#i get thats very cynical

[areslikestodraw]

*look I ran out of room in the tags and don't like talking in actual post form in reblogs but I will continue with my rant if asked. because I just like making people (fictional characters) into horrible monsters with strawman arguments

Take me to Solla Sollew.

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

laura heard "when is a monster not a monster? oh when you love it" and took that a little too literally

[cl0ckworkpuppet]

btw enstarries it's totally fine if you don't care about a character enough to read every single story involving them, or understand everything about them in deep complex ways, or rabidly search for every piece of information about their character in order to characterize them perfectly: thats totally okay

but if you then start talking as if you completely know the character based on your very barebones knowledge then do not be surprised if producers of that character correct you

[gibbearish]

inside you are two wolves. one is deeply paranoid about accidentally getting parasocial at people and also about trusting any internet personality anyways because so many of them turn out to be shitbags. the other is deeply paranoid about supressing its interests when it don't need to because it might have ocd and can't tell if its behavior is actually parasocial and it's just noticing it now or if this is just normal looking-up-to-someone-who-inspires-you behavior and it's just obsessing the compulsings, and furthermore thinks that with every shitbag it can think of, there's always been a trail of signs leading up to the breaking point that either got ignored or justified or forgotten, and it has yet to see a single sign or red flag despite being on high alert for them the whole time its been watching. you are a mentally ill hbomberguy fan.

[sciderman]

pokes you with a stick…what do you think of valpool

oh bless you - uh, not a lot. i don't think the comics gave me a lot to work with, on that front. i think when i was reading it i kept thinking "how long is this one gonna last before inevitable double cross / untimely death / off screen break-up" and turns out the latter happened. sorry val.

so my own cynicism meant i never got too attached to val. because i knew we weren't going to be seeing them for very long. nothing in a deadpool series endures. and i'm so frustrated that wong's deadpool run was a 10 issue thing. because it was over and done before i even started enjoying it.

for me it takes a long time to get attached to a deadpool - because every wade wilson is different. they have their own thing going on. wong's wade is softer. more childlike. very childlike. actually, almost irritatingly childlike. like thats his whole thing. he's s child.

that was off-putting for me. he didn't feel like the kind of deadpool i'm interested in reading. he felt like the softer, cuter fanon-interpretation of deadpool. which i guess goes over well with fans who love their baby girl. but i... eeh. i can't bear it. he's not a baby. and i'm not a baby either. stop feeding me baby food.

i think - in my head - when wade acts like a baby, there's an angle to it. i don't think he's sincere. he does it so enemies will undermine him, or to win favour with the audience - there's an angle. he's not sincerely that naive. he's smart. so - when i see him acting like that - sincerely - i can't feel like he's being sincere at all. he's smarter than that. he's doing it on purpose. so - so... i don't know, i never felt like we were getting a sincere wade, in this series. he never turns the baby act off. we don't get a peek behind the curtain. i think that's the thing with wade lately - i keep expecting an eventual peek behind the curtain so i can say "oh. there he is. there's the deadpool i know. he was doing it on purpose. he was acting shallow and cutesy just to sell books and the real deadpool was lurking behind there all the time," but it hasn't happened with any deadpool media at all, lately, save for the recent kelly dp/w wiiii book - (once again, thank you kelly, owe you my life, only man pulling his WEIGHT around here) - maybe my expectations are just too high for wade, in that i'm doomed to be disappointed by like, 90% of deadpool media.

i feel like maybe wong could've done something if they'd had more time with it. but for me, man, i didn't get anything out of it, or any kind of attachment to it. and i felt so disappointed. especially with it being a nonbinary author, and a nonbinary love interest for a character i've so long headcanoned as nonbinary. i just - i wanted more from it. i always write from a nonbinary angle - because i don't know how to write from any other perspective. it comes out in everything i write. so i was expecting something more like that. i was expecting it to come through - not in some overt way - but in small ways that i could read and appreciate. like the matrix. that's a trans story. there are no overtly trans characters in it but it's a trans story with lots of trans allegory to digest and the authors are trans. but - you know, not being trans, it's not immediately obvious. but it's there. food to eat. and chew. and digest.

i know marvel definitely wouldn't let wong get away with much - but, god almighty. i was hoping even for something subtle. some little crumbs of food that brought some new dimension to wade that i could sink my teeth into. or something interesting about val that i could get attached to, in spite of the relationship being rushed and quick and abrupt.

i'm not saying it had to be a nonbinary story but - like, man. it feels like, conceptually, i should get excited, and i should sing more praises to this series, but what it feels like more, to me, is a wasted opportunity, and val is another love interest that readers failed to get attached to, and another in a consistent line of deadpool's love interests that marvel rushes to forget and move on from. and... sighs. sighs.

i do want more from valentine. because i feel like they're such a wasted opportunity, and i don't want to throw away one of marvel's only non-binary characters. that's too much food to waste. i think - for me, at least, i think wade deserves healthy relationships. ones that aren't always necessarily romantic - and - well, him having someone to go on cute zoo dates and hang out and be unapologetically gender with - well, i'm all about that.

