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sparrowritings · 1 month

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how you two got together

pairing: gojo x zenin!male!reader

summary: non-curse zenin reader and their dynamic with gojo after defecting from the zenin clan to attend tokyo jujutsu high

tags: non-descriptive injury and violence, gay panic

word count: 2.5k

a/n: this started off as hcs, but then got really long as i worked on it lol. i might make a pt.2 where its bf hcs, let me know what u think!

Born into the Zenin clan with little to no cursed energy, a heavenly restriction was placed on you as a child

Similar to Maki, you were viewed as the family's disappointment

This was further accentuated since you were born around the same time as Naoya, who was gifted with one of the family’s prized cursed techniques

You were close to and looked up to Toji due to you both not possessing cursed techniques and became training partners

When Toji defected from the Zenin clan, you defected too to pursue becoming a sorcerer, eventually ending up at Tokyo Jujutsu High

This is also how you got to know the other three first-years when you joined

“Everyone, (Y/N) will be joining us for the rest of the school year. Please behave, especially you, Satoru.” Yaga states as you walk up to the front of the classroom.

You were nervous, there was no hiding that. This was the first time you interacted with sorcerers outside of the Zenin clan.

“Please take care of me!” You say, bowing.

When you stood upright again, you took in your classmates for the next four years. The guy with bone-white hair and round shades caught your eye immediately. His hair looked fluffy, and you wanted to run your fingers through it. He was slumped sideways in his chair, arms draped to his side and his feet crossed on the table in front of him. He was attractive, you had to admit.

“This has to be a joke, Sensei. How is a person with no cursed energy ever going to become a sorcerer?” The light-haired man spoke, with a teasing lilt.

Well, he was attractive to you until he opened his mouth.

The first sentence that came out of Gojo Satoru’s mouth immediately left a bad taste in your mouth

It was that day where you decided that he had a shitty personality and that you did not like him

Once your life at Jujutsu High settled into a routine, you began to adjust and get more comfortable with who you were

You would hang out in the morgue with Shoko when you were bored but didn’t want to train

You would train hand-to-hand with Suguru because he was the only one who could keep up with you in that regard

You didn’t hang out with Gojo too often; after that first interaction, you believed that he was like the people in your family back home

Gojo initially thought that you were a helpless non-sorcerer who had overly ambitious dreams until he saw you spar for the first time

Crickets chirped in the background as the sun beat down on you and Suguru overhead. The dull “clack” of wood on wood echoed through the training grounds. You and Suguru had become regular sparring partners since you revealed yourself as an excellent physical fighter and cursed tools user.

You attacked from the sides quickly, before aiming one decisive, forward thrust towards Suguru’s chest. Caught off guard, he raised his waster to block the attack sloppily. Taking advantage of the surprise, you quickly dropped down and swept at his legs, catching him off balance. Before he had a chance to react, the tip of your waster was resting lightly on his chest. You were both breathing heavily from the exertion and heat. A beat later, you lower your weapon and help the other up, smiles on both your faces as Suguru punches your shoulder in a friendly gesture.

Taking a break from the session, the both of you sit on the side of the field, taking a water break.

Unbeknownst to you, Gojo and Shoko were just walking past the fields and had witnessed the entire exchange.

Gojo found himself unable to tear his eyes off you. He had seen other people fight with swords, but none were ever as graceful as you. You moved like water, each motion flowing into each other seamlessly. It seemed so effortless, but Gojo knew that what you were capable of was only possible with years of dedicated training.

“Satoru, you’re staring,” Shoko spoke.

“No! I-I wasn’t.” Gojo bit back, his cheeks and ears flushing pink.

“Sure, I believe you.” She chuckled.

So okay, maybe Gojo thought that you were attractive when you were fighting

It was something that was absolutely objective, really

At least, that was what he tried to convince himself

Okay, so maybe he had a tiny, tiny crush on you, but he didn’t really know how to go about it since you guys never talked

So he resorted to getting your attention in a mature way

By annoying the fuck out of you

“Oh look, it’s my favorite non-curse user!” He would squeal whenever he would see you and drape himself over your shoulder.

“Fuck off, Gojo.” You would huff before peeling him off you.

Initially, he had succeeded, and you had found it annoying

But as he did it more often, it became the dynamic between you two

You were cooking in the communal kitchen when the tall man had made himself known in all his lanky glory.

“How’s my favorite armrest doing this fine evening?” He spoke, opening the fridge.

“I’m doing better than your string bean-looking ass.” You shot back as you stirred the ramen cooking in the saucepan in front of you.

“You hurt me, truly.” Gojo responds, dramatically leaning against the fridge.

You began to understand why Gojo was the way he was, and slowly, a friendship formed despite the rocky start

You were on good terms, until the first time you were assigned a harder mission with Gojo

It was a semi-grade one, and the higher-ups were originally going to send Geto, but he had been whisked away on another mission

So Yaga assigned the mission to you instead of Geto

For this mission, you brought one of your favourite weapons, Shisui

Shisui was a katana that could absorb and accumulate cursed energy and release it

The fight against the curse started well, but quickly went downhill when Gojo destroyed one of the walls in the building, and it started collapsing

You had to dodge the debris and the curse’s attacks at the same time, which was honestly a hassle

The curse was smart; it had caught on to how much the collapsing building was giving you trouble, and strategically positioned itself in front of the other wall, hoping to trick Gojo into destroying the other wall

However, you had picked up on it

Gojo had already pointed his fingers towards the curse, who was floating right in front of the wall. If he fired Blue now, the building would definitely collapse.

Pushing off quickly, you dash towards the curse, intercepting Blue with Shisui. You gripped the hilt of the blade; it was built to absorb cursed energy, but withstanding the force of Blue was still no easy feat.

You landed stably, before shooting off again, rushing the curse perpendicular to the wall. You gripped Shisui, charged with the cursed energy of Blue, and with a pinpoint-precise thrust, the semi-grade one was no more. However, what you failed to realize was that as the curse was exorcised, it had sent out its tendrils in an attempt to take down the two sorcerers.

Focused on taking it down without destroying the building, you had left your side open. Three tendrils pierced your side, searing pain shooting up your torso. You fell onto one knee, using Shisui for support.

Your erratic pulse drummed in your ears, and black spots clouded your vision. Your limbs tingle as you reach a hand to your side, your uniform now wet with your blood.

“(Y/N)...(Y/N)!” You hear Gojo’s voice become softer and softer as you slump over.

Gojo is the one to take you back to school with his teleportation

He appears in the morgue, frantic and panicked with your injured body in his arms

Shoko takes over immediately, using her RCT on your injuries

She tells Gojo that you will be fine and that you just need rest, but he refuses to leave your side

When you eventually wake up, you immediately get a lecture from Gojo

“(Y/N), I had it handled. You didn’t have to jump in.” He stated.

