#ek meta

[dandelionjack]

holy blocking batman. on the nose? sure. a shot that seems to have been composed specifically so a dropout former film student like me can exclaim ‘wow this is cinematic’ and probably talk circles about the symbolism… jack with his back turned to the camera, a statuesque silhouette towering over the cowering gwen — on her knees before something of a an idol, a demigod, an impossible hero, some christ figure risen from the dead but at the cost of the corpse lying prostrate like a sacrifice beside him. somebody to take her by the hand and lead her to a transfigured world in which nothing will ever be the same.

arriving like an angel of death after defying it — come with me and leave of the land of the living behind. come with me too, gwen cooper, your turn

[mapsareforbraindeads]

death note fandom… you guys know that misa did bad things of her own accord, right? not just under light’s influence? is this a new concept to some of you?

because to me, it seems like some parts of this fandom seem to love not holding misa accountable just because she’s a more cute and endearing character than light.

like, correct me if i’m wrong, but most people who defend misa say that it was all light’s fault and that he was the toxic one, but that’s just wrong in so many ways. there is no “toxic one” in yagamane. they’re both shitty people. light plays judge jury and executioner to kill off anyone he wants and misa killed innocents and stalked light by buying his information and forcing him to date her. but people always ignore the stuff that misa did because she’s a girl boss who can do whatever she wants without light.

and yes, she CAN do things without light. she kills, she stalks, she does horrible things because of her own selfish desires! light does the same! you can’t demean one of them and praise the other when they both did horrible things for the same cause.

another thing is that misa (and rem) manipulated light into their relationship. sure, light manipulated her into staying, but there’s a huge difference. the difference is that misa literally TOLD light to use her. light didn’t consent to ANYTHING. their whole relationship is commands upon commands with no end.

i’m just upset about the fandom’s views on their relationship. i made a post about this a while back, but i felt like i had to make another one because oh my god this BOTHERS ME.

misa isn’t your perfect girlboss. get that through your head before you start to call people misogynistic for suggesting that light isn’t the only one in the wrong.

[cuteniarose]

Sometimes I wish I had more people interested in my creations, but then I get hit by thoughts like “Imagine the outrage you’d be faced with if your Avatar Suiren AU was more popular. This is the fandom that still cannot ‘forgive’ Korra for SOMETHING THAT WAS DONE TO HER, calling her the worst Avatar for losing the connection to her past lives (which came about because she HAD RAAVA LITERALLY RIPPED OUR OF HER) and acting like that is somehow a worse offence than, say, inaction leading to genocide. The hate you’d get for intentionally making Suiren the last Avatar would be IMMEASURABLE” and go “… actually, I’m glad that for the most part it’s just @katkastrofa and I–”

(Though then again… would it even be an AU by yours truly if it didn’t contain at least one cancellable offence? 😁)

[rainintheevening]

Couple major things here.

First: Obi-Wan never prevents Anakin from returning to Tatooine.

Taking just the movies for context, Anakin says, "I dreamed I became a Jedi and came back to free all the slaves." He tells his mother, "I will come back and free you, mom."

He dreams of becoming a knight, and coming home in power and strength to free his mom and friends. This is how fairytales work. Star Wars is a fairytale.

He doesn't go back to Tatooine between TPM and AotC because he isn't ready. And he wants to be the one to free his mom, not Obi-Wan or Yoda or anyone else. That's his job, no one else's.

He doesn't act on his dreams/visions, because he's not sure how real they are, and of course he would like them to just be nightmares, and for Obi-Wan to be right. Also he has duties that come before feelings, and an important part of Anakin’s story is showing that he does know how to do his duty, he just chooses not to when the fear gets too much for him, when it's easier not to. Very important part of Anakin’s character.

Second: Romantic love did not set Shmi free. Yes, Clieg fell in love with her and so bought her to set her free, but the love that sets people free is Compassion, is Unconditional Love. That love is not inherently romantic. It is completely possible to have romance without love. Romantic love is unnecessary for True Love to work. That's a big part of a monastic order, which the Jedi are.

Thirdly: The whole concept of the Jedi being responsible for fixing every little thing wrong in an entire galaxy, and needing to stop every single little evil they see, is poisonous, and needs to stop. It takes away the responsibility of all the ordinary people, LIKE US, to do everything we can to affect change and do good in the world around us. And I know my generation doesn't want any responsibility, so that's a popular idea to push, to blame everything on someone else. But it's poison, and it will ruin our world, it IS ruining our world.

This, this I will be making a whole post about.

Yes, these are my words, not George Lucas's. Please go read his philosophies and listen to his thoughts for a better understanding of Star Wars.

