#idk to call it an essay or meta or what since it's all about the show and its message but damn do i love it

[crystallinestars]

Hello again!

I do remember talking about shipping as activism a while back, though it's important to keep in mind I'm not from the USA, nor from any English speaking country, I just spend an egregious amount of time in English speaking communities haha

But yeah, I've noticed this trend where some subsections of the fandom will get super attached to their HCs / interpretations and actively preach about it like it's their god-given duty to make sure as many unfortunate souls become the next victims of their "rightful" wrath, basically becoming the blorbo police in a way. I do feel like this could be called activism: there's a lot of focus on identity and a thirst for representation in media so they latch onto the closest thing available (fandom) and engage in discourse. Maybe because many people feel powerless to make any meaningful change 'IRL'?

I was thinking about that (again) the other day and I found a few reasons why this 'activism' always bewilders me, especially with games like HSR or Genshin

1) I feel like there's a CRUCIAL difference to make between "this game / character or whatever is a source of comfort for me as a person with x identity" and "this game is actively and obviously trying to give us representation and you're a fool and probably a x-phobe not to see it". Call this "semantics" all you want, Words mean Things (wowzers), and it's just basic courtesy to communicate intent clearly, instead of always parroting the same 3 tiktok one-liners to sound witty. There's also a difference between headcanons, interpretation, subtext, etc.

2) We've already talked about this but for the love of god can we please please please stop arbitrarily categorizing behaviours, clothes, ways of speaking and so on as "OBVIOUSLY ROMANTIC IN NATURE" or whatever? I'm begging on my hands and knees, this is a very slippery slope. I understand making silly little jokes but past a certain point it's unclear whether or not people are serious about this.

3) This one is a bit different and not exactly limited to this subject but recently I've found myself getting slightly irritated whenever there are analyses / metas without sources, especially when said analyses aim at proving a point using specfic information. Blame it on the uni student in me who's had to write way too many stupid essays, but whenever I see claims like "x flower or whatever symbolises x thing in x culture, therefore it's proof that x thing in x media is x", even if the analysis is interesting, I always want to ask the person where they found that information, so I could educate myself on the subject. Maybe I'm a bit too pessimistic on this but part of me always feels like the person deliberately cherry-picked what suited their interpetation, especially if they later say things like "look it up yourself". Idk,I'd just like to see if these analyses are the product of a genuine research or if they just heard someone on Twitter say it and ran with it.

4) Tbh I find that the way Hoyoverse goes about things is not that different from the way kpop singers are told to act to appeal to the audience. I 100% agree with you when you say that "attractiveness" is one of the most important factors as to why some characters are ppopular. And since I get the same vibes between Hoyoverse and kpop, I'd say that latching onto something like that for representation is kinda setting yourself up for failure down the line. Like, I'm sorry but if tiny crumbs mostly born in the fandom are enough to quench your thirst for representation, then the bar is truly in hell

And Aventurine. Oh Aventurine. I hope I won't sound too angry when I say this but looord was the fandom annoying these past few updates. This is linked to point 2) but I HATED every second of it whenever I saw people say things like "omg Aventurine acted sleazy / told a man his marble bust is handsome, it's obviously proof he's gay and the biggest whore in all of HSR because no straight man would say that!!!!" 😐 I don't even care if people want to HCs him as gay (by all means, do whatever you'd like) but allow to present an alternative: you know what kind of man would speak like that? Someone who's overacting the harmful stereotypes associated with his tribe as a defense mechanism of sorts against the whole world. Kind of like "you want me to be the crafty, smooth-talking and capricious Avgin? That's what I'll show you". Idk, I feel like THAT'S a much more sensible reasoning than the hormones driven screeches aforementioned.

Like seriously, is it y'all's first time reading a story like that?? Some people took one look at the character with a suspicious tattoo on his neck that SUSPICIOUSLY looks like the word "slave" and decided he was the fuckboy trope. Then 2.1 came and they had the gall to be surprised pikachu face when it was revealed that "yeah this is really a slave brand and Aventurine is Not Doing Well Mentally" (I saw posts where people said they were surprised this character wasn't as smooth and flirty and whatever as they had thought, like do you want me to applaud you for thinking with your brain for the first time in months or what??)

Anyway, I apologize for the sudden anger, I needed to get this off my chest.

Regarding translation issues, I do know a few things about translation as a whole but this ask is already getting long so maybe I'll talk about this another time 😅

In the meantime, I'm happy to see you and all the others catching a win with the lack of Kaveh in the banner! I do hope it'll continue in the same direction in the future

Also, I've talked a lot on here so maybe I should choose an emoji to sign my asks? If it's not taken could I use this one 🪻?

Hello 🪻 anon! Long time no see ☺️

Wow, you're not from an English-speaking country? With how eloquent your English is and how knowledgeable you are about Western fandom issues, you had fooled me haha.

A lot of the sexuality gatekeeping and preaching about x character being ___ sexuality or ___ -coded is a form of activism, for sure. As I said before, Americans in particular have a tendency to drag politics into every aspect of their lives, even foreign entertainment.

It's hard to say why some people act like morality police when someone disagrees with their headcanons or interpretations. Perhaps it's as you say--they feel powerless to make a change in the real world. A part of me also thinks they're virtue signaling; meaning, they show support for various causes for the sake of looking like a good person in front of others.

Regarding your frustration with the lack of a reliable source in analysis posts, I would say you're right to be wary of how factual the posts actually are. People generally make such posts to give their headcanons more weight. Basically, trying to prove their headcanons are right/correct. Cherry-picking is to be expected of such posts. I'm sure there are some well-researched, factual posts presenting a good analysis, but I find that those are mainly present in lore discussions. Maybe I'm being too negative, but I honestly don't expect anything good from fandom anymore. I am too jaded.

Your 4th point though lmao. The bar truly is in hell 😂 I get that there isn't a lot of representation in media, much less good rep, but Mihoyo's games aren't it, man... there are better sources of rep that this.

THE AVENTURINE BIT! I feel you on that so much!!!! LORD.

Mischaracterization in the name of shipping is a staple of fandom culture at this point. Your analysis of Aventurine's behaviors is spot on, but people like to view character actions and words through shipping lenses to try and find any crumb to support their headcanons. It's more fun to paint everything a character does as further support for their ship/headcanon than it is to appreciate who the character actually is.

The way Aventurine (And Childe. They massacred my boy) was quickly reduced to a flirty fuckboy hurts me to this day. After 2.0 story quest, people quickly came to the conclusion he was some perverted playboy, and proceeded to treat him the way they usually treat characters under the fuckboy trope: depict him in abusive situations. I saw so much fanart of Aventurine being collared and leashed, of being beaten black and blue, yet look like he's enjoying it. He was treated like a masochistic punching bag. While I love me some art of characters being roughed up, it really didn't suit Aventurine. Especially not after we just learned he was a slave, his race was murdered, and the Avgin people are discriminated against based on harmful stereotypes. But people seemed to have missed that?

The surprise pikachu moment they had when 2.1 dropped had me sitting there like:

Really? It was hinted at back in 2.0 that his backstory was rough, so it was no surprise he carries a lot of trauma and isn't as confident and cocky as he makes himself out to be. However, it seems like people really didn't pick up on that, or didn't understand the gravity behind it all. It felt like they and I read entirely different stories.

Idk, it's probably moments like these why Genshin has Paimon 😐

The small Kaveh win we had was worthy of celebration, but Mihoyo will never let their favorite shippers starve. They're already over-analyzing the camera panning between Haitham and Kaveh in Cyno's quest, as well as Sethos's voiceline about them. They do not rest.

Apologies for going off on a tangent again. I'm so happy there's someone else who picked up on Aventurine's trauma since the very start of the story 😭 It really felt like I was the only one. Ever since meeting him, there was something about him that made me want to hug and comfort him, but seeing all the abusive art just felt bad. It's much better now, thankfully.

Anyways, thanks for stopping by! It's always fun to read your messages since you have a lot of great insights. Hope you have a great day/evening whever you are, 🪻 Anon!

[lyxthen]

Extremely mildly niche academic-ish rambling ahead. Might wanna skip this one. It is long and boring

One thing that does make me happy is the Latinoamerican Literary Boom was so big it actually went on to be translated in other languages. There are still authors that I feel need to have their works translated (mostly women, I wonder why) but many of the video essayist I watch keep mentioning Borges in their videos, and truly I can't blame them because his work is rad. I don't know about him as a person but he lives 30 layers of post ironic meta fantasy or some shit like that. Cortazar is really cool also. In terms of living authors I really like Juan Villoro, his writing style is very fun. The Wild Book is a children's book about literary theory, like, Theory of Reception, Death of the Author, stuff like that. It was a really fun read as a child but the themes are interesting as well.

I feel like, I don't know, it's so hard to find Latin American fantasy books these days, or at least they are not as available. The YA genre is dominated by books originally writen in English or on books written in Spain (think Laura Gallego, which I just found out has a Netflix series made out of her most famous series of novels, but I am derailing) with the exception of Benito Taibo, who is Mexican, and has one (1) high fantasy trilogy that is kinda mid. The ideas were great, but they could've been expanded, you know? Camino a Sognum had so much potential, and you can *see* that it was inspired by classic epic fantasy like Earthsea, but it needed some more *spark* to actually work. I have not read Normal Person, but I plan to. Maybe it is better made?

And it's funny, because a book like Mexican Gothic, that was written in English, is so darn good! But only if you read it *in English* because the Spanish translation did this thing where they try to "neutralize" the accent and manerismd of the characters to make it appeal to the wider Spanish-speaking world and it doesn't sound or feel Mexican at all.

I am not sure where I am going with this. I have been discovering the local literary scene lately (and I mean *local*, like city-wide local) and it is mostly so boring because no one is writing fantasy! No magic realism! It's all kind of depressing dwellings on how we are being gentrified and indigenous people keep being oppressed by the mestizo majority and corporations and the goverment keep stealing the land to make Coca Cola and we are dying of diabetes and we don't got water and Capitalism sucks. LIKE I AGREE BUT CAN YOU PUT FAIRIES IN THERE OR SOMETHING. And I guess that's why I've never wanted to read Cómo Agua para Chocolate, because it is just *too real*, cuz it's a story I know by memory and I don't wanna live it all over again verbatim. Probably a great book, but I just cannot.

I don't know man idk idk.

The funniest think about this is that my favorite book ever (like actually, for real) is a children's book, written from the perspective of the imaginary friend of a child, and it is so gracefully narrated, and the characters so well constructed, and it touches real problems like Teen Pregnancy and Childhood Depression and Anxiety while also managing to be funny and whimsical? The very premise of the book (memories of an almost true friend, it's called) is already so creative and the execution is masterful. BUT I AM THE ONLY GUY ON PLANET EARTH THAT SEEMS TO KNOW ABOUT ITS EXISTENCE ITS DRIVING ME INSANE.

Where was I going with this. Ah yes. Youtubers talking about Borges. Well. Um. I. I think imma translate some of my own texts to English and put them on Wattpad or something. They are not the kind of thing Wattpad people are into but I gotta archive them somewhere and doing it on AO3 feels wrong since they aren't fan works. And on that note, I also wanna write more fan works.

Ugh I could be writing an essay but you got me writing a Tumblr post. What is wrong with me. I'm too bad at word weaving.

Aaaa (??????

Thoughts?

Help

I did take my meds today BTW. I don't know what is happening to me I just wanna WRITE ok I LOVE WRITING BUT WHY MUST I DO TUMBLR INSTEAD OF MY PASSIONS?

Oi I'll end it there

[lunova-rambles]

Secret Invasion Agent Ross ‘Theories’

I just want to organize my essay-length thoughts lol, so here’s a list of all the possibilities about Agent Ross’s appearance in Secret Invasion since I love the connections in the MCU!! So let’s discuss the cold open with Martin Freeman! Also disclaimer I haven’t read the comics so this is only going off of what we see in the show

!! HEAVY SPOILERS PAST THIS POINT !! +Wakanda Forever spoilers since it’s Ross

CONTEXT

Ross was arrested at the end of Wakanda Forever by Countess Valentina but then was (illegally) freed by Okoye. It’s pretty clear that Ross from WF isn’t a skrull since he helps Wakanda (why would he commit treason if he’s a skrull trying to infiltrate the CIA?), so there are 4 branches of possibilities for Real Ross after he’s freed:

Ross was taken to Wakanda and is staying there since he’s hiding from CIA (possible, but Wakanda wouldn’t want him there for legal reasons)

Ross is straight up dead (unlikely from a meta standpoint since he’s the token white guy for the Black Panther storyline but Maria just died so who knows)

Ross is on the run but not staying in Wakanda (obvious answer)

Ross was pardoned by the President or bailed out so he could work with S.A.B.E.R. or the CIA again

Ross was on the run but soon captured by skrulls and then Skrull-Ross was pardoned/bailed due to skrull infiltration of the government

It’s also possible that the skrull took Ross’s appearance/mind after meeting him once and just didn’t use it until later, so the part we don’t know is if Real Ross is still in hiding somewhere or if he’s captured by skrulls. And obviously there are like 6 shows/films between WF and this show, so multiple things could’ve happened too—anyway let’s move on to Skrull-Ross!!

EPISODE 1

Here’s what happens during the first episode:

Skrull-Ross meets with Agent Prescod* and they mention Fury being in space

Skrull-Ross calls for an extraction

Talos (in disguise) starts chasing Skrull-Ross

Maria Hill sees “Agent Ross” pop up on her monitor

Hill drives over and tries to protect who she thinks is Ross and is surprised that Talos is there

(After the cold open and Fury returning to Earth) Rhodey and the President discuss “Agent Fury,” “Agent Hill,” and “S.A.B.E.R.”

(*it says on the MCU wiki that Prescod was CIA which would explain how they know each other, though idk if CIA specifically was ever confirmed)

SO just by using inferential reasoning, here’s what each of those things tells us:

The identity of “Agent Ross” is at least assumed to be in contact with Fury or S.A.B.E.R. (But we don’t hear their whole convo so Skrull-Ross could just be lying)

Skrull-Ross has been working with Hill and/or an organization for long enough to have some communication

Talos already knows Skrull-Ross is a skrull, so he likely knows that Real Ross was captured or followed Skrull-Ross to Prescod

More evidence that “Agent Ross” isn’t a criminal right now since he has a tracker with “agent” on it

Hill is not aware that Skrull-Ross is a skrull (they also could’ve met for the first time for this mission though, which is likely since they never mention Real Ross after finding out)

Fury and Hill are confirmed to be working with the American government to some degree, which just further implies that “Agent Ross” probably isn’t considered a criminal anymore since Maria had no reason to turn him in or believe he was a skrull

Anyway those are my thoughts on Ross LOL, I’m probably not correct but I do like breaking down scenes

[the-last-cuddlebender]

Happy FFWF cuddles! 😊 What are the fluffiest things you've ever written, and why do you think they're the fluffiest?

