#bc racism is different to fantasy othering

[creatingblackcharacters]

not the same anon who asked about "pale" skin, but I've been considering the semantics of that issue as well - Ice, can you explain why and how precisely pale/blanched/ashen read different to Black people? I understand culture/society and language and how someone grew up have an influence on this, so I'm not expecting a universal answer, but I'm genuinely curious about the specific connotations attached

I can see why you take issue with the word "pale" in that ask, so I guess my question is more why does one specifically read worse than the other? as in what's the framework, what's the toolbox I'm working with as a writer? - how does blanche win over pale in this context when blanche is the French word for the colour white? how do pallid, deathly pallor, sallow-faced and wan factor into this, when they're all variations of a similar thing? so which ones get a pass in a metaphorical sense, are there any? how does context factor into picking the right words? (for the sake of an example: pale skin vs pale brown skin) and which words do Black readers want to see if not the above? is it best practice to default to what's actually going on (e.g. they're in shock, they're cold, they suffer from blood loss and it shows)?

I'm an ESL writer so being able to navigate my dictionaries well is an important skill to me, and being able to contexualise these things always helps a lot in making better word choices (essentially - what are the tools I apply to get the result I need? is a simple definiton enough or do I also need cultural understanding and etimology? I write fantasy, so I do occasionally think these things to pieces)

It took me some time to answer this because- I have to be honest- I was quite offended at something you implied here 😅 I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt, bc I don't think you meant to, but I will absolutely need you to reframe your thinking after this. I'm probably not gonna answer all your questions either, sorry.

They don't read different to Black people, they read different to y'all!

You must understand that, from some of the questions I've received, and from the things that many a Black reader has read by nonblack (usually white) authors, it is often clear that some of you do not understand how we function or even look as human beings. It's as though we're another species, sometimes.

And that is not brand new! The history of antiblackness in medicine and physiology is as old as racism itself! Thinking that we do not blush- even though blushing is a physiological, human reaction. "Paler", as though that itself is not a word used from a eurocentric perspective to describe blood leaving a pale face. Blanche is also a verb describing blood leaving the face, which happens to everyone, but like you said... Rooted in literal whiteness.

We use physiological descriptions for Black people because if we don't, y'all do not understand how these words- and thus the reactions- apply to us! Because sure, we could use "paled"- if yall understood that it doesn't mean we get lighter skinned. Sure, we could use "blushed pink"- if you understood that it doesn't mean our brown cheeks turn a whole different color. Sure, we could say "pallid as death"- the one time being grey would make sense on our skin, as it is dry- but y'all don't understand that that doesn't mean getting lighter skinned.

You do not understand me; you do not understand how I as a human being function, even though I know enough about you to write you up entirely! I don't think 'oh well when pale folk blush and the writing says "cheeks darkened", they must mean that they're getting more melanin in their cheeks!' That sounds silly, right? And yet!

We use this language because it better allows us to be a part of a conversation that doesn't happen when the language and thus the visuals obtained still default to whiteness. And this has an effect from storytelling to having illnesses diagnosed. We're literally dying out here because doctors don't know what to look for on our skin or in our bodies; doctors that think having melanin makes your skin thicker and that being Black makes you less susceptible to pain somehow, that Black women bear childbirth pain better (despite dying more often) or that being Black is a pre-existing condition.

These are not words I'd have to lean on, if I knew that you understood how my body works the way you understood your own (and hell, y'all don't always understand that either 😅). Alas. Hope this made sense 👍🏾

[undobutton]

Okay so I'm angry, feel free to ignore or whatever.

warnings: swearing, terrible grammar, possible spelling mistakes.

white fanfic creators will worship the white / white passing characters and get so fuckin mad when people " mis-characterize " those characters. when in reality others are usually exploring the character as a whole. maybe they're kind in a fic or the 'precious cinnamon roll' gets genuinely mad for a good reason. but that doesn't fit their view of said character and they feel so comfortable yelling at whoever wrote the fic and shitting all over them???

then they want to strip a black character of their blackness and pretend like racism doesn't exist in their little worlds and they make black readers feel so... false? like we don't even actually exist. like they won't even go through the bare minimum of finding new ways to express embarrassment it's ALWAYS blushing. or feeling your face turn red. and someones always playing with y/ns hair??

but god forbid a black writer create a black reader that other people can fuckin enjoy? or express that a BLACK character might feel uncomfortable dating a white person?? or the (black) character and their white significant other will experience the world differently?

and it hurts cause fanfic writers will spend hours up to weeks researching a time period or a fantasy race (elf, dragon, witch, etc) for accuracy but they won't consider it for a black character or reader? thats so sad.

especially when they take offence at black writers only wanting other people of color to interact with their posts. Like you kick us out of the chatacters xreader tag. but the xblack!reader tag is for everyone?

and then the smut. it's always borderline racist. like the character frowned or got angry once and now they're characterized as a toxic, rude, violent person? like if you want rough smut there are so many not-black characters who are word for word what you want. but you instead force those ideas onto the black characters with no evidence!

like they aren't porn-bots for your little kinks. they mean something to those black readers and writers who finally got some representation and now we've gotta scroll through pages of uncomfortable smut to find one fic where the character is sweet... but y/n is white as hell.

like i hardly write because im afraid of white fanfic writers taking my stories as a personal offence. especially with Hobie. since there's always someone in his tag with their "hot take" or actively yelling at a black writer bc we express these feelings.

like just shut up. please. or do some fucking research.

[phantomquill]

been thinking about why AA5 (and tangentially: AA6) is like that, and i think i've put my finger on it. (AA5 & AA6 spoilers below the cut)

it's a different writing direction obviously, and i read in an interview that they didn't want to limit themselves by trying too hard to fit things into the continuity or try and make a shu takumi game without the requisite amount of shu takumi on the team for that, and i think that's fine. they set out to make a game that new players could get into without four games of required reading and they definitely succeeded at that. i don't necessarily like it (my poor boy apollo and his three backstories!) but that's something else entirely.

but all that aside, there's a tonal difference in AA5 vs AA1-4, and i think it's in the way the characters are written, and the type of fantasy it is. (this is kinda long so its under a readmore)

AA1-4 are a bit of a power fantasy i think; you get to play as a knight in shining armor for your poor innocent clients. the protagonist is just some guy - silly lawyer superpowers aside - he isn't special or smarter than the player, and he unravels mysteries in order to protect others and save them from threats taken from real life, like false convictions, corruption, intimidation and extortion - and when it dips into more fantasy-like, it's things like supernatural family drama and saving your bestie from a hitman through the power of friendship.

for all of this to work well, the characters need to have somewhat realistic motivations. AA1-4 definitely has its flaws wrt how characters are written, but each character, even unsympathetic ones or comic relief, has an understandible and human motive for why they act the way they do. april may, like many other AA women, isn't necessarily a well-written character, but she makes it clear her actions are because she's afraid of her boss and doesn't want to get hurt. frank sahwit is definitely a racist caricature, but panicking during a burglary seems real enough. everyone has their own, clear interests, and yours is to understand all those motives in order to save your client from injustice.

