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messenger-of-babel · 4 months ago

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Could you write about the sweetheart grips? Soldiers in ww2 used to put photos of their lovers on the grips of their guns and I think that would be cute with Jason.

Eye for An Eye

Summary: Jason keeps a photo of you in his gun to keep you close to him, even in his hardest moments. (Jason Todd x reader)

Word Count: 2.7K

Notes: dear anon I really, really wanted to make this sweet. But then I got an angst idea and- I tried to do it justice without too many tears. Forehead kisses for you because as soon as you sent this in I legit thought about this idea for like three days straight I fell in love with the concept. I might use it again for other Jason fics you got me hooked (I was a MASSIVE military history nerd). Warnings for description of violence and injury, character death, some choppy writing. Back onto my angst train, I'm so sorry y'all (I'll write this concept sweeter sometime, I SWEAR).

ALSO HAPPY 100 POSTS. It's crazy when I remember I'm still a baby blog. <3

Enjoy~! RiRi xoxo <3

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Bruce had never been one for guns, and while Jason was Robin, he hadn't either.

He didn't consider himself a particularly violent child or had any real craving to use weapons. After all, he never really hit anyone who didn't deserve it, and he got great satisfaction of getting back at people who thought they could hurt innocent civilians just because they were bigger and older than him.

That was until he was taken by Joker and showed just how much hurt someone older and bigger than could inflict.

April 27th, the date that the Joker killed Jason Todd.

Now, he couldn’t imagine his hands without the comforting grip of his pistol. The grips were designed just for him, slotting into the contours of his fingers and worn away in the areas he instinctually rubbed. They were wide so they sat snug in his large palms, with a coarse texture in the areas he habitually flexed. The grip allowed it to stick to his gloves for a steadier shot while it would simply irritate anyone else who tried to hold them.

Everyone knew that those guns were Jasons, but nothing said it quite like the new addition of the faded photo tucked into the grips. The colt's had originally come with wooden handgrips, which were quickly removed while he made his modifications.

"You know the Bat isn't gonna be happy with you getting another set of guns." Dick calls out, approaching his worktable in the cave. Jason just grunts at him over his shoulder, making sure he keeps the screws where he can see them.

"Bruce can honestly suck it up." he huffs, the mention of the Bat souring his demeanour immediately. Jason had wanted to do this in his apartment for this exact same reason. He knew Stephanie would annoy him with questions if she caught sight of him, and that Tim would interject constantly with 'improvements' he deemed necessary. Duke he could deal with, and Cass would leave him well enough alone.

Dick and Damian just managed to piss him off simply existing sometimes.

Mostly when he was already in a bad mood.

His older brother trots down the stairs, a frown forming on his face as he puts his hands on his hips to observe.

"Quiet." Jason mumbles flatly, knowing the older vigilante was giving him a disapproving stare. Dick ignores him, eyeing the photo tucked up near his water bottle.

"Jason," he says, voice a warning tone.

"I said quiet." he cuts off, wiping the area down with a damp cloth. Dick just sighs behind him as Jason gingerly picks up the photo, rubbing his calloused thumbs over it. Dick wants to say something as he eyes the photo but can't bring himself to speak above the block in his chest. He watches the tension ease from his brother’s shoulders, the muscles that had been stiffly held by his ears for weeks. The scowl he wore softened slightly, and he could actually hear him exhale for once instead of wondering if his chest actually was moving or not. Instead, Dick sighs in reluctance, giving in. Dick watches him with sad eyes, clapping a hand on his shoulder with a slight squeeze. "Don't forget to, you know," he leans forward slightly and draws a circle with his finger on a certain point of the photo. Jason's face ripples with a flash of pain, but he watches his younger brother grit his teeth and nod.

"Look after yourself, Jay." he murmurs, pulling back. "Don't do anything stupid."

Jason waits a little bit before turning back the photo, ensuring that Dick had left the cave. A still silence settled over the dim space once more. It didn't help the hum in his head, making his fingers and muscles shake, the white noise refusing to settle in his conscious. He gently drew on the photo of you with pencil, tracing the shape that he needed for the grip and ensuring that you weren't cut out by accident.

It was a favourite photo of his, taken at one of Bruce's galas. He hadn't wanted to go, hardly showing to the events in the first place. "Full of rich idiots trying to get even richer." he had told you, tossing a look over his shoulder to you. You were standing at the door, holding the invite that had been slipped through the mail slot. You waved the thick cardstock, a small smile on your face. "Aw, but I was kinda looking forward to going." you say, looking over the details. "I think it'll be fun."

"The only one who thinks those things are fun are Dick and Steph if she's around. Tim will get bored and probably turn into a loan shark if left unattended too long. So yeah, fun." he grumbled.

"What about Dami?"

Her turns around, eyebrows raised.

"I’m sorry?" he asks. "When did we start calling the demon child, Dami? We're on nickname level now?"

He hates how his heart flutters in his chest when he hears you laugh, melting away his annoyance.

"He's sweet, just a little prickly. like you." you grin, coming to wrap your arms around his neck, pecking him on the lips.

"Yeah, he's sweet to you, he's a little shit to everyone else." he grumbles.

"Sounds like someone else I know." you tease.

He can't help but grin, sighing out through his nose softly. "Fine. we can go." he grumbles, knowing he won’t be able to stay mad at you for long.

The photo he traces was from that night, you tucked into his side. You're staring at the camera with a sparkle in your eye, lips pulled back into a wide grin. You're wearing black to fit the theme of the ball, with red accents, matching him. He’s got his arm around your shoulder, taking the photo with you pressed up against him. He thinks you look stunning, eyes twinkling at him from the page.

He takes the exacto knife and gently runs it over the image, cutting himself out so that he can focus on you. The piece pops free, and he trims the edges. His heart thrums as he slides you onto the handle, fluttering with a tame delight.

"Don't forget to, you know..."

Dick’s voice floats back into his mind, and the corners of his lips twitch downwards once more. Reluctantly he pulls your photo from the handle and reaches for a screwdriver to his left, bringing it above the paper. He feels like he's about to stab you, the way the metal tip hovers above the image smiling back at him.

But he does it, heart clenching with each scrape across your eyes, slowly erasing the twinkle he loved so much. There's something sickening about the feeling of scratching your face out, the gritty sound of the photo tearing and leaving white streaks in its wake making his stomach flip. Finally, it's done, stark white lines blotting out your gaze. All that's left is the upturn of your lips, and the soft smile you wore.

With a heavy sigh Jason slots it back onto the handle, placing the clear protector over you. At least nothing could damage you more than he already had. He told himself it was for the better, as he cleaned his hands on a nearby rag and bit the inside of his cheek. You weren't the most supportive of his guns, but you liked that they kept him safe. You had had a few conversations with him about it but never an argument. He wanted to keep you close, but he knew he wasn't going to be an idiot about it. He wanted to protect you, hide your identity from any eagle-eyed thugs.

"Besides," he thought to himself. "Don't want em seeing what I'm about to do."

Maybe it was for the best that he covered your face for this.

His body hums with adrenaline, still alone in the Batcave. With scarred fingers he screws the cover onto the grip, clear cover sitting flush and keeping your photo secure. Jasons tosses it a few times in his hand, getting used to the feeling of the new colt pistols and making sure you weren't going to shake loose. When he was content, he looked over his shoulder, scanning the shadows for movement.

He knew that Bruce would condemn his actions, he didn’t even need to ask on that front. Dick would be understanding but try to hold him back, and Tim would try to talk him out of it. The only person he felt that silently agreed with him was Damian, the pair of them fostering an unlikely bond in the last few weeks.

Everyone in the manor knew what Jason was thinking.

What Jason was doing spending his nights in the Batcave, the one place he had grown to hate ever since coming back.

What he contemplated as he haunted the halls of the manor, the place he often traded in for the comfort of his downtown apartment.

Everyone knew what Jason was going to do tonight, yet none of them were game enough to say it out loud or stop him.

Therefore, Jason took their silence as compliance because he knew somewhere deep down, they wanted him to do it.

Or was he deluding himself?

He shook the thought from his head, holstering the newly decorated pistol. He was already dressed and strapped for this mission, no turning back now. With heavy hands he donned his helmet, taking a deep breath as he pushed Jason aside to become Red Hood. The air was still, as if the Batcave was filled with spirits watching him in silence as he mounted the bike and pressed the key for the garage door, speeding out.

He was already haunted by too many ghosts.

The streets of Gotham were relatively quiet, the usual alleys he stalked devoid of the thugs he would have expected. It seemed that even the city was holding its breath, civilians tucked safely inside. He knew where he was going.

He had been receiving mocking invites in the mail for the last week, notes attached to crime scenes in a gory fashion just to mock him. So really, it was no surprise when he arrived at Gotham cemetery, parking outside and not even bothering to kill the engine. He wasn’t going to be long anyways.

Just past the cemetery was the crumbling shell of Arkham, ivy covering the brickwork and roof caving in. His boots crushed broken panes of glass as he entered the decaying mental hospital, leaves scattered through the building from wrinkled trees that had cracked through the floors. He slowly made his way to the upper floor, where he had seen the lights.

Instinctually he reached for his gun, and he felt his heart calm sliding his hand over your picture secured into his sweetheart grip. He hadn't felt this anxious fighting in a while, unused to the way that his pulse thudded against his neck or the dryness that crept into his mouth. The corridor felt like it stretched on forever, making his vision swim trying to reach the light at the end.

Candlelight flickered weakly at the end of the hall, luring him in like a moth. As he stepped in he took note of it, hand tightening. Jason knew he was going to play with him, taunt and torture him. The images of you taped up on the peeling walls were enough. Photos that spanned back months, photos of you on dates, at work, in his car, in your apartment, blurry photos of you and him in his bed. His thumb instinctually placed itself over your eyes, despite them already being scratched out.

