#also i would have put a 'read more' but i'm doing this on mobile 😬

[creatingblackcharacters]

possibly stupid questions ahead bc i want to write black characters well and feel i don't have a lot to go off of. first, when describing my main protagonist getting ready, im unsure how to describe her hair and havent read anything i think describing explicitly textured black hair so idk if "fluffing" it or "shapely" are good or ok words: "She puts on a bright pink headband, fluffs up her red-dyed bangs, and fixes up the rest of her dark hair, meticulously checking every angle to make sure it's neat and shapely."

she has a natural hairstyle with the front part dyed red and kept shorter in front like bangs and the rest kept a bit more back w a headband, small afro, idk how to describe natural hair as well for writing ^^;

second, i have some background planned for her. her dad has passed away when she was young, and is Black; and his side of the family has kinda lost contact fully with this main character. her mom is white and hispanic and hasn't been as present since his passing. i have a friend who is Black and adopted by a white hispanic family and would want to ask for advice on this specific dynamic and this is a close friend so i could probably just ask them, but for a couple other characters i plan, one who is Jamaican American and has a closer relationship with her family and helps this main character get more in touch with some Black American culture like doing her hair in a different way too and exploring protective hairstyles and finding community and talking about racism the main character experiences from her own extended family and sometimes her mom, i want to ask generally my friends for advice on what to explore with this and for feedback on stuff i write, but am unsure how to reach out. i worry asking someone directly if we're not super close may be putting them on the spot and be weird, but also unsure if i should make a post on my story asking anyone who wants to contribute to let me know (and could open that up to ask if anyone can help give advice on other characters, like one who uses a mobility aid, etc experiences i dont have and want to do justice in my portrayal). im leaning towards the latter, asking generally who wants to reach out, and directly reaching out to my close friend about their experience with transracial adoption. any advice on this is super appreciated, i love this account so so much thank you!!

Well first, what would help you is reading books that DO explicitly describe Black hair! The best way to know is to learn, and there are plenty of books with Black authors that will teach you new ways of describing our hair. Take the time to study your craft! But fluffing your afro is fine.

As for your second scenario: if you're actually good friends with them, asking them might be a way to build a better relationship! If y'all have never talked about race or their own cultures, it may be a sign they don't think you are all that concerned. So just genuinely ask them for help, like "hey I want to write this story but I don't want to be offensive. No pressure, but could I have a conversation with you about your experiences?"

That said, yeah they're not just "resources for your blorbos" so, you have to actually care about knowing about them if you want a genuine relationship, with your research coming second. This means not getting defensive when they tell you something you may not have heard before about yourself or your normal worldview- squash the fragility! This is also a good time to reflect on how much you value your friends, and if you even want deeper relationships or do you just want their identity. Which... 😬

But you can always just get a Black sensitivity or beta reader. I'm always saying this, but it's true lol. There are people who answer these questions and do this work! And y'all don't gotta be buddies! You don't have to find some random person and badger them about their life! Find or research Black Latinos who talk about their experiences. And as for the post, I don't see why not 🤷🏾‍♀️ but if you don't get as much feedback as you like, recognize that you're going to have to dig yourself. Becoming a more knowledgeable person isn't a passive process, it's not always just going to come to you because you asked.

[tardytothepardy]

So um for some reason the main thing about ACOSF that my brain refuses to let go of (and stop being angry about) is that whole pregnancy thing with Feyre and Rhysand. It's probably been thoroughly discussed at this point, I don't know, I wasn't part of the fandom when the book came out.

But everything about it bothers me so freaking much.

There's the overarching thing of the unreasonably* massive age gap between Feyre and Rhys, of more than 500 years (which isn't exclusive to them, I know, I don't feel any better about it being a thing with Nesta and Cassian, or the potential of Elain being with either Lucien or Azriel because of that gap), but there's also just the main thing I'm trying to stay focused on: the fact that Rhysand hid vital information about Feyre, from her. Information about her body, her pregnancy, her(their, I guess) child, her LIFE, for fuck's sake. And the excuse was that they didn't want her to worry about it?? I know that stress can affect your body in weird and complex ways, which is the last thing you would want with a pregnancy that has already presented itself with complications, but really?

