#also @ the person in the notes saying this is rich given tumblr also liked the theory that she wasnt human

[lastoneout]

In retrospect I do think that the story was going for a "this is the one person you can't save" thing with her, or trying to speak to how limited your abilities as a cop are and how being a cop means some people are just never going to be comfortable interacting with you ever, or even is just trying to make you side with Cuno to make you think about what sort of misogynistic beliefs Harry or you or both have unconsciously absorbed, but it still feels a little mean-spirited to have the person you can't save be a tiny kid when you CAN save the other tiny kid AND you can get the Hardie Boys to like you even though they also fucking hate you and don't want to cooperate AND you can peacefully talk down a woman having a mental breakdown while holding a gun you aren't 100% isn't loaded AND you can let Ruby go, and, and, ect. You know? Like I can tell the Hardie Boys to go help The Pigs bcs she's just an old lady going through a mental health episode, but I can't suggest like....anyone? Go check on a single kid who is going through it and clearly in need of some serious intervention, especially intervention that doesn't come from the actual police, but rather a community that takes care of it's own?

There are so many characters that hate the cops and don't want to work with you that you can help, having the one person beyond your scope be a tiny child who has clearly been through hell just. It feels bad. But I do think it's entirely possible that it's supposed to feel bad specifically to make you think about why, and I won't fault the game for presenting an imperfect world where shit doesn't always work out just to make you think about your own biases, that does seem to be very much what the devs were going for in a lot of places.

But regardless of if it's the point or not, seeing so many people just accept what the story is saying at face value without any consideration for circumstances or internalized biases or whatever the writers might be trying to say without saying, it just sucks. We can argue all day about what the story is trying to do with any character, but it's clear the reasons you can't get through to Cunoesse all have to do with the character you're playing and the world he exists in, agreeing that Cunoesse is a lost cause who should be treated like a horrid monster shows that someone has either bought in to exactly what the game is(possibly) trying to critique OR just that they believe that it's possible for a child to be so evil they are no longer worth trying to help, which is profoundly cruel.

Idk, it's an interesting game for sure. I just wish people weren't coming away from that part believing that you're right to abandon a traumatized 10 year old because she did something bad and handled/is handling it extremely poorly.

Gotta say. I am NOT a fan of the way people on reddit talk about Cunoesse.

[napoleonic-sexyman-tournament]

(correction: title should also say vs. Karl Wilhelm von Toll. But funny mistake given the standings at the moment I'm writing this)

Thomas-Alexandre Dumas

“mustache”

“Tall! Daring! Swashbuckling! A devoted husband and father! Had a personal conflict with Napoleon! Also it was said he could, while holding onto a bar above his head, LIFT A HORSE WITH HIS THIGHS. How is he not on this list ten times already! Vote for General Dumas!”

“He was so hot that he inspired The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo, and many more books that his son, Alexandre Dumas, wrote. He definitely looked the part of a sexyman, as he son recounts in his memoirs: "My father, as already stated, was twenty-four, and as handsome a young fellow as could be found anywhere. His complexion was dark, his eyes of a rich chestnut colour [...]. His teeth were white, his lips mobile, his neck well set on his powerful shoulders, and, in spite of his height of five feet nine inches, he had the hands and feet of a woman. These feet were the envy of his mistresses, whose shoes he was very rarely able to put on." He could crush you between his thighs: "His free colonial life had developed his strength and prowess to an extraordinary degree; he was a veritable American horse-lad, a cowboy. His skill with gun or pistol was the envy of St. Georges and Junot. And his muscular strength became a proverb in the army. More than once he amused himself in the riding-school by passing under a beam, and lifting his horse between his legs." He was so badass he could beat 13 men with 4 and take all the enemy prisoner, and defend against hundreds of men on a bridge by himself. He performed these acts of valour numerous times in Italy. He was so formidable that the Austrians named him the "Schwartz Teufel", or the Black Devil, and his feat at the bridge earned him the moniker of "Horatius Cocles of Tyrol". He wasn't afraid to stand up to his morals and protest against unfair treatment. When unjust executions by the guillotine were happening outside his quarters, he closed the blinds of his curtains, earning him the nickname "Mr. Humanity". When in the Vendée, he complained about the wanton indiscipline in his troops. When in Italy, Berthier wrongly reported his actions as one of "observation" in St. Antonio. Dumas wrote to General Bonaparte that if Berthier was in the same position, he would have shit his pants. Dumas abhorred plunder, never exhorted the locals, and ordered the Directory agent who had come to persuade him otherwise be shot if he dared present himself to Dumas again. Integrity and a sense of moral justice is sexy, mark my words. For Dumas' final qualifier as a sexyman, look no further than this Tumblr heritage post (https://www.tumblr.com/petermorwood/133803437020/hortensevanuppity-elodieunderglass), with 300,000 notes and counting. And I quote: "- daddy general dumas was an immense fierce french warrior who was a 6 foot plus, stunningly gorgeous and charismatic Black gentleman - he invaded egypt - the native egyptians said “is this napoleon? this must be napoleon. we for one welcome our majestic new overlord” - then napoleon showed up - napoleon has all the presence of yesterday’s plain Tesco hummus - the native egyptians were like “… no… no, we’ve thought very hard and we’ll have General Dumas actually” - this did not make napoleon happy - in fact it made him jealous - napoleon felt so emasculated that he launched a campaign of revenge against General Dumas, including taking away his pension, that probably inspired a lot of Alexandre’s rather satisfying scenes in which fathers are nobly avenged and the money-grubbing villains are rubbed in the mud" I rest my case. Tl;dr: He was so hot he inspired multiple books, he was a stronk man who could crush you between his thighs or carry you like a sack of potatoes, and he was so badass that he could take on odds of 1 to 3. He had a foul mouth but a heart of gold and his actions were never self-serving. Posts relating to him on Tumblr have had 300,000 notes and counting. He is qualitatively and quantitatively qualified to be a sexyman.”

Karl Wilhelm von Toll

"smart military organisation thinking”

[gareleia]

THE KNITTING SAGA BUT HERMES IS A DUMMY

update: my co-writer friend FINALLY got a tumblr account, so I can tag them now!!

previously: part 1 part 2 part 3

next: part 5

m'kay, so, we've talked about Athena & Telemachus' issues. now let's touch on Hermes, because a Diva™ like him deserves his own post. and also because this had been sitting in my notes for so long i've genuinely forgotten about it (i'd say that it's what translating a musical does to you, but honestly my attention span is just shit)

now, as much as I love Soft Boi!Hermes, I even more so love prankster Hermes who doesn't really recognize personal boundaries or the meaning of 'too far'. he's the guy who'll commit to the bit so far, he'll commit mass murder with a Tee-Hee and genuinely wonder what has got everyone so upset.

kid!Telemachus, holding a cup of poison: grandpa, are you sure it's a good idea? I'm scared… Hermes, laughing his ass off in the corner: of course I'm sure, champ! it'll be hilarious! good ol' game of Ithacean Roulette! now dump it into the wine, let's see who we'll get this time!

at the same time, he's not selfish. he's very keen on doing things for the people he likes, and he cares enough to know when someone is distressed. he, as a god, is just so removed from traditional human morality that casual acts of cruelty are perfectly acceptable to him, while, for example, breaking an oath is a horrible sin.

think blue and orange morality stuff.

telemachus, outraged: …murdered his own family, can you imagine? hermes, equally outraged: I know, right? he gave a blood oath and broke it! disgusting! telemachus: why is that your only concern?!

but don't worry, helping to raise Telemachus and hanging around the same people consistently makes a real boy outta him gives him enough time and insight into humanity to start understand mortals better, and, as consequence, adopt some of their values.

especially the concept of spousal loyalty. Hermes is a patron god of thieves, and at the time taking someone's wife was viewed as an act of theft (because women were property, yeeesh). which is why to him Penelope's situation was less of a tragedy and more of a "well, my dumbass great-grandson Odysseus should've seen it coming. snooze you lose! ¯_(ツ)_/¯"

that is, until he gets to know her better. and suddenly she's not a prize to be won or a challenge to conquer. she's a smart, capable person that commands respect from anyone who's got a shred of self-awareness. she's got gentle hands, and a radiant smile, and a spine of steel. Penelope looked Hermes dead in the eyes and told him serenely to keep being a good influence on her son, she does not deserve to be reduced to a token and given away to the highest bidder.

hermes, initially: well, penelope's a rich, gorgeous, basically single queen. I'd steal her too, if she was my type. hermes, 10 years later: she's the smartest, ballsiest human woman I've ever met and if she only wants her Ugly Ass Groom then she'll fucking stay single until he comes back.

unfortunately for everyone else, Hermes cannot step in to protect her, because Zeus and Poseidon are both pissed off at Odysseus already, and if either of them notices Hermes (and/or Athena) interfering with mortals on Ithaca, they might take it as an invitation to follow suit, and then it'll be Troy Story 2: Electric Boogaloo.

so he stays his hand, and hangs around Telemachus discreetly, mostly posing as a human. for a god of liars, he's surprisingly bad at blending in for long periods of time. Hermes thinks he's an awesome conspirator. meanwhile little Telemachus didn't even realise it was a secret.

the only people who don't know that [insert alias] is a god in disguise are the suitors, who are notoriously either too stupid, too overconfident or too busy drinking to connect the dots. the exception is Antinous who pretends to be oblivious and makes sure the gods don't see him as a threat to their beloved little pup (otherwise he'd have killed the prince long ago).

the suitors, however, unanimously agree that they hate this weird annoying stranger, and try to get rid of him in increasingly elaborate ways, from poison to stabbing to wild animals to dropping pots on his head.

spoiler alert: it doesn't work.

hermes, next day: *comes back every morning like nothing had happened, whistling cheerily* suitors: WHY WON'T YOU DIE?!

eventually Antinous convinces them to give up so they don't piss off Hermes.

years pass, Telemachus grows. Athena teaches him strategy and arts of war. Aeolus gradually comes out of the hiding and becomes the resident lovable comic relief side character. and Hermes? he teaches the kid all the good stuff.

and it's not just lying, okay? (though it's a significant part of it) music, diplomacy, geography, street smarts, some history. he's a worldly god, had observed and been a part of countless cultures. above all else, he knows people. he may not really understand them, but he knows how to get what he wants from them, how to find common ground and how to spin things to get along with practically anyone.

and girls. Hermes helps Telemachus with girls.

because he's the cool uncle figure that Telemachus admires, the kid trusts him enough to ask the god for advice when he starts growing older and gets his first crush in his early teens.

and, on one hand, Hermes is ecstatic. on the other one…

telemachus, blushing and stuttering: there's a girl I met, she's so pretty, and cool, and, and, and how do I talk to her, do I just come up and say hi, but what if sh- hermes: … hermes: *blue screen of death* hermes: MY BABY-

it's the first time he truly starts to grasp how short the kid's life will be. because in the blink of an eye he turned from a newborn to an adolescent, and soon enough he'll have his own family, and Odysseus was already a king himself at this age, and Hermes is not ready this can't be it he can't just grow old and die

so anyway, he pushes the thought aside and pretends it never came up at all (because that always works, and bottling shit up never blows up in anyone's face, right, Athena?)

he gives lots of advice, from useless macho stuff to golden nuggets like "be yourself" and "show her respect". and, of course, he cheers from the sidelines, hiding 'inconspicuously'.

and it goes surprisingly well. the girl appears to find Telemachus' awkward attempts at flirting sweet and charming, and the boy is on the cloud nine.

but Hermes isn't. because, unlike the prince, his judgment isn't clouded by a puppy crush and he can see that the girl is actually a lying bitch, who's playing Telemachus like a fiddle, hoping to become the next queen of Ithaca. and he won't stand for it.

except Telemachus, for some reason, doesn't seen thrilled when Hermes tells him to dump the girl?? he flat out refuses to believe that, because love is blind and so are sheltered insecure teenage boys.

so Hermes, in his infinite wisdom, decides to prove to his naive little charge once and for all that the girl is just using him and doesn't actually love him. now, what's the first example of true selfless love from a woman that comes to mind to the god who had spent the last few years hanging out with the royal family of Ithaca? right, Penelope. and the one thing that characterises Penelope is her unconditional loyalty, even into the face of countless threats and temptations.

hermes, to himself: so, if I show the kid that the bitch will leave him as soon as she finds a better prospect, he will definitely admit I was right all along! and dump her! it's a perfect, easy, foolproof plan! I am so smart! what could possibly go wrong!

another spoiler alert: everything goes wrong.

the girl does happily jump into his arms as soon as he hints that he's a god/demi-god/just a cooler prince or something. she does it right in front of Telemachus, in fact, so there's no way he'd be able to deny the obvious.

on the bright side, Hermes immediately outs her as a lying bitch and publicly shames her, embarrassing her family and ruining her prospects of marriage and causing her to suffer for the rest of her life ('disproportionate revenge'? what's that?).

on the down side, for some unfathomable reason, Telemachus doesn't seem very grateful??? what???????

hermes: and so, AS ALWAYS, I was right. telemachus: hermes: but please, hold your applause! telemachus: hermes: I did it all for you, out of the goodness of my heart! telemachus: hermes: and please, don't apologize! you were wrong, I get it! no need to- telemachus: *bitch slaps his smug face and runs away, hurt and betrayed* hermes: *shocked pikachu face*

thing is, Hermes doesn't understand what he did wrong. in his mind he did a rather good deed: showed the liar's true colors, and spared the kid a lot of heartache down the line. he doesn't understand the feelings of betrayal from having someone he trusts explicitly outing him as a naive fool in front of everyone he ever dreamed of earning respect from. doesn't get the pain of having been cast aside by someone he liked in favor of a god, with whom he could never compete. can't imagine living in the shadow of someone he had never even known and being constantly reminded of all the ways he's lacking.

telemachus: I'm not a stupid child, hermes. I could've handled it. hermes: but you didn't listen to me, maybe you'd have never seen it on your own- telemachus: and maybe I would've. maybe I would've had the opportunity to find out myself, and maybe I would've learned from it, but you never gave me that choice, did you?! did you think i'm that dumb?! hermes: oh, come on, kid, you're not dumb- telemachus: THEN WHY DO YOU TREAT ME LIKE I AM?! WHY DON'T YOU EVER TRUST ME?!

aaaaand there's the core issue. Telemachus had spent his whole life being babied at best and looked down upon at worst. constantly compared to Odysseus and his more vicious peers, always shielded from making tough decisions and proving himself. he feels like he will never amount to anything, because no one ever lets him really try. as soon as it looks like he's going to make a mistake, someone (usually Athena, Aeolus or Hermes) swoops in and 'fixes' everything for him, just like they used to do when he was an accident-prone toddler. which he isn't anymore.

and Hermes doesn't understand that. to him, ten years is basically nothing. the kid can't have changed that much in ten years. because if he did, then he'll change a lot in the next ten years, and the next, and very soon he won't change anymore, because ten years are nothing and so are human livespans.

ten years are nothing, because to admit otherwise would force Hermes to face the fact that Telemachus, no matter how precious, is just as mortal as any other human. which amounts to basically losing him already. and Hermes can't.

he held that boy as an infant. he fed him, helped to teach him walk and talk and make silly faces. he can't lose this child to time, the one thing even gods can't really protect humans from.

