#I think there's really interesting possible dynamics with both

[wisteria-lodge]

What do you think about Draco’s and James’s similarities + differences but opposite treatment in the narrative?

Since Draco does have a full detailed explanation behind his behavior, he was raised to think it’s okay but they should keep up appearances, and he often witnessed others doing it first. James does not have any sort of explanation other than his parents pampered him.

Both said “Think I’d leave, wouldn’t you”. However Draco said it in context of trying to find something to bond with Harry over whereas James just wanted to bully Snape.

In Goblet of Fire, Draco points out how the death eaters could attack Hermione to scare the Trio into leaving him alone, however James actually did what the death eaters and threatened to do worse since he took his frustrations with Lily out on Snape. In Said confrontations, The Trio were the ones who accidentally came across Draco but James approached Snape out of boredom.

Both had prejudiced beliefs but Draco actually gave up his childhood prejudices but we have no proof James did.

While James did help Snape, he was also helping His friends and he went right back to sadisticly bullying and he was the main instigator.

Draco spared his enemies and tried helping them with no ulterior motives and fully expecting to be tortured/killed. While he did go to Harry in the room of requirement, he didn’t actively participate in the attacking, aside from trying to stop Crabbe from attacking the Trio. He also even expresses concern for Harry.

Yet James is somehow seen as more heroic.

James dies, Draco doesn't. It's the Draco vs Regulus framing thing all over again. As far as JKR is concerned, dying heroically just fixes everything, I guess.

A related part of her worldview is that suffering purifies you and makes you a better person. I do think that's the intended purpose of the super deliberate James + Draco parallels ("I think I'd leave, wouldn't you? [if I was sorted into X house]" - is really on the nose.) It's supposed to communicate how Harry would have looked, if he'd grown up like James or Draco. (Wealthy, only child, wizard parents who dote on him and spoil him.) Under difference circumstances, Harry could have had more of an ego, been more entitled, given into the brutal streak that he does have. When we first see school-age James, he's described as "It was as though [Harry] was looking at himself but with deliberate mistakes." That's a very interesting description, and I think ties in nicely to an "alternate universe Harry" reading.

This is also something that seems to have been on Dumbledore's mind. He describes 11-year-old Harry as "You were not a pampered little prince [ie, James], but as normal a boy as I could have hoped under the circumstances. Thus far, my plan was working well."

So: As far as he's concerned, leaving Harry with the Dursleys is not just justified but good, because it's made Harry a better person. Considering that Dumbledore, Snape, Dudley, Ron (arguably Draco) also have personal growth arcs kick-started through suffering... I'd say this is a point of view the text supports overall.

But another thing... is that I've always thought JKR writes friend group dynamics really, really well. They're messy, shifting, warm, tight-knit and complicated. Outside dynamics like class, politics, and discrimination come in, and bounce around in unpredictable ways. Even if there was some way to cleanly add up everyone's 'bullying points' and 'victim points' or whatever, and plug them into some formula, and be able to come out with some definitive statement like "Draco had it worse than Peter" - I wouldn't want to do it. What makes the Harry+Ron+Hermione+Draco dynamic interesting... and what makes the James+Remus+Sirius+Peter+Severus+Lily+Regulus dynamic even *more* interesting... is that basically everyone has an area in which they're powerful or privileged, another area where they're vulnerable or disenfranchised (with the possible exception of James)... and it makes for these fantastically complex character dynamics and vicious cycles.

Because every single one of these characters is written with some degree of ambiguity, (some more than others...) which ones you gravitate towards, and which ones you dislike end up being more of a personal Rorschach test than anything rooted in the books.

Like, I can see from your ask that you're inclined to give Draco a very positive edit. (and I mean, come on, I love Draco too.) You read Draco as vulnerable during the scene where the Golden Trio finds him the woods during the World Cup chaos, and decides to "scare the Trio into leaving him alone." That is absolutely a read that makes sense, but it's one that you're bringing to the book, there's nothing in that scene to suggest that Draco feels threatened. My personal read is that Draco - always squeamish about violence - is actually worried about Hermione on some unexamined level, because everything he says during that scene is advice on how to protect her, just expressed in a really asshole-ish way. But I think the read intended by JKR is - here's Draco, being an asshole, dishing out some exposition.

