#especially the boys because they're were fewer of them

[box-dwelling]

Beloved mutuals, today i have toiled in the mines of AA in my mind but have merely 3 words to give you. But I fear these words may bring much joy or much horror.

Those 3 words are

Theatre kid Klavier

[jal-the-jinxed]

MOONSHADOW MARKINGS S7

a maybe mildly comprehensive rambling

Whenever we meet an elf in the show I stare at their markings and this is what I've got from season 7

Lets kick it off with the Moon Cubs!

First off there's the cub who's making embarrassing Callum her new favorite hobby

From what I've seen, her markings are most like Callisto's

Then we have the cub with the yellow eyes

The only moonshadow with markings I'd call similar is this friend from the tabletop game

But they're only a little bit similar and I don't know too much about the tabletop game so I'm not sure what such markings might mean 😅

Either way, what the elves paint on themselves has meaning, which leads up to the cub I really want to talk about-

Last of all is this little guy, who's got a nose stripe like Runaan

Past Runaan specifically

I'm fairly certain this sketch is of the past bc I'd find it confusing to change up his facepaint and mend his horn for no reason, on top of that Ethari is wearing his og outfit and also has different markings. The markings stay for a long while, I think the creators described them as like extra-long lasting henna's, so the fact that 2/3 cubs might have assassin markings is Interesting to me. There's a lot of moonshadow markings that go across the cheeks like the oldest moon cub's does, so it could be only one cub with possible assassin markings, but i find it curious either way. Like how and why are marks picked for elf children, especially marks that seem to have correlation to roles/careers/etc? Do kiddos get markings similar to what their parents have to kind of show familial connection? Or do parents paint the markings based off what they'd like their kid to be or what the kid seems enclined for? And if so then how often do the markings get swapped? People can change their mind on what path in life they want as they grow, and kids can change their mind on something like that every day.

On the note of swapping markings-

In that past sketch, it looks like Ethari has fewer marks on his cheeks and shoulders, then in the episode we meet him, he has these circle-y markings filling up the space on his cheeks and shoulders.

And then in season seven he has very swirly-ee markings

Similar enough that I didn't notice on my first watch but different enough that I'm staring wanting to know the meaning

Since it seems like markings correlate to roles/jobs/whatever and also the rank the elf has in that position, I'm guessing the increasing amount of circles on Ethari and the second nose stripe on Runaan is to show their moving up in the ranks. But the change from clean, geometric markings to more organic swirlies for Ethari feels like a more personal thing. We know home boy has a steady hand, so even if Runaan painted his markings before they wouldn't look this different now. Maybe he wanted something more spiral-y to lowkey match the mark over Runaan's heart or the patterns he adorned his husband with?

I think I actually know why, though: "Similar but different."

When there's stuff you did with someone and suddenly you don't have that person anymore, doing that stuff is hard. To put it lightly. There's this part of your brain that screams something's incorrect, something's off, something is wrong. Because this isn't a you thing, it's a you and that person thing. But they're not here. It's not supposed to be like this.

That's were the "but different" comes in. If you change it up then it's no longer what you did with that person, at least not exactly, and that can be enough to make it manageable. You still achieve whatever the objective is, just differently.

So if Runaan and Ethari painted each other's markings, then I believe that this is one of Ethari’s Similar-but-Different's. Painting them the way his husband did was painful, it was supposed to be Runaan's hands creating those shapes, but now it was his own. So he changed them. He couldn't just stop wearing them, they're kind of like a uniform, so he made them similar but different.

More on changing markings- As far as I'm aware, no elf has changed markings more than Runaan. Not canonically, but in the Xadia phone game. The game was never compatible with my phone so everything I know about it is from other people's posts, but from what I've seen it looks like Runaan has the most marking changes out of all the elves. He's got different markings in his moon phoenix skin, the wasteland skin, the halloween skin, the theif skin, featherblade skin, another one that idk the name of, and maybe more? No idea how many skins the characters have, but I don't think I've seen major marking changes in the other elves skins? Could totally be wrong though

Either way, I think Runaan's markings are going to change and I think the game might have hints as to how.

Runaan no longer believes in precision violence, hell the boy just realized he's alive, too. So he's probably got a career change coming, which means a uniform/markings change.

So what's a stabby boy who no longer believes in precision violence gonna do? Probably protect, I think. There's a whole brand new city/kingdom and undead souls running rampant every time the sun goes down, so between that and more, there's tons of stuff to protect and defend. And I think he's going to become some type of guard or something like that.

How will this change his markings? I think they'll look most similar to his moon phoenix skin markings

Our guy was "already dead", actually died, came back to life, and realized he's actually alive. That's just got phoenix vibes all over it. We're also introduced to moon phoenix's by a guardian in the show. But besides vibes, I want to point at the marks on his cheeks in this skin. They're these two little lines beneath his eyes atop his cheeks, kind of like...

They're slanted at different angles and I think the dragon guards markings are supposed to remind you of dragons its the shapes for me but I think Runaan's new markings are going to be similar, sort of twin little lines across his cheeks under his eyes like his old friends and his phoenix skin.

I think his arm markings will probably change too, but I'm too sleepy to go on about that, goodnight ✌️

[aubris-fox]

HelPol 141 Headcanons

hello, hellenic polytheist here, projecting onto characters i like because i can. rbs are appreciated!!! im open to suggestions for other characters (no promises i will 100% do them, it depends on my motivation), and if you're going to be an anti-paganism asshole just fuck right off.

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notes:

realistically there's little difference, but for this; deities under DEVOTED TO are deities they consistently worship and actively consider themselves devotees of, and deities under ALSO HONORS are ones they offer and pray to but not as frequently.

the boldened text in every list of domains is what each character focuses on in their worship.

FEELINGS ABOUT RELIGION and RELIGIOUS JOURNEY are lumped together because for most of them they're heavily intertwined, and also the sections would be too small if i were to separate them

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

JOHN 'SOAP' MACTAVISH

DEVOTED TO:

Hephaistos / Hephaestus : forges, fire, metalworking, technology, sculpture, craftsmanship, physical creation, art

Ares : war/battle, dance, violence, fear, rebellion bloodlust, courage, civil order, masculinity

ALSO HONORS:

Dionysos / Dionysus : alcohol, madness, cycles, rebirth, parties, agriculture, feasts, theater, fertility, release, inspiration

Hermes : trade, wealth, luck, fertility, animal husbandry, sleep, language, thieves, and travel

PRACTICE STYLE:

probably on the modern end. rushed, simply due to his work. i'd imagine he left Catholicism in this AU due to the strict structures it had (+ probably some trauma, lets be honest), and therefore he would prefer the leniency of a more new-age practice. i also think Soap would like how much of a puzzle it can be. he'd like figuring out every what works for him, doing the math and finding out the best ways he can go about each thing. he'd be knowledgeable of historical practices, but in an "know the rules so you can break them properly" sort of way.

FEELINGS ABOUT RELIGION/RELIGIOUS JOURNEY:

in the beginning, he probably felt hesitant. a little overwhelmed , too. growing up in a majorly monotheistic religion, it took him a while to get comfortable with branching out in his worship. once he did, though, he was much more open and himself in his practice. he loves it. he loves finally praying and actually getting answers. he loves offering, loves divination, loves building kharis. he especially loves learning the other ways people practice; he finds it all fascinating (major projection lol).

