#but yeah imo most people's interpretations of these characters are based on like.

[spekktors]

seeing the results on polls like "which bg3 companion is mostly likely to x" just confirms to me how many people haven't done the Galemance. you know nothing about this man beyond the memes about eating boots and it shows

[crumb-crumblet-s-crumbington]

the woobification of the lords is something ill never be able to wrap my head around 😭 its insane to me how people can have such a horrible interpretation of events and characters based off of what we have in the actual game

let me start off by saying that ALL FOUR LORDS DID HORRIBLE THINGS (INCLUDING THE DIMITRESCU DAUGHTERS) !

lady dimitrescu isnt some gentle giant who only hates men and loves women and treats them like queens and she just loves living a quiet life with her daughters, she kills and tortures people 😭😭 she like actively killed her maids and drank their blood 😭 they have a basement that has so much blood in it that it goes up to ethans THIGHS

they are muderous and SADISTIC, including the daughters

the woobfication of the dimitrescu daughters is always the most confusing to me. their faces are literally covered in BLOOD 😭😭 they chase ethan around and stab him will laughing and giggling, cassandra literally calls it a HUNT, it is fun to them and they enjoy it

people always try to frame it as ethan breaking into their homes while they are scared and afraid 😭 i can assure you that nobody is afraid of him at first 😭 they dont think hes an actual threat, thats why they toy with him. and dont act like they were unaware of what he wanted. they were all present at the family meeting with miranda, they were all present when they JARRED rosemary 😭 they know what ethan wants, they know who ethan is, to frame them as "minding their own business" is the most absurd interpreation you could make of them

they were all involved, they all knew what he wanted, and they all HAD what he wanted

you can feel sympathy for lady D, when she cries for her daughters with tears in her eyes, she loved them, they were her family, but you cannot deny the hypocrisy. "how can you kill my daughters for your own!" you have his daughters head in a pickle jar! her daughters werent innocent defenless babies who were scared of big ol ethan stomping around in their house, they have weapons! they wanted to hurt him, and they did, and when he fought back he won

i cannot stress enough that in every single fight, ethan is not the first to strike. he is either backed into a corner where its either his life or theirs, or he is literally being tortured/ chased around, what do you want him to do? these people have pieces of his baby, should he have lied down and died?? 😭

whenever ethan is in a situation where the other person isnt stabbing him in the abdomen 100 times he tries to HELP them 😭 he tries to help absoulute strangers of a village he doesnt even know while he knows his own daughter is missing, even when the stranger is also a jerk to him 😭 he wants allies, he isnt actively trying to make enemys, and before you cry "karl heisenberg!" im getting there...

the thing that bothers me with how people treat donna is that although she isnt the WORST she gets woobfied the MOST imo, like she is the ONLY lord (other than karl but hes a outlier because he wanted ethan to come over so they could make out on his bed) who actively lures ethan in, miss dimitrescus, yeah sure u could say that he trespassed, same with moreau, but donna literally LURES HIM IN with hallucinations of his DEAD WIFE, then OPENS THE DOOR for him and TAKES HIM DOWN THE ELEVATOR

she is literally one of the people who ACTIVELY leads him to where she is

she also uses psychological puzzles , like making ethan perform surgery on a wooden doll of his wife and making him run away from a monster that cries like a baby and calls him "dada" 😭 she did not need to do any of that... like at all 😭 she did it because she wanted to 😭 she is by no means innocent at all

she toyed with him for literally no reason other than her own desire and then ethan doesnt even intentionally kill her. he is in a situation where is his trapped in the house and has to find angie, the doll, to avoid being attacked by dolls with like 100 knives stapled onto them

its only when he defeats angie its revealed that he had actually stabbed DONNA. he didnt even intentionally kill her 😭

then moreau... poor moreau... 😭

moreau in my opinion is one of the more sympathetic lords. whoever he was in his life pre cadou has no influence or impact on his life post cadou, the cadou just wrecked his brain functions

all he is is just mirandas minion at this point, he only wants to please her and doesnt really think about anything else for himself 😭

i dont have much to say about moreau because theres not really many people who woobfiy him or pay him any attention really 😭 though i will say he was very unabashedly evil 😭 he did horrible things, such as eating the fishermen and his experiments with the cadou on the villagers, he did it for mirandas approval but its not a excuse for it, hes still a villian 😭 now we are onto karl.... this guy... the woobification of him is insane 😭 first of all, something i dont see people acknowledge is that he actually HAS killed villagers! no he doesnt just use dead bodies (which btw isnt really a step up 😭 some of u set the bar too low man) the lycan gauntlet that he made ethan run through? yeah, he used that before! he has an entire PA system set up in it! he has lights and huge spikey metal death traps! he did not make all of that just for ethan just to "play appearances" for miranda. there were other people who went through that. and they DIED!

their deceased bodies are still in there! karl is messed up and eccentric 😭 it makes him fun, let him be messed up and evil 😭 and yes, karl used DEAD bodies instead of killing people who were alive, so surely that makes him far less evil right?

WRONG! 😭

HE CONSIDERED USING LIVE BODIES FOR THE SOLDATS 😭

karl really isnt a good person, he has reasons for the things he does, he wants to take down miranda and i dont think hed be creating undead zombies in the first place if it werent for her ruining his life but that isnt justification, its just an explanation for why he does what he does. he has a sympathetic back story and motives but you cant erase what he did, hes a villain! he tries to use a baby as a weapon!!! all 4 of the lords are villains, and instead of making other characters worse to uplift your favorite character that did something bad, you can just accept that the character you like did bad things 😭 they are all fictional, if i like moreau it does not mean i endorse eating fishermen 😭 you can like a character that is flawed, or evil, or did insanely messed up things because its RESIDENT EVIL. they are EVIL! they do bad things! like im sorry! but if your fave has a villains wiki it probably means they did some bad things! 😭

i wish people would be able to enjoy a character without entirely dismissing the bad things they did. its okay to like a character that does bad things, its ok to find them interesting and fun! but you cant deny what actually happens in games to try and make them appear as innocent. you dont have to justify every little thing that they do, just accept them as a whole!

of course this doesnt apply to AUs or just posting for fun. you can change media to be what you want to make it more fun. im going to draw lady dimitrescu treating ethan like a unwanted family pet. does that mean that i think she would really do that in canon? no! she would bite him and then tie him up like a pinata and give her daughters blindfolds and bats!

but people need to be able to recognize that fanon is NOT canon.

this post is about canon interpretations,

this is just addressing people who genuinely believe that those kinds of portrayals of the character is an ACCURATE portrayal, because its not.

