#anyway. I've derailed this post!

[microwavetoaster-selfships]

My ability to have like three different things I'm in the middle of drawing, still feel like I want something else to draw not work on any of them, only to get caught up staring at some fanart from an artist I like that made its way on my feed somehow and have the urge to open up my drawing app because I got busy ogling and fawning and need to get it out of my system.

[rattbyte]

Assuming nothing goes wrong at the very last minute I'll be going to pick up three new rats today after work and I am!!! So excited!!!

[some-other-number]

bitch arse coward

[scyaxe]

man living on your own is expensive lol

[leikeliscomet]

I'm gonna be completely honest I'm starting to get tired of people going 'aces can have sex' 'asexuality is a SPECTRUM' in my reblogs every time I post about asexuality where I literally haven't implied or said otherwise and I've honestly thought about deleting some of them. Like... I know guys. I know. I'm either speaking on my own experience which isn't sex favourable or from a Black and/or lesbian POV of asexuality which would include sex favourable aces anyway so it should go without saying.

It's getting similar to how I see 'lesbians can have sex with men'. I'm fully aware lesbians have the physical means to do so, but I wouldn't wanna hear that in a lesbian space for centring the experiences of people who don't, especially lesbians who were coerced and/or forced into doing so. As long as lesbophobia exists, that statement can't be neutral and the wider context will always shape how I see it. I don't need to be reminded I can conform to the thing I'm actively going against. I don't want to and I can't.

We can acknowledge how diverse and varied a community is but it's disingenuous to pretend there's a single uniform experience throughout. Going 'everyone is valid' is cute but it doesn't address the specific problem, which is compulsory sexuality. In this case, the constant need to derail sex repulsed, averse and indifferent aces in our own posts and conversations does compulsory sexuality's job for it. I'm reminded of my 'wasted' sexual potential on a regular basis I don't need my own community doing it too.

As respectfully as possible, not every single asexual post is gonna personally represent you. I don't go into aro spaces and expect to be centred or represented because those weren't made for me and that's okay. Asexuality is a wide spectrum with lots of sides. I'm not part of all those sides and that's okay.

[unbidden-yidden-deactivated20240]

I'm not 100% sure how to articulate this, but something that has been bothering me about I/P discourse (especially in the last month, it's gotten so much worse) that I haven't seen talked about in a productive way is the "yoking" effect that the extremist ugly takes create for the good-faith people just trying to talk about their issues. And I see it on both sides, and have felt compelled to act this way myself.

Essentially, when I talk about antisemitism (especially the significant spike in the last month), my goal is focused on educating people about the antisemitism and urging them to do something about their own behavior, help groups that are working on it, and/or become part of the people working on advocacy to that effect. I just want to talk about the antisemitism, and have that stand as a topic on its own terms. But the problem is, I'm a Jew and extremists on both sides have made it so that anything I post about this requires disclaimers that I also support the rights, freedoms, and care about the lives of Palestinians also. And I do! But that's not the point. The point is that Jews facing antisemitism should be able to talk about this without bringing in a whole separate topic to prove we're worth listening to. And I saw this with Israelis trying to talk about the grief they were feeling after the Hamas pogrom; they couldn't do it without either including some kind of statement about wanting peace, separating Hamas from Palestinians as a whole, etc. or face relentless antisemitic abuse.

And this effect comes both from outside people [supposedly] supporting Palestine being awful unless the Jew in question attaches sufficient disclaimers, as well as [supposedly] pro-Israel people who couldn't help themselves from spouting off dumb racist shit in their posts on otherwise valid topics.

But as I've watched things play out, and Western outsiders become more and more antisemitic in their [supposed] support of Palestine, I've noticed Palestinians and their not-antisemitic allies having to couch their [valid] criticisms of Israel with caveats about how antisemitism is not okay, or else face harassment when talking about their legitimate issues - even ones that aren't about Israel at all.

That's what I mean by "yoking" - this inability to talk about ourselves and our own issues without bad faith actors coercing us to address the other and "prove" that we're worth listening to. It's dehumanizing, because it means that our legitimate issues are always and only ever able to be discussed in the shadow of the other. They aren't allowed to stand on their own without risking harassment.

Anyway, I think the reasons we got here are complicated, but I lay most of the blame at the feet of uninvolved westerners using this conflict as a proxy for their own problems. I don't know that there's a way to fix this at this point, either, because the discourse has become so unbelievably toxic. I think the closest thing I've got is just the suggestion that if you see a Palestinian (or ally) talking about Palestinian issues and not being antisemitic about it, don't derail what they're saying even if they don't specifically denounce Hamas outright and/or antisemitism in their post. And if Jews (including and especially Israelis) are talking about antisemitism and/or legitimate issues and aren't being racist or Islamophobic about it, don't derail what we're saying even if we don't offer caveats denouncing the Israeli government and/or Islamophobia/anti-Arab racism in that specific post.

We can support each other in the face of danger and want peace without having to constantly be forced to talk about other issues and divert focus from our own issues.

[just-my-latest-hyperfixation]

Oh Oh what about 'H-how long have you been standing there?' Canon(-adjacent) Hurt/Comfort and Book? this list is actually so interesting there's so many good combinations

Thank you so much, it's been lots of fun seeing which combinations ppl picked and coming up with different story ideas. Hope you enjoy this one. 💖

True love's kiss

Rated: G

Words: 995

Tags: Post-Vecna; Everybody lives; Eddie Munson has a crush on Steve Harrington; Steve Harrington has a crush on Eddie Munson; Steve has migraines; Hurt/comfort; Love confessions

Eddie finds out by accident. It's one of the last days of summer, and the air has a sticky heaviness to it. He just wants to pick up some stuff he forgot after last night's campaign. Steve isn’t home, he knows for a fact. So what if he memorized his shift plan? It's perfectly normal, most definitely not a sign of obsession or codependency. 

Anyway, the point is, Steve isn't home, so Eddie doesn't ring, just lets himself in and marches into the living room. And that's where his plans for the afternoon derail. 

Steve is on the sofa in front of the television. Eddie's swoop of surprise is short-lived, however, because he isn't watching a movie or game. 

The tv isn't on at all. The entire house is deadly quiet. The blinds on the windows are drawn and the air conditioning is on, the room dark and cold.

Steve is buried in the pillows. His shoulders are shaking. 

“Stevie?” Eddie blurts. “What happened?” 

“Eddie?” Steve croaks. One eye pokes out from the pillows, bleary and horrified. “I- … H-how long have you been standing there?” 

Eddie doesn’t answer. He has already bridged the distance and is sinking down on the armrest by Steve’s head.

Steve sees the concern on his face and groans. “I'm fine. It's just … fucking headaches, don't worry.” 

But Eddie does worry. Eddie is freaking out, which is only natural given their shared history. He makes a horrified sound, shooting up to grab the walkie from Steve’s room and call a code red. 

“No, wait,” Steve says, holding him back with one shaky hand to his wrist. “‘s not anything supernatural. I mean they’ve gotten worse, after everything, but that's probably ‘cause I took a few hits too many. I've always had ‘em. Ever since I was a kid.” 

Eddie lets that statement trickle in. 

“Oh,” he then breathes, sitting back down and gesturing at the dark room. “You mean migraines?” 

Steve, who has thrown one arm over his face, peers out at him. 

“How d’you …?” 

Eddie shrugs sheepishly. “My mom used to get them, before …” 

He trails off, lost in the memory, fingers grasping to fiddle with something. He only realizes where they've landed when they start scratching at Steve's scalp, and a noise spills from his chest. Eddie flinches, stomach alive with an entire whirlwind of butterfly wings, and makes to pull back his hand. 

“No,” Steve mumbles. He's pale, but some of the tension has bled from his features. His voice is slurred. “Don't stop. Feels good.” 

