#lack of much interaction doesn’t invalidate a ship

[princecosmosanon]

Keep seeing so many “hot takes” about Zukka in particular that basically boil down to “this ship isn’t logical because the characters don’t interact enough” and all I gotta say is…

Shipping has nothing to do with canonical interactions.

If you are limiting ships to “do these characters interact a lot” then fella, I gotta say, you are invalidating so many ships and limiting your imagination to embarrassing extents.

It’s fine if you don’t like a ship. It’s fine if you don’t get a ship. Clearly a ship you aren’t interest in isn’t for you.

But no ship is invalid just because there isn’t much or any interaction between the characters.

[kkyujikoo]

These are my... 2...? Maybe 50, cents about the whole "freejk" thing. I'm gonna be extremely petty and at some points a whole lot sarcastic and it's gonna be long but I had to say it. As soon as I get my computer I'm gonna make it under read more, but the app does whatever it wants, as we know.

Listen, this ain't my first fan rodeo, and not even the first fan rodeo where I've been directly or indirectly accused of being some sort of pervert or delulu. I've been in fandom spaces since I was a teen, I was shipping mlm couples when queerbaiting in TV shows was still something that was seen as the norm rather than some cheap disgusting trick. I was there when fanfic spaces saw "slash" fics as something "different" and to be tagged with a more mature rating even when they just looked at each other.

I was in BBC's Sherlock's fandom and I shipped Johnlock during the hiatus between S3 and S4, at this point I'm not even feeling it when people call me delulu or a weirdo.

So, yeah, take this with a grain of salt: as a person who has seen thousands of times fandom drama unfolding and has lived too much of it... This whole situation is so ridiculous it makes me laugh. Like, yeah, it's maddening how people will blame anyone and everyone because they don't even see their own bias and homophobia, granted, but like... It also makes me laugh for the sheer dumbassery of the reasoning behind it all?

Like... Y'all are getting mad and for what? Because it sure as hell isn't the invasion of privacy, since y'all are watching the same content we're all watching and you're paying to see it the same way everyone else is. If you don't want to "invade their privacy", you should just... Stop watching content that isn't their music videos, RUN episodes or interviews. Memories and any kind of dvd/video that shows what they're doing behind the scenes shouldn't be part of their job as musicians, and therefore we're intruding in their privacy... Or aren't we?

Or maybe it's more nuanced than that: maybe the content they release on dvd/on their official channels is part of their job as entertainers, and it's been approved, and it's a small window THEY are granting us.

You know what's the REAL invasion of privacy and what REALLY invalidates someone autonomy? When you, who maybe aren't even paying to see that content (which is something I understand, like, dude, I'm not covered in money either), DEMAND what kind of behind the scenes content you want when I swear ABSOLUTELY NO ONE has asked you. Once again: you don't like it? You think it's some huge invasion of privacy? Don't buy it. Don't interact with it. Convince your friends to do the same. For all I care, just go and petition to boycott this kind of content. I know you won't do it, because... That's the thing, isn't it? It's not the invasion of privacy that bothers these people.

Y'all aren't mad because we get into their business or else you would have gotten real mad when we were privy to REAL private moments like people crying their hearts out.

No, no. Y'all are mad because it's "shipping content" and "fanservice" which apparently bothers you because it lacks authenticity.

Pick a side, lovelies: either you DON'T want to invade their privacy, and thus all the content they release should be focused on what fans want to see, or you WANT to know how they interact TRULY in private.

And here's the catch: "shipping content" can be anything. Shipping existed WAAAAAYYY before the word for it was invented, same way with fanfictions. Shipping means, literally, "seeing two (or more) people interact and thinking they would make a good romantic pair". That's it. That's quite literally it. Everything else is just some nuance of the concept of shipping, but at its core, it's nearly impossible to ban all shipping content when it's a group of seven people, because they should for real go in social distancing mode to do so. Most people who have parasocial relationships tend to have "ships" whether they know it or not, because we've all, at least once, looked at a dynamic from the outside and thought "oh man they look cute together". So, even if, o dear ones, your wishes were granted... What the hell do you mean by "shipping" content? Should they just film solo clips, avoiding talking about the other members? But wouldn't that be fanservice, since it's focused on pleasing the fans? (Which, ultimately, is what fanservice MEANS, and I hate to break it to y'all but the whole concept behind entertainment and thus all the content BTS releases it's... For the fans. Like, they're not going out of their way to just meet our expectations but they're certainly doing fanservice by the mere act of releasing bonus content.)

But it's not even quite that, is it? Because no one bats an eye if it's Tae kissing Nj's cheek. I've seen no hashtag against everyone - and I mean literally every one of them - wolf whistling at Nj. It's okay to show intimacy... Because they're bandmates and it's okay to be close to someone who you see basically 24/7, I hear you. And it's also okay when people see that and gush over that closeness, because it's such a nice thing to see.

Soooooo... We've got to free JK from whom exactly? From what?

Are y'all mad cause people pointed out there's very little way a bruise that stayed for a whole ass night could be a quick bite? Because that doesn't harm jk, at most makes fun of him and jimin and their poor excuses (seriously, guys, next time consider using mosquitoes or "I was doing stuff". It'll be equally embarrassing but at least the meme will be funny), and it's literally... A fair observation. Like. It's a hickey, people are gonna make jokes about seeing a hickey and poor excuses of covering it up in the exact same way they're gonna make jokes over jimin falling out of chairs. And yeah, a hickey is AT LEAST something that happens in a sensual context. Like, I could understand "people who are extremely familiar with each other will have different body language/touch in areas where usually you wouldn't see friends touching each other", but that's not. Not a hand on the thigh. It's a hickey on the neck. I don't even know a more stereotypical placing for a hickey. But once again, are y'all mad because someone is pointing it out? Because that's not being delulu or even being a shipper, really, it's just commenting on something that was approved to be shown and discussed in something that was released BY THEM.

Are y'all mad at hybe for showing something that literally fell onto their hands? Cause like, unless someone (I'm counting on Jimin, since as we know Jungkook was busy spinning him round and round and had both his hands busy) called at hybe headquarters to say "yo bang pd substitute, is it okay if I give my friend jk here a hickey? Cause he's being really annoying rn and he has to pay", I highly doubt anyone expected Jungkook to come to rehearsal all neatly marked up. Or idk, maybe someone at hybe asked them "we need Jungkook to come in with a hickey but refuse to say it's a hickey, so that fans will feel reeeeally served." That sounds perfectly plausible too. Or a good marketing strategy.

Now, if you're a big company and your objective is to have some footage of the rehearsals for a concert, and the fandom is too good at noticing stuff for their own good, and one of your artists comes in with a very visible mark, and he and his bff bropal4lyfe come n with a story about how they were playing and a bite happened, you've got three choices: 1. Cut the artist out of aaaaalll the footage. Someone would have noticed the "bite mark" anyway, you best believe that. If you don't want anyone to notice it, you gotta cut him in most of the footage where it's visible. 2. Keep the hickey, discard the explanations. You could do that, but also it would feel a lot more unfaithful to everyone involved. Also they clearly worked their ass off to invent an explanation, come on! They truly tried to do their best inventing something that was not "it's a mosquito bite", they should get some credit! 3. Keep the bite, keep the explanation.

Notice how none of these solutions include the biting never happening because... They couldn't prevent it? The only thing they have any control over is how they're framing each "accident". And that's not an easy job.

I applaud you, people on the editing team.

So... On whom should we cast the blame now? Ah, yes, I think it's finally time for the ultimate scapegoat of this fandom: Jimin. Which is funny, cause... You know... If this were really about privacy, or being "victims" of shipping... This should be about freeing him too, you know? But obviously Jimin does it for attention, while Jungkook, poor angel that he is, doesn't even know what shipping is.

Furthermore, don't we all know how much Jimin imposes himself in Jungkook's life? To the point where he, multimillionaire man feels compelled to share a car with Jimin even if they're both late in the process. And can't you see how uncomfortable he is, draping himself over Jimin, making Jimin drap himself over him?

Oh lordy, truly such an awful eight years Jungkook spent, choosing to have vacations with someone who made him uncomfortable, spending free time with him, even having to suck his ear in public to the point you can see his saliva just because Jimin was sad :( truly an all-around bad time for Jungkook, as evidenced by alllll those times when he said Jimin was pretty, cute, and all-around knowing every little thing about Jimin. I absolutely concur, the dude would be so much more happy if jimin was not in his life.

Did that sound weird and absolutely ridiculous and a really absurd joke? Because that's what y'all sound like to me. Like. Jungkook is out there living his best life, getting hickeys and showered in affection and y'all paint him as a fucking martyr??? I'm sure he's really truly desperate that Jimin holds him in such high regards 😭😭😭 I can see him suffering whenever he starts doing his own serendipity rendition 😭😭 and when he claimed you are me, I am you as his and Jimin's only 😭😭😭 I cannot believe this poor baby 😭😭😭

I've reached a point where every time I hear this stuff I laugh because the levels of twisting reality when it comes to jikook are extraordinary, Jungkook will have a literally blissed out face and people will cry in outrage.

But coming back to my point: let's pretend you're not mad at Jimin and the possibility that jikook are dating: are y'all mad... At the hickey? Because at this point it seems like the only feasible solution. And if you are, do not worry: I'm sure Jungkook's skin was throughly healed by his boo. A kiss soothes even the worst pain, doesn't it?

[kelca13]

Does JK Touch the Other Members More than Jimin – and (More Importantly) Does it Matter?

Since I joined Jikook tumblr, one pattern I’ve noticed is how often the amount of skinship between Jungkook and other members versus Jimin is brought up.

The pattern goes like this:

Jungkook: Engages in skinship with another member.

An anonymous ask: “Did you see that?! Jungkook interacted with another member! It’s true – he shows affection to the other members more than he does Jimin!”

Blog answer: “No, that’s not true. Here are a bunch of times JK engaged in skinship with Jimin.”

Jungkook: Engages in skinship with another member.

….And the pattern repeats!

I love these blog responses, and I always enjoy the gifs/photo-drops attached. I generally agree that I see no lack of affection between Jungkook and Jimin.

But it’s interesting to me that this exchange keeps coming up. I’ve seen about four waves of this just since I’ve been blogging (and the bit of time where I lurked without engaging). There’s obviously something at work here that makes this: 1. A repeated anxious reaction from Jikookers or 2. A quick topic to jump on for people who don’t believe in Jikook and want to point it out.

So, let’s talk about it!

What Do We Mean When We Ask This Question?

This question is not just a stray observation. It comes with a lot of unspoken meaning, and it can vary depending on who is asking and why (which is information we don’t always have with anonymous contributors).

I get two main readings off of these questions:

Jikookers who are nervous about whatever interaction they’ve witnessed, because they are afraid it invalidates their ship.

People who want to disprove that Jikook could be real.

So, what are we actually asking here?

Though not always spoken, the implication is that this means something about Jikook. JK seemingly showing more affection to Jin than Jimin, for example, indicates something negative about Jikook’s potential relationship.

It could be:

They’re not as close as we thought.

They couldn’t possibly be dating because JK wouldn’t do that if they were.

They broke up!

JK clearly doesn’t even like Jimin that much (and my God, does that myth persist in this fandom despite all evidence to the contrary).

I’m also not convinced it’s actually about frequency, though that’s usually a part of the ask. I think it’s more that people have specific expectations about how Jimin and Jungkook (and Tae depending on the context) should behave, and if they don’t live up to that, they’re not real.

For some people, any contact with another member is too much contact.

Does JK show More Skinship with Other Members?

Okay, all that's fine -- but does he?

Here’s the surprising answer: I don’t actually know.

And, to be honest, you probably don’t either.

Why is that? Well, because there is almost ten years’ worth of BTS content. Most fans have probably not seen all of it.

So, when we’re talking about what JK does the most, it’s hard to say for sure without the full context. And it’s important to remember that their filmed lives are only a small portion of their actual lives. We’re already drawing conclusions based on a half-painted picture, and the picture can be more and more unfinished depending on how much and what type of content we’ve consumed.

That doesn’t mean we can’t watch content and get a general feel for the members, their relationships, etc. – of course we can. But the question is often specifically about the frequency, which is evidence-based – and we don’t have the full evidence.

Since we don’t have that, the truth is often left up to perception.

And perception is affected by a lot of things.

How Perception Shapes Our Answer

Have you noticed how some Jikook and TKK shippers tend to hyperfocus on the interactions of the Maknae line?

Often, Vminkook’s relationships are compared and their behavior scrutinized, usually to decide which ship is “more real.” But if any of the Maknae line were to engage in the same behavior with another member, that goes unnoticed or ignored. (I’m looking at you, TaeJin.)

This is the bias that develops when you’re only paying attention to one ship, and/or one specific ship conflict. It looks a little silly when we zoom out and realize that there are seven people who all have relationships with each other, and that the group dynamics affect how they relate.

Every ship tends to value its members’ interactions, Jikookers included. But our ships can also make us see content differently – more meaningfully or more suspiciously, depending on what we’re watching.

Does It Really Matter?

The most important question! And, perhaps predictably, my answer is a resounding no.

Mostly when I see these asks, my thought is, “Why?” I don’t feel the need to prove that JK touches Jimin more through normal skinship on camera.

We know BTS to be an incredibly close and tight-knit group. Their boundaries are very different than those between most friends and sometimes even family – particularly for Western audiences. They touch, a lot. And considering how stressful and isolating their lives must be, this is very healthy for them and I’m so glad they do it.

It’s already so hard to delineate meaning from how they touch, which is why most of the Jikook accounts I follow don’t use that as a measurement . It’s also why we don’t have to edit out or pretend certain moments of skinship with others don’t exist; because we don’t heavily rely on those things to confirm or deny our ship.

And that’s because there’s so much more going on with Jikook than skinship.

Their awareness of each other, the way they speak to each other, the way they hang out outside of work or group situations and then tell us about it, the car sharing, the purposeful spilling of small personal details like “Jungkook’s ears turn red when he’s being sincere” or “Jimin’s breath stinks in the morning”….

You start to get a much larger picture, and it’s one that isn’t so easily shaken by skinship or other relationship dynamics.

These actions sometimes get overlooked because they’re smaller and less overt. They’re also less visible for people who are looking for a more fictional expression of love and romance. But they're there, and they're very telling.

[miraculouscontent]

Always.

“Truth” is just... I mean, I want to say “garbage” but that doesn’t even do how bad it is justice? Like, okay, I take four major issues with it (my followers be like: just four? :P):

First is the writing in general and the continuity of it all. This episode looks like it’s been through multiple drafts and the final product is an amalgamation of a bunch of them with no coherency between any of them. I already could kind of guess it from the Adrimi kiss that the finale removed, but it’s obvious that there were going to be Adrimi/Lukanette arcs in Season 4 but then stuff happened (i.e: the staff being cowards) and they got cut. It’s totally possible that the plot with Jagged Stone being the father and Marinette having to keep secrets from Luka were still the same episode even in the original draft, but I imagine it at least wasn’t episode one.

There are other, more subtle hints as well, like the episode giving no time to Luka learning that Jagged is his father (making the fandom wonder if Luka remembered when he was Truth) and Ladybug being shocked when she realizes that the akuma is Luka as if she didn’t already see him be akumatized. Juleka also gets weirdly sidelined in the episode despite being Luka’s twin (Astruc has stated that both Luka and Juleka are older and Juleka got held back, which is why she’s in Marinette’s grade but Luka isn’t), so she’s Jagged’s offspring as well. One might presume that Juleka just never cared at all but that doesn’t mean she shouldn’t be allowed to interact directly with the guy or have any involvement at all. All it would’ve taken is for Luka to mention that Juleka never cared about who their father was but he did, thereby implying that Juleka’s reaction to Jagged would probably be more like, “oh okay.”

You know, if they didn’t reduce her to incoherent mumbling.

Second is the timing of this episode. We had the New York special with Paris being destroyed, but it’s clearly fine here (so I guess it isn’t canon now; thank God honestly), and while it’s technically possible that enough time has passed (supported by the vague implication that Marinette having to miss out on dates with Luka has gone on for a while, given Tom and Sabine’s lack of reaction to them dating), it’s not supported by Marinette examining the Miracle Box as if she’s only just gotten it.

There’s also Shadow Moth, where we’re shown an extended version of the scene from the end of “Miracle Queen” where Gabriel repairs the peacock miraculous, giving the episode a “Volpina”->”The Collector” vibe but then why are the events lining up the way they do???

The narrative also does a really bad job at showing us why Marinette is so strapped for time. She has guardian duties now but you’d think it’d balance out with her not having to go to Fu anymore for guardian training (you know, that thing we never saw but was said to be happening or at least that it was Fu’s intent to have it happen). You could argue that maybe Shadow Moth is more active, but then Chat Noir should be affected by this too; Ladybug states outright that she’s been busy and Chat Noir responds with something akin to, “oh I know, because you’re guardian,” which implies that it’s her guardian duties keeping her busy and Shadow Moth is just interrupting her dates specifically.

But we don’t even see what responsibilities she has added on as guardian. I knew the writers would make it so her being guardian was a hassle, but it’s the first episode of the series and we’ve gotten next to no answers for what being guardian actually adds.

It’s almost like this was a rushed first episode to break up the only thing that unambiguously made Marinette happy for the sake of bringing the love square back and needlessly making her suffer because the writers think it’s hilarious.

Speaking of which, the third thing thing is the comedy because--just--I hate the comedy in this show.

