#CC does not equal C

[thecoolerliauditore]

Pls tell me about Scott's views on women in general pls I'm begging you

o7 and I'm sorry

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

fyi, the post itself isn't NSFW, but I'll be getting all gender theory in this bitch so I'll be referencing a lot of things and putting in pictures of naked ppl sometimes. maybe skip this one if you don't like that

(long post)

Disclaimers

An explanation for the tweet up there

I usually don't write these because I assume the people on my blog have enough sense to realise when I'm talking about the characters vs the CCs or are comfortable enough being a little confused, but I feel the need to extra-clarify here and expand on how I specifically view C vs CC because I think it differs a little from the average person.

To me, C and CC are two separate entities but not entirely disconnected. What differs (e.g. the exclusion of irl relationships -- their wives, kids, etc.) is poignant enough to severely detach them from the people they originated from, at least in my eyes, but there's also the fact that these are not scripted characters, just creators being themselves with a hint of behind the scenes drama-adding and improv thrown in.

For example, CC Pearl is a car nerd. So I assume her character is too.

This is where I state very clearly that yes, a lot of these thoughts come from things I've seen on Scott's twitter, which is undoubtedly the CC and not the C. However I, to me, am still talking about the C because any observations/judgments I could make on actual irl youtuber CC guy Scott Major would be tabloid at best and slightly invasive at worst. I'm seeing these statements within the context of "the death game guy would say this too and I'm writing this based on that", not "this is the inner psychological workings of the youtuber because I, as a fan, can totally tell".

TLDR I don't consider this post RPF but you might. This is a little more RPF-y than my usual stuff. If you don't rock with it we cool.

Everyone is weird about women, and that's okay

One short-hand I've used in the past to talk about Scott and women is just by saying that he's "weird about women" which I'm sure isn't exclusive to him.

(shitpost I made awhile back)

I see a lot of people now who love "villains" and "evil" but when it comes to any traits resembling real life evil (e.g. misogyny in this case) they suddenly become insecure. Just a couple of days back a saw a post on twitter essentially asking for permission to continue liking CC Scott in spite of the "bad things" he did.

And I think, in order to present an analysis like this, I must address that mindset first.

This is not a judgment on Scott's morality, nor is it trying to dissuade you from liking him. This is not saying that he is any more misogynistic than any other player in the series. This is just me pointing out Scott's attitude towards women and what I read it as, nothing less or more.

The feelings that me pointing these things out - be they apathy, disgust, anger or, what I would hope to see most, interest - are your own. I'm not here to tell anyone how to feel and never will try to police that on my blog.

Scott's Relationships with Women

aka. oh yeah this is about minecraft.

Scott and Cleo || "Yeah, you can kill me."

Scott and Cleo's alliance is arguably the strongest in the entire series, spanning through all five seasons and remaining unbroken with no (serious) drama attached. You'd expect from this that they two have a very settled and stable understanding of eachother, yet this isn't a case.

Their power dynamic shifts dramatically from one season to the next.

3L's initial Widows Alliance began on fairly equal footing, built on the mutual agreement that they were waiting for their respective partners to die. Both understood they were eachothers' "plan B" and felt comfortable in that arrangement.

Come LL, Cleo does what she couldn't in 3L, and initiates that plan, going to Scott after her last alliance, the fairy fort, fell apart. Scott requests nothing from her in return.

DL is the longest the two spent as eachothers main ally. Cleo is the one who initially proposes teaming up to spite their "cheating" soulmates and Scott agrees. Cleo admits to Martyn in private that she's aware she's taking advantage of Scott (which I've always interpreted as her talking about all seasons, not just DL). Due to the time they spend together, it's here where it becomes apparent that their initial assumptions during 3L were not entirely accurate, as Scott shows a level of gameplay competency much higher than Cleo's (e.g. teaching her how to axe-crit) but despite this Scott never berates her or thinks any less of her value as his ally.

LimL is probably this pairing at their most unhinged, as Scott, despite once again asking for nothing (or very little -- I'll be honest I'm a bit fuzzy on this) in return from Cleo, allows them and their allies to butcher him repeatedly for time. He gives more time to the Clockers than he does to Martyn, his closest ally that season. Despite this, Scott is never ever considered as a "family member" by the Clockers, despite them giving that title to even temporary allies (like the Bad Boys being their cousins) -- even Martyn gets a title with Scott completely unattached.

SL is relatively more chill, but shows that the two inevitably end up teaming together even despite their oath to avoid eachother that season.

The point being -- again and again, we see Scott literally and metaphorically making sacrifices for Cleo, with the only real transaction he requires from her being that she continues having his back when times get rough. This is despite that he's aware she isn't any more capable than he is and the fact that so far it has only been Cleo in rough times (LL, LimL and SL) and never Scott.

Speaking from a purely transactional perspective, Scott is not getting a bargain here -- and even Cleo seems acutely aware of it, judging by her comment during DL as well as the way she tends to speak of her survival capabilities very lowly in general ("rubbish pvp skills and spiffy one-liners"). I'm speaking in this sense because I've seen discussions in the past about the transactional way Scott views relationships but rarely does Cleo get brought up.

This is at stark contrast to how he treats Jimmy, whose predicted death was what spurred on Scott and Cleo's alliance in the first place.

Scott assumes Jimmy is "incompetent", where he assumes Cleo is capable. When Jimmy messes up, he reprimands him, when Cleo struggles to crit him, he patiently teaches her. When LL begins, Scott's first instinct was to look at Jimmy's lives and note that he was "useless to (him)", but holds no objections to Cleo joining his alliance despite her already having enemies being a potential liability. In SL, he jokes about how Cleo and him being allied is a given and pretty much expected of them, whereas in LimL he explicitly requests from Jimmy a recognition that he still cares ("say love you back!") before he will help him.

Scott and Gem || "You HAVE TO kill me, Gem,"

In SL, Gem settles in very easily in a leadership position within Gem and the Scotts due to her trying to live up to her reputation but also due to Scott and Impulse's more laid back, passive playstyles.

Both Scott and Impulse let Gem kill them for extra health this season, although Scott is arguably much more subservient than Impulse is, with him not only insisting that she kill him in the final episode but also not fighting back (and only yelling for her to stop) when she starts hitting him with a sword during the episode where her task was to literally kill everyone on the server.

Once again comparing her to Jimmy, Scott in 3L had a tendency to brush aside Jimmy's concerns over alliances (e.g. Jimmy questioning if they could trust Cleo) while in SL Scott runs his plans by Gem (and Pearl and Impulse) in terms of who he wanted to team up with (specifically excluding Joel from the potential mounders alliance) implying he held her opinion in some form of regard.

Before this becomes less of an analysis of Scott's treatment of men vs women and more of Scott's treatment of Jimmy vs everyone else, I think it's notable enough to mention that he and Martyn also lacked this sort of communication in LimL. He would inform Martyn of his plans, but rarely was it ever framed as a request.

SL almost feels as if Scott has slid Gem into the slot he had previously designated for Cleo in 3L (his girlboss ally) as he provides her and pretty much forces onto her by the end the acts of service he'd become accustomed to performing for Cleo.

Scott and Lizzie || "You killed her! I don't.. I don't know what to even say!"

Relatively shorter section because this is the one woman he hasn't teamed with, but there's still some interesting stuff I wanted to touch on.

In LL, one of the first thing Scott does is yell at Pearl to revenge-kill Joel for boogey-killing him. Pearl does as she's told and Joel's wet miserable pathetic LL life gets worse from there.

Several episodes later, the roles are reversed -- Lizzie lies to both of them and manages to isolate and boogey-kill Pearl. Scott, instead of reacting with the anger he had for Joel, is almost in a state of shock as he asks Lizzie to let him down so he could collect Pearl's belongings. He doesn't act aggressively towards Lizzie at all, with his most antagonizing act against her being to lie about his intentions when giving her a wither skull.

In SL, he's the only one aware of her early permadeath, but keeps quiet about it almost as if he's in a state of shock akin to when he saw Lizzie kill Pearl in LL. It's not until the others have noticed when he finally brings it up.

Scott and Pearl || "Tilly death do us 'part"

I wrote a whole post just for their relationship alone so for the sake of my sanity I'll be leaving this here.