And who is Eddie to deny him? 

Nodding, he slides off the armrest to sit more comfortably, pulling Steve’s head into his lap to rub soothing circles into his temples. He only notices the book lying on Steve’s stomach when it gets jostled by the motion and almost tumbles to the floor. 

“Hey, what’s this?” Eddie mutters, flipping it over to inspect the cover. “Fairytales?” 

Steve takes a few moments to reply, and in the low light, Eddie imagines he sees two pink splotches bloom high in his cheekbones. 

“My nanny used to read ‘em to me when I was sick. I was tryna, but … the fuckin’ letters keep moving.” 

“I'll read you one.” 

Another blink of those pretty eyes, pupils fuzzy and unfocused. “Really?” 

“Sure,” Eddie nods, reveling in the smile he gets when he flips the book open. “Let’s see … Once upon a time, there was a king. He was beautiful and kind and brave, and everybody in the realm loved him dearly. But the king was cursed. He-”

“Wait,” Steve mutters. His lids flutter as he struggles to stay awake. “I don’t- … Which one is this?” 

“My favorite,” Eddie replies. “Now hush, you’re supposed to be resting. Where was I? … The king had been befallen by an evil curse. He couldn’t love himself. He slaughtered many a beast, fought countless battles, hoping to prove his own worth to himself, but nothing lifted the shadow looming over him.” 

Eddie turns a page, crinkling his brow in thought. 

Steve stifles a yawn. His head is getting heavier in Eddie’s lap. “Then what happened?” 

“Patience, I was getting to it,” Eddie scolds. “One day, a new jester arrived at the court. He was skeptical, having heard grand tales of the young king’s beauty and good heart, never quite believing them. Yet, the second he beheld the king with his own eyes, he was enraptured, and he vowed to-”  

“En-whatchered?” 

“Enraptured, Stevie,” Eddie sighs, setting the book aside in favor of combing his fingers through Steve’s hair again. “Smitten, enchanted, lovestruck.” 

“Pffff,” Steve makes. “Love at first sight ain't real.” 

Eddie scoffs half-heartedly. “It's a fairytale. It's not supposed to be realistic. And besides, I'm only telling it, not making it up.” 

“Oh yeah,” Steve says. If his eyes were open, he'd be rolling them right now. “Obviously.” 

“Obviously,” Eddie agrees, and losing himself for a moment in the lines and angles of Steve’s face, the feel of his hair between his fingers. 

“How does it end?” 

Eddie blinks. “Huh?” 

“The story, silly,” Steve mutters. “How does the jester save the king?”  

“Who said he does?” 

Steve sighs, satisfied and exhausted. “‘s a fairytale. Gotta have a happy ending.” 

Eddie shrugs. “Fair enough. What d’you think he should do?” 

Steve stays silent for a long moment. Eddie is starting to think he fell asleep when he speaks again, so softly it's nearly lost under the rush of the air conditioning. 

“How ‘bout a kiss?” 

“Ah,” Eddie says around the lump forming in his throat. “Good one. Can't go wrong with true love's kiss.” 

Steve hums in agreement. 

“After the king sleeps, though.” His hand finds Eddie’s, interlacing their fingers. “Waited so long for this. Wanna do it without a headache.” 

Eddie is left in the dark, listening as Steve’s breathing evens out, wondering how much of their conversation he'll recall when he wakes up. 

More celebration ficlets

[steddie-island]

This is such a good post but I have to point out that if the one bad thing being referenced at the end of season 1 is Steve spray painting 'Nancy the Slut,' he didn't do that. And the show pretty much tells us that.

Nancy sees the marquee, she goes around the corner, and there's Tommy with the can of spray paint in his hand while he's painting 'Byers is a perv'. Nancy slaps Steve, he fights Jonathan, yada yada we all know this.

Later, Steve's sitting there with the can against his face and Tommy and Carol are being nasty about Nancy and Jonathan, and we get this exchange:

S-Carol, for once in your life, shut your damn mouth! C- What? T- Hey, what’s your problem, man? S-You’re both assholes. That’s my problem. T- Are you serious right now, man? S- Yeah, I’m serious. You shouldn’t have done that. T- Done what? S- You know what. T-You mean call her out for what she really is? Oh, that’s funny, because I don’t remember you asking me to stop. S-I should’ve put that spray paint right down your throat.

Like we see Tommy with the paint. And then Tommy calls Steve out for not stopping it.

Tommy is very clearly the one who painted the marquee, and Steve later goes and helps clean it up because he feels really bad about it. So this big thing that the fandom talks about him doing, he didn't even do.

It was fucking Tommy.

I'm annoyed with people who completely vilify s1 Steve or King!Steve in general and put him onto the same level as Billy or Jason, when in canon, it's simply not true. Steve did one bad thing at the end of season one, which he realised, immediately checked himself, and apologized for.

People act like he was a big bully, constantly shoving people into lockers and committing hate crimes, so to speak, when in reality he wasn't like that.

The reason he was an asshole to Jonathan was because Jonathan put himself into the role of being the school weirdo. Plus, him being a creep and taking those pictures and developing them in school isn't exactly helping his case. Steve smashing the camera was totally valid as Jonathan violated Nancy's privacy and Steve's as well. He didn't have to buy him a new camera because he was in the right for that.

Throughout s1 and s2, Jonathan gives off "I'm not like other girls" vibes, he constantly judges people who are popular, and he even judges Nancy. Will called him out for having no friends because Jonathan doesn't want to open up. Granted, he suffered a lot of trauma and had to grow up quite early to take care of Will. I won't hold this against him because he had it not easy, but it still doesn't change the fact that he can be a judgemental asshole, like Steve essentially.

In s1 ep 2 it was shown how King!Steve wasn't this big asshole when he throws the party. He invited Nancy because, duh, he liked her, but when Barb showed up, he never made a big fuss about it even though he probably anticipated Nancy coming there alone. Later, when Barb cuts herself, after being pressured by Nancy to participate in drinking, he never made fun of her for that. He was concerned and honestly less of an ass than Nancy was in that scene. To me, this shows his true character because he could have easily made Barb feel terrible in that situation, as he obviously doesn't like her that much, but he didn't because he isn't evil. Even after she was gone to take care of her hand, he never made a joke about it with Tommy or Carol.

In s3, when Robin gave her speech to Steve as to why he was the worst (after him being brutally tortured which was played off for laughs) she couldn't even come up with good reasons why he was so horrible. She literally says Steve was a real asshole because he:

Was late to school

Asked dumb questions

Was funny and cool

Got bagel crumbs all over the floor (the worst crime committed by a person)

And the girl she liked was only looking at him and his "stupid" hair.

Another reason why the show itself villainizes Steve so much, and has to remind him and the audience how bad he was every season, is because it's written by people who were nerds and had a bad experience in high school. Like the basic concept of the show is nerds=good and jocks=the devil. They are literally judging popular kids because of their own prejudices. And with how they set up s5, Steve will have to prove again he's a changed man, this time to Jonathan (again) despite him saving his ass twice, and him apologizing to Jonathan in s1. It's like Steve is never allowed to truly move on, simply because he was popular in high school. He still has to make up for the mistakes of his past while other characters in the show just get a pass for theirs.

We are never shown this big evil Steve, we are only told by people who themselves have prejudices towards the popular crowd. Eddie literally gave this whole speech about how he doesn't like people who fit in, he was harassing them and couldn't find it in himself to postpone the final campaign because he hated how Lucas wanted to venture into other hobbies. (The show basically vilified Lucas for playing basketball.) Eddie isn't really better than the popular kids. However, because he's a nerd, he isn't portrayed as the villain but as a person who just gets it.