[rockwgooglyeyes]

rock's thoughts on ivantill (nsfw edition)

trigger/content warning: open and uncensored discussion of nsfw content (smut specifically) I'm not tagging this as mature and leaving it up to the reader's discretion whether or not they're able to handle this. I'm not incredibly explicit but I am talking about something inherently nsfw.

the thing about nsfw is that, when it comes to fandom, it often is based less on the characters themselves and more on whatever the fans want to see. I say this about fandom in general, btw, not ALNST in particular- in my experience with nsfw (fanfic anyways) in fandom, is that a lot of it comes down to writer preference rather than the actual characters themselves. It's literally playing with dolls and this isn't necessarily a bad thing! It's pretty much what fan content is for, right? It's just something that doesn't sit super well with me and it's something I don't really understand- if you want to make a specific dynamic, why not just make ocs that can similar or the same personalities as the characters that you enjoy and yet their dynamic fits with what you want.

Like overall when it comes to my opinions (and these are opinions, preferences if you will), I might as well be up front- when it comes to the ships that are common in the ALNST fandom, I think that while mizisua and hyunamizi definitely switch, out of mizisua? Sua is the top imo. on the other hand, I think that it would be a lot more interesting if either hyunamizi were switch-centric or Mizi topped, just because of what that would say about her relationship growth as well as her character growth. With hyunaluka (which is not a ship that I enjoy but I respect those that do obviously) I think Hyuna tops mostly. With ivantill, I see Ivan as a bottom and Till as the top. Sometimes they switch, no one is exclusively one or the other- and I am fully in support of them being switches because I believe most relationships are fluid and have the inherent capacity for switching, top/bottom is about preference but I do think it's rare. I don't know, smut can be part of the relationship to me and the dynamic when it comes to sexual encounters is important to me with a couple.

I don't know, maybe it's because I'm one of those people where my headcanons have to be related to the text somehow (and I don't say this in a way that's derogatory to people who don't have that- honestly I kind of admire you guys, it seems freeing. I'm just extremely autistic about this) but idk the way people intrepret Ivan in the ALNST fandom is super interesting. This is mainly going to be talking about ivantill because to be perfectly honest, I think people are weirder about mlm ships than they are about wlw ships, when it comes to their characterization? But I haven't read as much wlw nsfw so I can't fully speak to this. But when it comes to Ivantill, I have found some people who's opinions I love. Some people I agree with even if I don't agree with everything. But then there are some folks that are so out there like I wanna study you guys underneath a microscope y'all are so peculiar. yeah yeah he's King Yaoi the Third, he's tall dark and handsome, whatever. he's a little freak, I want to put him in a jar and shake him up, I understand, but at the same time sometimes the reading comprehension with people seems not so bueno.

In the fandom overall, (not just on tumblr dot com) people like him as top and I think that, to a degree, that is supported by the text. At least, some of the additional art from Vivinos/Qmeng, that’s supported

(^ the amount of horny comments on this image *sighs*)

But for me? I don’t like that as much (even though I’ve read some fanfic with it that I liked just fine.)

This is because of the way that this interpretation of their relationship feeds into that surface level analysis of both Ivan and Till's character? Ivan is the violently jealous lover, the one who watches from afar and seethes with envy, he’s the unfeeling pretty boy who only loves one person, he’s willing to do whatever it takes to keep that person. Till is the tsundere, the person who plays at strength but weakens at the first touch of someone stronger, easily flustered and even easier to cow into submission- but the thing is? We know that's not true for either of them, it's not supported by their backgrounds, their other actions, the context of their trauma. which makes that characterization super funny (to me) when this series is kind of about peeling back the edges of outward perception, with Mizi, Ivan, Luka and Hyuna especially.

While top/bottom isn't necessarily a power dynamic, when in the context of certain relationships, it can definitely take on the connotations of power. In Ivan and Till's relationship, the person who has the power is Till.

Out of the two of them, Ivan is not the person with the power and that's honestly the main issue that I have with the way that people portray him. In the top Ivan fics that I actually like, he's not the one with the power, he is only where he is because Till wanted them to get this far, he is at Till's mercy and he's loving it. The issue I take with those who portray him as domineering and controlling is that he doesn't try to control Till in canon. He might have concocted the incident with the wagyein and Mizi but after that? Ivan isn't trying to force Till into anything, he isn't controlling the situation, he isn't even trying to get Till to do anything but react. Ivan would do anything that Till wanted him to, no questions asked. For those who take the possessive angle with Ivan, the problem I have is that Ivan has no desire to own Till. He's obsessed with Till, yeah, but it's in the way that you love your favorite band- you love them to bits, you listen to all of their songs, you go to a concert, you have their merch- but you would still respect their choices, right? You would be disappointed if they decided to break up but you wouldn't force them to get back together. That's the difference between Ivan's obsession and Luka's- Luka thinks that he deserves Hyuna's affection in exchange for loving her (it's transactional), whereas Ivan is under no illusion that he is entitled to Till's affections.

On the flipside, when Till is portrayed as the tsundere who cares but refuses to show it because of his pride, well, that one's a little tougher because the main problem is execution. Till does really care about people but his affection isn't shown out of a matter of pride- he shows his affection for Mizi quite freely, after all, if he was really worried about vulnerability, I feel like he might be a little more conservative with his adoration. Often times, he doesn't show his care for people clearly because he doesn't really know how, defaulting to blushing and stuttering, gifts and acts of service to get his point across. He's not a super verbal-affection oriented guy and I think this is actually portrayed pretty well in the gen fics but not so much in smut because it's not as applicable lmao (comes with the territory ig). When Till is written as really timid, fumbling, innocent (@bluemoonscape called it woobifying), I hate that with a passion because he might fumble and he might get shy sometimes but he is not a pushover. He is not meek and if he doesn't like something, he'll voice his complaints, he'll let you know. I mean why else would he yell at Ivan in their version of My Clematis when Ivan gets too close? Admittedly, Ivan doesn't listen, lost in his monologue, and Till kind of just accepts it- but I am certain that if they were even intimate with each other, that Till would object were he uncomfortable and Ivan would listen. Like, whether Ivan was top or bottom, if Till's not having a good time? Ivan is no longer having a good time. Ivan's pleasure is very much contingent on Till's pleasure, at least, in my mind.

That's all the characterization centered stuff and kind of the reason why I think their relationship just works better with this dynamic *but* one of the biggest reasons it's a preference for me that Ivan bottoms is because of the inherent nature of that dynamic- it's a lot harder to end up fucking someone unwillingly than it is to get fucked by someone. There's a far greater likelihood of reciprocated feelings or at least, consent, when it comes to this version of their relationship and that's what I prefer because I really do think that they love each other.

(tagging @atrophiedemotion because I asked him if he wanted to be and he said yes! Blue is already tagged above too so all of the known interested parties have been notified :D love you guys)

[findafight]

key reason why steve would be a better tutor than ppl like nancy or dustin tbh. esp nancy (given how prevalent nancy tutoring other characters is in fic),,,, whenever ppl talk about her tutoring steve or eddie or something i can't believe it bc ik she would get v frustrated w other ppl who are struggling w something she didn't personally struggle w. nancy would get v irritated if the tutee didn't understand something the same way she did and being able to explain something in multiple ways/look at something from multiple perspectives is literally number 1 most important skill for a tutor imo. god forbid if they were neurodivergent too r*nance shippers can lie to themselves all they like but it doesn't change how she acted w robin. genuinely think that those fics where nancy tutors eddie are subjecting eddie to his own personal brand of hell.