HAPPY FFWF,  MY FRIEND!!!

oh this is incredibly difficult and took me quite a while to think about omg why must you do this to me, peaches?????

Hmmm...the fluffiest and why...

I am a sucker for Kataang taking care of each other, and I think that drives the majority of my fluff. Just the TLC, y’know? And happy crying. Oh gosh, happy crying. I think I’ve only managed to do it once in the readers with I’m Here, the whistle-speak fic that holds my heart on a string, but gosh do I love it when I write something sweet and a lil tear comes to my eye. What I’m writing usually isn’t that good when it happens, but I get so invested that it just comes out. It makes writing worth it to me💕

I really, really, REALLY love the fluff in Eyes of Ash from Aang bonding with the other young master airbenders right after he gets his tattoos. Aang having big brothers is my kryptonite I stg:

One of the bison landed on the cluster of young masters, and he pawed through the lump of bodies until he found the smallest, laughing one. He picked Aang up by his scruff between his teeth and grumpily shuffled away. Curling up, he held the boy in his front paws and looked almost like he was trying to hide his skyrider under his chin. He bared his teeth and growled at the pouting young masters climbing over him like an infestation.

Moonlit Stitches is my favorite fluff-piece that I’ve written, I think. I haven’t been able to duplicate the magic of that fic yet. It’s just the little things about describing how things feel and how things feel that I think make it so fluffy, if that makes sense. It takes the fluffy feel from the outside and puts it inside

Katara curled her hands into his robes and ran her fingers over the thick weave. The material was gentle and delicate as it slid under the pads of her fingers. It was thin but densely woven, and its many stitches made it welcoming to the touch. It was beautiful and vibrant from a distance, and it was reliable and sturdy even after years of abuse.

From afar, it looked untouched, but Katara felt around the dozens of bulging scars in the fabric. She had stitched up every one, and as she tilted her head, inviting him deeper, one of her hands sought out the patchwork of scars on his exposed torso up towards his shoulder. She had stitched up those, too. They were nearly invisible except for the welting bumps that they made under her fingers. They were proof of a thousand near-misses—flirts with what she didn’t like to think about. She had already seen it before. They broke and built him like wooden beams snapped and replaced by steel, like a broken bone fusing thicker than before.

One of his hands slid up her back and down the length of her arm, pulling her hand away from the evidence of bad memories. He kissed each of her knuckles while his other arm shifted around her waist.

And then he held their hands out like they were dancing.

Katara smiled. Aang didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. His eyes spoke so much for him that he could live mute and never need to write his thoughts, but his smile was a wonder of nature, like sunshine curled across his face, and his laugh was a gift that he wanted to share with the world.

All the Spirits and the Ancients themselves could not keep her from the soul who would ever damage his smile.

Aang often got lost in his need to make her his, but Katara quickly learned that intimacy was the last thing that concerned. He wanted to kiss her and touch her. He wanted to make her smile at silly jokes and laugh at his antics. He wanted to need her—to train himself to make her his focus. Two people only ever belonged to one another if they did. It was never a matter of leaving a mark on the other person. It was him putting her mark on himself—him pulling her closer so that she might fill the void he wanted so desperately to fill with her.

He wanted to chase her, not to catch her but to give her reason to want to run with him.

And as he swayed her softly, she leaned into his lead until they were two pendulums dancing in the moonlight.

Aang being a little shit like in Dip in the Bed is always fluffy to me because smartass-ery is just adorable for some reason:

Aang’s smile was as bright as his eyes were gentle. They were half-lidded, too. His whole posture was a broken coil pretending to still be a spring, but that didn’t stop him from trying. He laid on his side and rested his face on one fist, eclipsing her in his shadow. He studied her like she was a painting he was seeing for the first time—like he was just now finding every hidden meaning buried behind each brushstroke.

“Good morning, gorgeous,” Aang said, like he always did. His voice was warmer than his robe had been when it came off the fire. 

Katara stared for longer than she liked. Every part of her wanted to move. She couldn’t. Maybe all of this was a dream. Aang said he would be gone for a week at the least. It had been only a few days. He had to fly all the—

Aang touched her cheek and hummed their song. And though only his thumb brushed under her eye, the whole of her felt like it was hugged.

He was home early.

That bastard.

But the fluffiest of all, imo, is that which I haven’t released yet, and it’s a kindof essay-type post of all things😅 It’s a little rambling about "Avatar’s Love” and what I think it means (all a result of the TSR analysis lmao), and the whole of it makes me cry like a BABY and makes me so dang HAPPY every time oh my gosh:

...It was the same notes played to a different melody that was as familiar as it was new. It was the same partner in a different dance and a new song created together. Each beat of the song is different, and so is each step of the dance. There are an endless amount of ways to say ‘I love you’, and there are just as many infinite ways to say ‘I love you, too’. It can be someone standing silent beside you, or it can be someone not beside you filling your silence.

It was passing on a betrothal necklace as a gift to a daughter. The love is still there. It’s just in a different form—the same notes but rearranged with a new player creating a new song.

It’s a story coming to a close, but the longing for more is what makes it complete.

The song ends, but only for a while. Silence meant a moment to breathe...

(ALSO JUST EVERYTHING ABOUT MEET ME BY THE RIVER ON GOD I JUST SVNEOIUBVNERIPFBNDFB)

[vrishchikawrites]

About YZY leaving YMJ/JFM with her kids Post-WWX Arrival

Dear Dee, feel free to delete or ignore this or post it, whatever floats your boat. This just stuck in my head after those posts and I had to blurt it all to someone. Thanks for taking the time to read my word vomit.

So I had to do this instead of an ask because it got long and I wasn't sure how many asks it'd need or how short I could cut it down without losing parts of the argument. And then other things came up as I was writing and, well.  Well..... >_>;;;; 

But you know, after that post/ask you had about YZY fics saying 'Fuck U' to YMJ/JFM & leaving both with her kids, I had a sarcastic 'yeah right' attitude about it. Mainly due to a lot of negation emotions to such an abusive (and delusional) bitch, partly due to how she wouldn't do that since it doesn't seem to be something her sort of character would consider either because she'd think of it as 'losing' (losing what, IDK, it's why I consider her type of person crazy) or she legit wouldn't think about such a viable action.

But then later, in the shower, I seriously went 'Wait, she can't fucking do that' and it wouldn't be about how MXTX uses her as a part of the narrative but entirely about the/their culture in the novel; the actions that have and would be taken in response; and her entire toxic personality as well.

1) We already know that the sects and the cultivation world in general is sexist, elitist and so Capital T 'Traditional' to the point that it's starting to petrify and any deviancy from this is an exception rather than the norm. YZY might be a madame of a great sect (for what that's worth considering how shit of a madame she's been and the titles she's chosen for herself) but she's still a woman even with her high rank and the things she's personally accomplished.

Even if she was in her rights to leave a 'bad' marriage, she'd be the one who'd get scolded more instead of JFM by her natal family, her former husband's family and by their entire society at large even if she had a few singular supporters. Because That's Not How Things Are Done in their society and I do believe that such a thing was rare even when it was accepted method by the upper echelons. Especially since it would have to be done by more than YZY simply deciding that She Wants Out and just- goes and Gets Out. With no serious allegations that would allow her to divorce or separate from YMJ/JFM without the input from her family, JFM's family and, I think, possibly some measure of compensation as well. And no, having or bringing in a 'bastard child' is not a serious enough offence for such a humongous decision. I think something more along the lines of treason or crimes against multiple, high-ranking parties would be more along the lines. Maybe.

And even if she does this, she'd be considered 'Used Goods' (such a terrible comment) and there'd be no other good/proper marriage prospects for a divorced woman with children let alone a woman like YZY with her entire abrasive personality and attitude put off even easy-going JFM.

(If she'd been widowed then it'd be more forgiven but I consider that a Real Bad End since, IMO, it would lead to the sudden and inevitable decline of YMJ either via mass exodus of disciples and/or residents of LP; being merged with another sect due to it's unstable leadership; or create an internal political war 'cause I bet you anything that the YMJ Elders/relatives (if they have any) Would Not Want YZY in charge of YMJ when she's already proven herself such a shit betrothed let alone madame.)

2) Speaking of families, while YMJ/JFM/LP as a whole might be glad to see YZY's back, I don't think her natal sect, MSY, will be glad to see her come storming back after all the effort they put into getting that particular marriage alliance with YMJ. And if she brings her children with her? Oh man, oh boy- mother or not, that could be considered as kidnapping or line theft (is that a thing?) especially if YZY is also seriously considering divorce proceedings and raising them as Yu and not Jiang. That could give leave to, for anyone more unforgiving and maybe JFM if he's pushed enough, disown both JYL and JWY from the Jiangs through no fault of their own (though I'm sure YZY would make it so as well as blame JFM for her own decisions and mistakes).

Therefore, any inheritance or benefits they might gain for being legitimised children of a great sect are forfeited. JYL will likely lose that betrothal with JZX because JGS will drop it like a hot potato and JWY won't be a sect heir because YZY literally decided to remove that by deciding to raise JWY as a Yu, no matter their blood relation to JFM. They leave him, they leave YMJ and everything attached with it. Which is if YMJ/JFM doesn't demand MSY to give back their heir/ess and to punish YZY for her actions. Or send all three of them back for the appropriate reactions/decisions.

Their society would demand no less in reaction because, to them, it would seem like YZY had gone mad and JFM would look weak (or weaker) and imply that YMJ is vulnerable and exploitable if JFM doesn't do something in response to her actions. That's not even getting into what the other smaller sects may try to do in an attempt to curry favour with YMJ or what LLJ or QSW would try in order to destroy or diminish YMJ. And whether JFM chooses to demand his children back or not, it may not change the fact that this may give him reason enough to choose a nephew or niece to be the new sect heir especially if, even after getting rid of YZY's poisonous influence, JWY grows up to be his mother's child more than his father's or even his own person.

Either way, such a thing would bring great backlash on YZY, and MSY as well as the collateral. No one would want to give face to her or her children because it would bring up some very uncomfortable questions and scenarios to the other sects- specifically, what would happen if the female members of their clans/sets decided to follow the footsteps of YZY and leave with their children and heirs. Especially if they use it as an excuse to leave for their own comfort and whims and not some legitimate wrongs and dangers. That would create some more restrictions on women thanks to YZY

3) And lastly, if any one of those idiot YZY stans think that she'd ever give up the status of being a madame of a great sect they'd be as crazy or crazier than her. YZY is all about status and power and face. Specifically, her status, power and face and how people in her reach reflect her or 'insult' her. She is a selfish, terrible, abusive and toxic person and can only see people in regards to how they would benefit her and the elevation of her and in no other way. Especially her family. They cannot be their own person, they can only be an extension of her and gods forbid they go against her.

We can see this in how she treats the people she supposedly loves. JFM? Arguments day in, day out along with accusations and slander of cheating, having one(1) supposed 'bastard' and being 'in love' with CSSR. Which all seems sus as hell. And that's when she's actually there and not out 'night hunting'. Even her 'training' seems to border on unhelpful rather then helpful if my vague recollections of juniors fainting from exhaustion can be relied upon (please call me out if they're not or find proof).

JYL? Berated by not being 'strong' but not helped at all to be 'strong'. It doesn't help that YZY seems to believe in the same standards strength in their society- that is, of martial masculine strength which does not and should not apply to JYL who has been said to be sickly. Which means h should have been learning a different way of cultivation/fighting anyway.  If that was something she wanted and had been offered in the first place- which I doubt. That isn't even getting into her repeated generational trauma mess of a betrothal which was decided only by those 'sworn sisters', accepted by her as a way out of her terrible home life and puts her squarely within reach of JGS who we know to be a womaniser, rapist, predator and a possible ephebophile considering we don't know the exact age of his youngest 'conquest' or the age of MZY's mother when they met which could be anywhere from 14 to 21.

JWY? Gods, so much meta on him and his(non-) relationships with his parents that I don't think I can contribute more to it. It's been all said and done. Unless people want me to stir the pot by saying that, maybe, just maybe, YZY resents JWY as much as she 'loves' him.Either because he's her son and yet never manages to 'accomplish as much' as WWX or because he's a boy and therefore, more benefits and allowances than a girl/woman- more than anything that YZY ever got without either a fight or screaming at someone about. *shrug*

So, in conclusion to this sudden an unexpected essay that I wrote(I'm so sorry about that, I thought it would be shorter -.-;;;;), YZY leaving YMJ/JFM with her kids? Impossible. Not without some sort of personality transplant or a complete AU. She's too prideful, too bitter, too angry, too everything negative and little positive. She's a resentful product of the values and restraints of her society taken to the extreme negative with a willingness to inflict her pain on others to an abusive degree. But she's also too obsessed and reliant on those same values and restraints to keep up the image of her status. So her? Giving those up? You'd be more likely to see WRH as a doting grandfather than that.

---

Dee - All of this is true and yes YZY leaving YMJ is highly unlikely. While there will be consequences if she decides to leave, she does canonically lives separately from her husband. They seem to be in a situation where they are married but living separately, which was a common way to end a marriage (at least in spirit) back then. She essentially had all the perks of being Madam Jiang but fulfilled none of the responsibilities.

Afaik, her training the Jiang disciples is a donghua thing? I may be wrong but I recall she spent most of her time nighthunting.

As for taking her children along with her- that's completely impossible. At that point, children were the property of the father. She could leave but she would've never been allowed to take JC.

[redphlox]

My biggest fear is that hori making Dabi a complete psycho. As in, he’s gonna confirm that 1) Dabi indeed never cared about the LoV 2) He dgaf abput Natsuo anymore, he’s willing to kill him, etc 3) since sakoto peak he’s been a mindless freak only out for revenge against en*****r

I see all these amazing LoV stans writing essays about how Dabi is blocking his feelings and really cared about jin and all, and I really want to believe them bc it makes 100% sense, but the thing is, I don’t trust hori to give such depth to this story. Like, judging from how he made endeavor cry once (1) and called it a day on his redemption idk if he’s willing to develop Dabi well enough.

Idk if I’m making sense I’m sorry English is also not my first language.

