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literary-illuminati · 4 months

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2024 Book Review #2 – He Who Drowned the World by Shelley Parker-Chan

I’ve had this sitting on my bookshelf since it came out but, as so often happens, having it just laying around meant it faded to the background whenever I was deciding what to read next. Not the worst case of that (there’s a lovely of Cyteen that’s been sitting on my dresser and shaming me for at least a year now), but certainly long enough for me to regret it.

The story is a direct sequel to She Who Became The Sun, a low fantasy retelling of the fall of the Yuan Dynasty and the ascension of Zhu Yuanzhang to the imperial throne – though in this universe the ‘real’ Zhu Yuanzhang died a starving peasant child, and his sister assumed his identity and his destiny of greatness, willing to do anything and everything it takes to force the world into alignment with it. The book starts with her having lost her right hand, and only gets more emphatic about making her prove it from there.

Aside from Zhu, the narration’s split between several different points of view that fill out the struggle for the future of China. The book honestly does a better job with multiple POVs than the vast majority of epic fantasy I’ve read – every one is a thematic mirror of Zhu on one level or another, and every one has an arc dedicated to the book’s twin fascinations of what it means to be willing to do anything to achieve what you want on one hand, and gender nonconformity and queerness in an intensely patriarchal traditional society on the other.

The actual plot of the story is almost episodic – Zhu encounters some new obstacle on her way to victoriously marching to the Mongol capital at Dadu that can’t be defeated with the blunt force she has available, and she and some collection of the supporting cast goes on an insane adventure to snatch victory regardless. Then every so often there’s a cutaway to Wang Baoxiang (who, among all the other POVs, is easily the one that comes closest to deuteragonist status) scheming his way through imperial court politics in Dadu in his incredibly operatic and self-degrading scheme for revenge on his dead brother. The plots start affecting each other quite early, but I’m pretty sure it’s only in the last twenty pages or so that the two of them actually meet face to face (it is in fact a minor plot point that Wang can’t recognize Zhu when he sees her). It all manages to feel like it’s capturing a whole swathe of political intrigue beyond any one person’s understanding and feel fairly well plotted and cohesive as it comes together. Not that there aren’t plenty of points where you have to just run with it and not push back at what the book’s telling you but nowhere where it’s serious or blatant enough to actually be an issue.

I’m not sure it’s a complaint per se, but one thing that did take some adjusting to is just how, melodramatic I suppose? All the POVs in the book feel very profoundly and effusively, and also have absolutely zero awareness or understanding of their own emotions. This is particularly acute with Wang and Madame Zhang, but in every case there’s just a lot of characters being driven by emotions too large to be contained within them. It kind of feels like a musical, in that respect (but absolutely no other, to be clear).

Anyways, this is a book with absolutely massive amounts of Gender in it. With like, literally one exception, every POV is to some great extent defined by struggling against their position in the gender system of medieval China, and all the issues doing so their entire lives has left them with (Zhu is far and away the most healthy and well-adjusted about this.) Importantly, being oppressed and marginalized for being a woman/effeminate man/eunuch is in no way edifying or ennobling – it’s mostly left everyone involved deeply damaged and full of coping mechanisms that serve them poorly and everyone around them far worse. There’s basically no mention of even the idea of solidarity among the oppressed here – Madame Zhang tortures, mutilates and kills her own maids and her husbands’ consorts whenever necessary, Wang operatic revenge plot involves befriending and seducing a queer prince knowing it will get him killed in the end, Ouyang hates how effeminate his body is and deals with this by becoming a pathological misogynist – even Zhu doesn’t spare much to think about the cause of woman’s liberation beyond herself and her wife.Given the state of a lot of modern genre lit I honestly found this rather refreshing.

As both cause and consequence of the choice of POVs, the book has a rather interesting relationship with normative masculinity. There’s, as far as I can tell, exactly two examples of successful heroic/virtuous normative masculinity in the book – General Zhang and the Grand Councillor of the Yuan – and despite both being really incredibly competent and fearsome on the battlefield and legitimately selfless and honorable, both end up condemned as traitors to their respective lieges (both indolent, vicious, and generally contemptible men without anything in the way of redeeming features, themselves) and dying unpleasantly after being outmanoeuvred in court intrigue. Victory in the end goes not to those who are cherished by their society but the ones who are overlooked and brutalized by it but are willing and able to do whatever it takes and use anything and everything they can to claw their way to the top despite it.

Speaking of – the overriding throughline of the story is what it means to be willing to do anything to achieve your life’s ambition. Being willing to endure pain and suffering goes without saying, and while the book does put its leads through the physical ringer, that’s not really what it’s interested in. Are you willing to spend the lives of those who trust and rely upon you? Sacrifice those you love, or ask them to die for you? Betray those who have only ever shown you kindness? Are you willing to degrade and humiliate yourself, or lie and betray your own hard-won and precarious identity? And once you’ve done all that, and finally achieved your heart’s desire – well, are you really sure it was all worth it? Three cases out of four in the book, at least, ended up regretting it in the end.

This is a book that’s very concerned with sex and sexuality but, like, very nearly exclusively in offputting or unpleasant ways. There’s something like a dozen sex scenes (okay, ‘scenes with sex in them’ is probably the less misleading description. If you come looking for porn you’ll be disappointed) in the book and of them I believe exactly one that you could characterize as enthusiastically consensual and mutually enjoyable. Maybe three, if you count the incredibly toxic relationship which boils down to asking for help dong self-harm and it turns into a sadomasochist thing. Which never becomes/is never understood as sexual by the people engaging in it but describing it is definitely the closest the book gets to erotica. In any event, just somewhat surprising to see so much sex paired with so little romance, relative to most modern stuff I’ve read. Ties into how alienated literally everyone is from their bodies, I suppose.

Also I really don’t know enough about the historical memory of the early Ming dynasty to know whether all the stuff about how Zhu knows what it’s like to be nothing and how she’ll reorder the world to care for everyone is supposed to read as really darkly ironic or not.

#he who drowned the world #shelley parker chan #lesbian space atrocities #sff #tht #map fantasy #book review

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teecupangel · 10 months

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There's this manga called Brutal: Confession of a homicide investigator and when I finished it all I thought was, "Desmond in MC's place would be pretty funny especially with his bleeds lol" because with the crap Desmond went through, I feel like he should de-stress some of it in.... different ways

The manga is really brutal with some triggering stuff so it's ok if you don't do this

Nonnnnyy, I’ve been waiting for a continuation and hoping that the author gets better since last year TTATT

For those unfamiliar with the manga, Brutal: Confession of a Homicide Investigator or Brutal: Satsujin Keisatsukan no Kokuhaku is kinda like Dexter (the tv show) except the main character is much, much more unhinged, loves the look of despair of his asshole victims and goes all out to making their death karmic and ironic.

Also… he does pottery (badly), his favorite movie is The Exorcist and it’s implied his first love was a man who died before he could kill him XD

It’s super dark and the manga does not shy away from all the gory details and dark themes (when I say the MC’s victims are assholes, it’s an understatement). Seriously, there’s a lot of triggering stuff in this manga that each chapter usually have a warning label. It’s also short with only 19 chapters due to the author’s poor health so… if you wanna try it out, it won’t take too much of your time.

Anyway!

I feel like Desmond wouldn’t do what Dan does to his ‘victims’, mostly because the Brotherhood stresses to respect everyone, even the people they kill. The Hidden Blade is meant to deliver swift deaths, prolonging the death of the target as some sort of punishment would be against that ‘tradition’.

Although, to be fair, if we set this up as Desmond having lost a bit (or most) of his sanity after the Solar Flare, it would work.

Or…

This would be a Desmond who joined the police force after leaving the Farm. It’s highly unlikely since Abstergo would be all over him once he delivers the necessary paperwork and the results of his medical checkups but maybe he gets a lucky break, maybe Erudito is actively helping him by changing all of his information before it could get to Abstergo…

Maybe someone in the Calculations is ensuring he stays away from Abstergo’s radar. Weird computer glitches, strangely timed bad luck, accidents leading to data corruption… No one would think that someone is behind it unless they believe that that someone would be a ‘higher being’.

In this scenario, Desmond would see the worst of mankind and how the world as it is right now let some of these monsters get away. Desmond would use both the skills and techniques he learned from his profession and his childhood training in punishing these monsters the way they deserve to be punished.

In either scenario (Desmond becoming unhinged after the Solar Flare or Homicide Investigator!Desmond), Desmond wouldn’t care if they were Templars or not. As long as they have done something ‘bad’ and got away with it, they become his targets.

But he’d still wear a hood and a mask to hide his identity.

So when Abstergo ‘finds’ footage of him, they assume he’s an Assassin out for revenge and they wouldn’t think that the other non-Templar/Abstergo related disappearance are related until it’s too late.

The Assassins would think he’s a rogue Assassin, most probably a survivor of the Great Purge that has cut all ties with everyone. They don’t necessarily agree with his ‘methods’ but they let him do as he pleases because (1) they have no idea who he is or even how to predict his movements (2) he’s only targeting horrible people so it’s not technically against the Creed, and (3) they need all the help they can get.

(It would be funny if Desmond’s fake identity’s first name is Dexter. I mean… I’d probably go for Derek as usual if I was to write this (big IF) but giving him Dexter as a fake name would be funny)

Hey, nonny.

You know what would be funny?

If Desmond goes to Japan after the Solar Flare to sorta-chill, sorta-relax, sorta-have a vacation and he just starts becoming some sort of vigilante during his time there. And Dan… falls in love with him. Both as the vigilante and as the nice foreigner working as a barista in the cafe near the police station or something. Just imagine a fusion of cafe au and serial killer au with a heavy topping of yandere from Dan and ‘I have really bad choices in love interests and I know it’ from Desmond XD

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dizzybevvie · 1 year

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Ok me and a friend got talking and. heres (some of) the things I personally would do if tasked with rewriting Mystreet.

[very brief mentions of Katelyn, Garte + the Lycan parents :>]

Im totally stealing this idea from @bread--squid--uwu but Aph's name is Aphrodite now. Makes sense with the guys all being into her, still keeps the nickname, makes sense for Sylvanna etc

Reducing the ages. It makes noooooo sense to me that theyre all like, 35. They're fresh out of college, like 21-23.

Magic would either be a big part of the world building or removed entirely. Not a fan of the soft magic system. If removed, Lucinda would be a more like, herbs + the moon kinda witch you know? She also likes DnD

knowing more about peoples backstory! Laurance in particular has such little clarification on his family and upbringing

We get to know about all the shady goings on of the Ro'Meave household because theres no way Garte is a good man i do NOT trust him

Katelyn + Travis don't get back together

Aphmau goes to a different college to the others and meets Aaron (max of 2 years older) there because I'd personally like it more if the rest of the group didn't know him beforehand! That way Gar and Laur are able to be upset with the idea of him. I like the idea that they get so in their own heads that they plan out a whole argument that Aaron just. doesn't take the bait on at ALL and they realise that maybe theyre in the wrong for jumping to conclusions.

The ultima Werewolf thing would have to be totally revamped idc. I dont remember how its explained in the show, but I like the idea of it being a curse on the family possibly by Lucinda's ancestors. (Melissa + Lucinda could have a moment too!)

KC has like a common Japanese name because it reflects her fear of being forgettable (?). Also she is actually asian

CHARACTERS HAVE LAST NAMES. Except for Lucinda because again, I want the magic to be more prevalent and I think its cute that shes kinda the odd one out

Zane is Autistic and its discussed! I want Garroth to learn to respect his boundaries

On the same note, Garroth and Zane actually make up. I think Zane and Laurance being worsties is fun but the brothers need to be on neutral ground at LEAST.

