#and a whole rant from her sibling. acting as if i messaged them specifically again. lmao okay then

[ventingbit]

.

[wardencommanderrodimiss]

how do you think a kaze/corrin support would go within conquest? what's with the whole "uh oh you betrayed your birth family and your mother who i served" thing

Kaze and Corrin’s A-support, specifically, is wild because like - Corrin and Azura get different supports for every route, and no one else gets that, and okay I guess they didn’t want to have to write that many distinct supports and Kaze and Corrin’s A-support works fine for Birthright and Revelation so just. Ignore how it makes no sense in Conquest. Just ignore it. It’s fine.

But it’s not fine! Let’s break down the A support, I’m not really going to ponder the other two right now because I have so many thoughts on this one.

There’s three main parts to the A-support: Kaze explaining his guilt over Corrin’s kidnapping when they were both children, Corrin assuring Kaze that he shouldn’t bear guilt over that, and Kaze talking about the royal retainers. The part about retainers is just sort of funny in Conquest because he’s referring to the Hoshidan retainers like Corrin knows them when she’s actually only met them like once, on a battlefield. He’s dropping all the names like they mean anything to Corrin.

Then there is the middle part. The part where Corrin tells Kaze that he should not feel like he was the sole person who failed to save Corrin from being kidnapped all those years ago, and furthermore, wasn’t Kaze the person who brought Corrin back to her family when he saw her again in Nohr?

....Yeah. “You gave me a chance to be with my birth family again” is cute and all, but when Corrin doesn’t take that chance and instead returns to Nohr, it just feels like salting that wound.

But there’s so much else that these two could have to say instead!

I think there’s room for Corrin to question why it is that Kaze is here - not in a way that doubts his loyalty, Corrin would never. But to question what led Kaze to join the Nohrian forces. Corrin told him that she planned to change Nohr from inside, stop the brutality they were so known for, and end the cycle of violence between the two countries, and Kaze said that was a noble goal that he wanted to help Corrin with. He doesn’t make the pitch to join Corrin when they meet in battle - it’s not until he hears about Corrin’s goals, and mercy, that he thinks that oh, Corrin hasn’t betrayed them, and so he also doesn’t feel he’s betraying Hoshido to go with her.

(Conquest Ch 11: Rainbow Sage)

But on hearing about Kaze’s guilty conscience regarding what happened when they were children, Corrin could very well wonder if it’s just that which brought Kaze over to her side. If he’s there not because he believes Nohr can change, or Corrin can lead Nohr to change, but just because he’s afraid to see Corrin disappear again without him doing something. And if that’s so, is he going to end up regretting what he’s done and resenting Corrin for it?

He says on his recruitment that he’s okay with being thought a traitor so long as he acts with honor, but that’s at the very beginning. That’s long before the war takes them into Hoshido and more conflicts with the people he knows. And that’s before Corrin knows what it is that drives Kaze to be so attached to her, his perception of trying to make amends for that past mistake, and I think that could make her wonder for a moment what it is that has him here and whether he believes at all in the cause she’s pursuing.

And then Mikoto, yes! She gets mentioned a lot in the chapter right after the route splits to Conquest, Ryoma calls out “it’s a good thing Mother didn’t live to see this” which is fucking brutal, but Corrin never gets to grapple with that. What do you owe to someone who you share blood with but barely knew and now will never know, because she died but she saved you? Would she have saved you if she knew that you would cut your own path back away? (Incidentally, Yukimura does seem to think that Mikoto might have accepted that it’s Corrin’s life to choose, even to take Corrin back away from Hoshido.)

(Conquest Ch 6, Embrace the Dark)

Mikoto is just an interesting character conflict for Corrin that just gets dropped. Corrin’s living siblings on the other side are one thing, they’re people who she could have had a chance to know, but what does she owe to her dead mother? What do you owe to someone who gave you life and saved your life again, but who you still barely knew? The key motif in Conquest is that blood is not all that can make a family* - Corrin still does think of her blood as her family, but nonetheless, where does Mikoto who is already gone fall into this?

*I’m not going to go on my rant about how Fates undercuts every message it attempts to have, because this one sure does get undercut, but nonetheless it’s kinda supposed to be there.

Anyway, so, then Kaze and Mikoto - Kaze obviously thinks very highly of her for forgiving him and allowing him to serve the royal family.

(Kaze/Corrin A-support)

But he never directly served her - he wasn’t her retainer - and he also has this to say about fighting for Hoshido in the past:

(Xander/Kaze B-support)

Implying basically that he never viewed himself as actually fighting for Mikoto, specifically. That she was never that kind of consideration to him. And of course he wasn’t her retainer, but he still did think highly of her! What does he think of Corrin walking away from her “mother who I served”, as you put it, when Kaze also walks away, and never truly thought of himself as serving and fighting for Mikoto in the first place. Kaze portrays Mikoto as forgiving and accepting in regards to his situation, so it wouldn’t be a stretch for him to assume she would be again, and to hold Yukimura’s same opinion that Mikoto would accept Corrin’s choice as Corrin’s choice and let her walk away. Are either of them truly betraying Mikoto if she was as understanding and forgiving as Kaze builds her up to be?

But hell, how much of Mikoto is that forgiving martyr just in the heads of the people who loved her and admired her? They can’t ever know for sure, and that’s something else for them to ponder.

I don’t have a conclusion to this, actually. I’ve just taken your question as an opportunity to go on my very long rant about some of the things I would do with Kaze and Corrin’s A-support conversation in Conquest, instead of just leaving it the same and having it make no sense. I hope that’s at least sort of what you were looking for.

[thisselflovecamebacktome]

My personal connection with Taylor’s discography, part two: Right Where You Left Me

Basically this is just a series I’m doing where I write down my feelings on what each of the Taylor songs means to me personally. Part one was my relationship with It’s Time To Go, which you can find here.

Before we get started with this one though, I just want to mention how much I love this song, even outside of relatability. While I do prefer Taylor’s ‘mature’ voice nowadays, the fact she tapped into her ‘fetus Taylor’/RED era voice in an album filled with her ‘mature’ voice to show that she’s stuck at an age that no longer suitable/where she’s meant to be adds a lot to the song. Likewise, the urgency she uses when saying ‘Help!’ because it feels like an emergency to her makes me want to scream every time I hear it.

Anyway, with that being said, this is how I personally relate to this song.

Right Where You Left Me

As a whole, this song is one of the most relatable songs of Taylor’s for me right now. It is somehow comforting, yet also reads me like a book. It is also one of the many songs Taylor has written that I relate back to the trauma of losing my family. Specifically, Right Where You Left Me feels like a vocalisation of what I feel on the worst of days where I do not feel strong enough to go on alone and just want them to come back. Because of this, Taylor’s ‘immature’ voice adds even more to the song as the situation it relates to in my own life makes me feel like a child crying out for their parents to help them.

Friends break up, friends get married

Basically I’m at this part of my life where it feels like all my friends are hitting these milestones that not only do I not feel close to hitting, I just have no interest in hitting them because I’m too focused on what happened with my family.

Strangers get born, strangers get buried

In the last year or so, I found out through facebook that I am an aunt and via the phone that my grandfather, someone who called me their favourite grandchild, had died. These are people who should in theory mean the world to me, but instead, they were born/died strangers to me, as will any other members of my family. And as a result, I felt nothing hearing the news.

Trends change, rumors fly through new skies. But I'm right where you left me. Matches burn after the other

Time has passed, but I still stuck in that moment, so much so that things that used to catch my interest no longer phase me.

Pages turn and stick to each other

A lot of people have spoken about how this song is about trauma, but I feel like this line is often left out of the conversation when it’s perhaps the most obvious show of it. When you’re traumatised, time all blurs together and as a result, you often find yourself in a position where you’re questioning how you even got there or feeling like you’ve missed part of the story. And part of this goes with my friends’ lives too. Like it feels like I am so stuck in the moment my family fell apart that I wake up some days noticing my friends have made these achievements that I didn’t even know they were working up for despite them telling me things I just do not remember. In non-traumatised terms, it’s almost like being invited to a wedding where you thought the bride was still single.

Wages earned and lessons learned. But I'm right where you left me

Obviously life has still gone on for both myself and my family. None of us have just stayed in bed for almost six years doing literal nothing, at least from what I know. I’ve started and finished my degrees, assumingly my family has gone to work etc and I’ve been able to reflect on what went wrong and why not to trust them again. But despite that, it still feels like just yesterday that this all went down. The damage losing my family has done is and may always be a fresh wound.

Help, I'm still at the restaurant, still sitting in a corner I haunt cross-legged in the dim light. They say, "What a sad sight"

Continuing from the above, I am still traumatised and don’t really know how to move past this. And while most of my friends have tried to help, there’s nothing they can realistically do but say that they’re sorry that it happened.

