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feanorianethicsdepartment · 3 years ago

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Alright, I read your recent post and need to know - what is your interpretation of Maglor’s relationship with the twins?

askjdhslkjag my biggest self-inflicted problem in this fandom is that my take on maglor, elrond, and elros' relationship is so intensely detailed and specific i am forever tormented by none of the fic i read ever quite getting it right (from my perspective; i’ve read plenty of fic that presents a good interpretation on their own terms, it’s just never mine.) it’s simultaneously way darker than the fluffy kidnap dads stuff and nowhere near as black-and-white awful as the anti-fëanorian crowd likes to paint it, it’s messy and complicated and surrounded by darkness, and yet there’s also a sincere connection within it which mostly serves to make all those complications worse. angry teenage elrond is angry for a great many reasons, and the circumstances around him being raised by kinslayers account for at least half of them. there’s lots of complexity here, and i don’t see it in fic nearly as often as i’d like

(warning: the post... feathers? i already have an internet friend called faeiri this could be awkward - anyway, the post she’s talking about includes the line ‘everyone is wrong about kidnap dads except me.’ this post follows on from that in being as much a commentary about why various popular interpretations of both how the kidnapdoption went and the way people subsequently characterise the twins just don’t work for me as it is a setting out of my own ideas. i’m not really interested in getting into discourse here, i’m just trying to get my thoughts down. i’ve read fic with these interpretations before that i’ve liked, even, don’t take this as a Condemnation, aight? also this turned out long as hell, so i’m putting it under a cut)

i can never buy entirely fluffy depictions of kidnap dads

which isn’t to say i don’t read them! sometimes all i want is something sweet, for these kids to get to be happy for once. it’s not like i think their time with the fëanorians was completely devoid of laughter

it’s just. the pet names, the special days out, the home-cooked meals, it can get so treacly it stops feeling like the characters they are in the situation they’re in and turns into Generic Found Family #272

it soaks out all the complexity - which is the thing i am here for - and acts like oh, these kids were never in any danger, they were perfectly happy being abducted by the people who murdered everyone they knew, there’s nothing possibly questionable about this relationship at all

and... yeah. that’s not the characters i know. that’s not the context i know they belong to

i just can’t forget the circumstances that led them to meet

rivers of blood, the air filled with screams, a town ablaze, a woman choosing to die. every interaction the three of them have is going to proceed from that nightmare

(sidenote: i tend to hold it was maglor that raised the twins, with maedhros looming ominously in the background not really getting involved. it’s mostly personal preference, i’ve been in and out of the fandom since before this kidnap dads thing blew up and when i joined that was a perfectly standard reading)

(also the cave thing was a dumb idea, old man, if only because it implies beleriand had streams safe enough for children to play in at that point. the way it separates the twins from the third kinslaying is also something i don’t particularly vibe with)

probably my least favourite angle i’ve seen on the situation (edged out only by ‘maglor was actively abusive towards the twins’ which no no no no no no no no NO) is the idea that maglor (and/or maedhros, append as necessary) took the twins specifically to raise them

like, i get where it’s coming from, but it makes maglor come off as really creepy

(i have read fics where it is indeed played off as really creepy, but that’s not a maglor i have any interest in reading about)

(’mags 100% bad’ is just as facile a take to me as ‘mags 100% good’)

even if you’re saying maglor took them in because they had no one left to take care of them - i highly doubt they were the only children the fëanorians orphaned at sirion. idk, it always makes maglor seem much less sympathetic than i think it’s meant to

i prefer to think of it as more... organic? something that evolved, not something that was preordained. them growing closer gradually, the twins finding an adult who might maybe be on their side, maglor becoming invested in them almost by accident

and then the twins are so comfortable with the second scariest monster in amon ereb they frequently sass him off and maglor’s gotten so used to not hurting them he’s not even thinking about it any more. no one’s quite sure how it happened, but they’ve made a Connection

‘wait aren’t they a murderous warlord of questionable mental stability and a pair of terrified small children who’ve lost everyone they ever knew? isn’t that kinda fucked up?’ yup! that’s the point! complexity!

another idea i don’t like is the idea that maglor was an objectively better parent to the twins than eärendil or elwing

other people have talked about this already, i won’t rehash the whole thing. i will say that while i don’t think elwing was a perfect parent - someone so young, in such a horrible situation, i wouldn’t blame her for screwing up - i do think she (and eärendil) did the best by them they possibly could

this is one of the few things they have in common with maglor

something i come across now and again is the idea that sure, elwing and eärendil weren’t abusive or horrible or anything, but they were a couple of basically-teenagers with so many other responsibilities, there was only so much they could do. maglor, on the other hand, is an experienced adult who could take much better care of the twins

and...

first off, it’s not like mags doesn’t have a job. he’s a warlord, he has a fortress to help run, military shit to handle, lots of other stuff that needs to get done to stop everyone from starving or getting eaten by orcs. i feel like sirion had enough of a government there was plenty of opportunity for elwing to take days off and play with her kids, but in the fëanorian camp nobody really has the time to chase after a couple of toddlers, least of all one of the last points on the command network. they just don’t have the people any more

(seriously, the twins getting a formal education with tutors and classes and shit is a weirdly specific pet peeve of mine. this is a band of renegades, not a royal household; if there’s anyone left with those kinds of skills they almost certainly have more important things to do)

more than that, though - well, a quick glance through my late stage fëanorians tag should tell you a lot about what i think maglor’s mental state is like at this point. he is so accustomed to violence death means nothing to him, he’s lost most of his capacity for genuinely positive emotion to an endless century of defeat and despair, he hates everything in the universe, especially himself, he’s only able to keep functioning through a truly astounding amount of denial, and he covers it all up with a layer of snark and feigned apathy, which he defends aggressively because he’s subconsciously realised that if it breaks he’ll have absolutely nothing left

(maedhros, for the record, is... i’d say more stable, but at a lower point. maglor may interact with the world mostly through cold stares and mocking laughter, but at least his mind is firmly rooted in the present)

(on the other hand, at least maedhros lets himself be aware of what they are and where their road will lead)

which... this doesn’t mean maglor doesn’t try to be kind to the twins, or rein in his worst impulses around them

there’s just so little of him left but the weapon

he stalks through the halls like a portent of death and gets into hours-long screaming matches with maedhros and has definitely killed people in front of the twins

not even as, like, a deliberate attempt to scare them, but because when you solve most of your problems by stabbing them it’s pretty much a given that people who spend a lot of time around you are going to see you do it at least once

and sometimes, he curls up in an empty hallway, and weeps

... suffice it to say i don’t think elwing’s the more preoccupied, or the less mentally ill, parent here

just. in general, the fëanorians aren’t cackling boogeymen, but they’re not particularly nice either

no one has the energy left for that. not these isolated and weary soldiers at the end of a long losing war and the beginning of the end of the world. they don’t really bother to guard the kids against them escaping. where else are they going to go?

the sheer despair that must have been in the fëanorian camp after sirion, the knowledge that the cause cannot be fulfilled, that they are utterly forsaken, that they’re really just waiting to die -

it can’t have been a happy place to grow up in, under the shadow of loss and grief and deeds unrepentable, and the slow march of inevitable defeat

they would have had a better childhood if they stayed in sirion, raised by people who knew how to hope

but that isn’t the childhood they had. and despite everything i’ve said, i don’t think that childhood was an entirely awful one

yeah, see, this is where the other side of my self-inflicted fandom catch-22 comes in. just as much of the pro-kidnap dads stuff comes off as overly saccharine and simplified to me, i find much of the anti-kidnap dads stuff equally simplistic in the opposite direction

the idea that maglor and the fëanorians never meant anything to elros and elrond, that they had no effect on the people they became at all, that it was just a horrible thing that happened when they were children, easily thrown in the rear-view mirror...

that’s even more impossible to me than the idea that life with the fëanorians was 100% fluffy and nice

like, i’ve seen the take that elros and elrond hated the fëanorians from start to finish. they were perfect little sindarin princes, loyal to their people and the memory of doriath, spurning every scrap of kindness offered to them and knowing just what to say to twist the knife into the kinslayers’ wounds

... dude. they were six. hell, given their peredhelness, mentally they could easily have been younger

what six year old has a firm grasp of their ethnic identity? what six year old is fully aware of their place in history? what six year old would understand the politics that led to their situation?

don’t get me wrong, i can see hatred in there. but something else that doesn’t get acknowledged alongside it often enough is the fear

some of the stuff i’ve read feels like it gives the kids too much power in the situation. they’re perfectly happy to talk back to and belittle the people who burned down their hometown and killed everyone they ever knew, like miniature adults who don’t feel threatened at all

and, like, six. i can see them going for insults as a defensive measure, but it is defensive. it’s covering up fear, not coming from secure disdain

(and a lot of those insults sound, again, like things an adult who’s already familiar with the fëanorians would say, not a scared child who’s lost almost everything. why would a six year old raised by sindar and gondolindrim know what the noldolantë is, let alone what it means to maglor?)

(... i’m just ranting about this one fic that’s been ruffling my feathers for five years straight now, aren’t i)

i mean, i write elrond as the world’s angriest teenager, who snipes at maglor pretty much constantly, but the thing about angry teenage elrond is that he’s angry teenage elrond

he’s spent long enough with the fëanorians he has a pretty secure position within the camp, and he knows that maglor won’t hurt him from a decade and change of maglor not, in fact, hurting him

but as a small and terrified child abducted by the monsters his mother had nightmares about? he fluctuated wildly between ‘randomly guessing at things to say that wouldn’t get him killed’ ‘screaming at maglor to go away in words rarely more complicated than that’ 'desperately trying not to do or say anything in the hopes of not being noticed’ and ‘hiding’

(and i don’t think the twins were never in any danger from the fëanorians, either. quite besides the point that before they started orbiting maglor nobody was really sure what to do with them... well, they wouldn’t be the first children of thingol’s line the minions took revenge on)

(fortunately for them, maglor did, in fact, take them under his wing. by this point even their own followers are shit scared of the last two sons of fëanor, nobody’s going to mess with their stuff and risk getting mauled. tactically, it was a pretty good decision for a couple of toddlers)

more to the point, i feel like a child that young, in a situation that horrible, wouldn’t reject any kindness they were offered, any soothing touch in a universe of terror

in a world full of big scary monsters, the best way to survive is to get the biggest scariest monster possible to protect you. that’s how elros rationalises it when they’re, like, eight, mentally, but at the time they were just latching on to the only person around them who seemed to care about them

that’s how it started, on their end. two very young very scared children lost in a neverending nightmare clinging tightly to the lone outstretched pair of hands

as for maglor...

i’ve called mags evil before, but i see that as more of a... technical term? he is evil because he did the murder, he remains evil because he won’t stop doing the murder. hot take: murder bad

but that doesn’t make him, like, a moustache-twirling saturday morning cartoon villain. he is deeply unhappy with the position he’s in and the person he’s become, and he’s always trying not to take that final step over the edge

it’s not that i can’t see a maglor who is abusive or manipulative or who sees the twins more as objects than people. it’s just that that characterisation is one i am profoundly uninterested in. i do occasionally read fic with it, but it never enters my own headcanons

horrible people can do good things!! kinslayers can do good things!! the fallen are capable of humanity!! people can do both good and evil things at the same time, because people are complicated!! maglor is not psychologically incapable of actually taking pity on these kids!!!!

