#but everyone acts like the PHYSICAL disabilities are something that don’t exist canonically | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

morsking · 3 years

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is shirou a mary sue? the guy is universally well liked, cooks like a pro at 17, has the most op power from all fate (and arguably one of the most cool powers on media), nothing ever happens to him on the true/canon path of each route, he does many stupid things but no one cares 5 minutes later, other times like in salter vs rider he is just a tactical genius out of nowhere

he is not.

shirou is well-liked but he isn't particularly popular. he is known at school for being helpful and handy but otherwise not that many people are aching to get to know him or involve him in their lives. most people only know shirou very superficially. he is not sought after as a person, only as a handy man. there's a really neat scene at the beginning of hf1 where people are talking about shirou in the dojo and see that while he's earnest, hard-working, and talented, he's a bit odd and intense and that makes him a little difficult to approach casually. the only people who really like him are those who sit down and actually spend time with him. apart from the heroines of the story with whom he has time to develop a romantic bond, you don't see other girls falling head over heels for him. in fact, in hollow ataraxia the homurahara trio and mitsuzuri are quick to write him off as someone they are vehemently not interested in romantically whatsoever.

he only cooks like a pro because he had to teach himself to cook since he was 8. it's vital to understand that since kiritsugu became increasingly disabled and was utterly incapable of living as a normal human being, shirou was forced to grow up well before he was ready to take care of his adoptive father. he learned to cook, do the dishes, do the laundry, and clean the house because there were no other real adults in the house. shirou's domestic usefulness didn't come out of nowhere, it's a set of skills he took on out of necessity and came at the expense of his emotional growth.

shirou's power also isn't op. it's stated multiple times in the story how difficult it is for him to tap into it. he's not a natural mage with strong magical circuits, and neither does he have any real "useful" magical alignments that would make it easy for him to use conventional magecraft. every training session shirou has is a life-threatening act where he pushes his body and mind to the utmost limit for the low chance he might succeed at strengthening or projecting something. whenever he grabs hold of an ability that elevates his combat skills, it's either a) done with saber's help in the fate route, b) acquired as his soul inherits experience from his proximity to archer in ubw and receiving mana from rin, or c) obtained at the expense of the integrity of his mind and body as archer's arm starts to supplant his existence in heaven's feel. and even then, there's limits to what he can trace and project. he can't trace divine constructs normally as seen with ea, and his projections eat through his mana. think about what happens in heaven's feel too. every time he projects something with archer's arm he leaps closer to death because he can't handle the strain.

to say nothing ever happens to him in canon is also disingenuous. he doesn't die in a permanent sense, but take a moment to consider the amount of mental and physical pain he suffers that forces him to confront something about himself and change. did "nothing" happen when he faced gilgamesh and heracles with saber? is growing closer to her to find the best way to help her assert her personhood "nothing"? did "nothing" happen when he fought archer? is realizing the truth of your ideals and grasping the resolve to realize them anyway in a healthier and more self-aware manner "nothing"? did "nothing" happen when he fought heracles, saber alter, and kotomine? is saving your loved ones and claiming your life as your own after years of not seeing yourself as a human being to protect those dear to you so they too learn to love and accept themselves "nothing"?

take a moment to consider in what ways shirou is stupid that aren't contradicted by him being smart in others. shirou is socially inept and utterly incapable of asking for help because he is a traumatized teenager who doesn't know what a normal life is. he has few friends. he survived a fire. he is constantly trying to make up for being unable to rescue anyone in the calamity that destroyed his childhood. he constantly jumps in front of danger to save others for that very reason and refuses help because he doesn't want others to get hurt because of him until he learns to overcome that fear of being destroyed and seeing others be destroyed. he is dumb at being a person because he's never let himself be one. he is smart in a fight because he's at least been able to process his stress and trauma in a way that helps him rationalize his way out of a crisis.

i feel the need to stress that a protagonist having special qualities fit for the narrative isn't them being a mary sue. it's them simply being a main character with agency, a main character that is engaging and interesting. how boring do you think shirou and the story would be if he was really a shit-ass mcnobody with no talents, personality, qualities, or meaningful connections to the setting? he'd be no different from every other harem protag the cishet male audience can use as a self-insert. he is supposed to subvert ideas of masculinity by being domestic. he challenges conventional ideas of heroism by showing how his ideals are flawed and how important it is that he self-actualize.

shirou faces consequences for his inaction and inexperience multiple times too. saber gets frustrated because he won't (tell her why he really won't) fight and that causes a rift in their relationship he must fix with honesty and mutual understanding. shirou's inability to protect himself from hypnotic suggestion gets him kidnapped by caster and forces archer to rescue him, and in turn their shared stubbornness elevates their conflict to deadly levels until they're forced to fight to work out their differences. heaven's feel shows you how his unwillingness to forsake who he is to properly scold sakura and save her makes the situation worse when sakura loses faith that shirou will keep his promise to her until he decides he will fulfill it for both their sakes. people do care! saber cares when her master doesn't see eye to eye with her! rin cares that shirou is too willing to throw away his own life for others! archer cares that he is at risk of becoming that which archer can't forgive himself for being! sakura cares because seeing the man she loves come home bruised and bloodied every night is wrong! illya cares because he is her only true family! rider cares because if shirou can't be sakura's ally then she's as good as dead! everyone cares because shirou has to learn to care too, and he does!

i'm going to ask you to try to engage with media without trying to uncover flaws under rigid standards like this because all it does is keep you from properly understanding what is being shown to you. you cannot hope to judge a story and its characters for all their flaws or merits if this is how you approach things.

#long post

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everybody-loves-purdy · 2 years

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//CW: swearing, ableism and sanism, long post

I am once again shaking the writers by their shirt collars and demanding they stop attempting to portray mental illnesses in their books well-known for unrealistic (for cats or humans), ableist, shitty portrayals of disabilities.

If they’re not actually going to attempt to portray it realistically, in a educational, non-stereotypical, non-flanderized manner, they should not try at all. You already have a series that treats their “physically disabled” (I use that term loosely bc it’s hard to distinguish mental vs physical disability when mental is physical in the brain) like anywhere from average to completely useless, pathetic individuals who live short, sorry lives and are better off dead, apparently. Reminder there’s real fucking people who read these books. I was and still am by no means okay with the misogyny, racism, and again, ableism that already exists in this series, but as a mentally ill person, any more sanism will tip me over the edge.

Mapleshade is every “driven mad with grief to the point of hallucinating and wanting to murder” stereotype there is, even after they debunked her being schizophrenic (because that is the no. 1 schizophrenia stereotype); Bluestar’s depression and supposed dementia (bc she acts nothing like a person or cat with the condition would behave and seems like the term as been used to more so describe her senile state) seem like as an excuse or a pretence of her becoming ableist and abusive to Brightpaw, neglectful of her entire Clan, and her sudden mistrust of everyone despite the fact she is the only significant character to be driven mad after a betrayal and not only was she not that close to Tigerclaw in the first place, but should not have been so surprised by the outcome (I’m not saying you can’t suddenly shutdown and mistrust people after a trauma, or that Bluestar’s life was anything but traumatic, but this is way overblown and has someone with actual serious distrust bc of trauma and shit, I very much don’t appreciate it); Moth Flight’s ADHD is the reason she is exiled by her own mother and this condition is rarely if at all otherwise addressed, validated, or given help for, and feels mostly like something put in after the fact without much knowledge or concern for what ADHD is; Palebird is portrayed as an apathetic, scornful mother to Tallstar throughout his life, not only completely bare bones of what Postpartum depression is, but heavily stereotyped and demonised; and Sparkpelt is going down a similar route.

Additionally, Alderheart being anxiety disorder coded, with him with him being portrayed as an incompetent warrior bc of his anxiety, being looked down on by his Clanmates, and even showed aside by his own disappointed father bc he thinks poorly of his own son, is really uncool. And the rumours are true for Bramblestar, he also behaves little to nothing like someone would dementia would, and, to be at least, feels like the Erins scrambling for reasons to defend or cover up his previous shitty actions. I know that sounds like a stretch but at this point, with all the shit the writers have done and said so far, is it that far of a stretch? They tried to silence their own fans after the Frecklewish incident after all.

If they start going down this route like it feels they are, I’m gonna get pretty pissed off. They aren’t even attempting genuine representation or trying to make up for their previous, massive fuck-ups when portraying other disabilities in the past. There is no reason for them to do this. I genuinely think should just cut it out from here on out and never look back to “representation” ever again, unless Harper Collins if gonna let them make a cat officially gay, i.e. (officially and intentionally) queer code a character, particularly one that isn’t a cis MLM that actually plays a part in the plot (sorry to anyone who thought Mousefur was “canonically” asexual or that one woman calling another “beautiful” counts as intentional or explicit coding, bc bi Leafpool is more than likely an accident and I don’t even think they noticed afterwards).

I still fully believe aroace mousefur is canon even if that isn’t the words the Erins would use themselves (I doubt they actually know what aromantic or asexual mean) - she is said to have never had any kind interest in taking a mate after all

But yeah the Erins need to do much better. They’re going to keep queer characters out of the books as long as it keeps China and Russia happy, and judging by just how recently they’ve been explicitly ableist *cough* what sandstorm said about Briarlight in Squirrelflight’s Hope *cough* I doubt their ableism is going to change much soon. Although I do have hope for Sparkpelt’s arc, but given the Erins’ track record I feel like my hope may be misplaced.

#dogroseberry #ableism tw #homophobia tw #asc spoilers #a starless clan spoilers #river spoilers #warrior cats spoilers

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t4tlawlight · 4 years

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Occam's razor is the principle that, of two explanations that account for all the facts, the simpler one is more likely to be correct.

this post is going to cover traits specific to the manga and the television drama, since those are the best adaptations to showcase L’s autism. THIS POST is required reading before you read anything i’m about to type, because it explains what kind of character niche L falls into--an unintentionally autistic coded character. i’ll talk more about that at the end.

i’m going to talk about manga L first, since he’s the original version after all. i’m going to go in order of physical traits, to behavioral, to his character writing. also, tumblr eats posts that have outside links, so i’m going to have my non-tumblr sources in a separate post, here.

anyways, more under the cut!

MANGA/ANIME:

sitting with his legs up and spine bent / sitting on the floor

this is such a big one and its extremely common in ppl with autism. sitting in chairs normally is uncomfortable to outright painful w many ppl with these disorders, myself included. L sitting like that (which, to recall, is a blatant homage to sherlock holmes, another character that is so blatantly autistic coded you can find absolutely ridiculous amounts of writing on the topic) and being like "I HAVE TO SIT LIKE THIS TO THINK PROPERLY" is so autistic. like sitting in a certain way to give you specific sensory stimulus/avoid distracting discomfort and pain is a thing. i found this post (1) written by an autistic person on the topic of sitting in chairs being uncomfortable, and it says as much:

“I suspect that seating discomfort is common in autism (though by no means limited to autistic people). Many of us, particularly as children, benefit greatly from chairs designed to be non-stationary: rocking chairs, “fidget” chairs, and so forth. These can improve focus, compensate for proprioceptive hypo-sensitivity, and alleviate restlessness. In short, many “attention issues” can be fixed simply by providing a little motion for the person sitting. Small change, huge results. That's what accommodations do at their best. They make (often minor) adjustments that have profound impacts.”

so when L says that sitting the way he does, for a specific sensory experience, improves his ability to think, it’s perfectly in line with this idea. Also it’s a good pressure stim.

standing with a slouch / shifting his weight around

to begin: yes! it’s very common for autistic people to stand or walk oddly for a number of different reasons, from physical comorbidity to other issues such as dyspraxia (see: movie L). From an article by YAI (2), an I/DD (intellectual and/or developmental disabilities) community program:

“Kyphosis (a curved spine), collapsed chest, dropped shoulders and even scoliosis are observed in many of our patients. These myriad of postural issues may result from reduced strength, decreased biomechanical stability, or from a sensory impairment, such as apraxia.

Depending on the scene, L has mild to severe kyphosis which is very common in autistic individuals. Other things mentioned in that article if you want to click on it is instability in standing, where you sort of shift your weight around a lot between your feet or rest all of your weight on one foot, which L is literally doing the first time we see all of him.

speaking with a monotone voice.

i obviously can’t show a picture for this one and it honestly depends on the voice actor you find for L, but in the anime in particular L has a very flat tone. a lot of this is bc he has a dry sense of humor but. just know that it’s very common for autistic people to have a flat affect (or go the other way into being too loud/emotive).

his eating habits.

a lot (a LOT) of autistic ppl myself included can only eat certain kinds of food for texture and flavor reasons. HOWEVER there’s a term in the autism community called “samefoods” which is really well put by tumblr users candidlyautistic and autism-asks:

“Samefoods or samefooding is a community word to describe the autistic trait of eating the same food over, and over and over . . . It is part sensory, part routine driven in most cases. A lot of times we samefood because we need that particular mouthfeel / texture / taste, and a lot of times even after that need passes, it turns into a need for routine until you actively dislike that food again.”