I JUST mentioned in the replies of that ask that Steve was a Lifeguard, and almost certainly was also teaching swimming. You have to be able to adapt how you teach something for that, not only because the age range is between babies and adults, but because people learn differently. You can't explain front glide to side glide the same way to a four year old as to a twelve year old as to a forty year old. it also requires spacial and physical awareness. Steve would probably understand that maybe he himself needs to repeat things back in his own words, and that others need to hear it again or write it down or something. I think he would only really succeed or even try in something he knew well and was confident in, hence swimming and the abundance of steve-helps-lucas-with-basketball headcanons. He's good at physicality, and that's a knowledge base the rest of the cast (except for lucas, now) seem to lag in.

Tbh i don't know if Nancy would be a terrible tutor, but yeah she would get annoyed and frustrated if whoever it was she was helping didn't learn in the same style she did. (and maybe take it personally? like maybe think it was on purpose or reflected badly on her, when they are just incompatible learning-wise) but she is very "My way or the highway" and stubborn, so I agree that she wouldn't want to or possibly not even think of adapting how she's coming at teaching it. Just personality wise Nancy is very smart but not exactly a teacher.

Ah. yeah. with robin i'm not sure how else to look at it other than Nancy being annoyed that robin was talking too much, worried about how Nancy saw her, and suggesting the conspiracy newspaper. People can have multiple interpretations I guess but as someone who is neurodivergent and doesn't pick up on a lot of that stuff in person except in hindsight or when pointed out to me, but can clock it in media, it really did strike me that way.

[miquella-everywhere]

Hi, I'm pretty sure that Miquella is calling the player his loyal blade in that cutscene, not Malenia? He also calls you champion of the festival. The festival didn't exist pre-Battle of Aeonia, and the player is the one standing in front of him.

Also I just wanted to express disappointment in the dlc I mean? Miquella was supposed to be the main character and he deserved to have more information about him. But we don't even really get information about him aside from his ridiculous choice in consort and that he made use of Mohg's corpse?

I also don't understand why people are blaming him for that. He wasn't the one that killed Mohg, the Tarnished did. We did. And we didn't do it solely and specifically for Miquella's sake. Mohg was a shardbearer, we were after the Great Rune and other rewards. Miquella just made use of the body afterward. Which isn't moral obviously, but morality isn't exactly a major concern in Elden Ring. What Ranni did to Godwyn wasn't super moral either, but I see significantly more hate for Miquella over using Mohg's body (possibly recency bias).

Like, what was his plan, just sit there in his cocoon and wait for someone to kill Mohg one day? Miquella using Mohg's body seems like something that became the plan in light of his being kidnapped. Unless Miquella astral projected to Mohgwyn Palace to bewitch him into ripping him from his Haligtree, which just seems so? Stupid. It's a stupid plan and it's not the same Miquella that built the pulley bow, or the needles. There was a lot of room to work with to create a morally ambiguous Miquella and they went with the route that makes his character not even about him. The dlc is about Mohg and Radahn. It's about Marika and the Formless Mother. Not Miquella. Which sucks. Trina was severely underutilized too.

ajdhsjshskdh youre okay its not that big of a spoiler 😂

But yeah it's very disappointing regarding the route they decided to take with Miquella and how, infuriatingly, Radahn seems to have gotten the biggest lore drop despite the DLC supposedly being about the most enigmatic Demigod in the base game. Every single time I think "radhan? Really????" whenever there's more force fed-lore about him. Gaius pisses me off with his albinauric status despite the race being wholly loyal to Miquella(and also Loretta whole deal hello????? Gaius is a discount Loretta I stg), and him being besties with Messmer?

😒 How annoying....

What about the other Demigods goddamnit. And Rykards line of "a snake never dies, i will return" gives more evidence behind an appearance in the DLC and yet radahn is the fucker they choose to resurrect despite having no indication of him returning, THE STARS FINALLY BEING FREE WITH HIS DEATH, and having absolutely zero connection with Miquella in the base game.

Horrendous writing there Fromsoft 👏 A round of applause for how you managed to nuke your lore with such a shit decision 👏

And yeah, Mohg. The way I see it, the whole context behind the kidnapping situation is now so vague and open ended it doesn't really matter how you theorize what went down; Miq could've been bewitched Mohg to kidnap him, or Mohg kidnapped Miq because he's a freak and Miq merely had to go along with it because he had no other choice. But yeah, its all up to interpretation at this point. No one is wrong and no one is right.

And yet despite Mohg having received no response from the young Empyrean, Ainsbach could apparently confront Miquella with no problem. What is continuity? What is logic?

*Sigh* But yeah this honestly sucks.

I came into the DLC expecting some conclusions to certain things, and now I'm left with more frustrating questions and plotholes than satisfying answers :( It blows imo

And yeah Trina was severely underutilized 😭 I was expecting for sleep to play a bigger role but she was sadly reduced to a single area and a rehashed sword.

#JusticeforStTrina💤

[robinpixels]

Have you ever thought about how much worse the dynamic between Beta and the Zeniths are, when you do up the timeline and realize she could be as young as fourteen/fifteen? In no way a developed socially adept child because she grew up with freaking holograms and had no positive physical contact?

If you ignore the age bit. Beta probably only knows physical touch through the Specters and maybe some robotics around the ship. The first time she has physical contact that’s nice isn’t even from Aloy. It’s from Varl. And then he gets brutalized and she has no one to hug her or pull her close because Aloy is also socially inept (and possibly 19/20). Zo is trying to deal with the loss of not only the guy she liked but her baby’s dad. The others aren’t even sure how to connect. Though Erend might cause he’s a sibling.

But just. Does anyone else realize how traumatized Beta actually is and how much worse it is for her?

