#there's always a reason behind the picks tbh; same applies to my other blogs

[tanzoshi]

@corrchoigilt​​​ said ; 1 and 2? >>  /  𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐍 𝐐𝐔𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐑𝐄.

1. What made you pick up this character?

Oh boiiiiii I’LL TRY TO MAKE THESE SHORT BC- now I have 7 swords in this blog 😳👉👈 (not counting tsuru who’s on his own blog) but if it ends up getting hella long then let’s just say that I think they are all cool and neat ✨

KASEN KANESADA: I’ll be honest here and say that initially, I picked him bc of his rather funny personality ARIOTUEORIT; If I had to describe his personality, (or at least how I perceive him); I would probably use the word ‘peacock-like’ behavior. Kasen is that kind of person that goes around self proclaiming himself to be this really cultured person and blabbering about elegance which aside from being funny, I find that its quite an interesting contrast when one takes in consideration his backstory; bc on one hand, you have the origin of his name that comes from the 36 Immortals of Poetry, (that were a group of 36 japanese poets selected as examples of the best of poets) yet on the other hand, ironically, Kasen’s former master also happened to kill 36 of his vassals; so the game alongside stage plays and the anime tend to play with this contrast between this elegance attributed from the meaning behind his name and this violent streak that he inherited from his previous master that we only really get to see him display on the battlefield . In a way these two traits kind of seem like oil and water, but somehow they happen very naturally to Kasen.

Aside this, he’s kind of a tsundere and implied to be kind of a ‘know-nothing know-it all’ kind of person which I love to see on characters tbh 

SHOKUDAIKIRI MITSUTADA: Visually speaking, it was kind of love at first sight when I saw him for the first time 😳😳😳 HE REALLY HIT ALL THE NAILS LIKE; all black clothes + hair covering one eye + eyepatch, + the black & golden color palette ??? His design really appeals a lot to me bc its stuff I think looks really cool on characters (you can notice this in some charas I wrote in the past like; robin, izou, dantes, ahem-) that aside; when it comes to his personality, I was pretty suprised when I first read about him bc in contrast to his cool looks, his personality is kind of like a puppy- he’s friendly and really nice! he may look kind of intimidating at first glance but in reality, it’s all part of his dream to look ‘cool’; he’s always very concerned about looking ‘cool’ (kind of like Charlemagne in fate!), perhaps as a means to hide the fact that his name comes from a time where he happened to cut through a bronze candlestick holder, which he thinks is not a really cool explanation;;

“ I'm Shokudaikiri Mitsutada. I'm a katana that was once used by Lord Date Masamune. I don't harbor any bad feelings towards Lord Masamune, but my name comes from a time when I killed someone and happened to cut a candlestick that was nearby at the same time... Although it really was a bronze candlestick holder, it would've been cooler if it had been something a bit more durable. “

That aside, the fact that he was a sword that belonged to Date Masamune is pretty interesting on its own, so when I found about this I knew that I had to read about him 😳 not to mention that besides usually liking bastards, I have a soft spot for genuinely friendly and kind characters, to which he certainly fits that category (besides being kind of a malewife)

HESHIKIRI HASEBE: THIS GUY- I explained more in depth on a previous ask about the reasons as of why I picked him, so i’ll just try to summarize it. Basically, I used to be kind of indifferent about him for the longest time until he began appearing more and more on my pinterest dash, and i kind of fell for his funny personality and how cool artist made him look! so naturally I had to read about him;;; I picked Heshi bc to me, his personality, story and the way his character was interpreted in the game are very interesting to me. Although when I picked him I didn’t see the anime, once I did, I was able to take a closer look at his personality and the reasoning behind his actions and it all sort of helped solidify my apreciation for him. I find that putting the memes aside, he’s a pretty complex character that once you get to understand; his actions and thoughts sort of click bc it all ties back to his past in a way that you can understand why it affects him the way it does in the present. I won’t blabber much about him bc otherwise this will get much longer than intended but the conclusion to all of this is that i love him yes-

ISHIKIRIMARU: I LOVE HIM- THAT’S IT- His character makes me feel all at peace bc of how naturally gentle he is and how kind his voice sounds !!😭😭😭 His story is also pretty interesting bc!! compared to the other swords that have ‘actual’ stories tied to them, on his case, there are no specific accounts of a particular sword named ‘Ishikirimaru’ ,in the sense that his character seems to be influenced by -various- accounts. As far as I remember, the majority of these swords he seems to have been based on have this common trait of being sort of sacred swords; The most obvious influence seems to be the case of this one sword that had a reputation for being used to heal swellings and tumours, tho there’s also another case of a sword that could cut through stone as well, and so on. Besides his looks and story, what got me to want to attempt to write him was to try to explore this sort of conflict he has about now being used not to heal, but to be used on the battlefield; to injure, to kill; which are things that are veryyyy different to what he’s used to doing; which was to stay at a shrine and help heal people. Swords that were like Ishikirimaru were usually kept at shrines and not actually meant to be used on the battlefield so now that he’s been materialized on this second life, he has to come to terms with this new task that pretty much is the contrary to what he was made for, and i dunno! I always find interesting when characters have these inner conflicts

MIKAZUKI MUNECHIKA: LE JIJI !! he was alongside Kashuu one of the first characters that drew my attention when I found out about touken ranbu; he’s kind of like the face of the game, kind of like how artoria is the face of f.ate g.rand o.rder in a way. Mikazuki fits the kind of characters I tend to like which are old spirits (example; casgil, zhongli, many fate servants, basically spiritually peepaws) tho mikazuki’s personality isn’t grumpy or tired; he’s more nonchalant and calm, a lil sneaky as well! I really like this old-man-like attitude he has and how despite being part of the Tenka Goken (a group of swords famous for their history and beauty), he’s very relaxed?? he doesn’t really go around flashing how cool he is; he just sits on a corner and drinks his tea with his lil old man laugh- One thing I find interesting about Mikazuki which also brought me to pick him (which is a thing Tsurumaru also shares) is just how truly old the sword actually is- like, historically speaking, Mikazuki comes from the Heain period which is suuuper old, and this of course carries a lot of history with it, which is reflected on his character and the way he acts, and I don’t mean just his old man kind of personality, I mean it in the way that it’s commonly thought that the reason why Mikazuki is rarely surprised or carries such a calm disposition comes in great part bc of his long history of existence, which of course carries with itself a lot of experience. Another thing I like about him is how due to his long history of existence, he kinds of becomes the sword that others come to in order to ask advice to, i like these kind of characters that are able to offer comfort and guidance in their own mysterious ways, they always know what to say and when to say the things other’s need to hear the most. So yeah! Aside his obviously wonderful design (which is fitting considering his position as part of the Tenka Goken) I love how much history can be traced and incorporated on his character as now a sentient individual.