it’s... again, complexity. the fëanorians straddle the line between black and white, which is a lot less sharp in the legendarium than it’s sometimes characterised as. it’s what draws me to their characters so much, why i have so many stupid headcanons about them. pretending they fall firmly on either side of the line is my real fandom pet peeve

and, like, this moment? this sincere connection between a bloodstained warlord and two children who will grow up to be great and kind in equal measure? i may not entirely like the direction the fandom’s taken it recently, but that beat, that relationship, it still gets me

so no, i don’t think elrond and elros’ years with the fëanorians were an endless cavalcade of abuse and misery. i think there was love there, despite the darkness all around them

an old, tired monster, and the two tiny children it protects

maglor never hurts the twins, not ever, not once. his claws are sharp and his fangs are keen, if he so much as swatted them he’d rip them in half. instead he folds down the razor edges of his being, interacting with them ever so carefully. he has nightmares of suddenly tearing into their skin

seriously, the power differential between them is so great, maglor so much as raising his voice would break any trust they have in this horribly dangerous creature. fics where he does corporal punishment always get the side-eye from me

the mood of their relationship is... i find it hard to put into words. melancholy, maybe, like a sunny afternoon a few days before the end of the world. three people who’ve lost so much finding what respite they can in each other as the world slowly crumbles around them

there are times when it feels like the three of them exist in a world of their own, marked out by the edges of the firelight. maglor telling stories of the stars, elros giving relaxed irreverent commentary, elrond getting a few moments to just be, all their troubles kept at bay

they are the last two lights in a world sunk into darkness, the last two living beings he does not on some level hate. he will tear his own heart out before he sees them in pain

he teaches them to ride, he teaches them to read, he gives them everything he still has left. the twins should never have been in this situation, maglor probably isn’t entirely fit to take care of them, but it is what it is, and they take what love they can

(maglor depends on the twins emotionally a bit more than any adult should rely on any child. he’s still very much the caretaker in their relationship, but that relationship is the only one he has left that’s not stained by a century of rage and grief. he’s obsessed with them, maedhros tells him frequently. maglor’s standard response to this is to try to gouge maedhros’ eyes out)

(that particular darker side to their relationship, where maglor’s attachment to the twins turns into a desperate possessiveness - that’s not something i think i’ve ever seen in fic. which is a shame, it feels much closer to my own characterisation than the standard ways this relationship gets maleficised. darker, in a different way than usual. horribly compelling in its plausibility)

however you want to read it, i don’t think you can deny this is a relationship that defines elrond and elros’ childhood. they were raised in the woods by a pack of kinslayers, the text is quite clear on this

but i’ve seen a lot of talk about how elros and elrond are only sirion’s children. they are completely 100% sindarin, they love and forgive eärendil and elwing thoroughly and without question, they identify with doriath over - even gondolin, let alone tirion. the fëanorians - the people who raised them - had zero effect on the people they grew into and the selves they created

and that, more than anything else, i find utterly unbelievable

look, i get what this is a reaction to. a lot of the kidnap dads stuff paints the fëanorians as elrond and elros’ ‘real’ family, and i’ve already talked about what i think of the idea that maglor-and-possibly-also-maedhros were better parents than eärendil and elwing. i think it’s reductive and overly optimistic and just a little too neat

but to say instead that elrond and elros held no great love in their hearts for maglor, no lingering affinity with the fëanorians, no influence on their identity from the people they grew up around, none at all? that after it happened they just left it behind and resumed being the same people they were in sirion?

that strikes me as just as much an oversimplification. it sands down all the potential rough edges of their identity, all that inconvenient complexity that stops them from fitting into any well-defined box, and replaces it with a nice safe simple self-conception i find just as flat and boring as declaring them 100% fëanorian

we can quibble over who they call ‘father’ (i personally find that whole debate kinda petty) but denying that it was actually maglor who was the closest thing they knew to a parent for most of their childhoods, and that that would, in fact, affect the way they thought of themselves and their family, elides so many interesting possibilities out of existence

(i’m not even going to get into the most braindead take i have ever heard on the subject, namely that because their time with the fëanorians was such a small fraction of elrond’s total lifespan it was like being kidnapped for two weeks as a toddler and had no greater significance than that. do you not understand what childhood is????)

like, i tend to think of elrond as a child as being very loudly not-a-fëanorian. elros is more willing to go with the flow - hey, if the creepy kinslayer wants kids, elros is happy to play into that in order to not be murdered - but elrond is very firm that he’s not happy to be here and he doesn’t belong with them

(this is after they get over their initial terror, of course, when they’ve realised they won’t be fed to the orcs for the tiniest slight. even so, elrond only really gets shirty about it around people he’s comfortable with, whose reactions he can reasonably guess at. naturally, the first person he does it to is maglor)

elros calls maglor their father exactly once, when they’re... maybe early preteens? this is because elrond hears him do it and immediately loses his shit. they have a dad, elrond says, in tears, and a mum, and any day now their real parents are going to come to pick them up and take them home

... right?

it gets harder to believe as the years roll on, as their memories of sirion fade, as they find their own places within the host, as maglor watches over them as they grow. elrond still mentally sets himself apart from the fëanorians, but it’s more of an effort every year. life in the fëanorian camp is the only one he’s ever really known. he can barely remember his mother’s voice

then the war of wrath starts, and the fëanorian host drifts closer to the army of valinor, and the twins come into contact with non-fëanorians for the first time in forever, and it becomes clear just how obviously fëanorian elrond is. he always insisted he wasn’t like the kinslayers at all, but he dresses like them, talks like them, fights like them

the myth cycles the edain tell are almost completely unfamiliar to him, he barely remembers the shape of the songs of lost doriath. even these sarcastic commentary and subversive reinterpretations he made of maglor’s stories - those were still maglor’s stories! he’s been trying to guess at the person he was meant to be, but it’s growing nightmarishly blatant how little elrond ever knew about him

instead, the people he was born to are as alien to him as the orcs of morgoth. he is a fëanorian, through and through

... yeah, elrond (and/or elros) having an absolutely massive identity crisis upon being reintroduced to his quote-unquote ‘true kin’ is another angle i’d love to see in fic that i don’t think i’ve ever come across. all those potential grey areas around who they are and who they’re supposed to be sound utterly fascinating, and i think it’s the complexity i hate to see elided over the most

i really, really doubt they could effortlessly slot back into being eärendil and elwing’s children. not when they’ve been surrounded by, lived alongside, been raised by the people who were supposed to enemies for most of their lives

they just don’t fit into that box any more. they can’t

speaking of eärendil and elwing, while i do agree that they both (especially elwing) get a lot more flak than they deserve, i don’t agree that therefore elrond and elros were never the slightest bit mad at them and fully forgave them for everything with no reservations

because, well, they were left behind. elwing had no other choice, but they were still left behind; it led to the world being saved, but they were still left behind. all the best intentions in the universe don’t erase the weeks and months and years of waiting, of a hope that grew thinner and frailer until it finally quietly broke

that’s a real hurt, and a real grievance. even if the twins rationally understand that their parents were making the best out of their terrible situation, you can’t logic away emotions like that. it’s perfectly possible for them to know they have no reason to resent eärendil or elwing, and yet still harbour that bitterness and pain

(i did write a thing once where elrond loudly rejects eärendil as his father in favour of maglor, but something i didn’t add in that i probably should have is that elrond later regretted doing that)

(not like, several centuries later, when he’d grown old and wise. two hours later, when he’d calmed down. but he was still legitimately angry at eärendil, because the one thing angry teenage elrond was not lacking in was reasons to be mad at the adults around him, and before he could figure out if he had anything less furious to say the hosts of the valar left middle-earth behind)

(it’s another element to the tragedy of the whole thing. in that particular story, which is mostly aiming for maximum pain, the only thing elrond’s birth parents know about their son for thousands of years is that he hates them)

(and he doesn’t, not really. you can’t hate someone you’ve never known)

not that i think they couldn’t ever make up with their parents! fics where elrond and his birth parents work past all the things that lie between them and form a functional familial bond despite it all give me life. i just don’t like the idea that there’s nothing difficult for them to work past

i don’t like the idea that elrond and elros would naturally, effortlessly identify with the mother they last saw when they were six and the people they only vaguely remember. i can see them doing it as a political move, i can see them going for it as a deliberate personal choice, but i can’t seeing it being immediate and automatic and easy

no matter how great a pair of heroes eärendil and elwing are, that doesn’t change the fact that to elrond and elros, they’re at most a few scattered memories and a collection of far-off stories. and so long as the twins stay in middle-earth, they’re never going to draw any closer

compared to the dynamic, multifaceted, personal, and deep bonds they have with the fëanorians - who, and i know i keep saying this but i think it gets tossed aside way more casually than it should, are the people who actually raised them, their birth parents must feel like a distant idea

and that’s why i can never buy interpretations of elrond as 100% sindarin, a pure son of doriath, with no messy grey areas or awkward jagged edges to his identity. given everything we know about his life, it seems almost cartoonishly simplistic

honestly it seems like a narrative a bunch of old doriathrin nobles trying to manouevre elrond into being high king of the sindar or something would propagate. it's neat and nice and tidy, something that’d be much more convenient for everyone if elrond did feel that way

but i just don’t see how he can. this narrative is easy and simple in a way real people never are, it ignores all the forces pulling him apart. elrond being uncomplicatedly sindarin with the life he lives and the people he's close to - that doesn’t make any sense to me

which isn’t to say i think he’s 100% noldorin, from either a gondolindrim or a fëanorian perspective. (i find it a little more believable, given, again, who he grew up around and who he hangs out with, but it’s still a bit too reductive for my tastes.) it’s also not to say i couldn’t believe an elrond who made an active choice to emphasise his sindarin heritage

it’s not how i think of him, but it works. i don’t have a problem with other people interpreting the complexities of the twins’ identities differently

i just have a problem with people acting like it doesn’t exist

in general i think there’s a lot untapped potential that gets left behind when you declare the twins, separately or together, as All One Thing

they’re descended from half the noble houses of beleriand, and they have deep personal ties to most of the rest. they belong to all of the free peoples even the dwarves, somehow, probably and i feel like that was kind of the old man’s point? so many peoples meet in them, to say they wholly belong to any one species is probably an oversimplification

they sit at a crossroads of potential identities, and rather than narrowing down their worldviews to one single path, they take the hard road and choose all of them. that’s what you need to do, if you want to change the world

and, to bring this back to my ostensible topic, in my estimation at least this mélange of possible selves does include them as fëanorians! it’s not overpowering, but it’s certainly there, and the adults they grow into long after they’ve left the host still bear influence from their childhood

nothing super obvious, nothing that wouldn’t stand out if you didn’t know what to look for, but there’s something almost incandescent in how fiercely elros reaches out for his dreams

there’s something almost defiant in elrond’s drive to be as kind as summer

as for who they publically claim as their family... honestly, it depends. while it’s usually more tactically prudent for elros to connect himself to his various human ancestors, on occasion he does find a use for his free in with the elf mafia, and elrond, code switcher par excellence, is famously the son of whoever is most politically convenient at the moment, which is rarely, but not never, maglor