KYLE 'GAZ' GARRICK

DEVOTED TO:

Aphrodite : love, sexuality, the people, war, self-confidence, relationships, beauty, passion

Ares : war/battle, dance, violence, fear, rebellion bloodlust, courage, civil order, masculinity

Hephaistos / Hephaestus : forges, fire, metalworking, technology, sculpture, craftsmanship, physical creation, art

ALSO HONORS:

Athene / Athena : wisdom, battle strategy, weaving, crafts

PRACTICE STYLE:

also modern, but probably more in the sense where he's adapting historical practices to fit a modern lifestyle. i think that he, while he still gives physical offerings, prefers and enjoys doing devotional acts that are connected to the gods in some way (i.e; physical training for Ares).

FEELINGS ABOUT RELIGION/RELIGIOUS JOURNEY:

i dont think he really felt guilty or hesitant about it; even though his parents were firmly Christian, i like to think that they were very accepting and allowed their kids to learn and explore different things. while they brought them to church and raised them with exposure to their faith, they didnt force him or his sister to follow their beliefs. i imagine that Gaz did follow those beliefs for a while, and that his switch would've been him just.. growing out of it, and feeling a stronger pull to polytheism overall.

maybe he felt that monotheism was limiting, maybe he desired fewer expectations about 'how he should be acting' than being a Good Christian Boy gave him. regardless, i think he's glad he made his decision. i also think he's a total lover the religion's mythology; when he isn't using his free time training and spending time with the team, he's spending hours researching and reading.

JOHN PRICE

DEVOTED TO:

Zeus : storms, the sky, fatherhood, law, justice, oaths, kingship, hospitality, prophecy, order

ALSO HONORS:

Any Diety : Price seems like he would offer and pray to whomever he wants/needs to in the moment

PRACTICE STYLE:

i unfortunately don't have much to say for Price. admittedly, characterizing him is difficult for me. i think he gives mostly fuck all about going about proper reconstructionism, though, and has his own much more casual way of doing things. does he respect the historical stuff? yeah. doesnt necessarily mean he wants to engage in those ways, though.

FEELINGS ABOUT RELIGION/RELIGIOUS JOURNEY:

converting was like reuniting with an old friend, for John. as a lad he'd heard of the myths, listened to the tales. he was always intrigued by it, but nothing more. he didn't have a religion for the longest time—didnt think he wanted one. he started simply because he was curious, and liked what he found. i like to think he leaves the rest of his cigars burning when he's done smoking as little offerings for Zeus.

SIMON 'GHOST' RILEY

DEVOTED TO:

Nemesis : divine retribution, revenge, justice, balance, indignation

ALSO HONORS:

Artemis : wilderness, the hunt, instinct, plague, healing/purity, archery, dance, music, chastity, transitions, care of children

Dionysos / Dionysus : alcohol, madness, cycles, rebirth, parties, agriculture, feasts, theater, fertility, release, inspiration

PRACTICE STYLE:

he respects historical tradition, and probably has a secret desire to be able to participate in those ways. though outside of that he definitely isnt picky in how he chooses to do things. he does what he's capable of in the moment, nothing more. huge believer of the phrase 'if it works, it works'.

FEELINGS ABOUT RELIGION/RELIGIOUS JOURNEY:

Ghost is probably hesitant with worship—faith is something that evaded him after the horrors he went through. he found Nemesis after escaping Roba, and holds a lot of affection for Her especially (i dont think his desire for revenge on Roba was specifically influenced by Her, i definitely think that was of his own volition. though it did get Her attention, and he definitely had Her support). he does appreciate the gods, even if it's hard some days because of all he's been through and who he is.

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TAG LIST:

@idiotrxccoon

@spaceperson64

@the-angst-zone

@parvulous-writings

@same-marie-same

@material-ghoul86

@sciencehadbabies

@sharkiiv

@pyxrin

@chaosundcoffee

(if you liked my post offering to tag people in this, i assumed that meant you wanted to be tagged and added you to this list. apologies if there was any misunderstanding there and you didnt want to be)

[pynkhues]

Apologies for bringing twitter stupidity to your tumblr, but I feel like I need a reality check lol. While the large majority of ppl who commented on that photo the fan in Sydney took with Sam were just saying how pretty or cute or rejuvenated he looked, the wet slicked-back hair and the angle, with his head tilted back so the hair is less visible, made some people start saying that he was losing his hair, and then a few people even started saying that Jacob and Assad were losing their hair too. And I just need to check that I'm not crazy because, with Sam, it's like, we just saw him 20 days ago? And he looked like this??

https://ton.x.com/i/ton/data/dm/1910615867832086697/1910615720955904000/xUuXOCoz.jpg:medium

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GqMfH9lW0AA0hAZ?format=jpg&name=medium

And two years ago when they were filming s2 he looked like this, which seems exactly the way he looks in the fan pic with his hair pulled back tightly?:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GqN2g_QbkAAsSMC?format=jpg&name=large

So unless they think he lost significant hair in the last few weeks, I don't get it. And with Jacob and Assad, I don't get it. Someone posted post s2 photos of them and they didn't look different to me from the s1 photos? Am I wrong? And where does this come from? I mean honestly it's not that many people, it was a lot fewer people making these comments than it was people talking about the people making the comments (which honestly is so often the way. I usually hear about something negative on twitter not because I come across it myself but because I read someone else commenting on it angrily). But is it anxiety that these men are playing vampires who aren't meant to age and yet they may show some human signs of aging if the show goes long enough? And maybe that's especially centered around Sam as a blonde man living in a sunny country (even though his skin has truly never looked smoother and glowier lol).

I mean, I can't say I'm particularly surprised, anon.

You're kind of asking me a whole bunch of questions here, haha, so I'll answer as succinctly as I can, but like - - yeah, the context of how and when pictures are taken matters. Of course all of them are going to look better in professionally taken photos at events they're professionally styled for than in candids where they're literally just hanging out in their hometowns, of course angles and lighting has an impact, but also of course they all look a little older today than they did three years ago, because they are? There's nothing wrong with that - all three of them look great (and I personally would say have aged pretty minimally), and the handwringing over it feels - -

I don't know.

Well, that's not true, I have my suspicions, haha. I think it's partially a manifestation of a global culture drenched in youth fetishisation, of which, to be fair, the vampire subgenre has been a part of at least since the 70s, from Valerie and Her Week of Wonders to The Lost Boys to Twilight to The Vampire Diaries - - hell, Anne herself writes it, given the Lestat of the book is an eternal 21. I think it's partially a fear that if the actors age, they might no longer look like they did in 1.01, or worse, that they might no longer find them 'hot', and I also think a big part of it is people trying to be funny or signal to a certain crowd that they can hang.

I also - - mm. I've mentioned this once before, but I do also think there's a little bit of a degree of inexperience in parts of the fandom, and while there's nothing wrong with that at ALL, I do think that there's a small subset within that cohort who read as female-incels to me. These are the ones who really go after the cast, particularly Sam, but not just him, in a way that feels deliberately punishing and obsessive, and I think for them these sorts of comments are lowkey a sort of negging akin to guys who feel the need to comment when they think an actress is starting to look haggard.

