#not my meta

[the-obnoxious-sibling]

I saw post with link to theory that Oda used speech bubbles to hide shanks actual and I can’t find it

It definitely used the moment where Whitebeard asks about buggy and some other

Do you think there is a point in that theory? Would it be intentional? I do think the placement is weird for an accident but I am shuggy obsessed so….

It also would go nice with the fact that we still didn’t see shanks reaction at their “breakup “

ah, i gotchu, i saw that ask too, these are the tweets in question:

i've discussed previously that there could be a number of reasons shanks' reaction to the roguetown fight with buggy is obscured/hidden from us, but these panels… really did not need to be arranged this way?? like, i agree with goingbuggyy, it definitely feels like an intentional artistic choice and one that must have been a pita to adapt to the anime.

and given these panels are shanks

trying to convince luffy that it's nbd shanks just lost an arm

telling whitebeard that he hasn't seen buggy in twenty-plus years

i think their “hiding vulnerability behind lightheartedness” take is a totally valid interpretation

[anghraine]

I honestly don't remember who I saw the link from, but I just found Bret Devereaux's analysis of the Siege of Gondor in the LOTR films and the book (the part most relevant to my Stewardist interests is here, but I read the whole thing once I started!). I don't agree with all his interpretations on the literary level, but they're generally defensible and the military analysis is fascinating.

An excerpt:

In contrast to the film, the book shows Faramir and Denethor’s handling of the battle as nothing short of a masterful execution of defense in depth. At each stage, the army of Mordor is forced to sustain casualties and disorder to surmount one set of defenses, only to be presented with fresh defenses and troops. At the end of it, Denethor’s sortie shatters Mordor’s vanguard and buys the escape of Faramir’s force. Thus for all of their pains and delays, the Army of Mordor faces a Minas Tirith fully defended, having lost the chance to destroy a good part of the army of Gondor in the field.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Expertise can't help you here.

[bakedbakermom]

plz reblog for science

[trainwreckgenerator]

a face you'd find on the side of a milk carton

[meyerlansky]

ON the subject of undernegotiated kink in fanfiction. i think we should talk more about how the concept of "not talking about it" is just as much wish fulfillment for some people as "in-depth, therapy-speak conversations where everyone is clear and understood" is for others

like yes, in reality the antidote to shame is open honest conversation with someone who will validate your feelings and wants blah blah blah but SOMETIMES what i want out of my fanfic is characters being understood without having to expose themselves in that way. SOMETIMES it's fun to not dismantle the shame and repression all the way and to instead treat that understanding-despite-not-being-clear as the fantasy

[aficionadoenthusiast]

yes, percy rose through the ranks of new rome disturbingly fast. no, jason did not do the same at camp half blood. yes, percy's rise to leadership at both camps took about two weeks and was completely unplanned. no, the same cannot be said for jason. his rise was carefully planned and took over a decade. they're both children of the big three, but where percy thrums with raw power, jason is a sword honed by zeus and hera. where percy is a survivor, jason is a weapon. where percy is a cycle breaker, jason can't get out. jason's fatal flaw was temptation to deliberate because he never managed to make his own choices. he was every classic definition of a hero rolled into one, and he never questioned it because his happiness came after the responsibility. jason was never going to ascend as fast as percy because jason was raised on hard work and discipline while percy, an abuse survivor and child of poverty, knew when to fight dirty. where jason was a transplant, percy was an invasive species. jason was always going to die because he was never more than a tool for the gods to throw away when he outlived his usefulness, or when he started to question his place. if someone as locked down as jason can question the system, anyone can. now that luke has put thoughts of overthrow in everyone's heads, zeus has to be very careful because while jason was expendable as his weapon, percy was unexpected in every way. zeus has no plan for him. when percy dies, he will become a martyr, so he can't die, except now everyone knows that percy doesn't want to be a god either. jason had to die, and now percy has to live.

