#they obviously occupy similar narrative roles

[cthoniccompanion]

i genuinely think hecate is one of the best written and designed characters across both hades games and i wish i could better articulate why

[saintsenara]

hear me out on this one: ron/narcissa

thank you very much, anon!

and i certainly will hear you out.

i am invested in the plausibility of all malfoy/weasley ships because the two families are narrative mirrors - and narrative mirror pairings are my jam.

and i'm invested in this one specifically because i adore the concept of narcissa/molly so much - especially the way that their narrative confinement to the domestic sphere, and the loneliness this causes in each of them, is simultaneously very different and yet so very similar.

ron is the one of the weasley children who seems to be the most like molly - in that he's the one who expresses love most obviously through domestic and pseudo-domestic tasks. he clearly likes to take care of people who matter to him - in a way that narcissa, who occupies that caring role within her own family, has probably never experienced [while i think lucius is a good husband, he is so clearly bound up in his role as the family's "leader" and "protector" that he isn't going to ever take that more feminine-coded caring position in his relationship with narcissa].

and he's also clearly a little bit lonely, just as molly is. while the sibling who is least aligned with the rest of the family in terms of personality is obviously percy - and while i reject the common weasley-bashing sentiment that molly and arthur are bad parents - ron's position in the order of children means that he does seem to receive less of his parents' emotional attention than his older siblings or ginny. this is then compounded by his position in the golden trio. he's harry's everyman sidekick - not special like the hero, and not clever like hermione, the helper-figure. and this affects his status in the eyes of all the people who look to harry to be their saviour - the order don't care about ron, the ministry doesn't care about ron, ron is shocked to discover in deathly hallows that dumbledore even knew who he was - and in the eyes of all the people who consider harry the scum of the earth - voldemort would, i am certain, be hard-pressed to pick him out of a line-up.

narcissa has that unstable social position too. both the order and the death eaters consider her less important to the arc of the series than bellatrix - and i think we can also imagine that she was the sister who received the least emotional attention from her parents, given how shocking both bellatrix and andromeda's behaviour was, and that this explains why she is the most conformist and staid of the three.

and two unlikely people realising a similarity which takes them on a shared journey of self-discovery is a hot trope.

and one that i will go in for every time.

[eroguron0nsense]

I want more Robin and Law interactions

I'm sure I'm not the only one to point out that their backstories are so similar and the narrative parallels are so, so obvious (Law literally occupies the exact same role as she does in that he was child victimized by the WG, unjustly isolated and endangered after the greatest traumas of their lives, and then taken in by a regime-changing Warlord seeking to exploit him. Also, saved by a marine who defected to do the right thing). Law being obviously emotionally stunted works even better when contrasted with Robin's very open, slightly morbid, teasing eccentricity. She sees him at his absolute lowest after Doffy nearly kills him in Dressrossa, sees the moment he insists on seeing her precious captain through his mission or dying alongside him, and understands implicitly how much he means to both of them. He trusts her more than any of the Straw Hats except for Luffy, enough to tell her his secret name, and I just enjoy the way they clearly have a lot of mutual respect, and I hope to god they get more chances to understand each other better and maybe interact or share some of what they've been through with each other in the future

One of the things I wish I would have happened in Wano was seeing Robin's reaction to/perspective on Law, who's so much like her (not that she really knows that) and who she's seen at his lowest and most vulnerable, who's a staunch ally she respects and has fought alongside in a way that none of her allies except Luffy have so far, being driven away from by Shinobu in a moment of fear and anger. How does she feel about Law (very, very justifiably) leaving them with no confirmation of when she'll return? Granted enough was happening in Wano that I don't feel bad about Oda not fully exploring *every single plot point* to its fullest potential because god knows he did enough already and stuck almost all the landings in ways that very few authors could pull off half as well but I woulda liked to throw in just a few lines from her or frankly, have her to advocate for him alongside or instead of Kanjuro. She, more than any of them, likely has a lot of empathy for him even without knowing all the details or just how alike they are.

[innerchorus]

Remembered that the word(s) mage/magus/magi has roots in Persian and decided to look it up, and whaddya know, interesting shit!

“Magi (/ˈmeɪdʒaɪ/; singular magus /ˈmeɪɡəs/; from Latin magus, cf. Persian: مغ pronounced [moɣ]) were priests in Zoroastrianism and the earlier religions of the western Iranians. The earliest known use of the word magi is in the trilingual inscription written by Darius the Great, known as the Behistun Inscription. Old Persian texts, predating the Hellenistic period, refer to a magus as a Zurvanic, and presumably Zoroastrian, priest.”

×

“The word mágos and its variants appear in both the Old and New Testaments. Ordinarily this word is translated "magician" or "sorcerer" in the sense of illusionist or fortune-teller, and this is how it is translated in all of its occurrences except for the Gospel of Matthew, where, depending on translation, it is rendered "wise man" or left untranslated as Magi, typically with an explanatory note.”

And then I was like, well, the hell is “Zurvanic”? And

“Zurvanism is a fatalistic religious movement of Zoroastrianism in which the divinity Zurvan is a first principle (primordial creator deity) who engendered equal-but-opposite twins, Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu. Zurvanism is also known as "Zurvanite Zoroastrianism", and may be contrasted with Mazdaism.”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zurvanism

I don't know what I'll do with it but!!! Very interesting!!!!!

Oh yeah, as someone who often thinks about Team Zahhak mages vs the priesthood in Arslan Senki, I'm aware of this and it's definitely of interest. Tanaka doesn't give us a Parsian word for mage but does use some terms for priests / priestesses (kahina, priestess, see the term 'kahinat', and magpat, a high priest, likely taken from 'magu-pati' / 'mobad' the first part of which obviously shares an origin with mage/magus/magi).

In terms of ArSen, I've talked about the similarities between the priesthood and the mages before. Of course, there are differences, but it's clear that the priesthood also have an understanding of magic that goes beyond that of even the most well-educated Parsians, even though aside from communicating with the jinn they don't actually use it (except for perhaps as a countermeasure against malicious magic, though this isn't something we see directly in canon). The mages of Team Zahhak don't seem to openly define / refer to themselves as priests, but in terms of function and how they essentially view Zahhak as their god, isn't that exactly what they are? It's telling that when Kishward and Zaravant first discover the underground space used by Team Zahhak in Book 12, Kishward comments on its similarity to a temple, leading Zaravant to wonder where the 'priests' are, and the fact that it's later referred to as the 'dark temple' both in the narrative and dialogue serves to emphasise this further.

The overlapping nature of the historical term and the way that the nature, doctrine and abilities of Team Zahhak and the priesthood seem to mirror each other is something I think about a lot, especially because of Gurgin! Yes, it was inevitable that I was going to mention him in this post, but it feels very relevant because here is a character who was occupying one role, and left it in favour of the other ...but did he ever really stop being a priest?

(This is also why, although I obviously wish the eventual outcome had been different, I liked his conversation with Guiscard in Chapter 108.)

[yamayuandadu]

Are there any Japanese mythological examples of undead beings or youkai gaining high station in the Afterlife's government, like Lady Yuyuko in Touhou canon?

Somewhat of a tricky question to answer considering how imprecise the terms you've used are.  The short answer is no, an attempt at a longer and more nuanced treatment under the cut.

If you mean yōkai as in creatures from night parade scrolls and similar Edo literature, the answer is no. These occupy a niche more or less comparable to American “fearsome critters”. Many are quite literally illustrated puns and nothing more. If you mean yōkai in the way Shigeru Mizuki, the guy who is responsible for the modern use of this term, used it, then anything supernatural is by default a yōkai and thus even king Enma counts. If you mean the in-between sense Touhou uses, the answer is still pretty firmly no. There is clear iconographic overlap between depiction of oni in illustrated editions of Shuten Dōji legends and the like and the assorted hell jailers from hell paintings but there are no actual narratives involving moving between these categories. It’s also important to stress that while Japan did adopt the notion of an afterlife administration from China (see here for a survey of relevant beliefs), this doesn’t mean adapting the full scope of it. There is a fairly limited small “canon” of figures who appear alongside the ten kings of hell, and while some of them, like the clerks Shimei and Shiroku or the trio Tenkan, Chikan, and Suikan (officials of heaven, earth and water), were imported from China, many others were part of Yama’s retinue basically for as long as Buddhist authors dealt with hell, and didn’t even play a particularly big role in China. Some additions, like Datsueba, developed in Japan, but they were created with this purpose in mind, they were not preexisting entities. The Chinese vision of a bureaucratic afterlife developed as the natural extension of the belief in the possibility of ghosts being elevated to the rank of afterlife officials, which predated the introduction of Buddhism. First examples come from funerary texts from the late third century BCE. However, in most cases this phenomenon basically reflected the continuation of official duties after death. While not exactly incompatible with the Buddhist views on reincarnation, it represented an originally distinct tradition. For more details see here.