In conclusion, yes, Steve was an asshole in certain situations. Yes, he was (still is) vain and cared about his reputation. But in no way was he this big bad bully like people and show make him out to be. He was popular because he was charming and had the ability to converse easily. I mean, he was still able to become prom king in 1985, despite falling from grace in '84. He wasn't awkward and knew how to make people like him. He was still King!Steve up until Billy, even with dumping his friends, because he probably got along well with others in general and was only judgmental towards people who actively seeked out keeping to themselves rather than participating in "normal" high school society and were judging the popular crowd for participating in return.

Also worth noting is Steve being mean or an ass was really amplified by the friendship with Tommy and Carol. It's like he thought he needed to be extra mean in order to be perceived as cool by them and vice versa. They all brought out the worst in each other, when Steve realized that he cut them off. Like he said, he cared a lot about superficial things, but in the end, when it comes to serious things, he will always come around.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

hey uhm you dont know me or maybe you do. but im the kid that left those stupid tags on one of your posts.

your response was "should we tell everyone. should we throw a party. should we invite Bella Hadid." (just to refresh your memory)

When I added those tags, I thought it was fine. It was more or less banter with a moot in the tags. I didn't think you'd see it or even care. I was tone deaf. and im sorry.

and like, it has been months since i added that in the tags and then you screenshotted and added to the post but i think about it a lot. and i think about what the people in the notes said a lot.

i never meant to be insensitive or anything, i was trying to be light hearted. idk i just needed to get this off my chest.

oh hey what's up lmao

I want to be so clear that I was never angry at you as an individual, it's mostly just like... it's very frustrating as a woman who's moderately gender nonconforming to talk about my frustrations with being expected to shave, wear makeup, etc, and so often be met with people derailing the conversation to talk about how much they love those things.

I want to be so clear: I have absolutely no beef with any woman or any other person doing whatever the fuck they want with their body. shave whatever you want, put on as much or as little makeup as you like, wear whatever clothing makes you happy. I don't feel any animosity towards people who enjoy things that I don't, it's just endlessly tiring to ALWAYS have someone feeling the need to chime in to talk about how much the love stuff that feels totally disconnected from my life specifically when I am trying to talk about that disconnect. and it is genuinely kind of inevitable, I don't think I've ever been able to express that feeling without someone chiming in to talk about how they can't relate at all and feel completely the opposite. which is a fine way to feel, but maybe read the room!

anyway. I know it was a cunty response and I am sorry if that hurt to see. I genuinely do not have any grudge with you, and if anyone has been shitty to you about those tags I am deeply sorry, because that's never something I would have wanted. I appreciate hearing from you 💜

[muffinrecord]

Current Plans + Musings

I don't plan on playing Exedra to the degree I did for Magia Record, or playing it at all. Because of that, I won't be taking an active role in the community and archiving anything for it. Of course, if Exedra has like amazing gameplay and stories then this is all subject to change, but for now I think I'm done with phone games.

The two youtube channels will stay up and I'll check em periodically to make sure there aren't copyright strikes against the content. I've saved all my raw files, especially for the battle animations, so I can remake them in the future if the music ever becomes a problem for some reason.

Google Drive will stay up until Google rots away. I haven't recorded footage in a long time (as in stories, I do for the character doppels and such), but I'll upload things if they're sent to me.

Magia Union Translations still plans on translating things and making videos, especially leading up to the end, but also for after the game is over for whatever wasn't made in time. I'm not sure what form this will take in the future-- if it'll be manual captions added to the videos or not, but I know it WILL happen.

As for this blog, I'm not going to delete it or anything. However I'm going to be taking a step back. I'd like to say that I'll do liveblogs but I mean... *gestures at blog* I've been saying that for years and the only one I really did successfully was the Oriko one lmao. Ahhh oh well.

I'll have more words later, but it was really fun to be part of a fandom experience like this. I'm excited to work on my own original story projects though and quiet down a bit.

...

When I started this blog, I never expected it to have people actually read it. Or look at it. I just wanted a place to gush about how much fun I was having. I didn't even want to tag the posts with "Magia Record" at first because I was terrified people would be mean at me, haha.

But I'm glad I did. I made so many good friends through this game. I'm glad it existed. And it made me happy to have a place where people cared about what I had to say. Some folks actually got their news from here, can you imagine that? They had notifications turned on for this blog. My god.

Anyways, I'm going to be here for the next two months, and tomorrow I'll start reblogging fan projects and initiatives, plus general news. Maybe this blog will turn into a dumping site for art and fanfic reblogs, who knows. I might watch the remaining stuff and add various thoughts here and there.

Otherwise, you can find me on my main blog @malignmuffin, which only reblogs stuff (I don't talk much if at all there). I have another tumblr blog for my comic, but I think I'll reshare the name once I actually have content you can look at on it. It's pretty bare bones for the moment.

Actually it'll be funny if the end of this game is what makes me finally work on it again. I was in the process of working on it when NA came out, and it totally derailed me. Stopped writing, drawing, just focused on this silly little phone game. Now it's like those five years have gone by and I'm going back to where I started, except I think my lil comic is going to be a bit better than it was before. If I actually make it, that is.

If I ever do actually make my comic and start posting it, I'll be sure to update y'all here. hah

Anyways, thanks for being on this wild ride with me. The memories have been great, and I'm glad I had this experience, even if it had to end.

[skrunksthatwunk]

AAAAA THIS IS SO GOOD LEMME RAMBLE A BIT OK BECAUSE LIKE. he's ALWAYS trying to make himself fit this box, right? he's always thinking and talking about appearances and what you have to do to get ahead (the suits you wear, the girls you entertain, etc) because he's been studying it. not just to get ahead, but because he knows he's got to do more to get people's approval than kiryu. I think there's an interesting tension there. he keeps trying to give him advice on how to mask and how to fit in because he's put a lot of effort and thought into it because it's how he stays afloat here and he tells kiryu to protect/help him, and then kiryu gets to disregard it and be fine anyway. he doesn't need it like nishiki does

and while nishiki loves kiryu dearly i think there's a sort of jealousy that often comes with that dynamic (speaking from my experience, ohoho). kiryu's allowed to be himself and not even try to be Correct or Normal and people let him because they like who he is as a person more. nishiki masks because he knows the base version of himself, who he is at his core, would be unacceptable... but if kiryu isn't and he is then there has to be something wrong about the way he is. something shameful he has to hide. or at least a liability he's got to always be accounting for, always stepping in front of to obscure.

and he loves kiryu. he really does. but maybe it annoys him when kiryu does things that are blatantly autistic because he wouldn't let himself do that. he has more self control. he's more aware of things than kiryu is. and nobody seems to see that advantage (one of the only ways he's better than kiryu) nor that effort. how bad he's trying to fix himself for them. they don't care. but the lesson he takes away from that isn't that he should stop trying because he's never going to please them, but that he needs to try harder and harder. he's going to pass. he's going to sneak it by them this time. he'll be the son kazama always wanted eventually if he keeps stuffing himself in this damn suitcase.. even though he knows kazama already has the son he wants. it's kiryu.

i think a lotta this is because neither are ever diagnosed (maybe kiryu is later in life, but nishiki? no chance), and because nishiki's not masking consciously. there's a part of him that's annoyed at kiryu's blatantness, and i think it really is rooted in jealousy, because he wants to be free like that. he wishes people would accept him if he were like that but he's on thin ice as it is. but i don't think he's necessarily conscious of it as jealousy, he just thinks kiryu needs to get a clue or get his act together or whatever.

and the thing is, i don't know if nishiki would have been liked better if he unmasked. people think of him as a snivelling kissass, y'know? and i think that comes from the masking. but i think he probably would be more chatty, more open. more inconvenient and more annoying, as far as his peers are concerned. strong and silent type? sure, they have a place for that. but that's not nishiki, and he won't be if he unmasks, either. and not knowing what the problem is (autism) nor what the outcome would be to fix it this other way (unmasking), he doesn't have much of a shot at it either. but if he did he'd probably stick with masking, because shit, it's better than nothing. he's gotta have armor. if people hate the mask they hate the job he's doing at fitting in. if people hate him without the mask, they hate him. he can't risk finding that out even if he already suspects it's true. it would break him.

but they'll always hate him anyway. nishiki, at the end of the day, could never win. that's his place in the narrative and in his own life. he fought a losing battle and he lost and they hated him for it. he just wasn't cut out for this. but the wheel keeps spinning, because if he stops trying, he'll fall apart completely.