(in the privacy of their own minds, well, eärendil and elwing may have been the parents elros was supposed to have, but maglor was the parent he actually had, and elros doesn’t particularly care to mope over what might have been. elrond, for his part, figures that after all the shit maglor has put him through, the least that bastard owes him is a father)

but honestly? i think before any of their mountain of identities, before thinking of themselves as sindarin or gondolindel or hadorian or haladin or fëanorian or anything, elrond and elros identify as themselves

they are peredhil, they are númenóreans, they are whoever they make themselves to be. that’s how elrond finally resolved his identity, figured out who he was and found something past the pain and the rage

he wasn’t doriathrin, or gondolindrin, or falathrin, or fëanorian, or whatever else. he was elrond, no more and no less

and that person, elrond, could be whatever he chose to be

... elros came to a similar conclusion, with much less sturm und drang that he’s willing to admit. being able to go ‘hey, i can’t possibly be biased towards any one of your cultures, because i’m descended from all of you and i was raised by murderelves’ makes it a lot easier to unite people around your personal banner, turns out

the stories other people tried to force on them shattered into pieces, and the peredhel twins were free to shape themselves into anything they could dream of

and as the new world struggles alive, these lost children of an Age of death begin to bloom into their full glorious selves -

i just. i love the poetry of that. despite every single shadow that hangs over their past, despite all the clashing notes pulling them apart, they harmonise it all into a greater, kinder theme, determined to make their world a better place in whatever way they can

they fail, of course, but so do all things. the inevitable march of entropy doesn’t diminish the long millennia they (and their descendants) held onto the light

and their growing up in the fëanorian host definitely had a huge effect on the noble lords they became. you can see it in elros’ loud ambition to create a land of happiness and hope, elrond’s quiet resolve to heal all the hurts inflicted by this marred reality

it wasn’t a perfect time by any means, but neither was it a nightmare. it was what it was, a desperate existence at the edge of a knife where, nevertheless, they were loved

even after years upon decades upon centuries have passed, it’s hard for the wise king and the honourable sage to separate out and identify all the conflicting emotions swirling around their childhood. they never knew eärendil or elwing, true, but they also never really knew maglor

not as equals, not as adults, not as people who could truly understand him. he disappeared into the fog of history, leaving only childhood memories of razor-sharp, gentle hands

it’s messy and it’s complicated and getting any real closure would be like shoving their way through a thornbush with bare hands even if elrond could find the shithead, and yet at the core of it all, there is light. not the brightest of lights, maybe, but an enduring one

that contrast, above all, that note of warmth amidst the shadows, is what fascinates me so much about their relationship. three screwed up people in a screwed up world, finding a little peace with each other

and the fact that somehow, it does have a good ending - the children grow up magnificent and compassionate and just, they become exemplars of all their peoples, lodestars of the new world born out of the ashes of the old - that makes it seem to me like this relationship must have contained some fragment of happiness

but, fuck, all the darkness that surrounds that love, all the tangled-up emotions its existence necessitates, all the prefabricated self-identities it can never slot into - nothing about it is simple, nothing about it is easy, and i find that utterly enthralling. especially how, despite everything, that flickering light never goes out

well, i don’t think it does, anyway. my take on this relationship is both complicated enough no one else ever quite gets it right and well-defined enough every single ‘error’ in other people’s interpretations sticks out like a kinslayer in rivendell

it is an entirely self-inflicted problem, i will admit. other people are allowed to interpret those complexities differently from me, and it’s entirely my own fault i lack the :waves hands around nebulously: to write my own hypothetical fic on the subject at a pace faster than glacial

still, though. i do wish there was more fic out there that engaged with these complexities. a lot of the common fandom interpretations of this relationship just sweep it all away

#ask #my terrible headcanons #elros #elrond #maglor #elwing #earendil #feanorians #niphredilien #yellow feathered faerie #putting your old url in the tags for archival purposes #post nyanyannya askbox clearout #ironically it turned out almost as long as the songfic that clogged up my askbox in the first place #and it is DONE #fuck this took forever to write #stayed up late just to get it out the door so i don't have to think about it any more #this is a long ramble and i'm pretty sure the end is just me repeating myself ad nausem sorry #i'll admit to a certain pro-feanorian bias in my interpretation #but i also don't want elros and elrond to just. live in a neverending horrorshow for decades #the silm's cruel enough we don't need that #narratively i feel like elrond being All Of The Elves is a good mirror for elros being All Of The Humans #but it didn't really fit the angle i was going for #bleck #let's see how many followers i lose for this

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ghostietea · 4 years ago

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Furuba autistic headcanons

With it being April, or autism acceptance month, I wanted to finally drop my list of characters from Fruits Basket that I read as autistic! This is based a lot on my own experience, as well as that of other autistics I know or have seen talk online. I hope some people can get something out of it, feel free to tell me what you think 😊, though please refrain from getting upset that I would dare suggest your fave is autistic.

Hanajima

Before becoming able to better control her powers, she would be constantly overwhelmed by the things she heard to the point that she couldn't even really go out in public. This reads a lot like sensory overload.

Constantly picked on in school because other kids thought she was weird. Eventually reclaimed this weirdness and turned it into a whole persona.

Seems to talk usually in a relatively flat tone.

Had trouble socializing with no friends outside her family until middleschool.

Has a very funny, dry sense of humor that I find very similar to a bunch of autistics I know, including myself.

Hatsuharu

Listen. You have seen the funky little man, you have seen the way he talks, the way he acts around others. He is, and I mean this in the best way, a weirdo. I do not know how you could look at him and see a neurotypical.

Once again, like Hana, Haru is funny in a way that feels very autistic.

Very flat, dry, tone delivery. Sometimes just Says Things that make everyone else go huh??? Suuuuper blunt. Doesn't emote facially a lot of the time.

When this man sees a social norm he doesn't get he WILL NOT follow it. Pierces his ears just because his hair got flak, defends Momiji wearing whatever he wants because sometimes y'know the social rules are just dumb and don't make sense. Especially dress codes.

Sometimes says things not befitting the current tone of the situation.

Represses (masks) a lot of his emotions, leading to outbursts that seem uncharacteristic.

His main childhood trauma revolves around adults branding him as "dumb" and ridiculing him. Haru, however, is super smart and wise!! Just in an offbeat way that not everyone may get.

Machi

Reads as very "flat" emotionally to the point that others would call her boring. Also has a flat vocal delivery.

Relies on specific habits or ways of doing things or else she gets super upset (her hatred of imperfection.

Has trauma surrounding adults completely misconstruing her intentions and thinking she's doing something malicious when she's not.

Generally behaves in a way that's hard for others to understand, one of her formative moments with Yuki was him saying he wanted to "see how the world looks" through her eyes.

Once again, trouble socializing.

Tries super hard to please her parents but in the end they still see her as somehow inherently "defective."

Listen. A lot of this one and the last two are mostly vibes, hard to verbally define. You just have to look at them and trust me.

Tohru

Displays behavior very reminiscent of masking throughout the story, a huge part of her arc is about how she hides a lot of herself and has a very controlled persona. I think it would fit very well if she had other autistic behaviors that she suppresed also it helps explain why she is relatively socially adept, it's learned behavior to make people like her more.

Yes she is very good at saying what others need to hear, but especially early on she is pretty blatantly imitating her mother's words. She only gets better at getting through on a more personal level later on (see her with Rin and Akito v. early series Tohru). She does this by relating her own experiences, a very autistic way of showing empathy that often gets us written off as self centered. The way she relays things her mom said could also be seen as this, and she even worries at a few points that she's being insensitive for going on about things like that.

While emotionally repressed she is hyper empathetic and feels other's emotions so strongly she cries.

Her speech patterns are all imitated from her father and she often copies verbal things from others (see Ritchan-san). Noted in canon that people think her way of speaking is slightly off/not befitting of someone her age. Additionally, her father was polite more sarcastically, while she plays it straight and sometimes takes things very literally or fails to get the message, indicating trouble with reading tone. Has numerous strange verbal tics, including saying parts of her internal monologue out loud without context.

Very expressive with her hands including waving them around and flapping them up and down.

Does have a bit of trouble with accidental insensitivity in social interactions, like how she constantly fixates on her mom and realizes that might bug the Sohma.

Has trouble paying attention in school since it doesn't have much to do with her interests

Her only friend until she was a middle schooler was her mom

Has a pretty unique outlook on things compared to others, people seem to think she's pretty eccentric. There's always a "this girl is nice but in an odd way, she's our weirdo and we love her" vibe.

Sometimes has an "inappropriate" emotional response to situations

Has a lot of trouble with change, similar to Akito. Which oh, look at the time, next hc coming up.

But first, a disclaimer. It is cathartic for me to read Akito this way, but with that reading comes the baggage that she would, mayhaps, be showing a more negative side of things... It doesn't bother me since it's a joint hc with other characters and she does develop at the end but yeah, general villain hc baggage. This is in no way me trying to excuse her being The Worst being autistic doesn't absolve you of being able to do wrong . Also, a lot of these points can and do have other explanations related to her upbringing, but things can be for more than 1 reason. With that said, she really strongly comes off as autistic to me, in a way that's sorta hard to explain. I wrote a lot more for her than the other, both because I felt I needed more to convince people and that this headcanon was more sensitive and I needed to be careful in my explanation. Also hey! She's my special interest within a special interest.

Akito

Shown to have a dislike of summer weather due to heat and brightness, could be due to sensory issues in tandem with sickness things. Also covers her ears when people raise their voice sometimes which is partially her trying to shut down opposition but also 🤔 can read a different way. She'd also avoids louder Juuni like Ritsu and Ayame because she can't handle them.

Wears pretty much the same outfit every single day. Said outfit is also pretty loose fitting.

Always seen sitting in a pretty unconventional way. Evidence:

Of course this is also the isolated in a cult thing and there is a level of her purposefully doing things to intimidate but: doesn't follow a lot of social rules (overly touchy with strangers, legit doesn't get that what she's doing is wrong, ect.). Repeatedly confused when people indicate she should act otherwise without explanation. Has a breakdown when this comes to a head and approximately says that "they" shouldn't expect her to know "common sense" if "they" never explained it to her, that the way that she was was her "common sense."

Often talks in a way uncharacteristic of her age when shown as a child in a more faux mature/pretentious way. Might just be the translation and idk how to explain it but her speech as an adult also seems off from what one would normally use in conversation. Additionally, when she tries to fake being friendly in her intro chapter, it comes of as extremely stiff and unconvincing.

Generally displays behavior that could be thought of as childish as an adult, but a lot of this behavior could also read as autistic (covering ears, emotional deregulation and meltdowns, ignorance of basic social norms, ect.). It's also important to note that she knows that this behavior makes her seem younger and more helpless to the older zodiac and uses it as a manipulation tactic. Has issues regarding people treating her like a child or only hanging out with her because of pity. While she does weaponize it, we can tell that this grates on her, as seen with her finally blowing up on Kureno, which is partially triggered by the maids saying some sorta infantalizing stuff about her. Irl, a lot of autistic adults and teens struggle with being infantalized for our behavior generally or treated as little babies that can do no wrong. Even in fandom, you see people doing stuff like jumping to call autistic adult characters, such as Entrapta from Shera, "minor coded." It is also common for us to have at least one bad experience with someone hanging around us out of pity. This is something that really gave me a similar feeling in Akito's arc. She's not a baby and she can understand and do better if she is given the chance to learn and break from all the freaky cult indoctrination she's been subjected to instead of just being constantly enabled. In the end, a lot of her growth is represented by her showing that she is capable of changing and being independent.

Shows particular difficulty with socialization, often sits by herself spacing out at social events. A lot of her fear is rooted in the fact that she doesn't know how normal relationships work, becoming overly reliant on the curse because she doesn't know how to make friends.

Clings desperately onto the notion of being "special" and in some way superior to others to be worthy and to make up for perceived inherent "flaws." It's the nd gifted kid burnout vibes for me.

Easily bothered by things that don't bother others. Feels emotions very strongly to the point of getting physically ill and has bad emotional regulation.

Relatively good at reading others in an analytical sense (though has more trouble when it comes to seeing how they feel about her since she's wildly delusional) but brings up her observations in a very cold, detached way and hurts people even on the rare occasion she didn't mean to. Has extreme trouble connecting to others and understanding their point of view. This makes her come off as pretty unempathetic even though that might not fully be the case. Also thinks that people like Momiji are trying to look down on her when they try to empathize with her. A lot of why Tohru can get through to her is that she manages to convince Akito that she's not condescending by relating shared traits and experiences. As I said earlier, autistics often empathize by sharing their own experiences with someone, and I know I often have an easier time confiding in other autistics because of a fear of being seen as lesser by those that don't understand me. I think the connection between these charachters and the way that Tohru manages to reach Akito like that while others couldn't makes a lot of sense through an autistic lense!