Like, just to start, there’s the kwami, who clearly begin with their mob mentality from the later episode of “Furious Fu” and all proceed to act like children. No, I didn’t expect them to all be wise (I mean, Xuppu exists and is very much not that, having been implied to be a fit for Kim who is known for being a total himbo), but I don’t expect them to all scatter like they do. Kaalki in particular, who was shown to be more poised and refined, blatantly reveals herself to a bunch of civilians just for the sake of Marinette freaking out and needing to make up an excuse.

Same with Alya and her friends. Marinette is panicking because of the kwami and Alya “deduces” (while shading Marinette so blatantly that it’s insulting) that Adrien must be there in her house which--maybe don’t SAY THAT OUT LOUD in case Adrien is literally in her room???). Then Marinette gets a call from Luka, shouts his name, and the girls do a complete 180 in support of Lukentte. It’s not like I’m not for them supporting whatever Marinette wants to do, but the shift is so sudden (and contradicts “Frozer”) that it gave me whiplash and the entire scene ends up being pointless since the girls still go with the “Marinette is in love with Adrien” thing when Truth asks them what Marinette’s secret is. Like, we could’ve gotten small, stupid secrets that everyone thought only they knew about Marinette, but instead it’s just the same thing over and over again (which makes no sense since, by the time Alya blabs the secret - which Alya has already told Nino before anyway - it’s no longer a secret therefore making the answer invalid).

Heck, the whole “secret” thing could’ve even been the people Truth shoots finding ways of answering his questions in a way that is technically telling the truth but also not really, such as if Anarka had answered the, “Who’s my father?” question with, “someone you know/someone famous,” so as to avoid saying that it’s Jagged Stone. It’s just boring seeing characters answer with whatever the asker wants to hear instead of being able to find a way around it.

And then there’s Chat Noir, who’s just--ugh.

Like--okay, I’m going to be extremely petty for a moment and just go off because I hate Chat Noir’s role in this entire episode. The Season 3 finale went out of its way to have Chat Noir be all like, “I have a girlfriend,” when it was a lie, and then Season 4 just parkours around Ladybug telling him that she’s dating (Ladybug clearly took no issue with Chat Noir telling her he’s dating so it’s not like she’s worried about issues there; she’s gotten on his case before in episodes like “Startrain” so there are exceptions) because they want to keep having him flirt and not be sAd because this is Marinette’s episode of suffering and Chat Noir actually having to face the reality that Ladybug is dating (not just in love with someone else) would’ve actually been interesting. Chat Noir gets tons of unnecessary screentime in the episode - mostly for the show to shove in LadyNoir shipping fuel - and then actively avoids telling him the obvious thing because he would’ve actually been forced to grow/develop/stop flirting.

It would’ve been so cute and sweet to see him awkwardly trying to flirt without overstepping boundaries (so more like banter than flirt) or - you know - actually try to support Ladybug and want her to be able to finish her dates by him offering to keep akuma/sentimonsters busy, but no, he’s just left in the dark.

The finale had Chat Noir supporting her (terribly but I digress) and then doesn’t do anything with it at the start of Season 4, meaning his support of her was completely meaningless and just there.

His first appearance is him pranking Ladybug when she’s already overstressed and busy, which comes off as super poor taste and I’m both glad he got splatted into that window for it but also upset because it’s screentime completely gone to waste, and of course it’s just a lead up to him guilting her by being like, “nooo the only thing that hurts me is when you leave me alone during patrol!”

I know he’s teasing (...probably) but it leaves a bad taste in my mouth because we know (well, I knew because I know how this show works) that Luka and Marinette were going to break up because of Marinette’s hectic schedule, so it just comes off as insensitive to joke about it, especially when Ladybug’s busy guardian status just serves as a reminder that Fu is gone.

Even when he’s protecting Ladybug from Truth’s questions by cutting in and asking a question of his own, of course he asks about himself to forcibly fish compliments out of Ladybug because she can’t lie to him, and of course they have Ladybug compliment his humor most of all as if that trait hasn’t nearly gotten them in danger multiple times and she’s been repeatedly annoyed when he decides to joke during the worst possible times. It’s as if the writers wanted to pat themselves on the back for their own comedy, so they had Ladybug be a mouthpiece to stroke Chat Noir’s ego.

He claims he won’t force a truth out of her and then literally forces her to say what her favorite things about him are. I acknowledge that this can be seen as me nitpicking but we went from the finale where Chat Noir actually stepped up and took charge (because Ladybug was stressed but I guess him doing anything useful is just whenever it serves the plot) to this where he’s back to flirting constantly and jamming in as much LadyNoir shipping fuel as physically possible. It’s not that he’s useless but he’s annoying and takes up space in an episode that’s supposed to be about Luka and Marinette.

And that leads us into the fourth thing, which is the break-up and just the treatment of Luka and Marinette in general. I could go on and on about how the Season 3 finale built up their relationship just to tear it down in the first episode of Season 4, but that’s not the main issue here.

Luka brought Marinette comfort. He made her happy. He never judged her. He was happy to just date her regardless of any conflicted feelings she might have because hey, who is he to complain if she wants to give him a try and who knows what’ll happen?

And the season couldn’t even give one moment of them being unambiguously happy without ruining or interrupting it. I was ready for the break-up and I was even ready for it to be the first episode but I wasn’t ready for it to be so bad.

Marinette’s Adrien pictures appear out of nowhere (again, makes no sense for the timeline) when they’ve been gone for basically all of Season 3 and even “The Puppeteer 2″ specifically which makes a direct reference to “Troublemaker,” the episode that purposefully overdid it with her pictures (”Truth” has more hanging up and clearly used “Troublemaker” as a reference, by the way). They’re just there for force the love square and Adrien into the episode as much as possible to remind the audience that Adrien breathes. There is literally no purpose to any mention of Adrien and bringing him up isn’t even relevant to Marinette and Luka’s break-up.

It’s just upsetting to know that the umbrella scene from “Origins” (which is already flawed in and of itself) kickstarts this whole thing. Adrien did basically nothing there except for clear up a misunderstanding and give Marinette an umbrella when his ride was a few meters away and Marinette’s house was just across the street, but that actives Marinette’s absolutely crippling crush on him that lasts for 3-4 seasons. Marinette is in this eternal struggle of not being allowed to grow and change because the writers think her stammering/crushing on Adrien is funny while actively punishing her for having this crush in the first place (again, like in the scene with Alya, which insults Marinette for her crush when she wasn’t even panicking over her crush).

It’s the same with Luka, and I can’t believe that it took me until this episode to realize that he and Marinette are both treated the same way: tormented by episodes for having a crush on someone. Episodes will go out of their way to forcibly insert Adrien into the plot to both humiliate Marinette and make Luka feel awkward when the episode isn’t supposed to be about Adrien at all. “Truth” is just “Desperada 2.0″ except Adrien is barely on screen at all and they still felt the need to name drop him constantly. The writers are so sensitive to the idea of people jumping onto another ship or forgetting that Adrien exists that they’ll find any possible way to include him.

“Silencer” knew better. “Silencer” knew that Marinette’s life didn’t have to revolve around the mere mention of Adrien’s name and that she had other interests/desires/traits outside of him. Adrien isn’t brought up once and it was great because the show didn’t feel the need (for once) to throw Adrien into an episode that he had nothing to do with.

Even if I was a love square shipper, I would feel insulted by “Truth” because one half of my ship kept getting name dropped and used as a tool to humiliate the other half, which makes it all the more eyeroll-worthy when the love square stans of the fandom praise this episode for breaking Lukanette up when--oh, wait, they didn’t even break up “because Adrien.”

And that ends up being the real thing here. The writers had to invent a reason for Marinette and Luka to break up. We already know that Jagged Stone being Luka’s dad is a retcon (not technically in the show’s canon but in information we heard about outside of it), so they shoved in Luka having issues about not knowing his father specifically so that he would be pushed over the edge when Marinette couldn’t tell him about her being Ladybug.

When Luka and Marinette were just together and hanging out, Adrien wasn’t mentioned once. Say whatever about the Adrien pictures being on the wall and Marinette’s stammering (she always says stupid stuff when she panics - especially stuff she doesn’t mean - so I’m not upset with her so much as the writing for having her mess up in that specific way), but the only time Marinette talks about Adrien at all in the episode is when someone else brings him up.

She goes on a date with Luka to the cinema and they were having a great time without Adrien involved at all. I know I already stressed this point in a previous post, but one of the reasons that I find Lukanette to be so amazing is because the show actually focuses on Marinette’s interests and doesn’t force her to be the writer’s mouthpiece for gushing about their sunshine boy a punching bag for comedy. In every Lukanette scene that doesn’t bring up Adrien/before Adrien shows up, Marinette is either praised, able to be happy, or is showing one of her interests that isn’t aDrIeN, and whereas Adrien being on-screen around Marinette usually just means that she’s gushing about/stammering around him with no development, Lukanette features us actually learning more about Luka or other characters.

“Captain Hardrock” - lets her bond with Luka over a shared interest in Jagged Stone, and Luka is established as a sort of empath who uses music as a way to speak for himself

“Frozer” - gets to practice ice skating with Luka, who is actually good at ice skating and also can tie laces despite not tying his own because he’s a rebel

“Desperada” - gets to try out guitar with Luka and we learn that Luka has been playing guitar for as long as he can remember

“Silencer” - showcases Marinette’s interest in fashion and properly introduces Kitty Section; has a plot featuring all of them together doing something not even remotely love-related and we get actual confirmation of Luka’s crush on Marinette, along with Marinette’s reaction (blushy+happy; just saying, idk how anyone could watch “Silencer” and not think that Marinette was crushing on Luka)

“Heart Hunter” - Marinette gets a song written for/about her and Luka is established to have a job

“Truth” - brings up Lukanette’s shared interest in Jagged Stone, features Marinette’s interest in fashion when she gives him a gift she made + had Jagged Stone sign, and shows her raising her voice but not being judged by Luka for it, who’s happy with her just the way he is

When the show focuses on Lukanette, it’s all about lifting Marinette up, praising her, and making her feel good. When Adrien is involved or it’s hyper-fixating on Marinette’s crush on him, it’s about bringing her down and making her feel bad for a crush they keep forcing her to hold onto and humiliating her for.

Point being, the writers had to force their way into getting Lukanette broken up because of their precious love square and the fact that Marinette and Luka being happy is the opposite of what they want.

It’s embarrassing to watch a team full of old white guys (I’m convinced at this point that they just hang their female writer on a coat hanger so they can point to her whenever someone says that their staff is too male-dominated) treat their female biracial lead with such disrespect, and I can only presume that the mistreatment of Luka is because he’s supportive of her and they don’t like that, meaning that the way she’s treated ends up rubbing off on him.

It doesn’t come off as a fun or interesting plot; it comes off as cruel. When Adrien is sad, he usually gets people rushing to comfort him (”Party Crasher,” “Gamer”), but “Truth” has Marinette in tears over the fact that she can’t have a boyfriend due to being Ladybug and the writing has the gall to crack jokes about Kaalki not knowing what tears are, and then Marinette has to ask for the kwami to hug her for comfort.

When Luka gets akumatized into Truth, the episode doesn’t even hesitate at bashing away at him, from everyone saying that Marinette’s secret is that she “loves Adrien” (which, as Truth points out, isn’t a secret, and they could’ve had this somehow lead up to a twist ending where Marinette actually isn’t into Adrien anymore and the Adrien pictures were genuinely for reference, but she stammered about it because it was embarrassing that her boyfriend got sent it with no context) to one of Luka’s favorite songs actually being about how Jagged abandoned him to go on tour. Luka has to deal with Marinette ditching him constantly (not that I blame her) and not knowing who his father is despite wanting to know, and the episode treats him like trash for... what? Having a crush on a girl who’s secretly Ladybug? Because that’s all it seems to come down to in the end.

I also have serious gripes with the fact that Marinette has this huge schedule established in “Gamer 2.0″ and they don’t even try to explain why she can’t use it to keep track of her obligations. The episode has her say (in a roundabout way but still) that she’s forgetting stuff constantly because of all of her emergencies (the emergencies of which are not stated and I hate the subtle implication that forgetting something means you don’t care about it when that’s clearly not how things work and also not what Marinette comes off as because - again - they establish that she’s overworked) but fails to properly explain it. The episode hammers away at Marinette having all these issues and even has Tikki chide Marinette by asking her about leaving Luka alone while apparently neglecting the fact that Marinette HAS to go be Ladybug right now and what else is there to even do??

Both Luka and Marinette are punished for just having a crush and wanting to be together and I hate that the episode forces a break-up instead of coming up with a solution to the problem. Instead of “Marinette isn’t ready for a romantic relationship,” it feels more like she’s just not allowed to be happy.

Long-distance relationships are a thing. Relationships where people don’t get to go on dates frequently are a thing. Instead of forcing a break-up, the episode could’ve had a lesson/development where Marinette is told that she’s allowed to pursue a relationship and just needs to plan accordingly. but they just didn’t want to.

For example: instead of planning dates, Marinette could wait until an akuma/sentimonster is defeated to call Luka and ask him out, because Hawk Moth usually doesn’t strike immediately after one is dealt with. I’m positive that Luka would happily take impromptu/sudden dates over planned-but-inconsclusive ones. Heck, they don’t even have to date specifically and can just stick to phone calls (kwami can’t be picked up on technology) or hanging out in Marinette’s room/on Marinette’s balcony while they do their thing.

Relationships are a commitment, but that doesn’t mean they have to be a burden, and the episode absolutely drags Marinette over it. The whole thing with the kwami being released and stressing her out when they’re not supposed to be able to just come out normally is explained away by, “oh, the new box must be like you, Marinette; full of surprises!” when the reality is just that the show wants to take away everything that’s sacred to Marinette. The Season 3 finale had Fu’s letter telling Marinette that “life doesn’t always give you what you want, but the real gift is life itself,” then proceeds to turn Marinette’s life into a living hell.

Her room? She has to say good-bye to her privacy because now the kwami are always going to be around. The first thing one of them (Trixx) did was start reading her diary, showing that they have absolutely no shame or regard for Marinette’s feelings.

Her schedule? Conveniently pops away into the realm of non-existence so she can look bad for ditching Chat Noir on patrol and neglecting dates with Luka due to her responsibilities/stress.

Her boyfriend, the one person in the entire show who loved her, respected her agency, never judged her, actually apologized when he made her sad, and who she was genuinely in love with rather than just having the equivalent of a celebrity crush for? She had to break up with him because plot and needing to force her to go back to fawning over the guy who has only made her life worse by her crushing on him.

When I say the universe hates Marinette, this is what I mean. It created random akuma to attack Paris all for the sake of forcing Marinette away from Luka, and apparently didn’t realize what they were doing in the scene where Marinette hurries back to the Liberty when Kitty Section and Adrien are playing together when Adrien is Chat Noir so he should’ve been late too.

(Oh, and Marinette completely ignores Adrien in favor of waving at Luka and even tells Luka outright that Adrien isn’t even a factor in their relationship issues, further proving the “multiple drafts smashed together” and “the Adrien name drops are pointless” points.)

The whole thing in “Backwarder” where it was basically outright stated that Marianne could’ve been Fu’s confidant had Marianne not been outed by Ladybug’s mistake? Completely forgotten and left to the wayside. Marinette could’ve told Luka that she was watching the Miracle Box in Ladybug’s place (for any number of reasons, really: either Ladybug thinks it’s too dangerous to keep with her, or if the public doesn’t know that Ladybug is guardian, then Marinette can just say that she’s guardian) and that she has to run off to keep guard of the Miracle Box when an akuma/sentimonster happens in case Ladybug needs a miraculous.

Boom, done, episode solved. Luka gets to help Marinette with the kwami, Marinette is less stressed because someone knows half of her secret, and Luka and Marinette continue to date but are able to plan around akuma attacks.

But no. That whole thing in “Backwarder” where guardians (or at least Fu) can have a confidant was just there so Marinette could feel guilty about screwing it all up, because she’s not able to take advantage of that perk herself.

How convenient.

[kitkatopinions]

Can we talk about the rampant bi/panphobia surrounding Yang "looks at guys like they're fresh meat in the first 3 volumes and chibi" Xiao Long? Blake's gets brought up a lot as 90% of her reason for existing is to be the romancable NPC, but it's hardly talked about with Yang. She has shown express interest in guys. Even if Bees goes canon, it's not a Bi/Lesbian ship. It's a Bi/Bi or Bi/Pan ship or what ever other possible identity that doesn't erase Yang's attraction to men. I get the whole wanting rep thing but there's more lesbians in RWBY than any other LGBT identity and they aren't really that good in terms of representation. Do we really need another angry/aggressive/problematic lesbian in RWBY? And whenever it does get brought up, Lesbian!Yang fans always go "oh, it's just comphet". Um, excuse me? Isn't comphet not supposed to be a thing in Remnant?