So now I get to dedicate this section to the meat of this post -- how the way Scott treats women in general impacts his relationship with Pearl and how I view his heel-turn on her as seeping with relevance to Pearl's perceived gender.

In all three of the previous sections, the running theme is that Scott is 1. kinder and more patient with women, regardless of their competency and 2. someone who likes to be in a supporting role to women, occasionally aiding them more than he aids himself and his closer male allies (e.g. Jimmy and Martyn). As shown with Cleo, he assumes that girls have it together, but even if they don't it's not a big deal. When a girl's actions are truly disastrous, such as with Lizzie's, he goes into a state of shock and doesn't really react, preferring to swallow it down and not acknowledge it.

With the amount of times he sacrifices himself, I don't think it's a reach to say that Scott values his own life less than he values the lives of his (female) allies. This specific point actually does extend to his male allies too, shown when he's happy when Martyn literally backstabs him in LimL, but just as with the Martyn post where I point out his victim status-ing doesn't end at only women but includes all the women, Scott has pedastal-ed all the women he's teamed with.

Lizzie is, once again, the exception here due to his limited interactions with her. However that's actually somewhat patched over if you look at adjacent series (such as x-life) where he definitely shows her a level of admiration and respect.

Back to Scott and Pearl.

Their relationship during LL is very standard of how Scott treats women. While the power dynamic between them is obviously more caused by the initial life trade agreement, I don't think it's a far reach to say that Scott is somewhat comfortable in the arrangement.

However, this is also the first thing that sets their relationship apart from Scott with Cleo or Gem -- Pearl is the one making sacrifices, not Scott. She is the one "sacrificing" her lives to him, just in a more non-violent way as allowed by the season's mechanics.

When viewed through this lens, Scott trying to make it up to her and wanting his effort acknowledged makes even more sense. This is suddenly uncharted waters for him. His assuming that Pearl doesn't value him as a person goes hand in hand with him valuing himself less than her.

What Scott has with Cleo or Gem, situations where the other party is clearly uncomfortable with how he treats himself (Gem) or actively aware they are taking advantage of him (Cleo), is equalized to him because he is inherently worth less. What he has with Pearl, on the other hand, looks more equal to most people (lives vs labour) but is wildly imbalanced to him.

It's one of the many factors I see going into Scott's weird decision to abandon her in DL.

An Interlude, Before We Get to DL

La Pieta, Michelangelo

So this has been a lot of words so far and some of you might be wondering at this point: why say Scott is "weird" about women when so far this has been describing how he values women more, is kinder to them, is more patient with them, etc.? How is any of this behaviour remotely misogynistic?

And I would feel horrible if I forced you to read through all of my DL thoughts before I clarified this -- Scott is not your classic wifebeater "women are lesser" misogynist, Scott is someone who subscribes to misogynistic schools of thought and probably considers himself an ally to women, when in reality his beliefs are still rooted in dehumanizing them and these beliefs end up harming the women around him as well as himself.

After all, seeing women are your superiors is still not seeing them as your equals.

I know it's a bit of a meme on this blog at this point. But. Sigmund Freud identified what we know refer to as the "madonna/whore complex", which he described as a pattern of behaviour in men who separated women into being madonnas (pure, holy and admirable) and whores (debased, sexual, deviant). We'll be focusing on the former, the madonna, as it is more relevant to Scott's character.

Freud proposed that the madonna figure was something men projected onto women as a replacement for maternal love. These women are sacred and untouchable, literally as the projection of the maternal role onto them also makes it so that the sufferer cannot feel any sexual attraction towards her (keep this in mind for later).

Scott projects the madonna figure onto his female compatriots -- they are to be protected, served and supported. They are goddesses, queens, but they are never human. The madonna role in of itself is not inherently harmful to the woman, as seen with Cleo who takes control and advantage of it. However, it is enforced, as seen with Gem who at first revels in the superiority but almost breaks down when Scott offers him up as her sacrificial lamb one last time.

I linked this Utena AMV awhile back when vaguely talking about Scott and women, and this was the point I was alluding to.

Girls are beautiful and pure. They don't spit on the street, they don't piss on the street, they don't build hierarchies -- they subvert all the expectations of masculinity that I hate having to deal with. They are my escape.

But what about the girls who do spit on the street? The girls who piss on seats? Who build social hierarchies, who size up their competition?

The girls Scott interacts with are all painfully human. Cleo weaponizes his beliefs and take advantage of him. Scott is smart enough to know and accept this. Gem's playing into a role she has been assigned into by not only Scott but everyone around her. Scott supports the character she plays. Lizzie reflects traits he hates in Joel and Jimmy, but for her, he looks the other way.

Are they "demons", as the song says, or are they no longer girls at all?

(demons, gods, but never humans)

Weaponized Femininity and Women In Total Control of Themselves ;)

Hylas and the Nymphs, John William Waterhouse

Historically, weaponized femininity I'd argue is one of the oldest tropes in storytelling. Whether it's nymphs or sirens or witches or succubi or even more roundabout cases like Helen of Troy, there's countless stories of men's sexual attraction to women leading them to disaster.

One way to view these stories is to see them as warnings, don't let womens allure be the end of you.

There's a lot of good writing done on the femme fatale trope both in the context of weaponizing femininity and as a sexist way to argue against victims of sexual assault, as these stories often say that men who experience attraction to these "evil" women no longer have agency over their own actions.

Look at the painting above, for example - is it the nymphs who are responsible for drowning Hylas, or is Hylas climbing into the lake of his own accord?

Despite the fact we all know sirens, nymphs and succubi aren't real, the belief that men will simply lose control of themselves when encountering a particularly alluring woman persists to the modern consciousness. That there's something inherently dangerous about women and attraction to them.

(this is not 100% applicable to Ninja saying he won't stream with women, but it's the real life example I felt most comfortable putting in here)

Now, let's combine this with what's been said so far -- let's say you don't hate women. You love women, in fact, and you hate the way men treat women. You hate men, in fact.

Yet, you still believe in this inherent power women hold by being female and the loss of agency that men experience when attracted to them -- how disgusting.

It quickly becomes easily to not only demonize men for sullying the holiness of women, but also men, masculinity and attraction to women as a whole.

(apologies for using twt discourse in the meta post but this flew by my TL and i had to grab the irl example of mens non-violent attraction to women being used to frame them as misogynistic before the stupid app refreshed and i lose everything forever)

"To Venner" is a student film exploring a world set within this belief, where all the women have vanished and the men have become monstrous figures as a result of their pent up sexual frustration. fyi this is one of my favourite student films (and ive watched a bunch), but I do think its messaging is worth breaking down (especially its juxtaposition of dirty horrible monstrous sexuality vs pure and beautiful romantic love)

NOTE: this film is super graphic, lots of violence and nudity. have fun. or not

I admit this section is a bit hard to gauge as everyone in the series is gay as fuck. The closest in-series example I can think of is Scott reacting to Martyn's antics in DL with a sort of indigence but otherwise I can't really think of an example of a man expressing attraction to a woman at all, let alone one Scott reacted to. However, I do think it's still worth talking about because it opens up some interesting trains of thought in regard to Scott and Pearl.

For Scott, he himself has never been part of the picture. He's gay, after all, which gives him an edge over the bad straight men who objectify and assault women. Likewise, there's little evidence to suggest he finds the expectations of masculinity frustrating, but I don't think it's too far a reach considering how common of an experience that is for gay men and his adapting of more feminine mannerisms.

Double Life and Corruption

As mentioned in my previously linked post about Scott and Pearl's relationship, I do think Scott experiences what he would name as attraction towards Pearl, so my writing will reflect that.

Pearl is. ahem. not like other girls.

Not actually. But to Scott, she probably isn't like other girls.

She remains unaware of his different standards for her (how could she when she had nothing to compare them to), she acts out, sometimes violently, against Scott's urging (such as when she stole from Scar's wagon). She maintains their already irregular dynamic, and while she appreciates his care for her, she never quite falls into seeing him as a source of subservience the way Cleo or Gem do.

At the end of LL, right before the 1v1v1v1, she monologues to herself that she no longer has to feel bad for killing Scott. Which, in turn, implies she expected Scott to give it his all against her as well.

She entirely fails to embody the madonna with her immature naivete and her questionable morals. She is unpredictable, she doesn't take what she is owed, she is a monster in a lot of ways.

