#but I was much more polite about it lmao

[spacephobos]

I've got so much I want to say about Polite Society. But I refuse to post anything too spoilery yet.

So one thing I will say is the way Lena's depression and mental health is written is incredible. So often when men write women with mental health issues they write this sort of "prettily struggling" womsn in a spiral.

(this infamous queens gambit scene comes to mind)

They're never allowed to actually be ugly or gross or even not have their hair and makeup be perfect.

Like beth here is in a pretty frilly top shes reclining in an uncomfortable fashion. Her makeup looks perfect and he cardigan is prettily draped over her shoulders. She's meant to be attractive. Her sadness is almost fetishised.

but then Lena looks like this

Whereas Lena's a WRECK. It's considered an achievement she showered. AND shes proud of herself for that small acomplishment. Shes angry. She destroys her work. She's dressed in sweats and pyjamas with either no makeup (if i remember correctly) or makeup that looks like it's been on for days. There's a scene where shes wandering aimlessly and just buys a duck to eat. And she does not eat it daintily or prettily (and no its not a chicken ppl seem to be confused).

I love that she spends all the first act in hoodies and pajamas looking like shes not washed in 3 days. It's just so good to see a woman direct another woman with depression. There's so much to be said about the male gaze and how it even impacts the portrayal of women going through crisis. The removal of that lens has created what I will argue is the most authentic experience of depression in a woman I've maybe ever seen. I literally cannot think of another time I've seen that.

Anyways Nida Manzoor I love you.

[rcxdirectrix]

I'm posting my second TFOC first rather than my first/sona LMAO.

-------------------

VINCULUM - Decepticon Space Station

---------------------------------------

Vinculum was forged simultaneously with Directrix. They were close friends before they were separated.

While Directrix was acquired by the current government, Vinculum was bought by a powerful and influential politician (name pending). He served as his personal space station.

I had a headcanon where larger mechs whose function involves housing other mechs (i.e. ships, titans, space stations, shuttles, etc) have innate abilities unique to them that aid them in their function. But just for this post i will mention the ability to psychically communicate with their inhabitants since it's important to mention for him. This ability was modified and enhanced by said politician's scientists to enable Vinculum to be able to read surface thoughts.

This was used to spy on political rivals and friends alike and collect their dirty secrets whenever they are invited on board the space station for parties or campaigns.

Vinculum can also plug into their victim with a cable for a deeper probe on memories if needed. The victim usually does not recall the incident as it is erased before they leave.

He is also used for other equally nefarious purposes, such as scamming, fraud, laundering, trade and stock market manipulation often for the benefit of his owner.

His ownership was forcibly transferred to the Decepticons when the war started and he continued his work there.

[even-disco-baby]

YOU — “No. There is still a chance.”

DOLORES DEI — “You think so?” Her voice is weary.

EMPATHY — Everything about her is weary. She is the Innocence of weariness, of heroically borne suffering.

CONCEPTUALIZATION — That is the picture you have painted for yourself, at any rate.

YOU — “You looked back. That’s the memory, the moment, that I can’t stop returning to. You looked back. I had a chance, for just that moment…”

DOLORES DEI — She meets your eye, gaze still forever cast back over her shoulder. Time stops. The stars are stilled, the ocean silent. There is *nothing* beyond this memory. Nothing at all. All of infinity is contained in this single moment when anything and everything was possible.

“Oh, Harry…” She sighs, soft as eiderdown. “We never had any chance.”

And just like that, the wave of time collapses under its own weight, obliterating everything. This moment was six years ago. She is gone from here. Gone, gone…

PAIN THRESHOLD — You cannot leave. There was nothing outside of this moment, and now there is nothing at all. It’s all gone. There is no point. I’m sorry. I can’t do this any longer.

VOLITION — Please, don’t say that…

“Okay. Well, fuck me, then.”

“How would *you* know?! You gave up! You didn’t even try!”

“We *must* have had a chance, at some point… Doesn’t everyone get a chance, if nothing more?”

“How could you say that…?”