NAGASONE KOTETSU: He fits the chill giant that looks kinda scary at first glance but is actually pretty kind and considerate trope and I love him for that OIUTROIUTYR but!! he’s not just that!! Nagasone has a story that is super interesting as well and that I think the game was able to translate into his character in a very neat way- Basically Nagasone’s source of conflict to say (or well, on his case, he manages to find even more strenght in his nature) is that he’s a counterfeit— and he’s very much well aware of this, yet this does little to stop him from always wanting to give his very best and to prove to himself that despite his nature, he can be just as good as the real thing, which hits when u take in consideration that he has to somewhat daily cope with Hachisuka’s distaste towards him for being a Kotetsu counterfeit. I always had a soft spot for characters that despite their nature still fight to be the best version of themselves they can be, and Nagasone is a really neat example of this.

Another thing that I found super interesting about him is how despite being the sword of Kondo Isami (the leader of the Shinsengumi) he’s able to keep a very objective view, and is able to keep his head cool in the sense that although he values Kondo a lot, he’s able to put his bias to the side and seems to not strictly adhere to the rules of the shinsengumi as how some other swords would when it comes to their respective previous masters and backgrounds. I read that in the musical when he ordered to retreat from a battle, upon being questioned about this decision, he said that the rules didn’t save the shinsengumi from their downfall ;; and this is something that really caught my attention because its common to see in touken ranbu characters, the swords being deeply tied to their past owners and background; example Yasusada with Okita Souji and so on. Also despite his rather chill attitude, he’s pretty mature (putting aside his bickering with Mutsunokami OIRUYRIOUY) I read that in one recollection he talks about this common thing swords experience which is facing their previous master in the past and having this need to want to save them from their ends and change the past (when the swords deep down know they shouldn’t); to which he views this whole matter as the kind of things more immature swords would lean to, and I found this interesting bc unlike swords like Heshikiri who feel bitter about their previous masters, Nagasone actually cherished Kondo, so for him to be able to understand quickly that this is not a choice they can decide on reflects his maturity when it comes down to serious matters. IN GENERAL I THINK HE’S REALLY COOL OKOK ✊😌

OOKURIKARA: FINALLY, THE LAST- Ookurikara fits the kind of characters i´ve always liked which are basically;; the rancid type; Ookurikara does not want to get along with anyone nor wants anyone to reach to him, and he is pretty dang direct about this as most of his dialogue lines make reference to how he does not seek to make friends or get along with anyone,,, not even with the master! he’s a solitary individual and the kind that doesn’t seem to find this as a suffering; from a quick glance one may think this solitary and very highly independent behavior seems kind of random, that is until you take in consideration that Ookurikara is a mumeitou, which means he’s a sword that lacks its sword smith’s signature. The signature on a blade is a symbol of the swordsmith’s pride on his work, usually swords become a mumeitou when they get shortened since the grip part where the signature usually would be is the part that gets cut, which is likely what happened with Ookurikara’s case; now fandom seems to interpret that all of this translates into his behavior in the fact that by not having his swordsmith’s signature on him, it basically means he’s free real state tm, which means that he’s free to do as he wishes bc if he doesn´t belong to anyone, then why should he follow orders? I like this explanation bc it makes a lot of sense when u think about it; and of course just like all swords, if you send him to kiwame he eventually undergoes through his own character development from which he comes to realize the importance of companionship and of allowing others to help him. What i like about him and one of the reasons as of why i picked him as a muse is because besides the rancidness and his ties to Fudo Myo-O, there is a lot of room for character growth through interactions; he’s the kind of character that does need an external force in order to come to terms with many things bc he is rather stubborn himself and tends to stay inside his own shell

2. How did you get into this franchise/fandom?

answered here !

[tundrainafrica]

I've been following your blog for a while now and I love your writing and your meta! I was wondering, do you consider Levi and Hanji's relationship to be romantic in canon? Do you consider it canon that Levi had romantic feelings for Erwin?

Thank you for the ask anon, also, thank you for ruffling my feathers a bit too :D. I’m glad you like my writings and meta and I hope that my works continue to bring you joy. 

The types of questions you asked up there could only lead to the types of answers that can spark ship wars. I mean the dialogue in 136 and the change in kanji for chapter 132 hinting their own ships canon were enough to have Eruri and Levihan shippers bashing each other on twitter tbh. 

Personally, I see the romantic potential for both Levihan and Eruri in the show. That’s why I found myself reading a good number of Levihan and Eruri fics. (But lots more Levihan if it isn’t obvious from AO3 bookmarks and my tumblr title). I mean lots more romantic potential than let’s say.... ereri

Do you consider it canon that Levi had romantic feelings for Erwin? 

I’ll answer this one first. No. I don’t think Levi had romantic feelings for Erwin anywhere on the show. Was there potential for something to bloom? Possibly, that’s why I still read eruri fanfiction. I like exploring the possibility if Erwin wasn’t a little too obsessed with his dream, maybe their relationship could have turned out differently.

In canon, by the time they introduced Erwin, Erwin had already forsaken all romance and I think whatever feelings Erwin had towards romance rubbed off on Levi and their relationship ended up being more professional than anything. Due to Erwin’s one track mind and the position he had taken upon himself. any romantic possibilities between them in canon was just harder to make happen. 

Levi though still had strong feelings towards Erwin. It’s undeniable. Erwin had given Levi purpose to live and direction on where to go next, what to do next so that’s why regardless of whether canon had made it possible or not, this relationship is still very interesting to explore. 

