#he does actually care for their sake

[something-about-sunflowers]

On the topic of Izzy’s queerness and headcanons, and since they mentioned the trans Izzy headcanon specifically (I’m not touching any of their points, it just reminded me that not everyone thinks Izzy is trans and it got me thinking about differing opinions on the nature of his. . . trans. . . ness?):

I do love to see some nice top surgery scars in fanart/fic and of course I’m always down for a ‘he did his own top surgery’ joke (or a later ‘Roach does his top surgery’ situation) but I don’t actually see Izzy as someone who has had or planned on top surgery? This is all personal preference of course but I, personally, don’t think he’d think it was worth the risk of all the downtime he’d need to recover?

As buttoned up as his whole outfit is he, could definitely be hiding stays under all those layers (which are generally more comfortable/practical than modern binders if I’m not mistaken). Or he could just be going full tits out (again, under all the layers) since Con’s got such a nice rack barrel chest anyway.

I do go back and forth on how dysphoric it makes him though, and to be honest I think it maybe would actually fluctuate for him? Like sometimes its worse than other times and all?

But he’s definitely on Ye Olde Testosterone, though I do like to think he was just. Super Hairy before he started transitioning, as a treat.

He does fully encourage and support Jim going for their top surgery though, talks to Roach about it, helps out as much as he can during, bitches at them when they try to escape bedrest, helps them with PT after the fact. He and Olu develop a ‘caring too much about the menace that is Jim Jimenez’ bond in the process and become drinking buddies about it.

[cementcornfield]

I've been with [Joe] for a long time now and I ain't never seen him fall off, feel sluggish about himself you know? I don't know if he does but I always pick him up too, doesn't matter if he's seeing it or not, I'm picking him up, he's picking me up...

x

[sskk-manifesto]

Ep 5!!!

[sysig]

And second request, would you please draw a Narrator/Stanley outfit swap, because I stated thinking of them dressing up as each other for Halloween/just for fun and think it sounds neat!

Day 26 - Leave the sleeve up, leave it alone!

[shopcat]

there is, Obviously, fundamentally a difference between headcanon and an analytical reading of text, and treating the two as exactly the same is not only wrong but devalues both, but funnily, i've found people tend to forget that both of these things are the product of referencing our real life experiences and applying them where we see fit to make a more interesting way to interact with media. and you can't just like, forget that it's not JUST about headcanons and meta analysis and whatever, because people in real life also still matter. and in real life, there are different stakes and EXPERIENCES, and those experiences lead to thinking the way we do because that's how you Be a goddamn person, which is why it's ironic is all 😭

like, saying zuko atla has to be cis in order to be "properly" gay in order to be Truly Compelling narratively is fucking ridiculous. textually, zuko is not actually gay. he never was intended to be, he never will be intended to be, he was never even subtextually. the assumption otherwise is already rooted in fantasy, and the tongue in cheek assertion that it isn't, which means it has more credence, is ... dumb? childish? admitting to at least yourself that the things you talk about wrt character analysis aren't the intention of the creator is literally half the point of doing said analysis – you're MEANT to throw away the intended interpretation in order to give it a new life through different keyholes without entirely divorcing itself from the text. (in the same breath, insisting the creator truly meant One Thing when they absolutely would not have/don't care at all, and ignoring that the people who made the piece are going to put their own biases and experiences and background into the media itself and actually MUST be taken into account for things like this is just ... well. Stop That.)

i've personally never been someone to ever claim that The Writers All Along INTENDED to do something that they obviously didn't, like make a character from a 2005 cartoon lgbt+. this doesn't mean that reading doesn't have any substance or cannot possibly hold any meaning, or that it's wrong. if you can't be objective about your own readings what's the damn point... leaning into it being fiction, which changes just by being observed by a different person, is why it's fun or interesting to do in the first place. and yeah there are some basic cookie cutter headcanons people like to fling around, and there can be criticism for that otherwise, but claiming headcanons themselves AREN'T an offshoot of this way of thinking is fucking stupid. like it's plain wrong.