Penelope finds Hermes sitting on her balcony with the most human expression on his face she'd ever seem him wear. he's lost, and confused, and full of regrets, and kind of terrified. in that aspect, he reminds her painfully of her husband.

hermes, mumble: he's growing older penelope, sighing: I know hermes: he's not a baby anymore penelope: believe me, I know hermes: but... what do I do now??? penelope: you let it happen. not much else you can do.

she talks him through it.

hermes, rambling: but I will lose him. I'll lose him if he grows old and dies. this is why I don't get attached to mortals, you die too soon. he can't die now. penelope: he's not going to die now. he'll become the king first, he will find a good wife and have children and grandchildren. he will become great, greater that I and his father could ever dream of. and he'll be happy. don't you want to see that? hermes: I do, but- I don't want him to grow up! penelope: then you finally know the biggest joy and the deepest pain of parenthood.

it doesn't fix his fear. doesn't fix his pain, either. but it does help fix his attitude.

because she's right. Telemachus is growing old, and he can't shelter and protect the boy forever. soon he'll become a man, then an elder. and there's nothing Hermes can do about it, short of dragging the prince to Olympus and begging Zeus to grant him immortality, which will never work.

Hermes and Telemachus make up, of course. the latter knows, deep down, that the former is just trying to take care of him. they make up and forget the fight - at least, the boy does.

Hermes will always remember.

and he will count every day, every wrinkle, every grey hair.

the joy and pain of parenthood indeed.

[criticallyobs]

Why Saifah has never been bad

(From the notes of Dangerous Romance Ep 8 Critical Discussion podcast ep)

After watching the episode and sitting with it for a while, a switch flicked in my brain and I started thinking about the way Saifah was represented up until now and how other characters interacted with him, and how we started being apprehensive about him (like I literally started the reaction with Saifah is full of shit).

Then I saw how Kanghan’s dad behaved with him and I started having this unpleasant feeling because I felt like we were led on to be as prejudiced regarding him as Kang’s father was in episode 8.

I started reconsidering some scenes that featured him.

So in the beginning he’s trying to reassure his brother that he doesn’t need to take part-time jobs. He tries to reason with Sailom so that he doesn’t judge him for being a bit manipulative with the people in his care to get what he wants.

We, as the viewers, already think highly of Sailom, because this is how he has been represented until now and Saifah seems dicey in comparison. Then we judged Saifah for being unreliable, because he prepared that meal, but, doesn’t it look like love? Like him trying to lighten Sailom up? Yeah, he’s wasting the money, but isn’t it okay to do that sometimes, especially when you don’t have much? Do you always have to be stressed and depressed and not allow yourself to have anything nice? He’s not only trying to provide for Sailom, he’s trying to cheer him up as well. Sailom sees it as a waste because of course he does and he decides to take that job because of course he does. But did his brother ask him to do that? No. It’s just Sailom’s way of being.

Then his creepy smile in the hospital and I even remember a post about it on Tumblr, (I’m sorry I can’t remember who posted it), but it was about him having a forced smile when meeting Kang’s grandma. But look at the situation. The person who took your brother in, the only family that you have, is keeping him safe, is paying off your debts has been placed in the hospital where you work. Yes, you don’t like and distrust rich people (rightfully so, obv), you probably had bad experiences with rich people and you think it’s unpleasant to serve them, but wouldn’t you feel like you have to go to that person who’s helping you so much and offer your help? Isn’t that the most decent thing to do? And wouldn’t you say "yes" if they request your further assistance, even if you don’t really want to be around them?

I feel like the narrative has been framing this character up until now.

Sailom knows his brother and he doesn’t expect him to do something drastic. He doesn’t take his comments about the safe seriously, maybe that’s Saifah’s humor. He likes pretty things. He likes money, why wouldn’t he? We were given the information that he’s being arrested later, but we can’t know if he actually deserves that.

Why did we assume he’s guilty? Aren’t we acting just like Kang’s father? There’s a big step from taking advantage of someone’s kindness to committing an actual crime against a person who’s been only kind to you.

So if this pattern that I’m seeing here is correct, then they’re doing a very interesting and daring thing here, by making us face our own prejudice.

What if we’re complicit in framing him as well?

I’m already questioning my own judgment. I might be wrong and maybe he does do something stupid or he’s coerced into it, maybe he’s rotten to the core. I have been wrong before. But if they’re kind of putting us in Kang’s father's shoes, then it’s a fucking mic drop moment, and OMFG.

And also maybe his face looks unhappy when he receives the medicine because he’s facing his own prejudice, that not all wealthy people are pieces of garbage.

Also, we didn’t like Saifah meddling and making Sailom insecure regarding Kanghan’s devotion, but wouldn’t it be something that a big brother does? He clearly has seen his brother in distress because of that boy, he sees how much energy and time Sailom dedicates to him. He doesn’t want him to get hurt again. He’s not aware that they were fucking made for each other and that the universe pushes them together and that they’re the literal embodiment of the wind and windmill. He’s normal!

[narcoticwriter]

So this is how I break my Tumblr fast.

Dexerto: "This list has the speculative ages and heights for every Genshin Impact character so far based off of the canon storyline and respective character lore!"

Me: "You're joking."

Disclaimer: I take some creative liberties and personal interpretations into account as well as additional lore and speculation that wasn't taken into consideration in the initial list linked. I am not a canon authority nor should I be treated like one. And just in case, there will be spoilers concerning past limited events if you care about that.

Notes -

Before I start, I would like to say that I'm not slandering or clowning the person that came up with it nor do I feel the need to do so.

They likely don't have the same capacity to peruse the wiki as well as somewhat memorize a good chunk of it like me. They were probably just trying to write a fun, speculative article for a target audience and as such, I'm also having a bit of cheeky fun responding to it. It's all in good faith and fun, after all.

Feel free to share your opinions and thoughts on these as well, but like I said, it's not meant to be taken that seriously. I'm always down to consider other perspectives, but I'd appreciate it if I wasn't attacked for my own, thank you.

The List -

The following will cover every playable character up to 3.8, be in alphabetical order, and some will have little blurbs that explain why and how I came to those conclusions.

Aloy does not count as in Horizon: Zero Dawn, you'd likely find it in much more certain terms than Genshin Impact.

Also, we all know that the in-game models lie as we have Albedo's hair to prove it, so those will be ignored and I'll take from the story and basic anatomy instead.

Albedo -

Age: Presented as being in his mid-twenties, actually 300+ years old given his lore and the speculation about his master, etc.

Height: 5'7"-5'8"

Al-Haitham -

Age: Mid-to-late twenties, two years younger than Kaveh

Height: 6'1"

Amber -

Age: Late teens given the timing of the manga lore and definitive dates given, although manga lore being in tune with game lore could be questionable on occasion

Height: 5'5"-5'6"

Arataki Itto -

Age: Definitively in his mid-twenties

Height: 6'5" without the horns, 6'10" with them

Baizhu -

Age: Mid-to-late thirties, given his learned ways in medicine, how he carries himself, and the recent lore

Height: 5'9"-5'10"

Barbara -

Age: Early-to-mid teens

Height: 5'3"

Beidou -

Age: Mid-to-late thirties given chronology and lore, definitively younger than Ningguang

Height: 5'8"-5'10"

Bennett -

Age: Early-to-mid teens

Height: 5'6"

Candace -

Age: Late twenties to early thirties, seems to be older and less hotheaded given her character stories

Height: 5'9"

Chongyun -

Age: Late teens, a few months younger than Xingqiu

Height: 5'7"

Collei -

Age: Mid-teens, given the lore in the manga, but as with Amber's lore, it can be brought into some question considering other factors

Height: 5'3"

Cyno -

Age: Early-to-mid twenties, around the same age as Tighnari, but not definitively as the speculative lore can bring certain things into question

Height: 5'7"

Dehya -

Age: Mid-to-late twenties

Height: 5'10"

Diluc -

Age: Early-to-mid twenties, given manga lore and explanations for Amber & Collei respectively, six months older than Kaeya

Height: 5'11"-6'0"

Diona -

Age: Older child to barely a preteen, one or two years older than Klee

Height: 4'2"-4'7" (taking how one measures her feet with the height and different biology)

Dori -

Age: Anywhere from late teens to late thirties because being twelve and being this rich as well as having some good business sense? Nah.

Height: 4'6"-4'8" (she might not be twelve, but she's still short)

Eula -

Age: Early twenties, two years older than Amber

Height: 5'10"-6'0"

Faruzan -

Age: Presented as in her early-to-mid twenties, actually 100+ years old given lore and character stories

Height: 5'5"

Fischl -

Age: Early to mid-teens

Height: 5'6"

Ganyu -

Age: Presented as being in her mid-to-late twenties, actually 2000+ years old and possibly older

Height: 5'5"-5'7"

Gorou -

Age: Mid-twenties

Height: 5'6"-5'8"

Hu Tao -

Age: Late teens to early twenties, six months to a year older than Xingqiu

Height: 5'4"

Jean -

Age: Early-to-mid twenties given the respective comparisons to other characters in the manga lore, six months to one year older than Diluc

Height: 5'9"-5'10"

Kaeya -

Age: Early-to-mid twenties given manga lore, six months younger than Diluc

Height: 6'0"

Kamisato Ayaka -

Age: Late teens to early twenties, at least three to five years younger than Ayato

Height: 5'4"-5'5"

Kamisato Ayato -

Age: Mid-twenties, at least three to five years older than Ayaka

Height: 5'10"-6'0"

Kaveh -

Age: Mid-to-late twenties, two years older than Al-Haitham

Height: 5'10"-5'11"

Kaedehara Kazuha -

Age: Early-to-mid twenties, at least three years younger than his friend before his death

Height: 5'6"-5'7"

Keqing -

Age: Mid-twenties, at least a year younger than how Ganyu is presented as

Height: 5'4"

Kirara -

Age: Late teens given her unique circumstances

Height: 5'3"-5'7" given her biology concerning her feet

Klee -

Age: Younger child, one or two years younger than Diona (this can be disputed given her race and some lore)

Height: 3'6"-3'9"

Kujou Sara -

Age: Definitively in her mid-twenties, at least one year older than Itto

Height: 5'10"

Kuki Shinobu -

Age: Mid-twenties, at least six months older than Itto

Height: 5'4"-5'6"

Layla -

Age: Early twenties

Height: 5'3"-5'5"

Lisa -

Age: Early-to-mid thirties given the lore and speculation concerning her character stories

Height: 5'7"-5'9"

Mika -

Age: Early teens

Height: 5'0"-5'3"

Mona -

Age: Late teens to early twenties

Height: 5'3"

Nahida -

Age: Presented as a young child, actually 500+ years old

Height: 3'9"-4'0"

Nilou -

Age: Late teens to early twenties as I will choose to believe that the article's age is a typo

Height: 5'0"-5'2"

Ningguang -

Age: Late thirties to approaching forty given the chronology and lore, definitively older than Beidou

Height: 5'7"

Noelle -

Age: Early-to-mid teens

Height: 5'3"-5'4"

Qiqi -

Age: Presented as a young child, actually 1000+ years old given lore and chronology

Height: 3'6"-3'10"

Raiden Shogun (Ei) -

Age: Present as being in her mid-to-late twenties, actually 500+ years old

Height: 5'10"

Razor -

Age: Early-to-mid teens

Height: 5'7"

Rosaria -

Age: Mid-to-late twenties

Height: 5'9"

Sangonomiya Kokomi -

Age: Mid-to-late twenties, though some speculation might lend to her actual years being much more than that (100+)

Height: 5'1"-5'2"

Sayu -

Age: Preteen to early teens

Height: 4'5"-4'6"

Shenhe -

Age: Mid-twenties

Height: 5'11"-6'1"

Shikanoin Heizou -

Age: Early-to-mid twenties, at least one year older than Kazuha

Height: 5'7"-5'8"

Sucrose -

Age: Early twenties, at least a year younger than what Albedo is presented as

Height: 5'3"-5'5"

Tartaglia -

Age: Definitively in his early twenties

Height: 6'0"-6'3"

Thoma -

Age: Mid-twenties, one year younger than Ayato

Height: 5'10"-6'0"

Tighnari -

Age: Early-to-mid twenties, around the same age as Cyno

Height: 5'6" without the ears

Traveler -

Age: Presented as in their early twenties, actually incomprehensibly older than that

Height: 5'5" (Lumine) 5'6" (Aether)

Venti -

Age: Presented as in his late teens to early twenties, actually 2600+ years old

Height: 5'4"

Wanderer -

Age: Presented as in his early twenties, actually 500+ years old given the lore

Height: 5'5"

Xiangling -

Age: Mid-teens, at least two years younger than Chongyun

Height: 5'3"

Xiao -

Age: Presented as in his early twenties, actually 3000+ years old

Height: 5'1"

Xingqiu -

Age: Late teens, a few months older than Chongyun

Height: 5'6"

Xinyan -

Age: Mid-to-late teens, a few months younger than Yun Jin

Height: 5'7"

Yanfei -

Age: Late teens to early twenties

Height: 5'4"

Yaoyao -

Age: Younger child, at least six months older than Qiqi given the context of Qiqi's lore

Height: 3'8"-3'11"

Yae Miko -

Age: Presented as in her late twenties to mid-thirties, actually 500+ years old

Height: 5'9"

Yelan -

Age: Late twenties to early thirties

Height: 5'8"

Yoimiya -

Age: Late teens to early twenties

Height: 5'5"

Yun Jin -

Age: Mid-to-late teens, a few months older than Xinyan

Height: 4'9"-4'11"

Zhongli -

Age: Presents himself as in his late thirties to his mid-forties, possibly older than Teyvat as a landmass (6000+)

Height: 5'10"-6'0"

Final Thoughts -

If I missed a playable character (as of 3.8) somehow, I'll correct it when I get around to it. As characters from Fontaine come out, I'll consider doing this for them as well, but as of right now, this list is complete. The reason I compare certain characters to each other in terms of age is due to the closeness that they have in canon as well as the Genshin manga. Anything speculative is stated and should be treated as such.

