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theflyindutchwoman · 2 months

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I think they’ve made Lucy look so stupid. It annoys me so much cause she was my favorite. Isabel, Noah, Nyla have allllll told Lucy UC work destroys your personal life yet Lucy is running around like she’s the exception. She’s not. It drives me nuts.

I'm not sure if you just needed to vent or if you wanted me to answer… But I respectfully disagree. I get not liking this storyline and how frustrating it can be or even how out of character it might seem. That's perfectly fine. But I personally enjoy watching this journey. While I do believe that in the long term, UC is probably not going to be a good fit for her and the life that she desires, I love watching Lucy finding herself and trying to figure out a way to have the career AND life that she wants.

Let's get back to why Lucy became a cop in the first place. I joined the Academy on a whim. I knew that my parents would hate it. But I had no idea how much I would love it. Being a cop is the first thing I've ever been serious about. (1.04) I guess I've been adrift since college, trying on different hats and different personalities, and nothing's felt right, until -- until this. But I don't think the time spent trying to find myself was wasted. You know, everything I've done so far, the profound and the foolish, has prepared me to become a police officer so that I can protect those who need it the most and from those who would do them harm. (3.10)

By her own admission, she spent years trying to find her place, to find a job where she could feel fulfilled… So now that she found it, is it that hard to believe that she would do everything in her power to follow through? I know that she is talking about being a cop in general here and not UC. But at the moment, UC is what she wants to do… and honestly, she owes it to herself to try. Maybe she won't like it. Maybe she'll decide that it is not for her after all. But this is something she has to try for herself and decide for herself. Not because others have previously failed or because others told her to do something else - which is what her parents have been trying to do from the beginning by the way. Hearing other people's stories are not the same as living that experience yourself. Sometimes you need to learn first hand. There's nothing wrong with that. She may be 30 years old, but she is still at the beginning of her career. She is still finding herself and exploring all avenues. As she should.

"Isabel, Noah, Nyla have allllll told Lucy UC work destroys your personal life" All true. And yet, she is actively supported by people whose very own lives were destroyed by undercover work. Nyla has been mentoring her from the beginning. The same Nyla who teaches classes on how to learn from past mistakes. Who told Lucy on their first shift together to be better than her. And what about Tim? He obviously believes that she is different (his words), that this could have a better ending. Otherwise he wouldn't have bothered taking that leap of faith. And more than Lucy herself, he knew exactly what he was getting himself into. Despite his past and own issues, he has been nothing but supportive and encouraging since she graduated. Did he underestimate the toll it would take on him? Probably. Is he hiding his own feelings on the matter? Most definitely. But the fact remains that he still chooses to believe that they can make it work. It's no coincidence that the two main characters who had their personal lives so negatively impacted by UC work, are also the ones actively encouraging Lucy. I strongly believe that you are not bound by other people's mistakes and failures. Learn from it but don't stop doing something because other people failed. And that's what Lucy is trying to do.

"Yet Lucy is running around like she’s the exception." Is she, though? So far, ever since s4, she hasn't been in any rush to do undercover work. The only times she was pushing for a UC op, was when she volunteered Tim as a hitman and as Jake. Which is hilarious when you think about it. Since we mentioned Noah, here's what he said on the topic : she could have done more missions. Now, granted, unlike him, she is still a P2 so that might hinder her. It's entirely possible that she didn't get more opportunities. But when she got one, like in 5.07, she was still being cautious at first. And in 5.21, she didn't hesitate to call off the operation at the end. Not only that, but every time she meets someone who has done UC, she jumps on the occasion to ask them for their advices, for their different perspectives. And every time, those advices ended up with a 'maybe it can be different for you'. She is actually trying to learn from others so she can avoid making the same errors. That's not the act of someone who thinks she is better than everyone. Or who thinks she knows better. If anything, she seems to be taking her time : this has been her arc since s3. Even when she got accepted to the UC Academy, she went to see Nyla for advices. Sure, she was looking for some sort of absolution, but it's still telling that she went to her first.

"She’s not." How do we know she won't be the exception? Why do we immediately assume that she can't succeed when the premise of the show is about a 40+ years old man who decided to become a cop and succeeded? Everyone was telling Nolan he was stupid and naive too. And yet, here we are. So why Lucy couldn't be the exception as well? To show that there may be a way? In the end, it's a story. The writers can choose the ending they want.

Do I believe she would love the full undercover lifestyle? No. Not for long missions. I can't see her enjoying leaving her life and the people she loves behind… leaving herself behind. Not for a year. And not without taking its toll on her. But that doesn't mean I find her stupid for wanting to try out anyway. That's just my opinion though. Also, a career in undercover ops doesn't automatically mean going under. She could be a case officer. She could train new agents. She could do short(ish) missions. All of this could be a really good alternative for her.

Side note : I didn't touch on the logistics of long term undercover work on the show (or her being outed on a documentary) because, at the end of the day, no matter how complicated it could be, if the writers want her to do UC, they'll find a way. I just wanted to focus on Lucy's journey.

#I'm so sorry it took me months to answer you - but when I received your ask I was getting a bit tired of this discourse #and my thoughts on the matter are always a mess - I hope this actually makes sense #I just want Lucy to have everything she wants #ask & ye shall receive #the rookie #chenford #lucy chen

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anonymoushouseplantfan · 1 year

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Wow. Patti Davis, progressive daughter of Ronald Reagan, has an op ed piece in The New York Times (as a reminder, Roxane Gay's piece was also a NYT op ed)

https://archive.fo/Yv7XQ

"Prince Harry and the Value of Silence"

During the early stages of my father’s Alzheimer’s, when he still had lucid moments, I apologized to him for writing an autobiography many years earlier in which I flung open the gates of our troubled family life. He was already talking less at that point, but his eyes told me he understood. ...

My justification in writing a book I now wish I hadn’t written (and please, don’t go buy it; I’ve written many other books since) was very similar to what I understand to be Harry’s reasoning. I wanted to tell the truth, I wanted to set the record straight. Naïvely, I thought if I put my own feelings and my own truth out there for the world to read, my family might also come to understand me better.

Of course, people generally don’t respond well to being embarrassed and exposed in public. And in the ensuing years, I’ve learned something about truth: It’s way more complicated than it seems when we’re young. There isn’t just one truth, our truth — the other people who inhabit our story have their truths as well.

Prince William has, I’m sure, his own take on the physical fight that Harry has described. To really understand the dynamic between the brothers, to broaden the story and make it more complete, William’s truth has to be considered as well. Harry has written that, after William hit him, William told Harry to hit him back, which he declined to do. But by writing about the fight, he’s done exactly that.

Harry has also expressed a wish that his relationship with William, and with his father, heals. Maybe that will happen, but they’ll have to walk a long distance across a battlefield that he has now expanded.

Years ago, someone asked me what I would say to my younger self if I could. Without hesitating I answered: “That’s easy. I’d have said, ‘Be quiet.’” Not forever. But until I could stand back and look at things through a wider lens. Until I understood that words have consequences, and they last a really long time.

Harry has called William not only his “beloved brother” but his “arch nemesis.” He chose words that cut deep, that leave a scar; perhaps if he had taken time to be quiet, to reflect on the enduring power of his words, he’d have chosen differently.

Silence gives you room, it gives you distance, and it lets you look at your experiences more completely, without the temptation to even the score. Sometime in the years ahead, Harry may look back as I did and wish he could unspeak what he has said.

I’ve learned something else about truth: Not every truth has to be told to the entire world. People are always going to be curious about famous families, and often the stories from those families can resonate with others, give them insight into their own situations, even transcend time since fame flutters at the edges of eternity.

But not everything needs to be shared, a truth that silence can teach. Harry seems to have operated on the dictum that ‘Silence is not an option.’ I would, respectfully, suggest to him that it is.

______________________________________________________________

Holy. Shit.

Okay, this is one of those times when I freak out, and you guys have no idea why I'm freaking out because it's just Patti Davis and not a big star like Michelle Obama. Well, this is big. This is a celebrity un-endorsement, but bigger. This is the Establishment talking. They brought in a presidential kid to tell Harry to SHUT THE EFF UP.

I remember way back then Michelle Obama also told them to stop rocking the boat and they didn't pay attention. I think the powers that be are over these two idiots now.

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juanarc-thethird · 1 year

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Team JNPR And RWBY meets Ace-cops. Then Nora asked FMK between Winter, Harriet and Elm.

Place Unknown. The team JNPR is in the middle of a mission with some of the members of the Atlas Ace-ops, Winter, Harriet and Elm. What is the mission? That's not important. What is important is that it is waiting for the signal to be able to start working. Most likely it will take a long time.

Jaune: So we're just going to wait here until something happens?

Winter: *Looking around with binoculars* Correct.

Jaune: Ok

Silence.

Jaune: So you're Weiss's sister?

Winter: I'm sorry but I'm too busy to have some boring small talk.

Jaune: I see... *quietly* You didn't have to be rude.

Elm: Don't be mad at her, she gets like that when she's in the middle of a mission. She is a good person.

Harriet: Sometimes.

Elm: *Chuckles* True, sometimes she is a good person.

Jaune: Good to know. So what do you guys do to kill time while you wait?

Elm: We tell stories or play games.

Nora: GAMES!!! I have a game we can play.

Elm: Ok what game is it?

Nora: It is my leader's favorite.

Jaune: Oh no

Nora: Oh Jaune~

Jaune: I swear to you Nora, if you say what I think you're going to say. No more pancakes for a month.

Nora:...

Jaune:...

Nora: WhowouldyouFuck,Marry,orKill! Winter,Harriet,Elm!!!!!!!!

Jaune: That's it! No pancakes for you!!!

Silence

Elm: So, are you going to answer the question?

Jaune: What?

Elm: Who would you fuck, marry, or kill of the three of us?~

Winter, still looking through the binoculars, tenses at what she said.

Jaune: *Nervous* Well, I don't think it's very appropriate since we just met.

Elm: Come on~ Tell us who you want, maybe you will be lucky and it will come true~ *Wink*

Jaune: *Blushing* Oh

Behind Jaune you could see Pyrrha sharpening her spear while staring at Elm with a murderous face.

Elm: *Chuckles* I'm just kidding. But if I'm interested in knowing. So come on, say it.

Jaune: Ok... I will fuck... Elm

Elm: *Smug* I knew it

Jaune: Marry Harriet...

Harriet: *Blushing* Marry me!

Jaune: and kill Winter.

Winter: Why would you kill me?!

Elm: Winter, I thought you're busy. I didn't know you were interested in these things.

Winter: I'm not, but when I heard that they want to kill me I reacted. So Jaune, why would you kill me instead of marrying me?

Elm: *Teasing her* Oh, you want to marry him. I see~

Winter: Is not like that! Jaune answer the question.

Jaune: To be honest, I didn't like what you said to me when I tried to talk to you. So choosing you to kill was my way of getting even.

Winter: Oh... I'm sorry.

Jaune: Is ok, I'm sorry too.

Elm: Putting that aside, why would you marry Harriet?

Jaune: I thought she would look cute in a wedding dress. So….

Harriet: You wanna see me in a wedding dress?!

Jaune: Yes.

Harriet: *Gasp*

Elm: *Laughs* It's the first time I've seen Harriet like this. So why do you want to fuck me?~

Jaune: Please don't say it like that.

Elm: I'm just playing. But I'll stop now, so tell me. Why?

Jaune: Two words: Big Woman. respectfully, of course. You are three times the size of any woman I know. Three times bigger in height, three times bigger in thickness, and three times bigger in other things that I can't say in front of Pyrrha or else I'm going to have a bad time when we get back.