Okay, so there's a lot to unpack here, and I do get why you're so frustrated because as a bi person, it gets so frustrating dealing with not only a huge lack of representation, but also feeling boxed out of, undervalued by, and invalidated by your own community sometimes. I myself have been really frustrated and even hurt by the way many RWBY fans (and specifically Bumblebee fans) have talked about Blake and Yang's sexuality, like they would be less gay or less rep if they were bi, how shipping them with men is 'wrong' because it's 'straight behavior' and 'validating the straights,' and I got particularly annoyed once by a post that claimed that people only shipped Yang and Weiss so that they could force Blake - who they claimed was a canon lesbian - into a relationship with a man. I think it's clear why people talk about Blake's status as bi more than Yang's - Yang has one moment in eight seasons where she acts clearly attracted to men, whereas Blake has had two canon romantic relationships with men, Adam being her ex and her having gone on a date with and kissed Sun on the cheek. When people dispute Blake's status as a bi, sometimes they (rightly) come at it from the point of view of 'this is just my own personal headcanon for my own benefit.' But too often, Blake's attraction to men is dismissed outright and fans try and find every excuse to invalidate it so that they can insist that Blake is a canon lesbian. That's pretty openly biphobic imo. (Also I don't agree that 90% of Blake's character is a romancable NPC. I think maybe she's become mostly not an active character who only really exists as support and romance, but the idea that it's 90% of her overall show character is weird to me, Blake is done dirty by the show but that doesn't mean she's not a character for the first five seasons.)

But Yang is also worth talking about. Because of the fact that her moment of displaying clear attraction towards men is brief and early in the show, many fans have just... Thrown it out entirely, and decided that not only does it not count, but that anyone who brings it up is living in the past and is stupid for paying attention to the early seasons. That's obviously really dumb. The idea that after the first five seasons, Yang is displaying clear romantic attraction towards a girl for the first time, she is now one hundred percent a lesbian in canon because she's only displayed romantic attraction towards men once... That's also rooted in biphobia. Being attracted to men doesn't just suddenly go away because you're attracted to women and vice versa, no one chooses to be bi, gay, straight, ace, whatever. If Yang was sexually attracted towards men at seventeen, that part of her doesn't stop existing just because she's sexually attracted to women too. The thing is, headcanoning Yang (or even Blake!) as a lesbian is totally fine. I think the RWBY creators did say that sexism, racism, and homophobia doesn't exist in Remnant, but like ??? Idk why they'd decide something like that if they were gonna make jokes about Jaune and Qrow wearing skirts haha laugh at the non-gender-conformity of men, and if they'd write the first five seasons with literally one gay character, while tons of straight relationships that get credence, everyone else expresses no clear romantic inclination towards the same sex for five years of the show running. And we're supposed to think there's no heteronormativity at least? Cardin and Jaune both have clear toxic masculinity problems that Jaune grows out of, but we're supposed to think that toxic masculinity has nothing to do with any sexism or homophobia, however internalized? I think if people want their fans to believe there is not sexism or homophobia or racism in their fake world, they need to make good and sure their own internalized issues don't leak into their work. So I don't think it's wholly invalid when people decide that in their headcanon, they think Yang just acted like she was attracted to men because she thought she should. I especially think it's valid for people to headcanon that Yang had acted like she attracted to men because she thought she was. She was only seventeen, seventeen year olds put on behavior that they think is cool and she is the niece of Qrow 'wink at Winter to piss her off' Branwen, and Yang could've realized maybe during school that putting on behavior was all that was, and that she isn't actually attracted towards men and likes girls - specifically the girl dancing with Sun at the school ball. That's perfectly valid as a headcanon. But that's all it is, a headcanon.

Yang is not a canon lesbian and it's perfectly valid and supported by Yang's canon interactions for people to consider her bi or pan, and people can even headcanon her as ace if they want. Trying to demand that other people see fictional characters as the sexuality you prefer them in is just going to drive wedges, especially when so much venom seems to be directed towards bi characters, with others acting like they're literally less rep if they also have romantic interactions with people of the opposite sex. Like, people literally have the idea of "I love that Blake is bi, but I hate that people are shipping her with men or talking about Blake's romances with men and idk why the show put any focus on her romantically interacting with men." Like, sure, okay, so you support bi characters so long as they don't be bi too obviously. But... I'm getting off topic.

Here's the thing... I would caution not to get too deep in this "there's too many lesbians," concept. We're supposed to all be one community, supporting and fighting for each other. The problem isn't that there's too much representation for lesbians, the problem is that there is not enough representation for bi people, or pan, or ace, or trans men, or trans women, or non-binary people, etc. We don't have to wish less for other gay people to wish for more for ourselves. I agree that disregarding Yang's moment of attraction to men maybe isn't the way to go, but it's not that there are already enough lesbians in RWBY. There are only three side characters (by the way, two of them aren't confirmed lesbians, just because they're in a relationship with each other,) two of whom made a very minor appearance in all of two or three episodes and will likely never return to the story. As you say, the rep that lesbians have gotten in RWBY isn't very good. Them desiring more representation is perfectly valid, and I even get them wanting that representation from Yang, despite her single moment of lusting after boys in season one. That's a perfectly understandable desire. I myself want gay Neptune despite him expressing interest in women. It's not wrong. The only thing that's wrong is villainizing and mocking people for their own very valid ships like BlackSun or Yang x Jaune or Yang x Mercury or Blake x Ren or whatever ships people like. I'm sorry that I can't agree with you here, but if there was a scene in RWBY where Yang discusses her feelings for Blake and says that she realized she's a lesbian... I might not be particularly happy with the writing staff, because I already heard there's an element of disregarding Blake's former relationship with Sun in things like the comics, which is frustrating as a bi person. But I would be happy for the people who would find in this something that speaks to them and makes them feel like their own experiences are represented. Sometimes I can feel excluded from the LGBTQ+ community due to my attraction towards men, and that's hard, but I'm not going to start devaluing the victories of other gay people because of it, I'm not going to start getting upset when they get representation, or when a character they love claims an identity that reflects their own.

I do get where your frustration is coming from though, and it's perfectly valid to feel upset and exasperated both with the way MKEK write their queer relationships and in how people in the fandom tend to disregard the bi identity of characters.

[themelodicenigma]

1/2 Hi! What's your opinion about Aerith's resolution scene? It feels like most of fans are more interested in convenient interpretations to confirm/discard the CA ship, without really wondering, from a narrative standpoint, "why", of all the things Aerith could warn Cloud against, she touches the romantic subject? And so early in the story too. Romance in FF7 is often treated by fans as a standalone thing more than something that is interweaved with the main story and has a role within it.

2/2 Should we now re-evaluate the weight of CA relationship in the OG? I never felt like Cloud had more than a crush on her or her death broke him. But when a compilation expands in such a relistic way, the main story needs to be retroactively reinterpreted (like what happened with CC). I'm also wondering what significance we should give to the black floating feathers in this scene (the most visible one appearing when Aerith prays – hard not to think about Sephiroth). PS Sorry for the bad English

Don’t worry, your ENG is fine here!

Anywho, it’s quite the subject isn’t it? I often speak on how sometimes the foundation of a fan’s understanding of the Remake is grounded by their understanding of the OG. Which does make sense and have its merit, but it can also lead to a lot of biased views if there isn’t a consideration of the Remake’s way of storytelling. That’s why we have less of a reasonable spectrum of thought, and more of these black and white interpretations you mentioned floating around. I’ve seen a lot of “Aerith is telling us a fact: Cloud’s feelings aren’t real!” vs. “Cloud confessed to Aerith that he’d fall in love with her!”.

It doesn’t take much time to realize who is saying what.

The first example is talking about something that hasn’t happened yet (e.g. Cloud confirming Aerith’s words), and the second example is talking about something that, by the scene itself, just didn’t happen anyway. From a narrative standpoint and with an understanding of the story of FF7, this part of Aerith’s Resolution reflects two points: Cloud’s false memories/self and Cloud’s feelings for Aerith—more directly, the premise that if Cloud falls in love with Aerith, his feelings won’t be real due to the state of being he’s in. Additionally, this resolution essentially acts as a reflection of Aerith’s GS Date but with twists—the first being that her thoughts on Cloud’s falsity is not tied to the correlation of his similarities to Zack, and the second being that it adds a dash of something more reminiscent of the dream/forest scene (if anything, the Resolution is almost an applicable replacement of it in general). Death, cherishing time left and memories, and Cloud not being completely himself—there’s a lot of foreshadowing here.

This is where people typically use their takes on the OG to formulate a conclusion for Aerith’s premise, as you’ve seen above, with even some extending alternates. For example, that the real reason Cloud’s feelings wouldn’t be real because he’s really in love with Tifa already and is incapable of feeling anything for anyone else as he is.

But my take?

To be upfront, this scene sets up the idea that Aerith is wrong in regards to the romantic storytelling between the two of them. That yes, his feelings (in this case, that of “suki” [すき, romantic like/love when used for a person]) are going to be real despite the state he’s in. Not to mention, it isn’t an “if” he has romantic feelings, because it goes against all reason and understanding of anything else in this scene to suggest this premise was written for the sake of something that won’t happen or won’t be addressed. Even if she is right, this is only effective writing if yes, Cloud indeed falls for her and thought those feelings were real, and thus, finds out that he truly doesn’t feel that way once he regains his true self. There’d be no point to this line if he doesn’t feel this, otherwise for the sake of writing, it would’ve made more sense for her to suggest that what she just talked about (the memories/moments/happiness shared) were going to be what wasn’t real, specifically.

Until further information tells me otherwise, I believe Aerith is going to be wrong because of how the OG and relevant material presents what Cloud retains once he regains himself.

Let’s get into it.

Unlike the OG, Aerith is presenting the falsity of Cloud not through her own feelings, but that of HIS. She’s not assuming that the mantra of “embracing the moments” is something that Cloud won’t retain—it’s just the romantic feelings that will grow from them. We don’t have to worry about whether what Cloud retains from these moments and memories of Aerith are false. Why? Because that was completely fine in the OG. The moments, memories, and the bond they shared were all real to Cloud after he regains himself. And obviously, not just with Aerith, but with all his companions. If he didn’t retain what he gained while Aerith was alive, he just simply wouldn’t have any reason to value Aerith, it’d almost be like he doesn’t know her existentially at all. But that isn’t the case. Really, what he gained with his companions was never put to the test of falsehood in the first place.

But the romance? So specifically?

The “why” of everything that is said in this scene is done for some narrative purpose, representing future events and themes to be further implemented down the line. In a literal conversation about romantic feelings to be confirmed or denied story-wise—this is romantic storytelling, and whether you like it or not, it has been issued between the two characters. And of course, I believe it should make someone re-evaluate their understanding of the OG—not in the way where the story itself begets change (like that of the effect with CC, as you mentioned), but more so in realizing that the Remake is just a more expressive reflection of the romantic storytelling that was already in the OG. The writing and approach of the Remake is different than that of the OG, as we can even see between the expressions and details expanded on, like say for Cloud and Tifa’s bond and what that alludes to later down the line as well. This same thing is done for Cloud and Aerith, and what may not have been as openly expressed, is now done so too.

In the OG, the romantic storytelling between Cloud and Aerith played on the typical RPG standard of player-story interactive choice, but was contained in that by not having the story clearly address those choices through Cloud’s character after he regains himself. That and all relative materials like interviews or guidebooks relative to the OG—we only have a few direct romanticisms and some that can be argued as indirect given context. It’s not absent, but it’s unclear to the point it’s a discussion people still have 20+ years later. Also, by those possibly confused, player choice does not eliminate this through character representation—I’ll digress as it’s a whole other thing.

Cloud’s time with Aerith isn’t a mystery—we see everything between them and experience it as the player. We know what did or didn’t happen, what could be expressed, and what we’re left with in regards to romanticism is more of an unaddressed, almost irrelevant idea. What’s represented openly instead is everything else about their important bond, basically. Romanticism—it’s all in the air, not invalidated, but also not further represented for the character in the things referenced afterwards, like Cloud mentioning his memories of her, wanting to see her in death [Promised Land], Aerith being a friend, comrade, irreplaceable, etc. His time spent with Aerith was still something Cloud kept with him.

So, if the question for the OG is: did Cloud retain any romanticism for Aerith as a cherished feeling/memory, too?

I believe by right of the storytelling values presented in the game, that yes, he did. While the game and other materials make no attempt at trying to elaborate on Cloud’s favor towards Aerith, they also don’t negate it in void either from his character. A general good rule of thumb: usually when you have romantic meaning issued between two characters, whether through parallels, symbolism, other characters, the characters themselves, etc.—if it’s something that isn’t confirmed (e.g. confessions or explicit showing of romantic interest) OR isn’t countered or denied significantly (obviously not including the typical false denial by a character), then typically, you go with the positive-end that the representation there does indeed confirm that romanticism.

Think about it like this: remember that show you watched where the two lead characters had romantic subtext, but the show ends without them getting together? Yeah. If you’re at the point of claiming romantic subtext, you’re not doing so for the sake of saying the authorial intent is to show non-romance, but to show romanticism in a subtle way. There are a myriad of writers who have this style, and getting a direct confirmation or explicit showing of romance isn’t always in the cards for how that storytelling is going to be expressed. But, that hardly erases what is still intended to be understood.

The thing about Cloud and Aerith, the romanticism that can be understood from Cloud IS indeed never confirmed, not like how it was for Tifa. Which, I do advocate this actually does showcase how his romantic feelings for Tifa have a further depth than of that for Aerith given the lack of relevancy in comparison. However, his feelings for Tifa don’t negate what he felt for Aerith in totality, not to the point of being evidence of absence. The OG and further materials paint the picture that, after Aerith’s death, Cloud still remembers and cherishes her as a comrade—the memories, the moments. All of it. What’s understood is that everything that Aerith was to Cloud was carried over and fueled his reason to want to see her even in death—if romanticism was a part of those memories, those moments, no matter how small in the grand scheme of their connection, we can’t cherry pick it out of existence just because it doesn’t take expressive priority. From the game itself, I would use the “positive-end” method to understand that the romanticism there IS a part of the character, and if I include representations from other media or interviews, the authorial intention becomes much more clear.

As for the depth of these feelings? Again, Cloud’s time with Aerith isn’t a mystery. Whatever happens during that part of the game IS the depth of the feelings. I won’t identify it as a “crush”, but I just know it wasn’t deep enough to cause conflict in his relationship with Tifa because rationally (and by general storytelling standard), it would if so.

In any case, without a specific negative address of that romanticism, we can’t reasonably split apart what Cloud felt for Aerith from everything else he retained from his time spent with her.

And that’s what the Remake is basically addressing, pretty directly this time. I feel that way about a lot of things, and I absolutely believe the story is better off with it as we’re reaching more avenues for telling the FF7 story and development. What we’re getting here is something more direct and expressive than the OG, as I believe we will for most things, like we already have with Cloud and Tifa, Tifa and Aerith, and even Zack and Aerith. It’s doing much more. One could say that it might be making more of the romance than it was in the OG, but to me, I believe it’s about the same. The subject matter being brought up directly won’t change that on its own, but it’s curious that it was brought up this way.

So, if the OG didn’t represent the meaning of Aerith being right, that anything of which Cloud has for Aerith was made to be false after he gained his true self, then I don’t believe the Remake has a reason for doing it either. This is reinforced by the fact that Aerith being right just isn’t congruent with a lot of the other themes happening in the story there. It makes no sense to pinpoint the romantic feelings specifically as something Cloud didn’t feel—and again, his feelings for Tifa shouldn’t be it. How they decide to show the “answer” is up for thought as writers, as discussed, will find many ways to give meaning from their story. If the writing is consistent, what some CA fans expect won’t be what they will get, but CT fans acting like the meaning from the resolution won’t pop up ever again are already missing the point, too.

There are other interesting things though, like Aerith’s thoughts on death and this lifestyle point of view—how this connects to her hatred of the sky and those she has lost will be an interesting point for her character. Maybe even the anticipated arc of her time in death within the Lifestream and reuniting with Zack. We might finally get solid context for that. As for the black/dark feathers, I’m not sure if it even is, but it would certainly match the motif, like at the very beginning when Cloud is in the reactor. It flying by like that could simply be part of the reference to her death.

[innovativestruggles]

Extra thoughts on Daisuke x Suzue (Anime and Novel)

I was prompted to write this when a friend asked me several prodding questions on Daizue’s relationship and feminism several days ago. Obviously my friend knew where to hit the right nerve LOL

So I thought about it and I’d like to share my thoughts. I don’t know whether my DaiSuzu followers are still hanging around, but if you see this, then this is for you. This post is very opinionated of course so you may not agree with what I have to say. 

I took the initiative to go back and watch some of the FKBU episodes, and then top it off with the novel. As I mentioned in numerous older posts, the novel is the original and was written sometime in the 1970s. If you can read Japanese, I strongly recommend you grab a copy and read it for yourself. It goes into a lot more depth with regards to Daizue’s relationship and there is a lot more development between the two.

Novel and anime are different yet there are similarities. What I am going to write here is purely about DaiSuzu and because there are only minute differences in their interactions in both novel and anime, I will combine the two elements together. But before I do that, I want to talk a little about Suzue.

Suzue

I absolutely love Suzue’s character - in almost every single aspect. She is strong, clever, independent and defies all odds. Her personality and interests are definitely more pronounced in the anime in terms of strength and defying the odds. She does the hard yard - a mechanic, an engineer, a creator, a pilot, a spy, an intelligence operator - she is a one stop shop and she is not just a pretty face. Then we have her novel counterpart, who shares similar traits that concerns intelligence and independence. She does intelligence and spy work for Daisuke as well, and the only thing that was absent would be her ‘mechanics and gadget development role.’ Given that the book was written in the 70s by a misogynistic piece of shit, I am surprised the author gave Suzue that level of prominence. 