He didn't need you seeing the messy patchwork of your life.

Jason didn't even mind the photos, knowing the sadist would be doing something like that. What he did mind though were the images of you from three weeks ago, the same images that Dick had refused to let him see, that Tim wiped off the Batcomputer hard drive and Babs had removed from the GCPD database. The ones displaying the blood, the bone, the bruising.

Your eyes, unseeing.

Everything that was so familiar to him, but so foreign on you.

Everything that that one curved piece of metal had caused way back when, stained a dark brown. The same piece of metal that was sitting in the middle of the desk at the centre of the crude shrine, drying with a fresher coat of oxidised red.

He felt his heart rise to his throat, but he wasn’t sure if it was bile in his throat or the taste of blood from his bitten lip. His grip turned white, muscles flexing under the skin and pressing unnaturally hard. He felt the green tinged mania inside him rear its head, threatening to take over his mind and act purely on instinct. The Lazarus pit clawed and pulled at his soul harder that it had in years, gasping at him like a beggar, screaming for a shred of violence to feed it.

He knew the game. He knew all of this was to provoke him, try to get Jason to release the rage inside him. The monster wanted to see him squirm, see him struggle to keep himself in check. He wanted to watch Jason Todd fight against the Red Hood, watch the Bats moral code play out on his face.

Well, Jason wasn't Batman. He wasn't Bruce.

As soon as a skinny figure moved from the shadows to his right, his pistol was out in a flash. His free hand ripped the mask from his face, jaw tight and eyebrows furrowed, but he felt more relaxed than he had been in ages.

He was no Batman. He was Jason Todd.

And Jason was going to do the one thing Bruce had always been too much of a coward to do.

With one crisp bang the clown couldn’t get a single word out before he was splayed on the floor. As Jason stepped over the body he regarded it apathetically, barely biting down the urge to step on it. The bastards’ lips were pulled back in a wide smile, even in death. Maybe he had expected Jason to do this, maybe it was his last hurrah as an asshole, but Jason didn't care.

He didn’t even feel scared at the idea of the aftermath as a retraced his steps out of the abandoned building, mounting his still-running bike.

There hadn't been a single gloat before the gun cracked through the night, not a single joke or pun or taunt to leave the devil’s mouth. Bruce might have entertained it, let him play it out, but not Jason.

For Jason, everything that needed to be said had been said in actions.

The air was strangely cool, devoid of the humidity that nomrally hung in the streets. The city itself seemed to be sighing, taking a breath like the chord holding the city on a leash had been cut. He relished the feeling of it on his skin, the cracks in his suit letting the breeze run across his knuckles and where his mask met his neck. He imagined the cool fingers were you, cradling his face and whispering for him to take a rest, and he let his eyes flutter closed briefly.

As he hit a red light he took a pause, reaching his hand down to pat where you were, tucked tightly under his hip. He didn't care what the reaction was going to be when he reached the manor, or the screaming match that was likely going to destroy what was left of his relationship with his pseudo father. All that matters is that he had done right by you, that he had done what he wished someone had done for him.

April 17th, the night Jason Todd killed the Joker.

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dunmeshistash · 6 months ago

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If Izutsumi only has a 'bit' of human soul where's the rest of it? Dead and gone? She doesn't suffer for the lack of it, so it doesn't seem like people need their whole soul. Could someone even take the piece she's missing and stuff it into another monster??

Well, this is gonna be a lot of speculation and very little facts, so beware (will never forget you anon who said I posted my opinions without clarifying it was speculation)

My theory is that in dungeon meshi bodies and souls have some sort of relationship? After all Marcille used the dragon's flesh to resurrect Falin and that cause part of its soul to be mixed in with hers, and at the end to get rid of his soul so Falin could be brought back without being a chimera they ate it's flesh and ground up it's bones so plants would absorb it. So I think it's safe to say there's some relationship between body and soul, at least inside the dungeon where resurrection is possible.

If we take Izutsumi's timeline as a basis, she was a 6yo child when she was taken from her parent's and turned into a beastmen (you could argue that it was a 6yo monster but Izutsumi's ages like a tallman so I doubt only here it would be referring to the monster)

So she was a small child fused with a big monster, so maybe that in itself is why there's way more monster?

The other possibility is that only part of the child was fused with the monster, or perhaps they did take the soul out of her body to put it in the monster, maybe like how ghosts that don't have a body might posses someone that dies and is resurrected and their souls are fused??

But here she only talks about the "personality" changing not their appearance, I really think beastmen and chimera fusions where parts of each show up in the final form makes more sense if their bodies (along with the soul) is fused too? But I'm just speculating.

Anyway, two possibilities

The (whole) child was fused with a much bigger monster and that's why it's the smaller part

The child killed and then only part of her (or her soul) was fused with the monster

Very fucked up either way, about your question if there could be two izutsumis made from the soul of the same child I doubt it, if we take resurrection as an example I don't think they can "divide" the human soul in two different beings? Same as how they couldn't separate part of the dragon soul away from Falin's without before consuming it's flesh? So maybe they burned the rest of the child's body to get rid of the rest of her soul in that second possibility

The AB comic about resurrection says you can't really bring back someone from pieces even if you try to resurrect all of them, so I'd ASSUME that's true for trying to use the same soul for different beings

Anyway these are my thoughts, I love Izutsumi's backstory is so fucked up and tragic... what was done to her is horrible.

#ask #izutsumi #beastman #beastkin #meta ask #speculation #dunmeshi thoughts #dungeon meshi spoilers

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prettyprincesse80 · 2 months ago

Text

Even When We’re Not Us

She shows up in the middle of the day.

Not to talk. Not really.

Just to be close enough to breathe what’s left of them.

Author Note:

Insomnia Sucks!! My beta told me to post it even though I wrote it at 3 a.m.

So here it is.

It’s silence. It’s longing. It’s Tim and Lucy not really together… and not able to stop loving each other either.

Enjoy!

It’s daytime.

Too much daytime.

The kind of light that doesn’t soften anything. That exposes everything.

Lucy blinks in front of the door. She didn’t mean to come.

She didn’t even really think before turning the wheel.

She’s just here now, standing on a porch she knows far too well.

And everything feels smaller.

Or maybe she’s the one who feels bigger. Heavier.

She doesn’t knock. She hesitates.

Three seconds.

Five.

A heartbeat that thuds too loud. A sigh she didn’t catch in time.

And then the door opens.

Tim.

He doesn’t say anything.

He didn’t expect this either.

He’s standing there in a T-shirt, hair tousled, eyes a little tired. Not surprised. Just… paused.

They don’t speak.

They look at each other like two versions of themselves they barely recognize.

And yet everything’s still there.

The silence, the air, the tight tension between two bodies that don’t touch anymore.

“You wanna come in?”

His voice is rough.

Not from shouting. Just… from holding too much in.

Lucy nods. Not quite yes. Not quite no.

Just… she steps inside.

She notices the details without meaning to: the mug on the table’s edge, the coat slung over the back of the chair, Kojo’s imprint still visible on the rug.

It’s not her place anymore.

But it’s still a little them.

She stays standing. So does he.

It’s daylight.

And no one says a word.

***

Lucy steps into the living room. She doesn’t sit.

She doesn’t know where to place what she feels. And more than that—she doesn’t know if there’s space for it anymore.

Tim leans against the doorframe. Arms crossed.

Reflex.

Not against her. Against himself.

“I was in the neighborhood.”

She doesn’t know why she says that. It’s not true. He knows that.

But he nods slowly, like they’ve silently agreed to pretend just to survive the discomfort.

There’s a strange moment where they look at each other without trying to read anything.

Where everything has already been said, but none of it truly heard.

“You didn’t sleep.”

His voice again.

Not an accusation. Not even a question. Just a quiet, intimate observation.

She lowers her eyes, laughs a little. Not because it’s funny. Because it’s true.

“No.”

He doesn’t offer coffee. He doesn’t tell her to sit. He doesn’t ask if she’s okay.

Because they know.

They both know they’re not okay.

They know asking would make everything crack.

She finally sits on the edge of the couch. Just the edge.

Like sinking into it might mean staying.

Like she’s afraid it’ll be too soft. Too familiar. Too real.

Tim watches her. Still doesn’t move.

And it hurts.

But she understands. Because if he took a step forward… she’d stand up.

And she’d hold him. And she wouldn’t leave.

So they stay apart.

Out of love.

Out of fear.

Out of pride, maybe.

“I think about you, you know.”

She breaks. Not the silence—something inside her.

Her words fall into the room with the soft violence of a truth that couldn’t be held in any longer.

Tim closes his eyes. Just for a second.

“I know.”

His voice is almost a breath. He sits too. Not next to her. Just… a survivable distance away.

Then:

“I think about you all the time.”

And maybe that’s worse. Because he never even tried to hide it. Not from her. Not from himself.

She blinks. A tear clings to the corner of her eye, but doesn’t fall.

Not yet. Not here.

“Then why is this so hard?”

She’s not asking to blame him. She’s not searching for an explanation.

She just wants him to say it for her.

To put words where hers are too broken to reach.

Tim stares down at his hands. He doesn’t have a clear answer.

Just this truth: they love each other. And right now, that hasn’t been enough.

***

He doesn’t respond right away. His hand goes to the back of his neck, like the words are stuck there.

“Because I think we got scared.”

His voice is low, hoarse.

Not from exhaustion. From everything he’s swallowed down.

Lucy looks at him.

He doesn’t meet her eyes.

So she does something they haven’t done in a long time:

she moves closer.

A little.

Not to force. Just to exist next to him again.

“I was scared too,” she whispers.

