#A little exposition

[minty364]

DPXDC Prompt#128 part 2

Jason had finally made it too a safe house, his eyes blurred everything together and he was having a hard time breathing. His soulmate seemed close to death when they switched and Jason began to worry about making it a little. Thankfully the safe house was close to where his soulmate had been wandering. He was getting a scolding when Jason was finally in his own body he decided. He thankfully remembered the combination for the lock and sat down on the couch after locking the doors behind him. 

His head was pounding and he wanted to do nothing more than lay here on the couch but the sooner he got in contact with Bruce and the rest of them the sooner he could find himself in his own body again. He took closer attention to the one he was inhabiting at the moment and noticed a few things about it. For one he was wearing a shiny silver belt that had some bright green, the kind that seemed a little too close to the green of the pit or his eyes when he got angry. He moved to touch it but when his skin made contact he violently got shocked. Now Jason had gotten electrocuted before, but this was on a whole new level. 

This utterly confused him, why was his soulmate wearing something that would cause him this level of pain? He couldn’t have been wearing it on purpose, maybe he was forced to wear it? The more he thought about it the more pissed off he got. If someone was forcing his soulmate to wear something that caused this level of pain to torture him made Jason nauseous. He took a few breaths to calm himself before he thought about what his next steps should be.

First he was going to check and see what supplies this safe house had, it was one of Bats so there was probably a spare communicator somewhere he could use. He carefully got back up from the couch afraid to touch the damn belt again and began looking. He found some first aid and a communicator right where he thought it’d be and he put it in his ear and spoke,

“Hey, Jason here, finally got to a safe house, buddy when you get here you’ve got some explaining to do”

—————

Danny could feel how tense the car was as Batman drove. He’d  be totally excited to be riding in the Batmobile but dreaded the conversations he was about to have with everyone here, everyone being Batman, his soulmate, and all of the people that could apparently hear everything through the helmet he was wearing. Danny was afraid to take it off at this point seeing as Batman had been almost silent the whole way. 

Danny had a few moments to actually think about things. The most pressing being his soulmate was in his half almost fully dead body. He knew he was wearing ratty clothes and a specter deflector last. They made him wear it at the facility and he really hoped his soulmate hadn’t tried to touch it. 

Another thing that had bothered him is the body he was currently in. It felt off, not half dead like his own but something similar. He could feel the ectoplasm flowing through his veins but it was much less than what he had. Jason was more alive than Danny was especially at the moment. 

He’d panic a bit more about not knowing the state his soulmate and body were except his helmet crackled back to life,

“Hey, Jason here, finally got to a safe house, buddy when you get here you’ve got some explaining to do”

It felt weird hearing his own voice in the tone of a stranger and he felt it was probably the same for him.

“Jason I’m in the car with your soulmate, let me know your position,” Batman said his voice crackled in his ears. Danny wasn’t sure what to say, he was worried about his soulmate but he sounded really pissed. Probably because Danny took his chance to kill the Joker, he assumed his soulmate intended to kill him anyways since the safety was off.

Danny kept silent throughout the rest of the trip after Jason told them his location. He was honestly a little terrified, he wouldn’t doubt that his soulmate knew Batman with the way they were talking to each other so he went through what he knew about the bats. He went through all of the bats he knew and came to the conclusion that his soulmate must have been Red Hood which meant he was in Red Hoods body at the moment and that thought didn’t help comfort him at all. 

That also meant that Red Hood was his soulmate and that terrified him even more. He’d heard stories, mostly from Sam who kept an eye on everything Gotham related seeing as it was her favorite city. Danny missed his friends, they had seen him get kidnapped by the GIW and tried their best to free him but it wasn’t any use.

Danny spent months in the facility and if it wasn’t for the GIWs own incompetence he’d still be there. They had done some terrible things to him during his captivity. They were in the middle of moving him back to his cell when the lights went out. They hadn’t thought to install a back up generator so the ghost shield had temporarily gone down. He was able to fight them back and escape somehow but the belt he was forced to wear made it impossible for him to use his powers. 

He had been on the run for about a week when the switch happened. 

He tensed a little as Batman parked the car. 

Master Post:

Previous:

Next:

[lynxgriffin]

Eldritchrune - A Dark Offer

1 | 2 | 3

Story Setup Eldritchrune Masterpost

After a long cry out, Ralsei tries to get Kris to open up a bit. What Kris wants does have a cost, though!

Second part is here, and third part will be up tomorrow!

[a2zillustration]

One last night together before everything changes :')

| First | | Previous | | Next |

[[ All Croissant Adventures (chronological, desktop) ]]

[[ All Croissant Adventures (app) ]]

[weevmo]

Hihi, could you maybe accept some more lore to your after home wally as request for art? Have a good day!!

More under cut! Decided to go WAY back to do some preliminary explaining for it; explore Home and Wally's relationship and "responsibilities" .