[telugu-girl-13]

so...i just watched wicked! here's my review, with the goods and the bads. these are more or less in order. major spoilers for wicked below!!

disclaimer: i watched and am talking about this movie as a person who has not watched the plays or any content related to wicked before, and just knows the story of the wizard of oz. i didn't even know the wicked witch of the west's name was elphaba before this movie came out (it's never generally mentioned okay 😭) so that is how clueless i am. however, im kinda glad about that, because otherwise much of the plot might have been somewhat anticlimatic.

additionally, i am a naturally cynical person and even if i love something, i feel the need to point out all its flaws, so bear with me!

below the cut! bullet points because i felt like it

wicked was an overall amazing movie and experience, ariana and cynthia were outstanding, and i absolutely cannot wait for the second movie!

the introduction with the munchkins celebrating elphaba's death had me expecting her to die throughout the whole movie, i was almost certain there would be tears. BUT IM SOO GLAD SHE DIDNT!

elphaba being the child of a secret alcoholic affair was NOT expected, nor did i expect that to be shown. (plus it escalated so fast) random, but i had to say it 😭 and im sorta glad her moms not alive anymore

at first, i expected nessarose to be that one person in elphaba's childhood, i was actually really surprised when she wasn't. still, an interesting character who needs more recognition!

the fact that the movie was directed by an asian director has me so happy, because i also saw a lot of representation in the background cast! different skin colors, body types, hair colors (GINGER REPRESENTATION LMFAO), we got them all! and i was SUPER happy about that!

one of my new favorite quotes is 'well, bock, i believe strangers...are just people i've never met *hair flip walks off*'. like GALINDA HELP 😭😭🙏🏽🙏🏽 whyd i actually expect that to be some sort of inspirational quote loll

is there a reason why all the male extras were so zesty? like i swear, ALL OF THEM WERE GAY FOR FIYERO (and fiyero was flirting back). ESPECIALLY THAT ONE ASIAN DUDE WHO BECAME FRIENDS WITH GALINDA IN THE BEGINNING, his lines had me rolling lmfao

not the popular boy x popular girl until popular boy actually falls for the nerd girl trope...whyyy...also fiyero lowkey gave flynn rider vibes with that entrance (but i havent watched tangled either cuz i dont have a life or a disney account sooo)

madame morrible using elphaba, and the wizard being powerless? that was not expected ( though my dad anticipated madame morrible being 'evil' from the beginning, hes smarter than me )

someone would say 'save the turtles!' to elphaba and she'd be like oF cOuRsE and be so confused why everyones laughing 😭

"we're...friends. best friends" babes your lesbian i need them to both ditch fiyero and get together

defying gravity is HANDS DOWN my favorite song. NO ONE can convince me otherwise. its the most dramatic song, its at the very climax, and ITS MEEEE will always be playing in my head

SO IF YOU CARE TO FINDDDD MEEE LOOOK TO THE WESTERN SKIEEEES

fuck glinda and elphaba themes (unless someone wants to match freaks with me) A SHIZ THEMED 300 FOLLOWER EVENT (thats never happening forget i said that)

i need to see how glinda became the good witch and see elphaba saving the turtles animals cant wait for the next movieeee

anyway, thats it gbye! (ill probably edit this if i remember more stuff)

ps. i am extremely sorry to the people sitting near me in the theater who probably had to hear me sing a few times :P

[pinnithin]

on my second playthrough of dav. playing as an older nb he/him shadow dragon rogue named loren. having a lot of fun running around pretending im mentoring all these young people as a bitter, jaded elf who grew up in minrathous. picking the comedy dialogue option most of the time bc after seeing all the shit hes seen in his life all thats left is to laugh at the most inappropriate times. hes taash and bellara's quirky uncle. he sees a lot of himself in davrin. etc etc you get the idea.

im romancing emmrich this time and its really sweet. hes very proper. gives you flowers, calls you darling, takes you out for a nice dinner. took loren a lot of warming up to get to this point (being an elf from minrathous who mistrusts mages on principle, putting his cynical and negative personality up against emmrich's hopeful naiveté). i imagine lorens had a lot of flings but never something this romantic. theyre having a great time in the apocalypse.

but ive noticed the game just... expects you to be younger? its most apparent with varric calling rook "kid," which. okay i can make that work in my head. it seems just like him to make jokes about that to someone whos only a year younger than him.

everyone else? im?? theres several examples. harding mentioning that rook's "kinda younger" than emmrich, insinuating its a problem. emmrich himself worrying what others might think of their relationship, "given their ages." emmrich often and repeatedly calls rook "fresh-faced" when complimenting them. the list goes on.

im familiar with bioware writing being The Way That It Is, so im not tryna get into the root of the issue here. i just want to have fun with my little fake guy. so. to make this all not be weird im hcing that varric started the joke of calling rook "kid," and now the rest of the team is carrying on the bit because they know it irritates him. harding heard loren go "WE'RE THE SAME AGE, VARRIC" one time and was like oh im never gonna let him hear the end of this. and then she got everyone else on board with it.