“You would’ve collapsed the building, Satoru. That would’ve caused trouble for both of us.” You reasoned.

“You were being reckless; you should’ve left everything to me.”

“Reckless? Me?” You started incredulously, “Well yeah, not everyone has Infinity as a get-out-of-jail-free card, so sorry, Gojo-sama, for worrying about getting crushed by a building.”

“Well this get-out-of-jail-free card could’ve exorcised the curse without getting stabbed in the side! Thrice!” Gojo exclaimed, frustrated that you weren’t understanding his logic.

“You should just go alone next time, seeing as you obviously don’t need my help. You could just say it to my face if you think I’m not good enough, no need to play pretend.” You spat.

“(Y/N), that’s not-”

“I think you’ve said enough. I don’t want to talk to you right now.” You cut him off once again. He seems to hesitate before turning and leaving the morgue.

You hadn’t noticed earlier, but your eyes were watery

Whether from frustration or from betrayal that Gojo looked down on you this entire time, you didn’t know

Shoko gave you a reassuring look before rushing off after Gojo

She finds Gojo sitting under a tree right outside the school building, holding his head in his hands

Shoko lights a cigarette, plopping down next to him

“I don’t understand why he’s so stubborn. If he let me handle the curse he wouldn’t have needed to get hurt.” Gojo speaks, head still in his hands.

“You? Worried about someone getting hurt instead of whether they are slowing you down? Who are you and what have you done to the real Gojo Satoru?” Shoko replies.

Gojo feels his cheeks and ears heat up.

“I know you like him. You’re not exactly subtle with it. You should probably make it clear that you’re worried about him and not looking down on him, before he has time to convince himself otherwise.” Shoko speaks before taking a hit of her cigarette.

Many things are running through Gojo’s head, but the main thing his mind was screaming at him was how maybe his crush was something more

Initially he was drawn to you because of how good you were with cursed tools

But after spending more time with you, he realized that he cared about you

In a way where he wanted to protect you, to hear your laugh and to see you happy

He’s never felt this deeply about anyone, or anything for that matter

He stands abruptly, rushing back towards the morgue

While this conversation was happening, you received a call from your clan

They have not contacted you since you left so you were curious

You picked up, putting them on speaker

“(Y/N). We heard that you got injured badly.” Your mother’s voice, “We’ve deliberated with the elders. We are allowing you to return to the estate, (Y/N). We’ve been trying to tell you that you aren’t suited for the sorcerer life and today was just proof of that. The Jujutsu World doesn’t need any more weak sorcerers; you’ll just get in the way.” She spoke softly.

You could feel the tears well up once again, and you sobbed when you couldn’t keep them back. You knew that you had the odds stacked against you when you decided to pursue becoming a Jujutsu sorcerer. You had thought that you found people who viewed you as equal, people who respected your own skills, until Gojo had made you realise that he had looked down on you this entire time.

You had thought that maybe, just maybe that you guys were friends, or even more, when he would entertain your banter and be physically affectionate with you. It hurt that this entire time, you were a joke to him. He didn’t even think you could handle that curse working in a team with him, let alone by yourself.

It hurt.

You were letting the tears flow freely down your face, now that the dam had broken.

“(Y/N)-” Your father had started speaking but you stopped listening when you saw who was at the door. Unbeknownst to you, Gojo had overheard the entire conversation.

“Gojo, I told you I didn’t want to talk to you right now.” You spoke shakily, averting his gaze.

“(Y/N), I-I came to apologize, actually.” Your eyes widen in surprise.

“You? Apologising?” You couldn’t stop yourself before those words tumbled out of your mouth.

Gojo looked down at the floor, face flushing.

“Look, I didn’t mean to say what I said before- I thought that- What I meant to- How I meant-” He struggled with his words, but you waited for him to finish patiently, “I’m sorry I made you think that I didn’t want your help, or that you’re not good enough. That’s not what I meant.” He made his way towards you, kneeling at your bedside, resting his arms and head on the edge of the bed. He grabs your hand.

“I just got really scared that I had lost you, and I-I really care about you, (Y/N).”

You look down at Gojo, still processing his words. Your father’s voice cuts through the silence.

“-the weak don’t have to pretend to be strong. Give up this act and return at once, (Y/N).” It reminded you of your current circumstance and fresh tears rolled down your cheeks.

Observing your distress, he picks up the phone before you could react.

“Oi Zenin, (Y/N) here is one of the best cursed tool users this school has seen, so shut the fuck up before you start talking about someone you know nothing about. He’s one of the kindest, most considerate and strong sorcerers around, and he could wipe the floor with you guys in his sleep, so fuck off with your bullshit. Byeeeee~” Gojo singsongs before hanging up.

“I can’t believe you just did that.”

Gojo’s expression returns to the more serious one from early. He gets up, cupping your face in both his hands.

“I’m being serious, (Y/N). You’re an amazing person, and I’m mad that I made you feel otherwise.” He pauses before continuing, “And. I’ve been meaning to tell you this, but I have feelings for you, and I think I’ve been feeling this way for a while. Uh, it’s okay if you don’t return my feelings, and I understand if-”

You don’t let him continue, pulling him in by his arms and kissing him. He freezes for a moment before he reciprocates. When the two of you part for air, he rests his forehead on yours.

“I have feelings for you too, Satoru.” You speak softly.

He chuckles, capturing your lips with his.

#jjk #jjk x reader #jjk gojo #gojo satoru #jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu gojo #gojo x reader #gojo #gojo x male reader #gojo x y/n #satoru x reader #gojo satoru x reader #male reader #jjk x male reader #gojo x you #headcanons #satoru gojo x reader #gojo satoru x you

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lexirosewrites · 14 days

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Long time Listener, First time caller here when it comes to Slick Sunday, Here's an AU I've been playing with. Basically the thought process for this one was "Wow, S3 Steve is a bit of a bimbo --> I wonder why he's like that --> the Russians must have put something in the mall water" and then making that "something" ABO bitching juice (STAY WITH ME I PROMISE IT MAKES SENSE). So, here's how it goes:

