#you have to look at the doylist explanation to understand the canon here

[dreamwreaver]

I agree with everything you said in your response to that ask. It's obvious Chaggie wasn't something she was always going for. What confuses me is her mindset of, well now that it's canon, I don't have to put in any work for this ship. Excuse me? What? Has Viv never shipped before. That's not how canon works. You have to make ppl care about the ship and she or the writers haven't done that. How is Chaggie good enough to become canon because of some fanart but not good enough for you to flesh out their relationship for ppl to care about? That's dumb as hell. For all that, she should've had them stay platonic. I'm not even a Chaggie shipper but the fact that the creator of this ship doesn't even care about them is disgusting. Nobody told her to make them happen. She did that herself.

Let's be honest, she's likely been on the internet long enough to know what shipping is, explaining her more cavalier attitude on fans shipping which used to be the norm. Her "ship what you want but don't be a dick to other people" attitude is precisely what old fandom used to be like before the influx of what I can only describe as normies decided they wanted to be a part of fandom.

See, the thing about the old internet (and by that I mean before the rise of mainstream social media platforms like Facebook, insta, Twitter, etc.) the internet by and large was by nerds for nerds. We kept the shit we liked online to ourselves irl and we definitely didn't talk directly to creators because it was understood that there was an invisible line we knew not to cross. You didn't harass actors or writers trying to get what you want. But the rise of mainstream meant the rise of accessibility to creators, and the trolls morphed into something much worse.

Look up the fiasco with Alex Brightman during the height of Beetlejuice on Broadway. The poor man was stalked, harassed, and asked over and over again if he condoned Beetlebabes, a ship which had kept that fandom alive for well over 30 years. Until he eventually released a statement so carefully combed over by PR experts only the people who lack media literacy took it at face value. It didn't reflect any previous attitudes he had on anything, and moreover it doesn't align with his current views considering the projects he's actively working on. In reality I don't think the man really gives a shit what people ship he was just sick of the harassment and likely worried that public outcries of him being a pedophile because of a fictional ship because he didn't actively condemn it and call for the harassment of people who did like it would ruin his career.

I have several friends who have come to hazbin from Beetlejuice, and many of them have met him pre pandemic. All of them say he's a lovely and sweet man with a good sense of humor. But imagine going through all he went through for over a year. Viv, and I hate to say it, went through something similar. I was pissed to find out toxic charlastor shippers on Twitter were harassing her to make it canon. So if that ship squicks her out now? I honestly don't blame her. Things are even more sticky with wlw or any gay relationships where you legitimately aren't allowed to portray them as complex or problematic. One thing I've noticed in particular is that male and straight ships are allowed to be as grossly sexualized as anything but women (or femme identified characters) cannot.

Look at all the chaggie art, not a single sexual thing. Even their official pinup stuff is fairly tame. Look at the Vees, despite the fact that velvette is an adult woman who died and is dating... Valentino I think? All the fandom sees is two gay dads and their uwu not sexually active daughter. Same with radioapple come to think of it, Charlie becomes a fully non sexual, almost Madonna figure in relation to the overt sexual nature of the gay ships. I'm guessing some of that still internalized homophobia and kink phobia coupled with sexist attitudes of what women can and cannot be interested in. Lesbian ships cannot be interested in sex, they must be pure and good. Meanwhile there's no end to overtly sexual art of the gay ships across the hellaverse. And the fans get rabid when any female ship isn't innately good and pure.

Another real world example; people flipped their shit when catradora became explicitly canon at the end of the she ra reboot. Because catra had gone through a corruption arc before a redemption one and therefore was forever culpable for the crimes she committed when in an obvious downward mental spiral after a life raised under an abusive mother figure and being abandoned by the person closest to her, and the major brainwashing of the Horde, but we don't have time to unpack all that. Ironic that in a show all about second chances and becoming better than the person you were these attitudes are still pervasive and ugly huh?

To a certain extent I think Viv has been on the internet long enough that she's seen what happens to creators who don't "perfectly" encapsulate a gay romance. Which means that it's unique while also being applicable to everyone. Totally an achievable standard right? (Insert sarcastic eye roll here). For her, I think making chaggie as boring in canon as possible was probably the safest move she could think of. I will critique it from a writing standpoint but overall it was the smartest choice to avoid backlash. I still prefer Vaggie/Emily and charlastor because it's two vastly most interesting dynamics, but I get why the writers might have been wary.

Sorry for the rant but unfortunately the depiction of chaggie wasn't created solely in a vacuum and there's a lot of cross fandom history context that needed to be brought up to explain why chaggie is the animated tofu of hazbin hotel ships.

[ninadove]

Hi Nina! Why transmask Felix and not transfem? Or you are fine with transfem too?

Hi Anon! Hope you’re having a wonderful day! 💖

I do like transfem Felix! In fact, I originally leaned more towards this option. The Senti-lore is extremely queer by nature, and I think it’s wonderful so many people can see themselves in the kids.

Really, it comes down to personal interpretation. Some notes below:

1. Colt Fathom is a massive douchebag.

Nothing groundbreaking here. We been knew. At first glance, you’d assume he would want a male heir for Toxic Masculinity Reasons™; but I think he would prefer a daughter, also for Toxic Masculinity Reasons™.

Colt is the kind of person who wants to elevate his own status in the world, and the solution he resorted to is marriage. This kind of alliances is frequent in the spheres he navigates, as seen in S5 with the Adrigami plot: as such, he would likely see his child not as an heir, like the GDV lineage would, but rather as something he could trade for even more power. A daughter of noble pedigree and born into considerable wealth would undoubtedly be a catch, and give him a leg up in his race against other rich jerks.

Additionally, we’ve seen how he acts around Felix — how he perceives him as a threat and a reminder of his own mortality. Peacock curse or not, asking for a son would have forced him to face the prospect of eventually being overpowered by his own progeniture every single day; but a little girl? Surely, there’s no threat there, right?

2. Felix’s first appearance gives us lots to think about.

Firstly, when it comes to Adrien’s reaction. When Amelie explains that she decided to drop by “so [they] could all be together” on the anniversary of Emilie’s fridging, this is the (adorable) face he makes:

Because he understands! If his aunt is here, surely his cousin must be here too. “All together” means all together.

Yet, when Felix actually appears, draped in dramatic lighting like the theatre kid he is, Adrien still looks strangely surprised:

Which Amelie immediately follows up by highlighting that they look “just like twins”. The characters should not need this comment — they were here the whole time the kids were growing up! Of course, there’s a doylist explanation to this line: we, the public, must understand that Identity Shenanigans Will Ensue (and they did). But what could this mean in-world?

I propose that the cousins did not always look exactly like each other — that they were perfect twins as young kids, but became more and more different as time went by. Perhaps one developed more feminine features, while the other grew up to look more masculine. If the Agrestes did not witness the early stages of Felix’s transition (probably started right after Colt’s death, so only a few months before canon), it makes sense they would be taken aback by the newly recovered resemblance between the kids.

And, of course, it adds some depth to the Identity Shenanigans. Especially if you read Adrien as genderqueer or transfem.

3. Felix exhibits stereotypically masculine behaviours every chance he gets.

This goes from wearing what is basically the Official Rich Boy Uniform (waistcoat, tie, black and white palette):

To certain mannerisms, like putting his feet on Gabriel’s desk to assert dominance against the guy who could literally snap him out of existence:

To the way he perceives himself: a cursed prince from a twisted fairytale, who systematically places himself in the role of the protector (even if it’s not always appreciated by the people in his life).

To me, this sliiightly over-the-top behaviour is very reminiscent of a child who just figured out something huge about their identity and is exploring it to the fullest — to find out what it truly means to them, and which aspects they want to incorporate into their life.

Which leads me to the most important point:

4. The Peacock Miraculous! 💜🦚

Deeply associated with Felix’s reclamation of his safety, freedom and bodily autonomy. And when we think about peacocks, what do we think about?

Colourful feathers. Panache. Ostentation (this is literally what groups of peafowls are called). A conception of masculinity that is different from social standards in most of the Western world, but is there and bold and unapologetic.

We don’t get to see Felix using the brooch for the first time — even his mum, who he trusts with everything, is absent. He needs this privacy to come to terms with his powers and make them his.

But then, when we do get to see him transform — everybody else witnesses it too. Felix goes from hiding behind Adrien’s face, ergo disguising as someone he is not, to revealing his identity to both the audience and the entirety of Paris.

This is Argos embracing who he truly is, even if the world might call him monstrous.

And finally, one more point:

5. Why would Tomoe prefer a model over a quasi-prince as a potential match for her daughter?

I get it — she has a partnership going on with Gabriel. But the woman is leagues smarter than him (What? Like it’s hard?) and could most likely find another way to turn the world into her own little dystopian dream, should she want to. Not to mention, even if Adrien is a catch by most people’s standards, he is still the bane of the GDV lineage.

Felix is the heir. Felix is just as wealthy, if not wealthier than the Agrestes. Felix is the best at everything he does (chess, horse-riding, karate) and as such should be a perfect fit for Kagami, even by Tomoe’s insanely high standards.

Yet, she keeps referring to him as this corrupting influence: not because he is a supervillain (she hangs out with them on the regular), but because he might whisper dangerous ideas about ✨ freedom ✨ and ✨ bodily autonomy ✨ in her sweet daughter’s ear while they make out dressed as Adrien’s parents. We know how important femininity is to the Tsurugi lineage: Duusu forbid this monster talks Kagami into rejecting it in any form.

So, there you have it, Anon. I’m sure there’s a lot of evidence to support other interpretations, but this is the one that resonates most with my brain! 💜🦚🏳️‍⚧️

Can’t believe I almost forgot:

“Felix” literally means happiness and luck: a weird choice from Colt, and it’s unlikely Amelie had any say in the matter. So when Argos says:

“Isn’t it great? We have everything we need to be happy!”

It very much sounds like his first name could be a conscious reclamation on his end!

[eisenartworks]

I've already told some of these before to @gofancyninjaworld in asks I've sent them, but I'll make a post abt some stuff I noticed

Slight differences in Tatsumaki's past

We all already know on just how different and far more unreasonable and I daresay straight up abusive Tatsumaki is in the webcomic, but tbh back then, I wasn't sure what caused it.

For a Doylist explanation, ONE needs Tatsumaki to not be so fatally flawed, bc to be fair, if we put wc Tatsumaki in manga Tatsumaki's situation, SHE WOULD FUCKING DIE. Wc Tatsumaki got lucky, but if she herself were to face Psykorochi and the eventual enemies, that sort of mentality would not give Tatsumaki the help she eventually needed. And not surprisingly, most of the problems the heroes faced in the wc MA arc can be traced back to ding ding ding! Tatsumaki!

For a Watsonian explanation... It took me a reread.

Webcomic Blast is... questionable, to say it generously. He's certainly no ideal hero manga Blast is, and that I do think would surely explain its bleaker world. But it certainly also explains why Tatsumaki is so cruel. Her meeting with Blast was brief, and harsh. He saved her life, but there's not an ounce of kindness there.

but the manga -

... They all lead up to the same advise, but god, look at the difference. Not only does Blast makes sure to let Tatsumaki out, Blast guessing Tatsumaki's reasons allowed her to open up to him, reminding her that she was wanted and needed by someone, he also made sure to give her kindly advise on top of the iconic one: Protect your family.

And to Tatsumaki, I do think that makes all the difference.

The two Saitama's costumes are extremely likely to not be the same

Yeah, I admit this also took a reread, so when I came upon this panel, you must understand I was pretty boggled. That would certainly explain why it looks... Like that. It's a genuinely a cheap costume. Heck, I have a feeling Saitama actually just buys another identical looking but different colored costume whenever he damages his. Maybe that's why whenever ONE colors wc Saitama, the suit color differs. This chapter I'm pretty sure was posted AFTER the The Road to Hero OVA, so I do think the change is intentional.

Manga Saitama on the other hand, has insistently kept going wearing the same costume and continuously repairs it whenever it got damaged or dirtied. There's just not doubt Saitama greatly values his costume, and takes pride in it bc it means he's a hero. Even tried entering it in a hero costume contest once and got its leather waxed. In fact he values it so much that he does subtly bend reality around it in that despite tanking attacks that would disintegrate its normal cloth (or literally any matter tbh), it still somehow gets away with dirt at best and a few rips at worst. It's also why when he lost utter faith in his own heroism, is when the suit gets genuinely destroyed except for the glove holding the core. Why though?