“Samefooding on the other hand is closer to a special interest. When I have a samefood (chocolate ice cream, currently), I really, really want that food. I could eat that food endlessly and not get tired of it. I will get upset if I’m not able to have the food in a day. For me, it usually is kind of routine based as well. For instance, with my current samefood, I have some in the evenings and it’s become part of how I wind down from my day.”

we don’t know exactly why L specifically desires sweet food or if he considers it part of his routine, but what we do know is that he really wants to eat sweet food and avoids eating anything other than sweet food, so it could either be that he’s a picky eater and can’t handle savory or he’s samefooding on sweets!

wearing the same clothes

L wears the same clothes every single day. It’s also worth noting that what he does wear is baggy, too-big clothing, the kind that wouldn’t be tight and uncomfortable. once again, sensory issues are a huge thing for autistic individuals. one of my favorite aspects is that in no adaptation does he wear socks. even L wears shoes, he wears them like slippers, not putting them on all the way. people comment that he seems like he’s poor, but we know for a fact that he’s very rich and that wearing these clothes is a personal choice he made.

not caring for himself/outsourcing his self-care

i don’t think one day is exactly canon, rather it’s an exaggeration of what might actually happen--i.e. L doesn’t have a huge closet full of the same outfit, but he does have several versions of the same outfit on rotation; L doesn’t use a human washing machine, but Watari might help him/encourage him to bathe regularly. One Day is a parody comic, but it was made by the creators for a reason and that reason is that L pretty obviously relies on a caretaker (Watari) for his personal needs. Watari, in the manga proper, cooks and cleans and does most things for L. we’ll come back to this topic when we get to the drama though.

doing stimming behaviors

if you don’t know what stimming is, it refers to self-stimulating behaviors, usually involving repetitive movements or sounds. everyone stims to some extent, but in autism it tends to be more obvious, go on for longer, and sometimes be more disruptive to others. it’s often used to help deal with sensory overload, or used to express feelings--think of an autistic person being happy and flapping their hands in the air.

there are a LOT of instances of L displaying stimming behavior, from stacking his food or things on his desk, to spinning in his chair, to biting his fingers/using them to press on his lips, to wriggling and tapping his toes. here are some specific instances:

there are a lot more. i’ll talk about more when we get to dramaverse, but if you rewatch/reread death note it’s definitely worth noting whenever L does something like this!

detective work as a special interest

ok, first and foremost i want to establish what a special interest is. Tumblr user cartoon has my favorite explanation of what a special interest is that i’ve seen to date:

“To have a deep, intense, passionate and incredibly focused / narrowed interest in a certain area of study, subject, topic or thing - to the exclusion of other interests. This interest is something that exists for the long-term, most often lasting for multiple months, years, or even you’re entire life “

L says that he only does detective work because it’s a hobby, and he finds it entertaining. We’ve also seen that he’s been at it for quite some time--if you take side content (the wammy’s house comic, LABB) seriously, then he’s been at it since childhood, with unwavering interest. it definitely comes across to me as L having a special interest in detective work, rather than it just being a normal hobby or a job for him, especially since he says it isn’t out of any moral obligation.

germaphobia

Germaphobia is very common for individuals with autism. a lot of the time it’s actually sensory issues associated with “dirty” things, and a lot of the time it’s because features of OCD are heavily comorbid with autism, including contamination OCD and such fears. regardless of the reason, though, L’s aversion to touching Bad Things is a very autistic behavior, and so is his resulting quirk that he tends to hold things in a very odd manner!

muted emotional expression

this is getting more into L’s character, but L tends to feel and express emotions in a very muted way. not to say he doesn’t have them, but for instance in the example above, L doesn’t have a solid grasp on what exactly he’s feeling. he thinks he might be acting irrationally and overemotionally because he logically should be afraid, but he isn’t sure, and none of these emotions present themselves visibly.

i��ve also seen it said that Ukita’s death is another good example of his muted response to emotion--he tells Aizawa to stay rational and his voice doesn’t waver as he tells him as much, but he holds himself tightly. for someone with poor emotional competence, these physical signs of distress can be hard to read in oneself, but Aizawa (a man who is extremely in-tune with his emotions) can tell immediately.

high logic, low empathy

L is also a character who, like many autistic people, lacks a certain degree of empathy. it’s not that he doesn’t have any, but it’s limited enough--and he values logic over it enough--that he’s willing to make extreme decisions and take a “ends justify the means” approach (such as using people as bait.) in the example above, L takes a moment to work through what it must actually feel like, which rings as very autistic.

bluntness/not caring about social convention

there are so many examples of this i honestly could list them all day, but L is a character who is very to-the-point and doesn’t care about mincing his words. he can be outright rude to the people around him, especially if he considers them not worth basic courtesy. see: Matsuda.

DRAMAVERSE

if you all knew me you should have known this section is inevitable. i’m not going to talk about every single adaptation because i do not have the time and the only other adaptation that is meaningful in that regard is the movieverse (i am fairly certain that movie L is dyspraxic) but on account of the fact that i don’t care about them i won’t subject you all to them here.

anyway, drama L shows much the same traits as animanga L above (they are, after all, technically the same character) but he displays them in different ways.

he has a much more advanced degree of germaphobia, with Watari saying he’s sensitive to outside air and spraying everyone who enters his space with disinfectant, but not making them wash their hands or anything like that, so we can kind of tell that his issues are more rooted, again, in a fear of germs rather than any actual medical issue. he wants to feel as though he is clean, not necessarily actually be clean. this is very common in contamination OCD, which has a high comorbidity with autism. (my girlfriend has a very good headcanon post about drama L and OCD that isn’t so much analysis than just plain fun, but it’s worth a read!)

he stims, but he has a different array of stims than animanga L--he chews on his jelly pouch bottles,

he tosses it between his hands,

he kicks his feet,

and he bounces in his chair.

he still sits in an unconventional manner. he still samefoods, this time even more exclusively--he only eats Lucky Charge jelly pouches and nutritional bars. Watari onscreen puts his shirts on for him, as well as cooking, cleaning, and mending his clothes for him.

however, there are a few traits that are drama-exclusive that i think really add to an analysis of his autism!

social scripting

social scripting and echolalic scripting are both commonly described as “scripting,” but are very different! echolalic scripting is like echolalia, but echolalic scripting is the recitation of longer passages of dialogue from things the individual has heard before. but social scripting is when you memorize common conversations so you can rattle it off without worrying too much! this can be very handy, such as exchanging basic pleasantries or ordering food, but it can also backfire if someone responds in a way your script’s not set up for. you can find more information on the difference in this video (3).

now, this relates to L in that there are two separate scenes where L says the same thing, rather inappropriately:

L: When I consider Kira’s personality, could it be that the strong-willed daughter is Kira? Or could that sweet-looking son of yours surprise us by proving to be him? You never know what humans are hiding beneath the surface... Soichiro: Enough. L: Sorry. It was just a joke.

-- Episode 2

L: Light-kun. Oh, I’m sorry... If I called you “Yagami-san,” it would be the same as what I call your father. Light: That’s okay. Call me whatever you want. L: Then what about Kira? (silence) L: It's a joke.

-- Episode 4

one could say that L just has a terrible sense of humor--and, of course, having a poor grasp of humor is common with autistic individuals--but the fact that he says nearly the same thing as a defense twice makes me feel as though he has it rehearsed as a defense when people react poorly to things he’s said, which happens often.

mirroring and echolalia

echolalia was briefly covered in the previous example, but for those unaware, via wikipedia (4):

Echolalia is the unsolicited repetition of vocalizations made by another person (when repeated by the same person, it is called palilalia). In its profound form it is automatic and effortless.

mirroring, on the other hand, is explained as such, also via wikipedia (5):

Mirroring is the behavior in which one person unconsciously imitates the gesture, speech pattern, or attitude of another. Mirroring often occurs in social situations, particularly in the company of close friends or family. The concept often affects other individuals' notions about the individual that is exhibiting mirroring behaviors, which can lead to the individual building rapport with others.

both of these are very common in autism, and they’re exemplified while L’s character is established watching his favorite TV show, Owarai Paradise. On one occasion, he’s watching the show and this dialogue happens:

Hiroshi: Despite never telling her how I felt, I still got dumped. I am Hiroshi. Watari: Who was this one again? L: He is Hiroshi. Hiroshi: I am Hiroshi. I am Hiroshi.

-- Episode 2

it’s important to note that in Japanese, “He is Hiroshi” and “I am Hiroshi” are said, at least in this instance, exactly the same, so L is echoing precisely what he’s heard.

On another occasion, L is again watching the show with a glass of wine (seemingly acquired simply to imitate the characters onscreen, as he never drinks it) and when the characters onscreen toast their glasses, L does the same, mirroring them.

CONCLUSION

I linked a post at the very beginning of this analysis talking about how characters are unintentionally autistic coded, and it’s important to understand how this unintentional coding is different from a headcanon--i didn’t make up these traits. they aren’t something that only exist in my head that i ascribe to L for fun.

i made this analysis both because i wanted to share L’s autistic coding in one cohesive place, because plenty of people have made lists before, but none that i could find that included so many examples with images and explanations--and i also made it because of the old ryuzaki persona “theory.”

for those unaware, the ryuzaki persona headcanon suggests that L faked all of these traits in order to make people uncomfortable, to put them off-guard and better mask his identity. i’ve seen posts about people claiming that nobody could actually behave in these ways, that L would surely be unhappy and uncomfortable sitting like that, or eating like that, or engaging in any of these behaviors. I’ve seen some people outright say that L isn’t autistic, but his persona is--that is, he’s pretending to be autistic.

i named this essay “occam’s razor” because, to me, L being autistic is the simplest answer to account for all of these traits. claiming that an autistic coded character is faking it is ableist and it just doesn’t make sense with anything else we know about his character.

but if you want to know more about that, i recommend reading eyecicles’ first!L tag. it’s debunked it in more ways than i ever could.

anyways, in conclusion

#death note #death note drama #death note analysis #L lawliet

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nostalgicatsea · 4 years

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Common questions about and excuses for racism in fandom

I noticed that the same excuses, justifications, and questions that have come up in response to racism in fandom over the years appear in the notes for my post, so here’s a FAQ of sorts to address them. Hopefully, this will help people understand why these arguments don’t stand up to scrutiny and have something to refer to in lieu of writing a new reply every time someone says these things.

Due to the length of this post, I made a Google doc for easier reading. Please note that several points are specific to the Marvel fandom and to the post linked above and are often M/M-focused (I explain why in that post), but generally speaking, the following can be applied to any fandom and various relationships.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I can ship whatever I want. Stop being the fandom police!

Shipping isn’t activism.

Fandom is supposed to be fun. Being told what to do or not to do isn’t fun.

I put a lot of different people in my works, and I do research about the groups they’re in. For example, I have a *marginalized group here* character (e.g., disabled), and I did research to represent them accurately. It’s not fair to say that I don’t care about diversity.

I don’t think people should write about POC if they’re white, just like I wouldn’t want anyone to talk about *insert topic you’re passionate about or interest group you’re in here* (e.g., the BDSM community) if they didn’t know anything about it.

I really don’t have any knowledge about what it’s like to be a POC, though, so maybe I’m not the best person for this. If POC want to see themselves represented, they should make their own works.

I’m not comfortable with writing POC as I’m unfamiliar with the struggles they experience. I don’t want my writing to come off as inauthentic, inaccurate, or offensive. Why are you saying it’s harmful to use this as a reason for abstaining from writing POC?

It doesn’t make sense to include every single POC in my work.

What you said and the data you have don’t necessarily point to racism. It might just be individual preference. I prefer certain ships over others, and it has nothing to do with race/I don’t see color.

A big part of what informs my shipping is physical attraction or interest in the characters.

I don’t ship _____ because I see them as brothers/sisters/siblings.

Some white characters and ships are popular in the MCU fandom because people bring in canon characterization or material from the comics to the character(s)/ship. Your MCU-only examination fails to account for ships with one character from the MCU and one from comics (e.g., MCU Bucky/616 Clint or Spideypool).

Some subfandoms just have fewer POC which means there will naturally be fewer ships featuring POC. To say that the Marvel fandom is racist as a whole is disingenuous; you can see how more diversity in the cast leads to more diverse ships in fanworks.

Some of the characters and ships are popular because white characters get the lion’s share of screen time and development or they appeared in canon earlier.

Is it racist to racebend a character?

Racist language in fics is more important than fandom representation.

My fanworks tend to focus on one ship and don’t really include other characters in general. When they do, the others mostly talk about that relationship. Am I falling into the trap you mentioned?

I feel guilty about not including or writing about *character of color’s name here*.

How do I ensure that I don’t offend anyone if I include POC in my work?

What should I do to examine myself for any implicit biases?

The rest of the post is under the cut.

I can ship whatever I want. Stop being the fandom police!

As explicitly stated several times in my post, I agree that you can ship whatever you want. I’m not targeting a specific ship. I’m not telling you to stop shipping what you ship. All I’m asking is for everyone, including myself and other POC, to regularly examine ourselves for any implicit biases. If you’re a multishipper, are all of your ships in the fandom white? If you only have one ship and it’s white, are most or all of your ships in your other/previous fandoms white? Is the only media you consume predominantly or all white?

Shipping isn’t activism.

No, it isn’t and in many cases, shouldn’t be seen or treated as the same thing. However, by responding this way to POC who want to see themselves represented in fanworks more and not be ignored or written stereotypically, you’re telling us that our mere existence is a “political issue.”

Fandom is supposed to be fun. Being told what to do or not to do isn’t fun.

It should be fun for us POC too, and it’s not when we’re consistently misrepresented or we don’t exist in this fandom. By using this as an excuse to exclude POC from your works, you’re saying that only some people are allowed to have fun or that having fun is conditional. Also, no one is forcing you as an individual to do or not do anything. See two paragraphs above.

Just like you do research for those groups, you can easily do research on POC. Also, please be aware that this statement is similar to the “I’m not racist because I have a ___ friend/have a ___ person in my works” argument that many people use to prove they’re not racist, homophobic, sexist, etc. We aren’t interchangeable with other groups.

Something like BDSM is a lifestyle and preference. It is a choice. Being a POC isn’t. We can’t take off our identity every time we leave the house, the way you might keep it secret at work that you’re in the BDSM scene.

We do. Also, all of us fanwork creators make works with characters who are different from us all the time. Fandom is largely composed of people who aren’t straight cis men, yet the bulk of works on AO3 features characters who are canonically or implied to be straight cis men even if we end up changing that in our works. Most of us aren’t billionaires, but we don’t have a problem writing Tony. We don’t know what it’s like to be a WWII-soldier-turned-brainwashed-assassin who was kept in cryo for decades except when deployed on missions, but we don’t have a problem writing Bucky. The list goes on.