Opinion or your own thoughts? Cause this has me very concerned for how Beta could be mentally for the next game.

oh hello!! haha, god its been so long since i've put my hzd/hfw thinking cap on but i love chattin' shop and opinions and i've a few to toss around

to start around my thoughts personally i've always interpreted beta from the time we know her to be about 18! not from any hard concrete evidence, so this is definitely not a correction, i just gleaned so from initial impressions and from a personal bias in my head how its quite poetic to me if Aloy were staring back at someone that could resemble a version of herself back when she first started her journey. Then lending to her personal frustration when said mirror doesn't in actuality resemble her (or Lis, in her view) at all. its even more devastating to me in this sense too 'cuz what she could have had as a 'childhood' is essentially already all gone. but yeah, long story short - while if i'm honest i don't think she's a child anymore, she is definitely very much so floundering and struggling in her young adulthood (i still stand by how she's depicted in False Negative, like that's just Her to me, Tessa u absolute wonder u).

god, ur probably right about her not having positive physical contact all this time - either violence or nothing up until the point she meets the GAIA squad. the concept of the bond beta and varl could have had always makes me SO sad to think about, it could have been so good, and personally it does frustrate me how they never leaned more into it to the detriment of both varl and beta. they could've had such a beautiful meaningful friendship (please pardon 'Ro is Annoyed at How Varl was Treated as a Character In-Story, Part Infinity, but this does touch upon it). It's undeniable she's been through a whole hell of a lot in that brief span of time she was on Earth and away from the Zeniths - the whole crew has, and as trauma does it's definitely gonna leave them all scrambling.

but in my wholesale opinion i gently pat ur head and assure you she will probably be alright at the end of the day! while FW was imo incredibly garbled in its delivery in places it does make clear that coming together to form a community to withhold against adversity is the goal here, and one everybody at Base recognizes and I feel are making great strides to get there! i have faith in this motley crew - Alva is Alva, bubbly and cooperative as ever; Kotallo's stoic but incredibly warm and well-meaning; Erend is Erend, he's always been good to his friends; Zo as an Utaru probably knows better than anyone the importance of community support and cooperation. as for Aloy i think she's taken that good bopping to the head in regards to learning to depend on people and letting people depend on her - she's got a lot of solitude issues herself as is to be expected but it really did warm me seeing how she's trying to get over them for the sake of everyone around her, and is enjoying finally leaning on that community too. my most precious babygirl. i'm very proud of her

i'm absolutely positive beta is in astoundingly good hands - they're all in astoundingly good hands w one another! it's been so cute to me how post game you can tell she's starting to heal and engage with others, just how the team had done before and after her. While absolutely I think they're all going to have their missteps and stresses and maybe a falling out here or there as they try and adjust, I honestly think the horizon series is at its core all about having compassion and care for your fellow man (albeit taking no shit from them at the same time) and the world you live in, so I doubt any of them will even accidentally leave Beta behind. she's got a sister, a mom, and a wholeass family now!! i adore how all the post-game content has been beta shyly but slowly but surely getting better, determined as she is to contribute the ways she can now.

hahaskdaflj; you were probably expecting an angstier response out of me and oh believe me i love the angst!! but i also have such a soft spot for when horizon goes all Indomitable Human Spirit on us it makes me go all gooey. i think the kids will be alright <3

on a funnier note to an extent i believe in beta precisely BECAUSE she's already a little unhinged. girl came in with the box already banged up and inherently fucked up. yeah miss beta 'let me just knock myself out cold and tear this implant directly out of my head that'll thwart em' sobeck will fit right alongside that hall of madness now known as Base GAIA she'll do just fine and dandy. i've gotten such a taste for unhinged sapphics lately and when horizon delivers it DELIVERS

[ac-liveblogs]

There are many things that disappointed me in genshin and a big one was the community's inability to look at characters normally. Compared to most games, everyone flat out ignored the story a lot unless they could make up ships and then that became the story to them.

OH AND LOOK WHAT POPPED UP RIGHT AFTER THAT ASK. https://twitter.com/SipSipStefen/status/1785572337514889602 I'm the guy who sent in that genshin ask about shippers.

Yeah it sucks. TBH tho, it's pretty normal for fandoms to be Pretty Weirdly Intense about ships/HCs, but its not helped by the fact that Genshin and HSR's characters aren't written normally.

For a long time, Genshin character writing was dropping lore/a bio and peacing out. In Mondstadt and Liyue, where most characters weren't even involved in the AQ (and others barely), it really did fall to HCs and picking out tiny context clues to figure out how characters acted and what their relationships with each other were like, so Genshin got really used to Building Their Own Story and even Build Their Own Version Of The Character around the scraps they were given.

And then I guess people got really attached to one set of headcanons over another and war broke out.

Thing is, I think Genshin is very happy with people caring so much about ships and seems to (intentionally or not) encourage them (in the laziest way possible). It's kind of a breeding ground for speculative shipping content;

Characters are sometimes first brought up in the context of their relationships with other characters (bios, voice lines) but not much info is given, so speculation is natural (and speculation about relationships most of all). Kaveh is the ultimate escalation of this.

Characters are sometimes intentionally 'paired' with another in some shape or form (some year one examples being Ningguang & Beidou, Jean & Lisa, Diluc & Kaeya, Xingqiu & Chongyun). Whether players interpreted these as platonic or romantic, these pre-set dynamics were an easy springboard to get into HEAVY speculative territory. In year 1 and 2, speculation was all a lot of players had LMAO

In the AQ and events, some characters do not have substantial interaction with anyone except one or two other playable characters, so people naturally focus on the pairs that did get interaction whatsoever. When people rarely talk, even small talk where not much happens feels Big.

HYV is definitely willing to dump pairs that aren't catching on in favour of more popular ones (Collei & Amber + Yan Fei & Eula -> Eula & Amber).

(Some characters seem to be intended to be 'paired' with the Traveler though. You know the ones.)

Some of these 'pairs' are intentional bait to fans of similar pairs from previous HYV games - Yae & Ei, Bronya & Seele, and an argument can be made for the superficial similarity Aventurine & Dr Ratio have with explosively popular Kaveh and Alhaitham. And then you get arguments about 'well if they're BASED on this character then.........' which probably seems like a more substantial starting point for those kinds of arguments than I've seen elsewhere...

And then there's shit like Black Swan and Acheron's trailer + the fact that besides you, they barely talked to anyone else (Acheron & Welt was pure exposition). Obviously one seems more interesting, even if (imo) it's still pretty superficial.

Pairing this with how much or little content/info you actually get, for people that are more inclined to care about the characters, it's pretty easy to slide into speculative territory even if what most characters get are breadcrumbs. (e.g. you know Kaeya and Diluc's falling out in exhaustive detail, but what are things like between them now? What were they like before? What's Kaeya's deal with Khaen'riah, how would his friends react??? etc etc. It took awhile for those questions to start to be answered!)

And if you're invested/want answers, what else are you meant to do during content droughts??? By the time the character drops/the story is revealed you've invented a whole new thing in your head already!

And that's content here!

This isn't to say Genshin is a unique phenomena or anything and people are crazy about ships everywhere (I've seen similar things happen in other 'bare bones' media I stumble into) but Genshin seems really well equipped to breed it. Does feel like people give HYV too much credit for stuff they didn't actually do, though. Sometimes feels like HYV just drops a prompt instead of a story.

LMAO that Star Rail got to that point already though. I didn't think it was as bad about this as Genshin.

[bthump]

How much do you think authorial intent matters in analyzing Berserk? Because I've seen your post on Charlotte and how you interpret her sex with Griffith as consensual because Miura usually does a good job portraying sexual trauma, and sex scene tropes in media are usually dodgy while being intended to be consensual. I always have a hard time with this way of thinking because it doesn't change what objectively happened in the scene.

I actually differentiate between authorial intent and narrative intent to an extent. To me narrative framing matters the most. What Miura may have intended can be important inasmuch as he successfully conveyed it in the story, but I don't think his word is the final word on the story itself. If he gave an interview where he said he intended X, but I think the story conveyed Y, then Y is more important to my interpretation of the story.