Probably because to some extent, the OVAs are canon. ONE did write some of them, or at least approved of them. This panel certainly helps reinforce that, considering it didn't happen in the manga, but in the anime:

That explains why manga Saitama's suit is a bit more quality and actually has good colors - it was made by someone who cared and believed in Saitama.

Webcomic Saitama's mysterious past

I really enjoyed reading the sidechapters in the manga, esp in the earlier chapters. They're pretty charming, some of it was actually a little sad. We get to know a whole lot more abt the characters and their different sides, Saitama especially, a bit of worldbuilding and a moral lesson here and there. Even some additional buildup/insight to some friendships/relationships. It's pretty interesting to see Saitama's past and see how it parallels some characters, Garou being the? Closest? Most poignant? ONE did intend that they're the antis of each other.

What I didn't realize until rereading the webcomic a few times is that we don't know anything about Saitama. At all.

the webcomic to me seems to operate strictly on the rule: if you never read it in the webcomic, it never happened in the webcomic. Opm has no shortage of mysterious characters. Drive Knight is def the one I first would think of. Webcomic Saitama isn't one I'd expect despite being. Well, literally obvious. We don't know anything about him. He hasn't said a word about his past. it's unimportant to the overall story I guess, but still. It's weird. We actually know a bit more abt wc Drive Knight's past than we do wc Saitama's. wc Saitama and manga Saitama may not even have the same backstory except for encountering Crablante and becoming a hero. If it isn't the same... That would certainly explain why they seem to have a different characteristic despite the fundamentals being the same. manga Saitama overall seems to be kinder, and more empathetic. Heck he's even pretty soft to kids, and the manga makes sure to show that over and over. Wc Saitama has never shown if he's nice or even likes kids.

Webcomic Sweet mask never met Blast. Manga Sweet Mask did.

Webcomic SM has this to say abt Blast:

... But manga SM has this:

how this changes SM, we are yet to know. I had to point this out bc I haven't seen anyone point this out, so I had to make sure.

Thnx for reading I have no idea where I am going w this

[laundrybiscuits]

Do you think Eddie was flagging in the show?

If this approaches discourse, I'll understand if you choose not to respond.

This is kind of a multi-layered question, but I think it’s worth talking about in the context of broader approaches to fandom.

I haven’t seen these terms used for a while, but fans used to talk about “Watsonian” and “Doylist” explanations as a good shorthand for “in-universe logic/rationale” and “out-of-universe motivations.” For example, the Watsonian (as in what John Watson might think) explanation for a villain monologue might be that the character wanted to prolong his moment of victory because he wasn’t ready to let the feud go. The Doylist (as in what Arthur Conan Doyle might think) explanation might be that the author needed to pad out the wordcount. 

The important part is that neither of those lenses is wrong. They’re just different ways of looking at a text. 

Word of God (i.e. what the creators say about a work in interviews etc.) is not the same as canon, and canon is not sacred. It’s just what’s on the screen or page.

I’m going to be a little self-indulgent here and bring in some Death of the Author by Roland Barthes, because I literally have a page of quotes stored on my tumblr. Admittedly, the translation I have is a little dense, but I think I’ve pulled out the key points. (Also, caveat that this is not the only valid way to do lit crit, but I think it can be very helpful in fandom.)

“The text is a tissue of citations, resulting from the thousand sources of culture.” 

I think about this all the time in regard to fandom, because it reminds me that texts don’t spring fully-formed from some ethereal plane. The cultural and literary references you grew up with, as well as the ones you continue to consume, feed directly into whatever you produce as a creator. That’s why my number one tip for young creatives who want to improve is to be intentional about the media they consume*. That’s where inspiration comes from: just tip more material into the slurry of your subconscious, and see what alchemized new thing bubbles to the surface. 

That also means that as critical readers, we can always try to see connections and patterns, regardless of Word of God. However, it’s important to remember that those connections and patterns are not necessarily lodged within the text itself…and that brings me to my next quote.

“The unity of a text is not in its origin, it is in its destination.” 

It’s rarely useful or interesting, in the context of fandom, to treat a text as an artifact to be excavated. It’s much more relevant and functional to ask what you as an individual get from the text—what your own relationship is to the themes, motifs, ideas, messages you’ve gleaned from your experience of reading/watching. Every reader has a different relationship to the text, because every reader is a different person with a different history. 

The difference between fandom and Extended Universe-type stuff isn’t just licensing. Frankly, I personally would find that a pretty boring fandom experience, if absolutely everything were strictly canon-compliant and cross-referenced. Fandom is transformative, which means it interprets and reinterprets texts as a form of consumption/creation, and that necessarily means a willingness to discard anything that doesn’t suit whatever story we’re trying to tell. 

In other words, Eddie doesn’t have a canon sexuality. Hell, very few characters in general do. As I mentioned in the first footnote to my last reply, it’s useful to think about sexuality as behavior + identity + desire; we often see behavior on screen, but we rarely see the other two in an explicit way. We can read him as flirting with Steve, we can read him as flirting with Chrissy, or both, or neither. That’s how fandom works. 

So, do I think Eddie was flagging in the show?

Let’s break that question down into a few different aspects.

Doylist: do I personally believe that the various people involved in the show deliberately intended Eddie to flag as a(n implicitly MSM) sado top? 

No. I don’t. Honestly, I simply don’t trust them that much. I don’t think they had queerness explicitly in mind when they created Eddie, but that doesn’t change the fact that he is queer-coded, much like a Disney villain. He represents anxieties about nonconformity and morality—of course he’s going to resonate with queer people. 

Ultimately, though, I don't really care about this particular creative team's intent. It's not interesting to me. There are so many shows that I enjoy more than ST for their artistic choices, and I'm interested in hearing the intent behind those, but specifically what I personally enjoy about ST is the stories its components let other people tell.

Watsonian (1): do I personally believe it’s within Eddie’s canon characterization to be flagging? 

It’s not impossible. It’s also not impossible that he’s just aping more generic metal accessories. Personally, I think it’s somewhat unlikely that at 19-20, living in the middle of nowhere and with the various plates he’s spinning, Eddie’s had enough exposure to kink to be really confident and knowledgeable about flagging. But I’ve also heard some pretty wild stories about small town gays back in the day, so I’m willing to be convinced either way.

Watsonian (2): do I personally believe it’s within Eddie’s canon characterization to be a sado top?

This is venturing into some even trickier waters, but my answer’s very similar to the last question—it’s not impossible. You don’t need to be a particular kind of person to be a top/bottom/dom/sub, no matter what the old fandom flamewars may have claimed. (Being in my early teens and witnessing the SasuNaru vs NaruSasu discourse was not a good way to learn about this.) Different parts of the same experience can resonate with people for different reasons, and there’s more than enough wiggle room to interpret literally any character in any way. 

(I will say that people who actively seek out DMing tend to enjoy controlling a scene to evoke particular emotional responses from players, and that's the angle I find most plausible for Eddie.)

I am personally agnostic on the matter of Eddie’s sexual preferences. As a reader, it’s most important to me that those preferences are coherent with the rest of the characterization within the fic. As a writer, I tend to characterize him as pretty switchy for the same reason I tend to characterize him as gay and into mythology: I am just projecting onto a blorbo.

That’s all any of this really is. 

*On a practical level: I often suggest to young creatives that they make a habit of identifying at least one thing they like AND at least one thing they don’t like about art, whatever form that art comes in. It builds critical faculties by making sure you actually digest the art you're consuming, and it’s also a good reminder that even the worst piece of dreck (probably) has something worth learning from—and even the most sublime masterpiece has flaws.

[number1villainstan]

AtLA Analysis Rewatch: S1E8: Winter Solstice Part 2, Avatar Roku

Intro: I've given up on trying to do this specific episode, at least, all in one day. I'll probably lose some of the overarching plot stuff this way but at least I'll actually do it.

Lot of spiritual, Avatar-specific stuff in the Previously section--talking about the Avatar's past lives, and how to connect with them. Also some crucial details about Crescent Island. Perfectly natural for this episode. I expect to pick out a lot of details about the Fire Sages and religion. (Did you know that Agni is a fanon deity, not a canon one?)

Opening scene is Aang trying to drag Appa into flying, without Sokka or Katara. Stubbornness and a sense of protectiveness over his friends; but also, in the same breath, a feeling of invincibility. Although he considers the possibility of his friends dying, he doesn't seem to understand that he could also die. Katara's line "The world can't afford to lose you to the Fire Nation. Neither can I." might foreshadow their later romance, but it also might be taken as purely platonic here.

Mayor (?) guy from last episode says that it's a "long journey to Crescent Island." a) How does he know that? b) How fast can Appa fly? c) How tiring would the journey be for Appa? The geography/pacing of these episodes are weird. Speed of plot and all. I also wonder exactly what's in the pack Mayor gives Aang, and why it's got a stick on top. What fabric is it using and where did they get it from? Is it just big leaves? But where did they get the leaves? Why is it tied like that?

Why was Zuko just...waiting outside Mayor guy's house? Why did he think shoving him back inside would be a good idea?? Also, he jumped straight from "Having trouble sleeping?" to "Seen the Avatar lately?" That's hardly impactful dialogue. Your mother would be so disappointed that you can't even think up proper villainous dialogue. ...Also, naked Iroh riding a Komodo rhino to the side. I had to go back to last episode's analysis to remember the context of that. :P Zuko's shove, I noticed, looks similar to a firebending move, with him drawing his arms back and placing his hands so that the palms face the 'opponent' (using that word pretty loosely here) and the fingers point up and down. Firebending training showing up here?

The sun seems to rise real quick in the Avatar world. Much quicker than in our own. It also seems to come with an already day-blue sky, rather than the red/orange/pink colors that come with sunrises and sunsets in our world. ...yet another case of astronomical inaccuracy.

Iroh actually gets mad at Zuko for daring to sail in FN waters--enough to raise his voice to a yell when he reminds Zuko that "the Fire Lord" banished him. Why is Iroh talking about his brother so impersonally? (I know why, but that's the Doylist explanation. I want the in-universe one, the Watsonian one.) I also believe that this is the first time in the series that someone has said that Zuko was outright banished, and not just dishonored. Right after Iroh yells, he softens his voice and indirectly asks about Zuko's welfare--"What if you're caught?" Zuko says he has no choice (he does, he could plan/strategize and try to predict where the Gaang would exit FN waters without actually entering them, this is just his impulsivity) and that his father will understand. (Zuko, you poor naive little boy.) (Iroh agrees with me here in this scene.) Iroh also refers to Ozai as 'my brother,' and I can't remember if this is another first time or not.

Fire Lord Ozai casts a large shadow over these two characters, even as he hasn't shown up in the show yet in any real capacity, not even as the shadowy figure of the Big Bad Villain. (I checked the wiki; apparently his first appearance is in this episode.) He casts a large shadow on the whole show. But we don't get a lot of canon characterization for him beyond Big Bad Villain, and what we do get we have to infer and debate based on tiny scenes and scraps.

So, Zuko is at the telescope himself during this talk, trying to look for the Avatar. Lack of trust in his crew? Self-initiative? A combo of both, probably, knowing both Zuko's bull-in-a-china-shop character and his royal (classist) upbringing.

So, the flaming ammo for that catapult. And the catapult itself. Are all FN ships outfitted with one? It came up from under the deck--where is it stored? How is it maintained? Who maintains it? Also, for the ammo--we know that the gray flammable gunk smells bad, thanks to Iroh (does he not know how this works, with his preference for 'something more fragrant'?) and we know that the brown fabric-tied stuff underneath is also flammable, but what's in the bundle? And what's the gray gunk supposed to be, oil or something? (Also, on another note, what sort of cultural details can we glean from Iroh using a fan, even a plain red one? I thought that was a feminine thing in Japanese or Chinese cultures, although I may be wrong.

It looks like the smell/fumes of that 'hot stinker,' as Katara calls it, are also a part of the attack. I wonder if the Gaang's eyes are watering?

What's up with the blockade? Why there? Is it specifically around Crescent Island? How much manpower is it using? I wonder what life is like for the soldiers on that blockade.

So, both the Gaang and Zuko decide to run the blockade. How late in the day is it? How far away is Crescent Island? How long would that detour to the North have taken?