[atoriv-art]

Heeyyy so sorry if this has been asked before buuuttttt.. What are ur thoughts on the sand siblings?

this made me realize i didnt include their rs in the chart i posted REST ASSURED I LOVE THEM. anyway hehehe :3

a lot of my takes on them are headcanon-based (like even more than the hyugas id say) But i assume thats what people r here for anyway. Sooooo

i really like the suna siblings bc their relationship pre-chunin exams is very, like… dysfunctional, but at the same time stable? temari and kankuro are obviously afraid of their brother, and gaara is deeply unhappy around them, but they've all clearly found a "safe" position to exist in yk?

my read on those positions is that temari actually feels more conflicted about gaara than you would think — she's the oldest and therefore the one most aware of how 'wrong' their family is — but she puts her and kankuro's safety first, therefore she resorts to appeasing gaara and generally staying out of his way. kankuro is more of a show-off and while he is afraid of gaara, it's in a more grounded way, if that makes sense? he taunts him like one might taunt an angry dog, he's afraid of him because of what he can do, vs temari who dreads being around him because she's aware of what gaara carries on his shoulders and Represents

i actually 👉👈 have a suna family-centered fic i've been slowly working on 👉👈 that ive been too shy to mention on main LMAO but since we are on topic here u go [link]. it's yashamaru-focused (my WIFE) but it brushes upon the entire family :3 it'll be slow to update since i've been busy with things but if u don't mind that. i mention it here since i use the extrapolations im mentioning here to write it….

aaaanyway. the kids' relationship with rasa isn't very defined (esp for kankuro and temari) but i interpret their situation as the classic… yk, father lost his soul after the mother died sort of thing. it's a bit cliche but it makes sense LOL while the only kid we know for sure rasa was cruel towards is gaara i don't find it a stretch to expand it towards the other two, even if it wasn't as extreme.

so, with that in mind: my personal interpretation is that temari — in addition to getting the usual heir responsibilities — got put into a caretaker role for kankuro, pushing her towards cynicism and self-preservation above all else (she's also the one most likely to remember their mom, and an early loss like that can push one into hyper-independence), while kankuro was left with a bit less pressure but as a tradeoff grew hungry for acknowledgement, eventually feeding into him becoming a bit of a bully as he gets older. i think he was the one with the most... "normal" relationship with their father, but i wouldn't necessarily say that's a good thing lol

gaara is in a unique position because he was not fully raised by rasa, and his relationship with him is a lot more shallow and extreme as a result. instead gaara ended up being built into who he is almost exclusively through yashamaru's kindness and subsequent betrayal — and this is only accentuated imo by the fact that gaara does not (iirc?) at any point willingly bring up yashamaru. he badmouths his father and blames him for who he is, but the formative moments of gaara's childhood that we see are of him with his uncle. isn't that interesting? to me it reads like that's still a wound so deep he can't even bear to acknowledge it; rasa treats him like a monster so gaara is free to spit poison back at him in return, but gaara did wholeheartedly believe his uncle loved him at a point, and the idea that he did not was so world-shattering that he can't even bring himself to acknowledge his existence

all that being said, gaara as we meet him in the exams treats his siblings like strangers and i can't fully blame him for that; while the compounded traumas of 1. losing their mother and 2. the shift in rasa's disposition, cannot be understated, i think what truly "broke" the siblings' dynamic is the way gaara was likely forced into kankuro and temari's lives after yashamaru died. while they'd certainly met before, there's a world of difference between knowing you have a distant, troubled younger brother vs having that brother violently placed into your home in his most vulnerable state after another familial loss.