[egophiliac]

#i feel you op i also started initially to read the stories but got busy grinding for events instead 😭 #i also haven't read any of the events not even madguy bc i feel like im gonna miss a lot of context i feel sorry for my boys #although I've recently caught up to ch7 and it made me a stornger more brainrotted madguy fan than before #ppl said it's gonna get more insane later on and im nervous #but so far. the stories are GOOD i highly recommend reading it if you're able to #it's just kamen rider but with extra steps #also to assuage your fear (i hope?) i heard from the grapevines that the change to leon is minimal you can easily miss it (via @chipsncookies)

YES I feel a lot better knowing other people are in the same boat as me! :') as someone who only plays games very casually, the events are fun (and have been a good excuse to get those support stories on characters I was kinda ignoring) but SO distracting -- and they have a connected overarching narrative of their own (make sure you read them in order when you get to them!) so I don't want to skip any. which I guess is to say that my problem is that I'm enjoying the writing too much! how dare they.

overall it definitely has that Kamen Rider tone and feeling I was hoping for and I am VERY pleased with it! I do kinda miss the kitbashy monsters, though otherwise it's basically just Rider But With More Random Scenes of Characters Being Ridiculous At Each Other and that is exactly what I was after. (also exquisite taste, Mad Guys are best guys 🤝)

and as long as I still haven't gotten to episode 13 and can therefore continue to be hilariously naive, let me just say that I know what I'm dreaming of for Leon. he deserves it.

...although I do think it would be VERY funny if they made that whole big "WE WILL BE UPDATING LEON'S SPRITES TO REFLECT STORY CHANGES!!!!" announcement and then it turns out that they just like. hue-shifted his eye color slightly to the right or something. it's not even a big story beat, Leon just decided to try out some color contacts, maybe comb his hair back a little, and we don't have the heart to tell him to stop. :(

[thepixelblender]

[archiveofmiksown]

hakita once said that v1 is not the main character of ultrakill and i've always found this idea so cool in the sense that we get to explore a narrative that absolutely does not give a shit about us. though our actions as v1 have large and devastating effects (cough gabriel cough) the character of v1 undergoes no changes. this isn't about us! we're simply going through the world with no clear intent to change it. shit just happens and we're there to be a bloody witness.

...that said, i find it infinitely more interesting that v2 plays a similarly insignificant role in the story. that v2 is another poor thing that the story doesn't give a shit about. it is one of two (so far) recurring bosses and what happens to it? it fucking DIES! except v2 gets development. except v2 has some clear intent when it seeks revenge. v2's arc is so similar to gabriel's except it is doomed by the narrative—sadder yet, it is abandoned by the narrative! v2 is living in a story that does not give a shit about it but it's somehow sadder to me....

[syekick-powers]

it's fascinating to me how tumblr users who talk about worldbuilding seem to fall under distinct camps of audiences who don't care about detailed worldbuilding logistics at all, audiences who just want things to make sense and cohere internally even if it's not perfectly realistic, and audiences who seem less interested in stories and more interested in just hearing about the tiniest most irrelevant minutiae of how a fictional world works to the detriment of actually telling a story. and then there are also storytellers on here who also fall under three similar camps of writers who don't really care about detailed worldbuilding and mostly paint their worlds in broad strokes, those who put a fair amount of thought into their worlds but don't really get down into the fine details, and those that plan every tiny little fucking thing out. the variety of humanity is truly fascinating

[marlshroom]

drawing an idea where carmen has to bring a plus one into a very exclusive party to stop vile from doing no good and brings ivy but then they both run into julia....

[hibanny]

what i love about Dungeon Meshi is how Ryoko Kui slowly eases you into how fucked up its world and story are, she doesn’t throw all the drama and darkness in your face right away, sure it starts with tragedy but she then walks you through, to, and beyond it in a safer and less overwhelming way by focusing on its comedic and lighthearted parts with sprinles of more serious and darker ones thrown in, slowly making the latter parts be of bigger importance the deeper into the dungeon the characters go, which, in my opinion, makes its dramatic and heartwrenching moments much more impactful because you feel a lot more connected to its world and characters once you get to where everything is going, you start to care about them because of their positivity and beauty so you want to stay through their negativity and ugliness.

[hananono]

ive always felt that serizawa actually doesnt know a whole lot when it comes to spirits and curses. in claw, he mostly dealt with other psychics, and before that he was completely isolated. the supernatural has always been present in his life, but he has no real knowledge about it aside from educated guesses mid-exorcism and stuff he picked up from video games—he was actually surprised that psychic powers worked on ghosts at all, since in pokémon psychic types are weak to ghosts and not the other way around.

[tennessoui]

For the prompt list, nanny/single parent obikin would be amazing!!

