#AT LEAST PEOPLE WHO ARE FANS SEEM TO GET IT TOO THEN IF THAT'S THE CASE BECAUSE FOR ONCE THIS STUFF ISN'T FULL ON CURSE

[thenationofzaun]

Thoughts on Act 1 of Arcane Season 2

The positives:

- The animation is fucking incredible.

- Jinx and Sevika teaming up watered my crops and cleansed my skin.

- Underwater goodbye with Jinx and Silco. That scene was made specifically for me.

- Jinx's voice actress continues to be excellent.

- Loved the designs of all the Chembarons. The glimpse we got of the gang wars was also interesting. Unfortunately, too tiny a glimpse. Which brings me to...

The negatives:

- Too many plotlines. They stuffed the season with too much shit which is why each individual plot gets a much shorter screentime than it should. Smeech is introduced and killed in the same episode. Chembarons' gang wars, a huge issue which has repercussions on the entire Undercity, gets only one musical montage before moving on. And this is coming from someone who loved that montage, as well as the song. My favourite on the soundtrack so far. But musical montages shouldn't come at the expense of the story and definitely shouldn't replace the story. There are just way too many music video scenes in general that feel like a way to condense a storyline into the sparknotes version because they don't have the screentime to flesh it out. And they would have the screentime if they cut out all the extra stuffing. Look I'm happy for the League fans who are excited for the Black Rose and all that, but what the hell is it doing in a Piltover/Zaun show. And with zero foreshadowing in Season 1 too. It would definitely be easier to swallow if they had at least hinted at it in the first season. They could have kept Ambessa's beef with this magic cult for a Noxus show. The P/Z narrative has enough to deal with, enough characters to handle already.

- The new side characters are uninteresting and generic. Maddie and the two other enforcers (we don't even know their names after three episodes LMAO) are bland. We know nothing about their characters or personalities. Maddie looks like a rookie, and one of the dudes is an alcoholic, yet they get chosen for an elite strikeforce to capture Jinx? Isha is pretty generic too - the token cute kid that needs protecting. I get the role she will play in Jinx's arc. But that's the problem - she should be a character in her own right, not just a vehicle for someone else's character development. A good example is Mylo. He died for Jinx's arc, but when he was alive he was a distinct character with his own personality. We had a sense of his insecurities, his goals, who he was as a person. Name a single personality trait of Isha and Maddie other than "generically nice person". That's right. You can't.

- Whatever the hell is going on with Viktor. He wakes up from his coma and immediately rejects Jayce so quickly that it was funny. Apparently disapproves of Jayce using the Hexcore to save his life, but then immediately goes to use the Hexcore to save random Undercity people. Bruh. I also don't really like the way the fridged woman from last season seems to be his motivation so far. Nor the way he seems to have no agency in his Machine Herald arc. Instead of Viktor himself believing in transhumanism and mechanizing himself, Jayce does it for him. Instead of Viktor having an ideological drive and wanting a "Glorious Evolution", he is driven by guilt over Sky. Meh. Also he's not even mechanized, instead he's weirdly fleshy?? In a magical way?? More like The Magic Herald :(

- Vi. Her whole character is a mess. Insanely rushed arc which I find unacceptable for one of THE main characters and one of the faces of the show. She and Jinx are supposed to be the leads, their relationship the heart of the story, but so far only Jinx is a well-written fleshed out chaacter with a believable arc. I have too much to say about Vi so I'll expand more on this on another post.

- So much nuance and detail is missing. How does Heimerdinger feel about his ex-colleagues being killed? Does he care? Does he feel guilt? Relieved that he wasn't in the chamber when the bombing happened? No clue! Let's have comedy Mission Impossible instead! How does Ekko feel about the Council attack? Does he approve of it? Think Jinx went too far? How does he feel that she even survived their fight to begin with? No clue! Here, have him joking around with a Councilor for a bit (someone whom Ekko logically should despise), then he can talk Science with Jayce and all three get sent to another dimension together. Yay. What does Vi think happened to Ekko? The last time she saw him, he was fighting Jinx to the death to give Vi and Cait time to escape. He could be dead for all she knows and she doesn't give a fuck. Doesn't even think about him nor mention him once. It's like the writers forgot they're childhood friends. What does the entirety of Zaun make of Silco's death? I assume they heard about it from Piltover (who heard about it from Caitlyn), but how do they think it happened? His body is gone and to Zaun it seems he just mysteriously disappeared. Are there conspiracy theories? Conflicting accounts and rumours? So much nuance that would give the world and characters more depth, sacrificed so we can pack in more rushed subplots and music videos.

- Caitlyn "Wifebeater" Kiramman. And Caitvi in general. So far Caitlyn has guilt-tripped Vi, manipulated her into joining the enforcers, insulted her and then physically abused her. After Vi sacrificed everything for Cait, wore a badge she hates for Cait, even let Cait kill her own fucking sister (and only intervened when the random kid got involved). Why should I give a shit about such a one-sided relationship lmao. "B-but Cait's mom is dead so she's sad about it", every other fucking character in this show has dead parents. Half the cast has faced unfathomable amounts of trauma and pain that make Cait's pale in comparison. Nothing justifies her hitting Vi. "B-b-but it's a parallel to when Vi hit Powder", a shit parallel then. Because the circumstances are not even remotely comparable. "God forbid lesbians do anything🤪", give me a break with this corny bullshit. Be serious for a second. I'm not even a Vi fan and I think she deserves better than this mess of a relationship. The power dynamic between them makes it worse. The way Caitlyn is one of the richest people in the city and Vi is broke. The way Caitlyn is highly educated and Vi never went to school and spent her entire teen years locked in a box. Did the writers think about all this when writing their relationship? Keep in mind, Vi met Caitlyn like a week ago. She barely knows this chick. She's been out of prison FOR A WEEK. Where she was physically abused every fucking day. Putting her in a relationship with a cop who hits her would certainly be a choice! Do I have faith this show will handle it with care? Not really, no. They already ignore Vi's prison trauma. Most likely they will make Vi forgive Cait way too easily because "muh mummy muh grief".

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Hopefully this doesn't come off as snarky, but I find it genuinely hilarious that every "big-name" Leona fan that I've seen seems to like him against their will lol. I've always had Leona as my favorite, so it's fun to see the journey other people go through to liking/appreciating him!

Look 💦 I can’t speak for other L*ona likers (regardless of size, honestly; I'm a firm believer that one's level of internet fame isn't a factor in the devotion for a character) but for me—to quote Scar—“my words are a matter of pride.” And by confessing to (ick 🤢) LIKING LION… it’s throwing all that pride out of a window. It seriously does feel like these feelings exist against my will.

I have a summary of my story to explain my relationship with the lion lore 💀 I call it a summary, but it’s still kind of long— It's below the cut for those who are interested!

To begin with, the promotional materials didn’t sell me on him. Everything about how he initially presents—from his arrogance to his “tough/bad boy” design (seriously, that biker-cowboy combo of his dorm uniform is SO ugly and shows way too much skin for my liking…)—was so unappealing to me. He seemed exactly like the kind of character and tropes I tend to dislike. The only “good” thing I saw in him was his face (which, ironically, is what Vil says about him) and maybe his UM chant particularly the line where he demands you kneel before him. Then comes along book 2, which is easily the weakest of the main story and does a HUGE disservice to him, making L*ona seem a lot stupider than he actually is. At that point, I had basically written his entire character off. I claimed to all my Twst friends that there was nothing that would ever make me like him.

Around 2022, I decided to get involved in a round of EBG (Epic Bias Game) which is basically like a test of your will?? You’re supposed to compete with your friends to see who can go for the longest without talking about or acknowledging their oshi (which includes not being able to react to fan works of them). As part of EBG, each participant was randomly assigned a “new oshi” to replace the usual one AND GUESS WHAT, I GOT HANDED L*ONA BY THE WHEEL OF FATE 💀

One of my friends (who knew I hardcore hated him at the time) assured me that this would get me to change my mind. They even went out of their way to write a little story explaining how my OC was forced to spend more time with L*ona, which led me into writing interactions between them to build more of the lore. I managed to outlast the friend in EBG, but didn’t win the entire game. I came out of it not really feeling super different about L*ona, but I think forcing myself to write about him extensively helped me gain a little more perspective on his character. I still didn’t like him, but I at least appreciated his presence in the cast a little more.

AND THEN TWST HAD TO COME AND BASH ME OVER THE HEAD WITH L*ONA CONTENT… All the little vignettes and voice lines where other characters would talk about what a good leader he is (*glares at Epel, Jack, Ruggie, Savanaclaw mobs, etc.*), when he sarcastically claims to be a “delicate prince” or a “lost child”, those moments where he sasses others, times when he’s able to use his charisma and/or intelligence to pull ahead, rare instances when he whips out his royal manners, him respecting women… But I think the turning point for me had to have been book 6 OTL GOOD LORD, BOOK 6 FUCKED ME UP 😭 Him using his UM in a creative way to turn falling glass shards into harmless sand? And strategically turning himself in?? Willingly ceding control of the dorm to Ruggie??? Telling everyone about Styx’s lore???? AND THE BEEF HE HAD WITH JAMIL BUT STILL GIVING HIM WISDOM AND ADVICE… Sometimes I still tear up thinking about how L*ona says “You’re not like me,” to Jamil 😔 implying that part of the reason why L*ona guides others is because he has hope in their futures but not his own… (I’m still salty that EN messed up this line by changing it to “I’m not like you,” which makes him come off as way more arrogant 💦) Anyway, I blame book 6 for being the tipping point in my downward spiral 🌀 IT GOT WORSE IN BOOK 7 WHEN HE STARTED SHOWING HE'S MOTIVATED TO ACTUALLY GRADUATE AND TAKES ON AN INTERNSHIP THAT COULD BENEFIT HIS COUNTRY... Special shoutout to the Club Wear card for being especially hot-- I did my best to hold out against the steady drip of content that called attention to his… positive traits… (Not that I’m saying he doesn’t have any; I mean this in that whenever his strengths as a character are brought up, they really get to me as someone who loves intelligent, mature/responsible types and “big brother” figures OTL) BUT IT'S SO HARD WHEN TWST KEEPS PULLING STUFF LIKE THAT???