Scott, too, is a monster, to himself, for how he feels about her.

The very foundations of your understanding of yourself being ripped apart aside, let's rewind to the madonna/whore complex. To sexualise the madonna is to corrupt her and make a monster of yourself. Suddenly, you are no better than the men around you, the ones you've grown to hate. Suddenly, you are the grotesque figures in films like To Venner. You are Hylas and she is the nymph. And you are so stupid. Your worldview crumbles around its flawed foundations.

Scott is, however, immune to this corruption. This is a theme that appears in Empires as well, but throughout the traffic series he's prided himself on being loyal and kind and good. His monologue leading up to LL's 1v1v1v1 summarizes it quite well.

He can't let himself or anyone else see this side of him, but the energy needs to go somewhere. To defy fate, abandon your soulmate, is to admit you had a fate in the first place, is to acknowledge that she was your soulmate in the first place.

I've previously talked about how fate and romance are very ingrained in Scott's belief system, if it was anyone else it would've been amazing. He could've been like Bdubs and Impulse or Ren and Bigb, diving into domestic life and performative romance with a stranger. Or the world could've made his happy ending from 3L real, as he got to be Jimmy's husband all over again. I think it says something that he accepts Cleo as a "soulmate" before Pearl.

So what do you do with all that energy and tension, clearly apparent to yourself and everyone else, when you can't let them observe your feelings?

You project them.

Shout-outs to @/legally-allowed-to-slime for pointing out Pearl's comment early on in DL that she "feels like (she's) been broken up with" confirms she never saw Scott in a romantic sense. The "crazy ex-girlfriend" and "this is why I'm gay" comments really did come out of thin air, or perhaps insecurity.

Pearl is the crazy one. She's insane, because she wants me. She wants to be with me, so she does all this crazy stuff. She's lost control of herself because she wants me. She's disgusting.

I mentioned before that Scott is not your classic misogynist, but this is where the gears start turning. Scott's views of Pearl echo that of other players, most prominently Ren and Martyn, that Pearl has been overcome with some sort of corruption. She has become the witch, the demoness, the whore, in their eyes. Scott does not want to be the same as these men and I think his overcorrecting his behaviour in SL makes sense when you view it from this angle, but for now he has to rely on more traditional misogyny in order to navigate this new obstacle.

"Corruption" also implies that she had to have been pure (or at least pure-er) beforehand, something Scott personally knows is not true, but it falls in line with defaulting women to being "madonnas".

This is a Scott post but. shout outs to Ren for being all of this about Pearl but without the complexity of Scott like he literally accuses Pearl of seducing Bigb what the fuck man.

Pearl is, of course, none of that. But she plays into the role of being the witch much better than she fared playing into the role of the madonna.

Sidenote: I know I'm looking at this from a Scott/Pearl POV but I do feel like you can omit Scott's attraction if you look at it from a purely "pearl not performing to standards of femininity I expect and she makes me realise I don't view women as a whole as human which makes me feel weird so now we have to do this" POV. Like idk I think the exact reason he abandoned Pearl is going to be lost on everyone forever so any analysis I could perform is going to suffer at least a little bit of making-shit-up-itis.

I do also think there's something to be said about Pearl being pushed until she performed a role, any role and generally failing at Being A Girl tm but that's another post i think. yknow shes um. a bit. 🏳️‍⚧️ (but also very much not at the same time idk that's gonna need its own post)

anyway yeah uh the minecraft movie looks crazy huh

[missycolorful]

I know there's often complaints about the c!Syndicate and how they didn't really do a whole lot, that their existence almost felt pointless because they didn't do anything. Not even regarding how Techno's condition and then his passing severely affected this storyline, I think these complaints sorta misses the point of what the Syndicate became and why people like this group so much.

Like, yes c!Techno initially created it in the aftermath of Doomsday, a way to ensure no governments were being formed or used to hurt or corrupt others. He gathered others who shared the same beliefs. They had even gone to Snowchester to ensure that nothing suspicious was going on. And before his passing, cc!Technoblade had wanted to work on that plot involving Cyberknife, to give the Syndicate story a bit more meat. Which would've been great, yes.

But then you look, and you have all these moments of them just... they're just bonding; if not as a group, at least in sections: the streams of Technoblade and Phil connecting with Ranboo, Techno and Ranboo becoming mentor and mentee, Technoblade's birthday party. And then you hear how the Syndicate really mattered to these characters: how Niki was beginning to heal around those who made her voice feel heard, Ghostboo saying that Phil and Techno did care for and love Ranboo, Technoblade outright stating he had friends now thanks to the Syndicate.

And then there's the last Syndicate stream, which I think also sums this up well. There's no Syndicate meeting, no talks of taking down any governments. It was Philza and Niki making a cake. It was Philza panicking over hearing voices, and Niki being a physical presence for him when he seemed to be lacking one at the time. It was Kristin finding the members of the Syndicate and taking them someplace safe. The Syndicate made it to the End, alive and not necessarily okay now, but someday.

And it's just... yes, I would've loved to see more concrete stories of the Syndicate combating corrupted governments and tyrants. But just because they didn't serve their initial purpose as much as we anticipated, does not mean that this group coming together was pointless. If anything their story is a solid example of fighting against a constant narrative in the server; the cycle of power and revenge.

Cause I think about Las Nevadas. People who banded together who, for the most part, did not make deep connections or find comradery. Or even if they did, things fell apart (only Foolish really stayed with Quackity by the end of the Las Nevadas lore). All because Quackity lost himself in his quest for, well, power and revenge. Las Nevadas could've been more than Quackity's need for control and power, but it was never able to reach that point.

Then you look at the Syndicate. Where from the start of the Syndicate's creation, Techno made sure everyone in the Syndicate was equal, that no one was in control of another. Where they never sought violence, wanting to only resort to drastic actions if they believed a location was a threat to others. Where they celebrated Technoblade's birthday and took pictures and had cake and were just friends. I just think there's something a bit profound, intentional or otherwise, in how the Syndicate may have tragically been underutilized, but the group wasn't just an anarchist group. It was a group of people hurt by a nation coming together and not actively seeking any goal toward gaining power or control over others. Yes, they wanted to fight against power. But they also wanted to just... be.

Just something I think about when of the few who managed to survive the Dream SMP, the ones who managed to escape with their lives were the ones who formed this anarchist group, a group that people say didn't do much, and... yeah, they're right, but isn't that a good thing?

[rebelpeas]

okay also the whole boundary thing has been fuckin miserable to live through as someone with scrupulosity issues. i don’t have diagnosed ocd, but ive got enough of a mental illness cocktail that something in there gives me severe intrusive thoughts and moral thought spirals. which meant, brand new to the world of rpf/rpf-adjacent fandoms and equally horrified and overwhelmed by the amount of creator interaction in the fandom, i spent most of 2021 obsessively picking apart all of my fandom thoughts and writing, making sure i was never EVER close to a boundary, and having anxiety attacks if i worried i had overstepped something. i remember feeling sick for multiple days because somebody once pointed out that i’d, like, included a character when the cc said they were uncomfortable with fics (but then actually never mind it was fine because they were just uncomfortable with rpf but c! fic was okay??) IN MY PLANNING FOR A FIC. the story was IN MY BRAIN and the creator was NEVER GOING TO KNOW.

it’s been a few years and i’ve gotten way better at handling it, but man oh man does the boundary thing set blaring sirens off in my brain sometimes, and i don’t even write anything close to nsfw.

my friends, my foes, my followers: your art is for you, your writing is for you, the ccs do not need to be involved in the equation. boundaries are about YOUR interactions and how others interact with YOU. you are not directly interacting with the cc by minding your own business and posting a fic on ao3. you are fine. live your life and make your art. also boundary policing does absolutely nothing to “protect” the content creators who will never see that sub-200 kudos fic anyway. peace and love!

