#I don't think there's a 1:1 comparison

[blood-orange-juice]

Pushing my "Childe is inspired by Uther Doul" agenda.

I wrote about how everything that he does contains a contradiction and we discussed with Cricket how Canotila's quest implies that the Abyss might not be just a place with monsters and dead forgotten gods, but rather a place where things randomly flicker in and out of existence or change to random other things.

And a huge part of my fascination with Childe is how three years after the start of the story I still can't figure him out. Human psyche doesn't bend at this angles, his combination of traits is not supposed to exist in one person (nor it can be imitated).

Yet, somehow it doesn't feel like ooc or bad writing, I have a very clear sense of what would be childelike and unchildelike, it just doesn't feel like anything that can exist inside a human brain, unless I resort to a very weird theory.

*

The theory.

China Mieville's "The Scar" has a concept called "possibility mining", certain places and certain magic/technology being able to conjure all the possible versions of a person or an object at once. It can be navigated to some extent.

There's a character called Uther Doul, a warrior-scholar, the pirate city rulers' bodyguard and overall a charming fellow. He's consistently described as someone changing the direction of his actions too quickly and unpredictably or having traits that shouldn't coexist in one person.

(he also wears grey, is proficient in most kinds of weapons and is generally polite and soft spoken. do you see my vision?)

First meeting:

  “Surrender,” he said quietly to the man before him, who looked up in terror and sobbed, fumbled idiotically for his knife.    The grey-clad man spun instantly in the air, his arms and legs bent. He twirled as if he were dancing and stamped out quickly, the bottom of his foot slamming into the fallen man’s face and smashing him back. The sailor sprawled, bleeding, unconscious or dead. As the man in grey landed he was instantly still. It was as if he had not moved.

A fight at a city arena (mostly quoting this for the reaction of other people to him):

It was only when the frenzy spread to her own boat that she realized it was a word. “Doul.” It came from all around her. “Doul, Doul, Doul.” A name. “What are they saying?” she hissed to Silas. “They’re calling for someone,” he said, his eyes scanning the surrounds. “They want a display. They’re demanding a fight from Uther Doul.” He gave her a quick, cold smile. “You’ll recognize him,” he said. “You’ll know him when you see him.” [...] Uther Doul did not seem to live in the same time as anyone else. He seemed like some visitor to a world much more gross and sluggish than his own. Despite the bulk of his body, he moved with such speed that even gravity seemed to operate more quickly for him.

The heroine contemplating after (I don't think need to comment):

They left and walked the winding nightlit pathways of Thee-And-Thine toward Shaddler, and Garwater and the Chromolith. Neither spoke. At the end of Doul’s fight, Bellis had seen something that had brought her up short and made her afraid. As he had turned, his hands clawed, his chest taut and heaving, she had seen his face. It was stretched tight, every muscle straining, into a glare of feral savagery unlike anything she had ever seen on a human being. Then a second later, with his bout won, he had turned to acknowledge the crowd and had looked once more like a contemplative priest. Bellis could imagine some fatuous warrior code, some mysticism that abstracted the violence of combat and allowed one to fight like a holy man. And equally she could imagine tapping into savagery, letting atavistic viciousness take over in a berserker fugue. But Doul’s combination stunned her. She thought of it later, as she lay in her bed, listening to light rain. He had readied and recovered himself like a monk, fought like a machine, and seemed to feel it like a predatory beast. That tension frightened her, much more than the combat skills he had shown. Those could be learned.