And Zhao's back, in all his oily, awful glory. What is he doing on/at the blockade, though? The captain(?) he's talking to is concerned about Zuko's ship, although he doesn't seem to realize that it's Zuko's. Also, why is Zhao calling Zuko a traitor? Is it because he's about to run a FN blockade, or does it relate to The Scar Backstory? (What even was the official public explanation for that? Who even knows about that?? What kind of gossip is going around about Zuko while he's gone?)

(Okay, going to go through the blockade scene and then stop for the night.)

Zhao's ships, which look to be the blockade itself (again, what is he doing there? Inspections? Trying to guess where Aang's going? Does he know about the solstice and Avatar cycles and Crescent Island and whatnot? He does seem to mess with the spirits a lot.) seem to have more than one catapult per ship (three, it seems?); an upgrade to weaponry in the years Zuko's been gone?

Appa's real good at dodging those hot stinkers. (Also, I wonder how much of Appa's grunts Aang can understand, and how much of Aang's commands Appa can understand.)

Zuko's warned by an engineer(? Could just be an experienced crewmember, he looks pretty old) that they need to stop because the engines are damaged, and he still says "Do not stop this ship." Makes me think of Azula's "Do the tides command this ship?" Maybe it's a royal thing, being entitled jackasses even in the face of uncircumventable realities. Also, if the engines are damaged, shouldn't they be slowing down or stopping or turning?

Appa pulled off some serious speed skills to save Sokka. Also, Aang seems to be trying to 'drive' Appa the same way someone would drive a car; dude, Appa's an animal. He can see that Flaming Balls Bad. Appa can dodge on his own.

So, when Aang burst apart that flaming ball it broke into chunks. No fabric, and it looked like dirt? Dirt's not flammable. Although maybe it doesn't need to be? But where are they getting dirt in the middle of the ocean? (Unless...it's not dirt? Solid human waste isn't exactly in short supply. Gross, though.)

Okay, so Zhao's not on the blockade because he knows Aang's headed to Crescent Island.

So it did look like Zuko's engines were stalling, or his ship was slowing down. Although just cutting the engines for Zhao's ships wouldn't immediately stop the ship, would it? I can only imagine what's going through Zuko's head as he's looking up at Zhao. (Zuko's ship is a whole lot smaller than other FN ships, yet again.)

Finished blockade scene. Got 8 min 21 seconds in. Current word count, including this paragraph, is 1458 words. Jesus, this is going to be another long one.

Starting this again, a few days later. I hope I'll finish the rest of it today. That's probably not going to happen, though.

So, it seems the passage of time is being measured by the tint of the sky, not too bad of a choice, and Appa seems to grow more tired--head and legs hanging down. How many hours was that? Where was the blockade supposed to be? What the hell is AtLA geography, anyways?

"I was talking to Appa." "Well I was talking to Momo." God, they're such siblings. Also, does Momo's reaction mean that he can recognize his own name?

That's a long way up. Also, was that balcony constructed? Why? Also, if FN officials knew the Avatar was back, why didn't they put any guards at the temple?

Why specifically five fire sages? I know that Chinese(?) mythology held 5 elements, but this world has four elements and this is a temple dedicated to one element. Also, how exactly did they know that Aang was the Avatar? Did they get a drawing? Did they have some sort of vision during that scene when all of the temples lit up when Aang went into the Avatar state for the first time in the show?

Only three of the sages threw fireballs (too large a chance of hurting another sage if the two in the back fired?) and Aang is apparently so fast in escaping that neither the sages nor the viewer see him go. Impressive.

What on earth is the floor plan for the temple? Because it looks like it's a grid pattern but also a massive maze?? And the walls are made out of metal like it's a military construction?? Or is it wood/paper/actual building materials that I can't tell because the animation didn't put those details in??? Probably the second one tbh

"Firebenders aren't our friends." It's kind of an odd/simplistic way to phrase that, since potentially nonbenders from the Fire Nation/loyal to the Fire Nation cause would also not be their friends--indicative of a simplistic worldview from living in the South Pole and having little contact with the rest of the world?

Okay, the walls sound like metal. Also, how does the mechanism for that secret door work? And why does it lead into the mountain? Again, what is the floor plan here??

The sage says his grandfather knew Avatar Roku, and that he formed passages out of the magma, and that he once called the temple his home. But if Roku was a traitor to the Fire Nation, why would a temple be built on his home? Unless it wasn't? Questions for S3. Also, what was the grandfather's relationship with Roku? Because I'm not sure the timeline works if they were the same age. Also, why did Roku make those magma passages? But if 'many generations of Fire Sages' attended to the temple, that would mean that the temple was built before Roku, so it must have been that Roku lived in the temple for at least some period of time?? And then what about Sozin? There's no way this sage was alive when Sozin declared war on the Air Nomads. NOTHING ABOUT THIS MAN'S TIMELINE MAKES ANY GODDAMN SENSE. FUCK.

How long did they spend inside the temple? It feels like it has to be after sunset by now, but maybe that's just me pausing and unpausing to write this.

Is there any other way into the chamber than the secret passage (or the windows)? IIRC later in the episode Zuko and Zhao will both get into the chamber outside Roku's chamber, likely through other entrances.

Okay, so Friendly Sage's name is Shaiyu. (I think that's how it's spelled? Shy-you, if we're using words.)

"The sanctuary doors! They're closed!" Uh...duh? Why would they be open?

Ended at 12:55, through finding out the sanctuary doors are closed. Not including this paragraph, word count is 2079 words. And I'm only a little over halfway done with this episode.

What's up with those pillars in the background, with the dragons? I mean, I know what's up, they're there for structural support and probably decoration, but who put them there, how did they think up the design, etc etc.

What's the design/functionality of that firebending lock? Also, is there really no firebender powerful enough to create five separate fire blasts? Two feet, two arms and a mouth, that seems enough to me. Would hardly be a dignified move, but if you're alone and/or desperate, it could probably work. Unless a regular firebender couldn't make all five fire blasts powerful enough? (What's the trigger for the locking mechanism dependent on?)

...I bet Ozai could unlock the door alone. Or Azula, with a bit of practice/more and specific training.

The little 'ding' and the zoom out to the lantern above Sokka's head was hilarious. Loved it.

Speaking of lanterns, how did it get that red glow? Probably just through red paper, but what's inside? Is it just a candle flame? Wouldn't that snuff out after a while? Because that lantern looks pretty airtight.

Okay, so I thought Zuko was just being stupid when he decided to let Zhao follow his smoke trail, but no, apparently he's got an actual decent plan. Where did that mini boat come from? What's its capabilities? Is it supposed to be a life boat, a tug boat, a boarding boat? Probably the third, given that this is a military ship. When did the crew find the time to put in the upkeep for that ship?

Lamp oil in an animal skin. It's a good idea (and probably what the lamp shot was referencing before), but I think if they want the fire to go into the lock it's facing the wrong way--it should have the opening going into the hole. Although maybe then the fire wouldn't get enough air?

Would lamp oil really explode like that? (At least now we know how the lamps work.) Seems dangerous for a lamp to have exploding oil. Also, would the twin/rope they tied the bags with really have that sparkler effect? I know they're supposed to be bombs, but the components seem wrong for that.

"Did the definition of genius change in the last hundred years?" lol

I saw from one of the shots that Crescent Island is legit basically erupting. Lava flowing, smoke pouring out. That's...that's not how real volcanoes work, is it? I'm pretty sure we went over that in our geography unit. Generally lava is supposed to stop flowing once an eruption has stopped, since an eruption is from the buildup of pressure in the magma. Like one of Earth's pimples. Anyways.

Aang's tantrum here is...interesting. I don't think we often see Aang angry in the show, but he still reacts with yelling and throwing blasts of air at a door (although, thankfully, not at any person). Clear frustration, one of the few times we see it from Aang in the show iirc.

Sokka is the one to come up with the fake firebending idea, but Katara's the one that realizes what effect the fake firebending's effects on the lock would have. So it's not just Sokka that has ideas. But also, does this imply a difference between the way they both think? Sokka with engineering and things, Katara with people?

...Seriously, with all of those moving parts--how the hell does that lock work??

"Crawled through the pipes?" There are pipes connecting the chamber to the outside, where the doors are?

Those Sages are agile for a bunch of (presumably) old men. Also, how and where did Zuko get in? Is he familiar with the temple and its layout? He'd presumably have the right to be, but it's been three years since he was in the Fire Nation and had access to the temple, and to a sixteen-year-old three years is a long fucking time. When did he arrive on the island? He had to have had time to navigate the temple and get to the chamber.

...speaking of time, when the fuck is the sun going to set? I swear the AtLA planet is rotating at the speed of plot.

So, the Sages are helping Zuko? The banished and disgraced prince? Why? What motivation do they have for that? They're probably pretty high up, socially speaking, unless Ozai and Azulon and Sozin all started discrediting them, as part of the propaganda FN citizens are put through as part of schooling. Even so, why would they not hear about Zuko being banished and disgraced? On the surface, you could say it's because he's a royal, but like...Zhao's actively competing with him, and he gets promoted. What's going on inside their heads? Also, when did they even talk to each other?

Patience, Aang, the sun is (finally) setting. Just wait for a few seconds for the light to match up. Although--why sunset, and why on the solstice (winter, I'm guessing)? As well as the murals on the floor--where are those from, and what do they symbolize? On the other hand, there's kind of the question of why there's a temple at all, much less such a massive and ornate room dedicated specifically to Avatar Roku, when Roku was, what, declared a traitor to the FN by Sozin for not being gay back saying that he couldn't do an imperialism? Possibly it was at first to keep the Avatar sympathizers/more spiritual side of the nation calm, and then possibly it was forgotten about? God only knows.

So, Shaiyu invokes duty as a moral, as in the duty of the Fire Sages. Part of me wants to pick that morality apart and compare it to Zuko's honor. And then Zhao comes in, having somehow spotted and followed Zuko's tiny tugboat, and applauds the guy for his 'heartfelt speech' (that was two sentences long, that's not a speech!). So Zhao at least professes a plan to take Shaiyu to Fire Lord Ozai (although who really knows what's going on in that conniving head of his). Shyu, actually, I looked it up.

I remember one of the character pages a friend shared on a discord saying something about Zhao having the feel of a slimy sycophantic corporate ladder-climber, and...yea. His 'two traitors in one day, the Fire Lord will be pleased' bit really plays into that.

"Sooner or later he has to come out." a) So Zhao is patient when he wants/needs to be in order to achieve his goals. b) There are so many gay jokes you could make with this.

Why the mountainous and foggy setting for the vision? Why that specifically? Is it because it's familiar/like home to Aang?

Oh! Yes! This is the very first appearance of Ozai in the series! Shadowed face, surrounded by fire (even if the lighting would realistically let us see his face), and shirtless. Why is your waist so small, Ozai? So that other men (Zhao and also Hakoda) can grab it? Gayboy. And a drama queen with that mouth fire blast. Now we know where Zuko got it from (if it isn't like...the entire nation).

"Finish the war once and for all" is really fucking vague, my dude.

So Roku outright warns him that if Ozai succeeds (in using the comet) balance will be un-restorable, and yet I remember that at the beginning of the finale the Gaang minus Zuko decide to just wait until after the comet. So did Aang forget that warning? Did he never tell the others?

I believe this is the episode where the time limit is set (summer's end, when Sozin's Comet comes). Also, that (mastering all four elements) is a hell of a task to ask of a twelve-year-old.

I wonder what the choir-chant music is supposed to be (scene switching back to Zhao awaiting Aang outside the door). Zhao commands his soldiers to go full throttle--does he anticipate the Avatar State? More importantly, why do I ask questions that I know will be answered if I just hit play and wait a couple seconds?

Damn, Zuko got chained up too? Rip. Also, spikes on the door. Ouch. On the other hand, with the light, Zuko looks away and I think so do many others, but Zhao doesn't, and the soldiers don't. Wouldn't that hurt their eyes?

Okay, so the chamber is at the top of the temple. And the wall was fucking destroyed apparently. Also, how did Roku heat up those chains without burning anyone severely?

Katara refuses to leave without Aang. I think Aang's going to be fine...although it would be disheartening if he woke up and was alone.

Oh dang, Katara was right to be worried. Also. How the fuck is no one fainting from heat stroke? Did anyone get caught in the lava? This should have a lot more casualties than it does.

Okay, so apparently I was wrong before about the Sages having a high social status, if a commander (which is canonically lower than an admiral) can arrest all of them so easily and with such confidence.

And that's all! Final word count, including this paragraph, is 3,684 words.

