#and I'll do it again

[punkitt-is-here]

[camberdraws]

I am once again drawing the sinnoh starters

[red-moon10]

Happy belated Birdflash day 💙

open for better quality

[lazysunjade]

P E A C E |

[yamisnuffles]

Truly the character of all time.

[kaleidoscopeminds]

oh yeah sorry, we're not disbanding... breaking news!

[pico-farad]

Asuka's problematic trait is that she's a Not Like Other Girls girl.

I love her so much.

This is how I interpret her beef with Rei — it's not jealousy over Rei having a crush on Judai, it's a very typical stage of teenage internalized misogyny where she blames other girls for the way she's been treated under patriarchy.

Rei: *winks at Judai*

Asuka: *malding internally* This is why people think girls only play Duel Monsters to find boyfriends—

girl calm down she's 13

Asuka has a very consistent storyline of having femininity — and by extension heteronormativity — forced upon her by the school, her brother, and even her friends. This is a classic Not Like Other Girls origin story; it's a frustration response from young girls facing insane pressure to conform to traditional femininity, which results in contempt for the feminine altogether. The frustration is displaced on Other Girls, because they're a representation of the traditionally feminine, and they contribute to the pressure to conform, whether directly or indirectly.

A huge part of Asuka's character is how she copes with the systemic pressure that girls face by putting up like five different layers of defense mechanisms, including distancing herself from femininity or even being perceived as a girl at all. Because she just wants to be taken seriously as a duelist in a male-dominated, misogynistic industry.

(the manga canon isn't the same as the anime canon, but I wanted to include it)

She has side-eyed EVERY other female character in GX for being obsessed with a boy — Junko, Momoe, Rei, Tania, that bug girl, the frog princess (I put a whole aside about her relationship with Junko and Momoe below)

Asuka, you're bombing the Bechdel Test.

I know it's bad that GX caricaturized all of its female characters other than Asuka to be boy-obsessed, but, well... it's a narrative that does resonate with the audience of young girls who were playing a card game made for boys in 2004. You can cringe at the bad feminism now, but I think that's the part that's charming and nuanced about Asuka.

Teenage girls mostly grow out of their Not Like Others Girls phase and look back at it with embarrassment (maybe because we turned Not Like Other Girls into another way to shame girls), but it is something that's worth exploring. Asuka is a genuinely kind person, and I think she too will grow up and realize how stupid and reductive she was being.

"a real woman" Asuka sweetie you're going to cringe over this in five years.

THE JUNKO MOMOE ASIDE:

Asuka is nominally friends with Junko and Momoe, but as the series progresses, she spends more and more time instead with her group of male friends. A significant portion of her interactions with them are her showing veiled judgment towards them for fangirling over boys, from tennis guy to Edo Phoenix to her brother.

And when she joins the Society of Light, that veiled judgment becomes unveiled.

Junko and Momoe are in the middle of losing to a sexist wine dude, and Asuka is so furious, her Not Like Other Girls instincts override the Society of Light brainwashing and she takes over the duel for them. ASUKA'S INTERNALIZED MISOGYNY IS STRONGER THAN BRAINWASHING.

Sommelier: Goodness me, I had high hopes for the ladies of Obelisk Blue. But I suppose to you, duels are like making tea or arranging flowers. Just one more skill you learn to land a husband. Just surrender, why don't you? Asuka: Wait! Junko & Momoe: Asuka! Asuka: If you two lose, there won't be any more students in the tournament representing the long-respected Obelisk Blue girls' dorm. I will carry on the duel. Naturally, I will carry on with their life points.

Even though Asuka would win if she used White Veil, the signature card of the Society of Light, she discards it in order to activate Hallowed Life Barrier. Because this is all her, not the Light.

Asuka: (I won't rely on the Society of Light's power. I'll win with my power from my days as a girl of the Blue dorm.) Asuka: Let me show you the power of Obelisk Blue girls. My turn, draw!

Neither of these scenes are girl-power-girl-solidarity moments. It's the opposite. Asuka takes over the duel because she doesn't want their loss to reflect on the entire Obelisk Blue girls' dorm, and all female duelists (therefore her).

When the duel is over, she contemptuously rejects Junko and Momoe, shaming them for being so bad at dueling and victim-blaming them for the sexist attacks they receive. Asuka spent the whole duel defending the Blue girls, but she is NOT one of them.

Junko: Asuka! Come back to the Blue girls! The way you dueled just now was just like old times! Asuka: You're so naive. This is why you get told that you only "practice." Protect your own pride next time. I am a member of the Society of Light.