Marshal Wen (source; reproduced here for educational purposes only)

Many of the ghosts turned underworld officials were originally simply local heroes or deities, like Wen Qiong (“Marshal Wen”; for more info see here) associated with Wenzhou in Zhejiang. On top of that there was also a widespread phenomenon of assigning afterlife-related roles to various local chenghuang figures, deities protecting the walls and moats of specific settlements. The worship of such deities didn’t spread easily outside of the immediate surroundings of their cities, unless a big part of their population moved - and there wasn’t much in the way of large-scale migration from China to Japan in the time periods in which the Japanese vision of hell formed (ie. Heian and the middle ages), obviously. There was therefore little opportunity for them and theological ideas related to them to reach Japan, in contrast ex. with figures tied to esoteric Buddhism or astrology. While through the Heian period and the middle ages vengeful spirits came to occupy an important role in Japanese religious landscape, they were quite distinct from the deified local heroes and city gods who commonly joined the ranks of afterlife bureaucracy in China. They emerged from the era of Heian court intrigues, and as a matter of fact most of the big names in this category are simply figureheads of factions which lost in them. While the most important among them, Sugawara no Michizane, in medieval sources takes the role of a supernatural official after death, this is a way to essentially pacify him, differs from his position in life, and in Buddhist cosmological terms subordinates him to Taishakuten and Bonten (Indra and Brahma), not to the kings of hell. The closest case to importing the Chinese phenomenon of ghosts turned underworld officials to Japan was Zhong Kui - who, as you’ll quickly notice, offers probably the best parallel to Yuyuko’s position. Since there’s a lot to cover, proceed here to learn more. Last but not least, there is a legend about a mortal, Ono no Takamkura, becoming an official in hell while still alive. You can read more about it here. For analogous cases in China see here. There’s also the thematically related but more abstract story of judge Lu written by Pu Songling.

[fitzrove]

Tanz der Vampire & The Hero's Journey

TdV is often brought up as an example of a musical where (spoilers) the bad guys win. But I don't really agree with that take. Certainly, the assumed objective of our fearless vampire killers is not fulfilled by the end (the vampires are very much not killed), but that doesn't mean the hero of the story doesn't triumph. Let me go into excessive detail...

The Hero and his Goal

Alfred is obviously the POV character and the hero of the story. He's the first character we meet, and throughout the story, he's the character whose thoughts we get the most insight on. But unlike in a lot of vampire hunter stories, his goal isn't really to kill vampires, even though he does sing a bit about slaying monsters in Perfekter Tag. He's afraid of them and the danger they represent, but he doesn't have any particular deepseated conviction against them or trauma related to them (á la Uwe Kröger's Van Helsing in the Dracula musical for example). The vampire-hunting goal is really pushed onto the narrative by the professor, who occupies the role of the "mentor" in the Hero's Journey, and Sarah, who seeks the vampires out on purpose and (in Alfred's opinion) puts her life at risk. If the vampires didn't threaten Sarah (and if the professor, Alfred's mentor and most importantly his employer, wasn't obsessed with them), I'd argue that Alfred would have no quarrel with them. He's forced to actively oppose them by circumstance, and slaying them isn't an intrinsic goal he has.

So what is Alfred's goal? Well, according to Michael Kunze, his driving motivation is his love for Sarah. But I'd argue it's about more than Sarah herself (which doesn't diminish their relationship in my opinion) - it's about first love and letting all those sweet gooey emotions take hold of you for the first time, about being fearless and vulnerable. Alfred loves Sarah and wants to be free to love her regardless of societal expectations. And hell, there's a bunch of societal expectations and restrictions - Alfred sees what Chagal does to his daughter for something as innocent as taking a bath, how could he expect him to react positively if he told him he wanted to, for instance, propose to Sarah? And the professor thinks feelings are useless bullshit (and since Alfred seems to be pretty much financially dependent on him, he's really stuck between a rock and a hard place and pursuing a relationship with Sarah must seem impossible to him). He probably can't see any way for them to be together other than by running away (even though that must also seem like a pipe dream, because of the financial and practical impossibilities). So Alfred wishes, above all else, to liberate himself from everything that binds and obligates him, so that he can be free to feel and love and be together with the person he cares about openly at last.

The Hero's Journey 1 - Departure

Using the Wikipedia summary of The Hero's Journey, we can trace the similarities of TdV's plot with that narrative scheme. In the Departure section, the main character

lives in the ordinary world and receives a call to go on an adventure. The hero is reluctant to follow the call but is helped by a mentor figure.

So the ordinary world setup (which outlines Alfred's situation and his central problem of not being able to love and feel freely) would be the first few songs (He Ho He to Nie Geseh'n). In Nie Geseh'n, he (and Sarah) quite literally hear the call for the first time - they both hear the vampires sing Sei bereit during their duet. Alfred tries to put it out of his mind (which we see quite clearly in Wahrheit, where everyone except Sarah keeps themselves busy and wilfully ignores the vampire issue, while the professor - the mentor - tries to prod for answers so they can chase the call in the hopes of eliminating its source). After Sarah vanishes, he's pushed by the professor's fervor and determination to kill the vampires (and his own devotion to Sarah) to follow Chagal to the castle.

The Hero's Journey 2 - Initiation

The initiation section begins with the hero then traversing the threshold to an unknown or "special world"...

Literally Vor dem Schloss - the door to the castle is a very literal threshold between the normal world and the vampire world. But it's also an emotional threshold - the lyrics of the song have Krolock dangle the promise of all Alfred wants (love, freedom, passion) in front of him and telling him that by entering this world he will be able to experience all of it. Alfred completely forgets about vampire hunting for this encounter - he's just transfixed by Krolock and the dark freedom and "forbidden knowledge" he promises.

... where he faces tasks or trials, either alone or with the assistance of helpers.

Alfred's trials amount to:

Facing temptation in Carpe Noctem (and resisting it in Alles ist Hell right after, which continues the motif of burying your head in the sand and not dealing with emotions or problems that was introduced in Wahrheit)

Being pushed by the professor to kill Krolock in Der Grüft, but refusing to by saying that he can't (which shows how he's faltering - his fear does play a part in this, but it's more than anything a sign of his heart not being committed to the vampire-hunting mission. The professor tries to push him by telling him to think of Sarah, but to no avail)

Failing to convince Sarah to escape in their bathroom conversation & facing the fact that he'll have to brave his fears to protect her (wait out the ball because she explicitly says she won't leave before then) and coming to terms with it ("I will go into nothingness because I love you") (Für Sarah)

Wenn Liebe in dir Ist (facing the threat of violence, almost escaping by way of cleverness with his book trick, being rescued by the professor)

The trials serve to strengthen Alfred's love for Sarah and his conviction to do whatever he can to stay by her side even if it means forgetting his fears and "betraying himself" (actual lyrics). They don't serve to grow his hatred of vampires, even though he does become braver both in the face of danger and about openly declaring how he feels.

The Ball

The hero eventually reaches "the innermost cave" or the central crisis of his adventure, where he must undergo "the ordeal" where he overcomes the main obstacle or enemy, undergoing "apotheosis" and gaining his reward (a treasure or "elixir").

This is where the show is at its most subversive. Alfred and the professor do face Krolock head-on, but not before he manages to bite Sarah. They don't kill him, but they do seem to triumph over him by escaping. And about the apostheosis, well...

The Hero's Journey 3 - The Return

In the return section, the hero must return to the ordinary world with his reward. He may be pursued by the guardians of the special world, or he may be reluctant to return and may be rescued or forced to return by intervention from the outside.

The apostheosis really only happens after/during the return, which is why it's such a twist to the audience. We expect the ball to he the grand finale, but really, the apostheosis only happens while our heroes are being "pursued by the guardians of the special world" (Koukol). And said apostheosis is obviously Sarah biting Alfred and fulfilling their shared goal - to become free to love and live outside all boundaries and expectations. If you're a vampire, you won't really have to worry about food or shelter in the same way humans have to ever again - and if anyone tries to give you trouble or to restrict you, you can just maul them (which Alfred tries to do to the professor immediately upon being turned). It's really the only way for Sarah and Alfred to be together, and I think after all that they went through during the show, they both know that - Alfred perhaps only subconsciously until the very last minute. And they revel in it. The show has a happy ending even though zero vampires were slain - the poor professor Abronsius, who represents rationality and conventional moral propriety, got the short end of the stick because his ideals go against the show's thesis statement. But Sarah and Alfred got exactly what they wanted from the beginning.

The hero again traverses the threshold between the worlds, returning to the ordinary world with the treasure or elixir he gained, which he may now use for the benefit of his fellow man. The hero himself is transformed by the adventure and gains wisdom or spiritual power over both worlds.

