''kris narrator theory doesn't make sense" why can't you just let me believe and hope and cry for them. i don't want them to be my sole puppet I want them to be a goofy goober

I said a little bit about this in a comment a few hours ago (hey kenny) and I actually really felt like saying more.

For all that gay people/Tumblr people/AO3 peope/waves hand are really, really into found family they are actually pretty allergic to conceptualizing familial relationships outside of nuclear family roles.

I see a billion posts on Tumblr about how friendships can be just as important as romantic relationships, if not more, but nobody ever actually writes the friendship as important as a romantic relationship. Or friendships are interpreted as romantic, or friendships are sidelined for the romantic relationship. It's always a weird disparity between what people say are important and people actually find important for me.

So when we do step out of romantic relationship and into gen relationships, we typically enter the trope world of #foundfamily. But the same kind of flattening of characters for the sake of shoving them into yaoi ghost archetypes honestly also really happens with family relationships.

There is always a dad. There's always a mom. There's always siblings (frequently the canon female love interest). Maybe an uncle? Ex-wife if we are feeling sexy that day.

I really rarely see people interested in #foundfamily relationships outside of those boxes. It is overwhelmingly, entirely American-centric. There's no recognition of the unbelievable diversity and breadth of human relationships, or the very many ways there are to love somebody. In fanfic, if there's a much older male character emotional close to younger characters, he's dad mode. And the relationship then follows the character and story beats of the father-child relationship intended to draw out those fuzzy family feelings. Damn, I read found family stuff to get away from the intense claustrophobia of the fandom's favorite ship, I'm not here to get family yaoi ghosted here too.

I think you can create a very unique and engaging relationship if you're wiling to engage with the unknown and uncomfortable. Make a path without the paint by numbers story beats and character arcs. Please stop letting tropes rule your writing instead of construct it.

Write stories about love. Write relationships about loving each other. Just start from there, and don't worry about anything else. Create a relationship that is its own. Let it breathe. It can stand on its own two feet. It'll be a richer relationship and a richer story.

i think. everyone should stop reading my most popular fics that aren't really that good and start reading the ones with 18 kudos that are significantly better

shit I remembered this too late to add to the post I was replying to, but: people (and by "people" I mean darkl!ng stans and nikolai antis) will call nikolai an example of the White Saviour trope, and they're kind of half right in that he is a SUBVERSION of the trope

so yes, he's initially presented as that archetype - a member of the majority group, who sympathises with the minority group and uses his institutional power to improve the lives of that group

(of course, this is subverted right off the bat because he is CONSTANTLY offering to share his institutional power with Grisha: proposing to Alina, creating the Triumvirate, even the Nolniki to an extent)

but the trope is FULLY subverted at the end of RoW, when he literally addresses the question of whether he is the right person to "save" Ravka, and decides to literally GIVE all his institutional power to a Suli Grisha woman (Zoya)

It would be nice if Star Wars actually treated their "good" disabled characters as actual disabled characters.

We see a lot of "bad" disabled characters have viewable disabling disabilities (ex: the latest The Bad Batch episode featured a cane-user with a prosthetic arm. This man was a hoarder of resources, and quite greedy and self-serving. Disability=hoarding resources is a TERRIBLE thing for Star Wars to highlight, but there they just went. That's a whole post I can make on its own, but I digress.)

But there are so few times that Star Wars truly acknowledges its disabled characters' disability in a positive light. It is always swept under the rug and forgotten about. This is what we have for our disabled "good" characters:

Anakin's hand only ever has problems twice--both of which aren't even true issues. His hand just gets caught by magnets. That's it. Sure, one time a little spark went through it durring the Zillo Beast arc, but despite all other mechanical appliances dying and short-circuting, Anakin's mechanical prosthetic does NOT. They didn't want to show Anakin without the use of his hand. Oh and he's turned into the "bad" character when his disability becomes actually acknowledged. Facisit disabled person... how charming (sarcasm).

Luke's prosthetic hand also does not cause him any true issues--again, minor inconveniences.

Echo's prosthetics are not acknowledged, ever. They act as if Echo has two hands, and he's constantly seen holding stuff as if he has two hands. Sorry, but he can't balance a giant ass box on a scomp like that. He would have to compensate--move his arm so that it balances differently.

Tech does not need to be more than autistic-coded. It's not a requirement to label everything. However, he has only had issues with his autism once. That's a good first step! But it's just a first step. Not to mention, he's a whitewashed savant. This is the most blatant, frustrating autism stereotype. I've already made a post about this.

Kanan and Chirrut's blindness is perhaps the most visibly disabling disability in any of the shows; however, said blindness is magically compensated for by the Force. They both still struggles with many things, which is a good change of pace, but ultimatley, it's not the representation it's meant to be. And, for Kanan, it is CURED at the end, before he DIES. Chirrut ALSO dies. I think that speaks for itself.

Yes, they are still disabled. That is not in question. But it's repackaged in a 'non-disabling' sense. Because why show disability when everything can be magically fixed? Why show disabled characters having realistic issues with their disability when it could be disabled characters made palatable for an abled audience?

Yes, a good number of disabled people would like to be, for lack of a truly appropriate term, ""fixed"" (a whole different topic, though--and a huge one at that). I don't doubt many amputees would probably like the a prosthetic like Anakin's. And yes, it would be nice to be so easily and readily accepted as disabled people like they are in Star Wars.

However.

The continued treatment of disabled people as if they aren't disabled is a massive problem in today's, real-life world. Because we don't have that luxury of being treated as nicely. So as great as it is to dream of a life where we're accepted as normal, IT IS IMPORTANT TO VIEW THEIR DISABILITY AS NORMAL IN THE FIRST PLACE.