Elm: I believe you, she looks somewhat… *Looks at Pyrrha hugging Jaune's arm tight* ...possessive.

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etz-ashashiyot · 29 days

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About Me/FAQs

This is a new blog for a new chapter of my life. Starting over is both a little bittersweet and very freeing.

You can call me Avital. I am a non-binary traditional egalitarian Jew living in the US. Any pronouns except they/them are fine. (!היא/את בעברית, בבקשה. תודה)

I really appreciate human interaction. That being the case, if you follow me and I don't already follow you, please send me a DM with the following:

What you want me to call you (internet name, username, nickname, whatever)

What brought you here and made you want to follow me

Something random about you that you feel comfortable sharing (pet pics are always welcome too <3)

I had a whole lot of other rules on my previous blog to weed out the faint of heart, but I genuinely don't know how well that worked, so instead I will simply put roughly the same information below as resources and recommended reading. Fair warning: I will operate from a baseline assumption that you've done the reading and therefore will not be explaining anything in them.

I also had a listing of my firm opinions and other miscellaneous information. That got long and unwieldy, but a lot of people seemed to appreciate it, so I will post roughly the same list under the cut.

The current username refers to my current symbol of a tree of lanterns in the starlight. This is related to my desire to create self-symbolism, old school style (like I really want to create a family crest, a flag, a seal, and other heraldic nonsense. Why? Because it delights me, of course.)

This page is under construction and subject to change at any time.

B'vracha,

Avital

Recommend Reading

For followers who are Christian, were Christian, are non-Jews who grew up in a Christian culture and/or have only learned about Judaism through Christianity, these links are very helpful in unpacking some of the antisemitism you were taught:

Better Parables (specifically the article about Pharisees, but read the rest of the site too, it's great)

Antisemitic readings of the Temple table-flipping incident in the New Testament

The current Israel-Hamas war and just המצב discourse in general require a lot of background knowledge to discuss intelligently, and not just propaganda. There is a LOT of antisemitism in the public around this topic and it is having serious real-world consequences for Jews all over the world. The mis- and disinformation is causing problems for everyone involved. Islamophobia in the West has increased as well. If you're going to engage in this discussion, I am respectfully but forcefully asking you to read the following sources. They are useful regardless of where you fall on that political scale.

There Is No Magic Peace Fairy

Ways to help: [1], [2], [3]

Is your pro-Palestine activism hurting innocent people? Here's how to avoid that

A non-exhaustive list of antisemitic incidents, attacks, and pogroms during [OP's] lifetime

An exceptionally long and thorough explanation of antisemitism and antisemitic violence throughout history

Why The Most Educated People in America Fall for Antisemitic Lies by Dara Horn (tumblr link in case the article link gets broken)

An excellent overview of the basics

This is nowhere near complete information, but it's an important start. I will very likely continue to add resources as they become available and would love to create a primer on this topic more generally.

About the blog:

I’m going to try my best to keep this blog to primarily Judaism, comparative religion and theology, with the occasional side sprinkling of queer & trans stuff, BUT it is absolutely a personal blog at the end of the day.

I talked about Israel and המצב stuff a lot on my previous blog and will likely continue a bit over here too. I welcome a broad swath of opinions, so long as they objectively treat all parties involved as human and deserving of safety, stability, freedom, dignity, and peace. That is apparently a large ask these days, and a not-small part of why I keep talking about this issue. Please be part of the voices that give me hope for the future, okay?

Minors can follow and interact but please keep in mind that I’m probably closer to your parents' age than yours if you do want to interact with me directly.

Interactions:

Rude asks will be deleted. Harassing blogs will be blocked and probably reported.

I consider anything even remotely in the vicinity of trying to proselytize to me to be “harassing,” or at a minimum, rude. Just FYI.

Otherwise, nice interactions are welcomed.

Banter is encouraged; trolling will be ignored

If I don't respond to your interaction, there's a strong chance that I (a) have no idea what to say and am thinking about it, (2) totally meant to respond and just forgot after the notif disappeared, and/or (3) got incredibly busy. It's not personal! Please don't be shy about following up with me if you like. I promise that if we have a problem that is fixable, you'll know. If we have a problem that is not fixable, you'll be blocked.

I am currently learning Ivrit and am delighted to have interactions in Hebrew. Please feel free to message me, reply to posts or reblog, submit asks, etc. in Hebrew and I will do my best to read and respond to it. (Responses will be slower, but not for lack of appreciation of your thoughts!)

Anything else, just ask.

Hard stances:

You're not going to change my mind on these things; I've looked at the evidence, my personal experiences, and thought about them long and hard, and I am not going to be swayed by an internet rando. I can (often, but not always) co-exist just fine with people who I disagree with, but if seeing my posts about this is going to upset you, just do us both a favor and block me now please.

I am deeply distressed at how many people are choosing to live in a "post-factual society" where the truth is based on truthiness vibes and the politics are based on the quippiest of slogans. I don't care who's doing it, misinfo, disinfo, propaganda, atrocity denial, and gaslighting are BAD. There is no nuance here; these are bad things. They are bad if they go against your cause and they are bad if they "support" your cause. No cause is better than the truth.

If we cannot have a discussion where we are operating from the same baseline reality of verifiable facts, we cannot have a productive conversation and I will not engage with you. We can agree or disagree on a lot and that is fine, but facts matter.

If you cannot be reasoned with in accepting verifiable facts as reality, you need help. I'm serious. That is cult behavior. Get off tumblr and get help.

I don't know how to tell you that you should care about other people. If you don't see the inherent worth in other human beings' lives, I can't fix that. Go take that struggle to G-d and heal your soul.

Queer might be a slur in the mouths of some people, but my identity isn't. Don't reblog my posts if you're going to tag it with "q slur" or "q word" or censored in some way. I'm not Gay as in "I prioritize cis men over the entire rest of the community" but Queer as in "my personal labels are none of your business but my political stance on queer liberation sure as fuck will be."

I support the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in our ancestral homeland of Israel, the same way that I support other indigenous groups' right to self-determination in their ancestral homelands. If you don't, I'm going to need you to examine why Jews should be singled out of every other group to be denied this right or denied support in seeking it. That said, I definitely do not agree with many of the decisions made by the Israeli government, especially (but far from exclusively) regarding their treatment of Palestinians. I think both Jews and Palestinians deserve to live in peace, safety, freedom, dignity, and self-determination for both. No one is going anywhere; any real solution must recognize that.

I waver between calling myself a liberal Zionist and rejecting the Zionist/anti-Zionist dichotomy altogether because it inherently puts the validity of an existing state up for debate rather than looking at real solutions for the future. Bottom line: I'm a humanitarian and a pragmatist, and I care about all the people who call that part of the world home.

🌻 I stand with Ukraine 🇺🇦

Abortion is a human right and should be safe, legal, available on demand, and shameless. It's a necessary medical procedure and it's completely barbaric that we're still talking about it as anything else.

Birth control, abortion, and no-fault divorce are actively positive parts of society and building healthy families.

Transition care is healthcare and also a human right. Allowing people to transition prevents self-harm and suicide, and has an extremely high efficacy rate with an exceptionally low level of risk or regret. We now have well over a century of data on this.

That said, detransitioners who are still supportive of trans people/aren't transphobic are more than welcome here, as any exploratory process deserves the right to say, "Interesting! But nope!"

Transunity, ace/aro positivity, and just inclusionism in general, 100%. Fuck off with anything else.

If you don't vaccinate yourself and your kids for any reason other than medical necessity, and especially if you promote anti-vaxxer views and the associated pseudoscience, you are actively harming the most vulnerable members of society for entirely selfish reasons and that makes you a bad person. I hope your kids bypass you to get vaccinated.

Wear a mask 😷

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asterefflores · 6 months

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okay so, since I'm an impatient idiot and I absolutely loved the treats u gave us, I'm here to ask for another XDD (forgive this greedy soul for op content)

Soooo my request is seeing the sons and daddy Tristan together, so what if, Instead of spending that whole month in the henituse territory Cale having enough being watched liked a hawk and the sadness of what he did to rok soo made him go to tristan instead? Like he spend half the month in the henituse territory and the remaining with Tristan cuz he wasn't able to face rok soo knowing well he hurt him, but he was ignoring that to prevent himself from just going to his hyung hugging him and talking in general cuz he is an idiot, and then we get rok soo's perspective on how he feels about the whole Cale going to Tristan's place and how he felt hurt over what Cale said but simply choose to gloss over it cuz according to him his pain don't really matter and he gets over stuff fast and poor Tristan being stuck between his 2 idiot sons XDD noticed all that and wonders what he can do and does it lololol (tho we all know he is an dotting idiot too lolol)

So yeh, if it's not too much trouble could I trouble u with this request?!? Prettyy please! And thank you for the other treats, have a great day!

Okay lol this one will contain glimpses of the future in the fanfic,,

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

"Regarding the reports from the Northern Territory, have all the Northern Rulers know that I will be meeting with them in two days to discuss all the complaints."

“Yes, Your Majesty.” The man nodded respectfully. The sound of flipping papers came shortly after. “About the Dark River—”

Both men paused at the sudden sound of someone teleporting into the spacious round office with many windows all around. Eventually, a very familiar person came into view, standing on the teleport podium in the corner.

“……”

The three people in the vast office the size of a hall just stared in silence. The man awkwardly looked between the Emperor and the son.

Cale blinked and nodded after the complete silence between the two, “Apologies for the interruption. I’ll head to my room—”

“Stay.”

And Cale stayed still as told, only stepping outside the podium when Tristan stared long at him to ensure he didn’t leave. He watched as his dad turned to the man beside him, giving him all the measures needed before dismissing him.

The door closed quietly, and only Cale, with his dad, left in the silent hall.

Tap—

Tristan tapped the table with the few remaining reports and left it aside to work on later. He relaxed back in his seat and eyed his son, who was standing and was oddly silent. “I don’t see Rok-Soo with you this time.”

Cale only hummed quietly. He blinked when a seat and a small table appeared from below the floor in front of the office table, and a cookie jar was put atop the table. He looked up and found Tristan munching on a cookie and had his own jar of cookies, most certainly prepared by Madelin. He smiled a little and walked to sit on the comfortable couch made for one person.

“So where is Rok-Soo?” Tristan asked casually, staring at Cale before him with the cookie in his hand.

“In Super Rock Villa.”

“Hmm,” Tristan looked at the jar to pick another cookie, “Did something happen there?”

“…no.”

“Hmm,” Tristan took a bite, nodding slowly while staring elsewhere, “What about your work?”

Cale took a bite of a cookie and hummed quietly, pleased with the taste, “Father is taking my place for now.”

“Mhm,” Tristan’s eyes landed on the glass of water left for him on the table. He made the glass float toward the small table instead. He took another cookie, “So, you had a fight with Rok-Soo?”

“Kuh—! Ahm, mhm.”

Tristan watched as the redhead choked for a short moment yet maintained his elegance. “I see you two can fight like other siblings.” He hummed to himself, “You don’t want to face your brother?”

Cale let out a quiet cough with a slight frown, closing his eyes as he didn’t want to meet his dad’s knowing eyes. “No, I just need some time away from…everyone.”

“Do you consider me air or something?”

“Dad, please…”

“Hmm,” Tristan hummed with a hint of a chuckle as his son sighed, looking like a kicked puppy while pouting like that. Cale probably wasn’t even aware he was pouting, and Tristan could imagine Rok-Soo looking the same at the moment. “So, you came straight to my office instead of directly to your room for…?”

