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filthforfriends · 1 year

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Poll: Which fic do I finish?

While writing Guardian Angel I've started a lot of fics. I'm going to post the beginning of each and let you vote on which one I should finish. (Depending on the fic, I might let you vote to change the character) Please reblog this post. Tumblr still hasn't fixed my blog so no one is getting my notifications or tags.

#1 Quirk

Quirk was the language you’d decided on. You called it a problem, Thomas called it fucking adorable, and quirk seemed neutral. Sometimes you’d blame it on him. Tommy loved your rty talk, insisted upon it. The closer you got to orgasam, the more it became descriptors and ramblings, instead of intentional and sexy.

You couldn’t just stop talking altogether when things become less polished. Falling silent would be awkward. Tom would worry about your pleasure and check-in. You’d already tried that. Most of all it was hard to shut up when Thomas was hanging on to your every word. Especially when you were on top, and he was gazing up at you like the mortal equivalent of Aphrodite. Eyes wide, but also threatening to flutter closed from the stimulation. Pillow, pink lips parted, sexy little teeth showing, and flushed beautifully, elegant nose included.

“I love it when you talk to me,” he admitted in the afterglow.

#2 Panic

Thomas snapped at you, probably because he needed an outlet and you were the closest thing. It really upset you. Not because he was cruel, or because your boyfriend wasn’t allowed to have a bad day. Thomas simply didn’t externalize stress onto his loved ones. He’d play some violent video game or destroy his nails by picking the polish off or shred his guitar until it was out of horrousicly tune. Taking it out on you, however? A very irregular occurrence.

You’d still slept in the same bed that night, both wide awake for different reasons. His breathing was off, almost panicked. Thomas would get these runaway, anxious trains of thought that sped his heart rate up. He couldn’t stop the worrying.

#3 Something New

Two years ago it might have freaked Thomas out, but he’d matured as a sexual partner since then. He understood that him and sex toys were on the same team. He knew lube was his friend, not his competition. Sure, sometimes natural excretions are enough. Sometimes a carefully selected lubricant can make things more comfortable. There was also a third option: menstrual blood, which he fondly coined nature’s bonus lube.

He’d tried this euphemism when proposing maybe not avoiding sexual contact like the plague for six days every month. Which is when he learned that a questionable father figure and all your brothers had acted like your period was the most disgusting thing in the universe.

It started with dropping to your knees in front of him as soon as you got home from work.

#4 Awake

The last time you checked your phone with an exasperated huff it had read 10:45pm. Ethan was supposed to text you when he was going to be home 15 minutes ago. It wasn’t a particularly significant amount of time, but you were struggling to keep your eyes open. He’d occupied your thoughts nearly every moment of this very long day that had rendered you exhausted to the point of vertigo.

Regardless, Ethan had brought back an obscene lingerie set from France and gifted it to you this morning. So tonight's plans had been implied hours ago. The body suit and garter belt was gorgeous and so fucking uncomfortable that you wanted to time wearing it until the last minute. No matter how sleepy you felt, the adrenaline and endorphins of the moment would keep you going.

#5 Satin, Lace, and Other Pretty Things Part (continued)

Digging through what you affectionately referred to as your little box of horrors, was even more fun than you anticipated. You’d forgotten the full contents of your sex toy collection since you’d moved in with Thomas and stuffed it at the bottom of a closet. He had a barricade up that you were always testing the bounds of, trying to gently work around. Anal fingering? Fine (as long as you didn’t really talk about it). Rimming? Nope.

Thomas made up for this with orgasams galore, so you were far from bored. However, you also knew that wiping out a 10 inch neon green dick and balls with a suction cup at the base would just intimidate, and maybe also traumatize him. So you kept the more adventurous items in your collection tucked away in case they became appropriate later on. At the bottom of this innocuous looking plastic container, was your strap on harness. It was simple, because that's all you could afford when it came to quality leather and an adjustable o-ring.

You sat with your back to the wall, amongst phallices and vibrators spread out on the hardwood floor, running the black straps through your fingers.

#6 Colleagues

Embarrassingly enough, it was the most action you’d gotten in months. You were turning a corner, nose in your field trip roster, not watching your surroundings because the building was practically empty. His tennis shoes were quiet enough that you didn’t see Damiano until walked right into you. This wasn't a meet cute bumping into each other, you fully collided and lost balance.

“Oh shit! Shit!” He pulled you against him to stop your fall and hold you upright. For a second you were a few inches away from one of the most beautiful faces god had ever created. Giant brown eyes, jaw sharper than a blade, sky high cheekbones and an inhuman level of symmetry. Damiano knocked everything in your hands loose, a folder full of papers scattered on the shiny floor.

#7 Alpha!Ethan

“Ethan, hold your breath,” Damiano exclaims. It’s a harmless enough request that he obliges rather than asking why. Being the most rational member of Maneskin was a chaotic experience at best. That is until Dami breaks out into laughter, Victoria snickering with a hand over her mouth. Ethan hears the door shut and looks in your direction.

Walking into a room where you're the subject of the latest joke was never a great feeling. Your alpha’s bandmates were never cruel, but the power differential always made you feel like a target on some level. Even if it was just teasing between friends, they were all alphas and you were an omega. All eyes were on you: Dami and Victoria because they thought your influence over the ever-composed Ethan was hilarious. Your boyfriend looked annoyed and Thomas awkward.

#8 DILFiano (continued)

Three hours: barely a respectable amount of time to party hop with your friends before asking to go home. It’s not like you didn’t have a good excuse: they wanted to drive over an hour to some bougie party in the hills. Icarus liked to use her dad's name to get into events every now and then, just for the thrill of it...

“Is it okay to just drop you off at mine? Or do you need me to take you home?” Your heart jumps at the prospect of spending time in the David’s home. Pretending you were on this little adventure for Icarus was morally and emotionally exhausting. It’s not that you didn’t care about your friend, but because the globe had shifted its axis.

#9 More Than Friends

You were going to tell her. Victoria had made her intentions clear, and insisted you don’t answer right away.

“There's no time line. I’m sorry if this – I don’t want you to feel pressured. We’re still friends like before. Even if you’re not interested. Okay?” You open your mouth to agree. “Don’t say anything just yet,” she blurts. You raise your eyebrows, asking if now you’re allowed to say something.

“Sorry, sorry, uh! I ask you a question then interrupt you. I’m just…” Vic sighs and looks at her hands, fingers chipping at the navy nail polish. “I’m so fucking nervous,” she confesses. Her suitcase stood by the door: so nervous she waited until the very last minute.

#10 Information Introductions (continued)

“Whatever you want.” You’re on your sides, facing each other. Damiao has both his hands tucked under his head like a pillow, like you’re at your first sleepover. It's such a sharp contrast to the man who just coaxed you towards orgasam with such tenderness for the past...15 minutes? You look up to the vintage clock on your wall, still ticking away.

“40 minutes? Is your leg okay?” Damiano chuckled.

“Yeah, it's fine.” His voice lilted up on the last syllable, like the corners of his mouth upturned in a smile. You wanted to drag your fingertips along his side, but initiating touch felt like you were reaching out into the dark.

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rufusbear · 1 year

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I posted 1,205 times in 2022

9 posts created (1%)

1,196 posts reblogged (99%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@audreycritter

@sillysunshinesstuff

@nandalorian

@wolfhalls

@serene-quill

I tagged 924 of my posts in 2022

Only 23% of my posts had no tags

#jason todd - 148 posts

#eddie munson - 109 posts

#steve harrington - 104 posts

#tim drake - 94 posts

#steddie - 60 posts

#dick grayson - 54 posts

#stranger things - 42 posts

#battinson - 40 posts

#the mandalorian - 38 posts

#red hood - 37 posts

Longest Tag: 78 characters

#one of the only reasons i can even do it now is because of maturity (old age?)

My Top Posts in 2022:

Listen, I’ve read a lot of stranger things Steve/Eddie fic the last few months. A lot. And I cannot believe the amount of times I’ve read either of them, or the kids, yelling, “Oi!” Just. Stop. I don’t care if you don’t get a beta reader but please, for the love of gob, please get whatever the opposite of a Brit-pick is. Americ-pick? Idk. I can’t take it anymore. American’s don’t say “Oi!” Ever. The equivalent would be “hey!” I can handle “mum” or an extra “u” in a word, but “Oi” is the quickest way to take someone out of a fic. HEY!

0 notes - Posted September 1, 2022

SHARE MY PAIN; Rufus recs

I'm currently suffering from a fic hangover. I slammed this badboy yesterday and cannot get it out of my head. I'm aware this is the worst time to rec anything on tumblr because tags or whatever but I'm doing it anyway. I've thought about sharing more fic recs because I've been reading like crazy lately so here's my first. More to come, probably.

LIKE A BAT OUT OF HELL by allacesandeights~87k. Tim Drake/Jason Todd. Jason POV.

Jason always thought that Gotham was hell. Now he has proof. When the God of Death arrives in Gotham, Jason and the Outlaws come up with a plan to take him down. When their plan brings them into contact with the Titans, Jason ends working with his Replacement. As Jason and Tim get closer, Jason has to figure out whether he can ever move past their history.

WHY YOU SHOULD READ IT The pacing is excellent; a great balance of action, story movement without any drag. I could actually follow the fight scenes and visualize what was happening, which is refreshing.

While it is action packed, there are enough breaks that fit naturally and give the boys time together that's needed for their character and relationship growth. I personally really love the characterizations. Jason is an ass without being too much and Tim holds his own. He isn't written in that way that seems to diminish him to the "weaker" one, which I've seen a lot in this pairing.

HURT/COMFORT/WHUMP LEVEL Solid 7: some blood, concussions, broken/sore ribs, one fixing up the other's injuries.

WHITE STREAK Yes, Jason has the white streak in his hair. The Streak is important to me and I shall now track it in fic.

RECCER NOTES I’m guessing one of the reasons this fic doesn’t have thousands of kudos is because it’s RHATO comics instead of post-crisis. I’m still new to this fandom but I think I have a pretty good grasp on the universes/timelines/whatever now. While I agree that post-crisis canon, and thus fic, is superior, don’t let that keep you from reading this story. I’ve only recently started reading RHATO but I think this story captured their team dynamics really well and makes me want to go read more.

The author is from the UK and I don't believe it was beta'd, so there are several UK-isms that can take you out of it. I just ignored them but it was also kind of fun to see Jason yelling "Oi!" at someone... that feels in character in a weird way.

If you can get beyond that, it's worth the read!

0 notes - Posted January 2, 2022

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Batman (Comics), Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: Jason Todd Additional Tags: Arson, Fire, Jason Todd-centric, Jason Todd Needs A Hug, and possibly a fire extinguisher, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, i guess Series: Part 1 of Open Flame Summary:

He wasn’t sure what it was about fire he found fascinating, maybe the possibility to forge something strong and lasting, or the potential to destroy so completely that it was erased from being. Either way, he liked to see how far he could push fire before it bit back.

— Or, the one where Jason likes fire and becomes an arsonist.

2 notes - Posted January 31, 2022

[podfic] falling in love in reverse read by @rufusbear (me!)

part 1 of the let's do the time (loop) again series by @alchemistc

part 2 is now up: [podfic] 35. live like there's no tomorrow

6 notes - Posted November 18, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Podfic of Steve Harrington's Guide To Planning a Party (Without Blowing Up)

written by @written-mishaps read by @rufusbear (me!)

7 notes - Posted November 8, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #Fun!#eddie really got up there in the tags #jason’s been around for a while #good job eddie #i love you bb

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regenderate-fic · 2 years

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Someone Else, In This Vast, Empty Universe: Chapter 1

Fandom: Doctor Who Rating: Mature Ship: Yasmin Khan/Rose Tyler, Thirteenth Doctor/Yasmin Khan (implied), Tenth Doctor/Rose Tyler (implied) Characters: Yasmin Khan, Dan Lewis, Eustacius Jericho Word Count (Chapter): 1,660 Series: Sometime Soon Other Tags: Canon Compliant, Missing Scene, Historical, Historical Dress, Dimension-Hopping Rose, Globetrotter Yaz Read on AO3 / Read in order

Summary: Yasmin Khan has been stuck in the past for a year, trying to find the date of the apocalypse, trying to find her way back to the Doctor.

Rose Tyler, jumping through dimensions on her way to the Doctor, falls out of time and into 1902.

They find some comfort in each other.

(Fic is complete, with updates posting Tuesdays and Fridays.)

NOTES: okay if you follow me on tumblr or know me from discord or whatever you know i have not been able to shut up about rose/yaz parallels lately. i have finally followed that to the natural conclusion of "rose and yaz should kiss," or, more accurately, "rose and yaz should bond over both being desperate to find the doctor and find solace in each other."

this is rated mature for some later scenes but honestly i never write anything above general so it might just be, like, mature by my standards.

ALSO i'm using "globetrotter yaz" for yaz in the past as a parallel/equivalent to "dimension-hopping rose." i think yaz can have a nice little homeric epithet. as a treat

It’s been a year without the Doctor.

A year stranded in the early part of the 20th century with Dan and Jericho, traveling the world, looking for clues about the apocalypse, watching the hologram of the Doctor over and over again.

I’m sure I miss you.

It’s the one thing keeping Yaz tethered, the anchor that allows her to do what she needs to do. She will see the Doctor again. She’ll find a way back, and when she does, she expects the longest hug of her life. Most likely followed by an even longer argument, but… the Doctor is worth the argument. The Doctor is worth fighting for. Even if the fight is against the Doctor herself.

For now, though, Yaz keeps going. Most days, it all feels like a lot of waiting: a trip that would’ve taken less than a second in the TARDIS now takes weeks and weeks by boat or train or on foot. At first, she was often seasick, but she’s gotten used to it now, the constant rolling of the ocean around her, the sound of the wind and the sea. It’s comforting, actually. Reminds her that even when she feels like she’s stagnating, getting nowhere, stuck forever in the wrong century, even when she’s miserable and lost and sad, the world is constantly changing.