[teaandcrowns]

I love the way they approached Ozai and how they are showing him manipulating his children against one another even though they're hundreds and hundreds of miles apart. The way the original animated series approached Azula by showing us her perfect façade first and then cracking it was phenomenal, but the live action series showing us her doubts and how she works to forge that perfect façade is also phenomenal so far, because it gives her additional depth that wasn't as explored in the og series, but in all honestly, who's to say what they're showing in the la didn't happen that way off screen? It probably did.

I feel like a lot of the criticisms of giving this greater nuance and humanity to Ozai are wanting there to be a clear delineation of "who is a villain" and "who isn't a villain" for someone who has done such terrible things as Ozai has. But the truth of the matter is: there are no monsters. There are only humans. And humans do terrible things to one another. Humans can be loving and doting to one child and horrifically abuse another for no seeming reason. Humans who comport themselves rationally to everyone else can be absolutely terrible to their families in private. They can be insidious about it. They can believe they're showing love or "building character" or shaping someone into a better person, but it's really abuse.

People who commit heinous acts to individuals—including ones they [claim to] love—sometimes have convinced themselves that it was for the best, or for the other person's benefit, or that they were acting in the best way they could have. And they look and act like everyone else.

SPOILERS for Episode 6 of the Avatar Live Action series

AKA why this episode makes me SO grateful for this adaptation (re: the Zuko flashbacks and the Agni Kai).

----

Wow.

I admit, I was really worried at the idea that Zuko might potentially fight back in the Agni Kai against his father in the live action. I expected to HATE it, and it's certainly a bold change, but it fits in SO WELL with why Zuko is the way that he is (and why he works so hard to push down his empathy whenever Aang tries to reason with him).

The Agni Kai - Zuko obviously did NOT want to fight his father. He still tried to apologize and beg for mercy, but in the end he was just too terrified of his father to disobey a direct order.

But when Ozai left him an opening to see what he'd do with it, Zuko couldn't bring himself to actually land a blow that might burn him. Making his lack of ruthlessness the weakness that Ozai ends up mutilating him for - even straight up telling Zuko that compassion is weakness and then demonstrating by holding his own child down and lighting him on fire - adds a layer of depth that only enhances the original scene (and in another stroke of genius, we see Ozai nearly in tears himself. He's convincing himself of this lesson as well as Zuko, which was likely passed down to him by his own father). Honestly, this to me is even more heartbreaking than Ozai burning him for refusing to stand and fight. Zuko did everything his father asked and he still failed, because his family has distorted what it means to be honorable and believes Zuko's capacity for mercy to be a shameful weakness unbecoming of an heir to the throne.

The 41st Division - And here come the waterworks. Assigning the very people Zuko was hurt so severely for trying to save to his ship as it's being cast out of the fire nation (presumably forever, with the Avatar not having been seen in 100 years) is SUCH a brilliant addition. His crew resents Zuko for being stuck on this impossible mission with this bratty, angry child. And Zuko is too ashamed of his "weakness" to explain why they were assigned to him.

I can totally see Zuko's hurt at their lack of respect making him even more angry (especially after everything he went through to save them from being sacrificed), and his seemingly irrational anger at them just continuing to make them resent him more in a neverending feedback loop of anger and disrespect that's been growing and festering for 3 years.

Which makes the scene at the end when Zuko's crew finally learns about how he saved their lives (as well as why he's obsessed with the avatar, why he's banished, what his scar means and why he's trying so very hard to rid himself of empathy, even if he can never quite manage it when it counts) so much more impactful. I SOBBED when the 41st Division stood at attention and showed him their utmost respect and loyalty, possibly for the first time since they've been on that ship. Zuko's soft "what's going on?" at finally being honored by his crew is just imprinted on my brain.

The seed of the idea that his compassion may NOT actually be what was shameful about his banishment afterall can finally begin to take root.

I just, damn, I love this episode so much.

[gossippool]

*steeples hands under my chin like i'm sherlock* so you see,

[anghraine]

I read an interesting post this morning about the rhetoric around "trauma porn" and "misery porn" and so on. It's here.