[metfell]

<- posts about c!beeduo still in 2024

🕊 RIP old pinned 9/24/2020-5/7/2023 you had a good run o7 🕊

CARRD | PRONOUNS.CC | KO-FI | TWITTER | FR LAIR 68141

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hey guys I made a new pinned are you proud of me anyways like the post if you read all of this

[imperatorcaesaraugustus]

My 12 Favorite Dinosaur Genera

no one asked. here it is anyway.

i have a bit of a bias towards therapods, but let's start with the non-therapod dinosaurs

Amargasaurus

By Fred Wierum - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=116775169

not so big as many sauropods, but the neck spines help it stand out in a way that i find very charming

Stegosaurus

By Fred Wierum - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=118825287

all around solid dinosaur, what's not to love? r.i.p. Thag Simmons

Protoceratops

By PaleoNeolitic - Own work, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=107854945

they're just a guy, and i love that for them

Parasaurolophus

By I, Steveoc 86, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1985435

the one with the big red horn. the pompadour. elvis. honk if you agree

now on to the next category: non-avian therapods

Velociraptor

By Fred Wierum - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=63257512

absolute classic of the genre. 10/10 no notes

Therizinosaurus

By PaleoNeolitic - Own work, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=90136941

Not Like Other Therapods. a great shaggy beast who does not give a fuck what you think

Spinosaurus

By PaleoGeekSquared - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=114762240

a controversial figure to be sure, but one i simply can't get enough of. yes i loved Jurassic Park 3 as a kid, but i love the strange water creature we know today even more

Sinosauropteryx

By Fiann M. Smithwick, Robert Nicholls, Innes C. Cuthill, Jakob Vinther - http://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(17)31197-1, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=63630808

fuzzy little ginger friend. if i were forced to pick one single favorite, it's probably them

and finally, we can't leave out our friends the birds

Titanis

By Dmitry Bogdanov - dmitrchel@mail.ru, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2991184

who said the Cenozoic had to be the age of mammals? bonus points for being a Florida local

Corvus

By Fernando Losada Rodríguez - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4841560

you can't go wrong with a good corvid. too clever by half, and i love them for it

Ardea

By JJ Harrison (https://www.jjharrison.com.au/) - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13352774

stately. regal. stoic. a fine assortment of marvelous herons

Sagittarius

By Sankara Subramanian - https://www.flickr.com/photos/sankaracs/8014994289/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=89450179

she's beauty, she's grace, she'll kick you in the face. the secretary bird is without equal

[zorishy]

‼️UPDATE‼️

I'm going to, from this point on, stop calling the characters reclaimed from William Patrick Gold "tropesonas" and go back to just saying reclaimed bursonas. I'm done hiding behind lower traffic tags out of fear of harrassment over something that isn't true about me.

If people think i need to tag everything to make it clear I don't support that asshole Nibblur Soot, they clearly don't know enough about me for their take on my life to matter. 

The "Zorishy's Tropesona lore" tag is being changed back to bursona. I'm not afraid of being in a community that has been nothing but kind and welcoming to me.

I don’t have the patience to go back and delete the tropesona tag from everything so I will simply stop using the tag and start tagging with c!Wilbur to reach more of the community. They’re still reclaimed versions but I want my art to actually be visible, you know?

C! does not equal CC!, it never has and it never will. These characters are ours now 💙

[bellshazes]

I was going to reply on your post about C vs CC distinction but I couldn't, so I hope you don't mind me asking here - my brain wasn't cooperating today so I was struggling to read it and comprehend it properly as written. But does it basically boil down to the fact that it's difficult to create a distinction between what's considered "character" vs "creator" in the digital medium Minecraft offers for storytelling? That there's no real way to draw a distinction between "this PERSON did this in the game" and "this CHARACTER did this in the story's world" because it's told on a platform and in a way that makes it hard to find a non-fuzzy divide, and that we shouldn't necessarily try to find that line anyway? Basically that - when it's so hard to define canon when "canon" is influenced by the person both on and beyond the screen, and interactions between "characters" are often colored by the creators behind them, and when the story being told is never really fully concrete anyway, it's just...better and, honestly, more fun to just enjoy the nondefinable art form for what it is? Because if that's what you're saying, I wholeheartedly agree. ^^

When the story's medium is a sandbox game, it's much more fun to interpret canon and its connected fanon as a sandbox too, something malleable and formable and explorable in a flexible way that doesn't rely on defined boundaries to be enjoyed. It's sand. You can make a solid sandcastle for a while, but eventually the water that packed it together dries and the wind blows and things shift again, because that's what sand does. Just - let sand be sand. :3

(And if I've totally misinterpreted then I apologize, it's been a long day and like I said, my brain's not cooperating hah.)

~ Pixie

I definitely didn't get back to my original point in that rambling reblog, so I think you've gotten what I was trying for up until the idea that the SMP Thing is nondefinable. I really struggle articulating this all the time and people often do take it the way you have, so it's a failure of explanation on my part...

It's not resolvable into a single truth, but currently the dominanf response to that is to throw the baby out with the bathwater and say if there is no canon, everything is equally true no matter what the text says, because the text is as (un)real and unknowable as my own imagination. I comprehend that this is very fun and believe this approach has absolutely no moral valence. often this evolves into annoying (imo!) fandom standards that become quasi-canonical due to sheer popularity in the group sandbox but whatever.

However my patented peter bellshazes perfect world involve not this kind of overwriting being a dominant fandom mode, but people taking the lack of One Single Master Story all other pieces fit into as a joyous invitation to pick apart all the threads on their own and how they relate without forcing them into anything and seeing them more clearly. It's to me like the difference between trying to force jigsaw puzzle pieces to fit that are from different boxes and - I don't know, like a complex 3D sculpture that is one object but portrays different images at every angle its viewed from. And people discovering that instead of taking photographs to find the One True Angle in 2D, walking around to examine the previously unstudied backside.

that's abstract but in practice it means like... idk treating it more like a vivisection. I love taking different perspectives apart as standalones, and also interrelating them, but finding joy and spaces to explore and discuss and feel through in those individual examinations, and not forcing them to make sense in some master truth. It makes me appreciate different approaches to the medium more, how tone and technique contribute beyond C!Cubito Is This Trait or whatever. I like it when people articulate if we think about THIS event and how it was shown in THIS way (in terms of acting/performance, editing, cuts made or not made, ) then the story is like this and what's in the gaps or what if it extended or what would it have looked like if different choices were made from a craft perspective or how does that contrast with or contextualizes a different series or scenario. throwing nothing out but never looking for a grand unified theory of truth.

Again no moral valence but i just feel like maybe if I can articulate my brand of fandom joy people might want to give it a try! and I genuinely appreciate people who care enough to try and parse what the hell I'm getting at bc it's almost always only when I try and answer questions that I feel like I get better at explaining what I was trying to say, so!

[minidoons]

oh my god in my euphoria of engaging in DiscourseTM for a moment i lived in a world where boundary police didnt exist and yknow whatt thats fair 😭

playing around with the lsers gender >>>> and man ash having god complex-tied gender is so awesome i should get funkier about his gender i think just as actual mythological gods do. red being a 1930's butch loser transman given birth by a dyke and a faggot is so good im stealing it for my own headcanons if you dont mind lol

and yeah i was talking about ash being the forebearer of toxicity which not only sucks but also. doesnt work lmao, that man Bites so if he receives toxicity of any kind he makes sure to equalize or double it on the other person. idk this person so idk what their other headcanons are but it doesnt really seem like theyre looking for complexity to me but rather just want ash to be worshipped lmao which. doesnt work when red, while a simp true, has a lot more backbone than they seem to give him credit for while zam has a terrible track record with gods and worship lmao

and golden retriever ash is such a funny concept to me, where in that mans actions screams golden retriever energy lmao???? black cat ash and golden retriever red all the way (but in a way where theyre both formerly neglected pets who became street animals)

C!Ash's perception of his own gender is definitely shaped by the way he perceives himself as a god since a lot of gods have funky odd genders. He should be able to get top surgery just to confuse people even more. I DON'T MIND I think Red's gender is pretty masculine but ultimately tied to his transness and older visions of queerness (and especially labels ascribed during the 1900's queer culture) which makes it extremely vague what he is when you say it. He is a boyfail by heart. Transman representation but it's just ghe most loserish man you know He definitely tries to bite back and doubles or equalizes toxicity thrown at him as well as just being Toxic By Nature. He's the first hater to be born and he'll stand by it (I think the only exception to this is Leo. Good Lord he's so desperate for that man and I have no idea why). Ash being worshipped is fun (especially when playing into unhealthy relationships as it furthers Ash's disorders and encourages them) but like. Red's character does not shape around his ability to worship people. Even in the clips where he says that he'll worship Ash he's saying it as a 'well, only if I get powers in return' type deal and Ash Pointedly ignoring the 'will i get powers' part. It's more of a reluctant worship. I also have no idea about Zam but he has every disorder listed in the DSM-5 just like Red but to a worse extent so I'll believe it I think it may be because of CC!Ash's obsession with dogs and that's why they said it..But the specific image they used was a golden retriever with big black eyes ?? That is not Ashswag. Ash and Red are definitely previously neglected street animals and Ash became feral as a survival response and Red is a sad mutt who looks at people oh so sweetly to try and get food

