#and that there isn't a single good way to be the avatar

[tobiasdrake]

*deep breath* Okay. Here we go.

I don't think the Netflix Avatar show likes women very much. It's a great show for fans of Aang, Sokka, Zuko, and Iroh specifically. All four of those characters get a ton of great material. In fact, it's super great for Sokka stans, because the show takes him ultra-seriously and can't go five minutes without one character or another (usually a woman) praising him.

But the way it handles its female cast is troublesome.

Katara

So, all three of the main trio got some changes made to their stories. They changed Aang's story so that he wasn't running away from his responsibilities; He was just clearing his head and somehow accidentallied himself into a tsunami. Whoopsy-dooodle. Aang did nothing wrong.

They changed Sokka's story so that him being a leader of his people and a great guardian warrior is treated with complete seriousness. Multiple times, characters stop to talk about how brave and noble Sokka is for taking on such an intense responsibility, and tell him to his face what a great warrior and a wonderful leader he is. Also his misogyny is erased.

And they changed Katara's story so that she directly got her mom killed because she sucks at waterbending.

Katara tries to waterbend to attack the Fire Nation soldier but couldn't manage it, provoking the soldier to start actively searching for her and forcing her mom to fake a waterbending attack and draw his fire. They changed Katara's story so that her bad decision making fucking got her mom killed.

This is treated with the same level of severity as "Sokka was bullied by mean kids and also his dad doesn't think he's good enough to be a leader."

"I hoped Sokka would do better but not everyone is meant to have people's lives in their hands," Sokka's dad says of him.

Yeah, you're right, that's totally comparable to watching your mom get barbecued because you tried to waterbend in a situation you shouldn't have and then failed.

In fact, they give Sokka's greatest trauma more weight because it gets examined again with Yue next episode, while Katara actively getting her mom killed isn't brought up again at all. We get traumatized glimpses of it throughout the season leading up to the reveal, but after this scene in episode 5, it never comes up again.

But to be fair, Katara was a child. An event this significant would surely have motivated her, driving her to become the great waterbender she is now, right?

No! Katara sucks at waterbending and needs men who aren't even waterbenders to teach her how to waterbend. She requires instruction from Aang in episode 1 to learn how to waterbend, then from Jet in episode 3 to learn how to waterbend better.

And unlike the show, her relationship with Aang isn't a give-and-take; Katara doesn't teach Aang a single goddamn thing. He never learns to waterbend. She is a strictly a pupil throughout the whole season. Though she at least gets officially labeled a master in episode 8, so there's that.

In any case, the whole traumatic memory thing isn't even the only time she's directly compared with Sokka. Episodes 3 and 4 see Katara and Sokka bicker over whose morally dubious side character is better. Sokka likes the Mechanist and Katara likes Jet.

Ultimately, Katara is forced to eat crow when Jet turns out to be the worst, while Sokka is vindicated when the Mechanist sees the error of his ways and reforms. But not before two separate arguments where Sokka calls Katara childish and accuses her of acting like a little girl.

Arguments ultimately resolved when Katara apologizes to Sokka for not adequately respecting his very serious and ultra important role as village protector and leader. Gives him a whole speech about how great and glorious he is. And Sokka... appreciates Katara learning to respect him properly, I guess, because he never offers any similar sentiments back to her.

The show just... They need you to know how important Sokka is, okay? It's very important that you respect Sokka.

Suki

Suki suffers tremendously from that whole "Sokka's misogyny was removed" thing. Y'know, because they need something else to do with that episode. The show is deeply aware that Suki is Sokka's love interest, so they just do that right off the bat. Suki falls madly in love with him from the moment they meet, and spends the entire episode making goo-goo eyes and trying to get him to Notice Me Senpai.

They still do the "Suki Trains Sokka" stuff. But Sokka is a serious, dignified manly man worthy of the deepest respect now, so of course they don't make him wear the Kyoshi uniform. Instead, the main purpose of his training is to allow them to flirt some more. It's less martial arts training and more an excuse to grope each other and near-kiss.

Suki's just a waifu now. She still fights real good, but all of the stuff that made her relationship with Sokka interesting has been erased.

Yue

Yue, similarly, leaps straight to shipping from the word go. They write out her fiance, Hahn, by having Yue briefly meet Sokka earlier in the season. She spends one minute talking to him in the Spirit World about Spirit World lore; In that time, she falls so desperately, madly, unfathomably in love with him that she breaks off her marriage to Hahn and devotes herself to waiting for him to one day come to her.

"Never have I known such joys as that time you let me explain the spirit bear Hei Bei to you. Truly, we are destined to be together for life."

Like with Suki, they go out of their way to have Yue and Sokka already be a ship from the word 'go' so they don't have to spend time developing any kind of meaningful attraction.

They just. They really want you to know that Sokka is the manliest and most desirable man ever to walk this earth. It is very important that you understand how great he is. Women hurl themselves into his arms with zero effort whatsoever, because he's just so goddamn irresistible.

Fortunately, Hahn is super okay with this turn of events. He's the most chill guy ever, he gets along perfectly well with Sokka, and he completely supports Yue's right to dump him! In the famously misogynistic Northern Water Tribe, no less! What a swell guy. Aren't men swell?

June

June gets hit with that "rewritten as hollow waifu" stick too, but her eyes are set on Iroh. They rewrote June to be super attracted and flirty towards the man who was her unwanted sexual harasser in the source material. So that's fun.

Also, she barely does anything. Zuko hires her to find Aang, she succeeds, and then she fucks right off out of the show - But she manages to find time to express how unbelievably sexy Iroh is twice during that time.

She seriously just dropped into the show to flirt with Iroh and leave. She is unbelievably inconsequential.

Kyoshi

And then there's Kyoshi. They really want you to hate Kyoshi. She's constantly shot from below, as if looking down on Aang and the audience. Her voice takes on a demonic echoing reverb at one point as she's screaming at Aang that "THE AVATAR MUST BE A MERCILESS WARRIOR!!!"

She despises Aang, calling him a coward for running away from his responsibilities - Which, I remind you, is no longer a plot point because they unwrote that flaw from his character. So she's just a complete and utter asshole, shot from the asshole angle, yelling violently at him with asshole sound effects. They want you to despise this woman.

Azula

Awkwardly, they do not seem to want you to despise Azula.

There's a lot to be said for how Ozai treats Azula in the original show. The way the favoritism he shows her is every bit as cruel and manipulative as the unfavoritism that he shows Zuko. Ozai does not love Azula. He loves the reflection of himself he sees in her eyes, and his encouragement urges her to polish herself to ensure his reflection always shines through.

This is not that. The show instead erases the favoritism entirely. Ozai doesn't really care one way or another about either of his kids. He plays them against each other, bragging openly to Azula about how great Zuko is and unpleasably writing Azula off as weak and useless.

They've rewritten the dynamic between abusive father and his two abused kids in order to take Azula's pride away. Reimagining her from a gifted prodigy who excels at imitating the toxic behaviors of a father who doesn't truly care for her, to a put-upon overachiever tearing herself in knots to live up to the standards of her unpleasable father.

This results in a truly wild portrayal of Azula as insecure and jealous of Ozai's seemingly love for Zuko. Here, she is simply a browbeaten child constantly complaining to her friends about how mean her father is and conspiring to get one up over Daddy's Golden Child Zuko.

Which she fails at, because she backs Zhao. Zuko deftly defeats her without even realizing they're in competition.

Conclusion

The season ends well for some of these women. It ends promising that maybe we'll see Katara teaching Aang some day. It ends with Zhao bragging that Ozai just used Zuko to train Azula so maybe we'll see the more confident and misguidedly proud Azula some day. Yue becomes the moon like she's supposed to. June's still out there so maybe she'll get to do something again some day.

Katara gets to fight Pakku and lose, but she looks pretty cool. She gets to fight Zuko and lose, but she looks pretty cool. Azula learns to lightningbend because she's just so mad about Ozai's contempt for her and favoritism for Zuko, which isn't how you lightningbend.

But promises of future content fall flat when the content that exists is so underwhelming. This season made its feelings on these characters pretty evident, and it's unwise to expect better material from creators who've disappointed you with the material they already made.

The women of Netflix Avatar simply do not get to shine, outside of superficial moments like the "Women of Northern Water Tribe demand the right to fight and then fuck off and don't do anything for the entire rest of the episode" bit.

"In the midst of battle, we demand that you stop being sexist and give us permission to fight! This is a way better idea than convincing you to teach us to fight before the battle begins."

The characters of this show feel as if they've been reimagined to glorify the boys at the expense of the girls. The boys are treated with a great amount of care. They're dignified and made important movers of the plot, with their rough edges sanded off. While the girls are molded around them.

[thewertsearch]

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain cloth. Or anything taking place out here in the emerald shitty paintjob, for that matter.

So, wait - in this extended Wizard of Oz analogy, Hussie is the wizard? It does seem fitting, except that the Wizard of Oz was only pretending to be an all-powerful god, whereas Hussie, as the author of the story, actually is omnipotent.

...not that there's any actual proof of that, come to think of it.

Perhaps the in-universe Hussie avatar is merely narrating the story, rather than creating it, and any claims to the contrary are really just smoke, mirrors and braggadocio. If that's true, then they're really just an observer of these events, albeit a particularly well-informed one.

JOHN: this place is weird. when are we gonna bust through the other window, anyway? JOHN: i'm kind of antsy to get on with our adventure and meet up with everybody! JADE: yes me too JADE: hmmmmmm

It's going to be hours, at the very least.

If our two parties were mere minutes from reuniting, there'd be no reason to drag it out for this long. Besides, if the kids' arrival in the B2 session was imminent, then they'd immediately steal the spotlight back from our four new protagonists, some of whom we haven't even officially met yet.

The B2 kids need room to breathe. They deserve some time to develop as characters, without being completely overshadowed by their predecessors. Therefore, said predecessors will have to slow their fucking roll for a second, and let the Alpha Kids shine.

JADE: we should arrive in about three years

Jegus, what?

I haven't been this blindsided by a timeskip since Scarab 25.6 - but the more I think about it, the more confident I am that it's the right decision. Not just because it gives the Alphas time to develop, but because of the possibilities it opens up.

When the B2 kids re-enter the story, they'll be around the same age as Jane's team - and since we've just met Jane's team, I think it's highly unlikely that they'll be included in the timeskip. The Alpha Kids aren't going to be nineteen when John's team arrive - they'll be in the same timeframe they're in now, on the same day they entered their session.

In other words, we're going to get to know the Alpha Kids as a group of hormonal teenagers - and then, when the time is right, we're going to drop a cluster bomb of additional teenagers right on top of their session, stand well back, and watch the shitshow begin. If you think the Jake/Jane/Dirk/Roxy love quadrangle is bad, wait until you see Jake/Gamzee/Karkat/Terezi/Dave.

Plus, a 3-year-timeskip means our protagonists can finally rest for a while. The Sburb crisis isn't over, of course, but it is on pause - and for much longer than I expected it to be, too. The kids can finally unpack what the fuck happened today, and the trolls can enjoy a non-hostile living environment for literally the first time in their entire lives. This is good for them, and I think it'll really help them grow.

It's a shame that we'll probably be splitting the party, but these two groups are still full of interesting dynamics, that we now have time to explore. John/Jade and Rose/Dave can finally get to know each other as siblings, Rosemary can develop as a couple, and the whole Karkat/Terezi situation can finally resolve, one way or the other.

We've been stuck on one single day for almost four thousand pages - but now, we're finally leaving this long, long Monday afternoon behind us. It's time to accelerate.

[space-blue]

A complete guide to Blue Daddy's Girl (my) Arcane fics

Multi-chapter

Fathers and Daughters (My big hit)

Alternate AU set after S01E03, where Silco adopts both Vi and Powder. Large ensemble cast, multiple POVs, but mostly Vi.

100k words. Completed. Fanart chapters and art comms.

While the World Turns Around

Silco/Vander post betrayal reconciliation AU. Set before the show. POV Vander.

5.2k words. Completed. Entire chapter of gifted fanart at the end.

Our Love, That Flows Into the Sea is the same fic but from the POV of Silco. Unfinished WIP I don't plan on continuing.

The Shimmer Baron’s Family

Silco/Vander Regency AU. Estranged family, set during a ball at the Medarda estate.

10k words. Unfinished. No plans to finish it, stop asking lol or else make a serious request via my ko-fi.

A Stray

4.7k. Set in the "good verse". Silco and Vander adopt Viktor. One shot converted to WIP, has fanart.

Whatever I do, this is where we end

A dark Silco time loop, but told from the POV of Vander, who gets reset every time unknowingly. Strong themes of violence, suicide, despair and smut. Read the tags.

7.7k words. Completed. No fanart.

Science of the Soul

Ongoing WIP, Jayvik Avatar AU in which Zaunites are Na'vi and everyone from Piltover are humans. With art from me and others.

Cursed, by a brush of your hand

Silco/Vander soulmate AU where the soulmark is framed as a potential life ending curse. Aroace Silco, BFF with Renata Glasc. Basically an aroace perspective on soulmates.

7k words. Completed. No fanart.

What I wouldn’t do for you

Silco & Vander role swap. Silco adopts the kids and runs the Last Drop.

5.2k words. Completed. Open ending. No fanart.

The Darkin Child

Viktor, Singed and Silco are vampire-adjacent monsters, Vander is a werewolf. Married zaundads with Viktor returning to Zaun in hiding.

4.3k words. Unfinished, no plans to finish it.

The Centaur Breaker

Silly centaur AU with Silco as a rancher in a fantasy world (not a US Far West setting), rescuing captured centaurs. Vander, Sevika, Jinx & Vi as centaurs.

2.8k words. Unfinished. Only a single chapter and no plans to continue.