Alpha!Steve gets the job at Scoops Ahoy, normal setup all that, and while he's there he's making ample use of the sink in the back of the shop to hydrate throughout his shifts, even though there's a sign that clearly says "hey man don't drink this". Robin thinks he's being an idiot but Steve says that it'll be fine, its not like its contaminated with anything. Over the course of the summer though, Steve gradually notices something is up. His scent is all fucky, he's tired, and omegas aren't responding to him the way they used to. But he brushes it off and thinks "ok its just because I'm tired" and carries on. This comes to a head when the Scoops Troop gets caught in the Russian base. During the interrogation one of them notices Steve's predicament and laughs about it before dumping him in the room with Robin. Steve doesn't catch much other than the word "omega" and "сука" (Which is Russian for Bitch). He sort of puts together what they mean, but it doesn't click until after the fight with the Mind Flayer (One notable mention about that, Billy survives with major injuries, this is a surprise tool that will help us later). Steve goes home, and basically the moment he feels even a tiny bit safe, his body launches itself into a presentation heat. Which obviously scares the fuck out of him because what the fuck, it's impossible for bitching to happen without another alpha, but here he is, with a brand spanking new cunt and a whole new set of problems to deal with. He and Robin work out that the forbidden sink water was probably laced with something meant to keep the people in the mall from noticing the weird shit that was happening, and by drinking it Steve may have ingested enough to make his dynamic shift. And not just shift, but shift HARD. See, Steve is now something of a super omega, he has stronger, more frequent heats, he's basically always in pre-heat, and according to the doctor who takes a look at him, they're not going to get any better. Oh and suppressants now do less than jack shit for him. So Steve is stuck like this, with no solution except the exceedingly notable exception of having a baby. The doctor says that if he's pupped, he may be able to control future heats better, and potentially return to normal baseline omega levels (returning to being an alpha isn't possible but Steve is not worried about that). After much deliberation, he decides that having a whole ass baby is better than the constant nightmare that is his heats, and so he hits up someone he thinks will be willing to hit it and quit it.

Eddie Munson does not want to hit it and quit it but the very pretty boy is basically begging him to help so he does, with the knowledge that Steve explicitly is not looking to be mated and will basically want nothing to do with him after, which is heartbreaking a little bit because Eddie wants to be a father SO BAD MAN. And if Steve had ASKED he would KNOW that but they're both idiots. So Steve is pupped, he's probably gonna get kicked out if he's unmated and he thinks Eddie wants nothing to do with him. He's not sure what to do about that until he's approached by Billy (Who in this au, despite being an asshole, is a morally okay guy who doesn't want to see Steve in trouble) Billy essentially offers to pose as the pups father, so Steve can have his damn baby in peace and get on with his life. Of course, he doesn't mean to catch feelings but we all know how this goes. Cut to a few months after Steve delivers twin pups, and who arrives at his door but Eddie, begging to see the pups and be present in their lives. What happens next is up to you, personally I am partial to Harringroveson (Metalsandwich) raising the pups together but there are opportunities for angst galore if you're down with that.

Happy Slick Sunday! Hope this is enjoyable lol :>

woohoo! accidentally bitching steve!🥳🥳🥳

#slick sunday #steddie #steddie omegaverse #omega steve harrington #alpha eddie munson #alpha billy hargrove #steve x eddie #metalsandwich #harringroveson #omegaverse harringroveson #omegaverse metalsandwich #a/b/o #omegaverse #my asks #mpreg #cw mpreg #tw mpreg

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pancake-breakfast · 1 year

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(Edit: For the full discussion with this post, go here.)

So after reading this thread by @mydetheturk and @shastafirecracker, I got to thinking about Vash as a gun in Trigun Stampede. (I would have responded in thread, but the thread is Trigun Book Club and I'm about to get into spoilers for Stampede here. Which reminds me....)

Spoilers for Trigun Stampede Ahead

The series is called Trigun because Vash has three guns: 1) the one he carries, 2) the one in his prosthetic left arm, and 3) his angel arm. The thread linked above gets into how, throughout Trigun (every iteration, TBH), Vash doesn't simply wield weapons, but because of his angel arm he very literally is a weapon, and that's an identity he resists as much as he can. He doesn't want to be used for violence. He just wants to help people, but his very nature makes pursuing that path a rather difficult one.

In particular, once he's aware of its presence, Vash wants to take every precaution he can to stop from releasing the power that channels through his angel arm, which is understandable since it can literally level cities. That destructive power the antithesis of what Vash wants to be, but it's also an irremovable part of himself... and it's something that Knives covets enough to severely violate Vash in attempt to gain control of it. The power itself might be Vash's, but it's Knives who activates it, forces it into being, and thus compels Vash to both channel it into his angel arm and to pull the trigger on that insanely powerful gun.

However, in Stampede, it's not just the weight of the angel arm that Knives forces on Vash. Knives is literally responsible for Vash having the other two guns, as well.

These can both be traced to episode 9. First, Knives thrusts the handgun into Vash's arms, calling it, "An evil weapon of the Sinners, taking lives easily from afar with the twitch of a finger...."

Nominally, he's doing this to protect Vash. Vash won't raise his hand to take down the humans that literally just overclocked their sisters to death, to protect them or to protect himself, so Knives provides him with a weapon he labels a coward's tool for evil (gun #1). In doing that, he very much implies his brother is both a coward and someone who needs to embrace doing evil in order to survive.

It's only a few minutes later that Knives makes way for the second gun.

Knives slices off Vash's arm to protect him from the power Vash (accidentally) summoned to try to protect Luida from Knives, thus making way for Vash's prosthetic arm (gun #2).

Thus, every shot fired by Vash from either the handgun or the prosthetic is the result of Knives' actions, even when Knives isn't actively sending people to harass Vash.

"But wait," you hypothetically say. "In TriStamp, Vash's prosthetic arm has a grappling gun, not a gun that fires bullets."

You're right.

Interesting that the one gun Vash has the option to choose for himself in Stampede isn't designed for killing. Instead, Vash uses it to try and save himself, and to save Meryl.

(Though all things considered, I wouldn't be surprised if whatever upgrade he has in Season 2 is more in line with what fans of previous Trigun series are used to in his prosthetic arm.)

There's one other thing I'll note before wrapping this up. Going back to Episode 9 of Stampede... Vash is actually very quick to try and use that handgun Knives gives him. But he doesn't use it to defend himself from humans (or anyone else, really) the way Knives wants him to. Instead, he grits his teeth, does his best to steady an unsteady hand, and uses it to try and protect one of the only two humans left standing around them, Luida, from Knives.

#he is constantly CONSTANTLY resisting becoming just a tool for violence #especially a tool for violence against humanity #even when he has every reason to just give up and watch them burn #vash the stampede #millions knives #trigun stampede #anime analysis #pancake analysis

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theriverbeyond · 1 month

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THE ANTICAPITALIST MESSAGING IN HADESTOWN TOOK ME SO COMPLETELY BY SURPRISE IN SUCH A GOOD WAY AND I HAVEN'T SEEN ENOUGH PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT IT BECAUSE ITS SO GOOD AND IT WORKS WITH THEIR STORY SO WELL

YEAH EXACTLY Im like... is it all just so obvious everyone decided it's redundant to mention or??? HELLO???

