#(and from what I've seen - most people do! there's a reason why he became popular. and most ppl ARE normal)

[daz4i]

why can't ppl be normal abt kids having fun on the internet. like. a kid goes mildly viral bc they upload genuinely funny content and immediately a bunch of actual adults have to start making fun of how they look or sound or w/e. man if you're so bothered by their videos keep scrolling?? 😭😭😭

[rileyglas]

Hello! Can I request Alastor x Fem!Trust Issues!Reader? I've seen quite a few fanfictions and requests where Readers were wary of Alastor, but strangely quickly began to trust him. Therefore, it seemed to me that it would be funny to see a Reader who is so distrustful of people in principle that with Alastor’s reputation this distrust reaches the point of absurdity. And when Alastor really sincerely wants to gain the Reader's trust (romantically or platonically, it doesn't matter), then it becomes a really difficult task. For example, he offers help with some little thing and the Reader immediately “what do you want from me.” Or when Alastor brings the Reader tea/coffee, she waits for him to drink first (she would probably insist that he pour it from the same ?teapot?). The other residents of the Hotel find this hilarious.

This is such a fun prompt, especially under the assumption Alastor loves nothing more than a good chase during a hunt. 😉

Like Glass (Alastor x Fem!TrustIssues!Reader)

Four months. That’s how long it took for you to finally take Charlie up on her offer of the possibility of redemption. The chance to get to Heaven seemed like a pipe dream but after a few very long talks and persuasions, you now held a key to your own room in the hotel. 

You try to keep to yourself and most seem to respect that. You’re left alone unless something is needed for one of Charlie’s exercises. You even specifically requested that Nifty didn’t bother coming to your room to clean. The less people in your space the better. 

Charlie has such a big heart but that leads to her choosing to trust even the most despicable characters. She has even trusted and allowed the Radio Demon to live under the same roof. You’ve heard all the stories, all the theories of why he was really there under the ruse of “helping” her. You didn’t buy it one bit. 

Just the other day you were trying to hang some banners the crew had made during an activity. Your ladder was rickety but unfortunately it was the only way to reach the beams. Pained grunts filled the room from you trying to stand on your tiptoes while maintaining some sense of balance. “Allow me to help, dear. Would hate to see you fall.” A staticky voice called from below you. “No thank you - I….am almost…done - shit!” the ladder shifted and almost threw you off. Alastor stabilized it with ease. “See, it is a good thing I’m here!” he yelled smugly. At this point you would rather fall than allow him to hold your life in his hands. “You’re a busy man Alastor. Hey Husk? Mind helping -”

“Nope, looks like Al has it covered.” he teased from behind the bar, relishing in your uneasy tone. You shot daggers, both angry and begging for the cat to just help you instead of Alastor. You made the last tie in the banner and swiftly came down to more solid ground. “Thanks I guess. I had it though.” you said through gritted teeth, avoiding making eye contact and rushing out of the room. Had you looked back you would have seen Husk laughing at how irate Alastor suddenly became.

Now tonight, Nifty was kind enough to serve everyone one of her more popular dinners. It was a simple dish yet as usual, you waited for everyone to nearly clear their plates before digging into it yourself. You might have been starving but you could never be too careful. We are all in Hell for a reason. Could anyone be truly trusted?

“My dear, dig in! Before it gets cold!” Alastor’s voice chirped from across the table. You glare at the toothy grinned demon, “I just like to ensure everyone is enjoying before digging in myself. Appreciate the concern though.” You try to seem pleasant but your voice always seems to drip with disdain when speaking to him, “Why are you so worried? Did you help in preparing the meal?” 

He chuckles, “I try to keep out of the kitchen when Nifty cooks but she did require a few extra hands -” You involuntarily choke and spit out the bite you had just taken. Angel and Husk also choke though it’s to hold back laughter. You sneer at their amusement. Alastor’s face twists with confusion, “Is everything alright?” “Oh uhm I’m suddenly not that hungry. Must be coming down with something. Excuse me.” You excuse yourself from the table and make your way to the library. Reading was always something that could busy your mind and right now you needed a distraction from both your growling stomach and Alastor’s attempt to help once again. He’d been making an uncomfortable effort to help you in any way he could and in your mind, that could only mean he wanted something from you.

Not many residents used the hotel library which was great for you. But of course, there was always someone who enjoyed breaking your solitude. The sound of footsteps pulls your eyes off your current page, “What do I owe the visit?” you snap over your book. 

Alastor strides over with a serving tray carrying a tea set. “Well I saw just how horrible you looked at dinner and figured some peppermint tea might help whatever ailment you’re suffering from.” He sets the tray on the table in front of you but you don’t move a muscle. “Since when do you care if someone isn’t feeling well?” you cock an eyebrow at him. 

He hums as he pours two cups of tea, taking one for himself and offering you the other, “What? Can I not offer a fellow resident a nice cup of tea?” “Nope. What do you want?” you continue to stare at the cup in his hand. His eye twitches, trying to hold back his annoyance, “Why do you insist on rejecting any of my pleasantries?”

You slam your book closed, “You’re wondering why I do not want help of any sort from one of Hell’s most vile Overlords?” He sets down your cup and sits across from you. You didn’t want company but it's too late now. “Ms. Morningstar trusts me with ensuring the safety of this hotel yet you cannot even take a cup of tea you’ve watched me both pour and drink myself. Other than what stories you’ve heard, what have I done to you to make you so cold towards me?” His eyes burn into you, eager for an answer. Although with his tone, you could only assume he knew exactly why you didn’t trust him. 

You sigh as you pick up the cup he offered. You swirl it in an attempt to examine if it looks or smells odd before hesitantly taking a small sip for yourself. “Have you ever been betrayed Alastor? By a friend? By someone you loved? Because I have. It’s how I died and how I ended up here.” 

His smile falters slightly, corners curving down before returning to their usual wide grin, “Trust is like glass, once broken it isn’t easy to fix nor will ever be the same. I admire how guarded you try to be.”

You scoff, “If it is so admirable then why bother trying so hard to earn my trust? Unless it just kills your ego that someone can see you for who you truly are -” The cup he holds suddenly shatters under his tightening grip, “Watch your tone, dear. I’ve been nothing but amicable with you. I expect the same in return.” his voice drops with static filling the air. You can’t help but smirk at how quickly you’ve managed to get under his skin. “Ooooh so it is an ego thing? Duly noted.” you bite and finish off your cup. As you stand you see Alastor’s eyes shift to black dials, his mind clearly spiraling. On your way to the door you brush a teasing hand across his shoulder, “Tea was wonderful by the way. I’m feeling better already!” Your coy laughter echoes through the library as you leave but the sounds of Alastor’s demon form drown it out. He snarls over his shoulder to you, “Don’t act so smug darling. I’ll get you to trust me one day.”

“Good luck!” You chirp walking out the door, unaware of the challenge you just put into place for the Radio Demon.  He was going to have you one way or another. It was only a matter of time and patience, two things he had plenty of when it came to getting what he wanted. You.

[baejax-the-great]

Absolutely reeling.

So I knew that the origin of "Hector was a great man, moral, noble, better than all of the Greeks" began as Roman propaganda that somehow has made it to now, the year 2023, and is still taught to high school students.

What I did not know was why scholars shit on Achilles as vehemently as they did (and still do).

My copy of Fagles' translation of the Iliad has a preface by a different scholar who I'm not going to bother to name because he's an idiot (and idk probably dead at this point). I read the entire thing, absolutely baffled, because he would cite a part of the text (that I admittedly had not read yet! at all!), quote it, and then come to the most batshit interpretation based on that quote I had ever seen in my life. His general take was that Achilles was a sociopath who had no feelings for anyone other than himself and his own pride, and every action he took (until welcoming Priam into his hut) was done in service of that pride. To support this, he decided that Achilles did not see Patroclus as a person, but rather as an extension of himself, and thus someone injuring Patroclus was them injuring Achilles, and so he did not care about Patroclus, he only cared about his wounded pride.

Yeah.

That sounded wrong before reading the book, and while reading the book all i could think was, "Did we read the same fucking thing???" Put in context, those quotations still did not support his conclusions whatsoever.

But i cracked open Caroline Alexander's "The War That Killed Achilles" last night, and she solves this mystery of "Hector good, Achilles bad" for me right out the gate (which is good because so far I've only read the preface).

Western Europeans by and large learned about the Trojan war from Roman stories, which became fairly popular, and not the Iliad, which was not translated into French or English until centuries later. As mentioned, these were propaganda that cast the Trojans in a much better light than the Greeks because the Romans believed they were descended from Trojan refugees. This starts a trend that is still going on in scholarly circles as casting the Iliad as a war between "barbaric Greeks living in a shitty, lawless camp" vs "civilized, educated, weaving, real-wife-having Trojans," making the Iliad a tragedy in which Homer for some reason skewers his own people and their warlike culture as barbaric while propping up a dead, foreign city-state. This interpretation is still extant and was the postscript to another copy of the Iliad I have.

