#Who gives a shit.) so people tend to bring up the fact that the infantilization of halflings is a form of marginalization to highlight

[trans-leek-cookie]

i don't follow dungeon Meshi discussions closely and also haven't seen much in depth analysis of the marginalization of halflings specifically but I feel like the Infantilization aspect is focused on without acknowledging the ways they are often also Dehumanized (little weird considering the usage of "human" in the context of the story but I think it fits well enough). Like they are considered unskilled and immature due to their appearance + shorter relative lifespans, but also they are considered shady, used as literal bait (for sirens and succubi), and fucking disappeared when they come into contact with dangerous artifacts. Like both are significantly negative, but one is a bit more Obviously Violent in a way that I feel like is under discussed.

[hello-yue-here]

Yuetara, zukka, and maiko

yuetara

ship

1) its not one of my main ships. i dont rlly read fanfic for them but if i see a cute fanart of them ill enjoy it and i think i first started shipping it because of good fanarts for them.

2) i like yuetara because of how similar they are. theyre both women from the water tribe. they both understand the misogyny that they have faced. and they both said f sexism im gonna be a strong woman. i also love the tui and la parallel. moon spirit and ocean spirit parallel COME ON. YUE IS THE MOON. KATARA IS THE MOST POWERFUL WATERBENDER. THEY ARE THE OCEAN AND THE MOON. the push and pull they could give eachother. that dynamic ftw.

3) i guess if i didnt like something about this ship would be the fact that if i read a fic or see a fanart w yuetara then than means in that particular au i wont get any yuekka and yuekka is probably my second favorite ship. but then again if i get yuetara than i could get a plethora of other sokka ships to go with it so my sadness disappears in like two seconds. gosh shipping is hard sometimes until you remember ‘hey i have like fifty different universes in my head. all ur ships can coexist in ur brain olivia’ other than that i really see no downsides to this ship. maybe i wish it had more content. maybe if it had more content id ship it a lot more but its not one of the more popular ships so the content is kinda few n far between on my feed.

zukka:

SHIPPP

1) my boys. my babies. my loves. i watched this show for the first time when it came out on netflix and when it ended i really didnt ship anything other than kataang. i came onto tumblr to find fun atla content and one of the very first things i saw under the atla tag was zukka content. i was like oh? whats this? zukka? interesting... i was intrigued so i found a list of fic recs and i fell in love with the ship. the rest is history. its probably my number one ship because it was my very first ship here and im nostalgic

2) oh boy there is so much i like about this ship. i relate to a shit ton of characters in atla. but sokka and zuko may be the ones i relate to most. i relate to sokka because i tend to feel second best a lot to my friends. i try to stay positive but things rarely go the way i plan or hope for them too and while im happy for my friends and their achievements i oftentimes find myself thinking why cant that be me? and i see this a lot in sokka especially in sokkas master. i dont feel special a lot and idk seeing sokka feel the same way and then realizing he is special kinda helped me realize that im special too. on the flipside i relate to zuko because i have wild anger issues and difficulty dealing w my emotions a lot as well. i get broody and short tempered and insecure very often and i tend to push people away and i refuse to ask for help (the amount of teachers and adults and therapists who have told me its okay to ask for help ur not any weaker because of it is astounding. do i listen to them? .....im working on it.) and i saw a shit ton of this in zuko. book one and two zuko rarely asks for help as seen in the blue spirit and zuko alone and he pushes away uncle so many times and even when the gaang iffers to help him in i think its the chase he tells them to leave. when he finally has his redemption and joins the gaang and lets them kinda become a better person i was so happy. i want that for myself yk. seeing him finally win the agni kai and overcome his family that always told him he was nothing was such a win. my sister and i get along but when we were children we were very much like zuko and azula. it was extremely competitive all the time and there was so much toxicity and sibling drama to a concerning extent. we get along great now which im very happy about but yeah their sibling relationship hit a lil too on the nose for me. seeing as i relate to these character so much and want them ti be happy i want to live vicariously through them so seeing them together is amazing for me to project into them. i love projecting onto fictional characters and with them i can project onto BOTH so its a winwin. plus so many zukka fics are so well written and heartwarming and heartbreaking and emotional and fluffy anf UGH the talent here us astounding.

3) what do i not like about the ship? again the list is long. oops. mainly the toxic shippers. there are so many toxic zukka stans that sometimes make it hard for me to enjoy this ship but hey! thats what the block button is for:) i despise how often people infantilize zuko and completely ruin his character for the sake of making him a soft weak lil boy who needs protecting. thats just not zuko for me. and ive seen many many accounts even state that this kind of portrayal of zuko is rooted in racist stereotypes about asian men (now i am white so i personally have never experiences racism but i feel the need to bring that up because it is wrong and attention needs to be brought to it because a lot of poc fans have criticised this) and the same for sokka. some ppl rlly skew his character and make him a big strong brute and hypermasculine and once again poc fans have said that this take is rooted in racist stereotypes. again! these are just my opinions! this is my favorite ship! but i think its important to acknowledge some of the bad parts of our ships as well and be critical where criticism is needed :))

maiko

ship

1) I LOVE MAIKO. “i dont hate you” “i dont hate you too” BRUH. my little heart just burst into flames. im sorry guys but maiko is so cute. they hate everything except eachother. BRUH that is one of the cutest tropes. i shipped them the moment i saw them together onscreen and i was so happy when zukos face lit up in the finale when mai came back.

2) “i hate everything but i have a soft spot for you” TAKE MY MONEY I AM A SUCKER FOR THIS. they are so cute together. like zuko is rarely happy in a majority of atla but mai makes him happy and i- 🥺🥺 HE DESERVES IT. and mai is always so supportive of him. when hes stressing out about the war meeting she tries her best to comfort him. and zuko cares about her too. he may not be the best at showing it but oh my god hes TRYING HIS BEST. i think its a very accurate portrayal of teenage relationships because they arent perfect and they do fight but like,, every teenage relationship does that. and even after everything and how he left her in the fire nation she still had his back at boiling rock. she still risked her life against azula to save his butt.