“But I’m more afraid of living without you.”

And then he looks at her. Really looks.

With that gaze she knows by heart. The one that strips everything away.

The one that says “stay” without making a sound.

Silence.

Then he moves.

He holds out his hand.

Nothing more.

An open palm. Offered. Hesitant.

Almost shaky. Almost too late.

But she takes it.

And in that one touch, there’s everything they never said.

Everything they thought they’d lost.

She sits closer. This time, fully. Her head resting on his shoulder. Eyes closed.

Her heart races. So does his.

But the silence is no longer terrifying.

No longer empty.

It’s the kind of silence that warms.

The kind that stitches you back together. Slowly. Breath by breath.

Tim laces his fingers with hers. He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t make promises.

But he’s here.

And so is she.

And sometimes, that’s enough.

***

He keeps his eyes forward, like it’s easier to talk that way.

But his voice—his voice is turned toward her.

Meant only for her.

“I tried to forget you

A pause. A breath caught in her chest.

Then he tilts his head, just enough for his lips to graze her temple.

And he murmurs, quietly, almost ashamed:

“But you live in every part of me.

Even in the places I thought you’d never touched.”

She closes her eyes.

Because she knows.

Because she feels the same.

Because right now—they’ve found each other again.

Not like before.

But like now.

Like two hearts still learning how to stay.

#chenford #lucy chen #tim bradford #chenfordsource #fanfic ao3 #therookiefic #chenfordfanfic

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damnfandomproblems · 7 months ago

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https://www.tumblr.com/damnfandomproblems/768147269164892160/fandom-problem-6500-im-trans-its-fine-if-i?source=share

Ways to fight for Trans Rights:

❌ Reporting a hate crime. Holding actual transphobic people responsible. Warning others of potentially violent people in their area.

✅ Guilting an ACTUAL trans person from playing a video game by an author who already made bank on the series.

Posting as a response to a previous problem.

Since this generated several responses, I'm going to include a compilation below.

Anon:

I hope y'all know not everyone is aware of all... that. Some buy the game cause they like the universe but dont follow all that is happening on social media. Some of them are not british/english speaking prople and just... don't know. You can either try to, politely, make them aware of what is happening, but if they already purchased it, no need to be agressive. I do not condone jkr, i do not play/entertain anything related to her anymore; but i still have my scarf or books or movies. Does that make me a bad person? Lets take a seat back from HP I am able to understand what is problematic in media/art; i enjoy HOTD and GOT, am i a bad person because i like the serie despite how problematic it is? No. If you refuse to talk to people buying anything HP related, then block them. Don't call someone a bad person without knowing them. Your opinion means nothing.

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Anon:

1. You can enjoy a piece of media without agreeing with the author/artist/developer etc. 2. Way to make Trans people seem like a hive mind. "You can't play this game, even if your trans. Virtue signaler." How about let people play the media they decide to play and decide for themselves it's controversial or not. Like, do you expect people to just follow your cause blindly? 3. THERE IS A TRANS CHARACTER IN THE GAME.

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Anon:

I get this may have been submitted prior to the Oct 7th attacks, and the dramatic rise in antisemitic attacks everywhere, so I won't go off like I wanted to. But to just get to my point, as a Jew, we kinda have bigger problems right now. I'm barely concerned with HP fans.

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Anon:

Here we go with the reading comprehension again. At least one person is the comments is going on about "buying" the game when OP never specified buying it. They just said "playing" the game. Huge difference. One monetarily supports the creators and such, the other doesn't.

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Anon:

This is WILD. The op makes a dozen assumptions, none of which may even be true. For starters the "you are not immune to propaganda" thing might be true in a sense, however OP is using it to imply people are all but guaranteed to fall for propaganda in media. And we all know that isn't true. A person who reads Hitler's shitty book (Mein Kampf) is not going to close it being a step closer to a Nazi sympathizer if they have basic information dissemination skills. A person who goes looking on Kiwifarms for information is not going to be radicalized if they have proper information dissemination skills. So OP is really telling on themselves here and saying the quiet part out loud: they have little or no ability to engage with questionable media without fearing they'll get affected by it in a negative way. They can't go plumbing like that. And they're saying others can't either, which just shows bad perspective. Their quote says the person was talking about playing a game. Playing it. The implications that come with "playing" a game are as follows: the person played it. That's it. If OP can't exercise one brain cell to understand that while yes, people have bought the game, playing it could easily mean they got it from a library or downloaded it illegally via torrent, that's on them. "You're a bad person" is beyond comedic given the above. Dare I say even if someone does buy the game, which I'm wholeheartedly against, saying someone is a "bad person" is still insane. Anyways, OP is basing practically their entire complaint on the premise of someone buying a game when that wasn't even what the quote says. Boo. Do not pass go.

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Anon:

Nooo, we're not bringing Scottish independence into your crusade against people who play a video game, leave my family out of this you keyboard warrior weirdo.

#fandom problem 6500 #response to previous problem #mod sf

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wordsandrobots · 9 months ago

Text

IBO reference notes on . . . the economic blocs

In episode 4, we are shown this map, depicting the current national organisation of the Earth in Iron-Blooded Orphans' setting.

This raises a number of questions, primarily 'what were they smoking when they decided to combine Canada and Russia'?, secondarily 'what does Gundam have against Australia?', and further, 'what's the deal here?' In the spirit of obsessive nerdery -- and inspired by @qqchurch posting about a particular map prop -- I thought I'd have a crack at pulling together some answers.

Some spoilers and a rhetorical swerve ahead.

The bigger picture

Geographically -- astrographically? -- the solar system of Iron-Blooded Orphans is split into different 'spheres', principally the Earth Sphere and the Outer Sphere. This is a holdover from the original 1979 Gundam series, which used 'Earth Sphere' to refer to the region of space containing Earth, the Moon, and the various orbital colonies located within this gravitational system.

I should note, mostly for myself, that while writing fan-fic for IBO I fell into the habit of writing Outer Spheres, pluralising a term I believe is only ever singular within the canon. This stems from the grouping of both Mars and Jupiter (and presumably the Asteroid Belt) into the Outer Sphere. I would argue that post-canon, the pluralisation makes sense since we then have the Mars Sphere as a discrete political entity, but even without this, grouping two distinct planet/moon groups into one sphere seems to cut against the Universal Century definition given above.

[EDIT: I was mistaken here; Kudelia does in fact use 'Outer Spheres' when discussing Earth and the colonies' reorganisation following the Calamity War. She in fact refers to Mars and Jupiter as Outer Spheres, so either I am misremembering the usage elsewhere, or the terminology drifts later.]

Nevertheless, as a in-universe division it makes sense. Earth is the centre of power in this setting, the other planets existing as its colonial holdings. An 'Inner Sphere' or 'Venus Sphere' (depending on which logic we follow to style it) is also visited in spin-off game Urdr Hunt, having been left to decay now its utility in terraforming Mars is over.

In terms of political organisation beyond the Earth Sphere, we spend most of our time with Mars, which is sub-divided into colonies following present-day naming conventions for Martian topography. The principle action takes place on the Chryse Planitia, with the city of Chryse being this region's capital. The city of Noachis, presumably capital of the neighbouring Noachis Terra, is also mentioned.

In practice, Mars is administered as a whole by Gjallarhorn, on behalf of the Earth political blocs that own the various individual colonies, with the officer in charge of the occupation ruling from the Ares space station. The Venus colonies, including the tethered Radonitisa Colony, are likewise overseen from an Aphrodite station, and we might therefore infer a Zeus station exists too. This is in fact one of the few guesses we can reasonably make about Jupiter, since we never actually visit it during the course of the series. Jupiter's moons are likely inhabited, since four subsidiaries of the Teiwaz conglomerate are named after them (IOS, Ganymede Farm, Euro Electronics, Callisto), and it is also probable there are a number of O'Neil cylinder space colonies in the vicinity (flashbacks with Naze and Amida show them sharing a hotel room aboard such a structure). But we never get any hint of how Jupiter is governed, except that the most powerful organisation there seems to be the aforementioned Teiwaz, a corporate mafia/yakuza (they are at once both Italian and Japanese; it's glorious). No other official body ever comes up.

The division of Mars dates to a few years after the Calamity War, when Gjallarhorn was directed to recreate the Martian government from scratch, following on from overseeing the reorganisation of the Earth into four 'economic blocs', abolishing old national borders. And it is here I shall be focusing this post, to take a look at what we are told about each bloc. For the sake of a structure, I am going to take them in reverse order to how much we know, which means we start with the Oceanian Federation.

The Oceanian Federation

Well, first off, their flag goes the hardest of the four. Just look at this.

That aside, of all the blocs, it is a little peculiar that we know the least about the Federation given theirs is the only non-Arbrau, non-Gjallarhorn territory we spend any time in while on Earth. It is they who offer refuge to Arbrau's ousted Prime Minister Makanai after all, setting him up on a tropical island retreat while he awaits the chance to regain power.

This is an impressively sprawling place, befitting a man of Makanai's station. It displays distinctly Japanese style architecture and decoration, which makes sense given this is the bloc in which Japan is situated (it combines Asia with Oceania). Given Makanai's name and preferred form of dress, it is plausible he is himself from the Federation originally, although there is sufficient cultural overlap on display elsewhere that this is far from a necessary conclusion. Regardless, for their own reasons, they give him sanctuary, up to the point Carta Issue pressures them into rescinding their protection and allowing her to pursue Tekkadan.

In a similar vein, the Federation offers Tekkadan's space-based forces safe harbour at their colonies, as quid pro quo for interfering with the African Union's operations. A different set of (specifically industrial) colonies is later shown in Season 2, undergoing an attempted workers' uprising. Having watched the African Union suffer from the Dort uprising in Season 1, the Federation's leaders are not prepared to risk the same happening to them and they give Gjallarhorn a free hand to violently suppress those involved.