“Well,” Cale hesitated before meeting his dad’s eyes, “Can I stay here for a while?”

“You fuckers ask me permission every time when you both know damn well you got your own rooms prepared for you here. Are you two provoking me?” Tristan sighed lightly and cleaned his hand with the napkin, “Go ahead and run away from your responsibilities for as long as you need.” He smiled at yet another cough from his son.

“Dad—!”

“Okay, I’ll take mercy on you, pouty boy. Head to your room and be petty all you want.”

“Dad, seriously—”

“What? Am I not being nice enough to you? And here I am refraining from calling you my little coward son—”

“Thank you so much for welcoming me always. Good night, Dad.”

Tristan chuckled as Cale stood and walked straight to the door, “Join us for dinner, kid.”

Cale paused shortly, giving a quiet ‘Okay’ before closing the door behind him.

Cale stared at the ceiling while lying on his incredibly comfortable bed. After visiting many times ever since Tristan handed them special teleporting devices when the tower was constructed and ready, Cale was almost sure the bed was built with some calming effects, either by magic or something else, probably with Tristan’s powers or spirits, along with Killian’s inventions.

Even though he wasn’t spending his time any differently, the feeling was still much better here in Tristan’s tower than in his room in the Henituse mansion. Breathing was way easier in his room here.

He took a calm inhale and slowly closed his eyes, sighing quietly after. He felt like he was floating on clouds.

Ting—

He opened his eyes after a while at the soft sound from the small screen built into the bedside table.

[ Dinner’s ready. Come over to the private dining room. ]

Cale hummed at his dad’s message, forcing himself to leave his bed and move to the teleport podium in the corner of his spacious room. He stepped on the circle and tapped on the screen at the side to choose the location. He smiled briefly at the memory of Rok-Soo’s extremely pleased face at how convenient the invention was and thanked Tristan for days for being considerate of his slacker life.

He waited for the light to surround him and opened his eyes to find himself in the familiar, cozy room with a small dining table for five people.

“Oppa!”

“Lillian,” Cale ruffled his little sister’s white hair fondly, smiling down as she hugged him happily, “How have you been, dear?”

“Great! I missed you so much!” She blinked up at him before looking around behind him as if searching for someone, “Rok-Soo oppa…?”

“…he’s not with me this time.” He patted her head while looking at the Empire from the window to his side.

“Oh…”

He felt so bad at how disappointed she sounded, considering he was the sole reason for Rok-Soo’s absence this once…

“All right! Time to eat, kids.”

He blinked and looked over at Madelin, his mother from his past life, smiling sweetly at him with the cheerful air around her as usual. Though, he could tell she knew something already. He glanced at Tristan, finding his dad giving him the knowing eyes and waiting for him as he relaxed in his seat with his chin resting on the back of his hand elegantly.

He let out a quiet fake cough and walked with Lillian to the table, “Good evening, mama.” He smiled as his mother looked pleased with the name, like always. He glanced briefly at the only empty seat before focusing on the food in front of him. He blinked twice; he noticed that all of his favorite foods were on the table.

“Well then, let’s dig in!” Madelin announced with a light clap, picking up the fork and knife, “I had to cook for tonight’s dinner when Tristie told me our precious Cale is here.” She said as she picked one piece of beef, eating it before the rice.

“Ah, thank you so much, you didn’t have to…” He tried the Korean food before him and hummed in delight. Madelin is really skilled at cooking and mastering any recipe in no time, as always.

He ate and talked with Lillian and Madelin while Tristan remained quiet the whole time he ate, simply listening to the three chatterboxes around him as usual. As always, Tristan was the first to finish, and instead of leaving the table, Cale watched his dad relax in his seat and pull out the device, which looked like a phone, probably checking over the news and other reports of his Empire while Madelin and Lillian kept talking. To any outsider, it would look like the mother and daughter were having a rather serious discussion when the discussion was about Madelin allowing and encouraging Lillian to wear high heels more often.

“Aww, but you look so adorable with them, honey!”

“Hmm…” Lillian pouted as she thought about it, looking at her brother then. “Oppa, what do you think?”

“Right, you also think your sister looks cute in them, right, Cale?”

“Well, Lillian certainly looks cute and good in everything…”

“Wearing high heels too long is bad for your back and legs.” Tristan calmly offered his thoughts while still keeping his eyes on the communication device.

“Ignore what this old man says for now, kids.” Madelin said with a cheeky grin at Cale and Lillian.

Tristan finally looked away from the device to frown at his wife, “It is bad, though. You yourself don’t wear them very often. You’re even wearing your sleeping slippers now.”

“I still love wearing them from time to time! Besides, Lillian didn’t complain once about any pain! I wouldn’t make her wear them if I noticed she was even in the slightest pain, darling!”

“Then why is she refusing them now if that is the case?”

“Because Papa said it’s bad.”

“Huh? I’m the reason?”

“You lovely old man!! I knew it was your fault!”

Cale chuckled as Tristan put away the device and started bickering with Madelin, with Lillian cheering for the both of them, looking so used to it by now and even enjoying it.

Even though this is an Imperial family here, they still looked like any other loving family in this cozy small room, laughing and having fun together.

He was once again very aware of the vacant seat to his left, and he instantly felt a void in his heart. He looked down at the food, slowly turning his head to gaze at the night sky through the window.

He thought of how Rok-Soo always enjoyed the moments in this little dining room, even if he usually looks unbothered on the outside.

He lightly rubbed his upper arm as he crossed his arms. He wondered if it was him or if the air in the room was a bit cold tonight.

He missed Tristan and Madelin’s glances toward him as they kept talking.

Cale walked in silence as he followed Tristan. He didn’t know why his dad came in the afternoon telling him to join him in a walk around the tower, but he didn’t have anything better to do, so he agreed without much question. Besides, watching the Empire with all the cities from the windows around in the serene corridors was really enjoyable to him; the sight was truly beautiful and showed how much Tristan worked hard as the new Emperor after all the mess with the Initial Inhabitants.

‘Hm?’ He finally noticed where they were heading, finding the door very familiar. ‘Isn’t that… the main teleport room?’ He slightly flinched when his wrist was grabbed as they approached the door. “Um, dad…?”

He was kindly dragged into the round room and straight into the podium. He kept blinking as he tried to understand what was happening while Tristan pressed on the screen quickly and with ease, and the light surrounded them in seconds.

Huh?

“Where is Rok-Soo?”

He opened his eyes when Tristan suddenly asked the next second. He stiffened as he was met with familiar faces he had been avoiding, all staring surprised at him and Tristan…

“The Kitten Young Master is in his room, sir.”

Ron was the first to answer and soon put on his benign smile respectfully in front of the Emperor of the newly revealed Empire.

Tristan walked past everyone in the Villa without any response, with Cale still dragged silently behind him.

“Human! Human!!”

Rok-Soo answered Raon with a sleepy hum as he was still too lazy to wake up and start the day.

“Purple Grandpa is here!!”

And Rok-Soo suddenly sprung up with his poker face as if he wasn’t asleep a second ago, sitting still with his slightly messy hair. ‘Tristan is here? Why? Did something happen?’ so many questions flooded his head all of a sudden as he couldn’t recall one time when his dad visited the Villa; it was always in the Henituse mansion whenever he paid a visit or the Royal Palace for meetings with Alver, so something must have happened in this case, right? Is it Cale? Did something happen to Cale?

And two knocks came from the door shortly after.

“Rok-Soo, I’m coming in.”

“Y-Yes, Dad!”

Raon looked confused when Rok-Soo’s voice sounded weird as he answered just now and hurried to get up from the bed.

Rok-Soo ignored how his voice cracked embarrassingly and braced himself for bad news, but he froze in place when the door opened, revealing Tristan and…Cale, with Ron standing behind with his vicious smile.

“Well, good to see you're wide awake.” Tristan commented with a shake of his head at his lazy son standing before him like a statue with his pajamas and bed hair. He walked calmly while still dragging Cale with him, sitting down on the couch. Crossing his legs and arms, Tristan turned to Rok-Soo, who was still standing in his place. “Come sit down.”

Ron looked amused as the older redhead almost jumped from his place to sit down as if he had teleported within seconds.

Rok-Soo sat straight, looking down with his stoic face. ‘Is dad upset with me? Did I make a mistake after all? Was the way I approached Cale wrong? Is dad here to scold me?’ He, however, calmed himself by thinking everything should be all right if he apologized properly, and Tristan would understand and calm down, right?

Cale sat straight and kept looking a little down, feeling a bit betrayed by his dad after he was told to hide in the tower for as long as he wanted, and now he suddenly found himself seated before the very person he had been avoiding for nearly a month. No, it hadn’t even been a month yet!

Ron was amused by the two brothers’ father from their past life sitting on the middle couch and wondering why the two were so tense and scared like they expected to be hit any second now. Ron thought again the Emperor was indeed the two redheads’ father after all.

The old assassin butler closed his eyes and put a cup of tea in front of the Emperor, finding joy in how the glare looked similar to the two brothers’ at times.

Tristan stared at the tea for a moment before picking the cup at last, “Go ahead and talk.”

Everyone around waited in silence. The kids looked between the two redheads. Choi Han, Choi Jung-Soo and Sui Khan stood by the door with Vicross, feeling the tension in the room yet couldn’t help but find the situation a bit humorous.

“I’m sorry, hyung.”

Finally, the younger redhead broke the silence, sounding small and unlike usual…

Rok-Soo looked at his dongsaeng, who, despite looking regretful, forced himself to look him in the eyes.

“I’m sorry. I really…I really didn’t mean any of the awful things I said that day.”

“…I know.”

Like everyone, Ron had a fond smile as he looked at his Puppy and Kitten Young Masters making up and being themselves again, as simply as that, and the one who made this meeting happen so easily was now casually sipping on lemon tea in the middle.

“Hmm,” Tristan frowned slightly at the tea before looking up at Ron, “Your tea is disgusting.”

“…pfft,”

The two redheads tried hard to contain their laugh at their dad's abrupt remark.

“Hoo,”

Rok-Soo stopped immediately at the vicious sound from the old butler and quickly straightened his back. Cale coughed quietly and looked at Ron, still struggling to stop himself from laughing, “Ron, Dad is trying to tell you to take everyone outside and give us a moment alone.”

Ron looked at the Emperor, who raised a daring eyebrow with the cup still in his hand. “Yes, sir.” He closed his eyes with his benign smile, still looking amused as he moved to lead everyone outside and closed the door silently behind his back.

“Now, talk like the good siblings you are.” Tristan took another sip with his eyes closed, making the two redheads slowly calm down and take their time to understand each other.

It took less than half an hour for everything to be cleared up at last.

“Goodness, you two really are still kids, huh?” Tristan sighed between the two, and they looked down, feeling sorry for having dragged their dad into their silly fight when he had his hands full of matters regarding his Empire. “Rok-Soo,”

Rok-Soo slightly flinched, “Yes?”

“Next time you notice Cale acting odd and find it hard to stop him from bathing in reports and work, you can tell me, and I’ll deal with it immediately.”

“…yes, Dad.”

Tristan nodded, still sipping tea, “And Cale,”

Cale hesitantly looked at his dad, “Yes?”

“It’s always better to talk to someone if you feel bothered by something instead of dealing with it alone. Rok-Soo and I are always ready to listen anytime, got it?”

Cale slightly looked down as he felt Rok-Soo’s eyes on him. “…yes, Dad.”

“Good,” Tristan nodded again, sighing next, “But seriously, this tea is gross, yuck.”

