#save me deep analysis that comes out of a place of love and respect for a story

[hadesknockedupintheunderworld]

Every day I have to contend with how Soriku fandom just spoils me with in depth analysis about the series itself as much as it spoils me with analysis of characters and the ship

Reading stuff like necklace theory, "riku is the light", the sleeping realms theory, and just fan analysis and translations of the original jp version of kh changed my life man

[writingfics-passingtime]

Playing the Part

~8300 words of steamy Loki tickle fluff

PG13 for this one, kids. Lots of making out.

CW: some swearing, suggestive humour, mentions of murder/death, alcohol consumption

Every job has its ups and downs, and every employee their good days and not-so-good days. You’d hardly classify yourself as an employee because you didn’t get a paycheque, your entire occupation was a hazard unto itself, human-resources was punching it out on the sparring mat and your boss was either a 100-year-old super soldier or an eccentric billionaire, depending on the day and who was wearing what suit.

Wait… should I be getting paid for this?

Looking around your room that you paid no rent on, in a multi-billion dollar superhero compound, you decided that wasn’t a question you were ever going to ask. The question of the hour was which dress would best conceal your thigh-holstered gun.

Today, your job entailed one of those tasks that could be fun if you decided it would be, or hell if you had a bad attitude about it. You prided yourself on always being up for any mission, so that answered that question, though infiltrating some black-tie gala undercover was never as exciting as fighting alien forces.

You gave up feeling guilty about being a little excited when Earth faced threats long ago; no one had to know that impending planetary destruction was your favourite kind of mission to help out on.

Selecting a red strapless dress from the middle of your mission closet (which was differentiated because most of these dresses were bulletproof) you slipped it on over your underwear and thigh holster. A knock came at your door as you were reaching behind yourself to zip it up.

“Come in!”

“Agent, we- oh… Oh.” Loki’s featured turned from surprised to playfully smug in a matter of seconds.

“Can you get this zipper?” You winced at the stuck metal. He nodded and approached, you turned and held the fabric up. Before he even made it halfway to you he gave a brief wave of his hand and used his magic to unstick the zipper, bringing it to the top.

“Thanks,” you smiled, familiar with that particular kind of help from Loki. “Can you see my gun?” You did a little spin and he shook his head. “Great. You look nice," you commented, gesturing to his impeccable black suit.

“As do you.”

“Ready?”

”I suppose there are worse charades to play on a Saturday evening. Ones that don’t include fine wine and the prospect of a tussle with a Midgardian security man.”

You shot him a look as you two walked towards the garage together. “You said no Midgardian wine could be classed as fine.”

“Save for one region in Italy, I’ve discovered.” Loki shrugged, tightening the fastener on his cuff link.

You gave him a mock look of shock. “Are you telling me… you were wrong?“

“Smugness is not becoming, Agent,” Loki playfully warned.

“Hmm,” you narrowed your eyes. “Looks like I’m spending too much time with you.”

You bickered and bantered good-naturedly as you entered the garage, which was more like a hangar but only for cars. This mission would be you, Loki, Natasha, Sam and, strangely enough, Tony wanted to drive the van. He gave some excuse about wanting to test some new equipment and spend time with his team. Though you knew it was because Pepper wanted him to attend her aunt’s seventieth birthday, and Tony had a long-standing feud with that particular aunt ever since she went on a forty-five minute tirade about how much she hated Led Zeppelin. You weren’t sure if it was the sentiment behind it, or the fact that she could talk for forty-five minutes straight without the awareness to stop. Either way, Tony was on the job tonight.

“Black Widow is already onsite,“ Tony handed you three some photos as you entered and took your seats. “Your names are on the door, fake ones obviously, here they are.” Tony pulled up some information on the screens and then commanded the self-driving van to go with a few taps at a holographic control centre.

You went over the plan, the objective, who to avoid at all costs, where the gun was supposedly hidden. There was a gun used in a murder of a journalist - the employee of an old friend of Tony's, a young guy working on an exposé of a filthy-rich family dynasty in New York City. The journalist was sure the McDane family money came from arms dealing, but he was found dead just a few short months after he started investigating. The following week, Charles, the charming and likeable newly-married eldest son of the family, announced his run for mayor.

Whether Charlie McDane ordered the murder, or if he didn't even know it happened, Tony's source said this family kept trophies of their victories and the murder weapon would most definitely still be in the house.

On the face of it, it was an unusual assignment for the Avengers. If you didn't think that hard about it, you could have just sent Nat in alone. However, the McDane family was even more powerful than they loved to show on the surface, and this wouldn't be a simple theft. Hence, a small team was going in to avenge the fallen journalist.

Natasha had been planted on the inside, posing as an event manager for a soirée the family was hosting to celebrate Charlie’s birthday and, since he’d invited everyone in the political and social scene, it was the perfect chance to enter the mansion; there’s no way he’d know who each and every person was and should be.

As you walked down the road with your arm slotted through Loki's, you eyed the metal detectors at the front entrance. You gripped his arm and slid your hand into the pocket of your dress, but the pocket was hollow and only existed as easy way to grab your gun. Wordlessly, you passed it to Loki and he concealed it with his magic in the exact same way you planned to smuggle the murder weapon out later that evening.

Maybe it was Loki's elegance or your years of training that started when you were very young, but the way you two could instinctively weave around each other's thoughts, ideas and actions without so much as a glance was something special you didn't take for granted. You both had keen senses, but there was some kind of unexplainable energy that made them align perfectly.

You never let your mind wander on nights like these. On missions. Perhaps if you were less professional you'd take a moment to fantasise about what it would actually be like to go to a party with Loki. If the way he led you through the room with a gentle hand at your waist was more than a ploy to look like an adoring couple, or if he knew your favourite wine because he cared, instead of just having heard you order it a million times before.

He kept things light with jokes and little jabs, never once crossing a boundary when fake-flirting with you, but it wasn't lost on you that it was unusual to have this kind of working relationship that had all of the chemistry with none of the awkwardness. It was almost as if it was second nature now for him to pull you a little closer when you were in a nice dress, considering you'd only worn them in front of him on missions. And so he did pull you closer as you approached the bouncer to give your names.

You spied Nat at the front, leaning around a security guard's shoulder to point to something on his list. She always played her parts so well. She stole a glance at you and Loki through her fake glasses and that was it. No indication she knew you, no special treatment, no way she'd do anything to blow this. She walked up the outdoor staircase as you gave your aliased names to the guard and flashed fake drivers licenses that were pretty much real, considering the government had created them.

Loki declined the arrival champagne for the both of you, immediately leading you to the bar. You looked at him as if to remind him that you weren't here to drink, and his subtle smirk replied that he didn't care. He ordered two glasses of a merlot from the one region in Italy that'd won his respect, passing the glass to you once it was laid on the bar.

"To the finer things," he cheers'ed your glass and you scoffed with a laugh, taking a sip of the wine. The rich flavour burst through your mouth. It was dark and deep, spiced with... with... "Cedar," he offered, reading the analysis on your face. "Rosewood, cedar and some sort of stone-fruit."

"Nectarine."

He smiled and took another sip. "We don't have that on Asgard."

"This wine is good," you nodded as you two turned and deconstructed the room and all of its guests.

It made you kind of sick seeing all of these wealthy people in one place pretending to give a damn about Charlie McDane's birthday. It's not that you liked the guy, not at all, it just felt weird to know that every person in here was the exact kind of person you hunted down. Power-hungry. This mansion may as well be a lion's den. But full of naïve lions, who had no idea two apex predators just walked in.

Just when you started wondering how many people in your line of sight had also committed murder to protect their wealth and power, you saw Natasha give a subtle signal of which way the room with the safe was. Loki saw it too.

It was upstairs, but there wasn't much cover to get upstairs. The great foyer's ceiling was three stories up, the two floors above the ground floor you were on had square balconies that let the people upstairs peer downwards into the masses. Nat's fingers adjusting her hair told you that the room was on the second floor. Thankfully, there were guests on the second floor. Under the guise of admiration for the architecture and a desire to explore the great house, you pointed out works of art to Loki as you ascended the stairs together. When you walked past Natasha she smiled politely, like a good host, and asked if you were enjoying the wine.

"It's most divine. Though, I believe my beloved may be in search of a room to powder her nose."

You would have rolled your eyes at his usual choice of asking for information if you weren't aware that security's eyes were everywhere. Even on the event manager.

"You might find what you need up the stairs, down the first hall, third door on your right."

The way her hands were motioning didn't match her hushed description, so you followed the instructions in her voice instead of the way her hands were telling you.

You allowed Loki to lead you upstairs, down the first hall. When you two were certain there were no eyes, he concealed you two with his magic. The hallway was darkened. He pressed his hand against the lock and unfastened it with an unseen pure magic and you two slipped inside. It was a large office with grand mahogany furniture, decorated exactly as you'd expect Old Money Americans to decorate their office. Right down to the bear head above the fireplace and the first edition novels sitting proudly on the shelf, probably unread by their owners. That also made you a little sick: great words sitting unread as trophies.

Scanning the room for any obvious signs of the safe, your eyes settled on a panel in the wood on the side of the desk. There was a slightly smaller gap in the wood on one side, indicating hinges. You held your hands up to Loki and he conjured thin gloves to grace your fingers, then you pressed gently on the wood to engage the latch. The panel swung open to reveal the safe. Shifting out of the way, Loki took your place and placed a gloved hand on the dial. In less than three seconds, it spun rapidly in each direction before clicking open.

"We should really consider robbing banks," you whispered as the black metal door swung open and you were met with stacks of paper and envelopes.

"Need I remind you I am a Prince? If it's gold you want, darling, say the word."

"Eh," you shrugged, feeling around for the gun. "I meant more for the thrills."

Loki chuckled as your fingers found a familiar-feeling package. You pulled the envelope out and peered inside before showing Loki the sight of a small pistol. He nodded and took it from you carefully, then concealed it in some unknown magical space close to him.

You closed the safe carefully and then your gloves disappeared. Moving quietly back to the door, you listened for several moments to make sure no one was coming. Then, you both slid out and began walking down the hall like a loving couple.

Suddenly, a guard appeared at the end of the hallway. Thinking fast, you opened the closest door to you and pushed Loki inside. There was a shout you vaguely heard before you shut and locked the door again.

"Shit," you hissed. You were in someone's bedroom. Or maybe it was a guest room, considering how clean and un-lived-in it looked. There was a fireplace, like in the office, and a large four-poster bed against one wall. In the middle of the room were two plush couches that faced each other and were side-on to the door. You two walked over to them to get the vantage of being in the centre of the room and quickly searched for an exit.

"I'll cast an illusion," Loki whispered, ready to wave his hands and make it look as if you two weren't here.

"No!" You whispered, eyes wide. "They already saw us come in here. If we disappear, they'll know something's up and lock the place down."

"Then what do you propose?" He held his hands out, annoyingly unbothered by the prospect of blowing a mission. The doorknob twisted and you both snapped your heads towards it, then back at each other.

"Sit," you hissed and shoved him back onto the sofa right behind him. He stumbled and fell with a small indignant noise of surprise. You heard the tinkling of keys and your heart beat in your chest.

"Agent?"

Knowing the security team was about to enter, you acted fast. "I'll never hear the end of this," you mumbled before sliding forward to straddle his lap. His eyebrows shot up his forehead as you wrapped your arms around his shoulder and looked at him with nervous urgency. "Kiss me."

Loki didn't question it, and he certainly didn't need to be told twice. His hands found their place. One at the small of your back, one firmly gripping the hair at the nape of your neck. Then, he pulled you in for a fiery kiss.

You barely heard the door open as you lost yourself in the strength of his hold, the steady and eager grasp with which he held you. His hands found their places as if they'd been there a thousand times before, as if he knew exactly how you'd feel the safest, feel the most desired. You pulled him deeper by the back of his neck and could have sworn he made a small noise of satisfaction.

Oh no.

He kept kissing you, you kept kissing him, even after the head of the security team had cleared his throat a number of times. As much as you knew you'd already sold it, and boy you sold it well, you couldn't bring yourself to pull away. Were all Asgardians this good at kissing, or was it just Loki?

Oh. No.

"HEY!"

The sudden loud command pulled you away and, much to your internal mortification, you didn't need to feign how flustered you were.

"O-oh my," you squeaked and looked up at the man, blushing profusely.

Okay, the squeak was fake, but it felt almost real.

You stayed put where you were straddling Loki's lap and grimaced when you saw Natasha, still in character, entering the room. "What's going on, I need you downstairs to- oh!" She looked a little taken aback by your position atop the prince who, you were fuming to see from the corner of your eye, had the audacity to be smirking.

"My apologies," Loki drawled in his growly regal voice, trailing his hands around to your sides. "I simply couldn't control myself, seeing my queen in this dress..." He punctuated it with an "Mmph" and a firm squeeze at your hips. You flinched and squirmed a bit under the ticklish touch, trying to keep your composure but letting a small giggle slip out. Then, catching the pleased and mischievous glint in his eye, you dug your nails into the back of his shoulder to warn him off trying that again.

"This room's off limits," the guard tilted his head towards the door and you made to move your way off of Loki's lap. Instead, with his incredible strength, he stood with his hands still at your hips, lifting you to your feet before turning and wrapping an arm around your waist.

He looked the guard up and down, "Of course, good sir." You bit your lip and blushed, cowering in Loki's hold as you exited the room together. Nat smirked at you and winked before proceeding to fall back into character and tell the guards there was a belligerent drunk man downstairs needing to be kicked out. That man would be Wilson, who was playing his part as tipsy distraction.

Loki led you down the hall and you rounded a corner, then you broke off from him and held a hand to your chest. "That was too close," you breathed deeply once, then met his eye. You glared when he saw him smirking at you.

"Do I have lipstick on my face?" He asked, feigning worry.

"Oh, shut up," you swatted his shoulder. "I did what I had to do."

"I never knew you had the passion in you, Agent," Loki smirked again. You glared once more and peeked around the corner, only to jump and hold in a yelp as Loki's pinching fingers found your hip. "I also never knew you were so ticklish."

"That's not something people advertise- cut it ouhout!" You swatted his hand and squirmed away from him as he prodded his fingers into your side. "We have the gun, let's get out of here."

"Tsk, you're no fun," Loki scoffed.

You exited the party and made your way down the block towards the van, knowing that Nat's glasses had broadcast at least the last part of your little tussle with Loki. Steeling yourself as you gripped the handle, you reminded yourself that you were a professional, and this was sometimes a hazard of the job. You needed to play it cool when the eventual teasing came.

"Hey, lovebirds," Tony quipped the second he saw your faces.

"Hey," you chuckled, stepping inside and removing your heels the second you found your seat. "We got it."

"Here," Loki closed the door behind him and pulled the enveloped gun from the magical space he'd hidden it. "So you saw the Agent's display of passion, did you?"

"You wound me, Loki," you deadpanned. "I thought we had a mutual connection."

Perhaps those words were a mistake considering all the truth behind them. However, all the best lies were founded on truth, and for now you needed to convince everyone in the van that you weren't totally freaking out because you'd felt the most passionate attraction you'd had in years with a former villain. I mean... how predictable.

Loki looked at you suspiciously as he took his seat, but something in his gaze told you he wasn't going to prod deeper on this. Not right now, at least. Not in front of everyone.

Nat and Sam joined the fray five minutes later and you all got a move-on back to the Compound. Nat poked more fun at the position she'd found you two in, and you laughed good-naturedly at all their jokes. Loki was uncharacteristically silent, and seemed to always be looking at you when you laughed and instinctively checked to see if he was laughing too.

The jokes shifted to Sam and the wine he spilled down his shirt, then the conversation shifted to the next steps of what to do with the gun, then you all arrived back.

Tony got to work dismantling his rig, declining your help, and so you took your field weapons over to the cabinet to put them back in their places. As you were unclipping the magazine from your pistol, you felt a presence behind the door. You peered around to see Loki.

"What's up?" You raised your eyebrows and snapped the case shut, then closed the door.

He looked at you meaningfully, quizzically, but didn't say anything.

"Okay..." you chuckled uncomfortably and put the latch on the door in place. "I'm going to shower."

You made to walk past him but he grabbed your upper arm, stopping you by his side. Facing different ways, he leaned in a little closer and spoke quietly. "I can spot a lie from lightyears away."

Turning to look at him, you'd probably have been caught off-guard by how close his face was if it hadn't been for the events of earlier. You shrugged, pulling your arm from his grasp. "I didn't lie."

He scoffed and also turned to look at you, eyes flitting once down to your lips, then back up to pierce your gaze with his. "You know what I meant."

You were proud of how composed you kept yourself when you shrugged again and kept walking, swallowing hard.

This wasn't supposed to happen.

Never one to waste water, you took an uncharacteristically long shower. Haphazardly smearing face wash over your skin to scrub the makeup off, scrub away the flustered energy. But no amount of scrubbing could help you forget the feeling of his kiss, and shampooing the hairspray from your head only made you remember the feeling of his fingers in your hair.

You reminded yourself that it had been a very long time since you'd kissed someone. You were probably just desperate, definitely a little touch-starved in general, so the fact that it was Loki didn't matter as much as the fact that it had happened.

That's what you told yourself over and over as you threw on sweatpants and a soft long-sleeved shirt. It was cold and the marble floors could be unforgiving, so you thought it best to go for fluffy socks, but then pulled some slippered boots over the top. You didn't bother brushing your wet hair, letting it fall where it wanted as you made your way to the kitchen.

"That smells good," you commented as Nat pulled some dish out of the oven.

"Mmm," she agreed with an excited smile. "Nico is my favourite," she admitted slyly, referring to one of the chefs Pepper would call in to prepare a bunch of heatable meals during busy periods. Delivery app drivers would probably cancel the order if you tried, thinking it must be a joke that a super solider was asking for a Big Mac to be delivered to the Avengers Compound. Besides, by the time it was scanned and made sure to not contain a deadly poison, it would be cold and stale. "There's enough for you too," Nat said, pulling out another plate and serving you a steaming slice of vegetarian lasagne.

"Thanks," you smiled, still a little distracted. Of course, with someone as perceptive as Nat, that wouldn't be allowed to slip by.

She leaned against the counter and poked at her meal, not meeting your eye to keep it less direct. "You alright?"

"Hmm?" You looked up, and so did she, then you looked back down to your food and shrugged. It was no use lying to her. "I think I'm lonely," you laughed humourlessly, nervously, sadly.

"The kiss got to you," she said knowingly, placing her fork down to give you her full attention. You didn't return the favour, nervous about what you'd say if you were really talking about this. Which, as long as you were here eating dinner, you weren't really talking about it.

"It's not like I haven't kissed a fellow Agent before to keep cover," you sighed a little, shaking your head. "It's just been a while, I guess, since I've had... anything... or, someone."

"I get that," she nodded, picking up her fork again. You two ate in silence for several moments. "This is really good," she declared through an extra-large mouthful. You chuckled and nodded, swallowing another bite. After several more moments, she said quietly, "It's okay if you felt something."

That made you choke a bit. Noticeably, unfortunately. You shook your head, but didn't deny it. "No. It's not okay."

"Why not?" She asked as if you were crazy.

"It's not okay," you repeated firmly, stabbing your fork again at the lasagna. "It's not."

Before she could attempt to pry for more information, Thor and Loki entered the kitchen together. Great.

"Good evening," Thor beamed a toothless smile.

"There's more in the fridge if you're hungry," you looked up at them in an attempt to not seem as regressed in on yourself as you felt. Thor looked at your plate and nodded in approval, opening the fridge. Then you looked at Loki, fully expecting to see some kind of calculating stare as before, but his expression was soft. He looked you over, probably noticing your out-of-character hunched posture and the way your head hung a little lower than usual, and he gave you a look that was subtly laced with sympathy.

Now that made your blood boil. Who was he to feel sorry for you?

He seemed to notice the way your jaw clenched under his gaze, and opened his mouth to say something but Thor spoke first.

"There's a film Stark wants us all to watch this evening."

Nat chuckled, finishing off her dinner. "You say that like he's showing us training videos. He's just trying to bond the team over some cheesy nineties movie." She looked at you and nodded to your clothes. "You look ready for a movie night."

Before you could explain that you'd rather go to bed, Thor beamed again. "Excellent, then! We'll all be there."

Thor was always kind to you, so you didn't want to disappoint him over something so inconsequential. You smiled warmly at him and nodded. "I'm gonna go claim a good spot," you excused yourself, aware it was almost time for it to start. You quickly did your dishes and left the kitchen, making sure to get a seat on a large armchair so you made it clear you'd rather have some personal space right now, even though it was the exact opposite of what you wanted. Maybe it would be good for you though, to remember that you were alone for a reason. That this life you chose wasn't kind too love.

Gods, love. Why did you think of that word, of all the ones out there. You were spiralling. Sentiment, you corrected yourself with a swift reprimand. Sentiment, loneliness, desperation.

You busied yourself chatting to Wanda as people filtered in, taking note of how she seamlessly wove herself in and around Vision as they sat on a two-seater next to you. Determined not to look at or think of Loki or romance or kissing or anything like that, you trained your eyes on the screen as the movie started.

But you spiralled.

There were these two main characters in the movie with this undeniable bickering co-worker chemistry that reminded you of Loki, the jokes he’d whisper into your ear during meetings, the harmless mischief he’d pull to make you laugh, the way his hand felt at your lower back- NO. You couldn’t think about that.

Wanda and Vision were in your line of sight from the corner of your eye and you saw her fingers lace through his, you then saw him place a silent kiss on the crown of her head. Biting down on your tongue, you remembered Nat and Bruce, Pepper and Tony, Thor and Jane, Clint and Laura. All those people who seemed to find love, even temporary love, in the midst of all this madness.

So maybe it wasn’t this life. Maybe it was just… you.

Biting your tongue a little harder, you reminded yourself how powerless you were compared to all these super-people. Sure, many of them were human like you, but all the other humans seemed to have someone who loved them.

It felt hopeless, knowing the only person in this room who you wanted close was so extraordinarily out of your league. He was a god. You were a human. Your life was a flicker compared to his, of course he’d never waste time indulging the likes of you.

But it felt real.

Halfway through the movie you decided you couldn’t sit there and see these buddy-cop characters fall in love. You couldn’t watch Wanda and Vision so enamoured with each other. What you needed was to hit something hard, and then go to sleep. So you excused yourself without a word or a glance at anyone. It was late, anyway. You weren’t even the first one to leave.

A turn of a black-haired form told you that Loki noticed you leaving, but the lack of footsteps behind you as you walked down the silent hall told you that he hadn’t followed you.

Slipping into your room and then into some workout clothes, you jammed your headphones into your ears and put on some classical music; you weren't sure you could stand to hear any words right now. You laced your shoes a little tighter than normal and practically sprinted to the gym, very unwilling to have anyone notice you were gone and decide to come check on you.

Hitting the bag felt good. It was the perfect consolation prize for what you'd actually prefer right now, but with every crushing of your knuckles against the thick canvas you found it easier to forget how it felt to have your fingers looped through his hair. The sweat dripping down your face replaced the feeling of his breath against your skin when you'd broken the kiss, and the aching in your obliques from your tensing and turning to hit the bag took the place of any memory of his hands at your waist. The aching was here, and he was almost gone.

After a half-hour of interval sprints, it was just past midnight and you were exhausted. Not knowing how you felt about no one coming to check on you, you traipsed back to your room in silence. The faint echoing of your footsteps through the hallways made you quiet yourself further, stepping as lightly as you could to prove to yourself that you were still a good spy. Good spies don't get caught up with feelings. Your footsteps fell, dead quiet, and you regained some confidence.

Your muscles stung the next morning but in a delightful way. You'd treated yourself to another hot shower when you got back to your room, so this morning it would probably be best to have an icy one.

As the cold water hit your skin, you felt okay again. The boxing and running last night had really shaken everything out of you, only the smallest lingering of lonely desire remained and it could easily be ignored. Of course, that was easy to say. The second you walked into the kitchen to see that Loki had heard you coming and poured you a coffee you felt a tug at your chest.

