#I rarely make a character that has a defined personality at the start

[impossible-rat-babies]

realizing now that like. my durge looks far more like dimitri than eyrie

[taradactyls]

Something I love about how Pride and Prejudice is told through an omnipresent narrator, aside from the witty remarks and insight into other characters it allows even though it's usually focused on Elizabeth, is how it plays on the audience's own prejudices and assumptions.

The narrator tells us very early on, chapter 4, that Darcy is "haughty, reserved, and fastidious, and his manners, though well-bred, were not inviting." We've already seen that when we meet him the previous chapter, and will see more of it in those following. But it's the readers, along with Elizabeth, who take that observation as not only a list of flaws (despite only the first actually being negative) but presumes even more damaging flaws must be attached to it. Darcy can be off-putting, especially so in the setting we meet him in: he dismissed Elizabeth within earshot of her, didn't engage with people attempting to converse with him, etc. It's easy to assume the worst of him in a world so driven by social niceties, and because we follow Elizabeth, who is so lively and playful amidst the rules which govern society. Elizabeth thinks he's bad tempered? It would make sense - he hasn't shown consideration for others much socially, why would he care when he's angry? He acted from resentment and jealousy and went against his father's will? That's not such a jump after the conclusion of a bad temper, his own acknowledgement of implacable resentment, and evidence of pride. The awareness of one offensive trait so naturally leads to prejudice against it, that we easily assume still worse qualities must exist. We are as mistaken as Elizabeth.

Even the idea that 'No, Darcy was never haughty or rude, he was just shy and misunderstood, the narrator is wrong' is just magnifying that prejudice. Yes, we do find out later that Darcy is not at ease among strangers, and was always intrinsically good; his morals and core values meant he was never as bad as Elizabeth believed. But that doesn't mean he was without flaws, and it's so fascinating that some analysis of his character seek to completely remove the negative traits which he eventually overcame after acknowledging them in himself. The logic seems to be that they feel if he had them in the start that he isn't actually such a good person. It's just another example of being so prejudiced against certain flaws that it's impossible for some people to reconcile that there doesn't have to be more serious failings attached, and someone can still be a good person despite being arrogant and not always nice. It's, ironically, being prejudiced in the exact same way that Elizabeth was at the start of the novel. It's amazing that Jane Austen was able to tap into that aspect of human nature so deftly, and invoke in both in her main character, and readers to this day.

Now, of course, the story is so well known it's rare for anyone to read it blind, so it's less likely anyone will be unaware of Darcy's good qualities despite first seeing his worst. Even if they do, Pride and Prejudice has become so genre defining that new readers who are the slightest bit genre savvy will be more aware than contemporary audiences were. But even if we know the story it's still so understandable why Elizabeth feels the way she does. We see what she sees and feel her conclusions make sense. Just as, even though the narrator tells us Darcy is starting to catch feelings for Elizabeth, we fully comprehend her not noticing and believing there's a mutual dislike. And though that is concrete evidence of Elizabeth not reading Darcy and his motives correctly, we are still so sympathetic of the basis of her prejudice that her continued belief in Darcy's lack of virtues makes sense from her point of view. We can see, as she later will, that she takes it too far, and should have noticed evidence to the contrary, but her prejudice against him based on his early behaviour and her pride at reading people correctly is so understandable.

Basically, in a story about the characters' pride and prejudices, I love, love, LOVE how the narrator's voice brings out those same traits in readers the exact same way we see it presenting in Elizabeth. We're all on that journey with her, and we can likewise learn the same lessons about ourselves as she does. Pride and Prejudice feels timeless, because even though society and thus the nuance changes, the book is about human nature, and that remains essentially the same.

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Character Driven vs. Plot Driven

I had someone message me asking what these terms meant and which Miraculous was and if it explained the writing, especially in context of the ending of season five and that's not something I can answer in a quick reply, so you all get a post instead!

Intro

At first glance, “character driven” and “plot driven” are somewhat confusing terms because almost every story has characters making choices that make things happen and almost every story has some kind of plot that's driving the action, so what do these terms even mean? Why do we use them?

The answer is that we generally don’t? These are high-level categorizations that I’ve almost exclusively seen talked about in things like writing classes where the instructor is trying to help you figure out your style preferences or perhaps painting a genre in broad strokes. I rarely see these terms come up when discussing specific works because they’re not that useful in the mirco. They never excuse or explain writing choices the way something like genre might because genre is a meaningful category and these really aren't. They're too vauge.

Also, as with many such binary categorizations, there’s a spectrum here. On one side is pure plot-driven and on the other is pure character-driven and in between them are most of the stories you'll consume in your life. In spite of that minor issue, I am going to start by defining what these two terms mean at their most extremes because that is relevant to the discussion. We’ll then use Miraculous to get into the nuance of the spectrum.

Character Driven

Character-driven narratives are stories that focus heavily on characters doing – or not doing – things because of their unique personalities, thoughts, and feelings. Stories where the events unfold almost entirely because of who the characters are and what very personal choices they make. Switch the characters and the story would look wildly different or even not exist at all.

When I think of pure character-driven works, I generally think of coming-of-age stories where there’s almost no plot to speak of. It’s just a teenage character struggling with life and learning to accept it. Character studies are another good example.

Plot Driven

Plot-driven narratives are stories that you're engaging with for something other than the characters. The characters are just set pieces that are there to be used by the plot. This means that the characters are probably making choice, but we’re not going to focus on the deep, nuanced reasons for those choices. Change the characters and the choices remain the same because the story is focused on something beyond the characters.

When I think of pure plot-driven stories, I think of stereotypical action movies. Movies where the villain is throwing things at the hero and the hero is overcoming them as fast as they can and so much is happening that you barely even know who these characters are because you're not here for the characters. You're here for the action, so it's fine if the characters are pretty generic. Mystery stories also tend to fit this category as those are often just about the mystery and the characters that aren’t developed beyond what is needed for the puzzle to work.

Nuance

So which is Miraculous?

If we must pick a side, then it’s going to be plot driven because that is Miraculous’ main writing style. It’s not here to study the characters and let them drive the action. It’s here to entertain kids in 20-minute-long chunks where the kids don’t need to know the greater context of who the characters are in order to get what is going on. Pick a random episode and it’s probably going to be one where a random akuma shows up and where everything that happens will never come up again. That is not what character-driven narratives look like. This is not a show brimming with things like Chat Blanc and the season five final. Those are exceptions to the rule.

However, the existence of those episodes and the fact that some of the characters aren't interchangeable shows that this isn’t a purely plot-driven show. The writers do want the characters to effect the world in unique ways decided by their personalities and motivations and relationships. Those are character-driven elements and is why these categories are kind of meaningless in this context. Plot driven vs character driven doesn’t justify or explain Miraculous’ writing choices because many of the writing choices make no sense in either type of story!

Narratives that are mainly plot-driven are not narratives plagued by poor characterization. They’re just ones where the characterization elements aren’t the main focus. You still want your characters to feel authentic and make sense and you can even have moments where the action is effected by who the characters are because plot-driven isn’t some hard rule. As I said at the start, it’s just a general categorization! Genre and format are infinitely more limiting and worthy of discussion because they actually come with some pretty clear rules.

Dunking on Miraculous

The problem with Miraculous is not that the plot is the main driving force of the action. The problem is that characters often make no sense! They act widely out of character for the sake of dragging out the plot, which is the plot driving the narrative, but that doesn’t make it good writing! “Because plot” is not an excuse, it’s just an explanation. In fact, because the show so often ignores the characters’ personalities for the sake dragging out the plot, it actually undermines the entire story because it feels cheap when the story tries to use the characters’ personalities to justify further delays Oh, now you’re letting this matter? Really? How nice. F-off.

Here are some examples of what I mean about the plot-driven nature of the show making inauthentic characters:

Alya is obsessed with finding out everything she can about the miraculous and even becomes a full-time team member in season four with the explicit job of tracking down the butterfly and the peacock, but she never does anything meaningful in that role. We never see her trying to track down the villains even though her character would absolutely do that. Her lack of action is wildly inauthentic.

Gabriel and Nathalie learn all of the temp heroes identities at the end of season three and make two minor efforts to do something with that information that before letting their god-tier knowledge fizzle to nothing even though those same temp heroes never stop being used. This is out of character for both of them, especially Nathalie. In a story that was true to its characters, this would have meaningful consequences such as all the temp heroes having to be benched and/or the villains guessing that Ladybug is someone who knows these people since they have some obvious connections.

The secret identities are the only reason Ladybug lost all of the miraculous at the end of season four and Adrien knows this. The season also ends with Ladybug promising to trust him more and the next season opens on an episode where she does just that. In spite of this, Adrien never even tries to tell her about the secret identity thing and Ladybug never seems to become more open with her partner because, if the show did those things, then an identity reveal would happen and they can't let that happen so, once again, plot trumps characterization.

When a show is plagued by asinine choices such as these while also trying to claim it has these overarching plots and meaningful character beats, the story can come to feel disingenuous and frustrating to a lot of fans. That’s why we can get something as divisive as the season five ending. Because of the poor writing that lead up to that final, it’s hitting different people in different ways depending on how tolerant they are of a lot of the shows previous flaws.

Would it be hard for Marinette to tell Adrien the truth? Sure! That struggle is - in theory - a genuinely good character beat, but it falls flat for many because it comes after multiple seasons of forced, inauthentic delaying tactics that spat in the face of established characterization for basically every meaningful character. With those in mind, it’s hard to view the secret keeping as some authentic, meaningful choice for Marinette’s character when she and many others have been denied so many other authentic, meaningful choices.

This is extra true because her choice to keep both Adrien and Chat Noir in the dark just compounds the issue of the authentic growth that Marinette has been denied! I briefly touched on this in that last example in my list, but we just spent an entire season watching her and Chat Noir maintain their distance in spite of that being something that should have changed based on the character-based events of the last season. Remember, season four gave us this moment in Penalteam:

Ladybug: (looks around them and frowns) I'm sorry, I've been a bad captain. I played a solo game, I forgot we're a team. I'm gonna need all of you now, more than ever. Rooster Bold: Are you sure? I'm not really.. Ladybug: You're an excellent player, Rooster Bold. That's why I chose you. That's why I chose all of you! Let's play together, and bring all of our individual strengths together onto the field!

And this moment in the final, which is the two-part episode directly after Penalteam:

Ladybug: Why don't you just give up on me? I've lost ALL the Miraculous! I'm the worst Guardian EVER! I wanted to control everything, I didn't listen to you, I lied to you, I kept you at a distance! Every time you offered me a helping hand, I never took it! I really made a mess of EVERYTHING! (continues sobbing)

We are, as always, going to ignore that these things don't really match the story that season four told and instead take them at face value since this is the stated lesson. The viewers are being directly told that Ladybug went into season five having learned to trust others and stop keeping Chat Noir at a distance.