[aihoshiino]

That Ai and Miyako post made me remember how back when chp 154 drop, some people were claiming that hikaai devalued Ai’s bond with her kids. Like????? Insane line of thinking.

I'm actually sort of in two minds. I defo don't agree that Ai's relationship with Hikaru devalues the one she has with the twins because. well, they're very different relationships above and beyond anything else. But I do think that this sounds like maybe a poor articulation of a critique that I do otherwise agree with - that the specific way Ai talks about her feelings for Kamiki in 154 is inconsistent with the Ai of volume 1 and, if taken at face value, does weaken what is otherwise an extremely efficient self-contained arc in relation to her feelings about the twins and how that guides her to her cathartic confession of love with her final words.

Akasaka falls into this bad habit in the latter half of OnK of like… I guess the most concise way to sum it up would be flanderization but of a relationship dynamic as opposed to a single character (tho I guess you could argue it's flanderization of both characters in relation to their dynamic, but that's picking nits). I've talked about this before in relation to Gorou and Sarina but tbh you can kind of see it all over late stage OnK when you know to start looking for it - where Aka tries to sell the emotional depth of a relationship by massively roiding up the intensity of it to near soap opera levels and rather than making it more interesting, it just ends up flattening out what already WAS interesting because the nuance gets lost in all the noise. GRSR are the worst victims of this mostly because the series relies SO heavily on getting you invested in that relationship that a lot of its beats flop all the harder if you aren't but HikaAi get some of it too.

Some of this comes down to the fact that we just don't really know a ton about how the HikaAi relationship really played out. I've talked about this in more detail before but the long and the short of it is that the 154 DVD is basically the one and only time we get Ai's actual perspective on the relationship and a lot of the stuff she says here is just, like… weirdly overly effusive in ways that don't one hundred percent line up with how she expresses herself in volume 1. And to an extent I give Akasaka a pass on that because he obvs didn't have the exact details of the HikaAi dynamic in mind when writing volume 1. But this does really feel like him falling into that trap of roiding up an emotional beat to the point where the nuance is lost. The DVDs are already such an awkward plot point bc they're so transparently utilitarian and there's never really a good in-story justification for Ai choosing to make them, but it especially doesn't help that the way she talks on the DVD is so obviously written to be the most hurtful and impactful thing possible to Hikaru.

And I think for the most part it does broadly work - the main issue is that depending on how you read some of what she says, it sort of retroactively centers Hikaru in her decisionmaking regarding the twins in a way that I think does kind of cheapen her immediate connection to the twins and her decision to selfishly pursue her own happiness if you take it at face value. It's not necessarily impossible to thread the emotional logic if you make the attempt but I dislike that I have to in the first place and I wish we'd gotten more insight into what caused the shift in her mindset between when the DVDs were made and when she called Hikaru.

The actual real problem is like. Literally this one part:

It would be one thing if this was being voiced as a genuine question that Ai was struggling with but her big happy smile and the way she immediately undermines it a moment later makes it clear this is a rhetorical question and that she is essentially saying without directly saying that she did love Kamiki and she knows it.

And like... that makes no sense, right??

Ai being able to so confidently and assuredly say that her "I can't love you" to Hikaru was a lie speaks to a level of understanding and security in her feelings that does not at all line up with the Ai of volume 1. The whole point of her conflict there - hell, of Ai's arc is general - is that Ai has been so starved of genuine human connection that she doesn't even recognise feelings of love in herself even as she experiences them. Her emotional palette has been so forcibly muted that she's effectively gone colourblind.

That's why she so scared of expressing her love to Aqua and Ruby - she literally has no idea what it feels like because she has no frame of reference. She assumes that it would be a lie if she said it specifically because she's never been able to speak a truthful "I love you" before.

So it's not that Ai having loved Hikaru undermines her love for the twins or anything - it's that Ai being so certain and at ease with the fact that she did, at this point in time. I do think that ultimately undermines vol1's conclusion for her purely because it's inconsistent and there's no attempt in the story to sew these inconsistencies up. Like I said, it feels like a symptom of Akasaka wanting to produce the maximally emotionally effective beat and either not realising or not caring that it didn't make sense for the arc he was writing.

To be clear, I do still love 154! It's still one of my favourite chapters in the series and I think it's overall very effective and definitely a better conclusion to the revenge & Hikaru as the antagonist than wtfever Aka decided to do with 160 onwards. It just has its issues like basically everything else in this manga past a point.

