#and people viewed the world differently

[catididnt]

I believe it’s Ēostre (Ostara) that is the “easter goddess” with the hares and eggs. She’s germanic and likely originated as a dawn god and thus makes a lot of sense as a spring god. There is not a lot known about her, mainly one account of her celebration during her month (which had become easter by then) and also a wealth of place and people names that share the same etymology. Baby bunnies and (’wild’ bird) eggs are very much symbols of spring time regardless

We have far more info on Ishtar and she was a much bigger deal. ‘Ishtar’ ‘began’ as Inanna, who is very much a Mesopotamian god. She was ‘the’ god in Sumaria. Big deal, many attributes/domains/whatever we call them.

It’s that time of year again. Courtesy of digitalhammurabi.com

Addition about the image, courtesy of Twitter user @lui_log: wrt the background image, which is a stone plaque showing a winged goddess flanked by owls: “Also, we don't know whether this is a depiction of Ishtar, as the piece has been looted, thus has no archaeological context that could point us to whom it shows. Nor does it bear an inscription. The owls could mean that it is Ishtar's sister Ereshkigal, Goddess of the Underworld.”

[itwoodbeprefect]

the thing about bad buddy is that calling it enemies to lovers is not entirely wrong and is a very succinct and easy way to indicate the general plot, but also one of the only moments that the two main characters are actually personally in conflict with each other lasts about four minutes and is expressed mainly through upset shirtless xylophone playing contrasted with a montage of happy moments that features a time there was triumphant shirt-wearing xylophone playing. and then they both say sorry at literally the exact same time

[bonefall]

the worst parent poll made me realize just how many ppl in the fandom are willing to jump straight into abuse apologia. bc on one hand you have ppl dumbing down crow's abuse to "him just being mean" and on the other end you have ppl saying that curlfeather didnt abuse frostpaw because she sacrificed herself and frost + her siblings love her so she couldnt possibly be an abuser. truly mindboggling stuff take these serious topics away from the fandom asap.

Part of me feels like it's because many in this fandom have a feeling that if a character's actions are abusive, it means you're "not allowed" to like them. Like there's an impulse where if you liked a character, it MUST mean they weren't THAT bad, because you'd personally never like "an abuser."

As if it reflects poorly on your own morality, as a person, that you connected with An Abuser. Understood them, even. Even if it was just a character.

If it's immoral to Like Abusive Characters, of course your reaction is going to end up being abuse apologia. To enjoy something isn't logical, it's emotional, so you will get defensive about it when questioned. When you do, it's not going to be based on logic because you didn't reason yourself into that position in the first place. It's an attack on you as a person.

I feel like that's often the root of abuse apologia in this fandom, and sometimes the world at large; "If I admit that this character/person IS abusive, it means I was doing something bad by liking them, so I have to prove to everyone else that they weren't or it means I'm bad too."

And to that I say... That's a BAD impulse! Grow up and admit you resonated with a character that did a bad thing! If that's an uncomfortable thought, sit with it!

Sometimes abusers are likeable! They usually DO think they're justified in their actions, or doing it for "a good reason," or were just too preoccupied to care. MOST of the time, people who commit abusive actions are also hurt or traumatized in some way. You might even empathize with them. None of this means their actions have to be excused or downplayed.

"Abusers" aren't a type of goddamn yokai, they're people just like you and me. You don't help victims of abuse by putting the people who hurt us in an "untouchable" category.

In fact, all it does is make you less likely to recognize your own controlling behavior. You're capable of abuse. People you love are capable of it, too. People who love YOU can still hurt you.

In spite of how often people regurgitate "It's Ok To Like A Character As Long As You're Critical Of Their Actions," every day it is proven to me further and further that no one who says it actually understands what that means.

All that said; I think it's no contest which one's a worse parent, imo.

They both mistreated their children, but Curlfeather did it through manipulation without verbal or physical abuse. She politically groomed her into a position of power so that she could use her as a pawn. It can be argued if this counts as child abuse-- but it's firmly still under the broad category childhood maltreatment, which is damaging.

