#i think by this point i have expressed enough opinions to have a meta tag
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I'm gonna be real, I'm very worried that Larian is going to try & make AA even more overtly the "bad choice" in their next patch (they promised some epilogue animations). I just really don't understand why the antis have to be so obnoxiously loud telling a company to change THEIR game because of a way they choose to interpret something. Isn't the whole point of an RPG that you're allowed to craft a narrative around the narrative-- but to pressure the writers into editing their hard work because they "don't like it" is just so,,,,..ugh
I just wish people would stop infantilizing the crap out of Astarion as a character. They give him all these sweet HC when half of them are just Wyll.. Like the "I can fix him" complex has rotted our society
Honestly? I'm not worried about it at all.
Mostly because I don't think Larian cares lmao
At least, not in that way.
Get ready, it's 1am, I had my meds, and had some caffeine, so here comes ramble :D
They want to please their fans, and while spawn fans make up a majority of the Astarion side of the fandom, and there may be (speculated) peices in place to make AA seem worse in-game with these updates....I honestly don't think Larian as a whole cares enough to join in on the one-sided righteousness battle.
They made this game for the purpose that most AA fans (at least, ones I know) use it for: roleplaying, as you pointed out. And I'm very sure they aren't blind to just how one-sided the discourse is.
For example, on the official Larian Discord server, AA fans voiced their opinion on the Tav/Durge expressions in the new AA kisses. And from what I saw, the opinions were presently respectfully and with the roleplay experience in mind. How the expressions aren't ideal for evil roleplay. But after that, the same suggestions thread got clogged with anti-AA players begging Larain to "not destroy the narrative" they've apparently been telling and to not listen to us "delulu" AA fans. And the threads were locked by a mod and cleaned up, to "prevent bullying". I think Larian sees clearly who is focused on quality of roleplay and who is focused on arbitrary arguments.
Because the evil endings aren't supposed to be satisfying to those who don't play them. They aren't supposed to be a moral lesson to the player. It's not that meta (no matter how some people want it to be). It's not that type of game. The evil endings are supposed to be satisfying for those who enjoy playing those endings.
It's supposed to be a different experience. Empty and lonely, sure! But it's still meant to be rewarding for the player. Otherwise, it would be pointless to offer as a roleplay style.
I don't think Larian anticipated so many of us would prefer playing evil like this. I think the idea was for it to be a thing you do after you get bored of playing a few good solo runs. It also doesn't make any sense to spend time and money on an ending, just to slap the player on the wrist for choosing it. They see from the stats how often people make certain choices. People play evil in this game for a lot of reasons, but one big one is because it's just good, devious fun! And without any actual, real world consequences. And I think they see that more than anything. I assume you're also talking about the new evil ending updates?
This phrasing from the first article I saw about it is promising to me that these updates will be satisfying for those who actually enjoy playing/romancing evil--as a positive dark romance and not as some abusive romantic tragedy.
I hope "satisfying narrative conclusions" means that the player can enjoy it for their roleplay. And doesn't just mean the endings are rounded out, but the player gets "punished" in the end. I mean, what are you being punished for exactly? Having fun? SERIOUSLY. Any anti-AA fans lurking the tag care to explain exactly WHY you want people to be punished for playing evil in a video game? I really don't get that. And I don't think Larian cares to do that to their consumers.
Truthfully... I'm hoping the new evil ending fixes will fix Minthara's bugs for one thing. But I also am hoping that it will give us some good AA content. I don't even want to speculate... I'm just gonna wait and see!
AND YES. The infantilization of Astarion and the whole concept of "oh what a cute helpless silly lil bby gorl who needs saving from himself, must be protected and shown who he should be because my Tav/Durge knows best for someone they barely know who's a different creature from them entirely" is...just...
They want a mix of Wyll and Gale but with Astarion's face, voice, and body.
#so many people write Spawnstarion as Wyll/Gale in Astarion's body and AA as Cazedor 2.0 lmao BOTH are OOC.#ascended astarion#astarion#astarion ancunin#ask#anon ask
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Since there's already a meltdown happening, I will calmly express my opinions on Mike's sexuality and leave y'all with a message.
So, if you've hung around enough, you probably know that I think Mike is gay. I'm going to highlight some of my points that I've been wanting to talk about for a while, but didn't because of well *wildly gestures at the meltdown*.
Anyway,
1) The entire fiasco with comparing Mike's reaction to the ladies store with his reaction to the fleshflayer and the comment about him being scared.
2) This is actually what I came to think about. The reason I don't think Mike likes girls has to do with a variety of things, but outside of Will he's the only one of the party that doesn't mention how hot Phoebe Cates is.
They removed his crush on Jennifer Hayes, which I always find odd because we wouldn't even be having a debate if that was there. El is the only girl he's shown to date, but their portrayal is so...juvenile ig?
Like the contrasts between byler and mlvn start immediately from the season that they get together. The sheer difference in his reaction between getting dumped by El vs. his reaction to Will yelling at him.
You could also argue that Nancy and Steve didn't have a particularly deep connection, but we don't doubt he likes girls. He flirts with the customers, and he gets a date to the pep rally. We see him with other girls.
Jonathan is the only character we see who has eyes for one person. We don't doubt his feelings for Nancy, though. We hear him and Nancy go on about the traits that they love about each other.
I know Mike has a girlfriend, but so do Dustin and Lucas. An offhand comment about how great Phoebe Cates looks or an implication of him having a crush on Jennifer Hayes would go a long way.
3) His realization when he kissed El. I think he definitely realized something at that moment.
4) Meta stuff - "boys only", finds a girl in the boys' locker room and is upset, kicked out of the girls' bathroom.
Anyway, who's to say for sure anyway. I will not be interacting with the tag for a bit. Parting message in the tags. Above all, stay safe y'all.
#mike wheeler#gay mike#gay mike wheeler#that being said i genuinely believe we need to take several seats before this becomes a wasteland of abandoned accounts#that's not to say /censor/ yourself#but you do have a responsibility to make sure your blocking people you don't like#we are in for a long ride waiting for season 5 and all this infighting will not be beneficial at all#hc whatever it's not like it's going to really matter until the end of s5#which again is years away#acknowledging bias is one thing but sometimes we get to close to different phobias and it's not a good thing
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Torture in Ep10 (meta)
Mood, Colors, & Cinematography
I have a lot of ✨ thoughts ✨about that torture scene from Ep10, and unfortunately my OG post for this managed to get completely wiped clean when I went in to adjust the tags (to add a trigger warning, might I add), so I’m rewriting this. Apologies if it takes me awhile. But I want to start by offering a ⚠️ TW ⚠️ up front since this scene involves torture. And not typical torture. No, this is Vegas we’re talking about.
Pete was brutally abused this episode, but I want to talk specifically about expression, colors, mood, and cinematography. I have never been invested in VegasPete’s storyline, and I honestly don’t know how the two of them will ever develop romantic feelings after this, but I will say that the torture scene in Ep10 grabbed my attention. It was well-choreographed, well-acted, and well-adapted to the storyline. I’m scared, but I truly can’t wait to see how this story plays out in Ep11, as Vegas is sure to get even more sick and twisted. I will say that we should’ve enjoyed our time with happy Pete as much as possible, because the fallout of their time together will certainly change him. [Also, before I get into it, I want to disclose that I haven’t read the novel, so some of this is mere speculation based on what I’ve seen.]
Without further ado…
Expressions
~ Pete ~
I first want to commend Build’s acting, because while he’s been good so far, his expressions in this scene blew me away. For a moment there, I was almost more frightened of Pete than I was of Vegas, which really speaks volumes to the layers in his expression. The key takeaway in my opinion is just that: his expression is multi-faceted. I see acknowledgment, understanding, and determination. I see resolve and defiance. But, though I can distinguish these feelings, they’re all a jumble.
There are, in my mind, multiple ways of interpreting Pete’s expressions. 1) is that it’s a defense mechanism, a way of hardening himself to the pain that he knows is coming. Psychologically, dissociation and depersonalization are ways in which people tend to distance themselves from particularily traumatic experiences. The next potential reading of this 2) is that Pete is simply hysterical, which would not be unbelievable considering a) I’m sure Vegas’s bodyguards did not treat him nicely when they found him and b) he knows what’s about to happen to him. He’s aware of the pain he’s about to endure regardless if he begs…and wouldn’t that drive anyone a little mad? Knowing that you will not only die, but will be brutally punished in the process? The last, and most plausible (in my opinion) reading of Pete’s expression 3) is that it’s a challenge to Vegas.
Pete isn’t stupid. In fact, he’s seen Vegas torture in action before. I personally see Pete’s expression in the torture scene as confirmation of the latter interpretation. Note that while I do believe Pete is opposing Vegas here (in the only way he can), that doesn’t mean he’s a masochist himself/on the same psychological level as Vegas. I talk about my interpretation of Pete’s psychological state a bit more in this post, but I don’t think Pete’s reaction here (or in the torture scene from Ep7) suggests that he craves pain. I think it’s really difficult to say just how Pete felt about Vegas’s torture tactics, but we know he certainly isn’t enjoying them now. He can smile, sure, but I think we can look deeper than that. Pete very well could have some inner turmoil that we don’t know about that Vegas resolves somehow in the future, but at this point, we just don’t have enough information to make any solid calls. My point still stands though that Pete is not enjoying what Vegas does to him. At least, not yet.
It’s interesting because Pete knows that Vegas gets pleasure from the pain inflicted on his victims. So by smiling—by laughing—he isn’t giving Vegas what he wants. It takes Vegas shocking Pete, watching the pain up close as it passes over his face, to bring a positive reaction out of him. I believe Pete knows that begging will only feed into Vegas’s god complex.
But that laugh. That laugh at 39:43. Truly chilling. Pete isn’t playing the game. He’s not giving in so easily like Vegas wants. And I think that’s what sets up their obsessive relationship down the line.
I want to point out how Pete looks at Vegas’s weapons (in the last photo). When he puts on the gloves, Pete’s face falls ever so slightly, but the smile doesn’t leave. It almost feels like goading. It’s difficult to make out what Pete feels exactly, though this certainly suggests that smiling and laughing is not a defense mechanism—if he truly wished to disassociate, I don’t think he would stare directly at the weapon that will be inflicting pain upon him.
I also want to briefly point out how Pete’s smile widens the moment Vegas specifically says that Pete foiled his plan. While I believe that smiling and laughing is a way of challenging Vegas, I also think it could be a reaction to the success of Pete’s own plan. He was caught, yes, but he completed the mission.
I think it’s important to at least mention how following these smiles, we get a moment where Pete glares at Vegas. Like the smiling and laughing, it’s part of the challenge, and it’s also a way for Pete to express his cold hatred for Vegas and all the crimes he’s committed up to this point. It only lasts for a second, but it’s one of the most riveting parts of the entire scene in my opinion.
But onto Vegas now…
~ Vegas ~
There isn’t anything about Vegas in this scene that we don’t already know, but I gotta give props to Bible because he manages to emit so much craziness in just a few expressions.
The smile, the twinkle in his eyes, not to mention that dark red light across his face…it’s almost unfathomably unhinged. Only when Pete is in the midst of extreme agony does Vegas show signs of real joy. The climax of Pete’s suffering is the climax of Vegas’s ecstasy. Vegas probably thinks he’s sitting pretty right now where this is concerned—after all, he can torture Pete as much as he wants with no regard for the consequences (his plan was already ruined, and Pete is an outlet for his anger). The problem will be if he actually develops feelings for Pete through this obsession, which seems like a given.
Like I said, I haven’t read the novel, but I think that we will see Vegas develop this quick obsession with Pete precisely because he does not break easily. It no doubt comes as a shock to Vegas, who probably pegs Pete as quite feeble and vulnerable based on their previous interactions. But Pete is different than Vegas has ever seen him before, and I think that stirs up something inside of him.