(yashamaru's rs with his other niblings is never really touched upon but i do think about it often. he was so close to their mom i doubt they had no relationship at all! but that's. you know. what the fic i mentioned is for.)

it inherently puts the kids into an adversarial position, especially with how rasa doesn't try to argue for gaara's humanity. so gaara, freshly traumatized and distrusting, is met with siblings who are terrified of him and a father who he knows wants him dead. to make things worse, yashamaru (my king.) made sure to crush whatever goodwill gaara still had towards the world before he died, so there's no part of him willing to give anyone the benefit of the doubt. no one has any interest in fixing this situation so this is the dynamic they settle into.

yet! they are still family and there are certainly glimpses of that. one of my favorite moments is temari looking out for gaara for, in our pov, the first time

it's really simple but it always gets an emotion out of me, it's why i think their relationship bothered her the most… one of my biggest gripes with the suna siblings is honestly that we just don't get a lot of them after a point! i would have loved to see them getting closer after gaara takes the first step in closing the distance.

kazekage retrieval arc is easily one of my favorite arcs in naruto it's soooo sweet to see kankuro and temari fighting so so hard for their baby :( i really like the quiet moments where you can tell there's still a lot of guilt over how things were, i wish we got to sit with it a little more because part of the reason i like their bond so much is because of those moments of doubt, you know? i think it's far more powerful for gaara to wonder if he's been fully forgiven, for temari to grapple with the guilt of not having been a good sister to him, than for them to easily slip into a healthy and stable dynamic as a trio.

how do they feel about their father? their mother? how do they feel about their uncle? they are three different people with similar but not identical experiences with all of them, and it makes you wonder how they might navigate unpacking all of that while not jeopardizing their fledgling bond. for example i'm personally a huge fan of gaara coming to view his uncle in an imperfect but ultimately empathetic light, while his siblings see little reason to extend him so much grace.

their personalities in shippuden make a lot of sense to me taking their upbringings into account too; kankuro and temari are predominantly rasa's children, and therefore have rougher edges and are way more averse to earnest displays of affection. gaara meanwhile had yashamaru's influence in his formative years; he knows how to articulate his emotions and acknowledges the importance of sincerity and kindness. i dunno if this was intentional but i think it's a neat detail!

soo much of the suna family follows this pattern of love breeding resentment (rasa's love towards karura breeding resentment against gaara, yashamaru's love towards karura breeding resentment against gaara and rasa, gaara's love towards his uncle being twisted into hatred against the world, the siblings' love for each other being corrupted then saved) it's sooo. chef's kiss. again my only complaint is that we don't see more of them. literally who cares about konoha i want to be in suna forever

[deimosatellite]

no something thats so interesting to me is the role of the father in dostoyevsky's works mainly in devils and brothers karamazov of course , especially interesting with those being two of his later works and having very similar themes of broken families and absent fathers .

in devils, in my opinion many , if not all, of petrusha's deepest issues stem from his father's absence in one way or another--his main issues being with his fear of god / higher power + his need for absolute control. we can see in the few insights we get on him from his childhood that he was very nervous and AFRAID when its mentioned how he would cross his pillow before sleeping / be worried and pray that he wouldnt die in the night bc again thats his fear of a power outside of his control, being that of religion/god which he then grows to resent / attempt to reject--however this could also be read as stemming from his animosity toward his own father as having been absent as an almost god figure to him--abandoned by his father he was left to find ways to mitigate these fears by himself which led to his incredibly self-destructive control issues with him feeling that no one had ever looked out for him, not his father nor a god, so he had to become fully self-sufficient and in control of the world around him to cope. and petrusha fcking HATES stepan god he takes every chance he can get to absolutely eviscerate him god bless.

on the other hand, brothers karamazov has , WHOA, FOUR SONS !!!!!! in which to analyze on the role of fyodor pavlovich's role in their lives but for sake of brevity i'll not go too into it but its just really interesting to see it in a context related to petrusha's relationship with stepan. (also its been a while since i read karamazov so) but first of all ofc getting out of the way that smerdyakov mirrors petrusha in many ways in his lacking of morals and almost blase attitude toward life and death. ivan as well is incredibly cynical and questioning of religion as his main character arc which contrasts alyosha greatly, who actually turned TO religion as a way to fill in the absence of his father--something interesting to me is that petrusha as a child sounded soo similar to alyosha as a child BUT. in contrast alyosha was able to find people around him to guide him in his life rather than being left to fester in a fear created by loneliness and rejection.

SO . yeah just interesting to me that main drivers of conflict / character in both devils and brothers karamazov are related to parents/especially fathers and since i just finished humiliated and insulted im going to now read the adolescent for the first time, which i hear has themes about fathers as well and is actually in between devils and brothers karamazov so i will DEFO BE PAYING ATTENTION THERE. anyways bye 9U0PSOFDJK

[dansevilpianotea]

who do you think is more Crowley coded and who is more Azira coded out of dnp?

i set myself hourly notifications ever since you send the ask and it still took me this long to answer, im so sorry 😭

to answer your question:

It might seem like obvious that dan is crowley coded and phil is azira coded because of their aesthetics and personality but stating that as that is too simple for me. lets break it down:

dan is like crowley in the obvious sense of having that edgy aesthetic and always needing to question things while phil is the one with the light aesthetic who enjoys what is happening despite the problems it has. just watch them play the game of life.

