#and with that i mean people who started off at one end of the discourse ricochetted to the other side and then came out

[carlyraejepsans]

i was thinking about that ask i received the other day and how uncharacteristically upset the topic had made me when i usually just think "mh. gross!" and move on, and after mulling it over a while i realized it wasn't about the topic at all, it was the ask itself that freaked me out. i've mentioned sporadically before (for obvious reasons lol) that i used to be involved in fandom discourse when i was younger and that!! fucked me up quite a lot. between exacerbating my ocd and straight up getting cyber stalked (i almost feel guilty using that word, like i don't deserve it but. yeah that is 100% what happened to me), the topic is something I have very complex and personal opinions on but that i hate talking about in public because it still sets off my fight or flight response.

i know some people in the fandom are like "let me know if i ever rb someone who wrote/drew gross stuff" and that's entirely their choice and i respect it. but for the record, i am not one of these people. please, for the love of god, i am asking this genuinely do NOT come into my DMs about this, I don't want to know. assume I'm either living in blissful ignorance or my blacklist already covers me quite nicely & i wanna keep it that way. i vastly prefer the discomfort of stumbling into something unprepared and deciding what to do about it on my own, to the utter pit of dread i get whenever i open a message that starts with "hey just so you know-". i have blocked multiple people in the past over it. i WILL block more. be warned.

[note. this doesn't apply to people who have either hurt or behaved inappropriately with other members of the fandom, or spread bigotry and discrimination like racists and transphobes. please do let me know in those cases]

does this make sense? idk I'm kinda feverish you guys figure it out. I'm going to sleep.

[finalhaunts]

Lesbian flag discourse set us back like 20 years for real

[andivmg]

My experience with Luke (Punz)

CW: toxic relationship, racism, dubious consent

I know in the past i said that i would no longer speak about him publicly, and when talking about my experiences with abuse and emotional mistreatment i begged to keep it anonymous but after reflecting on this for a week and seeing so many incredibly smart and strong women tell their stories. they have given me the strength to say his name.

this is really scary to talk about because of the copious levels of harassment i have received from his fans in the past so if this spreads or gets out of hand i will simply log off.

If you read my last post, i nicknamed him 1.

So aside from everything i said there, there were a lot of things i didn’t include because they would’ve made it obvious that it was him and it could potentially backfire on me so, i’m very afraid to post this. but i’m going to do it scared anyway, because it’s not fair that he gets to just go and live his life worry-free as if he didn’t practically ruin mine.

Because I already made a very lengthy post about him, i won’t include everything i said last time to avoid being redundant but if i repeat myself, please bear with me.

In our year long relationship i had to endure emotional neglect, gaslighting, verbal abuse, one instance where there was dubious consent, and much more.

Starting off at the beginning of our relationship, that’s when i was getting copious amounts of hate and harassment from his fan base (warranted or not), he decided that our relationship must be kept private. he said it was to “protect” me from his fanbase when in reality it was to protect himself. it was so he wouldn’t get all the backlash i was getting. this is funny because one of the things i got called out for was saying the B slur (derogatory term used against mexicans/latinos). I won’t get into the nuances of if i could say it or not as a puertorican because that’s discourse that does not pertain to this specific situation. But you know who definitely can’t say it? A white boy from Massachusetts. When i was getting cancelled for this and getting thousands of tweets calling me names, he decided that was the perfect time to say “I mean you are a b***** aren’t you? my little b*****.” Now, he said this completely unprompted. I was in the process of writing my apology and he just said that. I tell you this because i immediately shut him down and told him that there was no universe in which it was okay for him to say that word and especially not one where he could just call me that. While i was reprimanding him, he was smiling and laughing. he apparently found it amusing to call me a slur. regardless, he gave me a half-assed apology and said he wouldn’t do it again. and he didn’t. but this wasn’t the only time he was weirdly racist to me. this was my first time being in an interracial relationship so i was led to believe that this was normal by all the white people around me at the time. But, sometimes my spanish accent would come out and he would make fun of me and the way i pronounced some words. He also refused to visit me in Puerto Rico when i lived there or come meet my family when i really wanted him to because he “didn’t like the heat” or “it’s dangerous there isn’t it?”. Once, while we were watching season 2 of Bridgerton, he implied that the Sharma sisters were “too dark” for him to be attracted to them. This hurt me because they are brown skinned girls. I am a brown skinned girl. Then this, combined with the fact that he told me once he wasn’t attracted to me made me feel like my skin color was unattractive. These are only a few examples i can think of at the moment, but i’m sure there were more. Our relationship ended in 2022 so some of my memory is a bit hazy. But, I do remember feeling inferior to him throughout the relationship because he was white and I was not. I chalk that up to all the micro aggressions i had to deal with because i had never felt that way around white people before.

Another thing i had to endure was him constantly making me feel like he was embarrassed to be with me. Because i was cancelled, he didn’t want to associate with me too much. He did defend me on multiple occasions, I’ll give him that. But, he only did it because his name was getting dragged in the mud along with mine. Excusing my actions made him look better for being around me. In reality he didn’t really care. Because he was such a big content creator and someone i looked up to professionally, I took his advice as law. He told me to tone down my personality, to keep a low profile, to change things about myself to be more palatable to his audience. The same audience that spoke about me like “The pussy can’t be that good punz please stop defending her”. So i changed a lot of things about myself and my content to better suit what his audience liked. He made me feel like if his audience liked me, he would be public about our relationship and stop hiding it. He told me the reason why he wanted to keep our relationship a secret was because he didn’t want to get hate for it. But this wasn’t true. On my 20th birthday he went to Las Vegas for a twitch rivals event. That night i asked to facetime him to say goodnight and he refused because he was at a hotel room with his friends and he didn’t want them to know that we were together. It was as if my mere presence or the utterance of my name was a source of embarrassment for him. And he didn’t let me forget it. It wasn’t just a public thing at that point. He didn’t want people to know we were together, period. This was devastating to me because I would talk to all my friends about him. I was so proud to be with him and I was just one more problem to him. He made me feel so small and insignificant just because his fans didn’t like me.

He would berate me a lot. Not just due to getting heat online, although he did do that a lot. But in general whenever we would get into an argument or a disagreement he would always call me names like annoying or weird or stupid. He would raise his voice at me if i did something he didn’t like and call me an idiot. And that really hurt, i felt like i couldn’t bring up anything or do anything without getting insulted. If I hadn’t seen him in a few days because he was too busy streaming and i asked to hang out he would call me needy, clingy, and annoying. Granted, he might not have been wrong, but that is not something you say to someone you claim to love. He also insulted me when i was in depressive episodes. I have BPD and at the time i was not being treated properly for it. So, I was all over the place emotionally and he was what i clung to for validation, reassurance, and love. I talked to him when we first started dating about my disorder and told him that if it seemed like something he couldn’t handle that he could opt out of the relationship. I guess he didn’t think it was that bad or something idk because whenever i had really bad depressive episodes, he would tell me I was too sad to hang out with. He said that my sadness was a burden to him. Which would be fair. But, once my mother had a conversation with him about me. She told him that i am someone who needs a lot of love and caring. She said that if he wasn’t willing to put in that kind of effort into a relationship to just leave me alone. He reassured her that he would be there for me no matter what. He told my mother that he would protect me and my heart. He did not. He took all the warnings I gave him and ignored them and then made me feel like I was the problem. And even worse, he would say that i was pretending to be sad to get his attention when he would neglect for days at a time.

There were also some smaller things like the fact that he made me feel really guilty whenever he would spend money on me. Also, he would be really mean about my eating habits. For context, i used to suffer from an eating disorder. I was anorexic and had a really unhealthy relationship with food during high school and my first year of uni. This relationship began when i was recovering from my ED. For me, eating was really hard. So i had certain comfort foods that, while sometimes unhealthy, at least it was something to eat when i didn’t feel like eating anything. He knew this. Yet, whenever i would crave some of these foods he would call me fat. Constantly told me I’d gain weight from eating all that junk food. Saying that to someone with an eating disorder is crazy. Other smaller things were that whenever I would post tiktoks where i was lip syncing or just looking good he would yell at me and say i was looking for attention. Same with Instagram or Twitter whenever i would post photos where I looked hot. He never planned out a single date for us. I would beg him to get me flowers and he did maybe once but i’ll get into that in a bit. He would make fun of me in front of his friends to make himself look better. He let his friends say really degrading things about me in his presence. For example, once when i was showering, i overheard him on a discord call with George and Sapnap and i heard George say “if you don’t go in the shower and have sex with Andi, i will”. Once, when i was really struggling with my legs (for those of you who don’t know, i have arthritis and it’s very painful. at the time i wasn’t diagnosed but i was in a lot of pain) I literally could not walk. I had to beg him to take me to the ER because i didn’t know what was wrong with me. He didn’t want to take me but eventually i convinced him, and while we were there all he did was complain about how long it was taking and that he would have rather been at home streaming. Whenever I would talk about my interests that i was excited about like shows or books he would be incredibly uninterested and say that those things were stupid and he didn’t want to hear about them. I know all of these seem very silly or superficial but cumulatively it was awful.

Now for arguably the most serious thing i’m going to talk about. I want to preface this by saying i am just telling my side of what happened. You can come to your own conclusions about this.

On April 25, 2022 it was our one year anniversary, and i had made a dinner reservation for us. I expected him to plan something throughout the day for us to do. He told me he was going to spend the whole day playing Valorant so I got upset and cancelled the reservation. After a very heated argument, we calmed down and i asked him to come over. He came over about an hour later with flowers and drinks (I was 20 at the time so I couldn’t buy the drinks myself). He brought Smirnoffs and Trulys. For context, I am a lightweight. I always have been. I literally get tipsy on half a cocktail. And that day, I hadn’t eaten anything because i was in distress over our argument. So we get to talking and drinking. I blacked out after my second Smirnoff. Apparently I drank 3 but I genuinely cannot remember anything after finishing the second one. The next morning i woke up naked in my bed. I woke him up and asked him “Luke, why am I naked?” and he said “Because you didn’t want to put your clothes back on.” When I clarified to him that that was not what I meant, he got defensive and said that he didn’t realize how drunk I was. He proceeded to tell me that I initiated sex with him and that i was very enthusiastic about it. He said he didn’t know i could black out on three smirnoffs. He made fun of me for being a lightweight and continued to make light of the situation. Then he mentioned that i fell off the bed at some point in the night and that it was funny how drunk I was. I then questioned him. Because if he thought that me tripping and falling off the bed because i was so drunk was funny, how did he not know that i was too drunk? He responded by saying that i fell off the bed only after we were done. That day I broke up with him. I’m still really confused about what happened that night. I don’t remember anything and all I have to go on is what he said to me. We were in a relationship at the time and he says he didn’t know how drunk I was so I’m not sure what to call what happened. A while after that day, his friend that hmu while we were broken up and I started talking again and i confided in him about that night. He told me to be careful saying things like that because they could get me into trouble. I spoke to some of our other friends about it and they told me it was no big deal and that it wasn’t his fault that he didn’t know how drunk I really was. Because I don’t remember, I have been led to believe that this is not a serious matter. You can think what you want, come to whatever conclusions you want. That is just my side of the story.

I want to add that I’m not proud of how I acted after the relationship ended. I felt really angry at all the shit he put me through and I guess a part of me wanted him to hurt even a quarter of how I did. So I started talking to his friend and got involved with him. This backfired on me because his friend ended up really hurting me too so ig i got my karma. But the thing that hurt the most is that because of what I did, some of our friends took his side in the break up. I was told that I did something terrible by getting involved with his friend that he was already insecure about and that he didn’t deserve that. These are the same friends who were witness to the dumpster fire of a relationship we had and all the things he did to me. They turned their backs on me because of this one thing I did. But stood by and watched as he treated me like garbage for over a year.

I will conclude this by saying that while this relationship has been “over and done with” for almost two years now, I carry a lot of trauma from it still. I still talk about him in therapy and have had to put in a lot of work to heal from what he did and i still cannot say that i am okay. I am very blessed to now have a patient and understanding partner who has helped me heal from that trauma and i just want to quickly thank him for that. Nobody deserves to go through what I did. While yes, it was a toxic relationship, and I had a part in that, it does not excuse all the awful things he said and did to me. This is my truth, thank you for taking the time to read it.

[vexwerewolf]

Should I read homestuck

tl;dr: no

actual answer: yes, but with some extremely important caveats.

Firstly, because Adobe shitcanned Flash, you can now no longer experience Homestuck in the form it was intended upon release... unless you download the Unofficial Homestuck Collection. This act of unbelievable, nay, saintly generosity by Homestuck's most dedicated fans allows you to experience Homestuck as it was intended - as close as is humanly possible.

"As close as is humanly possible" is the key phrase here. One indelible part of the original Homestuck experience was UPDATE! Homestuck would sometimes go weeks or even months (and later, years) between updates. I wasn't on Tumblr back in the day, but at the peak of Homestuck, even if you knew nothing else about it, you'd know when an update dropped because Tumblr's net traffic would increase something like three to fourfold. People would go apeshit bananas about whatever new revelations the Huss would drop on us.

You also need to realise that Homestuck is a product of its time and while its takes on sexuality and gender identity was pretty progressive (for its time), Huss did use the r-slur a bunch.

While we're on the subject of the author, Andrew Hussie (of whom my current understanding is that they have not changed name but go by they/them nowadays) is, in the most diplomatic possible terms, a very unique person. They are, at times, a visionary storyteller with genuinely fascinating ideas. At other times, they come off as kinda spiteful towards their readers.

Without meaning to dip into spoilers, some story beats seem (in my opinion) almost intentionally calculated to upset, irritate or mock certain fans. It never rises to the sheer vicious contempt that Steven Moffat had towards Sherlock's fanbase, but it does leave a bad taste in my mouth whenever I go back.

Additionally, and this is where a sort of birds-eye-view spoiler is unavoidable, the story suffers from the Game of Thrones pitfall of repeatedly increasing its own complexity by adding new plot threads without resolving existing ones, eventually leading to fatigue on the part of both the reader and the author. The arcs of a lot of characters just straight up get abandoned, while a couple of characters take an unnecessarily large amount of screen time.

There's one character in particular that the author openly states within the narrative (the author exists within the world of the story. It's... a whole thing) that they favour, and whose behaviour the story is warped to accommodate. You'll know exactly who I'm talking about almost the moment they show up.

Another reason I say that it's not really possible to read Homestuck as it was originally intended is because a lot of the shit that happens in it fits into the zeitgeist of the internet at the time any individual update was written. There's a whole section in the late middle third that is inextricably and very specifically tied to how it was like to use Tumblr in 2012.

Additionally, a lot of things have soured with time. There was the whole Hiveswap debacle (it was first announced in 2012. We got the first act in 2017. We got the second act in 2020. We do not even know if the third act will ever come out.). There were the legal threats. There were the Epilogues and Homestuck 2, which were... how do I put this? Not universally liked. There's been nearly a decade of discourse since Homestuck ended, and a lot of things haven't grown better with age.

All of that being said.

You should read it.

I cannot express to you just how big an impact Homestuck has had on internet culture. Even people who claim to hate Homestuck unconsciously use slang that it invented. Its unique ideas on storytelling, character design and narrative chronology have, in both subtle and unsubtle ways, changed the way millennials and Gen Z tell stories.

A lot of people were inspired to tell stories because of Homestuck - one example I always give to Lancer players is that Kill Six Billion Demons started as a comic on the MSPA forums (before it was homestuck.com, it was MS Paint Adventures), so Homestuck is in an indirect but demonstrable way responsible for the existence of Lancer. The sunglasses that Gideon Nav from the Locked Tomb wears have been explicitly stated by Tamsyn Muir to be Dave Strider's. Toby Fox made music for Homestuck, and worked on large parts of Undertale while living in Andrew Hussie's basement.

We also know someone in the Bluey creative team is a Homestuck, because...

There are subtle but direct references in Bojack Horseman, Hazbin Hotel, Steven Universe, Adventure Time - and those are just the ones that it's easy to prove! In a more general sense, I think there's a lot of cartoon series, movies, games, etc. that would either be very different or wouldn't exist if Homestuck hadn't happened.

It's certainly influenced my work.

I think, being very cautious to manage your expectations, that you should read Homestuck. At the very least, a lot of things people say on Tumblr will start to make, if not sense, a different kind of nonsense.

[cerusee]

I've never watched any Chinese dramas but I really enjoy your posts/gifs about them and it's got me interested in trying some! Do you have any recommendations for somebody who's totally new to them? Any tropes/background context I should be aware of? The historical/fantastical ones seem the most appealing to me.

Oooooh! My first thought on reading this ask was, “oh, I’m hardly qualified”; I’m only on my *stops to count on fingers* eighth cdrama, not counting the one episode I watched of the Wang Zhuocheng xianxia where he falls in love with a rock. (Long story.) There’s a lot of cdramas out there, and I myself have not even scratched the surface of what’s out there! That said, if you’re interested in historical/fantastical dramas, those ARE the ones I’ve been watching, so I still have some opinions despite being a total noob myself.