Remorse? Vegas will have to express it if he is going to actually have a relationship with Pete. I can’t see it now, but I’ll be really impressed if the showrunners can pull it off. Vegas has cemented himself as a complete villain, and I don’t see Pete “fixing him” exactly. More than likely, Vegas and Pete will offer each other something toxic but inescapable. I mentioned obsession before, but I think addiction is another suitable word for what I see happening in the future.
Color
~ Red ~
It makes sense that red pervades this seen more than any other color. It’s been used to represent both Kinn and Vegas. For Kinn, I have argued in the past that it represents his outward persona but not his inner one. But for Vegas, I think it represents everything, inner and outer (at least when thinking about red’s negative connotations). Red’s negative representations are dominance, power, and rage. We see all of these at play in some form in this scene. Unsurprisingly, we see it flash across Vegas’s face as the perpetrator of violence and Pete’s face as the recipient of that violence.
It’s also worth noting how red has been used in promotional material. Here, for example:
I don’t think it’s any surprise that red is the color of blood, and it’s often associated with pain.
~ Pink ~
In addition to red, we see variations of the color pink, mostly hot pink, in this scene. Pink is often associated with love and romance--notably sweet things. Here, though, it is a darker shade, near red, perhaps to hint at Vegas and Pete’s romantic future. I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the pink/red color appears most prominently in this shot:
It could be an intentional move to highlight the irony of this situation. For two characters who will eventually make a couple, pink makes sense, but for what’s actually happening in this scene? The animosity between them? The power imbalance that Pete is pushing against and Vegas is trying to solidify? The color pink highlights just how backwards it all feels.
**EDIT: I’ve done some more thinking about the potential meaning of pink in this shot, which I go into more detail about here.
~ Green ~
We see green in this scene shining from the light above and behind Pete and through the curtains behind Vegas. Like how red has been associated with Vegas throughout the series, green has also been commonly associated with ⚠️ danger ⚠️. We see it looming over Pete, shining down upon him, as if to indicate the danger of this moment and all that is to come from his time with Vegas.
Green is prominent in this shot as well, as it covers a large portion of Pete’s dripping chest, as if to show how the danger is consuming him:
It’s a nice touch.
~ Gold ~
I’ll end with gold, as it is not extremely apparent in this scene, but it is still visible in parts, such as in the shot above. Like green, gold has a long-lasting association with the mafia. Here, it could be a reminder of the institution that not only allows but encourages Vegas’s psychotic tendencies. It could also be a way of representing the very thing that pushed both of these characters into this situation in the first place. It all comes back to the mafia, after all.
Lastly on this, I want to mention how chilling it is to think about the gold in this scene compared to the golden light shining between Kinn and Porsche in the final scene of Ep7. I have argued in meta about that scene that gold takes on a different meaning than the typical “mafia” association, instead representing hope and optimism for KP’s relationship. In this torture scene, however, it’s symbolism is strictly negative.
~ Mood ~
We see how each of these colors contributes to the mood of the scene, hinting at potential future developments while also offering some dark underpinnings. It all adds an undercurrent of tension and coincides perfectly with the show’s cinematography. Speaking of which...
Cinematography
It goes without saying that the cinematography is excellent. There are a few key elements I want to point out.
~ Angles ~
When showing Vegas, the camera seems to stay slightly more panned out and low angled, probably to show him more fully as he moves closer to Pete and taunts him with his weapons. As I’ve mentioned in previous cinematography metas, low angles can be used to show dominance or vulnerability. In this case, I think the low angles contribute to the torturer/victim dynamic.
Close ups are also used, most noticeably when Vegas closes the space between him and Pete. The entire environment is dank and oppressive, but Vegas makes it more oppressive by closing this gap. There is a literal spark between them, and the camera angles make sure to highlight how Vegas is in control of Pete at all times. There are shots of the cables, wider shots of Vegas coming closer, and tight shots of both Vegas and Pete’s faces together and separately. I do think it is notable that there is only one distinct time where their faces are shown clearly together, unlike in Kinn and Porsche’s Ep7 scene, where we see them both in the same shot almost the entire time. Not to say that this scene is in any way related to the final scene of Ep7, but I think drawing comparisons can highlight some interesting things about the contrasting dynamics.
Lastly, I’ll note the music in this scene. It’s percussive and instrumental. The tension mounts and all leads to Pete’s screams to finish out the scene, letting us know that we--and Pete--are in for a lot more pain soon.
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That’s all from me for now. I will definitely go back in and add a bit more to this later since Tumblr deleted my OG post, as I said. But in the meantime, you can check out some of my other KP meta here. And, if you’d like to read a lot of other glorious KP metas, visit the “Damn Good KinnPorsche Meta” doc supplied by the wonderful @luckydragon10. :)
#kinnporsche#kinnporsche the series#kinnporsche meta#vegaspete#kinnporsche episode 10#kinnporsche ep10#kinnporsche ep 10#Have I ever written a meta about characters other than Kinn and Porsche?#I don’t think so?#But as disturbing as that scene was#I enjoyed writing about it#But poor Pete man#Poor poor Pete#Somehow this torture scene made me love Pete even more?#pete kinnporsche#vegas theerapanyakul#vegas kinnporsche#biblebuild#kinnporsche analysis#kinnporsche brainrot#I don’t know what this says about me but this scene made me 100x more interested in the VegasPete storyline#if you couldn’t already tell#pete sangthaem#petevegas#vegas x pete#tw torture
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*rocks up to the fandom meme mad late with drip coffee i made in my own home even though its like 10pm*
sometimes i see posts that express some intense general feeling about my dude, lan wangji. intense like or dislike, extreme affection or disdain, you know, the usual. and – with the exception of people who are super blatant side character fans who are expressing the opinion they adopted from their fav side character – i don’t really believe any of these strong emotion claims (ppl who are actively roleplaying jiang cheng or lan jingyi i believe you i promise pls).
(beginning hyperbolic generalizations in 3,2,1-) as a group fandom just does not ponder lan wangji enough for me to believe many of them actually care the way the suggest they do, and when they do he doesn’t stay the topic of conversation for long. sure, they might start a post about his traumas and woes about his parents and his beloved but strict grumpy uncle but that post will swiftly slide to xichen and the way he approaches relationships and then it turns into 3zun and that turns into Mess lol. maybe they’ll start with how he was raised but don’t be fooled! that is actually just the opportunity to complain about the evil lan sect and all its controlling rules in a trench coat. if you find a post about his relationship with his brother then what you’ve actually found is a post about the tension between the nie bros, the trauma amongst the siblings jin, or Whatever Is Happening In Lotus Pier and the Twin Jades of Lan are actually just there as a comparison point in paragraph three of the essay. more often than any of this, if you think a post is about lan zhan, blink, and it will be wangxian before you hit the author’s note/tags.
secondly, if the fic isn’t a lwj-centric fic then lwj tends to be 1) an objective window into the story, a reliable narrator you can trust to give you the plot with no opinions, thoughts, or feelings about what’s happening 2) a Voice of Judgement an author can use to berate a character they’re mad at with the idea that hanguang-jun can get away with that with minimal fall out and is Convincingly Convicting enough to change the character’s behavior 3) a plot-hole filler – you don’t have to explain why something is true is lwj says it bc he never lies and he probably knows more than you. it’s the maple leaf in the Xuanwu cave over and over 4) a treat for wwx. you don’t have to like lwj or let him speak, just have him in the background for wwx to kiss and beg money from occasionally.
i have to say I’m not /bothered/ by this. i have enough lwj brainrot for all of us I don’t need other people’s thoughts and headcanons i have my own and a corner of fandom that supports me in these things. i know a lot of it is bc mxtx made him all ~mysterious. i just think its funny when people speak so strongly on the guy as if they think of him ever for real at all.
this is fascinating. obviously I spend my times in the JGY/xiyao corners of the fandom, but I am probably one of the people you are talking about in some ways!! i fucking love lan wangji, i experience extreme Feelings about him regularly and he's the reason i fell in love with CQL and ended up on this downward spiral into madness
but if i tried to make a post about him it would be like, 'u know when CQL wangji says 'are there rules already written for everything in the world?' and it permanently altered my brain chemistry? (hand gestures)'. my position on lan wangji is no thoughts, only internal yelling.
however, i think all the patterns you're noticing are so right, especially when it comes to fic. when it comes to meta i sort of get it-- wangji doesn't feel like he NEEDS explanations, he's the main love interest! other characters need their arcs and interests and personalities excavated, whereas his is surely just right out there. but it isn't!
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Hi! I adore your analyses.
If it isn't too much to ask, I would love to hear about your general approach to analyzing works. I wanna learn how to analyze things better from other people, and I really like the way you methodically break things down.
In other words, pls sensei teach me your ways HAHAHA
No trouble if you can't, though! Your blog is always a joy.
Have a wonderful day!
Sensei... 🫢
Ah, thank you, this is really flattering! I don't think I really do anything that special. Honestly, all it is was that I got misinterpreted a lot when I was younger and it made it difficult for me to express myself - so I ended up creating something of a system which I found seems to make things clear to others!
I can do a quick overview of it, for sure! I hope it helps! (It's under the cut :D)
Tip 1: Analyze things you love.
Look, this isn't school and I'm not a literary critic. I don't bother forcing myself to analyze things I'm just not feeling. Sometimes, I'll really enjoy something, but have nothing to say about it in particular. (Ex. Akutagawa. I adore him but for some reason don't feel compelled to analyze him as much... even though he's this blog's pfp...) That's not a commentary on the character/media nor my engagement with it. No need to analyze something you don't particularly care to - these write ups take a fair amount of time and effort, so you'll want to have enough raw energy at the start to sustain yourself. You should want to talk about it, is what I'm saying.
Tip 2: Understand the core themes of the story.
I cannot stress this enough! It's so important. The best stories will have their characters, plot arcs and settings all serve to enhance the major themes of the story in some way - figure out what these themes are, and keep them in the back of your mind. I think of themes like a filter - it should change the way you look at the story, and with any luck, draw a lot of seemingly loose threads together in interesting and surprising ways. There are typically about 2-3 major ones (Ex. BSD - living through uncertainty, good as a choice / Trigun - morality and autonomy, life after loss / Hatoful - love as salvation or corruption / there are other themes of course, these are just examples). From this point on, assume you have your "themes filter" active for completing the other tips.
Tip 3: Pick a small detail and think about "Why" and "How".
See, I used to go too big when doing analyses. I used to try and analyze everything there was to examine in one go, and it would become unwieldy and just have far too much information for me to juggle and process. So, it's better to start small. What's something that caught your attention? What was something you liked? Was there anything that confused you? Pick one thing... then ask yourself why and how. Why did I like this? Why did this character act in that way? How does this aspect of the story work? Etc. This will be your topic!
Tip 4: Read other people's thoughts.
I know we all hate going into tags and seeing some of the worst takes out there... so I don't actually do that. I only look through meta and theory tags, and most of those are done by people who put a lot of time and care into their theory crafting, so they at least usually bring the receipts. It always helps to read other's opinions. This is just a good thing in general - you need to open yourself up to different views. Even if you don't agree, you might be better able to articulate why you don't. There's some god-tier stuff in these theory tags, you just gotta look. :)
Tip 5: Pay attention to context and setting.
For most of the stories I analyze, the characters do not exist in a world or situation that is comparable to mine. Asking yourself "where did this character come from?" "what's the overall state of the world they inhabit?" "were this character's experiences different or similar to the rest of the cast? different or similar to their childhoods?" - this is really going to help you understand motivation, far more than core personality traits will alone. (Ex. remember that BSD is a newly post-war society. Tensions are still high. People are being hired at young ages. A lot of people grew up in the slums, and violence is common. How did the different characters interact with this world? What sides might one character have seen to this world that another didn't?)