Additionally, when Akito herself gets around to trying to help others instead of just projecting trauma, she tries to reach out to the old maid by relating back to her own experiences. This however, doesn't work.

Has "cold" emotional reactions sometimes even to things that do make her upset. For example, how sort of calm and detached she acted after her father's death can make her seem uncaring. However, we know that this event did mess her up a lot and she is still (poorly) dealing with a lot of grief from the death of her father years later.

Copies mannerisms from others, the most blatant example is with Ren, who she directly parrots lines from as a child to Yuki.

Partly just her posturing, but gestures a lot with her hands when she talks. Also seen several times clutching her hands in her hair.

Deals extremely poorly with the idea of things changing to the point that it is a driving force of the story.

Does not understand when people tease her.

Ect. Ect. Ect. Listen, I could go on for ages but just trust me, the mean gremlin lady is autistic.

#fruits basket #akito sohma #tohru honda #saki hanajima #machi kuragi #hatsuharu sohma #actually autistic #meta

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key-to-my-heart · 3 years ago

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S2 WISHFUL THINKING

hey hi hello! i haven’t really been active on tumblr but i wanted to get back into the swing of being active and posting often. so.

i decided i will take note of some of my predictions, hopes, wishes etc. for Season 2 of Rainbow High!

so i kinda wanna just cover the things we canonically have seen aka specific events and drama that has gotten introduced

- The New Roommates / Series 3 Girls

i feel like we will definitely see more of them within the coming episodes. rainbow high literally advertised the new teams as like… i think the second or third teaser for the new season

it’s interesting to me because. this makes me think of What The Runway Project is? what could it possibly be? i believe i made a post about this in the past but the main theory (and theory i believe the most in) would be a Stage Production of sorts. i mean… it makes sense!

the twins are both Performing Arts focus and are definitely the antags this season. so why wouldn’t they cause trouble in regard to a stage play? plus, bella is back. she’s literally a set designer! we have never seen her do any set designing (other than making a sketch) so it would be fun to see that! if river were to get more focus this season, he would definitely have an outlet to channel his Performing Arts creativity! plus… Daria is a song writer so like. imagine if we were to get music out of that? please. the possibilities are endless.

im also eager to see the series 3 girls dynamics. like are the rest of the girls (gabriella, georgia, emmy and daphne) all roomed together? do they get along? will they all be just as dramatic as stella, sheryl and daria’s dynamic?

but anyway. whatever the drama and the semester project is, the new teammates definitely seem to be playing a crucial role in this season.

- The Twins

i’m actually really eager to see more of them. i feel like not enough people are talking about them? season 2 is actually really interesting so far…. maybe more so than season 1… and i feel like we are going to have to thank the twins for that at some point lol

like. idek what they’re planning on doing but. i’m excited to see what it is! they’ll probably be involved in the semester project or at least causing problems to all of the roommates and teams. they’ll definitely have something going on with bella. and it seems that they have a good bond with karma (after the KWK we got). so maybe they’ll have input in any potential drama with Karma. which leads me to

- Karma VS. Violet

so. this drama has been teased at for like. ever. for what feels like forever.

this moment in Karma’s bio PLUS the commentary about violet from her and the twins in the recent KWK episode. but anyway. i’m actually super interested in whatever this drama could be??? like. why is karma watching.

we know violet adores karma, she really wants to have her in the vi life. so i’m sure she basically looks up to her! but like. will karma actually genuinely be nice with violet? keep a distance? make remarks like she did in her recent vlog? i don’t know. idk what to expect. of course it’ll have to do with vlogging or something.

- Bella

ok so there is a few things to note with bella. i’m still interested in if bella will accept to do an interview with Karma for her vlog? if so, i wonder how that would go. and i wonder how violet would feel about it. like the very last time bella was featured in vi’s vlog was on a bad note (even though they made up) but like. idk AAA

also i’m wondering how bella is gonna handle being back to rainbow high. because so far it seems she’s having trouble fitting in. will the key to her fitting in be Jade? will Jade help her figure everything out? or would it be someone else?

as much as i’d love Jade to be the reason Bella starts to feel more at home, i also love the other idea of Amaya being the reason bella feels comfortable again. Amaya was once the new girl (and of course in an awkward position because she was essentially a replacement for bella’s spot in the runway group) but. she didn’t fit in. she had to find her place at rainbow high… and it took her until the runway show to be able to truly feel comfortable.

and like. i’ve been rooting for bella/amaya dynamic for awhile now. i see a lot of potential in this duo. we know they somewhat have tension. i mean. bella had a really awkward confrontation with amaya and that was rly their first and last conversation. sure they’ve been around each other like in the music video, at the end of s1, and when bella walked into the girls dorm s2ep2 but like. that’s it.

SO ANYWAY. what i’m trying to get at is that these two definitely need to become friends. i mean. they have a LOT in common. i was talking about the new girl situation because i feel like they can relate in that way. they both had an awkward entrance into rainbow high and could bond over that. it took amaya awhile to feel at home at rainbow high… so maybe she could become friends with bella and help her feel at home! they’re both very determined leader types. they’re really passionate and! they have the same friend group! so why not become friends?

- Jade and Bella

of course i will wonder about these two! i have no clue what to expect with them. the fandom and myself are really really really wanting to see these two become a canon sapphic couple. i really want to see this happen! and mga knows this. mga knows we want to see jella happen. i mean, they literally snatched the ship name from us and plastered it into their vlogs. so they KNOW

anyway. these two are literally going through it rn. the way jade’s eyes lit up when she saw bella was back at rh. and now both of them are looking for each other and worried about each other. jade thinking bella is mad at her rn? please. i will sob. they are really holding off this jella reunion but i hope it’s for a good reason. i just want them to talk and have a good reunion… a hug……. happy tears, happy smiles…………..a love confession…

- Amaya

so i don’t really have much to say here but i’m just wondering about amaya this season. she’s definitely been advertised so much to the point that she essentially became like. THE main focus in season 1. this peeved some people but personally i loved amaya being like a sort of main character figure. she didn’t really take attention away from the other characters but also had that energy of being a main character anyway.

my point is, though, idk how she will play out in this season? like is she going to be as much of a main character as the main 6 are…. or will she play a bigger role? i have no clue. it seems bella is going to have a key focus this season, which makes sense, but it still just makes me wonder about amaya’s role this season

- Colin

i just hope this man does not get a development arc. i know some people want him to…. but i just. i don’t. i don’t understand. the point of him existing was to show that cheating is wrong and to display girl power. by teaching that skyler didn’t need a man to prove her worth. that she is her own person. her own strength! i really hope that colin and bella don’t have anything omfg.

- Winter Break

i’m really. REALLY excited for the winter break arc. it’s about time we get to see some backgrounds outside of rainbow high! plus the animated tidbits of ruby, sky, and violet in their wb outfits in the wb commercial was everything.

i’m so excited to see their new hairstyles, to see them with their snow gear and more. omg. of course i think the twins will be involved in this arc someone. krystal briefly mentioned the twins’ family having a ski lodge. and then of course we see sunny with her skis so like. yea!! i just wonder how these episodes would play out. or episode. but anyway like… will they just vibe? or will there be a problem of sorts? if it’s winter break then it probably won’t tie into school or like projects or anything like that

- Kia Hart

i’m actually hoping kia gets some focus this season. like. what is she going to do? is she going to pair another couple together? (if so, please be jella. okay wait seriously what if she is the key to reuniting jade and bella together… anyway) i just hope to see more of her and possibly more of her and krystal together haha. but kia just vibes so far, it would be lovely to get more of her!

- The A’s

so ainsley is finally beginning to get some attention! i really hope we continue to get more of her as well as avery, and aidan of course! we did get a bunch of content of aidan but you can never have enough honestly.

but i just wonder about how the A’s will be this season. like will they do anything significant? are bella and avery going to remain close? what is going on!!!

- The Malibu Line

so we literally know nothing about this except

but i still wonder like. if we will get to see anything about it at any point during the web series. perhaps it would be more of a summer thing. but it definitely means something if Bella is in it! (also i’m just generally excited for her new doll. omfg.)

- The Rock Line

so we also know almost nothing about this except

saw someone discuss that the music being heard during s2ep2 could be in regards to the rock battle. honestly. what if this is some sort of project? battle of bands or something? that would be cool lol. anyway i’m intrigued for this line mainly because of all the clothing leaks we have been getting omg.

- The Slumber Party Line

we have known about this for a little while (with the theory of the baby blue girl being in it) but i’m just curious as to who the characters are and if they will be in the web series at all.

- Jett Dawson

okay so. this is a big one. jett being a collector doll, i feel like she’ll definitely play a crucial role in the series. so like. who will she be to the main characters? it says she’s generally nice. why was she giving that look to the girls after their runway performance? IDK! i have no clue what to expect with her. i feel like the expectations i had for amaya (before we knew anything about her) will be put into jett because. the vibes i got from amaya ever since we just had her doll… i am also kind of getting from jett. so i’m eager!

#rainbow high #rainbowhigh #rainbow high dolls #rh: episode predictions #rh: theories

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geektasticwoodles · 4 years ago

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Hyper Specific Tropes I Love + some headcanons: Fairy Tail Edition

•so as I think we all know there are some tropes that tend to pop up more or in specific ways with different fandoms. Or certain trope-y headcanons that float around. So this series will for these types of things that I love within specific fandoms. Starting with Fairy Tail!•

Note: this will resolve around my main ships but I’m a multishipper so yeah.

Natsu being only slightly confused oblivious. Like I don’t like the “super innocent” but I think he’d be at least some what stupid in regards to emotions as they pertain to romance specifically.

Gray and Natsu being best bros. Like a very brother like relationship with exactly as much teaching as the show. All good natured. But Gray, being more observant, 100% teasing Natsu about his crush on Lucy. Like RELENTLESSLY teasing.

Natsu’s (well all the Dragon Slayers) super hearing and smell. I ADORE the trope of Natsu hearing Lucy whisper his name in her sleep from another room. Or smelling her getting pregnancy because it’s a new smell. Or Gray teasing Natsu under his breath. Natsu and Gajeel insulting each other under their breath and having conversations.

I love Gray and Lucy being like brother and sister with teasing and such.

I love Gruvia + FWB relationship that develops into more. Like Gray saying “this doesn’t mean I love you back” and Juvia being like “I don’t care. I’m just happy to enjoy this moment”. But over time Gray starts letting his guard down and falling in actual love with Juvia, or rather, he lets himself admit it.

Erza and Jellal + Strawberry Cake picnics. Nuff said.

I’m a sucker for WELL WRITTEN Dragon Slayer Mating Season. It’s not common to find it super well written. But I’ll even read 1st person on that one of the rest of the fic/story is well done enough. I don’t like it when it has non-con elements to it though so it’s tricky. Like, they can be intensely horny and want their mates and still respect “no”. Like they might be whiny but I know Natsu would be respectful AF no matter what. He would never hurt Lucy. Ever. Same with Gajeel and Levy. I also like with Laxus also goes through it but in a slightly different way because his is from Lacrama and not being a naturally trained slayer. Like maybe Laxus just gets extremely cuddly and such. Idk I think it’d be funny.

I love when Natsu gets extremely jealous but it’s mostly internal because he hates when Lucy is mad at him so he’s just extra pissy at everyone else. And sort of cold to Lucy because he can’t deal with the emotions.

Lucy seeing the soft sides of Natsu on some missions and falling in love with every part of him.

Happy “they looooovvveeeee youuu” constantly.

Loke coming down with his own magic to slap Natsu for being an idiot/accidentally hurting Lucy.