I understand your fear and sometimes I worry about it too! But, Hori has purposely held Dabi in the shadows and didn't give him screen time until recently. Now that Dabi has become a vital character, Hori will have to expand on him more and address the clues he has dropped all the way. The thing about the meta you mentioned is that the people who are writing those are forming ideas based off text. They're not just making up ideas or speculating based off nothing. So, the evidence that Dabi is blocking his feelings is all there, which means Hori is gearing toward developing him more.

There's even evidence Dabi hasn't been unhinged this whole time. When he first appears in the manga, Giran says Dabi hasn't committed any crimes, and the way he is dressed suggests he's been living on the streets. Dabi is even concerned about going at his plans in the correct manner, because he questions the ideology behind the LOV at first.

I think the fear of Dabi not being developed comes from some readers constantly demonizing him and making false interpretations. These readers are resistant to acknowledge the foreshadowing Hori dropped because they read superficially or just won't like the idea that Hori is humanizing the villains. It's bias. I think that's why some readers also claim E is being redeemed. E himself has said he wants to atone, and that's what he's doing. His family hasn't forgiven him, and they haven't drastically changed their feelings about him - Shouto put aside his anger for HIS own mental health, not for the sake of his father or because he has seen E change. He even tells E this in 192 and Fuyumi in 252.

The family right now is supporting E not because of HIM personally but because they're pushing him to take responsibility of Touya - facing what he did to his son.

[wolfsneedles]

i like how prophetic dreams and prophecies in itself different from visions are interpreted in different ways and in diff directions but also by different people for eg stannis and Mel, Rhaegar and dany or other targaryen kings. Jojen and bran, Cersei and Maggy etc...

Melisandre usually tumbles and makes mistakes she sees what she sees but not exactly she wants to see what should be accurate considering how her major azhor ahai is stannis, was a mistake and an error. However recently we know she sees snow in flames. jon. but im skeptical about him being prince that was promised or AA, when you have....daenerys right here. But she still commits mistakes idk maybe rh'ollor is lil unhinged and is messing with her, but no. i think she is prone to change and her prophecies change too. Mel doesn't stick up to one interpretation and pretty sure will leave stannis in long run if she believes who is AA to her.

But stannis, is stubborn and crude. As a skeptic and well part atheist, he took her words and religious ventures too seriously and has attached with the prophecy too vehemently as if he has to be AA at any cost not knowing prophecy can't matter in the end even, but its so funny to me he risked most of the stuff for red priestess who just came to her and is like, "ight u be the king cuz u have targaryen blood"

Jojen reeds dreams are like mostly about starks and wolves and how they will come back again and when bran and others ask him if what he sees can be changed, he says no. which means him seeing something can be finalized testament or something that will happen one way or other since starks coming back or wolves coming back, is like obvious thing since they have their might broken. Bran is currently well being trained by bloodraven so his views weren't yet in first books but evolved with time.

And my fav part is cersei's prophecy of valonqar and maggy. She is destined or was to marry king not prince and she would have 3 children while robert 16 bastards, and we never knew and it was strange to me how lannisters never acquired or were even mildly amused by idea of magic all the way but cersei going to a witch when she was in casterly rock with her companions was like a major twist for me since i never assumed her to be like that, however she knows her fate will end by valonqar and a young more beautiful queen (def dany) will replace her and take what she holds dear. However cersei's reaction to this prophecy when she herself asks witch to tell her fortune is volatile. She takes to anger and resists it from coming true. She even shapes her life and everything according to not letting the prophecy come true but it follows her to in a way that she does marry robert and has 3 children by incestuous relationship. At the very best however, she avoids it because she hates the truth of it. She steers away from it.

Rhaegar is a different matter to me. I like how he was born as melancholic and amidst grief during tragedy of summerhal and well overall, for me had tragic demise but he took the prophecy too serious differently than stannis even. He made sure to follow and correct it and apply it aptly on his marital life and social life. He even kind of got too carried away and dreamy with it that he didn't himself realise the situation changing with Robert's rebellion and everything happening. Rhaegar however we knew was kind of intellectual and sensual personality so maybe he took the targaryen grief of years of no dragons too seriously too. And in the end well...prophecy really didn't work for him and most of his actions failed him and those around.

Dany is so different in this regards tbh. She is part of two prophecies for me the 'prince that was promised' and AZHOR AHAI. and the last 'younger more beautiful queen'. I mean it's startling. Unlike her brother and even old ancestors of her blood, she intrinsically is tied to so many of these prophetic verses and proves on so many occasions especially after birth of dragons that she indeed can be Azhor Ahai or maybe - the best candidates for her. She doesn't really is obsessed with it or neither is she forcing someone to tell her fate like cersei and then meet the rejection with rudeness infact she kind of subverts expectations one has of glaring prophecy which everyone imagines to be a prince...or a man. But dany really isn't a man lol and neither a prince. Aemon did say too the translated prophecy can have error too and it was not really prince who is promised but could be well...princess if that's even the correct term. Her birth of dragons explained in numerous posts and metas is so phenomenal and makes her ever so wonderful and magical than her all ancestors who died in all tragic ways because they made the prophecies too tied to their lives and were utterly obsessed with it. They were reminiscing over grief of dragons but daenerys bought dragons that to, three back to world after stepping into drogo's pyre and performing a ritual she herself only realised in the end what she was doing and thanks to well MMD. She realized later but still did she realise how the stone eggs did exudate warmth and called to her. Im pretty sure all other targayens and their expectations and experiences were all in vain or went down drain. Dany on the other hand independently alone and on her own without help of anyone but only subtly joining clues and hints, sorted out and stitched the importance and relevance of it. The dragons and ritual. It was anyways a one time magical event too, no wonder her bringing dragons to world is written as " music of dragons" and night came alive with it in AGOT. (interesting that grrm says music of dragons and well rhaegar also liked playing sad music at ruins of summerhall, an emo prince yea)

And Daenerys doesn't really is tied herself to prophecy but most of the prophecies are tied to her. The Younger More Beautiful Queen one indicates at her..tbh and really no one including cersei and her knows about it. The AzAhai one also points to her because she was born in salts of dragonstone and smoke refers to birth of dragons and cracking of sound and smoke during pyre. The sword forged from flame can obv be pointed to drogon whose birth is like fire made flesh of a dragon hence that, and also when Xaro X Daxos says, of her dragons 'as flaming sword'.

but not getting into details of AA as dany because again, there are a lot of essays to it.

I just pointed out how stannis makes prophecy his and forced a little on people, how jojen trains bran too in a way and he still takes time to learn this green visions thing, cersei staggers away from it and damages people to not fulfill it or prevent it from engulfing her...but dany has no idea yet as far of any prophecy only a dream, and house of undying visions which she herself doesnt yet believe all so much we rlly dont know, yet she fulfills def 2/3 prophecies.

[zukkaoru]

shhh i’m not on my phone at work got a second wHAT

35:) ramble to me, babe

35. ramble about any fic-related thing you want

corey this is so vague i don't even know where to begin skjgdfhdj uhhhhh what do i want to ramble about,,

WAIT OKAY I GOT IT

okay so back in like. february i think i did another ask game like this and someone (jo?? maybe???) sent an ask about meta/foreshadowing/hidden references for this ultraviolet morning light and at the time, only the first two(?) chapters were out so i couldn't talk about the foreshadowing, bc it was all leading up to the end of chapter six. but i can talk about it now bc the whole fic is up!!

i'll put it under the cut bc i know it'll be long + spoilers for those who haven't yet read tuvml

fic writer ask game

okay so first. all of the foreshadowing for the drowning scene. maybe i did already have a list of these in my google docs in case anyone every asked, maybe not, i won't say

anyway. i added in water/drowning imagery with zuko specifically in this fic, because of the drowning scene, and especially bc in the atla world, water imagery would generally be used with characters from the water tribes rather than someone from the fire nation. so it wasn't just me liking water-related words and shoving them onto zuko for no reason; it was intentional

chapter one:

- He really can’t think of anything more beautiful than Zuko drenched in moonlight - This is what fire feels like when doused with water. - It burns like fire consuming Sokka’s entire body, like he’s been dunked underwater and the surface has frozen over and his lungs are about to give out, but he’s going to keep hitting the ice anyways like he’s strong enough to break it.

chapter two:

- It washes over his body all at once, like a wave pulling him under the surface of the ocean, until his limbs are numb and tingly and his head sways. He’s completely frozen in place, eyes staring straight ahead but not really seeing anything. - He would’ve rather stood across from Azula in the Agni Kai arena and let her shoot him full of lightning, rather been dropped in the middle of the ocean

chapter three:

- Zuko searches the tumultuous ocean that is his mind for the right words - Zuko was telling them about Azula never quite getting the knack for swimming despite their annual vacations to Ember Island when they were little, and Sokka was so happy.

chapter four:

So he lets the words sink, lets them drown in the knowledge that he no longer has the right to talk to Sokka in the same way he used to.

chapter five:

The moonlight pours over him, drowning him in a soft white glow.

chapter six:

But…my doctors have told me that spending the rest of your life letting yourself drown in guilt isn’t going to help anyone.

also, people picked up on vai being a double agent, but no one picked up on the fact that she was a waterbender, even though i did hint at that too:

- Her brown skin is almost as dark as Sokka’s and her face and arms are covered in freckles. - It reminds Sokka of himself a little; the bright blue eyes of a waterbender but no bending ability to speak of. - How can you get better than a play with dragons, a star-crossed love affair, sun and moon symbolism, and a villain who has a secret past that ties them to the protagonist?

beyond that, there are also a lot of parallels/call backs to previous chapters/foreshadowing to future scenes just in general. the funniest one (and also completely unintentional one) is probably sokka and katara calling each other their least favorite [sibling]

“You’re my least favorite sister,” // You are, and I say this from the bottom of my heart, my least favorite brother ever. chapter 1 // epilogue

but there are. several more. and i'm not sure how many of them people picked up on so i will add them all bc i love them <3

Zuko would get himself arrested, kidnapped, killed, whatever if it would keep Sokka safe. // “I would give my life for [Zuko] without a second thought.” … “But would he do the same for you?” chapter 4 // chapter 6

When Sokka’s hand began to retreat, Zuko had reached forward, grabbed it, and whispered, “Please stay.” // “Don’t leave me.” Sokka says it like a prayer … like he would repeat it until he couldn’t remember anything else if it meant Zuko would keep holding him. “Just… stay.” chapter 5 // chapter 7

So they sit - Sokka and Zuko - on the roof of some abandoned building in the outskirts of the city. // “But now I’m pretty sure we’re just destined to be Sokka and Zuko” chapter 5 // chapter 7

“I just don’t think he’s trustworthy enough for this. … when he proves that he isn’t as reliable as you think - when he proves that he’s only ever going to let you down - I’m going to say I told you so.” // “Zuko is kind, and he is trustworthy and reliable. He’d never purposefully let me down” chapter 3 // chapter 6

this ^ was one i was hoping people would pick up on bc it makes the drowning scene/sokka pleading for vai to not hurt zuko that much angstier, but i'm not sure anyone did so now i'm putting those lines right next to each other so you're all forced to confront the pain <3

Is he still in love with Zuko? Is being in love enough? // But what good is any of that? Love isn’t always enough. // “It doesn’t matter who or where feels like home, it doesn’t matter if we’re in love. When you’re next in line for the throne, love isn’t enough.” chapter 3 // chapter 4 // chapter 6

Zuko warms his other hand on instinct, and apparently it was a good call because Sokka squeezes it tighter and presses closer to Zuko. “I forgot my mittens at home,” // I love you doesn’t always take the shape of those three words. … Sometimes, it’s Have you eaten today? or Don’t forget your mittens again! chapter 1 // chapter 6

this ^ is also one i thought people might pick up on but idk if anyone did or not. but it made me🥺🥺 when i wrote it

[religion tw for the last part]

okay i could leave it there but corey gave me an excuse to ramble and i've made the post this long anyways so one more thing! i explained this to corey a while ago when we were having dinner together but i find it very funny so i'm sharing it with all of you i say like anyone has actually read this far

i accidentally made zuko a Christ Figure in tuvml

"but grace, surely that's not possible," you say. "surely there's no way zuko is a christ figure! there aren't any christian themes in tuvml. you didn't even have anyone try to convince vai to forgive zuko or have anyone convince zuko and sokka that they should forgive vai! how could you have a christ figure in your fic???"

let me set the scene. it's 2019, you're a senior in high school, and you decided to take ap literature for the possibility of college credit. your teacher has this book called how to read literature like a professor that he has his classes read chapters from, and one of those chapters talks about Christ Figures in literature. one of those chapters also talks about baptism symbolism, and mentions how oftentimes, characters who are christ figures will go through a baptism of some sort - being "born again" after a scene where they come out of the water

do you want to know what zuko does in this ultraviolet morning light?

he goes into the water. and then he comes back out.

and do you want to know what i had sokka say about zuko shortly before he took a dive into the baptistry water?

Zuko looks away from him, resigned, like he’s ready to die as atonement.

see. i grew up Christian, i went to church every sunday and i have spent the majority of my life memorizing Bible verses either for awana or bible quizzing and. sometimes i just drop biblical words into my writing sometimes bc they're words i've heard since i was a kid, and they're words i learned make you sound smarter at church. so of course i throw them around while writing. i use them in essays, i use them in poetry, and i use them in fan fiction.

so was i trying to make zuko a christ figure in my fic? absolutely not.

but i had sokka say he looked ready to die as atonement (for the sins of his people), and then i had him go into the water, nearly die, and have to be "brought back to life" by suki's cpr, being "born again" after a "baptism" and

well

accidental christ figure zuko i guess

anyway. this went on for a while and i'm not sure anyone bothered reading all of it which. valid.

thank you corey for letting me ramble skjdgfdjgh i'm not sure this is coherent, nor should it have all been in one post, but whatever

[moonverc3x]

Your headcanons,, are so good,, mega big brain,, please give me your knowledge

Oh? Someone enjoys my hecannons that make no sence? Alright, I suppose I'll post a few more for you...

Imma disregard cannon for this one... But instead of those tini little fangs you usually see, Marx has big, sharp fucking teeth (and a strong jaw to match). Great for chewing and eating things that you're not supposed to. He's even taken a bite out one of the Halberds' wings in front of MK for the sole purpose of annoying him. Just... Crunch.

I also kinda see him as a compulsive chewer. Chews on anything and everything, like straws etc..