His hands closed around the mug to pass it to you and you remembered how his fingers had closed around your waist. He smiled good morning and you remembered how his lips felt against yours. Holding it all in, you smiled and took the coffee, then proceeded to have a short conversation with him like a normal person would. He made jokes about last night, but not about that, and you chuckled at them. After perhaps too short a time for how long you usually chatted, you excused yourself to go do some paperwork. You caught the way his brow furrowed a little, but he didn't question you.

The next few days were more or less like this. You'd try to engage with Loki normally but spiral a little more, convincing yourself that the more you continued like you always had, the more normal things would be again. But he was just so... beautiful. Everything about him was beautiful and now you couldn't help but notice.

One evening, nearly a week after you'd kissed, you were having a bit of a vulnerable day and you walked into the kitchen for some ice cream. Loki had just finished cleaning up after his dinner and turned to say hello, but you couldn't do it. You just turned and walked right back out again. He called after you but you didn't stop. It's not like you were going to cry in front of him, but you just couldn't do this right now.

Seeking refuge in your bedroom, you shut the door and slid down to the floor with your back against it. An immediate soft knock frustrated you, especially knowing who it probably was. You sighed and stood.

“Hey,” you greeted Loki with a nod when you opened the door, immediately turning away to make it look like you were about to do something else. “What’s up?”

Loki stepped into the room and closed the door behind him, which made you stop and give him your attention. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” you lied.

He squinted for the faintest second and smiled a little sadly. “Light years,” he reminded you how he could spot a lie without harshly calling you out. It pained you that he didn’t. That his lack of sarcasm indicated that he saw you as a bit fragile right now.

You sighed a little and ducked your head to the side, conceding the point. “I’m a little haywire,” you admitted. “I think I need to get some stress out and go to sleep.”

”What troubles you?”

Ah. What a question.

You didn’t want to shut him out, but you certainly didn’t know how to explain that one simple kiss undercover had brought a massive crashing wave of insecurity and anxiety that made you feel completely unlovable. Or... maybe you could just say that?

You were silent for so long that Loki spoke again.

“I’d like to offer my apologies,” he said very diplomatically. “If I overstepped the bounds of our relationship.”

“I’m the one that made you kiss me,” you winced. “I should be apologising.”

”I didn’t mean that,” Loki shook his head. “I meant after, when we returned. When I cornered you.”

You had to laugh. “You didn’t corner me, Loki. I appreciate you wanting to make me feel better but you have nothing to apologise for.”

”Very well. But you didn’t make me,” he replied firmly.

“I know, I know…” you rolled your eyes. “A god submits to no one, I just meant that I put you in a situation that I shouldn’t have. Believe me, I’m paying the price.”

That last part came out a little faster than you’d intended it to. In fact, you didn’t really mean to say that last part out loud at all. Or maybe you did. What a perfect Freudian Slip. Quickly collecting yourself, you spotted your headphones and went to pick them up but noticed that Loki was taking slow steps towards you.

”Paying the price?” He asked carefully. You stopped and folded your arms, shrugging.

“People poke fun, you know.” You bit your tongue. Then, you saw him smirk a little. Ah. Lightyears.

“I thought we had a mutual connection,“ he raised his eyebrows, teasing you with your joke from That Night. You gave him a firm stare, but couldn’t help but notice he wasn’t that far away now.

“Loki, that was-“

“A thinly veiled truth,” he interjected, leaving no room for debate. He also left very little room between the two of you. You opened your mouth to respond, seemed to not be able to, and he smirked at your speechlessness.

"Y-you can't." You shook your head. "There's no way."

"There's no way, what?" A smiled tugged at his lips at the way your eyes widened when he took a strand of your hair and wrapped it once around his finger.

"... Mutual?"

“Now that we won’t be interrupted…” he brought his hand up next to his face, flourished it, and you heard your door’s lock click shut. You held your breath as a mischievous grin graced his lips.

Oh gods, you were looking at his lips. You couldn't seem to look away.

He lowered his voice to a gruff whisper. “Might we finish what we started?”

With the smallest nod of your head, he immediately ducked his head to press his lips against yours. Your small noise of surprise made him pull away for a second and grin, before he playfully growled and lifted you from the ground. His eyes stayed trained on yours as he walked a few steps and firmly shoved your back against the wall. Your breath hitched as his hand found that place at the back of your neck, and this time, you kissed him. Eagerly, hungrily, feeling so overwhelmingly euphoric that this was even happening.

It had to be a dream, you thought as his lips trailed along your jawline, his hot breath hit your neck and his strong unwavering arms kept you above the ground and level with his gaze. He kissed you not just like a god or a great lover - he kissed you like he wanted you. Like he‘d also been waiting to do this for an unspeakable amount of time. It felt like relief.

Pulling you both back from the wall, Loki's lips didn’t relent as your fingers tangled once again in his hair. He walked backwards and found his seat on the end of your bed, sitting with you in his lap as he had at the party.

“Gods, you enrapture me,“ he pulled away, a little breathless. He grinned and his eyes were hazy. He looked at you intensely before looking back at your lips, subconsciously slipping out his tongue to wet his own. Before you could respond, he was kissing you again. You could have melted into his touch. In fact, you were fairly certain you just might.

He leaned back and you both fell onto the bed, you on top of him. You laughed at the sudden impact and you pulled away for a few seconds to catch your breath. You looked at his adoring gaze and blushed. “I never thought someone like you could want someone like me.”

He furrowed his brow, unsure if you were about to reference his nefarious past.

”You’re so… mighty. You’re a Prince, a god, you’re wickedly smart and powerful and… and I’m just a human.”

“Watch your tongue,” Loki scolded somewhat seriously and held you a little tighter. “Don’t speak of yourself as if you’re insignificant.”

You rolled your eyes and smiled, giving him a look. “You know what I mean.”

“Of course I do, I’m wickedly smart,” he smirked and you playfully swatted at his chest. He smiled contentedly and ran his hands firmly down your sides to settle at your hips. It was an innocent romantic gesture, one to position you for further making-out with Loki, but your eyes widened at the memory of his discovery the previous weekend and the assumption that the God of Mischief was about to turn the tables.

Unluckily for you, your flustered expression rendered it a self-fulfilling prophesy.

“Loki…” You warned as you saw the glint in his eye.

“That’s right…” His smirk widened to a devilish grin.

”How about you keep kissing me, huh?” You laughed nervously and leaned in closer. Loki laughed and nodded, bringing his hand up to cradle the back of your neck as you pressed your lips to his. Once your arms were around his neck, he deepened the kiss and rolled over, putting you underneath him. Still on the edge of the bed, your feet barely skimmed the floor. Then, he suddenly became the classic Loki you knew.

“Mmmhmhm!” You whined and giggled a little into the kiss as the fingers belonging to his arm around your waist started ever so gently scratching at your side. “Mmnnoho!” You broke away and gave him a pouting look. He lifted his head and smirked.

Gods. He’d never looked so unspeakably hot.

Messy curls framing his face, that look he gave you that said You’re In Trouble in his distinct Loki way, mixed with the desire in his piercing blue eyes; you’d gladly endure his torture if it meant he looked at you like that.

But maybe that’s because you had no idea what was coming.

“Darling,” he cocked his head and kissed your cheek before kissing just below your ear. “I am the God of Mischief….“ he kissed your neck in a way that you were sure was intended to tickle. You giggled and bit your lip. “And now that I've got my hands on you, you simply cannot expect me to not exploit this little weakness to its fullest extent.”

“L-Loki!” You blushed at the very real threat and he chuckled.

“How about you guide me, hmm? Where should I start?”

“I’m not playing this game,” you laughed nervously, squirming a bit underneath him and resting your hands on his shoulders to push away the ticklish kisses.

“Aw, come now,” he lifted his head and that same beautiful smirk made your heart beat quick. His hand behind your neck slid down under your shoulder blade until it sat at your upper ribs. You stole a glance down to where it may be, even though you couldn’t see it. He cocked his head again. “No? Alright, I’ll choose.” With a wink his thumb slipped around the side and up into the hollow under your arm.

“LOKI!” You gasped, clamped your arm down from instinct and immediately started squirming and giggling, even though his thumb wasn’t even moving. He grinned again and kissed your lips once more.

“You've been down all week, love. Let's have a bit of fun,” he whispered, then sprang his hand at your waist into action, scratching and grabbing at the soft skin hidden beneath your shirt. You gasped again and started laughing softly, then squeaked when his thumb started wiggling into the hollow under your arm.

"NOHOHO!" You shut your eyes and then squealed loudly when his fingers underneath you began clawing into the back of your uppermost ribs. Damnit, you thought he may start easy on you, not go for three different places at once. You were already in a desperate cackle, bubbling incoherent pleas spilling from your lips as you writhed underneath his amused self.

"I'm honestly delighted you're so ticklish," Loki teased with a chuckle. "It's adorable, really. So professional all the time, yet..." He finished his sentence by intensifying his touch and speed at all three sites of attack, drawing a small shriek from your laughing lips and a jolt from your body. "Has it always been this easy to undo you?"

“OHMYGOHOD!” You shrieked, throwing your head against the bed and trying to buck your upper body against him to no avail. He paused his torture and kissed you deeply again, lips curled into a smile as he pressed his lips to yours. You shook your head and broke away, still laughing. “Youhou’re ridiculous! We were hahaving such a nice moment and y-you ruined ihit,” you whimpered. He kissed to again to silence your complaints.

“What did you expect?”

“I-I expected a nice romantic moment!” You laughed and brought both arms between you and him to shove at his shoulders. “Now,” you gave him a stern look. “Do you want to tickle me, or kiss me? You can only choose one.”

He scoffed. “I don’t do ultimatums, darling.”

“You do now.”

“Bold.“ He stuck his tongue against his cheek then ducked his head to the side in consideration. He then looked at your face, which you’d been attempting to hold in some semblance of a firm glare. He lowered his lips to your ear and you heard him chuckle once. “Far too bold for someone so ticklish.”

He whipped his arms out from under you and pressed his weight down again, trapping your arms between your bodies as he clawed into the front and sides of your lowest ribs.

“NOHOAHAH!” You immediately fell into desperate belly-laughter as his fingers drilled and clawed into the spaces between your bones. Your feet kicked helplessly, merely grazing the ground as laughter kept spilling from you. “NOHO! NO! LOKIHI I CAHAN’T!” He shifted his hands further up your ribcage and snuck his fingers around to dig in at the back and, after one more shriek, your laughter went silent. It was trapped in your chest as his squeezing and vibrating fingers found every sensitive space on your ribs that made you want to melt into a little puddle. You were gasping for air by the time he halted his attack, squeaking and wheezing as you tried to regain your breath.

It was torture, but you hoped he wouldn’t ask you if it was worth enduring to have him this close. If he could spot a lie from lightyears away, how much easier could he spot it when he was close enough for you to see the flecks of green in his eyes.

”You’re… you’re gonna kill me,” you hiccoughed. He smirked and leaned in for another kiss. “Nuh-uh,” you pulled your finger up as much as you could from where your arms were trapped. “You made your choice.”

He grinned and slid his hands down your sides with a wink, "Oh? Then I'll gladly continue."

"W-w-wait! I dihidn't th-WAHAIT!"

His thumbs drilled relentlessly into your hips as Loki joined in with your loud laughter. You finally managed to wiggle your arms out from where they were trapped at your chest, shooting them down to grab at his fingers. Your feet having no traction and his near entire weight pressing you to the bed made it impossible to buck or lift any part of your torso, so you were completely trapped with nowhere to go as he gripped and grabbed at the skin of your hips, kneading at the pressure points that made you squeak and squirm beneath him.

When he tired of your fingers trying to grab his, he did a devilish swift lift of his own body and slotted his hands between the two of you, settling them palms-down over the majority of your belly. You made a huge gasping noise and started frantically giggling and squealing even before he'd moved his hands. You shook your head and begged for him to kiss you instead, nervous high-pitched giggles interlacing your words.

"N-noho, Loki just kihiss me, kiss me plehease! PLEASE!" You squeaked, cupping his cheeks and gently pulling him towards you. He chuckled and grinned, gently digging a few fingers in just once. You thrashed and renewed your struggling and squealing efforts. "Dohon't you DAHARE! I won't kiss you agahain if you do this!" You threatened. He cocked his head and leaned in a little closer to look deep into your eyes. Then, he grinned and whispered:

"Lightyears."

You thought for certain you'd pass out from laughter when Loki's fingers sprang into action and rippled against your hypersensitive stomach. You laughed loudly, completely powerless to stop his fingers from digging in wherever they pleased. After not much time at all, your laughter went silent and you weakly batted at his shoulders, sides, face, anything your hands could find for themselves since your eyes were shut so tight. Any words your brain even began to think of forming got lost as laughter ripped through your chest from the electric intensity of his fingers against your body.

When your hands finally found both sides of his face, you used all the energy you had left to press your laughing lips against his and, finally, he relented. You fell back with a loud gasp as he retracted his hands with an amused chuckle and took his weight mostly off you, propping himself up with a hand planted either side of your head.

"Alright there, darling?" He teased as you coughed weakly and wiped the tears of mirth from your cheeks. You gave him a scowl, but he found it adorable.

"Thihis isn't fair," you crossed your arms defiantly.

"No?" He smirked. "Pray tell, my love. What isn't fair?"

Oh. My love. His love.

That took any breath you'd managed to get back in your lungs.

"Y-you... you..." But your words were lost in the bliss of being his. He seemed to quickly understand how his words touched your heart, and it softened his teasing demeanour, and softened his smirk into a smile. "You found my worst spots so soon," you managed to murmur through rosy cheeks.

"Was only a matter of time."

"But now you have the upper hand."

"Dear heart, this isn't a struggle for power," he laughed heartily. "I do not seek to rule over you. Anything you ask of me, anything in the Nine Realms, I will give to you."

"Tell me where you're ticklish."

He chuckled and pressed a chaste kiss to your lips before falling down beside you. He hummed in contentment as he wrapped his arms around your waist to pull you as close as you could be.

"Anything but that."

[lovelycleon]

So I decided to make an analysis about the last scene of Infinite Darkness

But before I start with the fun part, I just want to tell you that my history with “angst ships”

I had a bad experience with another ship, soul mates full of angst tropes and true love, beautiful... and a really bad ending because the showrunner fought with the actors (I wasted years watching and I regret it).

Anyway, after suffering that kind of pain, no other ships and angst scenes can hit me hard enough. I'm numb or just got used to it. You choose.

So maybe the scene of Leon and Claire's argument wasn't that impactful for me because of that. But for all the fans who felt hurt, I understand and it's okay to feel that way, because the scene was meant to hurt. The scene exists because of that. And your feelings are valid.

So let's get to the fun part.

spoiler alert, it's not that fun, it actually hurts 😅

The scene starts with Leon going to meet Claire at the gates of the White House.

I don't think anyone denies the fact that, whatever Leon is doing, he just wants to protect Claire. And he doesn't want her involved because of it.

But this dialogue makes this even more evident if we analyze how it begins.

Nothing in a show or movie is by accident. Everything is handpicked for one reason or another. The meaning is not always that deep, but there is still a meaning behind it all.

So when – of all the ways a conversation can be started – they decide to make Claire joke that she sneaked out of the hospital, Leon takes it seriously and she has to clarify that it's a joke, there's a reason:

Show that Leon is taking what happened to her too serious, and Claire not that much.

When Claire makes a comment about when he's going to stop treating her like a kid and he says probably never. There's a reason:

Show that Leon wants to protect her (or being overprotective) and Claire doesn't like it.

Of course, some might argue that this specific line is capcom trying to show that their feelings aren't romantic and sink the ship completely. And, ok, people are free to think that.

But if they really wanted to sink cleon forever, they shouldn't have done the scene of Leon saving Claire the way they did. They did it because they knew it would tease a certain part of the fans... They knew exactly what they were doing...

And there's simply no reason to tease a ship you want to sink.

So no, I don't think that's it...

For me the scene means the classic and simple: "stop being worried about me🙄" "noooo🗣️"

Another way to intensify Leon being overprotective is Claire's broken arm. A reminder that she was injured following his plan. Just as she was hurt the last time they saw each other in Harvardville.

And yes, I know Degeneration made Claire hurt to take her out of the action. It is undeniable. But somehow I don't think the same situation and reason applies to Infinite darkness.

Because Claire was already out of combat, following Leon's plan and showing no intention of doing anything different. It's not like she's going to attack the monster that is several platforms higher than where she is. She couldn't fly around and there were no guns where she was anyway.

So why hurt her to get her out of combat if the story itself has already done that?

Again, you are free to think differently. Capcom made Claire dirty, she was underestimated and they wasted her potential. I won't argue with that, I'm also on the team Claire deserves better.

I just don't think it fits this specific situation.

The injured arm is there and a awkward conversation about Leon being overprotective starts because of it. I think it makes sense.

So moving on.

Claire mentions the chip and Leon looks disappointed for a moment and says he thought they were going to dinner.

This is to indicate that he didn't come to see her with the intention of breaking their friendship. Leon just wanted to spend a good time with her and nothing more. Some place a little more normal, maybe?👀

But Claire wants the chip and tells Leon her plan. The same plan that Shen May was killed trying to convince her partner to follow. Is there a parallel here?

The only difference is that Jason broke her neck while Leon decided to break Claire's heart.

Okay now I could show more parallels between them, but I won't because this is already too long and I know maybe I'm reading too much into this. Resident Evil isn't that deep most of the time 😂

Anyway, Claire asked for the chip and Leon said no.

And that's the point, right.

The climax of the conversation and the turning point in their relationship.

Note that Leon took a few seconds to say he couldn't. That was the moment when he made his decision...

He went to meet her for dinner, remember? He didn't expect to have this conversation or make a decision like that. But he had to.

Now, I'm not from the US and I don't trust politicians in general, fiction or not. But I admit this sounds realistic.

Just imagine if the president makes a speech about peace and prosperity and whatever and the next day the media reveals that members of the government are involved in BOW and planning an attack on another country.

At the very least, it won't look good.

In the worst case, it will be a catastrophe 😂

So... I don't agree with Leon, but I understand why he chose this.

It's an important decision, however. And how long it takes him to say something and how he's quiet after saying it shows he knows what's on the line. Not just the security of the country and “peace”, but also his relationship with Claire.

And despite everything... He didn't lie to her.

It would be much easier for Leon to simply say "the chip was destroyed in the fight" when she asked. Claire would never know about it and probably never doubt him. And they would still be fine with each other and having dinner.

But he didn't lie. Why?

Because their relationship is not based on lies. And it's not based on betrayals.

And while it may be hard to believe right now and it hurts to think about it, this relationship is still based on truth and trust in each other. And now their relationship is being tested.

It's easy to trust someone you're on good terms. How hard it must be to trust someone who has let you down.

There is a lot of room for development here.

Obviously Claire felt hurt in this moment. Maybe even betrayed. Heartbroken. I think we all feel that same way.

But Leon played fair there. He said he had the chip, showed it to her, and then said he wouldn't give it to her.

He was honest with her. And this act also shows respect.

They are two people with different points of view and that truth hurts.

There is silence as they look at each other. She never asked his reasons and he obviously never told them. The exchange of glances is enough for them to understand what was happening.

When Claire says “you do things your way and I do mine” it's almost like “do you know what that means? ”

Then Leon nods and another moment of silence. The time they need to accept that the relationship is broken.

Now that's angst

Interesting choice of camera angle. Showing her broken arm as a visual reminder of why he was pushing her away like that.

Claire leaves, but looks back and says again that his outfit doesn't suit him.

What's interesting here is that the director has done a few interviews over the past few weeks and he always said that the suit is a representation of Leon's position in government.

Claire commenting that it doesn't suit him is basically the writers/producers/directors admitting that this position doesn't look good.

And while all the characters praising Leon for his success, Claire is the one who sees this reality and who he truly is out of the suit (position)

And that's good angst.

Claire walks away and Leon with a sad look watching her leave and he has to say to himself "I will stop this".

Could it be just one of his one-lines? Yes.

Could it be a way for him to remind himself why he's doing this, even if it means sacrificing his relationship with Claire?

It's already done, now he has to make it worth it.

Whatever happens after that is a mystery.

I don't think Claire believes that Leon is going to cover up the government's involvement in things (their discussion would be much more intense if that were the case), she probably thinks he's going to resolve it internally without taking anything public, which is precisely what she wants to do.

I also don't think Leon believes Claire is going to give up on the investigation, he probably thinks it's going to take some time to her to get real evidence and he has time to carry out his plans.

But this is capcom... They are masters of forgetting plot points. So who knows.

Angst is only good if it has a good closure. I hope they keep that in mind.

In any other tv show that used this kind of angst trope and drama I would be completely fine...

I would expect a sequel to this plot. The characters find each other unexpectedly, having to work together and acting awkwardly because they don't know how to stick around each other after the argument. Then the story would develop and they would gradually mend their relationship.

That's the trope.

So that's all I can hope for.

[ashesandhackles]

The Hogwarts Express scene in Prince's Tale: A Sirius and Snape analysis

I really, really enjoy Sirius and Snape as characters and their respective narrative functions in story. But what gets me most about them is how much Rowling hints about their backgrounds and so much of it makes sense with regard to who they are as adults. So I am going to be breaking down a very small scene from Prince Tale and getting into long winded hypothesis about their respective childhoods.

So, let's start with Snape. The scene begins with Snape rushing to find Lily, already in his Hogwarts clothes. Harry notes he must have been eager to get out of his clothes - ones that look like he borrowed from his mother, as Petunia spitefully pointed out. This has always been a very interesting detail to me - first off, it indicates how poor Snape's family is. Second, this indicates his tiny rebellion from his father - he refuses to wear clothes of the abusive man, and prefers his mother's. I admit, I am partial to the reading that Snape refuses to associate with his father in tiny ways, rather than Tobias refusing to hand his son clothes.

(I have seen readings which say that it is also a sign of neglect - perhaps his parents bought clothes that simply don't fit him, but I am more inclined to think it's a hand me down, simply because Harry identifies so strongly with it. Because Harry knows what it is like to wear a hand me down that don't quite fit, that are too big for you, or the ones that make you look ridiculous.)

Lily and Petunia's relationship is fraught with Petunia's jealousy. And young Lily is upset over it when Snape meets her. "I am not talking to you. Tuney hates me" she tells him. "Because we saw the letter from Dumbledore". Young Lily shows signs of being extremely emotionally reactive and this scene is one of them. It's easier for her to deal with Petunia's rejection of her by telling Snape she doesn't want to talk to him. It's a childish displacement of her hurt over her sister's rejection. (I am genuinely baffled by interpretations that Lily and Hermione are similar. Hermione is very cognitive person, Lily, as we have been shown repeatedly in memories, is not).

Snape, however, with his bad history with Petunia and his inability/ poor social skills to understand why this matters to her, goes: "So what?"

Lily, who throws him a look of deep dislike, says "So she's my sister". This seed is important because this is what develops into "he doesn't get me" feeling she later displays in her teenage scenes with him. Interestingly, most of Lily's personal relationships have deeply interwined love and dislike - Petunia (whose rejection bothers her but she cheerfully informs Sirius that Harry nearly broke a vase her sister sent - which means there is resentment on her end too), James - who she was attracted to even before 7th year but also disliked at one point, and Snape - again, a contentious friendship filled with love and distance.

"She's only a -" we dont get to hear what Snape intended to say. And given his own acrimony with Petunia, it could be anything. However, I read it as "She's only a Muggle" because it ties into his feelings about his father. Snape, who is proud of being half a Prince, emphasizing his magical lineage from his mother's side, his refuge in a violent, neglectful home. (Barty Crouch Jr and Snape with their disappointing fathers - I imagine Voldemort is supremely attractive leader to people with broken homes like this)

Snape, by all accounts, shows a disorganised attachment style. His caregiver, his mother - and perhaps the only parent he seems to have regard for, is too preoccupied by her own abuse to be there for her son - we see this in glimpses Harry sees in OOTP: " woman cowering" where a man shouts at her, and a young, neglected Snape cries in the corner. Children born in homes like this have trouble regulating their emotions, simultaneously displaying tendencies to aggressively lash out or show disassociative symptoms. Both of which Snape displays. Statistically, this is also seen more in low income households where economic instability and resulting domestic instability creates an unsafe environment for the kids to safely form ideas of their identity, or express emotions in healthy ways, modelling instead out of behaviour seen at home.