When I saw the promotional materials and then the second episode of FKBU, I was so excited! Finally, a strong female character who has all the ‘male dominated’ traits! I was looking forward to what the anime had to offer her, considering the creators were talking about giving Suzue an ‘important’ role in the anime.  And throughout the series, her character in that sense did not disappointment. She did a lot of work for Daisuke and she was the backbone of everything. She even had to rescue him at times. What an incredible woman.

In comparison, novel Suzue, although a prominent, intelligent character, still had some level of submissiveness to her that screamed ‘I need a man to save me and do things for me’ kind of way. Unsurprising of course being written by an old fashioned man in the 70s. So the anime in a sense was a breath of fresh air.

Then we see the lack of screen time. Although Suzue was just a supporting character, she was quite prominent in the novel. The anime went through all this trouble to create such an incredibly strong female character, but gave her such little screen time. Disappointment doesn’t even begin to describe it. I’m just frustrated that it is always the bloody male characters that gets a lot of screen time. I don’t give two fucks about your need for a fanservice or to appease fujos, we need more female characters who are strong, clever, independent, does not need a man to save her, is not overly sexualised and gets plenty of screen time. If it’s not one, it’s another. Can’t they just bloody do it all together? Also, have three main characters, Daisuke, Suzue and Haru ffs.

Feminism & Anime

If you trawl through my blog, there are a lot of posts about women, feminism, misogyny, toxic fandoms and a lot of het ships. Although I do absolutely love my M/M and F/F ships, there is a reason for my interest in anime het ships. I am a social worker who specialises in working with victim/survivors of family/domestic violence and sexual assault (DVSA), and complex trauma. Considering the majority of perpetrators are men, and the majority of victim/survivors are women, it is important to emphasise the need for a healthy and respectful relationship. I enjoy bringing my feminist perspective to film and fiction because they are an extension of society. Film and fiction (including anime and manga) are based on societal perceptions, and characters are still, unfortunately, heavily gendered. 

The anime fandom consists of real people and if you look all over social media, people talk about the characters all the time and their thoughts on them. It comes from somewhere. So when I watch anime, and when I see a male and female character get together in a manner that is healthy and respectful, they get a standing ovation from me. In particular, is when a male character treats his female partner in a way that empowers her or if he abstains from using his male entitlement to demean her. Because in society, there is still a large proportion of men who continues to abuse women in every way possible. If fans are constantly viewing content (yes, even ‘cartoons’) where women are objectified and disrespected comparatively to men, that rigid stereotype is reinforced and ingrained. 

I just want to add a note here that the LGBTQIA+ community do experience DVSA as well and this post does not disregard or invalidate them in any way. The focus of this discussion however, pertains to men, who make up the majority of perpetrators and, women, who are the majority of victim/survivors.

Daisuke and Suzue

I answered an ask sometime ago about why I ship DaiSuzu and although that has not changed, I have given a lot more thought to the reasoning behind it. The one thing I dislike about Suzue is her obsession with Daisuke, both in the novel and anime. It does take away her cool, independent like character, and submit her to the idea that she is nothing without first appeasing a man (Daisuke in this case). I don’t want to put too much dislike into her character in the anime, because we never got to see what her history was like with Daisuke. In the novel, I do see elements as to why she can be a bit obsessive, and that was most likely to do with her being ‘adopted’ and given a second chance. It was her way of showing appreciation. Yet she does have romantic feelings for Daisuke, so in essence, her character was emphasised as a typical lovestruck woman 😒

Again, she was incredibly loyal and forgiving towards Daisuke in the anime, despite his shitty attitude towards her at times. You’re probably wondering, after all that I wrote about feminism, why I would still ship DaiSuzu? In the anime, that comes down to Daisuke’s trauma. It added an extra layer of complexity. Daisuke’s standoffish, cold behaviour towards Suzue was not out of a sense of male entitlement and disrespect towards Suzue being a woman, rather, it was a manifestation of his trauma. Of course, it does not excuse his behaviour, but this is the reason why I really enjoyed watching their relationship. There was a lot of mutual trust going on (which I wrote about), covert appreciation of Suzue’s skills and abilities and Daisuke’s own way of making amends with her. 

In the novel, however, Daisuke does not have a history of any traumatic experiences. His personality was a lot more animated and though he does exhibit some weird behaviour towards Suzue, he does not do it out of male privilege or misogyny. He was just dense (and an idiot).  

Regardless, DaiSuzu’s relationship isn’t just as simple as black and white. There are elements of feminism that intertwines the anime and what I love a lot about Daisuke was that he never put Suzue down, felt intimidated, or tried to make her feel inadequate for being more clever and more intelligent than him. He relied on her knowledge, her skills and her expertise to guide him through his missions, because not only did he trust her with his life, he believed in her skills. He quietly allowed her to do her job without questioning her abilities or intervening.

I won’t discuss how shit the anime was and how much they shat on Suzue’s character by making her Daisuke’s relative, but like I said, I was pretty impressed with the way they turned Suzue into a strong character, and Daisuke’s perception of Suzue as a woman.

And yes, Daisuke doesn’t deserve Queen Suzue. And if you were again to ask me about Daisuke’s true feelings for Suzue? I am pretty damn certain that he loves her to death - in both novel AND anime.

[bestworstcase]

Chapter 11, WOW WHAT A RIDE! My Casscaine shipping was so high and so fulfilled I can’t wait to see more of their interactions. Her seductive flirting and obvious trying to make it seem “like that” was wonderful. Cass fucked up MAJORLY and I really felt her frustration with the whole situation cause ugh that shit hurt. God DAMN RAPUNZEL give Cass some space PLSSS like how much more obvious can she make it to stop?. It was very satisfying to see Cass yell at Rapunzel and tell her what she deserved to hear. Of course Rapunzel doesn’t know any better and is still getting use to the whole friendship thing but that’s still not really an excuse for continuing to invalidate and disrespect Cassandra and her feelings. Of course Cass won’t tell her shit cause ugh having to talk about feelings and emotions no thank you but I really sympathize with Cass because she SHOULDN’T have to tell Rapunzel her Saporian history if she doesn’t want to. Why must her feelings constantly be invalidated while everyone else gets their space respected. It’s again the great thing of seeing their class division/power dynamic and lack of boundaries Rapunzel continues to cross. She’s been isolated for years and doesn’t have a good eye for seeing them but she should know better than to outright disrespect her that way, Rapunzel is being a bad friend and got what was coming to her and I was just yelling RUN CASS so that was satisfying to see because especially in that moment I really related to Cassandra about just needing to escape the pressure and the weight of everything crashing on to her at once. It’s such a messy situation and she’s such a complex and great character to have who’s full of different emotions and values that you’ve done an EXCELLENT job of displaying. And the Saporian history told by Caine with mention of Zhan Tiri and the cults was sooo good that part was great. I think my favorite chapter so far!!

11 was soooooo much fun to write kskghfjd caine crashing into herzingen to wreck shit and flirt like her life depends on it because oh no. oh no cassandra has the audacity to be attractive. and baby’s first treason of course

under raps is one of my favorite episodes and def my favorite non-demon-adjacent episode but oh my god it makes me writhe with how appalling rapunzel’s behavior is toward cass - esp if you read cass as saporian and having the layer of cultural antipathy towards the holiday that she does in bitter snow - but even without that! not liking something and trying to ignore it while your friends push and pester and try to force you to enjoy it and have a good time because they interpret your just not celebrating as you being miserable or needing their help 🥴 and then that combined with cass being so super clear about her boundaries with rapunzel and rapunzel going as far as to STALK her after cass tells her to drop it… whew!! gkfbdks it’s the one episode where i was like ok there is literally nothing i could do to take this further besides obviously the successful journal theft because rapunzel’s canonical behavior is already SO FAR beyond the pale. please get therapy gkgnfkfns

it would be remiss of me to not give murphy @ancientriverbed a shoutout here for the fucking. 10 minute long musical adaption she wrote of this chapter

[makeste]

I was originally going to send this message declaring my undying love for your metas and chapter reviews aND THEN - AND THEN MAKESTE - I READ THE ANSWER WHERE YOU SAID YOU WERE ARO AND THAT MAKES ME SOOOOO HAPPY. I'm aroace and it is SO FRUSTRATING to want to consume platonic or familial interaction between people and CONSTANTLY only get romantic or sexual. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR EVERYTHING YOU CONTRIBUTE

woooo up top! solidarity lol.

for me it’s like... I don’t know if “frustrating” is the word I would use, but I do wish there was more gen out there. and that’s also something I’ve felt awkward about wanting in the past, because my early fandom years took place in a time where slash was much less of an everyday commonplace thing than it is now, and liking it was still a fairly controversial thing. the internet was a much more openly homophobic place than it is now. like, picture the purity police of modern day tumblr, but if they attacked any kind of non-heterosexual relationship as being sick and perverted and wrong. that was pretty much the general vibe. this was before AO3, and people who wrote slash often didn’t post it on ff.net and only posted it to their own private blogs and/or locked and moderated communities instead just so they wouldn’t be harassed. and there was absolutely no canon representation out there at all, or next to none. it was very much a “[rolls eyes] oh the yaoi fangirls are at it again” sort of thing where non-cishet relationships in fiction and fanfiction were at best not taken seriously at all, and at worst were treated with outright scorn and disgust.

and so like, with this being a common attitude at the time, I felt guilty for not always wanting to read slash myself. like, I don’t mind reading about romantic relationships at all, but for me there also has to be some other kind of element in play as well, or else it’s just not going to click for me. if a fic is just romance, just a lot of pining and slow burn stuff without anything else really going on in the plot, I just get bored and disinterested. I almost want to use the word tired, even though I’m not sure that makes much sense. I just can’t connect to the emotions, and so I disengage pretty quickly. and so I tend to steer clear of time-honored fandom staples like coffee shop AUs or And They Were Roommates, just because for me there’s rarely anything there for me to latch onto. I like angst, but I can’t relate to “so and so doesn’t feel the same way about me”, or “I want to be with them so bad but I don’t know how to confess”, or “they’re with someone else and it hurts like crazy every time I see them and know we can’t be together”, because none of those are emotions that I have ever personally felt, and I just can’t make myself feel them. what I can relate to are things like “this person makes me feel safe”, or “I feel a strong connection to this person”, or “I trust this person more than anyone else” because those feelings aren’t exclusively romantic in nature. I can relate to closeness and caring and love and affection and trust, but what I can’t relate to is the feeling of having a single person occupy all of your thoughts all the time, and very badly wanting to be the most important thing in their life as well, and feeling incomplete otherwise.

but anyway I spiraled away from the point I was trying to get to, which is that for a long time I actually felt guilty about feeling this way. because even though it’s rare to find fanworks where gen/platonic relationships are at the center, actual canon is chock full of said relationships. and so it’s like, what right do I even have to complain when I get to read all the time about so and so being friends, but the people who actually want them to be in a relationship in the actual canon so rarely get to see that actually happen. because that much has not changed in the past 20 years, even though society has become far more accepting of LGBTQ+ relationships. most canons are still far more likely to tease a non-hetero ship -- on purpose, even, hence why queerbaiting is a thing -- than actually commit to it. and so I often feel like I have no right to voice my desire for more genfic, because genfic has never faced the same kind of scrutiny as slashfic. gen has always been acceptable, and there is plenty of canon representation of platonic and non-romantic relationships, and so it’s not something I have any business whining about.

and even now I feel fairly uncomfortable voicing this lol. I write almost exclusively genfic myself, and up until very recently, I’ve always defined gen in my head as being just a lack of romantic or sexual content, rather than being its own distinct category. I think that’s one of the reasons it took me so long to realize I was aro (that, and I’d honestly never even come across the term until just a few years ago). for me, my lack of interest in romantic affection always felt more like a lack of identity rather than an identity in and of itself. I always felt like I was missing something. and for a very long time it never occurred to me that this might be a permanent thing; I just figured, okay, I just haven’t had this feeling yet. it just hasn’t happened for me yet. but eventually it would, and I just hadn’t met the right person, or whatever. but it was never anything I particularly wanted, and I never felt like I was missing out on anything by not having it. I never felt any kind of longing for it or felt incomplete without it. I was actually perfectly content!

but because society treats romantic orientation as the norm and places such a huge emphasis on it, I still had the uncomfortable feeling in the back of my head that if I never fell in love with someone and never wound up having a relationship with someone, my life would somehow be less meaningful and whole. like, we’re raised to think that romantic love is basically the pinnacle of the human experience, the purest and truest emotion that anyone can feel. and at the same time, there’s this idea that a life without that kind of love is just sad and unfulfilling and tragic. and so for a very long time my experience with my own aromanticism was characterized by me thinking of it as a lack of something that everyone else said was very important. and it took a long time to realize that that wasn’t the case, and that it was a valid orientation all its own and not just a matter of me being deficient in some way. and that was actually such a relief to finally come to terms with. I can be whole and complete on my own and still have a rich and fulfilling human experience even if I never experience romantic love, and that’s fine. I’m not missing anything. I’m not wrong for feeling like I’m not missing anything. it’s fine to be content with just me as I am. like, holy shit. and that was such a weight off my shoulders to finally get that.

I once wrote a fic which I was and still am very proud of. it was a genfic, and it had a really intricate plot with a big twist at the very end. and there was a ton of emotion in it, and it got very intense at times, because these were two characters who cared a lot about each other and would literally die for each other if they had to, and I’d put them in a situation where that possibility was very much looming over their heads at every turn. and I really put everything I had into trying to convey that kind of bond as strongly as possible. like I poured a ton of my heart and soul into that fic. and the responses were almost universally positive and kind and made me really happy.

there was one response though, that still sticks with me to this day. it was by and large very positive, just like the others. but it ended with a single sentence that, at the time, kind of just lowkey gutted me. Not gonna lie though, would have loved some slash in there.

like, that just cut me. way more than this person actually intended, I think. I’m pretty sure they just meant it as an offhanded comment, not even a concrit or anything. just “haha would have loved it if they’d kissed though lol.” but it stung. because this was something I’d put every ounce of emotion that I could conjure up into. and even though it wasn’t mean to be hurtful in any way, to me that comment read as “this is still missing something.” because there was no romance, the fic was incomplete. the characters’ feelings were incomplete. even though I’d struggled so much to convey all of these complex emotions which to me were so real and powerful, and even though the comment even acknowledged that I had by and large done so effectively, to me the single takeaway that stuck was that the feelings were less meaningful because there was no romance.

and that felt like a failing on my part. I even apologized for it. and here we are, ten years later, and that comment still pops up in my head any time I feel the urge to talk about a popular ship which I support but which I also enjoy as just a friendship. “just” a friendship. I still feel guilt over that. I still feel this urge to overexplain that I’m not trying to invalidate the actual romantic ship. I worry that I’d be perceived as ungrateful and/or a bad ally if I ever just came out and said “I wish there was more gen” like you were able to say so freely, anon. I worry about people getting offended if I were to say “I headcanon so and so as being aroace” because it might be viewed as an attack on their ships, or as latent homophobia, or something. like I have this paranoid fear that people might take it as me being puritanical and all “oh no, icky sex” or whatever, and so I end up just never bringing it up at all.

and that’s the thing about aromanticism, though; it’s so easy to just never talk about it at all, because for so many people it is just defined as a lack of something, rather than a something all on its own. it’s so easy for it to be something you just never bring up, and which just kind of quietly exists as the boring, bland, inoffensive yet uninteresting lack of a relationship; the default blank slate that most everyone is dying to fill in as soon as possible, except for you. and I’ve gone on thinking about it that way myself for so long that I’m still struggling now to sort out how to embrace it as an actual identity. it’s something I still have a lot of work to do on I guess.

anyway! so that all got very long and rambling and personal, far more so than I intended; clearly I have a lot of pent up thoughts and feelings about this lol. I guess I probably could stand to talk about it more, since the evidence would indicate that I clearly want to. but eh, baby steps. but anyways you are super valid anon and thank you so much for the love and comments. <3

[bloodraven55]

“But Bumbleby was rushed/forced to pander to the gays—”

There are a number of glaring flaws in this argument, most of all the fact that no straight relationship is ever called “forced” or “pandering” even if people don’t like it, let alone “rushed” when it’s only on the verge of officially happening seven seasons into the show, but I want to break down all of the many levels on which it’s wrong in order to hopefully kill it once and for all.

“It came out of nowhere—”

Jaune was crushing on Weiss the second he saw her, Sun was crushing on Blake the moment he saw her, Pyrrha developed feelings for Jaune in just one Volume and showed some interest from the moment she saw him, and Blake goes from being consistently annoyed at Sun throughout Volumes 1 and 2 to suddenly having a crush on him in Volume 3.

If Bumbleby supposedly “came out of nowhere,” then so did W/hite Knight, A/rkos, and B/lacksun. But no one ever has an issue with the speed at which those characters started having romantic interest in each other. And I’m not even saying they should—they’re all very valid ships and whether they came out of nowhere or not isn’t the point of this—but there’s a clear double standard applied to same sex ships as opposed to heterosexual ships here and it invalidates this point right out of the gate.

“It was rushed—”

Blake and Yang are only just now close to becoming an official couple after more than six whole Volumes of knowing each other. There is no possible universe where this would qualify as “rushed.” Again, W/hite Knight and B/lacksun albeit both one-sided at least to begin with both became obvious things within literal episodes of the characters meeting, and Jaune and Pyrrha were showing blatant romantic interest in each other by Volume 2 before kissing in Volume 3.

