#bc what's presented to us as a standard is actually an exception | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

wackymaci · 25 days

Text

Maci Wiki Snips - the entire backstory - part one

(eta; part two!) (part three!)

bc who tf knows if I’ll ever really finish wiki and, well, this is all written sooo💓

akaaaa

Pre-canon events & backstories: This section contains information about Maci from before the canon Elysium’verse began - events that have taken place essentially “offscreen,” but are still canonical, and even crucial, to Maci’s history. Presented as a short biography... into narrative story.

copypasted<3 so, this is all very lawng. this is basically one half of an entire novel. so I am obv putting behind a cut and splitting into multiple parts (I think just two??) so, I’ve included some of this even verbatim in that one essay about Hades and Maci a few weeks ago but this is THE WHOLE SHEBANG….. or well. Up until age 17.

CW: everything ; Hades & Thanatos and all that that means in the early stages of your standard Maci background - emotional abuse/child abuse, physical abuse, grooming, etc,

so. ahemm. maci.

Early life & childhood, ages 0 to 10

Macaria is the only child of Hades and Persephone (“Seph”), King and Queen of the Underworld. Though initially reluctant to have a child, Hades conceded at Seph’s insistence, and Maci was born in the fall, about a century after they had first been married. Arrangements were made with Demeter to allow a temporary exception to the Pomegranate Agreement that dictated Seph’s seasonal location, permitting her to remain with baby Maci and Hades in the Underworld until Maci’s 5th birthday. For 5 years, the three of them were a close-knit family, and the little Princess was showered with unbridled love and attention from her parents and their subjects. She was a hyperactive and bubbly toddler fast accustomed to having everything she ever wanted, with everyone wrapped around her fingers all the time.

When Maci was 5 and this arrangement ended, she began to travel with her mother each spring-summer season to stay with her and Demeter during the traditional six-month span. Persephone and Demeter’s springtime cottage was very different than what Maci was used to – for one thing, each of the nymphs, led by the obnoxious crusade of Demeter herself, tried their hardest to convert Maci into the Olympian light. Already upset at having to leave her regular life and her father behind, Maci did not take kindly to this. This first spring-summer was a six-month battle between a loud and moody 5-year-old Underworld Princess and her intensely condescending Olympian-bred grandmother.

For the next five years, Maci continued to travel with her mother seasonally, and each season was spent in increasing hostility: Demeter’s typical nonsense coming up against Maci’s short-tempered predisposition. Armed with the rage of a spoiled princess and actual literal pyrokinetic superpowers, Maci reacted to her grandmother’s mistreatment and judgment of the Olympians around her by acting out a reign of terror: picking fights, fighting back, and setting things on fire. Meanwhile, autumn-winter back home was enjoyed as a life of luxury, doted upon by her reunited parents, and spending time with her closest and only friends, twins Hypnos and Thanatos. When Maci was 10 years old, Seph petitioned Demeter to allow Maci to make an active decision on whether she would prefer to continue traveling seasonally or stay fulltime in the Underworld. By then, Demeter had long since given up on ever taking her in as an Olympian, and was beyond relieved to be rid of the little brat when Maci obviously chose to remain home where her perfect Princess life and friends were.

Adolescence, ages 10 to 17

By the age of 10, Maci had never actually known her father without her mother at his side. The version of Hades who existed when Seph was home in the fall was Maci’s hero; though always stiff in nature, he held a soft spot for his little daughter next to the spot reserved for his wife. Hades had also, of course, never been responsible for taking care of Maci without Seph there with him. It was easy to bounce Maci’s high-maintenance hyperactivity against Persephone, who was usually mellow, cool, and unshakeable. The disposition of Hades - easily irritable and short-tempered himself - was less equipped to handle Maci’s whims and moods without Seph there.

During the first spring that she spent home, Maci was confused to suddenly discover that the springtime version of her father was shut down completely, and he had not chosen to invite her in. Rather than bonding to cope with the absence of Persephone together, Hades instead decided to ice Maci out, and retracted himself from her both emotionally and in presence. Daily, Maci found herself mostly alone within the halls of their palace, and her interactions with her father were short and cold. Reeling from this abandonment, Maci found comfort in the arms of Hypnos and Thanatos, who by this point had been her best friends for the past four years of her life...

✧*̥˚A brief interlude: Maci & the twins*̥˚✧

Hypnos and Thanatos, inseparable twin sons of Nyx and Erebus, had met Maci when she, age 6, had found them, age 11, bickering in the Fields of Asphodel. She had broken up their fight by physically forcing herself between them and exploding. Immediately fascinated by both (and enamored with Thanatos especially), Maci had clung to them afterwards, and they all had remained friends ever since.

Maci knew them the way everyone did: Hypnos, God of Sleep, a gentle, sweet kid prone to bouts of narcolepsy; and Thanatos, God of Gentle Death, very cool, suave, and charming even with a teenage sneer. But Maci, just like everyone, was oblivious to the truth of the twins’ dynamic: that beneath his carefully charming smile, Thanatos lacked empathy. His only goals were violence and power, and his darkest secrets were stained with blood and ichor even by this young age. Armed with a scythe and relentless cruelty since early in their childhood, Thanatos had already tamed Hypnos to cower behind him in fear, and for these past years while Maci fawned in what she thought was mutual friendship, he envisioned a future in which he could tear her down as well. Thanatos had quickly learned how to blend in by acting perfectly normal, even likeable, and Maci had no way of knowing who her best friend and childhood crush really was on the inside. And so...

✧*̥˚Anyway*̥˚✧

With Hades pulling away during this first year, Maci pushed closer to Thanatos and Hypnos, spending even more time than usual with them at the House of Nyx. Hades grumbled disapproval that Maci would interact even tangentially with Nyx’s ridiculous tangle of offspring – but he allowed her to do as she wished without any real interference, perhaps grateful to have her out of the way. His aloofness frustrated Maci to no end, and even more so when Seph returned that autumn like nothing was wrong. Unwilling to “ruin” the somewhat normalcy that had finally come back with her parents reunited, Maci didn’t mention the past six months.

When her mother left again the next year and Hades withdrew once more, Maci’s frustrations skyrocketed and turned into rage. She quickly realized that Hades noticed her again only when she was acting out, and Thanatos, who had been observing the fracture forming since last spring and sensed an opportunity to make it worse, encouraged Maci to continue picking fights with her father to get the attention she craved. Hades was temperamental to begin with and was growing more irritated with Maci's behavior... personality, and presence, day by day. He fell for the bait she laid each time when she instigated arguments, and by the age of 11, Maci had decided that the best and only way to interact with her father was by provoking him into yelling at her, for otherwise he refused to give her the time of day. Once again, when Persephone returned in the fall, the toxic environment Hades and Maci were constructing together snapped back to the illusion of peace. A silent decision was made to play nicely together in Seph's presence, but still Maci became a little louder, a little cockier, a little meaner, knowing that Hades would never engage while his wife was home. By the time Seph left again and Maci was 12, the situation continued to worsen. Maci made it a point to be as difficult as possible while interacting with her father, and Hades never questioned why, only bickered immaturely back.

In the background of Maci's life by this time, she was heartbroken to discover that Thanatos was formally dating his first girlfriend, a timid goddess called Amechania, “Amey.” Unbeknownst to Maci, their relationship behind the scenes was a nightmare, but Maci was oblivious, and only concerned with how her friendship with Thanatos would be affected. In between causing a ruckus in the palace with Hades, she vented constantly to a beleaguered Hypnos about her jealousy. Hypnos knew about Maci’s crush on Thanatos - he also knew what Thanatos was really like – and as well, he suspected that Thanatos and Amey’s relationship was not as perfect as it seemed. But Hypnos was a victim of Thanatos’ abuse behind his own scenes and was terrified to intervene beyond trying to gently nudge Maci away from him, a hint that she refused to pick up on. When Amey suddenly disappeared within the next year, Maci (now 13) was only relieved that perhaps Thanatos would notice her.

Thanatos, by now 18, was in fact noticing her, just not in the way that she was hoping. He was biding his time until she was older and taking the opportunity in the meantime to continue to groom and manipulate her over her head. Maci and Hades’ relationship continued to worsen. Thanatos and Maci (and Hypnos, third-wheeling in helpless rising horror, usually quietly nursing hidden scythe-wounds) spent more time together as Maci began to avoid being near Hades in the palace. Thanatos agreed wholeheartedly when she stressed that her parents did not care about her, and encouraged her to keep rebelling against them, reminding her that at the end of the day, her real family was found right here – in him, her best friend. While Maci was 13, Thanatos introduced her to his second girlfriend, another shy goddess named Sophrosyne, “Sophie,” who was actually one of Thanatos' own distant sisters from Nyx's endless brood. Maci, jealous of another potential wedge between her and Thanatos, made it a point not to get along with her. Maci was building quite a reputation for herself within the Underworld as a temperamental terror wielding all the power of a royal title, and Sophie mostly avoided her, cowering strangely at Thanatos’ side instead.

Months later, Maci was irritated to be privately pulled aside by Sophie. She was babbling insanity, something weird about being in danger, and Maci being in danger – nonsense about how Thanatos was not what he seemed, and that both of them needed to get away before it was too late. But Thanatos only seemed confused when Maci told him what Sophie had said, and she was smugly delighted when Thanatos agreed that his relationship with Sophie had probably run its course.

Maci never saw her again. He was dating another girl by the next year, Hesychia, “Hess,” the mute Goddess of Silence, and soon took residence with her in one of the cave constructed homes of Tartarus. Maci resumed anguishing jealously in the background, made all the harder by the fact that she was spending nearly every waking moment with Thanatos and Hypnos (and now Hess, always silent, looking more haunted by the day). Maci, now age 14, could not stand to be in the same room as Hades. The palace shared by just the two of them sat with uncomfortably tense silence, only ever broken by screaming arguments that usually ended in Hades throwing her out of the palace, or Maci storming out of her own accord, either way ending up with the twins in Nyx's house or at Thanatos’ cave.

She would slink back days later and repeat, even moodier from Thanatos’ continued relationship with Hess. The following year, with Maci now 15, Seph came home and for the first time, the simmering tension between her husband and daughter was too great to hide. She was overall disturbed and stunned by this shattered relationship coming out of “nowhere,” though she felt Maci’s outrageous attitude was blatant even to her (and in Seph’s eyes, Hades could do no wrong, despite clearly being in the wrong). Trying to mediate between both sides without picking a side, Seph orchestrated an offering of peace on hers and Hades’ behalf, authorizing construction on a palace of Maci’s own in the subsection of the Underworld that belonged to Maci herself, the Elysian Fields, land of the blessed dead. It had been long proven that giving Maci presents usually kept her satisfied.

The Elysium palace was completed by Maci’s 16th birthday and presented as a gift to her with Hades’ name on it. It stood tall in the depths of Elysium, a natural safe haven due to the magical barrier surrounding Elysium’s outskirts, installed by the Olympians long ago and eternally enchanted to keep out anything evil. But Thanatos (who could not cross the barrier and could not let anyone find this out) pointed out to Maci what a slap in the face this gift was, a clear message that her parents wanted her out of their sight. Maci was incensed. She refused to set foot in the palace, lashing out with accusations of the theories Thanatos had placed in her head. Instead of doing anything to reassure her, Hades was instead furious at this most egregious display of disrespect, a last straw among last straws. The fight that followed, and the cruel words that were exchanged, was their worst to date.

By now, something inside Maci was cracking, or it already had. She was living in active hostility with a father who despised her openly when he wasn't pretending she didn't exist, a mother who was somehow choosing to stay neutral between them – this life now was an echo of the turmoil her grandmother had put her through when she was a little kid. Part of her yearned to viciously lean into the perception of her created by her own family, and she did this when she traipsed the kingdom clutching her title of Princess like an obnoxious shield. But there was a part of her inside that was beginning to claw in desperation with a frantic, anxious need to be loved, really loved, and actually seen by someone, anyone. This feeling continued to simmer under her skin. She could not bring herself to enter the Elysium palace even once the dust settled from hers and Hades’ fight, as the thought of its halls suddenly felt too utterly empty for her to bear being alone inside it. Maci began to fear that Hypnos and Thanatos, particularly Thanatos, who she adored more than anyone, would only ever see her as a child tagging after them. When Thanatos and Hess broke up (a relationship longer than his normally were, though she too disappeared after their split) and Maci’s friendship with him only continued the same as ever, her anxieties increased.

She knew she was pretty, and noticed every time she was noticed - she had never dated anyone, but she suspected that the personality she put on within the Underworld was probably what caused most people to recoil from her. But Thanatos knew her like no one else did, and she had always tried to be her most true self around him. If even her true self was unlovable, what then? Hypnos tried to talk sense into her - she was too young, now only just shy of 17 years old, he reminded her, and besides, it was for the best that she stay as far away from Thanatos as possible. Maci only insisted that Thanatos certainly seemed to reciprocate her feelings - and there was no one else that seemed to like her, even platonically. Fueled by anxiety and almost 17 years of emotional betrayal, it dawned on her the circumstances that she felt she'd created for herself. The desperate, frantic feeling inside began to overwhelm her.

TO BE CONTINUED - AND IT ONLY GETS SO MUCH WORSE FROM HERE - part two! • &part three!

questions & comments are appreciated esp if u somehow made it all the way to the bottom 🙃 I’ll post the next part later tonight or tomorrow!!,

#preview snippets #LONG POST #ASK TO TAG//

7 notes · View notes

lunchables--official · 8 months

Text

Gordon is notably characterized by his obnoxious and deeply uncool behavior but he's also defined by an incredible earnestness and desire for things to be taken seriously . And Benrey, on the other hand, is obnoxious too but for the exact opposite reasons-- devaluing things that, by Gordon's standards, should be taken seriously (such as murder) while playing up the absurdity and inconsistent application of rules in general (and also acting like a fucking third grader).

In that way the two of them have a lot in common, but with that one major caveat of seriousness . Really, they're both pretty earnest, and they both just wanna make jokes n have fun-- Gordon wants to be a justin.tv streamer and he talks to himself like an anime protagonist (GORDON SPRINT!!) and Benrey's whole thing is having his day ruined bc he couldn't play games with his friends . But Benrey also knows treating the game like it's real is idiotic, while Gordon can't help but treat it as if it were (and Scorpy Socpens n Wayne R. TV use this for some extremely good comedy).

In addition to THAT, you have Coomer, who, over the course of the webseries, realizes his life is a lie and his world is fake - subsequently becoming more lucid, serious, and aloof. His character arc brings up the question of What Does It Truly Mean, To Be Alive? (a tried and true story point !) They're all functioning on different understandings of their world-- they all understand nothing matters, but Coomer is just now realizing, and Benrey's always known it, and Gordon method acts so hard that he almost forgets it.

With that context HLVRAI becomes an argument on existential nihilism -- Coomer presents the question "nothing is real so is living this life valuable?" and Benry's response is essentially "no- if nothing matters then why care ? Do whatever you want forever ." And Gordon's is "of COURSE it's valuable, fuck you, this may not matter but I can care and try and hope and LIVE, BABY!!! leave me and my magmar plush OUTTA THIS!!" Quite a 4chan vs Tumblr argume(I am shot and killed)

But even though I describe Gordon as v earnest and sincere, it's not enitrely accurate, bc while he has a lot of Genuine Expressions of Emotion, he also seems to use anger to mask laughter ("if i had a knife i would gut you" said with an audible smile). Makes him seem less genuine and more like he's playing up the reactivity, but you still get a rly potent feeling that these are people he enjoys being around, and I'm sure that's also just Wayne R. TV playing gmod with his friends bleeding through .

Coomer's obviously the MOST sincere, he has literally the only lines that are SUPPOSED to be taken seriously. And Benrey may not be very sincere, but he IS (in Wayne R TV's words) the most sentimental, which is REALLY weird. He's constantly talking bullshit, but Scorpy Socpens still gives him these moments where it seems like he might actually care ("we should turn back.. we're going further . into HELL" and "why are we here? ..what happened to your arm?!") LIKE!! he and the others are all entertainers, they're all supposed to make you laugh (except for Dr. Coomer at one point), but Benrey especially, as he's this manifestation of insincerity and irony and absurdity--and yet?? some semblance of motivation??