But did she? What actually changed in season five? I can't think of anything. Season five maintained all of the secrets and ended by adding new ones. We also had to suffer through Marinette doing absolutely nothing to try to find the missing kwamis even though that is wildly inauthentic to her character. Once that girl has a problem to solve, she obsesses over it! It's one of the few things that consistently gets her acting normal around Adrien, so why did her brain shut off and go full-Adrien for all of season five?

Add in the fact that a major plot of season five was outing Lila's lies and lies being bad and Marinette keeping this secret falls incredibly flat both plot-wise and character-wise. There's a reason that one of the main justification people use for the lie is a scarf from season one that we have literally never seen again and that Marinette never actually lied about. The show simply did not set itself up to make Marinette's lie feel like some authentic character beat. The best justification most people can give is that a 14-year-old would probably struggle to reveal this secret.

To be fair, that is a believable justification. That's believability is why the season five ending could have genuinely worked in a better show where the characters felt more authentic or even if it came much earlier in the story. If this was the season two ending, then I think that most people would be engaged by it and I’d probably even be defending Marinette’s actions because this is a massive thing to put on someone’s shoulders and she was early in her journey. Heck, I have defended her actions by pointing out that she was the last-informed of the group of people in the know and none of them are telling Adrien, so this is not all on her.

But that's the best I can do while being authentic to the story because this lie isn’t part of a story with authentic characters. Marinette has not been set up to lie like this and the lie is being told at the end of a season full of poor storytelling after multiple seasons of stalling tactics, making it impossible to take this lie seriously. Even if Miraculous was a primarily character-driven show, you can’t use that to justify the lie while ignoring all the poor characterization that surrounds it. The writers gave Marinette the kind of journey that should lead to her being brave enough to tell the truth, not the kind of journey where she was too much of a coward to tell the truth. The writing also never set up Nathalie or Kagami as the kind of people who would just bow to Marinette's wishes. It is glaringly obvious that this is all happening as a delaying tactic and not because it's a good choice for the characters or the plot.

[11rosebunny]

Hi!! How are you:)? I hope you're doing okay! Can i request wind breaker boys (BOFURIN) with a crush that is super sweet (the sweetest in the town) who's also shy? + super oblivious and stupid when the topic is about romance? :3?

Character with dense!reader (BOFURIN)

Haruka Sakura

Whenever you would say fairly stupid things, you didn't understand why he would get all red and quiet out of nowhere. He is aware of your air-headed skull and tries to help you exist in general, but when you're saying things about how cute he is, you end up standing there with question marks clouding your head when he starts to childishly insult you.

He always claims it's a drag whenever he has to look out for you in case you end up setting a car on fire, but something that he was able to figure out is the only time you end up getting embarrassed is if romance is ever brought up.

The little moments when you realize the space between you and him is closing up a little too fast for your liking makes you start stuttering, asking him what he wants, and the way your eyes flicker everywhere in the room made him surprise that you were equally as awkward as him. He doesn't take advantage of the fact that when you're shy, but there is a part of him where he finds that side of you to be cute.

Hajime Umemiya

He thinks you're adorable.

The first time he met you, he didn't actually think you were serious about your rambles whenever you opened your mouth and said something diabolical and went about your day. However, when he realized it wasn't a joke, it took him a few days to understand that everything you've said, you meant it with 100% honesty.

You never understand any hints that people drop, and he is usually the one to break it down for you; otherwise, if it was another person, they may or may not have mauled you in the face for having to repeat themselves four times already. Hajime knows how to be patient, and it's very rare where he gets upset at your stupidity.

Aside from looking out for you, one thing that intrigues him is the way your behavior only changes when you find yourself trapped in a heated situation. It was a complete accident when he made you blush the first time; he was keeping you close to his body in a secluded area and told you to keep quiet. The moment he released you, he was shocked to see how you couldn't look him in the eye, the way your body grew hotter, and the way you refrained from speaking for a specific amount of time.

He found it odd that you got shy around him if all people. He doesn't try to make anyone nervous by any means, but the way you looked and the way you fell apart in his hands, he thinks about that from time to time and has intrusive thoughts to see you like that again.

Toma Hiragi

He wants to kill you. The majority of his time spent with you, he does enjoy your presence with him and the way you make him feel whenever you're spending time with each other. Despite those times, the other half spent is him growing white hairs because of your irrational decision making.

He doesn't mind seeing you mess up every once in a while; sometimes, he does that on purpose so you end up learning from your mistakes and afterwards helps you.

He still jokes around and treats you almost the same way he treats his closest friends (Umemiya), but even so, he has to set limitations to you because you somehow ended up being denser than his best friend.

It took him a while to notice that the only time your mood would shift was whenever something made you shy. He didn't notice it due to it mostly being out in public together, and he ends up rushing you to hurry up and follow him. But one day, when you went over to his house for the first time and you watched him take off his leather jacket revealing his well-defined back, began to remove his silver rings and lazily place them down on his desk, and cracked his neck to scavenge through his drawers to find you a shirt to wear somehow made you grow nervous.

You sat on your bed awkwardly watching him reach out one of his shirts that seemed way too oversized for your body, and when he called out your name, he noticed the way you jumped at him with wide eyes and blush covering your cheeks. He was a bit curious as to why you were so on edge all of a sudden until he came to terms it was generally because of him.

He kept it a secret from you that he knew he could make you nervous, and since then, he's sometimes used that as an advantage to make you listen to him...

Mitsuki Kiryu

A terrible influence. It's not that he influences you to take life risks, but he does influence you to continue with your stupid decision-making. He purely does it for a part of his entertainment but will also go out of his way if he thinks it's a bit too far and dangerous.

He's found mobile games as an outlet to put his boredom, however once he found you, there was a slight decrease in his screentime when you two started to grow close. Eventually, his screentime lowered drastically when you became the closest person in his life.

He wasn't aware of a specific trait of yours of growing shy whenever romance popped up. You two left a fast-food restaurant after grabbing a quick bite and walked down the street with drinks in your hand as you continued talking with him. After walking for a bit, two unfamiliar girls came up to the both of you and asked for his number.

During that moment, you stood there awkwardly as you watched him blink at the two girls you didn't recognize. If you were being honest, a tint of an unknown feeling lingered in your gut when you saw him smile at them. However, before giving him his number, he shot a glance at you making you widen your eyes when he caught you staring. You immediately looked away and even twisted your body slightly, moved away from him. In that moment, he couldn't care less about those girls in front of him because as soon as he saw you change moods for the first time, he worried if he had upset you.

Afterward, he understands that you were just shy since you weren't very fond of romance, but when he gains that piece of information about you, he doesn't know if he should abuse that power or not to see if you'd crumble in his hands if he ever made a move on you.

Hayato Suo

Surprisingly, he handles you very well. Hayato is known to look out for others while maintaining a devious side of his that he likes to reveal every once in a while (or more than). He oddly knows how to handle chaotic people better, rather than nonchalant individuals.

He genuinely enjoys spending time with you, even if you'd probably end up going to jail one way or another, he still steps in for you whenever you go a little too far. If it weren't for him, you'd probably be homeless living under a cardboard box.

He lets you do whatever you please, but he will stop you the moment he senses something will go wrong, even before you think of that decision. He somehow can pinpoint the things you think before you get to say them.

He doesn't exactly know you get shy whenever something romantic comes up until you ended up watching a romance film with him at his house. He invited you over for a hangout, and you two decided to watch a Chinese drama because he wanted to learn the language better by not reading the Japanese subtitles. He ended up putting it on anyway so you could at least enjoy the movie too.

It was late at night, and he noticed after thirty minutes into the movie, you stopped speaking and eventually grew quiet. Something he wasn't used to. So when he takes a glance at what you're doing, he scans the way your face almost seemed lost and sweaty, and the way your breathing went rugged, making your chest fall up and down quicker than usual. He paused the movie and asked if you were okay and turned on the switch when he noticed you were even redder in better lighting.

Ever since then, he's quickly learned that your mood only changed if something falls into the category of romance. He doesn't go out of his way to embarrass you over that, but he does keep it in mind and he's found out he can use that tactic as a way to get you to listen to him better.

[cursedextrovert]

People comparing CaitVi dynamic season 1 and 2, are we watching two different shows or y'all just forgot what happened in the middle. There was literally a war going on, Cait's mom fucking died like are they just gonna be lovey dovey with all these politics going on? And then one moment they leave everything to just be with each other in that jail cell you are also mad like wdyw?

Also people who say their sex scene is not necessary and/or a bad representation.

Firstly, JayceMel also got a sex scene in season 1 so its not like they invented sex just for these two lesbians.

Secondly, they didnt just fuck. Vi was beating herself up thinking she made the wrong decision and fucking things up like always and Cait told her that she actually let the guards go so Vi can do that exact thing she wanted. Ultimately saying a) she trusted Vi when she said Jinx has changed and wanted Vi to let the girl out b) she wanted Vi to be happy more than she wanted revenge even tho just some months ago she was the opposite.

Thirdly, we see the detail, Cait hesitates when she sees the bandage where she used to hit Vi. We see Cait taking off her clothes and showing her all, being vulnerable because Vi deserves that much from her.

Fuck. I get it, ok? This is a rare time we got a wlw relationship where both are main characters, and in a big show like this so you want it to be perfect and deprive of all flaws. But wouldnt you rather have two well-written characters where they relationship is tangled with the core of who they are than just a wlw couple with no conflict, no personal development no nothing? Hows that a good representation? Their relationship doesnt solve the conflict between them and their politics but is the reason why they were intertwined in the first place.

And dont come at me about systematic problems as well like Im a poc myself living in a white country and a sociology graduate. I understand Caitlyn did terrible things and is a war criminal herself with how she stands aside letting Ambessa did the thing she did and for gasing Zaun just to seek revenge. But she, just like everyone is a product of her sociocultural surroundings, shes a human affected by their beliefs and emotions. Isnt that the point of the show?

I dont think she got her happy ending just because she lives, I think being alive is her purnishment. She has her whole life to make up for what she did and I believe she will. What other fate you think she deserves? Her death will not undo her crimes, so is prison, they will also prevent her from actually fixing what she caused and ultimately using her priviledge for good(which shes doing, you can read my post about it). And Im not about to start the whole ethic debate on prison. How does one define a purnishment worthy? How do one define what a person deserves?

Finally, you know who else was a war criminal and walked away with what he wanted? Singed. Reality is like that, not black and white. People dont get what we think they deserve, ever.