I'm not reblogging directly because my response is fairly tangential, so I'm handling it in ye olde journal fandom way by making a separate post. But the short version of the other post is that "porn" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in those formulations in ways that reflect on cultural discourse around pornography, tragedy, exploitation, and spectacle. Also, there's something iffy about the way things like trauma or tragedy are conceptualized as intrinsically flawed and excessive if they don't directly further the core of the story or have a clear "point."

That's all true, though I think the "x porn" formulation extends faaar beyond dismissal of tragedy or misery or dark fiction. In these formulations, "porn" becomes a convenient shorthand for "this exploits [something, usually real] for the benefit and enjoyment of others, frequently others who are not otherwise involved with [thing]."

For instance, as someone with a disability, I'm accustomed to hearing criticism of "inspiration porn"—in which actual or fictionalized disabled people are exploited and reduced to hopeful inspiration for other, usually non-disabled people (in short, so others can feel good). You could say "inspiration exploitation" but ... meh. So it's important to be clear that this terminology is far from just disapproving of grimdark or whatnot.

That doesn't mean that "[x] porn" isn't worth interrogating as a catchphrase in terms of how it relates to cultural perspectives on pornography etc etc. Just that it's used in a much broader context than this particular issue.

Secondly, some of that insistence on trauma/tragedy/unhappiness as intrinsically excessive unless there's some clear point sounds very much to me as a sort of New Criticism approach as overheard on the bus. Maybe this leans a bit towards conspiracy theory, lol, but I can explain.

The OP probably knows this, but New Criticism is a now largely outdated theory of literary criticism which is, among other things, deeply concerned with the unity of literary texts. Elements of a text which do not further the core themes and ultimate coherence of the text are often seen as weaknesses or excess from this POV. It owes a lot to previous traditions and takes on What Art Should Be, going back at least as far as Aristotle's Poetics:

The plot, being an imitation of an action, must imitate one action and that a whole, the structural union of the parts being such that, if any one of them is displaced or removed, the whole will be disjointed and disturbed. For a thing whose presence or absence makes no visible difference, is not an organic part of the whole.

So trauma or tragedy or misery that does not seem fundamental to the unity or wholeness of the piece and doesn't seem to make much difference to what the text is about or thematically preoccupied with can feel disjointed. It's not difficult for otherwise hardline anti-intentionalists (which also smacks of overheard New Criticism) to assume this arises out of a lack of discipline, control, or critical thinking about subject matter.

Of course, it frequently depends on the case. There's often a certain amount of "if I like it, X element is necessary to The Unity, and if I don't, it's a disjointed and problematic mess." But still, the emphasis on coherence and conservation of detail as intrinsic to artistic merit of literature is also a much bigger conversation than "misery porn" discourse. Aristotle himself, for instance, argued that tragedy is a higher art form than comedy. I think the discussion is at least partly as much about minimalism/a NC-influenced value for unity.

(FWIW New Criticism is very much out of style, but the impact on how literary criticism is taught in at least the United States, especially in K-12, is very profound.)

[in-g-major]

Once I noticed this aspect of their relationship during my last rewatch, I HAD to reference it in one of my fics.

One head canon that I’m unreasonably passionate about is Zuko MUST have help Katara with the domestic work like cooking and cleaning. You can’t tell me he didn’t, I will not listen to you.

[saints-who-never-existed]

“In the war film, a soldier can hold his buddy—as long as his buddy is dying on the battlefield. In the western, Butch Cassidy can wash the Sundance Kid’s naked flesh—as long as it is wounded. In the boxing film, a trainer can rub the well-developed torso and sinewy back of his protege—as long as it is bruised. In the crime film, a mob lieutenant can embrace his boss like a lover—as long as he is riddled with bullets. 

Violence makes the homo-eroticism of many “male” genres invisible; it is a structural mechanism of plausible deniability.”

–Tarantino’s Incarnational Theology: Reservoir Dogs, Crucifixions, and Spectacular Violence. Kent L. Brintnall.

[kenobihater]

tragedy enjoyers when a character perpetuates the cycle of violence they themselves were a victim of

[tofixtheshadows]

I've been thinking a lot lately about how Kabru deprives himself.

