#riki asks

[ultfreakme]

Hi, I have a question. What do you think Jays relationship to Superman should be?

Hi!!! Nice to see you again in my inbox hehe.

Hmm...Jay's relationship with Superman....

I'm kinda interpreting this to mean three things. Jay's relationship with Jon, Clark, and the idea of Superman itself.

Superman as a concept:

Jay's relationship with the idea of Superman is tied heavily with Jon. Initially, Jay viewed 'Superman' as a symbol of hope for Gamorra. In a more practical sense, he saw how influential Superman could be in garnering support for his country and thus sought his help to spread awareness. Jon was the only one who helped out of all the other heroes. So Superman became someone who went against the grain and could be trusted to give support regardless of his personal biases( *cough* Batman *cough*).

In present time, Jon did eventually fall back in line with how the JL worked and did not act like to he prioritized Jay or Gamorra. His constant suspicion and almost, surveillance of Jay broke a lot of the trust. Now, Superman is just the same as every other hero; there when convenient, gone when it isn't. I think Jay should have a .....business-like relationship with Superman for the immediate future. Enlist when necessary, not give too much responsibility and always keep Superman(be it Jon or Clark) at an arm's length.

Jon:

Oh Jonno......I think Jay's right to be mad. At this point I would like for Jay to stick to his initial instinct of getting away. His relationship with Jon should be one that is filled with pain and heartbreak, but also despite himself, love. The presence of the love only serves to worsen the pain because once upon a time, Jon was confident about choosing Jay no matter what. The love was there, but it wasn't enough, that old cliche.

Love doesn't immediately mean trust(even though it should). There's a lot of resentment there from Jay's end. For the immediate future, it's very tense and Jay's rather angry at him. But over time, with Jon making moves to mend their relationship and some proper communication, the pain eases.

I'm biased so I'm gonna say these two remain amicable exes or get back together when they're in their late 30s or 40s if they have to get back together. I'm split on them getting back together only because I think JayJon won't work if Jon keeps clinging to being Superman.

DC editorial won't let Jon break away from the liberal image of Superman. For marketing purposes and the brand of Superman, Jon HAS to be in-line with that milquetoast image. He's being rebranded as Tomorrow Man now but it's not because Jon's reflected on how he judged Jay and Nia for Secret Six, so I'm not counting it just yet. They're not gonna have Superman dating the guy who openly killed a bunch of U.S. soldiers and is a commentary on imperialism and genocide. Even self-defensive and retaliatory violence gets you put with the Suicide Squad, Authority and Secret Six kinda territory.

For them to work romantically, either Jon has to break away from Superfam as a character in-story, and as a brand, or Jay needs to be stripped of all his nuance and be punished by the narrative to fit the image.

So.....my secret agenda is pushing for another ship but this is about Jon so I'll end this by saying; Bitterness turned into warmth after they spend time apart reflecting on their actions and reconciling with better communication.

Clark:

Clark's complicated. Jay doesn't have a relationship with Clark, like at all. Lois is his go-to. Jon is the end of Superman that is capable of change and negotiation but Clark....not so much. He's always going to choose the Justice League, and he isn't going to directly intervene with Earth politics.

Firstly, editorial won't let him, but also as a character wrt Jay, it's implied he doesn't get involved with Gamorra because he doesn't feel like he's part of Earth. Clark thinks of Earth as home, but the world doesn't.

So Clark's reliable. Someone who Jay can predict and know won't actively cause damage, but he won't get too involved either. I think Clark understands Jay and empathizes with him so he's going to do his best to do damage control for Jay within the Justice League.

A distant but trustworthy relationship where there aren't any risks of betrayals or deep emotional hurt.

Hope that answers things!!! Please feel free to reply, reblog or send to my inbox I'd love to talk about Jay!!!

[ultfreakme]

I lowkey hate that a lot of itajun writers go a bit too far into making Junpei vulnerable not only mentally, but also physically and downplay his power level a lot compared to everyone else

C'mon he was going on pair with Yuji despite getting c.t just two days ago, and we seen how deadly poison can truly be

I get Junpei might have self esteem problems at first but in most stories Yuji needs to do the heavh lifting and also act as his emotional support at the same time

Need someone to give me op Junpei who gets his own wins and can protect other and Yuji especially

They need to be a power couple, not Jun being the damsel on distress (at least not all the time)

I agree. I have a lot of ships where one character is much, much stronger than the other physically, and it leads to a level of flanderization of the physically weaker character. It's kind of hard to not have the stronger character do all the work when they're right there. Yuuji is unfortunately, much, much stronger than Junpei so a power difference is going to exist. But that doesn't mean Junpei's gonna stand around.

Mahito egged Junpei on to be more brutal, but he does have a spine and doesn't take things lying down. Even when he was getting bullied, he was retaliating and being combative.

I wish more fics would focus on getting him in situations which would show more of his strengths. Also focus on the fact that he is a bit of an asshole when he's pushed into a corner. Should he have said those guys were only bullying him because they want the girl in the group to have sex with them? No, that was sexist. But like you get it right? He's gonna sink lower than the other person to get a hit in and he's not gonna regret it because it's the only way he can get any upper hand. I'm actually not even sure if he has self-esteem problems. He never really considers himself to be in the wrong or lacking in a way. A lot of his comments are about how he thinks everyone around him is shit.