3) the thing i hate about maiko isnt even about maiko. its about antis who think mai is toxic and that zuko deserves better. that has got to be the worst take ive ever heard. they had a fight in ember island. that is NORMAL. they are teenagers. they are not perfect. but underneath all the rough edges and things they need to work out they still care about eachother so freaking much. i genuinelt believe that neither of them would do anything to intentionally hurt the other and i think thats what matters the most. if anything mai is the best girlfriend in the entire world because zuko fucked up like,, quite a few times. he got rlly jealous and dumped her thru a letter and ppl always say that mai was toxic for being mad at him for those two things. umm she had every right to be mad at him for both of those. and while zuko is allowed to feel his emotions and be angry sometimes as well sometimes he needs to think things thru and realize that hey maybe some if this jealousy is unfounded. BUT EVEN THEN. HE RESPECTED HER FEELINGS AND DIDNT TOUCH HER WHEN SHE SAID DONT TOUCH ME. HE RESPECTED HER. so i hate toxic maiko takes because they are literally so wrong in my opinion.

again all of these are just my opinions!! feel free to agree or disagree but please be respectful!! i will respect whatever u think as well because this is all just for fun :)

[tigerdrop]

Cringe is dead, talk to me about the funny half-life men and their relationship

okay here is my essay. it is titled These Guys Actually Like Each Other, and Gordon Freeman Is Just Kind Of A Dick*

(disclaimer: these are just my 2 cents. dont take me too seriously! im just some guy online who has watched this shit too many times.)

first things first. these guys actually like each other. this is a key aspect of their relationship. benrey, obviously and textually, digs gordon freeman - you dont flirt that heavily with guys you arent into, and so much of what he says and does is geared around making gordon crack up. thats pretty gay.

but the counterpart to this is that gordon freemans pretty fucking gay for benrey, too. you may say, “oh, but word of god says its not requited!” and to you i will say: bull shit. gordon is uniquely obsessed with benrey compared to all the other characters. if gordon didnt like the fucking guy, he wouldnt giggle with him and share in-jokes with him and bring him up every 5 seconds when benreys not around. thats concern, bro. thats worry. thats real shit

but i cant blame people for thinking that gordon freeman genuinely doesnt like benrey. benreys partially responsible for some of the worst things that have happened to him, the Arm Thing among them. and gordons very insistent afterward that he doesnt like benrey. he even goes so far as to try to kill benrey a couple times. to this, i must argue that gordon freeman is just kind of a dick.

lets talk facts here. canon. Lore. from the moment we hop into gordons shoes, we can see that he is a jerk to every npc on his way into black mesa. this is his default: a dude who just runs his mouth and says rude shit. he calls tommy a freak within 5 minutes of meeting him. he infantilizes the guy and barely considers him a real scientist. he doubts that bubby is a real name for like no fuckin reason. in “real life”, this is because its funny, and wayne is trying to make a funny half-life stream. in a textual sense, this is because gordon “hlvrai” freeman is a dick. this is the way he acts, consistently, throughout the series.

(brief aside: this is why the whole “gordon is a nice guy and a great dad” characterization baffles me. the way he actually acts in canon is, in short, bitchy and lacking in self-awareness. and i love that for him, i really do. it makes the moments where he just tries to be a nice guy stand out. but thats the thing: his intermittent moments of decency and kindness are not the whole of his personality! this dude kind of sucks most of the time!)

the way that gordons general asshole attitude extends to benrey is complicated. in fairness, benrey makes it his job to annoy the shit out of gordon as much as possible, and that warrants a negative attitude, but gordons pretty paranoid and ends up blaming benrey for nearly everything that happens to him, regardless of if its warranted. this is a pattern he exhibits both before and after the Arm Thing. its a little bit of a dick move! especially considering that, prior to the whole “betrayal” subplot (which was not exactly planned very far in advance), benrey is no more malicious or annoying than anybody else gordons having to travel with.

(okay, this is kind of a subjective evaluation, but still. my point stands that benrey is not any more of a hindrance to his progress than anybody else in the science crew, and neither is he particularly more violent or murderous. hell, gordon freeman has probably killed more guys than benrey. benrey just tends to get.......special treatment.)

all that said, i am still convinced that gordon really fucking likes benrey. please consider with me the following: it would be remarkably easy for gordon to just ignore him and do what he has to do, but he doesnt. he could stop engaging. he could stop thinking about benrey. he could stop bringing benrey up to the rest of the crew every time benrey leaves to do his own thing for awhile. but he doesnt. and, again, yeah, the extra-textual reason for this is “two guys are doing an improv comedy thing and bouncing off of scorpy is kind of the point”, but within the text it reads to me as gordon not being about to get the dude off his mind.

and this is in addition to all the times we see gordon being genuinely nice and receptive toward benrey! its in the little things: laughing the hardest and longest at benreys jokes. only ever reciprocating that stupid underwater “BBBBB” thing with benrey. trying to catch benrey when he falls, despite his insistence moments earlier that benrey should hop in the wack ass crystal generator and get hypermurdered. fondly remarking that benreys sweet voice sounds beautiful. his sort of flustered responses to most of benreys overt flirting. none of this is the way normal people react to a guy they hate. this is all fuckin gay to me, man.

its this combination of the outward insistence that gordon hates benrey with his inner eagerness to be around him and think about him and engage with him that gives off strong “repression” vibes, to me. for whatever reason - pride, embarrassment, resentment - gordon maintains a front of hating the guy and wanting to kill him for a lot of the series, but it doesnt gel with the way he fucking giggles and plays along half the time that benrey starts fucking with him. its a game, and that game is one of the only ways gordon knows to manifest affection for him.

(remember “oh my god, hes got a knife!”? that was the gayest shit i ever seen in my life. tittering like a schoolgirl while benrey chases him around like “im gonna get you haha”. insanity.)

the cool thing about repression is that you can have it manifest in a lot of ways! and this is where things like “headcanons” and “my own personal affection for repressed bisexual men” come in. a lot of how i characterize their relationship is an extrapolation of a lot of things like gordons canonical insecurity issues/anxiety, gordons whole anti-bootboy thing screaming “internet wokeboy who means well but probably has a lot of repressed baggage” to me, etc.

how do you get massive amounts of sexual repression out of what you see in canon, you might ask? well. if wayne would stop having gordon talking about being jerked off by the suit, or talking about chugging a 40-gal drum of potion and having to hold his piss, or worrying about being eaten by benrey the moment he sees benrey at setscale 10, maybe i would have a higher opinion of gordon “hlvrai” freeman and whatever latent psychosexual issues hes got going on. but here we are

i havent even touched yet upon how benrey feels about gordon. this one is helpfully made a little more plain by the fact that benrey very much wants to suck his dick in canon. (i dont even have to go into details. we all know.) but IMO the best part about this ship isnt just that they dig each other, but how. benrey gets overtly flirtatious in the second half of the series, but IMO his preferred method of flirting is just fucking with gordon: chasing him with knives, shoving him around in a bathroom, trying to get scans of his feet. but all in like a slapstick, giggly, fun-and-games sense, you know? at least when it works.

