#ohhhh he's so evil and cruel :( but it's in his nature as a man to do so !

[greatfay]

atla for the ask meme, again! and some unpopular opinions thrown in maybe? mwah

my all-time ultimate fave character: 

Prince Zuko. The angst, the drama, the stream of terrible choices, the hair (all four phases of it), and of course, the redemption. Zuko fucked me up as a kid. He set the bar so high for redemption arcs, and still to this day I’ve yet to see someone live up to it. STILL. Actually maybe Minya in Laini Taylor’s Strange the Dreamer, where the only truly evil characters are long-dead before the story starts. But Zuko really set the bar. He just tries SO hard, the way they handled his character was celestial.

a character I didn’t used to like but now do:

Azula. Don’t drag me but obviously the first time I saw Azula, I was, what, 10? I actually think my timeline was off, in my Harry Potter post I said something about Book 2 coming out when I was 10 , I think I was 11. Anyway, the first time I saw Azula I was just like fuck she’s scary, and throughout book 2 she compounded this point by being fucking scary, so I didn’t like her because she’s The Bad Guy.

But then my brain grew in and now I’m like “she’s the most psychologically complex character I’ve ever seen in my life” and I literally love her. I could write an essay on how she’s not a sociopath at all, she’s got a Machiavellian type-A personality but she’s not a sociopath (which I think strips a lot of complexity from her character), she’s very much a product of her environment and it’s a fascinating examination of Nurture vs. Nature when you compare her and Zuko.

She turns defense into offense, look at that. She never loses ground in a fight.

a character I used to like but now don’t:

Hmm... I don’t think my opinion has changed on any of them tbh. They’re well-rounded, likable characters. Oh there’s one, Master Pakku! As a kid I was like oh he sucks cuz he’s sexist, then he trains Katara and I’m like ok he’s cool. But then?? I grew up and realized this man enforces this same societal bullshit, he just made an exception for Katara because he had a hard-on for her grandma so it’s some Snape bullshit lmao. So he’s the only I started to like and stopped liking.

a character I’m indifferent about:

Suki. She’s often depicted (in media and out) as a part of Team Avatar, despite appearing in only 4 episodes. FOUR. I really like her character, mostly because she’s a great example of a character playing important roles who doesn’t need a big character arc or development or even flaws. Think about it: Suki doesn’t have character flaws. She’s noble, honest but not naive, clever, a good leader, she doesn’t have flaws, she’s there to be there, and that’s perfectly fine. Wish I knew more about her tbh, like where is she by the timeline of Legend of Korra.

a character who deserved better:

Suki, lmao. Because she doesn’t appear a lot. And Ursa I guess, because I read Smoke & Fire and her arc with her daughter rejecting her face is so weird to meeeeee. It’s such a weird element.

a ship I’ve never been able to get into:

Zukaang. One’s a middle-schooler and the other is a high school junior, ew lmao. Zukka as well because idk, by the time these two interact without anyone else, other ships have cropped up and taken hold. Also Tyzula because Azula is cruel to her (but she’s also one of the few people she shows genuine affection toward without performing).

a ship I’ve never been able to get over:

None. I’m fine with most of the canon pairings but not head over heels. Maybe Sokka/Yue? That was sad.

a cute, low-key ship:

Zuko and his honor.

an unpopular ship but I still enjoyed it:

None tbh!

a ship that was totally wrong and never should have happened:

Ursa/Ozai lmao. Poor Ursa.

my favourite storyline/moment:

All of the tension from several gd episodes that led up to the Crystal Cave climax of Book 2. Runner up is Katara’s revenge arc. Bro... she stopped the rain. And I loved the look of awe on Zuko’s face like “thank GOD I switched sides.”

a storyline that never should have been written:

None?? ATLA is a near-perfect story. The ending is the most controversial part but I’m old enough now that I get it. I guess energy bending could’ve been hinted at way earlier, like maybe by the Guru guy, but I’m cool with the ending.

my first thoughts on the show:

Great show, love it, I wanna be an airbender, wtf was that ending.

my thoughts now:

Great show, love it, I wanna be an airbender, ohhhh of course the 12-year-old wasn’t going to murder a man on a children’s show lmao I get it now. And that’s that.