AA5, and especially AA6, i think are power fantasies about punishing evil. they're still about saving people too, but it's not the main thing anymore. i've always thought it was strange decision to have the big bad of AA5 shot (and it doesn't even matter bc they're OK i guess) and everyone just moves on - it's jarring to see the protagonists push to make that happen, and then barely even react to it. it's like the narrative expects the player to want to see some sort of divine punishment come down on the bad guy, and because we barely know anything about them at this point, it's just for the fact they're the bad guy and did bad things. AA6 is even more on the nose with all of it, by inventing an oriental fantasy country with an evil dictator and lawyer racism to give the player an indubitable big bad to take down.

and in turn, the less human characters are, the easier it is to turn them into some sort of embodiment of evil that exists to punish. AA1-4 has some fantastic villains that were catharic to knock down, but they're individual people, not just representations for some sort of evil, like the big bads of AA5 and AA6 seem to be. and in turn, motivations become much less relevant, and where the writing becomes weaker imo.

not just the villains, either; the AA5 big bad does a bunch of really unnecessary stuff that actively sabotages them and we never learn why, nor does the narrative care. but what of, say, simon? why did he take the L for an 11-year-old? did HE think she did, or could have done it, or did he fear she'd be punished or traumatized even further? did it make sense at all in context of what he knew and didn't know at the time? did that make sense logistically, in-universe? a reader can speculate and come up with something plausible - but it's not in text. he sacrificed himself for someone else because that's the role he plays in this story, and his actual motivations aren't what this story is about. i don't even want to talk about apollo tbh so i'm moving on.

and all that to say like, i enjoyed AA5, i don't think (most) the characters are badly written, but getting to pick apart the mystery and see how everyone's motivations played into it - or be fed scraps about what their motivations might have been, for more ambiguous characters - is one of the main appeals of AA for me, so i wish AA5 and on would have focused on that more over the idea of punishing evil. when reading through AA i want to play the part of the jury - not judge, jury, and executioner.

[figscigfigs]

my favorite moments from episode 11 of fantasy high junior year!!:

“is that’s a problem”

“riz? do you need to go to the eye doctor????”

finally addressing all the angry npcs

“even you fabian”

the identity spell giving SQ meeting gnosis

“should we go start minor disturbances around school and see if we get beat up?”

adaine’s classic scooter

aelwyn and adaine being sisters!!!!!

“tell kristen not to come back, the children were very rowdy after she left”

fig invading ruben’s dreams as kelpflower corncob (rad as hell)

gertie x kristen!!!! (honeybees?? maybe)

devil’s honey is so fucking rad

“my friends no longer want to see me naked” “i do”

all the parents!!!!

telemaine’s elf racism was silly but also made me a lil upset (“was that supposed to be my name?” “no i was doing a different word”)

GILEAR!!!! MY CHOSEN ONE HAS RETURNED!!!!(“this may tickle you to watch my life become suddenly amazing against my will”)

fig and hallariel continue to bring me joy (“hey! it’s me! from the phone!”)

“how did she bring winter??” “how did she bring winter???” “how did she bring winter??”

“we really gotta talk up bee girl”

fig and sandra lynn’s conversation got to me truly (i need sklonda and sandra lynn to start a support group for mothers parenting children working for the applebees student presidential campaign mpcwaspc for short)

fabian and gorgug arguing over who’s carrying the gravestone and “the ball do you wanna-“ “too small”

princess nara (i love her im sorry she’s too real)

in fact all the kristen/nara/tracker energy was absolutely perfect for lesbian exes (“WORLDSTAR”)

ALL OF SECRET SYLVAN (i genuinely shed tears cried bc they all love each other so much)

things about adine: 1. blonde 2. wizard 3. elven oracle

riz/murph immediately taking charge and running secret sylvan is so deeply in character

(attempted tearing noises)

“stop showing hole and make ‘em!”

and as we all know the last 20 minutes were the most insane thing that’s ever happened to me but god fig watching the illusion of herself she conjured morph into her dad and get fucking impaled by the armor that he wore to save her from her own illusion not even a year ago is devastating.

[endykelopaedia]

I'm privileged for a completely different facet of my identity that works differently than gender. I was born White and am White and there's no moving away from that. People are AGAB and the societally approved thing to do is to stick to that. Those who challenge their AGAB are all committing the same violation. I cannot offend society with my race but a trans man and a trans woman are doing fundamentally the same thing to piss people off. The cishetpatriarchy wants men to be men and women to be broodmares, and see a "man" wanting to be that which is hated and othered as repulsive, just as they hate a broodmare trying to put themselves on the level of (cis) men.

The funny thing about all this is that while I think the idea of AFAB trans people weaponinzing their AGAB is massively overblown, it IS totally possible for them to have conditional "privilege" in radfemmy spaces...because radfems see them as "female." I have no idea where the overwhelming and bias-inducing love for masculinity outside the cishetpatriarchy comes from. I just plain do not see it. I've never even heard anything but horror stories about relations between trans men and cis gay man.

And the idea that trans men are liked better by the cishetpatriarchy for wanting to be men is so flabbergasting it makes me see stars. Surely we don't think cishet men love masculine "women" or that women throughout history could have simply said they want to be referred to as men as a get-out-of-misogyny-free card.

A lot of times it genuinely seems to me like a lot of trans men who support this framework get gender euphoria out of living out this weird fantasy world. And it's honestly creepy? Like what I'm constantly reading into this is "I'm such a man I could totally have power over you and use it to abuse you if I wanted to but of course I never would." Like that does not make me feel good or safe lol! I've had multiple tell me that they believe in transmasc privilege because they themselves used to be transmisogynistic or partook in sOcIaL mUrDeR, which is a wild own goal to me because all the transmascs I know are hyper-vigilant about hopping on transmisogyny as soon as they see it.

