#character: usnavi

[thisstableground]

rereading some old headcanon posts and at some point apparently i headcanoned that usnavi was slightly taller than vanessa except for when she's in heels?? you dumbass. you fool. what was i thinking. thank god i gained wisdom and taste with age. every time i headcanon usnavi's height he becomes shorter by another inch. vanessa uses his head as an armrest. he can easily be brought aboard a plane in her hand luggage and still have room to put a neck pillow in there too

[anthonys237thfreckle]

i am dreaming of writing on tumblr (like some 5-10 part series - mostly x reader, some character x character) and my first chance would be may 2025 :( blow up that inbox for requests/ideas until then! y’all have a lot of time. much love.

AND IM GONNA START MATCH UPS!! i check tumblr notifs sometimes, so i’ll def get those done faster. If you’ve given me an ask, it’s cause I wanna answer it in great detail which is why It’s still in my inbox.

Next inbox clearing - october 17.

[pardonmydelays]

IN THE HEIGHTS countdown: 23 DAYS!

song for today:

i am usnavi and you prob'ly never heard my name reports of my fame are greatly exaggerated exacerbated by the fact that my syntax is highly complicated 'cause i immigrated from the single greatest little place in the caribbean dominican republic, i love it! jesus, i'm jealous of it, and beyond that ever since my folks passed on, i haven't gone back goddamn, i gotta get on that!

[chronomally]

I finally watched the In the Heights movie

Pros:

Considering how many movie musicals are ashamed to be musicals, it's pretty refreshing to see a movie musical not only embrace being a musical, but also try to find ways to convey the same feeling as some very unique live stage effects and embrace the inherent surreality of the world of The Musical

Cons:

They cut like half the female characters' songs + "Useless," killed Nina's mom, and basically deleted 90% of the conflict between Kevin and Benny, but god forbid we lose out on the piragüero song

For a story that doesn't really like textually engage with feminism beyond the way that women often form the back bones of a culture, it felt weirdly anti-feminist

[binch-i-might-be]

it's actually so sexy that a good chunk of Alvie fanfics make him trans. SO true besties that boy is so trans!!!! glad we all agree!!!

[could-they-be-a-pro-wrestler]

How successful would Usnavi de la Vega…

[icarusbetide]

hamilton & in the heights

i understand and often agree with the grievances people have with hamilton for perpetuating certain inaccurate narratives but i still love the way it intertwines and builds off of in the heights.

in the heights was probably on lmm's mind in 2008 when he read chernow's biography, since it won the tony for best musical that july. i can see why he was instantly taken in: the potential parallels are too good to be true. a biography about an immigrant from the caribbean, heavily emphasizing family or lack thereof. chernow's narrative (because he does create a narrative) is such a good parallel and foil to the previous musical it's actually crazy.

usnavi: the 21th century new yorker who yearns to return to the dominican republic. an orphan, but one that grew up in a strong community with love and support. family is incredibly important - he wants to find his roots. by the end of the musical, he realizes that he contributes to his culture and family's legacy by remaining in washington heights, keeping stories alive as their steady, dependable streetlight.

hamilton (musical characterized, not the historical figure): the west indian who yearned to get off of his island, and finds himself in revolutionary new york, never to look back. an orphan, but one shamed for illegitimacy. obsessed with legacy, but his own legacy, because what else does he have? he doesn't have "roots", a true community. constantly struggling between private and public duty. after his death, his wife picks up the mantle to protect their legacy, both the familial/personal and the public achievements.

i'd even argue that you can see hints of in the heights characters in hamilton. vanessa's "it won't be long now" would fit right into a hamilton prequel musical about his time on st. croix when he was still dreaming of a way out.

one musical feels burdened by the things that came before, usnavi's parents, nina's parents (and their parents), etc. etc. all passing something down to the next generation. hamilton seems to be burdened by the future and history as a concept - the weight of creating something entirely new, if that makes sense. it's only in the second act that loved ones take a forefront: philip & eliza during that tragedy. during the duel, we get theodosia (this man will not make an orphan of my daughter) and the long list of people hamilton thinks about (my son is on the other side, he's with my mother...washington is watching from the other side...eliza) right before the bullet gets him.

both are american stories, but there's clearly a very personal, continuing thread between them. i find myself willing to overlook certain issues if i think of hamilton as less an accurate retelling of a particular historical figure, but more about the themes that can be delivered effectively through that figure. i started this ramble with a point but i forgot it.