In that sense, I think it's both specific and really broad to internet culture, and really, unfortunately, I just think it is what it is.

[robot-roadtrip-rants]

@krakoansam this needed its own post

i rearranged my bookshelf for this flex

A lot of these are primary sources (Baburnamah, Nihongi) or collections of primary sources (The Classic Slave Narrative, The Jew in the Modern World). Primary sources are an acquired taste, but once you acquire it, they're delicious. I can't tell you how delightful it is to read Babur I describe swooning over a boy when he was nineteen, or watch ibn Khaldun almost figure out the connection between sunshine and dark skin. And of course, there's no substitute if you're trying to understand the minds of the people back then. Reading the writings of 19th century European Jewish intellectuals in high school literally changed my life (hence why the textbook from that class, The Jew in the Modern World, is on my bookshelf). But it can also be very difficult. I only made it a few pages into Voices of Chernobyl before I had to put it down.

Also the comics:

I was kinda hesitant to include Nonnonba, but I think it earns its place as a primary source, just like When I Grow Up. It's very precious to me. There aren't many primary sources on pre-war Japan in English, and few of them focus on everyday, small town life. Even fewer are as accessible as Nonnonba.

A reoccurring problem with pre-war and especially pre-Meiji histories is that too many Anglo authors are fixated on ~the honorable samurai~ with their ~wonderful code of bushido~ AARRRGH SHUT THE FUCK UP. If I see "bushido" anywhere near a serious discussion of the aristocratic (kinda) warrior caste of Japan, then everything goes right in the trash! Nitobe Inazō coined the word in 1900 when he was trying to explain how Japanese people were civilized to racist white people. There were, in fact, various codes of ethics/military conduct that circulated through pre-Meiji Japan, just like in every other fucking civilization, and the word bushido does pop up occasionally due to how the Japanese language works. But there was no unified code, and the concept of proper warrior conduct changed over the centuries. The Book of Five Rings, written by a guy who lived through the tail end of the Warring States Era, reads very different from the Hagakure, written after about a century of peace.

Imperial Japan is extremely interesting and extremely fucked up. The guys who jerk off to that shit are vile. Studying WWII, regardless of the theater, is like digging through an endless ravine of shit. Every time you think you're done, you've excavated all the shit, you're completely inured to the stink and the filth, TA-DAH! There's another, even worse strata of shit beneath your feet. I'm probably going to piss people off with this statement, but reading about WWII, is how I learned to stop worrying and--well, not love, per se, but make my peace with The Bomb. Yes, I am bitterly aware of the sick irony of that. No, that does not change my mind. The Mexican standoff that The Bomb inflicts on the world is preferable to WWIII. We aren't civilized enough as a species keep the peace without that sword dangling over our heads. I'd like to believe that we will be someday, but that day will not come in my lifetime.

I should note that my collection is currently missing The Tale of the Heike, since my old copy fell apart. I've also been meaning to get my hands on a collection of Abu Nuwas's poetry because he's amazing. Everyone should read Abu Nuwas. You haven't lived til you've read one of the greatest poets of all time write about getting drunk and banging dudes.

(translation by A.Z. Foreman)

[autumn-foxfire]

Movie 25: Bride of Halloween time!

And it's already forcing the romance >.> It is funny that Ran always shuts down Sonoko's comments about Shinichi crushing on her as Conan. That's her little brother, she does not entertain that bullshit.

...Did they not bother telling the guests that this was a fake wedding?

Poor Sato, she looked absolutely traumatized over even the thought of Takagi dying on her.

Sato looks very beautiful in her wedding dress, though. I hope we do see the day Takagi and Sato get married, out of all the couples, they are ones I would love to see.

Something I've noticed in the introductions: they never introduce Ran as Shinichi's girlfriend, just his childhood friend, even though they've been together for a while in the manga and anime now. I guess even those who do the introductions don't want to say they're together :p

It's so nice of Shinichi to imagine Ran in her wedding to Sera :p Thank you for telling us he did, Ai.

She's so pretty-

AND SHE JUST GOT BLOWN UP.

KOGORO T-T He was actually being a good father for a change too... He didn't even think when it came to protecting Ai from danger.

They're so scared for him T-T

I like when the police can be competent, especially Sato as we know that Gosho doesn't respect his female characters as much as they deserve so it's nice when writers do give it to them.

I forgot that Matsuda texted his "friend" even after his death. That's very gay, gay, homosexual, gay of him. Sounds like he couldn't let him go.

Fewer and fewer people came because they're all dead. Amuro is the only one of his friends left.

...Did the movies forget that Takagi and Sato are already dating? And that they're sleeping together, both sexually and non-sexually? This seems like drama for the sake of drama.

Ran is not as worried for Kogoro as she would usually be? They didn't get the best writers for this movie, did they. They got a great team to animate though because it looks really good.

Takagi understands Sato so well T-T Well, at least the writing isn't all bad.

I have to wonder how these agents feel, being told to take a child to their boss and they have no clue why. They must suspect that their is something wrong with this child, especially if he's being treated like an equal by their boss.

And it doesn't get solved by you but rather by a know-it-all boy who can't keep his nose out of investigations even if it'll cost him his life.

Was that Amuro's car that just got destroyed? Ouch.

Well at least Date put it to good use.

And of course Scotch asked about his boyfriend. He also came to save his life.

It's not really that tense when I know he doesn't die here, but later.

They tried to make a run for it so they didn't have to do errands for others XD

Ai first had to go through it and now Shinichi almost died T-T They're not having a good time this movie, are they.

Ran looks very pretty in this outfit she's wearing. Very mature but not overly so.

Okay but Takagi looks good with Matsuda's haircut. However, I do like how normal he usually looks so I don't want him to change his normal haircut, just appreciating our great man Takagi.

No one should question Shinichi's presense anymore. Even if he was invited, he would be find his way inside a confidential meeting.

Shinichi just clicked his fingers... to tell everyone that they have a hint for the case. He's so overly dramatic, he gets it from his mother. The only thing he taes after his father is his intelligence and colouring, he gets everything else from his mother.

Lol I wonder if Shinichi was trying to get info from Amuro about his dead boyfriend.

She is so angry. You know she's also angry at herself for going alone with this plan and putting Takagi in danger. But damn she also looks incredibly hot.

Considering how he's panicking Takagi is actually a pretty good actor.

Takagi: I am in WAY over my head.

I really, really love the art direction for this movie. They're bringing out the unique style of detective conan to great lengths.

...Those were supposed to be burns?

They looks like tattoos, not burns. If you're going to do scars, commit to it. Give her proper scars.

OH THEY CAN DO SCARS.

Shinichi has gone into his mind map again. It's not as fun when Kaito isn't there helping him along.

Can't have a movie where Shinichi isn't lying to Ran's face!

Awww, Ai put on a hat for the halloween spirit.

Shinichi's latest genius idea: fake being kidnapped in order to get to the culprit.

Oof, poor guy was completely fooled by his future "wife". He's going to struggle to trust again.

Amuro has no chill. He just dislocated that woman's arm.