I swear you could hear a hair pin drop right when I felt the moment stop. Glass shattered on the white cloth

Christmas Day 2015. Before then my sister had been in a two year cycle of running away but coming back for special events to get gifts. So when she didn’t show on Christmas, I knew she wasn’t coming back. Also the moment I read the facebook messages from my extended family stating that they’d rather I starve and be homeless than speak to my father about helping put the family back together.

Everybody moved on. I stayed there. Dust collected on my pinned up hair

Again the continuation of the idea that it feels like everyone around me has moved on and done amazing things and I’ve just sat here, achieving nothing.

They expected me to find somewhere, Some perspective. But I sat and stared right where you left me

My family falling apart was one of those ‘everyone knew before me’ moments. Like friends of mine have flat out pointed out that the signs were there from when I was like ten. And yet, part of me held on thinking that anyone in my family would come back and fix things someday.

Did you ever hear about the girl who got frozen? Time went on for everybody else, she won't know it

Again, so much time has passed since then and everyone else (barring my mother) seems to have moved on, leaving this trauma behind as just a memory and yet it feels incomprehensible that this happened and that I was meant to do anything afterwards until this got sorted.

She's still twenty-three inside her fantasy, how it was supposed to be

I still spend so so much time wishing things were different and imagining all these different events in our lives that the other should be at and how it should have been even though I know at the end of the day that just breaks my heart worse when I am forced to reconcile that that’s never going to happen.

Did you hear about the girl who lives in delusion?

I spent two years truly believing my father would eventually realise how messed up the situation was and reuniting my sister and extended family with me, my brother and/or mother even though he had the means to do so the whole time but didn’t. Or that my sister would come home on her own at 18 knowing mum couldn’t set boundaries anymore. Or at very least, one of the extended family would call and ask how they could help. Like I had zero reason to have faith in these people anymore, and yet I sat around like a delusional idiot truly thinking that 2015 wasn’t the end for my family.

Breakups happen every day, you don't have to lose it

In an attempt to either make me feel better or just move past the subject, I’ve had people in my life constantly compare it to their siblings who came back or their parents divorce where they still speak to both parents or just generally telling me that I’ve gotta forget them and just move on to be okay. And while well meaning, it has just felt more isolating and like they want me to just shut up for their sakes, even if they don’t mean it to. As a result, I’ve been left to fester more about it, because outside therapy, I have nowhere to put that energy. And as someone who feels like they can “infodump”/rant and then move on, at least for a while, it’s the most frustrating thing.

She's still twenty-three inside her fantasy and you're sitting in front of me at the restaurant when I was still the one you want, cross-legged in the dim light. Everything was just right

While it was not the last day I had with her, the last positive memory I have of my sister was when the three of us went to Merimbula, my then favourite place in the world, to visit my grandmother in January 2015. It was the time in my life where I was the happiest, both with myself and how the rest of my life was going, and felt that everything was going to work out. We had just moved my sister to a different school away from the people who were pushing her to act out (they later transferred to the same school :/), I was about to start my degree, I felt the most recovered from my PTSD, Bipolar and Eating Disorder than I ever had and I felt the most loved I ever had, both by my family and others. Looking back at the photos from that trip, I also noticed that it’s the only photos I’ve smiled in and the most huggy I’ve ever been towards my sister and father.

I could feel the mascara run. You told me that you met someone

This line specifically feels aimed at my father and the moment in 2017 he told me that he’d rather stick with my sister and allow her to do whatever she likes than stand by my side and try to reconnect the family and I realised that that was never going to change.

I'm sure that you got a wife out there, kids and Christmas. But I'm unaware ‘cause I'm right where

Like I said, I know I have a nephew that I’ll never meet now. I know my younger cousins are probably getting married and having these other events, but I’m never going to be part of that and I can’t even comprehend having those events for myself after what happened. The specific mention of Christmas also feels like a kick in the guts not only as the day that I realised my sister wasn’t coming back, but that was the main time we saw everyone from the extended family and would literally spend like 12 hours at my uncle’s place for the day.

I cause no harm, mind my business

Again, I just cannot find it in myself to do anything anymore. I don’t get involved in things I used to, I don’t make new connections and I can’t bring myself to explain what happened. I just go through the motions of living the same day, over and over.

If our love died young I can't bear witness

Quite frankly, I’ve pushed this shit so far to the back of my head because I just cannot face the pain, even after all this time. Like taking a ‘out of sight, out of mind’ approach and trying to rationalise it to myself that everyone else was right and this was inevitable is the only way I’ve been getting through each day because the alternative is that none of this had to happen but still did.

And it's been so long. But if you ever think you got it wrong I'm right where you left me

This is the child in me screaming out and begging me to reach out to them on the bad days that I want them all back and can’t do this alone.

You left me no, you left me no

The disbelief. Like none of this can be real. Like my father and extended family couldn’t have decided a broken family was better than the work it takes to fix one, right? My mother can’t be so torn up in her own grief that by her own accord, has admitted she will never love me, right? It just all cannot be real. But it is.

You left me no choice but to stay here forever

And to finish off, we have a triple meaning line.

The father version: By manipulating events and turning my mother, brother and I into the villains, he has forced us into a future where we do not have family. He has brought on grief to my mother that I am expecting her to die at her own hand soon. And he has left me living in my fantasies of what could have been.

The mother version: Within her own grief, my mother is living in a mindset where anyone wanting to move on from this and have a life is selfish and is herself constantly talking about it and giving ultimatums to listen to and agree with her or refuse to pay bills, which I need her to do as someone who is financially dependent on her. Ironically, she also shuts down any inkling that my brother and I have been affected by this to the level she has and refuses to entertain us talking about that in the household. Both of which mean I am forced to relive this over and over without the recovering aspects that I need.

The me version: Basically the combination of the two above. Because I have not been given the chance to recover in the way I need and do not have an outlet outside of therapy to properly work through this, I am forced to relive the events with myself each night just to try and make sense of it all. Further, the trauma has hit so deep that again, even the idea of starting new relationships whether they be familiar, romantic or platonic seems both unworthy of my attention and horrifically terrifying because it still feels like I am unloveable because if my own family, the people who are meant to love you forever, have abandoned me, why would anyone else stay?

[fortunatelylori]

I love Jon and Sansa's not so sibling relationship and I love Theon and Yara's sibling relationship. I'm sure there are connections between the two. Can you list the ways in which they are foils? Thank you!

Hey, nonnie!

Sorry for taking so long to answer this. I’ve had to spend some time thinking about how I was going to tackle it because I’m not sure I’m quite the right person to answer this question. 

My main issue is that I don’t particularly like Yara as a character and I’m not all together happy with the way the show has handled the Yara/Theon relationship. 

So, please ignore me while I go on a rant about my issues with Yara and then I will go on to attempt to draw a few parallel/foil examples between Theon/Yara and Jonsa. 

I have a pretty hard time talking about Yara because in theory she’s a great character: she looks and acts badass but is still emotional and invested in the well-being of the people she cares about, she’s funny and charming and Gemma Whelan is a wonderful actress who looks and acts the part. However, that’s the theory and the actress. 

My problem with her is that in narrative terms, she’s very much a character that talks the talk but doesn’t walk the walk. If this was an in-story flaw, I’d have no problems with it but it isn’t. This is the writers wanting to have a badass female character but also not wanting her to overpower the male characters in the show. 

I’ll give you a few examples: 

Yara coming to rescue Theon from Ramsay 

I absolutely loved Yara standing up to her father, calling him a coward and saying she was going to save “her little brother”. However, she ends up at the Dreadfort and runs away the moment a shirtless man and his dogs scream at her. There was so much emotional build-up to that scene for it to fizzle out because the writers wanted to protect Ramsay not just from death, but from any significant injury/consequence.

Yara’s pitch for the Salt Throne 

Since her introduction, Yara has been presented as the real reaver in this story. Tough, able, brave, knowledgeable, we were lead to believe people whole heartily supported her and even more importantly that she knew exactly how to talk to these people and what she needed to do for them. Then Yara makes her pitch as queen and all of a sudden not only do people point to Theon as a better option because he’s male (even though they scorned him when he first showed up on the Iron Islands) but end up very quickly turning on her and picking Euron, a guy they haven’t seen in years, over her. But that’s not even the most egregious thing. We could always chalk that up to male privilege. 

The real issue is that when Yara makes her speech, she says very little of any real substance and then the moment she’s challenged, she becomes flustered. It’s up to Theon to make the salient points she should have made and then the writers give the truly revolutionary ideas to Euron who wants to develop and raise the Iron Born past the level of thugs they’ve been stuck in for centuries. 