According to Alexander, scholars closer to Homer's time saw the entire war as a tragedy--both the destruction of Troy AND the destruction of the Greek army. While this is not covered in the Iliad, very few Greeks actually made it home after Troy. Some that did were then outcast (Teucer for example), some were murdered (bye, Agamemnon), some went on to create new kingdoms in other places (Diomedes), but by and large, there was no going home from that war. There was no great victory with all their loot. The entire thing was a disaster for both sides, spurred on by fickle gods.

Back to the more recent European interpretations of this story, one reason Hector ended up cast in such a "good" light, despite being a dumbass who wants to dishonor dead people just as badly as Achilles ever did, was in order to make Achilles look worse. Why was it important that Achilles becomes a villain in this story in which he is very much not a villain? Because Europeans were involved in so much war with each other and the rest of the world that a young, insubordinate man who criticizes his idiot of a commander, decides his life isn't worth throwing away for this war, and refuses to fight to sack a city was an affront to their values. Young men were to be obedient, follow their commanding officers, and colonize the world for queen and country. Achilles suggesting losing his life is not worth it to prop up Agamemnon's war is a dangerous precedent for all the good little soldiers needed to make their nations wealthy.

It's almost funny that these analyses propping up Troy as a beacon of civilization were made by people living in countries so bent on colonizing the world. They identified with the city being sacked and not the greedy sackers of said city, who they were much closer to. And Achilles, educated, morally rigid, emotional Achilles, is recast as a sociopathic asshole who doesn't care about anyone other than himself, unlike all of those other beacons of selflessness among the Greek leadership.

The tragedy of the Iliad is that Achilles is right, the war is pointless, Agamemnon did dishonor the shit out of him, and it doesn't matter because he's going to die in it anyway.

Frankly, given how badly his character has been interpreted for so long, I think the muses owe him an apology.

[luvtonique]

I wanna tell a little story. Just a little one. [Edit after typing: Yeah I ranted for a while. Oh well.]

I grew up with a dad who was extremely racist, extremely homophobic, and extremely abusive. Used to beat me and my brothers for 20+ years of my life, left us all with mental disorders and trust issues, you name it.

One such story of his homophobia and beatings is that my brother had a boyfriend at one point, and my dad hit him with a belt and screamed at him until he agreed to break up with said boyfriend, which he did.

Now cut ahead 20 years, my dad met an openly gay celebrity online and became friends with him. All the sudden, my dad was Mr. LGBT Pride. He was a writer, and suddenly started writing a book about a gay cowboy called Buck Justice. He would rent movies with gay actors in it, or gay themes, and was suddenly super pro gay.

It just left all of us disgusted, my brothers and my mom. We knew this man, but people on Facebook didn't. He had this huge friend group all the sudden of people calling him "Dad" and "Big Bob" and shit (When in reality, my dad called himself N*gger Bob and even had that written on the whiteboard next to his phone number), and he kept telling us all these stories and laughing and having a good time about how "Cool gay people are."

You see, it left a poor fucking taste in our mouth.

Because we had personally seen how horrible this man was. He beat us. He beat my bisexual brother. He was a fucking monster, but now that he was in some clique with a big popular movie star friend, he was suddenly this shining beacon of gay pride.

That's what bothers me when I see people on the internet acting the same way. I see the disingenuous nature of their actions. I see the popular people they're brown-nosing, I see the big popular bloggers and streamers they're trying to be friends with who are spouting the same bullshit.

And the reason it bothers me is because I know who these people are. I go back in their blogs like 1 month and find death threats, calls for violence, mental instability, extreme rage.

I go to their YouTube channels and find videos of them watching rats die on glue traps.

I get invited into their Discord servers and scroll back through the history of them talking with their friends and see just mountains of hate posting, calling for violence, wishing people would be killed, celebrating the death of people they hate.

That's why I don't do that shit. And why I don't tend to hang out with people who do. Because I know those people aren't really respectful people. I know they don't truly want equality.

I know the truth. From 20 years of belt marks on my back.

I know y'all are fucking disgusting people who are just pretending to be respectful advocates for equality and peace because the big celebrities and vloggers and streamers you wanna be friends with are saying the same shit.

You people aren't real. You are NPCs spouting NPC dialogue in hopes of getting some pseudo social credit score with big e-celebs while all it takes is 10 seconds of scrolling through your blog to find out you are the most disgusting, violent and unhinged person on the internet.

Case in point, y'ever seen a cat owner before?

Tell a cat owner you don't like cats.

Watch what happens.

It's been 9 years since I made a post saying I don't like cats and I still get those fucking psycho pieces of shit sending me extremely descriptive anon asks about how they want my throat to be ripped out by a dog in my sleep. That's who these people really are.

All it takes is one thing that sets them off and they go from your 11-year-running best friend of all time to a person who sends you multiple paragraphs of descriptive ways they hope you die.

I've learned from experience with my dad.

Y'all want equality? Just treat people with respect no matter what. Don't act like there's versions of people or groups of people who deserve more or less respect, because guess what, THAT'S CALLED PREJUDICE YOU FUCKING DIPSHIT.

If you have to say "I am LGBT friendly"

You clearly have something to hide (which I guarantee is like 10 posts down in your blog and is horrifically violent and descriptive) and you are the last person I would expect to actually be LGBT friendly, or any kind of friendly.

[theotherseapancakes]

Psssst. You mentioned no one cares about Philemon, but now I'm curious if you have any thoughts about his role in the games after he disappeared. And for sillies sake, does he have anything to do with the Dance games?

I have been waiting my entire life for this. Anon do you realize how verbose I'm going to get. DO YOU REALIZE? I hope you like read mores. Let me preface this with I am aware and have seen some popular theories, so I'm going to sidestep a lot of them and present one I've built since... well, I became a Persona fan as a teenager. MAJOR PERSONA SERIES SPOILERS LIKE THE ENTIRE THING OK? OK. yes even royal.

The P2 PSP additional scenario is so incredibly important and I think everyone missed the point of it. THE PERSONA 2 PSP ADDITIONAL TATSUYA SCENARIO!!!! It's beyond important, because it reveals to us Philemon can have more than one Avatar we know about, just like Nyarly. (Casual reminder he's like half the shopkeeps in P2. Time Count, anyone? Why was the Time Count so hot. Anyway.) Disclaimer: I'm just a casual fan who has played a LOT of Persona and SMT. I haven't gotten around to all of them, but I've played/finished both paths of 1, 2, 3 (and p3p) as well as 4 and 5. Didn't manage to get my hands on Golden but I've seen enough of it. (It's funny you ask about the dance games, they're the only ones I don't have right now! But my roommate does, and will be gone for a few months soon, perhaps I will take the time to start with p4DAN. I'm atrocious at rhythm games though so more than likely I'll find a video. Anyway.) WHAT is Philemon? If we can't define that, we can't talk about The Positivity Guy Ever.

So let's talk about Phil. He's a fascinating character. His Persona is just a form of Himself, But Cooler. And he seems to HAVE no set shape, not unlike Nyarlathotep. People have various theories about Shadows and their origins etc., but Phil is more like that vote of confidence in people. I think, personally, that after the end of Innocent Sin, Phil's been pretty weak. We see in Eternal Punishment he's fading pretty roughly, and has a hard time talking to the party. Presumably ending Nyarly might to some degree fix things when Deja-vu Boy goes home, but... the problem is, we don't know how fixed they truly ended up being, or the full depth of how much he could/did expend!

In fact, the first time we even see Phil without the dumb mask is when Tatsuya decks him. Pay close attention to that fact. To the mask motifs here. I want you to really soak in Phil's everything. He's a leader. A kind soul. He's the good of people. He wants to believe the best.