And I was sitting in the audience as one does and Chant was actually the song that reframed the entire show for me -- up until then I was like "aw :') theyre falling in love and are doomed, I should google all these lyrics later" but that song just... I felt like I was being hit in the face w a fish, honestly!!

"In the coldest time of year/ Why is it so hot down here?/ Hotter than a crucible/ It ain't right and it ain't natural"

"In the darkest time of year/ Why is it so bright down here?/ Brighter than a carnival/ It ain't right and it ain't natural"

Persephone's lyrics here are so specific -> a "crucible" is an ancient tool that can be used to create art but also industrialized into mass production, a "carnival" something that is inherently about celebration and festivity and joy but it is also a thing that can be commercialized almost beyond recognition. Capitalism is ravenous and will never be satiafied or sated, it will steal & exploit every scrap of art and joy that it can, then corrupt it all into hollow immitations that it then sells back to you on websites like SHEIN and Disney+.

"It ain't right and it ain't natural" hits so hard in this song because nothing is as natural, or as "right", as death -- so obviously Persephone is NOT talking about the literal underworld to the literal god of the dead. She's talking about how we need to stay warm and safe and dry in the winter, but we don't need fresh summer fruits imported from thousands of miles away. We need to stay cool and safe and hydrated in the summer, but we don't need to steal water from another state to keep the golf courses green. The winter is natural, the cold is natural, seeking warmth and light is natural. What is unnatural is this overconsumption, this never ending, never satisfied hunger.

And then of course you have Hades' parts,

Here, I fashioned things of steel/ Oil drums and automobiles/ Then I kept that furnace fed/ With the fossils of the dead

And wasn't it electrifying/ When I made the neon shine!/ Silver screen, cathode ray/ Brighter than the light of day

And obviously "fossils of the dead" is a reference to Hades being the literal god of the dead, in the ground, in the underworld, and it is also a reference to the modern dependence on oil and fossil fuels, but TO ME it is also about how capitalism relies on the exploitation of workers. In this show, the "fossils of the dead" are literally Hades' subjects. They're the workers of his factory town, and he both exploits them and is fully dependent on them, just like how the furnance of industry/capitalism relies on YOUR body, YOUR labor, it eats you when you're alive and it often continues to eat you when you're dead.

And then like "wasn't it electrifying" -> it's EXCITING what technology and industry does, but the problem is the overconsumption and the overproduction ("Brighter than the light of day") beyond what anyone actually needs or even wants. It ain't right and it ain't natural!!!

Every year, it's getting worse/ Hadestown, hell on Earth!

And the wind is so strong/ That's why times are so hard/ It's because of the gods/ The gods have forgotten the song of their love

Lover, what have you become/ Coal cars and oil drums/ Warehouse walls and factory floors/ I don't know you anymore

And it all keeps building in this song, re-emphasizing that Hades is not who he once was, that he has changed. Which again is not only commentary about consumption vs overconsumption, and how so many things started as wonderful ideas that could save people and help people and help make the world better were corrupted and turned into profit machines, killing machines, etc. "The gods have forgotten the song of their love" UGH

I also think the Themes are magnified because this is presented extremely directly alongside Euridyce's growing desperation, especially with the context that Euridyce DOES, in fact, "sell out" to Hades' promises.

There is no food left to find/ It's hard enough to feed yourself/ Let alone somebody else

Desperation forces her hand, she turns to Hades because he offers salvation, and she ends up just another nameless worker turning the gears of his machine. And I feel this is so similar to how when rich people are like "Just do XYZ", or telling people to bootstrap, or selling quick fixes to desperate people, when the reality is they got where they did due to a combination of luck, pre-existing social/monetary capital, etc, and buying into their promises of wealth will only make them richer and you more dependent and vulnerable.

#hadestown #30fishermen #IM JUST ‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️ THIS SHOW...#ask #also btw other hadestown asks i SEE U i just wanna give good responses

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wilcze-kudly · 4 months

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Kuvira's unsustainable empire.

Stalin is here too. For some reason

I do often find myself wondering just how sustainable the Earth Empire Kuvira created was. Outside of the whole ethnostate thing, I have seen plenty of people argue that what Kuvira was doing was good for the Earth Kingdom and its people.

Kuvira: Growing up in Zaofu, with Suyin Beifong, I learned that the idea of a royal family passing a title from one generation to the next was archaic, and that technology and innovation should be what drives a nation forward. [...] It's taken me three years to get it back on track, and there is no way I will allow it to slip back into the dark ages. [...]

I find myself both tentaively agreeing with and vehemently against these opinions.

It's true that Kuvira helped stabilise the crime problem of the Earth Kingdom post the death of the Earth Queen. She also seemed to have greatly modernised and industrialised the Kingsom as well.

Of course, this actually makes perfect sense when looking at the real life inspirations behind Kuvira and her empire.

A lot of people compare Kuvira's rule over the Earth Empire to the Nazi party. And there is good reason to. But there are also huge ties between her and the rise and rule of Stalinism over the Eastern Bloc.

I think the main reason people compare Kuvira to the Nazis (other than the comparison seeming easier) is the ethnic clensing, concentration camps, etc.

But the thing is, the USSR also did that. The NKVD targeted many ethnic minorities, often accused for secretly plotting against the country.

Now, we never really are given a good reason for why Kuvira went through with an ethnic clensing in her empire. Which honestly kinda fits because from most testimonies I've read, a lot of people who were detained by the NKVD weren't told what they were being detained for either.

Bolin: So how did a bunch of water and firebenders end up in one of Kuvira's reeducation camps?

Ahnah: [Angrily.] Call it what it is: a prison.

Baraz: Kuvira's been purging states of anyone who's not of Earth Kingdom origin and locking them up.

Now the use of the term 'purging' immediately brings to mind the aptly named Great Purge (also known as the Great Terror.), which was essentially Stalin killing a lot of people in order to consolidate his power and remove influence of his political opponent. (A lot of people is apparently from 700,000 to 1.2 million)

Utilising violence in order to remove political rivals is also a pattern for Kuvira.

Of course tlok is stil a kid's show, so no oke is getting shot in the back of the head, but Kuvira uses implicit threats of violence to bend others to her will.

Kuvira was quite alright allowing the people of the state of Yi to starve and die purely because they refused to completely submit to her. (the idea of starvation is a surprise tool thay will help us later!) She also sends men after Wu, due to him posing no immediate threat to her. This is a very smart tactic of methodically stripping away anything that can question the legitimacy of her rule.

The branding of people who disagree with her, even people who were never allied with her, as traitor is also a very smart tactic.