In the last case you can argue that it went at a faster pace because Pyrrha was going to die, but that doesn't change the fact that no one complained that it went too quickly—or about the other two ships I mentioned which were both initially based solely on one (1) instance of a guy showing interest in a girl—and yet people say it’s too soon for Blake and Yang to get together when they’ve had over twice as long for their relationship to develop.

“The shippers forced it into the show—”

I don’t think I even need to add any more here when the words of CRWBY speak for themselves.

“Toxic shippers think everything is gay—”

I mean, I’m gay and I only truly ship a handful of the possible same sex pairings in the show—certainly far from the majority of them—and I also ship a number of straight ships, but go off I guess.

I already made a post on this here, but it’s insanely dismissive and ridiculous for heterosexual people i.e. the ones who usually use this “argument” to assume that they know better than actual LGBT+ people what is or isn’t good LGBT+ representation, and for them to assume that just because they missed build up that it therefore isn’t there.

I can’t take someone seriously when they go into a discussion determined to believe that they’re already right and don’t listen to a word you say to prove otherwise, especially when they’re debating on a topic which doesn’t directly affect them and which they don’t have the same level of firsthand knowledge of.

“The wasps only care about Blake and Yang getting in each other’s pants—”

Actually, it’s the people who are most aggressively against Blake and Yang being a couple that tend to reduce their relationship to being entirely about sex even though they haven’t had a single remotely sexual interaction in the show, but if this were true then surely Bumbleby shippers would be very unhappy with the show because Blake and Yang have still not “got in each other’s pants,” or “swapped clit juice” as I once saw someone tastefully describe it?

But that isn’t right. Because in general us Bee shippers are currently exceedingly happy with everything that’s happening in the show to do with Blake and Yang’s relationship. So how can that be if all we care about is whether they fuck or not?

The answer is of course that we don’t only care about whether they fuck or not—in fact most of us couldn’t care less whether it’s ever so much as hinted that they have sex, both because the show almost certainly won’t ever go there and because that isn’t our priority—we’re just enjoying watching them fall in love.

Honestly this argument is one of the most lazy because one look at RWBY will tell you that none of the romances are at all sexual thus far so any shippers who truly only care about that aspect wouldn’t stick around very long when they’ll just end up disappointed. And of course the way that these people inherently view same sex relationships as sexual is homophobic and disgusting too.

“CRWBY rushed it to give the rabid shippers what they want—”

Like the last two points, this is a “criticism” that I’ve only ever seen levelled at same sex ships and never straight ships, so it’s yet another example of double standards and hypocrisy, but that’s only the start of what’s wrong with it.

The most galling thing about this is that these people insist that all LGBT+ people because as I’ve already mentioned that is always the group which statements like this are aimed at just want to see two characters of the same gender make out as soon as possible, which is simply not true.

No one would ever claim that straight people just want to see a man and a woman get it on as soon as possible and dismiss the worth of a straight relationship because of it. So it’s ridiculous to try and force that logic onto shippers of same sex ships, who are primarily LGBT+ people themselves.

If anything, we care even more about the quality of our ships—how healthy they are, whether they’re well built up or not, etc.—because we hardly have any to begin with in comparison. If one straight ship is rushed or poorly written, then there are plenty of well-handled ones to choose from instead, but the same isn’t the case for same sex ships.

We want to be represented well, which means that we want healthy relationships with plenty of development where the characters actually have chemistry and complement each other. We might still support rushed or badly-written same sex ships sometimes because it’s still representation which we are overall sorely lacking, but we don’t want them.

“But they ship baited with Blake and Sun—”

First off, straight ships can’t be baited the same way that same sex ships can. It’s simply not a comparable situation. But of course B/lacksun shippers are entitled to feel disappointed that their ship didn’t become canon. That’s utterly valid and understandable. However, that doesn’t mean that the writers or the show in any way misled viewers regarding what was happening.

“But Sun winked at Blake—”

And Yang also winked at Blake in Volume 2 while asking her to the dance, just like Sun winked at Blake in Volume 1 and then asked Blake to the dance. And Blake turned Sun down when he asked initially, specifically told him that they were only “technically” going together when she ran into him outside, and told him definitively that she had chosen to give her first dance to Yang.

“But Blake blushed at Sun—”

And now she’s also blushed at Yang, in a far more intimate scene at that. Next point.

“But Sun met Blake’s parents—”

And? Simply meeting someone’s parents doesn’t on any level automatically imply romance. Ghira didn’t even like Sun, and while a lot of people like to claim that Kali “ships it” which would be extremely flimsy evidence to base the canonicity of a ship on anyway, she’s someone who would do the same with anyone Blake brought home so it means nothing. If Blake had actually chosen to take Sun home with her herself then this would be a valid point, but she didn’t, so it has no weight whatsoever overall.

“But Blake kissed Sun on the cheek—”

And I kiss my mother on the cheek the exact same way every time I say goodbye to her. If you think that type of kiss on the cheek has to be romantic then quite frankly I’m not sure what world you’re living in. If the camera had been close up, if there had been any shots at all of their reactions, any blushing or lingering looks, a more private setting— literally anything to give it some actual weight and make it feel significant, then this might mean something, but it’s framed as a totally platonic goodbye with zero romantic coding.

And that’s without even mentioning the fact that right after that moment Sun flat out states that his time with Blake was “never about [romance],” which sort of kills the idea that anything about that scene was supposed to be taken as romantic. There was no reason to include that line except to make it clear to the audience that Sun and Blake parted ways as friends who now have no intention of ever becoming anything more.

Seriously, if they wanted us to think that there was still something there, then Blake would have been shown to be thinking about or missing Sun even one since they separated, but he hasn’t been brought up for even a second. If they wanted to set up a continuation of anything romantic for them when the group reach Vacuo, say, then they would have started doing it by now.

Plus the reverse argument that Blake and Sun have never hugged or held hands—both of which Blake and Yang have done multiple times—works just as well, perhaps even better since handholding is a well-established romantic cue in the show already thanks to A/rkos, R/enora, and O/zma and Salem.

“But why was Sun even there in Volumes 4 and 5 then—”

Because Blake needed a friend who she could exposition to about her thought processes and personal problems so that the audience could understand what she was going through, and she wasn’t as likely to open up to her parents about that stuff right away when she was convinced they’d hate her for leaving.

Sun was there to support Blake as she developed and to tell her that running away hurt the very people she was trying to protect. That was his narrative role in that arc. There was nothing to indicate that a romance was being built in those more than twenty episodes they spent together and if it was going to happen that would have been the time to do it.

On the other hand Blake and Yang’s shared arc together is built on the fact that Blake’s romantic ex, who Blake had already directly contrasted with Yang and whose Semblance was already a foil to Yang’s, maimed Yang specifically because Blake loves her. The basis of that arc has romantic weight, which is what makes the difference here. Though the scene at the end of Volume 3 where Adam takes Yang’s arm isn’t romantic in and of itself, I should clarify, it just has romantic significance in that it makes it clear that Blake and Yang’s feelings go beyond mere friendship.

In short, the summary of this whole section pretty much boils down to: two characters spending time together doesn't inherently equal romantic development, and it isn’t in any way “baiting” if those two characters don’t then get together.

The characters’ feelings follow a fairly logical progression over the course of the show, with Blake showing interest in both Sun and Yang in V1-V3, then ceasing to show interest in Sun after that as their relationship becomes totally platonic by Volume 5/the beginning of Volume 6 at the very latest, while the events of the Fall of Beacon only solidified how strong her feelings for Yang were and once she reunites with Yang their relationship begins to head towards romance.

It’s a pretty realistic depiction of how human feelings work, and a far less messy situation than in a lot of other shows where there isn’t the same massive level of hatred and vitriol towards the “victorious” pairing, because this was never even really presented as a love triangle or rivalry.

To conclude, I just want to list some of the contradictions that I’ve seen within the arguments made against Bumbleby, because I think it’s very telling that the people who are against it can’t even settle on one coherent narrative on why it’s bad.

“Bumbleby has no development, but also the show focusses too much on Bumbleby.”

“Monty wouldn’t have wanted Bumbleby—it goes against his vision—even though I didn’t know him and have no idea what his vision actually was, and he explicitly stated that he wanted LGBT+ characters in the show who might already be in the main cast and that he wanted Blake and Yang to have a shared arc together, as well as being responsible for the set up of that arc with Blake and Yang being introduced as Beauty and the Beast while Adam canonically represents Gaston.”

“The Bumbleby shippers have so much influence that they forced the writers to make the ship canon, but they’re also just a vocal minority who don’t matter.”

“Blake and Yang hardly interact—they’re barely even friends—but they also interact too much and it’s making Bumbleby take over the show.”

“Arryn is a victim of the toxic wasps who harrassed her and sent her death threats for saying that the song Bmblb doesn't automatically make the ship canon, which there is zero evidence of,  but Arryn is also an unprofessional cunt for expressing her support of Bumbleby.”

“None of Blake and Yang’s scenes together are romantic so Bumbleby is forced, but even when they have undeniably romantic interactions I’ll ignore them or deny that they mean anything so I can still pretend it has no build up.”

“Bumbleby is bad because Team RWBY are a sisterhood, but all of the other straight relationships within teams—even those who’ve flat out called each other ”family”—are fine, and I’ll just pretend that there aren’t other definitions of the word sisterhood which have nothing to do with actual sisters and are the ones that actually apply in this case.”

“Blake and Yang’s relationship could be seen as romantic or platonic, but I personally think they’re just friends so Bumbleby is bad and came out of nowhere.”

I’ve seen all of these countless times with my own two eyes and it’s absolutely hilarious to be honest. Anyway that’s it. I have yet to see a single logical argument as to why Bumbleby is bad that isn’t made in bad faith, fallacious, or just doesn’t hold up when you actually look at the show. It’s about to be canon, and at this point to be honest anyone who doesn't like that can simply accept it or go and watch something else that will pander to their specific tastes instead.

[narhinafan]

Can you tell me why Naruhina is still being blamed for Neji's death ?? And why did Kishi say he did not know how to write romance?

Ok first can you stop repeating the same asks, I got this one three times and it is not the first time I have gotten similar asks about the same thing from you. 

Now the only people who blame NaruHina for Neji’s death are haters who either can’t stand Hinata or the fact she got with Naruto usually both. They want to look at any excuse to hate on her and the ship in order to invalidate even if it means twisting what happend.

If the ones blaming her are Sakura fans just point out the fact Sakura was not willing to use the chakra in her seal even when Naruto dying even when she complained about lack of chakra. Naruto basically died, but Sakura wasn’t willing to use everything she could to save him.

As for Kishimoto, it is cause he doesn’t try and write romance too much and he is embarrassed about doing so, so he is more critical when it comes to his own writing when involving romance. Naruto is an action manga not a romance one, Kishimoto wanted to focus on the action when he wrote the story. Sakura and Sasuke may also be a cause for it while he pretty much intended them to be together at the start the way he did their relationship it made it harder to pull off romance for them more so when he didn’t focus on it.

Honestly I don’t think he is that bad at NaruHina, ShikaTema and InoSai all turned out well, just that their budding romance was never a focus of the series, but the few bits we did get are natural and go well with how he did the characters just that cause the series focuses on action the story rarely gives the couples to be time to interact with each other and only do so in passing that it leaves a big gap between their moments. 

[toxicpineapple]

Please give me your amami essay, I'd like to know the TEA! I was also gonna ask for the mastermind essay, but honestly I REALLY wanna hear your thoughts on his characterization (and your thoughts on his shitty fanon characterization)

HOOO BOY OKAY. this is good, it gives me an excuse to procrastinate on reading that new amasai fic on the latest feed. (note that i REALLY WANT TO READ IT, i’m just anticipating commenting and tbh the spoons,,, i lack them. it’s okay though i’ll get over it.)

so!!! let’s start with general attitude, because i think that amami’s is really unique. he’s a subversive character. in general i feel like that was the biggest goal with his character design and personality combination-- he looks like a total playboy, kaede even comments as much moooore than once. but he’s the absolute opposite. i’ll rant about that in a bit. i’ve already gone off on a tangent and i said i was gonna talk about attitude.

amami is laid back, but not to the point of complacency. y’know what i mean? like, he’s relaxed, but he’s on his guard, too. his speaking style is pretty casual (typically he’ll greet people with a “hey,” whenever he’s slightly uncomfortable he’ll probably say “haha”... this isn’t necessarily a canon thing but i like it when people have him talking in sentence fragments. ex. “forgot to grab my jacket” or “wanted to get a snack” sort of thing) and that’s just,,, the type of person he is. he’s casual. it’s remarkable considering how wealthy amami is-- though bear in mind, he still IS wealthy, so there are bound to be things he doesn’t understand about people-- that he can be so normal and like, down to earth, in a way. when people mess around with him he’ll probably just laugh it off.

to cite a fic i read once that had REALLY phenomenal characterisation, imo, ouma ends up dumping a bucket of water on amami’s head (on accident; there are some semantics and i won’t get into it but again the fic is really good and funny and you should totally read it) and amami just squeezes out his shirt and makes a couple cracks before walking away. (sorry this isn’t meant to be a “dumping love on fics” post but GOD that fic is hysterical.) he’s an enabler too, at least i think so-- remember that anthology chapter where kaede, shuichi, and kaito are trying to catch ouma and kaito sets an “amami trap” to stop him? all ouma has to do is flutter his eyelashes and go “pleeeaaase let me go amam~niichan!” and then he just. he does. what a fucking doormat i can’t believe him.

he’s like that though. i feel like big brother stuff is kind of his weakness. (and not in a kinky way alright i will destroy you. he might make a joke about having a sister complex in one of his ftes but he DOESNT that joke was just tasteless COME ON RANTARO WHFKLDSJFK) which brings me to his whole older brother thing, because like,,, YEAH. guy grew up with twelve younger sisters!!! and he remarked in his ftes with shuichi that they’re mostly step sisters, which means he just.... has a nurturing personality. i mean amami is somewhat conservative (if you try to come on to him during salmon mode you will be brutally rebuffed; amami tells u to keep your horny thoughts to yourself, though you shouldn’t be ashamed of having them) so i imagine he’s not the biggest fan of his father’s tendencies-- not that i don’t NECESSARILY interpret his father’s behaviour as him sleeping around.... it’s possible he just likes children and deliberately marries women who already have kids so he can take them... i mean it’s exceedingly decent to keep considering ur step children to be your children after a divorce so i have a hard time reconciling this common image of rantaro’s dad as some kind of player figure with the impression i got of him in my head but that’s just my daddy issues coming into play again so ignore me-- and yet he still considers all his sisters to be his sisters.

not to mention he feels a great deal of like, responsibility, when it comes to taking care of them. i find it impossible to believe that all the losses were his fault. you could ARGUE that the one he tells you about with his younger sister was to be blamed on him? but i mean, amami is a child. he didn’t even know his sister was following him out. sure he blames himself for it but there’s no real good way to blame him just considering that,,, he’s a kid. and he was so young-- he was obviously so young-- when it happened. so like, not to be all Good and Bad on you, but i do feel that amami is fundamentally a good reason. and you SEE that too, in the killing game. i’m certain he was on the fence about trusting that note he woke up with. would you trust it? he had no memory whatsoever of writing it, all he had were the words “ultimate hunt” and a map of the school to guide his way. i imagine he wasn’t even sure if he should do what the note said. but then ryoma started talking about sacrificing himself for everyone else, and rantaro probably thought, “well... if i have a way to get us out of here, even if it doesn’t work, i can’t just let ryoma sacrifice himself without having tried.”

rantaro is self-reliant too, i think. in the talent development plan mukuro remarks that she noticed he was injured a good number of times, but never said anything about it because she felt like he was trying to keep it under wraps. (note: good idea for an amami and mukuro friendship fic. must write. someone remind me.) i think amami kind of feels isolated from his classmates? either because he has these perceived notions of like, independence and whatever, not burdening anybody else with his problems (honestly not to go chabashira on main but wtf men ask for help c’mon i promise if you find a person who’s worth being in ur life they won’t treat you like shit for feeling ur feelings) or just because he’s not around a lot. i think amami is the type of person to invalidate his own problems a lot, or at least downplay them to others. he blames himself for all his sisters going missing, took the responsibility to find them all. you know the blow that’s going to be to his education? traveling around the world looking for twelve different people? and he plans to keep doing that!!! forever!!! ugh ;-; poor babey. but anyway i feel like he doesn’t want to tell anybody about his problems because he feels like it’s his thing to deal with.

i also believe that rantaro is a bit prideful. i mean, anyone can be prideful under the correct circumstances, and in fact there is a great deal of pride that simply isn’t addressed by the fandom in analysing characters and that makes me really sad because pride is such a SEXY character flaw but i’ll leave that alone for now. he hates being told to give up on what he’s doing. i mean everyone in his life has been telling him to stop looking for his sisters. that’s got to suck, but also, DAMN look at what his reaction was. this utter refusal to open up to anybody. shuichi’s ftes with him are spent pretty much just trying to get amami to stop squirreling around and actually TALK to him. amami asks shuichi at one point if he has any siblings and when the response is negative, amami immediately assumes that shuichi wouldn’t understand, would tell him to quit. just like everyone else.

