difficult to obtain, or it loses its magic qualities. Beyond pricing policies and profits, this is what stirs the souls of the people who care about the national and regional provenance of their bunad. Had they chosen a Dior dress instead, or a pair of blue jeans and a nice T-shirt, the problem would not have arisen.

Still critics argue why all the fuss? The Bunad is no different from what a kilt is to a Scotsman or a lederhosen is to the Bavarian or a sari is to an Indian. Yes and no. Each of these have differing degrees of exclusivity and symbology.

The kilt arguably was an English invention to control the Highland clans. But it became something else - a national symbol of being loyal to clan, crown and country. It used to be people only wore kilts if they had a hereditary claim to that tartan but nowadays no one really cares what tartan you wear (much to the chagrin of older generations). The lederhosen has always been a regional symbol not a national one but has been ‘McDonalised’ to an Oktoberfest fancy dress costume party. The sari is an interesting example that remains a distinctly Indian national symbol but can also now be readily worn by anyone around the world - just as well as I love wearing saris at Indian weddings and when I lived in India. But the Bunad is different because of its own distinct roots that has never left its national borders. The Bunad is a living tapestry and its threads can’t be simply out sourced to other countries.

One’s heritage should never be outsourced. To the anti-traditionalist naysayers I would say that the bunad is a special kind of garment saturated with symbolism and existential significance; it is from somewhere, not from anywhere. It’s Norwegian, born and bred.

#bunad #norway #custom #heritage #tradition #dress #folk #norge #norsk #culture #society #history

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itsbenedict · 4 years ago

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Two-Faced Jewel supplemental: The Ecumenes and the Gods

Roughly 250 years ago, the world was tightly-linked by teleportation magic. People could visit any city on the Jewel in the blink of an eye, and the idea of national borders was pretty meaningless. Instead, there were distributed, nonlocal governments that competed for citizens.

(If you've read any of Terra Ignota, you'd recognize the hive system.)

The death of teleportation magic has shattered the world into local polities with their own governments, but the six Ecumenes still hold varying sway over the population to varying degrees. Their individual law systems are still largely recognized by local governments, and their cultural impact is felt the world over.

The Ecumenes are, of course, churches of the gods. Below are their profiles, and overviews of their legal systems.

Eman, Windspinner, is the God of Freedom.

Eman is the Ecumene for those with no Ecumene- those who feel no need for the law to protect them, or can't stomach the restrictions of other gods. (Analogous to Blacklaws, in Terra Ignota.) No law will protect you if someone wants you dead, or tries to steal your things- but if you're a dyed-in-the-wool anarchist and believe in your own ability to navigate the world without an authority above you, the Ecumene of Eman will... do nothing whatsoever for you, because it's barely an organization. Typical adherents of Eman are either self-assured warriors, unrepentant violent criminals, or both.

Eman, the god, has a total commitment to autonomy and asks nothing of his worshippers. His clerics do, as is their ultimate inviolable commandment: whatever they want. Typically, though, the sort of person whose mind is similar enough to Eman's to be capable of channeling his divinity as a cleric... cares a lot about the freedom of others, and goes about trying to prevent other authorities from unlawfully enforcing laws on Emanites.

Andra, Veilpiercer, is the Deity of Understanding.

Andra is a pretty standard deity of wisdom and knowledge and all that- nothing unexpected there. They just want to know everything, and value learning new things!

The governance of the Ecumene of Understanding is very interested in empiricism. They want to know what the best form of government is, and do that, instead of picking one way of doing government and sticking with that no matter how badly it backfires. So they run experiments!

Under Andra, there's no such thing as a law that doesn't have an intended outcome, a standard for measuring whether it met that outcome, and a deadline to measure the outcome by or else repeal the law. As a result... the legal code is constantly changing based on heated arguments between politicians and armchair legal theorists (between which there is little distinction) over whether targets were met. And what this means is that the legal code is in constant flux, and you basically need to be a part-time lawyer to keep up with the laws governing you.

Making matters worse, teleportation and long-distance communication broke, and so geographically distant Andra polities now need to work harder to stay in sync. The Ecumene of Andra, therefore, is the major force behind the building of roads, and the sponsoring of adventurers who do the hard work of forging through the wilderness to deliver messages. They sponsor the Deathseekers' Guild, a brotherhood of monster hunters that take on the most dangerous prey they can find.

Typical adherents are academics, adventurers, and people who think they're smart enough to keep up.

Diamode, Fruitbearer, is the Goddess of Family.

Diamode has a plan for you! You go to school, obey your parents, graduate and get married, buy a house in the suburbs, have 2-3 children, care for them, retire, be cared for by them, and die. That's the plan. Their legal code encourages filial piety and conformity to this perfect way to live your life. Tax breaks for married couples, credits for having children- be fruitful and multiply! It's sort of the bastard child of Confucianism and protestant Christianity- it would absolutely be the most popular ecumene in the US, if that were how such things worked.

Typical adherents of Diamode are... there's only one typical adherent of Diamode, because the whole point is being the one way Diamode wants you to be.

Iska, Peakstrider, is the Goddess of Triumph.

Iska values self-improvement above all else- becoming Better, developing skills, climbing that ladder. There's no point to living if you're not trying to be the best at what you do! If it makes you stronger, it's the right thing to do!

Unsurprisingly, this is a popular goddess amongst warlords and merchants, who like having a divine mandate to enrich themselves at the expense of others. Iska only cares that you're winning- if someone else is losing, that's not her problem. They get whatever they deserved for being worse at whatever the conflict was about!

Iska's legal system is based on a sort of complicated virtue-ethical rubric. The winner of a legal dispute isn't the person who acted least criminally- the winner is whoever is the better person. And the criteria for who's "better" are set by people in power in the Ecumene of Triumph, which means "better" tends towards "more like the people in power", and "less like the enemies of the people in power". It's a fairly degenerate system, full of lots of infighting.

Ccorde, Skyholder, is the Goddess of Harmony.

Back when the gods were creating the world, Ccorde was responsible for keeping them all on the same page. She arbitrated disputes and authored compromises that would keep the gods on-task and creating something stable. She's... the reason the world isn't a Snarl, if you're familiar with OotS. She wants everyone to get along.

Everyone who's a god, anyway. She kinda likes it when people get along, but her number one priority is making sure people don't fuck up the world she worked so hard to broker. She has a lot of rules around how people are allowed to change and interact with nature, and she leans towards the hyperconservative with respect to the environment. She wants this world to be exactly the way it is, forever, and is annoyed by ways in which it changes.

Unlike most of the rest of the gods, Ccorde is fairly active in the management of her Ecumene. The rest have all moved on to the latest hot new world everyone's obsessed with, leaving Ccorde to conduct the busywork of keeping all their boring old worlds running smoothly. It's thankless and borderline futile work- big things like teleportation magic keep breaking, and she can't fix them on her own.

Typical adherents of Ccorde are druids, naturalists, and other hippies that love animals and being in tune with the environment and stuff. Ccorde's Ecumene is also one of the more competently-run bureaucracies around, and has a lot of non-ideological adherents despite its strict rules. Because the system works, dammit- without demanding as much from you as Diamode.

Karou, Heartlifter, is the God of Joy.

The Ecumene of Joy are hedonists. Hedonic utilitarians, to be precise. They eschew other considerations in favor of the basic observation that people ought to be happy and if your government doesn't help its people be happy then what the fuck is even the point of a government?

Implementing those principles, though, can be a bit of a mess. Working out complicated legal codes is boring and not fun, so their system for resolving legal disputes is "have a cleric of Karou personally evaluate what course of action would result in the most utility on net".

In the real world this would be a disaster- a system immediately captured by power-hungry narcissists who set themselves up as the people who decide what course of action is best. Luckily for the Ecumene of Joy, they have a pretty decent selection process for their leaders.

See, in order to be a cleric of any god in this world, you need to fulfill a specific requirement. What a cleric actually does is channel divinity, see. The gods are busy people! They don't have time to personally investigate each and every little issue their clerics bother them with. They're just people, ultimately- they don't have the spare brainpower. So they have to borrow brainpower- specifically from people who are, cognitively, near-identical to themselves. The more like a god you are, the more easily that god can borrow your brainpower and instantiate themselves on your hardware. Casting divine magic, in this setting, is literally becoming your god for a little while in order to do something your god wants done. That's what it takes to be a cleric!

Since you can't cast divine magic without being totally in sync with your god, you can't be a power-hungry selfish bastard and also be a cleric of Joy- because Karou isn't a power-hungry selfish bastard. He's the god of hedonic utilitarianism, and will make a good-faith effort to resolve a dispute happily every time.

(It doesn't always work, though, since Karou is not the God of Being Correct About Predicted Consequences All The Time, and clerical error is always a source of difficulty for the Ecumene.)

Other Gods

The six Ecumenes are the only organized god-worshipping organizations that run governments, but there are loads of other gods- they just don't involve themselves in legislation. It's fairly common for someone to belong to a particular Ecumene just for the government, but worship one or more other gods as a matter of personal faith.

Alanala, Waveracer, for instance, is the Deity of Tides, with dominion over the surface of the waters. They're commonly worshipped by sailors, for obvious reasons- and in particular, the Lastwave clan that controls Oyashio.

Lolth is a classic- Webstretcher, Goddess of Spiders, is worshipped by the drow. She's known for dark rituals and cannibalism and other evil type things. (The drow diaspora regards these as hateful rumors, and insist that Lolth is a benevolent figure who promotes togetherness. The consensus among right and proper elves is that this is a smokescreen and that the blood libel is super true. Hrm.)

And... ?????? ? What's this symbol? It's on the bracer that's bonded to Saelhen, but it doesn't represent any god Looseleaf's ever heard of. Maybe not all the gods show themselves to the people...

#twofaced jewel #worldbuilding

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jewish-privilege · 4 years ago

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I want to talk about yesterday [June 27, 2020]. Yesterday a British newspaper (The Independent) printed an interview with an actor (Maxine Peake) that contained harmful conspiracy equating to modern day blood libel (the claim that Israel is inadvertently responsible for the murder of George Floyd) against a minority group (Jews). The segment in this interview was considered so irresponsible and dangerous that the leader of the Labour opposition in government (Keir Starmer) sacked one of his shadow cabinet ministers (Rebecca Long Bailey) for praising the article, while thankfully employing a zero tolerance stance. Yet many anti-racist social media warriors continued to promote, defend and post about this interview. Unimaginable, right? Sadly not. If you were to imagine any other oppressed group in this situation, the liberal left would not have carried on in their ignorance. Imagine them sharing, eg, a homophobic article after the fact? I don’t think so.

...Antisemitism is more painful to me on the Left, because I can demonise the Right. I almost expect it from the Right. It’s so visible on the Right. That doesn’t make it non-threatening but, you know, at least it’s clear as day. The Left, on the other hand, does a good job at masking it because of its overarching aim to satiate the community of the good. The Left is a place where I don’t feel scared of my many multitudes. On the Left I don’t feel as scared to be a woman. I don’t feel as scared to be queer. But there is one identity that gives me pause. I brace myself when I tell people that I’m Jewish because most of the antisemitism I have experienced in educational institutions, in work environments, in my peer groups has been on the Left. And so to tell people I’m also a Zionist? I don’t. That is the hardest ‘coming out’ of all.

The Left is a place where I don’t feel like I’m being asked to compromise my queerness to show allyship, or my feminism. But I do feel like I’m being asked to compromise my Jewish pride, and to turn a blind eye to the antisemitism I recognise because (I know this might sound like a shock) I have experienced it my whole life. This is not a new feeling. It’s been with me forever sadly, but it has become more insidious in the last few years and due to social media I have felt violated by having to witness the true colours of so many I work with or consider friends.

It’s harder for me to keep the lid on the box and just move cautiously past it. In the last month I’ve been told by friends that I am demi-cancelled; that I’m centering my own oppression at a tone deaf time because it’s less valid; that I should ignore the physical and verbal attacks towards Jewish symbols and physical bodies at this time because it’s not as harmful as the attacks on black bodies; that I’m plain wrong about what constitutes my own experience of prejudice and that this other jew over here (who may not usually even present as Jewish) shares their own view as a non-jew of what constitutes antisemitism, therefore it’s more correct than mine (how convenient, and also erroneous).

All of these things are entirely false. It’s an isolating time, sure. It always has been. In the past few weeks, it wasn’t reported by mainstream media that a Jewish man was stabbed in the head in Nevada as his attacker screamed Heil Hitler; a Rabbi was stabbed in a busy London high street and the BBC skirted reporting it as a hate crime; a crowd of protestors in France shouted “Sales juifs” (“dirty jews”) at the police; swastikas have been graffiti’d on elementary school buildings in America and at bus stops in places like Oregon (“Hitler did nothing wrong” was one tag)… and that’s just off the top of my head. The Hanukkah stabbings at a Rabbi’s house in New York City were just last year, and the Pittsburgh shooting at the Tree of Life synangogue just the year before.

I think I should make it clear that a lot of what I wanted to address here is for the attention of white allies, and also of Jewish people on the Left who don’t know how to engage. Whether you choose to read this or not (and I get it, you have a lot to catch up on right now learning wise), I have written this to try and let you understand that this hurt is real. It’s not my ego or a “distraction”. It’s also not just mine. It’s shared by many of us Jews committed to the Left. All of our commitment to anti-racism and allyship unfortunately is not short-hand work. It is not I who is distracting you from your work in Black Lives Matter. I am reacting to violations made by antisemites who create procrastinating rhetoric that is completely irrelevant to the cause. It is a web of lies that dates back through our historic oppression that has nothing to do with justice for the murders, and nothing to do with defunding state apparatus in America.

Anti-racism and allyship involves listening to intersectional conflict without dismissing it violently because it doesn’t fit the binary of right versus wrong, black versus white, or because it renders your leader flawed at best and bigoted at worst. If it were as simple as a binary we wouldn’t be struggling. My commitment to social justice is unwavering not because I’m a jew (though that’s part of it) but because I’m a human being. I must be accepted as both...

#antisemitism #antisemitism dressed as anti zionism #all jews are the same #erasure of jewish oppression #good jew versus bad jew #jews lie about antisemitism #gaslighting jews #goysplaining #long post #anti black racism

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astrolovecosmos · 5 years ago

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6th House and Habits, Routine, the Every Day 💅👩‍💼🍷🍕

When talking about habits it is important to remember this is a WIDE and varied topic! Many behaviors and activities can become a “habit”. A habit isn't necessarily a bad thing. Fixed signs may find it hardest to break habits or change routine, although there are some honorable mentions in here. When we talk about physical habits or compulsion it is useful to know what body parts are associated with the signs.

Aries in the 6th: Habits can revolve around stress and energy. Swearing, easily being triggered by something, reacting to anger can in a way become a repeated and practice behavior. Prone to irregular schedules, this person is the last you would think to develop a set routine or ingrained habits. Impatience and impulsiveness exist in their habits. We see impulsive decisions especially in the practical realm. Always being on the go, always being in a hurry may be their biggest “bad habit”.

Taurus in the 6th: Here we see a lot of the physical habits from nail biting to picking at your hair to different eating habits. This can be the over-eater or under-eater. We also see habits of indulgence from smoking to over sleeping. Set-in-stone shopping habits can exist here. This person tends to be very routine and their habits can reflect this. Disturbance to their habits or routine can cause frustration or nervousness.

Gemini in the 6th: Habits involving sleep can actually exist. With Gemini’s connection to restlessness this is a person who might eat right before bed, has a routine of always checking a certain site/app on their phone in bed, sleeps with the TV on, etc. Many connect Gemini to insomnia and some connect the Air element to it, so here is another source for having “sleep habits”, typically preventing them from sleeping. Having a scattered routine or always giving into multitasking is associated. Behavior is not focused. It can also be hard for this person to relax.

Cancer in the 6th: Here we see another connection to the body and habits such as eating too much sugar or fast food or hyper-focusing on an area of self-care. Even more emphasized is Cancer and their connection to emotions. Here habits revolve around how they feel. Learning to always react to worry can be a habit that is hard to break. The body and emotions are closely tied for this person. Their physical habits stem from what feels healthy or good. Habits may equal safety to them. This person can find it hard to leave their comfort zone.

Leo in the 6th: Passion is linked to habits. What does this mean? My own first thought is an individual who makes it a habit to get a rush, so maybe visiting the club too often or going out too often. Being regular with exercise can also fall into this linking with passion as well as a link to the Fire element’s need to release energy. We see a lot of “identity” and “expression” associated with Leo, so in the 6th House in terms of routine/habits this person may be proud of their structure and discipline. Their habits are more than a diet, exercise routine, or interest - it is their lifestyle.

Virgo in the 6th: Of course we are going to see a lot of routine as well as physical habits with this placement! Here is someone who must abide by their hygiene rituals and won’t stray from their diet. But bad habits can still form here easily with smoking, drinking, biting nails, picking at skin, etc. Changing routine isn’t actually hard but if an outside force interrupts what they have planned, it can be upsetting. With the critic of Virgo this individual may feel like they have everything under control in their everyday life OR at times they can be hard on themselves for how unruly or flawed their everyday life can be. One with this placement needs to be careful of tricking themselves, believing they have everything under control yet they still give into the “escape route” of fidgeting or vaping. Compulsion can be very strong here, especially with things like constantly washing their hands or counting steps.

Libra in the 6th: Balance is the game, but this can mean a compulsion to try to keep their routine and everyday habits to a limit. Almost like a critical Virgo, this placement can be very self-aware. Of course “compulsion” can go against conscious wishes. So really there is a hidden critic, hidden judge behind how they behave. Habits can center around comfort, socialization, ease, and pleasure, from eating a lot of sweets to always being the last one to arrive at a party (and maybe to leave). While this person can develop healthy habits like detoxing or meditation in their pursuit of a happy and comfortable life, they can become anxious towards stressful situations. Many common place stressors/activities can seem out of their routine and comfort zone. EX: phone calls, asking for directions, confronting a problem at work, moving, or traffic.

