#two stupid heroes who argue with each other vs two stupid villains who love each other no homo

[jrueships]

Embiid and beal are gonna be my next rarepair ship imma get yall on. I swear it.

[marvel-m-lee]

Can I humbly request Ler!Hagakure and Lee!Bakugo? It’s a little unconventional i know. I can see Toru wrecking Bakugo for snapping on her like he does to everyone. Dude angry as hell for no reason he gotta chill lmao.

Communication

Words: 2992

Fandom: MHA

Characters: Lee!Bakugou, Ler!Hagakure, Lee!Midoriya, ler!Ojiro

Summary: Bakugou and Midoriya against Hagakure and Ojiro. Turns out Bakugou needs to learn some manners.

A/n: KEIDUDU ANOTHER FIC OVER 2K WORDS I LOVE IT AHHH sorry btw, if this is the same person who sent this twice, I was doing it, hope you enjoy! ♡

---------------------------------------------------

It was another field training day. Everyone was in pairs and put against each other in their own areas. Much like some of their first field training with Midoriya against Bakugou, both teams were villains and both teams were heros.

Each group was left to their own devices while Mic and Aizawa went to go do some paper work. If anything got too serious, they'd know by the cameras they'd set up in office.

Each group was set to capture the other, they all had half an hour to do so.

Teams were simple, though today we're focusing on two teams; Bakugou and Midoriya VS Hagakure and Ojiro.

One team, heavily over powered yet nearly no communication skills though having grown up together. The other having great communication skills along with a good friendship since starting but limited skills to their bodies.

The two were placed in an abandoned city with two buildings to work with. Currently Bakugou and Midoriya both stood arguing about what to do, of course Bakugou wanting to kill his class mates while Midoriya trying to come up with a plan to defeat them.

In the other building Ojiro and Hagakure stood around chatting casually, hearing Bakugou's screaming from tens of meters away.

"Honestly, he needs to learn how to chill out!" Hagakure stomped her boot.

"Yeah, yesterday I saw him and Midoriya screaming about toast. Do they ever not argue?"

The two spoke for a bit and tried discussing different ideas to get the other two captured. The idea was to get both villians captured, if one was free then they lost. Simple as that.

There was a bell that signaled the timer had started, half an hour to capture the other team. Either a win or a lose. And Bakugou wasn't loosing.

"SHUT UP DEKU"

"Kacchan..." Midoriya gave the boy a weak look, tired of fighting.

"We're gonna go find those extras and we're going to kill them!" Bakugou yelled, of course then storming off down the hall.

Midoriya followed along, not wanting their duo to split and get caught off guard.

"I don't know Kacchan- Hagakure and Ojiro are a really good team, they get along really well and have been training together more recently, I think if we-"

"doesn't matter! I'm the strongest. They're weaklings, I bet I could take them on even without you!"

Midoriya just rolled his eyes and followed along with the angry pomeranian.

"If we-"

"We don't need your stupid plans Deku!"

"But Kacchan!-"

Blah blah blah. The two bickered back and forth back and forth while walking down their own building. The team had nearly no communication skills, which came in handy for the opposing team.

"So what should we do?" Ojiro asked, a hand on his hip and looking to his invisible friend for answers.

"Im not sure... Bakugou and Midoriya are both crazy powerful!"

"Yeah but don't you remember half of their training sessions? Five minutes ago we heard them arguing about killing us!?"

The two went silent for a minute and just heard Bakugou screaming die over and over again. Giving each other a deadpan look.

"So no communication with them two"

"We can use that! We're great at communication!"

Ojiro and Hagakure then began to walk down their own halls, coming up with a plan to capture the other two. Granted their powerful, but they just needed a steady plan to stop them from using their quirks.

"All we need to do is handcuff them right?" Ojiro asked, holding up a pair of handcuffs. Hagakure held up her own pair.

"Yep! And keep them in their handcuffs for 3 minutes minimum!"

"Alright, so we'll need to distraction them somehow, Bakugou will definitely blow our heads off if we just walk up to him. We'll have to stop him from using his quirk at all" Ojiro thought aloud.

"and Midoriya is super quick!" Hagakure added, the two now walking down a flight of stairs.

Ojiro nodded and tried thinking for a moment without much luck. "For Midoriya, we should just try to be careful, he's really smart but if Bakugou won't listen-"

"Then they won't have a plan" Hagakure finished the sentence for her friend and slid down the banister of the staircase, jumping off at the bottom.

Ojiro ran down quickly, nodding with a smile at their quick and easy communication skills.

"So if we attack quicker, it would still be pointless, it's best we make a plan and go slower as Bakugou's more likely to do better if he pushed us into a head on fight"

The two talked about different strategies and ideas, only to be interrupted by a loud noise followed by a screaming Bakugou.

At first they though he had brought them into a headfirst fight, which in that case they would have most likely quickly lost, but instead they ran to the nearest window and saw a hole blown out of the others building. No doubt that it was Bakugou's temper.

"I CAN DO IT MYSELF NERD!"

"But Kacchan! I have multiple plans that could work-"

"But we don't need any of them because I'm going to KILL them!"

Ojiro and Hagakure could see the two arguing by the massive hole created in the wall, Bakugou stomping his feet and Midoriya putting up his hands, trying to compromise.

Bakugou then turned around, luckily not noticing them in the window but still stomping and screaming, "YOU HEAR THAT EXTRA'S? IM GONNA COME OVER THERE AND KILL YOU SO YOU MIGHT AS WELL HAND YOURSELVES OVER NOW!"

"Kacchan!"

Hagakure and Ojiro just watched silently from the window, not having been spotted but watching as Bakugou has another fit.

"Someome should really teach him some manners! And to laugh every once in a while!" Hagakure complained, crossing her arms. Ojiro turned to look at her, as much as he could look at her, and agreed. Nodding his head.

"I heard him laugh in training once and he's got such an evil laugh! His eyes were all red and glowing and he looked ready to kill!" Hagakure shook her hands, trying to get rid of the though in her head and squealed a little.

Ojiro put a hand to his chin for a minute though and laughed, "actually I heard him laughing the other day, Kirishima was chasing him and he actually has a normal laugh when he wants to- I guess he just likes murder?"

Hagakure turned to boy with a tail and raided her eyebrows in surprise, not that he could see, though somehow he still knew she was surprised. "Really? Why?"

"Oh Kirishima was just chasing him around trying to tickle him, the two ran into his bedroom and while I was taking plates back I heard them laughing" Ojiro thought back on the memory, shrugging it off as normal but also nice to know Bakugou wouldn't actually completely murder them.

"He was actually begging Kirishima to stop too, it was definitely something" Ojiro laughed as he turned around and continued walking down the many halls of the building. Hagakure looked out the window again to see Bakugou stropping like a child and then ran after Ojiro excitedly.

"I have an idea!!"

Midoriya had finally somehow convinced Bakugou to get back inside the building and try to come up with a plan. Not like the blond was listening much, but it was better than the constant screaming.

"That way if we- Kacchan what are you doing?" Midoriya looked up for a second to see Bakugou walking off down the halls without so much as a signal for him to follow.

"Im going to go win, you can stay here" Bakugou replied nonchalantly. Waving Midoriya off.

"Kacchan! We were finally getting somewhere!" The broccoli boy replied.

"No we weren't, you were going on and on about your stupid plan when I can easily win without it!"

Midoriya followed along, wanting to pull our his own hair and throwing his head back with a loud whine.

"Ahhhhh Kacchan! Hagakure and Ojiro probably already have a plan!"

Bakugou didn't care in the slightest though, making his way through the building to perhaps the 4th floor. Having started at the 7th, and blown up the 6th.

"Im going to go blow up them extra's, you're just waisting my time Deku"

Midoriya really just couldn't be bothered at this point, having only been 13 minutes in and already spent most of them arguing.

That's when something felt off to Midoriya. He looked around but didn't see anything as Bakugou droned on and on about how amazing he was and that he didn't need Deku's dumb plans that probably wouldn't even work anyway.

He couldn't spot anyone, but the feeling alone was enough to tell Midoriya someone was here. One opponent was quite literally invisible so he wouldn't put it past them to use it to the other teams advantage.

"Kacchan-"

"What Deku?!"

"Someone's here"

"Huh?- sHiHit!"

And right then, the most unexpected thing happened. Bakugou burst out into laughter, but not his murderous intent laughter, no but his childlike normal human being I'm not a phyco laughter.

The blond jumped and made a strange move before doubling over into loud laughter, trying to stop the funny feeling on his torso.

Midoriya just stared for a moment, totally and utterly shocked at what was happening. He didn't even attempt to help Bakugou, he just starred at the scene.

"StAhAHaP! STOhOhOp It!" Bakugou couldn't help but laugh and yell, trying to look for the culprit who he couldn't see.

"I never knew you were so ticklish Bakugou!" Hagakure chimed in, her voice bright and bubbly with a hint of teasing.

The blondes face went a little red but ultimately began threatening the girl who just continued to tickle his sides and anywhere she could reach, forcing him to try to cover himself and unable to fight back.

"You should really learn some manners Bakugou, you're always so rude!"

"IHIHI WIHILL FUuhCkIhihN- STOHOP IT!" No one could see Bakugou's face as it was hidden by his hair and hiding in his chest, he dropped to his knees and tried to curl up to stop the tickling.

"YOHOURE DEHEAHAD HAGAKURE"

"im so confused" Midoriya stood on his own, watching as Bakugou was quickly taken out by a couple tickles. Of course he knew Bakugou was ticklish, but wow. This was the last thing he expected today. There would have been no way for Midoriya to prepare for such a random tactic.

Along with that though, he had no clue where Ojiro was, and didn't really want to get captured. Yet he couldn't leave Bakugou like this.

"WaHAiHIt! StOhOp!" Bakugou shook his head as Hagakure tickled his torso and up to his ribs, he didn't know he was so ticklish, sure he knew he was but it was so much worse having it been a surprise attack and not being able to see anything.

Bakugou couldn't even think, his head was so confused. Could he blow her up? Sure yeah but also it was like his body didn't know whether this was a game or a threat. So he kept his arms wrapped around his body and continued to laugh into he floor without control.

Then suddenly Midoriya jumped and pushed where he assumed Hagakure to be off of Bakugou, sending her to the floor and giving Bakugou just enough time to get up, though his wonky smile didn't crease, though he tried to wipe it off.

"She's dehead." Was all that he said, standing up and pointing one arm to where he believed she was, though she was totally invisible, without her gloves nor boots. A blast was sent but right after Midoriya began laughing himself, making Bakugou swiftly turn around to see Ojiro standing there, holding Midoriya captive while tickling his neck with his tail end.

Ojiro had a grin on his own face, Midoriya struggling but giggling and trying to pull his head away, ultimately failing being one of the most ticklish in the class.

"Waiait! Ojhijiro!" Midoriya's giggles were light hearted and joyful, more so due to his friend teasingly tickling him during a suppose to be serious training day.

Bakugou grunted, fixing his hair quickly as he watched Ojiro speak.

"You can come with us now or we can take you laughing- tickle Tickle" Midoriya giggled and laughed, held awkwardly in a headlock type hold, trying to escape by grabbing Ojiro's arm with his own but laughing from the neck and ear tickles.

Bakugou wore a nasty grin on his face, half from the tickles and half knowing he was gonna kill these extra's for embarrassing him.

"How about you die" he insisted, holding up a hand ready to blast Ojiro without caring that Midoriya might get a little hit too.