our own thoughts on why a character acts, what they do, what their presentation is, why their personality is what it is up to and including their sexuality, gender identity, religion, JOB, whatever, are made to fill the gaps the text can't or won't provide, and in the case of lgbt ones as long as it's not actively harmful (as in like insisting a lesbian character is bi or something) it is literally harmless seeing as it is fairly solidly a "won't", along with a whole bunch of other hc material that usually don't see the light of day on-screen nonstereotypically. people seeing themselves in characters isn't new but more than that, saying that you know this but then pushing it aside because The Analysis Means More when it's Realistic And Plausible is fucking dumb. and rude. bc the entire point of drawing the line of connections this way is how WE see them. being all like "oh well, your own personal identity is still valid otherwise, don't get your feelings hurt bc it doesn't matter," is moot if you've already asserted there's only One real way to be... plausible 🤨. which is to be NORMAL ! duh.

like, the read that zuko IS gay (and cis) relies on extracting parts through the lens of our own gay perceptions and is why cishet fans don't pick up on it, but you can ask pretty much any other lgbt fan and they'll agree. zuko's narrative arc IS compelling with the read that he is gay, from the way he is ostracised by his family, neglected and abused, the "punishment" he receives and then continues to become his own warden of, the order of his death and the banishment itself, sozin criminalising homosexuality, his inability to connect with others especially his own age, his inability to seamlessly interact with girls, his literal externalised viewing of seeing himself as someone with Two Sides, them being good vs evil, realising he can change the damn world through love and acceptance, striving for peace, being the face of change for his nation, relearning what it means to be who he is once he is free from his past, the shame and humiliation rituals, the claim of his father that he is worthless as a prince and person, AND MORE... and i cannot express enough here how fucking little it matters if he's specifically gay or WHAT THE HELL EVER 😭.

to claim in no small way that it's impossible for a trans person, or a bisexual person, or anyone else lgbt, could ever line up his narrative with their own personal one is so beyond ridiculous it gives me a headache. no, "plausibly", i don't think zuko is like, transmasc. yes, plausibly, he could be gay. plausibly, he could be amab nonbinary but no one seems to actually give a fuck about that for some reason (i wonder!). nothing would change in both cases, because he's not actually either, so i really don't see the point in making fun of or being frustrated by one to lift up the other because you want cisgender boot soles to brush the back of your throat THAT badly. the implausibility of thinking any way about a fictional character should be taken into account to an extent, sure, but at the end of the day neither of us are doing anything truly worthwhile, and no one is claiming that it's the intent from the beginning to say otherwise, so what's the point here. why are we doing this. let's go skip in a meadow together before i kill someone with this rock.

[spotsupstuff]

doin' a fuckshite again ✌, i'll see y'all artistically in five to seven business days this fucking script is so bitchily long. i swear to fuck if its gon be over 8 pages.

anyway Fish is gon be in it <3 fucking Finally he shows off properly

anyway,

[dontforgetoctober3rd]

Itachi Uchiha’s relationship with Sasuke was not that of a normal, caring older brother but straight up parentification. It’s obvious Mikoto and Fugaku *constantly* left baby Sasuke in his care leading up to the nine tales attack, as evidenced by Itachi’s ability to get 3 (4?) month old Sasuke to stop crying and Itachi wearing a sling to carry Sasuke (you only do that if you would carry a baby for long periods of time). In this essay, I will

[orcelito]

Sasuke is Out! Sasuke is Doing things! What will Sasuke do?! I have no idea!!! I've never gotten this far in the story before, so I have no idea how things are going from here!!!! But Sasuke is Loose!!!!!!