“……”

Rok-Soo and Cale looked at their dad, then at each other, holding back their laugh.

‘Right, Dad also hates sour things, especially if they contain lemons…’

They were almost sure Ron gave Tristan the cup, secretly enjoying the grimace the famous intimidating Emperor was doing his best to hide.

Tristan soon returned home and completely forgot to explain to his sons that Madelin went to the Henituse family for a ‘friendly’ talk, but he shrugged and focused on his work anyway.

#lcf #fanfic #fanfic ocs

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kakarorin · 4 months

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Defending "The Road to El Dorado" from a couple racist claims, or how I, being so cheeky, like to call it: Covering myself in sugar in order to attract some nasty little bugs🐞

For some reason, 2024 seems to be the year when I can't tolerate "The Road to El Dorado is packed with racism" discourse anymore. A couple days ago, I stumbled across a very colourful gifset which encapsulated perfectly all the objectively wrong arguments (save for half... one... one and a half... It depends) I've ever seen people give out to explain why they don't like the movie (@/neechees: If by some unlikely chance you're reading this, I wish we could have talked about it calmly. I'm a very open-minded person, unlike you seem to be). I've seen them SO many times that I think I hit my limit. Long story short, I got defensive, which I regret, shame on me, told the op they were wrong, as they are, op responded, and I got blocked before I could respond back. I honestly don't know why they blocked me after responding. I don't know if they sensed I know much more about the Aztec Conquest than they do, but well... Occam's razor.

After I calmed down, tried to reach to them because I genuinely wanted to talk about it, and failed, I decided I was going to break their post down as minutely as I could, even if just to get it off my shoulders and toss it into the void, and polished what I told one of the people who reblogged op's post saying they were right into this lengthy post. Purely because I love debating about movies I love. And boy, do I LOVE this movie.

Before starting, I'm letting you know that, as far as I know, I'm 100% white. And I'm also from Spain (Europe. Clarifying this for the Americans), which understandably gives me the advantage of having lived (and living) through the subtle remnants of the wretched Spanish Black Legend. Yet none of these two things stopped me from looking up historical papers, podcasts and documentaries (further than YouTube's video essays, I mean) so I could understand that this sort of... slander was indeed, part of that concept. I don't see how being of a particular race or ethnicity gives you the right to speak about recorded history as objective facts without doing your research and applying your critical thinking to it, either. Does op think that just because they're Native-American, as they say (just in case, can't believe anything you read on the internet these days), a person who has spent hours, days, months educating themselves about Hernán Cortés, poor Malinche and the Aztec Conquest from serious sources can't have more knowledge than them? Smh, op, smh. It does give you right over feelings, and obviously, your own experiences, though. Hope you still understand that factual knowledge is an entirely different thing.

That being said, at the end of the day, save for the very easy-to-check historical facts (which I will provide sources for if asked, although I believe you can very easily research it yourself), this is my opinion about why "The Road to El Dorado" is regarded as much more racist than it actually is. If you want to give me yours or respond to it, please, by all means, do it. Respectfully and with clear and valid reasons, of course. Otherwise, I'll have to ignore you. Understand that what you read below is the limit of my thinking and reading. Enjoy, or hate. Call me a racist. Send a WHITE meme my way. Up to you.

I'd link you to the post, but I don't feel like it. They blocked me, after all. You can search my blog for it. It's tagged as "neechees". And be sure to read their tags on the post as well, for context. Anyway, here go their "objective truths". Debunking time starts... now:

(EDIT: This is filled with edits. See how my opinion can change and I can clarify or rectify? Anyway, stating the obvious, but I believe Spanish colonization is bad. In any part of the world. I won't give you a single good aspect of it, except for that at least it was based on a different mindset than British colonization. Maybe there are fairly good aspects. After all, they say Romans gave us Spaniards roads and sewage systems. We'd have to take a look at an alternative reality where it didn't happen to make an objective claim. But, believe me, if it had been for me, I'd have pushed Cortés off the ship a good bunch of nautical miles before he reached what is now known as Veracruz, whatever good things he ended up doing. Bear that in mind.)

1. The cultures are mashed up in one city, that is true. But there is no explicit racist (implying prejudice, discrimination or antagonism, as I understand racism, or as racism is actually defined) motive behind it. I don't think it's done out of unthoughtfulness, either. I'm pretty sure it's just done to leave the place ambiguous, because (tell you more later), with Cortés involved and what went down with him historically, that place is much more meant to be Tenochtitlán than the legendary city of El Dorado. They didn't want to make that so explicit because this is a retelling, after all (tell you more later). I honestly don't see how anyone could think that the resulting city and culture are portrayed in a negative way. Sometimes, I'm not even sure these people were paying attention when watching the movie (if they ever did). In fact, if it weren't for the title of their post, I wouldn't even understand the point in this.

2. Oh boy, this is exactly what triggered me to say something instead of just putting it on my blog silently. This is how I know the op has ZERO knowledge about the historical event behind it, because they wouldn't say this is right if they did. There is no such thing as a (EDIT:) sufficiently collective "Spanish lie that Native-American (NA) people believed they were gods" (NEVER listen to a Spaniard who claims this. EDIT: Like López de Gómara. They're delulu), this has never had any kind of historical relevance (in the outcome and influence of history, I mean), and the NA people in the movie are not worshipping the white guys because they're white. The whole plot, arriving in a city and being mistaken for a god because your arrival coincided with an ancient premonition in such a precise way that it is fascinating, is exactly what happened to Cortés when he reached the capital of the Aztec Empire, Tenochtitlán. He was believed to be the reincarnation of Quetzalcóatl, and that's why he could enter the city peacefully and live in it for a short amount of time. The concept of the movie seems to be "What if this, instead of happening to a conquistador (in which is implicit the catholic element) who quickly said he was no god when he realised what was happening (because of the sin of idolatry), happened instead to two atheist looters who are ultimately good-hearted (NOT colonizers, because they didn't try to claim the land or control it) who weren't stopped by the fear to sin and took advantage of the situation?" That's it. The premonition happened to fall on a white man hundreds of years ago (who also came from the east, same place Quetzalcóatl left to and said he'd return from) and so does in the movie story because it mirrors real history, and, again, I fail to see the negative portrayal in all of this because it's certainly NOT because they're white. I think the op also took it salty that I said they had zero knowledge about "the very people they're trying to defend", which I still believe, but this is complex and I'll only explain this if asked. What I meant by that, on the surface, is that NA people also enslaved NA people. I seriously hope op doesn't think NA slavery is more acceptable if it comes from other NA people than white people. Who knows, at this point.

3. This is essentially right. It's the only thing I think is mostly right, actually. It's no problem for me, though. I love Chel, she's beautiful and aesthetically pleasing to me. But I can understand why it may put someone off. All good. However, I still wanna say that the Aila test is just a way of assessing indigenous women representation as positive and negative, and not the work in itself as problematic if it doesn't pass it. The Lord of the Rings doesn't pass the Bechdel test and I have never seen anyone calling it problematic because of that, nor do I need positive representation (I'm a woman. Sort of. It fluctuates) on it to enjoy it. Although I figure I'd feel the same if I were NA, I can't and won't speak for one. So I still give you that.

4.1. This is wrong in three ways. First, Tzekel-kan is not "demonized as evil". He is evil. He's not evil because he's NA, he is evil because he killed, he lied, and he abused his power. There are NA people in the movie who are kind and good (everyone but him, I believe), and then there's him. In every race and ethnicity, there are good, neutral and bad people. And people who are sometimes good, and sometimes bad. If all the NA people were painted in a morally white and good way, that special treatment would come off as positive discrimination to me. Why can't he be a sociopathic genocider AND indigenous at the same time without being considered as racist? Does that mean all indigenous people have to be/are morally white? If all the other NA characters were demonized, I'd understand it, but it's the opposite. Also, Tzekel-kan is loosely based off Moctezuma, the (redundant) emperor of an Empire who enslaved other NA people. And, surprise, just like Cortés, I don't think the guy was evil. I think this is probably another reason why they didn't want to make clear the specific culture. I could see the racism if they had tried to directly compare Tzekel-kan with Moctezuma, I would perfectly be able to see the claim that Moctezuma was a sociopathic genocider, and I'd recognise that as racist. But in this case, it's just loose inspiration. Not a parody.

4.2. There was NO genocide in the Spanish NA colonies. There was NO legal slavery, save for a few unfortunate loopholes (tell you more later). (EDIT: careful, I'm NOT defending his monumental fuck-ups or justifying him in any way, just so you know. In my opinion, he was a fair lot more bad than good, but not 100% bad. If you get me) Hernán Cortés did a lot of undeniably wrong things, but he did good things too. I don't think you can say he was a good person, no person who'd say that would be a friend of mine, but I don't think he was a 100% evil person. Just a person, sometimes good and sometimes bad. Still, when he was bad, he was bad. And what op said about that they didn't care enough about him to write his name properly, BOY how that ticked me off. People, for all you hold dear, you have to CARE to know about such important historical figures in order to understand the history behind them and the outcomes of their actions. Especially within such a sensitive topic. It's when stories like this are ignored or forgotten, that history tends to repeat itself. The fact that I care to spell Hernán Cortés well has not the respectful positive connotation they think, either. And despite what you may believe, we Spaniards do NOT think he did everything right and much less that he was a hero. I think some Mexicans think we all do, but I don't know why. Only the most idiotic "fachas" (ultraright people) do.

4.3. One, he was not enslaved (tell you more later). Two, well, since he tried to mass-murder the inhabitants of the city, I... I do reckon putting him away was a good ending. Jesus, he tried to purge the city of citizens HE deemed unworthy in the name of a divine power (=on a religious basis) with the clear intention to wipe them out. It's clearly stated more than once throughout the movie. If you didn't know, by objective definition, the name of that starts with 'G' and ends with 'ENOCIDE'. And when that failed, he actively tried to drive the colonizers to them. Only because of that, he was technically much more of a genocider than the historical Cortés ever was. Are his actions really justified just because he's indigenous? Doesn't he deserve a punishment just because of it? I see "slavery" (if it were. Since enslaving NA in Spanish colonies was illegal at the time, I'd say he was kidnapped, in the strict sense of the word. Bit funny to word it like that) as a punishment more than fitting for his crimes. I think you all should drill this into your head: ANY abusive leader involved in (I can't believe I'm going to say this, but socially unacceptable) murder deserves to be punished in some way independently of his race, ethnicity or religion. This is something I believe firmly, so you have very little room to debate with me on this one. Do try, if you want.

By the way, I LOVE Tzekel-kan to death. Just the way he is. A charismatic, fanatical, sociopathic fictional high priest who tried to cleanse his city in the name of his gods through murder and human sacrifice, a practice that the other NA inhabitants very obviously did NOT enjoy (well, that definitely rings a historical bell). If you hadn't noticed, or perhaps thought it was impossible, let me tell you this: you can actually love evil characters without justifying their actions. It's legal. 100%. Unlike slavery in NA Spanish colonies at the time.