Then, Snape reminds her that they are going to Hogwarts. He is already in his Hogwarts clothes - now, Snape gets to be the impressive figure. The one who told her about magic, who theorised about how Muggles get letters from magical people, the one who told her about Dementors and Azkaban. He has already left behind the Spinner's End version of him, he wants to bigger than that, and is keen to be in place of magical learning and to join Slytherin. Essentially, he shows signs of unstable identity, insecurity - all prime for grooming into a cult.

And here comes along James Potter, who looks around at the mention of Slytherin. James's comment uses Snape's line and directs it to Sirius instead and it becomes a conversation between them, as a way to bond more with a fellow "rowdy boy" Sirius. Effectively ignoring the other two.

Sirius as we see here, "does not smile" when James talks about Slytherin. He essentially says something that can be construed as a way to nip that conversation in bud: "My whole family has been in. Slytherin". This suggests to me that there is some loyalty to his family there and his disillusionment with them isn't entirely fixed yet. After all, Sirius's intense loyalty to his friends, more specifically James, did not come out of thin air. It is reasonable to suggest that he felt some loyalty to his family at some point and the intensity with which he regards his friends is a reaction to burned off and being a "displaced person without a family" as Rowling put it.

Interestingly, while his reaction to his mother and Bellatrix are obviously sore spots, his response to Regulus is comparatively quite soft. ("Stupid, idiot" - something he calls James later on in the same book, OOTP). I imagine Sirius has quite complicated feelings about his brother and he is capable of nuance (when the person isn't Snape, where his dislike seems to be borne of an intense projection): "The world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters". As someone who is grown up among them, Sirius would understand that.

His framing of Regulus's need to please his parents also further highlights what exactly is the source of disillusionment. He calls Regulus "soft enough to believe them" - which means he is crediting his own intelligence to see through his parents bigoted world view. Clearly, bigotry is not something the Blacks explained in a way that Sirius, eldest of their male line and their heir, bought it. It also probably didn't help the Blacks case that Grimmauld Place is in a Muggle neighborhood and that their eldest son is a bit of a wild boy with interest in pushing boundaries. His intellectual disconnect leads to the righteous rage he later feels but it began there. (Boy, it must suck to discover that everything you have been taught to value in the world and in yourself as the heir is essentially rubbish). Since his differences with his family began with seeds of intellectual disconnect rather than on intense empathy with downtrodden, it makes him, as a pureblooded privileged boy, unable to truly understand Lupin's fears regarding his lycanthropy. Hence, the Werewolf prank (I am not getting to the Snape bit, just the Lupin bit). To James' credit, he does understand what that means for Lupin and saves all three of them from different set of consequences.

Anyway, back to the scene. James, who has made an ass of himself in front of his new friend, who he was getting along with fine until now, then goes "Blimey, I thought you seemed alright". (Btw, I find James wildly large ego kind of hilarious here, especially in light of Snape's comment about him to Sirius in OOTP: "You will know he is so arrogant that criticism simply bounces off him"). Sirius, who I believe has been raised like "royalty" as Blacks would, has good enough social skills to defuse a situation. He grins and says: "Maybe I will break the tradition".

This line is an indication of Sirius's desire for independence, an identity seperate from his family. The use of the word "tradition" is interesting. It sounds like Sirius is expected to behave in a certain way, the heir of Black family whose parents thought being a Black "made you practically royal". Adult Sirius is contemptuous of this, or their "valuable contribution to Ministry" which means they just gave gold - it tells me that any and all conditions put on him by his family were to fulfill tradition that is either worthless or holds no meaning in his eyes. The root of the emotional abuse Sirius suffers from his family is this - realising his parents love for him is conditional on him being a certain way. (In fact, you can read Regulus desire to emphasise his connection to the family as a reaction to what he sees with Sirius - Sirius does not behave, Mum and Dad don't love him). As a child with unconscious knowledge of lack of love, Sirius then acts out, they react, rinse and repeat "until he has had enough". Sirius chafes against boundaries well into adulthood and doesn't react well to people enforcing it on him, even if it is out of love for him. Cue the fire scene with Harry where he behaves as if Harry is rejecting him instead of protecting him.

Sirius asks James about where he wants to go, and Snape, who is incensed about James being insulting about a House he put stock in, which he made part of new identity (so that he is no longer that Snape boy from Spinner's End) and was in general trying to be impressive about in front of Lily, "makes a disparaging noise" once James talks of Gryffindor. Snape's response to James' : "Got a problem with that?" is interesting. He says: "If you'd rather be brawny, rather than brainy-"

This is an important value for Snape. He knows he is clever and values it. He spends his spare time inventing hexes, making great shortcuts to Potions. He has genuine thirst for learning and he hones it. In SWM, we see that he has written far more longer answers than anyone else, he is poring over his paper after exams. He even mocks Hermione's lack of inventive answers: "Answer copied word to word from the textbook, but correct in essentials". He values originality. It may be me stretching this, but I am partial to the reading: this is his way of rejecting his father once again, who is implied to be a violent man. (in other words, someone who is hypermasculine - "brawny". In fact, Snape's rejection of hypermasculinity is a huge post on it's own - Potions (brewing, cauldrons - coded as feminine arts), the doe Patronus, his proficiency in Occlumency and Legliemency (intuitive mind arts, again seen archetypically feminine) etc).

"Where are you hoping to go, seeing as you are neither?" - Sirius is quick with emotionally cutting insults. Snape hasn't even finished his sentence, but Sirius is already on his case. Which suggests growing up in a household with sharp tongues. It's a fair assumption, given Mrs Black's half mad portrait. It also tallies with Sirius's talking about his mother: "My mother didn't have a heart Kreacher, she kept herself alive out of pure spite" . The wounds are fresh enough on this. (Another interesting way Snape and Sirius act as inverse mirrors - Snape rejects his father, Sirius rejects his mother. Sirius acts as proxy for James for Harry while Snape takes on Lily's role of protecting him). However, you know who else is spiteful? Sirius.

While James is the physical bully (the tripping Snape, doing most of the bullying in SWM), Sirius attacks emotionally. ( Sample the one about Snape's appearance - "I was watching him, his nose was touching the parchment, there will be great grease marks all over it, they won't be able to read a word" or even the carelessly vicious- "Put that away, before Wormtail wets himself in excitement"). Curiously, with all that talk of how his mother being spiteful, it's her room he spends time in when he is depressed. (Again, in inverse mirror way, we can talk of how Snape looks for a father figure in Dumbledore - craves his validation and is proud of Dumbledore's trust in him). We could argue it's also because Buckbeak is there, and perhaps it's the largest room in the house, but it's very telling that's where Sirius spends time when he is "in a fit of sullens". Sirius's sense of abandonment from his family, makes him look for family connections with friends - a trait he shares with Harry. Interestingly, the first time he glimpses Harry in Privet Drive, Harry is also running away from home - just like he did. Anyway, I could go on.

[collisiondiscourse]

on the wonder duo (part 1)

(BNHA Analysis Post Ahead! This isn’t explicitly romantic, but it is an analysis of the relationship between the two most popular characters in BNHA--Katsuki Bakugou and Izuku Midoriya. Split into two posts because I realized that this was gonna be long as HELL)

yall ever think about the fact that the wonder duo is perfectly set up in so that bakugou and deku together are the better version of all might?

bc like. ive been thinking.

everyone knows the win to save and save to win parallel. How they are supposedly two halves of a whole perfect hero (which, previously, was defined as all might)

but ever since bakugou and deku started working as one—growing together to win AND save and continuously reminding each other that they shouldnt try to do things alone, ive realized that its BECAUSE theres two of them that they surpass all might. its not a case of deku and bakugou both being 50% of an ideal hero, but rather i think that they are 100% of what all might SHOULD HAVE BEEN from the very beginning.

as early as the AM v AFO battle in kamino, we see the effects of all mights flawed existence. the fact that he, the greatest and supposedly infallible symbol of peace, was destroyed—society had begun to collapse. there was suddenly no pillar to hold people together and the impacts were so severe that even in the latest chapters of mha it keeps on getting worse. the truth is, all mights biggest mistake was the burden he placed on his own shoulders

with bakugou and deku... its different.

its different for them because down to their attributions, they seem like two halves of a whole person.

i think that the wonder duo are going to surpass all might because of the fact that they work together.

@bakugoukatsuki-rising @svpercraigus @tybee​ @isaustraliaathing​

(batshit crazy and conspiratorial essay under the cut !)

1. Complementary Colors

I’d like to first preface literally everything I say by the fact that I am not an expert analyzer or literary major in any way. I am literally just some random fan on the internet who has wayyy too much time and looks wayyy too deep into things, but here we go!

A common thing we see when we talk about bakugou and deku is the way they are... sort of an inverse of one another.

Down to the design of their features and the way they move, Deku is the obviously softer of the two. There’s an intentional contrast between the two of them, in the way that Deku’s drawn with round shapes and curvy hair and the way Bakugou is literally all spikes and half-mast eyes and rough muscles. Bakugou’s movements too are languid and showy, with the way he leans when he walks and splays his legs and kicks open doors. Katsuki, in a casual sense, is loud and dramatic. 

Deku on the other hand s finicky. He jitters when he walks and he’s often fidgeting and mumbling. Comparatively, the aura he radiates is energetic and frenzied, even self-conscious to a point unlike Bakugou’s calm and confident movements.

the point is, there’s a clear difference in how either of them are designed and what exactly they are supposed to represent. They utterly complement each other down to the way they behave and even their main colors (red-orange and blue-green) being literal complementary colors.

Now, moving to my more ungrounded points, this is quite a bit of a stretch so I’ll try as much as possible to make sense of these with hyperlinked sources because. yeah.

Down to their names, I think Deku and Bakugou both symbolize something deeper. I think that the way Hori expresses characters and what they’re meant to do is something that we have to pay close attention to when we talk about the Wonder Duo’s rise to success.

Izuku Midoriya (緑谷 出久), as some of us may know, does have an interesting meaning when broken up. According to a lovely fan translation of his name, ‘Izuku’--while not an actual name used commonly in real life--means to ‘Come out’ or ‘Long time’. ‘Midoriya’ on the other hand means (Midori) ‘Green’ and (ya) ‘valley’. The translator further pointed out that his first name ‘Izuku’ could be a reference to him being the first legendary hero to come out of the long-running All Might Era. (or, if you’ve been reading @/bakugoukatsuki-rising’s posts, the first significant anime protag in a long while to come out as queer, ppfft)

but that isn’t my focus right now.

We know that Hori LOVES telling stories with names, and more often than not in the BNHA universe, names alone tell us a lot of things about the characters. When referring to Izuku’s last name, Midoriya, it’s important I think to step back and realize that hey, maybe there’s something more to Green Valley than just the fact that his motif is all green.

After searching for a lil on the specifics of green valley, I’ve found out that across many cultures, the colour green and valleys in general tend to represent life. From dream analysts, to Christianity, and even old Taoist teachings, valleys are seen as areas of fertility and escape. They are seen as safe havens and often escapes for people to come to after running away from bad circumstances.

(Sound familiar?)

Deku, in essence represents life and peace. He represents being the “salvation” that the world in BNHA needed. To me, it sounds like Horikoshi is trying to say that he is the long-awaited hero in the sense. The one that people can feel will create a society that feels safe for everyone after years of All Might just saving people from themselves as a band-aid solution.

On the other hand, we have Katsuki Bakugou (爆豪 勝己), who’s name we commonly know means (Katsuki) Winner and (Bakugou) Explosion Master. He is essentially, the champion. The power. His name means success and power and all the things that make up winning.

When putting them side by side, it then becomes increasingly... interesting to me how their names almost perfectly slot into All Might’s save to win and win to save mantra, and how they are both quintessential parts to what made All Might as a hero.

2. Hero Too!

Now, I’m not even gonna really TOUCH much of what happens in canon. If you want me to do a step by step breakdown of their arcs in regards to the plot of manga and anime, feel free to send me a gratuitous ko-fi tip so I can pay for the headache I get after trying to organize my thoughts into word vomit.

What I WILL talk about on the other hand, is the subtle shift both of them slowly have in regards to how they look. Bakugou and Deku, while growing up, seem to have MANY many parallels--but before I elaborate on all of that, I wanna talk about something else.

Detour: Deku’s Red Shoes 

We all know the iconic symbol being Deku’s red shoes. For all his life, save for some outfits like his hero one, we see Deku more often than not wearing his signature red sneakers which have become a running joke in fandom.

But the funny thing is, in Japan, red shoes seem to have an interesting connotation.

In 1922, a popular Japanese nursery rhyme was written, called “Red Shoes”. The interesting part to me about this song was the symbolism that, in my tiny pea-sized brain, I could connect to the story of BNHA.

The story goes that there was a little girl with red shoes named ‘Kimi’. She was from Shizuoka prefecture (which, if you didn’t know, is most likely where Musutafu supposedly is) and was raised by a single mother. When she was young, her mother had to entrust her with a foreigner under the impression that they would give her a better life in America. The stranger is a man named Charles Hewitt (who was described to have blue eyes) and supposedly took her away. 

The singer of the song (supposedly the mother, but some argue it was written from the perspective of a childhood friend) believes that Kimi is happy and living a better life away from them, when the reality of the situation was much worse. The young girl with red shoes in actuality had Tuberculosis, and thus the foreigner whom she was entrusted to had left her to fend for herself and eventually left her to go to America while she died alone and orphaned.

“When I see red shoes, I think of her.”

A very interesting story with very interesting implications indeed.

-

Anyway, moving on to the more... “nuanced” and connected parts of this section, I have every reason to believe that Bakugou and Deku were simply MEANT to be working together down to how they dress. Now, I’d like to discuss their hero costumes.

At the start of their series, using these godawful pics for reference, it’s clear to see that neither of them seem alike in any way--reflecting the dissonance in their relationship at that point in canon.

ough. deku why. (yes we know why its because you love your mom you stupid little bunny <3)

Anyway, we see an immediate gap in how the two of them are. Deku’s first costume is one that reflects how he treated his dream of being a hero. He was still in that childlike idolization phase, the one where his dreams and aspirations were hinged on pure feelings and inspiration from All Might. Katsuki on the other hand was a lot more tactical--professional to an extent. The gap between their respective development with their quirks is something that is clearly felt in every fashion decision they’d made.

(Notice how Deku’s green is a lot brighter and less like the green accents Katsuki has all over his costume.)

As time progressed however... their costumes changed. The colors, the silhouettes, the practical functions, most things.

(Deku’s Gamma Costume and Bakugou’s Winter Costume used respectively)

we begin to notice a few similarities.

As the show goes on and we see more evolutions of their costumes, it almost seems like they begin to look like a matching pair. Deku’s green grows darker and almost teal in nature, while Bakugou’s orange is veering towards red territory. This is important to note because red-orange and blue-green as I said earlier were complementary colors as compared to simply orange and green. The minute shift is something I really wasn’t quite sure was intentional, but something I find interesting to pick up nonetheless as the colors they used to accent their costumes begin to match up.

Secondly, I think and important thing to note is silhouettes. The way that both Bakugou and Deku’s costumes are designed follow a lot of parallels that typically we don’t see with the rest of 1-A. For one, they both have a combination of tight long-sleeved tops with a bulkier set of bottoms. They also share the use of utility belts and metal pieces typically worn around their necks. Deku has his bunny-eared hood that mimics All Might’s hair, while Bakugou has his orange and black explosion ear-pieces that mimic his own quirk.

i don’t think any other people in class 1-A match each other as subtly yet strongly as these two. Uraraka and Deku and Bakugou and Kirishima do come close however.

“But Codi, you fucking knob!” I hear you plea. “This is such a reach and tells us practically NOTHING!” And yes, I’m inclined to agree with you! You’d be sort of right in the idea that this is a reach. Maybe I am looking too much into this, and maybe it really isn’t that deep--but I do think that them subconsciously matching outfits means something quite brilliant.

In the way that their costumes are designed, each aspect of either outfits have a very logical explanation. The changes were strategic and made with their fighting styles vividly in mind, so what that tells me is that BECAUSE these costumes are so complementary or similar in nature (Bakugou’s reinforcing his arms while Deku reinforces his legs), these two are implicitly showing the audience that their combat styles are complementary as well. 

The evolution of their design choices and similarities tell us that even unknowingly, their minds line up in strategy on the battlefield--a clear exhibit for why they would be INCREDIBLY POWERFUL as a Hero Duo to begin with.

When I look at their hero costumes side by side, I see a mirror. I see the way that these two are reflections of each other and are strong where the other isn’t. The point I see in BNHA repeatedly is that EVERYONE HAS A WEAKNESS. Nothing is infallible, regardless of how hard you train or how powerful your quirk is. Everyone will always have a weakness, but the significant difference I see when fandom discusses the future of Pro-Hero Society is that the new generation is finally raising itself to be RELIANT on each other. 

Observing their fighting styles and the simple use of their quirks, its obvious that they are indeed two parts of a whole hero. Bakugou, who’s quirk emphasized his arms and hands and the power that comes from it, while Deku who’s quirk now emphasizes his legs and lower body and the way he’s always running to save people.

IN CONCLUSION:

As they become heroes, it is easy to assume that if nothing else, Bakugou and Deku will cover each other’s weak spots (especially when you consider the way Deku probably won’t be able to keep using his arms with the way both the anime and manga are going...) (also chapter 285, anyone?)

-

Part Two: Interactions, OfA

kofi || commission details

[yanbaere]

You accepted the Secret Alliance ending, I live in my own fantasy where Yul got a better ending, we’re not the same.

Also to all the people sending me asks and messages telling me I’m an abuse apologist, I’m not. So stop.

Spoiler if you haven’t read the manhwa.

Please do note that this is just my opinion and my analysis on it, it’s been a while since I read the manhwa so if something I say is wrong please remember that I’m just writing this using my pure memory and some little notes I had, so if something seems off or you notice I’m saying something wrong, you know why.

I obviously don’t condone abuse in any way or form. But I do have to admit Yul deserved better, yeah he needed to heal and move on but I also think he deserved to find someone that truly loved him for who he was, baggage and all.

Even if it wasn’t explicit I do think he deserved someone new to love so he can truly move past all the stuff that happened with the main character (I don’t remember her name because I don’t care about her).

I always thought Yul did physically abuse the protagonist but after learning their backstory and learning all the stuff that happened my opinion shifted. The protagonist is a very unlikable character, at least for me, and a very plain one if I can even say that.

At the begging I related to her because I also have a very deep fear of men, I don’t physically react to their presence but I try to stay away from them as much as I can. But after learning more about her there’s wasn’t much to work with.

Yul was deeply manipulative and even scary, but also mind you, he did everything he could to get the protagonist away from her abusive mother, he even put himself in danger for her so he could save her and give her a better life where her mother wasn’t abusing her, he swore to protect her from all danger because that’s what she did at some point in the past.

Yeah he threatened her into hurting her so they could have some proof/excuse that her mother was abusing her but never really acted on it.

She saw Yul differently from other people, he treated Yul for who he was. Yeah he was prettier that boys and more “feminine” than the rest but she never took that into consideration, she saw him as a boy, and that was something that really stayed with him.

When they both stay at school overnight I really thought “wow he’s really gonna abuse her now” and yeah it was a scary thought but it is a pretty dark story, so I kinda saw it coming, but he didn’t abuse her. And that confused me.

For obvious reasons I didn’t wanted for her to be abused or anything, even if I didn’t like her I wasn’t gonna wish or hope for that. He didn’t even hit her of anything; they just stayed all night at a warehouse at school.

The protagonist had a deep fear of men even before meeting Yul so I always thought that blaming him for ‘ruining her life’ and ‘making her condition worsen’, again, I don’t recall him ever abusing her in “that” way or even hitting her or stuff like that, but again it’s been almost a year since I read the story so my memory could be betraying me.

Another thing to take into consideration is the fact that the story tried to bad to make a parallel between the protagonist’s mother and Yul but I never really thought there were any.

The girls mom always blamed her for attracting dirty men, she even told her she was the one that was dirty and that corrupted men around her. Yul on the other hand never blamed her for any of that, he even said at some point that he himself was a “dirty person” for being so obssesed with her but never really blamed her. He always wanted to protect her even if he knew he was just as dirty as the people that got near her in the past.

I do think that as Yuri, Yul was very manipulative and maybe a little obvious. I always thought it was a little weird he was so open with his obsession towards the main character with other people, but then again the story is relatively short so it could be that. But I always thought it was weird considering he went all the way to dress like a girl so he wouldn’t get caught.

The blonde guy was very unappealing, yeah he was handsome but his personality was all over the place. I think his change of heart with the protagonist was to fast and I don’t like him. I don’t know why.

I think that was the main problem with the story. It tried to push the endgame couple down your throat so bad and never made a good chemistry with them. I always skipped the chapters that focused only on them because believe me when i say I wasn’t interested.

When the protagonist thinks she gets rejected and ACTIVELY SAYS she was gonna be with Yul so she could take out all her anger and pain on Yul I was like girl please seek a therapist please.

Breakups and rejections can be hard, I lived both and believe me it was painful to watch her think she was rejected, even if I didn’t like the main couple. But still, she getting rejected was never and will never be an excuse for her treating Yul/Yuri like how she treated them. She was excessively cold and mean towards them. Even when Yul was respecting her boundaries and wishes, giving her space to get changed, not letting himself see her naked and accepting they were not gonna have s*x. To Yul this was an absolute victory, he was happy he finally won and was able to live with her even if that meant pretending to be a girl the rest of his life.

First thing to come up in blond guy’s head when the main chara is in his bed? Lewd stuff, yeah. Just like the guys the main girl used to flee so much but okay. I swear I tried to like the main couple but they made it so hard.

Lastly I do think Yul going over the guy’s house to hurt him was kinda overkill for me? But then again, he never really hurt him, he hurt himself just like he did back when he was trying to save the protagonist from her mother. He cut himself because I do believe he was tired of having to work so hard for something so simple as being loved and accepted and not be alone. And by the only person he thought accepted him for who he was.

Yeah we see her worried but then being all cold towards him at the hospital? Not my cup of tea.

And her telling him to his face she did not feel anything for him? I don’t know.

I think her reading Yul’s letter and crying was a very cheap way of saving her character but again, I never found her likable so...

Yes I cried during Yul’s letter because it showed just how much he wanted to change and wanted to become a better person. And he did, he found a way to distract himself from her so he could move on. And he does, he says he’s sorry for everything he did and tells her how much he used to love her but he doesn’t feel that way anymore and is happy and ready to move on with his life.

I think it would’ve been nice to show him with somebody else, maybe even mention he was with somebody else because he really deserved to be loved but someone who has actually willing to accept and love him despite all he did.

He was an amazing character and I would’ve loved to see him be fleshed out more or get a better ending.

Good for the main couple for having happy life, I don’t care, but Yul my boy deserved better.

But again this was just my opinion so please take it with a grain of salt.

I love Yul. He’s my boy.

[aspoonofsugar]

The “One” Divided Into “Two”

Hello anons, hello friend,

these asks can be answered together!

First of all:

Hello! I just want to say that I love your RWBY metas! So I'm wondering, have you ever done metas about Emerald and Mercury?

Thank you! And yes, I have written a little bit about Mercury and Emerald here. I would also recommend this wonderful meta by @hamliet because it has an interesting Mercury theory in it.

Now. this answer is gonna mix some analysis with speculation because Emerald and Mercury’s story must still enter its climax. Once it does and we are given a specific interpretative key I will be happy to write more metas on them!

I’ll start with this:

Those two are so out of place in Salem's faction and the last look they share made me doubt that Mercury is rotten to the core and more of a kid who didnt know what he's in for. Since Em has switched sides, is it possible that Merc might follow? I really like him, so I'm hoping that he won't go down like Watts.

In my opinion, yes and here is why.