[bea-schuyler]

roles i play in life

usnavi de la vega

vanessa otilia garcia

nina rosario

benny (??)

sonny de la vega

daniela (?)

carla (?)

WAIT! these are just characters from Lin Manuel Miranda's 2008 Tony- winning hit musical, In The Heights!

PSYCH HAHAHAHHAHAHA

[jackredfieldwasmyjacob]

tagged by @patronsaintofposmodernity <33333 to make a poll of my five all time favorite characters and then tag five people to do the same

@naguaraquerandom @queixumes @sarcasmisalifechoice @claimedbytheearth @looselysealedkrypton

[winterflwers]

The Lion Guard characters as characters from broadway musicals.

I love TLG and musicals, so here's what i think each member of the guard would be if they were characters from musicals.

Kion as Orpheus (Hadestown)

Bunga as John Laurens (Hamilton)

Fuli as Maureen Johnson (Rent)

Beshte as Usnavi De La Vega (In The Heights)

Ono as Lafayette (Hamilton)

[prodigal-explorer]

my sanders sides in the heights au

usnavi -> logan

nina -> janus

benny -> remus

vanessa -> roman

claudia (abuela) -> emile

sonny -> virgil

kevin -> patton

camila -> remy

(i know this is daniela erasure she's literally my second favorite too i just ran out of characters LMAOOO)

[thisstableground]

actually i need to draw a silly little guy with silly little arms regularly. for my mental health

[anthonys237thfreckle]

If you could date any Anthony Ramos character, who would you choose?

OHHHH BOYYYY

okay, so the first characters coming to mind are John Laurens (Hamilton), Philip Hamilton (Hamilton), Eladio (In Treatment) and Frankie Espinoza (Summer days, summer nights)

though i love all of them, john and frankie are the closest contenders.

john laurens

of course, and i cannot stress this enough, john laurens was a real person who lived a real life with a real wife and a real daughter.

so i’m always always going to refer to the musical’s portrayal of the role, not the person himself. that man did not get killed in a gunfight to deserve this.

i love how anthony portrayed him in a playful, passionate and headstrong manner, really reflecting the real person. but this passion and strength can be seen in his other characters (usnavi, javi) and playfulness (mars blackmon, frankie) in others. so i really like seeing a more ‘serious’ or ‘unique’ version of that. it’s not everyday a man looks good in late 1700s army uniforms.

and plus, though the real john laurens shared this, the portrayed john laurens wanted to create the first ever black military regime, and in a time where people owned slaves and looked down on the coloured, i think that’s honestly beautiful. he could have done so much, if only he had time.

and i will never forgive that part of the hamilton fandom to turn him into an ‘uwu smol turtle boy’ - his favourite animal was birds. say it over and over again so it doesn’t disappear.

2. frankie espinoza

personally, i am the commitment/ date to marry type of person, and none of anthony’s characters stood out to me as those type of people, with the exception of frankie.

he is a hopeless romantic for god’s sake. what could be better than that?

i really loved how easygoing frankie was in the movie, and how genuine the character was, and i feel like it was a bit of a turn in another direction for anthony to play it, but i’m glad he did. anthony really brought into sentimental aspects and played frankie really well.

plus i wanna know what it feels like to be in his car.

so if i had to pick one…. i’d say john laurens. BUT I LOVE FRANKIE TOOO

[pardonmydelays]

IN THE HEIGHTS countdown: 22 DAYS!

song for today:

so how can i say that while i was away i had so much to hide? hey guys, it’s me the biggest disappointment you know the kid couldn’t hack it she’s back and she’s walkin’ real slow welcome home, just breathe

[butchnavi]

top ten characters you relate to the most?

elena maria alvarez riera calderon layte-vidal inclán

2. jane gloriana villanueva

3. blaine anderson

4. jonathan byers

5. beth claire

6. izzie taylor

7. katniss everdeen

8. chidi anagonye

9. usnavi de la vega tao xu

10. griffin jennings

[firelords-honour]

who r ur atla ocs?? can u infodump abt them

Oh mygod

anon you’re a hero (for asking this) and a fool (you have no idea what you’re unleashing)