5. I don't see exactly how spirituality is portrayed as evil. More specifically, I don't see how the movie's actual magic is considered Aztec spirituality. Not a fan nor a hater of Hazbin Hotel, but I've seen one of the demon characters around Twitter using literal voodoo in a very unthoughtfully wrong way. That's a big no-no, in my opinion. And I see a clear difference with this because there is nothing in the stone jaguar magic that single-handedly resembles what Aztec religion actually was. I'm not saying this can't be done in a wrong way with indigenous NA spirituality, nor that they didn't take elements from it (they did), I just think that with all the context behind the movie, here it's just magic that serves a plot function. Aesthetic Aztec/Maya patterns appear here and there, arguably because those are the "places" where it's geographically based (and because Tzekel-kan is loosely based off Moctezuma, who was the religious spiritual leader who received the Quetzalcóatl premonition), but at the end of the day, I don't think it's much more than the fantasy you typically find in a kids' movie. No specific religion was portrayed as evil, no specific gods were portrayed as evil, the magic in itself wasn't portrayed as evil. In the movie, it was black magic because Tzekel-kan, who was evil, used it for evil. Who says that a giant stone cat can ONLY serve evil purposes? I'd use it for good, personally. Maybe transportation. Maybe architecture. Decoration. Festivities. (CW: 26-year-old making a boomer joke) Maybe to instill cordial fear among my neighbours.

EDIT: I've been thinking about this these days and I realised that in the specific stone jaguar "spell", Tzekel-kan needs to toss his poor aide into the mix for it to "activate". That is much more evil than neutral, so maybe I can kind of see this point now. And human sacrifice was part of some of these religions, after all, so maybe it does point towards Aztec spirituality. Still, as it didn't come off as evil to me until I've THOROUGHLY thought about it, I feel like questioning things. Does the "spell" need a human body, or an animal body would have served? The "recipe" doesn't state anything. It's Tzekel-kan who pushes him in. Do ALL the "spells" need a body to "activate"? Maybe not. I feel like maybe I can give you a part of this argument. But still... Hmm. I don't know. We were stuck with an evil religious high priest, but that doesn't necessarily mean ONLY he could use magic. Nor that ALL the magic was evil. But yeah, alright. I can sort of see this now... a bit.

6. I can give you this... for the most part. Knowing it mirrors history, and that historically, it was white men who rid the NA people enslaved by the Aztec Empire (which I believe is what the people of El Dorado ended up portraying, somehow oppressed by Tzekel-kan's sacrifices) of the Aztec Empire (even if woefully just to take their place), I'm not sure it's so simple. I still don't fully see it as plain white saviour narrative with that background info. In any case, I think my mind can be changed about this with the right argumentation. Surely not by a person who has no knowledge about history. Sorry, op.

7.1. For my next trick, I'll blow your mind: Cortés was no big bad evil genocider. He wasn't a golden-hearted saint or saviour either. Frankly, I believe most people think he was similar to Christopher Columbus (of whom I don't know as much, but sounds pretty 100% evil to me with what I have) by default. I'm also very certain they watched the movie and took that version of him as a faithful representation, but in reality he was very different. He was short, he was slender, he was way more charismatic, way less solemn and serious, and he had the reputation of a womanizer. He committed atrocities, like torturing and murdering the last Huey Tlatoani for rumours (Jesus, the Cholula massacre), but he also treated most indigenous people with respect (when he wasn't pathologically obsessed with gold), he talked with Moctezuma as if he were his kin, he always tried to negotiate before grabbing his arms, he listened to and followed the advice of an indigenous woman (Malinche). And once he had done the deed, his reputation was sunk, he was stripped of most of his titles and compensation for what he had done (karma? Possibly), and he had practically no say in the new territories. He went there for the gold above all, and all the crimes he committed were in its name. But unlike Miguel and Tulio (this is the reason why they're not colonizers, only looters), he ALSO wanted to seize control of the land for the Spanish Empire. As an anti-colonialist Spaniard, I can't help boiling up in anger every time I see someone call Miguel and Tulio colonizers. They are NOT coloziners, just like we are NOT colonizers. Our country was, hundreds of years ago. The people who claimed that land as theirs and believed that gave them the right to exploit it for centuries were. And believe me, if we're still here and have descended from humble families for more than 5 centuries, none of our ancestors saw a single piece of gold.

7.2. This is part of a broader topic but Cortés acted in the name of the Spanish Empire, who, thanks to Queen Isabella the Catholic and the laws she passed, considered NA people as citizens of the Crown and therefore could not be enslaved (legally), not to mention genocided. Physically genocided, I mean, because the cultural genocide is undeniable. And still, while so many parts of so many different cultures disappeared, some things like the Maya and Nahua languages were kept. Even if little, that means something. I find some comfort in that, especially when you take a look at what happened to indigenous people in British colonies. In relation to this, there's this something that's been haunting Spain since a thousand years ago that gains relevance when talking about this, called the Spanish Black Legend. Basically anti-Spain propaganda coming from other European countries demonizing everything the country had done/does. It started out of rivalry and envy. Nowadays, it's hard to say. This is why Hernán Cortés is always seen as an evil genocider, but not other colonizers like Julius Caesar from the Roman Empire. It also makes my blood curdle because it sticks with us in the most annoying ways possible. While American people tend to think Spain is part of Latin America, European people tend to think we're dumb, don't know other languages apart from Spanish and only like partying, and our collective international sentiment, especially facing other Europeans, is often shame. Ashamed to say you're from Spain, because there's only so many "España mucho fiesta and siesta" a sane person can take from people who only come to your country to raise the living costs, drink, sunbathe and throw themselves off balconies to jump in hotel pools. Look "balconing" up. God I HATE British people. In any case, to wrap this up, this Black Legend is also why everyone believes the Spanish colonization was the same as the British colonization. By norm, the British predated, but the Spanish generated (in America, because the Spanish DID enslave African people), despite all the horrible things it did. Because it did them.

Lastly, and just because it was also part of op's response, I want to say that I have no opinion about what negative impact this movie could have in terms of being a version of the Colombian legend of El Dorado. I don't know anything about that. I don't understand it, either. If someone wants to explain to me in which specific ways making a movie like this about it could be harmful to anyone (not the legend in itself, I think you can see I know as much), please tell me so I can think critically about it and contrast it. But please, specify the harm and consequences so I can understand them.

Jesus, I'm tired, but I want to say you CAN dislike the movie. I don't give two floating specks of dust whether you do or don't. What I do care about is that most arguments people use to say so are wrong, or rather, lack historical knowledge to support them. Or rather, there is historical knowledge which flat-out cancels them out. There IS negative portrayal on the basis of unthoughtfulness (like Chel and the Aila test), but NEVER in a mean way. On the whole, it's not the unsalvageable blatantly racist skeleton that has to be kept in the closet under lock and key that some people think it is. And, by the way, I'm very curious about why I have yet to see the same discourse about Inca portrayal in "The Emperor's New Groove". Feel free to toss it my way in case it exists and it's just I haven't seen it yet.

If you've reached this point, congratulations. Here's a disturbing little fact about me as a reward: this whole fixation that I have started because in 2020 I had a dream about this Hernán Cortés and Tzekel-kan having sex.

#the road to el dorado #dreamworks #el dorado #racism #chel #tzekel kan #tzekel-kan #miguel and tulio #hernán cortés #neechees #tagging you as well in hopes to reach you. kinda growing fond of you #you go after my little meow meow who did nothing wrong #viva españa hostia #viva vigo. cagon tal #franco franco que tiene el culo blanco

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dotthings · 1 year

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Liveblogging the stupidity (I'm using the tag jibcongate if you want to mute it or read along and eat popcorn) and some bitter Jared stan who has worked cons decided to open their big mouth and made a thread that amounted to claiming "Jensen and Misha are faking it with all of you and are actually disgusted by all your fanart. They only sign it because they're scared you'll beat them up on social media" and apparently Jensen and Misha are so impoverished they need to sign Destiel fanart or they might starve. And that the reason Jensen and Misha keep returning to Jibcon is that they are "treated respectfully" so I guess CE Con, which doesn't have a policy to block PG rated fanart from Jensen and Misha, is just a bunch of disrespectful meanies who are cruel to actors and jibcon is their only safe haven to save them from The Destiel Menace.

Also claiming that Misha had his arm twisted by the fan in question to sign her art when anyone who read the fan's story knows that when Misha heard that the art had been blocked from signing, he was indignant and said "of course it's allowed!" And was delighted and very sweet to the fan.

Flipping the bird as a peaceful general defiance gesture has been used in countless photo ops is now being treated like an act of violence. (Meanwhile the entire cast of The Boys including Jensen Ackles, use it as part of the branding of a highly successful show but do go off how a Destiel shipper is a terrorist for a general defiance gesture that was not an attack on any individual).

The homophobic Jared stan then compared PG rated Destiel fanart to demanding piggy-back rides from actors.

And concluded this stunning example of incisive brilliance with IF ALL DESTIEL FANART IS BANNED IT WILL BE ALL YOUR FAULT, HELLERS.

Because little fandom fascists don't really have anything else but victim blaming and outrageously obvious homophobia and faux moralistic outrage that has the exact same vibe as ultra conservatives screaming THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!! while banning drag readings and trying to remove LGBTQ books from libraries.

They're really really REALLY showing who they are. Really. All their uwu talk about inclusion has been nothing but a smokescreen to cover up their actual biases and all the poison is spilling out louder and louder.

#dot trolls fandom #jibcongate #tw homophobia

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nova--spark · 4 months

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I bring more fluff!!!!

The first time the kids called Op and Lita Dad and Mom:

Raf took the least amount of time. He finally had a family that payed attention to him and he was going to milk it for all it was worth. Cutely enough Raf actually asked Elita and Optimus if he could call them Dad and Mom. They immediately teared up and hugged him close. Saying he could always call them his parents

Miko took a little longer. I mean she makes jokes about them being Dadimus Prime and Momlita-One (which they lovingly rolled their eyes at), but that was just her being a little shit (affectionate). But the first time she genuinely referred to Elita as mom was when she after she got injured. Elita was rewrapping Miko’s wing, being very careful not to wrap it too tight. Once Elita was done she placed a kiss on Miko’s temple. As she was leaving she heard a quiet “Thanks Mom”. Optimus was so confused when Elita came to him crying “Miko called me mom!”. She started calling Optimus Dad shortly after.

Jack as usual was the last after the runaway incident. After his and Arcee’s talk she brought him back home where Optimus and Elita were waiting (Arcee had told them earlier that she’d found Jack and was handling the situation). Jack braced himself for the scolding of a lifetime and a grounding that lasted a lifetime, but he was shocked when instead Optimus and Elita rushed over and embraced him tightly. Both saying how worried they had been for him and to never do something like this again. Jack began crying all over again as he hugged his parents tightly. “Mom, Dad, I am so sorry. I promise I’ll never scare you guys again”. It was a promise he couldn’t necessarily keep since but at the moment he never wanted to see his parents so distraught again

BONUS CHILDREN SMOKE AND BEE: Bee had been calling Elita and Op his parents since day one (he had been found as a very young sparkling so he really didn’t know anything else). But I imagine that when Bee joined the war effort he started making a point not to call his commanding officers Mom and Dad. Once Elita returned he started calling them Mom and Dad again, things were finally back to normal-ish.

When Smokescreen had been adopted by Optimus and Elita (wether it was more an honorary adoption or legal one) he made a point to, respectfully, tell them that he would not call them Mom and Dad. Smoke had been without a true father figure for so long and the last one he had (Alpha Trion) knocked him out cold to shove a key in his chest. He just didn’t want to get too attached again. Optimus and Elita understood and told him that he could call them whatever he wanted. But eventually Smokescreen started calling them Mom and Dad without even realizing it. Optimus and Elita didn’t comment on it but they were happy Smoke felt comfortable enough to call them that

I LOVE THIS CHERRI YOU SPOIL ME MY DEAR.

