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evax3 · 4 years ago

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what’s your opinion on parallels ppl like to draw?

sansa & lysa vs Sansa & Cat

Jon & rhaehar vs jon & lyanna

Aegon & Rhaehar vs Aegon & Elia

Dany & Aegon I vs Dany & Aerys

Arya & Lyanna vs Arya & Brandon

Sansa & Lyanna vs Sansa & Cersei

Arya & Cat vs Arya & Ned

Thanks so much for stopping by anon and for leaving this really cool question! I’m such a sucker for parallels and symbolism, so I do have a few opinions about these characters (Sansa, Dany and Jon under the cut – no opinions about Aegon) and had a lot of fun writing them down!! ❤️

Arya

What I really liked, and what stood out for me the most (in the show), is that after Arya accepted that she wasn't No One but indeed Arya Stark of Winterfell and came back to Westeros, she very much took on Ned's appearance. She gets dressed and wears her hair the same way Ned does, and shows confidentially that she takes right after her father, where her being the only one in the pack (beside Jon) who inherited the Stark-look (long face, brown hair, and grey eyes) wasn’t something she was actually proud of as a child.

There are many more parallels between these two (the Baratheon friendship, the dislike of the southern culture and the people at court, their sense of loyalty, …) but what I like most is her understanding of the death sentence and how Arya has internalized Ned's teachings. The one who speaks the sentence must also carry out the killing. It is the opposite of what she is taught by the faceless men and in the end it is also one of the reasons why she realizes that she can never be truly No One. Which, I guess, is why she showed her face to every one of her kills that was on her list of names (at least in the show, but I'm sure it will be similar in the books).

I never thought much about the parallels to Lyanna, except that she also had the typical look from the north and was also much wilder than is expected for a noble-born woman. Probably it is one of the reasons why Ned encourages Arya’s nature instead of scolding her for it. But I think it says more about the relationship Ned had with either his sister and his daughter.

As for Cate I think the most striking parallel is probably their cunning. Which Sansa also inherited from her mother, and Ned unfortunately never managed to master, because he is too driven by honor. As women, all three are underestimated in this world, and yet (and perhaps because of this) manage to outsmart the men around them. For example, when Arya names Jaqen H'ghar as her third name in order to escape from Harrenhal, that was pretty damn clever and something that her mother would have done as well.

Also, and sadly, their desire for vengeance is something that shapes and drives both characters (referring to Lady Stoneheart in the books) too. Because of that, I'm really curious if they will ever meet (if the next book ever gets published) and if there will be any revenge for Arya against the Frey's at all.

Sansa

Just as Arya takes on Ned's appearance, Sansa does it with Catelyn's in the later seasons. I think this is particularly interesting because in the beginning, during her time in KL, she copied Cersei's hair and clothes, and later she copied Margaery’s. It shows her role models at each stage and it's particularly striking that at the end she takes on her mother's look, just as Cersei adapts that of her father Tywin.

Even if the comparison between Arya and Lyanna is drawn much more often, I always found that Sansa and her aunt have much more parallels. The beauty of the two is something that is often highlighted in the story, emphasized, for example, as Rhaegar names Lyanna the queen of love and beauty at the tourney at Harrenhal, similar to Loras giving Sansa a rose at the Hand's tourney. I suspect that for both women this circumstance has led to their intelligence and other abilities being greatly underestimated, if not overlooked, in their very male-dominated world.

Fortunately, Sansa has the chance to evolve into self-empowerment, which I think is the main focus of her journey, whereas Lyanna died way too early to achieve that. She was forced to marry a man she didn't want (Robert), (as was Sansa btw), so Lyanna saw the only way to prevent that in running away with Rhaegar. And I can imagine that early Sansa, the little romantic that she is, would have made a similar decision.

I don't like that many say Sansa acts like Cersei in the later seasons because she admires her. I don't think that's the case at all. Cersei only acts out of self-interest (and sometimes, especially in the books, quite stupidly). Sansa, on the other hand, does what is right for her people. She combines her mother's strength with her father's understanding of the Northerners.

She is cunning as Cate, which is not a bad quality per se, and develops an understanding when someone tries to manipulate her. At the same time, she always has the well-being of her people in focus, which Cersei definitely doesn’t. Which is why I think Sansa is a good queen and is just right to take Robb's place (the obvious choice if she were a man) and Cersei is absolutely terrible at her job.

Jon

I have to say, for Jon it’s almost the hardest to give an accurate answer, because the character (especially in the later seasons) differs a lot between book and show. Regarding the show, I would say that Jon doesn’t have much in common with his birth parents, because he really is the reincarnation of Ned, the honorable fool, as he calls himself. Always trying to do the right thing, even if it goes against his heart’s desire.

Rhaegar, on the other hand, does exactly the opposite in the plot for which we know him best. And even if his relationship with Lyanna is often categorized as incredibly romantic, it is one thing above all: selfish. Show!Jon couldn't be more the opposite.

Jon is a good leader, as Rhaegar was, or at least is praised to be. Both have melancholic tendencies, and at least book!Jon, has a tendency to sarcasm (at least in his thoughts) where it is said about Rhaegar , he often had an ironic undertone in his voice (according to Jaime)

Rhaegar is musical, interested in the fine arts, Jon doesn't really show interest in that. What they do have in common is a belief in something that is more than what the eye perceives. For Rhaegar this means believing in prophecies and such things, and Jon is not atheistic either, even if he lives out his beliefs in the Old Gods less than some other characters. Both of them are highly valued by their followers and I think also for both of them this is a quality that shapes their character a lot.

Still, I have to say that for me the background of Rhaegar and Lyanna's relationship, the consequences especially for Elia and her children, but also for the whole country will always be in the spotlight.

I've already read several metas that say book!Jon takes more after his birth father because his motives and actions are also less moral (e.g. only giving food to the people of the Free Folk who are willing to fight for the Night's Watch – a huge difference to the show version). Still, I would say Jon is more pragmatic than selfish, another area where Rhaegar would have needed to catch up if he’d been given the chance.

Daenerys

Whereas it was more difficult for me to think about Rhaegar's positive qualities in relation to Jon, I have to say that it was easier for me in relation to Dany. This might be because Daenerys is so frequently compared to Rhaegar as a compliment. Not only in her looks, but also with her intelligence, her determination and in the love that her people have for her. Ser Barristan calls him determined, deliberate, dutiful, and single-minded, all positive qualities that also apply to Dany.

As for Aerys, it's also hard to draw parallels. As I said in another post, I think the Targaryen madness is not really madness (being crazy) but more an obsession, whether it's about religion, dragons, or with Dany, her desire to liberate her people. What we know about Aerys, however, shows that he was indeed sick, paranoid, after his captivity. That is something different and not something I see or suspect with Dany.

What I have found, though, are explanations about the young Aerys, which at some points apply to her:

In his youth, while not being the most intelligent, nor the most diligent of princes, he was described as having an undeniable charm. He was generous, handsome and resolute, although somewhat quick to anger.

In the same paragraph, however, it is said that he was vain, proud, and fickle, qualities that made him easy prey for sycophants and sycophants. While Dany is proud, she quickly develops over the course of the story into a person who sees through the manipulation attempts of those around her and is clever enough to avoid them.

There might be a possibility that through a traumatic experience (like for Viserys selling his mother's crown) her obsession finally drives her to take more drastic measures to achieve her goal. However, I think it's unlikely that Dany actually drifts into absolute madness like her father and burns down an entire city without thinking. She is much too reflective for that. Should she actually go completely ‘Fire and Blood’, then I think it will be a very conscious decision, rather than an impulsive one.

#Arya Stark #Sansa Stark #Jon Snow #daenerys targaryen #parallels #parents and role models #ASoIaF #got meta #asks and answers

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rpbetter · 3 years ago

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what's the nicest possible way to tell a close friend their roleplay blogs suck and if they want followers and interaction like they keep complaining about they have to actually put effort into it instead of just making blog after blog and slapping a character on it like that's they need to do. I've tried to suggest this to her before by comparing other blogs that play her muse but she just feels inadequate instead of inspired to emulate them which I understand but it's very frustrating when I suggest a million ways to make her blog better and she brushes them all off for one reason or another and I don't want to say anything because she's like a sister to me. sigh.

Unfortunately, the short answer to this is that there really isn't any way you can make her see this unless she's ready to see it.

But, I don't like giving those sorts of answers, they feel hopeless and shitty, so, let's try this...

Understanding what the problem with your friend and her connecting with this information is, is important. It might help in talking to her about the issue.

What I find in these instances, and a lot of similar ones, is that the mun is unhappy about the results but quite happy with the process. She's enjoying some part of this, it's just not the lack of interaction, obviously. It's the very things she's doing to turn people off of her muses.

I think a lot of people get kind of addicted to new muses. I mean, the entire process of having a new muse:

interest to outright fixation, no matter how short-lived, in a new, inspiring muse

who is almost certainly in a new fandom, and probably, one that is very busy and popular at the moment

"someone stop me" phase, even though they've already decided

picking the perfect URL, creating the new blog, making the graphics and batches of icons

reblogging All The Content about the new muse, at least, the visual content and maybe, a couple of "oof, right in the feels" style short meta posts

plugging the new muse on the old blogs, through friends, etc.

mass follows

new mutuals! Shiny new meme asks in the inbox! New threads!

It's about the newness, the excitement, and the irrationally promising feeling that damn it, this time, the blog and muse is going to be successful, popular even, beloved, the actual favorite iteration of the character in the RPC. Like anything exciting, it's addicting for people. And like anything addicting, it can take hitting rock bottom and going several more feet down, a few times, before they're over it and want to change.

Which is, of course, where you come in with your as-yet failed RP interventions.

What makes what you're trying to do here very difficult is that there isn't a total bottoming out she's going to reach. There will always be something new and exciting coming out with a new and exciting muse that'll fix the problem, in her mind. There will always be the option and availability to create another blog, slap another muse on it, rinse and repeat. With shampoo and conditioner that never runs out.

You definitely had the right idea by trying to get her to contrast between why what she is doing isn't working the way she wants and why what someone else is doing is working out that way. It's just, as you found out, often not the best idea, no matter how well-intentioned it is. With her blogs constantly failing for reasons she refuses to believe, it's incredibly likely she's already done some comparison in all the wrong ways, ultimately going back and forth between blaming the other iterations, finding nothing but errors in the way they write the character and set up their blogs, and feeling depressed that she's not good enough, but they are.

So, you might have unintentionally inflamed all of this! She could be in a place where she's even more likely to believe that what she's doing is great as a defense mechanism for being hard on herself.

I'd also like to say that I'm aware the "right" advice here is, "there's nothing you can do, you'll just make her feel bad, people have a right to RP however they want." But, you're also her friend, and you have to be around the complaining and upset when this just keeps happening.

Furthermore, when we have very close friends like this, we automatically keep trying to fill in the gaps for them at cost to ourselves - every time they make another blog/muse, we get roped into writing things we know are just going to be dropped, making them things we know are going to left on a deserted blog, and so on. Eventually, it makes you feel bad about yourself because your efforts aren't good enough, either. It can really ruin the hobby for you, sucking away enjoyment and creativity you could be spending elsewhere.

I don't think you're wrong in trying to help both her and yourself.

Keep being honest with her. When she complains, be honest about why this is happening. And you can, indeed, be kind and honest!

Let's say that she says something about how she wrote all these opens and no one is going for them.

You could say something like, "that sucks. I liked this one, it's the one that feels and sounds like the character to me. What were you doing when you wrote that? You should rewrite the others to be a little more like that, I think people are looking for more of the character like we saw them in the series."

You're acknowledging that she's right, it does suck, it's a shitty feeling no matter how at fault for it she is. While pointing out something she did good (and, okay, maybe she didn't, maybe they all categorically sucked lol but find one that was even a tiny bit better/that has elements you can use to both boost her confidence and show her what is right, not just wrong). Then, giving her an idea - whatever she was thinking, watching, listening to at that time, she tapped into something more like the actual character, and she could do it again. And telling her what the problem is, at least with this, that people don't want a cardboard cutout muse, they want the one they like from the fandom book/show/movie.

No need to actually compare with another active mun and muse, or tell her that it's because what she's doing is terribly and driving you nuts. Even if both are true.

If she's the one that compares herself to another blog this time, seize the opportunity!

"Well, people like that the muse is developed and like the character they know. When you interact with another canon, don't you want them to be like the character you liked? You liked -current muse- for a reason. When I've felt like that, I reminded myself of why I was drawn to the character and worked harder on writing them accurately and getting their voice down. I think this other blog has done that and you haven't yet."

It's a little harsher, but she may very well only be looking for validation from you that this other blog actually sucks and she's doing great. A lot of complaints on tumblr are that - seeking validation, not help. The entire culture of that shit is not at all helpful. You don't want to try to sort of shock her out of it by being too harsh, but you do want to make it clear that you're not going to just give ass pats and tell her what she wants to hear.