Also, it's good to at least be somewhat aware of the author and the context they created their story in. Many of the works I analyze are from Japan. It's good to know where a work is from - typically you're going to see at least some expression of cultural values, and I find this is helpful to keep in mind. Some decisions made in story will make a lot more sense when you remember the story's place of origin.
Looking at author influences is also helpful! BSD has a great built-in source of background info, since the entire premise incorporates classic literature. This can be an excellent supplementary source!
Tip 6: Tell a story with your analysis.
Again, I'm doing this for fun. I'm not a literary academic, so I try to use conversational flow. I tend to write like I'm speaking - in fact, this is very much how I talk in real life. It's up to you the tone you set in your writing - just make it something that flows naturally. You can always go back and re-read it if something seems unclear.
What I mean by story is to break your analysis up into chunks. There's no hard and fast rule on how to do this. You can see a clear example of it in my "Dazai Likes People" post, which was long enough that I bolded the sections. It should have a beginning, middle, and end, roughly - beginning where you say what you want to analyze or lead into it somehow, middle (which I typically break up into individual topics), and the end, which honestly is just a rephrasing of the beginning (or sometimes I just leave it out). Sometimes, to break things up I'll add quotes or images that help me with my points; these serve as visual interest so the reader is not faced with a continuous wall of text. Bolding and italicizing key points can also do the trick.
A good way to see if the analysis flows is to see if you can say "so then..." between each paragraph. (Ex. Point 1 -> "so then..." -> Point 2 -> "so then..." -> Point 3, etc.) Each point should flow into the next - I try to make something of a narrative out of it. (It's why the word "so" pops up a lot in my analyses haha.) I'm sorry, I feel like this is the part that's the hardest to explain in a way that's easy to follow. It's mostly practice, really. It's also subjective how you want your analysis to read.
Tip 7: Fact check!
I hate spreading misinformation. Mostly because it's frustrating to have constructed a theory only to get called out that it's based on something misremembered, but also because, as a science student, I'm really mindful of keeping track of my sources. Always have your sources on hand! I spend at least three re-reads of my analyses consulting books, episodes, and manga to ensure that everything I've added is correct. (I might go a bit overboard with it sometimes... I can be a bit paranoid about this...)
And finally, my Golden Rule: ✨Explanation, not Justification!✨
If you have no other takeaway from this post, please remember this! Every character in the story should have their actions be explainable! This does not mean justifiable! Explanation is not just logic, and should always take into account character values, emotions, and situation. This will help prevent analyzing characters only from the perspective of relatability, and is very useful when analyzing antagonists/villains.
Character analysis is always about drawing a throughline between motivation and action. It's not about whether you would do the same, or whether you agree, or whether it is a choice you would forgive.
Everyone has their reasons for doing what they do. This is true in fiction, and it's also true in real life. I try to always keep this in mind.
I hope this was helpful to you, or to anyone who might want to read it!
#what do i tag this as...?#analysis writing reference#thanks for the ask!#storyrambles#thank you again!!!
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Is it strange that most of my KRBAY OCs are just either alternate universe versions of Tiff/Fumu, or immortal maneating spirits or ghouls who are manifestations of negative emotions which were felt by Tiff/Fumu? Just felt like asking someone who could give a proper response and even some advice, happy early new year though!
As far as I know, Tiff/Fumu is the most interesting character to come out of KRBAY, being a main character (THE main character? "Tiff, Tiff, Tiff, she's the star of the show!") who develops a very strong relationship with Kirby and the rest of the cast. She's also got a very strong personality, that can either be very endearing to people (her sassiness, intelligence, and strong moral compass) or grating (her lecturing and jumping to conclusions.)
<More below!>
So I'd say it's no surprise to want to explore a character who already has so much going on! (The only other characters I know of who get as much love in the fandom are the space mercenary girl, because she's got a cool tragic backstory involving Meta Knight and is just someone we've never really seen in Kirby before, and the GSA because that's basically free reign to make your own Meta Knight-alike/build on the briefly glimpsed personalities of minor characters and have them go on long space fantasy adventures!)
As for the man-eating spirits born of Tiff’s negative emotions, I can't say for sure but...
I mean, I imagine she gets a lot of hate from fans too? People who found her too preachy? So if you yourself identify with her strongly, or just find her the most interesting character in KRBAY...that could be a way to channel the feelings you've seen about Tiff in RL in an expressive fiction environment? Or your own feelings about your life! I don't know all the various terms for it, but identifying with a character isn't anything to be ashamed of.
(Strictly speaking, yes, there’s things you want to be careful of when you’re really close to a fictional character. Make sure to keep your own boundaries, find joy in your own life, and try not to let opinions about that character hurt you too deeply. Be respectful of other people’s feelings and takes. Know that some things you make/think are just going to be for you alone and will never be as meaningful to those around you, etc...)
But yeah! Go for it! I've drawn stuff based on something someone else said that got me thinking. I can see how all the discourse about Tiff would inspire a variety of interesting ideas/AUs/What-Ifs. Is she as hated in world as she is by parts of the fandom? What's she going to be like when she grows up? Better? Worse? All that risking herself and getting into danger... What if she found herself truly out of her element? And maybe you just want to explore what happens when a friend finds themselves put into a situation where they're made the antagonist to their old friend group? Or CHOOSE to become one? Mwahahahahahaha...!
(Just always remember to tag appropriately!)
Frankly, even though I haven't seen enough of the anime, I kind of like Tiff myself. And it's a shame because even though the anime has its problems, and is quite different from the Kirby we know and love now, it too was made with the love and passion of many, many people who clearly cared about it deeply!
Yet, as there's no way to merge the anime and game canons together properly (even if their could be, I have my doubts that working in a 100 episode series from the early 00s is whats best for Kirby as a game series) she and the rest of her world are probably fated to be retired to the annals of history...
...and fanworks, which you're already engaged in! Go you! (1)
Probably the only point at which it becomes too strange is when you create a story/verse where all the Tiff-alike OCs meet up with each other and begin to create whatever it was that happened with the old, mega-cursed Onceler fandom in its latermost days, where it's now "illegal to be a Tiff OC" and they're all on the run from some evil government agency...?!? (I have NO idea myself. I only know about the Onceler stuff thanks to Youtube.)
But I've heard that even a section of Onceler fans ended up turning their Onceler OCs into -true- original characters after all that happened. Imagine if all your creative work with Fumu ends up leading you down the path to make an original book or a comic someday! The best thing about creativity is that it really can turn into ANYTHING!
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(1) And cameos, like how she and Bumu showed up with Anime Kirby in the 30th Anniversary Campaign!
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I posted 457 times in 2022
That's 457 more posts than 2021!
37 posts created (8%)
420 posts reblogged (92%)
Blogs I reblogged the most:
@yeetlegay
@rainbowcolored7
@lutawolf
@kinnship
@iffervescent
I tagged 448 of my posts in 2022
Only 2% of my posts had no tags
#coconuts mafia - 421 posts
#kinnporsche - 251 posts
#kinnporsche the series - 238 posts
#kinn theerapanyakul - 49 posts
#porsche pachara - 41 posts
#porsche kittisawasd - 40 posts
#apo nattawin - 39 posts
#kinnporsche meta - 34 posts
#mile phakphum - 32 posts
#love in the air the series - 23 posts
Longest Tag: 77 characters
#i too was attempting to manifest insight from the queen of the coconuts mafia
My Top Posts in 2022:
#5
Saw a post where someone was bitching about Korn, and it reignited my hatred...
The constant manipulative and condescending bullshit he's pulling is unbelievable. A benevolent smile, and soft-spoken words, hiding cold calculation, and someone who would be willing to sacrifice his son's happiness, sanity, and probably even his life, if it means his family is in a position of power. As long as there is a legacy. (Tankhun may be unable to lead the family, but Korn doesn't need Kinn to take over. Because he'd drag Kim back kicking and screaming, with no hesitation, and to hell with what Kim thought about it. The only reason he hasn't done that, is because he has Kinn to step up and take over. If Kinn were to die, become seriously injured, or even just earn enough of his father's displeasure... Korn would give Kim that responsibility. I 100% believe that.)
And the way he keeps up the (thin) facade of caring and concerned father, while making sure to keep Kinn firmly under his thumb, and even crushed under his heel? Never missing a chance to bring up Kinn's past 'mistakes'. Encouraging Kinn to be distant and almost isolated, but still heavily reliant on Korn for praise and validation, because it's a way to control him and manipulate him. Speaking in bullshit parables, like he's some wise old sage, when he's really just coming off sounding like one of those douchebags on the internet who think they're so cultured and enlightened, and are eager to tell you all about it. Giving Porsche special treatment, and then demanding Porsche be punished for something, because he's just another bodyguard and doesn't deserve special treatment.
(That's not even touching on the fact that I don't believe he's got any reason to be punished. I know people are all like "He's a bodyguard, he should have been more careful!", and I would agree... if not for Kinn. I know very little about D/s dynamics, but I personally saw Porsche look to Kinn for permission to take the water. And because Kinn has no social skills to apply to the task of 'flirting with his crush', and was being 'coached' by his friends, when he ends up smiling at Porsche (if we can call that a smile, you awkward little cabbage) and giving a little nod, well... To me, and probably to Porsche, that was a nod of permission. Yes? Probably need @lutawolf to tell me if I'm seeing correctly, or I'm being a big dumb.)
These barely scratch the surface. I might revisit Korn's scenes in the future, if anyone thinks I have a point to further turn my brain onto. If not, fuck that guy. He can get face-fucked by a cactus, because you can see how much Kinn is impacted by what Korn says and thinks. Which is why I found the 'rusty knife' scene so interesting. Because here we see Kinn visibly and significantly uncomfortable with what Korn is trying to pull, and his expression does a whole-ass journey. Again, I can also talk about that, if anyone wants me to.
In summary, it's 3:48AM, I've been frothing at the mouth about this for an hour or so, and I'm going to go the fuck to sleep.
My rage is immeasurable, and Korn can catch these fucking hands.
103 notes - Posted May 23, 2022
#4
In my humble opinion...
Kinn needs to get his ass eaten and destroyed. And Porsche is just the man to do it.
I will not be accepting criticism at this time.
139 notes - Posted May 17, 2022
#3
It's a good thing we don't have P'Pond's email, or anything. I can just see it now:
Dear P'Pond,
Thank you so much for the absolute masterpiece that is KinnPorsche The Series. Me and my fellow thirsty hoes would like to request that you just straight-up film sex tapes for any of your actors who are willing to 'perform', and make them available for purchase immediately. We'll take digital download, if you don't want to incur the expense of physical copies, photocards, etc.
Sincerely,
The Coconuts Mafia: Conglomerate of Unrepentant Sluts
173 notes - Posted July 28, 2022
#2
The moments of realisation that hit you when re-watching this show are brutal.
Like the moment where Vegas speaks about taking care of the hedgehogs, and all of them dying.
The moment where he speaks about the last one, and how "He still left me, too."
How "I didn't even get to name him.", because if he didn't name him, maybe it wouldn't hurt so much when he died.
How everything he's ever tried to take care of, except Macau, has died. And that he must be terrified that something will happen to Macau, too.
When he says "Everything that I love has left me.", and you realise he's just waiting for that to happen to everyone in his life that he even remotely cares about.
How you realise that, maybe, this is why Vegas tried so hard to treat Pete like a pet at first.
Maybe, this is why he kept calling Pete a pet. "You are such a good pet of the main family."
Perhaps, it's why he tried to make Pete eat from a pet bowl.
Because if Pete was 'just' a pet, like the hedgehogs he's cared for, maybe it wouldn't hurt so much if he died.
But when he sees that Pete might actually die, he panics.
He crumbles, because he's scared he'll lose Pete, just as easily as those hedgehogs.