Until then or whenever I'll see you when I see you.

[sebastianshaw]

hey @masquenoire! Tumblr isn't letting me reply to your question, it randomly does that sometimes to me with long replies, so here's my answer!

You asked: "What's your favourite thing about your muse? What drew you to him?"

I think my FAVORITE thing about Shaw is that he's not asking anyone to feel sorry for him, and neither does the narrative. While Shaw hardly has the most traumatic past of anyone, he definitely COULD play up the fact he grew up in poverty and how hard that was a LOT more in order to justify himself, but he doesn't, and neither do the writers. Not in his own words, nor his thought balloons, nor narrative boxes, nor other characters talking about it.

Most likely it's because they forgot---G.illen actually recently implied in a retcon that he grew up decently well off and that his motive for getting rich was just daddy issues, which I hate with all my soul even if I like G.illen as a writer in general---but also it's just not in Shaw's character to explain himself to anyone or ask that anyone understand why he does what he does. And that's honestly SO RARE in a villain. Most comic book bad guys, even the really rotten ones, usually make SOME statement about why they're doing what they're doing to the heroes, even if it's just to relish in how they enjoy it. Whether its the J.oker rambling about the need for chaos or M.agneto stating how he won't see the tragedy he lived through repeated, most villains seem to want the heroes to understand their reasoning for their acts. Shaw really, really doesn't seem to give a fuck if anyone "gets" him, and I think he'd be ACTIVELY INSULTED if anyone ever felt sorry for him, be it for his impoverished childhood or other tragedies like the loss of his fiancée (around which certain other godawful retcons are not acknowledged either here) which he also almost never brings up to anyone.

Shaw does, however, VERY often mention his poverty in the context of saying how he's a self-made man who forged his own fortune for nothing. It's not a point of PAIN to him it's a point of PRIDE. He doesn't think he deserves pity for being born poor, he thinks he deserves admiration for rising above it as few others could. He actively promotes his actual accomplishments over the circumstances that he didn't choose, and I think that reflects a lot about his mentality. . . .and it's also just refreshing as fuck. Honestly, he's got a really positive outlook when you think about it, not dwelling on his unfortunate circumstances of birth but instead on the fact he triumphed over them.

But yeah, Shaw's so many things, but he's not a whiner. He's never going to be looking at the camera and telling the reader to feel sorry with him or root for him or even just understand him. Shaw doesn't NEED anyone's understanding, in-universe or out of it, he is just gonna DO WHAT HE WANTS BECAUSE HE WANTS TO, SUCKER. I love that.

I think what first drew me to him is his very practical, very materialistic nature in a sea of ideologues. Money as a motivator isn't a unique thing among villains in general, but it's very unique in the X.men's baddies. Almost ALL of their foes are motivated by some ideology----people who hate mutants, people who are super pro mutant in a way that conflicts with the X.Men's ideals, or some other belief system like A.pocalypse's "survival of the fittest and I deem who's fit" shit--or by having some kind of personal grudge against one of the team members (S.abretooth and W.olverine, S.hadow K.ing and S.torm, Cassandra N.ova and X.avier, etc)

Shaw's virtually the only villain of any note whose motivation is purely profit, to the extent he'll collaborate in the oppression of mutants if it lines his pockets. Fuck, he literally tells M.agneto not to be "racist" to humans BECAUSE OF THEIR PROFIT POTENTIAL! I'm not making this up, he SAID that! Like of all the reasons other characters have ever given for arguing against Mags, that's genuinely my fucking favorite because it's so unique. Uniquely Shaw. And while just being plain greedy can be a boring motive, I think Shaw keeps it interesting because his self-interest means he'll work with whoever is best for his wallet and himself at the moment, so more than once he's actually teamed up with the X.Men and it's made for some cool stories. My fave part is that in said stories, he NEVER lies or misrepresents why he's helping them, and in fact once DISMISSES X.avier's thanks because "Altruism was never one of my vices, and I'm too old to take up new hobbies." Shaw's not only blatantly and thoroughly greedy, he's practical about it (siding with his enemies when it benefits him) and HONEST about it, to the point he'll turn down PRAISE, and I just LOVE THAT. I also just love that in the whole M.utant Debate that the series is basically BASED ON, this one guy, despite BEING one himself, just said "fuck it, I don't give a fuck, who the fuck cares?" and then also "but how can I make money off the morons who DO?"

I could honestly go on about what draws me to and keeps me to this character, but I'd say that this was the INITIAL thing that got my attention, and the rest came as I got to know the character better.

[barbwillbrb]

I can’t say the same for everyone, but when a hyperfixation gets to the point where I am actively engaging in the fandom, let alone creating for it, it just becomes part of the random braincells floating around in this noggin’ of mine. One braincell might be taking up the center stage at any given time, but the others are there, always lurking. A good example is that while I am posting a ton about BG3 currently, I am working on my first Mass Effect and Magnus Archives OCs, as well as more serious art for those fandoms (in fact the very second the Flesh rears it’s ugly head in TM: Protocol, I am gonna become a DEMON). In other words, I really don't know how to like/engage with things casually, haha.

If I do feel myself start to get a little tired of a current interest, I will simply switch to one of my others/give it a break.

Also, creating original characters/content related to a fandom really helps me cling on tighter to a hyperfixation. I personally take my own OCs and remake them into my favorite fandoms (similarly, I might take some of my favorite characters from my favorite fandoms and try them out in different AUs).

TBH, I only ever dropped two fandoms/fixations:

Harry Potter. I was really into it as a teen and ran online roleplays with my friends about it; plus I had a total crush/obsession on Alan Rickman. Rowling's rising bullshit in the 2010s, my growing interest in literary criticism that made it completely impossible to ignore her text, and Alan Rickman's death killed that one.

Undertale. This one I still like as a story and the game means a lot to me, but parts of the fandom made me feel bad for liking it? I dunno; it's been a while, but I feel there was this idea that if you were an older teen/young adult who enjoyed the story you were a pervert/pedo? I just remember being made to feel like I was bad for liking the game, which fucking sucked because it helped me so much through a really dark time in my life and just wanted to talk about it. I dunno man; I was dealing with undiagnosed OCD at the time and did not need some internet strangers making me feel like shit over pixels.

Basically, tdlr:

Enjoy the hyperfixation as long as it is here, but don't force it if it goes. Ask yourself what drew you to that interest, and find new content to consume (or create your own! I often use hyperfixation burnout to work on my original content/characters!)

While I can't say it works the same for everyone, hyperfixations are like an ever-rotating carousel for me; once a fandom/interest reaches that status with me, it's here to stay. There might be a day where BG3 content takes a small back seat to TMAP or Mass Effect (hell-- we might even see some Hunger Games make a retro pop up), but it will be here to stay...

... unless the creators/artists behind the thing do something super fucked and supporting them would be causing harm.

Additionally, as a whole, fandom spaces need to not be jerks to people or we will lose them (looking at some of you, Astarion and Raphael fans; some of you guys can be kinda mean/telling people their faves are problematic/indicative of some moral failing, which is pretty rich... >___> ). Tumblr for the most part is pretty cool compared to Reddit and X, but we're not perfect here either.

Also on a very final side note: if you find yourself not just losing interest in one hyperfixation but many in addition to other interests, that might be indicative of depression (coming from someone who's just now accepting depression/bipolar might be a thing with me) or external factors causing you stress. A healthy personal life is key to a healthy creative life (which is rich coming from me given half my posts are "why does my body hate meeeeeee" but hey, do as I say not what I do lol) .

anyhoot this is just my personal experiences with fandom; just some thoughts.

Hi. I want to ask you. What about the end of hyperfixation? A character, a game, series, books...I mean, when you arrive at that point where you don't feel enthusiastic about your blorbo or brainrot source.

How do you know you are there? How do you usually feel?  Is another hyperfixation the reason you abandon a fiction world? Is it real life? Has it happened to you? If so, which was the most memorable of these changes? 

[enbylesbianism]

How ‘IRON WIDOW’ by Xiran Jay Zhao changed my reading experience

I’ll be straightforward: I’m in love with ‘Iron Widow’ since *checks notes* May, when I read it, and it’s now my life’s purpose to make everyone else as in love with it as I am. 

First of all, I’d like to say that I don’t usually consume media with sci-fi aspects, action, mecha suits, that kind of thing. I was a follower of Xiran and watched their videos analysing Asian (and Asian-inspired) media, such as Mulan, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Legend of Korra, Netflix’s Over The Moon etc. I also happen to find Xiran’s voice very soothing, so there’s that. So, when they mentioned that they were writing a book, I was interested, especially putting that it was polyamory and a historical reimagining. When I got around to requesting the publishers (thank you so much, Penguin Teen Canada!) for an ARC and reading it... well, it was just game changing. 

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to read a book with a love triangle that doesn’t end up with all of them in love with each other again. Of course, as a polyamory person, I’d already considered that as an option and I’d already asked (more like begged, actually) for more media with this concept, but I hadn’t actually seen it until now (I am going to need Tracy Deonn to follow in Xiran’s footsteps and make BreeSelNick endgame, by the way). I had considered it an option before, but since I’d never seen it happen, I unconsciously made myself believe that such a thing wasn’t allowed. ‘Iron Widow’ was here to tell me that it doesn’t matter if it’s allowed, because you can take it. I exist, and seeing myself represented is something I can claim as mine.

Another thing this book delivered flawlessly was unhinged women. The internet keeps talking about people written by men or by women, but I’m here for something else: people written by Xiran Jay Zhao. Wu Zetian wields her rage fearlessly, she’s shady and ruthless. Her moral compass is messy. I’ve waited for a character like her my whole life, but hadn’t known it until she’d been given to me on a silver platter. No, it’s better than that: given to me on a document sent to my e-mail, then to my Kindle, like most delightful things are. 

Not only did Xiran give me Wu Zetian, though, but on my Kindle silver platter, there was also Gao Yizhi and Li Shimin, her outstanding love interests. While Li Shimin fits the tormented bad boy criteria (but better, because that’s just what Xiran does, makes good things better), Gao Yizhi would fit the rich good boy one (yes, eat-the-rich-romantically trope!). But while he is kind and nice, we’re led to believe that there is something dark in him, though maybe his morals aren’t as messy as Zetian’s. Their dynamic can probably be described as Bonnie, Clyde, and their househusband. Perfection, truly. 

The plot is also marvellous, including the oppression at the core of the system, how dirty the powerful people play to get what they want, as well as realistic plot twists. Something I liked, too, was the way Xiran Jay Zhao dealt with the action in the book: I’m usually not all for action-packed books, but the way Xiran did it pulled me in. It’s intense and involves a lot of emotion, something that usually lacks action scenes (one of the reasons why I don’t like them all that much). 

The way trauma is handled in ‘Iron Widow’ is spectacular, too. There are all sorts of these included, from family trauma to ones caused by alcoholism (I’d disclose more on that, but I’m not sure how spoilery that would be), and it doesn’t show only the “pretty” part of it: we get to see the anger that’s so often played in a way as to make the traumatised person feel guilty and the lashing out. 

Besides, ‘Iron Widow’ has everything: hate-to-love? Yup. Friends to lovers? Absolutely! Fake dating/arranged marriage? You bet! Overthrowing the government? 100% yes! That’s basically the plot of the book. Femme fatale trope where a character seduces, then kills a man? Again, that’s basically the (initial) plot. Forbidden/secret relationship? Lots of it. Morally gray characters? Basically all of them are. Fighting while injured and not 100% healthy yet? Mhm. Intense fights with giant, magic mecha suits inspired by mythology? I got you (Xiran does, actually)! Plot twists? YES! One party of the relationship finding a way to help/save their loved one from a dangerous situation that was almost impossible to do so? Yes!!!! 

If all my gushing wasn’t enough for you to pre-order this book or add it on your TBR, then... get help. But fear not! Becuase I’ll definitely post more about this book! (Maybe not here on Tumblr, but I have an account on Twitter 100% dedicated to it, so...) Because I’m obsessed with it! ‘Iron Widow’ releases in NINE DAYS, on September 21st, so make sure to check it out! Or else Wu Zetian won’t come for you! And believe me, you want her to.

[stillness-in-green]

No, Re-Destro Is Not Destro’s Literal Son

and

Yes, I Will Die On This Hill

I have a number of small, persistent quibbles with some of the widespread misapprehensions I see included in BNHA fanfic, quoted as fact in meta posts, even cited on the wiki. Quirk cancellation restraints, what the 20% quirklessness data point means in practice, when Kurogiri comes into existence relative to the time of the Shimura Family Massacre, things like that. My biggest one, though, is as the title suggests: the idea that Yotsubashi Rikiya is Yotsubashi Chikara’s son.

I don’t entirely know where this confusion comes from. As far as I can tell, the early scanlations didn’t get it wrong—one rendered the line in Chapter 218 about Destro having a child he didn’t know about as being children, plural, but otherwise, they were all accurate enough. It seems people just assumed that the child mentioned in 218 must be Re-Destro, who was, after all, right there on the panel. Even though the scanlations never said it, even though the official translation never said it, even though ample evidence in the manga disproves it, the idea still got around that Rikiya is Chikara’s son.