a lot of the time, though, it doesnt work out that way. he clearly just likes doing it whether or not gordon responds positively. which is, you know, Weird. not very nice. but also in line with the way everybody else treats gordon freeman. gordons kind of the universes chew toy in any given universe, and the same holds true here. hes kind of helpless......subjected to 4 demons attempting to make his life as difficult as possible. in a way its cathartic.

sorry. i got sidetracked. anyway, benrey very much likes to mess with him and unnerve him and demean him and i will be perfectly frank with you: that is hot. i have problems and illnesses and one of them is that i am a masochist who goes crazy for that kind of thing. calling gordon a “dirty lil boy” and telling him to “look at the mess [he] made” is some straight up kink scene shit.

i like to imagine that a lot of this behavior isnt caused just by the guy who played him wanting to be funny and antagonistic, but by benrey as a character not really understanding what constitutes “pushing a joke too far”. hes not human, and whatever he is doesnt have a very normative way of understanding the world around him, full of people who actually get hurt for real and die for real. benrey expresses what seems to be genuine surprise and distress after the Arm Thing, as if he didnt know that his actions would have serious consequences. and it doesnt seem to fully sink in afterward, either.

it reads a lot to me like hes used to video game rules and treating people around him like NPCs. if they get hurt, its no big deal, because its not real. he likes jamming random buttons on gordons interface and seeing what comes out. its probably a lot of fun for him, the same way that seeing a streamer or a youtuber suffer for our amusement is fun. its like, you know, in my opinion, gordons very cute when hes frazzled. hes also cute when hes laughing. pushing gordons buttons has a 50/50 chance of either of these things. and this is how he ultimately flirts with gordon: by pulling his pigtails.

but at the same time, benrey does legit care about gordon and knows some boundaries. benreys the one most often shooting at enemies to protect gordon, and he spent most of the last act trying to convince gordon to turn around and not fight him because they were friends (best friends, to be specific). he just lacks a lot of the emotional intelligence it would take to express the feeling of “he digs gordon and likes seeing his face get all red and sweaty regardless of the cause”. and gordon lacks the emotional intelligence it would take to express the fact that he doesnt know if he likes or hates benrey and hes scared as hell that its the former

because, lets be real. unironic benrey-liking is a sign of problems disorder. just look at all these words ive written about it.

can you imagine? this bizarrely powerful, non-human entity that can shrug off gunfire and grow to the size of a building has decided that youre his new plaything. benreys the bored guy booting up skyrim and fucking around in the console, and gordons the hapless favorite follower that hes taken a liking to. its a really fun dynamic IMO

after all this, its safe to say my title is a little misleading. the asterisk stands for * and So Is Benrey, Actually. they are both kind of awful dudes who thrive off of teasing each other and they deserve each other. and i am crazy about it. thank u for coming to my TED talk

[opbackgrounds]

Oooh can you do a post on the tenryubito?

So I feel like this is going to be an unpopular opinion, but I pity the Celestial Dragons. 

That isn’t to say that they aren’t all (mostly) abhorrently evil megalomaniacs with  an institutionally enforced god complex who treat the torture of human(oids) with the same blasé disregard as a kid pulling the wings off of a fly, but there’s a part of me that just finds them pathetic. The Celesital Dragons are a group of people who have the world as their silver platter, yet are so small-minded and infantile they literally trap themselves in a tiny bubbles because they’re too scared to breathe the same air as the so-called lesser races.

There was a time when I didn’t think much of the Celestial Dragons because I thought that Oda’s exaggerated storytelling had gone one step too far. They were too cartoonishly evil to be believable—nothing but a bunch of mustache-twirling villains too ridiculous to be taken seriously—and though I found Luffy punching one in the face very cathartic I wasn’t terribly invested in the World Nobility as a worldbuilding element. 

But if there’s something I’ve realized as I’ve gotten older, it’s that there is a depressingly-large number of cartoonishly evil people who through no merit of their own find themselves wielding enormous amounts of power, and the Celestial Dragons are more realistic than I ever thought possible. 

The Dragons are One Piece’s exploration of the idea that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Eight hundred years is a ridiculously long time to be in control of a single territory, let alone an organization as massive as the World Government. To put it in perspective a little, eight hundred years ago was when the Magna Carta was signed. Even real-world dynasties tend to have major fluctuations in power over the course of generations, but It seems that the World Government—and by extension the Celestial Dragons—have for eight centuries kept an iron hold over what they consider theirs. 

Which just happens to be everything. 

The actual origins of the CD tie into series lore and will probably play a big part in Robin learning about the True History, but I fall in the camp that believes that they originated on the moon because 1) they’re the Celestial Dragons 2) there’s gotta be some significance to Enel’s cover story, and 3) Oda clearly modeled their hairstyles and clothing off of the King and Queen of the Moon from the movie The Adventures of Baron Muchausen

Which, if true, makes them a foreign imperialistic force that used military might and a totalitarian regime that specializes in censorship and terror in order to turn the One Piece world into a giant colony while presenting itself as an egalitarian, unifying coalition where no single ruler is fit to sit on the Empty Throne. 

And to think, there are some people who don’t think One Piece is political.

What’s really fascinating is that most of the rank and file Celestial Dragons don’t seem to realize their own history. Their traditional enemy has become a bedtime story used to scare children, and they’re too preoccupied in their petty games and pleasures to even notice that they’re not really the most powerful people in the world. It’s like their freedom to commit atrocities is the world’s worst example of bread and circuses, because as long as their attention is held by the shiny new slave or fixated on bringing in another tribute then they can’t use their immense power to actually do anything, and for the most part they’re too stupid to realize they’re being used. 