Do not start with The Untamed/Chen Qing Ling. Twas my first cdrama, like a lot of western fans, who were drawn to it in part because of the big censored-but-still-very-evident gay love story between the male leads, but honestly, as much fun as it is for the slash fans, it’s not a great jumping off point for either Chinese television in general, or even for its own wuxia-inspired genre setting. I say this as some who is still deep in the fandom four years later, and has immense love for the show: the first two episodes are flat-out bad, the overall pacing is bad (episodes frequently stop MIDSCENE), the worldbuilding is thin (a carryover from the novel it was based on), and without a larger context for why it’s made the way it’s made (stylistic choices, industry conventions, government censorship, genre conventions) a lot about it is confusing as hell to cdrama newbies, which is…so evident…a lot…in fandom wank I mean in the discourse about what story this story is trying to tell. Like, if you came to me and asked specifically, “I’m thinking of watching CQL. Should I watch CQL?” I would say yes, absolutely! It’s so much fun! I’m obsessed with the characters! I’ve written a lot of fanfic about the purple guy! But it’s not a good first cdrama, nor it is the best example of what the Chinese TV industry has to offer.

A MUCH better first cdrama especially if you like the historical/fantastical: The Legend of the Condor Heroes (2017), which not coincidentally was my second cdrama. It’s one of about a dozen television adaptations of the classic 1957 Chinese novel of the same name by Jin Yong, generally considered to be the inventor of the genre known as wuxia, which is a blend of history, fantasy, and martial arts. (One of the most well-known examples of wuxia in the west is Ang Lee’s Oscar-winning 2000 film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which you have probably at least heard of.)

Legend of the Condor Heroes (hereafter known as LOCH) has it all: romance, revenge, evil plots and daring deeds, people jumping off a burning mountain and being rescued by the worst CGIed eagles known to television or cinema, boat adventures, mountain adventures, grasslands adventures, a weird cult leader who lives on a spooky flower island (there will be math), murder, baby kidnapping, more murder, one guy inadvertently racking up a ridiculous number of martial arts teachers, sworn brotherhoods which invariably end with one guy stabbing the other, lots of VERY good martial arts fights, and, of course, Genghis Khan. Technically there are no magic/supernatural elements in this show—no ghosts, ghouls, magic, angels, devils, gods, etc—although the martial artists do have l33t skillz that might qualify as superhuman depending on how you slice your genre conventions, and are awfully fun to watch.

I’ve actually seen two LOCH adaptations (there was one in 2024 I liked a lot, with my favorite Guo Jing so far), but 2017 is a much better adaptation for newcomers as it tells a fuller version of the story and doesn’t skimp on or rush through or rewrite as many elements of the plot as other versions do; it’s meant to be a LOCH for people who haven’t seen half a dozen versions of LOCH already. It has a WONDERFUL cast, including my one of my favorite cdrama leading men, Chen Xingxu,* as the lead antagonist, Yang Kang, who is a trash fire of a person you just can’t root for, but he also can’t help it because he was raised by Wanyin Honglie. You can catch it on YouTube (I recall that there are couple of missing episodes from that playlist, but you can search on YT for those when you get there, to find them subtitled from other channels.)

*If you, like me, come away from LOCH 2017 with your mouth slightly ajar at how great CXX is, I have wonderful news for you! He’s been a lead in at least two other very good cdramas: the 2023 xianxia** The Starry Love, where he gets to play, like, five different characters (huge acting flex, and he’s great, although I would rush to stress I loved a ton of things about this show besides CXX himself), and the 2019 semi-historical drama Goodbye My Princess, which might actually be my favorite cdrama I have seen to date, and arguably THEE best well-made on a technical level, with phenomenal acting, a great script, and editing and directing I am constantly swooning over, but I am not entirely sure I can recommend to you unless you are a Tragedy Enjoyer.

(If you are a Tragedy Enjoyer, please stop whatever you’re doing and just start watching Goodbye My Princess right now, it is phenomenal. It is also available on YouTube. Watch the Director’s Cut, not the regular one! This is important. In its haste to get the main leads on screen together ASAP, the regular version does a Reader’s Digest version of stuff the Director’s Cut spends like five episodes carefully setting up, and it doesn’t make a lot of sense, nor does it flow well.)

**Speaking of xianxia! Xianxia is the high fantasy genre, full of magic and gods and demons and people dying and living multiple lives and whatnot. Important to note: xianxias are soap operas (complimentary). They tend to feature female protagonists, sweeping, epic romances, and put enormous emphasis on exploring the nuances of relationships and emotions. I have watched three that I loved (Love Between Fairy and Devil, The Starry Love, and Eternal Love: Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms), and while technically I could recommend all three, if you were going to watch just one, especially as a cdrama intro, I have to recommend Eternal Love, which really is the quintessential xianxia, the one all other xianxias are kind of shaping themselves around. I have watched it 1.5 times and I can say that it does not properly take off until like, episode 10, or whenever it is that the main couple finally, properly meet. IT IS WORTH THE INVESTMENT. This show made me want to spit blood. I cried multiple times watching it. It made me feel things. It has a wonderful immersive quality that’s hard to describe except to say that the entire show sort of vibrates on its own frequency. The casting is just kind of…perfect? Props to Maggie Huang for portraying the most perfectly hatable xianxia villainess of all time. Absolutely no one is doing it like Su Jin. No one should try. I believe this is available on YouTube, but after an abortive start, I realized it was on US Netflix, and watched it there.

As for tropes and background context: ehhhhhh. I mean, it’s an entire industry? I know substantially less about how it functions than I do about, like, American TV and film. I know government censorship is a not-inconsiderable factor, but I don’t know much of the nuance of how that plays out in terms of filming and airing. Tropes will vary according to subject. Idol dramas (shows built to showcase media personalities regardless of their ability to act) are a thing. Most cdrama audio is still dubbed (this one surprised me!), usually by professional voice actors and not by the original cast, for a confluence of reasons, some of which historically make sense (noisy filming lots rendering original audio useless), and some of which are really stupid (fans throwing hissy fits if lead actors don’t have the “right” kinds of voices for their characters).

Anyway! My recommendations are this: try The Legend of the Condor Heroes (2017) to start with, UNLESS you would prefer having your heart ripped out of your chest, in which case watch Goodbye My Princess (Director’s Cut, 2019), or UNLESS you love soap operas as much as I do, in which case watch Eternal Love: Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms (2017). All three are great shows, but they all hit differently/scratch a different itch.

Oh! Lastly! @dangermousie is a great source of cdrama recs. I should note she prefers dramas and tragedies and mostly does not vibe with xianxias. But she watches like eight million hours of dramas a week and reports her findings to us because she is a river to her people.

[ohnoitstbskyen]

Seeing that Luke post get thousands upon thousands notes is giving me hives. How does one become this fandom brained? I know the jokes are "don't mess with fans of X they don't even watch/read/listen to their own film/show/etc." and any fandom is going to cause some amount of ooc behaviour for the sake of jokes and memes and stuff, but surely at some point the character is so bent out of shape you stop to ponder what you're doing.

Who is this Luke Skywalker, collector of wayward orphans? Why would he want to be Reys dad? You get the feeling she might want it at the start of TLJ... And then the rest of the movie happens, going into great detail, at times in overly didactic ways, as to why that's a Bad Idea for her personal growth and the galaxy at large.

Even in older Legends material, where he ends up having actual kids, most of the lauded and beloved portrayals of his character are things like the original Thrawn trilogy, and in that he spends all three books struggling with if there's any place for him in the galaxy after the emperor died. The supposed definitive alternate sequel trilogy is, at least for Luke, largely about if he even should restart the jedi order, since his own training is incomplete and he has a deep fear any students he has are going to eventually succumb to the dark side, and how if they do it'll probably be a direct result of his incompetence. He does naturally, much like in TLJ, overcome these feelings of inadequacy and re-emerge as the definitive hero of the story, but spending a few years wallowing is just a very Luke way to deal with problems in life.

Like yeah I wonder why a bitter, self-isolating old man who views his life as a colossal failure wouldn't be jumping for joy when a younger, more naive version of himself shows up to his house uninvited.

For how desperate to venerate the Nostalgia the sequel trilogy project as a whole is, only TLJ really feels like it actually gives a shit about the story it's supposedly continuing. I didn't think you could look at Lukes death and not feel the overwhelming love and care for him specifically. I always shed a tear when binary sunset kicks in and I'm not even that into the originals. I was a prequel defender in 2010, Luke is the 20th character I think about when people mention SW.

Do people just not engage with the source material at all? Is this a product of the whole fandom tourism boom in the last 5-ish years? I genuinely don't want to be mean. After all, fandom is all of us playing with our toys, and you should always try to avoid a "old man yells at cloud" scenario, but like... It's a movie for 12 year olds that's very deliberately laying out all the cards. A slightly more nuanced and emotionally mature movie for 12 year olds than you might expect but... A child could get it, it's been focus grouped to hell and back so any given child on the planet should get it... How are you as an adult asking why the story had conflict?

I also broke out in hives a little bit when I found out that my addition (?) had made that thing go around. Or maybe it wasn't my addition, I'm actually not sure, but I worry that it was. The OP turned off reblogs, and I can only assume it was because people starting doing absurd bullshit discourse on the post which... hhhh I don't really like being part of inflicting that on anyone over something as unimportant as Star Wars opinions.

Also, the thing I was reacting against really wasn't the fact that people have headcanons about who and what kind of character Luke is - like, that's just normal and generally a good and fun part of fandom. I reacted against the idea of The Last Jedi being thoughtless about his character. It interprets Luke in a very specific way, but that interpretation is, I think objectively, deeply grounded in the history of his character and the thematic throughlines of the Skywalker-focused movies. So it annoyed me a bit to see people treat the depiction like it was some kind of failure to engage with the original material. I think that's not quite fair to what the movie was, and I think it leads to weak criticism of its flaws.

I think that the better angle for critique of the whole sequel trilogy and Rian Johnson's contribution is that obsesses far too much about the original trilogy, and is at its best in those few scant moments when it breaks away from it. If the sequel trilogy hadn't had the corporate mandate to be a kind of Frankenstein remake of the OT, perhaps a kindly old grandfatherly Luke could have been a fun and interesting interpretation of the character's future. Luke is what he is in TLJ because the trilogy absolutely fucking had to recreate the narrative beats of Dagobah, and therefore absolutely had to have Luke learn another lesson from Yoda about learning to let go of his attachments to and fears about the future and be present in the here-and-now.

Johnson is clearly a fucking nerd-ass Star Wars nerd, whose greatest mistake was assuming that other Star Wars nerds would engage with the material with good faith and an eye towards appreciation and discovery, rather than product-brained, screaming entitlement to their supremacy-affirming nostalgia security blanket.

To be clear, here I am talking about the culture war grifter assholes who poison the world, and not fandom people who have a cozy headcanon about Luke as a cheerful old community dad. I don't think it's fandom tourism to have a headcanon about a character, or a favored interpretation of them, even one which feels somewhat divorced from the original source-text. If I had to take a guess, the people on the original post developed that headcanon through fandom - by way of fanfics and fanposting and fanart, by way of fix-it fics and excited speculation. If I had to take a guess, they got their headcanon about Luke the same place everyone gets their headcanons about popular characters: from some combination of appreciation, projection, and a desire to see the thing you love tell a story that you need to hear. That's just human, and I don't think you can spend any significant amount of time in fandom without developing those attachments to certain stories or characters.

[shadow-redferne]

Proship vs Anti Discourse is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

(PT: Proship vs Anti Discourse is Why We Can't Have Nice Things) (Trigger warning: This post discusses multiple sensitive topics, including abuse, bullying, bigotry and suicide. Reader discretion *heavily* advised)

I've finally gotten around to this post and I'll admit I can already smell the hostility. Just some disclaimers: This post isn't me commenting on the morality of certain media or ships, nor is it me commenting on whether or not fiction affects reality. This is only to talk about the damage this kind of discourse has done to fandom. I am going to warn you: This is *not* a post full of kindness. I am not going to be nice. This post is going to be a bit mean. No. Very mean. Sorry about that. So, TL;DR: Both sides have a harassment problem, and neither side wants to address the issues their communities have, leading to fandom becoming an unsafe environment. So uh, I don't think I need to write a witty introduction here. The current state of fandom is rancid. Harassment has become a giant fucking problem lately. So what's the problem? The problem lies in one thing: 'Proship' vs 'Antiship' discourse.

"Shadow, what the fuck do those words mean?" Proship used to mean that you supported all ships, all forms of fiction, and that you were against harassing anyone who was involved in fandom, as well as against censorship. 'Anti', or 'antiship', meant that you were against some forms of fiction and shipping, mainly ones involving minors or incest. Now you might've noticed that I used the phrase "used to" and the word "meant". That's because both terms kinda got new definitions and became buzzwords, with proship turning into a synonym for 'problematic shipper' (the term 'darkship' eventually came around to distinguish the two apart from my understanding, but uh...as you can see it hasn't helped much!). On top of that, people use the word 'proship' as a verb or type of content rather than an actual stance (ie. 'proshipping', 'proship content', 'proship artstyle', you get the idea). However that's not the main point here. Let's cut to the chase now; both sides fucking hate each other; we'll make that clear, with both sides throwing vile accusations towards one another. However, the more I looked into the swamp, the more distrust I gained for both sides. Something was bothering me, but what? I tried to do a survey; two of them in fact, to see which side was more hostile. Unfortunately, neither survey gave me a lot of useful results, considering I got very little responses from the anti side (So uh, thanks for nothing on that end guys. /nm). The written responses did give one common theme: Fandom has a problem. A problem with harassment, bullying, creeps and bigotry. The antis are particularly horrible when it comes to this. I'm going to start this off by saying that I actually used to consider myself an 'anti' due to my discomfort with noncon and incest. And unfortunately, I was pretty fucking hostile to others (although I never sent death threats, fuck anyone who does that shit). I eventually stopped associating with the 'anti' side when I saw how rampant the ableism was- more on that later. 'Antis' have caused severe harm to fandom, and I don't really understand how anyone can deny that. However, I am pretty fucking tired of everyone pretending that the 'proship' side is the good side. I know the 'proship' side isn't going to like hearing this, but it needs to be said: You guys are *just* as guilty as 'antis' when it comes to being toxic. And I'm not saying that because of the pro-incest stuff or the minor/adult pairings. I'm saying that many 'proshippers' are way too comfortable with being creepy towards others, and the community that claims to be 'anti-harassment'... isn't all that anti-harassment! Here are just some of the written responses I got from the survey:

Here's one alibi from an anonymous user who submitted to the @selfship-confession-box account (pls let me know if you dont want to be tagged)

Another anon that was submitted to the @proship-anti-discussion account

Lastly, here's some of the replies and reblogs to a post talking about an 'ex-proshipper' that left the community due to negative experiences (the OP of said post and the 'ex proshipper' in question did eventually apologize to each other, so I'll cut both of them some slack. I'm only showing the responses because holy fuck are they rancid).

So yeah. So much for the 'proship' community being "anti-harassment" and inclusive to SA and grooming survivors. Now, to the 'anti' side. I will say, the 'proshippers' got one thing right, and that's the fact that 'antis' very much fucking suck. And remember when I said that 'proshippers' were hypocrites? Well, 'antis' are also that. They talk so much about protecting "sa survivors" and how "proshippers are bigoted". But what do the written responses say about this?

and let's not forget *this*

I also want to bring up this comment about the term 'proship artstyle' that I thought was worth mentioning:

In other words... 'antis' aren't as great to hang around either! Now, there's one particular issue I really want to zero in on, and that's the rampant ableism from both sides. As one of the above written responses say, there is a huge problem of 'antis' and 'proshippers' misusing words like 'psychotic' and 'delusional'. The r-slur is also pretty rampant, I've noticed.

Still don't believe me? Okay. Here's a more recent example from an anonymous 'anti' I came across (ironically enough this came up when I searched "proship ableism". Also. fatphobia too? pick a struggle anon)

And that's not even getting into the amount of 'antis' who weaponize the saying "seek help" or "go to therapy". Now, let's go back to the terms supposed original meanings, particuarly the meaning for 'proshipper'. That term was supposed to mean that you were against censorship and harassing people for fiction and ships, and that you didn't judge people for liking certain ships. Meanwhile, 'antis' were supposedly about wanting to get rid of problematic media that could be harmful to minors and SA survivors. But it's time to be honest: Both sides have lost the plot. How am I supposed to believe either side is "anti-harassment" when neither side knows how to respect boundaries? How am I supposed to believe either side cares about SA survivors when you have both sides constantly speaking over said survivors and also harassing them? How am I supposed to believe either side cares about minors when there's been individuals on both sides, yes, including the so called "antis" that "care so much about protecting children uwu", that were outed as groomers? How am I supposed to believe either side is the good side when you have things like this happening:

The last thing I take issue with? The terms "proship" and "anti" as a whole, as well as every single similar term that's come out of this mess. While I do genuinely believe these terms were probably helpful in the past, it's clear that they're not doing any good whatsoever. Both terms have had their original meanings muddied and twisted to the point where they basically have no meaning at all, and the terms existing have created a massive "us vs them" mentality within fandom. There's also the issue of both sides forcing labels on others. I've seen posts that are all "if you believe x, congrats you're a proshipper!" or "if you believe y, you're an anti!". As well as anyone identifying as 'neutralship' (a label I also used to identify with before I stopped associating with these labels entirely) being called a "closet proshipper" or an "anti in disguise". Personally? If you have to force people to pick a side in order for you to trust them, I don't see why I should trust you. If you have to rely on labels like "proship", "anti", "anti-anti", "anti-harassment", "anti-censorship" to come across as a safe person or a good person, I'm sorry, but I'm not going to see you as a good person. You might be wondering why I included the "anti-harassment" and "anti-censorship" labels in that. Well, I'm going to be honest, and you are welcome to disagree with me on this, but I feel like these terms are so fucking unnecessary. Being "anti-harassment" and "anti-censorship" is the BARE FUCKING MINIMUM, a bare minimum that neither side can truly follow. Also, calling yourself "anti-harassment" doesn't automatically make me believe that. Especially when it's been proven time and time again that 'proshippers', the side believed to be 'anti-harassment', isn't all that 'anti-harassment' at all! Now I know what you're thinking at this point; you're thinking that I condone harassment because I'm going after both sides. You're thinking that I don't give a damn about the death threats that 'antis' have sent. No. No. No. That is not what I'm saying. And honestly, if *that's* the message you're getting, I don't know what to tell you.