Aaron is introduced early on. I don't really care how, but him being introduced half way into season 1 is partly the reason Aarmau is so rushed

People have identities. Not everyone needs an exploration or a label, but at the very least, Katelyn is Bisexual throughout the series and Garroth, Laurance, Melissa, Lucinda and Teony are some flavour of gay

Teony is more relevant. she doesn't have to be in the main group but I'd love to see her more like she works at the mall or smthn

The Garroth/Laurance/Aph dynamic changes majorly. They still constantly are trying to one-up each other by sweeping her off her feet but its more playful than anything serious. They get super competitive abt it but its still a but of fun. Whether she likes either of them isn't important. What is, though, is that Gar + Laur are absolutely unknowingly competing for eachother's attention. Maybe theres a cringy little moment where theyre like, "Well I would take her to get SUSHI!" "well I would- wait I LOVE sushi!" you know what I mean? also they actually have a conversation about the kiss at the play instead of just incoherently screaming (theres also some of that tho)

The Lycan family dont get a redemption arc

Dante and Aphmau need something because they could be sooo good but their dynamic is lacking so theyre cousins now. Maria and Sylvanna are sisters or something i dont know.

Also, Gene doesnt have that weird thing going on with Aph in high-school. He's now her friend who gives her a twix sometimes and hisses at Ivy

Totally biased but Id really want Garroth and Laurance's queerness explored. If its a first for either or both of them, how they feel about it, how they're navigating it. I want them coming out to not be a big deal but I want it to be a realisation.

I dont remember who came up with this but Laurance had Cadenza dye his hair ginger for a while because he wanted to feel like part of the new family? adorable. love it. Also Caleb doesnt exist purely because he throws a wrench in the adoption thing

The street has a name. I dont care what but it has a name

Id do something different with the maid cafe, not sure what yet. I dont think Aph would own it, though.

Aphmau's character is more of what it was in season one. Like the girl you call when youre drunk at 2am and she makes sure you get home safe and then brings you sweets kinda vibe? shed get you out of a tough situation

Aaron + Aphmaus relationship is a more relaxed version of what it was in season one, too. They can be romantic or platonic, but they like watching movies and teasing each other not. doing whatever they do in s3 and onwards.

PEOPLE SAY SORRY.

Dante & Travis: The Show is a podcast that Dante and Travis run twice a week. Its world renowned (16 regular viewers)

Garroth is british. Britain exists in this universe and any towns/cities/villages Jess named are somewhere within the USA

Laurance characters get consistent colour pallets.

Dante is trans literally just so i can fight off Squid's Two minute Two Dick Dante agenda (/j)

#me rn clenching my fists and trying not to start developing a rewrite #thats it for now but theres definitely more #thanks to anyone who inspired any of this lmao #apollo says stuff #squid tag #mystreet #aphmau #aphmau mystreet #aphverse #aphblr #laurance zvahl #laurance mystreet #aphmau garroth #garroth ro'meave #mystreet garroth #aaron lycan #long post

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salarta · 5 months

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Polaris and addressing past mistreatment

This post will be more text-heavy than image heavy.

Polaris/Lorna Dane has a long history in comics, having been created in 1968. Culturally, attitudes toward women and what they "can" and "can't" do shifted over time. Creatively, comics is a medium where you have multiple people influencing a single issue (writer, editor, artists, later execs) and changing hands across decades. These things affect all characters, and it's essential to consider this when assessing past treatment and what might be respectful for her in the future.

Who the character was meant to be at her core when originally created can be very different from how she's changed due to certain corporate decisions, certain cultural shifts, certain creator attitudes, etc.

This post is here to talk about this matter more in depth and ways to address it.

There are at least 3 ways to deal with past poor treatment of a character. I say "at least" because these are ways I can think of, but perhaps there are more I haven't.

Accept the poor treatment as "canon" and insist it be adhered to regardless of intent or how far off the mark it is from the character's real potential and who they were meant to be.

Ignore the poor treatment, acting like it never happened at all, skipping years to decades to focus exclusively on potential.

Rewrite the poor treatment in a manner that is more respectful, acknowledging it happened but excising the bad bits while salvaging the good bits.

My opinion is that Lorna needs a mix of 2 and 3. In the vein of #2, she has some specific horrendous depictions that are best left forgotten within the narrative. They can certainly be acknowledged outside the comics as reason to do better for her and pursue her actual potential instead of judging her off bad depictions, but adhering to them holds her back.

However, there are certain cases of poor treatment with elements that can be transformed into something good, or at the very least doesn't suck complete ass, if rewritten.

I try not to make specific suggestions about exactly how these things can be rewritten. I don't want to undermine the possibility of a good, talented, well-meaning writer doing good work with her that involves the rewriting approach. Suggesting something that they later come up with leads to comparisons. It might cause a writer to not want to try doing it. Or they might do something completely different, but a fan having a specific idea in mind (whether me or others) could devalue appreciation for a perfectly fine approach they take.

But in some cases, I think it's necessary to make specific suggestions to give an idea of the possibilities.

One example case is how Lorna left the X-Men the first time. Some people that insist on following option 1 of accepting everything no matter how bad it is will follow the "oh it was her choice all along she just really really wanted to get away from all that awful fighting and be with her man" framing it put her in back then.

What this fails horribly at doing for Lorna is reckoning with the actual reasons for why she was written as having that viewpoint.

At the creator and editor level, the decision was made that literally everyone in the X-Men except Cyclops had to leave the team so Storm, Wolverine, etc could take over. You have to give a reason for why these characters aren't going to be around anymore.

For Lorna, the reason they decided on to get rid of her was sending her packing into the desert with Havok. This decision followed a series of issues over time in which Lorna devolved from being a more feminist woman than Jean, to defined mainly as Havok's supporting character girlfriend. When she was introduced, before Havok was even created, Lorna wanted to be with the X-Men and fight alongside them. By Claremont, her personal identity and agency had been so degraded that the decision was made to make wherever Havok went into where she would go without question.

Ann Nocenti later took a stab at fleshing this out with "So Good It Hurts" in 1989, an add-on story in Classic X-Men 33 written to accompany a reprint of X-Men #127.

This is two things. One, it IS a rewrite of what happened back when Lorna left the team. Before this story, it was simply "oh Lorna doesn't wanna be in the X-Men, she wants a civilian life." This presents more meat to the bones of what happened. But two, it's also a meta statement on Lorna's treatment within the comics.

With this story, what we see is a tad more accurate to the behind-the-scenes thinking for Lorna's "decision": it's where Havok's going, therefore it's automatically where Lorna goes too, no thought whatsoever about if it's something she would actually want for herself. Havok's ranting, demanding both of them (not just Havok) leave the X-Men, shouting at Lorna that she needs to go with him and not really letting her get any words in or considering what she would want at all.

This story tends not to get talked about much, I think, because it directly confronts how Lorna's been poorly treated in a very relentless way. It strips away the sexist falsehoods and excuses used to paint a rosy picture and exposes her past treatment for what it really was. Cuts past nostalgia and the layers of cultural and creative dickery to put the truth of things in your face.

It's not the sort of thing someone with a deep love for their nostalgia of the relationship or of Havok would want people to think about.

And here we also see a wrinkle in taking angle 1 in how to handle past poor treatment. If you're someone who insists on accepting everything is canon, how do you reconcile two very different takes put forth in official comics: one where Lorna "wanted" to leave the X-Men, and another where she was bullied and verbally abused into doing it?

The truth is you can't truly reconcile them. You might be able to contort yourself into pretzels trying to make both things work, but all you're really going to get is a very transparent attempt that sucks people out of the story and places a lot of emphasis on making excuses for shitty depictions.

At the same time, there's another wrinkle to this story by Ann Nocenti. It does an excellent job of laying bare all the bullshit, but from a character depiction standpoint, it robs Lorna of agency. It sacrifices Lorna the character as part of its work toward making clear what was done to her. A deep enough read should lead to seeing it as a call for better treatment going forward, but a dull, unthinking read would instead simply say that's who Lorna is and leave it at that.

As such, I think why Lorna leaving the X-Men is one area that badly needs another rewrite. One that gives her more agency and provides a real reason of her own (not "cause Havok wants to leave") while respecting her original interest of genuinely wanting to be part of the X-Men.

I think the X-Men comics have started a process of rewriting this for her but they've failed to fully weigh the issue on Lorna's own needs and follow through.

While I have many complaints about 2020's X-Factor, of which I place nearly all the blame on Jordan White, one rare positive thing I credit Leah Williams for out of it is saying Lorna now has a PhD. Until then, she had a Masters degree but it was the same level of education as Havok. By saying Lorna now has a PhD, while Havok is still at a Masters, it suggests Lorna actually did want to study geophysics out of her own personal interest.

But then there's the "Polaris infinity comic" by Alex Seguro. I put that in quotes because it's moreso an excuse to paint a rosy picture of 80s nostalgia and of Havolaris than anything that actually considers and respects Lorna for herself. It's closer to a comic made out of a fanfic than anything else. Within that comic, it spins Lorna being out in the desert with Havok as "the best years of her life."

Which does two things. First, in trying to force the Havolaris stuff again, it once again devalues her personal interests in favor of building up the idea of her past relationship with Havok (which for anyone who actually looks at most depictions of it as shown up higher, it's historically been toxic as hell). Second, once again adds the suggestion that she wanted to leave the X-Men specifically to have a civilian life, directly undermining future use that would present her as the firebrand Queen of Mutants type she was introduced as.

In short, through the Seguro "comic," her potential for bigger and better things was presented as something she "wouldn't want" because such a view fits nostalgia of her as a nobody character who doesn't really want to be involved in any pesky mutant affairs.

So back to rewriting. I've now noted a case where I think a rewrite is warranted and would greatly benefit the character. I've noted not one but two specific rewrites of this case. That tells us rewrites are not exactly off limits, and past treatment is not so sacrosanct that even poor depictions must remain forever enshrined as canon.

Here's my take on what would work best here. And I'm putting it under a new header so it can be ignored if desired.

My Take

Here's a brief rundown of what we have so far.

Lorna left the X-Men. When she did, it was to pursue a Masters in Geophysics. Even while doing this work, she would come back to the X-Men action if called up by Xavier because there was a need for her. At some later date, she decided to go all the way and earned a PhD in Geophysics.

Now, Lorna's power set is electromagnetism. Electromagnetism is considered a subset of geophysics. Lorna also, unlike her father Magneto, didn't have conscious awareness and access to her powers until her teens when the X-Men ran across her. Though she might have subconsciously known she had them, what with having manifested them as a child and getting them and her memories sealed away by Mastermind.

Combine these things, and my take for a rewrite is that Lorna left the X-Men because she wanted to get a better grasp on her powers and what she could do with them. Rather than Lorna "wanting to leave the X-Men for a civilian life," the decision to leave could have been rooted in wanting to improve herself so she would be more effective in the field and in manifesting her dreams. Her education would open her up to alternate uses of her powers, approaches Magneto would never have considered. That way, when she returned to the fray full-time, she could cut loose with power uses nobody would have considered and accounted for.

Wrap-Up

Whatever direction a writer at Marvel takes, the bottom line is that Lorna needs to move forward, not get dragged backward into nostalgia land. You can't get yesterday back. You may get your jollies from reminiscing and having old feelings conjured back up, but it will never be the same, and obsessing over that nostalgia robs you and everyone else of the potential to get so much more out of real and meaningful progress.

The "you must adhere to everything written before as canon no matter what" angle is one that doesn't actually work when you look at how various official stories contradict each other. What it tends to truly mean is that someone liked a specific treatment and wants to ensure that treatment is what the character sticks with for all eternity. In my view, that's not a feasible or appropriate take. It fails to consider how society changes and what new knowledge brings to the table.

Does it really make sense for Lorna, as a character with control over electromagnetism, to be limited exclusively to things like flinging cars around in a world of computers and WiFi signals? Does it make sense to hold back Lorna's potential in today's world based on what her potential looked like to people in 1968, or people in the 80s or 90s?

Some things to think about.