Like, yes, you are a man! You are. I agree with that. But the material reality is that transphobes do not treat you like one and the queer community is much more divided and fractious in a way that does not really advantage one group in particular. Like a given space can favor transmascs but it could also favor transfems, and the only reason the latter isn't considered a problem is based on the tautological argument that they don't exist so the ones that do exist are NBD. Like, I could give you example after example of transfem-favoring queer people being absolutely unambiguously vile about trans men, but it always just gets No True Scotsman'd. No matter how many times it's provably manifest it's always shrugged off as an anomaly, or justified by the same thing being directed at trans women, which is a problem for transfems and not transmascs just because.

only a white woman could comfortably say that white privilege & gendered oppression work completely separate LMAO and yk what i dont think you even really believe that bc why would you immediately come out swinging about my supposed racism against black trans men (MYSELF) specifically over a post that only talked about male privilege.

i know damn well you have a barely coherent prose tucked away about the demonisation of black masculinity being proof of societal misandry that works out REAL well for you when you're arguing with other white folk. i didnt say it before but im gonna say it now, you dont actually give a fuck about black people and you should keep us out of your salty mouth. moving on.

you neednt explain the basics of misogyny, transphobia and cisheteropatriarchy to me. one thing i notice about a lot of you transandrophobia folks is you really like to over explain yourselves. wondering if overwhelming people with words works out for you usually. makes it easier to hide your blatant contradictions and terf-y talking points, yeah?

Like: "And the idea that trans men are liked better by the cishetpatriarchy for wanting to be men" "Surely we don't think cishet men love masculine "women"" is nasty work. this is whyyy i asserted we arent just he/him females to you under the first ask you sent me. cuz i KNEWWW you didnt think of us as men fr. that platitude at the end doesnt mean SHIT. i LIVE as a man & get treated like one. transphobes dont see me as one on principle but a) not everyone i interact with is a transphobe and b) transphobes CANT always tell. but none of that matters cuz we just innocent little girls with a dream, of course. how could we possibly perpetuate societal (trans)misogyny if we only women who want to be men, right.

i assume this is your response to the TERF talking point "trans men are only doing transitioning to escape womanhood & get a slice of male priviege" but it being "what do you mean? trans men will NEVER really be men or seen as men so how could they use it to get male privilege?" ??? plot is LOST. youve gone back to sounding exactly like them.

hopping from calling me racist against black trans men, to realising i am a black trans man, to calling me (and men like me) creeps for the SICK tboy fantasy that is being openly aware of my ability to perpetuate misogyny. wild. WILD. dont even know what to say to you.

i dont feel good around people who hold me hostage to tell me how bigoted (usually racist in my case) they used to be against me either. but the solution wouldnt be to surround myself around white people who dont got the SICK racist fantasy of holding power over me in this society, and it isnt to shut my ears and act like i aint capable of (trans)misogyny at all either? you really feel less safe around trans men who know know that they can be bigoted against you vs ones who dont? i mean. thats you, i guess.

since i'm not a he/him female i think id rather listen to trans women who arent she/her males on actual transmisogyny in queer spaces, bc something tells me your attitude towards it is different from most.

and god, please spare me your examples. i can just look at my actual life and draw smarter conclusions than you have.

[tboyquackity]

another thing is i finally placed a finger on why i don't rlly like extreme fantasy racism or homonormative society* takes abt the dsmp (*outside of jokes which i admit cn be quite funny) bcs like...idk smtimes it gives "i don't see color". yget what i'm saying?

like cq is canonically visibility mixed brown and tht informs who he is, how he's treated,,,,cniki experience canonical sexism frm sm angles and is often talked over n reduced to a side character in other ppls stories like its part of it,,,cschlatt canonically has extreme toxic masculinity issues as well as internalized biphobia,,,ableism is super common ppl r weird abt addicts there's a lotta jabs at different minorities and nobody acts like any of these things are too weird too outta the norm, sm foreign concept.

like don't get me wrong, the dsmp is generally WAY better off than other servers, there is that level of normalization abt being trans gnc queer poc, the gay relationships aren't just the punchline, ppl do seem to be trying and don't generally seem too malicious w their intent but they are all ultimately People in Society so it's also not Gone. and i think you do miss smthng v important :heart_hands_emoji: by not acknowledging it's there. just my thoughts no offense intended i ♡ my show very much

[creatingblackcharacters]

dia duit! i hope you are well. before i start my ask, i just wanted to say i rlly appreciate ur blog and the MASSIVE amount of work u do, its a testament to ur character and the website as a whole is better off bcs of u.

i was just wondering whether i could get input from yourself, or you followers, abt a character in a story i am writing currently. i myself am a white irish guy, and my story is set in a rural coastal village in the south west of ireland. one of two main characters is a Black woman called mary francis. her dad is a Black man from america whom her white irish mother met while working in america in her twenties, and they moved to ireland, back to the village mary's mam is from, when mary was a toddler. her dad was a professor of literature in [insert american university here], but tbh he didnt like lecturing much bcs he's not a massive fan of public speaking and so when they moved to ireland he rlly appreciated the solitude and space and time to read, and currently he works remotely for an irish university writing articles and the like. mary herself works at and runs the local newsagents, and she is the captain of the parish camogie team. she is a pov character and central to the stories conflict, which is based vaguely off the corrib gas controversy (when shell was extracting gas off the coast of a gaeltacht village, which protested the gas pipe and the onshore gas production as being dangerous to them and the wildlife, and were met with disgusting and disproportionate opposition from the gardaí (irish cops) and private security firms). mary is the head of the protest group against the company doing the mining of a strange new (unearthly) fuel found under the sea off the coast of her village.

my questions centre around 2 concerns. first is that mary is a Black woman in a small rural irish village and ofc there would be some prejudice and anti-Blackness directed towards her. however, i dont want her to be disconnected from her community and have her side of the story be a pure miseryfest while the white characters are havin a grand time. im torn between havin a realistic portrayal of the genuine struggles and racism Black people have to face in ireland, and not wanting mary to be disproportionally unhappy. altho the story deals with a lot of heavy things (environmental destruction, the impact of colonialism on the physical and emotional landscape of a place, neo capitalism, grief, etc) at the end of the day it is a fantasy story with a fair amount of escapism, and i dont want realism to come at the expense of the escapism of Black readers. i know there would be many different opinions on this ofc but i was hoping perhaps ur Black irish followers if u have any might weigh in le bhur dtoil a chairde?

the second concern is that in the real life controversy this story is (vry vry vry loosely) based off, the gardaí and private security firms used force against the protestors, which is true in my story as well, and im worried, given that mary is the head of the protest group and heavily active in protesting, there would be similarities to real life police brutality against Black people. do u have any thoughts/ideas/concerns abt this aspect of the story? as i said before, i dont want the story to be fierce traumatic for mary, and i was plannin that at protests the other protestors would make a point of protectin her and making sure she is alright and not letting the gardaí etc get near her.

thank u so much for all the effort and care that goes into running this blog, and i hope all goes well for u. sorry this ask is so long! also if anyone has any suggestions for what state/university mary's dad should be from, pls let me know bcs idk anythin abt america rlly. go n-éirí leat le gach rud atá á dhéanamh agat faoi láthair a chara <3333

Dia duit! I must admit, I respect so much that you're using Irish in this! I know that's right 😤 make me look that shit up! Thank you for introducing me to the game of camogie, that's some new level sportery. And thank you 🙏🏾

Mary Francis 🤣 yeah this is Irish, all right.