Like, no, if Feyre had known earlier, it's not like she could have waved her hand and made it all be okay (unless Maas wanted to wave away the problem), but she still should have known! It is a massive failing on Rhysand's part to have not told her much beyond "there might be complications". She trusted that he was telling the truth, and he betrayed that trust.

Then there was the whole thing with the barrier that Rhysand put on Feyre. I don't remember if that was a thing that she agreed on, that he told her about, but she could undo it herself, right?? Please tell me that there is canonical evidence saying that, if for whatever reason Feyre didn't want the barrier on her anymore, she could take it off herself, because if not, there's a whole new reason for me to not like Rhysand. Like at that point, how is that action any better than what Tamlin did to her in ACOMAF? I suppose that the difference is that Tamlin trapped her in a house, but Rhysand personally barred her from any and all physical contact that he was personally uncomfy with.

In the book, the behavior was waved away with him being ultra protective over Feyre because they're mates and stuff, but that's just not enough for me. That's probably just a personal thing, but I can't just be calmed with "oh yea this extremely aggressive and possessive behavior is just totally normal 🤪 it's all good."

Part of the reason I don't like him very much has some to do with how he was portrayed in ACOSF. One of the things I actually liked about that book is that it wasn't from the perspective of a character that absolutely loved and adored him like Feyre's POV. Unfortunately that also means that he came off like a massive asshole to Nesta at any and every moment he could. (Yes, she was rude to him plenty as well, I'm aware) One of those moments was when he saw that Gwyn and Emerie were joining Nesta in her training, and he threatened Nesta to not do anything bad to Gwyn, as if Nesta wasn't the REASON why Gwyn and Emerie were there in the first place! It's like the idea of Nesta being nice to anyone was an impossibility simply because she was abrasive towards him. He never apologized for that behavior, I don't think. (Similarly, we didn't see Rhysand apologizing to Feyre about hiding info from her. I know it happened, but it was mentioned in passing. I would have liked it to be a more in-your-face thing, because it really shouldn't be glossed over)

The one apologizing was Nesta, for revealing that information about Feyre, to Feyre. She should not have apologized, I feel. She was completely right to tell her. Were her motives great? No, she was angry, lashing out, aiming to hurt, but what she said is nothing to apologize for. Feyre said that herself when talking to Cassian about it later. She said she was glad Nesta told her, and that she could rely on her sister to tell her the truth. I really feel like there should have been a scene of Feyre saying that directly to Nesta, though, because we know, as the readers, but she doesn't.

I just,, I don't understand how what Rhysand did was a thing at all. Why put that in the story at all? (Further, why have the pregnancy have complications in the first place? Storywriters do know they can write a pregnancy without major, life threatening complications, right?) Surely Maas doesn't want Rhysand to be a bad guy, as much as I've seen people on here say that he's one of her favorite characters. Actions such as the ones he took in ACOSF don't provide depth to him, for me. There's already depth to him, this just makes him come off as a bad partner who is willing to let his partner die in fear and confusion rather than allowing her to process the information for herself. (I say "die" because everyone thought she was going to die, not that he would kill her or neglect her purposefully in some way that would directly lead to her death)

I don't think I have a point or a solution to any of this, but it's just something that has consistently bothered me about ACOSF, and it's probably been discussed to death and back already because the book has been out for almost a year now.

*I say unreasonably because really, what is the point of any of them being as old as they are? The ages of Rhysand, Azriel, and Cassian (and Mor and Amren, for that matter) haven't really been useful for the story very much. Like, Cassian and Mor (I think) mentioned in ACOSF that they knew the Valkyries when they were around, but that's all I can really remember about it. There doesn't need to be a point or reason for everything, but I want to think there is a reason pertaining to the plot for why these characters are so vastly older than their LIs. Just a crumb of reason for why Rhysand's soulmate isn't even 25 when he's over 500 (Cassian too, for that matter). It's weird. I don't like it. (The age gap thing is the same reason why I didn't like "Twilight")

[glittertrail]

I posted 12.953 times in 2021

112 posts created (1%)

12841 posts reblogged (99%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 114.7 posts.