Anyway, most of these things overlook what I find really interesting as we've gotten more games worth of lore: he and Nyarly aren't the only eldritch entities walking around like that. Yes, Nyx is one too. Yes, it's probable she may even be their 'mom'. It's possible they all came from Nyx initially, but it's also possible (and should be considered) they too may have been outsiders at one point. We need to ask ourselves how far the human collective unsconsciousness can go. Is that sea infinite? Could it affect other worlds? Think about Aion in Devil Summoner Soul Hackers 2. Yes, I am asking you to think about Soul Hackers 2. Deal with it, I don't care. They're sister series. They share many things. SO! Did the shape of the human mind change a bunch of eldritch creatures and make them interact with us even more after Nyx smacked the moon a gazillion years ago? Is there multiple worlds? Weird bullshit? Just the two? Hmm. Well... I, personally, think so. I think he was touched by humanity just like Nyarlathotep, but in the other way. The reason I bring this up is two-fold. The first is Nodens. Now, we don't know much about the actual Nodens, unfortunately, just some speculation. Which is a shame. (If anyone has more info I'd love to have it, ngl. As a pagan this shit fascinates me.) But what we do get on him in Lovecraftian lore can provide us some intriguing possibilities about Phil's everything, which the games love to keep really rather vague. (And this is putting aside that his human Persona is based off the obviously bogus Jungian Spirit Guide, but we love an old guy in a mask anyway. He probably felt that was more 'friendly' for humans, hah.) I believe that Nodens, and Phil by extension, are just as responsible for nurturing and keeping the collective unconsciousness alive and positive. We see the butterfly symbol everywhere. We see it with Lavenza, too. "This is truly an unjust game." So was the bet Phil made with Nyarly, a game he rigged. Phil made the mistake of thinking the Crawling Chaos wouldn't cheat, a mistake he is never making again, I assume, if he can help it. Shit, you could view his boss fight in P2EP as him trying to train the EP crew to beat the snot out of Nyarly, even. But off topic. If Nyarly is basically the father of all Shadows, and they and Personas are the same coin, it makes me wonder a lot of things. The two have always been portrayed as simultaneously diametrically opposed, but also not? They have identical halls in P2. They have similar powers and talents... I think after Persona 3, Phil's remnants sank into the Collective Unconsciousness, to attempt to rehabilitate humanity from what it lost, from what he himself lost. I think Igor took over the room, because he took a backseat to recover. It would go a long, long way towards explaining why only SOME characters have the tier of the Wild Card, which is similar to the 'original' Persona power. (Having multiple.) He was took weak to remain in his Spirit Guide (Philemon) form, and had to abandon it to return to the depths as Nodens... So. Let me go back to Nodens and make some notes about design.

Nodens, as seen here, sort of resembles an iron maiden. It really brings to mind the idea of maybe Tatsuya or someone's humanoid form sleeping within it, doesn't it? Fitting for an aspect of Philemon! ... You probably can see where I'm going with this, but let me pull up some screens to finish the point:

That's right! It's Azathoth, Baby! I believe that unlike mythology, he's yet another aspect of Philemon. Eldritch positivity, in too much force, could be used for accidental bad, too. (Reasons Maruki is my favorite Law Hero, haha.) Let me explain. I think Philemon always existed in... let's call it parts. Azathoth is said to be a dreaming god in whom's universe we all just happen to be alive inside, right? "Dream of butterfly" (Philemon) "Or is life a dream? Don't wanna wake up. Cuz I'm happy here." That sure is thematic to what Maki goes through in Persona 1, and what Maruki's beloved suffers, isn't it? ISN'T IT. The "true reality" he creates... would help Maruki create in the additional Semester--would be something most humans would never pass the muster to even try to control. But we have seen Phil test a few people and find them worth passing before! However, that seems like ages ago. Why has he been so quiet? I think because he was spending time conserving his energy. He believed in humanity enough to give Makoto a push when it was needed in p3 (or femc, if you play her), but otherwise trusted Igor while he restored what needed it. But in Persona 5 Royal, he hand-picked Maruki, didn't he? At first, when I played Persona 5 Royal, I really thought it was some part of Nyarly, but I no longer believe this to be the case. The coloration and symbolism in the background (the golds, the whole garden of eden themes, the way his Palace was laid out), the whole sea of soul motifs in P3Re later... mmm. I have a lot of thoughts about this, but this post is already way too long for one simple ask. So let's wrap up by going one step further and looking finally at Nodens' dialogue to the party in the Extra Scenario in Persona 2: Eternal Punishment (PSP). The following is a transcript, you can find a video here:

Nodens: This is the memory of the lost child whom you all seek. Nodens: Memory occasionally brings about much distress and suffering, but it is absolutely vital to distinguish oneself from others and manufacture one's own psyche. Nodens: Ever since it began, life's memory has accumulated unbroken, passing through individual experiences and spanning several generations. Nodens: And so it has given shape to Kadath and the Collective Unconsciousness, thereby becoming a foundation for the next generation. Nodens: Even if the roots of the world are directed by fear and anxiety, never forget that the true essence of life is brimming with joy. Nodens: You must not stop seeking the answer for why life was born in a cosmos progressing towards absurdity and chaos. Nodens: Life brims with joy, bringing about balance in a universe predestined to heat death, and that allows the world to live a long time.

So to answer your question, I think he's taken a much subtler role. I think he's influencing people by pretending to be a Persona for Maruki, because he believes it will help them grow. I don't think he was intending a forever-control vice grip, but rather to prove a point. No matter what, the primordial chaos of humanity will rise up for chaotic good, lawful good, whatever "good" is needed. Azathoth is... interesting. Adam Kadmon is also interesting. But mostly I HIGHLY suspect we may see him again in Persona 6, or at least I'm hoping so. It's my personal pet theory by then he'll be less faded and come back to us in a new form of some kind. He's never had a set one, after all. Now for funsies about the dancing game, well, he's a positive guy, he wanted to just make sure everyone had their fitness regimen checked off. Obviously. (This is a joke.) Did the devs intend this? I'm honestly not sure? Like there's a lot of nods to older Personas in 5 and now 3RE especially, but it's definitely worth chewing on. I could go on and on about things I think he's connected to, but ultimately they have the final say lol. I'm just a crackpot conspiracy theorist on tumblr who really likes Philemon. He and the Room are my favorites. :) Ask me about attendants for additional dumb, sometime, I guess lol.

[irelandseyeonmythology]

Hey, I know you focus more on Irish material than Welsh, but I was wondering if you knew any good books/articles about the mabinogion and its composition, especially the supposed influence of pre christian elements? I often see it brought out as clearly pagan mythology in circles I'm in, which from what I know is... problematic, but I never have enough context to challenge it much.

To be clear, no worries if not, but I figured I'd ask in case there's some edition or monograph that treated that heavily that you knew of.

I do! I don't do as much with Welsh, you're right, and I talk about it on here even less, but this is actually something that I am equipped to handle.

So, mandatory "if anyone who reads this worships, venerates, or otherwise has a connection to the figures I reference here, my job is NOT to dictate anyone's religious beliefs, to make fun of them, belittle, etc. etc. etc. My job is to give my own personal impressions of the material, which is shaped by the current scholarly understanding."

Alright, now that that's out of the way.

So, your instincts are right, the tl;dr is that, while there are still some scholars (including people I deeply respect) who do work with the Mabinogi as a source for Pre-Christian beliefs, and that approach was very popular up until the 1990s, but that number is dwindling, and the current general scholarly consensus is that the Mabinogi is a thoroughly medieval text. You'll get even fewer Welsh experts who are willing to consider pre-Christian elements than you will Irish experts. There are a few who will say that MAYBE there is something going on beneath the surface, but the problem is whether it would even be possible to undergo that kind of excavation and whether...you lose more than you gain when you try it.

Like, Howard Shliemann, when he excavated Troy, was so eager to find the OLDEST, most ANCIENT part of the city, that he took dynamite to it, which blasted away significant parts of the city. He didn't care about anything else but finding his idealized version of Priam's city, and as a result, he wasn't able to appreciate it when it was right in front of him and, not only that, damaged it. While no one is (I HOPE???) asking to put a lit match to the Red Book of Hergest, we have started to believe that, maybe, by constantly focusing on the pre-Christian elements of the Mabinogi, writing everything else off as a corrupted form of a myth written by later authors who were too stupid to understand what they were dealing with...perhaps we were overlooking a genuinely great work of medieval literature, and that it was time for us to change that.

There are a number of reasons why this "excavation" is difficult if not impossible, but one of the strongest is that, frankly, Wales was converted before Ireland and it became VERY thoroughly Christianized early on, as well as, in general, us not having many early examples of Old Welsh literature. (Y Gododdin is traditionally seen as the oldest, but, honestly, even though it's controversial, due to its key role as a piece of Welsh cultural history, I've had a lot of Welshicists tell me that they think it's more likely a ninth century poem at the earliest.) Even things that people often think of as being indicative of pre-Christianity in Wales, like the Mari Lwyd are...well. We have no references to them before the 19th century (though it's clearly being described as an established tradition by then) and they very likely go back no further than the 16th century. Middle Welsh literature is also very, very difficult to date unless you have some sort of external feature to help you out, it doesn't have quite the same linguistic markers of Old Irish. (A trained Celticist who has had training in Old and Middle Irish can tell you an approximate date of an Irish text with a quick look, which can then be made more exact by analyzing key features, down to the century. You cannot do that with Welsh. We still do not even know when the Mabinogi was COMPOSED beyond "very likely between the 11th-13th centuries") Additionally, we do not have a large collection of Welsh folktales, so we cannot know how these stories might have been told IN Wales and whether they had a significant oral transmission. (It does seem like there might have been a few folky Mabinogi things but it is REALLY hard to know without a unified database.) I can't emphasize enough how lucky we are to have the Irish and Scottish folk collectors, because it means we can compare oral version of medieval texts and see how things change in the oral version. This doesn't inherently mean oral=pre-Christian, but it gives us a further range of how these stories have been used.

ANYWAY, you're here for recs, not my ongoing anger at 19th century archaeologists, so here are some of the best studies of the Mabinogi as literature (a lot of them don't directly interact with the myth, more directly pointing out how deliberate the Mabinogi is as a work of literature. One thing that no English translation of the Mabinogi that I've ever read can convey is how PRECISE each word is, how...there are layers upon layers upon layers and it's *brilliant*.)