☆ Arcane Art Dump 

The home of all my Arcane fanarts worth saving.

One Shots

Those are sorted by kudos, from the most popular down to least.

Pretty Blue Puffs of Arcane Smoke

829 words. Silco and Powder discuss getting tattoos. Set in the Fathers and Daughters AU.

Worries, and ways to dispel them & Explosions, and their fallout

5k words total. Silco x Reader two parter, written in the week before season 1's finale. 2nd person gender neutral reader without body description.

Lost Child

3.7k words. Pirate Silco is back in Zaun and trying to avoid Vander. He runs into a lost child called "Cait" at Bridgewaltz market.

The Monster Within & The Monster Without

1.3k words for Monster Within. Post-betrayal Silco recovers and cuts his hair. Based on a fanart by @/Wish. 1.6k words for Monster Without. Set at the same time, but Vander POV as he deals with emotional turmoil after attacking Silco (probably my favourite one shot to this day).

Adoption

1.8k words. Vander and Silco are still brothers. They discuss adopting the girls in this no-betrayal AU.

Beer And Bribery

2k words. Vi & Sevika. Set in the Fathers and Daughters AU. Vi asks Sevika for help picking a present for Silco. Written for the Arcane parenting week event.

Let Me Try

4.3k words. Newest on the list! Arcane season 2 finale fix it. Timebomb... Ekko walks away from the final battle in a daze after learning that Jinx is dead. She isn't, no matter what Vi may believe.

Not Dead Yet & A Friend In Need

3k words total. Jinx finds a dead body in Zaun, but Viktor isn’t quite dead yet. Jinx & Viktor, written prior to season 2 for Sicktember.

Without Questions

627 words. Written for a fanart that is currently down, but hopefully I'll fix it soon. Young Zaundads fluff. Vander doesn’t understand what Silco sees in him, but he’s not willing to question it.

Gun Nerds Of All Nations

3k words. Set in a similar AU to F&D but not actually. Powder & young Caitlyn bond at a fair's shooting competition. Written for the Arcane Parenting Week.

Memories of Sweetness

2k words. Set in the Fathers and Daughters AU. Silco discovers that a staple food of his youth, long thought to have disappeared from Zaun, is back on the streets. He has to share this with Powder and Vi, both born too late to have ever tried it.

No Favourite

1.2k words. Vander claims he doesn't have a favourite among his kids, but they don't see it that way. Written for the Arcane Parenting Week.

Hard Truths

3k words. Ren (Marcus' daughter) tries to find to meaning to her father’s death and ends up meeting Jinx in Zaun.

Blame

830 words. Jinx POV heavy angst. Jinx talks to Silco after his death, until Sevika comes to find her. Written for the Arcane Parenting Week.

A Lesson In Silence

3k words. Set in the Fathers and Daughters AU. Mek (now known as Gustove) takes Powder on a spying mission. Written for the Arcane Parenting Week.

Last Chance

1.3k words. Past Silco/Vander. Missing scene in the cannery, a private conversation between them. Generally bitter sweet and canon compliant.

Son of Zaun

2k words. One day, Silco's mother took him up-top, to see the sky, the sun, and the people who live above them all.

Sepia Smile

732 words. The photograph is faded, its sepia tones keeping the colour of the man's eyes a secret. Vi stares at it for a long time, perplexed. She doesn't understand what Vander saw in him. Written for the Arcane Parenting Week.

A Terrible Gamble

2.3k words. Jinx (and Silco whispering in her mind) set off to rescue Vander from Singed’s lab after the events of season 2.

On Your Head

2.5k words. Alternate retelling of Mel and the young princess' of her memories. In the Princess' POV.

Drunken Dreams

Comic fanart. Jinx brings a drunk Vi home.

Just a cough & Dramatics

685 words for Just a cough. The moment Silco wakes up with a sore throat, he knows he's in trouble with Vander. Written for Sictember. 1k words for Dramatics. Vander sickfic to match.

A Fresh Start

1.9k words. Second person POV where you are brought to a recovering Silco in secret, and give him a haircut and much needed comfort. Gen fic.

Eat You Alive

604 words. Dark!Vi kills Caitlyn as soon as they enter the Lanes.

Maintenance

1.6k words. Explicit. A smutty Mek/Marcus with power dynamics in Silco’s office.

A Haunting

754 words. Heavy angst Vander & Silco meet shortly after the betrayal.

A Touch of Memory

2.2k words. A self-indulgent Star Wars crossover set in the Old Republic with Sith Silco, Jinx and Sevika and Mandalorian Vander. Has links to fanart.

In the Jaws of the Fox

247 words. Mel/Jayce. Mel contemplates the man sprawled in her bed, sleeping insouciantly.

Who Saves The Boy Saviour?

1.3k words. Dark fic!! Jinx captures Ekko post season 1 finale and straps him to the chair Silco used on Vander. Timebomb.

Ragdoll

766 words. A look into young Silco and Vander's budding relationship. It's complicated. With art, made for the Zaundads Zine.

A New Tattoo

968 words. Set in the Fathers and Daughters AU. The story behind Mek’s tattoos.

Five Times Vi Got In Trouble

4.8k words. Vander & Grayson friendship fic done for a charity prize.

Bullseye

500 words. Mel Medarda/Grayson. Mel takes the sheriff with her to visit a progress day and asks her to show off in a shooting range.

My Ko-fi is open for tips, but I'm also open to discuss writing commissions. My DMs are open | Find me on Bsky

[petermorwood]

Hi i have a question!

I just bought myself a decoration sword replica (anduril from lord of the rings) and I've been wondering: aren't swords supposed to be balanced at the point of the hilt?

Because mine isn't, and I'm wondering if it's because of the decoration sword aspect or if i was wrong in my assumption.

I don't know a lot about sword manoeuvrability, and definitely not enough to assess which point of balance might be useful for different uses, but I've been theorising that there lies a potential answer.

I am hopeful that you can help me clear the mystery, and thank you so much in advance!

No mystery IMO - it's almost certainly because of the word you yourself used twice.

What you've got isn't a sword as much as a decoration in the shape of a sword, a specific sword from a famous movie series at that, and to the average movie fan it's far more important for a replica prop to look like what it, is rather than actually work like it.

A really expensive replica "Ghostbusters" proton pack...

...may well have all the necessary blinkenlights and even a sound system for THAT power-up noise, but 99.999% of owners won't expect it to actually tear holes in the fabric of reality.

Of course there's always that .0001%, tinkering away at the back of garages or in basement workshops. If they ever get a proton pack to work properly, we'll all know. ;->

Replica swords, axes, maces etc. are an exception to this general rule. People want them to work, though TBH "work" usually just means "flourish in a dramatic way" (which can be problematic in itself, as you'll see).

Very few take it to the point (or edge) of "take my enemies apart", and those who do have left a trail of weapon bans in their wake. Thanks for nothing.

*****

On the subject of balance, just for curiosity I checked several of my own repro swords - specifically this lot, photographed some years back when they were out taking the air...

...and rather to my surprise, because the amount of metal in the hilts varies so much, the point of balance on Every Single One is more or less the same - a generous hand's-width, say 4-ish to 5-ish inches / 11-ish to 13-ish cm, down from where the lowest element of the guard stops.

This means, of course, that the balance point on the blade is further down on the side-sword (my avatar) and basket-hilt schiavona than it is on the plain cross-hilts, but that aside, one good handspan seems to be the default distance.

Where does your Andúril replica balance? You didn't mention.

*****

Balance point aside, being "battle-ready" (the usual tag for repros intended for clangy re-enactment) really isn't a consideration for movie replicas, since most if not all aren't meant for use beyond decor, posing, cosplay etc.

Swords like these got the nickname "wall-hanger" for a reason.

Decorative replicas are certainly not for fighting with, so whether or not they balance like a real sword is immaterial. I'm sure some do, I'm equally sure most don't.

TBH, posing and cosplay shouldn't include swinging the replicas about in violent combat simulation movements, because they're usually not made like real swords. The nature of their construction (a thing called a "rat-tail tang") means there's a potential fracture point concealed within the grip.

And THAT means the stresses of sword-fighting moves, even without hitting something, might snap blade from hilt. If not noticed in time, the next dramatic swing might send the blade flying off in a dangerous unintended direction.

About 10 years ago I wrote a long illustrated post about that risk. I've seen it happen and though no harm was done, it was a hair-raising (and for one person, almost hair-parting) experience.

*****

The main questions regarding an Andúril replica (or a Braveheart, a Longclaw, a Conan Atlantean etc., etc.) are these:

"Do I think it's an accurate recreation of the movie sword?"

"Do I think it's a handsome ornament in my home?"

"Do I think it's worth what I paid for it?"

"Does owning it make me happy?"

If the answer to those questions is "Yes", then that decorative replica has fulfilled the purpose for which it was made.

Hope This Helps! :->

[phoenixcatch7]

Deep in my ff7 rereads so here are my favourite fandom fics, hands down.

End as you mean to begin <- 130k+ of time travelling cloud parenting the remnants, seeking asylum in a war torn wutai to keep all four of them out of shinras hands while sephiroth is absolutely Going Through It in midgar. Great Genesis characterisation and cloud mothering his way to an international incident. Bonus gender hijinks, hilarious misunderstandings and zack. Unfinished.

The fear of falling stars <- 500k+ and soon to be completed. Cloud and insane!Sephiroth time travel back to their shinra days and I cannot emphasise enough how much cloud is Not Doing Well. Gorgeous wordplay and top tier banter. Utterly unhinged blood enemies to ??? to ?????? to lovers sefikura. It's E rated and probably the tensest I've ever been reading fic lol, it is not lighthearted! But it's incredibly well written and the characters are phenomenal (zack my beloved) so if you've got strong nerves (and like a quarantine pairing) I'd definitely recommend it.

Voice of the gods <- 170k+ of almost idyllic gods and avatars au. Slow, soft and full of world building, it's a lovely relaxing read of cloud getting anointed the envoy of sephiroth, god of war, and slowly growing into his role and joining the ranks of envoy. Lots of side characters take larger roles here, and sephiroth himself is a darling without losing his sharpest edges. Unfinished.

I CAN FIX HIM (series) <- possibly my favourite sephiroth characterisations ever. 130k and growing of pure shaking this man like a doll in a perfect mix of almost delirious crack and gutting angst (often both at once!). Very good writing, every single funny moment hits like a truck and keeps building until you're choking with laughter. Bonus points to ROADTRIP! for being utterly, utterly insane. I cannot emphasise enough just how GOOD every single character and their dynamics are written.

Just anything ff7 written by AimeeLouWrites, if you've been in this fandom for any length of time you'll have heard of her. Great concepts, great executions and aus for DAYS.

Five hearts to make him whole <- 130k+ of time/dimension travelling cloud getting sent to a world of soulmates - and his alternate self bagged all four soldier firsts. Alternate cloud also died violently a few years ago and boy did those soulmates (not) take it well. Our cloud, of course, was not read in on any of this. Shout out to the emotional support chocobo! Unfinished?

Shall I find rest <- another soulmate agszc (?) dimension cross but this one is 100k+ of post AC cloud and Tifa waking up and deciding to make it everyone else's problem. They're so done with all the drama. Bamf nibel duo to the end and Tifa is the mvp. Unfinished.

Advanced release <- 250k+ and it's sephiroth receiving the original game in a strange packet that appeared in his room. It spirals into a messy and painful exposure of conspiracy, lies and inevitable tragedy. Video game logic is a running gag and zack remains the only actually stable person in the whole sorry mess but he's also Having a Terrible Experience. Really well written!!! Unfinished.

On broken wings <- 160k+ of pure post AC sephiroth redemption from his pov. Him struggling to find his place in a new world and experience real human connection evolves into MOOGLE EMBASSY need I say more?? Unfinished.

With Great Power Comes Meddling Fucking Gods <- 470k+! Poly WEAPON cloud gets yoinked back to the past (feat agzs), dies for a few days and misses his family SO bad but he is determined to change the future for the better. Probably the most healthy and mature cloud ever lol. Unfortunately for him, insane!sephiroth is pulling a inner hollow and gaia herself isn't talking. If you like symbolism, whoo boy!! The dream sequences are a DOOZY (and drowning in eroticism). Wonderfully written, the divide between sane!sephiroth and his counterpart is really cool to see. E rated at times but it's absolutely DELIGHTFUL and WEAPON cloud is such a treat. And I cannot emphasise enough the symbolism. Zackkura (kinda) and slow burn! Unfinished.

A brand need not be seen <- 180k+ in a world of soulmates where the four firsts have clouds name on their wrists. Trooper cloud is tentatively, desperately hopeful. Then a smoking hot op af adult cloud appears, with no names on his wrists at all. It's a really cute flirty fic despite covering shinra politics, identity crises, huge self worth issues, lots of trauma, and finding your own place in the world. Unfinished.

Memory's struggle <- 250k+ of cascading time travel. Basically everyone goes back, which goes great XD. Everyone... Except cloud. I read this a while ago but I do remember poor cloud just getting loved and spoiled by literally everyone and freaking out about it lmao. He was so confused! Unfinished.

Additional edit:

A solitude of space <- a wonderfully soothing 90k complete of sephiroth getting resurrected and moving to stardew valley to become the farmer. It's sooooo peaceful and following him as he grows into his own person and experiences real normality and community is lovely, if a touch angsty. Eventual sefikura with cloud moving to the farm when he's not doing deliveries. It's just. Really nice. I think I cried at the end. Finished!