And because Sarah and Alfred have now learned this truth, they can... uh... "use the elixir for the benefit of their fellow man", ie. bite people to liberate them like Krolock did to Sarah and Sarah did to Alfred. And the finale of the show fits this idea perfectly - "the vampires invite you to dance", you're next, being dead & selfish & cursed isn't such a bad thing because it's fun and sexy as hell. Vampirism is a "get out of jail free card" for individualism and greed, which may harm others (like Chagal illustrates in his solo - "why shouldn't I suck on blood when other people have sucked things out of me") but benefits the person doing it. I think this is what Kunze meant with his unhinged "tdv is about German reunification" take - it's about free market capitalism, in a way XD But I digress.

So yeah, TdV is a pretty clear hero's journey story where Alfred (in a way) eventually gets just what he wants, even though he resists temptation for most of the show. I love it and it's awesome >:D

[max1461]

w/r/t the fiction thing, first off I've never read a post about aesthetics that I have so viscerally disagreed with with every fiber of my being. while the other anon made a good point about how similar character and setting are I feel like the list is kind of an incoherent taxonomy because everything in it is kind of inseparable, "atmosphere" i.e the attitude of the writer to the subject(calling this tone) and the effect of stylistic features on the reader(calling this mood) aren't really something you can separate from character and even if they were they're very clearly different kinds of things, "atmosphere" seems more like it should hang over the other three as a culmination of how mood and tone work to realize character/settings/scenes, I also don't really even see how you could meaningfully hierarchize those three things, they're tools to be used

the goal of your taxonomy seems to be to kind of dehumanize fiction( this might just be bad psychoanalysis but im going off vibes) in a way wherein certain somewhat impersonal stylistic features are taken as more important but like even in works with similar depersonalized priorities fiction still necessarily is oriented around human concerns! it's about what it means to be human, I don't think a work of art or especially fiction can be good if it doesn't say something about this even if it eschews traditional characterization the use of setting is itself invariably characterized to reflect some kind of ineffable truth about being human, not about being a setting, regardless of what narrative construct the story is about is kind of irrelevant because whether it's a place/institution/character it occupies the same role in the recipe. the ability of a skilled writer to use a facsimile of an actual human is obviously useful for exploring humanness but I wouldn't say the paradigm you describe really exists that much outside of like surface level of internet discussions and I think the way you've compartmentalized aspects of narrative is kind of bizarre I am actually sorry if this comes across as snarky and mean but also I feel shaken to my core

In reference to this post.

w/r/t the fiction thing, first off I've never read a post about aesthetics that I have so viscerally disagreed with with every fiber of my being.

Yeah this is because my opinions are cool and countercultural. The mainstream just doesn't get it, man. I have the nose ring of media opinions.

while the other anon made a good point about how similar character and setting are I feel like the list is kind of an incoherent taxonomy because everything in it is kind of inseparable

Well sure maybe they're inseparable, but that doesn't mean the taxonomy is incoherent. Society is inseparable from individuals but we still recognize Thatcher's "there is no such thing as society" as being kind of a silly position.

Actually, looking back, if you read my post, the whole point I'm making is that character, setting, etc. go into constructing one another, they make each other. And I think characters are interesting mostly insofar as they make settings, and settings and scenes are interesting insofar as they produce a sort of gestalt. So I agree that they're inseparable, generally speaking, I just disagree with how people prioritize them, how people see what should serve what in a story.

the goal of your taxonomy seems to be to kind of dehumanize fiction( this might just be bad psychoanalysis but im going off vibes)

You're right, this is vibes based psychoanalysis. I think you are imagining me as some kind of crusading science guy or some such, same as the other anon. Maybe I'm wrong. But what this is really about, if we're psychoanalyzing, is that when I was a little kid I wanted to be an architect, and my favorite hobby was staring at the ceiling imagining it was the floor. I would do this for hours. Ceilings seem so much more interesting to traverse than floors. There are dips and bumps and weird shapes, and you have to climb to get through all the doors. And I loved climbing. Climb over this climb over that. You can climb through a setting. You can't climb through a character.

The rest of this post is I think aimed at a guy who's not me, I think lots of parts of it are not true anyway but I don't feel like debating them because they are aimed at some other guy. I think. Maybe I'm wrong.

[bleachbleachbleach]

I have some questions about seated officers in the Gotei 13 that I think you might find interesting. I always thought it was pretty straightforward in terms of strength or ability if it’s a special squad like the 4th. There are some outliers like Yumichika who cares more about aesthetics, and Omaeda who’s probably there because of his rich family, or Sentaro and Kiyone who are co-third seats because neither is quite qualified to be lieutenant.

And then I found out about this guy:

Who is apparently one of 15!!!! 20th-seat officers in the ninth! How does that work?? Are there just no officers in seats 5-19, or are there just 14 extra seated officers in the 9th? Is there a limit to the number of seated officers you can have? Are there some extra perks you get as a seated officer like improved health benefits and this is just Tosen trying to game the system??

(Also I find it funny that it’s the 9th, run by Tosen, the epitome of justice and order, that is taking advantage of this bureaucratic loophole.)

Anyways what do you think this means for the organizational layout of the Gotei 13?

Ah! Crusty administrative logistics, our beloved!!!! Thank you for thinking of us! To us, there being 15 20th seats actually feels normal, and I'm willing to bet it's common across all of the divisions to have multiple officers occupying the same seat--particularly the lower seats. I feel like multiple occupancy seats is by design rather than by loophole.

Captaincy, obviously, is a fairly singular role; it's a huge ask, to have a developed bankai and some baseline managerial skills. Especially since if the Gotei had an HR office its captains were accountable to, I think somewhat fewer than 13 captains could actually demonstrate both of these things. VC, same. But with exceptions like Hanatarou, Akon, and Ikkaku/Yumichika, anyone below VC-rank is basically completely outclassed for all of the high-profile Plot Stuff that happens in Bleach--that includes all the seated officers and all the unseated. Of course, these are exceptional times and the narrative is focused on exceptional shinigami who a lot of the time probably have more in common with tall tales than they do with the life of Joe Shinigami.

Delegation of Leadership / Building Capacity

Where all these seated officers are likely most useful is in the day-to-day delegation of leadership. Say, just as a for instance, your captain and vice-captain are both going off to sit around in the Living World for a few months. Before they leave, your captain might be like, Matsumoto, we have to make sure the Division doesn't simply collapse while we are away for an undetermined amount of time! Here's the Strategic Plan I wrote last April, please refer to the subsection for the Winter Quarter (revised edition). And your VC will call a meeting outlining to, say, Seats 3-10 how she wants this implemented. And Seats 3-10 will go talk to Seats 11-15 about which teams are going to take on which pieces, and they'll each go lead a collection of teams that are in turn led by leadership cohorts comprised of shinigami in Seats 16-20.

Multiple teams and multiple leadership cohorts with lateral status within the division. So you have seated hierarchies of folks doing different jobs at each level, but also lateral redundancy carrying out similar types of jobs in different areas/with different foci/etc. If you have fifteen 20th seats, then you have fifteen people who've been additionally trained in some way who can be in charge of stuff, and you can cover more ground/build more capacity.

Creating Opportunities for Advancement

Morale-wise, I think it also opens up more opportunities for advancement, which seems important during times when shinigami aren't getting killed off by the thousands during Blood War invasions. Most shinigami are never, ever in their lives going to wake up and realistically have a shot at ever becoming VC. But a lot of shinigami probably don't want to just be Joe Shinigami for the rest of their lives. If there are multiple openings for lower seats, that makes that more possible.

Enabling Lateral Moves & Specialization/Skill Building

It also makes possible, for example, doing X Shinigami Job for 50 years, getting bored, and making a lateral move to some other Y Shinigami Job, to continue building skills and doing new things, even if reiatsu/power-wise you’re probably topping out at being 17th seat. You’re going to be a highly-skilled, indispensible 17th seat.

--

I feel like the number of people who can occupy a given seat is largely dependent on 1) how the Division has decided to allocate its budget, and 2) where additional leadership is needed. As the seats rise in prestige, they get more expensive to duplicate, salary-wise, and also become more demanding in terms of resume, so you'll probably never have 15 3rd seats, say. There's also the matter of having too many cooks in the kitchen at a certain point, and ~fears of rank inflation/deflation, which I imagine was part of the question re: Kyouraku wanting two VCs and needing to justify why he should get both Nanao and Okikiba.

[damir24exp]

“Anti-Cultists want to organize a civil war in the United States. Is it possible?”