(i mean, even with kiyo and mukuro, whose circumstances mirror his almost painfully at least in willingness to sacrifice stuff for their siblings, he doesn’t tell them what he’s doing, just that he’s doing it for his sister-- singular-- and that he would do anything for her. kiyo and mukuro!! out of ANYBODY, they would understand. in tdp they DO talk about it-- kiyo encourages him to keep searching-- as his friend...... fuck amaguji is such a good ship even if the implications of kiyo saying he wants to meet rantaro’s sister after he finds her bc she must be suuuuch a good person if he’s doing all this for her are uhhh not great-- and mukuro immediately understands when he says it’s to do with his younger sister. like, full stop. she just goes “okay” and goes serious. all at once. damn rantaro, mukuro, and kiyo really do be a power trio huh. i need to write more fic about them i miss them.)

this is more into baseless conjecture so take this as you will, but i also think rantaro is kind of,,, easily distracted lmao. he mentions helping out a village with a disease-- been a while since i’ve seen his ftes, sorry for any inconsistencies-- among other shit and like... bro what are you DOING. you have sisters to find. and he can’t be getting injured all the time, getting wrapped up with gang violence and all that, looking for people who were lost traveling. i mean sure, you could say they went all over the world and got wrapped up in all sorts of mess, but more likely they stayed in roughly the same area, waiting for him to come back. and also? i have a hard time believing his sisters were lost in these remote forest places people always put them. COME ON, who the fuck goes to some village for a vacation? a RICH person no less. i’m on another tangent. sorry. but yeah, i love the people who write rantaro as an absolute airhead. i headcanon that he has no way of judging the passing of time and thus is the absolute worst in the bathroom bc he sits there for twenty minutes thinking about the universe and then walks out like “:) ok ready to go” like wtf are you even doing there stupid akljdf anyway.

i think rantaro is softhearted and thoughtful. in his ftes with kaede he demonstrates an ability to look past what people show at surface level-- you can ask him about miu, kiibo, or kiyo and he’ll give u Good Fucking Insight(tm)-- and analyse their intentions more closely. and i mean this is just from a couple day’s interaction. he’s down to earth for sure, understanding when people are intimidated but also caring and observant. (his “talk about a first impression” line is so fuckaindgf.... good for his characterisation. i love romantic amamatsu but he so clearly takes an older brother role in those ftes, he’s really such a sweetheart,,,, hnadhfkj ;w;) rantaro is just. he’s patient with people. and selfless and kind. idk it’s all the good stuff. warm smiles and indulgence. all the way. probably lets kokichi steal his lunch.

THAT BEING SAID: i think rantaro also has a very serious streak. he doesn’t show it a lot but there are moments. he’s self-sacrificing-- i mean, obviously. he was the ultimate survivor, after all. some people hc that he got there by killing, or maybe everyone else in his game died but one person, but bro that doesn’t make any sense???? no. what happened was there were probably like three people left, and monokuma was like “one has to be sacrificed” and rantaro thought, welp. it’ll be me then. and i wouldn’t say the choice would be immediate because rantaro DOES has self preservation instincts-- he’s only human-- but i don’t think he’d have let anybody else make that decision. i think ultimately he would try to protect other people.

he can be scarily confrontational too. i do believe he’d usually only do it in the defense of others-- like, his base instinct is to protect. i read a fic once (oumami, unfortunately) where ouma was committing crimes and went to hide behind rantaro and rantaro instinctively moved to protect him, and that’s.... that’s good characterisation. point one to the oumami stans, point zero to me. motherfucker. (love u oumami stans, it’s just not my thing.) i really like it in fics when he’s stern, lecturing people for hurting other people, but i also think rantaro is too understanding to be truly unforgiving. like if two people got into an argument and one came out of it more hurt than the other, i don’t believe that amami would be unsympathetic to the less hurt one. i think he’s mature enough to take a look at the situation and go, well, okay.

i think he’d be TERRIFYING when angry. he’s patient, y’know? so it takes a lot to get him to that point. he’s really, ah, accommodating of people. puts up with a lot of bs kind of thing. but i imagine the best way to get him to snap is by hurting someone he cares about. and at that point: ur fucked. i’ve never written it before because i’m terrified of what i’d do with that kind of power but.... imagine the shuichi whump. holy god.

i’m NOT here to talk about shuichi whump (though i’m down to do that any time of day believe me) so i’m gonna like. shhhhiiiiiiffft.

i project on characters a lot so at this point it’s difficult to distinguish if some of my characterisation things are like, actually characterisation things? or just me venting, so like, take nothing i say as canon, but also,,, akdsjf we love a man who bottles up his emotions.

because rantaro just doesn’t have the TIME to be crying all over the place. he was probably a total wreck when he lost his first sister. and his second. and maybe even his third. but then he started to gather his composure, more and more. because if there’s anything that rantaro has in excess, it’s composure. the more losses he suffers the more of a shield he builds up. and the self hatred and the guilt and the blame and the responsibility are piling up and up and up, but god he hates it when other people see him sad, because he needs to be the strong one, he can’t just pile that up on other people. that’s not their weight to carry, and besides, he’s the older brother, he should be able to deal with his own problems. he’d just be burdening the people he cares about by letting them see his demons.

and then he doesn’t have any coping mechanisms because he never lets himself feel enough to cope, and when people get close enough to actually CARE about him, when people notice he’s upset or struggling and offer him help, he doesn’t know how to deal with it-- and god he hates lashing out at people but it’s so much easier to deal with the consequences of being mean than the consequences of breaking down. only conflict is scary when he’s one of the causes so he needs time to recover, and well, what better way to do that than to get on a plane or a boat and go look for his sisters? after all he’s wasting time whenever he’s just sitting around, they’re still out there and he needs to find them, so might as well just keep pushing himself to the limits, because it’s his fault they’re lost anyway...

something mukuro said to rantaro in the talent development plan stuck in my brain. like, initially it’s just a funny and cute interaction (rantaro even blushes and a blushing rantaro is a GOOD FUCKING RANTARO) but when i thought about it more i was like.... huh. hm. angst ideas. mukuro makes a joke about rantaro going over to her stand at the festival to flirt with her-- i think that’s the context, i know it’s play-boy related-- and rantaro assures her (as he always does) that he’s not that kind of guy, and mukuro agrees, saying she was just pulling his leg and that he seems like the kind of person who gets dumped because he doesn’t show his emotions enough. rantaro laughs, blushes, and says “haha, not touching that one,” and akdjfnnnnnn god mukuro you’re so blunt i love you fkdjf but wow. i usually have rantaro as not having dated anyone, just because i feel like he kind of hyperfocuses on finding his sisters? and given that he’s like sixteen (seventeen at the MOST) there’s not much of a timeline for when his sisters got lost. in my fic search i had to cram all the losses into a four-year period and damn that was rough. anyway i just don’t think he’d really prioritise romance. but that reaction implies that that’s EXACTLY his experience with romance, which makes a bit of sense because mukuro is ridiculously sharp, and also it’s,, it’s just sad idk poor rantaro. getting dumped because he’s like the emotional equivalent of a doorknob when it comes to his own feelings.

i do think rantaro is a bit cowardly. not in the sense that he’d shy away from danger-- i think he’d RUSH INTO IT HEAD FIRST because he’s a man or whatever, i know he respects women but he does seem to hold some of those very stereotypically masculine ideals of constantly protecting those around him, which is like.... ok toxic masculinity mcgee can u and kaito stop throwing hands every time u see each other ty-- but more in the sense that he avoids,,, confrontation. emotional confrontation just ain’t his thing. and i think he’d rather run away from it or otherwise find some way of ignoring it than try to address his problems.

he would, with that in mind, probably try to associate with people who don’t push the matter. kiyo and mukuro, for example. they both have a fair amount of baggage themselves so they’d probably be respectful. ryoma is lowkey enough that he just, he wouldn’t bring that shit up, that’s uncool. i also think rantaro would get along REALLY WELL with kaito, and i actually don’t think kaito would pull his sidekick stuff with him? just because in a way they’re kind of kindred spirits, and i think kaito would see an ally in rantaro before seeing someone to try to nurture, so they’d probably have some kind of a truce like, if you don’t force me to be vulnerable, i won’t force you. one of the reasons why i love amamota so much is because it involves the two of them growing to care about each other beyond that sort of unhealthy camaraderie and breaking down each other’s barriers and i just..... hhnnfhhdkfj they could be so good for each other but nobody wants to talk about thatjslfkj

you weren’t asking for my amamota mess lmao sorry anon i get sidetracked SO easily. but yeah, amami gravitates towards people who wouldn’t try to get him to be more honest with himself. and i honestly think the v3 cast would be pretty good about that overall, except for shuichi who is a detective and has a habit of sticking his nose in places it shouldn’t be, but i see no reason to write that out because amami’s ftes already display that beautifully. (well, that’s a lie, i’m absolutely plotting out a slowburn in my head already that involves shuichi stripping down his walls one by one, but forget about all of that rn we don’t need to talk about why amasaimota is my ot3.) also he is softer on childish people like ouma and himiko. ain’t nobody wants to TALK TO ME about how brilliant it would be if rantaro and hiyoko were friends because hiyoko has such problems in that department and he would take one look at her and go hm. i’m adopting her. and he’s so fucking patient and nice and she’d lose the will to make fun of him and i have to do ALL THE GODDAMN WORK AROUND HERE but it’s fine. at least i get to write it.

i’ve described the fundamentals of his characterisation pretty well by now i think. i have some throwaway headcanons, like uhh,,

he’s claustrophobic

plays the guitar and the ukulele

he prefers warm weather and perishes in the cold

high pain tolerance

he’s a Good Cook

doesn’t like sex jokes (they make him uncomfortable)

asexual (i do like a good demisexual hc at all times of day tho)

master of piggyback rides

does his own piercings

impulsive as hell

gets lost easily but can always find his way back

has a lot of scars from travels

hands are rough and calloused (again from travels)

morning person

smells like evergreen (you know i had to, you know i did)

Radiates Heat Like A Fucking Toaster Oven

good hugs

hates tying his shoelaces

likes being the big spoon :)

has a tongue piercing

i said “some throwaway headcanons” but i ended up listing way more than i mean to. i’ll make a separate list of my rantaro headcanons someday and talk about them all in detail but for now, uh, there’s that.

SO AS FOR THE RANTARO CHARACTERISATIONS I ABSOLUTELY DESPISE:

god where to fucking begin. actually i know exactly where to begin. it’s my least favourite one just because, like i said at the very beginning, rantaro is a subversive character. i mean i think he’s kind of a low hanging fruit when it comes to that. there are plenty of other subversive characters in the dr series but rantaro is like that. you expect a flirt and u get,,, a sweetheart. but then some people (usually the ones who ship him with female characters exclusively though i will see it on occasion in an amasai or oumami fic) decide to throw that out the window and make him a total playboy!! and listen, i have no problem with people who are a little flirty. we’re kids!! flirt ur heart out!!! and hey, that’s not what this is about but y’know what? so long as everything is safe, sane, and consensual, then yeah!! exercise your sexual freedom and sleep with whoever you want to!!! i don’t think there’s anything wrong with messing around a little, dating who u wanna and experimenting with ur tastes and preferences. if rantaro WAS a playboy, then there would be nothing wrong with that. i would love him just the same because he’s such a fundamentally GOOD character.

except that.... he’s.......... NOT. you slaughter one of the biggest aspects of his character by throwing away what matters to him and making him some hunky-deep-voice-dreamboat dude meant to sweep kaede/tsumugi/whomsteverthefuck off her feet. rantaro is one of those characters where he’s so blatantly not that kind of person, and it’s like. it’s an affront, almost, to portray him that way? and i do believe you should have the freedom to write what you want, since we’re in that age (aside from romanticised pedophilia and incest; that shit ain’t cute, i say this often but pro-ship DNI) where u should be able to take some liberties, but it’s just. hnnn. it’s so frustrating. rantaro does not know how to smolder! if he DID smolder, he wouldn’t even realise he was doing it. he doesn’t have people lying at his feet, okay? he’s too flaky for that. i wouldn’t say he’s unreliable but he definitely ain’t at school as much as he should be.

another one that i hate: st-stalker? what the fuck? that is not sexy that is creepy and weird?

another another one that i hate: yandere? what the FUCK??? that is not sexy that is glorified ABUSE???? the yandere trope is AWFUL bc you’re taking a controlling relationship and turning it into a fetish. NO. if he limits ur contact with other people, if he follows u everywhere, if he threatens ur loved ones, if he tries to control you, ladies and gents and nonbinaries, he’s not a yandere, he’s an abuser and you need a fucking restraining order. actually, people of ANY gender or sex can perpetuate this behaviour and IT IS NOT CUTE. I DO NOT GIVE A FUCK WHAT BOUNDARIES U SET IN PLACE, IF YOUR FREEDOM IS BEING RESTRICTED THAT IS ABUSE.

hate it when people make rantaro violent. hate it when people make rantaro a murderer. hate it when people make rantaro controlling. hate it when people make rantaro overtly sexual. some kind of sultry deep voice dominant kind of figure. dude, what the fuck? i don’t,, want to make any public comments about sex positions because i think that’s kind of Strange to just talk about on a post, but i do think that the way people portray him for their smuts is,,, idk it’s weird. i’m not gonna kinkshame u but like. :eyes:

i will however accept rantaro as a thrillseeker, or a highstrung rich boy, or a total space cadet, or a himbo, or a cryptid. these are all very good interpretations of the Mans. just, like. be wary of making him two dimensional. a good character is multifaceted. if you can take a trait that clashes with all of these and SELL ME ON IT, i will buy it. if u give me good justifications, or even just good writing?? then i will accept it.

the long and the short of it is, anon, he’s my favourite so i think about him a lot. i love writing rantaro. he’s just, he’s a Guy. y’know? He’s A Good Dude, If You’ll Give Him A Shot. :) we don’t get to see very much of him but i think that there’s plenty of material if you overanalyse everything, which, as you probably all know by now,,,, i absolutely do.

thank you for the ask, this was a delight to spend an hour talking about. <3

[many-intimate-strangers]

Elsa is a Queer Icon

She is not just queer coded like the stereotypical villains of the disney renaissance. She’s not even coded in the way that characters like C3PO or Kuzco are.

Elsa is queer in a way that feels authentic to many in the LGBT+ community, we see ourselves in her. Which is why many of us, women specially, wanted to seer her in a queer relationship.

Here is the thing Elsa is queer whether she’s in a wlw relationship or not. The way she is written and portrayed makes her part of an underrepresented part of the queer community. Elsa is aromantic/asexual.

Let’s look at the evidence. First there is the obvious lack of romantic subplot for Elsa in both movies. This is superficial, but note that until recently and with very few exceptions most disney hero’s that are not children get some sort of romantic subplot. Kuzco is the most notable exception within this century, and there is definitely a trend moving away from romantic storylines starting with Elsa in Frozen so this in itself is not major eveidence.

What I want to highlight are two specific moments, one from each movie respectively. First the iconic “You can’t marry a man you just met” line from the first movie. To the average viewer this is just Elsa stating what should be common sense in opposition of traditional fairytale tropes. It’s a somewhat humorous character defining moment, but what is striking is the delivery. Elsa isn’t JUST stating what is obvious to the audience. She’s showing an inability to empathize with her sister’s need for romantic love.

It’s not that Elsa does not understand that Anna is lonely. Elsa herself feels the loneliness, land isolation, but her loneliness manifests differently from Anna’s. Anna is desperate for affection, our first introduction to Anna as an adult is her singing about how exited she is to finally interact with other people, but then becomes about how that might bring her a chance at romance. Meanwhile Elsa is completely driven by her fear. She’s lonely but for her it is a desire to be finally understood and accepted for who she is even though she doesn’t believe this is possible. Elsa knows that Anna is lonely but she doesn’t see a romantic relationship as a solution.

In the end Anna finds her needs for romance met by Kristoff but Elsa gets her needs met not from a romantic relationship but from her relationship with Anna.

The second moment is less profound and maybe more obvious. Frozen 2 begins by flashing back to when Elsa and Anna where kids, before the incident that makes Elsa start to hide her powers. In the scene they are playing with little snow figures made by Elsa. Anna pairs up two of the figures for a kiss and Elsa expresses disgust. Now it’s common for young children to do this but this stereotype is usually applied to young boys and most notably we see her attitude contrasted by the younger Anna.

The rest of the movie plays out as a journey of self discovery for Elsa and maturity for Anna in which they grow into the roles they will assume at the end of the movie, the movie also furthers the resolutions started in the first. Anna gets engaged to Kristoff and Elsa finds belonging in a new community.

This isn’t to say your ships are invalid or you should feel bad in anyway. By all means ship the characters in any way you want. The story is yours to enjoy as you see fit. However we don’t need to change canon Elsa or ask more of her, she is plenty queer and wonderful as she is.

................................................................................................

PS: If you feel the need to add a comment invalidating Ace/Aro people or saying they don’t belong in the queer community just keep it to yourself or write your own hateful post elsewhere.

................................................................................................

If you are Ace/Aro and have thoughts on this please share, I’m not Ace or Aro myself and would love to hear your perspective, it’s much more important than my opinion.