Granted, I’m doing a lot of guesswork here, but we don’t really know where Im and his giant pointy crown fits into all this, or how aware the average Celestial Dragon is of his existence. Is he a world noble? Are the Elder Stars? I personally don’t think the latter are, but is it possible that there’s an even more secret and exclusive group within one of the most secretive and exclusive groups on the planet? And what in the world does the straw hat locked in a freezer have to do with any of it? Was that the treasure Doflamingo used to blackmail the Celestial Dragons into submission, and if so, who did he parlay with during his negotiations? Because I can’t see idiots like Saint Charlos or Mysogard before his character development giving two shits about any of it. Was it CP0, and if so, how much do they understand about the man who sits on the Empty Throne?

What I’m trying to say here, is that there’s a whole lot we don’t know. 

What isn’t guesswork is how little the Celestial Dragons understand about the real world, and this is where I go back to feeling sorry for them. Even the best-intentioned noble we’ve seen so far (Homing) has no idea of what it is to be “human”. 

This mansion is just...comfortable. It’s a downgrade. It’s how Homing thinks normal people live, and he thinks he can just plop his family out in the real world and live a quiet, normal life without blowback from a population that has suffered terribly at the Celestial Dragons hands. His ignorance and naivety, while well-intentioned, is staggering.

Because remember, slavery is technically illegal within the World Government.  Only criminals and people from nations not affiliated can be taken to auction. What initially seems like a kindness turns out to be sending pigs to the slaughter, because what nation wouldn’t react the way this one did once they found out the truth?

Because what the WG (and by extension the CD) have done is punish nations who don’t kowtow to their power in order to fulfill the demand for slaves. Even the bit about criminals is terrifying when this is a world where for some it’s a crime to even be born, to say nothing about the Celestial Dragon’s refusal to obey their own laws if it means they can get what they want, when they want it. 

The whole Homing situation puts a different spin on Doflamingo’s speech during the Marineford War. People who have only known peace can’t understand those who have only known war, and that lack of understanding is what ultimately led to his undoing. 

That’s not to say that the Celestial Dragons are incapable of change on an individual level. One Piece is, ultimately, a very optimistic series, so while I was initially surprised that Saint Mysogard returned during the Reverie chapters as a good guy, upon later reflection it made sense with the points Oda was trying to make during the Fishman Island arc—that if different groups can try to understand one another, they can get along. 

But it took an extraordinary event in almost being killed by his own former slaves and an extraordinary diplomat in Queen Otohime to change the mind of one (1) Celestial Dragon, and it doesn’t look like Saint Mysogard has been able to bring anyone else around to his point of view in the 10 years since he realized he was, in fact, human. And when feel like you’re due everything because you’re a god, why would you want to lower yourself to the position of a lessor being?

 The Celestial Dragons are trained from birth to think of other human(oid) beings as less than animals, where sadism and torture aren’t only encouraged, but celebrated. The system has corrupted to the point where there’s no incentive to change and no oversight to prevent the abuse of power, and with the ability to call the admirals on anyone who pisses them off the average person has no hope of fighting back. It’s difficult to guess how noble the progenitors of the current Celestial Dragons were, but judging by what we know of the Void Century we can guess not very. At the same time, it’s hard to imagine them starting out as the mustache-twirling villains as we see in the current day. The only difference between the Nefertitis and the other kings was one man’s choice to stay with his people. In an alternate universe Vivi could have been a Celestial Dragon.

Now there’s an AU idea.

At the end of the day, the Celestial Dragons play an important role within the One Piece universe, but they are not, by themselves, important to Luffy. He hates their guts and enjoys punching them in the face, but he’s a pirate, not a Revolutionary. The future for One Piece is delightfully opaque, and it’s hard for me to see how the Natural Enemy of God ends up tearing the system to the ground. Will the Straw Hats end up going to space? I don’t know, but there are a lot of people who think it’s at least a possibility.

I personally find them at their most interesting when they’re playing the part of the outside influencer. The Celestial Dragons have only been the direct opponents to the Straw Hats a handful of times, but they’ve played a direct role in the lives of so many other characters—both heroic and villainous—that without them the series could not exist as it currently does. 

And that’s the power of good worldbuilding. I don’t need Luffy to face off against Im to be satisfied with the series. In fact, he was brought in so late that I’ll be a little disappointed if he ends up as the final boss fight. I’m okay with the Revolutionary Army storming Mariejois off-screen, because while those are important players and major chess pieces, that’s never been where Luffy’s focus has been. He’s the man who’s going to become the Pirate King, and until the Celestial Dragons somehow get in the way of that dream he’s not going to bother with them. This lack of focus allows the inherent darkness of the Celestial Dragons not to overshadow the more lighthearted, whimsical aspects of the series. They explore certain themes that are important to One Piece, but the story doesn’t dwell in the mire, and I think it’s all the stronger for it. . 

[diveronarpg]

Congratulations, BREE! You’ve been accepted for the role of BIANCA. Admin Rosey: I think the first thing that came to mind was how powerfully you captured Bunny's voice, Bree. You. Absolutely. Killed it. Your plot points built upon one after the other which shows how you plan to lay the foundation for her and force her to grow, no matter how much she kicks up her heels about it. It can be difficult trying to force a character like Bunny to grow without taking away from what makes her so intriguing and fun, but wow. Am I so very glad to have her added to the ranks, ready to bring us chaos and absolute ruin. Please read over the checklist and send in your blog within 24 hours.

WELCOME TO THE MOB.

Out of Character

Alias | Bree.

Age | Twenty.

Preferred Pronouns | She/her.

Activity Level | I’m studying engineering and running collegiately, so the short answer is that I’m not entirely sure. The long answer is that my activity will ebb and flow depending on my schedule; some weeks are easier than others. But I’ll do my damnedest to be around, even if that means firing off ugly-formatted replies on mobile (or having Rosey or Kiersten format them for me… we’ve done it before).

Timezone | CST.

How did you find the rp?  | English class my senior year of high school, with the help of Rosey (no, seriously). I’ve been watching from afar, and I couldn’t stay away.