I love when he makes this face after he saves people. It's his "well that was fucking close," face which makes it look like he isn't taking what he did all that seriously.

I vote for letting the bitch die but I know Shinchi isn't stopping her for the culprits sake, but rather to save the heart of the woman who had lost too much.

This is the best side of Shinichi.

And Agasa once again saves the day.

I hope Ran gets to help with keeping the football in place. She is there after all.

CAN WE NOT DO THE RAN THING. IT'S SO GODDAMN CRINGY.

Sick shot. He's taking after his husband with the moon shots.

So Matsuda and Shinichi used the same method to stop the bomb and they did so because of Matsuda's dead boyfriend.

One of the only couples I cheer for when they kiss XD

I'm guessing the post credit scene is another practise. Yeah.

THEY BROUGHT TAKAGI WITHOUT HIM KNOWING. OKAY THAT'S FUNNY.

[smiley-mcdoggington]

OUGH i LIVE your abo stancest stuff….. esp your way of doing the anatomy regarding it?????? would you perhaps like to share more about that?:3

-🟢

OKAY SO--

Anatomy is pretty much standard for the first 13 years, human stuff. Then 14-15 it's typical for different behaviors to start appearing alongside body types to go with those behaviors. Actual changes to bodies depending on your future secondary gender is a myth, but increased oxytocin or adrenaline in a teenage hormone soup can affect behavior which affects body type. Not always, though, especially with Stan and Ford who are identical twins. 16 is the danger zone when presentation actually happens, which makes alphas and omegas both more sensitive to smells and depending on the social climate usually pushes them into a stereotype. The chemical soup doesn't calm down fully until you're like 30, the goal is to have settled down by then because estrous cycles start decreasing to like once a year instead of once a month (Stan would lie about being in his thirties to try to get jobs because young omegas and alphas both were considered unreliable and animalistic). 16 is also when knots and cervix-like tissue develop so there's just vague itchiness and discomfort, it's not fun but no one talks about it in the late 60s-early 70s so the boys just don't mention it. Also BITE MARKS AREN'T PERMANENT they last like a few weeks max they last as long as the wound does, Ford is dedicated to chomping on his brother frequently to keep it up.

ONTO THE GENITALS SITUATION WHICH IM GUESSJNG WAS THE POINT OF THE ASK SORRY FOR THE RANT--

Okay first off afab and amab have different operations for their secondary genders, knots are Just an amab thing, afab alphas have internal testicals and. I mean this in the kindest way they kind of fuck like birds. Still got the same rutting chemical soup but different How. Afab alphas can get pregnant but it's difficult and painful, they need the right setting to ovate and pregnancies are high risk.

Amab on the other hand is more classic a/b/o, they all get to keep their dicks, knot at the base of a penis, cervix tissue in the rectum creating discharge, bla bla bla, anyways you know that line on the taint? In omegas that is a pseudo-vulva. Kinda like how everyone has nipples, everyone's got that line, but omegas are born with it attached to the faintest hint of a uterus that develops attached to both that and the rectum. If a male omega gets pregnant (and that's a big if, it's dangerous for male omegas to get pregnant but they're expected to anyways because "if not then what are they for?") that line develops into a full vulva along with breasts developing, because despite my bird sex comment earlier it would be very dangerous for us to have fewer holes. Very strenuous, a lot can go wrong, should not be expected, but it is. Most postpartum amab omegas have both for about a year before the pseudo-vulva shrinks to its original size and the milk dries up. Male omegas can train to fit small things in their pseudo-vulva not postpartum but its kinda painful and with much fewer nerves than an actual vagina so pretty niche.

[astoopidfool]

Gonna sad post/vent my woes/ pity party for one for just a second because I can't sleep and my brain is v loud. Under the read-more is just me being sad about my writing skill, or lack of, and using BT as my jumping point/example.

I've noticed that, with BuckTommy at least, the stories that get the most attention are ones rated GA, or rated E. Stories that are rated T or M seem to get a lot fewer hits.

But it also feels like it's just my stories that are getting passed over, and I dunno. I don't really know what the scale of RSD is, but I know that I suffer pretty badly from it. My self esteem relies so much on outsiders and outer praise. While I enjoy the process of writing, and I like what I write, if I don't feel like it gets enough attention, my motivation drops. Inevitably I begin to question my writing skills.

I know that I have great grammar, and I've always been a great speller, but with auto-check on both those things it hardly even matters in this day and age. I hardly have to think about stringing sentences together that make sense because that squiggly blue line will be there to tell me that there might be a better way of saying it.

Take for example my very first 911 fic that I ever wrote. I posted it not long after BT's hospital kiss. It was a 7.06 coda and boy oh boy did the kudo's start rolling in! I felt so proud that people were loving it. I'd never gotten that much attention on anything that quickly. But I started doing the math of kudo's to bookmark to hits ratios and came to the crushing reality that less than 13% of hits left kudos (obviously knowing that some of the hits were people coming back to read it again) and the bookmark rate was abysmal. I don't even want to consider the number of comments I receive.

But that didn't stop me and I started working on the next thing, and the next, and the next. It didn't take me long to realize that my stories really weren't getting much attention and I couldn't figure out why. My rated G stories definitely garner the most attention, and one of my rated E stories has done somewhat well, but the length of time it's been posted vs the amount of meaningful interactions it has, and not just clicks, seems pitiful. And now I've started to doubt myself.

Is my writing really that bad? Am I just as mid of a writer as I am a singer and martial artist and really, anything I try my hand at? Like in most cases, the story gets a fair few hits when it's first posted, but within a weeks time, I'm lucky to get one or two kudos on it. When I sort by number of kudos, the top stories will have hundreds, if not closer to a thousand, while I'm lucky to see over a hundred. (On my non angst stories. I know the 8.06 canon compliant stories aren't popular.) Don't even ask me about how few comments my works get.

Then I compare it to the date posted and my heart sinks. Sure, these folks have probably built up a following - especially those of you who write almost exclusively for one fandom - but they had to have started somewhere. I can't even get readers to follow me from one platform to another. Not only that but I don't even get enough eyes on me for people to be curious about me outside of the stories I post. (Which honestly I get, I don't pay all that much attention to posts about sending asks about personal life stuff.)

So, depending on how readers are filtering the stories, and how they're having them listed, my stories get buried in the deepest recesses of the archive. They never seem to hit that critical point of being in the top five pages of the big filters: bookmarks, kudos, and hits.

Why am I having the pity party of one? Because I wrote the first chapter of a story that I was really excited about, the initial thought post got quite a bit of attention, and I assumed people were interested. But the response has been... lackluster. Maybe I'm just posting when all of my fellow BT's are in dreamland coming up with their own story ideas, or maybe I overestimate the level of interest and people "heart" the post just to be nice. Even on Ao3 the response has been relatively low and I feel like this is a somewhat new fix-it fic idea. I haven't really seen people throwing the idea around. (You know, besides "crash that whatever!")

I love this idea, but I'm questioning if it's even worth writing at my skill level. I personally think it's such a cool idea, but if I can't execute it well then there's no point. Someone else with much more skill than me should take it from my hands before I soil it.