Loke and Lucy having best friend style sleep overs. Natsu invites himself over. Gray too. And of course Juvia has to come over. She calls Lucy her “Love Rival”. They play spin the bottle. There is one Gratsu Kiss. Loke ends up Kissing Gray. Juvia is either NOT A FAN and super jealous. On her turn she gets Gray. And then passes out. There’s a NaLu kiss. But it’s super awkward and the tensions are HIGH.

Erza and Gray bro/sis relationship.

Erza crying over dropped cake. The guild cowers.

Bacchus and Cana getting WASTED. And getting drunk married. Guildarts cried when he wasn’t invited.

Happy, Carla, and Panther Lily trading notes on their Dragon Slayers.

MiraJane being the Guild shipper. And total fan girl over her ships sailing.

MiraJane not being interested in anyone. I don’t know why I just feel like she’s the type to not want to be in a relationship as much as she wants others to be in them. Also I just can’t ship her with anyone.

Bi!Lucy who before she gets in a relationship with Natsu is SUPER open about all her crushes on girls and Natsu is SO CONFUSED.

Bi!Gray

Natsu is only attracted to Lucy. He’s literally never had a crush on anyone else. So he doesn’t get any of it. I say he’s probably Demi.

Nashi and Gruvia’s son getting into a relationship when they are older and the resulting chaos between the in-laws.

Gray confiding in Juvia one night under the stars. All his hurt he just lets it out. Juvia simply holds his hand and lets him know she’s there.

Ridiculous and pointless contests and battles that lead to romantic situations (I read a “kissing contest” one recently and it was AMAZING!!)

#Nalu #fairy tail #hyper specific fic stuffs #gratsu #GrUvia #Loke the lion #fraxus #Cana x Bacchus #jellal x erza #fairy tail headcanon

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mallowstep · 3 years ago

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What are your opinions on forbidden relationships in Warriors? I've seen people label it as a "trope" because of how common this is. Some find the forbidden romance aspect intriguing, though others find it extremely repetitive and old

I'd like to know your thoughts!

hm. well, it is a trope. i mean, there's an average of one major one a series, right? greysilver, leafcrow (and others, but that's the big one), heatherlion (and implied others), tigerdove, idk i don't remember anything from avos but violetshine luv her but there's probably something, bristleroot. dotc doesn't count bc well it's dotc.

anyway.

definitely a trope.

but that's not a bad thing.

what i think people don't give warriors enough credit for is that these are not all the same forbidden romance. most of them are handled in different ways and bring up different conflicts. i understand why people are tired of them, but let's not discredit one of the only good things in warriors romance: that they make forbidden relationships different.

like, with grey and silver, it's about loyalty and responsibility. leafcrow is just bad idea central, both heatherlion and tigerdove are about responsibilities and young cats, and they have two different answers, and bristleroot is challenging the whole idea from the start.

so like. give credit where credit is due: we're not doing the same (forbidden) relationships again and again. i don't see enough people talk about that.

okay so it turns out i have um. a lot of thoughts about this. idk i just kept writing and now it's over 2k words. so you know. under the cut: matthew does half-baked media analysis to talk about why the code and cats' relationships to it are misunderstood. while actually staying on topic.

anyway from here on i'm just going to say relationship/romance, and understand that i'm generally talking about the forbidden kind. also i'm talking exclusively within the realm of warriors romance, which is, on average, bad. so when i say "X is good," i don't mean "X is good in general," i mean "given what we have, X is good." just to be clear.

right! basically, this is a tool. it creates tension and drama, and that's fine. warriors is a soap opera, remember. soap operas use secrets and relationships and all sorts of plot devices over and over again. warriors is not Serious. it can be dark. it has serious moments. but it is not a Serious Book Series for Serious Kids. it is a soap opera for Future Theatre Kids. yeah?

from that perspective, i'm a-ok with forbidden romance. (also, as a mini-aside, it creates some much-needed genetic diversity when kits are involved.) and again: all of the major relationships are different, so i think that's better than a lot of people give it credit for.

yeah, heatherlion and greysilver and tigerdove are all about the same general idea (loyalty and responsibility), but they all have different circumstances and different resolutions.

so like? yeah. sure. why not?

plus, like, who's reading warriors for the romance? i separate the concept of "romance" from a "relationship" here: i like the relationships in warriors (ivy and dove tension my beloved), but i'm not here to read about tigerheart wooing dovewing. (yes, i do love the tigerdove scenes in oots. no, that's not because i think they're very good at being romantic.)

but i digress.

if warriors was a Serious Book Series for Serious Kids, i'd have a different take here. having been in an IRL forbidden relationship, i have the Personal Insight and Experience to say they're this weird mash of "very much how it feels" and "not at all how it feels."

tigerdove is probably my favourite bc it's the closest to my circumstances, and i think dovewing is a good pov. i like how she breaks up with him because it's a bad idea, but that's not the same thing as not feeling for him.

(heh. twelve-year-old me reading oots like "this will never apply to my life" what did you know)

but to the point, if warriors was serious, i'd point out that the consequences always seem to be internal. we haven't seen characters be punished for their actions. and so on.

but warriors is a soap opera.

and here's my actual thesis: we haven't seen characters be punished for their actions, because "forbidden relationships" are a normal and expected part of clan society.

like no, fandom-at-large, you're kind of missing the point. okay, you know how like. people complain about. idk. ivypool and fernsong being distantly related?

(third aside/very long ivyfern rant, i put a nice big "rant over" after it if you want to skip past it: they're third cousins. they share, max, 2.2% of their genetics. they are fine. do you know your third cousins? do you? yeah. and like. they live in a closed society. there is no one new.

i've never seen someone complain about forbidden romance and ivyfern at the same time, and i do generally agree we should have more mystery fathers, altho for a different reason, but like. idk. this bothers me.

their last shared relative was nutmeg. that's so far back. god. i get it, there was a prophecy saying they're related, but if you remember my rant about how dovewing shouldn't be a part of the prophecy because of how distantly related to firestar is, you know how i feel about that already.

complaining they're related and that's a problem is. deep breath here. it requires demonstrating that warriors has kept track of kinship all the way back to firestar's mother. and even if you wave that requirement, you still have to convince me they would care about that. this isn't a "they're cats, harold" situation, this is a "you would not know your third cousin even if you lived in the same town" situation.

i mean maybe you would. some people do. but my hometown has generations of people who married within its borders. you get as far as "cousin," maybe "second cousin" if you're feeling fancy. i'm not trying to make an always true statement, i just. every time i see someone complain about ivyfern being related, it strikes me as not understanding how extended families work?

i know third cousins isn't technically classified as a distant relative, but you have, on average, 190 third cousins. i feel so strongly about this i looked it up.

like i'm not. okay if you say, "I don't ship ivyfern because they are third cousins and that makes me uncomfortable" you are Valid. in general, you are all valid. i do not think you have to, on a personal level, be okay with ivyfern. you are free to do as you wish.

but. if you want to argue "ivyfern is a Bad Ship because they are third cousins" you have a hell of a burden of proof. simply saying "they share a great-great-grandmother" does not meet that, because like. yeah. we're all pretty damn related.)

(ivyfern rant over)

IVYFERN RANT OVER

right so. anyway. if you remove forbidden romance? you're forcing a lot more of those situations.

i've been messing around with modelling some small-scale fan clan-adjacent stuff to double-check the ratios for wbcd, and it's. it quickly becomes a necessity, is what i'm saying.

but i got distracted like. researching how related third cousins are. my point is not about that, that's like. a different topic. that i crammed into here because i have no self-control.

no, no, what i was trying to get to is: oakheart straight up tells us that cats have half-clan kits all the time, it's not a problem, no one talks about it. and that? that is exactly what we see modelled by warriors.

the only reason greystripe and silverstream have a problem is that silverstream dies and greystripe claims the kits. i feel very strongly that if she had lived, the kits would have been born and raised riverclan kits, that might, maybe, one day, guess who their father is.

we haven't had any half clan kits in a while, which yes! i think is a problem, but like. the fact that the three are medicine cat kits seems to be a bigger issue. which feels right.

and i'm not trying to argue what i think should be, i legitimately believe the text of warriors defends this, even in newer books which throw out a lot of the older world building in favour of more human-like conflict.

as readers, we are naturally following protagonists. we are following the interesting story. but imagine you're just a background riverclan cat. minnowtail, if you will. do you think, do you honestly think, anyone cares about minnowtail?

not in a bad way, just. if she's meeting up with mousewhisker at night, do you think anyone cares? of course not! no one cares. she's not a Protagonist. her kits aren't going to be prophesized about.

heck, finleap switches clans! and it's barely a big deal. it feels like one, but when's the last time anyone bothered dealing with it? that's what i thought.

(also i forgot like all of avos so that very last point might be a bad one if it is my argument stands i just literally do not remember anything in avos but violetshine. none. zero.)

but it's easy to get caught up with characters like hollyleaf and bristlefrost and forget that like. not everyone cares about the code. most of our protagonists do, because it's become mostly equivalent with being moral. and i have an essay draft titled "the code as religion vs the code as law" where i want to expand on this more, but i think like. that idea, that we as readers should use the code as a way of evaluating cats' behaviour, is flawed.

like, i'm not talking about being inconsistent with how that is applied. if you want to say, "the trial leafpool goes through for having half-clan kits is legitimate because of the code," i still think your approach is flawed.

because the cats themselves don't seem to think that way.

the code doesn't, to me, feel like the ten commandments. it does not feel like "you must do this to be a good cat."

rather, it feels like aesop's parables. "here are mistakes cats made and what we do instead of that."

i don't think the cats know the code the way we do. i do not think they memorize a list of rules as kits. i think they know what is and is not part of it, but i imagine they know the stories far more than the rules.

(i'm working on my lore stories to replace code of the clans.)

and even if that's my thoughts, i do think this is supported by the text. no one ever teaches the warrior code, cats just learn it in pieces. "don't waste food because we don't have enough to spare" is taught, not "there's a rule about food and starclan on the code."

that's why the whole arc of the broken code even works: the reason the imposter is able to manipulate things is because cats don't treat the code as a rigid set of rules and commandments, but guiding principles.

the parts of the code that we tend to focus on the most are relationships, apprentices, and battle. or that's my perception. i didn't do a poll to obtain that. there's also the leader's word, but readers don't usually think of that as a good rule, so i'm not including it.

but the parts the cats focus on most are food, territory, and the leader's word. which makes sense: those are basic needs: food, security, and...i don't want to say authority so much as some kind of social system. explaining it would be a whole thing. just trust with me, if you don't mind.

i don't think we have any real reason to believe cats care about half-clan relationships half as much as we do. yes, apprentices are chastized about it, but that's not really the same thing as being punished.

and it's hard to tell, because apprentices being punished has really fallen off, and that's kind of the problem with any argument i try to make about warriors, but.

wow.

i'm actually still on topic? i'm 2k words in and i'm still on topic? a day i never thought would come.

let's wrap this up. cats seem to care about half clan relationships in that: a) they lead to conflicted loyalties, b) they mess with borders and prey, and c) they are in the code as bad. in that order.

and again, if the code was some high and holy religious doctrine, we couldn't have the broken code as an arc. it does not work if the cats are already following it to a t, and know it word for word, because it's signfiicantly harder to manipulate people if they do.

not to the level the imposter does, at the speed he does.

and yes, you could argue that it's more bad writing, but. i think that discredits warriors. yeah, it sure has its fair share of bad writing, but i don't think that's in the way the imposter works. instead, he seizes on a big important doctrine that's nebulous, and uses that to control people.

and that? that feels much more interesting.

so with that in mind, i don't think the cats would care about your typical, non-protagonist forbidden relationship, and i don't think we should, either.

as far as a plot device, i think we're okay with what we have. don't get me wrong, i understand why people are tired of it, but i think we also should remember that warriors is not repeating itself. having multiple forbidden relationships is not repetitive. now, if medicine cats were having half-clan kits every series, i'd make a different argument.

but all of the major forbidden relationships have different outcomes, lessons, and circumstances, and for me, i think that's signficantly interesting.

i didn't really check sources and quotes for this, so like, if you spotted something wrong, feel free to correct me. my overall point stands, but there's a lot of warriors and i have a bad memory, so i could have missed somthing major.