She just wishes it would change in her favor.

The worst part is knowing that while she waits, the entire universe is being ripped apart. Or, she doesn’t really have the language to talk about it— but somewhere in the future, the universe is being ripped apart, and Yaz should be there.

She doesn’t know what to do.

She’ll never admit it to Dan or Jericho, but she’s starting to think their mission is pointless. What good is it to find out when the battle for the Earth will be if she can’t get the information back to the Doctor? What good is it if she can’t be there, fighting on the front lines? What good is it to spend years on this quest, finding almost nothing— there’s a prophecy about metal men coming to Earth, but there’s no way to track down when, and Yaz and Jericho have been poring over a few different ancient texts trying to decipher the unfamiliar scripts. And Yaz knows there are a hundred years of archaeological discoveries that aren’t available to either of them. She desperately misses a time when she could pull her phone out of her pocket and instantly have the information she was looking for. (Her phone still sits in her pocket, powered off. It doesn’t work here, but it’s nice to have something familiar.)

And most of all, Yaz misses the Doctor. Even shoved in a tiny cabin crossing the ocean with Dan and Professor Jericho, she’s lonely without the Doctor by her side, rattling off facts about wherever they are and pulling custard creams out of her pockets. Yaz knows she’s been mopey, too— sure, she keeps herself focused and purposeful, but she knows Dan and Professor Jericho are worried about her. She doesn’t sleep as much as she should. She’s been having trouble eating. And she knows this is an irrational response to not having her best friend around, just like she knew before when she was tacking up paper and string to the wall of a strange TARDIS. But that doesn’t exactly mean she can stop. She’s still alive, anyway, and not in serious physical distress, so it’s all right.

She’s in London, with Dan and Jericho— they’re taking a little bit of a break before they go off to Greenland, chasing a lead they got off someone in Egypt. Yaz can’t stand taking a break, but Dan and Jericho need it: they’re not fueled solely by sheer desperation to get out like Yaz is. They’re worried, and they want to get out as much as anyone would in their circumstances, but… Yaz is the one who’s losing sleep. So for their sake, she tries to slow down, tries to find secretary work, tries to forget about the maps and diagrams and notebooks she keeps stashed in a briefcase, tries to keep herself busy with long walks through town.

It doesn’t work. She still thinks about the Doctor constantly. Wonders where the Doctor is, what happened to her after she was turned to stone. Wonders whether she actually misses Yaz, or was just saying it for the hologram. It’s not healthy, the way her thoughts spiral— this is why she needs to keep moving, keep working on a way to get the Doctor back. But… well, they’re only breaking for a few weeks. Yaz can do a few weeks. Can’t she?

Except as she walks briskly through the streets on their second day, she isn’t so sure. The thoughts are taking over again, and all she wants is to be back in the TARDIS, reading in the library while the Doctor tries to bother her with facts about the Ottoman Empire or string theory or whatever else she’s gotten herself into.

She walks faster. Maybe if she gets lost in the crowd, blends in just right, she’ll become part of the blur and her thoughts will fade away.

They don’t.

She keeps going anyway, striding between clumps of people going in and out of shops and taking leisurely strolls, barely paying attention to where her feet are falling— until suddenly she takes a hard left and crashes right into someone.

“Sorry!” she says, jumping back. “I wasn’t looking—” And then she looks up at the person she ran into.

She’s wearing 21st century clothing. A blue leather jacket, black trousers: the sort of outfit Yaz has half-convinced herself she’ll never see again.

“No, it’s my fault,” she’s saying, but Yaz doesn’t care.

“You’re from the future,” she blurts. It’s not a question.

The woman freezes. She steps back, then looks Yaz up and down before saying, “Right in one.” She has a London accent, Yaz notes. “Who’re you, then?”

“Yasmin Khan,” Yaz says. “Yaz to my friends. I’ve been stuck in this century a year now.” She hesitates. “What are you doing here?”

“Looking for a friend,” the woman says, a wistful look in her eye. “Although I seem to have gotten a bit sidetracked… was aiming for 2009.”

“Time travel.” Yaz smiles. “Never reliable.” She misses it. “Don’t suppose there’s a way you could get me and my friends back to 2021, is there?”

The woman shakes her head, slipping what looks like a yellow button set in a metal casing out of her pocket. “Sorry. Only takes one.” She holds it up with a critical eye. “Besides, I think it’s broken. It’s not supposed to do time travel, strictly speaking, and it hasn’t been charging, either.” She sticks it back in her pocket. “Think I might be stuck here for a while, too. Anything I should know?”

“You’ll want to dress the part,” Yaz says. “It’s a lot harder to blend in in a leather jacket.” And she would know: for the first few days, she refused to change out of her clothes. It was ridiculous, but some part of her at the time felt like as long as she still dressed like she was from the 21st century, her position in the 20th wouldn’t be permanent. She still keeps that outfit in one of her suitcases, even though it’s not good for much besides gathering dust. She runs an eye over the other woman, trying to assess her size. “You might fit into some of my clothes, at least until you’ve got a chance to get something of your own.”

“Suppose it’ll have to do,” the other woman says, not unkindly. She smiles faintly. “I’m Rose, by the way. Rose Tyler.”

“Nice meeting you.” Yaz hesitates. Rose’s name sounds familiar, but she can’t quite place it. “D’you know the Doctor?” she tries.

Rose freezes, her eyes wide, her lips slightly parted. Yaz feels her heart beating in her chest: she was right.

“The Doctor? Is he here?”

“She,” Yaz says, “and I’m pretty sure if she were here, we’d be able to get back to Earth.” She tries to keep the bitterness out of her voice, but, well… it’s true.

“Regenerated, then,” Rose murmurs. “Not the same.”

And then it hits Yaz where she’s heard Rose’s name before. She says it the second she thinks it.

“Jack mentioned you.”

“Jack?” Rose looks like she’s been slapped. “Captain Jack Harkness? I thought he was dead.”

Yaz shakes her head. “He can’t die, apparently. He said it was because of you.”

“Oh, my God. But— the Daleks— I didn’t mean—” There’s a long moment while Rose processes. “What did I do to him?”

“He seemed all right when I met him,” Yaz says. “‘Course, I don’t know how far out that was from the last time you saw him.”

“Yeah.” Rose’s gaze is fixed somewhere over Yaz’s shoulder, her eyes glazed over with memory. “It’s been a while for me, too.” She shakes her head. “Suppose I can look forward to seeing him again, at least. When I make it back.”

“I liked him,” Yaz says. “Gave me some good advice.” She pauses. “Anyway, if you’re stuck here, you should come with me. We’re staying in a boarding house down that way.” She points vaguely behind her. “I’m sure the others won’t mind if you stay with us for a bit. Especially if you share my room.” They splurged for two rooms this time, in celebration of not being in the middle of the ocean. One for Dan and Jericho, one for Yaz. “It’s not the nicest in town, but we’ve had worse. I don’t recommend traveling three to a two-person cabin on an overseas boat trip.”

“Good advice.” Rose pauses, considering for a long moment. “Suppose I don’t know where else I’d go, if not with you,” she finally says. “Lead the way.”

#my fic #chaptered #yaz x rose #yasmin khan #rose tyler #thasmin #ten x rose #canon compliant #missing scene #historical #dimension hopping rose #globetrotter yaz #doctor who #fanfiction #someone else in this vast empty universe #sometime soon

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wiisagi-maiingan · 4 years

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Hiya! I just saw your post about microaggressions in media, and I was wondering if you'd be willing to explain a little bit more about how Dragon Age negatively represented indigenous peoples; personally, I saw how the parallel was drawn, but I'd like to understand the difference between metaphor/symbolism and negative derivement. If you don't wanna, that's ok! Thank you for your time : )

Sorry if you wanted this to be replied to privately. I’ve gotten a few other questions about it so I just decided to do a masterpost.

I do feel obligated to mention that I have a Dragon Age tag and that I’ve gone into detail about the issues with the games here and here.

Now, with that being said. . . I’m going to put this under a cut because this is an important topic to me and I’ve never gone into as much detail as I should have. I’ll also give a basic but long rundown for people who haven’t played Dragon Age and aren’t aware of the context. I’ll try to make it obvious where that part ends for people who just want to skip right past it.

Disclaimer that I never really played Origins so this will only focus on DA 2 and Inquisition.

This is gonna be really fucking long and I apologize for that.

For anyone who isn’t familiar with the Dragon Age franchise, here’s some basic information relevant to this topic. There are four fantasy “races” in the game; the humans, the elves, the dwarves, and the qunari. For the purposes of this conversation, we will not go into the dwarves and the qunari.

Humans are the dominant race in the game, with control over every government in the continent that the franchise focuses on, Thedas. They follow a religion called Andrastianism, which is centered around the Maker (a vague and featureless single god who is almost always referred to as male) and Andraste, the Maker’s mortal wife and prophet who was executed and burned at the stake. In other words, it’s Fantasy Christianity™. The religion is separated into two branches, with one being led by men and only being common in one country in Thedas and the other being led by women and being common in the rest of Thedas. Just like Christianity, it is very heavily focused on converting people. As far as I’m aware, it is the state religion of every country featured in the franchise. For the purposes of this conversation, I will be referring to this religion as the Chantry, the in-game equivalent of the Church being used for Christianity.

Elves, on the other hand, are exactly what they sound like. They’re elves, but not traditional Tolkien elves. They have the same lifespan as humans and don’t seem to be particularly special. The important thing to note is that they are very much an oppressed group and most racism you encounter in the franchise is aimed at the. They were the original peoples of many parts of Thedas, indigenous to several parts of the continent before they were violently massacred in wars and outright genocide, all in the name of Andraste. Here’s some information about the main attacks on the elves, in the form of the second Exalted March, a form of religious crusade. Cultural sites, including burial grounds and religious temples, were pillaged and destroyed. Historical records were confiscated and edited, language and culture records purposely destroyed, and countless artifacts were stolen and sold to wealthy humans. This happened long before the events of the games, but are ongoing issues, which I’ll get into later.

Modern elves in the game are separated into two main groups: city elves and the Dalish.

City elves are elves who are disconnected from their cultures and live in human settlements, where they’re often forced to live in slums (called alienages), pushed into dangerous and poorly paid work, and face violent abuse and mistreatment from humans in the cities. City elves are usually Andrastian, just like disconnected Natives are often Christian, though they cannot hold positions in the Chantry.

The Dalish, on the other hand, are elves immersed in their cultures, living in nomadic clans led by their Keepers. The majority of Dalish elves follow the Evanuris, the Elven pantheon which is made up of nine deities that each represent different aspects of Elven life. According to Dalish lore, these deities are not active in the world anymore because they were tricked by the ninth deity, Fen’Harel, a trickster god who sealed away the rest of the gods from the world. When Dalish elves reach maturity, they undergo a ritual that involves receiving their vallaslin (blood writing), which are intricate facial tattoos that represent different deities in the pantheon and, supposedly, reflect that person’s role in their community. I suppose the Native equivalent is finding out what clan you’re in. Dalish communities are centered are around halla, a type of deer that the Dalish see as sacred and use as a form of travel (they pull aravels, a kind of wagon), food (milk and meat), clothing, companionship, and guidance. The parallels to bison should not be lost.

Elves are also frequently enslaved, particularly in Tevinter where slavery is still completely legal.

Now. Humans, elves, and qunari all have a connection to the Fade, the origin of all magic, spirits, and demons. That means that they all have the potential to have mages, people born with magic and a deeper connection to the Fade; they’re the DA equivalent of sorcerers in D&D for all you nerds out there. Across the board, mages are heavily oppressed (with the exception of mages in Tevinter).

Because they can be possessed by demons and potentially use blood magic, they’re seen as inherently dangerous and forced into Circles, isolated areas where they’re under constant surveillance as they learn to control their magic, and that surveillance is done by Templars, an order of warriors trained to be able to repress a person’s magic. Any mage that doesn’t have absolute control over their magic is made Tranquil, which cuts off their connection to the Fade and, along with removing their ability to use magic, also removes their ability to feel emotions, have desires, and experience dreams. It’s essentially a fantasy lobotomy. In some Circles, this is done on the whims of Templars to any mage that causes the slightest issue for them. Other forms of abuse are also incredibly common in Circles.

So! That’s the end of the context explanations! Let’s move onto the indigenous-coding in the game!

The coded group in question are the elves, particularly the Dalish. They’re also coded as Jewish and Romani, which makes the information that’s going to follow even worse. Despite popular belief, this coding is not actually up for debate and has been directly confirmed by David Gaider (scroll a bit, and be warned that he uses the g-slur). Since I’ve already explained what Dalish elves and city elves are, I doubt I have to get into how exactly they’re Native-coded and I don’t really feel like doing that anyway. So let’s just get right into the issues with this coding.

The first issue is the elves themselves. Elves are cool, I love elves. But it’s really fucking shitty to make the Christian-coded group human while the group coded as indigenous, Jewish, and Romani is inhuman. It’s a really common trope in fantasy and sci-fi and directly contributes to the dehumanization of our communities. It also gives fans the ability to brush off criticisms of their depictions because they’re “just elves”, something I see in the fandom a lot.

We also have to think of how elves in media are depicted in general. They’re usually magical beings with unnaturally close ties to nature, and as a Native person who has been asked if I can speak to eagles and if I live in a tipi in the woods, that is not a stereotype that needs to be further associated with indigenous groups.

Elves are degraded constantly by every character in the series, and the narrative depicts Dalish elves especially in a terrible light. There is only one companion in the entire series who actually genuinely cares about the Dalish, and that because Merrill is Dalish herself, having left her clan to live in the city; she’s also frequently mocked and depicted as naive and ignorant despite being a grown-ass woman and her rivalmance is dangerously unhealthy and toxic. In Dragon Age: Inquisition, you can have two elf companions, both of who explicitly hate the Dalish and disapprove of any pro-Dalish stances. One of those companions, Sera, also hates elves in general and frequently distances herself from them. Solas is a whole other can of worms.