[ccbeeduo]

think im gonna change my 50k transfemme lmanbur post on main to something else. not even necessarily because of the Situation (since c! does not equal cc! obviously) i just think it would be fun to switch things up

[bleue-flora]

The second death wasnt rlly dying a hero either since c!dream and c!tommy were in an equal duel done by c!tommys own terms. It was during war. Giving the discs away for independence was heroism even though he provoked c!dream again in railway war, he explains throughout it that he was doing it to fight for lmanberg. (I dont get it either but that was his pov sorry i dont have the timestamp on hand) I don't consider the death in prison as him dying a hero at all as it wasnt protecting anyone. But I consider the death in finale as dying a hero especially the idea of going into danger with the goal of protecting the server since from his view c!staged duo were evil and he was told about their supposed plan to kill everyone even tho the plan was most likely a lie. However c!Tommy also isn't a hero at the same time because he's the one that caused the nuke to happen along with c!tubbo and accidentally doomed the whole server. But the nuke didn't kill anyone anyway, dreamxd transported everyone.

[context here & here]

Well I wasn’t really talking about whether Tommy’s other deaths were heroic or not, just whether his death in the finale fulfilled that “dying a hero” from the previous stream. Not sure if cc!Tommy meant that or not, but if we were to see it as such it’s an interesting story element.

The question I was having though, was whether we can say it does qualify as “dying a hero”. Or even further if it does because he is trying to stop staged duo and sacrificing his life for the rest of the server by keeping them there. Does that make it a different death than “self-sacrifice” because it seems very much almost the same to me? There is also the point to be made that does his premature death count as the selfless “dying a hero” since its before the nuke hits and he’s supposed to be stalling. Or because the whole point he’s there to begin with is heroic therefore he is “dying a hero”?…

As an aside, just some lore notes because I can’t help myself…

I’ve said this before but I think that since Tommy fully intended to take back his discs immediately after the L’manberg war [clip], it kinda under cuts his heroism. He doesn’t really give up his discs, because he’s not handing them over for Dream to keep permanently - something he actually does in the finale which actually rounds out his character arc nicely, by having him actually doing the heroic thing…

I am pretty sure the lore isn’t that everyone is teleported away by XD, but that everyone does die in the finale whether because of the Egg, nuke, or fight in the End (or Mumza takes/saves them) and then XD resets the world. Or perhaps because of all the death with the Egg and nuke, XD gains enough power to reset the world to stop the people from killing him in the End. Either way I’m pretty sure the nuke does happen and they do die but then are immediately reset or something.

Technically Jack sent the other nuke and it was him and Tubbo that fired the nukes so, really they are to blame lol. But anyways, I think whether or not clingy duo’s nuke plan was doomed from the start or whether or not staged duo were planning on killing everyone in the first place, doesn’t really matter or take away from the fact that Tommy was technically being heroic by facing Punz and Dream (the man who haunts his nightmares) to keep them there, knowing he’d die along with them, in order to protect everyone from being murdered….

And yet, still does that mean his pre-nuke death counts as heroism, fulfilling that earlier fate (making it some damn good story telling) - showing us what that Limbo is, or if because it’s too early and the circumstances are more specific around their conversation than the nukes, it doesn’t count?… a good argument for both sides I think. I wonder though whether cc!Tommy planned on that death being like the mirror of the saw trap or not…

[meatriarch]

CC / NOSY : SAWYER - FLORES - McKINNEY KIDS.

( * - the kids present in the two dire au's vary between the cc / nosy domestication routes but generally : thomas, lil luda & daisy mae appear in both while bambi, theo & rosie are nosy specific c: thomas / tomas also appears in wilted/shine routes ! this doesn't include maria, johnny and lee's adopted kids - they will be in a separate post once their personalities / backgrounds are better developed ! )

THOMAS "TOM" EARL / named tomás in wilted/shine au routes.

tom is the eldest boy between maria and johnny in cc / nosy / in other routes of other aus. he is more on the serious side like his father, can be stern when needed. but is gentle when it comes to his younger siblings. responsible, constantly helping out with chores around the property, always helping papa and dad with cars or heavy lifting or hard labour. always helping mama wrangle the younger kids, keeps an eye out for them when they run around outside. he's a near carbon copy of johnny save for the few features from maria that shine through - down to the need to be constantly doing or working on something, working with his hands. hes a visual learner more than he is book smart, and can easily pick up what hes shown within the first couple attempts. likes to shadow both johnny and lee on alot of what they do, was always intrigued and like the lil :whoa: disc cat emote up at them when they'd take the time to show him or talk about what they were doing when he was younger.

tom's namesakes stem from two prominent family members in johnny's life - cousin thomas, and grandpa earl sawyer.

tom looks fairly identical to johnny when he was younger, save for faint dimples on his cheeks that he gets from maria. otherwise, his features are sharper like his papa's than mama's soft, round ones. he has johnny's dark brown eyes, if just a tad lighter. more narrowed eye shape as well, compared to marias round doe-eyes.

LUDA GRACE / also called lil' luda.

lil luda is the eldest daughter between johnny and maria, and very much takes after her namesakes as well. she is primarily named after our mom luda, however her middle name if grace is also a gentle nod to nancy too ( as well as, technically, ana - as ana means "favored grace" ).

lil luda, however, is very much a spitting image in personality to both johnny and her grandmothers, especially in terms of her more tough love and her bite being as bad as her bark. in johnny's own words, my daughters a bitch. she will scold her younger siblings, and even tom, if they make messes, or get into something they shouldnt, or run off and get lost, if they misbehave. shes equally as responsible as tom, being the older kids, but shes definitely less lenient on things than even tom can be. lil luda is also not one to back down from an argument or fight, no matter who it is. if she believes shes right on something, she will argue people into the ground - and if they get in her face about it, she will punch them in the face. zero questions. zero hesitation. and if anyone disrespects her, her parents, or mistreats any of her siblings? its on sight. its swing first, ask questions thirteen hits later.

lil luda, also, looks more like johnny but with marias light brunette hair and hazel eyes. they, however, are surrounded by johnnys sharper features too, his low brows that make her glares harsh like his. she does have a dimple, too, though rather than like marias deep-set cheeks ones, lil ludas' is closer and lower to one corner of her mouth - only visible when she gives a crooked smile like her papa. she otherwise has faint freckles dotting across her shoulders and face and arms, like maria does.

ROWAN "BAMBI".

bambi is the oldest boy between maria and leland but the third oldest of the trios' children. hes the sweetest, happiest, brightest lil guy out there, also the embodiment of the :whoa: emote but at like, a baseline constant state. named both in part after the deer, of course, but also named for his absolute wide, round, bambi-doe-eyes x2 that he inherited from both maria and lee. hes got marias hair color and nose, with her softer face shape but lee's lips and grins.

bambi is a cheerful happy lil guy with deep-set cheek dimples and almost always donning a grin across his face. hes energetic, bouncy excitable. if leland is true golden retriever energy then bambi is golden retriever puppy energy tenfold. hes got the soft rounder features of maria but definitely can see he takes after lee quite a bit. he can, however, be mischievous and a bit of a troublemaker at times - which, he learns to weaponize those bambi eyes of his just like maria and lee to get his way. he heavily takes on that southern drawl from johnny however, and is the cutest and most hilarious thing to overhear when he picks up on some of johnnys bad language and starts cussing in the most babiest, heaviest accent around.

being third oldest, however, bambi also inherited lee's fierce, bottomless drive to protect and look after those he loves and cares about. he would do anything for his older and his younger siblings, happily helps out when needed, happily plays with the younger kids. but hes not above doing as needed to make sure they stay safe. and would go to the ends of the earth to do so if needed.

