#both are fictional but just in case!

[taketwoinink]

k, l, q, r, c

WE GOT SOME REPEATS AND LOTS OF ASKS AHHH THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!! @eleilinnrallin @gemstarstarlight @chaserofstarsandtheabyss @jinxneedssleep

I feel like you skipped every letter that had a character I was excited to talk about lol

Here we go!

K First up is this dude and I hate his name so he shall be referred to as simply K. He's a trans man, only transphobia is a big thing in this world, so everyone thinks he's a girl. In his story, there's a war going on, that has been for the past thirty years or so. Due to politics, magic was outlawed decades ago. There was a massive purge of all magical people and those who survived fled. They didn't have anywhere to run to, (everywhere is either extremely dangerous or would be a foreign kingdom hostile to them) so they set up a camp in a forest on the edge of the land that was never inhabited because it's always been overrun with monstrous creatures. They tamed these creatures and use them as manpower to farm and to fight. (Fun side note: this kingdom's closest ally is a kingdom in which magic is not outlawed, because they lived in the mountains and need it to survive up there because it is VERY COLD and covered in potentially magical ice. So as part of their alliance, this kingdom agrees to not harbor any magical refugees and the other kingdom obviously won't turn aside any of their magical people either. This alliance is mutually beneficial. The frozen kingdom receives supplies (mostly food and crop / animal stuff that they can't grow or raise in their harsh climate) and the other kingdom has the protection of the frozen kingdom because their magical warriors are renown throughout the land.) He's not the main character of this story, he's the love interest to one of the main characters! She's what's known as the King's General of the army. How this works is there are ten generals in the army. The King's General is the top general and the other nine are their advisors basically. In order to become King's General, you must duel your way to the top. Only one of the nine generals can challenge the King's General. She's the youngest King's General in possibly forever. The army has a huge influx of soldiers that they don't need. The magic users use the forest and their beasts to their advantage and engage mostly in guerrilla warfare (hope I spelled that right), so in the army's case, having more people in the field can actually be a hindrance to them. However, people keep coming in. It's considered a great honor to go to fight and for a lot of starving families, the compensation they get from sending a family member to fight is the only thing keeping them going. So, the army finds a use for these people. They use them as human shields.

There's different types of magic users and each one has a different name. The most powerful (arguably but also not) are the sorcerers. They have elemental magic that is extremely powerful and difficult to control. What they can do in a fight is bombard the enemy with fireballs from safely in the back. They're always guarded by at least a pair of other magic users (normally witches: conjurers who can manifest objects. Each witch has a different material unique to them that their summons are made of.) So the army sends new recruits around the back to attack the sorcerers. A lot of them die, but it keeps the sorcerers busy so the rest of the army can focus on the other magic users. After all, why waste well trained soldiers on a suicide mission? Anyway, Omikiia is her name lol but I'm insecure about it so it may be changed. Her sister is a witch and she knows this (her sister doesn't know that she knows this though) and their father was arrested (possibly under suspicion of being or harboring a magic user) and Omikiia went to the king and pleaded for his life to be spared. She struck a deal with the king. She'll go to war and as long as she's alive out there, her father will be kept alive in prison. The king's like "eh she'll probably die in a week and I'll get rid of both of them". She's determined though. She catches on pretty fast to what the army is doing with the new recruits and she makes a group of friends (which K is included in) and she doesn't want them to die. Hence her fighting her way to the title of King's General so she can change the tactics and save all these lives that were being wasted needlessly. She's good at her job too. K gets elevated to being one of her nine generals (she makes the majority of them and other important officers in the army people she knows are loyal to her, in the event of a power struggle with one of the other generals, she'll have more allies than they will. (popularity is also important here) but she also keeps some of the older and more experienced generals because their feedback is important) Anyway, K is very serious and comes from a poor family. He went in place of his older sister to the war to gain the benefits for his family. The longer he stays alive, the better off they'll be. Also he falls in love with Omikiia but they have to hide it because everyone assumes he is a woman and gay is a big no no. They do get to share a tent though because everyone thinks they're of the same gender so obviously they're not going to get up to anything. Obviously. (I have more K characters but that's the one you get to hear about!)

Now for L

Libra I may have other characters that also have a name that starts with L but Libra is my newest and the first one coming to mind. I created them for a roleplay initially so their story is based off of that. (A ROLEPLAY YOU ARE IN, EL! So um... I will redact some of this for secrecy purposes :D ) other people not of the roleplay may ask me for the full backstory if you want! In the world they're from, magic is heavily prejudiced against (I promise it isn't this way in all of my stories lol, just some of them). Libra was about 16 and living at home with [redacted] ... they turned 30, they became wanted for being a thief ... [redacted] ... This made them jaded ... [redacted] ... And now they're constantly on the run from the police. ... [redacted] ... So they're extremely bitter but they don't show it. They use pet names for everyone, they're sassy and mischievous, and they get by with their hard earned stealing skills. They also always wear a mask to hide their identity (there is nothing wrong with their face though, they look rather ordinary). They have a soft spot for children because it reminds them of [redacted]. So they'll often go out of their way to put a smile on a child's face or to keep them safe but they'll turn around and ignore an adult who needs help if it'd put them in danger to offer assistance. Their policy is typically, I sell you things for cheap and you don't ask where I got them. You need something, I'll get it for you, no questions asked, no one else has to know. (they're in their thirties now, [redacted] is in her twenties, there's a ten year difference between them) I have a picture of them, actually! (however since Tumblr has been bullying me, I may not be able to post it here) 

Omikiia's sister's name also starts with an L Q... q.... I don't think I have a character who has a name that starts with Q!