Your concern isn’t harmful. Reducing us to our trauma is, and you’re doing that if the reason you’re not comfortable with writing POC is that you don’t know how to write our struggles. We’re not only our pain. We’re more than that.

Not every fic has to be about the trauma of being a POC. We deserve to have fun, silly fics in addition to serious, plotty drama. We’re not thinking about our suffering 24/7 even if we do think about or are affected by it a lot. It’s not like if you write a Sam/Bucky fic, Sam is going to randomly lecture Bucky about the history of Black people in the U.S. and modern enslavement through the prison industrial complex while Bucky is trailing kisses down his neck in bed. We don’t need everyone being racist to MJ in a Pride and Prejudice AU. If you do want to include their struggles because that informs the way the characters think or act in your story, you can do so in ways that feel organic.

Additionally, this is an excuse that we hear often; you may have heard it as people in Hollywood have used it to explain why they don’t have any, or at least any major, characters from marginalized groups in their works. If we allowed this excuse, an overwhelming majority of who we see in the media would be straight, cis white men considering who has power in the film and TV industry—and we would have to say that’s okay. We would have to say that the only people allowed to write about a certain group are members of that group, e.g., only women can write women. That’s not acceptable especially considering the gatekeeping, oppression, and high barriers to entry and success that make it difficult for marginalized people to even be in the room let alone make a name for themselves.

Fandom is no different. You’re saying that you can’t relate to POC because you’re white, but none of us POC have any problems making fanworks with white characters even though we don’t know what it’s like to be white. There are straight women who write fics about gay men and don’t feel uncomfortable doing so when they don’t know a single thing about being a gay man and the struggles of gay men (M/M can include bi or pan men, fics about gay men by straight women can sometimes include problematic portrayals, and straight men, queer women, and non-binary people write M/M too, but this is just an example).

You should be more careful when writing a POC if you're not a POC. The same goes for men writing women, cis people writing trans people, straight people writing queer people, able-bodied people writing disabled people, etc. However, there ARE ways to go about it, and while I understand the fear of messing up, the truth is everyone is racist, sexist, etc. Everyone including people in marginalized groups. Being a white lesbian doesn’t mean you can’t be racist. Being an Asian man doesn’t mean you can’t be sexist. You can see that within groups themselves. POC are not exempt from racism against other POC or from internalized racism against themselves or their own group. Women aren't free from internalized misogyny. The best we can do is to not make that prevent us from making inclusive works; if you make a mistake, which may happen, all we can ask is that you try your best to be open to feedback and grow.

It doesn’t make sense to include every single POC in my work.

No one is telling you to. Choose characters who make sense for the story. Don’t choose them just so you have a POC in your work. We don’t want them to be tokenized.

This argument is identical to the “not all _____” rebuttal (“not all men,” “not all white people,” etc.) which places the blame on a few lone individuals and shifts the conversation away from an existing widespread problem. When there’s a consistent pattern and there are many examples of it both within the fandom and in other fandoms, it no longer is about individual preference.

I urge you to consider the following:

If most people say they don’t write about or include a POC in their work because it’s too difficult or they’re afraid of making that character inauthentic, but they don’t seem to have an issue with writing other characters from groups they’re not in (e.g., if you’re a straight woman who writes a lot of M/M fics despite not knowing what it’s like to be a bi, pan, or gay man), doesn’t that say something?

If most people have the same reasons you do about not being interested in POC (e.g., “they’re not fleshed out enough” while being interested in or fleshing out minor white characters who get the same or even less development as those characters) or ships with POC (e.g., saying “they’re like brothers” while being interested in a white ship with similar dynamics and tropes or seeing why other people might ship it if you don’t), doesn’t that say something?

If most people give characters of color the same roles in their works even if that makes them OOC and/or the role reduces them to a (frequently stereotypical) trope, especially if they’re never fleshed out beyond that trope (e.g., the funny sidekick, wise friend who always helps or gives advice/free therapy, or responsible, mature, and sometimes stern friend who “parents” the protagonist), isn’t that saying something?

If race truly isn’t a factor for you when it comes to liking characters and ships, then this isn’t about you and you don’t have to distract people from the conversation by announcing that. That said, we should all look at characters and ships we like anyway instead of assuming that’s the case as that’s good practice. How much of your list is white? If it’s mostly or entirely white, why is that the case and why do you feel differently about ships of color?

A big part of what informs my shipping is physical attraction or interest in the characters.

What characters and actors do you find attractive or interesting? Are they all or mostly white? If they aren’t, are you drawn to any ships that include those POC? Refer to the section above.

I don’t ship _____ because I see them as brothers/sisters/siblings.

Part of this is preference as it comes down to perceived chemistry and relationship dynamics. However, POC are often not seen as romantic leads both in fanworks and the media and are just friends or “brothers/sisters” (this is why Crazy Rich Asians was a big deal). Sometimes, people even argue against POC being or having love interests in the name of diversity. You see this a lot with WOC in the media where the explanation against a love interest is “she’s a strong, independent woman who doesn’t need a man”; yes, they don’t and sometimes the story doesn’t need a romance, but WOC deserve love too and it’s strange that while white women can get the guy and be independent, WOC can’t and it somehow belittles or reduces them if they do.

The way you can gauge whether it’s just preference at play or biases you may not have been aware of is to see how many relationships featuring a character of color fall under the “just friends/siblings” category for you, what you need to ship something, and how you feel about white ships with the same type of relationship or same lack of chemistry. For instance, you may say that there needs to be enough interaction for you to ship something and that’s why you don’t care much for Rhodey/Sam. Do you feel the same way about Clint/Coulson then, which has much less interaction (actually much less than Rhodey/Sam in this case)? If it’s about chemistry, are Steve and Sam just “brothers,” but Bruce and Thor aren’t or, if you don’t ship Bruce/Thor, you still “see it” and get why other people might be into it?

What do you ship, or what ships do you understand even if they’re not for you, and how is that different from ships that follow the same beats? Why are Steve and Bucky not brothers, but Rhodey and Tony are (there are many parallels between the two relationships—and one can argue the latter is more nuanced—than appears at first glance, and Rhodey/Tony can be just as sweet or angsty)? If you like the rivals/enemies-to-lovers or meet-ugly aspect to Steve/Tony, Sam/Bucky, Scott/Jimmy Woo, and M’Baku/T’Challa have that dynamic. You like that superior/subordinate-to-lovers dynamic that Clint/Coulson has? Coulson/Fury. Flirty meet-cutes or love/trust-at-first-sight? Steve/Sam.

I explained why I focused on the MCU here and that most of the fics that feature an MCU character and comics ’verse character tend to be heavily or entirely MCU-influenced here.

Also, characters of color exist in the comics, cartoons, and games too. By this logic, Steve/Sam and Rhodey/Tony should be juggernauts in the MCU fandom considering the depth and history of the characters and relationships. Ask yourself why people are happy to ship MCU Spideypool, to draw on the comics for that relationship and even bring a non-MCU character into the MCU and write him based on his comics history and characterization. Ask yourself why people are unhappy with MCU Clint’s terrible writing and lack of characterization and decide to give him his 616 (usually Fraction-era) characterization. And then ask yourself why people don’t do that for characters of color and then use “___ is a minor character/doesn’t have much development” as an excuse for why they’re uninteresting or not shippable with others.

There are many strong and interesting relationships in the comics, but only a few make it to the MCU fandom and almost all, if not all, of them are white.

It’s more important to see how many fanworks there are for ships of color in a fandom than how many ships of color there are in that fandom. See how few works there are for POC ships other than MJ/Peter in the MCU Spider-Man fandom despite the diversity of the cast. See how the most popular ships are white and three of them involve white characters from the Iron Man fandom (explain to me how Harley/Peter has over 1,000 works, but Ned/Peter has 436).

And sure, you can say almost all of the Black Panther ships feature a character of color so there’s “more” diversity, but see how few works there are for them and how works with a white character fare compare to POC-only ships (almost all have 100-200 or fewer fics, with many having so few that I didn’t include them in the post, while BP ships with a white character have more works despite little to no interaction between the characters).

Both of these, by the way, are critical and box office hits with characters who are clearly supposed to be the faces of the MCU now that the OG6 are gone. Black Panther is an award-winning critical and box office hit, and it is, more than any other film in MCU history, a huge cultural phenomenon with tremendous impact. It broke so many records and milestones, and it’s STILL breaking and making them. It has the most nuanced and balanced ensemble cast with side characters just as three-dimensional as the lead, a rarity in MCU films. Yet, its tag only has 3,966 works, fewer in total for the whole fandom than some of the white M/M ships on this list. Even if you account for BP fanworks that may have been tagged as MCU instead of BP, the number is paltry as you can see in this post. People simply do not want to make fanworks for characters of color (in this case, specifically Black characters) and don’t. It’s not about how diverse or successful a film is.

Some of the characters and ships are popular because white characters get the lion’s share of screen time and development or they appeared in canon earlier.

Yes, that’s true, but fandom has no problem catapulting white ships with minor characters into extreme popularity. See Clint/Coulson. See fics prioritizing Happy and having him show up more than Rhodey in Steve/Tony fics.

It’s not about chronology. Many ships of color came before white ships as a whole and before white ships with the same white character they have. See Bucky/Clint vs. Bucky/Sam.

Lastly, please don’t tell me how certain white M/M ships came to be to explain how they’re exempt or how I’m failing to consider other factors for their popularity. I’ve been in the fandom since 2012, and I’ve seen almost all of the white ships in the fandom be born or boom into popularity. Don’t try to explain, for instance, that Clint/Coulson is big because Coulson has his own show and his fans followed him from the show (this logic falls flat when you look at something like Luke Cage); that ship became huge way before that happened and way before Agents of Shield became “big.” Also, see the section above regarding screen time, development, and fame.

Is it racist to racebend a character?

People’s opinions differ on racebending—and often that comes from personal background and on the situation—so I can’t speak on anyone’s behalf. However, I think everyone can agree on the following:

Racebending a white character is not the same thing as whitewashing a POC. For example, making Tony Stark Indian vs. turning T’Challa white or as canonical examples, making Fury black in Ultimates and the MCU vs. making the Ancient One or the Maximoffs white. The latter (whitewashing T’Challa, the Ancient One, and the Maximoff twins) is racist for various reasons. There’s a long history of POC being erased and white people taking roles from POC, a huge imbalance in representation between white people and POC, the unfortunate perception by the public and media that “white = neutral/standard” (Bruce’s whiteness doesn’t define his characterization and development), and the way race plays a role in influencing the way POC feel, act, and are treated.

Racebending a POC from one ethnicity or racial group to another is also problematic as we’re not interchangeable. Hollywood often does this and goes, “But they’re still a POC! We’re being diverse!”

In general, people who racebend white characters to POC want to see more POC in canon and in the media! These aren’t mutually exclusive.

Sometimes people racebend because they’re not represented at all in their works. (This happens with other marginalized groups too; for instance, some people make cis characters trans in their fanworks as there are few to no trans characters in the canonical source.) For example, there are, as of now, no Latinx superheroes in the MCU films. Even if people wanted to, they can’t make works with an MCU Latinx superhero unless they bring one from the comics or the one Latinx superhero from Agents of Shield (if they know the comics or AoS), make a minor Latinx film character like Luis a superhero, or racebend their favorite white character and put a fresh spin on the character, drawing from their personal experience and background.

There’s a massive difference between fans racebending a character and a creator taking credit by pretending they viewed a character as non-white or didn’t see race all along when it’s clear that the character is canonically white (this is different from a creator saying they support anyone, POC or white, playing that character onscreen or onstage).

Racist language in fics is more important than fandom representation.

We don’t have to pick our battles. Both are important! I focused on fandom representation as it’s much more quantifiable and easy to find and analyze data for than racist language on a fandom-wide scale on my own without any tools. You’re right that the latter is a problem as is racist representation in fanworks, though.

My fanworks tend to focus on one ship and don’t really include other characters in general. When they do, the others mostly talk about that relationship. Am I falling into the trap you mentioned?

If the story is about a relationship (examining that relationship and the feelings of the characters in it) and there isn’t much of a plot outside of that, then that makes sense. However, even in situations like this, consider how much time you dedicate to characters of color vs. white characters. If the story is about a ship featuring a POC, do you spend more time on the white character of that relationship? Their white friends and how they feel about that relationship? If it’s about a white ship, do white side characters appear more than side characters of color even if the latter have a closer relationship with the protagonists? For example, does Wanda show up more than Sam or play a bigger role than him in a Steve/Bucky fic? Do you have Pepper show up all the time (or even Happy), but Rhodey is chronically absent? Do only the white characters get to be more than the tropes you’re using, if you’re using any, while the POC don’t get to be nuanced? Are there any stereotypes that you’re reducing the POC to?

I feel guilty about not including or writing about *character of color’s name here*.

See “It doesn’t make sense to include every single POC in my work.” Include the character(s) who make sense for the story, perspective you’re writing/drawing from if applicable, and central group or ship if this is a ship-specific work. For example, if you’re drawing the Avengers and you include the newer Avengers, Rhodey and Sam should appear too, not just Wanda, Scott, Bucky, and/or Carol (this happens a lot). If you’re writing a Tony POV fic that includes other characters, depending on the story, it may make sense that Sam doesn’t appear much as he and Tony aren’t close whereas he would in a Steve POV fic.

How do I ensure that I don’t offend anyone if I include POC in my work?

You can’t ensure anything as POC aren’t a monolith, but you can try to be as informed as possible and avoid common pitfalls while writing. You can do research, just the way you might research anything you’re not familiar with. You can ask if anyone is willing to do a sensitivity read while you write or before you post. You can look for betas. There are a lot of resources out there, but these are good places to start if you’re looking for more information and help:

Writing with Color - resources

Writing with Color - Stereotypes and Tropes page

Reference for Writers - POC tag

What should I do to examine myself for any implicit biases?