I have and will maintain that this is obviously wrong if you stop to think about it for even a moment, but unfortunately, most people don’t. The error can be found on less well-tended parts of the fandom wiki[1]; it’s in tumblr meta posts about the villains; it’s in fanfic.

And now, god help me, it is on the official anime website, too.

“Stillness-in-green, maybe you should consider that you might just be wro—”

I will face BONES and walk backwards into hell.

But if you want, you can come with me, and I’ll explain on the way. Hit the jump.

Dialogue + Narration

There are two places where the relationship between Chikara and Rikiya is explicitly addressed—the lead-in to the dinner scene in Chapter 218 and the fight between Clone!Shigaraki and RD in Chapter 232. If you include the Ultra Analysis databook, the number goes up to four: once each in Re-Destro and Destro Classic’s character blurbs.

Let’s take a look at each of those places, shall we?

The relevant Japanese text here is in the first narration box: 子ども, kodomo.

Kodomo is not gendered. It literally just means child. The key kanji is 子, ko. Like most kanji, it has a lot of potential readings, and you can add other kanji to it to modify it. Add 息 and you get musuko, son. Pronounce 子 as shi instead of ko, and you get a term that is frequently, though not exclusively, used to refer to boys. Add 女 to that reading and you get joshi, woman/girl. 子 is in a lot of words, many of them gendered! Used for kodomo as Hori does here, though, it does nothing to indicate a gender one way or the other.

Also too, it does nothing to indicate that Rikiya is the child in question; it simply states that there was such a child, somewhere in the world. Now, the natural assumption for anyone who knows how the graphic novel medium works and who understands basic literary analysis would be that the significant character we just met is, in fact, the child in question—except that everything else we learn about Destro and the original Meta Liberation Army here makes it entirely impossible.

I’ll do a full breakdown on why that is in the next section. In the meantime, here’s the next reference:

Here, we’re looking at the phrase the Viz translation renders as, “His blood runs through these veins.” The literal Japanese there is, Desutoro no matsuei chi o tsugu mono! In a literal translation, chi o tsugu mono means, “one who inherits the blood,” or, more loosely, “blood successor.” It’s matsuei—末裔—that’s the key word here.

Japanese has several words to express the concept of “descendant.” Matsuei is one word; the data book uses shison. So what’s the difference? Well, I’ll talk about shison in a moment, but I had an inkling of it just from looking at the kanji in matsuei—“end” and “descendant” respectively, leaving me with an impression of something like a final descendant or the terminus of the bloodline. Further research confirmed it: shison can refer to any lineal blood tie, but matsuei refers to a bloodline’s final inheritor, the person at the end of a long line of many, or even countless, generations. It’s the difference between being able to point to a grandparent and the kind of painstaking genealogical research that lets you[2] point to a famous royal from eight hundred years ago—matsuei is a word that very much assumes the existence of those countless generations.

So not only does Rikiya’s line there not imply that he’s Chikara’s son, but his specific word choice also tells us that he cannot be Chikara’s son. That’s, uh. Pretty conclusive, I would say.

Lastly, though, there’s also the data book. This is, perhaps, the actual closest you’re going to get to a manga equivalent of those character blurbs on the anime website, at least until such time as Hori deigns to give the MLA types character profile pages. (I live ever in hope.)

There are two relevant bits of text, one in Re-Destro’s entry, and the other in Destro Classic’s. The first describes how Re-Destro organizes the MLA as Desutoro no chi o tsugu mono: the same phrase he uses for himself in the manga, minus the matsuei. @codenamesazanka (the one who told me about the databook references among other citations, bless) rendered it as “Destro’s blood successor”; I have also seen it given as “the successor of Destro’s bloodline.” Note again, the lack of reference to a father/son bond.

Chikara’s entry uses that other descendant word I mentioned before, 子孫, shison. Notice that the term uses that ko kanji from kodomo before? As it does in joshi, 子 here reads shi. The other kanji, 孫, means grandchild. Thus, literally, grandchild-child—or, in the vernacular, simply descendant.

And then we have the anime website.

So, for comparison’s sake, the anime website uses 息子—the same combination of kanji that I said earlier gives you musuko, son. Heck, it even uses 父, chichi, for Destro—father. It’s as explicit as it’s possible to be, and I just don’t know why or how the anime website could fuck that up so bad when absolutely nothing in the manga describes the two Yotsubashis that way, and, indeed, one specific word choice actually rules out the possibility.

So, that’s all the manga says directly. It’s not the only evidence there is, though. In fact, the next piece makes it even more clear how colossally and impossibly wrong a father/son connection for Destro and his modern successor is.

Timeline

The long and short of this section is, “Since Harima Oji was Sako Atsuhiro’s great-great-grandfather, there is no possible way that Destro—who pre-dated Harima—can be Re-Destro’s father.” If you read that sentence and nodded your complete understanding and agreement, feel free to skip ahead to the last section. If you’d like the full explanation it takes to reach that sentence’s conclusion, though, read on.

So, aside from the word matsuei, the timeline is the most telling piece of evidence to my eye. I address it secondly rather than firstly because it’s less direct than the explicit narration; it relies on drawing conclusions based on things we’ve been told elsewhere rather than on the immediately relevant text. Oh, Mr. Compress’s relationship to Harima is explicit enough, but on what am I basing my claim that Destro predates him?

Regarding that, there’s no explicit year relative to My Hero Academia’s current events given for when Destro and the original Meta Liberation Army were active; the same is true for Harima Oji’s escapades. However, we are given some broad-strokes information, relative not to current events, but rather to the history of heroism as a legal institution in Japan.

We know that there was a widespread, lengthy period of chaos following the rise of quirks—called meta-abilities in those early years. At some point, however, people began to search for a way for meta-humans to live in peace with non-metas. The compromise that was reached was the foundation of professional heroism in Japan—while the use of meta-abilities would be legal in private settings, it was only by becoming licensed by the state as “heroes” that people could use their quirks in public.[3]

The legislation curtailing the use of meta-abilities—and the appropriation of a dead woman’s language to popularize a law establishing exactly the opposite of what she used that language to call for—is what catalyzed the rise of the original MLA. Thus, we can position Destro as being alive and active around the same time that heroism as a legal institution was being formed. Since we further know that he committed suicide in prison, we can assume that his child was conceived at some point prior to his capture. Ergo, Destro’s child, were they alive today, would be as old as Japanese professional heroism itself.

Next, consider Harima Oji, the Peerless Thief, a criminal who targeted the riches of “sham heroes.” We’re specifically told that he was active in the days in which the current system was settling into place—e.g. he only became active once the Hero System was established enough to have produced corrupt heroes. We’re told he preached reformation—he wasn’t just some pre-existing criminal who saw a shiny new target in heroes; he had specific grievances which he wanted addressed by the system, and which the system was not addressing.

The earliest Harima could possibly be active, then, is concurrent with Destro—Harima fighting against the corrupt people who had found their way into the new heroic institution, and Destro fighting against using the institution of heroism to oppress non-heroes. What I think is more likely, though, is that Harima came after Destro—Harima needed to have had time to realize what kinds of fakes had been drawn to this shiny new career path, maybe even to spend some time trying to change things the legal way.

I don’t suspect they were separated by very long—I would imagine Destro was easily within Harima’s living memory, and might well have influenced why he chose the path of protest that he did—but I do think they were separate.

Moving forward, then, Mr. Compress is four generations distant from his famous ancestor. Thus, even if you assume that Harima is of the same generation as Chikara, that’s what you’re looking at for Chikara’s child: someone who, were they alive today, would be old enough to be the great-grandparent of a thirty-two-year-old man.

Re-Destro’s probably a few years older than Mr. C, sure,[4] but that man doesn’t have Ujiko’s slow-aging quirk. Unless you want to start pulling theories about cryogenic stasis the story for some reason never saw fit to mention out of thin air, Re-Destro is in no way old enough to fit the bill.

This is backed up by one other piece of the timeline as well, and one more place we can look at language:

The small child at the center of the image is Rikiya, so young that he’s in schoolboy shorts for a meeting otherwise so formal that he’s been made to wear a tie. He’s, what, six to nine here, tops? And the adults speaking to him say that they’ve been in hiding for generations—代々, daidai, the kanji for generation followed by a kanji that just means, “See that kanji written right before me? Yeah, just read that one again.”

The original MLA was active for only a handful of years, and, per Chapter 218, they didn’t dissolve until Destro was captured. Thus, we can assume they have been in hiding since then, but not before then. With that in mind, this is another line that renders a father/son relationship impossible.

Remember, Chikara already had a child in the world circa his capture. If Rikiya were Chikara’s son, then Destro’s capture and his army’s subsequent dissolution could not have happened any farther back than nine months plus however old Rikiya was in this exact moment of his youth. Rikiya, who we see here as a child of less than ten.

Ten years in hiding doesn’t make one generation; it damn sure doesn’t make multiple ones.

Now, you could make theories about cryogenic statis that would explain this ludicrous discrepancy, sure. You could also theorize about e.g. artificial insemination,[5] or time stop quirks, or any number of other possibilities in the vast panoply the HeroAca world offers. The point is, though, that you don’t need to. There was, in the manga, no discrepancy that needed to be explained. It is only fanon misinterpretation and a glaring disinterest in the series’ villains from official sources that have presented this issue.

I’m praying that it’s all just a misunderstanding on the part of whoever maintains the website, and that the anime itself will render the relevant bits of dialogue correctly. Given the extreme cuts and alterations that My Villain Academia has been subjected to thus far, though, I’m sure you can appreciate my being concerned.

…So that’s the meat of it. The idea that Rikiya is Chikara’s son is wrong simply on the basis of what’s said in the text, and it’s doubly wrong on the basis of the timeline. There is, though, one other thing I think points towards Re-Destro being exactly the descendant he says he is, not a son playing down the connection out of humility or something. This one is a lot more headcanon-y, though, so I saved it for last.

MLA Social Dynamics

It’s quite simple. We have, in the MLA, a group of people that venerates Destro’s bloodline to an obviously unhealthy degree, putting up portraits of him wherever they can get away with it, tagging his successor with a “Re-” as if to invoke reincarnation or miraculous return, entirely willing to throw their lives away for what they think was his cause, and others’ lives if those others say anything too scathing about the words Destro wrote, quite as if they treat Destro’s memoir as some sort of holy writ.

They venerate Destro that much, and you’re trying to tell me that they wouldn’t just call a spade a spade and acknowledge RD as the son of their great leader? Come on.

Since long before I turned up the matsuei factoid in researching this piece, since long before Mr. Compress gave us such a helpful generational comparison, I’ve held the opinion that, given a group that holds their leaders in such high esteem, with such particular regard for bloodline, the only reason Rikiya does just call himself a descendant, rather than citing the specific term for what he is, is that the specific term is distant enough that it actually does sound more impressive to just say “descendant,” rather than something like, “great-great-great-grandson.” That kind of thing just begs the question, “What took you guys so long?” or, “You and how many other people, buddy?”

Mr. Compress may have the panache to carry off a line like that, but Rikiya’s a different story. If he had something so amazing up his sleeve as, “I am the son of the great Destro,” I have to think he’d just say it proudly, not fall back on the impressionistic vaguery of something like chi o tsugu mono. Even if I had no other evidence to work with, I’d think the same—all the evidence you need is right there in the character writing of who Rikiya and the MLA are and how they talk about the man whose dreams Re-Destro was raised to carry.

A closing note: I will allow that Rikiya is being overdramatic when he uses matsuei and its connotation of countless generations. There are a few other things we can use to trace the history of heroism—Ujiko’s age, and the 18-years-or-less periods that One For All was held by its pre-All Might bearers—and running those numbers leads me to believe that it is, in fact, entirely possible to count the number of generations between Rikiya and Chikara, and the number, while higher than one, is probably not all that high. Certainly matsuei is being more dramatic about it than is entirely warranted, hence the poetic flourish of the official translation’s, “His blood runs through these veins!” The theatricality only makes me fonder of him, however.

------------------------

FOOTNOTES

[1] It was changed and reverted on Re-Destro’s page at least twice before it finally stuck in January of this year. Chikara’s page took until July to be corrected, and it’s still wrong on various other subpages.

[2] Or your kids, if you have those. Only the last generation in the bloodline is the matsuei, but that’s a moving goalpost as long as the bloodline is still propagating.

[3] This summary of events combines what we know from both My Hero Academia proper and the Vigilantes spin-off, which I recommend to anyone who’s at all interested in finer-grained worldbuilding on Hero Society Japan than the main series makes time for.

[4] I personally headcanon him as 42.

[5] To which point I would refer back to the word kodomo, and note that that word choice indicates that Destro had a child in the world. Not a sperm sample kept in a freezer somewhere, waiting for the right would-be mother: an actual child. Some quick research on my part says that the farthest that term stretches is in using it to refer to yet-unborn children, fetuses still in the womb. Seeing as Japan doesn’t even allow inmates conjugal visits in real life, much less in a setting where villains are so dehumanized that Tartarus is an acceptable punishment for them, the line about Destro “having a child out in the world” takes us right back to a date of conception no later than Destro’s final night of freedom.

[oh-hush-its-perfect]

Alex Fierro's Introduction Full Breakdown

Okokok so. This is going to go full English-professor mode, where I'm drawing conclusions that are gonna seem a little far-fetched. That's what's fun about media analysis! I can say something is a symbol, and even if I don't have enough faith in RR's competency to know if he meant for it to be a symbol, it's still true! That being said, a lot of these choices I'm sure are intentional, either at a literal or subliminal level. Page numbers are going to be used not to assert a kind of authority or whatever— this is a Tumblr post, not an essay— but to help readers find the pages I'm referencing in case they'd like to do some digging of their own. Also, this is going to be really long. Really sorry to anyone with ADHD; I might make an audiofile of this so you can get the information without having to read the whole thing. With all that, let's get into it!