Scorpio in the 6th: Indulgence can actually happen here along with plenty of “fixed habits and behaviors”. Habits can revolve around control over their life and even those in it. So you can imagine this person wanting everything and everyone to be in their place, no crazy surprises, in a way resembling the Earth element. But unlike Earth, how this person feels can also shape their routine, making a moody “every day”. Habits within emotions can exist, especially being guarded and suspicious. Routines that involve self care may be inspired by trying to calm their fears, hush their anger, or escape from worry.

Sagittarius in the 6th: What routine? But everyone has their habits and typical behaviors. Here we see a scattered individual whose habits tend to be about releasing energy and learning or discovery. This person can go hard and then burn out or crash. Because expansion is associated this person tends to go large on everything, they can be indulgent. Slowing down and focusing is a challenge for them. Here is someone who always jumps in to new things, their routine is rarely stable, and can make a habit of taking on more than they can chew. Risky behavior can be a habit of theirs.

Capricorn in the 6th: Steady but with associations like “control” and “workaholic” we see someone who has a routine and habits built around work, practicality, and likely stress. Here we might find someone’s inner “control freak”. This person will rarely compromise on their routine and can find it hard to break habits. But with Capricorn’s adaptability they can change, but only if there is clear evidence that the change is beneficial to them. Being comfortable with negativity can exist here or maybe even being comfortable with “discomfort”. Because it is the Earth element we can see more physical habits popping up.

Aquarius in the 6th: Unpredictable routine exists here. Habits tend to be “odd”. Ex: smelling books, can’t stand odd numbers, etc. Because we many times classify “odd” habits or behaviors as compulsive, there can be some commonalities with Virgo in this house. Aquarius can live a life filled with activity and keep going and going until they burn out similar to the Fire element. While Fire is usually on the go physically, with Aquarius it is over-stimulation to information and people. Mental relaxation can be hard for this individual.

Pisces in the 6th: This is someone who can be sensitive to changes in their routine. They prefer a comfortable everyday scenario. Bad habits or really stubborn habits usually stem from an emotional upset. Food and drink are common in their lists of habits, which can range from drinking to excessive sodium intake to even excessive detoxes. Over kill on what would typically be looked at as “good” or “healing” can happen. This placement can actually be filled with many extremes, especially depending on their emotional state. There is something to be said about the start and end of their day. The feeling they have, what their intuition tells them at the start of the day sets the whole tone. If the feeling in the air is too intense or negative they may prefer to stay in bed and skip out on the day. If a bad feeling lingers at the end of the day, they may give into escapism or in a way try to “pause” their routine.

Planets

Sun: We see someone who “performs” very practically in their every day life. Stress, health, habits, work, routine, the mundane come alive with this placement. They are aware about the reality of their world and life. The Sun can be about our life force, here is vitality that takes pride in the simple things and every day tasks. This can make someone a worrier and stress is dealt with on the surface, making them seem more sensitive or maybe neurotic than they really are. Even with all this worry the Sun tackles stress or everyday problems right away, aiming for solutions.

Moon: This makes for a careful and guarded person in the everyday life. Here we see a homebody and possibly someone who worries a lot. The stress and restlessness of the 6th House makes it so this person is very receptive to outside stressors and stressful people. They tend to process and overcome everyday stress once they feel safe - usually in their own home and around family.

Venus: Has an association with being “married to work”. But despite this devotion can struggle to deal with everyday stress and challenges. Thankfully this person is good at avoiding conflict and pressure. The desire for peace and stability is shown in how they act everyday. They instinctively find ways to “beautify” their environment.

Mercury: Here we see a celestial body that clearly communicates the worries, stresses, complaints, but also goals and practical needs of the 6th House. This person has more of a focus on building up teamwork. They help others through communication somehow. This person can have a restless nature in their expression or an uptight nature. Stress is dealt with through communication and trying to rationalize things.

Mars: Energy and passion are in the 6th House. This person could be passionate about helping others. Watch out for a temper around having their routine messed up or habits interrupted. This is a position typically labeled as a “workaholic” but must be careful of burning out their energy too quickly. Their reaction to stress can be volatile.

Jupiter: Expansion exist in this house which can mean excessiveness in habits from over eating to overly washing their hands. There is self-indulgent behavior. This can be a favorable placement for dealing with stress. They have a carefree and optimistic approach to the daily grind. They may also try to find meaning or a lesson in their everyday happenings. They may also try to make spirituality or religion part of their routine on a grand scale.

Saturn: This can be a tough spot when dealing with stress. There is restriction and suppression in terms of everyday stress. They find it hard to relax. This is another “workaholic” placement. They are very disciplined and structured in their routine. Saturn also presents many lessons towards maturity that revolve around the 6th house. Ex: Maturity found through working, impact by coworkers, establishing practical goals or habits, and dealings with health from taking care of someone sick or dealing with an ailment themselves. Who knows, pets are associated with the 6th, maybe taking care of animals will teach them something.

Uranus: Routine can be unstable with Uranus in this house. Stress can either “turn you on” or “turn you off”. Pressure inspires this person at times and other times is discouragement. What is key is the people around them. They play off people’s energy, others’ competitiveness, and others’ drive. For Uranus in the 6th they need to be watchful of their social environment in the everyday and in their work space. Stress could increase a restless nature, can impact their sleep, and can impact their problem solving and ability to focus. This placement can also indicate revolutionary, odd, or innovative working styles.

Neptune: Here we see another placement who needs to be careful of the people they surround themselves with on a daily basis. Here Neptune can make someone hypertensive and impressionable towards their coworkers and people they frequently come into contact with. Routine is based more on fluctuations of mood and they tend to be forgetful about daily reminders, tasks, details. The details or strictness of routine don’t tend to matter, they want more out of life than the mundane. Could also easily romanticize elements about other’s daily lives. Can be unrealistic in their expectations for their day, their career, and future plans.

Pluto: I first want to point out that this can mean someone with a hidden side job or is secretive about their work. Pluto’s obsessive side can mean someone who is obsessive about their routine and can find it incredibly hard to break habits. A fear of change can exist. In terms of work this can be a reliable and ambitious individual but may be controlling in terms of teamwork. Stress can feed into their bad habits as well as a controlling or even paranoid daily behavior.

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sortinghatchats · 5 years ago

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On Gryffindor Primaries

Gryffindors are marked by their steadfast intuitive morality. While Gryffindors are just as capable of looking at things logically and weighing the consequences of different courses of action, they will feel the most at peace with themselves when acting in accordance with their gut morality. Like all individual belief systems, Gryffindors’ vary widely in content and intensity, giving us a wide variety of systems (strong political stances, devotion to a particular religion, extreme commitment to a particular branch of rights) so different Gryffindors can look very different.

One of the Gryffindor Primary’s greatest strengths is their ability to make a decision, and then go out and do their damndest to make a difference. They are willing to sacrifice their safety, social harmony, and a certain amount of logic to do what they feel is right. They can create great change in the world because they are willing to make difficult decisions and then commit fully to that decision, even at the expense of things most other people would not be willing to sacrifice.

Gryffindor Primaries are the type to leave everything and travel halfway across the world if that’s what they feel is necessary. They are the type to work long days and into the night, even while conscious of the hit their relationships with family members and friends might take, because their work is important. It matters in a way that smaller things, even when those things seem important in the moment, don’t. They are one of the Houses most comfortable, as a whole, with being lone wolves, with finding meaning in martyrdom, and with defying even the people they love most, if something is important enough.

However, though a Gryffindor can and will work alone, there is a special strength brought out when they’re part of a team. They can be charismatic and passionate, dedicated and on task, excellent at reminding people what it is they are working towards and how important it is. Their drive can help breathe life into a group on the verge of burnout. Their enthusiasm and genuine belief in the goodness of their goals can unify a group of diverse people. There’s a reason that so many movies about rebellions feature Gryffindor protagonists. They are willing, passionately, to sacrifice and their certainty pulls others along behind them.

Gryffindors do not know the definitions of good and evil any more accurately than any other House– more importantly, most Gryffindors know they don’t know any more than anyone else. But inherent fallibility doesn’t mean you should sit on your heels and not try the best you can (if the idea of inherent fallibility does drive you to existential despair and hopelessness, please take a look at Stripped Gryffindor, below). Gryffindor is not about knowing– it’s about knowing that the best way to know is to trust yourself and your gut. It’s the bravery to try and it’s knowing that trying matters. It’s about trusting yourself even if the whole world is against you. At the end of the day, the most important thing is staying true to this thing inside you and standing tall.

Even within a single belief system the intuitive nature of the Gryffindor morality means that it can often contradict itself–two important, felt beliefs can go to war even in the most certain Gryffindor, and each has to find their own way out of that conflict. Eventually, one of the core beliefs (ex. “sentient life has inherent value” v. “self defense is a right”; or “lying is wrong” v. “hurting people is bad, and the truth will hurt this person”) will win out. Alternatively, the conflict, sustained, might force a Gryffindor to “strip” (see below).

Relationship with the Secondary

Another facet of Gryffindor is that while they often have a gut response to what is right, what to do about it is a little harder. This of course ties into the Secondary– a Gryffindor/Gryffindor might feel obligated to act on their morality, if not immediately than at least fiercely. Sometimes hesitation is wise, but to the Gryffindor Secondary it still feels like it could be hiding cowardice, and they watch themselves carefully to make sure they aren’t shirking.

A Ravenclaw Secondary might feel they have a moral imperative to gather information and figure out risks before launching into something that might get someone hurt– the Gryffindor Secondary’s charge would feel irresponsible to the Ravenclaw Secondary.

A Puff Secondary might do their good through patience, service, or support; a Slytherin Secondary could reach out clever fingers and change the very world into something better, or throw themselves at problems to see what sticks.

In all of these, however, there is going to be doubt. Doing right and doing well is imperative to the Gryffindor Primary–but that certainty and that need to act doesn’t necessarily come with a how-to guide attached.

Many Gryffindors compulsively self-analyze and re-check what they are doing and believing, to make sure it still rings true– when this self-questioning turns to despairing self-doubt instead, this is called “stripping” (see below section). But even an unstripped Gryffindor has to check new circumstances, questions, and paths against what they feel. They can be as logical and meditative about it as some Ravenclaw Primary tackling a new facet of their morality; but at the end of the day a Gryffindor will trust their gut, once they manage to understand what it is saying. A Ravenclaw, on principle, won’t, and won’t feel comfortable until they strip open that base intuition.

It’s one of the places where Ravenclaws and Gryffindors, often good Idealist allies, come into conflict. When a Ravenclaw feels a need to point every belief with a pointed stick, a Gryffindor can see this as challenge, meanness, betrayal, amorality, or dangerous doubt.

What’s Inside is What Counts

Gryffindor Primaries are willing to stand up for what they believe in even if it means that they stand alone; but this is not to imply that Gryffindor Primaries don’t care about their friends and family– they are first and foremost loyal to their morals, but that can absolutely include people. If part of their system involves serving or protecting, or involves maintaining closeness and caring for their friends (or involves personal loyalty as a general concept), they will do it with great conviction. And this isn’t uncommon, as Gryffindors can often value people and fairness very highly, and can for this reason sometimes look like Hufflepuffs.

Just like the Gryffindor Primary’s intuitive morality can include people, looking like a Hufflepuff’s, it can also include things like Slytherin’s sense of self-preservation and value. On a negative extreme, this can give you Gryffindor Primaries like Jayne Cobb, the self-serving, guiltless mercenary of Firefly. But this same situation (a Gryffindor who intuits some of Slytherin’s “me first” morality) can also give you examples of heroes who remember to value their own mental and physical health, even when the world needs saving. Selflessness is not a requirement in the Gryffindor Primary; the core of Gryffindor is more accurately trusting yourself and your beliefs and doing your best to live by them. It about holding onto that faith in yourself and striving for the bravery to pursue those beliefs to hell and back, however mundane or ambitious those beliefs might be.

What defines a Gryffindor is not the contents of their system, but they way they form and interact with their system. Because of that, it’s possible to get systems that look nearly identical to the other Primary houses– just like a Ravenclaw Primary might build each of the other Primaries to live in, a Gryffindor might intuit, feel, or believe in those other moralities. Carlos, the scientist from Welcome to Night Vale, is a Gryffindor Primary believes unflinchingly in the power and righteousness of Science (capitalization intentional). Even presented with a world of absurdist horror-comedy where empirical logic and experimentation seem to be failing him, Carlos doesn’t tailspin into a fall or at least express frustration or edit his system the way a Ravenclaw Primary would be likely to. He believes in the power of Science despite being thrust into a reality where science, quite honestly, does not function as it should. And beautiful Carlos does it because Science is just right.

You could get similar effects with both Hufflepuff and Slytherin systems, like we discussed above. Modeling the Slytherin system could also give Gryffindors the intense sense of personal loyalty that drives the loyalist Slytherin Primary, as well as its particular brand of selfishness. People are a likely part of the content of moral systems because we live in a social world, but they are not intrinsic to the system of a Gryffindor like they are for Hufflepuff and Slytherin Primaries, our Loyalist houses. One way to tell a Hufflepuff or Slytherin apart from a Gryffindor who believes in Puff or Slytherin is to look at whether or not people could theoretically be removed from the system without “burning” or “petrifying.”

If you could convince a loyalist-seeming Gryffindor that doing the right thing for the people in their lives or in the world is not actually the greatest good, then would they be able to change that part of their system and still be happy with it? If something else is more right, would they feel justified in overriding the part of their system that values their people? The answer is probably ‘yes’ for a Gryffindor, but it would be ‘no’ for a Hufflepuff or a Slytherin. While even the Loyalists have their extreme situations where the world would take priority over their people, they would still feel, on some level, like they were doing the wrong thing for not putting their people first. Gryffindors would feel, on some level, wrong if they put their people over what was right.

No Room for Compromise?

For Gryffindors, especially the less jaded ones, in the things that they hold true there is very little (if any) gray area. There is right and there is wrong. Things are black and white. Shades of gray are places where people go to play games, twist the truth, and to be cowards. It’s difficult to change the mind of a Gryffindor when it comes to something they care about, because they often cannot see the in-between. To the Gryffindor, changing their mind would feel like a 180 degree shift, an about-face. It would mean deciding that their previously held views were absolutely and completely wrong, and now they have to go in the opposite direction.

And when a Gryffindor does change their mind on an issue they care about, while it may seem very sudden to an outside observer, it’s very likely that there was a steady build up of doubts or contradictions that eventually tipped the scales. In many cases, a change in belief can be somewhat traumatic for the Gryffindor (see: Stripped Gryffindor, below).

Gryffindors have great conviction, and the prominence of what they are passionate about in the world means they spend more time confronting it and learning to deal with it. Slytherins, for all their reputation as cold and ruthless, can find their judgement just as clouded as the most enraged Gryffindor when their people are threatened. It’s just a fairly rare thing in most people’s lives for their important people to be placed directly in harm’s way– so it doesn’t have as large an impact on how they present. But for a Gryffindor, threats of that severity, threats to the things most important to them, are commonplace.

This gives Gryffindor a reputation for volatility, much like the Slytherin reputation for ambition. All the Houses believe things strongly (just like all Houses have their ambitions), but with its broad, internal morality Gryffindor is most likely to have things they are passionate about thrown in their faces (just as Slytherin’s ambitions look least selfless and are therefore more generally maligned). Ravenclaw Primaries are more likely to chew over things first and to take outside input into their system, Hufflepuffs more likely to worry about hurting other people’s feelings, and Slytherins more likely not to care. You can have rampaging Hufflepuffs, Ravenclaws, or Slytherins easily, but Gryffindors are often most obvious when they stand fast and are indiscriminate about whose toes they step on if something is important enough.

Of course, the Gryffindor Primary system is just that– a system. The way we’re talking about it, Gryffindor is a way you care and a way your system works, and is not based on the contents of your system. Justice and bravery and courage are things that make up the moral backbone of a system that can contain just about anything. Gryffindors will disagree about what is just. Gryffindors will be on different sides of big moral issues and philosophical quandaries and political debates. What unites them is how they decide what’s right: they feel it in their gut, they value living in that rightness above all other things, and they trust themselves to lead them true (or at least lead them to do their very best).

So what happens when a Gryffindor loses faith in their ability to figure out what’s right?

Burned Gryffindors

Gryffindors do not do moderation when it comes to the truth. This, sometimes, can be what leads a Gryffindor Primary to become “burned.” Jostled from their steady footing, a Gryffindor can lose faith not in right and wrong, but in their ability to know what is right and wrong. Their internal compass, the basis for their understanding, sense of purpose, and even sense of worth, will feel broken and untrustworthy. But that uncertainty doesn’t make knowing and acting on what’s right and what’s wrong any less important.

From the outside, Burned Gryffindors often look more grounded, stable, and calm than your classic Gryffindor Primary. They’re more likely to let things they cannot fix just pass them by. If they charge, it is not often. (In fact, when you see a Burned Gryffindor encountering something so important that they are willing to charge for it–um, run. Run fast.)

But for the Gryffindor, Burning is not a steadying act, no matter how it seems to outward observers. Gryffindor is a house of certainty. Gryffindor is a house of right and wrong, and of those truths requiring action. When a Gryffindor is Burned, their sense of right and wrong is yanked out of their gut. They lose the certainty of their moral compass.

What makes Burning so horrifying to the Gryffindor is not that they lose their sense of the importance of right and wrong– it’s that they don’t lose that sense. A Burned Gryffindor is still certain that following their internal compass is important. They just can’t see it anymore; they don’t know if they’re heading north, but even now few things are more important than where north might be.

One response to stripping is for a Gryffindor to pick up another, external system. If they are bereft of their own internal morality, they can re-apply their fervency to an outward one. In this, Burned Gryffindors often look like Ravenclaw Primaries– but where it would take new evidence and careful debate to move a Ravenclaw Primary from a system they’ve chosen, a Gryffindor is more likely to move due to a sudden insight or gut intuition– an uncontrived emotional response; a return to trusting their own heart.