You're telling her why this other blog is more successful, that the muse comes off as the character and is enjoyable to write with. Because the mun put in the effort to make them both accurate to the character and a muse that's fun/interesting/engaging to write with in RP.*

*Not all characters transfer over well to RP, either, and this might also be some of her problem. For whatever reason, some people are deeply drawn to the worst possible choices for them. They will find the least applicable character in a whole series, one with a billion characters that spans decades of material, plenty of viable options all around, but no, it's got to be this one. The one that's impossible for them to pull off, boring or disliked by the fandom, is incredibly difficult to interact with (think manic pixie bullshit, villains that are extreme loners, incredibly quiet and reserved characters, or those who are only ever seen in their canon to be bantering with friends and enemies - people they have established relationships with, unlike someone else's muse, even if that muse is a canonical friend or enemy), or is an active turn off in RP, like an outrageously overpowered character whose entire existence is based on being OP as fuck. That's going to be what they go for. Every. Damn. Time.

If you notice she's doing this, she could be compensating without even realizing it by turning the string of muses into identical and empty clichés she thinks people want to interact with, but that she can still handle writing. And unfortunately, your job is even harder, OP, because everyone has a character type...and your bestie's is Fucking Impossible to RP for 90% of the RPC Population Type lmao I'm...I'm so sorry.

Maybe if this is the case, you can get her to try out a different character that has some of the traits you've noticed she seems to always be drawn to, but without the complications. Work smarter, not harder, though! Propose this as you desperately wanting your muse to interact with x. Some people react very badly to being told "you'd write a great -muse name," others are flattered by it. If you don't know for certain that she'd be flattered, or at least not offended, that she doesn't hate this character or anything, do not say this. Just tell her that you love this character, you think she could handle them as a NPC in a thread, could she please try?

And make that the single most interesting thread in the history of threads. Specifically, for her. Give her tons of engagement with this NPC of the sort she tends to want the most. It might stick and reset some of her perspective on the types of characters she keeps choosing.

You're reminding her that she's a RPer, too, which sounds like a crazy thing to have to remind a RPer, but we do weirdly lose track of this. We get very invested in what we're putting out more than what we've successfully been given, especially when we're not being given much of what we want. So, you're prodding her to recall that there are two parts of this equation, she's been on the side of it - she's wanted to interact specifically with a canon muse because she loved the character/ship with hers/whatever, and has, as we all have, experienced both the disappointment of running through a ton of them who just are not that character and also finding the version that very much is.

This helps to put other people back into perspective in a way that isn't just "interactions." (Read as "desired attention." Which isn't a slam, it's true. It's also not a problem, we all are here to interact, we all enjoy having devoted mutuals and such. It's only a problem when we stop seeing them as anything other than a means to an end for ourselves.) She might be able to relate to them, thus, why they don't like her muses, if she can put herself back into their shoes.

You stick with that and transition it into why she picked the current muse. It's the same deal, there was something about the muse that sparked interest, creativity, etc. What was it? Something that isn't there, or there enough, in her writing. In all the excitement of muse-creation, she's probably let whatever it was slide right out the door. If you can get her to recall that feeling of interest and identify for herself what all triggered it, she might be able to stick with it.

And you've encouraged her again to give people what they want if she wants interactions by developing her muses. You've also done so, if it all applicable and true, by using yourself here, making it feel like not just a common problem, but one experienced and overcome by someone she cares about and trusts.

She might have an issue with needing a lot of high-interest, high-reward scenarios, too.

This is a high-effort, minimum reward situation for her. A lot of us in the RPC have shit like ADHD that can really make this difficult once we're experiencing it in this way, but even those who don't absolutely fall into it as well. So, you'll need ways to make it fun, but...I think if you can sort of kindly trick her into experiencing the effort as its own reward, it'd go a long, long way.

I can't really say what I do, having this problem with high-effort, minimal reward because I don't tend to experience that in RP. The writing is the reward for me, as much as I lose it utterly with happiness every time a writing partner is loving what I've given them. My reward system is set up around the writing and exploring characters. Hers seems to be set up around the reaction to it and amount of engagement with it. You need to try to use the latter to give her some of the former.

If she likes Halloween or Christmas, Fall or Winter, this could be your way into doing it!

Get her hyped about a seasonal prompt list you're doing. This does, yeah, mean you will have to do it, too lol but in the end, any time you aren't able to produce something daily like these lists usually are set up for, you're showing her that it isn't a job she's got to fulfill - the rules are only as strict as she wants to make them for herself. And if you keep yours short and fun, she'll feel like it's perfectly fine and good to do it this way as well. That it doesn't need to be a damn masterpiece or anything, just fun, something different to show off her muse.

While what she's actually doing, in addition to that, is getting in touch with and developing her muse. Importantly, when we write in a way that is just for ourselves like this, we tend to kind of...bond, for lack of a less weird sounding way of putting it, with a muse. It makes them stick with us longer, raising their importance and easier availability to us.

Let her know you're doing this, pick one out you genuinely like, and don't expect her to be down with it immediately. It's work with no foreseeable reward. Except, it's very hard to listen to our friends be excited, proud of themselves, enjoying themselves without wanting to join in. It'll be especially helpful, though, if you think people you interact with will like the posts and comment on them, or even try to turn them into threads if you include their muses (with their consent, of course, and no pressure). If she sees that, it might make it even more interesting to her. You might also have to pose this as her helping you out, that you don't think you'll get more than two done if she isn't doing it as well, as a sort of a challenge she can hold you to.

Whatever you think might work best for engaging her, you know her well, you can do it!

Be there to help her out with ideas if she goes for it. Throw out some easy, fun suggestions you think she might like, that even give her some opportunity to write something with her muse that she doesn't get a chance to. Pull from the muse's canon, is there something in their canon that goes with the prompt word "snow," for instance? Is it something she enjoyed about the canon story? Suggest it. Thinking about both the muse and your friend, is there something else that came to mind about that prompt you could suggest? Do it!

Again, whatever she's most into, it's an angle. Humor? Her serious muse is forced into a ridiculous, funny situation that involves the snow. Angst? A sad memory associated with the snow. Shipping? A romantic, fluffy scene (or steamy one). And so on.

Be there to express interest and encouragement while she's doing it. Don't do things that are going to come off as pressuring or helicopter moming her, of course! Like, asking how much she's gotten done, did she start working on it yet? That's a bad idea, unless she enjoys that sort of thing. Instead, tell her how much you can't wait to see this, ask about how it's going, tell her about yours to encourage her to talk about it.

And be there to be her audience when she posts it. This really seems to be her highest reward, so give it to her. Like the post, comment on the post, tell her in messages. Not individually, all of those things. If you can find a way to that doesn't mess up what you've got going on with your blog, mutuals, other friends, etc., mention it on your blog.

At this point, people might be both aware of her RP habits and wary of engaging with her, but someone might bite if you're enthused and go like the post. If it's applicable, make some jokes about it on the dash, turn it into a moment of inside joke-like crack for people to see. Mention that she wrote this and you loved it, link it or outright reblog her post. Hell, mention that you and her are doing such and such prompts for whatever holiday or season before the fact, that way, it doesn't come out of nowhere to your mutuals, either. Again, if applicable, you can ask to turn it into a thread.

The point, at this juncture, isn't to attract people to her blog and posts, it's to demonstrate to her that this is fun and rewarding. If you can get people to go like the posts, great, but you can only count on yourself to do it at first.

Most people enjoy those sorts of prompts on their dash from mutuals, though. You're always going to have some who feel like it's annoying because it wasn't strictly a RP reply, but whatever, they're not the majority in most fandoms anymore, thankfully. Point is, it's literally showing her mutuals that she's capable of thinking as her muse and working on her muse. It's showing off good things and making her muse more interesting and uniquely hers in a good way. And it's totally possible that she's going to organically generate likes, people wanting to use this as a plot with her for RP, and mutuals who are increasingly following along with every post made.

The hope is that she experiences the beginnings of more interest in the muse than she does making muses, gain some confidence in doing this with the enjoyment of it, and stick with a muse longer than five seconds so that she can actually end up with the interactions she wants.

There are definitely other ways of doing this, the prompt thing just came to mind because it's major prompt season. You've got a prompt list floating around for literally every popular point of interest right now, from whump to extreme fluff to horror to humor. And it's going to keep going until January. It's also something that can be as short as a paragraph or as long as several thousand words, and that a hell of a lot of people don't do all of. So, it's easy, so long as she's got a reason to find it interesting and stay on course with it even a little bit.

You could also try getting her into doing something like moodboards for her muse but with little additions of writing that go along with them. Nothing major, just things like a quote from her muse or a sentence from a starter, thread, whatever.

So long as you can get her to start refocusing on RP being enjoyable from the inside and not just the outside, it's valid as hell to try it! She seems to be experiencing RP as instant gratification and basing that gratification on things she can't control, like popularity.

Right now, even giving her the sober truth that one can write the best version of a canon muse there is to be found, be someone enjoyable and interesting in OOC interactions, and be an amazing writer without that being enough to garner popularity, or even the plots that are wanted. That being a very popular RPer and having more interactions than you know what to do with (honestly sucks ass) isn't a set of absolute values, but rather, variables that are always in flux and often, totally mysterious. It's usually a mixture of total luck, visual appeal, and both mun being on point with what people want to see right this second and muse being the mixture of fanon that is desirable, also, right at this exact second. It is seriously not within anyone's control, no matter how much effort, quality, or even outright bullshit they have to put out there.

If she's ever going to stick to a muse and not find herself envious, upset, and bored it's absolutely got to come from herself. She's got to be popular with herself, enjoying herself regardless of what others are seemingly achieving or want to give her. It's not going to be recognized no matter how harsh or sweet you are about the problem, unless she's capable of really looking at those problems as problems, and I don't think she's going to get to that point through negatively bottoming out. She might get there through the opposite, though!

It's...just going to take a lot of effort and patience from you, with no expectation of reward yourself.

Because it's still likely as hell it's just not going to happen. And while it seems like you are the kind of friend who would find the effort worth it because you care and are invested in her, please know that there's no shame in merely contemplating this and noping right out.

You've got a life and are trying to enjoy the hobby as well! And if it seems like something that could sour your friendship? It's not worth it. You're better off just accepting that she'll inevitably tire of doing this and move on to another hobby, maybe decide to do fandom blogs or something instead that you can support her in.

It's definitely an unenviable and frustrating position you're in. All you can really do is try not to let this negatively impact the friendship, to keep refraining from just outright telling her things she'd find hurtful, and try your best to show her that it's rewarding to develop the muse and stick with it, not a task. That there are improvements she can make to her blog, and that it isn't a negative reflection on her that they can be made. You can try all the compassionate trickery in the world to lead her there, but it's ultimately up to her whether she brushes this off as well, don't let it hurt your feelings or exasperate you too much!

Also, it's totally possible that even if you met through RP and/or it has been a big part of the friendship, you might have grown in different directions in the hobby.

Growing within the hobby is inherent to any hobby you stick to for long enough, especially if you started out in it young. Some people seamlessly just keep growing to things that make them happy, others experience a lot of growing pains along the way as they're maybe ready for change, but only in select areas they have to discover for themselves. Still others grow in a way that doesn't make them very happy, but they're both not ready (or willing) to approach why and what they can do, and also still too attached to the good times they had to reassess whether it's still something they want to do, or if it's something better moved away from into something else.

That's always very difficult as a friend. Difficult in watching your friends not go the same directions as you anymore, even in something as comparatively silly as a hobby, in seeing them not enjoying themselves, and in the possibility that it could signal the end of enjoying the hobby with them. It's sad and frustrating, and can feel lonely, but if you're close enough friends, you've got so many other things to still be good friends over, so keep that in mind!

She might need to keep doing this with her blog and muse situation until she comes not to the realization that she needs to change how she's RPing to get what she wants, but rather, that she wants to stop RPing. That could be the burnout that happens here eventually, but again, not only can you still be great friends, if it makes her happier, it's good.

#answered #anonymous #rp problems #rp advice

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komoryriku · 4 years ago

Text

Queering KH Part 4: Hearts in Tune

Actually KH Finally lol

Pictured: Riku humming Sora’s name in a soft, adoring, wistful voice the way a swooning straight person sighs the name of their beloved of the opposite gender.

Kingdom Hearts gives off so many subtextual signals of queer coding that it genuinely BAFFLES me how people can really believe it is straight. You may be wondering what makes me so confident in that when there has not been anything in the games to explicitly prove any of the characters are not straight, and I will be happy to tell you. It is because in order to believe Kingdom Hearts is straight, you have to ignore WAY too much subtext. To truly believe that Sora is in love with Kairi and only coded to be interested in Kairi, you have to ignore his questioning of what love is. You have to ignore the combined keyblade he shares with Riku. You have to ignore how much the narrative is driving him to understand that Riku is his most important, cherished person. This all goes doubly for Riku who has a coming out story not unlike Elsa’s metaphorical one, in which his love for Sora is his greatest source of strength. You have to pretend the necklace gifting plot point is entirely straight and cannot possibly mean anything homoromantic. You have to ignore the way Sora cries while clutching Riku’s hand compared to his subdued and non-emotional reunion with Kairi- that’s just too much “accidental subtext” for me to confidently ignore lol. Intentional or not, KH is Gay~

Here’s how we’re gonna do this.