Ask me about a tv series/movie/franchise/book!

[shenanigumi]

Hello! My question follows one of your recent responses. You mentioned that your favorite 'husband' is Okita (yes! I share it completely), your favorite pairing is HeiChi (for solid reasons) and your favorite character is Kazama due to his complexity. If you want, could you expand this statement? Why is Kazama so complex in your opinion, what are the possible reasons of his complexity (his inner conflict, his motives etc)?

Ohhhh man… ‘If I want’? I’m always down to talk about my faves. You’d best be prepared for a goddamn characterization essay, because I love Kazama to death. Also, it’ll be good practice for getting started on an actual essay, so I thank you for this wonderful way to wake up the brain!!

I’m throwing this under a read-more for those of you who can see it, because wow I talk a lot:

First off, let me get one thing straight: I hate Kazama. I don’t hate him in the same way or as much as I hate Kaoru; my ‘hatred’ for Kazama is rooted more in awe (e.g. “Wow, that was badass, but what an asshole”) than in genuine dislike (e.g. “I AM GOING TO SKIP ALL YOUR TEXT AND THEN KILL YOU”). By no means is Kazama a good person, but one doesn’t have to be a good person to be a good character.

Admittedly, I think the games could have handled Kazama’s characterization a lot better, and hopefully some of it has been resolved in Shinkai. Though I’ve made the connections that fit all the different sides of his personality together, and will hopefully be able to prove it below, I feel like it should have been more obvious in canon. He’s so different between routes that unless you spend a lot of time thinking about him and his character, like I apparently do, it can be pretty jarring.

Since I’ve already practically written an essay on the wiki I made, I’m going to be lazy and use my four fucking paragraphs I wrote on Kazama’s personality as a basis for analysis. The wiki-entries are as objective as I could make them, but I’m gonna give a warning for possible speculation/headcanons re: how I interpret them. Basically, I’m gonna try to explain my perception of Kazama’s characterization, which is pretty self-explanatory as far as why I like him is concerned, but I can’t guarantee that there’s any solid evidence. These are just the conclusions at which I arrived after considering what I have seen in canon:

Kazama is proud, selfish, domineering, and often cruel. He is severely prejudiced against humans, and even more so against furies. He refers to them almost exclusively as “fakes” or “abominations”, and sees it as his duty to dispose of them. Having little respect for those incapable of adapting to changing times, Kazama asserts his superiority of race and cause whenever possible. He is fatalistic and detached from his own violent actions, regarding them as proof of humanity’s frailty without ascribing any agency to himself. However, though Kazama maintains a clear dislike of and disdain for all humans throughout all routes, he strives to keep his emotional distance and remain aloof.

Whenever Kazama must do something he considers unpleasant, he tries to find a way to further his own enjoyment in the meantime, up to and including using Chizuru as an excuse to toy with the Shinsengumi. However, though he initially considers this a game in which he holds no real investment, he eventually becomes genuinely intrigued by the humans and their ideals. In Hijikata’s route, Kazama is unable to reconcile his existing values with his newfound attachment, and—once Amagiri confronts him about his errant ways—finally abandons his title and status in favor of engaging them. Thus, though Kazama has an extreme sense of responsibility and loyalty to his clan and people as a whole, he “[sees] no charm in command”, and is willing to step down from his position and pursue his own agenda if he finds a purpose he perceives as more worthwhile.

First and foremost, I love Kazama because he is not the person he is trying to be. Even though his development is never directly focused on, and in fact I’d actually argue that he develops the least on his own route, that little tidbit is an enormous driving force in his side of the story. Kazama’s Thing™ is that he’s an Honorable Demon, and tries to live Honorably, but he just doesn’t have the temperament to keep his distance. He’s too naturally curious, too easily driven to anger, too arrogant and drunk on power over humankind, and he knows it. He simply doesn’t care until these tendencies cause him to become completely entangled in the Shinsengumi’s affairs. Although this doesn’t happen on every route, the foundation for that frustration is there in all of them.