Bollard, J. K. “The Structure of the Four Branches of the Mabinogi.” THSC (1974–5): 250–76. (Considered to be one of the definitive pieces of literary scholarship around the Mabinogi.)

Davies, Sioned. ‘“Venerable Relics”? Re-visiting the Mabinogi’ in Joseph Nagy, ed. Writing down the Myths, edited by J. F. Nagy, Brepols, 2012. 157-79

Hamp, Eric P. ‘"Mabinogi and Archaism’"," Celtica 23, 1999. 96-110

Hemming, Jessica, “Ancient tradition or authorial invention? The ‘mythological’ names in the Four Branches”, in: Joseph Falaky Nagy (ed.), Myth in Celtic literatures, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007. 83–104.

Hutton, Ronald, “Medieval Welsh literature and pre-Christian deities”, Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 61 (Summer, 2011): 57–86. (In general, while Hutton isn't a Celticist by training, we do consider him One of Us because he is VERY good.)

McKenna, Catherine, “Revising Math: kingship in the Fourth Branch of the Mabinogi”, Cambrian Medieval Celtic Studies 46 (Winter, 2003): 95–118.

McKenna, Catherine, “The colonization of myth in Branwen ferch Lŷr”, in: Joseph Falaky Nagy (ed.), Myth in Celtic literatures, Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007. 105–119.

McKenna, Catherine. ‘"Reading with Rhydderch: Mabinogion Texts in Manuscript Context", in: Anders Ahlqvist and Pamela O'Neill, eds., Language and Power in the Celtic World: Papers from the Seventh Australian Conference of Celtic Studies, The University of Sydney, September-October 2010. University of Sydney, 2011. 205-30

Rodway, Simon. "The Mabinogi and the Shadow of Celtic Mythology" Studia Celtica 52(1) (2018). 67-85. 10.16922/SC.52.4.

Sims-Williams, Patrick, Irish Influence on Medieval Welsh Literature, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010. (It's interesting because you do have figures from medieval Irish literature, like Cú Roí, popping up in a way that suggests that medieval Welsh authors were highly familiar with them...which also throws a wrench in the old "Celtic or an example of medieval cultural exchange" problem.)

Wooding, Jonathan. Tyrannies of Distance? Medieval Sources as Evidence for Indigenous Celtic and Romano-Celtic Religion’ in Ralph Haeussler and Anthony King (eds.), Celtic Religions in the Roman Period: Personal, Local, and Global, University of Aberystwyth, 2017. 57-70

As for what I personally think....some of these sources are going to be softer than I would be and some of these sources are going to be harder on the concept than I would be. I don't HATE the idea of Pre-Christian elements existing in medieval texts, I just think it should be done carefully, cautiously, and with full knowledge of the limits of such an inquiry, without ALSO being disrespectful to the medieval context while ALSO not, in our attempt to right past wrongs, fall into the pitfall of thinking that Christianity = sophisticated elements, pre-Christian elements = unsophisticated. It's a delicate tightrope to walk, but I do want to see a day when we can have these conversations in the field without either ridicule or ad hominem assumptions of ill intent. We could do so much more if we would just listen to one another instead of leaping to prove one another's wrong. I don't believe there's evidence to suggest that Pre-Christian myths have been substantially preserved in the Mabinogi, and I think we should be wary and aware of the possibility of cultural exchange. I think that past scholars did the medieval writers a great disservice when they made the Mabinogi out to be some sort of corrupted, derelict scrapbook instead of one the greatest works of medieval prose narrative in Europe. I also think, for that matter, that the assumption that we are dealing with a mythic text that prescribes proper behavior that mortals are meant to follow has negatively impacted literary criticism of the text, particularly with regards to the female characters, whose abuse by men is justified as just punishment as opposed to something that is FRAMED as being horrific. Still, there are some things, such as a Donegal folktale (collected by Jeremiah Curtin) in which Lugh has to get Balor to give him a name and arms, similar to Arianrhod...I have never found a satisfying explanation for, from either side of the aisle.

What should be clear, from how many qualifiers I'm having to put up, is that it is even more difficult to assign FUNCTION to the Welsh figures than the Irish, not the least because, while the Tuatha Dé are explicitly supernatural....the Mabinogi is about a bunch of people who have superpowers but are also fundamentally human. We do not have the little signposts saying "BTW THESE GUYS ARE GODS!" that the Irish so nicely provide to us. If someone feels called to worship Arianrhod as a moon goddess, it isn't like I can stop them, nor would I *want* to, but I will say that there is no evidence for it FROM the Mabinogi. Or that Blodeuedd is a goddess of springtime (despite the unusual circumstances of her birth...she isn't really supernatural) or love. Or GOD FORGIVE ME, that Rhiannon is the goddess of forgiveness and understanding, which I saw one time. (Normally I do not judge people for how they view these figures, see all of the above disclaimers, but I do with that one. Just a little. Because I think that might be a tiny bit sexist to reduce her entire role in the Mabinogi to her abuse and then make her story one of forgiveness instead of one of a woman who is put into a horrific situation by the laws of the society she has married into.) I wish that there was a convenient listing of pre-Christian Welsh and Irish deities out there with their functions, but they don't fit that cleanly, and I doubt they ever did. It's one more reminder that they really, really aren't like Greek Mythology, and you can't go into this like Greek Mythology. (Though arguably, Greek Mythology isn't like Greek Mythology, but I digress.)

Anyway, thank you for sending me this; I do love the Mabinogi dearly and it's been ages since I've had the chance to talk about it.

[andreabandrea]

regarding that post about it not making sense to same gender trans headcanon a character who is tortured by their gender in canon, i think probably two of the biggest reasons you see this anyway is that, first, sometimes people want to see a character be a trans man for fetishizing reasons in their yaoi fics and dont really care if it thematically 'fits' or not (and im not saying the only reason that people would make a character trans in a fic is to fetishize them, but if you look at the way the majority of trans characters are written by cis authors on ao3, then i think you can excuse me for being a little suspicious and exasperated).

then, secondly, you have the ones like jesse pinkman where i think sometimes its just a case of he's a popular character who can be kind of relatable and a lot of transmascs want to see themselves in media, thus projecting onto him-- and i think anyone can have a battle with toxic masculinity, whether they're a normal man or a cis man. it doesn't have to be inherently transphobic for a trans man to struggle with what it means to be a man.

and sometimes it's just vibes based, i get it. bernadetta von varley is hard to sell as a transfem reading because of her abusive father training her to be a wife and spread the crest and so on, but she's an anxious loner in a hoodie so like she's sooo boymoder etc. and sometimes you dont care about canon/authorial intent and think to yourself actually i could do a really interesting piece about the intersection of misogyny and transfemininity with bernadetta, and that's awesome too.

however. i think though- and this is why i started typing this long-ass post- that the most insidious reason people might do these headcanons is pushback against transfem headcanons. i've seen a lot of sudden interest in nonbinary/genderqueer and/or transmasc laios touden ever since some transfems pointed out that he's tortured by masculinity and seems oddly interested in the alternate universe where he's a girl, among other points.

and i think- again- a lot of this just comes down to fandom/yaoi culture having a certain focus on men (notice that when dungeon meshi became popular with its anime adaption, the roving yaoi fans found labru and it overtook farcille which was the largest ship on the ao3 beforehand), and i dont think its always transmisogynistic on purpose.

'on purpose' are the keywords there-- sometimes i think people might not know how they come across. i see a lot of interactions on this site from sapphics and/or trans women like "i love women" or "this is a post i made about women" and well-meaning gay and/or trans men will add on "what if this was about MEN!"... and i want you to celebrate your identity and we can enjoy this interesctional lgbt community together, yes i know The Cishets are coming for all of us fuck infighting etc, but sometimes you have to realize when you're being rude and speaking over a woman. ask yourself why a trans woman might be offended that you took her personal post about her femininity and misogyny she's facing from men and said "this is so me except about men".

anyway laios and falin are both trans women.

[aydaptic]

I imagine that being a Gavin fan when the dbh fandom was in its early stages must have been exhausting. I've been scrolling through dbh blogs, just to catch up on what I've missed out on and occasionally I'll come across posts like "if you like Gavin you're [insert stupid insult here]" or "Gavin is the personification of evil and if you even watch a single scene with him in it without feeling hatred, then you're [insert another stupid insult here]"

Following you, I've realised that Gavin is honestly not a bad guy. Yeah, he's not the most positive/friendly guy in the world but that doesn't make him evil. The only time we've seen him in a bad light is when he's interacting with something he does not like ex. androids, hank (both of which he has valid reasons for not liking). When he's not with either of them, he's pretty alright. Even Neil has said that if you met Gavin in a bar or something, he, at the very least, would be polite to you.

I know it's been said before but people can dislike Gavin (everyone is entitled to disliking who they want) but looking back, I believe that the hatred he received was so unnecessary.