So where the hell do I even begin with coding KH? Well- I can’t possibly queer the whole of KH text in 1 summer, so what I plan to do is this:

Give you the tools to understand KH’s coding so that you can code it yourself~

Queer a few major KH scenes so that everyone can see that the proof is in the pudding.

I’m gonna try to break down various scenes to decode them and queer them so you can see what’s at play in KH. Originally when this meta was a single doc, I was only gonna cover 4 scenes. But since I’m breaking it into parts to update at my leisure, I’m gonna just add scenes and meta as I go~

Now without further ado:

How the Hearts in Tune scene is Gay Coded

This shouldn’t be too hard at all.~

This scene is almost too easy.

The scene opens with Sora bringing Mickey the sound idea he found but as it turns out, one sound idea is not enough. Sora tells us not to worry because he has a friend who is always picking up the slack for him. Likewise, on Riku’s end, he brings his sound idea to Mickey and is surprised to see that Sora’s sound idea is necessary to complete the song.

Once the sound ideas meet, this beautiful visual plays out in which the 2 sound ideas swirl around each other and the soundtrack title “Dearly Beloved” plays.

Now, there are several things I want to note about this sequence- heck this visual alone before we move on.

Recall earlier when I discussed Shiki’s point that blue and pink (likewise blue and red) “go together”, romantically.

I will let the visual of Sora’s sheet music being pink while Riku’s is blue speak for itself. But I will also add how this ties into the yin and yang themes I’m about to discuss:

Yin and Yang

This concept gets its own section because it’s such an influential concept in so many aspects of various cultures around the globe.

Yin and Yang is an eastern philosophy which illustrates the concept of dualism. In short, it is the concept that 2 opposite halves are complements to a whole. The original term in fact translates to dark-bright.

I am neither a philosophy professor or student so I will keep this as brief as I can and simply encourage you to study up on Yin and Yang at your own leisure. I will however paste this section from wikipedia because I think it is extremely helpful information to have for studying eastern media in general.

Yin and Yang: husbanded opposing forces. Dark-Light, Moon-Sun, Chaos-Order, Winter-Summer, Negative-Positive.

Female (Yin)-Male (Yang): Yes this is often used in a heteronormative heterosexual context because people are homophobic and believe in gender binaries, unfortunately, but I implore you to consider the concept in more figurative, spiritual, aesthetic themes, especially since Yin and Yang is a much grander philosophy than mere sexuality discourse; it’s about complementary forces creating a whole.

For shipping purposes, think opposites attract. Think concepts that are traditionally associated with femininity meshing with concepts that are traditionally associated with masculinity. Queer media has a wonderful way of subverting heteronormative Yin and Yang tropes by showing that cis-hetero standards can be hypocritically non-compliant with the complementary concept.

Rather than thinking of this, 2 heteros in love based on being just- the same person with opposite genders:

Think of this, same gendered couples with complementary personalities:

Think about how an aloof scrappy butchy vampire queen attracts an uptight calculating femme princess.

Think about how this goody-goody dumb jock with a martyring hero complex attracts this naughty cunning jock with a self-loathing villaness complex.

And now think about how badly we need more canonical mlm couples in children’s media lol. Oops my finger slipped. But I’m getting ahead of myself lol.

The concepts of interconnected opposite forces are so important and prominent in literature throughout the world, but yin and yang is ESPECIALLY important in Kingdom Hearts because it is a story that explicitly explores Light and Dark forces. It explores how they both oppose one another in catastrophic ways,

and how they complement each other in harmonious ways.

Getting ahead of myself again… But hey speaking of harmony, back to the matter at hand.

Hearts in Tune.

This scene shows a number of romantic symbols. As I was saying before the yin and yang tangent, pink and blue (nee red and blue) are already symbols of romantic suggestion. And in the case of them representing 2 parts of a whole song, these song pieces act as complementary halves, adding another layer of dualism to the scene. Furthermore, the music sheets swirl around each other in a yin and yang fashion. Harmony has been achieved. This lets us know these forces belong together. These forces representing Sora and Riku. They are husbanded together. These 2 hearts in question are part of each other. In fact, Mickey even says so:

Perhaps most damning, however, is that the song in question is “Dearly Beloved”, arguably the theme song for Kingdom Hearts as far as the score goes. I’m sure it goes without say that “Dearly Beloved” is not only in itself a romantic sounding phrase but it is also the phrase specifically said by officiators of weddings to the congregation before the wedding vows are exchanged. “Dearly Beloved, we are gathered here today…”

I will also mention that Riku’s dream eater symbol visible in the shot is specifically designed based on a bleeding heart flower, a symbol of passionate love. Credit to Steam for pointing this out here, please follow them and read their posts they are magically delicious:

So almost everything about this scene is aesthetically romantically coded, and I didn’t even mention the fact that Dream Drop Distance’s whole color palette is themed with rainbows, which as I said earlier is absolutely still a gay symbol in Japan. Note the rainbow of colors animating from the sheet music.

So in terms of the atmosphere of the scene, its already incredibly homoromantic in every way I can think of. But what about the dialogue?

Well lets talk about the dialogue. Dialogue should always been read with care when you’re trying to queer a text. Often a lot of queer messaging in a text is subtextual. This means the text itself may actually say something gay, but you have to read further into it. This is an old method of queer writing designed to protect the writer from getting in trouble for their gay crimes.

Historical aside on this: If you’ve ever read Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, you may have note that Lord Henry can never just simply say that he is gay, lest Oscar Wilde be charged for homosexuality in 19th century England. Instead, Lord Henry simply tells us he is married to a woman, but makes it clear throughout the text that this marriage is mostly performative and he is not emotionally invested in it whatsoever, going against the puritanical, heternormative ideals of Victorian prudery. Lord Henry is by contrast MUCH more invested in following the life and times of his very close friend Dorian Gray, with whom he shares a hedonistic philosophy in the name of Fin de siècle. Not to be a downer but for the sake of understanding how real this subject of oppressed gay censorship is, despite keeping the homosexual themes as purely subtext, Oscar Wilde was tried and convicted of homosexuality and this book was used against him in court.

What we are privileged to have today with KH is a cutscene and not just a script. Meaning we have visuals, animation, voice acting, musical cues, etc etc to follow along with to enhance our subtext.

On Sora’s end of the conversation, Mickey points out that the song is incomplete with just his sound idea alone, and Sora tells him not to worry, as Riku is his dependable friend who will fill in where he fails. The text in the official English translation is:

Mickey: That's strange... Is one Sound Idea not enough?

Sora: Don't worry. I've got a friend out there who will help. He's always

picking up the slack for me.

This on its own sounds platonic. But note just how affectionate Sora’s voice acting is when he says it. Not only that, he clutches his heart to let us know how close he is to Riku and how much his connection with Riku matters to him. How much confidence he has in this friend he cares so much about. He then closes his eyes after saying it, smiling up in the air blissfully while he waits for their hearts to make their connection and finish the song.

Once it is finished, Mickey remarks that their sounds joined together to make something more powerful. Sora then says looking thoughtful, “Yeah. Two forces are better than one. Right, Riku?”

Following this, Sora leaves to fight the boss.

On Riku’s side, Mickey questions what happened, and Riku looks up thoughtfully, and says tenderly, “Sora.”

Mickey comments “Sora? Funny... Just hearing that name kinda makes me wanna smile.” and Riku tells him warmly, “Yeah. That's how he is.”

Mickey then goes on to say some really shippy stuff:

“Whaddaya know... Riku and Sora. The Sound Ideas you two set free joined together. And when they did, they made a great and powerful harmony.”

Riku then nods and tells Mickey brightly that “Sora can find the brightest part of anything, and pull off miracles like there's nothing to it. It's pretty hard not to smile around him.”

And I would like to pause to look at that line. “It’s pretty hard not to smile around him.” Although Mickey says the same thing, that just hearing Sora’s name invokes a smile, we sense a somewhat deeper meaning in Riku saying it. Why is that? Well, for one thing this game is entirely about Riku protecting Sora and exploring how much Sora actually means to him. This game is continuing Riku’s redemption arc from KH2, but it is also doing something perhaps even more important: it is providing him a journey of self discovery. This test resets Sora and Riku to level 1 so to speak, not just in their powers but even their models revert to variations of their KH1 selves. This helps to underscore Riku re-examining himself and his feelings.

And then guess what? Mickey makes some even SHIPPIER commentary. He exclaims “Wow! No wonder the music sounded like so much fun. But I bet he's got you to thank for that. Having such a good friend means he could really enjoy it.”

Riku is taken aback by this comment. “Huh?”

Mickey continues, expressing some extremely yin and yang themed sentiments,

“It's like each of you is holding on to a little part of the other. Your hearts are always in tune, so they're free to sing. Gosh, I hope I can be part of the team someday.”

Mickey did us a wonderful favor and expressed to us explicitly, for those who didn’t understand the romantic coding of the scene already, that Sora and Riku are a good match. Mickey tells Riku that the music sounded like fun in English, that it was a happy, pleasurable time, and tells him that Sora has Riku for a friend which is what must have made it so enjoyable.

So from this dialogue we get assurance that Sora and Riku are two very close friends, whose hearts are connected, and they are 2 powerful forces that merge into an even greater one. Their hearts are in tune.

Now if this were a scene about a boy and a girl, I doubt anyone would question whether it was romantic. Why should we be asked to look at it platonically just because it is 2 boys? The romantic imagery is clear.

And let me ask you this while we’re still on the subject of Dream Drop Distance:

According to Riku’s character files, he had previously thought of Sora as a little brother, and tried to be a cool older brother to him.

He then tells us that this has changed. What did it change to?

The surface level, heteronormative answer would say it changed to them being merely friends.

But isn’t that an odd regression? After all, found family is a thing, and that’s a bit weird for him to question since there is no reason for those feelings to change on that notion. If Sora loved him like a brother, that clearly hasn’t changed. Riku clearly loves Sora as deeply, so that didn’t change. The other problem with this phenomenon Riku is dealing with is that there is no reason for him to feel this strange sense of repression we keep seeing over this change. He is constantly holding back on some feelings for Sora but platonic and brotherly feelings are entirely acceptable. What is it that he is hiding? What sort of feelings for Sora would be hidden?

From the Kh2 Novel:

He really did want to see Sora and talk. But that was impossible with this appearance. The things that mattered the most were what he couldn’t tell Sora. It had always been that way.

What sort of feelings might be systemically oppressed?

This scene is pretty much EXACTLY what I would do to say as explicitly as possible that Riku is gay without being able to say it outright due to censorship.

#soriku #sora kh #riku kh #kingdom hearts #dream drop distance

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adhd-wifi · 5 years ago

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Do you have any meta on Suibian? I love that sword and I need more of it in my life!

Oh hell yeah I love SuiBian with all my heart and have a bunch of headcanons about it. Canon doesn’t give us much to play with unfortunately, but speculation games are always fun! Quick disclaimer, MDZS is currently the only story in the wuxia/xianxia genre I delve into, so my guesses and such are not at all based on the rules within the genre. Also, I grew up with both Chinese and Japanese folklore, so some details I talk about might’ve been merged or mixed up between the two cultures. So what I’m saying is that this post is 90% guessing games.

...Buuuuuuuuuut before we get into that I need a moment to gush about SuiBian's name. I love the name 随便 to a ridiculous degree. It's so silly and weird especially to a Chinese speaker like myself but oh so PERFECT. SuiBian's name alone does wonders for introducing Wei Ying's character early on, displaying his fickle and annoyingly'childish side so easily. Completely indecisive about the perfect name? Literally name it "Whatever". It also is symbolic of Wei Ying's carefree attitude in life before the war, with him being happy and doing whatever he wanted as a fun-loving teen, but he loses the ability to do "whatever" he wanted in life, along with losing the ability to wield the sword named "Whatever". SuiBian is the most brilliantly named weapon in the entire story and I have a stupid amount of feelings about the name itself. :D

Anyways, gushing aside let me ramble about the weapons themselves before talking about our brilliantly named sword. In a lot of the Chinese stories I grew up with, object spirits are fairly common, though it’s often believed a non-living being can’t form its own spirit naturally. For an object to create a spirit, powerful natural energy needs to be drawn into the object, with things like sentimentality or resentment making that attachment to a particular object stronger. I personally headcanon the cultivation swords as being forged with the cultivators’ spiritual energies and upon being given a name, the energy “awakens”, forming a spirit within the sword and thus a bond between wielder and weapon. Names are important in Chinese cultures (like many other cultures really), and not having a name tends to mean you’re unwanted or disgraced, so I like the believe that when the spirit receives its name, it’s properly “born”.

I also personally headcanon the Yin Tiger Seal as nameless, because it’s a cursed object rather than a spiritual artefact, having absorbed an endless void of resentment from the tormented souls of those brutally killed by the XuanWu. This might be why it’s so disloyal and uncontrollable.