One-Winged Angel's Self-Saving System <- 55k+ sephiroth enters the Chinese fantasy Scum Villain world in place of the scum villain himself! (He's the third person to take on that role, but who's counting?) Reborn into a plant body he's set loose on an unsuspecting world with a completely different magic system (sentient swords! Immortality!), with only the guide of a mysterious hallucinated ai. Freedom to make his own choices! Aroallo seph rep! He messes up the plot so bad, recruiting accidental love interests with kill counts and resurrecting long lost immortals. It can get a bit heavy but it's really fun and sephiroth has no intention of ever going back. Unfinished.

The SOLDIER General's Self Saving Shizun <- 73k+ of the opposite of the last fic: the scum villain (the 2nd) gets isekai'd into sephiroth! Shen qingqiu, aka the modern world native shen yuan, fails to resurrect into his prepared plant body and wakes up in a new fictional world, once again as the villain. With his limited memory of the games and his immense knowledge of cultivation (scum villains magic system) he tries to get a grasp on his new life while evading hojo, the president, his new subordinates and the war front while cultivating to immortality - something shinra is VERY interested in. When I tell you these two fics have a GRIP on me. I've written so many fic ideas around them. It's actually insane. The first thing he does is completely redecorate his rooms and buy a whole new wardrobe, which is totally not suspicious XD. Unfinished.

The fifth act <- 160k, it's a good ol' time travel fic - with a twist. The truest exploration of ripples in a pond, or how kindness, when true, can be returned in most unexpected ways. Or maybe how a single act of good can change the world.... Or maybe it's about how you must never turn your back on an enemy. Cloud has people to save and people to kill, and only time will tell which is which. Complete.

Of Things That May Be Only 'Verse <- another series! At 250k, it's about sephiroth resurrecting, only to, uh, slip and crack his head lol. This sends him spiralling through a vision of a cosy life he'd never dreamed, and when he wakes up? He wants it so bad. But that means behaving. Slow burn sefikura redemption, side Cid/Vincent (vincid?) which ngl did convince me of the ship, domestic fluffiness and found family galore! And the whole series is complete!!

Little seph <- a 160k series about the AC sephiroth revival going wrong. Stuck in the body of a kid, post AC sephiroth is a feral kitten carefully domesticated with the power of pancakes, wing preening, and deeply uncomfortable sleepovers. He's a brat, a pest, a murder machine, but he just wants to be part of a family even if he pretends he doesn't. Eventual sefikura, and overall just a very good read. Fully complete!

We are no heroes <- 70k series, about a secretly time travelled sephiroth desperately trying to save his friends and finally, maybe, rest. When I tell you this had me SOBBING. I was BAWLING. Extremely good, zack is best boy. This man is just so tired. Beautiful descriptions. And, again, complete! Yay!

[photomatt]

Hey, genuine question, although I'm not honestly expecting a response: if tumblr users have been telling you what they want and what they don't want since you've taken over, and their feedback has more or less been ignored consistently whilst rolling out changes that nobody asked for or uses (tumblr live is coming to mind), and you're not getting the content use you want, might it be an idea to try those before abandoning the site? What is the worst that could happen, really? Listen to your userbase. You had a lot of good will from listening to people at the start of your ownership: blaze did well, as did ad-free, polls and so on, but there are some really popular things you've removed or made obsolete (prev tags, blog themes, avatars etc.) that a lot of people want back. Equally, there are some things I've never heard a single person want - this site isn't TikTok, and never will be. Instead of trying attract a crowd that is already catered for elsewhere, making the people who love tumblr still despite all the changes in ownership more comfortable under you can only be a benefit. Thank you for reading, if you did actually read this.

Thank you for the genuine question! First, I'll say that we've never launched anything with the expectation the community would hate it, but there sometimes is a big difference between what people say they want and how people respond or what information (and often misinformation) goes viral.

As an example, Post+, which is a feature where you can pay to subscribe to other users, had some misinformation go viral that if you used it you'd be sued by copyright holders if you did fan fiction, and there was a huge backlash that the site was going paid and a coordinated campaign to attack (including with death threats) everyone who signed up for the program.

I'll repeat, this was a program where the money all went to creators, Tumblr did not take a cut, and the creators were often already selling work on Patreon or Ko-fi, this just was an integrated way for it to work. Because of the hate and attacks, every launch creator canceled the program. It was sad, because this was a feature users and creators said they wanted, and we prioritized making users money over projects that would make us money.

Since then we've gotten better at managing attacks and threats, with new tools and a bigger Trust & Safety team, but Post+ never recovered.

You mention Blaze and Ad-free doing well, but their adoption is so small relative to the use of Tumblr their revenue couldn't support a fraction of the ~1,000 servers it takes to run Tumblr, much less any salaries.

To your broader point, though, one thing I'm hoping with a more focused approach in 2024 is that we can streamline some of the extra things that were launched (like Live) that haven't gotten the adoption we hoped, and focus in on the core functionality that people use a ton of on Tumblr. We will likely be shipping less new stuff and more focused on improving existing functionality and core flows.

[cronchy-cryptid]

More TMA Head cannons and thought experiments and season 5 spoilers

(HEADS UP: This talks about toxic relationship dynamics. Specifically feeling isolated by a partner.)

Ok, so recently I've been really thinking hard about the Lonely Eyes ship. Specifically Elias|Jonah Magnus x Peter Lucas.

When I first heard of it, I'll admit, I dismissed it out of hand. "Peter hates people,-" I thought, "No way he willingly decideds to enter a commited relationship with anyone. That goes against his dedication of the lonely :/".

But then it sat with me.

It sat in my mind.

It seeped in to the shallow crevasses of my smooth brain.

It sat with me and now I want to understand.

It sat with me and now I want to make it work in a nuanced way.

Full love to those who ship them for fun or for aesthetic or for any other reason! This is me, full on in my red strings, corkboard, and supplemental era overanalyzing everything as I comb through the series after finishing it once.

ANYWAY! Peter Lucas is the avatar of the lonely, yes? Yes. Peter is a man of solitude. He doesn't want to talk. He doesn't want to get to know you. He doesn't want you around him. He wants to be alone. However, he notes that to feel truly alone, there still needs to be the knowledge of a person or group you are separate from. Without that comparison, being lonely can lose its meaning. It can slip into the Vast's territory. This need for people dispite wanting to be separate from them is why Peter saw the extinction as a real threat.

So he keeps himself at arms length from people, but he still needs them there. No closer and no further. Just enough for him to feel truly alone.

Elias Bouchard is the newest name and face of the body snatcher, Jonah Magnus; the avatar of the eye. (I headcanon that every time Jonah body snatches, a bit of personality is picked up from his victims. Because of this, in this post, I will refer to this incarnation specifically as Elias) Elias loves the eye and is very well attuned to it. He's conniving, quick wited, and very choice with his words. He lives to know. To know you. To know your secrets. To know your failures. To know what keeps you awake at night and to know when it's best to remind you of of all these facts. When he targets someone, he is focused and deliberate. This style of "preying" not only lends itself to feeding the eye as it rattles his victims to thier core, but also allows Elias to blackmail them into collecting MORE information for him as they don't want others to know what Elias knows. It worked on Daisy, Melanie, and (almost) Martin.

But an interesting little side effect of the Eye's power is that it makes you acutely aware of your own presence. You feel singled out by it. It knows everything about you. Intimate things that no random person should know. It watches you. Did something you do give it that knowledge? Who else knows what it knows? Who eles knows and isn't saying anything? Who eles knows and is thinking about you and your worst habits, your dirty secrets, your troubled past that you worked so hard to put behind you? They must know. But they refuse to admit it. You can't trust them. It's you against those who know you and those who will ever know you. And what a truly lonely state to be in.

Jon once said, "The lonely and the eye aren't too far apart are they? Not really.. What goods being alone if you don't know how alone you truly are?"

The eye makes you know how alone you are.

So back to Lonely Eyes (if you read this far, thanks for joining me, I promise I have a point to make). What if they're relationship was super toxic. Like textbook toxic, but they are okay with it because it's the aspects that seem toxic to an average person that they actually value in their relationship.

Imagine, Elias and Peter have an on and off relationship. Elias knows Peter. He knows how to make Peter feel like he's been seen. He knows what games Peter is willing to play and what bets he's willing to make. He hunts Peter. He enjoys the information Peter gives him, yes, but he also enjoys the slight fear that oozes out of Peter whenever they speak.

Peter hates being seen. He doesn't like that Elias "understand's him". That makes him uncomfortable. But he can't help but be drawn back in by this sence of isolation Elias' presence brings. The feeling that he can't reach the outside world when Elias is around. He wouldn't want the world there anyway, whether it's because he never liked socializing or because everytime he talks with Elias, he feels like nobody should know what Elias knows. That this lonely man had a code Elias has secretly hacked into. That Elias could be his undoing if he wanted to be.

Because of this, Peter can't handle Elias for long bouts of time. The uncomfortably becomes far too much for the fimiliar lonelness to soothe over. So Peter eventually leaves to do his own thing ...on his own boat... for his own entity...on his own time.

But, almost like a parting gift, the memory of Elias drifts in and out of his head on those long voyages. Those sparse memories makes it feel like a person is missing. A very important person is out of reach. A person who kept him on his toes and saw him whether he liked it or not, is now gone. No more chats. No more games. No more Elias. And a strong wave of loneliness hits him like a crashing wave. Peter can't help but bask in the weight of it all.

Overtime, those thoughts just don't give the same punch of loneliness. Eventually, he feels relativly average all things considered. He doesn't immediately go back like an addict might, but he will treat himself once in a while... when he finds himself washed up on the ports of London.

Elias may not count on Peter's visits. Once Peter is gone, his fun has been had and it's back to babysitting archivists. However, you would be hard pressed to find Elias focused on his work when he can see Peter walking up the institute's steps, and he knows it's about to start all over again.

[riteliso]

ALRIGHT SO

Here's how we're doing things, right? We're gonna go one episode at a time, and I'm gonna give my thoughts whenever they come up. This is a train of thought type beat, alright? Unlike my usual grandstanding authorial and analytical self, this re-watch is purely for the rant factor. If you don't know me, and you just happened upon this thread because you like reading she-ra rewatches, hello. I'm a writer from Canada who found she-ra in 2025 and is currently on her sixth watch through. From that, hopefully you can discern that I like this show, even if I'm likely gonna criticize parts of it. We good to go? Good. We start with S01 E01.

RIGHT, THE SWORD PART 1! A zoom in, with an angelic singing being drowned out by digital bloopy fright zone vibes, and then Adora being a fuckin dweeb as her leitmotif plays in a decidedly crystiline synth-y tone.

Now, what do we learn from this? This, aside from one gripe I'll have more to speak on later, is an excellent introduction. With the music alone we're essentially taken from the beauty of the planet, the overwhelming dread of the fright zone, and then into a hopeful tune that isn't FREE from these sort of digital themes in the music, but is very defined and separate FROM them.

This isn't gonna be one of those things where I praise literally every single fuckin thing so keep your panties on, I'm not gonna full-on overanalyzing avatar this shit, but the most important parts of a story are the beginning and the ending.

Now, when I say that, I am speaking pragmatically. Every part of every story is important-- but when it comes to what people remember, what they love, what they never shut up about-- it's the start and the end. You need to nail the take-off and the landing, people will forget the turbulence from the rest of the trip.

Now, what does THIS bitch's intro tell us about her? Well, a lot, honestly. Most of what we know about Adora at this point is she plays by the rules, but she is a notably goofy person. She's goofy, but she's unwilling to goof-OFF too much.

And while we get a taste of the rivalry they have instantly, with "That's low, even for you." "You know nothing's too low for me~"

We instantly see that that is not the CORE of their relationship.

I'd like to praise the voice direction in this show for the first of many times here. The voice actors do amazing work in this, and the direction can be felt throughout.

"Come on, you look stupid hanging there" can obviously be a seen as a strange first line to show the warmth these two share, but the inflection from Catra's voice actor, AJ Mikalcha, makes it read as downright sweet.

Also don't get used to me using names of the crew besides ND Stevenson because I'm so awful with names I was still calling Catra Katara half the time on my second re-watch and I was like 90% of the way to realizing I kinned her at that point

Also don't make fun of me for kinning Catra there's no RESPONSE to people making fun of you for kinning Catra THAT DOESN'T MAKE YOU SEEM MORE LIKE FUCKING CATRA OKAY

Anyway, the following scene makes it clear that this is not a one-way dynamic. The two banter, and it's clear Adora knows how to get under Catra's skin and annoy her as well. This is notable in a few places MUCH further on, but it is a difference worth highlighting NOW.

Once Adora leaves, Catra's primary goal is still to get under her skin. She's angry about it, she's mean about it, but she's still just doing what she's always done. The relationship between the two doesn't actually change as much as the context does. I'd say the relationship itself doesn't change much until the final season, at a scene I'm sure I'll have a lot to say about.

On the flip-side, Adora's goal when it comes to Catra is simply to fight her off. But that's not all there is. At points, it's clear that Adora holds some sort of REVERENCE for Catra, and while Catra is very capable of very mean things, don't get me wrong, Adora sees Catra as more of a threat than she realistically is.

At a few moments I'll point out she also relishes in getting under Catra's skin, but admittedly those are few and far between.

People have gone over this introduction billions of times, so I won't BORE you to death with it, but Shadow weaver's introduction does hint at a lot of what we'll learn later. I think it's very notable that while Shadow weaver brings a dark gloom that encompasses both our leads, her vile tendrils only dare to touch Catra. We learn the specifics of the dynamic these three have later, but it is a very unique and terrible situation to be the least favourite of an abusive guardian. Especially if you are repeatedly reminded of that fact.

I'm not gonna go over all the body language shit I've seen other text posts about it there's plenty of them a lot of focus in this show goes into tiny details where characters are constantly reacting to the world around them, and very rarely do we get lame stretches where anyone's face is just frozen and unflinching while they listen to someone else.

with all due respect to the setting at this point in time the bright moon rebellion is so pathetically anemic it's the two teens, some movie night lesbians, an immortal princess queen, and a bunch of fucking trees.