Kuvira: Bring the citizens of Zaofu to kneel before the Great Uniter! All who pledge their loyalty to me will keep their freedom and will be dealt with fairly as full citizens of the Earth Empire. The rest will be imprisoned as traitors, like Su Beifong and her sons. Now bow!

Whoever is against Kuvira, is against the nation... questioning the leader equals treason... got it.

However, Kuvira's... strong punishments don't exactly extend to the very outlaws she was meant to weed out.

Kuvira: Stop groveling as if this is the worst day of your life. This ... is a good day. I'm going to give you all the opportunity to rehabilitate yourselves, and become productive members of your nation. Right now, you're lost, but pledge your loyalty to me, and I'll give you a new purpose in your lives. Of course, if you don't want to join, you could always stay right here.

As you watch the show, you can clearly see that Kuvira valued her Empire's militaristic power more than anything, including her people's actual well-being.

This actually gives us a little insignt on Kuvira herself. Kuvira, ever since she was a child, has dealt with a lot of pain. And the way she dealt with it was by reacting with violence and by pushing others away, keeping her defences up, so to say. This is most seen in her relationship with the Beifongs, and how she would rather push them away and convince herself they never cared for her, than open up.

We also see that Kuvira projects her trauma onto the Earth Kingdom which is an.... interesting way of coping to be sure.

Kuvira: [...] I was cast aside by my own parents like I meant nothing to them. How could I just stand by and watch the same thing happen to my nation, when it needed someone to guide it?

And that's where we get into the unsustainability of Kuvira's empire. She prioritises what she percives as safety. However, she seems to be pouring an astronomical amount of resources into her military.

I mean, how much money do you think was dumped just into this thing alone:

FUCKING LOOK AT ITS GOOFY ASS

To give Kuvira the benefit of the doubt, we don't really get to see what really goes on in the areas she's conquered. (which kinda sucks like did we really need all those episodes in Republic City)

We do however have Opal's testimony, and while she is biased against Kuvira, I don't really think she has any incentive to lie here.

Opal : They might have been happy when you first arrived, but I've seen what happens after you leave. Citizens are forced to work as slave labor, dissenters are sent off to who-knows-where!

I wouldn't be completely surprised if it were revealed that Kuvira introduced some manner of collectivisation in the Empire. Since this would also mirror the USSR's collectivisation of agriculture in real life. Plus, it would allow Kuvira to handle more respurces she could funnel into the army. This is also kinda supported by Varrick telling Bolin this:

Varrick: Relax, kid, what can they do? Kuvira controls the whole nation now, and Republic City is begging for the metal that we're mining. This train has left the station, and we own the track!

This implies that Kuvira excudes at least some amount of control over all the aspects of the country's economy.

More proof of this lies in Kuvira's words about literally seizing and redistributing Zaofu's resources as she sees fit.

Kuvira: [...] Zaofu cannot continue to rule itself. They have been hoarding their riches and technology too long. I'm here to distribute those resources fairly throughout the nation. This is about equality.

How much do you want to bet that 99% of those riches and technology went to the invention of Avatarverse's equivalent of nuclear warfare?

How much money was spent on Kuvira's military. More important question, how much food would it take to keep this military alive. Especially that you must also count other batalions and forces stationed around the country, so this isn't even all of it.

So we have a country where the citizens are forced into slave labour and most likely are poorly fed, in order to bolster and uphold a military (that probably consists of at least a few criminals). This is... not really good nor sustainable.

But it is in character for Kuvira, someone who prioritises her percieved 'safety' over everything, even her own other needs. Such as her very obvious desire for relationships.

Sadly Kuvira projecting her poor coping mechanisms onto an entire country isn't the best idea lol.

"But, Quill!", I hear you say, "If Kuvira ran the country so poorly, why did she have so many fans and supporters? "

That's where we get into ye ole cult of personality. Propaganda can be a shockingly effective tool, one that was used a lot by Stalin.

Similarly, we see tons of propaganda surrounding Kuvira. Even her title, The Great Uniter reeks of it. There's a lot of spectacle and performance in how Kuvira intracts with her people.

There's many examples of Kuvira twisting the narrative to make herself look better/more reliable, especially to her subordinates. Her lying about Bolin and Varrick still being with her, her portraying herself as a peaceful negotiator at Zaofu, despite threatening the Beifongs with an attack (her ignoring Wei's question of "you call bringing an army to threaten our city peaceful?" also feels very poignat because there really is no good way to answer that question lmao)

Her speech to her men before her fight with Korra is also a good example.

Kuvira: Fine. I want you all to know that I would never ask any of you to do something that I'm not willing to do myself. So, rather than risk your lives, I will fight the Avatar one-on-one.

Yes, perhaps to some extent she wanted to keep her soldiers safe, but this was also calculated. I'm quite sure Kuvira was able to tell Korra was weakened, she comments on it a few times. Kuvira has hostages, Zaofu's forces are diminished by her taking a lot of them with her. She clearly has no care for civilian lives, she attacked Republic City, a place full of civilians earlier than expected, it was guaranteed the place wouldn't be evacuated in time.

Kuvir holds all the cards here, but she still puts on this spectacle, because what better way to convince your followers about your power than kicking the Avatar's ass?

Kuvira's rule is built upon by the cult of personality surrounding her. She is, to some extent the figurehead that brought the army together.

There's fucking merch of her, she signs autographs, like she's a celebrity. This is deliberate. This is what keeps people blind and excusing her shortcomings and cruelty as a leader.

This may also be why Kuvira's right hand man, Baatar Jr seemed to have gotten scott free off for the crimes he also partook in. He may have helped Kuvira commit them, but he wasn't "the face of the empire" , so to speak.

Also no one gives a fuck about him for some reason despite him being a really interating character. I also want to make a longer post about Baatar, Kuvira and the consequences they faced for their actions.

In the end, I think that Kuvira is a very troubled young woman, who gained a good deal of power very quickly. And used that power the only way she knew how. To control and protect by pushing away any percieved threats.

You can see the Earth Empire as an extension of Kuvira herself, in a way. Kuvira has been through pain, and built up very prickly painful walls, while also maintaining a tight grip on her vulnerability.

The cult of personality thing would also be a more self indulgent aspect of Kuvira's trauma bleeding into her rule. Kuvira wants to build relationships, but doesn't want the vulnerability that comes from true relationships (most likely one of the main reasons she distanced herself from the Beifongs). This makes sense, as she did experience the cruelest rejection one can go through, being rejected by one's own parents.

However, facilitating connections where she has all the power would allow her to reap the benefits of relationships, without having the vulnerability she fears so much. (The exception to this rule is Baatar Jr. And I do wanna talk more about him and his relationship to Kuvira one day).

Kuvira is a really complex person, who really shouldn't have been placed in any position of power. But Raiko and Tenzin really needed someone to do the dirty work so they could place Wu on the throne (and probably puppet him) so uh. Yay.