“[Obi-Wan had] gone to Shmi Skywalker’s grave to apologize for losing her son. He had never met her, knew her only from Anakin’s stories, but Qui-Gon had made her a promise and Obi-Wan hadn’t been able to keep it. As he stood there, looking at the stone, he felt an even deeper shame. Qui-Gon had left her there a slave, and Obi-Wan had done everything in his power to prevent Anakin’s return. It was only the love of a good man, here on Tatooine, that had saved her—the kind of love the Jedi were supposed to eschew. Yet it had done something the Jedi could not.”

— Ahsoka (novel)

[centaurianthropology]

One thing that I think a lot of Disco Elysium meta misses (likely because a lot of it is very clearly written by young Americans writing from an intensely American-centric cultural perspective without even really realizing it) is that one of the singular and central themes of the game is massive-scale generational trauma in a home that is economically collapsing as its resources and people are being drained by an occupation.  People have noted that no one tries to help Harry, despite the fact his mental illness is incredibly obvious to everyone around him.  He tells Kim that he completely lost his memory, and Kim politely asks him to focus on the work.  He tells Gottlieb that he had a heart attack, and Gottlieb tells him that if he’s still alive it couldn’t have been that bad.  That he’ll drop dead sooner or later, but then so does everyone.

And that’s the most important thing: so does everyone.  Look at Martinaise.  Look at the world in which Harry lives.  It is not our own, but it is adjacent to ours.  More specifically, it is clearly adjacent to the states of the Eastern Bloc: overtaken and occupied by a faraway government that clearly doesn’t care about Revachol or its people.  And that is obvious in every tired face, every defeated citizen, everyone trying to eke out a little happiness or meaning in spite of the overwhelming trauma and damage around them.  The buildings are still half-destroyed.  The bullet holes are still in the walls.  The revolution was decades before, but it still feels to the people there like a fresh wound.  The number of men of Harry’s generation who are not alcoholic or otherwise deeply fucked up are very few.  Some, like Kim, hide it better, but the deeper you dig into his history, the more you realize how damaged Kim is.  He’s more than a little trigger happy, and hates that about himself, but he is a product of his environment: Kim’s entire life is seeing people he cared about shot and killed, so his instinct now is to shoot first himself, to protect those few people left who still matter to him.

Harry is not unique in his trauma.  He is a distillation of an entire culture of people who tried to rise up and make something beautiful, and were instead routed and occupied.  He is trapped between the occupation and the people on the ground, along with all the rest of the RCM.  Their authority comes from the occupying government, but it is implied that they were formed out of the remnants of the citizens militia which sprung up from Revachol itself as a way to try to mitigate some of the horrors being committed on its streets.  The Moralintern sure as hell wasn’t going to get their hands dirty, so they happily conscripted (and therefore could better control) this group, who are only recognized in certain places, and whose authority mostly amounts to giving out fines.  The RCM is corrupt, but it is corrupt in the same way its culture is.  Bribes are considered standard with them, not a moral failing, but a necessity, so long as those bribes are correctly logged as ‘donations’.  It’s how the RCM stays afloat, and the rest of Revachol completely understands that.  Everyone would take a bribe if it meant they kept eating.  Everyone would take a little under-the-table money if it meant keeping a roof over their heads.  The officersof the RCM certainly don’t make enough to see a doctor.  They have an in-house lazarus, and if he can’t fix them they just die.  Mental health care?  What mental health care?  Harry doesn’t get it for the same reason no one else does: it doesn’t really seem to exist.  There are no counselors, no psychologists, no psychiatrists.  How would they even start?  If the world is what is broken, if everyone is suffering a similar catastrophic amount, it makes sense that Harry’s trauma would simply get rolled up with all the rest.  Kim asks him to get on with the job because Harry’s suffering is not remarkable in Revachol.  He is one of an entire generation who have an astronomical number of orphans from the revolution, and so many younger people are left more or less orphans as their parents drink themselves into oblivion like Cuno’s father.  So Harry’s truly unique attribute is embodying all that trauma, having it all inside of him, filling him to bursting.

To really engage with the themes of the game, engaging first and foremost with the reality of Revachol is imperative.  Imposing our own reality onto Revachol, particularly if coming from an American perspective (which tend to have the habit of both viewing the world through an American lens and not realizing they’re doing it because they’ve never experienced a different lens), will always feel shallow to me because of this.

All that is to say, I would love to hear some more explicitly European meta about this game, and especially Eastern European meta.  If anyone can point me to some good, juicy essays from that perspective, I would be grateful!

[starryalpacasstuff]

Queer Indian Media: A Compilation

A couple of days ago, @impala124 sent @lurkingshan an ask about the lack of discussion about Queer Indian Media in fandom spaces. I wrote about it here, @neuroticbookworm here, and @waitmyturtles here (both of them have excellent points, I highly recommend you read their posts!). It's become quite apparent that people are willing to watch and engage in discourse about queer Indian media, it's just that the lack of popularity and accessibility makes it harder for people to start. So, I've decided to make a list tracking all of the queer Indian media I know of, and hopefully also any meta/discourse about it, which is an idea I've had floating in my head for months now.