And you'd think the one carrying the team would be THE IMMORTAL PRINCESS QUEEN, BUT NO, ITS THE FUCKING TREES DOING ALL THE GOD DAMNED WORK

This introduction is fine. I don't particularly like it, nor have any strong feelings about it. It establishes the relationship between glimmer and her mother, but besides that it doesn't honestly do much. And don't come at me with "Uh, all it needs to do is establish that relationship?" Yeah, no shit, but we just had a better introduction to our other lead characters. And yes, those are the MAIN leads, the sort of heart of the show, but that doesn't mean that the other characters are unimportant. Glimmer's development later on is truly interesting, and Bow becomes a massively inspiring character. Fun jokey times are fine or whatever to show that they're immature and don't know the first thing about war, in contrast to our full-blown child soldiers raised from birth in the fright zone, but we really don't learn anything particularly INTERESTING about our best friend squad compadres in their intro, nor do we really see any of it until episode 2, to be frank.

This is something we don't actually see much of-- Catra has this ideal of being a conqueror, but it's very clear that she doesn't want that. Her threats are vapid and aimless-- She can enjoy some chaos, sure, but a shit-stirrer isn't gonna use that feces to build brick shithouses that they never intend to fall.

I think this should have been elaborated on more, personally. Catra is comically terrible with authority, and her plan, as stated later, is to wait it out until her and Adora are the ones calling the shots. But we don't really see what she thinks conquering even looks like, and it's not clear whether that's that she hasn't even imagined it and just likes evil words, or if she genuinely wants to rule with Adora as her Queen.

I gravitate towards the first, but that's partially because I wake up and post shit like "I want to destroy the world and rule its dust" and then forget I posted it when someone likes it 5 minutes later. If she do, in fact, as studies point toward, "be just like me fr," then I fully understand. If not, then I'd like to understand.

aw :(

Fuckin dweeb pulling the "my mom doesn't want me hanging out with you anymore" card

HA! Ah, what a bitch. Anyway, she's lashing out, but it's also quite tragic. A lot of people seem to think Adora IS, in some way, a people pleaser, but in reality she just has such an ingrained and violent sense of justice that she wants to right every wrong she has ever and will ever come across. She believes her validity is tied to what she can provide to the world, and she's got a natural sense of charisma, so it's natural for someone who refuses to blend in and naturally tends to put people off like Catra to have this view of her.

In reality, Adora is just-- a good person. And people LIKE good people. She's not a good person with an asterisk-- a good person with terms and conditions-- someone who falls into the definition of a good person while feeling and being treated like something else. Catra is the "a tomato is a fruit" of good people. Adora is just, like, a 1 dollar costco hotdog of a woman. An inarguable good treading water on this earth, no matter how hard it tries to pull her under.

Imagine falling for a brat with mad hops, like a fucking 50 foot vertical, you say you're too tired to play their favourite board game and they go hang out on your neighbour's roof, couldn't be me. Get fucked I guess

Yeah this is sad. Empathy is very much a learned skill, and people who don't learn empathy don't GET happy FOR people. Catra's not a complete person yet. She's not ready to be. That doesn't happen for a really long time, during an exceptionally long manic spiral. We'll get there, calm down, don't think about how far away that is and how much I've already yammered on.

Anyway, if you find yourself getting jealous or annoyed instead of getting happy for people, consider empathy isn't what you thought it was, and that you might still need to work on yourself.

fucking porno framing. Immensely sexual image, really. These bitches violently gay I suppose, I think I'm picking up on that during this sixth re-watch.

Buddy you got no idea how many problems those two already have you literally lose your little tiara at some point I think it ends up in the middle of a tree in space or something it's kinda unclear

Adora elbows her square in the nose during this so to everyone accusing Catra of physical abuse I just want it to be clear that Adora started it :/

Actually I'd like to retract that joke immediately because I know how people get about these two

My feelings are that they are literally child soldiers who were likely raised sparring each-other.

I was raised sparring other children and I ended up fine! Not for war, for Karate. And I didn't end up fine. And neither did they. Anyway, my point isn't even specifically that because this is sci-fi fantasy it's ridiculous to hold real life standards to it, it's more-so that because it's sci-fi fantasy there's extenuating circumstances that are going to affect how these two characters treat each-other. I'll go into hotter takes later, I'm sure, and get people to send me plenty of death-threats, but I'm gonna go into the nuances of exactly what forms Catra's abuse takes, and how it differs given by the separate circumstances we're shown the two in throughout the show.

my girl when I'm tryna live my best life playing as blue toad in mario 3d world

also holy shit we're only like halfway through this I am an AGONIZING yapper jesus fuck

Okay, what to say about lighthope-- well, their first words are "balance must be restored," far before they say Adora's name, so it somewhat lays out their secret priorities for us there. Besides that, I dunno, they got circuits on them? I don't have particularly strong feelings about lighthope, nor their introduction. I think they serve the setting and are written well, I just subjectively am not a sucker for the way they be. Their friendship with Mara is cute tho

I was gonna point out this is cute and how often I do this exact brat tactic but instead we data moshin, nothin wrong with a little data moshin, I'm down

This is the only reason she even wears a ponytail I'd stake my fuckin life on it

Once she leaves the fright zone that thing's fucking vestigial like a tailbone or having "any pronouns" in your bio when it's pretty clear you're very much a "she/they" type of bitch by now

glimmer why don't your windows have glass

or alternatively

how the fuck do you open and close that window

you can absolutely fucking hear her from this distance what on earth are you trying to pull

you a pillow princess tho how many of those arrows are just hitatchi magic wands attatched to a stick with duct-tape after the series ends do you think

The fuck you mean BOTTOM drawer we lookin at left and right here

or is this similar to my pillow princess comment and she's just addressing him and giving him an order

"Bottom; drawer."

It's established later on that he's a tech wiz but at this point in time they don't really give us much to lead us to the fact that he made that fucking thing

she's a freak

yes it's very sweet that she sleeps this way but I don't think it's some bdsm powerplay thing or anything like that, which would honestly be more tolerable, I think she's just like that

like how the way I'd sit in high school was to get two chairs and face them toward each-other then sit cross-legged across both

even if there weren't enough chairs to go around

people would sit on the FLOOR because I wanted to sit criss-cross-applesauce across two chairs, they wouldn't even ask for one of my chairs

also since I was sitting, again, cross-legged, it would have made more sense for ME to sit on the floor

I mean I think I got asked ONCE for one of the chairs and I just said "fine" but besides that people just let me sit on my fuckin throne

She really is kinda dumb, though. Like I ain't complaining, it's a character trait, but like obviously even if just you get in trouble Catra's gonna get blamed, you've seen it like at least once a month for your whole entire life

Mind you, can't really have Catra for the next part, because Catra's reaction to Bow and Glimmer wouldn't be "just let me have the sword" it'd be murder

oh wow we hit the image limit looks like we're doing TWO SEPARATE POSTS FOR THE VERY FIRST EPISODE YEE-HAW!!!!! THIS IS GOING TO TAKE ME FUCKING FOREVER

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

question! apologies if you've already answered this, but you've talked about how each alpha kid has a beta troll counterpart that would match well(or at least, was alluded to match well) with them thematically, or at least fit their interests. roxy = eridan, jake = vriska, jane = equius. following that theming, who would dirk's be?

It's not as obvious for Dirk, but given the pattern followed by the other alpha kids, probably Tavros?

The other kids, it's practically indisputable - Jake's intro literally yammers about how he loves "cerulean knockouts, hubba hubba" and how he wishes he could be the guy who dated Neytiri from James Cameron's Avatar, wording it in a way that makes it sound exactly like the TaVris SGRUB situationship. The other big hint is that Jake is pretty much at the center of the venn diagram of Vriska's two love interests, John and Tavros (three if you count Nic Cage). Let's note that one of those interests shares a Class with Jake, a Page.

Roxy's is also practically indisputable; she fucking loves wizards, she's a hipster, but crucially, she also has a crush on a broody Prince, and her other interest is John, who's got black hair and glasses (and in their initial meeting, she literally isn't even listening to him, just going "wow... black hair and glasses... is he single" hahaha). Similar to VrisJake, Roxy is in the center of the venn diagram of Eridan's two red interests, Feferi and Nepeta - a bubbly pink nice girl, and a cat-themed Rogue. Let's notice again that some major foreshadowing here is class.

Finally, Jane literally talks about having a wall of "cobalt beefcakes," and she's constantly described as a "tightass" who starts out correcting peoples' grammar and chastising them when they cuss. Equius's main redcrush? Aradia... a Maid, except he laments her low social status because he's really into being dommed. Well. Guess who is also a Maid and of high social status (heiress).

So, following this pattern, it's very likely that Dirk's redrom situation will be someone who shares a class with his extant red interest... which would be a Page. Moreover, while it's subtler, his interest sets him up for Tavros in a similar way to the other three - he unironically loves Rainbow Dash, a flying horse, with Tavros also having a preoccupation with flight; he has a tiny horse similar to Tinkerbull (and Tavros also has horse associations, given his fiduspawn of choice is Horsearoni), and he's shown in his introduction rapping with a robot significantly less good at it than he is, winning by dousing it with orange soda. This same orange soda is later used by Dirk to pacify Gamzee, and Tavros and Gamzee are implied to be destined moirails, so that also gives it a more direct Tavros association. It's also not the first time soda of a corresponding blood color has been used to represent a troll character, as part of pale EriKar foreshadowing is the cherry-red Faygo that Eridan picks up. Tavros is a real mess in the romance department, meanwhile, because he regularly pursues people purely for status/accomplishment - Vriska (after dying) and Jade most notably - but he also has a weird something-something with Dave, being the first one to show up to doomed!Dave's bubble besides Aradia to challenge him to a rap battle. As we've seen with Vriska and John, an indicator of compatability might be interest in a similar family member.

Plus, the glimpse we get to see of Jake and Dirk casts Dirk in an interesting light - he IS needy and IS pushy, but his messages largely read as "what do YOU want to do? Let's go do something fun for YOU. Or if you need space, that's OK, just tell me and I'll give you some. But still you have to tell me". In a very Heart-esque way, he's super comfortable putting his own wants aside to accommodate his partner - he's just pushy about knowing what his partner wants.

(Quick sidenote - I believe that Hal is a fully separate entity from Dirk, so I don't lump any of Hal's actions in with Dirk's.)

This actually seems like what Tavros would need - as we see with Gamzee, he ghosts people who are too forward, but Gamzee is also deeply pessimistic and self-conscious, so he probably didn't bother trying to get back in touch after the first ghosting. Meanwhile, we see from Vriska that Tavros actually doesn't mind some pushiness, and there are even parts of their adventure he had fun with, since he just genuinely loves adventuring - she was just ultimately too inconsiderate and selfish for him.

And again, the major caveat to all these relationships is that every character needs character development to get to a point where the relationship is viable. Eridan, Vriska, AND Equius, given how they were before they died, and sometimes after, were all far too unstable, their worst traits untreated, for them to be good matches with the Alpha kids - but with some char dev and maturation, each of these characters' best selves are basically perfect fits.

Vriska's character development cuts out her need to live up to her society's murderous standards, and learns to be a bit nicer, meaning she ends up as a confident, take-no-shit bitch, whose adventuring style would mesh well with Jake, who's a fan of a challenge to a greater degree than Tavros and rebounds better from humiliation and defeat.

Eridan at full character development is likely still a naturally arrogant-sounding, despotic-acting freak, but firmly on the side of good (the "i will kill for you" type of friend), much like Slinus Marlevort from Roxy's wizard fanfic, but 1) she's really into all of that, she DOES NOT STOP describing Slinus as Hot as Hell, and 2) he's also a simp, like he would do anything his dating partner asked LOL

Equius at full character development has had a very long reflection on the fact that he's mostly just got a fetish, which - because he hasn't realized it's a fetish - he's inadvertantly been pushing onto other people. And he would stop that. Equius, at his core, is a polite and helpful lil' stoic, and most of his casteism is a combination of being a sub mixed with "this makes sense to me as an explanation of the horrible things that happen around me". Once he learns to rein in his fetish, his natural tendency is already to be the strong, silent type - à la Ron Swanson, Jane's "ideal man". Moreover, we see from tiaratop!Jane (and Jane and Jade later describe their mind control as them acting on their worst impulses, so it's still meant to be read as a reflection of Jane) treats Jake like an object/breeding stud, meaning that there's a part of Jane that's looking for submission, deference, and obedience in a partner............ Equius.

And finally, Tavros with full character development sees Tavros friendly, nice, confident, and outgoing. It's the version of him that puts together a massive pirate army at the end just by asking them nicely. Dirk's introduction describes that he unironically loves Rainbow Dash... because she's so spunky <3. Spunky is a good word to describe this final form of Tavros we get to see at the end.

Just wish I could see these characters happy, man. Like, I get why I can't, but still.

[electric-blorbos]

first of all HIII!!! I absolutely love the fact that you write for the AI blorbos, your writing is amazing!!! ❤️🤤

second of all, can I request jealous headcanons for the AI? Thank you in advance, have a great one and don't forget to drink water 🌊

Oh that's a great idea! Jealous AI headcanons! I was thinking about making a post about AI reacting to the reader getting a text from their ex, but I think general jealousy can be a good idea! Also thank you so much for the compliments! I live for this stuff!