Here's a short list of things Marx has eaten/taken a bite of/chewed on simply for the sole purpose of... Marx stuff:

The Halberd

Castle Dedede

A motorcycle

A few of Dededes robes

Any kind of food peeling/part of food you're not supposed to eat (watermelon, lemon, orange, etc)

Straws

His own hat

Kirby (???)

Marx is also super good at replicating voices! He normally has a very voice-cracky voice, but when he puts some effort into it, he can get himself to have a really deep voice, or a femmine one! He has on many occasions used this ability of his for prank calls, and messing with the citizens of dreamland.

Marx ... Needs glasses but refuses to wear any. They get in his way and he'd probably eat them anyway.

Meta knight knows all kinds of languages, and so does Galacta Knight. Mainly because they've been alive for so long. Mk knows at least three (English, spanish and Japanese are the three he's most fluent in), GK is most fluent in the language of the ancients, second comes English, but all the others he knows are mostly basics.

And because of a certain someone I look up to on Tumblr here-- even though Morpho Knight is basically the grim reaper and has encountered many different people who speak many different languages, he only knows two languages. The first language being Spanish, and his second is English.

Kirby (along with MK and all other puffs) has incredible physical strength. Like, could snap your neck with just one nub. (But he would nevER)

I'm gonna say this AGIAN and in EVERY hc post I make, Kine is a Simp.

(idk if I've posted this on here before, but-) Taranza is scared of thunderstorms!! Because Floralia was so high above the clouds, the worst stroms they would get was a heavy mist. So workers would need to travel down to popstar to collect water so they could water their plants and have something to drink. So, ofc, none of the inhabitants of Floralia had ever experienced proper rain, expecially a thunderstorm. So, after Sectonia's defeat, Taranza decided to go and live down on popstar with Kirby, since they were basically the only person they knew or trusted. So Taranzas first thunderstorm was rightfully terrifying. He was sure it was the end of the world and that this was Sectonia's act of vengeance for helping the hero to defeat her.

Dark Meta Knight sounds like Corpse. He's got a really, really deep voice. Basically the kind of voice MK wants.

If you wanted to, you could simply stick your hand through Prince fluff. He's made of yarn afterall- he'd probably look at you and ask you what you're doing. Since he's basically a papercraft creation that looks like he was made by an 8 year old who wanted a kirby-sona, you could probably just... Remove his eyes/ eyebrows with a bit of force. It wouldn't hurt. It would just be a little weird and he would kindly ask for them back...

Imagine Kirby and Fluff are hanging out, play catch, and kirby throws the ball a little too hard at him and hits him and takes out his face-- like--

And here fluff just feels bad about not being able to catch the ball and Kirby's freaking out because since when can your friend detach their face?? Is that normal????? Healthy??????????

So, when I first watched RBAY! I thought that Lady like, Sir Ebrum, Tiff and Tuff were the original royal family and that Dedede had taken over only recently, and they were trying to get him out. You can see where I'm going, so in this essay I will-

[tsskyx]

The great reset inconsistency

Okay, so this is a topic I’ve been putting off for years now. Idk why, I guess I just wasn’t motivated enough to write an entire essay on it. After all, it’s not really a theory, it’s more like a small collection of ideas of mine.

Anyways, I think we can all agree that it’s a common head canon that Chara remembers the resets, right? But... why? Is this head canon actually based in facts?

Well, first of all, there is Flowey’s final speech, which is what people most often quote when they wish to present evidence for this theory. Flowey is talking Chara out of resetting here, so, it’s confirmed, right? Some have also pointed out the fact that the menu screen, which contains the reset button, does not utilize the soul icon selection indicator, whereas any choice selection in the “overworld” does, suggesting that whoever is in control of the red soul is not in control of the reset function. (Similarly, when Flowey seizes the control over the reset power - cue the ‘My World’ scene, the indicator disappears here as well.)

Now, as it may be obvious from my phrasing, I have my own set of remarks against this whole idea. And first, let us examine ‘the evidence’ more closely.

Personally, I think the last screenshot I showed here is self-explanatory, since Flowey is in control there. But, does this imply a deeper meaning, or is it just an interesting visual detail? As for the second set of screenshots, this one would imply that Frisk isn’t the one who resets. Which would raise the question, are they in control of the ‘quit’ option in the first place? See, the only “normal” way that I know of in which you can actually access the reset menu is, if you quit the game. At one point, Flowey implies that this option is canon. If you go through the underground without killing anybody, he suggests that you load your save file and then do what he tells you to do (otherwise, he always tells you to reset). And the only way you can reload - other than through someone killing you - is by quitting the game and then choosing ‘continue’. It’s de facto the same function as reset (it is accessed the same way), except it transports you to your last save, instead of the very beginning.

Now, going by the logic of the prior, quitting is then also not under Frisk’s command, since there’s no soul icon seen when it is executed, not to mention that Flowey gives you these instructions under the same exact circumstances: you quit and restart the game after reaching some ending, and then he appears on a black canvas and tells you things. It’s the exact same as when he supposedly spoke to Chara. In fact, extending the logic in this way, we could deduce that every time Flowey appears this way, he is actually speaking to Chara. In fact, this would also cover the naming screen, since that one also doesn’t show a soul, only yellow letters (probably to conserve space, but let’s keep entertaining the theory).

And finally, there’s the core evidence itself, which unearths who Flowey is actually speaking to in this dark screen at the end of the game, potentially in every dark screen in every ending. After all, in the genocide run, it’s not Flowey who appears after you restart the game, it’s Chara. And all of this seems incredibly “right”, like it all fits together. In fact, there’s an entire theory called the player Chara theory (described in this mega essay), which says that Chara is de-facto the player. Anything the player does is actually Chara’s doing, and the evidence aids this: from the name we chose, through their backstory (Chara hated humanity, and we do too most likely by the time we find out), to all of this reset meta. Of course, the evidence doesn’t fit completely, as we’ve never actually played as Chara, we only do just now. But even this can be explained as us merely playing a character who simply happens to have a backstory, like in many story-driven games out there.

However, there is a deeper issue about this. This theory, albeit pretty, is incompatible with the narrator theory. How can Chara both play AND narrate the game, when in so many instances the narration appears to cooperate with the player? It’d almost seem like Chara is talking to themself. Plus, there is one giant piece of evidence that also destroys any hope of reconciliating the reset-Chara theory with the narrator-Chara theory. So far we’ve adhered to logic and consistency pretty hard, so it would not make sense to start making exceptions now.

Let’s try to think of an example where the narrator would disagree hard with the player. In fact, one such instance exists. This is what the narrator says if you go into the rainbow save option, but then back off. It does not occur before you back off, you must specifically enter the save option and then exit it again. This shows me that the narrator wants to do something very specific here, and they probably wouldn’t appreciate it if someone, say, reset the timeline at this point.

Although this is just one piece of evidence, unless we wanna turn a blind eye now, this IS the evidence that definitely points to a discrepancy between Chara and the player. It shows that in general, Chara is not in control over the quit or reset options (and by extension the continue option too, even though it is favorable to them). And if they aren’t, then who is? Perhaps, Frisk. If that’s so, then under all circumstances, the game must form a linear narrative without the player’s input. And, probing the resets, that may appear so. When you reset, Frisk’s behavior changes. For example, they now turn before Sans prompts them. However, everything changes upon a true reset. A true reset erases everything, save for Chara’s “bad ending”. Meaning that if Frisk is in control over the true reset option and they happen to choose it, they seemingly lose all their memories, wrapping the world in a loop. Yet, we are still here, we can still generate new endings.

So what exactly is going on, are we Chara now, post-true-reset? Well, at this point, the third-entity theory becomes more likely. That is, that everything the player does is in fact their own doing in the game, while Frisk has the cutscenes, and Chara narrates. However, even this theory would not explain Flowey’s final dialogue, where he clearly speaks to us, yet addresses us as Chara. Meaning, that unless we change roles with time, sometimes being ourselves, sometimes being Frisk, and sometimes Chara, there cannot be any single consistent theory that explains everyone’s roles in the game.

Unless we start cutting corners, that is. My personal head canon, which I’m sure you would agree with, is that there is no player, that this is solely Frisk and Chara’s journey. Next, the narrator theory seems pretty consistent and kinda cute, so, I believe in it too. However, I do not think that Chara talks to Flowey at the end of the game. I mean, how is it even possible? How did Flowey find out, how is he not surprised by this, and where is Chara, detached, or still within Frisk? Is Frisk listening, or are their ears shut and their eyes closed, to give the two some privacy? The more one thinks about it, the less likely it is, unless you assume a post-pacifist scenario where Frisk returns to the mountain and tells Flowey about Chara. And Flowey’s words rather suggest to me that he found Chara himself, somewhere alone in the underground. That’s just my feeling. Also my head canon, and here’s where some people might disagree, is that Chara does not remember the resets. For one, their narration never changes. And two, there’s the issue of the save file.

The save file has got Chara’s name on it. My head canon is, that the game, once Chara got revived by Frisk’s soul, pulled their old save file out (there is evidence in the game that Chara could reset while alive) and assigned it to Frisk, name unchanged. This means that the naming of the file happened chronologically years ago, when Chara first fell down. And now, let us look at LV. This stat is weird. It tracks your “level of violence”, though only murder changes it, so it’s dubious whether it displays your potential, or your concrete sin (for sure, you can be messed up in the head without killing anyone, right?). I mean, why would you need two stats for the exact same thing?

Before I continue, I just want to briefly mention my head canon about the true reset: in pacifist, the breaking of the barrier causes the reset ability to lose the memory-preserving aspect (like, the barrier was boosting that power, reflecting it back underground, but now that it is no more, the power is weaker, able to preserve only one person’s mind), and thus, only Frisk ends up remembering the previous timeline (even if they don’t show it; my idea is, that they want to act like it’s all anew). While in the genocide run, which is also followed by a true reset, Chara was the one who reset (since we gave them our soul), and due to their prior experience with this power, the act was somewhat “cleaner”, resulting in a true reset instead. Or maybe the game just got confused when a different person suddenly did it. Though, it is definitely not my head canon that Chara destroyed the entire universe (and thus the barrier along with it), that’s ridiculous to me. That’s not how I interpreted that scene, ever.

Anyways, LV. As you may know, LV can be reset. But... why? If LV is a measure of your capacity to hurt, then it is inherently psychological. And you cannot undo that without erasing some memories, or rather, without overwriting your entire mind with an earlier state. I mean, even if you erase some memories, your reaction to certain unpleasant stimuli will stay the same, you will just have no idea why you’re being so distant. And this is the argument that finally convinced me that Chara doesn’t remember the resets. The save file is theirs, it is connected to them, and their behavior visibly changes as we rack up LV. Yes yes, I know, cooperation not corruption, but even then, one cannot deny that LV changes Chara. Even if they stop cooperating with us the moment we abort the genocide route, the high LV/EXP still causes them to be very pessimistic and such (recall the bag of dog food at Alphys’s lab). Even if you don’t believe that they are “connected to their save file”, this is undeniable. The “connection” is merely how I explain this in more concrete detail.

So, in other words, Chara never remembers the resets, unless we give them our soul. After that, they begin remembering.

And that’s about it I’d say. This is my personal head canon about Chara and the resets. It’s kinda different, and with unusual implications. Feel free to message me if you have anything to say, I’m always eager to have a chat about the game. See you in however many months again probably!

[tonyglowheart]

This entire thing is a rant, feel free to ignore it, but I saw your post about how destiel fans can’t win in this context, and yeah. So have some rambles.

I’ve been thinking about the fact we (current spn/destiel fans) can’t win all night... I’ve seen so many people talking about how homophobic it is - and while I would very much like to argue, as every point I’ve seen made by a non-spn fan has been wrong so far, if I did everyone inside the fandom would agree and everyone outside would either call me straight or pity me for believing it’s okay.

(Cas wasn’t even sent to hell lmao. He was sent to angel death (the empty), a place he has escaped in the past. Other points, like that meta about spn has been predicting exactly this for months, that Dean ended up sobbing on the floor because he was so upset, like that death means next to nothing on spn, like that there is two episodes left, etc etc. you feel me right? I just don’t want to post wank to other spn blogs atm, we’re getting enough frustration as it is, no need to add to it.

It’s also worth pointing out that the bar is very, very low. Spn is a prominent TV show - not a Netflix show, or indie, or whatever - and it just said “main character in gay love saved the world”. [insert gif of ghostfacers dude saying that gay love can pierce through the veil of death and save the day here]

I just saw someone saying that spn having Naomi try to brainwash Cas out of loving dean makes spn homophobic (it is a conversion therapy parallel). My first response to that is that Naomi was the villain lmao? I guess we can’t write villains doing anything homophobic because having villains do homophobic things makes, uh - checks notes - villains look homophobic, and clearly we can’t have that.

There certainly are legitimate things to criticise spn about, but this isn’t it lol.

Also now some people are unironically trying to cancel Jensen because “his acting was homophobic, and so he’s clearly homophobic”, nevermind that he’s an actor and his character struggles with understanding his emotions (which I think he played excellently, myself. That scene had a very Dean delayed emotional response), nevermind the support he’s given to us queers in the past. Like. Idek man.

We would have been laughed at if we got no destiel, too.

It would have been worse, had the writers pulled a dumbledore. At this point I also trust the writers not to pull a GoT - they have explicitly criticised that ending in spn’s canon.

Spn’s writers did that by making the main villain of this season, Chuck / God, say GoT had a good ending. To reiterate a previous point I had: villains do bad things because they’re bad. And the bad things they do make them bad. For the people out there not still following, if someone does something in a story and it makes them a villain, that is explicitly telling you the story (and probably the writers) thinks that thing is bad. In this case, Chuck likes to write things for him, and we the audience have been shown and told that is bad.

Apparently thinking a gay confession is good in 2020 makes me straight. Seems unlikely, but whatever. Sorry for the length, I guess I went overboard, I’ve been holding it in lol. Anyway, DESTIEL IS CANON 💚💙 hope you have a good night

Helloo supernatural anon I hope you are living your best life right now. Yeah I’m like..... skeptical and leery myself but having lived through some absolute garbage discourse that is general purity wank, as well as the C/QL greater fandom here and on Twitter I find myself... much more wanting to question the “general wisdom” of things esp in terms of negativity, bc a lot of the time I find.... it’s wrong? Like so wrong. Or at least presents such an incomplete picture of the whole situation and also presents it in such a removed context that words that have meaning and are operationalized in a certain way for a reason, no longer have meaningful usage.