[attilarrific]

Okay but the tags on the last musical chairs update "I have both watsonian and doylist explanations for why their relationship is like this" if you want to share I'd be super interested

This is an extremely late answer, because, uh..............it is. But yes! With reference to this post here, the Watsonian and Doylist explanations for why Lan Xichen's relationship with Jin Guangyao is Like This in Musical Chairs. Because obviously it's a bit different than it is in canon! Lan Xichen is getting less manipulated, and while he's not absolutely clear on what's going on in Jin Guangyao's head (because no one is), he's more right than anyone else is.

Doylist Explanation

I, uh, struggle to handle ensemble casts. That is to say, I can write group scenes, but I can't do real character work for more than a couple characters in one story. I get confused, I get bogged down, the pacing drags. I generally cap myself at about two, max three; I did once try four (in a fic that has never seen the light of day and is unfinished), but it was very, very hard. In its initial conception---which does not necessarily reflect exactly what it's looking like now, but I never actually planned to write this much of it---Musical Chairs was a story about Jin Guangyao and Wei Wuxian. Not as in they were going to fall in love, but as in they were the primary focus of the narrative. Which means they were the only ones who got character arcs; their love interests were there to be love interests.

The narrative effect of this on Lan Xichen is quite simply that I couldn't afford to have him not understand Jin Guangyao better. This is a fic with a happy ending (in the universe where the ending gets written), and in a real happy ending, Lan Xichen can't be in love with the mask, he has to be in love with Jin Guangyao as he really is. But I didn't want to handle character arcs for four characters (for narrative balance, if I'd added Lan Xichen, I would've also had to add Lan Wangji), so I couldn't do a narrative where Lan Xichen has to grapple with the idea that Jin Guangyao isn't who he thought. Which is why, in this fic, Lan Xichen has essentially already grappled with that and come to the conclusions he has.

Watsonian Explanation

Jin Guangyao is still super messed up in this, because.......well, because otherwise he wouldn't be him. But he's less deeply, incredibly, wildly fucked up, in large part because he hasn't crossed as many lines.

To start with the obvious, this version of Jin Guangyao has never killed anyone. There's no demonic cultivation; he's never been in a war; killing people would be terrible for his image.

But the difference that's really central to this fic is, of course, his relationship with Qin Su. In my personal opinion, his marriage to Qin Su in canon is the real point of no return. Obviously there's the moral event horizon of his murder of Jin Rusong, but there's also the fact that once he's decided to go through with the wedding, he will never be able to be fully honest with anyone ever again---there isn't a single person he can tell about the incest (which, once he's married her knowing, is now an active choice he's made, because he values himself, his status, his relationship with his father, and his potential future power more highly than he values any morals or affection that would've pushed him to stop the wedding). I could get more into this, but that's not the point.

In this fic, Jin Guangyao responded to the revelation about them being siblings by telling Qin Su. This is because here, in a modern au, things with Qin Su are really, really different. Just to start with:

by the time they're talking marriage and he finds out, they've been together way longer, he literally just cares about her more

dramatic breakups are something celebrities do all the time, and while this may not be Jin Guangyao's preferred direction for his image, it's very workable

birth control and abortion both exist and are relatively available, especially given their means

the benefits to his career Qin Su has provided are already significant, will last even if they break up, and are not exclusively tied to their romantic relationship and potential marriage, especially if she continues to support him (which his understanding of her leads him to believe she'll do, and he's right)

......look, to be perfectly honest, because of societal etc., they had a lot more sex in this universe, and it would be really hard to explain to her why they should get married but stop fucking

it's just not worth it---consequences of breaking it off are less, benefits of going through with it are also less

So he tells her instead of marrying her! And they don't get married, and they're both very messed up about it, but they're able to eke out a relationship besides that, because they were in love and because Qin Su still cares and because Jin Guangyao still cares and because a relationship with her is still really good for his career.

Instead of this relationship turning into something he can never tell anyone ever, this relationship is a secret he shares with someone. Lan Xichen understands Jin Guangyao better because Jin Guangyao is hiding less because Jin Guangyao has less to hide. He didn't tell anyone but Qin Su about the incest---and he didn't really feel like he could, and he definitely wouldn't have without his hand getting forced---but he knew that if, for instance, Lan Xichen found out, he could always truthfully say that he didn't know and they ended it once he did.

Which isn't to say that Jin Guangyao isn't still hiding things, or even that he hasn't done things that Lan Xichen would disapprove of. Of course he is, and of course he has. But the things he's hiding aren't as dramatic, he's hiding fewer of them, and thus Lan Xichen is allowed to know him better. And so Lan Xichen has already had the opportunity to get to a place where---regardless of the completeness of his knowledge of Jin Guangyao's actual actions and history---he's aware of who Jin Guangyao fundamentally is.

[saviourkingslut]

I think people have forgotten that the only reason why Byleth had such a “huge” impact on Dimitri’s well-being in Azure Moon is not because of their bond but rather Byleth’s presence allowed Dimitri to survive long enough to see his mistakes. Byleth themself as a person didn’t really matter that much.

Byleth as their teacher kept organising class activities to bring the students together, so a Blue Lion class closer to each other made a promise that they would have a reunion at the Millennium Festival. Because of that promise Dimitri (subconsciously?) made his way to the Garreg Mach in Ethereal Moon 1185 (or maybe because the other two classes didn’t make the same promise here and neither Edelgard nor Claude came here on the same day alongside their guards, which was how AM!Dimitri could temporarily take up residence in the Goddess Tower?). Either way, Gilbert and the Blue Lion class followed the clues and were able to locate Dimitri.

Then because Byleth is an excellent commander and a demon on the battlefield (after playing ThreeHopes I finally understand their power and skills. They’re scary lol). Since the Blue Lions are the ones who recapture the Garreg Mach and defeat Randolph and also because of Dimitri’s reputation as the one-eyed demon, this planted the seeds for Fleche to come and get revenge on the Gronder field.

Due to Byleth’s skills and power (they are literally the goddess’ incarnation so it’s expected) the Kingdom army in AM is able to achieve victory after victory, including in the Battle of Gronder unlike SS!/VW!Kingdom army. Thus, unlike his other counterparts, AM!Dimitri is able to survive long enough for Rodrigue to sacrifice himself and give Dimitri the “live for yourself” speech.

Byleth themselves don’t really play a huge role in Dimitri’s redemption. Even if Byleth didn’t come to stop Dimitri from leaving in the rain, Felix, Dedue, Gilbert and the other Blue Lions would also have stepped in all the same.

though i can't say i completely agree with this view i do think it's an interesting one. if you look at the story this way i think it's good to remember that am is also the only route where rodrigue canonically survives until post-gronder, so from this point of view byleth is responsible for his survival, too. more importantly though, i personally find it hard to truly put by/leth at the spill of important parts of the narrative in any way bc i always feel things happen around them, more that that they make them happen.

i saw this post a while back that talked abt how modern adaptations of the sherlock holmes stories will try to come up with a logical explanation for the fact that watson, in the books, sometimes has an old shoulder wound and at other times a leg wound, so in series or movies today one of the two will be psychosomatic or they'll show him getting both wounds at different moments in time. and that's the 'watsonian' explanation, the in-universe explanation you can come up with to make the canon make sense. but then there are also people who say, 'arthur conan doyle forgot where the wound was and didn't bother to look it up' which would be in character of him bc at times he forgot watson was married, too. and that's the 'doylist' explanation: you look at the canon and when things don't really add up, you look at the logical explanation taking place in our 'real' world: the writer(s) made a mistake, or a writer got replaced, etc.

now this post also said that it's not fair to counter the one argument with the other. if someone who has a watsonian point of view tries to come up with a logical in-universe explanation and a doylist comes up and says 'no it was bc [real life writer thing]' that kills the discussion. and if a watsonian only ever trying to look at canon through the in-universe lense and refusing to see the 'real life' reasons makes it very difficult to treat the text as what it is - a work of fiction, made by humans and therefore liable to contain the mistakes and representations of the world views of its writers. of course, these two points of views aren't mutally exclusive at all, so most of the time any person in fandom will have watsonian and doylist explanations for in-universe events - sometimes even for the exact same event, bc even though you know some incongruence stems from the writers messing up that doesn't mean it's no use trying to come up with a way that it could still fit into canon.

the point of all this is that by/leth is one of the few instances where taking the watsonian approach just... really doesn't work for me. for me, things happening the way they do in different routes is bc we, the player, choose to play that route and so the writers have to give us a different story. and bc we play a different route that means we, the player, put our avatar in that story and the writers have to make it seem like that avatar matters, like it has real impact on the narrative and its characters. and with by/leth that has never really worked for me. it doesn't feel like they actually do things that would change the story and its characters to such extreme extents. i never have that problem with a character such as link, for example. playing botw truly has me believe that yes, he is absolutely vital to the story playing out as it does, he is at the centre of things. but then link and by/leth are two very different characters who are written in very different ways and who are from very different franchises with very different stories. anyway tl;dr yes i think you're right that by/leth doesn't actually play a huge role in dimitri's process of redemption/healing. however bc i view by/leth in a very different way i can't really agree with your reasoning for it personally, but that doesn't make it any less valid.

[ashilrak]

Thoughts on Different Ways of Shipping

I've been in a many fandoms over the years with varying levels of involvement.

Something that has stuck out to me is the different forms of shipping people do and how people view it completely differently. And I think it comes down to one thing: do you view shipping only in the context of wanting to see something happen in the original work, or do you view it in the context of consuming fan created content and reading about the what-ifs?

Two examples that really showcase the different perspectives are Sherlock and H*rry P*tter.

Sherlock, and I'm aware I'm dating myself a bit here, had Johnlock. Many people who shipped Johnlock, myself included, were genuinely hoping it would become canon in the show. People looked out for scenes in the show and talked about it constantly. It was a whole thing. Sure, there were other ships, but the vast majority of the fandom created content for Johnlock.

H*rry P*tter, on the other hand, has a fair bit of content for pretty much any and every ship you can think of. I'm talking full-length fics for characters whose names are only mentioned and never actually show up (I had a phase in middle school where I went through the HP/Salazar Slytherin tag).

I've shipped both ways, though I tend to fall into the second category more often; I'm a multi-shipper.

The fandom I'm active in right now largely falls into the first category. Most characters are in relationships in canon and these are very popular in fan content. I'm talking a HUGE difference in the amount of content for the canon ships compared to non-canon. Every fandom has more popular ships, but I had never before seen such a huge difference. I don't actively dislike any of these canon ships, but I'm currently mainly writing for a non-canon rare-pair, and it's given me an interesting perspective.

For me, I enjoy multi-shipping because it gives me the opportunity to explore different dynamics and characterizations. Non-canon ships especially are fun because you have to come up with a way for the characters to get together. I'm also someone who looks for plot over ships when I'm reading fic; some of my favorite fics are of random ships I never would have considered because the plot and characterizations and dynamics are incredible.

I just could not understand why people wouldn't want to explore different non-canon pairings -- there are so many incredible interesting characters, why hasn't anyone tried mixing them together? It just wasn't clicking.

I thought it was so weird how unwelcome non-canon ships seemed. On the extreme end, I've seen a popular series get hate in the comments because the fic isn't the popular canon ship and I've seen comments calling out people who don't ship the popular canon ship as encouraging unhealthy relationships (relationships in media vs relationships in real life is an entirely different post).

I was talking about this in a discord, and one of the members brought up a really good point: some people only view shipping through the lens of what they want to see canon and that's how they consume fan created content.

It made me think of a post I saw earlier today talking about watsonian vs doylist explanations of media (in short, watsonian explanations use examples from canon to explain an inconsistency, where a doylist might say something like "the author forgot"), and how two people may look at the same exact thing, answer the same exact question, but never reach any sort of agreement because they're looking at it completely differently.

There is obviously a lot more discussion to be had here, but I like writing out my thoughts. The next questions I have are what drives certain fandoms in these directions? Why are some so focused on ships as they are in canon and others favor a fanon what-if approach?

[snakeassassins]

Rabbit Dad Theory: A Weapon to Surpass Dad for One

okay so. I know that the theory about local big bad of the series being the protagonist’s father , but I’m pretty sure the real reason that midoriya’s dad hasn’t shown up in the plot is because he’s a rabbit

no really

[ WARNING: LONG post under the cut ]

Part 1: Rabbit Motifs

To get this party started properly, let’s begin with a bunch of the rabbit symbolism regarding Midoriya himself.

