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linkemon · 8 months

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Youtuber AU headcanons 1

Friendly reminder that English is not my first language. You can check my Masterlists both in English and Polish here.

AN (it's very hard to keep up with haiku syllables in English but I'm trying my best to modify my orginal poetry).

Xiao

✧ The boy mainly plays shooters and fighting games. He has a skill. He doesn't even have to try and kills go on and on and on...

✧ He is not interested in numbers on the channel and basically doesn't care about all the activity on the Internet. You're the one who talked him into it and you take care of the technical side. You edit videos or set things up for streams. You also moderated the comments before things got bigger.

✧ You occasionally walk by the screen but you've never shown your face. Fans often ask Xiao to tell who is next to him because they see him turn his head towards you. He always denies, saying that no one, because you don't want to be the envy of his fans and he has a lot of them.

✧ He gets mad when things don't work out but that's rare. He'd smashed the keyboard once or twice but only when he was playing for himself and nobody saw him.

✧ Die-hard PC guy. Doesn't accept consoles or smartphones.

✧ He wears sweatshirts all the time and they all look alike. Black and green are the only colours in his wardrobe.

✧ Disappears after streams very quickly. There are no goodbyes, he just turns off the camera and it's dark.

Kamisato Ayato

✧ King of ASMR. He often gets comments that he helps people fall asleep. His voice is so famous that he has given it to characters in several animations. Fans keep begging and sending him new stories to read on as podcasts.

✧ Ayato is rich but few people know it. Pretty good at hiding his private life from his fans.

✧ His sister appeared on Q&A episodes and absolutely won people's hearts. So much so that they asked her to take over his channel. And indeed, for a week he gave it into her care.

✧ You appear in some videos in the form of a hand. Sometimes you wave, other times you give him food. People are consumed by curiosity about what you look like. Kamisato always says with a laugh that he won't show you because someone else will steal you from him.

✧ Bobba tea is his brand. It reigns in many fanarts from viewers and he often drinks it on streams. Several companies wanted to work with him but he gently declined to maintain impartiality.

✧ Sometimes he plays strategy games but it's side content. Rather, he focuses on working with his voice as he is always busy. In addition to being a youtuber, he also has his own business and lacks time for other forms of work.

Kaeya Alberich

✧ Plays Genshin Impact and simps to most characters. He started shortly after the premiere and since then he has been completely absorbed.

✧ When you appeared on the screen, he already knew he was going to wish for you. All the fans watched with fascination how much he was excited about you. Unfortunately, he lost 50/50. That's why he did a weekly primogems gathering with the viewers to hit the guarantee. He got you on the last day of your banner and he was happy.

✧ Even if the current meta has eclipsed your character, he still has a three crowns on you and plays you on Abyss, just to show that he can do it.

✧ He wears a pirate headband for fun. Fans speculated that he might have a sick eye but he denied it.

✧ He fights with his brother all the time. Diluc also has a channel and you can see the rivalry on both sides. They pretend to be adults but in reality they have race to a million subscribers and still get at each other. Fortunately, they live separately and rarely see each other.

✧ Quite an attentive person. He doesn't mind being number one on social media hashtags. He has accounts on every social media he knows. He will take the opportunity to enjoy the triumph with the viewers, especially if he wins an achievement.

Xianling

✧ She runs a cooking channel. In addition, she travels a lot and records vlogs about cuisines from around the world.

✧ Her channel's mascot is Guoba. The bear has been standing at the back of the kitchen since the first episode and that's how it stayed. After some time, in the refreshed version, she ordered it as a stuffed animal for her store so that fans could also buy it.

✧ She regularly asks you to appear on the show with her. You make her fans happy with your relationship. They do compilations with your legendary flour wars.

✧ The girl creates unique compositions. She is known for using exotic ingredients in her dishes. She often combines them in an unusual way.

✧ She can eat a chili pepper without drinking antyhing after. Nobody knows how she does it. The video with this trick already has several million views.

✧ Xianling is planning on opening her own restaurant after flying around a few more countries. You promised to help find cooks and the number of CVs sent already scares you.

#genshin impact x reader #xiao x reader #ayato x reader #kaeya x reader #xiangling x reader #youtuber au #headcanons #x reader #xiao #ayato kamisato #kaeya alberich #xiangling #over teyvat

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solarsonicsoda · 2 months

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Rating 500+ Theme Tunes - #4: Animaniacs

Have you ever wondered who the Warner Bros. are? Well, they were probably some real guys but they're also two... creatures of some form, and they even have a sister! These are the Animaniacs! Yakko, Wakko, & Dot Warner live in the Warner Bros. water tower, and our the main characters of this 90's classic. The show features all sorts of comedic segments with all sorts of characters however, even being the origin of the infamous Pinky & The Brain. I'd liken this show to a sketch comedy show in a way, with wall-to-wall jokes and a variety of settings.

Now, Animaniacs is the first show thus far that was truly before my time. It's original run finished four whole years before my birth. I'll give you a sentence to process that. While I haven't watched full episodes of the show, I did watch the Pinky & The Brain standalone show and I'm also familiar with many segments from the show. I frequently listen to Yakko Warner's Nations of the World and Wakko Warner's America.

The show seems like an absolute hoot from everything I see, absolutely something I would get a lot of enjoyment from. It always makes me laugh! It's pretty weird too that Steven Spielburg is behind Animaniacs! That man really got around. Anyway, while we're here, I also haven't seen the revival series. We don't even get Hulu in the UK.

Theme time!

Animaniacs Theme Tune

This song goes so goddamn hard. I can't even lie. One of the biggest earworms I have ever heard in the history of intros. Everytime I find myself singing it! Just everything about this one makes me love this show, which is really exactly what you want. So much of the humour comes across perfectly in this song, even including a line about the characters' "pay-for-play contracts"! The meta-humour, the quick-humour, and while it can't influence my decision here, the physical humour of the animation is all perfect. Big brassy and mischievous instrumentals tie it all together brilliantly, making it that classic Warner Bros. cartoon mayhem for the audience of the 90's, with pop-culture of the time and fourth-wall breaks aplenty. This show and this theme knows what it is and wants to use that fully to its advantage.

An absolutely delightful intro. This one has to be an S-tier for me. Those are the facts!

Stay tuned for more and be sure to send in any suggestions for other shows you'd like to see done (after the 500 already in the pipeline that is). Check out the intro to this series here, and now, the tier list.

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icedragonlizard · 3 months

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A particular thought I had.

If you've seen some of my tumblr posts, you know that I've well established in my headcanons that Magolor, Susie and Taranza are all friends. "Wave 3 friend group" so to speak. And I'm aware that's a popular headcanon throughout the Kirby fandom. It's because those three characters have ton of similarities outside of just being in the same dream friend wave! And a ton of potential that's easily seeable.

I'm someone that headcanons each of the respective dream friend waves being friend groups with one another. So this means that I headcanon Marx being pretty close buddies with Gooey and the animal friends, establishing Wave 1 friend group. Wave 2 friend group also exists in my headcanons, and that of course means Adeleine, Ribbon, Daroach and Dark Meta Knight are all friends with each other.

I don't 100% headcanon the respective waves all being besties with each other. Marx and Magolor are still besties for me, of course! But they've also got additional separate friend groups. Gooey and the animal friends welcome Marx any time, while Magolor hangs around with Susie and Taranza a lot of the time. Sorry I don't do Wave 3 + Marx.

The mage sisters technically count as Wave 3 for me as well, albeit a tad more loosely. But I do headcanon that Susie, Magolor and Taranza are the dream friends that the mage sisters are closest buds with! Aside from Marx, as they love the clown as well. Francisca especially does.

Now, leaving my headcanon talk, I think the reason why Wave 3 is by far the most obvious wave to make a friend group out of is because they're all ex-villains with similar stories, and their trauma overlaps.

I can thoroughly understand why the other two waves aren't talked about as being friend groups as much... before Star Allies, who imagined Marx being with the animal friends? Gooey was already associated with the animal friends beforehand because of Dreamland 2 and 3, but Marx is definitely the oddball for Wave 1. He was a villain! Gooey and the animal friends were never villains in the first place.

I understand why people do Wave 3 + Marx. I don't, because Magolor is the only one of the Wave 3 trio that likes Marx in my headcanons, but I can understand the basis of why others do it. It's because he's an ex-villain like they are! Although he's from a different era of Kirby.

And then onto Wave 2... before Star Allies, who thought about Adeleine and Ribbon being friends with DMK or Daroach?

It's obvious that Wave 1 and Wave 2 are the way they are because of the timeline of the games. Wave 1 represents earlier games. Dreamland 2, Super Star and Dreamland 3 are all earlier releases than the games that Wave 2 represents of 64, Amazing Mirror and Squeak Squad. That's why Marx shares a wave with Gooey and animals, and that's why Adeleine and Ribbon share a wave with two darky dudes.

And, well, I did just say that I headcanon the respective waves being friend groups, despite all of their dissimilarities! So there's also that.

But... that doesn't at all stop the fact that I've had a very particular thought in mind, just like what the post's title says.

Wanna know this particular thought?

Here it is:

What if we were to have Marx swap places with Adeleine/Ribbon?

This means putting the two girls in the same wave as Gooey and the animals. And here's the thing about this: Adeleine and Ribbon are from the Shimomura games like Gooey and the animal friends are! And none of these characters were ever villains to begin with. No, Adeleine doesn't count as one, the only reason you fight her is because Dark Matter possessed her. But yeah... Shimomura characters all a friend group? That sounds absolutely legitimate!

I mean, one could argue that Adeleine has canonically met Gooey and the animal friends anyways, considering the pictures of the end credits for Dreamland 3.

And the other side of this swap means putting Marx in the same group with Daroach and DMK. Well... all three of these characters had antagonistic roles in their respective games! Same thing as Wave 3.

This hypothetical swap would then mean that Wave 1 is all the people that were Kirby's friends from the very start, with Wave 2 and Wave 3 being the ones having all the ex-villains. Sounds more consistent!

Although a Marx/Daroach/DMK friend group wouldn't actually be plausible in my headcanons, because I interpret that Marx and DMK don't get along at all. Daroach likes Marx, though! But he'd have to stop Marx and DMK from constantly trying to tear each other apart.

I think, if nothing else, that I'm also mentioning this to provide as an idea for you other people to think about. Did you ever think about this hypothetical swap like I did, to then make Wave 1 all the innocent guys and Wave 2 and 3 be the ones to have all the ex-villains?

If you did think that before, then bravo to you! And also bravo to you if you actually interpret Marx and DMK being able to get along and form a group with Daroach, unlike me lol. In my headcanon universe, the actual waves as they are work better than my swap proposal, since Gooey and the animal friends enjoy Marx, and DMK doesn't at all mind Adeleine and Ribbon! Well.... that does certainly make it very ironic for me to come up with that swap proposal in the first place, doesn't it?

I dunno. Consider it me looking deeply into how people don't talk about Wave 1 and Wave 2 as they are being friend groups as much as they do Wave 3. Again, Wave 3 is entirely ex-villains, while Wave 1 and Wave 2 are mixing innocent guys with ex-villains, which can admittedly be more off-putting to easily view them as friend groups.

Thanks for reading!

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thegirlwhowrites642 · 2 years

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What are your thoughts on Ginny's relationship with her each brothers? (You can share your headcanons too)

(I know you are busy please answer this question when you have a free time no urgency here, your metas are worth the wait)

First of all, thank you <3

Now, let's get to the ask.

(Also, I found some very cool gifs so I gave an artistic twist to this analysis)

Bill starts to go to Hogwarts, and is therefore away from home nine months a year, not even a month after Ginny's birth. In a way, you could say that, just as Charlie, Bill is more of a glorified cousin than a sibling to Ginny.

Nevertheless, Ginny seems quite attached to him, and by the time she is fifteen, she has a realistic view of her brother.

In GoF, she defends his long hair against their mother, and she laughs at his antics with Charlie. In HBP, we all know how judgmental she is of Fleur because she doesn't think she really loves her brother, just like Molly, she is quite protective of him. Yet she is the only one that seems to understand clearly why Bill is attracted to the veela. Ron, a bit superficially, is simply focusing on Fleur's beauty, Molly views Bill as a down-to-earth guy and so thinks Fleur is not for him, but Ginny understands that Bill likes a bit of glamour in his life.