That being said, the swords and other spiritual weapons don’t have personalities or a proper sentience. They have attachments to their wielders and through ZiDian in particular, we are shown that their “feelings” are a reflection of their wielders, most notably when Jiang FengMian believed he couldn’t wield ZiDian, but him being able to was a revelation of Madam Yu’s true feelings towards him. That being said, aside from ZiDian and SuiBian (through its self-sealing), no other weapon has shown this kind of loyal reflection towards their masters. (The Nie Sabers are a special case, but that’s for another post.) For the most part, the majority of the weapons/artefacts in MDZS are simply tools and are used as such. With ZiDian, the sentiments involving it are between its wielders rather than between the wielder and the weapon itself. Even Wei Ying treats SuiBian as a tool more than anything else (I mean this bitch used it to cut a watermelon and was implied to not OPENLY take care of it even when he could still wield it). Despite this, though possibly due to the third-person-limited nature of the story, Wei Ying is the only person we see having an actual bond with his sword.

We know Wei Ying loves swordplay above all his other skills, being extremely confident when it comes to his sword skills (bitch didn’t even mention he knew how to hold a flute until he was tossed into death valley), and losing the ability to wield the sword made him extremely sad. Another note is that we ONLY see this sadness when it’s specifically SuiBian he’s looking at. I like to interpret this as him specifically missing wielding his own particular sword - that even if he could wield another sword, he would deeply wish it was SuiBian in his hands instead. Thinking about it, it was likely that SuiBian was the one object given to him by the Jiang Sect that was truly his own, because he trained hard to reach the head disciple position with that sword by his side. Going through hardships with one particular object will often make one feel sentimental attachments to said object, and I think this was what happened with Wei Ying with SuiBian. If you take into account my personal ADHD headcanons for Wei Ying, this is even more likely to me, because I, as an ADHD person, did that kind of thing multiple times whenever I improved in my own skills, such as getting EXTREMELY attached to a particular type of pen, drawing tablet, and note book.

Bringing back the point of the swords reflecting the feelings of their wielders, I headcanon that Wei Ying’s love for his sword was channelled into the sword itself, and so SuiBian reflected its wielder’s sentiments right back to him. It was dearly loved, and so it returned that love back just as deeply in its own way. From what we know, SuiBian ONLY sealed itself after Wei Ying was truly gone. But while he was the Yiling Patriarch, it likely lay dormant while waiting for Wei Ying to pick it up to fight with again. We saw this very clearly in CQL, when Lan Zhan was able to unsheathe it when he and Jiang Cheng retrieved the confiscated swords from the Wens. But after there was truly no chance of being wielded by its master? SuiBian decided it would die with Wei Ying. For a sword spirit that knew no complicated sentiments, there was no other option.

It’s interesting to me that SuiBian later recognized both Wei Ying in Mo XuanYu’s body, and Wei Ying’s golden core in Jiang Cheng. Those were two foreign bodies to the sword, and yet it recognized his wielder’s soul and spiritual power almost flawlessly. I think the only reasons it took a while to recognize the paperman-Wei Ying was due to taking a moment to “re-awaken” and also, Wei Ying’s spiritual energy in paperman-mode was low anyway. Considering the sword spirits are implied to primarily channel spiritual energy, the fact that it also recognized Wei Ying’s actual soul is pretty damning evidence of its attachment to Wei Ying.

Of course, as a writing nerd I’m also nitpicking it a little, since it does also kinda come off as a pretty CONVENIENT way to reveal both Wei Ying’s identity and the golden core transfer, but eh, I prefer getting emotional over the sword’s bond with Wei Ying. :P

#ask replies #i rewrote this six times #i have a lot of feelings about SuiBian #mdzs meta #my metas #mdzs headcanons #my headcanons #my post #my ramblings

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sarriane · 5 years ago

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it's interesting to see so much meta about 'the timeless children,' still, and considering all of the reviews, kneejerk reactions, criticism, love, hate, anger... it just makes me come back to the idea of how it's an attempt to restructure and recenter the show. whether it's a bad or good attempt is one fandom is never going to agree on (fandom never agrees on anything). but every little piece i see about it, every reaction kind of brings to light how it both suceeded and failed.

there's so much in the racial + gender dynamics to pull apart, places where they failed, places where they did well. i think it's the problem with a show that is still so white and so dominated by men, that while they're making an effort towards diversity, there's so many fatal missteps. things in the script that seemed innoculous in another circumstance are entirely changed when you add in identity factors.

(why would you cast a south asian actor and then put him in a nazi uniform? while it's great they cast an actor of color in a classic role, one who was clearly the perfect choice, it's also an unfortunate consequence that we now see the familiar racist image of a man of color "menacing" a white woman. thanks.)

it's not a problem limited to dr who, either -- i remember when kelly sue deconnick finished her run on her first volume of captain marvel, the villain was a genius scientist, and a woman of color. one fan commented (paraphrased): 'hey, i finally saw myself in your comic book - and i was the bad guy.' i remember KSD said something like "i thought all representation was good representation?" and she noted it, and i did too. again and again, we see this: creators in positions of privilege trying to provide representation, but falling short because of the racism, and misogyny, and bigotry they haven't unlearned.

and it's not easy. i certainly don't know how to write a story about a villain of color and a white woman and avoid any pitfalls -- perhaps the solution is to leave those stories to people who are actually from those racial backgrounds, or have those identities. but how to do that when the people in power making casting + writing decisions are white men? obviously, dr who needs more people of color working in it. it needs more women's voices, more queer voices. but even that's not a solution. RTD and JNT definitely didn't have eras free of homophibia and transphobia.

(we get this shit with queer-coding, too, which is why i've never advocated for doctor/master to become canon. i will happily read a million fics exploring the relationship, but i don't want to see the master portrayed as a predatory gay, thanks. and i don't want to see the doctor portrayed as a man caught in an abusive relationship, eventually ending with him literally keeping his romantic interest locked up and isolated while he tries to reform/brainwash her. i'm not into warden/prisoner porn, thx.)

i'm still working on my ideas about how/why doctor who has been irrevocably changed by 'the timeless children,' because the reviews aren't all bad. there are very much people who feel seen. in my opinion, it's very very difficult to take a show that's centered around england and turn it into a post-colonial narrative. dr who has hosted a variety of political opinions over the years, and so has the doctor (don't fucking @ me about kill the moon). in 2020, it's hard to continue to write the story of the doctor as a voice for the repressed when he's an old white man from a planet of "lords," that are a bunch of other old white men. at some point, it's another goddamn white savior narrative with a mansplainer at the center. (note that whittaker's casting does not solve this, but at least it's a start, i suppose? ugh, give us more jo martin!!)

so, the doctor is a woman now, and she has a history where she has been victimized, but she's overcome that. the knowledge of that does not victimize or martyr her, it allows the doctor to recenter herself in the narrative as a voice for the oppressed because she's been there.

i wish i could say that the show treated the jo martin incarnation with the respect she deserved, but even then, she's once again the Wise Old Black Woman trope. she goes from her character in 'fugitive of the judoon,' a doctor in her own adventure who refuses to let another co-opt her story, to a literal support character, the good angel on the doctor's shoulder reminding her who she is. and while it's nice to see a black woman doctor affirm who the doctor is -- she's affirming it to a white doctor. she's a prop. it's such a devastating waste of the character.

'the timeless children' reminds me a lot of captain marvel, and i think some of its failures are in that thirteen is not a Big Damn Hero. it's difficult to suddenly turn the privileged renegade into the timeless child, but also push the classic idea of: "should we trust the doctor?" because we shouldn't! she isn't a superhero. she isn't carol danvers, she has never had a history of fighting for everything she has - everything was handed to the doctor, including when he took the TARDIS and ran away. there's a note in an essay someone wrote in the 70's about 'the deadly assassin,' that showing us gallifrey takes the "who" out of "doctor who." for as much as the 'timeless children' tried to reclaim that, some of the questions it leaves us about the doctor are not pretty. especially when she lets an old, kind man die in her place (and grandpa joe from derry girls, for shame).

(on a wider note, in 50 yrs, will media criticism talk about the period of third/arguably fourth wave feminism in scifi? where white blonde women were treated like science experiments so empires could be built on their backs? but they refused victimhood and became heroines, standing up for those who canmt protect theirselves? which is great, except for the "white, blonde" element and the fact that this narrative, if it becomes a trend, is literally coopting parts of african american history.)

i hate that i have to settle for what we have, because i think media can always be better, and we deserve better, and they should try better. i've seen it said before that doctor who can't break down barriers, since it's a kids' show that airs before 8pm and has to be centrist enough to appeal to a wide audience. i think that sentiment is a little naive of what science fiction actually is and does. whatever the case, it seems clear to me that the next season of doctor who needs to involve more people of color in the cast + crew, and more women, and more queer folks. and it makes me aware of something much more in my control - that i've seen very few responses to the episode from fans of color. and i'm really not sure how to find these voices and amplify them, other than to follow and reblog, and listen.

i hope one day to reform these thoughts into something resembling proper media criticism, but i think it will take time, and revisiting old and new who, and probably seeing how the next special treats the reveals from 'the timeless children.' i've got so many thoughts about s12 and gender and race and the writing's almost "colorblind" approach to it all, and i never expected this to get longer than a paragraph long rant. there's just too much to talk about.

#dw #sarah has thoughts

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sparklyjojos · 6 years ago

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Some final commentary on Cosmic

which turned into yet another analysis of JDC, Tsukumojuku and Jorge Joestar because I have zero self-restraint. Half this post is searching for overarching themes and wacky theories, have fun with my ramblings I guess

[big spoilers for Cosmic and Tsukumojuku, not really for Jorge Joestar]

While I decided to finish Cosmic first, the recommended reading order is Cosmic (1st half) -> Joker -> Cosmic (2nd half). I guess this better ties both books together and helps avoid some Joker spoilers that are in Cosmic. The new edition even encourages it by labeling the tomes of Cosmic with Ryu and Sui, and Joker with Sei and Ryo. So you’re supposed to read “Seiryo in Ryusui” *rimshot* The cover art is also meant to be put together in that order (notice that the last cover also connects to the first though, and you can try putting the shorter edges together too):

On the book’s theme, and some meta:

I’m actually glad I’ve read Tsukumojuku before this, as it gave me a solid grip on the meta and the ridiculous detectiving. It made me LOVE the very ending, especially the “walking towards the end of the story with this tiny last moment lasting forever” part -- in hindsight of Tsukumojuku’s ending I almost cried at this point. The meaning’s a bit different, of course: Tsukumojuku has the triplets realize they should leave their daydream, and so it was both a sad and joyful ending, with them trying to stretch their last moments being ‘Tsukumojuku’. Cosmic has Juku and Yasha being a little apprehensive but determined to reach ‘the end of the story’, and at the end, they’re happy and joking around while (wittingly or not?) walking into eternity as the book ends, and with it their existence (...which doesn’t sound nearly as dramatic when you know there's a sequel).

Adding to that, I believe the last words imply the author (=the heavens forever watching over the characters) is joyful about the end (’the heavens themselves laughing’). Note that when Juku (or is it?) first appears in the book, in that post office scene, right after the 19 consecutive tragedies we just had to read through, we learn that ‘the heavens have been crying, but now it was as if they started laughing’, and Juku looks up at the sky and smiles. The end of the epilogue has the second-person someone (the reader?) be sad about the book coming to an end, with statements like ‘just two paragraphs remain until the end’ (and there really are only two short paragraphs in the book left after this!), and describing the heavy rain that starts in those two paragraphs as ‘the heavens crying’ (so... the sadness of both the reader and the author?). Finishing a good book, whether as a writer or a reader, is indeed both a joyful and a sad event. Similarly, the detectives are all happy and inexplicably sad when Juku claims the case has been solved. (There’s an echo of this theme even in Jorge Joestar, when with mere 15 pages left until the end of the book Jorge cries because ‘this adventure’s almost over’.)

I love the reccurring existential theme having to do with being a fictional character. It wasn’t as in-your-face as in Tsukumojuku, but it was there. While I skipped that in recaps, one of the locked room stories features a delusional man who believes he’s just a character in a novel. While scary, this belief is somewhat comforting too, and he notes it’d be nice to have a role to fulfill; to die with the sense you achieved all that you were meant to do, that The Author loved and appreciated you for who you were, and that you’re going to live eternally through a novel. (Jorge Joestar has Tsukumojuku mention how having a role to fulfill under Beyond’s care gave him comfort -- same thing, really.) But the character understands that all stories will eventually undergo destruction, and dreads it. Of course, the final message of the book, strengthened by the final events (the cult’s failure, Shiranui dying right after Juku’s birthday, and even --the book itself ending--), is that we have to accept that nothing can last forever, and the old will be replaced by the new, stories included.

When Juku and Yasha revealed the culprit’s initials, I honestly thought that he’d turn out to be the author, and the reason why they got different initials was that Juku saw the pen name (Seiryoin Ryusui) and Yasha the real name (Kanai Hidetaka). Since Yasha seemed shocked that Juku said ‘S’, I thought it meant that Yasha saw a full name but neither of the initials was ‘S’. I also thought Otohime’s advice -- to ‘look at the events from a distance’, to ‘withdraw yourself from events’ -- actually meant you have to look at the story from a distance... that is, lean back and look at the book you’re holding, which has the author’s name on the cover. Later, the sudden fourth wall break during the press conference scene, with the author prompting the reader to think carefully about who the Locked Room Lord may be, and writing his signature right under that question, only made me more sure. And there were a bunch of scenes before the Big Reveal in which other JDC characters reacted to the solution with feeling as if their world was destroyed, or getting drunk, or stressing out rather hard, so I expected they got hit with existential crisis upon learning The Truth, and that Juku will just go full meta and say that the culprit is the author: the one who really designed and 'committed’ the murders. Though with the book ending as it did, it’s not a stretch to say that Seiryoin really IS confirmed to be the true Locked Room Lord. In a way.