We should all take stock of:

our feelings about different characters and relationships, both platonic and romantic, who we prioritize in our works, and how much they’re prioritized

our decision whether or not to seek or make content with characters of color. This includes content for white ships because sometimes every white character in the MCU shows up as a side character, but characters of color don’t or all of the white characters play bigger roles than the POC despite how close they are to the protagonist(s)

the way we interpret and write/draw those characters. For example, is Sam a yes-man? A figurative or literal therapist for white friends? The bro who only cracks jokes and/or gives sage advice but seems to not have any flaws, struggles, or life of his own outside of his white friends? The BFF who thinks his white best friend is being ridiculous about another white guy and wants them to get their act together already? Does the character of color talk in the way you perceive everyone of that race to talk rather than the way they personally do (e.g., does Luis randomly and awkwardly switch into Spanish when he talks just because he’s Latinx despite never speaking Spanish with Scott? Does Sam use AAVE with Steve, Bucky, and Natasha when he doesn’t do that with them?)?

Also, here’s a Google doc with more anti-racist resources.

Even well-meaning people can slip up or not be as proactive as they hoped they would be so it’s just good practice to check in with ourselves every once in a while and see if there’s anything we missed or didn’t notice.

#fandom #marvel fandom #mcu fandom #resource

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palmett-hoes · 3 years

Note

7 for Andrew??

( ask game )

7. Exists as a pretext for the intellectual exercise of seeing how much textual support I can find for something patently absurd

okay well this isn't patently absurd it's actually a very sad and sadly very common story for a lot of kids, but i did spend a lot of time combing the books for evidence of andrew’s relationship with books and reading. him being a big reader is a super common headcanon in the fandom, and im sorry to tell yall that we pulled that one out of our asses. from what’s available in canon andrew hates reading and refuses to do it in front of other people. so, i concluded that andrew is in fact, dyslexic, and that reading is difficult and frustrating for him. he avoids it whenever possible, instead relying on audible information that seems to work best for his memory. it also tracks that he wouldn’t read around other people because it would be displaying weakness in his eyes for people to see him struggling

so, the evidence. i’ve searched the books by appearances of words like “book” “read” “paper” etc. most things i can think are related to reading yknow? and there’s not one instance in the entire trilogy of andrew reading anything, ever. in fact, he canonically hates libraries and refuses to go in them. one time he’s handed a packet of an opposing team’s stats and he crumples it up and throws it in his locker immediately.

to put it in perspective, most if not every other characters is shown reading at some point or another, it’s just in very short, missable scenic descriptors. aaron buying a book in the airport. kevin reading a magazine in the dorm. the upperclassmen hanging out and doing homework together. neil reading foreign news sites. it doesn’t seem like much but the fact that andrew is never actually seen reading anything at any point ever,, is actually somewhat conspicuous if you pay attention to the fact that well,, everyone else does.

there’s a handful of other details, mostly andrew’s phone. he has an older model that both essentially forces him to use it slower to type, as well as disincentivizes other ppl from texting him and expecting a quick response. he doesn’t text neil at any point except for the essentials of setting up the phone, and it doesn’t seem like he texts with anyone else either. he specifically tells neil to call him, not text.

so let’s backtrack. let’s talk about what it means for andrew to be dyslexic.

(um,, a lot of this is gonna be based on articles and studies i’ve read but i don’t really wanna make this an Essay i want to cut through the explanations and background info so i’m gonna be making some Statements. if you’re curious or confused pls send me a message and i’ll tell u what i had in mind/what i was drawing from)

thematically, when thinking about andrew’s background, the most important thing i keep in mind about andrew is that he has never been lucky, ever. he is consistently, over and over, handed the worst cards. he is born and raised in the foster care system, and even within this (basically inherently traumatic system) he is ONLY placed in bad homes. he says so. maybe they vary in their methodology, but they’re all bad. so then i have to extend this reasoning to the other parts of his life. he has bad teachers, bad foster siblings, bad case workers. no one CARES about this boy, no one looks at him, no one asks why he behaves the way he does. he gets written off, over and over and over again, in every part of his life. that is FUNDAMENTAL to who he is and what has shaped his views and personality as a person

growing up, no one helped him with his homework, no one read to him at night. probably he had very limited experience with books before he entered school. if andrew is dyslexic he would have struggled in school from very early on, and he would not be receiving any help or support at home. he never learned any skills or coping mechanisms for dealing with the fact that he mixes up his letters or that his head hurts when he looks at them too long, because no one is paying attention to him to notice these things. if he’d received help, if people had been patient with him, he probably could have learned to read just fine and could have done well in school with some accommodations. instead, he just learned to resent reading, to hate books, because people were always trying to force him into it the wrong way, when he was a square peg in a round hole and he needed to approach reading differently from the other kids. but no one saw that there was a problem that could be helped, they only saw HIM as a problem, so no one helped him. not his foster parents, not his foster siblings, not his teachers. so he has no positive associations with reading, it’s just a continuous negative in his life

his teachers especially saw his outbursts and his resistance in class. they didn’t see that he was an abused, traumatized (autistic) child with a learning disability who couldn’t convey to anyone that reading was frustrating and physically painful for him, that he only needed a little more time and a little more support. they only saw his “attitude” and the fact that he took longer than his classmates. so they labelled him a “bad” kid, a “stupid” kid, and they didn’t question that judgement further

no one saw that, if he was given that extra time to read and think at his own pace, that he was brilliant. that he remembered everything that was ever said to him, word for word. they didn’t notice his self-discipline. his skill at puzzles and mind-games. the way he could see right through people and predict with uncanny accuracy how they would act and react. how good he was at putting clues together. his incredible spatial reasoning. they didn’t start conversations with him long enough to realize that he was incisive and observant and clever. they didn’t notice that he was bright and inquisitive, if reserved. that because no one ever answered his questions he learned how to answer them himself. that he started trouble because he was bored and under-stimulated. all they knew was that he never finished his tests and that he couldn’t read aloud in class because everything in schools is levels and data and test scores and working under ridiculous time requirements.

so i don’t really like that common characterization of andrew as a bookworm who does well in school. we know that andrew is intelligent, it’s so obvious that he’s brilliant to us from reading the books, but that’s because we’re seeing him through neil’s eyes. neil who looks at and understands andrew more than anyone else ever has, who sees in him the things that other people miss. and that’s important, because people have missed the fact that andrew is smart. but reading books, getting good grades, eloquent essays, that’s all one of the most typical, the most universally recognized ways to be smart. and i think that’s an injustice for andrew as a character and what his story represents, because he represents all the kids that got missed and passed over and thrown aside for not operating “correctly,” for reacting to things the “wrong” way

there are so many ways to be smart, so many different kinds of intelligence that get dismissed and written off for not being successful in the very narrow set of skills the school system teaches. giving andrew the most classic and conformative and universally recognized signs of “being smart” (actively AGAINST his passive characterization in canon) is honestly a disservice to him. and that’s what i like about him being dyslexic, of him struggling in school, because he can still be smart, be BRILLIANT (because he IS brilliant) but in non-conventional ways

#txt #andrew minyard #my posts #im talkin #anon #anonymous #ask #ask game #cw ableism #dyslexic andrew minyard

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runicrever · 4 years

Text

Primal Irken Headcanon/Alternate Universe

Hello everyone for those of you not here for the whole Headcanon or the AU story then this is where I’ll give minor explanations

First off

- HE’S NOT WEARING A BRA -

(I’m only saying this cause everyone in my household and at least one of my friends thought he was wearing a bra which isn’t the case)

The thing on his chest is a PAK stabilizer and a chest plate it’s there to protect vital organs hold the PAK more firmly in place and to block the pheromone receptors on his chest more will be explained in the head canon section

I based his design off the idea that what if a insect and a reptilian bird (aka dinosaur) were some how mixed how I came to this conclusion is the fact that Zim in the show looks very bug like but he’s green and Dib refers to him as a “lizard” at times in the show so I thought he must have lizard like skin which also would explain how flexible he’s shown himself to be which bugs can not do

This is basically my idea of what irkens long before they made proper PAKs and were planet destroying conquerors of the universe they were just little bug birds with a hierarchy similar to ants and bees where they make large hives with hundreds of thousands of irkens with a central queen and her chosen mate(s)

Zim is defective and a runt so as a smeet he’s thrown out into the wild in hopes he’d die but despite the odds he somehow barely made it to adult hood and the AU goes from there.

And FYI the first one if of him on Irk where he’s starving while the second and third are him after coming to earth and becoming much much healthier

Alright that’s the end of the introduction sorry it’s so long.. now for the hard Headcanon

- HEADCANON -

alright so to begin at the very start due to irkens showing signs of being a very unified group and seeming to act like a gigantic hive I believed that irkens came from a slightly more hive or nest like origin. the planet they lived on was rich in metals especially those that are rather rare on earth like platinum, gold, silver, titanium and others. This could mean the ground would be difficult to hallow out naturally leading to irkens to be very very skilled at hallowing out and hardening metal to make unground hives like those ants make but made of metal. I believe that they’d make sure the strongest metals were closer to the center of the nest to protect the queen and her mates.

The Original Queen how ever is the most powerful of irkens she’s huge, she’s powerful she, and oh dear god don’t piss her off or going to die! She is the only natural born queen and because of that she is the only irken queen who’s actually immortal other irkens. Like worker ants and bees are made to do their job and die as are irken soldiers and like bee and ant queens the irken queens life is FAR longer then any other irkens.

Other irken queens are females from hives that wanted to gain a mate and have smeets so the queen of such hive sends them away to find a male from a different hive. When the queen has found a mate they dig out the hole to the center of their hive and then begin having smeets. Within an irken year those smeets will be sub adults and begin serving their queen as loyal and devoted soldiers. The queen and her mate over that first year will produce pheremones that physically change their body structure so that they can do their job more effectively. The queen will get bigger and gain more fat stores so that she has lots of extra energy to make more smeets. The male mate will become leaner and taller and act as the queens advisor when not making smeets with her and instruct the other smaller irkens to do as she says or tell the queen of what’s needed for the hive.

You may be noticing a few similarities between the queen and her mate that there is between the control brains and the tallests. That is because this leads into my idea that when the Original Queen had an irken who figured out how to make PAKs to extreme the lives of irkens he began work on making it so the queens could truely live forever. This explains why the control brains oversee all major things such as executions, re-encodings, and the making, hatching, naming, and encoding of smeets. The tallests have taken on the roll of the queens mates. Due to irkens no longer actively reproducing and using cloning tubes the queens mated became permanent advisors and leaders for the rest of irkens. Which meant they no longer needed to be male and be good at making big healthy smeets instead they merely needed to be the perfect image of an irken. For the control brains still being irken queens who want tall healthy and strong looking mates they decided the tallest of irken soldiers would become tallests. Which would at least ensure the leader was tall and powerful and once they were tallest they were allowed to eat as much as they want when they want which by irken standards meant they were healthy.

In early irken society irkens were given rolls after they showed signs of talents. Theses talents were classified as Medic, Technician, Soldier, Nurse, and Drone and each irken was given their first name by the queen and their last name was their queens name and they would be given a letter in front of their name after they found their talent. For example a irken in this time maybe called S. Zept Mira which would mean the Zept was a soldier and served under queen Mira. Those serving under the Original Queen are instead given the last name of her mate Xalon since she only allows her closest protectors and her mate know her first name though a few select irkens have secretly learned of her name.

A defective irken in this time is any irken that is considered to small, malformed, hatched with a deformity, hatched with a mental disorder, or those who’s PAK can’t properly command the irken to serve their queen and respect the Original Queen. If an irken as one of these then they’re given an irken month to prove they can over come the disability but any more the one of those and their immediately thrown out to die as a tiny smeet there are a few irkens who were cast out at month who survives and formed a small tribe together and they work to together and only grow in numbers by hives casting out their month old smeets because they have no queen. When a month old is thrown out to die where they pick them up and help them until adults at which point they help the tribe but the tribe doesn’t take in hatchlings as they’d be to much work and because of this no day old has survived after being cast out. Well… all except one.

This is where the AU begins

Other more minor things to mention is the PAKs. They’re far smaller then the ones irkens wear today and have a harness like thingto stabilize them and cover the irkens sensory organs on this chest. In the comics there’s a page that shows Zim having three dots in his chest most took these to be nipples but reptiles birds and bugs don’t have that and I really don’t see irkens to be very mammalian so instead I took these to be sensory organs sort of like those in an alligators nose or those on the front edge of a viper or pythons mouth. But unlike those on reptiles they’d be some form of pheromone and hormone receptors. Yes the irkens antennae also do this but to a lesser degree. Honestly I’ve made irken antennae have a lot of different reasons for existing. The main one is hearing they’re primary purpose is feeling the vibrations of sound and sending those vibrations to organs in the skull that make sense of them and send them to the brain. The lower jaw of an irken also connects at a place very close to where the vibrations are made sense of so he can also hear through his jaw but it requires direct contact with the vibrations and his jaw to do this. So in the AU he may press his lower jaw on the ground or other solid objects to hear was going on inside them. His jaw connecting so high up on his skull is also why he can open his mouth so wide(if you don’t know what I’m talking about look at any time he screams in the show)The antennae two secondary uses are smelling/picking up pheromones and showing emotion. Firstly explaining that they also smell and register pheromones is simply connecting them to bugs. Ants bees and basically any insect senses smells and pheromones through their antennae hence why they wiggle them around at things they’re wanting to eat or at each other since pheromones are how bugs talk. But this is secondary because their tongue does the other half of smelling (cause if you didn’t know this the senses of smell and taste are actually pretty strongly linked) and the holes on his chest due the other half of pheromone reception. The emotion part how ever should be obvious.. in the show Zims antennae spring up when he’s attentive or confused and lay back more when he’s angry or worried so they’re sort of just do that naturally.