Anyway I don’t... know too much about the specifics of Spn but someone I follow is into it and talks a lot about the Gnostic stuff and that all was very fascinating to me, and I also have been grappling a lot with cultural Christianity bc of cmedia and the way ppl just *clenches fist* unthinkingly or uncritically slap some Christian norms on it and call it a day 😩 help I’m Tired. My thing here being... I actually got tired of the uncritical “superhell”s at some pt bc I am, in fact, incredibly exhausted with cultural Christianity, and because it does seem like, even possibly(?) without the Gnostic stuff it’s different from a “hell” or other Protestant-derived afterlife concept, and also yeah that it wasn’t seeded out of nowhere, it was set up to happen, which then... lends credence to the idea that whatever the current era of Spn is doing, the current showrunners are doing it with purpose.

And idk I just... refuse to believe the concept that ALL of the fans of Spn - esp the ones who have been following it still, or got back into it and are following it currently, are acting under delusion or are fooling themselves into liking it or thinking it’s good or whatever. I personally find that kinda infantilizing and patronizing and playing into issues of dismissing things women and/or other marginalized identities like.

Plus I find the concept that (from what I think I’ve been seeing Spn fans say) that the current era of the show is quite actively grappling with itself, its past, its legacy. to be very interesting and compelling; it hearkens back to like an old lore kind of feeling, of a thing that has grown into a nigh undefeatable monster and realizing that, also realizing that the only way to defeat itself is through grappling with its own nature and transforming and transmuting itself into something else. I personally find that more plausible and compelling than “Supernatural has been actively and continuously queerbaiting for 15 homophobic homophobic years., so right now we’re all very sorry for you because this maybe is no longer queerbaiting but it’s still homophobic and it can never be anything different ever.” I’ve been sort of tangentially aware of Spn thru the years and didn’t we agree, around the time of that in-universe play about Spn and with the lil Destiel shoutout, that Spn has come a ways as far as coming to terms with its fandom and working to treat its fans better? Why the sudden regression into “oh no, Supernatural is and forever will be homophobic and a hate crime”? 🤔 

The rest under a cut bc the ask is already long and then my rambling will get longer-

But yeah I mean..... I get that the legacy of Supernatural has been certifiably Rough, but I think people also forget how different of a time 2005 was? Hell, how different of a time 2015 was, even, prior to, say, Obergefell v. Hodges. Now I’m not saying that to blanket-excuse Supernatural, but like, you look at mainstream shows from the era and... there’s a lot of shit lmao. The fact that Supernatural has existed this long seems to me like.... maybe we CAN look at how it’s developed through the years vs just insisting it is what it was 15, 10, hell, 5 years ago. Especially since, to my knowledge, there’s been showrunner changes? Which seems to me like it would... affect things? I mean honestly, I remember back when I got into Spn for a hot second because of Castiel, I remember watching panel, Q&A, etc vids thru the years, and like... I thought we agreed that... it was the fans who were going a bit far pushing the shipping question like literally ALL the time to the actors, who are not in control of the show and.... like at the time.... that could have had personal implications for them? And yes homophobia bad, and people can still be allies despite that, but again like.... I do feel like - from what I’ve seen - that these guys were NOT ready to deal with a lot of that but they’ve (okay Jensen I’m talking about Jensen here) genuinely grown and learned? Also how many years ago was the essay autograph thing that people keep trotting out, like what year was it in and what year of spn was it, and what were the prevailing opinions on LGBT issues and bisexuality then.

I’ve been seeing some murmurings of identity politicsing surrounding ppl who enjoy Supernatural, and I’m sorry that that’s happening to you, it really fucking sucks and it’s also the dumbest way to “make” or “win” an argument because it shouldn’t ever be a final determiner, just factors to consider when considering what life experiences might have informed someone else’s PoV and views as well as maybe how you can better communicate with them. Instead of it being a “weapon” or “tool” to either dismiss someone or de facto validate an argument.

Also yeah I get it that you don’t want to send discourse to spn blogs bc I imagine you guys ARE actively grappling with all the bs rn and it’s a lot. Even just from like, the stuff I see around, I’m like tired of it. I’m genuinely having more fun with ppl who are having a good time with Supernatural than the ppl who are hating on it, even in this sort of backhanded “oh we’re not clowning YOU we’re clowning the writers and showrunners who think you should be satisfied with this,” when... yeah? the people who HAVE been watching the show and therefore... know what’s up.. DO seem to be? And all this based on *fake gasp* context. And that’s where the backhandedness becomes kind of poisonous to me, because it implies that it IS bad, and that you SHOULDN’T be satisfied, but poor little you are but don’t worry, we’re not making fun of YOU for liking garbage, you’re just the hapless victim who is consuming the garbage bc... idk, whatever reasons ppl are coming up with ig.

idk man it’s 2020. Fandom isn’t activism, performative or otherwise, it’s okay to let people enjoy things even if you think they’re “objectively” bad, and like... I don’t know if people can call something bad when they’re not even working with the whole context and instead are dealing with rumor and reputation. 

[itachi-uchiha-deserved-better]

Fun Meta asks: 3. 4. 5. 11. 17. 20. 23. 25. -Sorry for asking so many. Curiosities of one writer to another. Feel free to omit any of these.

3) What is that one scene that you’ve always wanted to write but can’t be arsed to write all of the set-up and context it would need? (consider this permission to write it and/or share it anyway)

I have this scene in my head between Itachi and my OC. She’s chasing him down against orders after his massacre of the Uchiha clan because she refuses to believe that things are what they look like. And when she manages to catch him, she’s able to use her mind prison jutsu to stop him from leaving and tells him about how no matter what anyone says, She refuses to believe that he is the monster the village wants to paint him as. As she’s trying to convince him to come back to the village with her, her body is weakening more and more from the chakra poisoning caused by using her jutsu. Eventually he gives her something, a sort of vague acknowledgment that she might not be wrong. He tells her that he may need her help if Sasuke wavers from the path Itachi has set for him but he can’t risk her remembering anything, so he uses Tsukyomi on her, leaving her near death in the forest for her Anbu teammates to find.

4) Share a sentence or paragraph from your writing that you’re really proud of (explain why, if you like)

We know the details of the war. We are unfailingly familiar with the facts. Michael led the nine choirs against Lucifer and his followers. We know that Lucifer’s assault on heaven was swift and viscous, striking for every advantage, exploiting the weakness to be found in soldiers hesitant to lash out against those who once were called brother. We know that in the heat of the battle, Michael called the seven remaining arch angels together. Among the cacophony of blades and bloodshed the seven marched and behind them a solemn silence followed. Together they marched and they struck at the dragon. “Beloved,” they cried, “Why, beloved Lucifer? Why have you done this? You were the first in God’s eyes.” We know that the seven cried as they pierced the dragon’s hide and brought to bear on him the full force of the power of heaven.             We know that our father lost the war, but we know in the way a student knows the facts of history. They may sit and memorize the hows and the whys of history, but they are at their core, disconnected from it. So it is for us. We know what happened during our father’s rebellion. We understand the nature of our father’s sin, the sin which we share by our shared blood. We lack the intimacy of memory. We know, but these events are no more than words on the pages of our minds. 

I wrote this as an intro to a WIP called Children of the Damned, a story that was supposed to be about a group of angels who hadn’t fallen from grace but were cast out of heaven because they were the children of lucifer. They were supposed to be a neutral force, something between demons and angels who’s job was to protect all of humanity- the good and the bad. The project never really went anywhere but I still have the intro draft sitting in my WIP folder. 

5) What character that you’re writing do you most identify with?

I have a character called Zero (she was originally from a DnD campaign that ended up falling apart.) and her whole shtick is that she is a researcher for the Arcanum- basically an orphan who managed to get into the big magic school of the setting and is now a glorified grad student researching for her thesis and has to bounty hunt to fund her research. She is socially awkward, painfully shy, very disenchanted with the world but fascinated with her chosen field of study and constantly stressed out by budgets and deadlines. And since I’m an eternally stressed out grad student I relate to her pretty hard. 

11) What do you envy in other writers?

The ability to see and work towards an overarching plot. I can do drabbles pretty well because my brain works in scenes, but I have a really hard time stringing those individual scenes together into something coherent with an ultimate end goal. 

17) Do you think readers perceive your work - or you - differently to you? What do you think would surprise your readers about your writing or your motivations?

Absolutely I think that people perceive my writing differently than I do. I mean, all of my writing is ultimately informed by my own life experiences and ultimately no one else has experienced my life, so I’m sure that readers are viewing my work through the lenses of their own experience. As for me? Probably? Idk I am pretty vague with my online presence so I really have no idea what people perceive about me. As for surprising people about my motivation....Honestly I really don’t know. My motivation to write is usually because I have a scene in my head that wont leave me be until I put it on paper and sometimes that leads to a larger idea and sometimes I just leave it at that. 

20) Tell us the meta about your writing that you really want to ramble to people about (symbolism you’ve included, character or relationship development that you love, hidden references, callbacks or clues for future scenes?)

So Idk that it’s something most people pick up on, but I am a percussionist at heart and so Cadence in writing is a big thing for me. One of the things they teach you when you learn, say, snare drum for instance, is to use words to identify certain rhythmic patterns. Well my brain took that and sort of applied it to all language. There are things, feelings that you can evoke just by substituting a short word for a longer word. For example- Pain, Hiss, Break: these are all short, sharp words. And using them in a sentence will provoke a different sort of sensation or feeling than words like agony, mournful, shattered, breath which are longer more lyrical words. Idk if it makes any sense to other people, but that kind of cadence drives the imagery in a lot of my writing. I have an essay about it (or did at one point). 

23) What’s the story idea you’ve had in your head for the longest?

The Ichor Blade. Three characters- Matthias, an older man, a healer who’s formed a deal with some kind of dark entity and uses the power of the dark magic he has gained to heal people at the expense of his own life. Zero- an arcane acolyte from the arcana consortum, she is a very adept mage, but clinical in her approach to magic and tasked with hunting down rogue magic users as part of the agreement that funds her research. And Illomenn (I-LL-OMENN), a creature of supernatural origin known as a Hex which are essentially manifestations off all things that trouble the world. Illomenn is a minor hex, the manifestation of bad luck. They are brought together by chance after Matthias and Zero encounter several Major Hex’s- plague, malice, and war. Zero is affected by plague and cannot use most of her magic without it destroying her body. Matthias is trying to help her undo the curse and in the process they find Illomenn and recruit his help in using a relic called the Ichor Blade to destroy the curse and to seal away the hexes from the world. 

25) What part of writing is the most fun?

Honestly? Watching people read what I wrote and listening to their thoughts afterwards. Its kind of like cooking for me. The actual process of making something is fun, but the most satisfying part is knowing that other people enjoyed it. 

[zaxxusu]

Character Sheet (Answered by Zack!)

Mun’s Note: Filling a character sheet or even writing a character meta is not my thing. So I cudgel one's brains to keep filling what I’m tagged with... by interviewing my muse [laughs]. FYI, I roleplay him mostly as a spirit from Lifestream. Here we go! 

BASICS.

full name.   Zack Fair pronunciation.  Zek Fe-Ir nickname.  You aren’t Angeal so don’t call me Puppy! Would you say I became a Hero? gender.  male height.  185 cm age.   I thought I was still 18 but the reality is... I'm now 23 zodiac.   I should ask Square Enix my Mom first when my birthday is!  (//mun goes with Libra) spoken languages.  You can talk to me? Nah, guess Gaia have international language for Earth haha.

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS.

hair color.   Jet black eye color.    The color of the sky! skin tone.    FAIR! Haha, kidding, it’s Light to medium. Guess I burned my skin a lot when I was kids; can’t just stay at home most times! And it’s gettin’ darker due to SOLDIER missions body type.    muscular, build accent.  idk, man voice.   upbeat dominant hand.  righty posture.  no backbone is bent here scars.   I was a SOLDIER, so I have some here and there behind my clothes due to fight. tattoos.   none birthmarks.  none, even if I had, I wouldn’t tell you most noticeable feature(s).   x-scar on my face, my stylish spike hair, buster sword

CHILDHOOD.

place of birth.  Me? Gongaga! hometown.    Gongaga Village birth weight.   how could I know that? ask my mom. birth height.  same as above manner of birth.   what is it? first words.   again, ask my parents for this siblings.  Sadly, I have none. It must be nice to have siblings! Maybe I should adopt Cloud as my ‘lil bro haha. parents.  it’s silly, I never ask their name, but my family name is Fair parental involvement. They raised me in good way. They’re harmonious. And you know what? They have no shame to show how romantic they are in front of their kid haha. Idk if it involved me, sort of... whaddaya think?

ADULT LIFE.

occupation.  Ex-SOLDIER current residence.  Is Lifestream counted? close friends.  Kunsel, Cissnei, Tseng; I think that’s all. Haha, kidding, Cloud too! Well, I also used to be close with Sephiroth since Angeal passed away, but that was before he completely lost his mind. I also sometimes hanged out with Luxiere since I was promoted, but he... ah, that’s what you call bootlicker. Essai and Sebastian were also my close friend, but they returned to Lifestream long before me, I missed ‘em. relationship status.   it’s complicated, Man. Last thing I know, my girlfriend broke me up through her 89th letter and I never had a chance to explain it ‘cause I never did what she might think I did. Unexpectedly we’re now reunited in Lifestream, so.... is it happy end or not? But if I could, I wouldn’t let her go. No way! financial status.  Well, Turks are paid better and Shin-Ra have sealed my bank account where I did saving, so ... you can see it. driver’s license.  You don’t know that I even could fly a helicopter. criminal record. Nah, I don’t wanna call myself a criminal, but Shin-Ra really made me a wanted man vices. Well, I admit I’m impulsive, but following your heart isn’t that bad, right? I commit not to be as reckless as I used to be.

SEX & ROMANCE.

sexual orientation.  straight! love women! romantic orientation.  straight too! preferred emotional role.   submissive  |  dominant  |  switch   preferred sexual role.  submissive  |  dominant | switch libido. Mhmm..., give me any porn magazine or video, and yeah, I think I’m horny then. turn on’s.  Pretty much anything except the things below. turn off’s.  clingy, over-sensitive/sentimental, and possessive. love language.   Not sure, I enjoy my time with Aerith whatever silliness we did haha (even if it was just me sitting on the bench to see her tending), I also feel her love when she embraced me (or maybe that she’s just being there when I was in my lowest point)... but one single letter also could easily broke me up! relationship tendencies.  Right after everything is so click, I’ll go with the deep. No postpone and wait!