Euron’s attack on the Blackwater

Yara is supposed to be a battle hardened naval commander but Euron manages to surprise her and defeat her with little to no effort. I don’t have an issue with Yara losing the battle but the entire set-up shows her as being incompetent because not only didn’t she think there was a chance they’d get attacked, she didn’t take any precautions in the likelihood that it would happen. 

Then there’s the Yara/Theon relationship and the two issues I have with that. :))) (Hang in there, nonnie! We’re almost done)

Yara’s sexuality and how that is used to shame Theon for not having a dick

Notice how almost all of the Yara/Theon scenes post-castration take place in brothels or situations where a woman is hitting on Yara? Don’t get me wrong. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the show celebrating and highlighting Yara’s love for women. However, that’s not really what they’re doing. They’re essentially using those moments for cringe comedy and as humiliation for the fact that Theon’s not able to partake because … he doesn’t have a dick! Get it?!? Look how sad he is! Get it?!?

Nor is this the show trying to have a commentary on the issue of Theon’s castration trauma (which would be great but alas) but rather this is a narrative punishment/joke. And I don’t really appreciate that. 

And then there’s this:

Yara: Listen to me. If you’re so broken that there’s no coming back, take a knife and cut your wrists. End it. But if you’re staying, Theon, I need you. We’re going to sail to Mereen. We’re going to make a pact with this dragon queen and we’re going to take back the Iron Islands. Are you with me? 

If this was a singular case in this series, I would chalk it up to Yara being callous and ignorant about the profound and lasting effects torture and PTSD have on a person. But Brienne gave Jaime a similar “tough talk” when she disapproved of him being depressed over having lost his hand. 

Brienne: Coward. One misfortune and you’re giving up? […] You have a taste of the real world, where people have important things taken from them and you whine and cry and quit. You sound like a bloody woman!

The message seems to be that all you need to get over trauma is a tough as nails badass woman screaming at you. Add some good ol’ fashion misogyny on top of it for good measure and you’re good to go. 

Had your hand amputated? Stop “whining”! Still unsure how to get passed systematic torture and castration? Either put a band aid on it or kill yourself, we’ve got important shit to do. Can’t possibly waste any time on empathy, understanding and emotional support. 

Again, I can’t really blame Yara or Brienne for that matter. This is the writers thinking that anyone who becomes a victim and doesn’t move past it as fast as humanly possible and also “toughens up”, is inherently weak. I hate that mindset and I hate the old “other people have it worse” argument. Yes, I’m sure other people have it worse. That is no reason to dismiss individual pain and how traumatic events in our lives affect us personally. 

Now that’s out of the way, let’s look at a few instances where Theon/Yara act like foils to Jonsa. These will be broad because I don’t think these two relationships are set-up in opposition to each other, the way Jaime/Cersei and Jonsa are:

The relationship dynamic and roles

Yara and Theon are very much a relationship that operates under the clear hierarchy of big sister/little brother. This was established the moment Yara was revealed as his sister and continues to this day. In the beginning this was highlighted by Yara making fun of Theon, proving she’s better than him but also giving him heartfelt advice at Winterfell and bonding with him over having a shitty father. It was carried over into Yara protecting or rather trying to protect Theon. 

Post-Ramsay, Yara is the leader that drags Theon after her. This inequality is further supported by Theon giving his claim to the Salt Throne in order to continue having a relationship with Yara. So in addition to being big sister/little brother, they’re also queen/right hand of the queen.  

These established roles are completely missing from Jon and Sansa’s relationship and, in many ways, this is the true source of their disagreements and tension. What are they? Are they big brother/little sister? Are they true born/bastard? Are they King in the North/right hand to the king? None really fit … Jon doesn’t submit to Sansa’s authority and she doesn’t submit to his. The only way their relationship works is if they behave as equals. Anything less, I think would be unacceptable for either one of them. 

Not only that, but rather than enforce an hierarchy, Jon and Sansa spend their time validating each other: 

Jon: We’re standing here because of you. I’ve had the Lord’s chamber prepared for you. 

Sansa: Mother and father’s room? You should have it. 

Jon: I’m not a Stark. 

Sansa: You are to me. 

Sansa: You’re good at this, you know. Ruling. 

Sansa: They respect you. They really do. 

Jon: You know Tyrion better than any of us. What do you think?

Sansa: You’re abandoning your people. You’re abandoning your home. 

Jon: I’m leaving both in good hands. 

Sansa: Whose? 

Jon: Yours. Until I return, the North is yours. 

Arguments

Yara and Theon have a very typical sibling/relatives relationship. They say the most vile things to each other and then move on as if nothing happened because that’s how family works. (Yara does most of the saying in these quotes but you get my meaning)

Yara: Why! It’s the Prince of Winterfell!

Theon: Envy isn’t attractive. 

Yara: You were a terrible baby, you know that? Bawling all the time. Never sleeping. And one night you just wouldn’t shut up. Screaming like a dying pig. I walked over to your crib. I looked down at you. I wanted to strangle you. 

Yara: I’m tired of seeing you cower like a dog. 

Yara: I need Theon. The real Theon Greyjoy. Not this rat shit pretender. 

Jon and Sansa, on the other hand, can’t get away with saying things like this to one another. Their relationship just doesn’t allow for it. And it isn’t because they’re not close or because they aren’t comfortable with each other. But rather that whatever one of them says/does affects the other very deeply. 

All through season 6, Sansa was in desperate need of validation from Jon. She takes it personally that he trusts Davos and Tormund and feels he prefers them to her. She gets angry that he didn’t specifically ask for her opinion prior to the battle. 

There’s also this: 

Jon: You sound like you admire her. [Cersei]

Sansa: I learned a great deal fromher. 

Look at that scene and tell meSansa isn’t hurt that Jon thinks she admires Cersei or isn’t affected by hisdisapproval. 

As well as: 

Jon: And how should I be smarter?By listening to you?

And Jon …

Sansa: He plays with people. He’sfar better at it than you. He’s been doing it all his life. 

Jon: Aye? And what have I beendoing all my life? Playing with broomsticks?!?

 Jon: When you question my decisionsin front of the other lords and ladies, you undermine me. 

Sansa: Jofferey never let anyonequestion his decisions. Do you think he was a good king? 

Jon: Do you think I’m Jofferey?!?

Notice how nothing they say toone another or do to one another is as bad as Yara calling baby Theona “dying pig”. And yet they can’t handle it. Even something as Sam gentlyattacking Jon saying that he “hates” him after Jon admits to being enviousof Robb would probably not work. I mean can you imagine Jon’s face if Sansa,even jokingly, told him she hated him. She’d be better off sticking a knife inhis neck. It would probably hurt less. :)))

The sexual component 

Even though I noted that thescenes of Yara enjoying her sex life is a ham fisted way of reminding theaudience of Theon’s lack of sexual organs, I think it’s important to note thatTheon isn’t affected by the idea of Yara either having sex or beingromantically involved with someone. 

That’s the kind of lack ofworry that Jon “If you touch my sister, I’ll kill you myself” Snow andSansa “do you think he wants to marry her?!?” Stark would probablyenvy. 

And on that note, one of themost interesting things that denotes the differences between these two is how thetwo relationships start: 

Yara and Theon’s relationshipstarts on a shared horse ride to Pyke, where Theon fondles Yara’s breasts andprivate parts all the way there only to be horrified when he realizes she’s hissister. Since then, their relationship has been completely platonic and neitherone of them has ever given any indication that they’d like to revisit thatparticular incident. 

Jon and Sansa, on the otherhand, start off as long lost siblings who very quickly end up enacting marriageceremonies (the cloak), having passionate fights in tents, lingering foreheadkisses and … (to be continued in season 8). :))))

[natsspammityspamspamham]

Seiyuu Rant: Gender Inequality

The following is a repost of a post I made in 2018. It was flagged and removed for “explicit content”. 

The reason you don’t hear [female seiyuu] in anime is simply because she’s an older voice actor. Even someone as popular as Hanazawa Kana hasn’t been getting many roles lately. Those roles have all been going to cheaper and younger voice actors. It’s sad, but don’t expect Sakura Ayane to be as prominent after about five more years. That’s how the voice acting industry is.

- Reddit Commenter

Okay, so I was on Reddit when I asked, “What happened to Aya Hirano?” She used to be in her prime when she got roles in Lucky Star, Haruhi Suzumiya, Fairy Tail, and a whole bunch of other things. Her most recent role that stuck with me was Parasyte which was back in 2015. Since then, I have heard so little from her in seasonal anime.

That’s when someone brought up the elephant in the room… then shot it and stabbed it.

We all know the world is a sexist waste ball, but I have always turned a blind eye to the fact that female seiyuu get phased out really easily. I know Tumblr mostly focuses on male seiyuu since the demographic for this platform is usually younger women or something like that, but I think female seiyuu losing popularity and roles because they’re “getting older” is kind of sad.