R

Okay okay okay okay so there are a lot of people who could fit this one! (including a character who is literally just named R lol) But we'll go with Reflections The thing to know about Reflections is that they are two people. Their species is born with telepathic/physic and memory-manipulating powers. Reflections was born as a pair of conjoined twins. However they are almost completely conjoined, so they're basically two people in one body. This has the side effect of doubling the strength of their powers. (the body is AFAB, one twin is a demigirl, the other is genderfluid. because I can) Their species lives on a series of islands. There used to be more of them but they've often been oppressed and killed off. Reflections' island was conquered. Low ranking individuals of their culture are being sold into slavery or as soldiers. (there are further repercussions of this throughout the world. the species that conquered their island tried to conquer the world 300 years ago and is now oppressed and marginalized in many countries for it. having an uprising of them trying to conquer areas again is Not Helping) Rank is determined by mind duels. In these mind duels, the contestants face off in a battle of mental strength. Whoever breaks first loses. Instead of dying if you lose, whoever beats you gets the right to your mind's identity. Or essentially all your memories. They can then declare whatever they wish. They can have you exiled, stripped of your status, etc. Whatever they say about you, everyone else has to go along with. It's their tradition. In the old times people would challenge each other to mind duels for leadership, supplies, to settle disputes and to get revenge, and other stuff like that. Everyone has been using mind duels to try to climb in the ranks of society to save their families from slavery Reflections' family was of low rank, so they participated in several mind duels before finally losing one. Now because Reflections is two people, there was a bit of a complication as the winner only gained the right to the mind of one of them. There were a lot of disputes that were only settled when the unbeaten half challenged the victor to a duel for their sister's rights. Well this side, being the more powerful of the two, won. The victor, being a sore loser, claimed that Reflections had cheated and that both sides had participated in the mind duel. Because there was no one to prove whether or not this was true, Reflection and the loser were both exiled until they found some way to prove the truth. (quick detail, one twin has better control over their body and the other one has better control over their powers) Reflection wandered the land, looking for a sufficiently well respected member of their species who could analyze their memories and prove the truth. They eventually found said member, who agreed to try if Reflection would kindly assist in erasing someone's memory for them. Reflection agreed, did the job, and let this person examine their memories. However they were not successful. Reflection, still determined to return home, sought out the person they had both beaten and lost to, only to discover that he had been killed. Without his memories, there would be no way to prove that Reflection is innocent. So they can't return home. Both twins are mischievous and like to switch up who is talking to mess with people. Their voice sounds the same, though their inflections are slightly different. One twin (the genderfluid one) is more hot headed and assertive. The other is the more mischievous one and is also the scheming. She's much calmer and thinks things through before they do them. They're essentially always co-existing next to each other, so anything that happens to one, the other is aware of. Their memories are different however, as each one views what is happening to them differently. Each twin still needs their own individual name and to be fleshed out more. I also need to work out exactly how them existing works. We'll get there! 

And finally. C!

I actually have an entire family of characters and all of their names start with C... I CAN'T FIND MY NOTES ON THEM THOUGH AHHHH and I'm too lazy to keep looking. a lot of my story notes are extremely unorganised

The C Family So we'll go based off of my memory! The two I remember best are the twins, Cannon and Camera. Other people in the family include the oldest Cascade and the youngest... I think her name was Cinnamon but my cousin has an OC by that name so she's gonna have to be renamed. Camera, true to her name, likes taking photos. I mean if you're gonna be named Camera like you might as well. She's also very protective and hotheaded. Cannon's a lot more leveled headed. Does sports but some of the team members were toxic so he quit so he's sort of friends with some of them and not all. He has a girlfriend but I forgot her name. Camera would totally be a lesbian Oh yeah their parents are dead, killed by a gang, gang war politics, I don't remember all the details. So now Cascade is pretending that they're alive while really she's running the family because not all of them are out of school and she doesn't want anyone being taken away. I think they all have brown or black hair? wow I have not described appearances for anyone. They were originally side characters in a different story of mine, however I may like to snatch them out and put them in their own story. we'll see!



AND THAT'S IT THANKS FOR COMING TO MY RAMBLE SEND ME MORE ASKS I HAVE LOTS OF CHARACTERS!

[tero-ga]

Aaaaanother TGAA SwapAU stuff and it is my wonderful boy Albert as the prosecutor!!

I've changed some of the designs in this one like the jacket color to white to make a resemblance of a lab coat and reflecting of Kazuma white school uniform, as well trying to bring more Frankenstein's Monster vibe too hehe (aaand make him look more miserable too). He is also have a locket that have a painting of him and his two brothers, it was given by Andrew during his wedding!

I also made bunch of character that related to Swap!Albert's life from 10 years ago, like Andrew(Klint's roleswap) and his other brother Michael, university Barok and Albert, etc. more info about the are there down below 👇👇

First of I wanted to say I'm sorry I can't do full render of everyone here, do that with all of them would be death sentence for me so I couldn't do it 😭😭 Anyway without further ado, I'm going right into it! Start from left to right!