But instead of a blast, the boy jumped backwards and tripped, falling onto his back and pushing up at the thin air, laughing hysterically.

"FUHUUCK GeT OhOfF HAGAKURE!"

"Nope! Not until you get some manners and we win Mr Grumpy Pants!" Hagakure was really enjoying this as Bakugou tried to escape but kept failing as she would strike under his arms or his sides and even wherever she could reach his neck. His kicking legs really told the two all they needed to know.

Midoriya then felt Ojiro's other hand on his stomach which began scribbling, immediately he reached one hand down and quickly was placed into the handcuffs, along with more tickling following so he could barely even think about it.

Bakugou however was loosing it, Hagakure really tried to wear him out, which was a smart plan seeing as how quickly he managed to get back up to attack previously. Luckily his hero outfit left a lot out in the open so she was free to trace his abs, scribble into his armpits and run her hands up and down his ribs which made him burst out into loud giggles.

Admittedly, Ojiro, Midoryia and Hagakure were all taken a back by hearing Bakugou giggling, especially so loud and like that. He hugged himself best he could and struggled, feeling weaker than expected at the tickles.

Hagakure must have worked out that the surprise attack on his tummy would have worked well because he couldn't get a clear thought in his head. A large smile across his face while laughing at such a silly thing.

Due to his suit being so skin tight, it meant Hagakure was free to do as she pleased and it would feel as if it was on his own skin, so when a sudden raspberry was blown onto his ribcage the blasty blonde lost it and began screaming in laughter, shaking himself. He hadn't laughed so much and so hard in a long time, even Kirishima would have given up by now.

But Hagakure kinda needed to make sure Bakugou couldn't get back up or they'd all be dead. At least this way she and Ojiro can say they defeated Bakugou in a fight.

"PLEHEHEASE! HAHAHARGA- HAGAKURE! STOHOP IT I CAHAHANT!" Bakugou pleaded for the first and last time he ever would to anyone ever.

In a swift move Hagakure had him in his handcuffs but still didn't give up, just somehow managing to hold his arms above his head and tickle his ribs and armpits, making him almost cry with laughter while shaking his head, begging for her to stop as she placed more raspberries on his tummy and even managed to around his neck behind his hear costume.

The two boys were tickled for about another 3 minutes, both having given up at such playful antics and just giving in. Holding their stomachs or shaking their heads.

There was another bell that went off to signal that time had run out and Hagakure and Ojiro RAN out of the training areas, leaving the keys to the cuffs so that Bakugou and Midoriya could still get out without killing them.

"Sorry Midoriya, cya!"

"Bye Bakugou! Bye Midoriya! Don't kill us!"

Bakugou just lay on the ground whist Midoriya just tried to scramble what had happened together in his mind. He waddled over to Bakugou to see whether the blonde had actually died or not and unlocked both of them from their cuffs.

Back in the entrance, most of the class had already made their way there. Kirishima and Ashido saw as Hagakure and Ojiro ran out of the training grounds, turning back to see whether they were being followed or not.

Everyone had known each others teams, so the two stopped them.

"Where's Bakugou and Midoriya? Did they loose?" Kirishima asked confused.

"We heard a bunch of shouting and assumed they'd cuffed you, sorry guys, but are they okay?" Ashido laughed but still asked concerned.

Ojiro and Hagakure looked at one another, smirking and grinning in excitement but knowing they didn't want to embarrass their class mates.

"It-"

Just then something came blasting through the air and everyone in class 1A turned to see Bakugou flying through the air at insane speeds, his hair was messed up and cheeks flushed pink. But the scariest part was the massive grin on his face while he screamed for the two to run.

"YOURE GONNA PAY FOR THAT"

Hagakure's smile wobbled on her face but she nodded at Ashido and Kirishima, "gotta go- bye!"

"Cya!" Ojiro grabbed Hagakure and the two bolted it as fast as they could. Bakugou blasting above everyone and following them ready to kill.

All the teachers at the time were stood in the staff room, watching one of the camera's. It showed Midoriya appologing and then scurrying off to join the others.

All Might looked at Aizawa and Mic, looking utterly surprised having just seen what had happened.

They were all speechless. Well, until Bakugou blasted past the windows and all of them had to rush out to stop him from killing his class mates.

DIE

[army-of-mai-lovers]

Jet and Yue’s Deaths: Were They Necessary?

Two of the most common ideas I see for aus in this fandom are the Jet lives au, and the Yue lives au. I’ve written both of these myself, and I’ve seen many others write them. And while yes, fanfiction can be a great way to explore ideas that didn’t necessarily have to be explored in canon (I’m mad at bryke for a lot of things, but not including a Toph and Bumi I friendship is not one of them, even though I wrote a fic about it), it seems to me that people are mad that Yue and Jet are dead, to varying degrees. There’s a lot to talk about regarding their deaths from a sociopolitical perspective (the fact that two of the darker-skinned characters in the show are the ones that died, and all the light-skinned characters lived, is ah... an interesting choice), but I don’t want to look at it that way, at least for right now. I want to look at it as a writer, and discuss whether these deaths were a) necessary for the plot and themes of ATLA in any way whatsoever and b) whether it was necessary for them to unfold in the way that they did, or if they would have been more impactful had they occurred in a different way. 

(meta under the cut, this got really, really, really long)

Death in Children’s Media

When I first started thinking about this meta, I had this idea to compare Jet and Yue’s deaths to deaths in an animated children’s show that I found satisfying. And in theory, that was a great idea. Problem is: there aren’t very many permanent deaths in children’s animation, and the ones that do exist aren’t especially well-written. This may be an odd thing to say in what is ostensibly a piece of atla crit, but Yue’s death is probably the best written death in a piece of children’s animation that I can think of. That’s not a compliment. Rather, it’s a condemnation of the way other pieces of children’s animation featuring permanent character death have handled their storylines. 

I’ve talked about this before, but my favorite show growing up was Young Justice, and my favorite character on that show was far and away Mr. Wally West. So when he died at the end of season 2, it broke me emotionally. Shortly thereafter, Cartoon Network canceled the show, and I started getting on fan forums to mourn. Everybody on these fan forums was convinced that had Cartoon Network not canceled the show, Wally would have been brought back. And that is a narrative that I internalized for years. Eventually, the show was brought back via DC’s new streaming service, and I tuned in, waiting for Wally to also be brought back, only to discover that that wasn’t in the cards. Wally was dead. Permanently. 

So now that I know that, I can talk about why killing him off was fucking stupid. Wally’s death occurs at the end of season 2, after the main s2 conflict, the Reach, has been defeated, save for these pods that they set up all over the world to destroy Earth. Our heroes split up in teams of two to destroy the pods, and they destroy all of them, except for a secret one in Antartica. It can only be neutralized by speedsters, so Wally, Bart, and Barry team up to destroy it. It’s established in canon that Wally is slower than Bart and Barry, and it’s been played for laughs earlier in the season, but for reasons unexplained, the pod is better able to target Wally because he’s slower than Bart and Barry, and it kills him. After the emotional arc of the season has wrapped up, a literal main character dies. There’s some indication at the end of that season that his death is going to cause Artemis to spiral and become a villain, but when season 3 picks up, she’s doing the right thing, with seemingly no qualms about her position in life as a hero. In the comics, something like this happens to Wally, but then he goes into the Speed Force and becomes faster and stronger even than Barry, in which case, yes, this would have advanced the plot, but that’s probably not in the cards either. 

In summary, Wally’s death doesn’t work as a story beat, not because it made me mad, but because it doesn’t advance the plot, nor does it develop character. Only including things that advance plot or develop character is one of the golden rules of writing. Like most golden rules of writing, however, it’s not absolute. There is a lot of fun to be had in jokey little one off adventures (in atla, Sokka’s haiku competition) or in fun worldbuilding threads that add depth to your setting but don’t really come up (in atla, the existence of Whaletail Island, which is described in really juicy ways, even though the characters never go there.) But in general, when it comes to things like character death, events should happen to develop the plot or advance character. Avatar, for all of its flaws, is really well structured, and a lot of its story beats advance plot and develop character at the same time. However, the show also bears the burden of being a show directed at children, and thus needing to be appropriate for children. And as we know, Nickelodeon and bryke butted heads over this: the death scene that we see for Jet is a compromise, one that implicitly confirms his death without explicitly showing it. So bryke tasked themselves with creating a show about imperialism and war that would do those themes justice while also being appropriate for American children and palatable to their parents. 

The Themes of Avatar vs. Its Audience

So, Avatar is a show about a lone survivor of genocide stopping an imperialist patriarchal society from decimating the rest of the world. It’s also a show about found family and staying true to yourself and doing your best to improve the world. These don’t necessarily conflict with each other, and it is possible for children to understand and enjoy shows about complex themes. And in a lot of cases, bryke doesn’t hold back in showing what the costs of war against an imperialist nation are: losing loved ones, losing yourself, prison, etc. But when it comes to death, the show is incredibly hesitant. None of the main characters that we’ve spent a lot of time getting to know die (not even Iroh, even though he was old and it would have made sense and his VA died before the show was over--but that’s a topic for another day.) This makes sense. I can totally imagine a seven year-old watching Avatar as it was coming out and feeling really sad or scared if a major character died. I was six years older than that when Wally died, and it’s still sad and terrifying to me to this day. However, in a show about war, it would be unrealistic to have no one die. Bryke’s stated reason for killing off Jet is to show the costs of war. I’ve seen a lot of posts about Jet’s death that reiterate some version of this same point--that the great tragedy of his character is that he spent his life fighting the Fire Nation, only to die at the hands of his own country. Similarly, I’ve seen people argue in favor of Yue’s death by saying that it was a great tragedy, but it showed the sacrifices that must be made in a war effort. 

Yue

When we first meet Yue, she is a somewhat reserved, kind individual held back by the rigid social structures of the NWT*. She and Sokka have an immediate attraction to one another, but Yue reveals that she is engaged to Hahn. The Fire Nation invasion happens, Zhao kills Tui, and Yue gives up her life to save her people and the world, and to restore balance. Since we didn’t have a lot of time to get to know Yue, this is framed less as Yue’s sacrifice and more as Sokka’s loss. Sokka is the one who cares for Yue, Sokka is the only one of the gaang who really interacts a lot with Yue on screen, and Sokka is the one we’ve spent a whole season getting to know. While I wouldn’t go so far as to call Yue a prop character (i.e. a character who could be replaced by an object with little change to the narrative), she is certainly underdeveloped. She exists to be unambiguously likable and good, so we can root for her and Sokka, and feel Sokka’s pain when she dies. In my opinion, this is probably also why a lot of fic that features Yue depicts her as a Mary Sue--because as she is depicted in the show, she kind of is. We don’t get to see her hidden depths because she is written to die. 

In light of what we’ve established earlier in this meta, this makes sense. Killing off a fully-realized character whom the audience has really gotten to know and care about on their own terms, rather than through the eyes of another character, could be really sad and scary for the kids watching, but not killing anyone off would be an unrealistic depiction of war and imperialism. On the face of it, killing off an underdeveloped, unambiguously likable and good character, whom one of our MCs has a deep but short connection with, is the perfect compromise. 