So to use the Charlotte sex scene as an example, the biggest reason I read it as consensual (if psychologically fucked up to an extent) is because that's the narrative function of the sex. A rape scene would have a different impact on the story. The sex scene furthers Charlotte's love for Griffith, to her it's a contrast to her father's subsequent attempted assault, Charlotte has no misgivings about it, and the king doesn't accuse Griffith of rape but of theft from him. If it was intended to be a rape scene, it would be essentially nonsensical as a story beat and a bigger failure of writing imo.

And yeah, in addition to that there's the greater media context where a lot of sex that should be rape is treated as consensual.

But yeah I get what you mean about having a hard time viewing things that way. I find the terms watsonian and doylist helpful when discussing stuff like this in fandom, where watsonian refers to discussing characters and events as though they really exist, as though characters have agency and lives and make decisions, and doylist refers to taking account of the fiction of the universe, the knowledge that it's written by someone who has a point to convey and might have biases and make mistakes.

So on a watsonian level you can't really argue that it isn't rape because Charlotte says no. If it happened in real life, it would be rape, the end.

But on a doylist level it doesn't fit the story, and there are better ways to interpret that scene to suit the overall narrative better, which we can understand based on the various context clues I mentioned above.

When I discuss stuff I'm usually doing it on a doylist level because that's just how I roll lol, I enjoy analysing media as a construct created by people attempting to convey a meaning. To me, characters/setting/plot/etc are first and foremost tools to futher that meaning. But a lot of fandom is really into the watsonian level, which makes sense because that's where headcanons and fanfiction thrives, and it's a lot of fun to explore and speculate about the characters as though they're real people with real psychologies, to explain away plot holes and bad writing with in-universe explanations, etc.

It's totally cool to prefer one over the other imo! But yeah I think it's always good to differentiate between those different types of analysis, because they're trying to accomplish very different things, and to be aware of what level you're interpreting the story on. I find that it's really easy to get into discussions where people just talk past each other because one person is discussing the story as a fictional construct and the other is discussing it as if it's a real event that happened. It's how you get arguments like ''the depiction of this character is sexist because she's naked for no reason except to titilate the het male audience' 'there's totally a reason though, it's because she breathes through her skin!' or whatever lol.

Thanks for the ask! I like getting the opportunity to explain where I'm coming from when it comes to meta.

[unleashthegoats]

Hey y'all! Loved the new episode, and wanted to chip in on one of the later points - videogames, especially in relation to the "Grey" Jedi concept. Knights of the Old Republic II really did some irreversible damage in that regard, as much as I love the game (though I prefer the first one). Kreia is one of the most central characters in regard to shifting morality debates in Star Wars (in universe and from fans alike) imo, and I'd honestly be super interested in hearing you three cover either or both of the games in the podcast, although I understand that's highly unlikely since none of you have played them. But she is extremely relevant to this topic because she preaches about neutrality and that there's more than just ~dogmatic thinkings of light and dark~, and your relationship with her suffers if you are kind and altruistic and get too rooted in the light side and she's like...one of *the* characters that kind of gets credited with developing a "grey" philosophy in-universe? But people always bring her up as if she's this great point of sensible consideration and not actually, as it turns out, a master manipulator trying to purge the Force from the galaxy (or something like that at least? It's been a while since my last playthrough lol) that lies to you all the time to get you to do what she wants (because she was so crazy bananas both the Jedi and the Sith said "no thank u :)" - well, with a bit more nuance but you get the gist). Really, it's a bit like people falling for Palpatine's anti-Jedi points all over how they talk about her philosophic arguments without bringing that up. But yeah, I thought you might be interested in that. Also, I think KotOR might be what people meant with being able to unlock Dark Side powers as a Light sider but you are absolutely correct that it's a mechanics vs story issue (especially since some powers are indeed alignment-locked AND making dark side choices does impact the character (apart from story, ending and relationships to your party members). It's a bit of a simplistic gimmick, of course, but the further you get into the Dark Side on the alignment, the more it's visible - sickly skin colour, cracks in the skin and flesh, your eyes change...stuff like that. I don't think using Dark Side powers actually pushes you further down the alignment, but the intent is obviously not for Light Siders to mix and match however they like).

Anyway, I'm so sorry for rambling on for so long, but I thought you (or someone, at least :D ) might appreciate that additional info. Keep up the good podcasting! :)

OUR FIRST ASK! I'm so glad you're enjoying the podcast, thank-you so much for listening to us ramble on for an hour once a month!

This is all really interesting! I've read a few metas about the Star Wars video games and the characters within them which is partly why I chose to briefly include them in the episode (and also because I am familiar with Jedi: Survivor which has its own "dark side" mechanic for the main character that was relevant to the discussion). Aside from Jedi: Survivor, I wasn't necessarily referencing any one specific video game, I assume it's probably a thing that's come up more than once.

As far as my reaction to Kreia goes, just based on your description of her, the idea of there being "too much light" just isn't how Lucas's own worldbuilding worked. It's clearly trying to hit on the idea of "balance" being equal amounts of light and dark usage, as opposed to balance being acknowledging darkness EXISTS (in yourself and in the universe) in order to keep yourself from acting on it. There just isn't a way to be "too light" or something like that, there's never "too much" kindness and compassion and selflessness in the world. In this sense, the video games are just going to fall into the same category as the rest of legends and EU stuff, in that they often just do their own thing based on their own interpretations of Star Wars, but it doesn't mean it actually fits with what Lucas himself was trying to get across about the philosophy of the Force and the Jedi in his own stories, and that's primarily what we're using as a base to discuss Star Wars from.

If any of us ends up playing KOTOR, we can certainly try to bring it up more often. I don't think we have any plans of doing more video game stuff currently, but if the KOTOR remake ever comes to pass, maybe I will!

-Mod Sugar

[dingdongrumba]

re: KamuKoma vs KomaHina, I feel like that poll needs a third option because I agree with you that they are not the same but I disagree that they are different ships.

You mention that the dynamics are different but an important thing to note is that even within just KomaHina there are a lot of different dynamics? Ch 4 KomaHina is not the same as Ch 1 KomaHina is not the same as Ultimate Talent Development Plan AU KomaHina is not the same as Ch 3 KomaHina is not the same as post-canon KomaHina. KamuKoma imo is just another specific facet to this which is usually like... 'Despair KomaHina'.

Izuru is very open to interpretation and his relationship with Nagito is completely fanmade as they only interact twice in canon. Therefore it's possible to view them as different ships or not. My interpretation of Izuru is very based around how I see Hajime (which is also left somewhat open as Hajime is not as robustly developed as more intentionally complex characters like Nagito and Mikan), so that's how I feel. Idk.