[secretsofthewilde]

Well. I did say that only one person needed to ask and I'll share. So here you go @raisedbythetv89 @richtea-biscuit

The actual academic essay I wrote and submitted is available to read here (x) for now at least, but as it was written for an assignment with a set word count and parameters, I ended up having to take out the section I had originally written about Cordelia and also there are a lot of references to the set textbook readings I was given. So it might not be the lightest of reading.

Essentially the essay poses the argument that for all the supposedly progressive feminist intentions of the show, we regularly see gender and sexual stereotypes still being reinforced within the show especially through the way that the women are treated for their relationship with sex. That is to to say that while the ‘Scooby gang��� typically seems to contest gender norms, with the male characters often appearing as submissive to Buffy and the female characters themselves each threatening gender norms in their own way, the intimate relations between the characters often undermine these initial contestations. In my essay I explore this through comparing Faith and Buffy's relationship with sex during the early seasons of the show.

Below is my section on Cordelia which unfortunately didn't make it into the essay, followed by a summary of my essay points on Faith and Buffy. I'm mainly sticking to seasons 1-3 for this essay because while I do mention season 4 at one point briefly, the introduction of Riley and Tara mark a change in the nature of sex and what it means in the show.

Part 2 (which is a look at Willow) has also now been written and can be found here (x)

Cordelia Chase

Cordelia starts out as a mild social antagonistic force to our Scooby gang, she is a bully. As the show progresses though she slowly starts to build connections with them, however she isn't allowed into their group until she is depicted as having romantic feelings for Xander, rather than just sexual. When it comes to Cordelia and Xander's relationship she is the dominant one. She has more social power than him and the Scoobys, as well as being more financially and academically stable than him. She also is the only one with a car, meaning she is the one who drives them to their dates. And while this at first seems to be challenging gender stereotypes of powerful men providing for an attractive but weaker woman, the problem is that she isn't allowed or accepted into the Scooby gang until after she sacrifices her social privilege to commit to a public relationship to him. Prior to this sacrifice any relationship or attempt at casual sex we saw Cordelia make was framed as shallow behaviour from her to be scorned or done for comedic effect. We see both her and Buffy seek intimate relationships in these early season, but only Buffy's attempts are framed as sympathetic. It was only when she expressed an emotional connection to Xander that she was presented as a sympathetic character to the audience.

Buffy Summers

Buffy and Angel are the first intimate relationship we see explored in the show and so it's the one that sets the audiences' initial expectations for intimacy. While Buffy is dominant within her social groups and her general use of violence to defeat enemies is something that we would say challenges gender norms, she rarely maintains these traits (or at least they are made much weaker) in scenes that explore her relationship with Angel. Once she's romantically interested in him she routinely takes a submissive role in their relationship; she goes to him for help and advice, places his well being over her role as a slayer, and waits for him to be the one to define and initiate their relationship.

 Unlike Cordelia’s early relationship with Xander, the audience is meant to be invested and sympathetic towards Buffy and Angel. From the get go we have it established that the two love each other, but despite their doomed fate we are meant to want to see them together and therefore we are sympathetic to Buffy's attempts at intimacy with him. When they do have sex and Angel loses his soul, these painful consequences is sometimes seen to be done as a punishment for Buffy having sex, but I think it's more to do with the tragic nature of their gothic romance rather than that - because Buffy and Angel did have the emotional and psychological connection that the show requires in order for their intimacy to be viewed as 'good'. In contrast though, once they break up we see Buffy try to have sex casually with other non-supernatural students but this only results in her getting hurt. When she and Parker have sex he dumps her the following day after using her; which is her punishment for attempting to have sex with something who she didn't really love like Angel. Buffy's also interesting in that her attempt to have a not only loving but sexual relationship also sets her apart from the other slayers - Kendra doesn't have sex, Faith doesn't do emotional intimacy, but Buffy tries to have both.

Faith Lehane

Faith gets to be the sexually free and explorative girl that Buffy is unable to. While she does struggle to do so, within the first three season Buffy does successfully create and sustain a heteronormative relationship that is both sexually and emotionally intimate. While Buffy might flirt with other guys that aren't Angel, she's still easily the "good girl" who cares more about the emotional connection with a guy than sex; in comparison Faith is someone who presents very confident in her sexuality and actively seeks casual sex without any emotional connections. If Buffy is seen to be masculine because of her traits as a slayer than Faith can be seen as hyper-masculine. So she challengers gender stereotypes in that her seeking casual sex and her dominant flirtatious behavior are traits typically reserved for a stereotypical "bad boy" type of character.

When Faith is first introduced to the show as an ally to our Scooby gang, her sexual confidence and behaviours are initially something that Buffy herself wants to replicate. The only time that we actually see her engage in sex on screen however is when she initiates sex with Xander, which coincidently also marks the last episode where she is considered to be someone trust worthy. Faith is the one to initiate sex with Xander, and she remains in a dominant position of control of the scene that we observe. The moment seems to subvert the trope of the confident male "deflowering" the inexperienced and submissive women (who in this scene would be Xander). However the scene is immediately cut with Faith kicking Xander out of her apartment after he tries to initiate an emotional connection with her, and this is framed for comedic effect. By framing their whole sexual encounter as comedic, it's undermining how Faith's sexual confidence seemed to challenge gender roles and instead framing deviations from expected heteronormative behaviours as something to laugh at.

It's also important that the very next episode (Bad Girls) is the one where we clearly see the descent of her mental stability as her reckless behaviour (both sexual and violent) in one-night results in her accidentally killing someone. What was initially seen as traits of a sexually confident woman, and therefore challenging gender roles, then becomes depicted for the rest of the season as signs of her mental instability and her eventual role as an antagonist. This is her punishment for engaging in casual sex; for not having the emotional or psychological connection that is needed for sexual actions to be accepted or approved of by the narrative.

Conclusion

Within the first three seasons of Buffy we see that the female characters are able to challenge gender roles in many ways, however this isn't extended to sex. They can enjoy and seek sex out at times, however they will suffer as a consequence if they don't fulfil certain heteronormative conventions during those times.

Buffy and Faith are allowed to be powerful slayers who are in charge, but in order for their power (and how they challenge dominant ideologies) to remain acceptable it needs to be limited to their battles in the streets rather than in the sheets.

[aego-weaver]

Asexual characters getting laid

So, the recent discussion around a certain demon has brought a certain subject to the forefront of my circles. So, in this essay, let's talk about asexual characters getting laid, usually in fanfiction, but my advice applies to original work as well.

Glossary

As I discuss this, I will be using the relevant terms. For your convenience, I will define them here. Those in the community, you can skip this section.

Asexual: Often shortened to Ace, an asexual is a person who experiences little to no sexual attraction.

Gray Ace: Notice how I said "little to no" in the previous definition? gray Aces are why. Still falling under the field of asexuality, gray aces experience sexual attraction only on rare occasions or in specific situations.

Demisexual: A person who only experiences sexual attraction after a close emotional (not necessarily romantic) connection exists. It is a form of gray ace.

Aromantic: Often shortened to Aro, an aromantic is a person who experiences little to no romantic attraction.

Alloromantic: Alloromantic is opposite of Aromantic, being a person who regularly experiences romantic attraction. For this essay, I will use the abbreviated form Allo for this meaning exclusively. In more general parlance, Allo can also be short for allosexual, the opposite of asexual.

Sex Repulsed: A person who is sex repulsed has a strong negative reaction to sexual situations. This can manifest as fear, disgust, anxiety, etc.

Sex Favorable: A person who is sex favorable has a positive reaction to sexual situations. This shouldn't be confused with being sex positive, which is about your opinion regarding sex in society and sits outside the scope of this essay.

Opening Principles

The main question is this: Is it okay to write a story in which an asexual character has a sexual encounter or long-term sexual relationship?

The answer, in my opinion, is yes, if you do it right.

The question you need to ask is why are they doing this? You should really ask that question for any character getting laid, but it's really important when you want an asexual character to do the dance.

Asexuals and their relationship to sex

Now, as I start this section, I feel the need to drop my credentials... I am a sex-favorable aroace with an axe to grind. That's it really.

As far as a stereotype exists for asexuals, it's a sex-repulsed aroace who is usually so extremely repulsed they just about faint at the sight of a bare breast or is so naive they wouldn't know what a dildo is.

Now, both of these people exist, I'm sure. But, they aren't the only options. You can have sex-neutral or favorable aces, you can have allo aces, you can have gray aces and demisexuals. Asexuals can like kinky stuff or keep it vanilla. The options are limitless.

Libido is different from attraction. I'm sure you've heard of people who just need it more or less often. Guess what? Asexuals can get aroused just like everyone else; we just have less of an outlet for it.

A good but honestly overused analogy is food: libido is getting hungry while attraction is thinking something looks delicious. Some of us aces (like myself) are just sitting in the kitchen, hungry as all hell, but nothing catches the eye. We still might eat something and enjoy it, but it's a different process.

The only unifying factor for asexuals is experiencing little to no sexual attraction. That's it!

Reasons your asexual character might want to get laid

I'm going to run through a bunch of reasons why an asexual person might find themselves getting laid. I'll go over story ideas they make me think of (which you are free to steal; please steal them, I beg you) and potential pitfalls you need to avoid.

Do note the phrase "want to" in the title of this section. I'm only covering story reasons that are at least mostly consensual.

These aren't in any particular order; I'm just writing them as I think of them.

Personal Gain

Perhaps they benefit in some fashion from the arrangement. For example:

An asexual prostitute is an easy example.

A con artist, using sex to influence their victims, but not feeling anything real towards them.

This one is a great choice for dark character exploration. It's also one of the few options that works well if the character is sex-repulsed; put the reader in the shoes of a sex-repulsed character who needs to have sex for some reason and you've got something I've never seen before and really want to see done well. Tread lightly though, that idea is very easy to get wrong.

For a loved one

This one's for the allo aces out there. An asexual character could have sex for their partner's sake. Just like you, for example, might see a movie you don't care about because your SO wants to see it.

That's a fine reason... with a major caveat: it shouldn't be a transactional thing. Nothing in relationships should be, but I'm calling it out. Your ace character doesn't owe their loved one sex, but if they want to make their love happy, it's an option.

That said, if you want the audience to hate the loved one, get as transactional as you want. You don't have to write healthy relationships, just be aware of what you are doing.

For pleasure and fun

If your asexual character isn't sex-repulsed, they could just... want sex for its own sake. The only caveat here is treating the issue with respect. The characters approach to sex is different from attraction, being more something they want rather than a need.

Exceptions

You could explore an ace character drifting into gray ace territory, struggling with new emotions... or even just a character who already identifies as gray asexual.

My main concern here is avoiding invalidating the character's identity: they are still asexual, just with some shades of gray.

A common refrain from those opposed to asexuality is "you just haven't found the right person yet". Two things about that:

Don't unwittingly write a story where those idiots are right.