Quoting this post to myself as I see Sasuke walking around and doing things. I haven't seen this guy do anything in like a hundred episodes. It's so exciting

[kohakhearts]

hey that pokemon 2000 gifset + your jn dub analysis made me think about the pokemon 2000 dub - I've only seen it subbed once (compared to the hundred times I watched it dubbed as a child) so I could be misremembering, but didn't the dub completely change the themes of the movie with the chosen one ash thing?

i actually haven’t watched the sub nearly as many as times as the dub either :p but i have read extensively about this topic bc it’s personally my favourite pokemon movie and yes! the first and second pokemon movies are both victim to this (like mewtwo’s epic speech we all love so much at the end of the first movie…being a complete fabrication by the dub team :p you gotta give those writers credit - they were VERY good at what they did), largely i’m guessing due to cultural values and expectations. since they were trying to sell the anime to an american audience, not a japanese one.

tangentially, i will say i also think that’s the root of this like…subtle distinction some people have between the characters “ash” and “satoshi.” i don’t differentiate them in any big way myself because fundamentally they still are very much the same, but it is true that in japanese, ash has somewhat different mannerisms and responds differently to events at times, especially in the early anime when it was so much easier to get away with making big changes for…a big assortment of reasons haha.

in THIS movie in particular, some of those things are like…well. the prophecy is probably the most obvious change. the dub team rewrote it to include the chosen one reference, which works great because of the word play on ash’s name. in japanese, it just says “an exceptional trainer will appear to help calm the wrath of the gods.” ash’s response to this is more mild trepidation than outright fear. he doesn’t hesitate like he does in the dub. and tbh? both reactions make perfect sense for his character in my opinion.

in japanese, his concern is more "do you really think i can fit that role?" this...tracks pretty well with his character development by this point. like yeah he said he could win the indigo league, but he's also thinking about dropping out after gary loses; it's that little grain of insecurity he has, which he's normally good at covering up with arrogance (a lot of which is also very genuine, don't get me wrong). but he sees the opportunity to help and he takes it. that's just...what ash does.

in english, though, the prophecy is pretty clearly about him. there's no one else it could be. it has to be him. and he...doesn't like that? that scares him. which, fair. anyone would be terrified by being singled out like that. it's also so much...not ash's thing, even at this point in the series. his character development is about embracing having to work hard to do well. to keep trying until you get it right, no matter how many times you get it wrong. the idea of being a "chosen one" completely robs him of his ability to be so single-minded about what he wants his destiny to be that it manifests as pre-determined; it just...pre-determines it for him, if that makes sense. lol.

the thesis of the japanese version of the film is that no one person or pokemon can stand on their own. everyone needs help. it's about harmonizing with each other and with nature. about letting others help you, and helping them in turn. the english version rewrites that into a story about power and destiny. the title alone says it all, right? it's called "the power of one" - no reference to lugia, no reference to the birds. in japan, the title is about the revelation (or "birth") of lugia.

westerners love a good chosen one story, so this was a really good choice by the dub team in that respect. i mean, it's a narrative that's stuck really well. fandom loves chosen one ash! in general, western fanbases are really into this narrative. it's everywhere. and there's a lot that goes into that, culturally, and especially religiously, historically, etc. so at the end of the day, i don't think the change is so much about conflicting ideas about collectivism and individualism. it's more about goals and ideals, on a personal level.

let me say again for the 273456784th time, i love that they resolved ash's story by having him realize that the goal he's really been striving for all this time is to meet and befriend pokemon. to learn from them. to earn their trust. it's like...he did the thing that everyone else thought represented his goal, maybe even himself included, only to realize that his dream was never about the end of it anyway. it was about everything he learnt and everyone he met along the way. (i also suspect nobody writing in 1997 knew that that would be the ultimate resolution, either. but it makes sense in the entire context. it's kind of a nice irony, even. to only figure it out after writing the story :p)