I don't doubt he has self-esteem issues underneath it all, but I don't think he's the sort to be primarily behave based on that aspect of himself.

Contrasting Yuuji's (pre JJK Modulo) personality of always being honorable and just with Junpei's "everything goes, fuck you" mentality in fics WITHOUT making them only that would be nice to see. It would be fun to see how as a sorcerer you need both these mentalities to survive and how these thought processes support each other.

Power couple itajun is very fun and very easy to do. I mean the poison-expert and the guy who's immune to any poison? Sign me up!

EDIT: Addition because I get a chance to yap and I love yapping. A good way to show the competence of characters without having one overshadow the other, is to really understand what each of them is good at. Then in fics, you write scenarios to maximize that.

Like if I was writing an ItaJun fic, then I'm gonna put Junpei in positions where he gets to

a)be as brutal as he wants b)get smart with his poison c) Use his distrust and skepticism to have him be more analytical

I was writing an itajun fic set in Shibuya arc, and while Megumi, Yuuji, Hana etc forgot to consider maybe Tsumiki could be possessed by a former sorcerer rather than an awakened one in canon, Junpei is NOOOOOOOOOT gonna miss that if he was there. And he doesn't, and when shit hits the fan he's the more prepared one out of the group to handle that. Yes he's the weakest in the group, but that one thing gives him an edge.

Yuuji's honesty and accountability, even for things he does not have to take blame for leads Higurama to trust him and hand him the points in Shibuya arc. In this case, a skeptic mindset would've been a disadvantage. In the former, Junpei's inability to trust would've helped. Shonen manga emphasizes power as the be-all and end-all. But fanfiction allows us to break that rule to take other factors like morals, ideologies, intellect and circumstances into consideration to really bring out the best in all our characters.

[ultfreakme]

Hi thank you so much for answering my last ask Jay, Your insight into him is incredible. I was curious, what would you think of Nia becoming a revolutionary and joining Jay to destroy the american empire and earning his forgiveness instead of Jon. Nia was more radical in secret six but she also had more to make up for, and in the end she ended up focusing on herself and leaving Jay to rot. But I feel like she could be pushed in just the right direction she could join Jay. I’m curious what you think about this

Hi again ^_^!! Thank you so much. Ah I've been following Jay since his first few issues in SOKE, he's truly become my main blorbo after these past 5 years and I'm glad you enjoyed my takes on him!!

Wrt Jay and Nia....I think pretty much everyone can agree these two are the highlight of the JayJonNia trio. Jon's the weakest link(sorry Jon, still love you). Jay and Nia bring with them a lot of weight in terms of themes. Being trans, being a refugee, isolation, intersectionality, and how proximity to whiteness and cishet-ness impacts the amount of privilege one has, how that is then used to oppress your peers and much more.

I think Nia has the potential to become a revolutionary, Nicole seems to be headed in that direction for her. Taylor(Galaxy) might be the final push she needs to full embrace that.

Nia is very scared of herself, and unwilling to confront the consequences of her choices.

She started off wanting to be a hero. In the her graphic novel and in the TV show, she's someone who deeply admires superheroes and wants to be just like them. It's her biggest dream, and what she uses to define herself. Her journey as the Dreamer is tied to her gender identity and her perception of herself as a person. These three things triangulate, and the collapse of one leads to the destruction of the others.

Jay is a threat to her identity, Jay is a victim of her actions. A friend whom she failed, and a loved one she failed to save as a hero. He's like a neon pink reminder of her shortcomings.

As of Absolute Power, Nia's not a good hero. In Nia's head this means she isn't a good Dreamer, which means she failed in living up to all the previous generation of Naltorians who are depicted in very stereotypically feminine ways, which means she is failing at being a girl. So she CAN'T fail at being a hero, otherwise she views herself as a failure of a person. Maeve made her feel shitty enough for being the one to get the powers, if she 'fails' at being a girl, that means she's just proving Maeve right, that the powers are wasted on her because she isn't a 'real girl'. (I hate her sister Maeve with the power of a thousand suns)

It's a pretty direct tie-in too. S6 starts with her dreaming about Jay, the guy she betrayed, pointing a gun at her during a bottom surgery. She then misses that surgery because she has to go see Jon and Jay about her premonitions. She failed Jay, so she doesn't deserve to do this.

Despite her crush on Jon, Nia actually ends up evaluating herself based on JAY'S opinions on her. She needs to somehow downplay the damage she did to him because if Jay deems her irredeemable then...what's the point?

Up until they extracted Waller's memories, Nia was calm and fully siding with Jay. Even Lori tells her that Jay's anger at her is justified. So she tries to take accountability but it's not all neatly tied up just because Waller's memories got wiped. Taking accountability is very, very hard and Nia has a long road ahead of her.