[freyafrida]

rilla of ingleside, chapter five

“to adjust herself, if it were possible, to the new world into which she seemed to have been transplanted with a suddenness and completeness that left her half bewildered as to her own identity.”

Really lovely way of expressing the way your sense of safety and even self gets stripped away when something shattering happens to you -- it's a scary, lonely thing to realize that you are in fact a person that Life will happen to, sooner or later. Especially for Rilla, whose biggest problems up until now were goose grease on her heels and getting chased with a codfish (both feat. Mary Vance, oops).

“Mrs. Blythe covered her face. Walter stared moodily at his plate. Nan and Di clasped each other’s hands. Shirley tried to look unconcerned. Susan sat as if paralyzed, her piece of pie half-eaten on her plate.”

SHIRLEY MENTIONED \o/ Honestly, he's not as much of a nonentity in this book as I thought he was -- the lack of him in Rainbow Valley is super obvious but he's actually referenced pretty frequently in Rilla. Anyway, intrigued by him "[trying] to look unconcerned" -- because he's a teenage boy and doesn't want to seem scared or worried? Because he's generally pretty sensible, and thinks it would belie that to get worked up? (The latter would be rather Gilbert of him.) (Also, interesting contrast with Walter, who isn't trying to hide his moodiness.) (Also-also, noticing Nan and Di are clasping each other's hands, leaving Rilla to look to Walter and then Susan for comfort. Rilla's status as the left-out "baby" of the family disappears as she grows more mature over the book, buuut I'm still kinda interested in the dynamics there!)

“At this Nan had cried out “Oh!” as if a knife had been thrust into her, and rushed from the room. Di followed her. Rilla turned to Walter for comfort but Walter was lost to her in some reverie she could not share.”

Nan will feature as one of the many brave girls who have a sweetheart at the front buuut uh. still find it hard to care about her and Jerry, sorry 😔 Also -- bit of a carryover from Walter forgetting Rilla at the lighthouse party; the second chapter sets him up as a perfect big brother, sympathizing with Rilla and never teasing her, convincing her parents to let her go to a party -- but his preoccupation with the war pulls him into himself, where he has less time to comfort Rilla. I like it -- it gives more sense of Walter as a real person, as he's often portrayed as not of this world, both because of his premonitions and (uh, somewhat informed) gift for writing, and because our view of him is filtered through Rilla's hero-worship.

“Dr. Blythe came up behind his wife and took her hand gently, looking down into the sweet grey eyes which he had only once before seen filled with such imploring anguish as now. They both thought of that other time—the day years ago in the House of Dreams when little Joyce had died. “Would you have him stay, Anne—when the others are going—when he thinks it his duty—would you have him so selfish and small-souled?”

"Implored anguish" is so good -- you can really picture the look with just two words. (Also, oof, reference to Joy! I do wonder how much the Blythe kids know about her :/) Two running themes of the book are here in Anne and Gilbert's responses -- Anne is immediately emotional over "giving" Jem to fight, which comes up again and again as the weight women have to bear in the war; Gilbert is willing to let Jem go because Jem thinks it's right, and is -- not encouraging of the war, exactly, but encouraging of what he sees as nobility and selflessness in his son, and justifies/comforts himself over Jem's enlistment with that.

“Rilla, after the first shock, reacted to the romance of it all, in spite of her heartache. Jem certainly looked magnificent in his uniform. It was splendid to think of the lads of Canada answering so speedily and fearlessly and uncalculatingly to the call of their country. Rilla carried her head high among the girls whose brothers had not so responded.”

This chapter is interesting because there's kind of…two layers of the positive portrayal of the war here? Like, the book does still think the war was worthwhile (or at least it's convincing itself that it was), so Jem's enlistment is still treated as a good thing -- or at least the honor that drove Jem to enlist is a good thing. At the same time, there's a wistfulness and some wryness to this paragraph, LMM does depict the the naïveté of the early days of the war with the hindsight that this amount of enthusiasm, at least, was misguided.

“Shirley says she is one half angel and the other half good cook. But then Shirley is the only one of us she never scolds.”

No real thoughts on this (other than feeling obligated to comment on all things Shirley bc I love him your honor), except that this makes me think Shirley is a heart-through-his-stomach kind of dude.