In this rant, I rant about the inequalities and hardship facing female (and male) seiyuu. I added some stuff compared to last time.

Age:

Hanazawa was born in February 1989. She just turned 30. The idea that she’s not getting as many roles is kind of scary, isn’t it? Aya Hirano is 31. For Hanazawa and for the sake of anime, I hope that just isn’t true.

I know I always joke about people getting old and how they always go, “My back hurts!” or “I have to go to bed [at 8pm].” or “Back in my day…” (why do I even make fun of that? I do all of the above??) But these voice actresses aren’t even that old. I wouldn’t want anyone’s careers to slow down all because they reached the age of 30. A career slowing down should be by choice. 

Average Age:

But if you want cold hard numbers, I’m going to do some math. I’m aware that I’m bad at math, so I’m going to explain this process. I made two posts about the TOP TWENTY seiyuu for both male and female. 

Links: MALE | FEMALE

What is the average age? I added up the age of all twenty seiyuu then divided by twenty.  Unfortunately, all numbers hold the same amount of weight meaning that the number one spot and the number twenty spot both get calculated the same way. 

Average Male Age: 37

From the No. 1 to the No. 20 spot: 43 + 33 + 38 + 38 + 35 + 40 + 32 + 44 + 40 + 27 + 51 + 32 + 36 + 27 + 38 + 44 + 34 + 35 + 46 + 31

Average Female Age: 29

From the No. 1 to the No. 20 spot: 23 + 33 + 29 + 26 + 24 + 27 + 31 + 39 + 24 + 23 + 38 + 29 + 28 + 26 + 25 + 38 + 24 + 34 + 33 + 30

I understand that male seiyuu tend to debut later, but that’s still a very large gap. Female seiyuu don’t even have anyone over 40.

[more below]

Health:

Not to mention, this seems to be a trend across the board, doesn’t anyone notice that both mangaka, seiyuu, and artists in general always get sick because they overwork themselves? Hosoya took a break because of his throat, Taneda took a break because of illness, Umehara took a break because of illness, Akesaka retired from singing because of her throat and health, Yurika Endou retired because her health was declining, Tooru Ookawa took a break due to illness, Keiji Fujiwara took a leave due to sickness then returned later on, and the list goes on. 

Early Retirement and Demand:

If female seiyuu have to work that hard for a career that won’t last that long, no wonder some retire once they get married or pregnant. It’s not a viable option to stick around if you’re going to be pushed out like that in a few years time. I know there are exceptions and this and that, but this is just reality. Even once you finally make it, you’re only going to be there for a little while. And access to playing good female characters is always going to be limited, but that’s a rant for another time. I’m just saying that maybe if we had more good female characters, maybe we would have more demand for more voice actresses.

Image and Fans:

While male seiyuu have this too, I think it’s important to acknowledge that female seiyuu are expected to obtain “idol-like” images these days. They achieve this by restricting their personal lives by not dating and watching how they dress and present themselves and providing an innocent image for their fans to admire. While there are several examples of not being allowed to date, the most recent example of this is when Ayana Taketatsu got married to Yuki Kaji. [source]

Some of them do photo books (sometimes of a more provocative genre) that require them to pose and distribute images of themselves which can be uncomfortable, and while it’s arguably “consensual”, there is probably pressuring to do these types of things. Sometimes, they also post their “BWH” measurements. This means that they have to post their bust, weight, and hip sizes. It’s a very restricting lifestyle, and while fans of any seiyuu can be over-the-top, female seiyuu fans have been known to be exceptionally disrespectful. 

Offences by Fans:

Eriko Nakamura was tracked when she went on a trip because someone went onto Google Maps and used her pictures to find out where she went and what route she took. But that’s just a specific example of how female seiyuu’s pictures are taken by fans and dissected (and distributed) to show what they do with their lives.

Nana Mizuki got death threats because she didn’t reply to a fan on a few occasions. Yurika Ochiai also received death threats and noted on her blog that she had to take a break from the public due to stress, but who wouldn’t be stressed about strangers threatening to kill them? Aya Ueto has received death threats as well. Arrests were made in these cases.

Haruna Ikezawa was stalked and defamed by a stalker who was later arrested. He wrote defamatory comments on the voice actress's homepage and repeatedly send messages asking for a personal meeting, telling the voice actress to "come by herself". It was not confirmed whether this was the same person, but someone also followed her through the streets at night resulting in a restraining order. [source]

Mai Kadowaki’s fan was arrested after he sent a letter saying that he would kill her parents. [source]

Aki Toyosaki got into heat because she was dating someone... despite being in her 30s. “Fans began posting photos her CD K-on singles broken into pieces and photos of her K-on character's face crossed out in red ink. One fan even uploaded a photo of Toyosaki surrounded by bullets and a hand menacingly gripping a knife (above). Another fan wrote on 2ch. about killing her. These might be "jokes", but they are hardly funny. [Source]

Sumire Uesaka was sent and read a letter where she was creeped out by a fan letter, but it was played off as a joke.

And during the Kokoro Connect scandal (which is included in some links below), Eri Kitamura was harassed by fans that were sending her dick pics and hate messages via twitter to the point where she had to stop using Twitter (she has resumed Twitter activity a while after).

I talk about this more below in the “scandals” section, but female seiyuu get heat for things that are arguably normal. Again, voice actors like Hikaru Midorikawa have gotten into scandals like this too (Midorikawa was accused of cheating because of a matching piece of jewelry or something).

Scandals:

When Aya Hirano’s scandal occurred, people were threatening her and cutting up her merchandise and pictures. 

Daisuke Namikawa got into a scandal involving adultery where he allegedly cheated in 2004 when he got married in 2001. He cheated with a teenage girl who worked at his former agency. According to an interview, this relationship had gone on until “recently” (when it came to the surface in July 2017). [Source: Anime News Network] 

In my opinion, cheating is one of the lowest things you can do to your partner, and if you do such a thing, you should have a good excuse. But with a teenage girl? Come on. At the start of the relationship, he was 28. He should’ve known better, yet, we never hold these acts against him. He’s still getting a lot of roles in anime, and as much as I don’t have anything against him as an actor and as a master of his craft, I can’t help but think of this whenever his image comes up.

In the Kokoro Connect Scandal, we see a public humiliation of a male voice actor. Two of the main players in the scandal are Takuma Terashima and Hisako Kanemoto. While I don’t know the complete reasons for this, Takuma Terashima can somehow still get roles and even sang the opening for that Slime anime? We don’t see Kanemoto often though. 

The Arts Vision scandal was terrible. She was assaulted at only 16. This incident did occur in 2006, and he was released a few months later after his arrest. He stepped down as chairman in 2007. I feel like he wasn’t really held accountable. He apparently was released for medical reasons or something like that. Basically, bullshit. What’s even worse is the fact that he was the founder of the company, and this agency represents a lot of good voice actors Saki Fujita, Jun Fukushima, Souchirou Hoshi, Tomoaki Maeno, Kousuke Toriumi, Yuuichirou Umehara, and Daiki Yamashita just to name a few. It is also the parent company of I’m Enterprise which is another huge agency which houses Saori Hayami, Youko Hikasa, Kaede Hondo, Rie Kugimiya, Maria Naganawa, Mai Nakahara, Saori Oonishi, Ari Ozawa, Chiwa Saito, Ayane Sakura, Aya Suzaki, the Uchida siblings, Tatsuhisa Suzuki, Hiro Shimono, and Yoshitsugu Matsuoka. He had a lot of power, and I imagine this wasn’t his first time taking advantage.

Male Seiyuu Benefits:

So, male seiyuu get more leniency in expressing themselves, more time in the industry, more interesting parts, more work, and possibly more money. And when I say more leniency, I mean A LOT more leniency. The cast of Haganai was saying how it’s great how they can say “うんこ (poop)” in front of a large audience. Meanwhile, we have male seiyuu who can discuss panties without anybody judging. If a female seiyuu were to do that, she’d probably get scolded by her manager. They are to stick to a certain image, and they can’t do much outside of it. A huge part of Aya Hirano’s decline was caused by her sleeping with other band members (except for the bassist; RIP I’m a bass player).

While seiyuu in general cosplay, it’s far more difficult for female seiyuu to cosplay because of costumes in anime are... you know. There is a stream where Akari Kito is pressured into wearing the costume that her character wore, and yes, it did happen. If it’s any consolation, the seiyuu community felt a bit conflicted about it.

Harassment Within the Industry:

Like pretty much all industries, female seiyuu experience sexual harassment as well. Few have been open about it, but Atsuko Enomoto commented on the progression of the #metoo movement. She talks about wanting to give up and quit the industry. There have also been comments about producers and directors hitting on and harassing young female seiyuu, and they can’t do anything about it because they’re starting out. And this is only the stuff that makes it onto the surface.