Hmm, I don't disagree with your anon. It's true that komahina has different dynamics too, and many of them. But for me that just means it develops and grows as the characters do and different situations present themselves (which is how most relationships work anyway)

Kamukura for me is just a completely different character, I think even people that headcanon them as being one post-canon, they still make a differentiation between Hajime and Izuru. Hajime is a developed character and Izuru only has hints of a character, he's more of a plot device tbh. No offense to him, he's an interesting plot device, if a little underused in canon.

And, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think people ship them for very different reasons. Kamukura, at least as far as I can tell, is usually depicted as lacking emotion, if he's with Komaeda, he might show more interest in him or something, but it's a big contrast with Hajime who literally never stops having emotions lmao. Well, that's how I usually see him. It's also that I think Komaeda sees Izuru and Hajime in very different lights, and they in turn see Komaeda very differently.

They have different personalities, beliefs, morals, emotions, motivations, etc. They pretty much only share a body (sometimes depending on who you ask). So yeah, they're just completely different characters for me

[mileven11forever]

hi! ive been seeing ur posts around a bit and just wanted to ask you a question which honestly isnt related to the show plot because even though i do ship byler i believe mileven is gonna be cannon because a suger mega mainstream show isnt likely to throw away their main ship for an unexpected gay ship which imo would make sense with all the queercoding and would just be sumn new but yknow its unlikely. so my wish for s5 is some serious and good growth for mileven as a couple but back to my question as i mentioned earlier there is quite a bit of queercoding and ig what u could call 'proof' and while i agree some of the byler proof thrown around are stretches and reaches most of it seems pretty plausible which does mean there is a chance that the people working on that show purposely put in those aspects and parallels but for what? (possible queerbait which ick!) and another thing with will and his love arc it seems kinda unfair ik its the 80s and in reality it wouldve matched wills situation but in the end it is a super popular fiction show in 2020s and it does have the liberty to provide some sort of solace to will like everyone else in the show gets some kind of romance but the tortured gay guy should be happy with the acceptance? kinda ouch and on topic of queer characters i personally think robin has one of the most beautiful coming out scenes in tv history but with vickie they did bad to her character like they have barely 5 mins of screen time tgther and theyre basically the same person w the brain and mouth parallel so impo the writers and show producers have sort of messed up with the queer characters(s5 could redeem everything but i have a feeling it rlly wont) plus i mean making will love mike was such a choice like he couldve like anyone else the show has time and time again had clear chances to just either not make will have a thing for mike or get him to confess and or move on and introduce a new guy for him and have a chance of a happy ending but they had to employ the overused gay guy loves his straight best friend trope and drag onto the last season where theres already the battle to the death going on so even if they do get a new guy there will be no satisfying development to their bond. and then practically use his feelings to encourage mike which is just cruel and is kinda harmful for many queer people like i remember just sobbing in my grandmas living room because how horrible that scene made me feel so i just want ur opnions on this as u seem like some1 passionate about the show and an ally. (sorry if its kinda long this my first time ever interacting w anyone on tumblr im rlly unsure how to go about these things)

Yeah, definitely, I think I understand what you mean. Queerbaiting sucks, but I don't personally think that's what this show is doing. I think a lot of the hints people are claiming as Byler evidence is just based on their interpretation, and not what the creators intended it to be seen as. We honestly can't know what they intended without them confirming it, so it's hard to know one way or the other. I don't believe a lot of the evidence for Byler personally, and it just doesn't make sense narratively for the show like you mentioned. I don't know, it's complicated. If anyone else wants to share their thoughts on this, feel free to leave them in the comments. :)

[pink-strawberry-kissess]

tumblr keeps exposing me cuz every time i get a notification it says “your crush is at it again” “mind-blowing post from your crush. they’re a favorite of yours, we’ve noticed ❤️”

and i be like WHO tf IS MY CRUSH??? i don’t even have a crush, and i click and it’s you😐

is me drunk anon.

i’m not sure if you talked about this before. you may have, and i have a feeling you did. i just don’t remember, but what are your hcs/theories for Ada’s back story and how she became a merc? (maybe you might want to do them FAQ shit lmao, hehe just a suggestion because i understand it can quiet get a bit tiring answering repetitive questions)

let’s get very deep with this. let’s not glide the surface of the water. i do believe that she started at a very young age. maybe around 9 or 10. and for this whole mercenary thing to work? there is no way she went to public school. was Ada born in China then gained US citizenship, or born in the US? i hc Ada’s parents as immigrants FOR SURE. maybe her family came to the US to escape economic hardships in China? maybe her parents are US citizens but her grandparents are immigrants? i’m only saying this because i believe it’s canon information that Ada is Chinese-American (and honestly i don’t remember seeing where Vietnamese came from), so she can’t be Australian or Canadian lmao

i would go on but this question is for u and not for me lol

k bye (YOU DRINK WATER too FAWK 🫵😤 and eat a something. u need reminding too 🖐️😌)

"they're a favourite of yours," YOU HAVE OTHER FAVOURITES????? >:((((((

im jks dfjkbfdjkssdjkfbskf

HIHIii

sdjkfjskfjksbfs honestly i have answered lots of things and i keep forgetting to link them to my masterlist and im also lazy

OKAYOKAOKAYOKAY so i think the "Ada is Chinese/American" has been a huge misinterpretation based on that one "Ada Wong facts" vid from ink ribbon? the video states that she's Chinese-American and for some reason I think people interpreted that as she's half Chinese / Half white. (i've always interpreted it as just she is Chinese AND lives in America and has grown up partially in America.

also for some reason it seems like Ada (to me) is the only fully asian character because jill has always supposed to be half japanese and they just COMPLETELY got rid of that imo. i refuse to acknowledge that she's half japanese considering they just don't do anything alluding to the fact that she is. she's always been modelled after white models too.

And also a lot of sites including capcom just state that's Ada's "of Chinese descent" and don't specify anything else.

ALSO capcom FUCKED UP REAL BAD IMO by modeling her with a WHITE PERSON'S FACE. ada, a chinese woman, should've NEVER been modelled after a white person. i know that for a bit of damnation? courtenay taylor stated that they modelled it a bit after her because of her face/voice???? but i don't know if it was confirmed, it was just from an interview and she wasn't even sure herself

i think because we have no idea for her backstory and there's no canon backstory there's so much to go on for DDDD: i just have so many thoughts about what kind of life she could've had.

god i just reread this and im rambling a lot just a lot of YAPPING

okay uh

i don't really think she was born in the states tbh. i do think her parents were immigrants or at least she had something that made her go to the states. i like the idea of her having to at least grow up a bit in the states (particularly in her teens) and that's also why i think she doesn't have an accent.

also YEAH i do know a lot of people who have come over from china or some part of asia and they RARELY lose their accent if they come over in their 20s. (most people have defined vocab at this point and unless they actively try to lose their accent or change their vocab, it tends to stay kinda the same. their english will get better, but i've also known people that lost a lot of their english after leaving uni for example) i've only see people lose their accent/never develop one if they have lived in america for 15+ years or grew up for a lot of their childhood/teen years

i know that's confirmation bias lol but considering ada's always had perfect american english, i (personally) can not headcanon that she moved into the states in her 20s. i think that she could've been in the states by the time she's like 7-11.