But let’s go back to the golden rule for a second. Does Yue’s death a) advance the plot, and/or b) develop character? The answer to the first is yes: Yue’s death prompts Aang to use the Avatar State to fight off the Fire navy, which has implications for his ability to control the Avatar State that form one of the major arcs of book 2. The answer to the second? A little more ambiguous. You would think that Yue’s death would have some lasting impact on Sokka that is explored as part of his character arc in book 2, that he may be more afraid to trust, more scared of losing the people he loves, but outside of a few episodes (really, just one I can think of, “The Swamp”) it doesn’t seem to affect him that much. He even asks about Suki in a way that is clearly romantically motivated in “Avatar Day.” I don’t know about you, but if someone I loved sacrificed herself to become the moon, I don’t think I would be seeking out another romantic entanglement a few weeks after her death. Of course, everybody processes grief differently, and one could argue that Sokka has already lost important people in his life, and thus would be accustomed to moving on from that loss and not letting himself dwell on it. But to that, I’d say that moving on by throwing himself into protecting others has already shown itself to be an unhealthy coping mechanism. Remember, Sokka’s misogyny at the beginning of b1 is in part motivated by the fact that his mother died at the hands of the Fire Nation and his father left shortly thereafter to fight the Fire Nation, and he responds to those things by throwing himself into the role of being the “man” of the village and protecting the people he loves who are still with him. Like with Yue, he doesn’t allow himself to dwell on his mother’s death. This could have been the beginning of a really interesting b2 arc for Sokka, in which he throws himself into being the Avatar’s companion to get away from the grief of losing Yue, but this time, through the events of the show, he’s forced to acknowledge that this is an unhealthy coping mechanism. And maybe this is what bryke was going for with “The Swamp”, but this confines his whole process of grief to one episode, where it could have been a season-long arc that really emphasized the effect Yue’s had on his life. 

In the case of Yue, I do lean toward saying that her death was necessary for the story that they wanted to tell (although, I will never turn down a good old-fashioned Yue lives au that really gets into her dynamism as a character, those are awesome.) However, the way they wrote Sokka following Yue’s death reduced her significance. The fact that Yue seemed to have so little impact on Sokka is precisely what makes her death feel unnecessary, even if it isn’t. 

Jet

Okay. Here we go. 

If you know my blog, you know I love Jet. You know I love Jet lives aus. Perhaps you know that I’m in the process of writing a multichapter Jet fic in which he lives after Lake Laogai. So it’s reasonable to assume that, in a discussion of whether or not Jet’s death was necessary, I’m gonna be mega-biased. And yeah, that’s probably true. But up until recently, I wasn’t really all that mad about Jet dying, at least conceptually. As I said earlier, bryke says that in the case of Jet’s death, they wanted to kill a character off that people knew and would care about, so that they could further show the tragedies of war and imperialism. Okay. That is not, in and of itself, a bad idea. 

My issue lies with the execution of said idea. First of all, the framing of Jet’s original episode is so bad. Jet is part of a long line of cartoon villains who resist imperialism and other forms of oppression through violence and are punished for it. This is actually a really common sort of villain for atla/lok, as we see this play out again with Hama, Amon, and the Red Lotus. To paraphrase hbomberguy’s description of this type of villain, basically liberal white creators are saying, “yeah, oppression is bad, but have you tried writing to your Congressman about it?” With Jet, since we have so little information about the village he’s trying to flood, there are a number of different angles that would explain his actions and give them more nuance. My preferred hc is that the citizens of Gaipan are a mix of Earth civilians, Fire citizens, and FN soldiers, and that the Earth citizens refused to feed or house Jet and the other Freedom Fighters because they were orphans and, as we see in the Kyoshi Novels, Earth families stick to their own. Thus, when Jet decides to flood Gaipan, he’s focused on ridding the valley of Fire Nation, but he doesn’t really care about what happens to the Earth citizens of Gaipan because they actively wronged him when he was a kid. That’s just one interpretation, and there have been others: Gaipan was fully Fire Nation, Gaipan was both Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation but Jet decided that the benefits of flooding the valley and getting rid of the Fire Nation outweighed the costs of losing the EK families, etc, etc. There are ways to rewrite that scenario so that Jet is not framed as an unambiguously bloodthirsty monster. In the context of Jet’s death, this initial framing reduces the possible impact that his death could have. Where Yue was unambiguously good, Jet is at the very least morally gray when we see him again in the ferry. And where we are connected to Yue through Sokka, the gaang’s active hatred of Jet hinders our ability to connect with him. This isn’t impossible to overcome--the gaang hates Zuko, and yet to an extent the audience roots for him--but Jet’s lack of screentime and nuanced framing (both of which Zuko gets in all three seasons) makes overcoming his initially flawed framing really difficult. 

So how much can it really be said, that by the time we get to Jet’s death, he’s a character that we know and care about? So much about him is still unknown (what happened to the Freedom Fighters? what prompted Jet’s offscreen redemption? who knows, fam, who knows.) Moreover, most of what we see of him in Ba Sing Se is him actively opposing Zuko and Iroh. These are both characters that at the very least the show wants us to care about. At this point, we know almost everything there is to know about them, we’ve been following them and to an extent rooting for them for two seasons, and who have had nuanced and often sympathetic framing a number of times. So much of the argument I’ve seen regarding Jet centers around the fact that he was right to expose Zuko and Iroh as Firebenders, but the reason we have to have that argument in the first place is because it’s not framed in Jet’s favor. In terms of who the audience cares about more, who the audience has more of an emotional attachment towards, Zuko and Iroh win every time. Whether Jet’s actually in the right or not is irrelevant, because emotionally speaking, we’re primed to root for Zuko and Iroh. In terms of who the framing is biased towards, Jet may as well be Zhao. So when he’s taken by the Dai Li and brainwashed, the audience isn’t necessarily going to see this as a bad thing, because it means Zuko and Iroh are safe.

The only real bit of sympathetic framing Jet gets are those initial moments on the ferry, and the moments after he and the gaang meet again. So about five, ten minutes of the show, total. And then, he sacrifices himself for the gaang. And just like Yue, his death has little to no impact on the characters in the episodes following. Katara is shown crying for four frames immediately following his death, and they bring him up once in “The Southern Raiders” to call him a monster, and once in “The Ember Island Players”, a joke episode in which his death is a joke. 

So, let’s ask again. Does this a) advance the plot, and/or b) develop character? The answer to both is no. It shows that the Dai Li is super evil and cruel, which we already knew and which basically becomes irrelevant in book 3, and that is really the only plot-significant thing I can think of. As far as character, well, it could have been a really interesting moment in Katara’s development in forgiving someone who hurt her in the past, which could have foreshadowed her forgiving Zuko in b3, but considering she calls Jet a monster in TSR, that doesn’t track. There could have been something with Sokka realizing that his snap judgment of Jet in b1 was wrong, but considering that he brings up Jet to criticize Katara in TSR, that also does not track. And honestly, neither of these possible character arcs require Jet to die. What requires Jet to die is the ~themes~. 

Let’s look at this theme again, shall we? The cost of war. We already covered it with Yue, but it’s clearly something that bryke wants to return to and shed new light on. The obvious angle they’re going for is that sometimes, you don’t know who your real enemy is. Jet thought that his enemy was the Fire Nation, but in the end, he was taken down by his own countryman. Wow. So deep. Except, while it’s clear that Jet was always fighting against the Fire Nation, I never got the sense that Jet was fighting for the Earth Kingdom. After all, isn’t the whole bad thing about him in the beginning is that he wants to kill civilians, some of whom we assume to be Earth Kingdom? Why would it matter then that he got killed by an EK leader, when he didn’t seem to ever be too hot on those dudes? But okay, maybe the angle is not that he was killed by someone from the Earth Kingdom, but that he wasn’t killed by someone from the Fire Nation. Okay, but we’ve already seen him be diametrically opposed to the only living Air Nomad and people from the Water Tribes. Jet fighting with and losing to people who aren’t Fire Nation is not a new and exciting development for him. Jet has been enemies with non-FN characters for most of the show’s run at this point. There is no thematic level on which the execution of this holds any water. 

The reason I got to thinking about this, really analyzing what Jet’s death means (and doesn’t mean) for the show, was this conversation I was having with @the-hot-zone in discord dms. We were talking about book 2 and ways it could have been better, and Zone said that they thought that Jet would have been a stronger character to parallel with Zuko’s redemption than Iroh and that seeing more of the narrative from Jet’s perspective could have strengthened the show’s themes. And when it came to the question of Jet’s death, they said, “And if we are going with Jet dying, then I want it to hurt. I want it to hurt just as much as if a main character like Sokka had died. I want the viewer to see Jet's struggles, his triumphs, the facets of Jet that make him compelling and important to the show.” And all of that just hit me. Because we don’t get that, do we? Jet’s death barely leaves a mark. Jet himself barely leaves a mark. His death isn’t plot-significant, doesn’t inspire character growth in any of our MCs, and doesn’t even accomplish the thematic relevance that it claims to. So what was the point? 

Conclusion

Much as I dislike it, Yue’s death actually added something to atla. It could have added much, much more, in the hands of writers who gave more of a shit about their Brown female characters and were less intent on seeing them suffer and knocking them down a peg, but, in my opinion, it did work for what it was trying to do. Jet? Jet? Nah, fam. Jet never got the chance to really develop into a likable character because he was always put at odds with characters we already liked, and the framing skewed their way, not his. The dude never really had a chance.        

*multiple people have spoken about how the NWT as depicted in atla is not reminiscent of real life Inuit and Yupik people and culture. I am not the person to go into detail about this, but I encourage you to check out Native-run blogs for more info!

[princepondincherry]

Wish RWBY was better? Try ATLA

To start: Yes, I’m aware ATLA and even LoK probably have much larger fandoms than RWBY already. I think they also have more content and were produced with a larger budget, which means we have to give RWBY some slack. It doesn’t mean criticism isn’t valid.

Since Avatar came out on Netflix, I watched both shows, and I can’t help drawing parallels with RWBY since they’re both animated shows I’ve loved about badass kids/teens with magic powers. And Avatar is SO MUCH better. For instance, inter-party conflict. The Gaang argue ALL THE TIME, and it’s just presented as the normal state of affairs, not some dramatic, crazy detail when one sibling has a slight disagreement with the other sibling. And as much flak as the Mako relationship drama gets in Legend of Korra, at least it had substance to it. We still don’t really know what the problem is with Ren and Nora. Oh, and The Last Airbender handled an unwanted kiss forced on someone who didn’t think it was the right time for romance SO MUCH better, with an immediate, “I SAID I was confused!” and the instigator having a scene right after where they called themselves an idiot, instead of the Renora kiss being presented as romantic or something.

Now I kinda want to write a list of things I feel Avatar does better. There’s a poorly-argued word vomit below the cut:

- The dead mother thing--Salem mentions Summer once with no details, and Ruby completely breaks down? What? Like, grief is fine, but this has literally no foreshadowing since the songs don’t count as full canon, and it made no sense given Ruby’s established (ha) character and the situation. Katara would have flown into a rage, and it would have been so much better.

- Arguments with adults on your side--Pakku was set up as an asshole teacher from the start, and he when confronted with the consequences of his misogyny, he changed his ways for the better. Zuko arguing with Iroh is never intended to have Zuko be in the right. Korra argues with Tenzin all the time, and usually they’re both right, but have to come to a better understanding of each other’s perspective that helps them grow as people. In fact, this conflict drives a lot of the story for the first two books of LoK. Unfortunately, RWBY seems incapable of this sort of nuance. Qrow is just drunk until he isn’t, but then later gets Clover killed, and Ozpin is supposedly just awful.