To kick off, let's talk about Alex being in the form of a cheetah when she first meets Magnus. Of course, there's the obvious impact of him seeing her but only so breifly, as well as introducing the conflict between her and the rest of Hall 19. But that could have easily been accomplished by almost any animal. The choice of a cheetah being implicated implies two qualities of Alex that will be recurrent throughout the two books she's in: 1. She has a tendency to run away, as we'll later learn when she describes how she became homeless, and 2. To Magnus, she's elusive. She can't be caught or held down. The event that shows this so transparently is how Alex refuses to define their relationship at the end of the series, despite it clearly surpassing the normal bounds of friendship.

But the cheetah isn't the animal Alex is in the form of when Magnus first gets a good look at her; she's a weasel. Weasel's bring up all kinds of connotations: ferocity, slickness, a lack of charm. When we want to describe someone as an untrustworthy person, we call them a weasel. RR had Alex take this form to play up her comrades' feeling of distrust towards her. She could be a double-crosser. But paradoxically, the up-front and vicious mannerisms of a weasel also have a transperency. She does not try appealing to her Hallmate's sense of goodwill because she doesn't have anything to gain from it. So even though there is the implication that she might be an antagonist, there's also evidence from her actions and mannerisms that she isn't. The weasel's long and skinny frame also allow for a smooth transition into Alex's actual body, which is convenient.

As Alex transforms into her usual human form, Magnus describes her as "a regular human teen, long and lanky, with a swirl of dyed green hair, black at the roots, like a plug of weeds pulled out of a lawn" (pg. 50). That simile at the end is of particular interest. Let's compare it to another time Magnus describes Alex's hair, in Ship of the Dead: "Her hair had started to grow out, the black roots making her look even more imposing, like a lion with a healthy mane" (pg. 136). By contrasting these two different examples, we can see the development of Magnus and Alex's relationship. The first time he sees her, he thinks of her hair as something nasty— note the word choice "weeds." Later on, though, he becomes more affectionate towards her, more complentary. The immedient negative reaction is less his actual impression, though, and more the reaction he expected to have based on everyone else's reaction to Alex.

Her clothes are equally as interesting; as Magnus describes it, Alex wears "battered rose high-tops, skinny lime green corduroy pants, a pink-and-green argyle sweater-vest over a white tee, and another pink cashmere sweather wrapped around the waist like a kilt" (pg. 50). Aside from the obvious fact that this outfit is a) bizzare, b) fire, and c) Alex's signature colors, which add a layer of style to what can otherwise be a somewhat boring series fashion-wise (excuse me, Blitz), the outfit reveals a crucial facet of Alex's backstory in a kind of subtle way. These are expensive clothes, like the Stella McCartney dress in Alex's room. Note the mention of fabrics (corduroy, cashmere) and patterns (argyle). These indicate wealth and status. Even the high-tops; shoes like that don't come cheap. But I'd like to return to the very first word of the section: "battered." Alex's wardrobe show-cases a proximity to wealth, but also shows that that proximity has been strained and lengthened, maybe for an extended period of time. Alex dresses like a rich person, but she isn't one. Least, not anymore.

The last word of that outfit-introduction is also of interest: "kilt." At the current moment, Magnus thinks that Alex is male. No one has indicated otherwise to him. Everyone has been referring to Alex with he/him pronouns. Samirah called Alex her "brother" (pg. 29). His first thought in seeing what he at first perceives as a guy with a jacket wrapped around the waist is That looks like a kilt. This thought tells us about Magnus: despite being open and accepting, he still has some lingering notions of gender conformity from his years in wider American society.

Magnus also indicates that the outfit "reminded me of a jester's motley, or the coloration of a venomous animal warning the whole world" (pg. 50). This is rather self-explanatory, but it's still worth noting that Magnus sees the outfit as something bizzare, strange, and even perhaps comical. This places Alex at odds with the other people Magnus has met. It also reveals that Magnus has zero fashion sense. But we already knew that.

After finishing up staring at the ensemble, Magnus finally gets around to actually looking Alex in the face. First Magnus says that he "forgot how to breathe" (pg. 50), which, yeah, relatable. This is justifed by saying that Alex has the same face as Loki, but the very same sentence that asserts that that's the case also suggests an alternative reason: Alex has "the same unearthly beauty" as her father. Here we can see the beginnings of Magnus's attraction to Alex, though at this point, he still has a lot of internalized homophobia. Though there's certainly some truth in that Magnus was unnerved by Alex's resemblance to Loki, the idea that Magnus pointed out that Alex was pretty without elaborating on that thought until about a chapter later— after he was informed that Alex was presently a girl— can tell us a lot about how Magnus perceives sex and beauty.

Of course, Alex's eyes are given special attention. She has cool eyes; what can I say? But I'd like to focus in on how Magnus here depicts Alex's heterochromia as "completely unnerving" (pg. 50). Again, let's contrast this with how he describes them after getting to know Alex a little better in Ship of the Dead. In Chapter 3, Magnus describes "[Alex's] dark brown eye and his amber eye like mismatched moons cresting the horizon" (pg. 25). Once again, this shows the development of their relationship— but this time, it's in a much more personal way. Eyes are the windows to the soul; they are culturally important and biologically important in inter-personal connections. In you look into someone's eyes, you're giving them your full attention, and you're implying a kind of closeness. The way that Magnus describes Alex's eyes in the second passage is downright intimate. At this point, he is in love with Alex, and it is clear when contrasting the two descriptions.

As my last point, I'd like to discuss Alex's first words on page: "'Point that rifle somewhere else, or I will wrap it around your neck like a bow tie'" (pg. 51). First of all, Alex saying this with a "perfect white smile" (pg. 51) on his face implies that she is used to being threatened. She is not afraid of being shot; she counters the promise of an attack with a promise of her own. This pleads the question: why is Alex accustomed to violence? What events of her past or qualities of her life have brought her to this point? The threat itself reveals Alex's trauma from being genderfluid in a society with rigid gender norms, as well as her antagonistic relationship with her father. Magnus makes a comment that Alex "might actually know how to tie a bow tie, which was kind scary arcane knowledge" (pg. 51). Like Alex's wardrobe, the idea that she may have experience in high-class fashion also implies her former status as a rich kid.

I could go on. I could break apart Alex saying "'Pleased to meet you all, I guess'" (pg. 51). There is a wealth of information in this short page span that tells us things about Alex Fierro in the present moment, quietly demonstrates things about her past, and characterizes the narrator Magnus Chase. This passage is also effective in hindsight in marking the progress of Magnus and Alex's relationship.

But I'd like to take a step back and look at not the pieces, but the whole picture. Alex Fierro gets a full page of pure description— her outfit, her face— and about a chapter of introduction. This comes after several chapters of build-up. Alex Fierro is an important character you need to keep your eyes on. Alex Fierro is emotionally significant to the main character, Magnus Chase. Alex Fierro is one of the most developed and well-rounded characters that Rick Riordan has ever written— heck, she's one of the best characters in middle-grade books period. The extended emphasis on her and her alone tells us exactly what role she's going to play in this story: she's the star.

[xanasaurusrex]

Light - B.M.

Pairing: Beverly Marsh x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 1918 words

Warnings: Love confession, mutual pining, swimming, swearing, Richie Tozier (it’s a warning within itself), kissing, tooth-rotting fluff I stg, Losers Club are aged up to 17, super crappy ending, not proofread, I think that’s it! Please let me know if I missed anything!

Summary: The other Losers know for a fact that Bev returns Y/N’s feelings, even though she’s blind to them herself. But after a set up one day, maybe she’ll see the light.

Notes: My first ever It (2017) fic! Also my first fic on Tumblr! Thank you to anyone who read this, because it’s taking a lot of courage to write this, let alone post it…. Yeah, Bev and Richie are my favorite characters in the movies, and, given my url, I figured my first fic should be a Bev fic! Anyways, I hope you enjoy!

******

“She likes you back, Y/N,”

“No she doesn’t.”

“Stop fighting it, we all see it!”

Y/N looked at Richie with a roll of her eyes, turning back forward to avoid crashing into anyone or anything with her bike. “Can you stop with that? I don’t want you giving me false hope when I know she doesn’t like me back,”

Richie was the one to roll his eyes this time.

Everyone in the Losers Club knew that Y/N had had a crush on Bev for as long as they could all remember. Since the first day she saw Bev in the pharmacy after they found Ben outside the sewers and had gone in to find the supplies to fix him up.

Bev had been the one to save the day. She had distracted the man at the counter while they took the things they needed, and had come back afterwards to make sure that Ben was okay. Of course, Y/N had realized that it was not the time to be admiring Bev, seeing as Ben had just had a pretty rough run-in with Bowers, and Eddie was freaking out enough as it was.

It didn’t take long for Y/N to fall completely in love with the red-headed Derry resident. She lived in the apartment above hers, and whenever Bev’s dad fell asleep, Bev would climb down the fire escape and climb into Y/N’s window.

Y/N would sit with her and listen to what she said, or would just sit there, and the girls would hug.

On those nights when Bev either couldn’t go down to Y/N’s apartment, or didn’t need to, Y/N would lay down, and stare up at the ceiling, knowing that Bev’s room was directly above her own. She would wonder what Bev was doing, if she was reading the secret admirer note that Ben had given her, or if she was thinking of Y/N just as much as she was thinking of Bev.

It was torture.

It took a little longer for the other members of the Losers Club to realize that Y/N was falling in love with Bev. After that, they all began encouraging her to confess to Bev, because even though at the time they hadn’t seen the light that ignited in Bev’s eyes the second they landed on Y/N, they wanted their friends to be happy, and who else to be happy with but each other?

That was all when they were twelve, nearly five years ago. In that time, they had all seen that Bev loved Y/N the same way Y/N loved Bev. It was hard to watch the two beat around the bush with each other; subtle flirting that neither one noticed (though everyone else did), and even harder to see them think that the other was in love with other people, though everyone else thought it was painfully obvious to everyone else that it was each other they were in love with.

Now, as Y/N and Richie biked home together, Richie tried his best to convince Y/N for the thousandth time that Bev liked her back, no, loved her back.

“I’m sorry Rich, I want to believe you, I really do,” Y/N said for the thousandth time. “But you’ve gotta be blind to not see that Bev and Bill are in love with each other,”

 Richie quickly realized that he didn’t have enough energy to argue with her today, even though he still wanted to, instead opting for a safer topic: the test that Mr. Herrd gave them today, that Richie was fairly sure he had failed.

***

“They’re both fuckin idiots,”

Everyone nodded in agreement at Richie’s statement as the entire Losers Club watched Y/N and Bev play around and splash each other in the lake in the quarry, both of them giggling like little girls, their cheeks bright pink, and not from the sun.

“Bev!” Y/N squealed as Bev splashed her with a particularly large amount of water. After taking a second to regain herself, she retaliated by splashing an even larger amount of water at Bev.

“It’s like they’re both wearing signs saying, ‘I’m in love with the person standing in front of me, but since I’m both a pussy and an idiot, I haven’t said anything yet,”

Stan rolled his eyes at Richie’s language, but agreed nonetheless. “I wish they would just admit it to each other already. To be honest, it’s getting tiring. Should we just… lock them in a room together and not let them leave until they confess?”

“That’s an idea,” Bill smiled.

“Maybe we should say we’re meeting at the Quarry but then none of us show up,” Eddie suggested. “Chances are they’re gonna stay and hang out, and maybe if we’re lucky they’ll say something?”

Richie scoffed. “Knowing them, fat chance. I think if this plan fails, we should go with Stan’s idea,”

The others all agreed, and decided when the best date would be to set this up, and then set the date for their backup plan, and decided they would do it at Bill’s house, since his is the biggest and they would be able to hang around and check in on them regularly without having to hear them kick and scream.

“You guys coming back?” Y/N broke the boys out of their trance after her and Bev realized that they had been splashing each other for nearly fifteen minutes, when they should have been splashing the boys. “We’re getting bored!”

The boys all gave each other a sly look before immediately running back towards the water, splashing Bev and Y/N immediately, all of them laughing as they got splashed back.

***

“Are they coming?”

Bev and Y/N had been at the Quarry for nearly half an hour, both of them laying against the rocks, sunbathing, in just their bikinis. It took everything in both of them not to stare at the other and admire everything about them.

Y/N glanced at the watch that she had taken off her wrist, anticipating that they’d be swimming, and saw that it was now forty five minutes after noon, the time all the Losers had agreed to be at the Quarry.

Y/N sighed. “I don’t think so. Maybe they all forgot?”

Bev laughed. “You think Stan forgot? He’s probably at Richie’s with the others trying to get Richie out of bed. How much d’you wanna bet he stayed up all night on his Gameboy again, and now he’s sleeping the day away?”

She said the last part in a mock-dreamy way, a tone of voice that had Y/N’s heart soaring. She had always loved the sound of Bev’s voice, and there were certain times when it would just go straight to tug on Y/N’s heartstrings. It was never a particular time, just… Bev.

Everything about Bev was magical to Y/N. Somehow, all it took was one small smile, one of Bev’s smiles, and all of a sudden, Y/N was a completely different person.

Normally, she didn’t really like physical contact. It wasn’t anything in particular that had caused it, she just never was a really cuddly person. She could enjoy a short hug, or a quick high five, but anything longer than about three seconds made her uncomfortable

She wasn’t that way with Bev. Y/N would hug her for eternity, and would never want to stop. The two often held hands, and told everyone else that it was purely platonic, though Y/N secretly wished that it would be something more.

Y/N knew that Bev was still talking, but she couldn’t focus on anything more than the way that Bev’s lips were moving, as they moved quickly and perfectly to form the words that were on Bev’s brain.

The conscious, realistic part of Y/N’s brain told her that she should be focusing on what her friend was actually saying. That in just a few seconds, Bev was going to do the thing that they always did in movies where she waved her hand in front of Y/N’s face and asked if she had heard anything she said.

Sure enough, she did.

“Y/N/N, are you even listening to me?” Bev asked with a small chuckle.

The sound alone sent more heat to Y/N’s cheeks.