Erwin was more professional and cold than Levi imo and honestly, despite the cold demeanor of his best friend Erwin, Levi was an incredible softie at heart and we’ve seen that side of him multiple times, when he gave Petra’s badge to that one soldier, when he stared at that one mother and child when they were on the wall ready to leave to retake Shiganshina.

We all know Levi begrudgingly wanted that soft side of him indulged and between Erwin and Hange the one more likely to indulge that softie side of Levi was Hange. 

Which brings me to the next question.

Do you consider Levi and Hanji's relationship to be romantic in canon? 

I wouldn’t be obsessively writing Levihan fics if I didn’t see it as romantic in canon. But at the same time, I don’t believe Hange and Levi have been in a relationship since Season 1. My headcanon here is Hange and Levi built that relationship over time and this relationship just rapidly progressed after season 3

It’s incredibly subtle which is one of the reasons people like to pretend it doesn’t exist. Probably because they’re trying to promote another ship or they don’t wanna see romance in AOT

But I don’t think a relationship developing subtly is at all a sign that it can be more platonic than anything else. 

In fact, most healthy relationships and most relationships from a bystanders point of view, develop subtly. Like we were the bystanders in many other developing relationships in real life, I think we, the audience of AOT, were also bystanders watching the subtle development of Hange and Levi’s relationship. 

Let’s think about how we’ve watched relationships develop in real life.  

If we’re not invested, they happen incredibly subtly. These people are just constantly together, then eventually we realize we can’t invite the other without the other, then we realize we can barely get them alone, then we realize the person changed and eventually they drop this bomb saying “by the way, I’m dating this person now.”

This pattern happens way too many damn times among my friends though and people I just randomly watch everyday that it just became so expected for it to develop into romance so eventually, when I’ve seen the formula play through, I tend to lean on the side of ‘yeah, they’re probably togteher or getting there.’

Yeah, I get it, there’s a danger in assuming that people are together. I’ve seen enough romantic relationships develop though to realize that leaning on the side of ‘romantic’ given specific signs is usually the correct assumption. In fact, I have earned a good amount of money irl winning bets with my friends that two people are actually together but are hiding a relationship (or possibly are in denial).

What are some of these signs? 

The way they treat this one person is so glaringly different from how they treat other people 

Through the years, I have lost a lot of my best friends to their boyfriends/girlfriends and as the youngest child, I have watched all seven of my siblings get into a relationship and believe me, a lot of them have a certain line they would draw on what they are willing to do for their close friend or sibling and what they are willing to do for a lover. 

I have seen people in love so willingly have their hand crushed while the person they love has their fingers set back. “Hold my hand as hard as you need to.” I’ve seen my friends take a detour 1 hour away from the destination just to pick up the person they love. And here’s the thing, they wouldn’t have done it for anyone else usually, they would have only done that thing for that one person. 

Yes, okay doormats exist. But even people with doormat syndrome, the threshold of what someone is willing to do for a close friend and for a person they love still differ regardless. In a life or death situation, I think both Levi and Hange would have fought to conserve lives but if we consider small things, like routines, groceries, small favors, I feel like Levi has an incredibly low threshold of what he’d be willing to do for a random person. But Levi still carried her groceries for her so he could meet her with Moblit in the smartpass. Levi still picked her up and waited for her in Season 2 when she was researching the rock. And for Hange, chapter 115 is all the hint you need. I honestly don’t know if Hange would have gone through those lengths for anyone else but selfishly abandoning commander duties for one guy? She practically said screw you to everyone else. 

The way they talk to each other is different.

This is something I notice in real life too. Most people won’t notice when they themselves do it but it’s incredibly obvious for listeners if the listeners look out for it. The tones of people’s voices change when they’re talking to someone they love. For a lot of people, sometimes their voices get a little high pitched. For others, sometimes their voices get a little softer. Just watch when you’re talking to a friend and suddenly their SO calls. (It might not apply to everyone but I find this incredibly common.) Not just tones, speech patterns change or tendencies too. In front of that one person, sometimes people are a little more selfish. Like maybe, they don’t usually say what they want to eat but when the one person asks, they would answer because suddenly they know what they want. 

With Hange and Levi we have the ‘let’s live together’ and the ‘dedicate your heart’ respectively. 

These are two expressions/phrases they would have not used with anyone else. There was probably more in canon, but these are just the most glaringly obvious ones with two pivotal scenes that blatantly show that Hange and Levi do have signs of the above.  

Hange and Levi who are generally very selfless all business people, are suddenly only selfish with the person they love. Hange with “let’s live together?” An injured Levi deciding to rest and sleep despite the fact that they were in a war because Hange was nearby to take care of him?

Those two were suddenly selfish when they were alone with one another?

They are constantly together.

Okay, irl, you can see this when you have all your friends ride in a car together and somehow, it’s always them taking those two seats next to each other. They leave the classroom together. They leave every single dam room together. And it could be subtle or not but they always wait for one another. Yet if one person is not there, they’re the type to just go ahead and leave without giving the room behind them a second look. When someone wants to buy something, the other always has an excuse to come. And oh my god, when you call your friend in the middle of the night to hang, that person is always in their dam house or in their dam room, no breaks. 

And Hange and Levi have their equivalent of this. 

Levi literally picked Hange from her lab in Season 2 while she was injured and he had no need to. 

I think I have made a post where Levi and Hange are shown constantly together but lemme make some points. Even early in canon, why were Hange and Levi introduced riding next to each other, they’re not even in the same squad. Why were they riding out the gate together? Shouldn’t Levi have been with his squad and shouldn’t Hange have been with her squad? 

Yeah sure, maybe they just decided to ride together. But why were they next to each other in the Ilse’s notebook too when they went out the gate? And even when they were going to take back Wall Maria, Levi and Hange were next to each other in the lift, they were back to back on Wall Maria. 

Like the only expedition where they weren’t riding together was when Levi had to protect Eren yo.

“They’re both leaders of course they were together” Mind you, Levi’s position in the military is a special one. He’s the captain of a special operations squad and not at all a squad leader so he shouldn’t be riding next to Hange if it were by “leaders” and in the retake Wall Maria, if they were divided by “leaders” why didn’t Hange take the lift with the other squad leaders? Why wasn’t she back to back with the other squad leaders on top of Wall Maria? 