CHILDREN LOST IN A NARRATIVE

1) Emerald and Mercury have been child-coded since their first appearance:

Roman: Oh, look! She sent the kids again! This is turning out just like the divorce!

2) Both have received a save the cat moment early on:

Emerald: It's almost sad.

Mercury: Emerald, get up, we need to go. (...) Emerald!

Both child-coding and save the cat moments are often used to make characters more sympathetic and this applies to both Emerald and Mercury, even more so than Cinder.

This is why, for example, the major death they are directly involved in:

turns out to be a temporary one.

As a side note, I like thinking of Emerald and Mercury as the Cat and the Fox in Penny’s story since they act as false friends to the main cast, betray them and cause Penny’s first death. Moreover, in the novel, both characters end up suffering consequences for their life-styles. The two murder kids are the same:

At the same time, details about Emerald and Mercury’s backgrounds and motivations are given to the viewers pretty early on:

We are shown Cinder recruiting both and these scenes clearly paint them as two vulnerable kids that get manipulated and groomed:

Raven: Two children you’ve tricked into following you.

Emerald is presented as a scaredy cat and Cinder wins her over by promising the bare minumum aka some security and basic care.

Mercury is given even less aka a narrative to keep himself together:

Cinder: And you're his son. We saw your fight from the treeline. He's taught you well.

Mercury: Guess so.

Cinder: What's your name?

Mercury: Mercury.

Cinder: Mercury... Tell me, are you anything like your father?

Mercury: All my life, my father trained me to be a killer, an assassin like him. And then moments after I killed him, you two showed up looking for someone with my exact skills. Just felt like it was meant to be.

Cinder praises his abilities and frames his trauma as something that makes him strong, not broken. And Mercury has completely embraced this narrative since then.

In short, Emerald and Mercury are framed as two kids lost in an illusory narrative Cinder has crafted. That said, they are also characters in a proper narrative and they are given sympathetic backgrounds and positive qualities that hint they can be better than they currently are.

In particular, Emerald should overcome her emotional dependence on others to make the right thing:

In both volume 3 and volume 8 she is shown the destruction of a city. However, the first time she puts distance between herself and others’ pain, as symbolically conveyed by her looking from above. In volume 8, though, she is shown the same pain up close and she can’t ignore it anymore. This is why the others drag Emerald towards the people crying and light invades the screen when she finally meets the sheltered crew. She is forced to face an uncomfortable truth she wants to ignore.

Mercury should instead let himself depend on others more. He should open up to others and fight for his one positive bond:

Mercury: Back off, freak.

Which leads us to:

What do you like most about Emerald and Mercury's relationship and bond as it is explored in RWBY?

EMERCURY: COMPLEMENTARITY

Emerald and Mercury’s bond being a key one is conveyed both symbolically and in terms of their respective abilities.

When it comes to their abilities, I have written about it in the meta linked above:

In short, Emerald mostly relies on her semblance, while Mercury mostly relies on his legs and fighting prowess.

This detail adds to the idea that Emerald and Mercury have been acting as a unit and have been complementing each other. Emerald acts as the “soul” and Mercury as the “body”.

The soul is one’s personal essence (like the semblance). It is where (once again) wishes reside. The body is what protects the soul and is animated by instincts and self-survival.

They complement each other. This complementarity is shown in Emerald and Mercury’s fights.

In the Vytal festival, Mercury takes on both Coco and Yatsuhashi for a short while, so that Emerald can size her chance to fight Coco at her own terms (and she wins by using her semblance).

In the Battle of Heaven, Emerald uses her semblance to help Mercury fight and, in a sense, she compensates for his lack of one:

The human soul is about wishes, but also duties:

Penny: I feel like I wish I could do both the things I need to do and the things I want to do. Is that normal?

One must accept their feelings, but also struggle with them:

Winter: But yes Penny, we must still acknowledge our personal feelings, wrestle with them. It ensures us that we’re on the right path. It’s what makes us human.

And must do the right thing out of their own free will:

Winter: Penny. The general is making hard choices so we don’t have to.

This is Emerald’s personal struggle. She must let go of her feelings for Cinder and fight her own fear in order to do the right thing.

The human body lets people feel both others’ warmth:

And others’ cruelty:

However, Mercury refuses to feel both. He refuses to truly process his own trauma and pushes his feelings of care for Emerald away:

As far as their symbolism goes, they are linked in at least three different ways.

1) One of the attributes of the Roman god Mercury is that he is the protector of thieves and Emerald’s surname capitalized means thief. What is more:

Mercury: Ooh, Emerald! Master thief! Please don't take my money! I barely have enough to get by!

2) Mercury/Hermes is also the god of alchemy and the one who wrote the Emerald Tablet aka a tablet with the truth of alchemy on it. You, @hamliet​, have written a meta on it, so I won’t add more.

3) According to at least some traditions, emerald is the gemstone associated with the planet Mercury.

So, it is clear the two characters are meant to be important in each other’s arcs.

Let’s now look at Emerald and Mercury’s bond, as it is explored through their interactions.

Mercury clearly cares about Emerald and gets along well with her. She is the only person he shows vulnerability to.

This is what their scene in Lost is about:

Emerald: Why did you come with us, the night Cinder and I found you?

Mercury: Why are you asking--

Emerald: Just answer the question.

Emerald is trying to open herself up and wants Mercury to open up too. This is why she gets annoyed when Mercury gives her a superficial answer. Still, in that conversation, Mercury is genuinelly trying to answer Emerald’s feelings:

Mercury: I'm sorry you didn't have a mommy that loved you, but I had a father who hated me! He never went easy on me! Every day of training was a beating. And when I unlocked my Semblance, he stole it with his! "This is a crutch!" "This makes you weak!" He told me I could have it back when I was strong. So I got strong, but I never got it back! I've had to work harder than anyone to get where I am. You may not like it here without Cinder, but I think I'm right where I'm supposed to be!

Here, Mercury is telling Emerald details of his past he would not be sharing if he did not trust her. He can’t let himself be completely vulnerable, though, so he discloses them by lashing out at Emerald. He mixes violence with authentic vulnerability and also with care:

Mercury: Cinder doesn't care about you! She doesn't care about either of us!

He has seen how self-destructive Emerald can get when it comes to Cinder:

And he is trying to have Emerald move on from her obsession.

However, Mercury’s small steps towards opening up and caring for another person are constantly challenged:

Tyrian: Oh yes, the world is mean, and I'm a big, bad man now just like the others.

Mercury: How long have you been standing there?!

The moment he opens up to Emerald, Tyrian appears to threathen and mock him.

Mercury’s positive development lies in accepting his own feelings of pain and in sharing them with others, so that he can be helped. However, the environment he is in goes in the way of it:

Emerald: Mercury, I wanted to...

Here, Emerald is trying to either apologize to Mercury for their fight or to at least check out on him. Still, Mercury is not listening to her because he is too frightened by what Salem is doing.

Mercury’s current struggle is conveyed in a nutshell by the glance he gives to his left in Midnight:

Is he looking at Emerald out of concern?

Or at Salem out of caution?

It is not clear. Still, what is sure is that Mercury should focus on Emerald, but Salem goes in the way. He deep down wants to care about others, but he is too scared to do so:

Tyrian: All you ever learned was pain and violence, and now you're too afraid to leave it. Such a tragedy.

At the same time, Mercury is for Emerald what she has been looking for in Cinder:

Emerald: We don't need him! Everything was going fine!

She initially refuses him, but it is clear that with time Mercury becomes the thing most similar to a family Emerald has:

She has been so fixated on Cinder and on how she can be worthy of Cinder’s love that she has missed how much Mercury has tried to protect her all along.

This is why Hazel is important for Emerald’s development:

Hazel: No more Gretchens, boy.

His sacrifice is about breaking his personal cycle of pain. His story starts with Gretchen dying when she was only a girl and it ends with him preventing another girl’s death. At the same time, he also helps breaking the cyle of abuse between Emerald and Cinder.

Emerald is told the truth about her relationship with Cinder by Mercury. Moreover, it seems something finally clicks for her here:

She observes Salem’s manipulation of Cinder and understands Cinder has been manipulating her in the same way.

However, it is thanks to Hazel’s sacrifice that Emerald sees what a genuine parental bond should be like. It should be about the parent protecting the child:

Hazel: What Gretchen would have done. And that starts with getting you away from here. Both of you.

And not the child protecting the parent:

Emerald: I know I can’t beat you. But I can fill that thing full of holes before you take me down.

It should be about the parent caring for the child unconditionally:

Hazel: Go.

And not about the child working hard to gain a parent’s love:

Cinder: You… You brought me back here. We failed.

Emerald: Cinder, you were hurt. I was just trying to help.

At the same time, Hazel’s death has taught Emerald the pain of losing a loved one:

And has forced Emerald to stand on her own two legs:

Oscar: I've seen what you can do, Emerald. However this fight ends, we could really use someone like you.

She can’t be protected forever, but she should start protecting others. She is powerful enough to do so and she must accept this responsibility.

So

I think Emerald could be key to Mercury's redemption

I think so too. Emerald saving Mercury is the perfect objective for her personal arc. It forces her to act as the savior instead of the one being saved.

Moreover, Mercury told her the truth about herself:

Mercury: You're in denial.

So Emerald might do the same for Mercury. This would also fit with her being the Emerald Tablet. The Tablet is written by Mercury to convey the truth to the world. Here, it might very well be the inverse: the Emerald Tablet might convey the truth to Mercury.

In general, Mercury and Tyrian’s foiling has to pay off, just like Emerald and Hazel’s:

The set-up is there for Tyrian and Mercury’s subplot to be about breaking cycles as well. Mercury’s story is about a child left alone with his abuser. Nobody comes to save him, so Mercury is forced to save himself by killing Marcus. Still, this only leads to him being stuck in the idea he is nothing, but an extension of his father. Right now, the cycle is repeating, but it is possible this time things will go differently because there is at least one person who cares about him.

Not only that, but (and this is nothing, but a baseless theory) even Qrow (aka a character who has unfinished business with Tyrian) might be a thematic fit to help Mercury:

Mercury: Bad hair, used a scythe, and smelled like my dad after a long day. It was him.

After all, Mercury himself draws a comparison between Qrow and his father since they are both alcoholic. However, Qrow has started a journey of rehabilitation for the sake of his nieces and their friends.

Qrow sees himself as bad for others and fundamentally unlucky because of his background and his semblance. So, his third fight with Tyrian being about saving a kid, who, in a sense, is even less lucky than him and has no semblance might be thematically fitting.

Despite it all, Qrow found a family and a place to belong and he might help Mercury find his (Emerald) as well.

SEMBLANCE OF THE SELF

Got no gun But I gleam like a blade and I'm harder than iron

Delusion I'll steal til your blind and defeat you from inside your mind

Emerald’s best weapon is her semblance, while Mercury’s semblance was stolen, so he could become a weapon.

This difference symbolizes their respective reactions to abuse.

Emerald uses her illusions as a coping mechanism.

This mechanism is well conveyed in CEM’s fight against Amber:

On one hand, Emerald creates a child version of herself who is well dressed and owns a bike. It is a rich version of Emerald because she must think that is the kind of child others would stop by to help. She does not believe she is likable or lovable. This is why she makes an illusory alter-ego, which is both true (she deep down is a crying child) and false (she is a street rat with nothing).

In general, this is Emerald’s way to approach others:

Emerald: Just left the stadium after your amazing fight! You guys were awesome!

Ren: Because she's scared. Just like us..

Emerald: Or maybe because I know how to get out of here. Anybody coming?

She either fakes an overly friendly demeanor or acts tougher than she is. In any case, she hides her true self.

On the other hand, Emerald is symbolically trapping herself in an illusion together with Amber. Amber can’t see the dangerous thief in front of her, but Emerald too can’t see the generous woman who is offering food to a crying child:

Cinder: Follow me, and you’ll never be hungry again.

Cinder promises Emerald food and love and this lie makes the girl unable  to see the genuine article when it is right there.

So Emerald tricks both others and herself. This is how she survives abuse.

This is why she keeps believing in Cinder while she is gone:

Emerald: You’re here! I knew you’d co--

And this is why symbolically her semblance grows stronger in an abusive environment:

Emerald: I’ve been working on my Semblance. I can help. I won’t tell anybody.

Salem: You really have been honing that Semblance of yours.

After all, this is when Emerald gets a “power-up”:

She has just lost Cinder and finds herself stuck with Salem. Her reaction is to have a breakdown and to project an illusion in the minds of nine people, when she had previously stated she could only do one/two minds at most.

Mercury weaponizes his trauma.

This is why his legs are Mercury’s true weapon, while Talaria is there just to cover and embellish the pain and ugliness under it.

Mercury fights Amber with only its bare legs because symbolically his trauma is still fresh and he has yet to work out a structured coping mechanism to it. His meeting with Cinder is the first step in this construction that evolves in the following months and is still evolving:

In CEM’s fight against Amber, Mercury uses his unfeeling legs to whitstand the violence of the elements:

Fire

Earth and Water

Air

He goes through the whole cycle without feeling any pain simply because his trauma has made him unfeeling:

I'm the one That was ripped from the earth and exposed to the sun

Marcus has literally turned Mercury into Iron:

But I gleam like a blade and I'm harder than iron

Still, the point is that mercury as a metal is not as hard as iron, but (in the alchemical scale of metals) is way more refined and closer to gold. Mercury can be better than his father, but his way to survive abuse is to repress himself.

This is why his semblance was stolen by his abuser. It is because abuse has taken away Mercury’s personhood.

So, both Emerald and Mercury face abuse by masking or repressing themselves. The difference is a matter of degree. Mercury can suppress his emotions and needs more, while Emerald can’t.

Theirs is a foiling about feeling too much to the point of self-harm and of feeling too little to the point of negation.

So, Emerald must struggle with her feelings not to be controlled by them, while Mercury must aknowledge them.

Emerald’s Hallucinations is a Semblance of The Self because it hides both Emerald herself and the truth.

This is interesting because, as stated above, the Emerald Tablet should convey the truth about alchemy. However, Emerald’s environment has turned her into an inversion of herself:

I'm the one Who rose out of filth and was loved by no-one

She is a gemstone, but is currently covered in dirt. She needs to polish herself, so she can shine and fit better in her allusion.

Mercury’s stolen semblance is a Semblance of The Self because it is linked to Mercury’s self-expression, which he must claim back.

Until then, he is bound to be stuck in an abusive cycle as nothing, but a weapon.

In general, there is some symbolism around Mercury which needs unpacking:

Mercury quoting Marcus:"This is a crutch!" "This makes you weak!"

Firstly, he has clearly interiorized what his father told him here. He refuses the idea of weakness and crutches to the point that his prosthetics, which are literal crutches get turned into weapons and even covered by other weapons. However, this refusal of crutches means Mercury can’t heal. After all, crutches, bandages and treatment are necessary to become healthy once again.

Secondly, there is this: 

I'll run circles round ya, I can touch the sky

The God Mercury’s main attribute is that he can overcome any boundary. He can go wherever he wants in no time. However, Mercury is the opposite because no matter what, he can’t leave his abusive environment. This has to do once again with his father’s abuse which culminated with Marcus taking Mercury’s legs. This is symbolically why Mercury is trapped.

Like for Emerald, Mercury’s arc should be about growing into his allusion, so that he can finally be free.

Still, how to turn Emerald and Mercury in the positive versions of their allusions? The answer has to do with this question:

(I think Emerald could be key to) maybe Cinder's (redemption) too

I’M THE ONE

Emerald and Mercury are two parts of the individual (body and soul) and two parts of a Huntsman (semblance and weapon):

Ren: A common philosophy is that a warrior's Semblance is a part of who they are.

Ruby: Just weapons? They're an extension of ourselves! They're a part of us! Oh, they're so cool.

Together they make a unit. Together they make Cinder. They are two sides of her trauma, her two sins:

Emerald: Actually, I was wondering, do you have any copies of "The Thief and The Butcher"?

And the wounds behind those sins.

This is why Cinder takes them in, but also why she abuses them.

She uses them as weapons:

In CEM’s fight against Amber she lets them go in first and has them take the majority of Amber’s hits.

Not only that, but she uses them as “red herrings” she hides behind.

She acts as if Amber’s blow takes her out of the fight, while Amber focuses on Mercury who resists her attack:

She has Emerald display her semblance at full force, so that the girl becomes Amber’s first target:

She makes her own illusion where Emerald and Mercury are her smokescreen.

However, her two disciples are not just things she can use as she pleases. They are two people who depend on her:

Mercury: You mean--

Emerald: She's alive?

They are literally two kids she takes in framing their relationship as parental/hierarchical hence she is responsible for them.

However, she fails them and leaves them in a dangerous environment. This is why they both leave her out of self-survival.

Narratively, Emerald and Mercury are two kids that must grow up. Right now, they are in some kind of adolescent phase. They have started their emancipation from their “parent”, but they have still to grow until they’ll be able to truly face Cinder.

It will probably be in this confrontation that they will affirm their growth. Right now, Cinder does not need to be coddled, but to be called out. Both Neo and Watts try to, but Cinder ignores them and retaliates against them. She needs a call out she can’t ignore and Emerald and Mercury are too rooted in who she deep down is for her to be unaffected by them.

At the same time, it would mark Mercury and Emerald’s first step into adulthood. Only then they can stop being a “half” and can truly become “one”, so a whole person.

[shortnotsweet]

Bakudeku: A Non-Comprehensive Dissection of the Exploitation of Working Bodies, the Murder of Annoying Children, and a Rivals-to-Lovers Complex

I. Bakudeku in Canon, And Why Anti’s Need to Calm the Fuck Down

II. Power is Power: the Brain-Melting Process of Normalization and Toxic Masculinity

III. How to Kill Middle Schoolers, and Why We Should

IV. Parallels in Abuse, EnemiesRivals-to-Lovers, and the Necessity of Redemption ft. ATLA’s Zuko

V. Give it to Me Straight. It’s Homophobic.

VI. Love in Perspective, from the East v. West

VII. Stuck in the Sludge, the Past, and Season One

Disclaimer

It needs to be said that there is definitely a place for disagreement, discourse, debate, and analysis: that is a sign of an active fandom that’s heavily invested, and not inherently a bad thing at all. Considering the amount of source material we do have (from the manga, to the anime, to the movies, to the light novels, to the official art), there are going to be warring interpretations, and that’s inevitable.

I started watching and reading MHA pretty recently, and just got into the fandom. I was weary for a reason, and honestly, based on what I’ve seen, I’m still weary now. I’ve seen a lot of anti posts, and these are basically my thoughts. This entire thing is in no way comprehensive, and it’s my own opinion, so take it with a grain of salt. If I wanted to be thorough about this, I would’ve included manga panels, excerpts from the light novel, shots from the anime, links to other posts/essays/metas that have inspired this, etc. but I’m tired and not about that life right now, so, this is what it is. This is poorly organized, but maybe I’ll return to fix it.

Let’s begin.

Bakudeku in Canon, And Why Anti’s Need to Calm the Fuck Down

There are a lot of different reasons, that can be trivial as you like, to ship or not to ship two (or more) characters. It could be based purely off of character design, proximity, aversion to another ship, or hypotheticals. And I do think that it’s totally valid if someone dislikes the ship or can’t get on board with his character because to them, it does come across as abuse, and the implications make them uncomfortable or, or it just feels unhealthy. If that is your takeaway, and you are going to stick to your guns, the more power to you.

But Bakudeku’s relationship has canonically progressed to the point where it’s not the emotionally (or physically) abusive clusterfuck some people portray it to be, and it’s cheap to assume that it would be, based off of their characterizations as middle schoolers. Izuku intentionally opens the story as a naive little kid who views the lens of the Hero society through rose colored glasses and arguably wants nothing more than assimilation into that society; Bakugou is a privileged little snot who embodies the worst and most hypocritical beliefs of this system. Both of them are intentionally proven wrong. Both are brainwashed, as many little children are, by the propaganda and societal norms that they are exposed to. Both of their arcs include unlearning crucial aspects of the Hero ideology in order to become true heroes.

I will personally never simp for Bakugou because for the longest time, I couldn't help but think of him as a little kid on the playground screaming at the top of his lungs because someone else is on the swingset. He’s red in the face, there are probably veins popping out of his neck, he’s losing it. It’s easy to see why people would prefer Tododeku to Bakudeku.

Even now, seeing him differently, I still personally wouldn’t date Bakugou, especially if I had other options. Why? I probably wouldn’t want to date any of the guys who bullied me, especially because I think that schoolyard bullying, even in middle school, affected me largely in a negative way and created a lot of complexes I’m still trying to work through. I haven’t built a better relationship with them, and I’m not obligated to. Still, I associate them with the kind of soft trauma that they inflicted upon me, and while to them it was probably impersonal, to me, it was an intimate sort of attack that still affects me. That being said, that is me. Those are my personal experiences, and while they could undoubtedly influence how I interpret relationships, I do not want to project and hinder my own interpretation of Deku.

The reality is that Deku himself has an innate understanding of Bakugou that no one else does; I mention later that he seems to understand his language, implicitly, and I do stand by that. He understands what it is he’s actually trying to say, often why he’s saying it, and while others may see him as wimpy or unable to stand up for himself, that’s simply not true. Part of Deku’s characterization is that he is uncommonly observant and empathetic; I’m not denying that Bakugou caused harm or inflicted damage, but infantilizing Deku and preaching about trauma that’s not backed by canon and then assuming random people online excuse abuse is just...the leap of leaps, and an actual toxic thing to do. I’ve read fan works where Bakugou is a bully, and that’s all, and has caused an intimate degree of emotional, mental, and physical insecurity from their middle school years that prevents their relationship from changing, and that’s for the better. I’m not going to argue and say that it’s not an interesting take, or not valid, or has no basis, because it does. Its basis is the character that Bakugou was in middle school, and the person he was when he entered UA.

Not only is Bakugou — the current Bakugou, the one who has accumulated memories and experiences and development — not the same person he was at the beginning of the story, but Deku is not the same person, either. Maybe who they are fundamentally, at their core, stays the same, but at the beginning and end of any story, or even their arcs within the story, the point is that characters will undergo change, and that the reader will gain perspective.

“You wanna be a hero so bad? I’ve got a time-saving idea for you. If you think you’ll have a quirk in your next life...go take a swan dive off the roof!”

Yes. That is a horrible thing to tell someone, even if you are a child, even if you don’t understand the implications, even if you don’t mean what it is you are saying. Had someone told me that in middle school, especially given our history and the context of our interactions, I don’t know if I would ever have forgiven them.

Here’s the thing: I’m not Deku. Neither is anyone reading this. Deku is a fictional character, and everyone we know about him is extrapolated from source material, and his response to this event follows:

“Idiot! If I really jumped, you’d be charged with bullying me into suicide! Think before you speak!”

I think it’s unfair to apply our own projections as a universal rather than an interpersonal interpretation; that’s not to say that the interpretation of Bakudeku being abusive or having unbalanced power dynamics isn’t valid, or unfounded, but rather it’s not a universal interpretation, and it’s not canon. Deku is much more of a verbal thinker; in comparison, Bakugou is a visual one, at least in the format of the manga, and as such, we get various panels demonstrating his guilt, and how deep it runs. His dialogue and rapport with Deku has undeniably shifted, and it’s very clear that the way they treat each other has changed from when they were younger. Part of Bakugou’s growth is him gaining self awareness, and eventually, the strength to wield that. He knows what a fucked up little kid he was, and he carries the weight of that.

“At that moment, there were no thoughts in my head. My body just moved on its own.”

There’s a part of me that really, really disliked Bakugou going into it, partially because of what I’d seen and what I’d heard from a limited, outside perspective. I felt like Bakugou embodied the toxic masculinity (and to an extent, I still believe that) and if he won in some way, that felt like the patriarchy winning, so I couldn't help but want to muzzle and leash him before releasing him into the wild.

The reality, however, of his character in canon is that it isn’t very accurate to assume that he would be an abusive partner in the future, or that Midoryia has not forgiven him to some extent already, that the two do not care about each other or are singularly important, that they respect each other, or that the narrative has forgotten any of this.