Beyond this, we learn nothing whatsoever of the Federation's people or government. The world map aboard the Montag Company ship that carries Tekkadan from Makanai's island to Arbrau centres Japan, an indication that while Gjallarhorn uses Euro-centric maps, this doesn't represent cultural (or navigational) homogeneity. But this is I think more interesting on a meta level, in regards the positioning of the two maps within friendly and antagonistic factions, respectively. As a world-building detail, it's merely logical for a Pacific-based freighter to carry such a chart.

Going beyond the text and doing a quick spreadsheet calculation based on Wikipedia's summary of 2023 data, the Oceanian Federation would account for a full 50% of the Earth's population, with the African Union encompassing approximately 35%, the SAU 13% and Arbrau a paltry 2%. That, however, does not account for the Calamity War and the consequent extermination of a quarter of the human race. In light of this, we might spin the division as a subtly horrific bit of environmental storytelling. We know mobile armours will prioritise targetting the largest concentration of human beings they can detect. What would this have meant for places like India or China when things ran out of control?

Obviously we don't know the state of population distributions pre-War and the quarter figure is given for the solar system as a whole. Still, if we are to assume the four-way sub-division made some sort of sense in the immediate aftermath of the Calamity War, a proportionally heavy casualty rate for the most populous nations on the planet could provide a possible justification for such an uneven-looking arrangement.

(In case you're wondering, subtracting the entire quarter from the Oceanian Federation shifts the percentages as follows: OF: 34%, AU: 47%, SAU: 17%, A: 2%. I present this as an illustration of alternative distributions rather than a feasible scenario; I don't actually believe there's a way to make the division follow purely from current world population.)

Oh, yes, and per tradition, Australia has a big honking hole in it, a call-back to the original Gundam anime's opening colony-drop, that presumably marks an event from the Calamity War. Like the damage done to the Moon, this is never expanded upon, but it does lend some credence to assuming Oceania bore the brunt of the conflict.

The Strategic Alliance Union (SAU)

Hello, yes, this is American one.

The SAU's principle role in the plot is to be incited into war against Arbrau as part of Galan Mossa's plan to embarrass McGillis. This scheme takes advantage of a pre-existing border dispute, the exact details of which are not provided: they're far over the heads of our point of view characters. The conflict occurs on 'Balfour Plain', which I take to mean in the vicinity of Balfour, British Columbia. Beyond that, things are left vague.

It does highlight that friction between the blocs is present along lines going beyond mere economic competition. Indeed, it underlines the blocs as competing entities. They operate as nation-states, advancing their own agendas. This extends, following the events of Season 1, to amassing overt military strength.

We can't attribute the mobile suit storehouse show in the opening montage for Season 2 to any particular bloc. But it does house several Hexa frames in addition to Rodis, which ties in with the later appearance of Gildas at the head of the SAU's army. These are Calamity War-vintage 'suits brought out of mothballs after Tekkadan shook things up by deploying at Edmonton, and they make for a notable contrast with Arbrau's own mecha contingent, which consists of brand new Hloekk Grazes bought from Gjallarhorn.

Gjallarhorn also deploys to provide battlefield support to the SAU, indicating the extent to which this peace-keeping force can intervene in inter-bloc conflicts. Perhaps McGillis' forces act on behalf of the putative defender, given the war was instigated when an SAU jet crashes following exposure to an Arbrau Hloekk Graze's unshielded Ahab reactor. Having not considered the situation critical enough to require mobile suits, the SAU views this as unprovoked escalation and appeals for support.

Which brings us to the rest of the SAU's military forces, consisting of planes use for reconnaissance and mobile workers. This tells us jet fights still have a place Post-Disaster, and that the mobile worker industry is eccentrically prolific.

Like Arbrau, the SAU's military is described as inexperienced. I am not sure where to fit an evident air force into that picture: it could be the lack of experience does not denote newness, as it does for Arbrau's defence force, but simply the absence of any active role prior to the declaration of war. Although the bloc's name -- Strategic Alliance Union -- sounds atypically militaristic compared to the others (rather like naming a country after NATO), it is not ascribed greater martial prowess. The conflict boils down to two rag-tag armies chipping ineffectually away at another, falling for Mossa's attempt to bog the region down in a petty, protracted war and thus ruin McGillis' reputation as a peacekeeper.

That about covers the extent of the information we learn about the SAU in the main series. For more, we must turn to Urdr Hunt and...

Well. OK. I am obliging myself to include this, aren't I? The Zahn Clan are introduced in the game as a crime family from the SAU. The two sons of the Clan's founder, Rubian, are dispatched to take part in the titular hunt to test whether they have the chops to succeed him as head of the organisation. I won't go into the plot here; you can look up my summaries or simply go watch it for yourselves. (Note: official translations of the names have since been provided on the website for the upcoming animated adaptation, but some of these seem of slightly dubious quality compared to earlier fan-sourced versions [I don't think 'Lubian' can be right].)

The thing is, the Zahn family -- Rubian, Rome and Aiko -- are African American gangsters. Stereotypically so. Their mobile suits are styled after cars, they're decked out in rings and gold chains, Aiko has a baseball cap, Rome, extravagant piercings, etc. They're a caricature of United States criminality and the problem is, IBO's art-style tends grotesque when it comes to the underworld, meaning the result is, in motion, when the detail level drops, extremely uncomfortable. It certainly doesn't help that the brothers are depicted as buffoons, playing straight the 'comedy relief idiot' trope Iok subverts in the anime proper (that is, Iok is an idiot and it is not remotely funny).

Their dad is *not* a fool, nor is fellow gangster Jabiro, but I really, really wish this didn't hit quite so many racism buttons at once. Nonetheless, they are a depiction of an aspect of the SAU and must be included in a post covering what we know about the blocs.

Rubian has been wildly successful at running his underworld empire. Though old and infirm, he remains extremely sharp, ruling the Zahn Clan from an honest-to-goodness castle in his home territory. I have no idea which way this cuts with regard to racist caricatures. It seems to be suggesting a level of in-universe tastelessness but quite frankly, I don't think I can fault a mobster who gets wealthy enough to go, 'I'll live like a literal king'.

In terms of the Zahns' relationship to their home bloc, I noted in another post that they are remarkably well-equipped, fielding top-of-the line 'suits alongside more venerable models (including a lot of Gildas) and surplus Gjallarhorn spacecraft. While we know 'top-down' corruption is rife in the Earth Sphere in the sense of Gjallarhorn members empowering themselves by overstepping the bounds of neutrality, the Zahns demonstrate that 'bottom-up' corruption is alive and well too. Indeed, they are described as being explicitly 'backed' by the SAU , with a presence in all of the SAU's territory on Earth and having both Gjallarhorn and government officials in their pocket.

As is to be expected, the blocs are as sordid as contemporary nations, with the criminal classes very much in on the act.

The African Union

That's the Republic of Gambia's flag rearranged into something less cool.

I hesitate to classify the African Union conspiring with Gjallarhorn against the workers unions as an act of corruption, on the principle that 'corruption' implies the system is not functioning as intended. Far from being broken by moving to curtail the activism of people who are (theoretically) its citizens, the Union works to perpetuate its interests, something judged to have been harmed when it eventually concedes to some of the workers' demands. These are economic blocs, after all. Extracting profit and generating wealth is the tacit reason for their existence.

Let's back up. I've re-litigated Season 1's Dort Colony arc in multiple essays at this point, largely because it is a capsule of the series' themes. The struggles of the people who operate industrial facilities for the benefit of "rich factory owners from Earth" -- who live in splendour compared to the slums where the masses are relegated -- culminates with a bloody massacre, Gjallarhorn having manufactured an excuse for violence by allowing tensions to escalate to the point of armed insurrection. These events provide a snapshot of how the writers conceive of colonial and anti-labour oppression, a demonstration of the injustices that permeate every level of the society they have imagined, and an ambiguous moment of success for the protagonists. Kudelia Aina Bernstein gets to be the brave, fearless 'maiden of revolution', photogenically turning the media apparatus against government overreach. But it is underpinned by dubious backroom deals and a sense of how easily things could have gone the other way. This won't be the last time Tekkadan faces the Arianrhod Fleet and their visible insignificance before hundreds of ships and mobile suits is sinisterly prefigurative in retrospect.

For my purposes today, there are two important components to this arc. Well, three really, but we can take Gjallarhorn's utility as the blocs' enforcer as read. So -- the first is how the African Union relates to those living aboard the space colonies, and the second is the way in which those colonies are run for its benefit.

The Dort Company is described as running the colonies as a 'public enterprise' for the Union. As I mentioned in an aside while writing about how IBO engages with capitalism, this creates a surface-level contradiction where we have factories privately owned, presumably for profit, but the colonies themselves framed as a public service. Yet I don't think anybody familiar with how privatisation consumes such services will have a hard time reconciling this. The degree to which the Union is or is not doing state capitalism is ultimately irrelevant: the conflict is between the workers and the company that employs them, as a proxy for the bloc that consigned them to a miserable existence as expendable labour.

The Dort Company is an extremely prominent presence, their branding displayed at scale and their workers all sporting green jackets. 'Dort', by the way, is the historical English name for Dordrecht, the oldest city in Holland and a shipbuilding centre for the Netherlands Trading Society, which maintained shipping lines to the 'Dutch East Indies' (Indonesia). Dordrecht also gave its name to a town in South Africa, in a further link to European imperialism. I can't be sure to what extent IBO's writers were deliberately evoking that history, but it seems unlikely to be an idle connection. The Dort Company is a tool of an Earth-centric empire, maintaining the industrial mechanisms that sustain the African Union, space colonies having taken the place of 'third-world' manufacturing centres. This is where consumer goods are produced, for those who live well, by those who scrape by in poverty.