I love that Smoke wanted to be formal with his heroes

Then just 'congrats youre our baby now' 'Eh?" PEAK CONTENT HERE

#Reborn Spark AU #tf rid 2015 #transformers #maccadam #maccadams #transformers prime #tf prime #tfp #tf rid15 #nova writings #TFP: TIMESKIP | RID15 AU

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daftaiyo · 4 months

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Dear Daftaiyo

(Yes, I write to you, once again)

Not a day goes by without me thinking about your art and that animatic that I rewatch so often. You sit in my notifications quite often with reblogs, but I miss your art!

I want to make an art for your Piglin again. But I want to do something with lore in it.

Would it be possible to arrange? Maybe you could ramble in the post for this ask, or message it to me if you don't wanna share it publically?

Love your art and your character forever,

Respectfully,

Marcus blood-smith

Well hello there, dear Marcus blood-smith!~

Yee sorry got a new job and cant really find time to do art worth posting here. (Its silly sketches and comms And people following me here expect fanart)

For the lore mghmmm I cant really tell much more from the server, don't play there often. I mean I made an egg costume and was running around in it a lot pretending to be qsmp egg. Fun time. Mostly I visit it for our events like secret santa or new minigame that was built in the game district. Bunker game was really fun. It's based on board game with the same name.

Got back to my first base to finally finish it! I guess you can make up lore from that-

Like weather in snowy Tinkerwing village got so bad that people from there had to move in the big tree in the warmer area. Ooohhh abnormal weather.

Hilda DOES have her own lore tho that's different from whatever happens when I'm playing and she's completely new character from me.

She's more of background character in that story tho

The only pic with whole crew I have is this one

In story she was childhood friends with ghast gal, but they were separated when Hilda went through the nether portal and couldn't go back. Ghast got mad at her thinking she was abandoned, got super buff, speedrunned minecraft (not a joke, she went to the End and got op loot there) finally found Hilda and get in the cool anime battle with her.

While after Hilda appeared in the Overworld she was found by Noelle (brown cow) before turning into zombie piglin Was cured in the village and started observing new culture for her helping to fight the Big Bad Rich in a face of Adele (phantom gal) and her right hand arm. man. her everything. Her confidence, best friend. Her silly rabbit.. Piper (silverfish in yellow glasses) in the process. And yeah fighting her bff after

I might try making separate blog for oc's But I'm just not that kind of person to talk about my oc's a lot. I'm not that good of story writer or story teller. Most of my oc's don't have lore rather just concept of it.

I did manage to upload a lot of pics on Toyhouse tho You could check it out to maybe get some more context from art there (I'm Daftaiyo there as well)

Thank uuuuu<3<3<3

Was glad to see you again,

Daftaiyo~

#daftaiyo askbox #daftaiyo art #daftaiyo speaks #daftaiyo oc

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greenteacology · 10 months

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making my own post about this cuz the previous OP said they didn’t want to touch the colonialism topic of CR3 but:

it does seem like CR is trying to avoid a “the gods as colonizers” narrative here (which i think is good). but if that is the case, I do find the choices in this most recent episode confusing. because on the small scale of this village, it certainly seems like a depiction of colonialism from vassalheim. You have this community that coexists with nature, seems to be trying to live in harmony and balance with nature, and follows a more traditional, pre-gods form of spirituality. Then you have vassalheim coming in and imposing their religion, taking money from people, and exploiting the land for resources without respect for nature or the local spirits, with clear plans to expand and continue doing so.

In the scale of this specific village, the issue doesn’t seem morally grey to me. the villagers were living their lives and then were oppressed and exploited by representatives of the dawnfather, and they fought back against it. they don’t know shit about ludinus and his plan or what he’s done. (On that note, it’s also weird to me how people are calling this village a cult. I don’t see how they are cult-y when it seems like they were just trying to live their lives and worship how they want?)

and it could again be the issue of “the gods are fine people are just doing bad stuff in their name” except then you have the messenger of the dawnfather very clearly stepping into the fight on the side of the temple so. ????

if they really are not going for the “gods are actually colonizers” narrative, then the way this village has been depicted and talked about just feels kinda weird to me. I’m just not sure where this narrative is going and if it gets more into topics like colonialism I’m worried it will not be handled respectfully.

These are just my thoughts and they’re super jumbled right now, I’m totally open to hearing others’ interpretations and thoughts about this campaign arc.

#cr spoilers #cr3 #critical role spoilers #critical role #also I don’t think cr has historically done a great job with their depiction of indigenous people #but I haven’t seen that discussed a lot so I could be wrong?

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fandomshatepeopleofcolor · 7 months

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Hi, I would like to talk to you about your comment under my friend Summer's post. As a lesbian, I have to say that saying that "bisexuals exist" under a post about a character being seen as a lesbian/lesbian-coded is pretty lesbophobic of you even if you didn't mean it, as many times posts about characters being seen as lesbians whether canon or not get derailed with people saying that the character "could/should" be bi(and thus making it so that the character is into men). Also Summer is a bisexual Black woman so them getting rid of Percabeth isn't misogynoir and it's certainly not bisexual erasure because, like they said, Percabeth is incredibly cisheteronormative and REEKS of comphet. Also a lot of lesbians see themselves in Annabeth and agree that she is lesbian-coded and that her relationship with Percy can be seen as comphet, including myself. Respectfully, this was not your place to go "bisexuals exist". Yes, we know that bisexuals exist, as op is a literal bisexual himself, but that doesn't excuse derailing a post about a character being perceived as a lesbian with "okay but they could be bisexual ackshully". Yes, bisexual erasure exists, but a character being seen as a lesbian when they are portrayed straight in canon ain't it. Women and lesbians in particular face a lot of pressure to be into men and to center men in their lives, so you saying "bisexuals exist" is adding to that societal pressure even if you think it's not, even if you think you're doing something good. If you see Annabeth as bi, then make your own post about it. Don't come onto a post about her not liking men to remind us/op that she could like men. We already know that women are expected to like men. I'd appreciate it if you apologized and deleted your reblog. Thank you.

Hi thisismisogynoir, I appreciate that you and your friend are of a certain opinion here wrt Annabeth being lesbiancoded. But I’ve been in fandom for over 20 years, and I’d like to share my perspective.

There are two fundamental topics going on here, race and queerness.

First, race: there’s this urge when there’s a racebent female character (and Annabeth is now Black) that fandom wants to sever her ties to the main character and usually its romantic.

For example, take cw’s the flash. In the comics, Iris was white but for the tv show the CW hired Candice Patton, a black woman. Lots of people were angry about this and were insisting that the white redhead in the cast (caitlin snow played by danielle panabaker) should be Barry’s love interest instead. They were very persistent and made fandom unbearable. Another example,the original Roswell series had Maria DeLuca played by a white actress, but for the reboot, Roswell New Mexico, they racebent Maria Deluca and cast the afrolatina Heather Hemmens in the role. Now that Heather was Maria, everyone wanted Maria to not be in love with Michael anymore and the showrunners just so happened to give Michael another love interest, the whitepassing Alex. Michael was still one of the main characters and Maria, who was now a Black girl, was separated from him in favor of this whitepassing male character Alex. There’s even an older, much more blatant example of this in the form of Nyota Uhura (yes I know she’s never been racebent but bear with me). Back in the original series Uhura had chemistry mainly with two people, Chapel and Spock. ( Now granted I loved original series Chahura (not really sure on the actual spelling of their shipping portmanteau sorry) shipping but now in the reboot Kelvin timeline there’s this urge to declare Uhura a lesbian again, when she has a canon romance with Spock. There are plenty more examples of this pattern.

I realize you’re both Black and I’m not, and I really don’t want it to seem like I’m dismissing your lived experiences. With all due respect though, it kinda doesn’t matter that you’re Black in this case? It doesn’t really matter that you don’t intend misogynoir but rather what the impact is of this particular post. If the intent is to make Annabeth a more fleshed out character, that I can wholeheartedly agree with. However you’re opening up a dangerous avenue where white fans can point to you and say "well here’s two Black women who agree with me that Annabeth should be kept far away from Percy!!!” except they won’t word it that way they’ll use your words and say “here’s two Black fans that want Leahbeth to be a lesbian because she’s lesbian coded!!”

Speaking of, let’s talk about queerness.I get that there’s lots of different readings for canon but I’m kinda worried that you are mistaking your fanon reading of Annabeth as a lesbian and trying to project it on Leah/Annabeth, Imagining additional experiences unaddressed in canon is fair game, but it’s honestly hurtful to undercut, take away, and reduce a character’s experiences. IMHO you can advocate for a more fleshed out characterization of Annabeth without excluding the fans like me who really appreciated Percabeth. And yes I am biromantic asexual so I would love to see another bisexual character be the main focus of a new, mainstream show.

mod ali

#this is misogynoir #fhpoc asks #annabeth chase #leahbeth #percabeth

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drawnaghht · 8 months

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Usagi is a given name (part 2)

I had a confusion abt a recent(ish) post in the Samurai Rabbit tags, but then after writing a reply, realized, it was about an AU they were writing and not the series itself directly. So I scrapped my reply and revised it a bit to put it here separately. (general spoilers for Samurai Rabbit: the Usagi Chronicles and minor spoilers for Usagi Yojimbo) Also posting bc I keep seeing old info circulate that keeps confusing the name thing further so lol. general reference for u fans who haven't read the UY comics or watched the SRTUC series. Even if you change things in your own fic, even if u dislike the SR show, it’s good to keep in mind what the original work might mean.

Summary:

Miyamoto Usagi is based on historical samurai Miyamoto Musashi, so Usagi is always his given name. In japan, names are written [surname][given name]. Usagi Yojimbo is Stan Sakai’s life work, inspired in the early 80s by samurai films, namely Samurai trilogy about the real life Miyamoto Musashi.

Based on how the Samurai Rabbit show treats it, Usagi is the given name of Yuichi Usagi as well - it's more familiar, what you would call any other characters in western shows - their first name. We do not know the in-world or our-world reasoning for it (yet). But safe to say that the SRTUC crew were big fans of UY or else the show would not have been made.

Although UY predates it in the US, Usagi is usually considered a given name thanks to the popularity of Sailor Moon, so it is not used as a surname. Maybe it's more of a Kira Kira name in real-world japan. Cute but harmless.

Usagi means "rabbit" so it makes sense as a fictional name because all these characters mentioned are rabbits or rabbit-themed. In the Usagi Yojimbo book, many characters have names based on what species of animal they are (Inukai (Stray Dog), Nezumi, Zato-Ino) so there are just a lot of name puns.

but you can use Yuichi when wanting to differentiate while speaking of both of the Usagi's (Stan himself switches between using Usagi/Yuichi and "My Usagi"/Miyamoto Usagi when he starts talking of both of them in the same answer in this CBCC podcast interview). Usagi is still a given name for both.

So you can use both names when talking about him as a character, but in-story people would probably address him as Usagi regardless of if they've just met him or known him for a long time.

Yes, it makes things confusing, but it’s like having two people in the same class with the same name. You don’t rename the classmates, you give them nicknames.