(from this prompt list)

(the first time I answered this prompt two years ago, the nanny anakin au was born)

so to do something different, here's some gffa widowed anakin, nanny (sort of) obi-wan!

(2.5k)

It is hard to find time to grieve. There are too many things to do. Too many appointments to make, too many decisions Anakin isn’t sure he’s qualified for. Some decisions are easier than others. For example, the funeral will be on Naboo. There will be two services: a public one to honor Padmé’s public service, and a private one to honor who she was as a person. The casket will be closed, because his wife died when her cruiser exploded. There isn’t much left to bury anyway.

But some decisions are harder. Which flowers should go on her casket. What songs would she want sung and who should sing them? Would she prefer her grave closer to her ancestral home or the home she created in her adulthood?

If she told anyone the answers to these questions, it wasn’t Anakin. But then, the people who knew her best, who loved her most, died with her. Sabé, Rabé, Saché, Yané, all of her handmaidens—an assassination such broad strokes that it was impossible for it to fail.

So Anakin chooses Yali lilies, because Leia’s eyes linger on them the longest. He chooses a small Nabooian folk band to play after her service because their music is the first thing to make Luke lift his head from his coloring books in days. He formally requests that her body be buried among her ancestors, and the Nabierres agree immediately.

And he keeps telling himself that he will grieve, but there is so much to do. 

And then—then there’s after the funeral. Then there’s the rest of his life, sprawling out before him in a long, hazy road. 

There are more decisions to be made.

There are people who have opinions on them now, people who sat back and let Anakin muddle through flower arrangements and kriffing seating charts, who now step in to peer over his shoulder, monitor his every breath.

Should he really move the children back to Coruscant? Does he truly plan to continue to work as a mechanic in the Mid-Levels? Should he not think of the children, their needs? How can he support them on the thin amount of credits he makes? Would it not be better for the children to live on Naboo in the care of their grandparents and their extended family?

It would be what Padmé would have wanted.

Anakin cannot care about what Padmé would have wanted, because she isn’t here. Not to argue with him, not to make her wants known. She is dead. She doesn’t get to haunt him in the waking world too.

“What do you want?” he asks plainly, sitting down across the table from his two children. The twins blink back at him. Leia has finished her cereal. Luke has barely touched his.

“Bacon,” Luke says.

Anakin hadn’t meant for breakfast, but he figures it’s as good of a start as any. “Alright,” he agrees.

He stands once more and goes to the kitchen. It’s not exactly his domain. It was never Padmé’s either. The way Padmé grew up, food was made once you requested it—by droid, by cooking staff. Not by the hand of a Nabierre.

The way Anakin grew up, food was cobbled together carefully, sparingly no matter how much you requested it. And no matter how you cooked it, it always tasted a little like dust, which took the joy out of experimentation.

But the serving staff have been dismissed for the past two weeks to give the family time and space to grieve in private. 

(Padmé’s parents have been given a schedule for visiting hours for that exact reason.)

Anakin locates the pan; then, he locates the package of bacon strips.

When he glances up, both twins are watching him over the edge of their barstools, tiny faces showing both skepticism and incredulity.

“I want to know what you want to do,” Anakin says, raising his voice as he places the pot over the heating plate, the meat in a moment later. “Do you want to stay here with your grandmother and grandfather? Do you want to go back to Coruscant?”

The twins are quiet. Anakin twists his neck to look at them again, and they’re looking at each other, silently communicating the way only twins can.

“Where will you be?” Leia finally asks, looking at him with narrowed, suspicious eyes, bottom lip already jutting out.

Anakin blinks. “Wherever you are,” he answers.

“You won’t leave too?” Luke asks rather tremulously.

Anakin takes the pan off the heated plate and turns it off with a decisive flick of his wrist. “Of course not,” he says. “Come here.” He crouches down and barely has enough time to open his arms before the twins are there, pressing in as close as they can get to him. He holds them back just as tightly in return.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he promises into Leia’s hair. “Not without you two.”

—-----------------

It becomes apparent fairly quickly that this is, by necessity, a lie.

The twins don’t want to stay on Naboo, which Anakin is secretly incredibly grateful for. He doesn’t want to either, but he knows he’d just be called selfish should he express the opinion.

But the twins don’t want to go back to Coruscant either. This makes sense as well. It would be incredibly jarring for them to go back to living in the quarters they shared with their mother, her Upper Coruscanti apartments in the nicest district of the planet, without her there.

Anakin wishes it were as simple as sticking a pin on a planet and deciding to uproot the entirety of his family to live there. 

But it’s not.

Perhaps if he were still young, nineteen, newly free and in love with the taste of that freedom, it would be.

But he’s a widower now. He has his children to think about, their futures. Any planet he chooses must have what they need as well. 

And they are four year olds who have just lost their mother. Their needs are numerous.

What makes the decision for him in the end is that his boss knows a man from Stewjon, who is willing to hire him. Who is willing to pay a premium for his expertise with mechanics.