“Faith Meredith is wonderful. I think she and Jem are really engaged now. She goes about with a shining light in her eyes, but her smiles are a little stiff and starched, just like mother’s. I wonder if I could be as brave as she is if I had a lover and he was going to the war.”

noooo Rilla go back to your Faith hateration 😭 Idk. Faith is simultaneously so perfect and yet so not in the focus of the book that I find it hard to feel anything about her. Anyway, interesting change of tune from Rilla, who was bitter about Faith overshadowing her just a few chapters ago!

“He was here one evening after Jem came back but I happened to be away. I don’t think he mentioned me at all—at least nobody told me he did and I was determined I wouldn’t ask”

Painfully relatable passage as a Youth, lmao

“I shudder when I think of the possibility of being mangled or—or blinded. Rilla, I cannot face that thought. To be blind—never to see the beauty of the world again—moonlight on Four Winds—the stars twinkling through the fir trees—mist on the gulf. I ought to go—I ought to want to go—but I don’t—I hate the thought of it—and I’m ashamed—ashamed.”

I sympathize with Walter here (and of course he's the only one actually thinking of what the consequences of war would be), but I do think it's a bit telling -- and perhaps that's the intent -- that he thinks the worst thing that could happen to him is no longer being able to see beautiful things (I also like how he doesn't mention not being able to like, see his family or friends, just nature). The fact that he's actually quite conscious that the opposing army is also people -- and seems horrified that Jem and Jerry refer to killing them as 'potting Huns' -- makes it a bit jarring that he was all "Germany comes to conquer or die" in the last chapter.

Walter's outburst of "I should've been born a girl" is ofc interesting because it speaks, I think, to not just his fear over the war -- because I don't think he means he'd rather be a girl just to not enlist -- but deeper self-esteem issues over his sensitivity and fear of violence and gore. (And yet, at the same time, when it comes down to it, he is capable of violence, and is in fact more violent than other boys, see everyone freaking out about how badly he beats up Dan Reese. There are a couple of instances -- later in this book too -- where Walter proves himself, underneath his fears, to be Even More Properly Masculine than Jem and Jerry, which. We'll get there i guess!)

“There’ll be some tough chewing in the mouthful, I reckon,” persisted Norman valiantly. “Germany’ll break her teeth on it. Don’t you tell me one Britisher isn’t a match for ten foreigners. I could polish off a dozen of ’em myself with both hands tied behind my back!”

Interesting depiction, again, of the loyalty towards Britain from Canadians here. Everyone in this scene is like, objectively wrong, but it's also comic in a way that seems to indicate you aren't meant to take them too seriously. (It seems like it might've inspired by people who, regardless of whether they broadly shared the right opinion of the war, didn't "realize" it, as LMM puts it, see the @batrachised post here.)

“Without shedding of blood there is no anything,” said Mr. Meredith, in the gently dreamy way which had an unexpected trick of convincing his hearers. “Everything, it seems to me, has to be purchased by self-sacrifice. Our race has marked every step of its painful ascent with blood. And now torrents of it must flow again. No, Mrs. Crawford, I don’t think the war has been sent as a punishment for sin. I think it is the price humanity must pay for some blessing—some advance great enough to be worth the price—which we may not live to see but which our children’s children will inherit.”

I think we are meant to take Rev. Meredith seriously here, though, and this bit strikes me as basically the thesis of the book? The ignorant enthusiasm of the past chapters is wrong; this war won't be over quickly; it won't be a laugh of 'potting Huns' as Jem and Jerry think -- but it is worthwhile, their sacrifice will bring a better future for their children. (Which, you know, us in the future are like. Well.)

glossary stuff (incl. "this too will pass away" from the last chapter):

Readying Rilla bits:

The first line has Rilla looking "dreamily" at Rainbow Valley, which I imagine was cut because it's tonally off from what Rilla's actually doing (contemplating her brothers going off to war).

Cut line mentions that "three other boys followed their example", re: Jem and Jerry enlisting.

Once again, someone says the war will be "over by Christmas" (in this case, Susan says that Gilbert believes that) but it's replaced by "in a few months."

Susan originally says that Jem looks "just like a man" in khaki, which is replaced by "almost like a man", heh. The final line def. reads more like something an older person would say affectionately, seeing someone they knew as a kid grown up.