When he calls Pete's name, no longer calling him a pet of any kind, shaking his arm, tapping his face. Because Pete is so much more than a pet.
How Vegas dresses Pete's wounds, gives him medicine, speaks to him softly.
How he makes him hot food, in a proper bowl with proper utensils, and even eats some of it himself, to not only prove that it isn't poisoned, but to show that it's a bowl he's willing to eat from. That it isn't something he'd give to a pet.
How he's completely fine with Pete having a book to read, until Pete says something that makes him lash out.
How he gave Pete a chance to escape, to leave him, instead of dying under his hands, like all his hedgehogs. Like the one he holds in his hands when he leaves him the key.
The way he sits like his strings have been cut, mourning the last hedgehog, and knows that Pete will be gone by the time he's brushed himself off and gone back inside.
Because "Everything that I love has left me."
Except Pete.
Because Pete doesn't, no, can't leave Vegas while he's suffering.
He was given the perfect opportunity to leave, to go back to the main family, to escape Vegas.
And instead of grasping that opportunity with both hands, he stays. He sees Vegas, alone and in mourning, and decides that he can't leave him.
He gives Vegas an ear, lends his metaphorical shoulder to cry on, because he wants to help ease his suffering.
He sits with Vegas as he gives the hedgehog a little funeral, handing him flowers to lay atop the grave. (If I'm not mistaken, the flowers are plumeria flowers, which have various meanings, one of them being new beginnings.)
When Vegas stands and walks away, Pete follows.
Pete says he doesn't know why he didn't run away, but I don't believe that. I don't think Vegas really believes that, either.
And Vegas opens up to Pete. He tells him about the hedgehogs, about his battle to care for them and keep them alive, and how he failed. How they died over, and over, and over. How he doesn't have any left. How he didn't name the last one, because maybe it would hurt less when that one died too.
He tells Pete how he's always measured against the main family, against Kinn, and found lacking. How, no matter what he does, his efforts will never be noticed, never be given the same weight.
Pete tries to comfort him, tries to stop him from hurting himself.
See the full post
206 notes - Posted June 28, 2022
My #1 post of 2022
Okay, but Kinn trying to talk to Porsche while being 'patient and calm', and instead shrieking like a particularly grouchy alley cat in heat every two seconds? Fucking flawless?
And then trying to modulate his tone and volume, and ending up being so fucking cringe, because he's emotionally constipated and has no proper social skills to speak of, because he's never needed them? Immaculate?
Finally, Porsche being so fucking done with him the entire time, his face practically screaming 'fuck you and all you stand for and your stupid family' while not giving Kinn a single inch of anything, except more rope to hang himself with during this fucking disaster of a conversation? Priceless?
This is my third re-watch, and I'm still feeling so many things, but the overriding emotion this time?
Pure petty glee.
Don't get me wrong, I love Kinn, and I'm sure he'll get (some) of his shit together soon, but damn, bitch. I thought Porsche was our beloved disaster king, but Kinn's coming for his crown in this episode.
306 notes - Posted May 9, 2022
Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →
#tumblr2022#year in review#my 2022 tumblr year in review#your tumblr year in review#i cannot BEGIN to tell you how much i love this#'amused' doesn't come close#please admire my top posts i'm so proud of them#yes even the one talking about kinn needing his ass ate#fuck you that's something to be proud of#MY VEGASPETE ANALYSIS IS NUMBER 2 YESSSSSS#i need to go the fuck to sleep my dudes#kinnporsche really fucking owned me damn#i gotta step up my posting game#reblogging shit is great#but damn bitch#write more of your own shit#bitch i'm sleep#coconuts mafia
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I didn't have to lower my standards at all. Because who else gonna write such amazing meta on gj, his gayness and everything that surround him? This is within the scope of my interests ajahkvy
You know yesterday your post about gj's acting hit me right into the heart (and into the brain too). It was like you've opened up a different perspective for me. I realized why i felt i like i felt. Your words resonated so strongly inside me (what they want from him that he can't give. He can give you his pretty face and long limbs but not hypermasculinity). Let him be dominated, he looks the prettiest like that ✊
Today i came across zzh song in my playlist and 😩 it made me miss him so much. Where my zzh meta Naaaaani pls ahahah. I read junzhe fics all day because of this. Brainrot is real
🥰🥰🥰 my dearest anon if you encourage me too much i will become an unstoppable force of hot takes and then where will this fandom be?
But it makes me happy to know that my writing reached you in this way. I never actually watched entire scenes of Begin Again before and had a really galaxy brain moment yesterday. I'm still gonna drag him about how he carried that girl in Flavor It's Yours but I also think we should stay within the perspective that it's not really his fault. He's just not built to sit tight and look pretty the way low effort tropey het romances need their leads to be.
But he looks EXACTLY like the dream version of tropey het romance leads. GJ is not stupid so he absolutely knows that. And I think there is a prestige to playing even bad lead roles that he wouldn't have gotten from say a well written side character. (though I think Liu Yuning has shown that this is not true)
Everybody talks about how ZZH was typecast but as a overall trajectory I think ZZH has done a lot more dopey diverse roles than GJ. I mean ZZH has just done a lot more than GJ in general because of the 4 year headstart. But the pressures they had starting out as being from an elite school vs not must have made their priorities really different in the roles they chose to audition for (in addition to management etc etc)
I haven't seen any of zzh's works other than 'Ge' but happy to do more research for zzh romance style because:
1) No pizza delivery guy porn has made be want to fuck a delivery guy as much as Wang Yue
2) I have seen Ruyi and Yanxi BTS to prove to myself that GJ was special to ZZH (I'm a shipper this will always be my goal and perspective) and I have thoughts (ie he is and he isn't lol)
#nani answers#i think by this point i have expressed enough opinions to have a meta tag#nani's hot takes#nice anons
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So I saw a post earlier...
(I’m gonna paraphrase because I don’t want to tag OP or argue), that basically went like, “If M/ai is toxic and unsupportive as a partner, why do y’all (read: zutara fans) think shipping her with Ty Lee could work?”
Where do I start?
First of all, I’m a Zutara shipper and a Mai stan (mostly in a fanon sense because a lot of her characterization unfortunately got shunted by Bryke into revolving around Zuko.) But even in canon, I love the potential that this badass, goth knife girl had. And I can empathize with the extent that her childhood trauma caused her to repress her emotions.
As SO many Zutara fans have said already, it’s the relationship (not the characters themselves) that's unhealthy. As in, it isn’t beneficial for either M/ai or Zuko. I love BOTH characters, but I don’t think it’s what either of them needed in terms of partners for several reasons; Most significantly because of their struggles with emoting and communicating. Also, the phrasing of that original post neglects to take into account that people act differently with different people. You can be toxic in one person’s life and not in another’s (again, not implying that M/ai is toxic.)
I don’t want to spend this whole meta talking about Ma/iko because I want to talk about my fav sapphics, but I do want to contrast the first scenes where we see them interact (in terms of M/ai’s response.)
Starting with The Awakening, M/ai and Zuko are a newly established couple (after three years apart and without any on-screen acknowledgment of what has changed.) This scene has been analyzed to death over the past few days so I won’t get into it.
But this is the first time Ty Lee and M/ai are reunited:
M/ai, who usually has a stoic expression, almost looks sad in this scene. And then she says this:
I thought you ran off and joined the circus? You said it was your calling.
One could infer many things from that line. That M/ai and Ty Lee talked about their future plans at some point in the past. That it was important enough for M/ai to remember. And that M/ai’s conflicted expression means she realizes that seeing Ty Lee again meant she had to leave a place that was special to her (the circus.) Then Ty Lee responds:
Well Azula called a little louder!
Even though she says it in a cheerful voice, it’s almost an unspoken understanding between them that she didn’t have a choice. I think this is part of the reason M/ai agrees to join, so that Ty Lee doesn’t have to be alone.
Also, M/ai is pretty perceptive towards Ty Lee, which makes sense because they are canonically close. In The Chase episode, Ty Lee is trying to find the word to describe Appa’s fur. Azula walks off and ignores her, but M/ai was listening and gave her the word she was looking for. Ty Lee gets SO happy that she jump-hugs M/ai, and M/ai’s face goes soft. It’s a small moment, but we know that Ty Lee struggles with getting attention since she grew up with identical sisters. Having someone like M/ai as a partner, someone who listens, complements her well.
And don’t even get me started on THIS scene. The emotion on M/ai’s face is truly powerful. M/ai being put first by someone; this girl who values loyalty and yet, was not expecting it. And then, both of them being fully prepared to die in each other’s arms. Arguably one of the most meaningful moments for M/ai.
And finally, MaiLee already have really strong communication and emotional vulnerability. In the Smoke and Shadows comic, Ty Lee opens up about her fears now that Azula is out of prison (something she could’ve told Suki or any of the other Kyoshi warriors instead), and M/ai finishes her sentence because that same feeling resonates in her as well. Because of their shared experience. It’s a moment of vulnerability for them both.
M/ai breaks up with Zuko (in the comics) because she felt he closed off any emotional conversations about his worries. In my opinion, this isn’t something that would exist within MaiLee dynamic. And perhaps Ty Lee’s emotional openness could encourage M/ai to become more comfortable with expressing her own emotions and finding things she likes (rather than hates) about the world.
#this started with a purpose and then i got derailed because i'm in mailee brainrot#mailee#anti maiko#even though i like platonic ma/iko#i just think there's a difference in how m/ai responds to them#i do think she cared about zuko and tried to be there like waiting outside the war room#but she looked distressed when she realized she couldn't comfort him#i just think ty lee and m/ai would balance each other's flaws more#and they know each other pretty well#and i think ty lee would encourage m/ai to talk about her bottled up feelings whenever she was ready#also i just like the sunshine goth pairing
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Interestingly enough the fandom isn't always rational with their criticism. Take Percy and Rachel for instance. A perfectly healthy cute and functional relationship dynamic, but people really hated it because it got in the way of Percy/Annabeth.
I think it can also come down to the fact that not all situations are exactly equal if that makes sense. If you have a character dynamic in couple A, that often playfully bully of fight with eachother that's a different dynamic than relationship B, where one person has trauma resulting from bullying and the other parter behaves in roughly the same way as couple A do. In that case the behavior may be seen as inappropriate. Not that this example has anything to do with the ships at hand, but I think a long form meta examining the different paralleling issues from both relationships and their validity would be easier.
Also I haven't seen anything about about Nico/Will being called toxic. Yikes, what are people saying exactly, because I don't doubt a lot of people might be projecting unconcious bias.
Oh absolutely, I may seem young but I remember the Rachel vs Annabeth ship wars all too well... I do not want to go back 😅
The rest is under a read more though, I got a little carried away talking! Also this isn't my best post on the issue by far so please feel free to check out the tags I mention later on!
(AN: I use nblm alongside mlm in this post because some nblm individuals will consider their attraction to men as gay, or queer, while others will not and those individuals are often closely connected to mlm experiences and they also deserve to talk about their thoughts and feelings if they wish. I am aware nonbinary people are not a monolith and not all nonbinary people will categorize themselves or their attraction this way, it's up to nonbinary individuals reading this to determine where they fall on what)
As for Solangelo being toxic some of the conversations revolve around the ableist nature of the ship, this is definitely most obviously a dynamic in BoO, and it's a more than fair point about the ship I don't have anything negative to say there in the slightest!