The visuals sell this with straightforward bluntness. We are shown the slums that house the workers and we are shown the shopping centres frequented by the factory-owning class. Yamagi comments, on seeing the home of labour union leader Navona Mingo on Dort 2, that he expected the colonies to be a lot nicer. He was perhaps picturing the kind of environment Mikazuki, Biscuit, Kudelia, Atra and Fumintan explore aboard Dort 3, a 'first-world' cityscape. The point being made is that these contrasts go together, often in the very cities that look so good on the surface. There is always a disposable underclass, always exploitation required to fuel superficial prosperity.

What I find interesting is that in none of this do we ever see the 'true' African Union, the society the Dort Colonies exist to serve. We never meet any representatives of the Union itself: Gjallarhorn deals with Dort Company executives and faceless communiques. Even in spin-off manga Moon Steel, where the bribery of Gjallarhorn officers by African Union officials is a key plot point, the action remains focused on the space colonies, on the people living in what is essentially captive territory.

This is likewise true for the previous two blocs I've covered and it's a canny choice, centring the struggles of the colonial subjects. The African Union has a 'ruling council'. But our sole insight into them is that they decide to reverse course and put a stop to Gjallarhorn's anti-labour operation at the last minute, afraid of the media exposure Nobliss Gordon arranged for Kudelia. The Dort Company then comes to the table with the (remaining) workers, granting labour rights equal to those existing on Earth.

Obviously this tells us such rights are not the general rule in the colonies, that employees on Earth enjoy privileges denied to those in space, and that the Union leadership is sufficiently sensitive to bad press, they don't want to be seen to sanction the killing of hundreds of colonists. At the same time, what is not said is also significant. We don't know, precisely, what 'rights equal to workers on Earth' materially entails. McGillis' backstory establishes the existence of a terrestrial underclass. There is every reason to believe Yamagi's misapprehensions hold true for the planet as they do for the space colonies: there is no land of wholesale luxury, just the same hierarchical, exploitative structures repeated in different locations.

I admit to finding the idea of Europe being subsumed into an African Union a deliciously ironic one. As a background detail, it's shallowly pleasing. Implied turnabout. But that doesn't matter, does it? Any redress of historical crimes is overshadowed by the fact nothing has been fixed. The same old imperial structures are reiterated, the same old injustices perpetuated. Who is being exploited is of lesser concern than that exploitation is occurring. That's why the details of the blocs' governmental structure and home conditions are largely irrelevant. They are powerful national entities engaged in the operation of capitalism at the expense of their subjects. Whether those operations occur in Indonesia, high orbit or on Mars, the flaw lies in the basic structure of the relationship.

Someone is being worked to death so that someone else, distant or otherwise isolated from this material reality, can profit.

Arbrau

OK, now you're just throwing shapes at a background.

It is inevitable that the bloc we are told the most about should be the one that owns the territory in which the story begins. Chryse is an Arbrau colony; ergo, it is with the Arbrau government that Kudelia must negotiate in order to improve the lot of her fellow Martians. Season 1 is about reaching the heart of this bloc's power, the parliament in Edmonton, Alberta, an aim that morphs into restoring Togonosuke Makanai to the office of prime minister and stymieing the machinations of his Gjallarhorn-backed rival, Henri Fleurs. At last, we can take a look at how Iron-Blooded Orphans conceptualises the political functions of its quartered Earth.

Gundam Wiki states that Arbrau "appears to be a parliamentary democracy" and, while I occasionally have cause to take issue with the editors at that site, this is entirely correct. There is a parliament, as mentioned, a prime minister, a debating chamber, and elections. It is an overtly civilian institution, in contrast to Gjallarhorn's militaristic aristocracy. It is overtly civilised, in the sense of being a bunch of people in business suits ruling a nation.

I should clarify immediately, not least because this threw me on first viewing, that it is not the form of parliamentary democracy found in modern-day Canada. The way the election of the prime minister works is modelling (unsurprisingly) on the Japanese system, where the legislative body holds responsibility for nominating someone to that position (rather than it being de-facto filled by the leader of the dominant party). Hence Makanai and Fleurs courting the support of various ministers and the election being entirely contained within the bounds of the sitting government.

In the epilogue to the series, Lasker Alessi talks about having a constituency, hoping Takaki will take over from him there in the future. We can take from this that Arbrau is a representative parliamentary democracy (not a given; parliaments can operate without representing the citizenry), and therefore that it is more or less the assumed default in the context where the show was written. This is what politics is 'supposed' to look like.

These markers of familiarity are worth bearing in mind when considering the ways Arbrau is depicted as being overtly sympathetic. Makanai has long championed greater economic freedom for the Chryse region; indeed, Arbrau was the first of the blocs to grant limited autonomy to its Martian colonies, some hundred odd years prior to the present. The parliament members respond favourably to Kudelia's landmark speech before them. Later, Alessi takes Takaki on as his protegee, and Edmonton is where the Human Debris Abolishment Treaty is signed.

Furthermore, Chyrse is the only colonial holding Arbrau is shown to possess. While Governor Norman Bernstein is a craven, cowardly man who sells out his own daughter, he is also depicted as being in Gjallarhorn's pocket, part of the (textual, actual) corruption miring the governance of Mars. It is Gjallarhorn who work to uphold the present colonial arrangements, opposing those more open to change. They are behind Fleurs and her temporary ousting of Makanai. Lord Iznario Fareed might be acting for his own personal gain, but he also represents the factions who wish for things to continue as they are, in opposition to McGillis's revolutionary movement and Rustal Elion's (eventual) reforms.

If Arbrau has its own equivalent of the Dort Company, this is kept off-screen. Is it reasonable to assume it does? We know from Urdr Hunt that Dort is one colony management company among many -- the Omden Colony Company is arguably even worse -- so it's far from implausible that Arbrau would have a similar arrangement with its own set of industrial colonies. There is also mention of an 'Outer Sphere Development Corporation' on Mars, which sounds very much like what you would name something that went around exploiting poorer nations for the betterment of shareholders in richer ones. And besides, Chryse has definitely not done well out of Arbrau's nominal stewardship. Abandoning the colony to Gjallarhorn's rule speaks to how little regard has been shown to the people living there, not to mention that while Makanai says his belief in advancing their cause is long-held, it has amounted to very little concrete difference over the course of his presumably lengthy career. Kudelia's trip to Earth is a clearly necessary spur to action.

Action results, though. The restrictions on Chryse are eased, a step toward Mars becoming an independent state. Arbrau is the vanguard of a change in attitude towards the red planet. Perhaps then we should ask why this bloc among the four would be the one to begin this process (beyond the mere narrative convenience of 'that's where the majority of the cast come from').

As I alluded to at the top of this post, I struggle to see the sense in joining Canada, Alaska, Russia and Svalbard together when you're also combining India and China, the entirety of Europe with the entirety of Africa, and the majority of the Americas into one. It really doesn't follow from modern population distributions, nor can I imagine it being an easy stretch of geography to manage. That it should be ruled from Edmonton is additionally baffling; it's not like Russia doesn't have existing civic infrastructure, placed at an awkward distance from this capital.

We can of course attempt to fill in the blanks. We might say a large number of refugees were displaced north during the Calamity War, fleeing densely populated areas for the relative safety of Russian and Canadian wildernesses. There is something compelling about this idea, that Gjallarhorn had to redraw the map simply based on where people ended up once the dust settled.

But let's take Arbrau as given: an expanse of tundra, connected by trains the prime minister doesn't seem to have known were there. Even admitting there are a great many large cities continued within its borders and assuming an increased population, it looks paltry in comparison to the other blocs, seeming to lack large amounts of colonial territory and needing to create a defence force from the ground up when tensions escalate. Where the SAU and the African Union display pre-existing mobile suit stockpiles (placed in the hands of the SAU military and the Dort Company, respectively), Arbrau must buy new 'suits from Gjallarhorn and rely on mercenary groups like Tekkadan to train its recruits.

Overall, everything we learn of Arbrau makes it appear weaker than its counterparts and maybe that in itself is why it should be at the forefront of letting go of Mars. Empires are only worthwhile so long as the costs are outweighed by the gains. A weaker bloc is less likely to make that equation work. Ergo, once Chryse is more trouble than it's worth -- say, because the governor's daughter just parked a paramilitary group run by teenagers on the front lawn -- letting it go becomes an inevitability.

As much as Makanai is broadly on the side of our protagonists, he remains an ambiguous character. He is openly self-serving, threatening Tekkadan into assisting him and frequently espousing a hard-hearted, cynical world-view. If he wasn't just flattering Kudelia, then he genuinely gave little thought to the infrastructure that operated at the ground-level of his nation. He later goes on to treat a greater sense of the moral weight of his actions (following a brush with death) as a personal failing. Given all this, it is unfeasible he would act without considering the economic realities of possessing colonies, good and bad. Thus, his decision to support Kudelia must also benefit Arbrau, freeing them of an economic burden and -- perhaps -- sowing discord among Arbrau's rivals.

This is, once again, speculation, filling space in the narrative where details are not required. To return to my earlier point, the nature of the blocs is far less important than their presence as oppressive forces. They and their representatives signify wealth and power imposing itself upon a wider world. Indeed, signifiers of wealth take the place of any technicalities of the colonial system. The Governor's residence in Chryse is of a piece with Dort 3 and even with Rubian Zahn's castle. This is what the ruling class looks like, in Iron-Blooded Orphans, and the visual obviates the need for explanation.