Don’t mistake me for a Bakugou simp or apologist. I’m not, but while I definitely could also see Tododeku (and I have a soft spot for them, too, their dynamic is totally different and unique, and Todoroki is arguably treated as the tritagonist) and I’m ambivalent about Izuocha (which is written as cannoncially romantic) I do believe that canonically, Bakugou and Deku are framed as soulmates/character foils, Sasuke + Naruto, Kageyama + Hinata style. Their relationship is arguably the focus of the series. That’s not to undermine the importance or impact of Deku’s relationships with other characters, and theirs with him, but in terms of which one takes priority, and which one this all hinges on?

The manga is about a lot of things, yes, but if it were to be distilled into one relationship, buckle up, because it’s the Bakudeku show.

Power is Power: the Brain-Melting Process of Normalization and Toxic Masculinity

One of the ways in which the biopolitical prioritization of Quirks is exemplified within Hero society is through Quirk marriages. Endeavor partially rationalizes the abuse of his family through the creation of a child with the perfect quirk, a child who can be molded into the perfect Hero. People with powerful, or useful abilities, are ranked high on the hierarchy of power and privilege, and with a powerful ability, the more opportunities and avenues for success are available to them.

For the most part, Bakugou is a super spoiled, privileged little rich kid who is born talented but is enabled for his aggressive behavior and, as a child, cannot move past his many internalized complexes, treats his peers like shit, and gets away with it because the hero society he lives in either has this “boys will be boys” mentality, or it’s an example of the way that power, or Power, is systematically prioritized in this society. The hero system enables and fosters abusers, people who want power and publicity, and people who are genetically predisposed to have advantages over others. There are plenty of good people who believe in and participate in this system, who want to be good, and who do good, but that doesn’t change the way that the hero society is structured, the ethical ambiguity of the Hero Commission, and the way that Heroes are but pawns, idols with machine guns, used to sell merch to the public, to install faith in the government, or the current status quo, and reinforce capitalist propaganda. Even All Might, the epitome of everything a Hero should be, is drained over the years, and exists as a concept or idea, when in reality he is a hollow shell with an entire person inside, struggling to survive. Hero society is functionally dependent on illusion.

In Marxist terms: There is no truth, there is only power.

Although Bakugou does change, and I think that while he regrets his actions, what is long overdue is him verbally expressing his remorse, both to himself and Deku. One might argue that he’s tried to do it in ways that are compatible with his limited emotional range of expression, and Deku seems to understand this language implicitly.

I am of the opinion that the narrative is building up to a verbal acknowledgement, confrontation, and subsequent apology that only speaks what has gone unspoken.

That being said, Bakugou is a great example of the way that figures of authority (parents, teachers, adults) and institutions both in the real world and this fictional universe reward violent behavior while also leaving mental and emotional health — both his own and of the people Bakugou hurts — unchecked, and part of the way he lashes out at others is because he was never taught otherwise.

And by that, I’m referring to the ways that are to me, genuinely disturbing. For example, yelling at his friends is chill. But telling someone to kill themselves, even casually and without intent and then misinterpreting everything they do as a ploy to make you feel weak because you're projecting? And having no teachers stop and intervene, either because they are afraid of you or because they value the weight that your Quirk can benefit society over the safety of children? That, to me, is both real and disturbing.

Not only that, but his parents (at least, Mitsuki), respond to his outbursts with more outbursts, and while this is likely the culture of their home and I hesitate to call it abusive, I do think that it contributed to the way that he approaches things. Bakugou as a character is very complex, but I think that he is primarily an example of the way that the Hero System fails people.

I don’t think we can write off the things he’s done, especially using the line of reasoning that “He didn’t mean it that way”, because in real life, children who hurt others rarely mean it like that either, but that doesn’t change the effect it has on the people who are victimized, but to be absolutely fair, I don’t think that the majority of Bakudeku shippers, at least now, do use that line of reasoning. Most of them seem to have a handle on exactly how fucked up the Hero society is, and exactly why it fucks up the people embedded within that society.

The characters are positioned in this way for a reason, and the discoveries made and the development that these characters undergo are meant to reveal more about the fictional world — and, perhaps, our world — as the narrative progresses.

The world of the Hero society is dependent, to some degree, on biopolitics. I don’t think we have enough evidence to suggest that people with Quirks or Quirkless people place enough identity or placement within society to become equivalent to marginalized groups, exactly, but we can draw parallels to the way that Deku and by extent Quirkless people are viewed as weak, a deviation, or disabled in some way. Deviants, or non-productive bodies, are shunned for their inability to perform ideal labor. While it is suggested to Deku that he could become a police officer or pursue some other occupation to help people, he believes that he can do the most positive good as a Hero. In order to be a Hero, however, in the sense of a career, one needs to have Power.

Deviation from the norm will be punished or policed unless it is exploitable; in order to become integrated into society, a deviant must undergo a process of normalization and become a working, exploitable body. It is only through gaining power from All Might that Deku is allowed to assimilate from the margins and into the upper ranks of society; the manga and the anime give the reader enough perspective, context, and examples to allow us to critique and deconstruct the society that is solely reliant on power.

Through his societal privileges, interpersonal biases, internalized complexes, and his subsequent unlearning of these ideologies, Bakugou provides examples of the way that the system simultaneously fails and indoctrinates those who are targeted, neglected, enabled by, believe in, and participate within the system.

Bakudeku are two sides of the same coin. We are shown visually that the crucial turning point and fracture in their relationship is when Bakugou refuses to take Deku’s outstretched hand; the idea of Deku offering him help messes with his adolescent perspective in that Power creates a hierarchy that must be obeyed, and to be helped is to be weak is to be made a loser.

Largely, their character flaws in terms of understanding the hero society are defined and entangled within the concept of power. Bakugou has power, or privilege, but does not have the moral character to use it as a hero, and believes that Power, or winning, is the only way in which to view life. Izuku has a much better grasp on the way in which heroes wield power (their ideologies can, at first, be differentiated as winning vs. saving), and is a worthy successor because of this understanding, and of circumstance. However, in order to become a Hero, our hero must first gain the Power that he lacks, and learn to wield it.

As the characters change, they bridge the gaps of their character deficiencies, and are brought closer together through character parallelism.

Two sides of the same coin, an outstretched hand.

They are better together.

How to Kill Middle Schoolers, and Why We Should

I think it’s fitting that in the manga, a critical part of Bakugou’s arc explicitly alludes to killing the middle school version of himself in order to progress into a young adult. In the alternative covers Horikoshi released, one of them was a close up of Bakugou in his middle school uniform, being stabbed/impaled, with blood rolling out of his mouth. Clearly this references the scene in which he sacrifices himself to save Deku, on a near-instinctual level.

To me, this only cements Horikoshi’s intent that middle school Bakugou must be debunked, killed, discarded, or destroyed in order for Bakugou the hero to emerge, which is why people who do actually excuse his actions or believe that those actions define him into young adulthood don’t really understand the necessity for change, because they seem to imply that he doesn’t need/cannot reach further growth, and there doesn’t need to be a separation between the Bakugou who is, at heart, volatile and repressed the angry, and the Bakugou who sacrifices himself, a hero who saves people.

Plot twist: there does need to be a difference. Further plot twist: there is a difference.

In sacrificing himself for Deku, Bakugou himself doesn't die, but the injury is fatal in the sense that it could've killed him physically and yet symbolizes the selfish, childish part of him that refused to accept Deku, himself, and the inevitability of change. In killing those selfish remnants, he could actually become the kind of hero that we the reader understand to be the true kind.

That’s why I think that a lot of the people who stress his actions as a child without acknowledging the ways he has changed, grown, and tried to fix what he has broken don’t really get it, because it was always part of his character arc to change and purposely become something different and better. If the effects of his worst and his most childish self stick with you more, and linger despite that, that’s okay. But distilling his character down to the wrong elements doesn’t get you the bare essentials; what it gets you is a skewed and shallow version of a person. If you’re okay with that version, that is also fine.

But you can’t condemn others who aren’t fine with that incomplete version, and to become enraged that others do not see him as you do is childish.

Bakugou’s change and the emphasis on that change is canon.

Parallels in Abuse, EnemiesRivals-to-Lovers, and the Necessity of Redemption ft. ATLA’s Zuko

In real life, the idea that “oh, he must bully you because he likes you” is often used as a way to brush aside or to excuse the action of bullying itself, as if a ‘secret crush’ somehow negates the effects of bullying on the victim or the inability of the bully to properly process and manifest their emotions in certain ways. It doesn’t. It often enables young boys to hurt others, and provides figures of authority to overlook the real source of schoolyard bullying or peer review. The “secret crush”, in real life, is used to undermine abuse, justify toxic masculinity, and is essentially used as a non-solution solution.

A common accusation is that Bakudeku shippers jump on the pairing because they romanticize pairing a bully and a victim together, or believe that the only way for Bakugou to atone for his past would be to date Midoryia in the future. This may be true for some people, in which case, that’s their own preference, but based on my experience and what I’ve witnessed, that’s not the case for most.

The difference being is that as these are characters, we as readers or viewers are meant to analyze them. Not to justify them, or to excuse their actions, but we are given the advantage of the outsider perspective to piece their characters together in context, understand why they are how they are, and witness them change; maybe I just haven’t been exposed to enough of the fandom, but no one (I’ve witnessed) treats the idea that “maybe Bakugou has feelings he can’t process or understand and so they manifest in aggressive and unchecked ways'' as a solution to his inability to communicate or process in a healthy way, rather it is just part of the explanation of his character, something is needs to — and is — working through. The solution to his middle school self is not the revelation of a “teehee, secret crush”, but self-reflection, remorse, and actively working to better oneself, which I do believe is canonically reflected, especially as of recently.

In canon, they are written to be partners, better together than apart, and I genuinely believe that one can like the Bakudeku dynamic not by route of romanticization but by observation.

I do think we are meant to see parallels between him and Endeavor; Endeavor is a high profile abuser who embodies the flaws and hypocrisy of the hero system. Bakugou is a schoolyard bully who emulates and internalizes the flaws of this system as a child, likely due to the structure of the society and the way that children will absorb the propaganda they are exposed to; the idea that Quirks, or power, define the inherent value of the individual, their ability to contribute to society, and subsequently their fundamental human worth. The difference between them is the fact that Endeavor is the literal adult who is fully and knowingly active within a toxic, corrupt system who forces his family to undergo a terrifying amount of trauma and abuse while facing little to no consequences because he knows that his status and the values of their society will protect him from those consequences. In other words, Endeavor is the threat of what Bakugou could have, and would have, become without intervention or genuine change.

Comparisons between characters, as parallels or foils, are tricky in that they imply but cannot confirm sameness. Having parallels with someone does not make them the same, by the way, but can serve to illustrate contrasts, or warnings. Harry Potter, for example, is meant to have obvious parallels with Tom Riddle, with similar abilities, and tragic upbringings. That doesn’t mean Harry grows up to become Lord Voldemort, but rather he helps lead a cross-generational movement to overthrow the facist regime. Harry is offered love, compassion, and friends, and does not embrace the darkness within or around him. As far as moldy old snake men are concerned, they do not deserve a redemption arc because they do not wish for one, and the truest of change only occurs when you actively try to change.

To be frank, either way, Bakugou was probably going to become a good Hero, in the sense that Endeavor is a ‘good’ Hero. Hero capitalized, as in a pro Hero, in the sense that it is a career, an occupation, and a status. Because of his strong Quirk, determination, skill, and work ethic, Bakugou would have made a good Hero. Due to his lack of character, however, he was not on the path to become a hero; defender of the weak, someone who saves people to save people, who is willing to make sacrifices detrimental to themselves, who saves people out of love.

It is necessary for him to undergo both a redemption arc and a symbolic death and rebirth in order for him to follow the path of a hero, having been inspired and prompted by Deku.

I personally don’t really like Endeavor’s little redemption arc, not because I don’t believe that people can change or that they shouldn't at least try to atone for the atrocities they have committed, but because within any narrative, a good redemption arc is important if it matters; what also matters is the context of that arc, and whether or not it was needed. For example, in ATLA, Zuko’s redemption arc is widely regarded as one of the best arcs in television history, something incredible. And it is. That shit fucks. In a good way.

It was confirmed that Azula was also going to get a redemption arc, had Volume 4 gone on as planned, and it was tentatively approached in the comics, which are considered canon. She is an undeniably bad person (who is willing to kill, threaten, exploit, and colonize), but she is also a child, and as viewers, we witness and recognize the factors that contributed to her (debatable) sociopathy, and the way that the system she was raised in failed her. Her family failed her; even Uncle Iroh, the wise mentor who helps guide Zuko to see the light, is willing to give up on her immediately, saying that she’s “crazy” and needs to be “put down”. Yes, it’s comedic, and yes, it’s pragmatic, but Azula is fourteen years old. Her mother is banished, her father is a psychopath, and her older brother, from her perspective, betrayed and abandoned her. She doesn’t have the emotional support that Zuko does; she exploits and controls her friends because it’s all she’s been taught to do; she says herself, her “own mother thought [she] was a monster; she was right, of course, but it still [hurts]”. A parent who does not believe in you, or a parent that uses you and will hurt you, is a genuine indicator of trauma.

The writers understood that both Zuko and Azula deserved redemption arcs. One was arguably further gone than the other, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are both children, products of their environment, who have the time, motive, and reason to change.

In contrast, you know who wouldn’t have deserved a redemption arc? Ozai. That simply would not have been interesting, wouldn’t have served the narrative well, and honestly, is not needed, thematically or otherwise. Am I comparing Ozai to Endeavor? Basically, yes. Fuck those guys. I don’t see a point in Endeavor’s little “I want to be a good dad now” arc, and I think that we don’t need to sympathize with characters in order to understand them or be interested in them. I want Touya/Dabi to expose his abuse, for his career to crumble, and then for him to die.

If they are not challenging the system that we the viewer are meant to question, and there is no thematic relevance to their redemption, is it even needed?

On that note, am I saying that Bakugou is the equivalent to Zuko? No, lmao. Definitely not. They are different characters with different progressions and different pressures. What I am saying is that good redemption arcs shouldn’t be handed out like candy to babies; it is the quality, rather than the quantity, that makes a redemption arc good. In terms of the commentary of the narrative, who needs a redemption arc, who is deserving, and who does it make sense to give one to?

In this case, Bakugou checks those boxes. It was always in the cards for him to change, and he has. In fact, he’s still changing.

Give it to Me Straight. It’s Homophobic.

There does seem to be an urge to obsessively gender either Bakugou or Deku, in making Deku the ultra-feminine, stereotypically hyper-sexualized “woman” of the relationship, with Bakugou becoming similarly sexualized but depicted as the hyper-masculine bodice ripper. On some level, that feels vaguely homophobic if not straight up misogynistic, in that in a gay relationship there’s an urge to compel them to conform under heteronormative stereotypes in order to be interpreted as real or functional. On one hand, I will say that in a lot of cases it feels like more of an expression of a kink, or fetishization and subsequent expression of internalized misogyny, at least, rather than a genuine exploration of the complexity and power imbalances of gender dynamics, expression, and boundaries.

That being said, I don’t think that that problematic aspect of shipping is unique to Bakudeku, or even to the fandom in general. We’ve all read fan work or see fanart of most gay ships in a similiar manner, and I think it’s a broader issue to be addressed than blaming it on a singular ship and calling it a day.

One interpretation of Bakugou’s character is his repression and the way his character functions under toxic masculinity, in a society’s egregious disregard for mental and emotional health (much like in the real world), the horrifying ways in which rage is rationalized or excused due to the concept of masculinity, and the way that characteristics that are associated with femininity — intellect, empathy, anxiety, kindness, hesitation, softness — are seen as stereotypically “weak”, and in men, traditionally emasculating. In terms of the way that the fictional universe is largely about societal priority and power dynamics between individuals and the way that extends to institutions, it’s not a total stretch to guess that gender as a construct is a relevant topic to expand on or at least keep in mind for comparison.

I think that the way in which characters are gendered and the extent to which that is a result of invasive heteronormativity and fetishization is a really important conversation to have, but using it as a case-by-case evolution of a ship used to condemn people isn’t conductive, and at that point, it’s treated as less of a real concern but an issue narrowly weaponised.

Love in Perspective, from the East v. West

Another thing I think could be elaborated on and written about in great detail is the way that the Eastern part of the fandom and the Western part of the fandom have such different perspectives on Bakudeku in particular. I am not going to go in depth with this, and there are many other people who could go into specifics, but just as an overview:

The manga and the anime are created for and targeted at a certain audience; our take on it will differ based on cultural norms, decisions in translation, understanding of the genre, and our own region-specific socialization. This includes the way in which we interpret certain relationships, the way they resonate with us, and what we do and do not find to be acceptable. Of course, this is not a case-by-case basis, and I’m sure there are plenty of people who hold differing beliefs within one area, but speaking generally, there is a reason that Bakudeku is not regarded as nearly as problematic in the East.

Had this been written by a Western creator, marketed primarily to and within the West (for reference, while I am Chinese, but I have lived in the USA for most of my life, so my own perspective is undoubtedly westernized), I would’ve immediately jumped to make comparisons between the Hero System and the American police system, in that a corrupt, or bastardized system is made no less corrupt for the people who do legitimately want to do good and help people, when that system disproportionately values and targets others while relying on propaganda that society must be reliant on that system in order to create safe communities when in reality it perpetuates just as many issues as it appears to solve, not to mention the way it attracts and rewards violent and power-hungry people who are enabled to abuse their power. I think comparisons can still be made, but in terms of analysis, it should be kept in mind that the police system in other parts of the world do not have the same history, place, and context as it does in America, and the police system in Japan, for example, probably wasn’t the basis for the Hero System.

As much as I do believe in the Death of the Author in most cases, the intent of the author does matter when it comes to content like this, if merely on the basis that it provides context that we may be missing as foreign viewers.

As far as the intent of the author goes, Bakugou is on a route of redemption.

He deserves it. It is unavoidable. That, of course, may depend on where you’re reading this.

Stuck in the Sludge, the Past, and Season One

If there’s one thing, to me, that epitomizes middle school Bakugou, it’s him being trapped in a sludge monster, rescued by his Quirkless childhood friend, and unable to believe his eyes. He clings to the ideology he always has, that Quirkless means weak, that there’s no way that Deku could have grown to be strong, or had the capacity to be strong all along. Bakugou is wrong about this, and continuously proven wrong. It is only when he accepts that he is wrong, and that Deku is someone to follow, that he starts his real path to heroics.

If Bakudeku’s relationship does not appeal to someone for whatever reason, there’s nothing wrong with that. They can write all they want about why they don’t ship it, or why it bothers them, or why they think it’s problematic. If it is legitimately triggering to you, then by all means, avoid it, point it out, etc. but do not undermine the reality of abuse simply to point fingers, just because you don’t like a ship. People who intentionally use the anti tag knowing it’ll show up in the main tag, go after people who are literally minding their own business, and accuse people of supporting abuse are the ones looking for a fight, and they’re annoying as hell because they don’t bring anything to the table. No evidence, no analysis, just repeated projection.

To clarify, I’m referring to a specific kind of shipper, not someone who just doesn’t like a ship, but who is so aggressive about it for absolutely no reason. There are plenty of very lovely people in this fandom, who mind their own business, multipship, or just don’t care.

Calling shippers dumb or braindead or toxic (to clarify, this isn’t targeting any one person I’ve seen, but a collective) based on projections and generalizations that come entirely from your own impression of the ship rather than observation is...really biased to me, and comes across as uneducated and trigger happy, rather than constructive or helpful in any way.

I’m not saying someone has to ship anything, or like it, in order to be a ‘good’ participant. But inserting derogatory material into a main tag, and dropping buzzwords with the same tired backing behind it without seeming to understand the implications of those words or acknowledging the development, pacing, and intentional change to the characters within the plot is just...I don’t know, it comes across as redundant, to me at least, and very childish. Aggressive. Toxic. Problematic. Maybe the real toxic shippers were the ones who bitched and moaned along the way. They’re like little kids, stuck in the past, unable to visualize or recognize change, and I think that’s a real shame because it’s preventing them from appreciating the story or its characters as it is, in canon.

But that’s okay, really. To each their own. Interpretations will vary, preferences differ, perspectives are not uniform. There is no one truth. There are five seasons of the show, a feature film, and like, thirty volumes as of this year.

All I’m saying is that if you want to stay stuck in the first season of each character, then that’s what you’re going to get. That’s up to you.

This may be edited or revised.

[firelxdykatara]

If you interpret Katara’s aggression towards Zuko as romantic affection, then you have some serious issues of your own. Is a very dangerous message for teenage girls indeed. People who ship Zutara have to seriously analyze how unhealthy the message of the pairing would be. Katara hated Zuko for a valid reason, and to twist it into something it’s not is massively disrespectful to both the character. The outdated and ridiculous notion that a girl who acts like she doesn’t like a guy is simply “confused” and “denying her feelings” is so sexist and degrading. Take her emotions at face value. It's never been

Yawn. Boring. This is the same old tired argument I’ve heard a million times before--the one that proves a) you don’t actually understand how relationships work, and b) you’ve never read a single zutara meta in your life, because that’s the only way you could seriously get the ‘good girl is secretly in love with the bad boy and hopes to fix him’ read of a relationship that bares absolutely no resemblance to that particular collection of tropes either in the show or in our fandom.

But ok! I’ll bite, since you clearly want so badly to be educated and evidently don’t have the time to watch the show yourself, nor the reading comprehension necessary to understand the sort of media analysis that goes on in a lot of atla and zutara-focused meta in this fandom.

Which probably means that anything I write here will fly right over your head, but oh well, what can you do?

At any rate, the first mistake you’ve made here is assuming that I (or zutara shippers in general, but since you came into my inbox, I’m going to be taking this just as personally as you clearly intended me to) interpret Katara’s aggression towards Zuko as romantic at any point in the series prior to their reconciliation (after which point, there is no aggression from Katara aimed at Zuko for anyone, me included, to interpret romantically in the first place). I don’t, and I never have, and neither does a vast majority of the zutara fandom in the spaces I frequent (which encompasses tumblr, occasionally twitter, and the very large zutara discord server I’ve been an active part of for two years now). Pointing out oddly suggestive tension in early parts of the series (such as the “I’ll save you from the pirates” and “you rise with the moon, I rise with the sun” lines, or the fact that Zuko wore Katara’s necklace around his wrist for like nine episodes when there was absolutely no need for it) is just that--pointing out tension.

There doesn’t need to be feelings for there to be tension, antagonistic or otherwise, but that tension is the foundation from which their relationship arc throughout the series grew, developed, and eventually evolved. This is what is generally known as relationship development, and it occurs when two characters go from having one kind of relationship to another within the course of the story.

For example, enemies, who become friends, who become lovers.

Now, your mileage may vary on this next part (although I really hope not, cause Y I K E S), but I, personally, think that ‘if a boy kisses you without your consent, but he really really loves you, then you owe it to him to love him back, especially if he just saved the world, and you should never expect an apology because since you suddenly decided you return those feelings, that means the violation of your boundaries was ok since clearly you really liked him all along’ is a much more damaging message to send to young girls--and boys, to be frank, especially since learning about consent is hugely important at young ages--than ‘if a boy who was your enemy goes to great lengths to better himself, to the point where you forgive him for when he hurt you and become close friends with him, then it’s normal for those feelings to grow and change, even to the point of becoming romantic, and it’s ok to explore them’.

And guess which one of those is canon to the AtLA finale?

Next, you say ‘Katara hated Zuko for a valid reason’ as if that was ever in dispute. It wasn’t--certainly not on my blog. I know there are some people who hate Katara because she was ‘too mean’ to Zuko, but I don’t agree with them, nor do I associate with them, since I have no time, energy, or room in my life for Katara slander. However, do you know what the operative word is in that sentence? Hated. As in past tense. As in, ‘Katara used to hate Zuko, but by the end of the show that is no longer the case, and they are extremely close friends with a deep bond and multiple life-debts between them’.

Why are you so insistent on not only denying Zuko’s hard-earned and bitterly fought for redemption, but also Katara’s emotions and feelings, which you end this weirdly disjointed ask by insisting they be taken at face value?