This list is by no means comprehensive, so if you have recs, send them my way! Text me on DM, send an ask, tag me in your posts, whatever. And though it's not possible for me to watch everything on the list, I will be slowly going through as many of these as I can and writing about them, as well as hopefully finding more stuff and easier to access versions for the ones that are harder to access right now. This post is going to be a slow work in progress, but I'm hoping to update it regularly. So, if you'd like me to keep you updated, let me know through the tags/replies and I will tag you in future posts!

I've tagged the people who've recommended certain shows alongside each show. Everything on here is available online. The hyperlinked titles lead you to the media itself, meaning that it's available for free online with subtitles. Other details will be mentioned separately.

Disclaimer: The media I have watched/read have recommendation ratings (which will not always reflect my enjoyment of something, rather are based on how much I'd recommend it). While I did lightly screen everything on here, the criteria was 'has a trailer or otherwise showing queerness to be a central theme in the story' and 'is available online', so take that into account if you decide to pick something up, and definitely watch trailers and/or skim the wikipedia pages beforehand.

Movies

Fire | English | @neuroticbookworm 

Recommendation: 8.75/10 A 1996 movie surrounding a lesbian couple packed with commentary on religion, class, purity culture and more. Quick Pitch + Historical Context

Kapoor & Sons | Hindi | @neuroticbookworm

Available on Netflix, Prime, and paid on Youtube and Apple TV

Kaathal-The Core | Malayalam | @neuroticbookworm 

Officially on Prime, also available grey without subtitles

Super Deluxe | Tamil | @neuroticbookworm 

Officially on a paid streaming service called aha, grey on youtube

Dear Dad | Hindi | @neuroticbookworm 

Geeli Puchi (Ajeeb Dastaans) | Hindi | @blorbingqls @neuroticbookworm 

Available on Netflix

Cobalt Blue @blorbingqls

Officially on Netflix, also available grey without subtitles

Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga | Hindi | @fallsouthwinter @usertoxicyaoi @neuroticbookworm

Available officially on Netflix, so watch there if you can, but can also be found grey in two parts without subtitles

Chitrangada: The Crowning Wish | Bengali | @silverquillsideas @neuroticbookworm 

I believe it's available on prime, but you might need to do some digging. Also available grey on youtube without subtitles (the movie is in part Bengali, part English)

Shubh Mangal Zyada Savdhan | Hindi | @silverquillsideas @twig-tea @neuroticbookworm

Officially on Amazon, grey on youtube without subtitles

Maja Ma | Hindi | @flyingrosebeetle @silverquillsideas 

Available on Amazon Prime

Badhaai Do | Hindi

Officially on Netflix, available grey without subtitles

Loev | Hindi

Available on youtube with Spanish (I think?) subtitles

Margarita With A Straw | Hindi

I believe this is a cut version, it is officially on Netflix which is likely the uncut version

Recommendation: 9/10

A self-discovery story about an Indian woman named Laila with cerebral palsy with great rep and beautiful execution.

Meta by @wen-kexing-apologist

Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui | Hindi | anon

Available grey without subtitles, officially on Netflix

Amar Prem Ki Prem Kahani | Hindi | @flowerbeasblog @aneechan

Officially on Jio Cinema, also available grey without subtitles

Time Out | Hindi

Available on Netflix

My Brother…Nikhil | Hindi

My Son Is Gay | Tamil

Hindi dub available on youtube without subtitles

Shows

Romil and Jugal | Hindi | @anixknowsnothin

You do need a vpn if you're outside India to watch it with the above link, it's also grey on youtube without subtitles

Recommendation: 8.5/10 India's modern gay remake of Romeo and Juliet, five years before Bad Buddy Random thoughts

The Married Woman | Hindi | @a-not-knowing-bisexual-wizard

Dev DD Season 2 | Hindi

Legitimately no clue whether this and the prev are grey or official

Made in Heaven | Hindi | @flyingrosebeetle @non-beingnary @neuroticbookworm

Available on Prime

All About Section 377, Still About Section 377 | Hindi

The Story Tales S2 | Gujrati

Insomnia | Hindi

It's a streaming service I've never heard of before, not unlike Gaga, this is one of the darker shows on the list so please do check out the trailer beforehand

Amra 2GayTher | Bengali

Available on two streaming services here and here, both paid

Mini gls from @twig-tea (og post here)

Firsts S3 | @tinyreadinglifelight

Neverland

Maaya 2

Last two eps do not have subtitles but the story is followable

The ‘Other’ Love Story @/silverquillsideas 

Just Another Love Story

Books

Memory of Light

Recommendation: 5/10 A historical book set during the colonial era, the lesbian romance is mostly a subplot that loses it's way towards the end. It's kind of a drag, but the history component is somewhat interesting.

Don't Let Him Know

Recommendation Rating: 7.5/10 with serious trigger warnings including rape. It's a brutally honest book designed to make the reader uncomfortable, so proceed with caution. I personally liked it quite a lot, but that's majorly because of how authentic the book felt.