The most notable of which being that his hero costume is literally him dressing up as a rabbit

His freckles are even stylized to look like little rabbit whiskers. fuckin naruto kinnie

It bleeds into his fighting style too

Two big innovations he has that aren’t based on previous users of one for all

are hopping from place to place

and his big, rabbit-like kicks.

(which would also go a ways to explain why the plot thought Midoriya having legs was a big deal)

A lot of this goes into his characterization as well. The most notable bit being how much the first chapter of bnha parallels the story of the moon rabbit.

(Sometimes referred to as the jade rabbit which. Green)

Anyway, the story goes that a rabbit, along with a bunch of other animals (it varies depending on region) decided to gather food for the full moon as an offering, believing that the best one will bring a reward from the gods.

All of the animals bring plentiful amounts of food, sans the rabbit, who brings only grass.

Eventually, a starving old man comes along.

The other animals have food to give him, but refuse to do so to meet their own ends.

The rabbit, sympathizing with the old man,throws itself into a fire he was kindling so that he can be fed.

The old man, touched by the rabbit’s actions, reveals himself to be a god and saves it.

In honor of the rabbits deeds, the god imprints his image on the moon, bestowing special gifts to him.

Along with this there are a number of other mild rabbity traits tho.

Such as his skittishness.

Not to mention his general resourcefulness.

The show regularly conflates Midoriya being himself with him looking and acting more and more like a rabbit. This isn’t too hard to understand from a Doylist perspective; Horikoshi blatantly just likes bunnies. (I mean just look at Miruko)

What’s interesting here is that we’ve never been given an in-universe explanation for why midoriya himself identifies this way. In a series that is otherwise really invested in dissecting the ideal versions of themselves that characters want to live up to, the show doesn’t provide any justification for a character motif Midoriya has that is almost as present as all might himself.

Judging from the title of this post, you can probably guess what my reasoning for this choice is.

**Part 2: Hisashi’s Quirk **

“But snake,” you may be asking yourself, “We already know what Hisashi Midoriya’s quirk is. He breathes fire.”

This is true. he probably does. Consider what we know in-universe, though.

Characters with heteromorphic quirks don’t have their physical attributes listed as a part of their quirks if they have a secondary characteristic.

Tokoyami is the most obvious example. He’s a bird person, but his quirk is dark shadow. The fact that he’s a bird man goes unmentioned because as far as anyone is concerned, the shadow monster is his power.

Characters like Spinner have their animal attributes listed as quirks, but that’s only because he can’t do anything a gecko wouldn’t. If he didn’t make his lizard powers his quirk he’d have nothing to put.

If Midoriya’s dad happened to be, say, a rabbit that could breathe fire, the fire quirk would be listed while the rabbit bit went unstated. In fact, in a roundabout way, the fire quirk makes rabbit dad even more plausible.

You see, most of the animal character designs in bnha are actually recycled from an old series horikoshi did called oumagadoki zoo. Mind you this isn’t a knock at horikoshi or anything. A lot of mangaka do this sort of thing. I’m mostly bringing it up because one of the main characters is a rabbit called Shiina

and one of the early gags in the series is him smoking a carrot like a cigar.

This would be very easy to translate to my hero academia’s setting if said character happened to breathe fire.

I should also say for those keeping score at home that I don’t necessarily think Hizashi is a Shiina expy specifically (tbh I kinda imagine him being more like a fluffy spike spiegel). At most I think it’s probably just some design motifs and some VERY loose plot points.

There is also the somewhat mild rebuttal of Midoriya never attempting to do anything rabbit-like while trying to see if he had a quirk, but I think that’s self explanatory. If Izuku was a rabbit he’d notice right away, so of course he didn’t bother checking.

**Part 3: Why He’s Absent **

Of course, another big question that might be on your mind is why he’s not present if that’s the simple truth of his identity. Why have him fail to show himself for what has now been 300 chapters?

I can think of two simple reasons:

1) It’s really funny

Just fuckin. The Mystique of it all. You can’t tell fans a character is going to show up eventually and fail to have them appear without piquing someone’s interest. It’s bound to make fans speculate, especially with the canon dabi twist hanging in the air. Years to imagine what his presence might entail if it was something big enough to be worth planning ahead for.

And then. Boom. Bunny.

Fucking. Hysterical.

2) The themes. Oh god the themes

You might have noticed by now but Horikoshi has a tendency of making like. The Shounen Jump equivalent to that rpg character you make as a joke that then has like. an undeniably tragic life when you’re actually forced to tackle with the implications of your own character building.

I would not be surprised if the Midoriyas ended up falling into that category.

So let’s get into that.

One of the big things that my hero academia attempts to tackle is the concept of normalcy.

Mostly how it’s kinda bullshit and, in many cases, outright harmful.

What makes this bit interesting within the context of Midoriya family is Izuku’s sort of. Artificial Plainness.

He is a character deliberately designed to look as normal as possible. The key word there is look. Basically anyone who’s been following the series long enough to be reading this post knows that the kid often struggles to keep his head down

which also makes it interesting that the only two scenes where Midoriya wears his rabbit cowl are scenes where he is actively questioning the status quo.

Methinks there is some symbolism here.

Which I guess brings us back to square one.

At the end of the day, the concept of Midoriya’s dad being a rabbit is funny because it’s so unexpected. Without him around, the Midoriyas look like a normal family.

But that’s also the kicker.

Without him around, the Midoriyas look like a normal family.

A lot of people are quick to call Izuku’s dad an absentee father, but technically speaking, we don’t quite know that yet. We’ve only been in a position where we don’t see him as the audience.

And, well, when your kid is being bullied for something as banal as being quirkless, you might not want to give society more ammunition to use against him.

It wouldn’t strike me as strange if he just avoided being seen in public with his son to keep him safe in his own way.

They say that the nail that sticks out gets hammered down the most. Under those circumstances, it’s not too hard to understand why the loosest nail might just feel safer wriggling out of the wood altogether.

[piesandstars]

Raising Werewolf Cubs Under His Bed

Posted on Archive of Our Own here.

Riddle laughed his high laugh again.

“It was my word against Hagrid’s, Harry. Well, you can imagine how it looked to old Armando Dippet. On the one hand, Tom Riddle, poor but brilliant, parentless but so brave, school prefect, model student… on the other hand, big, blundering Hagrid, in trouble every other week, trying to raise werewolf cubs under his bed, sneaking off to the Forbidden Forest to wrestle trolls… but I admit, even I was surprised how well the plan worked.”

Um… hey. Hey, Tom? Mr. Riddle? Dramatic ass “I am Lord Voldemort” person-sir? Do you mean human children???!!! Hey Joanne, do you mean human children cause werewolf cubs? Werewolf cubs have gotta be human children.

There are four explanations for this line that I can think of. One Doylist (explained out of text), three Watsonian (explained within canon).

The first explanation: JK Rowling did not come up with werewolf lore until after she had written the third book. That explains why she keeps writing about people being afraid of werewolves in the Forbidden Forest even when it wasn’t a full moon and shit like this. She just hadn’t come up with the facts yet.

This explanation, while probably correct, is boring as hell and we will be disregarding it.

Explanation number two barely warrants an entry. Riddle was trying to think of a magical creature and just said werewolves without considering what that would mean. This is somehow more boring than explanation one.

The third explanation is more fun. Wizards are, to put it kindly, mildly, and with some of the love in my heart, dumb as shit.

The Hogwarts education system is shaky at best. Thinking of how little math wizards know makes me want to cry. I would say something like “The class of History of Magic is so poorly taught that I doubt any of the students even know that ___” but like. The class of History of Magic is so poorly taught that I can’t come up with an obvious example of Wizarding history.

Due to the shaky Hogwarts education system, I can partially excuse Ron for being stupid in the area of “what are werewolves” when he talks about werewolves in the Forbidden Forest in book two, as of his two Defence teachers the more competent was Quirinus Quirrell.

(Lockhart’s teachings on lycanthropy involve him curing someone of it by sticking a wand down their throat and saying a spell, which… If it were that easy then Remus Lupin would have had a much better life. If he could fix his furry little problem by eating a wand, the man would have had unicorn hair and cypress soup every night for the rest of his life.)

(That being said, Ron should know more about werewolves. Molly or Arthur should have taught their kids things like that.)

Tom Riddle, in contrast to Ron, went to Hogwarts before the position was cursed. Given that he was the one who cursed it, this makes sense. Riddle had a stable education that, theoretically, involved a competent professor. He should know better.

But also, wizards are dumb as shit.

They seem to have no standardization to their education except for aiming for the OWLs and NEWTs. What educational standards has the Ministry released for teachers to follow? Probably none, that would be too competent. (Ignoring book five, ew.) Just because werewolves were covered in DADA during Harry’s time at Hogwarts doesn’t mean they were in Riddle’s. Maybe they were covered in Care of Magical Creatures, which Riddle would almost certainly not take. Or maybe they weren’t covered at all.

So maybe Tom Riddle hasn’t learned about werewolves in school. He knows about them when he’s older though, so what gives?

Here’s the thing. This Tom Riddle hasn’t had his dark magic field trip yet, the one he goes on after he graduates. What if he doesn’t know about werewolves, but he thinks he kinda gets the gist, and, being Voldemort, assumed he was correct.

Hagrid could have been raising puppies under his bed and Riddle could have been like. “Ah, yes. These are werewolf babies. I am correct on this and will not be corrected by anyone ever because I am the pinnacle of all things knowledge.”

Diary!Tom Riddle is #ForeverSixteen. He is a teenager who insists on being called “Flight of Death” (or, incidentally, Flight from Death, which, yeah). He wears eyeliner, he listens to fascist!MCR, he wants to commit genocide, you know, just regular teenage boy things. Yikes.

(Can you imagine 72-year-old Voldemort having to interact with his 16-year-old self? This insolent boy who doesn’t even know what werewolves are? Harry wouldn’t have had to destroy the Horcrux, Voldemort would do it himself to get the kid to stop talking.

Tom Riddle, age 16: “Lord Voldemort is my past, present, and future.”

Tom Riddle, age 70ish: “You’re about to be past due if you don’t shut up.”)

Anyway, that’s our third explanation. Tom Riddle is dumb as shit. This is backed up by the fact that 1) he is sixteen, 2) wizarding education is a hot garbage fire, 3) grown Voldemort is dumb as shit. He refuses to do research into things he thinks he understands in his seventies, why would he be any smarter at age sixteen?

This explanation is less boring. This is the one that I consider to be the closest to canon one. This makes sense, and it involves making fun of Voldemort’s dramatic bullshit and narcissism, which I approve of.

I like this explanation.

But explanation number three? It doesn’t hold a candle to explanation four.

See, here’s the thing. I believe that Voldemort is dumb as shit and that his education could have been pretty spotty.

But I also think that the boy that has rediscovered Horcruxes by doing too much research would not be completely ignorant of what werewolves are and how they work. They’re considered to be Dark Creatures™ so he would have come across them at some point when learning of the Dark™ Mysterious® Arts©.

So what if.

What if he wasn’t talking out of his ass?

What if Hagrid WAS raising werewolf cubs under his bed? Or, not cubs. Cubs implies non-people.

What if Hagrid was keeping werewolf children under his bed while he was attending Hogwarts?

Picture this: 11-year-old Rubeus Hagrid gets his letter for Hogwarts. He’s overjoyed. His father is a bit surprised that Hagrid, a half-giant, received his letter, but he is also overjoyed.

(The fact that Hagrid got into Hogwarts at all with wizarding prejudices as they are is honestly remarkable. We know that the Wizarding World is awful about treating those who aren’t pure-blooded wizards like people and Hagrid being a half-giant isn’t exactly subtle.)

So Hagrid goes to Hogwarts. He learns. He makes friends. He probably gets in quite a bit of trouble with teachers because he’s never been someone with a ton of common sense or tendency to follow rules. Being in trouble doesn’t bother him too much, he’s young and usually, he doesn’t think about consequences for his actions. Besides, often the reward is worth the risk.

So Hagrid finishes his first year having loved the experience. And he goes home for the summer.

Let’s say that Hagrid and his dad live on the outskirts of a relatively small Muggle town. They’re not quite in the wilderness, but they’re not quite in the town proper either.

A new family, the Canids, has moved next door since Hagrid has gone off to Hogwarts. They have two children roughly Hagrid’s age, a daughter named Freki, age 12, and a son named Geri, age 10. Given Hagrid’s friendly nature and the general boredom that comes with a long summer, the three of them quickly make friends and begin to spend quite a bit of time together.