Other random comments:

This book is positively untranslatable. It features stuff like extensive kanji wordplays; messages in Caesar cipher but using the dictionary order of hiragana; deciphering a number as if it was an old-fashioned pager message; or reading the final message by putting the first syllable of the last kanji of the victims’ names together. And that damn Matsuo Bashou pun. All the name puns, really.

The language is rather hard, definitely harder than Maijo’s works. I think I’ll take some time to get better Japanese skills before going for Joker. (The JDC book I expect to enjoy the most is The Simons’ Case, though -- young Ajiro dadding over solving a case with kid Juku sounds amazing, and it’s a lot of fans’ fave)

For some reason, the main characters sure like to have the ‘castle’ kanji (城) in their names, like 鴉城蒼司 (Ajiro Souji), 龍宮城之介 (Ryuuguu Jounosuke), and 天城漂馬 (Amagi Hyouma). ...I can’t help but notice that a certain 城字ジョースター (Jouji/Jorge Joestar) would fit right in, lol. He pretty much is a meta-detective already, what with all the confidence and insight he gets from his Beyond.

I live for Ajiro’s and Juku’s relations. LOVE this stressed detective dad being proud of his ridiculously kind detective son.

Unexpectedly I also loved the friendship between Juku and Yasha. (With added tears because, y’know. Inugami Yasha. Investigating with Tsukumo Juku. Being friends and stuff.)

I like Ryuuguu Jounosuke quite a lot, both because of his character / reasoning skills, and because he’s as canonically aroace as he can be in a 90s book. not that you’d know that with all the Hikimiya/Ryuuguu yaoi fanart on pixiv

Unfortunately, I can’t praise Seiryoin for good rep as he’s miserable with other representation. The locked room chapters feature the depraved rapist bisexual trope, then a Bury Your Lesbians trope, and then this weird thing where a young guy has a gay crush and concludes that he must have become gay because he was abused by his mother (???)... but as it later turns out, in reality (ie. not in the manuscript) the object of the crush was a woman, so the gay part didn’t even happen. The fuq? Also there’s a one-scene-only black woman officer who’s only there so we can be told how physically strong and intimidating she is and I’m not sure how I should feel about that. I’m also pissed off that when a male detective uses vague reasoning out of nowhere, more a supernatural feeling than anything else, he gets called a meta-detective and is oh ah so elite and amazing!, but when Nemu does it it gets called ‘woman’s intuition’ and ‘fuzzy reasoning’ and she’s not considered a meta-detective, fucking really? (Maybe it is a little different, idk, she wasn’t detectiving a lot in this so we didn’t really see what she’s capable of)

On the other hand, I liked that the way Juku encouraged Nemu to become a detective involved using his connections to arrange meetings with other disabled detectives, so she could talk frankly with them and get a feel for how high-tier detectiving while disabled (esp. in terms of sight-related disabilities) is like. That’s a nice detail.

Speaking of him... Tsukumo Juku is pretty Mary Sue-ish in this, which I don’t mind (and I would be more surprised if it didn’t turn out to be intentional later), but I can imagine other readers not really liking him that much. I’ve read that Juku unfortunately doesn’t really get deeper characterization until the Carnival books, where we learn fun little stuff about him, eg. he’s horrible at cooking, and his ringtone is the opening for Manga Nippon Mukashi Banashi (an old anime introducing little kids to folktales). (I’m wondering whether or not the Kintaro thing in Jorge Joestar is related to this somehow? I don’t have many spoilers for Carnival, maybe there’s more folktales references... aside from the Ryuuguu family’s names referencing Urashima Taro, that is. And now I wonder why Jorge gets a folktale-related kids song stuck in his head so easily hmmm)

It was never explained who sent the manuscript to JDC. So far, judging by the scene with the beautiful androgynous person at the post office, and retroactively by the entire Story-sending mess in Tsukumojuku, I’d say it was Juku himself, somehow. A time-travelling Juku from the future, maybe? I don’t know anymore, man, but I’ve read that previous cases of the series come together in Carnival, so here’s hoping it gets explained better than as “a ghost did it maybe”.

For the longest time I kept wondering where the personality dissonance between this Juku and the Detective God in Tsukumojuku came from. Why would this ever gentle, kind and forgiving character be written as some vore murderer monster dude? So, here’s my current Reaching Theory TM. We know the Detective God really is ‘an Angel’ as he claimed, since in the Seventh Story, Tsukumojuku realizes that he himself is actually not ‘the Angel’ but ‘the Beast’ (he thinks about it during that, er... awkward chest pipe moment, if you remember). Now, canon Juku actually is compared to ‘an angel or a god’ in Cosmic, and it’s a good descriptor: he’s kind and forgiving, but has the sorta detached, not-quite-human air; he’s androgynous, unnervingly perfectly beautiful, and one shouldn’t look directly at him for too long. The Detective God, on the other hand, is an Angel in the same way those demons from Jacob’s Ladder are: only when you stop holding onto mortal life (the imaginary world in Beyonds’ case) and accept your death (accept you have to go ‘outside’), you may notice they’re actually angels who have been trying to help you realize the truth. Through brutal means, but still. I guess the Detective God was created by the part of the Beyonds’ subconscious that understands they have to accept the reality, or something. He’s a bit like Silent Hill monsters in this way. Note that the person the Detective God mainly attacks (and possibly talks with him off-screen earlier) is the Original. And the Story it happens in, Fourth (II), is the point after which the Original probably started thinking about the plan involving killing everything they hold dear to make them face reality. It was really Detective God who first made the Original and the Second One aware of ‘God’ -- even if indirectly: getting them to think about ‘God’ by making them refute the claim that Seiryoin is their God, getting them to think about what the presence of ‘the canon Tsukumo Juku’ before them means for their own existence. Or Maijo just likes to write hard vore and i’m thinking too much

#sparkly reads cosmic #long post #maijo and jdc stuff #hcs meta and stuff #uhhh I guess I'll also tag this as #jorge tag #though it doesn't have a lot of jorge #tsukumojuku spoilers #jdc spoilers #and surprisingly #jacob's ladder spoilers

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mittensmorgul · 7 years ago

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The maddest thing a man can do

I’m currently suffering my way through a rewatch of late s10, which is the point where Cas’s personal character development was temporarily sidetracked along with Dean’s, in favor of writing the SPN universe’s origin story in s11... but my s10 complaints are taking a back seat for this post, and instead I’m gonna focus on how 10.18 has brought us (FINALLY!) to where Cas is after 12.23. That’s EXACTLY where the story’s led us.

(I’ve been talking about this with Lizbob this morning, in relation to the reply she posted earlier about Dean and Jody connected up through Biggersons, Gas N Sip, TDK slammers, and 13.03 speculation, because this is the Cas version of that speculation. This is the text post equivalent of the red string conspiracy picture: “okay I'm writing the thing. 10.18, 10.20 *which I'm watching right now*, 10.23, 11.10, 11.22, 11.23, 12.01, 12.02, 12.03, 12.09, 12.15, 12.19, 12.23... *ties red strings around all of them* “

So that’s my premise for the progression of Cas’s journey to the Maddest Thing A Man Can Do. We get all this exposition from Metatron in 10.18, reminding us of Cas’s humanity (that Metatron forced on him in 8.23, and which he’s struggled with throughout s9-- sacrificed in 9.09 when he stole Theo’s grace in order to survive and alert Dean about “Ezekiel” having died in the fall, lamented in 9.11 with Sam, struggled with nearly dying in early s10 before Crowley gave him another infusion of stolen grace in 10.03, and then pushed to the side in the name of saving Dean through most of the rest of s10... until Metatron brings this back to the surface in 10.18, sending Cas off on a series of personal side-missions to collect enough Experience Points to prepare him for the Final Boss Battle. But I’m getting ahead of myself here...)

METATRON: Really? That song is a classic. Yeah I hear you. I do. And you’re right. Inclement weather on the day of your nuptials and the wrong cutlery at inopportune times is hardly ironic. But it sure is catchy. Yeah, fair point. Can’t argue taste. But since I became human, it’s just so….strange. All these feelings, you know? I mean, I can feel music. Like that last song, “Sussudio.” I don’t even know what it’s about and I love it. I always enjoyed lyrics, words, stories. Gives me goose bumps. And Goosebumps – don’t even get me started on those. Creepy! And yet….arousing.

and then

METATRON: Mmmmmm! O…M…Me! Oh. Food. Glorious Food. Mmm. All the countless descriptions in so many books, but those are just words. Oh, the taste, the – the actual taste…. I had no idea. Oh. And the process. Goes in here [he points to his mouth]…comes out here [points toward his rear]. Sorcery. I mean, you used to be human. Don’t you miss all this? CASTIEL: No. I don’t miss digestion. I don’t miss indigestion. METATRON: No, no, no. Not that. I mean, don’t you miss the feeling of all this? Like the taste of these waffles. The sound of a child’s laughter. Look at us. We’re a couple of angels who’ve touched not only the divine, but the mundane. You and I have a lot in common.

and then

CASTIEL: “What is the maddest thing a man can do?” It’s a riddle? What – what’s the answer? METATRON: Beats me. I’ve only been a man a day. Um, the – the answer to the riddle will lead to another book. And inside that book, you’ll find your Grace. We’re gonna work this out together, okay? Teamwork.

leading up to:

CASTIEL: What we did back there was unfortunate. No more of our brothers and sisters should die. METATRON: Brothers and sisters? Listen to you. Still spitting out the company line like anyone cares. Like we’re actually a family? When what we really are – are a bunch of glowing lights filled with self-loathing or delusions of grandeur. Or both. CASTIEL: You shut up! METATRON: No! If I’m gonna die, I want answers. Like, who are you now? Like, you’re obviously not an angel of the Lord. And what about all of this walking the earth like Caine from “Kung Fu” crap? Cleaning up Heaven’s messes. How many more rogue angels are there out there? And, what are you gonna do once you’re done with all that? Go back to Heaven? Please. The angel formerly known as Hannah has restored order up top. Smoothest it’s run since God cut the ribbon on the pearly gates. So tell me, Castiel, truly, what is your mission now? CASTIEL: You shut up and keep looking. [Castiel walks away.] METATRON: Well…Cannot say I didn’t try. [He activates the sigils and walks toward Castiel in the next row. Castiel is coughing and collapses.] Poor Castiel. Swam so far just to drown in shallow waters. Isn’t it ironic? Don’t ya think?

Metatron has just stated Cas’s eventual entire journey, even though like most of Metatron’s “stories,” it all happens in ways he never expected. Metatron uses his clue (“What two things do you need to succeed in life?” Ignorance and confidence.) to find the Demon Tablet, while Cas uses the Cervantes quote to find his grace.

What’s the maddest thing a man can do? Let himself die.

The “human” part of Cas that he’d been struggling to reconcile with the angel part since 9.01 is sacrificed in a last-ditch effort to save himself from burning out entirely. But instead of being the END of Castiel’s journey, it’s truly the very beginning of it. It’s more a reuniting of these two halves, and the next two seasons are about Cas coming to terms with what he wants, and with who he is, where he belongs, and where he wants to be regardless. Metatron spells it all out:

who are you now? Like, you’re obviously not an angel of the Lord. And what about all of this walking the earth like Caine from “Kung Fu” crap? Cleaning up Heaven’s messes. How many more rogue angels are there out there?

And, what are you gonna do once you’re done with all that? Go back to Heaven? Please.

So tell me, Castiel, truly, what is your mission now?

And as we’ve come to see post 12.10, 12.12, 12.15, and 12.19, maybe the problem is the fact he feels he has a “mission” at all... Maybe what he needs is to finally TRULY BELIEVE that he is a full-fledged member of the Winchester family, and not just because that’s where he wants to be. He needs to understand that THEY want HIM to be an equal part of the family, and not just because he’s useful to them or because of what he can do for them.

(aside to point out the episode immediately following this one also deals with this theme of a man letting himself die being the maddest thing he can do, but that sharing the burden out between multiple people has the power to save everyone... but I know I have meta on this comparison back in my 10.19 tag so I’m gonna shut up about it here *ties that red string into a neat bow and moves on*)

Cas spends 10.20 tying his own personal little red strings into neat bows with regards to Claire and his obligations to her for feeling responsible for everything that’s happened to her and the loss of her parents, but this was just step one in making peace with himself. Helping Claire find her mother, and then helping her move on with her own life, giving her some peace over Jimmy’s sacrifice, helping her (and the audience) understand that Cas is (and has been since 4.22) an entirely separate entity from Jimmy, and that Jimmy’s arc for Cas is officially over. From that point on, Cas can progress through his own ordeal of humanity.