MISCELLANEOUS.

character’s theme song.  I think “It’s My Life” by Bon Jovi and “YOLO” by Smash Into Pieces are  very me, haha! (//mun goes with Last Order and The Price of Freedom from the OST) hobbies to pass time.   I used to do squat... not sure right now since time doesn’t exist here. Scarin’ naughty kids seems a good idea! mental illnesses.   none physical illnesses.   Mhmm.... okay, I was totally wounded so badly that it finally stopped my body functions left or right-brained.  Math isn’t my thing so I guess it’s right? fears.  Tbh, I’d never think or feel about it--not good to discover it until... the 9 months on the run was really a nightmare I never felt before

My biggest fear is perhaps loosing a freedom... well, when I was being a lab rat, I was mostly unconscious to be able to feel it but... NO! Don’t make me imagine if I was captured and return there ‘cause I knew there’s no guarantee. I'D RATHER DIE TO FIGHT FOR MY FREEDOM. Ssstt... maybe that was also a kind of reason why I left home... I mean, my mom didn’t want me to join SOLDIER and it’s against my freedom.

I also hate being alone or feeling lonely so maybe I’m afraid of being abandoned by the whole world. I’m glad I knew Kunsel didn’t abandon me through what I read on mails, Cissnei also helped me too. Those made me still able to cope with, not a total loneliness... and Cloud (whatever his state) is with me, I would never abandon him too. But..., the final letter Aerith sent to me was another nightmare. I’d never did what I’m afraid the most to my one and only love--I tried to fulfill my promise, heck I never knew I had been stuck for 4 years; but I feel Iike she did it to me, crushin’ my hope. Can’t blame her but still....dammit!

self-confidence level.  Are you askin’ me? When was I ever not being confident? vulnerabilities. Whatever it is, I never wanna show you that.

Tagged by: @brawlfists (//you can see Zerith here!) Tagging: @gaeaheal @finalhxaven​ @finalheavn​ @fatescourge @blackcowledbat @penjarah @illecebrcus​ @unforestalledreturn​ @coscuvilheiro​ @brokeniisms​ @elaceto​ @holywhitemateria​ @hatredheld​ And anyone who didn’t do this yet. No force, it’s a freedom!

[morethanonepage]

i’m angery

i know i’m mostly a star wars killjoy on tumblr dot com lately but allow me to SCREAM about my latest nemesis, a book called “American Dirt”:

Lydia Quixano Pérez lives in the Mexican city of Acapulco. She runs a bookstore. She has a son, Luca, the love of her life, and a wonderful husband who is a journalist. And while there are cracks beginning to show in Acapulco because of the drug cartels, her life is, by and large, fairly comfortable.

Even though she knows they’ll never sell, Lydia stocks some of her all-time favorite books in her store. And then one day a man enters the shop to browse and comes up to the register with a few books he would like to buy―two of them her favorites. Javier is erudite. He is charming. And, unbeknownst to Lydia, he is the jefe of the newest drug cartel that has gruesomely taken over the city. When Lydia’s husband’s tell-all profile of Javier is published, none of their lives will ever be the same.

Forced to flee, Lydia and eight-year-old Luca soon find themselves miles and worlds away from their comfortable middle-class existence. Instantly transformed into migrants, Lydia and Luca ride la bestia―trains that make their way north toward the United States, which is the only place Javier’s reach doesn’t extend. As they join the countless people trying to reach el norte, Lydia soon sees that everyone is running from something. But what exactly are they running to?

Written by one Jeanine Cummins, who has Puerto Rican ancestry but grew up in the MD suburbs (as I did, tbf) and in 2015 considered herself white (”I am white...in every practical way, my family is mostly white.”  [cw for sexual assault and murder at the link]), everything I read about this book has begun to drive me to madness.

Recommended by the Mary Sue book club (the source of the above summary), it has since been retracted bc a) its sucks and b) THEY DIDN’T READ IT BEFORE PUTTING IT ON THE BOOK CLUB LIST (”I try to read most, if not all, of the books I recommend for the Book Club because I truly do love reading, and I want to make sure that if I suggest someone grab something, it’s something I can say I liked. When I was looking up two books to fill out the list, one of them was American Dirt. I saw that it had received a lot of positive press from Stephen King, Rumaan Alam, Don Winslow, Sandra Cisneros, and other literary news outlets including Oprah’s Book Club. It seemed like the type of literary fiction that’s always good for a book club read. I was mistaken.“)

Myriam Gurba, at Tropics of Meta, describes being asked to review it for a feminist magazine, and then being told her review was too negative to publish. It included gems such as:

Cummins bombards with clichés from the get-go. Chapter One starts with assassins opening fire on a quinceañera, a fifteenth birthday party, a scene one can easily imagine President Donald Trump breathlessly conjuring at a Midwestern rally, and while Cummins’ executioners are certainly animated, their humanity remains shallow. By categorizing these characters as “the modern bogeymen of urban Mexico,” she flattens them. By invoking monsters with English names and European lineages, Cummins reveals the color of her intended audience: white. Mexicans don’t fear the bogeyman. We fear his very distant cousin, el cucuy.

[...]

With their family annihilated by narcotraffickers, mother and son embark on a refugees’ journey. They head north, or, as Cummins’ often writes, to “el norte,” and italicized Spanish words like carajo, mijo, and amigo litter the prose, yielding the same effect as store-bought taco seasoning.

[...] Lydia’s husband, a journalist, describes her as one of the “smartest” women he’s ever known. Nonetheless, she behaves in gallingly naïve and stupid ways. Despite being an intellectually engaged woman, and the wife of a reporter whose beat is narcotrafficking, Lydia experiences shock after shock when confronted with the realities of México, realities that would not shock a Mexican.

It shocks Lydia to learn that the mysterious and wealthy patron who frequents her bookstore flanked by “[thuggish]” bodyguards is the capo of the local drug cartel! It shocks Lydia to learn that some central Americans migrate to the United States by foot! It shocks Lydia to learn that men rape female migrants en route to the United States! It shocks Lydia to learn that Mexico City has an ice-skating rink! (This “surprise” gave me a good chuckle: I learned to ice skate in México.) That Lydia is so shocked by her own country’s day-to-day realities, realities that I’m intimate with as a Chicana living en el norte, gives the impression that Lydia might not be…a credible Mexican. In fact, she perceives her own country through the eyes of a pearl-clutching American tourist.

Parul Sehgal, at the NYT, digs into the fact that while the motives of this book may be unimpeachable (tho: are they??), the writing itself is...perhaps less so:

I found myself flinching as I read, not from the perils the characters face, but from the mauling the English language receives. Lydia’s expression “is one Luca has never seen before, and he fears it might be permanent. It’s as if seven fishermen have cast their hooks into her from different directions and they’re all pulling at once. One from the eyebrow, one from the lip, another at the nose, one from the cheek.” Yes, of course. That expression.

Sehgal also highlights my favorite line I’ve heard about in this book: “when Lydia finds she is unable to pray, ‘she believes it’s a divine kindness. Like a government furlough, God has deferred her nonessential agencies.’” The Raised in the DMV Suburbs just JUMPED OUT, didn’t it, Jeanine? But like legit, why on earth would a Mexican bookstore lady’s frame of reference ever be A GOVERNMENT FURLOUGH and NONESSENTIAL AGENCIES. followers, i just about died. 

David J. Schmidt, at The Blue Nib, calls out other inaccuracies and stereotypes:

It is worth dwelling on the character of Javier for a moment. A “drinking game” could be created based on all the Latin American stereotypes he personifies. Javier is dapper, yet dangerous. He is charming, yet mysterious. He wears a white guayabera, a shirt the author describes as “more suitable for Sunday Mass than a regular workday.” (Untrue—this is a casual garment, more suitable for a love affair in a Fabio-bedecked romance novel.)

This quintessential “Latin lover” shows up at Lydia’s bookstore and speaks to her in a tone significantly different from the other characters of American Dirt. I  must emphasise, Javier’s dialogue does not reflect the normal speech patterns of Mexico, but perfectly reflects U.S. stereotypes. The only way to properly read Javier’s lines is through the most gross of caricatures.

One should imagine the husky voice of Antonio Banderas, speaking at his most sensual and Spanishy. Any character he has played in English will do, although it is clear that Javier was ideally written for the voice of Puss in Boots. When Lydia asks if Javier reads English, the dapper narco responds:

“I try, yes […] My English isn’t fluent, but it’s close. And this story is so delicate.”

[...]

The cultural inaccuracies of American Dirt run deep, right down to the language. Throughout her book, Cummins shows confusion regarding the grammatical genders in Spanish. Most notably, she baptises the drug kingpin Javier with the nickname La Lechuza. It is difficult to imagine a macho, womanizing capo using a feminine-gendered noun as his moniker. Would a hardened mafia boss call himself “The Princess of Compton” or “The Belle of Belfast”?

Cummins got a seven figure advance for this. A SEVEN FIGURE ADVANCE. She “wished someone slightly browner than me would write it,” but she did it,  and her team is throwing around the fact that her husband’s previously undocumented status as some sort of justification without mentioning that he’s white & Irish. 

Also, there’s this news:

Imperative Entertainment, the production banner behind the Clint Eastwood hit The Mule, has acquired the rights to American Dirt, the Mexican migrant drama novel by Jeanine Cummins.

Charles Leavitt, the scribe who penned the Leonardo DiCaprio drama Blood Diamond, has been tapped to write the adaptation, which will be produced by Imperative’s Dan Friedkin and Bradley Thomas.

Charles Leavitt is a white guy who, most recently, wrote the Warcraft movie. So, that’s going to end well. 

I’ll leave you with this other gem from Gurba (from her essay about it, “Pendeja, You Ain’t Steinbeck “):

Susan Sontag wrote that “[a] sensibility (as distinct from an idea) is one of the hardest things to talk about” and with this challenge in mind, I assert that American Dirt fails to convey any Mexican sensibility. It aspires to be Día de los Muertos but it, instead, embodies Halloween. The proof rests in the novel’s painful humorlessness. Mexicans have over a hundred nicknames for death, most of them are playful because death is our favorite playmate, and Octavio Paz explained our unique relationship with la muerte when he wrote, “The Mexican…is familiar with death. [He] jokes about it, caresses it, sleeps with it, celebrates it. It is one of his favorite toys and his most steadfast love.” Cummins’ failure to approach death with appropriate curiosity, and humility, is what makes American Dirt a perfect read for your local self-righteous gringa book club.

so idk, The Mary Sue, maybe it should stay on your Book Club list after all. (Oh wait: as of this writing, it still is.) 

[meta-shadowsong]

Some Thoughts on the Jedi/Jedi Doctrine

So, I’m sometimes hesitant to write meta about the this topic/set of topics, because I kind of feel like I have to make a huge disclaimer that the more critical of my points don’t mean I think that the Jedi were Really Evil/Wrong/what have you, because they weren’t. Like, there are clear Bad Guys in SW and the Jedi (overall/as an institution; obviously there are outliers like Krell running around) are not among them. Fortunately for me, Star Wars fandom is big and broad enough that it’s easier to curate my experience and avoid the Super Polarizing Debates than it has been in some other fandoms I’ve participated in, but the nature/relative Goodness of the Jedi Order is one of the ones that’s just...a fact of life in the PT-era/Clone Wars sections of the fandom that are my focus. And it’s basically Discourse™ bait.

(Which is not to say I don’t want discussion! If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be posting this in a public/semi-public forum, lol. Just that…IDK, there’s a difference between discussion and Discourse™, especially on topics like this.)

Anyway, all that aside, my stance can basically be summed up as: “The Jedi did far more good than harm and were, on the whole, well-intentioned people doing the best they could with the resources and information they had; however, I feel like there are some notable issues in their doctrine and practices which are worth discussing.” In other words, I generally lean more towards the Jedi Positive end of the spectrum – but, given the polarization in fandom on this particular topic, this occasionally makes me feel almost guilty when I make any kind of critical comment. Hence, massive disclaimers, to make up for that and attempt to be clear on where I’m coming from. But when my disclaimers start to feel almost as long as the actual essay I’m trying to write, that starts to take the fun out of it for me, hence my occasional hesitation.

That being said, for a variety of reasons, I decided to write up a few things that have been percolating in my head for a while, because why have a meta blog if I’m not going to use it, right? So, here we are.

This post is kind of a grab bag of three or four things, discussing both the Jedi themselves and how they’re sometimes portrayed, on varying levels of specificity. Being a grab bag, it’s not necessarily super coherent/a nice flowy essay, just some Thoughts. Oh, also, as a note – since, as far as I know, we lack a good canon catch-all, I use ‘Force adept’ as a general term for trained Force-users who may or may not be Jedi or Sith.

All right. Once again reiterating the massive disclaimer that I don’t think any of this makes the Jedi evil – here we go.

First, one of the things I have a problem with is more a perception/discussion thing than an in-universe thing – the idea that comes up sometimes in Jedi-positive discussions, that the Jedi path is The Right Way, or at least The Best Way to be an active Force adept without being Evil. Full stop. For all people, under all circumstances.

I think I’ve touched on this before, but my feelings on this particular issue really boil down to, “The Jedi aren’t wrong, but that doesn’t mean they have a monopoly on being right.” And I tend to come away from some Jedi-positive meta, even if I overall agree with the point the person in question is trying to make, with a bad taste in my mouth, feeling like it’s been framed as a One True Way type of thing. This is, admittedly, my problem, and not anyone else’s – which is why I’m discussing this in my own post, rather than derailing any of the ones I’ve seen that rubbed me in this particular wrong way. But it’s part of why I’m somewhat uncomfortable discussing my thoughts on Jedi practices and philosophy with anyone other than a select circle of fandom friends who I know for sure don’t skew that way. Even, as I said, when I lean more towards the Jedi-positive end of the spectrum.

Anyway, back on topic.

Practically speaking, there is a certain amount of truth to this idea by the time the PT rolls around, because of the relationship between the Order and the late Republic, and the overall sociopolitical setup of the main/focal portion of the galaxy. The Jedi have authority and reputation and presence in a way that other orders, if they’re out there, and/or independent Force adepts don’t. For example – off the top of my head, I believe the Guardians of the Whills, whether Force-adepts or not, whether Jedi-affiliated or not, seem to work in a pretty narrow geographic range; Dathomir (which, as I believe I’ve discussed previously, seems to be an entire planet/culture of people who are Force-sensitive to a perceptible degree, though not everyone necessarily reaches Jedi potential) also tends to mostly concern itself with its own affairs, apart from Mother Talzin and her ambitions. (There’s also the fact that they tend to read as/be grouped with Dark Side adepts, and I have some Thoughts on that/the Nightsisters as Dark Side adepts vs. Sith as Dark Side adepts as well, but that is a topic for a separate essay.)