If you play as a Dalish Inquisitor in DA:I, you are faced with constant mockery and scorn at every angle. Dorian, a Tevinter mage, explicitly tells you that slavery is better than being poor and that his family treats their slaves “very kindly”. You cannot call him out on this; he says his piece and then the conversation ends and can literally never be mentioned again, even if you romance him. Cassandra, who is very pro-Chantry, asks you why you can’t just “make room” for worshipping the Maker alongside the Elven deities. Any support of the Dalish earns you immediate disapproval from all of your companions. You cannot be openly Dalish without being directly punished by the game.

I mentioned earlier that Dalish elves and city elves both live in tightly-knit and isolated communities, Dalish elves in the form of nomadic clans and city elves in the form of alienages. There’s safety in numbers, but when you’re surrounded by enemies, that can also be incredibly dangerous. At multiple points in the series, entire alienages and clans are massacred. More often than not, this is completely unavoidable, and when it can be avoided, it’s extremely difficult to do so.

In Inquisition, if you play as a Dalish Inquisitor, you will start to receive war table quests regarding your clan. If you make even one wrong choice (and there are several choices you have to make, most of which are misleading), then your entire clan is massacred along with the elves in the city they’re settled by. The incident leading to their possible deaths is actually caused by a human noble poisoning other humans in the city and blaming the elves, since the alienage had a different water source and there was a clan settled near the city.

In Dragon Age 2, you can directly massacre Merrill’s entire clan. Even if you choose not to do so, the clan suffers heavily, losing their First (the future Keeper) to the city and then losing their Keeper to demons. They end up stranded in that area due to their halla dying, which means that their aravel couldn’t be pulled.

At another point in Inquisition, you encounter a clan that suffers heavily as well when a huge swath of them are massacred by Red Templars. You can do absolutely nothing to prevent this.

In the same area that the last clan I mentioned is found in, there are several quests regarding it, several of which stick out to me.

One requires you to literally desecrate a Dalish burial site to finish the quest (The Spoils of Desecration, it’s literally in the name).

Another quest gives you the task of finding a sacred golden halla, a legendary spiritual and religious figure to the Dalish, and guiding it to the unnamed Dalish clan. In this quest, you can also choose to just straight up kill it (The Golden Halla).

There’s a main storyline quest that involves going through a historical site to discover the truth about a massacre that had always been blamed solely on elves. At the end of the quest, you can choose to give these new records to either the clan I talked about or to the Chantry, who, if I remember correctly, modify the records to be about the Dalish becoming violent after one of their clan members converted to Andrastianism (The Knights’ Tomb). If you choose to give the records to the Dalish, a follow-up quest involves the clan asking for your help gifting a halla to the human village that was part of the incident, which you need to either trick or force the village into accepting (Bestow Mourning Halla).

Moving on. . .

In the quest Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts, you meet the human empress of Orlais, Celene, who you have to protect from assassins. You also meet her handmaid, spymaster, and former lover, an elf woman named Briala. And of course, Celene’s terrible cousin Gaspard, who is not really relevant for this discussion. Just know that he’s awful.

In this quest, you have to uncover information about these three people and use that information to manipulate the situation and get your desired ending. There are several possible endings you can choose, but we’re going to focus on one specific one for right now, namely the one where you can choose to help Celene and Briala reconcile and become lovers again, with Celene ruling Orlais and Briala being her partner and advisor. Sounds great, right? The lovely women get their happily ever after and everyone is happy.

Except that the game doesn’t give you the full story. Not in the slightest. Instead, it depends solely on you having read The Masked Empire, a book that is completely separate from the game and that many players don’t even know exist. It gives a very different context to this game, and especially to Celene and Briala’s relationship. I recommend reading this post from @dalishious because I cannot possibly explain the situation better than they have on their blog. If you’re into Dragon Age, I recommend giving them a follow in general because they offer some really great perspectives on DA as a Mi'kmaw person who knows a hell of a lot more about the franchise than I do.

(The quest also tries to convince you that Briala is on the same level as Celene and Gaspard. That is complete bullshit, as dalishious gets into here.)

So, to add to its very long list of crimes, Bioware purposely withholds information from the player in order to trick you into getting an elf back together with her violently racist and incredibly dangerous abuser.

And if I remember correctly, you can also discover a hidden room in Celene’s palace which is filled with broken Elven artifacts that Celene was experimenting with.

In Inquisition, you also encounter at least two Dalish elves who explicitly talk about being kicked out of their clans for being mages, left to make it on their own or die. Which is. . . absurd and doesn’t fit pre-existing lore at all, since clan Keepers and their apprentices are literally mages themselves AND it’s already been shown that if a clan cannot support or doesn’t need people with specific skills (not just mages but also crafters, traders, hunters, etc), then it will actually send those people to other clans to live with them. Merrill, the Dalish companion mentioned earlier, is one such case, with her original clan having an excess of mages and sending her to a different clan who needed a mage to train as a first. Changing that to say that clans now outright abandon mages, especially as children, was a ridiculous choice and makes me feel like it was done purely to show them as ~savage~.

(I personally headcanon that it was a lie spread purposely by clans to protect themselves, playing off of racist ideas of what they were like. No templar would go up against an entire clan just to drag two or three mages off to the Circle, but multiple mages? Five mages? A dozen? Now that would be worth the risk.)

And now it’s time to get into the worst part of the games, by far.

Trespasser.

In this DLC, you discover that one of your elf companions, Solas, is actually the god Fen’Harel, and that he’s essentially trying to destroy the entire world to “reset it”.

You also discover that your gods are false.

That’s right. Bioware based this community and culture off of Jewish, Romani, and Native peoples. And then made the gods fake. Explicitly told players that the Dalish are wrong about everything they’ve ever known, that their religion is all fake, and that it’s their own fault because they dared try to recreate their culture with the scraps they had left.

Oh, but it doesn’t end there, no. The gods aren’t just fake, they were actually slave owners! They were rulers of an ancient civilization and the vallaslin, those beautiful markings that represent a Dalish elf’s pride in their culture and their place in their community, are actually slave markings to show who your owner is!

I need you all to take a moment to process this. To think about the implications of basing a fictional culture off of oppressed communities in the real world, as a foil to the Fantasy Christianity™ that you as the player are constantly shoved towards, and then making that culture’s religion into something so terrible and warped.

Have you thought about it? Because I have. I’ve thought about it a lot.

So yeah. There’s my extremely long rant about indigenous coding in Dragon Age. I hope it helps the very few people who manage to get to the end without getting sick of it lmao

#dragon age #dalish #dalish elves #indigenous representation #indigenous coding #long post #i am so fucking sorry to everyone on mobile #jamesissosogay

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imintheunderworld · 4 years

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Night of Gods Worldbuilding: The Gods

the gods

In my previous post about Hescad, I mentioned the gods from the anara religion.

citing from the previous post: “The anaras believe in a vast pantheon of gods. Each of their deities represents spiritual and material values. They are believed to live in another dimension called Heasora.”

“They celebrare these gods in various festivals along the year and deeply believe that every monarch of Hescad — and some apply this to other kingdoms’ monarchs — is the incarnation of one of these gods.”

The anara gods are believed to have come from many energy explosions in the universe many centuries before the era Night Of Gods takes place in.

Energy is said to vibrate at different frequencies, which could be translated into the emotions humans display. Through this, the personality traits of the gods were formed depending on the vibrations each cosmical energetic explosion carried.

The gods all formed a group in Heasora, the place where all the explosions originated from. They were happy socializing with each other, despite their differences. They befriended each other, some got married, others’ fought, but all of them trained their godly powers in ways they could not even imagine was possible.

But there was something missing. They were the epitome of their vibration, but there was this feeling of being stuck. The gods craved spiritual growth, they craved to teach others how to live by the things they ruled and how they could become even greater than those things. They had all the knowledge they could have, but they did not know the practical aspects of their knowledge and knowing without experiencing it is not as powerful as knowing and going through it.

So the gods decided to work on the project that Caohr had previously brainstormed, but thrown away, believing it was not good enough.

With the abilities they were granted, they extended their own energy and created what we would call “souls”. Then, they proceeded to use their powers to create Oxeanur, a place where those souls could live and socialize. It was the equivalent of Heasora for a soul.

But the souls displayed the same thirst for spiritual growth as the gods and the souls wrre too pure and almost god-like for the gods possibly grow from them and teach them.

So they decided to take what they started a step further. They chose a place in the universe that looked beautiful and satisfying to live in and decided to form bodies from the natural sources that place gave them, handing them over for the souls to inhabit for an amount of time with lessons of their choice to learn.

Humans lived in small communities without rules or rulers to reign over them besides the gods. The lessons they learned throughout their lives fed the god their soul’s energy was created from, saciating that god with practical knowledge, as part of them lived through those souls as an extension of themselves.

However, the veil between humans and the gods was getting thicker the more years passed; their connection with their souls was progressively ceasing, therefore, pushing away the connection they had with their gods. Other people started to believe in other religions or stopped believing in it at all.

The gods weren’t furious. They loved their creations to much to be. But their need for knowledge increased and, not seeing other choice, they decided to incarnate in the physical plane too, becoming rulers of different places in the world in order to guide their people in function of the ideals their divine form ruled over.

Caohr

Believed to be the oldest of the gods. Some anaras believe he is the leader of the gods, but most don’t believe in a divine hierarchy.

Caohr is the god of chaos, destruction, natural disasters, reincarnation, transformation, life and honor.

He is usually depicted as less attractive than the other gods. His face is highly sculptured and his features are extremely angular. Strong eyebrows and lips that on thinner side. Grey hair.

Note: the anaras see the destruction ruled by Caohr as something positive. In order to have a new beginning, you need to let go of the past and destroy the influence it has in your life.

Linnen

Caohr’s wife. She rules Oxeanur and is said to guide passing souls with her warmth and voice. She is very accepting of people’s differences and has a kind heart for people who went through difficult deaths. She is highly celebrated during the Dawn of Gods and the Day of Oxeanur festivals, that marks the summer solstice.

She is the goddess of luck, summer, Oxeanur and the death.

She is depicted as beautiful and radiating. Often has this mature and wise air to her, yet youthful at the heart. Her hair is light brown and her skin is often shown as copperish.

Orena

She is the goddess of love, nature, blessings, spring and war.

Often represented as a young maiden with lighter hair, pale skin and a big smile. Is frequently seen in paintings and sculptures around birds or forest animals.

Isansor

God of art, inspiration, intelligence, rationality, strength, bravery and battle strategies.

Often portrayed with brown skin, amber eyes and curly hair. His muscles are believed to be defined and in paintings is always seen wearing clothes with golden tones.

Ceaven

God of harvest, alcohol drinks, happiness, physical pleasure and partying.

People usually depict him with a deeply tanned skin. He is said to have short hair, red eyes and, sometimes, is shown with red shimmer over his skin.

The explosion Ceaven’s energy came from, split in two different directions, creating his twin Caena.

Caena

Considered a minor goddes by many. Also highly associated with the Day of Oxeanur festivals just like Linnen.

Goddess of the supernatural, witchcraft, seduction, mysteries and dreams.

Characterized by her dark long hair and amethyst eyes. Often has a crow or a blackbird on her shoulders or lap.

Adon

God of the seas, winds, travels and messages.

He is usually painted as a humanized version of a wave or of wind. His true human figure, although not commonly represented, shows him with dark skin and ginger or dark hair.

Dolius

God of war, torture and opression.

Depicted as man in his late 20’s. Dark brown hair, pale skin and dark eyes. Always painted carrying a sword and in battlefields.

Came from a second explosion originated after Linnen’s and Caohr’s energy explosion. He is considered their son and goddess Elone’s brother.

Elone

Goddess of the sky, the stars, the moon, the sun and justice. She also rules over some methods of divination and psychic abilities, such as clairvoyance.

Is often characterized with silver hair and silver blue skin full of blue and violet shimmer. Her eyes have multiple colors, forming rainbows in them. Her facial freckles are similiar to stars in a dark sky.

Anara stories say that when a rainbow appears it means that Elone is looking out for someone.

wip intro | about the author | pinterest board

Night of Gods’ other worldbuilding posts:

The Kingdom of Hescad

The Pentacle Sisters

tag list: @lordfenric @writinginslowmotion @cuban-existential-crisis @planets-and-prose @latrantem @milkyway-writes @fierywords @persona-pax @pechaes @iced-ginger-tea @lmorasey

Images: I don’t own any of the images used and was not able to find the proper source. If you know, please contact me and I will add proper credit.

#wip #worldbuilding #thebluesthour #violetvineyard #writeblr #writers community #writblr #writers on tumblr #fantasy wip #medieval fantasy #dark fantasy #wip: night of gods #night of gods #night of gods: wordbuilding

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smoketank7 · 3 years

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Sarms And Also Androgens - How They Influence Male Sexual Wellness

Sarms Uk

Content

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Athletes Should Think Twice Before Using SARMS - thesportsdaily.com

Athletes Should Think Twice Before Using SARMS.

Posted: Tue, 12 Feb 2019 08:00:00 GMT [source]

Tumour cells differ from healthy cells by the over-expression of tumour-associated healthy proteins, likewise referred to as Tumour-associated Antigens. HLA receptors on the cell surface area display fragments (i.e. peptides) from cellular proteins to the outdoors, hence enabling T-cells to differentiate between healthy and tumour cells. Peptides emerge from immature translation items as well as aging healthy proteins. Inside living cells, peptides are bound to HLA receptors and also shuttled to the cell surface area. These peptides that are presented by the tumor cells are called Tumour-associated Peptides. To attain a healing impact while lessening undesirable impacts on other healthy proteins and also physical functions, medications have to bind to target proteins with high fondness and also selectivity. We have actually designed our particles to be highly constricted by linking a chemical port substance, also called a scaffold, to particular amino acids in the peptide chain.