[kicks door down]

Autistic Nishiki whose special interest is fashion and not only considers what's trendy but also looks out for fabrics that aren't a sensory nightmare, however sometimes he will force himself to wear something that isn't comfy for appearance's sake, which leaves him more vulnerable to getting overwhelmed and therefore 'emotional' Also means he has his collar popped like Kiryu's for sensory reasons too and slutty reasons, which would once again make me correct in saying if he undid his collar in Kiwami he'd be normal again because if I were constantly experiencing sensory discomfort I too would be fucked up and evil.

Cause like here's the thing, autistic Kiryu and Majima headcanons are more obvious (especially the former), whereas Nishiki probably comes off as the most 'normal'; he can likely maintain eye contact and talk to people 'normally' and not like, go off on some random tangent about a special interest or hyperfixation. And then you remember masking is a thing.

And okay, so I actually think it's unfair a lot of fandom considers him a 'crybaby' right, cause he's cried in situations MOST PEOPLE WOULD RIGHTFULLY CRY OVER! BUT, I can use this to my Autistic Advantage and have this be he actually struggles to regulate his emotions, and considering he's been exposed to the yakuza world since a young age where ANY emotion that isn't 'respectable stoicism' or 'righteous fury and indignation', he's seen as even MORE overly emotional. Hence the need to start masking so early, PLUS having to protect Kiryu who couldn't mask if his life depended on it because he doesn't realise he may HAVE to (speaking from personal experience, Kiryu definitely went his whole life unaware there was anything ""wrong"" with him (for lack of a better word) and had people just like "oh yeah he's just Like That dw bout it" and went on with his life), so Nishiki takes up the mantle of I'm The One Who Knows What We're Doing Lad's desperate to gain acceptance and will change whatever he has to but people still somehow pick up that Something's Off About Him and so they tend to be disdainful or brush him off. It's easy charisma that can win over hostesses and brief encounters with civillians but can't carry across in the yakuza. Kiwami is him trying his DAMNDEST to act neurotypical even at the cost of his own comfort, and the worst part is it's not working

[feralferretxp]

I've been meaning to introduce one of my Storybots ocs that I've had for a while but here we go. Let me introduce you to...

Melissa Malware

She's a totally normal storybot who is definitely not a shapeshifting virus who has alterative motives for taking over the computer world! :D

Melissa is inspired by the Melissa and I LOVE YOU computer viruses, influencing both her name and theme of spreading love worldwide. In an alternate universe called the LoveBug AU, she launches a campaign called "Project I LOVE YOU", encouraging StoryBots to express love in various forms, aiming to boost mental well-being and promote world peace. She also advocates for self-care, which leads people to work less and less, eventually creating a job crisis in the computer world.

However, Melissa's true intent is to infect others, causing them to slack off from work, which in turn slows down real-world computers, much like a virus. As her followers idolize her, they unknowingly spread her influence, infecting others with the same behavior.

Melissa's origins lie in a more abstract form sent into the internet by her creator. Her mission was to oversee a planted computer worm and ensure its success without interference, remaining in the shadows. However, her plan was unexpectedly derailed when a young Bang, wandering in the internet department while accompanying his father, mistook the worm for a colorful gummy and ate it.

Enraged and shocked, Melissa's task was ruined, forcing her to shift focus and watch over Bang as he grew up, tracking the effects of the worm on him. Over the years, she observed his growing forgetfulness and other changes (I'll make a future post about this and my theory in more detail) as she remained in the shadows. During this time, Melissa herself evolved. Watching storybots and their society, she became curious about life beyond her virus role. She gradually changed her appearance to resemble a storybot and secretly longed for a life where she wasn’t bound to a pre-programmed destructive endgame.

As she grew fond of the attention and adoration from those who saw her as one of them rather than a virus, Melissa tried to prolong her influence and delay her inevitable mission of ruining the computer world, torn between fulfilling her creator’s purpose and finding belonging among storybot society.

When Bang becomes an adult and the computer worm fully integrates with his programming, Melissa is devastated to discover that the worm is now inseparable from Bang, and removing it would kill it. This ruins her original plan, forcing her to adapt. Instead of separating the worm, she decides to use Bang to spread the infection.

Melissa presents herself as a sweet, humble activist and invites Bang to join her "Project I LOVE YOU," using his recognizable and beloved status in the community to help promote her cause. Behind her friendly demeanor, however, Melissa despises Bang, seeing him as a foolish and undeserving figure who, for some reason, is adored by everyone. Despite her loathing, she plays the role of a supportive ally, manipulating him into unknowingly aiding her true goal, while he remains completely oblivious to her hatred and intentions.

So in a nutshell, Bang has no enemies... except for one which is Melissa because she hates his guts LMAO. But yeah that's the LoveBug AU basically. There's more to it but that's for another time.

One important thing about Melissa is that her and Milo (@supgoddo's oc) are in true real love and are perfect for each other YIPPIEE GRRR I LOVE THEM SM

Anyways that's it for now for Melissa! Just wanted to introduce her character and stuff. Live laugh love Melissa <3

[brainrot-goes-brrrrrr]

Savannah Squad Presentation Night Headcanons/Drabble [2/3]

it has been forever :'D (everyone say thank you to @moonbiine)

ANYWAYS, here's part 2 :}

Part 1: Taylor & Logan Part 2: Ben & Tyler Part 3: Aiden & Ashlyn [WIP]

Logan's POV

Two hours and twenty-eight minutes. It has been two hours and twenty-eight minutes and we've been stuck at 76% complete for forty minutes. Whoever made Windows deserves to burn and I stand by that, cause what do you mean that they can push an update and force restart my laptop.

"Logan when was the last time you updated this?" "Logan, why are there fifteen updates that need to be downloaded?" "Bro, when was the last time you actually shut down your laptop?" ... "I've been busy, okay--"

So it might be my fault. Partially. I will admit that much, but the laptop's never given me a problem before and it was running fine. It's just old, and has a few odd... kinks? I mean, the left half of the mousepad is jammed to the point where it can't click, and, sure, the screen does go black every now and again, but just hit it a few times it works! It's character, charm even (and I can't be bothered to fix it...)!

It was, honest to God, easier for Aiden to run back to his place and grab his laptop.

"So we agree that Logan is off electronic duty right?" Taylor had asked as Ben was setting up the other computer to the television screen with Aiden helping. It was a unanimous decision. Ben and Aiden are the new tech guys.

"Yeah, that's probably for the better," I had conceded.

Ben Clarke

Ben goes next because he saved the groups sanity by suggesting that Aiden just gets his laptop. Everyone, thank Ben for the night not failing.

To address the obvious, Ben has a text to speech app on his phone, which is connected to a speaker, that he uses to present. I will say that there is a sort of humor in this for two reasons. One, the voice can either be monotoned like a typical text-to-speech program with funny pronunciation errors, or two, it will sound like one of those videos on tiktok where an AI is reading a tumblr post about SuperBats or something and gets progressively more expressive as time goes on. Personally, I want to hear exasperated robot Ben voice explaining to Aiden why "Life is a Highway" on repeat can and will be considered a torture method.