(Forgive my mixing of Norse and Latin etymology here, I refuse to spend more than three minutes googling names that mean “wolf wolf” or “moon moon” that haven’t already been used in canon.)

Then, one day when they’re hanging out, something weird happens. What exactly it is, I’m not sure. Maybe a branch breaks while they are climbing a tree and no one gets hurt, despite how high up they are. Maybe Hagrid says something unthinkingly cruel on accident, and Geri’s feelings get hurt, and Hagrid’s hair gets turned pink. Maybe Freki finds a magical creature that Muggles aren’t supposed to be able to see. Maybe their father is off fighting in World War II (it is 1941, after all), and there is some unsetting news from the front, and one of the kids causes a sunny day to become a rainstorm.

However it happens, Hagrid figures out that he’s got two underage wizards on his hands. And he knows Freki (age 12) hasn’t received her Hogwarts letter.

Hagrid has never been one to keep his mouth shut. The man at the age of 62 let slip to a group of eleven-year-olds that 1) he had a three-headed dog, 2) the name of the dog was Fluffy, 3) Fluffy was guarding something that was owned or created by Nicholas Flamel, and 4) you can put Fluffy to sleep by playing any kind of music ever. He is not one for subtlety, or for secrets. Honestly, he might have told these kids about magic on accident even if they hadn’t shown signs of being wizards.

So he confronts the kids about the strange things that have been happening. Freki goes dead pale the second he opens his mouth. She begs him not to tell anyone in the village that there is something unnatural about them, Rubeus, please, you don’t know what people will do if they find out.

Hagrid’s confused. If they find out what exactly? Having magic is wonderful, you get to go to school and learn and make friends and discover all sorts of interesting facts and creatures and-

There are two ways this could go.

Either Freki and Geri don’t know about magic and they are delighted to hear about this wonderful place where they could be themselves, and also maybe they could get some help for this weird thing that has been happening to them since they were little kids and there was a wolf attack. Hagrid has to figure out very quickly how to deal with the fact that 1) he has to explain magic to his two friends, 2) his two friends are werewolves, 3) his two friends will not be accepted into wizard society, and 4) he also has to explain that.

Or Geri and Freki already know about magic. They didn’t know that Hagrid knew (they are in a Muggle town, after all), but they knew about magic. Maybe their mom was a witch and dad a Muggle. Maybe the other way around. Maybe both parents are wizards. Maybe they are the descendants of Squibs. Whatever their parental background, they have heard about Hogwarts. And they know the reason that neither of them had gotten Hogwarts letters, know the reason neither of them would ever get Hogwarts letters. And gently, sadly, they explain to Hagrid their situation.

And as Hagrid finds out that they’re werewolves and starts to process what that means for them and their future, Hagrid becomes indignant. And I mean Hermione-founding-misguided-but-well-meaning-organization-SPEW level indignant. I’m talking “thou shalt not insult Albus Dumbledore in front of me” level indignant. Indignant might not be the right word. He gets angry.

Remus Lupin will be the first werewolf to legally receive schooling at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. But if Hagrid has something to say about it? Freki and Geri will beat the record illegally by about thirty years.

(This is a man who has been alienated his whole life for his half-giant status. He knows the feeling of being discriminated against for something he can’t change about himself.)

(This is also a man who tried to raise a dragon egg in a wooden cabin. He doesn’t necessarily think things through.)

And so begins Operation Get-My-Friends-A-Wizard-Education.

Phase One: Preliminary Education.

Hagrid spends the rest of the summer teaching these two kids everything that he can remember from his first year of school. He’s got a month. He’s got his books. He’s got enough determination to intimidate God. He’s only got the one wand, but he’ll make do.

And as late August comes? He thinks they’re ready as they’re gonna get.

Phase Two: Smuggling Time.

Now, Hagrid is an oversized lad. And one of the things that comes with being an oversized lad is oversized clothes. And one of the things that comes with oversized clothes is an oversized trunk.

Hagrid also has an undersized father with an oversized heart and an undersized sense of what is a normal and sane thing to do. (The man had sex with a giantess for Pete’s sake!)

With a little convincing, said undersized father could make said oversided trunk be even more oversized on the inside.

Geri and Freki? Welcome to the Hogwarts Express, viewed from the luxury seats of “Inside Hagrid’s Trunk.” No complimentary beverages, I’m afraid, and the view’s not great, but all the oversized clothes end up being quite comfortable cushions.

So Hagrid smuggles two kid werewolves into Hogwarts.

Phase Three: Ah, Shit, Didn’t Think This Through… Er… Live Under My Bed I’ll Bring You Homework

So they live under his bed while he teaches them everything that he is learning in all of his classes, sometimes in the dorm room when no one else is there, sometimes in the Forbidden Forest when they can sneak out, sometimes in empty rooms around the castle. They spend each full moon as deep into the forest as they can go, hoping against hope that they won’t hurt anyone and they will be safe.

(In this universe, the rumors of werewolves in the forest came from somewhere. The stories of glimpses of wolves through the trees during this time were passed down through the generations. “My aunt’s cousin’s friend’s dad saw a werewolf in the forest” may not be the most credible of sources, but in this case, it holds a grain of truth.)

They are careful, and, for a while, they don’t get caught.

How long are they at Hogwarts? I don’t know. A while, certainly. A month? A semester? A full year? Maybe they make it through to when the Chamber of Secrets was opened and everyone became more suspicious and more alert before they were found out.

Once they are caught, the Canid children are promptly sent home. After all, you can’t have monsters in a school like Hogwarts, and what are werewolves if not monsters.

The staff lets Hagrid off with a warning, thinking maybe this was a one-off occurrence of idiocy. But they do view Hagrid with more suspicion after that. After all, he brought monsters into the school. Who’s to say what he’ll let in next?

That being said, Tom Riddle’s probably just dumb as shit.

Posted on Archive of Our Own here.

[vardasvapors]

Can you elaborate on your tag about ‘depression being a good flex for badly-written female characters’? I’m not sure I understand what sense of flex means here

gadhbdghgf do i know what that sense of flex means tho? uh so when i tagged that i was thinking for the more specific phenomenon that happens in some long-running serialized genres where a female character is introduced as having a lot of very concentrated personality and unique traits, and generally initiates a lot of actions on her own or at least reacts to events in a way that obstructs or diverts the flow of events in such a way that contributes to building the shape or sequence of the plot of the story. but then, as time goes on, she becomes more and more like, smoothed out, as it were. she stops initiating actions and taking up space, the flow of scenes never stops and eddies around her, or when it does it’s in a hyper-generic way where whatever she did or said could have been said by any other character, even if she had always been a reaction-heavy and not initiative-heavy figure, she’s now more like a flat smooth stone at the bottom of the river instead of a boulder that causes the flow of events to make noise and splash and catch the attention like a brook. and general all her personality traits fade out in such a way that makes it feel like she’s not really present, the cross-section of her character that actually shows up in whatever scene she is in becomes very thin and small, and any bursts of presence she does have deflate and fade very quickly like an untied balloon.

the doylist explanation for this is always lazy and sexist writing where the writer doesn’t know how to build on the character as installments/arcs keep coming and doesn’t care enough to put in the effort, and doesn’t feel like female characters need much substance or verisimilitude or like ‘actual consistency with how they an individual person used to be’ to justify their presence as a generic-girl plot device, even if the writer totally initially designed her with plenty of substance! but if you’re looking for watsonian explanations — why in-universe would a character who canonically did and said xyz extremely un-bland things in the past that can’t be denied because the plot would have been different if she hadn’t, become so thin and flat and washed out over time — everything in that first paragraph is literally an IRL symptom of depression experienced by IRL ppl.

i tend to like this better as a fan thing in most cases than merely ‘resistantly denying that the character has become bland at all’ (though occasionally the latter works), because the latter often isn’t possible to do without a level of self-consciousness and defensiveness that makes eg writing fic/making jokes and shitposts/doing meta while aggressively filling in/painstakingly mining/talking around the blandness feel more forced and tortured, compared to doing the same with other characters. of course sometimes this effect actually Does affect basically the whole cast not just female character X and in that case it’s less asymmetrical, but also this is just......a good narrative take? canon writers who write depression by accident often write it better than when they try to do it on purpose lol

[atamascolily]

Comics are generally hit or miss, so my expectations for the Stranger Things spin-offs from Dark Horse were not terribly high. Zombie Boys is an interquel set between S1 and S2, while The Bully is set mainly during S2.

The art is adequate - it’s easy for me to tell who the characters are supposed to be without any of the hyperrealistic-uncanny valley “copied from screenshots” look of the recent Marvel Star Wars line-up. On the other hand, there’s very little that’s exceptional in terms of style or composition that sticks out when flipping through.

The main problem, though, is that neither story feels particularly compelling or relevant.

As the title suggests, The Bully is about Troy and James, those assholes from S1 who keep flinging homophobic slurs in every interaction with the protagonists. (Even worse, they force Mike into jumping off a cliff into a quarry, knowing that the impact will probably kill him, and the only reason Mike survives is because El shows up to save him.) Did these dudes really need a comic of their own? I don’t think so, but here we are. And it’s a weird choice because Stranger Things is so very much a (male) nerd fantasy, in which the bullies are punished instead of rewarded, so making one the protagonist of the story just seems... like something nobody was really asking for?

The Bully opens with Troy having nightmares about El coming after him as he deals with trauma by her attack. Troy doubts his own righteousness, and for a second, I thought this comic might actually go somewhere interesting when we abruptly pivoted to the “he’s a bully to cope with an abusive family” trope, which they already pulled for Billy Hargrove in S3 (before this comic was published), so it just feels extremely cliche.

Troy can dish all kinds of shit to the Party, but he can’t take any in return, so he and James decide to get their revenge by ambushing Will on Halloween (as seen in S2), following El when they see her around town (??), and throwing rocks at demodogs, which I think officially makes them Too Dumb to Live. James, who almost kinda-sorta has a conscience, wants to help Steve and the party battle the demodogs, but Troy runs away and refuses to save James when he trips. They only survive because the demodogs run away because they have More Important Plot-related S2 Matters to deal with.

James is understandably pissed, and Troy goes home to learn that his family is moving because his unpleasant father got fired. But he stops in at James’ house to apologize before he leaves town....so I guess he learned something?

[Of course, Troy only apologizes to his “friend” James and not any of his victims, so forgive me for being suspicious that he’s really changed much?]

I think there is actually a really interesting story you could tell about Troy and James and bullying, but this comic just skims over the surface in favor of the usual cliches. Personally, I think it’s a mistake is to try to make Troy sympathetic here - I think this comic would be much more interesting if it’s clear to the audience from the get-go that even though Troy is the POV character, he’s not the one we should be rooting for. (I mean, I was literally hoping the demodogs were gonna eat him halfway through! Please tell me I wasn’t the only one.) 

Basically, this is a middle-grade version of the “troubled white male gets a redemption arc without actually having to face the consequences of his actions or make amends to his victims” and I’m so tired of it. Bullies already have enough as it is without also making them the hero.

Zombie Boys is much better on that front, although it, too, suffers from “What’s the point of this?” There’s a new kid at school with a Betamax Camcorder named Joey Kim, and he enlists the party to make a zombie horror movie for fun/PTSD trauma recovery/extra credit because they’re all failing English!

The problem is that if Joey is so pivotal and helpful, why do we never see him in S2? Why do none of the characters ever mention this episode? The Doylist answer is that this comic was written years later, but the Watsonian explanation is... that it wasn’t really that important. It just feels really weird to read something that has no connections/relevance whatsoever to the larger canon, even though there ought to be some impacts.

Which is not to say this is all bad. Mr. Clark is awesome, for starters! And to its credit, this comic actually brings up racism instead of carefully avoiding it like the show does. But Joyce seems super OOC, Joey doesn’t seem like a real kid, and the comic ends with Will saying “maybe this year is gonna be better,” and I’m just shaking my head, because I’ve seen S2, Will, it’s not happening. 

Ah, well, maybe the comics written by Jody Houser will be better.

[kingofthewilderwest]

Being someone new to the fandom after following the series for a long time, I was curious: Why do fans seem to argue so much about if the series are canon or not? Personally I find them interesting but.. Less canon, I guess? Than the movies, but I still enjoy watching, and I'm super happy people love it bc any new content is great. Yet browsing the tags I keep finding people complaining that the shows are/aren't canon in a way that really makes you feel bad if you disagree? I'm just confused :/

Hey there, friend! Any new content is a great thing indeed, I’m with you there! It’s something I’m rather thankful for. Whether or not everyone is invested in new material, there’s something cool to say on the matter that we have the blessing of being given more material to experience within our fandom franchise.