[bloodfcst-a]

the last few mornings i’ve had hanging out with @sailorrmood​ have been absolutely incredible for my self-esteem and energy. thank you always for being ready to hang out to dismantle sexism, ableism, racism, and all the other shenanigans we see on the internet in the name of virtue signaling and performance activism.

i’m attempting to return to tumblr, but one of the things that really grinds my gears is the pseudo-authenticity and one-time performance activism via a reblog of a semi-relatable post. i say semi because while there are good intentions in many of these posts, people often just click like or reblog without considering the lack of intersectionality that was in the main post, or figure “i did my part” and expect everyone else to move on without recognizing that the situation lies beyond your simple text post. just because you moved on from knowing people are being unfairly incarcerated and dying at the hands of actual criminals weaponized by the ‘ justice system ’ doesn’t mean i have, or will.

today i really read someone with their whole chest say “i just learned about racism this week. wow. i’m white and i should do something about things.” and i can’t even imagine what it’s like to live in a world with so much privilege that you can really go 20+ years of living without recognizing the world around you and without noticing inequality or injustice. caucasity is a hell of a thing. meanwhile i’m an afab nb black & native so truly there’s never a time i’m not reminded of all the privileges i don’t have. i get so annoyed seeing people on tumblr say something completely ignorant and then use an excuse.

just two days ago i saw someone say “it’s sexist to ship clerith and not cloti, i’d know, i’m a womanist.” << which is not womanism, this is truly white feminism at its peak. i’ve also seen “this is my opinion and to critique me and my opinion is transphobic because i’m trans and you’re missing my good intentions.” this is both fragility and performativity to overrule an actual discussion, claiming bc of some label they know to be a haute keyword that their opinion is right. if you were truly an ally, you’d be willing to accept that your opinion is lacking the inclusivity you claim to hold. for womanism was birthed from the lack of intersectionality and critical thinking, for those outspoken or overruled or considered inferior by radical “feminists.”

( if someone were truly womanist, for example, both aerith and tifa would both be validated as women, because they both have worth inherently because they were born, and it cannot be invalidated based on a perceived gender role that they may or may not fall into. they inherently have the right to comfortable in the position that suits them best and that they have chosen of their own accord. to consider aerith inferior because she is ‘feminine’ or tifa inferior because she is ‘masculine’ or any other adjectives which could stereotypically fall into either of those categories is an explicit rejection of the acceptance ‘feminism’ claims to advocate for. )

and being trans is a valid identity but it is not a suitable response if you use that as a way to silence others or invalidate any other person’s experiences.

i recognize june is considered pride month, but it’s also juneteenth... ironic, given that this month is supposed to be celebrating the  proclamation the emanicaption of slavery to the remainder of those who were still held in captivity six months after the declaration had been legally issued... and yet here we are, 150+ years after the fact and still fighting for the right to live under the same oppressors by a system created to capture the slaves freed by the emancipation proclamation.... but y’all aren’t ready to see the big picture. but you need to be. black people have been. and that’s why they’re fighting for their lives now.

we all still have plenty of work to do, myself included, with dismantling biases taught to us by society and the social spheres we interact in. there should never be a time where you think “ah, i’ve learned enough about this subject” or “i’ve heard enough stories.” even when something is presented to you, you should possess critical thinking skills and learn to take nothing at face-value. raise questions to everything you see, especially presented by the media, and prepare to be made uncomfortable if your assumptions are wrong ( because more than likely, they will be ). who is the person mentioning the subject? what other opinions do they have? are there people presenting counter-arguments? how does their identity influence the way they interact with the information mentioned? to who is their audience? for what purpose are they interacting with said audience? if that seems like too much work... congratulations! you’re quite privileged to acknowledge the inconvenience of having to look at someone’s words and think more than 0.5 seconds about it. and if that’s hard for you to do with one post, imagine someone having to do that with literally every interaction for their entire lives. that’s the reality of black people, and other people of color, and any person that has a label that has defined them as “other.” remember, too, that these labels do not exist independently of one another, that they stack, and that a person can easily have multiple privileges, or on the flip side, things to be persecuted over, multiple injustices to face.

is it hard? yes. scary? certainly. but you should bravely face it head-on, as i am and my ancestors have before me. for those of you who claim to herald truth and freedom and the equality of all humans, who recognize there is no place in a just world for superiority and supremacy, you should invoke your strength as well. use it in times where you may need to be corrected for your decisions. do not hide behind one of your identities to prevent yourself from doing the hard work of re-evaluating yourselves and the information you share. if you’re to claim you’re an ally of anyone, that first and foremost means to listen to other’s stories and to provide them the platform to be heard, to not erase their voices when they are the most affected by it. learn about new perspectives and then dare to journey into a new world with those ideals you claim to hold together.

i have the honor of leading anti-racism workshops this week at my job, but you don’t have to be an anti-oppression coordinator to do this important work. you just need to actually put some real effort into what you’re saying, thinking, believing. remember to be inclusive. remember to listen. and remember to love. and if you can’t do that, you can certainly unfollow me so i can get you the hell off my dash lmaooo. thank you mutual checker!!

so in conclusion... just do better, y’all. i’m tired of seeing fake woke folks. everyone can learn to be a better ally to each other. and most importantly... CLICK THE LINK BELOW.

https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/

kay thanks!!!

[mikeshanlon]

honestly mag*ie stie*vater has history of arguing with fans how they should or shouldn't interpret her characters. avoided her on every social media because of that. hate it when authors come into fandom spaces

yeah i don’t follow her that much as a person bc even tho i enjoy her writing she just gives weird vibes but that makes sense. when you put out media in the world u have to accept that some people are going to interpret things about it differently because we are not all the same person, we have different ideas and backgrounds and contexts and understandings.

i said this in the tags of a reblog a few posts back but that’s something that bothers me about using twitter as a main space to engage with media/in fandom because writers, actors, singers, etc. are often ON that platform and there is more direct dialogue with them-- and it’s easier for them to see stuff. (not that tumblr doesn’t have it’s own problems and the lack of contact could also make users more likely to be nastier, but still, less of a chance of back and forth dialogue, and more creative freedom with using the platform to appreciate the content because it’s less limited than twitter. overall i think it’s just a better platform for fandom). 

it’s a problem and benefit that goes both ways. like on one hand people need to realize that their tweets can be seen and there is a chance creators can see it and will interact--and that can be really great if people are sharing nice artwork or stories about how art impacted them, that can validate and comfort both the creator and the people who consume media. i think for the most part that’s fine and nice. but it also becomes a problem when people say awful shit they shouldn’t and creators see it, and also when creators engage with fandom when they shouldn’t..... like you don’t need to hound people for their interpretations... i can understand it in the sense of like maybe people in the fandom are being harmful in their interpretations (for instance, diff medium and stuff but if sam levinson was like y’all’s critiques about jules are largely based in transphobia maybe evaluate urself i’d be like yeah ur right say that king!... tho he wouldn’t because he is purposefully not public on social media im sure because of this very dilemma of direct creator-to-consumer conversation). but if it’s just like... people being like omg i love this song for this ship or i think this character is LGBT etc it’s like... literally we don’t need your input. you don’t need to invalidate fans. 

anyways as always i said too much and too little at the same time and things are always Nuanced but those are my thoughts

[misscrawfords]

The Rise of Skywalker: Part Two

Read Part One here.

One of the many things I’ve been grappling with over the 2 weeks since TROS came out is the validity and cause of my upset and anger. And it centres round the question: if Reylo had ended differently, if they’d had a happy ending, if Ben Solo had lived, would I still hate the film? Would I still be angry? Or would I forgive and overlook its other myriad flaws? And connected to those central questions is another that pressed upon me, namely: am I angry and upset because it is a bad film on multiple levels that insults its audience and breaks its own mythology in a way that is deeply distressing to female viewers and is fundamentally a poorly written film or do I only feel like that because I am a disappointed shipper? Am I only upset because I have got so attached to my HEA fluffy fanfic that I’ve lost sight of the story that canon is actually telling?

There’s a wider issue contained in these questions that I’ve been asking myself which is that there is a judgement implicit that responding to a film purely as a shipper is a bad thing, that it invalidates my criticism and my feelings if, in fact, I am simply an upset and disappointed shipper who wanted a happy ending. That’s an issue that is definitely worth pursuing but elsewhere.

It’s been two weeks. I’ve read multiple twitter threads, listened to bits of WTForce podcast (it’s very long... and was making me cry...), many reviews of the film, and today I finally started reading Valerie Estelle Frankel’s From Girl to Goddess: The Heroine’s Journey through Myth and Legend which is blowing my mind and giving me the confidence to say what I’ve known for a while:

My feeling that TROS is a terrible film on multiple levels - all of them actually - is valid. You may disagree and that’s fine. It’s only an opinion. But it’s my opinion and I stand by it. And, returning to the initial question that has been perplexing me - in fact I cannot separate the way the characters of Rey and Kylo/Ben were treated from the film’s other flaws. If Ben had lived, if Reylo had had a happy ending, if their relationship had played out differently, even if they had both died, yes, I would have been more inclined to forgive the film its many other flaws and misjudgements, but the fact is, if Reylo had been written in a satisfactory way then it would have been a very different film. Reylo is only one - one massive, egregious error - thing that contributes to the mess that this films. It is not the only thing that is enraging and upsetting but it is probably the biggest. I’ll talk about these other things in yet another post, but for now...

Let’s talk about Reylo.

tl;dr: Reylo is canon and the movie still sucked. Here’s a 5000+ word dissertation on why. Maybe don’t read if my opinions on this are going to make you sad/angry.

I’m going to break down my problems with Reylo in this film logically and honestly, I’m not sure I’m going to say anything that hasn’t already been said, but perhaps reading another perspective will help others who feel similarly? I’m guessing it’s going to help me if I write about it. We’ll see.

There are three problems. There’s the problem of the fate of Ben Solo. In a way, that’s the easiest and simplest one to deal with. Death was always on the cards as a possible ending for him. A tragic hero who commits terrible acts is redeemed in death by saving the world. The death of this character is... not a surprise and has always been an ending I worried about because I’m a shipper and I like happy endings over sad ones. And I’ve been very convinced by the meta and arguments of shippers who have argued passionately that Ben had to live. However, arguably the problem is not the death in itself but the circumstances and the context. So I’ll come back to that.

The second problem is that of Rey. Rey’s development (or lack of it) and especially her ending. Yep. This is a big problem. Far bigger IMO than the death of Ben which, while tragic, could have been beautiful and fitting.

Thirdly, is Ben and Rey together. Reylo. Their relationship and the way it plays out and the way, ultimately, all of this breaks the mythology being established in previous films.

So three very interlinked problems.

To summarise. In TROS Kylo regresses to being the Supreme Leader and trying to source dark power. This is not terribly surprising considering the ending of TLJ. Rey also regresses to someone who is training and who does not believe she is worthy of Luke’s lightsaber. This is surprising because Rey has already accepted her destiny and her role as a Jedi at the end of TLJ. There is no reason for her to feel insecure about it a year later in TROS.

Rey and Kylo connect through their Force Bond and fight. Their anger is understandable but these fights continuously rehash exactly the same material as what was covered in TLJ, leaving me feeling, well, not very much. Kylo is trying to tell Rey something about who she is (a question that was resolved in TLJ) and Rey is angry at him because of reasons. 

There are some good parts here. Unlike a lot of people, I really liked the fight at Pasaana. I felt it took something from TLJ and added something else. It was a rehash of the throne room fight over the lightsaber but while that conflict was entirely personal over an object that meant something to them but not the wider population (beyond what it could do as a weapon), the same conflict here was over a transport ship containing real people and Chewie (apparently), a character of importance to both. So what happened is that their inability to reconcile with each other and meet half way is manifested in a completely balanced conflict which has a living cost. Chewie dies! Rey kills someone dear to her - accidentally, sure - but she now has a body count showing how truly destructive her fight with Kylo is. It is a symbol of how necessary it is they work together and find balance. Daisy Ridley’s acting here was great and I felt genuinely shocked. Shocked that Rey plunged so immediately into a kind of darkness that put her on a level with Kylo and shocked that Chewie was killed off so casually without warning or build-up - a real casualty of war and the raised stakes in this film. I thought it was a great way to build on TLJ and extend it.

So you can imagine how I felt when Chewie’s death was retconned.

Pretty similar to how I felt when C-3PO got his memory back.

I will probably talk more about this in Part Three, which is my wider issues with the film, but it’s sort of unavoidable mentioning them here because of course the way the film invalidates serious emotion by showing in so many ways that Death Is Not The End and is consequently meaningless impacts on Reylo and the fact that Ben dies.

Another nice moment was the snatching of the beads through the Force Bond. I mean, Kylo literally stole some fertility-coded beads from Rey’s neck!? Uh, this subtext is rapidly becoming text, as they say. Pasaana was weird though, right? Rey talks to children, is at a festival of life, she is fulfilling her role of becoming a symbolic mother which she started in TLJ and which fits the child Jedi at the end of that film (who was never seen again but we’ll deal with that later) and Kylo receives a gift of a necklace (a feminine symbol) from her immediately afterwards... This is pretty hot and heavy symbolism. Of their union and a future involving children, real or metaphorical.

And Rey learns how to heal with the Force, trying it on a giant worm as practice. This fits with her heroine’s journey - she is not using the lightsaber (a symbol of masculine power) but is using her power to preserve and save, which is feminine power. So far so good. I mean, it’s a shame they are wasting all these Force Bond sessions backtracking on TLJ to the extent that instead of enjoying their interactions, I’m going “Yeah yeah yeah okay but we’ve already done this but better”. But there’s still development so it’s okay and sometimes it’s even kind of hot.

Rey Palpatine. 

Oh dear.

Look, it’s not the thing itself. The union of a Skywalker and a Palpatine, the balance coming from the union of two great families on either side of the Force, is honestly not a bad idea at all. Ben as the Skywalker with a bit of darkness in him balanced by Rey the Palpatine with a bit of light in her. BALANCE. It could be beautiful. 

Unfortunately it isn’t. Rey’s lineage was resolved really well in TLJ. Rey Nobody is a great idea for all the reasons everyone already says - opening up the Force to everyone instead of keeping it as a kind of aristocratic lineage etc. Retconning this is really unnecessary and also sends a terrible message to the audience, especially women, as everyone has already discussed to death. Rey is literally told her power comes from a creepy old man who won’t stay dead instead of something innate within her. Instead of letting the past die, we are digging it up like an overzealous and ignorant 19th century British aristocrat let loose in Egypt with a pick-axe and period-applicable racism. Rey is then told that her parents sold her and abandoned her… to protect her. Another great message. And apparently Luke, Han and Leia all knew this?????? Honestly, I was confused by all this when I was watching the film but from what I’ve read afterwards it seems this is the case and in which case not only does that not make literally any sense at all in terms of what happened in TFA and TLJ but also has pretty awful implications for the OT characters and how they related to Ben. 

As I mentioned, it is also unnecessary for the plot for Rey to be a Palpatine. If Palpatine has to come back (which he doesn’t but okay whatever) then surely it’s enough that Rey is extremely strong in the Force for him to either want to kill her or want to control her? Like, literally that’s what he did to Anakin. Why does she have to be related to him unless the film is making some very unfortunate conclusions about blood. Good blood, bad blood… yeeeaaaaaah, this isn’t great as a message. It could be but that’s not the story the first two films have told. Also does Palpatine want to kill her or control her? Like, I’m genuinely not clear on that. I’m not sure he is. I’m not sure the film is. What is actually going on? Also if Palpatine has been controlling Ben his entire life why the hell didn’t he control Rey? Surely it’s easier to invade and control the mind of his own flesh and blood than that of another random Force child he isn’t related to? Who is surrounded by other powerful Force users? When Rey is all alone? Like if Palpatine is able to build up an insanely massive army that nobody has noticed across the Galaxy while still being kind of dead, surely he can access the mind of Rey on Jakku? Also, how did he manage to impregnate a human woman while being sort of dead and old? On both a mythical level and on the level of a question of taste and plausibility, HOW??? 

THIS PLOT MAKES LITERALLY NO SENSE WHAT IS GOING ON AAAARGGGHHH 

And breathe. 

So anyway, Rey Palpatine. Rey and Kylo fight and Rey kills Kylo. It didn’t really work for me though I’d have to watch again to figure out precisely why. This epic, wet fight just… wasn’t quite as epic as I expected it to be. Maybe it was because Finn was randomly there. Maybe it was because it didn’t have the dialogue from the trailer. Maybe it was because I was just tired of watching them fight and not seeing their relationship progress during the film when it had already progressed beyond this in TLJ. And she kills him like it’s a calculated thing when his guard is down and this whole thing is a mess. Now, it’s coming back to me! The order of events don’t make sense. The characterisation doesn’t make sense. 

Kylo and Rey are fighting. Leia gives her life force to communicate something to her son and dies in the process. I don’t quite understand what she’s doing and why this means she has to die. She’s not force projecting like Luke did. How is this different from in TLJ when she says “Ben” then and he waivers about killing her? She was fine after that! I get that they’re working with what they could for Leia but nevertheless, if you’re going to include it in an actual film, it’s still got to have internal consistency. Not that this film cares. Anyway, Leia dies to make Kylo pause and then Rey kills him which seems very rushed and kind of mean but whatever. Then Rey immediately uses Chekov’s healing to bring him back to life and when she does he’s Ben without a scar. So this is all confusing to me. Did Leia redeam him by saying “Ben”? Did she do anything else that makes sense of her dying? Did Rey killing Kylo bring Ben back? Was it Han’s memory? A combination of all these factors?

But the order strikes me as off. The death of Kylo Ren to allow Ben Solo to live is good. Excellent content. But all that is needed to do this is for Kylo to die – meaningfully (which being randomly stabbed by his lover at the moment when he was changing does not quite feel to me) and be brought back to life – meaningfully. I’m not saying what Rey did wasn’t impressive but I don’t remember being overawed by the music and the cinematography here. This is in many ways, or should be, the turning point in the entire ST: the moment when Ben Solo is reborn. And the exact moment of it happening is uncertain. And does he need the moment with Han’s memory afterwards? I’m not saying it wasn’t very touching to see Han and to have their moment together but it nevertheless didn’t quite gell. Like so many things in this film, it’s a nice moment that is over too quickly and doesn’t quite hang together with coherent plotting and characterisation. The entire sequence is rushed with too much happening – fight, Leia, death, healing, Han, lightsaber, RANDOM FINN etc. etc. And in fact, this moment that should be climactic is then later overshadowed by later Ben healing Rey in the same way, a completely narratalogically meaningless act. But more on that later. 

