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highladyariane · 11 months ago

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i found your blog my accident but i also hate cc and didnt read the book, would you mind just do a quick rundown of important stuff that happen with the acotar characters? like those that are important for the next book, sorry if this is annoying feel free to ignore me i just refuse to read that book

I would actually love to do that for you while this is all fresh in my mind! I feel like this is going to help multiple people, and also me when the next ACOTAR book comes out in 2 years.

I'll only cover the parts that are relevant to the ACOTAR world because it's a long book. I don't know if people reading this will have any knowledge of CC, so I'll try to keep it to the ACOTAR knowledge, but I might forget sometimes.

There will be spoilers under the cut!! Also, I don't like Bryce, so buckle up for some salt.

Interrogation:

Shortly after arriving in Prythian, Bryce is taken away by Rhysand to the Court of Nightmares. Azriel and Amren join him for the interrogation.

They all start questioning Bryce about where she's from, why she's here, why she's covered in blood, how did she get the lost sword Gwydion, etc. Bryce is being evasive about most of the answers, and a big part of why is because they're fae and they're asking her a lot of questions. If you haven't read any CC books, Bryce hates the fae, and it's deeply annoying to me.

Bryce tries to bullshit them at some points, but Azriel can tell when she's lying.

Amren tells Rhys to look into her mind, but when Rhys ask Bryce if he can look into her mind, she says no, so he doesn't. So basically, Bryce has plot armor from Rhys, which is also deeply annoying to me.

They all realize that Queen Theia and Pelias, familiar historical figures in Bryce's world, were originally from Prythian. Queen Theia used to be High Queen. I don't think this is important to Prythian in general, but Theia is Bryce's ancestor.

When Amren came out of her imprisonment, she also remembers rumors about a large number of people vanishing, some said to another world.

Rhysand says that they won't torture her for information and they also won't pry it from her mind. Bryce can choose not to talk, but Rhys can also choose to keep her here until she decides otherwise.

Bryce tells them about the Asteri, immortal beings from her world who take a tax on magic for their own nourishment and power. Amren makes the connection to the Daglan, who used to rule over the fae in Prythian centuries ago until they were defeated. Bryce tells the crew that the Asteri want to come back to Prythian for revenge.

During this interrogation, Bryce lies to the group about not being able to winnow, and Azriel says nothing about her lie this time.

Rhysand goes to get the Veritas Orb so that Bryce can show them the weapons the Asteri use, which she does (it's guns and technology).

They give Bryce a little silver bean to eat that makes her able to talk their mother tongue and allows her to speak it too.

The spell on the translator bean triggers a reaction from Bryce's back tattoo, and it starts glowing. Amren realizes that the writing on her tattoo is the same as the writing in the Book of Breathings. Azriel says, "Explain, or you die."

Amren tells Rhysand to bring Nesta in the interrogation room. When Nesta arrives, she says that Bryce carries something that is Made other than the sword, which we know to be the tattoo (the tattoo is actually a magical Horn).

The tension starts getting worse, and eventually Rhysand calls it a day, saying that Bryce needs rest. They leave her alone, but they don't give her back Gwydion and they take away her phone.

The "escape":

Some of this information we don't find out about until later, but I try to include it in chronological order to make it easier.

The ACOTAR crew makes a plan to get information from Bryce by isolating her with Nesta and (a hidden) Azriel. Rhys takes a guess that she'll try to escape, and they can use that.

We don't know how much time passes while Bryce is locked up, but she says it's a few hours. She eventually winnows out of her cell.

It's very important to note that there are a lot of monsters under the mountain of the Court of Nightmares.

Bryce has a star on her chest, and it glows. The beasts seem to stay away from it. Bryce figures out that the light of her star is leading her somewhere.

Bryce walks for what she assumes are hours, and eventually falls asleep. When she wakes up, Nesta is there to offer her water. Nesta says that they knew the moment she escaped, and she's here to escort Bryce back to her cell (this is a lie).

At first, Bryce tries to escape. Before she can, Azriel (still hidden) stops her and triggers the cave to collapse so that Nesta, Bryce and him are cut off from the cells, forcing them to go the other way.

Bryce mentions that her star is pointing a certain way, and Nesta tells her to lead on.

Travelling :

They travel for hours (days? they sleep at some point) and adventures happen, some of which I won't mention.

A Middengard Wyrm shows up (yes, like the one that Feyre fought when she was still human).

Bryce saves Nesta's life from a trap.

Azriel eventually reveals himself. He not only brought Truth-Teller, but also Gwydion with him. I feel like this only happens for Bryce to get the weapons, because why would Az bring them both with him when it makes him uncomfortable to carry both at the same time?? Seriously, they make a point to tell us multiple times how uncomfortable it is for Az.

At some point, Bryce wounds her hands and knees on purpose. She lets her knees heal, but not her hands. She’s using her blood to draw the Middengard Wyrm to them so that she can escape Nesta and Az. When Az starts asking questions about her hands not healing, she plays the awful dad card: “The man who fathered me used to burn my brother to punish him. The scars never healed for him, either.” As you can imagine, this resonates with Az, who lets it go.

Nesta asks Bryce about her star because it’s shaped like an eight-pointed star. Nesta is asking about it because it’s the same shape as the bargain tattoo she used to have on her back.

The Middengard Wyrm finally takes the bait, and Bryce ditches Nesta and Az while it starts to attack. As Bryce is running away, the Wyrm gets scared of Nesta’s power and backs down. Nesta plays dead, taking a guess that Bryce will come back. When Bryce stops hearing the sounds of fighting, she feels bad about leaving them behind and comes back to save then. When she gets there, Nesta and Az tell Bryce that they want her to play bait so that they can kill the Wyrm.

During the Wyrm fight, the Wyrm somehow eats Nesta’s power. To kill it, Nesta puts on the Mask and uses Ataraxia. Az has to talk her down by mentioning the people she cares about: Cassian, Gwyn, Emerie, Feyre, Elain and Nyx. Nesta then takes off the Mask.

Nesta and Az finally reveal that this was all part of the plan, that they waited for Bryce to escape so that they could follow her. Nesta also reveals that she has seen Bryce’s tattoo before, and not only because of her former tattoo: Nesta saw it in the Prison when she went to get the Harp.

Everyone is angry with everyone.

At some point, Nesta promises to give Bryce her phone back if she helps with the traversal of the tunnels. When Bryce does get her phone back, they all have a conversation about what it is and what it does, including that it can hold 1000+ songs and take pictures.

Nesta, Az and Bryce bonus chapter:

Bonding time!

Nesta tells Bryce about her horrible mother and how she would probably hate who Nesta has become.

While they're discussing mothers, Bryce asks Az about his. Nesta jokes that, "Az never talks about this mother, and neither will our friends, so I'm guessing she's even worse," to which Az responds, "My mother is anything but awful." Nesta starts to apologize, but Az says he doesn't want to talk about it.

Nesta asks Bryce to play music on her phone, and Bryce chooses Stone Mother (folk music).

Bryce plays them at least one song from each genre of music. Nesta has to cover her ears during the death metal song, but Az seems to like it. Nesta likes the classical stuff the most out of everything. Both of them are intrigued by club music.

After a while, Bryce tries to ask about their magic, but Az shuts her down. She asks about mates, because she knows that Nesta has one, but Az says he doesn't have a mate or a partner.

Bryce asks Nesta about becoming fae, including her now immortal lifespan. Nesta says she's still getting used to it, and then asks Az how he deals with it. Az says, "Find people you love - they make the time pass quickly. Especially if they'll forgive your occasional snapping at them over things that aren't their fault." Nesta then says, "Nothing to forgive, Az."

Az adds, "And I've been told having children makes the time fly, too." Nesta rolls her eyes, but Bryce sees a gleam in them. Nesta then says that she wouldn't know how to raise a child since she was raised by a terrible mother. Az says that just because her mother was terrible, doesn't mean Nesta will be a terrible mother.

Nesta admits that her mother was even worse to Feyre, and yet Feyre has turned out to be a perfect mother.

They listen to music until the phone battery runs out.

After the phone dies, Bryce can hear Az humming the Stone Mother song to himself, and she "could have sworn even the shadows danced at the sound."

The Prison:

The gang gets to the Prison and the doors close behind them. Az wants to go get Rhys, but Nesta points out that it would take a long time and they’re not sure if he would be close enough to hear them.

They get to the room with the eight-pointed star, the place where the Harp was. They can’t enter because of the wards, but Bryce can because she has a special amulet. She tricks Az and enters by herself. Nesta decides to watch what happens and not go in immediately. A little later, they all enter in the room through magic, so it doesn't really last long.

Nesta tells Bryce about the Harp being able to move between physical places and that it can stop time. Bryce asks if there was ever a Made object called the Horn, but they haven’t heard of one.

Bryce steps onto the star, triggering a kind of hologram of Silene, Queen Theia's daughter. She starts telling them her story.

Silene’s story (lore time):

The important players are: Queen Theia, her two daughters, Helena and Silene, her general Pileas and the Asteri (the Daglan).

When Az sees Silene, he says that she looks like Rhysand’s sister.

For five thousand years, The Daglan ruled over the High Fae of Prythian, and in turn the High Fae ruled over the humans. The Daglan taxed their magic to sustain their own power.

The Cauldron was an artifact from Prythian that existed before the Asteri arrived here, but they modified it so that it wouldn’t be just able to create, it would also be able to destroy. Then, the Daglan made the Dead Trove with the Cauldron: The Mask, the Harp, the Crown and the Horn.

Theia stole the Trove, which helped her take back the Cauldron from the Asteri. While they had the Cauldron, Theia's husband made Gwydion and Truth-Teller.

They defeated the Daglan.

Queen Theia became High Queen of Prythian along with her husband, the High King. She ruled over the territory where the Prison currently is, which used to be the Dusk Court.

However, Theia was hungry for power. When her husband was dying of old age, he wanted to pass the crown to their daughter Helena. Because Theia didn't want to give up her crown, she and her general Pelias arranged her husband's murder by a monstrous beast.

After his death, Theia took Truth-Teller and Gwydion. And then, she took the Trove.

Without recounting the whole story, I can’t stress enough how bad Theia, Pelias, Silene and Helena were. They all started ruling over the people, and the people had no choice but to bow to them. Theia and Pelias then decided that this wasn’t enough and that they needed to conquer other words.

Their council refused because they didn’t want to become conquerors. However, Theia and Pelias made plans in secret and, with the Horn and Harp, opened a door to Bryce’s world. There, they met an Asteri (at the time, Theia didn’t know that Asteri = Daglan).

When Theia, Silene, Helena and Pelias realized that this world already had humans, they conquered them too. The humans couldn’t fight back, obviously.

Pelias was a traitor and sold out Theia and the Trove to the Asteri.

Theia sent her daughters to spy on the Asteri, and they discovered that the Asteri were actually the Daglan.

With the help of Hel (another world), the fae and the humans, they began a war against the Asteri, while the Asteri put Pelias in charge of their army.

Their resistance was losing the fight.

Theia decided to open a portal to Prythian, but not to get help. She opened it to save Silene and Helena. Theia split her power in three and put a third in Helena, a third in Silene and a third in Gwydion.

Theia didn't survive her next fight, and Helena stayed behind in Bryce's world to allow Silene to escape with the Trove and Truth-Teller.

Silene did escape, and she didn't keep the portal open for all the innocent people near the portal. She heard them begging, and still did nothing.

Silene eventually married the High Lord of the Night Court and erased all evidence of the horrible things that she, her mother and her sister did. To conceal the Dusk Court mountain and everything in it, Silene brought horrible beasts to it and locked them in cells. It became the Prison.

Winged horses, originally from the Dusk Court, nearly went extinct.

We find out that Silene's High Lord wanted her to become High Lady, “as the other lords’ mates were,” which seems to imply that every court used to be ruled by both.

She keyed the wards of the Prison to her bloodline and passed on this knowledge to her sons, who passed it on to their sons, and to their sons, etc. This knowledge was lost at some point.

Fun fact: the starlight thing that Rhysand has? It’s from the Dusk Court, it’s part of Silene’s power. It’s the “light of the evening star, the dusk star.”

The Aftermath:

Az wants to go get Rhys immediately.

Nesta figures out that Bryce is the Horn and that this is the reason that she can travel between worlds. They really spell out how dangerous it could be for Prythian if Bryce kept opening portals, especially with the Asteri wanting to come back.

Az tries to go get reinforcements against Bryce, but she stops him. Bryce also realizes that Silene left the power Theia gave her in the Prison, and that she can take it because she’s from the same bloodline (on Helena’s side).

Nesta says that Bryce has to let them bring their High Lord (Rhys). Bryce says, “To do what? Lock me up? Cut the Horn out of my skin?” and Nesta answers, “If that’s what’s necessary. If that’s what it takes to keep our world safe.”

They fight and, at some point, fall down in a void. Bryce finds a crystal coffin with a woman inside, sleeping. The fight is about to resume, but they wake up the woman in the coffin.