#polaris #lorna dane #x-men #marvel #comics #character mistreatment #sexism #havok

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avelera · 2 years

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So for readers of "Come home with me and be my Love" I thought I'd share a bit of a complex question I'm wrestling with that I hope will be seen in the good faith that it is intended: how to handle Dream's pronouns when he's in public in "female" form as Morfea.

The story is from Hob's POV, first and foremost, which means the narrative is subjective rather than objective. Everything is being filtered through Hob's POV.

Now, as established in the story, Hob has had queer and specifically nonbinary/non gender conforming lovers in the past. While this is the 1810s so he's not going to think in strictly modern terminology, he is accustomed to the idea of changing pronouns for someone and he is sensitive to this fact so long as he knows which pronouns an individual prefers that he use.

However, this situation is complicated when it comes to Dream by a few things.

1) Dream has not told him what pronouns to use, so Hob has to guess.

2) Dream is a magical shape-changer, he switches between gender presentations so quick that it's not always clear in the situation what pronoun Hob should go with. Heck, sometimes Dream looks so different from Hob's conception of him in one of these forms that Hob sometimes even struggles to view this person as Dream. In theory it should be easy to just switch based on apparent gender presentation, but I am trying to convey a supernatural level of shape-changing here, something that does not happen in real life. This isn't Dream throwing on some makeup, this is a different person standing where Dream was a second ago. I think to faithfully represent how bizarre this would be for a normal human (like Hob) is important. This is a different *person* suddenly standing where your lover was standing, wtf pronouns are you supposed to use? And again, Dream is offering no guidance, he does not for example tell Hob to call him she/her when he presents as female, he doesn't say anything on that front at all. Hob just has to guess while trying to be respectful and not really understanding how or if Dream's self-perception changes when his appearance does.

3) Dream is disguised as a woman largely under the duress of his bargain with Desire. He clearly prefers to present as male. Based on what he tells Hob about his preferred appearance being a "favorite coat", his preferred appearance is male and he uses explicitly male pronouns. Everything else is an aberration inflicted on him by unusual circumstances.

So, as a default, Hob has opted to use male pronouns when thinking of Dream as the most respectful option, even when Dream is presenting himself as the woman "Morfea" to the world. Verbally, Hob uses female pronouns, but in his inner monologue which makes up the narrative, Dream is still Dream and Dream uses male pronouns. He would of course change if Dream asked him to do so, but again, Dream who withheld his name for 400 years is not being super forthcoming about whether he wants Hob to change pronouns for him when his appearance changes. Hob makes the decision that the most respectful thing to do with Dream's preferred identity is to continue using male pronouns.

Now, from a Doylist/writer's perspective, I also chose male pronouns in the narrative because on the written page, all we have to visualize the characters is words. Switching to female pronouns for Dream risked making it feel like there was a new character entirely and when writing, I like to stay as close to the canonical character "feel" as possible. And of course, I also went through much the same internal wrestling with this as Hob did.

Anyway, this is a long, rambling, and probably overly defensive take on why "Morfea" is referred to by Dream's male pronouns in all cases except verbally in the upcoming chapters, and I thought I'd share an essay about what that is in advance for anyone curious.

#arranged marriage au dreamling

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bruhstation · 1 year

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Hi i love your casa tidmouth!!! I saw the ask about james pairing and wondered if there any pairing for diesel, oliver or lady? Also happy holidays!!!

thank you very much!!! ALSO HAPPY HOLIDAYS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR AHHHHHH I'M SO SO SORRY FOR ANSWERING THIS LATE.... I WANTED TO ANSWER THIS ASK AS DETAILED AS POSSIBLE SO 🙏🙏🙏

I also apologize if some parts don't really sound very shippy because I thought it'd be a good chance to showcase some bits of lore character relationships in general... ANYWAYS!!!! HAVE FUN READING

diesel:

you could say that diesel's currently not interested in anyone, at least in a romantic sense. diesel used to have a small crush on mavis but no longer did after she told him she's a lesbian. now they're just... besties? frenemies? diesel and mavis gets into trouble together, except diesel's the one who incites it (arry and bert just follows) and mavis just happens to be there. diesel gets himself into trouble because of his schemes while mavis (begrudgingly) gets him out of it, though she usually also gets the short end of the stick alongside diesel. mavis also thought that diesel is constantly up to no good, though this is mostly because mavis just wants to live a simple life with as little problems as possible (literally impossible because she lives in so-freaking-dor)

however in act 2, mavis started to feel suspicious about diesel with how he always disappears somewhere at nights. even though they're both affiliated with the dieselworks (since they both drive diesel engines), she suspected that diesel might've been getting himself involved with d10 lately and is now genuinely siding with someone threatening instead of just being mildly inconveniencing. she's now conflicted between wanting to confront diesel in order to protect the person she cares about, or avert her eyes and live in blissful ignorance.

not shippy, but worth mentioning: diesel and duck started off as great enemies at the start of the story. before the events of casa tidmouth, after thinking duck wanted to leave him for dead (he was still new to sodor and has no idea people rarely die in sodor's railways), diesel spread horrific rumours about duck's family, which triggered the start of his axe-crazy tendencies (he's incredibly desperate to make his family proud. you know the drill). neither of them expressed guilt -- they do feel it -- for their actions towards one another because of how stubborn they are. they also have really different worldviews; diesel wanted progress, while duck wanted to stick with the old ways.

their backgrounds were really similar, too. both of their families were incredibly traditional, but while duck followed them like a dog, diesel rejected them. they could've respected each other or even become friends, if only their stubborness didn't blind them. perhaps things could change in act 2...?

speaking of act 2, diesel teamed up with d10 and got pretty close to him, partly because he realized d10's power is now heavily relying on the competence of his minions (and they're really not) and partly because they both share the same worldviews about progress. he's basically his right hand man, doing all the convincing and talking while d10 is having this big internal crisis going on. you could say it's also his curiosity taking place, since he wonders what the "most menacing man in all of sodor" will do once he hits rock bottom. diesel also convinced percy to join the workers of dieselworks when he was at his lowest, saying "I know a man who would respect your ambitions."

in addition, diesel is still coming into terms with his identity because of his huge catholic guilt. this fucking guy

‎

oliver:

even though he's usually no-nonsense and avoids conflict and island mysteries at any cost, oliver has a huge soft spot for douglas. they first met around 5 years ago when oliver was lost in a forest in bumfuck nowhere, being the victim of time and space displacement alongside a young man called toad -- who barely said a word -- and having lost a lot of his memories. he lived inside his rusty engine with toad for years in solitude. after a few years had passed, he met douglas, who ended up there as well (he assumed that he's the same as him) and bonded with him over the days he was stuck there.

with douglas' presence, oliver felt much less alone. and vice versa. toad also got along with douglas, which made oliver felt relieved. oliver initially didn't have much motivation to get himself out of the situation (toad didn't express much either and only wanted to stick with oliver) and nearly gave up, but after meeting douglas and listening to his stories about missing his brother and wanting to go back home, oliver regained his motivation to keep on trying. he also set his thoughts of finding whoever's responsible aside for the sake of douglas and toad.

after the three of them were rescued by duck and donald and nursed back to health, oliver intended to take his leave, still a bit bent on finding whoever's responsible for his lost memories and broken engine. but then sir topham hatt suggested that he could work for the northwestern railways ("who knows? it could help you find what you're looking for, mr. swindon.")

the next day, douglas expressed gratitude to oliver for saving his life and accompanying him throughout the days he was lost in a forest. oliver instead shot back with a smile, "actually, douglas, you're the one who saved me. even though I still remember nothing about my past, I now remember what I was fighting for. myself, and my engine."

fun fact: you know oliver jr., oliver's tamagotchi? douglas was the one who gifted it to him. since the first generation of tamagotchis die easily if not given care 24/7, douglas went all the way to the steamworks and convinced victor (doctor, engineer, guy with at least 3 phds) to modify it and make it practically immortal. oliver received this gift extremely happily, though he sometimes wonders if something is different with his tamagotchi (douglas just said that he probably got the most special ultra rare yadda yadda version).

oliver and douglas are also one of the more "normal" pair in all of casa tidmouth (2x3x4 have communication issues thus can only pine over each other, 8x9 are... uh... murderhusbands, mavis is oblivious to lady's true identity, lady and d10 have similar twisted views on humanity, etc).

‎

lady:

even though nobody (aside from thomas and percy) knows about lady being the island's goddess, almost every single woman in casa tidmouth likes her. mavis, emily, rosie, belle, daisy, etc... they all collectively thought "haha wow weird silly woman is pretty". she's way too oblivious and thought that it's just some quirk humans have, though. HOWEVER, she's really close with mavis, who showed lady around the quarry when she first arrived in sodor. mavis also wanted to "shield" lady from all the general weirdness around sodor, assuming that she's originally from outside the island. on the other hand, lady's optimism started to make mavis relax more from her coworker diesel's antics. also mavis thinks she's kinda hahah hey girl

in act 2, after news of missing railway workers came out, mavis tried to convince lady to leave the island. she felt like lady knows a lot more than she looks, but she's not taking any risks to have the person she holds dear get involved. lady just felt really guilty, but (after going through character progression and developing more "human" emotions like happiness, guilt, melancholy, "selfish" motivations, yadda yadda) she has a feeling that if she revealed her true identity, it's not going to end smoothly.

I've also mentioned something about lady and d10 being really close in a qpp type of way had their circumstances been different. they're both people who find it really hard to connect to others; the former being a goddess with different perceptions on morality and the latter being a guy who has low empathy and a whole lot of personality disorders. here's the post explaining their relationship

#casa tidmouth #casa tidmouth act 2 #ttte diesel #ttte diesel 10 #ttte percy #ttte oliver #ttte douglas #ttte lady #ttte mavis #asks #anonymous #PHEWWWW THAT'S A LOT!!!!!#lore time.... LORE TIME #posting this at the kuala lumpur airport. gonna go home lol #hope you enjoy 🤧🤧🤧🤧🤧#10x11 #mavisxlady #lady+diesel 10

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otakween · 6 months

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8-Man vs. Cyborg 009

Who's this schmuck? Just kidding, I did some background research and apparently 8-Man is one of the OG cyborg heroes to come out of Japan, predating Cyborg 009 by a year. He's called 8-Man because the scientist who turned him into a cyborg failed this experiment 7 times before getting to him. Yikes.

Crappy name aside (apparently the mangaka also had a manga called "Wolf Guy," which I find hilarious), it's a neat idea to put two OGs against each other. I'm sure the boomers are excited lol. (Come to think of it, Japan's population skews older, so it would make sense that this sort of thing would be published now).

Ch. 1

Coming from the BGOO Parts manga, the art feels a little clunkier and dated here. Backgrounds are very simple and there's less detail in how the characters are drawn. It's still faithful to the original series though and that's good enough for me.

Just like with BGOO Parts, they're rehashing Black Ghost stuff again, with some retconning along the way. Series that resurrect the same villain over and over are so dull. Please do something else writers!! :(

Why did the skull-masked guy (Cyborg #22) look kinda kawaii tho? They drew his eyes all shiny and cutesy.

They flashback to the end of volume 10 AGAIN. I guess that really is the most iconic moment of the franchise, but with every flashback it's losing its charm.

There was a diagram explaining 8-Man in the front of the manga and I guess he uses cigarettes as a power source? First of all...huh? Second, that's the most 1960s thing I've ever heard.

Also in the front of the manga is an image of Joe carrying a beat up looking 8-Man. Way to spoil it! I wonder what the vs. in the title is implying? Are they going to be rivals and then team up or are they straight up pitted against each other?

Did they pair these two together because they were like "8? 9? You get it? Eh? Eh?" What if it was 8-Man vs. 008 lol. It would have to be underwater randomly I suppose.

Ch. 2

Okay I stand corrected, I guess 8-Man isn't a cyborg...he's closer to an android, but he has a human consciousness so...he's not really an android either.