Upon further study of the materials of the US intelligence instructor Dear Egon Cholakian, I realize that a civil war can start not only in Russia, but also in the USA. After all, all wars are organized by anti-cultists. They have a single goal - to turn all of humanity into a totalitarian digital concentration camp. It will be easy for them to do this if they do get to the US. The respected Egon Cholakian has provided the public with the facts about what strategy the anti-cultists have developed. They are preparing all events for the year 2028. It is in this year, according to their plans, the post of the president of the USA will be occupied by a person chosen by them. Under their direct control, this person will make decisions that will lead to the beginning of civil war in America.

To carry out this plan, the anti-cultists need a sufficient number of agents of influence in America, who will contribute to the subtle ideological decomposition of the country and the penetration of destructive narratives into the minds of Americans.  To create their agents out of journalists they create certain infowords to harass people and organizations. By introducing disinformation through journalists, their army of agents of influence is growing worldwide. And for this purpose they spare no expense. 

Respected Egon Cholakyan demonstrated on the example of the ALLATRA organization the classical scheme of developing a high-profile infowar aimed at involving journalists from many countries in its coverage. 

Look at the timeline. Here you can clearly see the key moment in the campaign to discredit the organization “ALLATRA”. The statement of the Chelyabinsk diocese became the catalyst for the rapid development of subsequent events. In this statement, ministers of the Chelyabinsk diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church expressed their concerns about the activities of ALLATRA, which was published on the official website of the diocese in 2020. This diocese plays a crucial role in the strategy of the anti-cultists. This diocese creates an image of a countering undesirable organization. According to Egon Cholakian the Chelyabinsk Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church has become the first level of cover for the anti-cultists. This information trigger set off a chain of events. It is noteworthy that on the same day many regional resources published articles with similar content and mentioning this diocese. These publications had similar demonizing headlines, formulated in the same style, indicating a pre-coordinated media campaign. Soon materials and videos touching on the statements of the Chelyabinsk diocese were published at the federal level. A Russian federal television channel, using the concerns of the Chelyabinsk diocese as a precedent, aired a story denigrating the activities of ALLATRA members. This was picked up by other media, including international media. Thus began an active stage of involvement of foreign media. This precedent is indicative, because the statements of the Chelyabinsk diocese found support in the media of the European Union and Ukraine - countries that were already in opposition to Russia at that time. And this is an indisputable fact. Obviously, the task was to draw attention to the Chelyabinsk diocese and to distract it from the real persons running the agent network. Thus, conditions were created so that in any investigation of actions against ALLATRA all evidence would be reduced exclusively to the Chelyabinsk diocese. 

Well, here you can say that it is unclear what any organization has to do with it, and in general these disinformation campaigns are impossible, for example, in the USA. 

That's what I thought at first, too. But Egon Cholakian told how the anti-cultists are already reaching the media in America. 

The link that allowed the anti-cultists to create new agents of influence in America was an article by the British publication BBC News. 

 The BBC News journalist and author of the discrediting article about ALLATRA positioned himself as an expert on climate disinformation and, judging by previous publications, was a critic of totalitarianism. However, it is obvious that by writing this particular article he was clearly not acting in the interests of democracy. 

Let me show you what I understood from the video with the esteemed Egon Cholakian.

First, the publication was devoted to the climate topic. In it, the author criticized the activities of ALLATRA volunteers in informing the population about the growing climate threats. However, in the conclusion of the article, the author abruptly, without substantial arguments, turns to the religious topic. To give readers another characterization of ALLATRA, in the article the journalist refers to the concerns of the Chelyabinsk Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church regarding ALLATRA.

It is here that you can see that this is a customized article by a customized journalist.

 Why do you ask? 

The logic is simple: the author of this article, a “climate disinformation specialist”, was preparing material on a topic that assumes a scientific and objective presentation. But! In his article he refers to the statement of religious figures of the Chelyabinsk diocese about “ALLATRA”, characterizing it as a “psychocult”. 

Do you even know where Chelyabinsk is on the world map? I didn't know either before Egon Cholakyan's materials.

 ((https://earthsavesciencecollaborative.com/))

It becomes obvious that the insert with a reference to the concerns of the Chelyabinsk diocese was made precisely to divert attention from the true customers of the article. 

What did the publication of a discrediting article against ALLATRA in BBC News accomplish?  I'll tell you: the publication of compromising material in a reputable publication opened the door for further expansion of the network of agents of influence in other countries of the world. This strategy of the anti-cultists has been successful, as the timeline clearly shows

Subsequently, a number of publications throughout Europe and beyond published a huge amount of material discrediting ALLATRA, citing BBC News as an authoritative source without verifying the sources of information from the BBC article itself. Referring to the BBC News article, the anti-cultists through their agents of influence began to restrict the activities of ALLATRA volunteers in the democratic world. 

Egon Cholakyan told that even in the USA, violating democratic principles, the mayor of one of the cities canceled a planned socially significant event organized by ALLATRA volunteers, referring to the above-mentioned BBC News article. But the purpose of the event organized by ALLATRA volunteers was to inform the population of the city about safety measures during extreme climatic events. Thus, the US city mayor deprived the people of his city of the opportunity to learn how to survive in severe climatic conditions, which are already everywhere in the United States.

#CivilWar #USA #2028 #president #war 

#DefendDemocracy #UnitedAgainstMisinformation #FreedomPrevails 

#intelligence #EgonCholakian #BBCNews

#yoga #war #anti-cultists #anti-cultists #RPC 

#StandUpForFreedom #StopPersecution

[incesthemes]

final thoughts: supernatural season 1

i was excited to finish season 1 yesterday! i even got to start on season 2, but that's not relevant to this post. i really enjoyed s1, and i think the showrunners did a great job at putting it together. it's been a long time since i watched older made-for-cable-tv shows and as much as i'm not a huge fan of episodic storytelling as a matter of personal taste, it was a breath of fresh air to be honest.

and if i'm being even more honest, my evaluation that i don't like episodic storytelling isn't even all that true here and might be more influenced by the shows i've watched than it being a hard and fast rule for me. it's still not my preferred method of storytelling, but i think spn takes what it has and makes something really good out of it. compared to shows like wwdits, i was relieved and delighted to discover that the pacing issues i was expecting weren't all that prevalent in spn. the recursive nature of episodic storytelling makes it very easy to press a "reset" button on the B plot of a series, which i find happens a lot in wwdits, but spn manages to keep the momentum rolling without ever really dialing back on the developments to keep things "more or less the same" for the benefit of future episodes.

that said, there are plenty of examples where the compartmentalization of the episodes makes that recursion very obvious, such as the full episodes dean and sam will go without ever even mentioning sam's developing psychic abilities. it's necessary, of course, to keep things relevant to the episode by nature of the plot structure, and as a result very generally relevant things are pushed to the wayside to benefit the episodes' A plots. so there are inherent drawbacks to episodic storytelling that i'm just not a fan of.

but compared to other examples, i think the inherent issues with the style of storytelling aren't that big of a problem here. they're dealt with well, and there are never too many episodes between major B plot developments. like i said, there's always a forward momentum, and nothing really feels like "filler" in the sense that the overall season plot is being ignored for the sake of a side quest. it did make me ease up on my feelings toward episodic storytelling to see that it can be done really quite well.

i've been comparing spn to charmed a lot since i started my rewatch, and i still think the comparison is relevant. at this point the shows are overlapping each other, with spn's first season corresponding to charmed's 6th season. by now, if i'm remembering my seasons correctly, cole has been well and truly killed and the whole "queen of hell" plotline has been averted within season 5. so that's the context supernatural is setting up its foundations. the wink and nod to buffy also implies that supernatural is building on a foundation set by that, too, but i have unfortunately not watched btvs so it's hard to make any real commentary on it.

either way i feel like i could make whole posts just comparing spn to charmed, and it's a lot of fun to see how dynamics set by charmed are replicated and subverted in spn with the main three characters (being sam, dean, and john). the biggest difference is of course that john is their father instead of an older sibling, but the tension and discord between john and sam does remind me a lot of a more hostile version of the relationship between prue and phoebe. the characters all occupy similar narrative roles, too, and with dean sandwiched in the middle as the family man, the whole trio is complete. the "power of three" doesn't apply to the winchesters, obviously, since it's made clear over and over just how dysfunctional and unhealthy the dynamic becomes when john is thrown into the mix.

idk i just like drawing the parallels here, and since s1 is the only time john really gets and screentime, this is the only place i can really make the connections.

anyway on the subject of dean and sam's relationship, i was honestly surprised to see how much wincest baiting there was from the very beginning. when i binged spn back in high school, i somehow missed... all of it? i don't remember it at all, which is hilarious because it's so obvious as i rewatch it now. makes me wonder what else i've missed, lol

i'm delighted by the codependency both sam and dean share with each other, and how quickly they become the center of each other's worlds. it borders on toxicity in how much they need each other, but it's also a reasonable maladaption to their situation: they do need each other because they're constantly in danger, and it's perfectly reasonable and justified for them to go to literally any lengths to keep each other alive, and to keep themselves together. it's a really interesting dynamic because you can watch dean talk about how many people he'd be willing to murder just to keep sam alive and nod along as if it's reasonable (because in a lot of ways, it is). i really like the depiction of their relationship, and it makes me even more excited to see how castiel entering their fucked-up little polycule will shake up the dynamic. just one season to go!

it's been a long, long while since i've watched these early seasons, so i'm really enjoying my rewatch. i hope the subsequent seasons are just as good as the first because i'm very excited to see more developments with sam's psychic abilities and of course the buildup to armageddon :)

[sylleblosscm]

You know, there are a lot of aspects of Luna that feel really strange to write, because they're key points about her character, but not really the point, if you get me. Obviously she occupies that "tragic woman, too pure to live" trope but I'd argue that it's mostly superficial because, at her best, Luna functions not in opposition to that trope, but rather in spite of it.