Whedon’s Firefly contains two Burned Gryffindor Primaries who latch onto outward systems–and (as is common with Burned Gryffs) both characters indeed seem to be some of the most settled, content characters on the show: Zoe Washburn and Sheppard Book. Zoe Burned sometime during the war; and Book sometime during his checkered past. Both have latched onto outward moralities: Book onto his religion, and Zoe onto her captain. She lets Mal make the calls because at this point she trusts his weary Hufflepuff more than her own self.

A Burned Gryffindor might try to construct themselves a functioning system (rather than picking up a pre-made one wholesale) from the actions and instincts that drove them before their traumas. They might also latch onto a community, or family, and then work under a loyalist-style morality of people-first. They might also curl up and close in on themselves. They might go out and keep fighting the good fight, keep going through the braveries and charges they used to intuit heart and soul, but now with a weary doubt that any of it will actually be right or worthwhile.

Kieren, the protagonist of In the Flesh, is a Burned Gryffindor– his compass cracked before being a zombie and then shattered completely during zombieism. Now, with his mind returned to him, he looks at his ruins and repeats what the rehab people tell him. He is adrift. Friends help to push him back together, but an unmoored uncertainty remains at the core of Kieren’s character.

Jaime, the supporting protagonist of Outlander, is a Gryffindor who Burned after various traumas. He does his best to act with kindness, and goes after bravery in a way that hinges on the smilingly self-destructive. However, interaction with fierce Ravenclaw Primary/Gryffindor Secondary protagonist Claire manages to inspire him enough that he begins pulling himself hand-by-hand out of being Burned in order to charge alongside her.

All of these ways of Burned can be functional. Being Burned is something you can survive, live with, and even thrive within. Burning can feel practical or necessary or it can feel forced; but at the core of being Burned is a sense of loss. Even if the Gryffindor is sure that the world is an inherently unjust place, unsaveable and destined to never be understood, they are still a Gryffindor. Some part of them is going to always prefer and miss a world where they knew what they were supposed to be doing.

tl;dr Gryffindor Primaries

Gryffindor is an Intuitive House, an Idealist House, and an Internal House.

As an Intuitive House, Gryffindors decide what is right based on their intuition, their gut, and their own moral compass. While they can be as intelligent and logical as any Ravenclaw (think Hermione Granger, a fierce Gryffindor Primary), they don’t play with words and concepts, trying to find loopholes, build things, or refute their instincts. Some things are just wrong, and you can’t talk your way out of it.

As an Idealist House, Gryffindors value what is right over personal loyalty. While they can love hard, Gryffindors would feel guilty if they stuck by their friends and family at the expense of doing what they believe in. Driven and dedicated, Gryffindors are some of the best at getting things done and pushing causes forward, even at great personal sacrifice.

As an Internal House, Gryffindors get their morality from inside of themselves-- from their moral compass and intuition. Caving to an outside pressure will always feel like an immoral choice, if it goes against what they feel is true.

#sorting hat chats #sortinghatchats #gryffindor

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miss-m-calling · 4 years ago

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Chocolate Box 2021 letter

Dear writer,

Hello and thank you for writing for me!

I’m Miss_M on AO3. For all requests, I am asking for fic.

My requests this year are: American Gods (TV), The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (TV), Starred Up (2013 movie), Witchblade (TV), and Бeсa ǀ Besa (TV)

General likes:

-pre-canon, canon, post-canon, canon-divergent, and missing-scene stories

-character-driven as well as plot-driven stories

-fics which mix humor and angst/serious business (when this fits the canon)

-characters at work and play

-group dynamics, family dynamics (including constructed families), professional partnerships, friendships, alliances, rivalries, intimate couples (new lovers/first times as well as long-term/established couples), UST-ridden couples who are not just UST-ridden but connected in other ways too

-irony, snark, humor, angst -- all arising from the characters rather than the plot crowbaring it in

-linear, non-linear, and 5+1 stories

-hopeful endings, happy endings, bittersweet endings, “everything is awful but you’re here and maybe I don’t entirely hate that” endings

-worldbuilding

-spiky characters who keep their jagged edges and spikiness in adversity as well as when their lives are going well, square-peg-in-round-hole characters, tough characters with (maybe not so well) hidden vulnerabilities, characters who are their own worst enemies, characters who manage to get over themselves when the occasion calls for it, characters with conflicting values which may or may not be reconciled/resolved, characters who treat each other with respect and as equals even if they hate/annoy/can’t stand/love to dislike each other, characters who may not be exactly friends and may well irritate one another but manage to rub along to get the job done and maybe even grow to care about one another (much to their surprise/reluctance/discomfort), characters who just cannot get along with each other or find common ground

-workplace stories (this can mean anything from an actual workplace/casefic/procedural setting to anything that revolves around the canon world in which the characters live) in which the characters get to be competent

Shippy and smutty likes:

-(where it fits the characters) banter

-competitiveness or antagonism shading into attraction (this tension need not be resolved)

-”oh god why did it have to be you what did I do to deserve this“

-”come here and say it to my face/do that again/kiss me, you motherfucker”

-bickering yet loving couples

-characters who are serious about their romantic interests

-characters who think they are much better at flirtation than they actually are

-characters forced to work together only to prove much more compatible than they initially assumed

-fics which mix an exploration of characters’ professional and everyday lives with shipping

-characters who are incompatible in some important way (they are ideological enemies, cop and criminal, spies from opposite sides, or there has been betrayal!!!), and while they love and/or want each other, they’re not willing to change sides or abandon/compromise their identity/beliefs for the other’s benefit

-I don’t know how better to phrase this than: smut which fits the characters; how does their canon dynamics spill over into hubba hubba stuff?

-sexual scenarios that subvert expectations a little and surprise the characters themselves

-sexual scenarios that contain an element of competition or antagonism

-"this is a bad idea but we’re going for it hammer and tongs”

-not wanting to admit feelings or show vulnerability except oops it happens anyway, whether the characters acknowledge it or not

-characters getting way more into the sex or being more affected by it than they thought they would

-quick and intense sex, slow and intense sex, rough yet willing sex (when it fits the characters), unexpectedly emotional and/or tender sex

-masturbation while thinking of the other half of the ship (or not wanting to think about them only oops there they are in the fantasy!)

-first time sex

-established relationship, we-know-each-other-so-well sex

-”we’ve both wanted this and now we both know it so here we go diving in headfirst” sex

-for het and/or slash, oral, vaginal, anal incl. pegging, manual (ifyouknowwhatImean) -- all is good. You can go as veiled or as explicit as you like, but please avoid excessive medical jargon – I don’t find a lot of mention of “penis” or “clit” sexy.

Ship/smut DNWs:

MPREG, A/B/O, knotting D/s, formalized BDSM, painful sex, hard kinks (holding someone down playfully, hair pulling and such like, the odd spank are a-OK) scat, watersports knife/gun/blood play incest deaging/infantilization, mommy/daddy kink under-16yos in sexual situations humiliation body distortion/horror (feeding/weight kink, come inflation, vore, etc.) unrequested ships/pairings soulmates and soul marks pregnancy and children (can be mentioned if canon, just don’t make the whole fic about them) wedding setting/theme secondary characters shipping the main pair like it’s their job xeno, tentacles, bestiality noncon/dubcon

Other DNWs:

torture and abuse (this and noncon/dubcon can be mentioned, but please don’t dwell on it in loving detail or subject any of my requested characters to it) descriptions of vomit, shit, and piss (”He pissed up against a tree” and the like is fine), toilet humor lots of gore/blood (mention it, yes; lovingly describe it, no), cannibalism, serious illness or injury character bashing genderswap/genderbent characters, characters as kids/young teens issuefic, gender/sexuality/race/ethnicity/religion/ability/identity headcanons death of requested characters hopeless, unrelenting gloom/angst/horror RL holiday setting/theme, RL religions as a major theme (invented fictional holidays and rituals are fine) reference to RL current events 1st and 2nd person POV unrequested crossovers or fusions AUs which have nothing to do with canon fic written in lapslock

FANDOMS:

American Gods (TV)

Laura Moon/Mad Sweeney

I ship it. Yes I do. They had me at “gimme-my-coin-dead-wife”-flicks-him-into-wall. The snarky road trip was the best thing I never knew I wanted until it happened, and I adored every second of it, not to mention the upped shippiness in S2. They’re both such assholes and so fascinating, even if they start to mellow toward each other a bit, and all the gods/magic/resurrection stuff swirling around them begs to be explored further. Also I love love love how their dynamic is about equal parts spikiness, pathos, and humor (they’re funny! and the canon doesn’t shy away from putting them in ludicrous situations), and it weaves seamlessly between those three. Plus she’s half his size yet can and does beat him up with literally one finger, and then there’s the angst of he having killed her, feeling really guilty about it, and then bringing her back. And the way that their New Orleans adventure makes clear they have feelings for each other but neither wants to admit it. And and and… yeah, I just love them.

Even if some of my prompts are about stuff that’s addressed or hinted at in canon, feel free to diverge – canon divergences and canon-adjacent stories are my jam, as are missing scenes and post-canon stories! Also, I’ve read the book, so feel free to riff on that if you want.

Canon-specific DNWs: Laura as Essie or Sweeney's wife's reincarnation/descendant or lots of comparing her to them, Sweeney staying dead, any S3 spoilers.

Exception to blanket DNW about blood/gore/bodily fluids: describing the physical decay of the living undead (undead? there but for the grace of magic coins dead?) is fine!

Prompts:

-Laura discovers (how? you decide!) that Sweeney gave her back the coin after their accident – whatever happens next, some punching may be involved.

-Wednesday’s big war finally comes, and “don’t you dare die on me [again], you asshole” is a line either Sweeney or Laura (or both) might say to each other.

-Laura asked “What does Wednesday have to lose?” and the answer is…? (Yes, give me that sweet poetic justice. One possibility, though not remotely the only one, but as of S2E3 Laura is technically a god-killer...) Or later when she straight-up says she’s going to kill Wednesday, but is warned to bring power with her when she does, how does that work? How else might she damage Wednesday or ruin his plans, just in case she can’t actually kill him?

-At the end of S2, Laura hoists Sweeney’s dead body over her shoulders and strides off, seemingly leaving Cairo, Shadow, and all of it behind. Tell me what happens then – does she use Baron Samedi’s potion to bring him back, and whose is the blood filled with love she uses (does she still bleed? You could get creative here, worldbuilding is also my jam)? Does her/his coin play a part – and how come the coin still “powers” Laura despite Sweeney’s death? Does she bring him back another way, maybe figuring out how to keep herself around and be able to give Sweeney back his coin? Does he come back like she did, more undead than alive, or does his godhead, however depleted, help with that? That still leaves Laura to be fully resurrected too… Or does something completely out of left field happen – surprise me!

-Possible divergences from “Treasure of the Sun”: Sweeney manages to kill Wednesday, and then Laura rolls up, and then…? Or Laura rolls up and makes like Mama-Ji told her – destroys some motherfuckers? Or Sweeney gets killed temporarily but Laura brings him back, or brings herself back, or does something else with the Baron’s potion, and is Sweeney’s blood the one filled with love, or can we interpret voodoo spells in a non-literal way? Or what happens with Gungnir hidden in Sweeney’s hoard? And definitely how do they deal with each other once they meet up in Cairo, given how they parted in New Orleans?

-Or how about a wild divergence from the last several episodes of S2? Sweeney and Laura manage to settle their differences (ahem, more fucking, on this plane of reality, might help) and don’t part ways before leaving NOLA. Or they roll up in Cairo separately but at the same time, and confront Wednesday together, and neither of them die (or die more, in her case). Or they’re there together when the police nearly raid the house. Or they have Wednesday (the ultimate cause of Laura’s death) and Ibis (a death deity) and Bilquis (a love/death/life deity) on hand, surely they can concoct some kind of resurrection thingamajig for Laura, and if they have to twist some divine arms then so be it. Or or or…?

-Wednesday told that luckless cop that Sweeney had been against the big gods’ war from the start, and while Wednesday lies, what if Sweeney decided much sooner to say to hell with Grimnir and his war and his having Sweeney kill random people? I’m guessing Sweeney too drank three glasses of mead so he can’t back out without dire consequence – but he does have a fierce, dead woman in his corner.

-They go to some as-yet-unnamed old god (feel free to bring in whatever mythology you want) in order to bring Laura back to life. Between Sweeney’s mouth and temper, and Laura’s mouth and temper, it doesn’t go well. Now one or both of them are in big magical trouble with a pissed-off deity and have to get themselves/each other out of it. Speaking of other deities, I really enjoyed their brief canon interactions with Ostara, Anansi, and Mama-Ji, and I’d like to see more of that, especially Ostara’s polite yet over-it attitude, Anansi very obvious over-it attitude and his dramatic flair, or Mama-Ji being one of the few capable of giving Laura pause.

-All the petty, ridiculous ways in which Sweeney’s bad luck manifests itself make me laugh (can’t help it, won’t even try), and I’m down for more variations on that theme.

-Sweeney and Laura fighting together, like they did on Mr. Town’s train of torture. Whether it’s a bar fight of their own making, or the big gods’ war they find themselves embroiled in, or something else entirely.

-Things happen and Laura finds herself in the position to throw Sweeney under the bus but also help/save him, and while he knows it’s only karma (he did kill her way back when), he can still be pissed off about it – how do they navigate this?

-Related to that, the Baron said: “In death is her true love, but she betrays him also.” If that meant Sweeney, or can mean Sweeney in the future (I don’t like destiny-wills-it stories, and they’re definitely not there yet, but they could maybe get there at some future point, and even then It Would Be Complicated), was the betrayal Laura rejecting him after the loa ‘fuck them,’ or is it something that hasn’t happened yet, and if so, what?

-Laura gets fully alive again, but traces of her (un)dead state remain – what are they, how does she cope, what price did she/he/they have to pay for her resurrection, and how does their relationship change? I’d especially be curious how it would work if they’re already a sorta-maybe-item and then she’s alive again and it’s weird in a new way.

-For reasons I’ll leave up to you, Sweeney and Laura have to stay put in a single place for a while and end up essentially cohabiting, regardless of what their relationship is at that point. Take “cohabiting” as literally or as creatively as you want – in any case, I’m sure it will be marvelously disastrous and amazing. If the place they have to stay happens to be NOLA, all the better, I find everything about that city fascinating. Or, if you wanted to use book canon, Laura and Sweeney (rather than Shadow) are the ones who have to spend time living in Lakeside and deal with its creepy Norman Rockwell-ness and with Hinzelmann.

-Slight or major AU from the opening of “The Ways of the Dead”: Laura has hitchhiked with Sweeney instead of going off in a huff with Wednesday, or she otherwise gets to New Orleans sooner, and she and Sweeney tear up the town together. Maybe they even cross the paths of some loa and it doesn’t get all angsty. They were actually getting along nicely in those first couple of scenes in NOLA, only ribbing each other a little while still being their grouchy selves, before they got to Le Coq Noir. I wouldn’t have minded seeing some more of that.

-AU from the end of “The Ways of the Dead”: they still have their big fight (which was amazing as well as painful) or some variation thereof, but they don’t split up. (Maybe the reason is as mundane as Sweeney refusing to get left behind or they have a shared ride out of town, or maybe the more time passes the less Sweeney can afford to be far from his coin – or maybe the coin needs him close by to work at full capacity.) And then what?

-All the old gods hide their true appearance to an extent. A situation arises in which Laura sees Sweeney’s true, or at least old, self. Or Wednesday’s war ends in victory, meaning the old gods again get belief, worship, and sacrifices. How does Laura, the ultimate skeptic even when she’s on the other side of the mirror, react? How does this new knowledge and new reality change her opinion of/attitude to Sweeney? Or to flip that around, if Sweeney were again relevant and believed-in, would that actually change his bad attitude and fix his issues (my guess is it would be complicated)? On that note, Sweeney’s decline from Lugh to king to leprechaun was more sketched in than really explored in canon, ditto I didn’t really get why he couldn’t seem to remember his own history except in snatches (the curse that made him a bird/madman of the woods?) – I’d love to see more about it and his (not) dealing with it, or with a reversal of that decline. Eorann told him long ago to adapt and change with the times – but what does that mean after humpteen centuries in a rut and becoming used to always feeling angry and unappreciated?

-The power of names, since they never use each other’s in canon: for all his “dead wifeing,” there comes a time when Sweeney (has to) call her by her actual name, and that’s a tricky moment for them to navigate. Or, Mad Sweeney is not his actual name, and true names have great magical power and so must be kept secret; Laura discovers or learns his name, from someone else or from himself; what does she do with that knowledge? Or, Sweeney gets to say “cunt” in a situation (sexual or otherwise) where, not only does Laura not peel his lips from his gums, but she finds that she can’t object, even though she knows that he knows that he’s getting away with it.

-They’re both so complicated and contradictory and spiky, but they also start to care and rely on each other - and react really badly when they (think the other one) betrayed them. I would like to see those nuances explored some more and/or to see Laura and Sweeney get to a point where they trust each other and rely on each other, and know it and accept it, however difficult the getting there and being there may be for them.

-Sweeney and Laura get drunk and wake up married. Or some sex and/or blood resurrection spell results in basically an unbreakable marriage bond, whether it also secures resurrection or not. Or marrying the dead keeps them (sorta) alive. Or being married makes it possible for them to share magical/supernatural abilities. They’re both pissed about it, but secretly having to make it work may not be the worst thing that’s ever happened...

-My perfect AG spinoff would basically be Sweeney and Laura tooling around America, looking to get her resurrected (whether they succeed or not is up to you), stealing ever more ridiculous vehicles, arguing/fighting and having those pesky moments where vulnerability and genuineness creep in – and fucking. So yessiree I’d be down for porn, including “it’s technically necrophilia/zombiesex” porn, including a canon-divergent first time, or their second time, or all the later times after they had their first time in NOLA in canon.