Current/Past RP Accounts | here, here, and here

In Character

Character | Bianca; Bernadette “Bunny” Dupont

What drew you to this character? | Well… originally, I wrote her. But since that sounds like a cop-out and I can never pass up the opportunity to wax poetic about one of my literary children, I’ll bite. ;)

She’s a piece of work. No, not that kind of work, not artwork—given her art forging expertise, that would be a cliché, and neither I nor Bunny are particularly fond of those. I mean that she’s single-handedly both the easiest and the most difficult character I’ve ever written and, I might argue, will ever write. Self-absorbed and yet oddly self-aware, vulgar in the delicate way only someone with a face like hers could be, and so tenderly cruel it’s endearing—she’s awful, but writing her has never been an inkling as heavy as writing equally diabolical characters has been in the past. She’s somehow able to be a light-hearted character in an environment where that sort of label tends to be reserved for characters like Maeve, all flower petals and naivete and ripe for the slaughter—without encompassing any of that. I don’t know, maybe it’s her youthful appearance, maybe it’s her love of candy and strawberries and her tendency to act so much like a child, or maybe it’s that careful balance between what she appears to be, what she’d like to be, and who she is, but she manages to check off some boxes that appear at first glance to be mutually exclusive. She lacks any concrete ambition outside of being revered, yet she possesses the potential to climb, to do some terrible things, because of that unfocused ambition. Her selfishness makes her a target for manipulation while being an avid manipulator herself. Her priorities are bottoms-up and she’s hardly got what most would call a good head on her shoulders, but damn if she isn’t a coquettish kind of cunning.

I thought I wouldn’t even know where to begin, but I’m having trouble finding where to end. The point is, I love this little brat.

What is a future plot idea you have in mind for the character? | Where do you see this character developing, and what kind of actions would you have them take to get there? 3 future plot ideas would be preferable.

Piss off, Picasso: It’s only fitting, I suppose, that a little girl so proficient at mocking her sister (and her friends) behind her doting parents’ backs should grow up and learn to put that art of imitation to good, more mature use in the mob. She’s got it all going for her, really; wealthy upbringing, an eye for detail, and a shameless disregard for plucking coins from the purses of others to feed her own greed—what could go wrong? Plenty. And while I’d definitely like to explore the aftermath of what might happen if she got sloppy and was found out, she’s got her fair share of trouble on her plate right now with her—er, bad publicity. So first, I’d like to see her do well. I’d like to see her get overconfident, make connections, be successful. Once she’s finished throwing her little tantrum about my next plot idea, she’ll probably be inclined to hone her skills, sell a few more paintings to get out of the hole she stumbled into. After all, respect isn’t earned in Bunny’s world; it’s bought.

Paparazzi: It’s not what it looks like. Come on, he isn’t even that cute. Bunny’s moment of weakness, if it can be called that, presents obvious potential for her to either pull herself up by the bootstraps (imagine) or dig herself even farther. This might be the first time she’s gotten into any real trouble, especially the kind that Daddy Dupont couldn’t fix, and she’s not going to handle it well. But her knee-jerk reaction should make for good comedy and some even better plots. How far will she go to prove that she’s still just as loyal to the Capulets as she’s always been (which is to say, not particularly?)? What other mistakes can she make? It’s time to get her pretty little hands dirty, I think. She’s too proud to ask her sister for help, but all bets are off when it comes to Cyrus. Hell, maybe even her connection to Boris can come into play here (counterproductive, probably).

This Is What Makes Us Girls: The relationship Bunny has with Maeve and Juliana is one of my favorite parts about her, because it’s one of the best means for me to flesh out and play with all of the different sides of Bunny. They’re a pretty integral part to the image she keeps up—both that of a dignified daughter and a girl still steeped in candy-lacquered youth, and it’s for that reason that her secret dislike/jealousy of them both is so… telling? Bunny’s conceited, sure, but she is—at her core—insecure. And insecure people—insecure teenage girls, although she’s aged out of that territory—do pretty terrible things. I want to explore the dynamic within this friend group. I want to see her sabotage something important to Juliana. I want to see her have Maeve do her bidding, see her put her friends in harm’s way. Betrayal doesn’t always call for bloodshed; sometimes cutting deep doesn’t call for a knife.

Are you comfortable with killing off your character? | Eh… as much as I’d love to give the usual “yes, give me all the angst,” I’m not really sure that Bunny is the type of character whose death will serve a purpose/further the plot, to be honest. Only the good die young, and she’s anything but.

If at any point the plot calls for it, we can talk about it, but I don’t foresee her developing in such a way that I’d suggest it.

In Depth

What is your favorite place in Verona? |

That’s a stupid question, she thinks, smoothing out the hem of her skirt and settling contentedly into the plush armchair, half-business and half-play. It’s a copout, almost—the daytime equivalent of asking someone’s favorite color in truth or dare. It’s a wasted turn, a missed opportunity. If she wanted to write love letters to the streets of Verona, she’d pick up the noble art of journaling.

In any case, the answer was most certainly a harrowing tie between her clawfoot bathtub and the half of her king-sized bed farthest from the window—but that sounded so infantile even she might’ve quirked an eyebrow at such a response. This, she realizes, is what it’s like to grow older: to make terrible small talk over lukewarm tea and lie in more dignified ways than she had in her youth.

(She’s twenty-one years, two months, and three days old. This is middle age. This is melodrama.)

“There’s a little candy shop a few blocks from the foot of the Castelvecchio. Their chocolate-covered strawberries are to die for.”

What does your typical day look like?

She likes this one—likes the way it sounds like a question straight out of the magazines she reads in her near-infinite free time, all gloss and understated glamour. In fact, she’s spent a perhaps embarrassing amount of time crafting responses to such a question in the event that she were ever asked, and although this isn’t exactly the avenue she’d had in mind, it’ll do.

Let it never be said that Bunny Dupont cannot compromise.

“I like to wake before the sun,” she lies elegantly, matter-of-factly, knowing damn well that just this morning she’d slumbered until noon but eager to portray the image of a young woman with her shit thoroughly together. The corners of her pink lips turn up in a smile, as if the very thought of a sunrise sways her to cliché thoughts of new beginnings and second chances, of the kinds of phrases befitting the tacky dollar-store decorations Maeve collects like an old man does stamps. How very carpe diem of her.

“I wash my face, have a cup of tea, and try to get a bit of reading done.” When she puts it that way, it sounds quite a bit more like a sophisticated heiress devouring novels in the early morning light than the slightly-less-respectable-but-nonetheless-true alternative of a troublemaker surveying last night’s damage, pastries piled with whipped cream within arm’s reach.

“I like to meet my friends for brunch. Juliana and I are regulars at The Phoenix and the Turtle,” she says delicately, deliberate with her inclusion of the Capulet girl’s name and her exclusion of any others. “I’ll paint a bit in the afternoons…” The little blonde trails off, green eyes darting about as if calling the remainder of her routine to mind. The truth is that she’s already grown bored, and perhaps that’s her own fault; it can get exhausting, pretending to be responsible, truly exhausting—but playing pretend is too fun. “And home for dinner, always.”