(though anon I'm with you 100% at seeing RED when "but she sacrificed herself" is used as an excuse. Curlfeather's death does NOT CHANGE what she did to Frostpaw in life. I think it's a valid point to bring up when comparing her to another terrible parent for judgement purposes, such as in the context of this poll, but I really hate the implication that redemption deaths "make up" for maltreatment.)

Crowfeather, meanwhile, is textually responsible for putting Breezepaw through verbal AND physical abuse, as well as child neglect. His motivations include embarrassment from a hurt ego, revenge on his ex, and being sad because of a dead girlfriend. This abuse drives Breezepelt towards radicalization in the Dark Forest.

You could argue Curlfeather is a worse person for Reedwhisker's murder, but as a parent? It's not even a question to me. Crowfeather's one of the worst dads in WC.

[brainrot-jikan]

im not the biggest alhaitham/kaveh shipper (because im a rare pair ho) but it seems to me that in alhaitham/kaveh getting-together fics tend to be... unequal.

the beautiful thing about alhaitham and kaveh is that they're both equally right and equally wrong and equally dicks about it. but the writers for alhaitham/kaveh much more frequently seem to give alhaitham the burden change (the burden of the character flaw) instead of kaveh.

in any good character arc, the main character has a fatal flaw or misconception, and by the end of that arc they have addressed that flaw in some definitive way. scrooge was a scrooge and learned that being that way was detrimental; merlin from finding nemo was overprotective to a fault and had to learn that he couldn't (and shouldn't) control everything and to let go; the wolf from little red riding hood learns that you should stop while you're ahead.

stories centering around romance tend to lean heavily on character arcs, which makes sense. and since romance generally requires two individuals to be vulnerable and open and emotional with each other, it makes double sense that alhaitham/kaveh authors zoom straight into alhaitham's lack of emotional vulnerability.

this bothers me.

in society, individuals are expected to experience and present emotions in a specific way. if someone dies, you cry. if someone smiles at you, you smile back. if you're at a party, you're supposed to be having fun. if you don't do these things, you're seen as impolite at best and a inhuman freak at worst. when these behaviors are frequent it's often viewed as emotional immaturity, or a lack of ability to feel at all. the inability or lack of willingness to conform to societies emotional expectations of you is seen as a flaw and a reason for exclusion.

alhaitham is canonically disliked and avoided for being the way he is. he prefers it this way, but that doesn't mean the people perpetuating this avoidance are in the right. they are the societal pressure to conform that alhaitham blows off. alhaitham could be the way he is for a lot of reasons: avoidant attachment style, trauma, following someone else's example (eg. his grandmother), or just his base personality. it doesn't MATTER. he is the way he is. kaveh having to accept that should be part of the story.

putting the burden of the fatal flaw on alhaitham, making the way alhaitham treats kaveh and the people around him the problem, feels invalidating. it implies heavily that alhaitham's way of interfacing with the world, alhaitham's very SELF, is incorrect. my suggestion is to flip a larger portion of that burden onto kaveh. kaveh 👏 character 👏 arcs 👏

some examples/recommendations:

- make kaveh project his insecurities onto other people but especially onto alhaitham; he's overly reliant on other people for his own self worth, and he perceives alhaitham's lack of positive feedback as a direct reflection of how alhaitham feels about him. but learns along the way that alhaitham doesn't hate him, kaveh's actual struggle is with hating himself and being unable to his own self as worthy of love. maybe throw in how you are responsible for your own recovery, other people can help but you can't rely on them to carry you through self actualization.

- or, kaveh tries to make alhaitham behave more like a "normal" person, to be more pleasant and emotive and forthcoming, and then realizes he's in the wrong for trying to make alhaitham into something he's not, possibly for all the wrong reasons (not because he likes alhaitham better like that, but bc society says that's healthier and a better/more conforming way to be)

- or you could go ahead make alhaitham's issues the main problem but they're too complicated to overcome in a short period of time, so kaveh has to accept alhaitham is doing his best in his own way and not push for unrealistic and unhealthy changes. he could alter his own behavior to give alhaitham space and time and a safe place to land.

that got sappy so it's past time for me to dip out. go forth and ship things; but maybe consider letting alhaitham be a rude stone-faced bastard if he wants to be.