(The above parallels with the idea that Will is introduced as a "healer character" for the "sad gay kid", which is a fair criticism as well but one that's often left rather one sided, because while that is true- if it's a way Nico likes being treated (watched closely for injuries and cared for) then it's not wrong, and in ToN Will is seen overstepping Nico's boundaries which causes a healthy argument about Will doing so and he stops, so if Nico doesn't tell Will "no" or some variation he's obviously not horribly uncomfortable with the situation, or from the way it would be interpreted alongside previous text, there's fair reason to think he likes it)
The thing with Solangelo I see often is "Nico is still processing trauma, and internalized homophobia and isn't ready for a relationship" which is a huge misunderstanding on how trauma and internalized homophobia work as a whole, because the experiences can be different for everyone. You can absolutely date someone while processing internalized homophobia, you may struggle with certain things but it is absolutely doable for some people. And trauma is such a varied thing, and it's not like he's solely relying on Will either, he is seeing Dionysus for therapy and getting the help he needs! Your life doesn't have to go on hold for therapy no matter how much trauma you are sorting through! (Not disclosing my medical history or anything but I have struggled with both things and my life didn't stop for me to deal with them, I made new friends, went on dates, etc- it is possible depending on the person so the very narrow view of "this is unhealthy" and "this is impossible" rubs me wrong when it's treated as fact over opinion, because it's an opinion).
There's also constant discussions about how fandom (in current) fetishizes both Nico and Will, which I, and other mlm and nblm have spoken our own thoughts on multiple times to be largely ignored by the biggest perpetrators of this "they're overly fetishized narrative". There's also fairly consistent discussion of how fandom treats Nico and reduces him to uwu small gay boy, which more often than not seems to mean "effeminate" rather than actually harmful stereotyping (yes queer men are allowed to be "girly" especially considering there is some canon text that could be interpreted with that meaning, if there wasn't a plausible way to determine canon that way I wouldn't care if people were going after others feminizing Nico a bit- but the issue is again, fact and feeling aren't the same and fandom seem to conflate the two rather often).
(Some of that ties into nonbinary Nico head canons which are common as of current, and that argument quickly becomes transphobic is people don't watch themselves... Even without bringing nonbinary Nico into the equation, headcanoning Nico as femme isn't bad or wrong, and to say otherwise becomes gender policing which is bad).
There's also this weird obsession with there being a "correct way" to ship mlm ships (specifically solangelo), which when considering it's not mlm or nblm saying those things, it becomes really uncomfortable. Especially because the wording of some posts is less "hey this is homophobic" and comes off more like people are more upset at seeing an mlm couple than at the fact that they're being shipped poorly.
All of this in combination with the constant, talking over of queer guys (specifically mlm and nblm) comes off really messed up, and yeah homophobic.
It's not something that can be pinned down to one specific thing but rather a series of smaller microagressions (which in sure most of are intended in good faith but are being filled with subconscious bias) that build up over time- which is why my concern is that solangelo is facing harsher criticism/different treatment that percabeth simply for being a queer ship.
I can't be 100% sure on that like I said, because that's something that is hard to gain tangible evidence for, or maybe even impossible :/
If there wasn't so many other small things going on alongside the harsher criticism of solangelo, I would honestly just ignore it... But the weird policing of "how to ship solangelo" while proclaiming it's "overly fetishized" all while speaking over a not insignificant number of mlm and nblm who have agreed with certain opinions, or taken time to write their own (+ some of the rhetoric that can be found on he blogs of people commonly expressing these opinions) is super uncomfortable and definitely homophobic... Even if they were treating the ship kind of weird, but treating the queer guys talking about it well and actually listening (because the current solangelo fandom probably has the highest proportion of queer guys in comparison to any other fandom I've been in with an mlm ship as of right now) I wouldn't be so bothered... But sadly that's not the case..
(I'd also like to note out of my posts criticizing the current conversations happening around the issue my post saying "listen to mlm voices" got a lot more notes than some of the other ones, which I can't say is specifically anything, because like solangelo perhaps being treated unfairly to percabeth, I am willing to acknowledge there might not be an issue- but it's weird how often mlm and nblm's posts on "listen to us" will be uplifted but never any actual criticism... Just a thought)
I detail things a little closer and in more detail in some of my posts tagged #fandom homophobia, #mlm fetishism, and #gender policing in fandom, it's not a full or comprehensive list (I've only really started speaking up in the last month or so), and it is largely solangelo specific. However I am always interested in listening to the voices of other queer guys about the issues and hearing out their thoughts as well (people aren't a monolith and I'm interested in trying to be as nuanced as possible!) and I acknowledge that although I am mlm and am going to be a little better at recognizing issues and calling them out (although I like every person am not perfect of course)
So yeah! That's a bit of the current ongoings, again not a full comprehensive list, and definitely not my best explanation ever but I think the point gets across well enough? Definitely check out my other tags if you're interested in more, there's also definitely more posts I need to make on some of the things I've seen (maybe not all of them so solangelo fandom specific, and maybe some of them even more solangelo fandom specific) but it's rather slow work in progress!
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Thank you @dualfuel for the tag! I am so sorry I am late for the party, but here we go, I guess?
1. How do you begin writing your analysis: do you start writing about the first thing that strikes you; or do you step back and look at the narrative structure first; or something else?
It really really depends. Sometimes it’s like, oh my god I am reading and something just sticks out to me so I need to write about it, now before the thought is gone or I choose a topic which I am interested in knowing about more myself and I look at the narrative structure, rereading the arc, or just the chapter in particular in order to refresh the details in my mind, However, it is all very vague: it depends on the inspiration of the moment and on the mood concerning the topic.
2. What do you like to keep in mind while writing your analysis/meta?
That I would like for people to understand what I am trying to get across, while not necessarily agreeing with it. I know it sounds stupid, but my mind goes blank when I write and the only thing which I focus on is to sort through my thoughts in a way which is understandable for others as well (and in which I mostly fail, but you know).
3. Do you try to keep your value judgments separate from your analysis?
Depends on the topic. Most of the times metas are inadvertently and unknowingly biased, because we all write from our personal point of view, generating a particular insight which we then try to express with words - therefore, it is very hard to separate my moral and my judgement from the topic at hand, as inherently what I am writing on and my opinion on it is shaped by how exactly do I value it. It’s tricky, and I think that I mostly do not separate it - but to be honest, it is hard to.
4. Do you prefer analyzing characters, or arcs, or both?
I don’t think I have a bias when it comes to metas. I just write on the topic at hand, and whatever appeals to me, be it arcs, characters or just generally events in one arc focusing on one particular character.
5. Do you think receiving feedbacks/responses on your analysis/meta help improve your critical skills?
In theory yes. I am not a humble person, very far from it - and I do take pride in almost everything I write, but I fully know that I have room for growth when it come to my analysis and critical skills (especially because you never stop learning), and because there are so many blogs out there which do such a great job I am ashamed of calling myself a meta writer.
6. Do you consciously decide which media you want to write analysis on or does it naturally come to you?
Both. I usually have a preference when it comes down to the media I consume and I do take great interest in only a few, on which then I am confident enough to write analysis on. For example, I would never write anything on Black Clover - not because I don’t like it, but because I am not invested nearly enough into it, in order to keep in mind all the information I need in order to write a meta. So, I’d say I do consciously decide on a cluster of things I am interested in and then I go where the heart takes me.
7. Do you prefer writing long or short metas? Which ones do you prefer to read?
I don’t mind either, sometimes short metas go straight to the point, instead of decorating stuff and sugarcoat anything and everything at the same time. However, I do tend to write and prefer to read longer metas, simply because I have more time, while I am reading, to process the information and to shape my own opinion on it. It also takes a lot of time and effort to write longer metas - and I know from experience, that it always makes people think when people read the meta: did they read until the end? And if they did, DID they actually? So, it takes also a lot of courage to put it out there and to let other people look into what goes in your mind at one point.
8. Which are your favourite analysis/criticism/meta blogs?
I would not want to mention anyone, because lately I have not been writing anything, nor interacting a lot, nor reading a lot - and also because people tend to avoid me and my blog (because of the trolls I receive and because some of my takes are pretty extreme, but oh well); but I love reading @redphlox, @haleigh-sloth and @todomitoukei villain metas, as well as @pikahlua‘s more heroic insight. I also love other blogs, but lately I have unfollowed some because I find that their takes are long overdue and a bit overcooked.
9. Which shows/movies/media do you think deserve to have more analysis done on them?
Chainsaw Man, Psycho Pass, Yuukoku no Moriarty (HxH, whose fandom is half dead) as first choices - because while there is some very good insight on these media, I find them very few and just more insight would be extremely necessary and is highly encouraged.
10. According to you, what are some prerequisites for good quality analysis?
References, insight and patience. You need all of them to read and write good metas (read to write good metas!), and you need a sprinkle of creativity as well. There is no good analysis which is boring, of which does not delve into the topic deep enough to struck some chords inside you and move your curiosity a little bit.
I would like to mention @latuuart and @pikahlua to do this! And thank you once again for the tag, it was amazing.
#long post#meta asks#this was fun to do but also insightful#feel free to do it if you see it and want to!#🍰#☀️.txt#txt#ask game
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BNHA - STOPPING, OR SAVING DABI?
Here I come with theories!
DISCLAIMER: I do not condone abuse, may it be emotional, physical or psycological.
Now, as I’ve stated in the tags and the meta on chapter 325, I like the whole Todoroki family. Aside from Shouto and Enji, they may seem like minor characters, but they are actually well enstablished and deep and their reactions and reasoning after Endeavor begins his atonement arc are very nuanced.
I’m sure you already know what the point of view of every family member is: Rei won’t forgive him, but she’s also watching as he stones for his past awful deeds; Fuyumi is probably the one that wants to forgive Endeavor the most in order to have a semblance of a normal family; Natsuo righteously hates him to the moon and back, and Shouto is still on the fence but willing to work alongside his father on a professional standpoint. At times, Shouto also calls him “Father”, but only in certain circumstances and very rarely. And then...
Then we have Todoroki Touya, Enji and Rei’s firstborn.
I won’t be talking about Fuyumi, Rei or Natsuo much on this post; I’ll concentrate on Touya, Shouto and Enji. They are, at least from what the narrative seems to be building up, the focus of the Todofam arc.
Let’s start with Touya, or at least I’ll write how I’m interpreting the narrative here...You can disagree, people have different ways of reading the same text.
He wants his father to go down, burn in hell, HARD. And he doesn’t really care if it takes to kill Shouto, whom he sees as his replacement, or put Natsuo’s life in the crossfire: anything that makes Endeavor suffer is justified. He even goes as far as killing innocent people and being an accomplice and supporter of terrorism, and bringing his family’s trauma and situation out in the public without their consent: one may argue it was correct to expose Enji, but in my humble opinion the approach was wrong. Touya wanted his father to suffer, without realizing or caring enough that his family may have traumatic reactions to the reveal as he did it, or may not be ready for it. He also isn’t doing it out of genuine feelings of justice, in my opinion: he’s weaponising the narration to bring down his father and the heroes.
Touya, at times, accuses Endeavor of killing the innocent people HE killed with HIS fire, because Endeavor’s grave neglect and irresponsible behavior towards his situation caused Touya to start hurting himself to the point of burning up at Sekoto Mountain, before vanishing and becoming a Villain because of, presumably, all the unresolved pain and feelings pent up inside of him.
Shouto is saved by the deadly fire embrace of his brother by Midoriya, that agrees with Touya about the fact that the past never dies, and as much as Endeavor will change, the past won’t; Midoriya admits this while saying that the actual Endeavor is trying to change, and Dabi isn’t Endeavor: which means that Dabi can’t fault Endeavor for those he killed and his uncaring behavior towards those that suffered his same trauma.
As some argued, during the war Touya is shown as an ensemble of Endeavor’s worst traits, which is important as it signifies that his behavior originates from the way Endeavor raised him.
Now, onto Shouto.
Shouto, who we’ve seen being on the fence when it comes to forgiving Endeavor, actually seems to be trying to empathize with Touya during their fight, various times, really, as can be seen by his expressions. He also takes it upon himself to stop Touya before his family reunites in the hospital and opt to stop Touya together, with Endeavor and Shouto as the focal point.
Sorry I have to go.