- ALTERNATE UNIVERSE STORY -

Zim just after hatching is inspected by the Queen and her mate Xalon. He’s picked up and looked over curiously as they try and figure out what’s wrong with him as they can already see he’s far FAR smaller then he should be. He came out of an average egg and there was no signs of issue but the the tiny runt smeet only was calmly curious of the new world around him. The queen called in the royal Medic and Technician to give the smeet his PAK which was done quickly. The process of putting on a PAK was incredibly painful for smeets especially smaller ones but ones in place and fully connected they ran diagnostics. Sadly for the tiny smeet the PAK informed all of them that the poor smeet wasn’t properly connecting to the PAK his brain was fighting the PAKs demands and because of such the queen sighed as she called in two of her soldiers to take the smeet to the forest to be left to die. Likely by being eaten by something or simply die of thirst and starvation.

The soldiers did as told without question as this was very standard practice for them they carried the tiny smeet by his PAK stabilizer. Once they got to the deep parts of the forest they tossed him and began walking back to the hive careful of their surroundings as the forest was home to monsters. They did not pity the smeet and they instead focused only on their own survival and the survival of their nest. Such was the way of the Irken.

The tiny abandoned smeet was very confused as to why he was dropped in this new place and merely began to explore. Everything was new to the newly hatched smeet as it calmly wondered about the forest floor. Within hours night began to fall and the tiny smeet quickly found itself getting very cold as at night the temperature on the planet quickly went down and the tiny smeet desperately tried to find a place to hide for the night as was his instinct to hide when it got dark and to huddle up when it got cold. Eventually he found a tree with a small hold where its roots had begun branching out into the ground and he crawled inside and curled up tight against a side of the hole desperately trying to stay warm during the night. He attempted to sleep as rest is important for smeets but due to the cold he got very little sleep.

By morning the smeet was tired and growing hungry and climbed out of the little hole to begin looking for food. He searched for quite a while being on high alert as his surrounds were rather concerning lots of sounds from animals could be heard and all the smeet wanted was something to eat and then go hide again. Even tally he ended up finding a berry bush and his PAK informed him that they were safe to eat so he grabbed the ones he could reach ate them quickly and looked for more food. Another few hours passed before he found a small nest of lizard legs and his PAK telling him that they were edible he grabbed a few and carried them off to his little hiding place to eat the next time he got hungry. Once back in his hole he curled up and slept until next he got hungry.

This cycle continued for most of his life until he couldn’t fit in his hiding spot any longer which at around 4 months old he began digging himself a new hiding place to live in and began making tools to catch himself food. He was an incredibly smart little irken despite his disabilities and differences and by the time he reached a year of age he had a hole that he hallowed out at the base of a tree and a deeper part below that in the ground for when winter came around. he’d relocated a few bushes he new grew edible berries to be closer to his little den as well as setting up pit traps for animals he could eat to fall into.

He’d even began going to the hive dumps and looking for scrap items he could use to built things and eventually built himself two little robots one that followed him around and watched his back when he was hunting or scavenging and a second that hovered staying close to his den to alert him if something attacked it. Both were rather adorable and due to Zims instinctive need for company and companionship both robots served a secondary purpose of being things he could hug or “talk” to when he was scared nervous or just lonely.

I say he “talked” to them with quotes because his talking was severely lacking due to the lack of actual conversing. He could speak irken of course as that was done by his PAK he had learned quickly that it was better to stay quiet making a lot of noise attracted predators and it also didn’t help that any irken he found would look at him as if he were a freak and yell at him. They’d even attack him if he was in their hunting grounds or found scavenging in their dump so he rarely spoke causing his voice to be soft and hoarse. He instead spoke to his robots in soft chirps whistles squeaks and if he was angry hisses. Irken itself was a very harsh language coming from ruff gut earl growls and high shreeky screams though some sound were softer but those were few and far between. So Zim had developed his own little language only for himself and his robots.

But one day towards the end of his 16th year in exile an odd ship landed near his den. He was terrified as he’d never seen anything like it in his life and what came out of it was even more of a shock. A tall and thin beast, it’s body was clothed in a T-shirt jeans and trench coat, his hair a dark raven black with a cowlick taking on the shape of a scythe and odd clear circles that reflected light slightly hiding his golden amber eyes. This creature was not from Irk and was both horrifying and interesting to the little irken. He was so tall and lean Zim couldn’t help but find him interesting to look at but his trench coat and glasses gave him an aura of mystery and curiosity. The human looked around his surroundings excited to have found a planet with plants and life leaving his ship unattended.

The irken approached the ship pressing his jaw against it to listen to it and found the humming drone of the engine and the buzz of electricity. He moved away from the ship and carefully approached the human. As he got closer the human turned and the two locked eyes.

And that’s what I have the AU is partly for an roleplay idea ive had but I wanted to make this post so I had some where to send people to if they wanted to try the AU in roleplaying with me. If your interested then your welcome to ask to try the RP I merely ask that I get to be Zim for it..

#Primal!AU #Primal!Zim #DoofArt #iz #invader zim

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necromancy-savant · 4 years

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@harry-leroy’s Shakespeare Appreciation Week: Villains Day - Richard III.

Pictured: the tattoo on my left leg, inspired by one of his speeches.

Long post under the cut:

I more or less skipped favorite play(s) day cause I figured it’d be better to wait to talk about my favorite character who happens to be a villain. When I was 18, I was told in a class I was taking (skipping more often than not tbh and not doing the reading) that Shakespeare could write about anyone, that he had captured a full range of human experience. Being someone who can’t relate to most people, I thought that was bullshit, assuming he could never have written anything that would speak to me personally. I was so wrong.

6 years later, during my second attempt at college, I was assigned to read Richard III for a Shakespeare class. Now, I was already loving the class and loving Shakespeare at that point. I had enjoyed Shakespeare in high school (though admittedly not as much as Milton) but was getting so much more out of his plays upon revisiting them and finding a deep interest in them.

I had been talking with my professor after class one day about how in 8th grade everyone in my grade (mind you it was a private middle school and there were 43 of us, actually making us one of the largest grades) was assigned a Shakespeare monologue that we had to perform (if you’re curious, I was not out as trans at the time and I was given Viola’s ring monologue and had NO idea what to do with it - I was also ace even though I didn’t have a word for it yet.)

My professor said she used to assign students to memorize at least 14 lines (so they could pick a sonnet or a monologue) and offered that it might be fun to let us do it for extra credit, and I jumped on it. I had enjoyed memorizing my lines (which was not required) for an assignment we did where we had to perform a scene and was eager to have a second chance to do a monologue, this time one of my choosing. I remembered the second day of class when we were given a few lines of the opening monologue from Richard III to provide examples of Shakespeare’s figurative language, and we were given a summary of the monologue. I was sitting there thinking “you’re telling me there’s a Shakespeare play with an ace villain protagonist?!” but immediately dismissed the thought, not wanting to get my hopes up.

But when I started reading the lines to decide if it might be a good one for me to learn, what I saw reflected back at me was the exact way I had felt my whole life, not only put into words but done so better than I could have ever done. It was uncanny. The first time I read it aloud I got choked up, and I tried to preserve that in the way I said those particular words even as it became rote memory because it was an authentic reaction to speaking them.

Needless to say, I immediately devoured the rest of the play in one night even though we weren’t due to read it for another month (don’t worry, I read it again to prepare for class.) I didn’t want to get my hopes up that I would like it through to the end and wouldn’t disappoint me in any way and it did not. I then realized I’d been blessed with a prequel and read 3H6 that weekend and it gave me my favorite scene and speech in the canon. By the time I got to class to discuss The Tempest I had completely forgotten about it. I practiced that Richard III monologue every day for a month and bared my soul for the class, and I sort of had a realization that when acting I could just...say a bunch of stuff I wouldn’t cveven dare say in therapy, and the more open I let myself be the more people will think I’m just faking it. That’s when I decided I wanted to be in a real play.

I’ve always thought it was a little weird that I connected so strongly to Richard. I am not physically disabled. I am trans, ace, and autistic/adhd. I certainly have a lot of body issues and I’ve always felt like a different species. “Deformed” - that was the word I used to describe how I felt physically in high school, when I was grappling with being trans. And I’ve always felt lacking in the things that supposedly make someone human. Of course, I’ve managed to make much better choices than Richard does, but I was extremely angry and isolated for most of my life and it can be cathartic to watch someone else do all the destructive stuff you yourself wouldn’t.

This past year I wrote about him (solely in the context of Shakespeare) for my Master’s degree, diving into some of the intersections of gender nonconformity, asexuality, and disability (and man are there a lot more than I expected.) I would never want to downplay the ways you can read this character for disability studies, but one of the things I noticed is that for him it’s presented as something purely cosmetic - there’s no consideration about how Richard has to accommodate himself to exist in the world, only about how he looks. And it sort of clicked for me that that, while definitely an inaccurate and insidious idea about disability to think that it’s just about looking different, is part of what allowed me to see myself in him. And it was validating to find through my research that it wasn’t just me seeing stuff that wasn’t there: a lot of these lines really could be taken a couple different ways due to the intersections of how our culture thinks about these things.

I guess what I’m saying is, I know what it’s like to beat myself up over things about my appearance that other people probably don’t even notice. And I know what it’s like to be alone, to be desperate, and to wonder if the only way to be noticed is to be powerful. And unlike so, so many other works of fiction, Shakespeare will always be special to me because he made room for me in his world.

#theplaysthething2020

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breakingbadfics · 3 years

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Death of the author

CW: Light discussion of politics, mentions of the Alt-Right, and White Supremacists.

Consider this a “Change of Pace” entry. I’m trying to figure out what the next essay is to be about as well as the eventual long term for this blog.

I wrote this essay back in mid 2019, long before the idea of this blog would come to mind, it’s been lightly edited prior to posting and added to. and I think this essay shows some of my influences much more heavily than my other writings.

What does My Little Pony and The Matrix have in common? Death of the Author.

Death of the Author is not to be confused with “Separating the Artist from the Art,” a self explanatory concept to distance a work from a creator who’s beliefs are more than a little unpleasant, easiest example is acknowledging that, yes, H.P. Lovecraft was a Mega-racist, however, his contributions to the horror genre have created a base that is nearly ubiquitous with the genre to this day, like wise with Orson Scott Card. this concept in itself is an especially controversial subject, but is not the focus of this piece.

Death of the Author is what allowed The Matrix, a movie with a collection of metaphors about being an lgbt person, and an activist for the rights of yourself and your allies to be grossly misinterpreted as a way to justify being a bigot, the most egregious misinterpretation being that of “The Red Pill Scene.”

In the context of the film, The Red Pill Scene is the part of the traditional heroes story where the hero “accepts the call”, Neo is quite literally making the choice to leave the safe world he’s been living in behind and embark on his adventure that will result in a death and rebirth into being The One who will save humanity. In the now very much understood to be the direct metaphor, it’s a scene in which Neo, the stand-in for a lgbt person, specifically a trans person, is being told by a much older lgbt person “You are trans, you have the choice to embrace it, but regardless of what choice you make from here on out the road ahead is going to be bumpy and rough on you, because the system around you is designed to make sure people like us aren’t able to prosper, and if you join us, you won’t be able to opt out.”

That is the very understood metaphor that most people accept with the modern understanding after The Wachowski’s came out as Lily and Lana in the “post-matrix trilogy” reality of the real world.

However due to the Moral Neutrality of Death of the Author in other circles the Red Pill(and all the other metaphors in the film) takes on an alternative meaning. And I can be “polite” in my explaing the bad take on how this scene plays out, but just to hammer the point home we’ll get dirty so you can know where the take is coming from, The Red Pill Scene for White supremeacists, and The alt-right (but I repeat myself) is such. Neo, a disgruntled white person is being told that the world is controlled by soulless machines. Jews, people of color, etx. Everyone around him is mind controlled and can and will attempt to stop him from saving the people smart enough to also realise they’re being held captive by non-whites and save them all. This of course, all being told to him by Morpheus, a black man. So have fun working your head around that.

This of course the most extreme example being the most ubiquitous, poke around on chan sites and sooner or later you’ll see the phrase “red pill” having been memetically adjusted to mean “hey tell me about this thing” or even more specifically “I already had an opinion about this but either way I want you to confirm my choice.” But I digress.

These two interpretations are so wildly on the opposite ends of the spectrum that the only commonalities between them is “You will likely need to be violent at some point”

I’m naturally only covering the two interpretations, the matrix itself has been picked apart by an untold number of people and people interpret it in as many ways as possible in terms of philosophical meaning. That is the nature of Death of The Author.

Death of the Author also covers in a round-a-bout fashion, selective canon, a subjective acknowledgement of canon elements throughout a long lived franchise- see; Star Wars, Star Trek, the belief that there was never any sequels to The Matrix. This variant of the philosophy allows one to be able to continue interactions with a text, specifically a text that consists of multiple volumes (or contributions, each one made by an individual author) but also deny interactions with parts that they personally dislike.

More often than not, you can attribute the death of the author to a bad take in a case of fiction, another primary example being Fight Club, often missed for the scathing critique of unhealthy male behaviour and propped up as some sort of moral guideline for how to live your life. Which is again, not to say this is the fault of Death of The Author as a philosophy, it is morally neutral, these bad takes can more often be attribued to the simple fact that unless directly stating it most attempts at satire or parody will have a contingent of people who agree with what is said, not what is meant, and death of the author unfortunately does make that..very easy, for good, or ill.

Where does My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic fit in with all this? Well there are certainly alt-right members of the brony fandom who are painfully missing the point, but we’ve already dwelled on the negative enough, so let’s get happy.

In Episode 1 of Season 1, the first part of a two part pilot, in the background of a shot during a party scene; a pony with a grey coat and blonde mane and tail is seen in the background. This particular pony stood out the most amongst other background characters due to a mistake caused by the animation staff. According to the supervising director at the time, this particular error was spotted after hasbro greenlit the episode for air, and because it amused him he chose not to order a correction so it was left in as a nice little easter egg.