This was like, the exposition chapter. They wrote this assuming the reader was new to 8-Man and maybe Cyborg 009 too so they gotta hastily give little wikipedia summaries of what the reader missed lol. Not enough exposition for me to know who the robot bossing 8-Man around is supposed to be though! Maybe that'll come later.

I see the obvious parallels with the stories here, both cyborgs/androids/whatever were created as weapons but their creators wanted more for them. 8-Man has a little more of a film noir vibe tho with the detective aspect.

How the heck is a cigarette a "cooling" tool? My brain does not compute.

So 8-Man is being ordered to attack Joe, I guess. I wonder if he's been misled about Joe's background? He kinda helped him out back there with the cigarette, so I guess he's showing hesitation.

Ch. 3

So I guess Black Ghost's motive is to "resurrect/summon the God of war Ares by sacrificing one of the heroes..." Not Greek mythology again...please. I can't take it anymore!

8-Man's hands kinda look like Mickey Mouse gloves teehee

Dr. Tani and Dr. Daemon look so identical to me that I had to swipe back a few pages and compare them. I finally excepted they weren't the same person when Dr. Daemon referred to Dr. Tani in the third person lol.

We get more revelations about how 8-Man's machine brain works. He retains every memory (either OP or awful) and Ivan can't read his mind. I forgot Ivan could read minds in the first place? I feel like he doesn't do that much.

This manga has a lot of two page spreads, which I appreciate. They make the reading experience more cinematic, it moves things along quicker in general (no dialogue), and it looks great on my giant tablet :D

Ch. 4

The villains from the respective series place their bets on which hero will come out victorious. It gave me Squid Game vibes (but obviously less gruesome).

It's kind of funny how the villains are low key rooting their corresponding hero on, wanting to show off their nemesis to their new friend.

Kinda awkward how the other numbers cyborgs are just tagging along waiting for 8-Man and 009 to be done. I guess there's not much they can contribute, which is probably why BGOO Parts gave everyone accelerator mode...

Obvious fake out death is obvious

I enjoyed the shot of Joe and 8-Man outrunning the shinkansen. That was fun.

Ch. 5

After the battle between 009 and 8-Man, Black Ghost and Dr. Daemon attack and kidnap Joe, Francoise and Azuma. Black Ghost reveals their master plan to harvest memories from the cyborg so that they can resurrect the 3 brains that make up the "true" Black Ghost and put them in a giant robot body.

I'm not fully clear on what Dr. Daemon gets out of all this? I guess he gets to help rule the world or something?

The way they depict Francoise's ability makes her seem hilariously useless. She's supposed to be able to detect things from very far distances but every time she senses something it's like 2 feet away from everyone lol. Like she'll be like "something's coming...from the ocean!" and the gang turns around and it's right next to them. Thanks for nothing lol.

The demon God statue (taken from the original manga) looks kinda silly. It's bird beak makes it look like it's from Darkwing Duck or something haha.

Ch. 6

Okay 8-Man and Francoise getting all flustered once Francoise implied that her and Joe are in love was really cute. I wanna see more scenes of them getting to know each other and becoming friends :D (not likely)

The concept of world domination via a giant space satellite/demon God statue is pretty badass, not gonna lie. Very classic evil guy plan.

Seems we can now drop the pretenses that this is going to be a "versus" situation and everyone will just team up in volume 2. Pretty predictable.

#8-man vs. cyborg 009 #Cyborg 009 #manga #8-Man

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22degreehalo · 1 year

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The really frustrating thing is that like the way the LGBTQIA+ community treat asexuality and aromanticism now is pretty much just the way bisexuals were treated 20 or 15 or in some cases even 10 years ago.

Bisexuals are, more than being hypervisible, erased. Which includes the erasure of meaning and importance on top of existence. And that very much permeated even queer spaces: there was an ongoing, often subconscious mentality that bisexuality wasn’t really a genuine, committed, lifelong identity, but was just a transient and situational thing, which made it hard or even entirely stupid to talk about in general.

There was also a general sense that bisexuals were just gay people but ‘less oppressed’ (or, perhaps, not oppressed at all, because they could easily choose to fit in with straight people). Therefore the very idea of talking about bisexuals was suspect: there was a similar group that was so much more in need, so why would you ever want to talk about bisexuals specifically?

It was felt like even acknowledging bisexuality as a valid option was a way of subtly undermining gay identities. Bisexuality was important mostly insofar as the concept affected gay people: gay men and lesbians felt pressure to be bisexual as a tacitly progressive way to make them straight, and pretty much any reference to it felt like a way of promoting that invalidation. It was just making it easier for straight people to be homophobic.

Gayness was the actual identity: the one with the community history, and the one everyone would tie themselves to if they were really committed to helping others. (Except during the even earlier times when the main ‘oppression discourse’ was between gay men and lesbians, when it was considered inappropriate to call lesbians ‘gay’ unless they’d given consent.) Bisexuality was just... wishy-washy.

And that was the main reaction to it I remember. Not the overt biphobia, claiming that bisexuals will always cheat or whatever. Just that subtle, slightly embarrassed sense of, like... ‘Who cares?’ If you suggested that a person was bisexual, people’s mouths would twist and they’d snort in dissatisfaction. It wasn’t an actual conclusion. It didn’t mean anything. It didn’t take a stance. There was no value to bisexuality. It was just an empty space.

(For example, take an article I saw sincerely linked to on tumblr, which compared bisexual versus lesbian representation in fiction to conclude that lesbians are not respected in modern [early 2010s] society. The data was not incorrect: bisexuals characters were much more likely to be female than male. So does that mean that gay men are more respected than lesbians? Well, this all glosses over another very important point: less than half of queer women on TV were bi. Instead, it was more like 2/3 lesbians, and 1/3 bisexual. [I’d accuse the article writer of ignoring aspecs but let’s be real: there were no canon recurring aspec characters in 2012.] On the other hand, the male ratio was extremely dire: only a measley one or two bisexual men, with literally every single other queer man being gay. If anything, the big conclusion should have been that bi men are severely underrepresented. But the article writer never seemed to even consider that, because bisexual representation was never thought of as a valid thing for someone to care about.)

Things have changed a lot, and I know that the turning point occurred around 2015 when the terms ‘sapphic’ and ‘wlw’ became popular, signifying that ‘same-gender attraction’ was now considered a generally meaningful source of discrimination and allowing for easier ways for people to talk about that status. They have not changed entirely, as bisexual preferences are still seen as more malleable and subject to more scrutiny than gay ones. But it has changed.

And. That’s just what I have to cling on to, here. Because all of that is EXACTLY how aces and aros are treated. It’s not about the overt, aggressive hostility. It’s the subtle vibe of ‘okay, but what are you REALLY?’ from even the most seemingly tolerant spaces. It’s the idea that there is no real aspec ‘camp’, and that aspecs still have to align themselves either Gay or Straight. It’s that it’s just universally accepted that aspecs aren’t ‘really oppressed’ regardless of what the data actually says, because it turns out that aspecs aren’t any more ‘less oppressed than gay people’ than bisexuals were.

I just. I hope we can matter, someday. Soon. I hope we can start to think about aspecs as a specific group with shared experiences that we should care about, the way queer people currently seem to be able to do with bisexuals. I hope it can become the norm for queer people to think about aspecs’ perspectives and representation and feelings. I hope people can someday actually want to make things better for us.

(Also like. I have much less personal experience with this. But as far as I’m aware, the gay male community used to do this exact same shit with lesbians lmfao. Lesbians weren’t ‘really oppressed’ because like STDs weren’t as big an issue and we didn’t hear about physical violence against them in the news as often and “straight men love lesbians!” and as a result it just wasn’t really expected that non-lesbians should especially care about lesbians. Which makes me incredibly sad because of how obvious that our community has learned literally nothing at all even after all these decades.)

#if only because as soneone who only realised I wsa probably aro/ace and not bi around 2015 #uh #I am very very tired #all the time lolll #aspec #my thoughts

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dimiclaudeblaigan · 9 months

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Do you think some of the backlash Engage got came from Edelstans who were salty that the game didn't adhere to their narrative of "FE is all about all dragons bad, humanity good"?

I wasn't aware Engage got backlash tbh. I know it wasn't particularly well loved and that players moved on from it pretty fast (I similarly moved on pretty fast and didn't even bother finishing the DLC because it felt pointless to do so. It was too difficult too early on, but if I finished it late game when it'd be easier, I'd have the DLC units for so short a time in that run it would be pointless), but I didn't see it get any specific backlash.

If it did then yeah, I can only figure it came from Those Stans. Anyone who has played FE for longer than Three Houses (most people either started at FE7, FE9/10, FE13 or FE14 prior to Houses) doesn't give a shit about that stuff that because we all know that's not the narrative of the franchise. In fact, usually it's an internal conflict between dragons.

For anyone less aware of the dragons' story in previous titles:

Basically you've got Naga in one continuity (FE1-5 and the remakes) who made a call that a group of dragons didn't agree with and they turned against her, refusing to forgo their pride as dragons (i.e. they could stay as dragons and eventually go insane because of the decline at the time (something not present in FE4-5 which happens before FE1-3's timeline), or they could switch to a human form and live as humans and stay sane). It ended up in a long running feud between them.

Some of those dragons were bad apples and those are your endgame villains. Since the timeline starts with the Jugdral games, you get Loptous first who doesn't vibe with Naga (who at this time doesn't interfere with humans and doesn't believe in dragons doing so) and they're enemies. Loptous is the big baddie because he wants to conquer the continent, so his motivation is basically just dragon!Edelgard (nice irony at least), and he surrounds himself with people who are loyal to him and kills the rest (Edelgard lol).

During this time you're in gen 2, and during gen 2 the protagonist is led by a human loving dragon who never even announces his identity as a dragon and assists the human in surviving against the big bad dragon. Since the big bad dragon wants to kill the bloodlined people and enslave the rest as part of his conquest, you could say it technically falls right into his war with Naga. Conquer a continent, get a bunch of mooks to fight for you and have the power of a whole ass continent behind you. It would help him in fighting the dragons who sided with Naga. Thankfully we have mister human loving dragon who won't let that happen.

Later in the timeline is FE1, where we have big bad Medeus who is in a similar boat (except this is like 1000 years post Jugdral). Doesn't agree with Naga and wants to fight her. Starts conquering a continent with his little human mooks. By this point Naga has realized that isolated the dragons from humans was a mistake and enlists Marth's help. Medeus is defeated but comes back for FE3.

FE2 was about dragons among humans and the pros and cons of it. Happened between FE1 and FE3. There was no mention of All Dragons Bad because each dragon was seen as a god to the humans and they respected them (similarly to Jugdral's part in the timeline, where all the characters' gods are actually dragons).

Come FE6, that timeline is ditched entirely until FE13. FE6 and FE7 are about dragons and humans living in peace, and how a war broke out between them because humans got too fucking greedy and started killing them (so the dragons retaliated, got defeated and went into hiding behind a sealed door so the humans would leave them the fuck alone). The general idea behind these two games is, similarly to other other titles, about human greed.

Jugdral expresses this by Naga shutting out humanity because she saw how greedy they were after saving them once, seeing humans fighting each other again and again and again - especially the ones who got greedy because they had the power to conquer, which was given to them by the dragons. Basically the dragons in their goodwill gave humans losing a war the power to survive the war/fight back again, and then years later humans used that power to start more wars. Naga decided nope and stopped interacting with them. Mind you, in no part of these games does Naga personally ever try to help humans. She stuck to her guns regarding no helping humans and in background info from the creator apparently made it law not to interact with them.

FE8 ditches the concept of dragons almost entirely, having a manakete character who is pretty much completely irrelevant to the main plot.

FE9/10 don't focus on dragons as the Big Picture and are instead equally incorporate into the story with everything else. The racial issues aren't between humans and dragons, but instead just humans (referred to in these games as beorc, with "human" being used as an insult similar to a slur due to sub-human being used for laguz) and laguz. Dragons are a sub species of laguz and are generally neutral in conflict, with only some individuals acting with motivation.