DOLORES DEI — “Because it’s true,” she says, matter-of-fact. “There is no moment in time that you can turn back to, no branching paths, no infinity. There is only what happened. I looked back… and then away.” She closes her eyes, turning her back to you.

“The moment ended. *We* ended. That is all.”

SHIVERS — A wave crashes against an unseen shore, ocean spray tickling the back of your neck. You shiver, but no one shivers with you. You are alone in this intersection. Why are you here?

“Why can’t *I* end?! Why can’t this all just stop? Please, make it stop…”

“Ended? I’ve barely even started! I got a chance to start completely over as somebody new! I don’t need you anymore! You’re just dead weight to me now.”

“No. That wasn’t the real ending. We’re a part of something so much bigger than this intersection, telling a story that encapsulates all of history! There’s *more* to this, it *means* something.”

“Then… What am I supposed to do now…?”

DOLORES DEI — “No, Harry.” She turns back to you again now, and she looks… sad.

“We were not metaphors. We were people. Our narrative was not intelligently designed. It simply followed the patterns of history, because those are the only patterns we *know.* We tried to create something new, but we failed. There is no narrative reward for our failure, no satisfactory ending. There is only the immutable past and the unknowable future.”

RHETORIC — There is no assurance of what is good or deserved or what may bring relief. There is no assurance of punishment, either. There is no assurance of anything. Not even of a future. I don’t know what to say to make this bearable.

VOLITION — Even so… As long as you live, *something* is promised. Can you live with that?

I can’t, I just can’t do this anymore…

I can. It’s enough.

I don’t know. I just don’t know.

I can at least try for a little longer…

VOLITION — That’s all I ask. That’s enough.

[w1lmuttart]

Had a fun thought about immortality, now this exists

[indecisiveaboutthetitle]

“As daughter of the Ice Tribe's leader, it is my duty to protect our people!”

Guess who is in the middle of a Fates hyperfixation revival.

Also guess who hates the maid archetype but at the same time loves an underdeveloped character who is a maid.

[smokeys-house]

I see your point but you have to know that these are ordinary hobbies. These are the hobbies outside of sports that are the generic examples people give when it comes to hobbies. I'm in no way dissing these hobbies, they're good hobbies, and you're right about seeing things differently because of them, but they're very much regular hobbies.

[todayisafridaynight]

What do you think Mine’s reaction to Masato / Aoki be like?

tbh they'd probably be. amicable. at the very least.

[tonyglowheart]

I wish there was qq fic I liked on ao3 cuz I finished rereading qq so once again I'm like, "so now what...."

[thebaffledcaptain]

I’m going to sound like a filthy british bastard by saying this but one of the things I think turns me away from this heavily fandomized tumblrification of the american revolution is genuinely the lack of british perspectives. I obviously don’t fault tumblr for this being the case (it goes without saying that it is a far deeper issue than just that… cough cough american nationalism and exceptionalism and the effect that has on the media) but in spaces like this there really just isn’t… any nuance at all to this conflict which was so undeniably nuanced in so many ways. it’s all about gay founding fathers and cool spies which. I understand the appeal but at a certain point I’m genuinely not sure how much of it we can call history

[aeide-thea]

god i know that complaining abt fic which most of you haven't read, and which i won't, for politeness' sake, identify in this post, is a great way to come across as both dickish and boring—

but i've been rereading a very long, very satisfyingly plotty series that's a fandom darling and the thing is, when you read like 400k of an author's work at once it really starts to become painfully apparent what their priorities are, by which i mean two things:

holy shit they're obsessed with 'what if strong powerful men who could hurt you didn't (but did hurt Bad Guys) (and it was sexy of them),' which leads into

holy shit they do not appear to have thought through the implications of saying 'i will have my heroes take over the same power structures that have enabled abuse, make no real changes to those structures other than swapping out the leadership, and then claim that everything is wonderful now bc Good Men Are In Charge'??