This first one Ryunosuke father replacing as Genshin Asogi. At first while brainstorming I was thinking of maybe do three switch around with Genshin, Jigoku, and Yujin but the it somehow felt weird for me. Then the thought of maybe involving Auchi in this too (like, imagine him being swap with Jigoku wouldn't that be funny and terrifying thought), but discarded that idea out because of Menimemo would have no one to swap with (i have to i'm sorry). Sooo I ended just design him from scratch, he is quite easy to figure out since Genshin doesn't really have much going on with him, but since we don't have any idea of original Ryunosuke's parents at all I have to take idea from something else, and that is his daruma doll for his eyes (he is half blind!! :D) and Phoenix DD/SOJ design (droopy hair and light vest) and everything else is from Genshin. His name is Ryuuki Naruhodo since Ryunosuke is another name for Ryuichi so I want to keep the train going!!

Andrew the screwdriver, oh I missed him- Anyway, I redesign his outfit because tbh his previous outfit is ridiculous 😭 it's funny and fun but I do want to take him seriously now. I'm tried to keep the A shape still but it's less subtle now, I think it turned out okay!! (Oh yeah, his cane is supposed to be a hidden sword but i forgot to put that in the drawing 😭). I was supposed to make his bowtie red like the hair tie but then I realized it will getting rid of the purpose of the hair tie (it referencing the blood on the tip of the screwdriver) so I ended up making it color silver.

The Lady Baskerville, I gave her similar design to Sunny(Herlock!Swap) with the bowtie, color palette to his mascot, and hair on her. I'm not really quite fond with her design, maybe I'll do redesign her again if I got a idea pop up like crazy but in the meantime this is her design.

Guess who is this?? Another one of Albert's tool is here finally!! Michael the crosshead screwdriver! Since we never see Michael anywhere and only mentioned once in the game he is, I'm just draw simple design for him (I wished I could put M shape in the design but I have no idea WHERE to put it 😭 so I tried used the bowtie for it). I also thought it would be nice to make him a defense attorney so I made the design for the badge too. Since he is sadly not going to be mentioned a lot in this AU since I'm trying to make the storyline same as the original, so I made a backstory of what happened in the fun fact tags. There was supposed to be more tool to be added but my god that would be taxing to design, so I have to make only Andrew and Michael as his only siblings.

The doggie Balmung replacement, Bolt, He is a Irish Setter! Beforehand he was supposed to be Borzoi but then research the background of the breed I don't how difficult it is to actually get one in that era so I have to changed breed :((

Albert and Barok in university days!! I just keep same as before like previous design!! There's a tiny change like the hair and the neckties.

There is going to be more content of them soon because I have a lot of ideas for them sooo stay tuned ;)

Here's the concept designs!!

[lostchildofthenewworld]

oh i see the hotd fandom has quickly reached the levels of racism in the asoiaf fandom concerning non-white/non-valyrian characters; how majority fandom ships a problematic white couple at the expense of the poc around them and how it’s detrimental to the narrative. ah yes, i am familiar with your game…unfortunately

[komashkathesilly]

ithink i hauve covid

[lemonhemlock]

so, i'm going through your anti team black tag and living my best life, but one post in particular that you made got me thinking.

“george made damn sure rhaenyra’s bloodline sat on the throne at the end bc, if the hightowers won, house targaryen would have been reformed, and he couldn’t kill them all off at the end of the main series”

i'm pretty sure this might've just been a joke, but it makes me curious. do you think something like a targaryen reformation would be possible, hypothetically speaking? i certainly wouldn't mind it in a "greens win" AU scenario, but that's just me. i wanna know if anyone else sees potential in this. 💚💚💚

Hello, yes, this was mostly a joke, as it happens. 😅 (anon is referring to this post) To introduce another lengthy parenthesis, I remember at the time that some of the reactions to that post were in the range for "why doesn't anyone understand that the Hightowers are also feudal lords vying for their own interests and not some great reformists out to save Westeros", which... Listen. 😄 To put equitably, this fandom has a considerable issue with knowing when to level criticism and when to just treat banter as lighthearted horsing around and not take it too seriously. Something which even I'm not exempt from, I don't think. 🤷‍♀️

So, in the interest of making a meme, that post was kind of half-true in that it simplified a more nuanced concept (that was never an avenue that the author decided to explore anyway) for the sake of humour. I have, in the past, detailed my thoughts on House Hightower and what I think is their role in the wider narrative. This is based on the information we have on them presently. If I'm wrong, then I'm wrong. Who knows, maybe Lord Leyton and Melara plan on blowing Oldtown up for shits and giggles. We don't have to guess everything correctly - another aspect this community struggles with in their fandom wars and obsession with having the most correct, morally pure take.

Regardless, yes, the Hightowers obviously are a privileged family at the top of the social food chain, benefitting from the exploitation awarded by feudalism - a political-economic system based on vast inequality. Therefore, any type of reform they might be willing to undertake will be limited and not really something that significantly changes the status-quo. Just like the beloved, fan-favourite, and mostly confirmed "winners" - the Starks. A third element that our fandom has trouble accepting is the concept of incremental change. I feel like it would basically be a truism to point out that incremental change has been the most reliable vector of socio-economic evolution throughout human history. So, bad news for them, I suppose, but any superficial study of history will reveal that feudalism hardly collapsed overnight. Which leads us back to the idea that any small change, no matter how limited, does matter in the long run, because, as time passes, it will be compounded with another small change and so on.