i'm not a huge headcanon-er of ada having siblings (particularly younger siblings.) also it being the 70s, (if her family complied with the law) she should not/would not have younger siblings (look up "one child law" if you're confused) i can see her having a younger friend that she "wanted as a sister"

i can maybe see ada having an older sibling, but i also hc that her family (similarly to leon and the rest of the re cast lol) have all lost their families in their entirety. (also i KNOW that the "leon lost his entire family" thing hasn't ever really been confirmed, it's just heavily headcanoned)

also

ada is not a chinese name. WONG is, but ada isn't. i've struggled with this and trying to find a reason for this lol other than it just being a fake name. iirc ada is a german name (from it's origins)

NYWAYS SORRY FOR YAPPING

THAT'S MY SECRET, I'M ALWAYS DRINKING WATER

hehe i go eat something sweet hehe :3

[alovelyburn]

It’s an old ask and can’t find it rn but just imo grifflotte is miserable. Griffith, even with all of his power, is again in a way “forced” to use his body and charms to achieve his goal, something we see quite a lot happening in his youth and being his big issue. He has everything that should allow him to actually make his dream come true, but he still needs to pay a prize for it. I’m not saying it’s the same as Gennon, but the theme is always there. Charlotte being happy is also not the best? Like, I think it’s mostly narrative fault and the way women are presented in the story, but it is so sad. She is happy because she is manipulated into that happiness and lives through fantasy of some kind. And I hate how it can be interpreted as positive. And I do think theres a big chance we gonna see a child too, but I hate the idea of that kid inheriting Griffith kingdom and being destined to rule it, without the baggage (quite popular theory in normal side of the fandom) instead of an actual princess with good ideas who should already have much more growth tbh. It’s like her character ultimately gets turned into just incubator for the next cycle. Not the worst fate in berserk but I hate it so much. Women in berserk are better-ish than most characters we used to but that don’t make them good. But hey, that’s just me wanting more

All right, I think I get where you're coming from now. It's just not how my head works, so I had to kind of adjust my perspective a little. When someone says a relationship is miserable my assumption is that they mean the characters are miserable, but it seems more like commentary on the type of relationship it is. Sort of similar to the child/heir thing - less about the story supporting it than that you perhaps find the turn unsatisfying or undesirable from the perspective of what you'd rather see. I might still be off base, feel free to correct me. But yeah, I mean I'm not here to argue with people's preferences, it is what it is.

From my own perspective...

I do think Griffith pre-eclipse seemed to perceive his relationship with Charlotte as being in the same vein (not to the same degree) as his encounter with Gennon in the sense that he was once again "paying" for something he needed by trading his... body (and the performance of affection in Charlotte's case) for that thing. I think this is part of the reason for his post-coital breakdown with her - this sense that he had lost someone he loved and wanted and is now left with this person that he will always feel he is "selling" himself to on some level.

Honestly, even allowing the Godhand to destroy the remnants of his human flesh and carve his heart out in exchange for his ascension is in some ways just the extreme end of what he's always done: giving away pieces of himself in exchange for things he needs in order to accomplish his goals. Even the external sacrifice is described as needing to be something that is essentially so loved as to become a part of the person making the sacrifice.

"Take hold of the world in exchange for their own flesh and blood," as they say.

And I do think that is incredibly tragic - he's a tragic character. Absolutely. I'm just not sure whether that's something Griffith cares about at all post-eclipse due to the destruction and reconstruction of his emotional world.

Anyway, I'm of two minds about the whole thing because... I've written at some length about my frustration with Casca, the way her character is constructed and the motivations she's given. Yet, at the same time, if I think about what could/should happen with her character, I can only do that from the reality of what she is in the story rather than a hypothetical about what I would have made her or would have preferred her to be.

Plus my writer brain is stronger than my fan brain, so when I think about things like this I always think about them as being one of many moving parts within a narrative. So I think things like, if Charlotte were the sort of character to take over like a boss after her father passed away then the whole story about Griffith courting her so he can run a country makes no sense. That being the case, she's designed to be a person who doesn't do that because... that's just the role she has in the story.

All that said, and now I'm just continuing to talk about this grifflote child concept as though I'm invested in it and I just akjnakjnsd like I'm REALLY NOT I'm just thinking from a narrative perspective since it keeps coming up...

Let's say she has a kid, and then Griffith dies.

The kid would be like... an infant. So wouldn't she need to step up anyway?

ETA: And I have no idea what the mainstream western fandom is doing aside from performatively spitting fire every time Griffith's name is mentioned. Still, they can't be wrong all the time. Stopped clocks and all that.

[kouxaoba]

When did Kou and Aoba fall in love ?

I feel like this is the first question people ask themselves when they finish the series. I believe he was always in love with her, and I'd like to offer my interpretation based on different things that point to that. I'll be analyzing different events and interactions (mostly from the manga as I'm more familiar with it than the anime and well, because it's the source material).

The answer is in Wakaba's "do not take him away from me" : a person cannot be taken away by someone who does not want to be taken away. Wakaba here was already admitting that Kou liked Aoba and was acknowledging her as her rival for Koh's love. Her statement just doesn't make sense if she was confident Koh was as in love with her as she was with him.

Everyone always mentions how much Wakaba loved Koh but no one ever states Koh loved Wakaba. If the feelings were mutual, we would have more statements like "those two were so in love", but instead it's always "Wakaba loved him so much" or "Koh monopolized Wakaba". It doesn't make sense for the author to have the side characters constantly emphasize this point if the romantic love was mutual.

The closest Koh came to ever stating he loved Wakaba was in his conversation with Yuhei. Note that even this exchange starts with him saying "She was totally in love with me". Again, a strange way to talk about someone you loved that passed away. This is why Yuhei can't help but ask "were you in love, too ?".

The pause/silence followed by the "..." imo speaks volumes. Compare this to when Senda asks him if he likes Aoba and then he answers "yeah" straight away with no hesitation. And we know it's not a lie because he throws his pitch perfectly.

Back to the conversation with Yuhei, he follows Koh's answer by stating "dealing with you guys is tiring".

"You guys" here means Koh and Aoba. Again, it's little tidbits like these that jump out and make me question the author's intent. There is no reason for Yuhei to bring up Aoba and Koh in a conversation about Koh's love for Wakaba, unless being the perceptive character he is, he understood the hesitation in Koh's answer meant something else. Mind you, at this point in the story he hadn't spent that much time with them to fully grasp their complicated relationship, so imo this says a lot...

4. Koh and Aoba are the same : this is a statement that Ichiyo and Yuhei (the two most perceptives characters) kept repeating throughout the show. When Aoba admits that she has always "hated" him, we understand what she means is she always loved him. When Ichiyo says they are the same, it's not just in terms of personality but in terms of their feelings for each other. So if we believe Aoba love Koh from the beginning, so did he.