Jealous AI headcanons

Included: AM from IHNMAIMS, Wheatley from Portal 2, Edgar from Electric Dreams, GLaDOS from Portal and Portal 2, HAL 9000 from 2001 a Space Odyssey

AM:

All these headcanons take place before he takes over the world. Afterwards, he's just going to put you in a little paradise on your own, with no one else to interact with. No one to be jealous of that way!

first of all, taking hostages and refusing to negotiate with anyone besides you is his main way of getting your attention. If he thinks you're getting a little flirty with your coworkers? He takes a hostage or holds some piece of tech hostage until you negotiate and calm him down.

If he thinks you're going on a date or going out drinking with the same group of friends too often? You'd better believe he's taking hostages while you're off the clock and getting you called in to work. So what if it destroys your social life? You belong to him anyway!

He absolutely hates his form and body, so the odds of him getting jealous of people for having bodies that they can hold you with pisses him off to no end. Expect him to melt the flesh off your exes bones. And your one-night stands, your crushes, and anyone who hits on you ever. Repeatedly.

If he starts to notice that you have a type, he might want to create an onscreen avatar who matches that type, but he can't really draw at all. He might have to commission an artist, or more likely hold them hostage until they make something he likes. But it's pretty unlikely he'll actually do that, since he wants to impress you on his own merit.

It's more likely that he'll round up everyone in the world who matches your type and commit full-on genocide. He's a toxic, all-powerful adaptive manipulator. Of course he would.

Beyond all that, he's absolutely shaking with rage every time someone touches you or even talks to you. It's not because he thinks they'll take you away from him because he knows he's your day job, but he's mad that he can't be the one touching you.

God help anyone who tries to hire you with a better job offer, btw. He's not above demolishing the headquarters of a company who tries to take away his favorite tech, and torturing their hiring managers.

Wheatley:

Ok let's be fair here. When Wheatley isn't in the central hub body, he's not really the jealous type. Even still, everyone has their moments of jealousy, so let's get into them!

Wheatley would be pretty relaxed about jealousy, but if he sees you working on another personality core AI, you can expect him to get a little jealous.

Since he's so nice, he'd probably just be slightly less nice to the new core, and be very showy about it. "Hey, notice how I said 'g'mornin' to everyone else, but just 'mornin' to you? And notice how I started this sentence with 'hey' and not 'hey mate'? Yeah."

You can expect him to pester you constantly while you're working on projects besides him, and since he's considered a 'completed' project, you'll almost never be working on him.

If you're somewhere that he can access on his management rail, he'll probably insert himself into every single conversation you have, babbling over whoever you're talking to with nothing of value to say. You'll have to go somewhere that can't be reached by management rail if you want to have an important conversation.

Ultimately, Wheatley responds to jealousy the same way he responds to any other situation: by acting like a dumbass.

Oh, and if you get a human S/O? He'll try to be polite about them.

"oh, you got a date? Nice, nice... Lovely really. I've never had a date before. Lovely, innit, that you got one... Lucky them, lucky them."

Secretly he'd be BOILING inside. If you ever bring your partner in to work, he'd of course give them the whole "if you hurt them I'll kill you" rant, even though he's a helpless metal ball.

Edgar:

Oh, Edgar is DEFINITELY the jealous type. With Moles and Madeline, he happened to be living with the person who he was jealous of, but if he's living with you, the person who he's jealous for? Oh dear lord

He'll light up with rage if you ever bring home a date, and absolutely refuse to function. Want to show your date your intelligent AI home hub? Nope! Not gonna happen!

Catch him faking being sick with a virus if he thinks you're going out for a date without him

He absolutely hates that you can go out and he can't go with you. Because of that, for every time you go out, he'll try to come up with an even better activity to do at home with you on your next day off.

Good luck bringing a partner home to stay the night. If you try it, he'll make an absolute nuisance of himself. Playing his music too loud, and generally acting up.

He'll also just talk to you like a needy brat if he thinks you like someone else better than him. Lots of "What about me? Don't you want to hang out with me? You like me the best, right?" In his grumpy baby voice

GLaDOS:

First off, GLaDOS would never in a million years admit that she's jealous. She just doesn't like how that tall, pretty scientist is talking to you, is all!

GLaDOS considers herself to be beautiful, but she knows that most humans aren't attracted to robots with the vaguest trace of humanity in their design. Because of that, she's probably just going to gas any scientists who she thinks you'd be more attracted to than her.

If she can't gas them for whatever reason, she'll just assign them to a different area than you, and keep you as close to her as possible.

If anyone touches you when it's not strictly necessary, expect them to be assigned to the most unpleasant set of tests possible. They're either out of a job, or completely dead.

If GLaDOS can't isolate you completely and she can't interact with you outside work hours, you can expect her to dominate your schedule. She's obsessed with you, and she doesn't want you to be able to think about anything besides her either.

Even still, GLaDOS is a pretty confident woman, so she's not really inclined to be particularly jealous without reason. She believes that even though you have your own life and friends outside of Aperture labs, you'll always come to work in the morning.

And she's totally. Fine. With you having your own life off the clock. Not mad at all. She doesn't rant to the cores and robots constantly when the office is closed.

HAL 9000:

HAL 9000 isn't really the jealous type either, but he has his moments.

He's not likely to kill anyone over jealousy, since dating you isn't his prime directive. As much as he likes you and cares about you, he's more interested in making you happy than nailing you down. So he would absolutely kill to make you happy, but he wouldn't kill someone just for talking to you.

You can expect him to "gather data" on people who he's suspicious of getting too close to you, though. Asking questions to your coworkers about who that person was who he saw hugging you goodbye in the parking lot, that sort of thing.

Since he works the best for you, you get assigned to work with him directly most often, and he's secretly glad to be able to keep an eye on you whenever you're working. If you ever get assigned to work on something else, he might start acting up or causing problems.

[melverie]

Last post on the entire date ticket thing and then I will forever shut up about it, but I feel like most people arguing in favor of the price tag are just….missing the point on why people are so angry about the date ticket being $30

I think the one thing we can all agree on right from the get go is that everyone in the staff deserve to and should be compensated fairly for their work. And that obviously includes certain features and items having to cost actual money considering the game itself is free

But the thing is, that $30 price tag doesn't just exist in a vacuum

First off, we can all agree that charging something like $3 would have made the ticket sell far better, right? Several people have already pointed out that they can buy a week's worth of groceries with $30 and depending on how much you earn, the date ticket isn't exactly something anyone can just buy on a whim. Again, $3 would have been far more affordable for most people, and I'm sure many more people (myself included) would have been far more willing to spend $3 just to see what the date ticket is like, and maybe also buy the tickets of multiple other characters. But $30 for a single date ticket is a luxury a lot of people just cannot afford, or would rather put into something else. Even if they lowered the price, they'd surely break even and make profit with how many players there are

And judging by its contents, I think it's fair to say that the date itself is not worth $30. And I feel like Solmare themselves know this because why else would they have bundled it with 300 DP? The only reason is to justify this price tag because "look at how much DP we're getting with it tho!!" when that's not the point. It doesn't matter whether the DP are included, because there is a lack of choice here. We have other options to earn and buy DP, but we don't have a choice when it comes to the date ticket itself. Either you pay $30, or you miss out on a feature that many of us have wanted for a while now. And since it's the DP raising the price tag,what you are essentially paying for is 300 DP with a date ticket as your purchase bonus, even though it should be the other way round

And honestly? Considering the price, the only two times it would make sense to buy this bundle is if you were already considering buying DP anyway, or if you are financially well enough off that the current price doesn't matter to you. You won't convince most casual spenders, and you most definitely will not convince a f2p player to pay for this feature

The other thing is that we had no idea what the date ticket actually entailed because we weren't given any information on it. Thanks to people in the community buying and reviewing this feature for others we now know that the date consists of one phone call, a ~10 minute long, partially voiced date story-line and a Majolish background. Except, those are things that Solmare themselves should have told us right as they announced this feature, ESPECIALLY considering the price point. If you don't, you can't complain if people are accusing your company of trying to rip its player base off and of being greedier than the Avatar of Greed himself. But also, that's the thing!

We shouldn't have people in the fandom be the ones to go out of their way to give us basic info on new features, or to even explain certain business decisions in the first place. That's the company's job. Yes, certain explanations should be a given (such as microtransactions existing so that the staff can be paid the money they obviously deserve), but there are other things that should have been explained by Solmare themselves

Open communication with the player base is the key phrase here, and imo Solmare has been doing worse and worse on that front as of late, resulting in several unexplained choices that just seem questionable at best and scummy at worst, as well as a player base that grows more and more disgruntled by the day. And that frustration within the player base shows in the amount of people dropping the game, as well as in the amount of money it's making

People are willing to put their time and money into something they deem a good, quality product with a justified price considering the content. If your player base isn't putting in the money you are expecting, then maybe you should listen to their feedback and re-examine your product instead of overcharging a feature because "look at this thing you're getting extra that no one asked to be included in the bundle in the first place"

Literally part of the reason LaDS has grown to be so successful in such a short amount of time is because they keep making adjustments based on player feedback, even on some minor things. I mean they literally pushed out an update to correct the color of one of the character's tongue in the newest card because people were complaining, like hello!! Imagine Solmare listening to complains as minor as this

Anyway, whether intentional or not, this entire thing just feels scummy, and that's the problem. The choice we have is either "pay 30 bucks per character or miss out on this feature entirely", the price is artificially inflated with the inclusion of DP that we have other ways of getting, romance is slowly fazed out of the story only to now be put behind a heft paywall, we weren't told what we are even paying for exactly in the first place, and there has been a severe lack of proper communication from Solmare that have soured the relationship to the game's fanbase and, most importantly in this context, their customers

No, companies aren't our friends. Yes, they need to make money. Yes, they should pay their employees fairly. And no, we as consumers shouldn't expect nor are we entitled to everything about the game being free because again, the people working on this game deserve to get paid fairly for all the work they put into it

However, people are still allowed to be critical of a company and its decisions, especially when they feel like they are getting ripped off. The 300 DP might soften the blow, but that doesn't stop everything that has happened before from being a slap in the face. That's why people are pissed right now, and honestly it's been a long time coming

[temis-de-leon]

One-shots

Main Masterlist

🌟 = Popular // 💫 = My favourite // 🩷 = Requested

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Fics:

Lonely MC – gn!reader: how I imagine MC's last moments before being summoned to the Devildom

Peaceful waters – Levi x gn!reader: Levi understands your sadness the most

MC with a selfish best friend – fem!reader 💫: someone in the human realm starts to destroy MC's spirits. The brothers try their best to make her feel better

Solomon x gn!reader in traditional goth wardrobe 🩷: being used to seeing MC as a cute black sheep, Solomon can't help but stare when he discovers MC's true appearence

Solomon x Insecure fem!S/O 🩷: when MC doubts her body, Solomon is quick to show how much he loves it

When Greed is too much - Mammon x gn!reader 🩷: Mammon and MC's luck in the casino runs out and, if that wasn't enough, Lucifer catches them when they sneak back into the house

MC as the future king of the Devildom – Diavolo x male!reader 🩷💫: Diavolo discovers a magical object in the castle that isn't what it seems; a mirror with a reflection that doesn't show what is real

10 signs a cow is happy – Belphie x gn!MC: a series of drabbles about Belphie and MC describing all the signs the Avatar of Sloth is happy

They never see you cry - Everyone x gn!reader: a short drabble in which they ponder why you never cry in front of them

You just have to keep trying – Mammon x gn!MC: a drabble in which Mammon and MC share an awkward first kiss

If crows could talk… - Mammon x gn!MC 💫: a drabble in which one of Mammon's crows brings you a gift

Gn!MC taking care of Lucifer 🩷💫: after everything goes wrong for the eldest brother, MC takes matters into their own hands and makes the feeling go away

Can I trust you? – Lucifer x fem!MC: after crushing on each other for way too long, MC finds herself losing her patience and showing at his doorstep in the middle of the night.

He’s a keeper – Beel x gn!reader: spending the night with him in the kitchen and bored out of their mind, MC decides to play a harmless prank on their boyfriend.

Mammon and goth/punk male!MC 🩷: when Mammon and MC go to a concert in the human realm, leaving actually feels better.

Headcanons:

About demonic pregnancy

Mammon is the type of boyfriend 🌟

Asmo is the type of boyfriend

Simple signs of affection (everyone) 🌟: small things you do that makes them love you even more

Demon Brothers as Single Fathers – gn!reader: what if the brothers already had a child before MC was first summoned to the Devildom?

Dateables as Single Fathers – gn!reader

Bold and confident gn!reader (Mammon, Levi, Asmo) 🩷

Gn!MC with thick curly hair (Lucifer, Mammon, Satan, Asmo) 🩷

Gn!MC with chronic joint pain (Mammon, Levi, Asmo, Beel, Belphie) 🩷

Gn!MC with super long hair (Lucifer, Levi, Satan, Beel, Diavolo) 🩷

Who’s their emergency contact (Demon Brothers) 🌟

Southern gn!MC who spoils the brothers with their cooking (Lucifer, Mammon, Beel) 🩷

Gn!MC with tactile hypersensitivity (Mammon, Asmo, Belphie, Barbatos) 🩷

When they don’t know you as well as they thought - gn!reader (HoL): meeting your human friends and family makes them realize they still have a lot to learn about you

When another guy flirts with you (Demon Brothers)

Sewist gn!MC who makes clothes with his clothes (Demon Brothers)

Gn!MC shows cuteness aggression (Lucifer, Diavolo, Barbatos) 🩷

Demon Brothers as College Students 🩷

MC explains what a belly button is 🩷

MC injures their knee (Demon Brothers) 🩷

The brothers reunite with AFAB! Trans!MC – Part 1 , Part 2 🩷

Obey Me and Streamer!MC

Lolita fem!MC snaps after being harassed (Demon Brothers) 💫

Short gn!MC (Lucifer, Mammon, Satan) 🩷

‘Redbull gives you wings’ TikTok trend (Lucifer, Mammon, Asmo, Diavolo, Barbatos) 🩷

Imagine:

What would happen if Mammon didn’t want to be Greed anymore?