And it’s actually really funny (ironic funny, not so much ‘ha ha’ funny) that you use the word ‘confused’ there, followed by the phrase ‘denying her real feelings’, and then call that ‘sexist and degrading’, as if that isn’t exactly what happened in Katara’s canon endgame in the show.

She said point blank that she was confused, she showed with her words, tone, and body language that she was not open to Aang’s romantic advances, she had completely forgotten about the last time he’d kissed her without her consent, rather than reflecting on her romantic feelings as one would expect of a girl who’d been kissed by someone we’re supposed to believe she’s had feelings for since book 1, and was completely taken aback by Aang’s reaction to the play and his weird believe that they ‘were gonna be together’, when she had never once indicated that she wanted to be with him in any romantic sense. And yet, he kissed her--and while she got angry about it and stormed off in the moment, he never apologized for crossing her boundaries, and they also didn’t have a single significant scene together between that moment and the epilogue.

What happened to taking Katara’s emotions at face value? What happened to how ‘sexist and degrading’ it is to assume that if a girl says she’s confused, that must mean she’s ‘denying her feelings’? What happened to caring about Katara’s agency, even a little bit?

Anyway, I’m gonna wrap this up by saying: I do not believe Zuko and Katara should’ve been making out in the finale instead. I actually hate the fact that the final shot of AtLA was a romantic kiss (particularly for such a poorly written pairing), rather than a shot of the gaang together like it should have been to show what the series was meant to be about. I think that focusing on the romantic relationships in the finale undercut an already weak ending to an otherwise great (not perfect, but certainly good enough that it deserved much better closure) show.

That said, I also think a Zutara kiss would have been more earned, at that point in both of their narratives. Because Katara’s feelings had been the focus of their relationship throughout its entirety. Zuko’s feelings mattered, too, of course, (in stark contrast to how they were treated during his relationship with Mai), but Katara was the one who got to choose when and why and what she felt about him. She got to choose when to forgive him. She got to choose to help him, and to save his life, and her emotions were frequently the focus in a way they never were during her relationship with Aang, so nudging those into a more romantic light not only would have fit better with her character arc, it also would have been far less jarring to see that as the culmination of their respective storylines, rather than a romantic kiss coming out of nowhere when her very last scene with him was being kissed without her consent and storming off about it because it upset her.

My most fervent hope, anon, is that some day you actually watch the show, Avatar: the Last Airbender. Because Katara and Zuko are amazing characters, they have amazing storylines both separately and together, and it’s really a crime whenever someone misunderstands both of them so badly. I hope that when you do watch the show, you pay attention. You may see something amazing.

[dreaminginvelaris]

nessian analysis

im not sure if this qualifies as an analysis? It's basically me just explaining why I didn't like the nessian relationship, what it lacked, what sjm should have done.

I will be using the “anti-nessian” tag bc there are many softies here on Tumblr who get pissy whenever you have some things to say abt a beloved character or relationship that dont paint them as gods even though i dont hate them. I DO NOT hate nessian, I am not the biggest fan of them, im not entirely fond of them, I personally think we were robbed of a much deeper and flushed out relationship, but I do not hate nessian whatsoever. 

also please for the love of god don’t get butthurt and start talking about how feysand is the boring one, how feysand is so vanilla, in retaliation. stop. it makes you look childish. if you hate what i have to say abt your ship, move on. you don’t need to come on a nessian post and start talking about other ships. yes i realize i mention feysand, and rowaelin, but it was to compare how sjm usually writes her main couples.  

with that being said, let's move forward. 

sjm in the past has done an amazing job when writing romantic relationships. She's so wonderful at establishing a friendship, at establishing an emotional connection, before any romance takes place. like with rowaelin, we got to see rowan and aelin forge a friendship, from hating one another to respecting each other. before it was romantic love, it was friendly love first, it was love and respect for their friendship that made aelin threaten that bitch who i forgot the name of but who wouldn't stop touching rowan and aelin bathed her in fire until she stopped. it was the love and respect for their friendship that made rowan fight against his cadre to go save aelin, it was that love that made aelin go to maeve, threaten her ppl so Rowan could be free. 

all of this built up to the amazing relationship that is Rowaelin. it took establishing an emotional connection between the two to make what is their relationship now. the romantic/sexual part of their relationship is amazing as well, but it wouldn't have been amazing were it not for the trust their relationship was built on first. 

it's the same thing with feysand, their relationship built on trust first, on friendship, on emotional talks, on sharing their thoughts and feelings, on sharing hard truths with one another. on feyre trusting rhys with how she felt abt the whole tamlin situation, it built on rhys sharing his past, on sharing some of those horrific moments of UTM, it built on them fighting with one another, it's what made chapter 55 so amazing because it built up. it wasn't just sex right off the bat, it was forging a connection much more powerful than sex. 

which brings me to my main point, that nessian definitely lacks all of this. before it even starts, i know there are ppl who might say “but nessian was building during acomaf/acowar?”  yes, it was, we knew that there was something between them. but can you really call it an emotional build up btwn them? i mean we saw it through the eyes of feyre, so we didn't really see much of substance. we saw them exchange glances, nesta insult cass, cass tease nesta, even that one bonus chapter, but that wasn't enough buildup. because even in that bonus chapter we mainly just got to see cass corner nesta to a wall and learn how he was so turned on by her. nothing of depth and substance. 

you would expect sjm to bring this to their book. but it didn't happen. perhaps she as well thought that was enough of a build up to them, i wouldn't put it past her, her writing skills definitely are questionable in this book.

but where were the talks? where was nesta confiding to cassain abt her mother? abt her life being groomed for marriage? abt the years during the poverty, abt how she felt disgusted by herself for what she had done to feyre. for what she had not done for their family? for what she felt with her fathers death, how she felt abt elain, how she was coping?

where were the talks in which cassian confided in nesta? in where he talks abt his years in the illyrian camps, in what happened in those moments when he murdered a whole illyrian village, in which he learned he would never be able to bury his mother. the talks where he tells her how it felt to be separated from his brothers, how he felt when rhys was trapped, how it felt when feyre was taken, how it felt when he thought him and nesta were to die, at hybern and at the war. 

where was the teasing? the laughing? the pinning each other down during training, the talks during training. where was the friendship being built? just because cass tells nesta he was always her friend doesn't mean it’s not important to see it.

instead all we got was training and fucking and fucking and training. instead we got nesta jacking off cassian 200 pages in? i mean thats so out of character of nesta. this fiery woman who spent three books pushing cassian away, who made it known she ‘despised’ cassian, who made it clear she would not touch or even try to interact with cassian during her stay at the house of wind, but all of a sudden she just loses that and jacks him off? i mean the fact that nesta kept pushing cassian away was such a great opportunity for sjm to take and make it slow burn. teasing touches, never going too far but enough it made the other shiver. i mean that when the pinning each other down in training would have come in handy. but instead sjm just decided to change nestas character just like she changed cassians as well. 

(note: i am not slut shaming nesta, before any of y'all try to twist it that way, i am merely stating how in my perspective that was not something nesta would have done with cassian.

not to forget how cassian would literally leave nesta after their sexual encounters! please tell me i’m not the only one who notices that the cassian from acomaf/acowar/acofas would not have done that. this man has practically been in love with nesta since day one and he just straight up says “thanks for the ride” and leaves? uhhhh what? the cassian i knew and loved would not have done that. i mean him staying after those encounters would have been the perfect opportunity for them to have deep talks, for them to get to know one another. i mean they both claim to know each other, but do they really? 

the mating revelation was soo underwhelming too. i wanted passion, i mean thats what i was promised no? from both sjm and the nessian stans. so where was that passion during the mating revelation? i mean sjm had aelin realize rowan was her mate after rowan was shot, and she felt the fear of losing him. had rhys know fully when feyre was dying and he was trying to get to her. had ferye realize when they professed their love for each other, and she realized she had healed with him. even goddamn lucien and elain knew in such an intense way as well. and nessian? on a sidewalk. with cassian demanding nesta say it, and nesta robotically denying it. 

all im saying is that we were robbed. i like sex between two characters as much as the next person but sex doesn't matter unless there is a deep emotional connection between the two, its what makes chemistry between two characters amazing. 

also lets mention how cassian didn't even say i love you to nesta. PLSSS WHAT WAS THAT

the only part in the whole 700+ page book that actually felt deeper and much more stronger between the two of them was when nesta broke down and admitted she hated herself and cassian consoled her. but that was what? 3 pages and then they proceeded to continue to fuck during their “healing hike” nah that aint it

all im saying is that nessian was much more fun and sexy when it was through feyre’s perspective. 

[sirrwritesalots]

Dance With Me? ~ Spencer Reid (fluff)

Pairings: Spencer Reid x Reader [Y/n] Warnings: none, just fluff, and possibly mention of PG-13 (if it's even considered that?) Summary: The team is invited to an FBI gala-type event with food, music, and casual conversation, and everyone ultimately has a good time, especially you and Spencer, who find the chance to have a dance with one another as the air shifts between the two of you. [The imagine is set with all characters -Spencer Reid, Derek Morgan, Emily Prentiss, Jennifer Jareau, Aaron Hotchner, David Rossi, Penelope Garcia- and post-Maeve] Word Count: 1871 A/N: I love to write, but for the last few years, I’ve had horrible writer’s block, and I miss writing so much. This is my first imagine/creative writing thing I’ve posted on Tumblr, so bare with me please! I recently started watching Criminal Minds again, and this just popped into my head, so I figured why not? Though, Criminal Minds is not usually my genre, I wanted to give it a try (it might be cringy in some parts, I apologize). I hope whoever reads this enjoys it :)

Seeing as everyone on the BAU team was given a three-day-weekend off to have somewhat of a break, you all agreed to attend the FBI Ball Saturday night, giving you the day to relax and get ready.

That morning after you woke up, you had some breakfast and read a book by the window, followed by lunch and a nice, relaxing bath with rose oil, bath salts, and a lit candle. Once the water had gone cold and you were done with the bath, you decided to start getting ready for the plans you had later that evening, which consisted of blow drying and styling your hair, then applying some light - yet natural - makeup. Slipping into the dark blue evening dress with the strappy, laced-up back you picked out two weeks ago, you looked yourself up and down in the full-length mirror in your room with a smile on your face. It had been a long time since you had the chance to get dressed up and have a night of fun with friends, which is exactly what you were planning on doing; having fun. 

Work had been extremely stressful lately, for everyone - more so than usual, considering your line of work; being in the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI, where you work with serial killers day-in and day-out. One case in particular was rough on everyone; picked by the team’s communications liaison, JJ, you were flown out to Omaha, Nebraska to find an unsub who had a wide victimology and almost no similarities when it came down to location or anything else. You were there coming up on two whole weeks, when, after spending nearly forty-eight hours awake studying every detail, Spencer had found a similar signature connecting each murder. It wasn’t previously detected because it was so small it was easily overlooked, that is, until Derek and Rossi revisited every site and concluded that Spencer was right. At each location where a victim was found, a trinket of some sort was hidden, left behind as a sign of remorse. At first it made no sense, because each killing seemed too extreme to leave any room for remorse, not until the idea of a partner in crime was bounced around. Meaning that there were now two unsubs, one who was the alpha that controlled everything, and a second who most likely lured in the victims but only because they were told to rather than because they wanted to. Luckily, all the trinkets had traces of the unsub and their partner’s DNA left on it. That discovery soon led to tracking the unsub and chasing him down, where you and Emily went into the building first, to try and appeal to and reason with the submissive unsub, and would ultimately save the life of their latest victim. The plan went sideways when you two were met with the wrong one, and stepped into the middle of a trap... The unsub wanted a trade - the final victim for the two FBI agents - but the rest of the team, including the police force backing them up, were not about to have that. In the end, everyone was extracted and brought back to the precinct, except for the second unsub, who lost their life in the midst of the fight. 

To say the least, the team needed a break, and to have some fun.

Adding the final touch to your look -- a pair of black heels -- you grabbed your purse and jacket before locking the front door behind you and making your way to the car.

Once you were at the venue, a valet took your keys and parked your car for you. You stood on the curb, looking up at the gorgeous entrance of a high-end hotel. Before you could think about how all-out the bureau went, a familiar, deep voice spoke up on your right, “Damn Mama, I almost didn’t recognize you.”

Turning, you came face-to-face with the most iconic duo of your team, Derek Morgan with Penelope Garcia standing beside him. Your cheeks flushed as you smiled, “You don’t look too bad yourself, hot stuff. Penelope, sweetheart, you look as wonderful as ever.”

“Please, I don’t think anyone here looks as good as you.” She waved her hand, a dismissal to your comment as she noticeably gawked at you.

“Why don’t we find out. Shall we?” You raised an eyebrow at them, tilting your head in the direction of the hotel.

“We shall.” Penelope disconnected herself from her chocolate thunder, and looped her arm with yours with a giggle as the three of you entered the building and followed the signs to the ballroom.

Tables filled with assorted foods line one wall while tables are scattered throughout the front half of the room, a live band played against the back wall, and the floor of the other half of the room was left unoccupied by furniture to leave space for dancing and mingling. You mentally thanked the event coordinator, whoever they might be, for ensuring the lights were dimmer than usual, since it gave your eyes a rest from the usual harsh office lights. 

Your eyes scanned the room, searching for the rest of your team, when your gaze landed on a man wearing a slick, dark gray suit and a maroon tie with his hair flopped perfectly over his forehead yet just out of reach of his eyes. You hadn't realized you were staring until Penelope had to practically drag you to where Emily and JJ were standing while Derek split with you guys to meet up with Rossi, Hotch, and Spencer.

“So, is anyone looking particularly yummy tonight?” Penelope asked Emily and JJ, bubbly before her first drink of the night as her eyes eagerly swept across the room. Typical Garcia. Gotta love her, though.

You laughed and shook your head. “I’m going to get a drink, anyone else want a one?” The girls gave you their requests, and you were off to the bar stationed near the wonderful display of food that you were sure to raid in a matter of time - that is, if your stomach had any say about it. "One-"

A voice interrupted you and finished your order before you could get more than a single word out, "Gin martini with a lemon twist." A smirk formed on your lips as you see who was standing next to you. "Oh! And chilled, but not on the rocks," Spencer added with a wink in your direction, a goofy smile plastered on his face to match your own.

"Spence, you remembered!"

"Y/n, I have an idetic memory; of course I remembered."

You rolled your eyes in response and ordered for the girls before you forgot as the bartender handed you your drink. "So, how's your evening so far?"

"Good. Met a couple of Rossi's friends, one of which was an older woman who touched my arm a lot, though I don't know why..."

You chuckled and shook your head. "Oh, you poor innocent boy."

"Innocent?" He raised an eyebrow at you, faking offense, as he helped you carry the drinks to the table the girls were standing around. "Are you so sure about that?"

"Why shouldn't I be when you make comments like that?" you countered. "Alright," you announced, cutting the conversation short before it can lead to anywhere presumptuous in front of company, you name off the drinks as you and Spencer place them in front of their respective owners.

Spencer took his place by your side, his arm pressed against yours and his gaze fixated on you, waiting patiently for you to notice or make another comment from your earlier conversation. The girls hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary, seeing as you and Spencer had become the absolute best of friends in a short amount of time when you first joined the group, which meant the two of you were in very close proximity to one another about ninety-percent of the time. They were also too busy to notice over their ogling of the other attendees.

"You're staring," you murmured over your glass to him as you took a sip of your martini before stealing a quick glance up at him, then returning your eyes back to the crowd forming in the room. Rossi, Hotch, and Derek were still nowhere to be seen from your spot.

"Sorry," you heard him whisper, his eyes still stationed on you for a moment before he looked around as well. 

The live band began to play one of your favorite songs by Frank Sinatra, Fly Me To The Moon, and you couldn't help the smile that brightened your whole face after you took another sip of your drink.

The warmth that accompanied Spencer when he stood as close to you as he had been suddenly disappeared, making your heart unexpectedly quicken in a mix of worry and disappointment at the loss of contact. Then, when a throat cleared, and you saw him still standing next to you only a little farther away than he originally was with his hand extended and a lopsided smile on his face as hope flickered bright in his eyes. Your anxiety calmed, and was replaced with joy.

"Care to dance?"

Taking his hand, you stepped closer to him and replied, "I'd love to," as he led the two of you to the dance floor.

There, he pulled you closer to him, your bodies pressed against one another, as his hand slid behind you to rest easily on the small of your back while his other hand held one of yours, and your other hand took place on his shoulder. The two of you swayed as the music filled your ears.

You felt content in that moment. So happy with your friends, music, and food and drink. You couldn't think of a better way to spend an evening during your weekend off. Hopefully you wouldn't spoil it all by accidentally drinking too much and either a) managing to somehow embarrass yourself before the night is over or b) having to nurse a killer hangover the next morning - the last day of freedom before being called back into work the following day.

You felt Spencer's eyes on you once more. Though it wasn't creepy or unsettling; with him it never seemed to feel that way. Instead, it warmed your body, making your cheeks flush and your chest flutter.

"You're staring again." When he refused to take his eyes off you, you forced yourself to meet his gaze. "You seem to do it a lot. Why is that?"

"Possibly because you always look amazing. Except tonight; tonight you look... radiant."

"Oh, please... you're only saying that because you've never seen me all dressed up like this before." You dip your head rest on the side of his own in an attempt to hide your face, not from embarrassment, but rather to hide how red your cheeks had become in a mere matter of seconds by the few simple words he uttered.

"No, I'm not. Y/n, look at me, please." His voice was gentle yet serious as his fingers gently guided your chin up so you could properly look at him. "I mean it."

[pointlesstrashyexistence]

More Sam headcanons

Sam is the one who makes sure Jack knows how to take care of his hair. Dean has had the same hairstyle for the last 15 years and, as much as I love this man, I truly do believe he’s the type to use the sin that is 3-in-1 body wash, shampoo, and conditioner. Sam is the one who has to be like “No, those are completely different things, don’t listen to Dean. He’s still performing masculinity.” Cas usually just makes himself clean automatically so the intricacies of hair care and hygiene are a little lost on him.

We already know Sam is a theater kid and I truly do believe that they find the best quality bootlegs of broadway and off broadway shows that they can, and saves them to their laptop to watch later, often with the rest of Team Free Will. Jack especially enjoys the Disney ones although Sam thinks the Disney ones are the most obvious somewhat lifeless cash-grabs (the only exception to this is Lion King on Broadway which is still amazing), but has a soft spot for Frozen. Sam loves Cabaret. Cas appreciates musical theater as a modern reiteration of Ancient Greek theater and opera and favors Hadestown despite its creative liberties. Dean tries to appear uninterested but gets teary-eyed about Dear Evan Hansen.

Sam learns more American sign language through Cas. Cas is an ancient eldritch being who knows basically every language in the world and I believe is fluent in all forms of sign language. They mostly focus on learning ASL so Sam can sign with Eileen.

Sam can sleep with lights on and loud noise all around them. Youngest siblings are just kind of used to noise being all around them so we get used to learning how to do that.

Freshman year at Stanford, a lot of Sam’s clothes were hand me downs from Dean they didn’t want to get rid of. Because he felt safe enough to start experimenting, they would thrift through women’s sections of thrift stores and cut up and sew clothes to make new outfits for themselves. Sam was still comfortable with their masculinity and presenting as masc but enjoys how colorful and free clothes that make them more femme presenting are.

Because of this and Sam’s theater nerd background, I think Sam watches a lot of YouTube videos on sewing, fashion, fashion history, and costuming. Enjoys how fun and bizarre Micarah Towers is and the analysis of fashion trends and costumes by Mina Le and ModernGurlz

Because Sam is good at empathizing with people, he is also good at understanding what makes them tick and their deep insecurities. They can manipulate the shit out of anyone if they want to but choose not to (except with Jack because I’m sorry and I love Sam so much but Dean was kind of right when he called out Sam for claiming to care about Jack when he was also using Jack to try and find a way to open the portal). This also means that Sam can immediately devastate anyone by pointing out the thing they hate most about themselves like that John Mulaney skit about 13-year-olds

Often fine being left alone for long periods of time but will start little petty shit just because he’s bored like that scene from Parks and Rec where Ron asks who broke the coffee pot and everyone starts blaming each other and in the end Ron broke it but felt like everyone was getting too chummy. Sam in my mind is like the cat who you’re trying to find in the house and when you do its looks you in the eye while calmly pushing a glass cup off the table.

Sam is very interested in learning more about witchcraft and magic but realizes they are white and doesn’t really ascribe to any religion anymore since God turns out be just some guy who was a shitty absent father and later turns out to be an evil universe destroying tyrant and other gods are real. So he tries to be more moral and ethical in learning magic from other religious, ethnic, and racial groups and when encountering a closed practice respectfully leaves the practitioners and magic alone.

Sam and Jack’s father-son relationship is different from Jack’s with Dean or Cas. Sam understands Jack not quite feeling like he has a place in the world and being seen as dangerous and being so terrified of your power knowing it comes from this thing that is dark and evil but recognizing it is your power and up to you to learn how to control it and what you want to do with it. Taking care of Jack has also given Sam more perspective on how Dean raised him and furthers his respect for Dean and his understanding that part of why Dean continues to treat him like a child is because Dean was basically his father.

[mostthingskenobi]

This has bothers me for a long time. To me Obi-Wan's reaction to Satine's declaration of love for him seems a little forced. Basically I took offence when he sighs and says, "All right..." The rest of the sentence was so heartfelt and sincere but that beginning is like a little fine-ok-let's-do this. I can't decide if he said it because of some tactic with Satine (because she gave him a look) or if he said it in earnest to reciprocate her feeling. But It just didn't sit right with me.

Anon I TOTALLY get you. I've always been bothered by Obi-Wan's restraint, but it's part of what makes him special. I agree, that scene, and parts of The Lawless, always leave me feeling crushed.

WHAT'S WITH OBI-WAN KENOBI'S SIGH IN VOYAGE OF TEMPTATION?

Here's how I read it:

As is the case in many TV shows, we have an overly chatty villain who tells us everything. (If villains spent more time doing their jobs and less time confessing, they'd be much more successful *eye roll*)

Satine's confession kind of comes out of nowhere. I've always felt like, "Whaaaaat?! Where did that come from?" And Obi-Wan seems to have the same reaction. (Again...why does the villain give her time to make this confession????? So unrealistic LOL!)

To me, Obi-Wan seems caught off guard, hence his brusque "this is hardly the time or place" comment. At first, I agree with him, but then I start thinking about it and it seems like "If not now, then when, Kenobi?!" Unfortunately for all of us, it seems like "never" is to be our answer.

When he said, "this is hardly the time or place," Satine gives him this incredulous look that, in my opinion, says, "I'm about to die. Can't you show a little humanity and tell me the truth?!"

I think Obi-Wan's "all right" is him accepting he has to stop being a Jedi for a moment and confess something he's probably never admitted to anyone.

So here's my analysis of Obi-Wan's motivation for the sigh:

1. He is a Jedi, and he loves being a Jedi more than he loves Satine (at least at the time he makes this confession). That may seem harsh and may not be what we want to hear, but it's true. Being a Jedi is EVERYTHING to Obi-Wan Kenobi (Dave Filoni confirmed this in several interviews about "The Lawless"). You probably noticed that he is very careful to not confess loving her or currently having feelings for her. And that leads me to...

2. He wants to be honest with her but doesn't want to hurt her or lead her on. He was keeping his feelings to himself so as not to wound her, but now she (and the situation) demand a confession. He did care for her in the past, and he does probably still love her, but he will not leave the Jedi for her now. It would be cruel to admit a deep attachment to her with no intention of following through on those feelings.

3. Out of respect for her, he swallows his pride and gives her a thread of truth, letting her know that back in the day his feelings for her matched her feelings for him. He was fighting against the flow of the situation. He finally lets go, stops fighting, and forces himself to tell her the truth.

So, a sigh for accepting that he was having to break his Code, a sigh for possibly hurting the woman he cared for, and a sigh of resignation.