Anyway, coming back to the question. Would Targaryen reformation be possible? Certainly! GRRM could have made up any story he wanted. Anything is possible if you plan for it and it makes sense within your worldbuilding. As it stands, the Targaryens are foreigners with a questionable culture, hailing from a land that used to engage in practices that even the feudal Westerosi found backwards, distasteful, barbaric or immoral: slavery, human sacrifice, incest, great feats of violence such as pillaging and conquering neighbouring lands for the sake of feeding their population to their volcano gods etc. The Targaryens also have fire-breathing monsters that, while not exactly enough all the time to prevent any rebellions from happening, are weapons that no one else has access to and that can cause a great deal of damage that no one else can replicate.

So, in order to "reform" and integrate, they would need to renounce all that. They would need to do it the traditional way. They do some of the work, but never go all the way. They accept the main religion of the land, but they don't let go of inter-marrying, because they don't want to lose their access to dragons. There are attempts to integrate, but, by the time of the events of the main series, they have returned to incest. Funnily enough, Aegon V plays a role in both - he marries outside of the family and has no dragons left, but his succeeding son and daughter marry each other and, eventually, Aegon decides that bringing back dragons is not such a bad idea after all. I do think that the symbolic weight of Daenerys having both her parents and her grandparents as brother-sister sets is laying the "dragon blood" metaphor thick - and that it holds more magical weight than any mathematical calculation of her actual watered-down Targaryen DNA.

In any such scenario where GRRM decided to go down a Targaryen reformation path, IMO it would have been thematically-relevant to ease into it via a marriage alliance with one of the oldest families in Westeros - a well-respected, rich house that also has close links to both the only centre of higher education and the main religious organization in the land. Hence the meme. :) But it doesn't last and the Targaryens go back to their dastardly ways eventually, that's the point of them in the story, because the author chose it to be the point.

[kyliafanfiction]

I sometimes feel like characters who do truly monstrous things while also having been victims of some pretty insane shit themselves are sort of an exercise in empathy. Or at least, should be seen as such.

Like, in real life, if a person who has been horribly broken by their experiences and failed by society than proceeds to rape someone - it's hard to feel the justifiable sympathy/empathy for that person (without excusing their rape, never do that) because well, you can look at this actual human person they hurt, or worse, and it feels gross and disrespectful to the rape victim.

And this is understandable. (And applies to more than just rapists/rape victims of course, that's just the most visceral one and thus picked for that reason)

But a fictional rape victim is... fictional. You can't 'disrespect' their trauma, and while obviously rape/whatever else is real, and people may related to the rape victim and thus see your comments about the rapist also being a victim as somehow being about their experience...

Well, it's not.

Because the rapist here, didn't actually hurt a real person. Fictional characters are objects. They're objects that often grab us by the throat and refuse to leave our fucking heads, yes, but they're objects. They are tools used by writers to tell a story, and readers to tell a story.

And one of the things fictional characters are good for is allowing us to consider experiences we never had, and imagine ourselves in other circumstances and lives. (Also just fun and fascinating and interesting to watch their stories).

It's very easy to feel for the rape victim in fiction, and rightly so. That's Level 1 Empathy there. Granted, some people IRL fail that, but that's not really what we're talking about here.

Advanced Empathy, hard Empathy is feeling for the rapist. Not for the rape, of course, even if they feel guilt about it, but if someone really was failed on multiple levels and was broken and damaged and went through the sort of psychological wringer that would leave most of us here on tumblr catatonic - they do deserve the same Empathy any human (any person) who went through all that.

Even after they also do the bad thing, critically they still deserve Empathy. And that is fucking hard. I very often have a hard time feeling bad for truly awful people who also deserve empathy and sympathy, real and even fictional (despite all this, yeah, I'm not perfect on this) for what they (separately) went through.

It also becomes even harder when what they went through is utterly bound up with what they did. How what they went through and experiences is in part responsible for what they did - because they still made a choice. The circumstances may have left them not in their right mind, may have left them feeling without choice, may have driven them to things they normally might not think of or do, but they still chose to do that bad thing. And that's not okay. They still hurt someone.

And yet - one cannot remove the action from the circumstances. So you can still feel empathy, and elucidate all the factors and circumstances as to what led up to their choices and why, and it doesn't change that they did the horrible thing. The rape, or the murders, or whatever.

But circling back - with a fictional character... they didn't hurt a real person. There's no one who is real that suffered. The things the character did IRL are bad because they hurt real people.

So you're not being disrespectful to the victim by feeling that empathy, or sympathy. By exploring the things that they were a victim for. Even by wanting to focus on those things - fictional characters should be compelling in all their aspects, if they're written well.

And yet, of course, if you do that empathy and do talk about what the bad person went through and all that context, people come at you. They call you evil, just as bad as the (again, fictional) character, or they say that you're treading dangerously close to the arguments people use to defend the real people who do these things in real life. Or you're disrespecting all the victims of these crimes IRL. Especially of course, if the person coming at you has a reason this comes close to home.

But again - fictional.

In an ideal world, we'd all feel sympathy and empathy when it's called for, regardless of what the person did. Even the worst most monstrous people deserve human treatment in prison. And if you don't have empathy, that's hard. Even if you do have empathy, that's hard.

So if you look at a fictional character (who doesn't hurt a real person by virtue of being fictional) that does horrible, vile things, but went through so much, and you still can't empathize or sympathize with them... I mean, it doesn't make you a bad person, not even close, this is still fiction, and there's people I should empathize with in fiction that I don't, but...