Then in 2024 came the stupid Lost in the Book with Nightmare Before Christmas event 💀 which finally introduced us to L*ona in full formal attire (MY WEAKNESS) and gave him the opportunity to be in the role of the "hero" and leader... and those Nightmare Suit vignettes 😭 Leona thinking about what it actually means to be "king"... Ugh, it was another strong showing of his character. I'm pretty sure it was this event that started the snowball of my friends (lovingly) bullying me about him and calling me a tsundere about it. Weirdly enough, a BUNCH of things started happening irl to push L*ona at me too. For example, my pet (who usually actively avoids or attacks Twst stuff) was actually eager to pose for a picture with a L*ona standee. In a group fan merch order, I had asked for the bonus Grim sticker but the artist (who had no idea about my complicated thoughts on L*ona) said they were out of the Grim sticker but they had L*ona stickers they could include instead. Most recently, I had just finished this last-minute artwork of Miss Raven eating pocky by herself to celebrate Pocky Day (11/11). Typically the fan art you'd see on this day would involve two characters playing the "Pocky Game" (in which the players try to eat a stick of pocky from either end; usually it's framed as romantic since meeting in the middle results in a kiss). However, I had chosen to do a solo Miss Raven art because I thought this suited her "I want to be taken seriously!" personality better. Well, guess what? I GOT A PACKAGE DELIVERY NOTIFICATION FOR THE TWST MERCH ORDER... WITH L*ONA IN IT 💀 Almost like he heard there was food meant for sharing and he came to claim it for himself... Like I literally did NOT choose for these things to happen to me, THEY HAPPENED ON THEIR OWN. I DON'T BELIEVE IN PREORDAINED EVENTS BUT THE UNIVERSE SURE IS WORKING IN STRANGE WAYS.

So now that the tables have turned, it’s really embarrassing. Everything is coming back to bite me in the butt… It truly feels like L*ona plotted this all along and was on the prowl, patiently waiting for me to get worn down before he pounces and delivers the final blow to my ego OTL Like, it's gotten to the point where many of my long-time friends in the Twst community are now joking that "It's over" for J word... ONE OF THEM EVEN TOLD ME IT FEELS LIKE I'M GETTING DIVORCED AND L*ONA IS THEIR NEW STEPDAD, HOW AM I SUPPSOED TO FEEL ABOUT HTHAT ??????????? ? ? ????? ? ??? ? ?? ?? ? ???? ?

But by the far the worst, the WORST part about everything here is that if L*ona were fully sentient, he would be so smug about recent developments 😡 It makes me SO mad thinking about how he'd look down on me with that hot smug rage-inducing smirk of his and make fun of me for eating my words so badly.

“What was that you said about hating my guts, herbivore? … Hah, it's written all over your face--you're terrible at hiding your true feelings. You can just give in, you know. Tell me how much you worship me. How much you want me. You'll give in eventually one way or another--so why not make this easier for the both of us and save us the time of playing the wait game? I don't bite, promise." (<- a liar)

(Disclaimer: NOT MY MERCH; this is a L*ona Liker friend’s picture that they’re letting me use as a reaction image 😅)

THIS IS FR MY OVERBLOT ORIGIN STORY…

[respectthepetty]

Before episode three of Perfect 10 Liners continued the love story of these two color-coded boys in love,

It gave me small glimpses of the other color-coded boys in love.

And I'm intrigued by the Lapis Lads.

I don't know if Faifa is truly flirting with Wine or if this casual affection is the norm for him since Yotha threatened him to not behave with Wine as he had with other people, but I think that is the point.

Wine won't be able to tell if Faifa likes him or if this is all just part of Faifa's personality.

Unlike these two where it's obvious one likes to annoy and the other likes to act as if he is annoyed,

Wine seems impersonal and sad, so if he can't get a proper read on Faifa, who comes across as aloof and nosy, I'm going to eat them up because this is truly a battle of two Blue Boys making the worst impression on each other through their color's worst traits.

Just like Red Rascal Arc is leaving a horrible impression on me since the show is determined to remind me he is a Manchester United fan every single week! I don't care if he has Rashford's red jersey! GET IT OUTTA HERE!

And just like that, I'm sent back into the past where Arc has just caused and accident due to his road rage, and Yellow Yal Arm is just "no biggie" about it all. He seems kinda into it actually.

But I don't have to dwell on that kink too long because Blue Boy Sand, in his "relationship" shirt, is clearly already dating Orange Oddity Pond, with his very orange Thai tea and Spider Man hoodie, so as a person who sat through sixteen episodes of We Are for Marc x Poon, I'm thankful my prayers were answered in this series. Amen.

I'm also feeling Blue Boy Warm being in contact with Arc's mom because I see you, Mrs. Robinson! Arc better watch out before he gets a new daddy. Purple Person Cop knows. He sees the writing on the wall.

I'm going to ignore the elephant in the room, or the tiny worm if you ask Pipo, because I want to point out that JJ is looking very adorable in this show, and this scene gave me time to really notice all the yellow in Arm's room. The elephant is hiding behind the yellow couch, but also there is a yellow clock, his yellow bag, and the subways in the painting are also yellow.

I like that in an effort to ignore the elephant he saw, Green Guy Pipo changed his shirt to an Apocalypse Now shirt.

Where would Arm and Arc be without their Blue Boy Besties? LOST and friendless, that's where!

Arc wants Arm to know more about him, but all Arm needs to know is Arc's color is red; therefore, he has anger issues, he is persistent to the point of stalking, and the sex will be 🔥🌶🔥, but somehow, I think Arm already knows.

Orange Oddity Pond is doing such a great job communicating and taking up all of Sand's attention while also giving rides. This is how you balance the negative with the positive as an Oddity. You hear that Peaceful Property's Somkid!

Color-coded boys in love and their friend Steve.

It's real gay of Arc to keep staring at Arm's lips while berating him. It's giving >instigating a fight so his hands will be on me< and, once again, I think they are both aware of this.

And I end the episode with their color-coded gears interlocking before the preview decided to show me a bottle being smashed over Arm's head.

But at least he'll be wearing a color-coded appropriate smiley face shirt when it happens!

Because color-coded boys in love get happy endings, even if car accidents and bar fights are part of the journey to that happy ending.

I see you, kinksters.

[devirnis]

Okay, after having a few days to process, I am allowing myself one vent post to get it out of my system and then it’s back to ✨positive vibes✨ only

If I see one more goddamn smarmy post about how “the writing was on the wall the whole time” (with the undercurrent of “you were too stupid to see it, I have the only valid interpretation”) I’m going to lose it

Had we not had 8x05, the breakup still would have bummed me out, but I would have said, you know what, fair, we didn’t see a whole lot of their relationship, a lot of it was fanon and headcanons. We had a good run. But we did get 8x05, apparently some of it filmed out of order knowing a breakup was coming, and what was the point? To be cruel? It felt like a slap in the face to people who liked that relationship.

They could have laid some groundwork to show some cracks in the relationship, but no. Ignoring disingenuous interpretations from people who have been rooting for the ship to crash and burn since day one, 8x05 established Buck & Tommy as a solid couple. Tommy gets along with Eddie, the three of them had great chemistry together. Tommy takes care of Buck when he’s hurt. Tommy thinks the curse is a bunch of bs (as does Eddie) but still went with Buck to have a funeral for a mummy. It’s like I watched someone cook an elaborate, delicious dinner for me and then they immediately threw it in the trash, and other people around me made fun of me for being blindsided and upset because I should have seen that coming.

I won’t pretend the general audience is a monolith who all have the same opinions. I’m sure there are people who don’t care and just shrugged their shoulders that another relationship of Buck’s fizzled out. But I have 2 friends who watch the show and aren’t Fandom Fans, and they are always my barometer for how people who don’t have brain rot (affectionate) feel about the show. One really liked the relationship, the other was neutral to mildly negative on it, and both of them agreed that it felt like the breakup came out of nowhere and made no sense given the context of the previous episode. So please stop pretending that it’s only BT fandom fans who have their knickers in a twist about how it played out.

If this isn’t leading to buddie, then I don’t want to see another love interest for either Buck or Eddie for the rest of the show. Tommy had so much potential to break the cycle of Buck’s love interests (and interviews from last season seem to support that they were aware of this and planning on utilizing that) and throwing it away feels like such a waste.

So yeah, instead of being just bummed, I’m pissed. I do not know if there was BTS drama or if Tim got some other grand idea for Buck’s storyline this season — but given how plots are adopted and dropped at rapid fire pace this season (something I was willing to forgive last season because of the shortened production timeline and fewer episodes), I’m highly skeptical that there’s any sort of overarching plan here.