Falling Into Place

Recommendation Rating: 8/10 A modern lesbian romance that follows similar beats to the typical thai bl/gl. A little underdeveloped in some places, but overall quite good.

My Magical Palace

Cobalt Blue

The Paths Of Marriage

Marriage Of A Thousand Lies

[dreamwreaver]

Vox getting frustrated over the fact Alastor is getting too close to the princess.

Zestial hearing rumours of Alastor's involvement with Charlie's flight of fancy.

Lucifer thinking that Alastor was dating his daughter, only to be blatantly relieved to find out it was Vaggie she was dating.

Mimzy getting verbally booted out of the hotel by Alastor, who used to clean up after her and been her friend since they were alive, only because she brought danger to the hotel and before she leaves, says to have fun with "his little princess".

Angel half-jokingly remarks about Alastor and Charlie running away from their responsibilities which is a line often commonly used for a couple eloping.

Rosie, upon first meeting Charlie, says she's much too young for him, clearly kidding around about him finding a new date for her to formally meet.

So many hints, so many jokes, so many references to Charlie and Alastor's relationship... What does it all mean?? This is literally what foreshadowing a couple looks like, if this were any other show, of course.

Let's also add in the fact that he breaks his own rule of rather breaking his own bones to avoid being touched by people without prior consent for her specifically, is one of the go to people to make her laugh with a pun (the lowest form of humor depending on who you ask), made himself completely comfortable on her bed when she was at her lowest and CONTINUED to stay there even after she left thereby putting his scent all over the damn thing, refused to take her soul when we all know it was something Charlie would willingly give if it meant saving her friends and people from the exterminations, and quite possibly my favorite; the deer mating noises he makes around just her.

Or one of my favorite scenes in the entire show;

Take a moment and really look at this. Alastor's gaze remains directly locked on Charlie, who reciprocates. But as he leans an arm on the back of her chair, far less in her personal space than he normally is, she grows incredibly bashful. Now, nervousness is a fine reaction, but notice the body language. She sticks her hands between her thighs and and closes her knees around them. Now I don't know about you, but consider for a moment how deliberate every action in animation is. Are there not better ways to convey the emotion she's displaying that DONT look like she's been caught having naughty thoughts about the radio demon by said demon himself?

I would love to show this scene to a non hazbin fan and ask them how they interpret this. There's a new charlastor challenge for my fellow shippers. Show someone that gif and ask them how they interpret it.

And if we delve into the meta lore there's even more. Viv has gone on record with a doodle explaining that Alastor and Charlie's shared sense of humor is the lonely island song "Mona Lisa", and that there are precisely three named characters who like pineapple on their pizza: Charlie, Alastor, and Lilith. Far be it from me to tell Viv how to run her show, but let's also look at helluva boss; a love story between a royal of hell and a creature of lower status. One who has found a way to seize some measure of power and eke out their own path. A lower class being who had a terrible father and lost his mother whom he was the closest to. Someone who hates being in chains, and is so desperate to break free of them and yet finds only emptiness when he realizes he does give a shit about this royal he tried to convince himself he didn't care about.

Am I describing Blitz, or Alastor?

All I'm saying is, it wouldn't be out of her narrative style if it was endgame. And even if it isn't in a traditional sense, all current narrative beats indicate that Charlie is going to become Alastor's person, his exception to all of his rules, and the person who as someone so successfully dodged a straight answer about, "who he'd do absolutely anything for"

[herawell]

#I am such a sucker for the 'character returns after everyone thought they were dead' trope#I've usually emphasised Minkowski's lack of composure in the hug scene#but I think that becomes more interesting when you contrast it with her composure up to that point#(Like many people on the Hephaestus) Minkowski spends a lot of time repressing and compartmentalising#So it's significant when she lets that drop#She's comfortable enough around Eiffel to sometimes fall apart in front of him#I want to believe that this isn't the first time they hug#Also I wish I could have a hug from Minkowski

I am once again thinking about Minkowski and Eiffel's reunion in Sécurité

When Minkowski first sees Eiffel again after nearly 200 days of thinking he was dead, her initial reaction is rather restrained.

Hera asks "O-officer Eiffel? Is... Is that really... ?" and Lovelace says "Are... are you okay? You look - what did they -"

In contrast, Minkowski's first response to Eiffel's reappearance isn't even addressed to Eiffel himself. "You found him?" she asks Kepler. It's a question of practical curiosity, as opposed to the disbelief and concern expressed by Hera and Lovelace respectively. [Continued below the cut]

Particularly in front of Kepler and Jacobi, Minkowski wants to give off the impression of a calm and collected Commander. So she doesn't show a strong outward reaction to Eiffel’s return. She barely speaks to him directly until they are alone together. Instead, her focus while Kepler and Jacobi are present appears to be on getting information out of them.