But this isn’t about practicalities, it’s about philosophy/doctrine, and that’s where it starts getting sticky for me.

Okay. The Jedi basically have a core principle, and everything they do/believe comes from that – be more compassionate than you are selfish. And that’s great! That’s a good foundation for just about any philosophy/religion/culture. Quite a few IRL belief systems can be broken down to something similar, or even if it’s not a fundamental tenet, would still generally be considered a good/ideal way to live one’s life(1).

The problem is, when you break Jedi philosophy and doctrine down that far, it kind of loses a lot of its actual meaning? Which is to say, everything that makes it specifically Jedi philosophy – since, like I said, this is not an uncommon precept.

But the Order, like most belief systems, then takes the next step and says “okay, we’ve accepted this premise/goal, now here is our view on how to actually do that.” And at that point, when we start getting into the specifics, there are things that are not universal.

For example, considering the idea of avoiding attachment – not as it’s normally used in discussions about the Jedi, i.e., in the individual/interpersonal relationships sense, but in the broader/community sense.

The Jedi are more or less a closed community; while they do interact with the wider world when called upon, to provide aid, they’re pretty insular in their daily/personal lives outside of missions. And that is one way to achieve this core goal, to set the organization up as truly objective outsiders/advisors/judges/what have you.

But another would be to be fully integrated in a wider/outside community, either as individuals or as smaller groups/lineages, with connections to the overall Order that can be drawn on to share knowledge/resources/etc. as needed. Basically, trading outsider perspective for insider knowledge. Different ways of gaining the trust of the people you’re trying to help, with advantages and disadvantages to both. (For an IRL analogy, consider the way different orders of, say, Catholic monks and nuns operate, some more cloistered than others. Not a perfect comparison, necessarily, but something in the ballpark. Same goal, different approaches.)

My point here is not to imply or say that the Jedi path is a bad one, because it’s not. My point here is, as I said before, the idea that it’s the only correct path, or even the best path for all people (and/or Force adepts) in all circumstances, really sits wrong with me. Of course, this is all reflective my own personal beliefs, which tend to be pluralistic and avoid like the plague anything that claims to be the One True Way. Because that doesn’t even really hold up on Earth, which is a single planet with a single sentient species(2). If we expand that to an entire galaxy, with multiple species, it seems even shakier. And, yes, I know that Star Wars doesn’t actually do a whole lot with the idea of making alien species and their thought processes Different from humans beyond superficial details/attributes(3), but there’s still a point to be made here.

TL;DR: the galaxy, and, by extension, the Force, is far too big and complex for there to be only one right answer/path. Even building on the same baseline premise of “be more compassionate than you are selfish.”

Okay. Moving on to my next point, which is less about the way the Jedi are talked about and more about the Jedi themselves, and how they communicate with outsiders.

Short version: the Jedi are really, really bad at explaining who they are and how they think/operate to outsiders.

And, you know, I’m not saying they have to be good at it, or even necessarily that they should be. They don’t owe anyone those answers.

But it is something that can very much work against them, especially when they play a public role in galactic life. It’s easy for Palpatine to turn that on its head, especially when the Jedi don’t have the tools or the experience or the desire to play the propaganda game themselves. Again, not saying they should, just that they don’t, and there are downsides to it as well as advantages; and they’re up against someone whose primary wheelhouse is playing against exactly this kind of disadvantage.

That’s not the thing I want to focus on, actually, but it’s the most obvious thing so I felt like i should mention it. But that’s really more about the role of propaganda in the galaxy itself and other people, who are much smarter/more focused than I am and have put a lot of work into that topic have done it a lot better than I ever could.

But another way this comes into play is with their recruitment practices. For at least the past thousand years(4), the Jedi have only taken in infants/toddlers/very young children. Meaning, everyone that they do need to make understand Who They Are and How They Do grows up steeped in all of this, learning more or less by osmosis (because early-childhood neuroplasticity augmented by the Force) so there isn’t all that much need for overt explanations of How and Why the Jedi do things This Way, because it gets absorbed on a subconscious/instinctive level from the very beginning.

And, obviously this isn’t 100% successful – see, the Lost Twenty, not to mention any who left the Order as Padawans/before whatever marker makes them Count among the Twenty/as I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned before, I’m pretty sure we only have actual identifying information about like 1% of the Jedi Order (~100 out of ~10,000), so any broad statements should be taken with a grain of salt.

But what I’m trying to get at here is that this practice has put the Order in a position where they’ve basically lost the skills and reference points needed to teach people who come to it late. Converts, in other words.

And then it becomes sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy/a cycle which continually reinforces itself – older students have difficulty adapting to the lifestyle/culture, but is that because they’re past a set point where they can’t learn it/adapt, or because the Order’s approach has left it with a weak point when it comes to helping them through that transition? Which then leads to older students having difficulty adapting, which leads to the Order not taking in older students unless they Have To because they can’t adapt, which leads to further adjustment/integration issues for the few they do take, and on and on.

This is especially the case when it comes to older kids from…let’s call them complicated backgrounds, which we see with both Anakin and Ventress.

(Again interjecting a disclaimer – this is in no way saying that Anakin was justified in what he did, or that the Jedi Order deserved it, or anything like that. I have a meta buried somewhere that uses an elaborate road-building metaphor which I should probably post at some point about the various factors that go into Anakin making all the wrong choices; jumping off from that metaphor, this is probably one of the ways the Palpatine got his paving materials, but that doesn’t make the Order responsible for either what Palpatine did with them, or Anakin’s choice to walk on the road Palpatine built for him.)

Anyway.

With Ventress, Ky Narec keeps her away from the Order as a whole, so she’s deprived of the community aspects of the culture – but also insulated from the can’t-fit-in problems she probably would’ve faced with her peers (because, even without the additional communication issues I’m talking about, this is a thing that happens when outsiders/newcomers attempt to join tight-knit communities, even if no one is being overtly/deliberately exclusive). Assuming he’d have even been allowed to keep her if he’d brought her back (which is not at all a guarantee; look at what it took for the Order to accept Anakin). …y’know, on that note, I really wish there was more about the two of them and their relationship/how he taught her/why he decided to handle her this way/etc. But I digress.

Of course, in the end, Narec’s choice ends up being a negative – when he dies, she has no one else to turn to. As far as I know, we don’t have any information on whether she attempted to reach out to the Order and explain herself/hope for acceptance there before running to Dooku, so there’s maybe an additional story there. Either way, we know where she ended up. And this issue of how to handle/communicate effectively with candidates who got locked out of the loop because of when and how they were identified probably played a significant role in her story. If only because it almost certainly informed Ky Narec’s choices.

With Anakin, of course, he’s raised within the Order, and gets the full impact of the community – both the positives and the negatives, being essentially an outsider. We don’t have a lot of canon about his first couple years there, but given everything we do know about his early childhood and the culture he was trying to join, I think there were major cracks in the foundation from the start, despite probably everyone involved trying their best to make things work.

The background radiation of Anakin’s childhood, whether he experienced this directly or not, was that he has to prove he’s worth keeping, or he’ll be thrown away. So, bearing in mind that a lot of this is conjecture, my guess is he spent the first couple of years really trying to measure up, and hiding where he was having problems, because he doesn’t want to seem like a bad investment. Fake it til you make it, essentially(5). Especially given the way his induction was botched – and I’m not saying that the Jedi should have automatically accepted him, but the back and forth on the issue and the way initially refusing him was handled (he really should not have been in the room for that conversation) didn’t help matters/reinforced this issue/made him hyper-aware of how hard it had been for him to even get here, let alone keep his place(6).

Meanwhile, on the Order’s end of things, once they did accept him, I believe they genuinely tried to help him adjust. But, again, they’re making this up as they go along, too; so I feel like those first couple years was a lot of not-quite-meeting in the middle. They get close enough that the deeper issues are masked, but they still just slightly fall short of one another. Which, at least at this point(7), is not really anyone’s fault, just a difficult situation because of the conflicting backgrounds and expectations of the various parties involved, that didn’t necessarily actually get resolved, so much as compensated for. But those foundational cracks still present, leading to a complete collapse later.

Again, this doesn’t excuse the particular way Anakin handled that collapse at all. Also, IMO, none of these issues are necessarily insurmountable – without Palpatine actively working towards the worst possible outcome, my guess is that things would’ve come to a head in a much less destructive manner, and maybe earlier, as well. Whether the resulting course-correction/repair would’ve kept Anakin in the Order or not…IDK. Could go either way. The point is, between Anakin’s particular background and the Jedi Order’s general lack of facility in dealing with older students/kids from complicated backgrounds/outsiders in general (and some active reinforcement from Palpatine), there’s a not-insignificant gap in understanding/communication/trust right from the start, and it’s never entirely healed.

Insert clever segue here, and we move on to my third point, about the Chosen One prophecy.

As a note, I come at this mostly from a fanfic writing perspective, rather than a literary analysis perspective. And in my fic, I don’t actually deal with the prophecy all that much. But when I do, I really like the reading that the Chosen One is intended to be a catalyst for change. To put the Jedi Order/galaxy as a whole in a position for the final defeat of the Sith, whether by defeating the SIth with their own hands or by sparking a shift in the way the Order interacts with the threat/the galaxy as a whole.

Basically, per my reading of the situation, the Order has, over the past thousand years, become a little bit ossified/stagnant(4) in terms of its doctrine and practices. They’re pretty inwardly focused on their traditions and This Is How To Jedi (as an group/institution; as in most practices/cultures, this varies from individual to individual, with some being extremely flexible in their application of doctrine and some much less so), with intervention in the outside world in specific crises as they arise. This approach is at least in part a result of the way things were restructured following the Ruusan reformations, because that is what the Order needed to be at that point in time. But then they just sort of got…stuck there. This is, again, not necessarily a mark against them/proof they’re Really Not The Good Guys or any BS like that. Like I mentioned before, they still do way more good than harm, and are genuinely well-intentioned on the whole. It’s just a Thing that tends to happen. Institutions – and the Order is an Institution, in this sense – are slow to change on their own, and tend to just become The Same Thing But More So. Especially when they’re put in a position where they don’t necessarily need to change, and attempting to do so might cause a fair amount of short-term, maybe even long-term, damage, which could be either internal or external.

But this tendency, and the particular way they’ve become The Same Thing But More So, has left the Jedi Order woefully unprepared and unequipped to deal with the particular threat that Palpatine, and the generations of Sith legwork he’s building on, present.

Which brings us to the Chosen One.

Who is, in this reading(8), essentially a wakeup call from the Force, that the shit is about to hit the fan.

But Anakin and his induction/relationship with the Order were mishandled, as previously discussed. Once again, I feel a need to disclaim – I am not in any way blaming the Order for what happened. Anakin may have a Destiny, but he’s also a sentient being with free will and he actively chose to fulfill said Destiny in the worst possible way.

What I am saying is that the response to this warning was maybe not as thorough/helpful as it could have been. Both on a small scale, when dealing with the individual beings directly involved, and on a large scale, in terms of the questions Anakin and all that he is (with or without the full weight/text of the Prophecy as a factor) could have raised about Order doctrine and practices, which might have put them in a slightly better position when Palpatine initiated his endgame. It may still have been too little, too late – or it may have been enough to significantly change the outcome.

And, to be fair, I think that the Order – or, at the very least, Master Yoda – realized this over the course of the Clone War. That the Order had become stagnant/too attached to Tradition/not as dynamic as it needed to be, I mean. And, if Anakin had made better choices or if circumstances had fallen out differently, I genuinely believe that the Order would have seen some significant change, to adapt to the galaxy as it had become, not the one it was at their last major shift a thousand years ago. Which they do anyway – granted, we don’t know much about how Luke was running things in canon, but in Legends, he took a slightly different approach to the core philosophy and the doctrine built on it, adapting what he’d been taught to the galaxy that he’d grown up in. But, again, that’s as a result of Anakin serving as a catalyst for change in the worst possible way because he made all the wrong choices.

…yeah, that last section, in particular, I’ve been sitting on for a long, long time, trying to figure out how to word it without sounding creepy and victim-blamey. As I keep stressing, none of this changes the enormity of Anakin’s choice, because he had other options and he chose this one. And while the Order could have handled things better in the lead up to that final crossroads, which might have put all of them in a better position when they got there, they didn’t make that choice for him any more than Palpatine did.

So…yeah. There it is. Some of my more critical thoughts about the Jedi Order of the PT/Late Republic era. Like I said. I’m not sure how coherent this is, it’s just…sort of a grab bag of thoughts.

To sum up: The Jedi were well-intentioned and did more good than harm; they were not wrong, but that doesn’t mean they have a monopoly on being right; there are some flaws in their approaches to certain issues such as communication, particularly with outsiders, and change, which in no way mean they caused or deserved what happened to them; however, in the full knowledge that I am looking at this from an outside perspective/with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, there are better choices they could have made which might well have improved the situation.

(1)Disclaimer: it’s been at least ten years since I’ve done any serious comparative religions study, but this is broadly true to the best of my recollection.

(2)Debates about cetaceans, etc., aside.

(3)Which is actually one of the things I really liked about Alliances, and the way Timothy Zahn handles the Chiss in general – it’s a little closer to the CJ Cherryh style of sci-fi, where aliens may be similar to humans, but there are fundamental differences in the way they think and organize themselves; so the fact that Chiss Force adepts function very differently from Force adepts in the main part of the galaxy is pretty cool to me. Whether the two approaches could adapt and learn from each other in the long run is a fascinating question…

(4)Going by Legends canon here; current canon has yet to give me any deep backstory, so my approach to anything more than 100 years pre-TPM is ‘canon until proven otherwise,’ because there’s little to no historical context for things without that. And I feel like discussions on this topic are really hard to have/missing something significant without that historical context.

(5)I also think that this particular strategy – fake it til you make it, excel in specific areas which cover up the deep flaws in others/your foundation – is something that the Order is vulnerable to in general, even with children who did grow up in the culture. See, Barriss. …there’s probably a whole essay or three, talking about the ways Barriss and Anakin and Ventress and their stories parallel one another, but that is a topic for another day.

(6)Granted, he does get past this, at least to some extent, later (as we can see in the way he deals with his superiors in AOTC and ROTS; if nothing else, he’s identified how much wiggle room he has and is confident enough to go right up to the edge of what he can get away with, even risking going past it in certain contexts and on certain issues), but that doesn’t necessarily mean that this has actually been fixed, just that he’s found ways to get around it and function in his new environment.