The hardest thing about writing Luna is walking that line of exploring the breadth of her experiences and personality without falling into the trap of fetishising her inexperience. Not just in a sexual or romantic sense, but in other ways too. In Dawn, Luna actually has a hard time befriending Sol - and you would think making friends is easy for her because she's such a compassionate and welcoming person, but the truth is she's spent so long in this perfect Oracle persona that she has no people skills outside of that. That, in turn, is the result of a traumatic upbringing and years of brainwashing that is difficult and painful to untangle. Again, the pure virgin-ness of her is a point, but it's not the point. There's a greater cause to it, and a much greater narrative.

I was in a similar position with my last, really big years-long muse. My Baby Boy Baby, if you will. He was presented as this antagonistic presence in his source material, and did a lot of really outlandish things. He was iconic enough to be reduced to a sum of a few memorable quotes and memeable actions, which ultimately obfuscated the semi-consistent, deeply rooted personal philosophies that underlied everything he said and did which in turn, like Luna, came from an incredibly tragic series of events. I'm not saying tragedy is necessary to make a good character, or that it should be the source of everything they do, just that it's a real waste to reduce a character to a small facet of the whole when the whole is so enormous.

In Luna's case, I mostly blame Square. They just don't care what she thinks or how she feels. If you want the good stuff you really have to go out of your way, so it makes sense most casual players will never see the full potential of her as a character. Even liking her as much as I do now was an entire journey, and not one everyone should feel obligated to go on. Sometimes I see common assumptions about her like "she knew what was going to happen to Noctis and was therefore Bad, Actually" or "she just sits around all day drinking tea and braiding her hair and her only character trait is being nice which makes her Bad, Actually" or "she was a simpering mary sue who couldn't hold her own in a fight which makes her Bad, Actually" and I can't even be mad because it's hard to construct a complete person from what we see in-game. But I also think there's an inherent knee-jerk reaction to the Pure Good GirlTM to assume she must be inherently vapid and empty because media is very good at pigeon-holing women, and we are all very jaded by it. (There's also something to say about the role of a woman whose strengths are defined through mostly traditional feminine qualities and how we respond to that and why, which....it's a whole can of worms in and of itself; but I don't need to tell anyone here that both "woman are forced into showing those qualities and that's bad" and "some women naturally embody those qualities and that's fine" are two things that can coexist.)

That sort of brings me to the topic of characters who are fundamentally "nice". Nice is typically the compliment you give when you don't know what else to say about someone because it's a nothing word, and being designated the "nice character" is never a good thing. It just means there's nothing else anyone can say about them. It's hard to imagine, but in the beginning of B.uffy, Tara wasn't a well-liked character. (And, if you've been keeping up, it should come as no surprise that she's my favourite). The Gay Stuff aside, she was perceived as boring when paired alongside the rest of the women on the show. She couldn't fight, she didn't use her magic to fight very often, she just wasn't the type to be on the front lines. And for a show that was deemed progressive for the time (despite certain...creatives' involvement) on the merit of its women being able to fight for themselves better than the menfolk, she seemed to derail the message of the show. But I'd argue that characters like Tara, Luna, and a dozen others I can think of who are branded as "too nice" for their roles have another kind of strength. Tara's compassion and kindness wasn't a passive quality, but rather an active trait. She often went out of her way to be considerate and empathetic of others. Even as she came into her own and learned to set boundaries and stand up for herself, retained that compassion all the way until her final moments. As a result, she became the heart of the team. In a lot of ways, she held the team together all through season six, and when she died, everything immediately fell to shit. A bit like Luna if you think about it. She didn't even interact with most of the cast on-screen, yet her death - albeit through Noctis - destabilised the core characters and set the stage for some of the darkest moments in the game.

Of course, I really wish these characters would be centred more. They hold a special place in my heart, and they don't deserve to be killed off all the time to make way for other peoples' character development. I'd argue that, when they're put in the protagonist role with that active compassion as their driving force is when we get some of the most beautiful and poignant storytelling I've ever experienced - certain episodes of D.octor Who, G.host of T.sushima, Noct himself to a degree and the like. And no, it does not escape my notice that these and every other example I can think of off the top of my head are all men.

Anyway, I don't really have any special grand point. I'm just talking here, I think it's important not just to examine how we feel about characters that other people write, but how we feel about the ones we do write and why. And I really enjoy writing Luna. Aside from the fact that all my partners are top-tier and that makes having fun way easier, she's complicated, and motivated, and brave, and she has a rich inner world that I really enjoy engaging in, and at the end of the day she genuinely just wants to make a positive impact on others.

[notjustla]

Chaukat (“Frame”) – Dir. Umesh Bagade, 2017

Roger Ebert infused psychological insight with humanism with his thesis that “...cinema’s greatest power is its ability to create empathy.”. Faced with a piece of media, we can at least accept the challenge and ask: Does this ground empathy? The question does not need to exceed the personal. Likewise, it not necessary for a cinematic form to create empathy. If it exists, it is a rarer breed of media, reflecting a particular disposition of its creator. Most of the time, cinema squanders its opportunities to ground insight. It prefers instead to create diversions around the ruptures in our world, often exactly where empathy might unlock tensions.

This short film seems to flow from a similar ideal. The “frame” mentioned in the title is first the literal frame of the small house in India occupied by the woman who is solicited by a passing beggar. That is, a frame of technology—but at a much more receded value. By setting itself in an essentially pre-technological situation, this realist addresses the ethical problem that is so lavishly allegorized in Winans film (the narrative frame of digital media technology). The latter film however, perhaps does not discover the actual depths at which these psychological and conceptual enframings of the world arise.

There is the subtle suggestion in this film that the young woman’s fervid commitment to symbolic aspects of her faith  (candles, mantras, etc) have left her too über-absorbed in the media aspects of her religious practice to recall the Hindu mandate of holy charity. At the beginning the old man begging is revealed to be standing on the Rangoli pattern that she has freshly chalked on the ground, and she rebukes him harshly, denying his pleas for food. The performance is tremendousand poignant. And apparently, it works on the woman in the film as well. Her opening to that empathy allows her to transcend her cramped, inward cultic enframement, pull her gaze away from a little home altar (that is presented as performing the role of a TV set) and unjam the (obviously symbolic) door pane that has been stuck shut until this point.

It would be great if someone would populate the digisphere with thousands of sweet, gorgeously shot, 12-minute trans-cultural parables like this. For just 12 minutes a day we could all be 90 to 95% more empathetic and worldly.

[meanscarletdeceiver]

(I’m copying and pasting some stuff from a conversation on the Chapter 6 post with @whumpster-fire. The reason I’m doing a separate post is because WF did their research and therefore uncovered a, shall I say, “historical spoiler” in the Nobby-verse. It’s there for anyone to find, but I’m going to refrain from reblogging the conversation so that people can avoid the “spoiler” if they want to.

Though this post is also going to be mildly spoiler-y in a more general way for the series. Not, however, in a way that I think is relevant for regular readers of this blog or anyone who is up on some basic Furness Railway history.)

Oh, buddy. You are singing my song. This has occupied space in my brain for ages now, and you put words to it very well.

I've long been frustrated with the commentary on Gordon's family situation as if it were in any way uniquely awful because hello?? And while they all have massive griefs in varying ways, yes, I find something specially brutal in Edward's front-row seat for the slow but inexorable destruction, not only of his immediate family (bad enough, to be sure) but also of virtually all his first railway's fleet. Like a whole 20-year trickle of horrible news. And I also can't help but wonder... There was surely a time when picking up an assignment to Barrow was a treat, especially in the periods when Edward was getting bullied by the NWR main line—chance to see some friendly faces, catch up on the news from home... when did that change? When did the bad news become such a steady drip that he started to dread going back over-the-bridge? While undoubtedly carrying guilt even about so much as that, because in his secure position the least he can do is show up (it was the '30s in the UK; they hadn't discovered feelings yet). 