I will finish this tomorrow I swear--
EDIT: Expect this to be over tonight. I'm currently busy.
EDIT: I'll reblog this and complete it later.
EDIT:
Here we are once more. Sorry for making you guys wait.
As I was saying...
After Shoto extends his hand to his father in the hospital, and some months (I don’t remember how many, sry) after the press conference where the Top 3 spoke to the public, the Top Three throw themselves after Midoriya, that as abandoned UA, trying to track AFO and his followers down.
And Shouto...well, he isn’t happy, much like the rest of Class 1A: they are majorly upset and preoccupied because Midoriya is missing, but Shouto is also angered by the fact that his father is following Midoriya around instead of concentrating on how to convince Touya to stop hurting himself and others and thus STOP/SAVE HIM. This is what, presumably, Shouto and Endeavor’s goal is regarding to Touya: stop him from being hurt and hurting others with his flames, which will save him and give them a chance to repair the strained relationship.
Endeavor, Hawks and Best Jeanist’s mission to follow and support Midoriya in the meanwhile is failing splendidly: they endeavored (I’mnotsorryforthepun) in this mission because they wanted to compensate the lowering number of heroes active, hunt down villains and find AFO at the same time, all by profiting from Midoriya’s Danger Sense ability. The plan di per se wasn’t that bad, but Midoriya was going too fast for even Hawks, the fastest hero, to follow him; a reminder of why: Midoriya has a lot more Quirks than the top 3, and he was way more desperate than them to find AFO, trust me...the heroes, that also started to include Mt.Lady, Edgeshot, Kamui Woods and others, try to support him from the sidelines, but they are, at the same time, becoming a burden to Midoriya, as Endeavor recognizes before entering UA in chapter 325.
Also, the students mentored by the top 3 try to reach out to them like crazy, because they want to know what the fudge they’re doing and where Midoriya is: Tokoyami called Hawks, Bakugou tried to contact Best Jeanist and Shouto called Endeavor, without receiving exhaustive answers. Endeavor, in particular, doesn’t really want to sideline Shouto, after all they’ve been through, but when he missed the call, he was probably also feeling uncertain on how to deal with Touya, while at the same time worriyng on how to stop AFO and make sure the chaos the country is in doesn’t become worse. When he’s called to UA by Nezu and played a trick by the students who have now started figuring things out, he receives a wake-up call by his son.
Shouto makes him notice how they had told each other they’d stop Touya together, but Endeavor had sidelined him and took it upon himself to find his eldest son and Shouto’s older brother, all while making an exception for Midoriya. I don’t think Shouto didn’t understand his father was also trying to find AFO, but he also didn’t want Endeavor to ditch him and instead wanted to be included. Endeavor seems to slowly understand that the plan he and the other top heroes were following REALLY wasn’t going for the best, thanks not only to Shouto’s wake up call but to Bakugou’s words as well. If All Might, or Midoriya in this case, are left alone with the full weight of their responsibilities heavy on their shoulders, they are going to hurt themselves tremendously. While Endeavor thought that the plan was a good approach, Bakugou clearly says that it wasn’t the best one. Endeavor gives up his phone and looks to be reflecting on many things.
When the class works together to help Midoriya and bring him back to UA, he finally realizes that letting the kids convince Deku was a good idea and tells his colleagues not to intervene, for the students are dealing with it just fine.
We later see him out of the UA barrier with Hawks and Shouto, listening to the citizens screaming at Midoriya to stay away, scared for their safety and mistrustful towards the heroes; not even Best Jeanist and Present Mic can keep them calm. Shouto is super frustrated: he would love to go amidst the civilians and protect Midoriya form their accusations, “put them at ease” like his original heroic goal was. The circumstances, however, don’t seem to be his allies; he still looks extremely relieved when Uraraka takes the megaphone and finally convinces the citizens.
And, here we are to the last actual moment of the STOPPING TOUYA TO SAVE HIM narrative: Endeavor, after recognizing what exactly was wrong with the top 3 plan, looks a bit shocked when Shouto addresses him as “father”. He also look very...sad, somehow: sorry that things aren’t working out as well as he’d have hoped them to go, and that the Touya situation is still unresolved. Shouto extends a hand to him again, by saying that this time they’ll save Touya together. The thought of Dabi’s haunting eyes crosses both of them. Endeavor is probably still afraid that stopping Touya may be a burden too heavy for Shouto when he says, his face a bit obscured, “yes”.
THEORY TIME!
The narration seems to be headed towards the redemption of Shigaraki, Toga, Dabi, Endeavor and mayyyyyybe Overhaul. We know that Shigaraki’s saviour may be Midoriya, Toga’s will be Uraraka, and Overhaul’s rademtion’s factor will mainly be if Eri wants to forgive him.
Endeavor’s redemption’s weight depends on how efficient he actually is at saving Touya at this point and Dabi’s redemption will probably happen thanks to Shouto with contribution from Endeavor. To resume: Endeavor and Touya’s redemption are tied to each other, and Shouto is fundamental to help them both.
How could Hori bring forth Endeavor’s redemption without screwing over Dabi’s redemption, and not screw Endeavor’s redemtion at the same time? I’ll be focusing on Endeavor and dabi here, because I really don’t know how the dialogue between Shouto may be written.
I have no clue. Sorry I don’t. There are some viable options, like Endeavor gets kidnapped or fatally wounded while he fights Dabi because AFO is also there, and could ultimately steal his Quirk. In this case, Endeavor could be alone or with Shouto.
There is also the option in which Endeavor dies while trying to stop Touya from burning up, while recognizing his mistakes, validating Touya’s harsh feelings and accepting to burn in hell.
Frick, they could both die as they burn up, both recognizing the wrong in their ways, but it wouldn’t be really satisfying now would it?
There are so many outcomes possible, but with everyone of them i feel like something is missing. I also feel like I’m the only one that wouldn’t find Endeavor’s death outrageous because “it’s sweeping things under the rug”, or counterproductive because “it would suck for Endeavor’s redemption arc, because everyone is tired of the redemption-by-death trope”.
Endeavor’s death could actually be the best moment of his redemption arc and what makes it truly valuable, depending on how well it is written. Maybe Endeavor isn’t sitting at that table in his dream because he died, and his death actually helped his family heal and smile, because while he had changed his views in the year before his death, it’s still relieving to be free from his presence. However, Touya isn’t present at the table as well, so really...the conclusion to both of their arcs could be anything. Some may say that making Dabi die would be wrong on an ethical standpoint: yet another victim’s death, that makes victims in the real world think there is no hope out of difficult situations; yet another unfair death, because abusers deserve death and not their victims.
Let me tell you why, exactly, I think, neither of their deaths would be useful; you are free to disagree.
Endeavor’s, Touya’s or both their deaths could make the future of the Todofam very traumatic, because the family wouldn’t really manage to find proper closure.
Which is why I don’t think Endeavor or Dabi will or should die, but they will both live with consequences: maybe Endeavor will lose his Quirk, and Touya may turn on AFO and protect Shouto.
I don’t know, honestly.
Plz. help.
All I know is that Horikoshi will surely try to make the outcomes as emotional and epic as ever, so I hope I won’t be disappointed, because so far I’ve been on board with seeing where Endeavor and Touya’s journey may bring them
Anxiously waiting for the next episode, and end of this volume.
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Okay, but Tempus Fugit/Max and the birthday arc 🥺
What’s your thoughts about “I didn’t know it was your birthday” and then two seconds later “oh, here’s a gift I wrapped especially for you that just happens to be in my pocket.”? Think it’s along the same lines as “I stole these flowers from the guy down the hall” when he actually came flying through the front doors clutching them for dear life?
Also, Mulder grinning with that straw between his teeth should be illegal. He looks like an impish kid I can’t even 🤣
HDNZBZJZNSJS Tempus Fugit/Max my beloved- i don't usually have as much fondness for the mytharc as I do for the rest of the show overall, but the season 4 mytharc is absolutely my favorite. there's just *something* about it that I'm obsessed with (which is a whole other rant lol). and I love that you call it the birthday arc 🥺 can I steal that?
ok but I have gone off about the "I got you something :D" scene so many times in tags on gifsets and such actually. like it's SUCH a cute scene and Scully's awkward expressions are super relatable but at the same time there's this very very deep bittersweetness to it all bc it is, of course, smack in the middle of the cancer arc.
tbh I'm decently certain that Mulder has always (or at least since around s2) known when Scully's birthday is but just. they never make a big deal out of it?? like that kind of thing... isn't their kind of thing (this entire opinion is prob influenced by the various fanfics I've read lol, but I kinda adopted the meta as well). but he DOES know when her birthday is, he just doesn't bring attention/celebrate it for her, ya know?
until 19-heckin-97. until she is dying. until, and this seems very typical of them in general, it's her last birthday. and no, that doesn't mean he's accepted that she Is Going To Die, but it means- there's more weight to it. and if worst does come to worst no matter how hard he fights it, he doesn't want to let her die thinking he didn't care enough to remember her birthday. so: Tempus Fugit/Max. a Snowball with a sparkler instead of a candle, and a dorky little gift. it all means a lot more than it seems to anyone else tbh and that just GETS ME
(as you can tell since I'm waxing poetic about it right now 😂)
also that bit you mentioned from Memento Mori — aahnfndjxnxdjsns it's SO ADORABLE and so bittersweet and so THEM. I've said it a few times in tags about that scene: he makes a point to try to make her laugh, and she does, and he forces a smile too. if they can smile for each other, there's a chance everything can be okay. and I may be looking too hard but I think I can reasonably say that like- okay Mulder is ALWAYS trying to make Scully smile, he's just like that. but I think he tries especially hard during this arc; they're both Struggling, it's hard, they can't figure out how to balance what's happening with their partnership and relationship, but he continually tries SO HARD to make her smile or laugh — and when she does, he absolutely lights up. it's adorable
SHZJDNDKSK and YEAH his big dorky grin with that straw in his mouth, like yeah there's the angst in the background and yes both of them are very aware that there is a Reason he's finally gotten her a gift this year (Scully's comment about alien implants strikes me as her way of backhandedly calling him out for it; she never wants him to treat her any differently bc of her cancer, except for like. I mean on some level she DOES but not always in the way it ends up, if that makes sense) but!! he's celebrating his absolute favorite person in the world and just for a minute everything is okay, she makes awkward faces when everybody sings the birthday song (Mulder singing "special agent Dana Scully" instead of just "happy birthday dear Dana" is like. there's always That One Person at every birthday party, right?) and for a minute it's about as normal as they could ever pull off — he loves her, and he is happy to be with her. same principle as the way he looks at her in Unruhe, actually--
......also the lighting of that scene is v good, I kinda love it
#SPEAKING OF how mulder looks at her#the ending of max??? when she's looking at the stars but he looks at HER?????#and she doesn't see it but he has the softest most immensely loving and sad look on his face????#he says it's just a cool keychain but it's NOT it's a symbol#they both know that scully Knows that and says so#but she doesn't know all of it. she doesn't see mulder watching her in that moment like SHE is the stars (but flickering out)#...that sounds like that one quote shdjdhs ''u don't have all the facts!'' ''which are?" ''i love her!''#Lu rambles#asks#txf#msr#mellia i feel like you should have your own tag#meta finding tag#cancer arc my beloved?#this is probably rambly and incoherent lol whoops
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I would like to add Gwaine to the list of friends Merlin had. Especially in the 3/4 seasons he really was ride or die for Merlin, they shared intimate details with each other, they truly trusted each other. There were instances where the show alluded that Gwaine knows about Merlin's magic and is fine with it.
hi there! i’m assuming this is in response to the post i reblogged about will and lancelot being merlin’s only “real” friends?
i’m actually happy to write about this, now that the question has been posed - it’s been a while since i wrote anything long about gwaine!