“S-sorry,” Y/N said quickly, shaking her head, almost as if that would clear her head of the thoughts she shouldn’t be having about her best friend. “Just uh… feeling a little out of it today, that’s all,”

Bev nodded in understanding. “Yeah. Today just… feels weird.”

Y/N nodded in agreement.

The two stayed silent for a few more minutes, before Y/N sat up again. “So, since the boys aren’t coming, we probably shouldn’t wait for them to start swimming, right?”

Bev nodded in agreement, before jumping up and running towards the water, yelling, “Last one in the water is a dancing clown!” behind her, before immediately splashing into the water, getting to a deep enough area, and diving in.

Y/N cursed herself, and then immediately launched herself into the water after Bev, inadvertently splashing her with water as she came out of the water herself at the perfect time.

“Got you!”

***

Y/N shook the water droplets out of her hair, refraining from watching as Bev dried out her own hair, slipping the loose dress that she had brought with her over the bikini that she had worn.

It was now five forty five, and Y/N was going to be expected home for dinner soon. After realizing this, she had reluctantly told Bev that she needed to head home.

Since they lived in the same apartment complex, Bev said she’d go with her.

The sunlight from the sunset bounced off the lake and onto the two girls standing on the beach next to the lake in the Quarry.

Y/N couldn’t help herself this time. She looked up to Bev, and found that she was staring at her the same way, admiring how the golden light danced across her skin, from the top of her coppery red curls to the very bottom of her feet.

Before she could even process what she was doing, Y/N quickly closed the space between her and Bev, pressing her lips against Bev’s.

It only took Bev two seconds to kiss back, relieved that Y/N had been the one to make the first move.

After a few seconds, they realized that they needed air, so the two reluctantly pulled apart, resting their foreheads together.

“Do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted to do that?” Y/N whispered breathlessly.

“It was love at first sight, wasn’t it?” Bev asked. “I saw you with the boys and I knew that it was always going to be you. It’s always been you, Y/N,”

“It’s always been you, Bev,”

The two pulled apart, Bev’s arms still wrapped around Y/N’s neck, Y/N’s hands placed lovingly on Bev’s waist. As she looked into Bev’s eyes, she saw a glint in her eyes that she hadn’t seen before.

The light made Bev’s eyes even brighter than they already were, and the longer Y/N looked at her, the more she fell in love.

“I love you, Bev,” she confessed quietly, feeling like a weight had been lifted off her shoulder at the confession. “I always have.

[the--descension]

i would die for a "how to use html and css to format ao3" lesson from you 👀 no pressure but i'm genuinely in awe :)

Hello! So sorry it’s taken me ages to get to this. 

It's no pressure at all! I have tried to cover the basics of HTML/CSS on AO3 here, and instead of writing very extensively about the syntax which is very Google-able, I have tried to include little tips and tricks that have come in handy for me. 

This, by no means, is a complete guide but I hope it can get you started with HTML and CSS on AO3!

It got pretty long, so the answer’s below the cut.

Okay, so let’s start at the very beginning, shall we?

What is HTML and CSS?

Well, HTML is Hyper Text Markup Language and CSS is Cascading Style Sheets. 

But that is something that probably doesn’t help a lot, so to put it very simply, HTML provides the structure of a webpage while CSS does the styling, that is, fixing how and where the elements should exist, how to shape them, how to space them, all so that the webpage looks great.

Something to keep in mind is that all web pages can run only on HTML but the end result is not going to be something that’s nice to look at. In fact, without CSS, the page might not even make a lot of sense. Here, take a look at Tumblr itself with all CSS disabled (there’s a very useful extension called Web Developer that allows you to do this):

Not very nice to look at, but all the elements of the page are here only with the help of HTML.

And look, this is what the above section looks like with CSS enabled:

This was just a brief visual walkthrough to show what HTML and CSS really do, but let’s move on to HTML and CSS in the world of AO3.

Where does the HTML and CSS go on AO3?

The HTML part of the code is put into the text box when you post a new story/new chapter. You must have noticed the two options — Rich Text and HTML — and it’s important to have HTML selected for AO3 to identify the HTML tags that you’ll be using.

All your content goes into this textbox. Whatever text you may be writing, whatever images you may be hosting, whatever links you might want to add— everything goes here.

Now, for styling all the content that you’ve put into the textbox, you need CSS, and that happens through work skins. It’s super simple, and all you have to do is go to Skins on your AO3 panel and then to My Work Skins, and then create a new work skin where you can dump all of your CSS code.

Okay, so onward we go.

How to HTML and CSS?

I’m no expert in web design and my knowledge mostly comes from Coursera, one summer internship, one class in college, and extensive online searching. And, I’ll tell you this, the most I have learnt is from extensive online searching.

Because at the very heart of it, web design is not so much about understanding and applying concepts (as with other coding languages) but more about visualizing elements and testing them out. I must add that this is completely my opinion as a person who rather enjoys data structures and algorithms as compared to web dev, and I’m certain that seasoned web developers will disagree with my views here. 

Right, so the online searching. The best in the business when it comes to explaining HTML/CSS is www.w3schools.com. They have sample code, short and sweet explanations, and an online IDE to test your code. Really, it’s a win-win situation.

Alrighty, so now you know where to look for your HTML tags and CSS properties but how do you figure out which ones to use?

HTML Tags

I’ll talk about the HTML that’s required for coding on AO3 exclusively.

But before that— every HTML document has two main parts: the <head> and the <body>. But here on AO3, we only code the <body> which, as its name suggests, holds the content that’s going to appear on the browser. The <head> part is not required for AO3 work skins at all.

Okay, so how to code HTML on AO3? Well, your best friends are going to be the container tags such as <div> and <span>, and the paragraph tag <p>. What these tags do is they create areas on your browser — you can imagine them as small rectangles and squares — where you can put in your content via HTML, and then later style using CSS.

See this? The entire shaded area belongs to a <div> which is styled by a CSS class called “tumblr” (to keep things simple, we’ll only focus on CSS classes, and not id’s. It won’t really hamper developing a workskin in any way.)

This above belongs to a <p> that is styled by a CSS class “tumblrbody”. And, this <p> exists within the <div> mentioned above.

Here’s a <span> styled using the CSS class “tumblrtags”, which comes within the <div> and <p> we just discussed.

Basically, the idea is that the entire page will have to be divided into all these subsections, nested within each other if required, so that they can then be styled using CSS.

Other HTML tags that come in handy are the <a> and <img> tags.

The <a> or anchor tag is used to embed links. Want your reader to be led to a separate page while they’re reading your story? This is it. (This one’s quite common, and authors use them quite frequently in their notes to link to their Twitter/Tumblr etc.)

The <img> tag is used to embed images as the name suggests.

See how the picture is within an <img> tag styled by a CSS class “tumblrimg”?

Again, I’m not talking about the syntax of these tags or how they have to be written because that’s something which can very easily be found on w3schools or any other web dev tutorial website.

So, that’s pretty much about HTML. Now, CSS.

CSS Properties

So, when I talk about how most of my web dev happens through thorough internet searching, I’m mostly talking about CSS. Because HTML tags aren’t difficult to remember, they stay in memory when you keep designing web pages, but CSS properties... ugh.

But before we begin, a short note on CSS classes. To simplify matters you can look at them as labels given to your HTML container tags (<div> for example). Once you assign the label to your HTML element, you can then style that label in your CSS, and introduce properties to it which you want to see in your HTML. It basically forms the link between your HTML and CSS. 

Say, I have a <div> that I want to style, then I’ll give it a label like this: <div class=”mongoosesurprise”>Your code</div>. The class name is mongoosesurprise, and when I have to style that particular <div>, I’ll have CSS code that looks like this:

Now, about CSS properties. 

You see all the words in white followed by a colon? max-width? border? background-image? That’s it— CSS properties. I can never remember if it is maxwidth or max-width, whether it’s margin-right or right-margin, whether it’s padding-right or right-padding, and that’s where the Googling comes in.

Again, like with HTML, I’ll only talk about CSS on AO3. Unlike regular CSS, CSS here always has to start with #workskin. And then, #workskin can be followed by our class name. (The class name must be preceded by a fullstop though, like in the picture above.)

My CSS design procedure is all over the place. I entirely work on the basis of trial and error. I keep adjusting properties like max-width and padding and margin to see how the elements fit best. (It doesn’t take me as long as it did four-five years ago to estimate these values and I’d attribute that to practice and inspecting a lot of web pages. On a related note, it’s great to learn web design by inspecting other pages.)

I realize this isn’t great advice but like I said, it’s always been about trial and error when it comes to CSS. What I can say conclusively is that with properties width, height, display, position, padding, and margin most of your HTML tags will be placed properly. But when it comes to styling, the list is really quite endless. From a number of font-related properties to border, there’s a lot— and, thus, Google.

And, finally, what you must know for HTML/CSS on AO3 is how to host images.

Hosting Images

If you want your work to contain images, it’s best to host them somewhere online. Imgur is a great option; it’s free and really simple to use. Once the image is uploaded, you can get the share links and put it in your HTML <img> tag (under the src attribute— again, very syntactical so I’m not getting into that), or if you want you can put it in your CSS as an attribute for the property “background-image” (like in the code above).

You’ll have to make minor changes to the share link though, that is, add the image extension (.png or .jpg) to the end of the link. Also, sometimes the image doesn’t render if there’s no ‘i’ preceding ‘imgur.com’. Here’s a sample link that works perfectly: http://i.imgur.com/aSMSztl.png.

And, I think that’s pretty much it.

This covers the absolute basics of how to code HTML/CSS on AO3. But I’d like to repeat that by no means is this everything. If there’s a particular area you’d want me to explain, please feel to drop in an ask!

Happy coding! 

[therealjammy]

The Lady of Half-Death

Hi, hello, posting this here for the Tumblr crowd, in case you don’t feel like venturing to Ao3. 

This work’s alternate title: “Lucky One” 

Content Warnings: Very NSFW, a brief but graphic depiction of violence. (This work is meant for 18+ only!) 

It’s also told in first person POV, the Forbidden Perspective, so sorry if that’s not your jam.... Thank you for reading xx

--

I.

November, 1937

On a bitter November day, early in the morning, I was roused by the tinkling of the bell hanging beside my bed. Being Mother Miranda’s most competent servant, I was long used to a summons during the small hours of the dark. She was night’s creature, bent over her studies and her subjects until a bitter sun lit the sky, almost unaware of time’s passage, while her servants kept in perfect time with every striking hour. I splashed sleep from my features with bitterly cold water from the basin on my dresser and wrapped myself in my warmest robe. I lit a candelabra, savoring its small warmth as I donned my silver mask. It had frightened me at first, how the servants wore these metal things elongated into an elegantly startling bird’s beak, but when serving the Lady of Ravens, one had to know to whom they pledged their loyalty, both inside and outside the house’s grounds. Though the metal was light, it still made one’s head ache after only a few minutes of wear, and was a constant irritation after many hours. But like a pain that was more a nuisance than anything, it was easily set aside.

           I walked quickly through dark hallways and creaking staircases, passing through rooms whose furniture was covered in sheets and rooms whose contents were not. Each was quiet as the long-dead.

           The doors to the laboratory opened on soundless hinges. Inside, there was only a spotlight on the latest occupied table and the stoic figure of Mother Miranda leaning over it, her hands coated in deep crimson, her subject unmoving. Her face was drawn into a deep, displeasured frown.

           “What may I bring you, ma’am?” I asked carefully.

           “Tea, Trudy,” replied Mother Miranda. By the ancient tiredness in her voice, I knew the kind I ought to fetch.

           Staying true to her grief, Mother Miranda had a fondness for black tea, steeped for five minutes to be strong, made stronger with a dollop of Sanguis Virginis, a sweet but robust red wine made by Lady Dimitrescu. She kept the largest bottle for herself, but sent a smaller one to Mother Miranda every winter. The bottle was red and adorned with golden flowers crawling up its sides.

           By the time I brought the fresh tea to her, Mother Miranda’s hands were washed of blood, and the subject on the table was covered with a white sheet, slowly turning scarlet. I set the teacup and candelabra beside her and gave a professional distance.

           “The nature of science,” Mother Miranda said, picking up the teacup, “is to fail again and again.” She held it delicately. There was rage underneath that delicacy. “Every vessel thus far has been unfit, even if it’s accepted the Cadou, and with each unfit one I feel as if I am losing her more.”

           “You might feel like Tantalus, ma’am,” I said after a pause, “with your goals evading your grasp, but I rather think you must be like Orpheus.”

           “Attempt until death,” she murmured. “Yes, child, I believe you’re right.” A long sip of tea. Underneath her golden mask, her pink lips turned a deep red. She set the cup gently in its saucer and rose from her chair, black robes shuffling quietly. “Come. Let us begin anew.”

           I lifted the mutilated subject from the table, wrapping the sheet about her carefully, and carried her fresh limpness to the courtyard with the others. Her cooling blood seeped from the sheet and onto my robes, and it dripped onto the bricks and my feet, leaving a sticky trail. It was cloying, but it was a sweet perfume compared to the rich decay that wafted from the courtyard’s cold soil. In the dark, I saw there was already a space made for her. I lay her carefully in it. A good sacrifice deserved gentleness once the deed was done, after all. In that sense, I was more merciful than Mother Miranda. Once a body was no longer of use, she would carry it out herself and toss them hastily aside, for only one body mattered above the rest.

           “In life and in death,” I said over the grave, “we give glory to Mother Miranda.”

           I sprinkled a handful of dirt over the covered girl and left her to the bitter, near-winter air.

           Inside again, I scrubbed the table twice with soapy water and dried it thoroughly. I lit more candles, placing them around the table’s edges, away from the notes that Mother Miranda spread across the surface. While she organized them, I brewed another pot of tea, bringing it and the gifted bottle of Sanguis Virginis with me. When I had poured my own cup, Mother Miranda gestured to the wine. Pour that in, too. I obeyed without question. Grey eyes watched me drink, unchanging even when I made no face at the taste of wine and blood mixing with strong black tea. I’d learned long ago that reactions caused reactions. I remained impassive, though my stomach still curdled and rebelled at the taste of the sinful wine. To the others—Mother Miranda and Lady Dimitrescu— the wine was a sweet and prized possession. If ever it was sold, it would be incredibly expensive.