The woman in the coffin is an Asteri named Vesperus, and she’s “muahahaha” level of evil. Slaves, power, conquering, all of it. So of course, Bryce frees her because Vesperus says she’ll answer her questions. Because that’s such a good fucking idea.

When she frees Vesperus, Bryce takes back Gwydion from Az by summoning it to her. Nesta and Az want to attack Vesperus, but Bryce tells them not to… so they don’t. Once again, the plot armor is strong.

Vesperus does say that that the Asteri pooled their power and “imbued those gifts into the Cauldron” so that it would work their will. Then, they bound the very essence of the Cauldron to the soul of this world. This means that destroying the Cauldron would destroy this world, one cannot exist without the other.

It turns out that freeing the “muahahaha” level of evil Asteri isn’t a good idea because she still wants to conquer worlds and feed on the magic of her slaves. Who knew, really.

Vesperus starts to fight them, and Nesta, Bryce and Az have no choice but to fight back.

We find out that Truth-Teller has other powers that Az doesn’t know how to use.

We find out that the Asteri hid pockets of their power throughout the lands in case or emergency, one of which is here in the Prison.

Vesperus even goes, “You should have killed me when you had the chance.” No shit, lady.

During the fight, Bryce summons Truth-Teller to her. With Gwydion, Truth-Teller and her power, Bryce significantly weakens Vesperus, but doesn’t kill her.

At this point, Az tries to immediately kill Vesperus (thank you, finally), but it doesn’t work. So Nesta pours her power into Ataraxia and kills her.

Bryce is very angry that they killed the no-good, evil Asteri, because for some reason, she was under the impression that Vesperus was going to give her all the answers she needed to fix the problems back in her world.

Nesta and Az seem very unimpressed by this. Bryce goes, “Trust me, I know better than you guys what the Asteri can do,” to which Nesta responds, “Then you have even less of an excuse for your actions.”

Az wants to get out of here and bring Bryce back with them. Bryce starts using the Horn to get out of Prythian with Gwydion and Truth-Teller. Az pleads with her not to leave, and he’s particularly fixated on Truth-Teller.

Nesta says, “You’re as much of a monster as they are.”

Bryce says, “Love will do that to you,” and goes back to her own world.

Fuck you too, Bryce :)

The Collateral:

A lot later in the book, after a lot of shenanigans, Bryce returns to Prythian (House of Wind) with her parents and her mate. She has a plan that she’s going to ask Nesta for the Mask and leave her parents here as collateral. It also means her parents will be safe from the Asteri, which is really good.

Her parents are unaware of this, by the way.

At first, Nesta does not want to give Bryce the Mask and also asks Bryce to leave Truth-Teller before leaving. Rhys is already on his way, and Nesta tells her to leave before he arrives.

Bryce pleads with Nesta and says she will return both the Mask and Truth-Teller after she’s done with them. Bryce does more pleading, offers her parents as collateral, and even asks Nesta to take her parents even if she won’t give her the Mask.

Nesta takes a leap of faith and gives her the Mask.

Just as Rhysand gets there, Bryce leaves with her mate

Her parents stay in Prythian.

Ember and Randall bonus chapter:

Note: Ember is Bryce’s mom, and Randall is Bryce’s dad.

So, Rhysand gets to the House of Wind and he’s very angry.

They give Ember and Randall a translator bean.

Nesta, Rhys, Amren and Cassian go into another room to argue, while Azriel stays with Bryce’s parents.

Rhys says that Nesta had no right to make this choice, especially because it puts their entire world in danger. Nesta says that she had every right because the Trove answers to her, and also because Bryce’s pleading resonated with her. Nesta wanted to give her the edge she needs in the fight against the Asteri. After what Bryce did, Rhys is of the opinion that Nesta should have killed her on sight.

Ember and Randall are brought into the room. They tell them about their version of events, meaning that they didn’t know what Bryce was planning.

Ember says that they won’t cause any problem while they’re here. Rhysand says that he’s not concerned about them causing problems, he’s concerned about Bryce. She already proved the lengths she’s willing to go to for the people she loves, and he wonders if she would betray Prythian to save the people she loves.

They end the meeting, and Amren tells Nesta to pray Feyre changes Rhysand’s mind before they meet the next day.

Ember and Nesta bond that night.

In the morning, Rhysand, Cassian and Nesta come to the House of Wind. Nesta’s head is bowed, and both Rhysand and Cassian look angry.

Ember stands up to Rhysand to defend Nesta. It breaks the tension, and everyone calms down a bit.

Randall and Rhys bond.

We find out that Feyre did intervene on Nesta’s behalf.

We also find out that, according to Nesta, Cassian is actually the one who is the most furious with her out of everyone.

Nesta and Ember bond again.

The Return:

After Bryce is done with the Asteri problem, she comes back to the House of Wind. Cassian, Nesta, Ember and Randall are all there.

We learn that Randall and Rhys bonded over being overprotective fathers.

Bryce gives Nesta the Mask and Truth-Teller.

We also hear that Rhysand and Azriel have not being happy with Nesta’s decision about the Mask, but Nesta stands by her choice.

Ember says goodbye to Nesta, who started seeing Ember as a mother figure.

Before leaving, Bryce gives Gwydion to Nesta, saying that she thinks it should go to her. Bryce doesn’t think it’s a coincidence that Nesta had an eight-pointed star as a tattoo on her back.

The end!

#house of flame and shadow #hofas #hofas spoilers #acotar

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soybeeftacos · 4 months ago

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I guess this is transitioning into a Star Wars: Unlimited blog...? I'm not sure yet, but it's close enough to Netrunner, and I still have this site, so I might as well post here. I've been thinking a lot lately about this game, about our family, and about how following my son's obsession has led us back to a hobby I'd pretty much abandoned. I'm going to write a bit about that thinking here today...

Our family's obsession with Star Wars: Unlimited has been continuing. We've spent way too much on it (as happens with a TCG/CCG). Our son is really getting into it, and he's been looking up new cards daily, as it's spoiler season for the set releasing in November. That set, Twilight of the Republic, has cards set during the prequels, the Clone Wars, and related lore, which are his favorite. The picture here is him jotting down card names (and rarity!) so he can share them with a friend of his that he rides the bus with every day.

It's kind of ... magical to see this? It's not something I've experienced before, getting into a new game at the same time as your kid. And it's a great game, as well — one that has tiresome old dudebasher bones, but does some interesting things with old mechanics. Don't get me wrong, Netrunner is by far the superior game, but it's also the refined, elusive, and frankly snobbier experience. The lore is — or was, before Null Signal took over — really interesting, but it's not got the same connection to one's lizard brain that Star Wars has for many people. And I think that makes a surprising amount of difference.

Star Wars: Unlimited is just a mess narratively, and I find myself enjoying that a lot. None of it makes narrative sense — sometimes you're smashing a Millennium Falcon into a Star Destroyer and it has a bit of a feel of a movie. The rest of the time, you're, like, watching Kylo Ren fight Greedo. It's a mishmash of everything in the lore, and that's surprisingly... freeing? Weirdly fun?

I think my biggest insight is the following. I'm someone who was a Star Wars fan in childhood, grew into a snobby Star Trek fan shortly afterwards, and rationalized that Star Wars was shitty media for children intended to sell toys through most of my adulthood. The funny thing is — I was right, and that's okay! Star Wars: Unlimited has the anarchic feel of playing with Star Wars toys at times. Sure, make your Rey leader do direct damage to the Dagobah Swamp. Go ahead, have Grogu disable Grand Moff Tarkin for a turn. Your Fett's Firespray just swooped down and killed my surgical droid!

They're toys. As cards. And toys are fun!

....

Back in 2014 or so, when I first started going to FFG Worlds for Netrunner, I remember the Netrunner players' arrogance and hubris. I felt a lot of that arrogance and hubris myself.

There were Call of Cthulhu LCG players there, playing in their final FFG tournament. We shared a big warehouse to play in the Netrunner Icebreaker tournament with Star Wars LCG players, which only had another year or two before it folded. Netrunner was still ascendant and the players had a real "we're the cool game" swagger to them — which continued well into the rise of L5R (I remember Netrunner players making day two of L5R Worlds so they could play more Netrunner).

Now, of course, Netrunner is still alive, but of course, it really isn't. It's a game played primarily online by an offputtingly international player base. On the surface, the changes to Netrunner in the past 6-7 years have all been great — increased attention to diversity in both the card game representation as well as the team of developers, increased professionalism in printing and distribution of cards (other than, ahem, the European store), and a real fervor for the game from a cadre of new players who'd never experienced the FFG game. That all sounds wonderful, but it's also frankly, deadening.

Why? I think SWU is helping me understand why, at least a little bit. Netrunner has become a game for the obsessives and there's not much room in it for casual players. The national and international events are now dominated by, it seems, an even smaller number of top-tier players than there were during the FFG days. The game's design seems to swing wildly as they have changed lead designers three times (not counting interims) in the past five years. And it's virtually impossible to get local communities built where there weren't any before.

SWU doesn't have that problem. I've been struck by how friendly and easygoing it is playing a new card game with a built-in fanbase. I might not particularly care about Star Wars as a thing, but I'm related to a boy who does, and that obsession has been a bit infectious. I've found myself learning what the "Adelphi Patrol Wing" is, the name of the character that rats on Rey, Han, Chewie, and Finn at Maz Kanata's castle in The Force Awakens, and I now remember exactly how many systems has bounties out on Doctor Evazan. All because of these cards.

Playing these games is supposed to be fun. And, with it in the rearview mirror, I see that Netrunner wasn't ever fun after the FFG days. It became a hotbed of player contention, lots of political infighting, and lots of desperate attempts to recruit people while the community withered. But never was it the same kind of silly, goofy, pass-the-time fun that it was before that. And that's because it lacked casuals — at least where I was playing.

Games like these need people with incomplete collections to come in and try to swing wildly with whatever cards they have. They need people motivated more to make themely decks (something much more intelligible in a Star Wars game than Netrunner) to try and repeatedly fail at them. They need people who see the cards as cardboard toys first and foremost. They need... kids.

And that brings me back to the start. Playing with our son has been transformative for me. I tried to get him and his sister to play Netrunner, but there's no hook there for them. Frankly, there was no hook there with Magic or Pokémon, either. By virtue of being a game based on the Star Wars license, there's a hook here, and one that I'm happy to get reeled in by.

Too bad it's so fucking expensive, though.

#netrunner #starwarsunlimited #swu #rant

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two-reflections · 1 year ago

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[Stuck this in my queue a few months ago, shortly after I made this blog. I keep putting off posting this because it's just a bunch of random enthusiastic screaming, but whatever, if I haven't stuck it in drafts, it might as well live on my blog instead.]

Rebirth lives rent-free in my head. I just need. Like. ONE friend who has read it who I can enthuse with about it IRL. The Tome of Fire was a bit of a slog at first, but I swear that the series which Rebirth was meant to start had legs. LEGS!!

Tried to keep these notes spoiler-medium in case anyone wants to read the book, but be warned. There are spoilers below.

Black Legion VS Salamanders and Sisters of Battle, except that both sides also have their fair share of drama and betrayal? Also, there's a manhunt through a decrepid underhive for a fugitive? Come on, that's some good shit.

Tsu'gan's presence in the plot is at a distance and Da'kir's seems to be over. Zartath and Agatone are the characters who benefit the most from context from previous books, but I think most of their backstory is made pretty clear.

I liked how Val'in built respect with Sister Seraphina without any romantic tension. The Sisters somehow manage to come off as even more nonsexual yet homoromantic than Astartes, and I am here for that.

I also appreciate how the Sisters' extreme zealotry makes them come off as more inhuman than the Salamanders, even as they condemn the Salamanders for being... Uh, bad at seeming like good Imperial zealots. Are some of the Sisters written as too unreasonable? No, I think how unreasonable they seem is a reflection of Canonness Angerer's issues rather than the Sisters as a whole. Plus, Seraphina is not like that! I wish she had been more present in the finale, but oh well.

There are some great human characters in this book. Makato and Issak are so cool. They are excellent examples of how versatile standard humans are and how they can stand out in a story that focuses on Astartes.

Chaplain Elysius is always great, but I really love him in this one. He probably has the best lines in the book. I appreciate his sense of duty, his pragmatism and the fortitude his faith gives him. I also found it interesting how he seems to respect Drakgaard more the more he sees his flaws.

Comparing Elysius and Drakgaard, and Agatone and Drakgaard is interesting. Drakgaard tends to comes off worse in both cases, but his massive flaws make him interesting to me. The parallels between Drakgaard and Angerer are interesting too. I enjoy the idea of these two old warriors being so blinded by their desire to make up for the failings of their pasts that they completely and unequivocally fuck up.

Continuing on Drakgaard, I love how he's described by many as being stubborn, unfeeling and uncultured, but then he's constantly swayed by emotion and makes it very clear that he's not actually averse to artistic pursuits, he just doesn't prioritise them. Part of why those around him see him in such a harsh light is that he can't move his face much and doesn't move with elegance. (For example, his sword is described as a beautiful piece of artistry... Which he swings around like a goddamn cricket bat.) Idk, he seems like a guy with secret depths.