She has the self-control (and the motivation) not to show a strong emotional reaction in front of the others. So when "Eiffel gets the wind knocked straight out of him, as suddenly Minkowski grabs him and hugs him, tears silently streaming down her face" (quote from the script directions), it's not because she can't hold back that emotional display, it's because she doesn't need or want to once they are alone.

That crushing hug and those streaming tears are more than just an immediate instinctive reaction. It's a reaction that she's thought about enough (consciously or unconsciously) to surpress it until the right moment.

She says "Sorry, I don't know what I'm doing" but, on some level she does, because she knew not to do it earlier.

At the beginning of that scene, Eiffel’s "Alone at last, huh, Commander?" when Minkowski enters the room suggests that he knows she's been waiting for a chance to speak to him without the others present, and that he's been waiting for that moment too.

[daenerysstormreborn]

Going thru a breakup so I shall be absent for a time but one more thought I need to eke out here is that I think a lot of disagreement comes from the difference between people analyzing what’s likely based on THEMES and ARCS and stuff from a meta perspective versus people analyzing things based strictly on lore and what is present in text. The Nettles Valyrian debate is a prime example of this. Based entirely off of lore and lore alone, sure, we don’t really have a good reason to say that Nettles has no Valyrian blood. And if you’re coming to conclusion based only on the lore, placing your point of view inside the story, of course you’re going to be confused about why people are so insistent that Nettles isn’t Valyrian. But if you consider what it would do for the THEMES for her to be Valyrian or not, place your point of view inside George’s head, conduct analyses based on speculation as to WHY George decided to remark on certain things and what he was trying to say. Then you can start to see why we think George didn’t intend for Nettles to be Valyrian. It’s like. If a character in a story has a pet bird and the bird suddenly starts making noise in its cage. You could find evidence in the story about this bird making noise and things in the environment that the author created that might have spooked the bird. Or you could consider why the author decided to have the bird vocalize. I don’t really know where I’m going with this. Just thoughts from a tired tired brain after a great deal of crying

[vexedsystem]

Term Coining Post - Memory Writing

Exomemoir

Noun - [eks-oh-mem-wahr]

A written record of (exo)memories from outside the current timeline that the body did not experience.

Pseudomemoir

Noun - [soo-doh-mem-wahr]

A written record of false (pseudo)memories that the body did not experience.

Metamemoir

Noun - [met-uh-mem-wahr]

A written record of memories of metaphysical or spiritual nature.

Credit to co-coiners Butterfly Houses & Morpho Collective!

Terminology Derived from...

Memoir - Noun

A written record of a person’s knowledge of events or of a person's own experiences.

Exo- - Prefix

Outside, outer.

Pseudo- Prefix

False.

Meta- - Prefix

1. Occurring later than or in succession to, after. 2. Situated behind or beyond. 3. Change, transformation

Other Sources Used

Pluralpedia - Exomemory

Pluralpedia - Pseudomemory

Pluralpedia - Metagenic

Pluralpedia - Spirigenic

Pluralpedia -Parogenic

[afurtivecake]

what is the kevriko study about?

hi! thank you for the question! 🙇

er...in short... it's about love. it's about the nuances of their relationship. it's about kevin and riko eking out small ways of caring for each other. and it's about how it wasn't enough.

*sweats* i'm trying to be as specific as i can, i swear. maybe there was a reason i chose to write a whole fic instead of just a meta character analysis.

[herawell]

#credit to me and the DMs with Charlotte soggywormcircus <3#I'm back reading for kepler lives au purposes rn and this still strikes me....#I also had some notes somewhere about memorial and Maxwell being reminded of her podunk town childhood where no one recognized#her potential or what she could do/acted against it even (maybe)#and her seeing Pryce 'clip' Hera's wings and being like oh. wig.#self-recognition thru the other.#Maxwell already recognizes and cares for Hera's personhood but this is a further means of acknowledging it#plus in a way. maybe...the way that Maxwell betrays Hera later on. It's. Bad Yes. but the way she does it is further acknowledgment#that she is violating her personhood. bc she SEES her as a person. and this is something the SI-5 does. so Maxwell does it.#hrrrnghh space podcast make brain go brrrrrrrrrr#cher.txt

Thinking about the parallels and dynamics between Pryce and Maxwell and Hera again and I've said this before and also I know in my own brain that they're still woefully under explored but—

I've imagined before a newly recruited Maxwell like, alright Kepler. You got me. Now take me to meet this genius who created your 15-years-ahead tech. And he tries to explain Pryce to her but she outstubborns him and he's like, defeated drawl, well if you insist.

And he gets her a meeting with Pryce. And Maxwell is in awe of Pryce. Of her tech. And then she sees how she treats the AI she's working on and she HATES it. She's appalled. But she's smart and office politics savvy enough to know she can't betray any of this to Pryce.