Uther explaining lore:

   Uther quoted something like a singer. “ ‘We have scarred this mild world with prospects, wounded it massively, broken it, made our mark on its most remote land and stretching for thousands of leagues across its sea. And what we break we may reshape, and that which fails might still succeed. We have found rich deposits of chance, and we will dig them out.’    “They meant all that literally,” he said. “It wasn’t an abstract crow of triumph. They had scarred, they had broken the world. And, in doing so, they set free forces that they were able to tap. Forces that allowed them to reshape things, to fail and succeed simultaneously-because they mined for possibilities. A cataclysm like that, shattering a world, the rupture left behind: it opens up a rich seam of potentialities.    “And they knew how to pick at the might-have-beens and pull out the best of them, use them to shape the world. For every action, there’s an infinity of outcomes. Countless trillions are possible, many milliards are likely, millions might be considered probable, several occur as possibilities to us as observers-and one comes true.    “But the Ghosthead knew how to tap some of those that might have been. To give them a kind of life. To use them, to push them into the reality that in its very existence denied theirs, which is defined by what happened and by the denial of what did not. Tapped by possibility machines, outcomes that didn’t quite make it to actuality were boosted, and made real.

Fun detail: he also wields what's called a "possible sword", it takes the shape currently preferred by the owner.

If I recall that correctly, it's never actually stated explicitly or explained why does Uther have such a weird combination of traits and fans argue a lot about which side was real.

I think all of them were. He just switched constantly between all the different versions of himself. And I think so does Childe. Not just in "he compartmentalizes" way (although that probably too) but in reality-shifting way.

I also think that's the real reason why Childe wasn't in Sumeru. His thought process itself is probably a massive spoiler. Also Nahida would have probably speedrun a corruption arc with a pace inconceivable both to King Deshret and Rukkhadevata if she tried to peek into his head.

*

It gets weirder and even more fun when you see the drops from the 4.2 boss, but I'll wait for the patch to drop to draw parallels. For now I'll just say that it involves a whale and a music instrument.

[egophiliac]

still absolutely losing my mind over Lilia

[greencarnation]

eleven is fascinating to me because he came right off the back of tens horrible traumatic breakdown after he lost everything and he immediately tried to establish himself as the opposite of that. he is funny and goofy and almost childlike, and he bulldozes on in his adventures with amy like nothing happened at all. but then something happens and his masks slips and it's like oh! the core of this man is still anger. he is so so angry all of the time and this façade is the only thing stopping him from being consumed by it. he isn't over any of it and he hasn't moved on. he is wearing a fez and laughing but under that all that exists is age old anger and grief and it is going to consume him

[project-sekai-facts]

Kanade's another cut for the Twilight Light 3DMV is a direct reference to her untrained The Dream I Saw Will One Day 4* card.

Screencap source

[miss0atae]

They went to the same flirting school.

Let's see if Hill will be better at sharing his feeling than Phum.

[astralleywright]

Marisha's comment about how Relvin is one of those parents who ended up with a child they didn't know what to do with really gets to the heart of it, i think, and is such a good way to tie the fantasy element of Imogen's powers into things more tangible. because there are really a lot of parents like Relvin in real life, who have a child with the person they're happily married to and never expect to be left alone with the kid. or who expect a ""normal"" (read: cisgender and heterosexual, able-bodied, relatively neurotypical and obedient, etc.) child and end up with one who's ""difficult"", who demands more or different of them than what they believe they signed up for. and that's not entirely entitlement on a parent's part- many cultures' common frameworks of parenthood and child-rearing do not include space for these children. it makes sense that Relvin was unprepared. raising any child is difficult, and raising a child whose needs you were never taught how to accommodate, who the world is so cruel to, is even more challenging.

and yet. and yet, the person who bears the brunt of the harm in these situations will always be the child. they're the ones who have to live every moment of how the world treats them, without the support that their parent is supposed to provide them. and when asked to care for his child even when she turned out to be ""difficult"", Relvin couldn't. for entirely sympathetic reasons, of course. he tried, in his own way. i don't think he's a bad guy. but he's let his own broken heart bleed onto his daughter. he hasn't been able to give her much else.

[firestorm09890]

FUCK what I said about the majority of significant changes to dialogue in Re:CoM being to adjust Axel's characterization, the most egregious change is actually this

(GBA CoM)

(Re:CoM)

if I had to guess, the reason for this change was because in GBA CoM, The Superior was a spooky, unknown being at the head of this Organization we had very little knowledge on, and for Vexen, the guy who runs his mouth constantly about how much better he is than the others, to be terrified of him, he must be some pretty scary dude. But then after kh2 we know him, it's Xemnas, he's very dramatic, he likes to talk to the moon, and the effect of your mind filling in the gaps about what "The Superior" must be like is gone. So it wasn't really necessary anymore, right?