like. i don't necessarily need every passing fantasy to present me with a coherent, revolutionary system of politics and ethics—sometimes things are just fun and sexy and not especially Examined and that's fine!—but by the time someone's written literally almost half a million words, and done a lot of worldbuilding while they were at it, i am going to start squinting if they seem to think a Good Man can e.g. become an emperor by killing off the leadership of multiple countries and installing puppet kings loyal to him and still remain a Good Man, even if the justification was that the original leadership was maltreating its citizens and deserved to be extrajudicially executed. like. this shit was a bad, autocratic move when the US did it in real life and it's still bad now that you're having our mutual blorbo do it in fiction! and that's not even getting into the whole thing where like. they've got servants who the Good Man and his friends ""treat well"" but who very much remain second-class citizens in terms of how the story actually frames them and their concerns. [this was also a huge issue i had with foz m*adows' most recent book—everyone wants to write about fantasy nobles but they also want to make them good people and it's like. honestly i think it might be better to get comfortable writing about flawed people, but also—if your aristos aren't treating their servants like equals and your text isn't either, you haven't actually cracked the Moral Aristo paradox, sorry!] like, there's nothing that says your story has to depict a fully Healed World, nor should there be! but it's troubling if you seem to be convinced you've written one (and have your wide-eyed love interests constantly marveling at it!) when you very patently haven't.

[seventh-fantasy]

Vegas Theerapanyakul, heir of the minor family.

I couldn’t stop thinking about how the minor family is presented in the image of traditional Chinese mafia / triads - a stark contrast to how the main family appears like a corporation. I couldn’t stop thinking about how that that means they would have emphasised on values of community and loyalty. Although the show doesn’t go far and deep into it in the main narrative, there are clues that this is more than just an aesthetic choice of their living compound and dressing - particularly pertaining to Vegas’ character (and because of course that’s all i care about).

Visually, we see that in their Guan Gong worship (typical deity worship by triads), the locals hanging around at the shophouse front of the manor, and also in the group feasts (I had such a good mini exchange in the tags with @bocje-ce-ustu​ about this that made me want to write this post). This post expounds on this nature of the minor family so much better in detail. *blows kisses to op*

Since we didn't get to see enough of Vegas papa outside of being VP's plot device, we don’t know a reliable amount about him to determine how his leadership style was like to have us seeing what we saw around the minor family house. Personally I just can’t take Kan’s character in ep 11-13 too seriously. He literally appears to bitchslap Vegas based on the most simplistic *handwaves* reasons and then he was gone - as if you didn’t need to go through the hassle to cross the river to get to the safehouse. (crossing rivers everyday just to bitchslap your son? that’s some commitment) The earlier episodes and ep 14 may be more reliable but it’s still limited.

Nevertheless, how did he raise Vegas as a heir of such a community? I want to think that as much as a piece of shit we saw Kan as for most his screentime, he still had a strong sense of their triad values in his blood, and it gets into Vegas as a person (for better or for worse). At the very least, he was shown seated with the rest of the gang at the table (in the above screenshot). How did such a community raise Vegas as a potential successor in general? What was his and Macau’s childhood like? (I have not read the novel so don’t @ me.)

It’s so interesting to think about those given what a complex guy Vegas turned out to be. (Complex as a character itself but also made even more complex with how the narrative over the episodes had nebulously shaped audience perception of him - like, you can get a different side of Vegas in each episode and have no idea where the fake or real Vegas starts and ends as we saw him. That ended up being a charm of his character.)

-

(Vegas + Kan + Macau + minor family community)

I got the impression that it has been pretty much assumed that Macau could also be frequently physically abused by Kan like he does with Vegas, and so Vegas would have to actively protect Macau. But also consider this possibility: Kan just doesn’t hit Macau at all. It’s only Vegas he hits.

Macau simply doesn’t strike me as someone who has to live in constant mortal fear. He’s innocently mischievous and sociable; clearly not as emotionally burdened as Vegas. But he's not naive. He’s aware of Vegas’ plans and whatever politics is going on in his extended family. I just don’t believe that Vegas’ form of protection and care for Macau is to completely hide all the ugly stuff from him like what Porsche did with Chay.