Ben's music taste is GODLY. And he's more of a eclectic listener too so he has experience with a good amount of genres. This man does not bash other genres of music that he doesn't care for, he thinks its rude to the person he's talking to and to the artist.

Aiden is the exception to this rule^^

DESPISES having to subscribe to music platforms. What do you mean that you can't listen to a song on repeat without paying, what do you mean that you will interrupt his carefully crafted playlist with a recommended song that does not fit the vibe. This end up derailing his presentation couple times.

He has a set criteria that he judges on: length, vibes, transitions, and replayability. Good playlists should at minimum be an hour, have similar vibes/sound while still being unique, the transitions between songs shouldn't be jarring, and the playlist shouldn't be painful to listen to after a month.

Taylor and Ashlyn helped him judge everyone's playlists by acting as secondary perspectives. Taylor is more open to everyone's music tastes while Ashlyn scrutinizes them more. They pretty much just took a playlist that everyone listens to regularly, one that they made but listen to it every so often, and their liked songs.

I would also like everyone to remember that the series is set in 2016... they would have songs mostly from the 2000s-2010s with the exceptions of some 90s and 80s songs. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, I'm just saying that I looked up 2010s hit songs and I'm filled with nostalgia.

Overall, Ben's criticisms and recommendations are genuinely thoughtful. Especially the recommendations. For each person, after critiquing their playlists, Ben made a slide of genres and artists that each person should check out to expand their tastes.

(I'll probably make a bit about what songs were on their playlist, idk tho)

Group Reaction (how they ranked in comparison to each other)

Personally, Tyler and Logan getting the best ratings because their playlists are very consistent in their vibes and are replayable. I also think that Ben's music taste fits the most with these two for some reason, so they got the most song recs out of everyone.

Ashlyn is third in the ranking. She has one or two that she listens to occasionally, and they're pretty short. They are absolute polar opposites though. One of the playlists is rock, since she canonically likes Paramore (if you don't, get well soon), and the other is classical music for her ballet performances.

Taylor is next. Her playlist isn't bad, its just... a bit everywhere. Like it starts pretty good, but you can tell that somewhere along the lines of creating this playlist she just added songs that she remembered that she likes. It mostly fits the same genre. Ben makes her a more organized playlist after the presentation.

Aiden is dead last. It's not because his music taste is shit. Aiden actually has a pretty good music taste. No. Its because he only listens to his liked songs on repeat like a monster. It is musical whiplash. You go from a movie theme song, to crying, to listening to white girl club music, to rock, to crying again, and then for some reason the Home Depot jingle???? The only playlists that he makes are for jokes really. Do you know the John Mulaney bit where he plays "What's New Pussycat?" 27 times. Yeah, that's Aiden.

Tyler Hernandez

Tyler's next, and, I'm letting you know now that he sprayed the fuck out of Aiden for interrupting. Yeah, Ash pulled them a part.

Motherfucker is so pleased with himself, like its honestly so funny. Aiden had him by the collar and Tyler was just fucking smiling. Taylor does throw her slipper at him for being rude, but he could honestly care less.

The slideshow itself is the most soulless thing ever made, man used the Blank Google Slides template and called it a day. Like one stock image on each slide, and its so pixelated. He probably did it like an hour ago. That's why his presentation is funny because he's just jabbing at Aiden over and over with a basic slideshow that you'd see someone pull out in a Spanish 1-2 class.

You know what? He probably had another presentation about what piercing he think would suit the group best, and just did this one out of spite cause Aiden was being loud. I take back my previous statement about him doing it an hour before getting to Logan's place, he did this on his PHONE WHEN THE LAPTOP WAS UPDATING!!!! Like Logan was taking a walk, Ben was trying to fix the computer, the girls went to make sandwiches, Aiden was running errands, and Tyler made this in an hour.

His presentation is based off a tier system where it gets more effective with each method. Methods 1-3 are pretty basic where its just stuff like duct taping his mouth shut, 4 and onwards just gets funny

I'll be completely honest, each way he put is wild, and it gets progressively more deranged as the presentation goes on. These one's my favorite

"Number 9: Dying You know, I thought this would be the best way, but the bastard got crushed by a ceiling and walked it off. I want you to try and convince me that Aiden wouldn't crawl out of hell just to ruin my day. " "Number 10: Put him in a room alone with Ashlyn's mom and dad *insert a picture of Aiden sitting not so comfortably in between Ashlyn's parents* I don't even think I need to say anything else, I mean, I will, but like... look at him"

This is honestly the shortest presentation of the night but so far it's the most chaotic (he will quickly lose this title).

Tyler went through two spray bottles, mainly for Aiden, but he did spray Taylor once or twice. She threw a shoe at him. It's only fair.

Groups Reaction

Aiden is standing to the side with a towel around himself because Logan said his grandparents would kill them for ruining their couch. He's not exactly pissed but he is kind of sulking. Honestly this just makes his presentation so much better for him.

You know how Tyler asked for suggestions in the beginning, Ben and Ashlyn give him genuine ideas. Mainly Ben, just out of good humor you know. And Tyler's taking notes.

Taylor is giggling, but she does feel a bit bad for Aiden. At some point she gives him a consolation sandwich to raise his spirits.

Logan, however, doesn't and he's just quietly enjoying the scene that's unfolding around him.

The end of these two presentations are by far more chaotic than the first two, and it feels like its only going to get worse from here(/pos). Because right now Aiden is fighting with Tyler, getting him soaked too, Taylor is filming them while Logan provides commentary, and Ashlyn is standing with Ben setting up the next powerpoint.

While it was initially decided that Aiden would go last, Ashlyn suggested that she and him switch. Mainly so that he can drip dry while presenting, and sit down when he's done.

Aiden is following a presentation that was just jabbing at him, how do you think his is going to end up now?

[oathkeeper-of-tarth]

@buckysleftarm replied to your post:

After reading this, I happened across this video: https://youtube.com/shorts/-X5l5GFeg1k?si=H2lrsmx0pv60wn1h They're not in our camp anymore and I wouldn't know how to view the non companions anyway on PS5, but it feels like she definitely is taking some time off from Selune without breaking her oath full?

I sure did use this reply as an excuse to mash out a giant post! Hope you don't mind.

I do actually love that you've brought this up, because I keep seeing variants of it around and have been wanting to comment on it, if for nothing else than to make me feel better. The gist of it goes something like this: after killing Lorroakan, Aylin's "Child of the Moonmaiden" ability no longer shows up when you examine her character sheet, meaning her immortality has been taken away, she is being punished by her mother, has broken her paladin oath, or is feuding with her in some other way. Now... people in the comments of that video sure have takes on Selûne and on Aylin and on paladin oaths and aasimar abilities in general that make giant question marks spawn above my head. 

Personally? I dislike it immensely and think it makes zero sense for a variety of reasons, both in-universe and out! To be fair, as with most headcanons and theories, I'd genuinely love to see someone get creative and do something interesting with it. But I have this knee-jerk reaction to it because so far I've only seen it in the context of people parroting it completely uncritically, just regurgitating it on endless reddit or forum or discord threads and what have you, and actually shutting down or completely derailing Aylin-related discussion. Which frustrates me, obviously, because I want cool, detailed, thought-out takes on my fave, always, and - to be really petty for a moment - since my fave isn't the fandom darling, I only get crumbs to start with! It grinds my gears because so very often I'll want to read this potentially interesting thread about a character I love, but nope, instead here's a dozen comments how "nah man she broke her oath and there's special oathbreaker paladin dialogue with her about it" - no there isn't. That's a very easily verifiable fact, my guy. You made that up, my dude. How dare you just go and make things up on the internet. 