I added 251 tags in 2021

#replies - 68 posts

#personal - 46 posts

#never ending playlist - 42 posts

#attachment - 22 posts

#about both of them - 18 posts

#thanks for the ask🥰💖 - 12 posts

#prev tags - 11 posts

#about leon - 11 posts

#psoh feels - 11 posts

#aquarius - 10 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#also i grew up on arepas and they are okay but ppl in my home country can't fathom how can i survive not having one for breakfast every day

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

que el mcu en español se traduzca a ucm nunca me dejara de hacer gracia

11 notes • Posted 2021-11-10 19:40:17 GMT

#4

Tag 9 people you want to get to know better

thanks for the tag @gardenarcana (i'm sorry i hadn't seen this before)

favorite color: pink and aquamarine

currently reading: her body and other parties by carmen maria machado and all of the drabbles @junosjukebox has written in the last idk month or so?

last song you listened to: crush by seventeen

last series: rewatching the nanny for the 5th thousandth time because comfort show

last movie: french dispatch

savory, sweet or spicy: sweet

cravings: chocolate and pad thai

currently working on: the december's social calendar from hell and recovery related things

No pressure Tags: @sapphicfolch @violet-amore @stephanieschildren @msaudreyanne @woodswit (or anyone else that wants to do this ofc)

12 notes • Posted 2021-11-12 23:50:24 GMT

#3

this probably matters zero bc i always have a 300 post queue but if we're mutuals and you wonder why I'm ignoring your posts and have suddenly not been annoying, i just refuse to waste my data plan on tumblr till the wifi at home gets fixed

13 notes • Posted 2021-11-29 18:19:34 GMT

#2

I was tagged by @aquafinha to do this (thank you Katie🥰💖)

1. Why did you choose your url?:

for a long time my personal brand was the friend that loved glitter vfx and makeup in general, ofc i would go all out and leave trails of glitter everywhere lmao also i like having a url that is recognizable but not fandom affiliated

2. Any side blogs?:

yes lmao so many but the active ones are only @ellavaday for rpdr stuff, @ccantaloup for cute animal videos food and reminders to be kind to yourself (it is where a lot of... not particularly good stuff used to be documented and instead of deleting it i decided to rebrand it and keep it as a reminder to myself) and @ateneawrites for fic writing (this one's a baby and it's brand new bc i haven't written for fun in a good 6 years, i'm rusty but definitely having fun at least)

3. How long have you been on tumblr?:

2010ish

4. Do you have a queue tag?:

nope, y'all gotta figure out if i'm online or not by yourselves lmao (it's not hard i usually blog a lot of things in a row when i'm online vs one post every half an hour when i'm not)

5. Why did you start your blog in the first place?:

i had just moved to a new continent and didn't have many friends and was bored

6. Why did you choose your icon/pfp?:

because i lost my old one😭 i put a cute pic of a ghost for halloween and lost the one i had before of a bottle shaped like a heart that said poison 😔 the one i currently have just looked okay with the no header look i like on mobile

7. Why did you choose your header?:

i don't like the look of headers 😬

8. What’s your post with the most notes?:

in this blog? It's buried bc this blog is old as sin but it's either a post about leon orcot from psoh or effie trinket from thg, rn it's a screenshot of choriza may's last look on the rpdr runway because this might not be the drag race blog but the stickers of a peach with "chocho" written on it definitely belongs to this blog lmao

9. How many mutuals do you have?:

probably about a hundred-ish but i am not sure since the rpdr blog is quite more popular than my main

10. How many followers do you have?:

this blog has about 1.1k and the drag race blog has about 4.8k followers (which is absolutely insane but most of those have to be inactive by now tbh.. that sideblog exploded when i first made it bc of t&k), fully have no clue about the other ones but those are the ones i frequent the most

11. How many people do you follow?:

367

12. Have you ever made a shitpost?:

have i made anything but shitposts?

13. How often do you use tumblr each day?:

i started to check it daily again just recently, kind of left it abandoned in 2017 but i'm here probably more often than i should currently

14. Did you ever have a fight/argument with another blog once?:

never, the unfollow button is right there and blocking is not hard should that not suffice

15. How do you feel about “you need to reblog this” posts?:

same as katie, i get annoyed, it usually just ensures i ignore it, specially, no offense, if it's got to do with the us

16. Do you like tag games?:

love them

17. Do you like ask games?:

love those too!

my favorite thing is the mutuals that will send you things to your ask box unprompted too btw or play things like "assign me a time period in history" or a dessert (@msaudreyanne @woodswit @jackredfieldwasmyjacob are probably some of my favorite people to follow bc of those things)