At the same time, Vegas is too much of a pleaser to be opposing his dad all the time for Macau to be consistently safe and stable. Especially considering that we can safely guess that him talking back to his dad at the safehouse in ep 13 was one of the first times he had explicitly stood up to his dad in some way. (a side note: the way Kan responded may seem on-the-nose after a succession of Kan scenes just appearing out of thin air to hit Vegas and galvanise the VP narrative - but it hits a raw nerve like yeap I 100% believe that’s how an Asian parent would respond to such a statement from their kid.)

That’s because Kan’s expectations for Vegas, the eldest son and potential successor, just aren’t the same as for Macau, the younger son.

I can imagine Kan putting all his attention, energy, and pressure on Vegas - not only as his heir but a chess piece in his competition with his older brother and the main family. At a cultural-social level, as an eldest son of a family, like a crown prince, he was fed with expectations that he is the leader of his people - that he will have responsibilities to them and to conduct himself with grace. But at the same time, because of personal and familial reasons, he was also fed the belief that he and his family will forever be inferior to the main family - having anger and bloodlust be seeded and harnessed in him to be used on the main family.

On the other hand, I see more realistically of Kan as a neglectful father to Macau. As a second son, Macau isn’t anything to Kan in business sense and just too young to be useful to him. Thus, we have Kan insisting that Macau is useless (SLANDER) despite Macau having done nothing to offend him. It’s precisely that Kan doesn’t do anything but the bare minimum with Macau and lets him be, that he thinks that Macau had wound up as “useless”. It checks out.

Like what many have pointed out, Vegas surely would have taken up the responsibility of giving the care and love to Macau that they never get from their father. Essentially, Vegas had to fulfill Macau’s emotional needs (to his best) while being actively hurt by his father and strangled by his expectations.

So, imagine Macau as a much younger child having to watch his older brother get beaten or go through corporal punishment (kneeling before the ancestral altar, anyone? wow I’m so original). It’s then Macau who may have been protecting or provides relief to his older brother in some way or another. He knows - largely - what his older brother has to go through, and it is this Macau who probably gets confided and eventually got in the knows of his brother’s schemes.

On this note, it’s probably worth noting that there’s after all a community around them so Vegas may not have had to raise Macau - emotionally and socially - all alone. Of course, these are merely weak ties - given that those underlings are socially inferior to the brothers and they clearly still show deference to Vegas. So what their presence can do to fill the voids of the brothers’ family life is only so limited. The important thing, however, is that the brothers do have a community that surrounds them. A community that has already pledged loyalty to the family. A community that would care and show respect - any inkling of non-hostile social interaction - to their young masters which their own immediate family couldn’t offer. A community that Vegas as a heir would have been drilled into his head since day one that he is obligated to keeping together. This sense of community, as vague as it was, preserved Vegas emotionally somewhere deep down, grounding him to be a person that still has the capacity to care for others - to be human.

This isn’t anything nearly suggested in drama canon, but the many families and street vendors working for them doting on and showing tenderness to the brothers as children is an image I have in my head.

Vegas personally has no problem being respectful and affable with the people who are supposedly lower in status than him. Evident in ep 7 (ep 7 my beloved) from how he interacts with them - addressing them in familiar, polite terms: he even calls the street vendor khun lung - uncle, inclusive of honorifics(!) It’s also in how he entertained Porsche, Pete and Arm like they’re his guests and not his family’s bodyguards. He repeatedly makes sure they’re fed: first he offers moo ping to Pete and Arm then shortly after he asks again whether they’re hungry. These are the kind of manners that are inculcated in a traditional Chinese family, in which you show respect to anyone older than you and make sure your guests are never hungry. Even if he was overdoing this just for Porsche at this moment, it was an act he was willing to put up and in a manner of his choice.

(On this note of Vegas’ manners and politeness, I can never forget how much I love Vegas politely pre-empting Porsche and co. at the beginning of his torture session in ep 7 that they would be uncomfortable. like?? thank you evil man?? that’s so considerate of you)

(Just realised that there’s even a plate of buns?? On...a gambling table...?? Minor family is serving their guests well.)