#ask #anon #essay #mine #discourse #not really but you know

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itsclydebitches · 4 years ago

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I think the problem with Rhodes is that there’s a divide between realism and idealism in regards to his choices. realistically you sometimes can’t do much for victims of abuse that won’t put them in a worse situation. Not because the law is automatically evil (though can be corrupted) but because it’s complicated. It’d be great to remove kids from terrible situations, but having (possibly) unknown adults rip kids away from their families? Taking them who knows where? Letting them decide, by their own perception, what constitutes a terrible home? And whose to say that adult really has the kids best interest at heart? And what happens if they get caught and now the victim is in even more danger? There’s a reason adults can’t just take kids as they see fit. On the other hand, RWBY is a show and idealistic, and I agree completely that I would prefer Rhodes, who seems like a good man, taking the risk rather than play long game. Especially cause it’s a common trope in media and because it is nice to see corrupted laws that hurt victims (the shock collar on a child/“worker”) be broken. Idk, I find myself torn between knowing Rhodes may not have been in a strong position to help but also wishing more could have been done, while also knowing that this stance is common for outsiders witnessing (or having suspicions) about abuse. Sometimes, depending on the situation, we don’t have power to help people

I think that’s absolutely the divide - realism vs. idealism - but, for me, the issue is that RWBY isn’t writing an idealistic show anymore. Key word being “anymore.” Since the final arc of Volume 3, RWBY has double-downed on a line they originally only pretended to take seriously: “Life isn’t a fairy tale.” It started asking us to approach the show in a realistic manner, such as:

Insisting that discrimination is a pervasive problem in this world that cannot be solved by, idk, hugging people and asking them to be nice. It’s a structural issue just like in real life.

People will now be dying in this world, including the best and brightest who absolutely did not deserve it (Pyrrha). Life isn’t idealistic, it’s harsh and cruel and unpredictable.

Characters will no longer bounce back from the horrors they’ve seen, but rather respond to them in a realistic manner, such as developing PTSD (Yang).

The concept of lies, secrets, and manipulation took center stage as themes, highlighting the complex nature of this plot and, as a result, undermining any simple, idealistic solutions.

We even saw a change in details: characters can curse now, blood is shown, we’ve had two episodes back-to-back where long scenes of child torture is the focus, ensuring that we stare at the kids’ agonized expressions rather than just cutting away and implying that this awful thing is happening.

RWBY was an idealistic show (“I want to help people!”), now it’s a very dark, realistic (you know, within the bounds of fantasy) show that shoe-horns in idealism when it’s convenient. The problem with that isn’t just the number of ways in which that has parts of the show contradicting each other - Ozpin’s secrets are dangerous (realism), Ruby’s secrets are fine (idealism); the group is given space and sympathy for the horrific events they’re working through (realism); Ironwood and Ozpin are expected to bounce back and never falter (idealism), etc. - but also that it expects the viewer to randomly switch between realism and idealism with no indication of when that switch took place or, more importantly, why. If I’m supposed to accept the nuance in all these other aspects of the show, why would I suddenly ignore the nuance of Rhode’s situation? If I’m supposed to accept the unspoken circumstances of a character like Yang (she won’t tell the group about her Mom being the Maiden because that’s emotionally hard), why does that suddenly not extend to Rhodes (he won’t just whisk Cinder away because that’s emotionally and practically hard)? RWBY and/or the fandom can’t keep telling us to treat this show seriously and then randomly go, “Oh, but not when it comes to them. Every single situation has nuance except for that guy’s.”

I’ve also been trying to think of other stories that do give us that idealistic “Adult rescues a traumatized and/or abused child” and everything I’ve managed to recall has radically different circumstances. Specifically: the parents are out of the picture, in one way or another. Matilda? Her parents flee to Guam, giving Honey the chance to adopt her. Mako? Her family was killed in the Kaiju attack, giving Stacker the chance to adopt her. Eleven? She was a government experiment who ran away, giving Hopper the chance to adopt her. Ciri? Her parents supposedly died at sea, she was taken in by her grandparents, then her grandparents die, giving Geralt the chance to adopt her while he also has a magical right to her via the Law of Surprise. In every example I can think of the guardians are gone, the child is actively working to leave, or the new parent in question has some other tie to the child that justifies them stepping in (or all three). I don’t think I know of another fictional resolution like the one the fandom wants Rhodes to have taken: “I may know about this child’s physical abuse, or I may just think she’s an employee treated badly, but either way I’m going to take her away from her still living, still present, still powerful family, despite her being a stranger to me and her never asking that I do this.” Which doesn’t mean that story doesn’t exist - it absolutely must given the wealth of media out there. I’m positive we could create a list - but I’m not so sure this is some obvious, pervasive trope that Rhodes “should” have followed. Even if it is an incredibly common plot and I’ve just missed those stories (absolutely possible), RWBY is not so idealistic that we should essentially be going, “How dare Rhodes not kidnap this child at great risk to him and to her! That’s obviously the only choice here.”

#rwby #rwby spoilers #rwby volume 8 #abuse tw #mymetas #Anonymous

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ouyangzizhensdad · 4 years ago

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What's three things that you wish MDZS fandom commonly accepted? And what's the one piece of fandom that annoys you that you would let stay just to get those three things?

Hi anon, what an interesting ask.

Okay, so three things that I wish the MDZS fandom commonly accepted.

Readers can reject authorial intent -- you can reshape and project and deny as much as your little heart wants. However, it helps first to understand what the authorial intent was, what the text meant to convey, as a clear starting point from where you choose to deviate. For instance, we all come to fiction with our own sense of morality, of how we judge right and wrong. And stories, even if they are not intended to be a morality tale, will always to a degree frame actions and events. This framing doesn’t necessarily reflect the author’s own personal sense of morality so it’s not always that deep either (it’s usually less competent writers who end up only being able to transparently reproduce their own value/morality systems one for one). And this is where it is interesting, for instance, to distinguish between what the work is saying regardless of whether we personally agree with it and our own judgement of the events or the characters’ actions. Both have value as part of the process of interpretation, but I wish that people began with trying to understand how the text frames things before doing their own evaluation so that they would find it easier to distinguish these two processes.

Just because you do not understand or see the point of something does not automatically means that it makes no sense or is pointless. We don’t hold all of the answers, we miss clues, we all have things we can learn. Be curious and investigate your gut reactions before leveraging criticisms. Not just because it’s a good attitude to have in life, but also because I see takes that give me such secondhand embarrassment due to the confidence with which people will prove that they have entirely missed the point of something through the very nature of their critique.

Characters are a construct; they exist and are presented to us in a limited fashion for they are given life solely to serve a narrative and thematic purpose inside a specific bounded storyline within a specific genre. The “same” characters would not be the same characters in another well-written story, for they would have to serve different themes and a different narrative. They are not living, breathing human beings, they are not role models, they are not surrogates for yourself just because you share some traits with them, nor are they illustrations of what you’d want IRL in a friend or a partner just because you enjoy them. You don’t have to handwave away their actions to enjoy them, you don’t have to convince everyone else that they are, in fact, good or perfect or never wrong. You don’t have to hate a novel/author because you believe the character “””deserved better””” when all that is being meant by that critique is that the character should have a “happy ending” and everything they ever wanted. That’s very standard behaviour in fandom spaces but it doesn’t have to be this way? We will always have favourites and it is an interesting exercise to interrogate why certain characters appeal to us so strongly, but it is also interesting to consider what makes a character “good” as a construct: are they complex, do they have narrative or thematic sway, do they undergo development or change, do their dynamics with other characters improve the story, etc.

And one part of fandom that I will keep if it meant I could magic wand the first three into common fandom habitus.

Fluffy, conflict-free and “”wholesome”” content is not inherently superior and, honestly, from a perspective of writing as a craft, I’d argue they are actually inherently less engaging and less likely to be truly satisfying (beyond perhaps giving you a warmth feeling). But, ugh, fine, people can keep writing the same jokes about “wangxian having some ‘communication as a treat’” or the same meta about, idk, how ‘fucked up’ it is that WWX didn’t make JC sign a consent form before giving away his GC, or the same fics where nothing happens and no one ever does anything even remotely questionable ever or without asking for forgiveness with a selfless, articulate apology that no one in the history of the world would ever say genuinely in an emotionally-charged situation. Fine.

#anon ask #fandom discussion #brine corner #a little bit at least #Anonymous

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couslandofhighever · 4 years ago

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Elf (/Mage) hyperidentification

I'm back to trying to play Dragon Age 2 after having quit last year when things got difficult in my personal life, making it hard for me to find time and space and to do so. And once again I am thinking about something that I have found hard to articulate but finally think I have found the words to express. CW: discussion of fictional racism, #discourse

So, I know some people go bananas about elves across all fantasy genres. They identify with them in the way that a person might identify with werewolves or vampires or other humanoid but not-quite-human creature that one might wish to be. Elves have an association with magic and often with nature. They are unusual-looking, but among fantasy creatures/races, they are often the closest to human standards of beauty. Liking elves can have a lot of different meanings. Some elves are small and basically the lithe and magical counterpart to more muscular and practical dwarves. However, just as with the trend of sexier or more elegant vampires, most elves in fantasy tend to be on the tall and elegant, LOTR side of things. On the other hand, I know people who resent elves for some of the same reasons. Specifically, the fact that they are the "pretty" fantasy creature in such a way that it tends to be juxtaposed to a lot of the other choices. Basically, I know people (at least one personally) who sort of has a little bit of a prejudiced view of elves and their fans from a defensive position of... like... not wanting to need to be the "pretty one" or whatever. I tend to lean slightly more toward the second viewpoint these days, but I sympathize with both, and I don't think Liking Elves in general is bad. And neither do I think liking Dragon Age elves is bad. Let me be clear about that. But I think I got to the root of something that bothers me about the ~fandom~-within-a-fandom that is focused entirely upon the ~Elvhen~ or whatever. Let me also say that, as a fan, I am a mostly-cis-gendered white woman, and I am bi. I understand that part of my identity is marginalized while another, significant part of it, is very much not. I feel this is important to say because I want to acknowledge that I think some of what I am about to say and kind of complain about may come from a place of people seeing themselves reflected in the Elvhen. Dragon Age elves draw loosely from several real world cultures including Native Americans/First Peoples and medieval European Jewish and Romani populations. I get that, and I acknowledge it, and if you are related to one of these real world demographics, please know that my whining is in absolutely no way directed at you. You have a hard enough time finding direct representation in media, so if you hyper-identify with Dragon Age elves for this reason, then I am glad you have the outlet. That said, I don't think that anywhere close to a majority of this "Elvhen First" branch of fandom within Dragon Age fandom is made up of anyone covered in my previous paragraph. I could be wrong, and if I am I preemptively apologize. But basically, the thing I am complaining about is when a Dragon Age fan latches onto the Elvhen plight, struggle, culture, history, etc., that they start relating it as a 1-to-1 correlation with real world, modern day struggles faced by real marginalized people. Furthermore, even if they aren't currently talking about it like it is a 1-to-1 correlation, even in Escapism Land, I have sometimes encountered this tendency for people to basically merge their Dragon Age Fan identity with being their Elvhen characters so much that it's almost... inseparable from their appreciation for or criticism of the Dragon Age universe as a product or work of art? And I think that, sometimes, it comes across to me as, like... cosplaying being an oppressed, marginalized minority for... emotional catharsis? Or to feel that one is on the right side of Thedas history? Something like that. And that makes me really uncomfortable from the perspective of a white person who isn't, to my knowledge, related to any of the real world inspiration sources for some of the stuff the elves have been through. I just... don't think that - if you are not uniquely positioned to personally understand some of the inspiration material and rarely see it acknowledged, etc. - a fan should basically jump into the role of an elf on all DA-related thought and arguments to the point that it almost becomes a felt... aggression if someone doesn't agree with the elves of Dragon Age all the time. Actually, the exact same thing can be said about the plight of Dragon Age mages. I think I find it uniquely uncomfortable as a definitely not-racial-minority fan to see other fans who might be in similar situations to me deciding to perform racial activism on behalf of elves on a computer screen from the perspective as if they were said oppressed fantasy race. Magi and superpowers being used as a metaphor for sexual identity is not new (X-Men is a common example), so I guess I find it less egregious as an exercise in empathy that perhaps goes too far into other people's experience of escapism. It doesn't seem like cosplaying something that might be offensive if you as any kind of marginalized person identify with the plight of mages as presented in Dragon Age. But it's still a problem if your emotional relationship to an escapism world means that you find other people having a different opinion than you about some social issue in Thedas to be... Idk... objectively evil. Tl;dr: Identify with elves or mages all you want but don't cosplay oppression when you could be doing better things with your energy, maybe.