(rest under cut because it's long)

Except... the way they changed it is so weird. In the GBA version, what's happening is pretty clear:

Marluxia tells Vexen that his project is a failure

Vexen demonstrates that he does not give a shit about Marluxia's opinion

he does care very much about The Superior's opinion, though, and Marluxia uses this to blackmail him into eliminating Sora- an action which is nonsensical, as the entire point of what they're doing needs Sora alive, making it clear to everyone in the room that he is deliberately sending Vexen to die

and then after that, when Vexen shows up to fight Sora, he goes "if you want to fight me for real you've gotta do it in the memories from the other side of your heart lol bye" and Sora goes "huh? other side?" and then it cuts to a scene on the top floor:

and then this gets more into subtext but here, Vexen has realized he's totally fucked and his only hope is to mess directly with Marluxia's plans (well, they were the Organization's plans, but it's pretty obvious by now Marluxia's abusing his power for his own purposes) by giving Sora more information than he should know. This does get the traitor gang worried enough to send Axel to go kill him (as opposed to just letting Sora take care of him, which was presumably the original plan)- he very specifically cuts Vexen off to keep him from saying too much (this is retained between the original and the remake)

Anyway, what happens in Re:CoM sort of follows the same order of events, but everything is changed slightly in a way that just makes things more confusing.

Marluxia tells Vexen his project is a failure and Vexen demonstrates that he doesn't give a shit about Marluxia's opinion, as before

Marluxia threatens Vexen with a weapon, rather than threatening to tell the Superior

this, notably, does not seem to faze Vexen very much. he continues to run his mouth while having the scythe pointed at him.

Xemnas is still leveraged- Marluxia points out it was the Superior who entrusted him with the castle

...even though reasonably Vexen would already be aware of this, and has still demonstrated that he has zero respect for Marluxia despite it

the lines about betraying the Organization being a capital crime are retained, probably because it's super relevant later, but then that line of thinking is abandoned in favor of Marluxia and Larxene just taunting Vexen instead

The part where Marluxia says "do it. you won't" could be seen as a sort of threat... if not for Axel's line: "You give a challenge like that to Vexen and he'll seriously want to eliminate Sora." It frames it all as though Vexen went to fight Sora out of some sort of pride.

And look, Vexen may have a temper and a superiority complex, but he's not stupid. They're obviously baiting him. Plus, what happened to him seeing himself as above the others and countering things he doesn't like with "well actually I'm higher ranked than you and also you're an idiot"? Is he that insecure in his fighting capabilities? I could deal with characterization changes doing him dirty if it didn't also make no sense in the context of the plot.

So now we have Vexen going to try to kill Sora, something that really makes no sense to do, out of pride. What was the purpose of sending Sora to Twilight Town? Also pride, over the fact that he managed to get that information? Giving the writing the benefit of the doubt, I could say that these nonsensical actions can be explained as evidence that Nobodies can have hearts and people with hearts do strange and rash things, but that just feels like a reach, which is bad because what they had in GBA CoM worked perfectly fine and made sense without any reaching for the "idk emotions make you do strange things" explanation.

It continues. After Vexen gives Sora the Twilight Town card in Re:CoM and Sora wonders about what the "other side" means, this is that version of the conversation the top floor members have:

...what? "If Sora disappears, that would mess up the Organization's plans"? what are you worried about? the only reason Sora would disappear is if Vexen killed him. there's no way they think Vexen being in Twilight Town would give him an advantage, right? they know he's a pathetic fighter. "Vexen has clearly committed a treasonous act against the Organization" HOW? HOW IS IT CLEAR? they don't express any worry about Sora learning too much, up until Axel says "I came to stop you from talking too much" when killing Vexen- and that being there makes it seem like they were worried about Sora learning to much, but if that's the case, why would they replace the perfectly serviceable lines in the above scene? it's just... baffling that they would want to lean into the narrative that Vexen going to kill Sora (which he'd been goaded into doing) is the problem here, because it just makes so little sense compared to what it was originally.