Also, Bill and Ginny are the two "cool" (and conventionally good-looking) siblings. I don't mean it as in my personal opinion, but for how they behave and are generally perceived by others. This is certainly a type of connection in their attitudes that makes it logical for Ginny to admire Bill. Yet, Ginny is already someone that keeps a lot of things to herself, and with what little time Bill spent at home since she was born, I have a hard time believing Bill would be someone Ginny confides in.

For my headcanons, I always imagined Ginny as Victore's godmother. A bit because I like the idea of Ginny and Fleur eventually becoming close, maybe Fleur taking the role of older sister Tonks seemed to have for her, but also because I simply liked the symmetry of Ginny being Victore's godmother while Harry was Teddy's godfather.

Also, I've always thought that despite being the oldest, he was pretty chill about Ginny dating. He just gives off those vibes, I don't really have anything to sustain it. It's just that he is in that spot where he's at home enough to not be too traumatized by Ginny growing up, but he's not around enough to have the fact that Ginny is dating constantly in front of him.

We don't really have any relevant interactions between Ginny and Charlie. Honestly, Charlie always seemed to me like a character that originally was meant to do more (the whole thing with the dragon in PS) but then just became a character JKR was forced to maintain despite having nothing for him to do.

Just like Bill, he is a bit of a glorified cousin more than a brother to Ginny. The difference between Bill and Charlie though is that Bill has a sense of responsibility towards his family that Charlie clearly doesn't have.

Ginny probably admired how unapologetic Charlie is about following his passion. She had to keep Quidditch hidden for so many years, and she probably hoped she would be able to confess her passion one day. Ginny, though, is also very family oriented, so it's not surprising that she seems to look up to Bill and not really to Charlie.

What may connect Ginny and Charlie is the fact that Ginny is an animals-lover and Charlie clearly loves dragons. It may be a direction Charlie pushed Ginny in when she was little.

I do headcanon that out of all the brothers it was Charlie the one that contributed the most to Ginny's admiration for the Boy Who Lived. He seems the one who would enjoy coming up with stories about a little hero defeating dragons and going on crazy adventures.

This one is really interesting.

Percy is Ginny's real older brother. I've talked before about how Percy is fundamentally the one with all the responsibility of the older brother but none of the glory, this happens due to his age gap of four years with Charlie.

Percy is the brother who notices there's something weird with Ginny during CoS, and at the start of PoA, we see them arriving at the station together. He definitely shows the typical approach of a significantly older brother who is used to taking care of his little sister.

Ginny, who in spirit out of all her brothers resembles the twins the most, finds Percy a bit... funny? Like when there's that scene with Penelope and Ginny shares a look with Harry, laughing together at her brother's behaviour. But, once again just like the twins, she also takes Percy's betrayal very strongly as we see from what happens at Christmas in '96. This is very telling of her personality for sure but also of how much Ginny cares about Percy. As much as they make fun of Percy, the twins are the closest in age to him and care a lot about him. Fred is the first to forgive Percy when he comes back.

This affection for her brother can be seen all the way back to the end of CoS, when Ginny asks the twins to not tease Percy after she revealed he has a girlfriend.

Ginny is not really someone who harbours resentment, especially towards the people she loves, so I have no doubt she didn't have any problem forgiving Percy after the war.

From the early books, I would have said that if there was a brother Ginny would go to for advice, it would have been Percy. But Percy does lose a lot of essential years of Ginny's life. He leaves home when she's a young teen and comes back to find a young woman. And I don't know if that's a gap that can ever be fully fixed. Harry does avoid Percy in the Epilogue, so I doubt he was often at the Potters.

Ginny's spiritual guides.

While she has far more compassion and general common sense than the twins, Ginny does resemble them a lot. We even know that when she's angry she sets her jaw in a way that highlights her physical resemblance to them.

She likes jokes like them and she uses her strong sense of humour to lighten up people just like the twins do. She also admires their determination.

Fred and George kind of take her under their wing in a way, but this is a vision created more by Ginny being younger than she actually ever acting as their helper. If you think about when she goes to them to solve Harry's problem with Sirius, it can be seen as them being her helpers. In short, there's simply more of a partnership. She definitely seems to spend a good amount of time with them. At Bill and Fleur's wedding, she even dances with their friend Lee, the implication being that they're quite familiar.

The twins are no better than Ron when it comes to Ginny dating. They do respect her strength far more than the rest of her family, though. They bring her with them at the Battle (even if I doubt there was any room for argument there) and they are the ones that tell Harry in OotP how powerful she is.

I've always imagined that after the war, it was Ginny the one who made George take the first step toward healing. After George, she was probably the one that missed Fred the most, if you can even compare that type of hurt anyway. Books in hand I would have said that Ginny became the closest sibling to George but Ron ended up working at the shop, so it was probably him eventually.

I'm really attached to Ron and Ginny's dynamic, probably because I have a brother close in age, and I think it should've had more space in the books. Honestly, someone can just give me the seven books from Ginny's pov?

With the obvious exception of the twins, Ron and Ginny are the closest Weasley siblings in age. And while Ginny is very attached to the twins, when it was only the four of them at home, it's pretty easy to imagine that Ron and Ginny ended up teaming up against the twins. Then they also spent two years alone at home. I'm pretty sure I've talked before about how Ginny going to Hogwarts and realising her brother had other friends and didn't want her around probably contributed to the insecurities that made her so vulnerable to the diary. Not that I'm saying it's Ron's fault, crazy Horcruxes aside, it's a pretty normal situation. [I'd like to specify that this is simply a deduction based on how these things work in real life]

Nevertheless, Ron is very attached to Ginny. While it's only Percy that acknowledges Ginny's weird behaviour in CoS, it's Ron that goes to save her (admittedly helped by the circumstances). We all know how protective he is of her when she starts dating and even when it comes to Harry, who is definitely Ron's chosen partner for Ginny, Ron doesn't let him get away with potentially hurting his sister. When Ron gets angry at Harry and Ginny's kiss in DH, he's not simply acting like an overprotective caveman, he's genuinely concerned for Ginny's feelings and he seems the only one in the family aware of what Ginny has gone through in the previous weeks. In the tent, when Ron and Harry have the fight, Ron throws to Harry's face that he doesn't care about Ginny. If I can give my personal interpretation, I've always thought that was mainly because, while Ron is happy with whatever keeps Ginny even a little safer, he feels deep down that if he had been in Harry's position he wouldn't have broken up with his girlfriend if he really loved her.

Ginny, while fully embodying her role as the annoying little sister (as she should), cares a lot about Ron. It's Ginny who is there for Ron when he embarrasses himself in front of Fleur. And I would argue that her making fun of Ron is actually a way to show affection (she imitates Harry too). We know that the twins' jabs at Ron don't help his self-esteem, but Ginny's ones are completely different because she is the younger one, the "power dynamic" allows Ginny to behave like that, it is expected of her. This is like: stuff you understand only if you have siblings.

Ron and Ginny seem to kind of lose each other a bit during the first books and then become close again during OotP, maybe helped by playing Quidditch together, which is actually a pretty normal progression for siblings close in age, but it might also have to do with Ginny simply being around Harry more and therefore him seeing more of Ron and Ginny together. By the end of OotP, Ron is praising his sister's hexing skills, which considering Ron's self-esteem issues is very valuable coming from him, and by suggesting that she should date Harry, he is pretty much inviting her into his group of friends, showing a lot of growth since PoA when he shoved her away.

When they fight with each other they absolutely go for the kill, there are no boundaries. And again, it's completely normal because they are siblings very close in age. Ginny and Ron's relationship is maybe the most unapologetically realistic one in the entirety of the books.

During the series, Ginny is definitely the sibling Ron is closer to. And they definitely remain close during the rest of their lives. Ginny marries Ron's best friend, Ginny is close with Hermione, and Ron is James' godfather. But Ron goes to work with George so he eventually probably becomes closer to him.

For my headcanons, well... it's actually quite supported by canon, but Ginny is canonically excellent at doing impressions, and when they are at Malfoy Manor, a super underpressure Ron imitates Wormtail's voice, so I like to imagine that there's a story there about some childhood game.

#ginny weasley #ron weasley #fred weasley #george weasley #percy weasley #charlie weasley #bill weasley #harry potter #thegirlwhowrites642HPmeta

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basedkikuenjoyer · 1 month

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Eh, Thursday Afternoon Toriyama posting is fun for now. I'm surprised by how much I've thought about it lately. Not like I'm usually the type to dwell on celebrity deaths heavily, but Toriyama's taken up as much of my mind as when Prince & David Bowie passed close to each other or having the two windows I followed pro wrestling line up with Owen Hart's, Eddie Guerrero's, and Chris Benoit's sudden deaths. We'll touch on it in time but y'all saw Oda is taking a break because of it right? So far I've re-watched a huge chunk of Dragonball and binged the excellent review by Totally Not Mark for Z. I don't think a lot of anime fans, myself included, ever gave Toriyama a fair shake for how truly good DB could actually be.

Like...think about Meruem & Komugi in Hunter x Hunter. How lauded that story is. How much controversy but praise Oda generated by taking such a freewheeling goofy direction with such a late stage of his story. Both of those are just elements of the Majin Buu Saga. Meruem has Cell's design and Buu's arc. And Mr. Satan saving the day by being a good friend and mentor to the Majin? I've always loved that. My actual first exposure was that stretch of the story, staying at a friend's house while Cartoon Network ran a marathon. I liked Videl and we got to see this wonderfully epic clash of titans:

I remember going back to school in the fifth grade, telling some guy friends who liked the screaming and blowing up Earth shit all about how I finally saw DBZ and they were horrified by how much I loved this nonsense. Mr. Satan is a legend and Goten/Trunks pulling a Vincent Adultman is iconic. But...ma cherie. Android 18 is objectively the coolest thing to come out of that series. You may disagree but it's objective so that would make you wrong. I mean, the Androids alone are already cool as hell for being such a solid callback to the earlier Red Ribbon Army arc. Who could forget 8? Guy was classic. First we have a couple of goofy ones then BAM! kickass young sibling pair named Lapis & Lazuli which is a high watermark in a world with some truly weird names. Since I'll be on about another favorite pair likely somewhat inspired by them tomorrow might as well say it.

That's not exactly off the wall right? Kiku & Izo, Jodio & Dragona, that combat sibling pair of a sister that's feminine but fierce and a kinda fey brother you definitely shouldn't underestimate? Nothing new under the sun but the trope certainly echoes from the Cell Saga. And honestly, can't help but notice that side of Okiku I always want to come out more. Lazuli's best moment that made me love her so much:

I do like how when she recognizes Goten & Trunks she just takes them out via disqualification using Krillin's disk technique. But I adore the conclusion now as much as I did then. Knowing Mr. Satan was enough of a preening dickhead to pay her double for the glory of the win and throwing the fight. Same flavor as what makes me love Kiku and the Yokozuna as much as I do with a distinctly Nami blend. Tell me those two couldn't play good cop/bad cop to shake someone down.

Honestly a lot of the way I see contemporary One Piece makes sense through that lens, the way the Buu Saga took a different approach was bold and controversial but got the series back to its roots. I bet Toriyama had a lot of fun with it. And thank you for the archetype I love so much even if I didn't fully appreciate the Ur-pair until after I came to love their inspiration.

This is probably too much to get into today, but you can't divorce this from what we know about the Cell Saga, how there was so much editorial meddling when it came to the villains. The more meta elements of how I see Kiku & Yamato, how one is set to age like fine wine even if she wasn't the flashiest and the other will probably never be as popular as you were at the start even if you started white hot. The Android Pair vs. Cell are a great example. Fans as a collective sometimes don't really know what they want, I get why Eiichiro Oda opines about "authors becoming slaves to readers." Weekly serialization is a wonderland. And that wonderland gave us something really cool along the way to giving editors another Frieza.

#thursday afternoon toriyamaposting #dragon ball #android 18 #android 17 #mr satan

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theomnicode · 1 year

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im curious- do you think saitama has romantic love on the mind at all? is romantic love a high priority for him(after all, he's only human) or do you think that personal connections is all he needs to create fulfillment and meaning in his life? i personally dont know if he could even be in a relationship, he's so depressed. i think his deep relationship with genos(whether platonic or romantic) is what makes him want to move forward and live and grow... i dont think that their relationship being platonic would make it any less deep tbh.

anyway i ask this because a lot of people, especially reddit, is so focused on who saitama wants to date when im not really sure if thats in the cards for him. i also dont think the only alternative to the silly psychic sisters/saitama ships is saigenos, as much as i enjoy it. what do you think as someone who is a lot more involved in this fandom? i think your analysis is always very interesting to read and would love to hear your thoughts, sorry for rambling so much lol x

Oh do I think Saitama has romance in mind?