Everyone who ships Asuka/Junko/Momoe as a default lesbian best girlfriends uwu ship get outta here, those three have BAGGAGE to unpack before any lesbianism can be achieved.

(I have more to say about these three and how it parallels Judai's relationship with Shou and Kenzan, but that's outside the scope of this post)

Anyway, that's why Manjoume is a better feminist than Asuka

[call-me-kitty]

Was rewatching WFCT (because unpopular opinion: I actually really like the show) and I get to this scene and remember everything. My ship sailed OMG! And then sunk SIMULTANEOUSLY.

Elita One did 3 things in this scene which threw me on an emotional rollercoaster.

1. Saved Optimus from dying.

2. Called him Orion Pax because that's when she fell in love with him and told him she will always love him.

3. D E S P A W N

This scene is the reason I have trust issues I swear.

[paper-birdies]

i've made a mistake

[captain-rickbond]

Catholics can't put on muscle mass because God hates them!

[invinciblerodent]

for the rook/partner game: 14. for marcus and bellara, 4. for verbena and davrin (I think you talked about it before but I cannot remember for the life of me) 1nnd 16. for emmrich and tristan?

Ahh, I love these, thank you for asking! ❤️

Question list here!

14. Does your Rook get their partner any other gifts (besides the one already in-game)? Does the partner get Rook any? Any gifts that are particularly special?

Ooh, tough one! I think since neither of them have a lot (hey, neither crypt orphan turned glorified undertaker NOR underfunded Dalish historian who lives in a forest is a particularly well-paid profession), I want to say that... it's probably things like, experiences. Loaned books is for sure one, but I want to say that what they exchange most is just... time. Experiences. Small things that only prove that they're thinking of one another.

Like him taking her to skate the Minater and (unused to having money) buying them a bag of roasted chestnuts to share, or leaving a small bag of sweets on her desk. (Candied nuts, perhaps? Dry fruit? I get both the vibe that she likes those, and the feeling that if she were to mention at any point something like "oh, I LOVE honey-roasted almonds!", she'll get some honey-roasted almonds every time he sees some.) Or if she mentions once that it was nice the first time he made it, he'll be making her a cup of spiced tea when he makes one for himself in the evenings, and even if they had no plans, dropping it off for her on his way back to his room. A paper with one of her serials that he'll likely end up keeping, embarrassed, when he realizes that Neve had already bought it for her.

She in turn might blush her way through giving him the first chapter of her story to read. Eventually one of her many janglies (that's totally not a protection charm!) or a strip of fabric in her favorite color will perhaps find its way to the grip of his staff. Little things, sentimental things, ephemeral things that disappear like a shower of sparks in the air.

4. Do your Rook and their partner share the same faction? If so, does that affect their relationship at all? If not, what is your Rook's opinion of their partner's faction? What is the partner's opinion of Rook's faction?

Ooh, I have spoken in passing about something of the like, yes!! Due to her backstory, I gave her an overall... shall we say, healthy wariness of the Warden order in general.

Since there are no (known?) Warden strongholds in Tevinter, I like to think that Ver's experience with them is restricted to the odd wandering recruiter, picking through the prisons and such in search of able bodies to bolster their ranks.

And, due to her work as both a Shadow Dragon and a guard/errand girl in a poor district of the city, Ver unfortunately also meets and gets to know a comparatively large number of people who are down on their luck, or don't have a lot of options- who, when the Wardens come knocking and ask for brave souls, are prime candidates for joining up with them. (It certainly sounds like it beats starting their lives over from scratch either as runaway slaves who will be hunted for the rest of their days, or, if they're lucky, as Liberati always glancing back over their shoulder and one bad month away from slipping back.)

Naturally, of those who leave with the recruiters, not many are ever seen again- whether they perish in the Joining or after, or if they just never get to return to the city, is unclear.

Her best friend (and sort of lover/QPR partner/previous fuckbuddy) Adris was also one of those escaped slaves who got arrested (taking the fall for her entirely), and in order to escape the gallows, left with a Warden instead. He never did end up coming back, and for years, Ver didn't know if he had even survived. (to her excuse, he was a skinny, pale elf boy. like she's pretty sure she could have snapped his femurs like a pair of toothpicks by sitting on his lap, if she was so inclined. even if she had known what the Joining entailed, she thought it was as much a death sentence for him as the gallows.)

(originally I liked leaving it kind of ambiguous whether he lived, but now I'm more of the mind that against all odds, he'd survive the Joining AND Weisshaupt, just to be there in Hossberg to Cause Emotional Turmoil, lol.)