The Arbrau parliament is the same kind of shorthand. The image of a reasonable political system that, though it may suffer from bad actors, can still be gamed to create good results. It's only natural for it to resemble the form of government socially agreed upon to be correct, by dint of it being the one outside.

Yet, as with everything else IBO does, there is a pleasing degree of problematisation on display. Makanai is the only significant human face provided for the blocs and he is, beneath his oft-times jovial affect, a cold, aloof pragmatist who acts to secure his own position first and foremost, personal beliefs subject to the flow of power around him. His status as a helpful, progressive figure is tinged by his being at home within the broader context. Reasonable and proper though parliamentary democracy is in principle, the reality is still assumed to be unpleasant.

Indeed, can a 'democracy' that owns/owned colonies be anything else?

Cartographical gestures

Let's get this out of the way: the economic blocs as depicted are exactly as fleshed-out as the block-colour map shown in episode 4. That is to say, they are shorthand for global superpowers engaged in a vast, sprawling competition. There is little culture, political nuance, or comprehensible structure instilled into them. These are simply not things Iron-Blooded Orphans cares about exploring and there's no connective tissue to be 'decoded' from what we're shown.

As ever, we can speculate wildly (and have a lot of fun doing so), and unpick what the sketched background tell us about the creators' assumptions and approach. We can question how they envision government bodies, military build-up, American criminality, even what 'rich' looks like. But it is important to be able to step back and really grasp what we are looking at.

The episode 4 map is there to inform the audience that the world is divided between massive superpowers, that the division was enacted by Gjallarhorn, and that the results define where and why our heroes are going on their journey. The actual details of the division are irrelevant. Further, the differences between the blocs are far less significant than their similarities. At the start of the show, they all possess colonies, they can all be assumed to be party to oppressive acts, we have no reason to think their systems of government differ much (they were all set up by the same group of people, at the same time), and their reactions to developments in the setting are of a piece. They even release their hold on Mars in unison! Arbrau gets cast in a more positive light than the others, but that has more to do with Makanai's role as a (relatively) reasonable authority figure. It's not hard to imagine the introduction of equally reasonable characters representing the other blocs, with no change to the underlying message that the blocs at large are callous, indifferent, and imperialistic.

Suffice to say, I think this is the right decision for the story Iron-Blooded Orphans is telling. It is also an entirely unremarkable move, hand-waving a larger world as justification for a particular plot. But I find myself considering the a conceptual floor represented by that map. A geopolitical why underlying Makanai's behaviour is not extant because the story is about the difficulty of reaching those in power with pleas for improvement. Within this framework, he just is a supporter of Martian autonomy and that's that. Digging beneath this is writing fan-fic, not extracting 'lore' or canonical detail.

Ultimately, I take from that a lesson in a piece of fiction's priorities. We have here a marker of a certain geopolitical relationship, within a tale about oppression primarily told from the perspective of the oppressed, that is not strictly concerned with the mechanics of said relationship but rather what it entails.

The map is wallpaper.

Interesting, simplistic, potentially insensitive wallpaper that can be used as the basis for some good stories.

Yet wallpaper all the same.

[Index of other writing]

#gundam iron blooded orphans #gundam ibo #g tekketsu #tekketsu no orphans #reference #notes #arbrau #SAU #oceanian federation #african union #dort company #Togonosuke Makanai #fictional politics #flags

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unhetalia · 6 months ago

Note

any headcanons for alfreds relationships and/or friendships and/or toleranceships with other nations?

Honestly I tend to have a few different versions of one relationship depending on my mood, and for every Alfred ship I like (England, Russia, Germany), the other two relationships have to change with it.

For England, it's the most complicated, because I either have him and Alfred as endgame, or I frame their relationship as father/son, which a lot of people are understandably confused about.

For me, it's pretty simple: these two will always be important to each other in a way that is completely unique from their relationship to anyone else. Don't want to spend too long on them, but their father/son relationship tends to be close, and you can't avoid one if you want to be around the other.

In their endgame universe, things are fraught for a long while, and this tends to be the slowest burn out of all the 'ships. However, Arthur does not let Al out of his sight easily, even if their relationship isn't the most friendly. This relationship basically needs a post of its own, but "complicated yet as always, filled with love" might have to sum it up.

Ivan and Alfred start working together after the Cuban Missile Crisis, when Alfred is forced out of hiding civilian life in order to prevent all-out nuclear war between their countries. They hate each other, at first — Ivan thinks Alfred is selfish for abandoning his government despite disagreeing with them, Alfred thinks Ivan is a coward for not leaving, but eventually they grow to really understand each other. They're together by 1980, and in public AU, Ivan really helps Al when he's ostracised by his people.

If they're not endgame, Ivan is in love with Alfred and he either carries on a charade of hating him in order to be in his space and to make it so Alfred's at least THINKING of him, or they're just... colleagues. Which is sad.

I always have Kiku as being quietly in love with Al, but unwilling to do anything about it. Sometimes, their friendship is unimpacted, and they're close, but sometimes I like to have Al more lonely, and Kiku's feelings will lead to him distancing himself from Alfred. When they're close, Alfred tends to have a bigger group of friends - Taiwan, nyo Philippines, South Korea, nyo India - but when they're not, it usually means I'm craving for a loneloer Alfred. I guess this means his friendship with Kiku leads to his friendship with these others, somehow.

Belarus is (alongside Tony), Alfred's best friend. Alfred isn't scared of Belarus, and Belarus is surprisingly a really good listener - she doesn't get impatient when Alfred talks about x topic for too long, and will even ask (practical) questions. They're not touchy feely, but the two of them accept the other as they are, and both of them need that.

Matthew is another one that needs his own post — I default to a Matthew that both resents his brother yet loves him to the point of obsession. Alfred is oblivious, and always forgives Matthew when he lashes out.

Mexico is their older sister who blatantly favours Alfred (further adding to Matthew's issues). She and Alfred have similar life trajectories - violent revolution and rejection of the traditional "Nation works for government." Matthew's the complete opposite on both fronts, so she just finds it hard to connect with him. Mexico is incredibly independent and can go years without seeing either of her siblings, so she's not in the picture very often, and is not really the type you would talk to about your problems or feelings.

France and Alfred are very close, and I've spoken about that a few times, so I won't go on (/tagged/re: face). There's a lot of mutual respect there.

Scotland adores Alfred, and Alfred adores him right back, and he treats Al completely different to Arthur's other colonies. Northern Ireland and nyo Ireland are similarly close with Alfred, and it's only Wales who does't actually care for Alfred at all and doesn't approve of him.

China is fond of Alfred but mostly in a distant way - he's mostly concerned with his siblings and himself.

Cuba loathes Alfred because he believes if Al had done his job, his people wouldn't have been impacted the way they were. Most people who dislike Alfred are in the same boat. These include, surprisingly, Spain and Portugal, who both see Alfred as irresponsible and "not doing his duty right."

Similarly, there's a subsection of England's colonies/ex colonies who resent Al. Anguilla, Barbados, Bermuda, Gibraltar, Falkland Islands. (Canada).

If you have any characters you want to ask about in particular, please do!

#hetalia #hetalia world series #aph america #hws america #-#reply.#re: america #.txt

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tinfoilhatsss · 2 years ago

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Naomi is actually an antagonist

Most people have different theories about Naomi from BSD, so I thought I'd put my opinion in.

First off, Naomi is NOT an author like the rest of the BSD cast. Her namesake comes from Jun'ichirō Tanizaki's novel 'Naomi'. I'm going to be speculating about the connection between the novel and the BSD character, but I actually haven't read the novel myself. I'm taking my information from the summary.

The two members of the Armed Detective Agency without an author's namesake are Naomi and Haruno. (As seen down below)

Both are characters from the novel 'Naomi'. I'm just going to be focusing on Naomi for now, as she plays a bigger role in the novel and in the BSD plot, so I have a better understanding of the character.

Anyways. Naomi and Tanizaki's relationship has never really made sense to me. Asagiri is known for humanising his characters and making sure that all of them have motives, even some antagonists. For example...

Mori, although as asshole of a character, has an overarching need for the greater good. Although he has made some pretty hurtful decisions to get there, it's with a 'good' cause in mind

Fitzgerald wanted the book to revive his daughter to try and piece back together his family by improving his sick wive's mental state

I know this doesn't really apply to Fyodor and Fukuchi, but I have no doubt that by the end of the arc, their actions will have some sort of reasoning to them.

So WHY did he write Naomi and Tanizaki into some sort of seemingly incestuous relationship? Either or both of the scenarios below could explain their actions:

They're faking their romantic intentions

They're fake siblings

It still doesn't answer the question of what their relationship adds to the plot. It could be written with the intention of humour in the end, but Asagiri has stated in an interview that he's a fan of Chekhov’s Gun (the principle that all elements of a story are essential), which means he most likely wrote their relationship with a specific intention.

If Naomi holds a similar characterisation to the novel she is from, then her relationship with Tanizaki might not be as caring as it is made out to be.

In the novel, the character Naomi is actually the antagonist. The protagonist is an older man who becomes obsessed with Naomi and her Westernised personality. (Note: the book is set in post ww2 when America took part in the colonisation of Japan and thus became a large part of the culture there.)

The protagonist, a salaryman named Jōji, plans to gradually groom 15-year-old Naomi when they meet at a cafe. Her true nature is revealed to be incredibly manipulative. She eventually reverses the power imbalance and Jōji ends up completely submitting to her every whim.

This makes me question her role in the plot of BSD. Especially now that we actually haven't seen her in a long time (the entire Decay of Angels arc). Most BSD characters are based on the protagonists of their novels (Oba Yozo and Dazai), if not the author themselves.