Anakin doesn’t know the first thing about Stewjon, other than that it’s an ocean planet in the Inner Core and his dead wife always said the Senators from Stewjon were so frigid and tight-lipped because they spent the first few days of each visit trying not to be seasick on the Senate floor.

Anakin isn’t sure why this is the very first thing he tells the man—his potential boss—he meets behind the counter in the mech-shop on Stewjon.

He’s left the children with their grandparents for the week—long enough to fly from Naboo to Stewjon, meet with his potential employer, interview, apply his work practically, and fly back out.

He’d explained to both twins why they had to stay on Naboo. He’d explained many times. That hadn’t changed the betrayed look Leia had worn as she saw him off. It hadn’t wiped the tears from Luke’s eyes.

“Ah, well, I can’t say I’ve heard that one before,” the mechanic says. He sounds amused, and Anakin is incredibly shocked to hear a Coruscanti accent. Everyone he’s spoken to since arriving planetside has had such a heavy brogue that he’d honestly struggled to understand their directions to the shop—Kenobi & Sons.

Anakin lets himself look again at the man behind the counter. He’s rather clean for a mechanic, he decides. His beard is red, a common factor around these parts apparently, but his beard is short and neat, trimmed to accentuate the strong lines of his jaw. His eyes are a stormy blue, the kind of blue that matches the Stewjoni ocean.

“Between you and me though,” the man smirks and leans onto the counter with his elbow. His tunic is dark gray, white starchy fabric peeking out beneath the v-necked collar. “I’ve never been a fan of Stewjoni politicians anyway.”

“Oh?” Anakin asks, sidling a step closer to the counter. The man has the beginnings of gray at his temples, and his eyes are lined with wrinkles. They don’t make him look old though, Anakin decides. They make him look…well-lived.

“I’ve not a head for politics much at all,” his future employer shakes his head slightly with a small smile. His eyes flick up and down Anakin’s face, lingering on his lips and then lingering longer on the scar over his brow. Anakin feels rather flushed under the inspection, and he shifts his weight forward until he’s leaning up against the counter too.

There’s something about this man that’s rather…magnetic. It pulls him in. It makes him want to linger.

Good characteristic for a shopkeeper to have, though Anakin privately decides that the man before him has a face that’s wasted on mechanics, buried under some ship’s underbelly in a backroom.

“Me neither,” he admits, a moment too late to sound anything but highly distracted. It makes the man smile again though, a flash of straight white teeth.

“Is there anything you do have a head for then?” he asks. His tone is light, airy, rather teasing.

This is the strangest interview Anakin has ever had.

“Um,” he says. “Well. There’s mechanics.”

“Oh?” The man’s eyebrow lifts at an elegant angle. He props his chin on the palm of his hand and looks up at Anakin through his eyelashes. “Then why come here to us then?”

“Um,” Anakin says, and not because the man looks rather unfairly flattering like this, amber eyelashes in sharp relief against the blue of his eyes.

They’re interrupted by the sounds of clattering in the backroom, stomping and cursing. The man before him straightens with a slight sigh and picks up the closest flimsipad. “And what brings you in here today, sir?” he asks rather loudly, pitching his voice back to the other room of the shop pointedly. “Problem with your speeder? Serving droid? Cruiser? If it’s your astromech droid, I regret to inform you that I’ll have to refuse you service on account of the fact that I don’t particularly care for them.”

Anakin thinks he splutters, but whatever noise he makes is definitely drowned out by the rather irritated shout of Obi-Wan! that comes from the back.

A moment later, a man storms through the door, looking annoyed. "We will service an astomech if that's what's broken, Obi-Wan."

Now this is a man that Anakin can believe is a mechanic. His nails are blackened with oil, and his bare, burly arms carry smudges of the stuff. He’s much broader than the man—Obi-Wan—that Anakin had been talking to. He’s bald with a reddened scalp and a rather large red beard that’s the antithesis of the other man’s in every way. His clothes are dirty, loose, and the color of ash. He looks older too—whereas Obi-Wan could easily be in his thirties, this man must be pushing fifty.

He snaps at Obi-Wan in a language that Anakin doesn’t understand. Obi-Wan shrugs and hands over the flimsi pad without argument.

“Um, actually,” Anakin says, feeling incredibly wrong-footed. “Which one of you is Kenobi?”

“I am,” both of them say. Obi-Wan’s smirking slightly. The other man’s voice is louder, carrying that Stewjoni accent so obviously lacking in Obi-Wan’s speech.

The older man closes his eyes as if he’s praying for patience. “We both are,” he says. “Though if your ship’s malfunctioned, sir, I’m the Kenobi you want to see. This one’s good for naught but magic tricks.”

“I have been told I’m rather good at other things,” Obi-Wan turns his smirk full-force at Anakin, dropping his eyes to Anakin’s lips once more.