18. Which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous?:

depends on what we consider famous, i think some of them have got def more engagement than most, if that counts as famous then @woodswit @msaudreyanne and @legallybrunette1997 qualify

if we go by "people that represent their fandom" i think I'd be remiss not to add @goldenliartrash and @sapphicfolch to the list (hello ministericos how are we doing) and then @ellanainthetardis (or hayffie fanfiction god) and @junosjukebox and @veronicasanders (for rpdr fanfiction specifically)

19. Do you have a crush on a mutual?:

a couple that i'm v good friends irl with now since i firmly believe in being a tiny bit in love with your friends 🥰

(no pressure) tags: @kindlichekaiserins @sapphicsupremacist @dykegoblins @amillcitygirl @gardenarcana @poliearbear @lissette @timelordsensate @katya-zamos @doumekiss @1-800-heller @papitati @stephanieschildren , any of the people i tagged before while answering this and anyone else who wishes to do this

18 notes • Posted 2021-11-25 17:00:54 GMT

#1

Obsessed with these stickers, i too would like a giant peach sticker that says chocho

33 notes • Posted 2021-11-01 09:48:01 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[patchworkgargoyle]

This is brilliant and I agree with 99% of it!!

My only additions would be about cadou placements, and a little bit about Heisenberg (and a touch on Lady D). I'm very sorry that I'm on mobile and don't have a read more!!

With regards to cadou placements, there is actually evidence that they're implanted in places other than the gut. Moreau's is actually in the back of his neck - we get an x-ray showing as much, and I believe on the character models for Dimitrescu’s daughters it shows the sides of their heads shaved with large black mark, which implies that the cadou was implanted in their skulls (a bit horrifying, considering the size of the cadou we're shown in game).

When we read the note from Moreau about implanting cadou into tummies, I think that might be Moreau's specific method of giving the villagers cadou, because he's the one who creates the lycans using it. I wonder if this could add another representation of failed/twisted parenthood? Moreau puts something in the villagers' tummies - also a very childish explanation of sex - and the villagers either die or become ravenous, violent monsters. Yikes. 😬

Now, with Heisenberg, I definitely agree with your analysis that he's a representation of artificial and cold parenthood with the machines he creates. However, alongside that I think he's also a representation of the rebellious teenager. Treated too strictly, or harshly, or neglectfully (honestly I wouldn't be surprised if it was all three) he rejected how he was treated and became the teen that lies to their parent to go and do whatever they want, to hide their diary and sneak off to go to parties their parent didn't want them to go to. Of course, with Heisenberg, the diary are his logs and the experiments, the parties are his plan for rebellion which he attempts to recruit Ethan for, the man who's intending to kill his Mother figure, if we wanna keep going with the metaphor. 😅

With my bit about Lady D: if Heisenberg is the rebellious teen, Dimitrescu is the properly behaved child, the one who does as they're told and often tries to hold themselves to a higher standard than the rebel. She does this often in her clashes with Heisenberg, calling him a child and implying he isn't trustworthy. She also laments that she's not the favourite in one note in the castle, and if I remember right it's implied that Heisenberg is Miranda's favourite despite that fact that she knew of his plans. They're absolutely foils to each other, right down to your analysis of their, I guess, parenting styles 😆 She loves her daughters and tries to avenge them, he just creates and sets them loose uncaringly.

I feel like this leads into all the Lords being both representations of how Miranda fails at being a parent in her obsessive quest to bring Eva back (which I think is meant to be doomed and twisted from the start as she's essentially going against the laws of nature), and the Lords being representations of parenthood themselves. It would all be a very great setup to show Ethan and Mia as the good parents, and if we'd gotten more of Mia's involvement it would have solidified that even more. I really believe Capcom missed an opportunity with Mia, she's an extremely capable former agent and it would have enforced all of the parenthood themes they wove into the story of RE8 that much more if we got to see her side of things instead of the enforced helplessness she was shoved into, possibly/probably because of how society views both "good" women and "good" mothers.

Sidenote: I do kinda (read: really) chafe at the reinforcement of heteronormative and ableist ideas around parenthood the game sets up, but it's a horror game and the horror genre is widely Very heteronormative and ableist, so. 🤷‍♀️ It's still a fun game, that's just my onion.