And you know what? The part that really kills me about this scene is after Anakin saves the day, Obi-Wan and Satine share a look. He reaches for her as she turns and walks away. It's the smallest, almost imperceptible gesture. And it breaks my fucking heart.

The whole scene is incredibly true to character, so I have to respect the writers for maintaining that level or repression. And I get it, Dave and George!!! I get that having Obi-Wan confess to loving Satine undermines the moment in ROTS where he shouts, "You were my brother, Anakin. I loved you." But you certainly didn't care about undermining Obi-Wan in other ways. Throw a dog a bone here, guys!!! Couldn't you have given us a tincy-wincy Obitine kiss???

[silverducks]

Game of Thrones - Jaime Lannister

A rambling character study of Jaime Lannister from Game of Thrones

Part 1b – Jaime’s Character Arc

So here’s my next rambling post where I finish off talking about how I see Jaime’s character arc in the show, and why I cannot make any sense of his ending.

Believe me, I keep on trying to just be at peace, but nope.

Spoilers below

Identity Arc

In my last post, I mainly focused on one part of Jaime’s character arc, the more common one we see in stories, redemption. But what I like most about Jaime’s story is that it’s not just about simple redemption. What's also important for Jaime is his identity. And by that I don't just mean agency, but how he sees himself, how he fits into the world around him, and his ability to think for himself and make his own decisions.

This is tied to his redemption arc, but it's also important enough for its own post. As Jaime's identity arc grows, so does his ability to make independent decisions. This allows him to become more honourable and choose to do the right thing.

By finding himself, as it were, he also finds his ability to be redeemed. In fact, I’d argue that it’s his identity arc that grows first, which in turn triggers his redemptive arc.

So, how do I see his identity arc? Well, remember in my last post about redemption I said we don't really like him at first? Yeah, he starts the show as pretty arrogant and cruel and not a nice person. But as I explained in that post, as the show goes on, especially in series three, we start to understand Jaime more. We find out the real reason he killed the Mad King. We discover that he's actually been suffering under the name Kingslayer for what was actually his most honourable act. We see that he's actually using the arrogant, cruel facade to hide how much he does care and how much what happened bothers him. It is through his interactions with Brienne that we see how his younger, naïve ideals of honourable knights he once held dear have become twisted and corrupted through what he’s seen of the world, and how they have turned him cold and bitter. And how all this mixed together has caused him to be pretty messed up. Does he really know who he is at this point? I’d argue no, not really. That he's come to believe all these bad things about himself - that in convincing others he doesn't care, he's convinced himself.

I've mentioned before how much I liked the oath verses oath scene in series two, with Catelyn Stark. For me as a viewer it was the first real inkling that there was more to Jaime than I first thought. We had seen the odd hint of it, but this is where it first struck a chord with me. And this then is where I will start my analysis of Jaime's identity arc. Beginning first with the idea of oaths and honour and how I see these all conflicting within Jaime and forming the basis of his initial identity crisis. And how, as the story unfolds, we see him discovering who he really is, what he really wants and becoming independent enough to make his own decisions.

What I liked most about that scene is we see the conflict of these oaths, how they battle together, so not matter what choices are made, one oath is broken to keep another. Jaime has sworn so many at this point that they are always at odds and so it seems like Jaime has just given up trying to keep them. He’s become self-serving – or thinks he has - because what is the point of serving others and oaths now? He stays loyal to his family, which caused him to get captured in the first place, but for Jaime, he seems to have given up on himself.

We find out later on that he broke his main oath, to serve the King, which was his main role and purpose and also identity at that point, for a higher, more important oath, his oath and role as a Knight. Basically he killed the king, breaking his oath as a Kings Guard (to protect the King), to serve his oath as a Knight (to protect the innocent.) This is a direct example of a conflict of these oaths and how he did do the right thing, obeyed the higher, more honourable oath. But all it caused him was to lose his place and identity – a Kings Guard who is now famous for killing his King – and be loathed by everyone. So for Jaime at this point, it's as if he thinks, what's the point? Why try so hard to keep to all these oaths when keeping one breaks another and people hate him anyway? So he's convinced himself of this up to now, to pretend to not care anymore. But we see it does bother him, especially when he faces contempt from very honourable people like Ned and Catelyn, and then Brienne. Part of him, although buried deep, does still care about those oaths and his honour…

And so we find him, in series two, desperate to get back to Cersei (yes more on her later) and doing his best to play the arrogant, conceited Kingslayer part. It's not hard to see why he accepts Catelyn's offer and swears one more oath - what is one more at this point?

(On an interesting side note, I do like the symmetry here - Catelyn in a way betrays her oath to her King and her son Robb, in order to help her daughters (honour versus loyalty). A move that sets Jaime on his own, positive character arc, but you could argue begins the start of Catelyn’s, and Robb's, downfall. After all, Robb never really trusts her again after this and it causes issues in his own army.)

And so, at the start of series three, we find Jaime and Brienne on their wonderful road trip. It’s not hard to see that Jaime is really just going along as a chance to escape, he isn't bothered about Catelyn or the oath he swore to save her daughters. His only aim is to get back to Cersei. But as I mentioned in the last post, there's something about Brienne that gets under his skin, makes his previous arrogant facade start to crack. She reminds him of who he used to be, before all these oaths and repercussions and seeing the real world for what it was made him hard and bitter.

For me, it was around the time he teamed up with Brienne that I started to properly rethink his character myself. It was only the beginning of his long path to self-betterment, but there was something a bit less cruel, a bit less arrogant in his behaviour with Brienne. When I watched them bickering on their road trip, I felt like he was poking her to try and get a reaction, to show him she wasn’t all she claimed to be, rather than just because he wanted to be cruel for cruelties sake (or as we later find, part of that mask he’d convinced himself of). Of course, it’s still not yet a good trait, but for me as a viewer, this Jaime was different, this Jaime seemed to have started to care about something other than Cersei. He wanted to bring down Brienne and to prove her wrong, because she challenged him. He cared about proving her wrong, and this then started him caring about what she thought of him. I love the line where he says, “Why do you hate me so much, have I ever harmed you?”

Other than the odd conversation with Ned in series one, this is the first time Jaime is actually shown to truly care what someone thinks of him outside his family. It bothers him that she hates him, when he pretty much just put up with it from everyone else. It bothers him that she’s automatically judged him and doesn’t believe him worthy of anything but a bargaining chip for Catelyn’ daughters. She doesn’t even believe he’s worthy of being called anything but Kingslayer. To be fair to Brienne, as Jaime is still playing the cocky, arrogant, careless façade, and he keeps on needling her, it’s not surprising. And for Brienne, he IS an oath breaker and without any honour, because he did break his oaths and kill the King he was sworn to protect. This is completely against everything Brienne believes is right and true and she answers, “You’ve harm other’s, those you’ve sworn to protect.”

As I explained in my last post, Brienne is basically the personification of a young, honourable Knight, not corrupted by the world or the many conflicting oaths she has sworn. The younger, more innocent Jaime before his own clashing oaths and what he had seen serving the Mad King made him bitter and corrupted. She gets under his skin because he hates that she is everything he didn’t think could be possible; what he wanted to be, and wasn’t able to be. And when she doesn’t let him get the better of her, continues to prove true to her ideals, not only does he start to care for her good opinion, but starts to respect her too. I think this aspect culminates in their fight scene, where Brienne once more proves herself. She can and does fight him, and is more than a match for Jaime in his current condition. To quote my last post,

Basically, she is a) an honourable person b) sticks to her oaths c) also able to fight (and therefore protect people) and d) refuses to let him get the better of her. A true Knight in all but name, whilst Jaime is now a Knight in nothing but name.

And the best thing? She’s not trying to prove herself, she’s simply being herself and she is, truly is, genuine.

And for Jaime, who had long given up, thinking what’s the point, starts to realise maybe it is possible, maybe even for him. The fact that she’s a woman – a great “beast” of a woman - makes it all the more impactful. Jaime might have idolised Knights like Arthur Dayne and Barristan Selmy when he was younger, but they were still Knights, still fit the role. She is at odds with the ideal, yet she is, to quote Catelyn Stark, “A truer Knight than you’ll ever be.” And this true Knight hates him and it’s not only starting to bother Jaime, but make him want to strive to better her opinion of him.

Now, I think this is mainly all subconscious from Jaime at this point, his reaction to Brienne and why he cared for her good opinion. But one of the best things about character analysis is inferring things from what we see in the show. Whilst you could call this just my opinion, the fact remains that we as a viewer start to see these changes in Jaime when Brienne shows up. And we continue to see positive changes in Jaime when Brienne is around.

And their interactions start to change now, after their sword fight, when they are both captured. They start to become allies, or at least Jaime tries to instigate this; Brienne is still having none of the Kingslayer. He tries to help and warn her about what Locke’s men will do to her, because he knows she would try to fight and die, and he doesn’t want that. He actively cares for her as an ally now, someone (considering she was his captor not too long ago) who he doesn’t want to be harmed. And then we see him making an actual effort to help her – he tricks Locke into leaving Brienne alone. This is the first time we see him actually do something for someone that isn’t his family. And he suffers for it – his trick to help Brienne ends up costing him his hand.

And yes, you could argue that it was ultimately Jaime’s arrogance that led to Locke cutting off his hand, but if he had stayed silent, let the men have their way with Brienne and possibly kill her, he never would have lost it in the first place. His first act of selflessness (outside his loyalty to his family) for a long time, and it costs him his hand… (More on that later).

But here Jaime did do the right thing, the honourable thing, and we now start to see Brienne’s opinion of Jaime changing too. Brienne now has started to see that perhaps there is some honour in Jaime after all, after he saved her from being raped. She’s starting to care about what happens to him now as well, and more than as just a bargaining chip. She tries to defend him when Locke’s men treat him terribly and talks him out of his worst, most self-destructive thoughts. These two characters no longer hate each other anymore – they are starting to care for the wellbeing of each other and, in Jaime’s case, Brienne’s good opinion and respect.

And this reaches its peak in the Harrenhal bath scene. Both are quite vulnerable here – after all Brienne is a Lady and she’s understandably shy and anxious about sharing a bath with Jaime. And Jaime has hit rock bottom, completely and utterly. He looks a mess, has lost his hand, feverish and in pain, weak and helpless and basically life couldn’t get much worse for him at this point. Look how the once proud Lion has fallen. Except then there’s also Brienne, judging him again. She hasn’t forgotten that just because he saved her, he’s still Kingslayer. And we actively see as an audience just how much he hates this now. We see clearly how much he’s always noticed and hated how people despise him for killing the King. And now he’s at his lowest point, a broken mess of the man he once was, he opens up to Brienne.

In my opinion, it’s more than that; he needs someone’s approval now, he needs someone to say he’s not that bad, that he’s ok. He needs someone to help put him back together. It starts with Jaime’s usual cocky, cruel humour, his shield, but he’s too broken to wield it properly and he goes too far and pushes Brienne to her breaking point. For the first time he’s gotten under her skin, he’s bothered her. But there’s no joy in this now, he’s too broken for that and instead he’s ashamed. What he wants now is not to bring someone else down, but to have someone pull him up.

So, he does something we’ve also never seen him do before (please correct me if I’m wrong here of course), he apologises. And this is where Brienne’s specific personality is important. It’s not just any shoulder to cry on, he wants Brienne’s forgiveness, wants her trust and respect, because he’s grown to trust and respect her. He cares greatly now for her good opinion. She is the Knight he now is acknowledging he wants to be again, and earning her good opinion is worth sharing his deepest secret. He wants her to see him for what he really is, because he needs to prove himself to her now. Prove he isn’t as bad as they all think, as she thinks, that he’s not that awful, hateful Kingslayer who everyone despises. Because if he is, what is there really left for him, for his identity that has completed shattered around him?

And then we have that amazing scene where we learn all about the real reason he killed the Mad King, to save those hundreds and thousands of innocence people. We see how far from not caring, it’s been eating Jaime alive for years. And Brienne sits there and listens – giving him exactly what he needs now, someone to hear his heartbroken story of what really happened and to no longer judge him. To show him, through her silent acceptance and understanding, that he isn’t that bad a person, after all.

I’ve read some people compare the bath scene to a rebirth, and whilst I didn’t see it when I watched the show, it does make sense. For a start there’s water and the idea of a bath and cleanliness. There’s the fact that Jaime faints (ie dies) in Brienne’s arms and there’s also the Christian idea of rebirth through Baptism in water. Then we get the next scene with Jaime all cleaned up and looking much better - the new reborn Jaime.

The more I think on it, the more I like this idea. That we started with the old, messed up Jaime, who’s haunted by his past mistakes, those conflicting oaths and those awful, cruel names for what was probably his most honourable deed, who doesn’t know himself anymore. That had to reach rock bottom and break so he could be made anew. And then he’s reborn as a new Jaime, who learns to care, that it’s ok to care, who’s won the trust and the respect of the honourable Knight in all but name, Lady Brienne.

It’s just automatic in their lunch scene with Bolton that she will come with him, and when she can’t and they say goodbye, we can see how much this is affecting Jaime. He doesn’t want to lose the first person for a long, long time who has seen there is good in him, who believes in him and makes him believe in himself. When she calls him Ser Jaime, no longer Kingslayer, you can see how much that means to him – she’s calling him by his name, accepting him for what he is and giving him back the title of a Knight. He’s become worthy now, in her eyes. And that means a lot to someone like Jaime, who had long ago given up on his own worthiness.

And this change in Jaime’s identity then triggers his most interesting good deed imho – saving Brienne from that bear. He risks his life to save her, without really thinking of the consequences, because he knows it’s the right thing to do. He cares for her now, as a person as well as for her good opinion, and he knows he can’t just leave her to Locke’s mercy. And so he makes Bolton’s men return him to Harrenhal so he can save her. The first person to see him for who he really is, who makes himself start to re-evaluate himself and want to do better.

Of course, the idea of honour and those clashing oaths don’t simply go away for Jaime, especially not when it comes to the concept of honour versus loyalty and family, but it’s his series three road trip with Brienne which triggers this change in Jaime’s identity arc. How he goes from seemingly not caring about any of his oaths, not caring what people think of him and effectively having given up on himself as anything other than a selfish, hateful person. To then become someone who starts to care again, starts to question his own ideas about himself and starts to want to do better. He wants to have someone’s good opinion, wants to trust someone and have someone trust and respect him. In series four, we see a different Jaime, one who is starting to think a little more for himself and taking those oaths a little more seriously...

Before we get to series four though, and what I think of as the next important chapter in Jaime’s identity arc, we need to talk about that hand. It’s bad enough that Jaime had his hand chopped off (I think that was one of biggest shocks of the show for me), but for Jaime, the implications are even more severe. As he tells Brienne, “I was that hand.” He’s a fighter, he livesfor sword fighting. He’s one of the best in the whole realm. He’s devoted most of his life to learning to fight, is naturally gifted as well and this defines him – it makes him what he is. He’s proud of his ability to fight and considering how much he thinks himself a hopeless cause in other ways, he can still, and does fight. It is basically the only thing (other than Cersei and his family) that he has.

And that gets taken away. His whole identity just gone, in one moment.

We can see instantly how this affects him – he becomes suicidal for a while, before Brienne talks some sense into him. We can see how easily he lets Locke and his men push him around. He’s weak, defenceless, he doesn’t even try – for a little while, he’s nothing. He is no longer who he always thought himself to be. So he can either give up, which Brienne isn’t going to let him do, or he can re-invent himself. And this is exactly what he does. He’s still rash (eg the bear pit), but he thinksmore now, he has to rely on his brains over his brawns and we see that actually, he isn’t so stupid after all. Now he can’t just fight himself out of situations, he comes up with other ideas, like his trick to get Bolton’s guard to take him back to Harranhal. Later on in the show, we see him coming up with good military strategies like at RiverRun and High Garden. We see him start to use reason more, like his negotiation with Tywin to save Tyrion and then actually rescuing Tyrion.

He’s also now more dependent on other people – he can’t be as arrogant and proud when he needs help to do more simple things. And this helps humble him as well, further helping to dispel that arrogant, careless person he thought was all he could be. It’s interesting because his last major good deed, when he killed the Mad King, led to him being despised and mocked by everyone, causing his own identity crisis. But this good deed, resulting in him losing his sword hand, has the opposite effect – it helps him become a better person. Luckily for Jaime, Brienne was around to help point him in the right direction this time.

The loss of his hand is a very physical, abrupt change in Jaime’s identity arc, and we see very early on how this also, through being forced to re-invent himself, helps him become a better person through his interconnected redemption arc.

There’s also a lot of symbolism in Jaime losing his hand – his sword hand that killed the King, that killed others in his many fights and battles. And whilst in the show it was technically his left hand that pushed Bran out of the window, we’ll still include it. The hand that caused these “bad things” is gone – as if on a more metaphorical level, Jaime’s past is wiped away, a clean slate, ready for him to start anew doing all those good deeds we now see.

And whilst it’s not stated what hand he grasped Cersei’s ankle with when they were born, the same symbolism can be applied here too – that his connection to Cersei, through the bond as twins, is also severed at a metaphorical level.

So, this not only completely changes Jaime and dramatically affects his identity arc, it helps lead in to him becoming a better person.

Now, on that mention of Cersei… Ok, I think Jaime’s relationship with his sister, and indeed all of his messed up family, will likely be far too long to include in this post, so I’ll save that for another post on Jaime and his relationships. That will carry on the idea of who Jaime is now from series 4 onwards, but with more focus on relationships and how they change now he’s starting to grow as a character.

But just as a quick summary here, Jaime has been in an incestuous relationship with his sister for a very, very long time. He’s never even been with anyone else but Cersei. Pretty much everything he does prior to series three and four are for Cersei, “The things we do for love.” She has defined him for a long, long time and so a large part of his identity arc revolves around her.

But as we see in the later series, series four especially, this also starts to fracture. Jaime’s identity starts to become less centralised on Cersei as he becomes a better person. And it is this breaking away from his unhealthy relationship with Cersei that helps a lot in both his redemption arc, but also allows Jaime to become his own person, and helps his identity arc to develop.

But more on Cersei in the next post.

#Sorry guys #I just keep on writing and it keeps on getting too long #I promise to wrap this up at some point #Thanks for reading #Hope you found it ok #Please feel free to correct or disagree with me

[mellometal]

Hey, everyone.

I've tried to compose myself before making this post. This is a subject that I've touched on a little bit in posts, but I've never done a deep dive into JUST this topic. I was going to make a post solely about this subject sooner, but this one in particular is really hard for me to talk about without getting emotional...and yet Dhar Mann has talked about this on quite a few occasions in the most insincere, toxic ways. I'll do my best to discuss this topic without getting too emotional.

It's about a serious subject that people still are ignorant about and don't take seriously. Even to this day, with the body positivity and body neutrality movements. (I don't know of a better way to describe just being neutral about your body. Sorry if it sounds weird.)

For anyone who doesn't know what I'm referring to (honestly, I don't blame you, as this is a subject that's often seen as normal and is encouraged in society for the most part), I'm talking about fatphobia. Hating on people for being fat. Discriminating people because of their weight in the workplace, at the doctor's office, just in general. Not many stores having inclusive sizes. People being treated like they're subhuman because they're fat.

I want to say this first, before I bash on Dhar Mann again: I'm a plus-size young woman. This is something that I have personal experience with. Your weight has no significance to your worth as a person. If you do happen to be overweight, obese, whatever, you're not subhuman. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. You're worthy of being loved, listened to, treated with kindness, and respected, just like anyone else who isn't fat.

If you treat people like utter shit for their weight, get some help. Why do you care about somebody else's weight? Obviously there's an exception to this, like if they're so big they can't move or they're so skinny their organs are showing....because those are causes for concern, but other than that, mind your own business. Even if they are in those extremities, unless you're their doctor and/or their family, STILL mind your own business. How the fuck does a fat person simply breathing and existing affect you in any way? News flash: there will always be fat people.

Before I get to the weekly ritual of tearing TWO of Dhar Mann's videos apart (the next one will be in another post or I'll reblog this post and continue on there), here's an obligatory trigger warning for the video analysis itself and my response: The following post contains fatphobia, fat shaming, a man being super fucking misogynistic and treating women like they're objects, and there's even a touch of some racial aggression. How shocking. Because Dhar Mann really seems to get a kick out of writing about racism to make it all cute. Oh yeah, you're totally solving racism, Dhar Mann. /s

My response contains my experience with fatphobia, relationships with food, mentioned/implied thoughts of s3lf h@rm, feeling like I'm unworthy of being treated like an actual person because of my weight, and absolute rage. Like usual. My responses are very heated. This one especially. It's LONG. Buckle up.

With all this out of the way, let's get to the first video that I want to tear apart. This one is about the auditions for a record deal. I will get to the video about a kid wanting to be a host of a radio show later.

To sum up the first video, a plus-size white woman (Krissy Elliot) is singing for an agent (Isaac) and his assistant (Evette) so she can follow her dream to become a singer. Isaac cuts Krissy off to viciously bash her for being a plus-size woman. Evette stands up for this woman, and says she sounded fine and to let her finish. Isaac doesn't listen to Evette, let alone take what she said into consideration. He continues to ridicule Krissy for her appearance, that she'll "never make it in the music industry" (WRONG, do you know how many plus-size people are in the fucking music industry? There are A LOT more now than when I was growing up and it honestly makes me so happy. There were more plus-size people in the entertainment industry than in the music industry back then.), suggested that she "become a chef or a food critic" because she apparently loves being around food (being a chef or a food critic are noble professions, but NEVER fucking assume ANYONE'S relationships with food), to the point where Krissy left the room in tears.

Here are a few screenshots for context:

When this skinny, conventionally attractive woman (Jesse) comes in, Isaac's mood does a COMPLETE 180° and he's all sunshine and rainbows. Then right as soon as Jesse did her audition, Isaac is over the fucking moon, complimenting her physical appearance, treating her like an object, and signs her up for a record deal RIGHT AWAY. Pay attention to Isaac's facial expressions in one of these screenshots.

Evette suggests that they sign Krissy for a record deal instead. Because she was "the best singer they've had all day". Isaac, still all hot and bothered by a skinny, conventionally attractive woman that he's treating like an object, tells Evette that people like Krissy don't make it in the music industry because they're "overweight and unattractive", and is verbally aggressive towards her when she does nothing but explain her stance. Isaac sees this as Evette "talking back" (remember how I mentioned that there's racial aggression? He says that Evette is "talking back" because she happens to be a black woman) and fires her. He signs Jesse a record deal and has a blast with her.

The award ceremony comes around, and they're picking a winner for Best New Artist. They pick the winner, and it's....guess what? You'll never get it! It's Krissy Elliot! Why? Because Evette became her agent after Isaac fired her. Krissy goes into her whole story about how she was laughed out of every single agency and that she worked hard. Good for her. Jesse is obviously very happy for Krissy. We gotta love women supporting women.

This video was again another dumpster fire. As usual. Like I said, with this video in particular, I couldn't get through the first thirty seconds the first time around. Because I've dealt with shit like this. Obviously not with the music industry because I don't even think I'd be good enough to step into an agency...but I mean in my personal life.

Being told by my own dad that he was "tired of buying bigger clothes for me" when I was a young teenager, despite him buying almost nothing but "junk food".

Having my abuser make comments about my weight and talking about diets while I'm trying to eat my food, despite her being overweight.

Having someone I know (not anyone I'm friends with) make a comment about me eating a few things (ONE small piece of broccoli, two baby carrots, a small handful of chips, and ONE small piece of pineapple) and said to "save some for everyone else", even though I was saving food for everyone else, which is why I took so little. She tried to justify it with the fact nobody was there yet (why do you think I took very little food?), and she "was saying that to everyone" (why did she look at ME when she said that instead of making it clear that she was talking to everyone [saying "Hey, everyone" before the comment about saving some for everyone else IS NOT HARD]?), even though I know it was just to save her own ass. I knew she said that to me because I'm plus-size. She didn't say anything to anyone else, nor did she make it clear that she was talking to everyone.