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There is also a blurred line between showing off supplements and nutritional supplements, which can make regulation hard.

" I sent the supplements off and also really did not listen to anything for a lengthy while, and afterwards USADA called me a fortnight back and also said that the fresh, covered products I had actually sent had checked favorable for ostarine.

In July in 2015, a South African supplement manufacturer safeguarded its product, after a fighter it funded returned an AAF from one of its items.

Biogen enrollers Extreme Combating Champion competitor Demarte Pena, that was released with a scolding after an AAF for testosterone was traced back to 'Testoforte for Stamina', generated by Biogen.

As reported by The Sports Honesty Campaign, Gordon Gilbert additionally encounters the same issue with the exact same supplement.

Here, we intend to examine the potential of novel peptoid hydrogels for long-- acting subcutaneous medication administration. Peptoids are abnormal peptides not acknowledged by host enzymes and can consequently offer lasting security as a hydrogel platform.An added benefit is that our reduced molecular weight peptide-like concepts are much less than seven amino acids in size. They are attractive to pharmaceutical usage as they are extra cost-efficient to synthesize and also open to scale-up manufacture contrasted to larger peptides and healthy proteins used throughout medicine, improving possible clinical translation to clients. Both little molecules and also larger healthy proteins together can access only 25 percent of cell targets, while the other 75 percent of human healthy proteins inside the cell are not targeted by these 2 courses of medications. As a result, there is a great deal of rate of interest amongst scientists in targeting these websites with the development of an unique restorative class, such as bicyclic peptides, that exists between the small particle and monoclonal antibody drug classes. In organic and medicinal chemistry, cyclic peptides have benefits over linear analogues, due to their enhanced metabolic stability and a much better meaning of their conformational mobility. In the last few years, there has been a considerable rise in using cyclic peptides as tools to better understand pertinent biological procedures and also to search for brand-new restorative representatives.

Peptides.

A few of the most old proteins are discovered in the core of the ribosome, and also may stem from the RNA globe. Shunsuke Tagami as well as James Attwater from Philipp's team analyzed the ability of brief peptide sections of these ancient proteins to enhance the feature of an RNA polymerase ribozyme, a modern equivalent of the primitive RNA replicase.

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Path to market for illegal sports ingredients - Natural Products INSIDER

Path to market for illegal sports ingredients.

Posted: Thu, 01 Aug 2019 07:00:00 GMT [source]

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clansayeed · 4 years

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Bound by Circumstance ― Chapter 24: Better the Devil You Don’t (Epilogue)

PAIRING: Nik Ryder x trans*M!MC (Taylor Hunter) RATING: Mature

⥼ MASTERLIST ⥽

⥼ Bound by Circumstance ⥽

Taylor Hunter (MC) has made it good for himself in New Orleans; turns out moving to a new city fresh out of college to reinvent yourself isn’t as hard as people make it out to be. Things only start to get confusing when he finds himself the target of a malevolent wraith. Good thing someone’s looking out for him though — because without Nighthunter Nik Ryder as his bodyguard he definitely won’t survive long in the twisting darkness of the supernatural underworld he’s tripped into.

Bound by Circumstance and the rest of the Oblivion Bound series is an ongoing dramatic retelling project of the book Nightbound and the rest of the Bloodbound series. Find out more [HERE].

Note: Circumstance only loosely follows the events and plotline of Nightbound, and features a separate antagonist, different character motivations, and further worldbuilding.

*Let me know if you would like to be added to the Circumstance/series tag list!

⥼ Chapter Summary ⥽

Someone does right by Cadence.

note: And with that Bound by Circumstance is ended! I’ll start posting book 3, Bound by Choice, in a day or so! Book 3 is the only book in the series not based off of an existing Choices book, and follows the story of the Trinity in a series of flashback vignettes. Taylor and the Nightbound gang will return in book 4!

Also, Bound by Choice is currently in-progress, as opposed to books 1 & 2 which were completed at the time of posting. Once I catch up on the last chapters posted, my updating schedule will go to the weekly update my AO3 is on.

[READ IT ON AO3]

A few weeks later…

[TEXT]: hurry up [TEXT]: where r u??? [TEXT]: ur loss I’m not waiting [TEXT]: BUZZKILL!!! [TEXT]: pic.jpg

The picture does it — finally draws his attention away from his computer to where his phone screen changes from 01:07 to 01:08 as if to taunt him.

It takes Cadence a moment to realize the woman next to Kathy in her (blurry) self-taken photo is supposed to be Ivy. So used to seeing her true form in person — but glamours don’t fade on digital recording.

And who else do they know dresses like she’s always ready to attend a Victorian funeral?

In his friend’s defense Cade was supposed to be at the Shift over an hour ago.

She’ll hear his excuses and his apologies, pretend as though he’s committed the greatest sin in history — but come sunrise and sobriety he’ll be forgiven. The Nighthunter likes to make everyone think she’s the picture of cool nonchalance; the human equivalent of a cat.

But anyone who feeds strays knows just how affectionate cats can be when they so choose.

He shuts down his work, fighting the instinctual habit to leave most of it out and make his space look clean by pushing it to the sides of his desk — actually putting things back in their folders and boxes.

Tap-tap.

His head jerks up quick enough for his glasses to threaten flight. Working in this particular space for over a decade now, there isn’t anyone who doesn’t know about Odd Cadence and his odd hours; how he refuses to work in the daylight due to a debilitating allergy.

Even Gary from night maintenance wouldn’t bother.

Tap-tap.

He listens for a heartbeat. Can hear everything from the rush of water through old plumbing to the coo of pigeons scavenging on the outside Square.

Tap—

Isadora de la Rosa doesn’t get to finish her genteel knocking; pale hand hovering just shy of the taller vampire’s collarbone as he holds the door open.

She looks a little dumbfounded for him to have answered. That’s silly, though, since she was in his territory now.

The air is thick with a tension not felt since Mardi Gras those weeks ago. She looks ready to turn and leave without a word between them. He almost lets her.

“Izzy,” by way of greeting, and even though she now runs the dynasty her father built he struggles to call her anything but the petulant youthful human woman he first met her as, “I was just heading out.”

He gives her a chance; sees the opportunity for escape that flickers in her weathered eyes no longer young but no less defiant by nature.

Some people were just born ready to stand their ground. He always admired that about her.

“This won’t take long.”

One step forward, one step back. A familiar dance neither acknowledges as Isadora invites herself into his space. She’s not the oldest thing in the room by far, nor the most expensive. Still she commands the air around her to whisper softer, for the floorboards under her heels to wait until she passes to creak.

“Sure, come on in…”

She makes a point of trying to keep an arms’ length between her body and any clutter. He won’t apologize for it, not to her. She was half the reason he’s like this.

“I’m glad to see the Museum is treating you well.”

“Uh-huh.” He’s never met a de la Rosa good at small talk. He still hasn’t.

But she keeps trying. It’s hard not to cringe at every forced word, how she purposefully finds something to look at and mention; “New project, I see.”

Cadence doesn’t answer. She switches a black leather briefcase from one hand to the other; a poised woman’s version of shuffling her feet.

“You always were best kept —”

“I have somewhere to be.”

Her quirked brow says it all; how she definitely doesn’t believe him but calling him out on it is somehow counterproductive to why she’s here.

Why is she here?

Because the only reason he can conjure up has to do with the Coven, and the Council, and that’s why they’re enjoying nights like these at the Shift. To forget about everything that happened — to move on.

“Look, Izzy — if this is something that can wait, can it? I’ve got office hours tomorrow night—or hell, I’ll even come ‘round to the family house. But I do have somewhere to be, and I’m already late.”

When she takes stock of the room again he understands. It’s a tactic — and not a very good one — to allow her to think.

They’ve never been like this before. So why now?

It’s a brief flicker; blink-and-you-miss-it type. But Cadence doesn’t miss it — how Izzy stares at the chair claimed by Katherine in permanent marker.

“You’re going to meet her, the Nighthunter.”

“My friend Katherine, yes. Among others.”

“She treads dangerous waters in this town.”

It sounds a little too much like a threat for Cade’s comfort. Makes it a real effort to keep from letting it get to him.

“I think the same could be said for any hunter.” For Katherine, for Ryder.

“Yes, you would know,” she clasps the case handle with both hands over her front; a shield between them, “though this one — she’s different, isn’t she? She’s well-connected.”

Like he’s been fumbling around in the dark of his head — he finally finds the lamp chain and tugs. Lets the light flood through with an “Ah” of understanding.

So that’s what this is about.

“Contrary to what you may believe this isn’t the same world Carlo built his dynasty in. Humans — even Nighthunters and especially out-of-towners — they don’t whisper the rules to one another anymore.” Then, with firm conviction; “Katherine didn’t know she needed to ask your father for permission to bring Adrian Raines into town.”

“But you did.”

“Yeah, I did.”

If she’s here to enact some sort of delayed punishment, Cadence can’t promise he’ll stay civil. “I weighed the risks carefully,” he continues, “and decided it was best for everyone that no one knew who didn’t need to know.” Not that it had been a good choice. Maybe it could have saved Raines at his trial.

Sometimes he wonders why the two of them didn’t work out — especially when she was Turned. It wasn’t because of her perceived age, and obviously being his boss’ daughter hadn’t stopped them from getting involved in the first place.

He always remembers not a moment later. There’s a reason the term is ‘opposites attract.’ They were too similar — too hot in the head and both prone to speaking and acting without thinking ahead. Without considering the consequences.

So when she isn’t sneering an insult at him on the heels of Cade actually admitting to his wrongdoing… he knows something is very wrong.

“Izzy…?”

And the smile she offers is too forced, too fake. Sends shivers down his spine. “I’m glad you see things that way.”

“What way?”

She unclasps the briefcase with a flick of her little fingers. “That sometimes, in rare cases I think, withholding knowledge from someone is for the best; for all parties involved.

“I had prepared to give you this the night of the Minotaur’s championship fight…” The leather bound folder she pulls free is familiar only in that he’s seen the de la Rosa lawyers carry them like extensions of their hands. “And I have spent many hours since debating whether or not I made the right choice in keeping it close. Watching you in the cage — that made it easier.”

“Something’s happening, Kath—”

“Don’t fight it. Let it swallow you whole.”

Let it swallow you whole.

Katherine couldn’t possibly have known just how accurate she had been.

How it felt to stand at the edge of a yawning abyss no one else could see… and how it felt to have the ground fall out from under his feet the moment he decided to jump.

Memories of what happened after his meeting with Isadora still only came to him in clusters. It was less the act of remembering than feeling the same way — sensory triggers like the smell of blood or the tinny grate of a chain link fence.

Of course she had seen the fight. There were members of the underground community still who approached him on the street with praise for his ‘performance,’ or thanking him for standing up to the illegal deals Persephone covered with velvet and glitter.

But there’s a difference between knowing something and knowing it. Knowing the same hand he used to caress her cheek had also torn off the Minotaur’s horn. Knowing she was witness to it…

Isadora’s touch is solid, without the heat humans bring or the chill they feel. It simply is as she gives him the folder with no other choice. Whatever secrets rest inside they are his burden now.

“What you see here… I ask that you please not think less of me for keeping it from you. I was…” she doesn’t give an excuse — not a single one, “I was doing what I thought was right. But I cannot be the one to make that choice anymore. It’s too much Cadence; it’s far too much.”

He means to find comfort or some understanding in their hands. But there’s none to be found.

They pull away as intimate strangers. The space between them cavernous and echoing — and it only grows wider as he realizes she isn’t the one creating it.

He doesn’t need to ask what mystery he now holds.

What other mystery is there but the thing that has plagued him from their first “hello” to this their last “goodbye?”

Cadence’s voice is calm, even to his own ears. “Is this everything?”

“All that my daughter could find among his possessions.”

“And if I have any questions…”

“No,” she interrupts, “no you may not bring them to me. I would rather meet the sun than invite the conflict this will bring into my city, to my family’s doorstep.”

He wants to call her selfish but can’t say he wouldn’t be the same way were their roles reversed.

It’s a nice fantasy—altruism, kindness, doing the right thing so as not to hurt someone close—but it is a fantasy.

So what if he carried the ring she returned to him for a decade in mourning?

And intuition is a very separate thing from mind-reading; that he knows. In Isadora, though, the lines between them have always been a little smudged.

“In case you have any ideas of this meaning…” she breathes and tries again, “just know this has nothing to do with our past, Cadence. Consider this to be an act of release. Beyond what the Council will ask of us, I wash my hands of you.”

Isadora’s decision is as clear now as it was then. She will always choose her family over him. He can’t begrudge her that in the least.

“If only it were that simple.” But it’s probably for the best.

She leaves as abruptly as she arrived. Somehow with the ability to disrupt everything in his space without touching a single thing. As he looks around the office now it feels tainted with secrets and lies; all the things he still doesn’t know that now rest in his hand.

He need only look.

The chair is less than five steps away but he can’t muster the energy to move both his legs and arms; chooses the latter because what comparison is comfort to answers?

Cadence opens the folder and begins to read.

#nightbound #bloodbound #playchoices fanfiction #choices fanfiction #choices nb #oc: cadence smith #oblv: bound by circumstance #oblv: new chapter #; my fics

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rubyleaf · 4 years

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Worldbuilding: Elves

I just realized I never talked about all the non-human sentient beings running rampant in the Colorlessverse, and I gotta fix that real quick. I’m leaving out the spirits for the moment since they deserve their own post (and kind of already got one). But the rest gets their own little series!