[blooming-periwxnkle]

It's kinda crazy when you think about how Ming Yi is basically the less ghastly version of He Xuan. And he was there by Shi Qingxuan's side for centuries, and yet Shi Wudu never found out. He never recognized him.

Imagine being in He Xuan's shoes - like this guy pretty much ruined his life and is indirectly responsible for the deaths of everybody who was dear to him. Shi Wudu rarely descends. But on the eve of Hanlu, he went down to check if he really died or not. He Xuan remembered his face. It probably haunted him during his times at Mt Tonglu, but when he finally meets this person, there is nothing on his face, no shock or horror.

He forgot him, forgot the face of the boy whose life he ruined.

He never bothered to remember. As if he never had a life.

It kind of reminds me of this scene from a manga called Yona of the Dawn. The protagonist is a princess who's on the run. She had lived a sheltered life and was trying her best to adjust to her new life. One day, she had to hunt a fawn for food, and one of her friends asked her if she would be okay with watching it, and she replied that she isn't. It's still hard for her. But she said that in the palace, thousands of animals were slaughtered every day to feed the royal family, and she never paid attention to it. But now, if she averts her eyes, it would be like refusing to acknowledge that the poor creature had a life.

Shi Wudu ruined his life for the sake of his brother, but let alone remorse, he even forgot what he looked like. He was there by his brother's side for centuries, and yet it never struck him, not until the moment his survival was on the line. If he was guilty, would it have changed anything? Would it bring He Xuan's family and the life he lost back? No, but at least it would ensure that his life meant something, anything.

And even after he recognizes him, his first reaction still is not guilt, not remorse. But a question, "You're alive?", perhaps an indirect way of saying, 'did I make a mistake that day?' Or 'did I fail to clear such an important evidence of my crime?'

The person whose life and afterlife is a consequence of his crime, the first thing he says to him is that.

"Noble people really are forgetful'', and He Xuan really meant it. He experienced it himself. For centuries.

[puppyeared]

i feel like im not making any sense but does anyone else feel like there are stories that let u run with them and ones that spell everything out for you

[shmaroace]

"if you weren't aromantic, what would you want to be?" i would pick aromanticism every time over anything else. i am proud of being aromantic! i love being aromantic!!!

[raining-its-pouring]

This is mainly further response to this last ask I got, but it’s still bugging me. I really don’t see how anything I’ve posted about Pebbles denotes a disdain for him. As I’ve stated I’m largely neutral on Pebbles, but I’ll admit that’s largely due to pervasive fandom narratives souring him to me. Pebbles as he is in canon I find much more interesting.

I often see infantilization of him, where his forgiveness is taken as a given instead of something he earns through changing. Where people act like he’s a teenager who stumbled into his mistakes instead of an adult who deliberately chose his decisions and didn’t even see them as mistakes until much later.

I do not find his actions pitiable, even if his situation and the outcome of those actions definitely are. I prefer him as a character with agency (even if it is only a small amount) excising that agency poorly instead of a character with no agency at all where all his decisions were preordained and therefore he isn’t culpable for any of them.

And overall I find the act of forgiving him more potent and meaningful when taken in consideration with all that is above. The message that someone who has demonstrably fucked up and harmed others can work their way towards becoming a better person and reconcile their past mistakes is incredible meaningful to me.

[uncanny-tranny]

The whole "humans are inherently awful and bad!" spiel is so tiring to me as a survivor of abuse because it comes off as abuse apologia. If humans are inherently awful, then why should it matter if you're abused - that's what humans do best! Like, genuinely, I think this mindset can harm abuse victims/survivors because they're being inundated with this idea that, well, how bad can their abuser be? All humans are horrific, why complain, why escape, and why try to resist it?

