I tried to compact my thoughts about Yukio into a sentence but there's so much to say that I can barely get my point across with such little space 😩
Old and new fans alike keep overlooking Yukio because "He tried to kill Rin!!" And sure, the way he acts is bad but... He's just depressed and has no one to rely on. Lashing out is pretty normal in this case, it's the only way he knows how to act, considering that he's been raised in a violent environment (he was taught to KILL at fucking seven, c'mon) he only knows how to be agressive, not look for help.
It's honestly amazinf how long he held out his urge to just go insane. He's been expected to be calm, collected and protect his brother since he was a child, plus he's been seen — more like he's always seen himself — as weaker than Rin despite the fact that he's the one with 9+ years of experience.
Also, I'm like 99% that Yukio knew that no matter what he does, he can't kill Rin so even if he shot him, it wouldn't do anything.
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So I couldn't help but browse the THG tag bc those books own my whole heart. I actually check it now and again, and it's been interesting see how opinions have changed over the years, especially in regards to Gale and Peeta. Going through the evolution of them as just potential love interests to being far more complex than I could have expected has been a wild ride. Crazy how this reads different than from when I was a preteen.
That said, I wanted to give my unsolicited two cents on my boys, because though I have been enjoying the discussion on Peeta and Gale and what they mean to the story, I also feel like reducing them to Peeta = peace and Gale = war is far too simplistic... and oftentimes unfair to one or both of them.
See, I don't think Peeta and Gale are peace and war/destruction. They're compassion and indignation.
Peeta worries about the other tributes, or their families, or how to repay people like Rue and Thresh for what they did.
Gale is indignation at how the Capitol treats its citizens, it's anger at the injustice of inequality and brutality.
Both are needed in a story like THG. You can't have people like even Peeta not say something like "maybe we're wrong about keeping things quiet in the districts", you can't have him not drop the baby bomb, you can't start a revolution without Gale's indignation at the status quo. At deserving a better life but being denied it, at having your kids be mercilessly killed for literal sport.
However, if you start a rebellion and loose sight of your compassion, you end up no better than the people you're fighting against. Gale wasn't a bad person, imo. His heart was in the right place. He was flawed, yes, but so is everyone in this series. Gale, most importantly, lost sight of the line between fighting for the people he cared about and fighting against the people who hurt him.
Reducing Gale's indignation to just revenge and hatred ignores so much of what he stands for. Who hasn't seen laws passed that dehumanize people, who hasn't been angry and furious when someone is elected who fundamentally hates everything you are, who doesn't think some people need to pay for the atrocities they committed? There's a little bit of Gale in every single one of us - and it's important that it's there, because that's what gives us strength to challenge the status quo and make life better for the future generations.
But. You can't let it take over. You can't loose sight of your compassion or your empathy.
That's where Peeta comes in. Peeta is the voice in your head that worries about how many good lives will be lost when they give themselves up for this cause. Peeta is the worry about the people caught in the crossfire. Peeta is rebuilding when it's over and believing that the next generation will have a better life than your own. Peeta is being kind, even to people who may not deserve it.
And Gale... Gale looses sight of his compassion, and he doesn't realize it until it smacks him in the face when the bombs go off and Prim is gone and he's too far gone. Meanwhile, Peeta advocates for the end of the war even though it means the status quo remains - and regardless of what he believes himself, I don't think Suzanne chose him to say those lines by chance. It means both mindsets have their flaws: too kind and things that shouldn't remain will never be challenged and changed, too angry and you may loose sight of what you're fighting for.
And that's just how Suzanne uses her characters, both of them, all of them. Just look at who is with Katniss depending on the situation:
- Katniss chooses to "rebel" after Gale is brutally whipped. She kisses him.
- Katniss realizes that in order for D12 to rebel, everyone would need to be in on it, and she realizes most of them are not like her, that they're scared and she understands, emphasises with them. Peeta walks by her side.
- Katniss finally does it though, shoots the arrow at the force field, and Peeta is taken from her, it's now Gale by her side.
(You can't start a rebellion without indignation, and sometimes you HAVE to do it or things will never change, regardless of the inevitable pain that will come along.)
- Katniss is righteously angry at the Capitol bombing a hospital full of innocents to make a point. Gale remains there.