I’ve never thought buddie would actually happen on the show, but I also never thought either Buck or Eddie would ever be anything other than straight, so I’d be happy to be proven wrong. I’m just a little jaded by seeing people doing a victory lap convinced that buddie canon is imminent when I think that they are giving the writers a lot more credit than they deserve for supposedly crafting this epic love story for the last five or so years when a lot of that is also just generous fanon interpretation. I need explicit confirmation within the show by the end of this season that at least one of them has caught feelings or I’m over entertaining the possibility it will actually happen.

I know the joy will come back. But I really hope the same plot lines playing out ad nauseam for every character stops because I’m getting a little tired.

[perfectharmonyloveschaos]

Something I hope happens as time goes on is the attention for the main trio grows more equal, especially once Season 2 comes out. Cause I love the Ghoul as much as anyone, but it is kinda disheartening to see how overwhelming the fandom focuses on him when Lucy and Max are equally main characters.

[wizardsix]

astarion stans who refuse to try befriending or even romancing anyone else are the most annoying mfs. "I only romance astarion I just can't relate to the other stories" really? you can't relate to gales deep self loathing? his deep love and loyalty for those he cares about? you can't relate to wylls kind heart and desire to always do good, even if it means he's miserable? can't relate to shadowheart blindly following a god, only to learn the truth and reinvent herself? you can't relate to lae'zel or karlach who were lied to and used as weapons their whole lives, but continue to push on even when they're scared? you can't relate to the overarching theme of authority vs autonomy???

it's not difficult, it's just people refusing to appreciate and explore the game to its fullest bc their manipulative sexy vampire is all they need(something astarion actually loathes being seen as btw). but ok, you can be boring and do whatever you want, but don't lie and say the other stories are bad, because they're not. it's simply a lack of media literacy and critical thinking. because to you, if a character doesn't tell you point blank that they're aware of their situation, it's bad writing. missing the entire point that victims don't always realize the situation they're in. keep in mind astarion and karlach are the only ones who got away from their abusers, which is why they tell you clearly and confidently about what happened to them, fully aware that it was abuse. whereas the others give only their tunnel visioned perspective and speak highly of their deity(not caring about themselves, wish to appease them for something in return).

don't get me wrong (seriously, if I see one person misunderstand me I'm going to lose it) astarion is a good character, but people who only like him need to stop acting like he's the only complex and well written one. stop crying when people with brains call you out for being weird about his ascended ending. the game isn't about him. at least try and show some respect to those who worked hard on the game. make an oc and try new things, i promise the fictional vampire won't care if you don't romance him one run. have a drink with shadowheart, dance with wyll, go to a restaurant w karlach, maybe then you'll calm down.

[feline-evil]

Never gonna be over how unutterably pathetic and in dire need of ANY kind of companionship or friendship that doesn't revolve around their band the entirety of dethklok are. I love these horrible idiots who are so devoid of any real connections outside of themselves that they will latch onto anyone unfortunate enough to get too close to any one of them! And GOD help anyone they latch onto!!

[peggycatrerr]

At least our ship is canon.

You're a fucking snob. "Oh I'm so much better than these fans because I do my fandom differently" BUT YOU DON'T. Marvel fans are the absolute most cliche fans. Lmao this superiority complex people who don't watch OFMD have is honestly just masking the most intense jealousy. You've never watched the show, but you KNOW you're better than the people that do? Get the fuck out of here. You're pathetic.

HOLY SHIT GUYS I'VE BEEN ON TUMBLR FOR NEARLY A DECADE AND THIS IS MY FIRST BIT OF ANON HATE OMG. OMG WHAT DO I DO I WANT TO FRAME THIS <333

[chemicalarospec]

.

[no1ryomafan]

Sometimes I wish I was into getter sooner because the curse of “being in a small fandom of a series that’s been around for decades” is there was always fans before you even if the difference is only by a couple years yet those people do eventually stop talking about it. Not leaving the fandom persay but they got different interests so they don’t feel inclined to stick to this one thing, they’d still talk about it if someone brought it up to them it’s just something that isn’t on their radar a lot until something new comes out. Which is why so many people came back when arc aired but either choose to stay or just left after it died down. I missed out on a lot even if it’s only because I’m younger and a lot of earlier fandom days would’ve been bound to have some doom posting about the mangas ending-there’s still people arguing arc anime didn’t technically “resolve it” bc some people are that salty how it turned out but I don’t wanna imagine how it was prior-and it sucks I’ll never get to know some of these people-

But I also not only realized I still have more than enough getter friends as is to make up for that, if I was exposed to this series in my early teens I think the results for how I would’ve turned out as a person would’ve been far more worse so it’s probably good it didn’t happen💀

[welcometoteyvat]

. windblume

[sunderwight]

Headcanon that Shen Yuan was hotter than Shen Qingqiu, actually.

Like yeah SQQ being a cultivator gave him a boost to enough attributes + being in a stallion novel where everyone is either unrealistic hot or dog's butt ugly got the Shen Qingqiu body extra points, and he wasn't bad looking to begin with. Plus not being ill is vastly more important to the new Shen Qingqiu than those extra hotness points (Without a Cure notwithstanding). But part of the reason why he's kind of like, meh, at least I'm not hideous or anything, is because Shen Yuan's original body was a knock out.

I also like him as chronically ill, and, as many people know, beauty standards and sustained suffering are not as incompatible as they should be. Shen Yuan was conventionally attractive in part because conventional beauty standards seem to want everyone slowly dying all the time. But even setting that aside, the man had flawless bone structure, an appealing figure, captivating eyes, and the kind of voice that stopped people in their tracks.

All of which was a contributing factor to his antisocial lifestyle, actually. Despite the fact that Shen Yuan does enjoy company and requires a certain baseline of social enrichment for his enclosure, his internalized homophobia and closeting did not play well with overtures from interested parties (regardless of gender). The only way to minimize the odds of him being asked out on dates was to essentially become a shut-in, especially since even Shen Yuan can only make so many excuses before he himself starts to notice that he's going to a lot of effort to avoid specifically that avenue of socialization. Far better to just remove himself from any risk of it, and then vocally lament that oh no he's just too much of a nerd to get anywhere with women!

Anyway this largely doesn't matter much outside of sheer comedy potential for any situation where SY gets his old body/life back. Like imagine a reveal scenario where the System is going to transport them back to their old lives.

Shang Qinghua: well bro I guess this is gonna be the ultimate test of love, right?

Shen Yuan: what do you mean?

Shang Qinghua: our husbands are gonna see what we looked like back before we were glorious cultivators! they're going to have to track us down in our mundane, kinda shitty pre-transmigration lives! it's gonna be at least a little embarrassing, right?

Shen Yuan: *gets his old body back*

Shang Qinghua, normal human with average looks: ...

Shen Yuan, exemplary 11/10: ?

Shang Qinghua: what. the fuck?? bro what the fuck why are you hot???

Shen Yuan: don't make it weird

Shang Qinghua: make it weird??? why were you sitting at home reading my shitty novel when you could have been out there building your own harem???

Shen Yuan: stop exaggerating

Shang Qinghua: oh my god you've always been like this. this is it, isn't it? it wasn't even brain damage from the transmigration or something--

Shen Yuan: hey

Shang Qinghua: --you've just always been completely unaware, haven't you? every time I wrote a beautiful woman who didn't know her own appeal you'd be jumping down my throat--

Shen Yuan: because that's a stupid trope--!

Shang Qinghua: --JUMPING DOWN MY THROAT EXACTLY LIKE THAT but this whole time THIS WHOLE TIME it wasn't even a glow-up issue, you've just been that, personified, yourself--

Shen Yuan: look I know I'm not ugly but I'm not I'm hardly that good-looking

Shang Qinghua: YOU ARE NEVER ALLOWED TO CRITICIZE THAT TROPE AGAIN! oh my god. how many broken hearts did you leave behind when you died?!

Shen Yuan: none, I wasn't even seeing anyone--

Shang Qinghua: yeah full offense but I am nottt taking your word for that. I bet you had a harem you didn't know about in this lifetime too. I bet you had a fan club, like an anime prince

Shen Yuan: *mumbling*

Shang Qinghua: what was that?

Shen Yuan: I said... only in high school...

Shang Qinghua: oh my god

Shen Yuan: it wasn't a big deal!

Shang Qinghua: *frantically trying to see if he can find any trace of it on the internet now*

[creatingblackcharacters]

No, That’s Not ‘How Color Works’. - Whitewashing

Whitewashing, as defined by Merriam-Webster:

"to alter (something) in a way that favors, features, or caters to white people: such as a) to portray (the past) in a way that increases the prominence, relevance, or impact of white people and minimizes or misrepresents that of nonwhite people and B) to alter (an original story) by casting a white performer in a role based on a nonwhite person or fictional character"

In fandom context, we know it to include:

Making someone’s skin lighter

Making someone’s hair a thinner texture

Changing someone’s nose to be thinner

Shrinking their lips

Changing the character in their entirety to be someone else

The Normalization of Whitewashing

Remember how I mentioned last lesson that despite the nature of poorly drawn Black characters, most audiences are not turned off enough to discourage the action in professional works? Similar idea with whitewashing. Not the same- unlike the Ambiguously Brown Character, which claims to have plausible deniability, overt whitewashing is usually enough to make fans speak up! But that’s the key word here- overt! It has to be “bad enough” to make enough people speak up, but as we’ve seen many a time, “bad enough” seems to have a much higher threshold for nonblack viewership (sometimes the limit doesn’t exist!)