- Arguments with adults who should be on your side but aren’t--Long Feng SHOULD be on the same side as the heroes, defending the Earth Kingdom, but he isn’t for pretty stupid reasons. But, unlike Ironwood shooting people like a maniac, Long Feng is against the heroes for stupid reasons that (mostly) make sense in-universe: he wants to remain in power. (I still don’t understand why he didn’t just quietly explain that he had the real power in the city, not the king, and shuffle the kids off to whoever was running the military defenses that allowed him to pretend there was no war. I guess he thought if he just gave them the cold shoulder long enough, they’d go away?) Whatever problems there were with Long Feng’s storyline, at least he was consistently written as a bad guy. In contrast, Ironwood is inconsistently written as a good guy who has all the trappings of a tyrant but doesn’t act like it AT ALL, except when he occasionally does something extreme like shoot Oscar. He’s written (I guess unintentionally?) as a subversion of the military tyrant, except when he suddenly acts like one again. It’s like they were shooting for a Tarrlok (sketchy government official who’s both bad for the obvious reasons AND worse than he appears beneath the surface, even though he often works for the side of good) but actually wrote Suyin (someone who could easily be a totalitarian dictator, but decided not to be because of her moral principles, and is actually nice), except occasionally she attacks her allies for disagreeing with her.

- Costume design--I loved Ruby’s, Weiss’s, Ozpin’s, Qrow’s, and a few other original costumes, and Ruby’s had some very solid costumes. However, Volume 7 was terrible. The animation looked weird on Weiss’s braid, Jaune’s hair was awful, and a bunch of them weren’t really dressed for the weather. In contrast, the Avatar characters change outfits whenever it’s appropriate. You know, like real people. (If this is a “3D animation makes outfit changes harder than 2D animation” thing, then maybe 2D animation is just a superior art form when you’re on a budget.)

- Consistent power levels--Katara starts weak and gets stronger. Aang starts as only an airbender and consistently gets better at everything else. Toph invents metalbending and gradually gets more proficient with it. In contrast, RWBY’s Volume 1-3 feats are often better than their later feats, and Aura strength blatantly depends on plot. Yang’s gotten *slightly* better at fighting, Weiss learned a new skill and promptly got her butt kicked by focusing on it too much, Ruby supposedly learned hand-to-hand combat but really just did a headbutt, and RWBY SOMEHOW beat the most premiere team in Atlas after training with them for a few weeks. Sure, Toph, Katara, Azula, Aang, and Sokka are all ridiculous prodigies, but they’re established as such from the beginning. Katara still loses soundly to Pakku before he trains her. (Despite the memes about her kicking the ass of the patriarchy, he’s obviously going easy on her and still crushes her.) Aang gets beaten by Ozai without his OP special ability. Azula gets beaten easily the one time we see her go up against an adult (Iroh, on the ship in the beginning of book 2). And Toph is more like Pyrrha than anyone on Team RWBY. Honestly, this is one of my weaker points, but I still stand by the fact that the Avatar kids’ victories felt much more earned.

- Bad Fights--Yes, I know, heresy. I actually think the best of RWBY’s fights (RWBY vs. Torchwick’s mech, Ozpin vs. Cinder, Pyrrha vs. Cinder, RWBY vs. the Nevermore, Qrow vs. Tyrian) are somewhat more exciting, visually interesting, and (sometimes) emotionally charged than even the best of Avatar’s fights (Aang vs. Ozai, Zuko vs. Azula, Kya vs. Zaheer, Korra vs. Zaheer, Tenzin and his siblings vs. Red Lotus, Suyin vs. Kuvira). But my actual point is that RWBY’s bad fights are BAD, whereas I can’t even think of what the worst Avatar fights are. Sokka vs. Zuko in episode 1 was pretty bad, but that was more of a gag than a fight. Umm...Big Glowy Korra vs. Unavaatu was kinda cheesy, but I still liked it. Meelo fartbending vs. the Equalists? Idk. Meanwhile, RWBY has the Scuffle of Haven, that time Ilia seriously hurt Sun somehow, Qrow vs. Tyrian vs. Clover (visually impressive, but made NO FUCKING SENSE), Oscar landing a massively-telegraphed blow on Neo...well, okay. Maybe there weren’t that many awful fights. I still think I came away from more RWBY fights disappointed, but I can’t really argue my case very well.

- LGBT representation, normalized to the time period--Yes, Korrasami never got past handholding in the finale, but somehow Yang and Blake haven’t either? Even though it’s 2020? Actually, this is a symptom of a larger problem:

- Romantic relationships being ignored--Why won’t RWBY explicitly confirm anything? The RWBY cast are closer in age to the LoK cast than the ATLA cast, but it feels the other way around. Kataang was both heavily present in ATLA the whole time and by no means taking over the plot. And, okay, there was Jaune/Pyrrha, but she’s dead now, so the most-developed ship is Renora. Who held hands, then didn’t talk about their relationship at all for a full volume, and then had a nonconsensual kiss handled worse than the Kataang kiss in Ember Island Players. I’m glad there haven’t been any Romantic Plot Tumors in RWBY, but something would be nice. Or just don’t bring it up at all if you’re never going to develop the relationships.

- Sibling relationships--Yang and Ruby were great as sisters in the early volumes, but lately it’s just been Yang deciding to yoke herself to Ruby’s judgement, until suddenly she’s not anymore. I feel like they barely talked in Volume 7.

- Villains--If Salem wants to kill everyone and collect the Relics, why hasn’t she? She’s invincible! Ozai at least was still human, but he left to handle things himself as soon as he got a power-up. More vaguely, I just find Avatar’s villains more interesting than RWBY’s most of the time.

I’m aware that some/most of these are unfair. It’s more intended as an incoherent rambling to get my views out of my head than as any sort of persuasive argument.

[ravenhilarious]

some few random thoughts on “You vs. Yourself” (will contain spoilers and be in random order and generally very messy I barely got any sleep this night okay)

another song? nice

“but you’re gay” Patton literally can not imagine being in a m/f couple

they dancing!

Patton and Roman were surprisingly polite with each other

I mean Patton is almost always nice but Roman too? huh

why didn’t Logan show up in human form? that was a little weird imo

“I know you don’t care but I am alright” “I'll do you a favor and just leave” why would you drop lines like that it’s not true Logan we do care we all love you and the Thomas and the sides do too okay

Patton kinda looked like he was about to protest but he didn’t

Deceit as bowser turtle man from Mario? never knew I needed that

that guy who kept popping up in the moral dilemma scenario thingies

what’s his name again? Leslie something? idk

is he a real guy? I feel really stupid for not knowing, haha

should we start shipping him and Thomas? who knows

Deceit told us his name????? like, he was so secretive and vague in every previous video and really didn’t seem on planning to tell them anytime soon, like, wow

it will take some time for me to get used to that

but is he like a good guy now? like he used to embrace the Hollywood villain aesthetic but now he said he wasn’t an evil snake, but he still talked about pushing people down the stairs and that is kinda mean but idk

will he be more regular now? where will he stand then? even in this video he switched between Logan's and Patton’s spots, so um...

also, why the glove thing? why did he take off his glove? (and why only the right one?) I thought he was going to show us like some snake hand thingy, but okay

he only showed us his right hand tho, maybe the left one is scaly or smt

i see i’m not the only one who thought it was Janice, I had to go on Tumblr before realizing

and why did Roman have to laugh that much? in general, why was Roman suddenly so hostile towards him? he was the one who called Virgil out for being too close minded in SvS1 and all, what happened? 

no, but seriously, he’s doing the same to Janus that he used to do to Virgil, antagonizing him and refusing to consider that he might be good, he knows that was bad, so whyyyy?

and also “don’t try to flatter me!!!!” “I wasn’t going to?” or something like that, he’s probably ashamed of it having worked on him previously or something?

speaking of Roman, is he okay? he kinda just left before they solved anything, when they were still all arguing and such, like, what? I mean, most of the episodes end up with some sort of agreement or whatever, but he was still upset when he sank out

well, at least the others kind of figured it out? kind of? idk

“I thought I was your hero” I am not sure how to react to this but I probably should react very strongly because argh

I actually expected Remus to play a bigger role in this

I mean, there was one line comparing Roman to him, and that was also kind of what I expected, some sort of comparison between the two, but I had hoped it would be a bigger deal

we still haven’t seen Remus and Deceit/Janus interacting on screen! but does Janus dislike him? I kinda thought the dark sides got along... or maybe he just wanted to upset Roman? who knows

VIRGIL????? I mean, he’s been absent before, like in WDWGOOBITM, but he had just revealed some huge thing about himself in DWIT, and this episode was not even addressing it at all? not even in the end card or anything?

how will he react to the whole Deceit acceptance (kinda) thing? he has been so determined to keep him away from Thomas since like forever, so he likely won’t take it well... on the other hand, maybe he will start realizing the parallels to his own arc, the antagonizing from the others and the misunderstandings and eventually acceptance

MOCEIT MOCEIT MOCEIT I've always liked them but never as much as I do now like holy moly the end card was so cuuuuute

i have a lot of more thoughts but those were the ones so far

wow I just realized how much I have rambled about Patton and Janus in this but we really got some heavy development and such from them in this episode 

oh and one other thing: all the OG light sides’ names end with an N and all the current dark sides (or is Deceit still dark? I think he is but idk) end with an S and Virgil... doesn’t end with either? huh?

edit: RIP Roceit ;-( still kinda ship them, but they are not at a good point right now (but I also ship Prinxiety and they have been, uh, very mean to each other during season 1, so yeah, maybe everyone is just a little mean except Patton, of course :3 he loves everyone)

[bardofv0id]

Meat vs. Candy: Meat

Here’s the thing.

I’m hearing two main arguments online... a lot of people saying the epilogues are Terrible, for various reasons, and a few people saying they're Good, with a smaller but vocal subset of those people arguing that if you don’t like them then you’re obviously just expecting to be spoon-fed a fluff ending in which the Character You Like gets a wish-fulfillment storybook epilogue.

There are probably some people who are mad about not getting that. However, I think misrepresenting the range of anger various parts of the fandom are experiencing as being purely some kind of childish knee-jerk tantrum at not getting the toy they wanted is disingenuous, at best, and parallels some of the mistakes of the epilogues themselves.  Note that this in no way excuses or justifies people sending the writers or anyone else death-threats or whatever the hell else has been going on.

Honestly... the Meat ending was pretty good writing, in my opinion.  It wasn’t comfortable or happy or flattering in any way to a number of characters who I recognize people care deeply about, but it was nothing really worse than I expected from Earth C, based on the fundamental narrative of Lord English’s giant closed-loop system.  The loop had to close, in order for Homestuck proper to occur at all.  That means that Earth C is where Calliope and Caliborn hatch and grow up, far, far in the future. And that means that universe, like the others, will be destroyed by a SBURB session one day. Sorry, folks.  It was never meant to be a 'happy ending'.

Meat was deeply metatextual. It was gristly and greasy and discomfiting.  It raised questions about what it means to have a narrator, and whose biases are implicitly included--and I think those are very interesting questions to raise, whether or not they are particularly satisfying to someone who is also reading for the characters.

Spoilers beyond the read-more, for obvious reasons.

That said, there were elements that did surprise me.  The removal of the other kids from different points in different doomed timelines, to fight with John against LE, rather than being his teammates from Earth C--but from John’s perspective, it doesn’t seem like there’s much difference.  Either way, they’re not fully ‘real’ to him (and barely feel real to us, as quickly as they appear and then die). He’s from the Game Over timeline, he’s battling depression, and nobody in the retcon timeline is really quite authentic to him, either--just as to many fans, they didn’t feel quite authentic, when the retcon happened and we had to suddenly let go of the characters we'd watched grow and change, replaced by funhouse mirror reflections and could-have-beens.