this reminds me of this quote from a book ive read for uni which really stuck with me:

so yea, dan is the social scientist who points out what most people miss and phil is the one who tells us that we shouldn't wallow in defeat of it but make our own meaning out of it. and we need both! they are like ying and yang, like crowley and aziraphale in that way.

crowley who questions heaven and thusly falls, but then doesnt stop questioning hell because he doesnt see the world in black and white, good actions and bad actions.

i think dan for a long time was not like that. i say this with the utmost respect but if you look back, his branding was usually self deprecating jokes and at least to me personally it felt like his perspective was pessimistic. he always made sure to leave a positive message but to me it felt like a wish for a better future, not a feeling of certainty that it will be better.

Phil on the other hand is very much like that:

Phil is like aziraphale and me in the sense that he gets irrationally worried about things,

but it is dan who literally did a tour about his worries of the world ending, with branding and all:

and yet:

phil and crowley both have that rational optimism, the sense that things will be okay. but aziraphale does not give up in-spite of the odds being against them. in s1 he refuses to run away to alpha centauri because he believes that they should stay and fight. that there is still hope. he does not accept that the world will end. but its crowley who sparks the idea of aziraphale raising the antichrist with him. its aziraphale who tells angel crowley of armageddon , and its why crowley gets upset and questions the almighty.

so my point is that phil has aziraphale's light aesthetic vibes and his fear of near doom but crowley's certainty that everything will be okay in the end despite it.

dan on the other hand has crowley's edgy dark aesthetic, his cynicism and sense of questioning belief systems, but also aziraphale's determinism to fight what he is sure is a losing battle/the end of the world because he wants to believe that it is possible that everything will be okay (that being the message of wad/ywgttn/big/etc...)

i want to talk a bit about 'dark/light polarity'. what we mean by that is two sides of the same coin. yin and yang:

☯️

they depend on each other, they interconnect and intertwine. be it real people or fictional characters, it is never a clear black and white binary, because what the characters have something that the other lacks and when they come together they become a whole. plato said humans once had 4 legs and feet, and then got split in half by zeus to punish us to live our lives yearning to be connected with the other half of our soul/coin, our soulmate. they carry sth of each other within them because there are shards that got broken in the middle when the being was split and were forced to choose sides.

so even tho it might seem like dan is more like crowley coded and phil is more aziraphale coded because of their light/dark aesthetic, there's many things of both in each of them and thats what makes it interesting and real to us.

[dysaniadisorder]

i really like ragathas line to jax "i like, hate you.. but i don't want you to hate me" in episode 4 i feel like thats exactly the core of her character. most of what shes done all 3 episodes before this is flail desperately to get pomni to be comfortable and not lose it, sure, but also to be comfortable with her and to like her. hell less than halfway through episode 1 she nearly dies and one of the first things she uses the last of her energy on is telling pomni its fine she abandoned her. and then its the very first thing she says at the start of the next episode. since shes the only person kinda holding it together but not becoming cynical like zooble she seems to pride herself on being the glue of the group but also sacrifices being herself in order to do it. shes outwardly happy/upbeat when pomni announces theyre bringing gummy back to the circus, but she doesnt blink when he's murdered and then, when she has no filter, complains about how pomni seems to enjoy the 'NPCs' more than the rest of them (actual people, in her mind). hell she starts episode 4 comforting & gangle but when gangle doesnt need her help anymore she straight up says "youre annoying when youre happy". she talks to the ghost woman like an old friend, entirely fake, with a smile and a wave and a promise to come visit soon, but she talks to pomni and occasionally gangle that way too. she doesnt care that a whole candy kingdom got massacred cause to her its fake, she'll probably see the princess in another adventure in a week or two. didnt kingster mention something about how ragatha, like pomni, had a hard time adjusting? i feel like shes still in the mindset of "this isn't real, you aren't real, this is just a bad dream." she even says (in a gag) that she 'literally only has one fear' (centipedes) implying that she's always at the ready and willing to deal with whatever the nightmare scenario of the day is. christ and everyone lets her cause who else is gonna be the defacto leader, shes the only one willing to play the part

[ID: Four screenshots of Gangle, saying; "Oh, Ragatha. I love her, but... after a while it gets kind of hard to tell how genuine she's actually being." end ID]

[sleepsentry]

Hey man, I just wanted to say, I adore how you portray Fiddleford and Standford's friendship. As some with autism, seeing this friendship portrayed like this was so refreshing. Especially since I'm on the Arospectrum, so seeing Standford just enjoying Fiddleford's touch and just wanting to be with him while he does stuf is just???, just fucking great portrayal man, I love this. Thank you so much for that

Thank you! :D

There friendship means a lot to me too! I like the idea that they can sit next to eachother doing their hobbies comfortably without a word for hours. ^^

And ford finally had a friend besides Stanley good for him.