fair warning in advance: i don’t personally classify gwaine the same way i do will and lancelot, and that’s what this piece will cover in more detail, but these are just my own thoughts, and it is totally cool for everybody else to have different opinions. my take is my take, but it does not have to be everyone’s take - if people wanna scroll past because this isn’t their vibe, i don’t mind in the slightest. :)
so, without further ado - i LOVE gwaine, and i have written extensively about how amazing his relationship with merlin is (some examples here, here, here, and here, if anybody’s looking). he is the most likely of all merlin’s living friends to ditch arthur in the name of addressing merlin’s needs, which is super important, and he also has a much healthier friendship with merlin than arthur does (in my own personal opinion, of course, which nobody is obligated to share). he definitely does go ride or die for merlin in S3/S4, i agree.
but my own thoughts on this particular point are still the same as they were in that original post. i tend to hide my clarifications/explanations in the tags, so they might have flown by, but i’ll just copy/paste the relevant bit here for ease of access, as some background for the rest of this post.
re: will and lancelot were merlin’s only ‘real’ friends:
#what this does not mean: merlin has no other friends! merlin doesn't have meaningful and important relationships with other people! #what it does mean: #every single one of merlin's other relationships is undergirded by the sickening knowledge that those friendships are conditional #every single one of his other relationships is accompanied by the constant undercurrent of 'they would hate me if they knew' #merlin knows his friends 'care' about him #except they don't really; because it's not truly him they're caring about #they care deeply - about someone merlin made up #about a facade. #in the most basic sense #those relationships aren't Real #the love merlin feels for the people in them is real #but you cannot truly be 'friends' with somebody who doesn't even know who you are #you cannot be loved without being known #you certainly cannot be loved without being safe
obviously i suppose a person’s thoughts on this would be different if they headcanoned that gwaine knew about merlin’s magic, and that’s fine. i personally do not believe canon indicates or supports that, but i’m not out to convince people to abandon their own fanon interpretations of things; i’m happy just hanging out in my own space talking about my thoughts. me writing meta is the virtual equivalent of me talking to myself in my room - if other people have different conversations with themselves, that’s fine :) i don’t mind if other folks organize their thoughts about things differently.
in accordance with that - everybody please feel free to continue on with your own interpretations, and ignore mine if mine do not appeal to you! if people are interested about how i organize my ideas on this, though, they are essentially as follows:
1) a cage fighter, a class traitor, and a fake sorcerer walk into a tavern
ok, to start with - here’s a graph.
(...who tf starts a meta post with ‘here’s a graph’ lol i just drew a venn diagram for the first time since like...middle school...i LOVE fandom, man, this is RIDICULOUS)
anyway
this is a very rough interpretation of how i think about gwaine, lancelot, and will:
to address some of these elements individually:
lancelot and will give merlin something that gwaine can’t - safety, authenticity, the comfort of being known and seen for real, a respite from constantly qualifying every friendship with ‘they would hate me if they knew’
lancelot and gwaine, likewise, give merlin something merlin wouldn’t be as likely to get from will (if will were still alive, i mean) - an understanding of merlin’s devotion to the Crown, a supportive ally in the fight to promote arthur’s reign and keep arthur/camelot safe
will and gwaine, for their part, are more likely to tell arthur to go fuck himself, if it’s important for helping merlin, and that’s a different kind of support that merlin also really needs.
and will, on his own, gives merlin something that neither lancelot NOR gwaine can provide, which is a friend who isn’t connected to or even particularly interested in arthur pendragon (merlin has nobody in his life like this, not after will dies) - somebody who knew and cared about merlin before merlin had any proximity to arthur, before this whole ’destiny’ issue reared its merciless head.
everybody in merlin’s life matters to him and gives him something important. gwaine is STUPIDLY important to merlin. the love there is real. but in canon, because gwaine is not in the know, gwaine is still one of the people from whom merlin feels compelled to hide himself. gwaine is right up there alongside gwen, arthur, elyan, percival, etc - every other person who merlin loves, who merlin nonetheless constantly, back-of-his-mind fears, ‘they would reject me if they knew.’
the above is part of why i personally have never been too interested in ‘so-and-so knows about merlin’s magic’ canon-imaginings. there’s absolutely nothing wrong with them, and i’m sure people must have tons of fun with them - and in an AU context maybe i would have fun with them too - but as hopeful interpretations of actual canon, they don’t appeal to me. merlin’s near-total isolation and desperate, constantly-frustrated desire for real, honest love is an inalienable aspect of his character for me, one i can’t separate from who he is and why he does the things he does and why he eventually ends up in the place where we find him towards the end of the show.
2) i just want someone to see me for who i am
i have seen a bit of sentiment out there along the lines of ‘merlin should have told (x person) about their magic’ or ‘(x person) obviously doesn’t have a problem with sorcerers,’ but i guess i personally don’t think it’s as clear as all that, and i think me saying it is would be doing merlin a disservice.
merlin’s desire to be seen/known/accepted is literally the most base urge he has. if he truly thought he could tell somebody safely, he would.
i think merlin knows the people in his orbit well enough to know how they feel about sorcery, at least in a general sense. and even if they aren’t bloodthirsty bigots like uther, they aren’t exactly welcoming magic with open arms, either. at the most basic, elementary level, merlin understands something that we don’t like to think about: none of his friends ever challenge arthur on the sorcery ban or express any dissatisfaction with the political status quo, and, even absent outright bigotry, this fact speaks loudly enough in and of itself. merlin’s friends might not be out clamoring for sorcerers’ blood, but they aren’t criticizing a society that criminalizes sorcery, either, and they are never shown to have a problem with the way things are, even though the way things are is wrong.
The Way Things Are is, in fact, unjust. it’s oppressive. and allowing that state of affairs to continue, unquestioned and unchallenged, when you have access to the king’s ear and aren’t personally in danger of being persecuted, indicates that you’re okay with the injustice. that you’re comfortable with the oppression. that you don’t see a problem with the status quo, and that you're unbothered enough by it to let it be.
it doesn’t matter that merlin’s friends have never straight-up said ‘boy, magic sure is evil’ onscreen. they never say that camelot’s policies are wrong, and that delivers a clear enough message on its own.
3) it is not a crime to fight for your freedom
to bring this back to gwaine specifically, since that was originally the focus of this ask -
for me, for all that i adore gwaine, and for all that i think he was, for the most part, an INCREDIBLY sound, healthy relationship for merlin, the truth is that gwaine is as much a part of this problem as everyone else. does that mean i personally think gwaine would have summarily dumped merlin if he’d found out merlin had magic? no. but i don’t think it’s as uncomplicated as maybe we wish it might be, and i think merlin has every right to be as uncertain of gwaine on this issue as he does of everyone else.
for one thing, like i said before, even gwaine, who used to have fewer qualms than any of the knights about pushing back on arthur’s BS, has never said a word about camelot’s injustices, or ever acknowledged that the laws of the land are unjust to begin with.
for another, there are specific moments that kind of make you wonder.
5.05 (’the disir’) is a good example of this - when gwaine finds osgar in the woods, the two of them have this exchange:
you are a sorcerer, a heretic, and a murderer.
the rhetoric of this sentence frames all three of these things as equivalent entities - criminal ones.
to pick this apart more carefully:
a) sorcerer
it’s worth noting here that we’re never told osgar has done anything worse than evading arrest for the crime of being a known sorcerer. when leon mentions him in the council meeting, the conversation consists solely of the following:
“as you know, a few days ago our garrison in the forest of breckfire intercepted the man who goes by the name of osgar.”
“the sorcerer.”
“the same. they were trying to apprehend him when he used his powers to escape.”
and…that’s it. osgar’s crime, as far as we know, was simply being a sorcerer (and then, after that, attempting to escape an unjust arrest, thereby killing a knight in the process). there’s no mention of any other activities that would have warranted his arrest in the first place, other than the possession of magic.
but magic, even on its own, IS a crime in camelot - and gwaine levels the accusation at osgar as such.
b) heretic
that’s a hell of a word to throw around, if you think sorcery is chill.
“heretic” isn’t a mild accusation. "heretic” has vitriolic severity behind it. people are accused of heresy when they’re perceived to be in brazen defiance of what is (in the eyes of the accuser) unquestionably right and correct. “heretic” is like…it’s like blasphemer. the connotation is not just that something is bad, but that it’s sinful.
for gwaine, either osgar’s association with sorcery and/or his defiance of camelot’s army makes him a heretic. and that’s not something a person who is down with sorcery or supportive of a magic-user’s struggle for freedom would say.
c) murderer
if gwaine were cool with sorcery, we would expect him to understand that a sorcerer who resisted arrest for the crime of being a sorcerer isn’t a murderer.
it’s like kara said in 5.11 - it is not a crime to fight for the right to be who you are.
camelot has been killing sorcerers for decades. osgar mortally wounded a soldier (not an innocent civilian, i might note) who was trying to imprison him. he was resisting the armed forces of an oppressive state. that’s not murder.
somebody who understands that camelot is an oppressive regime wouldn’t think of this as murder. they would understand that it is not a crime to protect your own life when the state has literally been trying to exterminate your people for years. and even if osgar had been engaged in rebellious activities against the state (which as far as we know is not the case - nothing like this is ever referenced!), they would understand that people with magic have long been overdue for a righteous uprising.
but gwaine is a little more like arthur, in this moment - he sees the “wrong” that osgar has done (in the form of sir ranulf’s death) without seeing the thousands upon thousands of wrongs that camelot visited upon the magical community first.
4) you can’t go armed into a sacred place
the rest of this episode is similar. gwaine pays just as little heed to merlin’s warnings as the rest of the knights, when merlin admonishes them that the disir’s cave is sacred. gwaine doesn’t relinquish his sword or take special care upon entering the cave. in fact, he is the one who outright interrupts the disir while they’re speaking - as they’re telling arthur a series of hard truths, that he’s persecuted magic-users, “even unto slaughter;” that he’s desecrated their space: “you come here, to the most sacred of the sacred, to the very heart of the Old Religion, with weapons drawn - trampling hallowed relics - treating our sacred space like you do your kingdom - with arrogance - with conceit - with insolence - ”
and gwaine cuts them off, pushing to the front of the group and shouting at them “enough! you speak of the king!” and that’s when the fight starts, when mordred gets stabbed.
someone who was fully accepting of magic, or who knew anything about it at all, would not have behaved this way. they would not have bristled at hearing how arthur’s regime unfairly persecutes the magical community. they would have known that it was true.
5) i just want to be myself
the above is just one example, but it’s a clear enough one to illustrate what i mean. gwaine IS an amazing friend to merlin. he does treat merlin well. and merlin loves him to death. but gwaine is NOT totally chill with magic. i’m not saying he actively hates it, but he is not, from what merlin has witnessed, entirely safe. merlin loves him, but he can’t be himself around him.
and i do think that pains merlin terribly. all these people who he loves so much, and every time he’s with them there’s always that whisper: ‘this is a charade. all the love in my life is a lie. they only like me because they don’t know me. if they knew who i really was, this would be over.’
and we wonder why he never tells anyone. we tell him he ‘should’ have told gwaine, gwen, morgana, arthur, like it would have been easy, or even possible, for him to ever consider putting himself in a position where he could lose what precarious, partially make-believe connections he has.
merlin, in the later seasons, when he worries about his magic being exposed, isn’t afraid of being executed. he’s afraid of becoming even more alone than he is now. and he has good reason to feel that way - even people who appear to put him first aren’t fully on board with the thing that makes him who he is. and merlin knows this. he’s seen it. none of his friends are out fighting for people like him at court. some of his friends shake their heads and assure arthur “you are a good and just king” when arthur expresses concern that maybe the disir are right, maybe he has indeed transgressed. some of merlin’s friends used to buck the system in defense of the powerless, but now they defend the regime even when the accusations levelled against it by an oppressed population are true.
merlin knows that revealing himself is a kind of risk that could very plausibly end with him utterly disowned. every single friendship he has is subject to this justified fear, this bitter knowledge. merlin has every reason to doubt the soundness of his relationships.
and, circling back to the thing that started all these musings - the only friends who never made him feel that way were will and lancelot.
that’s all i mean when i say that will and lancelot were merlin’s only “real” friends. i wish there were a better word to use than that, because i really don’t mean it like…as if merlin’s relationships with other people weren’t…valid, or important, or based on true love and care. they were. but there’s just not a better way to express that will and lancelot were the only people who ever even knew who they were friends with, who saw merlin for exactly who he was and said “i love you still.” they were the only ones whose friendship was something merlin didn’t have to be afraid of losing solely for existing.
i always think of morgana’s line in 2.11 - ‘i don’t want to be brave. i just want to be myself. i don’t want to be alone anymore.’
around everyone else, merlin has to be brave. he has to keep up the pretense, which means even when he’s surrounded by friends, he’s completely isolated.
with will and lancelot, though, he could be himself. with will and lancelot, he wasn’t alone.