“My name is Anakin Skywalker,” he says very quickly in a very normal tone of voice that is most definitely not a squeak. “I’m here to interview for a position. As another mechanic.”

“Oh,” the older Kenobi says.

“Oh,” the younger Kenobi says in a much different tone.

The older Kenobi pinches at his nose for a moment before turning around the counter and offering his hand. “Ben,” he says. “Ben Kenobi.”

Anakin takes his hand and shakes it, eyes traveling back to Obi-Wan. Is he supposed to shake his hand too?

“I’m the Son in the sign,” Ben says gruffly as if that answers his question.

“I’m the reason it’s plural,” Obi-Wan adds, busying himself with the contents of the counter. From what Anakin can tell, the man is just messing up the carefully organized piles of receipts. 

He decides that he would rather not get the job than point this out to Ben.

Ben huffs out something in Stewjoni that sounds downright insulting, but that doesn’t stop Obi-Wan from smiling sunnily up at Anakin. “My brother enjoys bitching and moaning that I came back home when I was seventeen, but he’s awfully quick to foist his children off on me when he’s called to shift at the rig offshore and Marci’s off-planet too.”

Anakin blinks. He feels like that’s the safest answer.

“Only thing good that blasted Jedi Order ever taught you was how to handle younglings,” Ben says, and then spits on the ground as if the words themselves have left a bad taste in his mouth.

Anakin blinks and wonders if he should say something to remind the brothers that he’s here. For an interview. “And my magic tricks,” Obi-Wan rolls his eyes slightly before catching Anakin’s eye and winking. With a wave of his hand, a flimsi-sheet flies over the counter and into Anakin’s chest. He catches it unthinkingly. “Would you like to sign in, sir?” “Get out of here,” Ben barks, snatching the flimsi from Anakin’s hand and pushing it back to the counter. “Like I said, the only one’s impressed with that is the younglings.”

“I don’t know, your man looks impressed,” Obi-Wan says slyly, even as he pushes himself away from the counter and around the edge of it.

Anakin isn’t sure what he looks like. He doesn’t think impressed is the word he’d use though.

When Obi-Wan brushes past him, the static electricity in the air jumps between their shoulders. Anakin feels as if he’s been shocked.

Obi-Wan must feel it too because he stops only a few inches away and looks at Anakin. For the first time, his expression is open. Curious. Considering.

“Get!” His brother insists, and Obi-Wan obeys, throwing one last look over his shoulder at Anakin before he slips out the door.

The shop feels somehow much bigger now that the other man has left. Ben sighs and rubs a hand down his face. He looks older now. More worn. “So that was my brother,” he tells Anakin wearily. “Who you would most likely see frequently if you were to take this job. I would understand completely if you would like to start by talking compensation.”

[noirandchocolate]

Scale of one to ten, how mad do you think Kohga is when, after he describes his/the Clan’s long, difficult work to figure out how to use Zonai tech, to collect charges, and to reconstruct a mighty ancient construct to gift to Lord Ganon, and after he debuts said amazing piece of engineering (which he’s even dressed up to show it’s special and his)*…

Link can just stand back and let his own mech, that he built in like two days tops and that is powered by a sage who barely knows him and is following him more or less blindly because he’s the Princess’s Chosen Hero…

Bop his creation repeatedly with a spiky metal ball (his own signature weapon)?

Because I think the answer is over 9000.

This is the mask of a man having a breakdown.

[demigod-of-the-agni]

Spider-Man India, but... where from India?

A SUPER long post featuring talks of: cultural identity, characterisation, the caste system, and what makes Spider-Man Spider-Man.

I’m prefacing this by saying that I am a second-generation immigrant. I was born in Australia, but my cultural background is from South India. My experiences with what it means to be “Indian” is going to be very different from the experiences of those who are born and brought up in India.

If you, reader, want to add anything, please reblog and add your thoughts. This is meant to be a post open for discussion — the more interaction we get, the better we become aware of these nuances.

So I made this poll asking folks to pick a region of India where I would draw Pavitr Prabhakar in their cultural wear. This idea had been on my mind for a long while now, as I had been inspired by Annie Hazarika’s Northeastern Spidey artwork in the wake of ATSV’s release, but never got the time to actually do it until now. I wanted to get a little interactive and made the poll so I could have people choose which of the different regions — North, Northeast, Central, East, West, South — to do first.

The outcome was not what I expected. As you can see, out of 83 votes:

THE RESULTS

South India takes up almost half of all votes (44.6%), followed by Northeast and Central (both 14.5%) and then East (13.3%). In all my life growing up, support towards or even just the awareness of South India was pretty low. Despite this being a very contained poll, why would nearly half of all voters pick South India in favour of other popular choices like Central or North India?

Then I thought about the layout of the poll: Title, Options, Context.