Rilla originally says that she "abominates" babies, lmaooo.

In his bit about being blind, Walter originally mentions being afraid of being helpless, which is v. interesting -- it's removed and the passage is entirely abut his fear of not being able to physically see beauty instead.

Walter also originally thinks even Anne would be disappointed in him for not enlisting his cowardice, oops wrote too fast.

[all-seeing-ifer]

Ok random ask let's talk about how when jasmine in Cordy's body kills lilah she calls her a stupid bitch which is the same thing Dennis's momghost called cordy in 1.05 which led cordy to feel empowered and reclaim the word bitch only now the word is coming out of her mouth without her permission being weaponized against a woman she did not want to kill. Thoughts?

ok well my first thought is i'm glad there was no one else in the staffroom during my 15 minute morning break today bc i saw this ask and literally had to go pace around and blair witch it in the corner of the room for a few seconds. so yeah. upset.

I did read an insanely good fic a while back (that I think you've also read? tho I now don't remember if you sent it to me or not) that touches a little bit on this and on cordy's feelings towards lilah in general and it made me crazy then and it does make me crazy now thinking about it. everyone should go read if you want to achieve the level of ungluedness some of us are currently on about season 4. it's like. one of the most genuinely harrowing pieces of art i've ever seen put on the internet for free. and i am something of a conoisseur of harrowing internet art so.

other thoughts... just in general i think there's some interesting parallels to explore w cordy and lilah in this season (and incidentally that's something i do plan to dig into in origin of species later down the line). like it's not lost on me that by the end of the season lilah is also in a position of having lost... not all her autonomy, but certainly to a great degree - she's trapped in a contract with wolfram & hart that she can't leave even in death and can't be destroyed. there's something deeply ghoulish about the fact that she dies and her employer still will not let her go. really really makes me wish she was still around in s5 to actually explore that, but i'm maybe getting a bit off topic there.

but yeah, it's heartbreaking, it's even more heartbreaking for the fact that despite being mortal enemies they did at points seem to have some respect for each other and lilah gets taken out in a way that just. doesn't feel like playing fair. i like thinking about what possible dynamics would emerge if cordy and lilah both got to stick around in the show very much. and as much as it sucks at least lilah got to inadvertently call a megalomaniacal and all powerful divine being "twinkie" before she died so. win for her

[itsajollyjester]

Childhood friends/sweethearts Odesta

[azzymaxxing]

IFUCKING WIN

[mensahbots]

i am normal about tv mensah and pin-lee's dynamic

[sskk-manifesto]

Proof that bsd would be a lot better if they just let it pass the Bechdel test more often

[neverendingford]

.

[marinecorvid]

blorbos from my brain

[pynkhues]

Joining the last anon in my appreciation. The last IWTV fic was something else! also VERS LOUSTAT SUPREMACY. let the french man get fucked!! he loves to be called a slut after all 😏

Thank you!! And yes! The idea that immortal creatures - especially immortal creatures with the level of push-pull/checks and balances that the two of them have - wouldn't switch is lowkey hilarious to me.

[7fff00]

i was just thinking earlier in vague terms about a specific but weirdly prevalent thing which consistently bugs me, namely: when cis men attempt to be self-deprecating about their unfamiliarity with feminine things, except that of course it's not actually self-deprecating to bring up how categorically distant you are and have always been from a stigmatized practice…

and then ran into this post, in which a presumably-white anon attempts to be self-deprecating about their unfamiliarity with the racialized genres of hip hop and rap (specifically by characterizing themself as a[n implicitly uncool] 'blorbo enjoyer,' which of course—as @‍batmanisagatewaydrug correctly points out—has the knock-on effect of framing fandom as Not For People of Color, which, not to put too fine a point on it, is racist), which illustrates exactly the same dynamic along a different axis…

anyway i guess my point here is just (1) to note that yeah, this really does seem to be a pattern! and given that, (2) to underscore in my own mind that this is probably something for nerds vel sim. in particular to look out for, because we often have insecurity modifiers that makes us feel like we're not ~really~ solidly part of the privileged group, which seems to make us feel like disclosing our ignorance can somehow constitute a self-deprecating self-own, rather than an offputting humblebrag about the privilege that made it possible…

[swampjawn]

Time to talk an unnecessary amount about floors!