I really wish people would critically analyze where these ideas come from and where these lines of thinking can lead. Maybe it's a matter that I'm looking too deep into, but this very bleak ideology is not going to help in the long run, I think, and some of the first people who are going to be crushed by it are the people who are vulnerable or who are put in vulnerable positions in society.

[doodlejoltik]

my favourite writing device is having an un-Rei-liable narrator

[always-amity]

Rereading Temeraire for the first time in AGES so I had to doodle the boy.

[carlyraejepsans]

saw your most recent post about really good fics that contain uncomfortable kinks and i immediately thought "ah, biscia must be reading the mpreg soriel fic" and almost left a reply talking about it but i stopped myself because i realized that would be an insane assumption to make. needless to say i felt so vindicated when i saw you link it in an earlier post.

like. HELLO?

HELLO???????

[gravitronn]

guys. GUYS

[northern-passage]

i've shared some of Alex Freed's narrative writing advice before and i recently read another article on his website that i really liked. particularly in branching/choice-based games, a lot of people often bring up the idea of the author "punishing" the player for certain choices. i agree that this is a thing that happens, but i disagree that it's always a bad thing. i think Freed makes a good case for it here.

...acting as the player’s judge (and jury, and executioner) is in some respects the primary job of a game’s developers. Moreover, surely all art emerges from the artist’s own experiences and worldview to convey a particular set of ideas. How does all that square with avoiding being judgmental?

[...]

Let’s first dispel–briefly–the idea that any game can avoid espousing a particular worldview or moral philosophy. Say we’re developing an open world action-adventure game set in a modern-day city. The player is able to engage any non-player character in combat at any time, and now we’re forced to determine what should occur if the player kills a civilian somewhere isolated and out of sight.

Most games either:

allow this heinous act and let the player character depart without further consequence, relying on the player’s own conscience to determine the morality of the situation.

immediately send police officers after the player character, despite the lack of any in-world way for the police to be aware of the crime.

But of course neither of these results is in any way realistic. The problems in the latter example are obvious, but no less substantial than in the former case where one must wonder:

Why don’t the police investigate the murder at a later date and track down the player then?

Why doesn’t the neighborhood change, knowing there’s a vicious murderer around who’s never been caught? Why aren’t there candlelight vigils and impromptu memorials?

Why doesn’t the victim’s son grow up to become Batman?

We construct our game worlds in a way that suits the genre and moral dimensions of the story we want to tell. There’s no right answer here, but the consequences we build into a game are inherently a judgment on the player’s actions. Attempting to simulate “reality” will always fail–we must instead build a caricature of truth that suggests a broader, more realized world. Declaring “in a modern city, murderous predators can escape any and all consequences” is as bold a statement on civilization and humanity as deciding “in the long run, vengeance and justice will always be served up by the victims of crime (metaphorically by means of a bat-costumed hero).”

Knowing that, what’s the world we want to build? What are the themes and moral compass points we use to align our game?

This is a relatively easy task when working with a licensed intellectual property. In Star Trek, we know that creativity, diplomacy, and compassion are privileged above all else, and that greed and prejudice always lead to a bad end. A Star Trek story in which the protagonist freely lies, cheats, and steals without any comeuppance probably stopped being a Star Trek story somewhere along the line. Game of Thrones, on the other hand, takes a more laissez-faire approach to personal morality while emphasizing the large-scale harm done by men and women who strive for power. (No one comes away from watching Game of Thrones believing that the titular “game” is a reasonable way to run a country.)

These core ideals should affect more than your game’s storytelling–they should dovetail with your gameplay loops and systems, as well. A Star Trek farming simulator might be a fun game, but using the franchise’s key ideals to guide narrative and mechanical choices probably won’t be useful. (“Maybe we reward the player for reaching an accord with the corn?”)

Know what principles drive your game world. You’re going to need that knowledge for everything that’s coming.

[...]