-If you wanted to throw in some worldbuilding, maybe something exploring living death. Magical bargains. What kind of favor did Sweeney do for Ostara that would be worth her bringing someone back to life as repayment? What other powers might Sweeney have – or have left from when he was Lugh? How long can a dead wife keep going before she’s “soup”? What other superhuman abilities might dead!Laura have? Can the dead do magic? What even are the rules governing and the limits of different beings’ magical abilities? For example, why can’t Sweeney just take his coin back, or why does Laura gain super-strength as part of her undead package deal? Is the hoard in the same space as the behind-the-scenes accessed through the merry-go-round, or it’s a different place? Why does the coin seem to start to “run down” the longer Laura has it? Why did Wednesday need Laura to kill Argus when he killed Vulcan himself just fine? What happens with Gungnir now it’s in the hoard – can only Sweeney get to it, has it been transformed somehow (it’s now the treasure of the sun), etc.?

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (TV)

Lenny Bruce/Miriam “Midge” Maisel/Susie Myerson

Lenny Bruce & Miriam “Midge” Maisel & Susie Myerson

Lenny Bruce/Miriam “Midge” Maisel & Miriam “Midge” Maisel/Susie Myerson

I’m here for Midge’s adventures in the intoxicating, foul-mouthed, and often-frustrating world of comedy, so her dynamic with Susie and Lenny is where it’s at. Shippy or platonic, I just love the interactions between these three, and between every pair combination among them: Midge and Susie bantering and swearing and tits-upping even when they irritate each other, Midge and Lenny bringing the pathos as well as the humor, and Lenny and Susie both being hardened old pros with still a little glimmer of starry eyes. I am good with L/M/S or L&M&S or L/M & M/S – so, if you go the shippy route, either a V-shaped triad or hey, Susie (whom I absolutely read as gay) might find a way to be good with a full-on triangle… If you want to keep it platonic, True Companions all the way, always there for each other, even when they want to strangle each other. And as much as I like the comedy inherent in the characters, I also love that they’re all three, each in their own way, messed up people and dysfunctional to various degrees. So yeah, I just want Midge to hand the kids over to her parents, ditch Joel once and for all, marry (interpret that as literally or as loosely as you want) both Susie and Lenny, and for the three of them to ride off into the sunset to make comedy history.

Canon-specific DNWs: explicit sex (so nothing above M rating for sex), pairing any two as a / couple with the third as a & hanger-on, Lenny can still be his RL messed-up, drugged-up self – albeit the gentler version the show gives us – but I don’t want him dying if your fic is set in 1966 or after.

Prompts (most of these are from before S3 dropped, feel free to work with canon or diverge however you see fit -- I am all caught up with S3):

-Does Susie manage them both? Does Midge open for Lenny on tour? Does he open for her??? Or they become equal stars on the comedy circuit?

-Maybe Lenny joins Shy Baldwin’s tour, or they run into him while touring Europe or the US, or after Shy fires Midge, Midge and Susie cobble together a Midge-only tour of America and keep crossing Lenny’s own touring path, and they all tool around, and yes I would love as much period detail and geography porn as you can throw at me. And while Lenny and Midge have seen the world, Susie hasn’t – her reaction to different foods, languages, customs, landscapes would be spectacular to witness. Especially if “different” is someplace as close to New York as Jersey or Connecticut, or someplace as far away and different as, say, Japan.

-If they do go to Europe, somehow or other they also tour the Soviet Bloc. Cue culture clashes, getting followed (or thinking they’re being followed) by the secret police, getting hammered on vodka and herring and pickles, and then when they get back to the States, the Feds grill them. It’s all dead serious, and Midge and Lenny refuse to take it as seriously as they should, while Susie is trying but the whole thing is really pissing her off…

-Lenny’s burned out, and Midge is just getting started. This dissonance may or may not find some sort of resolution. One thing’s for sure: Susie has limited patience for both Lenny’s depression and Midge’s need to make everything pretty.

-Instead of going to Joel for a no-way-is-that-closure fling after the Steve Allen Show taping, Midge goes to have a drink or seven with the two people who have, in their own ways, always been there for her and never let her down.

-Midge goes on TV again, this time as the star: longer set, prime time slot, dressing room, the works. She’s dying of nerves. Lenny and Susie coach her through it.

-More radio work to make ends meet in between gigs: hilaribad period ads, hilaribad radio drama, running all over town to be on time, getting paid in all kinds of dubious merch…

-Midge and Susie head out west to make it big and stay with Lenny once they’re in Los Angeles, and it’s marvelous (ha ha) and disastrous in equal measure.

-More of Susie being the hypercompetent manager we saw especially in S3! (And please don’t dwell on her gambling problem, I was not a fan.)

-They all three get drunk, maybe with a hint of sadness if it’s the holidays (you can ignore my DNW about holidays, but please let that be just the background, not the lynchpin of the story) or someone’s birthday, and there’s a bar fight, running from the cops, eating greasy food at ass o’clock, and possibly kissing, not necessarily in that order.

-One or two or all three of them get arrested/have court appearances all over America and have to bail each other out, or find someone to bail them all out, or secure legal counsel – you get the drift. Or all three of them are trying to explain to a single lawyer what happened, talking over each other, the two pros not being able to resist landing zingers and Susie not being far behind, and the lawyer just getting more and more confused.

-They get in trouble some other way – offended patrons, surly management, shitty hotels, tour bus breaks down in the middle of Wyoming – and have to have each other’s backs because no one else will.

-Three-person road trip or tour, and only Susie knows how to drive. So Midge decides to learn, right then and there. And Lenny… Lenny may or may not be too lazy/hungover/lying about not knowing how. There’s supposed to be a rotation so everyone gets to stretch out on the back seat for equal lengths of time, but you know the system doesn’t work too well in practice. Also, they play games in the car to while away the time, and they do it their own way of course: I spy, cows on my side, yellow car, never have I ever, 20 questions, or riffing on whatever’s playing on the radio…

-They sit down to watch the moon landing (you can move it up a bit so it’s not happening a whole decade after S2) – by which I mean, Midge is all gung-ho about the moon landing, and Lenny and Susie are like whatever – and things don’t quite go to plan, but a good time is eventually had by all.

-It’s Yom Kippur again, and Midge wants to do the whole production: synagogue, breaking fast, the lot. Lenny and Susie would rather eat glass. Midge gets her way, of course. Does she decide to bring Susie and Lenny home to meet – or meet properly – her parents??? I bet Abe and Rose’s reactions would be something to see. (This too is an exception to my DNW about holiday settings – I just want stuff to get as crazy as it did the two times we saw Yom Kippur celebrated on the show, and for everything to still somehow turn out relatively OK.)

-Midge and Lenny have cheered each other up when the going got extra rough. I want for Susie to be especially down in the dumps – maybe her boozehound of a mother died and Susie took it worse than she does in canon, maybe some asshole told her she’s a shit manager and got her right in her insecurities – and Midge to rope Lenny into trying to cheer her up. And for Susie to fight them every step of the way but still be glad they care enough to try.

-Inspired by Susie’s brother looking just like her, by which I mean she and he and their sister look nothing alike, and by Lenny’s “she’s my mother” quip about Midge at the TV studio and then his “let me introduce my wife or maybe my sister” in Miami – Midge, Susie, and Lenny pretend to all be blood relatives, or mafiosi, or spies, or something else they’re not, while out in public, say in a restaurant. Just to be assholes and see how long they can keep it going before they break character or people figure them out, or call the cops, or something. There’s totally a bet on who corpses and breaks character first. Or, nice hotels ca. 1960 weren’t very big on letting unmarried couples, let alone threesomes stay in rooms together – pretending to be family might make that easier; forgetting what they’re meant to be to each other, or mixing up their backstories might make it harder. This could also work platonically, if they’re trying to save money by only getting one room, there only being one free room in the hotel, or for any other screwball reason you can invent.

-Lenny and Midge do a (comeback) tour of the Borscht Belt, and all the Steiner Mountain Resort guests (especially the gossipy old hens from the beauty salon) and staff go to see them – and heckle.

-Stuff happens and they end up performing at some hole in the wall place where no one knows who they are (or no one believes it’s really those people they’ve seen on TV) – tough crowd, but a good workout for the two comics, and if Susie gets to threaten to rip off someone’s head, all the better.

-Lenny and Midge honing their routines – and maybe developing a double act – and Susie being all “oh my fucking god, what the fuck!!! … They’re actually good. I’m so proud.”

-Sharing a bed with two other people is an ongoing project: who sleeps (or refuses to sleep) in the middle? Who gets up during the night and why? Who starfishes across most of the bed? Who snores, and how does this get handled? If alcohol or pot have happened, how does that affect the sleeping arrangements? Also, Susie and Lenny witness and react to Midge’s beauty routine, ‘nuff said. Or, for various reasons one person after another ends up decamping to another room/bed/couch, but it doesn’t help them get much sleep or even stay there very long (this is inspired by my love of Shirley Jackson and her short story/humorous essay “The Night We All Had Grippe”). If you prefer to keep it platonic, most of this would work if they’re just sharing a double bedroom on tour (I leave the reason for why Lenny is bunking with the women up to you).

Starred Up (2013 movie)

Oliver Baumer/Eric Love

Yes I do ship it, I do, I do!

Ahem. Don’t get me wrong, I liked what the movie did with the father-son relationship and its influence on both men’s character development – but I really wish they hadn’t got Oliver out of the action before the story’s climax (not like that!). The final denouement with Love father and Love son was great, as was the hint at the end that Eric learned something in anger-management group and has a support network that will help him a lot. But. I would have wanted to see more of the intriguing dynamic between Eric the intelligent, semi-feral, yet not-incorrigible, young thug and Oliver the educated, dedicated, kind yet aware of his own potential for violence (what was he on about with “I need to be here”?), slightly older counselor. They had me at Oliver’s “I want him” and Eric later telling his father that Oliver’s a better man than Love Sr. Also the not-flirting and the push-pull in the scene when Oliver picks up Eric from his cell - yowza!

Exception to blanket DNW: dubcon is a-okay! If you decide to go there, my preferred flavors of dubcon for this canon are: power differential makes it a bad idea but they do it anyway; “I know you want this”; “if the answer’s no/you’re only doing this for a dare or to prove a point, then why are you enjoying this so much [as am I]?”; no no yes a.k.a. starts as dubcon (or one of them thinks they’re dubconning the other), becomes enthusiastic consent.

Also, if this is relevant or makes you nervous about writing for me, Eric would be 18-19, and Oliver is maybe 10-12 years older – and I like it!!! (The actors were 22 and 31 when the movie was made, FWIW.)

Prompts:

-I would love to see Oliver return to holding his group in prison, so the two of them can interact more, either in the movie’s immediate aftermath or years down the line, as it’s implied that Eric will be serving a long sentence. Give me more scenes from anger management or the ribald, honest, free-flowing conversations in group, either with the other men present (I liked Hassan and Tyrone especially, among the group members) or a one-on-one session.

-An oblique or open-but-undramatic admission/declaration that they both know there’s something there, even if they don’t know what to do with it. Or, one or both of them knows exactly what to do with it, and the push-pull that would result from that.

-Dirty talk: used for arousal, as a defense mechanism, as a form of flirtation. Eric using slurs to assert dominance, and Oliver not letting him hide behind profanity, when he can use colorful language to express emotion and/or sexual interest. There could definitely be some verbal taunting/flirting about who wants/is eager to do what or is good at doing something. There may be some sniping comments about logistics and (lack of) condoms and barebacking and what men get up to in prison. There probably wouldn’t be deep discussions about sexual identity.

-An emergency in the prison requires a lock-down, so Oliver gets temporarily stuck in Eric’s cell or another room with only Eric for company. Things get porny and/or emotional.

-Eric is eventually released (you can handwave this so it happens soon after the movie or have it happen years later) and crashes with Oliver while he adjusts to the outside world. You guessed it: things get porny and/or emotional.

-How do they get to the point where both can cross that line from friends/whatever the hell they are and become, to lovers? (There’s Eric’s personal history and general discomfort with vulnerability, plus all the ways prison sex can be or make things complicated, and if it helps, I headcanon Oliver as either gay or bi and at least somewhat closeted, at work especially.) Who initiates and “directs traffic”? How does their always-contentious dynamic shift during and after sex? Is the sex an isolated (series of) occasion(s), or a progression/escalation over multiple encounters (how would I love especially an escalating series of encounters, let me count the ways)? Eric might seem like the logical initiator and/or dominant partner as well as using the possibility of sex to manipulate and exert control, but then Oliver might (or might not!) surprise him and is definitely the one more in touch with himself as well as aware of his custodial duty toward the men in the group.

-At some point in their intimate relationship (probably not right at the start, and probably not in prison, though if you can make it happen in prison, more power to you!), Oliver decides he’s going to take his sweet time and make Eric fall absolutely apart with pleasure, while using dirty talk to both arouse and empower Eric to own his desires – by that point, Eric is in a place where he can let that happen and enjoy it, even if he still talks tough.

-Or how about this: Eric gets out, relationship happens or is in the process of being negotiated, and while physical intimacy is a whooooole neeeeeew woooorld, you know what else would be cool? Phone sex. Yep. Or even, Eric gets himself one of those secret prison burner phones (preferably hidden somewhere that’s not someone’s arse), and… phone sex after lights-out and lock-down. Maybe nothing (much) has happened physically (yet), so phone sex can be a building block to that or one facet of that deepening intimacy.

Witchblade (TV) Sara Pezzini/Danny Woo

Sara Pezzini & Danny Woo

I used to love this show back in the day, and loved it again in all its hokey gloriousness when I rewatched it recently. Sara figuring things out and being a principled badass, but maybe out of her depth with the Witchblade, and her dynamic with Danny, whether he's a ghost or alive, it’s all catnip to me. Sara is not extremely quippy, she has a job to do dammit! and don’t look at her vulnerable side, just don’t look at it!, and I love that about her (she’s much harsher in S1, after Danny’s death, than in S2); ditto that Danny is somewhat softer than she is, but still can hold his own thanksverymuch (well, when the plot doesn’t require him to get nabbed by bad guys) and has a bit of a deadpan snarker side too. I’d love something that plays around with their canon dynamic from either season, or uses canon as just a starting point. Gen is good, shippy (incl. porny) is good. Some of my prompts lean dark or horror-y, so don’t be shy about going there; I’d also enjoy a story in which the Witchblade itself ends up not being very significant (say, they start to investigate a possibly mystical case and then nope, plain murder). BTW I really like Conchobar too, so if you want to include him (that means also Conchobar Lives AUs), his relationship (current or past) with Sara, or his canonical death somehow, go for it!

Canon-specific DNWs: Irons and any version of Nottingham appearing (you can mention them if you need to).

Exception to blanket DNW: dubcon is fine (see first prompt).

Prompts:

-The Witchblade is more parasitic than symbiotic, and instead of Sara learning to control it, its feeding on Sara affects her more and more over time. Or, the visions and dreams ramp up into full-blown paranoia and/or disassociation. The Witchblade's POV, maybe (it is sentient)? Asking for help is the hardest thing for someone like Sara, but what are (more than) friends for? I’d also enjoy a dubcon scenario where Sara really shouldn’t be having sex when her head is all messed up by the Witchblade’s influence, but… well… they do. The Witchblade canonically enjoys violence and bloodshed perpetrated by its wearers, so it stands to reason that it might lower other inhibitions too.

-Witchblade v. mythological monsters. In S1, even with everything else that's going on, Sara absolutely scoffs at the possibility of vampires. So of course I want: Witchblade v. vampires! The scarier and more feral, the better. Or, it's implied that the Witchblade was forged from a meteorite, so it's basically an eldritch artefact from outer space. Yes, please lean all the way into the Lovecraftian tropes! (The moon is turning red, the Old Ones are back, it’s the end of the world as we know it, but Sara’s got her partner by her side.) Or something from Chinese mythology, so Danny can kick extra ass. Or, for a silly take on Chinese culture: Sara and Danny in the world of Big Trouble in Little China (another old fave of mine, the entire plot of which revolves around… a woman with green eyes and an unwanted connection to the supernatural).

-The Witchblade has a reputation for abandoning its wearers just when they need it the most. True to form, it slips off of Sara’s fist, leaving her and Danny to save themselves with good old-fashioned guns, fisticuffs, martial arts, and of course having each other’s back.

-More of the psychedelic-ness in many of Sara’s fight scenes, where now she’s a woman in a leather jacket with a gauntlet on her arm, now she’s a knight in armor! Now her opponent is human, now he’s a wolf-shaped spirit of evil and hatred! Playing around with the characters’ senses and perceptions – yes!

-Instead of seeing only Danny and needing him to play intermediary for Sara to talk to other ghosts, the Witchblade makes Sara see ghosts all over the place, and it's getting to her. Ghost!Danny may or may not help with that. Or, ghost!Danny is basically always around, whether Sara can see him or not. He manifests when Sara is masturbating, and you can't really feel guilty if the ghost of your dead partner whom you’ve always had a thing for helps you out, and anyway you’re probably going crazy and none of this is real, so it doesn’t count anyway... right?

-Case fic/stakeouts and banter. Flirting/ribbing/joshing to pass the long and stressful days at work.

-Quick and guilty sex because Danny's married. Slow and intense sex if handwave he's not married but “oh noes we’re partners, we shouldn’t be doing this, but somehow we keep doing it anyway.” Hooking up in the car. I've always headcanoned that they had a thing pre-canon which ended for Reasons, but they both kinda wish it hadn't, hence the hand kissing, and the “I can’t even touch you,” and the coffee bringing/stealing, etc. So feel free to play around with that.