But she makes that personal promise to herself to be different where she can. Kepler talks about it all the time, but This is her bigger picture. Helping the AI. Progressing tech with recognition of their personhood. It kills her (literally, eventually) to do what she does to Hera.

[mah-o-daryaa]

The Cycle Repeats: Part II

One of the key themes of the ATLA franchise is the concept of the Avatar; master of all 4 elements, the fusion of humanity and Raava, the spirit of light and order, whose sole duty is to bring balance to the world, and be the bridge between both the physical and spiritual realms. Along with this comes the idea of reincarnation, which is the premise of the Avatar Cycle, the idea that the Avatar reincarnates in a cyclic order in any of the four nations (fire, air, water, earth). Another concept related to the Avatar Cycle (although originating from the fandom) is the idea of the Avatar fixing the mistakes of their past life, which is often indicated in differences in both habitual circumstances and personalities between both predecessor and successor, and therefore differences in morality.

But what if I were to tell you that the saying "history repeats itself" is also true among Avatar incarnations? Not exactly going the same way, but rather parallels between the lives, personalities, and accomplishments (and failures) of past lives?

In this series of metas, I will be going over parallels (or in some cases, foils) between certain pairs of Avatars that lived decades, or even centuries apart, and yet could not have ever been more similar.

Elemental Foils: Avatars Aang and Kyoshi

"Aang was an Air Nomad born in 12 BG and the Avatar during the Hundred Year War, succeeding Avatar Roku and preceding Avatar Korra. As the Avatar of his time, he was the only person capable of using all four bending arts: airbending, waterbending, earthbending, and firebending. He was also one of a select few Avatars and one of the first in many cycles to learn the ancient art of energybending as well as the first Avatar known to have actively used the technique."

"Kyoshi was the Earth Kingdom-born Avatar immediately succeeding Avatar Kuruk of the Northern Water Tribe, and preceding Avatar Roku of the Fire Nation. She died at the age of 230, making her the oldest confirmed human, and was also an exceptionally tall woman, towering over most people. Kyoshi was born to two criminals: Jesa, a renegade Air Nomad nun, and Hark, a thief from an impoverished family of Earth Kingdom actors. She inherited her later signature outfit from her parents, adopting her mother's golden headdress and metal war fans and her father's daofei face paint."

Similarly to the previous post, I listed the first paragraphs of both Aang and Kyoshi's respective Wiki pages, and you can clearly see foils between them both and balk at the idea of any connection between them whatsoever (aside from Raava, ofc). However, Kyoshi is actually very similar to Aang in terms of their heritage and relationships with other people, second only to her predecessor Kuruk overall in terms of similarities with Aang.

I will first list the differences between the two. Aang is an Air Nomad; Kyoshi is an Earth Kingdom citizen (what is the citizen name for the EK?). Aang's native element is air; Kyoshi's is earth, its natural opposite. Kyoshi believed in absolute justice (which, yes, included murder, although she never killed someone out of boredom--she only killed when necessary); Aang was taught that all life is sacred (which conflicted with his duty to kill Ozai).

Underneath these skin-deep contrasts, however, lie striking similarities between our protagonist and his daofei past life.

(WARNING: There will be possible spoilers for both The Rise of Kyoshi and possibly The Shadow of Kyoshi. If you do not wish to be spoiled, I suggest not reading any further and scrolling past this post until you have finished reading both novels. You have been warned.)

The first point I will make is their heritage. In The Rise of Kyoshi, it is revealed that Kyoshi's mother, Jesa, was a rogue Air Nomad, and a nun at that. Meaning both Aang and Kyoshi have Air Nomad heritage (although Kyoshi's native element was earth, not air, which I will get into later). Both Kyoshi and Aang grew up travelling, without staying in one place for a long time. In Kyoshi's case, her nomadic lifestyle prevented her from being discovered as the Avatar early on. However, like I mentioned earlier, they have opposite native elements; Aang's is air, Kyoshi's is earth.

And yet, they have similar capabilities in both elements. Kyoshi is the only known Avatar to struggle with her native element, and seems to favor airbending in combat (which could be linked to her heritage as a part of both cultures). Likewise, Aang is stated to be an airbending master at just 12, while earthbending was the element he most struggled with (as Aang struggled with learning to face his problems head-on, instead of running away from them). Ironically, although according to the fandom, Kyoshi would despise Aang for running away from his Avatar duties, Kyoshi has also run away from her duties when it became clear that she was Kuruk's successor, not Yun.