Some visual examples

This is a link to my personal thread on a Netflix show I was watching- Worst Ex Ever. Now, while the show itself was quite enlightening, there was something I could not get over. I thought I was going crazy. And that was that no matter how dark the person of color would be in real life, the animated portions would draw this light pinkish-brown. Every. Single. Time. It's like they couldn't fathom scrolling down the color wheel. And this is a Netflix original! Netflix has plenty of money for someone to have caught this in creation. But... it was produced. And put out. And they're making more of it.

I asked all of the Dragon Age fans about the series, and uh… I didn’t know things were this bad, guys! Apparently this is a man of color, but it doesn't seem like the creators want you to know that 🤣. Jokes aside, as I’ve discussed before, the noticeable whitewashing- and that was one of many racist things I was told- was not enough to prevent sales... so why would they stop? I can only hope this new game, with all the updates, is enough to turn the tide. But the series has gone on for a while now, that if they’d chosen to do ye same olde… there clearly would not be a lack of financial support to prevent it.

Colorism as a Tool

Even when actors of color are cast, colorism often plays a role in normalizing whitewashing to audiences, even to Black audiences! People think “oh well at least they’re Black!” as if that is the only important part. It is not.

While Aaron Pierre, the actor cast for John Stewart of Green Lantern fame, is a GORGEOUS, STUNNING man, he is not the dark-skinned man that John Stewart is supposed to be and should not have been cast! To me, this is overt colorism, but clearly for many people this is not “enough” to warrant concern or even prevent the casting itself- including the studio behind the movie! Black fans have plead for years for the character of Storm to be played by a dark-skinned, preferably African, woman, and it has never happened.

It naturally happens in fan spaces as well, which is another indicator that colorism as a tool for whitewashing is quite effective for audiences. If I see one more Zendaya fan cast for Kida from Atlantis, I will scream. It’s been happening for years, and I don’t think any of the people who just want to see her and Tom on screen either understand or care that Kida is a dark-skinned character. Zendaya doesn’t look anything like Kida- it doesn’t matter if she’s Black too! Just because someone is Black does not mean they can play every single Black character! I’ve even seen people fancast Emilia Clarke of Game of Thrones fame, to which… I don’t have the words. I can’t fathom what would cause these decisions other than racism.

The Common Excuses

I must be honest. I don’t really feel like re-iterating how certain things are not okay and how to fix them, because I’ve already discussed these things in massive detail. So I’m just going to direct the excuses I regularly hear to my lessons, where you can read up on them.

“Their hair/eyes are like that because they’re biracial so-”

Relevant Lessons: 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, 8, 9, 10

There is nothing wrong with having biracial characters with a range of features. I am not saying that! Because yeah, genetics do happen!

But I mentioned this in my last lesson, and I will re-emphasize here, that using biracial identity as a way to whitewash is a sinister form of racism. The intention here- the real intention- is the issue here! The idea that somehow this character can only look the way you want them to look by "diluting" their Blackness… I don’t know how you can explain yourselves out of that one.

You don’t get to use us as an excuse for diversity while still trying to maintain your preference for Eurocentric beauty standards. Black biracial people don’t always look light skinned, thin-haired and ambiguous, and even the ones that do don’t deserve to be treated as your fetish for pretend antiracism. If you just want to draw a white person with a tan, do that. But don’t change a character’s entire look just so you can work in some whiteness. If you want to claim that canon Black character’s mother was white, then I guess they inherited some of her personality because their features should not change.

“It’s my style/It’s the color-”

Relevant Lessons: 3, 4, 10

I hate all excuses for whitewashing, but I’ve grown to despise, hate, abhor and loathe this one the most as I’ve become an artist. I wish there were stronger words to describe just how much I hate the “style” and “color” excuse.

Are style and use of color oft intertwined? Absolutely. I’m not saying they aren’t. But out of everything, there are two things I want artists to understand:

1. Style does not cancel out racism! No style forces you to choose ashy greys and to change peoples’ features. That’s you! If you look at something, and it looks offensive, you change the style. You grow as an artist!

2. “Everyone who is brown will look ashy so I just-” if you recognize that your Black characters look strange in comparison to your nonblack characters, then it’s time to try something else! I don’t understand this sudden need for “realism” when it comes to color and lighting, but not when it comes to hair, for example. No one cares about realism when giving every and all Black characters wavy tresses they probably wouldn’t have, but suddenly milquetoast watercolor attempts at brown and off-putting lighting is “how it works”. That’s not fair.

The color picker is an available tool! I use it often!

Dead giveaway of purposeful whitewashing: if someone gets the outfit color palette right via color picking, but the skin color is multiple shades lighter. That means they were looking at that character and chose not to proceed.

Dead giveaway of purposeful whitewashing: if the white characters in the show are completely correct in their palettes. Again, that means they cared enough to look at everyone else… and not the Black characters.

If you use the color picker and the color picked is… disrespectful, you do not have to use that! You can simply choose a better color that is still similar to the brown that ought to be depicted!

“It’s the lighting-”

Relevant Lessons: 4, 5

If your white characters do not shine like snow in the sunlight because of your lighting, then your lighting does not make your Black characters suddenly light tan.

If your Black characters look bad in your lighting of choice- for example, putting a very dark-skinned character in electric white lighting can be ghastly- try changing the intensity or the color of the lighting. DON’T change your character’s skin color!

I'm going to show you some pictures of South Sudanese model Nyakim Gatwech. Pay attention to the choices of light, color, and makeup.

Look how BEAUTIFUL she is! Look at the choices of intensity and color of light, and how they make her look different in each image.

Now look at this image in comparison:

In this image, whoever did her makeup and took this picture did not take into consideration her skin tone. She's also under this really intense lighting. This is an example of "increasing the lighting does NOT make an image "better"". She didn't need to have lighter skin or "more lighting" to look good. She needed BETTER lighting, lighting that worked with HER.

To see this as an example in drawn art, @dsm7 makes an excellent argument for proper lighting and color, why it is an issue to use it as an excuse, and how to solve that problem.

‼️DISCLAIMER FOR NEXT EXAMPLE‼️

Okay. I am about to show y’all a fan-created example from my personal experience. It is a TEACHING EXPERIENCE ONLY. I am not including the artist’s name in this image. It happened a couple years ago, and it’s over- they’ve chosen to be who they are despite me kindly confronting them about it. The only reason I’m including it at all is because I feel like it would be remiss to have such a clear-cut, multi-level example, and not teach with it. That said, no, I am not telling anyone to act out towards them. Again, that is not what I’m telling you to do. The last thing I need is a literal lynch mob of angry nonblack viewership for trying to teach you all, and y’all sitting there watching it happen to me. Every example of whitewashing is not going to be so obvious, but I hope you learn how to spot the examples in the art you see and share.

I'm obviously a Hades fan, particularly of Patroclus- despite my disdain for the lack of effort in his canon character design. So I've seen a lot of things. That said:

“Well it’s just MY design of them-”

Relevant Lessons: ALL

The sepia coloring did not do this. The lighting did not do this. The design is the exact same as the Hades version, even down to the shape of the hair curling in the back. The only thing that is different… is the man himself.

Y'all. Y'all! You CANNOT take a pre-existing Black character and say “oh well this is my design of them” …and the design is of a whole white person. Because if the rest of the fit is the same, and the only thing that changed is the Blackness… Racism. If you’re going to “make up your own design”, then do that!

“Blackwashing”

Speaking of: I’m sure someone edgy out there thinks they’re so smart as they retort to the screen: “but if that’s not okay, then why is Blackwashing okay?” To which I say- shut up. 😐

The “definition” by fandom: making a nonblack character Black, usually an anime character, but characters in general.

Funny enough, the actual definition in the dictionary (or closest to) is “to defame”, in contrast with whitewash (as in whitewashing history). Maybe racist fans ARE using it correctly when they say you’re blackwashing their characters, when they mean you’re making them “less likable because they’re Black now”. 🤔

Anyway: Blackwashing is not real for the same reason reverse racism is not real.

Me painting these characters brown is not going to take away from the fact that there are far more of you in media than there is of me. Me saying that I ‘headcanon a character as Black with 4C hair’ is not going to make the studio go “oh! Well they must be Black with 4C hair now!” Me saying “oh I think I’d like this character better if they were Black” as a beta tester (less overtly, obviously, because I’m not racist!) will never make a studio change that character. Black viewers have minimal value in comparison to the power of the white viewer’s dollar. I could draw white characters Black every single day of every single game media… and they would still produce majority white characters. There has not been centuries- if not millennia, when we consider Jesus Christ himself, even- of purposeful “Blackwashing” with the intent of removing the original ethnicity- and thus importance- of white people. No one has ever been allowed to forget when someone is white. No one has ever been allowed to forget or not acknowledge white people.

How it could be "solved"

Personally, I love Black edits and I welcome them here. I find them creative and fun. But if you really, REALLY didn’t want us to make those edits, then naturally, we need more Black characters in all of our media!

I wouldn’t have to make edits if I saw more of me to begin with in the things I like to watch- but when we have those characters, racists act an ass about them. We’re not allowed to even be present! I’ve seen too many gamer bros mocking the existence of Yasuke in Assassin’s Creed, and he was a real ass man. But if we made a game about African peoples in African societies, how many of the gamer bros would actually play those games? Do you think there’d be as much support, when we hear so much about Black characters that are treated so abhorrently? How many games do we have where people would love their faves just as much if they were Black? I even learned that Solas was apparently supposed to be a man of color. IMAGINE how many people would not have liked that man, with the same exact plot and characterization.