If hlvrai is an argument on nihilism, then it's ALSO about how what makes life worth living is the people around you actually . Because of benrey's "nothing matters" mentality he gains Gordon's ire and subsequently becomes the antagonist as his stupid shenanigans are reframed as actively hindering the group (even though yeah EVERYONE gets in the way of everything all the time). Thus he becomes the Big Bad even though he's really just, not cut out for it . he knows his actions don't have meaningful consequences, but that sentimentality inevitably slips out, and yeah, his whole purpose is to be funny. you can't be funny to yourself now that's just embarrassing. he has the powers to shapeshift and time travel but he only does it when it's relevant to Gordon. i am constantly thinking about how he says "it replenishes your electronics" in this calm, mellow voice like he's got nothing to worry about and is just enjoying the moment . he just wants to play games with people, man!!!

and even though Gordon is so SO fucking uncool, he's allowed to be because he actually gives a shit!! even though they're both annoying, Benrey is the one who becomes the villain because of how detached he is. Gordon can stumble over his words and be clumsy as hell but he cares so deeply-- about the others, about putting on a show-- that his embarrassing attempts at being the hotshot hero of the story don't detract from his value. yeah this world isn't real but my friends are. yeah nothing matters but we can still try to help each other out. you are supposed to care!!! bitch

#[COUGHS AND HACKS VIOLENTLY]#hlvrai #half-life vr but the ai is self-aware #media analysis #txt #nonsense

23 notes · View notes

trickstarbrave · 3 months

Text

i hate when ppl dont understand how intertwined all the fucked up systems of capitalism are. they present it as "take away [x] and things will work better!" when that damn well will not fix it. or they dont even realize the problem is actually capitalism not some other thing they have been fixated on

like. veganism argument: "we subsidize grains to feed livestock. if we stopped feeding livestock, we would have more food for everyone! the problem is livestock are eating too much of grains we could be eating"

a lot of the corn they are eating are byproducts of the ethanol industry. we are not in fact just growing huge fields of grains and refusing to eat them bc we can feed cows it instead. that would be way too costly. "subsidies" wouldn't cover it. at no point was the corn being grown for human consumption. most of the corn in the US is grown for biofuel. without livestock, we would not have MORE food to eat, we'd have a lot of leftover slop we have to toss out to slowly degrade in landfills.

its not the most healthy option to pump them full of byproducts. they should be allowed to forage and walk. but the problem is much more complex than than just "get rid of the cows to make more food for people!!" the cows eating the byproducts is whats making more food for people. not less. you can't just look at "grain products" and decide all of those were fit for human consumption. most of the stuff we feed farm animals is NOT fit for human consumption. for better or for worse.

and this is only one problem. some are relatively easy solutions (once all of the, yknow, capitalist incentive is removed) like how we have more houses than homeless people. just give people houses. except we should also look at: where are these houses being built, are they being built for quality and to last? because the answer is: they are built mostly in suburbs for cheap with lazy building standards and poor quality materials. we are tearing down homes with better bones and foundations for cheap, paper thin wood, new construction houses when many of them can be saved. these are homes far away from doctors and jobs that you actually need a car to get around to important places, so many people who don't have reliable transportation will still have many problems once settled in. to create more sustainable, walk-able communities and to have better public transportation we are still gonna need to tear a bunch of these down and rebuild communities, which is going to be a daunting task too.

food insecurity: okay we'll just give people food! except they might not have reliable ways to cook that food either. a lot of people who are food insecure grew up food insecure. they grew up in food deserts where microwave self stable meals were the norm. they might not have pots and pans or know how to find a recipe or make one themselves. many are chronically ill or disabled and don't have a lot of time and energy to cook. many people still think its better to give a food bank 10 cans of green beans that you forgot about and don't plan to use in donations rather than just giving the food bank 30 bucks.

idk. i dont really have an answer i suppose. i just wanted to complain about how messy and complicated these problems are. and i think if you're a serious activist you are going to need better, long term plans and big picture perspectives. these problems can seem incredibly easy to tackle on the surface to lots of online activists but are very complex issues to actually dismantle and combat. we can't just keep complaining and hope society collapses so we can rebuild from scratch. there is no after the revolution when everything will be good and perfect. no after the end of the world to pick ourselves up and make a utopia from the ashes. we gotta figure out the problem and start untangling it and deal with the first steps NOW. start with realistic goals. contacting local government. creating bettering, temporary solutions that are better than what we have now. disrupt the system bit by bit. get other ppl in on it. the world we wanna live in will not come to us overnight. we gotta build it brick by brick.

capitalism counts on it being too daunting of a task. they count on ppl just complaining and wishing it was better to sell them the solution without any real change. but real change has to come from small shit first. maybe start a community garden if you want a more sustainable community. make your own garden if you have the ability. collect rain water (YES ITS LEGAL IN ALL 50 STATES just heavily regulated in some. dont tell me its illegal in the US). create alternatives for companies you boycott. tell your local representative you want public transport and ask how to get it and rally your community for it enough that they have to bother ppl higher than them and actively have to start considering it. do ride shares. help out food banks with real stuff they ask for. look around your community for small problems you can address and find solutions.

12 notes · View notes

miqojak · 10 months

Note

Combo of short answer to what is Jak's identity?

and

Is her environment supportive about her identity? How does this impact her?

Pride OC Asks

A tough one! I spent a long time looking for the right term(s) for her, actually (which was great for educating myself on other identities OOC!). She was quite sex-repulsed, and didn't/doesn't like to be touched (except by one specific person, and that's after a lot of effort on his part to make her feel safe). I kept hovering around the pseudo-ace spectrum... but her repulsion was out of trauma, not a genuine lack of desire? Though she remains kind of put off by the idea that so many people can and do just have sex with almost anyone - it's mind-boggling to her... people will be at their literal most vulnerable around a stranger just to... mate??

It's so hard to put any one specific term on it, though - she approached relationships through the lens she grew up with, in a tribe, so traditional marriage is confounding, and she sort of sees polyamory as the default (for herself, at least - though she is in a monogamous relationship at present bc her partner is not poly).

As for the types of people she can be attracted to? Gender isn't a big deal - she's just never met a female/non-male OC who could meet her high standards for what she seeks in a lover! But that leaves me holding a handful of terms like Sapiosexual, Demisexual, Bisexual, and potentially Grey Romantic. (The things that would be 'romantic' to her aren't often things others would find romantic, and traditional romantic gestures are... well, kind of gross and performative to her - based in societal expectations and not actual, genuine affection - like giving flowers/chocolates, etc). She's attracted to someone who can challenge her - but also someone who won't judge the broken person she is, so much as always help her to reach for higher heights, and constant self-betterment. Intelligence is important... but so is understanding her, and how her mind works - she's very different from normal people, and knows it - and what's the point of letting someone in, if they just judge and criticize who you are? She would almost prefer that her partner have achieved more than her, as well - maybe even be stronger/smarter, the better to challenge her - and not necessarily book smart, so much as clever in the ways of the world, in practical/useful ways. (Plus there's her god complex that says she will not be with someone not 'worthy' of her/beneath her... this could encompass a lot of things, lmao! But getting to be intimate with her is a gift! Not just anyone gets that.) Honestly pansexual may even be better than bi as a term? I inevitably use them interchangeably for myself, lol. Gender is irrelevant - if you're a simpleton and a fool (or an optimist /cough), she wants none of it.

As for her environment? There's no homophobia on Hydaelyn! Be queer as fuck!! Hooray!! Other than that, her polyamory has been the sticking point for the men who have been in her life - in the end I think they just hated the other guys she was with, and then one of them cheated on her and tried to claim he was suddenly poly (yuck), and in the end the last lover left was the fellow she would do anything not to lose, and was absolutely fine with him wanting her not to be in other relationships... all it took was a simple conversation to express that he didn't like it! Amazing what trouble you can save by talking to your partner about what bothers you, and talking through it before hurt happens!

I don't think she would ever feel ashamed of these facets of herself though - the ways in which she hates herself and feels monstrous at least have nothing to do with her sexuality/gender identity. But if you tried to talk gender identity with her, she'd mostly be confused about it all... just tell her your pronouns, so she can insult you properly... she doesn't need to understand why they're different: she detests all people equally!

#thanks for asking!#ffxiv rp #miqo'te #ffxiv pride #ffxiv #gender identification #sexuality #she might be more inclined to be attracted to masculine presenting ppl?#but she's flirted with ladies #and her only friend is nb!#trying to date her is like applying for a job xD #mixed with hazing #she likes people who bite back!

9 notes · View notes

notquitecanon · 4 months

Note

Do you do scenarios or headcanons? If so, how many characters can we request for scenarios or headcanons? Would you do the same prompt with different characters? Can we request for male reader, female reader, gender neutral reader, etc? Other than Astarion, are there any characters from Baldur's Gate 3 you would write? Are there any topics you won't do like rape, suicide, etc? Do you do poly ships x reader? Would you mind if we request for Alternate Universes or Aus like AU where the character lives happily? Would you mind if the request is suggestive, implied sex, or mentioned sex but no explicit sex? Would you do NSFW requests? For Baldur's Gate 3 requests, would you mind if we don't specify the race/class to leave it ambiguous or if we ask specify the race/class like human/healer? What kinks would you accept for requests? Thank you in advance!

Honestly, I’ve just never had those kind of requests on here. I also am very bad about answering requests bc my brain is a goblin with a pencil who is very picky about what sparks my interest enough to push past the usual fog of writers block. But funny enough I used to run a Star Wars fanfic blog so I do have answers to these questions:

1.) I’m not opposed to doing scenarios/ head canons! Sometimes doing them is what sparks a full fic or it’s just fun to slow down and enjoy imagining things!

As for how many, to prevent burn out I’ll probs stick to 2 or 3 characters at a time. If someone requests more than 3, I’d probs pick the 3 that I had the better ideas for / knew the characters better

2.) Requesting different gendered readers. Full transparency, I’m a cisgender woman.

I feel most knowledgeable writing feminine presenting characters, as I can use my own experiences! That being said, I do write things to be gender neutral and can do that on request. As for writing for a male reader, I’m open to trying! It’s not in my realm of experience nor have I done it before, but if I got the right request, I’d be happy to try! (I just don’t want to not write to my usual standards and I especially don’t want to offend anyone because of my lack of knowledge!)

3.) I’ll write for any of the romanceable characters, except Minthara (haven’t been able to recruit her yet so I don’t know her)

I’m more likely to write for characters that I’m most attracted to such as Astarion, Halsin, Karlach, Gale, and Lae’zel.

4.) I won’t write graphic depictions of rape or suicidal. I will use mentions of trauma / mental health struggles in my writing, and I always mention them in my TW section. Not so much a problem in this phantom, but I also don’t write incest. Or inappropriate age gaps.

5.) I have never written a polyamorous relationship, but I’d be open to trying with the right prompt/request. I have a lot of love to go around, so I think I can do this.

6.) when it comes to AU’s I mostly try to keep it in universe, and I will do what I call fix it fics. That way if the work I am trying to do takes place after the end of game, I can still have all my little guys because I refuse to believe that there’s not a happy ending for everybody. And if there isn’t one, I will create one. But I don’t really do coffee shop they use or flower shop use or anything that takes them out of the world that they are in.

7.) at the moment, I don’t write outright smut. It’s not because I don’t want to or can’t, I just don’t think I’m very good at it. I will use mentions of sex, heavy-handed, make out sessions, and honestly pretty much everything right up until the point of actual sex. So you request smut, but I might not be as quick to answer those others. Personally, I find the tension leading up to this smut the fun part to write and read.

8.) as for race/class of BG3 readers, I will try to keep it, usually fairly and ambiguous. Though, how I have written everything that I have written, even though I’ve only posted one thing, I, based all of my writing off how I played the game personally. So, if you have something specific in mind, you’ll have to specify in the request, or I will default to what I usually do. (Reference I love playing Rangers. They are my favorite, so I have knowledge of nature, survival and some medicinal skills)

9.) as for kinks, I accept, I will accept anything in the ask box, even if I don’t write it. no kink shaming here as long as the kinks don’t fall under any of the things that I don’t write, which are listed in the above points

Thank you for asking, and being so respectful about my writing! I really appreciate it and hope that you request something :)

Disclaimer, I hope everything that is written in this makes sense, I’m using voice to text as I do something else.

2 notes · View notes

villains4hire · 11 months

Note

16, 17 (nuravity)

//Soft reminder that I track anons if I get dms over this lol.

16. If you could change anything in the show, what would you change? //I think I would change to at least make Stella and Stolas's situation comedic rather than 'drama-based'. As Loona has physically abused Blitz more than Stella has done to Stolas on screen at this point and it may as well be played for laughs if we're really gonna go that route. Like that and just not have this narrative they're 'good people' or at least presentation when they're all trained killers, ppl like villains for being who they are, not being 'good'. It's okay to have 'upstanding qualities', but it just seems like a moot thing to do when the reality is that it's literal Hell. There are levels of varying evil yes, but they're all bad people which some you can be empathetic towards or those grossly disgusting at the end of the day with rare exceptions being genuinely 'good people' by any standards like: Charlie, Moxxie (even Moxxie kills semi-innocent people but has standards), Millie, probably a few others like maybe Vaggie and Octavia, but I dunno man. It just feels kind of weird at times as you don't have to prop up the protags over who they're opposing. As I get the whole 'good and evil' is a black and white narrative, but some things like literal murder or them playing up murdering some kid or kids for a joke in several episodes I'd say is pretty straight forward evil even if say 'the kid is a dick' or 'the crazy murderer's kids are probably brainwashed to begin with', then bc Stella tries to bitch slap her now Ex, she's the worst apparently? It's all really weird when there are things arguably more 'evil' that the protags do than who they oppose at times on screen.

Like, even from a comedic standpoint, it kinda just picks it apart as it's not to take the piss out of all of it or just be unfun, I'd rather just have them be 'bad people' and presented as such. I mean look at Overlord as anime/series, it's bad people doing terrible shit to other bad people or even worse people and that's a pretty big hit. It just feels unneeded and not as organic for me in the narrative it unintentionally paints. As you could argue it's just a comedy show, but they're attempting actual plot, actual empathy and something to grab your attention to a background story that's playing more and more out, so I think it's not really able to use that excuse anymore.

17. Instead of XYZ happening, I would have made ABC happen…

//I think I've mentioned Final Space already but uh, I'd probably would have made Lapis Lazuli a stand-alone ally rather than be a Crystal Gem and have her one thousand years of isolation do more to her mentally speaking in terms of being unwell? She would've befriended but not become part of the Crystal Gems and maybe stick around more/be present in the series with the group along with Peridot and Bismuth and not focus so much on the backstory of the creator's favorite: Pearl. Then give more attention to Amethyst who didn't get that much tbh and probably Sapphire and Ruby a lil more. As the other three such as Lapis, Bismuth and Peridot I would've preferred more involved mayhaps? Then while I get the message, I think it would've been stronger for Steven to beat White Diamond to poof her, then show mercy later on in the series when she changes, that not everyone can change, but WD decided to as Rebecca's message I get, I really do, but it felt a little weak when the 3 main Diamonds are literal imperalist entities that have caused massive suffering under their reign, but it is a kid's show so I try not to take it too seriously but just like fedangle a few neat things that might've made her message stronger/better as such a large platform that influences the minds of millions of youth while keeping her somewhat flawed vision but okay that I arguably find pretty flawed in execution.

#long post #nuravity #ooc #answered

1 note · View note

astronomeys · 2 years

Text

This is simply whining bc I love to whine

? Completely unnecessary comments from my classmates about my presentation. I warned the class that it was boring because there are no images/videos and there is a LOT of text and I skipped over a lot of it and I spoke quick and monotonous to get it over with. So

1. a couple people thought the right thing to do was downright LIE and say they thought it was soooo appealing. girl it’s fucking mountains of words on a quirky but altogether boring template with absolutely 0 pictures except to display a math packet answer key. That is not visually appealing and you’re doing both of us a disservice by lying about it. That or you need to, like, seriously upgrade your standards and never create something like that for your students. And

2. one of those girls started her comments/questions by going “I’ve heard enough of your self-deprecation during presentations to know that (blahblah idc something refuting my comments abt the ppt being boring)“ and it’s just like ?? ok?? thanks for pointing out that I notoriously have low self-esteem? she kept prattling on after that about the activity I made or something idrk I think she was complimenting it but I don’t care about her and she annoys me even tho I have some pity for her so I walked away from my computer the second I didn’t have to actively answer any questions about it which was nearly immediately, so I didn’t hear 90% of what she said.

Such an annoying person like please just shut up ma’am. She’s like a female mansplainer it’s so annoying. She tried explaining my financial situation to me in 2019 while ignoring everything I was saying and I have hated her since. Actually I think I already disliked her before that + I had really bad baby fever back then and she was pregnant. And then she had the baby and is pregnant again so all she fuckin does is talk about being a mom and I’m like wowee this conversation that you are having with 2 other women in this class and forcing the rest of us to remain in class to listen to sure is inclusive and interesting and not at all something you should just fucking make a mom club at the school for.

Just annoying. Like yeah ok the self-deprecation is unnecessary that’s a fair point, but maybe just... dm that to me instead of saying it so rudely in front of the whole class? Or just say “I know you thought it wasn’t great but [blah]” like how tf are you gonna start that with “I’ve heard enough�� I literally just wrote “sorry” in the chat and fucked off like okay thanks I guess.