Yes, yes I do in fact, I have made bunch of meta centered around Saitama and romance and it has been asked of me in the past and I cannot even recall every single one, you'd probably have a to dig a lot. But most notable hints are ofc the media Saitama consumes, which center strictly around both romance and battle shounen and shoujo specifically. One doesn't really consume media on their free time if it holds no interest to them.

Saitama being romantic at heart

Love is in the air

Saitama's journey in self-confidence

And literally pertaining this:

Me when people say Saitama doesn't seem like the romantic type

But it's not just limited to that, but also the amount of shoujo elements and romantic elements in seinen, like sunsets, sparkles, late night dinners, cozy slice of life, romantic outros (ending anime songs), references, you name it.

Reason why it's so appealing to the female demographic in japan I bet when most of OPM fans are ladies instead of guys in there, or so I've heard haha.

Also, Saitama is depressed yes, but he's finding a lot of help to his depression from the people around him, the lack of connections being one of the biggest reasons for his depression after all as he says in the King chapter. Not having relatability with others causes him to feel Othered by the society itself and not know how to live in it.

Tbh, I'd personally want him to find more happiness in life like he wants in the audiobooks. :)

I'd be kinda sad if he didn't find that kind of fullfillment eventually. That and it would definitely break my heart if Genos found nothing but platonic response from Saitama, after all and everything he has done so far. But such is life sometimes. It doesn't make their relationship less deeper even if they did nothing, but still. :/

(Tbh Genos hasn't been very platonic in a long while lol, he even borrowed Saitama's underwear in hotpot as Murata-sensei said. It's hard to not notice and I think Saitama has.)

I just think Sai is very subtle lol. But we'll see if he actually gets physically affectionate with Genos, then you know for sure hah.

Genos already armless glomped him, we need a glomp back to get even.

But yea, if I saw a good dynamic for Saitama specifically, I might also check out that avenue in terms of shipping. I just don't personally think romantic SaiBuki or SaiTats are my thing. Some people ship SaiKing which is wholesome but again, I tend to personally think them as great friends. SaiAmai would be...interesting. I'd like to see more of Amai-mask in general, their chemistry and how their character dynamic evolves. One fling man? Genos would disagree.

One of my friends ships Sonsai (zombieman x saitama) which I think is a fun dynamic because they're both quite funny characters. But again, I need to see more of their chemistry to get into it myself.

I have something else in mind though, but I kinda wanna see more of this character first. No it's not Suiko or anybody you'd be able to guess.

I'll give that person a cookie if they can guess who I am refering to without outside assistance lol.

#opm #one punch man #opm meta #saigenos #genosai #romance #shipping #asks #character dynamics #character chemistry

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marciabrady · 10 months

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Hi, I really love your crits ❤ but I'm wondering why you dislike Frozen so much? I'm a huuuge fan of Aurora and Mulan myself, and I hate more and more every 3D/live action film and terribly miss 2D animation, but I must say I really loved Frozen (only the first one!!), I saw it together with my sister, who's also my bff, so maybe that's why it appealed to us, there were also some traits we felt like we had in common with these characters... and maybe it's also the thing we didn't see the film with English dub, which didn't the best (totally agreed with your take on K Bell! I'm not a fan of her personally). And I know this movie has a lot of flaws, but at the same time it was really easy for me to ignore them - until F2 I guess, it brought up all of my problems with this franchise lol Anyway, I just wanted to ask - bc I think it can be the problem with all of the new (3D) princesses - aren't they a bit bland? I was thinking about it the other day, what's characteristic for Anna and Elsa and... well, he's extrovert, and the other introvert I guess? And Anna is romantic? But there's no hobby, no distinct personal trait, nothing. On the other hand Rapunzel was briefly shown to can/like literally ALL! You make candles? Play guitar? Sew? Sing? No problem, she's just like you, you can identify with her. And the bland princesses? You can easily project yourself onto them if you will, it's not same they like to, it's say, paint - but it's not said they hate/can't do it either, right? Sorry for my rambling, it's quite late, and I've just finished my weekend Disney Princess movie marathon. Anyway, love your blog and take care xxx

So I wouldn't necessarily say I hate Frozen, I just strongly dislike certain tonal elements to it but I generally don't really think about it because it didn't resonate to me. Frozen to me doesn't really feel like a film but rather a commentary on other films? With all of the "you can't marry a man you just met" lines and how all of the plots that occur were clearly planted in order to combat criticisms of the Disney Princess line: ie them not being active, or physical, or being too naïve, or lovesick which is why I think Anna is treated as a joke pretty much. So I feel like I'm watching a commentary track where this film is retroactively beating up the previous films on which it was based on and whose success made that endeavor possible? And honestly...I think that's what a lot of people like about it. At the time it came out, I never really heard anyone talk about the value of the characters- rather the emphasis was on "Elsa's the first Princess who didn't need a man! She's independent! Unlike the other princesses, she's a BADASS" or them applauding how Hans killed the Prince Charming trope (which I think is largely reductive, and not even inventive as Gaston had accomplished that previously, but I digress). In general, most of the elements people find revolutionary about this film are anything but- this film essentially just takes elements from other films and infuses it with a lot of meta-textual criticism and added in some sparkly magic to divert toddlers. I even read a book about women in animation and the author said that a woman contributed the idea of Anna being gassy (which I hate btw, it's not charming it's uncouth and I don't think men or women should openly act like that lol) and how it was game changing for how women were depicted when Princess Fiona already did that over a decade earlier?

Apart from the elements I mentioned above, as I touched on in my previous response, Kristen Bell's voice gives nothing to me. I don't like how Anna is treated as a joke, I think it's visually very boring, I don't like the 3d design, and I have no object permanence for the plot because it feels like there's just a lot happening to keep people from being bored without any weight behind it. I'm also not a fan of the universe, with the trolls and just none of it makes sense? Like they go through hoops to try to hit us over the head with how strong Elsa and Anna are as female leads and how men are useless but then Elsa runs away from her own kingdom and Anna leaves it to the attention of Hans while she goes off in search of Elsa??? I don't know, it just all isn't for me lol I know a lot of people like it and they're certainly entitled to, I just think it isn't to my taste.

#ask #anonymous

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storytellingdreamer · 2 years

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Watching Granada Holmes: Copper Beeches

Oh goody, it’s another one for the Woman in Need category. This the third one in the past five episodes that fits that category. Interesting. Catch up with my other recaps and screenshot posts here.

The opening is startling, and made me think: “huh? What’s happening here?” pretty much instantly.

However, my questions were mostly focused on the man outside looking in. After all, he seems more sketchy than the older man (soon to be introduced as Mr Rucastle), who’s only locking an internal door while carrying some papers and looking annoyed...

I like the bookending that this episode does with its start and finish - especially because it gives us another opportunity for some Watson Amused expressions at the start (David Burke smiles with his whole face).

OMG this argument! Very, very Married/ intimate partners vibe. “You are always in a disputatious(sp?) mood when you choose that pipe!” Burke’s delivery of these words elevates them into a couples argument. And Holmes’s response ends with: “You have degraded me.” Ouch.

And then after a bit more sniping and such, Holmes reveals that he’s actually disappointed/ sad about the uses his deductive skills are now being asked for... and Watson’s whole expression changes too, from anger to comfort. “My dear, dear friend,” he says.

Dear, dear friend, well, that’s an emphatic statement! The shifting emotions, and the way Holmes just hands Watson the letter with a “pfft, read it”... Again. intimate partners.

Note that for all Holmes’s bluster and irritation, once Violet Hunter is in the room, his demeanour shifts. As soon as she reveals the reason she is seeking Holmes’s advice is because “she has no parents or relations of [her] own to ask for advice”. By the end of the conversation, when it turns out Hunter’s “mind is already made up”, he becomes short with her again ... before revealing to Watson he was thinking of how he would advise her if she was his sister.

(I’ve seen some interesting meta about what that comment (coupled with Holmes’s words about crime and the countryside) mean about Holmes himself...)

Natasha Richardson gives an excellent rendition of Violet Hunter in this episode, I really liked her.

This episode is extremely creepy. Right from Mr Rucastle’s proper introduction. "That will do,” and the predatory step, and unasked for touching, and close inspection... and then the rest of his speech! It’s no wonder Violet Hunter was unnerved.

The interesting thing about this episode is that once again there is an Obvious Creep and his not-so-obvious (at first) sidekick.

Mr Rucastle commands attention in the creep department from the beginning, and the physical introduction to his wife is to a woman who appears rather meek and mild-mannered. I was misdirected about Mrs R’s role until the scene with the mirror and window.

However, if you pay attention, Mrs R’s “whims” and “fancies” are there from the start. She is most certainly part of the Villainous Plot.

I still find Mr R the more odious one though, and would hate to be in Violet Hunter’s position - it would be impossible to tell which facet of Mr R is the real one - overbearing creep, or gregarious boffin? Ugh.

The Hair Scene shows that for all Violet Hunter’s strong words, she is still afraid. It’s a big thing to cut your hair like that - and doubly so if you’re forced to, as Violet Hunter is.

And then bam! She’s locked into the grounds, shown the mastiff (so we can add animal cruelty to the Rucastles’ sins), and generally given the impression that Sketchy Things Are Happeniing Here.

Life at the Copper Beeches is full of subtle things that on the surface have Perfectly Reasonable explanations, or at worst, are just a Bit Odd.

However, once All Is Revealed at the end of the episode, these things are suddenly recast as clues that add up to make the puzzle. It’s an excellent bit of storytelling, and I love it.

On that note, there are two points of the episode that are Particularly Suspenseful - the Tower Investigations. Brace yourself for that if you find that sort of thing difficult to watch like me.

And then we end where we began, with Watson and Holmes at home, Watson reading out his conclusion to the case as he’s written it, and Holmes basically conceding the point of the argument they were having at the start of the episode. Though not without a long-suffering glance towards the camera, so don’t look too smug Watson.

#granada holmes #watching granada holmes #the copper beeches #jeremy brett #david burke

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tilbageidanmark · 3 months

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Movies I watched this week (Year 4, week 6)

2 more by Irish director John Michael McDonagh:

🍿 "Piece by piece, the camel enters the couscous..."

The Forgiven, my 4th atmospheric, restrained thriller by [Martin McDonagh's brother]. A jaded, cynical boozer Ralph Fiennes arrives in Morocco for a weekend in the desert, and accidentally kills a local boy. Ominous, well-made drama about the clash of cultures, guilt and the search for redemption, with luminous Jessica Chastain. 7/10.

🍿 The second death was his first short. A taciturn alcoholic sits in an Irish bar, grapples with his memories.

By now I've seen the 5 movies he directed, and all but 'War on everyone' were great.

🍿

I've waited to the much-anticipated American Fiction, an intelligent meta-film about a writer pandering to black stereotypes. It's an intellectual and erudite story about bookish people, with a protagonist named Thelonious "Monk" Ellison. The 2 highlights were the subtle dancing scene (at 1:18) between the mother struck with Alzheimer and her son, and the meta-ending, trying different hats for size. The score was great, the sister was funny, the approach was highbrow. But best film of 2023?... C'mon. 8/10.

🍿

Robot dreams is my second by Spanish Pablo Berger (I just saw his Torremolinos 73 a few weeks ago). It's a very emotional, wordless tale of loneliness and friendship between "Dog" and his robot. Outstanding sharp animation from the very first images, it vividly depicts NYC in the 80' in rich and colorful details [eating Cheetos, playing Pong, cleaning bowling balls like Jesus Quintana]. 9/10 and my happiest film experience of the week. Deserves an immediate re-watch.

I haven't seen 'The boy and the heron' yet, but it was nominated for this year's Oscar, and I hope it wins.

🍿

First watch: Murnau's classic melodrama Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, winner of the first Oscars in 1929. Tracking camera movements, elaborate German expressionism sets and visual poetry.

🍿

5 more groundbreaking animations:

🍿 The amazing short, voted as the 19th Greatest Cartoon of All Time: Betty Boop in Snow-White. Max Fleischer's 1933 surrealistic piece, with Cab Calloway as 'Koko the Clown' singing "St. James Infirmary Blues."

Cab Calloway, the originator of the Moonwalk, collaborated with sexy Betty Boop in two other insane ditties: The Old Man of the Mountain and Minnie the Moocher.

🍿 Also, Dziga Vertov's 1924 Soviet Toys, the Soviet Union’s first ever animated movie.

🍿 Every time I watch the Dutch Father and daughter, it annihilates me, because I'm the father. Oscar winner for 2000. 10/10.