What has been your biggest mistake thus far?

She twirls a strand of cotton-blonde hair around her finger, a coy display of sheepishness befitting a schoolgirl. What was her biggest mistake? The question demands a certain sort of humility, a level of introspection and honesty she’s never had the need to stoop to in all her years as the Dupont family darling, and if she were a tad less shameless it might even be a little—what’s the word?—unnerving. There was a reason she’d been dutiful enough to go to church on Sundays with her father but had avoided the confessional like her mother avoided carbs, and that reason had nothing to do—okay, fine, but only a little— to do with an aversion to being on her knees.

But she’s nothing if not an opportunist, a performer, and she treads the line between timid and cruel when she remarks, “I held a Montague boy’s hand once. Went home and went through two bars of soap.”

What has been the most difficult task asked of you?

“Firing a gun,” Bunny admits, leaning in as if to let the intern in on a secret, “It’s harder than I expected. “Pulling the trigger, I mean. Takes a bit more pressure than they show you in the movies.” Leave it to her to turn such a grim discussion to something a bit less uncomfortable, a bit more palatable. Leave it to her to dodge the—well, difficult—questions. When have you failed? When have you struggled? How have you grown?

In two words: she hasn’t. (In another two: not yet.)

What are your thoughts on the war between the Capulets and the Montagues?

Lingering in the air like her favorite perfume was a rule oft-spoken and waiting to be broken: no politics, it’s simply not lady-like. Her father’s banks backed the Capulets, and where the money went, the Duponts surely followed. For all her selfishness and disdain for anything which drew the attention away from her and her needs, Bunny Dupont understood the necessity of these things—of petty grudges and not-so-petty crimes—for people like them. Wars, even wars like these, needed money: a lot of it.

“I don’t feel I know enough to say much about it,” she says carefully, the gleam in her green eyes looking more like a trick of the light and less like a clue. “I only wish there weren’t so much blood.”

Why? It left a nasty stain.

Extras: If you have anything else you’d like to include (further headcanons, an inspo tag, a mock blog, etc), feel free to share it here! This is OPTIONAL.

Headcanons:

When she was little, she wanted to be an actress or an only child: the former, she told her parents, and the latter, she told her sister.

Her hard liquor of choice is vodka, the flavored kind—the sweeter, the better. She’s mastered the art of taking shots of it with a straight face after many years of practice.

Strawberries are her favorite. Chocolate-covered, in champagne—you name it.

In high school, she got her kicks by scaring off boys who approached her to get a leg-up on wooing Juliana. So many potential suitors shot down, convinced that Cosimo would have them shipped off to some foreign land without their heads or their manhood.

Once, she promised Maeve she’d get her crush to ask her on a date. She was only half a virgin after that. He never called Maeve.

She’s a Gemini (May 30th).

[boydgearloose]

how do you feel about Fenro? do you think it has a chance when it comes to character development?

OKAY so i have been trying to figure out how to answer this without going on a whole ass tangent but however i cannot so read more it is fellas let’s do this

basically my feelings on fenro are….well i don’t wanna say complicated because i do REALLY love it and can’t deny that, even if i don’t post a lot of it here BUT i am gonna say that i’m not a huge fan of how a lot of people portray it and that might be because i tend to get super attached to how i see certain dynamics?? but still i feel the need to go off a little bit about that

let me start this off by saying one thing: as of now, fenton and gyro’s relationship is one of the most interesting things in the show to me and not even in a ship way, i just really love their scenes together and seeing them interact because hey they’re my two favorite characters! what’s not to love?

however, the fandom interpretations kinda throw me off because when i see content of these two it’s either like…..gyro currently in the show having a thing for fenton and being hard on him because he likes him or whatever OR gyro just straight-up being unforgivably terrible and awful to him for no damn reason to the point of where he’s portrayed as an antagonist 

and both of them are extremely fuckin oocfirst of all, the whole “tsundere” gyro thing is kinda….weird imo? i mean, yeah he’d probably be the type to deny his feelings at first because he’s a pretty closed off person but it’s such an overly exaggerated and boring way to go about this whole thing

gyro and fenton currently have a looong way to go like i don’t think they hate each other in the slightest (frank more or less confirmed this) but there definitely is a lot of tension there so anything romantic happening that soon feels weird to me and super uninteresting compared to the other options

in order for this to work, it would have to be a LONG way into the future but that’s still possible! one thing i find super interesting that nobody ever brings up is that their whole dynamic just changed: they’re on the same level now because they both work for scrooge, gyro has no right to boss fenton around and they’re going to have to learn how to work together as equals and develop a friendship from there

THAT’S WHY I FIND THEIR RELATIONSHIP IN THE SHOW SO INTERESTING AND NOBODY EVER PLAYS WITH IT and that makes me irrationally mad like i’m literally counting the DAYS until we get to see them interact again with this new dynamic and i know for more or less a fact that we’re gonna get some good development out of their relationship this season and everyone just….doesn’t…..talk about it……they just pull some “lol gyro is a jerk to fenton bc he likes him xD” crap AND THAT’S REALLY NOT IT MAN JUST LOOK AT THE POTENTIAL THESE TWO HAVE THAT YOU’RE WASTING ON THAT AWFUL CLICHE TROPE

now that i’ve covered that bad interpretation, let’s move on to the second take because boy it really makes me mad too!!! now i’m not trying to deny that gyro is WAY too damn harsh on fenton because he definitely is and i haven’t seen anyone try to ignore that (if they do then they’re wrong bc gyro’s an asshat)

gyro is…..not the best socially, as we all know, and he has the tendency to act like he’s above everyone else and this is definitely portrayed with how he’s treated fenton thus far and he needs a stern talking to and lesson on how to treat people the way they deserve to be treated bc damn he’s got some issues!!! but i have no doubt that will happen because the crew has nothing but positive words for gyro

however, like……okay i am really trying to think of a way to word this that doesn’t make me sound like i’m dunking on fenton bc I’M NOT HE’S SUCH A WONDERFUL CHARACTER AND GENUINELY NICE PERSON but sometimes his attempts to be helpful kind of…….are things that would make a reasonable person angry? and gyro already has a short fuse so like how else is he gonna react when he finds out someone posted his secret information online and got it stolen or that someone’s sneaking around with an unstable invention of his and doing stuff with it that he said not to do?