While I’m whining lemme just loop back to the moms only talking about kids thing. Because my cousin does the same exact fucking thing, all she does is send everyone snaps and messages about her daughter and I’m like oooooooommmmmmmggggggggg stoppppppppppppppppppppppppppppppp stop it. Stop. For real stop it. Stoppp stop it. Stop! Talk about something else for a microsecond! Puhlease! Or I’m going to stop reaching out or responding! I am pretty sure that’s a callous social faux-pas to even think or say let alone act upon because moms are frequently socially isolated, but it is not my responsibility to make sure she has a good social support network full of people who are willing and able (mentally and physically) to continually make a child the crux of the relationship. And I’m not going to force myself to engage in conversation with someone who has nothing reciprocal to bring to a conversation. Like, you did not dissolve as a human, you still have 21 years of history to you and future aspirations and all that. You DO NOT have to make EVERY conversation about your child. I’m sorry, I just don’t care that your kid pissed in a plastic toilet, or that she cries at night sometimes, or whatever.

There is nothing for me personally to talk about there, I am a single woman with fertility difficulties who is not seeking a relationship and doesn’t want kids for at least 9-10 more years. It would be a completely one-sided conversation about... a kid growing up. I love that that is amazing for you and other people in your tight social circle but it’s not for everyone and I think it’s a ridiculous social requirement to trap people in this guilt thing where if they don’t sit there and obsess over the child with you, they’re being a child-hating, unempathetic, frigid bitch. Like, I’m quite litchrally a teacher in training, all I do all day is talk about child development and dedicate my entire life to making children’s lives richer with knowledge, problem-solving, and confidence. I’m not a frigid bitch. I just don’t think it’s fair that anyone who talks to a mother is like expected to continually want to talk about their kids. It’s lame asf. We don’t tell people they HAVE to entertain a conversation with someone whose life is consumed by their hobbies or studies or problems, so why to we have this expectation for convos with moms?? Wack

I’m just rambling now but I’m done I’m good I’m chillin now thanks 4 joining

#pers #like actually personal this time for once #When I tag things 'pers' it's bc I want to let people block my original posts if they so please #but I think people are misinterpreting it to mean 'this is personal please don't touch it'#so I gotta change the tag I think but boooooo I don't wanna #anyway this time it actually is personal. No one was really reblogging my pers posts before #But in case you were like Wow This Horribly Worded Rant About This Girl's Class And Cousin Are So Rebloggable... Don't!

0 notes

aboveallarescuer · 3 years

Note

#that happens even when the person isnt trying to argue that shes a mad queen/villain but that she has both 'good' and 'evil' in her#and is meant to fail#(e.g. that meta about how dany is a tragic shakespearean hero; which annoys me more bc it sounds convincing when you don't remember what#happened in the books very well...

Can you talk more about your problems with that essay? I thought that it sounded plausible... I don't want those things to happen to Daenerys, but I don't trust GRRM either.

Anon, thank you for this ask and sorry for the delayed answer. I was already planning to write several posts as a response to the arguments of “Daughter of Death: A Song of Ice and Fire’s Shakespearean Tragic Hero” (which you can read here), but I couldn't find the time or motivation for that lately, so thanks for giving me the opportunity to counter-argue it in a single answer. I tried to be brief by summarizing some of my notes and by linking to a lot of metas instead of repeating all of their points, but the response unfortunately ended up becoming long anyway.

In the context of that essay, Dany is considered a Shakespearean tragic hero because the writer thinks she fits five requirements: 1) Dany’s chapters contain supposedly deliberate references to Shakespearean plays; 2) Dany is “torn by an internal struggle”, namely peace versus violence or companionship versus rulership or home versus the Iron Throne, all of which also drive the external conflicts. Choosing the second options will lead to her demise; 3) prophecies and “influential accidents” - that is, events that “have roots in a character’s motivation”, as well as “the sense of ‘if only this had not happened’” - will “heighten and exaggerate [tragic flaws that] already [exist]” in Dany; 4) Dany will (according to the essayist’s speculations) take actions that produce “exceptional calamity” and her demise will be “her own choice and doing”; 5) Dany “[rose] high in position” and is “an exceptional being”, which sets her apart as a character that fits the mold of the Shakespearean tragedy because her reversal of fortune will highlight “the greatness and piteousness of humanity”.

I would argue that the points that the essayist made to justify how Dany supposedly fits these five requirements are all very skewed.

1) When it comes to requirement 1 (Dany’s chapters contain supposedly deliberate references to Shakespearean plays), the essayist is conveniently cherry-picking (as they often do throughout the meta). Bran Stark wants a dreamless sleep just like Dany: “Sweet, dreamless sleep, Bran thought.” (ACOK Bran I); “That night Bran prayed to his father’s gods for dreamless sleep.” (ACOK Bran II). Indeed, @marinabridgerton argues that that’s most likely tied to the fact that they’re the two characters most heavily associated with prophecies. Even Sansa is said to have a dreamless sleep: “Sometimes her sleep was leaden and dreamless, and she woke from it more tired than when she had closed her eyes” (AGOT Sansa VI). And yet, where are the essays about how these quotes are teaching the readership to interpret Bran’s and Sansa’s characters, storylines and trajectories based on Shakespearean tragedies?

2) When it comes to requirement 2 (Dany is “torn by an internal struggle”, namely peace versus violence or companionship versus rulership or home versus the Iron Throne, all of which also drive the external conflicts. Choosing the second options will lead to her demise), the essayist is right to point out that those dilemmas exist. However, they portray Dany’s struggles in a way that makes it seem that 1) there are “good” options (peace/companionship/home) and “bad” options (violence/rulership/Iron Throne) for Dany to take and that 2) choosing the latter ones will lead to Dany’s downfall. There is a lot to question about these assumptions.

2.1) When it comes to Dany’s conflict between peace versus violence, the essayist takes everything that Adam Feldman’s series of essays “Untangling the Meereenese Knot” says for granted when it shouldn’t be. I’m not going to delve into all the problems/inaccuracies/double standards with those essays. For our purposes here, it’s enough to say that they: 1) dichotomize Dany’s identity into mhysa and mother of dragons to argue that the former represents her desire for peace and the latter her violent impulses; 2) assert that the peace was real; 3) conclude that, by rejecting the peace, the Dany of ASOS is gone and from now on she’s going to be a very different person because she will have chosen to follow her violent impulses.

As already argued before, though, 1) Dany’s character can’t be dichotomized in that way because these facets - mhysa and mother of dragons - actually complement each other (as @yendany made clear in her most recent meta). Because Dany was the mother of dragons, she was able to act as mhysa way before she was hailed as such, which we see, for instance, when she kills the Astapori slave masters to free the Unsullied. Both of these identities manifest Dany’s fierceness when faced with great injustices. This is why, in ADWD, locking her dragon children prevented Dany from properly defending her human children… She needs to integrate both parts of her identity to be able to protect them. But Feldman couldn’t recognize that because 2) he accepts the peace deal that Dany made with the slavers as valid. Doing so would mean, however, ignoring the re-enslavement and suffering of thousands of marginalized people, which GRRM continually emphasizes in Dany's and Tyrion’s final ADWD chapters (read more about this here and here) to hammer home that the peace is false for prioritizing the slavers over them. Finally, 3) Dany is not a violent person nor does she have violent impulses. Feldman decontextualized the moments in which Dany uses violence from the standards of her time and place (read more about this here and here and here and here) to portray them in a more negative light than how they are actually meant to be viewed. Additionally, he conveniently left out all the moments in which Dany chooses to be merciful, from when she spares Yunkai and most of the Meereenese slavers (she didn’t do the same in Astapor because she was outnumbered and needed to protect her retinue) to when she doesn’t punish people who threaten or disrespect her to her face (such an envoy who spits at her face, a boy who tries to attack her, Xaro after he says he wishes he’d killed her), to give a few examples (read more about this in @rainhadaenerys's comprehensive meta). I would argue that Dany’s conflict is less about peace versus violence and more accurately about her tendency to be merciful versus her desire for justice (which, especially in the particular context she finds herself in, is unattainable without violence). In fact, I would go further and say that it’s distasteful to characterize Dany as someone “violent” or with “violent impulses” when, so far, she’s only used violence to a) defend and protect victims of (physical and systemic) violence and/or b) in circumstances in which her actions are no more problematic than those of any other leader of her world. And yet, the essayist portrays them as if they were (“To choose indiscriminate destruction over peace tends toward the evil”).

It’s also convenient that the essayist only talks about fire negatively (“Dany wields unmatched power that can “make or unmake at a word”—Dracarys—villages, armies and kingdoms”, “in the words of Maester Aemon, “Fire consumes.””) when it's also connected to life, rebirth, healing and enlightenment. And dracarys in particular is explicitly associated with freedom by the narrative while Dany frees the Unsullied (her decision, in turn, is associated with her future actions in the War for the Dawn). But acknowledging these things would make it harder to portray Dany as a Shakespearean tragic hero.

2.2) When it comes to Dany’s conflict between companionship and rulership … Again, the dilemma exists, but not in the way that the essayist presents it. What I mean is that they go out of their way to make it seem that Dany’s loneliness was the main factor driving her decisions, such as the liberation of the Unsullied (“She feels for the forced loneliness of the Unsullied, and it is loneliness that convinces her to commit violence in the plaza to free the slaves—just as it is in loneliness she chooses violence amidst the Dothraki Sea.”)... And not, y’know, her compassion and sense of justice (“Why do the gods make kings and queens, if not to protect the ones who can’t protect themselves?”), which are rarely acknowledged in this essay even though it’s arguably the main aspect of Dany's characterization. Why does the essayist do that? Because, since they are arguing that Dany is a tragic hero, they need to present Dany’s loneliness both as the reason why she achieved greatness and as the reason that will lead to her demise when she (supposedly) starts distrusting people, closing herself off and choosing violence (“the moral conviction she feels for her abolitionist crusade is part of the greatness that is also her tragic trait [...] She feels for the forced loneliness of the Unsullied, and it is loneliness that convinces her to commit violence in the plaza to free the slaves—just as it is in loneliness she chooses violence amidst the Dothraki Sea.”). As I said, however, doing so requires downplaying Dany’s compassion, as well as ignoring the fact that she does not close herself off to people in ADWD, nor is there any sign that this was seeded as a serious issue for her in future books (especially considering that her governance is meant to be contrasted with Cersei, the character who actually does close herself off to people. But more on that below when I talk about why Dany doesn’t fit the essayist’s third requirement).

Also, singling out rulership in particular as a reason for Dany to feel alone is conveniently selective (“Returning to Westeros means ruling Westeros - and ruling means loneliness”). All the major characters have reasons to feel lonely and isolated in their society because GRRM chose to focus on the underdogs. Their social standings are already enough to make all of them feel alone. As he said, “Tyrion of course is a dwarf which has its own challenges. Dany is an exile, powerless, penniless, at the mercy of other people, and Jon is a bastard”. You can also throw in Arya for being a young girl struggling to adhere to gender norms and Bran for being a disabled child. And that is just one example… There are a myriad of reasons and situations for various characters to feel lonely and isolated, but the essayist specifically chose to talk about how rulership causes that for Dany. And, considering that the essayist thinks that Dany’s rulership -> growing isolation and loneliness -> her ultimate downfall, it really feels like they’re punishing Dany narratively for acquiring and wielding power. Which leads me to the next point...

2.3) When it comes to Dany’s conflict between home and the Iron Throne, I would argue that that’s not really a conflict. Dany (like any feudal leader) believes she needs to retake the Iron Throne to stay in her homeland just like the Starks believe they need to retake Winterfell to stay in their homeland. Whether Dany finds herself at home in Westeros or not is irrelevant to that fact. And yet, the essayist only presents the former as being in the wrong for fighting for her birthright. However, as it's been already explained before, the Starks’ claim to the North isn’t morally righteous. They only have dominance over the North because, for thousands of years, their ancestors fought against, drove away and killed most of its indigenous population (the Children of the Forest), as well as multiple families who were also vying for control over the region. With that in mind, Dany fighting for her birthright isn’t any more problematic than the Starks enjoying the lands and privileges obtained with conquest and bloodshed, as well as the labor of peasants. One could argue that GRRM may have a double standard against Dany in this case (though it's been argued before that he doesn't intend to present the Iron Throne as a source of greed and evil like how fandom presents it) because of the order of the events and depending on whether he holds Dany accountable for more problems for waging her war than the Starks for having done/doing essentially the same thing, but that’s not what the essayist is doing. Instead, they a) take for granted that Dany is doing the wrong thing for fighting for the Iron Throne ("To delay the call of the North and continue to divide an already weakened realm is to give into dark desires.") and b) center all their speculations about her eventual demise based on that belief.

Ultimately, I would argue that none of these three dilemmas - peace versus violence, companionship versus rulership, home versus the Iron Throne - come with easy answers. When it comes to the first conflict, it’s important that Dany prioritizes the lives of the slaves over the privileges of the masters, but that causes more war and bloodshed. When it comes to the second and the third conflicts, it’s worth noting that the first options (which the essayist presents as the “good” ones) are actually the selfish paths for Dany to take. After all, she would rather live a normal life with a husband (companionship) in the house with the red door (home) - “She would rather have drifted in the fragrant pool all day, eating iced fruit off silver trays and dreaming of a house with a red door, but a queen belongs to her people, not to herself”. But, as the quote shows, instead of choosing these selfish goals, Dany accepts the burden of rulership and the fight for the Iron Throne because of her duty towards her people and ancestors. And, while this path leads to war (either in Meereen or in Westeros, though the former is morally righteous and the latter, while not inherently justified, is not any more problematic than Robb fighting for Northern independence), power is also the means through which Dany can make changes that benefit the common people.

With all that said, it’s ironic that Dany fans are often accused of flattening her character or her choices when it’s actually her detractors or “neutrals” (like the essayist) who do so - they are dead set on portraying Dany’s available options as either “good” or “bad” and on speculating that choosing the latter ones will lead to her downfall, but the text actually gives her conflicts in which all the options have their pros and cons.

The essayist also makes a mistake that isn’t really up to interpretation or difference in opinions. They say that, in AGOT Daenerys III, “after admitting this difficult truth [that Viserys will never take back the Seven Kingdoms], Dany assumes the goal for herself (and at the time, her son)”. That is incorrect. In AGOT Daenerys V, moments before Viserys’s death, Dany says she would have allowed him to have the dragon eggs because “he is my brother … and my true king”. Jorah doesn’t think she should still acknowledge him as such, but she tells him that “he is all I have”. So no, Dany hadn’t assumed the goal for herself at that point, she only took over his campaign in her son's name (not hers) after Viserys's death. But the essayist needs to exaggerate Dany's ambition to justify her demise, since they speculate that “in that hurt and betrayal, all that will be left - she will think - is the crown”.

3) When it comes to requirement 3 (prophecies and “influential accidents” - that is, events that “have roots in a character’s motivation”, as well as “the sense of ‘if only this had not happened’” - will “heighten and exaggerate [tragic flaws that] already [exist]” in Dany), the problem is not in cherry-picking or in double standards against Dany, but rather in the essayist’s lack of knowledge about Dany’s characterization. It’s simply not true that Dany’s distrust of people grows to the point that she closes herself off to them. Instead, I would argue that Dany is actually portrayed as someone with a healthy distrust of people. We know from the books (1, 2, 3, 4) that she finds it unlikely that Barristan, Grey Worm or Missandei would ever betray her, but that she doesn’t think she can rely entirely upon Reznak, the Green Grace, the Shavepate, Hizdahr and Daario. Do Dany’s doubts about these people’s intentions lead her to, as the essayist says, “push people away”? No. Through almost all of ADWD, she (wrongly, though understandably) believes that "until [freedmen and former masters stand together, Meereen will know no peace". Accordingly, Dany is willing to listen to the counsel of all of her advisors (both the ones she trusts and the ones she distrusts) to ensure that she makes informed decisions. To give some examples:

Dany allows “well spoken and gently born” people (i.e., not the typical condition of most former slaves, who are glad that Dany freed them) to sell themselves into slavery and imposes a tax each time men chose to do so like how it happened in Astapor (ASOS Daenerys VI). By making this decision, she agreed with both Missandei and Daario.

Dany employs the Unsullied to ask the Blue Graces if someone showed up with a sword wound and to ask butchers and herdsmen who’s been gelding goats (ADWD Daenerys I). By making this decision, she disagreed with Barristan.

Dany chooses not to punish any noble in response to the murder of Stalwart Shield and only increases the amount of gold for whoever gives information about the Sons of the Harpy (ADWD Daenerys I). By making this decision, she agreed with Reznak and disagreed with the Shavepate.

Dany gives up on banning the tokar and wears it herself (ADWD Daenerys I). By making this decision, she agreed with the Green Grace.

Dany (rightly) refuses to reopen the fighting pits for a while until she later relents in the name of the peace with the Meereenese nobles (ADWD Daenerys I, II, III, VI). By making this decision, she disagreed with Hizdahr, Reznak, the Green Grace and the Shavepate and agreed with Missandei.