           I brought a chair and perched myself next to Mother Miranda. It was always a thrill to be at her side, to study her volumes of notes and drawings and glimpse the way her mind worked. But more than that, I cherished the nights like this, when it was only the two of us. I enjoyed her company. I desired more of it, because I desired her. At times I believed she knew this, but then she would dismiss me so easily, brush by without a care, and I’d question if she knew at all.

           Attraction, I reminded myself, was a science, too, and like an experiment gone horribly wrong, it was best if one didn’t share the results.

           I cleared my throat and straightened in my chair. “We should begin where this one failed,” I said. “Pinpoint a reason, compare it to the rest.”

           We pored over notes for hours, comparing observations, Mother Miranda writing furiously in her looping scrawl underneath a page titled Quinn. The candles burned low, and the sky lightened outside the laboratory’s several windows, revealing a cold, white-filled dawn.

           “The conclusion is painfully obvious,” Mother Miranda sighed at last, pushing her nearly empty teacup aside. It’d turned cold hours ago. “I must find a truly unique vessel. The village is rotting with diluted blood and therefore cannot be used again. Three of the Lords—those children!—were ones I found outside. Diluted in other ways, perhaps, but strong enough.”

           “Yet you declared them all unfit,” I remarked.

           “Because they were too much,” Mother Miranda said stiffly, “and the rest have been too little. They served their miserable purpose and now I must find yet another clean slate! And to think I’d chosen so carefully…” A hand curled into a fist, clenched improperly due to taloned fingertips.

           “Send me to the field, Mother Miranda,” I said. “I will search for you.” But it was the wrong thing to say, for her other hand darted quickly out and knocked her teacup and saucer from the table. They shattered on the floor, black-red tea pooling around their remains.

           “Do not be dim, child; it cannot be done by you. It must be me.” She paused for a long moment, coming back to herself with a single, sharp shake of her head. “Please,” Mother Miranda said around a breath, “forgive my outburst.” She moved smoothly to the shattered teacup just as I did. We knelt out of time but reached for the same piece, her gold-plated fingers brushing my bare ones, sending a brief, hot shock through my being that ended in my chest.

           “You need never ask my forgiveness, Mother Miranda,” I said, slowly withdrawing my hand and reaching for a different piece. “A woman in grief doesn’t know her own actions.” And it was her grief, I thought then, that made my heart ache for her. That made everyone’s hearts ache for her. Mother lost a child, they’d say. No greater tragedy exists. We must be kind.

           “Grief is some people’s undoing,” Mother Miranda said. She had stopped picking up shards of teacup, a few pieces cradled in a hand. Her gaze was on the puddle of bloody, wine-soaked tea. “It festers like a splinter left in too long, or a piece of metal unable to be dislodged, and it consumes, until its host perishes with it. I’ve known it for many stretches, but rather than give myself to despair, I have chosen determination; for the parasite cannot fully live while its host fights it. So fight I must.”

           Her face was a pale reflection on the tea’s surface.

 II.

The next morning, a snowy one, Mother Miranda went for a walk. In her absence, her rule passed to me, and then to the Head Housemaid Vera, a stout older woman who kept the other servants in strict line. I was, however, only consulted for advice or for orders. Other than that, I was blessedly alone, a spectre haunting the laboratory while I organized Mother Miranda’s notes and gave into my own musings, letting my mind take up the cluttered space. Many things ran through it: thoughts of my former life, of the people I’d once seen and never would again, and if I followed that line, I knew exactly how I’d come to be here. Sitting alone in a tepid laboratory, surrounded by paper, rotting with attraction.

           It’d been there from the beginning, for there was always attraction to a leader, and many reasons behind it. People were attracted to safety and to comfort, to promises and protection, but highest of all, a deity that preached all the above. People backed off their words more often than they gave in to them, but a deity never would; their word was given and kept. It was learned, it was ingrained, and so like everyone else, I held that same attraction. I gazed upon the same likenesses of Mother Miranda and prayed for protection, for strength. I prayed to one day work for her—the highest blessing of all!—and that prayer was answered. She came to my door in all her godly glory and the paintings held no candle to her real beauty.

           The attraction molted once I’d begun to work for her properly. She was aloof and cruel and methodical, but there was talent and beauty, too, and soon enough I began to realize there was a person underneath the deity. And it was the person whom I thought of, now, wondering where her walk was taking her, who she was talking to, what she was thinking. I imagined her underneath a cold white sky, ashy flakes of snow sticking to her black robes and veil, the harsh, mountainous landscape reflecting her own desolation back at her.

           I thought, as I filed the last of the notes away, that I would make her return easier. Oftentimes her walks changed her mood; one never knew the sort she’d bear when she walked through the doors. It could be the silent sort of rage, during which she’d seal the doors of her laboratory shut and refuse to emerge for days, or the one where she’d return with a deadly ice in her eyes and drag the nearest servant by the wrist to her chambers. Sometimes they’d be alive and shuffle from the room with their clothes barely on; other times there was an unfortunate mess to clear away.

           During my luncheon, I called Vera to me and ordered the most frequented rooms be given a thorough cleaning, excluding the laboratory and Mother Miranda’s bathroom.

           “And her dinner?” asked Vera, once she’d given the orders to four maids. “Something comforting, I assume, as the latest loss is still ripe in the courtyard.”

           “Yes,” I agreed. “A shepherd’s pie with marmite in the gravy, and the bottle of Sanguis Virginis.”  

           “Very good, Miss Bevan.” Vera bowed her head and left.

           I went over the bathroom myself, being careful to put every object in its proper place. I drew a bath, the water unbearably hot, but by the time Mother Miranda returned, it would be perfect.

           I loitered for a long while in the bathroom’s silence, sat on the chessboard floor, gazing out the window to the snow-covered hills, the occasional drip, drip of the tub’s taps serenading me into a trance, filled with visions of blonde hair and grey-blue eyes and impeccable hands.

           I wasn’t the first to think of her in this light. Far from it. Worship came in many forms, after all, and many people fell to this one. Except mine was to the woman I knew, not to the idol emblazoned on a shrine dangling from a peeling wall.

           Unable to think of nothing but the bathroom’s suddenly stifling heat and the absent Mother Miranda, I left, unaware of where I was going until I collapsed on the chair I’d occupied earlier, everything about me aching for someone who saw me only as a servant in high regard—but a servant nonetheless. The fact, I thought, unbuttoning my uniform enough to feel cool air caress my chest, made me desire her all the more.

           I propped a shoed foot on the seat’s corner to give myself better access and began my pleasure gently, my head falling against the back of the chair once the rhythm was established, my free hand indecisive on where it wanted to stay—a breast, the chair’s edge, the table; at least until my mind offered me a vision of Mother Miranda ordering me, from between my thighs, to keep it planted firmly on the chair’s edge. There it stayed while my other moved, and behind my closed eyes I saw a skilled tongue working me up, teasing, licking slowly as if to claim ownership to even that part of me; I saw intense eyes meeting my own, telling me to give myself over; in my mind I whispered my glory to her. I twitched erratically, my movements almost clumsy; a few moments more and I’d be tumbling into the blissful void—or would have, had I not heard the door open and the familiar, near-silent movement of the woman living in my head.

           The silence that beat between us lasted only a moment and yet it felt like centuries. Mother Miranda’s eyes narrowed to deadly slits, and before I could manage to stumble out an explanation, she strode to me in five heavy steps.

           “You dare defile this space with your musings?” Mother Miranda hissed, her grip on my wrist vicelike. “Do you not know how ill I find this gesture? How ill it makes me to think you care naught for the meaning of this room?” Claws slashed at my cheek, the first sting of it only surprise at first; it burned when I realized she’d cut flesh. I felt blood welling, but I could not bring a hand up to staunch its flow. Nor could I staunch the fresh wave of heat that pooled in my core at Mother Miranda’s fury. Cold eyes darted from my still-wet hand to my face. Mother Miranda scoffed, roughly releasing my wrist. “Attraction is a damned wicked creature,” she said. “It morphs perspective and thought. It makes one act rashly, makes one believe they’re subtle. You think I’ve not seen your lingering gazes, child? How you bask in my company the way you would underneath the sun? How you are afraid of my rage but it arouses you all the same?” She chuckled lightly, dragging gold-tipped fingers over my cheek, the metal blessedly cool against my heated skin. Having spent so much time in close quarters with this woman, I was no longer terrified by the talons. Their scraping made the coil in my belly curl tighter, and if she were to slip bare fingers against me, she would find me all too ready for her. I met her eyes with a steely look of my own, hoping she wouldn’t see shame, but Mother Miranda was wise in ways I couldn’t fathom. She saw through people as if they were cheesecloth.

           She hummed, fingers roving lower, tracing my pulse hammering in my throat. “Is there any shame about you, Trudy? I should think so, as you are not my equal.” Moving lower still, to the buttons I hadn’t undone, hovering like she wished to tear them—and perhaps she did, for her hand gave a small twitch. “I am higher than you will ever be, yet you stand here, gazing at me so defiantly, trembling with your want of me… Do you think it will make you rise to my level?”

           Her words were fog clouding the forests of my brain. I could think of nothing but how I wanted to serve her, to fall to my knees and pledge fealty, even if it was sworn with her hand guiding my mouth between her thighs. I said, “No, Mother Miranda.”

           “No, indeed. But,” a taloned thumb slid over my lower lip, “it’ll bring me pleasure to see you try.”

           When she kissed me, it was with a slowness that one could believe was care, but I sensed the possession. I opened my mouth to it, leaned into it, every nerve alight at the thrill of kissing someone I had once dreamed of serving under. Her hands drew me close to her, splaying across my back, bunching up my uniform, and her kisses became rougher, filled with need. I met every one with a need of my own, my shaking fingers undoing the rest of the buttons down my front. The movement caught Mother Miranda’s eye; she pulled back, her gaze intense, the color high in her cheeks, watching intently as the top half of my uniform parted and revealed bare skin. She reached out, two fingers gliding smoothly over my collarbones, my sternum, tracing the swell of a breast; gooseflesh rose in the touches’ wake, and my breathing trembled.

           “You are practically untouched,” Mother Miranda said quietly. There was, to her, no greater sin than a specimen that remained unstudied and uncatalogued.

          ��“Only practically, Mother Miranda,” I returned.

           She leaned down, burying her face against my bloodied neck. Lips pressed softly, tongue lapping slowly— tasting me. “Have you not known love?” she said. “Or devotion?”

           “Fleetingly.” There was the blacksmith, Cristian, in whose strong arms I felt safe. There was Tatiana, who made me feel at peace even after our desperate acts. But with this life, they were fleeting. To serve one of the Lords or Mother Miranda herself, it was until death. “The only devotion I know,” I continued, my voice growing thinner the lower her mouth travelled, “is to you.”

           Mother Miranda hummed against my chest. “You worshipped well, then, Trudy,” she said, rising, taking my chin between two fingers and tilting my face up to hers, “but what of now? How shall you prove your worth to me?”

           I grasped her unoccupied hand and pressed it against my breast, holding it there. I wanted her to feel it, to feel my heart underneath it, to know she could reach in and take it because I offered it to her. “Take what you will,” I said.

           What was left of her resolve crumbled. Mother Miranda swept me into her arms with a low growl, lifting me as easily as she would a child and setting me hastily onto the table we’d cleaned the night before. Impatient fingers worked the rest of my clothes away. She tossed them aside and pressed me into the cold wood, impossibly dark eyes drinking me in, lingering on my neck, my breasts, my thighs. Places I hoped she would kiss. Places she did, in that order, her mouth untamed, leaving harsh love-marks behind. Throughout that act, she didn’t once touch me; I was strung so tightly that even one finger tracing me would’ve been my undoing. It was a sort of torturous study, I realized, clamping my tongue between my teeth when it nearly made me beg for release; she was seeing me as a case, testing my own resolve. How long could she make me wait before I begged forgiveness? Time ceased to exist. I could not tell how long she made me hang.

           When she finally did touch me, I was relieved. Instead of a sigh, a long whimper escaped my mouth. Mother Miranda groaned in response, her fingers twitching and pausing against me, surprised at the slick want they found. Her second touch was heavier, more confident. My hands couldn’t help but cling to the back of her neck, which was covered by a thick cotton veil. I realized I’d touched her without her consent, but when I made to pull away, her free hand came to rest over both of mine, and together we slid the veil from her head.

           Blonde hair, a darker gold in the dim light of the laboratory, fanned around her face, gracing my bare forearms, soft as silk. Without the veil, it was tantamount to seeing her naked.

           “Cling to me,” Mother Miranda breathed.

           It was as much permission as I was going to receive.

           I buried my hands in her hair and leaned up to kiss her. I accepted her tongue when it slipped between my teeth. I opened for her when, at last, she slid fingers inside me.

           And when she truly took me, she devoured me, sprinkling evidence of her use across any expanse of skin she could reach, uncaring if teeth dug in too much, if my back was rubbed raw from the wooden table, if her golden talons left angry scratches. I clung harshly to her during my crisis, my cries only winding her further, for when I was barely limp, she withdrew entirely and carried me to her own chamber. Deposited on her bed, I watched through bliss-filled eyes as she undressed.

           Black robes pooled at her feet. In the blue-white moonlight, she was harshly ethereal. Everything about her seemed to glow, including her eyes. And sprouting from her back were five pairs of midnight wings. I wanted to catalogue it as a dream, a delusion caused by a mind still recovering from an intense crisis, but the wings, like Mother Miranda’s arms and legs, were very much a part of her.

           “Look while you can,” she said. “Commit it to memory, for true revelations are rarely given so freely.”

           She stood for study, allowing me to take in every inch. My eyes lingered where hers had lingered on me.

           “Do you reject me, Trudy?” she questioned softly.

           “No, Mother Miranda,” I replied. I offered her my hand. “I’d fall to my knees in prayer if I were not otherwise occupied.”

           She accepted my hand and leaned over me on her bed, naked and otherworldly, and in my long, exquisite worship of her, I met death eye to eye and thought there would never be another equal.