Title: "Tell us who you want to see…"

Options: North, Northeast, Central, East, West, South

Context: I want to make art of the boy again

At first I thought: ah geez. this is my fault. I didn't make the poll clear enough. do they think I want them to figure out where Pavitr came from? That's not what I wanted, maybe I should have added the context before the options.

Then I thought: ah geez. is it my fault for people not reading the entire damn thing before clicking a button? That's pretty stupid.

But regardless, the thought did prompt a line of thinking I know many of us desi folk have been considering since Spider-Man India was first conceived — or, at least, since the announcement that he was going to appear in ATSV. Hell, even I thought of it:

Where did Spider-Man India come from?

FROM A CULTURALLY DIVERSE INDIA

As we know, India is so culturally diverse, and no doubt ATSV creators had to take that into account. Because the ORIGINAL Spider-Man India came from Mumbai — most likely because Mumbai and Manhattan both started with the same letter.

But going beyond that, it’s also because Mumbai is one of the most recognisable cities in India - it’s also known as Bombay. It’s where Bollywood films are shot. It’s where superstar Hindi actors and actresses show up. Mumbai is synonymous with India in that regard, because the easiest way Western countries can interact with Indian culture is through BOLLYWOOD, through HINDI FILMS, through MUMBAI. Suddenly, India is Mumbai, India is a Hindi-only country, India is just this isolated thing we see through an infinitely narrow lens.

We’ve gotten a little better in recent years, but boy I will tell you how uncomfortable I’ve gotten when people (yes, even desi people) come up to me and tell me, Oh, you’re Indian right? Can you speak Hindi? Why don’t you speak Hindi? You’re not Indian if you don’t speak Hindi, that’s India’s national language!

I have been — still am — so afraid of telling people that I don’t speak Hindi, that I’m Tamil, that I don’t care that Hindi is India’s “national” language (it’s an administrative language, Kavin, get your fucking facts right). It’s weird, it’s isolating, and it has made me feel like I wasn’t “Indian” enough to be accepted into the group of “Indian” people.

So I am thankful that ATSV went out of their way to integrate as much variety of Indian culture into the Mumbattan sequence. Maybe that way, the younger generation of desi folk won’t feel so isolated, and that younger Western people will be more open to learning about all these cultural differences within such a vast country.

BUT WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH SPIDER-MAN INDIA?

Everything, actually. There’s a thing called supremacy. You might have heard of it. We all engaged with it at some point, and if you are Indian, no matter where you live, it is inescapable.

It happens the moment you are born — who your family is, where you are born, the language you speak, the colour of your skin; these will be bound to you for life, and it is nigh impossible to break down the stereotypes associated with them.

Certain ethnic groups will be more favourable than others (Centrals, and thus their cultures, will always be favoured over than Souths, as an example) and the same can be said for social groups (Brahmins are more likely to secure influential roles in politics or other areas like priesthood, while the lowers castes, especially Dalits, aren’t even given the decency of respect). Don’t even get me started on colourism, where obviously those of fairer skin will win the lottery while those of darker skin aren’t given the time of day. It’s even worse when morality ties into it — “lighter skinned Indians, like Brahmins, embody good qualities like justice and wisdom”, “dark skinned Indians are cunning and poor, they are untrustworthy”. It’s fucking nuts.

This means, of course, you have a billion people trying to make themselves heard in a system that tries to crush everyone who is not privileged. It only makes sense that people want to elevate themselves and break free from a society that refuses to acknowledge them. These frustrations manifest outwardly, like in protests, but other times — most times — it goes unheard, quietly shaping your way of life, your way of thinking. It becomes a fundamental part of you, and it can go unacknowledged for generations.

So when you have a character like Pavitr Prabhakar enter the scene, people immediately latch onto him and start asking questions many Western audiences don’t even consider. Who is he? What food does he eat? What does he do on Fridays? What’s his family like, his community? All these questions pop up, because, amidst all this turmoil going on in the background, you want a mainstream popular character to be like you, who knows your way of life so intimately, that he may as well be a part of your community.

BUT THAT'S THE THING — HE'S FICTIONAL

I am guilty of this. In fact, I’ve flaunted in numerous posts how I think he’s the perfect Tamil boy, how he dances bharatanatyam, how he does all these Tamil things that no one will understand except myself. All these niche things that only I, and maybe a few others, will understand.

I’ve seen other people do it, too. I’ve seen people geek out over his dark brown skin, his kalari dhoti, how he fights so effortlessly in the kalaripayattu martial arts style. I’ve seen people write him as Malayali, as Hindi, as every kind of Indian person imaginable.

I’ve also seen him be written where he’s subjected to typical Indian and broader Asian stereotypes. You know the ones I’m so fond of calling out. The thing is, I’ve seen so much of Pavitr being presented in so many different ways, and I worry how the rest of the desi folk will take it. 

