#the game of intersections

[rad-roche]

i have more thoughts on mouthwashing

not a full Analysis Post since i need to chew on it still, this is off the cuff, but the way jimmy perceives curly throughout the game is absolutely fascinating. in the flashbacks as curly you see the crew through his eyes - a well-respected captain of a freighter, and through that, how his crew see him. you meet nuanced people dealing with difficult circumstances, and while they continue to be that by the time jimmy takes command, you don't see as much of that because (barring daisuke) they rightfully hate him. the crew exist to prop up jimmy's ego by either being means to 'fix' the problem he thinks they have created, or to do what he thinks they ought to be doing which is cheering on his heroism and celebrating him. captain jimmy. this is taken to its extreme in curly.

before the crash, curly is not a person to jimmy. he's a lofty, unattainable ideal, the dazzling captain everybody likes. he, and his station, are coveted objects to be acted around and upon. the moment the crew recovers and curly is left horrifically incapacitated, jimmy immediately throws him under the bus to be the most special lauded boy in space, insisting he's captain even as he becomes increasingly aware that everybody is going to die there and taking curly's status and respect as his own. curly, and anya, and everybody on that ship, were toys in jimmy's make-believe freighter, dying when their assigned role butted up against their reality as people. but curly is the one person he was the most fond of at the end because he was the only one jimmy could fully articulate

[gghero]

happy halloween Im putting the struggler and the yapper in the torture labyrinth this year

[dykedvonte]

Can you talk about trans!Curly a little bit more? I'm curios if you have any headcanons and the like

-💀

It's just such a thing in my mind because it adds a truthful sadness and differing aspect to mouthwashing.

If Curly was trans it adds the horror of the horribly selfish thought he could have easily been in Anya's situation. It could've been him but it wasn't and he so conflicted on the pit it put in his stomach that brings and the shameful relief it wasn't. In this scenario he is friends with Jimmy for a long time still. Jimmy likely knew him pretransition. Maybe he gave Curly weird looks then, maybe they never stopped after, maybe they seemed meaner. They are guys now, bros, both of them are. He doesn't really have to worry what those looks mean anymore, Jimmy just has that face with him sometimes. It's recontextualizing a lot of things for him that he was in denial about or too ashamed to admit. How naive he was being and how he let that get another person hurt.

Specifically with Anya, it's he knows the dread and fear she's feeling. He can understand it because he had to live with it for a good portion of his life, he knows it cause he still does, just in a slightly different way. It makes him think of all the times he's been alone with Jimmy, all the times he's been way more drunk off his ass and not remember the night, Jimmy was always with him the next day. Makes him think of the comments he would laugh off both because that's what guys do but because that part of being a girl says to laugh so Jimmy doesn't do something. It's the selfish realization that he was never safe and he's uncertain now too. Mad at himself for forgeting that feeling, espcially since for a long time he would've been considered the only woman on a crew (with all that implies) for a long time.

He should've taken those blinders off, step back into that position for just a moment and it's so much more painful that Anya likely came to him because he should've gotten it. Those thoughts don't leave his mind after the crash when he's in an even more vulnerable position than she was...

[bacchuschucklefuck]

caps from comic Im doing

[problemnyatic]

We're never getting out of this as long as tumblr keeps trying to be Woke 4chan

[artbyblastweave]

🔥 Textually "political" superheroes, ala Green Arrow being a leftist and Flash being a conservative, Bastion being cancelled, etc.

Rapid-firing your specific examples- half the fun of Green Arrow is the tension between his leftism and his absurdly privileged status as a billionaire superhero. I wasn't actually aware Flash is a quote-unquote conservative- I'm assuming this came up in that godawful comic that tried to map out how the League would vote in the 08 election- but honestly this is kind of a "he's a white midwestern cop" moment, I feel like the politics associated with his job are always a little bit of an elephant in the room for the Flash Fandom. Bastion is his own post I've been meaning to make for a while, but the short version is that Bastion is a really, really funny dark comedy beat, if you choose to apply that lens.

Circling back to the Flash specifically, though- I get the sense these days that big-two superheroes are rarely characterized as meaningfully politically conservative, in the quotidian manner in which many, many real life people are. I certainly get why they shy away from that, I'm not saying that I want them to pick a couple leaguers who seem like The Type and have them start flying Gadsden flags, I'm just saying it has a certain impact on the verisimilitude of the setting when nobody on these teams has the generically shitty politics of that coworker you roll your eyes at or the Uncle you dread seeing at Thanksgiving. I think it was Memecucker that had a post a couple years ago about how you probably couldn't get away with anything analogous to that thing they once did where Hal Jordan was expressly racist as a character flaw that he had to overcome- you probably aren't gonna get an A-lister who's transphobic and has to be taught the error of their ways, for example. I'm not entirely certain how true that is- pretty true in my reading experience, but then again, there are a lot of comics, so maybe someone took a swing at that hornets nest and I just missed it and I've been talking out my ass for about 800 words.