Alright so I have 4 girls in total

Sung Shu, Nataroq Issanuk, Shao Taijing, and Sanjay Gurun

It was by complete coincidence that I ended up with 1 of each bender. Sung and Shao are for ATLA, Nataroq and Sanjay are for TLOK. Sung, Nataroq, and Sanjay all get to live their lives with crushing guilt of their past actions meanwhile Shao was always looking out for number 1 (earth kingdom) and she’s doing pretty good lmao

I am proudly deranged in that my primary way of enjoying a story is often by making up semi self insert OCs. Sung was the first and I made her up during my first watch of ATLA in 2023

There’s literally way too much to explain of all 4 in one post, but Sung’s on the mind rn so let’s put her under the microscope. She joins the gaang…at some point at the end of s1. It gets kind of hard to pinpoint because her introduction would be a whole entire episode, but she comes in after Jeong Jeong and before they reach the NWT. She grew up in a noble capital family, was one of JJ’s students, was in an arranged relationship with Zhao (fuckin’ toxic leech), and was a commander in the Fire Navy alongside him (which I’ve taken the liberty of claiming to be an equivalent to a rear admiral in the usnavy), all up until she defected 6 years pre-iceberg.

Jeong Jeong’s desertion speech was the first crack in the imperialism armor. A lot of small things after that (among them possibly reading more about her great-grandfather) kept adding up until Sung was there in the room when Kya was killed. Watching Captain Rha kill the defenseless surrendered woman (whom she was expecting to take prisoner) and a conversation she had with Zhao after the fact was the final straw that broke the ostrichhorse’s back.

Commander Shu was declared KIA by Zhao when she’s found to be missing while docked in the colonies. Eventually, after a lot of character developing experiences such as a few months with the Old Masters, Sung ends up in a village in the northern earth kingdom named Daolin. At first she was masquerading as a wandering nonbender warrior, and met Kola Dao on the road. She helped Kola’s family, the village’s leaders, defend themselves against warmongering bandits that had been terrorizing them ever since all of their earthbenders went to fight the war. It’s halfway through that ordeal that she’s forced to reveal her real identity to the Daos. They, naturally, Really Don’t Like Her Now, but when all is said and done Sung has proven herself enough that they let her stay around for a couple days, while they recover.

A couple days become 4 years, and ‘that firebender’ becomes ‘our beloved friend & protector, and also that girl who’s head over heels for Kola (mutually)’

Annnnnnnnd then the Avatar and his friends show up asking after this little local folk legend of ‘The Defender of Daolin’

That’s Sung’s whole backstory more or less. I won’t ramble so much as to outline that whole story of the meeting but she volunteers to be Aang’s fire teacher when he’s ready. Except the invasion buildup kinda messes with that so Zuko still does a lot of teaching too. The Siege of the North is the first proper battle Sung ever fights against the Fire Nation, and yes she does have a cathartic fight against Zhao while he’s beelining for the Oasis. If memory serves correctly I think the first time she properly meets Zuko is the ghost town fight (lowkey one of my favorite scenes in the show).

OH also Kola’s a member of the White Lotus. Sung isn’t in the know about that but when she leaves Daolin Kola gives her their symbol as ‘a good luck charm’ which Iroh later notices on her at the Oasis and internally goes ‘oh we cool???’

I’m listening to Epic as I write this and Penelope’s “Though I never thought that these would be the lengths we go for love!” is so Kola

So Sung’s along for the ride for all of s2 (well, except for Bitter Work, she’s kinda on a personal side quest spying on Iroh explaining lightningbending. By the way at this point lightningbending is considered a technique only possible to be performed by benders of royal blood. Can’t stop Sung from her own bitter work in trying to do it anyway though.) And most of s3. In the time jump she makes amends with Hakoda and they commanded the invasion together, and went to the Boiling Rock together. Eventually in the finale, Sung has a reunion with JJ after nine years and gets to be shocked by Kola at the camp. She fights alongside Sokka, Toph, and Suki in the airship battle (and up there, with the comet’s power, was when she achieved the thing she’d spent months practicing, and became the first example that anyone could learn to lightningbend.)

Postcanon…well the first thing she does is marry Kola of course. Sung Shu goes down in history as not just a hero for turning sides in the war and a member of team avatar, but also as a co-founder of the United Republic and as the first Grand Marshal of the United Forces.