#dragon age #dragon age meta

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rotatemp3 · 3 years ago

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Ok I know you said not to talk about the translation issue but I just found out about it and want to share my two cents on this from experience in another fandom.

As a carat aka seventeen fan, I have seen what can sadly happen when we, international fans, don't have a full context of what was translated. Sometbing that was more vague or quickly translated without proper explanation (yes I know these are two different scenarios but both relyed HEAVILY on fan translations) please, please and once again please be careful with translations if you do not understand things because honestly not including something or not doing the proper translations can cause the house of cards to collapse. I thank the anon who gave proper context to what changkyun said as well as the 2nd translation tweet you provided because the original made me scream in frustration. They did the similar thing like in the carat fandom, left after hours with no mention of the meaning of some phrases. Cue chaos and we have what we got. Since me and others do rely on translations, we have to trust the fans who do them do it correctly. People who have a full understanding and such. While I am forever thankful for fans who do this, I know that I have to be careful with them as well. Its why I wait for official translations from respected fan translation groups or even from the company. As the anon explained, some things are going to be tricky to translate and I speak this from experience! Trying to translate my native language to English can be tricky since there are some wording that just doesn't fit well within the English language. So do I think changkyun meant ill will? No, I think he simply was venting his thoughts to fans where he was comfortable in his native tongue. Kfans didn't see any wrong because they got what he meant where us oversees fans well, we couldn't help but feel confusion.

Idk i feel like I am rambling, I am sorry for the bother and you can for sure delete my ask! I don't want to make any uncomfortable as fans are allowed to feel hurt and confused. I just wanted to share my thoughts on this with some similar experience of fan translations causing some issues. I feel bad for the entire situation because all of this could have been smoothed out if OP who did the translation added context, not just quick tweets to get things out there due to demand. No, put a screenshot if needed of the full detail about what was said. Maybe changkyun could have worded it different but again, in Korean it may sound chill and ok but as someone who doesn't know Korean I wouldn't have that full understanding. As you mentioned, after the last issue with no word (sadly a common issue. Even in seventeen we had this struggle) i think it just caused the water aka fans to react and flood with it all.

hi there!!! thank you for taking the time to share this with me. from both of these situations we can see how easy it is to come to a certain conclusion about someone as a result of mistranslations... which is concerning as many fans rely on these translations to find out what’s going on with their idols. these fans who do the translations, while i appreciate everything that they do, have a responsibility to relay the correct information to fans. mistranslations can lead to many misunderstandings... and we know when the mistranslations paint the idol in a negative light, it spreads and spreads until it reaches non fans and by then it’s too late to stop it... and i have seen plenty of instances where even when the information has been proven to be untrue, it still the follows the idol around. i know fans want to be the first to share things and this goes with translations too, but i hope fans can appreciate how much responsibility they have when they share this information and take more care with it.....

#thank you for sharing #have a good day !!!#anonymous

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cruelfeline · 4 years ago

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can I just flop into your inbox and despair for a hot second about how like. bewildered I am over the lore of spop??? I thought about doing this as proper asks but then it got... long.

Sure! Anyone can flop into my inbox c:

idk if it's me and I'm just dumb and not getting it?? I've gotta go back and comb through the show I guess bc the wiki and google and the internet at large are the opposite of helpful.

but no okay the show kept saying that the first ones were basically - etheria's first settlers or whatever the hell right?? something along those lines? am I remembering this correctly? that's why the etherian's CALL them the first ones? (I mean but Prime did too didnt he now that I think about it. I'm not sure why he would though, the context for why the etherian's would use the term and why he'd use the term are different?) ugh whatever, like I said I gotta go back and comb through but I wanna say that the implication was that the first ones were the...First Ones to be on etheria. which is like....??

Mm... it’s a bit unclear, but Mara speaks in a way that highly implies that there are native Etherians already on Etheria when the First Ones arrive. One of them being Razz.

I doubt that Etherians really know much about their own history; their records seem sporadic to me, so they may or may not know that the First Ones weren’t actually the first sapients on the planet.

And Prime doesn’t really call them the First Ones; he simply acknowledges that that is what Adora and the Etherians call them. I don’t recall him calling them anything specific.

bc then when it comes to the whole, heart of etheria thing, and the runestones, and all of that? and then the princesses? I'm honestly just so confused as to how it all is supposed to fit together. bc then uh where did the five royal families come from to begin with? were the runestones there from the start? were those five families magically connected with those runestones from the start or were they only connected and whatnot after the first ones were all like "hey so uh, if you synch up to this rock you can do cooler magic" but then if etheria was already being ruled by several different courts of elemental royalty or wtf ever, then they couldnt really call themselves the first ones. but Also it's just (and I think you've addressed that the showrunners seem So Much More Interested in telling the catradora gf drama angst saga then fleshing out their world building lmao) it's kinda just like... why do all of these families only have one child? why do each of the princesses of power not have a sibling? like what if - considering mooooost of them seem to be orphans lol - one of them trips down the stairs and smacks their head on the floor and dies?? I guess uhhh, now your kingdom doesn't have a ruler??

So, my understanding of the runestones is that they were devices created by the First Ones in order to enhance and better control the magic of those naturally in tune with certain elemental aspects of the planet. I don’t think this is explicitly stated in canon, but I assume as much by extrapolating from the purpose of She-Ra’s sword. As we learn over the course of the show, the First Ones did not create She-Ra, but they did create the sword. She-Ra is an Etherian entity, some form of planetary guardian or what-have-you, and the First Ones created the runestone sword in order to control that entity and incorporate it into the Heart of Etheria. I would assume that the other runestones serve a similar purpose.

Now, as far as our current Etherians not knowing this: this is a fairly common sci-fi trope. The idea of the original purpose of something (usually some form of advanced tech) being lost as information is lost to the ages is often used to facilitate protagonists not immediately knowing what a thing is for. Like... oh, if you’ve ever read the Dragonriders of Pern series. That’s a good example: Earth colonists land on a planet, find it inhospitable, genetically engineer empathetic dragons to help fight the threat, and... well, people live there for generations, forget their origins, regress technologically, and just assume that there have always been dragons on Pern.

As far as single child Princesses and whatnot: likely a by-product of the show already having a million characters, and siblings not being needed for the plot! I mean, the show already had enough to deal with; no need to add more fluff.

and yeah it's a kids show but it doesnt ;__; none of the any of it makes sense to me.

what is the Heart of Etheria even supposed to Do again??? like we know it's a superweapon that channels magic and like, Mara trapped etheria in despondos 1000 years ago so my soft theory is that the first ones were maybe using it as a last ditch effort against Prime? I mean is the sword just.... gps coordinated to fire at prime regardless of where he is in the universe or whatever?? bc I mean at that point is prime on etheria's doorstep?? I don't! I dont understaaaand.

Well, since it never fires, we cannot know for certain, but Death Star-style planetary destroyer seems logical.

I do like the headcanon that it was actually a last ditch effort to defeat Prime, especially since we now know that the First Ones fought him and apparently lost!

This is an interesting concept to me because, while their colonization of Etheria is widely regarded as Bad, because colonialism is Bad, the idea that they did it in order to try to save their own lives, and potentially the lives of others in the universe, makes the situation far more morally grey than it might initially appear. Yes, their colonization harmed the Etherians, but might it have been worth it, if they had succeeded and killed Prime a thousand years ago? Would that have prevented the genocides he committed on other worlds? Would sacrificing Etheria have been worth it if, say, a thousand other inhabited planets had been spared as a result? Not a set of questions the show asks, but meaningful ones, in my opinion.

why does Prime want it? like is he not under the impression that messing with it is gonna like... pretty much blow up everything within a big ass huge af radius? he said something or other about purifying the universe and starting over or some nonsense like that but??? like you'd be dead too my guy. you might be egotistical and narcissistic and vain af but I dont think he's that stupid as to think he's somehow immune to giant fricken explosions.

Oh, I think he has some idea of how to survive it. He can body hop. He is, in some sense of the word, eternal because of that. If She-Ra hadn’t stepped in, he likely would have succeeded in continuing his existence. The way he speaks, one may even infer that this sort of thing has happened before.

But, hard to say! Thankfully, we don’t have to find out c:

and I'm just. I just wanna know more about the spop world at large you know?? like. I just want All the world building and backstory and explanations to things. I have so many questions.

anyway sorry for kinda dumping this giant wall of shrieking nonsense in your inbox I'm just like. I dont... I dont get it. I dont get any of it lmao and I wanna get it! like the whole universe of this show could be so cool and so fun and interesting but it's like... some of the pieces dont seem to.. f i t

yeah

Ah, such is the burden of a world that has only enough worldbuilding done to facilitate its story, no more and no less. But! At the same time, this means that we as viewers can infer many things from canon and fill in the blanks with whatever we prefer. Leading to a lovely variety of fandom content to amuse us for some time to come c:

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thebluelemontree · 5 years ago

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On this note: “ Another way of saying Littlefinger didn’t bet on Sandor is that he didn’t account for him.” I know people say that Varys was behind the bread riot, but there’s some speculation around that it was actually LF and Mandon Moore was one of his men. Moore abandons Sansa in the riots and I think that was staged. LF didn’t account for Sandor saving her. What he planned on doing to her - maybe an escape? IDK.

People say a lot of things in this fandom, let’s put it that way. We see in no POV’s account that there is any evidence of attempted kidnapping on Sansa during the riot, let alone a whole conspiracy to commit kidnapping that was thwarted. Let’s remember, Tyrek Lannister was the one that got snatched here (allegedly, technically he’s only known to be missing). If anyone was specifically targetted, it was him.