Well first, pick an HBCU!!! omg please pick an HBCU for Black Dad to graduate from, I would love that. They're organized by state on there, and granted if you don't know any states that's fine but given his background, maybe pick one with a literature program that stands out to you? Howard, Clark Atlanta, and Morehouse are easy ones too.

As for your story, well... You don't have to surround the story in her trauma. Like, there doesn't HAVE to be some overtly racist mf in her face making her life difficult. But you cannot have police violence in the story, via the police fighting against the protestors, without recognizing that yeah, there is gonna be some... Racial Context as to how we will be treated, or how her words will be translated versus if someone else had spoken them. For example, very often a Black woman and nonblack woman can say the very same thing, but only the Black woman will be deemed "aggressive" for it. So as a leader, she's gonna have to swallow stuff like that.

You mention that the other protestors recognize her position, and will try to keep her safe. That's another good example. In that, make sure you're able to convey WHY that is important. You don't have to say outright "well we've gotta protect Mary Francis because she's Black". Just a showing of the allyship in the moment, of people checking on her, of noticing when people are being more aggressive with her than they are with her nonblack and white peers- both when they're there and when she's on her own. Integrating things like that allow us as the readers to know that there are moments where her race is affecting how she's being treated. Because in real life, that's how it goes down. It's never really Stated, it's just a fact of life. Most of dealing with racism is just that; day to day microaggressive shit you have to maneuver.

And you're welcome!

[starrygazingpie]

can we hear the code geass rant 👀

i'm not gonna do a dissertation with like perfect recall of my sources bc i haven't watched it since it aired (almost 20 years now. horrifying??) and i have no intention of putting myself through that again spoilers ahead

my number 1 problem with it is that, as a whole, this series just fundamentally hates women. like to the point where even my teenaged ass that had much more patience for casual misogyny back in the day was taken aback with a "hey what the fuck"- like i think a lot about the specific ways a lot of the female characters were just killed off in incredibly brutal ways for Shock and also mostly to just make the male leads sad for a little bit. (i really haven't seen a good reason for why shirley had to die and she had to die Like That) (and like she is far from the only one but her death was a Breaking Point for me) . or like. the general treatment of kallen- who got built up as a competent knight but then mostly just got sexually harassed and left to make sad faces at lelouch. it's just- i don't feel like any of the female characters got to achieve real agency (which hits esp weird in a series so concerned about Agency and Control) nunnally gets her own section bc it's just like. this horrible mix of ableism and misogyny. where like she literally gets written as and treated as a plot macguffin. i don't think the series would be fundamentally different if lelouch was looking after his mother's beloved pet dog (who might've gotten to say more let's be real here) or a family heirloom. the writers use her disabilities to objectify her- that is, to have the other characters and the world itself treat her as an object. and honestly seem deeply unconcerned with her inner life outside of "precious innocent widdle sister" the other female character that gets her own section is nina. who is genuinely and truly. the worst example of a psycho lesbian trope i have ever seen in my life. like just taps right into the predatory lesbian trope and doesn't bother giving her a personality other than Being A Creep and also Racism. and that's the only gay character. aside from the misogyny, i also just generally felt like the show focused harder on Shocking The Audience rather than coherent writing. (which y'know. hard to have coherent writing when you're deeply dedicated to never writing any of the female characters) i feel like a lot of the political messaging was hamstrung by the focus on audience-via-Lelouch's arrogant asshole power fantasies too and it has been like 20 years since i've seen it (and i also watched it having not known much about the political context), but i think there is something to be said about the way code geass decontextualizes actual historical patterns of colonization, particularly in regards to their own imperial history and related atrocities.

[spider-xan]

I have a Google Doc of very rough point-form notes whenever I have an idea for that old wizard werewolf OC, critique of my own original writing for the character from 2003, and more general thoughts about political world-building with an understanding of material conditions that is over twenty pages long now, and they are just bare notes to jog my memory later and not even detailed notes.

Anyway, since I am not in the right mindset to write detailed commentary right now, a few points I have been thinking about that I want to expand on later:

I feel like when when white people write fantasy oppression, they always set it in a world where real life bigotry like misogyny, racism, classism, etc. don't exist, and it always betrays a lack of understanding about how oppression works and a compulsion to make white people just as or even more oppressed than POC - but I think fantasy oppression would make more sense and have greater depth in-universe and on a meta level if real oppressions still exist and intersect with the fantasy oppression - like, the werewolf OC is white and financially secure, so while he does get oppressed in magical society for being a werewolf, he is still privileged over werewolves who are not white, who get hit with being dehumanized as animals twice over, and just about every other werewolf who lives in poverty bc of the material conditions driving both their oppression and resistance, so he starts the story in a very different political position than other werewolves, especially when the disparity in treatment is even wider.

The prime version of the OC is a cis boy, unfortunately, but I do have a trans fem reading of the character, which I have written about in previous posts, that I am expanding on, and one of the things I was thinking of is how given the main story is set in Britain during the 1940s and WWII, some of the considerations she would have to take into account to fit 1940s femininity and hide things like scars related to being a werewolf that would raise questions she can't answer in non-magical society without facing consequences in magical society and generally disliking attention would cause problems for her - things like longer skirts being seen as unpatriotic and wasteful during the war, or how wearing real silk stockings would already be an issue, but the wartime practice of painting your legs and drawing a fake seam down the back of your legs would be even worse, and she would possibly be seen as childish for still wearing knee-high socks instead despite aging out of school by 1942.

It's really weird re-reading old writing from 2003 bc on one hand, the writing itself is not as terrible as I thought it might be, though it's definitely not great either - but on the other hand, some writing and narrative decisions I made are baffling and you can tell I was very new to writing and RPing; one of the things that struck me is that the OC goes through something extremely traumatic early on in the game, especially considering he's a sheltered privileged teenager at that point in the story, but I just kind of didn't think much about it afterwards bc he should have carried that trauma through the rest of the game that got played out and had it affect both his political beliefs and reactions to events that happened later, especially in reaction to law enforcement - but yeah, this is something I am fixing and putting far more thought into in my re-imagining of the character.