Naomi being represented by the Antagonist makes me wonder if she is in fact a threat to Tanizaki. I would say that she is an ability, but Dazai has touched her before, so it's been confirmed she isn't. Could she be made by the book? Is she controlling Tanizaki, a mastermind in disguise? I think there must be more to her character than we see, or else Asagiri wouldn't have written her in.

she looks kind of sinister in the manga yknowww...

#naomi tanizaki #naomi bsd #bsd analysis #bungou stray dogs analysis #bsd theories #bsd #bungou stray dogs #tanizaki naomi #tanizaki junichirou

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artist-issues · 1 year ago

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I saw the steven universe post of yours and I am wondering about something.

Are you actually, honestly happy?

You seem very sure that happiness can only come from perfectly following your religion's teaching about what your god wants people to do. If that truly makes you happy every day I don't think anyone can convince you that it doesn't hold true for everyone else.

I’m joyful. Happiness is fleeting. It’s a good thing but it’s dependent on your circumstances. Joy isn’t. Joy is a posture of the heart that comes from knowing who I am and where I’m going, in Jesus Christ.

Joy doesn’t come from “perfectly following my religion’s teaching about what my god wants people to do.” It’s really important that you understand that.

It just comes from having a relationship with the One who made me and saved me. I fail to follow the Bible’s (not “my religion’s,” because when you say “your religion” you’re implying one man-made set of rules out of many I could’ve chosen from, and that’s not what the Bible is) teaching all the time. I fail to do what He wants every single day.

If I were just focused on following rules and making sure everyone else toes the line, too, I’d be miserable. There are worldviews like that. But the Biblical worldview isn’t one of them.

Ephesians says “It is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.” Not by works. I can’t measure up or follow all the rules or obey God perfectly; nobody can—except Jesus! That’s the point. When God looks at me and loves me, He does it because of what Jesus did for me on the cross. So anything I do that falls short? It’s covered. And I’m loved perfectly; God never loves me less, or bases His affection toward me on how good or bad I do day-to-day.

And in the meantime, He changes what I want, but by bit, so that I get back to who I was always meant to be; His creation, made for love. I love Him, and His people, more and more every day. I stop thinking so much about me. There’s all this freedom, because I don’t have to do any of it alone. And, I’m forgiven, and loved, and adopted, and no circumstance or person in the world can take that from me, ever.

That’s where joy comes from. Real joy, that is not dependent on anything that changes. Sometimes I still get unhappy. Sometimes I get trapped in a cycle of overthinking and anxiety and even depression—but it has not lasted, and it never can. Because the moment I reach out for help, He’s there, reminding me of who I am in Him, lifting my eyes up off of my circumstances or out of my dark thoughts, by helping me focus on Him.

A lot of people find this kind of “higher than my circumstances” emotion in “something bigger than themselves.” The difference is, mine is eternal, and it lasts, and it never gets corrupted. I’m talking about the God of the Bible and a relationship with Him, not the religious imperfect humans of religion. Human movements get corrupted, religious or secular. Human nations fall. Human families or lovers change and die. All those “something bigger than myself” sources for happiness eventually go away. Not a relationship with God.

So hopefully I’ve answered the spirit of your question. It might help you to know that in my reblogs to that post, I’ve mentioned that God let’s you choose. You can either choose to be His, and be what He made you to be, or you can insist that something else will make you happy and keep chasing that. He lets you do that. But in the end, nothing else except Him lasts. And by end, I mean, “THE end.” Life goes on past this. And if you end this life choosing to chase temporary things for happiness in sources outside of the God that invented Good and Happy, you’ll spend eternity outside of Good and Happy, because you chose to spend it without their Source.

So when I made that post, I made it because I believe that Rebecca Sugar made Steven Universe and infused what she thinks the God of the Bible is like into the character of White Diamond. But she has Him all wrong. I know Him, and He’s not like that, but I can see how someone who doesn’t know Him would come to those conclusions.

So it’s like if someone who barely knew your best friend made a vital skit on Instagram about your best friend…and it was all wrong. They slandered your best friend—and what’s worse, they did it because they never really understood your best friend, and don’t have a relationship with your best friend, and you know that if they did they not only wouldn’t have made the skit, but they would get the blessing of having a friend like your bestie.

I hope some of this has answered your question. Thank you for taking the time to send it, and maybe to read this long response.

#Feels like it comes from a genuine place #asked #answered #my Steven universe post #christianity #joy #my one comfort both in life and death

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invye · 10 months ago

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How They Met [1/3] - MiShanks

[CoraMiShanks Fix It AU]

I think it's time I write up my thoughts about how exactly Mihawk, Shanks and Rosinante met and outline the start of what will become their relationship. And since I am pathologically incapable of writing short posts, I'll cut it into three, so I can take my time.

Mihawk & Shanks [this post]

Mihawk & Rosinante/Corazón [link]

Rosinante & Shanks [link]

- Mihawk & Shanks -

The first meet in Loguetown, as they so often do. At the point of Rogers' execution Mihawk's exploits have pinged the Marine's radar once or twice, but he has not been given a bounty of his own yet as there were bigger fish to contend with. Mihawk attends to pay his respect to Roger as the Marine's greatest challenger, shoes that he doesn't expect - nor wants - to fill, but will aspire to anyway along his way to becoming the World's Strongest Swordsman.

He doesn't expect the reaction of the crowd to Roger sending them out to find his treasure, given that Mihawk himself doesn't care about treasure at all. Roger hasn't even taken his last breath yet and the pirates of tomorrow are running to be the first ones out at sea. It's a bit disrespectful, honestly. On top of that, crowds really aren't Mihawk's thing. At all. And he didn't bring Yoru (that would only have gone wrong with the amount of Marines all around), so while he's desperately trying to keep his cool and get out of the crowd's way, his mind is growing increasingly more frantic.

That is until he quite literally stumbles over Shanks. Mihawk recognises him immediately (really, it should be illegal to give minors bounties, no matter what crew they belong to), red hair, strawhat, planted like a rock in the moving crowd, the only person in sight to actually shed tears. Mihawk blessedly stops thinking (panicking) and instead starts acting. Grabs the kid, who no doubt would be the Marine's first target three minutes from now, and gets them the hell out of there, leading them away from the port instead of toward it.

They don't talk as Mihawk ducks them into an alley when the Marines start running by. It's not the best hiding spot, but with Mihawk playing up the bored noble act, shielding Shanks from direct view, its enough that the Marines don't look twice and keep going. Mihawk ends up handing Shanks his handkerchief, faintly hears himself giving a platitude about Roger having been a great man, and once things calm down he makes his exit, without looking back even once.

In the months following after, Mihawk is one of the many many new pirates who receive bounties during the rush onto the Grand Line. Shanks is elated when he finally gets to put a proper name to the man who helped him instead of thinking of him as Hawkeyes (he likes Hawkeyes though, and that nickname might already be stuck given how much he has asked around for him... Whoops).

Mihawk doesn't care for his bounty. Doesn't care for being a pirate either, but there's plenty strong people to fight among the pirates now, and a high bounty does attract interesting challengers... Also he does still have some unfinished business with the Marines, so.

Mihawk's bounty skyrockets as he's given the Marine Hunter epithet. Shanks turns around to newly recruited Benn and says: "This is gonna be our swordsman!" and Benn can't do anything but raise his eyebrows in open questioning of Shanks' sanity. Then again, he doesn't follow Shanks because he thinks he's sane.

It takes another year for Shanks to track Mihawk down. It really wasn't an easy task with how Mihawk seems to just go wherever the wind takes him, but he finds him none the less.

"Hawkeyes!!" Shanks yells (and Mihawk has a sudden epiphany about where that epithet came from, because he's heard it being whispered behind his back, but no one has used it to his face yet), "Join my crew!!!" "No." "Why not?" "There's nothing a crew could offer me." "I want you to be my swordsman though." "You carry a sword of your own." "You're better." "Obviously. I'll be the World's Strongest Swordsman before long." "See! That's why I want you on my crew!" "No." Had Mihawk known Shanks a little better at that time, he would have been worried about the sudden silence and the contemplating look on Shanks face. But he didn't, so he simply turned to leave. Then: "Will you join me if I beat you?" And Mihawk can't help but laugh.

They do duel after that. Mihawk thoroughly unites Shanks' behind with the sand under their feet. Shanks is weaker than him, a little off balance (might be the recent growth spurt [actually is mostly due to Shanks being flustered at realising he really likes Mihawk's laugh]), but his technique loudly speaks of his upbringing. It's exhilarating. There is a telling spark of Haki that Shanks is actively holding back and Mihawk can't wait to see what he can do when he decides to fully unleash it. Mihawk ends the duel by telling Shanks to keep up his training and try again a couple months from now.

Shanks is back the next month. He still loses, but from then on the duels are a regular thing, only becoming more frequent until there is barely a week going by in which they don't cross blades.

When Shanks eventually manages to eek out a win (by going all in with his Conqueror's Haki rather than his swordsmanship), he doesn't ask Mihawk to join the crew again. They've already long understood that if Mihawk ever is to join, he will do so on his own time and volition. Until then they will have their duels.

(Shanks is working on making Mihawk stick around for drinks every now and then, it's only a matter of time.)