It's still a failure of your ability to be empathetic. And we're all humans. We're all failing at that, among other things, all the time. But... it's good to be aware of that. at least?

At the very least, bear that in mind when other people are talking about that context, and that victimization. And please, for the love of god, don't fucking pretend that the victimization didn't happen, that this person who did do terrible things (in fiction) suddenly didn't also (in fiction) experience awful shit, as if doing a bad thing erases all the bad things done to you.

Again - it doesn't necessarily make you a bad person, but like... the horrible state of prisons in our society is a real, actual problem. The way we as a society dehumanize people who do bad things is a real actual problem for a lot of reasons (not least because it creates an incentive for authority that wants to dehumanize a person or a group to expand the definition of 'did bad things' to make their dehumanization now acceptable, among other things).

So yeah. Fictional character who suffers but than also makes others suffer - that's a useful exercise in Empathy. And doing that doesn't make you or anyone else a bad person, or actually defending the sorts of crimes, IRL or Fictional, that this character did. Contextualizing is not whitewashing, empathy is not erasing, and humanizing is not disrespecting the victim(s).

So yeah, they fictional character did bad things. But there's more to them than that. And you can say but and talk about what comes after but without disrespecting the fictional victim. Because the fictional victim... is just as fictional. Just as not real.

Is it possible for this to end up being taken too far? Yes. But that's a reason to be mindful of yourself when it comes to real people, not to never do it. And when it comes to fictional people - again, fictional. Nobody was actually, really hurt.

(I really do want to make clear, before people read the tags, that this applies to all crimes these sorts of characters do, rape was just picked as the one to use as the example.)

[lokh]

oh my god. a manga where everyones actually wearing masks???

edit: NEVERMIND jumped the gun here it was just for one scene cos they were at a nail salon 😭

edit 2: hmm actually. depending on how recently this manga was drawn it could just be reflective of how not everyone wears masks. the customers are wearing masks in the salon but outside usually not but Sometimes. they are

edit 3: I WAS RIGHT??

[rainswept]

therapy (alternate title: talking about white boy for 50 minutes straight)

[fideidefenswhore]

Who is your most hated Seymour? For me, it's John, Thomas, Edward and Jane.

roflmao, tbf, i know intellectually that there's not enough there there to justify hating john seymour, but he does give me bad vibes...whatever happened with catherine fillol was weird and i do get the sense he was involved even if not in the rumored way. and also, when siblings hate each other to such an extent, it's often bcus they were pit against each other by their parents, so i get the sense he was not a good father (there's some debate on whether he died late 1536 or 1535, tbf, but if it was the former it's strange that none of children seemed to mourn his death, that he wasn't mourned at court as the queen's father, etc) . margery doesn't have enough about her known for me to judge; it's sort of weird to me that this stereotype has fallen she and jane had a bad relationship and her favorite child/daughter was elizabeth (this occurs in like...several...novels). we don't have an equivalent positive remark to 'next to mine own mother, no woman alive i know better' (AB, about her own, and to bridget wingfield), nor any records of them often being in each other's company during significant events or eras, but we don't have anything negative either. i get you have to make choices in fiction and 'neutral' is not an interesting one but like...damn.

what's interesting about edward and thomas is that, even before their sister becomes queen, edward is not spoken of well by his contemporaries. very early (iirc, 1535) on, his 'small conscience' is decried, and he becomes such an avaricious figure that cromwell and the king have to interfere in his attempts to manipulate and loophole property laws to his own advantage and the impoverishment of others (and, not usually in his favor, despite him being a royal in-law). thomas, however, seems like he's better liked in the 1530s, although this can maybe be attributed to him being more of a nonentity (a comparative example is some tudor authors insisting GB was 'better liked' than his sister anne-- not true, it seems-- or more often, that their sister mary was...which is probably true, but also probably more indicative of relative lack of power and positions and leverage than 'kinder' personality)...it's not until the 1540s that we get comments of the same genre ("somewhat empty of manner"). thomas thus seems more like a figure of gradual corruption, his arrogance was increased by his nephew becoming king, it seems, and resentment brought out an ugly side of his character (arguably, the same with edward, just earlier on).

it's extremely unpopular to say this on here, but yeah, jane is definitely not a favourite of mine, either. but i don't think my reasons for this are really common...i don't care if she slept with henry before marriage, i don't care if she didn't, i just find her biographers weirdly contradictory in their judgements of her character, the nature of her rise, and her own beliefs. there's also like, this sense of historic illiteracy from some of her defenders...joining a royal household (as far as the most prestigious positions, that is) was not the equivalent of serfdom (as in, they could leave at any time). jane's supporters were courtiers who hated anne, so it's reasonable to assume she did, as well. so, there's this sort of moral hypocrisy about jane as a figure and her advancement and how she came to her position that has always prevented me from warming to her as a figure. 'she hated anne and all she stood for' explains her involvement in her downfall, but not her securing the position in her household in the first place. and by virtue of her close proximity to anne as queen, she also knew that it was nigh impossible that she was actually guilty of the accusations of adultery.

what else...her defenders insist that the oaths of supremacy and succession were anathema to her moral compass, yet she likely did have to have had taken them herself, just as a subject, and if not that then definitely as a member of anne's household. this wouldn't have martyred/imperiled her life, althought it probably would have her career (elizabeth darrell never took these, so i wonder if the penalty for women was different...? barton is often cited as an example but this was not in her indictment. princess mary seems to almost have been a victim of this, but it might've been more that her signing was more important since she was a rallying point for dissenters).