-Undercover as married, undercover as a gangster and his moll (LOL at Sara as a moll, or have Sara as the gangster and Danny as her arm candy), undercover as “they think we’re fucking, better fake it real good for the people listening in, oops shit got real fast, careful don’t say each other’s real name or you’ll blow your cover.”

-More timey-wimey shenanigans with the Witchblade. Maybe it allows Sara to manipulate time more than once. Maybe she starts doing it way too often, throwing the continuum out of whack (something non-linear would be very interesting). Maybe she and/or Danny remember some or all of what happened in S1. Something about all the multiverse versions of them, possibly splitting off from a dramatic moment. Time loops and feelings are a combustible mix.

-Apart from the pretty obvious shippiness, what I like about S1 especially is how Sara rolls with the weirdness the Witchblade has brought into her life, instead of reaching for rational explanations. More of that (I can't think of a better way to put it), and double extra brownie points if alive!Danny figures out at least some of what's going on with Sara's bracelet and somehow gets in on the action. Maybe a Danny saves the day divergence? Or how about a loophole that allows a man close to the Witchblade's wearer to wield it temporarily, but There Is a Price to Pay.

Бeсa ǀ Besa (TV)

Dardan Berisha/Petrit Koci

Skënder Berisha & Petrit Koci

Teuta Berisha/Petrit Koci

Divna Dukić/Petrit Koci

Petrit Koci/Marija Perić

Petrit Koci/Uroš Perić

My longest of long-shot requests! If you already know and like this canon, yeeees come sit with me. If you don’t know it, here’s a quick intro: this is a crime drama, one 12-episode season so far, produced in Serbia and created by Tony Jordan of “Hustle” fame. Set in (and with a cast including actors from) several ex-Yugoslav states, the story follows three main characters: a Serbian family man and regular joe who accidentally kills the daughter of a major Kosovar Albanian crime boss in a car accident; said Albanian crime boss who coerces his daughter’s unwitting killer to start working for him as an assassin; and a half-Albanian, half-Serbian Interpol agent (Petrit Koci) who’s after the crime boss but starts investigating the regular joe turned assassin as well.

The show has a twisty plot, gritty and handsome visuals, excellent performances, and a great through-line of deconstructing Balkan machismo and patriarchal culture. All three of the main characters have an image of themselves as MEN who Provide and/or Take Care of Business and Put Family First, each in their own way, and all three end up compromising on all their principles by season’s end. The women in the show’s ‘verse sometimes become collateral damage but also assert themselves in unexpected ways, which is great. The title refers to the Albanian (but more broadly, Balkan) cultural concept that one’s promise/vow/word of honor has to be kept and carried out no matter what, at peril of losing face, dishonoring both oneself and one’s family, even death. This gets deconstructed five ways from Sunday too, and it is awesome.

If you glance at the pairings I’m requesting, I think you can guess who my favorite character is. :-) Koci is so committed to being the “good sheriff” and carrying out his professional duty regardless of whom he has to piss off along the way, but is also often quite ineffectual because the local police forces with which he has to cooperate tend to resent both his attitude and his ethnic background – not to mention that when everyone’s corrupt and compromised, the man who refuses to play the game makes lots of enemies. He’s also a real hard-ass who made a conscious choice long ago to have nothing in his life but his work, is a bit of a bastard, has a huge blind spot about gender which comes back to bite him, and ultimately is driven by a desire for personal vendetta more than an abstract commitment to justice (I love a character who is super focused on their goal and presents themselves as invulnerable, yet whose insecurities and traumas are always just beneath the surface of what drives them). And yes, by the end of the season he’s presented with a Faustian bargain and gets a huge target on his back. There’s a lot to unpack there!

I will eat up any local color you want to throw in. Ditto, the canon is super intense, but if you find a way to bring in some vintage Balkan pitch-black humor, I’m here for it. If you wanted to include some dialogue or phrases or hey write the whole fic in any variation of what used to be called Serbo-Croatian, I’m here for that with bells on! (Unless you’re writing smut – I just can’t with E-rated prose in Slavic languages, sorry.) Alas, I do not read Albanian, but if you want to include dialogue/phrases in it, go for it, so long as you tell me (in parentheses, in footnotes, whatever works) what’s going on.

Canon-specific DNW: soapboxing about Balkan history/conflicts/ethnic relations (the characters can clash about this, use stereotypes, etc. – I just don’t want the fic to be an excuse for the writer’s hot takes, ‘kay?)

Exceptions to blanket DNWs: RL current events being mentioned + dubcon *but* for M/F ships I want both characters to be motivated by anger/revenge/general existential bleakness/whathaveyou instead of or as well as lust, so just no M/f dubcon, please!

Prompts:

-Any of my requested pairings in any kind of casefic, either a divergence, something pre- or post-canon, or a side investigation spinning off from the canon’s central plot. Anything that requires Koci to again traipse all over former Yugoslavia, butt heads with everyone, interrogate people, and do that soft-spoken “you don’t want to give me what I want but you’ll do it anyway” thing he does along the way.

-Something that requires Koci to use his knowledge of Albanian language and culture even more than in canon. I love how the canon depicts the existential discomfort of never fully fitting into – or being accepted by – either of the cultures/communities to which one has a connection, and how a person can become antagonistic and volatile as a result. Leaning into that would be wonderful.

-Koci has devoted his whole life to bringing down the Berisha clan. With the help or hindrance of any of the other requested characters, he finally gets his wish. Now what?

-Maybe the other character has to turn to Interpol for help/becomes a material witness/gets arrested/enters witness protection, or otherwise has to do teeth-clenched teamwork with Koci. For / pairings, the shippiness doesn’t have to be overt -- antagonism, barely finding common ground, something that reads more like gen or shippy gen than explicit shippiness is fine! If the relationship turns porny, the antagonism (I keep using that word because it fits!) and complicated dynamics and maybe a reluctant recognition that they’re not so different would perpetuate themselves in the porn too, and I’m here for it.

-A few words about the other characters and how they (could) fit with Koci:

Uroš Perić – the regular joe turned assassin, who gets multiple chances in the course of the show to seek Koci��s help and doesn’t because he gets in deep and wants to be the guy that protects his family and takes care of everything himself. I keep thinking back to their very first scene, when Koci gives Perić his calling card and tells him to get in touch, and Perić could have done that before he committed his first murder but… didn’t. And then at the end, there’s that huge spoiler setting up S2. Despite becoming a murderer several times over, Perić is a much softer character than Koci, but he doesn’t like getting pushed around either. How would they work together, how would they clash?

Marija Perić – Uroš’s Croatian wife, who has the thankless role of being married to the guy who’s keeping her in the dark about major plot developments, but makes up for it with how she reacts to the hints she gets of Uroš’s continuing troubles as well as getting on Koci’s radar. She’s scared and out of her depth, but she’s also angry and, yep, antagonistic when she thinks Interpol is harassing her for no reason. I love the scene where Koci interrogates her and she lashes out and won’t give him an inch even when he blindsides her with evidence of her husband’s activities – more of that kind of thing, please! Or what if she decided to protect herself and her kids by cooperating with Interpol, or maybe thought she could help Uroš by turning on him?

Divna Dukić – Koci’s Interpol colleague and maybe the only character that likes him. Their dynamic is both very professionally respectful and yet… “flirtatious” may be too strong a word. They pretty obviously have a little thing for each other but choose not to act on it for a whole mess of reasons (he’s an emotional disaster area, she has enough on her plate as a single mom with a shitty ex, they work together). Also, I have a theory that Divna, while seeming loyal, may take her marching orders from one of the criminal elements or maybe from the more corrupt parts of Interpol or the Serbian police. I would love any or all of that to get explored more.

Dardan Berisha – the grieving crime boss and main target of Koci’s obsession (even though it was actually Dardan’s old uncle Skënder who had Koci’s father killed decades earlier). They’re both such hard, intense men, in part because they’ve had to be, and the narrative sets them up as mirror images of each other (while Uroš Perić is more a study in how someone becomes hard when circumstances push them to it). Yet while their conflict underpins the whole show, they rarely share a scene. Put them together more; let them fight or y’know *waggles eyebrows*.

Teuta Berisha – Dardan’s wife, who first loses her daughter, and by the end of the season her family is totally blown to smithereens, in part because of how she chooses to assert her agency within the super-patriarchal context in which she lives. She was ambivalent about her marriage before we meet her, and I love how canon events bring out her anger, grief, and quiet steeliness. Also, that moment at her daughter’s funeral when Koci gives her his condolences really hit me – they know they are enemies, but there’s that moment of standoffish respect between them. What if somehow they had to work together? Or what if she took over as the head of either the Berisha or the Sokoli clan (or both!)? A divergence from the end or any part of S1 would be very welcome.

Skënder Berisha -- Dardan’s uncle who still wields enormous influence in the Berisha clan and was behind the assassination of Koci’s father decades earlier. I only want this as a & pairing, but the character dynamic is still one of difficult shared history, knee-jerk antagonism, goading humor, not being at all intimidated by each other, and yet recognizing something familiar in each other. One of my favorite scenes from the whole show is their conversation at the hospital, in which they cover both present troubles and the past. Skënder is one of the few characters who can and does consistently run rings around Koci, and I want more of that as much as I want the tables turned.

#chocolate box 2021 #chocolate box fic exchange #dear author letter

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scribbledquillz · 5 years ago

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Zevran, for the headcanon thing??

Four Headcanons Meme

@will-and-her-fandoms (thanks for the prompt! :D)

1. Zevran lies. Frequently, and not just by omission - though he does that often as well. He is a man who has no qualms with being dishonest and will do so to your face if he finds it serves whatever purpose he feels necessary. Which isn’t to say Zevran is never honest. Just that he is far more willing to work in a gradient pallet of truths and lies rather than solid absolutes. They’re tools to him as much as his charm and skills as an assassin.

An example; the stories he tells you of his jobs while working for the Crows? There’s crumbs of truth in them, but they are much more sanitized and focused on the more humorous elements than a 100% accurate recount would be.

2. (I don’t know if I would call this hilarious but oh well) Zevran has a sweet tooth, especially for dark chocolate. One of his favorite indulgences is to shave of some pieces from a large block (he bought it in Antiva days before leaving for Ferelden) into warmed milk to make hot chocolate. He guards that block of chocolate more jealously than the finest bottle of Antivan brandy, and is twice as choosy about who he’ll share it with.

3. Zevran is, as he says in banter dialogue with Alistair, a religious man in his way. He knows several canticles of the Chant verbatim (in Antivan) and can occasionally be seen mumbling them to himself as he does mundane activities like seeing to his weapons or leathers. He will attend Chantry services when the mood strikes him, but it is not often, and prefers instead to keep to the Chant in his own way - which does involve asking for forgiveness for his sins from both Andraste and the Maker frequently.

4. I don’t agree with the canon conclusion that Zevran sets out on a mission to single handedly dismantle and destroy the Crows. I feel like he is far too aware how important a role the organization plays in the balance of politics and nobility in Antiva; to remove the Crows from their place in society is to welcome the same unrest plaguing much the rest of the civilized world in Thedas.

I do, however, believe he is a large player in the restructuring of the Crows leadership, albeit unintentionally at first. All the ins and outs of how I (and @pathosian ) feel things would happen needs a waaaaay bigger meta post than I feel comfortable submitting my dash to in a meme answer, so I’ll go with the Spark Notes version:

Zevran fakes his death in the Battle of Denerim. As far as the Crows are concerned, he’s dead.

Zevran spends the next few years in Ferelden, acting as an agent for the HOF (Revka in my timeline) and those of the old party who have need of his particular skills.

Zevran goes to Kirkwall on an assignment for the HOF. He gets delayed there longer than intended and caught in the chaos after the Chantry incident.

Travel back to Ferelden across the Amaranthine or to the west through Nevarra and Orlais is impossible because of rising tensions / stewing civil wars or other conflicts / not wishing to attract the notice of the Bards. Zevran decides his best chance to return is to risk returning to Antiva, where he might manage to pull some strings with a few old contacts.

Once there, Zevran crosses paths with the head of his old house - Master Arainai. He nearly kills him.

Master Arainai convinces Zevran to a parlay (another meta for another time) and tells him of an upstart within the Crows who is causing trouble for the houses. He offers to help Zevran find safe passage back to Ferelden if he in turn helps Arainai to eliminate this threat. Zevran agrees.

While on the mission to take out the trouble maker, Zevran comes across evidence of a conspiracy that goes much deeper than he or Master Arainai knew. The highest ranking members of the order - up to the Shadow Prince himself - are looking to overthrow the Antivan royalty entirely to usurp full power over the country into Crow hands.

Zevran brings this information to Arainai, and the pair realize a move like this will place the entirety of Antiva on unstable footing, leaving it weakened and vulnerable much like the rest of the big players in Thedas. They agree this cannot go forward. Zevran cannot leave his former home in danger and agrees to stay long enough to see this threat resolved.

Long story short, Arainai and Zevran slowly work their way through the compromised houses of the Crows, using Zevran’s supposed death in Denerim to their advantage. One by one the houses of those who supported the takeover are neutralized - either by swaying them to their side, or eliminating them as a threat.

This process continues until Arainai and Zevran learn the identity of the true Shadow Prince, culminating in their eventual assassination, done quietly and without much the rest of the order realizing it’s even been done.

Zevran assumes Arainai will take over as the new Shadow Prince of the Crows. Instead, Arainai insists Zevran should, stating his supposed death and ability to act through Arainai as his agent (as well as a wide net of stand in representatives and agents I won’t delve too deeply into now for the sake of time) that he is in a perfect position to claim the title for himself.

And that’s how Zevran returns to Ferelden during the events of Inquisition claiming to be nothing but an “agent” of the crows, when in fact he’s running the whole damned shebang remotely via raven.

#will-and-her-fandoms #meme #Zevran Arainai #Dragon Age Origins #headcanons #Replies #long post

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diveronarpg · 5 years ago

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Congratulations, JENNA! You’ve been accepted for the role of OLIVIA. Admin Rosey: Jenna, I don’t even know what I can say about this application. You had me slowly falling more and more in love with the Omi that you bring to us, which is perhaps incredibly apt due to the fact that I imagine many fall in love with Omi just the same way. All of us raved about this application and what it brought to the table, careful nuances that just screamed Omi. We’ve been waiting for an Olivia for so long -- a beautiful sparrow -- and you’ve brought them to us and given us more. I can’t wait to see what you do with our beautiful Sparrow! Please read over the checklist and send in your blog within 24 hours.

WELCOME TO THE MOB.

OUT OF CHARACTER

Alias | Jenna

Age | 20

Preferred Pronouns | she/her

Activity Level | I would say a solid 6-7/10. I’m currently on break from uni, so I’ll be around pretty much every day. However, once I go back to uni and my workload picks up a bit, I’ll probably only manage to get to replies every 2-3 days (I aim for every 2!), but I’m always around for plotting!

Timezone | gmt+10

How did you find the rp? | In the tags! I’ve been admiring this group for a while now and I’ve honestly had an application for Omi half-written for a few months and finally decided to just go for it.

Current/Past RP Accounts | This is one of my most recent character blogs, unfortunately the group closed recently which is why I’ve stopped writing the character.

IN CHARACTER

Character | Olivia, Yamamoto Omi

What drew you to this character? | Honestly, Omi was not the first character I was drawn to. I was considering applying originally for Hermia or Helena, but I stumbled upon Olivia’s bio while reading up on the lore, and I loved it. I liked that they had such a rich backstory, and one that was very unique within the context of the group. She’s had such tragedy in her life, but instead of it making her softer or making her retreat into herself, it’s made her tougher, and forced her to grow up very quickly and build a life for herself in order to survive. They have been so focused on their next move for so long that they haven’t really had a chance to look back and reflect on whether or not this life is really what they want – sure, being a Sparrow provides them with stability and feelings of control and power that Omi lacked for her whole life, but does it make her happy? That’s where I feel the character is at this point, and it’s a very interesting starting point for writing and character development. Often, I feel like I have a connection with a character, but I struggle to write them – with Omi, her voice came easily and writing up the responses to the IC interview was enjoyable, which I think really speaks volumes!

What is a future plot idea you have in mind for the character? |

THE MISSED MARK; Omi’s identity very much centres around the work she does at the Dark Lady, and the fact that she is good at said work. They pride themselves on being able to build intimacy and trust with someone without every becoming attached to them, so that she can sell their information off to Mona without ever feeling guilty or wrong about what they are doing. I would love for her to meet someone at the Dark Lady who challenges her in this way, someone she goes after for information, but becomes unexpectedly attached to. This person would ideally share with Omi some information they wouldn’t normally hesitate to share, something that Mona would consider a gold mine. Her decision to either sell this person down the river, or betray Mona would very much tear her up inside, and I’d love to see someone as sure of themselves as Omi grapple with this decision, and the guilt associated with whichever path she chooses. It would very much make them question the work they’re doing at the Dark Lady, and their allegiance to this person and to Mona.

THE OLD CLIENT; I love the idea of exploring Omi’s actions coming back to haunt her. They’re a character who exudes a sort of confidence – they have to, in the line of work that they’re in. I’d love for Omi to be confronted by someone that she’s wronged in the past, in particular, a former client of the Dark Lady who she may have shared information about with Mona, leading to some extreme consequences for the character in question, and, eventually, leading to them wanting some sort of retribution against Omi in particular. She generally tries not to think about clients after she is done with them, tossing them aside and moving onto the next thing, trying to gather as much information about as many people as possible to build herself a vast wealth of knowledge. So, someone confronting Omi about what they have done and seeking some sort of retribution will do two things; it’ll scare them, and it’ll make them really think about what they’re doing. I love the idea of Omi really having to reckon with herself and the life she has built for herself in Verona. She sees herself as powerful… but is she really? Could they have done better, could they have found a better way to live? Is their work really all it’s been chalked up to be, or have they placed their loyalty in the wrong hands? As I’ve mentioned, Omi strikes me as someone very sure of herself, so having to question her own actions is something I would love to see from her.