It was so intentional of the drama to dedicate time to scenes of Vegas and co. entering the market and through to the minor family manor and office, even when it didn’t necessarily have to - apart from the purpose of illustrating Vegas' character. If the Vegas we saw in early episodes hanging around main family compound was indisputably a pretense as he was in foreign territory, then this Vegas being in his home ground was surrounded by an expectation to see him being supposedly who he really is. Partly due to Porsche being around, we still see the same Vegas - but now with an inkling of the idea that how he acted with Porsche before is also how he acts daily in his own space: He has to pretend. Socially, that is who he is. (See why he and Pete are mirror images of each other). Those moments of going after Porsche wasn’t an exception he was making for Porsche as the prey and his Grand Scheme. All the more, this makes the ending scene of ep 4, the first time we saw him truly all alone, fascinating to watch.

-

(Vegas + Porsche)

I guess tangentially related is...how I found the Soft™ Vegas of ep 13-14 in his interactions with Porsche so fascinating because it does instinctively feel different. Was it just the effect of Pete in the most romance drama cliche fashion or does it adhere to Vegas as a character? Sometimes you have to take the way this show portrays its characters with a pinch of salt because it does take liberties with using them as plot device when it is needed of them. But I’m going to say this side of Vegas is also him. It feels different because it’s the barest we’ve seen of him emotionally yet.

Porsche makes for an ideal litmus test of who Vegas really is because of their past mode of interaction for comparison and also Vegas’ character gets to exist outside of romantic/familial narrative filters in this case. With Porsche no longer being his prey and his newfound attachment to Pete, he had nothing to hide, and now there’s even a reason to bare himself to others.

This is me extrapolating at this point but - when he calls Porsche to warn him of the impending coup - despite not actually being friends, that just  *handwaves* spelt out like an act of 义气 to me. 义气 has apparently been translated as “righteousness” but acknowledged to contain cultural connotations too complicated for the translation to be wholly representative. If I had to describe the connotations according to my understanding of it, it’s an idea of a code of honour and brotherhood - in some ways favours and debt-based. So you commonly see that term associated with triads and secret societies.

At this point, Porsche and Vegas are expressively in a collaborative relationship, they helped each other out on what each other needed the most at that point. Vegas is indebted to Porsche. So, even during a time of crisis, he made sure to help Porsche out one last time based on their short-lived allyship and Porsche’s favour to him. But it was a situation beyond his control, so he pays back what he owed, and that was it. Given his upbringing, it is then no surprise that he has such a strong principle and value in him. Vegas is a villain - yes, even after falling in love with Pete and all - but a villain with a code of honour.

-

(Vegas + Kan + Pete)

Vegas has 义 (yi, righteousness) and he has 忠 (zhong, loyalty) too: with his father. Vegas clinging to his father despite the toxicity and destructive nature of their relationship - even if to the point of silliness and *chef’s kiss* pathetic - can perfectly be explained as something innately human. But on top of that, the way and the degree he went for his father’s approval was likely also culturally enforced given the environment he was brought up in.

Back to the Guan Gong, aka god of loyalty, worship at the minor family house. I didn’t get to talk much about this in the post I made about it but it’s definitely worth going into it here about Guan Gong:

Just as important, at the grassroots level of society Guan Yu became a kind of patron saint or protector god for everyone from blacksmiths and opera performers to triads and police officers. (...) Guan Yu’s steadfast, sometimes bullheaded adherence to the principle of zhongyi proved key to his meteoric rise. China’s emperors, who valued loyalty in their subjects, saw Guan Yu’s obedience and respect for his superiors as a value worth propagating. To ordinary people, meanwhile, it was Guan Yu’s yi that made him a legend worth believing in. (...) Guan Yu was capable of acts of cruelty and extreme violence, but his yi manifested as a strict code of behavior and sense of honor, two necessary components of any good folk hero. If anything, the flawed side of Guan Yu’s yi actually enhanced his popularity with regular people — his imperfections only made him seem more relatable. (x)

Sounds familiar.