I’ve also seen some reasonably interesting arguments that a lot of Dirk’s narration, in the Meat route, either sounds eerily like Vriska talking or flips back and forth between Vriska-mode and Dirk-mode, well before alt!Calliope ever gets involved.  I’m prepared to believe some Serket element (whether that is potentially Vriska, or the Aranea who was abruptly displaced from her attempt at wresting control of the narrative by John) was involved there, and Dirk was not acting entirely of his own accord.  I’m also prepared to shrug and say “okay, maybe it was just a narrative parallel--Homestuck does that a lot”.  Some narration, especially when Terezi is involved, doesn't sound at all how I would expect a Serket-influenced narrator to sound with regards to her, in particular.  It doesn’t particularly grind my gears to think some version of Dirk, in the right environment, might make a series of choices that leads him to behaving like this, entirely on his own.  I recognize that it’s upsetting to DirkJake fans in particular to see their favorite pairing written like this, but it doesn’t feel wholly out of character to me for either of them to develop in these directions, given the right (or wrong) pressures and external situations. This Dirk is the culmination of a very wide multiplicity of Dirks, including at least one if not more who ended up directly subsumed in Lord English and/or under his explicit influence.

I’ve heard that some people were attacking the Meat route on the grounds of transphobia, which... I think is a rather weak argument, given that it’s recognized in the text itself, as pronoun changes are handled respectfully by one narrator-character and inconsistently by a second, who is being set up as the villain of the story. That seems like a pretty solid metatextual rejection of the action, no?  Like, if a villain does a bad thing, in a story, while the hero is fighting them, do you argue that the story itself advocates for that thing? There has to be some kind of distinction between ‘character does X’ and ‘author of story advocates X is Morally Correct’, or we would never have any villains at all. Dirk's dismissiveness toward Roxy's agency grows, the further toward 'villain' he slides.

Were there some things I liked, in Meat?  I guess.  From a sociopolitical and cultural standpoint, the shitty repercussions of the way the retcon gang set up a planet, dumped a bunch of chess people and clone grubs, then left them to do all the work of creating its society and waiting for their eventual 'godly' return... were pretty logical. I'm actually happy that it was acknowledged, instead of just brushed off as inconsequential.  It was interesting, too, to see some of the kids playing with notions of gender identity as they grew, and how their companions adjusted. It was telling (in terms of Dirk's character development) how he thought of Roxy and Calliope's gender explorations as something he could choose to 'allow' or not. Also, with how truncated most of the gang's personal development (and plot development) was in Homestuck proper ('thanks', retcon!Vriska), I think it kinda made sense how stunted and incapable of like... dealing with regular life in a functional way a lot of them seemed. Jumping straight to teenage 'godhood' didn't make them experienced or smart. It's sad that all of them just kind of... stagnate there, but Earth C has always felt incredibly stagnant to me.

Retcon!Vriska getting swallowed by the black hole was at least thematically fitting, though I'm wondering why she is using such Seer-themed language, suddenly. I also like that the wallet is finally back in play. Rose and Dirk's philosophical debate about individuation and free will is delightfully creepy, given the themes of the story. There are moments, within the story, that the turns of phrase and the humor just hit me full in the teeth and remind me this is Homestuck, and I do love those moments.  And of course, my xenobiological worldbuilding interests enjoyed that apparently, earth onions are quite toxic to trolls.

Were there things I didn’t like in Meat?  Yeah, of course. I don't particularly like that John, an Heir of Breath--one who is innately positioned to awaken Breath, freedom and motivation in the people around him--callously shoves an unresisting teenager he's barely met into a refrigerator and just leaves him there, apparently convinced he deserves it.

Did some of the things I disliked relate to the storytelling itself, rather than just how characters were characterized, or what actions they took?  Yeah. Why are we still out here queer-baiting with Dave and Karkat?  Years have passed.  They have spent literal years sitting 1.5 feet apart so it's 'not gay'? I sincerely don't think this pairing is actually healthy or beneficial to either of them, the way it developed in canon, but come on. Then, they still balk and drag their feet unless it's being narratively pushed on them by someone else. It's just painful to watch.

I also take a certain level of personal offense as a Tavros fan when the narrative goes out of its way to repeatedly harp on Tavros being useless and no one giving a shit what he's doing.  Ghost Tavros was awesome, okay, and was personally responsible for gathering the ghost army, so fuck you, Vriska-coded narrator. You have bad judgment. But that is not a crime of writing, if it is an intentionally biased perspective and not just writers taking cheap shots at a character they don't happen to like. I'm just incredibly tired of it being done habitually and collectively, as a fandom, to that character in particular. Furthermore, I'm really discomfited by the way Tavros's development (am I the only one who remembers him dancing and telling Vriska to suck it?) is completely ignored and de-legitimized by having him immediately fawning on her, trailing around after her, hiding against her shoulder, etc.  Tavros was a victim of emotional and physical abuse, at Vriska's hands.  Can we just agree to stop narratively forcing victims back into contact with their abusers, period? It's not a good look.

Moreover, there's the whole misogyny angle.  When does a story about misogynistic characters (and narrators) doing misogynistic things while misogynistic shit narratively happens start being a critique of misogynistic tropes rather than a tired old rehash?  Every step Jane (allegedly a strong, independent woman, though also stepping into her dictatorial role as 'Heiress') takes is either dictated by Dirk, sent into a complete tailspin that upends her confidence by Jake, or verbally decried as factually wrong and/or stupid by Dave and/or Karkat.  Rose and Kanaya both have their agency overwritten and end up separated from each other through the actions of Dirk, and Rose becomes an extension of Dirk, losing her very selfhood.  Jade is treated as an accessory to the DaveKat trainwreck, simultaneously discounted as actually emotionally relevant and blamed for its ludicrous problems.  She, of course, also ends up having her agency overwritten as she's plunged into a coma and possessed, prevented from actually having reactions to the things that are going on, or taking action for herself. Borrowed!Rose and Jade are KO'd almost instantly in the fight against Lord English, and become either literally erased, or dead weight for a male character to drag around until it's no longer convenient. Terezi admits to wasting a huge amount of time trailing around after Vriska--who was an emotionally abusive gaslighter to her, on the retcon!meteor. (And we're back to victims being constantly evaluated according to their proximity to their abusers again.) Then, she's on to redirecting herself into some quest on John's behalf, instead. She's still not living for herself. Finally, you show me an Aradia who would ever, ever be concerned about 'saying more embarrassing stuff' around Dave, or thinking of him as an ‘outrageously cool dude’, and I'll show you a bridge I'd like to sell you.  That ain't any Aradia I've ever seen. So who’s narrating there, Dirk again? A third party?

Other weird things: apparently Jane's kidnapping in the snapchats just... never gets explained or referenced again? I went back to reread those, and they connected to Meat even more than I realized at first.   I guess Jane grew up to be... exactly what she was raised/groomed to be, which is *uncomfortable* but not particularly shocking.  I feel bad for people who were hoping for happier endings for the human kids, but I don't think I ever really expected Homestuck to serve up happy endings.  I don't buy that things in the snapchat were just thrown in at random, though.  Those elements were there for a reason, and arguing that everything in the snapchats were connected to the epilogues EXCEPT that one major extended plotline doesn't make sense.  Especially when it visually and narratively seems to be a direct link to the events of the Meat storyline. 

Also, where the fuck are the sprites?  We never see or hear from Jasprosesprite, Gcatavrosprite, or the Nannasprite(s?) again. I’m not sure anyone cares, but. Uh. Yeah.

I have other thoughts regarding the classpect-coded language that crops up pretty frequently in the epilogues, but I think I will devote a separate post to that, if I get around to it, given that this *is* at heart a classpecting blog.

So anyway, Meat ends, it's depressing and futile and grim, I get it. I don't like every element, but it hangs together as a story with a narrative, overall.

Then we get to Candy.

Hoo boy.

I’ll tackle that one next, but as it was considerably more upsetting for me to read, rereading it for fact-checks and commentary is going to be a lot harder for me.  I’ll get through it here sooner or later, though.

[jadekitty777]

Are you waiting to be asked about Team STRQ? I'll bite. Team STRQ for the character ask meme.

You know it! Although I’mhaving a lot of fun with all of them.

Unsurprisingly doing four of my top favorites all at oncegot long, so I’m putting it under a read more.

Taiyang Xiao Long(YEAH BABY THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT!)

·        Favorite thingabout them: Everything. Alright,alright – anyone who has spent five seconds with me knows he’s my ultimatefavorite, I’ll try not to be TOO biased. I think what I like the most about Taiis that, while he has a bit of a fiery nature to him, overall, he seems like sucha gentle soul. He’s not afraid to be a little cheesy when it comes to praisinghis girls. He loves doting on them if the opportunity arrives (breakfast in bedfor Ruby, anyone?). He’s also not afraid to push them, yet still tries to be kindin his methods.

·        Least favoritething about them: To be honest, while it’s absolutely understandable and realisticto how many parents do act in these situations, I wish Tai had been moreforthcoming about Raven when it came to talking to Yang about her (granted ifhe was, it would certainly lessen the impact of Yang’s own character arc, but Idigress). Keeping her completely in the dark is part of what leads his eldestinto her obsession with knowing more.

When the conversation finallydoes happen, I do like that Tai does his best to not badmouth Raven, which willallow for Yang to make her own decisions on what she thinks of Raven as aperson when she ultimately finds her – as he knows she will.

·        Favorite line: Oooh Taiyang’skind of a walking Chinese proverb, so it’s a little hard to pick. I’m going togo with: “You’re right, it’s not coming back… but that doesn’t have to stop youfrom becoming who you want to be.” The message basically comes down to ‘don’tlet it be you who holds yourself back’. I’m sure all of us have faced being ourown worst enemies at times, wherein we never even try because we’re too focusedon saying “I can’t”.

Honorable shout-out to RWBY chibiand “I make a home for this family, that’s what I do all day! And it wouldn’tkill you to show a little APPRECIATION”.

·        brOTP: No one gasps insurprise when I tell you it is Qrow. When it comes to actual canon, I like tothink these two are best friends that are as close as brothers in everythingexcept blood. They’ll always be there for each other when the worst of timeshits (Emotion-numbing depression vs. Blackout Binge Drinking).

…They’ll also pants one anotherin the middle of broad daylight for a cheap laugh (Cargo shorts really are easyto get down. One of these days, Tai might just go commando just so he cantraumatize Qrow once and for all).

…And argue over stupid shit likewhose turn it was to do the dishes (Hint: It’s always Qrow’s turn).

…And do irritating shit justbecause they know it annoys the other (Qrow has a really obnoxious singingvoice, so he makes sure to sing EXTRA loud when he knows Tai’s trying to gradepapers).

And yes, Qrow is absolutely theyounger brother.

-On a smaller, but no lessimportant note, I absolutely believe Taiyang had close friendships with Summerand Raven as well.

·        OTP: As with all myfavorites, I will multi-ship the hell out of Tai, especially any that can fallunder the friends-to-lovers requirement.

Absolute top OTP will always beTaiqrow (A true shocker, I’m sure). The biggest drive I have for these two hasalways been the amount of emotional support available between them. There’s somuch potential simply on the lengths Qrow may have had to go through helpingout at the house after Summer’s passing or Tai’s rigorous efforts to try andpull Qrow away from his drinking habits. They’re also just… really sexytogether. Like hot damn.