The nameless background pony would eventually be caught by 4chan among other places and very rapidly developed a following of fans and given a nickname, Derpy Hooves. This particular following and new nickname would echo back to shows staff becoming the name internally referred to by the show’s staff.

Friendship is magic creator Lauren Faust, who also enjoyed the popularity of the character when asked in an interview would state that a character named Ditzy Doo existed in an unaired episode, that would be implied to be this particular background pony, So naturally now depending on the fan this particular character would be reffered to as either Derpy Hooves, or Ditzy Doo.

Ditzy Doo would go on to become a recurring easter egg with in the show, something similar to that of “where’s waldo” but with horses. This practice would continue until episode 14 of season 2 where the character would have a set of spoken lines and would be addressed by name. This however resulted in a degree of controversy in which some people expressed concern that the presentation of the character was an offensive attempt at portraying people with mental or physical disabilities. This event resulted in the episode being altered in future airings and the character disappearing from the show for the vast majority of Season 3. Beyond Season 3 the character would continue to appear until season 5 where they would finally have a voiced role in the 100th episode of the show, and then eventually having another speaking role in the christmas special “The best gift ever.” It is also worth noting that Hasbro never gave her an “official name” with almost all of Ditzy’s merchandise either having no name present, or more often than not a singular image of a muffin in place of a name, even going so far as to have “Muffins” be the credited name she was given in all voiced instances of the show.

Muffins, Ditzy Doo, or Derpy Hooves isn’t the only case of background characters growing a large following of fans with in the show; a variety of characters have been swept up by the fans, given names and personalities built entirely out of bit gags. Lyra, Bon Bon, Vinyl Scratch, Octavia Melody, and who knows how many more have all been seen in background moments which would be built on by fans and then echo back into the staff to be integrated into the show further. One would say this is fanon but at the end of the day, the writers and show staff had very little more intent with the characters beyond “does this background character look good?” and “Does this bit part character stand out enough to automatically be recognizable for the bit they need to be doing” it is still what I believe to be an example of Death of The Author, an act of choosing to ignore the intended meaning,and giving what amounts to window dressings a full life as fleshed out characters in fan content and in small instances of the show; an interpretation separate from the writers original intent.

Now the question is does someone need to actively defy the author to participate in The Death There-of? No. I don’t believe so. In much the same fashion no one need actually be a clan member to inadvertently say or do something that's passive aggressively racist(yes a bit of an extreme, I know) one need not actively defy the author, merely ascribe to an alternate interpretation of a work of fiction. Refer to Fight Club, the film does everything it can with out directly stating “most of the people in Fight Club and later Project Mayhem are bad people, because they were already doing the things Tyler Durden was ascribing to” and almost unilaterally all the bad takes are built around this idea that they’ve achieved the perfect ideal masculine because they’re the “living in the moment, violent psychopath” nihilist the movie is actively condemning.

The simple fact is that death of the author ultimately, in a grand scale amounts to this; did a writers intent show through hard enough for their intent to be heard? And Subjectively, how much does a person believe in the meaning that they, or the writer themself have imparted into the story?

#change of pace

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nyanzaya · 5 years

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@if-that-so inquired: 💋💖💄👓🔫🔮🎤🎪🍸🍯🍰⛄⏳💐⚾🌊🌵🍒🐝💳👠👻💉🃏😊🙁 tbh i want to ask all... And also, there are some i already know but i just want to make sure 😘

oc questions

💋 What traits do they like in other people? What traits do they not like?

Iza: The traits Iza likes in other people is intellect? He likes smart people, but he also doesn’t like smart people. He loves people who are a little gullible/inattentive because he would take advantage of it in small ways to get what he wants. Direct people are his favorite but also his bane because he hates to be put in the spotlight when they call things/point things out.

Zuo: Zuo likes when someone is laid back, fun and just a calming presence to be around. The traits he dislikes are: Deceptive, dishonest, indecisive and of course provoking in terms of trying to rile him up and get him angry

💖 Do they have a significant other? If so, who?

In their canon they were significant others; but things happened and now they are broken up even though under the sheets they still want to be together. You could say that they are still significant others but if they find anyone else to be with instead of each other then they let each other go. In a way you could say Zuo and Iza are still significant others with each other but as of right now they don’t have a significant other-- (and if i were to make this blog single ship I think I might make them significant others again but it would be like wild af)

💄 Do they care about their physical appearance? What’s their routine like?

Iza: He cares a lot about how he looks. From how his hair is style to the make up he has on. He wants to look the best and be the “best in show” Often, he is asleep during the day but whenever he does wake up he washes his face, fixes his hair to look well-kept and then he puts on eyeliner and depending, mascara. The eyeliner is always a cateye. He has a bunch more make up but he stays with the simple stuff because he feels that if you put too much you’re just ruining how you look, then he makes sure his nails are well-kept and manicured so if he’s not sleeping or working he will be tending to his nails

Zuo: He doesn’t care that much about how he looks? All he cares about is looking presentable and then going about his business. He doesn’t care for “looking the best” if anything he’d just want to look cool even if he doesn’t wear anything that’s flashy. Zuo does style his hair to hide his ears but sometimes they perk up from under his hair and it’s super cute

👓 Do they have any physical or mental disabilities?

Iza: I MEAN. He doesn’t have any physical disabilities but for mental-- like PTSD then yes lol. MMmh I guess hypersomnia because he is constantly and I mean cooonstantly sleeping even though it’s more like naps(like 16-24 hours at least) Anxiety and depression too.

Zuo: He doesn’t have any physical disabilities and for mental it’s almost the same as Iza’s except he doesn’t have hypersomnia. With what they both lived through, they would have these types of mental disorders but they ARE NOT diagnosed for it

🔫 What would they die for? Kill for?

Both of them would die to help their kin be free from servitude and they’d kill for it too. Iza already does kill for it, but Zuo tries not too. Though, unlike Iza, Zuo would kill and die for his significant other(whether it’s Iza or not), but Iza would kill for his significant other even if it means he kills them or someone else lmfao

🔮 Do they have any magical powers or abilities? If it’s a realistic world, what religion do they follow?

I think there has to be some magic because well, tbh the world is based around drrr and there’s supernatural creatures like faeries and demons so it wouldn’t surprise me if there was even a little bit of magic but, Iza and Zuo don’t have any magical powers or abilities. Iza isn’t exactly religious but the religion he follows is the religion of a cat god who was almost entirely erased from the world and sometimes when he refers to “God” he refers to her, but he does reference the christian God quite a bit and might have a bit of a god complex because he preaches for people to “Turn yourself into God and you won’t ever be killed.” Now ZUO WELL, I think he actually is religious but he is not a devote follower. I think he follows the same religion as Iza with the cat god but he isn’t a devote follower of Her, he prefers to keep religion and things like that to himself. Where Iza and Zuo differ between the religion is Iza says She is a vengeful and cruel god who wants to punish all who have hurt her children or kittens(As in her followers), while Zuo says she’s a benevolent God who wants to fix the things she had done wrong. Iza and Zuo don’t talk about religion to each other often because they could never agree.

🎤 Do they play any instruments?

Neither of them play instruments, unless you count singing as an instrument then Iza sings! Zuo would get frustrated with instruments but if he did play he would probably play drums

🎪 What would their favorite ride at an amusement park be?

Iza: The ferris wheel so he can look down on all the people because he loves to feel superior and better than them :sob:

Zuo: A big crazy roller coaster because he would love to feel the wind and the rush of adrenaline

🍸 How do they act when they’re drunk?

Iza: He’s honestly? Really emotional when he’s drunk? Lol like, he really easy to influence too and just the littlest things would make him burst into tears like LOL oh god if he saw something really cute he’d just “Oooh~ MY GODS-- That’s the cutest..i--eeeeoh my gooooood” Like Iza please...dont cry because of a really cute looking puppy or kitten lol

Zuo: I ACTUALLY HAVEN'T THOUGHT OF IT FOR ZUO BUT I THINK HE WOULD BE THE CALM FUNNY CUDDLE TYPE OF DRUNK.

🍯 Which era of history would they most like to live in?

Iza: I think he’d want to live in like, oh gosh probably the future tbh?

Zuo: He’d want to live in the era with kings and queens because he was a royal knight and he misses his king :(

🍰 What’s their favorite food?

Iza: He loves horse meat? I don’t know why

Zuo: I think Fugu because he isn’t afraid to get poisoned by a fish

⏳ How do they feel about death?

Iza: Iza finds death to be a beautiful thing? I don’t think he really...idolizes it... because in his head its “You’re not really dying, you are being transformed into something else.” which like, okay Iza. I mean I GUESS. and he says that you don’t ever actually die, you get reincarnated as something else to learn a new lesson

Zuo: For real Zuo doesn’t like death, hates death, and wishes it never existed because he can remember his past lives and how he died and what he hates most about it is: coming back and having to figure everything out again and finding Iza/his soulmate and convince them that “We are destined to be together, please, believe me you don’t remember but I do.” and YEAH HE GETS REALLY SAD ABOUT IT

💐 Do they collect anything? What’s their most prized possession?

Iza: Iza collects plush toys because he feels comforted whenever he has one. His prized possession has to be his collar because he got that from his first master? And he’s had it ever since? He wears it literally all the time, partly because one he kinda misses his first? And second to deter people from taking him

Zuo: I don’t think Zuo has ever collected anything? Not from what I can recall but his most prized possession has to be the glasses he wears because he got that from his mom because she didn’t want him to be unable to see just how colorful the world actually is (they are both colorblind)

⚾ Do they play any sports?

Iza: He doesn’t play any sports? But I mean if you count hunting small animals and occasionally people as a sport then yeah he does LOL

Zuo: He plays whatever sport he can, though his favorites are soccer and football, mostly football for really obvious reasons

🌊 What one place do they really want to visit and why?

Iza: France! Because he wants to visit Paris since he heard it’s the city of love

Zuo: Germany! He wants to see the castles and try the food

🌵 What languages do they speak?

Iza: English, German, Japanese

Zuo: English, French, Japanese

🍒 What are some items they always carry? What weapon do they favor using if they exist in a world where weapons are necessary?

Iza: He always has his pocket knife, but he’s very reluctant on using it because he would rather talk with words than get physical and fight(Unless it’s Zuo then he will fight Zuo), wallet, needles because he can hit puncture points really well when he’s fighting/hunting

Zuo: This white envelope that holds his catnip cigarettes that he rolls himself, his sunglasses and wallet

🐝 What stereotypical high school clique would they fit into?

Iza: He would fit in that…. Drifter or an Outsider clique? The one kid that goes around and comes off as a social butterfly but is just fine on their own and is also the one that ends up knowing literally everyone else's business while no one knows his.

Zuo: I think he would be a jock lmfao just, obvious reasons? To burn off steam and because he wants attention

💳 What one thing that they don’t need do they waste the most money on?

Iza: Oh gosh...he wastes money on a lot of things ...like he doesn’t need make-up but “Bitch I need my eye liner and blush.” and strawberry milk because “Shut up! I like it, I desire it, and I will have it.” and plush toys because “It makes me feel GOOD.” And designer knives because “I just think they are neat and I want it for my collection.” Like, someone stop him

Zuo: Hmm for Zuo? I don’t think he really spends his money-- but sometimes he’d impulsive buy weird things like slippers that look like bread? Or weird figurines lol it’s so hard to say accuse there’s a lot of weird things xD But if it looks interesting and funny he’d buy it, it dont even matter what it is

👠 What kind of shoes do they wear?

Iza: Iza has a lot of shoes he wears? Like he’ll wear heels(Like any type of heel) sometimes but most of the time I think he wears slip-ons, sneakers and slippers and if he’s dressed up he’d wear derby.

Zuo: He’s so easy and simply: Sneakers. Slip-ons, slippers

👻 Do they believe in ghosts, aliens, and the occult in general?

For both of them, yes! I think Iza is kind of skeptical about it but Zuo insists aliens and ghosts are real. Iza is more into the occult than Zuo, like witchcraft and magic because he wants it to be real

💉 Which Deadly Sin do they most correspond to? Which Heavenly Virtue?

Iza: Lust for his sin and oh god… for a heavenly virtue uhm…. Hope or Fortitude

Zuo: Wrath for his sin and for his heavenly virtue it’s Justice or Temperance

🃏 If you had to choose one tarot card to represent them, what would it be?

Iza: Death because it represents major transformation and new beginnings, and transformation, passage, and change. Another one would be The Moon(symbolizes illusion and deception, and therefore often suggests a time when something is not as it appears to be. Perhaps a misunderstanding on your part, or a truth you cannot admit to yourself) and The Devil(symbolizes ambitions and is also synonymous with temptation, addiction, and depression)

Zuo: The World because it represents that things have come full circle, a journey has been completed, and a long-term project has come to an end. Another one for him would be The Sun(symbolizes positive energy, joy of living and enthusiasm) and The Hanged Man(symbolizes trial or meditation, selflessness, and sacrifice)

😊 What do they consider to be their best quality? What actually is their best quality?

Iza: He would say his best quality is his charm. His actual best quality is how tactful he can be, let alone romantic

Zuo: He would say his best quality is how brave he is. His actual best quality is how self-confident he is in himself

🙁 What do they consider to be their worst quality? What actually is their worst quality?

Iza: He would say his worst quality is how lazy/procrastinating he gets. His worst quality has to be how vainful and superficial he can actually be, let alone him using it to manipulate situations to get what he wants.

Zuo: He would say it’s his outbursts of anger, but actually his worst quality impulsive behavior because he just does it...he doesn’t think about it

#I FINALLY FINISHED IT #tysm for sending this<3 #Headcanons #About Iza #About Zuo #if-that-so

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obliterus · 5 years

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REVERSE AU//MVA part 1

It’s been a while, but now it’s coming back. Some things have been completely re-vamped, some things have gotten darker and more sinister here. I’m going to begin re-telling the story of this AU on this blog since Shion will be involved, and then offer all other exclusive in-depth character profiles (several key characters that are vital to the plot, and who I want to write again or introduce) on my upcoming multi-muse blog. Since... I’m sure there will be questions and there will be answers.