Hiroko Konishi also shares her experience that happened decades ago where female seiyuu suffered from abuse, sexual harassment, and other hardship because they were expected to “sell themselves”.

There have even been comments on how there’s a “casting couch” in the industry.

Yurina Hase also speaks about the “casting couch” and how disgusting the industry is.

Hase revealed she experienced a "casting couch" situation once for an anime that was produced at Sunrise. She said that she was asked to perform sexual favors, and when she refused, she was notified the next day that she did not get the role. She said that this was her only experience with a casting couch as an anime voice actress.

Before the livestream, Hase wrote on Twitter that she planned to "reveal how I really feel," and that she has "the resolve to end everything."

In the stream, she also gave advice to "watch out for the male voice actors." She said that the newcomer male actors tend to let the attention go to their heads, and immediately try to lay their hands on the female actors.

She received multiple death threats in 2009, causing her stress. She later resigned from her role in the The IDOLM@STER series as Yukiho, and was replaced by Azumi Asakura. In 2014, she took a break from new voice acting roles.

Voice acting is a tough industry, but being a female voice actress is even tougher. I just wanted to put this rant out there because I casually say things about it from time to time, but with that Reddit comment, I think I finally wanted to give it its own post.

[the-skooma-den]

threw together a couple headshots of Syke cause i wanted to do a proper profile of her, so anyone curious about the character i spend so much time ranting about and drawing thats gonna be under the read more

Part 2 here 

directory to all posts about her and her siblings are here

Real Name: Ava Aurelia Cassia Camoran Tharn Latona. she has an untold amount fake names and identities for a wide variety of purposes, Nowadays she mainly goes by Syke Ivywood, and thats what most of the Dominion knows her as (and is also her in game name)

Age: turned 28 right around when the main plot started. I assume years pass through the DLC’s, including one year where she does the mages and fighters guild quest as well as a bunch of quests.

Race: Imperial. Her father was a bosmer and she takes heavily after him. Her grandpas a Khajiit, which is only relevant here because her dad took heavily after his dad. Hence syke’s weirdly golden eyes and slightly to sharp teeth. 

Class: Nightblade, focus on siphoning magic

Personality: One might look at her usual scowl and her serious demeanor and assume she's the typical lone wolf edgy assassin, and they’re only really half wrong. She’s not a loner by choice,she doesn’t hate people really, shes just not great at interacting with people. Anyone who knows who she actually is tend to be scared of her (even other members of the brotherhood) and that's not great for ones self confidence. In a few words, she’s just awkward and extremely introverted. That being said she is kinda grumpy, but if an evil god stole your soul you would be to.

As for the series Demeanor, that really just her face. She’s just not a smiley person ya know? She just as an incredibly flat affect and it either takes really strong emotions or a lot of effort on her part to break it. She’s actually pretty damn nice, even if she doesn’t really “get” a lot of social norms.Being raised in a assassin cult worshiping the void can do that to a girl.

What also does not help the usual perception of her, is her Bad temper and very very low bullshit tolerance. She’s not hard to piss off and it can be explosive. Usually not the yelling and screaming explosive but the getting right up in your face out of nowhere and quietly informing you that if you say one more word she’ll individually break every bone in your hand type way.

She’s what her mother would kindly call “strong willed” and what everyone else would call debilitatingly stubborn . Keeping in mind this is a woman who was wronged by what is essentially the demon god king of domination and then decided “I’m going to kick his ass” and then did. For good or ill she rarely if ever gives up.

Due to the fact she is technically a noblewoman, she tends to be extremely private as well. The other Cyrodilic nobles know of her and her family, but just know them as the family that for the most part gave up their titles and have no intention of trying to get them back, they have no idea that theyre a whole family of assassin in the Dark brotherhood. That does not mean that they ignore her or her family as even if her family doesn’t want the titles the fact they exist can mess up others claims to the throne.Especially Ava who suffice to say has a pretty decent claim to several very important titles. This has lead her to take on a variety of different fake names and wearing different masks to avoid being recognized both in her daily life and in jobs for the brotherhood...at least at first.

As it turned out she's a natural actor with one hell of a flair for the dramatic. She may have issues interacting with people as herself, but she finds it easier when pretending to be someone else. She got so into it that she has whole characters that she pretends to be for all kinds of purposes, like say if she needs access to mages or fighters guild resources or if a particular job for the brotherhood calls to act as a maid for a little bit.

as for how the Dominion crew know her, well they actually come closer to knowing her then most. When Raz dragged her out of the ocean at Khenarthis roost she was so out of it she was barely able to come up with a fake name let alone a whole character, so they all end up genuinely knowing her as she truly is. Turns out she doesn’t mind that as much as she thought she would.

Backstory (before the main plot): She’s a third generation member of the Dark brotherhood, and most of her direct family (siblings, parents, aunt and one set of grandparents) are apart of it. Her grandmother, A Bosmer noble named Cassa, married an Imperial nobleman when she was pretty young. Cassa wanted to get out of Valenwood and her husband was looking for a way to rebel against his family and found it in a hot bosmer lady. They ended up having one kid together, Lara

A few years later Cassa ends up falling in with and getting pregnant by a khajiiti baker her husband hired, and her husband is not to happy about that to say the least.  He fires and sends the Khajiit away and Cassa is less then happy about that as well. She kills her husband and so convincingly makes it look like an accident that if the brotherhood hadn't already had a contract out on him no one would have ever known it was murder. 

So Cassa ends up joining the brotherhood after her second kid by the khajiit man was born. She never really connected with the bosmeri pantheon or the Green pact, and she ends up taking to Sithis real well. She also as soon as she was able went to find her love and they were married as soon as possible. They all lived in Valenwood for a number of years and both her kids grew up in the brotherhood as well. 

 Eventually the younger one son, Tanis, marries an Imperial woman,Livillia. Also a runaway noblewoman,her mother was friends with Cassa and she was seeking sanctuary with her. Livillia is specifically one of Abnur Tharns kids, who no longer wanted to deal with the Tharn family drama. 

They have a kid together (That is of course Ava). Tanis’s older sister and Cassa’s first child, Lara, has a one night stand with an Altmer and has her own kid who she names Ceryneian (or Nia for short). And they all live pretty happily for a while, as far as anyone knew the family was just a bunch of nobodies, rich nobodies who kept all hours but still just nobodies. They had for the most part completely abandoned all noble titles, even if the nobles weren’t done with them.

When Ava was about 10 years old her great aunt Cilvia tharn found out that Livillia was still alive. She was well aware that if she tried to do anything to Elsweyr Livillia would likely act against her. Livillia may be a member of the brotherhood, but she wasnt completely evil. Cilcvia sent assassins after Ava’s parents, they missed her but her parents were taken by surprise and sadly killed. None of her family felt right staying in valenwood anymore, So Lara took Ava in and moved to the Gold coast where she had spent her early childhood and had inherited some estate.  Her grandparents Moved to Elsweyr and both Ava and Nia would spend summers there as kids. 

So Ava ends up “officially” a member of the brotherhood ,after toddling around the sanctuaries her whole life, at about 15 years old, and was never prouder. Normally they wouldn’t have let someone so young in but once again, she had literally been toddling in sanctuaries, they figured it was fine.

On one of her first genuinely dangerous missions, to kill a necromancer in Northern Elsweyr (chaperoned by her grandma of course), she came across one of said necromancers future sacrifices. This sacrifice happened to be a 13 year old khajiit boy named Thera (later going by Jo’Thera)  with some odd fur patterns, and fuck man he was just a kid (granted shes only a couple years older then him) and Ava couldn’t just leave him there alone. Ava saved him and took her back to Anvil with her after she killed the necromancer as according to the kid, he didn’t have a family or anywhere to go. Lara hears the kids story and is just like…. Welp… guess i got a 3rd kid now.  (as Thera grows up if there's one thing he gets from his adopted family its a love for drama and dramatic irony. He takes to necromancy pretty quickly)

That peace continued for a few years until she was about 19. At 19 years old she got the offer to join the Psijic order, Not because she was particularly powerful or even all that good at magic (at the time of course, she gets much better later), but due to her lack of formal teaching she had her own odd way of casting and working with it that caught their attention. Basically imagine that she did a really complicated math problem wrong, but ended up with the right answer and somehow accidentally discovered a new much easier formula to that particular problem, she did the magic version of that and showed a lot of potential even outside of that.

Then she said no, she was happy in the brotherhood and her current life and she saw no reason to leave

When Ava was about 20 years old, Nia ran away because, well she wasn't as fond of the brotherhood as her mother or cousin, and its not exactly something you can just quit and walk away from. It broke the whole families heart of course but Ava took it particularly hard. She had considered her and had been referring to her as her sister even before her parents death

What really set it all off though was when Nia popped up again alive and well in Valenwood using the last name of their grandmothers family. She didn’t send them a message or anything, it just got to them by word of mouth because Nia had disowned them and been talking shit about them. After she ran away she went back down to Valenwood to claim the title that was rightfully hers, it turns out that she had found proof of her birthright and between that and her uncanny resemblance to her grandmother she barely had to be questioned. 