Mia Deserved Better: An Analysis of RE8's Themes/Symbolism

Foreword: I would like to thank @lepusrufus for posting about both Mia and Miranda, and at one point directly saying that Mia deserved better, which is a large part of what caused me to start examining her role in the canon story. Now, I will say that this post, like some of my previous explorations of Village (such as my attempt to determine Donna's age), will not be the best organized. My ADHD makes such things rather difficult for me. However, I have tried more than usual, and have broken up this "essay" into several distinct sections. Still, I am worried that my thoughts will not be as concise or coherent as they were inside my head.

Under read-more for length and spoilers for RE8: Village.

Introduction:

Village is, inarguably, about parenthood. Is it a horror game? Yes. Is it also science fiction? Also yes. But is it still, at its core, a story, and therefore contains imagery, symbolism, and themes? Yes. Now, you may be wondering what this has to do with Mia deserving better. My proposal is as follows: While Village is overall about parenthood, it is more about motherhood than fatherhood. Furthermore, Mia's background + actions from the previous game tie her story directly with Mother Miranda's, making their potential interactions massively important to the story... and could have served the theme beautifully. The missed potential in her involvement in the story is honestly a little bit absurd.

Now, let's examine each of the Four Lords + their sections, as the beginning of analyzing the game's theme.

Lady Dimitrescu + Castle:

Ah, perhaps the clearest (albeit unimportant) bits of theme within the whole game. We are immediately presented with another parent, with three daughters she loves very, very much. Initially they work as a team to capture Ethan, easily overpowering him. When they do split up, each still has dialogue regarding their family members. Each of the daughters expresses a desire to be like their mother/make their mother proud. Lady Dimitrescu herself gets very upset every time one of her daughters perishes, and delivers some important dialogue about this in her final confrontation with Ethan.

To paraphrase, Lady D says that Ethan has done something unforgiveable, caused damage that can never heal, and deserves to die before his daughter. That last part is interesting, in the sense that Lady D seems to believe that outlasting your own child is a fate so terrible that she would not wish it upon anyone, including the person who killed her daughters.

Throughout her dialogue and actions, Lady D serves as an important figure of a living mother. What do I mean by that? Well, the only other mothers we see in game are Mia and Miranda. The former doesn't show up until almost the end of the game (seeing as the "Mia" at the start is not actually the real Mia), while the latter does not have a living child, and her behavior has (presumably) changed quite a bit since that loss. As Ethan goes through Castle Dimitrescu, he watches (he causes) Lady D to go through what Miranda did all those decades ago. When we see her loss, when we experience her loss, it is something we connect with, even comparing it (as Lady D does) to Ethan's loss of Rose.

For the more visual side of symbolism, we can turn to Lady Dimitrescu herself. She is very tall, is visibly older than the majority of the Village cast, and has a fairly classic (old-school) motherly look. Everything about her reinforces her position as an example of a mother, especially when she's with her daughters and becomes such a strong figure of protection. Her height allows her to seem the caretaker for her children, even though they are scary/intimidating in their own right.

Donna Beneviento + Waterfall House:

Yes, the baby/fetus/monstrosity is part of this. No, it is not the only bit of thematic work in this section of the game.

To begin, you can find out that Donna is officially the adopted daughter of Mother Miranda. Her birth parents are dead, implied to be from especially tragic causes (more than is the norm when it comes to "orphan making"), and she has suffered greatly from it. We see that she has been seemingly neglected by Miranda, and is incredibly isolated. The tragedy of her loss, along with the consequences presented by it, are something to keep in mind further down the road, when we inevitably deal with Ethan's own death.

One of the consequences of the environment Donna was raised in is, arguably, her reliance on Angie. While interpretations of their exact relationship (aka how much control Donna actually has at any given point) vary, the two very clearly have something akin to a mother/daughter vibe. Alternatively an older sister/younger sister sort of thing. This shows in the way that Donna holds/carries Angie, as well as the contrast in their demeanors. Moreso, the fact that Donna gave a part of herself to create Angie is almost enough to make the symbolism nonnegotiable.

We also see that Donna has a strong understanding of family/family dynamics, through the way that she uses her powers to manipulate Ethan. She dissects his connections to Mia and Rose, taunts him with the lengths he's willing to go to save his child, then shows him a grotesque version of parenthood: The aforementioned fetus monster. Does the monster represent Ethan's fears, or Donna's?