THE LINE YOU SHOULDN’T CROSS; Omi’s greatest weapons are her words, and she’s very good at using them to get exactly what she wants. Whether it’s information from clients, or a free drink at a bar, or any number of advantages in their life, Omi uses words and their looks to get what they want. Omi hasn’t had to resort to violence very often in her life, and this is what she believes separates her from the people her father worked for, what elevates her to a level above the fighting barbarians in Verona, the fact that she is able to show some semblance of restraint. They keep their hands clean of the fighting, and of the war brewing between the Montagues and Capulets, very deliberately, focusing on their job and their job only. I want to see this resolve tested, whether being swayed to one side or another of the conflict, or needing to use violence to solve a problem. What will Omi do when she is reduced to the level of those in conflict both around her, and in her past? I don’t think they would react well to such guilt, to the compromising of what they believe about themselves.

these are just rough ideas, and honestly there are lots of different directions I can see this character going, many of which will be influenced by the characters she comes to interact with and plots that she becomes involved with!!

Are you comfortable with killing off your character? | I am definitely open to killing off Omi, though I would love to have a chance to develop her properly before doing this!!

IN DEPTH

IN-CHARACTER INTERVIEW

What is your favorite place in Verona?

“The Dark Lady.” They say without hesitation, as though the response were programmed into their mind before the question had even been posed. She shifts in her chair, posture straightening as pearly teeth chew on her red-painted lips - slowly, seductively. Even when they’re not working, Omi’s training doesn’t leave her. She doesn’t need to be at The Dark Lady to extract information - to see the way people squirm as she eyes them, beauty the most powerful weapon they possess - and they only one they need to. “The music, the dark lighting… it’s the sort of place where you don’t know what to expect when you walk in…” She trails off, soft hands finding their way to her hair, fingers twirling through dark locks as she spoke. “It’s a place where I feel in control. People come to see me, they’ll do anything, say anything to me, to please me.” Perhaps they give themselves too much credit, but never has Omi felt more powerful than when she’s working, sitting in the lap of a stranger who thinks to underestimate them, listening to whispered secrets uttered in passion with the capacity to burn cities. “Yes,” She repeats, voice soft and certain, “That’s my favourite place in Verona.”

What does your typical day look like?

“I wake up, I go to work, I come home, and I go to sleep.” A playful smile flits ever so briefly across Omi’s lips, carefully constructed, of course, as all things about her tend to be. “What do you want me to say? To spin tales of fantastical adventures in far-off lands?” She chuckles, light and airy, a sound that has been equated in the past to the soft ringing of a bell, full of light and love, even if the one producing such a sound is nothing of the sort. “I owe Mona everything, you know.” They say softly, a rare moment of sheer candor, one so very rarely seen from Omi these days. Her left hand has settled on the opposite wrist, drawing circles over the skin as they speak, soft and gentle. “So I work. Whenever she needs me. If I don’t? Well, who else will? Nobody else there has quite the same level of… talent that I possess. They can be clumsy, and forgetful. Our clients like me best, and so they should. They trust me.” Another soft laugh escapes their lips, “I’m at my best when I’m there, but I keep myself busy in between. Not all of my suitors are paying customers.”

What has been your biggest mistake thus far?

“I don’t tend to make big mistakes, nor dwell on the past.” Omi lies with ease, a smile flitting instantaneously across her face, gone just as quickly as it had come as she thinks, really thinks about the question being posed to her. “I couldn’t pinpoint a single one, you see. I haven’t made any life altering mistakes.. I’m too careful for that.” Or, at least, they liked to think they were. “Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I’d confronted my father about what he did for a living… I never questioned him about it. Not really. He knew I knew, he must have, but… we never spoke about it. Perhaps if I had asked him about it, if I’d asked him why, how he’d ended up there in the first place… maybe things would have gone differently. Perhaps I could have convinced him to get out while he still could, we could have left Japan, started a new life as a family. I doubt I would have ended up here… but I doubt things are that simple. If my father had any sort of choice in what he did, he would still be alive, and so would my mother. Perhaps it’s just my mind trying to make sense of things.. overthinking it all.”

What has been the most difficult task asked of you?

“The first one.” She says, “My first mark at the Dark Lady. Some Montague boy, I don’t even remember his name. But he was young… naive. If it were now, I’d know exactly what to do, exactly how to get him to spill his secrets. He was about as easy a mark as they come… but I’d never done it before. Mona had explained to me what my role was to be at the Dark Lady… she’d coached me, and I was confident that I could do it. I know that I’m desirable, and I knew exactly the type of person this boy was… but I was nervous.” They laugh, a strange lilting sound, not quite pleasant, but not off-putting, either. “I’m never nervous. But after all the faith Mona had in me, after everything she’d done… I knew I had to do this right. I had to make sure that I did the job, and I did it well, to prove to her, to everyone, that she wasn’t wasting her time on me. I think I got into my own head, which is rare, for me… but I managed to do it. I don’t even remember what he told me, but when I told Mona, she just smiled and said, ‘good work,’. I didn’t see him again, and it got easier after that.”

What are your thoughts on the war between the Capulets and the Montagues?

“It doesn’t concern me.” She says, a soft sigh escaping her lips. “Though, I wouldn’t so much call it a war. If anything, it’s a contest of egos. Two families each trying to prove to one another that they have the most power. It’s almost petty. Real power doesn’t come from fighting, from guns or from money… real power is knowledge, real power is understanding another person completely. Knowing every crevice of their mind in intimate detail, being able to predict what they’re thinking, what they’ll say… what they’ll do.” They shake their head, “These people, they don’t know war. They don’t know pain. They’re playing at games they think they understand… but they don’t, and I doubt they ever will. The only people who suffer are their pawns, their underlings… there can’t be a winner if they’re not willing to have real stakes.” She sighs again, flicking her hair over her shoulder and adjusting her posture, “But, like I said. It doesn’t concern me.”

Extras: Pretty much everything I have for Omi can be found on her mock blog!! there’s mostly inspo on there, I haven’t had a chance to create any moodboards or playlists yet, but when I do, this is where they’ll go!!

Thank you so much for reading my application, I’ve admired this group from afar for a while, and I would love to get the chance to write Omi & write as part of this group!!

#accepted #accepted: olivia

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atarahderek · 5 years ago

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Let’s talk about shipping: Moana and Zootopia

Zootopia and Moana are two of the more popular CGI entries to the Disney animated canon. They came out the same year, with Zootopia beating Moana out for best animated feature at the 2017 Academy Awards due to the fact that Zootopia dealt with some sensitive topics of modern day society while Moana more or less played it safe with the plot and subject matter. Both were buddy films depicting an unlikely friendship between a strong female protagonist and a comical but troubled male deuteragonist. And despite the fact that both films ended with each friendship pair remaining just friends, shipping inevitably happened. Nick/Judy (the ship name of which I don’t actually know) and Moana/Maui (called Moaui or Hooked Wayfinder) are both quite popular ships among Disney fans. Like all non-canon ships, they have some controversy surrounding them, mostly regarding whether making either pair an official couple would subvert the storyline, character development or message that were established in canon. For that reason, the issue of shipping in each fandom has created two main camps: Those who do and those who don’t. Those who don’t tend to stand firmly by their assertion that it would be detrimental to make Nick and Judy or Moana and Maui a couple. They prefer to treat each pair as platonic life partners, in part because their being so would avert the standard Disney coupling tropes. Especially in the case of Moana and Maui. Fans will sometimes ship one pair but not the other. In that case, the shipped pair is much more commonly Nick and Judy, as they are ship teased by the film’s writers and directors, and their interspecies relationship would make them stand out somewhat in the context of their story, especially with one being a predator and the other being prey. Moaui is shipped less frequently because fans don’t find as much payoff in that couple in terms of progressivism and virtue signalling. Basically, Moaui is just too plain vanilla for them, and they seem to think that’s a problem.

To those people, I say you just lack imagination. A couple doesn’t have to be a token to be interesting. Héctor and Imelda aren’t a token couple, but they’re quite interesting, and all of you will admit it (more on this later). Also, vanilla is delicious, so there.

As far as chemistry goes, Nick and Judy are identical to Moana and Maui. Both pairs start off as antagonistic to one another and eventually develop a true friendship over the course of their first adventure. Both even endure a plot-mandated friendship failure, a staple of Disney and Pixar films these past several years. Both end their films as good friends and nothing more. And both leave the future of their relationships entirely up to fan interpretation. Which is why I say that if you do or don’t ship either pair, more power to you. I can understand why you do or why you don’t.

For my part, I’m in one of the smallest camps; I ship Moaui, but not Nick/Judy.

I have two primary reasons for not shipping Nick and Judy:

They don’t need to be a couple. Zootopia is a modern metropolis identical in almost every way to American society. It is a melting pot of every mammalian species and culture in the world, with relationships of every type represented, including one that is both interspecies and same sex. So tick off the diversity box, those of you who are keeping score at home. About the only type of relationship we don’t see is between a predator and a prey species, but there’s absolutely no reason Nick and Judy must be that token couple. There is no pressure on either of them to find romance, be it in one another or in someone else entirely. For all we know, both are asexual and aromantic (I very much doubt that, but it could happen). And in the context of their society, there’s no reason they should be in any kind of relationship. Making them a couple wouldn’t really add anything to their characters or impact their society in a way that would be unique from any similar couple impacting it. Nick and Judy are free to remain best friends. And I like them better that way. That’s not to say there aren’t some adorable pieces of shippy fan art out there, as well as ship fics that are quite good. But I just don’t see any need to ship them myself.

Their careers get in the way. Nick and Judy are partners on the police force. And as long as they work in the same precinct, it’s best that they not become romantically involved. This is standard workplace practice for most police departments, because romantic relationships can get in the way of field work. Many other employers discourage couples from working in the exact same area as well. My employers actually go out of their way to assure that siblings, parent/child pairs, and couples never work in the same house. Allowing people who are that close to work just as closely could potentially lead to conflict, divided loyalty, distraction or, worst of all, an enemy exploiting the relationship. All of which could compromise a case or put lives in danger. If Nick and Judy were to start working separately in different precincts, then I could see them safely developing a relationship with little or no risk to their careers. But as things stand now, it’s just better that they don’t become romantically involved. Any story where they did would have to address this issue and find a realistic resolution for it.

I really have one primary reason for shipping Hooked Wayfinder, and it’s basically the opposite of my first point for not shipping Nick and Judy. And it focuses mostly on Moana herself:

Moana will get married someday. And in my opinion, Maui would make the best match for her. I already explained the relationship dynamic that they would have in an earlier head canon meme I wrote. I believe Moana and Maui’s marriage would be one of political and social convenience, and they’d treat it like a friends-with-benefits situation. As heiress to the position of Motonui chieftain, Moana would be expected to strike a good match that would establish her as a strong leader with a lot of influence, especially when dealing with any other people whom the people of Motonui meet on their voyages. And because Moana’s people have been declining in population, Moana will be expected to have kids and keep the line of chieftains going strong. Basically, Moana’s situation is almost polar opposite to Nick and Judy’s situation. There is a lot of pressure on her to marry and have kids, and it’s downright unrealistic of her to not end up married with a family. Her cultural context won’t allow her to pull a Merida (even in Merida’s case, she was granted an extension of time and the right to choose her suitor; she is still obligated to eventually marry). But this is Moana we’re talking about. She wants to prove herself as a leader, and she would not be the type to tolerate an obligatory husband stealing her spotlight. She needs a man who will support her as her people’s leader, who will be there to act as added muscle if someone challenges her (but only if she needs him to), and who will generally let her be herself. Maui is the only man she knows who would be willing to do all of that. Yes, he’s hammy, but he wouldn’t steal Moana’s thunder as a leader. Just as a performer. And Moana can live with that. Moana would definitely take the lead in the relationship, as her position as chief allows her to do that, even over a demigod. Maui’s been absent for the last millennium and was the cause of their recent problems to begin with, so he doesn’t carry a whole lot of authority with Moana’s people. Marrying Moana would actually give some of that authority back to him. But he would still be her second, not the other way around. True, they are no token couple, but they are still an interesting one. It’s unusual in media to show the wife as the one who is front and center in the relationship without making her seem naggy or otherwise unrealistic.

A good example of such a couple is Héctor and Imelda from Pixar’s Coco. Yes, Imelda has a fiery temper, and can come across as nagging or the type who would treat Héctor like a whipped puppy (Ernesto almost certainly accused Héctor of being such at some point). But in every single one of their interactions as a couple (when they’re not estranged, that is), it is shown that Héctor and Imelda are nothing but the best team a married couple can be. She’s the alpha to his beta, but she doesn’t nag him or treat him as subservient in any way, form or manner. And he fully supports her out of genuine love and not a trace of fear. He is completely dedicated to her, even though she played a not-insignificant role in his nearly being forgotten. They are just as compelling as a couple as they are as individual characters.

But those two are also more traditionally romantic (i.e. sappy). Moana and Maui wouldn’t be that type of couple. Maybe they’d wax romantic every now and again, but their focus would be on their relationship as a leadership team. They’d bicker and joke much the same way siblings would. They would definitely be family, and they would definitely enjoy the more carnal aspects of their married relationship. But they wouldn’t be singing cheesy love ballads to one another or making out in front of the kids (unless it was to very deliberately embarrass them). Their marriage wouldn’t cause them to lose any of the chemistry they had in the film, and would actually add an interesting component to that chemistry. They would have a relationship unlike any seen in Disney so far, and I think it could really add to their characters and their storyline.

In the case of either movie, I would be just as content with a Zootopia sequel that made Nick and Judy an official couple as I would with a Moana sequel that made Moana and Maui an official couple--so long as it’s done right. I don’t think any fan would be happy if either of these power teams became strangled by the red string.

#Disney #shipping #Zootopia #Moana #Hooked Wayfinder #Moaui #Judy/Nick #Wilde Hopps #or whatever you want to name their ship #TV Tropes

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storywriting · 5 years ago

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[ Bc yall have foolishly greenlit my Nirvash Headcanon production, here is a general discussion of who I think Nirvash is and I’ll thank you to give me excuses to be more specific. ]

First things first. The Nirvash is the first creature Eureka ever had a conversation with or considered her friend. While Eureka had to learn to speak to people, the ability to communicate with her own kind is one of the few things she was born knowing, so she took to Nirvash right away. The Nirvash is unfortunately one of the main factors that ended up landing her as an emotionally stunted military dog instead of having a normal life where she is nurtured and fully educated by humans. I honestly think if the folks in the lab hadn’t realized her piloting potential, Eureka would have been raised as a completely different person. Since science had never been able to crack the Nirvash typeZERO, she was very valuable to have. They didn’t waste their budget on anything else once they knew that.

I also think the Nirvash had never been called Nirvash by people prior to the discovery of Eureka. Nirvash was exclusively called the typeZERO until Eureka was able to communicate enough to tell humans the name.

Vaguely related, Eureka’s name is also not human given because she is named after an event experienced by the scub coral and it doesn’t make sense to me that humans in 11005 or whatever would think to name her after something that happened in like 2005. Eureka’s name comes from the very first time Scub Coral entered Earth’s atmosphere, where it crashed into a satellite and was forced to make a home in the Earth’s oceans. Based on what Sakuya says, it’s likely that the whole of the coralian system became aware when it was decided Eureka would be born. Nirvash likely told Eureka her own name if she didn’t already know it herself.

Archetypes are sexless, so as one might expect, Nirvash doesn’t have a particular concept or interest in gender identity. Eureka calls Nirvash “he” in the original series dub and “she” in all future adaptations. I suspect that using “he” might have originally been a mistake by the localization team since Nirvash isn’t voiced until the very end and the Japanese language doesn't really ever require a speaker to designate a gendered pronoun. Whether it was a mistake or on purpose, I tend to explain this by just saying that Eureka copied the words other people used whenever she would personify the Nirvash to them. That would be in line with her character.

Eureka also speaks about Nirvash like a child quite often even though Nirvash is most certainly an older life form than she is. I suspect this is to do with a difference in experience and the higher barriers of understanding for a creature like Nirvash. Put simply, Nirvash is a less developed creature than Eureka is.

In the AU movie archetypes arent the same type of creature as in the main series--they were made or evolved differently. In the film, the Larval Nirvash is somewhat intelligent. Larval Nirvash pays attention to people and tries to participate in conversations despite being unable speak. 10/10 very tiny and cute and runs around, always doing their best.

I honestly believe that main series Nirvash has a similar temperament and level of intelligence to this AU iteration. Also, the way Eureka speaks about Nirvash, like a child, in my mind supports the idea that the Nirvash is capable only of very simple thoughts and ideas early on. Nirvash isn't enlightened, per se. At least not at the beginning. Nirvash is a failed attempt at making a person. It makes sense that Nirvash would be less advanced. If we could hear Nirvash's early conversations with Eureka, I suspect Nirvash's interests and concerns would sound pretty simplistic. I hesitate to compare Nirvash to any stage of human development tbh, mostly because it seems like Nirvash is very intelligent about certain things (like in battle, Nirvash makes very strategic choices), but probably couldn't even match a toddler on other things. Emotional intelligence, for example, is probably something that takes a while for Nirvash to pick up even the tiniest shred of. Still, Nirvash's wants and feelings do seem to become slightly less simplistic over time. Still simple compared to a person, but the feedback Eureka gives originally is like "nirvash is happy" and by the end it's more like "nirvash feels x complex way because of what they did when x happened and how it turned out". Put simply, Nirvash knows what Nirvash knows, but not much else. Nirvash is maybe like Eureka in that regard. They're in their own weird stage of development where some of their stats are maxed and some of them are like...what are you even doing. I also pretty strongly headcanon that, like Eureka, Nirvash's understanding of the world and of humans is growing as the series progresses, which I think is fairly substantiated but rarely addressed directly.