And I realise that in my hurry to get to this fight, I’ve forgotten Dark!Rey. Dark!Rey, like Rey Palpatine, is an idea that could and should be amazing and, apart from the cool graphics and a moment of gasp for effect, isn’t and fundamentally doesn’t work. Rey is struggling with her inner darkness throughout this film, something that was suggested in both TFA and TLJ, so I’m very much on board with it, and I think it’s important to see women on screen be angry and especially angry in a wild, ugly way. I think Daisy Ridley did a great job with that. But TROS attributed this anger and darkness to Palpatine rather that all the myriad and understandable reasons that Rey had for being angry. Perhaps that could work in some contexts as a metaphorical way of showing her anger but Palpatine is too present physically for that to stick. Instead, her characterisation is given wholesale to her genes and a male influence. This is… not great.

Confronting the dark part of one’s self is vitally important in the heroine’s journey. Only when the heroine has reconciled the dark parts of her psyche can the heroine be whole. TROS has worked out that this important but then hasn’t really known how to execute it. The physical manifestation of Dark!Rey for Light!Rey to fight is hellishly unsubtle and is also over so quick you quickly forget that she’s there. (Again, momentary effect is prioritised over anything that actually makes sense in terms of storytelling.) As a manifestation of Rey’s inner anger, she’s completely pointless. Rey fights her quickly but fighting Dark!Rey doesn’t result in Rey unifiying her dark impulses with her heroic self. She still has dark impulses throughout the film! In fact, she never succeeds in fully reconciling them. If defeating Dark!Rey had been a striking and climactic moment then that would work, but it doesn’t. She continues to fight Kylo straight afterwards and Kylo himself is in some respects (certainly in TLJ) a physical manifestation of what Rey fears and needs in herself. It is Kylo who is truly Rey’s dark double in TFA and TLJ. He tells her what she knows and cannot admit, forcing her to confront that in herself. He attracts her yet repels her. According to what is set up in TFA and TLJ, until Rey can both kill Kylo and reconcile with him, she is not conquering and reconciling with that part of herself. After all, they are two halves of one protagonist. But in TROS Kylo no longer seems to take that role, or not coherently. For example, he delivers information (“Rey, yer a Palpatine lol”) that she doesn’t in fact know. So it doesn’t work. And yet it also doesn’t work that Rey fights Dark!Rey and then immediately goes off and fights Kylo! One of those fights is redundant, perhaps both. If Dark!Rey had been a real character who does stuff, who tempts Kylo, who replaces Rey (Odile/Odette-like) then this would be meaningful. But she doesn’t. I know that some people are arguing that Rey in the subsequent fights is possessed by Dark!Rey but honestly? I did not see that in the film and I just do not think the film is sufficiently coherent to be that subtle about something that is such a major plot point! So she continues to struggle with darkness even after supposedly defeating Dark!Rey which is just nonsense in terms of mythology. She struggles all the way up to her confrontation with Palpatine. 

So let’s get to that. Look, I’m going to be completely honest here: I have no idea what was going on. Palpatine was rigged up on a crane on creepy evil villain life support, there was a giant jam jar filled with pickled Snoke heads, Rey was there, Ben showed up having thrown away one lightsaber but then found another two lightsabers (there were a lot of lightsabers, I couldn’t keep track of which was which and why they were significant), the Knights of Ren were there to do a soundcheck for their upcoming gig IDEK, Finn wasn’t there which made a change and Palpatine wanted Rey to kill him so she would become super powerful until he didn’t want her to kill him. He was tempting her and used the standard threat of “I’m going to destroy the universe unless you take on these super dangerous powers to stop me but if you do then you’ll be evil yourself mwhahaha”. I’m not sure really how that benefits him. Was his end-game plan to build up a massive Sith Empire for his darling granddaughter to rule, ignore her for years in favour of corrupting Ben Solo via some dude called Snoke and then reappear from nowhere in order to die again so she could rule? Because that’s a really, really flawed plan. Like, my cullender is less holey than that plan. I may have got this wrong. But before anyone jumps in to “Well, actually” me, my point is valid: I’m an intelligent viewer who spends plenty of time thinking about SW. If I couldn’t follow the main reveal plan in the climactic film of the ST, then… that is a flaw in the writing and conception. It shouldn’t be that difficult!

 Anyway, back to Rey. She is being tempted yet again (which she shouldn’t be by this point in the film or trilogy) and, briefly (though I’ve mostly given up on hope for this film by this point) I am engaged by her quandery. I think it would be really interested if she takes the power offered and fully embraces her Palpatine heritage – she becomes a Sith in order to save the lives of her friends! Perhaps Dark!Rey was just a warm up to seeing the real Rey transform into Dark!Rey. Then Ben has to save her! As she has saved him from being Kylo Ren, he will save her from being Dark!Rey! Balance. So I think that could be interesting and it raises some interesting moral questions about whether doing something bad for good reasons is ever justifiable. But of course Rey resists! Rey is not allowed to actually do anything bad in this movie! It’s infuriating! Rey is completely good. I think the message the film thinks it’s giving out is that Rey is more than her ancestry – that she is good despite being a Palpatine, that everyone has the power to move beyond their background. Unfortunately, that message was already there when she was Rey Nobody! And the actual message is that Rey is a static, pure character who despite apparently containing darkness is never in any way truly tempted by it or gives into it. Any narrative tension over whether she will succumb or do something interesting is very rapidly dismissed. Just as Chewie’s death is retconned and C-3PO gets his memory back. 

Anyway Ben arrives and they somehow have two lightsabers (???? whatever) and stand and face Palpatine and I think at this point we need to talk about how this is just waaaaay less impressive on every level than them facing Snoke in TLJ. There was tension there and uncertainty and when they fought together it was genuinely breathtaking and surprising. There was no surprise about Ben and Rey facing Palpatine together, but there was a tired feeling of “Oh look, we’ve got to face off against another creepy old man who wants to hold onto power for evil after his time is well over. Oh well, I guess if we have to…” If nothing else, this sums up the Millenial experience very well! Ultimately, not only is Palpatine a confusing final villain, he’s also a boring one. The Chancellor in the PT was interesting on a political level, the Emperor was truly creepy as a foil to Darth Vader in the OT, but this fossil on life-support is neither scary nor original nor even particularly threatening.

That’s the thing with escalating the threats continuously – it becomes meaningless. Making the Boss bigger and badder and threatening the Universe instead of the Galaxy doesn’t make the drama more exciting, it just makes it less believable. It looks very impressive to have the entire sky filled with ships and the threat of Palpatine destroying everything but it’s also ultimately meaningless. A massive threat just means a massive reset button or deus ex force lightning. Superhero movies are very guilty of this terrible storytelling, so is Doctor Who. First London faces an alien threat, then England, then the planet, then the Galaxy, then the Universe… and where do you go from there? The audience doesn’t care about the world at large, they only care about our plucky little heroes and their lives. If Palpatine had said “I have Finn and Poe and if you don’t take on these Sith powers I’m going to murder them” the effect would have been the same, maybe even better because Rey’s dilemma would have been even more personal. Hey, another interesting idea: “I have Ben. Only way to save him is to adopt Sith powers!” Anyway.

So this confrontation is yet another less impressive copy of the throne room scene in TLJ. The lore also gets confusing here. Ben and Rey are tortured which makes no sense because doesn’t Palpatine want Rey alive? Not sure what he’s trying to achieve here except it makes our heroes look powerless. Then Rey takes on the force lightning and does some snazzy special effects to win the war very easily. So easily that you feel no emotion whatsoever at how easily this massive army of ships is instantly wiped out. (Side point, but I’m guessing there were lots of people on those ships and Rey’s just killed them all? And considering we’ve just got an admittedly half-baked but still a plot about the defection of storm troopers, isn’t this just a bit concerning? But Rey can do no wrong and it’s all for the greater good because this is the Light Side of the Force and she is All The Jedi so I guess we’ll just pass over this casual genocide on the part of our heroine.) This seems to kill Rey despite Palpatine telling her to do it to get more power a few minutes earlier. No seriously, isn’t this what happens? I’m so confused. At which point Ben force heals her as she force heals him and whereas she was fine and dandy after doing it, it kills him.

Which… okay. Is a thing that happens. It’s hella inconsistent. And makes no sense. But okay, I mean, okay. I wasn’t even sad. I was just like “…right.” And fortunately the film immediately moves on and completely fails to acknowledge Ben’s existence while triumphant music plays. So that’s a thing.

Remember how I said at the beginning of this meandering dissertation that I was always aware of Ben dying being a possible ending but it was the execution that failed here? Right! Well, the thing is that every time a death happens in the context of a hero’s journey, it’s got to mean something. In a world where people can be resurrected and, uh, SW is very much that world (or it is in TROS), then you can’t just die for no reason! And neither Rey nor Ben’s deaths made sense. Rey absolutely needs an underworld journey as part of her heroine’s journey but her death near the end of the film does not fulfil that criterion. An underworld journey is a way for a heroine to shed part of her behind, to learn something, and to confront herself. The cave scene was Rey’s journey to the underworld. Arguably, the scene on Pasaana where she learned force healing was another type of katabasis. Heck, you can argue that when she finds the lightsaber in TFA it’s a katabasis or when she ships herself to Ben in a coffin it’s another. Like. Rey has lots of metaphorical underworld journeys. But when she dies at the end of TROS she has already reunited with Ben, she has no darkness in her that needs to be purged because she never waivered from the light and when she is brought back she is the same person she was before. Unlike Ben who comes back from the dead literally a different person. So Rey’s death makes no sense either in terms of the magical world and powers in play but also for her heroine’s journey. Maybe she could have collapsed. Maybe the effort should have drained her and Ben of their Force powers – a sacrifice for using powers they shouldn’t have touched. That would have made sense and would have been entirely fitting. But death? Nope.

And Ben’s death consequently makes no sense. Force healing has been established within the very same movie to have no real consequences on the user (also similarly established in The Mandalorian) so Ben’s death makes less sense than anything else in the entire film. The internal logic of the film says that there are no consequences for force healing. And then it kills off someone who does it. Sadness is not the reaction to that; confusion is. And then on a mythological level, Ben shouldn’t die. Kylo has already died. And Ben has been reborn!  I know it’s a meme, but Ben has done nothing wrong. Kylo has been punished for his actions and what is left is Ben. This is very, very clearly spelled out within the film. This makes Ben’s death a senseless tragedy that makes no sense, a final death in a film that has continually shown that death is not real or an ending. Except for Ben Solo. Because… I don’t know? I’ve managed to go 4812 words without mentioning redemption but I guess I can’t avoid it now. I’m actually not a big fan of redemption because it gets all thorny and becomes about morality and specifically Christian morality and I’m just… I’m tired of that. I’m a classicist and stories of classical mythology and classical heroism have nothing to do with redemption and being good and evil and I really see the Skywalkers as a kind of Greek tragedy lineage rather than people who have to be redeemed. I know Vader died changing his mind and killing the Emperor for his son but I don’t see that as redemption. That was a man who had done many awful things making a choice out of love at the very end of his life. And again, Ben saved Rey – this was an act of personal love and had nothing to do with the Galaxy. Redemption seems to be an active, ongoing thing that is about more than the purely personal. Vader wasn’t redeemed and neither was Ben – because he didn’t have a chance. And it all gets confused because, as I keep saying, Kylo Ren died!!!! On a mythical level, that’s all that’s needed! Ben Solo, on a mythic level, has nothing to prove, nothing to atone for, nothing for which he requires redemption. On the level that SW is also a story of politics, if Ben had lived, he would have had to reconcile his past actions as Kylo Ren with his present experience as Ben Solo – and it would have been fair if he had to pay a penalty in the human world. But not the death penalty. Because he has already paid that. Ben succeeds in reconciling and facing off his inner darkness in the way that Rey does not in this film. But he is then punished again and dies needlessly and shockingly in order to save Rey, who also shouldn’t have died.

It’s very unsatisfactory. On a mythic level, it really doesn’t make sense.

And I haven’t even mentioned the whole thing about if they are dyad (lol I keep reading this as dryad and getting a very weird set of mental images) or two halves of a protagonist or soulmates or whatever you want to call it where if one dies the bond just remains as a wound. This is a scenario where Rey and Ben have been very clearly set up as a pair animus/anima hero/heroine who belong together whether that is in life or death. I’ve just been reading about Brunnhild and Siegfried from the Nibelung Ring Saga – they both die at the end when they’ve finally been reunited but they are united in death. It’s sad but their death is inevitable after what’s happened to them and it’s sort of uplifting because they are together. This could definitely have worked for Rey and Ben. And considering death doesn’t stop you appearing multiple times and even doing cool stuff like lifting ships out of the sea, it wouldn’t even have been very sad. The mystical hero/heroine who cannot remain in society once their journey is complete is not uncommon. Look at Frodo going off with the Elves in a metaphor for death at the end of LotR where the more down-to-earth Sam is able to stay and rebuild. It would make total sense for Ben and Rey to be unable to integrate with society at the end of TROS whether that means simply exile or death. So long as they are together.

Anyway, they’re not together which makes the whole thing horribly unbalanced and unnervingly wrong on a profound level. The myth is broken! It simply does. not. work.

But if the ending for Ben and Reylo as a whole was disturbing, false, internally inconsistent and emotionally empty, that’s nothing to the ending Rey gets. Lots of people have already written about this so I’ll try to be brief. Rey has no connection to Tatooine. Rey is not allowed to grieve. Rey regresses to a childhood state, her very definite, spelled out future as a symbolic mother being absolutely aborted. Rey takes as a family name one that she has no personal connection. Rey is left with absent friends and nobody but the ghosts of Luke (who she didn’t like) and Leia to talk to in the role of weirdly incestuous sterile parents. So I guess this is a win for the Luke/Leia shippers?

Okay, I just need to rant a moment. (Yes, this is 5556 words of ranting but you’ve got this far – indulge me?) I’ve seen several takes from people I follow who aren’t Reylos saying that this is a great ending for Rey because she has a family and I’m just like ARE YOU EFFING SERIOUS?????? Are you ACTUALLY trying to tell me that living alone on a barren, desert planet reminiscent of where she lived as a child before she heard the call to adventure, where she was symbolically asleep with nobody but the GHOSTS OF SIBLINGS for company and ABSENT FRIENDS is FINDING A FAMILY???????????? JUST KILL HER ALREADY – she’s ALREADY DEAD!!!!! You want to make me feel Rey at the end even if Ben is dead? Show her surrounded by her found family in the Resistance and show her WORKING WITH CHILDREN?????????????? IT. WOULD. NOT. BE. HARD. TO. DO. THAT. AND. MAKE. IT. UPLIFTING. But this -this is just painful, truly painful and insulting. And don’t give me this crap that she’s not living there, she’s just there temporarily to bury the lightsabers and leave and go back to her friends. WHAT ABSOLUTE BULLSHIT. This is the ENDING of a NINE MOVIE SAGA. The ending matters???? And the ending is of Rey alone with the droid she rescued two movies back staring at some binary suns that only matter to the audience and not to her. THE FILM DOES NOT TELL US THAT SHE IS GOING TO LEAVE AND MEET HER FRIENDS. THE FILM DOES NOT TELL US THAT. IT DOES NOT IMPLY THAT. So this is a bloody stupid argument.

Yeah, I cracked. I don’t regret it. This is so infuriating I actually have literally nothing to say about “Rey Skywalker”. Like, whatever. The film’s already done its worse. Just… whatever. Who cares at this point? It’s meaningless. I laughed in despair at the cinema screen and was glad it was over.

 The fact is, according to the heroine’s journey, this isn’t the end of the story. It makes sense that within 24 hours of the film premiering, AO3 was filling up with “fix-it fics” where Rey goes to the World Between Worlds to get Ben back. Because that’s what heroines do. They save their loved ones. They do it patiently and through endurance. And they always succeed. And unlike heroes who go to the underworld to save their wives (cf Orpheus), heroines who go to get their man succeed. This story needs Rey, like Psyche, to go save Ben. She hasn’t finished her heroine’s journey. In fact, she is in many ways back where she started. Her attempts to integrate and confront her darkness have been confused and ultimately meaningless. She has not unified permanently with her lover yet. She has not become either a literal or symbolic mother. There is a stage in the heroine’s journey where she retreats to where she comes from for reflection and growth. That is acceptable. But that is not the ending!!!

And to place this ending of the film, with Rey smiling and saying “Rey Skywalker” as if this means something and some triumphant music over the top alongside what so many viewers feel instinctively, namely that the myth is incomplete and broken, leaves the audience – or at least it left me – feeling cheated and empty and bemused about why it feels so wrong. Ultimately Ben dead and Rey pregnant would make more narrative sense than the sterile and barren and infantilised ending we were given. And that was just about the worst case scenario of bad writing that we ever thought could happen. 

The myth is broken. Good night.

(Tune in soon to the much shorter Part Three where I discuss everything else that isn’t Reylo related that is wrong with this movie.)