Episode 6 of Dungeon Meshi was produced in collaboration with a smaller studio, Enishiya - and it went way harder than I expected, for being made up of two relatively simple and self contained stories focusing on one character each.

And you can really see how those extra resources meant the animators could give full focus to both halves of the episode. Let's take a look at one piece that stole the show.

The first half was handled primarily by episode director/storyboard artist Keita Nagahara and co-animation director Hirotoshi (or Hiroaki? [1]) Arai. It's actually kinda insane how much of this section can be attributed to these two.

But the real star of the show is the second half, Chilchuck vs the mimic, led by co-animation director Toya Ooshima in his first animation director role for TV anime!

And the biggest aspect that knocked my dang boots off was something that's very consistent with Ooshima's style: background animation!

By animating the backgrounds rather than using painted still images, Ooshima and the team of other similarly skilled animators are able to create these beautiful dynamic camera movements that wouldn't be possible otherwise. Like these cuts by Takeshi Maenami where the camera becomes an expressive part of the scene, zipping forward and backward, and tilting to emphasize the speed of this murderous hermit crab. (Maenami's style is also very recognizable here - snappy timing and quick camera movements)

Or this cut by the incredible Kaito Tomioka which cleverly combines a traditional background for the walls with a fully animated floor. The level of detail in these tiles is just completely insane, and used to great effect with this wide, diagonal angle, and the way the camera tentatively drifts forward before reversing direction, and the tiles blur out as it speeds up.

I don't think I'm the only one caught off guard by how much they full-assed this little side story, but it was a pleasant surprise!

I broke down the entire episode in this video here. A lot of research went into this one, and I think it's the best one of these videos I've made so far, so if you're at all interested in more of this type of analysis in video form, I would really appreciate it if you checked it out, or re-blogged this post! Thanks

[1] It's listed as Hirotoshi on Anime News Network, but Hiroaki on a key frame that Studio Trigger shared on Twitter, so I'm not sure which one is wrong.

[willthewiz]

Things ST Actors & Directors have said that make me believe in byler endgame

Noah Schnapp/Will Byers:

Someone asked: "What were your favorite moments with Finn on set?"

Noah: "Oh, um... well, I would probably say from this new season, so I guess I can't tell you but..."

"I think I spend the most time with Finn throughout—the course of— wait. Um... sorry, I gotta not—make sure not to say anything from season 5, but in other seasons... what was the question?"

"Lot's of good stuff coming. It's going to be a wild last season, so just, everyone get ready. There's some crazy stuff, some iconic scenes thrown in there."

Noah talking about Will:

"I think in season 5, it will have some... we'll just be like, "Yes! Something went right for him!""

"Mike was always super protective of Will and Will always leaned on him, and you could never really tell if it was something romantic or just a really special friendship."

"I can just tell you that I'm very, very excited for what's to come. I think they did a great job with Will's character this season, and beautifully addressed everything they needed to. The way they closed the show is just perfect – the story started with Will, and it’ll end with Will."

Someone asked: "Is there one scene in your whole career that stayed with you the most?"

Noah: "Yeah... but I can't talk about it."

Finn Wolfhard/Mike Wheeler:

Someone asked: "Finn, where do you think El and you are going to go?"

"Oh, I don't know. I don't know, I'm really interested in like the end of the show in general. You know, it's hard to tell, obviously, with Eleven and his relationship... but I hope they find—you know—happiness."

"Mike is just trying to be a normal teenager as much as he can."

"I think Mike is trying to be as normal as possible and trying to keep on a normal path. He might be into some new things."

"How is he (Mike) this clueless right now? With the Will scene in the car, I remember asking the Duffers, why would he not know this? And they're like, "Don't worry, it'll pay off in the end.""

Caleb McLaughlin/Lucas Sinclair:

"I love Lucas and Max's relationship, it's not like Eleven and Mike's—you know— in that teenage relationship dynamic. Their love is very—you know— it's real."

Sadie Sink/Max Mayfield:

"We're (Lucas & Max) both very independent. We're not like Mike and El where they just kind of are obsessed with each other."

Gaten Matarazzo/Dustin Henderson:

"The Byers have moved to California and the season picks up with Mike going out there to visit his friend Will—and Eleven who lives out there with them."