So no, I'm not saying harassment is good or okay (and if that's the message you got from reading the above... I genuinely do not know what to tell you). I'm saying that you don't deserve a medal or a cookie for not sending death threats or being against people who send death threats, when it's literally the BARE MINIMUM. The bar is in fucking hell at this point. And as it's been shown, neither "proshippers" nor "antis" are truly anti-harassment. Me not liking 'proshippers' doesn't automatically mean I'm okay with sending them death threats, and me not liking 'antis' doesn't make me okay with abuse. And it sure as fucking hell doesn't mean that I don't care either. Because guess what? I do fucking care. It's why I'm fucking making this post in the first place. I shouldn't have to identify as "proship" or "anti" or any other labels to tell you that I care. Me refusing to use a label doesn't mean I'm apathetic to all the harm that's happened. And I sure as hell am not condoning harassment by refusing to hold hands with individuals who can't even bother to respect each other's boundaries. And honestly? If you interpret "I don't support proshippers *or* antis because they both made fandom toxic and unsafe" as "I condone sending death threats and rape threats", that's kind of on you. Here's a simple message I have for anyone who calls themselves "proship" or "antiship", and I am going to be especially mean here: Stop pretending to brand yourselves as the good guys when all you've done is break boundaries, talk over abuse survivors and marginalized groups. Stop being hypocrites, and actually address the issues within your goddamn communities. And stop downplaying said issues by saying "BUT THIS SIDE IS WORSE!" or "BUT THEY DO IT TOO!". Also, stop forcing people to use your dumb labels. Literally all of this could be fucking solved with using the block buttons or report buttons. There is no reason for this stupid fucking infighting. You don't have to like each other, fuck no, but quit dragging those who aren't involved into your messes and ruining fandom for everyone.

To "antis": Quit pretending to care about SA survivors and minors when you're the ones sending them death threats (And maybe address the fucking groomers within your community too, by the fucking way). To "proshippers": Stop being a dick to people who have had negative experiences with your community, stop ignoring the bigotry and stop letting in predators within your community. Now lastly, I know I said I wasn't going to comment on stances, but I do want to say this because it's also very much fucking bothering me. I hate how this discourse just boils down to either "Fiction DOESN'T affect reality at all, it's 100% okay to support ANY kind of media/ship/pairing no matter how problematic it is, and if you disagree with that you're a fascist!" or "Actually supporting ANY kind of media that's problematic and/or depicts so and so is BAD and if you support that you're a horrible human being! And if you disagree with me you're just as bad!" Have you guys perhaps, I don't know: Considered a fucking middle ground? Have you maybe considered nuanced discussions? How about that? Okay, I'm done being mean. In fact, I actually don't have much else to say so here's a video that talks about it a little more nicer than I do

*Sigh* I'm going to regret posting this, aren't I?

[pandemonini]

some rambling about nagi and reo's relationship because I'm bored

The discourse around these two is once again piping hot with the release of chapter 306. Originally I wanted to make a whole essay complete with exhibits about this but I honestly feel too lazy so I'm just going to go off in a rant instead. (Maybe I'll do the essay some day, though. They deserve it cause their relationship is more complicated and in-depth than most BL I've read).

I want to preface this by saying that as annoying as I find the whole biased pov issue between the fans of the two, this kind of thing isn't exclusive to the two of them when it comes to fandom. It's almost always the case that whenever there is a pair of flawed characters interacting, there is a tendency to have a bigger bias for one of them regardless of the actual canon interactions and whatever issues the two of them may have. But I will say that I find it more frustrating in this case because for once I can't even blame the author for being vague or inconsistent. Kaneshiro is Very clear and consistent with the way he writes these two more so than anyone else in the series imo, it's why they're my favourites, and then I'm like 'oh let's see what everyone else thinks' and then immediately regret my choice.

The thing about Nagi and Reo's relationship is that a lot of Reo's earlier actions, especially at the starting point of their acquaintance, would've come off way worse if Nagi was a girl. Showing up in front of his house unannounced in a fancy car, chasing him around school grounds, basically wearing him down into agreeing with him, none of that would've been okay if Nagi was a female character. When Reo says that he forced Nagi into playing football, it's obvious that atp he's become conscious of the fact that his earlier actions weren't entirely healthy approaches to interacting with someone and getting them interested in your hobby. And this is a more realistic viewing but it gets even worse when you consider their social standings, Reo being the scion of a billionaire while Nagi doesn't even have any family members around to protect him. But the general response to Reo actually apologising for those things was utter dismissal of the words, because Nagi himself disregarded them and only ever expressed gratefulness to Reo.

But here is the thing: as a reader, we're not always supposed to see things from the characters perspective, that's why we have literary techniques like dramatic irony. We, as the readers, are supposed to perceive that as a moment of reflection for both of them where they finally become transparent about their feelings. That Nagi disregarded that apology isn't proof that Reo didn't do anything wrong, because Nagi the character would not think that way. Nagi sees him as the light of his life, rightfully so because at the end of the day, the mistakes Reo made back then don't define their entire relationship, which clearly means more to Nagi than even football. That was always the case because what brought color to Reo's life was football, but it was Reo who brought color to Nagi's, football is just an extension of that.

It brings me back to what Nagi' voice actor said, about how Nagi ultimately feels more strongly about Reo than Reo does about him. This was ALWAYS the case, because the transactional nature of their relationship is something Reo established whereas Nagi was clearly becoming emotionally attached to him very quickly and very hard. And it's part of the really good nuances in their relationship that this isn't immediately obvious, owing to the way Reo is more expressive and passionate while Nagi is more stoic and subtle.

A lot of people like to point to that scene in the prequel chapter where Reo says Nagi is irreplaceable as a moment of foreshadowing, and they're not wrong about that, but they Are wrong about what this moment is foreshadowing, or at least the full context of it. Because the fact of the matter is that Nagi NEVER replaced Reo, so it couldn't be foreshadowing THAT. So what was the foreshadowing about? It's actually very obvious but it's the kind of thing a good chunk of fans like to overlook, and it's how Reo was ONLY talking about Nagi's value in the context of football, not about Nagi himself, as a person. He says, verbatim, that he would not have approached Nagi if it weren't for his football talent. What this scene foreshadowed is Reo's attachment to Nagi growing far beyond the boundaries of that quid pro quo situation--that the moment he felt that HE was being replaced, it mattered to him not because of the defeat he experienced, but because he lost Nagi Seishirou because of it.

I always loved the Second Selection arc because it would've been so easy for knshr to just reduce that situation to a pompous rich boy losing the toy he picked up, but instead he made sure to keep it more grounded, to treat the characters actually realistically: two teenage boys with wildly different yet so similar personalities ending up inevitably clashing because they never properly parsed through their feelings or established the boundaries of their relationship (which isn't exactly atypical for teenagers). But lo and behold, the fandom did all the work for him in terms of placing 100% of the blame squarely on the shoulders of one of them.

Going back to what I said about how this kind of situation where two characters are paired and then have a disagreement between them always being reduced to a mess of biased discourse, what I always hate about it is that it completely diminishes what I personally find most enjoyable when I read something, and it's character growth.

For all that the non-reddit dudebro side of fandom likes to call out the reddit dudebros for always just caring about who wins the most games and not about the characterisation, a lot of them seem to think the only maturing Reo had to do is him getting better at football and his self-esteem that ended up in shambles after the fallout with Nagi.

Which, okay, let's address that.

There is no arguing that what Nagi did then was WRONG and that he owed Reo an apology way sooner than he ended up giving it, but I also feel like we're not considering exactly WHY Nagi walking away hit Reo so hard. And again, I don't even know why there is a misunderstanding here when the text very straightforwardly explains an important reason for why Reo had a catastrophic breakdown was because this moment was the first time he had something actually taken from him, when all his life he was used to just owning whatever he wanted. And I have no idea why it has to be explained how that's a REALLY fucked up and unhealthy way of thinking about another person. We literally see Reo during that monologue thinking about all the awards and toys he would receive growing up, THAT is what losing Nagi is being compared to. When I say that their relationship was always complicated and they're always been flawed, I'm not talking about Reo being too unforgiving or potentially unreasonable. Reo had all the right in the world to be furious at Nagi for walking away like that, that was NOT the issue. Reo's fault with regard to that whole thing is that he himself established that relationship of mutual benefit (that's actually more to HIS benefit since Nagi had yet to genuinely enjoy football up to that point, he enjoyed being with Reo but that's something Reo didn't seem entirely conscious of) and then got angry when the person on the other hand didn't play by his unwritten rules.

And again, YES Nagi should've handled that better, but I genuinely believe that no amount of him gently explaining himself would've stopped Reo from freaking out. Because Reo inherently had that issue, stemming from his unhealthy family life where clearly his parents thought shoving material wealth in his face is enough affection on a normal Tuesday, where he tied his own value to ownership and to winning. It was always ingrained in his psyche that he is perfect, that he HAS to be perfect, and so Nagi leaving would've always been "Nagi is abandoning me to be with someone better" in his head and would've set him off. And that's where the self-esteem issues come from, that's why you don't just spoil your kids endlessly in a materialistic way. It fucks up their perception of normal human interaction.

(Sounds familiar doesn't it? It almost seems like Nagi and Reo parallel each other, sharing similar problems yet in contrasting ways.)

I don't have any grand statement to finish this off with other than that I don't understand how you can love Reo without paying attention to how he grew out of his very real flaws, that stripping him of those flaws and mistakes just takes away so much of the high that came with that emotional speech him and Nagi had when Nagi lost, why it was so significant to have him say the things he did. How the two of them came full circle to the very beginning of their relationship, the mistakes they made, and how much they meant to each other, and watching that culminate into another heartbreak because unfortunately that's also a normal teenage experience.

Neither Nagi nor Reo are master manipulators out to abuse each other. They both did objectively wrong things, the mistakes they made don't define their relationship but they didn't just go away with the wind either. They never started off the right foot, and in the toxic environment of Blue Lock, it was inevitable that it would come crashing down when Reo still didn't let go of his insecurities and Nagi still let fear keep him from fully embracing football and Reo.

Reo and Nagi didn't fail because they depended on each other. They failed because they never defined the nature of their dependence, never fully became in sync with each other, just enough to work briefly but end up bumping against each other and tripping at a critical moment.

(P.S. if you happen to see this and get mad that I mainly focused on Reo' faults in this, just go to any other tag to read someone bitching about Nagi. Trust me, you'll find them.)

[project-sekai-facts]

Im sorry i know you said not to ask you to elaborate on that last point, but i cant help myself.

I mean yeah it's not biphobic to dislike bi minori, but it's still hurtful when ppl are super strongly against bi hcs (to the point of acting like lesbian minori is canon, and bi = morally wrong -- not you but fandom in general) over an implied sapphic character because as you said, ppl treat bisexuality as just Straight Plus. I just want to know why you added that last part to support why it's ok to not like bi headcanons. like.... are you saying people only have bi headcanons as an excuse to ship "het" couples?

As I said with Minori specifically, she's a character strongly coded as lesbian, so the fact that some people do not like headcanoning her as bisexual is entirely understandable, because she's like the closest thing to canon lesbian rep next to Kohane so obviously a lot of fans see themselves in her and want representation.

What I mean in regards to the fandom treating bisexuality as straight plus is that a lot of the time the whole "prsk fandom is biphobic" issue is brought up is with regards to m/f shipping. Such as with the Minori discourse afaik it started because of a minori fan account shipping her with men. And I'm absolutely not saying you can't hc a character as bi and ship them m/f, that's totally valid, but it's that commonly people only start bringing up biphobia when people don't like a m/f ship.

Like, it may be your headcanon that the characters in that ship are bi, but m/f couples are not inherently a bi thing. As a bi person it bothers me that a large portion of this fandom still defaults to "some people don't like m/f ships = biphobia" like what are you talking about. I think it's largely due to the english speaking side of the fanbase being made up of a lot of young queers and generally people assuming every character is queer off the bat. But it's very telling when people start calling biphobia over not liking a m/f ship that they're just viewing it as straight plus in a lot of cases.

Like again, I'm not saying you can't hc characters as bi and ship them m/f without shipping them with characters of the same gender as well. For the least discourse-inducing example I have, I like kaimeiluka and hc them all as bi, and I only ship kaito with those two and not any men. Like that's not my issue that's just normal my issue is that when people get upset over a m/f ship be it because they don't like it or because it features a character who is coded as exclusively gay, the people who like the m/f ship immediately jump to "you hate bi people" when that's not true and extremely disconnected from reality. m/f relationships are not inherently bi in the greater scope of reality, and it says a lot when someone immediately assumes m/f relationships as being the ones with bi people. We like both that's the entire point m/m and f/f ships can have bi people too.

Also in fandom terms as I've said before, everything comes down to preference. Some queer people don't like m/f ships that much and that's okay. That's not biphobic and also the characters in their slash and femslash ships could be bi. In the prsk fandom specifically you are not obligated to like any m/f ships, there's not many options in the first place. Sexuality goes hand in hand with shipping so people will ship and headcanon whatever they want regardless of what's implied in canon, because at the end of the day nothing is confirmed. As much as Minori is lesbian coded people are never going to stop shipping her with men, and if one day it gets confirmed they'll probably just start genderbending. (before anyone brings up Mizuki that's a different can of worms since there is confirmation in the text she is 1. amab and 2. identifies as female so going against that is blatantly transphobic)

[flower-boi16]

https://www.tumblr.com/flower-boi16/774678304341016576/i-thought-you-already-learnt-in-literacy-class

yeah, the issue isn't wanting the show to have a moral spelled out at the end or even that stol1tz is problematic.

the issue is that the show outright romanticizes its problematic ship - it isn't trying to be some character study of two messed up people without wanting the audience to come to any conclusions. It's blatantly obvious that the show is designed to make the audience think two things:

one: Stolas is only a tiny bit not really flawed and is basically the innocent wronged party in the relationship breakdown and 99% of the problems were caused by Blitzo and his insecurities and selfishness

and two: they actually want us to root for Stol1tz to work out.

and anyone who points out that they have no chemistry or that how Stolas started and continued the whole affair is textbook sexual extortion (something which the show has completely swept under the rug and refused to address) somehow gets accused of being a puritan or having low media literacy? even though critics are ones actually paying attention to the details that suggest stol1tz is a car crash waiting to happen and Stolas has been nothing but babied through the entirety of s2?? make it make sense

absolutely nothing about their duet in mastermind reads ironic, it's all terribly trite and sincere in expecting the audience to think their romance is tragic and moving. there's no reason to think the show is all that interested in exploring the dynamics of a messy relationship because the show outright refuses to meaningfully discuss the worst and messiest part of it except in passing i.e. the transactional deal. ffs, they spent all of apology tour calling Blitzo and Stolas "exes" when they never even dated. the show is outright rewriting its own history solely to avoid talking about the messy stuff because it would make Stolas look bad

also it's incredibly rich that people keep pulling out the "you just want a morality tale where you're told what to think, and that's bad writing!" card when this is literally what apology tour was. the show was outright screaming at the viewer to think that Stolas is the victim, that Blitzo is way worse than s1 had built him up to be and that Blitzo needed to apologize. the whole thing is structured around the moral of Blitzo needing to apologize and Verosika outright saying the point of the episode: "if you wanna change, say good for him (when he runs off to make out with someone else first chance he gets after claiming he loved you)"

I mean Blitzo basically says to the camera "the only reason I rejected Stolas was because the class difference made me insecure and I push away everyone who could care about me". it's incredibly blunt, garbage obvious storytelling

the writing isn't subtle at any other time (cough cough, Stella, cough) but suddenly when it comes fans asking why the writers aren't calling Stolas out for basically any of his shit suddenly the show is treated like some nuanced high art character drama where no one is allowed to openly discuss the sexual extortion shaped elephant in the room.

and it's blatantly not that. the closest helluva ever got to well done storytelling was in s1 and Viv flushed all that down the toilet the minute s2e1 happened

I still find it amazing how my post critisizing the fandom for not knowing what the actual critiques of the show are still holds up today. These are the kinds of fans that pretend that the highest amount of hard-hitting critique for Helluva and Hazbin comes from randos on tumblr when the critisicm these shows get extends far more than just tumblr. If anything, tumblr is less than a FRACTION of the people voicing their issues with the show.

And, if you actually payed attention to discourse surrounding the series on other platforms, mainly youtube....you would find people have far more nuanced critiques than "PROBLAMATIC = BAD!!!".

HELL, Sarcastic Chorus, one of the most popular Youtuers discussing the series, initially liked Stolitz BECAUSE of the problamatic elements, but he stopped carring for it because the show WASN'T ACTUALLY ADDRESSING THEM!!!!

But these fans focus more on trying to strawman critics rather than actually trying to meaningfully engauge with disscussion on the issues with the shows.

Because they can't handle people critisizing their favourite demon show.

[princessgarnetxvi]

Clair Obscur Expedition 33: Verso or Maelle Debate

After avoiding it for so long, 60+hrs deep, I finally beat Clair Obscur Expedition 33 last night.