Why did she pick to hang out with Special Ops squad Captain Levi of all people, in every. Single. Damn. expedition. Scene. 

And don’t even get me started on post Season 3 man. They’ve been inseparable since Erwin died.  

They literally come in a set. 

And you kinda realized your friends are in love when you wanna invite one of them out and you realized you kinda have to invite their special little friend by default. 

And Hange and Levi are just like that too, 

Hange and Levi have always come in a set. In fan art, in those advertisements, Hange and Levi are always next to each other. In those fan audiobooks, smart passes, there are always Levihan crumbs. Attack on Titan Chuugakkou was literally a testament to the canonicity of Levihan since in that show, they didn’t even hide anything, Levi and Hange were always next to each other. (I think Hange actually ended up living with him towards the end?) Post Season 3, I don’t even think there were many seasons where Levi and Hange were apart and when they were apart it was more of for duty than anything else. 

Hange was always with him when she could, despite her duty as commander. Given their circumstances, they wouldn’t even be together a lot if they didn’t make the effort too. 

Especially towards the end, 126 - 132, the few times Hange did leave Levi behind were for commander duties but Hange never left Levi for the lulz. And also, in 132, Levi was magically able to walk when Hange finally left him behind, and Levi could barely walk in 132, yet he still pushed himself to stand up, walk toward her and attempt to stop her. 

In fact, Hange’s first scenes were next to Levi and Hange’s last scenes were also next to Levi “See you later Hange.”

And I think the huge efforts they put to being together despite their circumstances says a lot already. Hange and Levi’s treatment of each other and their being together constantly in general is a huge testament to the canonicity of their romance. 

Sure, there were no ‘I love yous’. But really, before our irl friends who were in love actually came out to us, maybe months or even years after we’ve watched them be joined at the hip, were there really ‘I love you’s  between them or did we all just place bets on it because they were just being too glaringly obvious about it in how they treated each other? 

[rosaguard]

❀ . ━  ❛ ON AERIS’ DESI IDENTITY.

for the sake of making this question easier to answer, I’ll be breaking it up into parts ( yes, i tend to ramble about other things before fully getting to my overall point ). as always, i’m black - not south asian - but i do my best to research before speaking about a culture i do not belong to.

verumking asked : some questions about brown aeris because i'm. forever heart eyes tbh. // you've drawn a lot of parallels between hinduism and the cycle of life on gaia, and also the conflict between aeris' human desires and her duties as a cetra. is her desi identity something she specifically attributes to her cetra heritage? does she begin to embrace it in her day-to-day life at all-- i.e. making and wearing henna, cooking traditional food, etc? how do her views on her identity change with each incarnation? 

          this is a somewhat difficult question to answer simply because fin.al fa.ntasy often picks and chooses which game is going to be the one™ where the culture and identity of the people within the game actually matters and when it does not ( on a side note: the series in general has a bad habit of using real locations with brown people as inspiration for settings in the game and not reflecting the real people and culture of those locations within the games. half of xii’s party being white people from a desert region literally inspired by the middle east is a glaring example of this ). anyway, i would say vii itself easily places itself within the category of there not being any real sense of culture - or at least nothing of any real substance in my opinion. by that i mean things like how the sector 5 and 7 slums are essentially the same in the remake ( outside of the former being ‘greenier’ ) even though it doesn’t make sense for the equivalent of two mini-cities that are kind of semi-lawless / mostly left to fend for themselves by shinra to not have more of a difference regarding their identities: how they operate, how the people act within them, etc.

         there’s also the fact that one of the most well known locations within the game is a christian-styled church within the sector five slums...and yet no religion is ever mentioned within the game’s worldbuilding. the church’s very existence could be seen as ironic if there was actual commentary on humans ( unknowingly ) building a false religion over time as a result of the void created after their ancestors willing choose to abandon their connection to the planet but there isn’t any. humanity, at least within the context of this universe, are essentially treated as the equivalent of atheists that don’t ‘believe’ in the planet being a living organism that deserves to be respected. meanwhile the cetra, the closest thing the game has to a religious group, don’t really seem to follow any specific tenets of a faith outside of protecting the planet and cultivating life on it. basically, i find it weird that a human-made structure and the symbolism that comes with it is imprinted onto aeris of all characters. 

        on one hand i get the logic behind it: she’s easily the most ‘spiritual’ character of the group ( if not the whole game ) and is canonically white / ’western’ inspired as nom.ura put it so western concepts of what is pure / holy is going to be applied to her from a pure aesthetic standpoint alone. from the church, to her somewhat overused prayer pose™, and her own final limit break which has white angels taken straight out of christian art descend from the heavens in its animation sequence, this specific imagery is given to her a lot - even if it doesn’t make sense from an in-universe perspective. the reason i even bring any of this up is that i think how culture is used and applied to certain characters is already inconsistent which is worth pointing out. aeris’ own identity already clashes with itself in canon - some of it being fully intentional and a part of her arc ( her desires as an individual vs her duty as a cetra ) while some of it ( basically everything stated above ) is...definitely not? 

✿ : is her desi identity something she specifically attributes to her cetra heritage?

        yes and no. however, before i fully elaborate on why, i have to touch on how i view the cetra as a whole. i’ve always saw them as people who, while nomadic, still have individual ‘tribes’ they belong to / travel with and it would’ve been common for members of one group to branch off and intermingle / travel with another ( or even just travel on their own for a while ). the more the cetra travel and expand their ‘network’ across the entire planet, it’s only natural that groups are going to start forming their own unique differences, whether it’s with looks, how they speak, and their culture, with their bond to the planet and their duty being what ties them all together. the cetra being separated into specific tribes is also directly supported within canon: 

ifalna: 2000 years ago, our ancestors, the cetra, heard the cries of the planet. the first ones to discover the planet's wound were the cetra at the knowlespole*. 

ifalna: then, just as it had at the knowlespole. it approached other cetra clans...... infecting them with... the virus.