If a person experiences no sexual attraction, and then finds themselves doing so for a specific person, usually one they are close to, we have a word for that. It's in the glossary, starting with a D.

One-offs

Rapid fire time. These are all reasons an asexual character might have sex on a short term basis. If you're writing a short story, that might be all you need.

Peer pressure to stop being a virgin. Not a fun reason, but I'm sure it happens.

Curiosity about sex.

Manipulation by their partner. Be careful with this one, it borders on non-con... unless that's what you're writing.

They are trying to have a baby.

Some weird magic thing in your setting.

Fuck, they could lose a bet if you feel like it.

Conclusion

Just because you're writing about people doing the horizontal hula doesn't mean the few ace characters we have need to be stripped of their identity just to be stripped of their clothes. Keeping that identity in mind can help open new story paths, paths that are currently unexplored.

Side note: if you can find any well written smut featuring an asexual lead, please tell me about it. I want to read it.

[featherquillpen]

Ferdinand von Aegir and Masculinity

One of the ways we can interpret Ferdinand's arc in Crimson Flower is as a reparation of his relationship to masculinity.

There are multiple lines of evidence suggesting that Ferdinand holds patriarchal beliefs at the beginning of Three Houses.

Ferdinand's line at the very start of game about how he is "Ferdinand von Aegir, legitimate son of the Aegir family." The preoccupation with legitimacy, both in the fiction of Three Houses and the real world, comes from one of the central tenets of patriarchy: control over reproductive labor so that men can pass down power and property to sons they are sure are their own. It is impossible to be fixated on legitimate sons (the production of heirs who can inherit property within the confines of marriage) without being fixated on controlling women (forcing them one way or another to produce sons for the men who married them, and only the men who married them.)

Ferdinand's one-sided rivalry with Edelgard. Why does he need to prove himself to be better than her so badly? I figure there are multiple reasons, but very likely one of them is that she is a woman who stands to inherit a great deal of power, which is something that happens very rarely in Fodlan. All the noble houses we hear about in Three Houses are run by men (Duke Aegir, Duke Riegan, Margrave Gautier, etc.) The young noblewomen at the Academy are all under intense pressure to marry, and there is a lot of evidence to suggest that they and their houses would then be under the control of the men they marry (Ingrid's whole story especially suggests this.) All the histories from the library talk about Kings, Emperors, and Dukes running the three nations in the past. This situation with Edelgard becoming the female ruler of a nation is unprecedented, and it seems to make Ferdinand feel insecure, especially since she's supposed to be the figurehead and he's supposed to be the power behind the throne (as established by the Insurrection of the Seven, his advice box question about how he wants to be Emperor.)

To be clear, I'm not saying that Ferdinand holds these views consciously. It's just that he, along with every other character in the game, lives in a society and has unconsciously absorbed some of the beliefs common to noblemen in that society (he's far from the only one!)

(Incidentally, this is why I get really annoyed when people say that Dorothea hates Ferdinand early in their arc together because of a misunderstanding. That's not true! Dorothea hates Ferdinand because she perceives him as a sexist nobleman, and she's right. Give her some credit!)

Character Growth

What I really enjoy about Ferdinand is that he's stacked high with character flaws, but he gets to learn and grow so much as a person, and the arc of his relationship to masculinity is no exception.

There are multiple support chains where he learns to accept women's boundaries and give them more autonomy. There's the support chain with Dorothea, of course. But there's also the support chain with Bernie, where she lays down a boundary with him and he learns to accept it. There's the support chain with Mercedes, which starts with Ferdinand lecturing her about exactly how she ought to be religious, and ends with him stealing her adoption paperwork to empower her to free herself. There's the support chain with Marianne, which starts with him lecturing her on how to be a proper noble and ends with him telling her that only she can define her own purpose in life.

There's also the obvious marker of Ferdinand's changing relationship with masculinity, which is his long hair post-timeskip. If we look at the character designs for other men in FE3H, we can see that he has the longest hair of any man in the game, by a long shot. The man with the second-longest hair is Linhardt, and he has a tea party line about girls getting jealous of his appearance. Generally, it seems like hair shoulder length or shorter is normatively masculine, while hair longer than shoulder-length like Linhardt's and Ferdinand's is not. So Ferdinand now feels secure enough in his relationship to masculinity that he can break the mold that way.

Crimson Flower

One more important point is that Ferdinand is able to go farther in repairing his relationship to masculinity in Crimson Flower than in other routes. There are multiple points of evidence for this.

First, there's Ferdinand's support chain with Edelgard, exclusive to CF, which is paired with some changes to his support chain with Byleth. In CF, Ferdinand is able to accept that Edelgard is better suited to lead than he is, and accept that he might be able to thrive in a support role instead, a more healthy take on masculinity than his earlier drive to prove that he must be more worthy to lead. Of course, this growth does not happen in the other routes. He continues to set himself against Edelgard, and with her out of the picture, he goes on to become the most powerful person in Adrestia, just like he wanted from the start.

Another interesting difference we can find in his paired endings. Returning to the concept of patriarchal lines of succession I discussed above, most of Ferdinand's paired endings feature him becoming Duke Aegir, marrying, and producing heirs, thus perpetuating the patriarchal line of succession. Ferdinand has only three paired endings in which he either does not become Duke Aegir, or makes sure that he is the last Duke Aegir, and all three of these are exclusive to Crimson Flower. In his endings with Edelgard and Hubert, he doesn't become Duke Aegir at all, but devotes himself to serving Edelgard as an advisor. In his CF ending with Constance, they become "one-generation nobles" who "pioneer the reformed class system." This shows that Ferdinand has broken free of the idea that he needs to pass down noble power through a patriarchal line of succession.

[captainremmington-13]

𝖙𝖍𝖊 𝖉𝖆𝖚𝖌𝖍𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝖔𝖋 𝖉𝖊𝖆𝖙𝖍

𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝖙𝖜𝖔

show!Luke Castellan x daughter of thanatos!reader

DISCLAIMER: I don’t own the image above or any of Rick Riordan’s characters/world-building.

⚠️Warnings⚠️: mentions of death, crying, sadness, physical pain, and parental neglect

A/N: i deeply apologize, i felt i needed to set up more context and establish Luke and readers relationship more before getting to capture the flag, i PROMISE it’ll be in this next chapter or the one after that💕

“Castellan!” 

Sixteen-year-old Luke’s head snapped up abruptly to see his brother, Connor Stoll running towards him frantically. If Connor, who was usually lighthearted and cheerful, was panicked, something was really wrong. 

“What’s going on?” Luke stood up, abandoning the art project he was helping a younger camper with. “Is someone hurt?”

“I-I’m not sure. I just heard a girl screaming in the woods, and calling for your help.” 

Luke’s skin went cold. He knew exactly who was in trouble. 

The only child of Thanatos, his best friend.

Connor beckoned for Luke to follow him. The two sons of Hermes sprinted towards the woods, trying to conceal their fear. 

Luke’s heart pounded aggressively in his chest. He couldn’t bear to lose another loved one, it would destroy him.

Finally, Connor came to a halt and pointed into the trees. “She’s that way.” 

“Thank you,” Luke said breathlessly. Running through the woods and ignoring the stares of the nymphs, he strained to hear anything that could lead him to you.

Then, he heard a muffled sob coming from a nearby clearing. 

Cutting the stray branches aside with Backbiter, Luke practically flew through the trees until he spotted you, kneeling on the ground. 

He froze. You were weeping, holding your face in your hands. Your body trembled, but he couldn’t tell if it was from sadness or fear. You hardly ever cried, you were a mellow person for the most part and rarely had emotional outbursts, so seeing you like this worried him immensely.

But most shockingly, you had black wings protruding from your back.  

They didn’t look like bird wings. They had the shape of angel wings, but instead of feathers, they were made of black smoke that swirled gently and occasionally omitted wisps into the air.  

“W-Wh-“ Luke stammered, struggling to find words. “How?”

“I don’t know!” you cried, refusing to look at him. “They just…started appearing. It felt like someone was digging hot knives into my shoulder blades. I ran out here so that nobody would notice them, but then Connor found me.” 

Your best friend knelt down in front of you, gently uncovering your face by taking your hands in his gently. His hands were calloused and rough, thanks to years of rigorous training. But they were comforting nonetheless. 

“Are they still hurting?” he asked, instinctively checking your pulse by pressing your wrist carefully. 

“No…I’m just scared, Luke. I don’t understand what’s going on,” you said, feeling your intrusive thoughts spill out. “What if they don’t go away? What will everyone think of me?” 

Luke sighed. “If they don’t go away, it’ll just be another thing that makes you you. And it doesn’t define you, or take away from the person you already are. If other people can’t look past your new features, they’re fucking idiots who aren’t worth your attention anyways.” 

“But…I feel like a monster. And even worse, I look even more like my father. He has wings too, I’ve read enough about him to know that for sure. I don’t want anything to do with him, why did he make this happen to me?”

“I don’t know why it happened,” Luke said honestly. “We can talk to Chiron and see if he has any advice. He won’t judge you, you know that. And I promise you’ll always have me. I’ll be your friend, whether you have wings or not.”  

Wiping away your tears, you felt the painful feeling in your chest begin to subside. Knowing that he didn’t see you any differently despite this new development settled your nerves, at least a little. Sure, the other campers may see you as monstrous, as a terrifying mutation that needed to be avoided at all costs. All of the new friends you’d made over the past couple years may leave you, but you would survive.

At least you had Luke.

Your Luke.

________________________________________________

After calming down, Luke lead you to Chiron’s office in The Big House. Luckily, the rest of the campers were at lunch, and nobody saw your very noticeable new features.

Chiron wasn’t nearly as surprised as Luke had been concerning your wings. “I suspected that they would appear around this time,” he said. “Your father has passed down yet another one of his gifts to you.” 

You certainly didn’t seen the wings as a gift. They were a curse, yet another thing that made you appear monstrous compared to other demigods.

“So, are they just there forever now?” you asked, fighting down the bitterness in your voice.

Chiron thought for a moment. “Wish them to go away, and see what happens.”

You rolled your eyes. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.” 

“Just try,” Chiron insisted. “Your willpower is more powerful than you know.” 

Relenting, you shut your eyes, focusing on your disdain for your wings. Desperation and frustration overtook your thoughts, and you felt your head begin to throb painfully.

Thankfully, the sound of Luke calling your name snapped you out of it. 

“They’re gone,” Chiron’s low voice declared. 

Sighing in relief, you opened your eyes and looked at the centaur standing before you.

“I advise you to spend time learning to control your new features,” he said. “You must discover the extent of the abilities they give you. Otherwise, they may pose a threat to your safety, as well as the well-being of the other campers.” 