It is necessary to see openly disabled people being clearly disabled, while still being viewed as equal, "normal" people. When disability is only shown openly as disabling when it is for the greedy or the facists... that is ableist writing.

All I want is for a main character to be openly disabled, in a disabling way, rather than just magically fixed and unacknowledged. Disability representation can only go so far when it is just "hey, here's a disabled character." We need them to be acknowledged as disabled, too.

friendly reminder that cole is canonically one of the most socially awkward characters in ninjago <3

I know its just subjective but thinking about how I see people talking a lot about how they wish 13 had got to be even more angry, like proper anguished screaming, but I have to admit I kind of disagree personally. I know its an unpopular opinion but I dont actually like most of the really popular yell-y scenes with the other doctors, there are some scenes that work really well and then there are others that make me cringe 😅

13 does have a scene in the timeless children where she gets like that, it's brief and I think it works well. She still shows a lot of anger at other times and in other ways and personally thats what I prefer. Its just funny to see people talking about how they wish thirteen had been more like the others in this specific way and its actually something that i don't like with the others

me watching video essays on the theory of creating horror (as in analytical theory not matpat game theory) and being like ah yes i can use this for my dnd campaign yes...

HIII MAC! i don’t listen to tma (podcasts r hard :[ still working my way thru nightvale) but whatever an avatar of the extinction is sounds very intriguing 👀 giggling kicking my legs twirling my hair. would u like 2 perhaps. explain what that is and how it relates 2 knives perhaps??? i am holding out a microphone 2 u the floor is yours

OH FUCK YEAH. HI HI IVE BEEN DYING TO TALK ABOUT KNIVES AND VASH IN THE LENS OF TMA ENTITIES. SORTING SYSTEMS AND HORROR THEMES MY BELOVED.

ok in basic terms. The Extinction rules over. obviously the fear of going extinct. (alt names for it are. The Terrible Change, The Future Without Us, and The World Is Always Ending. which. hello. slaps.) it deals with catastrophies, large forces of change, the human race dying out and being replaced with something else. you know that feeling when you think about how the sun is going to expand and swallow the earth in millions of years and theres no way the planet or anything on it will survive that, but time will keep passing anyway without us? yeah. that.

there werent ever any actual extinction avatars within the show, so its given more as a vague concept instead of given human form (which i think is very fitting) but if it was given a form i think that would be TEXTBOOK knives. thats his Whole Deal.

the extinction IS however manifested physically in different ways in the show, mostly in the form of different technology. and sometimes it gives visions of what humanity could potentially become or be replsced by.

ALL THAT TO SAY. holy shit. extinction avatar knives. he is distinctly Not Human, but appears human. he's actively working toward the destruction of all humanity, planning to replace it with plants. plants are vaguely humanoid in shape, but also distinctly Not Human. horrifying and eldritch and scary. the first time any of the humans see what a plant actually looks like its often met with disgust and horror. now imagine seeing those and being told "one day all of humanity will die and be forgetten about, and youll be replaced with these. nobody will be left to miss you." knivescore.

this post is getting sooo long but i have so much more to say. namely regarding not only knives' need for the destruction of humanity but ALSO his destruction of everyone he used to love. the people on the ship. rem. vash. etc.

BUT. i woudl also like to talk about desolation vash :]

The Desolation is the fear of losing things dear to you. losing everything you own in a house fire. family members and close friends dying unexpectedly and out of your control. everything you love being cruelly ripped away from you in an act of senseless and unstoppable violence. natural disasters. etc. you see what im talking about here.

Desolation is often represented by fire and melting wax but thats really only because the only canon representation we get is very fire-heavy. personal hc is that it can manifest in ways other than that.

normally i would call vash a victim of the desolation (victims are people whose lives are ruined or are killed by the fears, but avatars are people who either embody or serve the entity. instead of being afraid (or sometimes in spite of being afraid) they are also drawn to their fear and have a sick fascination with it) BUT. even though he has VERY much been a victim. vash has also CAUSED desolation. its not always his fault and its never intentional, but it still Happens. he doesnt want it to. and thats why hes unwilling, he would never choose to torture people in that way, but it still happens and because of his actions the entity is still being fed. look at the people who want revenge on him because of july. look at augusta and the fifth moon. it might not be his fault, but hes still the catalyst.

look at vash standing in the ruins of july and tell me that isnt desolation incarnate.

A thing I find fascinating is when a writer clearly has a Type Of Person that they prefer to write about (or maybe just a certain type for one particular story), and their characters can have a variety of worldviews and stances and personalities but they are still somehow fundamentally that Type. And some of it could be "that Type is just more likely to find themselves in the circumstances the story centers on" but at some point it starts to feel like the story is simply set in a world that, besides all its other discrepancies from the real world, is also overwhelmingly populated by this Type for some reason.

To be clear this is not a complaint, it's just a kind of stylization and stylization is great! It's just kind of funny/interesting sometimes.

I like that Ego and Noa's designs contrast yet parallel each other somewhat

theres something abt suzaku and lelouch that makes for really nice atmospheric dreams for me i think it’s a big part of why cg has stuck with me lolll. very fitting actually bc i originally watched it because i kept having dreams about it and got curious…

i am, really just fucking hoping theres gonna be more safety regulations around this kind of stuff now. and that the greek coast guard gets fucking sued. also that the submersible company gets sued. and nothing like any of these things happens ever again

i wish all people who buy the sonic action figures just to resell them for over double the original price a very Explode. i hope you get stuck with those for months and months because no one wants to buy them for the price youre asking for and if you manage to sell them at all its for the price you got it for or less because no one would buy them otherwise