Shawn Levy/Director:

"Our show is an anthem for the marginalized and imperfect, precisely because the Duffer brothers know from experience that the popular and easy road is rarely the most interesting one, and that character, grit, connection, and soul are bred in the same moments that challenge us the most."

"People talk about mythology and The Upside Down, and all that is huge, but the magic of S5 are the characters who find a sense of belonging with one another and through that connection, become heroes."

[duncebento]

agh i know it can be rally difficult but especially if you are a marginalized person especially if you are a woman ESPECIALLY if you are trans please make sure that you’re not signaling insecurity to ppl via your dating app profiles or what have you. it can literally be a matter of your own physical safety.

as an example, i often see trans girls on hinge liable to put something like “i’ll fall for you if you show me any affection at all <3” on their profiles…and i know u just think it sounds quirkily self-deprecating and i KNOW that’s the way you really and truly feel but if i am someone who whether consciously or not is searching for a dynamic in which i have power over another person, a statement like that will make my ears perk up!!

furthermore, and especially for younger people, there are a lot of things that are very necessary to discuss with a partner that are ALSO very necessary to not reveal for a little while. if you have been abused in a certain way or if you are inexperienced, those are things that are unsafe to talk about with people you don’t know, no matter how honest and upfront you pride yourself on being. i’ve had someone tell me about all the sexual assault they’d experienced on a first date— and luckily for them i wasn’t interested in harming them or really into them at all— but again, imagine if i were someone who wanted power over another person! all their truthfulness and vulnerability would do is reveal them as an easy mark for my manipulation.

if you do encounter a critical situation with someone you haven’t spent enough time with yet, it should always be possible to say what instead of why: e.g. “i’m sorry, but i’d like to wait before having sex with you” or “i’d rather not hang out in that park, can we pick somewhere else?” instead of “i’d like to hold off on having sex BECAUSE i’ve never had sex before” or “i’d rather not hang out in that park BECAUSE that’s where i was assaulted.” again, both very important things to talk about with a partner, but unfortunately potentially dangerous things to discuss with someone you’ve not yet gotten close to! and anyone who seems to be sniffing around for signs of your inexperience or victimhood is not to be trusted anyway (note that sniffing around is different from a polite “oh, would you like to talk about it?” interest.)

i know it can be difficult to come across as more confident than you feel, but it is really necessary that you’re projecting a desire for something healthy and safe that will make you happy instead of saying outright that you’ll be fine with crumbs.

[yamujiburo]

Why I Love Hanamusa

I get this question very frequently but have never given a really in depth, definitive answer. All just kinda implied through my comics and spread out asks. So here's this I guess! Long post ahead:

First, as a Pokémon fan in her mid 20s, I love seeing a ship where the characters are both in their mid/late 20s. Already, they’re much more relatable to me and my current experiences. Most Pokémon ships are between preteens, which can be cute but ultimately don’t interest me as much as they used to when I was a kid myself. Not enough to get super invested in and draw a lot of fanart for anyways haha.

I’ll also start by saying that canon doesn’t always influence whether or not I’ll ship something. I’m much more drawn to potential. Could the characters work together? Do their personalities work together in a nice way? I feel like this so much of fanon is anyways. Especially with queer relationships because they’re rarely depicted in the first place. A lot of the context for these ships is usually up to the fans to piece together or make up in general. And that’s the fun part to me!

Jessie and Delia have only met in the anime a handful of times. Any interaction they’ve had has either been pleasant, or just a typical Team Rocket interaction, with Delia dismissing them/not seeing them as a threat. Already a great jumping off point for me since, truly, they don’t have any actual beef or true, ill feelings towards each other. It’s not TOO out of the realm of possibility for them to potentially fall for each other. “But Jessie chased Delia’s son around trying to steal his Pokémon!” That’s where that dismissive and aloof attitude that Delia has comes into play. I’ll go more into Delia’s whole deal a bit later but I do think this aspect of her personality is a large reason why this ship can work. It’s not that she doesn’t care that Jessie has a bad past, but she can tell that, on the inside, Jessie’s a good person. And, in a scenario where Jessie is trying to become a better person, is forgiving enough to give her a shot. I feel like this is such a solid foundation for a ship. A character who has done wrong but is trying to be better and another character who is willing to help them be better. A classic dynamic!

It’s not just one-sided though; where Jessie is the only one benefitting and learning from the relationship. I believe Delia could get a lot out of being with someone like Jessie. To understand why, I think it’s important to know these characters’ respective backstories.