and i think this little distinction is important to that goal! it's his whole character! which is why even though i too love chosen one characters, i don't necessarily think of ash as one. because even if he is, his whole Thing is that he wants to try. a lot of the chosen one narrative is about characters being reluctant to be used for a "greater good," or about them collapsing under that pressure. ash doesn't really have that. he does what he thinks is right because he...thinks it's right. sometimes, sure, others have to push him into it a bit, but usually they're actually pushing the other way - it's too dangerous, you're going to get hurt, etc. and to me, i don't know - thinking of times he's died, or nearly died, and some legendary or mythical pokemon has saved him at the last minute...i don't think that has to mean he's special in a cosmic sort of way. i think it just means he's special to them. that he did something for them, or for someone else they had come to care for (thinking manaphy responding to may's emotions, not just to the fact that ash was drowning, or in mpm ash convincing latios to trust him because of their mutual desire to save latias, etc.), and so they want to help him. which is completely opposite to the typical chosen one narrative, i think? because he doesn't do those things out of obligation...he does them because he thinks he can become a better trainer by doing them, and he wants to do that. and well. he did do that.

anyway my tl;dr here is YES they changed the theme a lot haha, but i find it fun that they also changed the characters’ responses to that theme. funnily that’s…kind of also what fanfiction writers do all the time, lmao, but that’s a whole other conversation.

[lloydfrontera]

lloyd is so determined to not think of himself as a good person that the king of hell himself can tell him he almost certainly would go to heaven if left to his own devices because he's fundamentally a kind person and lloyd will still say he's self-centered and selfish and doing everything for his own gain five minutes later

like. you gotta admire the commitment at least

[llycaons]

okay I thought about the similarities between jfm and jc's unrequited crushes who prefer their 'servant's' company to their own and it looped around from being tragic to being really funny again. jc pined after wq so clumsily and unsuccessfully with the stupid fucking comb she didn't care about because SHE AND HER FAMILY WERE POLITICAL TARGETS AT THE TIME and HE DIDN'T EVEN KNOW HER AT ALL and she 100% always preferred the company of wwx, who was genuinely fun to be around, as intelligent and selfless as she was, understood and respected the delicate political position she was in, treated her like an individual, knew what was important to her, helped her family, and sacrificed everything for her safety. wq literally would rather have lived a doomed life in a starving refugee camp with wwx and her family than accept a marriage proposal from jc, jc wq shippers how does it feel to be fucking clowns

[arolesbianism]

I’ve been having a rough few days, but I’ve been feeling a bit better so I decided to make some lil thingies for some spiraling upwards kitties :3

[dutybcrne]

When asked if he has a favorite sibling, Taru would always switch between each of his youngest siblings. He loves the three of them so much! However, his favor does unconsciously tend to veer towards which of them happened to spend time with him most recently.

[smallishdoggo]

Not that anyone who’s been complaining about FCG supposedly not caring about Ashton or whatever actually cares about FCG’s characterization, but for the record: FCG doesn’t typically talk about things that upset them without outside prompting. They didn’t talk about missing or mourning Dancer without someone else bringing her or something related to her up ever and even when they did talk about her, they usually brushed their own feelings to the side after a second. He’s gotten better about expressing himself a little bit, but usually in a “I am feeling bad in a way that might make me literally attack you all, so be aware of that!” sort of way.

It doesn’t matter how much or how little he misses Ashton, FCG was never going to be spending a lot of time vocally expressing that.

[florida3exclamationpoints]

I'm tired of people bringing up Taylor's private jet usage 😀 shut up and get over it 😀 (no but my real feeling on it is yes pollution is bad yes Taylor has contributed more than the average person and that sucks yeah. But those big numbers that blew up last year or whenever weren't even real. And the thing is. She simply cannot fly commercially. She just can't. She'd get killed. And yes her numbers are bad but if she never flew her private jet ever again and was the only one to make a change would it be enough to make a real difference?? People love to see big numbers and pin them on one person but Taylor Swift can't personally fix global warming.)

[couldbebetterforsure]

Why the fuck you lyin'?

Why you always lyin'?

Hmmmmm Oh my god

Stop fucking lying!