Teaching the player the thematic basics of your world shouldn’t be overly difficult–low-stakes choices, examples of your world and character arcs in a microcosm, gentle words of wisdom, obviously bad advice, and so forth can all help guide the player’s expectations. You can introduce theme in a game the way you would in any medium, so we won’t dwell on that here.

You can, of course, spend a great deal of time exploring the nuances of the moral philosophy of your game world across the course of the whole game. You’ll probably want to. So why is it so important to give the player the right idea from the start?

Because you need the player to buy into the kind of story that you’re telling. To some degree, this is true even in traditional, linear narratives: if I walk into a theater expecting the romcom stylings of The Taming of the Shrew and get Romeo and Juliet instead, I’m not going to be delighted by having my expectations subverted; I’m just going to be irritated.

When you give a player a measure of control over the narrative, the player’s expectations for a certain type of story become even stronger. We’ll discuss this more in the next two points, but don’t allow your player to shoot first and ask questions later in the aforementioned Star Trek game while naively expecting the story to applaud her rogue-ish cowboy ways. Interactive narrative is a collaborative process, and the player needs to be able to make an informed decision when she chooses to drive the story in a given direction. This is the pact between player and developer: “You show me how your world works, and I’ll invest myself in it to the best of my understanding.”

[...]

In order to determine the results of any given choice, you (that is, the game you’ve designed) must judge the actor according to the dictates (intended or implicit) of the game world and story. If you’re building a game inspired by 1940s comic book Crime Does Not Pay, then in your game world, crime should probably not pay.

But if you’ve set the player’s expectations correctly and made all paths narratively satisfying, then there can be no bad choices on the part of the player–only bad choices on the part of the player character which the player has decided to explore. The player is no more complicit in the (nonexistent) crimes of the player character than an author is complicit in the crimes of her characters. Therefore, there is no reason to attempt to punish or shame the player for “bad” decisions–the player made those decisions to explore the consequences with you, the designer. (Punishing the player character is just dandy, so long as it’s an engaging experience.)

[...]

It’s okay to explore difficult themes without offering up a “correct” answer. It’s okay to let players try out deeds and consequences and decide for themselves what it all means. But don’t forget that the game is rigged. [...]

Intentionally or not, a game judges and a game teaches. It shows, through a multiplicity of possibilities, what might happen if the player does X or Y, and the player learns the unseen rules that underlie your world. Embracing the didactic elements of your work doesn’t mean slapping the player’s wrist every time she’s wrong–it means building a game where the player can play and learn and experiment within the boundaries of the lesson.

[thatrandombystander]

Are you fucking kidding me. With all this pinkwashing propaganda the Israeli state puts out about how they will protect and cherish LGBT+ rights unlike those evil homophobic Palestinians which is why you should let us genocide them

SAME-SEX MARRIAGE ISN'T EVEN LEGAL IN ISRAEL??????

[distortedmoondisc]

Do you ever think about the parallels between Rinne and Aira

Not only they have a shared interest in protecting Hiiro and ensuring his well-being/growth as a person, (and it's extra interesting given how Aira sort of dislikes Rinne for how he dealt with Hiiro in general—by leaving him alone at their hometown and disowning him in the summer of the MDM—, so even though they have the same interests and goals regarding Hiiro, they aren't exactly friends nor like each other — though this is mostly from Aira's part, because Rinne does like Aira and even acknowledges him as someone important to Hiiro that he must keep in his life), but Aira kinda is what Rinne used to be, before his dreams of becoming an idol we're crushed by the new rules of ES.

!! Main Story, Episode 171, "Revolution"

I've seen many people talk about how Rinne and Aira would get along because they're both idol otakus, but I believe that's a common misunderstanding of Rinne's character, because Rinne isn't an idol otaku (at least not anymore). He doesn't like the current idol system and the way Ensemble Square is running the industry. That's why he tried to change it by force in the !! Main Story by acting out. This is different from Aira, who loves the idols born from this system, and is a participant in the ES system that is going to hurt the industry in the long run (because ES is mass producing idols like a factory, stripping them from their own individuality and what makes idols especial in the first place — which is why Aira likes idols to begin with! Because they're different from ordinary people!)