Dany delays the choice of a husband until it becomes necessary later (ADWD Daenerys I). By making this decision, she disagreed with Reznak, the Shavepate and the Green Grace.

Dany chooses to pay the shepherds for the animals that they say their dragons ate (ADWD Daenerys I). By making this decision, she disagreed with Reznak.

Dany pays Hazzea’s father the blood price (i.e., one hundred times the worth of a lamb) for her death, lays her bones to rest in the Temple of the Graces and promises to pay for his children each year so they shall not want (ADWD Daenerys II). By making this decision, she disagreed with the Shavepate.

Dany allows the Shavepate to torture the wineseller and his daughters for information about the Sons (ADWD Daenerys II). By making this decision, she agreed with the Shavepate.

Dany imposes a blood tax on the noble families to pay for a new watch led by the Shavepate, takes the gold and the stores of food of any nobleman who wishes to leave the city and keeps two children from each pyramid as hostages instead of letting the nobles go unpunished after nine freedmen were killed by the Sons (ADWD Daenerys II). By making this decision, she agreed with the Shavepate and disagreed with Reznak.

Dany has Barristan and Groleo and his captains and sailors to inspect Xaro’s ships (ADWD Daenerys III). By making this decision, she agreed with Barristan.

Dany chooses not to go to Westeros despite being offered ships to do so (ADWD Daenerys III). By making this decision, she disagreed with Barristan.

Dany doesn’t kill her child hostages despite the Sons’ ongoing attacks (ADWD Daenerys IV). By making this decision, she agreed with the Green Grace and disagreed with the Shavepate.

Dany agrees to marry Hizdahr if he’s able to give her ninety days of peace in Meereen (ADWD Daenerys IV). By making this decision, she agreed with Hizdahr, the Green Grace and Reznak and disagreed with the Shavepate, Barristan, Missandei and Daario.

Dany refuses to gather the masters and kill them indiscriminately (ADWD Daenerys IV). By making this decision, she disagreed with Daario.

Dany doesn’t allow the Shavepate to continue his tortures due to their unreliable results (ADWD Daenerys V). By making this decision, she agreed with Hizdahr and disagreed with the Shavepate.

Dany refuses to use her dragons in battle (ADWD Daenerys V). By making this decision, she agreed with Reznak.

Dany decides not to take the field against Yunkai (ADWD Daenerys V). By making this decision, she agreed with the Shavepate and disagreed with Barristan.

Dany brings the food to the Astapori refugees instead of sending someone else to do it (ADWD Daenerys VI). By making this decision, she disagreed with Reznak, the Shavepate and Barristan.

Dany burns the dead among the Astapori refugees, bathes an old man and shames her men into helping her (ADWD Daenerys VI). By making this decision, she disagreed with Barristan.

Dany refuses to allow Hizdahr’s mother and sisters to inspect her womb and to wash Hizdahr’s feet before he washes hers (ADWD Daeneerys VI). By making this decision, she disagreed with the Green Grace and Reznak.

Dany decides to marry Hizdahr by Ghiscari rites and to wear a white tokar fringed with pearls (ADWD Daenerys VI). By making this decision, she agreed with the Green Grace and Reznak.

Dany allows Hizdahr to reopen the fighting pits (ADWD Daenerys VI). By making this decision, she agreed with Hizdahr, the Green Grace and Reznak.

Dany goes along with a peace agreement with the Yunkish slavers in which she’ll let Yunkai and Astapor reinstall slavery if they leave Meereen intact (ADWD Daenerys VI). By making this decision, she agreed with Hizdahr.

Dany holds court in order to, among other reasons, meet the Westerosi men that came over from the Windblown (ADWD Daenerys VII). By making this decision, she agreed with Daario.

Dany doesn’t accept Quentyn’s marriage proposal because she doesn’t want to abandon her people (ADWD Daenerys VII). By making this decision, she disagreed with Barristan.

Dany doesn’t ride a horse in a tokar to meet Hizdahr (ADWD Daenerys VII). By making this decision, she agreed with Missandei.

Dany decides not to sound out the Company of the Cats (even though she wanted to) because Barristan says he's untrustworthy (ADWD Daenerys VIII). By making this decision, she agreed with Barristan.

Dany attends the reopening of the pits (ADWD Daenerys IX). By making this decision, she disagreed with Missandei.

Dany allows the Brazen Beasts to guard her because she wants to show that she trusts them so that her people can trust them as well (ADWD Daenerys IX). By making this decision, she disagreed with Barristan.

Dany prevents Tyrion and Penny from fighting against lions with wooden swords. By making this decision, she disagreed with Hizdahr.

I didn’t include all of Dany’s decisions because she makes many of them on her own and/or without someone explicitly supporting them or opposing them (in fact, many of the ones above were made without any advisor giving her their feedback, but I listed them if they’re seen agreeing or disagreeing with her onpage anyway). That being said, note that Reznak is the one that Dany is most suspicious of (because he perfectly fits the description of one of the treasoners), but that five of her decisions follow his recommendations, in contrast to Barristan (the knight who she actually trusts and who keeps all her secrets) only having his advice followed twice. Also note that Dany “trusted Skahaz more than she trusted Hizdahr”, but she agreed with the former three times and disagreed with him eight times, in contrast to having agreed with the latter four times and disagreed with him twice. The list clearly shows that Dany listens to everyone’s feedback (including from people she distrusts), considers it carefully, makes her own decisions and handles dissent extremely well. Her actions reflect her own words (“A queen must listen to all. [...] One voice may speak you false, but in many there is always truth to be found”, “It seems to me that a queen who trusts no one is as foolish as a queen who trusts everyone”).

There is, however, one character who is seen only listening to people who agree with her and who distrusts and closes herself off to almost everyone - Cersei Lannister. And it’s especially worth noting that Cersei is meant to be “directly contrasted” with Dany, that the author was “doing point and counterpoint” with them and that each of them is meant to show “a different approach to how a woman would rule in a male dominated, medieval-inspired fantasy world”. In other words, Dany and Cersei are narrative foils, but Cersei’s traits are being transferred to Dany in this essay.

Also, I could just as easily create an entire narrative about how Sansa will end up closing herself off to people based on what we see on canon. She thought she could trust Joffrey, but she ultimately couldn’t. She thought she could trust Cersei, but she ultimately couldn’t. She trusted Sandor, but he left her. She tried to trust the Tyrells, but they ultimately disposed of her after she was no longer necessary. She tried to rely on Dontos, but he was a disappointment and was ultimately murdered. She doesn’t trust Littlefinger, but she needs to stick to his side because she has no better option. She considered telling the Vale lords her identity, but she doesn’t trust them. All of this feeds into Sansa’s distrust of others and will lead to tragic consequences. Indeed, as Sansa herself says, "In life, the monsters win". I bet that the essayist would find this whole speculation biased considering that they favor Sansa's character. But then, why is only Dany singled out as the one who is going to meet her demise even though it’s made clear that she continues to trust people through and through?

The essayist needs to say that Dany starts distrusting people to an unhealthy degree (“As Dany gains more power, [...] her focus on the treasons causes her to push people away, widening the gap between rulership and companionship”; ”The more power she gains, the greater her isolation and likely her fear of betrayal. The fear of betrayal is, of course, human. But GRRM has stated that he likes to turn dramatic situations up to 11, which is necessary to create the Shakespearean tragic hero. Dany’s fear must be larger than life.”), as well as to judge her campaign to take back the Seven Kingdoms based on double standards (“Dany’s great sin within the story’s moral order will have been focusing on the war for Westeros against Aegon VI before she turns to the enemy of the North”) compared to the Starks. If they didn’t do so, there wouldn’t be a reason to justify Dany’s demise. If they didn’t do so, the entire speculation that she’s a Shakespearean tragic hero falls apart. But saying that something is true doesn’t necessarily make it true, you need to provide the textual evidence (which they barely do … They assume that the reader will take almost everything they say for granted. After all, since there’s a prophecy foretelling that Dany will be betrayed three times, of course she’s going to distrust people way too much from now on).

There’s also another aspect of Dany’s relationship with prophecies that the essayist portrays inaccurately. They say that “the effect of this prophecy on Daenerys is multifaceted” for “[promising] greatness” (which, along with the also inaccurate statement that “part of Dany’s pursuit of the Iron Throne is born from a sense of destiny”, implies that Dany wants to be great or that she thinks of herself as great, none of which are true) and pushing her “further from the people who surround her”. I already questioned the latter statement, and the former is inaccurate too. After all, Dany has doubts that there are men in Westeros waiting for the Targaryens to return. The birth of the dragons has to do with the fact that Dany was able to put two and two together with clues from dragon dreams and Mirri's words, not because she thinks she's exceptional. Dany is not really sure that the red comet was meant for her. She followed its direction because the other paths weren't reliable and, even in Qarth, she's unsure that it was meant to guide her to success. Then she never thinks about it again. I'd expect otherwise from someone who thinks they're exceptional. Dany is surprised when told by Quaithe that she's the reason why magic is increasing in the world and never thinks or brags about it after their interaction. I'd expect otherwise from someone who thinks they're exceptional. Dany doesn't think she won any victories in the House of the Undying, she credits Drogon for burning the Undying Ones. She only allows Jhiqui to add a bell to the end of her braid because "the Dothraki would esteem her all the more for a few bells in her hair". Dany refuses to sit on the throne inside the Great Pyramid's audience chamber and chooses to sit on a simple ebony bench that the Meereenese think does "not befit a queen". Dany refuses the offer to have a statue in her image to replace the bronze harpy in the Plaza of Purification. I'd expect otherwise from someone who thinks they're exceptional. Dany is highly self-critical and, later in ADWD, thinks that she "was as clean as she was ever going to be" after taking a bath because she holds herself accountable for the upcoming slaughter in the opening of the fighting pits. I'd expect different from someone that thinks they're exceptional. Dany doesn’t think that the people who came to the reopening of the pits wanted to see her - “it was my floppy ears they cheered, not me”. I'd expect different from someone that thinks they're exceptional. Most of Dany's titles (the Unburnt, Mother of Dragons, Mhysa, Azor Ahai, etc) are given to her by other people, they're not self-proclaimed (not that there's a problem if they were, I'm only saying it to reiterate that Dany doesn't think she's exceptional). The ones that she assumes on her own are the ones that anyone who believes in birthright (i.e., everyone in her time and place, regardless of family, regardless of whether they're Targaryens) would assume.

4) When it comes to requirement 4 (Dany will (according to the essayist’s speculations) take actions that produce “exceptional calamity” and her demise will be “her own choice and doing”) … Well, we now enter the realm of speculation. It’s not impossible that Dany “will feel like a villain to the Westerosi, as she burns their villages and crops ahead of a hard winter” in the future. The problem here, once again, is in the double standards. Look at the way the essayist describes the likely reascendance of the Starks in the upcoming books - “With the death of “good” characters like Ned, the injury of innocents and moments such as the Red Wedding, ASOIAF as a story is not concerned with justice. But as the story progresses, we see that the way Ned ruled his people and raised his children contrasts with characters like Tywin and his methods. Much of the North seems to continue to rally behind the idea of the Starks, some with less “honorable” methods than others, while Tywin’s legacy begins to fall apart. Like in Shakespeare’s tragic world, there appears to be an order that arcs towards a higher idea of goodness that instills a dramatic satisfaction”. Like I said above when I questioned requirement 2, the Starks’ claim to the North is no more justified than Dany’s to the Seven Kingdoms. They have the advantage of having had their rule normalized throughout the thousands of years they ruled the North, but it doesn’t change the fact that, because they’re feudal lords, they still maintain a system rigged in favor of the nobles that promotes social inequality and extreme lack of social mobility. It doesn’t change the fact that there's no righteous form of feudalism. But only Dany is criticized in that sense by the essayist - “By nature, power breeds inequality, when one party has the ability to decide the fate of another. That inequality creates distance. As a queen Dany wields absolute power over the rest of her subjects and her court”. Which is pretty infuriating not only because the Starks are also morally grey in the sense that the essayist describes, but also because GRRM specifically mentioned that Daenerys is the ruler "who wants equality for everyone, she wants to be at the same level as her people". Additionally, if Ned left a legacy that motivated his people to fight against his enemies, so did Dany with the former slaves. But the essayist needs to ignore all of that to paint Dany as a Shakespearean tragic hero.

Even if we don’t take into account what TWOIAF reveals about the Starks’ ancestors, the main story itself often paints House Stark’s actions in a negative light. We see a peasant spitting at the mention of the Starks and saying that things were better with King Aerys II in power. We're told that Northmen looking for Jaime on Edmure’s orders burned a village called Sallydance and were guilty of rape and murder. It’s no wonder that the High Sparrow mentions the wolves along with the lions as threats to the septas. Also, thousands of soldiers died indirectly because of Robb’s decisions, as well as lots of people who remained north and became vulnerable to raping and pillaging due to his inability to hold Winterfell. And finally, when winter comes, the smallfolk will be affected by the actions of the northmen, who (like Dany might do in the future) already helped to disrupt the harvest and to leave the continent short on food. And yet, why is their future success framed as “an order that arcs towards a higher idea of goodness”? Why is Dany the only one who is said to be “giv[ing] into dark desires” by “divid[ing] an already weakened realm” when the Starks (framed as the heroes in the essay) did the same thing? This double standard gets infuriating when one remembers that Dany is the one fighting a war in the name of the disenfranchised (even though she is not connected to them by blood or lands or oath of fealty and doesn’t gain anything by helping them), while the Starks are (and will be, if they want to retake Winterfell) fighting a war because of personal injury (which, sympathetic as it may be, doesn’t justify the damage that they caused to the smallfolk). It gets even more infuriating when, as @rakharo pointed out to me, one remembers that, while Dany is trying to right the wrongs of the Valyrians by ending slavery in Slaver’s Bay, none of the Starks have acknowledged, much less tried to make amends for injustices perpetrated by the First Men against the Children of the Forest. It gets even more infuriating when one remembers that Aegon the Conqueror united Westeros in preparation for the War for the Dawn (something that GRRM himself confirmed), while the Starks’ ancestors conquered the North solely because of their greed. That's why Dany’s story can’t be effective as a tragedy: she’d be punished for starting to do what everyone else was doing after doing more than almost everyone else was doing.

5) When it comes to requirement 5 (Dany “[rose] high in position” and is “an exceptional being”, which sets her apart as a character that fits the mold of the Shakespearean tragedy because her reversal of fortune will highlight “the greatness and piteousness of humanity”), again, we’re in the realm of speculation. But there are some things to question as well. First, the essayist validates the criticisms that Dany “too easily ascends to a position of power” by using them as proof that she’s a tragic character. But that’s not really true, which becomes clear with a few comparisons: the Starks lost their father, mother and older brother throughout the story because of the Lannisters, which Dany also did; but her losses go beyond them: she also lost another brother, her first husband and her first child. The Starks had their direwolves given to them, Dany had to use her intuition and then literally walk into a fire to birth her dragons. Aegon the Conqueror used dragons to take Westeros, Dany conquered three cities without barely using hers. Jon Snow’s conflict in ADWD involves conciliating the Free Folk and the Night’s Watch after he makes decisions favoring the former group, while Dany’s involves conciliating the freedmen and the slavers after she makes decisions favoring the former group, which has a worldwide impact; Jon’s conflict has relatively low stakes (because it hasn’t involved the Others so far), Dany’s conflict leads to “half the world” wanting her dead. As these examples show, Dany suffered more losses than the Starks. Dany had to do a lot more than the Starks to find her animal companions. Dany became a conqueror primarily because of her military strategies and resourcefulness without relying on dragonfire like her ancestor. Dany faced greater opposition than her male counterpart Jon so far. As we can see, gaining power and retaining it has not been easy for Dany at all. Every single one of her accomplishments has been earned. But it sure is interesting that Dany’s supposed future tragedies must stem from her actions, but that her victories aren’t given the proper credit and acknowledged as being a result of what she also did as well.

And then the essayist declares something even more inaccurate: that Dany “overcame each obstacle that came her way” and that “Robb and Jon paid for their mistakes while Dany did not” (which, to the essayist, is evidence that “Dany’s fall is meant to stand in contrast as something grander than just one slip-up”).