WELCOME TO MY VILLAIN ACADEMIA!

Please enjoy your stay and remember to do your best, because an attempt isn’t tolerated. Let’s get started, shall we?

Everything that you’ve come to love and cherish, those storybook heroes and their happy ever after endings don’t exist here. This is a story in which raw power and glory run the show and all that heroic bullshit? Well, let’s just say it doesn’t exist! In this world, your abilities dictate your entire life, how you attend school, and even the friends you make! If you’re born quirkless, from the moment you take your first breath, life will be especially hard for you, because you’re as good to dirt in this society. Villains are the top dog here, and your life can only get a little bit better if you entrust yourself into the hands of those with abilities greater than your own. You’re considered a disability to the system if you’re quirkless, you may as well just kiss your life goodbye or die trying!

There are no happy endings here, only the struggle to come out on top, and become the best Pro Villain you can. Corruption is encouraged, using your abilities to get ahead and manipulate are all welcomed here, so is physical violence. Not too much though, we don’t need to mop up blood off campus every single hour on the hour. We have a battle arena if you need to fight out your differences, but please book that in advance. Most of your peers will be anywhere between Green and Orange ranking, so please respect them once you encounter them and their ranking. This is the opposite of the hero stories you’ve come to understand, so please make sure you’re familiar with all of the rules and where you, yourself fall! Have a GREAT year!

My Villain Academia is an alternative universe in which tells takes the canon storyline and completely reverses it! Yes, that’s right. Everyone you know and love is actually a heartless villain in training in this. I shouldn’t say completely heartless, but they’re pretty close. Also, your heartless canon villains are actually morally wonderful underground Heroes. UA Academy is a school that prides itself on producing some of the best Villains not only in Japan but across the globe. With its excellent selection of courses and rigorous acceptance exams, one can only dream of being accepted to UA. The story is narrated by the resident King of UA Academia, Midoriya Izuku, and his journey in becoming a Pro Villain.

The school is separated into two classes when it comes to the Villain Course, A and B. These are considered some of the top aspiring students in all of Japan. They’ll do just about anything and everything to get ahead, but they will not turn on each other. They are required to work together in some fields because powerful quirk users combined can be a beautiful thing in the face of battle, or in establishing dominance, right? It’s designed to set you on the right path and separate the powerful from the weak hearted.

General Studies is offered to students that have failed the Villain course exam but still have the potential to join the Villain course during the spring of their following year. However, General Studies students can usually be seen in one of two lights: Scrubs and targets, or potential villains based on how students present themselves in those classes. They’re sorted into C and D, and E categories.

Support Course are students that have been gifted with extreme knowledge and craftsmanship. These are the individuals that instead choose to support their future pro Villains along their course by designing weapons that can enhance not only their quirks but their combat abilities. Support students are highly treasured at UA, and often shown an extra level of respect so that villain course students can ultimately get what they want to be made. There is no limit to what they can make, and their stock room is filled to the brim with assorted tools. Some legal, some very illegal. Anything goes when you’re in support course territory! They are sorted into F, G and H categories.

Lastly, but certainly not least, the Management Course. They are the individuals single-handedly responsible for starting a Villain’s career. They deal with all marketing, opening up agencies, and provide a line of direction for newborn villains. They are sharp individuals, with great problem-solving skills and are masters of working the system in their favor. They’re a more isolated group of students, who choose to keep their secrets to themselves. They are sorted into I, J and K categories.

Much of the Discourse that should arise in UA isn’t handled by the teachers but handled by the ranking system that is established among the Villain Course students. It is called The Royal Flush and composed up of a King, Queen, Jack, Ace and Ten of Hearts. Each title is worn by a Villain Course student, and with it, comes specific duties that are to be obeyed around the school. Before I outline who this is made up, I’ll explain how society’s ranking system works based on what type of quirk you’re born with. Or NOT born with.

When a child’s quirk manifests, they are immediately classified into a color that will dictate how the rest of their life will go. Let’s start from lowest to highest! Now, these are subject to change if a quirkless child is a late bloomer and their quirk manifests later, OR an individual that was already sorted has a quirk change or an enhancement in their abilities that calls for them to be sorted into a different classification. This is done by the government in which the person goes through a series of tests to be passed on to a different classification.

COLOR QUIRK CLASSIFICATION SYSTEM ;;

QUIRKLESS (Black) If no quirk manifests in a child, they are tapped as black and are donned as a disability to the society overall. They are shunned and mocked, these are the people who have a very hard time finding suitable jobs and education for themselves. They tend to stick together to survive and are virtually non-existing to society unless they do something to prove themselves. A lot of them do the services that many quirk users do not want to do, and this buys them protection and a safe space. The highest suicide ranking is among the quirkless.

LOW TIER (Blue) The weakest on the quirk totem pole. Low tier quirk users are registered under the color blue to signal their ranking. These are the people who are offered the lowest ranking jobs and education. They have a chance to climb up the pole if their quirk changes after they’ve already been tapped as a child. Otherwise, these are the people who are easily taken advantage of and who often deflect for the Hero underground.

MID-TIER (Green) The middle of the pole. Once sorted into this category, I would consider this the middle class of the quirk ranking system. A lot of citizens are mid-tier users. They have the ability to hold decent jobs, can become advisors to higher ranking quirk users, are offered good education, and are respected enough to be left alone. They don’t help the weak if they know what’s good for them and their safety. A lot of UA students are Green users that are trying to advance to Orange if their ability allows, but honestly, being Green is a good thing. It doesn’t get you looked at like the Blues, and it takes some of the pressures of Orange off you.

HIGH TIER (Orange) The second highest ranking on the quirk pole. They are the world’s leaders, offered the highest ranking jobs, exposed to the absolute best education system. The police tend to turn a blind eye to high tier users who act out in society because they are seen as the best of the best. Their power isn’t something to be questioned. High tier users can offer protective services to mid-tier users.

SUPREME TIER (Red) Extremely rare. 5% of the population. These are people that are considered walking Gods because of their quirk abilities. Both feared and praised, they are hunted down for their abilities and turned into lethal villain machines. They can offer protective services to just about anyone they choose and it will -never- be questioned. It is very much a thing that children born and tested as Red, will be registered as Orange and their quirk abilities fairly suppressed.

Now that that’s outlined, going back to The Royal Flush squad. The Big Three were the top dogs of UA while they were there, Mirio becoming King in his second year, along with Nejire as Queen and Tamaki as Jack. The Big Three came to dominate the school, they were the people that aspiring individuals looked to for advice. They handled a lot of disputes, while not only increasing their profiles as Villains but also letting people know that they were not the ones to be questioned. Izuku inherits the King title, reluctant to do so after he inherits his ability, None for All, and was now tasked with building his own elite team to wear the Royal titles through the years at UA. Izuku is the only one to become King during his first year.

Who he picks are a total secret, and one you’ll come to discover later on.

Now, what about the Hero Underground? Is there a silver lining in all of this? Of course! The Hero Underground, known as the League of Heroes, is a widespread society that was started by one man, known as All For One. However, in the Villain realm, he’s known bitterly as Robin Hood. He can steal quirks from the most sinister of Villains and gift them to aspiring Heroes who are desperate to try and make society a better place. There have been rumors floating around forever that Shimura Nana has killed him, but in reality, AFO is safely hidden in an unknown location that’s under intense security.

The League of Heroes fights for everyone. They do not discriminate against Quirkless and Low Tier users and are always welcoming to any Villain that chooses to deflect. Once somebody chooses to deflect, they are stripped of their ranking and are considered as good as dirt to society. Heroes are seen as vermin, with their want for equal rights among everyone else and to have quirks liberated rather than controlled by the government and other systems. Hero Agencies exist in locations spread all over Japan, some greatly hidden behind walls, underground, within a maze of tunnels, or through extensive passwords.

Three misfits, ostracized and hunted for their abilities joined the Hero ranking and own one of the most successful Agencies of all time. (Also a real pain in the ass for the Villains of the society) Chisaki Kai, Todoroki Touya, and Shigaraki Tomura. Three individuals who were born RED, who deflected from villain society and built an Agency from the ground up in honor of liberation. They are walking messiahs to those on the lower end of the deal, and they’ve already saved countless people. They have dodged great difficulties to get to where they need to be. The question is, the government wants them, but more so have been forced to turn the other cheek. The system is just as much afraid of them.

They operate out of an office that’s disguise as a Speakeasy, hidden behind a door with a peephole that Touya maintains. Those looking for their aid are given specific instructions to this door, and will only be let in if their password is said correctly. This office also operates as a safe house for those who just are looking to escape the gruesome system they were born into. Welcome to the Hero world! Let Todoroki Touya be your guide.

(Part 1 end)

#MUSINGS. || a place to lay my head #verse || my villain academia.

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scripttorture · 6 years

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I was wanting to write an Avatar the Last Airbender fanfiction and in one of the scenes, Azula (who has fire powers) will torture someone by using her powers to touch and burn them. She has a lot of control over her powers but I’m not sure how to pull it without killing the victim. I thought it could feel like touching something hot more than touching an actual flame.

(Firetorture 2) Would this seem high tech (if a lot of people in theuniverse have elemental powers) and would possibly too much liketorturers have a lot of control/skill? I also wanted to show Azula ashaving either Anti-social Personality Disorder or Borderline. Wouldit be problematic for a torturer to have a Personality Disorder(instead of only mental problems as a result of torture)? Azulaalready seems like she canonly has a personality disorder. Do youthink certain problems(3) like memory trouble would show updifferently in someone with a personality disorder? Lastly, wouldhaving other torturers who don’t have disorders before torturinghelp with avoiding the ‘mentally ill people are violent’ idea?Thank you for your help! If you have suggestions on how to avoidproblematic stuff, let me know. The torture is mostly out of hate butshe could ask questions and receive flippant answers/lies. I’llhave to see which the victims ends up doing when I write the scene.(Azula ask 4) I wanted to add, I’m also aware that Azula, at 14,isn’t able to be diagnosed with a personally disorder yet. She’llbe 21 in this AU story.

Ihave actually watched this show! Which helps an awful lot with thisparticular question because I think a lot of it is heavily rooted inboth the cultures the story created and the characters themselves.

I’llbe honest I know next to nothingabout personality disorders. So while I know Azula’s behaviour andpersonality I don’t feel I can say whether it fits with apersonality disorder. I can give you my opinion on using mentally illcharacters as torturers and my opinion on how being a torturer mighteffect someone who is already mentally ill (this would be an educatedguess as no studies on the subject exist, so far as I know).

Butlet’s start with the fire.

BecauseI know the setting I feel pretty confident that this isn’t hightech. It’s using an ability that a lot of people in this world arejust born with. Yes Azula is shown throughout the show as beingparticularly skilled with that ability but I don’t see any reasonwhy that means the torture scene itself should be written as‘skilled’.

Someonecan be an Olympic runner and trip over their own feet. Someone can bea martial artist and get into a drunken brawl.

Justbecause someone hasparticular skill with some sort of physical ability doesn’t meanthey’re using it all the time.

Ithink the key with this would probably be to highlight during thescene just how unskilled what Azula is doing is. She’s prettyarrogant so I think if the scene is from her perspective a good wayto do it would be highlighting how ‘easy’ this is compared to hernormal firebending. That these tricks are things she could do sinceshe was 5 (or similar).

Historicallysome burning tortures have used flames directly but using a heatedobject of some kind seems to have been more common globally. I’munsure if there’s a specific reason for that. It could be down topracticality (ie it’s probably easier to handle a heated piece ofmetal with tongs then it is to keep hold of a flaming piece of wood).It could also be down to cultural preference in some cases (ieEuropean historical branding tortures were partly about creating aphysical mark on the victim identifying their crime).

Iimagine the closest sensation to that whirling flame the canon showswould be steam or hot air.

Asfor how to do it without killing her victim- I think the main thingto worry about is how much of the body is burnt.

Theskin is an organ and like any other organ it can fail. Burns,especially deeper burns, to larger areas of the body are more likelyto be fatal.

Concentratingthe attacks to smaller areas is a good first step.

Thereare also areas of the body that are best avoided if you want thevictim character to (realistically) survive. The mouth, nose, neckand anus are the main ones. I don’t think anything directlyto/capable of blocking the urethra is a good idea. I’d also suggestavoiding concerted attacks on the scalp. And, as I said, keeping theoverall burnt area to a minimum.

Attackson other areas may not kill the character but have the potential tocause lasting disability. Which you may or may not want in yourstory. Burns to the hands and feet can rend them unusable. Burns onor too near the joints can restrict movement in that joint. Burns around the eyes can blind.

Thesetting also has a form of magical healing if I remember correctly.You may want to think about how that affects lasting injuries and howmuch of this could be treated in the setting.

I’dsuggesting keeping any individual burns smaller than the size of thevictim’s hand and keeping them spaced out. You may also want totake a look at the archive for ScriptMedic’s blog as she wrotequite a lot on burns and their treatment.

Asfor the way you’re planning to tackle Azula-

Ithink it’s important to remember that mental health problems can beco-morbid. Having one condition doesn’t necessarily protect someonefrom another.

Idon’t personally know anyone with a personality disorder but I doknow people with other forms of neurodiversity and some havedeveloped memory problems following traumatic events.

Ithink unless a condition directly effects memory it’s probablysafest to assume that memory problems would manifest the same way asin a neurotypical character. A neurodiverse character may reactto those problems differently but I think that’s a slightlydifferent subject.

ActuallyI think that’s probably the best way to think about ‘differences’in symptoms between neurotypical and neurodiverse characters:concentrate less on whether a character ‘could’ have particularsymptoms and more on whether they’d naturally respond to thosesymptoms differently.