(I did hear rumblings that they tried to do like, a coming-out-to-tepidly-accepting-parents metaphor with Franklin being a mutant during the Krakoa thing? I don't recall people talking about that beat in a positve light, which makes sense. "Have you tried not being a mutant" has always been a fraught analogy no matter which group is being referenced.)

Anyway my final takeaway is that indie cape things, by virtue of not having to keep everyone in their casts sympathetic and marketable in perpetuity, generally have way more leeway to depict superhero communities with a much wider spread of (potentially horrific) personal politics. Bastion being an example of that- if he showed up in Marvel or DC, he'd be, like, a bit character who shows up in a two-shot issue to get demolished or shown-up by Actual Superheroes (tm) but in Worm? Nope. There's no decades-long protagonist like Spider-Man or Batman through whose lens we view this setting by default. Bastion's as much a superhero as anyone else we've met, he's exactly as real, weighted exactly as much as the rest of them. And he sucks.

[sixseasonsofodestawithatardis]

🔥?

Okay, so I'm not sure if this is an unpopular opinion, but to me, many of the characters within the narrative of THG are disabled/ have experienced disability in some way! Sorry for how long this post this about to be!

I'll explain further just so others can understand my thought process:

Katniss- Goes deaf in the first book, and whilst that is cured in the 2nd, throughout the rest of the trilogy has PTSD/ trauma, which is a disability/ becomes disabling.

EDIT: Katniss is indigenous (Gale and Haymitch are also part of the seam!) How disability and race intersect is important, too!

Peeta- Loses his leg and has to use a prosthetic, a visible disability, on top of the hijacking and how that affects his mental health.

Johanna- Also has PTSD and severe Hydrophobia due to being electrocuted by the Capitol- to the point where she can't go out into the rain and is used against her when applying to D 13's army. (Not sure if that's 100% correct, but Johanna stans, feel free to correct me!)

Beetee- Again, most likely has PTSD, but also in book 3, due to the lightning ( I think), he is in a wheelchair.

Enobaria- Again, PTSD; I also want to include how her teeth were fashioned into fangs ( Idr if it happened in the book!) But I'm unsure how that would affect her emotionally, physically, medically, etc., so I can't get deeper into that. I've put it down anyway.

Mags- Had a stroke, and her speech isn't as clear as it used to be. Also, she uses a cane, which was taken away from her during the 75th games, presumably because it can be used as a weapon, and she had to rely on Finnick to be mobile during that time in the arena, on top of PTSD or some form of trauma.

Haymitch- Has PTSD (i.e. the bad nightmares), and whilst nothing is said in the book, the alcoholism he has to use to cope with everything has probably messed his liver up. On top of that, the withdrawal symptoms whilst sobering up in D13 were probably disabling, too.

Annie- Has PTSD or Psychosis. She has hallucinations, putting her hands to her ears when triggered by things that remind her of the 70th games or being tortured.

Finnick- PTSD and had multiple breakdowns in D13. On top of the trauma that comes with sexual exploitation, which many other Victors would also have (maybe not the same presentation of symptoms/ coping mechanisms!) if/when Snow forced them into prostitution.

Also, obviously, Chaff, Seeder, Wiress, Cashmere, Cecilia, and basically every Victor is dealing with the trauma and various mental and physical problems after the games, which again are disabilities or disabling!

Non- Victors

Mrs Everdeen- Has depression that renders her mute and unresponsive after Mr Everdeen's death.

Gale- Not stated explicitly, but having to work in the same mines that killed your father, having to then be the one to have to hunt so they survive on top of being in poverty, and then having to save as many people from your district when Snow tries to bomb it would lead to some sort of impact on your mental, physical and emotional health. Also, the whipping he received in Catching Fire would leave a massive injury and be a nightmare for anyone.

Madge's mom- Has constant migraines, which I assume increased after Maysilee's death.

Pollux—He has his tongue cut out and communicates through gestures; this also applies to the rest of the Avox's.

District 10 Boy- in the 74th games, this tribute is described as having a crippled foot.

Those are all the characters from the book who are disabled or become disabled by the system. And I think the fandom forgets that a lot—which isn't helped by the movies erasing things like Johanna's Hydrophobia or Peeta's prosthetic leg. This is annoying to me as many characters, such as Annie, will get ableism thrown their way, yet that person's favourite character will actually be considered disabled- also because I am a disabled woman and having to put up with ableism is a nightmare anyway.

I know we talk about trauma such as PTSD and Psychosis a lot in this fandom, as we should! It's imperative to the message of THG's and the characters of these books! But I've never seen someone explicitly say these characters are disabled; they count as disability representation. And I think if we did that, then

a) We could talk about things like psychosis, PTSD and other traumas these characters experience with greater insight and find empathy and strength within characters we couldn't before and maybe the ableism thrown at the characters would lessen a bit as well.

b) Calling it disability/ disabling on top of the diagnosis would enable us to examine other bits of Panem and see another way it affects people. It would also provide a greater depth of analysis in terms of how we talk about poverty, the games, and other things within the narrative.