Another person I know (not a person I'm friends with) saying that I overreacted (I did not overreact; SOMEONE TRIGGERED ME and you did NOTHING about it) even though they all KNEW my relationship with food is complicated. They KNEW that I don't really like eating in front of other people. I was upset that someone MADE A FUCKING DISGUSTING, TRIGGERING COMMENT ABOUT ME EATING VERY FEW FOOD ITEMS, ALMOST ALL WERE HEALTHY, DESPITE OTHER PEOPLE EATING A LOT MORE THAN I DID AND PICKING AT EVERYTHING. That day, I was begging one of my friends (one of the people I trust to eat around) to PLEASE take me home because I didn't want to be there (never wanted to be there in the first place), I was tired (I worked all night the night before and was forced to go to a meeting before all this happened), I didn't feel comfortable there anymore, there were way too many people (four individuals plus all their staff from another house were in the house I work in), I couldn't breathe (I was either about to pass out, have a panic attack, or just start crying), but nobody listened to me. I ended up getting a bus to go home.

(Sorry about all that. I was trying not to get emotional in this post. I just needed to share how this can affect people.)

Onto my response, which is all in the screenshots below.

ETA: I know the screenshots for my response are very jumbled right now and it’s difficult to read. I apologize to anyone who’s unable to fully read it! Because this is part one of this whole subject of fatphobia (I’m making a post about the boy wanting to become a radio host very soon), my response here will tie into that post. My response to that video is vastly the same, despite not making a comment on that video as of right now (the radio host one). 

I’ll be typing out my full response here. I apologize for weird formatting. Instagram wouldn’t let me break up my response into paragraphs. I’ll break them up into paragraphs here instead.

CC (Combination of the first, second, and third screenshots, aka, the first part of my response):

 I have a few questions before I get into my thoughts on this video. One, how the hell does your weight have any significance on your worth as a person, and if you do think this way, why would you think that? Two, do you know that fatphobia is a lot more than just judging a person for being fat? Three, why do you feel like you can speak for fat people like myself with this piss poor excuse for a video that I could barely get through the first thirty seconds of the first time? 

You can’t speak for any of us. I can’t speak for every fat person because not everyone has the same experiences as me. 

I’ve been bullied for my weight in real life as well as online. People have called me ugly just because of my weight. By the way, your weight doesn’t equal beauty, and that’s what I’m still learning. Beauty comes in all shapes and sizes. 

On quite a few occasions, I have actually thought about doing dangerous things to my body that I don’t feel comfortable going into here. All because I had people try to boil me down to my weight, call me ugly, and destroy whatever self-esteem I had left. You don’t know what fat people go through, so don’t act like you do. 

There are many factors that go into why a person may be fat, including medical conditions, mental illness, trauma, genetics, etc. All of those things are none of your business unless those people decide to be open about it. 

No, it’s not always healthy to be fat (obviously there are extremities on both sides of the spectrum of weight that are extremely unhealthy), but it doesn’t make a person any less of a human being. Fat people are human too. Quit treating us like we’re not. We deserve to be treated like everyone else who isn’t fat. I’m not saying put all fat people on a pedestal. I’m saying treat us like human beings.

CC (Combination of the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh screenshots, aka, the second part of my response):

Remember how I said that fatphobia isn’t just about judging people for being fat? Well, there’s the “fat tax” on plus-size clothing (even though it maybe only costs a little bit more in fabric, if there’s any difference in making clothes for people who aren’t fat), limited styles for fat people in stores (making a lot of us have to buy fast fashion or have to spend a fortune on clothes that actually flatter us), not very many stores have inclusive sizes still (if you don’t at least carry max 5XL or a size 38/40 in pants size, you cannot call yourself inclusive), and a lot of other things.

Many fat people, myself included, are afraid to seek medical attention for anything (even checkups) because of doctors who only focus on our weight and not on what we came in to see them for. They write it off as if our weight is the sole cause of our problems, which isn’t always the case.

How about we talk about how expensive it is to eat healthy in a lot of places? Not everyone can afford to make fresh meals every day, let alone once a week. Maybe they were never taught how to due to their upbringing. You don’t know.

I’ve had people comment on my weight, what I’m eating (even if I’m eating something healthy like fruits and veggies), talk about my weight or diets EVEN WHILE I’M TRYING TO EAT, and it’s caused me to wait until I’m alone or around someone I trust to eat anything. As a result, I have a complicated relationship with food now.

Telling someone they’re fat doesn’t help them. They know that. They see themselves every day. People may want to change, but they either are afraid to ask for help, or they don’t know where to start. Some may not want to change. It’s up to them, honestly. If you want to help them lose weight, maybe suggest any physical activity they’d have fun doing and do them with them? I dance for fun. Also, you could help set up meal plans with them. 

If you’re not going to at least try to help them lose weight if you’re so concerned about them (this is all if they actually want to change things and don’t know where to start), I cannot say this in a sweeter way: shut your mouth and mind your own business. Because you’re just being a cunt at that point.

CC (eighth screenshot, aka, the third and final part to my response):

There are quite a few plus-size people in the entertainment industry as a whole who are/were very successful. Remember the late Chris Farley and Aretha Franklin? Chris Farley was big, but that didn’t change how great of an actor he was, how funny he was, or how much of an impact he made in the entertainment industry. Aretha Franklin was a plus-size black woman in the music industry, but she’s inspired SO MANY artists we have today! There are many plus-size men, women, and I believe even nonbinary people in the public eye in general. Like I’ve said, beauty comes in all shapes and sizes. That’s why the body positivity and body neutrality movements are a thing.

(I know I implied that I thought about sh here in my response, but please don't worry about me as far as that goes. I'm fine now. I would never go through with anything like that.)

In the last part of my response where I mentioned some plus-size people in the entertainment industry as well as the music industry (the late Chris Farley and the late Aretha Franklin), I was going to name more people, but my comments were getting too long. I'll name some more here off the top of my head:

Lizzo (rapper), the Piggy Dolls (the first K-Pop girl group made up of actual plus-size women), K*v*n Sp*c*y (I don't feel comfortable saying his name because he's a disgusting person, but he's another plus-size man...he was in King of Queens and in A LOT of movies), PSY, Greyson Gritt (a genderqueer person in the music industry), Elle King, Produce Pandas (the first music group in China full of plus-size men), Martha Wash, Chubby Checker, Fats Domino, Big Angel (a J-Pop group of all plus-size women), Chubbiness (another J-Pop group of all plus-size women), Pottya (another J-Pop group of all plus-size women)...there are so many that I found, but if you want to add more plus-size artists, plus-size actors, plus-size comedians/comediennes, feel free to add them in the comments!

Dhar Mann, you'll never know what plus-size people go through. You don't know what we go through. You have NO IDEA what we go through on a daily basis. Stop acting like you do. Because you don't, and you never will.

By the way, Dhar Mann, this will NOT be the last post I'll make about you or your videos. The more you make fucking deplorable, poorly written bullshit, the more posts I'll make! Teehee!

If you got this far, thank you so much. The next part of this is coming very soon. I'm sorry for not posting too many screenshots from the video. I wanted to fit in my response because it's important for people to see.

Have a good day/afternoon/night, y'all. Love you!

[nothinggold13]

Peter the High King

“By his own words, he is Peter first. [...] When the people called him Magnificent, he still begged in quiet repetition to be called Peter.”

A thought in 25 parts.

Dedicated to @awfullybigwardrobe44 for being my editor & also listening to me rant about this analysis for the last month, as I got way too excited about the phrase “Peter the High King.”

I. "That [...] is Cair Paravel of the four thrones, in one of which you must sit as King. I show it to you because you are the first-born and you will be High King over all the rest." [The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe]

It is one thing to be King; it is another to be High King over others. The distinction is lost on Peter. He is still just a kid, and he has not yet tasted his first blood. All he knows is that he will look after his brother and sisters. He is, after all, the first born; it only makes sense that he will lead the other children. There is no fear. In the moment, he feels it plainly.

II. "And Peter became a tall and deep-chested man and a great warrior, and he was called King Peter the Magnificent."

In his eyes, “Magnificent” is an unexpected and undeserved title. For all he is, and all he is seen to be, he is still, in his heart, just Peter. He finds no love for the war that has made him into a warrior. Fears he had once never imagined have long since become his constant companions. But Peter is a King. Like all his duties, he bears this one well. There is peace in springtime, and there is joy in peace. Peter still breathes. Peter still believes. The people still call him Magnificent.

III. "And in a few years, if all goes well, King Peter has promised your royal father that he himself will make you Knight at Cair Paravel." [The Horse and His Boy]

The boy Shasta does not know the King Peter the Faun speaks of. He does not even know enough to recognize both the respect and familiar affection with which the Faun speaks. Tumnus knows the High King well, after all—as does Corin, who the Faun thinks he is speaking to. They know the High King well enough that there is no need to refer to him as such. They may call him King Peter, but only “King.” The title remains out of love and humble admiration, but his name stands firm out of deeper love and friendship. There is no need to call him “the High King,” as others do, and there is no need to call him “Magnificent.” They are familiar with him. They are family. He may as well, in their eyes, just be Peter.

IV. "For though the fancy of a woman has rejected this marriage, the High King Peter is a man of prudence and understanding who will in no way wish to lose the high honour and advantage of being allied to our House and seeing his nephew and grand nephew on the throne of Calormen."

If Peter could hear these words, he would laugh before settling into the depths of his anger. In all the conversation between Rabadash and his father, Peter’s name has never been mentioned. He has been, in their discussion, a nameless, vague, and distant figure. “The High King of Narnia,” they say, “their High King, not ours.” But now Rabadash risks his name, almost as if it’s an appeal; almost as if Peter is listening in after all. There is little cold in the warmth of the High King, but few have heard a laugh as cold as the one Peter would give at this. The inanity of the Calormene Prince’s words would amuse him before they enraged him; for in all his years as High King, Peter has never heard anyone misuse his name so badly.

V. "For though my brother, Peter the High King, defeated the Tisroc a dozen times over, yet long before that day our throats would be cut[...]"

Edmund gets it right. He often does. “My brother,” he says first. “Peter,” he says second. The familiar comes before his title. And Edmund knows, of course, that even if he’s just Peter - even if he’s the High King second - Peter will not suffer such an injustice. If “the High King Peter” is a prudent man, “Peter the High King” is a genuine one. In love and in brotherhood, Peter will always protect his siblings - or, Aslan forbid it, avenge them. He is and ever will be Peter first. He is and ever will be their brother.

VI. "For the truth was that in that golden age when the Witch and the Winter had gone and Peter the High King ruled at Cair Paravel, the smaller woodland people of Narnia were so safe and happy that they were getting a little careless."

This is how the legend starts: In the Golden Age of Narnia, the people were safe and happy. This is how the legend starts, before it is twisted and gilded and lost. In the Golden Age of Narnia, Peter is High King. Perhaps no one notices, but the narrative frames him as he wants to be framed: Peter first. His name comes first. He is a person before he is a king or a myth or a hero. This is how the legend starts, but the narrative is lost when the people need heroes instead.

VII. "’If I had but my cordial with me,’ Queen Lucy was saying, ‘I could soon mend this. But the High King has so strictly charged me not to carry it commonly to the wars and to keep it only for great extremities!’"

Here lies the cost of the title. Lucy doesn’t know the weight Peter took upon himself the day he told her not to carry the cordial into battle. Lucy can’t understand it. Not yet. But Peter has seen the hurt it has caused her to make terrible choices on fields of blood; the devastation she experiences each time she saves one and loses another. Peter is the High King because he needs to be - because someone needs to be - because he is the oldest. The High King must lead the others. The High King must protect the others. So Peter takes the choice away, and with it, he hopes, the hurt.

VIII. "And Lucy told again [...] the tale of the Wardrobe and how she and King Edmund and Queen Susan and Peter the High King had first come into Narnia."

You wouldn’t know it to listen to her, but Lucy doesn’t remember the tale so well on her own. The details of their coming are blanketed in snow; even to Lucy, the story sounds more like a fairy tale than history. But she knows well that among fairy tales, some truths still stand. There are truths like hope; like how the White Witch’s winter is all but forgotten in these peaceful days, but is remembered for the hope in the wide eyes of the young girl who saw it as a wonderland rather than a curse. Even now in Lucy, that hope remains. There are truths like change; like how the betrayal of a boy once desperate for affection became the groundwork for a king to grow in justice. Though all know Edmund is no traitor now, they know it is these past missteps and mistakes that have made him wise. There are truths like courage; like the queen who followed Aslan to his death, yet does not fight in wars. Courage exists in gentleness, in dedication, and in love, and Susan shows them this every day. There are truths like the death and resurrection of the Great Lion, which remains forever the source of salvation for all of Narnia — not for only one. And, perhaps least of all, another truth remains in the fact that Peter is still Peter. The High King was a boy once, and somewhere in their hearts, he is a boy still. It’s funny how as Lucy tells the tale, her beloved older brother takes the form of a brave, terrified child. He is in all their minds a warrior and protector, yet they can see him clearly even at the beginning. It’s funny, but it’s real.

IX. "'It is my sword Rhindon,' he said; 'with it I killed the Wolf.' There was a new tone in his voice, and the others all felt that he was really Peter the High King again." [Prince Caspian]

He is Peter first, when they look at him. His voice is far from mythic. It is Peter’s voice; the voice of man and boy and king and brother. They are reminded by the name of Rhindon how the Wolf’s blood was shed by unwanted bravery - an unwilling thrust. Rhindon is not the sword of a fearless warrior; it is the sword of a dutiful knight. Susan and Edmund and Lucy have never known the legendary Magnificent King. They’ve only known Peter.

X. "But at least you can try to be a King like the High King Peter of old, and not like your uncle."

Peter becomes a fairy tale in the eyes of the frightened Prince. The legendary High King - over all Kings of Narnia, under only Aslan - is, all at once, an idol. Brave and benevolent and wise, he is something to be striven for. The High King Peter is king first, man second. The stories paint him in golden light, and in the damaged remnants of copied portraits in Cornelius’ study, he appears to wear more a halo than a crown.

XI. "It may have the power to call Queen Lucy and King Edmund and Queen Susan and High King Peter back from the past, and they will set all to rights."

There is an old rhyme about Adam’s flesh and bone. There is another about the returning of spring. Few remember the latter, it seems, as a new Son of Adam comes of age. Faith is put on the heads of four children. But Peter remembers well, if he could only be asked, that it is by Aslan’s teeth and mane and blood that the earth is reawakened. It is He that will set all to rights, not the ancient Sons and Daughters. Peter remembers well, though the horn has not yet called for him. Peter remembers well, though when he comes, no one will ask.

XII. "’I'd much rather not have to vote.’ // ‘You're the High King,’ said Trumpkin sternly.”

The decision is placed in his hands, and the weight of it on his shoulders. It is clear by Trumpkin’s tone that he is not looking for majority rule; if the party were split unevenly, Trumpkin would still make the High King choose. Peter never asked to choose. “You’re the High King,” he’s told, and the words scold him, remind him, immortalize him. It shouldn’t be his decision. Peter once trusted Lucy more than he trusted himself. Peter once trusted Aslan more than all his siblings put together. He knows this, but he can’t see Aslan now. In fear, Peter votes to go down. Lucy cries.

XIII. "If you all go, of course, I'll go with you; and if your party splits up, I'll go with the High King. That’s my duty to him and King Caspian."

Peter doesn’t know what scares him the most about this. Two things have been made clear. The first is that Trumpkin, even if not maliciously, would leave the others alone. He would leave them behind, if Peter led him to. Lucy is 9, and Edmund just turned 11. Susan shivers even without cold. They look little like the Queens and King they used to be. And all at once, even if he has no other reason, Peter will follow Lucy in spite of reason. He can’t leave them alone. In spite of himself, in spite of his fears, he will follow. For that is his second - and perhaps greater - fear: when they make it to Caspian, he will still be alone. He sees it clearly. Trumpkin has decided that it is not the four ancient sovereigns on which the fate of Narnia rests. Now it lies on only one. Trumpkin will go with the High King, he says. Peter wonders now whether that means he will be followed or dragged.

XIV. "It's the High King, King Peter."

As he is introduced to the young King Caspian, Peter flinches at each word. They land at first like blows; clumsy punches, but painful all the same. Then, Peter realizes, they settle like cuts instead. He wonders how many it would take to bleed out. He sees the depth of it now. He is Peter last, in the eyes of the Old Narnians. They don’t want Peter; they want the mythical High King of old. So that is how they introduce him: “It’s the High King,” they say first. Second, they call him “King” again. And then tacked on to the end of his title, as if it were specification rather than identity, is his name.

XV. “’You say, Caspian, we are not strong enough to meet Miraz in pitched battle.’ // ‘I'm afraid not, High King,’ said Caspian.”

Every time Peter looks at Caspian, he is painfully aware that Caspian is just a boy. Every time he looks at Caspian, he is reminded that he, himself, is just a boy. Caspian has not figured it out yet. In the wide eyes of the future king, Peter is a mythic hero. It is no wonder he is awestruck. Yet when Peter looks at the other boy, he addresses him by name. Names are a kindness. The kindness is not returned. It is not Peter they look to; the Old Narnians have made it clear that it is the High King that will save them. He yearns to shout that he cannot, to have it out of his hands, to tell them that Aslan will save them instead. But, as always, he swallows these fears. He has a solution, after all. Confused child though he is, he’s already come up with a solution. He could never leave them wanting. The Narnians have hung their hopes on him, and he hopes, in turn, that his answer will buy them time until Aslan acts. They cannot all fight. They cannot face Miraz in battle. So Peter does all he can do, and lets them bleed him dry instead.

XVI. "Peter, by the gift of Aslan, by election, by prescription, and by conquest, High King over all Kings in Narnia, Emperor of the Lone Islands and Lord of Cair Paravel, Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Lion…”

It slips from his tongue as if rehearsal has become nature. By his own words, he is Peter first. Always, he is Peter first. By the gift of Aslan, he is all other titles, but even his most beloved titles are secondary to him. When the people called him Magnificent, he still begged in quiet repetition to be called Peter.

XVII. "There's a man for you! Uses his enemy's arm as a ladder. The High King!  The High King! Up, Old Narnia!"

There is a secret here; a secret so old and buried that even Peter himself has almost forgotten it. Because the secret is, for all his fear and doubt and unworthiness, Peter loves his title as a part of him. The rousing cheers of Trumpkin remind him. He knows once more what it is to be High King: it is his greatest burden, but in equal measure, it is his greatest gift. The Narnians rise up with him. The Narnians’ strength is his strength. The High King is just Peter, but Peter is the High King.

XVIII. "But the other creatures all cheered and rose up in honour of Peter the High King, and Queen Susan of the Horn, and King Edmund and Queen Lucy."

When they rise up for the Kings and Queens, they rise up for Peter. It’s like forgiveness, almost, for being man instead of myth; permission to be a boy instead of a man. He does not feel the weight of his title here and now. The memory of the crown he once wore feels, in this moment, more like the flower chains Lucy used to place atop his head. In their cheers, Peter feels that even in the Narnians’ adoring eyes, he is Peter first. The High King will be remembered. Memory, however, is no longer legend.

XIX. "'I've never understood why they belong to Narnia,' said Caspian. 'Did Peter the High King capture them?'" [The Voyage of the Dawn Treader]

Edmund and Lucy don’t know why these words feel as fresh as the sea air, but neither can deny that they feel even more at home now that Caspian has said them. They don’t know how Caspian first referred to their brother, and they don’t know how it was wrong. They don’t know the way Caspian said “High King,” as if Peter were modelled in precious metal. Caspian does not see him that way any longer. Time and memory change things. Perhaps they make idols out of men, but they can, in fact, turn gold and stone into flesh again. Edmund and Lucy don’t know, but they don’t have to know. It’s enough to feel. In love, Peter comes first again. In love, they know when it is right. And so the air is clear when their brother’s name is said, and wounds are healed in a world far away.

XX. "I am one of the four ancient sovereigns of Narnia and you are under allegiance to the High King my brother."

The words are flung like stones, and Edmund knows not what he does. This is, in the end, Peter’s fear. “High King” is a title easily weaponized by greed and pride, and now Edmund clings to it even though it isn’t his to possess. It’s not his fault; Magic is often stronger than loyalty, and sometimes even loyalty doesn’t know it’s own rules. The words are a grievous error, but no one knows to correct them. As Edmund argues with Caspian - both still children beneath all their growth - Peter is thrown under their feet. He is nameless in pride. He becomes Edmund’s brother secondly, and only that so Edmund can lay claim to what he desires. It’s an unintended betrayal. No one will remember it. Magic is often stronger than anger, too.

XXI. "That look is in the face of all true kings of Narnia, who rule by the will of Aslan and sit at Cair Paravel on the throne of Peter the High King." [The Silver Chair]

The High King’s throne is not a physical place; Cair Paravel has long since fallen to ruin and been rebuilt on the coast. Peter never sat in the throne that sits there now… but it is his throne still. In the figure of the High King there still lies a truth which can never and must never be lost in the kingdom of Narnia. For all the ages that lie between them, the throne is still his. Yet the comparison does not lie in that figure; it lies instead in the person. The legend has changed; the narrative has ordered itself after him once again. Memory does not recall a mythic High King, crowned in gold and light. Instead, memory falls on a soft boy who grew into a good man. Memory falls on the flesh and bone rather than steel and gold. Memory falls on Peter.

XXII. "I charge you in the name of Aslan, speak to me. I am Peter the High King." [The Last Battle]

It has been said that who he is always comes first, and what he is always comes second. Sometimes that is only partly true. Sometimes there are names and titles of greater importance and truer power which must come first. As Peter clenches his fist and screws up his courage, it is to Aslan’s name he clings. As Peter asks the vision in front of him to speak, it is to Aslan’s power he appeals. And when, at the end of his address, he does mention his own name, it is not from a place of authority. It is a plea. “I am Peter,” he begs, “Peter the High King. You can trust me. You can speak to me.”

XXIII. “‘Sire,’ said Jill coming forward and making a beautiful curtsey, ‘let me make known to you Peter the High King over all Kings in Narnia.’”

To be High King means and has always meant many things to Peter. He’s 9 years older, now, than when he was first given the title, and he has lived 24 years since then. He barely remembers how in those first days it hardly carried any weight at all. It had been, at the time, his natural role. For him to take that responsibility had just made sense. But Peter feels it heavier now — he feels everything heavier. The weight of the crown has never left his mind, even after nearly a decade. Peter hadn’t known in those moments Aslan first spoke to him — when he first promised him all of this — what it would be to be King, let alone a king over others. Peter knows now, and he knows well. It is the weight of a world; it is blood and sweat and tears; it is the sting of the sword, and the crack of the whip on his own flesh. It is the crash of the ocean, and the salt on the table. It is the lilt of the music echoing through empty palace halls. It is the rhythm of dancing feet, and laughter through open windows, and the patterns in the stars. And, above all, it is not a burden; for all the hurt, it is instead a promise. Peter is the High King, and always will be. The High King is a boy named Peter.

XXIV. “Tirian had no need to ask which was the High King, for he remembered his face (though here it was far nobler) from his dream.”

And it lifts: the heart, the music, the feet, the head. Everything lifts. The heaviest weights mean little in the end. The heaviest weights are worth it all to bear. And Peter is noble now, isn’t he? He is noble to his brother and sister - maybe even to the sister who won’t admit to any of it. He is noble to the friends who seat him at the head of the table. He is noble even in the eyes of a king who bore weights Peter never did. Peter lifts the other king off his knees. Eyes lift. Everything lifts. The weights are lifted off.

XXV. "'Peter, High King of Narnia,' said Aslan. 'Shut the Door.'"

It is to Peter that the command is given: it’s given to the boy who faltered, who doubted: to the boy on his knees. It is Peter, after all, who slayed the wolf, well before he held any title. And yet, as always, his title follows. Once more, Peter will do that which only the High King can. Once more, Peter will serve. Once more, Peter will obey. Even if he falters, or doubts, or falls again to his knees, he will do what he has been charged to do. The door will shut. The key will turn. The weight will be forgotten. It is understood. Peter trusts now; trusts in a reason for his crown and his calling; trusts Aslan even where he didn’t before.  There is no fear. In the moment, he feels it plainly.