I've seen some very self-righteous posts about how picking one over the other was the "RIGHT" thing to do and that it was the "GOOD" ending. The argument being made that if you did not pick Maelle you are morally corrupt or selfish. While the other handful presents the notion that if you DID NOT pick Verso, you are selfish and cruel.

The discourse has people attacking others PERSONALLY over what they chose in a video game; demonizing the integrity of one's character on who they picked. And while that is insane by itself - I'd like to make it a point to highlight that both sides are completely ignoring the narrative by standing on a pretentious pedestal of being "right. - the morally superior one"

It is not only arrogant but disrespectful to the people who worked so hard on this wonderful tale of grief, loss and identity.

It frustrates me because that isn't the driving point the Dev's were trying to make.

First off, there isn't a good or bad ending.

Whichever you choose, people will lose.

in Maelle's ending, Verso is being forced to live a life he does not want. He has lived for (over?) a hundred years, suffering the same wounds of grief over and over - dying thousands of times and although he is immortal, he feels every inch of pain like anyone would. It is torturous. But also, in Maelle's ending, he has to KNOWINGLY watch her TRULY die. Not just in the canvas but in the real world. At least those that died in the canvas could always be brought back by a painter. Maelle though, stayed in the canvas and withered away in real life.

However, one also cannot blame her.

I do not blame people for picking Maelle.

Maelle didn't want to go back to the real world because it was literal hell for her. She not only had to live in a world that was without Verso and constantly face the reality every single day that he died for her due to her own mistakes - but she was also in extreme physical pain every waking moment. It was hard to breathe without pain, her eye is gone, her face disfigured and burned by her own mother - her calloused older sister blames her for everything. To her, there was no love there. But she found love and comfort in the canvas. It's hard to not sympathize with her.

In Verso's ending, he ultimately betrays all of the dreams, hopes and wishes of his peers. He went out of his way to get to know them, endure with them, cry with them, fall in love, grieve, fight and ignite the flame to carry on - only to extinguish that same fire he started. After Gustave died, Verso came as a beacon of hope, giving them alternatives to fulfill their dreams - all the while knowing that their endeavors would lead to their demise. Verso cuts down Maelle, forcing her to not only lose Verso again, inflicting the heartbreak upon her once more - but he does this to save her. He then destroys the canvas and all of the people in it, all his friends, the people he adores and himself in order to not only bring him peace but to save his 'sister.'

With all that said, Maelle's choice and Verso's choice were both selfish in their own ways. But only ONE resulted in a very real person's death.

So that is why I chose Verso.

He did not ask to be created and he was stuck as an object of the Dessendre family's grief. He had no identity, no sense of self - but he felt things; not just for Maelle but for others and the hard part was he couldn't figure out if they were his own feelings or the feelings of a ghost he was made to mimic.

Such a haunting is cruel.

Ultimately, there is no right or wrong answer here.

But Verso saving Maelle's life in the canvas mirrors the sacrifice the REAL Verso made in order to also save Maelle/Alicia from death and I think that means something.

OTHER FACTORS TO CONSIDER:

Maelle was choosing how she wanted to die:

Yes, she is choosing how she wants to die. But so was Painted Verso. She is also choosing her own agency at the cost of a shorter life. Maelle was choosing how she wanted to die but most importantly, how she wanted to live in the short time she had left - surrounded by those who TRULY and unconditionally loved her.

But on the account that she should live and find meaning in her real life, I had to pick Verso.

Just letting her die on her own accord, while libertating, would be an insult to Verso's (real) sacrifice that started this whole thing.

The theme of parents pushing their dreams onto their children to the point of abuse, neglect and control is highlighted multiple times but hardly brought to the forefront in the discussion of the main themes of the game.

So letting Maelle die living with the shadows of her mistakes, while happy, felt like a betrayal to the liberation in Maelle finding her own way to live was meant to represent to us. Canvas Verso was a deceiver and let the bestest boi and others die for his own vendetta but I also can't help but feel that he's just as much of a victim as Maelle.

Most importantly, I do not want to forget to highlight that Verso's choice induces the genocide of all the people within the canvas; people with their own dreams, feelings, pains and hopes.

This argument is flawed from the start. Renoir already erased all of the people within the world prior to the final battle. Verso's choice would just keep them dead longer.

And not to dismiss the genocide aspect of it. But the fact they can be repainted by Maelle INSTEAD of letting Maelle die permanently made leveling out my options a bit easier.

Maelle's Choice only bought time for the inevitable

If she dies, Renoir will destroy the canvas and that will be the end all for the people of Lumière and the remnants of that world.

But...If Maelle lives then she can just paint again - as Verso said.

Maelle surviving promises the world inside the canvas another day.

Another chance at life.

[farewellcharmer]

Although no one understood we were holding back the flood OR choose your fighter, i choose USC Trojans ⚡️

Sorry to put Take That into the mess, but they’re kind of a reason I finally went through all my TSC and TGR notes and cried a lot sorted the ones about Trojans. This song is just so USC Trojans exy team

So first huge thing we learn about Trojans is that they respect their rivals, that they’re into fair play, ready to risk to improve and have fun. Second thing is “their kindness matters”. That’s the first impression we get I guess. Which turned into unfair discourse about how they’re the good guys and therefore are kind of flat.

We learn more about the Trojans and their vibe in TSC. But even that doesn’t put an end to “boring” accusations. And that’s where I’m ready to lose it because excuse me?! They are not boring like many used to say. It's just their way of handling things is right and we know this deep down. They are nice, not without their flaws, but they are fundamentally kind. They are naturally good and talented and easygoing. That's what pisses everyone off. Like a "have a winning day" line. Like the Day Spirit Award they win every year. Like their nice smiles and thumbs up. They have a vibe of a student who hasn’t read the damn textbook but passed the test anyway, because they’re smart and lucky. It makes other people furious. But it also makes Trojans a phenomenal team.

So that’s it. What also makes them extraordinary is their talent. They’re a bunch of gifted kids mostly? Jeremy is one of the best strikers in Class 1 exy, not perfect, but “close enough to count”. Laila is a well known goalie, “nightmare in goal”. It’s Derrick telling Jean Trojans are leaning on talent, not dirty tricks. Because they’re “faster and slicker and move better on the court”.

All for the game, but not everything is about the game. Trojans try so hard to be patient with others and are willing to wait as long as it takes. Like it was with Jean, like it was with Lucas. With Xavier, when he started transitioning. Like it was with Jeremy his freshman year. Of course they lose temper from time to time. They stress out, they mess up, they are humans! But nonetheless Trojans will not rush it, they will not force you, but they will push and lend a shoulder if you stumble. They will not let you fall.

I’ve seen enough of a discourse about how Trojans treat Jean in a wrong way (show me what the right way is, I mean this is hardly possible). And i do agree with some takes. But somehow the environment Trojans provide is mostly healing for Jean. It’s not always perfect, but it’s healthy. It’s more than he’s ever had. Still it’s not enough and Jeremy can sense it. They all do one way or another, they all want justice for Jean. Trojans try to be supportive, be as gentle as possible AND sometimes they fail and it’s almost fatal. But then they try again. That’s what matters.

They can stand their ground. They’re not a team that can’t fight. They’re the team that won’t fight, like Cat said. But they protect each other fiercely, standing for justice with all they have. Like Cody calling Lucas out on subtly insulting both Jeremy and Jean. Like Jeremy defending himself and Jean during the game with White Ridge Bobcats. The simple “Careful, Jeremy” line is enough of a proof that Trojans can be mean and show their teeth. But according to Jean what makes Jeremy so interesting is “not his capacity for unkindness, but how fiercely he fights against it.” Which can be applied to USC Trojans in general.

That's one of the reasons I don't like it when Trojans are called normies (ugh). Especially compared to the Foxes. Partly because some of the Trojans are queers and you just absolutely cannot call queer a normie wtf. Partly because wdym they’re ordinary? When they’re absolutely ridiculous, crazy in the best way possible. They don’t have to be mafia related to defy expectations.

It’s so interesting, how Trojans make others mad. Even Leo Foster, who hopefully has nothing to do with Trojans at this point is mocking Jeremy. They have that effect on others, esp on other exy teams. Everyone is waiting for them to fail. Everyone is watching them intently, ready to find something, anything to expose them. To be able to see their “missteps” how the interviewer call it. And there may be many of them. The flaws, the falls. Trojans are not saints, but they keep following their path no matter how hard it must be.

You know who also despised USC Trojans? Grayson Johnson. “All Ravens did”. I love Foxes so much, they’re THE team. But I believe that the real antagonism is between the Ravens and the Trojans. We know they’ve been “fierce rivals” for a long time, but it’s not only about competition. Aren’t Trojans the ones who stand against everything EA represents? USC Trojans and Edgar Allen Ravens are the opposites in every way. Strict hierarchy vs. friendship and equality. Control vs. freedom. Violence vs. kindness. Following rules vs. following dreams.

Maybe it’s just the Trojans are everything you want to be, but can’t, not yet. Because it requires so much strength and self control and love to become what they are. So it’s easier to say they’re clowns, how Jean himself used to say before he got to know them better. It’s easier to say they’re flavorless or maybe someone just doesn’t have a taste. Like Jeremy said, you’re not born a Trojan. Being a Trojan and doing things the Trojans way is a choice. And I think it’s a good one.

[greyfix]

Klance Fic Recs

i'm not going to lie to you, i don't know how to reblog on communities, so i'm gonna just throw this out there and hope it works.

Alot of these are old, i have an archive of klance fics i read and reread all throughout the last 5 or so years, so that's where these are coming from.

The New Romantics

This is going to have some sort of plot, but for now, yeah. Klance smut, as promised, more to come. Laughing at the discourse over which sho

tumblr.com

Something is up with lance, and Keith notices. The Become Frenemies. With benefits…?

Angst, fluff, smut, etc

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Replace You -- MarvelSPhaNdom

So Keith was leaving for the blade, so what? I mean sure, Lance would miss teasing him, but it wasn't a big deal ... right?

 It may not have been for the first day, or the second day, but by the end of the week? It turned out to be a big deal. 

 He missed Keith, freaking missed him. Him and his stupid mullet, Him and his stupid gorgeous eyes, Him and his even more stupid useless jacket.

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Shut Up and Dance With Me -- wittyy_name

Lance and his friends have been regulars at the Altea Dance Studio for years. Not just for classes, but to hang out, practice, and spend time with good people who love dancing. Every year, they audition to be one of the few representing Altea at the regional dance competition. Lance always auditions solo, but this year he misses out on auditions and blows his chance to participate. And so does his self-proclaimed rival, Keith.

Luckily, Shiro comes up with a brilliant plan: convince Lance and Keith to audition as a duo.

With a little convincing, and a lot of effort, these two might just be able to pull it off and go to regionals... or they might crash and burn.

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Written On Your Skin -- Trashness

Keith is your typical troubled kid who's just trying to sort his life out. Things aren't perfect, but he's attending night school to get enough credits for university, he loves hanging out with Shiro and Matt on the weekends, and he's prepped to be the youngest member of his martial arts club to get his second Dan black belt. Things are looking up for Keith!

That is until strange notes start to appear on his arm.

They don't come off. At least, not when Keith tries to remove them. And they're written in handwriting that Keith knows isn't his.

So where are they coming from?

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Blind Affection -- jilliancares

After Lance gets injured in battle he finds himself without his eyesight, a situation he never would've expected himself to get into. Half expecting to get kicked off the team, Lance is determined to train harder and keep the fact that he's upset about his loss of eyesight from his teammates. No harm ever comes from bottling everything up, right?

(Wrong. Also Keith helps him train. Also Lance shows Keith proper skin care. Also Lance has a huge crush on Keith. Also maybe being blind's gonna help him get in Keith's pants [and heart].)

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The Ultimate Wingman -- KR_Luna, Luna_Vulpes

Lance and Hunk have moved in to the new student apartments at Garrison University called The V at Garrison.

Living on their floor, they meet and befriend their neighbors: Pidge, a child prodigy in robotics. Matt, Allura, and Shiro, life time friends with the boys watching over their siblings. And Keith, the anti-social boy who hates change.

As time progresses, they all become friends and Lance finally finds someone to help him explore his bisexuality - his gay neighbor Keith.

They strike a deal = Lance helps Keith find a social life while Keith becomes Lance's wingman, but what happens when both men realize that their deal has become more complicated than they expected.

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It's OK -- DeetsViBre

Lance hid himself behind layers of bravado and for many years only two people had ever seen past his facade. One was dead and the other was Hunk.Late one night while Hunk and Lance were having a private conversation Keith accidentally interrupted. His presence wasn't as disruptive as Lance had expected and things began to change between them. A bond is formed and becomes something neither could have imagined. Literally, it's not something they could explain to their friends and teammates...Can they navigate their new relationship while keeping it all a secret from their team? maybe? But probably not.

Aka: Lance is not OK. He has a huge crush on Keith and suddenly gets a chance to do something about it. Oh, but wait, first he has to try and stay alive in the cold vacuum of space. Maybe he can get the guy and survive at the same time? Either way that's the path he decided to take! plus overcoming anxiety and trauma! yeah...

This is a Lance character study that got out of control and grew a massive plot.

Original summary: Lance had been trying to change for a long time. Rewriting yourself costs something, a deep pain with every edit.

Some tags left out for plot reasons.

^This is my all time Favorite!!!

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In (Almost) Every Reality -- notverystraight

When Lance finds himself face to face with alternate universe versions of himself and all his friends, he’s excited to talk to them – who wouldn’t want to see just how different their life could have turned out?

However, that feeling begins to sour when Lance notices that, out of all his alternate selves, he seems to have the most underwhelming life.

And another unexpected thing. He and Keith seem to be a lot more, um… friendly with each other in the other realities…

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Bright Eyes -- amycoolz, SylWritesStuff

When Keith agrees to meet Hunk for a study session at the mall food court, he isn't expecting him to bring his roommate. He isn't expecting to be asked on a date, to accept, and to enjoy himself more than he has in years. He's definitely not expecting to get wrapped up in the world of a blind Cuban and the grief he carries right next to hope.

But Keith's always been good at adapting to the unexpected. And throwing punches when needed.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Living in Color -- sungsformugs

t was just a simple mind-meld exercise. But something seems to happen in the middle and now Lance and Keith can feel each other's emotions. Lance realizes that Keith actually desperately wants to be open and vulnerable around people and Keith realizes that Lance just wants someone to notice him. They try to navigate their new reality.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[ovaryacted]

I'm not gonna say I didn't want to say anything cause I did, I wanted to as the loud mouth bitch I am, and whether or not this gets dragged out longer than it needs to be is for everyone else to decide cause I just don't care. I also am not trying to speak for other people as I say this, both my close friends & BIPOC people in general because I know many disagree with me and that's okay, but I do think I would bring it up and call it a day.

I just want to address the nonsense idea that somehow I and a handful of other outspoken people are the reason why the tlou/ppcu fandom communities on here "fell off" or are toxic and we're at fault for making this space hostile and pushing people off of the platform. That couldn't be farther from the truth.

The community had it's issues before any of us were involved, and it got worse after some of us left and stopped engaging as much for a handful of reasons: the blatant racism & microagressions that continue to be swept under the rug, massive AI scraping & AI fics being posted altogether, that dumb confessions page & everyone who keeps entertaining it, a brutal uptick in purity culture that feeds into so much discourse surrounding what people like to create, consume, interact with, joel dying and the hype around TLOU going down after S2 ended & people now have to wait 2-3 years for S3, etc. All of those things existed before anybody within "my clique" (whatever that means) started talking about the overt harm that was directed towards us from the community we were all in. Many people leave these online spaces for different reasons, some personal, and some just because being on this platform no longer brings them joy. But outright blaming the faults of the fandom on a small group of people that were equally afffected by the same issues is just crazy I mean??

I know what people have been saying & entertaining, what people have been sending me nonstop, especially regarding a post I made a few months ago that was done in a fit of rage and frustation. I do apologize for my approach on that post, and if people are that upset & want to crucify me over screenshots that involved specific usernames, then I'm willing to have a conversation about it on a personal level & apologize directly if that would be something they're open to. I also would like to add that I didn't intend to call these individual people "racists", but rather it came off as ignorant which would've been a better word to describe how I saw that post. However, I do want to emphasize that my frustation about the issue didn't just come out of nowhere. It came from months of buildup of this passive agressive attitude that came from people, whether knowingly or unknowingly, interacting with posts that come off as microagressive towards those trying to bring awareness on topics revolving racism and non-white experiences in fanfic writing.

We've had conversations for months about the racism in the PPCU & TLOU fandom and how it's been trickling down in particular to specific people, me being one of them. The whole point why all of this bullshit started to begin with is because people weren't angry or proactive enough in their allyship towards BIPOC writers and creators on here. We had extensive posts explaining these things, celebrations to uplift BIPOC writers on here, the whole nine yards. And still, we were having the same problem on the backend: racial slurs and bigoted language posted in our inboxes for just bringing these things up, subposts directed towards us, a whole lot of nonsense that just didn't add up. That was the problem.

So yes, when I made that post I was heated and frustrated from nothing in the space being changed, which at this point seems like a lot to ask for. It was worse when a lot of us genuinely did want to have a conversation about these things, or people came to us to learn about how they could be better mutuals & hold space for us. And still, regardless of what we did, how we approached the issue, our tone of voice or who we were directing our attention to, we were still met with vitriol and hateful language we were just told to ignore or block & move on.