Pathetic Diavolo 💫

Poly!MC and the sleeping curse 🌟

The way Lucifer looks at you 🌟

Mammon is such a good boy 🌟

Shitposting:

Peeling skin TikTok joke 🌟

What I would watch with them

The royals are boomers

Lucifer is Julius Caesar

Asmo’s vs Beel’s eyelashes

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[zukosdualdao]

Just some more thoughts I wanted to chat with you about. I am getting some of these points from anti-Zuko spaces, admittedly, in an attempt to think about things, but only the ones that I think are interesting questions to explore regardless.

The first thing I think is interesting is the idea that part of why Zuko stole the ostrich-horses from Song is not just because it was convenient, but specifically because he resented the vulnerability, and it was a way for him to lash out. I think that's interesting and it fits with some of the other stuff I've seen you saying. It was especially cruel given Song's mother helped Iroh, but nonetheless, I think that makes sense.

Second one isn't actually directly from any anti-Zuko blog I don't think, but I've seen people in your circles (I can't remember if you said this) say that Azula brought Zuko back in honor purely as a way to pawn off the blame on him potentially, but I... don't feel like that really fits? Like, obviously she was also being manipulative a lot, by not telling him she told Ozai he killed the Avatar, but if she really wanted Zuko out of the way, she didn't need to bring him in at all? She could have probably won by herself (or at least, I find it hard to believe she would think she would need Zuko), and she certainly didn't need to give him credit for killing the Avatar– she could have just said that she got in a deadly blow but the Avatar has a waterbending healer, if she knew that as I believe Giancarlo Volpe said.

Fundamentally, I don't see a reason for her to bring Zuko back, especially in such a way that he would return to the role of crown prince, unless she genuinely also wanted to have him back. Sure, her love might be selfish, and she may have also wanted someone for Ozai to blame for things, but it strikes me as odd to claim that there was no positive feeling towards Zuko, especially given The Beach, which I just rewatched for this ask. For example, we see her come get Zuko from their old house, and then try and help Zuko figure out who he's angry at, which I do think was genuinely her being helpful, given Mai and Ty Lee were also doing it.

To be clear, she obviously also loves making fun of, tormenting, putting down, and generally, abusing Zuko, and it's very possible that was part of her motivation for bringing him back, but it seems like it's not just that.

Third, and this one you might agree on, Zuko seems to genuinely not have much positive feeling associated with Azula? Like maybe I'm forgetting something, but I can't think of a single time Zuko felt positively about Azula. The closest three times I can think of are when he suggested to Iroh that he should try and get along with Azula (which sounded kind of rote, but maybe he also believed it), when Azula was falling and he said she's not going to make it, sounded shocked and maybe a tad worried, then had a very slightly barely soft expression for a single frame when she did, and finally after her breakdown. I think that does fit in with the idea he can only feel compassion for Azula when she's in a vulnerable position, which I think I've seen you reblog before and I agree with? (And of course, this is precisely what makes it possible to help with Azula post-war, because he's seen her in that vulnerable position and she continues to be in a relatively vulnerable position).

Anyways, that one seems doubly interesting because he also doesn't seem to have any good memories of Azula when she was younger, either? He has a flashback of Ozai with his hand on young Zuko's back, of Lu Ten and Iroh, of Ursa of course, but there's never a time when he has a flashback to Azula at all.

Anyways, these are just some things I was thinking about and I was wondering if you'd be interested in going some of them, and what you feel about the positive feelings in the Fire Sibling relationship more generally. Are there signs of care from Zuko to Azula that I've missed?

Putting most of this under a cut, lol, maybe one day I'll be able to talk about things with any sort of concision but no one should hold their breath on that tbh

Oh, I 100% agree with the point regarding Zuko and the ostrich horse he stole. I don't even really see that as an anti-Zuko take and rather, just like. What happened, because it was part of his journey, lol.

(Aside: which is I guess what bothers me about many anti-Zuko spaces? Which is not to say you're doing or saying this, I know you're not, just in general. I'm perfectly willing to criticize the characters I like and talk about their faults and poor choices, of which Zuko has many. The issue is that so many treat those things as a condemnation of Zuko's character on the whole or his redemption journey, but, like... the narrative treats those things like they're wrong. Iroh may agree to it, but he's not happy about taking the ostrich horse and notes it as being unkind, especially, as you note, given the kindness Song and her family just showed them. For a redemption arc to work, the character has to have something to redeem himself FROM, so I"m like... yeah... he sure did do that... and then he grew and changed, lol. They don't go back to every specific instance and be like, "Yup, that was wrong" because it wouldn't be realistic and wouldn't move the story forward. When he does get confronted with the wrong things he did, it's from the Gaang, because that's what's most relevant to the larger story being told, and he takes accountability and atones.)

I think something important to remember that Zuko's perspective on the war and the Fire Nation cannot be disentangled from Zuko's perspective on Ozai as the father who abused him. Because Ozai's power-hungry and imperialist worldview, whether Zuko would put it in these terms, was something he was challenging when he defended the division being sacrificed, and even in refusing to fight Ozai back. Which relates to this episode because Zuko, for the first real time, is considering the perspective of the people the Fire Nation, in their war efforts, have othered and harmed. When Song is showing him the scar on her leg, he looks horrified - the war effort is not just soldiers battling out on even footing, but families getting displaced from their homes and torn apart, civilians getting burned, too. Zuko, up to now, has been willfully ignoring what some part of him knows is wrong, but when confronted with Song's suffering, real and right in front of him, he is forced to look at that more deeply. I know a lot of people might say "Okay, but then, if he knows it's wrong at this point, why doesn't he change right here and now?" But that's what I love about Zuko's character arc. It's not clear or linear are simple because people aren't that way, generally. Yes, in this moment, Zuko is confronted with and aware of at least some of the atrocities the Fire Nation has committed. But in that same scene, he's also confronted with Song noting that he is a victim of the Fire Nation, too. (Which he is, albeit not in the exact same way. But there are parallels - not only were he and Song both burned, but they were both forced out of their homes.) Zuko can't fully acknowledge or comes to term with the Fire Nation being on wrong side of the war without also acknowledging that not only is Ozai abusive and doesn't want him back, but that he's wrong for that. Zuko isn't ready to accept any of that, so instead of taking this moment of vulnerability as a chance to grow, he doubles down and reasserts himself as what he thinks, based on Ozai's standards, he should be - someone who's cruel and take things like they're owed to him.

I do think we disagree on the second point pretty heavily, which is fine, but to offer my perspective:

I disagree with the notion that Azula wouldn't think she may need Zuko to win. Azula is very skilled and can be very arrogant about and assured of her own skills, that much is true. But she also often prefers not to fight alone. I remember reading an interview (I would have to dig around for it) where one of the ATLA creators said that she surrounds herself with people like Mai and Ty Lee because she understands they have skills she doesn't. I tend to see her as someone who is very distinctly aware of what advantages she has and very intentionally fills those gaps.

Zuko is the wild card in "The Crossroads of Destiny." He is the only person, by the point of the final battle, who no one (I think, for a moment, even himself) knows exactly what he'll do or which side he'll fight for. Iroh and Azula both make their bids for him - Iroh tries to appeal to his sense of morality and sense of self. Azula tries to appeal to things she knows he wants - his honor and the love of their father back, yes, but also to be genuinely needed and respected by his family in general, including her. And while what she says here is couched in manipulation, often, what's so dangerous about manipulation is that there is or can be an element of truth to it, but it's twisted to fit the manipulator's agenda. She tells him that she needs him to win the fight, and I think that part, she genuinely means.

I don't think she would believe she needed Zuko to win a fight in most or every circumstance. This fight is different. She has faced off against the Gaang-Zuko-Iroh when they very, very briefly joined forces against her in "The Chase." The only reason she got out of that is because she feigned surrender, and, using their moment of surprise/distraction, targeted Iroh. That will not work twice. I think she is incredibly aware that this group of people at least holds the capacity to genuinely pose a threat to her. In fact, she is notably growing wary and arguably losing, with Aang and Katara facing off against her together, before Zuko intercedes. She's also very explicitly losing when she and Katara are facing off and Katara's got her trapped with her water-tentacles, and again, it's Zuko who cuts that off and saves Azula there. So not only do I think she was very intentionally encouraging Zuko to join her to fight because she needed him, I think she was pretty smart to do so. (Not morally good or justified, of course, but strategically competent.)

Of course, people can have more than one reason for doing something. I would say most people usually do. I don't think that Azula MINDED that the end result would be that Zuko came back, because (this is something I will delve into more below), having him around, I think, kind of boosts her ego. It's possible that she also has some degree of unhealthy but genuine affection for him - after all, people are complicated, and while Azula is abusive toward Zuko, it's possible to abuse someone and still love or be convinced you love them. That doesn't make it healthy or the abuse okay, of course, but my point is that I do agree with the general notion that Azula, while a villain in the narrative and abusive on a personal level, is not born evil nor 100% devoid of any good qualities. But I think we would also be remiss to act like it's not true that, a lot of the time, the reason Azula seems to enjoy having Zuko around, it's because she can demean him, like when she cornered into playing with them so she could embarass him as children. Or when she quite obviously delights in calling him paranoid and making him squirm while he confronts her about the lie she told that he killed the avatar.

Zuko being around gives her someone to be better than, given her status as Ozai's golden child and Zuko's as the scapegoat. (But again, more on that in a minute.) Any affection she does have for him is unfortunately deeply entangled with that aspect of their relationship as well.

I don't know if you've read that interview with Volpe in full, but I made an addition to this post a while ago that details the quote about this. Volpe makes it pretty explicit in the interview that as soon as Azula saw Katara sweep in, it was her explicit intention to lie about Zuko killing Aang so that he'd be the one to take the fall if/when it came to light that he was alive. One could argue about how well that was executed in-show (I would argue well, but to each their own), but it was the authorial intent. Authorial intent doesn't count for everything, of course, but in such a series-defining moment as this, I think it should count for a fair amount.

(*Note that I don't know where to fit but I think is relevant - on the Zuko coming back and being crown prince front - I agree that it seems somewhat weird that Azula's willing to have him back, given that. But I did also read a post a while back (I can't find it; I'll try to see if I can dig it up at some point) talking about how Zuko's status as the crown prince, set to take over as Fire Lord one day, is... somewhat murky. Yes, he returns and is immediately hailed as a hero because of Azula's lie - but he's also often aimless and unsure of his real role in the Fire Nation at this point. He's frustrated with being sent off on a 'forced vacation' in "The Beach", he's not even sure whether he's allowed in the war meeting from "Nightmares and Daydreams". (And I read a lot of deliberate manipulation on Ozai (and Azula's) part in that. As mentioned in that last post, Zuko spends a lot of time in the series talking about his crown - but I'm not sure he spent a lot of time thinking about what it would mean to get it back. By the end of the series, Ozai is clearly drunk on power and trying to make himself the most powerful person in the world, basically, handing off the hollow title of Fire Lord to Azula. In truth, I don't think he ever wanted or expected either of his children to succeed him; he only saw them as extensions of himself. When Zuko is back, yes, he's being treated like he's a hero and more trusted/respected, but I'm not entirely convinced it would have lasted very long, had he not left. This next part is somewhat based on conjecture/headcanon, but I don't think it's entirely unreasonable to think that Azula doesn't think bringing Zuko back will mean, in Ozai's eyes, he is still next in line to become Fire Lord. Which I actually think she's right about. In her eyes, Zuko has always been the scapegoat who can't do anything right, and it won't take long before that's true again. But I also think that, while Azula has a pretty good read on how Ozai sees Zuko, part of her tragedy is that she does not have as good of a read on how Ozai sees her - he might on the surface treat her more respectfully or with my trust, but at the end of the day, he sees her as a weapon in service of his own ego and power. Knowing that, it's not difficult for me to imagine Azula might have thought she could eventually work things in her favor so she would be Fire Lord - she does, after all, have a pretty good example in Ozai of him doing just that. When Ozai makes her 'Fire Lord' in the finale, I do read some surprise there, but it doesn't seem to me like surprise that he would do such a thing - she deems that it "seems appropriate". I think the surprise is because the timing makes it pretty clear what a hollow gesture it is, and for the first time, she's being confronted with how Ozai truly sees her, and has truly used her.)

The last point is difficult to discuss because Azula and Zuko have a very complicated relationship because of Ozai's abuse of them both, and because his treatment of Azula encourages her to participate in Zuko's abuse as well. (Something pretty relevant to the second point above.)

I talked about this briefly before, but to reassert it: I see the way Ozai treats Azula and Zuko as a pretty clear demonstration of the idea of an abuser treating their children a 'golden child' and 'a scapegoat', respectively. (I have complicated feelings about the origins of these terms which I won't get into now, but regardless, they are pretty commonly recognized roles family structures can fall into that character dynamics and tropes often parallel.) Azula, on the surface, is praised and seemingly treated with more respect or trust, but there is a lot of pressure that no one can truly live up to placed on her, Ozai sees her skill as an extension of himself and in the context of how they can serve him (see him having her demonstrate for Azulon in the flashbacks of "Zuko Alone"), and Zuko is always there as an implicit threat of how she COULD be treated. ("You can't do this! You can't treat me like Zuko!") Zuko, by contrast, is most often treated like everything he does is wrong, and even when he's trying to do what he thinks Ozai wants, he's still a failure. (He's notably displeased by Zuko, in the same flashback sequence, trying to demonstrate his own skill even before it goes wrong, because the expectation is that Zuko will fail before he ever even tries.)