Anyway, here goes:

the only naturally created group to have an immortal lifespan

used to be more powerful than humans back in The Olden Days, but all their big kingdoms fell long ago and now they just live in two settlements, Ormenis (north) and Carmenis (south)

there’s still a lot of traffic between those settlements though, as well as between both of these and Elodia (the Elodians have remained elf-friends through the ages)

aloof “better than you” elves are OUT, chatty annoying comic relief elves are IN, BABY

come of age at 300 years old (rough equivalent to human 20); for the first five years of life they age at the same pace as humans and then their growth (and maturation) process slows down to aging one human year every 20 years until they hit adulthood

(technically that would mean they turn “twenty” at 305, but 300 is a catchier birthday to come of age)

don’t value youth since they never really lose it, so it’s treated as your embarrassing irresponsible phase and they’re very big on “respect your elders” culture (and young elves don’t get taken seriously)

Elvish uses honorifics for anyone older than you (e.g. Evariel calling Raimoriel “big sister”) and special ones for special titles/occupations (including one that’s directly equivalent to the Japanese use of “sensei”)

Elvish is also largely gender-neutral as a language

elves consider it good manners to never shut TF up because it sends the message that they like to talk with you

super duper language-minded, which includes learning languages easily but also a certain love for wordplay and puns

since their first priority in finding a partner isn’t reproducing but finding someone to spend eternity with, the “default” for them isn’t straight but pansexual (though all orientations found in humans are also found in elves)

they also have a readily available magic to transition during adolescence, should someone desire it; giving gender-neutral names to children is very common among elves so if the kid turns out to be trans or NB they don’t gotta go searching for a whole new name (however, some elves choose a gendered name for themselves after hitting adulthood, once they’ve figured themselves out)

elves are quite slim, but they’re like cats. You should never ever underestimate an elf ‘cause they’re lean, they can still jump higher and faster than you can save yourself

Enhanced Elf Vision™ is a thing so they’re obviously good archers but now I’m thinking. Elves whose eyes aren’t as good. Elves with more humanlike vision who need glasses and are considered half-blind by their pals? Hmm.

a lot of “What do you mean, you’re all old and wrinkly now, it’s oNLY BEEN TWENTY—oh. Right. Twenty years” with mortal friends

elves of color are ABSOLUTELY a thing and I need to include more of ‘em—I’ve only got Elthomion so far, though I don’t have that many elves to begin with

however, in all races, for some reason bright eyes are more common than in humans and brown eyes are considered Rare And Beautiful

everybody has long hair so short-haired elves are considered like. Super duper punk.

Everybody probably stopped reading by now but just one more thing: They SUCK at naming places. Mal-na-neled (Elvish for Colorless Land) just means “Land-of-cold.” Ormenis and Carmenis mean “This Way-Town” and “That Way-Town” respectively.

WIP intro | WIP tag

#i probably forgot some stuff but i can't keep blabbing forever #writeblr #worldbuilding #fantasy #fantasy world #the colorless land #the colorless army #elves #headcanons

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1-of-those-things · 4 years

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Chapters: 17/17 Fandom: Doctor Who (2005) Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Tenth Doctor/Donna Noble, Tenth Doctor/The Master (Simm), The Master (Simm) & Donna Noble Characters: Tenth Doctor, Donna Noble | The DoctorDonna, The Master (Simm), Donna Noble Additional Tags: Post-Episode AU: s04e13 Journey's End, Alternate Universe - Dark, casual imprisonment, Unhealthy Relationships, Dubious Morality, Whatever the telepathic equivalent of dubcon is, Telepathy, The Doctor (Doctor Who) Whump, lowkey torture, Dr Nyarlathotep, Coercion, The Master Has Issues, Everyone Has Issues, The Master is in this feel free to guess the warnings, Time Lords can either be asexual or pansexual there is no in-between, Fix-It of Sorts, Awesome Donna Noble, But also Dark!Donna, Dark Comedy, Time Lord Donna Noble Summary:

The Master restores the DoctorDonna and proposes an arrangement in which Donna gets the TARDIS and the Master gets the Doctor. The Doctor is not consulted on this plan. Life aboard the TARDIS is suddenly much less lonely and much more hostile.

#doctor/master #tenth doctor/donna noble #tenth doctor #donna noble #the master #fixit #doctor who fanfic #Doctor Who

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emuftw · 5 years

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Dreamboy Fan theory (Part 1)

TW: mentions of physical abuse, animal abuse and depression

Quick intro! - So with the next episode being the season 1 finale, I thought it would be a good time to share my theory of what is going on at PepperHights. I wanted to share now before the finale comes around and totally proves me wrong but for once I oddly don’t mind. It also goes without saying it is just a fan-theory and it’s not meant to be taken too seriously. With that being said however, I do talk about the themes as tagged so be mindful whilst reading. One key note, going forward when I use “Dane” I will be referring to character Dane in the show. When talking about the real Dane, I will be referring to him as “Producer Dane” when talking about all things outside of the podcast.

Also, this is LONG! When I started this I was hoping for a post similar length to my transcription of the Instagram live. As I keep typing however I realise that to make this flow easier I have split this into two parts. Part 1 will talk about the general theme of “what’s going on” and my guess at how Season 1 will end. Part 2 will carry on with the key points that were mentioned before, but with focus on the characters and how it all links together along with their individual theory’s.

Dreamboy has been an amazing podcast from start to finish. From the music, Character Danes sex drive to the sheer horror which is woven in every episode, it is clear you can see why it was picked up but Night Vale Presents. However, after seven and a half episodes (and a holiday special) there is still a lot of mystery of “what” is going on in the show. As fans we know that there has been a build up to something big happening and with hints of Aliens, magic and the super natural taking place in most episodes. For me though, there seems to be one clear overriding theme that is taking place and that ISNT the idea of there being a giant fish, the fear of giant family corporations going to Jupiter and finding something, the dreams of death or even the sharing of dreams between two strangers.

It’s the horror that comes with mundane life and everyday people itself. For more clarity, I don’t think there is anything supernatural, Syfi or horror going on. Instead, I think this is a tale of people and the hardships of life and how it is perceived via tone which I am hoping to break down in this fan theory! Key themes here are things I have picked up though my own life experiences, what has been said on and off podcast, livestreams, and assumptions from what took place in the original off Broadway production/BTS episode and people who work on the podcast.

At the start of the podcast we are introduced to a morbid way of thinking with Dane’s idea of a supermarket is just one giant morgue of animals and dead plants. This creepy tone is continued throughout the whole story. It’s captivating, it’s engaging and its part of what makes the podcast great but there isn’t something that would count as a big “horror” or “bad guy”. Instead, it’s how Character Dane talks about the supermarket which makes it scary.

This use of Tone and description is used a lot to make us the listener gripped in the moment along with how we imagine and perceive what is being described to us, however, we havn’t yet seem to encounter one key thing which is actually “evidence” of something paranormal. Instead, a lot of what is happening can be put down as as the struggles of life and its affect on ones own personal mental health and personal life experiences that come with getting older as well as how we cope with the events around us. These can be seen in all our “main” characters Dane talks to such as Dane himself, Luke and Critch, all of whom I will talk about more in Part 2. (Note: I don’t include Characters such as Carol and Dan in this as whilst our leads have spoken to them, unfortunately they don’t seem to have a big impact on the story outside of the episodes they are featured in.)

A good example however, of how Danes descriptions of characters and tone can be seen as “something supernatural is going on” is how we perceive Jennifer and the Non-Girl Scouts. When we first meet Jennifer, Dane describes her as a “child who looks like she has been raised by her grandparents”. She is also later described as a “girl scout” and is frequently referred to as a “child”/ “kid”. In a cultural context, when talking about girl scouts, being from England I associated them with our equivalent, who are ages from 7-10 and when she mentions that she and the other two had a “slumber party” it furthers this idea of a young girl. This tone/description sets us up to believe she is very young, which is even more jarring once she opens her mouth and speaks about complex issues such as feminism and equality in their complexity but sophisticated manor. All these Ideas, and Tone, leads us to think that she is “creepy” and “up to something big” in a supernatural sence. However in episode 7 our perception of how we view Jenifer changes.

In the episode Dane asks “what is she twelve?” to which she corrects him and tell us she is actually 13. This greatly surprised me when she told us this, and yet at the same time, for the first time made her human. At 13, we instantly gain between 3-7 years of life experience, meaning by now she is starting to form her own personality and ideology, which is something we expect from a teenager. A teenager talking about toxic masculinity is less jarring than a child talking about it. Whilst people would perceive her as a “child” still, there is a big difference in maturity level and complexity thinking, which means we no longer have a “creepy child girl scout” on our hands, but rather a “young teenager who is making their own choices though understanding social situations”. In this episode have a very human moment of a teenager asking for help as well as frustration break down when Dane won’t give her the keys as he “knows” they won’t open the door. I get the impression this is not easy to do for her, and from the live stream we know she doesn’t like to be messed around. For the first time we have a very human moment where we see her struggles and vulnerability, rather than the creepy tone which has been set by Dane and his narrative.

So with the Idea set that we are dealing with real life instead of a big horror taking place, I would like to also address one of the key areas this applies to as well as what I believe is taking place. I would like to talk about Zoe the Zebra and what has actually happened.

For me personally, I believe that Zoe is already dead, but not for the reason you believe. Early on, in the first episode, we are told that Zoe is an old Zebra who is the Zoos start attraction. A bit of Basic googling shows us that in the wildlife, a zebra can realistically live for 10 years whilst in captivity they can live up to 40 years on record. If we assume that Zoe has never seen the wildlife and was bred in captivity, we can assume she was born into the Zoo around 1990 at the EARLIEST, meaning she’s a pretty old Zebra nearing 30 if Dreamboy is set in 2019. With the Zoo being popular but struggling for funds, and based off the other animals such as the monkey who needs to listen to opera to sleep, we can assume that Zoe did not have a suitable enclosure for her. An unsuitable environment along with being the “star” of the Zoo, it means she was also frequently surrounded by load noises, no enrichments/toys and could have been alone despite being a heard animal. These factors are all key contributors to animals developing some form of Stereotypical behaviour during her time at PepperHights.

(Quick definition break: Stereotypic behaviour is defined as a repetitive, invariant behaviour pattern with no obvious goal or function. Stereotypic behaviour is not seen in animals in the wild and is understood to be abnormal and is therefore a negative factor in conservation captive breeding. Common Stereotypical behaviour includes habits of repartition such as noise making, pacing in the same location and self-mutilation as a result of over grooming AKA not nice!).

Based on what I learned in my time working with animals, this behaviour can also lead to aggression when behaviour patterns are interrupted or the animal is dealing with something they are not familiar with (such as someone breaking into their cage late at night). This sadly what is likely lead to the death of Ian. Whilst in the story it has been said that Zoe’s fate is still to be decided via the judge later in the week, I believe Zoe is actually already dead due to Zoo’s protocol’s that occur in these situations. It is very common when there is an active risk of the safety of the members of public in regards to wild animals, whether they have activity hurt a member of public or not, is too shoot the animal dead on the scene.

I have seen this happen when animals have killed members of staff in Zoo’s, to just lynx’s escaping from enclosures and going into the country side with no interactions with the public at all. If we are to assume that the person who reported Ian’s death also knew the Zoo’s procedures, we can assume that Zoe, who in in a scare fit killed Ian on accident, was shot on the scene to prevent anyone else being harmed. It is also worth noting that currently we do not know if we have seen Zoe since the incident, only that we have heard her cries which could have easily been recorded and played over the speaker system. It is also easy to believe as since Critch has requested no one to be present at her death, Zoe is already dead but Critch wishes to hide that so that people still visits the Zoo to see Zoe one last time before she goes as so many people love’s her. As well as this, it would also explain why there is such a big push for the lost ocean, as their main attraction is already dead.

Going back to the original discussion of theme, This idea of an animal who is kept in a poor enclosure, driven crazy by the noise and consistent lack of respect to then only be added on with her death on the scene is obvious a lot more realistic than the “murderous Zebra” or even the “drag Queen Zebra” which is frequently used to describe the situation. Its sadness of the situation, from an animal never being kept in its natural environment which lead to a young persons death, to the fact that there is no formal closure for this animals death, which leads to the finale being less of a supernatural horror to more of a real life situation which we as society become numb to as we exist day to day.

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For now, this is all I have for part 1. The idea of nothing supernatural going on is something which seems to be something which is only slightly touched on with the “plot” of Dreamboy. In Part 2, the idea of personal hardships, challenges and how these can link to a more telling story is what I am hoping to cover as well as my own personal theories.

Will hopefully get part 2 up within the next couple of days but till then stay groovy!

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ngame989 · 6 years

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I'd like to follow on spiritpelt's recent ask please :). I think that a large part of the "Jackie problem" is due to how much we all overhyped her, which shows how the writers are really good at holding our expectations every second. That also has the scary thought that they're also good at making us perceive things as interesting when in-universe reality they're flats and serves important yet underwhelming roles compared to what we expect. Toffee, mysterious, vile, insidious, cunning and (1/3)

knows exactly how things will go without any outside aid, was just the catalyst and Stage 2’s Boss for Star’s growth, and wanted just his finger, petty revenge and act out of spite. We’re also guilty for thinking Marco’s cape had weight, but Marco had to go back for his own good and not be a jerk, and now we only need to say goodbye for the cape for good. The list goes on. The thing is: they could make ANYTHING look compelling when it isn’t in the long run. Next thing they could have Starco be only because of the blood moon and every reason for their bond and even their friendship are moot, have the blood moon as evil or comes with an OFF switch (Anti-Starcos’ wildest dreams). But then again, these bridges were cut off thankfully, and we only have to enjoy things while they last, even really good things. (parts 2 and 3)

So my disclaimer for this post: I’m fully aware that hindsight is 20/20 and that I don’t have a crystal ball into the future, but I think there’s still some clear patterns we can observe from these incidents you mention (and others) that can guide predictions with some reasonable degree of confidence. (Throwing this in the tags for once because I actually think it’s important)

You’re right about all those things not having the roles we expected, but here’s the thing about that - Jackie and Toffee and the cape all did have weight! It’s a fandom meme to say Jackie is worthless because she isn’t, sure she wasn’t a main character and didn’t get all kinds of complex personal issues and development, but she was an important figure in Marco’s life for a while and helped him mature. The issue isn’t that those things all “fell flat” objectively necessarily, but that expectations overreached beyond the bounds of what the show provided. And that’s not to say “oh it’s super easy anyone could’ve seen how they’d be used, you’re just dumb” (well, OK, anyone could’ve seen that Jackie specifically wasn’t gonna be a main character let’s be real here), it’s absolutely true that the show doesn’t reveal everything right away.