[jewishbarbies]

I didn't know about the antisemitism in hp because while I wasn't explicitly taught "this is antisemitic" I still learned those tropes. I just didn't know they they were tropes. The only thing I knew was nazi propaganda, because that was in textbooks. We didn't learn about everyday antisemitism. We didn't learn about the history of jews in any other country. And that doesn't excuse me or the school I went to. But I know better now, and I can look around and recognise certain tropes. But I can also recognise that jkr was hateful to so many different groups of people. Jews, the Irish, asian people, gay people, trans people, ironically women in general (Ginny Weasley in particular who only existed as a character for Harry to save and get married and have babies with) and women who like "girly" things (Lavender Brown deserved better.)

at this point, so much of pop culture is steeped in these antisemitic things (tropes, imagery, caricatures, etc.) and a lot of fantasy lore in some areas is just antisemitic to its core so while I’m angry I have to sift through the distressing nonsense, I try not to get angry at people who genuinely don’t understand. because you can spread antisemitism while not being an antisemite. the entirety of the witch aesthetic is stolen and twisted from jewish caricatures, antisemitic history, and practices appropriated from indigenous cultures - but that’s just The Witch now. same with goblins. that’s just what That Thing is to people now, so if you want to stop it, you have to throw the whole thing away and barely anyone is actually willing to do that. on top of that, they believe they don’t have to.

with HP specifically, I don’t blame anyone for not picking up on the bigotry from the books they read as children. now, if you reread it as an adult and still don’t get it, that’s another issue. but at least with the antisemitism, it’s much more obvious with the movies and a lot of people try to excuse JKR from it bc of that, when she had such a heavy hand in making those films. she had/has enough sway to change literally anything. and I think a lot of people understood the antisemitism more when they could see just what these goblins were supposed to look like, and that brought it all together. however, there are people obsessed with goblins (I think there’s a lot of neurodivergent people who have a special interest in goblins for one reason or another and that makes it more difficult to let go, in my experience) who absolutely refuse to come to terms with the antisemitic nature of the creature to begin with, when it’s antisemitic originally AND in JKR’s interpretation. I never got into HP so I didn’t know about the goblins, having not seen the movies, and it was really easy to not interact with it once I did. I can genuinely understand how heartbreaking it is to find out something you love goes against what you believe in, bc for jews it’s just part of our lives. we find out creators of and the things we like are nazis or antisemitic every single day. moreso than usual as of late.

imo the racism and general bigotry of JKR should be more than enough for HP fans who claim to care about other people, but it’s hella odd that antisemitism is the sticking point for so many people. they’ll say they’re streaming the movies and playing the games and reading the books but but but they’re not giving money to JKR and therefore not supporting her transphobia and racism, but you mention her antisemitism and the fact that the HP game was just antisemitism the simulator and they immediately dismiss it. her bigotry is embedded in the work. it’s in the imagery of the franchise. hell, there’s a storyline where a villain is a villain bc he wanted to stop the holocaust. that speaks for itself, and should be enough for literal adults.

(on the It’s The Thing Now point, it’s happening with lizard people as well. everyone is calling themselves a goblin and making lizard people jokes and it’s just apart of the young people dialogue now. I could go on for hours but I think I made my point.)

[evergreen-dryad]

I don't know how to feel over all these strange fantasy names when it's supposed to be fantasy china (and Japan nearby). I would like annotations

it does directly copy and paste some stuff from China's history / Sun Tzu / strategist stuff

you can tell someone's important if they have a name from myth: eg Nezha, Jiang Ziya, Su Daji (femme fatale) There are some references to Journey to the West in some of the Cike/Bizarre Children but not direct borrowings- Baji (Zhu Bajie), Aratsha (Sha Wujing), Suni (Sun Wukong)

It's very readable (as YA tends to be). It's a more fast paced harry potter so far. I'm speeding through it a lot ngl.

Highlights: (wait there's no underline here still??)

- Rin beating Nezha (it's 2-1 so far but just Rin beating everyone up in the Tournament despite being excluded discriminatorily from class)

(And then them both working together like a well-oiled machine in the war!)

And oh, she turned out to be the last speerly! I think it works and also does introduce more tension over where to put her in terms of politics and all that, but I am also praying Altan doesn't die (I feel like he WILL) (and HE DID)

From what I remember of Babel (same author) -- well, there's the historical accuracy that doesn't deviate much, there's also the nostalgic romanticism of school (a safe and beautiful place with towers and pagodas, but also bittersweet with its bullies and racism) and having to work hard af (what a chinese thing tbh), wanting to excel There's the all-important teacher-student relationship and what knowledge does

Foreshadowing: where Runin was burning herself to study more for the Keju Exam, it ends up being foreshadowing for the god she'll call down -- the Phoenix. You watch her determined to go through anything to get stronger:

'How she didn’t need rest, only pain, pain to fuel the fire.' 'Who couldn't she kill?'

After she kills a creature wearing Altan's face. Well, spoiler: she does do genocide

Themes/Symbolism: knowledge, the danger of adhering to just one branch/extremity of thought (esp reflected in the elitism of Sinegard and the north and south; in the way the other Sinegard students treat Runin; in the way Kitay is convinced of his rationalism over Runin questioning if shamanism exists; even in the military where military arts and shamanism are separated and hidden (for the latter); and how Nikara separated itself from Speer (the analogue for smth like Ainu people in Japan.))

Of what is the purpose of knowledge, if it cannot be 'utilised' for in present context, war?

Is 'an eye for an eye' right? What would you do to win or to get revenge? That there are difficult choices to make in such horrors like war -- do horrifying things done to you and your people justify genocide? What if your god that was your only hope was also cruel to you? Between gods and humans, who is really using who?

Also subtly feminist. I mean, it really delivers on the promise of female rage, and there are a couple important female figures

Characters: of course Runin is easy to like and easy to root for! She's way more determined than me bcs she's that unhinged/unhealthy 'do-or-die' when it comes to academics and martial arts!

Everyone else for students is a bit, hm, unelaborated on so far which is fair

Rin has 2 foils: 1) Kitay, and 2) Nezha. And prob also Altan -- how he seems so perfect and later on how they seem alike -- but are ultimately different

Tearza in the past who refused to sacrifice the world for her people, so the god killed her in retribution. But Rin did do so in vengeance and is thus still alive.