It's also partially based on a few of the classmates who where kind to me during my awful school years.

I did get jokingly adopted by older girls. Haha

Also fidds seems like such a friendly character (besides the death robots)

I'm a little saddned by the more "sassy?" or cynical takes on his character, there isn't enough variety I guess. He's not sylvia from wander over yonder to me.

I can absolutely see why fidd suggesting ford abandon the portal and "settle down" would break Ford's heart. He's asking ford to be normal like fidd was able to be.

But considering fidds experiences you'd think he'd have quit earlier.

But he didn't because he wanted to trust his friend (and was getting paid haha)

I totally get what you mean by the "refreshing" part

I've grumbled about too much in the past but I get where you're coming from I think.

I felt obligated to describe it as brotherly and people still mistagged and ignored my interpretation for the more popular romantic ones.

I'd like to feel comfortable seeing fanart of them again without getting a pit of "You're wrong everyone says they're either kissing or quietly resentful or both" in my stomach ^^'

Also ford being a homewrecker isn't funny and leaves a bad taste in my mouth (serious or joking i don't like it at all)

I'm happy my take makes others happy though its soothing. :^]

Whilst I don't think they're "smiles while sighing softly and fondly" at eachother i do think they love eachother lots

They're very good friends unironically

I am also suspecting aro and autism in myself so who knows maybe thats a small influence

[ms-all-sunday]

please give us your Nami thoughts, I love your takes on her. It can be about anything you're currently thinking about but if I could pick then could you talk in depth about what you think about the Nami & Ussop dynamic ? Like yeah it doesn't need explanation about why they're my favorite duo among the strawhats but some of the things you've said about Nami and Ussop individually were not things I had thoughts about before so I want to know what you think of Usopp & Nami

i love nami forever thank you anon this is so sweet and i feel so appreciated. i hope i dont let you down. i'll do both!

i think i havent talked formally on this blog about how nami is written in most fanfiction to other people, but i try to emphasize in my fanfiction the fact she's an abuse victim since I feel that's one of her most apparent traits. the way that she deals with trauma is very reliant on exclusively herself, something i don't think is talked about a lot is that her expectation of what she is told is true is not only reflective of how pirates are known to the god fearing public (indicative of propaganda) but that she exclusively sees herself as the exception to a lot of rules, there's this inherent close-mindedness she has but won't ever really get rid of, that naunce and the room for things to go positively can't fit within her self perception.

this is because she believes she is the only thing in life she can control, and it's a necessary self-perception to maintain the inner worldview she has.

this of course is a survival instinct inherited from her childhood. but what it speaks to i think is that in real life and one piece the anime, that abuse victims (children and teens especially) can come out with a cynical view of the world and externalize that onto others (advocating for the current dysfunctional societal systems for example like nami does in repeating wg propaganda) simply because of how much we alienate them and how that continues to give no hope to people looking for community and understanding.

i like usopp and nami. theyre my favourite dynamic as well! i think something nami is able to do with usopp and nobody else (even with women) is give him the benefit of the doubt. i think this is because she relates to him

(i think she has bpd as well but i cant decide whether thats my legitmate reading of the text or me projecting. i write her like she has bpd. you decide.)

if we look at water 7 i think she's the most sympathetic of the usopp apologists because she was very obviously coming at it from a place of understanding from usopps emotional perspective (because she relates to him and loves him) in a way that nobody else really was articulating. because she's been in that situation where she's successfully alienated herself from everybody she loves in a way nobody else on that crew related to usopp (and by extension robin) on that crew during water 7.

nami doesnt just have a relationship to usopp she could have with no other man she has a relationship to usopp she couldn't have with anybody. i think. usopp is the only one who can cross the invisible boundary of the fact she expects you to be a kiss ass towards her lest you get consequences but usopp isnt a kiss ass to her and there are no consequences. (in fact usopp is quite snarky/mean to her, which is how he is when he isn't masking and completely confident in himself: see end of enies lobby) she apologizes to him when he's snarky to her in thriller bark.

since this is a nami themed post i won't talk about usopp as much. but have you noticed? usopp is mean when he's comfortable with people. he has this attitude at the end of enies lobby as they're escaping on the merry, i think i registered it subconsciously but i only did register it consciously a few weeks ago, but if usopp is truly comfortable he's not a kiss-ass whatsoever. and he's never a kiss ass with nami.

we don't really think about it like this because people are so prone to dismiss usopp is one of those characters that have a facade of palatability when he feels he's not on the same level as someone, coming from his insecurity, but in regards to his genuine attitude we see in enies lobby and with nami that admiration is not the true breath of how he thinks about zoro or sanji or luffy. he thinks they're fucking stupid as well. and he's right. (this exact thing is another reason nami is able to emphasize with him. she thinks similarly)

this ties into both nami and usopps implementation as shonen characters. they're smart and witty and have big personalities to differentiate them from the more powerful characters, i feel this juxtaposition with more traditional shonen characters has made oda feel like he has to justify both usopp and namis existences in the story in a way he doesn't with the other characters. i think it's this element that makes them the most consistently well written throughout every arc they appear in as opposed to the other 7.