and even if jane never took these, the presence of noblewomen serving anne as queen lent to her greater image of royal legitimacy. she had to have known that, and if she didn't believe her position was legitimate...then why be part of that tapestry? there's not an equivalent to her predecessor to be made here, not when anne left her own predecessor's household and began her own as soon as she came to believe catherine was not legitimately queen or henry's wife. any credulousness towards contemporary report of this time would suggest anne was extremely hostile towards her rival, but there is a difference between declaring that you'd sooner watch your rival hanged before revering them and, well...actually doing that (...effectively, if not literally).

actually, i don't think there's actually much to suggest jane was set against the religious supremacy unless you make some suppositional leaps (the dissolution wasn't so explicitly connected here, her support of mary as princess, even if rather cosmetic, could be seen as support for her decision not to take those oaths herself for nigh on two years...). nor against succession acts as brought by parliament, since the same illegitimized any potential rivals to her future children, and she seemed to make a point in one of her only pieces of writing we have in emphasizing edward's legitimacy (implicitly, at the expense of her stepdaughters).

the narrative fiction i probably dislike about jane the most is this idea that she was so reverent of catherine's memory, it's really fucking weird, honestly... it bothers me because i know it's embellished to increase reader/viewer (the tudors comes to mind) sympathy and somehow for me it does the opposite, lol. there's something about the concept of her trading on the memory of this beloved woman (who, herself, probably didn't even remember jane, there's nothing to suggest any kind of friendship between them) who was exiled, this woman whom jane did not a single thing for (not even abstaining from joining the household of her rival), that just really grosses me out. henry was the one who was her husband, and obviously he was a fucking asshole to and about her, but there's at least something more...direct, in his attempted erasure of her memory. it's always bothered me that it's never acknowledged that the antecedent (which was carried on throughout) to jane's queenship was the erasure of both her predecessors, the illegitimization of both their daughters, both of them being subordinated, and, more or less (mary present for christmas, elizabeth not, but both there during the rebellions) equally expelled from court.

[musical-chick-13]

Okay, no, sorry, I’m still mad about this. “Be critical of the media you consume and examine why you react to it in the way that you do, support marginalized and stigmatized identities.” Yeah, until it’s about mental illness.

A woman (or even man, if he’s deemed over-emotional) makes music about suffering from mental illness and people just go, “What are they complaining about, that’s so immature, hashtag wangst.” (And then, sometimes, inexplicably, if the mentally ill woman gets better and writes happier music, they then talk about how artistically bankrupt she is now and that she should go back to hating herself.) People LOVE cis white pRoBLeMaTiC (straight) fictional men until they are realistically mentally ill, in which case they’re “whiny” and “insufferable” and deserve to die violently, apparently (or, if fandom is merciful, they’re ignored). (And then they celebrate when they DO inevitably get killed off.) “Do your duty and watch [thing I, mc13, personally find insufferable] For The (white) Gays because it has Gays.” Sure, will you watch c4 Pure, the ONLY show specifically about OCD, then? (No, the answer is no, it’s always no.)

I can’t get anyone to watch Doom Patrol. I couldn’t get people (in general-I did convince a few irl friends thank GOD) to watch Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. One of the most popular and acclaimed shows right now has a character with schizophrenia who was turned into the Big Bad Villain for no fucking reason. One of the most commonly-cited examples of Iconic™ queer media involves a mentally ill man being broken over and over and over again before The Ship™ can reasonably happen. DW introduced a major character who was at one point suffering from mental illness in her past, AND THEN ALL MENTION OF THIS WAS COMPLETELY DROPPED IN THE FUTURE, WITH NO BEARING ON ANYTHING TO THE POINT WHERE I FORGOT IT EVEN EXISTED??!?!? R*tched was a thing that existed despite the Sad Sympathetic Backstory treatment being IN DIRECT CONTRADICTION OF WHAT PURPOSE THIS CHARACTER SERVED IN One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. THEY GAVE. A SAD WOOBIE VILLAIN TREATMENT. TO THE /LITERAL PERSONIFICATION/ OF ABLEISM. THAT IS HER FUNCTION. TO EXIST AS A SYMBOL OF ALL THE WAYS SOCIETY OPPRESSES THE DISABLED AND MENTALLY ILL.

I am!!! Literally!!!!! The only one!!!!!!!!! Complaining about these things!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THE ONLY ONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No one else has said ANYTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No one is talking about it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’m so tired!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[tarmac-rat]

Hey hey I need to uuh hum fight you at the back of a Denny's or something over those tags on my cyberpunk post lile wtf? That's such a good analysis of his character I love your work a lot in general but this is doing me in I'm gonna cry, you're so fucking right about this dumb broken man 🥺😠

I will not fight you I will bake you a cake and give you a kiss because you're very sweet I appreciate your kindness 😘

I really love your perspective on Johnny's disabilities and addictions impacting how he sees and interacts with the world-- as someone who herself isn't disabled I tend to overlook the way people view the world through that lens and as a result have realized that I haven't touched upon it much in my own analysis of Cyberpunk, and your insight really was spot-on and spoke to me in a way I hadn't considered before.