You finally have a character who could be you, but now he’s someone else’s plaything. Your entire life is shaped by what you can and can’t do simply because you were born to an Indian family, and here’s the one person who could represent you now at the mercy of someone else’s whims. He’s off living a life that is so distant from yours, you can hardly recognise him.

It shouldn’t hurt as much as it does, yeah? But, again, you’re looking at it from that infinitely narrow lens Westerners use to look at India from Bollywood.

AND PAVITR PRABHAKAR DOESN'T LIVE IN INDIA

He lives in Mumbattan. He lives in a made-up, fictional world that doesn’t follow the way of life of our world. He lives in a city where Mumbai and Manhattan got fucking squashed together. There are so many memes about colonialism right there. Mumbattan isn’t real! Spider-Man India isn’t real!! He’s just a dude!! The logic of our world doesn’t apply to him!!!

“But his surname originates from ______” okay but does that matter?

“But he’s wearing a kalari dhoti so surely he’s ______” okay but does that matter?

“But his skin colour is darker so he must be ______” okay but does that matter?

“But he lives in Mumbai so he must be ______” okay but does that matter?

I sound insensitive and brash and annoying and it looks like I’m yapping just for the sake of riling you up, so direct that little burst of anger you got there at me, and keep reading.

Listen. I’m going to ask you a question that I’ve asked myself a million times over. I want you to answer honestly. I want you to ask this question to yourself and answer honestly:

Are you trying to convince me on who Pavitr Prabhakar should be?

... but why shouldn't i?

I’ll tell you this again — I did the same thing. You’re not at fault for this, but I want you to just...have a little think over. Just a little moment of self-reflection, to think about why you are so intent on boxing this guy.

It took me a while to reorganise my thinking and how to best approach a character like Pavitr, so I will give you all the time you need as well as a little springboard to focus your thoughts on.

SPIDER-MAN (INDIA) IS JUST A MASK

“What I like about the costume is that anybody reading Spider-Man in any part of the world can imagine that they themselves are under the costume. And that’s a good thing.”

Stan Lee said that. Remember how he was so intent on making sure that everybody got the idea that Spider-Man as an entity is fundamentally broken without Peter Parker there to put on the suit and save the day? That ultimately it was the person beneath the mask, no matter who they were, that mattered most?

Spider-Man India is no less different. You can argue with me that Peter Parker!Spidey is supposed to represent working class struggles in the face of leering corporate entities who endanger the regular folk like us, and so Pavitr Prabhakar should also function the same way. Pavitr should also be a working class guy of this specific social standing fighting people of this other social standing.

But that takes away the authenticity of Spider-Man India. Looking at him through the Peter Parker lens forces you to look at him through the Western lens, and it significantly lessens what you can do with the character — suddenly, it’s a fight to be heard, to be seen, to be recognised. It’s yelling over each other that Pavitr Prabhakar is this ethnicity, is that caste, this or that, this or that, this or that.

There’s a reason why he’s called Spider-Man India, infuriatingly vague as it is. And that’s the point — the vagueness of his identity fulfils Lee’s purpose for a character that could theoretically be embodied by anyone. If he had been called “Spider-Man Mumbai”, you cut out a majority of the population (and in capitalist terms, you cut out a good chunk of the market).

And in the case of Spider-Man India? Whew — you’ve got about a billion people imagining a billion different versions of him.

Whoever you are, whatever you see in Pavitr, that is what is personal to you, and there is nothing wrong with that, and I will not fault you for it. I will not fault you for saying Pavitr is from Central due to the origins of his last name. I also will not fault you for saying Pavitr is from South due to him practising kalaripayattu. I also will not fault you for saying he is not Hindu. I also will not fault you for saying he is a particular ethnicity without any proof.

What I will fault you for is trying to convince me and the others around you that Pavitr Prabhakar should be this particular ethnicity/have this cultural background because of some specific reason. I literally don’t care and it is fundamentally going against his character, going against the “anyone can wear the mask” sentiment of Spider-Man. By doing this, you are strengthening the walls that first divided us. You’re feeding the stratification and segmentation of our cultures — something that is actually not present in the fictional world of Mumbattan.

Like I said before: Mumbattan isn’t real, so the divides between ethnicities and cultural backgrounds are practically nonexistent. The best thing is that it is visually there for all to see. My favourite piece of evidence is this:

It’s a marquee for a cinema in the Mumbattan sequence, in the “Quick tour: this is where the traffic is” section. It has four titles; the first two are written in Hindi. The third title is written in Bengali*, and the fourth title is written in Tamil. You go to Mumbai and you won’t see a single shred of Bengali nor Tamil there, much less any other language that's not common in Maharashtra (Western India). Seeing this for the first time, you know what went through my head?

Wow, the numerous cultures of India are so intermingled here in Mumbattan! Everyone and everything is welcome!