If any of those people could have just looked beyond "he hurt my fave/disliking him for moral points", they would have seen that too.

This is why I'm happy that reed900 became so popular. Not only because it showed that there were people who wanted to delve deeper into Gavin's character but it also created a huge headache for everyone who hated him.

As someone who has been a Gav fan since launch day -- May 25th, 2018 -- I can confirm that it was indeed exhausting. I admit I'm biased, though. It was worse for me for reasons I'll get into down below.

There's still a lot of undeserved vitriol towards him posted on the regular, but my having muted 90% of the fandom makes it not nearly as noticeable. Ofc I can't avoid them all bc the amount of shit he gets always slips through the net. His haters are that obsessed with him (...which is not only pathetic but hilarious as well.)

Several ppl have told me that I was the one who made them see the layers involved when it comes to Gav. Hearing that warms my heart. It makes me feel like I'm doing something useful in this fandom.

As for my personal bias, I've been told multiple times by multiple ppl that I remind them of Gav. It made me realize that's one of the main reasons why I defend the guy. If you don't like Gav, you wouldn't like me, so I -- in the beginning -- took the hatred for him personally. Thus it was extra exhausting to have negativity constantly aimed at me (in theory) as an individual.

I feel the same way he does. I'm pissed at Hank and wouldn't stay quiet knowing that he gets special treatment from Fowler. I dislike Con and would try to stop him in The Interrogation/Last Chance, Connor. I dislike AI. I wouldn't believe androids were alive. I'm terrified of losing my livelihood, etc. I could make a list with dozens of things he and I have in common (even the smallest/unusual things like being unable to wink with one eye bc I can't do that either, lol.)

I share your amusement on his haters having to deal with not only Gav's popularity, but also Reed900. I'd say that's karma.

[flowerbritts]

So, I'm going to be the one that makes the post on Payneland and parallels to other couples/relationships, aren't I?

Sigh...I guess here we go. Spoilers, obviously. So if you haven't watched Dead Boy Detectives, go watch it and return to this post!

Believe it or not, there is more than one relationship to which I can compare the Edwin/Charles dynamic.

These couples include Destiel (Supernatural), Malec (Shadowhunters), and Solangelo (PJO).

So let's start with the Charles parallels.

We are introduced in Episodes 3 & 4 to the fact that Charles went through some serious physical abuse. His father had high expectations for him, and when he didn't match those expectations, he took his anger out on Charles. This gives reason as to why Charles's anger comes out in the form of protection because he was never protected from that abuse, and he doesn't want anyone else to experience the same type of hurt he did.

Not only does this remind me of Dean Winchester, but of Magnus Bane. Both were raised by men who were quite angry and abusive in their own ways. Yet these characters are known for their care and love of other people. Dean's entire job is saving people, Magnus' job is helping people with his magic abilities, and we already know Charles's job of helping ghosts solve their mysteries to cross over. All these characters wish to be better (while holding themselves to very high standards) and care more for everyone else than themselves.

So where do the Edwin parallels come into these pairings?

When Edwin was alive, we see that he was a loner, often ridiculed and ostracized by his peers for being a 'Mary Anne'. This puts us into the discussion of how and why it takes a cat king and a crow to help him figure out his sexuality; he merely doesn't realize his feelings because they were never needed during both his time alive and in hell. I'm going to assume that he didn't keep up with politics and popular culture once he got out, so he really was just unaware of what society became, and that's why Niko had to tell him.

This very much fits my comparison to Castiel, his brethren looking down on him because he had 'too much heart'; he began to care more heavily once he was introduced to Dean, but everyone believed he 'came off the line with a crack in his chassis'. I've always thought this was heavily queer-coded. Edwin and Castiel have the similarities of being adorably clueless when it comes to human modern-day communication and needing help in navigating relationships. The comparison I'll make to Alec is that he was also raised in quite a hostile environment. He was forgotten, and looked at as a second choice to his brother Jace before Magnus took notice of him. Alec is another character who goes through a self-discovery journey in which he's adamant that he doesn't need a relationship or feelings to do what needs to be done; he rather be all work.

Now let's get to Solangelo parallels.

Edwin and Nico are both placed out of time, stuck in places for decades until the world has changed around them so drastically they don't recognize it anymore. They both go to Hell/Tartarus and have to find their own ways out. They are both ultimately kind even though they have been hurt by the world, again ostracized and seen as outsiders. They do what must be done to save that which they care about most and, ultimately, torture themselves over their feelings.

Charles and Will are the blinding light that leads their respective partner out of the darkness in more ways than one. They make the choice to stick around their person even though Edwin/Nico thinks they are better off on their own, but Charles/Will pushes to stay with them, not out of duty but because they want to. They try to get their partners out of their comfort zone and remind them to not take everything so seriously all the time.

Now the Hell parallels. One partner always goes to Hell, and the other follows; it does not always perfectly align but stay with me.

Dean goes to Hell, and Castiel fetches him and brings him back to Earth, but Castiel is the one who is more changed by the experience. "When Castiel first laid a hand on you in Hell, he was lost." This could also parallel Edwin and Charles meeting for the first time. Castiel and Charles both choose to stay with the person who changed/was kind to them.

Again, the parallels don't perfectly align with Malec but Edwin goes to hell, as Magnus goes to Edom, albeit Magnus goes willingly, he can’t escape. Charles follows, as does Alec. And neither leave without their other half.

Same with Solangelo, Nico goes into Tartarus, and Will follows because he isn't going to let Nico experience it by himself for a second time.

My point to this post is that these are common tropes that go along the lines of 'Do not go where I can not follow'. Both people in the relationship are so devoted to each other that they are broken when they are apart and are willing to go to the ends of the earth to get them back.

If there are any other parallels/things I missed, please add to this post!

[yallemagne]

This year, I'm not doing Dr*cula D*ily

Or any other substack but DD is the biggest. I have numerous reasons for this decision that none of y'all are gonna particularly care for, but ya know, just so we got our expectations in order: I'm not gonna participate in DD this year (maybe never again), I'm probably not gonna reblog many posts related to it (doing so would be counterintuitive), but I am holding myself to finishing Orice (at LEAST the base fic).

Now, why?

TL;DR: Mental health crisis brought on by internet harassment and overprioritizing social media. It's not fun anymore, folks.

DD just... it completely ruined the novel for me.

It was a nice phenomenon, but it took a wrecking ball to my mental health and self-worth. Now, I'm not saying DD's creator personally did something to spite me (or maybe I am, he knows what he did /j), but this whole thing? It wasn't good for me. It was never good. It was sometimes fun, but most of the time it made me want to end it because of thumblr notes.

That's fucking stupid. My life is not worth internet validation. My art is not worthless just because my numbers are not as big as the biggest big shots in the fandom. I'm not a horrible person when other people handle personal disagreements regarding headcanon with defaming rumours and impersonation. But hell! My view of reality was horribly skewed.

A while back, I unfollowed all the gothlit tags I previously followed because 1) Some people (active and popular members of the fandom, mind you, not bots or trolls) were posting honest-to-god name-dropping harassment in the tag because "it's a popular tag so more people will see my callout post" and 2) I reached a point where seeing anything related to the novel on my dash just set me off. It didn't even need to be drama-related anymore. Mentions of the characters, mentions of popular AUs, just the very content of this book became triggering to me, and I really didn't miss the content when it was gone, as sad as that is.

And the kicker? I've come to realize that I probably dislike more things about the novel than I actually like about it. Not only is it tied to some of my darkest moments in recent memory, but it's also just... a book with many flaws that I could go on and on and on about. Sometimes, it straight-up made me furious, like seething mad, and I think I'd rather just be happy. But even when I would try to channel that energy into being happy, I always felt I had to over-clarify or else I’d get bombarded with anonymous messages. If you’ve seen any of my posts from during that time… chances are there is a passive aggressive “btw people can have opposing opinions from you about an old book and it doesn’t give you leave to stone them” or several tags of “#this is a joke #a jooooooke #for the love of god #if y’all don’t stop”. I bet it was as annoying for y’all as it was for me.

P.S. Mutuals/friends, do not worry. Y'all keep doing y'all. I can and will block tags if seeing your posts triggers me. So, I suppose my only request is to properly tag, but I've been saying that from the very start.

I just want to move on to other things.

I took a break for Lent. I needed it terribly. And... not gonna lie? I almost didn't want to return. I never got an itching to just log on and "check in". I very successfully avoided tumb altogether. I came back because "I gotta come back eventually" and also like, this is my main hub where I update when I've written a fic, and ya know... I'm not gonna let toxic fandom bs rule my shit.

During my break, I got back into gaming. More specifically, I started playing Hades again. And listening to Epic the Musical. Aaaand boyyy did that bring me back to my Greek mythology phase. I have a Greek mythos/Hades sideblog btw: @areopagusimp. It's cringe, if you can't tell by the blog name.