So Nia is in Valenwood with her relatives and had completely disowned the entire rest of her family. Her grandmother, Her mother and her (now deceased) Aunt and Uncle, and Ava and their brother as well. she never made any concrete statement as to why per say outside of “Not wanting to go down the same path as the rest of her family” which most people assumed meant completely abandoning their noble heritage and titles, not to mention their bosmeri heritage as well (which was partially true, but it was mostly about the whole murder cult thing). So yeah, Lara was heartbroken and Ava was pissed off to oblivion and back and Jo’thera....he was just hurt, but all decided that if that was where Nia wanted to be they weren’t going to drag her back.

At about 23 Ava met her first real significant other, A Dunmeri noble. It didnt go well for either of them really, lots of drugs, lots of unhealthy coping mechanisms, lots of secrets. not a good time. 2 years later, The Dunmer actually proposes to Ava, and Ava not only says yes but Ava tells her everything about the brotherhood, her own noble status, all of it. The Dunmer seems okay with it at first, and admits she kinda suspected who Ava’s family was based on the little she spoke about it, The brotherhood was the real surprising part there. The knife in Ava’s stomach later that night Makes it clear what she thought about that. So it was a messier breakup then most.  

Ava doesnt like to speak much of the relationship, but it hurt her more then she lets on and makes her more nervous then ever to be in a real romantic relationship 

Well after that mess Ava threw herself back into the brotherhood hardcore and also into hardcore drugs and alcohol.for about 5 years. Over those 5 years between the Dunmer incident, a lot of self reflection, and all sorts of anxieties she’s an unstable mess. Like verge of a mental breakdown type of mess. 

When she was kidnapped and later sacrificed by the wormcult many who knew her assumed that she had offed herself for good. She was gone for long enough that even her own family started to assume the worst

[musicfeedsmysoul12]

Hey, I recently found your blog and I love your writing! Is it okay if I ask for some headcanons of Daughter of Hephaestus!MC from that one L&L/PJO crossover post? I know that it was it’s an older post.

OF COURSE, IT IS. Old posts or not, I definitely have ideas. I am super pumped people like my writing. Like… it super motivates me to keep going.

Alright, given that this is about a specific MC, I’m naming her… *looks up Greek Heroes* Atlanta. Atlanta Copperfield. As well, we’re going to have some general headcanons before going into the other ones.

LONG ASS POST

General

Atlanta fought in both wars. She’s not the best smith of the cabin or anything, but she was really good with armor and weapons. 

All Hephaestus kids have a Spark that lets them build amazing things. It’s part of their gift from their dad.

Has one of those enchanted belts you can put anything in

Is wicked strong. Like scary, scary strong.

Is semi-immune to fire- not like Leo but can withstand very high temps.

Has a lot of scars from the battles and has a hard time being anything but a fighter.

Left camp due to her PTSD and hatred of herself as she did have to kill siblings during the war. 

May or may not secretly hate the Gods.

Does love her dad but in a very distant way. 

Her mother died protecting her from a monster when she was six. She really hates Hyrdas. 

Witch Queen spell went wonky and the soul latched onto baby Atlanta. Her body changed to match the WQ appearance but no one really notices because God Genes are WEIRD. Seriously- her sister has purple hair. It’s weird.

Atlanta fully accepts she’s in a whole new world because she is used to weird shit.

Reiner

Reiner shows Atlanta around and she just freaks about the not so great armor some of the guards are wearing. Insists on making new ones for them. He shows her to the smithery.

Atlanta becomes a huge help in the castle. Reiner finds himself often sitting with her in the evenings as she designs things. The two build a strong friendship this way.

Thing is the generals don’t realize she looks like the WQ for a while. Mostly cause Atlanta isn’t thin and with long hair hanging down. She’s quite muscular and has her hair in a bun or a ponytail like 99% of the time.

They only figure it out when Atlanta lets her hair down while going for a walk with Reiner in the village, who all now know Atlanta isn’t the WQ cause she’s so nice and builds stuff for them.

Everyone ships her and Reiner. It’s adorable.

Demigods have super quick relationships because most die by like thirty so she is down for a wedding. Yep, oooh, can she make armor for them as their wedding outfits?

Atlanta being semiposessed by the WQ is really fucking scary cause of her demigod blood making her more sturdy and her Spark.

Now, it turns out the Gods are watching and when she gets possessed also get worried because even they feel the WQ is a big fucking deal. Soooooooo… they come to that world. 

Yep, Gods appear in Reiner’s castle and don’t care they see them. (Zeus may actually like the fact they believe)

Atlanta loses her Spark to protect it from the WQ until she is either free or dead. Atlanta as well goes into a heavy depression and is very much a zombie during this time because a Spark is part of her soul.

Reiner is literally the only thing keeping her from giving in.

(Wow this is getting long) Being free gives her Spark back and she throws herself into building weapons and armor. It actually takes Solaire yelling at her to have her realize that Oh shit, Reiner is not acting like himself because she was in a giant fog of working.

Big fight with her and Reiner. Both are really bad at acting like adults with their work because he was worrying over her thanks to Ryland and she was worrying over him…

Atlanta is fucking scary with a shield. She is very strong and can even knock down a wall thanks to a strange metal that appeared in her belt one day. She thinks it might be an apology from her dad…

She totally takes him to Camp while in her original world before they leave. Sophie comes to now that she remembers. Chiron likes him and with his help they create a stable portal.

Her siblings approve.They do make them recite a blessing for Hera and jump over a fire but that’s it. They’re married.

Atlanta makes him a crossbow that is enchanted to shoot fire or ice arrows. 

August

August totally thinks she’s the WQ for five minutes and then she starts ranting about his sword.

Nope, no longer WQ, now she is a sword buddy. They get along fantastic after that.

Atlanta doesn’t run off beginning season2, instead, she stays because running off would be stupid. 

Atlanta dislikes sword fighting. She’s good at it and likes swords but she’s wicked strong so she likes to try and have her fighting resemble that. 

She ends up making a wicked heavy sword that lets her smash all she wants. August is appauled.

“Look, I used to ride a pegasus. Horses do not have wings. That is why i suck at this.” “No, you are simply bad at it because you are to stiff-” “I RODE A FLYING HORSE. OF COURSE I AM STIFF.”

August’s mom loves her when she ends up like fixing everything in their inn because her hands just won’t stop. Asta is like “Marry that woman.” August blushes.

The Gods come to yell when they’re in council. Apparently this is her quest and she must defeat the WQ because *some reason*. Her Spark is removed for a year as punishment for letting her gain a body.

It’s awful. August is terrified for her, she’s a zombie. He prays to the Gods, begging. Eventually Hep is like: fuck this and gives her back her Spark early. Just in time for battle.

Atlanta brings Sophie to the Camp. They all pitch in but still Sophie has to stay for now. She hates it but now knows other magic people!!

Atlanta also brings back necter and stuff but still ends up cursed in the end. 

August Dad is eh about her. Heard rumors but didn’t believe until she lifted a tree off him and did some pretty cool stuff.

Also again, let her at the broken stuff. She’s good at it.

When August’s sword breaks she offers to make a new one but like… for some reason she can never make the right one. it’s super frustrating for the both of them and she is wicked upset about it. And then they meet Aisetha.

“I could make a better sword.” “No you cannot.” “I’m making one that talks to.”

Aisetha does let Atlanta make the armor to it’s wishes but it does look badass so fine.

These two fuckin hate each other, it’s the best.

The wedding has traditional vows and Chiron, as well as a bunch of siblings, come through a portal to party.

Saerys

Saerys does not think this girl is the WQ. It’s obvious she uses physical strength and the WQ is pure magic.

Atlanta does not go to his room in the beginning- she knows this shit is real. But she and Saerys bond over being really strong and soon they end up having contests with picking shit up.

Atlanta picked up Saerys who was picking up Reiner once. 

Atlanta fixes everything still. Also builds random shit everywhere. Eventually, she has to stay with Saerys in his room cause Ryland and Solaire get annoyed when she takes stuff apart.

She can’t help it. Literally. She actually confesses she’s a demigod to Saerys because she feels alone here without any siblings. She may have left camp but she had called them. 

Saerys gets being alone.

Atlanta ends up dropkicking Lennox out of town after she gives everyone a speech about his armor and how they’re all idiots for not realizing it was WQ general armor.

Atlanta isn’t affected by Saery’s heat or strength in Turbo Mode and can hold him down. 

Dying at the hand of the Witch Queen but being brought back removes half of her Spark. She has a harder time making things and thinking. Saerys is there to help though.