I talk a lot about the themes and meta of the game but Pondsmith himself came out and said, like, before the game came out that Johnny is not the hero of the story. He THINKS he's the hero of the story but the way people and even himself idolize him and his actions are in many ways his biggest shortcoming. Johnny is addicted to the image of himself, much like he's addicted to his vices and addicted to his cause. He needs his anchors no matter how detrimental they are to him, but in many respects those anchors were never his choice. Now he's stuck in his place, dug in and unable to move, and that's the way he dies. Alone, unmoored, and stuck in his ways.

He's a very tragic and even empathetic character-- I do understand why he does the things he does and feel for him when he suffers tragedies-- but treating him as a hero of this story is wrong, in my opinion. He's a disabled, traumatized war veteran who was set up in life to fail at a very early age. His flaws are of his own making. They are not of his own design.

[deathsmallcaps]

Ok I’m probably not the best person to say this, but I’ve been seeing a lot of (as of right now) accurate insults on how the CGI approach for the Live Action Little Mermaid movie, but please be mindful that you don’t take things too far, and *especially* don’t start going after Halle Bailey (Ariel’s actress) and to a lesser extent, Ariel the character.

Antiblackness is still an issue in a lot of fandom spaces, and it doesn’t just come out as using nasty slurs or stereotypes. It manifests as drawing Black characters lighter and/or with more white features, it comes out as removing Black partners from ships, and it starts out as plausibly deniable insults that get the door open to microaggressions and outright nasty comments.

I’m not saying that all discussion of the movie should be stalled, or even if it turns out to be an artistic failure, that it doesn’t merit discussion. I’m saying that you shouldn’t extend your vitriol to the characters and actors.

If you really feel the need to insult her, it might be worth a little introspection. Ask yourself, “Do I resent that they changed Ariel, or that they changed Ariel in this way?”. You’re not irredeemable if your personal answer isn’t kind. Just be more careful, try and observe how that sort of world view affects your behavior to others, and then course correct.

A lot of little kids would love to see another Black Princess. A lot of little kids would love to have a Black mermaid as a main character. Hell, a lot of adults would love those too. Black fantasy characters have long been excluded, transformed, killed, merely in the background, relegated to stereotypes, villainized and have hardly ever in the spotlight, especially in major productions.

Don’t make it harder for kids (and adults!) to see themselves on screen. Don’t ruin their wonder. So don’t make unkind comments. Keep it to yourself. Frankly, Halle looks beautiful, and I can’t wait to see the sparkles in her fans’ eyes as she swims across the screen.

[compacflt]

I have an anecdote about when I worked for a company and a co-worker left to work in a different state on military aircraft. He had to get a TS clearance and because we had worked for several years together he asked if I would be okay with being interviewed for his clearance. I said sure and an interviewer w the gov, arranged to come to my place of work and conduct the interview there. I was asked questions about him like how well did I know him, and whatever answer I gave led to more specific questions like if I answered a question about knowing his wife, they would ask if I thought his marriage sounded secure etc.

This memory of that experience was on my mind while I read your story and I wondered who Iceman would choose for his TS clearance interviews (and who the gov would choose for him) and what would they say? I feel like their "secret" would be uncovered in even a low level clearance (years later I had to submit names for a low level Public Trust clearance for my job) It was so embarrassing because I did not have many friends I was comfortable submitting for that as I kept my work and home life very separate.

Anyway, that is my "cool story, bro"

Thank you for such a great and well researched story!

this is indeed a cool story bro and touches on what is literally my story’s fatal flaw, which is: Yeah, a shitload of people would’ve known about it. I am going to hijack your question to talk about that, so my apologies, though i will get around to your question by the end. This is gonna be a really long post. I have a lot to say and a lot of ground to cover.

So I wanna start out by talking about the structure of this story and its core conflict, because while I’d like to say this story is rooted in an accurate depiction of the US military, obviously that’s not true; it’s rooted in the dynamic of the story that i wanted to tell, which is the story of a guy coming to realize the truth behind a Big Lie—him passing as straight. And that’s a pretty universal story, but it’s made more specific by the fact that a) the guy canonically wants to be the best in an institution that enforces the Big Lie and b) the guy canonically is so successful because he follows the rules/orders of that institution. So, for character growth, to put it simply, the guy (Ice) has to come to the conclusion that the Big Lie is a lie by himself. He can’t be told/ordered that the Big Lie is a lie, otherwise he hasn’t grown out of “just following orders.” (I’ll get to the Big Lie in a second. I made charts and story structure graphs below.)

The only other story about a Big Lie I can think of off the top of my head right now is Passing (1929) by Nella Larsen, which is about a Black woman in Chicago trying to pass as both white and straight. It’s a great book and I’ll try not to spoil it, you should really read it for yourself, but the terminology I’m going to use in this post comes from an analysis of it, so just to bring you up to speed—Clare, the woman trying to pass as white, is recognized by a friend, another Black-but-passing woman, Irene, who is shocked that Clare has abandoned her heritage (the truth of her, that is) and married a hyper-racist white man who doesn’t even know that she’s Black. So the book sets up a dynamic of the Big Lie that I’ve outlined here (hopefully it makes sense):

I built on this dynamic for my fic. Ice is both a “dupe” and a “passing figure,” in that he believes the lie that he is straight and also passes for straight—but it’s also more complicated than that because he’s not actually straight (getting to that). Mav is an “in-group clairvoyant” and can recognize Ice as passing because he is also straight-passing. The Navy are a bunch of “dupes.” But…what is Slider, for instance, or your question’s hypothetical government official who, yes, will 100% find out because people always find out?