Back when I was into Hades game and general Greek mythos, my expectations were so much smaller, but yet, my goals and will to create seemed so much bigger. I made art that no one gave a single solitary shit about (except for my friend), but I was happy. Maybe I'm wearing rose-tinted glasses, but... even if I wasn't as happy then as I remember being... haha at least I wasn't receiving threats and insults in my inbox back then :))). That was the most fun thing about the gothlit fandom. I hope every single chickenhearted angry anon is proud of their behaviour.

But yeah, whatever I end up doing, I’m striving to not let it run me into the ground.

But... What do I do now?

I have so many WIPs (art and writing) for the novel, and it's very disappointing that I didn't get to finish them before it all turned sour. Hopefully, I can still finish them, it just won't be with the same distress I worked with before. Hopefully, I can post that stuff and fully manage my expectations, not crash and burn when only a few people like it. Because hell! A few people liking my stuff? That's amazing, really. I shouldn't take that for granted. At the same time, I'm setting a boundary for myself. Placing my self-worth into the hands of people who I don't know, who don't know me, and who aren't even paying for the art? I need to stop that. Who the hell is that gonna serve? Absolutely no one.

My number one goal is to finish Orice. It is somehow untouched by my aversion to the novel; it is my safe space. I want to honour it and honour the longtime readers who have stuck with me. It's gonna be hard, but it's gonna be worth it for me.

This feels attention-seeking, and it kinda is. I'm not tagging the main subject and I'm not allowing reblogs because I want this to stay isolated (and hopefully prevent backlash/misunderstandings), but ya know, no matter how much I try to keep this small, I'm still posting it online. But I just feel like I needed to get this off my chest. I don't really owe everyone an explanation, but I want there to be one for my own sake... also it's much easier to generalize and make a post than contact each of my friends/mutuals on here and unload stuff onto them that I'm not sure is too personal or not.

For those of you who are reading: I love y'all. I love the good people I've met through all this mess. I want to keep the good apples, not throw out the whole harvest, alright? Dunno how much you'll care for my art when the subject is different, but... eh. If y'all are willing to try?

[lazaruspiss]

So, I'm writing a long fanfic based around the characterizations of the various Bats in the 80s-00s time frame, and Nightwing is gonna be important but I don't have a good grasp of his personality yet. I'm currently reading through The Resurrection of Ras Al Ghul, but that and a few of the 2016 issues are all I've got to go off of right now.

Do you have any comics you'd recommend for getting a good grasp of his personality and general vibes?

I'd also be happy to read any kind of ramble about his personality/appeal you feel like writing. Having read your fanfiction I feel like (sincere compliment:) you are the exact kind of unhinged I want to get character opinions from.

(Also you mentioned Dick being in the mob which sounds Very Fun and I wanna know what titles so I can read that)

-redhoodinternaldialectical on anon cause sideblog

ok first of all. im flattered. i feel so powerful rn.

and second of all... my 'to read' list is embarrassingly long, and dick's been around and in a lot of comics so i have a lot of trouble keeping up ;-; but i will try my best!!

The New Teen Titans gets recommended a lot as a starting point for Dick as Nightwing, and while i havent read much of it, the stuff i have read has been pretty solid and i get why its so popular.

Nightwing 1996 is my personal go to comic for Dick, mainly bc it was his first real solo run. (it's often listed as "volume 2" of nightwing, but volume 1 aka Nightwing 1995 was really more of a test drive just to see if they should make a Nightwing solo series) It's also where Dick joins the mob! although that came off the tail end of a lot of different plot points.

(This is a bit unrelated, but in general I think knowing a bit of irl context to certain comic events is important. Like, at one point Bludhaven is nuked off the map. It doesn't make sense, and it was most likely due to some higher up DC nonsense. And Nightwing 1996's second annual is written by a man. etc etc.)

... I actually have a guide I've been working on, main reasons being quick reference for what happens where, and that writing these things down helps me remember them better

as you can probably tell, I still have a ways to go. looking at this now i'm starting to realize that i am really down bad for him lol

Mobbed Up (where Dick gets adopted by a random mob boss who took one look at his depressed mug as he was getting fired from the police force and said "new son?") is issues #107-111

I feel like I should get back to character thoughts.

Dick on his own is deeply serious, he has a job to do and it's incredibly important that he does it right. In the beginning this serves as an invaluable asset, but as he loses more people it starts to turn into more destructive. A trait that is morphed by his traumas into obsessiveness.

Dick when Tim comes to visit (or just when he's around people he cares about) is a bit softer, it's subtle, but it shows that he's aware of/cares for the people around him.

Dick with Bruce around seems to worry so much about proving himself, about being seen as a respectable peer, that it backfires into making him come off more insecure and as a bit of a "rebellious teen". (which is exactly what he's trying to avoid when he strikes out on his own) I've read various arcs and issues but I haven't actually read any focused on Dick and Bruce aside from the ones towards the beginning, so I'm sure their relationship must change, but this is how they were when Dick had first moved to Blud.

I feel like Bludhaven is also important to talk about. It's very much meant to be "Gotham, but worse". It's a place that even Batman wouldn't bother with, a place beyond saving. I'm... kind of breaking my own heart, thinking about how much Dick put into this city, only to. To fail? In a sense? A hero's home city isn't usually obliterated like that. The only other example that comes to mind is Hal Jordan's, and Hal literally went insane and became a space terrorist to bring it back. Dick is just... forced to move on.

And Dick goes back to NYC. Nightwing patrolling Gotham with any regularity feels very modern. He shows up when there's a major event and DC wants to capitalize on having a bunch of names in the same series, and he shows up when something drastic changes (like a new robin, or a death). Dick has however spent a lot of time in NYC, either because of the Titans or because. yknow. home go boom.

Anyways. Arc recs. Unironically I need you to read Brothers in Blood. Get past the initial gross out factor of Tentatodd and it's a great look at Jason and Dick's relationship. This is #118-122 and right after Bludhaven gets nuked. Dick has just experienced the lowest lows that one could low. Jason seems to know all about it, and tries to help in the worst way possible. Jason is right and blunt and convoluted and so so insecure about where he stands with Dick. Dick doesn't know where he stands with Jason either, on account of all the murder, and his tactless approach to trying to confront Dick on the copious amounts of trauma that Dick is dealing with. BiB is my Jaydick bible.

I'd also say to just give the first few arcs a shot. Beginnings are meant for introductions! It gives a good sense of who Dick is, why he's here, and what his goals are. Exposition baby! And I'm once again thinking about how ultimately Dick kind of fails said goals. I love him but he makes me so emo. Blockbuster has also been his main villain since the beginning, up until. Yknow. He became deader than his namesake. There's also a few fear toxin based issues that are good for. well. understanding what his fears are. There's also a fear toxin scene in Batman: Orphans, but i'll just reblog the post i made of it so u don't have to read that one. The art is fun, the story is weird and just kinda. meh.

#60 is when Dick joins the force. The beginning of the end, so to speak, but we don't meet Catalina until #71.

#93 is That Issue. The infamous rape scene. The thing about his time with Catalina is that it was almost definitely meant to be explored for what it was- an abusive relationship. But DC wanted Nightwing in an event. It doesn't have any satisfactory end, Bruce (DC) calls Dick to fight in Gotham. He does. His story falls to the wayside for the bigger title. The worst thing that can happen to a DC character IMO is getting a Batman crossover. There was supposed to be an entire arc dedicated to what would happen to Dick in this abusive relationship. But we got 2 issues. And War Games. It pisses me off to absolutely no end. DC needed more mouths to kiss the ground that Batman walks on. They don't give a damn about the stories that exist outside their cash cow.

After all that, eventually Dick is back to his utterly depressing life. He joins the mob, finds a family, bad things happen to said family. (Mobbed Up, #107-111) He wants to protect the daughter, Sophia Tevis, and then Slade holds Sophia hostage to get Dick to teach his daughter Rose how to fight. He does, but he also teaches Rose how to question authority (aka her dad). Slade is not happy about that, and nukes Bludhaven. (Renegade, #112-117) See my earlier note about IRL reasons for dumbass plot points.

Nightwing 1996 has 2 annual issues (despite running for much longer than 2 years). The first annual is a fun murder mystery and i think a good look into how Dick handles relationships. He also reads as very aromantic/demiromantic who doesn't know it yet, but maybe that's just me, lol. the second annual is dog shit. Mark Andreyko can get bent, it sucked total ass and isn't worth reading.

[raayllum]

you don’t have to answer this if its too discoursey but i’m too afraid to say it off anon cause I don’t wanna get yelled at, but I am not the biggest fan of emperor/king Callum fics, mainly since it feels out of character for me (since he feels more connected to magic than he does royalty as a whole, he’s only the crown prince because he & Ez don’t have any family left to take up that role)

and also because to me, as a black person, it feels really weird that it just sidelines Ezran, they always just kill him off for no reason except to put the white person in a position of power

Its okay as a concept, i suppose, say Ezran feels like he can’t bear the responsibility at his age, so Callum takes up the mantle, but it just feels Weird to me, and maybe I’m reaching but it does feel like there’s a hint of racism going on even if its not exactly the author’s intention

So back in like 2020 in the months following S3, Regent Amaya became a popular headcanon in the Janaya corner of the fandom (because they wanted to have to interact Politically with Janai rather than just personally? I don't know) and it never sat right with me for similar reasons. (Cue people complaining in S4 that Janay's plotline was more Janai centric than Amaya centric. Mmhm.)