Saerys and Atlanta spar a lot.

Chicago also brings them to find the camp and Saerys realizes they will be in danger no matter where. 

The demon gods team up with the Greek Gods to bring Saerys back to life and restore the full of Atlanta’s soul. This also reveals that Atlanta is a demigod to everyone.

Atlanta’s Spark is twisted a little and talks now to her, urging her to create and build weapons. Like messed up weapons of mass destruction.

Saerys and Atlanta struggle a lot with the demon souls possessing Saerys- it’s hard to control them when you also have a nutjob Spark yelling to build things.

At least the stupid Souls like her now, thanks to the Spark giving them ideas.

They warn the Camps about the WQ maybe invading and they get ready.

Atlanta whispers a wedding blessing when they pass each other the rings because they’re already married demon style. Let’s do it demigod.

Altea

Okay, like Saerys she figures that Atlanta is not WQ quick thanks to Atlanta being shit with any magic that is not building things.

Atlanta is given scrap metal because of her need to build things. She doesn’t realize she’s making jewlery with one person in mind until she makes a pretty pair of pink earing and oh.

Atlanta’s crush on tiny Altea is hilarious. Everyone does given Atlanta is the type to give pretty things to her object of affection. Altea is very happy.

Only once did Altea ever agree to be picked up by Atlanta in battle. Never again. Very undignified!

“But fun.” “Stop it my raven.”

Altea meets her family in Chicago and they figure that Iris Messaging still works in the other world afterwards so they chat a lot.

Atlanta’s demigod status is revealed to Altea in Chicago and the two worship Hep and like Athena and stuff but it’s revealed to everyone when Hep comes to give her this special metal so she can make a sword for herself to fight the witch queen.

Atlea compares the Spark to Magic.

Meeting Mireille and finding out Altea’s a princess makes Atlanta feel scruffy. Sure, she’s a demigod but… princess. She’s just a smith.

Altea makes sure she doesn’t feel that way for long. 

Atlanta makes a ring for Altea as a proposal thing. She loves it.

seeing her go fully Magical Girl Mode makes Atlanta fall for her all over again.

Meeting her family is hard, given she is very much a smith, but they do warm up. They also Iris Message some friends so that the Queen and King realize they’re telling the truth about Atlanta being from another world and the demigod stuff.

Lional now wants to learn to smith. Atlanta just wants him to stop poking at the fire.

Iseul

Okay, Iseul does not think she’s the WQ because she doesn’t have the right feel.

Atlanta may have punched him once in annoyance.

they may end up in a fight a few times. They just irritate each other to much.

Their first kiss is during a fight. Everyone was betting on it.

Atlanta’s Spark goes into haywire at seeing the bow Iseul has because she has SO MANY IDEAS

Iseul loves it. Every bit. He is always bragging about this girl to everyone in the village when she goes to get fun stuff to play with.

Imohn ends up liking her when she comes up with an arrow that when fired goes into a dragon made out of fire.

atlanta and Iseul are the worst together. Seriously. No, do not… Atlanta, do not make that! Iseul says it’s okay! NO!

The whole demigod thing comes out when the Gods come during a council meeting to yell at Atlanta for letting the WQ out. She points out she did not know what would happen and no one said this was a quest.

Zeus is not pleased but she lives. Barely. Her Spark is taken from her and she falls into a deep depression.

Iseul is struggling to help her and get his mother to accept her. It all really goes to shit when Ishara ends up in a coma without accepting Atlanta.

Atlanta manages to fight through the depression and help Iseul. They wake up Ishara who accepts her. She also gets her Spark back because that was a lesson she had to learn.

 “It was a fucking shitty lesson.”

Chicago is nuts. “How on earth… you were supposed to be created only a few years ago!” “Go bug Chiron for that… or maybe like Hecate or something.” Camp is a nightmare.

Magnus is horrified the rumors of her being a demigod are true. Ha, fuck you buddy.

“I’m pregnant!!! OH! I HAVE IDEAS FOR THE NURSERY!!!” “NO ATLANTA!” “YES MY LOVE!”

Just these two idiots are awful.

[asl-scarlet-sorceress]

For the percy jackson qs All of them bc I'm a slut for u answering questions about the shit u love :3c

Aaaaaah thank you bae!!! This is super long tho because, you know me, I can talk A LOT about this universe. And also, if you have more questions, please ask me so that I can continue to gush about my favourite series in the entire world OTL 

1.How old were you when you read the Percy Jackson books?

I was 11 when I first started reading them 😂 I was a tiny bby

2.What year did you read them in?

Does this mean academic year or actual year? Because I read them in year 7 (6th Grade) so that would have been in somewhere around 2010 I think???

3. What caused you to read them?

My older brother had read them and recommended The Lightning Thief to me and a selection of books were being given out at my school for free to encourage kids to read and The Lightning Thief happened to be one of them. And the rest is history 😂

4.Which of the series have you read in the PJO universe?

All of them~ I have read every book in the PJO, HoO, KC, and MCGA series and I’ve just preordered The Dark Prophecy at my local book store so I can keep up to date with ToA. I’ve also read all the side books like Demigod Diaries and Demigods and Magicians, and the two books of Professor Percy and they’re all aligned in chronological order on my book shelve because I’m a fucking nerd OTL

5. What is your favorite series in the PJO universe?

Oh god help me. I don’t know??? I love them all for different reasons??? I find myself ranting most to other people about HoO but the Magnus Chase series is probably my favourite because not only is it a wonderful story but The Hammer of Thor was the first time I had ever read about a genderfluid character and the way Alex was portrayed was just so wonderful to me that I will reread that book over and over again, specifically on his pages because it’s kinda like seeing a little bit of myself in my favourite world. It heightens my sense of escapism and belonging there that’s for sure XD

6.Who is your favorite character?

From the PJO series- Thalia GraceFrom the HoO series- Nico Di Angelo/ Leo Valdez/ Reyna (DO NOT MAKE ME PICK!)From the ToA series- Will SolaceFrom the KC- either Sadie Kane (because I’m always here for another Ribena enthusiast) or AnubisFrom the MCGA series- ALEX FIERRO RULER OF MY LIFE!!!

7.Who is your least favorite character?

Overall?? Either Zeus (because he was the world’s first fuckboi) or Bianca Di Angelo. As an older sibling, I could never imagine leaving my younger sibling all alone just because I wanted a bit more freedom in my life. It’s incredibly selfish and I just can’t ever forgive her for it. She may have been a hero and an interesting character and I was really torn up when she died but I will never forgive her for the way she treated her younger brother.

8.What are your headcanons?

THERE ARE TOO MANY TO LIST!!! But one of my main headcanons that I will list here (I’ll message you others if you ever read the whole universe) is that Nico and Anubis know each other and get along. Now this started because they’re described as looking very similar to each other (black, shaggy hair, dark brown eyes, pale af with a similar fashion sense of just black on black) and it kind of snowballed once I read Son Of Neptune. Because to me, it would make so much sense for Nico to know about other pantheons long before the other demigods. Why? Because Death is universal across mythology. And Nico, as the son of Hades, needs to know about his death rituals which- I think- would lead him to researching the other pantheons and learning that immortality really is forever. But yeah, i just love the idea of Nico and Anubis being friends and looking out for one another because they both understand the stigma around death but they’re both actually kind of dorky the minute they stop being angry??? But yeah, there’s just one of my headcanons and look how long that took to summarise OtL

9.Do you read fanfic for these books?

Yesssssssss all day every day!!

10.Do you write it?

I try to OTL it’s just, with characters i love and adore so much I’m so scared of doing them a disservice??? If that makes sense? I’ve got a thousand scenarios in my head but when I try to write I end up starting at a blank screen for 30 minutes before going back and rereading the books again XD

11.What’s your favorite scene?

From PJO- When Percy offers Pandora’s Pithos to Hestia as an offering. It’s just such an important act at the time and I just love it so much!!!!From HoO- uuuurgh it’s a tie up between Jason comforting Nico after Croatia and then the ending with the two camps and Reyna being a badass. From ToA- I know this isn’t really a scene but when Apollo makes the remarked about Achilles, Briseis and Patroclus because Iliad jokes~~ 😂 but other than that, probably when Apollo starts to realise how shit a parent he actually is and feeling kinda guilty about it. I just love seeing him evolve as a person rather than stay the same immortal fuckboi forever. From KC- THE FUCKING CAN OPENER!!! I laughed for about an hour when I first read the bit when Carter finds out about Horus possessing him. I actually couldn’t read past that bit without laughing over and over again 😂 From MCGA- When Alex was lying down on the Bifrost. I always imagine it as a very beautiful scene because he’s got this rainbow light all around him but it also makes me feel sad for some reason I’ve yet to pin down. But yeah, Alex being pretty and melancholy surrounded by rainbow light~ From Demigods and Magicians- probably when Setne gets sucked into the snow globe. That was a good day reading that.