Something I’ve noticed recently: apparently "Blackwashing" is not a thing when White fans “allow” it. Take this recent trend with Miku. International Miku was beloved! But if you draw any other character as Black on any other day, there will be people that are horrid about it. Ask any artist, Black artists and Black cosplayers especially, who’s ever done it what their comments are like. I’ve read entire missives akin to white supremacist drivel on how it’s somehow morally wrong to make characters Black. Meanwhile no amount of “hey maybe you shouldn’t do this” prevented the movie Gods of Egypt from being created, with a cast full of British White people.

Solutions to Avoiding Whitewashing!

1) Using References!!

Do I think you should know what Black people look like? Yes. We’re humans. It’s 2024. Everyone knows what we look like when it’s time to hate and discriminate against us, so you know what we look like when it’s time to love and depict us. If you’re on Tumblr, you have access to the Internet. ESPECIALLY if you’re in the U.S., as Black people are the source of damn near every piece of online pop culture. If you can find my dialect to make my jokes, you can find pictures of me.

Would I rather you use a reference every single time so that you can only strengthen your depiction of my people? ABSOLUTELY.

Anyone on the Internet telling you not to use a reference or that you shouldn’t need a reference? Unfollow them. You don’t need that negativity in your life. Why would you deprive yourself of a tool to create? The greatest portrait painters in history had to look at their subjects! You are not getting paid nearly as much to do this as Hans Holbein, and he had to stare at Henry VIII correct else lose his head- you can pull up multiple references. I’d far rather be judged for using hella references than be judged for being a racist!

Part of the issue is people draw what they’re used to, what they’re comfortable with (thus last lesson). But if what you’re used to is not what someone will look like… That’s not okay. Their features are not the issue, your skills are the issue. Learn! Practice! There is no rush. No one is rushing you to be perfect at drawing Black characters, and no one is rushing you to post them. You can just practice! If you’re not a professional, you can take as long as you need to draw! If you need to draw that piece of hair over and over until you feel like you have down the shape, you do that! If you need to use a tool that would draw the hair for you, you get that tool!

If you want to post, you can say you are practicing! If you make clear you are practicing, then be willing to accept that people may have feedback. I’d far rather deal with someone saying they’re unconfident and practicing, than someone posting a whitewashed caricature and closing their ears because “well at least I’m trying!”

2) Empathize! Care about actual Black people when you create a Black character!

Imagine, if you will, in the Twilight Zone: you went to an artist, and you asked for a white character (I typed in “regular looking white dude” on google). There’s hardly ever any white characters, you’re so super excited about this one! You paid good money, because you’ve seen just how amazing this artist creates! They’re so good at drawing characters of color! But no matter how many times you ask, they send you back an image of… Assad Zaman.

That man might be fine as hell! Gorgeous! Beautifully done! Chef’s kiss. Stunning! But… He’s not white. That’s not what you asked or paid for. You can’t even fathom how they mixed this up, they don’t even look alike! And when you confront them, they gaslight you, they call YOU the issue for not understanding how you can’t tell that this is a white man! They would never get this wrong! They have white friends, you’re the racist! But you’re not stupid, and you have functioning eyes- you can SEE what this drawing looks like! And… It’s not you.

It’s dehumanizing. It’s being told that there’s a “better way” to look like you, and that’s by… Not looking like you. You, as you exist, are what’s incorrect. Your identity is incorrect, not their drawing. It’s better to have thinner hair instead of an afro or locs, it’s better to have lighter skin, it’s better to have a straighter, thinner nose over a round one, and smaller lips.

And what makes it worse is knowing that people who don’t look like you? Probably won’t care. They won’t be willing to see- not unable, but unwilling- that playing with this caricature is harmful, that they’re propagating harm by not acknowledging it. They’re letting you know that your humanity means less to them than the clout received with a whitewashed or half-assed Black character, and that people will applaud them for that ‘attempt at inclusion’. And people will applaud! They will be entertained by the mere performance! And that hurts.

I’m going to say this, and it’s awkward and I try not to say it directly on here, but… Having Black friends and/or being around actual, real life Black people would help. I can tell from some of the questions I receive that Black characters and their traits- especially things like our hair and our cultures- are being treated as… alien concepts. But even if, for whatever reason, you legitimately don’t know any Black people, you do not need to know us individually to care about our humanity as a whole! Even if you do not know we’re there, we are, and we could possibly see your work!

By acknowledging Blackness and making room to understand what it means- and that includes how we can look- you are doing the bare minimum of acknowledging our personhood. If you cannot do even that, you don’t need to be drawing us.

Conclusion

Here’s the thing: if you want to draw a white man with tanned skin, do that. Just do it! You do NOT have to erase me to have more of you! There is not a single fandom where the majority of the white fans ever said “gee, not another white guy!” It simply doesn’t happen. God knows we wish it did sometimes. You will always have an audience for white characters. There’s no danger to any of you of “being erased”.

(Without putting on my political hat, I will say that a lot of white people who consider themselves to be far from white supremacist will express beliefs in line with great replacement theory if you push them hard enough. It is unfortunately not as uncommon an idea as you might think. I would do some self-evaluation.)

People are going to notice that you only ever draw white people, but… To be frank, that has never stopped anybody from being successful. Again, Jen Zee, at Supergiant with the terrible dark-skinned characters… Still has a job. at Supergiant. A professional studio. Dragon Age. Multiple games of consistent whitewashing and racist writing. Still going. If racism prevented creation and popularity, I wouldn’t have to have this blog. Alas, that is the society we currently live in.

But if you ACTUALLY want to depict Black characters, if you ACTUALLY want to do right and be respectful- not because you want the clout, but because it’s the right damn thing to do- then you need to commit! This means drawing them as they are meant to be! Accept that you’ll likely lose some fan base, who was there (whether they were aware of it or not) for the white and lighter skinned characters. Accept that this means that trying to appeal to those people by whitewashing characters is 1) wrong, 2) racist, which is 3) something you chose to do when you could simply have just… Drawn more white people.

I’ll say it again: antiracism is hard. It’s hard doing the right thing in a society that rewards racism so easily. It’s really hard knowing that people will stop supporting you or caring as much about your work when you start including Black characters as actively as you do white ones, especially if you start talking about the importance of it. But in my honest opinion, I’d far rather be someone that cared about others, with genuine fans, than someone that was racist for the fleeting internet clout of strangers. And that may be less ‘hopeful’ than I normally am in these lessons, but… People make choices. And people who have been informed- as you are now- are aware of the choices they are making. It’s the thought that counts, but the action that delivers- let’s choose better actions.

[pierregazly]

but mama, i love him ꨄ oscar piastri smau

oscar piastri x leclerc!reader

the one where oscar's girlfriend has been soft launching their relationship for ages. and he's okay with it, especially if it means he can keep hiding in plain sight from her three overprotective brothers.

ynleclerc

tagged charles_leclerc

liked by charles_leclerc, arthur_leclerc, oscarpiastri, and others

ynleclerc omg omg omg... charles leclerc signed my hat? should i add it to the shrine? give them something to sacrifice?

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username any non-f1 fan would automatically assume ynleclerc is a crazy fan page for charles

username or a charles leclerc hate page... all she does it make fun of her brothers here

username she's offering her signed hat for the tifosi to sacrifice for a CL16 win??? that seems like pure love all around

arthur_leclerc i also signed your hat?

ynleclerc i also do not care? will a hat signed by you get me millions if i sell it for sacrificial purposes?

charles_leclerc what's next? my personal belongings?

ynleclerc is that an offer? if so, oui. i will take what i think will make me the most money next time i'm there, merci <3

scuderiaferrari if it gets us a 1-2 finish, sacrifice everything ynleclerc... please 🙏

username being a Ferrari fan is so satisfying when you remember ynleclerc is an automatic inclusion in everything and anything charles does

username the things i would do to have her as a McLaren fan... she's too beautiful for Ferrari 😭

oscarpiastri a piastri hat will get you good money in straya btw

username oscar??

oscarpiastri

liked by logansargeant, landonorris, mclaren, and others

oscarpiastri 'stop hitting me with the ball on purpose you jerk' was said more times than it should've been, by someone who really just sucks at tennis. had an awesome week back home, time to get back to it 💪

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logansargeant no wonder you're so worried about getting run over

username the coordinating outfits?? i'm gonna scream, who is she!!!

username what does logan know, tell us your secrets girl logansargeant

username oscar is gonna soft launch this relationship until the end of time. show us her face, you coward!!

ynleclerc did you pay her for all the bruises that tennis ball left?? poor girl

oscarpiastri it's not my fault she's a terrible tennis player, we all know i've offered to pay for a trainer

landonorris so this is why you couldn't come to bali with me 🤨

username lando really said i'm the third wheel??

username to be fair i'd probably pick oscar's girlfriend over lando for a week away too

username girly you don't even know who she is!!! she could be the devil

username i wanna be included in oscar's post week home photo dump :(

ynleclerc has posted a story

liked by oscarpiastri, logansargeant, pascale.leclerc.355, and others

replies

oscarpiastri you can call me pookie whenever you want if you're gonna post things like this

ynleclerc i'd call you pookie with or without your permission, mon amour

charles_leclerc who is this

charles_leclerc why won't you tell us who you're dating

charles_leclerc we won't hurt him

charles_leclerc answer my texts

ynleclerc

liked by oscarpiastri, pascale.leclerc.355, arthur_leclerc, and others

ynleclerc get you a man who can do both, luckiest woman in the world whenever you're around. mon amour 🤍