Nia and Jon are kinda similar in the way they treat Jay. They want him to get better but the think it's all very A + B= C. "If we move to San Francisco and start anew, then Jay will start anew and be fine." "If I kill Waller, then Jay's going to forgive me and we can be friends again."

But Jay's a complicated person with a lot of pain. His dismissal of her actions means her identity is still being threatened. So she fights Jay, to perhaps regain some agency over the consequences. @faemorrigan put it best, Nia's not used to being in a position of power. She's a trans girl from the Middle of Nowhere Ohio, growing up in a transphobic community, living with a sister who CONSTANTLY invalidates her and on top of that she's an alien.

But with Jay, she's currently the one with more power. American citizen, white, she passes well too. She can fight him, side with him, help him, whatever, but she isn't owed forgiveness and she needs to learn to be okay with that.

I think these two can be allies once more, even without forgiveness or the same trust they had before. It happened, it can't be undone, but they can keep going forward by giving it their all to not repeat the same mistakes.

[ultfreakme]

Chapter 18 of tmysitym is EVIL you go me BAWLING at 2 am

Yue my girl my poor poor baby

^Me rn

Anyway you're a sick fuck(affectionate) and I'm going to get back to reading

I am so sorry!!!! It's been 3 years and every time someone gets to that chapter people throw rocks at me fdjfbvhvhjhdf. I promise the rest of the fic is not that sad.

Sad, just, not that sad until I eventually get to Azula in part 3 but that's a long ways away

Rest assured knowing that henceforth it is just Zukka and their nonsense!! If it helps, Zukka have a somewhat happy ending at the end of part 1!

Thanks so much for reading and I hope you enjoy!

[ultfreakme]

what you think about junpei being trans headcanons?

I totally get it!! I see where it's coming from! A lot of Junpei's themes has to do with transformation. His fixation on the Human Earthworm movies can be extrapolated to be about this desire to change. While Mahito and the doctor in the movies see transformation and fluidity in form as something trivial for them to experiment with, Junpei sees it as something more important. More valuable and positive. His desire for transformation makes him gravitate towards Mahito. The discussions Mahito and Junpei have are about the 'true self' and the connection between body and soul. Mahito is offering to bring something inherent out of Junpei, something that would normally be very difficult.

Junpei's first transformation into a sorcerer is something he takes particular pride and joy in. He wants to flaunt it, show exactly what he is, but he is forced to hide himself. When he finally does get to really show his transformed self, he is wearing his mother's jacket. There's all these major imageries and symbolism about fluidity in identity and the body with him that it completely makes sense that people look at him and have trans headcanons about him!

[ultfreakme]

i never met anyone who seriously disliked aang before zut@r@ shippers. they really think a 12 y/o is some evil mastermind 😭

People before me have put it best, zutaras aren't actually mad that Katara has kids, or supposedly isn't written to have political influence due to her marriage and relationship with Aang (we know that's not true, she's part of the White Lotus, she trained two Avatars, helped found Republic City, continued to travel the world with Aang to resolve conflicts, banned bloodbending which means she was directly involved in bending laws and protection, etc). They're only mad she did it with the "wrong" boy.

[ultfreakme]

okay but consider: reincarnated junpei eats whatever cursed object yuji becames after his death so they can finally became one

I am considering....loading......loading........

I feel like this ask was for happiness but I;m thinking about it, and I feel like Yuuji would be horrified. This means it's possible Junpei's now going to suffer being a living cursed object since he's capable of holding Yuuji(who is likely at Sukuna's level). Personally, the crux of the Yuuji-Junpei dynamic is guilt. It's resounding failure. Not only did Yuuji fail to save him, he also failed to give him a good death.

But whoops turns out there's worse things than dying horribly--it's an extremely long life watching everyone you love die!

Yuuji's going to tell Junpei to find ways to separate them, they'd probably try to redo what Sukuna did when he manifested out of Megumi. Junpei, ideally if he remembers, is going to have lots of mixed emotions as well, I think. Guy who failed to save him, riddled with guilt, is trying to save him again.

What's gonna win out? Yuuji removing himself from Junpei, finding a way to actually die? Or Yuuji and Junpei, both locked together in the shared misery of the concept of eternity? Lots to think about....

(this might sound morbid, but my ideal happy ending for itajun is them dying. THEMATICALLY SPEAKING. JJK gave two options for Yuuji, either two live a long and miserable life, or a short and fulfilling one. Junpei's options were both those, along with short and miserable life.

There's only one answer to a happy ending, and it's to end the cycle and have their souls/spirits move to the afterlife. I think Yuuji would yearn for that, and he'd want the same for Junpei. In a reincarnation AU, Junpei's moved past that afterlife and chose to live a new life. Yuuji's gonna be feeling like absolute shit if he realized he's a cause for Junpei's misery in this new life too. The emotional turmoil this scenario generates is just, mwah)

[ultfreakme]

Dunno of You watched the csm movie but hear me out...itajun as the pool scene

Anon

ANON

I drew this thing around when the movie first came out!!!!! I abandoned it because the Denji angle was very difficult to capture. You made me remember!!! I think I'm gonna finish this now.

Something about that scene gives such itajun vibes(I never watched the movie btw, I just know of the scene)