while the cetra capital, the city of the ancients, is in knowlespole ( the modern equivalent of the region that the icicle inn and the northern crater is ), ifalna confirms that other clans beyond it exist. although the details around jenova’s arrival and defeat are unclear, from ifalna’s retelling of what happened ( and her distraught response while doing so ) it seems as if all of the cetra that first encountered jenova were either killed or infected before jenova moved on to do the same to other clans. this more than likely results in entire sub-cultures and histories lost before jenova is sealed away by the cetra aeris descends from ( which would explain why there’s not much recorded information on the cetra within the universe ). 

      one also has to remember the groups of cetra that branched away from the others and become humans. although they abandoned their duties, it’s very likely that they still retained aspects of cetra culture and it just changed / adapted over a period of two thousand years. with the cetra mostly wiped out and forgotten about, i don’t find it realistic for aeris, at least at the beginning of the game, to really know which ‘parts’ of herself come from where; especially since there would realistically be desi-coded humans that haven’t had ties to the cetra in thousands of years. although i headcanon both her mother and father as brown / desi, aeris doesn’t know who her father, professor gast, even is and the years she spent with her mother were in complete captivity. based on aeris’ ignorance about the white materia ( ex. her thinking it was useless originally ) and the cetra in general, one would assume that ifalna wasn’t able to teach aeris much due to not wanting to reveal anything to shinra since they were likely under constant surveillance. there’s also the fact that aeris outright rejects being a cetra as a child and tries ( yet fails ) to assimilate into ‘human’ culture:

“well…” kyrie replied. “there’s a crumbling church in the slums, where we played together. we did things like pretending to hold wedding ceremonies. aeris was always in the church, taking care of the flowers on her own. sometimes we talked about it. one day, aeris told me to go home quickly. i thought she was being mean because i stepped on her flowers.”

“when i got home in a bad mood, my parent’s bodies were being carried to the house. i heard it from my grandmother. about the lifestream and the ancients. i thought it was just a fairytale at the time, but after that— i figured aeris was an ancient. ...hey, what do you think i said when i met aeris after that? i said ‘you creep me out’.” - kyrie revealing her relationship with aeris after learning of her death in the kids are alright novel.

     i guess the real world equivalent of what i’m trying to say would be similar to how i’m black / african american but do i really associate myself and my identity with africa beyond a surface level? the answer is no. how could i when i don’t know anything of my ancestors, african americans are generally robbed of learning about our history, and i don’t even know what ‘part’ of africa i come from. navigating your identity, your culture, and your heritage is extremely complicated and i don’t really see it being any different for aeris. she doesn’t have any way to truly ‘discover’ and connect with her cultural identity - even if she wasn’t actively rejecting it. 

✿ : does she begin to embrace it in her day-to-day life at all? i.e. making and wearing henna, cooking traditional food, etc?

      she does - although it’s a gradual process that doesn’t start until she leaves midgar. canonically, it’s not even until cosmos canyon that aeris finally begins to ‘connect’ to her heritage and fully understand what it means to be a cetra:

aeris: i learned a lot. the elders taught me many things. about the cetra... and the promised land...i'm...... alone... i'm all alone now... 

however, in between chasing sephiroth, almost dying, and then saving the world, she doesn’t have much time to come to terms with everything that she learned there. in my blog canon, she does eventually leave edge a few years after its built to begin traveling on her own and eventually finds herself back in cosmos canyon. realistically, the elders there don’t have all the answers for her but her simply studying there is an important stepping stone to reclaiming a part of herself that she never got to know - or really accepted ( her parents also studied and met there so her life would be coming full circle in a way ). 

      so with all that said, i see aeris’ ‘embracing’ her desi heritage the most with fashion at first since she technically already does - regardless of whether she realizes it or not. the ultimania for the remake includes concept art for the cetra ( which can be viewed fully here ) and they’re specifically said to have been designed to have similarities to aeris - meaning that aeris’ current style of clothing is meant to embody her ancestors. highlighting a cetra design that looks weirdly similar to aeris herself, this cetra’s outfit - at least to me - feels similar to clothing popular in india and other parts of south asia: 

if the dress was taken out and a few alterations was made to her top and half-skirt, it could easily resemble how a lehenga choli piece is worn. the top piece of her half-skirt also resembles the look of an oddiyanam, a type of waist ornament that women in south india wear.

there are other cetra’ accessories that resemble jewelry common in india as well: the armlet on the unnamed cetra resembles a bajuband ( a similar one can be found here ) and bangles similar to a kangan or churi, commonly worn by women across south asia, are prominent in both aeris and the cetra’s overall designs too. 

     with mehndi / henna, i definitely see her wearing it across her hands and feet but it’s mostly similar to whenever she wears traditional dresses: it’s reserved for special occasions / celebrations. with that said, that’s more so when she’s grown accustomed to applying henna herself without messing up or someone else is doing it for her. it wouldn’t be uncommon to see aeris’ hands decorated with different patterns every few months: a direct result of using her own body as practice when first learning how to draw designs ( if you want to get full fantasy with it, the designs glowing against her skin when she uses magic would be neat ). as a side note: for those who don’t know, there is a short story about aeris’ time in the shinra labs. it contains a drawing by her, which is also in the remake, that has more designs for the cetra ( you can see the unedited version here ):

     also aeris cooking? l o l. joking aside, in my three years of writing aeris i’ve never really put much thought into her style of cooking, what type of food she specifically likes to eat, etc. outside of the fact that i don’t think she is much of a cooker at all ( probably because i’m not one either ). however, i cannot let a question go answered so! i’m probably going to sound redundant mentioning cosmos canyon again at this point but it really is due to the fact that it’s specifically the source of her connecting to who she is. the drawing she drew in a trance as a child even includes a location that is more than likely cosmos canyon ( and yes, i checked to compare ). the most notable npcs there are all brown and i do see them all being people of color that have come from different parts of the planet to share knowledge and learn amongst each other. although her main purpose of living in cosmos canyon the years she’s there is to study her people and record her own knowledge ( i’ll touch on this later ), it also provides her with an opportunity to connect with other people that are desi-coded like her on a more personal-level. 