As the audience we don't get to see the way Nirvash communicates very often, especially not in any direct easy-to-be-understood-by-people fashion. If you want to learn anything about Nirvash as a viewer you have to speculate based on the few times Nirvash displays some will of her own, or go by the very little information Eureka gives about what Nirvash is thinking. Eureka is somewhat private about her relationship with Nirvash at times, which I find interesting, but that’s a topic for another post.

I pretty strongly headcanon that Nirvash sort of dislikes people, or at the very least, mistrusts the ones she doesn’t know. I believe this because Nirvash outright refuses to be piloted, even by people with compac drives. Compac drives are the "keys" humans use to communicate with LFOs, but LFOs cant really communicate back. We know that Nirvash for whatever reason really didnt want to be piloted, but then Nirvash met Eureka and felt willing to activate for her because they could converse and agree on things. No compac drive required for that. Nirvash will fly for Eureka because they can have a relationship that is a two way street. It doesn’t require the kind of faith Nirvash would need to let a human do whatever they wanted.

I suspect when Eureka is piloting there is a lot of give and take. They're discussing what they should do. They compromise on a course of action by combining their understanding. The trouble any time there is something going on between the Nirvash and Eureka is that it's not a conversation the audience gets to hear. We just have to watch and do our best to interpret

I think that over time Nirvash comes to appreciate and even like some humans and seeks methods of communication with ones she vibes with. Ultimately the Nirvash does become more able to understand and commune with people because Eureka acts as a cultural bridge between them. I really like the idea that Nirvash becomes interested in communicating with humans in the limited ways available to her, but only after spending a lot of time with Eureka and taking a shine to Renton. I also know the show gives Nirvash a clear human sounding voice that makes understandable words but I honestly hc that Nirvash sounds more abstract than that in most situation. Like idk, machine noises, Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites™ or something like that. I think if a human was able to hear Nirvash in any passive sort of way, it probably wouldn’t really sound like language. Eureka can always understand Nirvash but if you're Renton or maybe Ao just hanging around and are somehow catching bits and pieces of that consciousness floating in the air it's gonna feel weird and garbled in your brain unless you're able to make that more direct connection with the Nirvash somehow. It's just not natural to humans, it's not their first language.

On the subject of Nirvash getting on with humans, there is eventually a situation where Renton has to pilot the Nirvash himself. This is on the tail end of Eureka being really down and not really explaining why. Sometimes when she touches the Nirvash she starts to bleed and it becomes clear that The Girls Are Fighting™️. When Eureka sees Renton piloting she is taken aback by the fact that Nirvash would allow somebody other than her to pilot alone. Also, she comments on how that's 'not Nirvash's style'. It's left ambiguous what exactly her meaning is there, but she becomes pretty upset. There are a few ways I've interpreted it, though it's hard to pin down exactly. One possibility is that she’s upset because Renton and Nirvash Did A Violence. Alternatively it could be because the fighting Eureka saw from them was obviously more of Renton's own will than the give and take she prefers with the Nirvash. Another option is that Renton is not imposing his will, but rather bringing out something in Nirvash Eureka doesn't recognize and isn't comfortable with being a stranger to. Eureka is at this point very stressed that the Nirvash wont talk to her. She seems to go from very excited that Renton makes the Nirvash happy to very distressed that Renton is changing her relationship with the Nirvash. Nirvash is probably one of the only relationships Eureka has where she is comfortable and feels she is on the same page nearly all the time, so it's jarring for that to be challenged or changed.

A lot of the conflict with nirvash is never clarified in stone, but we know for sure that Renton causes Eureka to change and that's a big deal for everybody involved. Nirvash and Eureka don't really know change before this. In terms of Nirvash’s opinion, we know mostly about the parts Eureka reacts to, but if you think about it we dont really find out why Nirvash likes Renton in the first place or what initially caused Nirvash to becomes less open with Eureka. It's hard to place exactly what the conflict is. Just that it involves Renton and it involves this change. Despite Eureka being the best creature humanty has for communicating with Archetypes there are still certain barriers between them. They are the same creature, but theyre vastly different versions of the same creature with vastly different capabilities and experiences. Nirvash and Eureka will inevitably end up in situations where they don’t see eye to eye if for no other reason than their mental and sensory experience is vastly different from one another. I suspect that Nirvash is at times jealous of Eureka going off and having experiences and relationships with others, in the same way Eureka gets jealous when Nirvash seems to prefer Renton over her.

That all said, I do think Nirvash does have some sense of right and wrong even without Eureka’s guidance, but Eureka shows evidence of chiding or suggesting morality to the Nirvash throughout. Things like compassion and a moral compass seem to be way more pronounced for Nirvash later on in the series, after like 40 episodes of bonding and getting into and out of trouble together. Again, we can’t know all the details because the audience doesn’t get any unfiltered version of Nirvash’s perspective, but we know for sure that Eureka (and eventually Renton) is very very important to her even when the they are in conflict. In turn, Eureka regularly demonstrates that she trusts Nirvash implicitly and seems to respect Nirvash's judgement in many kinds of situations. The Nirvash is a member of the family through and through. She’s always down to help the cause, and she appreciates the great privilege involved in having a front row seat to Eureka’s experience. The Nivash has had an unprecedented opportunity to become enlightened about other creatures in ways the rest of the Scub Coral could not. In another life Nirvash could have had any number of destinies, possibly even safer ones with less strife and less change. She was never essential to the plan of putting yet another humanoid coralian into the world and could have moved for anybody else and had a completely different life. Maybe in times of conflict Nirvash thinks about that, but if there’s one thing that’s canon as hell I know that Nirvash would never trade away being loved by the Storywriter.

We stan a queen.

#∘⡊ ☾ ˚⊹Tabula Rasa⊹ — 「 Headcanon 」#∘⡊ ☾ ˚⊹To Be Continued⊹ — 「 OOC 」#∘⡊ ☾ ˚⊹Little One⊹ — 「 Nirvash 」#cut bc #long post

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ncfan-1 · 5 years ago

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Man, I really felt that when you called Rhea a karma Houdini. Like, while Edelgard’s my fave, it absolutely makes sense for her to die in 3 out of the 4 routes. But what exactly is Rhea doing if she’s not archbishop and trying to control humanity and history? Sure she wants to reform stuff but after everything it’s just that easy for her to hang around Byleth forever since she’s immortal and Byleth will likely have a longer than average lifespan?

I’mnot entirely sure as to the exact track of this question, but yeah, I feel youabout Rhea escaping the consequences of her actions (consequences that fit the scaleof her actions, at least) on 3 out of 4 routes--Karma Houdini is an excellentterm for it. She’s killed on Crimson Flower, and apparently she dies inVerdant Wind (going off of the wiki, here; haven’t played that route yet). Buton Silver Snow (provided you build up her supports enough; I’ve seenconflicting evidence as to whether an A- or S-support is enough to save her;something about Catherine’s unpaired ending talking about her continuing to actas Rhea’s bodyguard?) and Azure Moon, yeah, consequences are not reallyhappening.

Andto be clear, I don’t consider dying either her experiencing the consequences orescaping them. Dying and experiencing consequences for your wrongdoings are twodifferent things. While they don’t have to be mutually exclusive,they’re often two parallel lines, and in such circumstances, will never meet.

ButI think the nature of her wrongdoings ties directly into why it’s so difficultto hold her accountable for them.

Rheacreated a church with herself as one of the central figures of veneration—which,on top of being hilariously egotistical,is a clear signal of just what she wants from the people of Fódlan. Rhea spenta millennium censoring and revising Fódlan’s history, spent a millenniumamassing power to herself to the point that she has a standing army, thelegitimacy of an Adrestian emperor’s coronation--and, by extension, rule--canbe called into question if she isn’t present (and it seems to be the same inFaerghus as well, as it was Melusine--the brand-new Archbishop--who oversawDimitri’s coronation), all while somehow managing to keep people from askingtoo many questions about her seeming agelessness*, and basically settingherself up as the shadow ruler of Fódlan. Sure, Fódlan is politically ruledby the King (or reigning Queen) of Faerghus, the Emperor of Adrestia, and theDuke (or Duchess) of Leicester, but their rule can have no legitimacy withoutRhea’s approval. She holds the strings of power in her hands.

Rheahas spent a millennium punishing the people of Fódlan for their “sins.” It wasnever going to be enough for her, there was never any point where she was goingto be able to pull back, look at everything and think to herself “they haveatoned enough.” These people were always going to be the dirty thieves whomurdered her people and stole their bones. In her eyes, they were always goingto be the dirty thieves who took her mother from her. Never mind that all ofthis had centuries ago passed out of living memory for the people beingpunished. They must atone. They must always atone. (I honestly thinkthat was actually a nice touch to her characterization as an immortal; wheneverything is in living memory for you, it can be really hard to let goof a grudge, even when the people you’re holding a grudge against had nothingto do with the incident in question and are many, many generationsremoved from the people who were.)

Andthe ironic thing about that? Is that in the process of putting Fódlan throughthis millennium-long regiment of constant atonement, Rhea robbed them of thetools to really grapple and genuinely come to terms with what she waspunishing them for. The true, bloody history of the Heroes’ Relics and theCrests? She lied to them about all of it, and she conducted the necessarycensorship and historical revisionism to help ensure that her lies would neverbe exposed as such. The people of Fódlan can never truly put their historybehind them if they don’t know what that history is. They can never makedecisions going forward about how they truly want to regard Heroes’ Relics**and Crests if they don’t know what these things truly are. They don’t know thatthese things are truly the spoils of genocide, rather than gifts from thegoddess. They can never decide how they, as a society, want to treat the spoilsof genocide. And whose fault is that?

Rheahas created a system where the people she is punishing can never truly atonefor the things she’s punishing them for, because they don’t know what they’re supposed to be atoning for. The system isthis way by design, and was likely designed this way because Rhea cannot bringherself to forgive them. It’s sort of like when a parent punishes their youngchild for doing something wrong, but doesn’t tell the kid what they did wrong, refuses totell the kid what they did wrong. After the parent does this enough times, there’sa very real chance that the message the kid is going to internalize is thatthey’re just inherently bad, and thatthey must always please and placate their parent if they ever want to be good.In this case, Rhea is punishing Fódlan by making sure they always worship themother they “stole” from her, that they always revere her in her true identityas Seiros, that they always revere her other surviving kin (the saints) thathumanity also tried to “steal” from her, and that they never, ever know why things are the way thatthey are.

Rheahas proven herself perfectly capable of caring deeply about individual humans.Catherine, Cyril, Shamir, and Jeralt all spring to mind. And in the case ofCyril and Shamir, she’s proven capable of making compromises with individualhumans regarding faith. These things neither change, nor excuse, the way Rhearegards humanity as a whole. Her willingness to let Shamir serve her withoutShamir being a believer in the Church of Seiros, her willingness to let Cyrilcome to a decision on his own as to whether he wants to become a believer inthe Church of Seiros, does not erase the purging of the Western Church, not allof whom could possibly have been involved in the violent incidents we see inthe game. It just serves as a reminder that everyone is capable of caring forother people, even if they are, on a larger level, deeply misanthropic. Just becauseCrimson Flower!Rhea is Rhea pushed to an extreme, does not mean there isnothing valuable we can take away from it as regards to her views of humanity.

Andthe experiments she conducted on Melusine’s mother and her predecessors? Yeah,part of me is like “I could write a whole post about just that”, and the otherpart of me knows that I haven’t finished Silver Snow yet, and I need to wait. I’llchew on this one later. I’ll be chewing on it quite a lot.

Allof this, just because she can’t cope with life without her mother. It’s anextraordinarily petty reason tosubjugate an entire continent for a millennium, an extraordinarily petty reasonto put a stranglehold on the natural progression of three differentcivilizations. I think this is why, even in the Blue Lions route, where thenarrative wastes no opportunity trying to make Edelgard as unsympathetic aspossible, I still prefer Edelgard to Rhea, because at least Edelgard can seebeyond herself. At least the things Edelgard does aren’t just for her personalbenefit. But this post isn’t about Edelgard. It’s about Rhea, and why it wouldbe so difficult to hold Rhea accountable for everything she’s done.

Theanswer to that lies in how very successfulshe’s been in the past. It takes extraordinary circumstances for any of thetruth of Fódlan’s history to come to light; that’s how good she’s been at hercensorship and revision of Fódlan’s actual history (And none of it comes to light in Azure Moon). If, say, in Azure Moon,the truth came to light, it would have a deeply destabilizing effect on societyas a whole—while I do regard Edelgard’s path to a better Fódlan as the paththat has the best chance of actually fixing the problems permanently, I’m notgonna lie and say I think Fódlan post-game in Crimson Flower was not rocked by upheaval for a long time. So you have to be very, very careful about exposing her lies, ifyou think exposing them is even worth the fallout of doing so.

AndRhea has also been very successful in convincing everyone around her that sheis truly benevolent. Even after being sent out to purge the Western Church withthe other knights, Catherine still loves and adores Rhea and thinks she can dono wrong; it takes Crimson Flower!Rhea ordering Catherine to burn down Fhirdiadto even begin to shake Catherine’sbelief in Rhea’s benevolence. While we will likely never know for certain, it’sentirely possible that Jeralt was called upon to do similar things in his timeas Captain of the Knights of Seiros, and it took Rhea interfering with hisinfant daughter to jar him enough to break with her. So in a route like AzureMoon, how do you even begin to convince people that Rhea isn’t as benevolent asshe seems? She is, after all, so very good at appearing as this benevolentmother figure.

Longstory short, it’s difficult to expose Rhea’s wrongdoings or hold heraccountable for them in a route like Azure Moon, because she is so very good atwhat she does. She’s had a millennium to perfect it, and the protagonists ofthat route just won a war against theperson who was trying to denounce Rhea as a tyrant and throw off the bell jarRhea slapped down on Fódlan as a whole.***

So,what’re you gonna do? Rhea had all the power in the world, and she abused itwith zeal. And the thing about thatis, when people in positions of high power abuse their power over others, itcan be hard, even impossible, to truly hold them accountable in ways thatactually fit their wrongdoings, because the deck is so heavily stacked in theirfavor. That’s what’s going on here. What court could you convict Rhea in? Whatcourt could you even bring her to? What would you charge her with? And what do you do when the people all rise up inher defense?

Ona personal level, Rhea would likely suffer personalconsequences. The way my Azure Moon playthrough went, Catherine and Shamirwent off on a lifetime journey full of adventure and misadventure, Cyril flewoff into the sunset with Lysithea, Alois became the new captain of the Knightsof Seiros serving under Melusine, Gilbert left the Knights of Seiros andreconciled with his family, and Melusine got married to Dimitri. And sinceMelusine got to A-support with Seteth, there was probably an extremely unpleasant conversationbetween the two of them and Rhea postgame.

Myheadcanon from there is that Rhea basically wound up completely alone. She cameto see Melusine as her own person, independent of her potential as Sothis’svessel, just in time for Melusine to learn everythingthat Rhea had done to her and the others like her, and recoil from her infear and disgust, and want nothing to do with her. Melusine was basically Rhea’sgrandchild, and any children she might have Rhea’s great-grandchildren, but ontop of Melusine’s reaction, Dimitri’s learned just enough to put two and twotogether about what Rhea thought was going to happen when Melusine sat onSothis’s throne in the Holy Tomb, and has decided, not without reason, that hedoesn’t want Rhea coming anywhere near Melusine, or any of their prospectivechildren.

Seteth,as implied by people taking note of his and Rhea’s deteriorating relationshipafter Melusine’s transformation in the Academy Phase, is appalled by all ofthis. He’s been complicit in Rhea’s censorship and historical revisionism (wehear early on about how he disposes of reading material in the library that heconsiders ‘inappropriate’), but to me, it’s unclear to what extent this iswilling and enthusiastic, and to what extent it’s simply that Seteth spent solong in seclusion that by the time he came outof seclusion, Rhea was able to simply present all of this to him as a faitaccompli and he had no choice but to go along with it. As indicated in supportchains with people like Ingrid and Felix, Seteth is not overly enamored ofsociety as it is. This is the thing that finally leads him to break with Rheafor good. He would never support anyone else’s attempt to hurt her, and wouldstill protect her if it came down to it, but he’s pretty much done with her asa person.

Flaynis an interesting case. In her B-support with Melusine, she makes reference toknowing about some sketchy stuff Rhea’s done in the past, but it’s unclear justwhat she’s referring to. She could be hearkening back to the days when theystill went by Seiros and Cethleann, she could be referring to the censorshipand revisionist history, but she is almost certainly not referring to the experiments Rhea conducted on the people whowere either her biological children, or people she literally created. There’sno way she knew anything about it. The truth reaches Flayn’s ears eventually,and her reaction is basically that “*nervous laughter* what the fuck” gif that’ssuch a mainstay on Tumblr. She doesn’t react quite as Seteth does, because shedoesn’t fully grasp all of the implications of it the way he does, but shenever looks at Rhea the same way again, and starts to withdraw from heremotionally.

So.In my postgame-Azure Moon headcanon, Rhea lost all of her trusted and cared-forhuman retainers. She lost any chance of a relationship with Melusine or herprospective children. She lost the esteem of her remaining kin, and wound upmore or less completely alone in the world. And those are consequences, andpretty weighty ones, but they aren’t consequences that fit the scale ofeverything she did. They just sort of exist.

*Isay this because Rhea really doesn’t seem like the sort of person who’d feelcomfortable letting other people rule as archbishop in her place (unless it’sthe person she regards primarily as her mother’s vessel), even if only as atemporary measure to draw attention away from her immortality. If anyone everdoes a ‘Fódlan Gothic’ post, there had better be a bullet point on there that reads“No one knows how old Rhea is. No one ever asks how old Rhea is.”