First of all, Dany clearly did not overcome every obstacle that came her way. Saying so means ignoring all of her ADWD storyline (and it’s funny how Dany's detractors go from saying that she’s overpowered and hasn’t suffered consequences to accusing her of being a bad ruler precisely because she dealt with the negative consequences of her choices, lol). To recap, Dany had an indirect part in the wars outside Meereen because she left the Yunkish slavers’ wealth intact, which leads to terrible consequences - multiple city-states and sellsword companies joining forces against her, Astapor’s fall, the pale mare’s outbreak, the emergence of refugees from Astapor outside her city and the upcoming Battle of Fire. Dany had an indirect role in the wars inside Meereen because she left most of the Meereenese slavers alive with most of their wealth intact, which leads to terrible consequences - the Sons of the Harpy’s attacks and dozens of freedmen’s deaths. Additionally, Dany had an indirect role in Hazzea’s death because Drogon was allowed to roam freely and she had no way to train him or her brothers. All these problems culminate in Dany agreeing with a peace deal that, as already explained here, was inherently unjust for prioritizing the slavers over the freedmen. Dany had to learn that, as much as she wants peace and to plant trees, there are situations in which she can’t be merciful because violence really is the only way to achieve justice for the disenfranchised. (On the flip side, that’s one of the reasons why I’m critical of the theory that Dany accidentally burns King’s Landing. When she was merciful, as I just listed, great tragedies occurred (which is fine, it was a realistic exploration of what happens when you abolish slavery and try to do good). When she used fire and blood, great tragedies will occur too? Even though she would be acting just like the Starks or any other feudal lord by fighting for her birthright? The theory narratively punishes Dany in a way that it doesn't do with the Starks, which is why it's no wonder that it was created by someone with Stark/Stannis biases. Additionally, it validates the common belief that Dany is only meant to be a wartime queen, even though she’s already showed that she’s a good peacetime ruler.)

Second, is dying the only way to pay for one’s mistakes (considering that only Robb and Jon are listed as examples of characters who did)? I don’t think so. Consider Sansa. Didn’t she pay for the mistake of going to Cersei to tell her of Ned’s plan? I would say she did. I would say the author agrees - “Sansa was the least sympathetic of the Starks in the first book; she has become more sympathetic, partly because she comes to accept responsibility for her part in her father's death”. Similarly, Dany had to accept her indirect responsibility for the tragedies that I just listed (Hazzea, forgive me; No marriage would ever bring them back to life, but if a husband could help end the slaughter, then she owed it to her dead to marry.; “I should’ve gone to Astapor. [...] I am the queen. It was my place to know.”; “What kind of mother has no milk to feed her children?”). I would argue that Dany and Sansa both paid for her mistakes, which were acknowledged, made them suffer and influenced their character developments. But the essayist needs to say that Dany didn’t pay for them (or that she had an easy rise to power) to help to paint her as a Shakespearean tragic hero.

6) Now that the essayist’s five requirements have all been questioned, I would also like to mention positive prophecies and speculations related to Dany that are never brought up in this essay.

First, Dany is AA/PTWP/SWMTW. That was heavily foreshadowed (read more about it here) and built up to and, if it doesn’t happen, it frankly would be bad writing. After all, haven’t readers praised GRRM for the foreshadowing of Ned’s death (e.g., a stag having killed the mother direwolf in the beginning of AGOT)? Haven’t readers praised GRRM for the foreshadowing of the Red Wedding (which we see from Tyrion’s to Theon’s to Dany’s chapters)? And yet, the essayist thinks that Dany’s death will cause “the forces [to] become more even, making victory less sure, or the Others surpass the side of the living in strength” and that “the White Walkers gain Drogon, becoming one-on-one but with the White Walkers having the larger dragon.”

Second, Dany and Bran both have dreams in AGOT leading up to their magical awakening. Bran needs to fly to escape from the “cold” of the darkness below, while Dany needs to run from the “icy breath behind”. Both of these dreams culminate with Bran and Dany learning to fly and accepting their magical destinies, which will be important in the War for the Dawn. And yet, the essayist thinks that “by understanding that the concept of warmth is tied to companionship, we can understand that the cold, “icy breath” must represent the opposite: loneliness” to justify Dany’s demise. Instead, it's clear (especially considering the parallels with Bran) that "icy breath" is an allusion to the Others. But they can't acknowledge that Dany will have a crucial role in the War for the Dawn, otherwise their entire speculation falls apart.

Third, Quaithe was presented as the third of the three Qartheen envoys (after Pyat Pree and Xaro) that came to find Dany in Vaes Tolorro, which heavily implies that she breaks the norm and is the one person that Dany can trust. And yet, the essayist takes for granted that Quaithe’s “narrative connection to betrayal is already established”.

Fourth, Dany might as well be the prophesied betrayer, not the one who’s betrayed by three people (after all, she’s already been betrayed by more than three people - Jorah, Mirri, Pyat Pree, Xaro, Brown Ben, the person that gave her the poisoned locusts, etc). It would fit with the pattern of Dany being an active participant in the prophecies rather than a passive one (e.g. Dany is AA/PTWP, not the one who gives birth to the AA/PTWP or the one who dies as a sacrifice to AA/PTWP) even though, at first, the readership is expected to think otherwise. And yet, the essayist takes for granted that Dany will be betrayed because otherwise their entire speculation falls apart.

Fifth, Dany is foreshadowed to have a positive relationship with Jon because “the blue flower” from the “wall of ice” filled the air with “sweetness”. And yet, the essayist needs to say that Dany "[will push] Jon away [...] from fear of betrayal and hurt” and from worries that he might be a “usurper” (nevermind that they are mischaracterizing Dany as someone overfocused on retaking the Iron Throne and who closes herself off due to prophecies, none of which are not true, as I already showed above) because otherwise their entire speculation falls apart.

7) Finally, I would also like to ask: what’s the point of giving Dany a storyline like this? Not only because it would be unearned due to the double standards and the changes that would have to occur in her characterization, but also because Dany has a special place in the narrative. She is 1) one of the two women (along with Asha) claiming power in her own right and the only one that we actually got to see rule, 2) one of three Chosen Ones (along with Bran and Jon) and the only female one, 3) one of two POV revolutionaries (along with Jon) and the only female one (and the one whose storyline arguably has the most political messages since she’s fighting against human slavery), 4) one of two POV female rulers (along with Cersei) and the only one who’s been depicted as competent (because she subverts the Good Princess Evil Queen dichotomy), 5) one of two Targaryen conquerors (three, if Young Griff does indeed take Westeros) and the only female one - “Aegon the Conqueror with teats”, 6) the only major mother who isn’t sure to be doomed and/or hasn’t gone mad, 7) one of two Targaryen queens regnant (along with Rhaenyra) and the only remaining Targaryen woman who gets to have power after a long line of Targaryen women - Rhaenyra herself, but also Rhaena, Aerea, Rhaella, Daenerys (Alysanne’s daughter), Rhaenys the Queen Who Never Was, Baela, Rhaena of Pentos, Daena - who were disempowered. GRRM already has a terrible history with female leaders in particular. If he causes the downfall of another one (especially one who is also one of the five main protagonists) for such unearned reasons like the ones that the essayist laid out, there would also be sexist implications. It would make the only she-king that we saw wielding power onpage overly defined by violence and destruction in a way kings don't have to be depending on their actions, it makes the only competent POV female ruler look incompetent in comparison to the other POV male rulers and it makes her conquest a disaster while the other male Targaryen conqueror (two, if Young Griff takes Westeros) gets to succeed. And yet, death by childbirth is the only speculation that the essayist calls out as problematic (“death by childbirth is a uniquely biologically female phenomenon and would be punishing Daenerys for her sexuality”).

8) What I find insidious about essays like this one is that they pretend to be unbiased (I do not argue for the death of Daenerys as a judgement on her ethical/moral goodness as a character nor of the world she inhabits. I argue it on the strength of her characterization and story, that she should be able to encompass such intensity and greatness as to be considered as complex as all these other single-name headliners in literature.) even though they really aren't. To recap, the essayist portrays Dany as someone with "violent" impulses even though she's a merciful person in general, accepts the peace deal with the slavers as valid even though it prioritizes the slavers' privileges over the lives of marginalized people, only talks about the negative connotations of fire, downplays Dany's compassion and sense of justice, argues that Dany is losing her ability to trust others even though she isn't, says that Dany is negatively affected by promises of greatness even though she isn't, argues that Dany had an easy rise to power and didn't pay for her mistakes even though she did, paints Dany's campaign to take the Iron Throne in a negative light without doing the same with the Starks having dominance over the North and ignores Dany's foreshadowing as AA/PTWP, as well as her special place in the narrative. So it’s not that Dany stans are unable to accept Dany’s mistakes and flaws, it’s that people who dislike her can’t understand her characterization or acknowledge the double standards against her or accept her particular place in the story. At the end of the day, an essay like this one is no better than jonsa metas mindlessly hating on Dany because, just like them, as @semperty and @niniane17 made clear, it also creates speculations with the intent of making Dany self-destruct and become irrelevant to pave the way for their preferred characters. The only difference is that it's more successful at appearing "neutral" to someone who doesn't remember what happened in the books very well, especially because Dany has become a polarizing character for a variety of reasons and it's easy to buy into the Appeal to Moderation fallacy.

Also, as I said before, the fact that these Twitter 'neutrals' all misunderstand Dany's characterization, downplay her struggles and judge her by different standards actually makes me somewhat hopeful that she's getting a better ending, because how can their speculations come true if they don't know Dany at all? But then, it's hard to trust GRRM.

#daenerys targaryen #asoiaf meta #answered

182 notes · View notes

flowercrown-bard · 3 years

Text

Started out rocky, now they’re both cocky

(Part 3 of the rooster!Jaskier series, but it’s not necessary to read the other parts. All you need to know is that Jaskier is a rooster and he’s here to cause chaos)

word count: 3378

content warnings: innuendos, use of the word “cock”

part 1 part 2

AO3 (here Jaskier is called Dandelion, bc I think this has more game!Danelion vibes)

Jaskier had often imagined what it would be like to spend the winter at Kaer Morhen. In his mind, there had been no doubt that he would sweep into a deep bow, announcing his presence to the witchers residing there with a confident grin and eloquent words.

Alas. As fate – or, in this case a very insistent Geralt – would have it, Jaskier was unable to do either of these things. His words had been replaced by crowing, charming someone with a smile was most definitely impossible if one had a beak and an ugly lappet beneath one’s chin. And as for sweeping into a low bow – well, it would look rather silly if a rooster were to bow and he was beneath making an idiot of himself. That’s what Valdo Marx was for and he would not lower himself to that imbecile’s standards.

A less obvious, though no less important reason why Jaskier was not going to present himself the way he normally would have, was simple: To do so, he’d have to stop letting Geralt carry him. Though, now that he thought about it, he wasn’t so certain anymore, whether Geralt was carrying him because why wouldn’t he carry his dearest friend? Or if he did it so he could have a hold on Jaskier and prevent him from running away and wreaking havoc again.

Which was, of course, preposterous and also rather hypocritical of him. After all, the whole reason why Jaskier was here in the first place – and in this undignified form at that – was so he could fulfil Geralt’s wishes and use his unique talents and talons to destroy the room of one of Geralt’s brothers, a task that he was more than willing to take upon himself.

Still, it would have been much appreciated if Geralt had made sure that the other witchers welcomed him as well, or at the very least knew who he was, instead of ignoring him mostly while they greeted Geralt. Truly, it was a marvel that the witcher who welcomed Geralt at the gate didn’t pay any special attention to Jaskier. Not that he needed the attention per se, but it would have been nice and, well, there was a reason why he wasn’t used to people ignoring him. He was a delight! And no one could tell him that the sight of Geralt warming his hands by burying them in the feathers of an exceptionally beautiful and sophisticated rooster wasn’t a sight worth being paid attention to.

Filled with righteous indignation, Jaskier fluttered his wings and pecked a little at Geralt’s fingers, when he had been ignoring Jaskier way too long – not that any amount of ignoring Jaskier would have been acceptable - in favour of talking to the fetching witcher wearing red leather. Eskel, if Jaskier wasn’t mistaken, and as everyone knew, he was never mistaken.

The action earned him a small tightening of Geralt’s arms around him that had him squawking indignantly, but at least, Eskel now looked at him. Jaskier did his best to preen and exude an air of sophistication. For a blissful moment it seemed that he had indeed thoroughly charmed the witcher. Eskel’s face lit up, he reached out and –

“Sir!” Jaskier tried to shout, but his voice contorted his outraged outcry to a crow.

How- the audacity of – what did Eskel think gave him the permission to just pet Jaskier as if he was but an animal? Oh, how dare he…

Oh. Oh. No, actually, it was quite a nice sensation having strong hands caress his head and down his feathered back as gently as a lovesick poet would run their fingers over a flower. Quite nice indeed. He could get used to this.

To his shame – but really, who could fault a bard for seeking a little innocent pleasure in being touched by a handsome man? – Jaskier leaned into the touch. Thank all the gods that he hadn’t been turned into a cat, or else he might have had to suffer the indignity of starting to purr under the well-deserved attention.

For a brief, blissful moment, all was perfect. Until -

“He will get along well with Lil’ Bleater,” Eskel said. “You think we can put them into the stable together?”

And that was just – no! Oh no no, dear witcher. A pretty face and a soft touch would not be enough to save him from Jaskier ‘s outrage.

Expectantly, Jaskier turned his head to Geralt, his most beloved friend, the man who had rescued him countless times from the clutches of those who meant him or his reputation harm. Surely, now would be the perfect time for Geralt to come to his aid once more and defend his honour. Certainly he would –

“Hmm.”

Oh that bastard! This was no disagreeing or scolding hum. This hmm, accompanied by a sly smirk and a mischievous twinkle in Geralt’s eyes was very decidedly not the support that Jaskier was looking for.

Jaskier nipped Geralt’s fingers again, but that only served to make the witcher grin even wider. Together with Eskel, Geralt walked through the gate and towards the entrance hall, giving Jaskier a shit-eating grin when they passed the stables and making a comment about how in there, no one would hear the rooster’s morning crow.

He better just be teasing. As tasteless of a joke as this was, Jaskier might find it in himself to forgive Geralt for the threat of making him sleep in a stable with a goat.

As they walked, Geralt kept petting him absentmindedly, which was admittedly nice. Jaskier could live with being used as a glorified hand-warmer, if it came with the luxury of being carried around and getting pressed against a strong man’s chest.

Even better than that, though, was the look the old witcher, who Geralt greeted with the name Vesemir, gave Geralt, when they met him in the great hall. The way his eyes wandered from Geralt’s face down to where he was stroking his rooster marked him as a man who had lost all faith in Geralt.

A younger witcher with slicked back hair, who must be the infamous Lambert, the very reason why Jaskier was here, snickered behind Vesemir’s back.

“Looks like I’m officially the superior brother now,” he said with a grin. “The only one whose best friend isn’t a farm animal.”

“Your best friend is a cat,” Geralt deadpanned.

“A handsome cat that would claw your pretty face off if he heard you taking shit about me.”

Lambert’s grin looked infuriatingly smug. Jaskier didn’t know this cat they were speaking of, but one thing should never be questioned: He was the farm best animal friend. Even if he wasn’t really an animal or – he shuddered at the thought – living on a farm. But how dare Lambert imply that a cat could be better than a rooster? He gave Lambert his best menacing glare, which fell rather flat, considering he was a damned bird, currently snuggling against Geralt.

As was to be expected, which didn’t mean Jaskier didn’t take offence to it, Lambert ignored him. “What’s his name anyway? I sure hope it’s not Roach.”

If he had been able to snicker, Jaskier would have done so. Lambert might be a cock – oh, who was Jaskier to judge such a thing? – but it was nice to see that the bard wasn’t the only one who would relentlessly tease Geralt for his inability to come up with good names.

“Eskel has his Little Bleater,” Lambert added, his grin turning downright devious. “So, pretty boy, you have…a Little Cock?”

Little? Little?

The gall of that man! Jaskier was anything but small, thank you very much. But then again, Jaskier couldn’t shame a man for showing such a great understanding of wordplay, especially when he used his talents to tease Geralt.

Oh, who was he kidding? He liked Lambert.

Between his unexpected appreciation for the youngest witcher and the urge to make himself seem bigger than he was, Jaskier nearly missed Geralt’s answer. It was exactly the sort of reply one would expect. Except…Geralt did not correct Lambert regarding the fact that Jaskier was an animal.

Now, here’s the thing. Jaskier loved his witcher with all his heart. Geralt was his best friend in the whole wide world and he would never exchange him for anyone, as much of a smug bastard as he could sometimes be. But by the gods, why oh why, did Jaskier ‘s best friend have to be a man who didn’t have the presence of mind to just, oh, I don’t know, tell his family that the rooster he was bringing with him was a cursed human? There was no doubt that Geralt had told his brothers and father of Jaskier before, for how could he not? Jaskier was a great subject to talk about. Surely, Geralt couldn’t be worried about them not accepting him in their midst.

A quick glance at him – Jaskier preferred not to think about how strange a rooster turning his head nearly upside down and giving a stink eye must look – made it quite clear that he was, in fact, not worried at all. Instead, Geralt was up to something.

Jaskier glared at him, as if staring might let him read Geralt’s thoughts, provided Geralt knew how to use his mind to think.

Perhaps his plan was to give Jaskier the best possible way to get attention by only introducing him once he was back in his dashing human form? Oh, that would be marvellous! After all, if there was one thing Jaskier was good at – well, there were numerous things, of course, but we shall ignore that for the sake of the dramatic – it was making an impression. He had to commend his friend for being so thoughtful as to grant him such an opportunity, unless…

Oh, Jaskier knew that look on Geralt’s face. He was having far too much fun with this. A suspicious amount of fun even. It would almost make one think that all this had never been solely about Lambert’s room at all. If Jaskier hadn’t known any better, he might even be inclined to think that Geralt was taking delight in letting Jaskier stay cursed.