     am i basically saying she probably tasted some type of chaat ( dahi vada specifically ) for the first time after leaving midgar and never looked back? yes. it’s not until aeris leaves midgar that she gets to experience trying out various food from her own culture as well as food from cultures outside of it in general ( not that these foods didn’t exist in midgar but she’s poor and doesn’t really have the means / opportunity to try them before ). aeris definitely becomes a fan of dishes that are savory with gravy, can be eaten with sauces like chutney ( she likes red chili, spicy coconut and mango chutney the most ), or dishes based around vegetables ( although if there’s spinach it, don’t tell her because ew ), fish or lamb. dishes such as rajma, samosas, sambar, biryani ( it’s probably one of the first desi dishes she would cook on her own ), pakora ( she’s definitely eaten chili pepper pakoras without a sweat ), etc. are all up her alley. aeris admittedly also has a sweet tooth so snacks like kozhukkattai, gulab jamun served with ice cream, etc. also appeals to her greatly™.

    the process of eating these dishes when they’re made by other people vs actually introducing them into her day to day eating habits are two different things though. not to say that she wouldn’t make an effort to try - she definitely will but learning how to cook these dishes takes time ( especially if you’re already not much of a cook. ). incorporating them into her daily lifestyle wouldn’t be an instant process but it will happen eventually.

✿ : how do her views on her identity change with each incarnation? 

     as the embodiment of the lifestream, aeris is constantly consuming information between each reincarnation. the lifestream houses memories and knowledge since the planet’s very inception so she literally has thousands of years of information to sort through and process between each new ‘life’. the different cetra clans that were mentioned earlier? aeris would technically have the ability to trace back the memories of her entire lineage and discover which clan she’s from if she wanted to. with every incarnation, she’s learning a little more about her people, where she comes from, etc. and being a cetra starts to feel like less of a burden to her and a role she starts to embrace / actively take pride in. while there will come a time where she’s not the ‘last cetra’ anymore, aeris essentially becomes an eternal record keeper for her people.

once she begins working with the WRO, it’s actually her idea to start an annual celebration event ( or festival ) during the anniversary of meteorfall. despite her people being nomadic and spread out, the cetra had a capital city and it’s not far fetched to assume that it was used as a place for the cetra to converge during important events, celebrations, etc. through aeris, aspects of their culture begin to live on in new ways such as the meteorfall festival which becomes a celebration of life and the planet itself. while the festival isn’t intended to have any real world parallel, i do think the symbolism of the diwali festival is fitting for the events of sephiroth’s defeat / lifestream and holy destroying meteor:

 diwali symbolizes the spiritual victory of light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance.

overall, no matter how many times she reincarnates, aeris always returns to cosmos canyon to record everything she knows, whether its her own life experiences, the memory of her people, or their culture, so that her children, her grandchildren, and so on can always have knowledge of their history and identity in a way that she wasn’t able to.

✿ : brown aeris says thanks for reading!

i hope this was a satisfying answer to your questions! i try to do my best with honoring the cultures i’m talking about and not treating them in a haphazardly and/or lazy way. i wanted to explain her journey of being someone not really connected to their heritage at all and explaining the process she goes through in a realistic way without..making it surface level? hopefully i achieved that!

[adorable-elsanna]

I don't mean to be rude, and I apologize in advance if I am!! But why do you ship this nd WHY does this ship exist? Aren't Elsa and Anna sisters? And blood related at that. I don't want to hate on ships, you can ship washer you want as long as you aren't hurting anybody!! It's just that ships like these with incest startle me a bit. Maybe I'm just confused since I really shipped Kistof and Anna so I'm missing out on this? Ahhh sorry if this is annoying!! -confused anon

 Hi Confused Anon ( aren’t we all? ;) ),

Thanks for your polite ask, lol finally I get to dust off this blog’s ask box! :)) I’d love to respond with a whole essay xDD but I don’t really have time :’( so maybe I’ll just give a quick rundown for now. 

I might not be the most representative person to pose this question to lol because I am an outlier in general, meaning due to my life experiences, my development, my major in college, my deep meditation practice, and more, I do not abide by normative, dominant, hegemonic social structures and social constructs (nor do I actively resist them per se), so I am unfazed by anything. 

I started shipping this after I watched the first movie when it came out in Nov. 2013. One of my first posts on this blog, 7 years ago, was me explaining how I came to ship this (I had made the post private, but now you can read it here. Also this other post, but I wrote it when I was a college student, so it’s a little too analytical for my tastes now. Those were my views at the time). 7 years is a long time, so my mindsets and reasonings have changed, but all the reasons I had for shipping them from before are still with me today. 

I didn’t go into the movie with the intention to ship them, but while watching it, I picked up on a lot of chemistry between them because their interactions and even storyline were infused with strong popular romantic tropes, tropes that were used in other classic Disney movies themselves. I used to watch a lot of romantic comedies so I was very familiar with common romantic tropes. Of course, having came away from the movie having noticed all these romantic notes between them, I was a little confused and thought maybe it was just me. But when I went online to search a bit to see if others saw/felt what I saw, I found out it wasn’t just me! 

So one of the reasons why this ship exists is because people picked up on the romantic tropes that colored some of Elsa and Anna’s interactions, tropes that have usually only appeared between romantic couples, in films and in real life. Even if the creators didn’t intend to and didn’t actively put the tropes there, they are there. 

If we apply the principles of Buddhism (not the religion. Many ppl mistakenly practice things as devotional worship or for superstitious reasons. But if ppl really want to know everything about the mind, how the world works, the universe, who they are, about themselves and “other” people and why people do what they do, the meaning of life, true happiness, the end of suffering and stress and conflict, and consciousness, then forget psychology [not saying it’s not useful though]. Buddhism, or rather Buddhadharma, is the true science of mind, or at least the much more effective tool), it says that there is the law of cause and effect, the universal law. Everything that is created in the universe and each phenomenon that happens is the result of the momentary coming together of causes and conditions that make that thing happen. There are many many causes and conditions and intricacies and things are interconnected and interdependent, no one person can control something to happen (certain conditions have to be there for something to happen). Something can not come from nothing. If something happens, then certain causes and conditions have been created to bring that result. A seed was planted. If we plant an apple seed, what comes out will be an apple tree (provided the right conditions were met, like water, soil, sunlight, etc.). It will never come out as a banana tree. And so we can understand the underlying principle behind how each situation and phenomenon arises, about existence itself, why each thing exists. 