- Coin twists people's compassion into an army to fight for her own personal gain. Peeta is hijacked and looses his sense of self.
- Katniss and Gale go to District 2 and even though she tries to be like Peeta, she's still shot- reinforcing Gale's views, the person who was with her during that sequence.
- Katniss is angry at Snow, Katniss goes to the Capitol to kill him. Gale is there.
- Katniss gets in way over her head and realizes she is responsible for the death of most of her squad. She shares the lamb stew with Peeta, and later cleans his wounds.
- Finnick dies and she's at her lowest up until that point and all she wants to do is give up and give in to the anger. She kisses Peeta and begs him to stay with her.
... Claiming that Gale is destruction ignores the fact that he's with Katniss through her own moments of strength. Her desire to change things, to fight back, is as important as her compassion. Mockingjay just brutally shows you what war does to your indignation, to your compassion. How easy it is to cross a line between righteous anger and revenge, or how your sense of empathy and compassion can be manipulated into something monstrous by others, or by all the terrible, brutal, painful things you see.
How easy it is to loose yourself- and that goes for both of them.
Peeta and Gale aren't static characters, they go from representations of sentiments regarding an injust government to what happens to those feelings when an extreme situation such as war breaks out. All of that, by the way, while dealing with this duality themselves, because they are still characters who think and feel and struggle and have flaws of their own- and while I love what they stand for, I've seen too many comments that pin everything into what they mean, that they forget that Peeta and Gale are still people, they aren't perfect metaphors. They're human.
Ultimately, Katniss doesn't really choose peace. She wants peace, yes. But what she chooses is compassion. empathy. hope. There's a time and place for anger at injustice. There's a time when fighting back is the right thing to do. There are even times when you wanna give in to your despair and lash out. But if you want peace, then you have to choose Peeta, because Peeta represents what you need to focus on to achieve that peace. You have to let go of the anger or you won't ever rest. So Gale leaves, and does not come back... And yet, Katniss still has her moments of indignation, of making a stand, even as he goes - she still casts her vote at that meeting, she still shoots Coin. Katniss does not abandon that part of who she is. It's just not her main drive anymore.
So then she goes on to make the choice, every single day, to be compassionate to others. To have hope. To rebuild. Of course she chooses Peeta.
... Idk, man. These boys are so much more than what I see them so often reduced to. They're in all of us. There will be times to stand and fight, and times to show mercy and be kind. We just need to find that balance, as Katniss eventually did.
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Oh ho ho ho waiiiit
I just realised smth while writing. Bobby feels like he's a horrible father because he killed his two kids, right?? So even if he does view Buck as a son, he'll probably never admit that, because he probably doesn't think he deserves to be Buck's dad, and isn't that sad?
Buck who views Bobby as a way better father than his own dad ever was to him. Buck who looks up to Bobby and cares about Bobby and would probably have hundreds of things to say if he ever heard Bobby speak that way about himself.
Bobby who loves Buck so much that he would never allow himself to be Buck's dad because Buck deserves better, all Bobby brings is harm to people (I mean look at the truck bombing, that bomber had been after him, and Buck had been the one to get hurt. Bobby got out without a scratch. Just like the apartment fire).
Imagine them having a conversation where they finally, finally admit to each other that they are each other's father and son, and then Buck gets hurt on call or targeted by someone who wants to hurt Bobby ARGHHFJDK and so Bobby distances himself from Buck aaaa 😭😭
Theyre both so. Theyre both. Ugh, Buck feeling guilty tooo I CANT DO THISSSS
this is def more an earlier in the show type arc thing, I think by now theyve both grown enough that there'd be less drama involved (esp on Buck's end). But still. Fun to think about
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so with echoes of wisdom .. i havent watched any of the trailers beyond the very first one and the thumbnails/screenshots and what others have said about it-
but with the world inside the rift being called "Welt des Nichts" aka "world of nothing/void" in german ('still' in english, for some reason) and demises title in french being "avatar of nothing" ... yeah my anxiety is shooting through the roof again
(hopefully you can be a little more forgiving for me being anxious/weird about it bc demise is my blorbo)
i had similar worries with totk, that werent proven true thankfully, but the darn book is making it all worse again with all those weird lore things the game doesnt even so much as hint at AND potential retcons- im in for a really rough time huh, not just stress in real life (more in tags.. its alot) but now about my specific hyperfixation from two things even (AND artblock still..)