I think the biggest issue now when it comes to all of the drama and discourse to begin with is its all being turned into "stan shit" where some users/blogs are idolized and the same goes to people's parasocial relationship towards Pedro Pascal. Like, nobody was making shit up just to start drama, nobody just wakes up one day a hateful bitch and ruins an entire community. If it was that easy for a handful of people to break or ruin an entire online community, then that community had shaky foundation. The anon feature on here is constantly being used to start shit, and I've blocked people, filtered words out, done everything on my end to just avoid that space altogether cause it's obvious I'm not wanted and that's fine, I've made peace with that. But stop saying all of this started cause me and others wanted to cause problems. Cause look, some of us aren't in the community anymore and the problems are still there. Plus, doing things like purposefully agitating the users you have a problem with to start drama for your entertainment, watching who they interact with & their "circle", and patiently waiting for them to post something you can use as a "gotcha" when they're getting dogpiled is pathetic.

The elephant in the room many of you don't want to address is that you'd rather not have any of these issues brought up to begin with. You didn't want to hear about the racism in the fandom and the messages people were getting because it's an inconvenience for you, because having people talk about these things regardless of their approach or feelings interferes with your ability to enjoy things, the same things others, including me, also want to enjoy but don't get to, not fully anyway. This goes beyond just fandom spaces and specific users and confession blogs and online discourse; but many of you want to keep things on a surface level because this online community is all you know, and that's what you'll have to come to terms with. A lot of you also won’t admit to liking drama and the fallout, that’s why you still entertain that confessions page and why you still care about what they’re saying and about who despite everyone telling others to block and keep it pushing.

Anyways, seriously if you have a problem with me personally, which is fine btw I'm not doing this to make amends or change being the villain in anybody's story, then just address me directly instead of instigating drama involving me through my mutual's accounts or that confessions blog that I'm not involved with. Like seriously, this is exhausting, and holding something as trivial as this over my head when I've seen much worse on both ends is ridiculous, but sure. Imma go finish some of these blurbs for Jack Abbot, so that's all I wanted to say.

[noddytheornithopod]

Summer Block Buster random thoughts

This isn't going to be neatly structured or anything, so I'm just gonna post whatever comes to mind. I'm gonna focus on the stuff after the first preview because... well, the episode gave me reasons not to go over EVERYTHING yet. Short version: I like it a lot! Some small concerns, but overall looking very promising for Season 5. Banger start and shocking end.

Anyway, onto the details.

First, let's get this out of the way... I'm already tired of the animation discourse. I get it, it's different, and sure, maybe it could look better in some places and there are a couple wonky looking shots, but... I feel like people are blowing things WAY out of proportion. Like, yeah, it's different, and maybe in some ways not for the better (though in some ways I think it does look better, there's ups as well as downs here, guy), but people are really acting like this is the end of the world when it really... isn't? Maybe I got all of this out of my system after Candace Against the Universe, but also, I think just after watching the original run, I saw SO MANY GOOFS. Like, I do feel like the reason this is being blown out of proportion is at least partially because of nostalgia goggles (and also animation twitter obnoxiously nitpicking everything, especially when it's stuff we're supposed to watch in motion), but seriously, the amount of times Isabella had her clothes coloured wrong in Pharmacists was INSANE, and I wasn't even TRYING to look for these mistakes. I'm not saying it's perfect, and fair enough if you can't stomach it, but... this isn't new. It's just a new version of an old issue, probably just the inevitability of a tight schedule and pipeline with offshoring and such. But seriously, it's not perfect, and honestly I think I still need to adjust to some things, but people... calm down.

Let's get straight to the big deal: a CLIFFHANGER? LINDA GOT FUCKING VAPOURISED? I think it's clear they're not messing around here. Want to start things off with a bang? Kill mum, I guess. :v Look, obviously she's gonna be fine by the end of next ep, but still, the fact they were willing to go here and even make it a cliffhanger ending? Wow. Apparently it was specifically Scott Peterson's idea (writer of this ep, and head writer and associate producer for the revival), and after hearing that he and Joshua Pruett enjoy getting to add real stakes... I can see why he was into this. Also love that it was Perry's carelessness that vapourised her - it wasn't Doof firing a shot, it was Perry tying up Doof and the process of that knocking the inator to fire a stray shot. I'll get to Perry and Doof in a bit, but I honestly think it's a neat detail, that Perry gets so into fighting his nemesis that he kinda causes collateral damage. He's not perfect, after all. Also, the reactions! Candace is naturally horrified, and the total anguish in Phineas' voice when he realises what's happened! Props to Vincent there. The subversion is great too, really making you think it's gonna play out normally and the stuff will just be vapourised, but nope! It's LINDA who's vapourised. This has to be one of the most brutal inator cause and effects since shit like starting a zombie apocalypse to stop Phineas and Isabella confronting their feelings. It's also just neat that they went "oh you just expected some chill wholesome Summer fun? THINK AGAIN."

Since I mentioned it... Perry and Doof. Probably the most controversial part narratively, I assume. Honestly yeah, I want answers on why Doof wants to be evil again ASAP, but I will say we should try and be patient. Maybe we'll even hear more clear stuff next episode! That being said... I think there's subtext here already. Well, if it even IS subtext. Like, "if you love something, set it free, if it comes back, trap it" kind of says a lot to me already. I mean, there's a reason I see all the Perryshmirtz shippers squeeing with delight, I was dealing with so much that I didn't even realise that Doof is pretty much saying he loves Perry here. Also lines like "there's that sass, that's what I've been missing". He clearly was missing Perry, and their whole deal. I do hope we get clearer motivations in time, but I think I can work with this for now?

"You wait so long for the baby to say the word, and they never stop saying it." Linda back with sass of course. And lol, Candace really is tired of pie, to the point she misses the "easy as pie" line, which is also a neat gag.

Linda saying she wants to spend more time with the family is interesting... I have a feeling that won't stick. :v Still, let's see if she makes that effort! Definitely makes the ending more brutal too.

Lawrence is so chill and loves his wife so much heh

Family photos! Also another thing to add to the stakes of Linda fucking dying. Linda also emotional about the kids growing up so fast? Mood. Also, new headcanon: Phineas was grouchy and sassy in Rollercoaster because some shit went down last family photo at Summer and he needed time to recover. :v I'm sure he'll be into it here, but maybe last year something made it awkward or uncomfortable. :v

Vanessa seems oddly chill with Doof being evil again. Guess we'll see if there's more to it later or if this is all we're getting. Olivia Olson did push for more Vanessa, so let's see what that ends up meaning. Also yeah, she has the pinker skin tone. No idea why nobody went to correct that after MML, lol.

Wait opening song from the AT2D video game for the montage of the inventions at the party

Stacy flying off is cute

RIP Irving. Funny gag, but also can't help but feel sorry for him. Guess this is when Olivia apparently became an Irving fan. :v Also seems like his glasses are coloured differently, like they're more detailed.

Obligatory "Phineas and Isabella are hanging out together at the party a lot" comment :v

Ok Baljeet pushing Buford in the fairy floss was funny and cute

Also will mention the voice actors do sound noticeably older, but honestly it's not too big of a deal, they can still all clearly do their characters really well.

So yeah, great start to the season. Now I have to wait over a week just to see how they're gonna need to pull some necromancy to get Linda back. I do wonder how far things will go next time for sure!

[phantomenonmenon]

An Explanation About Kaeya's Adoption In CN Lore

This post is about exploring Kaeya's adoption in the chinese lore, with references. It will be quite long. Before I start, here are some disclaimers. Please, read them before interacting.

This post is not meant to criticize or upset anyone's shipping preferences. Instead it's meant to be about information from lore and some of my thoughts too. This is not about shipping or anti shipping! Please do not take this post as an attack and continue to do whatever you want, enjoy the story however you like.

I am kind of doing this for myself and I also wanted to put it out there for people who might find it interesting.

This post is about lore based explanation and also some of my takes. Please, engage kindly if you will, but I am not interested in engagement or discussion as I can not spare time for them at this stage of my life. Im putting this here mainly for myself to read and update because I like Kaeya.

Please don’t use this post of mine to stir discourse as I am not comfortable being in the middle of any type of debate(of course you can use points I talk about on your posts if they made sense to you) and thank you for understanding!

I know and realize there might be very different interpretations and I do not claim absolute certainty over my points, I want to offer perspective on the topic. This is my interpretation based on what I could gather from the lore and wording. I'm not trying to debate or change anyone's mind, and I genuinely respect other readings/interpretations and translations. I tried to be as precise as possible in terms of meanings, context and historical uses, but I recognize there may be room for error. The historical uses and word nuances are from what I gathered after checking various sources. I appreciate your understanding if I had any misunderstandings or misstatements. Language is flexible. Nothing in language, especially in translation and fiction is ever fully fixed and I know this well.

Also, at the end of the day, this is a game. Everyone is free to interpret and enjoy the story in their own way. Headcanons are a huge part of what makes fandoms fun and meaningful. This post simply offers perspective based on what I could gather and it's not meant to invalidate others' readings or enjoyment. Besides, Genshin language is sometimes vague on purpose too, for there to be room to interpret and for more content to be produced by fans, so please feel free to embrace whatever interpretation brings you joy.

This post is not targeted to any other post or reading and is detached. The reason I included other possibilities of interpretation of the same thing and why I might agree or disagree, and the reason I included questions is to make my points clearer and to answer questions that might appear in one's mind while reading my post.

I did my best to approach this thoughtfully and respectfully. If anything I said comes off as offensive, or disrespectful, I sincerely apologize, that was never my intent.

I am not going to discuss what Kaeya actually felt towards Crepus or Diluc or whether he took them to heart, meaning their true (deep and emotional) relationship in this post. This is not a character analysis.

Lastly, I apologise if all this is a bit untidy

Start

养=養(meaning and pronunciation is the same, one is simplified and one is traditional chinese.)

Here are the general topics I will talk about:

-Meaning and use of 少爷

-Segments from Kaeya's Vision Story/Character Story 5

-Kaeya's Hangout Quest dialogue

-Meaning and use of 养子 and 兄弟 in the dialogue

-How 养子 (yǎngzǐ) and 养父 (yǎngfù) are used in more detail

-Venti Story Quest Kaeya and Diluc's dialogue

-About fostering and adoption

-Some other stuff from Mondstadt Events and Kaeya's sentences

-Meaning of "sworn" and it's use

-Another voiceline about "Swornship" (This part is not about proof or supporting ideas, just something I wanted to add. You may skip if you want)

-Some examples from sources for 兄弟 usage (Not about proof or supporting ideas, just some examples for people interested)

-Non-biological ties are acknowledged in Mondstadt

-Conclusion

---

The long parts of the post also have summaries you can read since this post is very long and may get boring. Unfortunately they are of course oversimplified and might still leave you with questions. Either way, just read them if you want.

Some points near the end are about the English translation but I put some notes on what they used in Chinese as well, the major and important parts are from Chinese original texts. I apologise for not being able to get them all in original chinese texts, but some of these are from specific events and from specific moments, I can't get back to them. If I can find the original Chinese text I will edit them in. Though, the English text parts are not about words uses or nuances, so I figured they wouldn't exactly be necessary.

少爷 Meaning and Use

Adelinde, Elzer, Tunner and Connor can be seen referring to Kaeya as 少爷 in his hangout quest multiple times.

1. Title of Status

少爷 (shàoyé) means "young master" and is a title given to sons of wealthy, noble, or important families. It’s not a casual term for any young man. They have to be part of family to be called 少爷.

2. Respect and Hierarchy

It shows respect and acknowledges the person's high social rank or family status. Calling a stranger or unrelated person 少爷 would be inappropriate and confusing.

3. In Context

In the HQ, a servant of Dawn Winery, Adelinde calls Kaeya 少爷, which fits perfectly because Kaeya is part of the household (adopted son of Crepus). A stranger or random person wouldn't use this term without knowing his background. She is not the only member of staff who refers to Kaeya by the term, the other members regularly use it for him too in Chinese, you can see it for yourself by checking Kaeya's Hangout Quest.

Even though it's been at least a few years over Crepus's death, and Kaeya is a capable and independent adult who lives somewhere else and has no involvement with the winery business, he is still referred to as young master. This makes sense as an adopted son, because these events didn't change his status.

4. Could it be used for a temporarily taken in child/foster child?

No, typically not. A temporarily taken in child would not be called 少爷 unless they were officially adopted and treated as family. Calling someone 少爷 suggests they have an ongoing, recognized role in the family hierarchy. If they were only fostered and not adopted they would at least have to still be residing in the house, and be involved with the family who fostered them. (As I said, even then, it's not very typical to use it for a person who isn't recognized as family) If the foster son/raised son already left the household, is an adult, and the foster father is no longer alive, this makes it even less likely that they would be called 少爷.

Summary:

少爷 (young master) is a specific, respectful title reserved for recognized young masters of a family, it can’t be casually or randomly applied. It's given to sons of noble families. A person that is recognized as part of household and have an ongoing relationship with the household would be referred to with this title.

Segments From Lore(Kaeya's Vision Story/Character Story 5)

(More explanation on 养子 and 养父 later)

身��養子的凱亞始終陪在一旁，卻無法真正融入這一場父子慘劇。

As the adopted son, Kaeya was always by their side but could never truly become part of this father-son tragedy.

— This clearly states Kaeya's status as 养子, meaning he was an adopted member.

---

「這樣的世界,真是……有趣。」 共同的「父親」倒在了血泊之中,兩位少年在這一夜走上分歧的道路。

"Such a world, truly... interesting."

The shared "father" lay in a pool of blood, and the two boys took divergent paths that night.

他與迪盧克共同的「父親」操縱著來歷不明的不詳力量擊退魔物,隨即被力量反噬,死於非命。

He and Diluc's shared "father" used an unknown and ominous power to repel the monsters, but was immediately consumed by that power and died an unnatural death.

Explanation:

The phrase 共同的「父親」 ("shared 'father'") highlights that both Kaeya and Diluc have the same father figure, whether biological or adoptive.

The use of quotation marks around 「父親」 suggests complexity in their relationship, the "father" is Crepus. Quotation marks might be used here for a couple reasons generally.

Not a father,biologically or emotionally. (Could be the case, Crepus is not both of their biological father. Only Diluc's. But also, Kaeya might be conflicted on whether he feels that he is truly worthy of calling Crepus father. )

Social or symbolic father( Could be used for symbolic father or adoptive father or guardian or father figure. This would perhaps make sense too since we know Crepus is 养父(adoptive father) )

Speaker might be distancing themselves from the label or confused about it (Kaeya might feel conflicted about his relation to Crepus since he feels that he betrayed him and also feeling as if he disrespected his biological father with this use.)

Ironic use of the word(I'd say it's not likely. Because he is for sure Diluc's father as in, he is a father at the very least )

This adds depth to their relationship. Kaeya knows he is not a biological son and also feels distanced, he knows he was a traitor. After all, he was sent as a spy to Mondstadt. In the end, "their father" is mentioned multiple times in Kaeya's lore and this tells us that their relationship is complicated and filled with conflict.

(This part is more subjective, but I still wanted to add this part and you can decide for yourself): He wouldn't feel this amount of guilt and conflict if he were just an outsider, a child only taken in out of pity and raised for a short while. He wouldn't feel conflicted for the term "father" used here if it hadn't had some truth to it, as in, he was adopted by him, raised by him, cared for by him but still feels he might not be worthy of using that word or feels distanced, or he feels as if he is disrespecting his biological father while using that word for Crepus, or maybe he just doesn't feel like a part of the family. This is up to interpretation.

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狠心捨棄他的生父與收留撫養他的養父，他應該幫助誰？

Having cruelly abandoned his biological father and the adoptive father who took him in and raised him, whom should he help?

— This mentions both 生父 (biological father) and 养父 (adoptive father), meaning Kaeya recognizes two father figures.

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而克利普斯之死打破了天平的平衡。凱亞因而感到解脫，又為這份自私感到羞愧。作為養子，他本該救下克利普斯。卻來晚一步；作為義弟，他理應幫迪盧克分擔痛苦，卻躲在兄弟背後...

And the death of Crepus broke the balance. Kaeya felt relieved but ashamed of his selfishness. As the adopted son, he should have saved Crepus but was too late; as the sworn younger brother, he should have shared Diluc’s pain but instead hid behind his brother...

— Here, 养子 and 义弟 (sworn younger brother) are mentioned.

What this shows:

Kaeya is the adopted son (养子) of Crepus. Crepus is his 养父 (adoptive father). Crepus is also described as 共同的「父親」 meaning, shared "father" of Diluc and Kaeya. These are all supported by Kaeya's vision and character story.

Kaeya’s Hangout Quest Dialogue and Meaning:

(This part could be seen as more focused on 兄弟(brother) by the way but the rest of the post is not. I talk about 兄弟 and 养子(adopted son) both here on the first part, and wanted to offer my perspective on this dialogue. The reason I included 兄弟 explanation is because it was relevant to 养子 in the context in my opinion. )

In the conversation, a servant (Adelinde) calls Kaeya 少爷 , a respectful term for young master. A man then asks Kaeya, surprised, about his relation to Dawn Winery:

Guangzhi: ……少爷………嘶,恕我眼拙,请问凯亚先生是晨曦酒庄的……?

Meaning:

"Young master... uh, pardon my poor eyesight(I didn't recognize you) , but may I ask, is Mr. Kaeya from/of the Dawn Winery…?"

Kaeya replies:

我是克利普斯老爷的养子，迪卢克老爷的兄弟，一直在西风骑士团工作，不常出现在酒庄。

Meaning:

"I'm Master Crepus's adopted son and Master Diluc's brother. I've been working with the Knights of Favonius, I'm not often/rarely seen at the winery."