Essentially, Kazama is in pursuit of an ideal he cannot obtain for as long as he continues acting the way he does… and eventually, his behavior gets him to the point where he must either change that ideal or change himself. Each time he hits that crisis point, Kazama has opted to change his ideal, and that speaks volumes about his strength of will and character. Rather than ‘improve’ his flaws and conform to demonic expectations, Kazama would rather change what he is fighting for. Sometimes, his new goals do change him in turn—but his shifting priorities always precede his development in any direction. (More on that later.)

Kazama is persistent to the point of obsession when he wants something, demonstrated most prominently in Saito’s route, in which he turns his back on his previous concepts of good and evil, joining forces with Kodo for the sake of marrying Chizuru. Similarly, once his pride has been wounded, Kazama will stop at nothing to get revenge, and does not consider tipping the odds in his favor to be morally dubious. This is most evident when (in Hijikata’s route) he procures his family’s legendary sword, the Demonslayer, to vanquish Hijikata. However, despite his willingness to ensure his victory by any means necessary, Kazama has his own brand of honor in that he views lying as beneath him and will always tell the truth as he sees it. Though he may twist situations to his advantage or omit certain information if his own interests demand it, the few direct lies he tells are obviously identifiable. This applies to even the smallest matters, such as insisting that he rested during the night when in fact he was tending the fire.

Kazama is the voice of the conscience, and of radical reason (which I use in opposition to emotion in this case). I love Kazama because he’s never wrong. There are a lot of things you can say about Kazama, but you can’t exactly say he’s wrong. Humans are weak in comparison to demons? Absolutely right. They don’t know what they’re doing? No, they don’t. Furies aren’t supposed to exist? Indeed they aren’t. His methods may not always be sound, and I certainly don’t always agree with them—but his statements are generally true, if harsh.

Despite his aforementioned inability to live up to expectations of aloofness, Kazama is still duty-driven and follows a very strict, largely self-imposed code of honor. This also says a lot about his character, since it does not allow for direct lies, but it is extremely flexible since it is wholly unconnected to his sense of responsibility to his clan. Rather, it centers around whatever he has chosen as his goal—and, once he gives up on the idea of staying out of human matters, his code relaxes. Once Kazama no longer tries to maintain his distance from humans, he becomes more comfortable with acting based on his emotions. Through his fixation on humans, Kazama seems to become more human himself (and his choice to use the Demonslayer is incredibly ironic for exactly that reason).

Now, to circle back around to priorities… In his own mind, Kazama is always fighting for demonkind. If he cannot keep his distance as is expected of him, then he chooses to discard that notion and instead dispose of furies (in Hijikata’s route) or even dispose of humans (in Saito’s). No matter what his goal is, Kazama never abandons his self-identity as a demon or his wish to live an honorable life. He may change his definition of what exactly that means route to route, but no matter what he perceives as the right way to go about fulfilling it, he still centers himself around that idea.

In both Hijikata’s and Saito’s routes, Kazama concludes that it is impossible for him to operate within his current boundaries and chooses to pursue a new ideal, each one still rooted in what he believes to be a cause worthy of the demon he is… even if his people openly disapprove. However, even though anger plays no small part in Kazama’s decision to seek revenge in Hijikata’s route, he thinks of that decision as built more on moral righteousness: a fake spilled demon blood, so of course he should die for it. There is still a rationale for his actions, and while Kazama demonstrates and acts on his anger more freely, he maintains his morals (however gray). His mission is specific and personal, so all his wrath—as uncontrollable as it may be in the moment—is deliberately directed at Hijikata.