I do remain rather fond of bothof Tai’s canon ships too though. Oh yeah and I will also polyship the hell outof Tai and you will have to tear STR-Crossed out of my cold, dead hands.

I’m also happy to throw him inthe ring with James and really enjoyed my little writing session withJames/Qrow/Tai.

·        nOTP: Other thananything that puts him with one of his children, nothing that tends to botherme too much? Even Ozpin/Taiyang, while a little out of nowhere, is still prettysexy to read.

·        Randomheadcanon: *Holds up 20* Which one do you want?

-Contrary topopular belief, it’s actually Tai thatRuby and Yang get their daredevil behavior from. Though he’s mellowed out overthe years and as he’s gained wisdom, when he was the girls’ age he could bejust as reckless. Many times, that had gotten him into trouble and, not wantingthe girls to make the same mistakes, tries to ward them from the same flaw hehimself had. (He’s secretly a little proud about it too).

-The sunflowers are either torepresent Summer Rose or they were originally tended to by her and Taicontinues caring for them to keep the memory of her alive. He always cuts freshflowers for the girls whenever they’re sick or hurt, so that their mother canwatch over them.

-Taiyang is either estranged fromhis family or lost it at a young age. He spent most of his childhood inisolation or feeling like he didn’t belong anywhere. When he became apart ofteam STRQ, he finally felt like he’d found a new family and it was one he neverwanted to give up – that was why losing Raven and Summer eventually crushed himand led to his mental breakdown.

-True to his name, Tai fucking loves dragons and if he ever gets luckyenough to see the Gods’ true forms, he’s going to flip out.

·        Unpopularopinion: So maybe it’s just the generation I grew up in, but the ‘joke’Tai gives Yang about her arm? Yeahthat one didn’t even hit on my Richter scale as bad. These kinds of ‘off-color’jokes were pretty common place when I was a kid. I think it goes back to what Isaid about the Sun and ‘stalking’ thing. Intent is extremely important, and Taimeant nothing by it… except to make his daughter laugh.

Could it have backfired? Oh yeah,and he would have probably tripped over himself to apologize. But that wasn’twhat happened – nor was it what the writers’ intended to make that happen.  Otherwise, they would have led Yang’sresponse in another direction or gave the animation team a specific expressioncue to work in.

·        Song Iassociate with them: Going to continue picking random songs, because this isdefinitely not my strong suit. I probably went through all my playlists, but I’mgoing with Chris Daughtry’s “It’s Not Over”. If you read the verses as stages ofTai’s life with those important in it, it lines up fairly perfectly.

-The first twoversus are for Raven and their failed love (“You’ve taken away everything/And Ican’t do without, I try to see the good in life… This love is killing me”)

-Then the next two verses are forSummer and the loss of her (“I cannot wait/We’re wasting too much time… My lifewith you means everything/So I won’t give up that easily”)

-Finally the last verses are forQrow’s losing battle against his alcoholism and depression (“We can’t let thisget away/Let it out/Don’t get caught up in yourself”) and Tai’s own resolve to getback up and start again for his girls (“It’s not over, let’s start over!”)

·        Favoritepicture of them:

Never been so attracted to a picturebefore.

Summer Rose

(Our dearestflower, born white and bled red in her final hour)

·        Favorite thingabout them: For now, simply that it’s implied she was both a kickasshuntress and an incredible mom. Now, if only we could SEE that in action.

·        Least favoritething about them: Well. Being dead’s kind of a drag,ain’t it? I feel my least favorite thing about her is the same thing we’re allkind of feeling at this point – that we know virtually nothing about her.  I washoping she’d be brought up when the whole ‘Silver-eyed’ thing got addressed –BUT NO. I’M STILL STARVING RT, GIVE ME SOME CONTENT PLEASE.

·        Favorite line: *Saves thisspace for when we get any*

·        brOTP: I particularlyenjoy the dynamic Summer and Raven may have had. Like Qrow and Tai, I often seethe girls growing close during their years at Beacon, the two eventuallydeveloping a mutual respect for one another that turns into friendship. Theyboth start to realize just how much they care about each other when Raveninadvertently makes a portal to Summer to save her life. Summer is secretlyhappy whenever she manages to get Raven to confide secrets to her – one ofwhich was her growing feelings for Taiyang.

·        OTP: Speaking of Tai,of course I rather enjoy that Summer and he had fallen in love. Just like with Taiqrow,the emotional support factor really drives this one in deep for me. I know thisone gets a lot of flack as a ‘rebound’ on Tai’s part (And equally should getflack on Summer for being a ‘Hero’s complex’, since she’s literally swooping into ‘fix’ what Raven broke), but I personally feel like their love was genuine, simplybecause of how significant an impact losing her had on Taiyang. Just because ithappened quickly after one loss does not immediately discredit it from beingtrue and powerful.

·        nOTP: Absolutely herand Qrow. And yes, I know someone is going to call me out for this one because ‘I’vewritten it before’ – AND YES, I KNOW. It’s not that I don’t see the potential inthe ship because I absolutely do. It’s that I’ve come across it just one timetoo many that to put them together, it’s often done at the expense of villainizingTai, Raven, or both, which has soured my ability to enjoy it – one person inparticular does this so well that seeing her work actually turns my stomach. Ialso really think it weakens in-canon Qrow as a character, since I can’t fathomhim lying about being Ruby’s dad and most arguments that try to explain why hewould feel flimsy at best. Also, just, this: “Don’t lie to him Ruby, we’rebetter than that.”

(I will however accept PolyQrow/Summer/Tai in which neither of them know who impregnated Summer and Qrowjust goes by uncle because it was easier for the kids to understand).

·        Randomheadcanon: -Summer Rose was first attempted to be killed by then lateractually killed by Marcus Black. The first encounter I see happening sometimein her school years, in which on a mission he comes after her. Taiyang has tointervene, maybe at the cost of his own semblance, and eventually they’re both savedby Raven and Qrow who portal to them just before either are killed. In thesecond, Summer is alone and is being hunted down both by Marcus and his wife.Though she calls Qrow for back-up, he never gets there in time. In the last fewminutes, she manages to kill Marcus’ wife, but is in turn killed by him. I particularlylike this because this would make Qrow and Marcus foils, both who startdrinking heavily from loss but have different responses to those around them.

-HAVE I EVERTOLD Y’ALL ABOUT MY EVIL SUMMER IDEA? I have said it once and I will say it again:black magic and curses are criminally unused in this fairytale inspired show.The idea that Summer was ‘brought back to life’ by Salem to use for her ownpurposes is deliciously fun – or, seeing as we don’t know what it can do yet,being brought back by the relic of creation. In ether scenario, it brings backthe body but not the heart. Her reveal would be devastating to _TRQ, especiallyif they are forced to fight her. If they did I see the scenario going inmultiple directions –

A. In a team fight: Either theyare all killed by her or they kill her

B. In single fights:

+Raven is killed by Summer or theykill each other. I see Summer giving out a lot of passive-aggressive quips overRaven running off and maybe even goads her about her powers and her fears.

+For Qrow, I never see him dyingto her in a one-on-one fight. Getting heavily injured, yes, but never dying. Ido see them being fairly evenly matched, actually. And maybe even Summergetting super offended if he uses his scythe on her.

+Tai fights her, but spends themajority of the battle on the defensive, trying to remind her of who she reallyis. Just as he’s got her hesitating, another villain either injures him orstrikes him down.

That’s not even touching on whatit would mean for Ruby and Yang to encounter her.

·        Unpopularopinion: While I do think she probablyhad a habit of being socially withdrawn, I really don’t see Summer as painfullyshy-mannered as some of the fandom portray her as – at least not to a debilitatingextent. I don’t think it’s a bad character trait for her, per say, and it worksin some contexts especially when it’s balanced well. It’s just hard to see hermanaging to survive as team leader with such a submissive personality traitwithout the twins or Tai completely eclipsing her.

·        Song Iassociate with them: Mostly because I once envisioned an entire fight scene leadingto her death to this song, I’m going to go with “Heroes” by Zayde Wolf.Surprisingly though, it fits fairly well. Being a ‘hero in the darkest of times’really does exemplify what a huntress is and what Summer herself is meant torepresent.

·        Favoritepicture of them: *Saves this space because she stubbornly refuses to put up theteam STRQ photo we’ve all seen ten thousand times*

Raven Branwen

(The sexiestpsychobitch you ever will meet)

·        Favorite thingabout them: Her character potential. With the end of volume 5, it feels likeshe’s been left at a crossroads, in which she can choose to continue to lookout for herself like the coward she’s been, or choose to attempt to redeemherself when her daughter gets into trouble again. The fact that we haven’t quiteseen the result of her visit to Tai (or if it ended up being a visit at all)tells me the team is holding back on that decision for now; but, I have absolutelyno doubts that we will be seeing her again.

·        Least favoritething about them: Can anyone say manipulative bitch bordering on total sociopath? Thatfirst conversation Raven has with Yang made me jerk back a bit and go ‘Whoa,crazy alert’. It’s definitely a trait that is um… a little hard to like. It hasmassive amounts of writing potential though.

·        Favorite line: “Two childrenyou’ve tricked into following you, a disgraced Atleasian scientist, and a FallMaiden with a surname so appropriate, she probably picked it herself. Thatabout right?” Vol 5. Chapter 9 gets a lot of flack for not being veryinteresting, but I could not get enough of Raven’s snark throughout theconversation.

·        brOTP: How about withher literal brother? I’m a total sucker for inseparable twins and I’ve alwaysliked the idea that, growing up, the two of them were extremely close. Raven’sa teeter-totter of opposites for me, so I can also see that relationship goingin the exact other direction – BUT FOR NOW…

·        OTP: Speaking of teeter-totters,how about that relationship with Tai, huh? Was it toxic as hell or did they trulylove each other and just had an awful falling out, wherein the bitterness wouldsettle in much later on? Who knows! I don’t! But I love exploring both anglesto their fullest extent. I’ll also drive the pain all the way in: If Taiyangends up dying in canon, the break of their bond is powerful enough it causesRaven to cry.

In AUs, I ship the hell out ofSummer and Raven. In-canon, I’ll always go the STR-Crossed route in which allthree of them are just hopelessly in love with one another and in which Ravenpretends she doesn’t regret leaving them behind.

·        nOTP: Honestly, beyondthe obvious incest ships (like with her daughter, wtf?), there’s not really anyships with Raven that make me squelch. Even a crackship like Cinder/Raven hasthis weird, sexy angle to it.

·        Randomheadcanon: -Like everyone else, Raven used to have a copy of the team STRQphoto. Much like her brother, she kept it on her, even after she left. But shortlyafter Summer died, she burned the photo in the camp’s firepit, cutting off herfinal ties to them.

-Qrow and Ravenwere never sent to Beacon to ‘become huntsman and return with their skills’. Itwas what they were told but they were sent there because the leader at the timehoped they’d die in the process – in Raven’s case, to eliminate her dangerouslyambitious nature. Qrow always knew this was the real reason, but Raven didn’t acceptthis until much later. Upon her return to the tribe, she eventually confrontedand ultimately killed the former leader for that act.

-Though it relies on help fromone of her teammates, Raven can cut things in half with her portals if shecloses it when it’s only halfway through, and has done so on multiple occasionsto cut right through Grimm.

-Raven is either going to die acoward… or a hero.