When you swear loyalty - in the presence of the Guan Gong idol, you swear to give everything you have to the organisation. This loyalty is unquestioning and servile. And that’s the kind of loyalty Vegas has to his father. We know that he pleases his father because he craves for his father’s love and recognition - but why this way? Why is he doing it so willingly? Even by the end of the show he barely showed anger and hatred towards his father. He lashes out at the situations of being let down by his dad, but not at his dad (at least that’s what I think) - because he then goes back home and was 100% ready to go kill some people just because his dad wanted to and he never considered once he could defy that. Perhaps this is why.

So when Pete prays to Guan Gong - in Vegas’ home, it’s as if unwittingly pledging his loyalty (and obedience) to Vegas - even before he or the audience was supposed know anything that was going to happen. That’s just a coincidence, yes? While I don’t think Pete was doing that because he was thinking about swearing loyalty to the minor family but just a general sentiment of ‘I see a deity figure and I will pay respects to it for general good blessing’, it was indeed in Pete’s nature to do that. Nothing is a coincidence. Once again, they’re mirror images of each other.

-

(Vegas + the main family)

The first time we saw Vegas and Korn in the same room was when Macau came running in to the meeting room after getting bashed in his head. But the first time we really saw them interacting was in ep 14 (correct me if I’m wrong though). I love that scene for so many reasons and all of them are because of Vegas and it being the culmination of the family drama in the show (!!!! bounces in excitement)

This face when Vegas realised that his uncle had killed his father and was about to draw his gun at him:

It just struck me that it was nothing like all the faces he had made before when he was about to torture or kill Kinn/Porsche earlier in the episode too. This is just the face of a boy broken for life, yes?

He draws his gun but he doesn’t shoot right away. Why? What directly got him retreating was not at all Pete telling not to shoot - Pete said that before Vegas drew his gun and was standing away from Vegas’ sight the whole time. It was only right after Korn dismisses his guards and tells Vegas that he will take care of him and Macau, that Vegas stops and leaves.

His uncle just killed his father - maybe it was an inevitable ending he was expecting. But was he expecting his uncle to react so calmly and even extend mercy to his family? I want to know so badly what their relationship was like. How did they interact all along before this? Judging from what we’ve seen of Korn, I’m sure he would have been a respectable and presentable uncle. I’m sure they had family gatherings especially when grandfather (who kidnapped Porsche mama) was still alive.

Hesitating to shoot such an uncle, for a man with a strong sense of loyalty and family? Sounds fair. I would like to think that is the reason of his struggle there since Vegas has no qualms about killing people. Killing people is fine for him but killing his uncle is different. Additionally, I like to think that he was also thinking about Macau’s well-being. If he died here as a murderer of the main family’s leader, what would happen to Macau?

Also bringing us to this one shot in this same scene of Kinn gently shaking his head at Vegas pointing his gun at Kinn’s own dad:

I’m enthralled. It wasn’t an expression of anger or disgust, it was deep disapproval hand in hand with concern. Or something like that. I don’t know if Vegas saw that but I would like to see his face if he registered that. It just felt like a conscious choice to me that Kinn was shown doing this in the midst of an intense moment between his dad and his cousin. I want to know what was going through his brain.

What I would like to extrapolate from this is that there is ultimately not really any real hostility between them, personally. Just as Korn had (even for secretly manipulative reasons) shown gentleness and mercy as a family member to his nephew who was trying to kill him at that moment, I want to think so that Kinn was raised to react similarly except without the ulterior motives Korn harbours.

Did they get along as kids somehow? How have they always been interacting with each other before Porsche came into the picture? I can’t shut up about how Vegas has always referred to Kinn in affectionate familial terms - as p’rung (idk the correct romanisation), the second brother. (Hits close to home because I also refer to my own cousins on sibling terms). Even when he had been harbouring desires to kill Kinn, they’re still family. The only reason he wanted so badly to kill Kinn is the agony that he can never get away from the fact that his family is beneath his. It’s that they are, unfortunately, family.