!! Main Story, episode 220, "Despair"

Aira is aware that the idol industry isn't perfect, in episode 171 he even acknowledges that the mass production of idols similar to items of consumption made in a factory is wrong and it strips idols from their beauty and value, but he doesn't have the insight and first hand experience with heartbreak as Rinne had, so he doesn't have the motivation to protest or change the way ES is running the industry. They both love idols and dreamed of becoming one, but Rinne isn't an idol otaku, because he can't be a fan of idols mass produced by the current system.

What Rinne does instead, is support underground idols that would otherwise be trampled or forced to disappear by ES because they don't fit their sets of standards (and because ES has monopoly in the idol industry, they can easily do this without much repercussions or public outcry) and gives them his protection. This is explained throughout the course of the story of Night Club.

Nigh Club, Epilogue 2

Aira tries to impersonate an ideal idol persona, as the ones he watched when he was younger. He wants to embody a model idol and inspire others as idols inspired him in the past. Rinne used to be similar, but ES arbitrarily destroyed his solo career making him lose that dream, and that's why he embodies the wild and rebellious persona he portrays on stage, which is a complete opposite to how a traditional idol should act (and this is a constant point of conflict between him and other idols, such as Himeru; Himeru tends to scold Rinne for being so wild and doing whatever he wants because it goes against what is expected of an idol, but in Night Club he comes to understand that this is Rinne's soft way to protest against ES, despite having lost to them in the first part of the !! Main Story).

(Sometimes, I wonder if Rinne is happy being the wild and playful self he is with Crazy:B, or if he would prefer to be on stage as an ideal idol like he used to do years ago....)

However, despite their differences and the dislike/intimidation Aira might feel towards Rinne, he admits he understands his feelings and where he comes from, and that he can't help but to relate to him due to the fact that they both love idols. Aira scolds Rinne in episode 220 "Despair" to make him stop his pity party, but later in episode 224 "Flutter" he comforts and encourages him instead—telling him that he should not give up being an idol, because he recognizes that Rinne loves idols as much as he does, and that he still has a reason to live because he has fans of himself and of Crazy:B waiting for him among the crowd, meaning that he is still loved and accepted by someone, despite all the wreckage he had caused.

(And if I'm allowed to get personal for a moment, I just need to make emphasis in how important Aira is to the development of the Amagi brothers in the last arc of the !! main story, and this scene is a perfect example of that. Aira is the one who encourages Rinne to join the others on stage and sing, and after that it is Hiiro that pushes Rinne to give that step which finally leads them to perform on stage together 🥹)

So as we can see, Rinne and Aira have a lot of similarities, but they act in completely different ways due to their circumstances. They have similar backgrounds as idol lovers but they have different views and feelings about the industry and the profession, (however, they seem to share the same ideals as to what an idol should be, and love the same type of ideal idol inside their hearts). Adding to that their shared most beloved person, Hiiro, and how the two of them want what's best for him but they have a point of contention due to Rinne's bad actions in the !! Main Story, and their relationship becomes x10 more interesting, and I wish we talked about it more!

And we know Happyele hasn't forgotten about them, because Aira appeared in Rinne's recent relationship chart, just below Hiiro.

(also, a little unrelated, bu i think it's funny that despite having a heart to heart at the ending of the main story, their relationship is still "want to tease him" and "he's a little scary" ahdks Aira, who scolded Rinne in front of hundreds of people in the MDM, regressed to feeling intimidated and troubled by him. A couple of friends commented that it was probably because Aira had a burst of courage in the MDM because of the severity of the situation, so he had the determination to call out Rinne, a senior that he particularly feels intimidated by, publicly without second thought. It is canon that after the fact, Aira admitted that looking back on the MDM he felt embarrassed for doing such a bold thing. Idk, it's just something i find very interesting and fun about their dynamic www)

So this leads me to believe that they haven't forgotten about the history these two had in the main story, and all I can do is just wait for them to expand on their relationship and dynamic more eventually in some future event.