Jessie is an orphan/foster child who grew up in poverty. Her mother Miyamoto (from The Birth of Mewtwo) was a Team Rocket operative herself, who went on a mission to find Mew. In order to do this, she had to leave Jessie when she was just a toddler. Unfortunately, Miyamoto went MIA on her mission leaving Jessie to more or less fend for herself. Jessie went through life with zero stability, evident by her MANY different careers and constant moving around. It’s implied in the show that she went from foster home to foster home, and later in life tried being an idol, weather girl, florist, wine connoisseur, actress, most notably a nurse and finally a Team Rocket field agent. And even while in Team Rocket, she, James and Meowth were always doing odd jobs to get by. We see that Jessie used to be a sweet kid, and even adult, but the world and her circumstances repeatedly did her dirty, leading her to become the character we know today. Hot tempered, mean, selfish, etc. But despite this, her soft side does still shine through for the people and Pokémon she cares about. She is incredibly loyal.

Delia, unbeknownst to a lot of fans, also had a rough past (see Pocket Monsters: The Animation). Like Jessie, she had a lot of dreams and aspirations like wanting to be a model and even a trainer. But when she was 10, her mother didn’t let her, telling her that she had to stay home and learn to run the family restaurant (she’s an only child). Delia’s father left her and her mother to be a trainer, and never returned. When she was 18, she married Ash’s father and became pregnant shortly after. But right after Ash was born, he also set off to be a Pokémon trainer. And soon after that, her mother passed away, leaving Delia with just the restaurant and baby Ash. This gives so much context to Delia’s attitude in the show. We see that Delia is pained whenever Ash leaves on a journey, but she never shows that pain to anyone. ESPECIALLY Ash. She’s very quick to shoo him off when he shows any sign of wanting to go on another journey and even when he returns home, she acts more excited to see Pikachu than him almost every time. Without all this backstory, it’s easy to just read this as a funny gag, BUT with context, I think it really shows how quickly Delia shuts down and detaches in order to not confront her own feelings. She’s afraid of losing people and getting hurt again.

All that said, I think Jessie and Delia provide each other with EXACTLY what the other needs. 

Aside from becoming rich and famous, Jessie’s biggest aspiration is to get married. In my opinion, this is more so an underlying want for love and stability. There is no one more stable in the show than Delia. Delia’s lived in Pallet her whole life, she’s worked at the same restaurant since she was young and she is always there when Ash comes back home. She has all the love, patience and stability Jessie needs and craves. While forgiving, Delia’s not stupid and can keep Jessie in check. Delia’s also just an angel, which I feel, would make Jessie want to be better. And on top of all this, on more of a surface level, Delia’s a chef and excellent cook. She shows love through cooking and Jessie, who grew up poor, regularly starving and eating snow, happily receives that love. Jessie’s able to live a happy and healthy life with someone like Delia.

Delia, as stated, is very stable. Likely pretty monotonous and solitary, especially living in such a small town like Pallet. This isn’t a bad thing but it’s a little sad when you consider that Delia also had dreams of traveling, being a model and a trainer. She had to give up so many dreams in order to fulfill her duties as a restaurant owner and mother. And even now, when Ash is off on his journey, she feels the need to always be home and be that stable pillar, leaving behind any ambitions she had, thinking it’s too late for her (she’s only 29 btw). But then along comes Jessie, dangerous, passionate, an absolute firecracker. Someone who’s whole life has been about chasing dreams and either, never giving up on them or finding a new dream to chase. Upon learning about Delia’s past aspirations, I could see Jessie pushing her towards them, letting her know that life’s too short and she has nothing to lose from trying. On top of this, Jessie’s also loyal. She, James and Meowth are depicted as doing anything for anyone who gives them food or shows them kindness. Delia does both so there’s no way Jessie would leave her. This fulfills an essential need for Delia, who is afraid of the people in her life leaving her.

There’s so much potential for mutual growth and learning between these two and I adore that. They compliment each other, they help each other and they bring out the best qualities in one another.

I’m not really sure how to end this and I could truly talk about them even more but I don’t want this to be tooooo long haha. OH I could end it with maybe the most funny aspect of this ship that I've brushed over and also what drew me to it in the first place. Jessie. As Ash’s stepmom. THE END.