So that all said, older fans with awareness of all this (especially prior to playing Houses, i.e. Houses wasn't their first game) don't look at Engage through Houses tinted lenses. We look at it as any other entry and base it accordingly. Nobody who has played the older titles prior to Houses seems to have any backlash against it. Most seem to find it mediocre as best as a game, but overall have no issues with the story and just mainly see it as much more lighthearted than most FE stories.

That said, yeah, the only people I can imagine giving outright backlash are people who are angry that the formula didn't follow its roots because in their ignorance, all they know being pixel waifu, goes against their beloved Agarthan/humanity/Agarthan-brainwashed-Edelgard narrative.

Engage follows the story of good and bad dragons, and the good dragons being friends with humanity while the bad dragons get fought by the good dragons and their human friends. It didn't continue CF's narrative because CF was the outlier in Houses in the first place, literally intended to be the villain route, and surprise surprise, the villain route is when dragons are the enemy.

In FE7's case in particular, there are only good dragons and they fight the big bad human who is obsessed with dragons because of their power. The final boss is a dragon who came out of the gate because Nergal tricked three dragons out basically, and in seeing humans the dragons reacted violently (which like, can you blame them? After everything humans put them through for pure greed?). Ninian had to kill them to stop them from rampaging, but she said it "wasn't their fault" (it wasn't), and she was only strong enough at the time to take two of them down, so you're left to fight the last one.

In FE8, the only dragon you get isn't bad and is just from a place got attacked and destroyed, so she's the only survivor who Ephraim helped, so she joins your army.

In other wordssss... every single FE has had the same general theme for each story. CF is intentionally the only outlier and while yes the devs 100 percent fully intended to make Edelgard lovable and were they themselves obsessed with her, it doesn't change the fact that it was made to specifically be the route where you sided with the bad guys. They do acknowledge her as the villain, they're just so obsessed with her that it comes across as her not being a villain. They also can't seem to handle becoming attached to a villain they wrote because then they don't want them to be a villain and suddenly can't commit to the route properly anymore. Wah wah.

I wrote about that stuff recently more than once so I won't do it again beyond that, but... yeah, anyone who knows the standard FE formula knows Engage is the same as all the others. Nobody who understands that is gonna complain about the overall story or be mad that it's not some humanity-is-best fantasy (when even irl most people are aware that it's not and that humans are literally destroying the planet lmao...).

Honestly, seeing how detached from reality those stans are is utterly baffling but also disgusting. That is, of course, assuming they're not all imperialists irl and yadda yadda, which I'm sure some are even if not all (as an American I can say that tends to be the average American straight white man mindset, and like Edelgard considers Fodlan "the world" in both games, said Americans also tend to view America as the world itself and conveniently forget other places exist). Most are probably just so detached from the reality of what they're defending so intensely and taking so seriously that they don't see or realize how horrific it all sounds.

Again though, being that detached and obsessive is just... insanely unhealthy to points those words alone can't describe. Also, to play a totally unrelated-to-another-timeline-in-the-franchise game and yet still judge it based on less than a fourth of the content in a previous timeline-isolated entry is pretty deranged (and I say less than a fourth because CF is several chapters shorter than all the other routes, so it's not even a fourth of a game with four routes).

If people are genuinely going to judge all other FE titles based on their imperialist pixel waifu, I'd prefer them to just not play the franchise at all. FE as a franchise is not CF The Franchise.

Also, that fictional/dragon race hating mindset feels like something that's the beginning of something much worse, i.e. actually being racist toward real people because it gets you thinking a certain way that may stick with you, you know?

These people are why the FE fandom has such a horrible reputation nowadays. They're also the reason why Edelgard as a character is as controversial as she is. Many people who hate her hate her because her stans have shoved their bullshit down their throat when people weren't even talking about her or were peacefully on their own space of the internet (i.e. their own Tumblr, Twitter etc). I've seen several people actually admit to this - that they didn't originally hate her but the stans made them actually hate her.

Stans have literally tried to go at me for posting things that I didn't even tag outside of my standard DCB Comments tag. The second they find something from the For You section (or back when Tumblr search for some reason showed posts based on the content in it and not based on the tags (which iirc they fixed?)), they can't hold themselves back and continue scrolling and ignore it. They can see it's not tagged and interact anyway, ridiculing and attacking people for posting "hate" (read: usually just literary criticism) that isn't even posted in any variation of Edelgard's tags.

See, here's the thing. I love Dimitri and Claude and I've seen plenty of shit takes about them that I loathe with my very being. But like, I know people with opinions that strong already are not going to agree with me. Ever. I'm not gonna bother wasting my time trying to change their mind or argue with them because it's just going to be an irritating back and forth. I see a bad take on them and I keep scrolling and ignore it, because interacting with them/the posts gets nobody anywhere at all. Unfortunately stans don't have this mindset and feel they have to attack anyone they can find. Funny really, how much like their imperialist waifu they really are.

So tl;dr as an answer to your question: yes, I do think any backlash for the game was from Edelgard stans, because anyone else playing this franchise has more than zero brain cells and can figure out that Engage is a very standard and normal addition to the franchise. Many people don't really care for it, but there wasn't any outright backlash from anyone else that I've seen.

#DCB Ask #the worse they behave the stronger my words for them get honestly #they went from annoying to just outright dangerous and disgusting #I've seen the whole thing going around about a totally unrelated to social media author getting harassed for their fic #it's honestly extremely tiring to have to be careful what you post that isn't even fucking tagged #and I've reached this line of like... I've stopped caring and post what I want but also being paranoid abt it #evidently even if you don't get directly attacked by them they DO share shit with each other and bitch abt you #and make up shit about the kind if person you are without even knowing you and just #basing you entirely and completely off a single post they found #like you can't be in this fandom without by extension being one of their potential targets at any given millisecond #even if you're not involved with them or even if you don't even know they exist! even if you're just #innocently existing! they WILL come after you if they decide you don't like Edelgard ''correctly''#like I said. funny. they act exactly like her so no surprise they're madly in love with her/the idea of her iron fist ruling a continent #one that mind you she refers to as ''the world'' -gags-

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theanoninyourinbox · 2 years

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Hypokits/Art Requests Rules

Questions About My Art are Always Open!!! I love infodumping about my art! AU/Lore asks are Always Open! Ask me AU stuff/share your AUs and I’ll write/rate them! Infodump all your ideas! I’m prepared!

Hypokits/Hypofoals and Art Requests are currently Open! I’m on a Steven Universe/Gemsona Hyperfixation week, but send your other requests in as well - they’ll be seen eventually!

I Only Do SFW art - please no kinks or explicit/super violent/nude requests. If you’re looking for That, I’m not the artist you’re looking for. I may also choose to/can be asked to not share the art on site. If it’s a gift for someone, or you don’t want your Cool Art seen by all, I’m fine with that. You CAN share your art off-site as long as you give me credit, and direct others to my blog! And please send me a link - I’d like to see what other people think!

You can Ask for Hypokits, Dungeons and Dragons original character designs (may take longer), MLP (same ship rules as the cats), Crystal Gems/Gem characters, or Try Your Luck - ask me that and get a Random Art! You can also direct me to Art challenges or Generators you think I might like/want me to do, but no promises there~

1: No Inappropriate Ships - No directly related characters, no weird age gaps; having a character born at a different time or reincarnation/Starclan Nonsense are the ONLY ways I’ll break the second part but the requester must Specify this or I will delete the ask. Example of an approved ask - Squirrel/Loner!Ashfur is okay, BUT Lionheart/Goldenflower or other sibling ships Are Not Okay - you know who you are, please Stop asking! As a note, non-ship art is always welcome as well!

2: One Request A Month Please - a first-time requester May have two requests answered at the same time, otherwise I will hang onto asks UNLESS I get more than 3 from one person in a month - I will delete either the oldest or my least favorite. I MAY make an exception if it’s a Really Good Idea but that’s not Normal Operating Procedure.

3: Things You Can (and Should) Request! I’ll do Specific Breeds, Disabilities (please be specific on details if it’s not a common one), Gender Pronouns/Identities (please, if you give me those, Give Me Pronouns too, because I want to be respectful), Good/Evil Swap, Angst/Fluff Backstories, Opposite Day Cats (please give me at least a starting point of what you think the opposite is on one detail to start), Sparklecats, and Emoji challenges (NEW!)…you can also Try Your Luck and give me Creative Freedom for funzies! If I think of any more they’ll end up here! I’ll also do Naming (send me a cat photo and I’ll give them a series of possible names) and Discuss AUs with you!

4: Random Full Page Art - sometimes I get Good Vibes from a Ship/Art Request and will do a full page of cats. This is completely random - some of you have good ideas and I vibe, sometimes I don’t get the Ship/Idea but still draw it.

5: Anon Requests - I may change small details on basic Anon requests - maybe swap a gender or do a breed. Ex - Tiger/Leopard to Looks like mom!Good!Tiger/Longhaired!Leopard. If a request has Details I will not change things. If you want it to stay basic/exactly like canon designs please say so or I may go a little crazy on it ;)

6: Three Strikes - if a user breaks my rules/makes inappropriate requests, they have three chances - I will require an apology and a week space for the first strike, a month for a second strike, and third strike gets you blocked. I am aware that you can just go through Anon Asks but I will just delete them on sight.

7: Commissions - eventually

Anyway, I had some anons confused about how to ask for Hypokits, so here are my rules! I hope you all can respect my rules, because if you don’t I will be sad and have to ignore or block you, and I Really Don’t Want To Be Mean.

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celticrune · 2 years

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Very tempted to copypaste the entire ask list as revenge but I'll behave. 🌌✂️👑📎 for Temperance, 🚆☁️ for Tanwen and ☄️❇️🌈❤️ for Keiji! And maybe even 💚🎡🪤 for Val.

:3 reblog an ask meme with many questions, get punished with curiousity. and starting with temperance, smh, i see you like the evil ones

also yeah uh. long. good luck. plus the usual warnings that temperance is Not A Good Person

Temperance

🌌 MILKY WAY - what was the inspiration behind your oc? what was the first thing you decided about them?

I made Temperance in concert with Val, so you're going to get a double whammy on this one haha. Val came to be because I was talking with friends about evil DnD campaigns and we ended up making a trio of evil characters, who grew into their own setting with a main city where they do their evil. I really like characters who are living weapons of a sort and I love playing with identity, so I quickly settled on the idea of a conman with a thousand faces, who ends up disappearing behind the masks. Who has no name, is nobody noteworthy, someone you would never spare a second glance if you saw them on the street, but who because of that can steal any face and fit in anywhere. That's still a core part of Val and what makes them scary, though actually writing it and exploring it can be a bit of a pain. But! We're here to talk about the queen bitch herself. IIRC, what first gave me the idea of Temperance was a specific suggesting in the Player Handbook entry about the Conman background. Correction: It was the Charlatan background. "I owe everything to my mentor - A horrible person who's probably rotting in jail somewhere". A living weapon style conman who struggles with identity and an awful teacher who made them into what they are and who they equally resent and thank for that?? listen this is catnip to me. how could you expect me to resist. So this is where Temperance came into being. I quickly ditched the idea of the mentor being in jail, because I wanted the option of her being an active threat. Then as time went on and the other two characters in the evil trio got more fleshed out, I wanted someone more... "actively evil" to match those two. Val is a follower, and I needed a leader. Temperance, then, is everything I love to hate. She is all about facades and pretense, about fitting into society and using their prejudices against them to get ahead. She sees pawns, rather than people, and only truly respects two (2) total people. also she's a hot dangerous lady who doesn't usually do her dirty work herself, now that she is rich and established enough she doesn't have to, but she still would poison you and watch with a pleasant smile as you choke on your own vomit so. like. i'm gay i'm not blind. hope you're not regretting your questions yet as i am incapable of being concise and it will probably not get better :D

✂️ SCISSORS - what is the “last straw” for them to cut someone out of their life? how easily do they let go of people?