Also I'm really not sure what this rant even is at this point. It was gonna be me complaining about Kuvira running the Earth Empire. Then it became me vomiting the contents of my history textbooks onto you.

Tbh I feel like I've been stating the obvious so uh. Yay. But enjoy my rambles lol

#tired of calling kuvira 'avatar hitler'. it should be 'avatar stalin'#there's also certainly some north korean influences here too but I don't feel too confident in talking about that #kuvira #legend of korra #avatar #tlok #the legend of korra #avatar the legend of korra #atlok #lok #anti kuvira #i guess. not really #is it anti kuvira to say she shouldn't have been placed in charge of a country for any amount of time

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static-sulker · 1 year

Text

Something I adore with Gale and Astarion is how both have such a background of charisma, but both use it in such different ways. On how intimacy and that form of relationship has damned them before but rebuilding slowly.

When Gale is in love, he SAYS it and is very quick to show express love and affection the moment he partners. His background of romance is with a literal GODDESS, which makes his type of romance one of sole devotion and almost worship. He is bold in his feelings, whilst maybe a bit fast. The only way he truly showed affection was in the ways of intense emotional connection.

Astarion is quick for sexual intimacies, but takes far longer to put a name to it all. To have a softer intimate connection is so far away from his style it’s crazy. He has been molded to use sex as a tool for decades upon decades, that romance and softer forms of intimacy are completely foreign to him. He doesn’t know how to take true intentions and intimacy without it feeling wrong. Tainted. Even if he’s free, he still feels like his body is a tool and that his beauty is the only reason that he is cared for.

That’s why the combination between the two is so interesting to me!!! The idea of Gale being hopelessly bad at holding back his emotion, while Astarion is unaware on how to respond to his movements. Like Gale finding out Astarion's favorite flowers after hearing it through a bunch of peoples conversations and then surprising him with a bouquet full of begonias at his tents door. Or trying to find the best rings that could help him through battle. Astarion is fucking flabbergasted each time, not knowing how to respond or even why the gell Gale is doing this in act 1. Before they are together, he is trying to just let Gale "get it out of his system" but he doesn't stop easy, not until Astarion begins to try and respond back. He has like twenty conversations with Shadowheart (resident asexual lesbian best friend to Astarion) on how he should not just go in with sex but with soft steps. He kinda does that, with a darling outfit for Gale that he sets on Gale's bedroll a few nights later.

Gale teaches Astarion through their relationship that he isn't just a sex tool, but a person who deserves soft touch with no need to respond with excessive reward of his own body. It takes a WHILE, but its cute. ALSO FOR THE PROPOSAL SCENE AT THE END, YOU CANNOT TELL HE WOULDN'T GIVE HIM THE RING OF THE SUN-WALKER.

#bloodweave #gale x astarion #gale dekarios #baldurs gate shadowheart #baldurs gate gale #baldurs gate three #bg3 gale #gale of waterdeep #astarion acunin

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comicaurora · 9 months

Note

Hi Red! I was curious if you've watched the new Yu Yu Hakusho live action, and if so, what your thoughts were on its pacing and handling of various plots. Personally I thought it did some very clever things and it genuinely pleasantly surprised me at a couple points, but at the same time the fact that it's only 5 episodes hurt its ability to do the story justice a bit.

Also I was rewatching the Dark Tournament arc of the anime today and wondering what it must've been like to watch when it originally aired, considering all the multi episode fights. Do you remember any of your thoughts at the time?

On an unrelated note, I'm really excited for arc 2 of Aurora!!!! Also sorry this is so ramble-y

I have watched it! For the most part, I really enjoyed it, although in pursuit of compressing everything down to five episodes it did a couple things I think definitely harmed the overall impact and characterization.

Spoilers below!

The first episode is I think nearly pitch-perfect. The visual design on the Spirit World is top-tier, and the choice to make everything that was a sacred artifact move like ferrofluid was a very clever bit of visual design. It's absolutely weird and original and I think it was a very fun way to spice up Fluffy Cloud Heaven.

Of all the things they sped through, I'm very glad they did not speed through the crucial characterization of Yusuke initially choosing to stay dead on the assumption that everyone is better off without him, and the show subsequently taking its time to show the wake, let Yusuke's mom and Keiko really feel their feelings, etcetera. The adaptation of the wake was, to my memory, almost 100% true to the anime version, including the gut-wrenching moments like Kuwabara starting off angry and then breaking down, and the toddler Yusuke saved not really understanding that he's dead. And I had no complaints about the parts of this arc that they did speed up - a lot of the timeline of the original show is training arcs and Yusuke having to prove himself, and I had almost no problem with them skipping over that. Yusuke not having to do any tasks before coming back to life is A-OK with me.

I also entirely lost my shit at The Dropkick.

And then the last bit of episode 1, where they have to deal with the possessed kid, was absolutely top tier. The way they make demonic possession look and feel in this show is truly horrific, and I loved the way they played it like a one-man zombie apocalypse. The fight choreography was also very impressive and I liked how much they used the environment. Also, letting Kuwabara fight this guy first was a very good way of making the power-scaling clear and establishing that Kuwabara is a fundamentally very decent person willing to punch above his weight class to try and help.

However, this episode did get me excited for something they ended up not doing, which was a bummer. The first thing we see in the show is a Makai insect, which in the anime are the tools of the villains in the Four Saint Beasts arc - at the climax of that storyline, Makai-insect-possessed students and faculty corner Keiko and Botan in the human world while Yusuke fights an increasingly desperate battle against Suzaku to try and stop him. If the full-on body horror zombie thing was what makai insect possession looked like, that scenario immediately seemed like it was going to be butt-clenchingly terrifying.

Of course, they ended up entirely sidestepping the Saint Beasts arc, which is understandable - narratively speaking its only real function is to let the four protagonists team-build after their contentious first meetings. It became clear pretty quickly that with the time they had, it wouldn't be worth it to go there. That said, I think they really could've used a little more team-building time - more on that later.

The first episode also pretty solidly established the tone they'd be taking for the rest of the show - much more dark, almost no comedy. Normally I find those sorts of adaptations pretty dour and joyless, but in this case I thought it helped make the stakes feel solid, and if anything it lined up better with the original premise of "the demon world is a truly horrifying place and its incursion into reality would be an absolute nightmarish apocalypse." I didn't mind that it felt like the stakes were real and the heroes fighting demons was really necessary.