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username people involved in formula 1 and their obsession with soft launching everything NEEDS to be studied

username at least she posts her boyfriend and he isn't just a small figure in the background of every post (charles this is a direct hate comment)

arthur_leclerc this would have been very lovely if it weren't for the last photo

liked by charles_leclerc and lorenzotl

ynleclerc suppose it's a good thing you could easily ignore it. cheers :)

pascale.leclerc.355 trés belle, ma fille 💗

charles_leclerc maman?

username could you IMAGINE if ynleclerc told pascale but obviously hasn't told her brothers? i can FEEL the outrage

username starting to think this may be a driver, ynleclerc is at every race weekend and ALWAYS makes a post with her mystery man at some point during the week after...

username okay ms sleuth (i think it's lando)

username i'm like 65% sure it's oscar, and 35% positive it's someone that looks a lot like oscar

ynleclerc

tagged oscarpiastri

liked by oscarpiastri, logansargeant, landonorris, and others

ynleclerc someone exposed us on twitter, so i had to expose us on instagram 😮‍💨

comments on this post have been limited

oscarpiastri love you <3

oscarpiastri i will love you even when a ferrari has run me over, of course.

arthur_leclerc is this your way of telling me i was right, without texting me back?

charles_leclerc this must be a joke, non?

pascale.leclerc.355 so very excited to finally be able to invite the both of you for dinner. trés belle 🤍

charles_leclerc maman, you knew?

ynleclerc oscar and i will see you for sunday dinner, maman! <3

tresbelleleclercspam

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ynleclerc live feed of oscar running away from charles in the paddock when he said he 'just wanted to talk, mate'

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charles_leclerc i truly just wanted to talk about the race

charles_leclerc i did not have a speech planned, non

arthur_leclerc i did have a speech planned

lorenzotl i just wanted to welcome him to the family, as a good big brother should

oscarpiastri my apple watch warned me of an overactive heart rate 5 times today. why did you do this to me. why couldn't you have three sisters???

ynleclerc so very sorry, in our next life i'll try to make sure you only have to worry about sisters and not three overprotective brothers

oscarpiastri as long as i get to spend every lifetime with you <3

i actually got a request for something like this ages ago, and finally got around to finishing it. i so hope you all loved it as much as i loved writing it. thank you for all the support!!

i'm not currently taking requests, but if anyone has lil suggestions or prompts please feel free to send them.

[specshroom]

°~ A MAGE IN THE JUNGLE ~°

Includes: Use of she/her, Slimy naga dick, Size difference, strangers to...fucking? Idk.

In which: Our Mage searches the jungle for a rare species to add to her "research".

She curses as her boot clad feet catch on another root, almost sending her tumbling into the dewy jungle ground. Deciding to stop for a short break, she swats at the buzzing mosquitoes, taking her hat off to fan herself futilely while eyeing the map she bought.

The vender who sold it to her was an eccentric type, which is always a good sign in her eyes. If you're going to scam people at least commit to the whole "mysterious merchant" bit. The old hag managed to make her cough up 7 copper coin for this "traveler's essential". 

Her goodwill has not been paid back as apparently the map was more unreliable than she expected. The mage curses herself as she glowers at the useless map, trying to decipher where the hell she is.  

After a few more minutes of squinting and pointing to random places on the map, she just scrunches the flimsy paper in her hands and sets it on fire, burning it up before the embers could even reach the floor. She wasn't looking for anything any cheap map could show her anyway. 

She came here to follow an urban legend about a deadly beast that stalks the jungle. The creature has many different variations depending on who's telling the story but what is consistent is the shining gold scales adorning the creature. Stories vary widely from village to village, some say it's an old wrathful god sent down to punish those greedy enough to seek it out and some say it's a beautiful maiden with a golden tail here to bring good fortune to those deserving of it. 

Which ever story is the truth, she just couldn't hold back her fanaticism. A strange creature that apparently nobody has seen before but for some reason is being spotted closer to nearby villages more and more? That is absolutely right up her alley. 

Now if she could only find the damn thing. The villagers seemed almost relieved that someone else was going to try and find this thing, so getting information was quite easy. While the area has been narrowed down, it's still a huge chunk of jungle. At this point it would be easier if the monster just came out and tried to eat her already. 

The mage percs up when they hear water flowing and walks in that direction until she stumbles on a river. She kneels down by the waters edge, it looks pretty deep or maybe the water is just too murky to see the bottom. She hums and pulls out the flask she enchanted, fills it with water and waits for the magic to properly dispose of the dirt particles and bacteria before taking a long gulp. 

This river is wide and the water flows slowly but surely past her. She places her hand in the water, curious to see if she can see the bottom or perhaps any fish to eat. 

She softly chants an incantation, forcing the dirt particles away from her hand. This proves harder than she thought as she's never had to cleanse flowing water before. 

She leans in closer to concentrate her energy and eventually the water becomes clearer and she can see something glistening at her from the water. Is that really treasure at the bottom of the river? Could she be that lucky?

 She squints and leans closer to get a better look, the golden specs glinting in the murky water blink at her through the surface. 

She freezes and the blood in her veins turns colder than the depths of the river. 

Before she can even move a huge clawed hand shoots up from the  surface and clings onto her arm, tearing through her cloak, undershirt and skin. There's no time for a painted scream as she's pulled into the water with great force. She can feel the waters resistance against her body as it's dragged into the murky depths. 

Before this beast actually drowns her she manages to force her other hand against the current to grip onto the beasts scaly wrist. She casts the first spell she can think of, Combustion. 

Suddenly the surface of the water explodes outwards, splashing water high into the air. She propels herself upwards and breaks the surface to hover above the water. She curses and looks around frantically, she can't lose the monster now. Panicking, she summons her hat and starts chanting, willing the plentiful vines of the jungle trees to plunge into the river and search for the beast. 

When she feels a tug she wills the vines to pull the heavy struggling mass to the surface. The huge mass writhes and thrashes in its confines as it rises from the water. 

She can finally see just how massive this thing is as it fights and snarls at her. It's much bigger than any Naga she's seen before, the human half is near orc sized! The bottom half being even bigger with the long thick tail thrashing in the water below. She reinforces the vines to bind the rest of the ridiculously large tail and sets the beast down on the ground next to the river. 

When her feet meet the ground, she sighs and wills the water out of her soaked clothes. She checks her bleeding arm and sucks in a breath at how deep the gashes are. 

"Now look what you did. Fucking hell, thats deep. How long are your claws?!"

Of course she can heal it but it's such a pain. The monster on the ground hisses and spits in response. 

She takes a better look at it, or him, she discovers. His scales really do shimmer like gold with black scales painting a pattern all the way down his back and tail. His white underbelly fades into something resembling human skin as her eyes move up his rapidly moving chest. The gold scales fade into a darker black down his shoulders to the tips of his clawed fingers. Her eyes flicker to his intense stare, pure gold flickers in his irises. His drenched black hair gets in the way of his glare. 

"Wow."

She can't help but verbalise her awe. She carefully moves around him to look at him in a different angle.

"I knew you were a naga. I knew it."

She summons a book into her hand, not her spellbook but one for these special cases. She flips to a new page and licks the tip of her pencil. She crouches down to look at him expectantly,

"Do you happen to know how much you weigh? What do you eat? Most nagas are some sort of omnivorous but I'm assuming you eat mostly fish. How many fish do you have to eat to stay this size?"

She gestures incredulously to all of his giantness.

He just growls some more, quiter this time as his confusion overtakes his anger somewhat.

"Come now, I know you can understand me and I know you can speak."

He stops growling to stare at her incredulously. How could she possibly know that? The giant snake man tries to readjust but hisses again, this time in pain. She jolts up and immediately goes to assess the wound on his wrist, which is tied tightly to his back. She cringes at the red, fleshy wound she created on his body. So much for first impressions. Without much warning she immediately starts with the healing spell. This creates great discomfort for him, as his cells rebuild themselves but she knows this is better than dragging it out for longer.

"I know, I know. I'm sorry."

She coos at the massive man almost like he's a child or a small animal. This woman evades him. Once she's done and his wrist is good as new she springs up and clears her throat, looking somewhat embarrassed.

"Sorry about that but...you did try to eat me so..."

He looks like he wants to say something but doesn't know how exactly. By the scowl on his face it doesn't look like it would be anything good. She crouches down again, peering down at him.

"Do you still want to eat me?"

He growls, nothing but hatred in his beautiful eyes as he hoaursly spits out,

"I want nothing more in the world."

"..."

The mage tries and fails to hide a girlish giggle behind her hand as she rocks back and forth on her feet. She reacts as if he'd just complemented her outfit. The Naga man pulls his mouth into a snarl and huffs in irritation, hating how this woman continues to confuse him.

After composing herself she summons her little reaserch book again, holding it against her crouched thighs to write.

"Have you actually ever eaten a human before? Be honest."

The Naga writhes in his bonds to eventually turn away from her so atleast he doesn't have to face his captor. He lies there for awhile just squirming every so often, he's already tried to cut the vines with his claws but she must have done some kind of reinforcement magic when she healed him. Damn witch.

While he devises an escape plan, he can hear scratching on paper from behind him. The mage seems to be writing quite a lot in her book. When the Naga looks back at her he catches her gaze staring intently at the intricate patterns on his back, the way the scant black scales blend with the bright gold makes for a very unique pattern.

"How much will you sell it for"

She stops sketching and looks back up at his eyes. She lets out a confused "hmm?"

This only makes him angrier.

"My hide! It must be worth a fortune! That's why you're here!"

Her gaze softens a bit, kicking herself mentally for being so unthinking towards the man. He might be big and intimidating but that doesn't mean he can't be scared for his life.