Haha. "How easily do they let go of people" extremely easily. Val was her most succesful project and arguably someone close to her and now that they've ran, she would still kill them without a second's thought for betraying her. If you want to be in Temperance's life on her terms, there are two rules: Adore her, and obey her. She tolerates no less, and she will not hesitate to drop you for a more willing toy if you don't have a secondary use for her. There are some rare exceptions, mainly Chal (one of the two OCs in the original evil campaign trio), but baseline? As much as lovebombing is a major facet of her emotional abuse, Temperance only cares about one person and it is herself. Anyone else is simply a means to an end and will be treated as such.

👑 CROWN - what does your oc want to be remembered as? why?

A queen. She is aware that will not happen and has settled for being a shadow queen, pulling her strings behind the scenes and watching everyone who thinks they're in control dance to her tune, but what she wants deep down is for everyone to know. To see her and see power, see influence, see control, see someone who will never ever be disrespected or fucked with.

📎 PAPERCLIP - a random fact.

I get to use a basic fact about her as a random fact cause you don't know her that well yet, score. Temperance is an albino (in her native setting, an albino tiefling), usually with a light pastel pink hair. She is also the reason Val still panics when they see someone with pink hair in a crowd or from a distance.

Tanwen

On a much nicer note! My darling ray of sunshine.

🚆 TRAIN - what is their answer to the trolley problem?

Pixel you are cruel. First answer and the aftermath: Cry, feel immensely guilty, panic, feel more guilty. She would choose to save more people but it would absolutely gut her and she would feel deeply personally responsible. Depending on the exact situation and the aftermath this is something that could break her as a character, or at least ruin her very very badly and take a long time and the right support to recover from In a philosophical classroom context: She honestly wouldn't be able to answer. Would be deeply uncomfortable with having to consider it too, and she would have to be very hard pressed to stop dodging it and actually pick one.

☁️ CLOUD - a soft headcanon

she fucking deserves one after that

As a child she made a lot of bead bracelets and she would gift them to anyone nice. The town she’s from isn’t that big, so at one point almost everyone walked around with a colourful, Tanwen-made bead bracelet.

Keiji

☄️ COMET - what do people assume about them? are they right?

When he’s lucky: Exactly what he wants them to. That he’s annoying, that he’s an idiot, that he’s a little shit and he knows it. That he’s down to fuck, when they’re hot.

Keiji tries very hard to give off an air that he’s untouchable, and he does that by leaning hard into being a bit of an asshole. He likes riling people up, likes getting a rise out of them, loves making fun of people who actually have morals and ideals. So he comes off as all those things, and he comes off as a guy who’s fun to get drunk with but not much else.

If you have an experienced eye you might spot how easily he keeps his balance even when wasted, or how alert he is to exits and entrances and anyone close to him, or how his slight build doesn’t quite hide the lean muscle, but to most folks he looks like nothing more than a small guy with a big attitude and a bigger mouth. He’s very happy to keep it that way right up until he kicks out their kneecaps.

❇️ SPARKLE - what is their most prized possession? what do they value?

okay now, see. i hate you. Keiji doesn’t really have material attachments. He likes stuff, he likes nice things, when he has the time and space to stay in one place for longer he immediately fills his whole bed with pillows. But in terms of a prized possession? There’s one thing that I suppose does count, and that’s from his native DnD verse. It’s an amulet with a symbol of Pelor, the sun god the monastery is devoted to. He claims he still carries it so he can scam believers into giving him free stuff, but a part of him can’t bear to toss it. It holds the weight of a home he loved, once, where he thought he belonged and where he thought he had value, and even though all that is now ruined and broken and he should know better and he should just fucking toss the thing, he can never bring himself to.

Oh! And bonus round for GW2, in the main verse where Tahir is the commander and Keiji is his right hand (and eventually husband): When they were newly dating Tahir gave him one of his own leaves, encased in amber. Keiji wears it as an amulet and was wearing it when he was killed by Balthazar. It came with him into the realm of the Lost, and it is what reminded him of his name and his memories. In the physical world it split down the middle when Balthazar stabbed him, but when he comes back the amulet heals over too, and it now glows a faint blue to match his scar.

In general: Keiji doesn’t really value possessions. He tends to live lives where he can pick up and move at any moment. When he gets attached it’s to people

🌈 RAINBOW - what advice would they give to their younger self?

“Don’t be a fucking idiot. Don’t believe a word they say.”

❤️ RED HEART - their love language(s)?

Words of affirmation and physical touch. The former to receive, the first to give. When Keiji falls he falls hard, but it’s hard for him to show it and harder to say it. It's easier to watch what he does. See where he stands in a room, see how he'll keep finding excuses to totally casually touch the person he likes, how he can't sit on a couch next to them without laying his feet in their lap or how he can't make a joke without looking to them first to see if they laughed.

Receiving physical touch is good for him too, but words are what makes him melt. Tell him what he means to you, tell him you care and he matters and he just fucking dies. It feels surreal and impossible and he can't bring himself to really believe it and that's what makes it all the more powerful to hear. Contrary to that, though, is that the immensity of it also makes him really likely to try and squirrel out of it. Deflecting compliments, sassing to distract attention away from the sweet thing they said, anything he can manage.

When it's deep enough in the relationship he can actually be made to sit down and listen and accept it without running, but that takes time. Before that, it takes some mild force or finagling. Am I talking about literally tying him up and distracting him with sex until he's soft and floaty enough to let his guard down and you can swoop in with the praise? Maybe. It's not an underhanded tactic if it works.

Val

💚 GREEN HEART - what things make your oc feel comforted? hugs, kisses, food?

The best thing you can do for Val is be there. Be close but don't crowd them, don't touch them unless they ask or initiate it, and always leave them an open room to escape. Talk, give them something to listen to and quietly chime in with when they start to feel better. Physical contact sometimes helps, but they'll ask for it if they want it and then it's usually sitting with their shoulder pressed against yours, or resting their head on you.

The one exception re: touch is their dog, Kaylie, who is very good at grounding them when they dissociate or start to. Do they sometimes also hug Kaylie pretending she's the human and wishing they could just be normal and hug the person they care about without feeling trapped? maybe.

If we're talking self-soothing, or things they do for comfort, there's baking. When they were still with Temperance, on very rare days where they had time off and there were ingredients to spare they would make cookies for the younger girls and those are some of the rare actually treasured memories they have. They still like baking cookies, and it's both a ritual and a comfort thing for them and what they tend to when someone they like is going through a tough time and they're not sure what they can do to help. When in doubt, make friend's favourite cookies and gift those.

🎡 FERRIS WHEEL - are they someone who wants to kiss at the top of the ferris wheel?

there may in fact be a fic about that wait shit no it's N that gets the kiss at the top of the ferris wheel and not F. also this means nothing to you because it's Wayhaven related and not gw2 but shhh.

Actual answer: Yes, they'd find it charming and romantic.

🪤 MOUSE TRAP - what will always lure them into certain danger? a loved one in danger? a promise of something they are always searching for?

A loved one in danger, absolutely. They try not to but they can have a bit of a self-sacrificial streak because, well, they can handle pain better than most people and if someone needs to suffer, it is better it's them than the people they love. Children being in danger or being mistreated too, there's no way they can stand by and watch that happen without trying to interfere.

#ocs #asks #temperance #tanwen #keiji #val #did i have other tags for this #ask memes #there it's probably fine #anyway #i complain but this was really fun thank you <33 #and thank you for caring about my fool children #they're my darlings

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innernightinfluencer · 3 days

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MOVIE TITLE: (MULAN)

SETTING- Mulan movie is in ancient China, specifically during the Northern Wei dynasty, from lush forests to vast plains, as Mulan embarks on her journey to save her family and bring honor to her name.

CHARACTERS

1. Mulan: Played by Liu Yifei.

2. Hua Zhou: Played by Tzi Ma.

3. Commander Tung: Played by Donnie Yen.

4. Xian Lang: Played by Gong Li.

5. Chen Honghui: Played by Yoson An.

6. Emperor: Played by Jet Li.

7. The Rouran Leader: Played by Jason Scott Lee.

PLOT - the story follows a young woman named Mulan who disguises herself as a man to join the Imperial Army in place of her ailing father. As China faces an invasion from the Rouran army, Mulan must harness her inner strength and embrace her true potential to protect her family and bring honor to her name. Along the way, she faces challenges both on the battlefield and within herself as she grapples with her identity and learns the importance of courage, loyalty, and selflessness. With the help of her fellow soldiers and her innate abilities, Mulan rises to become a legendary warrior, ultimately saving her country and earning the respect of all who know her true worth.

THEME - Mulan revolve around identity, empowerment, and the importance of family and honor. It explores the idea of staying true to oneself, even in the face of societal expectations and adversity. Mulan's journey is about discovering her own strength and abilities, as well as the courage to embrace her true identity and make sacrifices for the greater good. Additionally, the film highlights the value of family bonds and the pursuit of honor and duty, both to oneself and to others.

PLOT: (MULAN)

EXPOSITION - (Mulan), the audience is introduced to the protagonist, Mulan, as well as her family and the setting of ancient China. We learn about Mulan's close relationship with her father, Hua Zhou, a respected warrior who is struggling with his health. The exposition sets the stage for Mulan's journey, as she grapples with the expectations placed upon her as a woman in a society that values tradition and conformity. It also foreshadows the imminent threat of invasion from the Rouran army, which will ultimately propel Mulan into action to protect her family and bring honor to their name.

RISING ACTION - Mulan disguises herself as a man to take her father's place in the Imperial Army, knowing that he is too frail to survive the rigors of war. She trains rigorously, facing challenges and obstacles as she struggles to conceal her identity while proving herself as a capable soldier. Along the way, Mulan forms bonds with her fellow soldiers, including her ally Chen Honghui, and earns the respect of her commanding officer, Commander Tung. Meanwhile, the threat of invasion from the Rouran army looms ever closer, heightening the tension and urgency of Mulan's mission. As Mulan's skills and confidence grow, she must navigate the complexities of war and confront her own inner conflicts, all while striving to protect her family and country.

CLIMAX - Mulan reveals her true identity as a woman to her fellow soldiers and confronts the primary antagonist, the Rouran leader, in a pivotal battle. Embracing her inner strength and using her exceptional martial arts abilities, Mulan faces off against the Rouran leader in a dramatic showdown that determines the fate of China. This moment represents Mulan's ultimate triumph over adversity and her emergence as a legendary warrior, fulfilling her destiny and bringing honor to herself and her family.

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adrinoir · 2 years

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Petition to stop making Chloe a “bad guy”

I talked about this in my Chloe & Zoe post, but this absolutely deserves its own separate post:

Chloe has been robbed of ANY kind of character development and that is just beyond sad.

I will fucking drive this thing into the ground if I have to, because Chloe deserves so much better.

We already had to witness Chloe being a snooty and demonic brat this season with Sole Crusher and Queen Banana. In Sole Crusher, Chloe was unaccepting of her sister and tried to get her to be more like her; stepping all over people. Then, in Queen Banana, she tries to take over the class’s movie with her own ideas, and be the star of the movie.

Now, the Gabriel Agreste episode really showed a season 1 type of situation between Marinette and Chloe, where she wants to tattle on Marinette for planning on crashing the party in the Agreste household. And then Marinette sneaks in - not for the original intent of getting to Adrien - but to stop Chloe from showing the proof of Marc and Nathaniel’s insane plan from her phone.

I’m just, tired of feeling disappointed in Thomas Trashtruck’s writing. If Chloe was meant to be a snooty, bully from the bet go, then why did he...

1. ...give Chloe a sad backstory, about how her mom neglects her?

2. ...have Chloe understand her mistakes after abusing her Queen Bee powers and wrecking Marinette's present to Miss Bustier?

3. ...have Chloe apologize to Ladybug and to Miss Bustier?