You nodded, despite the feeling of dread creeping over you. “I will. But I may miss some camp activities for the next few days.” 

“That’s alright,” Chiron said. “I’ll let Mr. D know that you are caring for yourself, and need adequate time to do so.”

“I’ll accompany you,” Luke said immediately. You shook your head.

“You have responsibilities, Luke. Who else is going to run sparring classes for the younger campers? Who else is going to make sure the Hermes kids attend archery practice and don’t set a fire somewhere?”

“I’ll have Chris take over,” he said. “He can handle it.”  

“But-“

“I’m not changing my mind,” Luke said firmly. “I’m helping you, and that’s final.”

Gods, as much as it sometimes irritated you, you loved that he was so stubborn. 

________________________________________________

After a few days that felt like an eternity, you came to the realization that you’d gained more power than you initially predicted. 

You could fly. That was to be expected; what else would the wings be for?

You could turn invisible. You only discovered this because a howl coming from the depths of the woods startled you. When you looked down, you could no longer see your body. 

And finally, your senses had heightened considerably. You could tell when someone or something died, even if it was outside the borders of camp. Beforehand, you could only sense it if they were within close parameters. 

The change was scary, but exhilarating at the same time. You knew that once you got used to your new abilities, you’d be even more intimidating than you already were.

Luke had been a huge help. He accompanied you while you experimented with your powers in the woods, but respected your request for him to keep his distance. He would check in on you at every meal, and made sure you ate an adequate amount. At night before bed, he sat with you on your mattress in Cabin 11, listening to you ramble on and on about various frustrations. He understood your anger at your father better than anyone else. He shared the same resentment towards Hermes. 

When you’d tired yourself out, he would bid you goodnight, give you a sweet kiss on the forehead, and climb into his own bed. And within minutes, he was out cold. 

But you stayed awake, staring at the worn-down wooden ceiling of your Hermes’s cabin. 

The fear you’d felt when your wings had first appeared had faded considerably. You felt powerful, invincible almost. 

And with the best swordsman in three centuries at your side, there was nothing in the world for you to be afraid of.  

taglist: @orionspaperwork, @pansexualwitchwhoneedstherapy, @marvelescvpe, @lovingjasontoddmakemewanttocry, @louweasleymalfoy, @stars4birdie, @stargurl-battleship

Thank you for reading! Pls let me know what you think in the comments!!! Btw, the powers I gave the reader are based on Thanatos’s abilities according to Rick Riordan’s version of him.

Let me know in the comments if you want to be added to the taglist!

[valtsv]

I know that your specialty is making fucked up lil guys who get more fucked up (which is awesome!). I was wondering if you ever like to write “healing journeys” (that May or may not include murder), or if you exclusively like making OCs worse (which is a vibe!).

I used to only write characters only “getting better” as how society might define it, but I am starting to branch out into doomed narrative/getting fucked up/no way back narratives. Which is terrifying to me with my own traumas/fears. You’ve inspired me to explore those uncomfortable places and sit with those feelings. Question why am I having those reactions when no one else is going to see me, and it has no other consequences for my daily life?

So I’m interested what it’s like writing from the other side, so to speak.

Thanks for listening to my rambling! I hope that you have a lovely day! :]

i have plenty of ocs who "get better", actually; recovery and healing is a big part of a lot of my characters' stories despite how bleak and cruel they might seem based on my summaries. however my ocs rarely tend to "get better" in the conventional, socially acceptable sense, like the arcs you mentioned yours used to follow. with my ocs, i like to start from a point of seemingly insurmountable despair, a descent to rock bottom that's already fallen deeper than light can penetrate, and ask myself "how could a person like this ever begin to find meaning and joy in life again?" and work from there. it often gets worse before it gets better, but at their lowest, a lot of my characters finally find what matters to them, and begin to pursue it. they might not be "good victims"; they certainly aren't heroes, or 'good people', or perfectly satisfied with their lot in life and unscarred or unembittered by their experiences. but most of them do find direction, acceptance, love and happiness. sometimes growth and healing means getting to be selfish. getting to be self-indulgent. allowing yourself to live despite it all. my characters are frequently outcasts, trodden underdogs, scrabbling for purchase on the edges of life, but they try to build the best life that they can for themselves, out there in the dark. for some of them, it's the happiest, safest place they can be, unseen and unscrutinized every waking moment of their lives.

[wherevenusholdssomeofficespace]

Why the Llama Incident works

The noodle incident is a trope done in A LOT of shows (PNF has a whole TV tropes page dedicated to its noodle incidents). Technically getting disowned and raised by ocelots is a noodle incident in pnf... we never do know what gets him officially disowned and how he ends up in the care of the ocelots). The noodle incident is meant to just showcase that this character has a history of some sort.

Generally speaking, explaining a noodle incident is a bad idea because the unknown has infinite potential. The intrigue is part of what makes it interesting. People can come up with ideas that are absolutely out there themselves. Usually, coming up with something that will live up to the hype is impossible because the hype of the event has built it up to impossible levels.

Emphasis on the usually.

They literally called it a llama incident. They knew what a noodle incident was, and were purposefully playing with our expectations that it would be an unrevealed event. And, as I said before, PnF has already dealt with its fair share of noodle incidents that go unexplained.

And as a noodle incident it served its purpose. Generally a noodle incident will provide context on what the status quo is without spelling out the details. In Rollercoaster the Juggling Monkey's noodle incident tells us that this is not the first time Phineas and Ferb have had a Big Idea (in fact we never do get what Phineas and Ferb's first Big Idea was). In Milo Murphy's Law the Llama incident tells us that Milo and Melissa were getting into Murphy's Law shenanigans long before Zack came into the picture. Showing us that they're so familiar with each other that situations that might require more context to another person doesn't.

Now bear with me as I go on a bit of a tangent that I promise is related.

The main cast of Milo Murphy's Law is a trio, and one of its members is defined by being the new guy. Zack is kind of an audience surrogate. Melissa is Milo's childhood friend and Milo has lived with this all his life. Generally, they don't need to explain anything to each other, nor do they need to explain anything to their class who is already at least passingly familiar with Milo. But they do to Zack.

I don't necessarily think MML NEEDED the audience surrogate character per se. Quite frankly I think audience surrogate characters are rarely necessary. You can always just start with a group of friends and fill in context via implication. I think it's just significantly harder, because you run the risk of alienating your audience by not allowing them to get settled in what is going on or having your characters talk about things like they don't already know what is going on.

But I don't think its at all an inherently bad storytelling method. I personally find outsider POVs delightful, and a good audience surrogate character is an outsider POV, at least at the start. Zack being new to the whole Murphy's Law allowed him a story about choosing to engage with the hazardous kid, winning him loyal friends and a set of skills he never would have dreamed of before. We get to see him grow, and we wouldn't have seen that if he was Milo's friend the whole time.

On the other hand he also has a bit of a wild background, as the former lead singer of a locally famous lumberjack themed boy band. Which gives Milo and Melissa the chance to join a band. Or for Milo to have a real birthday party. A change in status quo provides opportunities for growth and change, for the whole cast, which is useful in more overarching stories... like MML. It's not NECESSARY of course. Zack could have been a classmate that had always kept his distance before he accidentally got tangled up with Milo and decided he was cool. But there's nothing wrong with him being straight up new either.

And at the most basic level, Zack's complete unfamiliarity provides a nice contrast to Melissa's familiarity and Milo's day to day life. Zack is starting from 0 while Milo has been dealing with this every single day of his life.

So Zack isn't going to know what the Llama Incident is. And while noodle incidents being unexplained is fun for the audience, it isn't going to be so fun for someone who is constantly living with people who know what this Llama Incident is. Of course they could have told Zack the noodle incident off screen, it would have made for a good gag to cut into the story with Melissa and Milo finishing telling Zack the story. But instead, we are treated to an episode that has Zack really beginning to slot into his life as Milo's friend.

Back to the main point.

MML is one of the only shows with enough sheer chaotic energy that it could actually pull off making a group of seemingly unrelated references into a cohesive genuinely interesting story. The whole show is things that could feasibly be noodle incidents, which makes it easy to get a baseline for what could have happened. Milo uses stuff in strange ways all the time, getting tangled up with weird animals and ending up in strange situations. There's no REAL reason to feel like we're missing out on too much. It sounds like a normal Milo situation, just with only him and Melissa... and the fact they keep bringing it up.

And really, if you think about it, its just Planned in Advance Meapless in Seattle. Meapless in Seattle was meant to be a bunch of unrelated clips meant to be a noodle incident of sorts. We wouldn't know what exactly would go down in that fake episode. But they managed to bring everything together into a really fun episode that made sense and honestly lived up to the hype. (At least for me). I mean. They somehow made it work. That's a feat in of itself.

The episode "Llama Incident" starts out implying a completely different noodle incident. We never learn how the kids end up on that branch. That's not important. That stuff happens all the time. Is the Llama Incident more interesting than the other stuff Milo gets into? Not particularly, but it DID involve him using more stuff he didn't normally use.

And the Llama Incident is told in the format of a story. Changing up the format of the episode is always a good way to make an episode feel fresh. I mean, look at The Remains of the Platypus. It's just an episode told backwards but its delightful chaotic fun. Or Delivery of Destiny. Really the only difference is the day follows the perspective of a delivery guy, but we get all our normal plot beats. But both are some of my favorite Phineas and Ferb episodes. If you remove their gimmicks they're pretty basic. Phineas and Ferb build a cheese themed amusement park, and Doofensmirtz's plan is only slightly more novel with brainwashing Perry. Phineas and Ferb building a ride and Doof juicing city hall are pretty typical of them, but Paul's semi-outsider POV (and being one of the closest characters we get to having the full picture of the story we the audience see), makes it feel fun and fresh. It makes the Llama Incident feel special. Even if it isn't my favorite unique episode format, it's still something fresh and fun.

So Milo and Melissa sort of tell the story a bit out of order, because they forget what pieces Zack would and wouldn't have context for or would or wouldn't find interesting. And, again, it's told as a story to Zack, so he asks questions. It's told while they are hanging from a branch, where they cut back to every once and a while to remind us that hey, the group is in the middle of a whole other Murphy's Law incident. We're getting two for one today.

But through the episode we get a bit of a Zack character arc. We've already established that Melissa and Milo are used to this, even if you weren't aware the way they were casually rating it at the beginning of the episode should tell you all you need to know. But Zack isn't completely used to this yet, so he's just nervous. He spends the episode using the story as a distraction, but being genuinely invested. In the end, the story acts as an inspiration to Zack, and he's able to help the group get out of the situation. AND for his trouble, he gets his own mysterious incident to reference. After half a season, he's truly part of the group now. He will continue to grow of course, trying to become braver and cleverer, and he's already made strides since the first episode. But even if Zack isn't really any less part of the group before or after its still a significant moment in Zack's character arc.