THEODORE "THEO / TEDDY".

theo, or teddy, is the fourth kid of the bunch but is second eldest son between maria and leland. much more timid and shy and quiet compared to the older three, theo tends to blend more into the background - he will hide behind any of his parents' legs when guests are over, or peek around doorframes and corners or past stair railings rather than often engage with people hes not too familiar with. like lil luda, theo's dimples are lower than the corners of his mouth but appear on both sides rather than just the one. he looks closer to maria, with her eyes and freckles and round features. but shares lelands brows and lashes and hair and nose.

theo likes to spend time with cousin thomas quite a bit, because theyre both quiet and calm and its an easing time sitting watching thomas work on things.

he often gets dragged around by bambi into his shenanigans and mischief, and pouts whenever they get scolded by lil luda or tom or their parents for going too far on them. hes a very sweet and loving boy though, very quick to unprompted give little gifts to his siblings or to mama, or to papa and dad. loves to pick wildflowers to give to his mama. like tom, too, he likes to sit and watch people work - and so, he'll often peer over the side of cars that johnny or lee are working on to see what they're doing, and is all eyes and ears when they pick him up and set him down so he can look under the hood with them and they can point things out to him. not always as quick to understand as tom is, but given some time and he can manage to recite step-by-step what he'd need to do in order to change out or fix something, etc.

like how bambi shares more of his dads' retriever, bubbly qualities, i like to think that theo shares more of lee's quiet, observant, somewhat insecure or unsure tendencies. just overall, theo is more gentle and timid and quiet compared to his brother. theo also gives some of the best bear hugs ever - hence part of why his nickname is teddy. gives some of the best, most comforting hugs - just like his dad.

ROSEMARY "ROSIE" CLOVER.

rosie is the youngest between leland and maria and fifth out of the trio's children together. she's closer to maria in appearance, with her soft features, with freckles on her face and shoulders. but with lee's nose and hair color, and more of his brows and his eyes as well. her namesake stems primarily from two of lee and marias favorite flowers, roses and marigolds alongside of course, rosemary itself. her middle name is also a gentle nod to lee's clover cosmetic.

rosie, however, can be a fierce little spitfire at times, taking after tom and lil luda with how sharp her tongue can get. she can be warm and sweet like her mama and dad, but definitely can see the influences from papa shine through when she gets upset or insulted or threatened. shes very vocal and protective over her siblings, even though shes second-youngest of their kids together. she will happily stand up for any of them if she felt she needed to, and though hes older, will defend theo's gentle nature if anyone teases him about it.

she likes to help mama out around the house and in the gardens, with a natural green thumb and a knack for easily picking up on different flowers or fruits or vegetables they grow. she also enjoys visiting with our mom luda and grandma nancy, and enjoys helping them bake and cook. shes often seen wandering around with theo and little daisy mae waddling beside her.

DAISY MAE.

the babiest of the dire throuples' kids. daisy mae is the last baby between any of them, but is specifically maria and johnny's last kid together. she is a literal carbon copy of maria, almost entirely taking after her. from deep cheek dimples to freckles to soft rounded features to big doe-eyes and long pretty lashes. she, however, has big dark brown eyes like her papa's.

daisy mae is the shyest and most timid of the all the kids. she is incredibly sheepish around new faces especially, and often will want to be picked up and held so she can hug around johnny or lee or maria's necks and hide her face against them. shes a complete daddy's girl though, and loves to be carried around and will whine or cry if they put her down. could argue she's got some separation anxiety - or, she just really loves to be held and cuddled. either way? when she isn't being shy or scared or hiding, she's easy to get going into a fit of giggle - and she's got her mama's big, beaming smile that resembles sunlight.

she's also prone to wandering off and getting lost around the property, partly due to her quiet nature and her being so teenie-tiny - she's only about 2-3 around the time ch2 rolls around. its not uncommon to have to send out little search parties for her because of how surprisingly easy it is for her to get lost.

( * - this also does not include the potential twins that may be added dep. on route. )

[witchail]

𝐼𝑁 𝑇𝐸𝑅𝑀𝑆 𝑂𝐹 𝑀𝐴𝑅𝐼𝐴𝑁𝑁𝐸 𝐴𝑁𝐷 𝐶𝐶 𝑅𝐸𝐿𝐴𝑇𝐼𝑂𝑁𝑆𝐻𝐼𝑃

there is no denying that cc viewed her friendship with marianne quite dearly. after all, it is because of marianne that cc felt like it was her duty to drop her relationship with the imperial royal family and to observe the exiled prince and princess in the place of their recently departed mother. yes, in the beginning of the series : cc was in japan and she did observed nunnally and lelouch adapt to their new home. it was only when she was certain they are safe, did she eventually leave to china and eventually meet the abandon orphan mao.

of course, there is so much more layers to cc and marianne's dynamic. in hindsight, they got along marvellously well. marianne's playful antics is enough to tug even the most pragmatic heart of the witch. they spent time together in britannia, cc was there when marianne and charles began their courtship, they had their own contract --- and though marianne couldn't manifest her geass ( at the time ), cc did not abandon her. as the director of the geass order, cc made their location quite convenient for the royal family. cc cared for marianne, she viewed marianne as a sister --- similar to how cc originally saw the nun from her past. unfortunately, it did blind cc in a sense where she only saw the good in marianne.

cc understood marianne's ambition, she understood her love for charles, and genuinely believed marianne loved her children. she did not see marianne's obsession nor did she realize that marianne had only been using her too. the novel highlights that there were things marianne purposely hid from cc. one of them being the stolen c-cell genes ( which cc did not consent to ) being implanted to the infant nunnally and later the manipulation of giving lelouch a geass ( which marianne originally tested him to have the highest compatibility ). later on in the anime, marianne even hinted her true nature when she asked cc " do you think i am such an ideal mother- ?"

perhaps, if cc did not connect with lelouch and nunnally, if she did not got to know both of them --- perhaps, cc would have continued to go along marianne's whims and join charles. however, that was the mistake. cc grew to care for both of marianne's children and the moment she finally cut ties with marianne was when she finally said : i realized now, the love that you have is only for yourselves. cc finally could see marianne for what she was, a desperate, power hungry, mother-using concubine. needless to say, cc does feel lonely now that marianne was no longer there, but like all living things --- cc will always be left behind.

Marianne looked confused. She really doesn’t understand, CC thought sadly. That's who she is. Perhaps, it is precisely because she is such a person that she can form the only equal relationship with the witch CC. Marianne Vi Britannia is a woman who, in a sense, is a crazier person than her husband Charles. She never even fulfilled her mother's duty. Marianne scolded Schneizel as an top student who didn't even have a self, and said that she was exactly the opposite of him. In other words, Marianne only has herself in her heart. Both Lelouch and Nunnally are just decorations she uses to beautify herself. Therefore, when they are innocent and obey her, she will give them corresponding love.

[sprolden]

actually how do you feel about the queer rep in tsc in general, b/c i feel like it's so good but also sometimes. Bad. like Anna was so messy imo, both as a nonbinary character and her relationship to Ari. but at the same time she writes so much queer rep for such a big and mainstream series.

i think the short answer is "overall very good, but not perfect, as can be expected from a cishet woman in her 40s"

long answer is yeah, it's a bit of a mixed bag sometimes, but generally good. i think she treats her queer and her cishet characters equally, without putting too much thought into certain sterotypes she wants to avoid, which does lead to a few questionable moments. (though she does avoid killing her queer characters like the plague, which, so true. keep that up)

i think a good example of this is how both magnus and matthew, two of the most prominent bisexual characters, are both known for being very flirtatious people, which is a negative sterotype i think most authors as dedicated to writing rep as cc would want to avoid. at the same time, there's also slutty characters who aren't bi (jace, isabelle, anna) and bi characters who aren't slutty (mark, kieran, helen). would it be better if she had avoided this stereotype altogether? i don't know!

same goes for the way cetain characters talk about magnus' femininity. though it's generally respected and generally admired, it's absolutely used as the butt of a joke like... all the time. would it be better if no one made fun of it, even though magnus' femininity is also explicity admired in-text by just as many people? i don't know, you tell me.