But you can still take away some important information here - Toffee did do everything the show hyped him up for. We knew he hated magic, we knew he hated the Butterflies, and we knew he was a ruthless and cunning schemer. He executed a long-con scheme that involved destroying magic and defeating the Butterflies, and there you go! Everything he was built up for accomplished. Perhaps his backstory was the most underwhelming part of him, but again, all the hype was people reading into it and making up their own possibilities for what it could be. None of this is to say you can’t personally feel disappointed by any of it (I even have at times myself), but the point I’m trying to make is that the show executed on the buildup it delivered. It didn’t introduce something with Toffee as critical and then drop it in any way. Same with Jackie, and the cape is way more minor compared to those two but the same applies even there! It was pretty critical as a symbol for Marco’s attachment to his newfound life (specifically via Mewni, and even more specifically via Star). Hell, I was one of the people speculating all about the cape, and yeah sure Marco didn’t become a badass cape-wielding knight in 3A, but I think the whole thing was executed fairly well as a device for Marco’s arc.

If you want another, much more controversial example of something fan expectations overblew unreasonably, I’ll tack on a heaping helping of self-awareness and say Star’s romantic feelings for Marco in Season 2. Yes, absolutely the growing feelings she had for Marco were very important, but the nature of them as romantic wasn’t some fundamental, unshakable pillar of the show by itself. Considering how much she tried to repress them and beat them down and how they caused her nothing but pain, it was honestly (once again, in hindsight, I know) foolish to assume anything along the lines of the statement “Star has strong romantic yearning for Marco” never, ever being able to change for any reason, even temporarily. But the depth of the overall connection they shared that had been built up as part of her feelings in S2 remained and only grew more during S3.

So my point in all of this is that there are absolutely things contained within the show itself that are factually present arcs and factually present buildups, and the show should be trusted to deliver on those and not drop them. And it’s something really fucking difficult to gauge what those things are and what things are just speculation, yeah, which is why I’m being measured here. The Blood Moon? I have no idea! It’s quite possible that particular aspect isn’t executed in a way I find satisfying as payoff, but I can at least trust that it will be addressed in a manner that covers the bases that it’s set up (so basically, something with Marco’s cheekmarks, at least). And when it comes to Star and Marco’s relationship, the show has never, not a single time, actually dropped its importance to the show, and Star and Marco themselves have only grown closer. The handful of times they put distance between each other were done with a concrete purpose, and that purpose was to lead to a moment where they became closer than ever. Do I think there could be another thing like that, a Storm the Castle 2.0 where they actually have a major rift in their relationship that needs mending? Absolutely, but things will overall keep marching the direction they always have been.

(EDIT: Also, it's worth noting that of course similar principles apply to Tom, too. He's certainly had a sizable amount of development, and the nature of his relationships with Star and Marco and more important how he himself views those relationships get much deeper, so it would absolutely be a failure on the show's part to drop him as hard as they did Jackie, hence why it's not a worry - he's on the poster after all! But nothing about this implies in ANY way that Tom is equal with Marco now to either the show's own hierarchy or to Star's life, and any takes on it as such are the same overblown reaching that I mentioned at the beginning.)

So right now I can say with utmost confidence that Star and Marco have already committed themselves to each other, that they aren’t going to abandon each others’ company for any significant length of time (maybe Marco goes to Earth for an episode for Marco Jr. or something, idk). That itself was a HUGE theme of Season 3, and the time apart they spent in 3B because Marco was keeping his distance was directly addressed in Booth Buddies and rectified heavily in Divide/Conquer (with the results continuing to show in Season 4 Episode 1, as Marco is adventuring with Star and chatting with her and overall being back to his usual self, happy to be her best friend, and Star contemplating the Beach Day picture that seems to represent the best in their relationship to her). And Booth Buddies tackled the additional topic that the very essence of their relationship is more than friendship, and both of them know it now (”OK Marco we need a picture that represents what our relationship means to us” “OK cool let’s do it” whoops they kissed I wonder what that means).

Once again maintaining as balanced of a viewpoint as I can, they have simply hit the point of no return where they know their relationship is more than friendship and have committed themselves to it anyway, and drawing the connections for what that implies about the near and far future is practically easier than a Connect-the-Dots book. I don’t know what exactly the future will hold, and I’m making it a point to not extrapolate or read into things that aren’t simply right there. I don’t have to unreasonably extrapolate how Star or Marco will act after the confession (like we did after Season 2) because we saw it in action already. I don’t have to unreasonably extrapolate how Tom will react, because we’ve seen snippets of it already. I don’t have to unreasonably extrapolate that the show will continue developing their relationship into something stronger throughout Season 4, because come on now that’s what the show does all the time. We had a big turning point, and had the luxury of seeing the direction everyone is going after that turning point, so there’s some actual concrete information we can use there. So if you want to point fingers at things the show might do in unexpected ways that might let individual expectations down, point them at the specific symbols themselves if you want (like the Blood Moon), or at things we haven’t yet seen with our own eyes in the show (like, idk, the exact way Star and Marco will start their official romantic relationship). But pointing them at the very nature of Star and Marco’s relationship is the falsest of false equivalencies, and we've been slapped in the face with the information we need to at LEAST know the basics of the next steps and where we're headed.

#answered #star vs the forces of evil #svtfoe #starco #apraxiumrum

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lovehaswonangelnumbers · 5 years

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New Post has been published on https://lovehaswonangelnumbers.org/the-sabian-journey-of-magical-chironthe-wounded-healer/

The Sabian Journey of Magical Chiron~The Wounded Healer

By James Burgess

Chiron is leaving Pisces. On February 18, 2019, it arrives at the first degree of Aries, commencing the start of a new 51-year cycle. We can track its Sabian journey to discover what Chiron is trying to teach us.

Chiron, known as the ‘wounded healer’ is a symbol of awakening. It brings a shift in perception – we change how we see things – and this perceptual shift is an aspect of our awakening, the key that unlocks secrets about the nature of reality. Its discovery on 1 November 1977 heralded a new era of human consciousness.

I remember the period very well when it was last going through Aries in 1968 – 1976. We had already been shocked to see what had become possible in the world, which was at last, starting to get over our history of poverty and grinding repression.

We had assimilated the shuddering impact of rock ‘n’ roll, The Beatles, The Doors, and Dylan and were dressing colourfully, rebelling against conventionality, and claiming unprecedented clout as teenage spenders – the fashion and music industries had reached economic maturity.

All of this was huge; yet the spark that could light up this potential fireball had not yet been lit. Not until Chiron entered Aries. During its passage through Aries some major initiatives occurred that have subsequently grown into era-defining movements. Here are some:

First Jumbo jet

Moon landing

Microsoft and Apple started

Woodstock Festival, and the electronic music revolution of Pink Floyd and others

Political agitation, with Vietnam protests, Luther King assassination, votes for 18 year olds, and riots in the Soviet Union.

If you look beneath the surface of these events we can tease out a common thread, one associated with Chiron’s meaning. We see the acceleration of awakening consciousness.

People travelled abroad on Jumbos, and had epiphanies to see that previously-feared foreigners were actually very much like them. The space programme brought to us a picture of our planet appearing as a vulnerable little ball suspended in the vastness of space, which triggered greater ecological awareness. Technology began – today’s lifestyle in the making – with computers, internet, social media and mobile phones which had been all but inconceivable to the ordinary person.

Also, with music, dance, drugs, and sexual liberation reworking our collective mind-set, somehow we became a little more enlightened, responsible, and accepting.

Chiron is called the ‘Rainbow Bridge’ because its non-judgemental approach allows all the colours of the rainbow, and its ability to shift awareness bridges the separation between people of different viewpoints.

An aspect of Chiron’s teaching is equivalent to what many people are waking up to today – we need to get along better – and this will happen only when we see things from another point of view. Looking for and finding another viewpoint is a shared path for all of us who are now awakening.

The Sabian Symbol for the degree of Aries 1 is described by Marc Edmund Jones as ‘A woman rises out of the water, a seal rises and embraces her’.

The ocean represents the unconscious, instinctual knowledge and behaviour of our species, from which uncounted initiatives are thrown up, as many as the waves of the sea.

Similarly, every word spoken could theoretically stimulate a knock-on effect creating tangible changes in the world. But most initiatives fall by the wayside, seeds spent without any lasting effect. Only one in a million thought-seeds can survive and we cannot know until later which will endure and have any outcome.

Yet not all are lost. There are creative initiatives, many of which are not well-formed or clearly stated as ideas, perhaps they are vague feelings just ready to become thoughts, and not even yet put into words.

In order to help this process we might want to improve our listening – not only to the poorly-expressed feelings of a friend but also to our own inner voice. We can also encourage new perceptions and ideas, especially in children who are less judgemental and stuck in old patterns.

It is intuitively clear that by 2070, when Chiron returns to Aries again, we will have either solved our issues to do with overpopulation, climate change, and other serious problems, or we will have paid the heavy price of collectively failing to do so.

Chiron offers us a way to build a bridge to that distant year and astrology historians may well be pointing to 2019 as the time that we found the seeding of our way out of the fog of confusion and distortion that currently clouds our thoughts.

From February 18, something can take place that is so very subtle that you may not easily notice or understand its long-term implications. Perhaps you have felt you were waiting for a special person or horizon-expanding opportunity; now is the time to be optimistic and expect this to occur.

Indeed we can all approach each new situation hopefully, and widen our sense of what might be possible – not excluding miracles and unicorns.

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bluethepaladin · 7 years

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What do you have against Bex? (Can u also provide evidence thanks 💜)

When I first got this ask, I was tempted to play it off as a joke and say “the fact she exists,” and leave it at that. But I feel like it’s important to stay informed. And if you genuinely don’t know, I’ll give you the complete rundown. It’s long, it’s messy, and it’s nasty, so bear with me.

First, and introduction. When I talk about Bex, I’m referring to the actress Bex Taylor-Klaus, who is the voice actor (or VA) of the character Pidge in the show Voltron Legendary Defender on Netflix.

It all began a while ago when Bex liked a comment of a picture. The picture involved a ship called Shei//th. I censored the name so it doesn’t show up in the tags of that on tumblr. But essentially it’s a ship between two characters, Takashi Shirogane, a 25 year old pilot who is the leader of the team, and Keith Kogane, one of the other “paladins” or fighters on the team. People like me find this ship to be distasteful, since Shiro is an adult, and the others are teens (it’s actually a bit messier than that, since an official Voltron source listed Keith as 18, but the producers of the show, Lauren Montgomery and Joaquim Dos Santos, said they were not consulted on the book so there’s some question as to whether it’s canon or not). Either way, the consensus by most reasonable people is that it’s probably not a healthy thing to depict in children’s media, when you consider the considerable age difference, the power imbalance (leader, senior officer with someone they are in charge of), and finally, the iconic line by the character of Keith himself when he defines their relationship as a familial one.

Nonetheless, the ship persists, as nasty things on tumblr are wont to do. There’s a lot of shipping discourse on tumblr between two distinct groups which can be labelled as “antis”–people who are not in favor of any Shiro/paladin ships, or what has become to be known as “shaladins”–people who ship any variation of Shiro with the paladins.

Here is where Bex got involved. On Instagram there was a picture of a black shoe and a red shoe together and the joke was about the shoes being a prophecy that Shei//th would be canon. A joke, mostly, considering all the evidence above. But here’s where Bex got herself in trouble. She liked a comment on the picture where someone said “Keith is a power bottom confirmed.”

Obviously, this caused a bit of an uproar within the fanbase, especially between the discourse between antis and shaladins. Shaladins were celebrating that an Official Voltron Source liked their ship, and antis were angry about that acknowledgement of the ship at all by official sources, and the sexualization of a kid’s show (more on this later.)

So of course this sparked the discourse on tumblr. One user, @lancehunks, who was receiving asks about Bex, tagged her in the replies.They were definitely unfavorable.

and

and a few more.

Bex, being the big strong, adult, woman she is, decided that she could not take this obviously grievous insult to her name [sarcasm], and decided to reblog them all and respond to them. Keep in mind, that @lancehunks was just 13 years old. And Bex (22) decided that these were appropriate responses:

Yep, you read that right. Not only an adult but employed on a kid’s show! To a 13 year old! The target audience of the very show she’s a part of! (Oh, the hypocrisy). But wait, there’s more:

Just in case you’re confused, let me tell you the many, many reasons why this is unacceptable.

Bex is an adult. You’d think she’d be a little more mature by now just in general. It’s the internet and there are trolls.

The person she was addressing was 13!!!! Do I think it was mature to tag Bex in all those posts? No. But it’s… behavior that you can expect from 13 year old’s on the internet. If we swore at and tore down every single one of them every time they did something dumb, we would need a lot more therapists for teens in the world. Plus it’s really disingenuous to pretend that we wouldn’t have done something similar when we were younger if we were in that position.

Bex is famous. While she’s certainly not on the caliber of massive A-List stars like Tom Holland or Zendaya, she has a fanbase that exceeds the normal person’s friend group. Just because she’s been on TV before, she has groupies that will support her no matter what, who will troll for her, who uncritically and unconditionally worship her. I’m not a Bex fan, nor do I really care to know her well enough to know just exactly how many fans she has, to be certain she does have them. When she publicly reblogged those words, that “motherfucker,” those fighting words, she weaponized her fanbase. What I mean when I say that is her behavior gave her groupies permission to behave the same way. By targeting someone who didn’t like her (a thirteen year old!!!!!), she opened the gates to her fans and groupies doing the same thing, to a kid.