And then the Llama Incident comes back the next episode. The date was memorable to Milo, even throughout all of the other chaos in his life. And sometimes that's just how life is. And he uses his knowledge of the event, the way it stuck in his mind, to save him, Dakota and Cavendish from Pistachion's in Missing Milo. What we thought was going to just be a noodle incident, a running gag that functioned to establish just how used to this stuff Milo and Melissa were, turned out to be a plot point. To be fair we didn't NEED to know what the Llama incident was for Milo to choose to go there. We didn't need to know about the Llama Incident to know it was typical Murphy's Law shenanigans. It could have just been more out of context llama stuff. But now we the audience are in on the joke, so when Cavendish and Dakota express confusion, we can revel in the fact we know something they don't. Especially about two characters who themselves were slow revealing information about themselves to us... sure by that point we know their deal but at one point they were as mysterious and out of context to us as the Llama incident. And now we know what the Llama Incident is, and what their deal is.

The Woodpecker incident also is vaguely referred to later with the woodpecker whistle. We may not know the full story there, but it is still satisfying to see Milo's adventures giving him the skills and tools to deal with bigger, actually hostile, threats.

And at the end of the day, even if the Noodle Incidentness of the Llama Incident is ruined, it was immediately replaced with the Woodpecker incident. Which admittedly is never mentioned, but it doesn't need to be. The point of the Llama Incident was to draw attention to a specific incident to make a gag out of it. But they have incidents all the time. And we're privy to most of them. We sometimes get references to other incidents that we never fully get the context for. But we don't need context. We know how it'll go anyway because we have a whole show of effective noodle incidents.

[pruneunfair]

Hae Soo is a boring character+ what I do like so far about the story.

Before I start, I want to make it clear that while I do think Hae Soo is a dull FL, she is not the worst FL ever written.

This manhwa is frankly overhyped. I gave it the benefit of the doubt before since it only had around 20-30 chapters so of course it wouldn't be full of complexities right off the bat, but given how the story is going.. I predict this will just be a wattpad-esque tale.

I really don't like saying but first of all: Hae soo has all of those Y/N traits. Okay maybe that's a little exaggerating but it's still there in a way. Hae Soo is described by a lot of other characters as "aging" "ugly" and even calling her aunty/grandma depending on the translation. These are other people thinking this, not just Hae Soo and it's supposed to make her "relatable" for not being seen as totally hot by everyone.. but if you saw her body type and even her face which is just perfectly smooth with tiny lips and eyelashes that just look like eye bags, this gets contradictory.

And I'm not just saying the body type alone is bad. A lot of fans often retaliate with "your just jealous of her" (which why would anyone be unironically jealous of a drawing?) But that her body type is possible and actually yes, it is, is incredibly rare to get that body type without any modifications but it is possible. However this isn't because TOAWF wants to represent someone. Its the sexualize her.

I really dont know how to explain how the art is made to show off how sexy Hae Soo is without sounding creepy so I'll just drop a bunch of panels I found of her doing ordinary day-to-day things while her body becomes the most defining feature.

Personally, I think it's because the arms are too small for that torso. I'm sure there's more but I don't wanna be too nitpicky.

I do also want to specify that plenty of other female characters in the comic like Ari are also sexulized but most of the time with those characters, it's only when they are in inherent sexual situations. (Like all of the panels of Ari after she was either in the middle of or already finished sleeping with Micheol) wheras Hae Soo can be doing absolutely nothing at all and her clothes are drawn right as hell while all her body parts are sticking out like a sore thumb.

Another thing that makes Hae Soo dull is that she relies on how much the readers pity her. Left and right she's either being insulted or she's getting cheated on or she's getting bullied in flashbacks. Almost everything about her that is interesting is something that hurt her, not to say she doesn't have any personality at all, I can definitely see a little something in her but she still heavily relies on something bad happening to her to garner care from the audience, if it's not that it's her super sexy romance with Tae Ha.

speaking of Tae Ha, he isn't very interesting so far either. I think his reasons for being obsessed with Hae Soo are still largely unknown, hes mostly just the same "Mafia boyfriend." Archetype, he made a straight up doll to look like Hae Soo which..yeah that's creepy. He is only really liked because well, he's hot and NOT Micheol so he's already "better".

What I do like about TOAWF though is that they aren't skipping scenes just to get to the mid romance. We are actually getting chapters explaing Hae Soo and Micheols relationship before and how it used to be a sweet one until debt and miscarriage. We get to see Micheol with his new life with Ari that has hints of how much she is being manipulated. The comments might say "I don't wanna see trash. I wanna see my sexy Tae Ha with his Hae Soo." But differing perspectives and highlighting other characters is what's saving this story a little. You can't just skip all the important pieces for the "good stuff." And expect a good story.

That said I do understand the commenter's impatience because so far Micheol is leagues more interesting then the ML Tae Ha and like me, we just wanna know why this dude randomly liked Hae Soo to the point of making dolls of her. There just needs to be a middle ground between the two perspectives.

Final thoughts: I don't think Micheol should receive karma. I know, a really weird idea but here me out.

I understand the allure of these types of stories where the babe gets revenge on the loser ex but if we wanted to be both a unique and interesting story than Micheol being allowed to live on being a shitty person would work. It would be awful to think about, yes, but this is unfortunately the real world and in the real world, it is REALLY rare that a cheater will actually face karma. Micheol should be allowed his life with Ari, where she could either realize she's in an abusive relationship down the line and find the courage to nope out of there or she could stay and it would be a tragic ending and the painful truth that life isn't always fair. This could work well as long as the plot doesnt make it out as "Haha Ari! You deserve this! Haha!"

[thekingofwinterblog]

Oghren Branka - A Broken Dwarf

Out of all of the original Dragon Age Origins companions, I've always found Oghren to be the most fascinating one in how rare it is to see someone actually do a full breakdown of the alcoholic, berserker dwarf, despite arguably having the most interesting and deep under the surface aspects to his character.

So i'll rectify that here, by doing a full delve into Ogren as a character, and the rather tragic tale of the last member of house Branka.

Oghren was a member of Orzammar's warrior caste, bred, born, and raised to be a warrior, a role that by all accounts he excelled at.

Oghren is famous for being probably the biggest alcoholic in the franchise, but according to lore, this actually wasn't a part of his personality before way later down the line, and came about due to a spiral downwards.

Oghren, like all warrior caste dwarves was raised to be an absolute killing machine, who's life was going to be devoted to killing darkspawn, and killing more darkspawn, and then killing more darkspawn.

This part of his life, Oghren excelled at. He was great at killing his enemies from day one, and won fame and glory.

Unfortunately, the thing that defined Oghren as a person, was the very brutal struggle, of, and Bioware's take on how hard it is for soldiers to reintegratd into societies after their states does everything they can to make them into tools for killing.

And in Oghren's case, this began with his family.

When young, Oghren was interested in a young woman named Felsi.

The two hit it off quite well, only for Oghren to be forced into a political marriage with a certain woman named Branka from the smithing caste, a political match that was seen as mutually beneficial at the time.

This marriage was the single worst thing that ever happened to Oghren and everyone he had ever cared about.

Branka would in very short time rise to become a Paragon, the only one in living memory, a living ancestor in Dwarven Society, making her the most powerful and influential woman in Orzammar, but that part is not the one I want to focus on.

Instead I want to focus on Oghren and Branca's relationship, and how it quickly fell apart.

Their relationship started okay, and in the first year there doesn't seem to have been that many problems. Things would change however.

Branca, as we learn from Oghren's talk had plenty of serious mental issues, like massive and spontaneous mood swings, and a tendency for sudden violence for the smallest offenses.

The innitial target of which seems to have been her her husband Oghren.

Oghren makes no secret of the fact that Branca was pretty violent with him, in particular the fact that she seriously damaged the hearing on one of his ears, and once attacked him for misplacing her tongs.

Also, there is a bit of subtleness to Oghren's design that adds to how bad this relationship became for him.

Oghren has a permanent injury around one of his eyes, which makes it look like he's always squinting. The most likely culprint being his wife hitting him with something heavy and blunt, which never healed properly, giving him his iconic squinty eyed look.

We don't have anything to suggest Oghren ever actually defending himself physically from his wife, but if his own testimony is to be believed, their usual way of making up after one of these outbursts was makeup sex, which suggest that there was a rather sad cycle of spousal abuse, regret, then make up in the form of sex, then another bout of abuse, then rinse and repeat.

The usual cycle really.

Things got more complicated however, once Branka became a paragon, putting her firmly above her husband in rank as far as she could go.

And it's here that Oghren's life really began to take a turn for the worst, and where the drunkard who drowns himself in alchohol to try and forget how shitty his life is really began.

In very short succession, Branka, likely due to the mounting pressure upon her after becoming paragon, turned far worse towards Oghren, and their marriage began to rapidly crumble. But her becoming paragon had other consequences as well, the most obvious being that Branka became the head of the household, and absorbed Oghren's entire family into the new house of Branca under her.

Branka then began to shun Oghren completely, making her disdain for him open for all to see, while also cuckolding him with his own cousin Hespith(though Oghren wouldn't learn about that until years later).

This in turn, made Oghren's entire family follow suit, and he was quickly completely isolated and shut off from his own family, the same family that forced him into this marriage in the first place.

Oghren had already begun drinking to try and cope with his failing marriage at this point, and the way his entire family turned their back on him to please Branka just kicked that dependence off the deep end.

Then Branka committed herself to her great folly, and over Oghren's objections, took their entire family with them on her mad quest into the deep roads for a magical anvil... While forcing Oghren to stay behind so she could get to fuck her lover hespith on the side as she pleased without him around.

Needless to say, though Oghren didn't completely understand the full reasons for why everyone considered him a laughingstock at this point(the relationahip with Hespith was an open secret in Orzammar) , he kore than felt the effects of being alone, forgotten and abandoned by his family in a city that ridiculed him while still demanding he go out and kill darkspawn for them.

It was at this point that the Oghren we all know really began, as Oghren drowned himself in booze, embraced terrible jokes, and became the man with the most inappropriate pick up lines there is, desperate for anyone to give him any affection at all.

It was at this point Oghren for the first time cheated on his declared dead wife, seeking out Felsi. The renewed relationship did not last long. Oghren's downward spiral had already completely changed his personality, and she quickly left him.

At this point, Oghren really was at his lowest. Abandoned by everyone he had ever loved, alone, only having booze for comfort, and still having to regularly go out and fight darkspawn.

It's also here we see some of Oghren's hidden noble side, as at one single point he refused to buckle on, and that was his wife's fate.