this ties in with the whole thing where people infantilize the shit out of fenton and refuse to see him as an adult and instead think he’s some poor wittle defenseless baby who can’t stick up for himself uwu so he needs someone to save him uwuwuwuwu which…HOO BOY I DON’T LIKE THAT ONE BIT

fenton is a bit of a pushover who tries to hard to help others, yes, but how can you watch who is gizmoduck and think he’s 100% defenseless against gyro??? the whole episode is about him pushing past misconceptions and standing up for himself so why do you think he’d have a problem telling gyro to go fuck himself if it came down to it like HE EVEN KIND OF STOOD UP TO HIM IN THAT EPISODE JUST. GOD. FENTON ISN’T HELPLESS Y’ALL HE’S A 25+-YEAR-OLD MAN WHO WANTS TO SEE THE BEST IN PEOPLE BUT ISN’T AFRAID TO TELL SOMEONE OFF WHEN THEY DESERVE IT

kinda backtracking here but fenton’s whole thing is that he wants to help people but he’s too impulsive with how he goes about it and it winds up wrong and yeah it’s the thought that counts but that’s such an interesting part of his character and others overlook it to make it seem like gyro continuously torments him or something which he really…..doesn’t, he’s not very nice to him at all but people really take it too far sometimes and act all Edgy about it and it’s a terrible take for both of their characters

honestly what’s interesting about these kind of relationships is that you get to watch them grow and look back in a few months or years at a season 1 episode and think “aww! look how far they’ve come” and it’s gorgeous 

fenro couldn’t possibly work as anything other than a REALLY SLOW BURN i mean like REALLY SLOW but y’know?? slow burns are my JAM so i’m on board! i just really wish more people felt the same way about it instead of rushing it when they haven’t even gotten to the friendship stage in canon yet 

i love where this is going and am too hyped for words to see how they’re gonna interact now that they’re on equal grounds and gyro is gonna be confronted with the fact that he can’t act like he’s above fenton whatsoever anymore (tbh i really think fenton’s gonna do the confronting himself bc like i said, he can do that y’all!!! he can stand up for himself when he’s pushed too far and you all gotta realize that and stop treating him like he’s a baby!!!!!!)

these two are my favorite characters in the show and i trust the crew to give us some good content of em and to develop their relationship in an interesting way because i have yet to be disappointed in any of the other character dynamics they’ve fleshed out and i know whatever they do is gonna kill me

also my friend and i may or may not currently be writing a fic about all of this but i’ll leave that for y’all to find on your own ;) 

SO TL;DR: YES. IT DEFINITELY HAS A LOT OF POTENTIAL AND I THINK IT’S GONNA GET SOME NICE TASTY DEVELOPMENT IN SEASON 2 BUT PEOPLE IGNORE THE DEVELOPMENT PART AND IT MAKES ME ANGRY

[raptorific]

genuine question: why do you not like people refering to lucio specifically as "boy"? tumblr tends to call every character boy/boi especialy since the mcelroys became popular so what is it about lucio in particular that isnt good to call him boy

The short answer: it’s because he’s black and the people doing it are largely white and there’s cultural baggage surrounding white people using the words “boy” and “son” to address black men. 

The long answer starts out with the idea of tonedeafness and a fandom phenomenon that crops up when predominately white fanbases are exposed to dimensional, compelling characters of color. The same thing happened with Star Wars and Pacific Rim and so many other diverse franchises lately. 

A lot of the time, white fans are genuinely not trying to be racist, but most of their faves up to this point have been white, and they haven’t considered that perhaps the way they write and talk about those faves would take on different implications when the characters’ race is considered. 

For instance, and I get in trouble a lot for bringing this up, but a few months ago there was a Disney AU fanart of Finn and Rey from Star Wars as Tarzan and Jane. Now, in the movie, Tarzan and Jane are both white, but in the art, the impact changes because Finn is a black man and the artist drew him as an animalistic ape-man who meets a delicate high-class British woman who “civilizes” him. Obviously the Tarzan/Jane dynamic has a very VERY different meaning if Tarzan is depicted as black and Jane is depicted as white, and it is in fact racist to depict Finn that way even if it wouldn’t even be the smallest problem to draw, say, Iron Man and Pepper Potts in the same exact situation. (Also if anyone is Tarzan in that pairing, it’s Rey, but I digress)

So you get these situations where people are trying to do the stuff they always do for all characters, only their faves have mostly been white up to this point so they’ve never really had to consider the racial implications of the stuff they say and write about those characters. That’s why they draw D.Va as an infant without realizing that the infantilization of East Asian women is actually a harmful racist practice, and then when informed of this fact, instead of saying “oh shit, I didn’t know I was contributing to that! Thanks for telling me, I’ll stop doing it,” they get defensive and claim that actually it doesn’t matter if the end product is 100% identical to racism, because they didn’t intend for it to be racist, that’s not what they were trying to do.

Also, generally speaking, they don’t do the same thing to white characters. While jokes at the expense of Soldier: 76 and Zarya are usually things like “he’s old and grumpy” or “she’s really strong,” jokes about Reaper are more like “he’s got a huge dick and he’s abusive and a rapist” and jokes about D.Va are usually “she’s a dirty and mischievous subhuman creature and the white guy is like her dad.” The fact that a lot of people make all these jokes and think they’re roughly equivalent speaks to how much unconscious racism they’ve got to purge from their system. 

Alright, so now that we understand that, let’s get into a little more of why “boy” and “son” in particular are not the sort of thing you should not call Lucio. 

The first and main reason is that he’s a grown man, aged 26, but more importantly, he is a black man. Historically, the words “boy” and “son” have been used on black men for two reasons: 

Because even grown black men were to be treated as childlike under white supremacy, esp. under slavery, and even after the abolition of slavery, the words “boy” and “son” are still used in order to talk down to black men. You will still frequently catch younger white people address black men older than them as “boy” or “son,” especially in a service capacity (i.e. a black waiter or employee at a store). Under slavery, the dominant white supremacist narrative was that even the smartest black people were only on the level of white children, which is obviously a complete falsehood fabricated to justify their continued subjugation by saying “they’d be lost without us.” So, by referring to black men as “boy” or “son,” that’s the message that was being communicated, that even though any given black person is grown, they’re still viewed as roughly mentally equivalent to children. 