[zorilleerrant]

For the ask game, ship you’ve unwilling come around to!

Oh, I have so many NoTPs in every fandom, and, unfortunately, a ton of them tend to be canon or popular in fandom! The ones that bother me so much I had to block the tags are Dick/Babs, Tim/Kon, and Spike/Buffy. I think those are the only ships I currently have blocked, but some of that is just because the other ships are less popular (or fewer people I follow care one way or the other).

With Dick/Babs, it's that I love their dynamic as childhood friends or as young superhero friends, and if they have romantic entanglements on top of that it feels like it's invalidating the friendship. There's a lot of 'this boy and girl are friends so they have to date' (see also: these two queer boys/girls are friends so they have to date) and it gets its ick on ships, even though generally I do enjoy a friends-to-lovers arc. It's also a little creepy to me that Babs was originally Bruce's love interest, and then infantilized to be Dick's love interest - the same reason that Kori/Jason and Raven/Damian bother me so much. Also, Babs is a lesbian. I really just prefer them as mlm/wlw solidarity and not in a bi4bi way.

Tim/Kon and Spike/Buffy are more a problem with the fans than any of the canon material. (Which is why I ship Tim/Kon in the HBO Titans universe, which I haven't seen many people being mean about.) I see a lot of Tim/Kon fans hating on Bernard and Tim/Bernard and also hating on DC in a way that honestly feels pretty homophobic. I don't think that's their intention but it really sounds like the same arguments people who just don't want canon queer characters at all make. I also see them hating on Steph and Tim/Steph sometimes in ways that are pretty misogynistic (and also biphobic) and I just don't like it.

Spike/Buffy is like... I enjoyed the dynamic on the show, where they were both unhealthily codependent and toxic to each other. Two people who think they're in love or have the potential to be in love because they won't address their own problems is my jam! Of course, most of the shippers seem to want to treat it like a real (or especially a healthy) relationship instead of a toxic situationship. There's also the problem that, like, they keep defending why Spike 'deserves' to still be in a relationship with Buffy after assaulting her, sometimes with pages long essays, and never once mention how Buffy might feel about that. Completely ignoring Buffy's opinion on the whole thing feels, to me, even more nonconsensual than the original incident (which I was willing to chalk up to bad writing and ignore). So now the merest mention gives me the creepy crawlies. This is most canon ships on BtVS, tho.

Most ships I'm open to, tho! I especially enjoy hearing about rarepairs and anything that couldn't happen in canon (crossover ships, etc.) because I can roll it around in my head until I understand it. Which is why even stuff that squicks me at first I'm willing to give a chance if the story sounds interesting enough.

[huntunderironskies]

Talking about utterly incoherent things to 99% of anyone who follows me here because it's too early in the morning to remember how to log into the account where I talk about weeb shit (also it's a little saltier than what I usually post but they aren't real people so I am allowed to be bitchy I think) and I want to vomit this out as quickly as possible before the VGC regionals start in like less than a half hour below the cut.

I guess this TECHNICALLY counts as spoilers for the upcoming prri season but it's just matchups and everyone is already screaming about them and only one of you (to my knowledge) cares about incredibly niche edgy idol boy stuff. I will save your dash with a cut anyway.

Well, we all knew we were getting a Visty v. 1NM8 matchup at some point but that's, uh, sooner than anticipated. Free my boys, they're probably gonna lose in a landslide, Stellas are insane. RIP you funky little lab experiments. To be fair 1NM8 is one of the least popular units because people in this fandom tend to have bad taste and they tend to come across as a heel unit even when Kei is kind of objectively in the right about Phantom Lives (thank you Cory for also being correct about this.)

At least TCW got pitched a softball, I'd be shocked if they lose to Amprule. I think the one thing that Amprule has going for them is IIRC someone did an analysis of voting trends and while there are significantly fewer Amprule fans which is why they've consistently lost every matchup they've been in, the reason their matches aren't absolute blowouts all the time is because Mushikera contribute a wildly disproportionate amount of points compared to everyone else who usually splits their voting points. Though, to be honest the only other match they'd even stand a chance in is vs. Visty as well especially since I'm expecting Stellas to dump all their points into the 1NM8 matchup. But hey, two wins is the most they've ever gotten in any season so, we're still on trend! It's hard out here having good taste.

This is by far the matchup that makes the least sense narratively but part of that is also the writers doing a bad job of giving Amprule any character relationships outside of BAE so you couldn't really get a grudgematch going yet. I'm assuming they're keeping some of the other narratively important rivalries in their back pocket for later so we're probably gonna see BAE vs. czmz grudgematch 3.0 somewhere towards the end.

I can't be the only one who thought gklk vs. Amprule would've been really funny though, right? Incredibly one-sided in favor of gklk but also Kenta and Dongha would fucking H A T E each other.

[felassan]

On Game Mess Mornings just now, Jeff Grubb and another host/guest had the following to say about the recent BioWare layoffs and the future of Dragon Age & Mass Effect [transcript of relevant quotes]:

(During their conversation, they mentioned this article from VentureBeat and read out quotes from the recent BioWare blog post)

Grubb: "So this is about one fifth of their staff, and this is not related to the movement of SW:TOR to that new studio that's outside of EA, this is completely unrelated to that. This is directly affecting all the games that people might be concerned about with the future of BioWare."

Grubb: "They said they are looking to provide opportunities for all of these employees to apply for other jobs that are open at other EA studios, although they expect that not everyone will land on their feet within EA - they could go, they're probably gonna have to go elsewhere, not everyone is gonna be able to get a job within EA."

Host/Guest: "Dragon Age: Dreadwolf is going to, now, especially, be a lot of work, with these layoffs. I thought the 'corpo' tech word I hated the most [in the blog post] was 'disrupt', [but] I think my new word that [I hate] whenever I see it in announcements like this is 'agile'". Grubb: "Because 'agile' never means, the people at the top need to be thinking more quickly or need to take a pay cut or need to come up with ideas of their own. It always means, we need to pay fewer people less money. It's always an excuse to make these job cuts." Host/Guest: "I feel like, excuse my naivety, but like, hey, if I'm at the top, and I'm already making millions, I'm like, alright, cool, I'll take a pay cut so these other people below me that I've maybe built a relationship with, have maybe seen on a day to day basis, if not like, at least online, exchanged emails with online, been in a Zoom call with, seen faces - maybe so they don't have to effing lose their jobs and then I am overworking and burning bridges with my current existing employees that are staying." Grubb: "You could tell, how what all of what you just said, that is encompassed in that word 'agile'. Works backwards from, 'we are now in a relationship with an outside firm that is unionized, and that means they are gonna, make demands upon us, and that will ruin our agility. Boy, we need to be agile, and working with unions means we can't be agile'. And it's like, that's not exactly what it means, it's just the kind of thing you get grumpy about having to listen to what other people might need to make the job work to them and you don't ever wanna consider that you are only worried about your bottom line. And everyone sees through this, everyone listening to this show knows that, we know that, they know that, it is this song and dance they put on, and here we are."