A ton of BG3 discussion has been flooded with a weird wave of statements that are just put there as well-known fact but in reality read like "I heard from a friend whose uncle works at the Nintendo Larian department and he told him Halsin went on a special mission and killed Isobel a century ago because he wanted to emotionally compromise Ketheric but then playtesters reacted badly to it and Wizards made them take it out but it's still hinted in the game, and also if you use an Elixir of Hill Giant Strength and do an unarmed attack on the cart at the entrance of the Emerald Grove you can get Mew" and I find it so grating. And then people waste time debunking this and arguing in the same circles and nobody ever moves on to more interesting stuff. I say this, as if I haven't been an active participant of internet fandom for decades and have literally anyone but myself to blame here, hah.

For instance, the way you phrased it here, as Aylin herself taking a break or trying to step away instead of the "being abandoned and punished by her mother" angle from the video and the comments? That's something I think has potential and something I want to rotate in my mind - would she do it? Could she do it? What would this entail and what would it mean for her? What would actually be enough to prompt her to even try? And it's cool that a little gameplay mechanic thingy prompted that! However - and I'm keeping it kinda vague because I don't want to spoil you on things that happen after the point you seem to be at - if we're talking purely established canon things and not brainstorming an AU or a post-game trajectory for this character, there is nothing actually in the game to indicate Aylin is taking a break from Selûne or her duties, especially not to the extent of having any of her abilities suspended. Quite the contrary, in fact. Everything we get from her and Isobel after the Lorroakan situation is handled shows she is, for better or worse, very much resolved to be her old self and very righteously angry and smiting evil in her mother's name as the Sword of Selûne and actively engaged in protecting Selûnites Realms-wide, and she has her full set of powers and blessings while doing so.

In this essay I will In the rest of this post I will try to be less cranky and I'm going to get a bit technical to try to actually explain what is going on with the "Child of the Moonmaiden" ability.

TL;DR: the buff is disabled as soon as Aylin enters the wizard tower, before any fight or backbreaking or feelings of loss and sadness, likely for the purpose of you being able to win or lose the fight no matter if you side with Aylin or betray her. It is a purely mechanical contrivance and has no narrative meaning, nor is its presence or absence mentioned or reflected in the narrative at all.

Here's Aylin in camp just before being told about the wizard:

Here she is at the start of the fight, when she is sided with:

And here she is, when you side against her:

The above is an oversimplification, however, because the actual implementation of Aylin's immortality is a bit of a mess.

There are two implementations of her resurrection active in the game, and both are implemented as a Status: "GLO_NIGHTSONGRESURRECTION" and "GLO_NIGHTSONG_RESURRECTION". Now, I don't know what was going on there and I'm certainly not a Larian dev, but that underscore situation there is... weird. I also don't know enough about BG3-specific scripting yet to come up with an explanation on why there would be two variants of it at all - if anyone does, please let me know! I'm very curious. However, these two implementations of her resurrection ability work very differently, and you can see the effects of both of them in-game. 

The first one, GLO_NIGHTSONGRESURRECTION, is named "Moonmaiden's Reconstitution" and is tied to the "Child of the Moonmaiden" Passive (itself called SHA_NightsongResurrection, side note: GLO is the "global" prefix and SHA is a prefix that signifies the Gauntlet of Shar area in Act 2). This ability makes Aylin auto-stabilise when downed instead of rolling death saves, go into the kneeling stabilised animation where she can be helped up or healed just like your party members - you know the one, with the little asterisk hovering above them. Then on the start of her next turn she heals for exactly 1HP (unless she's under a healing-disabling effect, such as Bone Chill, which is why people have trouble with her in the Myrkul fight) and she has only her Bonus Action, the same as any other previously downed character.

Mechanically, it applies the "GLO_NIGHTSONGRESURRECTION_DOWNED" Status to her which modifies what happens when she is Downed to implement the above non-standard behaviour, and also does stuff like turn off her Moonbeam if she had it active.

The "Moonmaiden's Reconstitution" Status itself is completely invisible in-game: it has properties such as "DisableOverhead;DisableCombatlog;DisablePortraitIndicator" aka doesn't show up as that little text popup above the character, doesn't show up in the combat log, and doesn't have a visible indicator icon anywhere.

The description for "Child of the Moonmaiden" is:

"Blessed with the favour of a goddess, Nightsong cannot be permanently killed. When unconscious, [at] the start of her turn she recovers 1 hit point."

The second one, GLO_NIGHTSONG_RESURRECTION with the extra underscore, is a Status called "Nightsong Soars Eternal", and that one doesn't have any other Statuses or Passives tied to it, it simply resurrects her immediately when she dies, and at full health. When it triggers, you can actually see her portrait drop out of the initiative tracker at the top of the screen as if she completely died, and then she gets put in again. This one is active even when the first one isn't, so you can see it in places like camp after she comes back from Lorroakan, and after she comes back for the finale all the way until the end of the game - and by "see it" I mean since it doesn't have any Passive ability connected to it, you have to actually get Aylin killed to see it trigger (I'm so sorry Aylin, it was important for the post, I swear).

The description for "Nightsong Soars Eternal" is:

"Nightsong will be resurrected by the powers of Selûne whenever she dies."

In Lorroakan's tower, BOTH of these are disabled, and if downed, Aylin will just lie there as if she died for real with the little red skull and the "Dead" status until she gets rezzed for a cutscene after the fight or, if betrayed, you go to long rest and then come back to see Lorroakan's progress, at which point she will be up and in the cage with a total of 1HP and that "Soul Caged" status instead. 

Note again that she visibly has "Child of the Moonmaiden" disabled as soon as she enters the wizard tower area, betrayed or not, before she does anything to anyone. It's a way of making sure the Lorroakan fight is actually winnable/loseable/concludable without her getting stuck in that revive with 1HP at the start of her turn loop. "Nightsong Soars Eternal" also obviously doesn't trigger. Instead she says her "I will rise again!" line and stays down. She has every other ability and buff active normally, even ones that explicitly mention coming from Selûne, like her iconic following Moonbeam, for example, or her fancy unique Smite.

Again, significantly: she does not have her immortality buffs if you fight against her, either, betraying her and causing Selûne's wrath and desire to protect her daughter to manifest physically in the room, including empowering Aylin herself with buffs that are called things like "Moonmother's Embrace". See what I'm getting at?

Interestingly, she also doesn't have it when you first meet her:

What does this all mean? Well, I'd say that if we took every gameplay/implementation thing about this game as in-universe gospel, Aylin herself would look a lot different and be far more scaly, for one.

(Makes me chuckle every time.)

In all seriousness, though, if something as big as this happened to a side but still fairly prominent character, the game would tell us about it. Or at least make a bigger deal of it than the deactivation of a passive ability visible on the Examine screen that many people sadly don't really tend to look at and read.

And here's the best thing: nobody has to take my word for any of this, you can see for yourself, without actually knowing how to unpack game files or having my frankly ridiculous amount of hard saves! I think this is super helpful in general, especially for people playing on console:

Here's a link to a truly amazing and consistently updated resource - every bit of dialogue in the game, nicely parsed and laid out and super readable (as well as some additional tools to play around with). 

Here's a website where you can search inside BG3 scripts and other files and take a look at a lot of the nitty-gritty implementation stuff in a convenient way.

I recognise that I go way too deep into things and overstuff my brain with minutiae, but that's just how I work. I take forever to post anything anywhere on the internet because I just physically cannot click a post button without triple-checking everything and quoting and screenshotting things, even if it's the same thing for the twentieth time, and that's certainly a me problem. I very much don't expect people to do things my way, but I also find the games of telephone these things so rapidly become really frustrating, you know?

But my biggest problem with this particular Aylin thing - beyond the annoying preponderance of it, as I've already whined - is that in-universe it just makes no sense and I, an aasimar paladin enjoyer, personally dislike it.