[monowing-1]

Veering from Kingdom Death and back to Slay the Princess, I think conversations with 'The Wretch' being more or less like this.

--- Player: *Sits across across the room from them well beyond knife or chain range* The Wretch: *silently watches* Player: *watches* The Wretch: *silently watches* The Voice of the Paranoid: "S-s-she's just sitting there, MENACINGLY!!!" The Voice of the Hero: "I...don't think she is. I mean, look at her. She doesn't exactly look like the best in shape right now. How can she even hurt us now?" Voice of the Paranoid: "I-I guess, still though. We should probably stay well out of the range of that chains swing. One good hit and it's lights out for us." Voice of the Hero: "Mhmh." Options: -So....how are you? *Chosen* -Continue sitting there. Player: "So...how are you?" The Wretch: "Terrible." The Wretch: *Coughs into a bit of fabric thats ripped from their dress.* The Wretch: "Just terrible. " Options: -"Oh ok" -"And....how long have you been here?" *Chosen* Player: "Do you know how long you've been here?" The Wretch: *silently purses lips and their face scrunches up for a moment as they try to recall something before shaking their head and sighing.* The Wretch: "Too long, too, too long. It feels like i've been stuck in here for days without anything too eat or drink and I'm feeling it, thats for sure." The Wretch: *Another cough that's semi-violent and causes them to shake a bit* The Wretch: *sniffle* "Add to that with how sick I am, and I'm going to guess that I'm probably going to keel over given enough time." The Wretch: *slight sad smile at them* The Wretch: "But I'm going to guess that's what you came here for and want, right? I'm sure those claws of yours could do the trick."

------

And yeah, thats a bit of how it goes I think once you get her to calm down so that you can talk. She's tired, hungry, thirsty, a bit sick, and in general is the definition of her title, 'A Wretch.' A princess who is only a princess in name alone. But again, while she is weak and somewhat cynical, she is very aware of her situation (along with the possible threat the player poses to her) and is resourceful. Give her an opening and she will use it to try to escape or to retaliate.

[batboyblog]

Seeing the post about Jasmine, I can literally feel an ulcer grow within me. Are people actually this fucking stupid? Spreading VERY blatant and easily debunakable misinformation? Are they MALICIOUSLY trying to sabotage shit? Also the antisemitism only grows stronger. You literally have spoken in support of Palestine multiple times and yet these people start to froth at the mouth when they find out you're Jewish, these people have the reading comprehension of a fucking brick!!! And seeing the quote by Malcom X... Literally that's the most disgusting shit to act like you're a white liberal when Jews are not seen as white, are seen as lesser than white, the lack of self-awareness this person has is stunning. Sorry to make such a long post but what the fuck, seriously what the fuck is people's problem.

what the fuck is people's problem is a great question that I really wish I had an answer for.

I mean on the antisemitism front I suspect that the thrill of bullying transcends ideological views, just because you say you're a socialist doesn't mean you're also a good person. Just means you have justify your behavior through a new lens, so its fine to accuse Pete Buttigieg of being a sexual pervert like some conservative Catholic, if you're doing it as a "joke" because he's "Neo-liberal" or whatever, or post snakes at Elizabeth Warren, or or etc etc as long as you come up with an excuse its fine to be horrible as long as you do in the name of leftism! or whatever.

as to the wider question? why blow up chances to make progressive change by supporting nonsense candidates who are just unfunny versions of Vermin Supreme? hm I don't know, but I suspect that for a lot of them, politics aren't really real to them. It's like ideological football for them, the most important thing is to "be right" and "win the argument" over in reality, we have to sometimes work with people we loath, sometimes we have to put up with shitty things to get what we really want, and always always always its slow work. Listen, in 1912 Teddy Roosevelt put forward the idea of a national health service, over 100 years later we're still fighting for universal health care. Now we've made important steps, everyone over 65 those who need it most, have health coverage through Medicare, others have been added to Medicare, we have Obamacare which regulates the health markets and helps people get affordable coverage and more people are covered now than every before. But people like we're talking about would rather than was Nothing for anyone, that everyone was not covered at all, than take an answer that helps people but isn't perfect.