I hate to continue to be a downer in this conversation, but no, I don't.

Not through the NWR, at least... even though it is technically canon-compliant (and makes a lot of sense) for the NWR to have scooped up lots of condemned LMS engines during this era!

But my gut says that it just doesn't fit the picture on an emotional or narrative level.

Donald and Douglas's achievement in rescuing even one of their own is presented as a watershed in the cultural history of the railway. I'm inclined to believe it really was—that it opened up a new vista for the engines. Edward having done something similar decades before just kind of undercuts that for me.

Christopher Awdry pretty obviously did not think there were a lot of Furness stock on Sodor (even though it would make sense). Not that he made an explicit statement, but the whole point of the  Victoria and Edward story in TaV seems to be that they bonded over their pleasure in encountering another FR survivor. Thomas's driver didn't tell Victoria that she could look forward to meeting other FR stock on the island in general (even though, again—if he'd said that, it would have made a lot of sense!), he mentioned Edward specifically. And Edward went from a week of taking no notice of Victoria to trying to get her on his branch line within ten seconds—I'm not exaggerating—within ten seconds of discovering who she was.

It's hard to make narrative sense of why, if there was an ex-FR contingent on Sodor, Edward is the standout, the only one of the lot who is part of the famous eight. He doesn't have that strong personality to stand out of a group of his peers—he's a supporter, a lieutenant if you will. That's the role he fills among the known Sodor engines. If there was a smaller coterie that he was part of, he'd had served that role in that group. You know? But the whole tenor of canon is that he used to be very alone, and then he became indispensable to the 'famous eight' dynamic. None of that feels compatible with a 'little Furness' band on the island.

I mean, I love the big lugs, but let's just be blunt: Edward was so hard-up for friends that he got cozy with Gordon, Henry, and James. These were among his best options on the entire island. If he still had any of his original 'family', I just cannot see him caring quite that much what these idiots thought of him, not even so early as the strike, certainly not so late as the incident in 'Cows.'

In short: the dynamic I see between Edward and the rest of the NWR is that he went all-in on unstinting generosity with his second family. And this is probably due to the perspective of an engine who lost his first family completely.

So, you seem to be referring to some of my old FC1 posts, and tbh I abjure them in part, but I still maintain that there is a slightly... weird dynamic between Edward and FC1. FC1 is consistently very kind to Edward when they do interact and seems to think a lot of him. Despite this, Edward does not seem to let himself rely on that very much... at all. FC1 does not appear to have been involved in Edward proving himself fit to rejoin the fleet. Edward, despite being Mr Deputation ("it's when engines tell the Fat Controller something's wrong") doesn't do this in the Thomas situation—he just intervenes on his own. He does confide in FC1 during the strike, but only after FC1 initiates the conversation; in other situations, I am struck more by Edward's slightly painful anxiety to please and to show a happy face. And, even more relevantly to this discussion: Trevor! Edward does not appear to think for a hot minute of going to FC1 with this problem. FC1, who presumably has a country estate. FC1, who has a ton of contacts. FC1, who despite my harsh analyses in the past I will now concede has established a fair record by this point. But nah. Doesn't occur to him. If Edward had ever brought up similar concerns in the past, and FC1 had proven willing and able to help in any way, then I feel like going to FC1 would be his first move here. But he didn't.

The above bullet point also feels like a pattern that makes a lot of sense if FC1 had been unwilling and/or unable to help when the ex-FR engines were steadily condemned. Because, as you say, I can at minimum definitely see Edward proposing they borrow, lease, or buy some over these years (even if, also as you say, he might have been reluctant to push too hard). If FC1 never went this route, it just seems to fit the overall dynamic very well. It needn't have been hard-heartedness on his part: During the Great Depression all his humanitarian principle was probably well-employed just in keeping his own engines safe, without the need or ability to take on more. And Edward probably understood this. But it would have fed into the sense that he may have developed as early as the shed confinement days that, when it comes to the things that cut him the most deeply, he'd better not look to FC1 for salvation. (1952: 'Oh I'm gonna be overhauled after all? Cool. I didn't dare ask.')

This is all to say, I agree with you that Edward would have tried to get the NWR to buy some of his old colleagues. But I don't believe it happened.

That leaves the possibility that he did participate in some more 'underground' rescues after the No-Where train. This I find more plausible. Maybe the F.R. rogues sent out a couple of engines through Tidmouth or Brendam harbors—where the L.M.S. would be less likely or able to look for them!

But I would still add some cautionary words. I don't think it could have gone down more than a few times. I don't think Edward initiated any of these—if they happened it would have to be a sort of deal like my Nobby-verse where Coppernob is masterminding the plan and giving everyone marching orders—and this is because of The Twin Engines and "Saved from Scrap." The whole tenor of the latter story suggests to me that Edward never rescued anyone from death before. It's 1952, and he has to fly solo; Nobby's nowhere around, and any allies from the old days are gone too; Edward is now the Old Guy who has to be the one to Do something if anything is going to be Done. It's also interesting because, unlike Nobby, Edward is not a schemer. His approach is just to go to well-off people who have the power to directly help, and then… ask them to help. Nobby’s smokebox is breaking even as I type those words. It’s such a naive, stupid thing to do! (But… is it?)

The contrast between the two approaches is so delicious, and it does resonate so well with canon, that I am inclined to explore that. Like, I do not believe the NWR ever purchased an FR engine post-Grouping, but I can believe that Edward was appointed deputation and successfully campaigned for the NWR to repair some engines who otherwise would have been sent to Horwich, where they were as likely to be scrapped on sight as to be mended. Or, better than appointed, a self-appointed deputation. I kinda want it to be 1932 and someone, maybe even Poppet, needs a part replaced and Nobby starts spinning his overly-elaborate webs but when it comes time to tell Edward what role he’s to play he’s just like “... right, I’m not doing all that. I’m just going to ask the Fat Director—it’s not an expensive repair and I’m pretty sure he’ll say yes.”

And then there’s a long silence. Everyone in the Strand is simultaneously thinking

1) Nobby will bloody well kill us if we go back to him and say that we let some ‘Gull just completely overturn his plan by SPILLING ALL THE TEA TO A DIRECTOR

and also

2) … but this does sound sooo much easier

Yeah, I do think there is unexplored potential for major angst in the background of Douglas bringing Oliver over the bridge. I don’t think so much with Edward, as his family has been gone so long and I think he’d have the best sense of perspective as to how the situation is different for Oliver than it was for anyone else. I think it might have hit more like a brick for engines whose loss was fresher, like Gordon. And… BoCo.

Who also spent ‘68-’69 in the same position we’re talking about: His siblings are getting scrapped, right over the bridge. They must have been close-knit. They were physically close. I have no doubt BoCo was hoping that “second spot” available on Sodor in '68 could go to one of his own, and then Oliver shows up. Not that I think BoCo would begrudge Oliver, but also… yeah. It's the same pattern we’ve been discussing with Edward in the ‘30s, except this time around there is a Fat Controller actively seeking to acquire engines. And still BoCo can't help anyone.

That’s something that keeps my brain up at night.

[firelxdykatara]

ppl love to forget that katara: 1. has her own taste, 2. developed around aang, he needed her for his development and vice versa, 3. ZUTARA IS SHIP BETWEEN AN OPPRESOR X OPPRESSED!!! Ignoring all of the development they had with their respective partners and the trauma Zuko caused Katara!!

In the infamous words of one Luke Skywalker: amazing. every word of what you just said was wrong.

It’s actually kind of ironic that you bring up Katara’s taste, since, throughout the show, we have examples of the guys she likes, to greater or lesser extents in canon--Jet (explicit romantic feelings on her part, word of god that jet was her first kiss--a kiss that would have been consensual, incidentally, something you should keep in mind for later) and Haru (she denies the crush, but that could just as easily have been because of the abomination he’d been growing on his lip rather than denying those feelings ever existed), both of whom have much more in common (in terms of both emotional and physical maturity, and physical appearance) with Zuko than either of them has with Aang.

Zuko’s book 3 hairstyle is almost exactly reminiscent of Jet’s, even, if not quite as floofy.

(This is probably in part because of Jet’s function as a foil of Zuko within the narrative, particularly given their book 2 encounters, which I think just further solidifies my point that, were it not for extenuating circumstances [like the fact that Zuko was introduced as an enemy and they had significant obstacles to hurdle before they could be friends], Zuko would have been exactly Katara’s type. Had they met under different circumstances, she could have been the girl he went on a date with in Ba Sing Se. Just something to think about.)

So, yes, we’ve established that Katara has her own taste. Her tastes seem to be boys with great hair who are taller than her, the same age or older, and of a similar maturity level.