The second episode made it pretty clear where they were going with the series adaptation. While it speeds through the intro of Goki, Kurama and Hiei, it also lets Yusuke's fight with Goki feel - again - extremely well-choreographed and tense. The choreography in this show is consistently very impressive, especially considering how often our heroes have to fight fully CGI bad guys - and this fight doesn't even have any dialogue in it, but it still makes it entirely clear what Yusuke is thinking at every point, which is very impressive, especially since he goes through an entire arc from "I don't need to figure out how to use the Spirit Gun" to "I desperately need the spirit gun to start working right the fuck now". They also handle Kurama's intro very well, making it very clear that he's cunning and kind of inscrutable but not necessarily malicious, and in the scene where Yusuke's tailing him it's pretty clear from the choreography that Kurama knows he's there and is very carefully waiting long enough for him to follow him without feeling like he's being lured, which is entirely in-character, and again a very impressive way to show characterization without any dialogue required. And of course the reveal that Kurama is in fact a Nice Boy who is trying to sacrifice himself to save his mom is real good, and letting Yusuke's past experience with seeing how his mom reacted to his death make him immediately ride or die for Kurama was a very solid bit of characterization - and adding Kuwabara to this subplot where he wasn't originally there helped balance out the characterization a little bit with an entirely justified naysayer pointing out "dude he's a demon maybe don't trust him immediately." It also helps get Kuwabara involved in the main story nice and quick, where he originally is a bit of a late arrival.

The part I was getting a little worried about at this point, and an element of the adaptation that I legitimately think is a detriment, was how they were handling Hiei. A huge part of what makes Hiei fun in the original series is that he is legitimately a huge bastard, and in his introduction is a full-blown bad guy who Yusuke very nearly dies fighting. Classic Hiei kidnapped Keiko and nearly turned her into a demon just to fuck with Yusuke. And what makes their relationship great is the team-building that happens in the Four Saint Beasts arc the adaptation is evidently skipping over, where Hiei is so baffled - and so touched - by Yusuke's completely unearned trust in him that he immediately becomes 100% ride or die for Yusuke and only Yusuke.

He's a vicious little asshole who takes himself very seriously and legitimately has the power to back up his grandstanding 90% of the time, and that's what makes him so fun to watch - those little slivers of characterization where he's goofy or baffled or vulnerable or lets himself be visibly impressed with one of his teammates, mixed with the moments where he's like "okay this has been fun but it's time to die now" and just one-shots the bad guy with another dangerous forbidden technique he picked up for shits and giggles.

So I was getting a little worried that the adaptation wasn't gonna let Hiei be, like. An actual asshole. Because what makes him fun as a character is that he is an asshole, he just also has a handful of sympathetic motivations and nice qualities that he usually doesn't own up to. And I ended up being right about that, which was a bummer, but again, the way they did it was a bit of extremely efficient streamlining. In the anime, Hiei's introduction is just him being a dick for no reason - then everyone has a team-building bonding arc with the Four Saint Beasts, and then Hiei is revealed to have a real heroic motivation hiding somewhere in there: rescuing his secret twin sister Yukina from a nasty human holding her prisoner.

So the adaptation basically just streamlined the entire rest of the show into that arc. Hiei's intro stealing the fancy knife? He's using it to get the Jagan Eye to look for Yukina. Hiei storming this compound full of humans? They're the ones holding Yukina prisoner. It's 100% sympathetic, he's just not willing to own up to that to anybody. Everything he does that's dubiously moral or kind of a dick move? It's actually fine, or he's being framed (like in the shot they perfectly remake from the anime where he kidnaps Keiko, except just kidding it's a shapeshifting bad guy framing him), or Yusuke's the one who attacks him in the first place.

And that's extremely efficient storytelling! It just makes Hiei kind of an antisocial dick and not even slightly a villain, which I think dramatically reduces how fun his character is - it just flattens him into a very standard-issue lancer archetype who refuses to express any sort of emotional or physical vulnerability to anyone, which is a fine character trope, it's just kind of more boring than the dickhead outdoor cat I was hoping for.

The same thing also happens to Genkai, who in the original series has dozens of episodes of screentime to show off how she is the best kind of mentor ever written - a dickhead mentor.

She's rude and snarky and a full-blown asshole, and she and Yusuke have a truly hilarious mentor-stydent dynamic because they're both assholes. And it's not until a good way into the Dark Tournament that we see them in a dynamic that's not just being assholes to each other - when Genkai consolidates all her power into a sporb for Yusuke to absorb, and he spends several episodes nearly dying about it. The fact that Genkai truly cares about him as her student - and the fact that he truly cares about her as his master - only comes out in this subplot, when she honestly believes she's fucked up and killed him and he goes beyond his limits to absorb the power she's given him. It's a beautiful moment of payoff after dozens of episodes of planting, and right after that happens, Genkai is killed.

So when the live-action show introduced Genkai, and after a good solid montage of training and anime-accurate fight scenes and some really good Kuwabara moments, she told Yusuke she had one final technique to give him, I said out loud "oh my god please don't speedrun this." And then they did. She gave Yusuke the sporb and he absorbed it immediately and painlessly, and then they left, and then she immediately gets killed.

My notes on that part were just

So I didn't like that part. Like Hiei, Genkai is such an effective character because her moments of vulnerability and non-assholeness are so rare, and the rest of the time she's an absolute goblin nightmare. Getting rid of that reduces her to another, much flatter trope, and killing her in the same episode she's introduced almost entirely removes the impact of the moment and just makes her another dead mentor. But again, this is episode 3 of 5. This isn't the writer's fault, this is the writers making a very hard decision on what they need to get into the plot if they're planning on speedrunning the entire Dark Tournament arc - which they are. The primary rule they seemed to use when adapting Yu Yu Hakusho is "if the heroes fought this bad guy more than once, no they didn't." So the first fight with the Toguro brothers is going to become the only fight with the Toguro brothers, and they need to speedrun the entire core plot of the Dark Tournament arc within the confines of Toguro's introduction in the Rescue Yukina arc.

And the thing is, hot take? I'm not mad about that. The Dark Tournament is an iconic moment in Shonen anime history, but like. it's a tournament arc. Like all tournament arcs, it goes on a very long time, a lot of it is extremely repetitive, and it eventually arrives at the foregone conclusion end state of "team protagonist vs team final boss". In a five-episode adaptation, you pick the smallest number of good fights with real stakes and you just use those. And that's what they do here. Kurama and Hiei both get little bottle-episode fights with their respective most plot-relevant opponents from the Dark Tournament, and they both get to show off their dangerous forbidden techniques.

And it slaps. It could've used more buildup for maximum punch, but again, five episodes. And frankly in the original they didn't get much buildup either, just "this is a thing I've been working on, hopefully I don't die about it."

And consistently, the fight choreography continues to be really good. The physicality of the actors is very solid and the way CGI attacks and opponents get worked into the choreography is so fluid it's sometimes hard to tell where the CGI ends. And considering the final boss is two full-CGI photorealistic bad guys, I think they do an incredibly good job making the fights feel real and solid.