4. ...have Chloe be a party in space of multiple specials in the series, hinting that she's important?

5. …have Chloe be strong enough to fight off the power of an akuma (when only 3 other people in the show have done that)?

Chloe was made to be seen as an important character, but clearly, Asstruck doesn't think so. She doesn't have any character development. She had so much potential to be a really good hero and overall character in the show, but Thomas won't allow it just because he hates Chloe that much. It’s manipulative towards the audience because she was so, so close to having a redemption arc, we were all rooting for her…but then she got reset.

Chloe has a bad relationship with her mother, who forgets her name and makes her feel like she’s not exceptional in any way, shape, or form. She was going to take Marinette with her to NY instead of her own daughter. And then her father is very dismissive and just gets her whatever she wants.

She only has Adrien and Sabrina as friends - everyone else can’t stand her. Sabrina pretty much worships the ground she stands on. And, Adrien is the one person who notices she’s worth something and encourages her to be kinder.

Chloe was proven to be a redeemable character.

All of that also gives good reason as to why she acts the way that she acts. Chloe can’t help how she was raised or the trauma she’s had to deal with. When you’ve been like hell like that, it makes you act and cope a certain way (ie. Adrien acting closed off normally but acting over the top as Chat Noir).

At some point in season 3, Chloe went right back to how she was in season 1. Bratty, snobbish, and whiny. And in season 4, they made her even WORSE and then, on top of that, threw in a REPLACEMENT - a half-sister whose personality outshines Chloe’s.

Additionally, there’s also the double standard that she couldn’t get her miraculous back in season 3, because everyone knew Chloe was Queen Bee. Yet, here in season 4, everyone got their miraculous even though Hawk Moth knows all their identities. How the fuck is that fair? It’s also SO dangerous.

Also, mind you, Chloe loved Ladybug. She would’ve done anything for her. She was the first to fight off the power of an akuma because of how much she cared about her (which sadly SO many people forget about). And you know what? Chloe getting akumatized into Miracle Queen could’ve been avoided if Ladybug had just talked to her and/or allowed her to have her miraculous back. But Marinette just can’t respect Chloe at all, no, no, no.

Also, being the star of two different two-part specials would’ve been the perfect opportunity for Chloe to have a big redemption arc. But nope. So, what was even the point of having her being the main focus of them if she’s not going to change?

I’m mad all of this was done and Thomas should’ve gotten booted off the writing team. But that man is still there, to me and most of the fandom’s distaste.

*If you want, these are some really great video essays from Cyrus the Great on Youtube, about Chloe and Zoe: Chloe pt.1 , Chloe pt.2, and Zoe

#miraculous ladybug #tales of ladybug and cat noir #miraculers #chloe bourgeois #ml chloe #ml gabriel agreste #ml season 4 spoilers #ml season 4 #miraculous

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primrose-path-of-dalliance · 3 years

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jester began falling in love with caleb in episode 103.

not any earlier in my opinion, and not later, either.

there's two elements to why i believe e103 is the turning point.

(1) the first is caleb's actions and jester's responses to them during the night they all sleep by the waterfall—his support of her idea to sleep underwater, his conversation with her after her commune with artagan, and his casting of programmed illusion in the dome.

(2) the second is the way her behavior toward caleb pivots around e103. before e103 is a noticeably different beast to how she begins to treat him after e103—the attention she pays him, her efforts to hold more standout interactions with him, and a dramatic swell of emotion and thematic meaning in these scenes’ respective subtext.

the rumblecusp arc is the point in which jester’s character growth, and caleb’s efforts to unconditionally support her, really begin to shine. throughout the complex growing pains that jester and artagan's relationship was experiencing, the one person who truly takes a moment to offer her support without any agenda or judgment is caleb.

(e103, 1:22:55, bold mine)

CALEB: You okay over there?

JESTER: (tearful) Yeah, I'm fine. Just—I'm just drawing.

CALEB: Maybe didn't go as well as you were hoping?

JESTER: Um... In some ways it went better. But no.

CALEB: I can't speak for him. But you do have us.

JESTER: I know.

CALEB: So whatever you land on, Jester, we'll make it happen.

JESTER: (shaky laugh) I have to figure out what I want to land on.

CALEB: That is the, uh—sticky wicket, isn't it?

JESTER: Yeah. Everything's confusing.

CALEB: Maybe... Maybe we sleep on it, it'll make more sense in the morning.

JESTER: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Caleb.

CALEB: I didn't do anything.

jester confesses that her commune with artagan didn’t provide the answers she was hoping for—that he knew about the curse on the island—and caleb doesn’t remark on what that seems like. he deliberately avoids speculating on why artagan is doing these things because “he can’t speak for him.” he doesn’t assume anything about what she might choose to do and explicitly leaves that choice up to her. jester vents briefly about how difficult the choice is, and caleb offers her reassurance, a reminder that some time will make things clearer. he doesn’t suggest solutions.

unlike fjord or beau, caleb doesn’t ask her to voice outright whether artagan is being a good friend. he doesn’t continually question his character and imply any personal opinions to her or what he thinks she should do. instead, he asks whether she’s okay. he listens. and he offers unconditional support.

this is consistently the stance caleb takes in the rumblecusp arc. and it’s not discussed much, i think, exactly how monumental that was to jester.

(hold on, this is a long one.)

jester is a young woman who grew up sheltered and wants to define herself outside of that shelter. for her, this campaign has essentially been a coming-of-age journey (talks for e76-77, 14:12). she is deeply sensitive to whether or not she’s respected because she’s aware of how her personality and general lack of experience makes others think she’s naive, immature, or incapable (talks for e79, 31:51).

it’s also incredibly evident that her relationship with artagan is unique. in e105 (1:15:01), jester tells the m9, “he really got me through a lot when i was younger, you know? and he was all i had, really.” he was her best friend from childhood in a home where she spent most of her time hidden in a single room. when she was younger, the few times she left the chateau, she was bullied by other girls (e110, 3:34:59). her best friend, though? her best friend was a god. a god with an incredible sense of humor, an aggrandizing attitude, and adoring respect for a young girl in a difficult situation who had as wonderful a personality as him. in every way that matters, artagan’s friendship undoubtedly saved jester’s life.

and she is so, so aware of this. she cares for him deeply, trusts him unconditionally, and is determined to be there for the one person who had been there for her when no one else was, not even her mother.

the renegotiation of this friendship after artagan revealed his full identity was clearly extraordinarily difficult for jester. she was having to reevaluate her entire relationship with the being that pulled her through a childhood of isolation and misery, question his intentions with her and whether they could even remain friends at all. and this was amidst her arrival at a dangerous island with her other friends to help him clean up his mistakes.

asking her to make a judgment on artagan before she’s ready to do it on her own, while managing some high expectations at the same time—not only is it a lot of pressure, it’s frustrating and painful. jester did not want to judge artagan without giving him his fair due and a proper conversation. knowing that her new friends dislike her old friend, besides being hurt by it, distracted her. she had to both defend him outwardly and interrogate him internally. and if she tried to explain how important artagan is to her, a lot of vulnerability would’ve been necessary when she was trying to be a leader and seem competent and capable, instead of a child who needs patronizing guidance.

this latter point is exceptional. because jester lavorre is so vulnerable when it comes to how much she thinks her loved ones respect her and consider her a valuable, equal, and trustworthy individual. and it’s difficult to feel like you’re being valued and trusted when people are repeatedly questioning you about a person and a relationship that they don’t understand in a way that, despite genuine concern, comes across as them doubting your own judgment of one of the most intimate parts of your life.

in this precise moment in e103, caleb is the only person who acknowledges—to her in person, even—that he doesn't have any place in judging her relationship with artagan. that it’s not what she needs from him or anyone else. that he’s content waiting for her to reach a decision. that he will respect that decision.

and jester can believe him. caleb’s done nothing but remain consistent on this stance. he repeatedly supports her choices to run travelercon, trust artagan, and come to his aid.

when other party members question artagan's legitimacy, caleb is the one who almost always speaks up to support jester (some examples: e61, 30:43 / e77, 49:17 / e95, 1:09:17 and 1:15:24).

he actively and enthusiastically offers his magical talents to her to provide for the event preparations. he has a whole conversation with her in e91 (beginning 1:53:41) where he expresses his immense respect for her and her personality, explicitly validates her faith in artagan, and shows her a tangible example of how he wants to help her during the upcoming travelercon. when she suggests some ideas, despite their arguable silliness, caleb takes them at face value and openly admits his lack of expertise in this area (e91, 1:58:35).

when they first arrive at rumblecusp, he directly reassures jester about the ‘travelercon 3000’ banner she leaves on the wrong beach by mentioning that he can make her a new banner (e101, 48:18). once preparations begin in earnest, caleb expends spells very freely, including ones of higher-level, to produce whatever jester requests.

in e103, he hears out her idea of sleeping underwater and gives it equal consideration in spite of other party members trying to shoot it down. the first time she suggests it (36:23), caduceus comments against it and no other party member acknowledges her except for caleb, who agrees with her quietly while the others move on. the second time jester suggests it (46:08), veth comments against it and caleb steps in to openly agree that it’s a good idea, even after fjord and beau join veth in being dubious.

compare these active, consistent moments of support and validation from caleb to similarly active and consistent examples of the other attitudes that manifest during the rumblecusp arc, in contradiction to people’s apparent claims of trust (one such claim of trust: e95, 1:00:21).

plainly insulting artagan to jester as if it’s a given, such as fjord’s “he’s generally full of shit, right?” (e107, 49:42);

fjord, beau, and caduceus’s conversation about “not ruining jester’s big day,” yet distrusting artagan to the extent of planning to keep her from being alone with him, preparing to attack him should he try to sacrifice 200 people for some speculated unknown ritual and/or hurt jester, and discussing all of this behind jester’s back (e108, beginning 15:41);

caduceus’s said shift to distrust of artagan because of a semi-disturbing conversation that jester was equally a part of (e107, beginning 20:40);

and the discussion right before jester’s commune with artagan where beau questions if artagan sent them to rumblecusp knowing of the memory problems, without regard for their well-being (e103, 29:40).

the unfortunate assumption being made by these party members’ repeated questioning and protectiveness of jester is that she cannot be trusted to have good judgment. despite their familiarity with some of the context of her relationship with artagan (especially after e105), they disregard her repeatedly-expressed support of him. they indirectly disrespect her ability to judge for herself whether someone is dangerous to her or her friends. they don’t acknowledge jester’s own role in creating dubious situations and instead direct all their negative feelings and sense of fault to artagan, minimizing her agency.

the e108 conversation is a dense microcosm of how the party perpetrates these assumptions throughout the rumblecusp arc as a whole. without qualm, they discuss deliberately controlling jester’s time with artagan to ‘protect’ her and their willingness to kill the evil image they’ve constructed of him, and dodge jester directly asking them what they’re talking about—even though it is a known given that the m9 would defend her with their lives with or without any prior discussion. the purpose of holding this conversation isn’t to make sure that jester is safe. like caduceus near-explicitly says, it’s to “feel better knowing” that “anybody else was on board with this” (20:26 and 18:57)—to validate their unacknowledged distrust of jester’s judgment with each other, behind her back.

and as laura has said: jester, with her very high wisdom, tends to know what’s going on even if she acts like she doesn’t (talks for e79, 32:39).

in e103, when jester is crying because she’s found out that artagan did know about the island’s memory problems, caleb doesn’t show any sign of taking this as proof of artagan's ill intent. what he does instead: he offers compassion for her pain with zero judgment. he promises to support her, no matter what she ultimately decides to make of this information. these are offers of safety and trust, ones that jester desperately needed.

then—caleb creates a programmed illusion of the m9’s lives. and it’s beautiful.

in comparison to all the analysis prior, this moment is straightforward. jester is an artist. she paints, draws, and creates, and she loves doing it. moreover, she loves making art for other people. though she doesn’t get many chances to do so, the mural of a flowery meadow that she paints for yasha’s room in the xhorhaus is a perfect example. similarly, she enjoys the art she makes when defacing other people’s property—altered signage or statue of the platinum dragon painted in rainbow—in part because they’re gifts to the traveler. she loves making those she loves happy.

happiness and love to jester is overwhelmingly about emotional intimacy. i’ve talked about this to some degree in a previous post about jester’s jealousy. please refer there for in-depth explanation. in brief, though, she puts value on how deeply she knows a person; how often she’s been able to be there for them. this is the love she learned from her mother and from artagan, and how she continues to love once she’s older.

caleb’s arcane rendition of the m9′s lives floating around the inside of the dome is a display of exactly this kind of love. not only is it art crafted from his magic and imagination and love—it’s blatant evidence of how much he cares for every member of the party and where they’ve come from. he remembers their stories and hangs them in the air in hopes that it’ll help them resist the memory erasing. he moves the memory of yasha and zuala in a meadow over to yasha’s pillow-side so she can watch it until she falls asleep. he creates a memory for vilya of her, her husband, and her daughter, listening to and respecting the emotional gravity of what she’s confiding in them.

only a few minutes after jester’s disappointing commune with artagan and her conversation with caleb, she walks into the dome and sees this art. she laughs and stares in wonder at all the memories (e103, 1:46:08). when beau points out the humorous memories of fjord being attacked by turtles so they can all laugh, she tells caleb with equal awe and joy, “wow. this is amazing, caleb” (e103, 1:47:04).