Nezha funnily keeps getting 'off-screen death scenes' which means he's definitely not dead

Character relationships: interesting to see how Altan is a 'better' teacher to Rin as they understand each other better in needs to war, but also gets abusive towards her with the pressure and needing her to summon their god, as he is a soldier first.

Jiang was the 'wiser' teacher as a peaceful scholar but wasn't there, sealing himself away in stone

Descriptions: lightly sketched so you don't get drowned in it

Tone: easy, simple, direct, not very literary/purple prose, often short sentences

Use of language: Past tense. Purely in Rin's POV, with one exception in Tyr's/and then omniscient narrator (to show the betrayal of the empress). Lots of dialogue/some worldbuilding descriptions. (R F Kuang seems to begin/end/spin with dialogue a lot which makes it snappy?)

Figurative techniques sparse. Shows the extreme cruelty of the world (even before the war). Also does not hesitate to say fuck.

What works for it?

-want to see what happens to rin as it's very action-heavy and you're rooting for the underdog (fast-paced, inexorable marching to war)

[trans-soapberry]

the thingw the orcs in dunmeshi is sth i skirt around bc like u said it is. not a great modern take on orcs. obv not the worst it could be and kui at least did engage w trying to write a more involved lore on them rather than just having this be the same “orcs are big uncivilized brutes��� version 8000000 but that element is still there. and i do think “its not the worst” is hardly what i would want to set my highest expectations to jdhdgksgd

tumblrs being a bitch n not letting me put images in so I'll just paste the text from the other ask

Nodding. ty for the info on the ways halfling racism can be compared to irl examples in “the middle east” like that rly is such a close comparison i wonder if it was at all intentional… AND FR on the whole . wishing we knew what they called themselves bc the “halfling” “half foot” thing i rly cant help but think abt how it feels like irl examples of certain groups being denigrated to category slurs its like. LOL. dunmeshi makinh me feel party to fictional racism and microaggressions against my will...

Idk Abt skirting around bc I think it's smthn we should face head on, but at the same time I'm not in a place where I can really add onto the discussion wrt orcs as a white/East Asian person. IIRC ppl have said tolkiens orcs are black and/or central Asian (Mongolian I believe) coded, which is meaningful cause he's influenced so much of modern fantasy, and thats. Y'know. Not great. Also the orcs in dungeon Meshi are essentially an indigenous group from what I remember so that's also a whole mess. Again, my opinions arent very meaningful when it comes to this, but I feel like it's incredibly disappointing to see an author who's clearly capable of nuanced and interesting commentary on racism in the context of real life and fiction (even if it's not always great it's clear she's thinking about it in some depth) really just. Fall back on tropes. Bc for the other races - human is a wider category than usual, tall men aren't always the Everyman, elves are long lived but that doesn't make them wiser, and halflings are mature, worldly and resourceful, which I feel like does a lot to break free of typical fantasy pigeon holeing. But the orcs are just sorta... The Bad Guy but Not That Bad I guess? Theoretically it's a departure from the "super evil forever no exceptions" idea of the but it's still so far behind what needs to be done to make it less of a lazy, racist trope.

Yeah, again I'm not west Asian or Arab like I said, but between reading stuff ppl online write n talking to my Iraqi friend + rereading dungeon Meshi and really trying to analyze it, it kinda stood out to me. I will say I was a little unconfident posting about it bc it's 3 things (4 if you count the name note) but theyre still really notable at least to me. The hand/foot cutting is I feel the most explicit? Because that's such a fucked up stereotype it just stands out immediately. I don't necessarily know if the half foot/middle east connection was intentional, because I assume Japan/Asia in general has a different relationship with West Asia (since they are the "far east" in comparison, so "Middle East" wouldnt really make sense?), but it could be one of those things that colonialism managed to spread. I'm not very knowledgeable about that, but even if it wasn't intentional I think it's a very interesting parallel in how language can be used to categorize people as "normal/other". So i can't say if its intentional or not, but it's definitely an interesting lens to consider the story thru. Id also say I believe halflings are said to be native to a place that's east from where the story takes place, but not the eastern continent (which is p much easy Asia). I've seen some ppl take this to mean eastern Europe, and I don't think that's wrong, but I think u could also think of it as west Asia? Idk if we ever got much info on it in story, so I might be missing some details. (Honestly I'd personally HC that halflings are generally mixed Eastern European/West Asian- not to conflate the two, but rather Im imaging the majority of them are in a kinda blended culture).

[horizon-verizon]

GRRM literally put Mediterranean, Palestine, Moorish Spain and WALES in a oriental cauldron and created Dorne. On the other hand, ASOIAF fanartists be drawing Dornish women in sarees and ghagra cholis and fancast Golshifteh Farahani, an Iranian actress, as Elia. Be serious y’all.

Penelope Cruz, Nina Dobrev, Mila Kunis are olive-skinned but they’re still unambiguously white.

"Olive" skin/toned skin is supposed to mean:

moderate or lighter tan or brownish skin, and it is often described as having tan, brown, cream, greenish, yellowish, or golden undertones

Therefore, anyone of any race can have an "olive" tone to their skin, as you see above.

The Dornish who live around/closer to the coasts are described as having "olive" skin. Therefore IF we wanted to, we have a lot of justification to have white Martells AS WELL AS actors of other races play them....bc the Martells have married many different peoples of Dorne and beyond and Dorne is not a brown territory nor a PoC one. It's pretty diverse and there is no real "racism" within the actual territory where they recognize each other as socially different by skin color like in real life except to say maybe that that person comes from the desert/the mountains/the coast or from this-that house. And that' not racism. Maybe. All the racism is from the NonWesterosi towards Dornish people, paleskinned and those we'd think would be "white" or not.

However, I also don't think all Dornish characters NEED to be PoC and Pedro Pascal is not PoC in TV adaptations. There are white Latinx i can't totally fault people for thinking the Martells are PoCs bc many came into this series from GoT where some PoC actors played some Dornish people AND people want to see themselves on screen/fantasy genre and its fans can be and are often racist asf. I mean, look at HotD!

However, if we're talking about Dorne having been always a PoC territory living as an racially opressed group under a "white" government bc of the show, that's just false. And Baelor Breakspear? I said this on Twitter:

I have a very long and repeatedly edited post for how/why Dorne is Dorne HERE. Proceed at your own cost.