🍿

The Brother from Another Planet, my 3rd film by John Sayles, and the first disappointing one! This low-vibe sci-fi about an escaped extraterrestrial slave trying to find a new life in Harlem went way over my head. Originally, he was in a state of confusion, not knowing what things are. But then he developed some survival skills, but not others. (?). With young Fisher Stevens as a card hustler. 3/10.

🍿

2 with Laura Linney:

🍿 Suncoast is a semi-autobiographical coming of age story that feels crowded and depressing. A isolated 14-year-old girl in 2005 Clearwater, FL lives a life of trauma. Her brain dead, vegetative brother is being admitted to the same hospice where Terri Schiavo is, her father is already dead, she has no friends at all, and her mother, Laura Linney, is semi-crazed from all the tragedies. It's tough to take all that in, with death, Christianity and politics, mixing it up with regular teen angst and mother-daughter conflicts. With stirring performances by the two women, as well as Woody Harrelson as an irreverent anti-euthanasia activist. 4/10.

/ Female Director

🍿 "We're not in therapy right now. We're in real life..."

The Savages was the last of this week's movies, an afterthought. But it turned to be my favorite drama. My first by Tamara Jenkins, it tells of brunette Laura Linney, and her estranged brother Philip Seymour Hoffman, who have to get closer to each other, as they handle their distant father, now suffering from dementia. An unglamorous story with tender and subtle performances. 8/10.

[Strangely, both films, which has otherwise nothing in common with each other, include the same sad, cold scene of walking away in the corridors of a impersonal health-care institution, after the eventual death of a close relative.]

/ Female Director

🍿

The Company of Strangers is a Canadian story about 8 old women on a trip to the countryside, and who are stranded at an isolated cottage when their old tour bus breaks down. It's refreshing to see such a different premise for a movie, although, tbh, it wasn't too exciting.

/ Female Director

🍿

Carnival of Soul X 2:

🍿 "That's strange, Jim never has a second cup of coffee at home".

Carnival of Souls, a 1962 indie ghost story, the only feature film created by a guy from Lawrence, KS (who also played "The man"). A low-budget creative look, with German expressionist style, eerie organ score. A creepy neighbor, and a mansplaining doctor gaslight a single woman. There's an abandoned pavilion where the climax of the movie takes place, and it's clear that the whole plot was written around it. 4/10. (Photo Above).

🍿 Yella, my third enigmatic drama by Christian Petzold, loosely transported the narrative of 'Carnival of Soul' to modern day Germany. The heroine, Yella, is a submissive young woman with an abusive ex-husband who sees visions without agency. But replacing the spookiness of the original with unconvincing business machinations and unexplained sounds made it unremarkable and tedious. The fact that everybody left their hotel doors ajar was a big turn-off for me. 3/10.

🍿

Buster Keaton's The Navigator was his biggest commercial success. Later on it got selected for the National Film Registry, and earned 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. A few memorable set ups: Shuffling a deck of wet cards and an underwater sword fight with a swordfish. There's also the plot of the savage 'natives' / cannibals.

🍿

Kings of pastry, a D. A. Pennebaker documentary about three pastry chefs trying to achieve MOH status in 2007. For people with sweet tooth. Lovely over-use of Django Reinhardt 'Minor swing'. Re-watch.

🍿

In One Hour Photo Robin Williams played a lonely and obsessed clerk at a photo developing center at a mall. Not completely psychotic, he's sad and pathetic. The climax does not deliver.

🍿

First re-watch in many years: Tootsie about a unemployable actor who finally scores playing a female role. A melodrama about sex-roles and 1980 feminism that aged well for the most part. Mostly thanks to Sydney Pollack solid direction (and acting! He was better than the NY-actor Dustin Hoffman here, and he had all the best lines). Cross-dressing for the sake of a paycheck. 7/10.

🍿

First watch: Stephen King's middle-brow The green mile. Three hours of shallow drama, even before the supernatural miracles starts. A man-child 'Magical Negro' with the power of healing, all the time sweating like hogs, because of 'The south'. 3/10.

🍿

Nir ve Gali (ניר וגלי) is an Israeli animation studio that produced 91 anthropomorphic shorts. Unfortunately, their humor, which is among the funniest shit I ever saw, is probably untranslatable to people who don't speak Hebrew. Re-watch. 10/10.

🍿

Throw-back to the "Art project”:

Buster Keaton Adora.

🍿

(My complete movie list is here)

#Movies #carnival of souls

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potterwhos · 6 years

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What is Rey’s Failure?

In light of the recent discussions, some of them heated, within the fandom about the proposal scene in The Last Jedi, I wanted to ask this question: What is Rey’s failure?

I think the confusion or uncertainty around this key question is kind of the root of the discussion and why emotions can run high. Contrast with what I see as a widely-held assumption that this type of discussion is a reaction toward anti and general fandom Kylo-bashing. Though there is a bit of that as well, we are all of course human and biased.

I must add that this piece does not apply to those who were character-bashing Rey, such as in the post (probably made by an anti-Rey and/or anti-Reylo, who knows…) that sparked the latest round of this discussion. However, the differing interpretations of this scene, particularly in regards to Rey and/or Ben’s culpability, I kind of always knew would blow up in a way.

Before I answer this key question, I have to go back and ask: Does Rey even fail in The Last Jedi?

The answer many would expect is “Yes” for multiple reasons, two big ones within the film that point to this answer being true are:

1. Because TLJ’s main theme is Failure – “The greatest teacher, failure is” – and all the central heroes, Finn, Poe, and Luke, experience an arc about learning from failure. Of course, Rey must have experienced failure too???

This meta by @starwarsnonsense explains this theme beautifully: The Last Jedi: A Beautiful and Exquisitely Emotional Film About the Lows and Highs of Failure

2. The Skywalker legacy saber, which so easily went to the “worthy” Rey instead of Kylo in The Force Awakens, is broken in two after an intense tug-of-war between these same two characters in an obvious call back to that scene in TFA. Is Rey no longer worthy???

This meta on the Star Wars site explains the Excalibur-like qualities of the legacy saber: STUDYING SKYWALKERS: EXCALIBUR AND THE LIGHTSABER

So, yes, I believe the film leads you to believe that Rey experiences failure. However, this becomes murky during the emotional climax of the movie, the Praetorian fight sequence and particularly the Proposal Scene.

Up until this point, it is clear who the lead central character of the film is – it’s Rey. Her active decisions have driven the narrative and her emotional and inner conflicts as she learns more about the Skywalker tragedy and confronts her own tragic childhood have been the focus. Kylo’s appearances through the Force Bond have served to help Rey on this journey of discovery and self-discovery; he plays his role as her Shadow and Animus to a tee.

However, once Kylo kills Snoke to save Rey, the title for TLJ’s lead central character becomes contested. In the third act of the film, Kylo’s active choices, both heroic and villainous, start to drive the narrative and it is his internal conflict that is brought to the forefront. The second character vying for the title during the third act is not Rey; it is Luke for reasons similar to the ones stated above.

During the third act, after she escapes the Throne Room, Rey practically disappears relative to how central she was during the rest in the movie. With the exception of the Rock Lifting scene, Rey becomes a more reactionary character, similar to how she was in TFA. The abruptness of this character relapse was like whip-lash for many.

@reylo-trash-lives-here wonderfully explains here how this relapse sees Rey reverting back to hiding behind her persona.

I must point out, that I’m not saying this makes Rey’s character or characterization weak. Star Wars is more of an ensemble story than most, and Kylo and Luke kind of overtaking Rey in the third act was bound to happen, since the film leads up to it – something I’ll get back to.

So, the primary focus on Kylo Ren/Ben Solo during the third act means that it is his failure that takes central stage and gets narrative priority. Kylo’s failure being his unwillingness to reject his destructive ways and his failing to see how the preservation/creation that Rey represents is the more morally right way. I won’t say that it is the definitive right way, since as Rian Johnson has hinted at in recent interviews, destruction isn’t always 100% wrong since it can lead to rebirth, though not without creation.

But still, Kylo is only offering destruction via an organization not averse to genocide that seeks galactic domination. Rey’s rejection of his offer is not only morally right it is narratively right.

Once again, the question remerges with more fervor: What exactly does Rey fail at?

And many people’s instinct is to go to the point where it all crumbled, where it all blew up in flames – the Proposal Scene. Since it is obvious what Kylo’s failure was in the scene, many of us, myself included, find ourselves putting a magnifying glass on Rey’s reactions and actions in this scene to try to see the cracks, to see the hints of failure.

We point out her impulsiveness, her inability to bargain with Kylo, how her reaching out for the saber could have potentially triggered Kylo due to the events of Luke’s betrayal, and how her emphasis on saving the Resistance might be perceived by Kylo as her only wanting him for his power akin to Snoke and arguably Luke.

But would Rey changing any of these aspects of herself and her behavior really have resulted in Kylo rejecting his destructiveness and joining Rey in the Light? Similarly, did Kylo’s gentleness, expressed longing, and acknowledgement of Rey’s choice, elements that were absent during his TFA proposal and major reasons why she violently rejected him then, result in Rey embracing his destructive dogma and accepting his offer?

No, I think nothing would have changed because they agree on wanting to be together but fundamentally disagree on what that union will mean. You can still point out the flaws of both Rey and Kylo in this scene since they do both break each other’s hearts. However, getting rid of those flaws, particularly in Rey’s case, would not have resulted in a different outcome.

Still, because Rey is not only morally right, but also narratively right it would have to be on Ben, not Rey, to yield in this instance to be one step closer to galactic peace and balance, but more importantly his own inner peace and balance.

@greyjedireylo concisely explains how Ben hiding behind his shadow is the ultimate flaw he must overcome here.

On the other hand, @reylohasmyheart explains beautifully why Kylo’s rejection of Rey’s offer was needed for both his redemption and romantic relationship with Rey going forward:

We must first ask, why do we think the separation of Rey and Kylo is a failure to begin with? And why do we think Rey is equally to blame for it?

This is where, understandably, there is confusion. Many of us assume this because, visually, the film seems to want to tell us this by having the legacy saber split in two. It seems, the Force has found some fault in Rey, has found her less worthy than she was on Starkiller Base. Kylo now seems to be equally worthy since the saber actually answers his pull unlike in TFA.

However, I would argue that this broken saber symbolizes that the Force’s endgame is for Rey and Kylo to work together, to be together. Not necessarily in that specific moment in Snoke’s throne room, but in general. In TFA, the saber identified Rey as Ben’s equal – “It is you”. In TLJ, the saber symbolizes their broken union (and their broken hearts). I don’t think its main symbolic purpose is to symbolize failure, on either Rey or Kylo’s parts. Rather, it just symbolizes the fact they are separated and something is inherently wrong with this separation.

So there it is again, that pervasive question, then what is Rey’s failure?

Indeed all the other central heroes and villain failed: Finn, Poe, Luke, and Kylo. Some people pointed out, and both celebrated and criticized (fairly and unfairly), that TLJ seems to be about women teaching boys to become men. Does that mean Rey escaped failure because she occupies a female teacher role like Lea, Holdo, and Rose?

No, I believe Rey does fail. Though I would argue compared to Kylo’s hard failure, Rey experiences a soft failure (I’ll explain what I mean below). And this failure does not blatantly happen during one climactic scene, unlike Kylo, it subtlety takes place throughout the film.

Okay, now this is the part where you must try to forgive me. I recently read The Heroine’s Journey by Maureen Murdock and From Girl to Goddess by Valerie Frankel, both delving into the mythic structure of the Heroine’s Journey. However, I don’t have those books in my possession right now and will have to rely on memory while crudely paraphrasing some the concepts they discussed. If anyone reading this has access to these books, correct me if you find any inaccuracies.

So part of the Heroine’s Journey is Animus Development and part of that development involves the heroine identifying with the masculine. I believe this is during the second stage of animus development which is man as a man of action or a romantic man. In TLJ, Rey has two animus figures, Luke (the father figure) and Kylo (the shadow animus/animal husband).

During this stage, the Heroine is confronted by the powerful dogma of her animus. In Rey’s case, both Luke and Kylo are negative animus figures because Luke’s dogma emphasizes self-destruction and inaction, while Kylo’s dogma emphasizes self-destruction and outward destruction. However, despite these constricting dogmas, the heroine finds herself depending on her animus; she identifies too much with the masculine and shuns the feminine.

She believes that her animus knows what’s best, it is her animus that has the power to change things, and that it will be her animus that ultimately saves the day.