What if the monster is how Donna sees herself, in some way, perhaps thinking that it's her fault her parents died? Bit of a stretch, but it's not a keystone of my theory, so I'm just throwing it out there. We could, however, go a step further and ask ourselves if Donna has noticed the way Miranda neglects her, and the fetus monster is how Donna thinks Miranda sees her. A baby, true, but grotesque, so terribly imperfect compared to her "real daughter" (Eva, obvs).

Regardless, the monster presents an ugly side of parenthood. It shows us the blood, the hunger (with the way it repeatedly attempts to swallow Ethan whole), the wailing. If Lady D shows us the love of parenthood, the bond, Donna in turn shows us the hate, the misery. Everything that one must endure to reap the rewards of family.

Lastly, we get one last bit of symbolism with Donna's death: We play a game with Angie. A childhood classic, hide and seek. Ethan chases her down repeatedly, stabbing away, seemingly only hurting the doll. But what happens when he kills Angie? It turns out that he killed Donna. You kill the child, you kill the parent. A reinforcement of the connection that comes with parenthood, along with another notch in Ethan's family-murdering belt (not saying that he's the "true antagonist" or anything, just keeping track for one of my later points).

Moreau + The Reservoir

Let's get the worst possibility out of the way: Moreau, weakest and sickest of the four lords, lives in a reservoir, where he is relatively safe. To defeat him, you have to drain the water, forcing him onto dry(ish) land. Paired with the main ideas of his section (which I will detail after this nightmare), one could theorize that he's meant to represent birth itself. Again, he's safe in his ("womb") water, and becomes vulnerable when he leaves (like a fragile newborn). Kinda gross, in my opinion, and also not a strong enough connection for me to care much about. It was merely an interesting (albeit horrifying) enough thought that I felt it warranted sharing.

Moving on to the big stuff with Moreau: He's a baby. Evidence: Whiny, has difficulty moving around, struggles to adapt to his growth, throws up a bunch, loves his mother very much, cries for his mother when he's in trouble, etc. Although Mother Miranda does not care for him, he clearly cares for her, and plays yet another role of an abandoned child (like Donna). Without Miranda there to protect him, he perishes terribly, crying out for someone who does not care to answer.

Hearing him cry out for Miranda, over and over, only for her to continue ignoring him is a key piece in the build-up to our confrontation between Ethan and Miranda. The game, in many ways, centers around the comparison between the two. In my humble opinion, Mia should have been involved in this comparison, as opposed to supplying the solution to the result of said comparison. Yes, I know that was a lot of words that don't mean much yet, but trust me, I'm getting there.

Heisenberg + The Factory

Ironically, of the four lords, Heisenberg is the most similar to Mother Miranda. In his massive factory, he is alone except for his numerous experiments, the results of decades of playing God. In comparison to Ethan + Mia, Heisenberg represents artificial parentage, or more accurately, the artificial creation of "life". While the others Lords also performed experiments, they used living subjects. Heisenberg instead chose to use corpses, which he then "brought back to life" with cybernetics + his powers, a somewhat futuristic version of Dr. Frankenstein.

Together, Miranda and him show a rotten side of parenthood (whereas Donna + Moreau showed us the uglier side of the children themselves). To put it simply, they are bad parents. They throw their "children"/experiments into the fray, uncaring, using them as pawns for their own greater gain. The most important part of this is that Heisenberg offers to "help" Ethan: By using Rose as a weapon. In his act of refusal, Ethan demonstrates one of several important distinctions between himself and Mother Miranda. Where she is willing to use her "children" (read: lives that she is responsible for) as tools, he is not.

Miscellaneous Symbolism/Imagery:

The old hag is one of my favorite parts of Village. She's seemingly nuts, has a crazy old lady laugh, wears bones that make soothing bone noises when she moves, and she draws lots of symbols in the dirt. If you look closely (I can provide screenshots if anyone desires, but it will take a bit of work to get them onto my computer), she's drawing one of the most iconic images in the titular village: The winged unborn. This symbol acts as the key you build up after every fight with a Lord, understandably called the Unborn Key (which turns into the Winged Unborn Key). Whether this counts as foreshadowing towards the hag's identity reveal is technically irrelevant, but I like to think it does.