I lowkey resent that I don’t really have much to say about Vegas and Kinn’s relationship in relation to the topic of this post. I just love them as each other’s foils - both forced to grow up too soon as crown princes of their families and main protectors of their brothers but each raised by two quite different fathers who are brothers in rivalry + Vegas having a one-sided obsessive rivalry with Kinn which is just too funny. The drama sadly doesn’t give me as much as I would have wished for. But we make do. <3

-

That’s all. ✌️

[nebulouscoffee]

Kira for the ask game, because I've sewn you mentioned liking her but haven't seen you talk about it much yet and would like to enable you

Yayy thank you!! (and I'm sorry I took so long to respond, it's been a very hectic week😅)

one aspect about them i love

Kira really embodies a lot of what I miss most about Star Trek tbh, which was the real desire to make the audience uncomfortable. Don't get me wrong; there is a lot about TOS, TNG and DS9 that didn't age well- but I still think an important goal they all shared was to take certain ideas and ideologies that might've seemed far-fetched to the audience of the time, and say- "why not?" Also, "Does this character's existence- and presence- make you uncomfortable? Well, maybe that's a YOU problem." And that's a goal which (imo) really faded over the years, because they grew more and more afraid of turning off the conservative audience. But not with Kira! Within minutes of her introduction, she offers a scathing shutdown of the "frontier" that Star Trek was quite literally built upon. She is literally a sympathetic "terrorist" MAIN character (rare enough), and furthermore a woman- and that too a "difficult" woman, who refuses to let herself be ignored or compromise her people's needs for the Starfleet crew's comfort (!!!), who is ANGRY and deeply religious and nationalistic and PROACTIVE and stomps around and shouts and cries and disagrees and wears her passion on her sleeve and is not at all afraid to make a nuisance of herself- and yet, still has numerous flaws and so many moments of self-doubt and raw vulnerability. What a fantastic character! This was 1993; I can think of so few TV women from that era who actively challenged the constructs (and men) around them so much. I love everything she represents

one aspect i wish more people understood about them

That her arc is more about learning to land upon nuance; not toning down her Bajoran-isms. Her patriotism and faith do occasionally steer her the wrong way, yes- but Kira's growth doesn't at all involve her renouncing either of those things! If anything, it's Sisko who ends up having to adjust to her perspectives. In general I'm always craving more nuanced discussions re DS9's postcolonial dynamics, too- Kira has such a range of interactions with Cardassians on the show, and numerous episodes ('Destiny', 'Life Support', 'Ties of Blood and Water', etc) show that she's genuinely invested in peace between their peoples; something I think often goes ignored. Yes, she's justifiably furious about everything they did to her home- but at the end of the day, what she wants is justice and reparations for Bajor and Bajorans; and if a small (understandable) part of her does want to see Cardassia crash and burn, she really doesn't act upon it

Also, she's funny! Remember when she told Dukat the baby was O'Brien's with no further explanation? Lmaoo what a troll

one (or more) headcanon(s) i have about this character

That she only received a very basic education. She does mention finger painting and playing springball as a kid, but also- Kira grew up in a refugee camp and she joined the Shakaar cell at age 12; she probably missed out on the higher education even the average Bajoran of her generation received (which itself was likely Cardassian State-controlled). Idk, this is low key important to me because so many Star Trek characters are almost like- defined by their scientific and educational smarts, if that makes sense? It's refreshing to see a Trek character who doesn't quite make sense of herself or the world around her primarily through (Western) scientific constructs