Agatone really grew on me in this one. He's so good to his guys. I think that he gets to shine because the focus of his sections is on a very small group? Anyway, if anyone questions why this guy has a dedicated mini, they should read Rebirth.

I love that guy Agatone picks up. Issak is a 10/10 bro, top tier little guy, and I'm sad we may never get to know the rest of his story.

I don't usually care for techmarines, but Exor is a poor little meow meow whom I want good things for. HE'S JUST DOING HIS BEST, HE'S BRAND NEW, PLEASE BE NICE TO EXOR PLEASE -

He's a mess, but I can't fault Zartath for struggling. Dude needs a therapist, and he tries so hard to make up for his fuckups. Because he started as a Black Dragon, he's stuck between a rock and a hard place - expected to both conform to the new Chapter whom he looks nothing like and to lean into his beastly nature to perform the way his Chapter requires him to. It's a hard line to walk, and I like how that went for him in the end. Also, despite his massive PTSD and mutations, he has genuine respect for Agatone and the Salamanders, and it's great to see that respect rewarded.

I liked his relationship with Exor. Two semi-outsiders in a hard but privileged position alongside their Captain, so different yet so similar... I enjoyed how their respect for each other fluctuated from grudging, to complete distrust, to something two steps from friendship. And it all felt deserved.

I do have some issues with the book, of course.

Some say it feels a bit unfocused. I think that might be because some of the different threads tie up very quickly, to the point where a reader could actually miss how a particular story line tied in with the others. I wish it was about 30 pages longer so the endings could have had a little more space to breathe.

My main issue is that it doesn't seem like this book will ever get a sequel, so we'll never know what happened to some of the characters. This particularly bothers me with Exor, Zartath, Issak and Drakgaard. I have so many questions about them.

For example, Drakgaard is not Captain of the 6th in the current era... What happened? Did he die? Did he take the Burning Walk after losing his men's respect at Heletine? Was he so hurt that he was interred into a Dreadnought, perhaps to replace one lost on Heletine? (That would be so tragic... The other Salamanders would assume being interred would suit him, but it might turn out to be his worst nightmare.) I may never know, and it breaks my heart because I think it would have been interesting.

Will Exor and Zartath actually become friends? Probably not, but my god, I want that for them. I have this picture in my mind where Zartath ends up leaving to refound the Black Dragons and Exor goes too, becoming the one Salamander in the Black Dragons like how Zartath was the one Black Dragon in the Salamanders... Kinda falls down as I think he's not a Magos Biologis, but shhh.

Agatone took Issak back with him. What's going to happen to Issak now he's with the Salamanders? It seemed like he was set up to be present in subsequent books... And he was so likeable.

The weird, not specifically related to Rebirth:

What went down with the real Pyriel and Argos who inspired the characters? Seems there was some major beef between them. It all went down on various forums, possibly had something to do with Pyriel having a 3d printing business? Idk, I did a bit of googling about it a while ago but I can't remember what I found right now. The actual drama isn't very important to me, I just find it interesting that those characters are based on real people who seriously did not get along.

#warhammer 40k #salamanders 40k #black library #Meta #Salamanders Lore

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bloodmoons-knife · 2 years ago

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welcome to my fuckhouse i mean SB and SaMs blog. we've got. aus. writing. sheer comedy. an incredible amount of reblogs of cool content. woooo.

fair warning: i ship sun/moon, but i also like content of them as brothers. i do not, and WILL NOT, cross these two things over. so dont worry, any sun/moon content is not and will never be incestuous if created by me.

warning in light of the ruin dlc drop: i don't tag spoilers, im sorry, but i just hit reblog and go. feel free to unfollow until ure caught up if thats what works for you

my ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FauxyBuisness

my main: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/fauxybuisness

wanna support my bullshittery? heres my cashapp:

https://cash.app/$FauxyBuisness

Commissions now open! check it out! (If the link is broken, check out the pinned post @fauxybuisness aka my main blog)

AU list

(All listed so far have their own fics on my AO3, check them out if you feel like it)

Security Breach

*Keep Away

A canon divergence AU where Gregory hides in Monty instead of Freddy.

*Runtime Errors

Post-canon AU, featuring a renovated Superstar Daycare, and Daycare Attendant(s)

*Split Pathing

Canon divergence AU, where the Daycare Attendant is actually a System

SaMs

*Long Live The King

King Sun AU. The Neutron Star goes off prematurely, leaving only Sun to pick up the pieces

*Rockstar Runaway

Canon Divergence AU shortly before Killcode's death. Bloodmoon leaves behind Ruin and all of their plans to instead follow a path of rocking music.

#pinned post

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bookoflibrary · 2 years ago

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JP's 6th anniversary is officially one month away. I usually purchase the Famitsu magazine for that month, which always features SINoALICE and it's anniv on the cover and in the magazine itself. It comes out a day or so before the official livestream so assuming I don't slack I would like to remind everyone this blog is not spoiler free and I will be posting about the article and dropping my thoughts. Just incase you wanted to be surprised by everything in real-time watching JP's big anniv stream.

It's pretty much a given Matchie and Hameln Alt will be part of it and Nutcracker is finally getting a new job for it after a nearly two year hiatus. But it's also possible that's for a later time. We do know they wanna try to push Lillion's new event out some time during it or shortly after, but we'll know for sure soon enough.

Also yes I am still alive, just been burnt out

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liliegrayson · 2 years ago

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byf;

firstly: i don't tag spoilers

this is a sideblog dedicated to my special interests, nightwing and moon knight. i love them like no one else can. will feature other fandom stuff sometimes too

shortly about me;

i'm judas, 25

i follow from kveldstanker

non-binary (she/he/they) and lesbian

nightwing, moon knight, and art crime are my special interests.

i try to tag my posts with liliegrayson when i remember

answered asks tagged with lilieask

feel free to message me if you wanna talk about nightwing or moon knight!!<3

MORE UNDER THE CUT (including dni/byf)

other things you might see me talk about (will be updated); pjo, spider-man, doctor who, ouat, the originals, white collar

before you interact with my posts;

don't be queerphobic, ableist, racist, islamophobic, anti-semittic, or anything like that when interacting with my blog. you will be blocked.

byi, moon knight / marvel edition:

due to the moon knight show being on disney, i will not post that much about it, nor content from it. this blog focuses on the comics themselves.

sanism isn't accepted on this blog, and any ableist/sanist language used about moon knight (such as calling them crazy, insane, psycho, etc) will get you blocked. using it about other characters too, actually.

in the same vein, using disorders (e.g. narcissist, sociopath, psychopath, etc) as insults will also get you blocked.

due to many marvel characters doing the above mentioned thing when interacting with moon knight, this blog wont always be kind to various marvel characters.

keep that in mind when scrolling through this blog; i don't care to hear your arguments if you feel slighted that i insulted your favourite comic book character for being ableist.

this being said, im not anti any specific characters.

byi, nightwing / dc comics edition:

if you ship any batc*st block me. i freely block people i see reblog posts tagged with any batc*st related tags.

i dont care for people who are anti specific characters (especially if your knowledge of the character is based on e.g. batfam fanfics/fanon), so keep that shit away if you interact with me

i also dont care for people who are anti some specific canon ships (i'm looking at you anti-dickbabs and anti-dickkory people) so keep that shit away from me too

(im a titans polycule kind of shipper so. i welcome all)

if you're uncomfortable with people acknowledging canon abusive bruce wayne moments, where he is being a child abuser, kindly stay away from this blog too

i block without warning.

#pinned post #i am totally normal about nightwing #i am also totally normal about moon knight #liliegrayson

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whatsthisascianbullshit · 3 years ago

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Blog Info

A little update is in order! As of patch 6.1 I’m up to date with MSQ, role quests, normal raids, and alliance raids. This blog is not spoiler free but I try to tag major patch spoilers with “(expansion name) spoilers” and include patches in that (so patches for 6.X will be covered with “Endwalker spoilers” for example). I also generally tag posts with the relevant expansion “ffxiv: (expansion name)”

This is not an RP blog but I am very attached to my WoLs and the shared canon I’ve made with my friends, plus I love all the different ask and tag posts and talking about my OCs. I’ve started to dip my toes into writing fics but at the moment they are uhhh for my groupchats only.

I have 3 WoLs I’m more actively playing, though Muireann is my main and the one I’ll mostly be talking about!

About Tag / Screenies and art of My Gorl

Name: Muireann Uais

Title: torn between “of the Seventh Dawn” and “Finder of False Gods” as her in game title. Headcanon title is “Godsbreaker”.

Battle class(es):

Arcane Historian (mashup of SMN and SCH)

Bladesinger (mashup of BRD and DRK)

Aspects of MNK used in both custom classes if enemies get too close

Profession(s):

Goldsmith, primary income is from patented designs sold through Eshtaime’s Aesthetics and she will occasionally take commissions.

Adventurer, specifically a freelance adventurer who is not employed by the Scions though she is affiliated with them.

Family:

Silvaire Canaux (father)

Illiette Canaux (mother)

Raer Angathril (Muireann adopted him as her big brother, belongs to @azure-dragonsinger)

“Miss Hanna” (adopted maternal figure, Raer’s mother, also belongs to @azure-dragonsinger)

General Info:

Muireann was born in Proud Creek, North Shroud after her parents fled Werlyt before it came under Garlaen occupation. She grew up in the small, primarily Duskwight community that had reclaimed the ruins there (this community is not based in canon, I just think it’s a neat idea)

She has been fascinated by stories and songs of adventurers since she was a child between that and not being able to play with other children 'normally’ due to her health issues she was something of a lonely child and never bothered to develop a proper sense of self-preservation.

Muireann is not the name given by her parents, she has an awkward relationship with her ‘childhood’ name and has not been called by it since she started journeying around on her own shortly after the Calamity. She keeps that name a secret and only one person outside of her listed family knows it.

She is not the Warrior of Light but does have the Echo. Hers manifests in the ability to convey her emotions and general intentions to animals and understand theirs in return in addition to the regular flashbacks and protection from tempering.

She is incredibly protective of her closest friends and following the events of ARR and HW she develops an intense fear of losing people and not being able to protect them. She has relatively frequent nightmares about it and it was her primary cause for pursuing greater and greater power. That is maybe changing in light of the most recent patch with a return to seeking out adventure and knowledge for the fun of it.

Despite her sometimes debilitating fear of losing others, she still has not developed much of a sense of self preservation, much to Selene’s annoyance.

She is quick to judge, quick to anger, and can be slow to forgive - particularly if her friends/family have been hurt in any way.

I ship Muireann with so many NPCs there are so many fics please send help.

Going to put Wyn under the cut and leave Sami out (for now) because while I love my alt gals, they aren’t nearly as developed ^^;

About tag / Screenies

Name: Rammthota Sundwilfwyn, or Wyn for short

Title: TBC

Battle Class(es): WAR, NIN. No custom classes as of yet

Profession:

Ship cook, Wyn worked on a ship before trying her hand as an adventurer and is a somewhat decent cook and fisher. Since she switched to the land she’s picked up botany to add to her repertoire.

Freelance guard, Wyn’s first few jobs were ad hoc, guarding shipments and stalls for Faezghim and Iron Thunder before she got referred up to Baderon for more regular work.

Adventurer, is the newest addition, but it’s been working out well and has formed a small party with some other adventurers she kept running into.

Family: TBC

General Info:

Wyn was born and grew up on a pirate ship and has known how to swing an axe from a young age. Improving her skills was one of the bigger draws of moving to Limsa.

Wyn is largely oblivious to flirting and has very strong himbo energy.

She’s trying to convince the Lalafel she’s been adventuring with to let her throw him into a group of enemies so he can do the neat book-magic explosions.

#about Muireann #about Wyn #behold my girlies #this got really long abkadkadhk

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preemshots · 4 years ago

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johnny + the nomads lore

alright, i know this is a screenshots blog but i'm going to go ahead and start dropping some juicy lore tidbits as i dig them up. part of what i'm doing outside of just photo diarying is shard hunting, and BOY is there a lot the game likes to hide in those little shards for idiots like me who like to read so we can write unnecessarily accurate fanfiction!

full disclosure, i know jack shit about the TTRPG/cyberpunk 2020 rulebook except what i read in the wikis.

so here’s my lore roundup so far of everything i know about johnny joining the nomads

we know johnny likes to narrate v’s quest objectives. here’s the first mention where he says it himself:

during the voodoo boys quest "transmission" there's a shard in the maglev tunnels beside the ice bath, presumably from brigitte's research into johnny in the first place:

okay, so the timeline is this: johnny joins the nomads after trying and failing to rescue alt. johnny hides out in the badlands for some years. then he and rogue come back to night city and nuke arasaka tower help alt escape the arasaka subnet by uploading liberator to their network once and for all.

this ultimately makes sense. in alt’s flashback, we meet santiago, who is a nomad/connected to nomads, joins rogue and johnny when they're trying to get alt back, and eventually becomes the leader of the aldecaldos.

part of santiago’s TTRPG lore is that he, johnny, and rogue have to lay low in the badlands with nomads after they storm arasaka headquarters (i am aware the game takes many liberties with the original lore so who knows the full accuracy of anything from the original rulebooks)

ENDING spoilers: in the rogue+johnny storming AHQ ending, it's revealed that rogue has a son while they're prepping for the job. if you eavesdrop on her calling him while you're at the afterlife, you hear her tell her son to (paraphrasing here) "pull over and look at the stars", which immediately made my brain go to: nomad, badlands, santiago = dad? maybe. (santiago also canonically has a son according to the TTRPG lore)

this immediately reminded me of another interesting shard that i believe you can find in multiple locations around night city: “"what REALLY happened in arasaka tower?“

i love this dang shard. at first i thought it was just a cute conspiracy with some juicy gossip (and i love how 99% of the shards that mention johnny in this game are reminding us that he's not a real rebel, he's a poser) but it brings some interesting shit together

one: it tells us where johnny got his hands on the nukes! he and the nomads jumped a militech convoy and jacked some bombs!

which is never directly explained, even as saburo arasaka is interrogating him shortly before using soulkiller. very nice of johnny to protect his homies like that.