Grubb: "Obviously the people losing their jobs is front and foremost the thing that people are concerned about here. Other people also are worried about, hey, what does this mean for the games that BioWare was working on? They commented on that [in the blogpost]." I did a little bit of looking into this, to see kind've, what's the status, because in the past on this show, on Grubb Snacks [another show or podcast], we've talked about Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. People are very thirsty for information coming out of BioWare. For a while there it was like, Dragon Age: Dreadwolf could have come out this year. In fact, internally at one point, the date that they were looking at was next month, September 2023. But internally, Dreadwolf keeps getting pushed back. They moved the internal expectations to March 2024 a while ago. March 2024 is pretty soon right? Well guess what, it's not coming out then either, they pushed it back again. It is not coming out until Summer 2024 at the earliest at this point. And this is not them talking publicly, this is just from my reporting, so, y'know, if it moves again, don't be surprised in any way because it's, I think it's very likely it moves back even further. I expect this game probably to launch by the end of next year, but [wincing], like, why launch at the end of next year when you can get out before the end of fiscal in March 2025? This thing could keep moving [further back]. Right now though, again, summer 2024 is what they're looking at at the earliest."

Grubb: "How are they gonna do that with fewer people? Well, guess what? They're bringing people in from the Mass Effect team. The Mass Effect team is being drained a little bit so that more people can come work on Dreadwolf, and that naturally means the next Mass Effect is getting pushed further down the line as well. So don't expect that any time soon. Most people weren't, but push it back even further in your heads, because the next Mass Effect is definitely being affected by this, it's gonna come out later."

Grubb: "Now about the 'why??' of all this. I think most people can figure out like, you know, BioWare's had a string of not-hits, at the very least, and some of them were kind've, bad pumpkins, rotten pumpkins - you open it up and look inside and no-one wanted to deal with this. So, like, okay, that's one thing. That's been true for a long time, so why's it happened suddenly? There's been some changes. For one, Apex Legends is on the decline. They've talked about this publicly a little bit. They had high expectations for the latest season of Apex Legends, and then they told investors that they were too aggressive and too optimistic with those expectations, and then internally they are now looking at it like, Apex Legends is on the decline, we do not necessarily expect it to reach the heights it once was at, and we're kinda looking at a long-term end-of-life for that game. Not like it's suddenly gonna go away, but not that it's gonna be this driver of growth for EA. It probably isn't going to be and they're no longer looking at that. So that's got them tightening their belts a little bit. Then there's the change to EA's corporate structure, this is another major thing that's kind've causing people to look at BioWare a little bit more, you know, with a little bit more skepticism. And that is, there used to be 'EA', and it was everything, and now there's 'EA Entertainment', and 'EA Sports', and these things are operating separately. There was a time when FIFA Ultimate Team and Madden Ultimate Team, that money was covering everybody. And now, when they look at the books, the FIFA/Madden Ultimate Team money is over there, and BioWare is over here with all these other studios. Apex Legends was in there, but Apex Legends - no longer covering everybody either. So it's like, okay, we're looking at BioWare, they're not bringing in a lot of money, and we're spending a lot of money. So what do we do in there, and that leads to them cutting jobs. And now it's, okay, they're gonna try to put out Dreadwolf, does that turn things around? That's the hope, but right now they're operating on the expectations that, or the reality that, the studio is costing money, its costs have racked up over the last several years, last four, five years especially, the costs have been racked up without a lot of big game releases, other than Mass Effect Legendary Edition. So they're trying to cut somewhere, and here we are."

Host/Guest: "These folks that [didn't get laid off] are going to have to crunch for what might be like one and a half years [on Dreadwolf], right?" Grubb: "Yeah".  Host/Guest: "Who knows, even after it comes out, if it's going to be in a good state, or an instance where a publisher is like, we just need to get this out the door." Grubb: "I mean that happened to Mass Effect: Andromeda, it happened with Anthem." Host/Guest: "I wanna say, unionize." Grubb: "Right." Guest: "But it seems like the publishers, straight from the top, will be like, yeah, we don't wanna work with you." Grubb: "Yeah. 'You unionize, and we'll walk away'. I think internally, if you unionized at a publisher, maybe you have a little bit more protection from that sort of thing happening, but not necessarily. You could just as easily find yourself in a situation where the studio finds a creative way to not have to deal with a union." Host/Guest: "Lets eliminate yachts." Grubb: "Yep. Man, super yachts? Whenever, I'm like, man..."

Grubb: "The writing was on the wall here, back when the split happened with EA, and them becoming EA Sports and EA Entertainment. Andrew Wilson said, 'We're doing this restructuring to empower our studio leaders with more creative ownership and financial accountability.' It was right there, they said it, right? 'Each studio is gonna have to be accountable for itself and its own money'." Host/Guest: "What about, 'the people at the top have the financial accountability?'" Grubb: "Yeah, and it's... whenever, 'financial accountability' to them always looks like, it's not finished, who cares, put the game out. Like that's what they think accountability looks like." Host/Guest: "Once this game launches, and if it does poorly, who are they gonna blame? They aren't gonna blame the people at the top, they're going to blame these individual studio leaders who they have 'empowered with their creative ownership'." Grubb: "Exactly. And I've seen responses to that, to this, because Mike Gamble is in charge of the next Mass Effect. He was one of the leaders on Anthem and Mass Effect: Andromeda. And so people are like, now I'm not excited for the next Mass Effect. And it's like, I don't really think it was his fault. It was clearly the leadership above him pushing those games out before they were ready." Host/Guest: "Makes you wanna shake people." Grubb: "Find someone in an alley..."

Grubb: "So, Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, maybe next year. Next Mass Effect, after that. EA has had some success with its singleplayer games recently. Dead Space did pretty well, I think both the Star Wars Jedi games did very well. They started working on Star Wars Jedi, the third one, immediately after the second one, because they were like - that was the thing, if Jedi Survivor does well, then we'll do a third one. And they immediately started working on it because everyone internally was like, this did well. But if you look at EA as a whole, like, their financials do look a little bit grim, and it all goes back to Apex Legends over-stating, that, and the fact that for years now Battlefield has been lost in the woods. And so Apex Legends was already covering, it was like, we're gonna make money for ourselves, and we're gonna cover the missing money from Battlefield. They had already done the creative accounting there. 'Creative accounting' might sound illegal, it wasn't illegal, they were just like, leaving out Battlefield when they were talking to investors, and being like, look how good Apex Legends is doing, and saying don't look at the man behind the curtain which was Battlefield just floundering. So that worked, that worked for a while, and now it's, and now they have to - Apex Legends is covering for every freaking thing here, and it's like, it no longer is, it's on the decline, so that, live-service games continue to be a meal ticket and it kind of continues to be a little bit of an albatross, where, as goes these one or two big games these publishers have, so goes everything, and then the studios at the bottom - you know, BioWare, studio at the bottom of EA now, it feels like, you know, 250 employees, it's kind've relatively smaller, it's gonna pay the price, and here we are."

Grubb: "I know from covering this stuff how many people are so, so passionate about everything BioWare, and it feels like, you know, that's why the studio continues to be around it seems like, but um. I dunno, coming out of this, I can only imagine this team, morale is gonna take a big hit, and what does that do to the future of those games?"