[the-storming-sea]

also also read ur intro post just now may i politely ask about your opinions of asian media and rep. is it specifically for fantasy? or just lots of genres with general trends or themes youve noticed? 👀

omg i wrote that so long ago and my brain is kinda fried so i'll be a little brief. may expand on it later but eh its all good. these are just rambling thoughts

a lot of asian rep in media mostly revolves around the east asian experience, which is valid bc god knows they need it, except often times it leaves out literally everyone else in its wake, or it keeps grouping up certain asians together. currently south east asian cultures are particular victims of this. But sometimes what ends up happening is that there is a "fantasy asia" world where the world is not technically Asia, but it might as well be given the inspiration behind it. in my personal opinion its kinda orientalist and a bit fetishistic of the 'exoticness' of asian cultures. Like it wants asia but without all of the real people in it

like for example the world in raya and the last dragon. it was great seeing someone who looked at me on screen but goddamn they couldn't at least set it in south east asia, let alone have distinct cultures instead of just taking little aspects of culture and making fantasy. it was a great movie for diaspora sure, but anyone actually from south east asia was disappointed. Xiran Jay Zhao compiled a two part video on it that elaborates more on it better than i could right now–i say compiled bc she doesnt do much talking in them aside from the beginning of the video; everyone else talking in it is south-east asian.

another fantasy world heavily inspired by Asia is ofc atla's world. my problem is that While its a good representation of east asian cultures, south east, south asian, northern asians, and western asians are left behind.

and what bothers me is that there are many places where they can fit in. Like the swampy tribe areas and the ancient firebenders from the dragons era feel like they should be south east asian inspired somewhat, and if you wanted to make a commentary on how these lands have been taken over and colonized (or at least there was an attempt on colonization) would be interesting. or how it feels like it makes more sense for katara and sokka to be more north asian inspired than american inspired. and of course there was the one (1) south asian inspired character who was. more of a caricature than anything else. im not saying the indigenous american rep is bad. obviously any representation is great, especially for indigenous americans. But if you are going to create a clearly "asian inspired" world (like nearly every aspect of this world is asian in culture and the main character is clearly a buddhist monk, it would be hard to argue otherwise), then at least take inspiration from asian cultures?

(side note people making fun of the swampy fog people is not great. does not feel great. regardless of whether they believe they're south east asian rainforests or the american bayou)

other small things are more of fan issues than creator issues. specifically the way people treat some anime characters like they're white instead of japanese/asian and then hold them to white cultural standards. all might is a great example, where despite being named Toshinori Yagi and being from a world where the mc has green eyes and green hair, people still think hes white bc hes blonde haired blue eyes and loves america? which–side note, you dont have to be an american to love america, lots of older people who got really into the american dream still like america. another thing was when i read a bnha fanfic that described someone as looking "asian" which. yeah i sure hope so. the story takes place in japan. and then theres some people not recognizing that asians all look very different from one another even if they're from the same area of the world.

more recently ive noticed the fandom racism in dungeon meshi specifically towards shuro, who despite being from a fantasy world is clearly japanese, and from a japanese-inspired culture. and its his culture which leads him to respond to laios in the way that he does. im not saying its racist to be upset that shuro responded to laios that way, but like. different cultures come with different cultural views and different ways of responding. shuro and laios come from two very different cultures. it happens.

this is kinda a lot and may not make sense bc im super tired rn jhfdbgdhjfbgd but i didnt want to forget this ask and just never respond to it

[dateamonster]

what’s your opinion on monstrous transformations (both fast and slow), and also more controversially what do you think about having monsters/nonhuman characters serve as minority allegory (as opposed to society’s hate for them being being an allegory)

ohhh hold on this is a rly good question i think abt a Lot actually.

ok getting the first bit out of the way, love a good monstrous transformation. fast, slow, its all good. i personally like gradual slow shifts the most but its a situational thing. transformation is one of those things that like just always has to be symbolic. even more than the degree to which Everything is symbolic ya know. so like context rly matters when it comes to how to invoke it most effectively.

MOVING ON

i think from the phrasing of the ask ur looking for something more along the lines of like. for example shapeshifters as representation of nonbinary people or aliens as representation of different cultures rather than like monsters vs humans as allegory for racism. but im also not sure you can meaningfully separate the two! the latter i think is more overused so it like registers more as an immediate red flag, but its like. if the aliens from avatar werent being violently invaded by humans it wouldnt make like their reskinned stereotypical indigeneity anymore tolerable i dont think.

which isnt to say i think every story that draws connections between fantastical fictional species and real world people are inherently bad. i dont really think theres any trope that i believe cant be handled well by anyone under any circumstance. the super easy fix to bad rep via monster or fantasy creature characters is basically just have actual humans who also represent those same identities and communities and experiences so that the audience isnt drawn to connect the traits of any one group with your fictional species.

the harder fix is to like seriously analyze why you want this character to be a monster and what that says about them and what that says about you and your own experiences and biases and what you actually want to communicate with the inclusion of this character. and when applicable hire a sensitivity reader. its kinda crazy how many pieces of media seem to prefer half-assing the hard way over just doing the easy thing and not assigning the status of token minority to a literal monster.

of course once again all of this is ya know circumstantial. im speaking to like my own experiences and the things ive observed. and its weird too! bc im also speaking as someone who like is trans and nonbinary and thinks of myself and my gender expression as inherently intertwined with monstrosity. and as someone who is autistic and thinks of myself as a changeling. and as someone who is a fat person who represents themself with a pig themed sona. if i talk abt cringeass hollywood blockbusters engaging in High Fantasy Racism i feel like to be fair i kinda have to talk about independent own-voices creators who write stories and make art about their own identities in the lovely language of monstrosity. theres not rly a way to draw a hard line around the former without the risk of catching some of the latter.

so umm as usual i dont rly have a snappy all encompassing answer for how i feel abt this kind of characterization. im simply too much of a Nuance Enjoyer. i do i guess think this is something that generally turns out better when it is someone making art about their own experiences, but also unless i believe minority artists are a monolith, which i dont, i need to accept that artists will inevitably make stuff that is beautiful and resonant to some people and totally repugnant and offensive to others, and that both of those responses can be like totally justified and correct. thats art babey!

anyway slight digression but i think any case where a character feels more like an allegory than a fully fleshed u know Character is gonna flop for me no matter how relatable it is. tbqh, id rather more ppl try and fail to make beautiful grotesque frightening sensually moving monsters out of their lived experiences and their empathetic connections with others than succeed at creating bland toothless universally approachable Good Rep tm. if u know u know. if u feel me u feel me. that is all.

[loregoddess]

002 with Ochette?