Oath of Vengeance paladins abide by the following tenets: Fight the Greater Evil. Exerting your wisdom, identify the higher morality in any given instance, and fight for it. No Mercy for the Wicked. Chasten those who dole out their villainy by wiping their blight from the world forever.

Putting the rest of this post under a cut because it's long and ranty and you didn't actually ask for it.

My first problem: the common argument that Aylin is in the wrong for killing Lorroakan like she did because he has "done nothing to her yet", and that she breaks her Oath of Vengeance because she attacked him preemptively.

The man put a price on her head and sent violent mercs to beat her up and kidnap her. He tries to (temporarily) kill her and imprison her as soon as she refuses to cooperate by… demurely waltzing into the prison and putting the chains on herself? He knows exactly who she is, what has been done to her, and he wants to do it again - no, doesn't want to, he is actively doing it again. The fact that (if you side with Aylin) he fails mid-attempt doesn't make him innocent of it. He refuses to stop and, if denied, gets violent and murderous. 

Player: Have it your way. I'll bring her here. Lorroakan: Good. I was growing scared for you. The last person who disappointed me is suffering for it still. Do not return without my prize. Do you hear me? Good day.

Player: I'll think about it. Lorroakan: You aren't the only one who knows what's on offer for the Nightsong's retrieval. Consider carefully whether you'd like to see your fortune in someone else's hands. Someone who might slip into your camp at any moment, or harry you through street and inn until you're run ragged and surrender. The choice is yours: fortune or imminent death. I know you'll choose wisely.

Mark my words: the Nightsong is mine. With or without your help, she will ascend to her grand fate here, in this tower.

Player: You heard me. The answer is no. Lorroakan: Pity. Then again, perhaps word of your agonising death will draw your little friend to me. Myrmidons - imperatum!

He is fully equipped for it and has set up a whole magical trap and is just waiting for her to show up to trigger it, or for someone to drag her there against her will. He says she will go into the cage "kicking and screaming" and really, this is who she is wrong for "picking a fight with" and "attacking preemptively"? Surely nobody actually thinks that Aylin is at fault here or that she actually overreacted by killing him? I don't really want to go into some people's really, really shitty attitudes towards Aylin for sadly entirely predictable reasons but… man. She went over there and threatened him with violence, demanding an explanation after he sent cronies to attack her in her sleep? Wow, what a weird thing to do. Also, he literally is the one to attack first! She is there threatening and goading him, doing her little "face me charlatan" bit, but he is the one who sics the myrmidons on her (or the player) and actually starts the fight, every time. To be clear, I don't think this is very relevant at all, but people do seem to love bringing it up.

Is Aylin brash and reckless and clearly struggling after her captivity, dealing with rapidly flaring up anger and outbursts of violence - only ever, may I emphasise, towards actually horrid people, and she is really rather shockingly forgiving and tolerant of the player character messing with her? Yes! Does she seem to have that classical aspect of "she might go too far one day" or "she might lose herself in the anger and vengeance if she focuses on it exclusively"? Absolutely! Do I think she could have been, say, a Devotion paladin before her imprisonment and it might have been the betrayal and century in the Shadowfell that made her change to Vengeance instead? I love that idea! I also think it's likely she has just always been a very zealous, very smitey and offence-oriented Vengeance paladin, called Selûne's sword for a very good reason, fulfilling a very important role in the ongoing struggle against Shar.

And the whole problem is… Lorroakan will, as we've seen, not stop trying, and people like him will always be around and never stop coming after her especially now that the cat's apparently out of the bag after Balthazar, and Aylin needs to live with this, forever. That is why she is so messed up about this one rando wizard she's never met before. That is why this specific incident is so triggering for her. She has just escaped torment on a timescale that's not something the normal human mind can really grasp. "In this moment, I want for nothing." ended up lasting, indeed, barely a moment! Her mum is a powerful god and right now it seems that what Aylin actually gets from it is having a target painted on her back and, to quote Isobel, she can be hurt just like anyone else, she just gets to suffer longer! She keeps being dealt these shit hands and, yeah, it'd make anyone go… why? Seems unfair, right? What exactly is the point of this? 

The various dialogue options you have while warning her about Lorroakan's intentions and which include trying to convince her to just leave him be include her being so, so frustrated, and so understandably, it makes me feel horrible for her. 

She always ultimately goes to confront him, because she has no other real choice. He will keep coming after her, he will keep sending people after her, and she will never, ever get a bit of rest, and she's, what, supposed to go live in hiding somewhere if you convince him she's dead? Until the jig is inevitably up or this guy dies by someone else's hand? And there's also the element Aylin herself will point out if you keep her in the dark about the plot and Aradin and his cronies come to attack your camp: how long until someone hurts Isobel during one of these attempts or actively goes after her as a bargaining chip?

I guess I just genuinely do not understand the arguments about this guy who has been deliberately constructed to be a horrible, hateful piece of shit with exactly zero redeeming qualities, to an almost comical extent. He beats his apprentice and uses his assistant for target practice! He's a sick, sick asshole! His life's dream rests on kidnapping and enslavement! The guy is conspiring and trying to ally with Ketheric and Balthazar of all people: 

Lorroakan,

I have responded out of respect to my counsellor, Balthazar, who advises me that you may prove a loyal ally in the coming fight. I understand you wish to know about the soul cage which binds the Nightsong to me. Details, I cannot and will not provide. But the magic itself is necromantic in nature, designed by my aforementioned counsellor. I hope your curiosity is satisfied.

General Ketheric Thorm

This is who people think a vengeance pally will break her oath over? Over what, a technicality of who struck first? "Desecrating a corpse"? No, it was Ketheric she did that to, and nothing happened. She just finished this guy off in a violent and dramatic fashion. 

While you can play a paladin yourself and kill so many people in so many ways without anything happening, this is more of a consideration if you play Oath of Devotion or Ancients. It's also one that makes parts of the game harder - comically evil cultists torturing and executing prisoners cannot simply be attacked out of nowhere, and instead you need to announce your challenge first. You need to walk up to them and start talking, establish their villainy, and then fight "fairly". This is also partially an issue arising from the implementation of hostility flags and game logic, by the way. However, Oath of Vengeance gives precious few fucks about this and is a really hard oath to break. In fact, in a very similar situation to the wizard tower, in the House of Grief, you break the Oath of Vengeance if you spare Viconia - at that point lying on the floor soundly defeated and bleeding out much the same way Lorroakan was. Viconia who, may I note, never "did anything to you" but did harm a friend of yours.

Also, and this is a whole separate discussion, but... it's a FR DnD game. You kill bad guys in it. You kill vaguely morally grey, or even good guys in it. You and your friends kill so many people before this point. Multi-act quest arcs conclude with "go to place and kill someone". You mete out "justice" personally, repeatedly, and can harp on that fact, especially if you're playing a paladin. You don't exactly call the guards on people instead, even in the middle of the city. Ludo-narrative dissonance or no, why would this one wizard suddenly be different, and why would this one woman be singled out for a thus far completely typical approach and set of actions? 

My second problem: a great big "Selûne wouldn't do that". I understand Forgotten Realms "lore" is a giant unwieldy self-contradicting mess of a beast and I'm not saying people should be scholars of it to participate in the discussion, far from it, but I would like them to engage with what is presented in the game itself at least.

For the most succinct possible example, look at what Selûne does when Aylin is betrayed. She buffs her in order to enable her to violently and zealously win that fight. Literally empowers Aylin to smack her enemies around more and with greater strength and also burn them alive in holy fire. Not after she's imprisoned and well and truly "wronged", but during this fabulously absolving "mere attempt" on Lorroakan's part.

