Fushiguros

i think this does get critiqued sometimes like I think we're supposed to see naruto's enduring loyalty to Sasuke as overall a noble/good thing but in the case of the uchiha massacre the uchiha's disloyalty to the village is used to justify their deaths and Itachi putting the village first is seen as a good thing i.e. loyalty to comrades is only good when they are loyal to the state which is deeply disturbing

I think it’s interesting how Shikamaru is basically saying that Sasuke is worth risking their lives for because he is a shinobi from the hidden leaf and therefore a comrade, instead of it being because he’s a kid who’s essentially being abducted by an incredibly dangerous enemy. He’s not a comrade in the sense of being someone he knows in a dangerous situation, but in the sense of being loyal to the hidden leaf, implying that once he fully cuts those ties to the village he will no longer be worthy of help/protection, which is exactly how he gets treated by Shikamaru and most of the Konoha 11 when he becomes a rogue ninja. Even the core ideas of loyalty and protecting one another are wrapped up in the nationalism of the show.

Here’s the transcript of the explanation from episode 7.03: Lance: Wow, a lot of things have really changed over the past few weeks. Acxa: “Weeks”? What are you talking about? Allura: The last time we saw you. You were fighting us alongside Lotor. Acxa: That was three deca-phoebs ago. No one has seen you since your fight with Lotor. Keith: That’s impossible. Acxa: It’s true. After Lotor jettisoned us, we managed to make it to cover on a meteoroid. There we saw both Voltron and Lotor disappear. Eventually Voltron re-emerged… alone. But then there was an explosion and after that… nothing. That was three-deca-phoebs ago. Lance: Whoa. Allura: So, as far as everyone else in the universe is concerned, Voltron has been gone for three deca-phoebs? Pidge: That explains the discrepancies in the star charts in our Lions. I thought they were off because of our inter-dimensional jumping, which I guess they were, in a way. Because when you think about it, that must have been the cause of the time slippage between our experience and that of the rest of the universe.

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two of em

in other news, i designed bikinis up to a 5xl (~:

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The 3 Keys Theory

@nikutsuneart made a post about Kairi’s involvement in Melody of Memory to find Sora. In isolation, this part of the story also made me scratch my head. However, looking back at this with the context of Dream Drop Distance, it all clicked for me.

In Melody of Memory, the Fairy Godmother says,

“To find Sora, we need three keys… With Riku's dreams and Kairi's memories, you two have already done your part.”

Key and three is used very specifically, she says it multiple times in the conversation. The third Key is the Nameless Star. However, we are not told specifically what the Nameless Star’s key is (as specific as dreams and memory are).

Luckily, Ansem has our answer:

“The three realms of our world--light, darkness, and between--these are all places we can travel to because they are on "our side." This also includes the worlds of memories, data, and dreams.”

Memory, Data, and Dreams, then, must be the three keys.

But my mind began to wander. What if it’s the same ritual from Dream Drop Distance?

You see, at the end of Dream Drop Distance, Ansem also tells Riku about a key:

“You were questioned by three young people. That was the final key to awaken him. Sora is awake.”

The way “key” is used, the audience initially thinks, oh this is just a matter of phrasing. But what if Roxas, Ventus and Xion also represent the same 3 keys?

To talk about this, I think we need to look at that DDD scene a little differently. Is it really Roxas, Ventus, and Xion during that scene? They’re sort of apparitions, not reacting to Riku’s surprise; appearing and disappearing suddenly.

What if, like Ansem the Wise, they’re also forms of data? The knowledge that there are people in Sora’s heart that need to return to the real world: analogous to Sora in that moment needing to return to the real world, as well.

Essentially, the trio are supposed to represent something, here. Given that, who represents what? I think Roxas is Memory, Ventus is Dreams, and Xion is Data.

The Three Keys

First, Roxas as Memory. During Sora’s descent into darkness, Roxas provides Sora with all of his memories and experiences. Ergo, Sora’s heart chooses to represent that component, Memory, with Roxas’ data.

Next, Ventus as Dream. Of course Sora’s heart would use him to represent Dream. He’s been asleep, dreaming alongside Sora, during his whole adventure.

Finally, Xion as Data. Xion has ceased to exist in memories or dreams, yet her data and hurt still remains. It is through others believing and wishing for her to return that she may find her way back to her friends.