The heroine must overcome this over-dependence; she must acknowledge the power and strength of the feminine within her as well. She must recognize that she can be the hero of the story.

In TLJ, Rey first goes to Ach-To to try and convince Luke to once again wear the hero’s mantle. When she fails at this, she instead focuses her efforts on Ben Solo who she has convinced herself will be the Resistance’s only hope due to her failure with Luke as well as her own (as of now unacknowledged) personal desires. After Kylo rejects joining her and the Resistance, Rey finally comes to the realization that she can use her own power to become the hero (and the symbolic mother) of the Resistance which is signified when she lifts the rocks and helps the Resistance escape the caves.

@clairen45 points out the use of symbolism during the Crait battle and it is a fascinating read: Crait and Symbolism: blood, wounds, salt, foxes, the mother and the nest.

This lovely discussion started by @reylohasmyheart talks about how Rey’s unacknowledged desires may have affected the Throne Room scene.

This positive change within the heroine positively affects her animus figures. Luke regains hope and springs back into action by sacrificing himself to save the Resistance. He restores hope in the galaxy and starts the healing process of his nephew. Kylo’s positive change is hinted at in their final force bond scene where he kneels to Rey and must confront the truth that power for the sake of destruction will not bring him peace or happiness. Because of the heroine’s effect on her animus figures, it becomes more understandable that Kylo and Luke, rather than Rey, are thrust into the forefront of the narrative during the third act.

So, this means that one aspect of Rey’s failure in The Last Jedi is that she did not believe herself to be a hero.

However, this brings up more questions.

1. Does this mean Rey seeing the light in Ben and his potential for good was wrong?

2. Does this mean Rey ever believing Ben could be redeemed and turn to the light was wrong?

3. Does this mean Rey ever extending compassion, understanding, and belief to Ben was a weakness that she overcame by the end of The Last Jedi when she shut the door?

4. Does this mean that Rey’s journey in The Last Jedi was about her learning more about Ben in order to, in the end, strictly identify herself as the hero and him as the irredeemable evil villain?

Many people, not us within the Reylo fandom of course, have suggested these as the lessons Rey learns from her failure in TLJ. These conclusions are troublesome because, first, they strongly go against the themes and values presented within the Star Wars franchise.

Second, due to the subtextual journey of sexual awakening/exploration Rey goes on within TLJ, these lessons present pretty problematic conclusions on female sexuality. That it is a weakness that detracts from logical and moral thought, that its desires should not be pursued freely, that in the end, young women should listen to old men like Luke and repress their sexual desires in order to succeed.

@corseque wrote a fun and eye-opening film analysis exploring the sexual imagery utilized within The Last Jedi: a long and specific The Last Jedi meta - (spoilers)

I think being confronted with these incredibly faulty interpretations, has made some of us (it has admittedly made me) look for reasons to explain why the separation was wrong (for the general story direction this is correct, but not within the context of this movie it isn’t) and to look for what Rey did wrong that partially caused this separation.

In the end, I must argue that (even if it pains me to say this because I really enjoy my heroes being wrong in key moments, heroes that make the audience truly question their morality, Rey is not that character, not yet or maybe never…) Rey is never wrong during The Last Jedi. Yes, she is flawed, but she is never wrong. This is why I categorize Rey’s failure as a soft failure.

Her over-dependence on her animus and inability to see herself as a hero are both aspects of her failure, but due to the positive changes her experiencing and overcoming this failure has on herself and her animus figures, there is no better or more right alternative presented by the narrative. Unlike with Kylo, the better alternative presented by the narrative is to go to the Light Side, choose redemption.

So now we can finally answer: What is Rey’s Failure?

Rey’s failure is not that she ever reached out to Ben, is not that she ever believed he could be redeemed, and is not that she ever believed there was still good left in him. Rey’s failure is also not that she didn’t try to see where Ben was coming from when he proposed his fundamentally destructive offer, is not that she lacked empathy for Ben in that one crucial moment in the throne room, and is not that she didn’t try to meet him in the middle during this emotionally volatile moment for the both of them.

Rey’s true failure is believing that she could make anyone other than herself choose to be a hero.

And the lesson she learns is twofold. First, it isn’t that Ben must redeem himself completely on his own. Rey can still offer him the choice of redemption; the very fact that she did not kill him in the throne room leaves her offer open. But it must be Ben who chooses to be the hero. Second, Rey can be her own hero and therefore a hero for others.

#tlj meta #reylo meta #rey #kylo ren #reylo #don't take this as me saying this is the one right interpretation #this is just mine #i enjoy all reylo meta #including the ones i don't 100% agree with #this is my first meta #please be gentle #^_^#technically this is my sisters accounct lol but i'm just going to post my reylo meta here #my sister has already some meta for some anime but this is my first meta

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sokkastyles · 3 years

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Zutara Month Day 10: Oma and Shu

I’ve seen some people point out that Zutara doesn’t necessarily fit Oma and Shu because the Oma and Shu myth is more Romeo and Juliet than enemies to lovers, and those people are not necessarily wrong. Romeo and Juliet, just like Oma and Shu, were never themselves enemies. They did nothing but love each other, but were forbidden from being together because of the feud. Zutara, in most interpretations, is less a “forbidden” romance and more a transition from enemies to friends to lovers. Most people imagine them growing to love each other after becoming friends, often after Zuko’s redemption and the end of the war. Nonetheless, the Oma and Shu story does share several parallels with Zutara that many fans have picked up on. What I want to do is examine some of these parallels from a meta angle, to look at the Oma and Shu story as it appears in the series and other similar stories that appear in ATLA, and to also compare them to similar stories in the real world, and analyze a bit the popularity of these various tales of forbidden love, why they are popular, and what their purpose is, as well as how Zutara fits into all this.

In universe, the Oma and Shu story, in addition to being a love story, is also an origin myth of sorts for the Earth Kingdom. It explains the creation of the city of Omashu, as well as telling the story of some of the first humans to learn earthbending. The message of the story, in addition to being a tale about love thriving between two unlikely people, and a cautionary tale about what happens when love is prevented from flourishing, is also a message about love being an act of creation and a force of transformation.

Love is brightest in the dark.

This sentence is a paradox, but it fits with the theme of balance that the show comes back to again and again, of breaking down barriers and deconstructing dichotomies to create something new, something more whole than the original. Something mirroring the harmony of yin and yang.

The greatest illusion of this world is the illusion of separation. Things you think are separate and different are actually one and the same. We are all one people, but we live as if divided.

The above quote by Guru Pathik is also similar to Iroh’s philosophy, which he tries to teach Zuko.

It is important to draw wisdom from many different places. If you take it from only one place, it becomes rigid and stale. Understanding others, the other elements, and the other nations will help you become whole.

Iroh also says something in “The Crossroads of Destiny” that echoes the Oma and Shu story.

Iroh: Perfection and power are overrated. I think you were very wise to choose happiness and love.

Aang: What happens if we can't save anyone and beat Azula? Without the Avatar State, what if I'm not powerful enough?

Iroh: I don't know the answer. Sometimes, life is like this dark tunnel. You can't always see the light at the end of the tunnel, but if you just keep moving, [Aang earthbends the rocks away one last time. Iroh's fire blows out. He smiles.] you will come to a better place.

Iroh says that Aang is wise to choose love over power, while walking through a dark tunnel, and advises Aang to trust in the darkness to bring him to the light. Meanwhile, Zuko and Katara, two people on opposite sides of a war, share a moment of unlikely tenderness in a cave lit by glowing crystals.

Zuko in the crystal catacombs does what Iroh has been trying to teach him to do, to let go of pride and the need for power, and to instead embrace compassion and humility. Which is what he does when he apologizes to Katara. This is also part of what stories like Romeo and Juliet teach us, that pride and petty grievances are destructive, and that only by embracing love do we become whole.

I know the prompt is Oma and Shu, but thinking about that story and its place in the narrative made me think about other mythic stories that appear in the series, so let’s look at another one that has significance for zutara: Love Amongst the Dragons, Ursa’s favorite play that she took young Zuko and Azula to see every year.

The actual story of Love Amongst the Dragons, according to the ATLA wiki, is this:

The play features the Dragon Emperor, bound to mortal form by the Dark Water Spirit, and forced to adopt the alias of Noren. The humble experience results in Noren falling in love with a mortal, and through this love he is able to break free of his curse. The play concludes with Noren defeating the Dark Water Spirit and embracing his mortal girlfriend, revealed to be the Dragon Empress.

What struck me when I found this description was that this is, with some slight changes, pretty much the Chinese myth of the marriage between Dragon and Phoenix, a representation for yin and yang and harmony in marriage, and which I compared in a meta to zutara as well.

Like the Oma and Shu story, it is a story about unlikely love, and about crossing divisions. It also has a lot of similarities with various myths involving shapeshifting love-interests, often referred to as “animal bride/husband” myths (which beauty and the beast is a subset of).

The symbolism of the tale in-universe is in its connection to Ursa, and thus Zuko’s connection to his mother. Zuko’s connection to his mother is contrasted with his connection to his father, which is representative of Zuko’s destructive side. When Zuko was trying to capture the Avatar, he was searching for his father’s approval, to become someone that would earn his father’s love. Ursa, meanwhile, taught Zuko kindness and compassion, and told him that it didn’t matter that he wasn’t the most powerful or strong. That Ursa took Zuko to see this particular play is significant, a play about a godlike being, the Dragon Emperor, being humbled and learning to love.

Only with your glory hidden in false form could you recognize my devotion.

Though different, and originating in a different nation, this is another tale about love shining through the dark, about letting go of pride and choosing compassion. Animal bride/husband myths are often about seeing past what is hidden to see the truth. They are stories of transformation, and like the Oma and Shu story, are about the transformative power of love.

It’s also from this play that Zuko gets his Blue Spirit alter ego, which Zuko uses as an exploration of his own identity apart from being the Fire Nation prince. In this story the same mask is worn by the villainous Dark Water Spirit. It is very interesting that Zuko uses an identity associated with water for this purpose. Also, like the Blue Spirit, the Dark Water Spirit seems to be a bit on the morally ambiguous side. Even though the spirit is defeated at the end of the story, its motivation for transforming the Dragon Emperor seems to be to teach him humility, and this is a message the play seems to promote.

Zuko and Azula’s dialogue from the above comic pages is interesting because it expands on what we already know about both characters. Zuko complains about always having to play the villain, just as he was made a scapegoat by his father and sister, and his adapting of the Blue Spirit identity is essentially him reclaiming that identity that was forced on him while trying to figure out who he really is. Azula sees herself as the Dragon Emperor, but she misunderstands the message of the story completely, and it’s not a coincidence that she talks over the love scene in the comic above and responds angrily and pridefully to the man who tries to shush her. Similar to Ozai when he names himself the Phoenix King, ironically misinterpreting the actual myth. I also think there’s something interesting to say about gender here, as this post points out. Not only does Ozai associate himself with a female figure, but Azula associates herself with the male Dragon Emperor, while Zuko is associated with the more feminine water spirit (water being a feminine element.) However, by the end of the series, Zuko embodies the transformed Dragon Emperor, while Katara I associated before with the Phoenix/Dragon Empress, as she is associated with healing and rebirth. Also notice the red and blue color coding in the comic page above, both with the Water Spirit and Dragon Emperor and in the coloring of the two lovers.

This also brings me to another play present in the series, the play that the gaang goes to see performed by the Ember Island Players. The same players that Zuko says his mother took him to see. The play we see them put on in the series is a Fire Nation propaganda play, promoting Ozai and the war. I actually can’t imagine that Love Amongst the Dragons, a play about a Dragon Emperor learning humility, was very popular during Ozai’s reign. We hear about it being performed before Ozai became Fire Lord, but we can assume that those visits to the theatre stopped after Ursa’s disappearance. The only other time we hear about that particular play being performed is after the end of the war. This leads me to imagine that it was necessary for the Ember Island Players to find a different play to perform while Ozai was in charge. While the play is not necessarily subverting Fire Nation superiority (the villain is a water spirit, after all), it is confrontational enough that I can imagine Ozai’s brand of narcissism seeing it as a challenge to his authority. Ozai who disdained love in favor of power and control.