The second thing is their relationships with other people. Yes, Kyoshi befriended a group of daofei (The Flying Opera Company) and an immortal assassin who taught her the secret to immortality (Lao Ge/Tieguai), but she has a similar dynamic with the Flying Opera Company that Aang would have with the GAang centuries later: A motley crew of runaway misfits who work together and understand each other as family, and see you as your own person instead of the Avatar. It certainly beats having unsupportive "friends" who consider you the Avatar first, disregarding your own identity (looking at you, Team Kuruk--except Nyahitha, he's approved in my book). Speaking of which, both Kyoshi and Aang's father figures (Kelsang and Gyatso) were Air Nomad monks from the Southern Air Temple (like Aang), who influenced their young proteges' bending affinity. Both Kelsang and Gyatso were also companions to Kyoshi and Aang's predecessors (Kuruk and Roku respectively, completing one Avatar Cycle of each element). Kelsang was killed by Jianzhu (another former companion of Kuruk) and Gyatso took down at least 50 FN soldiers during the Air Nomad Genocide (orchestrated by Firelord Sozin, Avatar Roku's childhood friend) before laying his own life (there's a popular theory that Gyatso used suffocation to suck the air out of the room suicide-style).

Kyoshi and Aang have also hid themselves behind masks. Kyoshi donned her mother's headdress and fans, as well as her father's daofei makeup (to hide her facial expressions and to appear more intimidating to her enemies) as a part of her iconic appearance. Aang, on the other hand, went through two brief masks during the entire series: His stint as the elderly Bonzu Pippinpaddleopsicopolis III in The King of Omashu (Book 1: Episode 4) and his stint as Kuzon in The Headband (Book 3: Episode 2).

Another thing they have in common is the fact that they were both struck by lightning (Kyoshi by Xu Ping An; Aang by Azula), which mortally wounded them (Kyoshi has lightning scars all over her hands; Aang has a scar on his back where the lightning entered his body, and an "exit" scar on his foot where it left his body). Ironically, in Kyoshi's case, the lightning helped her enter the Avatar State, while for Aang, it locked his chakras, preventing him from being able to access the Avatar State.

Also, both Kyoshi and Aang's love interests are from the same nation as their successors (Rangi is from the Fire Nation, Katara is from the Southern Water Tribe). Kyoshi, however, had a brief crush on False Avatar Yun, and I prefer to ship Aang with Toph, both being earthbenders. (I also have two separate theories that both Yun and Katara are descendants of Avatar Kuruk, but that's for another time.)

The final similarity between Kyoshi and Aang is their age--more specifically, their age at death. Both Kyoshi and Aang lived to be extremely old, with minimal physical ageing (Kyoshi learned to stop herself from ageing and lived to be 230, while Aang was trapped in the iceberg for 100 years). However, Aang died at a relatively young physical age at 66 due to the heavy toll on his body after freezing himself in the Avatar state for a century (still higher than Kuruk, tho), while his chronological age was a still mighty 165 at death. Roku, by contrast, lived to a relatively normal 70 years old.

In conclusion, despite their differences in morality and overall journey in becoming fully realized, Kyoshi and Aang connect in their shared heritage as Air Nomads, as well as their ability to disguise in unexpected places. This is proof that history doesn't always repeat, but it often rhymes. In the next part, I will explore how their predecessors, Kuruk and Roku, act as foils to each other.

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[starvels]

Cw: Fatphobia, body shaming, disordered eating, suicidal ideation

We talking about that “””banter””” in Marvel’s Avengers when the team bullied Tony about his weight and he talks about being on a juice cleanse?? Because I hate that so, so much. Like. Tony was depressed! and isolated for 5 years!!! And like, Not Doing Ok!

@blossomsinthemist was talking about it and like :(((((( https://www.tumblr.com/blossomsinthemist/721606463816105984/nat-may-claim-she-never-broke-cover-to-help

Plus the fact that it’s heavily implied Nat, that takes part in the bullying, KNOWS Tony was depressed and suicidal https://www.tumblr.com/blossomsinthemist/721588267817025536/i-need-more-fics-out-squareenixs-steve-coming-to

And like you said, he is still thin in the game, but like, so what if he wasn’t? Tony can be any shape and he wouldn’t deserve that! He could still be any shape and still kick ass in a literal power suit. Like. :(

(I kinda liked how I’m the game Tony seemed to have a bit of a hunch to him, man’s a workaholic that is either typing or leaned over a work table and I liked seeing that in a character design (tho it might just be a bad rig and all the characters have it, it’s just hidden under their costumes), but -11000099999 points for the ““banter””. EG Thor all over again)

yeah! that is what i was referring to in this post. as i'm watching playthroughs to make MA content for STG, i found this scene so off-putting and it reminded me of a lot of other ones i've seen in comics. & feeling just the general vibe reading a comic that i am never gonna get to see fat people be heroic. especially not at least, without emphasizing that they're a fat person sure, but they are still heroic, don't worry!

fat heroes' heroism always comes as a caveat to their body shape and weight.

nasty!!!!

but yes blossoms' point here abt tony and perception of self and internalizing a lot of judgement values about his appearance and how fun it is to explore that are so apt!

blossoms always handles tony's relationship with his own body in such compelling and intricate ways that are very tender and vulnerable. and i agree! i also like exploring these themes and playing with how tony relates to being a public figure, as well as how he relates to himself and the ways in which he feels pleasure or contentment or beauty or pride.