·        Unpopularopinion: I don’t really think Raven left because she got pregnant; ifRaven was so intent on abandoning her, I don’t feel like the show would tell usthat she visits her daughter enough that Yang is able to recognize her birdform. I think it’s an interesting angle, but I think her fear of Salem is thegenuine reason she left but she only really knew one other home: The Tribe. Herdecision to leave Yang behind either was forced from her by the rest of her teamor was her own choice at the time, knowing her daughter would be more at risk ifshe came along.

·        Song Iassociate with them: Alright, I scoured around for a bit for this one. I’m going tosettle on “Heaven’s a Lie” by Lacuna Coil. Though there’s not much to actually workwith, it rather matches well with how she feels she was given false promises byOzpin (“Destiny of a lie/Set me free, your heaven’s a lie”) and how sheultimately left her team behind and returned a life of corruption (“I need toknow when I’ll fall into decay… I need to know why did I choose to betray you?Something wrong with all the plans of my life”)  

·        Favoritepicture of them:

God damn she’s hot when she’sabout to wreck people’s shit.

Qrow Branwen

(The man whowas Emo before it was cool)

·        Favorite thingabout them: There’s a lot to love, from his dashing good looks to hisendless sass, but I especially like his emotional vulnerability. I think it’s thesadist in me, but I get endless amounts of joy from him letting down his wallsand being more open: talking about his semblance, panicking whenever Ruby is indanger, his fury and sorrow over Ozpin’s half-truths – yeah, I live for thisshit. If he cries in the show, it will almost definitely become my new favoritemoment.

·        Least favoritething about them: So, fun fact: I hatedQrow at first and simply because of this fact -he’s a drunk. Now, this is superpersonal, but I grew up with addiction in my family, so characters like Qrowalmost never make it high up on my list, if they make it on at all. It’ll alwaysremain my least favorite thing about him, but I do like how the show isexploring the issue and, in fact, have enjoyed exploring it myself in mywriting. It’s therapeutic.

·        Favorite line: As far as linedelivery goes, got to give it to “Look, this has nothing to do with trust. I- …It’s a long story, okay?” The amount of emotion put into those simple words is frankly,just beautiful. Got to also give proper appreciation to “I DID IT!” and “Well…that’s unfortunate.”

I’ll always be most fond of “Youtwo? You’re gonna go far. But only if you keep learning. If you never stopmoving forward.” Not only as it’s a homage to Monty, but it really shows Qrow’skinder, more loving side when it comes to his nieces.

·        brOTP: So whileshipping them is generally off the table, Summer and Qrow being best friends isalways my jam. I can see these two having little drinking sessions together or gettingcompetitive over two-player video games. Perhaps they even geeked out togetherwhen they both realized they loved the tale of the Grimm Reaper. I also stronglybelieve that it was Qrow who encouraged Summer to admit her feelings to Tai, advisingher that to wait could mean to lose her chance entirely. And then, when sheactually did, teased her endlesslyabout it.

·        OTP: Can I just fillout a second paragraph about how much I love Taiqrow? Because, I really love Taiqrow.I can see it happening entirely on accident. One night, Taiyang and Qrow aresaying good night and, without thinking, Taiyang just dips down and gives him akiss. He freaks out, not because of the action insomuch that he was afraid hejust ruined their friendship until Qrow just rolls his eyes and drags him infor another one.

On a side note, I’m really startingto get a soft spot for OzQrow and I blame the rest of the fandom for this. Ironic,that I ship them now that Ozpin has technically died and it’s TOO LATE.

As for James/Qrow, I see thehighlights of it, and in small measures like it myself, but it’s not very highup on my list.

Winter and Qrow is a total guiltypleasure ship and I’m not sorry.

·        nOTP: Again, beyondthe obvious choices? Eh, I’ve noticed Tyrian/Qrow is gaining some traction and,while it definitely doesn’t give me the heebie-jeebies some ships do, that oneis definitely not my cup of tea.

·        Randomheadcanon: -Qrow likes to bestow nicknames to people he likes, as nicknamesare terms of endearment to him. For people like James or Oz, who are Jimmy andWizard respectively, he uses them sparingly; whereas, for family, he tends touse them much more frequently. Especially with his nieces. They often can tell whenhe’s being serious or when they are in trouble if he starts using their actual names.When he was a teacher, almost all of his students got nicknames, since he wasterrible at remembering them by their actual names.

-Qrow’ssemblance caused him to be sent to Ozpin’s office. A lot. It gave everyone,except for the very few who actually knew what his semblance was, theimpression that he was nothing but a troublemaker.  Eventually, Qrow started paying Glynda on theside to use her own semblance to fix whatever his would break.

-Qrow’s drinking actually startedin school. He’s generally a happy, reckless drunk, and people tended to likehis company more and, craving both that feeling and the attention, he continuedto seek out social events for an excuse to drink. When he was young, he wasalso extremely choosey on the brew he would have, as a bad mixture often hadthe effect of making his mood plummet instead. As he grew more dependent on thealcohol, he stopped caring as much.

-Qrow isabsolutely bisexual and no one can convince me otherwise.

·        Unpopularopinion: I really don’t think Qrow sleeps around as much as the generalfandom believes he does. I get why the archetype is there, especially with how flirtatioushe can be, but with how insecure Qrow actually is, I feel like he’d actually bepretty hesitant when it comes to getting intimate, especially with strangers. Accidentalpregnancies, anyone?

·        Song Iassociate with them: Okay this one was actually an easy choice: “Breaking the Habit”by Linkin Park. It really highlights the current struggle Qrow’s going throughin this volume (not knowing what is worth fighting for) while it also can relateback to his addiction and self-worth/depression issues (Not feeling all rightand hurting a lot more than ever before).

·        Favoritepicture of them:

Just your resident bird man, looking badass as shit.

[bam-monsterhospital]

some house thoughts

tw: harry potter talk.

because fuck harry potter and extra eXTRA fuck rowling

my sister and i have been thinking about this for over a decade, so i thought i’d finally jot down our changes to the houses of hogwarts.

the houses originally started off with the characteristics of “hero protagonists”, “evil mcevil nazi-flavoured villains”, “smurts i guess”, and “uh... bystanders, whatever”... because rowling is a hack.  with the franchise going into exponential expansion mode, the need for actually giving all the houses some sort of characterization outside of ‘the ones rowling cares about, the bad ones, and the ones she doesn’t care about’.  Eventually we got a skeleton of>

royal lion colours house = ‘bravery’

evil mcsnake green-is-the-colour-of-evil house = “ambitious”

cawcaw birdhouse = “... still smurts”

and yellow-and-black couldn’t-even-bother-giving-them-their-own-unique-colour house = “uhh.... friendship i guess, whatever. loyalty? enh.”

it’s bullshit. and lazy. and dumb.  so here’s what kait and i came up with (and no this isn’t an attempt to fix anything, there’s no fixing this, nor should anyone fix anything touched by the actually evil mc-horrible rowling. this is... ‘hey look what we thought up. look how easy it is to make shit interesting and still work’.  this is what we would have done, but also fuck hogwarts and harry potter, because we wouldn’t have created this mess in the first place). (under the readmore. it’s a looooooooooong one)

So let’s start with slytherin. Green is my favourite colour and I like snakes, so we’re getting through this one first.

Slytherin, when it was given any sort of association outside of ‘eviiillllll’, was associated with ambition.  So I focused on that and realized that there’s a greater connection between gryffindor and slytherin than hero vs villain. Slytherin and gryffindor are two sides of the exact same coin; they are both unstoppable stubborn forces of ‘get shit done’.  Slytherin is goals-focused, and will use any and all tools available to them to reach those goals.  What may be considered ‘good’ and ‘bad’ does not matter, instead Slytherin concerns itself with what needs to be done, and does it.  Cunning and manipulative, slytherin thinks and plots around a problem, doing whatever works and suits their interests best. Obviously a lot of this paints Slytherin as selfish and self-motivated, which is pretty much spot-on.  But valuing yourself doesn’t automatically make an evil shithead.  Sure you have the types in slytherin who stomp on all who get in their way and even sacrifice anyone they may have been close to just to get the slightest bit ahead.  But on the other hand, you also get those who keep track of the wellbeing of those they care about, and will sabotage and steer away anything that might harm the ones they love.  The self-focus means slytherins would have standards and boundaries, and be able to easily spot when someone else is taking advantage.

next we have lion rawr house. Gryffindor is the other side of the coin Slytherin’s on.  It’s the heads to slytherin’s tails (yes and take the associations and implications with that).  No this doesn’t mean it’s the good to slytherin’s bad, did you even read the snake section?  Gryffindor, like the snakies, is a stubborn fuck. Like, homg.  These two stupid houses and their determination, jeebus. Arguing with a slytherin means they just upended your own argument and saw holes in it or straight up walked past you; gryffindor is shouting at you, nu-uhing til the sun sets looooong after youv’e given up.  Unlike slytherin, gryffindor is less concerned with ‘needs’ & goals, and more concerned with what it deems as right or wrong.  Yes, what it deems.  What each individual lion person values and sees in their own distinct ethical code.  Does this mean gryffindor fights for justice and what’s right? Fuck no.  Gryffindor is motivated by how it thinks things ‘should’ be.  Lionhouse charges in like an explosion, giving the finger to consequences, and doing what it’s gonna do.  Brave? sure... but that word is a little too loaded in the ‘heroic’ direction for my tastes, and I’d prefer something more neutral (see colourful description in the previous sentence). Think leeroy jenkins.  Headstrong, prefering the direct approach, and would brute force life if they could get away with it. So, this can come in many flavours of person, like Slytherin above. On the one end you get your nevilles, who stubbornly stand for what they believe in when push comes to shove, despite being terrified.  You can also get all sorts of good or bad people who can be: foolhardy, refuse to change their minds, push their beliefs onto others without consent, ignore information that goes against their points, etc etc etc.  Anyone can be an asshole, house shouldn’t determine that, and gryffindor has a lot of characteristics when combined that can very often lead to assholery.

okay, next up is the badgers because i’m tired of it being last in everything. Hufflepuff. hufflepuff. yellow and black. gold and black. when gryffindor also has gold, and black is like...... not even presented as their main colour. Hufflepuffs got fucked over is what i’m trying to say.  Eternally the ‘uh... just stick anyone else in there’ house, let’s start with the bits and pieces cobbled together over the years for our groundwork: loyal, hard-working, friendship-minded.  And already there’s a lot we can do here. Hufflepuff serves as a bit of a polar opposite to Slytherin.  Where the snakies are self-focused and motivated, Hufflepuff’s focus is on community.  This can take many forms, obviously, and can range from society at large and human beings across the globe, to those close friends and connections they’ve surrounded themselves with.  Hufflepuff puts the needs of the group before the needs of the individual (and before you say anything, no that doesn’t make hufflepuff automatic angels. we’ll get to that later).  Hufflepuffs realize the intrinsic necessity in every human being for social interaction and interdependence; without the group there is no individual.  No person is an island, no one is exempt and completely cut off from depending on other human beings.  This is a fact, but also the core of hufflepuff’s motivations and how it works.  Loyalty would obviously be a very valued trait, because a lack of it sets you off and apart from the group, and shows how little you value it.  Hufflepuff takes ‘friendship is magic’ and weaponizes it; cliques, clubs, found family, elaborate social webs, on and on and on. You don’t have to be a social butterfly or even charismatic to be a hufflepuff, you just have to understand and utilize the strength that numbers bring.  Hufflepuffs use ‘hard work’ to solve problems, and they would also be encouraged to be aware of individual strenghs and weaknesses so as to know when and where to ask for help.  I can see a hufflepuff as that person in your friend group who’s like ‘ah no worries, i know a guy’ and dials up their number any time you run into ANY wacky bizarre problem.  Nat, from bob’s burgers is a good example of a hufflepuff.  Scott Summers/cyclops from xmen is also a good example of a hufflepuff.  Someone who is group-focused, someone who works hard and/or values hard work, someone who sees the value of strong bonds between other human beings. I feel like i was repeating myself a little there so let’s just move on to brainstorming more kinds of badger babies. Okay, so obviously you can have your snobby elitist groups, you can have hufflepuffs who are so hung up on the importance of whatever group they value (again, as broad as ‘society’ to as small as ‘me and my cat’ and anything in between) that they put it before everything else.  You can have self-destructive hufflepuffs who want the best for those around them and put all their energy into that without devoting any to themselves.  You can have those who use their mega powers of networking to completely ruin others. And on and on and on.