Guangzhi: …是我的不是,如果刚刚有什么礼数上的疏忽,还请谅解。

"...It's my fault. If I was rude just now, please forgive me."

Kaeya: 光之先生可能有点误会,虽然我是迪卢克老爷的兄弟,但我并不住在晨曦酒庄。

Meaning:

"Mr. Guangzhi, you may have misunderstood. Although I am Master Diluc's brother, I don't actually live at the Dawn Winery."

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In Chinese, 兄弟 (xiōngdì) means "brothers" (plural)

But in context, Chinese often doesn't mark plurals explicitly like English does. So:

我们是兄弟 , "We are brothers." (plural from "we")

他们是兄弟 , "They are brothers." (plural from "they")

他是我兄弟 , "He is my brother." (singular from "He")

我只有一个兄弟 , "I only have one brother. " (singular from "one")

我是他的兄弟 , "I am his brother" (singular from "I")

他把我兄弟还给我了 , "He returned my brother/brothers to me." (we can't know for certain if it's one or more brothers in this example)

So, 兄弟 can be singular or plural depending on context, and this is natural in everyday Chinese. This goes for both literal and figurative meanings of 兄弟. [I added more examples from sources near the end if you are interested]

Think of it like this in English: if someone says "He is family," "family" is a collective noun, but it clearly refers to a single person and is used to mean singular. Similarly, 兄弟, while having plural meaning, can function to define a single person in a sibling relationship within context.

我是X的兄弟 would mean:"I am X's brother"

This use would be natural for either:

-Close male friend/buddy/bro meaning

This meaning would be commonly used in casual and day to day settings between men

-Literal brother meaning

It could be used for either scenarios: if I am one of X's brothers or if I am X's only brother. Meaning, it does not automatically imply there are other siblings even if 兄弟 is plural in its original meaning, its still flexible. In other words, the listener won't know if there are other siblings. It would be translated as just "I am X's brother". This use also does not clarify whether the speaker is the older brother or younger brother, since it just means "brother".

If;

Seniority is irrelevant and/or,

You want to be neutral about age and/or,

You primarily need to clarify your relation to X to a third party who doesn't know you (You're summarizing family roles or relationships) and/or

You are speaking in a slightly more formal, distanced, or narrative tone and/or,

The context and/or previous words already establish that this is a discussion about family (for example talking about family members, lineage, or family events) and sometimes,

In cases of adoption, the brotherhood may be recognized socially/legally but may not carry the same hierarchical weight as biological siblings. Because of this, even if an adopted brother is older in age, his seniority or rank within the family might not necessarily be considered higher. Therefore hierarchy and seniority can be less rigid or less emphasized socially. (This is context dependent, the way the family views the adoption and the reason behind the adoption is important.)

then this sentence can be used and would sound natural.

Outside these contexts, it may sound vague. People would usually use 弟弟(younger brother) or 哥哥(older brother) to be more specific. (Though, it is not required. 兄弟 can still be used and appropriate in the contexts mentioned especially when seniority is irrelevant and relation/famillial status is emphasized) Also, when casually referring to their sibling (talking about them) or talking directly to them, people usually use 弟弟 or 哥哥

[You can also think like this, saying "I'm his sibling" would sound vague in english, since there are already words like sister and brother, so this sentence it wouldn't sound too natural. But in some contexts, for example if you want to be neutral about your gender, if you are talking to a third party and the relation between you and your sibling is more important and emphasised, not your gender, it would be appropriate and understood. ]

-Comrade/ally/sworn brother meaning

In military, in gangs, or between people with shared struggles and goals

Without more context we won't really know for sure which meaning is implied. Because 兄弟 is used ambiguously to mean a series of things.

In everyday Chinese, the "close friend" meaning of 兄弟 (brother) is very often used between people. But unlike modern day casual Chinese or Chinese spoken on the internet using slangs; in historical Chinese or classical Chinese contexts, the word 兄弟 was more likely to be used to refer to actual brothers or sworn brothers/comrades than close friends.

And Mondstadt Mandarin isn't exactly casual modern day Chinese (where the use of 兄弟 to mean close buddy is more common). It's a bit more old-fashioned, with noble tone. It's not classical Chinese but stylized, historical flavored and fantastical type of modern Mandarin, where the literal or comrade use of 兄弟 would be more acceptable and maybe even expected. Mondstadt is most likely inspired from medieval times of Germany/Europe.

Why Kaeya meant he was adopted by Crepus and why Kaeya's use of "兄弟" here isn't for figurative meanings:

As I said, in everyday chinese, the "buddy/bro" meaning of 兄弟 (brother) is very often used between close friends casually. I completely understand why some people interpret 兄弟 in this dialogue as "buddy" since it's a common and natural usage in casual contexts, and that's a valid reading I respect. There may also be other valid reasons someone might choose that translation, and I don't mean to dismiss those reasons. However, I'd like to share my reasoning behind my perspective. So here is why I think there might be more to it:

(This post isn't about Kaeya's personal feelings or a deep character analysis. I'm only focusing on the wording used in this particular scene. I included 兄弟 here because I believe it is relevant to 养子 in the context when understanding what Kaeya meant and how he expresses his famillial status. This is not meant to define how Kaeya truly feels about Diluc, it's an interpretation of this specific dialogue)

1. Formal Context and Tone

Guangzhi has done business with the winery before but doesn't know who Kaeya is. [More context explained in the "Although" segment] So Kaeya is responding to a formal question about his relation to the winery. He introduces himself as the 养子 (adopted son) of Crepus and the 兄弟 (brother) of Diluc. This is a direct, factual and confident statement about family ties.

Kaeya uses 养子(adopted son) [See more about this term in "About 养子 and 养父"] which is a straightforward and familial term to mean an adopted son. If he meant that this relationship was only a temporary one and/or without familial bond and/or it was only figurative, he wouldn't have used this phrasing and term. He could've instead said he was raised at the winery. He did not mean that he used to be a boy only temporarily staying there. [See more in "Kaeya's Context" part in "About 养子 and 养父" , and in "About Fostering and Adoption"]

He wanted Guanzhi to understand he was adopted because the man is confused about the use of "少爷"[young master, explained in "About 少爷"] by the servant Adelinde that suggest he is part of the household and the son of a nobleman (In this case, Crepus) thus the sentence provides an explanation. Guangzhi even says "excuse my poor eyesight" meaning he didn't recognize him and he clearly didn't expect Kaeya to be adressed like that. Kaeya doesn't have a reason to mislead him here, his reply is meant to be direct and clarifying.

Kaeya using 老爷 (lǎoyé) (master) adds formality and respect, showing Kaeya isn't being casual, he's acknowledging Crepus's authority and status. "老爷" is a respectful title used for heads of noble households or wealthy families. This makes the sentence more official and serious, reinforcing that he truly is Crepus’s adopted son, not speaking figuratively.

Usually, using 老爷 for family is odd and unnatural. However, there's a distinction that makes Kaeya's usage normal and appropriate in this scenario:

Kaeya is not directly addressing Crepus or Diluc. He is referring to them to a third party (the confused guest) in a formal context within a noble household. Diluc is current master of Dawn Winery and Crepus used to be the master, so these were their titles in the household. This is a formal setting and using formal titles is expected, it shows proper respect, etiquette and using them is natural here. It's meant to show a complex relationship that's both familial and formal. He doesn't live there anymore after all. One could argue that this puts distance between Kaeya and them, which could be the case, I can't be certain. However, this does not lead to denial of the terms he used for them nor does it mean he used them figuratively.

2. Parallel Structure and Context Again

"我是克利普斯老爷的养子，迪卢克老爷的兄弟"

The sentence links two formal and familial relationships:

Saying he’s the adopted son of Crepus and then immediately calling himself Diluc’s brother shows a legal or family bond, not just a friendly closeness. The two terms together confirm a family relationship. The 养子 shifts the conversation into the family realm. If he meant he was only Diluc's close friend/mate/comrade, that wouldn't really explain the man's confusion over the young master term that is only used for members of the house nor would it explain the fact that Guangzhi actually understood what Kaeya meant and his situation after this explanation was given, he even apologised for possibly disrespecting him. Guangzhi previously came to the winery mainly knowing Diluc from there and not Kaeya, so this statement Kaeya makes goes for both making it explicit that he is the adopted son of the previous master but also the important and known figure, Master Diluc's brother. This logically defends the use of 少爷(young master).

Saying "I'm Crepus's adopted son and Crepus's son's buddy" would not only be a bit confusing for Guangzhi (if the asker Guangzhi knows who Crepus is as in, knows he is Diluc's father) but also not very fitting in the sentence overall (even if he doesn't know). Because switching from a formal term like "adopted son" to a casual one like "buddy" within the same sentence creates inconsistency. The casual use of 兄弟 to mean "buddy/close friend" usually appears in informal speech, and would normally need more explanation in this case if he means it that way. We could say, the literal and formal meaning of 养子 wouldn't match with the figurative meanings of 兄弟.

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Adopted son of the father (Master Crepus) Brother of the son (Master Diluc). It’s structured like a family tree, not a casual bond. The whole sentence was formal, structured, tied to household status and uses family/legal terms. Again, the 养子 shifted the conversation into the family realm already. So the use of 兄弟 to mean sworn brother or buddy would not exactly fit here.

Crepus老爷的养子，Diluc老爷的兄弟

It creates grammatical symmetry. Both phrases use 老爷, then possessive 的 and then the relationship term. This parallel structure may suggest equivalent types of formal relationships. So both terms were used in their literal and famillial meanings.

3. Because Kaeya says "迪卢克老爷的兄弟" for Diluc, the use of "老爷" (Master) again emphasizes formality and social hierarchy.

Using this title when referring to Diluc shows that Kaeya acknowledges social rank and family roles.

It supports a familial, adoptive brother relationship, not a casual one. As I've mentioned, "老爷" makes the tone formal and respectful. Kaeya uses it for both Crepus and Diluc. It shows Kaeya is being serious and respectful, not speaking casually. The "close friend" use of 兄弟 is most commonly found in casual speech and wouldn't exactly be compatible with the use of 老爷.

Also, in formal Chinese introductions, if someone refers to themselves as a 兄弟 without any clarifying terms (like 义兄弟 for sworn brother), it generally implies a literal, familial brother. Or in an informal setting, to indicate close friendship people can use terms like 好兄弟 (hǎo xiōngdì), meaning "good brother", which would mean "good buddy". So, if it were meant as a close friend or sworn ally, it would typically be specified or explained further.

4. Guangzhi's surprise and apology

"...That's my fault. If I was rude just now, please forgive me."

The man didn't know Kaeya's status and apologizes for not recognizing him, which fits better if Kaeya is actually part of the family.

This could possibly mean that Guangzhi understood the whole sentence about 养子 and 兄弟 in a direct and literal way, not questioning or having doubt about any other possible meanings. (Of course I don't know what actually went through his head, but I base this off his answer.)

5. Kaeya’s clarification:

"Mr. Guangzhi, you may have misunderstood. Although I am Master Diluc's brother, I don't actually live at the Dawn Winery."

光之先生可能有点误会, 虽然我是迪卢克老爷的兄弟,但我并不住在晨曦酒庄。

He uses 兄弟 again here, in the same structure but with an addition of "Although" at the beginning of the sentence. If this meant a "buddy/bro" type of friendship, this sentence would be a bit strange. Why mention living arrangements when talking about close friendship? "Although I am Master Diluc's buddy, I don't actually live at Dawn Winery (Diluc's house)." wouldn't make much sense as people don't typically live at their buddy's/comrade's/mate's/sworn ally's house. There's no inherent expectation for a buddy/close friend to live at their friend's family estate. Unless, he means he is actually family here, when using the phrase again.

Kaeya's second statement is a way of saying, "Yes, I am part of the family, but my residence is elsewhere". Kaeya had moved out after the fallout, so he doesn't live at the winery now despite being an adopted member. Kaeya even clarifies he was Diluc's brother one more time, to not cause misconception about who he is, he still is family. (The same sentence was used, naturally the former literal brother meaning follows here and also makes socially logical sense as explained) And he also gives one of the clear reasons why him being a resident would seem like the case too, when he says "Although I am Diluc's brother..." of course because Diluc lives here, and he is his sibling, he is mentioning the contrast between the two situations. And since Guangzhi mainly knows Diluc, making the contrast with being his brother makes sense.

The function of 虽然…但… (Although... but...) is to highlight a surprising or unexpected contrast between the first and second expression within the sentence. Point A (虽然 clause), Point B (但 clause).

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(This part is detailed and quite long, it's completely skippable, it's not something important or necessary to understand the conversation or my post. Jst an explanation about the use of "although" and more context and analysis of the context. )

Guangzhi (person interested in business with the winery) comes to the winery, telling Kaeya that he intended to give Diluc an invitation and wanted to recommend his services again to Diluc. At this point he doesn't think of Kaeya as a high status noble as no one makes it clear. But then, he hears that Kaeya is a "少爷" (Young Master) of the winery and is confused, he asks if Kaeya is of/from the Dawn Winery. The way he asks does leave ambiguity in what he is exactly asking for but "of/from" here can typically mean to ask all of these in chinese: 1.Belonging, 2.Affiliation/representation, 3.Presence/residency. (Not in a specific order) Then, he learns Kaeya is "Diluc's brother" and "Crepus's adopted son". And in that same sentence Kaeya also says that he works for the Knights of Favonius before saying he doesn't appear there often, hinting at a cause-effect. So Guangzhi probably assumes this is a yes, he is of the winery. As someone unfamiliar, the image he has of Kaeya is now of an important family member who is intricately tied to the estate. Being the 少爷 who is not recognized, can naturally lead to assuming he lives here or his base is here but he's often absent. So since Kaeya said he rarely/not often appears at the winery, whether he lives there/operates the winery with Diluc is still ambiguous. The guest can still think: "So, he is the adopted son of the late owner and brother and equal of Diluc. He is also adressed as young master. He was the one who hosted me, he is seemingly in charge and speaks like a person who knows about the business in the winery, and he is at the winery now too. But he says he doesn't often appear here and works with the KoF. So, perhaps his home base is here and his stuff is here, he just travels a lot or has responsibilities elsewhere (likely about the mentioned Knights of Favonius work, because KoF is in the city part of Mondstadt and the winery a bit further away but not too far, so perhaps he works there until evening and he comes down from the city to sleep here), or maybe he has two places he calls home (he has another place he spends time in that's closer to the city maybe), but this is still his family estate and residence and his home, also possibly being the place he sleeps and wakes up in if he commutes. He belongs here, he manages tasks here when Diluc isn't around, he is a representative and co-runs the place but is often not here because of work. How could I miss such an important man? I disrespected him by not acknowledging/knowing his status. He is a noble." Therefore, Guangzhi made assumptions about: Where Kaeya belongs to, what his role is in the family, and his importance in the winery; and some are correct. Of course, what Guangzhi thought of is not mentioned, he only apologised and I based this off things Kaeya said and the whole context, since Kaeya didn't really say he lived there either but gave an answer that could be taken as a "Yes, I am from/of here", he doesn't contradict it and other points and context I mentioned clearly support the assumption. What we can surely say is that the guest assumed Kaeya's presence and involvement here to be more significant than it is. (or more significant than Kaeya feels it is)

Guangzhi's strong apology("...It's my fault. If I was rude just now, please forgive me.") stems from the fact that he did not know or recognize Kaeya's relation and status, so he was being rude to the young master of Dawn Winery, and he feels he showed disrespect by not noticing an important family member, someone who is also involved and connected with the winery immediately or by implying he wasn't important enough to know. He is saying it's his fault that he didn't recognize him (but it really isn't his fault), as he said "Excuse my eyesight (Excuse me for not recognizing)" before. So he apologises for possible rudeness and ignorance. He mentions before that he has done business with the winery before this time, meaning he knows the place, but he doesn't know of Kaeya at all hence why he asked his name before in this dialogue. Now Kaeya might assume, the guest thinks that this is still his residence and he belongs here, Guangzhi just didn't recognise him or know how important he is, or that the guest now thinks he's a central figure at the winery or a core part of operations, perhaps expecting him to know and be in control of stuff about the management and business. As I said before, he didn't say no to the question of whether he is from here, actually gave an answer that can easily be taken as a "Yes". So, when Kaeya uses the word "although", this clarification Kaeya makes is about his residence and involvement, not denial of relation and status (he is still a young master there and that didn't change), not denial about familial ties. He is saying that his residence is elsewhere entirely and he isn't a house member here anymore, because family status and household status don't equal to residency or full authority and knowledge over the winery. And that the guest was not being disrespectful or offensive by not knowing he was a family member here. That's of course a natural thing to assume for Kaeya in Guangzhi's case, Kaeya knows he isn't around much or involved much. (Kaeya also tells him he is also a guest here, but is temporarily hosting because Elzer is sick) Kaeya probably wanted to emphasize his independent role with the Knights and also avoid misunderstandings about his involvement with the winery with his explanation while also being modest. So with that explanation, Kaeya probably means, "You didn't overlook someone important to the winery's day-to-day or a permanent resident and representative you'd be expected to know, it's really not your fault and you don't have to apologise excessively, you didn't disrespect me. I'm part of the family, yes, but I don't live here, I'm just hosting for now. So it's only natural you didn't recognize me or use the correct honorifics right away." or perhaps, simply something like "Being his brother in a nobility household would naturally lead to the implication that I live here and have deep involvement in business but I don't." He reduces the perceived severity of the guest's offense, he's managing the social interaction and the guest's discomfort. He confirms and reassures one of Guangzhi's possible understandings (He is family) while denying the other (He lives here).