Her mistrust of the Warden order was like, on a very average level for a Tevinter citizen, but the bulk of it comes from how the recruiter, when she demanded that they take her too, rejected her, and that old resentment kind of just fermented into prejudice over time. She's more or less convinced early on that all Wardens are pompous assholes riding high on the old glory of a few, with hero complexes the size of the Anderfels, and their heads so far up their asses that they could tie their small intestine into a bow with their tongue as a party trick.

Initially, the First Warden only reinforces that (even though she knows very well that she sounded a few elephants short of a proper circus when they met)(she had far more than enough clowns tho), but it will take Evka, and Antoine, and most importantly Davrin to dismantle that.

On the flipside, I don't really think Davrin has many Shadow Dragon specific comments or issues, I think he's just... quite aware that she's of Tevinter, and of the city, so he isn't, like, immediately eager to defer to her. He doesn't know her, so he has his doubts, and right away, puts a little mental asterisk beside the statement that she outranks him. But the leadership she shows right after his recruitment and at Weisshaupt will dispel pretty much any doubts about her.

The way it affects their relationship is, I think, not super obvious either, because, well, they are professionals. Davrin gives the barbed comments as good as he gets, plus they are immediately pretty impressed with each other, right from the Minrathous dragonfight on.

also they're both hot, and they both have eyes. that might also skew things slightly.

16. How did your Rook react to getting trapped in the Fade and separated from their partner?

Oh, I'm looking very much forward to that on that playthrough, because I think Tristan is going to be losing his absolute shit in there. (But in like his own stoic, determined way.)

I mean, he's no mage, furthest thing from it in fact, but he's been in the Fade in his dreams before. He's been there physically this whole time. He's got a bloody spirit hitching a ride in his mind, it shouldn't be that different from what he's used to.

But that particular space in the Fade, that place... it's just wrong in there. It's a purgatory. It's a void, it's oppressive, the stench of Solas' rage, and pride, and despair, and just sheer, immense power is all over it, and while he's trying to stay calm, it feels like Purpose within him is in an absolute blind panic. And, with the two of them being so seamlessly fused together, so integrated over the past.... jfc, 22 years, Purpose trying all it can to escape, pulling at his soul... it feels fucking horrible.

It's like his very concept of self is trying to tear itself apart, like his soul is separating into two at a seam that doesn't exist, like his legs want to cleave themselves from his body and he has only his hands to hold them there.

Pile all that happens in there, all the revelations and worries, on top of that, and Tristan is having an awful fucking time.

And he can't even punch/kick/stab the source of his agony! It really is his personal torture chamber in there.

Honestly, though I like to think that Tristan, due to his unique and inexorable connection to the Fade, feels that it's been less than a day in that pocket, and can think somewhat clearly still (unlike Ver, who I think falls victim to the time distortion effect, and loses track immediately- could have been hours or months as far as she's concerned), but still distantly, at the back of his mind, feels how those weeks that pass outside of it are dragging along, day after day.

I think Emmrich, while there was no way of knowing in advance how something as peculiar as Tristan and Purpose's union would react to something like that, had what he thought was a pretty good guess as to what would happen- and I don't think there's any way for him to not have been worried out of his mind.

I think in the regard of their separation, Tristan is probably less worried than Emmrich, considering that he at least has the luxury of knowing that whatever is happening outside, Emmrich has the chance of fighting back, while Emmrich doesn't even know if Tristan is physically capable of staying alive in there.

If being in a place like that had torn Tristan and Purpose apart, it would have killed him instantly, and Emmrich needing to place his utmost trust in the courage of a spirit that can barely communicate (certainly not in words, and certainly not with him), it's... kind of horrifying. Especially with a spirit as malleable and kind of vulnerable as Purpose.

I guess it's very lucky that they are so enmeshed, Tristan and Purpose, because them being one means that their drive for self-preservation is also shared. Without that, they wouldn't have made it out of there alive, I think.

[rat-prophetess]

Patho 2 + Onion headlines because. you know. go, onion!!!! (part 2 available now)

[the-writing-mobster]

My favorite thing to hear:

I'm not normally a Frans shipper, but then I read your fics.

You're welcome.

[crmsndragonwngss]

This is a place I know too well Been down here a while, if you can't tell And I have analysed and tried my best to justify The sorrow I have brought upon myself

Wasting a waning youth Waiting for something to help me pull through I never saw the sun through the clouds I lost faith when the skies were falling down

[arainaizevran]

this man is so flustered after one (1) smooch during the tiefling party

[gallinusspacebirb]

Just two rejects coming back from a mission... it was tougher than they thought, but in the end, they made it!