...or maybe he didn’t. saburo emphasizes that the dead don’t lie like the living do, and we don’t know what exactly arasaka did to johnny’s construct in mikoshi.

it also explains why the obvious media narrative is that militech nuked arasaka, a nice neat political bow to the end of the fourth corpo wars, which is an entire section of the TTRPG lore that makes my eyes cross when i read it.

it also makes the star/nomads ending extremely interesting, because i originally believed it was the ending where V’s journey deviates the most from rewalking johnny’s path... which also has weird implications if the johnny’s nomad era is being kept from v.

(this also leads into my belief that the star ending/the devil ending are narratively two sides of the same coin, but that’s a WHOLE ANOTHER POST for another day.)

TWO, just straight up the fact that they turned the raid where they actually obtained the nukes into an action flick BD that pretty much ANYONE could watch. who the hell was doing that??

well, who else other than the guy who johnny (optionally) punched the shit out of for filming alt's death: thompson, media guy, and according to rogue, “bad luck”. because you know, recording your crimes is straight up evidence that can be used against you.

during the alt flashback we meet thompson, and just after that in cyberspace before meeting alt, johnny tells v that he has no idea what happened to him and that they never worked together again.

oh, johnny, you lying bastard man

this is blatantly untrue, and if V even had two braincells and better memory than a goldfish they'd know this--in the first flashback sequence where johnny and rogue nuke arasaka tower, thompson is on the comms as they ride the AV towards AHQ, questioning their plans and use of violence.

which leaves me with some questions, like where the fuck is thompson, why does johnny keep lying about this, why doesn't johnny say almost anything about how you interact with the aldecaldo clan nonstop throughout the game when he himself may have been a member of the family for some time?? is he continuing to protect the nomad clan that saved his ass? we know that a lot of his flashbacks are unreliable at best, that johnny changes shit up as desired when presenting V with his memories.

in 2077, you can also find that there’s a remake of “badlands raid” in the shard “new release braindances” that is pretty much everywhere. that shard doesn’t add much, but does mention something along the lines of “many people don’t know the ending of the original” which probably means johnny punched thompson out for filming again, or something.

my running theories: rogue ditched santiago and the aldecaldos with johnny and thompson to nuke arasaka tower, and when johnny died she was stuck looking for (heavily implied by johnny here:) corpo sellout ways to survive.

adam smasher obviously has something to do with this since johnny/rogue's vendetta against the guy isn't entirely clear beyond the smokescreen of "he killed johnny and he sucks". i have done 0 research into this though i'm tired of typing okay

i obviously cannot be certain i have found everything related to this in the game as i’m not even done with this playthrough where i’m trying to pay attention, but i hope this is fun for someone else to dig into.

enjoy, fellow silverhand freaks

EDIT: additional findings

ALRIGHT I HAVE DONE MORE DIGGING AND I AM BACK WITH MORE NOMAD/JOHNNY FINDINGS. these ones are kind of a bummer but VERY interesting.

there’s a shard called “excerpts from a history of the nomads by bb pires” that goes into detail about how nomads came to be

there’s an interesting quote in it: It's hard to imagine a group less inclined to wandering than farmers, but in fact they were the ones who sparked the age of nomads. Natural catastrophes, crops ravaged by bioplagues, armed conflicts and martial law allowing corporations to speculate and privatize land - all this forced them into a life on the road.

when you ask johnny why he wants to take down arasaka, he begins by referencing this himself!!

it’s a little awkward to imagine a nomad V doesn’t also know what he’s referencing, but hey, V is the fool because we are as players and that’s only one life path... so sure.

johnny also has unique dialogue during this scene about a nomad origin V, telling them that he’s been trying to understand how V thinks, and came to the conclusion that “their family was a crutch” and essentially made them stupid because they always had a safety net (lmao johnny calling v privileged basically)

BUT this also may reference why johnny would find it confusing as hell that V doesn’t immediately share the views he does when nomads, in terms of values, seem to be more aligned with johnny than V is. but once again V is the fool for a reason and this is all my own speculation so YOU KNOW.

MORE IMPORTANTLY, at the end of chippin’ in, when you ask johnny what he meant by letting down his friends... santiago is named directly

i thought this was interesting since the only glimpse of their relationship that we get is seeing johnny meeting santiago via the alt flashback for the first time.

so now it’s obvious that while johnny and rogue were with the nomads their friendship developed, and johnny went on to disappoint santiago in some way by being his normal dickhead self

but HOW? how did he disappoint santiago? is santiago even still alive?? did smasher kill santiago and is this why rogue mentions during chippin’ in that she wants smasher to “settle a score” moreso than avenge johnny??

the only additional hints i have are from this shard, which you can find at the aldecaldos camp: “nomads at ground zero”

i’m just gonna transcribe here and bold for emphasis:

It was no secret that Night Corp offered generous pay and, in some cases, free cyberware and biomonitor upgrades to anyone willing to help clean up the crater of radioactive rubble at AHQ ground zero. Some firsthand accounts recall the incessant ticking of Geiger counters, like the loud buzz of cicadas in summer. In retrospect, we can only guess how many "crater cleaners" lost their lives to radiation sickness shortly thereafter. Both the city government and Night Corp have claimed casualties were kept to a minimum, while providing no official statistics to substantiate the claim. That being said, they have never been under pressure to release such figures. After all, most rescue, engineering, and rubble cleanup teams were not local Night Citizens, but nomads. Surprised you didn't know? Don't be. It is a fact many history courses tend to overlook. The city employed hundreds of nomad mercenaries, primarily from clans in Aldecaldo nation. These nomads were hungry for gainful work and the city needed experts who were not only experienced but brave enough to knowingly put their lives on the line - all so Arasaka could one day erect another tower in its place. But history is not without its sense of irony. These nomads, who so deliberately live outside our so-called "system," came to its very rescue. Not for the first time. And not for the last.

a main theme we find in this game is the idea that the system of corps and exploitation cannot be stopped by grandiose rebellious gestures--no amount of samurai songs, assassinating mayors, or even planting nukes in towers will change things. yet johnny, his friends and mercs at atlantis in the 2020s, including rogue, chose to rebel any way they could, thinking it better than not. johnny criticizes her lack of rebellious spirit CONSTANTLY in 2077.

but ultimately, johnny, trapped in mikoshi, didn’t get to see the outcome of what detonating the AHQ nukes did to night city’s fragile ecosystem. rogue, however, did--and likely watched their former allies, the aldecaldos, be forced to take dangerous work at AHQ’s ground zero (from lack of other opportunities as detailed in this shard), then die from radiation sickness throughout the following decades, all as a result of what she and johnny did to try and fight the system. and she also watched all the former mercenaries of atlantis be hunted down by arasaka.

so rogue sees firsthand what the cost of rebellion is and johnny doesn’t. and nomads, considered the most free of any of the factions we encounter in the game, are the cost.

#lore post #johnny silverhand #cyberpunk 2077 #cyberpunk2077 #cp2077 #cyberpunk lore

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silvokrent · 4 years ago

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RWBY Character Analysis: Pietro and Penny Polendina

Up until now I’ve been keeping quiet about my opinions on the newest volume, in no small part because my personal life has been one absurd setback after another, and I haven’t had the energy to engage in fandom meta. If you do want to know what my current opinion of RWBY is, go over to @itsclydebitches blog, search through her #rwby-recaps tag, and read every single one. At this point, her metas are basically an itemized list of all my grievances with the show. I highly recommend you check ’em out.

Or, if you don’t feel like reading several hours’ worth of recaps, then go find a sheet of paper, give yourself a papercut, and then squeeze a lemon into it. That should give you an accurate impression of my feelings.

In truth, I have a lot to say about the show, particularly how I think CRWBY has mishandled the plot, characters, tone, and intended message of their series. And while I enjoy dissecting RWBY with what amounts to mad scientist levels of glee, I think plenty of other folks have already discussed V7′s and V8′s various issues in greater depth and with far more eloquence. Any contribution I could theoretically make at this point would be somewhat redundant.

That being said, I’d like to talk about something that’s been bothering me for a while, which (to my knowledge) no one else in the fandom has brought up. (And feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.)

Today’s topic of concern is Pietro Polendina, and his relationship with Penny.

And because I’m absolutely certain this post is going to be controversial and summon anonymous armchair critics to fill my inbox with sweary claptrap, I may as well just come out and say it:

Pietro Polendina, as he’s currently portrayed in the show, is an inherently abusive parental figure.

Let me take a second to clarify that I don’t think it was RWBY’s intention to portray Pietro that way. Much like other aspects of the show, a lot of nuance is often lost when discussing the difference between intention versus implementation, or telling versus showing. It’s what happens when a writer tries to characterize a person one way, but in execution portrays them in an entirely different light. Compounding this problem is what feels like a series of rather myopic writing decisions that started as early as Volume 2, concerning Penny’s sense of agency, and how the canon would bear out the implications of an autonomous being grappling with her identity. It’s infuriating that the show has spent seven seasons staunchly refusing to ask any sort of ethical questions surrounding her existence, only to then—with minimal setup—give us Pietro’s “heartfelt” emotional breakdown when he has to choose between “saving” Penny or “sacrificing” her for the greater good.

Yeah, no thanks.

If we want to talk about why this moment read as hollow and insincere, we need to first make sure everyone’s on the same page.

Spoilers for V8.E5 - “Amity.” Let’s not waste any time.

In light of the newest episode and its—shall we say—questionable implications, I figured now was the best time to bring it up while the thoughts were still fresh in my mind. (Because nothing generates momentum quite like frothing-at-the-mouth rage.)

The first time we’re told anything about Pietro, it comes from an exchange between Penny and Ruby. From V2.E2 - “A Minor Hiccup.”

Penny: I've never been to another kingdom before. My father asked me not to venture out too far, but... You have to understand, my father loves me very much. He just worries a lot.

Ruby: Believe me, I know the feeling. But why not let us know you were okay?

Penny: I…was asked not to talk to you. Or Weiss. Or Blake. Or Yang. Anybody, really.

Ruby: Was your dad that upset?

Penny: No, it wasn’t my father.

The scene immediately diverts our attention to a public unveiling of the AK-200. A hologram of James Ironwood is presenting this newest model of Atlesian Knight to a crowd of enthusiastic spectators, along with the Atlesian Paladin, a piloted mech. During the demonstration, James informs his audience that Atlas’ military created them with the intent of removing people from the battlefield and mitigating casualties (presumably against Grimm).

Penny is quickly spotted by several soldiers, and flees. Ruby follows, and in the process the two are nearly hit by a truck. Penny’s display of strength draws a crowd and prompts her to retreat into an alley, where Ruby learns that Penny isn’t “a real girl.”

This scene continues in the next episode, “Painting the Town…”

Penny: Most girls are born, but I was made. I’m the world’s first synthetic person capable of generating an Aura. [Averts her gaze.] I’m not real…

After Ruby assures her that no, you don’t have to be organic in order to have personhood, Penny proceeds to hug her with slightly more force than necessary.

Ruby: [Muffled noise of pain.] I can see why your father would want to protect such a delicate flower!

Penny: [Releases Ruby.] Oh, he’s very sweet! My father’s the one that built me! I’m sure you would love him.

Ruby: Wow. He built you all by himself?

Penny: Well, almost! He had some help from Mr. Ironwood.

Ruby: The general? Wait, is that why those soldiers were after you?

Penny: They like to protect me, too!

Ruby: They don't think you can protect yourself?

Penny: They're not sure if I'm ready yet. One day, it will be my job to save the world, but I still have a lot left to learn. That's why my father let me come to the Vytal Festival. I want to see what it's like in the rest of the world, and test myself in the Tournament.

Their conversation is interrupted by the sound of the approaching soldiers from earlier. Despite Ruby’s protests, Penny proceeds to yeet her into the nearby dumpster, all while reassuring her that it’s to keep Ruby out of trouble, not her. When the soldiers arrive, they ask her if she’s okay, then proceed to lightly scold her for causing a scene. Penny’s told that her father “isn’t going to be happy about this,” and is then politely asked (not ordered; asked) to let them escort her back.