However, on Saito’s route, Kazama demonstrates what happens when he stops fighting his emotions altogether, and instead allows them to rule him. Because his goal is now to resurrect the Yukimura clan by marrying Chizuru and to eliminate all humans, his mission becomes less focused, and so too do his feelings. He no longer has a singular cause to fight for; he’s simply thrown in his lot with Kodo. He loses his conventional moral compass somewhere amid his natural arrogance, exacerbated by these loftier ambitions. Since Kazama still believes that the end justifies the means, and this end requires more power and the exercise thereof, it’s little wonder he abandoned his usual reluctant restraint. The only thing that changed was the ideal he chose to pursue, and that in turn altered his behavior almost beyond recognition. The potential was always there; his new goal just turned him inside out.

(Again, I think the game should really have made this connection clearer, because the consistency in Kazama’s motives between Saito’s route and all others is a tad indistinct.)

…And lastly:

Though Kazama’s attitude is cold, direct, and serious by default, he does have a sense of humor, which is dry and sarcastic and usually manifests at others’ expense. He also readily displays scorn, anger, and conceit, all of which appear impossible for him to fully conceal. However, Kazama finds it difficult and/or unpleasant to openly admit more sentimental emotions such as affection, sadness, gratitude, or even agreement.

Yeah, so let’s not forget about the sense of humor, since it’s a more prominent (if somewhat shallow) reason why I love him. On Heisuke’s route, their sass battles are legendary, okay. Plus, on Kazama’s route, some of his one-liners are pure gold. And speaking of humor, as a postscript, I’d also like to point to my previous essay about Kazama and Shiranui’s similarities, which everyone has probably seen by now, but which further my point that he’s really an interesting character. Anyone who can be so similar to another character yet so strikingly different is A+ by me.

Okay, I think I’ve talked enough, considering I just spent two hours putting this mess together. Hope that actually answered your question!!  

[chitowngirl-12-blog]

tatticstudio55

Dany is stiff, imperious and expects men to bow at her feet without her doing much of anything to get their interest.

I too am happy that Jon Snow isn’t selfish. Unlike D*ny who uses Northen survival and Northen independence as a barganing chip in her selfish pursuit of a throne she has no right to.

It just amazes me the extent that Jonerys fans go to to make Jon an emasculated pet only there to reaffirm the true queen’s greatness. I don’t think Jon and Sansa will ever be a couple, but I prefer Jon as a wily operator who cares for his people to the meek and obedient servant he was in Season 7.  It is pretty clear that the show will never let little kneeling pet be an equal ruler to Daenerys or do anything of actual value.  Nor do her fans want them as equal.  Either they want him dead or a powerless consort who keeps house in KL while she rules.  After all, Jon is a natural beta and follower.  It woukd be cruel to fois him into a leadership position.

At least Jonsa fans view Jon as a political astute KITN.

What do we have here??? That a Jon “pledged” to D is a Jon who has taken the woman’s role, and a very (yes, very) misogynistic woman’s role at that: a pet, meek, obedient, powerless, house keeper. Comment’s turning Jon into a queen consort (an “emasculated pet”) and qualifying queen consorts in the most misogynist way possible. They’re also calling “women” men who aren’t at the political top – so what, you need to be the Alpha male in order to be a man? The real man is the cro magnon with big muscle arms who hunt and – oh, wait, I know what their definition of a “real man” would be: Khal Drogo. Except the “real man” is dead essentially because his beta followers fancied raping an entire village, and one of these unfortunate women was just a liiiitle bit angry about that. So much for the masculine, virile alpha male.

Now where was I? Right… people kneeling to Jon is good! People kneeling to Daenerys is bad!

Dany is stiff, imperious and expects men to bow at her feet without her doing much of anything to get their interest.

I too am happy that Jon Snow isn’t selfish. Unlike D*ny who uses Northen survival and Northen independence as a barganing chip in her selfish pursuit of a throne she has no right to. (Of course, Jon wasn’t selfish when he used the Karstark and Umber’s castles as bargaining chips to get two children to kneel to him. After retaking a land that was lost to the Bolton by right of conquest and royal decree. How silly of me! But he’s a man he asked them nicely, so it doesn’t count lol.)

I prefer Jon as a wily operator (…)

See, the funniest thing here is, as of season 7, Dany is bringing just as much (if not more) to the North than Jon is… so what would make her oh so more unworthy at ruling than Jon?  That she wasn’t “chosen”, like him? Except she was… by no other than Jon himself.