"Look, I don't want your hide. It would be much easier to just fake one anyway since nodoby knows what you actually look like. I just want to ask you a few questions and then let you get back on with your day. I'll even cook you a meal as a thank you."

The snake man is obviously skeptical, all he does is stare back at her with those gorgeous eyes.

She sighs and opens her book back up, flipping over to a particular page.

"Researching rare and perculiar creatures is a hobby of mine."

She rolls down onto her stomach and shuffles closer to the massive Naga. She leans on her elbows to show him the open page as if they were best friends at a slumber party and she's showing him her dairy.

"You're not even the rarest or most sought after Naga species I've met."

She points to a drawing she sketched of a male Naga, this one with the torso and arms of a human but the tail and head of a snake. There's a bunch of scribbles and descriptions around the drawing in a language he can't read.

"Where he's from people worship him like a god. He's a very rare species that can hypnotise someone just by looking into their eyes."

She chooses to leave out the part where she willingly let the Naga hypnotise her and use her as he pleased for weeks.

He doesn't have a response to give the mage, staring blankly at the pages as she rattles on about other species she has in her book. His skepticism somewhat dampened by these sketches of Naga just like him but with characteristics he's never seen before.

The mage notices how dark the sky has gotten, catching a few stars glinting overhead. She gets up and starts assembling the tent she brought. Pulling thick fabric out of her infinitaly deep satchel.

The Naga man just lies there watching, wondering if it would be so bad to comply with this mage. They don't seem dangerous or malicious at all but the magic they wield is still a concern. She talks to him as she works on building her temporary abode.

"Y'know, the village folk are quite nice. If you want I could talk to them, I'm sure they would rather cohabitate than live in fear of a man-eating monster in the jungle. Since you're definitely a rare species this part of the jungle could even be named as a conservation zone."

She keeps yapping stuff the Naga man doesn't care to listen to. The mage erects her shoddy little tent, does some sort of chant and then hurriedly crouches inside the small space.

She stays inside there for a while to the point where the Naga man thinks she might not return for the night. He smells something absolutely devine and realises it's cooked beef coming from inside the tent.

The damn mage walks outside with a steaming bowl of that devine smelling concoction. She stabs a piece of meat with a fork and offers it to him after blowing on it a little. She doesn't really give him time to react before poking the fork into his mouth. His taste buds are lighting up and he almost moans at the taste.

The mage grins at how he accepted her offer and stands back up.

"I just want to ask you a few questions. I'm sorry for causing you trouble but I didn't come all this way for nothing. I'm more than happy to repay you for your troubles if you just come inside."

After that she turns and walks back into the tent. As she walks away the vines binding his body loosen until they fall from his body entirely.

He's free. She's giving him an out. He could just leave.... But he can still taste the meat on his tongue. Nothing has happened to him yet so atleast he knows it's not poisoned or spiked. He turns to where the dark water of the river calls to him and turns back to the fire light coming from inside the mages tent. He sighs and hangs his head. As if the jungle itself is trying to urge him, a cool breeze blows past that seems to urge him closer to the tent.

The Naga sighs, stretches his sore limbs and slowly slithers towards the tent. He takes a deep breath before parting the fabric of the opening and crouching inside.

As he expected, the tent is much bigger than it appears on the outside. Bedding and pillows cover the floor and there is a fire with a pot over it in the middle.

The mage is humming to herself while pouring more steaming hot stew into two bowls. He sits across form her coiling his tail into a pile to sit on top of it.

She holds out a steaming bowl to him and waits patiently for him to take it. He hesitantly accepts the offer and, after watching her eat a fair portion of her own bowl, starts slurping up the meaty stew.

After the first and second serving the mage places her empty bowl aside and picks up her book. As the Naga pours himself a third helping she clears her throat, making him look up at her expectant gaze. He huffs but nods, lazing back against his tail to keep enjoying his meal. The mage gleams across from him.

"I don't know how much I weigh, I eat mostly fish and I've never eaten a human."

The mage scribbles all this down as he speaks, very pleased with his cooperation.

"How often do you shed?"

The Naga rests his arms on his tail like it's a comfy backrest. He takes a generous gulp of his stew before answering,

"...Once every season."

"So you grow moderately quick then? And you're still growing? Or do you think this is how big you'll get."

"I still shed, so I'm still growing."

The woman nods and jots that down.

"You're a constrictor type, right? No venom or hypnotising?"

He gives her a deadpan stare, as if to say "What do you think?". She gets the idea and confirms her own theory.

she chews her lip, deliberating something before she finally asks.

"Can I measure you?"

He gives her an irritated look before he slowly unwinds his tail from it's bunched up state, unfurling it out on the floor as he lies on his stomach.

The mage wastes no time springing up and pulling a rolled up tape measure out of her hat. She holds it out to him and says,

"Hold this at your head, please."

He boredly does as she asks and she carefully walks back the length of his body. He doesn't know why but he straightens his tail as much as possible while looking at her over his shoulder. When she gets to the tip of his thick tail she exclaims some numbers in a measurement he doesn't know but from the look on her face it's clearly impressive. She hurriedly scribbles that in her book.

The measuring roll disappears and the Naga goes back to his meal. He pours what's left in the bowl into his awaiting mouth before he feels a soft touch on his tail and freezes.

He slowly looks behind him at the culprit. He watches her with a predatory gaze as she hesitantly tests his patience. He watches her, as if daring her to go further and so obviously she does. She inches higher up his tail to where is gets much thicker, lightly tracing the patterns on his reptilian skin. She softly touches his golden scales as if they're fragile.

The mage gets more confident and crawls higher up his tail, getting more inquisitive and bold.

"Is the underside more sensitive?"

She asks, genuinely curious. He doesn't answer, just keeps staring at her with a look that says "Try it", so that's what she does. She looks into his eyes and slides her hand down the side of his tail towards the white underbelly.

He strikes before she can even blink. He has her on the floor coiled up in his tail as he entraps her whole body with his. She doesn't offer much of a fight besides some squirming but his tightening hold on her body forces her to still.

"Is this what you want mage?"

She says nothing, only looks up at him with those same curious eyes. He can feel her heart beat as he squeezes her rib cage, it beats steady and bold. She's not scared of him at all and that intrigues him more than he likes.

The Naga looms over her, he reaches out to grab her jaw tilting her head around to look over her face. He's tried to ignore it but he's also quite curious about her and her own species. He pinches his fingers slightly so that it makes her lips pout together before he reaches out with his other hand to take her pink tongue in between his thumb and pointerfinger. She just stares up at him, offering no resistance.

He strokes the small wet muscle with his thumb, rubbing over where it would split into two if she was a Naga like him. It's so small compared to his fingers and much warmer than he anticipated, probably due to the warm meal they just shared. He sticks his tongue out to lick the air and pauses when he smells something unfamiliar but unmistakable, coming from the Mages lower parts.

He's smelled it once before when he caught sight of a human woman bathing in the river, he couldn't help but linger in the brush and watch the human as she touched herself. He feels the same need now that he felt then, a curious burn in his stomach.

The mage struggles in his hold,

"I know you're curious too..."

She says up at him, almost hopefully. She slowly struggles her legs free to wrap them around his wide torso, squeezing him between her thighs. As he looks down at her the snake man feels her warm body heat radiating off of her seeping into his skin, the movement of her chest, her pulse. He can feel his cock poking out from the slowly parting slit on his white underbelly.

He licks the air one more time before his mouth catches hers in a needy kiss. She immediately kisses back with fever, fidgeting more in his hold making him tighten the heavy coils which only makes her let out a pleasured cry into his mouth. His tongue feels so odd on her own, it's much longer than hers and he pushes it down her throat with abandon.

His tail slithers around her body, lifting her shirt up. When she first feels his cold skin against her warm stomach she's filled with need to feel him against every inch of her skin. She struggles in his hold, kissing him with more need and trying to grind her neglected cunt against something.

The Naga huffs a laugh and watches her kick her legs helplessly.

"Do you have other clothes?"

He mumbles against her lips, she nods into the kiss.

His claws tear her pants and underwear away as if the garments were made of tissue paper, doing the same to the neckline of her shirt and undershirt. She groans at the feeling of his cold skin against hers and the humid night air on her cunt.

She feels a slick substance drip onto her pussy and groans loudly.

"Show me. Let me see."

She pleads and struggles even more. He chuckles and nibbles on the skin of her neck,

"Little thing like you should be scared. What if it's too much for you?"

His concern is real even if he's insanely turned on by this situation. Her body might not be able to keep up with her inquisitive mind.

"Try me."

She looks into his eyes with determination, he looks back. One of his hands go to stroke his growing cocks as they unsheath from their slit. She stretches to pear over his tail wrapped around her. There's two, one big cock clearly meant for insemination, the same colour as his white underbelly and a second reddish coloured one, she assumes is meant for extra stimulation. The Naga strokes the big one with one hand, both cocks have slick ooze spilling from them and they're dripping with slick which she guesses is produced from the slit they come out of.

She worms her hand over one of his coils to grip onto his tail, she whines loudly at him. She wants it inside her so bad. He chuckles at her again as more of his precum drips onto her pussy lips.

He can't deny her pleas for long and against his better judgement he prods at her entrance with his cock, rubbing the tip up against her hole.

She grinds up into him and he takes that as the go ahead to slide inside her. The slippery tip sheathes inside her rather easily, it's the rest of him he's worried about. He struggles to hold himself back from pounding the hot tight pussy squeezing around him, he truly doesn't want to hurt the Mage.