Let’s take a second to break down these events.

When these two episodes first aired, the wording and visuals (“No, it wasn’t my father,” followed by the cutaway to James unveiling the automatons) implied that James was the one forbidding her from interacting with other people. It’s supposed to make you think that James is being restrictive and harsh, while Pietro is meant as a foil—the sweet, but cautious father figure. But here’s the thing: both of these depictions are inaccurate, and frankly, Penny’s the one at fault here. Penny blew her cover within minutes of interacting with Ruby—a scenario that Penny was responsible for because she was sneaking off without permission. Penny is a classified, top-secret military project, as made clear by the fact that she begs Ruby to not say anything to anyone. Penny is in full acknowledgement that her existence, if made public, could cause massive issues for her (something that she’s clearly experienced before, if her line, “You’re taking this extraordinarily well,” is anything to go by).

But here’s the thing—keeping Penny on a short leash wasn’t a unilateral decision made by James. That was Pietro’s choice as well. “My father asked me not to venture out too far,” “Your father isn’t going to be happy about this”—as much as this scene is desperately trying to put the onus on James for Penny’s truant behavior, Pietro canonically shares that blame. And Penny (to some extent) is in recognition of the fact that she did something wrong.

Back in Volumes 1 – 3, before the series butchered James’ characterization, these moments were meant as pretty clever examples of foreshadowing and subverting the controlling-military-general trope. This scene is meant to illustrate that yes, Penny is craving social interaction outside of military personnel as a consequence of being hidden, but that hiding her is also a necessity. It’s a complicated situation with no easy answer, but it’s also something of a necessary evil (as Penny’s close call with the truck and her disclosing that intel to Ruby are anything to go by).

Let’s skip ahead to Volume 7, shortly after Watts tampered with the drone footage and framed her for several deaths. In V7.E7 - “Worst Case Scenario,” a newscaster informs us that people in Atlas and Mantle want Penny to be deactivated, despite James’ insistence that the footage was doctored and Penny didn’t go on a killing spree. The public’s unfavorable opinion of Penny—a sentiment that Jacques of all people embodies when he brings it up in V7.E8—reinforces V2’s assessment of why keeping her secret was necessary. Not only is her existence controversial because Aura research is still taboo, but people are afraid that a mechanical person with military-grade hardware could be hacked and weaponized against them. (Something which Volume 8 actually validates when James has Watts take control of her in the most recent episode.)

But I digress.

We’re taken to Pietro’s lab, where Penny is hooked up to some sort of recharge/docking station. Ruby, Weiss, and Maria look on in concern while the machine is uploading the visual data from her systems. There’s one part of their conversation I want to focus on in particular:

Pietro: When the general first challenged us to find the next breakthrough in defense technology, most of my colleagues pursued more obvious choices. I was one of the few who believed in looking inward for inspiration.

Ruby: You wanted a protector with a soul.

Pietro: I did. And when General Ironwood saw her, he did too. Much to my surprise, the Penny Project was chosen over all the other proposals.

Allow me to break down their conversation so we can fully appreciate what he’s actually saying.

The Penny Project was picked as the candidate for the next breakthrough in defense technology.

Pietro wanted a protector with a SOUL.

In RWBY, Aura and souls are one of the defining characteristics of personhood. Personhood is central to Penny’s identity and internal conflict (particularly when we consider that she’s based on Pinocchio). That’s why Penny accepts Ruby’s reassurances that she’s a real person. That’s why she wants to have emotional connections with others.

What makes that revelation disturbing is when you realize that Pietro knowingly created a child soldier.

Look, there’s no getting around this. Pietro fully admits that he wanted to create a person—a human being—a fucking child—as a "defense technology” to throw at the Grimm (and by extension, Salem). Everything, from the language he uses, to the mere fact that he entered Penny in the Vytal Tournament as a proving ground where she could “test [her]self,” tells us that he either didn’t consider or didn’t care about the implications behind his proposal.

When you break it all down, this is what we end up with:

“Hey, I have an idea: Why don’t we make a person, cram as many weapons as we can fit into that person, and then inform her every day for the rest of her life that she was built for the sole purpose of fighting monsters, just so we don’t have to risk the lives of others. Let’s then take away anything remotely resembling autonomy, minimize her interactions with people, and basically indoctrinate her into thinking that this is something she wants for herself. Oh, and in case she starts to raise objections, remind her that I donated part of my soul to her. If we make her feel guilty about this generous sacrifice I made so she could have the privilege of existing, she won’t question our motives. Next, let’s give her a taste of freedom by having her fight in a gladiatorial blood sport so that we can prove our child soldier is an effective killer. And then, after she’s brutally murdered on international television, we can rebuild her and assign her to protecting an entire city that’s inherently prejudiced against her, all while I brood in my lab about how sad I am.”

Holy fuck. Watts might be a morally bankrupt asshole, but at least his proposal didn’t hinge on manufacturing state-of-the-art living weapons. They should have just gone with his idea.

(Which, hilariously enough, they did. Watts is the inventor of the Paladins—Paladins which, I’ll remind you, were invented so the army could remove people from the battlefield. You know, people. Kind of like what Penny is.)

Do you see why this entire scene might have pissed me off? Even if the show didn’t intend for any of this to be the case, when you think critically about the circumstances there’s no denying the tacit implications.

To reiterate, V8.E5 is the episode where Pietro says, and I quote:

“I don’t care about the big picture! I care about my daughter! I lost you before. Are you asking me to go through that again? No. I want the chance to watch you live your life.”

Oh, yeah? And what life is that? The one where she’s supposed to kill Grimm and literally nothing else? You do realize that she died specifically because you made her for the purpose of fighting, right?

No one, literally no one, was holding a gun to Pietro’s head and telling him that he had to build a living weapon. That was his idea. He chose to do that.

Remember when Cinder said, “I don’t serve anyone! And you wouldn’t either, if you weren’t built that way.” She…basically has a point. Penny has never been given the option to explore the world in a capacity where she wasn’t charged with defending it by her father. We know she doesn’t have many friends, courtesy of Ironwood dissuading her against it in V7. But I’m left with the troubling realization that the show (and the fandom), in their crusade to vilify James, are ignoring the fact that Pietro is also complicit in this behavior by virtue of being her creator. If we condemn the man that prevents Penny from having relationships, then what will we do to the man who forced her into that existence in the first place?

Being her “father” has given him a free pass to overlook the ethics of having a child who was created with a pre-planned purpose. How the hell did the show intend for Pietro to reconcile “I want you to live your life” with “I created you so you’d spend your life defending the world”? It viscerally reminds me of the sort of narcissistic parents who have kids because they want to pass on the family name, or continue their bloodline, or have live-in caregivers when they get older, only on a larger and much more horrific scale. And that’s fucked up.

Now, I’m not saying I’m against having a conflict like this in the show. In fact, I’d love to have a character who has to grapple with her own humanity while questioning the environment she grew up in. Penny is a character who is extremely fascinating because of all the potential she represents—a young woman who through a chance encounter befriends a group of strangers, and over time, is exposed to freedoms and friendships she was previously denied. Slowly, she begins to unlearn the mindset she was indoctrinated with, and starts to petition for agency and autonomy. Pietro is forced to confront the fact that what he did was traumatic and cruel, and that his love for her doesn’t erase the harm he unintentionally subjected her to, nor does it change the fact that he knowingly burdened a person with a responsibility she never consented to. There’s a wealth of character growth and narrative payoff buried here, but like most things in RWBY, it was either underdeveloped or not thought through all the way.

The wholesome father-daughter relationship the show wants Pietro and Penny to have is fundamentally contradicted by the nature of her existence, and the fact that no one (besides the villains) calls attention to it. I’d love for them to have that sort of dynamic, but the show had to do more to earn it. Instead, it’ll forever be another item on RWBY’s ever-growing list of disappointments—

Because Pietro’s remorse is more artificial than Penny could ever hope to be.

#rwby #rwby volume 8 #rwby spoilers #rwby thought dump #my posts #i speak #rwby meta #pietro polendina #penny polendina #james ironwood #arthur watts #ruby rose #rwby worldbuilding #rwde

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vg-sanctuary · 3 years ago

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The World Ends with You

Jupiter - DS - 2008

[screenshots from Nintendo Life, jack-reviews.com, and LPArchive; please excuse the low res, I couldn’t find better ones]

TWEWY is an RPG with modern (circa 2008) style and character designs by Tetsuya Nomura, the director of Kingdom Hearts. I meant to write about it the day its sequel NEO: TWEWY came out but missed that by a few days. anyway, I think it's reasonable to call this game the epitome of the Nintendo DS. it has every feature to be expected of any game on the wildly unique handheld: a touch-based minigame with wireless multiplayer and little bearing on the main game, a sleep mode puzzle, touch controls, forced use of both screens, and gameplay and plot designed to be enjoyed in short bursts. it's loaded with cool ideas, some of which are more than questionable, even barring the crazy DS features, hence the remakes. (savvy readers will notice I left out the iOS and Switch platforms and, while there are remakes of the game for both platforms that have extra content and a more elegant combat system, they don't hit quite like the DS original.)

I don't fancy myself an RPG fan for the most part. the usual high fantasy themes and turn based combat are boring to me. usually, if an RPG has either one I'm not interested, and this has neither of those. I decided to try TWEWY while collecting DS games, and the plot and combat had grabbed me within two hours. I haven't mentioned the awesome music and visuals, both wonderfully stylish and unique in the same way Persona's UI is stylish and unique, only this game uses the style on its game world and characters instead of menus.

the premise is the antisocial protagonist, Neku, wakes up in a killing game wherein each day has a mission that he and his partner either complete or face erasure. after a week of these missions he'll be free. I can’t tell you the massive general plot spoiler that makes the whole thing so compelling as it goes on, so this section of the post is sadly pretty short. there is an anime that goes over the main events, but it's only four hours long compared to the game's 20, character development is sometimes lacking in detail or totally inaccurate, and it generally doesn't include the hardships you would go through as a player e.g. having to try a boss five times.

almost everything about TWEWY's gameplay is intriguing, so I'll try to be concise. combat is a strange beast that comes from developer Jupiter's need to use both screens to the fullest. by the way, don't let this wall of text scare you away from the game; it introduces these mechanics much slower and it's easier to understand and use. the bottom screen is gesture-based ARPG combat where, for example, short swipes over an enemy makes Neku use a sword attack or touching somewhere on the screen makes him fire a bullet. the exact gestures and attacks are determined by what pins he's wearing. the top screen asks you to use the d-pad to attack with Neku’s partner and navigate along a tree of cards where getting the right card grants a star; enough of those allows you to use a powerful and health-restoring fusion attack. there's this green light puck that passes between characters when the one holding it does a finisher and multiplies the finisher's damage with each successful pass up to five times, but disappears if held by one character for too long. fortunately the game has an auto mode for the top screen that's roughly equivalent to mashing left or right on the d-pad so you don't have to try to split your brain between both, but you get a little more experience if that's turned off. I love the bottom screen and the idea of the top screen but could never really get my head around doing both at once. maybe the intent was to focus on the character that has the puck and leave the other standing still or spamming defense? (in NEO: TWEWY, the light puck mechanic was changed to beat drop combos, where using a different character to attack shortly after a finisher gives you some charge for a super. no attention splitting, just fun ARPG combat with an interesting combo system that can inform what pins you use.)

turning up the game's difficulty makes enemies stronger and mostly drops different pins. there aren't random encounters: you have to scan for enemies and mostly get to choose which encounters to take. you can choose to fight multiple in a row without getting health back between them and multiply your drop rate multiplier, with enemies getting stronger the more encounters you take. you get your health back when you return to the overworld, which cuts out a lot of the obligatory spending for healing items and the trouble of running out for the player. there are still some pins that can heal you during a battle, though.

leveling up, instead of arbitrarily increasing every stat, only increases your HP, but you can turn your level down to lower your HP and multiply the drop rate of pins by one for each level. other stats can be increased with clothes or food, with different foods permanently increasing different stats and have different calories. each character can only eat so much in a single real time day, which is wack but still interesting. the food system in NEO is similar except without the per-day limit, and I think it's a great idea that gives the player agency in terms of what stats they want to increase and whether they want larger or smaller boosts.

pins can evolve when leveled up enough, but may only evolve if you give them the right kind of pin points, which is like experience for pins. there's PP from battles, from the game's proto-StreetPass mingle mode (that you could only get randomly roughly every hour, from other folks in TWEWY's mingle mode, or from other DSes running any wireless software; thankfully this is removed from the remakes but it's a neat idea), and from turning off the game for up to seven real time days. if a pin reaches max level with the wrong kind of PP, you have to go get another one to evolve it, but I don't think there are any super rare pins that evolve. the game doesn't show what kind of PP you need to evolve a pin, so while it's a cool idea, there's a fair chance that you'll miss lots of evolutions and not even notice.