I think this works best because it follows the same order as Melody of Memory, ending on Data. However, I do see the argument to switch Roxas and Xion. Afterall, Data Roxas was a major player in Re:Coded.

Furthermore, isn’t this what the power of waking is? “For traversing hearts to reach worlds”? Each of these components, Memory, Dreams, and Data— Riku is using these 3 hearts to guide Sora back to his world.

To Sum It Up

I believe Melody of Memory makes more sense if we understand it as the same ritual. In DDD, although Riku freed Sora from the nightmare, he was still lost. Riku was presented with 3 keys held by 3 people. Each of these people once existed in the real world and represented the desire to return to it. By answering the questions, Riku was able to use the power of waking to pull Sora away from Quadratum—out of his Memories, Dreams, and Data—and into his reality.

Then, Melody of Memory is Riku doing it again. 3 people 3 keys, Riku dreams, Kairi’s memories and the Nameless Star’s heart filled with data of Unreality. Riku is instead traveling away from reality and in the opposite direction: into Quadratum.

my worst enemies are people who say the inosaku fight was about sasuke. like truly why would kishimoto write all of this purely to elevate sasuke. there are better and simpler ways of doing that. the whole point is sakura framing her goals to be more palatable to the patriarchal society they live in (to the point where she's constructed a separate identity around it). it's not subtle !!!!!

sakura has plenty of merits as a character, as do the majority of female characters in naruto, but some of you use "misogynistic mangaka" as an excuse -- subconsciously or otherwise -- not to engage with them (and at worst gleefully deride them). i do not love it

Possibly the greatest struggle in fandom is trying to talk about racism in either canon or as a general fandom trend and then immediately having your inbox filled with denial that exists in any form anywhere and also getting repeated personal attacks against you for daring to so much as mention that racism is still happening. It’s all good and well until you mention racism is an issue, and then it’s like the entirety of Tumblr turns into Fox News.

Been turning this over in my head for the past few days and trying to articulate it to myself re. Ongoing conversations about racism in fandom --

Because I am increasingly bored with the conversation around racism in fandom coming back to which characters get fic and which characters get shipped. I think that conversation becomes a symbol of racism in fandom because there are clear number to point to -- but simultaneously I think it also takes away from conversations around racism in fandom, because everyone zeroes in on the numbers and then it becomes a question of interpreting statistics and an argument about the quality of canons and a million tedious, heard six hundred thousand times before arguments about why someone may or may not choose to consume fic or art about a character or ship. Its uninteresting, it brings nothing new to the conversation and frankly I don't think it engages with the most upsetting parts of fandom.

But then what are these upsetting parts of fandom? This is really more qualitative and again, this is upsetting to a certain sort of (white) person who wants a simple quantitative fix which is why non-white fans, I think, get pulled into the trap of fixating on numbers as a discursive practice - to make people pay attention. I am not interested in having this conversation with white fans who are interested in absolving themselves of guilt or minimizing their own culpability or who are interested in ensuring that they are good people. I'm interested in the question of what is upsetting as a fan of colour? And well, the answer unfortunately embroils a lot of very well-meaning people who don't think of themselves as overtly racist but who have nevertheless absorbed racist and imperialist attitudes from immersion in cultures that privilege a certain worldview, which privilege a certain method of seeing, understanding and knowing the world and which obscure other possibilities of knowing and seeing the world. (Please note: I am trying to avoid cliched discourse phrases, because I am trying to make people think about what it is I am saying here, instead of fixating on words). Some of the most common ones I’ve seen:

The reproduction of imperial/colonial attitudes:

Fannish arguments about what constitutes imperialism/colonialism/genocide in the context of a particular piece of usually speculative media - the person in question is defining imperialism/colonialism/genocide with such a narrow lens that about 70% of imperial/colonial/genocidal violence in your country would be disqualified.