[source]

[source, article, BioWare Blog post]

[stillness-in-green]

On Horikoshi's Writing of Women

This is posted as a stand-alone because lord knows I spent long enough on it, but it's in response to this ask:

This got lengthy, and it could be lengthier still—it's very easy to imagine doing a full-series breakdown on this like the heteromorphobia one I'm still slowly plugging away at—but the TLDR is that I think Horikoshi's women are perfectly acceptable as people, but become much more problematic when you start looking at them as characters.

Hit the jump.

BNHA's Women As People

As people—characters who act in ways reminiscent of real-life humans—Hori’s women are relatively solid, especially the 1-A students.  They have varied personalities and body types,(1) loads of different interests and styles, and outside of the unified front against Mineta, they’re never really treated like a monolith.  That is, no one (as best I can recall) makes big summary statements of Girls Like X or Girls Can’t Y that go uncontested by the narrative like you’d see in truly, openly sexist works.(2)

The worst I can say about the Class A girls' characterization is that they're all too nice, but I would contend that that's true of most of the students, which is why I don't care much about Class A: With the exception of Bakugou, they're all too nice, and it leaves them undernourished, dramatically speaking. But the girls at least aren't blandly nice; they do all have distinct personalities beyond, "Pretty and sweet."(3)

They also have trackable, unique relationships. Consider, for example, the difference between Uraraka’s relationships with Tsuyu and Mina, and how different either is from Momo and Jirou’s friendship!  Further, they’re allowed to be friends with boys without it having to be romantic.  Yeah, there’s Uraraka’s whole thing with Deku, and that’s a chore, but Kaminari and Jirou, or Kirishima and Mina, wherever they may wind up later in life, really are just friends right now—there’s no blushing or stammering or awkwardness going on between those pairs at all.

The Class A girls aren’t defined by their proximity to the nearest male—and that much, at least, is also true of the Pro Hero women like Mount Lady and Mirko.  Hell, even someone like Nana—only in the story because of her relationship with/to men—is actually so important to so many men that I’d contend that she crosses out the other side and winds up in territory that is far more often populated by male heroes and mentors, people who might be dead but who mattered to a bunch of really important living characters.

Nana may be a Dead Mom, but she’s not a saintly photo on the mantelpiece, taken down to be remembered fondly by her widower.  She’s All Might’s beloved mentor, yes, but she’s also the reason Kotarou was such a mess, which is in turn a huge part of Shigaraki’s damage.  She’s the reason Gran Torino is involved in the plot at all.  Even AFO seems to be able to make room to be especially vindictive about her compared to the way he talks about most or even any of the other bearers.

All that, and she even still gets to be “alive” inside One For All so we get to hear her opinions on things now and again!

Things are spottier with the lady villains—mostly because there are so few of them, and even fewer who walk out the other end of their arcs—but even there, I think there’s room for nuanced reads.

Magne’s motivations, such as we ever got of them, were all about being able to live freely.

Curious may have had that flashback to her blushing in front of Re-Destro, but the takeaway from it is how something he said inspired her to mature as a writer, not her being in looooove with him(4)—indeed, Geten is much more directly motivated by RD’s approval, and both Trumpet and Skeptic pivot entirely into being driven by fear for RD’s life the instant they think it might be in danger.  Even now, every single one of Skeptic’s appearances from the cave onward sees him namedropping Re-Destro somewhere.  So even if RD is Curious’s Most Important Person, that just puts her in good company with the rest of her peers.

Meanwhile, Lady Nagant is no more “defined by a man” than Hawks is “defined by a woman” because of the genders of their respective HPSC Presidents.  The easy way out with Nagant would have been to have Bitty Keigo play some role in her turn—indeed, loads of people expected exactly that as soon as the audience realized who and what she was.  But her President being a man is immaterial; the real entity that victimized Nagant is the HPSC as a governing body; its President was simply the face of that body, exactly the way President Pearls was to Hawks a generation later.  Likewise, her turn isn’t because of her feelings about Some Guy, it’s because of her own awareness of the discordance between the façade and the reality of Hero Society.

Until either of the remaining PLF advisor women get anything to say, that brings us to Toga and La Brava.  And okay, yes, La Brava is motivated entirely by a dude; there's no getting around that.  On the other hand, I can’t help but compare her backstory to Spinner’s.  Both of them suffered judgment and ostracization because of their quirks, both were hikikomori, and both had their lives changed because of a man they saw in a video who showed them a new world.  Hell, Spinner had his life changed because of a man showing him a new world twice.

La Brava calls her feelings love, while Spinner calls his devotion, but it’s the same story, just wearing a different costume.  At the very least, then, you can’t say that that plot is one Hori only gives women.  Rather, I think it just ties into the broader theme of how the public consumes people they see on TV, for better or for worse.  You could tie that to a lot of stuff in the series, including Deku’s own heroic aspirations as embodied by that iconic video of All Might he saw as a kid, Can’t-Ya-See-kun's fannish opinions about Endeavor’s heroic persona and his later attempts to reject Dabi’s video, the refugee civilians having to wrestle with the reality of heroes as opposed to watching them from the couch, and so on.

Meanwhile, Toga is so fascinating because, yes, her concerns and interests are stereotypically feminine—her appearance (both in the sense of cosmetic things like A-line coats but also her transformation quirk), cute things, talking about boys, relationships in general, her prioritization of her own inner landscape as opposed to big worldly ambitions.

On the other hand, Horikoshi really commits with Toga.  She’s stereotypical in some ways—the predatory bisexual being a big glaring one—but she is in no way a shallow stereotype.  The reader can’t just write her off as being a collection of tired tropes because of the degree to which the story insists on her being specific and deserving of attention.  She’s not Like That because, for example, that’s what Horikoshi thinks of all bisexuals.  She’s Like That because of an array of factors in her nature and nurture, her societal conditioning, her lived experience, others’ reactions to her, and so on.  Bisexuality is really only the tiniest fraction of who Toga Himiko is.  That’s my feeling, at least.

(As an aside to Anon's suggestion about Toga being polyamorous, while that is clearly the case in the sense that she freely falls in love with multiple people, rather than having monogamous affections, her being interested in poly relationships is much more in the air.  As she is now, her idea of fulfilling love lies in becoming the object of her affections, not being with them.  I feel like if she could find someone into bloodplay, she’d do just fine with that without having to get to the point of murder, but as it is, it doesn’t seem she or anyone she’s met has considered that an option.  That being the case, we don’t know if she’d be willing to limit herself to taking only safe and consensually given amounts of blood, or if her desire to become the people she loves can only be satisfied by murdering the other party. If the latter, it rather takes romantic relationships off the table entirely!)

To sum up: As people, Horikoshi’s women are generally just fine.  He was a wide variety of them and they all manage to stay pretty distinct!  There are some that look more stereotypical than others, but even those still tie in well with the story’s overarching concerns or feel like sincere explorations of the stereotypes they represent.

Horikoshi’s problems with his female characters come in, to me, much more when you start looking at them as characters, instead of as people.

BNHA's Women As Characters

Consider the female characters in BNHA. Do their stories contribute in a major way to the narrative as a whole, or are they just side color?  How much focus do they get?  Are they granted comparable interiority as their male counterparts?