Since he is so friendly, he would probably let people use Usagi from the first time they meet (and we see this in the show itself too haha) but in other contexts, maybe he would let people address him as Yuichi-san, for example, but we never really see anyone refer to him in this way. And to all strangers he meets, he is just “Rabbit” - the friendly farmboy descended from samurai.

edit (14.06.23): after writing this I realised, even more likely that both Yuichi and Usagi are meant as given names and the family doesn't have a surname anymore... lets think about it more below! ^^

= Intro =

So I thought that maybe making a long reply would be rude, so I’m making a separate post about it. This post was confusing to me at first, bc I thought, “ahh, more confusion abt the names” then “but wait they’re not Father and Son…” and then realized omg, this post and poll is for OPs AU! (lolol sorry for misreading it, i’m still sick and very slow on the uptake for a lot of stuff this week ^^;)

I had a bit of trouble at first too with a new Usagi and his names. Yuichi is very commonly known as a given name in japan. After seeing the series, I even tried to rationalize that maybe his friends are using Usagi respectfully as a family name after they get to know him... but in the show itself, his aunt calls him "Usagi" so even tho Yuichi is a common first name, it is intended in the show that he is called Usagi, whatever way "Yuichi" is meant to be used.

(Usagi and his Auntie. Shot from the 1st episode. "The Big City" )

Usually an aunt who raises you, does not use your second/family names. I'm not Japanese or Japanese-American myself (I am mixed Asian-European) so I deferred to the show to give me info. This show seemed a bit better to me than other american shows based on asian cultures. So the naming kept confusing me but I guessed that maybe I just don't know enough info and it must be some pun or simpler nickname like many characters in the comic (like general Oyaneko, Lord Hebi, or Zato-Ino)

(Yuichi Usagi and Miyamoto Usagi. screenshot from the 18th episode. "The Chizu Stands Alone" )

So I tried to consider some time ago, that maybe the team who named him, just decided on it based on something else (maybe the meaning "heroic first-born (son)" (via Japanese-Names.org)) and that Stan went with it as the one overseeing everything for the show because the name stuck. It's a fairly catchy name.

I’ve also heard from other fans that they kept calling him Yuichi during production and then added Usagi for the connection to the original Usagi and vice versa, that he was always called Usagi, but then needed and secondary name to differentiate him among both the crew and in the text.

We don't really know as fans. Maybe there's a long story behind it that the crew didn't have time to include as they tried to finish the 20-episode order... but I digress. His first name is Usagi. Lets say that it's a namesake to his ancestor.

Miyamoto Usagi from Stan Sakai's Usagi Yojimbo comics is well-known to be based on Miyamoto Musashi, a real-life samurai. The fact that his first name is Usagi, is sorta like Stan making a joke about how he's a rabbit also. It's a fun juxtaposition of serious and funny, because it's a very well-researched comic about Edo-period samurai, but everyone is animals. So that's why the comic is also titled Usagi Yojimbo, because, Rabbit Bodyguard. It's just a good title that makes sense when you start reading the first story.

Usagi Yojimbo is the TITLE of the comicbook series. The folks who made the 1987 series made a mistake naming him (and there's prob history there but I won't go into it). In the comic, Mr. Sakai uses the japanese naming convention of [FAMILY NAME] [given name]. This is consistent in the cartoon as well. Usagi itself is a common given name in manga/comics since Sailor Moon.

Yuichi Usagi in this way, sounds like two first names then. But...

Yuichi can actually be a last name too irl, it is just much less common.

There's also name-explaining sites. I can’t quite take sites like these (Forebears) at face value, but it has some vague statistics on Yuichi as a surname around the world. Again, vague for me personally, bc how do they collect this info.. but they’ve been active since 2012 and some of the info on other names is correct so maybe it’s correct here too.

And of similar names:

Lets take sites like these witha grain of salt though, since they don’t have concrete sources.

Another fan (@/vagabond-pinky) asked about this name confusion 3 months ago in march and got some interesting replies in the notes so I'll leave that here too: "we found 2 historical people with the last name Yuichi, case closed. his first name is Usagi"

= Usagi Yojimbo: Senso connection =

I already made a longer post looking into the name some time ago, trying to analyze a possible reason for why the crew named him Yuichi Usagi and not something else. I went and read Usagi Yojimbo: Senso, which, in addition to the main comic, is what the crew based the concept of the show on, in large parts. I also found after writing this bigger post that Miyamoto Yuichi is a really common name. So maybe they also didn't want to name him something that wouldn't be as memorable or show up in an internet search. But that's my speculation as a fan as is what I wrote before. There is an article in the Pachific Citizen that actually calls him Miyamoto Yuichi by accident and it does have a nice ring to it.

Maybe it’s an issue of how the name was researched. When looking up the name and any historical base like with Stan’s Usagi and Musashi, I found that many EN language wikipedia redirects/directory lists had JP names either first-name–last-name (western) or last-name–first name (japanese), without consistency across the site. Maybe the crew researched a name, but it was listed wrong. Maybe they based the name also on something historical, mimicking Stan in their admiration of his work, but ran out of time to actually reference these isnpirations in the work itself because of time restraints? I do not know yet, because we have not had any interviews from anyone in the crew about this. Usually animation productions, especially for TV series are on an incredibly tight schedule. The actual production of the show started in 2020 (Comic Con 2021 interview with Stan, crew and cast - this is where I first heard abt the show if I remember right) and the show premiered its first season on March 28th 2022. They might have even been finishing up some details on the second season between this and the 2nd season airing on September 1st. So logistically, it's possible they couldn't include more lore and explanations except what was deemed important e.g. the yokai storyline, Chizu's story arcs, Miyamoto Usagi's Ki-stone flashbacks and storyline, the alien storyline. So basically maybe they just ran out of time for us to see Yuichi's backstory, as the show tries to be a bit different in this regard. We even see Gen's backstory a bit throughout s1, but miss out on Kitsune and the younger Usagi. Going by the Comic Con interview with Stan however, Stan is really proud of the series and pre-production had already been going on for a year or so before this interview, so they must have worked out something between pre-production and post-production.

= The japanese dub =

In the japanese dub, his name is spelled ユウイチ (雄一) うさぎ - Yūichi Usagi, so by naming conventions, again things are fairly correct. Usagi is the given name to call him by, but then by the spelling both are technically given names? When you search this name in japanese, you will get children's books listed in both the site results and the image results.If I really wanted to infer meaning from this, I could say that “hey, maybe this is a common children’s nickname for an old book series or fairytale, or something!” Except I do not actually know that. That would be my assumption to make based on a surface-level detail.

Now, since I'm not japanese or japanese-american myself (and probably neither are many of the online TMNT and Usagi fans), I can only learn from others about this culture. While I am european-asian, that is kind of totally different no matter how many living relatives I might have in japan or not. I might know slightly more about some japanese culture and history than say, the average northern or eastern-european here? But I am still quite clueless about many things about the language and history itself. So whatever I try to search in japanese will have some human error in it because I am not fluent in japanese. So, if we try to expand beyond the show, unless we are actually close to these communities, we will not know about japanese culture unless we've learned about it beforehand. So we can only refer to the comicbook series and the show itself to give us more info, or more context, to look up and research. But if I find anything else, I can really only use it as a point to sort of expand my existing theories on, but not quite “hard canon” as what the show itself and the comic are.

One other thing I find of note to mention: both the original EN language cast and crew had actual Asian-American members in important roles. The art director is Vietnamese-American. Yuki Matsuzaki reprising his role as Miyamoto Usagi and Darren Barnet, who is half-japanese, playing Yuichi Usagi. Darren is fluent in japanese btw, so that's why you might hear a slight "accent" when he speaks japanese as Usagi - he is actually pronouncing the japanese words correctly. And that was so nice to hear. You have no idea how many cartoons and other media I've seen where the asian language pronunciations are completely butchered. Sometimes it is intentional from a production i.e. game localization from a chinese game to english - because english pronounciation of names has different rules from other languages, so some names and words have to follow those rules more closeuly so people know what word is being said and recognize it. But it's still grating to hear. So the fact that names and food or other terms are pronounced in a way that seems correct (again, not fluent, but it's better than I hear in non-researched productions), is very nice to hear.

Additionally, it seems from just the way the crew talks about it that they put a lot of care into making sure they don't mess things up regarding the culture and the comic. So I refuse to believe that research was not done on the show, including the names. It comes down to the quality of research, but also their time restraints, what was actually left in the show and what was deemed viable to keep, what would have added more time crunch or work on top of existing work. Again, blame netflix, not the crew, not the producers (all supportive of the show, bc who knows what netflix upstairs things about cartoons anymore.

= Conclusions =

Thinking of all this, the most likely reasons for Usagi’s names like that that they had considerations for other names and more lore behind it, but focused more on getting the show finished and done in a way that the most important plot and info got into it. So a lot of things might have been cut for time reasons, including a consideration for a different surname, because again, for time and quality reasons, this was not as important as the rest of the show.

It might be that my theory linking Senso to the creation of the show could turn out to be true - that the name Yuichi is more a title than a traditional surname.

Extrapolating on this Senso theory, since the show borrows just as heavily from Edo time aesthetics, history and ideas, it’s possible the crew also built on the idea of a samurai family losing their surname and becoming farmers over time... Something we also see in Usagi Yojimbo, with a general in hiding who has become a farmer and having a new family... it’s interesting to consider then that perhaps the whole line after the Ki-stone incident with the shogun, lose their name over time as history changes. So Usagi and his auntie perhaps don’t really have a real surname, but his parents wanted him to have an honorable family name anyway, so they think of the name Yuichi, because of it’s meaning. That’s my fanon idea over all this speculation, but hey, it’s a possibility.

Regardless, we don't know exact reasons for the naming without asking a crew member directly, and that's usually a bit rude out of an interview I suppose? Neither can we ask about the naming of the show, that's usually a long process for shows in general. I do wonder what alternative names they had for both Usagi and the show, but, I’m not really up for asking directly myself. Like the crew seem like nice people so I would not ask any of them abt this randomly. So what I’ve done instead, is to try and speculate in my earlier post about it in general, based on what Samurai Rabbit is based on (the UY: Senso book), some of the interviews and context clues within the show (Usagi’s auntie calling him by his given name, and his friends keeping the nickname Usagi once they get to know each other more, we can assume).

Because we don't know exactly, we mostly just have the show itself + those other aforementioned sources to go on, and there might be more possible reasons than I could speculate in the future. So we'll probably never find out.

In your own fanfic, theories etc, u can do whatever, but it’s just good to know abt some stuff abt these series as a reference point, even if u change things. If you love TMNT as a series/concept, maybe you can learn to respect UY/SRTUC as series too. I know it’s just silly fandom stuff most times, but it’s good to be mindful about this if it’s your interest or something you like even a bit.

So to summarize:

Miyamoto Usagi is based on historical samurai Miyamoto Musashi, so Usagi is always his given name.

Based on how the show treats it, you can use Usagi for Yuichi Usagi - it's more familiar, what you would call any other characters in western shows - their first name.

his aunt who RAISED HIM, calls him Usagi. Even if it’s only at the request of him (like say, it’s a namesake he got and not his birth name), that’s still the name his family calls him

If his pursuers/new friends really were calling him Usagi (family name) out of respect at first, then they would have to do the same to each other too. Maybe even switch to given names later. But they all call each other by given names right away. This seems to be a generational difference (Nochi and Fuwa, adults but also enemies/adversaries to the main cast, are adressed via family name throughout)

Although UY predates it in the US, Usagi is usually a given name in Japan thanks to the popularity of Sailor Moon, so it is not used as a surname. Maybe it's a Kira Kira name just like we have it in real-world japan.

Usagi means "rabbit" so it makes sense as a fictional character name because all these characters mentioned are rabbits or rabbit-themed. In the Usagi Yojimbo book, many characters have names based on what species of animal they are (Inukai (Stray Dog), Lord Hebi, Nezumi, Zato-Ino) so there are just a lot of name puns.

it’s possible it would have been confusing to switch the names around during the production of the show - losing the connection with his ancestor, his namesake + the idea of every character meeting him and then mistaking him for Miyamoto Usagi, but also, the idea of everyone just calling him “Rabbit” in comical anger.