I was happy, not just because of Tamil representation, but because of the fact that the plethora of Indian cultures are showcased coexisting in such a short sequence. This is India embracing all the little parts that make up its grander identity. This scene literally opened my eyes seeing such beauty in all the diverse cultures thriving together. In a place where language and cultural backgrounds blend so easily, each one complementing one another.

It is so easy to believe that, from this colourful palette of a setting, Pavitr Prabhakar truly is Spider-Man India, no matter where he comes from.

It’s easy to believe that Pavitr can come from any part of India, and I won’t call you out if the origin you have for him is different from the origin I have. You don’t need to stake out territory and stand your ground — you’re entitled to that opinion, and I respect it. In fact, I encourage it!!!

Because there’s only so much you can show in a ten minute segment of a film about a country that has such a vast history and even greater number of cultures. I want to see all of it — I want him to be a Malayali boy, a Hindi boy, a Bengali boy, a Telugu boy, an Urdu boy, whatever!! I want you to write him or draw him immersed in your culture, so that I can see the beauty of your background, the wonderful little things that make your culture unique and different from mine!

And, as many friends have said, it’s so common for Indian folks to be migrating around within our own country. A person with a Maharashtrian surname might end up living in Punjab, and no one really minds that. I’m actually from Karnataka, my family speaks Kannada, but somewhere down the line my ancestors moved to Tamil Nadu and settled down and lived very fulfilling lives. So I don’t actually have the “pure Tamil” upbringing, contrary to popular belief; I’ve gotten a mix of both Kannada and Tamil lifestyles, and it’s made my life that much richer. 

So it’s common for people to “not” look like their surname, if that’s what you’re really afraid about. In fact, it just adds to that layer of nuance, that even despite these rigid identities between ethnicities we as Indian people still intermingle with one another, bringing slivers of our cultures to share with others. Pavitr could just as well have been born in one state and moved around the country, and he happens to live in Mumbattan now. It’s entirely possible and there’s nothing to disprove that.

We don’t need to clamber over one another declaring that only one ethnicity is the “right” ethnicity, because, again, you will be looking at Pavitr and the rest of India in that narrow Western lens — a country with such rich cultural variety reduced to a homogenous restrictive way of life.

THE POLL: REINTERPRETED

This whole thing started because I was wondering why my little poll was so skewed — I thought people assumed I was asking them where he came from, then paired his physical appearance with the most logical options available. I thought it was my fault, that I had somehow influenced this outcome without knowing.

Truth is, I will never really know. But I will be thankful for it, because it gave me the opportunity to finally broach this topic, something that many of us desi folk are hesitant to talk about. I hope you have learned something from this, whether you are desi or a casual Spider-Man fan or someone who just so happened to stumble upon this. 

So just…be a little more open. Recognise that India, like many many countries and nations, is made up of a plethora of smaller cultures. And remember, if you’re trying to convince Pavitr that he’s a particular ethnicity, he’s going to wave his hand at you and say, “Ha, me? No, I’m one of the people that live here in the best Indian city! I’m Spider-Man India, dost!”

(Regardless, he still considers you a friend, because to him, the people matter more to him than you trying to box him into something he’s not.)

*Note: thank you dear anon for letting me know that the third title was Bengali, twas my mistake for literally completely forgetting

[oceanwithouthermoon]

i feel like im obligated to remind everyone that the time we see the characters spend with saiki on screen isnt the ONLY time they spend together,,, i just see a lot of people take their screen time very literally and assume that this is the case despite it being heavily implied that it isnt, and im not entirely sure why but i can guess that it may be because of the assumption that saiki genuinely hates his friends (i do also see people doing this with specific characters they dont like or that they have a specific agenda for, which i think is them being like "i feel a certain way about them, therefore saiki the narrator who gave me all the information that made me feel this way about them must not like them" which i dont really have a problem with (its just an hc) until they start arguing with people that their hc is the only right answer and saiki canonically hates that person or is only around them when forced to be LOL)

yumehara and teruhashi immediately recognize "kurikos" eating manner as saikis despite us never seeing him eat in front of them, kaido + nendo + kuboyasu bribe saiki for his homework with coffee jelly because they know hes obsessed with it despite us seeing no on-screen reason for them to know that (we do see a bit later that he walks home with them every day and he stares at coffee jelly every single time though LOL), and mera talks about saiki spending a lot of money at her workplace despite us only seeing her and him there at the same time once before..

saiki does not succeed at avoiding them, and in fact is probably not even trying to most of the time LMAO he loves those idiots. dearly.

the people i see the least true implications of him spending off-screen time with are actually, weirdly enough, the other two psychics. this doesnt necessarily mean to take that at face value and assume he DOESNT spend as much time with them, but its interesting i feel... please correct me if im wrong though cuz i would love to see more examples of these kinds of implications, for any characters actually!

[heartvisor]