once again giving them the benefit of the doubt: Marluxia's real plan was to take over the Organization, and he saw an easy way to pick off one of the members, so he took it. the motive for stopping Vexen doesn't actually matter.

buuuuut it's the same as with Vexen earlier. Marluxia may be too self-absorbed and power-hungry to notice Axel is scheming against him, but he, too, is an intelligent man. he's plotted for a while, getting into Xemnas's good graces in order to be put in charge of the Castle. this is incredibly sloppy for him. I guess it could be said that getting so close to his goal would make him sloppy, but again, if they'd just left things the way they were in GBA CoM, I wouldn't even have to be saying this

in conclusion: GBA Chain of Memories' intra-Organization strife subplot is so tightly woven with calculated moves on all sides that Re:CoM changing certain things without taking into consideration the consequences makes certain parts of the plot fall flat and become far more confusing than in the original story

[sukibenders]

"Why did they make Michael into Michaela? They took away one of the hottest men in Bridgeton now!" Okay, now it's one of the hottest women in the show. What's the issue now? Still got Francesca and Michael, in a way.

"Francesca's infertility plotline is ruined now! It was so important in the books!" Why can't she still have this particular plot, while still being with Michaela? Why is that suddenly erased now that Michael is a woman? Do you not believe that sapphic woman can't also struggle with infertility? There are multiple ways that the show can still incorporate this.

"Why are they making everyone gay now? It was fine when it was just Benedict but now-" I'm going to stop you right there. What's wrong with having more than one queer character? There are multiple straight people in the show, and in most forms of media, but you draw the line at having more than one gay/queer person? Imagine what it's like for other queer people to not be represented or to only have that one person be a vessel for the entire community. Doesn't sound very fair right? Another thing, because I see a lot of people who say this call themselves "allies", it doesn't sound very supportive when you say things like this. It doesn't instill confidence in your support for the queer community when you can't even fathom the possibility of more than one queer person on your screen without complaint. It's okay to be a little bummed out about the change, but to use rhetoric like above feels very...it leaves a sour taste in the mouth personally.

[thepunkpanther]

RAY KOWALSKI & RAY VECCHIO in DUE SOUTH (1994-1999)

[wonder-worker]

"It is too easy to dismiss [Leonor of Navarre] as an overambitious schemer who would do anything to obtain a crown, shedding the blood of her own siblings and her subjects in order to attain the throne. However, a deeper investigation of her long lieutenancy and ephemeral reign shows a woman who fought tenaciously to preserve her place but also worked tirelessly to administer a realm which was crippled by internal conflict and the center of the political schemes of France, Aragon, and Castile. She tried to broker peace, fight off those who opposed her, repair the wounds caused by conflict, protect the sovereignty of the realm, and keep the wheels of governance turning. Leonor was not always successful in achieving all of these aims but given the background of conflict and the lack of cooperation she received from all of her family members, bar her loyal husband, it is a huge achievement that she survived to wear the crown at all. Many writers have argued that Leonor deserved the troubled lieutenancy, personal tragedies, an ephemeral reign, and a blackened reputation, basing their assumption that she committed a crime that cannot be [conclusively] proven. However, a more fitting description of her would be that of a resolute ruler who successfully overcame a multitude of challenges in order to survive in a difficult political landscape and gain a hard-fought throne.”