6) post-script
i really appreciate being given the opportunity to muse to myself about this in more detail - i actually needed to think through some things regarding gwaine anyway, for writing purposes, and this was actually really helpful in organizing my brain. so thanks, anon, for the prompt!
i know my answer probably runs counter to your own interpretation of things, but as i said, this is just my own personal outlook. i typed it up because the message got me thinking, and because i know i have a couple of friends who might find it interesting, but my thoughts apply only to me, and i do not mind at all if folks think about these things differently! nobody is obligated to agree with anything i write, or give it any further thought, or even read it at all - we’re all going to engage with this story in different ways, so if anybody finds that this isn’t their cup of tea, please feel free to scroll on by, and keep having fun with this show in whatever way makes you happiest! :)
#tumblr is doing something weird and not letting me use read-more's in posts that are replies to an ask#i was able to screenshot the last ask i replied to and just turn the whole thing into a text post with a read-more#because i knew the sender would see it anyway#but i'm not sure an anon will see this without getting the notification#sorry this is a#long post#i will play with it more and see if i can get the cut to actually show up#=/#the once and future slowburn#you're the only friend i've got#meta#replies#the bravest and most noble of them all#no kings no masters
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so I saw some posts in the bellarke tag (from a few bellarke) saying how season 6 bellarke was terrible and that Bellamy was out of character and would never do the things he did for Clarke that season.. and that he was bland, and the cpr scene could’ve been any sappy couple, but like ?? I loved season 6, and I thought Bellamy was in character (as opposed to season 5 where they barely interacted and had any big emotional talks after 6 years of thinking she’s dead and ugh s5 to me felt the least like them) i mean to me him doing anything for her seems like something Bellamy would do? Look at the all past seasons and all the sacrifices and thing he did for her and how protective he was over her for any little thing! I feel like Bellamy leaving everyone to save clarke would be something that would happen? And him basically in tears trying to save her as she’s dying in front of him pleading that he needs her seems in character and something they would do and it felt special and sweet to me :/ how was Bellamy bland for doing the most he can to save someone he loves?? Idk, s6 was one of my favorites for how actually romantic it was and it bums me out hearing some bellarkes hating it. How do you feel about it? Do most of the fandom think it’s ooc and Bellamy’s bland?
I think the most important fact to begin with here would be that you gotta understand something that was also a little hard for me to understand at first but that I learned fast when I got into the fandom and that is that-
Nobody judges Bellamy Blake more than his own fandom.
Literally.
I’m even gonna be as brave as to say that the pinapples might not even know what to put on his shoulders besides season 3 to blame him for every mistake but we can. We absolutely can say the worst things about him and call him anything.
You know back when I got in the fandom that was season 3 and that was the WORST time to join but haha, silly cute lil me, I knew of so many blogs and Bellamy and Bellarke fans who HATED Bellamy and refused to understand his actions which yes though questionable, were at least supposed to be put under the microscope and understood.
I knew people who hated season 2 Bellamy too which was such a surprise to me, those were mostly original season 1 fans who said that he was *too herioc* in season 2 and it *doesn’t fit his character*.
So after that, like season 3 and everything (and after Bob explained how much was missed on and not told and the better part of the season which made some fans show some mercy towards his character), I decided myself that I’ll always step back, think over everything that happens to him with as clear of a head as I can and decide for myself.
I kept doing it to the end which is also why I am the only one in the fandom who didn’t call him ooc in s7. But THAT is another subject.
I think what I mean here is that nobody and I believe that wholeheartedly is more rude or more brutal to Bellamy Blake than we are. I often felt like we as a fandom hated him more than any anti can and it broke my heart. Most of all what broke my heart was the blatant refusal to understand him or his actions.
I think after season 1 people just had this image of the bad boy rebel king with soft heart who lets Clarke and the 100 in and that was it and that still sells most to these days in fics and amongst the fandom.
That’s literally where they stopped and they refused to add anything else to his multilayered character in their heads.
ANYWAY-
You asked about season 6 and I LOVE season 6 despite most bellarkers not being fans of it. I think here it comes again a lot to fandom and how the said old gen bellarkers refused to like season 6 bellarke because apparently it wasn’t written as well, the dialogue was bad, they kept recycling stuff, I’ve seen this over and over and over again but for me, personally season 6 was a whole ass trip from beginning to end that is just that-
a love story.
His love story to Clarke.
I think through it he manages to achieve in his heart what he never got to do for her in season 4 and season 5. I have had a few friends at the time who thankfully felt the same way and we discussed the fact that-
season six is filled with all the romantic tropes that we as bellarke writers (and old gen bellarke) KEEP WRITING but complain that we never actually had
WHICH WE DO????
but somehow it is not good enough for them.
So to answer your quesiton, no, not all people in the fandom thought it was bad, but I feel like again as before with just bellamy and season 3 there was this PUSH as if on purpose, to hate this, to condemn it, to call it *not the same*. I understand what they say that yes they are not entirely the same people and here comes my next point-
THEY ARE NOT!
and newsflash-
THAT IS FINE.
I think a majority of the people refused to accept the fact that they grow as characters and they have layers added to them just as the story grew and went from one planet to another. I think not everyone can accept that and that is fine, I have no problem with that I just wish it wasn’t just so blatantly hated.
I personally think that the CPR scene is where they PEAKED in all aspects. THIS is the most they’ve been truly romantic I believe that and that it is actually expressed in the DESPERATION with which he saves her and her waking up and throwing herself in his arms. Also let’s not forget his lips touching hers which for us is like basically sex.
And after that scene came out I saw a lot of hate and I was so surprised, mainly on twitter from old bellarkers, fic writers who said LOL what a dumb scene, haha he can’t do CPR right and i was like WHAT-
WHAT-
WHAT-
COME AGAIN?
You were okay when she peckered his cheek for 0,02 secs and left him all the fuck alone in season 2 to deal with EVERYTHING and the kids but this is-
BAD FOR YOU?
HIm reccassitating her and begging her and crying and his own effing sister seeing his break down and then managing to get to her, to make her to pull through and her coming back and throwing herself in his arms IS BAD?
I mean I literally died there and it is still my favorite moment.
I know nobody would agree with this but I still think this is the best one. The hugs were great but at some point how many hugs can you have?
This was more. This was so much more and I loved it.
I think also there is something else when people call some scenes blind and that is that Bob was in a lot of pain filming that because of his injury. He literally couldn’t walk and had to redo some scenes from the beginning of the season back in the end when he was a little bit better so it is clear that it is very hard for him to do this but he still does his best imo and by the time the CPR scene comes he clearly is much better and it shows in his acting too (which is also why i personally love his acting in s7 it shows so much how when an actor takes care of themselves, takes a step back, recovers and comes back he literally crushes it but AGAIN i am a lone wolf in that aspect)
Anyway, here is my advice:
1.Stay out of the tags;
2. Find people who you enjoy seeing on your dash to follow and who do fit your interests in terms of the show.
3.Don’t read ppl’s opinions, frankly, don’t listen to anyone, not even me in that ask if it doesn’t sit right with you. Instead find your own thoughts and emotions.
When I first got in the fandom there was so much meta and meta blogs and you dk the hate I saw in our fandom when it came to bellamy or the wrong discorse about his actions so I just unfollowed them all and did my own thinking.
That’s what i advise you to do!
Thank you for your question, sorry for the length!
#bellarke#bellarkeedit#the 100#meta#answered#season 6#bellamy blake#clarke griffin#sorry for the lenght#Anonymous
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agghh that anon okay so are there zutara shippers who don't like aang? sure, just like there are people who don't like toph or katara or sokka or zuko or any other character because people have preferences. but most of us A) love aang and B) criticize his writing in some episodes BECAUSE we love him and wanted better treatment for him and for katara. I mean obviously anon can disagree with zk headcanons, fuck i mean not every zk shipper has the same headcanon bc we are a diverse, massive fandom, and maybe anon could, idk, read some of our meta instead of reacting to things ppl say we think.
and maybe anon could, idk, read some of our meta instead of reacting to things ppl say we think.
THIS THOUGH!!!!!
Like I 100% think a huge part of the problem is that some douches w bugs up their asses about zutara being more popular than their ships will talk shit about how we suck and our HCs suck and w/e and that spreads and then you get ppl who haven’t even read a single zutara meta jumping on us for existing bc they take that shit at face value instead of doing their own fandom research
which really isn’t even that hard??? like man, just cruise the zutara tag a bit and actually read our headcanons and maybe keep an open mind and read some of our criticisms and see where our arguments come from before automatically assuming that a bunch of bitter ppl w axes to grind are completely right abt us
and it’s also funny bc it’s like, so easy to tell that we, by and large, aren’t being attacked for our show opinions (except the opinion that zuko and katara would have a great relationship), because 99% of the time it isn’t even about what we think abt aang or mai or w/e, it’s about us shipping zutara where other ppl have to see it
like i’ve lost count of the blogs i’ve had to block bc they said something like ‘if i have to see another post abt zutara ill shoot myself’ and stuck it in our tag, and we get flak for not kissing bryke’s asses by some corners of the fandom -cough-, and then there are the ppl who interpret salty posts as personal attacks but at that point it’s like, why is it ok for ppl to criticize zuko, or sokka, or katara, but not aang??? it’s literally almost solely aang stans who actually get offended at the mere implication that a) aang did anything wrong ever, b) the writing for aang’s arc wasn’t perfect, and/or c) aang is not someone’s favorite character.
and he doesn’t have to be. im sorry, but being the main character doesn’t mean everyone’s gonna like him, and it doesn’t mean everyone has to like him. i watched six seasons of bones before i couldn’t take anymore despite absolutely hating the titular character. it can be done! usually if the story and the other characters are good enough to make up for whatever someone doesn’t like in the main character. even ppl who genuinely dislike aang, whether bc the writing soured them on his character overall or his character archetype is just not one they like, are entitled to their opinions and to expressing them--and as long as those opinions are properly tagged, no one really has any reason to bitch about it.
but they do. and they have somehow linked aang hate w zutara in their minds so the assumption became ‘if u ship zutara it means u hate aang’ even though that’s not remotely true as a universal constant!!! some zutara shippers dont like aang, but many do! because we are a diverse group of ppl w diverse interests and opinions, and that’s a GOOD thing and should be celebrated, but bc our existence is grounds for attacking and belittling us (like that lovely little campaign a while back by those anons harassing the poc minors in our ship), we wind up feeling like we all have to agree on everything bc if we don’t present a united front, we’re easier to attack. and it’s just exhausting tbh.
ldkjghkjdfgh ty for coming to my impromptu tedtalk lmfao
#atla#atla fandom salt#the fandom would be a much happier place if yall would just let us exist in peace lmfao#we've been here for fifteen years and we're not goin anywhere#asked#andorjyny
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