Also, Kira absolutely has unexamined caste biases; she just never really learnt to recognise them because caste played such a minimal role in the Resistance- but most Bajorans are far more aware of caste dynamics than she typically is (I just do not buy that the D'jarra system completely went away in less than 60 years)

one character i love seeing them interact with

Ben Sisko! They have SUCH a fascinating dynamic, it's so complex and sweet and often quite trying and hurtful but still kept afloat on this deep, deep underlying mutual respect. Ben's position as the Emissary makes everything so wonderfully complicated, and watching Kira's frustrations at the fact that she actually believes in him morph into reassurance as he slowly transforms from being the Starfleet Outsider to truly being Of Bajor... ahhh it's so good. That scene where he invites her to a baseball game lives in my head rent free! (Also they high key make a fascinating ship imo, I am something of a post-canon Sisko/Kira/Kasidy truther)

one character i wish they would interact with/interact with more

I have multiple answers to this (Julian, Worf, Garak, Keiko, Ziyal, Cretak, Jake, Ezri, etc) but I'm gonna go with someone she actually interacts with quite a bit, because I just wanted mOArrr. Jadzia!

Yes, it was the 90s, so I'm glad they were at least allowed to be friends and not like, cattily pitted against each other. But I still craved more layers to their onscreen dynamic! I mean, Jadzia, the Starfleet "Science Officer" who openly dismisses Kira's religious beliefs on more than one occasion? Kira, the child soldier who finds most of Jadzia's pastimes and preoccupations frivolous and silly? It's so interesting that they keep spending time together despite such fundamental differences, and I would've loved a bigger exploration as to why! They deserved their own 'The Wire', basically. Much like the central two characters of that episode, the answer is that they actually have a LOT more in common than is apparent at first glance (fraught senses of identity, complicated relationships with their home worlds, a sense of loss regarding family) where they outwardly seem like polar opposites. And all of this is not even getting into the nonlinearity of Bajoran religion vs the lives of Dax... gosh, there was room for so much! They deserved a whole Big Sequence full of Monologues the actors could really sink their teeth into, they deserved for one of them to fly off on a dangerous quest to save the others' life- and you know what!! They deserved a little homoerotic hand-holding too!! But, I suppose that's what fanfiction is for😂

one (or more) headcanon(s) i have that involve them and one other character

She and Bashir definitely grow much closer after the show's end; whether he stays behind on DS9 or not :)

[musical-chick-13]

I wish I liked the books. I really, really wish I liked the books.

[rassilon-imprimatur]

Taste is taste, and this might be a little too mean, but something I’ve finally put my finger on regarding how annoyed I get with the acting like The Happiness Patrol is the only blatant anti-Thatcher sentiment in classic Who is, like... 

Why do you think Warriors of the Deep is the way it is? Terminus? With those nightmarish production fall-throughs, the worker strikes, the anger and froth and cynicism that can’t help but lash out at the Doctor a little bit. Resurrection of the Daleks puts the literal societal decay caused by Thatcherism on the forefront. That serial was the 1984 Olympics showcase for fuck’s sake, you think they didn’t know how grim and grisly and nasty it was? The stumble into the mess of season 22, mean-spirited and indulgent as it is, makes perfect sense? 

And it makes me wonder if the widespread sweeping of Saward’s tenure under the rug under “grimdark” (ugh) write-off truly is because someone isn’t jumping up and down with a big neon sign screaming “THIS IS POLITICAL” in text? 

[dashiellqvverty]

it feels so lame and cringe that the thing that got me back into reading is the avatar book series but theyre literally SO fucking good. like other YA i’ve tried to read recently i’d felt Talked Down To as a reader (like, obviously im an Adult so its not For Me but as proven by books like these you can write for younger audiences without treating them like idiots) and just couldnt get into things i was even nominally interested in but when i finally finished the first kyoshi book i was like... oh yeah.. books are GOOD. and listened to the audiobook of the second one and like i stalled a bit in between bc i read the first one before my senior year of college and didn’t listen to the next until after and then was so exhausted by work i wasn’t reading/listening much BUT it made me WANT to read again and im finally starting to again now

[todayisafridaynight]

would it be okay if u told me why u like aoki😭/gen😭😭😭😭BEEN TRYNA LIKE HIM FOR SO LONG I JUST CANTT but i love ur art so much so i still consume it otherwise lol

i liked tohru adachi in high school and tbh i think that alone is enough of an explanation for why i ended up liking aoki