Sung’s friendship/dynamic with Hakoda makes me so ill btw in another world, she and Kya would’ve been good friends. Also Sung is Momo’s secret favorite.

Since I mentioned Kuzon, lemme show y’all the Shu Family Tree I constructed at 2am last night.

Tozan was basically a metalworker slash samurai in Roku’s Team Avatar, and his family was elevated to nobility by Sozin. His son Roulan built them into a renowned lineage of swordmakers, and Tozan’s grandson was Kuzon. Kuzon spent his life having to be subtle and secretive over how much he despised the war and what Sozin had done to the world and the Air Nomads. It was his son Karwan who turned the Shu family into profiteers as armory artisans, and it was completely against Kuzon’s wishes that Karwan joined the army and his daughter Riosha joined the navy. (Captain Shu died in the first war against the northern water tribe.) Additionally, Karwan married an admiral of the navy. Their first son Fezan died as a lieutenant in the Southern Raiders, and so Suli, Sung’s father, inherited the dynasty. Her twin siblings Sunan (the heir) & Juyin were nonbenders like their parents; Grandmother Nori was the last bender until Sung came along. (sidenote Sung & her siblings are mixed hawaiian, thai, and chinese)

I thought it’d be fun if I changed Michi to be Sung’s sister Juyin; specifically Ukano’s second wife after Mai’s mom. Which means Tom-Tom is Sung’s nephew (& the heir to the Shu clan) and Mai’s her niece in law :D

…and I also had the vision last night of Sung, after the war ends, taking Aang and Bumi to the Shu family mausoleum after she’d connected the dots that her great-grandfather who’d professed his grief over the air nation in his last will & testament, and Aang’s old friend Kuzon, were the same man. Cue sobbing.

AND NOW, I have this big ramble that I wrote a while back explaining Sung’s relationships with the gaang and it is very long and thus under the cut. Oh also, I lied, Sung’s name isn’t Sung it is Jerkbender and it will be for the rest of eternity (according to Toph & Sokka)

Sung and the Gaang’s relationship is complex. On the Gaang’s side, Sung is their friend, but also a mentor, a protective figure, and for some their first positive elder figure. Sung was the first firebender they ever met who was fully on their side, meaning she had to prove herself to them I say them when I mean Sokka but she also set a precedent in their minds that the Fire Nation as whole wasn’t evil like it felt.

On Sung’s side, Aang and his mission are the first things Sung really finds herself believing in after she became disillusioned with the FN. the Gaang gave her something to believe in, people to care about who needed her just as much as she needed them, and something greater to fight for. These kids are the north star of her life even while she acted as a rock for the kids, and others, when things got the worst. Naturally, honor is one of the most important things to her, which was why when the eclipse invasion failed she refused to use her ‘special status’ as the kids’ own team member/sifu in order to escape when the rest of the adult army stayed trapped. She trusted them above all else, above the odds, and that trust was rewarded when Sokka and Zuko went on the first of the life-changing field trips(tm)

To look at Zuko for a moment, Sung also played an indirect part in his journey. By virtue of what time she joined the gaang, Sung probably had the least reason to hate him. While the other three saw the guy who chased them across the world, Sung saw the s2 crown prince who clearly didn’t know what path he was even leading. Her dramatic entrance into the ghost-town fight was her saving him from one of Azula’s fireballs, and she said to him, he needed to figure out whose side he was on. For a while he thought she was merely some traitorous ally of the Avatar, but by the time Sung was back with the Gaang in the Western Temple, Zuko and Sung started training Aang together and she told him, she’d have no qualms calling him her prince. (Oh! And they can have a moment when they realize Lieutenant Jee, Zuko’s subordinate, and Captain Jee, Sung’s friend and right hand man as a commander, were the same guy.)