In essence, you build up the key, this depiction of an infant, to progress in the game. The more wings it gains, the closer you are to your goal of rescuing your child.

The cadou itself is very clearly fetus-shaped. Furthermore, the only place within the human body that we know it ever gets implanted is in the "tummy" (thanks Moreau), aka roughly where someone's womb is/would be. Every infected person we see presumably had the Cadou implanted there (though I think it would be interesting if implanting it in different spots caused different mutations. of course, that is a discussion for another day). To become immortal, you have to "bear" a "child". Does it get more direct than that?

Mother Miranda gained her immortality in part for her grief at the loss of her child. She embodied the despair that Lady D spoke of, becoming an eternal source of anguish. Just as the loss of a child is a wound that lasts forever, so too would Miranda last forever (well, until Ethan comes along).

Mia is a loving mother, who puts up with the BSAA making her move across the world, deals with the complications of having a mold husband and mold baby, and has proved herself (see her section in RE7) to be an immense badass. Previously I had forgotten that, and even embarrassed myself in the comments of another person's post by implying she wasn't a tough, ass-kicking machine. Y'all remember feral Mia? People talk about "poor Ethan's arms", but sometimes we forget that Mia was one of the people who did a number on them. Furthermore, she's one of the only living people (from outside the village) to have any connections (pun intended) to Mother Miranda. They worked together, although possibly not directly, on Evelyn. If anyone in Village has a chance of really understanding Miranda's plight, or knowing the truth behind it, it would be Mia. Yet we don't see them interact a single time. Which leads me to the next section...

Conclusion On Theme + Missed Potential:

Okay, okay, so it's pretty obvious at this point that, as previously stated, the game's theme is parenthood. Every section has its symbolism, the story is very obviously about a man trying to rescue his daughter, etc, etc, but what's the point? Is there a lesson, or a more focused interpretation of the central theme? Let's take one last step back, and focus on something I've mentioned a few times now: The comparison between Ethan and Mother Miranda.

Recurring dialogue from Ethan, Alcina, and Mother Miranda all point towards the developers acknowledging that the characters are similar, but there's nowhere near as much conversation about it as I would like. Several times we have the antagonists ask Ethan how he's so willing to kill someone else's child, or prevent them from (essentially) doing what he's doing (aka saving his daughter). While Ethan responds with a mix of "well you started it" and "aghhh fuck-a-you, bitch", there's a much more solid, unspoken difference: Mother Miranda sends her underlings to kill, so that she may revive her daughter. Ethan kills (read: does the work himself) to get his daughter. The difference is much bigger, and more important, at the end of the game, when we realize just how far it goes. Ethan dies to save his daughter. Time and time again Mother Miranda has killed others for her work, but in the end she is stopped when someone willingly dies to stop her.

Where does Mia come in? Mia, the badass mother, the one who once worked alongside Mother Miranda, should have been the nail in the coffin. She is the one who survives, who lives on to raise Rose, she is the silent solution to Ethan's sacrifice. Miranda, you fool, what could you have accomplished if you had held onto your makeshift family? Through Mia (and Chris, to a lesser degree), his "loss" becomes a victory. There's a certain poetic justice that comes with Rose's full family being instrumental in saving her, when Miranda so readily spurned her own family.

Mia could have had an actual conversation with Miranda, their history giving the latter a reason to actually listen. I'm not saying that Miranda would have changed her mind/plans, but the conversation would have been a well-needed contrast to Ethan's "arggg what the fuck is happening, I only have two reactions to things. agg fuck you". Additionally, I feel that Mia (who was captured and had to endure who-knows-what) deserves the opportunity to be the one who points out Miranda's mistakes, who delivers the final "fuck you" to her. More than that, she's the one at the end who can say that hey, maybe she can understand some of what Miranda did. Was there anything her and Ethan wouldn't have done to save Rose? As much as Ethan is a foil to Miranda, Mia could (and should) have played a similar role.

When so much of the story and symbolism revolves around Miranda's experience as a mother, it only would have been fair to shine a light on her equivalent. Her better.

There's more I wanted to say/feel like I didn't properly get across, and I might add more to this at some point, but it's 5:40 AM right now, and I'm starting to feel like my brain is slowing down, so... Feel free to reblog/comment and add your own thoughts!