“The Boy in the Iceberg” contains another love story between two people from opposite sides in their depiction of Zuko and Katara in the crystal catacombs. I wrote before about how I’ve seen interpretations of this that say that the Fire Nation was trying to portray zutara as an “inferior” Water Tribe woman falling for a “superior” Fire Nation man - essentially saying that the play is in favor of zutara as a piece of Fire Nation pro-colonization propaganda - but the problem with this is that that isn’t how zutara is depicted in the play. The play mocks zutara by portraying Zuko as submissive and subservient to Aang, and Zuko is later killed, as he is currently a traitor and threat to the Fire Nation. Thus, the “romance” between Zuko and Katara is not being depicted as supporting the superior masculinity of Fire Nation men, but rather portraying Zuko, who willingly chose to dissasociate himself with the Fire Nation, as emasculated and submissive to other, “lesser” men and aggressive “foreign” women.

This is a complete mockery of the real connection that Zuko and Katara had in the catacombs, the kind of love that is inherently subversive because it requires Zuko humbling himself in front of Katara and admitting that he was wrong, and working for her forgiveness. It is the kind of love that the Fire Nation under Ozai’s rule rejects. The kind of love that is truly transformative, revelatory, and brings light to the darkness. The kind of love that creates rather than destroys, that unifies rather than divides. That is humble and not prideful. That’s the appeal of zutara.

#zutara #zuko #katara #zutara month 2021 #atla meta #the cave of two lovers #the crossroads of destiny #the ember island players #oma and shu #love amongst the dragons

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elia-de-silentio · 3 years

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The overarching themes of Vanitas no Carte: Identity

The Case Study of Vanitas is a very good, too little known manga (I hope the anime changes something), with some central themes than are exposed in different ways through different characters. In this meta, I want to explore one that was brought to my attention pretty recently: here a little examination on the various ways to face one's own identity in The Case Study of Vanitas.

The Stable Identity( Noè)

Let's start off with the positives, shall we? Noè has probably the most secure personal identity of all the bunch.

And this is pretty amazing, considering everything he went through. He has no memory of his birth family, but gets adopted by some nice people - who die shortly afterwards. Right at their graves, he is kidnapped by slaves, in an accident that left him injured. Then he is bought by someone who actually treats him nicely and is a good mentor for him, he finds many friends his age - and then one of them, the one he was closest to, turns out to be a cursebearer, kills all of the others and then tries to kill him; he is saved by the mentor, who beheads the friend right in front of him. The most immediate emotion is relief for being alive, and he will always feel terrible for that. Then, he has to witness his surviving friend try to cope very badly with her mourning by repressing her identity and try to substitute it with that of her dead twin. That's a lot.

And Noé reacted to all of this by becoming a confident person, kind and attentive to others, but not to the point of being a pushover. I'm not saying he walked away unscathed from the events of his childhood: he regrets the way he handled things with Louis, the way he didn't understand him, and has developed quite the savior complex as a result.

What I'm saying is that he is probably one of the very few well-adjusted people in the psychiatric ward that is Vanitas no Carte. He is still questioning himself, but in a normal way for a nineteen-years-old that has just left a sheltered environment for the big wide world. He is aware of some of his strenghts (his naivete) and is realizing others (putting unfair expectations on other people, underestimating other people due to racial biases); but most importantly, when he realizes these mistakes, he doesn't run away from them or obsess over them believing they make him a horrible person: he recognizes them, apologizes to the wronged person if necessary, and works on improving them.

This isn't to say he's completely happy-go-lucky with no regrets; he feels guilty about being relieved that he lived while Louis died, and he has a lot of uncertainties regarding his identity as an Archiviste and the impact his powers can have on other people. But he managed not to tie his entire identity to that guilt; and as for the second point, Teacher helped him rationalise that and figure out a conduit that didn't undermine him and at the same time showed respect for others. Noè went through several traumas, but received one thing most of the cast didn't: guidance and support from his environment. Whatever Teacher's actual motives are, he shaped a well-balanced person.

The Group Identity (The dhamps, appearently 99% of vampirekind)

"Us dhams are only loyal to each other!" This is what Dante says in one of the first chapters, giving us the first clues to their status as outcasts.

The war between humans and vampires ended up with each deciding to keep to themselves, but dhampires are the living exception to that silent agreement. So, both societies decide to reject them, and they can't find a place in the world unless they stick to others of their own kind. This common history of traumatic experiences of abandonment and subsequent resentment of both human and vampire society for it goes on to create a very strong group identity: the only ones they give a damn about are those like them, everyone else is a potential enemy and is only good to be exploited.

Then, we have the vampire culture. I mean ... it might be because insofar we have met almost exclusively aristocrats obsessed with their respectability ... but they have a lot of prejudices.

You're born under a uncommon moon? You're a pariah. You're mixed race? You're a pariah. Your parents committed a crime? You're a pariah, and are used as a tool. You're born as part of a set of twins? Either you or your sibling are killed at birth, because of something that is SAID, not even a certified element of vampire biology. You're stuck with a curse? You're executed, no attempts to heal you.

Their society seems to run on an ideal model of person which depends on factors outside the individual's control, and whoever doesn't fit this description and deviates from the group in any shape or form gets ridiculously fierce punishment. They make the freaking Church look good by comparison, at least their repressive and racist side is composed of extremists instead of everymen.

The Clan Identity (Chloé, and partially Noé again)

Chloé identifies with a group of people too; but it's not a race, it's a family. The D'Apchier family, the nobles who are responsible for Gevaudan. Her father made sure she had this idea in her right from the start, and she interiorized it.

And this had mixed results: while on the one hand she was chained to self-loathing by the guilt of having accidentally caused the massacre of the family and was only saved by Jeanne and Jean-Jacques reclaiming her as part of theirs, on the other she was able to resist to Naenia because of the love and responsibility she felt towards the people of Gevaudan. Chloé is, at this point, the only curse-bearer who managed to trick and attempted to fight directly against Charlatan.

Then there is Noé in relation to his Archiviste identity. He seems to think of it mainly in negative terms, very conscious of the living invasion of privacy it turns him into ... and nothing else. We have never seen him wonder about who his birth parents were, ask himself why he doesn't remember anything, why was the clan exterminated, or how he feels about being a survivor, one of the only ones if not outright the only. He sees his heritage as a burden,and hasn't thought of it in any different term. I wonder how a change in perspective could impact the above 'stable identity'.

The Someone Else's Identity (Vanitas, Dominique)

I already dedicated a whole post to this trait they share, so I'll be short: both Vanitas and Dominique hate themselves and try to become something worthy by taking elements of people they admire: Louis for Dominique, a combination of his birth father and Luna for Vanitas.

The Object Identity (Jeanne)

The very first thing Jeanne was said in her whole life was that she was an object. A vessel for something (or someone?) else, who mustn't have feelings or desires of her own. Encouraging, isn't it?

Luckily, this wasn't all she got in life. Soon afterwards, she was adopted by Eric and Louise, who loved her a lot, received kindness by Ruthven, met Chloé who became an older sister to her. Unluckily, all of this was taken away from her in the most cruel way possible.

She couldn't make any sense of her parents's betrayal and death, and the way her life suddenly changed; she rationalised it by telling herself that it was her fault, if she had been just the good object everyone told her to be nothing would have happened. So she accepts the Object Identity: she is a tool, so she doesn't feel, she exists only to obey orders, and as long as she is nobody else will ever suffer. It gets even worse after she fails to kill Chloè: she couldn't fulfill her duties, and both her and her big sis suffered for it. This mindset traps her in a world of pain, but also prevents her from facing the fact that she is subject to a senseless injustice, one she has no control over.

Vanitas managed to help her with that. He validated her feelings, and showed her that nobody had to die if she had them, solving the situation with Chloé and Jean-Jacques. This gave her a nice confidence boost, returning her to the cheerful attitude she had as a young girl; the consequences of this change remain to be seen.

The Unknown Identity (Luna)

This one is interesting because Luna themselves is pretty explicit about it. They see themselves as something 'other', who is outside commonly used categorization; starting with 'male or female' (and here I am left wondering if they had specific sexual characteristics but didn't feel like they 'fit', or were intersex and nonbinary, or had an entirely different biology from both vampires and humans).

Luna doesn't like this condition: they said they tried to figure out what they were, to understand themselves, and they regret doing so now. Why? Maybe they didn't find any answer and were left perpetually unsatisfied, or they found an answer, and they found it to be awful?

Still, this indicates Luna has never been particularly happy with themselves, and this found no resolution. And then they died. Nice, uh?

Well, I think this was all. There are other characters I would like to know more about in regard to this, like Ruthven, Marquis Machina, and Mikhail, but there is still time.

All in all, I'd say Vanitas no Carte explores the theme of identity pretty throughly; many character arcs are still in progress, and I'm interested about how things will develope especially for Vanitas, Dominique and Jeanne.

Thanks to anyone who bothered to read my ramblings!

#vnc #vanitas no carte #the case study of vanitas #vnc meta #vnc analysis #vnc noe #vnc chloé #vnc vanitas #vnc dominique #vnc jeanne #vnc luna #elia's recaps

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theredheaded-stuff · 2 years

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AU Stuff "Has anyone here seen my son?"

Magic teenager Damian

He is very picky about his food,since most of the food he tasted outside the mansion was mostly poisoned by people who followed his grandfather

has a bad relationship with Bruce they had a fight because Damian hates the way Bruce pushed his family away to "protect them" The way he forgets promises, or is always late Damian hated that, but when he grew up he understood but there is still hurt

Having both conflicts he decided to leave, change his surname and disappear indefinitely.

he misses his brothers and Alfred, and Bruce too, but he chose to delve into magical studies so he wouldn't remember that,That's also why he's always sleepy.

On one of his trips he met Billy batson, they are best friends.

Well he loves his family

Adult Damian League of Assassins

He didn't come to Gotham as a child, he just visited to meet his father and returned to arabia.

Does he have a good relationship with the Tim brothers especially, and with his nephews? he loves those kids

Leads the league of assassins since Ra's death, It's fixing the place, helping the locals, being a symbol of peaceful leadership, but it's still rough when it comes to defending loved ones.

Loves to cook! Especially desserts, everyone around loves to eat them

He met Jonathan in his early teens as Superboy, they had a few missions together, and fell in love when they reached adulthood, they are married.

The league didn't understand at first, how the hell did their leader marry a civilian, let alone a civilian photographer who doesn't seem the least bit menacing?

Meta-human Damian

Instead of reaching Bruce when he was 10, he was kidnapped when he was nine, used for various experiments, and ended up receiving the powers he has today from an experiment.

Extremely afraid of needles

He found his father When he turned thirteen, just as he found his mother at the same time.

It's a little childish

He has a lot of energy since he can take energy from the environment, this gives him some insomnia problems since he has a lot of energy

He loves animals as he can understand them, but sometimes because of that he can't understand what normal humans say, which causes some problems.

One day on the streets of Gotham he encountered Colin, Since they both had issues with indoors, they helped each other out once and formed a friendship, they're besties.

Dahlia

Damian's regular story

Loves having her hair braided since Talia braided hers when she was younger

Love stylish clothes! Want a fight with her? Say she can't wear some kind of clothes

She is an idol in terms of beauty

She loves her sisters, and steals her brothers' clothes constantly, what can we do? They are sooo comfortable

She knows how to do the running stunt in high heels

She is best friends with Maya Ducard, also from Maps, but both cannot know that.

She knows how to sew and always has a sewing kit in her bag, having already sewn one of Cass's performance outfits when one of them ripped.

#batfamily #batman stuff #has anyone seen my son?#au has anyone seen my son?#damian wayne au #batkids #Brutalia kids

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remakethestars · 3 years

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Being Damian Wayne's Twin Sister Would Include:

Headcanons.

❝Exactly. I don't ask my dog to drive, and I don't ask the Justice League to solve my problems.❞

— Damian Wayne, Adventures of the Super Sons #9: Showdown on Hexworld

TRIGGER WARNING: Cursing, (Damian’s) death. Mentions of toxic masculinity and internalized misogyny, nightmares, blood, knives.

Headcanon masterlist.

When people ask you, “So, which one of you is the evil twin?” Damian always glowers, and you always motion to him.

You look disturbingly alike when only your eyes are showing; Damian’s got long lashes. Talia taught you a good tactic for tag-teaming in combat as kids was to pull up your hinged balaclavas and make the enemy think there was only one of you, that they’re seeing double.

Or for one of you to hang back while the other attacks as a distraction before the other knocks them out from behind.

Obviously, this won’t work when the two of you start filling out, but it works when you’re kids. It’s the reason why, even off the field, the two of you usually wear a matching outfits with hoods.

You utilize the same methods when she sends you to live with Bruce.

You don the Robin costume just like he does, much to the rest of the Batfam’s confusion (both because they weren’t expecting it and because they can’t tell you apart either), but sticking with the “red” theme, you go by Redstart.