Kabru as a character is intertwined with the idea that sometimes we have to sacrifice the needs of the few for the good of the many. He ultimately subverts this first by sabotaging the Canaries and then by letting Laios go, but in practice he's already been living a life of self-sacrifice.

Saving people, and learning the secrets of the dungeons to seal them, are what's important. Not his own comforts. Not his own desires. He forces them down until he doesn't know they're there, until one of them has to come spilling out during the confession in chapter 76.

Specifically, I think it's very significant, in a story about food and all that it entails, that Kabru is rarely shown eating. He's the deuteragonist of Dungeon Meshi, the cooking manga, but while meals are the anchoring points of Laios's journey, given loving focus, for Kabru, they're ... not.

I'm sure he eats during dungeon expeditions, in the routine way that adventurers must when they sit down to camp. But on the surface, you get the idea that Kabru spends most of his time doing his self-assigned dungeon-related tasks: meeting with people, studying them, putting together that evidence board, researching the dungeon, god knows what else. Feeding himself is secondary.

He's introduced during a meal, eating at a restaurant, just to set up the contrast between his party and Laios's. And it's the last normal meal we see him eating until the communal ending feast (if you consider Falin's dragon parts normal).

First, we get this:

Kabru's response here is such a non-answer, it strongly implies to me that he wasn't thinking about it until Rin brought it up. That he might not even be feeling the hunger signals that he logically knew he should.

They sit down to eat, but Kabru is never drawn reaching for food or eating it like the rest of his party. He only drinks.

It's possible this means nothing, that we can just assume he's putting food in his mouth off-panel, but again, this entire manga is about food. Cooking it, eating it, appreciating it, taking pleasure in it, grounding yourself in the necessary routine of it and affirming your right to live by consuming it. It's given such a huge focus.

We don't see him eat again until the harpy egg.

What a significant question for the protagonist to ask his foil in this story about eating! Aren't you hungry? Aren't you, Kabru?

He was revived only minutes ago after a violent encounter. And then he chokes down food that causes him further harm by triggering him, all because he's so determined to stay in Laios's good graces.

In his flashback, we see Milsiril trying to spoon-feed young Kabru cake that we know he doesn't like. He doesn't want to eat: he wants to be training.

Then with Mithrun, we see him eating the least-monstery monster food he can get his hands on, for the sake of survival- walking mushroom, barometz, an egg. The barometz is his first chance to make something like an a real meal, and he actually seems excited about it because he wants to replicate a lamb dish his mother used to make him!

...but he doesn't get to enjoy it like he wanted to.

Then, when all the Canaries are eating field rations ... Kabru still isn't shown eating. He's only shown giving food to Mithrun.

And of course the next time he eats is the bavarois, which for his sake is at least plant based ... but he still has to use a coping mechanism to get through it.

I don't think Kabru does this all on purpose. I think Kui does this all on purpose. Kabru's Post Traumatic Stress Disorder should be understood as informing his character just as much as Laios's autism informs his. It's another way that Kabru and Laios act as foils: where Laios takes pleasure in meals and approaches food with the excitement of discovery, Kabru's experiences with eating are tainted by his trauma. Laios indulges; Kabru denies himself. Laios is shown enjoying food, Kabru is shown struggling with it.

And I can very easily imagine a reason why Kabru might have a subconscious aversion towards eating.

Meals are the privilege of the living.

[teaandcrowns]

He had three agni kais! Ozai, Zhao, and then Azula during the comet

Zuko's unkillability should be utilized more in post canon. Every fire lord Zuko headcanon is all "poor Zuko, having to deal with so many assassination attempts, this boy is hanging on by a thread." But listen, my guy has already survived being burned, blown up, electrocuted, fought two agni kais, faced the Avatar numerous times. It becomes something of a meme in the FN that no one can kill the firelord so you shouldn't even try, Zuko ends up surviving increasingly elaborate and unlikely assassination attempts. He develops an immunity to poison after having been poisoned so many times. He's just like "huh, you thought THAT would kill me?" at this point.

[sanjiaftersex]

being a sanji fan is an intense experience because it takes you like 200 episodes to finally understand why sanji's eyes turned lifeless for a flickering moment at those words