...of course, as lovely and meaningful as these back-to-back moments were for jester, it's not quite evidence of her starting to fall in love with caleb around this time.

that’s where the following episodes come in.

[id: three screenshots of messages sent in a discord channel by the user “prim” (the op). all are timestamped to friday, august 28, 2020, the day after the live premiere of e107. the first has an additional timestamp of 12:53 PM, the second 1:03 PM, and the third 1:30 PM. they read:

honest to god though i don't know if it's just the shipper brain that is making me think laura is trying to roleplay jester beginning to reciprocate caleb's feelings [...]

like........ the golden dick hunt teasing is definitely on par with jester's past shenanigans, but the compliments have been Catching My Attention bc it's honestly not normal for jester to compliment caleb of her own volition like that, just as a one-on-one "i appreciate you" reassurance

and i'm thinking less about the spells from last night's episode (although how much jester was emphasizing the compliments made me go "awwwww") and more of the moments like jester telling caleb "that was impressive" after getting cad out of the tunnel with beau's help

but laura is absolutely a shipping troll with jester this campaign so i'm here like "I'M MAYBE 80% SURE I'M BEING FUCKED WITH BUT IT MAYBE HOLDS UP????" [...]

basically laura keeps doing things that make the alarm in my brain go off and i don't know if i'm picking up something legit or if i'm projecting my hopes, like the recent pattern of compliments from jester LOL

/end id.]

i’m not going to lie, if i try to list every single receipt like i otherwise prefer to do in these metas, i think we (and especially i) would all lose our minds. so while i’m about to provide a lot of citations, they genuinely are just a few possible examples that will mostly be within the dozen episodes after e103.

the more important detail that can be observed from this is that e103 is a turning point.

prior to e103, jester does not particularly go out of her way to interact with caleb. by and large, most of their direct interactions are either initiated by caleb or prompted by the context of a general party conversation. the majority of other moments that could be referred to as ‘widojest’ are of caleb’s evident feelings. beyond early campaign days, jester rarely teases caleb about sexual topics while insinuating things about her own sexual life at the same time.

after e103, laura and jester begin to go out of their way to interact with and intertwine jester’s time with caleb.

the rate of jester’s compliments and enthusiastic gratitude to caleb skyrocket (some examples: e104, 30:36 / e107, 16:49 and 1:11:28 and 1:12:15 and 3:10:39 / e110, 15:58 and 3:37:24 / e111, 36:15 and 38:41 and 50:58);

several mature jokes/flirtations she makes involve both caleb and herself (examples: e107, 1:16:17 / e110, 1:18:07 / e115, 1:52:53);

she deliberately and specifically engages caleb in full-blown interactions, such as the conversations during the tour of her childhood bedroom (e110, beginning 1:11:38), hanging out with him on the icebreaker ship (e112, beginning 3:45:29), and the reading of der katzenprinz (e115, beginning 1:52:43);

as well as the expansion of more extended ‘conversations’ like their motif of dancing (e108, 13:39 / e109, 2:54:14), their parental relationships (e110, 20:44 and 3:38:41 / e115′s der katzenprinz / e121, beginning 1:52:12), and polymorph shenanigans (examples: e107, beginning 2:58:41 / e117, beginning 1:13:55 / e118, 43:57).

thrown in are additional background details that further tie jester to caleb, such as her determination to recover caleb’s amulet after their defeat of vokodo (e106, 25:33), the knowing comments on his purchasing of paper (e109, 22:32 / e111, 1:25:49), her deliberate choice to ride whaleb during the avantika chase (e113, 2:32:28), her retrieval of caleb’s coat when he’s attempting to remove the necromantic emerald (e115, 1:30:56), and her deliberate reference to der katzenprinz to iver (e120, 3:05:14);

and simply everything about the tower. it’s another example of the art and creativity caleb produces with his magic to make his loved ones happy, which jester acknowledges at least twice (refer to the e111 compliments). contrarily, jester also makes note of the signs that this tower shows less love to caleb than she thinks he deserves, in keeping with her value of emotional intimacy (e115’s der katzenprinz / e122’s floor 8, room 1).

the reading of der katzenprinz in e115 is arguably the pinnacle of these examples. it’s intentionally initiated by jester. she both takes the step to visit caleb's room and indirectly requests him to read the story to her. laura’s implication that she remembered this subplot because of beau’s reading of a very romantic letter from yasha is particularly suggestive. the story itself incorporates many similar characters and themes that are present in jester’s backstory: the lonely, sheltered boy and his single working mom as jester and marion; the dubious cat prince who ultimately gives the boy freedom and confidence as artagan; and the deep love between the boy and his mother because of how they only have each other, which compels a powerful being to have compassion and thus set the boy free so that they can be together. very similar to both jester’s depth of relationship with her mother and her pleas on artagan’s behalf to the moonweaver’s celestial servant.

and the post-story conversation��caleb’s confiding of its importance to him because of his mother. jester’s open willingness to compare the cat prince to artagan, knowing that caleb respects their friendship and has treated artagan fairly. jester’s lingering, repeated looks toward caleb while smiling and holding her copy of der katzenprinz to her heart.

with all this dramatic expansion of the emotional and thematic intimacy between jester and caleb beginning to roll down the hill after e103—in brilliant contrast to their more muted, less reciprocal dynamic before this episode—e103 is more than likely the turning point of jester’s feelings. and based on the events and context, it was caused by the combined emotional appeal of caleb’s offer of unconditional support and his display of love for his family in the programmed illusion of memories.

#cr #critical role #cr meta #widojest #jester lavorre #caleb widogast #by popular demand #inb4 the wrap-up #prim post #prim says some things #readmore #long post

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maggiecheungs · 2 years

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Is the shipper worth watching? I've seen you praise it quite a lot and wanted to know your take on it

hi nonny! many apologies for the late response xx

my general feelings about the shipper can be summarised as: aaaaaaaggghhhh the shipper was such a good show i’m so mad it had so many problematic elements that (understandably) keep people away from it. also, it absolutely fascinates me from a storytelling point of view (my original answer to this turned into a a several-thousand-word essay about why the shipper is actually a piece of metafictional genius, but that took me so far from what you're asking that i started again 😅).

so anyway, here's a list of things I like about the shipper, with a big disclaimer that 1) it's been over a year since i watched it so i might have forgotten some things and b) it isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea (and that's okay!). i'll just summarise the stuff i liked, since you can find enough negative reviews of the shipper in other places if you want to, and i'll try to keep this spoiler free in case you decide to watch <3

THINGS I LIKED ABOUT THE SHIPPER:

1) Four (4) of the seven main characters are female, which is UNHEARD of for a gmmtv show (particularly one with bl themes lmao). imo, the female characters (particularly the human ones) are all really well developed and I would die for all of them.

2) The cast is incredible. It used mostly newer and less experienced young actors (with the exception of Ohm, Jennie and First) and it really allowed them to showcase their skills. Also it gave some of the younger gmmtv actresses a chance to have roles that weren't just sidepieces or jealous girlfriends

3) The characters: I love all the characters so much. The shipper is essentially a character-driven show, and they're all fleshed out so well. They initially appear to be fairly stereotypical figures (the smart and hardworking one, his popular jock love interest, the bl fangirls, the evil jealous girlfriend) but they are SO MUCH MORE than that. In fact, that's the whole point of the show--picking apart these narrative archetypes and humanising these characters. Plus, all the characters are genuinely so precious and by the end I was ready to die for pretty much all of them <33

4) The plot and pacing is really good. There were plot twists every other episode, I could never predict what was coming next, and that ending threw me completely. it also straddled the line between multiple genres--fantasy, slice-of-life, romance, mystery, comedy--in a way that felt incredibly fun and fresh.

5) It's funny! In a way that is so delightful and refreshing. It's so fantastically self-aware, and it pokes fun at itself wonderfully--but it's always such gentle humour. It's never cruel or at the expense of any of the characters.

6) The ships! All of the character dynamics are fantastic, all the actors and characters had amazing chemistry, and none of us had any idea who was going to be endgame till the end. (Again, the narrative is very self-aware in this respect.)

7) The relationships (non-romantic): the shipper spends just as much time on friendships and familial relationships as it does on ships. i really liked the way friendship was explored as an important but complicated and difficult part of adolescent identity

8) Its handling of heavier topics, like death, grief, and the complete emotional wreckage of adolescence. It does largely maintain a lighthearted tone throughout, but possibly for that reason I found the times when it did to be startlingly touching and profound.

Some extra thoughts:

- Don't go into it thinking it's a bl. It's not a bl; it contains mlm characters and relationships but it is not primarily a boys' love romance. That's not the story it's trying to tell and if you judge it by those standards then the narrative beats come out looking all wrong. It's a series about a group of teenagers struggling to figure out who they are when their identities are overshadowed by the expectations and narratives projected onto them. Queer romance and identity is a big part of that, but it's not the only thing the series focuses on.

- Not going to go into this too much, but to me, the shipper is an absolutely fascinating exercise in storytelling and narrative, and it only really works if you don’t take it at face value. it's a lot deeper than it seems at first--it's super self-aware and uses its premise to really interrogate lots of harmful bl tropes, and the whole POINT of the series is that appearances lie. All the time. And this is a lesson taught not only to the characters, but to the audience as well. I also find it interesting how the show itself almost never explcitly condemns any of the characters or their actions. The characters do! The audience does! But the show itself deliberately maintains a sort of moral neutrality, and a very purposeful compassion towards all its characters, that is absolutely fascinating, and i'm not sure i've ever seen it anyway else in quite the same way. And i think it's brilliant because it means you can't be a passive audience. The show does things that force the viewer to undertake the same journey that Pan (the main character) does: to decide where they place the line between fiction and reality, what they are okay with. There are bits that are supposed to make you uncomfortable, or go 'wtf'. But depiction isn't necessarily glorification, and it's up to the viewer to decide how to interpret what they see

So, would I recommend the shipper? My answer is: yes, but if you start it and really don't vibe with it, or if you come across bits that make you legitimately uncomfortable, then it might just not be for you and that's okay!

#anonymous #ask response #the shipper #hope this answered your question sjdgfdkj #honestly i love this show sm and i'm never quite sure if i'm romanticising it in my memory or reading too much into it lmao #but honestly i stand by what i said #and it might be a somewhat infamous show but the people who love it really do love it <3 #and honestly i'd say it's worth it just to see the fantastic performances by the cast #also i had to check if one of my friends sent this as a joke bc i would Not Be Surprised

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