#i couldn't not write my own version of the loguetown meeting #it feels like a rite of passage for writing mishanks #coramishanks fix it au #mishanks #dracule mihawk #red haired shanks #one piece

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theratisbackanditsinyourkitchen · 11 months ago

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not to cause drama or anything but I HATE SCYTH ASMR! (Tw fictional domestic abuse, and fictional abuse of power)

Hate is a strong word, and my feeling might be a little over the top but, I do wanna talk about some of his stuff. I was a big fan of his when his first V vid was made. I joined the discord and followed all his posts. And then he posted a video that happened to have domestic violence in it, MASSIVE TRIGGER WARNING FOR THAT PAST THIS!!!! this vid has the listener character “cheeky” (I will not be calling her that cus that’s is a cringe ass nickname btw) and V, the romantic interest training, then after some flirting (one sided on V’s part, I’ll get into this later) a cargo truck full of scientists drives by! V quickly gets into the trunk and kills everyone in there, the listener character tries to stop him from killing what she think is an innocent person, he kills the guy in front of her, and then throws her out of the car, chokes her, talks about how he’s going to kill her and pin her death on the people in the cargo truck, and then says “how about one more kiss before you go” before letting her go. He then afterwards explains that the reason he killed all of them, was because of some in story lore about werewolves. It’s explained that what they did basically caused a werewolf to go feral and become evil and kill people. So obviously! These scientists who were probably forced by the government to do this, deserved to die! That makes sense! Anyway the moral of this vid was that the listner character should always listen to V no questions asked! I hate this vid for a number of reasons. The biggest one is the number of comments sexualizing and romanticizing the fucking horrible and traumatic abuse this listener faced, even bigger then that was the fact scythe audio fed into it.

The worst comment (trigger warning, victim blaming)

As you can see, scythe not only condoned this behaviour, he feed into it. This comment makes me sick. I accidentally watch this video without reading the description and became very triggered at the video. (this is not scythe audios fault, I must make this clear) seeing people make jokes like “I asked to be choked but not like this” and talking about how the listener character deserved and even enjoyed the attack was and still is repulsive.

The relationship between V and the listener character was also extremely abusive, but it was always shown as loving, or something like that. The listener has to stay with V and basically do whatever he asks (including kissing and I assume sexual favours) or be tossed to the streets to be picked up by either the evil shadow government or the actual government. Both wanted her dead. So, she’s trapped staying with a man who threatens violence if she doesn’t follow his every whim, who sexually harasses her daily, who diminishes her trauma, and who treats her like trash, just so she doesn’t her tormented and eventually killed. My issue with this isn’t the fact he’s an abusive ass hat, my issue is that instead of giving him any actual character growth, V was given orphans. He was made into an adopted dad to a shit ton of orphans cus he has ZERO REDEEMING TRAITS OTHER THEN HOT. Scythe audio must have realized this guy was his money maker and realized he had to make this guy actually redeemable if he wanted to have him to keep Marlon him money. Anyway it was unconvincing cus right after introducing the fact there were cute kids in the equation, he dropped the domestic abuse.

Another thing, less about the videos and more about how he interacted with fans. His discord sever had rolls for age! They specifically had one labeled “16 and under”, now, I’m not against having minors in asmr fandom spaces, but having minors especially such young ones in a sever he made? It just felt like a weird choice, especially seeing as he had and still has, and I’m going to say it bluntly, porn up on YouTube. Now you can say “but the video said 18+!” We all know that has never ever stopped a minor from doing anything. With this said, a large amount of his fandom was under 18, I’ll give him this, I don’t think i ever saw Scythe interact with an under 18 fan, but he knew they where there, he knew they watched his content. And yet knowing this, he wrote stories that glorified domestic abuse as a way to teach your partner how to fall in line he wrote stories glorifying the horribly toxic relationship that was V and the listener character. This type of thing affects kids greatly, especially if they have no clue it is abusive. Even in the video with the domestic abuse the description says “this may be triggering to listeners in regards to domestic based violence” not “Trigger warning, this video contains Domestic abuse!” It says it more like “it’s kinda domestic abuse, but only if that triggers you”

In Redacted, the description will always tell you what to expect. “Gaslighting, manipulation, toxic relationship” he will make sure you know that a toxic relationship is toxic, he makes sure your aware that the abuse shown, isn’t love. The most scythe does is say “well V is a villain! He’s not a good guy!” And yet her tries to make him redeeming so people like him.

Now, I get that this was over 2 years ago, scythe audio could have totally moved past this weird glorifying abuse thing, who knows! I mostly wrote this as a vent cus my friend reminded me he existed. Anyway if you made it this far have a nice day. If you where or still are a scythe fan, tell me what you think of all this (without being mean please) if you happen to be scythe himself block me I don’t want you near me. Anyway have a nice day!

#asmr #asmr rp #bf asmr #scythe audio

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nalyra-dreaming · 1 year ago

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I’m not sure if I agree with previous anon about DM fans setting themselves up for disappointment to be honest. Sure there’s been some intense theorizing going on, but a lot of DM fans on here have continuously been making fun of themselves for it and have quite seriously been reiterating “might be nothing” about certain ”clues”. Most DM fans I follow have wanted a past-DM but have never been sure that it happened. There’s some exceptions I’m sure but still. I’ve also seen a fair amount of posts about people being happy with a present-only DM story line. Personally I’ve never been convinced of a past-DM but I think it’s understandable that people theorized about it with the whole “memory is a monster”, Daniel starting to have flashbacks of Armand and due to their book story line.

Rolins have stated that they are doing DM, and that fans of DM shouldn’t worry, so having any kind of expectations shouldn’t be wrong. Also reading the discussions after the finale fans seems to me not chiefly upset that DM is different but now worried about how it’s different. Fans of Armand are also separately worried about the change to his character that he would turn someone out of anger/spite. Also if DM is reduced to simply an enemies-to-lovers plot it becomes a very different relationship. Might even become unrecognizable as Devil’s Minion. Adaptational changes are to be expected (and have been expected) but it doesn’t follow that any kind of changes can be made. I think DM can still be done, even if there’s no past-DM but I also get worried when Rolins states things that having Armand change Daniel into a vampire is them “honoring DM”. This worries me because it feels to me to reveal that Rolins’ take of the relationship might be pretty shallow, and that worries me going forward. Cause I’m happy for present-only DM but I want it to be DM you know? I can even be okay with a turning-out-of-anger if other aspects of DM are adapted well (which might be more difficult now that Daniel’s a vampire but I’m open to see what they’ll do). Like you can’t do Darcy/Lizzie from P&P without the ’Pride’ and the ’Prejudice’ you know? A good adaptation can change a lot of things but certain things are what makes that relationship/character what it is/who they are.

I do feel you anon, I also worry about people imposing certain readings and theories on what’s happening that will end up in disappointment but also fans don’t have to like all changes or plots you know? Like Rolins and co. might simply write something that fans (of the show/DM or just of Armand and/or Daniel) might not like. Which is not necessarily because they set themselves up for disappointment. Having an open mind going forward is obviously good (and I’m a DM fan who has been arguing that Alice is not Armand in any way and that DM probably didn’t happen in the past) but I think fans have the right to question the writing when a big part of Armand’s character has seemingly been changed, Daniel’s turning into a vampire is not shown (and basically implied by Rolins to not be important - he might be trolling but we don’t know that) etc. Like the bar shouldn’t have to be on the floor either? I don’t think you or you Nalyra are implying that to be clear, I just want to explain my perspective.

I’m a bit worried that Daniel and Armand respectively might become a bit short-changed writing-wise due to Rolins seeming disinterest and focus on other storylines and plots. And to be clear, I never expected any DM this season since it’s not “their” book. Big things happened to their characters this season however. I was a little underwhelmed by the lack of emotional fallout after S02E05 (an episode I loved). Like Daniel gets pissed off and that motivates him to go after Armand sure and we get to see that anger (martini scene is definitely him acting out/trying to rattle Armand), but shouldn’t he have a bigger emotional reaction, really? He gets half-a-scene of expressing sadness and processing it. Sure he can’t lose it on the powerful vampire but there are other ways of showing emotional impact. Maybe this is just me though. Also if they are setting up a hate-love thing couldn’t Daniel and Armand have shared a more personal scene at any point before? Almost all of their interactions are about other people (even in S02E05). I know they aren’t the primary main characters, but if the show is going a certain direction they should build it up. I don’t think that’s too much to ask. I worry now that the writers’ get a bit of tunnel vision on the story they are currently telling, which results in them underwriting certain other things and characters - which will lead to inconsistencies and undermine those characters and plots later. I wasn’t very worried about this however until S02E08 and Rolin’s comments though. I hope I’m wrong, and I know I worry too much at times so I’m going to try to be cautiously optimistic and hope they will adapt DM well, and that they have some well thought through plans about what they will do with Daniel and Armand (separately but also together) going forward. Thanks and sorry for long ask! This was kinda focused on your previous anon, but I’d love to hear what you think Nalyra!

:) I get you and I just hope that the plan they stated before, this “vision“ that Rolin had to present to AMC as well … holds. I do hope they have arcs in mind. I hope we will be able to look back and slap our foreheads - for all characters :)

As per Dubai - I also was a bit… underwhelmed by some of the missing bantering. I had expected a lot more to the likes of “Who‘s afraid of Virginia Wolf“ - but most of Dubai was quite tame imho.

Now LOUIS‘ lack of reactions is most certainly “re-adjustment“, just like him sleeping while Armand told his little Lestat fanfic was no coincidence either.

But, fear or not, I had expected Daniel to tear apart the tale a bit ealier. Make them all (!! all three!) “bleed“ (literally and figuratively) a bit sooner.

So yeah. I just… hope the pleas to trust them will be justified in the end^^

It IS a brilliant show. But it will only atay sonif the characters stay true as well. So far they’ve given a lot of nuance - with season 3 this needs to be completed to include Lestat (and Nicolas and Gabrielle etc) and then the characterarcs need to come together.

And when they do - then DM will come into fruition, latest. The concert, Akasha, Night Island. THEN, when it all comes together, we will see if what they did… fits. Imho :)

#anonymous #ask nalyra #interview with the vampire #iwtv #amc iwtv #amc interview with the vampire #armand #daniel molloy #the devil’s minion

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