Of course he gets sidetracked by the narrative (as all of TFW do while dealing with the Darkness), but as I said earlier, each of those side quests provides him more insight into his own situation. All those episodes I mentioned above provide him the chance to sort through his own sense of guilt, his unresolved feeling of obligation to Heaven, to repairing the damage he’s done through releasing the Leviathan, for the chain reaction that led to at the end of s8 and his feelings of complicity with Metatron in the Angel Fall event, and the subsequent damage to Heaven and Earth that the ensuing battles have led to... right the way up to his complicity with Sam in using the Book of the Damned to “cure” Dean of the Mark and releasing the Darkness...

This led directly to the sense of personal desperation that prompted him to say yes to Lucifer, feeling that he was useless for anything else, and choosing to make what he believed was the necessary sacrifice so that Sam and Dean wouldn’t have to. This is the same logic that drove him to agree to work with Kelvin in 12.15, and to steal the Colt from Dean in 12.19. He was going to do the Terrible Bad Thing (killing an innocent-- Kelly) so that Dean and Sam wouldn’t have to.

Up to that point, he’d been trying to do the maddest thing an angel can do... to sacrifice himself in the name of humanity (and Humanity). Again, a Metatron quote, that Cas may have draped himself in the flag of heaven, but in the end he’d done it all in the name of one man. And while Cas may have understood this on an intellectual level, ever since 10.18 when he’d taken on the burden of his own grace again, as Metatron had told him, as an angel, he could go through the motions of eating the waffles, but only as a human could they truly EXPERIENCE those feelings directly.

Through everything that’s happened to him since 10.18, Cas has had this barrier of his grace blocking him from FEELING the humanity of it all. He’s got the advantage of experience to guide him through an intellectual understanding of this, and a memory of what it DOES feel like from a human perspective, and that certainly has played a role in guiding his actions. But he’s still struggling with those same essential questions posed by Metatron. The essential ones also posed to him back in 9.06-- that yes he wants to live, but as what? An angel or a man?

The same one raised throughout his history going all the way back to his doubts about Heaven’s Plans way back in 4.07. His story has been slowly reconciling those doubts with his own exploration of humanity, dealing with his guilt and his choices going right through 12.23, when he’s finally done the maddest thing a man can do.

That’s not to say that Cas “let” himself die in 12.23, and we clearly don’t have a full understanding of everything that happened there yet, but we do know one thing. Cas still needs to answer those questions for himself.

#spn s13 speculation #spn 12.23 #castiel winchester #i blame metadouche for everything including global warming and bee colony collapse #are you an angel or a man castiel? (hint: he's no angel)#i feel like i'm trying to convey far more than any amount of words can here and i'm failing horribly at it #but i look at that string of episodes and see a very clear red thread connecting all of them #but honestly i'm literally reduced to the embodiment of that image up there for lack of a more concise way to explain it all #let me explain... no there is too much... let me sum up #*points and flails at all the red string*#s12 hellatus rewatch #spn 10.18 #spn 10.19 #spn 10.20

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kittensjonsa · 8 years ago

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Some thoughts on season 7 plot leaks, general GOT, jonerys and Jonsa (Meta)

Hi, first of all I wanted to say thank you for your tumbrl. It’s always full of nice and positive quotes, articles and metas. I’m a sucker for ships, I guess I just like to see people happy. Jonsa has quickly become one of my favorite ships. I don’t have a tumbrl or any real platform to express my opinions about it but if you allow me I would like to share some of my thoughts with fellow shippers.

Well, first I have to say I didn’t watch GOT since the beginning, actually I started watching after season 6 was out. My first introduction to the show was a clip of jonsa, I thought it was the clip of a couple and then I read they were siblings (this was confusing and disturbing…. until the pilot, I’m talking to you J/C). If you want to keep watching GOT you have to get over incest issues or…. family sexual intercourse, so I got over it. Then I watched the whole show, I haven’t read the books cause I don’t want to confuse myself with information that has not been revealed in the show yet or may never be.

I was surprised to see how many people hate Sansa in the fandom, I find her character and story arc very interesting. I love her story, and I love Arya’s, and Bran’s, and Jon’s. Why is people comparing them? Why is people pitting them against each other? Specially the 2 sisters. One is not better than the other, they both make mistakes, very stupid mistakes but they also survive in their own right. Arya is not strong because she knows how to fight (physically), she is strong because of who she is. Fighting is an skill, just like playing an instrument, sewing, drawing or being good with numbers. I’m a terrible athlete and I can only do maths for daily use but that doesn’t make me weak, stupid or less awesome. I have other abilities and those are my strengths. You are strong when you know what are you good at, that’s how you play your part in a larger picture, that’s how you fight. Sansa has her witty, her courtesy and her words, she is fighting from inside (by the way she has no blame on what happened to Ned, she is responsable for getting herself stuck in Kings Landing which she fully knows and understand)

Then I saw a very vocal group of people shipping jonerys and after 6 seasons I have to say…. I still don’t see it. Yes, I see the parallels but there are so many parallels with so many other characters. I do believe a meeting between these 2 characters is inevitable and needed for the story to progress. But this is not a romantic love story between the 2 heroes. This is a story about power. D&D said it 6 years ago when they started the series. This is a story about people who wants power ( Littlefinger, the Tyrell’s, The Frey’s, Daneyris and so on), the ones who have power and want to keep it (the Lannisters) and the ones stuck in the middle (the Starks and the realm).It’s about what power do to people, all that they loose in the process and the pain it causes them. It’s very well explained in the first season.

What I love about GOT is that everybody can be the hero or the villain, it all depends of the lent with which you see it. You are a hero if you play for your family and a villain if you play against them. Honor is not that simple either. Why is an oath-breaker less honorable for saving millions of lives? why is an oath-breaker better for following his heart? Do you ever really win? There’s no absolutes in this world.

I know this is long but I have a lot to say, bare with me please. Which leads me to the leaks and promo pics. There’s been endless discussions about them, I’ve heard all kind of opinions, pro and anti. That’s why I write about them now. The leaks came very early on and with them set pics that corroborate most of them. Jonsa shippers where pissed off and disappointed. I know I was but mostly cause those weren’t little hints or clues of what’s to come but entire plot lines and episode scrips. But here are the good news. Plot lines don’t give us real context or understanding of how the characters are feeling about their situations.

- Littlefinger is plotting and pitting Sansa and Arya against each other ( doesn’t tell us if this is working, it’s setting a dramatic conflict. Guess what? This is a drama)

- Jonsa is having arguments and they are separated the whole season (doesn’t said in which terms, we haven’t seen any dialogues there)

- Jonerys is having sex (according to the leaks they meet in the second episode, get separated at the third and reunited and have sex in the seventh. It took Jon and Igrytte 10 episodes with no separations to finally get in bed together…. and they were in love) And since the structure of the show gives us an average of 10 minutes per character each episode, sometimes even less. How are they gonna develop a real relationship there?

Lots of characters haven’t been mentioned in the leaks either. I doubt they don’t have story arcs this year. Also most of the leaks were predictable and very plausibles. Jon meeting Theon and being super angry at him (we all saw that coming). Jonerys meeting (at this point of the story it’s necessary). Arya and Bran coming home, also very necessary. Sansa is taking care of littlefinger…super necessary. Euron is siding with Cercei, yeap, very predictable. All the signs are in the last season.

JONSA AND JONERYS THOUGHTS

I’m a jonsa shipper. I’m a shipper but I love good stories more. When one of my ships don’t work on a narrative level I understand. What frustrates me is when writers try to fit a ship as fan service. Now, I’m not a Danerys fan. The only moments I get to enjoy her story is when she learns something and show some humility. Unfortunately this is not very often. I love Tyrion and Jorah. Her best moments so far has been with them cause they are actually smarter than her and humble. Danerys has been since season 2 very entitle, very proud, she even crowned herself (until you get to Westeros and you are appointed you don’t have a real crown, otherwise everybody can be crowned). Saying you are king or queen doesn’t make you either of them as the show has proven so far. Dario said last season she wasn’t born to sit in a palace and give orders, she is a conqueror (very different from being a ruler). She lacks humility which Jon has in spades. Her story has been very separated from all the important ones and that’s everybody complain, mine too. That’s why excite me she is finally making it to Westeros, her story will actually matter. It can be argue that Jon story has been separated from everybody too but he is a Stark (ok, %50 Stark) but a Stark nevertheless and all that happened in Kings landing and the North affects him for that reason. I love Jon, he is my guy.

Putting aside my feelings for Danerys, having J/D falling in love doesn’t do any real service to the story, at least not from my point of view. They would be a terrible couple. She is power hungry, wants the Iron throne more than anything and will do anything for it. Jon wants to serve the people, fight for their lifes. Danerys wants a king just in title, she wants to rule alone. Jon doesn’t want power but he knows he wasn’t born to be a submissive husband either. They would be fighting to be on top all the time. Two people on the top at the same time is physical and mentally imposible. As I said before the plot leaks don’t give too much room for a romance development there, everybody is busy doing their thing, but we won’t know until we see. If what the show is trying to do is a political alliance by marriage then why jonerys would have sex first and soo quickly? It can only go downhill from there ( that’s actually good news for jonsa shippers). Also Jon parentage revelation will be huge. It will change everything for whoever makes it into the final season. That’s what excite me the most. If jonerys hook up I really hope it serves the story somehow and not be just fan service.

I needed to get through jonerys first so I could explain why jonsa makes more sense narratively speaking. Sansa and Jon started being so idealist and they had a hard awaken to the world. They endured so much to be who they are right now, they were the last people they expected to rely on at the end, and that makes it even better for me. While everybody was hyped for a reunion between Jon and Arya (that would be awesome) I found jonsa more suitable.Two characters we have never seen interacting with each other but with previous history. Both really free for the first time, both damaged, both carrying their scars and still feeling the pain. Jon needed purpose and Sansa had a big one. All their scenes together were a delight to watch, from their first meeting, through the fights and the “we have to trust each other” moment. That’s how you develop a relationship. No sex there, no making out session, that last one was a real intimated moment. Aside from my enjoyment of Kit Harington and Sophie Turner on screen chemistry and the way their scenes were edited and directed, jonsa works narratively as an end game. Jon could die at the end, that’s a real possibility, I know. But damn, Jonsa getting married at the end for political reasons, for duty, to keep the North and the realm together is far more satisfying. Cat said this to Robb once, what Ned and she had grew stronger and lasted longer than passion. I’m team Stark all the way, that’s the family we spend more time with, we are rooting for them, for Ned’s family.

Me:

A lovely meta was sent by a nonny and just had to share it for the Jonsa perspective.

Oh yes my kink is seeing ppl happy and enjoying themselves and letting them ship whoever or whatever they want because honestly if my tumblr could be anything, it’ll be for anyone to have a good time, a good laugh and just see that there’s always a silver lining no matter what. Life is hard and can’t let that get to you. If any of my silly posts made you smile then my work is done 😊 Oh and sorry for the bad jokes/puns lol. Also, for this less than eloquent reply.

And I ship JonSa like it’s the air I breathe lol I have been since the books (low key) - their POVs and values are so similar like how a couple should be.

So imagine me when S6 came, I pounced on it with everything I had in me, that ship gives me life!! And so I am glad to have found a fantastic fandom right here on tumblr and Jonsa shippers are just the best! (really they are!)

Thank you for the mail Nonny!! Bless you and hope you’re having a great day wherever you are!! And yes, Jonsa for life babyyy!! 😘

#fan mail #thank you nonny!#jonsa meta #jon x sansa #my kink is happiness #submission #anti jonerys #dany is going to die

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theyxthinkxmexmad · 7 years ago

Note

Let's go for the obvious meta: brotherhood

send me a topic to write a meta about my muse on

{ @livingsouloflove }

// In case you couldn’t guess, the above gif represents me, screaming about my feels concerning Loki, Thor, the relationship between the two, and how it relates both to their relationship with the rest of the family and their world(s), as well as how it relates to the overall narrative/plot of the Thor/Avengers movies.

I would argue that, of all of the relationships in the MCU, Loki and Thor may well have one of the most complicated––if not the most complicated.

To begin, there are quite a few references made in the movies about shadows. Loki makes most of them, but even his mother makes some (in a deleted scene). When Thor asks his mother, Frigga, if she ever regrets teaching Loki magic––perhaps his primary tool/weapon aside from that silver tongue he uses to such terrible effect––she responds thusly, “No. You and your father cast large shadows, I had hoped by sharing my gift with Loki, he could find some sun for himself.”

For as long as Loki can remember, Thor was the favorite. Of his father.

No matter how clever Loki might be, no matter how his clever mind might triumph over impossible odds and the more mundane training regiments the young princes no doubt had to endure, Odin was always more attentive to Thor. He always knew better how to praise Thor and appreciate his fighting. Is this out of any maliciousness on Odin’s part? Perhaps not. It might well simply be because Thor was more like Odin and Odin could understand and respect that far better than Loki’s magic and cunning.

Thor was also he favorite of their ‘shared’ friends.