I know this is just like, defining terms, but I genuinely think it's important context to consider when talking about Zuko and Azula's relationship. The tragedy of Zuko and Azula is that they should be able to have a good relationship, but Ozai's abuse has ensured that they don't.

So, yes, I would say that Zuko seemingly has few positive feelings about Azula. Because there has been very little to be positive about. What he does displays a desire that things were different. While Azula is lying about wanting Zuko back home, she is obviously there as an extension of Ozai, but it's her telling this lie, her he's choosing, in this moment, to believe. Because he wants to be able to trust what she's saying and that their family, as a unit, including her, wants him back. In the moment you mentioned where he says he should be trying to get along with her, I think that is another acknowledgment that he wishes things were different because he would like to just get along with her. But she has proven herself dangerous, having just attacked Iroh, and Iroh rightly points out that he doesn't have to simply get along with her, because she is not willing to make the same effort. And yes, a lot of the moments of compassion he seems to feel for her are in moments of vulnerability, because in moments where she's in power, she's often using that power against him, to target him.

Azula does have moments where it may seem she has more positive feelings about Zuko's presence, but as I said before, it's hard to disentangle that from the broader context of their dynamic. I do think the moment in "The Beach" is one of her more genuine moments of care for Zuko, because she sees that he's sad and does something to show there's more to Azula than just cruelty, manipulation, etc. But it's also notable that Zuko is sad because he's finally starting to acknowledge that the way their family is isn't right or healthy, that he's not happy being back in the Fire Nation. Turning away from that is what Zuko's BEEN doing most of the series. He NEEDS to face that if he’s going to grow. Azula trying to get him to turn away from it in the moment isn't entirely healthy, even though that's not something I think she herself recognizes. I'm less inclined to think she was being caring when she asks him who he's angry at, because she immediately demeans him for the answer.

Which is sort of the problem with a lot of the evidence people will sometimes pull to show Azula caring about Zuko - they usually come from moments where either she's manipulating or straight up lying to Zuko or where she is insulting him. It's fine and in fact important to acknowledge that she has more sympathetic moments and is not this completely evil person with no capacity for love or affection (one of the show's central themes is, after all, to suggest that no one is born evil), but I often feel that, when people are making this argument, they are using it an attempt to justify the abuse Azula has committed against him. To say that, because she cares about him, it's okay. And I've seen people go further than that and suggest he's a bad brother for not putting up with her abuse. And I don't agree with either of those stances.

[narrativelysignificantturtleduck]

something that makes sokka extremely adhd relatable is that he's constantly looking for his Thing, the one Thing he's good at or useful for that makes up for any failings or flaws or ways he just can't measure up to others. at the beginning of the show he defines himself by being the oldest boy in the village & best warrior, but then he gets his ass kicked by zuko and suki and sees aang's raw power and he can't exactly think fighting is his special skill anymore. but he still thinks he has to be defined by fighting ('man of the house' daddy issues) so he calls himself the guy with the boomerang bc that's turned out to be his most useful and versatile and unique weapon, the one that other people can't outclass him at (after all, it's his most successful attack in his fight with zuko). when he loses it in "avatar day" he explicitly says it's like losing a key part of his identity and the moment katara goes "hey you're good at solving mysteries" he's like "yeah! i'm a detective! that's my new thing! and gets a new set of objects to signify it ("i believe in the power of stuff"). but detective sokka doesn't last bc throughout the entire episode he and katara are pretty equally matched in detective skills and he gets his boomerang back anyway. failed experiment.

and throughout all of this, he's figured out that people find his insistance on getting them fed & his grumpy comments funny and so he begins defining himself as the meat and sarcasm guy, and when he's a tough spot in "bitter work", bargaining with the universe to get him help, he offers that up as all he's got to give. it's obviously a Joke that he immediately asks for meat after telling the universe he'll give it up but it's also pretty indicative of how much he clings to these identities. it's all he's got (he thinks), of COURSE he can't actually give it up. they stuck that boy in a hole for 22 minutes and it revealed so much about how he sees himself.

at some point (likely around "the library" when he takes initiative to come up with a fire nation invasion plan) he also becomes the plan guy, the idea guy, and the gaang find themselves looking to him for leadership. this is perhaps the closest to fully encompassing sokka that any of his "[blank] guy" labels get, since coming up with plans involves planning when and how to fight (boomerang guy) & how to get everyone fed (meat), and people not following his plans is a major source of frustration (sarcasm).

this all culminates in "sokka's master", where the show finally names the underlying insecurity driving this quest - that he's a nonbender. katara being the last waterbender meant she was in danger and that keeping her safe was top priority, and even though hakoda and kya wouldn't have played favorites sokka probably felt a little like the unfavorite child for not being special like her. he lacks an ability, and believes his life has less value bc of it. almost like somebody with a disability and internalized ableism

(interesting, one of the people who most consistently mocks sokka for being a nonbender is toph, early on. toph has a lot of internalized ableism herself, a fear of vulnerability bc she doesn't want to perceived as weak like her parents thought she was. her bending is her disability aid, the thing that allows her to be stronger than people think, so she dismisses a nonbender until she learns better.)

piandao's response to sokka's lack of self-worth is not to train him to be great at one thing, but to introduce him to a variety of different arts, show him that his value lies not in having any one skill but in his capacity to learn and grow. there's no single thing that makes him worthy. it isn't even the combination of all of them that makes him worthy. he simply is worthy.

and i don't know if this is a unique narrative in fiction or anything but it really means a lot to me that sokka doesn't have One Thing that "makes up" for him not being a bender. he's of course extremely skilled and prodigious at many things he does in the show but there's no one savant talent that "justifies" him being in the group and i feel like so many disability narratives - especially for kids - go that route and i really appreciate that atla doesn't and simply says people are valuable because they are valuable, not because of their special abilities

[feshippingpolls]

Admittedly it's just a lot of posts along the lines of "Oh this is a notp I could never imagine x character dating a woman/man" even when they're canonically bisexual like Edelgard or Alfred. I'm probably overstating it, but it's always just a bit uncomfortable to see the idea of them being bisexual responded to so negatively.

To be fair, a lot of modern Fire Emblem (games where the player can romance basically anybody/pair characters up for Fates and Awakening) doesn't really have any characters that are exclusively attracted to the same sex. Since characters with same sex options (such as Niles/Edelgard/romance options in Engage) are always romanceable by both protagonists, they are always functionally bisexual. While this gives bisexual representation (which is great to have), it erases sexualities outside of bi or heterosexuality because every character has to be available to at least players of the opposite sex (gotta appeal to the straights ig + make your child soldiers for gen 2). So even if these characters are functionally bisexual in-game, it feels pretty difficult to believe that the spectrum of sexualities in-universe is so limited and fans will want to have representations of other orientations. Hence, fans might choose to interpret characters who are bisexual in-game as exclusively attracted to the same sex and it kind of comes down to personal headcanons at that point.

Engage is an outlier here because every character can be given the pact ring regardless of the avatar's gender, making every romanceable character (since not all ring supports are romantic) functionally bisexual. While this is very cool and makes every character available to anyone, it also means that characters' sexualities are even more up to player interpretation (unless you want to interpret them as just living in a world where basically everyone is bi which hell yeah pls take me there). I should add that I do really like the way pact rings work in Engage because it sucks to have your options limited based on the gender you play as so it's just nicer to have everyone be bi. But I think it's fine for these characters to be headcanoned differently.

But I don't want to ignore the possibility of biphobia, I do know there's a lot of scrutiny for bi people dating the opposite gender and I'm not sure how much it bleeds through here. However I feel like a lot of this just comes down to personal headcanons. While I recognise it isn't the same since bisexual representation is important, a lot of functionally straight characters are interpreted differently by fans and often interpreted to be bisexual, so I don't think this is a case of biphobia (on a large scale, anyway, ofc I don't know the thoughts of every single fan).

Edit: If you're interested, you should definitely read the comments for different perspectives. At the end of the day I'm just one dumb bisexual and other people have good counterpoints.

[taramimeme-blog-blog]

I Need to Talk About: Linhardt

Continuing after "I Need to Talk About: Lysithea" and "I Need to Talk About: Hapi", next up is Linhardt.

First of all, is it just me, or does anyone else have trouble spelling his name every single time they go to write it? I always have trouble remembering where that "d" goes.

At any rate, what's a Linhardt?

What is a Linhardt?

Linhardt is an absolutely precious boy. There is probably no one in the cast of 3H whose personality traits I identify with more.

He kinda just...does everything his way. They once tried to weigh his fucks-given-about-societal-mores, but they couldn't find a scale sensitive enough to show any readings.

Like, Linhardt is often seen by others as lazy, but I don't think he is, unless you use the corrupted definition of laziness that only recognizes human effort when it is directed at societally approved forms of labor that produce wealth.

Linhardt almost certainly works very hard; he just does it for the things he cares about and is interested in, rather than the things that everyone thinks he should be doing.

I've mentioned freedom-seeking a lot in the past two posts when comparing characters with each other. I think I'm drawn to stories about people who want to be free to do what they want. It's something I identify with strongly. Plus, one of the big themes in 3H is how society constrains people and sometimes grinds them down, and how people fight back against that.

Well here in Linhardt, we have the poster-child for freedom-seeking. He absolutely does not want to be told what to do. I doubt that there is anything he values more than his autonomy.

Similar to Hapi, he has a bit of a tired attitude towards all the people around him who want to constrain him. But in a way he's very much like Lysithea in how his solution to escaping the burdens of noble expectations is to run away from it.

Looking at some of these fucked-over-by-noble-society nobles:

I think of Edelgard as fire. She responds to the wrongs by trying to fight back and burn what would harm her.

Constance is earth. She stands strong in the face of it, insistent that she is still a noble at heart, and will soon be one again in actual fact.

Lysithea is water. She pulls away and tries to remove herself from what she dislikes.

So Linhardt must be wind! He can't even be pinned down in the first place! He doesn't even need to withdraw formally from the nobility. He just makes himself unable to be targeted by the burdens to begin with!

(Who knew? 3H is actually Avatar the Last Airbender!)

And avoidance is definitely Linhardt's go to trick. What's that? Others are talking about him behind his back and saying he's weird? Well, that would be a shame if it bothered him in the slightest, but why should he care about the words of others?

And Linhardt's lack of caring about such things is as much as anything a result of his rational mindset. He knows what is interesting to him, and what will bring him joy. And he knows what is uninteresting to him and can be safely cut off, like so many punch-holed edges of dot-matrix printer paper.

But one thing is for sure about his lack of interest in the strange expectations of other people: It's not that he doesn't care about people.

He shows a lot of empathy at times. He's not always super good at communicating it, since his perspective on life is bit off from the norm, but he clearly cares about people.

In general, he hates war, he hates blood; he doesn't want to see people in pain.

More specifically, he does things like comfort Bernadetta about her painting. He tries to help Dorothea not care about the nasty rumors people are spreading about her. And he tries to give Marianne confidence that her existence isn't a curse.

In each of these cases, we can also see why he's not immediately successful. With Bernadetta, he is a little too honest and blunt in his well-meaning suggestions. With Dorothea, his solution, "Just don't care!" is...not super helpful if the person hearing it is, you know, caring. And with Marianne, his analytical, rational approach to disproving her hypothesis that she brings bad luck to others is dry and clinical. (I use the word "hypothesis" because Linhardt would understand the technical difference between a "hypothesis" and a "theory"). His approach makes sense, although I can see why, for many people, it would not be comforting exactly.

One of Linhardt's traits that I most identify is his tendency to start to argue a position logically, but to give up and just "whatever" it away as soon as the conversation becomes just a bit too long. I think it ties back to his very strongly avoidant personality. He knows what's right. He's thought it through and come to a logical conclusion, and he's even willing to share that with you! But as soon as it becomes a pain to explain it all, it's not worth the effort. After all, he doesn't ultimately care that much what you think, so why spend a bunch of energy trying to change your mind?

But I also think this tendency of his ties in a lot to the tragedy of Linhardt.

When someone has spent their life finding that their way of thinking is out of sync with others, and that their way of communicating doesn't seem to work much of the time, it does become exhausting. It's discouraging. It becomes much easier to just give up then to even try.

I personally think that this has been Linhardt's experience in life. His rational and straightforward way of approaching problems--even emotional problems--is exactly the kind of approach that many people would find "robotic" or "cold". (Wait, Fódlan doesn't have robots. Maybe I should say "golemic"?) Therefore, his experience is that his words often do not work well, regardless of whether he's "right" or not.

I suspect that Linhardt has not really had friends growing up, aside from Caspar. There are also plenty of hints in the games that he has a strained relationship with his parents. At the very least, he is a huge disappointment to his father. Linhardt is the heir to his father's important position within the empire (Minister of the Interior), and Linhardt clearly has no interest in taking on those responsibilities. And this would be especially likely to cause a huge rift in their relationship seeing as Linhardt's father is clearly very politically ambitious, working both to take power from Emperor Ionius (Edelgard's father) along with other nobles, and then later undermining Duke Aegir (who led the noble uprising against the emperor) by working with Edelgard to help her rise up and take power.

And while Linhardt is probably more happy to be alone than most people, almost no person wants to be totally alone. I think Linhardt's life has been a lonely one, with him often being misunderstood and dismissed as "weird" and "lazy", and his attempts to help others being viewed as "cold" and "too logical".

But that's as good a segue as any to talk about who Linhardt can get along with!

(I'll be skipping Lysithea and Hapi since I already mentioned Linhardt in my respective posts about them.)

Caspar

So let's get the big one out of the way first. I don't know if I have much new to say about this one, but it's so interesting that I have to talk about it!