finally the borbs. hoo boy the borbs. Ravenclaw is not the ‘smart’ house. let’s get that out of the way first and foremost.  Intelligence is such a loaded word to use for a house; there are so many ways in which ‘intelligence’ can be interpreted and manifests, there are so many was to be ‘intelligent’, and it’s sooooooooo boooooooring to make a house devoted to limited academic rote-memorization ‘booksmarts’.  No.  Where slytherin (yes i’m using them as a vector for comparison AGAIN, shhhh) sees the value of knowledge for the sake of furthering their goals, Ravenclaw’s relationship with information is knowledge for the sake of knowledge.  Ravenclaw is the add/adhd kid in the class who didn’t do their assigned homework and instead spent the night making a diorama about how cool it is that plants technically can be self-sustaining.  Ravenclaw isn’t the stereotypical mathamatics-wiz, it’s the class of kids who keep asking questions about random bullshit to the substitute teacher not just because they want to run the clock, but also because they genuinely want to know about the paradoxes of time travel, and what really happens when your tongue gets stuck to a cold post.  What i’m saying is ravenclaw is a disaster.  A disaster-house. And it’s great.  Because because there’s so many kinds of intelligence, i can see ravenclaw hosting mostly kids with hyperfixations.  Of course you can have hyperfixations in other houses, of course, but because ravenclaw prides itself on being the ‘smurtz’ house and nothing else (thanks rowling), this is how that would really work.  So, because intelligence isn’t a singular quantifiable trait, you’d get ravenclaws who are good and invested in all sorts of stuff.  Sure you can get your stereotypical math-related wizes, but you’d also get good word-smiths, logic-puzzle afficionados, walking encyclopedias, specialized infodumpers, and so on.  I think Ravenclaw as a house would want to encourage this: encourage curiosity and passion and try and push students to find out more, to seek out answers to any questions they have.  All sorts of puzzles and the ability to think around and outside the box would be a mainstay of ravenclaw-existence.  And teaching classes of ravenclaws would be a messy disorganized nightmare; because no matter how on-track you start off, expect to end your lesson talking about something completely different that has nothing to do with anything. Good & Bad ravenclaws? I’m sure you can come up with your own here, it’s not that difficult.  Unfortunately because birb-house has just one like monolithic singular isolated trait, it’s pretty hard to go hog-wild mapping out a more fleshed-out identity that sets it apart from the other houses.  But let’s try thinking of possibilities anyway: you can have ravenclaws that do not give a rats’ ass about anyone and anything outside of whatever it is they’re focusing on.  You can have ravenclaws who get so caught up in whatever it is they’re researching and looking for, that it negatively impacts them along the way (self-neglect, wasting away, loss of humanity via horrible acts commited in the name of finding out more).  You can have ravenclaws that get addicted to the search they take up, figuring out whatever mysteries that remain unsolved, or have the nagging itching need to constantly dig up new information, even if it doesn’t exist.  They can be neglectful, forgetful, apathetic, or even egotistical, or actively malicious.  They could be passionate, excited to fostor wonder in other people, dedicated, and sharp as a whistle, or airy, spaced-out, or clueless.  There are possibilities here for all sorts of people.

To conclude... Like zodiac signs, alignment charts, all those sorts of personality type categorizing, everyone is going to have a little bit of multiple (or every) house in them.  I dont’ necessarily think that’s a bad or good thing, just a thing, and because of it kait and i have spoken sooooooo many times about how much choice and perception should matter in sorting.  you may or may not already have your mind made up about what the houses are like; the hat should open up a mental discussion of that.  Gives you a run-down on the houses, then asks you what you want?  What kind of people do you want to be around?  What do you want to focus on?  What are your goals and motivations?  Ultimately the final say is made by the child.  Sure houses have rumours and reputations surrounding them, but the hat is just there to guide, to explain the facts and give the child all the information to make the best choice for them: aka whatever that kid thinks of as best for them. So yeah, the houses aren’t fixed, anyone could be anything, nothing matters.  The end.

[jrueships]

i know you posted it like 5 days ago but please go into detail about joel/brad i am intrigued

OKAY SO . It all started with 'bradley beal keeps trolling the sixers, SPECIFICALLY joel embiid' and embiid's response was just "Shut up" which honestly kingshit like wizards were getting swept why is bradley going insane asylum???? BUT after the games they...

SO ... what *I* read into it was rivals who banter and annoy each other incessantly but just enough to create the romantic tension of a begrudgingly respect. We all KNOW about Joel's kinda very cocky humor. Though he IS cognizant of his confidence, so he brags with a purpose (unlike pg who just does it for ego really). He wants to get in opponets' heads and make em mad. A true troll! But with beal it was different. Bradley fought hard against them even if they were outclassed and he didn't lose any hope, and I think joel can really respect that. He never gave into any old teasing technique and joel didn't really try any against him tbh! And I think that's because he knew he didn't have to because Brad is just a kinda laid back cheeky kinda guy now! Also bradley can take Joel's jokes and taunts really well instead of just getting mad and giving up. It seems like a ship that has very good back to forth banter where there isn't a clear aggravater for all the clashes. Sometimes beal is the little shit. Sometimes joel!!! It's an even matched battle of the wits and the comedy!!!

Though I think joel is definitely better at the new gen z humor while bradley is still kinda catching up. He makes joel cringe sometimes but joel can't help but continue being invested in his funny little antics!

Also um .. height difference lol . BUT really what drew me to it was their bickering dynamic. Both probably finding the other super annoying but can't help but be amused by the other's shenanigans!!! Joel could easily just. Push bradley over and smite him but he doesn't because bradley is just Too funny to banter with and doesn't back down!

ALSO also they both have similar styles on helping the rookies! Like they're both actually really supportive to them but also LOVE to pull at their strings and make them groan like embarrassed teenagers. It's a teasing kind of platonic love! Idk I'm weak for couples who'd make great 'parents' to the rookies. Joel properly calls his rookies his "little ones" and Brad calls his rookies "his kiddos"

BUT the main fic that is fueling this is my wip superhero au fic about them going against Ice Trae (trae with ice powers. I know. I get 5 damage everytime I write their superhero names.) And his (sidekick) supervillain partner Cool Collins (john Collins with .. wind powers. So he can like. Carry and aim the icicles trae makes. Shoot em out LMAO). The battle happens on Washington turf so beal, a B class hero with simple wizard powers (silly magic tricks), is there to stop him but to his surprise, The Process, Joel embiid whose powers basically increase the longer a fight goes on but restart when a fight is done, jumps 'to his aid' mainly because he doesn't believe Beal is strong enough to fend off the two villains LMAO. He's just there to rub in his strength to Beal's face. Banter ensues, they both kinda get in each other's ways. It's two dumb people vs two dumb people because trae and John are also very dumb. They have chemistry but they're just... really stupid. Like in one part trae needs to hydrate for more ice so john gets him a glass of water... from the lake. Trae spits it out and I like "bro wtf why did u give me salt water???? That just dehydrates u more??" And john genuinely is surprised at his negative reaction, "??? What do u mean it dehydrated u?? It's WATER??? that's literally the opposite of its??? Function???? Sorry I wanted your water to have some flavor in it bro! What are you???white??? Can't stand salt?????"

And meanwhile brad and Joel are just competing against each other by showing off their powers. Joel just collapses an innocent building to show off then brad rebuilds it. It's just a ton of dumb people being dumb with each other

But there's mandatory "one person saves the other but then they get saved by the other". Joel pushes beal out of the way and shields him from a collapsing giant icicle that just shatters all cool against his durable back. He kinda smirks down at Beal underneath him and goes "you're welcome, little man" and beal rolls his eyes and laughs. But then a blast of wind sends them tumbling too close off a cliff. Beal grabs hold of a ledge and catches the falling joel by creating a teleporting portal under him. Joel lands safely and Beal, while still scrambling for purchase on a cliff, grins at him all cheeky-like and replies "my pleasure, big man"

BUT YEAH... it's just a really good dynamic! I'm a sucker for good switching banter despite my hatred for writing dialogue 😭 but like even younger Joel and Brad are so good with each other. Younger Brad was a lot more snappy and moody so I think joel would have a lot of fun bothering him LMFAO. They cameo in my highschool theater tech markelle fultz x jazz piano player theater geek de'aaron fox.

Basically joel is on the tech crew as well, a senior/junior (I'm still deciding). But he's SUPPOSED to be supervising markelle and helping him with the lights and sound during a jazz concert but of COURSE he's too unbothered to and just spends the night playing nintendogs on the ds (he's just there for the mandatory community service hours) . When he finally notices that markelle is drifting off with the spotlight and keeps aiming it at Fox instead of Donovan during his drum solo, joel kind of gets up and is like "hey... I should stop this..."

But then he thinks and sits back down like "hrm... nah I'm too lazy lol. I still need to teach my dog how to sit." And just goes back to not helping.

So bradley, a senior/junior stage manager calls them on their shared radio. First fultz picks up the walkie talkie so brad is all nice to him and has a kinder tone like "heey fultz buddy<3 can you please put Joel on the radio please? Thank you dude, you're doing greaat <3!!" And as soon as Joel gets on the radio he just starts screaming at him KABDISJWBDA like "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOIN EMBIID?? yOU DUMB BITCH!!! GET OFF YOUR LAZY ASS AND REPOSITION THAT LIGHT!!!" And joel just replies "no." So then beal reveals the reason why joel is letting markelle get away with taking the spotlight off donovan's drum solo, which is "YOU'RE JUST JEALOUS THAT DONOVAN TOOK YOUR SPOT ON THE JAZZ 1 BAND BECAUSE /YOU/ GOT KiCKED OUT FOR PLAYING THE PORN SONG ON THE XYLOPHONE." which REALLY gets joel going because it's true lmao. They start arguing on the phone, joel defending his actions by saying "fultz is MY little. He can do whatever he wants!!" And brad replying "Shut the fuck up. Go be a supervisor and fix your shit!!"

Eventually they get so caught up in arguing with each other that they just forget about the whole situation altogether because they're THAT angry with each other.

Markelle eventually repositions the light when he comes to the gay epiphany that fox doesn't NEED a spotlight to shine because he'll always be beautiful no matter what or smthin so he shines it back on Donovan and everything resumes normally

buT yEAH! There's my essay that really doesn't explain why my mind works the way it does <3 but it's written anyways LMFAO I hoped it helped somewhat!!!! THANK you for asking I LOVE talking about my nonsense rarepairs even if they still end up being nonsense LMAO