There’s a rumor on the street that Robin V. is a meta that can teleport.

The two of you are freakishly good at mimicking the other’s voice and mannerisms, which makes it even harder for your family.

Jason tells you two about April Fools Day, and you make the most of it. Of course, Damian’s a pain in the a$$ and decides to go around pretending to be you and getting into trouble. You’re banned from the mall, and you still have no idea why.

The two of you can communicate with just an impassive expression (Dick says it looks like a prime example of twin telepathy to anyone else), but anyone close to you knows sh¡t’s about to hit the fan when the two of you look at each other and smirk.

If it’s something you can’t communicate nonverbally, you use your cryptophasia.

Cryptophasia is a language developed by twins when they’re learning to talk. Most of them grow out of it, you and Damian decided to keep developing it so it became more of a conlang. No one else has been taught to speak it, and they never will be. It’s for emergencies only.

Sun Tzu’s The Art of War was your Bible growing up, and the two of you call out verses when you fight together and need the other to understand a tactic (you both inherited Bruce’s eidetic memory, so you’ve got it memorized).

When you get too big to pull off the which-is-which game, you make your own costume and become the true Redstart.

It’s basically Damian’s Robin uniform (the Super Sons’s version is the only one I’ll accept), but the boots and gloves are black, the biceps have a white stripe, the lining of the cape is white (the lining of the hood is black), the gold accents become white, it has a zipper down the front instead of clasps, and the mask becomes black (including the eyes). The waterline of the eyes is white. Like a painted redstart.

If Damian’s into animals, you’re into plants. The two of you find common ground on the fact that pollution sucks, so when you walk Titus, you take a trash bag and gloves with you to pick up litter as you go.

You did not want to go to Jon’s school.

Not because you don’t like Jon (because you do), but because you know you could run intellectual circles around every one of those snot-nosed brats.

School is stupid. Especially because the American education system is subpar; everything about it is.

You hardly pay attention in class. You do all of the homework a week ahead of time incase something comes up. Usually you’re doing next week’s homework in class. You’ve written entire papers on your phone in Google Docs in the middle of class to be printed out later.

If you’ve already done everything, Damian’s usually drawing and you’re daydreaming or you’re working on a case on your phone.

The teachers are always trying to catch you not paying attention, but you little sh¡ts can always answer their questions.

Damian’s closest with Dick, but you’re closest with Tim. You admire his ability to plan ahead (see the entirety of the Red Robin comics), and you know that he’s better than both your father and your grandfather; you want to be as good as him when you grow up.

It takes a long time to wash the toxic masculinity and internalized misogyny our of your head, to learn that your grandfather’s ideas of “strength” were wrong, that it’s okay to lean on someone besides Damian, that you can be just as strong as your brother and still be feminine, that there are acceptable emotions besides anger.

Actually, your father teaches you that anger is more likely to get you killed. He won’t let you go into the field when he knows your angry.

It’s harder to drill out of you than your instinct to kill.

There’s a Lebanese restaurant called Tarbooshes (Teen Titans Special #1) the two of you go to when you’re feeling homesick. They make ox blood soup the same way your mother did, and it’s the only non-vegetarian thing Damian will eat for that very reason.

It’s nice to have a place to go where they know you by name and know what you want when you tell them “the usual.” It’s nice to have a place where you’re not a Wayne or an Al Ghul, where you’re just [Y/N] and Damian.

You disappear for an hour on your birthday to eat there. Bruce has asked you were you go, but you kept that between the two of you.

Speaking of birthdays, you’re eleven minutes older than him. He was six pounds and ten ounces (Batman & Robin #0?), and you were a solid seven.

After Damian died, you go to Tarbooshes to feel close to him.

You were doing all right with the no-killing thing until the night Damian died.

Heretic never stood a chance.

He looked so much like Damian it gave you nightmares, though. Nightmares where you killed your twin brother and woke up sobbing.

Damian didn’t give you a speech in his last moments. He just looked over at you and said in your cryptophasia, “I’m sorry.”

Not “I love you.” Not “Take care of them for me.” You knew that; you’d do that. He didn’t have to tell you, and he didn’t have to ask.

Just “I’m sorry.” Sorry that you were the one that was left behind.

It’s one thing to lose a family member, to lose a friend, or to lose a lover. It’s another to lose half of your soul.

The two of you had always feared you would die apart. It had always been a possibility; you weren’t stupid enough to think, “It’ll never happen to me.” Because it definitely could.

And it had.

You wanted to run away from everything. Even just for a while. Go to one of your safe houses in London or France or whatever and just — you didn’t know — stare at the wall until you felt better? But you’d made that unspoken promise to Damian — “I’ll take care of them for you; don’t worry.” — to take care of Titus and Catfred and Jerry and Batcow and Goliath, to take care of Alfred and Bruce and Dick and Jason and Cassandra and Tim, to take care of Jon and Colin and Maps.

You avoided the cave. And if you had to go down there for some reason, you refused to look at the Robin suits.

Dick noticed. He asked if you wanted them taken down, even just for a while. You gave him a look like he was nuts and said, “No.”

Jon was a mess. More of a mess than you were, somehow.

You’d shown up at the Kents’s. Jon was out doing Superboy things with Clark and Conner. Lois was the only one home.

You nearly scared her out of her skin when you materialized behind her and asked, “Is Jon home? It’s important.”

He had to know first. He deserved to.

For all he put up with from you two, he deserved to be the first to know when one of you was f*cking dead.

Lois, of course, bless her heart, had the mom instincts to know that you were in no way, shape, or form okay even when you were trying so hard to hold yourself together. She asked you what’s wrong, and it’s what made you break.

Your lip trembled. “He’s gone.”

“Who’s gone?”

“Damian,” your voice broke. “He’s dead.”

Jon came home to find you in his living room in your Robin uniform, covered in Damian’s and Heretic’s blood, snot running down your lip, sobbing in his mothers arms and knew what happened without having to ask. He did anyway.

When you and Jon both finally passed out, your Uncle Clark flew you back to the Batcave. No one was in any condition — not even Alfred — so he carried you up to your room; took your boots, mask, cape, and gloves off; and tucked you in. Then he went to find Bruce because there was no doubt he was losing it too.

Bruce doesn’t tell you anything about trying to find a way to bring him back without the Lazarus pit because he doesn’t want to get your hopes up.

You walk into your room one day to find Damian sitting there reading the dissertation (the requirement was three pages, not 120, but your teacher would just have to deal with your coping mechanisms) you had been working on for your World History class and left up on your laptop while on patrol.

He said with the utmost indifference, “You’ve made some good points, Sister,” and, of course, you pulled out a knife and attacked him because this was — was — was some shapeshifting alien or hologram tech or a cruel joke — your twin was dead, this wasn’t funny, whoever did this was going to pay.

He met you blow-for-blow and flipped away from you before saying, “And here I was expecting a warm welcome,” in your cryptophasia.

“Brother?”

“Tt. Obviously.”

Yeah, a college level thesis. You’re smart. You inherited Bruce’s eidetic memory and were raised by assassins.

You learned seven languages and wrote five doctoral theses by the time your teeth came in, wrote your first letter to a newspaper editor when you were two, could’ve had a geology doctorate when you were seven (Super Sons #1), and it only took you a week to learn the language on Takron-Galtos. You’re smart.

You’re also incredibly skilled. You learned to drive when you were five (Super Sons #1), your mother trained you to go for weeks without eating (Adventures of the Super Sons #6), you can micro-sleep for days and converse with half your brain asleep, can use a muscular contraction to move your liver out of the way of a blade (Nightwing #20), and can place yourself in a deep trance to heal damages caused by a hematoma (also #20).

(My dumba$$ didn’t note what Super Sons/Adventure of the Super Sons comic I was reading when I took notes, so I don’t have all of them noted in the two above bullet points. But that’s where they’re from. If I end up rereading them, I’ll edit this and add the comic numbers.)

The first time on patrol you thought Bruce was gonna die, you called him Baba.

The next evening, when Dick came to visit the cave, he turned to you and Damian and asked, “So, which one of you called him Dad?”

“How’d you know?” you asked.

“He’s smiling the way he did the day I called him Tati.”

“He’s not smiling,” Damian pointed out.

“He is on the inside.”

Can we talk about how royally the Arkham Knights game screwed up Tim Drake? (Though, everything seems to screw up Tim one way or another, I guess.) Why does he look like a quidditch player in the gif above the cut?

Visit my headcanon masterlist.

DISCLAIMER ━━━ I’m a dumb white American, and I don’t know much about Arab or Romani culture other than what I’ve learned online. I hope I got it right?? If I didn’t, please drop a comment or P.M. me or something to let me know!

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redxblueihateloveyou · 3 years

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Hey i really love your blog!!! I just plucked the courage to actually send u an ask fhdjhd but GOSH i love your video edits and your gifs and your meta article posts, you're so articulate and you can explain/describe moments in a way that makes me go "oh wow, i cant believe i haven't seen it that way before!!" Haha ANYWAYS i'm just here to say that i completely agree with what all u said, Free creators might do a lil fanservice here and there for the 25 ships that exists within the fandom's circle, but rinharu's storyline is clearly the most romantic one! And i'd argue it's the one closest to being canon esp after part 1, i mean the fact that they put such an explosive emotional outburst right at the end of the second to the last movie means a lot. It's like reinforcing the fact that this series has always been about them, and everything that has happened only happened either because they met or they grew appart and miss eachother. I kinda feel like maybe.. juust maayyybe there's a chance KA wants to make the ship canon, since it's the last movie and they want to end it on a highnote maybe (bcs honestly i think the only reason they've been holding back is purely bcs of the merch sales, since they don't have a problem showing a wholesome lesbian love story in kobayashi maid dragon) butt i could be wrong, maybe i'm just overly optimistic and delusional, they could somehow ruin it and give an ending that panders to all the ships again 😅🥲, but at least there's a clear-cut guarantee that part 2 would dedicate a large portion of it fixing rin and haru's fight!!! Oohh how can i wait another 6 months now!!😭😭 (sorry for the long ask btw!! 🙏🙇‍♀️🙇‍♀️)

OMG thank you so so much!! For watching my vids too! ❤️❤️❤️ It really means a lot to me! Ahhhh wow, thats the longest ask I've ever recieved! 😍 I'm trying to explain myself so hard lol I'm glad its appreciated, bc sometimes I'm like "I don't fucking know how to say this" xD

Well, you know me, I only care for one ship, which is the only one with confirmed info that they're both actually gay and have mutual feelings for each other. There are some other ships in free! I'm fine with (those do not include Rin or Haru in them xD), but I just mostly don't care, bc after reading all the stuff, you can see that in some of those to one the other one is actually like his second option, which I just do not like. Others I just don't even see, bc again to me who witnessed great close male friendships and having two sisters who I'm very close to, I just do not see anything romantic in that.

It's not just Free! tbh, it's like any sports anime these days. They see two guys walking together, it's a ship. And like no one cares if they're just bros. Like I'd get i they did some fanservice fanservice, but like I never saw anyone in Free! crossing the line the way rinharu do. I can without thinking much name you 10 rh moments that no matter how hard you think can't be explain as being bros, but can't name one when it comes to others. I just find some ppl shipping everyone with everyone weird sometimes. It's like western fans see like some eastern actors or singers slap each other ass lovingly and they're like "oh they're fucking" I'm like "yeah, ofc all 500 of them, you're absolutely right". And Free! doesn't do anything even like that, I just do not get sometimes like what moment even brought on some ships. I'm genuinely confused. Albert and Haru? You fucking fell from a sakura tree or smth? I'm...

I'm especially confused when it comes to guys, whose character type is who I call "I only want this one and if I can't have it, then I'm ok" xD. It just always surprised me, when they try to pair up them with someone else, it's like a complete ooc.

I'm also not into this whole "well, if there are gays in this anime, than everyone there is gay". I'm like... huh. It's like with KNB and MDZS I had same feeling. It's like you have already couples there who are canon/borderline canon, why do you need another 10 who don't even interact or just don't even go there? I'm always so confused in those situations. Or like wangxian is married and some are like "no, I actually don't like it, let me write a fic when they're with other ppl". Lan Zhan... being in love or having sex with someone else? Yeah, that's not Lan Zhan, dude, you're writing about someone else. Might as well change the name at this point.

But last time I went to twitter someone had a thread about how if they make s4 of Free! they should mainly explore there Momo's angst (and no, it wasn't a joke), so I'm already like, I'm just.. nothing will surprise me no more. But I'm forever gonna be confused.

