#the concept is contrived but i find it very appealing sue me

[livecrow]

Imagine an unlucky civilian reader in the wrong place, at the wrong time, looking under Ghost's mask while he's incapacitated, and the 141 takes it extremely fucking personally.

(cw: implied noncon)

Ghost is going to pay you back in full. You’re not going to like how he interprets “an eye for an eye”.

Like,

He'd immediately know something was wrong when he came around.

The eye openings of the skull and balaclava are slightly askew. Just too far off to one side, so now there's an annoying tickle where one of his outer lashes snags on the mask’s material. The neck opening is untucked, leaving a tiny sliver of skin peaking through.

Ghost is not happy.

John, Soap, and Gaz would be equally incensed, offended over the slight on their Lieutenant. Taking advantage while a man’s down? It's completely dishonorable, it's bad form. Captain's mind is immediately made up on the matter, filled with a steely resolve.

Even if the damage was already done, it’ll be a cold day in hell before you'd get away with it without repercussions. That's a promise.

Gaz and Soap are both eager accomplices in John’s personal assignment. Soap is practically spittin’ he’s champing at the bit, English even more incompressible than usual.

They'd do what any good mate would. Bring the bastard in and hand him off to Ghost for some tender loving care. All “off the books”, of course.

John’s not exactly going to be getting any thank-you cards from his Lieutenant in the meantime. He’d keep him in the dark, practically locked-down on base while Laswell assesses the damage. It’s for his own good, so he’ll just have to bear it for now. But John’s sympathetic, knows how it feels to have to sit on your hands, idle. Ghost is caught in limbo, nothing much to do but seethe and muse about having a little chat with you.

Maybe he'd start off with the hands first, there are so many fine bones there, so many nerve-endings. It'd be fittin' since you can't keep your grubby 'ands to y’rself. He'd make you regret not just shootin’ 'im and being done with it.

Obviously no one else at base knew anything happened—but the shift in the air was palpable. As if Ghost was the most approachable bloke to begin with. Fortunately, even the greenest recruits had enough of a sense of self preservation to steer clear of the Lieutenant.

There's not just anger, though. John shrewd enough to see it. Simon would never admit it, hell, he might not even be conscious of it, but the whole experience has left him feeling violated. Hardly more than a handful or seconds of vulnerably, is all it took. Rattled him.

Ghost would be bracing himself for the worst, waiting for the other shoe to drop. If his face isn't circulating already, it will be soon. Maybe they're holding out for an auction, might as well cash in. A lot of people would pay good money for the identity of 141's infamous second-in-command. Of course there’s a chance they’d come directly to them first, try to shake the 141 down in exchange for not releasing the photos.

Laswell wouldn’t waste any time, ever since the initial incident she’d have feelers out for news—for anything even tangentially related to Ghost or the 141. But it's been a week and there's absolutely nothing.

She also throws every resource at her disposal to locating you. The recon would take some doing, but she eventually she’d get a good lead. John knew Laswell would deliver, is reliable.

Let's just say, you would not at all be what they expected. It’d leave John with more questions than anything else, but he would deny being relieved. He might almost feel sorry for you, the dumb chit. Almost.

But actions have consequences and there's no un-ringing this bell.

Eh, if he knows Simon, in the end you'll be fine—relatively speaking. Not that he'd ever give you that solace. No, he’s not ashamed to say he’ll like watching you squirm. It'd be a pretty sight.

Soap and Gaz were even more taken off-guard.

Gaz just lets out of a low whistle, brows rising high on his forehead.

"Shite. Dinnae ‘ow we missed her", Soap’s eyes raked the screen.

"—there's a lot tae miss." He couldn't stop himself from laughing before adding, "Aye, this'll be a skoosh."

"...a what?"

Soap was right, the whole mission would go off without a hitch. It’d be nearly anticlimactic.

You were a proper softie, any fight you put up while being shocked awake and tripping over your own bedding was so pitiful it’s endearing. Naturally, they were in and out in 2 minutes with practiced precision. But all the same, Gaz and Soap were eager to give you a good fright.

John would make sure to keep them in line. He'd make it clear from the jump that he’d only made allowance for some light manhandling of the bird. They'd not be taking any liberties. He'd leave that to Ghost's discretion.

It was a clean pick-up. You were plucked and bagged "to-go" without much fuss. Proper delivery drivers they were, brought you back to base in 30 minutes or less.

Laswell would be waiting in the wings, of course. Immediately following the departure, her people scour your flat. No stone was left unturned, every belonging you owned was gone through, systematically. Anything and everything capable of holding an electrical charge would be seized and forensically analyzed.