Well. If that was the case, Jaskier would make sure that Geralt would delight not much longer in that.

He let out an ear-piercing shriek that had Geralt flinch and unfortunately squeeze him a little uncomfortably.

“What’s wrong, Jaskier?” He asked, as if he didn’t know fully well the magnitude of what he was doing.

Before Jaskier could answer, well, whatever equivalent of answering he could do in this form at any rate, Lambert spoke up again.

“Jaskier?” He cooed. “How sweet. You miss your bard so much that you call your rooster by his name? Who would have thought the White Wolf could be so soft-hearted. Watch out or Roach will get jealous if she learns that you found a new love.”

“Lambert,” Geralt growled, though whether he was defending his own reputation as a stoic, brooding loner – ha! As if anyone could look at him and believe him to be such a thing! – or if he was outraged at the thought that anyone could take Roach’s place in his heart, Jaskier couldn’t tell. It was likely a mixture of both.

“Oh, so you don’t miss your bard?” Lambert lifted an eyebrow. “Is it perhaps just a certain bodypart of his that you miss? I guess then it would make sense why you gave his name to the cock.”

Lambert turned away from Geralt before he could come up with a reply, but before he had his back fully to Geralt, Lambert caught Jaskier’s eye and he winked.

Oh. Oh ho ho, he knew. That sly bastard. Evidently, Lambert was the only witcher who knew how to use his brain and seen through the curse and Geralt’s admittedly poor attempt at making it seem as if the extraordinary and overall splendid rooster was but a normal bird and now Lambert was fucking with Geralt.

And – now, listen. Jaskier had been looking forward to destroying Lambert’s room. There was nothing like joining forces with a friend to mess with someone who annoyed them. Well, the biggest pleasure Jaskier knew came from proving once again that he was more talented than Valdo Marx, but that was a given, so it shall not be mentioned further. The point was that Jaskier would have done as Geralt had asked of him.

But now, with this new knowledge that Lambert apparently shared the same ambition as Jaskier to become the biggest nuisance he could be, he couldn’t possibly work against him. Jaskier could recognise a kindred spirit if he saw one. Reading people and recognising his own greatness in others was one of his countless talents. The last and perhaps only time he had met such a kindred soul before, had been in his first year at Oxenfurt at the admission exam, when Valdo Marx had immediately singled out Jaskier as the one who could be the biggest threat to his career. As loathe as Jaskier was to admit it, he too had recognised a certain talent in the other bard and they had both decided to make it their lives’ mission to not let the other top them.

Jaskier had not regretted that decision a moment in his life, but even he had to admit that said rivalry was the reason why he was now a rooster and delightful as that could be, he could have done well without it.

So, he would not make the mistake of antagonizing a congenial person again. At least not know. Who was to say what the future held? The important part was, that for now, for once in his life, Jaskier was going to be the bigger person.

He waited until the moment was right, a feat greater than any he had ever faced before. As virtuous as he was, being patient was not one of Jaskier’s strong suits. Still, once night had fallen and Geralt had thankfully not made true of his promise to put him in the stables, he snuck out of Geralt’s room, searching for Lambert’s instead.

Lambert, of course, was already waiting for him, a cocky smile on his face and his arms crossed in a way that meant business.

He greeted Jaskier with the fateful words “You gonna help me mess with Geralt?” and obviously, there was only one possible answer to that.

It was thrilling having an ally in his mission to create chaos and take revenge on those that had slighted him. And, oh, how Geralt had slighted him!

The first step of their however-many-steps-they-would-get-away-with-plan was simple: Jaskier was supposed to take a nap. In Geralt’s bed. Specifically, in his hair, creating a nest out of it.

Now, Jaskier was no craftsman for any craft that didn’t involve the spoken word, but he did so love to make himself comfortable. So that was what he did. Snuggling into Geralt’s hair and masterfully rearranging the strands with his beak until they could well and truly be considered a mess.

And then, as always, Jaskier woke Geralt up in his new favourite way. One would have thought that Geralt would have gotten used to Jaskier crowing into his ear at the top of his lungs. But no. Geralt grimaced and grabbed his pillow to throw it at his tragically underappreciated companion. The feathers flying through the room were not only those from the pillow.

So naturally, Jaskier started complaining. Loudly. Loud enough to, as a completely arbitrary example, signal a different witcher whose room was down the hallway that their plan was in motion.

Before Geralt could find another pillow to throw at him, Jaskier grabbed Geralt’s breeches that the witcher had unceremoniously dropped to the floor the past night and dragged them towards the door.

Cursing, Geralt chased after him, wearing nothing but his underthings. Had Jaskier been alone, he would have gotten caught, no doubt, but the door flung open just in time for him to dash through and just before Geralt could reach him, Lambert, who had been lying in wait, scooped Jaskier up and ran down the stairs and outside, cackling like a hen, while Jaskier let out a triumphant crow that was somewhat muffled by the breeches still firmly held in his beak.

Geralt was catching up to them quickly, but Lambert and Jaskier had one rather obvious advantage: There were two of them.

Lambert dropped Jaskier unceremoniously, leaving him to flutter his wings to land somewhat elegantly – oh, who was he kidding? He plummeted to the ground like a stone - and they dashed into two different directions. For a precious moment, Geralt stood there frozen to the spot, surely contemplating which menace would be able to cause the greater chaos, if he didn’t catch him: The rooster with a godcomplex or Geralt’s little brother in possession of opposable thumbs.

Geralt, once more was forced to choose the lesser evil, but here is the thing: As it was so often the case, there was no correct choice to make.

While Lambert ran back to Geralt’s room to cause who knew what chaos, Jaskier ran towards the stables, and be it only for the dramatic irony.

Geralt must have chosen to follow Lambert and Jaskier was almost insulted, but it gave him the chance to take his time, pushing open the door to the stables and dragging the breeches inside. Just a little revenge for all the times that Geralt had made fun of Jaskier when he had been forced to run out of town without his breeches, since they had to be left in a lover’s rooms.

He dropped the breeches in Lil’ Bleater’s corner and watched with smug satisfaction as the goat immediately began munching on the breeches happily. Jaskier gave her a proud look and had they both been human, he would have kissed her hand in thanks. As it was, he was rather fond of his beak and he would not risk hurting it by kissing the goat’s hooves. Still, Lil’ Bleater lived up to her name, giving a happy little bleat that Jaskier chose to interpret as thanks for the delicious meal. How polite of her.

Who knew. Maybe they would become friends after all.

From somewhere in the keep, Jaskier could hear a bang and then a shout of disgust and had he been in possession of his luscious lips, would have made them split into the biggest, most self-satisfied grin, when Geralt’s voice continued cursing loud enough to be heard even where Jaskier was. To be fair, Geralt had probably opened the windows of his room. At least that was what Jaskier would have done in his stead to escape what Lambert had done to his room.

Well. Served Geralt right. No one could accuse Lambert of unoriginality and Jaskier was nothing if not petty.

Of course, the bomb that Lambert had set off wasn’t another moon dust bomb. Where would be the fun in that? No, Lambert and Jaskier had agreed, as much as a rooster and a witcher could agree, that they would be gracious and bring Geralt closer to what he loved the most: The sweet sweet smell of his cherished Roach. In this case, the smell of what Roach left behind, when she had eaten a lot.

There were more steps to their genius plan of creating chaos in the keep, one of which involved a fork, a strategically placed axii and the backside of whoever pissed Lambert off the most, and naturally there were endlessly more possibilities for improvisation.

Sadly, the other witchers, roused by the mayhem and possibly even the stench coming from Geralt’s room, didn’t seem to appreciate Lambert and Jaskier’s combined genius and they made sure to break the curse on Jaskier as soon as they got the change.

Now, there was only one fundamental flaw in that: For some unknown reason, the witchers hadn’t considered the fact that Jaskier’s personality hadn’t changed when he had become a rooster. They had no idea what they were in for, now that Jaskier had opposable thumbs again.

This would be a fun winter indeed.

#There's a bard lose in Kaer Morhen #jaskier #Geralt #geralt of rivia #Lambert #Eskel #rooster!Jaskier #cock!Jaskier #my writing #Hähnchen #witcher #witcher fic #fic #fanfic #feral!Jaskier #cursed!Jaskier #Jaskier&Lambert

57 notes · View notes

autistic-mandalorian · 3 years

Text

Today on intricate AUs that cater to an audience of me:

Barriss does not blow up the temple. Instead she's been distributing anti-republic pamphlets, giving presentations, trying to give the clones money, standard stuff.

The senate find out and are furious. They do the same investigation as in canon and blame it on Ahsoka for Reasons. Ahsoka is put in a holding cell. Barriss is freaking out but doesn't want to turn herself in bc she's like 16 and Out Of Her Depth

Anakin breaks Ahsoka out, she goes on the run. Barriss is now double freaking out.

Barriss tries to fix what her actions have caused by helping out Ahsoka while she is on the run. She tells Ahsoka that it was her and apologizes for not turning herself in

Ahsoka still has that alliance with Ventress. this will come up later

Ahsoka still ends up captured and taken before the senate. She doesn't want to give Barriss up bc she knows that she would be executed but then Barriss bursts in confessing bc she is not going to let Ahsoka die for her actions

Barriss is taken away. Ahsoka, upset bc the jedi didn't defend her and didn't object to the senate being down to execute children, leaves the Jedi Order and goes into the lower levels of Coruscant as is compliant with canon

Luminara, not about to sit back and watch her padawan be unjustly executed, breaks Barriss out of prison and helps her escape into Coruscant, but lets her go emotionally for everyone's safety

Barriss tracks down Ahsoka and they both end up working with Trace and Rafa and everything happens the same except Barriss is there also pretending to not be force-sensitive

Barriss and Ahsoka start dating bc I think they'd be cute together

They run around the lower levels of Coruscant for a while and Have Adventures

They run into Ventress every so often and soon end up weird frenemies

Barriss goes with Ahsoka to hunt down Maul on Mandalore, everything happens the same except Barriss thinks "hmm I have a bad feeling about this. we might need some extra hands" and goes and recruits Ventress for the mission bc she owes them a favor or two and they promise they'll pay her a few hundred credits for her trouble

The difference: Since there are three Force-wielders on the ship, they're able to de-chip more clones than just Rex who in turn help them de-chip more until the entire ship is free

Maul is still released to cause a distraction, but after everything is settled they concede that he wasn't lying about the whole Balance Of Power Shifting thing after all and hey, we aren't jedi and he's not sith, and Ventress ended up being cool, and he's not like trying to murder us so might as well bring him along

They evacuate the ship and crash on purpose to fake their deaths.

They become a very weird rag-tag found family and become a small rebellion cell, although all they really do is blow up ships in order to rescue stormtrooper clones and de chip them

Luminara is actually alive not a walking corpse like in Rebels but she is still in the prison like in Rebels

After the Rebels crew bust her out she goes "I am not training another padawan I have some BAD trauma associated with that and also it went very bad last time" and they drop her off somewhere random

Barriss senses her in the Force when this happens and immediately goes to look for her because her mom is alive!!!

they find her and reunite and take her into one of the refugee towns of their rebel base and its very sweet

#i make posts for me and me alone #star wars au #clone wars au #tcw #star wars #darth maul #ahsoka #barriss offee #barrissoka #asajj ventress #luminara unduli #everything is mostly ok #the clone wars

181 notes · View notes

plokoonsdisapprovingeyebrows · 3 years

Text

Part 2 of the frametypes headcanon ramble.

Under a cut this time bc it’s l o n g.

↠ PART ONE : read first otherwise this prob wont make sense lol

Notes on Groundframes

↠ Light standards are like your basic sedan, they're fuckin everywhere and most people can't tell the subtypes apart. They make up just under 20% of the population on their own, and tend to be thought of as the ‘average Cybertronian’, for better or worse. There are nine subtypes based on location of origin:

Iaconic — tallish, slim, kinda plain otherwise. Very common.

Meridian — tend to be dorito-shaped, with big spoilers or vents. The most common of the subtypes, theyre fuckin everywhere.

Tagani — smaller than the others, compact and flexible design specs, have a reputation for being the 'sportsmecha' of the frametype due to being made for getting around in big honkin mountains. Fairly rare outside of the Tagan rus.

Kaoni — big and stronk for an average sedan, curvy design aesthetic. Common in the southern hemisphere, less so in the north bc having ‘Kaon’ attached to ur name is an instant popularity nerf.

Tarnais — big and often kinda boxy, probably turns into a small ute. Also common in the south and less so in the north.

Praxian — average in every way except for the doorwings. Not actually that common anymore. The 'doorwing' aesthetic originally comes from Praxus but at this point it's present in most of the northern subtypes because Fashion.

Polyhexi — the northern equivalent of the Kaoni type, generally kinda short and stocky. Super common.

Tyresti — tends to be tall and slim. Design aesthetic leans toward big audial fins, spoilers, generally more flourishes than strictly necessary. Not super common outside of Tyrest.

Tyger Paxi — smallish, often Round. Most notable trait is three-fingered hands, also tend to be enframed with a colorful paintjob. Not common outside of Tyger Pax.

Despite the subtype names being based on locale of origin, they can generally be found all over the planet. There are more of the Polyhexi light standard subtype in Helex than in Polyhex, for example.

Average heights tend to range between 16′ to 20′ or so. Modding for occupation, hobbies, or just plain fashion is very very common and there are a load of different frame blueprints anyway, which makes identifying who’s got what frametype even more difficult. (Functionists hate this.)

↠ Heavy standards are also super common and can be hard to tell apart, though less so because there’s only six subtypes. The Towers subtype is particularly difficult to identify unless you have experience; they can potentially be shorter and weigh less than those aforementioned really large light standards. Heavy standards tend to be more heavyset than light standards, but aside from being slightly larger the main difference between the frametypes is in armor and engine grade — heavies have heavier armor and more powerful engines; they're made to carry a bigger load.

Hesperidus class — more or less the 'ancestral' type. They tend to be leggier and a bit slimmer than other heavies. Spot a hesperidus mech by the deep chests and the big feet.

Equatorial, Boreal, and Austral types were the result of semi-deliberate selection for large long-distance haulers, in the ages before throttles and dexters. They tend to be boxy, heavyset, probably have a van alt.

Towers class — was developed much later than the rest, to fit the Second Generation nobility's aesthetic ideals because what's the point of having a capable servant if they don't look good? (Second Generation noble culture, incidentally, is where the seeds of Functionism came from.)

They also tend to be found in lower-ranked castes than the light standards (with two exceptions being the priestly castes and medics, the former because size is a useful visual shorthand for authority and the latter because working on bigger patients is easier if u are also Big). You'll occasionally see them with offroad tyres and utility altmodes, whereas that's very much Frowned Upon for light standards under a Functionist viewpoint.

↠ Throttles came from the same semideliberate selection process as the bigger heavy standard classes. Cybertronian society in the rebuilding years of the First Generation was mostly made up of small frametypes (because the small frametypes were those who found it easiest to hide underground from the Cataclysm!), and so once they emerged from the cavernous underworld, they found they had a great need for larger, stronger mecha capable of going long distances without the need for refueling. (This is also the same process that gave rise to the durus and efficiens system configurations.) Throttles were the largest and heaviest of these mecha, and for a long time they were actively prized - up until supply outstripped demand and they became associated so strongly with the labor castes that as the social value of the labor castes decreased, so did the status of the throttles.

There are two subtypes:

Southern — developed in the First Generation settlement of the Austral rus. They’re Extremely Common in the labor castes due to their size, strength, and physical endurance. Their armor pattern is usually kinda blocky and/or pointy because that was the height of Fashion for ages and ages. Probably turns into a small truck or some other specialised work vehicle.

Northern — developed about the same time in the settlement of the Tagan rus. Much less common as a result, because the Tagan Heights turned out to be a huge pain in the ass to colonise. They’re often Extremely Round and very well-reinforced, could probably fall off a mountain and their reaction would be like “oops my bad.”

↠ Minibots are the one frametype to have thrived in the Cataclysm. Cybertron's underworld is full of cramped and narrow spaces, so smaller mecha were able to take shelter much deeper and in many more places than larger mecha. The original minibots tended to look like a standard, simply scaled down. Modern frametype subdivisions occurred once Cybertronian society moved out of the underworld into the wide open plains and proto-cities of the First Generation, and suddenly being small in a world of increasingly large mecha was a scarier prospect.

Compact minibots — selected for resilience and the ability to take a pounding and bounce back as quickly as possible. They’re flexible, with simple internal system design and often end up looking a lot like one another, aside from paintjobs and other personal decorations.

Articulates — selected for agility and the ability to get into spaces other mecha can’t. Often built with non-standard proportions, long limbs and occasionally extra limbs and tails.