Yeah, I eel you about "going there". I mean seeing part of it, it just kinda cemented my confusion, bc I do not get how it can be considered platonic. We were just discussing since yesterday with @freeseafirefly how I now even more perplexed and do not understand how they will resolve it without going into relationship territory. It's just our point here is that like... no one forced them to go there (I mean its not like this whole fandom has some wild expectations or anything already), we were waiting or our usual friendship and swimming and maybe tiny conflict about struggles of pro-careers and some usual rh implications (maybe all the rh gay in dramas as always). Not some pure fanfiction coming to life here haha.

Like why I'm laughing is bc I twice used in my "fics" bringing up him leaving Haru as a force to push the confession, bc there's no way if he adresses this it won't lead to this. And now we not only have this (bc Haru just basically layed it out there), but an actual scene of him playing on their feelings for each other and a literal image of Rin leaving and "taking Haru's heart with him" to the point when he's for the first time in his life openly crying on the ground. And it's not like this scene can be interpreted as anything else, the whole fandom talks same, bc the whole fight was just about them, what Haru said was just about them, there's a literal boom of his heart getting out of his chest, before he falls and now he's heartless.

So our question is like... why go there?

It's like some say that they might still resolve it with "they're special to each other" and swimming, but still like we already knew that, there was no reason to go that far is what I'm saying. And to think that it was planned since forever giving the clues is like... ???

The whole spoon theme also throw me on the loop because like, lets be honest, it's wedding themed. And that part of the interview about part 2 there also made me go...?????? Because I mean, huh?

This is just all in all very interesting turn of events to say the least. I do not see the point of all of this if its not what I think it is, esp after seeing tweets like "even I see a rh wedding and I'm mh T_T". It's just all very unsubtle, that's why we're confused.

Like who knows, maybe we'll really by some magic turn of events get lucky and they really decided that since its the ending, it's okay to go for it. But I also don't wanna to hype myself much, I'm already really happy with it, just bc again, this scene already proves all of my points.

And yeah, I'm sure they'll pander to everyone, bc it's the end and etc and we have to handle everything on the good note and there's a whole line of ppl who's obsessed with us, esp with Haru xD, but like bromance pandering and romance pandering are different things, you know *wiggles eyebrows* and u know who always gets the second one.

#answered #a-girl-with-a-ponytail #rinharu #harurin #free! the final stroke #free!#free #rin matsuoka #haruka nanase

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cross-d-a · 4 years

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Morai appeared in the Clone Wars season finale and I’ve realized that she symbolizes Anakin’s connection to Ahsoka

As we’re all reeling from the Clone Wars finale, I’m struck by the lingering image of a convor circling above Vader as he holds Ahsoka’s lightsaber. Since the convor is so strongly linked with Ahsoka I can only guess that it’s actually Morai and that this is where she begins to guide Ahsoka personally.

I’m sure we’ve all read meta about Morai’s symbolism as the Light Side of the Force, more specifically the Daughter from the Mortis Arc (especially since they share the same colour scheme). After Anakin helps the Daughter transfer her lifeforce to Ahsoka, the convorees begin to appear whenever Ahsoka is being tested. Filoni has even said:

"In some ways, I could say that it's a messenger, it's an observer. It is definitely something. And... I would rather have fans debate—but I would suggest... that whatever that thing is an avatar of has actually appeared in the animated Star Wars universe before. So decrypt from there."

This symbolism continues throughout Rebels where Ahsoka calls Morai by name, actually acquainted with the bird. Morai even leads Kanan to the Bendu when he was in need of guidance.

Ahsoka is intrinsically tied to the convor and through it, the Light Side of the Force. This lingering scene at the end of Victory and Death is absolutely so important, helping tie in the episode, and Vader as we see him, to the rest of the Star Wars universe.

Vader finds the 501st ship at last. We don’t know how long it’s been, how can we? All we know is that snow has covered the ruins and the carefully dug graves. We don’t even know if the troopers with him are clones or normal men. Silent and alone, Vader steps into the ruins. Eventually he stops and observes the wreckage, only to notice a glint in the snow. He bends his knee and reaches down. Almost gently, he brushes the snow away and discovers:

Ahsoka’s lightsaber.

He cradles it in his hand, brushing the snow away again with the other. Then, inexplicably, he flicks it on and we see Vader wielding a blue lightsaber for the very last time onscreen. Who knows why he turned it on. Maybe he couldn’t quite believe it was Ahsoka’s and that she’d lost it once more. Maybe he was testing to see if it still worked or if the colour was still that brilliant blue he tweaked it into.

Maybe it was one last goodbye.

But his gaze follows the point of her ‘sabre and when he reaches the end he sees Morai, soaring high above. He watches her for a long moment and this is when we see his eyes. Darth Vader’s eyes.

Anakin’s.

It doesn’t matter whether they’re blue or a sick-sulfur gold. All that matters is that we see them. We’ve never seen Vader’s eyes through his mask. In this one little moment, in Ahsoka’s lingering presence, we see Anakin Skywalker again.

It’s a clear parallel to Twilight of the Apprentice when Ahsoka destroys the side of his mask with her ‘sabre and Anakin leaks through.

Vader leaves and takes the ‘sabre with him.

It’s so, so obviously clear that he still loves Ahsoka in this moment. That Ahsoka still brings out the good in him. That this is, awfully, their final goodbye as they knew each other.

We always read about how Ahsoka and the convor are linked and how it’s really Ahsoka and the Light Side of the Force that’s linked. But I don’t think we’ve ever really seen anything about how Anakin is linked to the convor and Ahsoka.

The thing is, I think the convor also represents the link between Anakin and Ahsoka.

During the Mortis Arc, Ahsoka essentially dies. The Son kills her, inadvertently mortally wounding his own sister in the process. As the Father grieves, Anakin rushes over to Ahsoka and pleads with the Father.

“You must help her!” Anakin says.

But the Father only replies: “I cannot undo what is done. There is no hope.”

Despite dealing with his own trauma and insecurity and then, of course, eventually Falling to the Dark Side, Anakin has always been a hopeful person. We see this from the very first time we see him: a bright and cheerful slave who only wants to help others.

So of course Anakin pleads again: “Yes, there is. There’s always hope!”

Through his hope and conviction, Anakin convinces the Father to help, and so Anakin becomes the conduit through which the Daughter’s lifeforce is transferred to Ahsoka. As this happens, the main Star Wars theme rises.

This is so incredibly essential to the Star Wars universe, which has always, always been about hope.

Obi-Wan and Bail sequestered the twins away because of hope. The Rebellion rose and thrived and eventually won because of hope.

Luke saved his father because of hope.

Every single goddamn movie is about hope and the perseverance it takes to continue on, one step at a time, no matter how hard it gets.

The Star Wars movies have also always been about Anakin Skywalker. He’s the overarching shadow and the brilliant light in every single one, whether he’s actually in it or not. It’s called the Skywalker Saga for a reason. The only reason Star Wars exists is because of him. He is both villain and hero. He leaves behind a legacy that we can’t shake.

Luke saved his father, but only because Anakin had that little bit of light left in him. That little bit of lingering hope.

And we see it in the finale, in those few moments where Anakin holds Ahsoka’s lightsaber and she points him towards the Light, towards Morai. And we see him for who he is, who he was, and who he will become.

Anakin Skywalker has always been about hope, and because of that Ahsoka survives Mortis. Because of him, she survives everything that killed all the prequel Jedi. She survives the entire original trilogy.

Right after the Mortis Arc, Ahsoka gets kidnapped. It’s the first time she’s ever really been alone and forced to fight to survive. But she manages it, despite the other Padawans on the island giving up or succumbing to their fate. Again, out of everyone, Ahsoka survives. This is also the first time we see the convorees.

During this arc, Anakin is left alone, as well. Fearful and lost, he worries for Ahsoka, but Plo, the Master who found Ahsoka in the first place, guides him.

“What is Ahsoka’s strength?” Plo asks him.

“She is fearless,” Anakin replies.

“That can also be a weakness. Is she a worthy apprentice?”

“No one has her kind of determination.”

“Except you.”

“I’ll find her.”

“This may not be within your power.”

“Whatever you’re trying to say Master Plo, just say it!”

“I am suggesting that perhaps if you have trained her well, she’ll take care of herself and find a way back to you.”

This, again, is so, so important. “Except you,” Plo says. No one has Ahsoka’s determination except for Anakin. No one has her hope except for him. Ahsoka was already a wonderful, resilient person, but Anakin brought it out in her. He taught her, guided her, and now those lessons must guide her as she faces the world alone. This is only reiterated when Anakin and Ahsoka reunite.

“Ahsoka, I am so sorry,” Anakin tells her, clearly very upset.

“For what?”

“For letting you go, for letting you get taken. It was my fault.”

“No, Master, it wasn’t your fault.”

“I should’ve paid more attention. I should’ve tried harder. I…”

“You already did everything you could, everything you had to do. When I was out there, alone, all I had was your training and the lessons you taught me. And because of you, I did survive. And not only that, I was able to lead others to survive as well.”

This is, of course, a recurring theme throughout the Clone Wars and Rebels. Ahsoka perseveres and survives. She saves and guides people in kind. Ahsoka will always be Anakin’s Padawan, his legacy. She embodies all his best qualities, including, of course, his ever-lingering hope.

And that is one of the reasons why Ahsoka is so important: Anakin’s goodness lives on within her. Of course she is her own person, I wouldn’t love her as much as I do if she wasn’t, but being Anakin Skywalker’s Padawan shaped her into the woman we know today.

“You never would have made it as Obi-Wan’s Padawan,” Anakin told her in that very first movie so many years ago. “But you might make it as mine.”

That has never been more true.

If Ahsoka had been Obi-Wan’s Padawan, she’d be dead along with the rest of the Order. If she’d been Obi-Wan’s Padawan, yes she’d be skilled, and yes she would have learned to persevere throughout hardship— But there’s a certain passion for life and hope in Anakin that Obi-Wan simply doesn’t possess.

Ahsoka inherited that from him.

So now we circle back to the convor.

In various cultures owls represent death and wisdom. Filoni has even confirmed that in the Star Wars universe, it is the same. This isn't surprising when Anakin and Ahsoka are constantly facing off death and rising above it, becoming wiser because of it. And, horribly, I'm reminded that this finale is the death of them. They cannot be who they once were, and they cannot be to each other who they once were.

But owls can also represent luck and good fortune.

“Master Kenobi always said there’s no such thing as luck.”

“Good thing I taught you otherwise.”

All throughout her life, Anakin’s lessons and influence guide her, and after the Mortis Arc in moments of great struggle: a convor appears.

What I’m trying to say, I suppose, is that the convor not only symbolizes the Light Side of the Force. It also symbolizes Anakin Skywalker.

And maybe that’s because Anakin Skywalker does embody the Light Side of the Force. Despite everything he goes through and everything he does, Anakin Skywalker clutches onto that bit of hope and comes back to the Light. He brings Balance to the Force.

The convor lingers above Anakin at the end of the Clone Wars after Ahsoka has survived despite the odds. It appears again after their duel in Twilight of the Apprentice. Morai watches Anakin limp out of the Temple, and then returns to Ahsoka after guiding her back from the World Between Worlds.

After guiding her back to Anakin.

“I am suggesting that perhaps if you have trained her well, she’ll take care of herself and find a way back to you,” Plo told Anakin that first time Ahsoka was lost. And he’s right. Ahsoka does find her way back. Again and again and again.

She loves him. He’s her brother and he taught her everything he knew, and she survives because of it. Ahsoka won’t ever let that bit of Anakin go. She won’t ever lose sight of the good in him, or in anyone else.

“I won’t leave you,” she promises him. “Not this time.”

It’s more a promise of hope than anything else. A declaration of loyalty and determination and love. She still believes in him, and she wants, no needs him to know that.

So yes, we talk a lot about how the Daughter and Ahsoka are connected through the convor, but we never talk about how Anakin was that conduit in the first place. The Light and life flowed through him into Ahsoka and so she survived.

As she continues to.

And maybe the ending of the Clone Wars was unbearably heartbreaking. And maybe it’s still making me cry as I write this, but we know how this story ends, and we’re reminded when Anakin, not Vader, looks up into the sky, Ahsoka’s lightsaber in hand and watches Morai circle above.

Star Wars is about hope. It always has been. Despite everything they’ve gone through, there is hope for Anakin Skywalker. And there is hope for Ahsoka Tano, too.

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