She confirmed what she already expected. You were no terrorist asset, had no connections to any unscrupulous business. No, you were some civilian who's biggest crime, Laswell estimated, was impulse control. That and film piracy. Still, she’d personally double and triple check the findings before finally giving John the go ahead. Ghost was completely in the clear.

It’d feel like whiplash, the relief would be almost dizzying. But even if any anxiety threat had dissipated, the anger was very much still there. Ghost is flooded with resentment for having any of it foisted on him by some nameless civvie.

Ghost was eerily still as he stared at you. You were a sight.

You're underdressed, disheveled, frozen and wide-eyed. Squeezed into a chair with several improvised polyester ratchet straps that were normally used for cargo. The wide, neon bands cut into the ample flesh meanly. Admittedly, it was probably excessive just to contain one fat bird, but no one can ever claim the lads don't take their job seriously.

The several seconds of quiet must have felt excruciatingly long for you. Gaz and Soap would share knowing grins where they were posted up off to the side, reclining against the wall. You couldn't pay them to miss this.

Any surprise Ghost felt was completely hidden, his eyes drifted back to John.

"She’s all yours," John husked, ambling around you, thumbs tucked in his tactical vest. "Your loose end", answering the unasked question.

You’d flinch, head snapping between the two, desperately trying to keep eyes on the Captain before he disappeared over your shoulder, pulling fruitlessly at the restraints before your wild eyes darted back to Ghost.

That was all the confirmation he needed. Unbidden, any previous machinations started to reform in his mind.

"—I keep telling you, this is all a misunderstanding!" you plead to John, finally finding your voice.

As if he could save you.

Ghost is really going to enjoy this.

[gunnerpalace]

Let's Talk About Orihime

This is a bit long, so I’m putting it under a cut:

But first, because this requires some setup, let's talk about Mace Windu. Now, someone a lot more famous than me has already had this discussion, if a bit crudely:

So, in short, Jackson was cast not because he was good for the part, but because his name would bring in extra dollars and an audience that might not have come otherwise.

Anyway, keep in mind the quoted section.

Now let’s talk about Bella Swan. This is by no means the most exhaustive breakdown of her character, but it will suffice.

Throughout the series, Bella is only defined by her relationship with Edward. That is what sets her apart from the other characters. She has no special traits or defining hobbies or characteristics. She could just as easily be replaced with a secondary character and the only difference would be the name.

[...]

This is a product of the bad writing evident throughout the series. Meyer never shows, she just tells. She tells the reader Bella is smart, though, over the series, a veritable mountain of evidence stacks up against this fact.

[...]

Bella's main problem, however, is not her lack of depth, Twilight is a poorly written romance novel after all, you cannot expect too much, the main problem is Bella's essentially anti-feminist characterisation.

Keep this in mind too.

Last, but not least, let’s talk about healers in JRPGs, specifically, Final Fantasy. Now, when people think of White Mages, they think of something like this. And of course this image of healers as chaste, pure, pretty maidens is quite the trope, and begat its own offspring.

This became so rote that eons (almost 20 years) ago, PSM had an article on trying to change up the tropes in JRPGs to keep them fresh. I can’t find the article, but here was their concept art. (The female lead was a black mage, not a healer, and the healer was actually pretty into violence.)

The pinnacle of this trend was, of course, Aeris:

Now, everybody thinks of Aeris as a pure princess because of FFVII: Advent Children, and the associated following Kirk Drift. But Aeris was street-smart and loved to crack innuendo, so this is largely a mass-misremembering of her actual personality in FFVII. (The definitive screenshot LP of FFVII makes the case for this handily.)

Still, you get the idea: healers are pure, pretty princesses.

Speaking of pure, pretty princesses:

(Gee, you wonder if that color-scheme is a coincidence?)

So here’s the thing: Orihime is bait. She didn’t start off that way, but that’s what she became very quickly, certainly by the end of the SS arc.

She is a very shoujo character in a shounen. Who do you suppose that she is designed to attract? The answer, of course, is women, specifically teenage girls who can identify with her. (This is analogous to Mace Windu being introduced to expand market capture.) She serves an auxiliary role through her design, as IH has lately seen fit to constantly crow about: her huge chest also makes her fan service for male readers. (This is like Mace Windu being the “only” Jedi who can balance between light side and dark side and the only one with a purple lightsaber.)