Because here's the thing (and I've said this before) while Callum is not white (he is mixed, he's half Asian and half white) he is lighter skinned than his brother and I do understand why people think he's white at first glance (more discussion/perspectives on Callum's race in this tag) and Ezran very clearly is not, and it's also very clear how that can affect them sometimes fandom wise. Of the five like main Main characters (although that list is 100% expanding in S4), Ezran is one of two main characters of colour (bonus core protagonist points alongside his brother) and he is the only darker skinned character of colour, comparatively in the trio.

There are other reasons I think as well about why Ezran doesn't have as much fandom made about him (he's the youngest in the cast, most of the fandom is older; he's not part of a main ship, etc) but race absolutely affects a lot of the critique he (and Harrow) get as kings. I have seen people with their full chest go "I hate TDP's monarchy, they're such bad kings Viren was right" because their issue isn't at its core the monarchy, it's that their white fave's bloodline wasn't the one on the throne for once.

Also talking about race is never discoursey IMO so always feel free to drop stuff in my inbox about it. (I'll happily take getting yelled at for it, it's way easier to bear as a white person & it doesn't happen as often as a result.)

Since 2016, we've seen this mini trend of casts having one Black character, usually a boy who's a best friend of the protagonist, get routinely sidelined. Lucas had to carry Stranger Things on his back (although I think it's gotten better? Idk for sure I stopped watching the show after s2 for unrelated reasons), Finn from Star Wars deserved so much better (and I left the SW fandom bc the racism was so bad and he was my favourite after just six months), Bow from She-Ra got virtually nothing, and Gus from The Owl House actually did.

TDP, thankfully, does not fall into that trend (having more than like 1-2 Black characters in general also helps a great deal, JC) and I now no longer watch every season like a hawk to ensure that it won't, because I trust that it won't.

So. King Callum AUs. The first thing is that you're right, Callum isn't that interested in politics. While he has a mind for politics (he immediately realizes what the egg could mean globally) he's not motivated by them. In 1x06 he gets pissed & fed up because Rayla insists on giving him only the political reasonings for why she's travelling with them and not stealing the egg, and it's not enough (he wants the personal reasons). His Tales of Xadia bio reaffirms this, stating outright that he's "beholden to [his] inner circle, not some silly kingdom" in spite of being Crown Prince. I think in some ways if Callum was left alone as King, regent Amaya would be more likely, not less, even if Callum might resist out of a grief fuelled desperate "I have to do this" at first. Being King is genuinely liberating for Ezran in ways it'll just never be for his brother, thematically / personality wise

And Callum being king because Ezran died is, IMO, unnecessary and actually more restrictive for both of their characters. If you want Callum grieving but away from the throne off adventuring with Rayla in an angsty AU, you can just have him think Ez is dead and achieve the same aims. If you want Callum on the throne, you can just have him do it out of love/loyalty for his baby brother. Otherwise, Ezran actually being dead leaves Callum solely grieving and stranded away from magic (his true calling, or the temptation of dark magic). But if Callum becomes regent to try and shield his baby brother, it leaves a lot more for them to grow, disagree on and develop, etc. Just a lot more avenues. How I think this would go (honouring Ezran's role to play and how I think their dynamic would realistically develop with this addition) here.

Being aware of what does or doesn't displace a character can be tricky, but I always think of it in regards to "do you take something another character has earned and give it to another character with little consequence," killing a character off when it wouldn't change that much to keep them alive and just tweak other things (like the above), or "are you taking the challenge one character has set before them and giving it unequivocally to another".

For example I've thought about "is my theory of Callum sacrificing/handing over the Key of Aaravos for Rayla's life displacing him" but it's not, in my eyes, bc 1) all the repercussions that come from that action is still something he has to deal with, 2) he'd have a vested interest and arc in reclaiming the cube, 3) it highlights the tragedy of Callum regaining his agency from brainwashing and still being forced into Aaravos' tragedy, 4) still leaves Callum perfectly free and motivated to uncover the secrets of the key himself beforehand, it just won't end well for him. And if Callum was having big conflicts with Ezran RN, I'd probably swap in Ez as a possibility for who he'd hand the key over for too

Last but not least I do wonder if Callum will even remain his brother's High Mage. The symbolism of a brother on either side of the Border has always felt fitting to me, and I think Claudia would make a great high mage to Ez if/when she gets redeemed / she'll want to stick close to her brother. Now that Callum has Ibis' staff, I wonder if that'll also eventually include having Ibis' post, especially now that Soren has stepped up in S4 to really be Ez's protector (and Cal and Ez would still write letters all the time, of course <3 Ez checking in on him through his link with Zym).

But yeah I think if Callum did continue to be in a political role beyond high mage, he'd be best suited to be one of Ezran's top generals, and that would take its own interesting toll on Ezran's psyche

Anyway this is probs longer than you were expecting but thank you for sharing your perspective! It's something I think the bulk of the fandom has noticed and it's always good to look at areas of like, perhaps more casual than outright racism when it comes to characters of colour, and how we have a responsiblity to examine those areas when exploring things, even just in fanon

[wegonbealright-09]

https://www.tumblr.com/wegonbealright-09/731704995863494656/do-you-know-what-makes-me-really-angry-with-the?source=share

I just want to disagree with this anon in 1 small way. JK is very touchy with members like Hobi and Jin maybe even more than with Tae or Jimin (probably because of shipping though post 2021 JK started leaning into the fanservice). Meanwhile Jimin is also super touchy with all the members - like the skinship and comfort he and Hobi have is just on another level. And have we seen how Jin and Tae act on stage together sometimes? That is peak fanservice right there. Nobody tell me Bangtan don't do fanservice at all because that's a lie. But why is only Jimin being targeted by the brain dead losers of that ship?

It mostly stems from homophobia imo. Most of the people shipping tkk aren't actually all that ok with same sex relationships (a fun little experiment you can do is see how many people who ship tkk overwhelmingly come from countries where same sex couples aren't well accepted and are straight themselves) - they just don't want to see the person they're thirsting after with a woman so they'll pair him up with his band mate instead. But that 'safe' pairing gets destroyed when there's an actual queer person around and that is why Jimin is their target. Because he doesn't spend all his time posturing as some super straight d*uchbag or keeping his distance from his friends and is most probably bi, so his very existence acts like some threat to these people which is only exacerbated by the way (let's be honest) jkk act sometimes.

This story isn't unique to tkk. I'm telling you this exact storyline of the 'powers that be' keeping a secret couple apart and their girlfriends / wives being evil hired accomplices is a storyline that is copy and pasted over every crazy fandom including the 'clues' the secret couple send fans. Here it's tkk, somewhere else it's Larry, another it was the Supernatural actors, ditto for the actors from Glee, and pairings from BL dramas of course, and other KPop 'couples'. It is hilarious and sad that they repeat this same story over and over again with little variations. The variation here is that in other fandoms they channeled misogyny to target these people's real life partners and here they use homophobia to target their real life friend.

One last thing - another anon mentioned that it was these ships that was holding Jimin back from achieving his peak popularity and while it doesn't help, I'll again make the case that the root of people hating on Jimin is homophobia. The minute someone says he looks like a girl, or he's too flirty or seductive or that his voice is too high pitched - just know that's just code for I don't like queer people who don't project straight. Sometimes they'll just be more subtle - there's something about Jimin I just don't like. We all know what that something is b*tch.

And secretly I've always wondered if the reason JK was selected as the primary one they'd push inspite of Jimin being so popular is because he passes as straight (he probably is straight but I said passes because I don't want to assume). After all who is Hybe's decision makers except a bunch of old men who only care about money.

Anyway sorry that this ask became so long and rambley!

And boy did you rumble!

This whole ask picked my brain on something and I am going to make a post about it when I get my pc back I can't type long paragraph with a cellphone it's exhausting

And boy did you spill anon

[threecheersforinking]

Drama Review: Reply 1988

**spoilers ahead**

*if you haven't seen the show, read my spoiler free WYSW post first!!*

This post will continue what I started with Boys Over Flowers (where I wrote a long unsolicited dump of all my thoughts on a show I really loved). And, needless to say, I really loved this show too. I honestly haven't cried this much at a tv show in a long time, and that's saying something because I cry very often. I think I teared up at least once every episode, and don't even get me started on the final episode because I'm pretty sure I was full on crying for at least 1 hour straight.

I guess the reason I was so attached to this show, and likely the reason this show is so popular, is because it's so relatable. Even if you haven't lived in that one particular alley in Ssangmun, most people can relate to growing apart from friends, moving out of their parents' house, leaving their childhood behind, etc. I felt like I watched this at a really appropriate time in my life, and maybe that's why I was especially emotionally impacted by it.