Also, may I point out the sweet little shielding- and healing-focused cleric of the same goddess is actively disappointed that you and Aylin won't let her come with to hit the guy a few times herself! This goes for the entire party of assorted weirdos, goody-good or otherwise, who firmly believe Aylin should just obliterate that guy. Like, c'mon, my man Wyll! (Super sad and touching exception: Karlach, if you've killed Gortash already. When she begs you not to tell Aylin about any of it at all and go deal with the wizard yourselves, just so Aylin can have a bit more peace and keep her sword sheathed for just a little while longer. Ow, my heart.)

In summary, basically, my twofold beef:

"Selûne punishing and abandoning her daughter for over-zealously defending herself" - nonsensical and uninteresting. Stops people from actually delving into and discussing the complexities of that relationship.

"OoV paladin broke her oath by killing an evil wizard who is actively trying to do horrible things to her and attacks her" - nonsensical and uninteresting. Let's instead actually engage with the material and discuss Aylin's trauma and how she might deal or not deal with it in good or bad ways. What would recovery even look like, for her. How does the way she intrinsically ties her entire being into being a smite-happy moon-magic knight play into it. Let's actually consider the weight and role of duty in her life and the wombo-combo of being an aasimar paladin, an existence with a very "purpose-made" aspect to it. You know, the good ol' Being A Sword thing, including being born into it. Combined with being rather suddenly rather intensely humanised by a loving relationship with a mortal woman, with all sorts of ticking clocks, unique challenges, and both past and pending tragedy there.

Or let's talk about the dissonance present in Aylin's cool and badass scenes of smiting deserving evil. Scenes that go into very violent and very over the top territory, that make you both cheer and cringe, that make a point of showing the other characters reacting in shock. Because I genuinely feel so bad for her and deeply worried for her, all while my silly little brain goes fuck yeah smite him shiny lady! Ooooh look, a flashy Aylin scene, ripping a deserving villain to pieces! But at what cost to herself? Feels so good to have someone deliver some justice! But if I think about it for 5 seconds I don't actually want her to - no, no, I do. I don't want her to have to, is the thing. (It's kind of like that one Gundam meme.)

I will conclude this mess by doing a salty little yeah. It's fine, this is fine, this is sadly pretty much part of the standard experience of liking a female character in fandom. God forbid women do anything indeed. Outside of a few select, narrow and highly dedicated circles, half the (scarce) posts about her are something that's either flat-out wrong, or just assumes the absolute worst of her and reduces her to two and a half shitty stereotypes, and half the fics tagged with her are actually about fandom's favourite two dudes and barely feature her at all.

And on that note, I'm off to actually be a positive force and poke at my own fic some more.

[yourhighness6]

I can't remember where I saw this but there was this post I saw a while ago about how if zutarians "really wanted to engage in media analysis they would ship zvkaang" and I just... Ugh.

For one, the age difference is gross to me, especially considering a lot of anti-kat@ang zutara arguments center around the fact that Aang was not mature enough to be in a relationship based on the way he treated Katara, and pointing out that Katara is considerably more emotionally mature than Aang throughout the series. Shipping Aang and Zuko, who remember are canonically twelve and sixteen throughout the series, may be okay for a lot of chronic anime fans (from my understanding anime has huge age gaps like that all the time) but a large age gap is basically the first thing that puts me off of a ship. It's the same thing with ships like tokk@ and zvtoph and sokk@ang. A two year age difference is fine for high schoolers, but four years is really, really pushing it, especially when you consider that Aang would be fourteen when Zuko is eighteen.

And if that weren't disqualifying enough, whereas zutara has a truly incredible amount of romantic coding from the music used in certain scenes to small gestures such as them reaching for each other in the final agni kai and Katara's thumb on Zuko's lips in the crystal caves scene to the "she's not my girlfriend!", a common romantic trope being used several times between them, zvkaang has no romantic coding. They honestly remind me of that "platonic tension" textpost that was making the rounds a while ago. That being said, I do understand that "chemistry" and "romantic coding" are fairly relative concepts, but it definitely isn't heteronormativity that makes people see zutara instead of zvkaang as romantic (and although I also ship zvkka to a lesser extent the same can kind of be said there).

Anyway, with a weird age difference and zero romantic coding, that, in my opinion, kind of derails the ship, but its also worth mentioning that the original post's only argument seemed to be that just because Zuko and Aang are narrative foils, it makes sense that they should be romantically involved, which frankly, isn't a very good argument, especially when you consider that Zuko and Azula are also narrative foils and siblings. Narrative foils come in many forms, and come to think of it, I don't think I ship narrative foils from any show I've ever watched. The parallels between zutara often specifically highlight how they might suit each other romantically, and fit with the show's themes of balance.

This is just my opinion, and certainly not meant as a callout for any zvkaang shippers, especially those who are zutara and zvkaang shippers, I just felt it necessary to debunk the idea that if zutarians actually cared about literary analysis, they would ship zvkaang. It's just another half-assed, poorly thought out way to delegitimize zutara shippers and pretend that the ship has no canon basis, while in reality, anyone with an objective eye for media analysis can see that zutara is by no means a ship to be ignored.

[silvermoon424]

Hi Katy! How are you? I hope you're having a good day.

I was wondering if you knew what's going with r/sailormoon?

I guess people have gotten fed up with the mods or something? I've posted on that subreddit in the past, so I know the mods can be rude (to say the least).

Most of the posts pertaining to this situation seem to have been removed.

Hey! I'm good, thank you! Hope you're doing well too.

Wow, okay, I had NO idea what was going on and had to do some digging. The information is very sparse but I think I was able to piece together what happened:

A few days ago, a popular artist posted a 3D artwork of Neo-Queen Serenity to r/sailormoon. The artwork was removed because it "reeks of AI." The artist very politely messaged the mods and asked them what happened, offering to send evidence that proves her authenticity. The mods muted- and later outright banned- her. One of the mods also blocked her on Bluesky when she tagged them asking what happened.

You can read the whole thread here:

People later started sending hate to the two mods (RockyCoon and lemonaid83), which the artist denounced. It got to the point where RockyCoon decided to shut down the subreddit and step down as mod. As of right now, the r/sailormoon subreddit is shut down and will remain that way until a new mod can take over.

Okay, so time to give my opinion on this whole thing.

Right off the bat, let me say that harassment is wrong; RockyCoon and lemonaid83 should not be sent death threats over a fucking fandom subreddit.

THAT BEING SAID- I'm glad people are acknowledging what a shitty place r/sailormoon is and how awful its mods are. It sucks that the mods were harassed into it, but I'm glad they're stepping down because they really do live up to the powertripping Reddit mod stereotype. You can see people in this thread (from a smaller Sailor Moon subreddit) talking about their negative experiences with the mods.

The mods' policies and strict adherence to an arbitrary set of rules really stifles the community. The biggest example of this is the whole "no self-promotion" rule. Artists get hit with the banhammer for daring to link to their socials where people can see more of their work or commission them (because fuck artists for trying to make a living I guess). Meanwhile apparently it's fine for people to post uncredited artwork.

Okay, I gotta rant about this because it still pisses me off so much. Just a few months ago an artist posted pictures of Sailor Moon props he'd made; he makes props and other replicas for a living and they're just gorgeous. Tons of people (myself included) asked him where we can buy his work or commission him. He had to DM us all individually due to fears of being banned for self-promotion. But then the mods caught on and deleted the post anyway.

The artist and I were DMing at the time and he told me how disheartening it was to get a lot of traction for his business only for the mods to derail it because of stupid, arbitrary rules. He wasn't really a Sailor Moon fan himself (he only made the props because his wife, a Moonie, encouraged him to) and I hate how this incident must have tainted his view of the fandom.

So yeah, ANYWAY, I hope this fiasco results in r/sailormoon getting better mods and not sucking anymore. Again, I don't condone harassment, but I can't say I feel too bad for the head mod. They've been super shitty for years and actively made the Sailor Moon fandom a worse place to be in.