This could also be to avoid any awkward interactions with the businessman. Kaeya isn't updated with the latest business arrangements of the winery, or doesn't know what Diluc is planning though he would naturally be expected to do these, because [the previous explanation of what Guangzhi knows and understands from the whole event, about Kaeya]. Kaeya can't answer questions or take up offers without Diluc knowing. So it could also be just: "Please don't hold me to the full expectations of a representative/host or co manager." (Because he quickly also says he is a guest here, and is temporarily hosting)

In the end both interpretations lead to: "I am family, but live somewhere else and I'm not involved with the business. "

Someone could be a resident of a place (meaning their home is there, they keep their belongings there, maybe they come to sleep there) but still not often/rarely appear there if they travel a lot, have a demanding job elsewhere, or simply prefer to be elsewhere most of the time. This is why Kaeya had to clarify his residence. First explanation is about frequency and the rest is about permanent residence and involvement. In his case, he already gave a logical reason for not being there often while also not negating the possibility of his main residence being the winery, in fact multiple things suggesting he is a resident. So he needed to make it clear that not only does he not appear here much but also, he doesnt even live here. If he meant to cast doubt on being an adopted son or a brother, he would adress those, not talk about where he lives or not. His first sentence is not softened with other words to mean something else, it's quite straightforward and in present tense. Saying that he doesn't live here in the present doesn't clarify anything about how he was raised and seen as or what he meant by saying he is an adopted son or brother, about his familial relationship. He only explains why he's unknown or unfamiliar, or softens expectations around his status possibly out of modesty, but that doesn't negate or redefine 养子 or 兄弟.

It is a progressive statement, first he says he doesn't often appear there and later clarifies he does not live there. Again, this indicates a real family connection with household.

6. Why didn't Kaeya use "养" again for his relation to Diluc, as in 养弟 since he used it with Crepus?

养 (yǎng): to raise, to bring up [He uses this for himself to mean adopted son of Crepus]

弟 (dì): younger brother

养弟: adopted younger brother

Similarly, 养兄弟 would also mean adopted brother without specifying age this time.

养弟/养兄弟 may sound odd and too literal, or constructed. It is actually a less commonly used term unlike 养子(adopted son). (I am not saying he couldn't have used it though) "养" is more commonly used for parent-child relationships. Him not using this term does not mean he is denying brotherhood here. Since he already clarified this was an adoptive relationship when he said 养子 he won't really need to say it again, as people usually use 兄弟/弟弟/哥哥(brother/ younger brother/ older brother) and then clarify the adoptive nature of the relationship in another way or use more words like Kaeya did. So the sibling relationship is understood without adding 养 again. Saying 养弟/养兄弟 explicitly calls attention to the adoption status of the sibling, which can feel a little awkward or overly literal, overly formal. Using 兄弟 here is natural and normal even for an adopted sibling.

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Summary:

So in this scene, 养子 literally stands for "adopted son". And 兄弟 is used in its "brother" meaning, not a word for “close friend" or "mate/bro". The formal context and tone (Kaeya was stating why he was called a term meaning son of nobleman and answering Guangzhi's question), use of " master", parallel structure pointing to equivalent types of relationship, the use of "although..." points to this conclusion. It reflects Kaeya’s adoptive family ties with Diluc and Crepus. One could always argue he does not actually feel this way towards Diluc and Crepus which this post will unfortunately not provide an answer for. Again, this analysis here is not to define Kaeya and Diluc's true relationship, it is about this scene in particular.

About 养子 (yǎngzǐ) and 养父 (yǎngfù)

养子 (yǎngzǐ) = adopted son (child through adoption)

养父 (yǎngfù) = adoptive father (parent through adoption)

1. Meaning:

养子 literally means "raised son", a son who is taken in and raised by someone who is not his biological father. In both modern and historical chinese, it is used for adopted son.

2. Legal and social implication:

In Chinese culture and language, 养子 is not metaphorical or symbolic, it's specific and mostly unambiguous. It primarily and most commonly refers to a real, formal adoption. A raising relationship that is long-term, defining legal and social role. It also suggests a geniune relationship. The adoptive parent has parental rights and responsibilities over the child. Even if the word's literal meaning is "raised son", it is not used to mean any child being raised as son in Chinese. It has a long term and familial meaning.

In historic Chinese, even if the adoption was not formally legalized, the term still carries a sense of genuine familial bond, not just symbolic. It still meant a son recognized as true family and meant that the relationship was permanent. The child was legally or at least socially equal to a biological child. [Ancient chinese use is mentioned again in "Fostering and Adoption"]

A 养子 was someone brought into the family as a true son, with expectations of inheritance rights, and ancestral duties.

It was not symbolic, as in, "I take care of him like a son." It meant: "This person is my son, with social and often legal implications." in historic chinese.

3. Common usage:

When someone says "我是克利普斯老爷的养子" (I am Master Crepus's adopted son), it means they were officially adopted and taken in by Crepus, not just calling him a father figure or mentor casually and the listener would naturally understand it as adoption.

The counterpart to 养子 is 养父, which means "adoptive father", the man who adopted and raised the child. They basically hold the same weight and meaning in terms of relation (though in historic chinese 养父 could be a bit less unambiguous or context sensitive) Like 养子, this term is also not symbolic or metaphorical in most contexts. When a person refers to someone as their 养父, it indicates that they see (or at least describe) that person as a true father, not just someone they lived with temporarily or someone who was "like a father" It implies that this man had a significant, ongoing, and usually recognized paternal role.

4. In Kaeya’s context:

Kaeya saying he is 养子 in his HQ confirms a formal or at the very least socially accepted form of adoptive relationship in the fictiomal world, rather than just being a "child taken in" or "like a son." It reflects his family ties and obligations. It shows he was recognized as family, and he wasn't only a foster son that was temporarily looked after, or a ward that was merely guarded without being recognized as part of family. A ward wouldn't typically use 养子 or 养父. [Further detail in Note part of "Fostering and Adoption"] and a fostering relation could easily be explained by using other terms if Kaeya wanted to make it clear.

The fact that he does not live at the winery now does not suggest he was only fostered or in temporary care. He had a fight with Diluc after Crepus's death and left on his own.

If Kaeya had only been temporarily taken in as a child or not seen as part of family, he would not have been addressed as 少爷 (young master), a title reserved for the biological or adopted sons of nobility. Nor would he have introduced himself as "我是克利普斯老爷的养子" (I am Crepus's adopted son), which is a quite clear, confident and direct confirmation of his status with no softening language that could easily be used if he did mean something else. In this scene, Kaeya is responding to Guangzhi's visible confusion, the use of 少爷 implies noble lineage or household belonging, and Kaeya provides clarification using a familial and official term. His choice of 养子 (adopted son) aligns with the context and clears up why he is referred to with such respect.

He could have used guardianship terms such as 监护人 (jiānhùrén, guardian) that would be used by a ward, said "He guarded me/took care of me" or something of the sort, said Adelinde just called him young master out of habit, or used clear fostering terms such as 寄父 (jì fù) or 寄养父 (jìyǎng fù), said he was just raised at the winery (for example: Master Crepus raised me/looked after me), or just softened his sentence and use of 养子, but instead he just said he was adopted straightforward, because he wanted the person who asked to understand his position in the house. And Guanzhi seems to quickly understand his role and apologise.

Obviously, we will never see his actual adoption documents, but we don't need to see them to understand he was adopted. We could say he was adopted in a sense that is essentially the same as formal adoption in the modern and real life we have.

Another point I've mentioned before for his "young master" title; Crepus is long gone, it's been a few years over his death. If he were fostered or only guarded without becoming family (or only temporarily becoming family), him being a 养子 would already be over a long time ago, Kaeya could himself that while he was still family. But now, he is an adult with a job, and he doesn't live in the winery, he isn't even involved with the winery. He wouldn't introduce himself to an important guest of the winery with such a direct and familial term if him being family was long done. Hence, it is not done, because he was adopted and adoption doesn't end with these events.

Kaeya refers to Crepus as his 养父 (adoptive father), and himself as 养子 (adopted son) in his lore.

As I've mentioned, these terms are not symbolic or honorary such as "义父" (sworn father) or "义子" (sworn son). [See more in section "Sworn" for these terms]

So when Kaeya’s character lore and vision story clearly state that he is Crepus's 养子 and Crepus as 养父 multiple times, it means he was actually adopted. The terms hold legal and social weight, within Chinese familial terminology.

This of course supports the idea that Kaeya is canonically part of the Ragnvindr household as a son, regardless of emotional distance or personal conflict.

Summary:

养子 and 养父 are direct and unambiguous terms meaning adopted son and adoptive father and they don't carry casual or figurative connotations. When used, it confirms a genuine adoptive relationship and being part of family. Kaeya uses them in dialogue and lore combined.

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Why Kaeya uses 父亲 (father) as a mutual father, with quotes

父亲 is the standart term for father in Chinese. It does not necessarily mean adoptive or biological father.

In the conversation between Diluc and Kaeya in Venti's Story Quest:

Kaeya:

你不是常卖东西吗？父亲的旧宅也是你卖掉的。

(You're often selling things, right? You even sold Father's old residence.)

Here, Kaeya uses 父亲 (father) without adding "your" (你的), indicating a shared father figure rather than talking about someone else’s father.

What this means:

1. Shared Father:

By saying 父亲的旧宅 ("Father's old residence"), Kaeya implies that the father (Crepus) belongs to both him and Diluc, they share this paternal figure in the family.

2. Not "Your father" but "Father":

If Kaeya meant only Diluc's father, he might say 你的父亲 (your father). Instead, using just 父亲 expresses that Crepus is the father for both of them, their mutual father.

In Chinese, when referring to someone else's father who is not a shared parent, the possessive "你的" (nǐ de) (your) is typically included for clarity. Omitting "你的" before a family term like "父亲" typically suggests that the parent is shared between the speaker and the listener. It's like saying "Did dad take out the trash?" to a sibling. People wouldn't typically say "Our dad" here. [This typical use in english is not the exact same in chinese in every context by the way, but I figured this would be a helpful analogy. ]

So, chinese typically adds "你" (your) when someone specifically means your father (not mutual). Though this is not the case in every context. In formal writing, historical speech, or when previous words made it obvious whose father is being talked about already, Chinese may use just "父亲" to refer to someone else's or one's own father without a possessive pronoun. In our context, as Kaeya is confronting Diluc about something in a casual and almost teasing speech, the meaning is mutual.

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Diluc does not find Kaeya's wording odd and instead replies with:

"I see no reason to cling to things that have outlived their purpose."

Meaning, Kaeya might be using this wording already and Diluc was not taken aback by it or surprised, he did not respond with something such as "He is *my* father. " or something suggesting he disagreed with the use.

Summary:

Kaeya’s use of 父亲 here reflects the formal, shared family bond with Crepus, emphasising their connection as adoptive and biological sons under the same father. Diluc does not find this use odd in the conversation at all. This also supports he was adopted. He refers to him as "father" here.

Fostering and Adoption:

(Again, I am not arguing wether Kaeya truly felt like he was a true member of the household or not)

Now, this is a fictional fantasy world, and I will not be talking about the core/philosophical meanings behind adoption, or fostering but I can make analogies. In Mondstadt, we don't know how exactly adoption or fostering works as in, the legal process and papers. So we can't know everything with absolute certainty.(Other nations rules about adoption, if they have them, I wouldn't say they can exactly define it for Mondstadt because well, Natlan has motorbikes and Mondstadters ride on horses. They are kind of independent, with different cultures, and it's almost as if they are in different centuries too. So most likely their laws are different as well) My point is that if an adopted person with internal conflict and ties to their biological family were in the world of Teyvat, it would be like Kaeya's case. The reason I do not count this as fostering is because of the points I made before (basically, the terms he uses in lore and the way he is adressed in the winery, the words he uses when stating his legal status and his emotional closeness to the winery [All mentioned and explained below again]) and there is nothing really suggesting he was only temporarily taken care of or only guarded for a period of time based on game material. [Surname explained below]. No mention or suggestion of temporary care, or expressions such as "Until I left.../would eventually leave..." or "I was raised here until I could take care of myself" . We would expect him to perhaps eventually leave in a few years(1-3 perhaps) from being taken in or at least Kaeya mentioning such a process, but instead he left on his own after Crepus passed away because of the fight he had with Diluc. So, he was not to be left to his own when he reached a certain age, it wasn't a short term relation where he only would stay for a while and leave. He self-exiled.

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The way I define fostering would be: Temporarily taking care of a child until they can take care of themselves or be given to another family or their biological family, usually spending less years (And in fact, an avarage fostering time length is around 1-3 years worldwide from what I've gathered but does vary country to country. It is common to look after someone for less than a year too) with them than if you adopted them, not inheriting and not integrating fully. The goal is for reunification with biological parents or eventual adoption. In Mondstadt/Teyvat in particular, especially if we had to diffrenciate fostering from adoption, fostering can be defined as taking a child in as kind of like a guest to take care of them for a while, and they won't fully be part of the family since its not long term.

As opposed to adoption that would involve integration into the family, they would be recognized as part of family, it would be a long term (life long typically) and in Mondstadt/Teyvat we will probably not see any adoption courts or papers but there should be a socially or officially accepted adoption process equal to the legal adoption we have in our world.

(This part is just something I wanted to include) I don't actually know how long Kaeya stayed with Ragnvindr's exactly but from what I've read, he was around 8-10 when taken in, I've mostly seen that he was considered to be 8 on the internet. (The game doesn't exactly say it but most info is from his character story when he talks to Varka but we don't know at what age he talked to him, we can predict) And when Crepus died, Diluc was 18. So Kaeya was 17? Perhaps. He is younger but not by a lot is what I know. I apologise for not knowing much about this but we can suggest he stayed more than lets say 6 years at least. If he was 8 when taken in and 17 when Crepus died, that makes 9 years of living at the winery.

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If your definition of fostering is much closer to adoption, then our interpretations might differ, that’s understandable. If you do think that fostering is basically adoption in a social way especially in a fictional world like Teyvat then go ahead and call it that. Also, I don't actually know how each country today defines foster care, in some countries it might basically be adoption with small differences.

In fact, in ancient China, There was no strict distinction between "adopted" and "fostered" the way we think of today generally. The primary motivation for both adopting and fostering children was to ensure the continuation of the family line, particularly through male heirs. This was crucial for performing ancestral rites and maintaining family honor. The line between the two practices were blurred. Although Mondstadt or Teyvat chinese is not exactly completely modern, it is also not ancient so I don't know if this would be true for Mondstadt. But other than that, adoption and fostering could be counted as the same thing if we go by the ancient meanings. A child legally/socially accepted into the family as a son/daughter without biological relation. But so I don't explain it every time over and over, let's go by my definition of fostering I've mentioned above.

If one also argues that we won't really know if Kaeya was legally adopted, then I can't show them Kaeya's actual adoption papers unfortunately. But I can at least show in my post why I believe he was adopted in the social or official sense inside a fictional world, like Mondstadt and why it would essentially be the same as a formal adoption in the real world.

(I do not mean to offend or hurt anyone who was fostered, and I believe they can become part of family if they want to be, fostering even leads to legal adoption sometimes, we are in modern times and fostering is different and requires legal action and integrating now. My argument in Kaeya's case is just different and permanent in my opinion, thats all. )

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About Sworn: The word 义父 means sworn father or righteous father. [See more in part "Sworn"] It emphasizes a moral or chosen bond, not a temporary fostering arrangement. It doesn’t deny adoption with its meaning, instead, it refers to a non-biological, long term (in fact, it was typically meant to be life long bond) and deeply respected father figure, often tied to loyalty, duty, and emotional connection. It's not exactly about legal or familial status whether that means adoptive or foster relations. It's use wouldn't suggest a fostering relationship because it isn't used to mean any upbringing/ nurturing or caregiving, or short term relationship.

In chinese history and literature, this could be used by adopted children (especially if adoption was not codified in society and if the adoption was more ritualistic) for their fathers especially if the father is a nobleman and they were adopted later in life, and when the bond is emphasised to be more about respect and loyalty. However 养父 would still be preferred to emphasise the legal adoption especially if nurturing and raising the child was involved.

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About Surname: The fact that Kaeya did not change his surname is something many adopted people also do (even in historic china); it doesn't mean they aren't adopted. (Even though taking the surname is more commonly expected) This could be done out of convenience or ties or respect to biological family if they were adopted later in life, to honor their origins and perhaps Kaeya also felt undeserving of the noble surname. (I don't know which surname Kaeya used before the fallout so I assume it was Alberich but I actually have no support for this. Do we know which one he used I wonder?) Though I understand why some people might interpret that he was only fostered because of this reason, if this is the case for Kaeya. My point is that this is not exactly proof for him being fostered. (I fully respect differing opinions, my intention isn't to impose interpretation on others.)

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While 养子 can less commonly be used for "foster son" in Chinese, it still often and primarily refers to adoption (permanent) both in the modern Chinese we have today but also in the more traditional and semi historical chinese context in Mondstadt (and Mondstadt still uses modern Chinese). 养子 means a son recognized as family unless there is strong context suggesting otherwise. In Mondstadt's semi historic context, it would have still meant a permanent relationship even wtihout legal documents. There are also still other words Kaeya/his lore could have used if he wanted to emphasize temporary care. For example, 寄父 (jì fù) means "foster father" and is used to refer to a man who only fosters you (no adoption involved) in historic chinese and literature (this word is a bit archaic in modern day, but we can assume he could've used it since the use of "sworn father/son" is also historic and rare in modern times. Mondstadt Chinese is still modern even if it's time period is medieval Europe) or he could use a more modern and used term such as 寄养父 (jìyǎng fù) that also means foster father with no adoption involved. He could've used guardianship terms, referred to Crepus as a guardian of his. And as I've mentioned before, he/the lore doesn't use expressions such as "Until I left.../would eventually leave..." or "I was raised here until I could take care of myself" or says anything that suggests a temporarily care. Kaeya says he was raised in the winery and grew up there in his hangout quest instead. No mention of expectation of leaving after a period of time.