[cafffine]

Hey guys, I’ve decided to stop publishing Saltcoats for a number of reasons. I'm aware that many of you are going to initially be let down or confused, but hopefully once you’ve read through this post you’ll understand why this had to stop. I’ll try to hit all my points, but of course if you have any questions pls feel free to dm me or reply to this post.

DISCLAIMER: Ending this fic was a decision I came to by myself! No one asked me to do this, though many did help, and if you have something to add please do not bring other tumblr or ao3 users into the conversation unless they’ve explicitly said they’re ok with that. It’s a draining and heavy topic (not to me, but for those affected) and I don’t want to cause anymore unneeded distress.

Also, I’m the only author, all the problems with this story were created by me, and were biases I should have recognized and acted on much sooner. I’m very thankful to all the people that have reached out to me about the negative impacts on this fic, but it really does come down to: I wrote and published a story that was fundamentally ignorant of its setting and racist. So now I have to do my part to apologize and educate myself/take accountability.

First off, this was a flawed concept to begin with because I was trying to do a low fantasy setting with aliens in period clothes and a work of historical fiction at the same time, and those are not things you can go halfway on.

Historical fiction that centers around people of color has a long history of simply going race-blind and faking diversity by giving poc the roles of white people in Eurocentric stories and erasing their identities. (This article about Bridgerton explains the problem better than I could.) And it was something I tried to avoid by still having the Fetts written as immigrants from Aotearoa (NZ), but completely missed the execution on because I didn’t commit to full historical accuracy in all characters and aspects of the story. Meaning, I might as well have gone race-blind because you can’t pick and choose what to include, it’s just as racist.

This creates situations like the Fetts being immigrants facing real life oppression while the Organas, also people of color, are unaffected by the social climate and living as members of the British upper class. That’s not accurate to any version of history and ends up wiping clean any point I was trying to make about race and oppression. That also extends beyond the Fetts, I was not addressing how the american characters come from a country that still allows for the ownership of slaves, the British oppression of Scottish people and their culture, or even an in-depth look at real Queer communities of that era. (and more)

Given the real life historical climate in the 1850s, a multi-racial story like this one is not successful, and is racist in its ignorance of the struggles of poc, immigrants, and the intersectionality that had with class and crime.

In addition, the Fetts being written as criminals, even if it is framed as a morally correct choice*, is still playing into negative racial stereotypes that shouldn’t have been ignored.

* I should add, I don’t mean to make it sound like i’m creating excuses for myself when I give explanations for some of these choices such as “but it was framed as morally correct”, that doesn’t lessen the damage being done, it’s still racist, I guess I'm just trying to show why so many of these things went overlooked for as long as they did, and how easy it is for white/privileged people to find mental loopholes around racism when you’re not being sufficiently critical of yourself.

On another note, the Fetts being indigenous immigrants to Britain in the 1800s is not something I should have tried to tackle in fanfiction - a medium that often lacks nuance and can easily end up romanticizing or glossing over most heavy topics. This goes for period typical homophobia, addiction, and class struggles as well.

That being said! I’m not implying that any of those things should be completely ignored in fanfiction. Addiction, for example, is something very close to me that I do still want to explore in fanfic for the purposes of education and normalization, I’m not telling anyone what not to write, just checking myself. Because in a story like this where literally everything is so heavily dramatized and also applied to characters of color by me, a white person? It’s only going to end up being out of place, lacking in historical accuracy, and wholly disrespectful.

Another major problem I wanted to address is the relationship between a rich white person and a poverty stricken poc. That's a bad stereotype to begin with, but then I tried and failed to frame Obi-Wan as ignorant and biased to a point where his social status plays into the theme of class critique. But, if he’s still being written as Cody’s love interest, all his negative characteristics are ultimately going to be ignored and excused by the narrative (by me).

I’m not trying to end this conversation, I’ll always be willing to talk about this to anyone who’d want to say/hear more, but I don’t want run the point into the ground with over-explanation.

So, in conclusion, this fic had to stop and be broken down into the problem that it was. All white authors who write for the clones need to be hyper-vigilant about the fact that we are creating narratives for poc, and that our inherent racism is always in threat of being baked into in the stories we publish and spread to an audience. I was in the wrong when I wrote this story, and it should never have gone on for this long. I apologize for both my actions, and to anyone I may have hurt along the way.

This is getting posted on ao3 in the fic, and then, for now anyway, the fic is going to be deleted after a week. I’ll leave this post up and answer everyone unless it's someone trying to change my mind. Also, if I ignore an ask please send it again, tumblr might just have deleted it. I don’t want to try and bury this or run from my mistakes, I just don’t think that leaving the fic up where it can still find an audience will do anyone any good. Thank you for reading

If you're interested here's some resources I've been using to educate myself further:

What caused the New Zealand Wars? - An excerpt of the book by Vincent O'Malley of the same title. It gives a good summary of the violent colonization and oppression of Māori people and their culture by the British empire.

NZ Wars: Stories of Waitara (video) - Very educational documentary about the NZ wars and British colonialism. There are some historical recreations that get violent so pls watch with caution.

Historical American Fiction without the Racism - Tumblr post by @/writingwithcolor that talks specifically about Black people in the 1920's, but makes a good point about race and historical fiction in general. I'd recommend any post from this blog, especially their navigation page just a lot of great resources

Who Gave You the Right to Tell That Story? - An article about writing outside of your race that includes a diverse series of testimonials

History of Scottish Independence - Details the colonization of Scotland by the British empire, sort of long, can cntrl + f to "The Acts of Union" for a more direct explanation.

The best books on Racism and How to Write History - A list of well written and diverse works of historical fiction and why they are good examples of representation

I have a lot more that I can share if you're interested (x x x x) but this post is getting a bit too long.

[bybdolan]

i can't find your ramblings on swifties, but I'd love to read it if you want to elaborate here, or screen shot it? i feel like it's been building since the yntcd mv to miss americana doc period of time. the disappointment of her aligning herself as lgbt in the mv, the song comparing her haters to suffering homophobia, the lack of blm effort after her apparent political awakening... that development was when i started to notice it on tumblr, at least

The word "ramble" was maybe a bit overstated, given that it was more or less just me pointing out that it's a thing that happens, but I am very glad you are asking me this because I have a lot of thoughts! If nobody else will write an essay on this, it might as well be me.

I think the groundwork for the fandom crumbling was already laid in rep era – not because of anything Taylor did, but because of the fandom: Every small criticism of Taylor was called "hate" and I think the idea of "good" vs "bad" fan really developed during that time. And the protectiveness makes sense after everything that happened during 2016 and it only increased after Taylor went more in-depth on her mental health struggles during Lover promo, but it also created a big divide in the fandom and made it a fairly hostile place.

Speaking of Lover: I agree with you that that was the era where a lot of people fell out of love with her a bit. From the lead single to whatever YNTCD was, to her "political awakening" shtick: There were a lot of things going on in that era that people found questionable, and this lack of general hype for the album led to even more fandom fights (I will keep bringing up the fandom because I think it's an extension of the artist and very connected to how we view them). I think what you said about the political aspects of that era is 100% accurate – it's ironic that fans critizised her more for little political action after Miss Americana than most of them did when she wasn't political at all, but it also makes sense: if you make being politically outspoken a huge part of your marketing and therefore profit off of it and then don't do much in that regard, people are going to call bullshit. To be fair to her: She didn't do nothing and a celebrity of her caliber has to rethink every move in that regard, but I think the frustration is justified, ESPECIALLY when Taylor is quick to tweet about problems concerning herself (see: that Ginny and Georgia tweet, which I don't want to talk about much because it makes me sigh – but as a side note: The fandom can be vicious and racist and homophobic and I think Taylor not commenting on that has upset people). And what I said about celebrities rethinking every move gets a bit sour to me when remembering that she is in a movie with that O'Russell guy. Very defensive fans have a point when they say that people expect a lot from Taylor, and obviously she can't be perfect, but Taylor did feed into those expectations when making a documentary about not feeling muzzled anymore etc. (There goes the loudest woman this town has ever seen.) A rich white lady shouldn't necessarily be looked at for political guidance, however, she has power and her using her voice has proven to be very effective, and I think fans are disappointed she doesn't use it more often (+ for causes not benefiting herself).

Which brings us to her "capitalist girlboss agenda" that some people take issue with and that I already touched on: Taylor is very proud of her marketing strategies and knowing how to make money. She loves being a businesswoman, and it is admirable that she has been so active in her own management since she was very young, but it's something that clashes with her authenticity and accessibility a lot of fans cherish. I think we all know why she cut out her fan interactions and I personally think it is for the better, however, the tactics that took the place of those interactions are a bit "uuuh" to many. I think this is also where the generation gap of the fandom comes in: Taylor has fans her age that grew up with her, but she also has very young fans and the marketing strategies aimed at the latter don't necessarily go over well with the former. But this just as a side note. I think the introduction of Easter Eggs is a noteworthy moment in fandom history given how big of a part they now play in interacting with Taylor. And it's a fun idea, but there is the issue of the fandom taking it very far and Easter Eggs not leading to anything (1989 TV says hi). It's frustrating to many to not know when a single or an album will be released, and it is tiring to not be able to view anything she posts normally because most likely, it's a hint to something, or at least fans will act like it is. Fans are always used to drive up sales and engagement, as are personal instagram posts, but it is jarring to see it become so overt. I do genuinely believe the Easter Eggs were supposed to be fun for the fans at first, as are the vault thingies, but with the level of marketing and self-mythologization attached to it, it feels cold and sterile. Add that to the insanely high prices for boring merch and debacles like the "digitally signed" CD and you have yourself a recipe for fan disappointment. Taylor has branded herself as her fans' best friend for long, and because she is quirky and weird and often not too polished it worked – but it's not what she wants anymore, and she deserves nothing more than her privacy, but a fan used to genuine engagement with her is going to be taken aback by the new marketing strategies. There ARE ways to be private while still feeling personal in your branding (see Lorde's emails) but Taylor's team didn't want to go down that route apparently.

With all that being said: Taylor's happiness and her being content with her life is more important than whatever I get out of her and her music, and she remains one of the greatest songwriters of our generation – nobody can take that away. And I am sure that many fans will roll their eyes at this post because they still love her like they did when they first discovered her, and I am very happy for them and happy that Taylor has fans that loyal, but this post serves as an attempt to analyse shifts in the fandom that I have noticed over the past few years. I also think it's worth noting that once you start focusing on the negative aspects of something those negative things start jumping out to you, and it's important to maybe step back and focus on the good aspects once in a while – a lot of which I didn't mention because this is not what this post is about. But they are there, and I think the love for Taylor's music can easily sustain even when interest in her as a person fades.

[covenlegacy]

Hello! Sorry for making it seem like a marvel universe theory but I need answers. It's about Kim thv fs. One of the first tarot reader I saw on yt( Sirius blu3) said he will get her pregnant and then the transformation will take place and she will become more assured and dominant of a person( It makes me think the girl is young). Matrix of life yt channel talks about her coming from a rich family and using his influence to gain financially. Here on tumblr blog going by the name himecherri confirmed there are two person and they might be tf of each other💀. And submissive bangtan talked about fans reaction to this couple. She said media will portray tgv in a more dominant position. You also talk about a self assured person.is the journey of one person or there may be two?Idk if I treat it as a ff but I have grown a soft spot for the younger person. What do you think?

Firstly, the big word transformation can overtake a person at any age. It doesn't happen once in a lifetime. This happens several times. According to my notes, where there is nothing to destroy, there is nothing to build.

Secondly - reading cards, angels, and signs, age and education of people. I said it all has to do with it.

Also, if you put everything together, then for me there is nothing surprising. After these fortune-tellings, it took about several years? A person can change or begin to change in a day. Literally from one call or SMS.

In general, I believe in my cards. He is monogamous, and his wife will be one. Despite the fact that he quite thoroughly approaches the decision to start a family, he will fight to the last, all his alleged "second wives" will already become adults.

Thirdly, the birth of a child is a mental loss for a girl. Collossal dimensions. Plus, it is not known what happened during childbirth, before childbirth, and so on. The mental is already shaken by hormones during pregnancy. Considering the fan frenzy, the possible antics, all the contingencies...

She can become tougher, dominant, domineering. In fact, she will simply become a mother, and she will need to become such in order to prevent the child from growing up on her own. This is psychology.

When you become rich, you want to become even richer. Does using Taehyung to achieve big finances apply here if they are a family with a shared budget lol?

I also said (very early) that Taehyung loves society and its opinion of himself, and will always support the image “I'm in charge in this house” in public - ideality, though. A man is a breadwinner, and his wife, obediently and lovingly looking into his mouth.

Well, these are just my guesses.

And now to the cards - he will have one official wife / registration of documents.

And a bunch of scandals about relationships / marriage. About mistresses, about everything in the world, about his wild lifestyle. And for all this he will have to explain himself to his wife.

+

I forgot to say that just the very meeting with tehyung can plunge her into the abyss of the dark hour. Do you know what transformation is? It's like in the old movies werewolves turned, changing their likeness. It breaks your personality to smithereens, and on the wreckage you build something stronger to survive the next "transformation". This is pain, grief, disappointment, betrayal, everything you can imagine, and when you experience them, you say "enough", I don't want to suffer from this, pull yourself together. Then you get out of it.

A trifle usually does not come out of it... Well, you understand.

I did and do readings only on request. I didn't go into much of her personality, but it could very well be that, yes, she was a "completely different person". Perhaps something is happening to her, and she is changing now, at the moment.

It is also not worth denying that she could have infantile, childish behavior and a view of the world and things. If we take the fact that she can be from a wealthy family (again, what is in the concept of a given person who did reading is wealth), then everything basically converges. She was a rake, she burned through and lived her life (here it may also be the fact that she could be raised just as a home girl), then something happened, and she ceased to be like that.

When making layouts, many often do not think that people can change, and much. They believe in angels, but they cannot believe that a person can go through all four elements in his incarnation and reach something completely new.

Because they do not have such an environment, they simply did not see it.