Sylph minibots — selected for speed and the ability to avoid getting hit in the first place. Common as a frametype, especially where space or other resources are at a premium.

It's culturally quite common and accepted for the articulate and sylph types to physically climb all over their larger brethren (provided they have the appropriate relative ranks/social status). This serves the dual purpose of putting the minibot on more or less the same level as their interlocutor, and making sure the minibot is out of the way of getting stepped on or whatever.

↠ Dexters were one result of a deliberate bioengineering project during the Quintesson Wars, at a time when Cybertron was losing the fight and thus was getting desperate enough to throw whatever the heck they could come up with at the invaders. Researchers took code inheritances from heavy standards, throttles, and heavy warbuilds to create a new type of mech, one with the inherent combat capabilities of the warbuilds and the size, strength, and most importantly the endurance and resilience of the large groundframes, which could serve as an all-rounder both in combat and in supply chains and behind-the-lines defense. Unlike some previous attempts at bioengineering, this was a roaring success.

Dexters are also quite common among Towersmecha despite their size and the perception of them as being suited best to labor, hauling and fighting. The Towersmecha are deliberately invoking an older perception of dexters: this is the shit that won us the Quintesson Wars, so put up or shut up.

Aegis dexters — often interestingly lanky in appearance - think TFP Optimus and pre-war Soundwave - and heavily-armored enough that the warbuild inheritance is visible. They are the most common subtype; you'll find them most often in the military and ground freight castes.

Eurus dexters — some of the biggest groundframes, often outstripping the largest heavy warbuilds and coming second only to their dexter cousins, the rayets. They are much more heavyset than the aegis subtype, though again visibly well-armored. They tend to have something of an hourglass shape, and altmodes are basically limited to large haulers, tanks, and guncars.

Rayet dexters — the largest groundbound transforming mecha bar none. They are often tall and leggy, though not to the same extent as aegis dexters, and the vast majority take on rail altmodes and work in rail-based castes. The largest can have difficulty finding accommodation and furniture that's rated for their size. Some absolute madman once had the idea of creating a combiner entirely out of rayet dexters and these guys are now basically the biggest celebrities on Velocitron. (Literally.)

Notes on Flightframes

↠ Light jets are most of what came through the Cataclysm unharmed; jets have always tended larger than groundbound frames because of their engines (both physical size and the size of the tanks needed to hold enough fuel to keep them going) and also their wings. The frametype subdivisions among light jets are divided by engine grade and how far a jet can fly without needing to be refueled, and therefore size.

Flightframes in general can be easily modded for aquatic altmodes, but it is most common among light jets. This is a fairly comprehensive mod, involving most bodily systems, but it's not considered a reformat because it's not really changing any of the frame's basic architecture (although wing area is usually significantly reduced). By contrast, modding a warframe or a groundframe for a fully-aquatic altmode requires a full reformat.

Super-light jets — the jet equivalent of minibots, fairly common and especially well-suited to city life. Often small and agile enough to fly indoors, and like groundbound minibots are prone to climbing their larger brethren. Flightframes tend to dislike this more than groundframes do, so this subtype has a reputation for being particularly scatterbrained and tactile.

Aurora-class — a little larger, match well to the light and heavy standards in size class. Usually leggy with wide shoulders and dorito torsos, engines often slung on the back between flexible wing-joints. Accounts for probably like 25% of all flightframes because they strike a handy balance of ‘can fly’ with ‘relatively cheap to build’ and ‘won’t drink you out of house and home.’

Comet-class — larger again, roughly dexter-sized. Cuts a striking figure with long wings and legs, but aren’t particularly economic either in enframing costs or fuel intake. Mostly they turn up in rich clades, which then gives them a secondary reputation for being Pretty.

↠ Heavy jets diverged from light jets twice - once during the Dynasty of Primes, and once again after the Cataclysm. The largest Dynastic flightframes were simply too large to take shelter underground as the meteorites began to hit. As such, while light jets are one of the five most common frametypes, heavy jets are much rarer, and tend to be limited in the jobs they do and the castes they occupy. Socially, they’re also limited by their sheer size - a common refrain among the larger flightframes.

Like light jets, the subtypes are divided by engine grade and range, and overall size:

Notos-class — the smallest, but only relative to the other classes. Usually identifiable by not having delta-wings, and a relatively slim v-shaped frame.

Lipara-class — delta-winged and often built like a flying brick. You can tell they were built for cargo, although these days they’re somewhat outdated.

Erebus-class — delta-winged, extreme long-distance fliers built for speed and coverage. Often mistaken for smaller shuttles, but generally not capable of spaceflight.

↠ Shuttles diverged from heavy jets relatively late; during the Quintesson Wars, as a product of the increased need for rapid long-distance transport. The smallest shuttles usually look very similar in root-mode to the Erebus-class heavy jets (and even their frame blueprints and code inheritance is extremely similar at a glance), but where heavy jets are limited to atmospheric flight, the shuttles are capable of spaceflight. Consequently the heavy jet >> shuttle reformat is one of the easiest to do.

Delta-class — the vanguard of Cybertron’s moon colonies, designed for local space exploration. Tend to have the classic flightframe dorito shape with large delta wings.

Iota-class — capable of longer-range spaceflight, generally built to be extremely self-sufficient. Usually not an atmospheric flier; wings are small if present at all and tend to get tacked onto unusual places in root mode.

Omega-class — these guys are the biggest transforming Cybertronians, period. Extremely rare, extremely valuable; all those in existence were created by cold-construction in several waves during the Imperial expansion period, explicitly to augment imperial Cybertron's colonial forces. Can be very expensive to maintain, don’t tend to be economically independent in their own right.*

↠ Satellites diverged from heavy jets during the Second Generation, in an experiment which took the lonely high-altitude communications relay hubs and stationed them on the edge of space, orbiting Cybertron like the moons. These first satellites were heavy jets which underwent a fairly simple reformat to make them spaceworthy and give them powerful inbuilt communications hardware. In the early years, these mecha underwent many more mods to make them more efficient at their jobs, and new satellites were designed according to a particular psychological profile - many of those early recruits were simply too social to tolerate extended periods of solitude. Quickly, a new frametype emerged.

Perseid & Lyrid — very similar subtypes originating from Praxus and Tarn respectively. These are common in public, private, and military enterprises alike, and are capable of limited atmospheric flight. They tend to be lanky and full of interesting cables.

Eridanid — rarer, larger, and less maneuverable in atmospheric flight. Most satellites are faceless because why bother? but eridanids take this to an extreme and sometimes lack normal arms or heads entirely.

Tryptid — the largest, are not capable of atmospheric flight at all beyond what is necessary to reach orbital altitude. Like eridanids, they can be identified by fuckin weird body plans.

Satellites and shuttles both contain base coding that prepares them for long periods of solitude. Satellites especially spend most of their time hooked into various planetary networks and often have lively online presences, but depending on their jobs they may go entire vorn without being in the physical presence of another mech. They have a reputation for being very self-sufficient as a result, and often experience culture shock upon returning to their planetary bases.

↠ Rotaries were created in the same no-holds-barred frenzy of military experimentation that created dexters. These are the odd ducks of the flightframe family, inherently flight-capable but sharing more of their code blueprint with groundframes than with flightframes. Cybertronian rotaries are augmented with adjustable jet engines, increasing their load capabilities and range to an extent. Their specialty is in slow flight and hovering; they were designed essentially as aerial assault platforms. They are heavily-armored, usually have two or three different engine systems, often bristling with gun placements, and most of them are rather large.

Zephyr-class — smallish, usually angular and winged. Historically less common than their larger counterparts because of their smaller size, but also an unfortunate tendency to be aggressive little fraggers.

Bolide-class — bigger, more common, best defenses of any of the flightframes, primarily because they’re easy targets. Tend to be built like bricks, with about that much subtlety too.

Notes on Warframes

↠ Light warbuilds and heavy warbuilds are primarily distinguished from each other by armor grade and intended combat role, with heavy warbuilds taking on direct combat roles and light warbuilds primarily intended for ancillary roles (though they are perfectly capable of combat if required and do share the combat optimization of the warframe class as a whole). Light warbuilds have a lighter armor grade, and do not get quite as large as heavy warbuilds, but otherwise they can be very hard to tell apart.

Skirmisher class — optimized for ranged combat and awkward terrain. Light and agile with a lot of gun emplacements and highly developed sensory processing with built-in targeting software. Often mistaken for ur average sedan.

Scout class — optimized for information gathering and being very sneaky. Look like minibots, usually.

Ranger class — combine the two previous types with a focus on long-term missions and endurance. Also tend to look like nothing in particular.

Executive class — are the rarest subtype, with a focus on large-scale data analysis, communications and command. Lots of variation in body type and armor pattern; the internal stuff is what’s characteristic of the subtype.

Heavy warbuilds are divided into three subclasses based on size, armor grade, and intended combat role:

Chevalier class — optimized mainly for speed in close quarters combat. They range across four size classes and account for the largest percentage of the warbuild population. Could be mistaken for an average sedan, but the armor grade tends to be a giveaway.

Reinforcement class — optimized for holding a defensive line; they have the heaviest armor and generally the biggest weapons. Brick-shaped, sometimes wider than they are tall.

Frontliner class — optimized for breaking the other side's defensive line; they have the second biggest weapons and are generally the biggest scariest mecha on the field. Tend to be what others think of when they hear the word 'warframe', despite being relatively uncommon.

↠ Flighted Warbuilds are often called Seekers, a reference to their tendency for target fixation. The nickname caught on in common parlance for being less of a mouthful than the original term. Seekers originated from the same source as dexters and rotaries; their initial code blueprint was a blend of flightframe physical capabilities with warframe armor, weapons systems, and skeletal architecture. Despite having inherent flight capabilities, Seekers are counted among the warframes because they possess all the extra bits that make warframes what they are. They are by far and away the most successful of the warborn frametypes, with a population nine times larger as the dexters and nearly thirty times larger than the rotaries.

Seekers are divided into three subtypes by size, intended combat role, and range.

Skirmisher class — the smallest, agile in the air and best against aerial opponents, but also have the smallest range. Tend to be slim and leggy in root mode.

Bomber class — the largest, with the longest range, the highest top speed and the biggest guns, but also the least maneuverable. Tend to be solid and heavy-limbed in root mode.

Multirole class — strike an elegant balance between skirmisher and bomber, and are generally considered the archetypal Seeker. Classic long-legged dorito shape in root mode.

↠ Triplechangers also originate from the wartime developmental period, but remain exponentially rarer than the other three warborn frametypes, primarily because of the truly ludicrous cost associated with building a triplechanger frame. If you see a triplechanger, chances are they’re either high-ranking military or out of the Towers.

They are divided into two subtypes by size and potential altmode groups:

Ouranos class — generally take one large grounded altmode such as a freight hauler and one small jet or aquatic altmode. Roughly brick-shaped.

Atlas class — generally take one very large grounded altmode such as a locomotive or a tank, and one large jet or aquatic altmode. Roughly house-shaped.

Notes on Monophase Frames

↠ The defining characteristic of monophase frames is that they do not transform. They are a product of the Golden Age colonial push, built to sacrifice transformation ability for defensive size and self-sufficiency. The latter means that they are their own transport, accommodation, and energy-production facility. They do require an intermediary to act for them in the physical world of Cybertron, due to being too large to participate in most real-world social environments, but otherwise are entirely independent. This intermediary is called a keynote, drawing from the much older practice of symbiosis between Cybertronians and minicons, wherein the Cybertronian 'host' is referred to as a keynote. (Similarly, the heart of a gestalt network is also referred to as a keynote.)

↠ Sparked ships came first; the logical conclusion of the Omega class shuttle program. The enormous spark of a sparked ship, created by energy drawn from the Well of All Sparks over a full day, allows such ships to support bodies and systems exponentially larger than an Omega class shuttle - large enough that transformation became impossible, and even larger; enough that the loss of transformation capability was worth it. Sparked ships could carry propulsion systems capable of reaching far-flung corners of the galaxy; necessary in the years before the space bridge network, and could monitor and control their own life-support systems, making decisions in extremis and allowing mecha on board to be placed in suspended animation for the length of the journey to ensure that the ship reached its destination with plenty of resources with which to build a colony.

↠ Sparked cities followed soon after, as an extension of the same program. The first sparked city, named Boreas, was placed on Cybertron, becoming a satellite city of Protihex.

The advantage of sparked cities over traditional cities was that they could be built with extremely limited mobility. Place a sparked city by a rich mineral vein as a convenient residence for all your workers and smelters/refineries, and once the vein runs dry in the future, the city can, over several months, recycle or cast off much of its mass, allowing for efficient transport to the new location and in the process reducing itself to its most fundamental skeleton, at which point it it can simply pick itself up and walk to the next location.

Notes on Unclassified Frames

This is where the mad science happens. :D

↠ Unclassified frames are built from scratch. They might start off from the skeleton of a recognised frametype (most do because it's slightly cheaper) but then be modified past the point of recognition for some reason - usually, to fulfil a task that requires unusual specs. It takes a lot to make such a frame 'unclassified' - you have to change multiple systems in a pervasive manner. One example are the handful of 'living gun emplacements' that were created during Nova Prime's colonial wars, mecha whose entire frames were built around an enormous plasma gun. These mecha did not live long or comfortable lives; the stresses of firing that gun ultimately proved too much and the design was shelved indefinitely.

Red Alert is the only unclassified frame I've thought much about; he has most of the outward features of a standard Cybertronian (he looks like a particularly tall heavy standard) but his 'alt mode' is basically him wiring himself into a very special supercomputer, one of three that monitor the Grid at all times. He's stuffed full of interesting nanocircuits that don't look like anything much until he's in that alt mode form, at which they reveal themselves to be thousands of very small processors geared toward a single purpose - data monitoring. (If you're doing stuff on the Grid, you've got a one in three chance of Red Alert being your own personal FBI agent meme.)

Notes on Other Shit

↠ Economic independence (or lack thereof) is an unfortunate Golden Age construction related to the buying and selling of debts, and the economic exploitation of those subject to said debts. Larger shuttles and satellites, triplechangers, and especially monophase mecha tend to end up in contracts where their entire lives are controlled by whoever’s paying for their basic upkeep. The individual mech cannot be bought and sold - but their creation debt and upkeep costs can be.

As u can imagine, this went down the plughole with Optimus Prime’s accession to the Primacy; he narrowly escaped a similar fate mainly bc the Hall of Records head honchos had slightly too many Morals. Unfortunately, by then the Great War was well underway.