Such as how if you were a wheelchair user in the districts, especially D8-12, you wouldn't have access to a mobility aid, so you are either forced to find or create an unsuitable mobility aid such as a cane or are effectively left without aid. On top of this, if they did have a wheelchair (I highly doubt it!) It would be taken away because it could be used as a weapon ( like Glimmer's ring or Mags's cane- also, wheelchairs make good battering rams), so you would be left immobile. We could also discuss how D1-D4 are wealthier and how that affects things like disability and healthcare compared to D7, 8, 9, 10,11,12. Also how D1, D2, D3 and 5 or 6 have the materials or would be the Districts most able to make mobility aids if the Capitol even let them.

This is also a double-edged sword because I know if this conversation around disability within THG starts, there will be many that are going to have some terrible takes. It's going to make my blood pressure rise, and it'll be a nightmare to combat and, as a disabled woman, worse to read. And if this discussion does take off, then I'm gonna need this fandom to understand the three models of disability at a bare minimum! Not that you can't comment without that knowledge at all it just will save a lot of bad takes!

DISCLAIMER- I am just one disabled woman. There are plenty of disabled ppl within this fandom with a different opinion from mine, and I AM NOT AN EXPERT on disability!

TLDR: Many of the characters are disabled and yet face ableism within fandom when they shouldn't. We should start explicitly analysing the series through a disability lens on top of the ones we already explore, but I am terrified by the terrible takes and analysis that would occur.

Thank you for sending in an ask; I'm always happy to answer more! Also, I'm so sorry it's so long. It's probably not what you were expecting for an unpopular take ask. I had a huge thought process for this one, and I really wanted to go in-depth and try to make sure others understood!

Also, I love your odesta fanfiic's and can't wait to read more 🙂!

[thecaterpainter]

I've been waiting to make this joke once I relistened and heard that Edward and Lydia were described with the "violet, green, gold" color palette originally

[constantly-questioning-reality]

never in my life would i have thought i'd write the following sentence in my master's dissertation: 'for my argument, I have choses three primary works of fanfiction that are based on the All for the Game trilogy by Nora Sakavic'

[cptrs]

[miyagi-hokarate]

(laying on top a piano except I keep shifting because it's a very uncomfortable position) does anybody want to see the Johnny Lawrence sim I made on a whim last night

[jeeliebeeliegoomiebear]

i was listening to “So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings” by Caroline Polachek and I think the sweet loving slightly pathetic desperation of it is sooo Windla coded… like au where they r in a long distance relationship as two working adults, this song is totally Windsong’s internal monologue.

[theav0cadobaby]

I am so sick of the trans community arguing over minute semantics in how people describe their situations. Like actually two different kinds of oppression can exist and be related to eachother and its ok to have different words for them. Im convinced whoever started the argument is a fed honestly. Because it doesn't fuckin matterrrrr. Omgggggggg.

[sunfoxfic]

One thing I noticed about this Hades Boon from Hades II..... it seems like his power makes the Cast more like Zagreus' Cast 👀

[sixlane]

for the ask game (hiii lane<3): what about 2, 7, and 9 🧐?

hi saintsss these are great ones

2. a compelling argument for why your fave would never top or bottom

i am of the firm belief that we are making too many characters switches. when that's just not the reality here. my man bcj is not a bottom. bro has been getting fucked his whole life...... never again. i also have this whole hc about how barty uses sex as a way to see behind people's masks, to catch them in a vulnerable moment and see the truth of them when they're running on base instincts, that kind of thing. and I think topping makes him feel like he can be more in control of that. so he can peel back other people's layers without showing any of his own. also i think james is not a bottom either. i just don't think he'd get anything out of it. like that level of vulnerability is not something he's interested in. also i'm being so real when i say he would be the guy like "a dick? in my ass? no way that's gay as fuck."

7. what character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because how how the fandom acts about them?

i mean boring answer but i definitely jumped on the snape hate train. but then i started seeing some lesbian snily stuff specifically with trans girl snape.... and oooooo. truly all actions justified if she's a trans girl. i'm so here for it

9. worst part of canon

i mean we can talk about the racism and antisemitism and general terf stuff but for the purposes of keeping this character based my answer is everything to do with lily evans. my girl deserved so much better. send me fics where she aborts harry PLEASE

choose violence asks

[artbyblastweave]

ask game: Miss Militia

As I've mentioned before- she's a fun sendup of certain elements of the Captain America mythos. I do wish that Ward had at any point circled back around to examining the fact that she views the phenomenon of superpowers in expressly religious terms, given that the air of religiosity surrounding Scion ultimately turned out to be a deliberate part of the con by the entities- that's the kind of thing that could kill a worldview dead on the spot.