The Lady Sif and the Warriors Three always looked to Thor as their de facto leader. Thor was always tall and strong, sturdy of build and good in a fight, and their four friends realized him as being someone like hem. A warrior.

Loki, on the other hand. Loki with his slim build, coupled with the fact that I suspect––due to being a Frost Giant brought to another world where he had no previous exposure to whatever illnesses existed there––he was perhaps even rather sickly as a child. Sif and the Warriors Three, I don’t think, were ever truly unkind to him, beyond a few perhaps too sharp barbs every now and then. They thought it was simply teasing, but to someone like Loki who wanted so desperately to fit in and to be liked and acknowledged, it came across more as criticism, as being disliked and mocked.

And so, Thor was favored, by all except perhaps their mother who loved both of her sons [and by one other, though this is solely my own headcanon that pulls a little from Norse myth and includes Sigyn].

So often in the shadow of his brother, Loki at last decided to leave Thor to his friends. If they preferred Thor––and Thor, though I think made attempts to bridge the gap between his friends and Loki, could not quite do it––then they could have Thor and he would leave them be.

Loki was still quite young when he began to hide himself away, often in the libraries and archives, making friends that would not turn away from him or judge him for not being as strong or as tall or as fierce. He made friends of books. He read and he read and he read until he likely could have told more of the libraries and archives and their contents than those meant to maintain them. Unfortunately, as much as he enjoyed reading, it could not entirely replace the need for friends, or entirely banish his loneliness.

Frigga, noticing her (adopted) child’s deep sadness, decided to teach him magic, as well as her more agile and acrobatic fighting style. With his mother’s guidance, he grew to be powerful in magic, perhaps more powerful than any others in Asgard, aside from his mother, and with her fighting style, far more agreeable to his lithe form, he even began to win the various training battles.

No doubt he thought that perhaps his father would at last acknowledge him as an equal to his brother, yet, as above-mentioned, Odin did not.

Regardless, though he envied him, still Loki could not hate Thor. He loved (and still loves) his brother dearly, in fact. But. More than anyone, Loki knew and recognized Thor’s limitations and out of love for his brother and for Asgard, he attempted to delay Thor’s coronation, at last until he was ready. Because, here’s the thing, Loki never wanted the throne. Not until he felt that was the only way he could prove himself. All he wanted was to be noticed. To be equal to Thor in his father’s eyes.

Now, when Loki finds out that he’s ‘adopted’, that puts quite a different slant on things. It brings all of his insecurities and fears. It puts all of that favoritism and exclusion into a much more sinister light.

Loki: The Casket wasn’t the only thing you took from Jotunheim that day, was it? Odin: No. In the aftermath of the battle I went into the temple and I found a baby. Small for a Giant’s offspring, abandoned, suffering, left to die. Laufey’s son. Loki: Laufey’s son? Odin: Yes. Loki: Why? You were knee-deep in Jotun blood. Why would you take me? Odin: You were an innocent child. Loki: No. You took me for a purpose. What was it?… TELL ME! Odin: I thought we could unite our kingdoms one day. Bring about an alliance, bring about permanent peace… through you. Loki: What? Odin: But those plans no longer matter. Loki: So I am no more than another stolen relic, locked up here until you might have use of me? Odin: Why do you twist my words? Loki: You could have told me what I was from the beginning! Why didn’t you? Odin: You’re my son… I wanted only to protect you from the truth… Loki: What, because I… I… I am the monster parents tell their children about at night? Odin: [unwell] No! No! Loki: You know, it all makes sense now, why you favored Thor all these years, because no matter how much you claim to love me, you could never have a Frost Giant sitting on the throne of Asgard!

[ excerpt from this scene ]

See, even in Odin’s claim that saving Loki was out of pity, out of love, out of whatever paternal instincts Odin might have had, Loki––‘god’ of lies––knew that it wasn’t the truth. Or at least not all of it.

Think about this though. As Loki points out, there were no doubt stories telling of how the Frost Giants were nothing but monsters, heathens, barbarians. Tales telling of how the Asgardians slew them. And Loki grew up being told these tales, hearing them and learning how awful and inferior the Frost Giants are to Asgardians. And learning something like that, from so young, only to find out that all of those tales you have been told, likely even some your supposed father told… you weren’t one of the Asgardians. You were one of the monsters.

So, yes, Loki gets angry. And Loki lashes out. Loki takes it out on Odin and on Thor, perhaps especially on Thor. But he’s not angry at Thor. Not really. In fact, I believe it kills him to lash out at Thor like this. Just watch this scene.

Loki is trying to provoke a fight so that he can prove himself. He needs to show that he is strong, that he can best Thor. And yet, his eyes are welling with tears. He is in so much pain, yet––a flaw in his character––rather than seek his mother and brother for comfort and understanding (though, to be fair, he probably wouldn’t have expected much of either from Thor, pre-banishment), he lashes out.

Now, when Avengers rolls around, I would put forth that he isn’t acting entirely of his own will. To read more about my take on that, see this post. But, even with that, there are still moments [ such as here and here ]. In the latter clip, “Sentiment,” he says, even as a tear escapes his eyes.

But it’s in Thor: The Dark World, where you truly see the relationship between he two brothers, both what it had been and what it could be again.

Because, despite everything, despite his anger and his envy, despite feeling as though he lived in Thor’s shadow, I believe he still cares for Thor, still wants his attention, even if he can’t admit that even to himself. Examples of this relationship, from what it had become to what it evolves into even in the course of the movie, can be found here / here, here, here, and lastly here [ though, if you don’t mind MAJOR spoilers, there’s also this here and here ]. I mean, I would fully advocate that anyone who wants to interact with my Loki should 100% give The Dark World a watch, because it is so critical to understanding––or at least witnessing another side to––Thor and Loki’s relationship.

So yes. I’m not entirely certain that I answered the actual question, but I gave it a damn good try.

#livingsouloflove #|| out of tricks || { ooc }#|| he is subtle; and as prone to mischief as able to perform it || { about Loki }

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bassfanimation · 8 years ago

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The Secret Girlfriend Theory

Before anyone chortles at the title of this, please bear with me. It’s something that, I think in the ending of the Sherlock series, actually makes sense if I had to dissect his relationships with women (romantically speaking).

Since so many people have enjoyed the “I Love You: A Man’s Perspective” post, I also had a great talk with my hub about this new theory of mine, and again, his interpretation from a man’s perspective is really interesting. We also had a very personal talk, which opened my eyes to something I didn’t know about him before. I’ve asked if I can include it here and he’s totally cool with. He’s also completely amazed that people like our banter, but mostly he likes that it’s opened up new avenues of discussion in the fanbase. I’ll denote in the post between our views for clarity.

A small disclaimer: this is merely my (and some of my dude’s) own personal view, coming from our own worldviews and experiences. In no way am I writing any meta, thoughts, or opinions that are meant to invalidate anyone else’s reading of the show or characters. Everyone can have their view and their story, and it’s ok. These are just ours. Art and media is open to everyone’s interpretations.

This is another long one folks, so take a potty break now!

In The Final Problem, Sherlock had to say the most painful words he’s had to say throughout this entire series: “I love you.” What’s worse, he had to say these words in front of the two people he has most wanted to impress in his life: John and Mycroft. I think them being in the room with Sherlock for this test was highly, highly significant.

Sherlock has always been like the Wizard of Oz, which I wrote something back a while ago. I’m not sure if I can find it though as I think it was on the end of someone else’s post, but I might be wrong. Anyways, Sherlock make believes he is a larger than life figure in front of literally everyone, but none moreso than John Watson, and his brother Mycroft.

With John...John is Sherlock’s #1 fan. Sherlock wants John to believe he is the ubermensch. He’s Superman, literally. Even Moffat and Gatiss have stated things that lead you to believe they too thought of Sherlock Holmes as a comic book hero. To young boys, he is just that. Sherlock, in turn, thrives off of John’s adoration for him and his skills, he clearly eats it up. Most immature, childish people crave attention, and Sherlock is the picture of immaturity at the start of this series. Because of Sherlock’s need for John to see him as this super-intelligent, amazing man, he has to hide a lot of the more ‘human’ aspects that he has deep inside himself. It’s why John thinks he’s a “machine”, early on. Sherlock, in effect, cannot let John Watson see how the sausage is made. (no dick jokes now, this is a clean post, you can send me dick jokes later tho)

Next, with Mycroft, it’s very obvious as to why Sherlock hides all his feelings even more around his big brother. With John, Sherlock is Superman. With Mycroft, Sherlock is only a child, and he makes this very well known in how he talks to and treats him. He taunts Sherlock constantly about sentimentality. He mocks love, he cares nothing for feelings, and he uses the mere notion of Sherlock “feeling” against him. Any sort of emotion Sherlock has he absolutely cannot let Mycroft become wise to them. I like to believe that Sherlock actually idolizes his big brother, and loves him deeply (we see in the family videos). He’d never show it of course, because to show it would mean Mycroft would probably roll his eyes at him and Sherlock, until this point, couldn’t handle that.

Now, let’s take a good look at the women in Sherlock’s life (that we know of) who’ve had even any inkling of romantic or sexual attraction with Sherlock.

Irene Adler. Even as a Sherlolly shipper to the grave, I will never deny Irene and Sherlock’s very real attraction. Gatiss has stated Irene and Sherlock were “made for each other”, and he’s right, in a specific way. BC has stated that he truly believes Sherlock and Irene had a night together (that means sex, to be indelicate about it, heheh) after he saved her. Now, technically that’s not canon, as canon only pertains to what happens on screen. But, if the actor that’s playing the character has imagined that in the character’s backstory, and is playing that character with that in mind, then I feel it’s so close to canon it might as well be. *shrug* Anyways...there was an intimate, sexual love affair between Sherlock and Irene...with one very interesting aspect that spans across to other women, later: it was a secret, until now. More on that later.

Sherlock never allowed John to know that he knew Irene was alive. Sherlock purposely kept Irene’s existence as a connection to himself as secret from everyone. From John, to Mycroft, to literally anyone, even Molly Hooper, of course (though I like that Molly never considered it a secret, she deduced it pretty clearly when Sherlock ID’d Irene’s body despite her face being unrecognizable). We see in TSoT that Irene appears inside Sherlock’s mind, naked, and seductively touching his face. Irene Adler is a secret, but she is firmly, undeniably still part of Sherlock’s life, his dreams, his lust, his admiration...all of that. But she is his secret romance. Again, I’ll revisit this in a bit.

Janine Hopkins is up next. We don’t meet Janine until TSoT, which is also where Irene Adler pops into Sherlock’s mind, AND Molly Hooper is present and shown in contrasting ways to Sherlock more than a handful of times. All three of these women are making a very bold impact in TSoT, which is the episode featuring John and Mary’s wedding. For me, that is no coincidence. Mary also is playing a hugely impactful role, but not a romantic one. Many JLers interpret TSoT and the women in it as Sherlock struggling with his losing John because he’s in love with John. It’s totally fine if you want to see that. For me though, I think it’s the opposite. We have Irene inside Sherlock’s head, nude. We have Molly Hooper, who is now engaged but keeping her eyes firmly fixed on Sherlock (not to mention him peeping into the frame from behind as Molly’s kissing on Tom). And we have Janine who is actively looking to hook up with a man at the wedding. She’s a sexually mature, sexually available woman who has a pretty clear agenda. I rather loved that about J, she’s awesome. I’ll come back to that with a thought from my hub, later.

Now, Janine and Sherlock actually get on really well. They laugh together, Sherlock tries to impress her a bit, he goofs off with her. They have a really nice rapport, yet still she ends up dancing with someone else at the end of the wedding. We see her with another guy, we see Molly unfortunately chained to ol’ Meat Dagger McGee, Mary dancing romantically with John...and Sherlock goes off, alone...as Molly watches, helplessly. (damn that made me cry)

In the very next episode, His Last Vow, we see that Sherlock is actually dating Janine. Most of us knew that it was under false pretenses just because of the canon ACD story where Holmes fakes an engagement. The important part to notice is that In the first part of the episode, Sherlock has a near meltdown when Mycroft approaches his room, where Janine is sleeping. He physically threatens Mycroft to get him out of 221B and away from nosing about. He’s hiding a secret.

After Mycroft leaves, Sherlock goes to take a bath, and Janine then comes out of his bedroom, wearing one of his shirts as her pj’s. John is utterly gobsmacked, reflecting us, the audience, as we’re feeling the same. Janine then proceeds to act like a typical ‘girlfriend’. Sherlock eventually comes out of his room fully dressed, and the two put on a show in front of John that looks very normal, despite the audience knowing it’s bull. I think all of us remember the very awkward kiss Sherlock and Janine share that made all of us sort of recoil, because it felt unnatural. I know there’s about 10,000 meta pointing out that this means Sherlock is not into women, but I think there may be another reason that kiss was so weird. My hub has a good take on it. I’ll also bring this back up later.

Near the end of HLV, when Sherlock’s lying in the hospital with his gunshot wound from Mary, Janine visits him there. Her revenge and her words here now have a new meaning to me than they used to. She says, “I know what kind of man you are, Sherlock Holmes.” Then we see the tabloid news paper where Janine has blabbed to the press about her and Sherlock’s highly voracious sexual relationship. “He made me wear the hat!”, one of the headlines says. Sherlock looks really defeated by it all, and Janine says he didn’t have to lie to her, that they could have been friends.