Speaking of s3, Katara shared her Zuko Fieldtrip with Sung as the trio hunted down Yon Rha. Sung could fill in the blank spaces among Katara’s memory and Zuko’s knowledge of the raiders as a whole, and fun fact, that day they first met in Daolin was the very same day Sung realized Kya had been lying when she said she was the waterbender. Yeah I am not lying when I say Sung & the wolfcove family makes me claw at the walls

To Toph, Sung was basically the first adult figure in her life to care about her yet not smother her; Sung was cautious to a reasonable amount given their current lives, but she respected Toph even in ways their other compatriots didn’t; just due to their unique dynamic. Sung…I can’t really put a label on what she was to Toph; she definitely wasn’t like a parent, but ‘mentor’ doesn’t feel right either. She wasn’t a teacher. ‘Aunt-figure’ maybe? Not in the familial sense, but in the way Toph trusted Sung in ways she never could with her parents, and looked to her for things that maybe she’d look to her parents for if they’d all been different people. Sung was simply the first person to know Toph for who she was and respect her as an equal in capability, so Toph and Sung grew a relationship that wasn’t familial, but had some kinda…wise-safe-adult+independant-yet-advice-seeking-youth aspect to it.

Sokka was very distrustful of Sung at the beginning, mainly due to him being the most stubborn guy in the South Pole and finding it hard to believe that ‘firebender =/= evil’. But ironically, Sung kind of became…sort of a surrogate to the empty space left by Hakoda. Again, Sung was not like a parent to anyone, but she was this seasoned warrior who’d taken it upon herself to protect them, something Sokka thought had to be his job. While I wouldn’t describe her as mentorly to Toph, I’d say she was something like that to Sokka. Thinking about it, Sung was probably also the final megaboss in the dregs of his sexism’s doomed journey lmao, as the whole reason they made a stop in Daolin was because Sokka wanted to learn from this nonbender warrior who could never be burned or beaten by the firebenders. Sung was a confidant to Sokka as they went on, he could talk to her in a way he couldn’t talk to Katara or Aang. Sokka would be—and was, when the inevitable Hakoda & Bato meeting / Kya conversation came up between s2/3–the first to jump up and defend Sung as a trusted warrior of the right side of history, and Sung was the first one to see through Sokka’s mask and teach him how to really be a warrior and a leader, but at the same time encourage him to do what his heart said it wanted; not what his head thought anyone else expected.

I suppose Katara was the one Sung was the most parental with if I had to say so. Because Katara had to be the ‘woman of the house’ since she was 8, and for all of her adult life had no mother-figure in the traditional sense, Sung was the first older woman to become friends with her—that wasn’t her elderly grandmother—and be there to take some of that load off her shoulders. Sung was finally there to listen. Conversely, Sung felt a little bit of a debt whenever she was there for Katara. She felt like this was the way she paid her repentance to Kya for standing there in between the latter and her family and not stopping Yon Rha. If Kya couldn’t be there for Katara and Sokka, partially thanks to her, then…she could try to do it on her behalf. Not to mention these two are a duo on the battlefield and you should probably run.

And…Aang. This is moreso postcanon, but Sung was, above the whole rest of the world, the one advisor as the Avatar that he could always count on to be able to fall back on, to be strong for him, to be the stoic ally always behind him. Grand Marshal Shu was even willing, if they had no other choice, to be the threat standing behind his preaching of peace in the worst case scenario. When she joined their travels, Sung had reiterated what Jeong Jeong’d said, about fire needing to be the last element and she wouldn’t teach him until he was ready. Watching her own bending for the months in between helped quell Aang’s fear of hurting someone with it, particularly when she explained to him that that’s something all firebenders go through when they’re learning, herself included. Throughout their whole journey Sung was always there as a safe harbor, and Aang was always there as that ray of hope that kept Sung afloat. Random fact: Sung also fights with a bostaff, so she and Aang are staff buddies. Also meditating buddies. Really just buddies in general. Also, tangential, but Sung was 100% the prime aunt-figure of all the Gaang’s kids, kinda even taking on that same nurturing role she maintained with Toph when the young ones were having issues with their own parents. (Especially Tom-Tom, Izumi, & Bumi II)

I guess that’s the right way to put it. A safe harbor for all the people in her life.

Sorry for not including Suki, I do think she should be considered a Gaang member but I just don’t have much interaction between her and Sung versus the rest of the mcs

I’ll finish this with one of my favorite lines from The Tale of Sung, aka her day off in Ba Sing Se:

I have a thing I like to call ‘The Monster Doc’ because I fixated so hard on Sung in April 2023 that I ended up with a doc of snapshots of Sung at various points in canon, adding up to 30k words, and still firmly a WIP. But…it might be getting posted soon

welllll THAT SURE WAS A READ….and so I’m gonna end this post here, but feel freee to ask anything about any of my OCs please <3