The bread riot was always a powder keg waiting to explode. No one person orchestrated it. The Tyrells had cut off food supplies from the Reach when they stood with Renly against Stannis and Joffrey. Prices are ridiculously high, and basic foodstuffs are scarce. There’s rampant lawlessness in the streets as well as a bloody flux. There’s open talk of rebellion among the guilds and merchants. Tyrion is burning down all homes and shops between the water and the city walls in preparation for Stannis’s attack. This is going to displace hundreds, maybe thousands of poor people. Joffrey is executing antler men and personally shooting bolts into unarmed, starving citizens. Begging brothers are preaching damnation of the corrupt nobility, including charging them with incest, birthing monsters, and reveling under demonic influence. The Lannister-Baratheons could not be more hated than they are at that moment. We have to remember that at the time of the riot, Littlefinger was well away at Bitterbridge and then went on to High Garden to negotiate with Mace Tyrell for the then widowed Margaery’s hand. He already has his man Dontos plotting with Sansa in the godswood, gaining her trust, so she leaves willingly when the time is right. A second kidnapping/escape plot overcomplicates everything is totally unnecessary. If Moore was supposed to be LF’s man, why wouldn’t he just lead Sansa away to a rendezvous point under the pretense of eluding the mob? That would have been simple and plausible as her shield. Just abandoning her in the swarm doesn’t speak to a plan that has to go off without any mishaps.

On the other hand, Varys is the one official still in the city who was noted by Jaime to be conspicuously absent from seeing Myrcella off to Dorne. Varys, who claimed to have informants all over the city, yet he never forewarned Cersei of any possible riot. Again, it’s Tyrek that disappears without a trace.

Sorry for the long wait. I actually had to take some time to re-read and reflect on Mandon Moore. I think it’s a really bad place to start the speculation with the assumption that he must be working for someone at all. My conclusion is that he’s not working for anyone, and he doesn’t have to be to do what he does. He is a guy motivated by naked self-interest and personal advancement, and that does not necessarily equate with greed or being in anyone’s pocket. IMO, I think he has traits similar to a corporate psychopath (though he’s obviously down for murder too) than anything else. Let’s just focus on how his characterization is described first.

Jaime had once told him that Moore was the most dangerous of the Kingsguard—excepting himself, always—because his face gave no hint as what he might do next. – Tyrion I, ACOK.

He’s described as appearing corpse-like with eyes that are “oddly flat and lifeless.” He’s cold and emotionless. Most notably, Ser Mandon has ties to no one.

Lord Arryn brought him to King’s Landing and Robert gave him his white cloak, but neither loved him much, I fear. Nor was he the sort the smallfolk cheer in tourneys, despite his undoubted prowess. Why, even his brothers of the Kingsguard never warmed to him. Ser Barristan was once heard to say that the man had no friend but his sword and no life but duty … but you know, I do not think Selmy meant it altogether as praise. Which is queer when you consider it, is it not? Those are the very qualities we seek in our Kingsguard, it could be said—men who live not for themselves, but for their king. By those lights, our brave Ser Mandon was the perfect white knight. – Tyrion II, ASOS.

Of all the things said about him, nowhere does anyone suggest it is in Mandon Moore’s character to want anything outside of his career within the kingsguard. He has a single-minded focus on duty and serving the king in an almost robotic level of obedience. No one can tell what goes on behind that blank expression. If a man’s motivations are unknowable, you can’t predict future behavior. Mandon Moore does not strike me as someone who would fall prey to bribery or blackmail. He’s not ideologically motivated, nor is he someone a conspirator can confidently rely on to carry out a task without risk of being double-crossed. If we look at men Littlefinger has taken into his service like Ser Dontos, the Kettleblacks, Janos Slynt, Nestor Royce, Lothor Brune, Lyn Corbray, there’s always a glaring weakness to be exploited, be it greed, excessive/wounded pride, addiction, closeted homosexuality, desperation, debt, estrangement from family, desire to rise from the underclass, lack of better options, etc. Mandon doesn’t have any of these vulnerabilities.

So what did I mean by having traits in common with a corporate psychopath, though? Varys talks about Mandon being “the perfect white knight” and possessing the ideal qualities of a kingsguard. Certain types of corporate psychopaths can wear a facade of traits that the business world desires and values. They can seem like the perfect employee that the company leadership can rely on. They appear to be fearless and unwavering in their drive for success, sometimes even earning praise and recognition for outright ruthlessness. Their sometimes apparent lack of emotions could be read as having the grit to do what is necessary in times of turmoil. Most use manipulative tactics to discredit, undermine, or sabotage coworkers and superiors alike just to get ahead, which I will show is relevant in Moore’s case. Everyone is either a potential pawn, patron, or enemy to be eliminated. Not all psychopaths have superficial and grandiose charm, and no one would accuse Mandon of being charming, but he does put himself out there to be seen as indispensably valuable to the king.

Let’s go back to the bread riot and why Mandon Moore abandoned Sansa’s side as her shield.

Tyrion pressed blunt fingers into his throbbing temples. If Sansa Stark had come to harm, Jaime was as good as dead. “Ser Mandon, you were her shield.”

Ser Mandon Moore remained untroubled. “When they mobbed the Hound, I thought first of the king.”

“And rightly so,” Cersei put in. “Boros, Meryn, go back and find the girl.“ – Tyrion IX, ACOK.

I see no sign that there’s any duplicity going on here when he’s questioned. Mandon Moore acted in a way he believed the king and the queen regent (his patrons) would approve of. The traitor’s daughter’s life doesn’t mean anything to Joffrey, and she is only a secondary thought of the queen’s after they are safe within the castle; therefore, she is not a useful pawn to him. If Mandon Moore shows any desire for anything at all, it’s this: Sandor Clegane’s privileged position with the Lannisters. Joffrey ordered Sandor to go after the peasant that threw the dung. As Sandor is mobbed (and it would be reasonable to wager he’ll be imminently killed), Ser Mandon seized the opportunity to swoop in as Sandor’s replacement, dropping Sansa like a hot potato. There is a reason he keeps being ironically regarded as the white knight in shining armor. He’s a real Johnny on the spot that one. Even if Sandor somehow isn’t killed, Moore still comes out looking like the kingsguard that did not falter in his duty to protect the king even in all the confusion and chaos. It’s an opportunistic upstaging of a colleague to discredit his effectiveness at his job. It proves shortsighted on his part because Sandor not only survives but has Sansa, still a valuable Lannister hostage, alive and in tow.

This will come up again at the Battle of the Blackwater when Sandor finally breaks from the wildfire. Tyrion orders Sandor to continue leading sorties outside the city walls, but he refuses. Guess who chimes in?

Ser Mandon Moore moved to Tyrion’s side, immaculate in his enameled white plate. "The King’s Hand commands you.”

“Bugger the King’s Hand.” Where the Hound’s face was not sticky with blood, it was pale as milk. “Someone bring me a drink.” A gold cloak officer handed him a cup. Clegane took a swallow, spit it out, flung the cup away. “Water? Fuck your water. Bring me wine.”

He is dead on his feet. Tyrion could see it now. The wound, the fire … he’s done, I need to find someone else, but who? Ser Mandon? He looked at the men and knew it would not do. Clegane’s fear had shaken them. Without a leader, they would refuse as well, and Ser Mandon … a dangerous man, Jaime said, yes, but not a man other men would follow. – Tyrion XIII, ACOK.

Since when has Moore ever shown any deference to Tyrion’s authority before? Never. This is a performance for his situational patron, part of Moore’s facade. What is suggested by vocally taking Tyrion’s side is that Moore wants Tyrion to name him commander. He would see the opportunity to take Sandor’s place by not only highlighting the latter’s disobedience, but his posturing implies that he wouldn’t hesitate to carry out the Hand’s orders. It’s also a boon that Sandor’s behavior is quickly tanking any remaining confidence in his courage and leadership ability. Moore must have thought himself the natural choice to assume command as he is a kingsguard and a capable fighter, but he could not have foreseen Tyrion absorbing Jaime’s counsel. Instead, Tyrion decides to lead the sorties himself, shaming anyone that doesn’t follow as being less than a dwarf. Being named the king’s standard-bearer, as Ser Mandon was, is usually considered a high honor. A corporate psychopath wouldn’t see it that way. It’s a piss poor consolation to being led around by someone he would consider a lesser man. Battle is where a knight earns his commendations and honors, which we see in Sansa’s eighth chapter in Clash. As commander of the sorties and his rival disgraced as a craven, Moore would have been the hero of the day should they emerge victorious. Tyrion prevented that. Moore would then be left with only one other option to assume leadership. Tyrion has to fall on the battlefield.

“MY LORD! TAKE MY HAND! MY LORD TYRION!”

There on the deck of the next ship, across a widening gulf of black water, stood Ser Mandon Moore, a hand extended. Yellow and green fire shone against the white of his armor, and his lobstered gauntlet was sticky with blood, but Tyrion reached for it all the same, wishing his arms were longer. It was only at the very last, as their fingers brushed across the gap, that something niggled at him … Ser Mandon was holding out his left hand, why … – Tyrion XIV, ACOK.

Ser Mandon’s sword comes down in his right hand and nearly kills Tyrion. What Moore could not have anticipated was getting iced by Podrick Payne before he could finish Tyrion off. There’s a simple elegance to Moore’s motivations being strictly his own. There’s no complicated conspiracy needed to explain any of his actions. He’s just a shark in a suit of armor. But what about Varys implying there was a conspiracy to kill Tyrion with Moore as the catspaw? It seems to validate Tyrion’s suspicions that it was Cersei, or at least someone.

Bronn had turned up all he could on Ser Mandon, but no doubt Varys knew a deal more … should he choose to share it. “The man seems to have been quite friendless,” Tyrion said carefully.

“Sadly,” said Varys, “oh, sadly. You might find some kin if you turned over enough stones back in the Vale, but here … Lord Arryn brought him to King’s Landing and Robert gave him his white cloak, but neither loved him much, I fear. Nor was he the sort the smallfolk cheer in tourneys, despite his undoubted prowess. Why, even his brothers of the Kingsguard never warmed to him.

… [the Barristan part already quoted above]

And he died as a knight of the Kingsguard ought, with sword in hand, defending one of the king’s own blood.” The eunuch gave him a slimy smile and watched him sharply.

Trying to murder one of the king’s own blood, you mean. Tyrion wondered if Varys knew rather more than he was saying. Nothing he’d just heard was new to him; Bronn had brought back much the same reports. He needed a link to Cersei, some sign that Ser Mandon had been his sister’s catspaw.

Let’s not forget Varys benefits by furthering the rifts within the Lannister regime. He can easily play to Tyrion’s paranoia by suggesting there’s more behind Mandon Moore’s murder attempt than there was. He smiles and mentions Moore’s origins in the Vale, a gesture at Littlefinger most likely; however, there are no substantial breadcrumbs left behind to connect Moore to anyone. We’re even reminded twice that Bronn’s investigation turned up nothing except what was already well-known. There’s just no there there. Tyrion is doing the same thing as the conspiracy theories by assuming that Moore has to be in someone’s pay, but his reasoning is faulty.

Jaime had always said that Ser Mandon was the most dangerous of the Kingsguard, because his dead empty eyes gave no hint to his intentions. I should never have trusted any of them. He’d known that Ser Meryn and Ser Boros were his sister’s, and Ser Osmund later, but he had let himself believe that the others were not wholly lost to honor. Cersei must have paid him to see that I never came back from the battle. Why else? I never did Ser Mandon any harm that I know of. – Tyrion XV, ACOK.

He mistook Moore’s commitment to duty and obedience for having honor. And yes, he did unintentionally cross Ser Mandon. He just didn’t know it because he couldn’t read the guy. He couldn’t see beneath the surface, and that is why Jaime is correct in calling him the most dangerous. One can never know for sure if this type of corporate psychopath sees you as their pawn, their patron, or their enemy at any given moment. There’s no way to mount a defense against that unless you can understand who you are really dealing with. Tyrion was just very, very lucky that he brought Podrick Payne with him into battle.

#valyrian scrolls #valyrianscrolls #ser mandon moore #sansa stark #sandor clegane #tyrion lannister #varys #the bread riots #asoiaf meta #conspiracy theories #asoiaf theories #asoiaf characterization #my meta #anonymous

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