Putting the rest of the series together, Janine’s words, and her “revenge” have a new meaning for me. It lines up with Irene, AND with Molly. Sherlock Holmes’s private life has never been examined much. If anything, it’s remained very “off screen”. Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat drew a lot of inspiration for Irene Adler from The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. I think that right there is what makes me think Sherlock’s love life was, in the BBC version, “private”. It’s something he wanted kept out of the public view, his friends’ view, everyone. It was not for them to know about it, especially considering how closed off Sherlock’s own true heart really was. It was basically DEAD, as the coffin in TFP represented.

Now, for Molly Hooper. Loo Brealey stated in a PBS podcast interview that she got this feeling that there was a lot going on behind the scenes with Molly and Sherlock. It’s never out in the open, but the way they interact leads you to think there is something there. We’re not sure what, but it’s deliberately set up to be an ‘are they or aren’t they’ question. Personally, I found Eurus’s test to give us the definitive answer: they ARE. The reason I think this is true, is how it was all laid out. It was made to be A) in front of John and Mycroft, B) the words I Love You had to be said, and they had to be REAL, Molly made sure of that or she wouldn’t have said it back to him (also genius on Eurus’ part), and C) how she told him to say it. She said, “You say it. Say it like you mean it.” This just absolutely smacks of two people who have a “something” together, but neither has actually made it REAL, until now. Not only were they BOTH forced to make it REAL, but it wasn’t a SECRET anymore. Mycroft knows it, John knows it (fkin finally), Eurus already knew it because she’s a badass queen. Sherlock is now terrified, the most private part of his life is now out in the open. The coffin was smashed. Skadoosh, you have a heart and everyone knows it now, no going back.

I think Molly Hooper has always been Sherlock’s ‘secret girlfriend’ (I know how dumb that sounds but I don’t have a better term) because that’s the way it was supposed to be: out of our view. Sherlock Holmes doesn’t flagrantly date women like Bruce Wayne, he doesn’t go on publicly identified dates at all (can you imagine the paparazzi). His heart IS his most guarded secret, and I don’t mean the friendly love he shared with John. That was well out in the open from the first series. It was even featured in the newspaper, which neither was happy about. No one likes their life blared about and dissected by the public. Also they’re Holmes and Watson, it’s the most iconic love between two men ever. No, in this series...Sherlock’s heart was the thing he struggled most to keep under wraps. It’s the thing that he was most afraid of, it’s the thing that made him most vulnerable, it’s the thing he could not risk, not even for us, the viewers!

Back to some ideas between me and my hub.

My view of Janine’s revenge was meant to be a huge slap to Sherlock by saying, “Look what I did, I let the public think they’re in on your sex life. I told lies about the most private thing you can do with another person. I made it into a joke.” Janine made Sherlock’s heart into a JOKE, let that sink in.

Now, Janine also said she “knew what kind of man Sherlock is”. This line is hotly debated by fandom as to what that means. I thought that that meant she knew he was a lying shit, and also he didn’t want people to know him, or his private affairs, especially regarding his most guarded emotions. That’s why Janine stuck it to him good. He made her heart a joke, so she made his a joke right back. Also, the awkward kiss? To me, that was so awkward, because Sherlock didn’t love Janine...he loved someone else, he just didn’t know it yet. I think he was so stiff and weird with Janine because it really wasn’t genuine at all, and it made him feel terrible on some level that he was there, hurting someone else (Molly) by being with Janine. He was betraying the good man Molly thinks he is...big time. I think that’s also why he didn’t have sex with her. A lot of people use that as evidence that Sherlock isn’t into women, but in the context of the series as I personally see it, I think he was close enough to Molly at that point that he felt like he’d be betraying her horribly to sleep with another woman.

My husband, who I just talked to this morning about this, has a wildly interesting view of Janine and Sherlock, and why that felt so odd. My hub thinks that Janine scared the pants off of Sherlock. He has always viewed Sherlock as a normal guy, but also, he’s a nerd. He is an immature, extremely childish, inexperienced NERD. He said that a sexually experienced woman who is very comfortable with her appetites for sex probably scared Sherlock shitless. He said Sherlock is essentially a virgin, despite having most likely had sex with Irene Adler. He noted that Sherlock and Adler probably only were together after it was on his terms, not hers. He went to Adler to save her, he was in that control over her at the time, meaning the intimacy they shared was on his terms. With Janine, however, she held the advantage over him, big time. My hub also thinks Sherlock was still highly inexperienced with sex, so, that aspect alone would mean he may very possibly avoid being in a situation with Janine where he could come off as a horrible sex partner...much like young guys fear when they have no effing clue how to please an experienced lady.

My hub also said he feels Janine was Sherlock’s “tantrum”. He came back from his faked death and everyone had moved on. He expected John to just whip back into things. He expected Molly to still be there at his beck and call. We saw the heartbreaking stairwell scene. She had moved on from him. At the wedding, we see Molly looking at Sherlock almost the entire time, and she is staring daggers at Janine as well. My dude says he feels Sherlock probably saw all this happening and said, “Well fuck it, if they’ve all moved on, heh I can do that, watch me I’m going to make them all so jealous, because I’m a great big fucking child and I can show them *sticks tongue out*”. So, he tries, but it’s a woeful wreck. I find this reading insanely cute, and heartbreaking, considering Sherlock even says to Mycroft on the phone, “I’m not a child!” Yes, you still are, Sherlock. :(

Let’s circle back around to Irene Adler for a moment where I’ll talk about my views first. I see Irene as Sherlock’s secret romance. I do believe they had a something shortly after Belgravia, but I don’t think it lasted. I think it was a short-lived, hot, firey affair in which two people who suddenly came together, and fit sexually and intellectually, clicked like hell. Irene Adler was Sherlock’s absolute fantasy come to life. We have all had those people we’ve looked at and just oozed lust for. Celebrities, singers, you name it. We all have our own personal fold-outs. Hell I have a Sherlock standy in my office that my own husband gave to me, LOL! I’m a lustful cow and Sherlock is hugely sexy to me...but he is also a fantasy. An image. Sherlock is not who I’d spend my life with. Sherlock isn’t going to come home, cook me spaghetti, rub my back, listen to me cry, etc. That man is my husband, who I truly love and loves me back for exactly who I am. I think, from my personal interpretation, Irene Adler is Sherlock’s ‘standy’. He does have strong feelings for her, and he always will because he obviously was intimate with her, and I think she was his first “love”. She’s gorgeous, dangerous, mysterious, smart as hell, and even sexier than she is smart. She is the ultimate fantasy. His secret fantasy, which we ALL have.

My hub’s view of Irene Adler is slightly more simple in that to him, she represents Sherlock’s desire, his sexuality. She is the flesh’s fantasy, in the flesh! What’s neat though is that she was also highly, highly intelligent, which was also a turn on for Sherlock. In the end though, Sherlock is already a genius. Irene was much more about the flesh than the mind, in this particular adaptation. In the books, Irene Adler was much more of an intellectual foil, so this read on the BBC Adler is very much aimed at sex, specifically Sherlock, and his very obvious interest in sex (and not with men). My hub and I agree though, that we both think that Irene is who Sherlock thought of for sex...not what he actually wanted in love. The fantasies we all have, the porn we watch, the fanfic I read, hell...that’s all great fun, but it’s not who we really are inside. We don’t want our fantasies at the end of the day. We want love. We want honesty, softness, common interests, trust, reliability. Sex is the sprinkles on the cake. When we’re old and in Depends we want someone who smiles at us like we’re the most beautiful person on Earth.

On to Molly Hooper, and why I believe she was truly Sherlock’s ‘secret love’, his real love. Molly was there with Sherlock from the very start, and always, always, always shown in a romantic (and even sexual) context. Even when the writers used her as the butt of jokes, it was still in relation to her love for Sherlock (stuff it with your fake feminism, there’s a point to it). Her love was ever present.

Now, Molly was also there when Sherlock behaved at his worst. She was aware of his moods, his volatility, his childishness, and still she remained strong in the face of that. She saw his emotions even when he was sure he’d locked them away. John and Mycroft sure didn’t see them. Molly really knew what kind of man Sherlock was, only unlike Janine...she was okay with that. She didn’t like when he was mean, but she corrected him. She tried her best to help him be better, and he let her do it. What did John say about Mary? John said he wanted to be the man Mary thought he was. Sherlock asked Molly in TRF, “If I wasn’t the kind of man I think I am, would you still want to help me?” The answer was an unbending yes. Sherlock allowed himself to be made a better man in large part thanks to Molly Hooper, not Irene, not Janine. Mary was the love of John’s life. What would that make Molly to Sherlock? To me it’s very clear, maybe it’s my shipper goggles, I won’t deny I love them, but to me the parallels speak for themselves.

Talking to my husband, he said he’s always related heavily to Sherlock, and I had never known why until this morning. He recalled when we first met, how closed off he was. He often spouted out random facts and knowledge, so much that my grandma used to call him a “Know It All”. We had a hard time connecting as anything other than friends, because quite frankly, I thought he was cold. We had a big fight once, and I cried and I said that he never showed emotion. When I was happy, I wanted him to be happy with me. When I was sad, I wanted him to understand that I was sad, and to be sad with me. He was raised in a family where the men were kind of closed off. Oddly enough he also had wanted to be a forensic pathologist, LOL. But it took YEARS for him to open up to me, and me to him, cause I’ve had my own horrible childhood woes that have led me to be very scared of intimacy. YEARS. People kept asking us if were were a “thing” and we never knew how to address it, until one day he just asked what we were. It was at that point that we gave it a go, we became a “thing”. We still had a long, long way to go though. Long story short, we’ve been with each other in some fashion for 17 years. We’re still learning how to love and to be open. For men, it’s twice as hard to learn. It takes a long time for them to understand their own feelings, and even then they’ll find new ways to be confused, LOL. It is human.

I’ve always thought of myself as Molly Hooper; lonely, a little weird, strange interests, plain, and probably no one’s lifetime love. And now I know my husband has always thought of himself a lot like Sherlock Holmes; lonely, emotionally sensitive but closed off out of fear, often insecure, intelligent with facts but afraid of emotion, having to unlearn aloofness and to be ok with trust. Forever we were together, but not together. Everyone sort of saw us and thought maybe we were a thing, maybe we weren’t. Were we secret lovers and didn’t realize it? We didn’t even know for ages, until one day, you just open your heart. After that, you see what happens. For us, our love for each other doesn’t fit the typical mold. We’re not everyone else, but we fit perfectly with each other. Perfectly.

Molly and Sherlock also fit perfectly, especially if you view them as who they really are, as the kind of people they actually are. He was closed off, a nerd to the 9th degree, not very “normal”, messy, childish, moody, stupid a LOT of the time, and not very popular with anyone. She was lonely but open, also a nerd to the 9th degree, not very “normal” herself but she didn’t care and didn’t pretend to be, had a sadness in her that she tried to turn into a smile for others, ignored but accepting of it, overlooked by everyone (except by one person), not very popular with anyone yet one person still came back to her time and time again. I find the stairway scene extra telling now, considering it was Molly trying to be “normal”, stating her and Tom have a dog and they go to pubs with friends...then as Sherlock insinuates that not every man she loves can be a sociopath, she whispers to herself, “Maybe it’s just my type”. Girl does not fit into any “normal” mold whatsoever, just like Sherlock doesn’t fit into a mold of any sort. I love that so much about them, it kills me, because I relate so much.

Molly and Sherlock are like me and my hub. The secrets that you don’t realize are there, right in front of you. Sometimes, people don’t even know what they feel. Sometimes it takes years, a crushing event, hell even a drunk night of Mario Kart and tamales. You just know when you know that you love someone. It’ll hit you like thunder and it’ll scare the shit out of you. That’s why I, and my hub, think Sherlock really did mean what he said to Molly, and that he’s known on some level for a very long time that she was the real deal. She’s not his standy. Not his foldout. Not an experiment.

Molly as Sherlock’s real love might have been a secret before, but now she’s real, and his love is real for her too now. It became real in front of John Watson and Mycroft Holmes, the other two most important people in their circle. The coffin that Sherlock obliterated in front of them? That’s the secret being destroyed. The love is revealed. Their love may not fit a mold, it may not be the kind of relationship you think of when you think of ‘boyfriend’ and ‘girlfriend’, but it doesn’t have to be like everyone else’s relationships. These two people fit in their own way, and I think Molly has always, always been okay with that. Similarly, Sherlock knows she’s okay with that. Their realness is theirs to make it their own. You can’t go back to be a secret once you say “I Love You.” That is as real as it gets.

#Sherlock #Sherlolly #Molly Hooper #The Secret Girlfriend Theory #long post #extremely long post #like holy shit this took me forever long post #me and my dude talk about nerd love #and how it manifests #yay emotionally closed off people learning how to not be closed off #to us the entire series of Sherlock makes perfect sense like this #but we're just us #and everyone is always free to see how they want #this is just our way #please enjoy!

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