This lead to some terrible things happening. The 13 year old was getting death threats, sexual violence threats, and nsfw content, all because Bex just couldn’t let it go.

What does this mean? Finish it? Finish the kid? If you’re so sick of the fighting, then why did you even respond in the first place? Bex is the one who escalated the situation. Bex is the one who caused the fighting in the first place (by that I mean the fighting between the two that night, the fighting between antis and shaladins has been going on for as long as the show).

There we go. Now he have something resembling dignity. But unfortunately the damage was done, and user @lancehunks deleted their blog. As a direct response to Bex’s actions. Bex caused a 13 year old to leave tumblr.

When hearing this news, Bex offered a half-assed apology:

This is the most insincere apology I have ever seen. “The internet has Bad things on it and it’s YOUR fault for seeing them” is not an apology. The best part is that she’s a big fat hypocrite. “Sometimes, when it’s harmless, the best thing I can do is shake my head and keep scrolling.” So why didn’t you Bex? Why didn’t you keep scrolling instead of targeting a 13 year old?

In light of recent political events, though there’s one thing that stands out to me:

Sound like anybody you know? The esteemed President, perhaps?

*disclaimer* I am in no way claiming that Bex is a Trump supporter. I don’t know enough about her–and I don’t want to know enough about her–to know where she leans politically. I’m just drawing the attention to the similarities in moral equivalency going on, here.*

Sure you targeted a 13 year old and weaponized your fanbase, but someone tagging you in a snarky post is just as bad, right? (Wrong.)

You’d think that would be the end. You’d think that Bex would be capable of living and learning, or maybe even just taking her own advice, and keep scrolling. But here we go again.

The next bit of drama started when the possibly canon guide book was released, stating Keith’s age as 18. There was a big celebration on the shaladin side because technically, that would make it “legal” for Keith and Shiro to have sex. Besides the fact that legal ≠ moral, again, Voltron is a kid’s show. But on tumblr this time, Bex posted this.

This time, the discourse surrounding Bex was a little different., This time, the discourse mostly focused on the fact that even if Shiro and Keith disregarded canon and morals and the fact that it’s a kid’s show ever did get in a relationship, the only thing that matters is how they like to have sex.

This is a problem for a lot of reasons. There’s a culture, pretty prominent on tumblr of women, mostly white, who are obsessed with gay sex. They write fanfiction and p*rn solely for their own personal gratification. This, of course, is a gross misinterpretation to wanting LGBT+ representation. If you aren’t a mlm (an acronym for men-loving-man, that includes many sexualities) then writing p*rn about is sexualizing them, using them as a tool to get yourself off, and not like complex human people. Mlm are more than how they like to have sex. In fact, that shouldn’t be a part of a discussion for anybody except between willing partners. This also feeds into the popular and damaging stereotype that gay men are predatory by nature.

So, as a whole, not good.

And again, we have a whole situation escalated by Bex. The worst part is, to people who tried to explain this to her, the only response they were given was a gif:

So once again, a minor dared to express their distaste for Bex on tumblr. But this time, they didn’t tag her. This time, they censored her name. But Bex found it anyway. And she decided to do the exact same thing that led to a minor leaving the website, and to stop watching the show.

Have no fear, this time though. This time, Bex is going after a 14 year old, at least she’s not going after kids anymore, right? [sarcasm]

Some final notes.

Bex claims to be an LGBT+ rights activist. I’m also pretty sure she’s a lesbian herself (again, I already know too much about her, I’m not looking to get to know her better.) So, you’d think, as someone who wants equality for LGBT+ people and communities, she’d have the wherewithal to listen to specific subsets of that group when they say something about themselves, like, for example, young mlm who don’t appreciate being sexualized by a white woman. So I couldn’t help but laugh out loud when I saw this on her blog:

Now, I happen to agree with the above statement, but it’s so ironic, so hypocritical that Bex is talking about the sexualization of anything. Because kid’s shows aren’t safe from her sexualization and mlm certainly aren’t. How can one person be so incredibly oblivious? A mystery that I don’t have any interest in solving.

I also want to address something a little more devious and a little more dark. I personally know of at least 12 different people who sent Bex asks, politely explaining some of the things I’ve talked about here, or relaying how her words hurt them personally. Bex never answered any of them. But she did answer this:

Just to be perfectly clear, I do not condone or encourage hatemail. Do not send people anything wishing them death or harm in any way. I have never sent nor do plan on sending hatemail, and you should be ashamed of yourself if you do.

However, this is incredibly nefarious. Bex doesn’t answer any of the many asks she got that were polite, but proved her wrong. She didn’t answer any of the young mlm who gave her their personal stories and who weren’t anonymous. Instead, she publishes this. And she did this on purpose, to make her look innocent, to make her look like she’s the one being attacked. I get hatemail every single day too. Things along similar lines to this. I block the user. Delete them, One, because I don’t want to expose my followers to that kind of negativity on a daily basis, two, a mature person knows that deleting them is the best kind of revenge because the user will be constantly looking for a response and they will know they had no effect on me and three, because if you do that, eventually they stop. This is intentional on Bex’s part to make the people who don’t like her look bad. I don’t like Bex at all, and I certainly do not support that message. Any reasonable person wouldn’t. Also the fact that it’s an anonymous message adds a certain air of doubt as to who sent it.

The point is, Bex is purposely ignoring polite and well-meaning people and posted this to “prove” she’s the one on the “good” side because no good person would send that message.

This is also worth noting:

This was posted after the lancehunks debate but before the power bottom comment she made. In this post, Bex admits that a relationship between Shiro and any of the paladins is predatory in nature. She said that. Her words. And then after that she said that Keith was a power bottom.

The last thing I want to say, is that Voltron is a kid’s show. It’s rated US-TV-Y7. Which means for years 7 and older. Regardless of the ship, there should be no sexual content, be it fanart, of fanfiction of Voltron characters at all. We are all collectively responsible for keeping content age-appropriate for the target audience. So, stop it. All and any ships.

For minors, this is my advice to you:Bex is a predator, a hypocrite, and a liar. Do not engage with her. Block her. Do not tag her in any of your posts. She has a history of targeting minors. Protect yourself. Do not engage.

#Unlike Bex I take my own advice and I have blocked her so she can't target me #but you never know with these ones #she can find a way #bex taylor klaus #anti bex #anti bex taylor klaus #voltron legendary defender #long post #anti shaladin #bexcourse

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golbatgender · 6 years

Text

@thegreatjackal replied to your post

“By anti standards, any ship involving a vampire is necrophilia”

and it's likely pedophilia too

Vampires (and immortal/near-immortal characters) do raise some interesting (and almost entirely hypothetical) questions about establishing consent, but all those issues have to do with relative aging, which humans will never actually have to deal with in the real world unless we make contact with a sentient species with a vastly different lifespan/life stages cycle than ours, or if our own longevity technology advances to the point where some humans (or humanoid AIs with sexual capabilities and/or desires) end up living many times longer than their apparent age, but not others (because, you know, capitalism is like economic MRSA). If we ever do end up in such a situation, which will likely be a fairly sudden development if it does happen), it is probably best if we do already have several different fictional archetypes exploring these situations!

Eternal growth. The “vampire” (I’m just going to use this word as short for “immortal”) keeps developing normally after becoming immortal, and can be considered experientially and developmentally equivalent to a human of the same age, though at some point they stop (or dramatically slow) somatic aging. (In general. Otherwise you get the Struldbrugs.) This works just like any other human/mortal until the vampire outlives humans, or dramatically outlives apparent age. Two possible consent issues: Deception, where it might be considered dishonest (if mitigated by self-preservation, sometimes drastically) not to mention to one’s partner that one is actually several decades or centuries older than one appears; or Experience Gap, where the vampire’s long life (or species nature) essentially makes them into an ascended being that a mortal’s mind/experience can’t really compare to. I personally would say that as long as the mortal is an adult, such a relationship could work if the mortal is fully apprised of what’s going on, although it is higher risk. Adults can legally consent to risk. This is the basis of several entertainment and medical industries. Examples of ships with this type of vampire or immortal: The Doctor/Any human, Zeus/numerous mortal women, Henry/Abigail (Forever, 2014).

Subtype: Ancient child. An eternal-growth type vampire who is either permanently somatically “fixed” as a child, or whose somatic childhood has been dramatically extended while mostly or completely allowing adult faculties to develop (neoteny; might have fictional use in, for example, training a super-translator by extending the best language-learning period). An example of the first would be Claudia from Interview with the Vampire, and an example of the second would be the octospiders from Arthur C. Clarke’s Rama series (most of whom take puberty blockers in perpetuity, but still function as adults in their society). Any relationship with such a character would have to be evaluated based on context: whether the character is considered an adult or late adolescent in their society (as opposed to a child; i.e., whether such neoteny is common), whether their potential partner is from the same or a similarly neotenic culture or not, and, if the first two questions are “no,” whether the potential partner is attracted to them because they think they are a child or because they know the person and became attracted to them based on pre-established friendship or rivalry. (This one does, in fact, have some real-word implications currently, with regards to some trans people--as puberty blockers become more common--and to some kinds of disabilities.) If it’s a “ truly adult mind, child body, attraction is mostly based on interpersonal stuff,” you still might want to tag a fic as underage to be safe, but I’m pretty sure that’s at least almost in the “fine in real life” territory. IDK. I’m 99.99% likely never to be in that situation--I’m old enough that even if I were dating a trans person who’d been on puberty blockers, they’d almost certainly have switched to HRT before I ever met them, since the main use for puberty blockers is to delay onset of puberty until the age of majority when HRT is easier to get (and they don’t stop all growth, just puberty, anyway). It’s a fraught trope--and that’s why we should explore it in literature, because how else are we going to figure it out?

Eternal youth. The “vampire” remains mentally the same age as when they were turned, never maturing psychologically much beyond that (though experience may compensate to a degree). In fact, the “vampire” may even forget memories from before a certain amount of time (such as in the case of Ashildr|”Me,” Doctor Who Series 9), as part of this psychological growth limitation. Consent values in relationships depend on the age at turning; difficulties arise as the mortal partner ages past the immortal one. (For example, if such a vampire was turned at 15, and you were also 15, it wouldn’t be an issue, but then as you grew up, it would be, particularly if the vampire doesn’t legally, as opposed to physically, age. Less serious legally, but almost as much emotionally, if you got together at 30 and apparently-actually-30, and then you aged but your vampire partner stayed 30.) Examples not already given include Edward/Bella (before she’s turned as well), or human/android ships (such as Hari Seldon/Dors Venabili from the Foundation prequels).

Lifespan gap. Exactly what it sounds like, either due to species differences or technology (growth deceleration or acceleration), where either one character’s normal lifespan is much shorter (but with a similar distribution of life stages) than the other, or (often regardless of total lifespan) one character spends a much greater proportion of their life in a specific phase of development than the other. This is a very common sci-fi scenario; it doesn’t actually usually apply to vampires, except where vampires are actually a mortal, humanoid species with a much longer lifespan. Humans are actually pretty likely to be “causing the problem” in many of these scenarios, since we take such a large percentage of our average lifespan to grow up. (And, to complicate things, particularly with aliens who aren’t used to humans, we tend to develop secondary sexual characteristics while we’re still psychologically children. Considering how many problems that causes among humans who know what the fuck is going on, imagine how awkward it’s going to be with aliens who won’t.) Meanwhile, another sentient species might (hypothetically) take only five years to reach maturity and live for several hundred thereafter, or some similar ratio (such as Mass Effect’s Asari), or be born fully physically and psychologically mature (like tribbles, but sentient). Conversely, a sentient species might in equal probability have a lifespan of only a few years, but some of these years would be a fully adult stage (such as replicants, or Mass Effect’s Salarians). Or, particularly in dystopic settings, some members of one species may have vastly longer lifespans than other members of the same species (whether genetically or artificially), which may be proportional (as if, say, being born on February 29th actually did mean you would stay the same age for four years), or be the same in early life and diverge later (such as Homestuck’s Alternian Trolls). Basically, while the differences could have some emotional and logistic issues for long-term relationships, if both parties are capable of consent by their own species’ or sub-species’ metrics, it probably doesn’t deserve a major content warning for that alone. A short-term thing is certainly fine.

As a footnote, cryostasis or similar states aren’t generally considered aging. Possibly there’d be some issues with legal age (indeed, with being considered legally dead, in many such scenarios), but if such technologies were to become common or even extant, legal precedent for time spent is stasis not “counting” beyond what little aging might occur despite the tech would be established pretty quickly--if only so that no one could hop in a cryopod in a non-extradition country or secret location (because in the US, statutes of limitations get put “on hold” for any time outside the country, but if they can’t find the cryopod...) until a statute of limitations ran out.

This was not the thousand-plus words I meant to write tonight, I’ll tell you that. (I’d planned to work on a commission. I’ll still get to it.) But these are situations that come up a lot in fantasy and science fiction scenarios, and might come up someday in the real world if we ever encounter sentient aliens (or build fully sentient AI). And yes, it’s a controversial topic. That’s why we should explore the moral issues of sex with vampires and aliens with non-human aging stuff in fiction, so we have some idea of what to go on if it ever becomes an issue in real life. And that includes the “bad” stuff, and the “possibly-bad” stuff, because fiction is a simulation of a non-real event, where you can test what happens without anybody actually getting hurt. Which is at the very least a lot better than (should it ever be possible) testing it on real people (and real aliens/AIs) in real life!