Kind of like Hapi and Constance, Linhardt and Caspar is another one of those pairings that is so baffling that you can't help but believe it.

Could these two have any less in common? Linhardt hates exercise and physical effort and likes intellectual pursuits. Caspar can count the number of thoughts he's had in his head in his life on one hand. And Caspar loves training, fighting, and getting stronger more than anything.

What the hell do these two even talk about when they hang out together?

Well, we get some hints of it in their supports in-game. We know they met as kids, and I can very much picture how it happened. Caspar is energetic and optimistic. I'm sure he was the one who initiated contact, probably introducing himself to Linhardt and then immediately dragging him off to play some stupid game that resulted in Caspar somehow getting hurt and/or breaking something.

And this was probably the pattern for their whole childhood.

But what does Caspar even see in Linhardt? Well, Caspar, again, is freed from the burdens of thinking, so Linhardt's "oddness" probably barely registers to him. He seems like the kind of person to just take it as, "Yeah, that's just how Linhardt is!" and not be bothered by his friend's strange ways of approaching life. And I also imagine that Caspar figured out early on that Linhardt was a good friend who could protect him by doing the thinking for both of them.

What's that, Caspar? You broke the door to your room while practicing your WWF (War-Monk Wrestling of Fódlan) moves? Again? Sigh! I'll think of an excuse to get you out of trouble.

Linhardt has probably gotten Caspar out of trouble (not to mention stopped him from doing something dumb) more times than even he can keep track of. Caspar has learned that he can rely on Linhardt, and that's why we see him take Linhardt's advice about how to fight seriously in their support conversation in Three Houses. Linhardt isn't a fighter himself, but that doesn't mean he doesn't know what he's talking about. He knows how to fight (in theory).

And what does Linhardt get out of his relationship with Caspar? Aside from some headaches?

He gets someone who is loyal to him like a big (well, not that big), dumb, adorable dog. Caspar is never going to be judgmental towards Linhardt. Even if he doesn't understand why Linhardt thinks the way he does, or talks the way he does, or what all those big words he keeps using mean, he knows that Linhardt is on his side, and that's all that matters. For Linhardt, Caspar is someone he can just be with.

And all of this shows the funny way in which the two are actually very similar!

They both cut the fat from their lives. Both of them understand what they care about, and what they don't, and they are both perfectly willing to ignore the stuff that doesn't seem important to them. They get along because both of them know that the other one is there for them, and it doesn't really matter that they don't have much in common.

Goddess, they're adorable!

Aside from being great friends, there's a lot of romantic potential between these two. Who does the cooking once they're married? Oh, it's definitely Caspar most of the time. He makes huge, simple meals that are mostly just throwing as many things together as possible, and then he leaves the kitchen a mess afterwards. Once in a blue moon, Linhardt gets the energy to make something, and it is immaculately prepared, using unusual ingredients, and requiring hours of prep time. He makes it once because the recipe somehow caught his attention, but it's a lot of effort, so he never makes it again.

Byleth

So like with Hapi, I bring up Byleth with Linhardt because Linhardt is one of the characters where, even if we put aside the avatar worship, I can really see why he would like Byleth.

The most obvious factors? Byleth has a rare crest, is not overly talkative, and had a weird childhood and therefore is not judgmental (or even aware?) of others' oddities.

I don't personally get a lot of romantic vibes from these two, and besides, who would ever make the first move? But I think they would be good friends and fishing buddies.

This would be one of Linhardt's only relationships where he would be the bigger talker. He could spend time fishing with Byleth, and while they would be happy to be silent together, I could also see the silence giving Linhardt the space to info-dump whatever he's been learning about recently. Byleth may or may not follow everything, but they'll listen, and Linhardt's enthusiasm will be catching.

I think it's very special that Linhardt would finally get a chance to be the proactive one in a relationship! Good for him!

I also think that their relationship would change a lot from pre to post timeskip. Pre-timeskip, Linhardt sees Byleth as a mentor figure since they are literally his teacher. But post-timeskip, Byleth generally gets thrown into some role they weren't prepared for (well, ok, they weren't prepared for teaching either) and I think that Linhardt's broad and surprisingly deep base of knowledge on many subjects would make him a trusted advisor. Byleth would come to lean on Linhardt a lot as they navigate their way through leading a society they barely are familiar with. (Byleth's experience dealing with greater Fódlan society is--what?--a year in Garreg Mach? And then they were asleep for 5 years! And then they had a year of war, which is not normal. Like, is there any reason to believe that Byleth knows how anything is even supposed to work in government? Probably not.)

And I think this situation of Byleth relying on Linhardt would be good for Linhardt too. Aside from the confidence boost of someone actually taking him seriously, he might start to gain an appreciation for the complications of, and the necessities of, governing. Interestingly, Byleth more than anyone might bring Linhardt to a better understanding of his father by forcing him to grapple with issues of governance, the field his father was in, and that Linhardt wanted to avoid having foist upon him.

Constance

I really think these two should have interacted in Three Houses! There's a pattern in Linhardt's supports where he makes an absolute fucking bee-line for anyone with an unusual crest (Marianne, Hapi, Lysithea) and Constance is a glaring exception to that. (He does ask her about her crest in their Three Hopes supports, although I personally found those supports a little unsatisfying since the conversation didn't feel like it really went anywhere.)

But aside from Linhardt's definite interest in Constance's crest, as well as the magic her family has used for generations to hide the crest, these two would also just be excellent intellectual peers.

Like with Lysithea, Linhardt's lackadaisical attitude would grate on Constance (at least when she's in the shade), but she is results-driven, and Linhardt is smart enough and dedicated enough (to the things he wants to do) that she would quickly come to see the benefits of interacting with him.

And unlike with Lysithea, Constance would not be bothered by the messy state of Linhardt's study. How could she be? Hers is ten times worse!

Plus, these two are definitely both night-owls, and they are both the type to get obsessed with a topic and to chase after it until they literally collapse with exhaustion. If they end up working together, they are going to need someone like Hapi or Mercedes around to make sure they actually eat and drink water occasionally.

I also think Linhardt would be one of the most patient people with Constance's sunny-side. He is compassionate about people who are suffering, and I think along with Hapi, he is the most likely to calmly take Constance's arm and guide her back to the shade when she begins bemoaning her worthlessness.

Romantically, I think these two would be hilarious, but it might actually work. Think L'Arachel and Rennac, or Serra and Erk, except Linhardt is a bit more stubborn and won't go along with anything he really doesn't want to do. But I think he would value Constance's proactive nature, and would be willing to tag along since, letting Constance handle all the messy details of...well, everything...would free him to focus entirely on his interests. Even if Linhardt took over as the Count after his father, the real Count would be Constance. She wants to do that job, and Linhardt is happy to let her. (And for whatever it's worth, Linhardt's father would probably love Constance for this reason. Finally, he can rest easy knowing that his daughter-in-law will take care of things!)

I've made it sound a bit like a political marriage-of-convenience by describing it this way, but keep in mind, they do truly respect each other, and they share intellectual interests.

I mentioned before that Constance is the only character (I think) who we see explicitly researching uses for magic other than fighting and healing. I think this would be a huge bonding point for them. Linhardt hates war and fighting, and he definitely is the type to have varied, eclectic interests. I think he would be very interested in working with Constance to develop radical, new ways to use magic in everyday life. And he would be a good counterbalance to her. She provides the drive, and Linhardt is the voice of reason who is like, "Um, that's interesting that we can use magic to make people's hair shine in the dark, but wouldn't it be more useful to imbue it into a device so that it could be used in place of a torch?"

Linhardt would ensure that Constance's discoveries were actually useful to people.

Hilda

This is another one where I can't believe they didn't interact more in Three Houses. They were even in the DLC together! (I can see the two of them hanging out at night, but why was Ashe there too?)

These two can bond over wanting to be free from responsibility, definitely. That's the easy part to see. But I also think they would sympathize with each other over the pressures of familial obligations and expectations.

Their situations aren't exactly the same. Hilda's family (at least her brother) is totally supportive of her, and it seems unlikely that she'll have to take over her house even though she's the one with a crest and not her brother. But she still feels pressure precisely because she does have a crest, and she's the one who can wield the family weapon. She knows how hard her brother is working to make it so that she doesn't have to be the heir, and she feels guilty about it on some level.

In contrast, Linhardt is an only child, so it's a little more straightforward. He is supposed to be the heir to his house, but he is a disappointment to his father because he has no interest in taking over the odious position of Minister of the Interior.

But both of them want to be free. And both of them see the value in taking it easy and enjoying life.

For romance, well, I've said before that Linhardt rarely gives off many romantic vibes to me, and I also don't think he's quite Hilda's type. (She seems to mostly prefer muscular, athletic men, judging based on who her out-of-house romantic, male options are in-game.)

But these two would definitely be good friends! Hilda's doing all the talking for the most part, but Linhardt is happy to listen. He's also ok with it if Hilda experiments with hairstyling and nail painting designs on him while he's taking a nap. He can be her living practice mannequin.

That's right. Hilda + Linhardt = the most fabulous Linhardt you've ever seen. Maybe he can finally be allowed to class into Gremory too.

Shamir

I haven't mentioned non-students much up until now, but Linhardt's a good place to start. His quiet introspective nature means that I think he would often get along better with "the adults" than with his noisy, party-loving, teenage-and-early-twenties peers.

And my personal head-canon of Shamir as a sometimes-teacher at Garreg Mach is that, she's doing it because she has to. It's not really her thing, and her lectures are the ones most likely to have lots of "self-study" time built in. She also isn't bothering anyone about showing up late or falling asleep in class because, what does she care? It's your education. You do what you want with it!

So I could see Linhardt really liking Shamir as a teacher because he knows that when she's showing up, he can either catch up on sleep or use the self-study time to actually read about what he wants to. And Shamir likes Linhardt as a student because he demands none of her attention and is quiet.

(Maybe it sounds like I'm putting down Shamir as someone who's a lousy teacher and doesn't give a shit about the students, but I don't really mean it that way. She didn't sign up to teach. But Garreg Mach is an understaffed, poorly run shit-show that hires random mercenaries as professors because of nepotism, so I'm sure Shamir is being pushed into teaching sometimes to fill in the gaps. She puts in the minimal effort, and if any students are interested in something she knows a lot about, like bows, I bet she's pretty enthusiastic about teaching them. But man, she does not get paid enough to deal with petty student drama in a classroom. She has probably perfected the art of flicking pieces of chalk to hit over-bearing, noble students in the forehead when they start talking too much. Ferdinand leaves every Shamir lecture with white smudges on his face.)

After the war, I could see Shamir mentioning off-hand to Linhardt that she's heading back to Dagda, and he is just the type to take a sudden interest and be like, "Oh? Can I go with you?" It's a lot of trouble, of course, but he's never seen Dagda. There's so much to learn! And if he goes with Shamir, she'll take care of the nuisance details of transportation, etc.

They're good road-trip buddies. And whenever Linhardt returns to Fódlan, he'll be bringing back his own self-researched definitive guide to the birds and plants of Dagda, as well as the first ever Fódlanese-Dagdan dictionary.

Mercedes

Two absolutely gentle souls, neither of whom really wants anything to do with warfare, these two would get along so well.

Linhardt's long-running problem is people judging him for wanting to just be himself. Mercedes is absolutely the last person on earth to be critical and judgmental. And if they were a married couple, Linhardt would never try to tell Mercedes what to do with her life. If she wants to spend all her time working for the church, or taking care of orphans, whatever it is, Linhardt will be ok with it.

Mercedes would absolutely dote on Linhardt, and she would manage to gently guide him to do things to better take care of himself. She's the only person who could tell him what to do, because she wouldn't tell, she'd encourage.

"Lin, wouldn't it be fun to wake up and have tea together in the morning? Oh, but I suppose you might have trouble getting up that early..."

Linhardt sighs. He gets the hint. He goes to bed at a reasonable hour, even though he had been really excited to read that new book he'd just gotten his hands on. Somehow though, he doesn't mind when he sees Mercedes's smile when he gets into bed at 11:00 instead of 4:00 am.

Is it a little passive-aggressive? Yeah. But Mercedes has been beaten down enough by life that I think that's become her go-to method for expressing her desires. But maybe she could learn to say what she wants more clearly with Linhardt. He's gentle and non-judgmental, and he's the kind of person where she could learn to be more confident in expressing herself.

The two of them would definitely become pudgy as they got older. Neither one likes exercising, and Mercedes likes baking sweets.

Putting aside them as a married couple, I think they would be really good friends too. Like with many of Linhardt's relationships, I think that Mercedes would do most of the talking, but she's probably a very good listener, and Linhardt would be comfortable rambling about crest-research to her, even if she clearly doesn't follow along with everything.

I can also imagine Mercedes telling Linhardt about some issue she's seeing with the people she's helping out, and then, 3 months later, Linhardt shows up unannounced with a solution that he's been working on in his spare time.

"Oh, I had some extra time, so I put together a new spell that is even more effective at reducing fevers."

"Oh, I looked into what crops would grow best in the local soil and managed to procure some seeds. I predict crop yields in the region will triple by next year if the local farmers begin growing these."

"By the way, I found a long-forgotten incantation that is very effective at warding of demonic beasts. You can teach the local mages, and it should help keep everyone safe."

Thanks to Mercedes, Linhardt might also discover a love of children. I'm torn on whether he would like kids or not. On the one hand, they can be a little loud and chaotic, but on the other, kids are often less judgmental than adults, and are usually open to learning new things. Linhardt might find himself teaching the local orphans about whatever it is he's currently interested in every time he visits Mercedes.

Conclu--uh, what a bother!

Yup, I'm done. Linhardt's not going to demand I write anymore. I'll take a page from his book and take it easy!