Just isn't my style really, idk I just can't help but think about all the people whose lives got saved by Obamacare and just, what we should have let them die? progress builds it doesn't just appear nothing just happens, so each term you move closer, but each time a Republican gets it, they undermine, undo, go backward. I mean for example, Trump literally wants to get rid of the job in government that advices all the many federal departs on how to be greener and replace it with a guy who's job it'll be to push departments to use more oil and gas.... literally thats a thing, what a perfect example of what a Republican Presidency is about, going backward. Then when we have a Democrat rather than making progress they have to undo all the damage to get to baseline and then start improving.

I also think there's a small group of cynical grifters, when Democrats/liberals/people on the left whatever we want to call them, are scared and frustrated and upset, ie when a Republican is in power and elections are years away, they invest, money, time, energy into things to try to feel like they're making a difference or that they're heard, or validated. Left wing podcasts boom, left wing groups that are good at social media boom, people can become kinda stars and make money. Now many of those people drift off to normal life when there's a safe Democrat not doing horrifying shit every day, the money dries up. So the cynical crowd 1. tries to undermine Democrats to keep that feeling of frustrated hopelessness alive in listeners so they keep toning in and 2. they want Republicans to win! of course! its good for them!

[belovedastolove]

webgott as songs!

aka songs that (in my head at least) are literally about them analyzed to fit them :)

apologies in advance that this first one is basically just my unpolished rambling + not so great/surface level-ish analysis but i wanted to put something out for webgott wednesday bc i haven’t for a long time!

here is my first song i thought of for this… it’s just so them it makes me feel actually so crazy

line 1: joe can see happiness (flowers) with david thats waiting for him, he’s into david like a lovesick puppy but makes him wait. and david does. and that just makes joe sick

line 2: pretty obvious, david is a writer and joe gives him so much shit for being a harvard dork and knowing so many big words but truthfully he admires web’s scholarly side so much it makes him want to punch people.

line 3: i imagine david, being so young and likely inexperienced to get very attached very quickly. he wants to call joe “liebling” all the damn time and it drives joe nuts because this is Not how he envisioned this playing out, and he hates being so endeared by this fucking Wealthy ivy league schmuck..

like 4: the more attached david gets the more joe wants to push him away but he literally cannot help himself like he is down horrendously.. he constantly seeks david out with the “you want some coffee?” and being so so unbearably touchy with david but also verbally agressive? he cannot make up his mind At All.. but joe is also sooo overwhelmed by any semblance of true affection or worry/care for him as a person that it feels suffocating to him and he has to get away

lines 5-8: these happy, jittery moments between them feels so right to joe but since he has major self esteem issues he believes he could never deserve anything this loving or gentle… so he Has to fuck this up so bad from davids perspective that david has to hate him & wish they never met

lines 9-10: joe has to drag david down to his level, make him angry so that’s all he associates with him. he wants david to realize that (in his head) he will never live up to his expectations, that he will always be stuck in this cycle of arguing and being miserable.

lines 11-12: joe genuinely believes with everything in his being that he just sucks the life from things with his anger, with everything wrong with him. he would never say this to david aloud (bc why break the illusion that he’s someone to be hated, not pitied?) but he holds such a sentiment that every argument, flare, literally anything and everything that goes awry between them is his fault at the root of the problem. he will constantly say otherwise, but he believes all the fault lies with him.

line 13: he thinks of david soo highly and like. above himself? david is meant to do, have, and be more than this. more than joe has or will ever amount to, and he cannot willfully hold david back from what joe thinks is best for him.. it kills him to think that david would end up “stuck” & unfulfilled with him, that he can’t be the loving and kind companion bc that’s just not him, that he’s so wrong for david but that he still wants and craves him so bad and its all the worse that the feeling is mutual. he’s not the type to agonize over how he looks or sounds (at least not outwardly) but he thinks he doesn’t have the wherewithal to match david in terms of smarts, looks, personality, any of it. he wants david to find someone he matches with. he knows that david “loves” him but fully believes it’s infatuation and will fade after the thrill of sex with a man stops being exciting or joe pisses him off well enough, whichever happens first.

joe wants david to perceive him as horribly as every thing that is said about him (he’s belligerent, volatile, callous, cynical, and sometimes just downright mean). he wants to say “i proved them right, didn’t i?” that there’s no basis for david to like him or even love him, he is not a good person.

the way that i daydream abt this verse in my head, is essentially after what happens with the commandant, joe wants to have one last run around before he forces himself to quit david. and he’ll make it good; everything david likes, slow and loving like he deserves. and david is like what the actual fuck is happening… the “a little more hurt won’t kill you” is lieb justifying this even though he feels like the most selfish bastard in the world for it. joe is enforcing what he wanted this to be from the beginning: casual sex, pretend it’s fine, let’s not get too personal like i’ve selfishly let you get.. this was a mistake.

if you made it this far, thank you so much for reading!