Now WHY did I go off on that tangent??? LOL All of this is to say that certain causes and conditions have been created to result in the effect of many people shipping Elsa and Anna together and there being a fandom for them. (These principles and explanations might seem very simple and like kindergarten stuff, but despite that, many people can’t accept it. ESPECIALLY when it applies to heavy stuff in their regular everyday life. Or even trivial things tbh lol) The last I checked, there were people from at least 26 different countries shipping Elsa and Anna together. 

Everyone thinks they see reality exactly as it is and takes it for granted, and thus attach strongly to the notion that they’re right. But if that’s the case, then why are there so many fights over who is right? So who is actually right? Even if someone were to follow the majority consensus or some popular, ingrained, long-standing ideas / societal rules, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re right. There are many cases of the blind leading the blind. People used to follow the geocentric model of the universe before they discovered heliocentrism. Ideas are always in flux and keeps changing and transforming, sometimes faster, sometimes slower, sometimes imperceptibly and sometimes conspicuously. If you ask 100 different people why they ship Elsa and Anna, you will get 100 different answers (with a lot of overlap of course) with unique spins on their reasons. Because in the world, each person sees reality through their own color-tinted glasses and filters and adherence to labels, concepts, beliefs, upbringing, etc. And then the person seeing “reality” through red-tinted glasses gets mad at the person seeing with blue-tinted glasses for not seeing the world how they see it (and gets frustrated not understanding why), and vice versa. In this scenario, what is actually best? To realize you’re seeing “reality” through color-tinted glasses, and so you should take them off and truly see reality without any filtered lenses. (This is a little off-topic, but I had to bring some Buddhism into this because first of all, dharma applies to everything lol, and secondly, Buddhism is all about dispelling confusion. There is definitely a way to see reality exactly as it is, it typically involves meditation.) 

Yes, Elsa and Anna are sisters. But I’ve never seen any pair of sisters act like them before (if there are, then that’s great!). I have a sibling myself, and we are very close, but we don’t act like how Elsa and Anna act with each other. With most siblings, I would say there’s a lot more joking around, teasing each other, sarcasm, pranks, and casual relaxed communication than the intense intimacy, deep eye-contact, and soul-bonding that Elsa and Anna share. Disney has portrayed many other sibling relationships before, but it seems like they tried something a little different with Elsa and Anna’s relationship that made it pretty easy for many people to ship them together. 

I ship Elsa and Anna together because their pure true love for each other transcends all labels, concepts, preconceived notions, and time and space. They are completely selfless when it comes to one another and that’s what true love means. They make each other better people and it empowers them to extend this selflessness toward other people. Their sacrificing themselves for each other and selflessness in action is true love exemplified. No one deserves Elsa more than Anna, and no one deserves Anna more than Elsa (speaking from my shipper heart xD). Confining and defining their love as just sisterly seems limiting and not allowing the full potential of their true, expansive, infinite love to manifest. (A sibling relationship is really beautiful, but it still has to be shaped and look a certain way, it has to fit into a particular mold and box and abide by certain conditions. Otherwise, as we have incontrovertibly seen, people will scream bloody murder and be squicked out and all hell will break loose.)  

We can even go one step further to say that the same similarly applies to people’s definitions, notions, concepts, ideas, and beliefs about love. They say this love is like this and that love is like that, this is what love should look like, this person can love this person but only if it’s like this and not like that, this is what it means to love and to be loved, etc. Again, it’s limiting, and placing restrictions on something whose essence is boundless. In Buddhism, with the realization of Enlightenment, one realizes that true love is selfless, unconditional, boundless, free, all-encompassing, nondual, timeless, compassionate, wise, nondiscriminating, infinite, universal, endlessly flowing, non-judgmental, creative, indescribable, and inconceivable. So THIS is the love that I see and ship between Elsa and Anna. I love their relationship as sisters, but their love is so grand that it cannot be contained inside that label, so it transcends and goes beyond any attempts to neatly define and characterize it.

It’s okay if incest ships startle you. Uncomfortable feelings come up whenever the ego experiences anything that challenges its worldview and everything it’s ever known and held to be true, and that prompts it to question and reconsider its mind-constructs. We have a knee-jerk reaction to grasp, hold, and attach to what we like, and to avoid, reject, and push away what we don’t like and what makes us feel uncomfortable. For what it’s worth, Buddhism tells about the cycle of life, death, and rebirth from beginningless time, so we have all lived infinite past lives and been each other’s lovers, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, friends, enemies, grandparents, etc. at one point or another. (Deep, but intriguing!, topics for another time.)  

If you really like to ship Krist0ff and Anna, then go ahead and ship happily. First rule of Buddhist meditation: Whatever you do, ONLY DO IT, 100%. ;) And if you don’t do something, then don’t do it, 100%. And then move on to the next moment. Be in the present moment. And remember that everything is changing moment by moment. Mind is changing moment by moment. Don’t need to anticipate the next moment. Who knows where our shipper hearts will take us. 

I like to ship people based on their chemistry and characterization. Elsa and Anna have a great true love story that is theirs and theirs alone. I don’t like to ship relationships that seem contrived, thrown in there for the sake of it, not fleshed out, lacking in substance, trite, and with characters who are underwhelming or underdeveloped. 

Lol no worries, this is not annoying, I’m sorry this is so long and that I took 7 days to get back to you. I wish I could give specific examples from the movies with beautiful gifs to explain why I ship them (I’ve probably written such posts in the past. Maybe I’ll come back to edit this reply one day), but I’ve gotta skedaddle! I’d like to hear your thoughts about my reply if you actually read this, so please send me a message in the ask box again if you can. 

Also I’m a girl if that makes any difference, but yeah anyway, skedaddle time, love you all! 

Oooooh I never finished replying to someone else’s ask box message asking me why I shipped them, it’s from years ago :’(, I started typing my reasons and saved it in my drafts, but it’s incomplete. But here’s what I wrote at the time!

1. I just love everything that Elsa and Anna feel and do for each other. Elsa isolates herself from Anna to keep her safe, and Anna persists in trying to get Elsa to open up to her and goes to find her when she runs away. They’re always thinking of each other and worrying about each other. They act selflessly for one another and their unconditional love is expressed so genuinely. This kind of devotion in any relationship is rare.