Said Mage is almost in tears at being unintentionally edged by him. She squeezes her thighs around his massive waist, squirming around as much as she can. The Naga finds he likes the way her soft naked body wriggles in his coils, he especially likes the way her thigh muscles tense and relax. His sharp claws gently caress the fat of her thighs, curiously squeezing and jiggling the fat slightly. She whines again and he decides to be merciful and slides his cock further inside her while gripping her thighs.

He's too slow, too cautious and she just can't take it anymore.

She mumbles a little spell and the Nagas body feels a sudden force pulling him closer to her making him hiss as his cock is suddenly thrusted to the hilt. The smaller cock is rubbing up against her clit delisciously and the slick coating his cock seeps out of her pussy.

"If I want you to stop, I can make you. Stop, pussying around fuck me."

He stares down at her with blown out eyes, she stares up at him so determined while still being thoroughly bound in his hold. His breathing is more ragged and a grin finds it's way on his face. He looks almost feral and it makes the mages pussy clench around him which makes him reactively thrust back.

She's spun around suddenly in his hold, his tail unwinding until her arms are free and there's one coil left around her waist. Her arms are quickly bound by his own hands, gripping her much smaller arms. He gives a hard thrust into her cunt and growls in her face as she moans back up at him.

He starts a rough pace, having thrown all cation to the wind. Her tight human pussy squeezes him so tight like he squeezes around her body with his tail. The loud wet slapping sounds his hips make against hers make everything even more erotic. His coiled tail around her grips her waist tightly and he groans when he can feel his own cock bulge against her stomach where his tail holds her.

He brings the end of his tail to wrap around her wrists binding them together while his ramming into her soaked pussy.

He speeds up even more and places his palm on top of his smaller dick, pressing it against her clit. His other hand is gripping her under thigh so hard she's pretty sure his claws have pierced her skin. The stimulation on his sensative cock makes him frantically thrust into her until he releases deep inside her. He shakes and spasms as he empties himself into her. If he was more conscious he would be embarrassed at how needy he must have looked.

His orgasm lasts quite awhile longer than she expected, she realises he must have been really pent up as his cock just keeps shooting seed into her every few seconds. The poor Naga looks exhausted when his orgasm finally ends. His eyes are closed, breathing deeply with strands of black hair fall delicately around his face. The tail around her wrists loosens and she immediately goes to pull him down into her embrace, clutching his sweaty body into her warmer one.

He hums into her neck, enjoying her warm softness. His tongue flicks out occasionally to lick her salty skin and smell her on the air.

"Did I tire you out, big guy?"

She jokes, while her hands caress the comparatively massive expanse of his back. She tries to remind herself that he might be inexperienced and more sensitive than usual, she doesn't want him to feel bad about getting overstimulated.

The Naga lifts his head from her neck, his body casts a shadow over hers as he looms over her again. He gives her a sharp fanged grin.

"Don't be so cocky, Mage."

The end of his tail slowly comes from behind to wrap around her neck as the coil still wrapped around her waist lifts her torso up high. His softening cock slips out of her dripping cunt as he lifts her up with his tail. She groans low as she feels the copious amounts of slick and spend fall from her pussy to the floor.

The naga curiously runs his thumb up the length of the mages pussy, gathering up the fluids. He feels a strange urge to keep as much of his cum inside her as possible. Careful of his sharp claws he opts to push his spend back into her pussy with his tongue, feeling the way she squirms and clenches around his forked tongue. The Naga hisses lightly in delight and smooshes his face into the fat warmth of her thigh while looking into her eyes. She peers at him with a dazed look, loving the way his tail lightly squeezes her thoat.

"I'm far from done with you."

As it turns out she didn't get to ask him many questions that night. Not that she complained about it much.

[tritoch]

the other thing I find very funny about trying to write a canon compliant wol is taking all the wolship hints extremely seriously.

I don't really wolship because I'm just fundamentally not that kind of fan. But I know for those who are, the sheer number of romance hints FFXIV throws at you can be overwhelming to parse in a context where you have a preferred/intended wolship, particularly if you're not attracted to the gender the hints are coming from in the first place (a particular tip of the hat to wlw fans navigating the g'raha of it all). I've seen plenty of people write around them or write them out or be like "no aymeric was for real inviting my wol to a nice platonic zero-subtext dinner," and God bless all of you.

But it's really funny to imagine them all as all-too-real but unreciprocated or perhaps unreciprocatable. The sheer scale of it is comedy. Spoilers for all of FFXIV follow.

Oh God, the Lord Speaker wants to have dinner, just the two of us, at his family estate and not a government building. I hope he doesn't bring up his crush on me. Thal's balls he's about to bring it up—oh thank God there's an emergency. Oh no someone got hurt! Oh no it's the teenage girl with a crush on me.

Your life is a cosmic joke. You watch the Sultana get poisoned and all your friends probably die to save your life and it's kind of all your fault in some ways, I mean at the very least you should've spoken up when they gave the teenager a private army, and then the teenage boy speaks up and is like, "hey, I guess we have at least one ally. What about if we go visit that guy who is really obviously down unbelievably bad for you and wants to lick the sweat off of you." and you have to be like, yeah, Alphinaud. Great idea. Let's do it. I'll call him.

(brief interlude: also haurchefant's DEATH hits so good if you don't reciprocate. It's okay. He gets it. You're going through a lot and even if you had time to sort through your feelings maybe you're just not into him. That would be okay! You can love someone, or the idea of someone, without needing it to be romantically reciprocated. That's chivalric, even. Knightly. So he won't ask you to lie to him and say you love him as he lies dying in your arms. He's not so low as all that. But could you smile for him as you used to? That true hero's smile of yours. And you do, and he dies. And you both know he died for a lie, in a way, or a flight of fancy. And he's okay with that. Are you? Should you be? Should he?)

Then you're into Stormblood and it's like wow, okay. That last part was all high fantasy, of course there were loyal knights and elegant princes. But this is war. Imperialism. Grim business, surely there's no way—oh no BOTH handsome young revolutionary leaders seem to have a special interest in you?! And so does the Crown Prince of the Empire? Come on, man. I should get to do the whole horrors of war thing without having to also deal with this. Gaius sucked and it was weird that he let his foster daughter run around being openly obsessed with him but at least he never made it my problem.

You can't even get away from it across dimensions. Shadowbringers is a horror story about going on a teambuilding camping trip with your work colleagues for some reason except they all suddenly got really hot and they keep touching you affectionately on the shoulder and being like "I care for you and your happiness. Truly." And also you're being stalked for the whole camping trip by two old men who are obsessed with you. The false climax of the story is that the one old man tries to betray you and give a dramatic monologue about how he loves you but the two of you are doomed by the narrative and then the other old man shoots him in the back like "no actually its MY turn to betray them and give a dramatic monologue about how our love is doomed by the narrative." Then the real climax is old man #1 backstabbing old man #2 in the middle of said monologue before old man #2 dies and gives ANOTHER wistful monologue about his doomed love. Then for the patches they're like okay so we have this even CRAZIER old man who's gonna strike when you're weak and give a dramatic monolo—

and that's without even getting into the literal soulmate ghost only you can see

my warrior of light never felt more betrayed than in that scene where Y'shtola is like "haha Alisaie and G'raha have crushes on the warrior of light." Like I thought we were COOL, Y'shtola! I work here! This situation is already in such a delicate balance! Right when I got here I met Alisaie's "friend from work" who was like oh haha so YOU'RE the one she can't stop talking about and we never followed up on that because the woman died horrifically like five minutes later right in front of us! Then when Vauthry got away and we had to do all that shit with the dwarves, G'raha kept pausing every ten minutes to be like oooooh I'm so old I'm gonna die soon...at least I got to spend some time with some people who are really important to me...in fact here's what I'd tell the person who's most important to me...actually u know them really well haha. And I just had to sit there and be like wow, dude, crazy.

even in the face of apocalypse you still gotta go back in time like 12,000 years and there's somewhere there who makes you sit and listen to his story which is that the purpose of his whole godlike immortal life was to be in a throuple with you and old man #2 from the camping trip. and you just gotta sit there the whole time knowing you/your past life is the one who broke up the throuple over politics. He's like come help me harangue the old man into streaking in public, he'll do it if you ask.

then you meet and fight and kill God and you gotta turn to the team and be like hey sorry guys can you give me a sec. I'm gonna call God by her real name because we met one time for like four days and after that the promise of meeting me again was one of the things that sustained her through her millennia of suffering. Not like that but like. Idk. Just gimme a sec!

It's a relief when you finally get to Lahabrea and he's like actually I still don't fuck with your vibe. Like thank GOD.

And my WoL is very obviously dad-shaped so Dawntrail had a very specific energy for me but I understand that for plenty of people your deepening rapport with Wuk Lamat had a romantic subtext (same for Koana depending on how you read a few of his lines). And personally I think it's the height of comedy to be like, noooo, babe, your highness, I know you and your brother the king are in love with me and want me to stick around and support you emotionally through this governmental transition haha. But it's just...the cursed wineglass, babe. I GOTTA go figure out what's up with this cursed wineglass.

It's a running gag in some of the more optional content that people are like "you have an unreasonable number of hobbies and side gigs" to the WoL from time to time. But if every time you tried picking up a new hobby some new elf started baring their soul to you, you too would be like Hey Jessie (or sometimes Krile or Tataru), my good friend who is one of the only people in my life who knows what professional ethics and work-life boundaries are, any chance you need muscle on a gig on the other side of the world? Ideally with only Cid and his ex so all libidinal energy in the room is directed towards machinery or someone who isn't me?

ironically one of the only places you get a break from psychosexual obsession is the nier content