12.Most memorable quote?

‘With great power comes great need to take a nap’

13.Favourite romantic relationship?

I have a few! Solangelo is my favourite altogether tho because I love the contrast between the two (I’m a sucker for the night/day/death/life symbolism in a relationship) but I also love Percabeth, Jiper, Sam/Amir, Fierrochase, Sadie/Anubis/Walt (what is that relationship called??? I can’t remember OtL)

14.Favourite platonic relationship ?

Annabeth and Piper, Percy and Jason, Annabeth and Sadie, Piper and Hazel, Grover and Percy

15.Favourite familial relationship?

NICO AND HAZEL, NICO AND REYNA, NICO AND HADES, NICO AND JASON, (basically anyone who treats Nico like family and cares about him tbh) Percy and Sally, Thalia and Jason, Piper and Leo, Sadie and Carter, Sam and Magnus, Magnus and Annabeth (the little we’ve been given anyway), Sam and Alex, Apollo and his kids??? Like the way he’s actually starting to genuinely care and he feels mildly guilty at how much they’re supporting and caring about him when he’s done none of that for them???

16.What are your notps?

Reyna and Nico. Can’t stand that ship. Also Octavian and Rachel. Or anyone with Rachel really. Same with Percy and Artemis??? Like, no???? Artemis is a maiden for eternity, she has no interest in men whatsoever??? And Rachel is the oracle of Delphi so she’s sworn to not be with people for as long as she is the oracle??? I just don’t get it.

16.What house do you think Percy is in?

See this is really hard! Percy is certainly brace and noble enough to be in Gryffindor but he is fatally loyal to the people he loves and he works incredibly hard which are more Hufflepuff traits! But at the same time he can be cunning and tricky when he’s in a fight. But he’s not really ambitious enough to be a Slytherin and, while intelligent, he won’t follow up on an idea just because of the allure of knowledge so he’s not really a Ravenclaw…urgh I want to put him in Hufflepuff but idk. Either Hufflepuff or Gryffindor.

17.What house do you think Annabeth is in?

Either Ravenclaw or Gryffindor. Like she will battle past her ADHD and dyslexia for the pursuit of knowledge and to better specialise herself in the areas she wants to but at the same time she walked into her worst nightmares, then fell into Tartarus, got out of Tartarus, then went to war all within the span of a month and a half. That takes Gryffindor courage right there. So yeah, either Gryffindor or Ravenclaw.

18.Thoughts on Luke?

I always feel really bad for Luke. Because he’s so relatable. It’s easy to see how he made the choices he did because he honestly thought that the Titans could be better because the gods mistreatment was all he had ever known. And it hurts what happened to him because he is the classic tragic hero; he made the wrong choices and the minute he realises what a mess he’s made of things, it’s already too late to stop anything. But he was able to do the right thing in the end and I just get really emotional whenever I think of that scene. It hurts too much 😭

19.What race do you think Percy is?

I don’t really know. I mean, we know he’s got a lot of his appearance from Poseidon so that means he should look very Grecian/Mediterranean, maybe he even has a sort of olive skin tone??? Idk. I guess whenever I think of Percy I just think of the kids I used to see on skateboards down at the local park. But yeah, probably Grecian if I had to pick.

20.What do you think of Frank and Hazel’s relationship?

I think it’s really cute. I like how it’s so fresh??? Because with Percabeth that relationship grew out of friendship over five books and Jiper has a natural flow to it with all the fragility and insecurity of a new relationship so it still works. But Hazel and Frank knew each other for such a short period of time before they started crushing on each other and I think it’s sweet to see kind of the love and first sight thing but warped slightly due to the complications that come with their lives. It’s interesting to see them struggle through all the confusion of a brand new relationship but still trying to keep themselves together. It’s nice to see that kind of love rather than the comfortable love of Percabeth or the steady love of Jiper. 21.What do you think of Calypso and Leo’s relationship?

I love it!!! At first I was skeptical but their banter and denial was really funny and the way Leo was determined to make it back to her. I had always wanted someone to treat Calypso right and I’m glad that Leo has someone now who will see underneath all the humour as well as appreciating him for himself :)

22.Do you follow Rick on any social media platforms?

Yes! I follow him on Twitter and on Tumblr~

23.What did you think of the movie?

I liked the visual effects but that was about it. And even then it was like, nice snakes, now where’s the plot??? I really did not like those movies. They need to be buried with the Avatar movie that never existed in my opinion.

24. What are your thoughts on the upcoming musical?

I’m really looking forward to it! I think they cast a really good Percy and I really like what I’m hearing so far. I love musicals and I understand there’s a bigger limit on what you can do on a stage compared to a film so I’m more lenient towards differences between the stage and the book.

25.Do you own any of the books and if so, which ones?

HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAH…..I have doubles of all of them OTL but there’s a reason for that!! One copy for myself so that I can always read them and then I lend out the second copies to my friends who are curious about this world that I won’t ever shut up about.

26.Which character are you most like, personality wise?

Idk really. Maybe Will??? Because I’m kinda easy going and I try to help out other people but if you piss me off you will know about it??? And it always takes people by surprise if they don’t know me very well at how angry I can be??? But yeah, maybe Will.

27.Which character do you look the most like?

If any of the characters have rainbow hair, I have not been informed of this! Nah but I don’t know. Without my coloured hair I just kinda look like a ghost with brown hair and colour changing eyes OTL Maybe Sadie because I used to be blonde but I dyed my hair so many times it turned brown and she streaks her hair a lot so yeah, Sadie Kane :)

27.If you could cosplay as any character, who would it be?

Okay I have cosplayer Nico before but I’m going to be cosplaying Alex at the next con I’m going to (unfortunately without her heterochromia because I’m allergic to contact lenses OtL)

28.What’s your favorite cover from the series?

Is it bad to say Blood of Olympus because Leo’s got a chainsaw in it? XD but yeah, actually Hammer of Thor because the Wolf mask on that cover with the eerie green glow across it is really cool!!

29.What are some books you would recommend to another fan?

Assuming these are books related to the PJO universe then The Demigod and Magicians crossover collection are definitely worth the read (assuming you’ve read both HoO and KC) and the Magnus Chase series because they are definitely worth branching away from the Greek and Roman gods.

If that means other series in general then His Dark Materials for definite and probably the Iliad.

30.Do you have any merchandise related to the series?

I do! I have a tshirt with Percy’s quote about procrastination on it (deadlines don’t seem real to me until I’m staring one in the face), and I have a matching charm bracelet, hair bow, earrings and necklace set with pendants that all say Camp Half-Blood on them

31.Any fan casts?

Not really. As long as they look the age of the characters *glares at the film* and they have the majority of the same features *again glares at the films* then I don’t really mind too much.

32.What did you think of the ending of Heroes of Olympus, if you read it?

I personally loved it. I agree it did feel a tiny bit anticlimactic over in Greece what with the gods kicking butt for the first time in the entire series but what happened between the camps and Gaia’s forces there was really cool. And the reconciliation of the camps afterwards and how everyone was getting along was really nice. And of course, the fact that Calypso was finally freed was a big A+ in my book.

33.Would you want to be connected to the Greek, Egyptian, Roman, or Norse Gods?

I think, as far as connected in the PJO universe way goes, I’d want to be a Magician for the House of Life. Because at least then I get a choice in whether or not I want a god in my life. If you’re a Demigod you get no choice whatsoever. If you’re just a magician then other than fighting in the apocalypse, you have a choice on what you want to do with your life (plus magicians can use electronics without calling down monsters on their heads)

34.What character from the universe do you think you would be best friends with?

Idk. It’s a tie up between Sadie, Leo and Magnus because they all have a sarcastic wit which I find hilarious but they all have differences that make me want to befriend them. Like with Sadie I could hang out with her any time of the week, and she has a really gives-no-shit attitude that I love (because I give too many shits about things) but at the same time she really cares a lot about her family and her friends which is important to me. Leo is hilarious in general but at the same time really insecure about stuff and I love helping people out and learning from them so I’d probably latch on to Leo and not stop bothering him about machines because all of it is really interesting. And then Magnus is a sarcastic little nerd who tries to be tough but is actually a sunflower and yeah, I have a lot of friends like that 😘😘😘

35.What’s the saddest scene from all the books?

Bob asking whether Percy would say hello to the stars and sun for him. That kills me every time to even think about. Fuck, now I’m crying 😭

36.What scene makes you the happiest?

Any scene of platonic friendship and love is guaranteed to make me happy. But most of all, when Hades told Nico he wanted him to be happy. That just killed me inside because it’s such a difference from the Last Olympian and Nico deserves happiness after all the shit he’s been through.

Thanks bae~