weird as it may sound, i dont want demise to get more lore, partly bc i dont believe theyd do anything with him that i would like (given their track record) but much more importantly- the fact that he has this little lore about him is precisely one of the reasons why i fell in love with him, i tend to like characters that are neglected by the narrative, and his story being both so flat and already done meant i can be very creative with what i come up with for him without necessarily contradicting anything in canon
(which is ... or was a big point of how i wrote destiny's story and lore, working with canon in a way that reframes it all without straight up ignoring it ... but i suppose i urgently need to let go of that and accept i spend alot of time working things that will go to waste :( )
AND not having to worry that there will be more stuff with him that would massively change not only what im writing but also potentially how i feel about him since the game he was briefly in was the oldest chronologically and ended with his death- i didnt expect them to mess with anything that far back and thought theyd just go forward and leave the timeline behind and wouldnt mess with it again, given how botw seemed to be a sort of 'fresh start' that seemingly regarded the past as the past that needs to rest and that the timeline was finally no longer a discussion if everythings unified through botw and one thing going forward
but i suppose i was very wrong with that .__.
right now the only thing that motivates me still is the left over determination and spite to work on my zelda comic, since i have never gotten this far and really want to get something done for once, but i cant lie that im feeling like i should pause all work on it too to wait and see waht the book and the new game will do .. either to determine if i still have the will to keep working on it after those things are out (my love for tloz has been taking alot of hits lately ..) or if i have to change stuff (mostly bc of my lore problem trying to not ignore it ..)
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the more that ive thought about it (it of course being the argument clip), the more that i need to get something off my chest and defend aziraphale - not necessarily against anyone, not saying anyone is attacking him, but whilst crowley is my special apple crimble crumble boy, aziraphale is the goodest lil dude and there is nothing i wouldn't do for that messy man-
i think what a lot people forget about aziraphale is that he is so fucking clever, he is arguably more intelligent than crowley, but has the irksome, painful dichotomy of being kind. what kinda upset me in the clip is that crowley almost addresses aziraphale as if he's stupid, when he's anything but. aziraphale is fully aware that gabriel, michael, uriel etc are all wankers, he's not oblivious to it, but aziraphale is an unfailingly empathetic and compassionate angel, and will try to always see the best in people.
the fandom sometimes mistakes this for naivety or even ignorance, and it's not - aziraphale is not naive, he knows that these angels are shits and treat him poorly, but aziraphale has a pretty strong view on what an angel should be, what they should embody, and even though he knows deep down these other angels don't really follow the same blueprint, he hopes and he tries to remain optimistic and see the best in them. he hopes to be forgiven for his trespasses just as he forgives those who trespass against him✨
and so by the end of s1 i think he really does give up on being an angel ("just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing" got the most satisfied, bashful grin on him we've ever seen) and instead is just a good person. and i think crowley fails to realise or accept this - not bc he's stupid either, but i think he sometimes really underestimates aziraphale and possibly because he thinks (possibly due to his own trauma- the apocalypse as well as the Fall) that god will never love a being that isn't good and godly at the same time. he can't accept that that the two things, being good and being godly, are entirely different concepts, and that in aziraphale the two must go hand in hand.
aziraphale understands the difference, and knows that he can still be loved by god even if he doesn't align himself with heaven anymore. so therefore its a real foreign idea, a ludicrous concept, to crowley that aziraphale is still being kind to gabriel, being compassionate, when in his mind this is the angel that wanted to kill them both and is a first class wanker to boot.
but i think that does actually show that, not in any way maliciously or intentionally but likely just as a projection borne out of anger and possibly self-hatred, crowley is thinking appalling little of aziraphale right now. does he really believe that the angel that he slithered up next to on the wall and who not only didn't smite him on sight but also conversed with him and listened to him and sheltered him from the first rain whilst not even bothering to shelter himself is incapable of being kind without being heaven's puppet?
so yes i totally get where crowley is coming from, and whilst it kills me a little inside to think that crowley might consider himself so unworthy of kindness and affection unless it originates from a systematic compulsive side effect of being a Holy Entity, i think he's being grossly unfair to aziraphale in not realising even after 6000 years of knowing him that aziraphale might just simply be a really kind person.
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