Oghren refused(correctly) to assume Branka was dead and would pester the government time, and time, and time again to send out a rescue party to find her and bring her home.

Nobody took him seriously, and instead treated him like a joke... All the way until a young noble mocked Branka in his hearing and made it plain for all to hear that Branka could not possibly have survived that long in the deep roads.

The end result was that Oghren, in a drunk rage challenged the young man to a duel, then killed him, when it was supposed to be a duel to first blood.

Oghren thus changed from drunk pest, to dangerous pest.

In the end he was stripped of his house and the right to bear arms or fight in the city ever again, but was still demanded he fought darkspawn when the time came.

Oghren talks about this in his conversations with the Warden, how the city would turn their warriors into killing machines, strip them of all rules, morals and thoughts except kill and kill, and kill some more... Then put them right back into society, and bind them, and the rage they spent so long training you harness with rules and regulations. Add this with the fact that they will still demand you go out an fight at a moment's notice, it's not hard to see how warriors like Oghren came to be.

It's at this point Oghren has hit seeming rock bottom.

Alone, a joke in a city that will alternate between mocking, and spit on him, no right to defend himself, while still having to go go out and risk life and limb for it.

The only thing that keeps him going at this point, is the desperate hope that Branka and his family might still be alive.

Which brings us to the one soul who might bring him out of his stupor, depending on player choices.

The Hero of Ferelden.

The Hero of Ferelden scoffs at the claims Branka is dead and delves into the deep roads, and takes Oghren along for the ride, looking for her.

It's here that Oghren begins to form some sort of personal bonds again, where he will find the one person who is willing to put up with him, and all his flaws and possibly see him as a friend.

As the team heads into the deep roads however, they discover the horrible truth.

Branka, in her madness and desperate search for the anvil, sacrificed Oghren's entire family to the darkspawn, intentionally creating broodmothers so she'd have a never ending supply of darkspawn pawns to throw at the anvil defences.

It's not really given the full focus it deserves, because Oghren isn't the kind of person who just lets out absolutely everything, but this moment, this revelation destroys Oghren.

It's the moment where he pretty much just gives up on life, and only follows the Warden around to find a place to die.

In the end, regardless of what you do, his relationship with Branka is over at this point, wheter you save or spare her, leaving him with the knowledge that his entire family is dead and gone, and he's the last one.

At this point he becomes what is seemingly nothing more than comic relief, and due to the unfortunate way Orzammar is struxtured, its usually done last before the landsmeet, meanjng most players won't see most of the deeper parts of Oghren, as they require some prodding to see.

Most notably of these is what happens if you bring him to the guardian at the temple, where the old man wants everyone to relay their sins and regrets, only for Oghren to cut him off when his time comes, and say this:

Why don’t I save you some time? Yes, I wish I could have saved my family from Branka. I wish I’d been a better mate. Maybe she’d have stayed at home with a belly full of baby Oghren and never gone for the anvil. Maybe I failed her. Yes, I came to the surface because I’m barely a dwarf anymore. My family is dead. My honor as a warrior is long gone. I’ve lost my caste and my house and I have nothing else to lose.

This display is really, really sad for a number of reasons, not only because of how far down Oghren has fallen at this point, but also because frankly speaking, Oghren did nothing wrong with Branka. He was the victim here, and yet despite that, he still lays all the blame on himself. It was his fault his family died. It was his fault for being a shitty husband. Not Branka's. His.

Beyond this, Oghren has other interesting observations that shows he is quite a bit more impressive than the sorry, alcoholic cassanova wannabe that he acts as.

He's the only character who figures out that Shale actually remembers killing her master, and that she regrets killing him, as rather than a conscious choice, it was a moment of her completely losing control, just like he did in the proving match so long ago.

He also proves himself a bizarrely good brewmaster, impressing Wynne and the warden withouth the proper facilities to make proper alchohol, and he's the only one who offers any plausible counter explanation for the powers of the temple of sacred ashes other than the power of god(which may or may not be on the money.).

He is also learned in history, and knows the andrastian religion and it's historical players very well for a dwarf, even seemingly having a personal disdain for Hessarionz who he calls a pompous prat.

At this point, where he goes from there is up to the PC's choices, but regardless, there is a lot more to Oghren than meets the eye, far more than the stupidly stereotypical dnd dwarf he presents himself as, in a setting where the dwarves are not all the same as Tolkien's.

[marsprincess889]

ANALYZING "THE TWILIGHT SAGA" WITH VEDIC ASTROLOGY

Fall is here and I've decided to rewatch Twilight, all 5 movies. The franchise is a phenomenon that most can't explain. We all know that it's very bad but also excellent and no one can deny the cultural impact it had. I was 10 when the last movie came out and I remember how everything was saturated with it. The movies serve as a time capsule and when I first watched all the movies last year, even though I've never seen them before, Breaking Dawn p.2 still catapulted me back to 2012. It's a really good way to learn recent history 😅.

Whether you like it or not, Twilight is an important part in pop history. You've obviously heard of the "still a better love story than Twilight" joke, at the very least.

Anyways, I want to analyze the movies via vedic astrology, specifically, nakshatras. We'll start with the author of the books, Stephenie Meyer.

Stephenie Myer has Sun-Moon-Rahu conjunction in Mula nakshatra.

Mula deals with everything abnormal, with horrors hidden in plain sight. It has a strong connection to animals and creatures that are considered dangerous. Overall, Twilight is still about Bella finding out about the supernatural and even falling in love with and becoming such a creature. The gloomy atmosphere of the first movie really suits Mula because of its Ketu rulership and the city of Forks really suits Ardra- Mula's yoni consort, but I'll talk about that in a second. First, let's begin with the characters.

Bella Swan

Kristen Stewart - Hasta moon (Revati sun, Rohini ascendant)

The modern myth of Persephone

In many ways, Twilight mirrors the myth of Persephone. Kristen's moon nakshatra- Hasta being tied to this goddess, she plays a convincing transition from innocence and inexperience into reaching your full potential through transformation. Hasta nakshatra is in the middle of Virgo- the most material sign, connected to the 6th house of everyday worldly matters. It's female at her most independent and untainted, either completely shutting off male influence or completely embracing it.

So, Hasta is Persephone, Queen of the dead who was abducted by the God of the dead and underwold- Hades while she was still just an innocent maiden, picking flowers with her friends.

We see Bella being defined by her surroundings and relationships, which is a common complaint that people have while watching this movie, but that's precisely why she's the modern Persephone. Persephone was loved by her mother - Demeter, but she was also rarely, if ever mentioned without her mother in mythologies as Kore, the maiden, before she became Persephone- Queen of the Dead. Bella manages to stand out with her awkwardness and uniqueness even though, by stereotypical standards, she "has no personality". Eventually, her romance with Edward triggers a deep and fast transformation, symbolized in the movies by Bella becoming a vampire, and what a vampire she became.

Bella's transformation and power

We see that Bella as a newborn vampire has impressive self control and nice skills. She also gained a power to shield. Now, Hasta in females often manifests as extreme defensiveness. It's the nakshatra of the female being closed off or completely open, and we see Bella opening up completely to Edward, his family her own family and Jacob while shutting off any other influence, thus, protecting herself and those who she opened up to from anything.

Hades is connected to Bharani nakshatra. Let's move over to the Hades in Twilight.

Edward Cullen

Robert Pattinson- Ardra Moon (Krittika sun, Bharani ascendant)

Ardra- the yoni consort of Mula (dog yonis) is known as "the moist one". It almost always rains in the city of Forks (at least in the movie version of it, lol) and it's almost always gloomy. Mula and Ardra being yoni consorts, it makes sense why Stephenie Meyer wrote about the Ardra archetype. Ardra (and rahu nakshatras in general) are connected to inherited wealth, and we see that Edward's family is most likely the richest one in town. Wealth doesn't substitute for happiness, though, and Ardras are almost always tortured souls who struggle a lot internally but maintain a cold exterior, that cracks sometimes to unleash all the angst and anger that has been held inside. Edward is definitely a tortured soul who makes things a lot more complicated then they are. He doesn't even believe he has a soul for most of the franchise. Ardra men are also frequently seen as extremely attractive by women, especially because they always have hidden depths.

Besides that Ardra archetype, Edward serves as a Hades figure who falls in love with the innocent Persephone- Bella, who, like Persephone, eventually becomes a force to be reckoned with. Robert Pattinson has Bharani ascendant, the nakshatra connected to that God and the underworld.

All the ways Kristen and Robert's nakshatras connect mythologically

Hasta and Bharani - Persephone and Hades

Rohini and Krittika - Eve and Adam

Hasta/Rohini and Krittika - The Moon and The Sun

Revati and Bharani - yoni consorts (!!)

The love triangle and enemy yonis

Jacob Black

Taylor Lautner - Krittika moon, Dhanishta sun, Krittika ascendant

The wolves in Twilight are depicted as complete opposites of the vampires. They're impulsive, forward, outwardly aggressive and temperamental, whereas vampires are characterised by more self-control, coldness and refinment.

Besides both of them being Krittika, Taylor Lautner and Robert Pattinson have enemy yoni nakshatras: Taylor's Dhanishta sun_ mars ruled and lion yoni, outwardly aggressive and more forward and Robert's Bharani ascendant_ venus ruled, elephant yoni, internally very selective and outwardly more compliant and refined, more subtle. None of them are better than the other, but since Bella is the protagonist, vampires and Edward in particular are more frquently painted in the positive light.

I've also seen more movies where enemies are actually played by actors or actresses with enemy yoni nakshatras. It's one of the most common patterns I've observed.

So, Jacobs's lion yoni, martian demeanor frequently clashed with Bella's and Edward's elephant yoni nakshatras. It's interesting that both of those yonis are kings of the jungle and fight for authority. Traditionally, elephant yonis are associated with authority and lion yonis are their disruptors and these films certainly showcase that in the form of the love triangle.

Renesmee Cullen

Mackenzie Foy - Bharani moon (Vishakha sun, Krittika ascendant)

I always associated Bharani females with the archetype of being born into a family where they play the role of a sort of "princess" who adopts her family's ways from an early age (I hope this made sense). You know, the chiefdan's daughter or the headstrong capricious princess in fairy tales, those are all tropes I associate with Bharani.

Besides that, Bharani is another nakshatra associated with Persephone and seeing as Jacob imprints on her WHEN SHE'S A LITERAL NEWBORN, I think we have a repetition of the Persephone- Hades myth. Also, Jacob is double Krittika and Renesmee is Bharani and the female Bharani- male Krittika dynamic is the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Jacob being assigned to protect Renesmee and saving her life is definitely connected to that myth. Also, we have a lot of Krittikas in this franchise.