Aang falls short (heh, short) on all counts. So it isn’t Katara’s taste in boys that led her to be interested in him. Hm!

Next, you claim that Katara ‘developed around Aang’--that she was necessary for his development, and that he was necessary for hers.

Let’s take a moment to examine that, shall we?

I will absolutely grant you that Katara was necessary for Aang’s development--only to a point, of course, but we’ll get to that later--but was he really necessary for Katara‘s growth? I suppose I could grant you this on a generous technicality--he did, after all, provide her with the means to finally leave the South Pole and find a waterbending master to teach her (although she wound up largely self-taught anyway). But that had nothing to do with his relationship to Katara and everything to do with the structure of the plot--Katara and Sokka find Aang (and he never would have gotten out of that iceberg without Katara’s own righteous anger, so even that leads back to her own power), and then they go on a quest to find teachers for the Chosen One and save the world.

The story could not have begun without first finding Aang and then providing means for the other main characters to travel with him (or, in Zuko’s case, chase him), but this has nothing at all to do with Aang’s relationship to Katara. Aang was not a mover in Katara’s developmental arc--if anything, he acted as an obstacle more often than not, his actions ranging from innocent but obnoxious (playing and flirting with girls rather than helping with chores like picking up vital supplies, leaving Katara to do all of the quite literal heavy lifting and keeping her stuck in the role of caretaker that she’d been thrust into following the death of her mother), to deliberate and harmful (hiding the map to Katara and Sokka’s father, a truly selfish action, regardless of his lack of malicious intent, and one for which he never actually apologized), to somewhere in between (”she didn’t really mean that” he says to the man refusing to train Katara because she’s a girl, when yes, she very much did mean that, and Aang was no help in finally getting the old codger to eat his words--Katara had to shove them down his throat her own damn self).

While Katara’s overall arc wasn’t exactly big and dynamic (like Zuko’s redemption arc), or in-your-face (like Sokka getting force-fed Respect Women Juice and his eventual growth into a tactician and leader), it was very much present and woven into her character--and Aang had almost no part in it. He provided her with the means to get to the North Pole, but left Katara alone to fight the patriarchy herself. He messed around while Katara took it on herself to do the chores and keep the Gaang alive, but he did almost nothing to decrease that burden so she could grow out of the caretaker role. (Contrary to popular shipper claims, Aang didn’t actually teach Katara to have fun. She already knew how to have fun. But she couldn’t indulge, because she had a responsibility to her family and her tribe, and later to her brother and Aang and Toph, and Aang goofing off and trying to get her to do the same only added to her burdens rather than subtracting from them.) He provided Katara with the necessary motive to learn to heal herself, but he certainly didn’t seem to learn from the experience of accidentally burning her, preferring instead to claim he was never going to firebend again, despite already knowing, at that point, that he was going to need to master fire along with the other elements to become a fully realized Avatar and defeat the Firelord.

He didn’t help Katara keep them alive during The Desert. (In fact, he ran off, leaving her to desperately try to keep Sokka and Toph from succumbing to the heat while worrying for his safety.) In The Painted Lady, Katara makes the decision to stall the Gaang and do what she can to help the Fire Nation villagers on her own--Aang agrees to help her when he finds out, but he wasn’t actually instrumental in her making that choice. The Puppetmaster was, again, Katara finding a master of her own, and having to deal with the fallout from that. And in The Southern Raiders, Aang was--perhaps unknowingly, if I’m being generous, because he is a child and could not reasonably be expected to fully understand the implications of what he was asking her to do or why it was impossible--actively impeding Katara’s development! She desperately needed closure, something he could not understand and actively belittled and dismissed. The only reason he relented in the end (but not without a condescending ‘I forgive you! Does that give you any ideas???’ parting shot lmao) was because Katara was planning to take Appa anyway, and letting her go (and hoping she’d just magically wind up doing things his way) was easier than trying to fight her on it.

While Aang’s existence was necessary for Katara to start down her own path, she needed neither his guidance nor his approval to follow it--and absolutely nothing would change about Katara’s arc if you removed their romantic relationship entirely.

Possibly because the only changes needed to do so would be to remove the two times Aang kissed Katara without her consent (which, hopefully, no one would actually miss), and the epilogue kiss (which was awkward and unnecessary to begin with, since ending the entire show on a romantic kiss as the final shot kind of missed the point of the story to begin with, but that’s another discussion). None of these kisses (which are the only moments in which Katara’s feelings for Aang are so much as addressed; do note that addressing them, or hinting that they needed to be, is not the same as saying she exhibited any sign of reciprocating them) altered anything about Katara’s behavior, her personal arc, or (and perhaps most critically) her relationship with Aang.

It’s that last point that is really damning, as far as ‘Katara obviously had feelings for Aang, she kissed him in the finale!’ goes. Because she didn’t ‘obviously’ have feelings for him. And the fact that he kissed her before the invasion and then she forgot about it (she literally had no idea what he was talking about during the play’s intermission until he reminded her that he’d kissed her) is pretty clear evidence that she didn’t actually have feelings for him. Not the kind he had for her.

I’ve been a teenage girl. I know what it’s like to be surprise!kissed by your crush. And I absolutely for a full fact know that I had not completely forgotten about that kiss three months later and had, in fact, spent most of my waking hours thinking about it and remembering it and trying to talk to him about it. Now, granted, I was not in the middle of a war, but even if I had been, I doubt I would have needed reminding about the fact that the boy I’ve supposedly been developing feelings for had kissed me and showed clearly that he had those feelings for me too.

At the very least, if Katara was harboring feelings that she was worried about approaching until after the war, her relationship dynamic with Aang should have shifted. But it didn’t. She acted the exact same way with him after the Day of Black Sun as she did before it--that is, as a mother figure and a caretaker, responsible for his wellbeing. (And it’s clear she never took him down off the pedestal she needed him to occupy, either--let it not be said that the unhealthy aspects of their relationship only went one way.)

And book 3 is, incidentally, where Katara went from being vital to Aang’s development to being detrimental to it--or, rather, Aang’s refusal to let go of his attachment to her (despite ostensibly having done as much at the end of book 2) was. Because despite having been told by, perhaps, the greatest authority left in the world on Air Nomad culture (even more than Aang, who had left his temple with a child’s understanding of his culture that was never able to mature because he got stuck in the ice berg while his people were wiped out) that he had to let go of his possessive attachment to this girl who never even expressed the possibility that she might harbor romantic feelings for him to begin with, after Azula killed him and Katara brought him back, he went right back into the mindset of Katara is mine, it’s just a matter of time.

And the narrative validated him for it.

Notice how, during Ember Island Players, Aang says the following (emphasis mine):

“We kissed at the invasion, and I thought we were gonna be together. But we’re not.”

First of all, if you go back and watch the scene, it’s clear it wasn’t a mutual kiss. Aang sprang a surprise kiss on Katara, which left her shocked and unhappy after he flew off. (The decision to have her looking away and frowning was a deliberate one on the part of Bryke, who wanted Katara’s feelings kept ambiguous. Heaven forbid you allow the animators to make it clear that this fourteen-year-old girl who was just kissed without her consent by someone she’d never once demonstrated romantic feelings toward might actually have some. Heaven forbid she have a little agency in her own romantic narrative. But whatever.)

Second, he says he thought they were gonna be together.

He thought.

He never once even asked Katara what she thought--or even how she felt. He just assumes. He assumes that if he kisses her, she’ll kiss him back and they’ll get together. He assumes that she must have feelings for him, even though her body language is closed off and she told him with her words that she did not want to talk or think about this right now, and kisses her regardless of those signals, upsetting her and leading her to storm off.

And the narrative rewards him, because despite the fact that they don’t have a single significant scene together after that second disastrous kiss, Katara just decides off-screen that she Does Love Him Really and walks onto the balcony to make out with him.

The upshot of all this being that, while Katara was indeed instrumental to a lot of Aang’s early growth and development, Aang was not necessary for her own arc, and their romantic relationship (such as it was) actively hampered Aang’s development in book 3, while removing it would change absolutely nothing for Katara (except saving her from some painfully embarrassing memories).

As far as your third point, I’m simply not going to get baited into explaining how reducing Zutara to an ‘oppressor/oppressed’ relationship is not only insulting to interracial couples irl (not to mention any other couple with a potentially unbalanced dynamic of societal power, since there are many more axis of oppression than just racial), but demeaning to Zuko and Katara, their personal arcs as well as their relationship development together.