Ochette, my beloved (some spoilers in the "wish would have happened" and "headcanon" sections at the bottom):

How I feel about this character: LOVE HER, LOVE HER, LOVE HER, she's my favorite character from the game, which was unexpected since I didn't have any strong opinion on her going in, aside from a vague sense of apprehension since "animal people" tend to end up being poorly-to-clumsily written fantasy racism allegories in a lot of fantasy stories I've come across (which wasn't entirely off the mark for how the beastlings were handled by the writers overall, but there's enough okay to decent writing here that I still think Ochette is one of the most compelling characters with a ton of potential complexity depending on how the text is interpreted).

All the people I ship romantically with this character: No one, but mostly for lack of any romantic chemistry with any of the other characters, main or NPCs. Which is really funny considering I headcanon Ochette as kinda sorta basically pansexual, and she's one of two characters from the main playable cast that I don't headcanon as some variation of ace. I definitely think she's had crushes before and will probably find a partner at some point in the future of her life, just...not from any of the named characters we meet in the game.

My non-romantic OTP for this character: I think she remains on good terms with all the other main characters even when they go their separate ways after the story concludes, and I just love how varied the dynamics she has with everyone are. Love her dynamic with Mahina/Akala too, Ochette and her bestie for life. I also think it's possible that Ochette takes over for Juvah well before he dies, and that he acts as her mentor/advisor for a bit while she gets accustomed to the role of island warden, but that he also enjoys his early retirement--and once Ochette's really grown into the role, Juvah begins to dote on her a bit as if she was his child/grandchild.

My unpopular opinion about this character: I think Ochette gets done dirty by the writers and general fandom. Moreso the general fandom than the writers, since I've seen a lot of fans write her off as the goofy, childish genki (fox)girl, and despite the writers also kind of doing this, her canon writing at least has the potential to be read as deeper than what appears on the surface. I'm of the opinion that she's actually one of the most emotionally intelligent and mature characters of the main cast, and that she's actually way more in tune with all the other characters than even they realize. Like, she knows who she can joke around with and who's a bit more serious, and where everyone's personal boundaries seem to be, and often it feels more like she's navigating a cultural/linguistic barrier than being naïve or childish (in my opinion). I mean she's totally got a lot of energy and is goofy at times (i.e. "PARDY-HARDY!!"), but that's not the sum total of her character either.

As mentioned earlier, all the beastlings kinda suffer from iffy writing, bc it seems like the writers were genuinely trying to explore the "what if there were people who had literal animal characteristics; how would their communication be different, how would their physiology be different, etc." questions, but the writing veered into a lot of tasteless "island savage, noble savage" tropes, which...kinda happens a lot with animal-people in fiction. So I'm not trying to hand-wave the racist tropes or anything, but it also seems like the writers made an attempt (however poor) to give the beastlings a culture, and that culture's different enough that part Ochette's character arc and interactions with other characters can be read as her translating what she encounters to try and make sense of it, or otherwise trying to translate her own experiences in a way so that the others understand her.

(i.e. the "girls talk about love" tavern banter, Ochette doesn't really understand what the other three are talking about at first bc they use the words "like" and "love" which honestly, in English at least, have several meanings and would be confusing to someone coming from a language where the differences between the English definitions of "like/love" were more obvious; but when Throne mentions loving dogs and how they wag their tails, Ochette draws the connection that they're talking about "like/love" the same way a dog who's wagging its tail likes someone bc it's implied that beastling communication is more like animal communication--i.e. based on body language, scent, etc.--and so after doing the mental translations Ochette's like "oooh, gotcha, yeah that's super embarrassing for me when that happens" as she does understand what the other girls are talking about even if there was a slight disconnect about what topic they were discussing at first).

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: Would have loved to see at least a conversation or something between Ochette and Temenos regarding the Dark Entity and Roi's last words bc there's...a lot of unpack there for the two of them. Also I think Petrichor should have appeared at least once in Ochette's story, I think it would have been interesting to see how the two interacted, especially since they're supposed to be narrative foils. Like the "dark hunter" gets name-dropped a few times and then we never get much past that, and Ochette's so focused on finding the creatures of legend that she doesn't do her own investigation or anything, which leaves it all sort of...way too open. I kinda wanted to see Ochette have a reaction to the memory at Toto'haha's flame as well, the way Partitio and Hikari react to the memories they see at the Crackridge and Hinoeuma flames like...you're telling me Ochette saw the Darkling maul the person who had tortured it for years and doesn't have anything to say on this? After how her battle with the Darkling ended??

a headcanon: Hmm, aside from things I've already written...I don't think Ochette met Ori until waaaay after the events of the main story arc. Like I know all the traveler arcs are kinda separate in the sense of like, "no, the second Prince of Ku who currently has a hugeass bounty on his head is not apparently just sitting on the bar stool next to Partitio as he talks to the richest man in the west" or anything like that, but we do get the travel banters and insofar as I can recall Partitio never has a travel banter with Ochette where Ori gets brought up. I feel like that was intentional given Ochette's ability to clock exactly what is going on with a person given their scent (she figured out Osvald was still a loving father before he did, she could smell the shadow in Hikari, she could smell Claude's evil on Pirro's tomb, etc.) so like, I get why Ori isn't present around Ochette (although imagining a "Hey, Pardy, that girl smells like Sadness Incarnate" would be a crazy conversation that could have existed), but it also means she was apparently just...doing other stuff and literally managed to miss Ori Every Single Time which is wild. Like I can imagine Partitio telling Ochette about this weird girl who keeps popping up seemingly out of nowhere, and Ochette's just so frustrated bc she wants to meet Ori but keeps missing her, and how do they keep missing each other when Ochette can track a squirrel halfway across a gulch.

Speaking of Partitio, since he comes out of his Ch1 coming straight out of a poverty-stricken town and lifestyle, I imagine he's really underweight when he joins up with the others. Given that Ochette's the main hunter/provider at her home, she probably just shifts those duties to making sure the party is well-fed, and was extremely concerned about Partitio when they first meet.

Also she gives nicknames to everyone...except Temenos. Going back to my "Ochette seems to be in tune with everyone and know their boundaries" thing, I think this might indicate that Temenos just doesn't really do nicknames for whatever reason. I'm thinking Ochette had a conversation with him about this (maybe suggesting a few nicknames that he shot down, and she got the sense that it made him uncomfortable--although Throne gets away with calling him Detective, but that's also a far cry from like, Temmy or Tem), and she respects his boundaries enough not to push the issue. Although on the topic of nicknames, I think it took her the longest to come up with Hikarin (and by longest I mean maybe a few extra minutes as compared to everyone else), simply because nicknames for "Hikari" aren't as intuitive.