Ifyou’re unsure of how a particular symptom would interact with acharacter’s preexisting mental health problems it might be best tochoose another symptom. Or do further research on the original mentalhealth problems the character has.

AndI think that leaves me with the question of mentally ill characterstorturing.

Ithink a lot of canons leave fanfic writers in a tough spot herebecause so many villains are either coded mentally ill or explicitlymentally ill. And the canon often links that to the bad things theydo.

Thatleaves fanfiction writers with a problem because writing away eitherthe villain’s bad actions or their mental illness is a huge changeto the character. It takes away from what they were and often rendersthem unrecognisable.

Iwould definitely encourage writers to stop creating so manycharacters like this but when it’s a character from another canonthat a writer is using- I think that’s a more difficult question.

Inthis particular case I think the fact Azula is in a rare position ofpower also contributes to the problem. Because regardless of othertorturers/baddies around her sheis the ring leader and the one in control. She has a greater degreeof responsibility because she is probably orderingothers to act as well as acting directly herself.

Sothis isn’t a mentally ill person committing a violent act underorders, she’s inciting and orchestrating the violence. Everythingis under her control.

Includingcharacters who were not mentally ill before they started torturingseems like a good step: it should help tie at least some of themental health problems these characters have to torture rather thanthe characters themselves. But this doesn’t really change thepotential implication that Azula is evil because she’s mentallyill.

Inan original story I’d suggest including ‘good’ characters withthe same mental illness. I’m not sure how much scope you have forthat here. If you have room for original characters to play a largepart in the story (or think that similar symptoms apply to one of theheroes) then I think that’s definitely a good idea to explore.

Thisis where knowing the source material comes in handy.

BecauseAzula is also the favoured aristocratic child of an absolute monarch.Azula’s environment hasactively contributed to her becoming the villain she is. Everybit of bad behaviour she displays in actively encouraged. Her bloodthirsty tendencies were taught.

Andon top of that the canon shows that her worst instincts areconstantly indulged, no one is allowed to say no to her. Even whenshe is obviously in the middle of a mental break down.

Showthat environment and how toxic it must have been. Emphasise it. Worklittle bits of it in throughout the story in as many ways as you can.

Showhow much she’s thrown when things don’t go her way (becauseobviously everyone follows her orders, they always have before). Showthe roots of her pettiness and violence, remind your readers of thepeople who encouraged and nurtured it. Show your readers that this isa woman who was taught from childhood that her value is in hercapacity for violence.

She’sreally hurt the enemy this time. Daddy will be so proud.

Mentallyill or not this is a big part of Azula’s motivation for violence.She has always previously met with approvalfrom the people who matter to her when she displayed violenttendencies. She has gone through her entire life being rewarded forbrutality. Of course she’s brutal.

Includingthat background in your story as clearly and as consistently as hermental illness should help give a more nuanced narrative. Lessmentally ill + BAD and more… a discussion of how environment and inborn factors can warp someone.

Weall have a capacity for violence and aggression. Most of us aren’tencouraged to act on it.

Showall the factors that went into creating Azula andthat should break the neat progression of mental illness to violence.

Ihope that helps. :)

Disclaimer

#tw torture #tw scars #scarring torture #burns #branding #fantasy ask #torturers #effect of torture on torturers #mental illness #writing torturers #Avatar the Last Airbender #Anonymous

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myassbrokethefall · 6 years

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All right, I just watched This for the third time, and the first time where I could really pause and rewind and have my attention undivided, since the first time through my brain was just a mess of AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH THIS IS SO GOOD THIS IS SO GOOD and the second time it was so I could follow along with Gillian’s tweets. (I may have learned what a taint was that day, but I did not get much detailed information about the plot.) (Just kidding, I already knew what a taint was, unlike Gillian Anderson who is clearly still enjoying the novelty of having recently found out about it.)

Here are my unedited (except for typos/some cleanup for clarity purposes) thoughts as I watched it, under a cut because anytime anyone says “lol here are my UNEDITED THOUGHTS” it should be under a cut, I feel like. Enjoy! Or don’t.

Phone: MULDER! MULDER! MULDER! MULDER! MULDER! MULDER!

Mulder: *sleeps*

Scully (very quietly): Mulder

Mulder: WHAT I'M UP I'M UP

I hope those assassins had to get out of the car and manually heave the gate out of the way like Scully did in IWTB.

Why is there an antler on the floor? Do Mulder and Scully just have...a single antler

"Accuse your enemies of that which you are guilty"?? I didn't even see that because apparently I didn’t look up either time while the themesong was playing. Also, in the grand tradition of "that with which he can't live without," this is grammatically incoherent. Good proofreading everyone

I look forward to someone less lazy than me examining every single frame of film in which the Unremarkable House appears and itemizing all of Mulder and Scully's possessions. I MAY have the same toaster oven as them?

Scully's badge number is XF072161?? What happened to JTTsomething? @startwreck did you know about this

227700 Wallis Road, Farrs Corner, VA. A real town. Google Map it, click Satellite, zoom out and note with pleasure (if you’re me) how in the exact bullseye middle of a bunch of empty green they are, far from civilization. That’s how I like my Unremarkable House.

Simultaneous thoughts I had as the second wave of bad guys was attacking: How on earth did somebody get upstairs that fast? Did they parachute in? / Look at that beautiful porchlight

Crucial Plot Points That I Missed Entirely While In Raptures Over The Mulder And Scully Goodness Of This Episode, Part 1: Barbara Hershey’s character sent this Russian goon squad. Ah.

russian guy: (mockingly) “I want to believe”?

mulder: it’s not enough this dude is about to kill me, he has to make fun of my nerd poster? insult to injury

skinner: ugh just surrender to them! it's fine

m&s: they tried to assassinate us two times

skinner: ohhhh lol sorry i didn't know they were going to do that MY bad

This order of presidents/32 32nd 34 35...stuff feels so unpolished and ad-libbed even though it's obviously plot-crucial (so I assume scripted), but it's like, they're just kinda bouncing around NEAR the lines, and I love it. And I love when Scully holds out her hand for him to supply the answer of which president FDR is and he has no idea so she supplies “32nd” and he's like “32 yeah I was totally about to say that yup” and then he forgets the number 33 exists, thus missing the clue. You're a mess, Mulder. Thank goodness for your smart wife.

Also it makes me wonder if "now you're just showing off, really" was an ad-lib of David’s because it feels like he interrupts her line; she has just said "FDR" and he says that and then she continues on with the FDR part again. scripted or duchovny? LEAVE MY JOKES IN GLEN

Them just figuring out this cemetery clue like Encyclopedia Brown GIVES ME LIFE

Skinner gave them a Leatherman? Handy/I’m surprised they didn’t trade it for more muffins

“it links to a video of the pet or person” lol

THIS SHOW IS LITERALLY SO DARK I HONESTLY CANNOT SEE WHAT IS HAPPENING; it went to commercial on a lingering shot of something and I don’t know what it was

So we kinda already knew this, but the "I'm gonna open an x-file on this bran muffin" line comes BEFORE the "I opened an x-file on this building in the '90s" line, leading me to believe that the bran muffin x-file line is also an ad-lib (in addition to Gillian’s “alien butt” line directly after, which she confirmed it was) because "opening an x-file” was on David's mind from doing the scene over and over. Scully's "An x-file?" line delivered like that's a new idea doesn't really mesh with her just having heard that term 20 seconds ago in re: bran muffins. DETECTIVE WORK

(also to be clear I’M FINE WITH THAT, leave in all their ad libs, they’re canon now, canon canon canon canon)

scully: walter we need your HELP

skinner: kids, i literally already gave you all the money I have, jesus I am just trying to go to work, can you please handle your shit

scully: we used UP all that money on MUFFINS, and we ATE THEM ALL ok those muffins were GREAT but we are HUNGRY AGAIN we need your HELP GODDAMNIT even though we don’t TRUST YOU, why are you such a JERK, can’t you just go to the ATM? UNTRUSTWORTHY

"if you want to see the x-files you don't have to go to the office" me: I do spend quite a bit of time at the office seeing the x-files though (or at least various secondary references thereto)

Mulder, after two seconds of searching in the proprietary search bar: fuck this it doesn’t work I'll just google it #relatable

Crucial Plot Points That I Missed Entirely While In Raptures Over The Mulder And Scully Goodness Of This Episode, Part 2: that the spank bank thing was a deliberate secret message leading to the Langly's girlfriend lady. (also that they kept that from Skinner)

I also missed all this Sims talk with Langly’s girlfriend, on how they would know it was a simulation. "you wouldn't be able to click on the neighbor's house" "there would be a loading screen every time you went on vacation" "if you had the pets pack installed the same dog would come every day and dig a hole in your yard" "buy mode would be disabled if there was a burglar" "you would only be able to make macaroni and cheese until you had more cooking points" "if story progression was turned on sometimes you'd go to your neighbor's house and there would just be a random baby on the floor" "blurry boxes would appear on you every time you went to the bathroom" i got a million of ’em

Lollllllll at Mulder's awkward cough after “maybe he saw Mulder in his dreams” / “Who hasn't” / Scully’s look

What’s with all the fly imagery? Two acts have opened with closeup shots of insects.

This skanky bar scene...every moment of it is a cinematic masterpiece that I will treasure forever

Scully's hilarious face in reaction to the beer is another thing I didn't notice. like, this is what you ordered for me while I was asleep? gross dude

also I love her smile as she closes her eyes again like, mulder's yappin, all's right with the world, goodnight

Langly simulation: Are you...Fox...Mulder? Something about that name...is familiar to me...as if from another life...I feel compelled to contact you though I don't know why or what it means

Mulder: Yes, it's me, and Scully

Langly simulation: DANA SCULLY?! Omg how are you girl I miss you so much! omg I'm gonna cry I’m so glad to see you how the hell are you

We're digital slaves...they force us to make grilled cheese sandwiches over and over again and every time we try to play videogames they make us study the mechanical skill instead...sometimes they put us in a pool and take the ladder away just for their sick amusement...that's not even getting into the torment that comes from the move_objects on cheat...sure we may have rosebud!;!;!;!; levels of money and I may be the mayor but aging is turned off and I've already bought the fanciest TV and the most comfy bed and I've done all the tomb quests in World Adventures and I don't know what else there is here for me...plus the game lags every time I try to go on the subway...it's hell, Mulder, hell (sorry, done with the Sims jokes now)

Scully, they don't serve mimosas on the bus; believe me, I would know.

Do Gillian's kids get freaked out hearing her speak in an American accent? No more freaked out than seeing her in a red wig i guess

JACOB JARVITS FEDERAL BUILDING #neverforget

What is with the "looking moodily out at the New York skyline at night while sipping a martini in an ’80s movie" soundtrack in this "get us in the tunnel" scene

Mulder's eyebrow raise after "married to the Bureau" *drapes it all over my body*

the clearest and largest STAIRS sign in all of history; sure half the episode is so dark you can't make out what's happening but god forbid we not know that the door Mulder's gesturing to is the S T A I R S

literally why IS mulder yelling out numbers on the stairs at the top of his lungs? he's not even counting the floors, there are 29 floors and he's like 32 34 36 38...he's counting by twos...is he counting the stairs? Why? scripted or duchovny? "glen please leave in my inane stair counting, it's funny!" "david by gum you guys are magic. magic! ok ok, no problem buddy, just keep it flowing"

mulder and scully get in like 12 physical fights in this episode. AMAZING

Ok, now here’s where I really have to pay attention because i legit did not listen to a GODDAMN WORD of this Barbara Hershey scene the other two times.

Why are there SO MANY lamps in here and how is it still so dark

"You're still refusing to answer the question of your father" am I supposed to remember what that is? Show, you greatly overestimate me

Hold on, did Scully jump some guy with a flashlight and beat the shit out of him during this voiceover and I didn't even realize it? GO SCULLY (closed captioning: “blows landing, groaning”)

Crucial Plot Points That I Missed Entirely While In Raptures Over The Mulder And Scully Goodness Of This Episode, Part 3: the entire earth is about to burn down, whoops, did NOT catch that.

"my company advised killing you" okaayyyy

Did barbara hershey ask muldo to kill csm last episode and he said he wouldn't? why the hell not? do it dude do it

"we can upload a mind through any smartphone" sure until Apple releases a new OS and then it starts lagging

“We can take a piece of your mind anytime you make a call” oh good they’ll get like 3 pieces of my mind a year then. It would be much more efficient to take a piece of my mind every time I open Hay Day

Mulder has been handcuffed or fake-handcuffed A LOT this episode. He's going to need to process this through roleplay once he and Scully get home

Is Scully using the Leatherman as a physical key to switch off a top-secret high-security NSA federal computer system in lieu of the actual, presumably very specialized, key manufactured for that purpose? It really can do anything.

I can’t tell what we’re supposed to be seeing in this conference room to indicate that it was abandoned. Barbara Hershey is gone but was there other stuff in there? Like a sign that said “THE CONSPIRACY” or something? The LAMPS are still there, I guess they didn’t have time to pack those up

There's an orange on the floor in the UH. This is a step up, nutrition-wise, from the time Mulder had potato chips on the coffee table in IWTB.

There is a basketball hoop DIRECTLY over a lamp. Really, Mulder?

Scully literally drops off to sleep in 3 seconds. all things continuity. 👏

So, destroy the backup? Does that mean there's a backup to the simulation and they’re just going to restore from it and nothing they did accomplished anything? Except for being the most delightful and satisfying episode of TXF ever filmed? Also what does the curly-haired guy being in there mean? I mean obviously he was uploaded after he died but is he in there like, tormenting Langly now? In the backup? How many backups are there? Can a Leatherman be used to defeat all of them?

I don’t care; Mulder and Scully are asleep on the couch and everything is perfect.

#this #scripted or duchovny?#so much duchovny #this is so long i'm sorry #mine

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