Oh wait, it doesn’t count because Jon is now an emasculated pet and can’t make a proper, serious decision. Just like a woman, pffft.

You know, maybe I’m starting to understand how some people want Jon with Sansa? Because he’d be the Male, THA KING, and Sansa can suck it up, just like she did in 7x01. (I suppose, if you adequate masculinity with a certain political position, then yes, Jon is much more a Man with Sansa than with Dany. Can’t have the woman wearing the pants now, can we?) I mean…

Dany is stiff, imperious and expects men to bow at her feet

(Ohhhh the profanity! Men don’t bow to women, come on now!)

And that, my friend, is why some of us might find the comments under this post misogynist.

Source:

lyannas

Since I was blocked by the very sensitive snowflake who initially posted this and cannot reblog - Since @tatticstudio55 gave this disgusting hate screed on the same post.  Wanna play?  

“ What do we have here??? That a Jon “pledged” to D is a Jon who has taken the woman’s role, and a very (yes, very) misogynistic woman’s role at that: a pet, meek, obedient, powerless, house keeper. Comment’s turning Jon into a queen consort (an “emasculated pet”) and qualifying queen consorts in the most misogynist way possible.”

Duh.  Being a consort is a very emasculating and humiliating position.  It doesn’t matter the gender.  Consorts have no power.  No one cares what Prince Philip or Kate Middleton have to say ever.  This isn’t a male or female thing.  Moreover, we are discussing a medieval setting.  Kings (and the occasional queen) had actually power Consorts have no power.  Cersei would have been executed for the same behavior as Robert - having an affair.  I’m not sure why you don’t think that Daenerys cannot order Jon to sleep with her.  She can.  That is the right of a monarch to force someone to marry her without recourse.  This is in no way evil, but Jon is her slave in that way.

Moreover, the consort that Jonerys is SO hyped about Jon being is one of the blandest consorts, Elizabeth of York.  Some English Queens were good at doing bed tricks to influence the king, which is basically what Political!Jon is.  Elizabeth of York didn’t even do that.  All she did was push out babies and submissively support her husband.  She really is the epitome of a submissive housekeeper and broodmare and that is what Team Jonerys is totally with Jon being.

They’re also calling “women” men who aren’t at the political top – so what, you need to be the Alpha male in order to be a man?

No, I’m calling them slaves.  Women who kneel are as much a loser as men.  I have no use for housewives any more than I do some sort of political beta that Jon has become.  Sorry, but feminism doesn’t exist to celebrate submissive house spouses.  I don’t care about anyone who decides to play submissive hausfrau regardless the gender.  Get a job.

   Except the “real man” is dead essentially because his beta followers fancied raping an entire village, and one of these unfortunate women was just a liiiitle bit angry about that. So much for the masculine, virile alpha male.

Mirri was obviously a patriot.  She was not a submissive slave who did whatever Daenerys wanted.  She rebelled against her master unlike submissive Pet!Jon!   You’d be upset if Pet!Jon! decided to disagree with Daenerys and even murder her.

Now where was I? Right… people kneeling to Jon is good! People kneeling to Daenerys is bad!

I’d doubt you ever suggest that the one tru kween kneel.  Why can’t Daenerys give up the North?  She can have the rest of Westeros and doesn’t need everyone as her slaves.

See, the funniest thing here is, as of season 7, Dany is bringing just as much (if not more) to the North than Jon is… so what would make her oh so more unworthy at ruling than Jon?  That she wasn’t “chosen”, like him? Except she was… by no other than Jon himself.

She wasn’t elected.  Jon was.  Why is this so hard to understand.

Oh wait, it doesn’t count because Jon is now an emasculated pet and can’t make a proper, serious decision. Just like a woman, pffft.

Actually, Jon cannot make a proper decision because if he defies his new mistress she can execute him.  And he is such a submissive and obedient pet he wouldn’t dare oppose mistress.  That is what absolute monarchy is.