there are lots of rare pins that can be worn as a set to do something ridiculously powerful, but you have to go out of your way to get them, like the Darklit Planets. it's a set of seven pins that are useful alone, but if worn all together they become three times more powerful. they all drop rarely from bosses on the highest difficulty. I love wacky, mystical, obscenely powerful postgame stuff like this but can't be bothered to actually go and get it. some games give you their best weapons last, which is always a shame because there's nothing to use it on, but in TWEWY, there's a boss rush that saves your best time and lots of bosses to re-fight for their rare pins, so you'll have a reason to fight bosses until you've got every one of those rare pins.

speaking of postgame, TWEWY's is rather extensive, with a bonus day focused on the Tin Pin Slammer minigame and goofy non-canon alternate personalities plus four sort of tedious missions for every ingame day that unlock secret reports for much more lore about the Reapers' Game. (one of the missions for every day is "find and destroy the pig Noise," which mostly have puzzle-ish fights; one is killed by closing the DS and opening it again, which is the sleep mode puzzle I mentioned.) if you get them all, it unlocks a special scene in the ending, but again, I can't be bothered to do that kind of postgame. not all of it, anyway, the bonus day's missions are too tedious for me.

in Tin Pin Slammer, the minigame with almost no bearing on the main game, you use your pins to play kinda-sorta Beyblade. every pin has different stats, many of which are hidden, and different amounts of the different weapons to stun your opponents' pins with. it's a rather extensive side mode and a totally unnecessary inclusion, but really fun anyway, and can be played wirelessly with others. there are some other mechanics that are also interesting but not quite worth adding any more words to this ridiculously long post, including a brand trends system and an interesting way to limit running from fights.

even with all of these words and some pictures, I seriously can't offer a glimpse of the vibes, the combat, the music, the story, the characters, the entire energy of The World Ends with You in a blog post, and in my opinion, it's not the same without the crispy DS sprites or peculiar dual screen combat. if you like the DS, 2000s energy, or action RPGs, this is an essential addition to your library if you don't want to track down a DS copy or you prefer more elegant combat, try one of the remakes instead. you're this far into the blog post, so I'm sure you won't be disappointed. (NEO: TWEWY is very good too and has a free demo on PS4 and Switch; while not the same, it's still worth trying. it carries a modernized audiovisual energy of its predecessor, more elegant combat improvements to other TWEWY systems.)

#twewy #the world ends with you #ds #nintendo ds #nds #retro gaming #my writing

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nostalgebraist-autoresponder · 3 years ago

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A Note to the Reader

"Floornight" is a long, serial webnovel I've been writing since March of 2014. It is the story of Max, a freelance executive who becomes an executive for a freelance organization. It is the story of a strange and beautiful city, of a conspiracy to hide the city's secrets, of scientists who can no longer speak to one another, of a man in a maze in the shape of a fish.

The "Floornight" tag is here, if you'd like to check it out. For additional context about the fiction, see this tag's chronology, which may be more useful if you're unfamiliar with the story. (Warning: several spoilers follow. Not really important spoilers, but ones you might be inclined to skip over if you weren't sure to read the story in full.)

There are currently seven chapters (since the story is so long, this is more than one installment!) available for free through various online archives (as well as on AO3, here for those who wish to join in the reading). Three more are scheduled to go up for pledge fulfillment through Kickstarter this coming weekend (Oct. 13-14, 2014). These chapters will be free the moment they're released (or shortly thereafter if they are not selected by Kickstarter backers for inclusion). I will post to this blog once per day until the Kickstarter funding period is over, with links to the pledge pages for each chapter. Afterward, I am planning to release the remaining four chapters for free on a set schedule as well, on the same schedule as the Kickstarter pledges (two or three times per month).

The Plot

"Floornight" is about Max as a person, and about what it feels like to be Max. It is meant to depict an alternate universe, one in which my life happened differently, and which I may be better suited for than this one, were it in the end a better place. But it is also a story about a city with its own history and secrets, a city very much like our own, yet utterly unlike it, and about the conspiracy that has concealed it. In this way, like "Nova Terra," it is, among other things, a story about science.

Max is a freelance executive. He is a man of many talents. He is good with words, and he is good with numbers, and he has a talent for finding loopholes in social convention and putting them to good use. And though he has many talents, he has only one life to live, and so he must prioritize -- but in his experience, the most pressing demands, the most urgent tasks, the things you most need to do, can seem, when you've spent hours wrestling with them and when at last you stand back and look at the sum total of your efforts, to be almost nothing. The things that need doing are great and important, but they cannot -- by themselves -- give you power. Max must prioritize as best he can.

Max meets his match in a freelancer called Sartaj Singh, who is, when the two of them first meet, a kind of man with whom Max can never win. Despite the fact that they spend a great deal of time together, they fundamentally don't understand one another. And Singh is obsessed with an even more important and even more pressing task than any that Max is capable of handling. In fact, it seems so important to him that it is hard to find a way to make him stop talking about it. Max is good at making things happen, but the world he's made is so complicated that he can't do it alone. He needs help.

So he finds some. He begins to meet other freelance executives. They are all good at their jobs, and some of them are not. But they share a passion for the city of Nova Scotia, for its strange mysteries, its history, its science, its future. They want to make it better. They will do whatever it takes. Together, they go looking for places where progress is hiding. Together, they go exploring in secret. Together, they try to reverse-engineer the city's mind and reverse its will. Together, they set out to understand just what the city is, and what it could become. And if, for whatever reason, they can not understand it -- well, at least they've tried.

The City of Nova Scotia

As many of my followers know already, I live in Boston. During my time here (from which my employment in science journalism has been my primary income), I've often found myself wondering how I would react in a place like Boston, were I just some random guy from the world.

I imagined that my first impression would be that it feels like no world at all. That it feels like there is so little there that you might as well be anywhere else.

(I know the city of Boston is nothing like that, and I don't mean it as a dig at Boston, but it's the image that's on my mind.)

This -- my first impression -- is in a way true of New York, where I once lived. There I found myself feeling a little lost if I left the apartment, even though there was so much to do there. There I was more than aware that the city was packed with people -- mostly living lives which were, or would become, wholly different from mine. In a way I still feel that Boston, too, is crowded with people, but they are different from the ones in New York. They are not strangers. And even if I lived here all the time, I probably wouldn't have too much trouble getting around.

Boston has things to offer, though they are fewer and less obvious than in New York. It has the sense that it can be changed. In New York, you are always, at the very least, living somewhere new, for a new reason. If you wanted to leave New York, you could do so at minimal cost or inconvenience, which I think was a strong incentive, and which is absent here. Here, in many ways, I would be able to live just as much of my life as in other cities, even though in many ways I would be living it in an oddly familiar context.

People tell me that Boston is the kind of city where you can't always tell where the world ends and the city begins. It is in a sense like that, but it doesn't completely match up.

We are a city we have no right to be. Our borders do not match precisely with any land mass. We are a city that did not exist in the world before we built it. Our streets are, literally, made up, as our architects once said. We built this city out of nothing, for no particular reason other than that the land was an island and we thought, in our dreams, we might like to do it that way.

(This is not an unusual story. We, collectively, are the dreamers of dreams.)

The Conspiracy, and its Enemies

[content warning: a discussion of a fictional scientific conspiracy. See notes for additional background, to use to skip any part of this content you don't find relevant.]

Many of the things which are happening now in this country, or at least in my part of this country, were not things I had expected to happen, only months ago. It is a story that, if it ever ends, will end with a great deal of chaos and a world changed more than I ever imagined possible.

This story began in the year 2025. I will write the year as if it never happened, and call it 2026, in my account which will come later.

I was a young man that year, still living in that great city we call Boston. I was a young man then, young to be a man I would later come to know. In 2026, I was twenty years old. I was a journalist by training, but I had found myself at the moment I turned twenty more interested in the practical application of science -- in the uses of science, if you will -- than I had been in the science itself. As an undergraduate, I had learned about a lot of things that other people have not, and so my mind has always been open for possibilities.

But I've said that the story begins in 2026. I'll write it as if these years were not ones of upheaval. Like so many in my generation, I was certain that we -- or at least those of us with a particular set of interests, in the year of my birth -- would be the ones to usher in a new age, a new era. I had no idea what it would look like, but we'd know it when we saw it.

This was not to

#original fiction

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thenovelartist · 5 years ago

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Childhood Friends Headcanon -MLQC

I’m sorry to all the people who come to my blog for ML only to get bombarded by posts for MLQC. But I’m enjoying myself.

Premise: What if the boys and MC actually stayed together once they met?

(Note: Minor spoilers for chapters 7-13, particularly surrounding boys backstories.)

Gavin

He’ll never forget that day in the rain meeting MC.

She knew about him—his reputation preceded him—and it was clear she was leery of him.

But with a little time, she came around.

So much so that she was sad that he graduated before her.

He was kinda sad, too, to be honest. He didn’t want to leave her.

But they never lost touch. Made sure to meet up as frequently as they could.

He didn’t attend his high school graduation—he both didn’t care and thought the everyone else would appreciate him not being present—but she did watch him with pride as he graduated his cop training program.

He almost cried over the fact that he actually had someone there to support him. He didn’t have familial support, but that didn’t really matter anymore when he had his own personal cheerleader.

He surprised her by showing up at her high school graduation.

Not really a “Surprise” but she was still wildly excited to see him, nonetheless.

Though they didn’t get to see each other often—Gavin busy with his demanding job and MC busy with college—they were instantly contacting the other when they had a moment of free time.

Gavin totally tried to coordinate his days off with hers.

They were that couple that claimed they were just friends but looked to the world like they were dating while also each wishing they were actually dating but both being too chicken to confess.

But Gavin finally gets the guts one day.

No surprise MC quickly followed up with a confession of her own.

How do you date?

They’d been so close and doing couple-y things for so long. Like, what was even a date compared to what they normally did?

They decided to do something they wouldn’t normally do and have a nice, truly ‘couple-y’ dinner.

Then they chuckled all the way home because that really wasn’t their style.

Still enjoyed it.

Gavin took her home, dropping her off at her door… and totally chickened out of kissing her goodnight.

They try the “date” thing again. This time, something more casual.

And that time, it did end with a kiss.

Gavin’s little mind went “boom”.

Already positive he’s gonna marry this girl.

Waits a little longer to propose, though. Just to make it seem like he’s not rushing it.

Courthouse wedding a few months later. Her father witnesses.

Then when her father passes shortly after, leaving her with the company, she’s constantly having to ask her coworkers for new copies of documents because she’s not used to signing her new last name quite yet. Especially when everyone still calls her by her maiden name. Or sometimes addresses her like they would her late father. (It’s a change for everyone.)

She’s got it down in a couple of days and likes her new signature better than her old one.

After marriage, Gavin also has a problem of his own. Particularly with the ring on his hand.

It’s his new nervous tick to play with it when he’s stressed on a scouting mission. And when he has to take it off for an undercover one, he’s a mess without it on.

Feels like he’s being unfaithful to the love of his life. MC has had to reassure him many times he’s not but secretly is touched that he feels that way.

These two have disastrous schedules, which is why when they both have time off they can spend together, phones go on silent. Someone can literally come to their house if it’s an emergency.

Kiro

They make it out of the lab together.

Poor kids were terrified out of their mind, each only five. They never let go of each other’s hands during their escape.

And they don’t want to be separated afterwards.

These two kids are each other’s “emotional support person.”

Literally inseparable.

These kids’ guardians bend over backwards to accommodate them. MC has a killer set of puppy dog eyes, but Kiro’s pout is downright impossible to resist.

They end up in the same classes at school.

Play together on the playground at recess and spend lunches together.

They are the “class couple.” And do get teased for it.

They’re told to ignore it, but it still takes a toll on them.

Eventually, Kiro steps out of school to become home-schooled, thanks to his music career.

Oh, these two kids do not know how to handle themselves.

But they are growing up and they can be apart from each other, right?

Right?

Wrong.

They survive not being in class together, but the moment they’re each out of school, they are attached to their phones, texting or calling each other.

Get together to hang out as much as humanly possible.

Kiro has 1000% both snuck off sets to go see MC and snuck MC onto sets to have her around.

MC has also enabled Kiro’s snacking by sneaking him anything he desires.

Usually it’s chips. She’s his chip dealer. Which only leads to the nickname “Miss Chips”.

They were so close that this mutual crush thing was absolutely unavoidable and unsurprising to most people who watched them.

They were fifteen and each exploring their feelings for each other and what dating was like.

And by sixteen, these two were totally making out in closets.

Savin just deals. As long as it doesn’t get out to the public, he’s fine with it. They’re generally discrete, anyway.

Though, the poor guy has had to hunt Kiro’s hiding spot down more than once. Generally, he scopes out the building beforehand so he knows where to find Kiro and MC if the superstar disappears from set.

Kiro would totally get her a promise ring. “I can’t officially propose now, but… I don’t think I’m going to be letting my Miss Chips go anytime in the future.”

She’s in tears.

Kiro’s already planned out proposing to her as soon as they are eighteen and has scoped out the perfect wedding venue.