Bonus: The Volturi

Two out of the 3 rulers of Volturi have Venus nakshatra moons:

Michael Sheen as Aro - Purva Phalguni moon

Jamie Campbell Bower as Caius - Bharani moon

Makes sense since they're considered the elite and Venus is tied with elitism.

So, this is pretty much all I wanted to say. If you liked this post please interact with me, like, comment, reblog or even message me. Happy fall equinox and take care 🤍🧛🏻👩🐺

[spop-romanticizes-abuse]

Catra is a Mary Sue.

i can already hear the aggressive clicking of keyboards as fans write an essay on how catra is flawed and therefore not a mary sue. but just stay with me here. here's what TV tropes has to say about this archetype:

“The prototypical Mary Sue is a female character in a fanfic who obviously serves as an idealized version of the author mainly for the purpose of Wish-Fulfillment. She's exotically beautiful, often having an unusual hair or eye color, and has a similarly cool and exotic name. She's exceptionally talented in an implausibly wide variety of areas, and may possess skills that are rare or nonexistent in the canon setting. She also lacks any realistic, or at least story-relevant, character flaws — either that or her "flaws" are obviously meant to be endearing.”

so.. let's run through the list, shall we? the exotically beautiful thing isn't really mentioned much in canon, but it's clear that catra was designed to be seductive and romantically appealing.

she certainly has her fair share of “unique” features with the heterochromia, the freckles, the fangs, the claws, and her other feline features. this isn't inherently a bad thing. it's okay to want your characters to look cool. besides, some of the other characters also have really defining features (except for adora who, despite being the protagonist, has the blandest character design ever. she doesn't even get a wardrobe change, outside of her new she-ra form. and don't even get me started on bow.)

“she's exceptionally talented in an implausibly wide variety of areas” — this definitely matches up with catra. she is supposedly the "lazy" cadet, the one who only shows up at the end of each training session and doesn't put enough effort into training. now i understand that she may still have had the potential to be a strong fighter, but you really mean to say that a teenager — who is rarely ever shown training or polishing her skills — easily beats up the evil dictator who conquered several regions and likely killed thousands of people?

i get that catra was just exploiting hordak's disability but if it was this easy to defeat hordak, wouldn't someone have done this sooner? even if he is disabled, he had to be intelligent and calculating enough to do what he did so far. but no, that's not the point here. catra didn't defeat hordak because she was somehow stronger or because hordak was weak. she defeated him because the writers wanted her to. she's a girlboss and she doesn't lose to anybody, not even a centuries old tyrant who has presumably conquered half of etheria.

“she also lacks any realistic, or at least story-relevant, character flaws — either that or her "flaws" are obviously meant to be endearing.”

yeah, you get the point. she's not flawless but most of her flaws are either swept under the rug or shown to be this cute and endearing thing. oh catra is possessive over adora and attacked her for making new friends? she's just so in love with adora. catra tried to commit mass genocide because of spite? she's just heartbroken because adora dumped her. catra constantly touches people without their consent and borderline harrasses them? she's just a cute disaster lesbian.

so there it is. catra is certainly a heavily flawed character but she's a mary sue (or a "jerk sue" as some people call these type of characters) because no matter what she does or who she hurts, she is forgiven and coddled. no one mentions angella's death in s5, not even glimmer who lashed out at adora earlier for the same reason.

all of catra's actions are just vaguely put as "she made some mistakes" or "she hurt people". making mistakes and hurting people can range anywhere from accidentally calling a person stupid to murdering someone's entire family, and spop doesn't mention where catra lies on that scale. because at the end of the day, all that matters is that catra gets a happy ending at the cost of the other characters' development and happiness. basically, a mary sue is like a blackhole. they are the “best” character, according to the author, and all the characters around them have to act horribly out of character so that this character gets all the spotlight.

[thegreatyin]

Your posts about Fallen London are slowly tempting me into playing it- do you have any tips to start or is it best to play it completely blind?

i have a few tips and tricks! mind you im far from a veteran and i basically got my hand held by tumblr for most of the game so take everything with a grain of salt. you can and should do whatever you want always. i don't personally play it blind, but you may get more enjoyment out of it if you do, and that's awesome and im super happy for you. this is what i can say from experience:

take your time with it. this is like. the numero uno fallen london tip. it's not a game where you rush to the end in a week. it's a game where you do 10-minute-intervals of a marathon to the end in maybe a few months if you know what you're doing. spending money on action refills usually isn't worth it when you can just mosey on through neathly life one storylet at a time. a vast majority of the game's content is completely free to everyone, and while the monthly subscription options are pretty neat and let you play some exclusive story stuff (that can be pretty fire- cricket anyone basically defined the scoundrel's entire character) none of it is required and 99% of the time you aren't missing out on anything by just taking your time and exploring the neath at your own pace.

you need to raise all of your skills eventually! this is, uh. something im horribly guilty of not following myself. you can (and probably should) pick at least two stats to focus on for your character (most of the time these will be your main ambition stats, aka the closest thing FL has to a main story questline) but eventually you Will be expected to have them all at around the 100 range, minimum. for certain Super Late-game Story Content, watchful 200 is mandatory to start it, so if you have trouble choosing i'd recommend leveling that bad boy first. don't neglect your other stats though!!! don't be like me. don't be like my poor poor neglected shadowy and dangerous. it's too late for me. save yourself.

friends are fun and free and you are legally mandated to exploit them for fun and profit. okay you really aren't mandated to exploit your FL friends list but you totally should anyway just for goofy sillies. to be less jokey about it, while fallen london is primarily a single-player gaming experience, the playerbase is super friendly and super open to helping each other out (especially new players!). go on reddit, ask around on tumblr, get yourself a few buddies and use them as resources to gain items and stats and menace reduction i mean. valued companions that im sure you will treasure forever and definitely not backstab to publish that inflammatory newspaper article you've been cooking up.

on a very loosely similar note, the fallen london wiki is your best friend. yes, we're following stardew rules with this one. this is the kind of game best optimally played with a wiki article or three open in the neighboring tabs so you can follow along and know what is what. there's tons of guides on basically every part of FL, and it's no shame at all to reach out to either it or the wider community if you get stuck or feel lost at something.

if an in-game storylet has bold text, it will never lie to you! except for when it does. but that's very very very rare. you can always trust the bold text. it is always your friend. i prommy. which brings us neatly into our next bulletpoint,

seeking the name is ill-advised because it's the only storyline that can permanently brick your account at its conclusion. don't worry, the ease at which you can avoid this is practically comical, and the game will Always give you multiple chances to opt-out if you somehow accidentally start it anyway. most people make a dedicated alt character entirely for the purpose of sacrificing them to the well of doom. unless you're playing with your eyes closed for multiple months straight, you'll never run into SMEN without deliberately chasing it, and if you somehow get to that point honestly man just ignore this entire bulletpoint and see how far the rabbithole goes. go on. it's friendly :)

batfucking is always the right answer to any problem ever

echoes/the game's standard currency should always be thought of as a method of gaining items rather than a strict hoard of video game dollars. money-making can be super difficult in the earlygame, but it gets exponentially easier as you go further on. you shouldn't be afraid to sell anything you don't need, though personally i'd recommend keeping an "insurance stock" of the most basic items just in case. this includes rostygold, moon-pearls, honey droplets, etc. by-and-large, these are the easiest items to get in a pinch, and it usually isn't worth buying them from the bazaar when you can otherwise get them naturally through other methods around london. once you've got a good lodgings setup and feel decently familiar with the earlygame zones and their options, you should aim to have at minimum 1,000 of these bad boys on hand at any given time, then feel free to sell any excess you make for some quick cash in a pinch.

menaces aren't as bad as you may think, but be wary of specifically suspicion! the four main menace qualities you'll encounter in the earlygame are nightmares, wounds, scandal, and suspicion. when one of these menace stacks reach 8, you'll automatically be trapped in a unique location corresponding to whatever menace you raised too high and will have to spend time working your way out. some (nightmares and wounds) tend to fly-by rather quickly, while others (scandal and suspicion) tend to take a bit longer to get out of. none of these mean the end of your playthrough or your character, and some quests even require you to visit certain menace-exclusive locations! there are tons of items and ways to reduce menaces and keep yourself out of Situations such as these, but suspicion in particular is probably the only menace you should avoid maxing At All Costs. when your suspicion gets too high and you get sent to its special menace zone too often, you build up a criminal record that makes it harder to reduce suspicion in the future. fortunately, suspicion is the only menace with this gimmick, and before this record gets too high it's just as easy to keep row as the rest of the lot. TLDR, death from wounds is easy to escape from, but avoiding the strongarm of the law is substantially more annoying and inconvenient.

or you could be like tumblr user @with-bells-upon, who's apparently avoided death at all costs and apparently hasn't died once in the entire several months they've been playing. i don't even know how they've gotten this far without doing that. it's kind of impressive, kind of funny. especially since their ambition is one the few requiring you to die to proceed. this isn't a piece of advice i just wanted to affectionately call them out because what the heck

speaking of ambitions, pick the ambition that's right for you! ambitions are the biggest overarching questline in the game, and their requirements and rewards span the entire neath and occasionally even beyond. all four ambitions are meant to be started early and last well into the mid and late game. outside of a certain special situation regarding the light fingers ambition (the only ambition that explicitly lies to you in-game when describing its premise) you can't change your ambition without spending money, so choose carefully and choose well. they're all (mostly) equally rewarding and equally fulfilling adventures that will define your player character and your journey through the neath. there's tons of advice and spoiler-free summaries of each ambition online, so i won't cover it all here. just do your research (or don't, if you prefer) and follow your heart. maybe playing the world's most high-stake poker game ever speaks to you. maybe you want to commit a murder. maybe you want to commit a murder in the name of justice and/or revenge. maybe you just want a really really big really really shiny rock. all can be found in the neath, and all shall (eventually) be well.

if you buy 400 lucky weasels you get a special achievement. i don't need to say more.

make up a guy. this is another legal mandate if you're a fallen london player. you have to make up your own little sicko victorian london guy and roleplay them while you play. trust me. it's fun. it's free. they're going to haunt you forever. the scoundrel got a nickname like 4 months ago and ever since my mind has never known peace.

and probably most important of all, fallen london might not be the game for you, and that's okay. it includes a lot of reading. and grinding. and i do mean a lot of reading and grinding. particularly the latter, which tends to throw people off the most out of anything. it's a very niche game for a very niche audience and getting into it can be an acquired taste at the best of times. but when you do get into it, it's some Really good writing and Really in-depth worldbuilding and the most fun you'll ever have imagining sicko victorian guys running around building train stations and railway tracks directly to hell. take your time, have fun, and most important of all, always look to love.

anyway yeah that's my fallen london tips and tricks list isn't it really short and comprehendible