Before we begin, I’ll plop links to my prior posts on the RTTE canon discussion (mostly my opinion on the matter, which is canon =/= consistency):

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

And another good post (not mine) about different angles of analyzing a story:

[Watsonian and Doylist]

Sorry that you’ve had a potentially unpleasant experience browsing through the tags for this matter! I absolutely love the HTTYD fandom to tears and love the people in it, but yeah, this is a major point of contention within the community sometimes. 

I’d say that as with anything in any fandom, when there’s material some people like and some people don’t, there’s going to be discussion, disagreement, and sometimes butting heads over it. Some people adore Race to the Edge. Some people don’t. Some people take it seriously. Some people don’t. That’s okay and awesome! We’re all allowed our preference, and frankly communities are better places when people don’t all have the same brain about a matter. Not everyone’s going to like the same thing or look at something from the same angle and that’s the entire point about being unique human beings. We need different perspectives, and if we know how to handle different perspectives, we grow and develop and have better times because of it.

What it does mean, though, is that some fans find RTTE to be full of contradictions to the timeline of the movie trilogy. They’ll talk about how Hiccup’s characterization doesn’t make sense in the context of HTTYD, GOTNF, and HTTYD 2. They’ll talk about how in a world that was supposed to be at peace for the five years between movies one and two, there’s way too much chaos for RTTE to be “real events.” They’ll talk about how Hiccup encountering a Bewilderbeast or dragon trappers or lots of other dragon riders couldn’t happen before the events of HTTYD 2, because then it contradicts his reaction when he learns about Valka the mysterious dragon rider. And other such commentary. It’s hard to get into it all, here. 

Some people who take this position about RTTE being contradictory to [other] canon enjoy RTTE or have casual fun with RTTE. They may or may not call the show canonical. If they don’t call it canonical, it’s because they don’t see it as consistent with the rest of the franchise. Perhaps most of the people who take this position (I say this anecdotally though) don’t enjoy RTTE and don’t accept it… and probably don’t call it canon. While people do try to make logical arguments about the canonicity of RTTE, I know that many peoples’ emotional feelings toward the show get in the way of how they analyze it. It’s how lots of humans work, after all; if we don’t like something we’re less likely to accept something. But regardless, many people take the position that RTTE can’t be canonical because it seems riddled with contradictions compared to HTTYD, GOTNF, and HTTYD 2.

Others don’t see contradictions, try to smooth over contradictions, or don’t care about contradictions. People who call RTTE canonical are most likely people who like the show - again, showing how emotions get intertwined in our arguments, even when we’re trying to argue through logos. XD Most people who say RTTE is canonical either point out it’s really not as contradictory as others say… or if they’re like me… say that canonicity isn’t about consistency at all. Consistency is irrelevant to whether or not something is canonical; canonicity is about whether or not it was officially produced. And in the case of RTTE, it’s definitely not a fanfiction, it’s not made by some independent group of people without official studio authority… RTTE was produced and distributed by DreamWorks on official channels like Netflix, so it’s canon. For many people, it’s silly to revoke RTTE as canon, because whether or not you like the material, or whether or not you consider it consistent with the rest of HTTYD material, you shouldn’t be denying that official material is official material, right? 

The debate can get a little more in depth / complex than that, which you’ll see in the links. But that’s the gist of the main positions.

Honestly sometimes people talk past each other in this fandom discussion. People ARE, after all, using one word “canon” in several different ways - to talk about consistency, to talk about being officially produced, or both in one. (You can also talk about whether or not it’s as Big as the movies, aka a greater canon versus lesser canon thing). The different perspectives have valid points. But sometimes this turns into equivocating, and it’s largely because we’re specifically using the word “canon” to talk about: 

Consistency

Official production status

And then some people try to go after arguments of each, conflate the two issues into one, try to argue both things at once, and all sorts of various tangles. XD 

It’s basically the word “canon” has become problematic, because some people like RTTE, some people don’t, some people take RTTE seriously, some people don’t, some people think RTTE is contradictory, some people don’t, and we’re all trying to use one word to describe that. And we’re trying to use a word that has a lot of “power” behind it. The word “canon” is a pretty serious word - after all, it’s a word that elects whether or not something should be “included” (to some degree or another) in our fandom. So people don’t like hearing RTTE is or isn’t “canon,” given the power behind the word. The word “canon” elicits emotion. To call RTTE not canon could feel like an insult to the show, or to call RTTE canon would feel like inattentiveness to the movies, etc., depending on your position. Even with me, I admit I’m always working on pushing down a pet peeve I have when people treat canonicity as continuity.

I’ve given my piece on what the word “canon” means multiple times, and haha of course I think I’m totally right ;) XD, but given as I’d rather enjoy myself celebrating material I love rather than fall to a topic I consider a sometimes petty discussion (I say this with all love, fandom friends), I’ve elected to quit talking about this at all. It’s a topic I don’t need to be in and a topic I’m honestly tired of seeing. I’ve found a solution. I’ve quit using the spark-word “canon” altogether. I use the synonym “official materials.” I’ve made it quite clear with this synonym what I’m talking about, and no one can say RTTE isn’t official materials, whatever their opinion is on consistency.

Regardless, what’s important is that we all have fun enjoying the things we love. Fandom communities are about coming together and relating to materials we enjoy. If two people like RTTE, we can have fun with it! If two people don’t see eye-to-eye about RTTE, we can squeal about the movies excitedly! That’s truly the core of what it means to come together. 

To be a fandom community and have fun!

And really, even if the HTTYD fandom can get a little bit sour about the RTTE sometimes, all fandoms have their disagreements, and I’ve really found it to be an awesome community filled with lots of positivity, too. Hope you have fun in the fandom, friend, and feel free to shout about RTTE with me if you want!

But yeah that’s more or less why it’s gotten contention. “Canon” is an emotion-evoking word because it has a lot of “power” for what it means about the status of RTTE. Please, no one take my post, reblog it with your opinions on the matter, and spark up another round of debates. That will make me very displeased for you to take my post for that aim. Thanks for understanding!

Hopefully this explanation helps!

[runespoor7]

Iris’ Broken Circle: the end

She ends up letting the desire demon and her bewitched Templar go, because I managed to convince myself I don't have any other Warden that might do that (...*side-eyes Mahariel anyway*), and you can let them go by saying the situation they're in is intriguing, rather than because you're touched by the love story.

Now, on to the Fade!

- fourth time playing it (or maybe fifth? I don't remember if I'd gone so far with Aeducan the first time, before I decided I wanted to play it otherwise) if I count the time I was just watching Dem play. I still love it, the gameplay is so different from the rest of the game, and I always love “voyages to the centre of the mind”. This time, I had Morrigan and Zevran with me as opposed to... Alistair and Leliana... so that might have helped with my impression that I was doing new things. Iris is also the first mage I'm playing through the Fade, and Mana Clash makes short work of a lot of things. Golems are huge threats, but aside from that...

- the entry vision: it's a given that for a lot of PC it's not going to be much their characters wish for (aside from the assurance that the Blight is over), but in Iris' case it was almost a total misfire. It wasn't more of a misfire than it was with Tabris, but...”You've been at Weisshaupt for some time now/The Gray Wardens shall be keepers of history. We shall tell tales […] of a more tumultuous time, that others may rejoice in knowing that that time is past./Can you not be content with the peace I offer” is pretty much guaranteed Iris kryptonite. What about the travels. What about the thrills??

- upon meeting Niall, I learnt that Iris had decided he's a demon. Apparently her rule for the Fade is “if it's not me, it's a trick”. Not that she minds: if it's not her, it means she can trick it, or negotiate with it, or otherwise deal with it, as the case may be. But still, as far as she's concerned, Niall is Fake!Niall.

- after running around trying on four other shapes (it is pretty cool, she's tempted to ask Morrigan for how to do it), she finally stumbles into... Zevran's nightmare.

- At this point I note that Zevran's mind is casting two Dalish elves in the roles of his Crow torturers, which reminds me: canon/early canon said that Dalish are considered adults after they've earned their vallaslin. Which involves enduring the tattooing without crying out. If you do, you're considered immature, and the Keeper stops; better luck in a few months! I remember fans wondering why we never saw people with half-finished vallaslin (there's a Doylist answer, but let's assume for a moment the devs would make the assets for a background NPC), and now I look at Zevran, with his tattoo on half his face, and with his story that he'd fled to join the Dalish once but the reality didn't live up to his expectations, and with his mind deciding Dalish would stand in for the Crows, and I wonder.

(in case you're wondering, Zevran's tattoo doesn't look that much like a DA:O vallaslin, however unfinished, unless you assume that different clans have their own takes on each vallaslin – which seems much more likely to me than assuming they're all using the same without regional variants! If we're admitting variants, based on the available designs, Zevran's tat could be part of a vallaslin of: June, Dirthamen, or Andruil. I feel Andruil would be a good design for Zevran, perhaps even the best suited to him with Falon'Din. But if Zevran was ditching the Crows, would he have stuck to an identity as a hunter? It's less unlikely than “friend of the dead”, probably.)

- she still gets Fade!Zevran out of there. (Me, I note that Zevran's first reaction being “but you're not supposed to be here!” when the Warden says something is incredibly pleasing to my shipping Iris/Zevran.) Then Fade!Zevran  starts to disappear and she reaches out, and then he's gone and she finds herself a bit nonplussed as she puts her arm down and wonders if that Zevran was real or not. Probably real. The nightmare held similarities to her own entry vision in, it felt like an illusion meant to keep Zevran trapped. She remains staring at the rack for a minute after Fade!Zevran's disappeared.

- then she finds Morrigan, and Morrigan is-- oh, Iris cannot imagine a demon impersonating Morrigan with such accuracy. It's the real Morrigan, and she's as aware of Fake!Flemeth being a fake and she in the Fade that Iris has been for a while now. She's also exceedingly annoyed with the proceedings, both the interactions with the spirit, and her subsequent disappearing, in a manner that I-the-player finds absolutely hilarious. (Not related: I note that Fake!Flemeth slaps Morrigan for not showing respect, and Morrigan says “there, that's more like it!”. I assume it's because Fake!Flemeth's attempts at cloyingness were even faker than this, but I don't think I'll take it for meaning Flemeth was physically abusive with Morrigan, especially about “respect”. I can imagine Flemeth hitting Morrigan when she'd returned with her mirror, though.)

- Wynne's nightmare is so very very creepy. The part where the dead apprentice speaks and asks her to stay with them in the embrace of the earth. Iris thought that was creeeeepy, and that's not a reaction she has very often. Connor was grotesque; Amalia's fascination with the talking cat was disquieting and kind of creepy; dead apprentice begging their teacher to join them in death? Creeeeeeeepy.

Wynne says she's always had an affinity for the Fade, and Iris' gut reaction was to think that she, Iris, really doesn't, but she's had to pause her reaction. She does find navigating the Fade easy, or at least... kind of pleasant. She can obtain what she wants from its inhabitants. Isn't that having an affinity, too? It's like since her Harrowing, and with the multiple opportunities she's had, she's good at this. Before, most of what she knew about the Fade came lectures on the dangers of the Fade and assigned readings. They made it sound so boring. And it was never practical, of course, so it was just... endless lecturing... no wonder she'd liked spellcasting better. Making things go boom = much more fun! And even so they had to go oh so slowly. Again, no wonder Iris had to try things on her own. ...despite Jowan's fear that she would get in trouble. She was careful, though, partly to humor him and partly because she knew better, she's always known better. So very often she had to be content with imagining how her spell would go if she cast it like so and so, as her testing time was always limited. So even on her own, it was slow, she had to hide, and then sometimes she had to come up with a clever lie on the spot, when she was just a little too good at something they weren't supposed to have studied yet. ...Until finally Irving took her under his wing.

- to truly understand how easy playing as Iris made soloing the bosses, you need to remember that three of the four bosses are magic-based (demons and such), so Mana Clash does them in. And the last boss is blocked behing a Massive Door, so you can just cast Tempests and Shocks and Cones of Cold until he dies, without ever opening the door.