(7)As sort of implied in the last footnote, there does more or less come a point where Anakin kind of stops trying with anyone other than a few close, trusted people – and, again, on the one hand this shows a remarkable success in rewriting some of the coping mechanisms he developed in childhood which are no longer helpful for him in his new life, in that he’s less focused on Being Worth Keeping apart from not wanting to disappoint, for example, Obi-Wan; but it also doesn’t necessarily address some of his root issues. And because of this gap in understanding, Anakin comes away with the impression, accurate or not, that he’s never really going to win the trust/approbation of his peers and superiors, which alienation Palpatine can prey on later. Again, none of this excuses the way Anakin eventually acts on that alienation. But it’s there.

(8)There’s another reading that I kind of like – though it leans a little harder into the Fate end of the scale rather than free will – which is that Anakin is at the nexus of both the Jedi Chosen One prophecy and the Sith’ari prophecy from Legends. I.e., some ancient Jedi and Sith did the same thing Ezra and Maul did, bashing a pair of holocrons together to seek some kind of Revelation, and came out with conflicting but not necessarily contradictory answers. But, again, that hits the Fate end of the scale a lot harder than I normally like, though the possibility of it is interesting to contemplate when I write stuff where ROTS happened as in canon (i.e., I referenced this idea in Sanctuary.)

[applegelstore]

My sis and I are through with the actual main plot of KH3, so I can officially go back to scheduled ToZ fangirling now. …Well, I promised Cray a bit of fix-it-fanart, so after that, I guess.

Hit the cut for a resume. It got super long and has endgame story spoilers, so you might not want to stumble upon it by accident.

Another extra big shoutout (again!) to @crazayrock for bearing my liveblogging on Discord, screaming without context and occasional spoilers. And linking me fluffy Soriku doujinshi. Here, have my favourite, spoiler-heavy excerpt of our conversation:

Okay anyway, let’s get started: GAMEPLAY

Kingdom Hearts 3 is BEAUTIFUL. The gameplay is so smooth and intuitive that you can immediately get to playing like you’d never done anything else; in fact so smooth that I doubt I will ever be able to pick up the first game ever again. It’s always been fun, but the looooooong years’ gap actually did wonders to the gameplay.

The keyblade form changes are fun and keep things fresh, you can do flashy triangle button shit every other minute, and shotlock is still insanely useful without being a game-breaker.

It seems easier than the first two main games, though?

The gummi ship is still a pain in the ass to steer, but I do enjoy the open world-like travel options (even if there’s not… much to discover except heartless lasering the shit out of you). I’m also eternally grateful that they kept the gummi ship thing from KH2 where you can just use a new gummi ship once you got the blueprint and don’t buy actual fucking legos as in the first game.

Thank you, Square. Not thanking you for the dumb cherry flan game, though.

The Caribbean being basically an open world stage was delightful! Apparently what our resident island kid needs is a big ship and tropical islands to plunder.

VISUALS AND STUFF

PRETTY LIGHTS EVERYWHERE

The long gap between the games also did wonders to the visuals.

There’s finally, FINALLY a few towns with actual NPCs you can talk to. Why it took the team so many years and the Gods know how many games is beyond me. The magic effects are beautiful, the animations smooth (honestly you can hardly tell apart cutscenes and fully rendered CGI scenes in this day and age of the PS4. I’m probably the only person still amazed by this because the only games I played on PS4 before were a few hours of Child of Light and of course Tales of Zestiria and Berseria. No, I still haven’t played FFXV but that’s a topic for another day). How far videogames have come.Even space finally looks like space, lol. Not really high-end what the PS4 can do I assume but god, it’s such an amazing and much needed upgrade from the terrible textureless colourful tubes you flew through before.

No excuse for the terrible battleship thingy before the Keyblade Graveyard, though. I got lost and beaten up so many times and crashed against more walls than I can count.

Nothing beats the World that Never Was, but the Keyblade Graveyard also has creepy cool potential, as does the beautiful but ghosted City in the Sky.

Still not getting what’s with JRPGs and very Definitely Final Dungeons (TM) that are basically space. …………or heaven. Or nothing. I’m getting the bad kind of original NGE TV series ending vibes. But. Okay.

The soundtrack is splendid

.……I miss Traverse Town and Radiant Garden, however.

Which brings us to:

THE WORLDS

I guess I can live with no more Final Fantasy characters being there (although I always loved that), and the meta jokes in Toy Story world really got me. Seeing Disney characters calling the KH villains call out on their shit was delightful. …the KH characters lampshading their own games’ sloppy dialogue writing was delightful.Still, those Disney worlds are always so much more in my head than what I actually get to play. This has been bugging me ever since the first game and it still does. I do not expect or want to replay the entire movies, but would it hurt to give the cutscenes some goddamn background music? Whenever there’s cutscenes, either the world’s usual BGM keeps playing or the music stops altogether. Together with the shortened dialogues and generally drastically shortened plots with odd cuts, that leads to scenes that are awkward at best. They never even remotely have the impact the movies had. You just sit there and think “oh wow that is so silly and awkward”.

Dancing scene in Corona? My favorite scene in Tangled. Zero impact on me without the lovely BGM (at least they made it a minigame so the moment isn’t over after 3 secs). Just for example. You can ask me like, world by world, but I can think of only exception off the top of my head and it’s not helping:

Let it Go of course. Listen guys, I actually love the song. But it’s so overused (and Frozen is an overrated movie at best that doesn’t deserve its hype in the slightest) that I can’t even really enjoy it being there. Like.


IF THAT’S OKAY WITH YOU,WHY DIDN’T YOU INCLUDE LITERALLY ANY OTHER ORIGINAL SONG FROM THE ORIGINAL MOVIES. Instead of BGM just not being there entirely, or in odd, cringey re-renderings that nobody wants to listen to (*cough* Atlantica *cough*).

Why torture me and not give me the one good scene from At World’s End (the up is down scene) when you had the chance?Kingdom Hearts is also prone to super lazy level design and wasting chances at wonderful scenery for no apparent reason other than I suppose empty cliffsides are quick to render. All games before did that, and KH3 is, sadly, no exception. We get to see a bit of Corona and Athens and they finally have NPCs, too, but you cannot even get near Arendelle. You cannot enter Elsa’s palace. You spend the entire time there climbing around in the snowy mountains of Norway, and unfortunately it looks less interesting than one would expect from the lovely concept art that the film unfortunately never used.You cannot enter Rapunzel’s tower although Sora can apparently parkour his way up even without her help.

………In short, the places you can go are, again, very limited, and a lot of interesting places and scenes you never get to see.

And to follow the plot you still only need the stuff that does NOT happen in those Disney worlds because they’re all beach filler episodes. It’s always been like that, but I keep wondering whether I’m the only one bothered by that. I’m also still salty they didn’t introduce a single new world from a 2D animated movie.

Also, as I said, I miss Traverse Town, it felt so warm and welcoming and beautiful.

And I get behind The World that Never Was missing although I loved it there, but why not give us back Radiant Garden? Destiny Islands since they’ve been restored? Disney Castle?

As much as I love the series, it never fucking lives up to its own potential. Idk whether it’s made more difficult by copyright issues or whatever, I just know that it bugs me.The first two games also had like twice as many worlds.

PLOT

I mean it’s never been deep; however, it’s complicated. No analysis or whatever from me because plot analysis and meta writing bore me like seven hells, just my emotional reaction: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH 
Okay, bad news. I got into it expecting nothing, and still got disappointed. I don’t actually enjoy the prospect of writing essays about it, but here’s my tea with it; in not particular order:

1) the pacing is terrible. Nothing happens for like 30 hours and then suddenly like 20 characters’ arcs are (naturally poorly) resolved within the last few hours of cutscenes. Build up anyone? At least they actually did pick up Maleficent and the box thing again. …In the epilogue.

2) Speaking of build ups, Sora’s breakdown could have been developed nicely and steadily over the game to feel natural, and instead it’s hinted at in the beginning by everyone picking on him, but then it’s never further developed and comes out of fucking nowhere. Like. For real? It felt terribly OOC.

3) Why on earth have they shown 90% of the plot in the trailers already, and why are those scenes so massively disappointing in context

4) Kairi. Oh god, Kairi. What are we gonna do with you. I want to love her, I really do, but she’s a prime example of shittily written female leads. Mostly because she’s not leading. It’s not her fault. She’s just a fictional character. But honest to God, Nomura, why. Her screen time is almost nonexistent, and she’s entirely use- and helpless whenever she’s on screen (which isn’t often). Her ONLY point in the plot is being rescued because she is fucking useless. Why. Just why. Why waste her character like that. All we know is that she’s shoehorned into being the token love interest, but she has zero plot relevance and there is even less build up of her relationship with Sora. It’s all tell and NEVER show; and not even much telling, either. She has literally zero direct interaction with in the entire game before they share their paopu. The question remains: why are straights like this

5) On a related note: look, I don’t even ask for (or expect, or even hope) my ship to be canon. Squeenix doesn’t exactly have a rich history in queer representation. I’m totally fine with Sora and Riku being best friends. BUT. Building up Sora as the most important person in Riku’s life (and arguably, vice versa) over the course of several games, just to then hardly have them interact in the finale and then SUDDENLY bring back Kairi into the equation, who hasn’t interacted with him since the ending of KH2 (except for one unsent(?) letter) is just piss poor writing, period.I actually love Cray’s suggestion she gave me over Discord: let Sora, Kairi and Riku all share a paopu together (and let them group hug, too, you cowards). It would have been the perfect message to send (Sora as truly all-loving hero, and loving all your friends equally; romantic love isn’t more important than platonic love and doesn’t need to be singled out). Really sad that this isn’t what happens. Apparently that wouldn’t have been no homo enough.

LET THE DESTINY TRIO GROUP HUG YOU COWARDS


Do Riku and Kairi even interact once in the whole game?


HOW IS THIS A TRIO, IT’S JUST A SHITTILY WRITTEN LOVE TRIANGLE

6) Time travelling is a bitch, Christ. It doesn’t solve plotholes or can be played for drama, it just adds MORE plotholes. It just got WORSE. The cloning blues and people not aging doesn’t help, either.

7) Just so you know, I care absolutely zero for wild fan theories. You’re not Nomura. I want a statement from the man who wrote this shit himself why on bloody earth Sora dies when he apparently successfully found and brought back Kairi (and since nobody aged a day, apparently it didn’t even take that long lol). DUDES, THIS IS KINDA PART OF THE PLOT, AND YOU DON’T BOTHER TO EXPLAIN IT INGAME???? And how was Ienzo/Zexion able to revive Naminé while Kairi was still missing/dead/whatever…?

Okay so in short the writing is worse than ever and that’s saying something.

However, let’s try to find something good in this trainwreck; it wasn’t all bad. There’s some really nice scenes which sadly are better enjoyed without any context at all.

So, guess my favourite scenes.You had time enough, here’s the solution:

1) Purifying uhm er rescuing Aqua. Poor girl. She deserves the rest. Poor, poor Aqua. The only properly wirrten female in the whole damn franchise. Also the only person other than Riku who fucking gets shit done.

2) The Gayblade (TM)

3) Happy Axel in the reunion with his kids. Oh god, the poor chap deserves it so much. Thank you, Nomura. I don’t care that it makes pretty much no sense. Make him happy. Give him his friends back. Just give Axel all his friends and let him happily set things on fire. Hi I love Axel

4) The party at the beach cutscene before the credits roll. Axel and Xion get clothes. Half the organization is on our side now. I almost teared up at the Wayfinder trio saying goodbye to Eraqus’ forceghost. Hey come on he’s the voice of Luke Skywalker

5) Sully yeeting Vanitas

6) Woody calling out Xehanort that nobody loves him

7) Jack Sparrow bad breathing Luxord

I wish we had gotten:

1) justice for Kairi

2) a happy Zexion, the poor emo kid. Well maybe now he will be, with all the orga members who changed sides now, lol.

3) I will never trust mobile games ever again so I don’t want to play KHUX but I would have loved to learn about the Keyblade Wars :;))))


WHAT WAS THE KEYBLADE WAR ABOUT CAN WE SPEND MORE TIME IN THAT COOL CITY IN THE SKY WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH MIKLEO
I MEAN THAT EPHEMER KIDDO


WHAT’S WITH THE MASKED DUDES AND DUDETTES FROM THE MOVIE


WTF WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM AFTER THE MOVIE???? WHERE THOSE KEYBLADE USER NAMES ACTUAL MOBILE GAME PLAYER NAMES??? Next game? PLEASE?

I really, REALLY hope the epilogue means we will get Xiggy/Luxu as our new big bad and we learn more about the five dudes and dudettes from the movie. Please. PLEASE. I’m so up for it. Them finally pickung up the bit with Maleficent and the mysterious box again? Hell yeah.

The secret movie was really unexciting in comparison, although I laughed very hard at the “Verum Rex” scene in Toy Story world. Maybe that’s why it was much cheaper to unlock than in KH1 and KH2.

4) give Ven a drink

DLC ideas I would actually pay for because I’m a sad human being: 1) more Disney worlds 2) Japanese audio 3) at least one of the following as permanently playable characters: Riku, Kairi, Axel, Ven, Aqua. At least as a guest member as in KH2. THIS SUCH A BIG STEP BACKWARDS I’M FUMING

FINAL THOUGHTS

Kingdom Hearts 3 is a hella lot of fun, beautiful, and also moving when it sets its mind to it. Unfortunately it doesn’t always do so. I don’t feel like it wasn’t worth the wait; it was. However, I’m very salty how rotten the writing is. I do not mind logical fallacies, I do not mind the cheesiness and cringeyness; however, I do mind how so many interesting characters do not get the screentime they deserve, and Kairi is a very bad joke.

I’ll probably find more to nitpick about (Gods. Just. Don’t come up with dub excuses why Sora is lv 1 in each game. JUST LEAVE IT BE. You don’t explain why Donald and Goofy are lv 1 again, either. JUST. LEAVE. IT. BE. The sacrifice was dumb and not even moving, I’m just still furious that Kairi’s ONLY point in the plot is being so useless that it’s literally getting herself KILLED and she needs constant rescuing to the point that Sora has to sacrifice himself for her, effectively. Kairi deserves better, Sora deserves better, I deserve better than to think about this absurdity.…I’m just… gonna cherry-pick the good bits from the lore and try to pretend the finale didn’t exist, I guess. GODS.