In an otherwise well-reasoned meta, you see someone using a historical source to make an argument about a reading that potentially opens up possibilities for a more diverse reading of an otherwise white text. However, this source is a deeply colonialist document and is presented decontextualized from that colonial history (with all the epistemic violence and outright textual racism that colonial knowledge about non-white people went with)

Explicit use of the language/imperialist attitudes linked to the noble savage or exotic other to "elevate" or "represent" a non-white character or non-white culture / non-white representational culture. (I see this one so often being reproduced by people who genuinely think they're doing something good here, because they're making an active effort to write/make art of non-white characters/cultures)

Using language with an uncanny similarity to colonial/imperialist denialism to defend their faves

Using settings with an imperialist backdrop/conflict that is largely about shipping a couple of characters (e.g., Any and all fic where characters serve in the Iraq or Afghanistan war as part of the us army) or is largely about a white character's guilt (e.g., 90% of Vietnam war literature and any time it makes an appearance in fandom with all those tropes)

The tedium of well-meaning representation:

On a similar spectrum as the exotic other spectrum, but the reproduction of cultural stereotypes - usually of a dominant culture within a non-white country (e.g., The preponderance of a very Brahminic, Hindu and frankly Jhumpa Lahiri-esque interpretation of harry potter being Indian). Or sometimes just the endless parade of stereotypes / symbols without any sort of complex emotions or relationships with them, only celebration.

Someone is writing about a character of colour! The character of colour spends the entire fic repressing their complex emotions about a white character who has hurt/violenced them in some way and instead dedicates themselves to comforting said character

Someone is writing a character of colour! The character of colour does no wrong and is a beautifully one-dimensional, boring piece of beige

Someone is writing a character of colour! The character of colour exists entirely to be an emotional sponge for the white character

Someone is writing a character of colour...who has no interiority

The reproduction of "I’m not a racist but" attitudes in heated fandom debates

"Racism in Europe is different, stop importing American ideals" there are Europeans who use the first part of this sentence in good faith to open up discussion/conversation, but usually this is meant to foreclose conversation and also, as a non-white person who lived in Europe: lol. Rofl. Lmao, even.

"It’s different here, because talking about racism here is racist and only racists do that" - I, once more, highly doubt this and maybe this betrays a little too much of the whiteness of the circles you move in

"I’m afraid of writing characters of colour because I will get yelled at" - great! Don't write them! Do you want a cookie, do you want us to call Bella Hadid. (Conversely: this one is funny, because I’m on the edge about whether or not I will run into out and out white supremacists (and I mean this in the sense of actual n*zis) in fandom while the most terrifying thing a certain sort of white fan can imagine is being dubbed racist)

Evoking anti-colonial/anti-racist non-white theorists in defense of white characters and their fictional actions - sometimes, it is good, in fact, to have a sense of proportion and understand that you need to be careful about what sources and texts you decide to pull into a fannish argument that is ultimately and frankly not very important in the grand scheme of things

The last category is like, pretty in your face, but the first two are unfortunately common enough that it is impossible to get into a fandom where there may be a character of colour or there may be a hint of imperialism to the text, without expecting to be made to wince hard frequently. The last is easy to spot a mile away and block, but the first really gets my goat, because to explain how these things can be upsetting to see, you have to delve into the history of imperialism and of seeing yourself reflected through the eyes of orientalists and colonists talking, for example, about the indolent hindoo or the wise and sagely hindoo or about the inscrutable oriental smile or the noble bravery of the Pashtun/Afghan/Arab/Bedouin and so on and so forth. It is basically impossible to articulate and describe, unless your interlocutor has read substantial bodies of 19th century texts - themselves bequeathed to you via the medium of a colonial educational system that insists on teaching them as "English literature". It is always from well-meaning people who would be, perhaps (and I prefer to hope) upset if they understood what they had evoked (ergo: immersion in cultures which obscure certain ways of knowing the world and knowing about how knowledge of the world is produced).

And ultimately, I don't know that fixating on shipping or character stat will get us anywhere near unpacking why and how these modes of writing or understanding characters are the easiest ones to fall into, why and how these attitudes are easy to reproduce and where they originate from. I don't know that stats are anything but dealing with symptoms instead of the malaise. But then, I think, dealing with this malaise is far far more exhausting and frankly, it isn't what I want to do with my fannish time - and I hate to think that any fan of colour, simply trying to have fun, must invest themselves in trying to cure the malaise, in order to be spared the ongoing one thousand cuts that come with being a non-white fan in international spaces.

reading books to ur brother after school

#omg but #how badly do i wish this post #used that one post by oskareli or whoever #about dudes who love their mom #and they got so fucking pissed ppl applied it to scott that they deleted and remade their tumblr loooooool #PETTY I’M SRY #scott bb ilu (x)