-Elena Woodacre, "Leonor of Navarre: The Price of Ambition", Queenship, Gender and Reputation in the Medieval and Early Modern West, 1060-1600 (Edited by Zita Eva Rohr and Lisa Benz)

[fredoesque]

ok so yesterday i saw this post about the wedding imagery in hickey's trial scene and left a tag about iphigenia at aulis. and in the time since that comparison has spiraled entirely out of control

i was initially just referring to the way the play draws parallels between the rituals of a wedding and those of sacrifice/death and the way the two start to overlap throughout

but then i started thinking about how iphigenia's sacrifice serves both as an illustration of the violence of war turned inwards and simultaneously as the catalyst for said violence turned outwards. killing iphigenia highlights the actual human cost of war by exacting it on a familiar insider, not just a nameless enemy. but her death is also the only reason the war can take place at all--the chorus even calls her the destroyer of troy near the end

and that reminded me of hickey and his unique relationship with the violence of the british navy; of the british characters he is undeniably the one that suffers most at its hands, yet he is also a driving force in perpetuating violence--in general, but also specifically towards the inuit

and i know i'm not the first person to point out that hickey is both a victim and a perpetrator of the violence of the empire, but i find it fascinating to approach that dichotomy through the lens of (ritual) sacrifice. it adds a new dimension to not just the trial, but basically all his scenes that are concerned with said violence. his own death (during a botched ritual no less) is actually a great example; it doubles as the final nail in tuunbaq's coffin. he dies not just for or because of the empire's interests; it's the very act of him dying that causes said interests to be furthered

anyway all that to say hickey thinks he's christ and he's wrong but that doesn't mean he's not a lamb on the altar

[neutral-towards-mindmaps]

the 3-step laura bailey dnd romance strategy:

step 1: create a character that's impossible not to fall in love with

step 2: find a player who has deemed their character inherently unromanceable

step 3: profit

[funkytoesart]

you can always tell the people who give social media advice who are naturally or conventionally attractive even without even having to look at a photo of them cause they're always the ones that recommend showing your face in reels or videos to promote your art and it's like,,, talk about pretty/skinny privilege lol

[rotisseries]

inspired by elli's poll lol cause this seems fun actually but if you guys have bad answers I'll kill myself on your doorstep or smth

[nonbinarylesbianskout]

Yeah, having a bit of a moment over here.

[not-poignant]

Looooved the latest chapter update for UtB <33 thank you so much for writing! I was wondering, is part of the reaction/feelings Ef has towards Faber because he can recognize some omega traits in Faber and it triggers Ef's (for lack of better word) disphoria? Or is it solely just because he can sense Faber's annoyance with the situation etc? Also, Faber is bb <3 I love how Ef has without knowing already had an interaction with an omega on his own btw haha

Hallo anon!

Tbh the feelings Efnisien has towards Faber are mostly born straight up out of empathy and compassion. If anything, sensing Faber's annoyance is more likely to make him annoyed in turn.

Efnisien's never met any omegas for a long period of time and never really had a conversation with one before, and Faber doesn't really live or portray himself like an omega, so there's nothing for Efnisien to hook into there. Faber is actually not very omega-like in quite a lot of ways. And on top of that, Faber would react to Efnisien's alpha persuasions etc. like a beta, and not an omega.

This tbh hooks into the idea that Faber could easily be 'nonbinary' and just has no idea (same with Efnisien - it's been brought up several times and Efnisien has seriously considered it, and will continue to in the future), because he doesn't know it exists, and also that you don't have to 'present' like a 'classic' or 'normative' manifestation of a gender to want to be that gender. There are masc women who aren't trans, there are femme men who aren't trans, and there are also femme men who are, and masc women who are. I really enjoy unpacking the idea that there is a 'one size fits all' alpha or omega or beta alongside the experience of knowing you're not the gender everyone has assigned to you.)

Efnisien has zero idea that Faber is experiencing any kind of dysphoria, he just knows Faber doesn't like his life much, and Efnisien had a big 'man that's relatable' moment, except people are trying to change that for him, and no one is trying to fix that for Faber, and that made Efnisien sad on his behalf.

But yeah, it's complicated! To me, this narrative resists both neat analogies to the transgender experience (as a trans person, I want that), and it also resists the simplification of gender, because culturally we know it's not. At least, that's what I'm hoping :D

Efnisien was so focused on his own positive experience of himself as an alpha, that he wasn't paying any attention to Faber from a gender standpoint. He was just interacting with and sympathising with Faber-the-person.