anna is......... a lot to unpack, isn't she. i can't really say how i feel about her gender identity since i'm not nonbinary myself, but i do think that if cc set out to write a genderqueer character she could have made that more explicit. i get that tlh being set in the 1900s leads to some complications, but i think a sensitivity reader may have helped her a bit here.

i do think her and ari's romance lacked a certain depth that other couples were given (and same goes for helen and aline, though they are obviously not main characters). i think this is mostly due to the way cc writes her male and female characters, or rather, their romances. it's a little hard to put into words but i feel like, in the end, her female characters are the ones who are regular people while the male characters often step into the sexy love interest role, ready to admire the Main Girl any opportunity he gets. that's not to say that most characters don't carry elements of both these roles sometimes, but it kind of leaves us with, like, Lesbian Sheep? does anyone get what the fuck i'm trying to say?

basically, when your romances depend on men being sexy dreamboats waiting for a girl to slowly fall in love with him, it's hard to write one without a man in there. the reason why ari and anna don't read as romantic is because they're both rational, three-dimensional people, whose main purpose in life is not getting the attention of some girl, when cc's romances almost always depend on the core dynamic being Regular Girl x Universally Admired Guy Who Would Kill Himself For Her If She Asked. (sizzy is a very notable exception to this, with izzy being the universally admired guy, while simon is the regular girl.)

basically, think her desire to write all her women as relatable, rational people for whom romance is not the single most important thing in their lives is preventing her from doing it. i'm very curious to see if twp will give us a better take on a lesbian romance but i don't count on it unfortunately!

[hwasang]

right, time to be mad at the younguns i guess because your internalized homophobia is showing and its ugly. im saying that this is internalized homophobia because i KNOW the majority of the mcyt fandom here are queer, myself included, and also jfc so many of you are just barely legal to drink and it shows.

it is really fucking telling how much scott hate there is, and how it spikes whenever he talks to jimmy. he roleplayed a queer relationship that didnt even last that long with a straight man, and everyone thinks he’s the villain, when in reality, jimmy loves being the butt of the joke and others like joel, scar and martyn have done and said just as “bad” things about him. but of course, none of them get the level of vitriol scott does because they aren’t seen as a big enough threat to your favorite ship. that is some fucking pre 2014 supernatural shipping wars bullshit.

and yes this applies to c!scott and cc!scott hate equally. you’re not fucking slick, you are trying to justify your own issues by insisting its just the character you hate, when in reality, minecraft rp will always have rpf/rps qualities that you just cannot discard.

also do not fucking maintag your hate. i s2g, if i see that shit in the maintags, i’m reporting you as spam and blocking your ass

[ukfrislandembassy]

Frislandic Phonology and Orthography

Right, let's begin this series on what Frislandic looks like now. We'll start with rhe bit which will hopefully make the examples in the followonf sections at least pronouncable: the phonology and orthography. The next post will be historical and dialectal notes which will hopefully make what I'll describe below more transparent.

If I was asked to give a 'phoneme inventory' (ugh) of (standard) Frislandic, I'd basicallt have to provide you with the table below. The orthographyk follows these conventions for the most part, with a couple of exceptions that will be noted when they are relevant.

/p t t͡s k/ <b d z g>

/pʰ tʰ kʰ/ <p t k>

/ʰp ʰt ʰk/ <pp tt kk>

/f ɬ s ɕ/ <f ll s sj>

/β ð l r j/ <v ð l r j>

/m n ŋ/ <m n ng>

/i y u/ <i u o>

/e ə o/ <e e o>

/æ ɑ/ <æ a>

/iə̯ uə̯ əi̯ əu̯/ <ie uo ij w>

/æi̯ ɑi̯ ei̯ oi̯ øy̯ æu̯ ɑu̯ eu̯ ou̯ iu̯/ <æj aj ej oj uj æv av ev ov iv>

/i̯əu̯ u̯əi̯/ <iev uoj>

In terms of phonetic detail the consonants notated here as alveolar tend to be more denti-alveolar, with the exception of /s r/ which tend instead towards more of a retracted alveolar, though rarely a true retroflex. Additionally the affricate /t͡s/ is for some speakers a palatalised /t͡sʲ/.

But that's not the whole story, of course, because an inventory never is. Not all of these sounds are created equal and some have wildly different distributions. Indeed, for historical reasons it's generally better to speak of contrasts in phonotactic environments (not that I really have the space or time to go througy this in full but hey).

First of all, /f/ and /o/ are loan phones plain and simple. They are not found in native vocabulary and the latter isn't found even in early Irish or Norse loans due to back vowel raising. Words for modern life such as fon /fon/ 'phone' and fan /fɑn/ 'flag' are typical examples.

Secondly, of the consonants found in native forms, only /p t t͡s k tʰ kʰ ɬ s ɕ m n/ are found root-initially in citation forms. Additionally, /pʰ ʰp/ don't occur root-finally except in a small number of loans such as sjip /ɕipʰ/ 'ship', pijp /pʰəi̯pʰ/ '(tobacco) pipe' and kopp /kʰuʰp/ 'cup'; otherwise in native roots they are only found root-medially in frozen compounds, e.g. tepeð /ˈtʰepʰeð/ 'waterfall' boppesj /ˈpuʰpəɕ/ 'hoe, adze', dæppo /ˈtæʰpu/ 'birch tree' and sorpo /ˈsurpʰu/ 'ash tree'.

With regards to the vowels, the /ə/ has a distinct status relative to the other vowels, in that it is only found in unstressed syllables, although in this position it does contrast with the other vowels. It does appear to behave largely as an epenthetic device to break up inpermissible clusters, in that there are a large number of words that alternate between syncopated and unsyncopated forms, e.g. nukkel /ˈnyʰkəl/ 'anchovies' vs. nukklen /ˈnyʰkklən/ 'anchovy' or ober /ˈupər/ 'job' vs. obreð /ˈuprəð/ 'at work'. However, it is also found in root-final open syllables where there is no such motivation, e.g. nalle /ˈnɑɬə/ 'militia' or uone /ˈuə̯nə/ 'tree spirits, fairy folk'. Here we can find minimal pairs of /ə/ with /e/, whuch are not normally distinguished orthographically: nalle /ˈnɑɬe/ 'of the militia', uone /ˈuə̯ne/ 'fairy-like, of the fairies'.

Phonotactics are generally (C)V(C)(C), of which valid CC clusters consist of a nasal, liquid or voiceless fricative followed by a plain stop or affricate e.g. bond /punt/ 'eel', belz /pelt͡s/ 'monster, beast', gost /kust/ 'shade, shadow', bollk /puɬk/ 'tower'. Note in the latter two cases the second member of the cluster is written as if it were an aspirated stop, due to morphological alternations between the plain and pre-aspirated stops, e.g. gerott /kəˈruʰt/ 'shadows', bolokk /puˈluʰk/ 'towers', by analogy with e.g. tærg /tʰærk/ 'heart' → detræg /təˈtʰræg/ 'hearts'.

As you might notice prosody consists of stress. This is predictable diachronically but not synchronically. In general the root is always stressed, but which syllable of the root is stressed depends on the root, as frozen compounds vary in this regard e.g. bittang /ˈpiʰtɑŋ/ 'winter' vs. kaðtang /kʰɑðˈtʰɑŋ/ 'spring'. Additionally, in some nouns there is a shift of stress rightwards in the plural, often accompanied by vowel quality shifts e.g. gorot /ˈkurutʰ/ 'prayer' → geruot /kəˈruə̯tʰ/ 'prayers'. In a couple of houns stress is the only signifier of plurality e.g. sjirivs /ˈɕiriu̯s/ 'letter, missive' → sjirivs /ɕiˈriu̯s/ 'letters, missives' Otherwise however stress is lacking in functional load.

In terms of phonological alternations there isn't much to say, because there's little that is fully regular and it would probably be better to discuss the alternations which do exist when tackling the morphology itself. Unaspirated stops do tend to be voiced intervocalically but this isn't contrastive. Additionally native speakers tend to epenthesise more schwas than are typically represented orthographically, both ij native and borrowed words, e.g. bænll /pæn[ə]ɬ/ 'walking stick', kernkres /ˈkʰer[ə]ŋkʰrəs/ 'orphan' or glas /k[ə]ˈlɑs/ 'glass'.