to blossoms+anons second point, abt nat knowing, yeah. if you read it just in-text, it can be really complicated by their own individual and combined relationships to trauma and processing and how much info they are sharing between them. that's always very interesting to eke out of interactions w the two of them -- two people who can guard their hearts and heads so intensely.

but taking a meta-textual approach to it, i flat out think when people ascribe their own -isms to characters, they are not thinking about how it fits a character's personality or interpersonal relationships.

we, as the fans, do the labor of asking how it can be internally consistent for a character that grew up without bodily autonomy, that knows intimately how loss and trauma affect your bodily functions, who knows exactly how tony fights and what it takes to do that, who knows that bodies are only one tool in a whole box -- makes fun of someone who trusts her, on her team, for potentially gaining weight. we hypothesis and convolute the relationship and infer from the absences of a canon text. the writers don't have to do any of that work. and that more than anything generally proves to me how shoehorned in all the -isms people apply to characters are.

they're not thinking three levels deep. and to be honest, i like our collective 3 level thoughts better than there, so ! phooey on them!! they don't get a seat at our table.

it literally doesn't matter what your body looks like if you're designing a metal suit to go around it that is based on non-physical input to function. and tony's found family should abso-fucking-lutely not be (even jokingly) shaming him for disordered eating and suicidal ideation, esp not during a battle lol. but yes, tony should have a hunch and neck problems and whine and use a heating pad and tiger balm too much <3 beloved greasemonkey sun.

[herawell]

#wolf 359#alana maxwell#maxwell is a profoundly gifted allllllllmost-certainly-autistic ex-fundie. maxwell's coping mechanisms around her sense of self are FUCKED.#this is just. a given.#and it is genuinely mind-blowing how few therapists in the world are qualified to deal with her. this is useful to bear in mind.#she lets kepler run her because kepler's style of control/manipulation relies on actually seeing and playing to the way her mind works.#which is not something she has had particular experience with from anyone else who wanted to direct her behavior.#it's something to think about.

What if the reason Maxwell is so comfortable with the idea of erasing or rewriting Hera’s memories is because she has a number of memories that she wishes could be erased, or changed?

[usagimen]

 ( hc // meta )  Like most shikomi’s, Sayuri was given the option to utilize her strengths. While some girls would learn to sing, dance, perfect the art of tea ceremony, she excelled in dance. Under the rigid guidance of her aunt, Sayuri became renowned in her apprentice years for moving with an ethereal nature. Most dances that a shikomi will learn && then transition to maikohood will work on the smaller muscle reflexes, fine tuning them, thus while the movements appear slow it takes a great amount of dexterity for a maiko to appear floating or weightless. Just because she is a dancer does NOT mean she is weak, in fact, prior to martial arts that is where her strength came from.

   Coming from a sheltered world, Sayuri found joy in music, she liked the angsty alternative scene && pop music that made her feel connected to those around her. The bright yet flashy clothing, glamorous idols, but most importantly the intense movements that were far different from what she was taught. Plastic Love is a homage to just that, the freedom behind such current trends && the ever shifting landscape of everything disco / pop. Heels are integral for her, the first set she ever wore were basic mary-jane style in black with a modest pump. Her cursed energy flows downwards as she will vocalize, how she harmonized her body to react is that of water, everything shifts into the balance as she breathes && feels each emotion within the gut.

   Her CT is that to be shared && represents the integral core of who she is, unlike her inherited technique that distorts reality to bend all perceptions. In the Past Arc, she sheepishly explains that PL synchrinizes to whoever she is with, when paired together, they will have a five percent critical hit. How does Sayuri know this? Simple, she is proficient in mathematics enough to be considered a walking calculator. This was not done because of her own desires but to utilize every second, minute, to hour in combat for the most efficient yet sure route. Due to the nature of her bound hounds, it caps the limit, when they are free from constrictions && harmonized with a dance partner, PL will increase by 10 percent. In JJK0, she demonstrates there is no need for a partner, she can use it solely to boost herself, but it’s fun to dance together. The drawback? This made her an extremely attractive ally in the Culling Game, which didn’t end well for anyone who thought she was easy to use.

      Unlike the training grounds she lived in while honing her body, Sayuri practiced endlessly by merely spinning, moving, dancing as much as she could - it is the life that brims within her. Her passion && natural beauty that ekes through, PL is very much the soul of the God Hand Sorcerer, she feels free whenever her body moves. The genre style will also change to fit her partner’s preferred style of dance, it’s extremely rare to not see her smiling when synching together, one can also feel the residual energy from her. That bright flame that is so scorching but feels warm, like the midst of a summer day that is never ending, pleasant && pure. Altogether, her CT did stem from the genuine desire to connect, her benevolent nature && the natural playfulness she carries.   Just for fun, this is the version (ex.) of Plastic Love that Sayuri enjoys the most.