A lot of slaveowners didn’t feel it was worth it to learn the individual names of their slaves, so they would simply address them as “boy” or “son” (or “girl” or a variety of other degrading names for women) and this practice continued even after the abolition of slavery. Again, calling back to the “black waiter” situation I referred to earlier, you still sometimes see white patrons referring to black employees as “boy” or “son” in this way. For older people, they would use the terms “Auntie” and “Uncle” as a way to deny them honorific titles such as “Mister” and “Miss,” which is where we get mascots like “Aunt Jemima” and “Uncle Ben,” both of whom were derived from this practice. A similar example is how a lot of white railroad passengers wouldn’t bother to learn the names of their car’s porter and would simply call them all “George,” which again sort of demonstrates my point: the name “George” isn’t inherently racist, lots of people have that name, but to call a black guy doing their job that carries different implications even if you “didn’t mean it that way.”

So generally, there’s nothing wrong with the words “boy” or “son” most of the time, but when you address a black man this way, it carries a whole different implication. I’m not trying to condemn anyone morally or say “you’re evil if you’ve ever used these words about Lucio” or anything, but back to the beginning of this:

I am assuming you all have positive intent, that you are all well-meaning and that you are definitely not trying to be racist. Because of this, I feel like it’s my responsibility to tell you when a thing you’re saying carries meanings that you maybe didn’t consider and definitely didn’t mean to imply. I know I would feel foolish and guilty if I found out something I’d been saying casually actually had a racist meaning that I wasn’t aware of, so I just want to say that if anyone reading this is (like me) a white person who’s really truly well-intentioned and doesn’t mean to be racist at all, your response here should be “oh wow, I didn’t know that Boy and Son are names you generally shouldn’t call black people, I’ll be more conscious of that in the future,” and if your response is to become defensive and try to prove that it isn’t bad because you didn’t mean it “that way,” it either means you aren’t well-intentioned and do mean to be racist OR it means you didn’t read the post. 

That being said, I’m happy to inform where I can, but I’m also not black, and a lot of black writers have explained this a lot more eloquently than me. I suggest you do some googling and research what they’ve said on the subject, because I’m sure they’ll give you a clearer picture than I possibly can. 

[oadara]

It seems to be the new trend among antis, that Dany fans don't see her faults. Is it so hard to believe that someone can see that Dany isn't perfect and still love her so fiercely? No, my dears the problem with Dany is that there can never be a balanced discussion on her. Haters only tend to point out her faults, which causes a knee jerk reaction from her fans to defend her.

Hi anon, 

The most bizarre thing about people who hate her character is that they discuss her fault constantly. Go to any discussion board and the overwhelming majority of topics on Dany are about one or another of her faults in comparison to positive discussion of her character. 

I’ve discussed Dany’s faults ad nauseum, before the hullabaloo about the season 7 leaks, that was what the majority of my asks where about. So, it’s not like fans of Dany don’t talk about her faults, it’s that we are tired that that is almost all we talk about when she comes up in a discussion. 

To further the problem, almost all the people who hate the character are constantly either twisting her actions to show her actions in a more negative light then they are or misrepresent her storyline. This of course makes fans of Dany’s character defensive, because she’s accused of doing things she doesn’t even do, so we can never have an honest debate. 

Take for example her decision to have the wine seller daughter’s tortured. I’m going to quote myself now because I’ve already discussed this:

While I don’t condone torture in general especially in our world, in the world of ASOIAF it’s common practice among rulers and leaders. We see Jon for example locking the Karstark in the ice cell at the Wall to torture him with the cold or not caring about the Qhorin turturing the Wildling for information or forcing Gilly to give up her baby and switch her little boy with that of Mance’s.

The events of Meereen are muddled but we do know that at the establishment of the wine seller where his daughters worked, 9 people where massacred by the Harpy, including some of Dany’s Unsullied, presumably with the assistance of the wine seller and his daughters.

At first Dany doesn’t want them to be tortured but when she remembers what happened, to her butchered Unsullied and that one of them was Missandei’s brother, she acquiesces to the Shavepate’s request to have the women questioned sharply.

Was is it a shinny moment for Dany? No, of course not. She shouldn’t have allowed the Shavepate to question the women harshly in front of their father in order to get the information they were looking for. But at the time Dany’s people were being butchered by the Harpy and she was desperate to make the killings stop.

In addition to this somehow the fandom came to believe that the wine seller’s daughters were little girls, but there is no evidence of that in the books, in fact this is all the information we have about them:

Your servants have arrested the owner of the wineshop and his daughters. They plead their ignorance and beg for mercy.” They all plead ignorance and beg for mercy. “Give them to the Shavepate. Skahaz, keep each apart from the others and put them to the question.”

“It will be done, Your Worship. Would you have me question them sweetly, or sharply?”

“Sweetly, to begin. Hear what tales they tell and what names they give you. It may be they had no part in this.” She hesitated.

“Nine, the noble Reznak said. Who else?”

“Three freedmen, murdered in their homes,” the Shavepate said. “A moneylender, a cobbler, and the harpist Rylona Rhee. They cut her fingers off before they killed her.” The queen flinched.

Rylona Rhee had played the harp as sweetly as the Maiden. When she had been a slave in Yunkai, she had played for every highborn family in the city. In Meereen she had become a leader amongst the Yunkish freedmen, their voice in Dany’s councils. “We have no captives but this wineseller?”

“None, this one grieves to confess. We beg your pardon.” Mercy, thought Dany. They will have the dragon’s mercy.

“Skahaz, I have changed my mind. Question the man sharply.”

“I could. Or I could question the daughters sharply whilst the father looks on. That will wring some names from him.” “Do as you think best, but bring me names.” Her fury was a fire in her belly. “I will have no more Unsullied slaughtered..“

I mean to some, Dany practically had infants tortured. I wonder if they came to the conclusion because they are referred to as daughters and the urge to infantilize women is so strong in our society. 

Fans of Dany are quite aware of her faults and it’s the reason we love the character so much, because she feels real to us. She makes mistakes teenagers make, her impulsiveness, her anger, was experienced by most of us when we were that age. Not at that scale of course, none of us were conquering continents but we know what it feels like to be so angry at an injustice you just want shit to burn. 

She’ll grow out of it, like we did, and be a better person for it. She is someone who genuinely cares about the people who have been forgotten and neglected by society and is willing to do something about it. Unlike most. 

TTFN