There is a morphologically conditioned but fairly pervasive process of lenition which results in the following alternations:

/p t t͡s k ɬ s ɕ m/ → /β ð j ∅ l r j β/

However, the actual outcome of these frequently is obscured by the quality of the following vowel. For example, here is the possessive paradigm for muot /muə̯tʰ/ 'paternal grandmother': m'uot /muə̯tʰ/ 'my...', k'uot /kʰuə̯tʰ/ 'thy...', bemuot /pəˈmuə̯tʰ/ 'our...', kumuot /kʰyˈmuə̯tʰ/ 'your...', 'uot /uə̯tʰ/ 'their...', where there is lenition in the singular and third person plural but not in the first and second person plural, and the lenited form of muot is therefore uot and not !vuot as might be expected a priori. Even more irregularities can be seen in forms such as zitt /t͡siʰt/ 'chin, jaw', which has a first person singular possessed form of either m'ijtt /məi̯ʰt/ or even m'isjt /miɕt/ depending on the speaker.

There is also a minor process of pre-aspiration that occurs with the reflexive possessive prefix o- /u/ which produces the following alternations /p t t͡s k/ → /ʰp ʰt s ʰk/, e.g. oppodet /uˈʰputətʰ/ 'own father-in-law', osær /uˈsær/ 'own arms'.

Vowels and semivowels interact in fun ways. In particular the four diphthongs /əi̯ əu̯ iə̯ uə̯/ <ij w ie uo> when combined with the glides /j/ <j> and /β/ <v> give /əi̯ øy̯ ei̯ u̯əi̯/ <ij uj ej uoj> and /iu̯ əu̯ i̯əu̯ ou̯/ <iv w iev ov> respectively. These diphthing simplifications have effects on nominal morphology e.g. sw /səu̯/ 'woman/women', genitive suj /søy̯/ being ambiguous for singular vs. plural , and also is the historical explanation for the plural of sjirivs being marked by stress only (on which more in a subsequent post).

Finally there is a process of umlaut, where a low vowel is fronted in certain morphological contexts. Thus /ɑ/ shifts to /æ/ which itself shifts to /e/ or /iə̯/. This is found mostly with verbs in e.g. imperatives and indirect past e.g. kajn /kʰɑi̯n/ 'die' → kæjnæ! /ˈkʰæi̯næ/ 'die! (sg.)', kæjnið /ˈkʰæi̯nið/ 'is said to have died' or kæb /kʰæp/ 'hear' → kebæ /ˈkʰepæ/ 'listen!'.

[saltwatersweets]

hope its okay to share my opinion on finale too all good if not. I really liked it for the most part, its just I think there were points where it made c!tommys need to target c!dream come out of nowhere when c!dream should know why c!tommy would attack him giving the chase seen after prison break, and the talk he had with c!tommy after doomsday about how their story would never be over. It was a surprise to me seeing c!dream so shocked to see c!tommy there after what he put into c!tommys head and I say that as a c!dream and c!tommy apologist. Another thing was c!dream talks about how they could have been friends and how there was destruction but there were moments in the past where c!tommy saw c!dream as a friend but c!dream referred to that as business, and there were moments were c!dream caused destruction and chaos before c!tommy had. I can understand why the ccs wouldn't remember every single detail of the dsmp though and since lore wise c!dream went through a year of being tortured, his memory probably isn't the best and he focuses more on the big picture than little things like Im mentioning. I've watched the finale in full many times now, I still don't understand the reset plan that c!staged duo had but Ig the point was that they didn't get it either. They wanted to kill everyone and revive but also didn't want to disrupt the balance but it was different to what they said in the stream before it, I feel like c!tommy was too sympathetic because in response to pitying c!dream, c!dream tells him he deserved torture which does frame it in an odd way to me even though it was in character.. that and exile being mocked. I love that the finale showed that violence wasn't the answer and didn't repeat things but sometimes it did feel very lobsided on who was sympathizing for who, and who was blamed the most when the intention was trying to write it as equal for both sides. The reset and nuke itself imo was fine because in s2, the characters were going to regain their memories eventually anyway but it sucks we never got to see that.

(/dsmp /rp) i unfortunately can't really give a good answer to this because honestly i'm still kinda looking into it myself, and i don't really consider myself the expert analyst on either character despite my love for both of them </3 so take this all with a grain of salt !!

my thoughts on why c!dream was so annoyed at c!tommy seeking him out to kill him likely was mainly because c!dream hadn't seeked c!tommy out for a while at that point, to be fair. i view what he said to c!tommy after doomsday as trying to intimidate him again. a lot of how c!dream behaves around c!tommy (especially after exile) is intimidation and exaggerating his "evilness", like him saying that he did doomsday because c!tommy is "fun" or a lot of staged disc finale like what he tells c!sam. so even though c!tommy has good reason to believe dream is intimidating him, a lot of it is just that: intimidation.

to me, the reason why c!dream does this is to keep c!tommy in line, because from what he's seen c!tommy continues to annoy him but less so when he's scared of him. and, like cc!dream said, to make. him believe that c!dream was his only friend and all. i think this goes into c!tommy saying he saw c!dream as a friend but c!dream didn't - i think this is just the truth; during exile c!dream was trying to get c!tommy to view him as a friend, but i highly doubt that c!dream viewed him as a friend, ykwim? when he says that they could have been friends, i think he's referring to EARLY early dream smp when tommy was going around causing problems. i think he views c!tommy joining as the root cause of all his problems on the server (and c!tommy views c!dream's Everything as the cause of all HIS problems. they both have a very negative view on each other, and this view is both founded at times and unfounded in others!!)

as for c!dream saying c!tommy "deserved" torture, i'm super interested by this line!! to me, c!dream isn't like, say, c!sam or c!quackity who i believe base the people they hurt on if they "deserve" it or not (like dream himself in the prison; the two both seemingly wholeheartedly believe he deserved what he got). for example, c!dream doesn't kill c!vikk and c!lazar because they "deserve" to die, he kills them because they're useful towards his goals.

on that note c!dream and "deserved" pain is very interesting to me - he tells c!sam he didn't deserve to be tortured, and that he hates him for letting him be tortured, but in basically the same conversation says he understands c!sam letting him be tortured, says he understood the risks when he got the revive book, and says he might have done the same thing in his position. bro literally rationalises his own torture to the person who let it happen </3 he also asks c!sam if c!quackity deserves torture and even threatens to torture him in an act of revenge (something he doesn't end up doing or even attempts to do for over HALF A YEAR, despite how much he clearly hates c!quackity). i think its entirely possible that part of him genuinely believes c!tommy deserved his treatment in exile, but it is important for me to say that i don't believe he treated him cruelly BECAUSE he believed c!tommy "deserved" it.

as for c!dream calling exile torture yet also minimising it, again this is SO interesting to me because in my opinion, i don't view exile as torture. it was awful and cruel, yes, but not torture, and c!dream, who was tortured for at least two months, calling it torture is veryyy interesting to me. torture is something that's terrible for anyone, no matter who it happens - it would be just as bad for c!dream to be tortured as c!sapnap, or c!quackity, or anyone, because torture is terrible for anyone. meanwhile, what happened in exile was a much more personal form of manipulation that was more specific to c!tommy. if, say, c!purpled was exiled and got the same treatment that c!tommy got in exile, i don't think he would be NEARLY as affected by it, because exile's events were more specific to c!tommy who views his loved ones in a much different way than c!purpled does.

this post isn't even me answering anything anymore this is just me dumping my own thoughts LMAO 😭 c!dream, canonically physically tortured, calling what he did to c!tommy torture is just so interesting to me. just shedding some light on how i view their dynamic and thought processes i suppose!!

(and as for c!dream's and c!punz's plans to reset the world i genuinely have no idea what the actual plan was there LMFAO. and also with basically everything i said above: it is somewhat important to note that c!dream had lowkey been high on copium for like. two years straight at that point 💀 bro has been in a mental spiral for a WHILE and c!punz, bless him for being the only one still loyal to him, is his number one enabler. a lot of what he says isn't going to make complete sense at times; a lot of what he says isn't what he completely believes, and he often threatens to do things he doesn't do. to me both he and c!tommy are really similar like that: they both say things and try to make themselves "bigger", at least somewhat as a defense mechanism.)