- Iris is almost entirely lacking in empathy regarding Niall, to an extent that I find surprising even for her. She finds him whiny. She talks the talk of saying right-ish things because he's dying, but she's got things to be doing here. (“can't he die any faster” - not an actual thing she's thinking but the gist) Up to the point where he starts talking about his mother, and how she used to tell him, before the Circle, that he was meant for greatness, greater than their ancestors ever dreamt of, and then Iris snaps. “Are you done reminiscing?”

Then we're out of the Fade again, and then we meet Cullen.

...yep, so Cullen is pretty lucky there's no option to fight and kill him, because I wouldn't do it as he's a returning character, but I would sure need finagling to ensure Iris doesn't. If Iris wanted “to guarantee that no abominations […] live”, she'd start with him. Only way to be sure, right? How long did he spend with only blood mages and demons for company, how is he any less a risk as the others up there? He as good as admitted to demons tempting him and showing him things he wanted, right?

On the bright side, Zevran comments on Cullen revealing that he has a crush on Amell. (“Someone was quite the little heartbreaker when they were an apprentice. My, my.” I am playing the perfect character for this, I am so satisfied.) On the less bright side, it's actually less rewarding than what Iris thought – she thought it was... she basically thought she was exploiting a crush and Cullen being very much a templar apprentice*, see. If it turns out that Cullen was in love with her, well, suddenly, nothing she did mattered. It wasn't that she was good at manipulation, it was just that he'd fabricated something made-up in his head.

*I would love to get why there where only male templars in Kinloch Hoch. Doylist explanation is that Bioware decided it shouldn't be gendered after the game was out, but I want a Watsonian explanation... ;_; are we supposed to imagine there are also female templars in Kinloch Hoch? ...probably, actually. (;_; it's very hard given what we see in Broken Circle) See Templar lady chasing Anders. Or maybe Greagoir sends templar ladies on the roads and keeps only guys standing watch on the actual Tower. Maybe because it's supposed to keep down the risk of fraternization?

But on the other hand, it means that when Cullen's going off the deep end in Kirkwall, Iris can look back at her past self and kick herself for not making more of an effort to put him down when she could have had the opportunity! (the problem was Wynne.)(chances are Iris never will, but you never know, right?)

- the convo with Uldred is so different from every other confrontation with Uldred I ever made! There's an option to say “I suppose we are similar, in some ways” unprompted which I don't remember seeing before – it's probably because Iris is a blood mage – and I hastened to take it. I like that I was able to play this confrontation in an IC manner, that was pretty fun, from Iris saying “of course [some mages] are [stubbornly resisting you]! You're trying to destroy their lives!” to “No, I think it is you that should serve me” (that latter was mostly because she got a kick out of saying it, but you never know with demons). At the very end of the fight, Zevran fell, and Iris had no choice but to turn to fueling her last couple of spells with her own blood, so that was something. When Uldred addressed Irving to tell him she was there, she suddenly wondered if Uldred was going to tell Irving she was a blood mage, she knows Uldred could tell.

- Iris' feelings about Irving are complicated and so better shoved in a drawer in the darkest corner of her mind and sealed.

- ...she does have the most inappropriate moment of glee when Irving says “curse whoever insisted the Circle be built in a tower.” Ha, take that, Alistair! ...and then she immediately chides herself because that's Irving making a joke, and being mentally friendly with Irving is no-no.

- and then it's back to Greagoir and Iris wishing she got Cullen killed, and then Iris wondering if Greagoir didn't get stealth possessed or something because he thanks her and tells her she's proven herself to be a friend of both the Circle and the templars, and Iris has never been the friend of either of the two one day in her life and if she could drown all the people who'd talked about killing the mages in the Tower she'd do it in an instant and not feel a hint of remorse?

- I the player am not shipping Irving/Greagoir any less than usual but I think Iris has big enough blinders about both of them not to think about it rn. I think she considered it when she was younger, and now their interactions are just their interactions. It's not something worth analyzing whether they're fucking or not, it's just business as usual. It could come up at some point if Zevran asks her about her life or that return to the Circle or if she ever finds it in her to open up about how complicated her feelings about Irving have gotten.

The complicated feelings about Irving that Iris is totally not having aren't getting any less complicated by the convo with Irving himself. “I am glad you arrived when you did. It's almost as though the Maker Himself sent you.” So she's going to answer that as neutrally as she can, because no feelings, feelings are bad. “The Blight drove me here to seek aid.”

Holy shit I had forgotten you can turn down Wynne's offer to join. ...That's... a little bit tempting, because blood magic. But Iris isn't a Circle mage anymore, Grey Wardens aren't bound by the Circle's rules, and there is a Blight to be won.

[the-cardboard-constructionist]

I have a lot of mixed thoughts on JKR and the information that she has given out since the series officially ended. 

On one hand, it has never been a secret or a surprise that she had developed every single minor character in that series with a back story and relevance to a variety of things. This is not new information. She has been saying that the entire time, since as soon as this series became popular. Even before Pottermore, she had a website where she sometimes posted snippets about minor characters and gave them more depth, and some of it was things she contemplated putting in the books and ended up not having room for, and some of it was things that had no business being in the books because the backstory for that one kid who was killed when Voldemort collapsed a bridge and is really only mentioned in a small snippet of an article was not necessary there. Not everything she knew and planned for this universe had a place in the books. These are children’s books and not only that, but they are long as fuck children’s books, and honestly, children only have so much patience for books. There is only so long you can make them, and only so many things you can include. Which is why a lot of things, even things she originally intended to put in, aren’t in there. Which is honestly probably why Pottermore exists. Because she wanted to share the things that didn’t have a place in the book. The most memorable scene I remember from her original website about this was a scene where Theodore Nott goes to the Malfoy manor and hangs out with Draco while their parents are doing death eater things. It’s been literal years since I’ve read it so I don’t remember much else, but she has been releasing things like this all along. It just didn’t fit in the book. 

I think this also kind of applies to Nagini as well. I mean, let’s be realistic here. From the moment Nagini was introduced into the books, there has been a gazillion fucking theories about that snake. Some as tame as, Nagini is actually that same snake that Harry talked to in the first one, and others more complex, saying things like Nagini is an animagius, or other backstories. I can remember back when the most recent book was Order of the Phoenix reading fan theories about Nagini. The idea that she is not just an ordinary snake is not new. It is in absolutely no way new. In fact, it was taken as fact until it was revealed in the last one that she was a horocrux and then we all moved on and was like okay, that’s what special about her. But the fact that now we’re learning more... it’s... I don’t understand why it’s a bad thing. So now she’s a mythical being, and based on what I know about the mythical histories of the type of being she is, it makes sense that she’s Asian? Like... if they had given this same story, the same creature, who’s name is based on Indonesian mythology, and had a white person play her... I see just as many people being upset? Like... I honestly don’t imagine anyway that people would be happy with that at this point. It makes sense. And yeah, maybe she didn’t include enough representation of Asian people initially, why would it be wrong of her to try to fix that now? Why shouldn’t she do that? Like... sometimes people realize their mistakes and grow from it.

I do hear the arguments about Voldemort being a “white supremacist” and therefore it being a problem that a non-white character is working with him. And here’s what I have on that: Voldemort is not actually a white supremacist. Like, if he had existed in a non-magical setting, and his father had been a black man instead of a muggle, would he have been a white supremacist? Probably, yes. Does he have the same ideology that many white supremacists have? Absolutely. But he is a metaphor for a genocidal leader, and his particular problem is related to magic vs non-magic. Not actual race. It’s a metaphor for race, most of the time. So yes, it is a little bit off. But we also have to think about the fact that the metaphor is outside the story. The metaphor is how we related it to the actual world. There’s two way of looking at a story. Watsonian and Doylist. Watsonian is looking at it in story. Looking at an explanation for it in the story, and a reason why it works there. Doylist is looking outside the story and it’s context in the real world. (Which of course comes from Sherlock Holmes, the Doylest explanation always being that Sir ACD was not actually paying attention to what he was writing ever and named everyone James and then forgot about it). Looking at it from a Doylist perspective, yeah, it seems a bit off. But looking at it from a Watsonian perspective, it matters more about her blood status than her race. But also, it’s not like every single death eater fits the mold that Voldemort would have wanted. Hell, fucking Voldemort doesn’t. I see absolutely no reason why there wouldn’t have been wizards of color who were on the side of Voldemort. We know there were. We absolutely know there were. The Zabini family for one. In fact, I think so far our small amount of wizards of color were sprinkled pretty evenly across all the sides of the war. (The Zabini family is on Voldemort’s side, and on the good side we’ve got Dean Thomas and his family, we’ve got Kingsley Shatterbolt.)

Yes, she should absolutely have originally included more diversity. Yes, she should continue to include more diversity now as she seems intent on producing more content. But every time she does something like try to include different races, everyone jumps on her throat about it. Like... positive reinforcement, y’all. It works. And also, I’m relatively sure that she is not in charge of casting. She probably gets a say, she definitely approves of this one, but a reminder that she is an author, not a casting director. And as we all learned from the casting fiascos on “To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before”, the author doesn’t actually end up with much say in the casting once the agreement has been made between the production company and the author. 

I can see how this Nagini thing can go wrong, but I can also see how it could go well. I’m not going to make up my mind until I’ve seen it. And again, it’s not like this information came out of nowhere. 

For everything more she added to those books, she would have had to take something out. So she made her choices on what was MOST relevant to the story. And maybe those choices aren’t the same as what some of us have made. Personally, I would have liked to see Dumbledore’s story explored in a way that showed us that he was gay. But she made a choice on what was deemed most relevant to his story, and that wasn’t it. It would have been nice if it was included, but it wasn’t. And I’m sure there are many reason for that, but honestly, when she says things like “Dumbledore is gay”, I have no doubt in my mind that that was something that was lurking in her brain the whole time. And certainly, we see no indications that would prove that statement wrong in the books. But realistically, the only time Harry’s professor’s love lives were relevant to him at all in any way, was when it was Snape and his mom. And that was less because it was Snape and more because it was his mom. But also because that led to the time Voldemort tried to kill him. Dumbledore’s love life from many years before Harry was even born just isn’t relevant to him. Like, I would have loved to see it. But I understand why it wasn’t there. Harry was hearing about everything with Grindlewald through what amounted to a rumor mill a lot of the time anyway, and Dumbledore is often a very private man. It made sense, storywise, for it not to be there. (And quite frankly, I’m not sure that Harry would have picked up on any subtle ways of saying it either.)

The Cursed Child was a disaster and all that, yes. And she approved it, but she wasn’t the one brainstorming the ideas for it, and honestly, none of that was exploring the world she created. It was a different potential. It probably wasn’t how she saw it all playing out. So I don’t really accept that as canon, in the same universe. Just like how the movies are in a slightly different but related universe than the books. So I don’t really feel the need to address that. 

Now... the wizarding school in America and the wizarding world here... it’s obvious that she doesn’t entirely understand American culture, but honestly, why would she? She isn’t American. And she knows of America and magic what is most obvious and taught. Salem Witch trials. The early types of New England magic. The types of magic we hear about in old Native American tales that aren’t quite right to what was actually believed, but changed by being passed down by those who didn’t know it 100%. She should have done more research. There are things I disagree with in her ideas about magic in the United States, but you can see where the ideas come from, and I think some of them are very good ideas about how it stated. It just... should have expanded since then. England is one of those countries that have been around for a very long time and a lot of things are very similar to how they’ve always been. America isn’t. It’s bigger and more diverse, and has so many different types of things. But is she really the person to incorporate all those things in? I think that honestly, no matter what she said about magic in America, we would have objected as a whole. Because there are things she doesn’t understand, and maybe she’s only there to set the frame work of it, and the people who understand better are the ones who can take it from there. Her origin story of the wizarding school sounds reasonable, it just needs to evolve. But we also need to remember that the wizarding community is different from what Americans are like not in that community. Just like it is in England. I don’t know how many of these ideas were ones that have been lurking in her head for years, because I’m sure some of them are. I’m sure some of the basics of how it works here have been in her head for a long time, because there’s a backstory for everything in her world. 

Now, how she is outside of her Harry Potter content, that I won’t speak to. I’ve heard some things I don’t like, but haven’t had a chance to fact check most of them and I’m not going to make a judgement until I do.

I just think a lot of the objections to her sharing her ideas on behind the story things is a bit intense and unnecessary. You don’t have to like it or believe it. But most of it isn’t coming from nowhere, and I’m sure a lot of it isn’t just being produced just for the sake of gaining interest back. It’s been there for years.