In comes my ginormous-and-overly-wordy WWGATTAI Plot and Character Dynamic Summary Graph. You don’t really have to read it all, the only important bits for this discussion are the leftmost column (“plot”) and the green quadrant (“out-group clairvoyants”).

To summarize—people who know the truth can’t actually act on it, because for Ice’s character growth to make sense, he has to come to the truth himself. This forecloses the possibility of any outwardly homophobic action (by which I mean someone like a govt official or one of my lame OCs actually challenging him on his illegal relationship) in the plot, because for 90% of the story Ice is so fragile that he would probably just cave immediately and double down on the internalized homophobia. So, for plot purposes, everyone—including Mav, as it happens—has to sort of tiptoe around Ice’s obvious not-straightness and give him an unreasonable amount of grace so he can figure it out for himself. 

And therein lies the fatal flaw of this story. It is, like, not conceptually viable. Of course people would find out, of course the government would interrogate him about it, of course he’d have to confront the truth much sooner than TWENTY-FIVE years after he first starts messing around with Mav.  Which literally breaks my heart because I didn’t realize it was a fundamentally busted story until long after I had finished writing the base plot & couldn’t fix the overarching problems 😭 The thing is, it had to be this way, because there is at least a thirty-year gap between TG86 and TGM22, and TGM is obviously the emotional climax of the series and my story had to match that. So—fanfic and its canon constraints, everyone. 

But also… I can explain away these logical inconsistencies with story structure & character dynamic graphs to make the story make sense, sure, but it doesn’t change the truth of the matter, which is that… I hadn’t ever really thought about things like security clearances, and therefore wrote around them because I didn’t even know to consider them. And I know there are a bunch of other details in this story that betray my immaturity (anytime I talk about alcohol, for instance—I still am not legal to drink in this stupid country & have only cheap bad experiences to draw on; THE HOUSE—if i could rewrite this story from the beginning they would not have bought a fucking house together, what was I thinking???) and the lack of thought about the real-life logistics and consequences of secrecy is one of them. 

And it’s exactly what I mean when I say “I look at this story and all I see are its flaws,” which is why I wanted to write this post & get it on record. I have just enough life experience to read my own writing and know that it’s fundamentally unconvincing, and not enough life experience to know how to fix it. :(

But, to answer your original question, you’ve got me brainstorming a scene where Ice is asking Slider to be his character witness & Slider’s like “Look bro do you want me to lie to the federal government under oath for you because I will” and Ice has to be like “Legally I cannot ask that of you but”

[aroanthy]

the nature of being a tougahead is laughing along with someone dunking on him like hahaha yes he’s so terrible and dysfunctional and he sucks so bad and then they’re like And He Should Die For Real By The Way and you’re like oh! ok! especially fun when someone writes a really considered and meaningful analysis of his character that youre nodding along to like ‘yes, finally a touga understander!!’ and then they end it saying that he’s irredeemable. you guys know that ‘he’s not a fucking coupon’ post? yea

[bylertruther]

when will said it was "strange knowing who it was this whole time" and "he's hurt, he's hurting, but he's still alive" was he not talking about henry? am i insane? did i misinterpret that scene? why are we acting like will is connected to anyone other than henry bro what is Happening 😭

that was henry that shaped the mind flayer into that spider-like form and it was henry that used it to possess will and it was henry's thoughts that will was experiencing against his will and it's henry that he's still feeling because the connection/"vecna's curse" hasn't been broken. they physically extracted the mind flayer from will's body, yes, but his connection to henry was never broken. henry can't exercise complete and total control over people without the mind flayer's power, which is why will has free will over his body but his mind remains connected to henry.

the characters, and by extension the viewers, thought it was the mind flayer behind everything, because they didn't know what season four revealed to us.

henry wanted to control will's mind and body—a complete and entire violation of everything will is. that was Not the mind flayer, and they tell us that more than once. with all love and respect what are some of you on about because you're starting to make me feel like my memory is genuinely broken or something lmao like i thought.... the big reveal was that it's always been henry? they literally say that? eleven, henry, and will all confirm it? the mind flayer was not a separate entity acting alone... thus will has beef with henry most of all because henry's violation of his mind and body is still ongoing... Where Are You Guys Getting Your Information From 😭 hELP

will's rape—because that's what possession is, he never consented to having his mind and body controlled by anyone else—is an important part of stranger things; both to the general plot and will's character. to say that will only has beef with the mind flayer and not henry is reducing what henry did to him and reassigning blame that very much falls on henry's shoulders. henry was controlling the mind flayer and henry is the one still in will's mind. henry used the mind flayer to have control over will. henry and will are connected. the show literally tells us that over and over again. when you decide to needlessly reassign blame, not only are you misunderstanding and misconstruing the plot, but you're also... not understanding what happened to will at all. like, what really happened to him and how that's used in the show.

henry very likely was the one that kidnapped will. henry is the one that will has a psychic connection to. henry is the one that raped will / possessed him if you prefer that term instead and used the mind flayer to do it. henry is the one that will still knows like the back of his hand, because henry is the one that's still in his head. it's not the mind flayer. it's henry. please stop saying that will doesn't have more than enough reason to want to kill his ass. please!!!

[theres-whump-in-that-nebula]

Wanting to look at true crime stuff to learn about psychology and criminal investigation but only finding a bunch of people who idolize and “uwu-ify” serial killers and school shooters 😬 fucking YIKES