It was long after Crepus has already passed away, yet he still referred to him as 父亲(father) to mean mutual father to him and Diluc, a very familial term. (As in, if he were fostered, then fostering or temporary care would be long done and irrelevant at that point so he probably wouldn't have used such a familial term.)

He also still visits the Dawn Winery to this day, even sleeping in his old room after the fallout with Diluc because he missed it, still calling Dawn Winery his home. A part of the Kaeya Hangout Quest is called "Taste of Home" in which Kaeya visits the Dawn Winery. [See more in the events part] He is missed by the servants and his presence is longed for, he is told to visit more (Elzer directly says "We all miss you very much" and other servants express this too), Adelinde even says he will always be part of the Dawn Winery family. (Not proof, supporting ideas)

Note: A ward is under guardianship, not necessarily adopted. The relationship with a guardian is primarily one of legal protection and oversight, not necessarily parenthood. A guardian ensures the ward's well being, finances, and legal rights, but the ward doesn't become a "son" or "daughter" of the guardian. It is different from foster care. While temporary, foster care aims to provide a nurturing, family environment. Foster parents are expected to provide emotional support, guidance, and a sense of belonging, even if the child eventually leaves. There's an expectation of providing a home environment that mimics a family. But in ward-guardian relationship, the legal duty and protection is emphasised, and emotional bonds are not necessary. If the ward hasn't gone through the adoption process, calling themselves 养子 or their guardian 养父 would typically misrepresent their actual legal and family status, and would lead to confusion. Similarly in historical chinese, the use of these terms implies a deep familial relationship, not exactly aligning what "wardship" conveys, so again, a ward wouldn't really use them.

监护人 (jiānhùrén) meaning guardian would be the right term to use as a ward, for the one taking care of them. 被监护人 (bèi jiānhùrén) could also be used for themselves, meaning the one being guarded.

General summary:

Kaeya did not refer to Crepus as "寄父 (jì fù) or 寄养父 (jìyǎng fù) meaning foster father and instead 养父 meaning adoptive father and 义父 meaning sworn father to emphasise the emotional/social/legal aspect and the respectful/chosen/non biological aspect of his relationship. He refers to him as 父亲(father) to mean mutual father. He was most likely referred to (in the past) and is still referred to as 少爷 meaning young master by multiple servants working at the winery that is reserved for a son of the master of the house. He stayed in the winery for years until leaving after a fight he has with Diluc. He uses 养子(adopted son) to describe his social status and it is used in his lore as well. He is missed by the servants, he misses the old meals and sleeps in his room while Diluc is away, and still thinks of the winery as his home. He/the lore doesn't mention an expectation of leaving the winery which would be the case for a fostering arrangement. This all leads to the idea that he was not only taken in temporarily as nothing in lore or dialogue really suggested that he was. He was raised in the household, recognized as part of the family, and still connected to the winery long after leaving.

Events From Mondstadt

This part is mostly about the english texts, but it already doesn't have much to do about specific word uses and nuances. It's mostly about how Kaeya views the winery and how he is viewed there. If the specific word choice mattered in my opinion, I did try and find the original version.

Of Ballads and Brews Act 2 Bonds of Melody Event

Here, is a segment of a dialogue between Kaeya and Diluc.

Kaeya says: "Don't forget that this is my home too. I'm fairly certain that taking a trip home during festival season is a universal custom... "

(I could not find the chinese version as I have already played this event and can't get back to it my apologies. He uses the word 家 (jiā) for the winery here which means home or family. It has a warm, emotional meaning, like the place where you belong or your family lives.)

Diluc replies:"Please get to the point"

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Letters to Diluc in Hidden Strife Event All's Well That Ends Well:

A Letter With Clear Handwriting: -Master Kaeya took leave and stayed at Dawn Winery for a few days.

-In a rare turn of events, he decided to stay in his original bedroom. He would pace about the grounds when idle, and even asked Adelinde to make him his favorite dishes.

-Ah, it really does take me back.

-I shall be honest with you, but I was quite surprised to hear Master Kaeya say that he wanted to stay for a few days.

-We did not refuse him, however. We believe that even if you were here, you would not refuse him outright.

-The house is made by those who live in it, and Master Kaeya's uncommon arrival did end up livening the place up significantly. [Awwee :C]

The Grapes of Warmth from Kaeya's HQ, Homecoming part

This part is after Kaeya's HQ dialogue mentioned before. Adelinde said this to Kaeya:

"All I really wanted to say is... You will always be part of the Dawn Winery family, Master Kaeya. "

The chinese version probably isn't too different from this, but I will see if I can find it. Apologies, I will edit it here when I do.

In Act 1 Shenanigans And Sweet Wine, there is a quest named "Taste of Home" where Kaeya visits the Dawn Winery and brings people gifts from Sumeru

The Chinese text version is: 家之味 meaning "The taste of home". 家 (jiā) is used here again, meaning home. It is an emotional word closely tied with belonging, roots and comfort.

Act 1 Shenanigans And Sweet Wine Feathers Adrift in a Spring Breeze:

Traveller acknowledges Kaeya as 少爷 (young master) while thinking what to say to Mr. Bai:

>凯亚是有钱人家的少爷。

Kaeya is the young master of a wealthy family.

Some lines from Kaeya:

>感觉不错，顺带可以让家里人给点零花钱，投资几间古玩铺子玩玩。

Translation: Feels pretty good, and incidentally I can have my family members/people at home give me some pocket money, invest in a few antique shops for fun.

>我家世世代代都居住在蒙德，我嫌家里无聊，出国来散散心。

Translation: My family has lived in Mondstadt for generations, I found home boring, so I went abroad to relax.

He uses 我家 to mean "My family" here. Though 家 can mean house as well, he is clearly talking about people and specifically the Ragnvindr's here because he says "has lived in Mondstadt for generations".

Summary:

While these are not direct proof, but supporting ideas. Kaeya does view this place as home, and does come here to even sleep, he even stayed in his original bedroom because he probably missed it, he also wanted his favorite meals cooked that he probably loved eating as a child. Why he doesn't visit often now is probably because Diluc is around nowadays, these letters were sent while he was away. Of course, he can still visit, but I think it may not be as easy as when he is away.

He is acknowledged as 少爷(young master) by Traveller who isn't part of staff, he is also referred to as 少爷 at the winery by the staff. Kaeya says 我家 to mean "my family" to refer to the Ragnvindr's.

The way the servants speak about him as if he is so dear to them(Tunner, Adelinde) in his HQ could also support that he was a beloved member. He was loved in the winery, and they miss him, and express this.

"Sworn"

义 means righteousness, loyalty, moral duty.

义兄 or 义父 indicates a bond not by blood but by oath and choice.

Moral or ritual bond, they are respecful terms. They emphasise a relationship that's often based on a personal bond, a sworn oath, a bond not by blood relation but traditional/cultural recognition and respect rather than a formal legal guardianship or formal adoption.

Kaeya's lore and Caribert Quest uses the terms 义兄 (sworn brother), 义子(sworn son) and 义父 (sworn father) along with the other terms I mentioned before, multiple times.

Distinction:

养父 (yǎngfù) Adoptive Father: A man who raises a child as his own. This is a familial, practical relationship, often with emotional closeness. There is nurturing and upbringing involved.

义父 (yìfù) Sworn/Righteous Father:A non-familial, honor based title. It's mostly used when someone chooses to recognize an older man as a father figure usually due to deep respect, gratitude, or shared values , not necessarily close or emotional like a real parent. It is not inherently a warm, familial term that suggests nurturing and raising a child and caregiving, nor is it a legal term. It's often ceremonial or symbolic, like in brotherhood oaths, or military loyalty.

Even then, 义父 could actually be translated to adoptive father (in chinese to english translations) in some cases in literature for example:

-In classical/historical settings, where formal legal adoption wasn't as codified, but the ritual or social act of becoming someone's father was just as meaningful as legally adopting someone today.

As I've mentioned in "Fostering and Adoption", In chinese history and literature, adopted children (especially if adoption was not codified in society and if the adoption was ritualistic) particularly those adopted later in life by noble families, might refer to their adoptive father as 义父(yì fù) when emphasizing a bond of respect or moral duty rather than child rearing and raising. Though 养父 (yǎng fù) is still the more common and typical term for a legally adopted father, especially in settings where adoption should be clarified and if there was raising and nurturing involved.

Another as I've mentioned before, the fact that Kaeya did not change his surname is something many adopted people do; it doesn't automatically mean they aren't adopted, it could be done out of pure convenience or respect/ties to biological family perhaps to honour them. (I don't know which surname Kaeya used before the fallout, I assume it was Alberich but I have no proof for that.)

Kaeya uses both 养父 and 义父 to show different aspects of the relationship. 养父 means adoptive father, a real parent-like role. 义父 means sworn father, it is more symbolic, showing respect or sworn loyalty. Similarly, 养子 means adopted son, while 义子 reflects a chosen or honorary son role, based on loyalty. Why don't the two uses contradict eachother? Because the way Kaeya uses them might be important. An adopted person can actually use sworn father and adoptive father for the same person (like Kaeya does) especially since Teyvat or Mondstadt is not set in modern time but in the past. Kaeya is quite the complex character already.

In emotional moments he used 养父 (when Crepus was dying and when he felt guilty) where we could assume he felt closeness and fear perhaps, subtly acknowledging what Crepus was to him in the official/actual sense and what he was to Crepus. And when he needed to state his relation to the winery(he was stating his legal/social identity) he directly he used it again. When talking to Diluc he also used 父亲 which meant "our father", meaning he referred to him as father. Him using 义父/义子 in regular times (The lore doesn't exactly say whether he used to use these terms on the regular, he probably still used 养父[adopted son] when another person asked him his relation to Crepus but in other times, he might've commonly used 义父 to refer to him) could mean he wants to show his respect to him but also could suggest a distance. He uses them in parts of his lore, and while talking about him in the Caribert quest multiple times.

There might be very different interpretations but here is what I've come down to:

1. So we could say that to reflect both the legal/adoptive and emotional; and personal and respectful sides of their father-son bond he uses both words. Because he uses both we can also assume that 义父 was used to emphasize that the bond was chosen and non biological while also showing respect. One could say this use of sworn just adds a layer to their relationship, and makes it rich and complex.

2. This could also possibly mean that Kaeya doesn’t fully see himself as part of the Ragnvindr's. That he still feels tied to his biological father(Which seems to be the case sometimes since he feels divided between Crepus and his biological father). And it might mean that he always puts a bit of distance between himself and Crepus. Perhaps he never saw Crepus at the same level of familiarity as his biological father. We know he probably felt very guilty and divided for years, and maybe this is why this distance formed.

However, this does not mean he was not adopted. Crepus still adopted him, took care of him, raised him, and was probably a good father too.

I am not debating Kaeya's personal feelings and views of Mondstadt, what his feelings toward Diluc and Crepus are, or whether he truly took them to heart. But I am arguing that he was adopted by Crepus. Well, some people hate their mothers, or despise their siblings. Some people are closer to their friends than their own brother and sometimes they don't even talk to them. An adopted kid may not feel like she can call her adoptive parent "mom" because she feels it's too intimate or close. This also doesn't mean they aren't family. (Not the best examples I know, but maybe you get my point)

What I mean is: Individual feelings, no matter how strong or valid, don't alter a person's standing in a family. Their status remains intact regardless of personal sentiment.

Besides, adoption is quite complicated and if we are being realistic, many kids may not feel like they belong even if they are actually counted as part of family legally, at least for some time before adjusting if they weren't adopted from birth. (Kaeya is fictional of course and has wildly different problems but we could say he is still human and feels ties to his roots and also he was of course, an actual spy sent to Mondstadt) And from all I've gathered, I'd say this case is a representation of an adopted person feeling conflicted between their roles and devotions and distressed because they feel conflicted. (This is of course a simplified version of my views it is not this simple)

Summary:

Kaeya using both 义父 and 养父 to adress Crepus is not him denying his adoption but adds layers to his character instead. It is respectful and typically means the bond is by oath and non biological. Kaeya might be using 义父 in regular times to put distance between them because he felt conflicted and divided, and/or because he felt undeserving of calling him 养父 , wanting to emphasize respect and distance. In other times he uses 养父 and 养子 directly in emotional moments and also when he is identifying himself. Both can coexist and do not have to override eachother, especially in a complex story Kaeya has. Him feeling distant or conflicted wouldn't cancel out an adoption.

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Voiceline about Swornship

Not translating 义兄 as "sworn brother" or 义父 as "sworn father" is a mistranslation since it does not mean literal brother or literal adoptive father.

But here is something worth mentioning: English translators have used "sworn sibling". Meaning, they maybe could have translated 义兄 as sworn brother or 义父 as sworn father but chose not to.

This part is not about proof or supporting ideas, just something I found worth sharing. It is still a mistranslation. And of course as I said, swornship does override adoption already. If they had actually translated these terms correctly into english, this would still not erase Kaeya's adoption but I found that it is something interesting.

Xingqiu uses the phrase "sworn siblings" in his voice line titled "About Us: Swornship"

He says: "We should become sworn siblings, let's go to the altar at Jueyun Karst. Nope, no ifs..."

Here is the whole chinese voiceline:

我要和你结拜，就去绝云间的祭坛那边。不行，不能拒绝。你知道了我的底细，也就知道了一直被我掩饰着的真实的自己…我不能放你走。除非…你答应我不会撒手不干！

He uses 结拜 (jiébài) here, meaning, the act or process of swearing siblinghood. So he is basically saying "let's do the oath of sworn siblinghood" there. This is the ceremony or act of swearing loyalty. 义兄 is the role you gain after the 结拜 ceremony. They are not different kinds of relationships, both based on oath and sworn siblinghood.

This could possibly mean that Hoyoverse was capable of translating 义兄 accurately from the beginning but chose not to. Therefore maybe, translating Kaeya's "brother" and "adoptive father" lines in cases where the chinese version was " sworn brother" And "sworn father" (义父) could be a narrative choice.

It might have been on purpose to not complicate things and just say "adoptive" instead of sworn here, since most EN players would typically not know these chinese words and their actual meanings (naturally).

(Translating 养父 as adoptive father and 养子 as adopted son was accurate of course. )

Other mistranslations have been fixed in the past (not all mistranslations unfortunately but they do fix them) meaning they are capable of doing it. And this kind of mistranslation happened so many times since "brother", "adoptive father" and "adopted son" is mentioned many times in English lore and dialogue and there seems to be no fixing and it has been many years.

Again, this is not proof of course, mistranslation still happens a lot. And being in a sworn relation doesn't have to override adoption already.

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Example uses for 兄弟

These are some examples I got, they can be found near the end of the source mentioned and in the examples part of second source. The translations provided are from the source but also explained. Without further context, these would be understood as talking about a single actual brother. As I've mentioned before, 兄弟 is used regularly to mean close friends, it can mean comrade or ally. It can also be used to mean a group of brothers (at least two), or to mean one brother depending on context.

Source: https://chineseforliving.com/how-to-say-brother-in-chinese/

他的兄弟是个医生，经常帮助需要的人。

His brother is a doctor and often helps those in need. - (This leans towards single actual brother meaning. As in, without more context and just this sentence, the single actual brother meaning would be understood, not close friend. The source also translated as such)

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他的兄弟在外地工作，他们每个月都会通电话。

His brother works in another place, and they talk on the phone every month. - (Again, leans towards a single actual brother meaning. The common understanding without context would be the single literal brother usage.)

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我和我的兄弟一起长大，我们有很多共同的回忆。

My brother and I grew up together, and we have many shared memories. - (The same, leans towards a single actual brother meaning)

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我和我的兄弟关系非常好，我们经常一起出去玩。

I have a very good relationship with my brother, and we often go out together. - (The meaning leans towards actual brother.)

-

Source:https://dict.cn/search?q=%E5%85%84%E5%BC%9F

和他兄弟不同，他有种幽默感。

Unlike his brother, he has a good sense of humor. (Likely means a single literal brother, the source also translates as such)

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别对你兄弟这么刻薄

Don't be so unkind to your brother. (The same explanation as the example above)

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Again, something I found worth mentioning:

Adoption or non-biological family ties are acknowledged in Mondstadt

Varka, Rosaria and Razor show that non biological familial ties are recognized.

Paimon's quotes:

"Brother and sister...? Varka...?"

"Oh, Paimon gets it. Varka is a father figure to both of them, so that makes them family. Just not by blood."

Rosaria quote:

"Well, blood relations are overrated anyway, don't you think?"

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Conclusion: Kaeya is a complicated and rich character with ties to both his biological father and Crepus. He was adopted by Crepus, and even if he may not feel like he belongs to the Ragvindr's (I am not saying this is how I define how he feels, thats about character and would need a different type of analysis) this wouldn't negate the adoptive relationship. These elements can coexist, complexity doesn't erase one's standing in a family.

Thank you for reading! I hope this came across in the respectful tone I intended. As mentioned before, this is a game and everyone is free to interpret and enjoy the story in their own way.