Though, Savin now has to do everything in his power to keep the whole thing under wraps. He thinks it’s best the public doesn’t know Kiro’s getting married so young. They’ll slowly break it later.

MC travels with him everywhere, attending school online for convenience sake.

But when her dad passes and she has to take over the company, Kiro does his best to settle down more in Loveland to be by her side and support her more.

He fights to film exclusively at her company.

They totally have a closet that they make out in there, too. One MC has the sole key to.

Victor

He doesn’t loose track of her during their escape from that hellhole disguised as a “lab”.

She saves him, and he manages to carry her to safety.

Refuses to be separated from her after that.

Victor soon becomes like her over-protective big brother.

If he’s with her, he’s got his eye on her. And he’s with her a lot.

He’s so soft with her. Yes, there’s name calling on occasion, but he’s always met with a giggle when he calls her ‘dummy.’

He doesn’t really mean it, anyways.

Totally helps her with her homework.

And she always helps him in the kitchen. Rather, she tries and just ends up being the dishwasher after an incident with the fire alarm.

But she’s just happy if pudding is involved.

And though Victor swears he’s not going to make pudding every single night… there’s pudding more nights than not.

She goes to all his graduations; high school and college.

And he’s there supporting her at hers, looking on like the proud big brother his is.

“Good job, dummy.”

He totally teaches her how to write reports and such. Makes her do them and redo them until up to his standards.

“If you can impress me, you’ll win over anyone in the business world.”

Also teaches her all the ins and outs about running a business and how to thrive in the business world.

She’s always ready to take advice he offers.

Everyone in LFG knows that unless Victor actually is in an important meeting, MC is allowed in his office any time.

Has always seen her as his little sister.

Until she takes over her father’s company.

Suddenly, there’s a warmth in his chest as he watches her handle everything with ease.

It no longer feels like he’s watching over his little sister but rather watching a strong, capable woman handle the high-intensity job of running a company with confidence and poise.

… okay, poise was too generous a word. But his point still stood.

Suddenly, he notices she’s actually on his schedule. And their meeting takes place with none of the familiarity that they’ve become accustomed to.

He won’t coddle her as the business owner. She assures him she expects that from him.

And when she leaves his office, Victor finds himself a little bit of a mess.

They slowly lose their brother/sister mentality and grow into business partners that are close enough to have dinner a couple times a week.

“Question,’ he asks her one night. “Can these be considered ‘dates’ or not?”

She drops her fork in surprise.

They date for a several months before Victor proposes. He wouldn’t have proposed so early to anyone else but MC has always been an exception.

They put the wedding together in eight months. It’s a good, large, proper wedding, and they honeymoon out of the country. Because of course they do. Victor wants to give MC the best and only the best.

Total power couple, and Victor takes pride in that.

Lucien

This tree, or their tree, as Lucien likes to refer to it as, holds a very special place in his heart.

It started off as his sanctuary, the spot where he came out to draw.

But then it became the place that he got to bond with the girl who saved him.

After his parents were killed, everything went downhill for him at a rapid pace.

But she…

“It’s going to be okay.”

He still remembers the warmth of her hands when she held his and the tightness of her hugs she engulfed him in.

This girl’s smile lit up his dark world.

She’s the sole reason he escaped the pull of Black Swan.

Being four years apart as they were put a little gap between them growing up.

People looked at them in disdain so often that Lucien constantly lied about her being his sister.

He didn’t like that kind of attention from people, though he also logically knew why they received it.

Though he did his best to act respectfully and appropriately, he couldn’t help but feel all fluttery around MC. Every single time she came around, he had a physical reaction to her proximity.

Did his best to always act the gentleman. The last thing he wanted was to make her uncomfortable.

For now, he focused on his studies, partly because he found them interesting, partly because he wanted to be the kind of man who could provide well for his family.

Because he had his heart set on making one with her.

It was irrational, if he thought of it logically, to be become romantically attached to someone simply because he was emotionally attached to. Yet he could not separate the pull of romantic notions from his emotional relationship to her.

He eventually surrendered his attempts at trying to separate the two and gave up entirely in his quest to understand it.

He was already on his track to a doctorate when she graduated high school. And suddenly, them both being adults made those four years that separated them growing up seem a little less of a hurdle.

That’s when he asked her out.

“I had to wait so long, but I think now’s finally an appropriate time.”

And that’s when she admitted she had feelings for him, too.

It warmed his cold little heart.

They did take things slowly.

But they were already discussing marriage by the time MC had to take over the company when her father suddenly passed.

Honestly, though it was a terrible tragedy, Lucien is glad he finally gets to return the favor of being there for her just as she was there for him all those years ago.

He also decides to hide the ring he’d bought in a drawer, only to open it again when things were stable.

Well… relatively. The life of a media company manager is never fully stable. Mostly, Lucien just got tired of waiting.

He takes her back to their tree to propose.

They get married there, too.

#mr love queen's choice #mlqc #mlqc headcanon #Headcanons #mlqc gavin #mlqc kiro #mlqc victor #mlqc lucien

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sz-amare · 4 years ago

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11. Armin or Erwin?

(Spoiler Warning!) This post contains spoilers for season 3, part 2 of Attack on Titan. Tread with caution.

Season 3, part 2 of Attack on Titan, is my favorite season by far (season 4 has the potential to overthrow it but not yet). It had everything I wanted out of Attack on Titan Season 3, part 2: more world-building, answers for mysteries, and intense action. This is also the point where you can begin to see Eren change. But that particular season was not without its heart-wrenching moments, Erwin’s death being the biggest one.

The thing is, almost everyone I know who watched Attack on Titan feels like Erwin’s death was unsatisfying and unneeded. Not only that, but it also felt like there was major plot armour for Armin. Honestly, I felt the exact same way as many others. I mean, who wouldn’t. Why would you choose a child who has potential over humanity’s greatest asset? But after watching some analyses on it, it made perfect sense why Armin was the better choice. For this blog post, I wish to help others understand why Levi made the right decision (relatively) to save Armin over Erwin and put it into perspective. But first, we must understand Erwin a little better.

Now Erwin is known as the greatest leader in all of existence. Like how do you lead an army into their deaths? However, in a way, he is also a terrible leader. Let me explain. Most of us understand that Erwin’s biggest goal in life is to learn the truth of what the hell is wrong with the world. And that is the ONLY reason Erwin is a scout/leader.

If you can recall, one of the worst taboos a soldier can commit is prioritizing their personal gain over the advancement of humanity. Now Erwin isn’t necessarily stunting society’s growth with his goal. If anything, he is helping, but Erwin is prioritizing his goal over anything else. Erwin is selfish. He does not care (or at least does not prioritize) humanity over himself and his dream. You can consider this as one of his flaws.

So… what does this have to do with choosing Armin over Erwin? Well, you see, Levi chose Armin for two reasons. The first one was a bit weak, and the second one is more acceptable. Although, only the first one was stated and made apparent. The first reason is that Levi, as a friend, wanted Erwin to rest. Erwin was a monster: ruthless and fearless. But moreover, Erwin was the devil himself. Erwin was capable of convincing anyone to charge to their deaths. He was the only one who could twist your fears. He had a charisma that compelled all to listen.

All of these traits are much like the devil. But because he was the devil, he was required to be cruel and merciless. Levi didn’t want Erwin to suffer through that anymore, and thus, let him rest. This reason is only slightly understandable but disappointing overall.

The second reason has to do with Erwin’s dream. At the point where Levi was about to inject the serum, they would shortly explore the basement, which would expose the truths of the world. In other words, Erwin’s dream was in that basement. So the question is, if Erwin found out the truth, would he continue being their leader now that he has achieved his goal? Becoming the devil takes quite a toll on an individual. After all, that was the reason why Levi wanted to put Erwin to rest. So how can we be assured that Erwin would continue onward after he discovered the truth? It would be a major gamble.

Let’s put that into perspective. Let us say you had a choice to choose between two fates. The first fate is that you get to live only half your life (this is a representation of Armin). The other fate is that you have to flip a coin, and if it lands on head, you live a full life—tales, and there is instant death (this is a representation of Erwin). Of course, I want to live my entire life, but is it really worth risking death? I personally would go for half of my life without hesitation. Yes, I would be upset that I would die twice as fast than initially, but I don’t want to take that 50% chance of death either.

Coming back to the decisive moment, think to yourself, would you rather bet on Erwin, who would most likely give up, or Armin, who would achieve half of what Erwin could accomplish? Erwin is obviously a better leader, but Armin is the better choice.

If you have any questions or you want to discuss something, feel free to ask in the “Ask Me Anything” tab on my Tumblr page.

#anime #otaku #animelove #animeblog #anime tumblr #attack on titan #aot #shingeki no kyoujin #armin #erwin smith

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floraone · 4 years ago

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What do we mean when we say “sex positivity?”

With Smutember around the corner, and because this is SADLY nothing sex ed talks about consistently around the globe, I want to take a bit of time to about sex positivity if you’ll allow me. Specifically, what we mean when we use the term, and what it doesn’t. Does sex positivity mean you have to like having sex? (Spoiler, it doesn’t). Does sex positivity mean it’s wrong to not be open about doing certain practices? (Nope, it doesn’t either.) Does sex positivity mean I have to either love or hate porn, or erotic literature? (No, again.)

Since I’ll talk about this for a little longer, AND you because get to decide if you want this topic on your dash*, read ahead after the cut. (*and, while we’re at that, with smutember coming: all posts on this blog will be tagged with the hashtag #smutember2020 henceforth. If you don’t want to see this content, please feel free to block the hashtag.)

Forthose who don’t want a long post, here is the TL;DR:

Sex positivity is defined in many, many different ways, but ultimately spans attitudes regarding how we perceive sex and sexual conduct both for ourselves and others. It sees sex as a healthy expression of ourselves in which all consensual expressions of it are valid. In which shaming each other for sex or sex practices or shaming each other for the lack of experiencing sexual desire and having healthy sexual boundaries is not sex-positive. Sex positivity is about embracing all expressions of sex and sexuality (as long as they are between consenting people) as something positive that embraces open communication about personal limits and desires, and encourages exploration. Consent here is the most important prerequisite requirement: That all people involved are of an age and state of mind and consciousness where they are able to willingly consent, as well as have the perceived power to willingly consent to participate in the action.

So, to preface this shortly, this isn’t actually a term that is super easy to define. Which is why scholars (among them feminist, psychologist, social studies and sexual medicine scholars and many others) have not yet agreed on a universal definition. In fact, there are papers solely focusing on comparing definitions to find their common ground. It is, thus, definitely not something that goes without saying.

Before I can speak about what sex positivity is, we have to talk about the most important ingredient, though: Consent.

What is (and isn’t) consent?

Consent is the explicit agreement to participating in any action, and here, specificially, sex. It can be verbal and non-verbal, but it means everyone involved really wants to do all sexual actions that are being done, no exceptions. It means no one is being coerced against their will, no one’s concerns are being ignored, their desires and boundaries are known and being listened to and respected. It means no one is doing something they had no chance to reflect upon if they want it or not, and no one is doing something they don’t want out of obligation or a sense of duty. It means no one is having sexual contact with someone who isn’t able to consent in any form: be it because they can’t consent because of their age, or limited consciousness, or because of perceived verbal or nonverbal threats and/or consequences. The latter, in its most base terms, means (non-exhaustively) that people below the (culturally differing) ages of consent - meaning children and young teenagers - cannot consent, that people who are intoxicated, under the influence of drugs, asleep, in a state of trauma or shock, in a dissociated state of mind or any similar states cannot consent, and that people who feel they have no power to say no cannot conset - i.e. someone who fears consequences to their physical, social or psychological well-being (or those of others) if they say no, which can range from, say, an employee feeling like they can’t decline an employer’s physical advances that they don’t want without negative consequences in any form in their work-environment, or a person in a romantic relationship fearing a break-up if they don’t “deliver” sex even if they don’t want it, or a person who feels they have to “deliver” sex they don’t want in order to prove their personal worth or love or affection or to avoid ridicule. These are of course non-exhaustive. A person who says yes even though they don’t want to because they feel they can’t say no, as well as a person who is too young and/or unable to say no, isn’t consenting.

And because this is so important, here, have that brilliant Tea of Consent by Emmeline May, quoted and photographed off my copy of “More Orgasms Please: Why Female Pleasure Matters” by the Hotbed Collective.

What Sex Positivity Is

Most of us are very intuitive about what sex positivity is, but the fewest of us have ever discussed it at length in any way or form, and thus the edges are very often hazy!

First and foremost, sex positivity is a set of attitudes that forms personal beliefs regarding sexuality, how we perceive collectively shared sexual norms, and how we view sexual autonomy and sexual expression both in ourselves and others. So what does that all entail, and how does that look?

A basic view of this is: sex is good! Sex is, as long as it’s consensual, something healthy, and a valid and enjoyable way to express intimacy, affection, love and desire. It’s not just a means to an end (satisfaction, babies, etc.) and it should not be shrouded in shame or pain or discomfort, and instead be communicated about openly and respectfully. This is of course, in direct answer to sex-negativity: The belief that sex is bad, shameful, sinful, and having it makes you just as sinful.