Characterization-wise, since so much of the final episode is just a lot of fighting against a big damage sponge, there's not a ton of time for talking, but the choreography is, again, a standout. Even outside combat, the secondary characters get a lot of little moments to shine - even Damsel In Distress Du Jour Keiko gets to pull the "oh no, I, your valuable prisoner, am sick, please come into my cell within easy throttling range" trick and breaks herself and Yukina out, which slaps and makes the whole breakout feel like much more of a team effort, and it also lets Keiko and Yukina share some brief but extremely tender moments of characterization that does a lot to make them feel like well-rounded characters. And back in the main fight zone, the characters don't have much dialogue but show where they're at through how they move. Everyone is exhausted and beaten down and has already used their finishing moves, but Yusuke's in trouble, so it's time to scramble back up and tackle the bad guy. It's just such good choreo and such good acting that it makes me forgive a lot of the pacing struggles they're dealing with from boiling everything down to 5 episodes, and without dialogue - just through fight choreography - they manage to make me buy the teamwork dynamic they've thus far failed to establish due to speedrunning past all the stuff that's supposed to help them bond. This is the first part of the show that makes me believe that Hiei has any affection for the gang and any reason to fight alongside them beyond coincidence.

And they continued the trend of hitting all the major plot beats from the stuff they were speedrunning, which led to me counting down the minutes to the Kuwabara Fake-Dies To Motivate Yusuke moment.

The rest of the fight is pretty much just a shot-for-shot adaptation of the final stage of the Toguro bossfight, plus the added fun that it's the first time in the show Yusuke has actually yelled "spirit gun" out loud, which is neat. And it took every second of those five episodes, but in the closing scene they finally reached the group dynamic I was hoping for.

All things considered, given the parameters they had to work in, I think this is the best we could've possibly gotten in only five episodes. I would've probably preferred one where instead of cramming the entire dark tournament into three episodes they just left it alone and just did Rescue Yukina plus maybe the Saint Beasts, but if this is what we were getting, this was a very solid way to do it. I, at least, had an overall very good time, and have been thinking about rewatching it, which is wild since it's only been like three weeks since I watched it the first time. But yea, overall the pacing is wild but I think there was a lot of love and thought put into it, and it really shows.

#asks #not aurora #media recs

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tibbycaps · 3 months

Note

tibbycaps how the hell do u play dynaball

my dynaball tips by tibby

- collecting building blocks at the start is key. this is a surprise tool that will help us later. dont get stuck and if you get stuck dont walk towards people who are building bases. thats cruel

- getting items when you can is also good. save your levitation spark for when you’re about to fall off and die. tnt airstrike is best to use towards the end of the match for precise aim but chicken airstrike is better to use towards the beginning since its Very destructive. jump potion is also good for later in the game if you need to build up quickly or hop between skynets. speed potion is useless to me and idk why they even have that in the game

-sticking people is also great because it spawns extra tnt and does more damage but you probably shouldn’t do this unless youre pretty confident you can land the hit. you don’t want to waste a tnt if it misses a person that’s up high up if you could have used that tnt to destroy the base. there’s sometimes an awkward mid-match lull where people immediately start to target the skynet but no one can land a hit so everyone is just wasting tnt and not destroying the bases

-i like to try and blow up the base from the bottom-up so the enemy team loses those building blocks and it’s easier to blow up the blocks out from under them. a lot of the time, the map is designed for this, because the top blocks are powder/falling blocks and the bottom is solid. the domino map for example, if you shopt the bottom of a domino first, the powder blocks on top will fall and you can destroy a domino with one tnt

-the faster you destroy the base the faster you force your enemy to skynet (build blocks up to the build limit and make a long platform). it’ll get harder for them to grab item & tnt crates and the faster you force them to skynet the less building blocks they’ll have to take up there. put pressure on them

-i personally find it easier to aim at someone if they have a Big Hat so dont wear a big hat

i think thats it oh also dont target tibbycaps because im literally nice

#asks #dynaball #mcci

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markantonys · 1 month

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Rafe said that they have plans for Anvaere down the line and I am like 90% positive she's gonna be the show's version of Colavaere with her motives being restoring the Damodred name. And with Rand knowing her plus her being Moiraine's sister that's gonna give that whole plot, especially with Rand refusing to kill her (and it'll be cause she's all he has left of Moiraine rather than cause she's a woman) a lot more emotional weight

yes!!! i might even go so far as to say i'm 100% positive haha the idea of this merger had never occurred to me prior, but once rafe said they have plans for her later, i went OH. i should've guessed straightaway that all the focus on a basically show-only character would be A Surprise Tool To Help Us Later in addition to the present benefit of fleshing out moiraine and cairhien! the show's always doing its best to kill multiple birds with one stone.

anyway, audiences typically feel the impact that killing someone has on a character more strongly if the victim is somebody we and/or the killer and/or other major characters have a connection to. of course in real life, for an innocent country villager who's not accustomed to violence, killing someone would be traumatic no matter who they are, but this isn't real life, it's a story, and in a story audiences are more likely to roll their eyes over a character being overburdened with morality for freaking out over killing some random asshole we hated anyway (especially a fantasy story where death and violence are commonplace). this is why laila's death being the origin of perrin's fears of his own capacity for violence hits harder than it being the deaths of a couple of random whitecloaks who were threatening him and egwene.

and similarly, we will feel how traumatic anvaere's death is for rand way more deeply than colavaere's, because out-of-world she's a character we've spent time with who was friendly to our heroes and who we came to like and because in-world she's someone rand came to like and is the sister of his mentor whose death he feels responsible for, like you say. plus, the show establishing anvaere as someone who spent her whole life working admirably hard to improve the reputation of her family - not only does it set up why she might be driven to suicide upon having her house stripped of its titles, it even lends some sympathy and dignity to it, framing it as that popular idea of honorably falling on your sword rather than living to be humiliated in defeat (very roman of her), and this will make it more emotional, and if WE'RE emotional over anvaere's death on its own merits, then we'll completely understand and feel rand's pain over it too. colavaere was just some random selfish power-hungry idiot with no redeeming qualities whom rand only tried to spare and whose death only upset him because Women Are Delicate And Precious And Must Be Protected.

sudden thought: if the end of this plotline is house damodred being permanently stripped of its status, could that be more evidence to predict elayne's dad was not a damodred in showverse? since she wouldn't have a claim on the sun throne if house damodred were to be completely, irreversibly ruined in this plotline. i've already been assuming her dad wasn't a damodred in showverse since there are other signs pointing in that direction, but this could be yet more possible evidence to add to the pile.

#anonymous #answered #wot book spoilers

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