While the show follows the same conventions as the comic re: [surname][given name], it also wants it's viewers to feel more familiar with the characters, so same as Stan's original work. Similar to the comic, the show is written with a western/US audience in mind. In an old interview from 2010, Stan says it better himself: "Usagi might be about Japanese history and culture, but it's told from a distinctly western perspective".

So you can use both names when talking about him as a character, but in-story people would probably adress him as Usagi regardless of if they've just met him or known him for a long time.

Whatever the reasons, Usagi is meant as a given name for both.

Since he is so friendly, he would probably let people use Usagi from the first time they meet (and we see this in the show itself too haha) but in other contexts, maybe he would let people address him as Yuichi-san, for example, but we never really see anyone refer to him in this way, he is just “Rabbit” - the friendly farmboy descended from samurai.

#yuichi usagi #senso spoilers #uy senso #lol i usually try and not reply unless it seems like the post is open for replies #bad at reading tone as i am #samurai rabbit #srtuc #the usagi name debacle #lol that was my tag for this #anyway good luck with the designs and story OP #aghhtreplies #aghht srtuc post #samurai rabbit the usagi chronicles #spoilers #aghhtpost #that first image is a spoiler sorry #for what it's worth I use both depending on context but Usagi when other characters are more familiar with him #his aunt would not call him by a family name in any case #miyamoto usagi #auntie usagi #UY lore #cuz all the name and comic sources are also lore and this is smth i'd like to know #maybe it really is 2 first names as I made a point abt in my prev post #would be kinda sad if the family doesn't have a name anymore but it would also make sense considering the show's own lore #this post has so much sunnk-cost fallacy lol but come and read it anyway if u confused like i was #texty #sobbing i have had this in my drafts since may and june 2023!!!!!#long post #sorry lol i write long even when short

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ronearoundblindly · 2 years

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Hello! I’ve never done an “ask” before, but since you’re one of my fave writers I thought I’d give it a go. I love the way you write Your soft Steve. I especially love how cerebral he is; even if he’s not sure how to open up and express himself easily (even to reader), you show us how thoughtful and self-aware he is. So my ask is having him go against type a bit. Have him get a visceral reaction like jealousy, wherein he just ACTS out of a primal urge (like the latest Dignity of his choice where he is at the mercy of his basic instincts). Jealous Steve would be hot. Or angry Steve (like if some guy was hitting on reader aggressively). I know you’re working on a lot of great other stories, but if this idea sparks an interest I’d love to see what you would do with it! ❤️

So IRL, I loathe jealousy but damn if it isn't some of the sexiest. shit. ever. in-fic.

Message Received, over 1.5k b/c there must be plotty plot

Summary: At a diplomatic event, Steve realizes he doesn't like when you have more fun at the function than he does.

Warnings for macho-shit, general possessiveness, but I'll be honest, I still wrote it kinda soft in comparison to other jelly!Steve's I've read. I am incapable of much 'dark' behavior. Also zero editing.

dividers by @firefly-graphics

You wouldn’t categorize these fancy receptions as ‘fun.’ Often times they are long and boring. The worst ones are arduous, ones where you have to hold your tongue and be spoken down to by others, ones where you are Steve’s trophy and assumed to have no opinions of your own.

This is one of the best ones.

Nova Corps has sent a delegation to Earth for some negotiations for support and supplies. The people are fascinating, funny, and intelligent. The absolute best part is that one young-ish man (compared to the others who look 60+ by human standards and you aren’t sure what the equivalent is for them frankly) is knowingly talking to you about your interests. He’s aware of Earth’s current scientific understanding and its limitations. He knows you are studied and, in fact, the lead of your lab at AvIn. He’s just nice about it.

My god, you never get nice people at these things. It’s so freeing.

His name is a variant of Michael, and he says you’re welcome to use that instead of a convoluted native tongue. Michael has blue skin but appears extremely similar to human. There’s pink- and orange-skinned members of the delegation as well. You want to know, scientifically but also as respectfully as possible, what the differences are. Various facial and body features show across them, but none are consistently isolated by color. It’s fascinating.

Michael is so excited that you are fascinated, too.

Steve’s going through the motions. These functions are a chore—but not always—and he has a purpose for being here—but it’s complete now—so he keeps listening to the Nova Prime while she speaks of logistical concerns for the partnership with Earth and yada yada…

Man, Steve is not usually this over these events so early in the evening. It’s probably due to this being the party at the end of five whole days. Ceremony after meeting after photo-op after ceremony after meeting.

His eyes roam around the room for you. If you seem sufficiently ‘done’ as well, he’s ready to make excuses and head home.

But you’re not. You are not ‘done’ at all.

That’s your engrossed face.

That’s your flattered face.

Steve purses his lips and realizes he stopped listening to the Prime.

“I’m so sorry, but do you know who that is over with the woman in—“

“Oh, yes, he was so delighted when we knew your wife would be here.”

Steve wants to be delighted, too, but his jaw simply tightens instead. Nova Prime tells him a name that Steve outright does not know how to repeat before—

“Call him Michael, here. It’s no bother. He’s quite used to it, but his specialty is very similar to hers. He can talk for hours and hours since it is rare he finds a kindred spirit who understands the particulars,” she goes on.

Steve watches as your face lights up and your hand lightly drags down Michael’s arm. That’s fine. You’re talking. You’re animated and using those hand gestures that signify microscopic particles interacting in a way that Steve’s never really gotten a grasp on, and then you lift your hand to your ear and scrunch your nose, struggling to hear Michael’s answer.

That man leans forward, and it’d be fine if he just steadied himself with a touch to your arm. That’d be normal. Acceptable, but no. Michael puts his hand to your neck when he replies very close to your ear.

Steve may as well have swallowed the shield. A lump the size of Mount Rushmore is lodged in his chest. Maybe it’s heartburn from the fancy and foreign food being served for days on end. Maybe Steve needs more water. Maybe Michael needs to take a step back before—

“They seem to be getting along nicely,” the Prime says, smiling.

Tony steps into Steve’s view of your conversation and makes his way toward them.

“All-in-all, I think we’ve had a success, yes?”

“Nova Corp will never forget the generosity of Earth, Mr. Stark.”

A customary bow is exchanged, though Steve knows Tony joked about going in for a hug with the tall blond that is Nova’s Prime, and at some point, Steve cared whether Tony made an interstellar incident out of coping a feel. Not now. Steve has no care for anything Stark does because where did you go?

“Excuse me,” he hurries out after taking a step around Tony.

Steve meanders over to where you were talking with Michael a few seconds ago, grateful for his height so that he can scan the room the whole journey, but he can’t see you or the color of your dress or the blue of Michael’s skin anywhere.

He’s getting hot, and Steve has absolutely no reason to be sweating even in his three-piece suit. The serum makes it so he doesn’t break a sweat or increase his heart rate until the average person would go into cardiac arrest, and seriously, where are you?

He doesn’t want to stop people he knows in their mingling to ask ‘have you seen my wife’ over and over. For some reason that smacks of a desperation that wiggles the lump thumping against Steve’s sternum with every stride around the room.

And then Steve hears your laugh. You’re at the edge of the large ballroom. No. You’re in a hallway off the ballroom. A much quieter hallway that Steve is not at all happy to find is not better lit than the sultry event space.

There’s Michael with his forearm stretched across yours and your hands clasped at each other’s elbows.

“I can feel it,” you giggle again. “That’s amazing.”

Steve thunders down the few feet of hall to get to you, sliding a hand—the full expanse of his broad hand—across your back, between your shoulder blades, where he knows you are sensitive, and threads his fingers to land beneath the strap of your gown for the occasion. He’s delighted to get a small but visible shiver out of you, and your arm unlatches from the boy’s.

“What’s amazing, my beloved Keeper?” He’s sure to cast each syllable in bronze and hurl it in Michael’s direction specifically. Blue Boy knows what it means. Steve’s sure of it, but the bemused smirk never falters.

“Sweetheart,” you chirp, no hint of concern, only your excitement. “His species—that’s appropriate to say, yes?—“ Michael nods politely “—they can control a certain amount of electrical output from their brains in order to reinforce any part of their anatomy.”

Steve’s not an expert, but he’s fairly confident there’s a hard-on joke in there somewhere. You don’t seem to notice. You’re still trying to explain when Michael cuts you off.

“Basically, my bones can’t be broken,” Blue Boy concludes with a bright white smile.

Yeah, but are your teeth safe, Steve wonders.

His hand unhooks from your dress only to land possessively at the swell of your hip. This is the closest thing Steve ever does to actually touching your ass in public, and he gets a shy glancing down from you in return. He even pushes you against his hip which leads to the equivalent pressure of a grope.

You stand up ramrod straight and clear your throat.

“That’s a bold claim. Can’t,” Steve starts. “Maybe it’s a language barrier, but are you saying it’s impossible?”

Blue Boy smiles. “Mr. Rogers, I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure,” and he bows as is customary.

You won’t, Steve almost says but catches himself. “It’s Captain Rogers.” He does not move his hand from your hip but sticks out his other with steel blue eyes fixed on Michael. “And this is traditional here.”

The boy doesn’t hesitate to take Steve’s hand, which is irritating enough, but then Steve grips—and he grips fucking hard—for a very long few seconds.

“This is Michael,” you offer politely, unknowingly, thoughtfully while a minuscule game of chicken is played two feet below your nose, “since we can’t pronounce the native tongue, or at least, I can’t.”

“Pleasure—“ Steve grips “—to meet you—“ he finally feels a small snap beneath his thumb and Blue Boy’s eye twitches while the white of his smile fades “—Michael.”

To his credit, the boy doesn’t make any other show of pain, but he does let the hand fall limp by his side while his face settles back to neutral.

“Captain,” he huffs before nodding at you, “Mrs. Rogers, excuse me. I must be returning to my people.”

Michael leaves without another bow. Steve is very pleased to have broken Michael’s…sense of custom as he turns to you.

“Sweetheart,” Steve breathes, taking your chin in his hand softly, “shall we go?”

You seem surprised. “Already? I thought you’d need to schmooze for at least another—“ but his lips cut you off.

It’s not as heavy-handed as he could be, but Steve pins your hips against him while his tongue dives past your perfect lipstick. He kinda wants to smear it. He really hopes it gets all over him.

“I want—” Steve releases your mouth “—to take you—“ and he spends a little too long dragging his lips across your jaw before finishing breathily in your ear “—home.”

That’s it, he thinks. Melt in my arms, to my touch, at my words.

He relishes every second you need to compose your response.

“Yeah,” you pant, aimlessly unfocused at the ceiling before looking at him again. “Yeah, that sounds good.”

Weeeeeeeeellll, I hope you enjoyed that because 🥵 I got myself again. Hope it made sense because I'm too distracted by Steebness to be coherent. And fuck it. This is within the Fools-verse so I'mma tag the list. (It's not because I'm proud of the hng at all. No way. Nuh-uh.)

@im-a-slut-for-fluff @fangirl-swagg @georgeweaslysgirl @austynparksandpizza @bucky-fricking-barnes-reads @fallinallinmendes

Thank you for the ask! Always welcome and keep them coming!

#ro answers #steve rogers #fanfic #steve x reader #steve rogers fic #fools rush in #steve rogers fanfiction #steve x you #steve rogers x reader #steven grant rogers #captain america x you #captain america x reader #captain america fanfiction #captain america #steve rogers drabble #drabble #series #fluff and romance #steve rogers fluff

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