(And as for the original hypothetical question the reply was in response to, attraction to vampires is not necrophilia. Particularly not modern vampires--Anne Rice and Stephanie Meyer have pretty much seen to that. But even if you prefer your vampires to be corpselike? Well, the reasons real necrophilia is bad is because corpses/their original owners can’t consent, and secondarily because it’s unhygienic (the main basis of general corpse taboos)--though like, I’m not going to aggressively stop someone from sticking raw ground beef up their everything, which is comparably unhygienic, so long as they’re aware of why it’s a bad idea and I don’t have to pay for or deal with the aftermath. So, in the hypothetical where vampires are real and can consent, go for it, just...research the risks first. Or have your characters do the same.)

#thegreatjackal #reply #text #orig post #long post

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shenanigumi · 7 years

Text

So I finished Kyoto Winds…

Here’s the comprehensive review I promised!! Keep in mind that I haven’t always paid the closest attention (as my first priority eventually shifted to managing the walkthroughs, since I can replay them anytime), but I’ll do my best to be accurate.

As usual, I’m biased as hell so you’ll want to take a lot of this with a grain of salt, but here we go, with the longest post ever…

Overall

On the gameplay – having been expecting to get to choose the route at the beginning, the fact that I had to navigate all the options and pick accordingly was a surprise, but not an unwelcome one. I’ve always been a fan of choice-based gameplay, so really, the only sticking point I hit was Souma’s route. As you may have noticed, I had a bit of trouble figuring out which system of choices was required for me to get to his second appearance. Other than that, everything turned out fine, although the sheer number of options was a little bit overwhelming at first. | 4/5

On the art – fantastic, as always, although there are a couple CGs that look a little funny to me (for instance, I don’t think Kazama’s Ikeda CG looks much like him). I am admittedly also not a fan of the costume recolors in most cases, but it’s not like it gets in the way of my enjoying the game. Additionally, Demons’ Bond also seems to have influenced the Yase backgrounds. We all know how I feel about Demons’ Bond as it relates to Hakuōki, so I’m not too enthusiastic about the parallels, but that’s an entirely different story. | 5/5 – odd-looking CGs and a palette swap I don’t particularly like aren’t enough to knock a point off

On the translation – …ouch. Noticed a huge amount more typos, clumsily written phrases (like using ‘gruff’ to describe someone’s hands), faulty formatting, incorrect dialogue tags, out-of-place swearing (particularly concerning the word ‘bitch’), and plain OOC dialogue (especially from Amagiri) compared to the original. I also hear that Iba’s dialogue wasn’t well-handled either, and it makes me wonder about the accuracy of the ‘new’ lines as well. I don’t have a lot of faith in this one, so I’m going to say the original translation was definitely, and markedly, better. In part because it distinguished between “the Demon” (Hijikata) and “the demon” (Kazama) instead of inexplicably capitalizing the common noun ‘demon’ so it’s possible to confuse the two. Or ‘fury’, for that matter. Yeah, that just makes no sense to me. | 2/5

On the soundtrack – a few tracks are good, and most unremarkable, but on the whole I’d rank it roughly equivalent with the original. I am also a fan of the soundfont; electric acoustic is my jam. I’m also getting a distinctly Demons’ Bond vibe from a lot of them, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it does tend to melt into the background so that I can’t really tell the difference between several tracks at first listen. Not that it’s a big deal, but the original stood out a little more to me, I guess. | 3/5

Now, onto the routes! Please note that though the ratings I give the new routes are based exclusively on this game, the ratings I give the six old routes are in comparison to the same routes in the original game, with 1/5 being much worse; 3/5 being about the same; and 5/5 being much better.

Hijikata’s Route

Hijikata’s the same Demon Commander we all know and love, only his relationship and dynamic with Chizuru are fleshed out a little more. Chizuru’s role as his page is given a little more of a spotlight, as is her exact role as his page, and her place in the Shinsengumi as a whole feels a little more solid because of that development. Since the game ends before they reach Edo, they’re not exactly a couple, but since his Memories of Love are included, we see Hijikata’s feelings as well. Overall, this route strikes a good balance, and a believable platform for eventual romance. Which, of course, is ideal on any Implied Canon route. (I was Not Ok with Yamazaki’s death and burial at sea, though. Like… my heart.) | 4/5

Okita’s Route

Okita hasn’t changed a bit, but the reasoning behind his actions is made a little clearer, and his brotherly adoration for Kondou is also stressed a little more. As a character, he feels a little more complete, and I was able to understand his actions a little better without having to guess at his motives (for instance, he repeatedly asserts that he doesn’t like it when other people make inferences about how he or Kondou feels). Because of that, his dynamic with Chizuru also got a little more development, and although the game ends before they’re involved, I can already see the basis for their relationship in the sequel. While OkiChi admittedly felt a little bit sudden in the original, this half-route did a good job of slowing down and zooming in so we can see the shift a little more. Or at least, I could. Maybe it was because I was looking for it. | 4/5

Saito’s Route

THIS IS WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT. This? Right here? Perfect improvement over the original route, adding to all the right places without taking anything away. It includes just enough extra background on Saito and Chizuru and how the two of them interact to make the ship believable. Their relationship is made softer without pulling either of them out of character, and the extent of their compatibility explored. Saito offers just enough reassurance, and Chizuru is just conscious enough of her place in the relationship and in the Shinsengumi, that their development reads as very natural. Excellent. Not much else to say, just like Saito. | 5/5

Heisuke’s Route

Hoo boy. Not a lot of new content and no new CGs, but it’s not like you can do much to improve on Heisuke’s route, anyway, since it was hands down the best in the original. The few things they did add fit in well with the original flow, nothing felt out-of-place, and I was actually enjoying myself quite a bit thanks to all that wonderful HeiChi… until Sen intervened in the conflict between Kazama and Heisuke. Rather than offer herself as the mother of Kazama’s children to spare Chizuru, like in the original, she instead threatens to banish him and his entire clan for interfering with the affairs of humans. However, quite generously, she offers him amnesty if he agrees to leave Heisuke and Chizuru alone. I was… angry. Still am, in fact.

But it’s not just because I ship KazaSen; really, it’s not. It’s because altering that scene threatens the integrity of the entire plot, when you consider that Kazama will eventually join Heisuke and Chizuru in rescuing Sen. Furthermore, her authority to banish an entire clan of demons is never explained, and her threat makes no sense anyway, considering that Yase has literally worked directly for the imperial court for centuries, so she has no business telling Kazama to stand down for allying with the Satsuma. Basically, retconning that scene makes no sense, and plotholes of that magnitude have never sat well with me. I had a bitter taste in my mouth for the rest of the route, which thankfully didn’t last much longer. | 3/5 – the adorableness of HeiChi barely manages to even out the fact that my faith in the plot has been materially damaged

Harada’s Route

Yes. Good. Wonderful development between the two of them, and although there aren’t too many additions until the route split, their relationship is more firmly established—and earlier on—which makes me a little bit more okay with the more mature direction their relationship is headed. Moreover, Harada’s reassurance that Chizuru is just a normal girl and not a monster was sorely needed in the original, and I’m relieved to see that kind of closure here. Otherwise, it was largely unremarkable (in a good way), other than the fact that Shiranui talks a bit more about Takasugi. Which, by the way, was awesome; I still consider TakaShira canon until proven otherwise. | 4/5

Nagakura’s Route

Definitely sweet and enjoyable! I played this one first, so I didn’t actually get all his scenes till I focused on the walkthrough, but there were so many d’aww moments, I lost count. Honestly, they really amped up the sweetness between the two of them (including modifying some of his In Days Past to be a little more romantic), and that kind of mutual innocence is really refreshing since Nagakura’s so… ya know… suggestive. But something feels like it’s missing, and I can’t quite put my finger on it. I think it might be Toba-Fushimi, honestly; I was fine up till then, but the last couple chapters feel kind of rushed in a way I can’t explain. Still a good route, though! | 4/5

Sanan’s Route

I… really don’t have a lot of feelings about this one. I wasn’t really expecting to, considering Sanan is my least favorite, but I expected my lack of feelings to be related more to that than the fact that there’s really not much to say about it. Like, there are still a lot of inconsistencies in his personality since so many of the scenes early on are accessible on all routes, and I can’t really get a solid grasp on who he is or what his relationship is to Chizuru. The best thing I can say about his route—other than that Kaoru makes an appearance—is that Chizuru’s feelings are at least clear. | 3/5

Yamazaki’s Route

He may not appear much in the beginning, but once he starts showing up a little more often, it’s priceless. Although the relationship doesn’t have a lot of time to develop, for some reason, it doesn’t feel rushed or incomplete. Somehow, they managed to devise a pairing that doesn’t need a lot of development to be believable; they’re simply naturally suited to one another from the beginning. The dialogue and narrative can get a little saccharine at times, but I was honestly eating it up. Especially when he was holding her hand. Who’d have thought that Yamazaki, of all people, gets the closest to becoming half of a legit couple with Chizuru within the span of the first game alone? | 5/5

Iba’s Route

I… ugh… just please get him away from me. As I’ve said, you’d have to work really hard to find someone with whom I’m less personally compatible, and because I already find it difficult to put myself in Chizuru’s tabi, I could not for the life of me get into his route at all. The man’s as Mary a Sue as you’ll find anywhere. The Long-Lost, Somehow-Forgotten Childhood Friend of Chizuru, whom she miraculously remembers throughout his route, Iba is Gallant and Pacifistic and Really Nice All the Time. In fact, he Can Do No Wrong, is Inhumanly Selfless, and wants nothing more than Chizuru’s safety and happiness at any given time. He’s also On Really Good/Personal Terms with All the Captains because he also used to frequent Shiei Hall for undisclosed reasons (other than being the son of a dojo master himself—oh yeah, and he’s a master at his style of swordplay, by the way, although he’s never killed anyone because of his Incorruptible Pure Pureness).

So basically, the dude’s already wormed his way into everyone’s hearts long before the route even starts, and that just strikes me as unfair. Basically, the route relies on their pasts to create chemistry and the foundation for a ‘believable’ relationship, instead of showing how they’re suited to one another in the present. Honestly, he creeps me out more than a little. Of course, independently of his character, the plot itself is fine—if a little bland at times. I don’t exactly appreciate the reused/paralleled backgrounds from Demons’ Bond, or the random demons’ arms that just kinda come out of nowhere and don’t seem to have an apparent purpose beyond being attached to Takeda and Iba (why are they even in Yase? how come they weren’t destroyed? what the fuck?), but those are personal grudges. Anyway, yeah, definitely not my favorite. | 2/5

Souma’s Route

After the amount of heartache I had trying to get his route, I remember swearing that he’d better be the best ever. I wasn’t particularly disappointed. Souma’s like… Heisuke’s mirror image, in a way. Both are awkward oblivious sweethearts, but Heisuke’s more fun-loving, while Souma is serious to a fault. In the same way I love Heisuke and HeiChi’s dynamic, Souma and SouChi strike me as very similar. They support one another, learning and growing together, throughout the route. It’s really refreshing to see Chizuru in a different ‘kind’ of relationship, too, considering that she’s Souma’s ‘senpai’ (well, his mentor in being a page) as opposed to being one of the captains’ inferiors. There are also quite a few backstory moments in this route, which I appreciated, although a few of them read as a little bit contrived; I’d have preferred they spread it out a bit. Also, Fuck-and-Run Miki makes a great antagonist, and I’m pleased to see more of him—although I was a bit disappointed to find Kazama once again assuming the same basic role as he does in Saito’s route. Like, can we have more Heisuke’s-route-esque ‘reluctant rivalrous allies’ banter? | 4/5

Sakamoto’s Route

Okay, so… I kinda love this guy, and it’s not all because he resembles Shiranui. He’s an interesting character, and it’s nice to have a route with someone who isn’t affiliated with the Shinsengumi but isn’t also trying to kidnap Chizuru. The thing is, although I wouldn’t say the ship feels forced, Sakamoto moves really fast, like probably faster than Harada fast, considering he’s technically got the first chronological kiss CG—just not on the lips. It’s also a little less clear how, when, and why Chizuru becomes interested in him. It might just be the fact that I like the character enough to let it slide, but I didn’t have any trouble suspending disbelief long enough to squeal at their cute moments. Even though I wouldn’t say it was an incredible route, it was honestly really interesting, because it follows a completely different path than I was used to, departing from the usual set of choices. (Also, any route with more Shiranui is fine by me. I’m a shallow girl with obvious motives; so sue me.) | 4/5

Kazama’s Route

Better than the original for sure, but that’s not exactly saying much. I do like that there are actual options for raising Kazama’s affection prior to the split, because it makes the entire concept of him having a route make much more sense. I can’t say that Chizuru’s reasoning in choosing to follow him specifically makes any more sense than it did before, especially considering that she could easily have chosen to accompany someone else (I’d have chosen Shiranui, to no one’s surprise). Speaking of which, I’m also not entirely sure how I feel about Sen taking them both to Yase without the slightest suspicion about Kazama’s prior intention to abduct her, or the fact that she doesn’t instruct Amagiri to chaperone, but I can live with it because it looks like there’ll be some semblance of an actual plot this time. Meaning that Kaoru and Kodo are in league to resurrect the Yukimura clan through furies, and Kazama and Chizuru are out to stop them. Considering that Kodo’s death felt like an afterthought in Kazama’s original route, I’m all for this change. I still don’t ship KazaChi in the slightest, though. I just… can’t. | 3/5

Final Assessment

Average Meta Score (art, OST, etc.): 3.5 / 5 Average Route Score: 3.75 / 5 Verdict: Pretty Damn Good Overall [Shenanigumi Approved – Except KazaSen’s De-Canonization]

From disappointment to elation, I’ve felt it all across the board, and shed more than a few tears at varying points (and this is before I even explore the bad endings). If you don’t have this game and you’re waiting to see whether you feel like getting it or not, I don’t have any advice for you. Whether or not it’s worth it to get the game or even the system is up to you, but I hope that was enlightening!

#shenanigumi plays #shinkai #shinkai spoilers #characterization essay

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