2. There was a lot of chemistry between them in the movie. At the coronation ball scene, I get that the creators were trying to depict awkwardness between them since they haven’t spoken in a long time, and Anna wanted reassurance that Elsa didn’t hate her so she was nervous about getting Elsa’s attention and approval, but the scene came off as Elsa being kind of suave and flirty and Anna being flustered because her crush just complimented her. Then Anna gave Elsa a playful smile when she was dipped upside-down as if she only had eyes for Elsa.

When Anna stares admiringly at Elsa as she stands atop the staircase, it was like a scene straight out of A Cinderella Story or Enchanted where the prince stares at his true love like she took his breath away.

[obnoxityzen]

Why I feel like an outcast manga reader (a very personal opinion)

Eh. I am actually an outcast wherever I am.

I am weird, antisocial, conceited, insensitive, immature. In case you haven’t noticed, my blog name actually indicates something about me.  Hehe.

But, you know, as I said in my bio… manga is my only consistent hobby. But I still don't see it is easy for me to feel like I know much about it too.

I once talked to a friend about how when I was younger, my school friends would say I am weird because I read manga. It was not weird really. It’s just, not a lot of people around me read manga.

Anyway, my friend said that I should start writing a blog about manga. Or find people somewhere to talk about manga.

Oh I did find some. On Tinder. And OKcupid. Lol. And elsewhere. But I found myself stuttering on the very basic question: “What kind of manga do you like?” I don’t know what to answer. Or when I did answer, the conversation stopped just at that because we could not find anything in common. Or perhaps it was just my social anxiety.

But I tried to check tumblr, reddit, or twitter accounts about manga.

Or randomly recommend manga titles to my friends when I feel like they can relate to the stories. But I still feel like an outcast.

Here is why:

People around me don’t like manga!

My siblings actually read manga. Well, there are reasons why people develop certain kinds of hobby and usually, it started from home. But when people grow up, high chance they also drift away from home. Jobs, marriages, the illusion of independent adult life.

Most of people I meet don’t read manga. Here are their reasons: “I don’t like reading books with pictures.” “I don’t read.” “Aren’t those for children?” “I don’t know how to read it. I finished a whole book and thought how weird it was… but turns out I read it from behind. (And I don’t want to try again).” “…Japanese are weird.”

That last one, I think some people are just not accustomed to the fact that there are different kinds of cultures out there.

I only read completed manga

I used to love reading ongoing series too. When I started working, however, I had so little time at hands and I found it difficult to keep tracks on series I were following.  I went to bookstores only to find that I missed a few volumes of some titles, and those volumes were no longer in the market. There are even cases when I remember following some series in, like, 10 years after I read then the latest chapter.

I have another reason, tho. And I think this is actually common for fellow manga readers: I cannot handle the wait. Moreover, it is not once or twice that manga I had been following went into a hiatus. Or, in case of scanlated manga, the scanlators dropped the titles. An no one is interested to pick them up. In those cases, I feel like I am hanging on a cliff. And someone brutally steps on my hand.

I don’t do fangirling

I might be wrong. But I think one of the recipes of mingling into manga communities are by associating yourself into certain groups of fans.

I have nothing against fanboying or fangirling. If I could, I would do it too. But my most favorite manga is usually the latest manga I read. I am ever-changing.

I want to be obsessed, too. But I lack loyalty and my interests wane way quickly. I tend to forget titles or characters in few days after I finished reading them.

When I was younger, I thought I like Westlife. But after a few months, my friend asked me whether I like Westlife. I said I don’t. She asked me whether I like Boyzone. Or ‘Nsync. Or Backstreet Boys. I said I don’t.

She, annoyed, asked for the final time, “THEN WHO THE HELL DO YOU LIKE?”

I was like, silently, asking myself, “SHIT, YEAH! WHO THE FUCK DID I ACTUALLY LIKE? I THOUGHT I LIKED THEM ALL!”

Even I got confused

I am failed to become a fangirl right at the doorsteps.

I no longer read shounen and shoujo

I once stopped reading manga for around five years. Not completely. I still read now and then, but I just could not dedicate my time to reading. Especially with so few people around me know about manga, I had so few reasons to read.

When I came back to manga, my taste has somewhat changed. My views on life has somehow altered and this influences my reading preferences. I tried to pick some shounen or shoujo titles I used to love but, I found them so hard to relate.   

“What, that does not make sense!” “Didn’t guy just try to rape you? Why are you so forgiving?” “Why are you falling in love to a jerk like that?” “Seriously? You let those people trample on you? Why don’t you fight back?” I was baffled.

The thing is, shoujo and shounen seem to dominate online manga forums or conversation about manga in real life.  I think if I did not stop reading back then, I too would still love to read them.

I don’t even watch anime!

Yap. I am one of those annoying people who won’t watch a movie before reading the book (if I am interested in the book, of course). But I don’t think the same reason of me not watching a movie applies with me not watching anime. It is just a matter of preference, I guess. If I have time to watch some moving pictures on screens I prefer watching ordinary Hollywood or world movies.

I am not familiar with Japanese and Korean terms

Nani? I don’t understand a thing. Ottoke… T_T

I am too whiny, too picky

Yes! If you read point 1 to 6 you will understand what I mean. I am quick to dislike. I am too rigid. I complain a lot. And I might have not tried that hard. I can always try watching anime or learning foreign languages, but I do not strive hard to do it (time constraints, tbh).

Ehehe.

---

I do believe not everything I said is right. Perhaps, nothing is right. But to be honest, ignoring over 1000 words I poured into this writing, I am not actually bothered. For me, what important is loving what I love. Knowing what I don’t. I might say that I find some genres are not relatable, but since everyone is living a life different from others, I fully understand that “relatable”, just like other adjectives, is subjective.

By the end of the day, I do understand one thing: If I have to define a thing about myself, it is that I don’t like to be defined. That is perhaps why I feel like an outcast everywhere, or at the other hand, why I feel like I can talk about everything with almost everyone.

I genuinely think that everyone has the right to be anything they like, as long as it doesn’t harm others. You can be an otaku. A fujoshi. Whatever. You can be nothing too. And nothing is wrong with it.