However, I will point out that Zuko was not responsible for any of Katara’s trauma. She did not find violence and fighting in bending battles to be traumatic--in fact, she reveled in it. She enjoyed fighting against Zuko at multiple points (especially noticeable in their battle at the end of book 1), because she wanted to fight--she always had--and once she had the ability, she was ready to throw down with anyone who gave her the slightest reason. (Including, by the way, her own potential waterbending master.) Aang’s death at the end of book 2 was Azula’s doing, and while I think that contributed to Katara’s extreme reaction to Zuko joining the gaang, it was not something for which she actively blamed him, and it wasn’t something she believed would be repeated--she let him go off alone on a journey to find the original firebending masters with Aang well before she chose to forgive him. So she already trusted Zuko’s intentions and that Aang would be safe with him.

Finally, because this has gotten long enough already, I hope you now understand that Zuko and Katara getting together would not require ignoring any of their development with their canonical romantic partners. We’ve already established that Katara’s arc wouldn’t change in the slightest if all of Aang’s romantic advances were removed, and I haven’t even gotten into how Mai meant nothing in the grand scheme of Zuko’s development because I’m pretty sure that’s just self-evident. I mean, the video compilation put together by Nick showcasing Zuko’s journey throughout the series doesn’t include a single scene with Mai, though it does include several with Katara, and even Jin makes an appearance--because Katara, and even Jin, played key roles in Zuko’s personal journey, while his relationship with Mai happened entirely off-screen and her only real function was to showcase just how unhealthy trying to force himself back into the role of the Crown Prince was for him.

What development, exactly, is there between them to even ignore?

At any rate, I’ve gone on long enough--I hope you enjoy the fact that you activated my wordvomit trap card right when i was about to go to bed, anon, because I just spent two hours writing this instead. In case you’re interested in the TL;DR: at the end of the day, there was no meaningful, mutual development in Kataang’s romantic relationship, and those romantic feelings that did exist were largely one-sided and ultimately detrimental to Aang’s development in the final third of his overall arc. Meanwhile, Mai meant nothing to Zuko’s journey--rather like Aang’s romantic overtures, she could be removed from the show completely and nothing about his story would change--while Zuko and Katara were both vital to each other’s overall storylines, arcs and development. This, coupled with the fact that Zuko never actually traumatized Katara and, in fact, helped her achieve closure from the biggest source of her own trauma, means that Zuko and Katara have better and more believable build up that could potentially lead to a romantic relationship than either of them have with their canon romantic partners.

So no, anon, I didn’t forget anything--I think you may have, though. Perhaps a rewatch is in order? Make sure not to close your eyes for the back half of book 3 this time.

[variousqueerthings]

okay, okay I really wish I was better at archiving fun stuff people have written/analysed on here about cobra kai (there’s that one really great blog that gathered some of the intertextuality we’ve all been throwing out there, which is A Gift) 

anyway, I was just listening to a deep dive on nightmare on elmstr 2: freddy’s revenge that spoke about the well-known fact that it is both queer and also homophobic in its conception (the writer and director throwing lead actor Mark Patton under the bus and also in some of the mixed messaging of the content because the writer and director had no idea what they were doing), but specifically that a lot of fans of the franchise really hate it, specifically because of that undeniable queerness 

and obviously the main main thing is that Jesse is a final boy in a time before you saw a lot of those. You still don’t really see them often and they’re generally not quiiite as conceptualised as Final Girl The Trope. In comparison 80s characters like Andy from Child’s Play is quite young, at least at first (and in the third one, which also has a bit of queercoding in the form of hazing, he’s in the military, but the Child’s Play franchise is a whooole other discussion of queerness in horror), and Ash Williams from Evil Dead is much more “masculine” on the surface, especially in the sequels (I say surface because... we know what we’re about when we read him how we read him, but Surface Enough, like, say Johnny Lawrence’s Surface Masculinity - also another discussion, but they’re very *handshake meme*)

and I was thinking about the comparison between Nightmare on Elmstr 2 and The Karate Kid 3 - both kind of directionless sequels that made a lot of viewers Uncomfortable upon initial watch, both featuring a lead character that a particular kind of demographic (cis straight men) deemed “not masculine enough” because of their role within the narrative, both to a greater or lesser extent claimed by a queer audience (I don’t know how widespread this is for tkk3, but I feel like most people who sincerely like it are queer - unsubstantiated claim! Maybe I should say “most people who sincerely like Daniel LaRusso in that film seem to be queer”)

to go back to the “not masculine enough because of their role within the narrative” though, it’s fascinating that people on this site have compared Daniel to a final girl, a fairytale heroine, etc. Jesse and Daniel occupy a similar narrative role

In both films they don’t get to save themselves, which is the real “crime” they both commit against masculinity. There’s a certain amount of saving a man is allowed to need (stoically), but at some point he’s gotta man up and take control of the narrative!!! Because He’s A Man!!!! And they were both already on thin ice, due to Jesse being heavily coded as gay and Daniel not being as muscular as his antagonists and treating women nicely I guess (AnD He’S THe ReAl viLlaIn)

Anyway, this isn’t coherent, maybe at some point there will be something with proper words, mainly what I’m saying is I’d love to gather all those analyses, and something about the inherent discomfort that cis straight men feel about stories where the male protagonist doesn’t man up, that they either directly or subconsciously read as signs that it’s too queer for them and it’s that queerness that makes them hate it 

which is both queerphobic and kind of a weird endorsement for a queer read, you know? if the straights are uncomfortable, there’s definitely something to it

[selchwife]

the difficult thing is like. i already have a pretty strong image in my head of my da:i insert, but it’s...well im just going to rant for a very long time

in a lot of ways he’s similar to pfeil, because narratively it made sense to me for them to occupy similar roles and have similar mindsets and that just happened naturally. so he’s sort of the “reluctant hero,” someone who received this important power at random and rightfully feels he’s not qualified for what is asked of him, but does it despite his misgivings because there is no one else physically capable and thus it’s his responsibility. because he grew up largely outcast from the society and world he’s tasked with saving, he’s somewhat resentful of the position and the way people treat him, both in ways it’s changed and in ways it hasn’t. and since a sort of christianity clone is the focus in this particular dragon age game, that’s also steeped in complicated feelings about being the appointed representative of a religion he has very bitter angry feelings about totally against his will or express wishes. 

he bonds well with other bitter people and outcasts, and his closest (really his ONLY) relationships from his youth are varric (who sort of picks these people up by virtue of being varric ig) and Literally Just A Demon, because he’s like, one of those people in the setting who is genuinely both open-minded and lonely enough to happily treat a being from the fade the same as he would anyone else. and ofc because on some level he feels a connection there in being, like, “not really a part of the world,” or like, “people are afraid of spirits and reject them, i know how that feels, so i won’t be like that.” 

which unfortunately wrt spirits is kind of a dangerous mindset in this setting but in practice i imagine this is one of those weird similarities he has to solas where they come at it from completely different perspectives, like he’s also unconventional but not in the highly sophisticated and like tradition-based way solas is. solas is like “of course spirits are people i’m going to explain the concept of personhood to you on a philosophical level” and da lestat is like “of course spirits are people my friend vengeance and i used to play stupid pranks on the city guard when i was a kid all the time it was sooo dangerous lol.”

despite all that, he’s also a character who can be kind of painfully naive and optimistic, in a way where he KNOWS he’s holding out hope for something unlikely or deliberately reading better intentions into someone than exist or that he’s taking a dangerous gamble with someone who is potentially capable of massive harm (like vengeance). it’s not that he’s STUPID so much as that he wants these sorts of things to be possible and true and operates under the firm conviction that they could never be unless he actively treats them as possibilities and kind of creates or inspires that change with his behavior. ESPECIALLY this is his attitude with vengeance, who he knew since childhood and does not believe is fundamentally beyond hope even though he can never go back to being compassion.

so that’s like, Obviously i have a lot of thoughts about this guy. and i don’t necessarily think the other characters lack that kind of nuance or whatever, i just feel like ingame it’s so hard to pull out of them, and the actual fucking plot absolutely leaves so much to be desired, like...i don’t know how i’m supposed to bounce any of this against the fundamentally stupid main story that is “a big scary man from nowhere tries to take over the world for no reason except that he’s crazy and you stop him and also he was only a competent threat for about 15 minutes.” 

and like, there are Moments! the winter palace is my favorite because it really emphasizes to me that huuuuge disparity between who he feels fits the role he’s been thrust into and who he is, because who he is is kind of a shiftless criminal youth who prior to circumstantial heroism had no prospects and whose “broader ambitions” were still extremely limited in scope. he’s totally nobody. they picked this guy up off the ground. the only reason anyone outside the inner circle takes him seriously in the first place is because he’s pretending to be a circle mage noble who was supposed to be at the conclave.

idk i just have a lot of thoughts about my guy and i wish i felt like there was more to integrate him into? maybe i just need to replay the game. i think part of the problem is that the PC in inquisition feels so terribly bland and that limits the interactions you have with the characters; it would probably be fun to go back and dissect like, who is or isn’t aware of his true identity and why, and how they feel about it if they know or find out.