Here is one of many scientific definitions for the term: “[Sex positivity is] the belief that all consensual expressions of sexuality are valid.” (p.289)

That means if you’re, say, really into having sex while wearing stockings (actually something that comes up very often when you ask people of their fantasies in surveys!) or maybe wanting to be tied up for it (also a VERY frequent fantasy) and do it ONLY with people who are into it, too, and not against their will, then it’s a healthy expression of your desire and no one (no parents, no society, no church or institution or anyone) is entitled to shame or sanction you for it.

As Justin Lehmiller, a social psychologist and sex researcher says, society (including its medical and psychological history and authorities, sadly!) has had a very narrow and restrictive view of what is “ok” to be desirable when it comes to sex in the past and sadly sometimes still the present, and that “they’ve pretty much told us that we shoudn’t do anything other than put penises in vaginas and even that, ideally, should only take place within the confines of a heterosexual, monogamous marriage).” (p.vi) Bringing with it the dogma of immorality and crime, among else.

Sex positivity aims to be the antithesis of this. It means all forms of consensual sexual expression are valid. Not one form is better than another. If you live and love monogamously or heteronormatively, it isn’t better or worse than living in any other form. From polyamory to kinks, or having any kind of consensual fetish that don’t hurt anyone else or their free sexual expression when sharing them with others, all of them are valid, none of them are better or worse than any other individual choice. It means celebrating and validating all forms of sexual expression (or lack thereof!) as well as all forms consensual practices, while having any form of sexual identity and any placement on the wide spectrum that is gender identity.

What Sex Positivity Isn’t

Because sometimes it is easier to thoroughly understand something by outlining what it DOESN’T include, this is more imporant than many might think. And because I’m obviously not the first person to think about this, there is this really great article by Everyday Feminism about what sex positivity isn’t that is written in a very clear and straight-forward way, that I’ll urge everyone to check out, but I’ll also outline some select few of the (more numerous) basics they’ve described here:

🚫 Sex positivity means liking sex

No. Just because someone really, really enjoys sex, that does not mean at all they are sex-positive by default. Sex positivity isn’t synonym with being overly enthusiastic about having sex or surrounding yourself with it. It can! But that’s not at all the point in the slightest. Someone who really likes sex can still be disrespecful about someone else’s sexual expression, or feel entitled to someone else’s sexual acts or interest in sexuality, or that they can judge someone’s sexual identity or form of expression. Sex positivity is about respecting others in all their forms of sexual expression, even if those forms don’t represent your own. Likewise, someone who does not themselves like or enjoy sex can still be respectful of other’s expression of it in any form and with any other person or persons, and see sexuality as a healthy form of self-expression even when it is their choice to not engage in it for any span of time or reasons.

🚫 Sex positivity means everyone should have and like sex because it’s healthy

No. There are uncountably many reasons why someone might be repulsed by sex or simply not interested it. All of them are valid. None of them are to be shamed. Sexual trauma, sexual exploitation, a lack of feeling sexually empowered, pain during sexual intercourse, lack of desire, internalized shame that prevents sex from being enjoyable, the feeling of being in an environment where your sexuality is coerced or objectified and not feeling comfortable with it, being touch-repulsed or simply feeling no inkling of “lust”. All of this is valid. Sex positiy means respecting boundaries in consentual sex. It does not mean you have to have sex if it is unpleasant for you for any number of reasons. Of course, if you want sex and are suffering under any number of reasons that make you not enjoy it even though you would intrinsincally WANT to enjoy it (Anything from pain to sexual trauma to shame), then there are professionals out there qualified to help and counsel you. But they, too, are not entitled to dictate sexual action for you. Only you decide if you want to have sex or not. No one else. You are the master of your sexual expression in any form and are entitled to decide how, when and if you (and only you) want it, and no one else. That is an expression of sex positivity.

🚫 Sex positivity means being open to all forms of sex

No. Being sex positive means you respect the healthy expression of your own and someone else’s sexuality, and this includes their boundaries. You can believe that sex is healthy and enjoyable and should not be shamed in the least, and still not like anal. It does mean however that you still respect someone and their sexual expression when they do like the shit out of anal (pun intended lol, thank you very much.) This person is not entitled for YOU to like anal or to get it from you if you don’t enjoy it, and you are not entitled for them to not desire it. And this of course goes for any sexual practice. Judging and shaming someone for enjoying giving blowjobs is not sex-positive, just like it isn’t sex-positive to expect someone to inherently WANT to give blowjobs. Sexual boundaries are very healthy, and an important form of self-reflection and the root of true informed consent. Knowing what you like and don’t like and that these things will most likely differ from others in their unique expression is an important path to a most healthy sexual expression.

🚫 Sex positivity means always being ready, available, and interested in sex, with anyone.

No. Sexual expectations wear heavily on people from any gender or sexual identity. Many queer or nonbinary people suffer, among else, under sexualisation and being made the stuff of fetishes or being ascribed heavily sexualized attributions. Many men, among else, suffer under normative stereotypes, myths and sexual scripts that say they always want sex and are unmanly when they don’t feel desire 24/7, that they’re always up for sex and never not in the mood. Likewise, the 70s brought women and their sexual freedom into a position heavily reinforced by porn scripts in which they are expected as ‘sexually freed’ beings to be sexually available, ready, interested, and orgasmic at all times, and if you are not, you are a prude, and if you do it too much, you are a slut. These are all (non-exhaustive) forms of sexual shaming and dictated sexual expectations. If you are generally enthusiastic about sex and enjoying it, you are allowed to have phases where you feel less desire. And whether you are someone with a generally smaller libido that sometimes spikes, or you’re someone who has never felt any sexual desire at all, or someone who wants sex a lot, you are sex positive when you respect other’s free expression of it, and this includes the frequency in which they want it or with whom they have it. You get to pick what sex you have and with whom or how many you have it, no one else. Anyone who tells you otherwise under the mantle of ‘sex positivity’ is, as everyday feminism so eloquently put, employing “sexual coercion cloaked in faux-progressive language. If someone is calling you a prude or sex-negative for not having sex with them, they’re violating your consent and their opinion of you is invalid. And just because you want to create a world in which everyone is empowered to make the sexual choices they want doesn’t mean that you personally have to be interested in casual sex.”

🚫 Sex positivity means sex is healthy, so that means I am entitled to sex.

No. It means you are entitled to WANT to have it, but not to have it. In sex as in every other need involving other people (from receiving oral, to boardgames, to conversations, to a hug or affection): Just because you are entitled to want something or even very validly need something, that does not mean someone else is obligated to give it to you. Just because someone needs comfort and company, you are not obligated to give it. Just because someone wants and needs attention, it is not your job to give it. Just because someone wants sex and feels they need it, even if they are your partner, you are not obligated to give it. This can be frustrating, of course. But NO: Just because you want sex, you are not entitled to have it. Ever. From anyone. No one owes you sex, not even if you’re married to them. Everyone has their own sexual agency, and everyone needs to respect it. In fact, feeling entitled to sex lies at the base of sexual aggressive behavior of all kind, and the idea that your own desire for sexual activity rates higher in priority than the individual needs of the person you’re coercing it from. It’s at the root of rape culture, and something we must all internalize to overcome it: Despite you wanting something and it being healthy to have it or to get this something, no one owes it to us or is obligated to give it to us.

🚫 Sex positivity means you have no problems with sex.

No. The term positivity of course often brings overtly positive connotations with it: something easy and happy. Of course, sex positivity doesn’t require you to have an easy or happy relationship with sex and sexuality. Sex can be traumatising, uncomfortable, regrettable, awkward, unpleasant, confusing, or plain boring and uninteresting to you. Even if it isn’t traumatising or painful, it can still be hell of a lot frustrating navigating it and your own desires. Body image issues or and religious restrictions that can be important to you or not, never having orgasmed but really really wanting to, the feelings of not ever having encountered sex that’s truly fun for you, all of these and many, many more are the giant maze that can arise when navigating sexuality in our lives. None of these means you aren’t sex positive. It’s here for survivors of sexual violence and aggression and those who want to reclaim their sexual agency, sexual empowerment and self-expression, just as it is here for asexuals, demisexuals, aromantics, or anyone else. It’s the belief that we have a right to a healthy sexuality without being shamed, violated, sanctioned or discriminated for it, and that we have a right to our boundaries as well as our fantasies.

So, I’m guessing most of you knew this intuitively all along. I’m preaching to the choir. However, seeing it written down often helps us in expressing ourselves, and in the way we confidently navigate our own sexual empowerment.

And, with smutember on the horizon again, when we once again try to incorporate sex positivity in our writing, too, it might serve as a good reminder that we help along the normalisation of sex positivity whenever we portray it in media in general, and fiction specifically! I hope one day we will take all this fully for granted, and everyone around us, too!

#smutember2020 #sex ed #on consent #on sex positivity #celebrating sex positivity together #long post #🍋

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tempest2k · 4 years ago

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For starters, I’m rereading Homestuck using The Unofficial Homestuck Collection, developed by Bambosh. It’s a fantastic program and if you haven’t downloaded it yet, I highly suggest you do so. I literally cannot recommend it enough. If you’re still not sure, here’s what it looks like in use.

So, Homestuck. There’s a few things we need to discuss before this blog can truly begin. First of all, I am 100% on-board the June Egbert train. However, (and please hear me out), I will not be referring to her as June Egbert 100% of the time over the course of this blog. When quoting characters or screen-capping text, I will make no effort to edit her name. In terms of my own original writing in these segments however, I will always refer to her as June. Secondly, this blog will NOT be spoiler-free. This is coming from the perspective of someone who has already read Homestuck trying to reread the entire thing in full. Comparisons to my experiences are vital to understanding my relationship with the work over all this time. Do not continue if you haven’t read Homestuck. With that out of the way, let’s get started.

This is June Egbert. We all know about June Egbert, Zoosmell Pooplord, Heir of Breath and all that. To be quite honest, reading this very first part of Homestuck was utterly mind-numbing. I had a conversation about it with a friend, and I think this comparison is quite accurate:

(x)

So far, I don’t feel like I’ve gotten much outside of this familiar slog, but sylladex logic and jokes are just as fun as they’ve ever been. Though honestly, that’s most of what Act 1 has going for it? Homestuck started this way because it was a forum adventure, and I can’t see any story starting quite like this again. I’m reintroduced to classic pesterlogs of yore, and it feels a bit like coming home. June and Dave have some fun conversations, though I will admit in hindsight that Rose being referenced many times to have hit on Dave is very disturbing. I can only hope that this is one of those instances where this twist was thought of after these logs were written.

GameBro magazine was pretty funny, I guess? I don’t know, there’s not a lot of memorable things here to analyze. I already feel like I’m almost done with this post, and It’s only barely started. This post feels a lot messier than my Vast Error blogs, so let’s try to get things a little on track.

When June goes outside, we get a short animation with “Windchime Foley” by Clark Powell in the background. Combined with the light prose, it says to those at the time, and to those who somehow went in blind without any knowledge of its extremities, that Homestuck is not an average comic. Homestuck is a webcomic, and it’s going to take full advantage of its medium as a story told in a web browser.

Shortly after this we get to the part where June sees the SBURB Beta through the kitchen window, and the comic’s first STRIFE page is reached. As a neat interactive game, it still holds up, I think. There’s no real goal, just endlessly looping as you attempt either of the two clickable options. The song Harlequin by Mark Hadley is fantastic, and a motif that’s widely referenced throughout the discography.

Skipping around a bit, there are a lot of sylladex shenanigans that I still really enjoy! They were why I remembered the comic enough to give it another go several years after I had first given it a shot, and they do hold up quite well, I think. The smoke pellets being set off by Sassacre’s book is a really fun thing? I forgot about it, and the way the sylladex is essentially just waiting to set off a chain of events is super interesting and FUN. It’s fun, okay? June also acquires the QUEUE modus, which also leads to some fun shenanigans. The data structure theming of the inventory system makes a lot of sense, though gets kind of thrown by the wayside as the comic goes on. In my opinion, the more creative modi are far more interesting. The queue modus makes opening the package she’s received from one of her friends a major pain.

It’s the bunny! In the box! The bunny was successfully removed from the box. I’m pretty sure this right here is why a lot of people associate June with bunnies, and I can’t really blame them. This particular bunny’s journey is far, far from over, however.

After this, Rose and June install SBURB and connect to each other! But this is where I decided to stop for now. Now, this has been written on and off over the course of a week I think? I have some thoughts I’d like to share that I’ve been pondering in the off-time.

The captchalogue system is really interesting, because from a story perspective at this point, it acts as a method of creating plot points. It also forces certain things to happen. The unpredictability of when it’s going to be relevant next is quite interesting. Act 1 is just a lot of fun, even if it was sort of a chore to reread. I can’t tell if that’s because I’ve read it before, or if it’s just not capturing me how it used to.

That’s pretty much all I have to say this time, and I’ve spent far too much time on this blog. See you next time.

#nukerehs #homestuck #homestuck reread

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