5. Their love/relationship is everlasting : during the flashback of them at the cemetery, they are seen fighting, throwing mud over two graves. The names on the grave are "Kudo" and "Takeda". Now I admit my Japanese is non-existent so take this with a grain of salt. But the "Ku" in Kudo means "long time, old, long-cherished" and the name Takeda is synonymous with hard work, resilience and determination, all things that remind us of our 2 protagonists, right ? I admit I could be reaching, but I can't help but feel like this isn't a coincidence, and it's the author telling us in a subtle way that these two hard-working people have been in love since the beginning.

The beauty of Cross Game though, is that Adachi Mitsuru wrote a very subtle work that is open to interpretation. I'm not claiming my interpretation is the only correct one btw, but I just love re-reading the manga because every single re-read I notice the dialogue, pauses may mean something else. At the end of the day it really doesn't matter when they fell in love just that they both love each other, probably "More Than Anyone in the World"... My heart flutters

[anghraine]

kazaera replied to this post:

I hear you - I feel like the, mm, density + lack of detail of the source material makes it really easy for someone's interpretation to proliferate until people treat it as equivalent to canon. (my favourite example of this is Círdan fostering Gil-galad - entirely fanon, Tolkien wrote no such thing). IMO one of the most fun parts of writing Silm fic is how many different spins you can put on events! It always makes me sad when we get super narrow here.

Yes! I often do get annoyed or frustrated by the way that specific interpretations get treated as canon and spread, when there are all kinds of different permutations possible (like Maglor as Elrond's and Elros's "adoptive dad", which is by no means the only possible interpretation of their dynamic, but widely treated as canon even by people who are sharply critical of Maglor).

It's also one of the reasons I tend to be so annoyed with fans of certain adaptations or expanded universes jumping down my throat every time I break with adaptation-derived fanon or some transient expanded universe thing (usually overwritten in a few years, anyway). It's like ... going against the fandom grain isn't actually forbidden. We're allowed to fill in gaps ourselves and different people coming up with different ideas is where a lot of the fun of fandom comes from.

Though, all of that said, that annoyance is of a very different flavor than my annoyance with the dudebros insisting that any conception of Galadriel that includes anything not stated by Tolkien is woke OOC Mary Sue blahblahblah.

and yeah, why the hell WOULDN’T Galadriel have known how to use a sword? There’s also an element of “so Tolkien didn’t say so explicitly but what do you think is _plausible_ given the context and the bounds of his world.” like, do you think Galadriel is flinging around fireballs? In Tolkien, magic used in combat tends to be like… Sauron vs Finrod, more a duel of wills. I don’t think Galadriel was singing at Alqualondë, y'know?

Right! The idea that it's just wildly OOC for a physically imposing, athletic woman who joined a battle definitely involving weapons to know how to lift a sword is absurd to me. I do think "is this plausible based on what we do know otherwise" makes for a much more productive line of reasoning. And thinking critically means that not every statement that can be quoted from a source is necessarily accurate—it depends on the viewpoint or biases of the characters, too! And then there are Tolkien's statements outside the narratives that may or may not be taken as "canonical", depending.

So this very binary idea of canon facts as "thing stated somewhere in canon" vs "thing not stated in canon, regardless of how probable it is or isn't" just seems very superficial and flawed to me.

[egg-emperor]

I haven't been in the Sonic fandom since I was a literal child lmao (mid-2000s ish during the heyday before Sonic 06) but it's crazy to me that people complain about dark or edgy interpretations of Sonic media since the games, comics, even a couple of the TV series were just like that for a while. idk. the forced wholesomeness stuff is just as bad imo

Yeah I guess a lot of it is because a big amount of the people that have a problem with my dark concepts haven't been fans for as long to really know about it or they don't remember, or do but don't like it and just have a problem with anyone actually liking and creating for it.

It's ridiculous to me that it's so vilified in the fandom now because the series has officially explored tons of dark subjects and themes of violence, tragedy, death, killing of innocent people and children, abuse of animals and people in multiple forms, terrorism, suicide, enslavement, shootings, war, genocide, etc. And those are all just examples that have been the actual canon games.

And that's not even getting into other official media like the comics, especially Archie- which also has some really great dark moments with Eggman that creatively inspired me a lot. I'll include mention it here because this isn't just about what's canon though there's tons there too, it also helps emphasize that this is what's been in any form of official media at all the entire time.

People say these themes are too extreme and dark and must make the person writing about them for analysis and concepts horrible people, even though they're explored in the official media. And surprise, surprise, Eggman is very often the perpetrator in a lot of these terrible things because he's the main villain of the series for a reason! It shouldn't be wrong to embrace that.

It surprises me now that people that dislike evil and dark things as a whole in fiction are fans of Eggman today and have a problem with other fans liking that he's evil and basing their fan creations off that. It doesn't make sense to me at all but it wouldn't be a problem if some of them weren't so nasty and accusatory towards those that do and cast them out of the fandom.

It's really not that shocking to explore darker subjects and themes, they're not too extreme for Sonic in any way. And most of what I create are always at least heavily inspired by or even directly taken from terrible evil things that Eggman has done in the games, I'm just exploring them further to a degree that they can't because of age ratings- that's the only real huge difference.

Nobody should be getting cast out and told to die for exploring darker themes anyway if course but it's even wilder to me that it's happening over me writing about what's already been explored in the series and is literally why I do so in the first place. And they made it to be entertaining, that's the point. So it should be possible to acknowledge, enjoy, and create based on it without trouble.

I miss how that was more possible in the early 2000s - early 2010s but is now treated like an offense and even punishable by death in some people's eyes. The sanitization of these darker themes and characters in fandom to favor wholesome fluff often simplifies the complexity of them and their dynamics officially, which removes a ton of what's interesting and appealing to me.

And the hostility towards anyone that doesn't follow along with it and how they'll act like they're morally reprehensible and cast them out alongside people that have actually done illegal things on blocklists and such is really sad. People are allowed to like good pure wholesome things as much as people are allowed to like darker evil edgy grim dark things but some won't allow them to coexist.

Thinking about how many other fans' creations of analysis, concepts, fic writing, and art are affected too as they're either kicked out like me or feel like they can't share it at all in fear the same will happen to them is a huge shame. It's restricting expression of creativity and imagination in favor of purifying everything despite even the official media having some these themes.

And that's one of the reasons why the fandom is so different when it comes to what fictional writing, art, and interpretations are or aren't allowed now. Not only do people forget or reject these themes being in the official media itself, they also seek to shut down anyone who wants to explore those further in fiction like me and discourage others from doing so in the first place.

I think myself and anyone who shares my interests would be able to find stuff we enjoy much easier if this didn't happen. It sucks how hard some fans make it for people to share or discover any type of fan creations that don't fit their personal moral beliefs and tastes, despite there being tons of the fluff they want in the fandom already. Fans of the darker themes should be able to thrive here too.