Characters

If you've ever read my blog before you'll know that I love a large cast of characters! So I was very pleased with all the characters and the different dynamics they had in this show. As an anime fan I'm used to teenagers/young people being the focus with adult characters being kind of an afterthought, but I really loved how developed and important all the adult characters were. The parents weren't there just to be parents, they had their own goals, lives, and struggles.

Sunwoo was probably my favorite character, but it was hard to pick a favorite because they were all so great. Funnily enough, Bora was originally my least favorite character (due to how cruel she was to her siblings at the start), but I'm happy to say she really grew on me. The development she went through due to her relationship with Sunwoo made me like her a lot more. The two of them were so cute together and I really enjoyed their secret dating era in 1989.

I also loved Taek and Sunwoo's blended family, I thought it was so nice how they became brothers after being friends for so many years. The way the show handled the two boys' reactions and adjustment to their parents dating was really well done as well.

The Romance Subplot

As I've said before, I like love triangles, and this show was no exception. Coming directly off of my watch of Boys Over Flowers (in which the love triangle lowkey had me ripping my hair out), this love triangle was a breath of fresh air. Honestly I have never been so conflicted as to which love interest I'm 'rooting for' before. I think I may have been subconsciously rooting for Junghwan because that 'fake confession' episode hit me right in the gut, but I loved both Taek and Junghwan so much I genuinely didn't even care.

One of my favorite scenes in the show is how after Sunwoo explains to Taek that you can tell how someone feels about a person by how they look at them, the episode ends with Taek noticing how Junghwan is looking at Deoksun. It's a great dialogue-less moment and really sets the tone for their dynamic for the rest of the show.

While I liked this love triangle, I do think the implications of the time jump put me off a bit. As I said, I was kind of rooting for Junghwan, and the episode where he realized he lost Deoksun to Taek was heart wrenching. But as Junghwan said himself, what exactly had he been doing for the past 5 years? It was a bit hard to pity him when he had so many opportunities to ask her out and beat Taek to the punch.

Other Stuff

Honestly, I didn't love the 2015 flash-forwards too much, they were too few and far between and took me out of the immersion of the 80s/90s setting. I think the first one was ok, the others felt a little less necessary, and then it went so many episodes without a single 2015 scene that I almost forgot they were a thing. I enjoyed the 2015 scenes in the last episode after we knew who got married to who, but it still felt like the show could've done without those scenes. The most important/emotional moments in the series happened in Ssangmun anyway.

The time skip from 1989 to 1994 had me kind of displeased at first, and I didn't know why, because I've watched tons of shows with a time skip before and had no problems with it. I think it was in part because the first 17 episodes of the show took place over the span of less than a year, and then all of a sudden in the last 20 minutes of the 17th episode it jumped ahead 5 years without a warning.

But to be honest, I think my dislike of the time skip came from the fact that I really enjoyed these characters' daily lives and the regular pace the show had been going at that such a far jump ahead was making the end of the series feel more imminent.

I'm really glad I gave Reply 1988 a chance, especially because I barely knew anything about it before watching. I'm really enjoying kdramas so far and glad I've been trying to watch more of them.

Thanks for reading!

-threecheersforinking

[alarrytale]

Why is there (I think it's a vocal minority) queer people who are so critical about queer media and hate to see it do well? I've seen some people so critical about RWRB and say it was made for straight women and it's not gay enough and the actors are probably straight, the actors are too good looking to be queer (really weird comment as it's insinuating that all queer people are 'ugly' or average etc. So many assumptions being made. Queer people assuming people's sexualities while hating when people do it to them. Queer people unhappy because straight people are enjoying RWRB. They were supportive of it until it became popular and this happened with CMBYN as well. Any queer movie that is successful will turn off some queer people. I imagine they're the same people who feel they NEED to be different to stand out to others. I know there are straight people who fetish gay men but so what. That's not a reason to gatekeep queer media. You can't want more representation for queer people while also gatekeeping it from straights. Isn't the whole point to make queer media more mainstream? I think some of them have victim complexes and they don't want to see successful queer media or queer people more accepted. They might preach it but they don't want it really. They want to wallow in their self pity and woe is me. I do think that's a vocal minority though. I think most queer people are happy with any kind of representation.

Hi anon,

I think it's a difficult question to answer. I don't know why people feel how they feel. If i understand you correctly, if queer people are saying that other queer people are too good looking to be queer, then that sounds like a case of internalised homophobia to me.

First of all i haven't seen for myself what you say is happening. But hearing what you are saying, i think their motivation to dislike it may differ. I have seen some gatekeeping discourse. And what i've seen is about gatekeeping queer media to not put it up for critisism and scrutiny from the gp who doesn’t understand queers and queer culture. I totally get that. I have seen some idiotic takes from straight 'journalists'. Both about rwrb and bottoms. They've been deservedly dragged for it though.

I think that some of the queers who say that the actors are straight and queerbaiting are afraid they are getting false representation (see my last asks about queerbaiting). Since nick has said he's straight and taylor hasn't said anything, that's a real and valid fear. So when it becomes popular and mainstream, it's just another movie that's become popular because it's made by straights for straights.

I think it's great that queer movies are becoming mainstream and catch the interests of the straight majority. But it does put queers in the spotlight and the homophobes will rear their ugly heads. Queers are also desperate for queer role models and representation. If the representation is false it will be a huge disappointment for a lot of people and put queer progression back a step. So some are wary. I agree with you, i think this is a minority and that most people are happy with any representation.

[muraenide]

4. which muse of yours is your all time favorite? if you stopped writing them: why?

10. what genre do you most enjoy, whether in roleplay, or fiction as a whole? (fantasy, period, superhero, etc.)

QUESTIONS FOR MUNS. // @ramshacklestar

4. which muse of yours is your all time favorite? if you stopped writing them: why?

I have a group of muses who are my all-time favorites. 1st main blorbo: Mukuro Rokudo from KHR The first main antagonist of the first season of the series, but eventually joins the main character's team. Reasons why he did so is... a bit complicated, but he is possibly my first muse and the muse that resembles Jade the most. I still love him but the fandom fell out of popularity and there were hardly any rp blogs for the fandom. I've never actually left the fandom. The fandom itself died for a while, so I simply moved on to other fandoms.

2nd main blorbo: Narsus from Arslan Senki Arslan Senki is so far my favourite fandom in terms of rp experience and content quality. It's possibly the fandom where I met most of my current friends, especially @oftwilight, @madakoka, and @corruptiongifted, and a lot of us are in different fandoms now but we still talk from time to time. Narsus is a rebellious aristocrat in ancient Persia who joined the prince in his main quest to retake his kingdom. Sybil (@oftwilight) played a great Daryun and our muses often fought and squabbled like an old married couple bc that's also their canon dynamic. The fandom had a total of 10+/- people, and we were all friends due to how small it was so everyone knew everyone. I stopped writing Narsus because I fell out of the fandom when the last light novel dropped and it was... bad. We understand that the author got tired of the series and wanted to end it quickly, but it's still a lovely series regardless and I tend to revisit it from time to time.

3rd main blorbo: Sion Astal from Denyuuden Sion is a young puppet king with a split personality and shares his present body with a demon. The light novel is written by the same creator as Owari no Seraph, but the anime covers very little of the main storyline. The interesting parts are locked behind the light novel, but Sion is probably one of the more complex muses I've written. If the main trio were to be compared with Castlevania, Sion would be the Alucard among the group. The fandom had a total of 3 rpers including me, it was funny how dead it was. I left it when the other two rpers stopped being active, but I still enjoy the fandom regardless.

4th main blorbo: Diluc Ragnvindr from Gen//shin Impact I don't remember why I love Diluc but it started on discord when a friend (Cass) dragged me into Gen//shin and loved the grape man. I got very invested in his lore in Gen///pact to the point that I would read both the CN and EN versions, have a folder for all its screenshots since we can't replay events, and even dug out possibilities of the Ragnvindr Family Tree members all the way to the first Ragnvindr Knight. I stopped writing him due to how unbearable the fandom became once people started joining and it became big. I will refrain from going into detail about this though! But Gen//pact is still a great franchise. As someone who knows quite a bit about Middle-Eastern and East-Asian mythology, Gen//pact really portrayed some aspects of the old myths that I've never seen show up in any type of media before, which is really refreshing and honestly eye-opening.

10. what genre do you most enjoy, whether in roleplay, or fiction as a whole? (fantasy, period, superhero, etc.)

I like mysteries and crimes, horror, cosmological science, fringe science, high fantasy, medieval fantasy, anything historical, supernatural, steampunk, and cyberpunk as a set up for my threads. As for themes, I'm mostly an angst and romance writer. I'm a bit picky with romance though, because I do enjoy romance as a subgenre in my fiction/rp, but never a main theme. In the sense that they start off normally and eventually develop a romantic interest in the other. If romance is the only thing my muse has in common with the other muse, I wouldn't find it as enjoyable, and eventually get bored of it.