Not only is she perfectly designed to appeal to a non-traditional demographic in addition to shoring up a traditional one, she’s designed to do so through insidious means. Put simply, much like Bella Swan, she was largely designed to be, or became, a tabula rasa. She is a blank slate. What few personality quirks she had to begin with were eliminated to focus her existence entirely upon pursuing Ichigo. We’re told that she’s smart, just like Bella, we’re told that she has an interesting interiority, we’re told this, we’re told that... All of that is systematically eliminated for the sake of her pursuit of Ichigo. She exists for no other purpose. She is the girl seeking to get the guy.

And much like Bella Swan, she is successful in that appeal, because by being so thoroughly bland, and sympathetic in a rudimentary way (that is to say, relatable, because she is aimed at an age-group when people are figuring out how to pursue relationships), she is the perfect template onto which to project one’s desires. She exists for the reader to use as a self-insert.

Unlike Bella Swan, she does have one special trait: she’s the healer. Orihime is practically an archetypal example of the pure maiden/princess archetype of a healer. And of course, her powers are routinely hyped up as something truly astonishing (the, to paraphrase, “transgressing into God’s domain” quote that gets bandied about) even as they are simultaneously dismissed. (Hachi doesn’t regard her powers as special, Kisuke considers her powers dispensable, Aizen ultimately had no use for her except bait, etc.)

Orihime isn’t powerful. For all of her vaunted ability to reject events, she is neutralized by differentials in reiatsu, just like Soi Fon is by Aizen. Against a more powerful opponent, she’s ineffective. Further, she lacks a killer instinct, and was only able to muster it once. (This being in the defense of Tatsuki; some will argue she was ready to hurt Moe if he had been the one to injure Uryuu, but close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, and global thermonuclear war.)

What she is, is fast. Soul Society’s healers are able to reproduce her results or better with time, but she can do the same very quickly. This makes her convenient, particularly to the plot. She is an expedient deus ex machina for enabling our heroes to do what they do, and this gives her an air of necessity to their adventure. She seems very important as a result! But we must remember that this is a story with an author, not a record of events, and that stories can be incredibly contrived.

Hanatarou couldn’t fix the degree of injuries she could, or fix them as quickly, but he could largely fulfill the same role—and in fact did during the Soul Society arc. She could be swapped out for another healer, like Unohana, and very little would change except the necessary pacing of events. She exists to speed up the plot.

In other words, Orihime is the perfect synthesis of the three examples I lead off this essay with: she is a cynical readership-expanding token character, she is rather featureless and designed to facilitate audience self-insertion, and she is a Mary Sue with an overstated importance to the plot that conceals her weaknesses. (With the last point: I don’t refer to Aeris in actuality, but more the idea of her that was built up by the extended universe ex post facto.)

She basically became a plot and marketing device.

And the hilarious thing is, she worked perfectly. Her popularity poll numbers were acceptable enough, but it’s the zealotry and rancor of her supposed fans that really tells the tale:

There is the continued focus on her physical form, particularly her breasts; this reduction of her to her character design is a gleeful admission that such was her function in appealing to men.

There is the lack of concern toward her ending showing the final destruction of her early dreams and personality: this reduction of her to her relationship with Ichigo is a gleeful admission that such was her function in appealing to women.

There is the constant defense that she “deserved” Ichigo’s affection because her chaste love was so pure and selfless: this is a gleeful admission that she achieved her objective of standing in for the speaker’s own estimate of their self-worth and value.

Orihime is ultimately utilized as a surrogate for happiness by those who identified with her. She “won,” therefore they “won.” She “deserves” Ichigo, just like they “deserve” their own figurative Ichigo (that is to say, “love”). They extol her “importance” because it means they are “important.”

Not everyone who likes Orihime identified with her to this extent, of course. But I think it’s rather obvious that the diehard core of IH—that is to say, the faction that is presently occupied with making fools of themselves in the ask boxes of IRs—did.

And this is, of course, exactly why this faction of IH is so aggrieved. Orihime does not really exist as a character to them (just as Ichigo doesn’t; but Ichigo at least has a character), she exists only within the matrix of IH, because that is her purpose. When IR, or the fandom in general, rejects IH, they view it as a rejection of themselves. It’s a repudiation of the commitment they made, and of their core being, and thus they lash out. When they demand recognition for their ship, what they are really demanding is recognition of themselves. They are trying to compel respect and love.

The tragedy and irony of this is of course self-evident, but nonetheless noteworthy, for they are in effect being told the one thing they cannot actually cope with:

Santen Kesshun: I Reject!