**And in this case, Rhea is the reason people have been running around making useof the spoils of genocide, because she’sthe one who let the Elites keep the Relics. Am I the only one who cannotfathom a reason as to why she would let the Elites keep the Relics after theyswore fealty to her? Those things are her people’sbones; why on God’s green earth would she just let them keep them? If hervictory over Nemesis was resounding enough and her army’s losses minimal enoughthat she could make the Elites fall in line without problems, she could easilyhave made the confiscation of the Relics a term of their surrender. “I will letyou live in exchange for your swearing your fealty to me and GIVING ME BACK MYFAMILY’S BONES, YOU ASSHOLES.” That’s perfectly equitable. That’s perfectly fair. And in keeping with Rhea’s love ofrevisionist history, she wouldn’t have to out herself as a Nabatean or revealthe truth of what the Relics were in the official record of how this exchangewent down. Just say something like “And after the battle was won, the divineSeiros decreed that the Elites return the weapons she had bestowed upon them,for they were too dangerous to be used except in times of great crisis.” Andhonestly, saying that the Relics are too dangerous except in times of greatcrisis isn’t exactly a lie, is it?This one just makes my head hurt; no matter how sympathetically orunsympathetically I regard Rhea at different times of the day, I cannot wrap myhead around it. Here’s hoping finishing Silver Snow and Verdant Wind finallygives me some answers.

***Which she honestly kinda was pre-time skip in all routes, not just Crimson Flower. And was, as I keep harping on,an extraordinarily successful one.You know you’re good at this when you’ve got your “iron fist in the velvet glove”routine down so well that anyone who tries to call you out as a tyrant isimmediately denounced by everyone else as a heretic.

#Fire Emblem Three Houses #Fe16 #Rhea Fe16 #Meta #It does disappoint me that Rhea can't really be held accountable #but it doesn't surprise me either #how would you even go about holding her accountable?#Anonymous

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loopy777 · 5 years ago

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Peter parkers main 3 love interests is generally accepted as Gwen Stacy, Mary Jane Watson and Felicia Hardy/Black cat. Taking your favorite/best written portrayals of each of them as a starting point, what would you say is the biggest strenghts and weakness of each of them as a permanent Romantic partner to peter on a romantic writing level, and a overarching plot writing level?

Hm, this might get complicated. I guess I’ll take it character by character.

Mary Jane

MJ is my preferred romance for Peter, and my favorite portrayals of her are the Spectacular cartoon, the Ultimate comics, the Renew Your Vows AU, and the mainline comics- in that order. (I also like Michelle from the MCU, but I don’t consider her Mary Jane Watson. Michelle just happens for share a nickname with her. For some reason.) The thing that I think helps MJ rise above the rest if that I don’t consider her to have been created as a love interest. Yes, I know, she was literally created to be the Veronica to Gwen’s Betty, but that’s the thing- she wasn’t really intended to be the winner, from what I’ve read. She was meant to be a challenge, a brief diversion, and only accidentally wound up as the winner due to the chaotic nature of comic book production.

As such, MJ has a resilience that most love-interests don’t. Even when she wasn’t dating Peter, the character was able to stick around and continue to develop. She was able to leave the narrative for a while, possibly with no intentions from the writers for her to return, and yet she did and extra layers were added to her character as a result. Even now, her marriage to Peter was sold to the devil as part of a writer agenda to make Peter swingin’ and single again, and yet she’s stuck around and the character has continued to find places in the story. What hasn’t killed MJ has made her stronger, and if she was always intended to be the Final Girl, then I don’t think she would have gotten the opportunities. Sure, it’s a messy history of character development and retcons if you look at it in detail, but that’s true for any comic book character that’s passed through multiple hands and lasted more than a decade.

Within the story itself, I like when MJ is spunky and able to roll with Peter’s life as Spider-Man. I like when her career, whether it’s acting or something else, is only a modest success if a success at all, to fit with the whole Everyman theme of the Spider-Man stories. I’m fine with her feeling stress or angst because of Peter’s heroing -- after all, Peter gets so angsty about he quits every five years or so -- but I do want her to generally buy in to the whole thing; if she’s in love with Peter, she’s in love with the dedication that makes him use his powers for others. I also like when she’s portrayed as an old hand at dealing with the superhero life and gets to meet the other heroes, despite not having powers. It can be contrived when she gets involved with Peter’s adventures, but I do think it can be a great angle, as she can provide even more of an Everyman perspective to the proceedings.

(I haven’t played the PS4 game, and I recognize that making MJ a reporter is an easy way to get her involved, but as I’ve said before, I always feel like making the Love Interest a journalist is rip-off of Lois Lane. I’d like to see a bit more creativity in such things. Personally, I someday want to pitch a ‘Mary Jane: Agent of SHIELD’ book to Marvel where she works in SHIELD’s public relations office in New York.)

In terms of personality, I think the Spectacular cartoon nailed exactly what I want. The show didn’t get to the really juicy stuff of a romance with Peter or her knowing his secret identity, but her every scene felt perfect to me and she really did add a nice dynamic to the cast. I think the Ultimate comics captured a good depiction of the character dealing with her background as an abused child from a broken household, but I think it missed the mark in the whole ‘Brainy Janey’ thing where she was supposed to be a nerd like Peter. It felt like little was done with that, and Peter still eventually emerged as smarter than all the other students anyway, so I’m not sure what the goal was. I prefer the idea of MJ putting on a facade of a Cool Extrovert to cover her angst.

Gwen

Gwen is odd to me in that I mostly know her as Dead Love-Interest Walking. The only times I feel like I’ve experienced her as a real character are the Spectacular cartoon and the Ultimate comics, and my understanding is that neither captures the character as portrayed in the comics. Comics Gwen was the acerbic rich girl who evolved in a sweet rich girl. Ultimate Gwen was a punk rock rebel with a sense of justice. Spectacular Gwen was a sweet nerd who pined after Peter. (I don’t remember much about Amazing Gwen, other than the moment of her death and her glaring dad.) All of those are a bit different, but I feel like the only thing they all have in common is that they’re a girl who Peter falls for before he eventually marries MJ.

To that end, though, I think that’s enough to define Gwen as something of a fantasy. She should be The Ideal Love-Interest, which is not to say that she should be some kind of flawless angel, but she should be what most people’s fantasy should be of a great girlfriend for Peter. She should be a smartie like him, and either be sweet enough for them to be natural buddies or else spiky enough for them to be rivals with romantic tension. Or, like Ultimate Gwen, she should be interesting and living an exotic lifestyle but Good in a way that makes her uncomplicated for Peter to love.

And, in the end, the romance with her should always fail. Perhaps due to her death, or perhaps due to other factors if we don’t want her to be Dead Love-Interest Walking. Either way, I think she should be the precursor to Peter’s true love interest, with whom he has a messier romance that eventually becomes a perfectly-fulfilling endgame. Gwen should be the person we all think we’re going to marry when we first start dating, but later comes someone else and a more adult connection where we end up with someone we never would have imagined when we were young and naive.

Felicia

I hate to say it, but Felicia should be Catwoman. She’s the naughty, slightly dangerous lady who’s super sexy and is always offering an exciting time. She’s the love interest for the superhero side of Peter’s life, a wild fantasy of leaving all the concerns about Peter behind and just being a fun adventurer all the time with a hot cat-chick by his side. But, because such fantasies are always false, there needs to be a problem with Felicia that ultimately makes her a poor match for Peter. Usually, it’s her morals, where she’s fine with theft or violent revenge or other compromises that Peter himself fights against.

Ironically, the version of Felicia I’m most familiar with is nothing like this. That’s the 90′s cartoon, of course, where she’s mostly a version of Gwen Stacy. There’s a bit of it when she becomes the Black Cat, but her grand romance was with Morbius, and my memory is fuzzy enough that I’m honestly not sure what the short-lived romance with Spider-Man was really like. Honestly, I’d look at the animated Felicia as more what to do if anyone wanted to give Gwen superpowers. XD

But as far as my ideal depiction, I like a Black Cat who’s a thief, but not a full baddie. She should walk moral line and sometimes cross over, but not in a big way. (I’m not really a fan of Dan Slott making her a full crime lord who wants revenge on Spidey, but I admit I didn’t read the storyline. I hear it worked pretty well in the Silk comics but didn’t otherwise make a whole lotta sense.) She should be flirty and sassy and clever. I like when she comes on so strongly and so quickly that she flusters Peter. And I also like when she has superpowers, because that more firmly puts her on that side of things, as compared to someone Peter could bring into his civilian life. Peter’s civilian life should always be in conflict with his life as Spider-Man, and his love-interest should always play into that dynamic.

#thekingofwinterblog

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mrsspidermanmaryjanewatsonparker · 5 years ago

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Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows #20-23 Thoughts

Previous thoughts here.

Well I’m almost a year late but I’m finally here, the end of Renew Your Vows.

So did it go out on a high note.

...um...no....no it did not.

Having finally read the entirety of Houser’s RYV run (but not yet her Spider-Girls work which I am expecting to be a kind of epilogue) there are three perennial problems.

a) The discarding of the established, yet short live, status quo of issue #1-12

b) The post-time skip status quo evoking memories and idea from Spider-Girl due to featuring Spider-Man’s teenaged daughter

c) An over focus upon Annie herself at the expense of Peter and MJ

I’m of the belief that the first point wasn’t Houser’s fault, that the second point was partially Houser’s fault and the final point is entirely Houser’s fault and indeed exacerbates the problem of the second point.

This arc could’ve course corrected some of those issues but it didn’t, indeed it added to them and created yet more problems.

Now this isn’t to say issues #20-23 were a shit show. Dan Slott and BND provided too many shit shows for me to have the heart of lumping this arc with that dreck.

But it is a story arc that doesn’t work much more than it does work.

Let’s talk positives though.

Houser continues to write Peter and MJ in character and believably for an adult couple with a kid. Peter having his share of Dad jokes is very nice in fact. The scene where MJ and Peter discuss the situation in bed was simply wonderfully executed, short, sweet and simple as it was. It was an example of how you can write these characters with maturity in a mature relationship whilst making it interesting. A small but very nice bit was when the couple exchange a knowing look of suspicion for a second before swinging off, you could tell they both knew their daughter was lying to them.

Annie is also believable as a teenager and distinguished in her personality from Mayday. Her exchange with her parents at the start of the arc rang very true. In it Peter and MJ are believably concerned for Annie and want to know what she was doing; if you lived in a world of super heroes you’d be suspicious in that context too. Annie also understandably for a teen gets pissed off. Another nice touch in connection to this was how there were consequences for Annie after her last arc, seeing as she is very much grounded but also in more contact with Normie than she was before.

However the two biggest triumphs for this arc were in how it brought up Clone Saga continuity.

I know a lot of people have Clone Saga sore spots, but this issue addressed the topic in way that bypassed even haters of the story.

Peter and MJ’s pain and anger over losing Ben and baby May is palpable and poignant, entirely earned by the situation. More than this it’s just a wonderful source for drama Houser was brave enough to mine when nobody else wanted to touch the topic for something like 20 odd years more or less. The graveyard scene especially is easily the highlight of the arc.

Peter and Wolverine’s exchange at the diner was also done very well. Wolverine’s advise struck true to who he is and their dynamic here is immensely preferable to Houser’s first issue where Peter was played as something of a beta to Logan. In this series they are both seasoned heroes and fathers with a long history so them talking candidly and personally as they did added up. Peter over dramatically breaking a glass and being indifferent to the shards cutting his hand open though...that was just stupid.

Also for what they were the action scenes were decent enough, the first battle between Annie and her ‘clone’ in particular was well done.

That...unfortunately...is where the positives end though.

The single biggest problems with this arc specifically are that it’s overly focussed upon Annie and features Mister Sinister as the villain.

Now you might argue that there is precedence for this in Houser’s earlier work.

However precedence alone is not necessarily justification.

Clearly building up Mister Sinister as the final boss does little in the way of justifying why, in the final arc of this series about Spider-Man and his family our final villain is...an X-Men character...who’s motivations indeed revolve around the X-Men. The X-Men taking up page time from the Parker family has been a running issue in this series and I don’t get why, of all things, the post-time skip RYV stories chose that to be consistent about.

Sinister isn’t even an X-Men villain who’s immediately familiar with general audiences. He’s a complicated and somewhat cryptic character whom, if memory serves, has never (or at least rarely) crossed paths with Spider-Man in any continuity. He’s not like Magneto or anything so throwing him into this series, then not really explaining what his powers even are or much of his background is taking the audience for granted. It’s expecting the audience of a Spider-Man comic to have X-Men knowledge (not even simple X-Men knowledge at that) or worse that they should go do their own homework t find out who he is, which is just objectively bad writing.

It just feels like what we’ve been building to for 10+ issues was essentially an X-Men story that happens to involve the Parker family and Normie Osborn. At least the final pre-time skip arc involved the X-Men in a secondary role to the Parker family, it still revolved around them.

The second biggest problem with this arc is with Annie.

Annie and her relationship with her parents doesn’t really grow or develop much in this arc. Now that could be forgiven because she got a fair bit of development in the last arc. But maybe giving her that development was a mistake as her development in this story, the final outing for the series as a whole amounts to her coming clean about her Spider Sense visions.

That’d be minor development at best, but what makes this worse is...Annie already told her parents about those.

Now maybe I missed something because I took such big breaks between arcs, but Annie told her parents of her visions back in issue #5!

So it’s just a massive continuity flub for Annie to be acting like she’s been keeping it a secret for eight years.

It wouldn’t be so bad if it was a throwaway line but her concealment of this fact is the crux of her arc in this story and of her relationship with her parents, playing into the resolution of the story and even the very last page.

It just breaks the narrative.

Now in fairness if you ignored every story before Houser’s run, Houser does a good job of realistically justifying how and why Annie kept it a secret and her reveal of it is humerous. But nevertheless...it doesn’t make any sense.

It doesn’t help that between Spidey’s teenage daughter have spider sense future visions and the plot revolving around a possible clone of said teenage daughter created in secret Osborn labs and her wearing a mostly blue outfit this arc is seriously evoking Mayday Parker’s adventures.

Possibly this was intentional as we find up subverting the expectation of clones when we learn that in fact the ‘clones’ are just...genetically engineered beings grafted powers from Annie’s stolen DNA.

Whilst this provides something different it’s also in truth kind of...less dramatic than if they had in fact been clones. That way you could’ve even shallowly touched upon themes of identity and said something about who the Parker family is. Instead they’re about as poignant as Blood Spider.

The arc is further hurt by not really properly explaining how or why Annie was able to see the future/see through the eyes of the mutates with her powers. In fact it tries to claim that this only happens when her ‘clone’ is focussed upon her and yet the first vision she has is when her ‘clone’ attacks some tourists. How/why was she focussed upon Annie in that moment?

The arc’s final major failing is, as I mentioned, with focussing upon Annie at the expense of her parents.

I thought given how Houser’s opening arc was more evenly divided between thee leads and then we got an Annie centric arc and then a Peter/MJ centric issue that we’d wrap up with another arc given over to all of them. But it’s still more Annie’s show than anyone else’s.

Yes we get some inner thoughts from MJ in two issues and a bit more than that from Peter. But it’s mostly there to spice up the scenes they occur in. They offer little insight into the thoughts and feelings of the elder Parkers and they are totally drowned out in comparison to Annie’s inner thoughts.

This is sad because the book isn’t supposed to be about Annie but the family as a whole.

But Houser’s approach in this arc tries to strike this weird arrangement wherein the scheme at play is about the X-Men, but the plot is focussed upon Annie’s side role within that plot, but also tries to give time over to Peter and MJ as severely beta leads to Annie.

And it consequently renders the arc as neither an X-Men story, nor a Parker family story and a weaksauce Annie story.

It’s like this arc is ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead’ but if Rosencrantz got much more focus than Guildenstern....but then their story is a fleshed out side story in like Macbeth instead of Hamlet so they’ve got little reason to actually be involved in the central conflict but are anyway.

It’s such a weird creative choice.

Now I’ll still go to bat for Houser, and still argue she should do more Spider-Man work. Her problems on this book nevertheless show me she gets these characters. But I think now the series is wrapped up it’s fair to say she got the premise of Renew Your Vows but let her preference to write for Annie (the character who’s been around for less than 5 years and who as a teen is practically a blank slate) compromise the job she was assigned to do. Because as I said, it’s not like it’s just this arc. Annie got a lot of focus in every issue under Houser sans issue #19.

Other smaller problems with the arc include:

- Annie’s dream might’ve been a something of a rip-off of ‘Fearful Symmetry’, an early episode of ‘Justice League Unlimited’ in which Supergirl witnesses the actions of her murderous clone during her dreams.

- It’s made seriously unclear what Annie’s ‘clone’ did t the tourists she attacked or indeed why she attacked them at all

- Annie’s ‘clone’ has an okay design but it becomes rather banal when you see it repeated with the other Parker ‘clones’

- The names for the ‘clones’ are rather over complicated and dull. They do make a nice joke or two out of this though

- There was little point in having Normie grow six arms beyond cheap tension and a dash of fanservice

- The climax had some nice jokes about how Peter hated their family car, but it seemed out of place in context and also I find it hard to believe Peter would go quite as far as he did in wrecking the thing

- The final moments of the arc and series as a whole feel very pat and uninspired. Like Houser had to wrap it up for the sake of wrapping it up because they needed to move onto the next thing

- The art was a bit sketchy and felt unfinished

My kneejerk reaction was to give this a C- but looking back I gave the last major arc that too and that was definitely better than this.

So I guess...D+I hate sending this series off with that grade but it is what it is.

Hopefully Spider-Girls will be an improvement

P.S. I also just remembered Wolverine referenced Hank McCoy but...didn’t he die back in like issue #6 or 7? wtf

#RYV Thoughts #annie may parker #Annie-may parker #spiderling #Spider-Man #Peter Parker #spinneret #mjwatsonedit #MJ Watson #mary jane watson #Mary Jane Watson Parker #X-Men #Clone Saga #wolverine #jody houser #Mister Sinister

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