#book of hours worldbuilding #tfp headcanons #frame type

59 notes · View notes

lais-a-ramos · 4 years

Text

ok, this one is kind of a hard topic, and i appologize in advance for any mistakes i make or not being articulate enough

all the concearns over ppl in fandom hyping the only prominent white character, christina, in lovecraft country instead of the black characters are valid and the critique is definitely important, once it's common for ppl in fandom to either erase the half of a couple that is a BIPOC or to deny a canon cis het biracial ship to hype up a fanon white wlw ship and other problematic stuff plenty of times in LGBTQ+ fandom spaces.

but i also think we can't dismiss the entirety of the ship only bc the same LGBTQ+ fans are back at it again with their problematic behaviour, especially bc of its significance for black women and feminine-aligned nb folks who feel attraction to woman/feminine-aligned nbs -- lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, biromantic, panromantic etc.

for what i've seen so far, this ship is very important for black women and female-aligned nbs bc finally we have a dark-skinned black woman, who is also fat, to be treated with absolute respect and consideration and be passionately desired in a way that is not some kind of secret fetish or played for laughs, treated as being as worthy of being courted and romanced as her light-skinned and skinny half-sister.

christina respects ruby's choice and agency for most of the time -- i think the exception may be that first time ruby transformed into hillary;

she immediately explains to ruby her plans and intentions whenever ruby questions her behaviour and demands answers, including ruby in her plans when even ruby's loved ones keep secrets from her; she gives her all these baths and caresses her so softly, literally bathing her with affection and desire; she woos her with vows of devotion; and even tried to understand what ruby said when she asked her to try to understand her pain -- albeit in a fucked up way that only a privileged and sheltered girl raised in an enviroment in which magic is real and present in ppl's daily lives possibly could.

christina overall acknowledges that ruby is a woman with her own emotions, motivations, hopes, dreams, wants, needs and desires, and that's something y'all should keep in mind because i'll return to that later.

overall, these things i described are actually the basic that a person should do for the one they call their lover, and in no way erase the fact that christina is willing to kill innocent ppl to accomplish her goals of self-protection, nor turn these things acceptable from a moral standpoint.

but it's not the kind of treatment black women and feminine-aligned nbs receive, neither in fiction or in real life, by the way.

there are specific forms of misogyny that black women and female-aligned nbs face in which we are read as aggressive or animalistic, oversezualized or stripped from our sexuality and have our femininity denied if we don't check the boxes of what society deems acceptable.

there's this interview wumni mosaku gave for elle magazine U.S. in which she discusses her personal experiences with this problem, and how these eurocentric standards of femininity forced her to act in an overtly nice manner as a way to make sure ppl will treat her kindly instead of with suspicion and assuming she is aggressive.

that is because of the ways race and gender intersect creating a very complex scenario when it comes to definitions, experiences and stereotypes of femininity.

white women are overall treated with an authomatic presumption of innocence, as delicate and frail flowers who must be protected at all costs, especially if they are from upper classes -- that is something that is actually held against low-income white women, who are expected to adhere to certain standards to have their femininity acknowledged.

but, as we can see by that moment in episode 1x05, "strange case", when ruby as hillary is escorted by the policemen to her supposed husband who is actually christina shapeshifted , and, actually, by christina's entire motivations and characterization, that very same presumption of innocence is one of the sources of their oppression, because they are infantilized and stripped of their agency in favor of the men in their lives -- husbands, brothers, fathers etc --, being stopped and/or forbidden to do things cis het men usually get to and are expected to do.

in spite of this paradox, white women still have a privilege when compared to black women, because they're are still seen as ppl that belong to the world of affections and are worthy of receiving love, care and concearn for their wellbeing.

but that is not the case with black women.

usually, we are reserved two roles: one that revolves around being hypersexualized for men's consumption, both white and black alike; and the other, in which we are seen as "beasts of burden", carrying the weight in terms of work, emotions and so on, being expected to be desensitized to experiences and problems that no human would be expected to. sometimes, these two roles actually cross paths.

here in brazil, black activism and academics have been calling it "solidão da mulher negra", "the loneliness of black woman", and i think it's a very pertinent and powerful way to describe it.

and, that is the thing, when you're a black woman or feminine-aligned nb that doesn't fit into this role of being sexualized, you can feel this loneliness go a step further, because all that is left for you is that beast of burden part.

you end up not only being cast aside and abandoned by cis het white men and black men alike if you're attracted to men, but, overall, everyone in your social circle, including family, relatives and friends, expect you to be this source of strength and carry weights and resist to things ALL. THE. TIME.

and, guess what type of women and feminine-aligned nbs usually don't fit into this role of being sexualized????

the ones that are dark-skinned, fat, bulky, or any combination of these.

it's a combination of colorism, fatphobia, misogynoir and other factors that come to play, really.

one can check a few boxes, or check them all.

i myself don't check the "dark-skinned" box because, as a biracial women, i have light-skin privilege -- even though my skin is not as light as jurnee smollett's, who plays ruby's half-sister letitia "leti" lewis. but i sure have dealt with the consequences of not having the right body type for my whole life. i've been one of the "fat kids" for all my teen years, and, even now that i lost weight because of health issues, i'm still bulky and with large shoulders, feet and hands bigger than what is expected for women, and for most of my life i've felt in a similar way than what wumni mosaku describes on that elle magazine interview i mentioned earlier.

now, ruby literally checks ALL. THE. FUCKING. BOXES.

while we haven't seen much of her past, for the tidbits we got we can imagine that she had to be the responsible one in her family, being the older child, and basically raise her two siblings while their mom neglected them.

and we can see that, while the producers and writers changed a lot of her characterization from the source material -- in the part of the book i am right now, she has yet to show up, but the way she's described she seems more domestic and the shrinking violet type like show!hippolyta at the begining -- she is still seen as someone respected in her community and a source of strength -- e.g. being trusted to take care of dee.

and that clearly takes a toll on her, because everyone in-universe seems to expect her to be this mammy type or a role model, "a credit to the race" -- which is kind of ironic, given that it seems the audience seem to expect this of her as well.

and she puts all this pressure on herself because of it, and, while she is a woman with a very active sexual life, she seems overall very unsatisfied and repressed.

interrupted, as ruby herself perfectly put.

everyone seems to expect something of her at home, and not only all of her goals in the professional realm seem to be frustrated by social structures of oppression, but even her relationship goals as well, given that most of the men that she gets involved with, whether they are black or white, seem to believe they have the right to abandon her and treat her like trash because she doesn't feel a thing and is "strong" enough.

and that is where christina comes in.

now, it's true that the character that's pointed by many as a representation of white feminism surely is problematic in many ways, including her "colorblind" approach to racial issues, which is a particular form of racism that comes from an indifference towards social issues that steem from the privilege of not having to worry about said racial issues because one's not affected by them.

but, inspite of this colorblindness, or precisely because of it, christina sees ruby not for the roles she plays in other ppl's lives, but as the woman with her own emotions, motivations, hopes, dreams, wants, needs and desires that she is (see??? i told y'all to keep that in mind because it would be useful later).

some of these things might not be politically correct, like wondering what would it be like to be white and not have to deal with all the bullshit she has to.

some of these things might be dowright immoral and unethical, like the revenge fantasy she made come true against that abusive, sexual harasser and possibily rapist that was the guy from the department store that appeared in episode 1x05.

but, they are what makes ruby, well, ruby.

they are what makes her human, what humanizes her.

and christina accepts all of it, all that makes ruby who she is.

like the av club review for episode 9 pointed out, the two women are actually not that different when it comes to motivations: the stakes might be different for them because christina is protected by her whiteness and wealth, but both of them want the same thing in the end -- to not feel interrupted by the social restraints that bind them.

and that is what draws them to each other and feel attracted to each other, even though they might not understand quite well what to be queer means to them, or even avoided/repressed the question altogether as they grew up.

they are two points that seem opposite, and might as well be in some ways, but belong to the same axis that is gender and sexuality.

their relationship is incredibly complex and layered because of all these intersecctions.

ruby and christina's relationship is all about revealing different parts of yourself to the other and peeling each other's layers (sorry for the pun, but, it was just there lol), and, because of this, it's no wonder that it's seen as more romantic than, say, tic and leti's relationship, that seems to be playing out like plenty of cis heterosexual relationships, moving too fast because of the passion involved and what society expects, without the two of them being able to truly proccess and decide what they want, something that will defintely get more complicated now there's a baby on the way.

everything is so raw between ruby and christina, quite literally (it's one ot the things i love the most about all the gory scenes between them, it's a very clever way of using a fantastical setting to highlight these metaphors and symbolism).

with all of this, it shouldn't be a surprise that many sapphic black women and feminine-aligned nbs relate so much to ruby and got so attached to this relationship.

it's not because they endorse the problematic stuff christina or ruby have done -- although, well, to be fair, in a show that draws inspiration from pulp fiction magazines, particularly horror and detective/mystery stories, all characters are expected to be problematic and do fucked up things.

it's because queer black women and feminine-aligned nbs, regardless of whether they check only a few of the boxes i mentioned before or check all of them, can relate to this feeling of loneliness that the producers and writers portrayed so well with ruby -- but also with hippolyta, and dee too.

and for relating to these feelings, they relate to this relationship between ruby and christina.

and it's kind of hard to know what's gonna happen next in the show and the future of this ship

hell, even know whether the show is gonna be renewed or not.

but this should be a lesson for the future, on this fandom and others, to try and consider the perspectives of LGBTQ+ black ppl in these spaces, because, when you don't do that, you're basically reproducing, in a space we should be safe to have fun, the same oppression and silencing we deal on a daily basis

#lovecraft country #ruby baptiste #christina braithwhite #ruby x christina #lgbtq #lgbtqiap+#black women #black representation #character analysis #character meta #meta

497 notes · View notes

yukipri · 3 years

Text

Bad Batch end of season thoughts/ramble, bc it's been a week and I just wanna get it all off my chest...

(end of season spoilers and very disorganized rambling)

First off, I do want to say that I enjoyed watching the show. It fulfilled its primary purpose: entertainment. It was nice having something to look forward to every week, and even though it wasn't quite what I was expecting, it was fun. The animation was gorgeous, I liked all the references and tie ins. I will likely watch it again, and will watch season 2. This is by no means meant to be a hate post.

That being said, it is critical so please just skip if you're not into that!

The thing is...it takes very, Very little for me to love a clone. He doesn't need lines, or a face, or even a name, and the default is that I will love him. He can even be a little bastard, like Slick, and it's fine. I always want to know more about them, and wish they had more screen time and time in general to develop their characters. So given that we were getting 16 (20 eps total if we count TCW S7 pilot arc) centered around these guys, I was expecting to absolutely adore them by the end.

And I wanted to love the Bad Batch, I wanted to love them so damn much, and I tried. But I think one of the reasons why they never fully clicked for me was that their thing seems to be "we're unique, we never fit in, we're outsiders in our own home, among the people who are supposed to be our own family, and so we've found our home with each other."

Which! That's usually a wonderful message, and not a particularly rare or unique one either for stories! I usually dig these kinds of stories!

The problem here is the extremely unique situation of the clones. They are literally created to be identical, brain washed to be uniform. They must conform, or are killed off by their creators, and their conformity isn't a choice in the slightest, but one of fear and necessity.

Their uniformity is something that they are also entirely aware of--it's unavoidable, they're clones. Once out in the real galaxy, they all strive to find and establish unique identities for themselves, struggling against a galaxy that just wants them to be faceless products. It's a shared struggle, and all they have are each other, and their brotherhood is sacred as a result. Shunning unique identity is the opposite of who a clone is--it's what they all want.

So on one hand, it's understandable that the Batch stuck out (when all others who would have also stuck out were culled, when individuality isn't allowed). It's understandable that they would have yearned for the brotherhood shared by the other clones, and when they couldn't have it, they stuck closer to each other. It's even understandable that they would feel bitter, having experienced bullying at the hands of the other clones (but isn't it also understandable that the other clones would feel bitter that the Batch gets special treatment, when their own brothers with less-than-beneficial mutations were taken by the Kaminoans to never return?).

And so we have this batch of clones, who the Kaminoans call "mutated," but also specify that their mutations are "desirable" (implying what happens to mutations that are undesirable...). They have their own unique unit, in which they're able to improvise and act freely with seemingly little to no oversight, so long as they complete their mission. No Jedi to obey, no nat-born officers who look down on them. In fact, they look so different from standard clone troopers that most of the galaxy probably don't even know they are clones. They have their own ship (personalized), they have their own possessions (which we don't really see any other clones have), they have their own barracks (probably also very unique), and they even have access to superior weapons and armor (most of the Batch, minus Echo, seem to be wearing modified Katarn-class armor which is supposed to be for Commandos. we KNOW it holds up better than standard trooper armor).

So I'm sure they had some unpleasant experiences growing up, and I do get it. But at least at "present" end of clone wars, they honestly seem to be living infinitely better than all other clones? They still need to follow orders but they have more freedom, and perhaps most importantly, they have clear uniqueness that is denied almost all other clones. And yes, some of the clones on Kamino bully them, but we've seen NONE of the "regular" clones that we know to be particularly nasty to them, and in fact it's Crosshair who starts it by calling them "Regs."

And how does the Batch respond to this situation? By acting superior. It's Crosshair who says and it believes this firmly, and I do feel that the others are likely mostly influenced by this, but it's also true that Hunter, Wrecker, and Tech don't really deny this either. They don't like the "regs," they do act like they're "better." Poor Echo, who they repeatedly seem to forget is in the room, and who they call "machine" and such...yikes yo

So I guess the point is, I just really struggled to feel sympathetic towards them, and was already on a kinda eh about their premise. They're marketed as "the special clone squad"--and yet they're not nice to the clones I love. I thought that wasn't great, but also hoped that the series would work towards them understanding the other clones better, and I love character development so that woulda been fine--but, nothing. A glance from Hunter at Howzer. Extended camaraderie from Gregor, who I feel they mostly just tolerate for the mission, other than Echo who genuinely cares.

And on top of feeling not feeling particularly sympathetic towards what I saw as a pretty privileged group of clones, the Batch seems to place primary blame of their woes on the "regs" themselves, who again, honestly seem far worse off! There isn't blame directed at the people who demanded the conformity from the other clones in the first place, that made it so the Batch couldn't fit in. The Batch was modified due to the Kaminoans (and implied specifically Nala Se). She's the reason why they don't fit in. And the Kaminoans are also why the other clones have to be so uniform, why they must fight to be people and not products.

Bitterness and pettiness can be fine in characters. But it's frustrating to see in a group supposed to be competent and elite, especially when those feelings have consequences. Sure, it sucks when someone throws a food tray at you. You can throw food back. It's not an equal reaction to feel no remorse when you shoot that guy dead in a blaster fight, when for all other clones, having to kill another clone is one of the most horrible, tragic things that one can do (thanks, Umbara).

Fives was the only clone to actually point a blaster at Nala Se.

We know Omega has deeply personal history with Nala Se. She was Nala Se's personal medical assistant. We see her cry when she takes off her head ornament that matches Nala Se. We know that being back in the lab gives Omega complicated, and probably not entirely positive feelings. But we barely learn more about this relationship, other than these glimpses.

And I get the feeling that to Omega at least, Nala Se wasn't all terrible. If Omega grew up with mostly only Nala Se for company, she had to have gotten her sheltered outlook on life, and her willingness to help others from somewhere. Nala Se intentionally let Omega go, to be "safe."

I think Omega's adorable, and I do like her. But I wasn't able to fully love her to the extent I wanted to, because there was always the fear that she was involved in the creation and implantation of the chips. She knows about them, she would have been positioned to do so. I want to think she would never, and I was hoping the show would reassure us of that, but it never did. We don't actually know how Omega feels about Nala Se, or even the chips and their presence in other clones. Instead, all we know is that Omega doesn't like "regs."

And again, "they call me lab scrubber," and "I helped put (or am complicit in putting) mind control devices in their heads," are kinda, unequal. Again I hope it's not the case. But it definitely kept me feeling uneasy throughout the show.

It really boils down to I don't trust or forgive Nala Se, and the Batch's lack of stance against her and the other Kaminoans, and clear distaste for their other clone brothers, really puts them in a situation that makes it difficult for me to take their side entirely.

And then gosh, Hunter. During Crosshair's whole "you never came back for me," spiel, I couldn't help but think he's kinda right. He had 15 episodes. Sure, it's difficult to get Crosshair back. But they could have done something. They could have done research. We could have had scenes of them wondering where Crosshair is, discussions on how best to find him, even if that discussion ended in, "but we can't risk it right now." They could have grilled Omega for information on the chips, which they really shoulda done either way, but especially since that knowledge is important to understanding what (they thought had) happened to Crosshair. Instead, they just ran every time Crosshair showed up. The show could have done better to show that they cared, and were trying, instead of just, y'know, doing chores for Cid. One, "I kinda miss him," doesn't really count as working on getting him back, at least in my books.

The sole exception to all of this, of course, is Echo. Who really, he works with the Batch fine, he's a former ARC and can more than keep up. Skillset-wise, he fits in well enough. But this season really made me wonder why he's with them at all. Crosshair's revelation and true feelings at the end of the season were no surprise to me, as they're consistent with what we've seen of him from TCW S7. But for Echo, a former "reg" to have to work with someone like Crosshair...even if Crosshair thought Echo was "different" enough to accept him, those are his brothers that Crosshair thinks he's so superior to, and has no issue speaking disdainfully about.

The increasing tension between Echo and Hunter, Echo's interest in helping Rex, in helping other clones, in doing something...I do hope they reach a point where Echo demands they go help, or he's leaving.

They gave Crosshair a chance, despite the fact that his choices were willing. I really hope Echo can convince the Batch to help save the other clones who don't have a choice. Because even if the Batch doesn't consider them their brothers, they're certainly Echo's. They matter just as much as Crosshair, and I really hope season 2 shows it narratively.

To conclude, again I'm interested in seeing what happens next, and I want answers about Omega and Nala Se. I find it interesting that they tied the facility where they took Nala Se in with the scientist dude collecting data on Grogu in the Mandalorian and those cloning labs. All of this is interesting, but at the same time I feel like it's trying to build up to Snoke/Palpatine stuff in the sequels which...I don't care nearly as much about, but who knows, could be neat ^ ^;

I'm okay with, and have made peace with the fact that the Bad Batch probably isn't the "clones-centric" show I wanted, and that they'll continue their own story, and probably continue to not care much about other clones in upcoming seasons. That's unfortunate, but alright. I'm interested enough in their story too.

But at the same time...I can't help but think man, if they have the time and budget to do a season 2, after seeing what was (or wasn't) accomplished in season 1...I wish they'd also make a Rex/Cody/Wolffe/"regular clones" show, because in the end, if you're going to do a "clones show"....that's who I want to see most.

If you got to the end, thank you for reading, and being an ear to my ranting ^ ^; Again this is literally just getting this off my chest. If this take isn't one you agree with, please just ignore. For people who did fall in love with the Batch, I'm happy for you, and regret that it just couldn't happen for me. But, I'm hoping that S2 will change my mind, but we'll just have to see! ^ ^;

#the bad batch #bad batch #YukiPri rambles #really i'm not interested in a debate i just want to ramble

37 notes · View notes