Given the story’s nature as a shounen battle comic, how many big wins do women get compared to the dudes, and are they fighting those battles against equally dangerous opponents?  Do the women always and only fight other women?  Do they only ever beat other women, but lose to men?  How much would be lost or radically changed if they were removed from the story?

Mount Lady’s a fantastic example of the characterization/attention dichotomy.  I’m inclined to agree with Anon that she’s probably Hori’s best lady-type Pro Hero, allowed to have real flaws, enough backstory to get an idea of where she’s coming from, and a startlingly clear character arc.  However, unlike e.g. Endeavor, whose arc is taking place entirely in the foreground, given lavish amounts of time and attention, Mount Lady’s is all background.  We don’t know what her crux point was in realizing that she needed to get her priorities in order, if she indeed ever had one. It’s possible she’s simply matured over the course of the story without ever quite clicking into Endeavor’s mode of self-reflection.

People like Ryukyu fall even farther behind.  She’s been heavily involved in the climaxes of two major story arcs—the Shie Hassaikai arc and the War arc—yet we don’t know the first thing about her away from the job.  Same with Mirko: She gets that huge blowout against the Near High Ends, but as far as what she wants, why she became a hero, what she thinks about this huge collapse she’s witnessing? Total blank slate.

And sure, that’s true of plenty of male heroes too—look at all Mount Lady’s teammates, for example—but we don’t have any female heroes equivalent to Endeavor, Hawks, or even Best Jeanist, the latter of whom has gotten ample room to espouse his ideals and a variety of his beliefs about heroes, even as we don’t know anything about his personal life.

I think Momo’s the clearest example of this issue on the student side.  Virtually all of her development is narrated by other characters, mostly male ones, rather than the reader getting to see Momo’s own thoughts directly the way we do with buckets of male characters.

Momo contributed the tracker that got Deku and company to Kamino, but was given no contributions to the action of retrieving Bakugou.  She’s ultimately the one who organized the students into dosing Gigantomachia,(5) which did eventually take effect some chapters later, but in the moment it happened, it looked like a failure, so instead of it being a big triumph for her, we had to see her and the rest on their knees in what seemed like a moment of total defeat.

Momo lost two mentors in the war—Midnight and Majestic.  What does she think about that?  Who knows?  We’re just not privy to it.  Momo spent her entire arc learning how to be more decisive and better at overseeing resources.  Where is she now?  Popping out industrial goods for a girl who doesn’t even know her name.

Meanwhile, we have things like the ludicrous disparity between Gran Torino, a shrunken geezer in his 70s getting punched through the chest by the final boss and surviving, and Midnight, a young and healthy 32-year-old getting merely jumped by a third-string PLF guy who hasn’t even gotten a name yet and then dying off-panel.  Don’t get me wrong; I love Hose Face, and I don’t even mind that Midnight died as such.  I mind that it was so ignominious compared to the fates of all the similarly important male heroes who took part in that battle.

Star & Stripe?  She is alleged to be the strongest woman in the world, yet her arc could be removed from the story with zero consequences whatsoever.  Everything she brings to the story is new for her arc; she doesn't resolve or remove anything save that which was introduced in her own set of chapters.(6)  Her accomplishments are arbitrarily defined, and could be equally arbitrarily redefined without her.

That’s just a few examples of story structure issues, which is where my main concern lies, but you could certainly look at surface stuff, too. 

Consider: Does the way women in the story dress match their personality?  In movement and at rest, does their body language match who they are as people?  How does the “camera” view them?  Are they introduced as people or as collections of attractive body parts?  Are they allowed the same range of expressiveness men are, or are they more limited because their anger or pain still has to be attractive to the presumed audience and/or the artist?

Some of this Hori does okay with—Mirko’s doing some fantastic angry glowering this week, and Toga can absolutely tip over into horror manga expressions sometimes, ones that are very clearly not intended to be sexy or cute.  But he does sometimes let his women down on this front, too—speaking of Mirko in this week’s chapter, WOW, that sure is a boob hanging right there front and center at eye level, when it would have been so easy to just have ShigAFO’s hand-o-rama wrapped more fully around Mirko's torso.

Toga is a bit more complicated to me, in that, taking it at face value, I actually don’t really mind her frequent goopy unclothedness.  Her posing in those scenes stays pretty true to her personality and the situations at hand, and she's drawn with what seem to be to be decently realistic curves and weightiness.  Rather, the issue with Toga's nudity goes to another frequent problem with the way the women in the series get treated, and that’s the inconsistency between how men and women's quirks interact with clothes.

The go-to contrast here is Mirio and Hagakure.  Neither of them can affect clothes with their quirk, but for some reason, Mirio can get a costume made out of his own hair and thus stay respectably clad during all his fights.  Hagakure, by contrast, is noted more than once as fighting completely nude save for her gloves—why doesn’t she get the haircloth fix?  If there’s an answer to this, it’s arbitrary.

Toga’s quirk would seem to be based in DNA, in that she requires blood to use it, but DNA certainly wouldn’t explain her ability to shapeshift clothes.  It’s easier for the story if she can shapeshift clothes—it’d be a lot harder for her to impersonate specific costumed heroes if she didn’t have ready access to their costumes!—but it doesn’t make much sense as a blood-based ability.  Taking it a step further, if she can shapeshift clothes because Magic Wand That Says She Can, why can’t she just change the shape of her own clothes?  If her goop can change her body, why can’t it change her clothes?  Because Magic Wand Says Then She Couldn’t Be Nakey When She Changes Back, that’s why.

For a contrast to Toga, consider the Hassaikai’s Mimic, whose power is to merge himself into objects, including ones much, much smaller than he is.  Yet somehow he doesn’t have to strip before he merges or lose his clothes to the ether when he exits.

Midnight and Momo both have quirks that emit material from their skin, nominally justifying why their costumes are Like That.  Okay, sure, but where are the equivalent male heroes who just have to wear skimpy or easily shredded costumes for reasons of quirk utility?  Wash and Bubble Girl both emit bubbles from their bodies, but for some reason the dude wears a cartoony washing machine costume,(7) while the woman is saddled with an underboob-exposing crop top. 

Suneater’s another easy referent; he transforms parts of his body into much larger animal parts, yet he still manages to have a costume that covers up everything except his feet.  Even his arms are covered, when his arms are his most frequently transformed limb! He might have a bare spot on his back for his wings, but if so, the reader never gets to see it because Suneater wears an enormous hooded cape that covers that area right up.

It makes sense that Mirko would prefer to leave her legs bare, given her all-kicking fighting style—but Deku switches to a kicking style and just gets heavier, reinforced shoes. (To say nothing of All Might and other punchy heroes still having full sleeves, when you'd think the same reasoning would apply as does with Mirko's bare legs.)

Eri’s power only works on “people”—except that it totally works on clothes, too, otherwise we’d have to see a dude naked when her power separates Overhaul and Nemoto.

And so on and so forth.  I don’t hold any of these individual examples against Horikoshi (except maybe Momo, who runs afoul of the “does this costume match this personality” critique pretty hard), but it really does become a bigger problem in the aggregate.

BNHA's Women In the Aggregate

And that’s kind of how I feel about a lot of it.  I think Hori means well—you are never going to catch me out there yelling about how Horikoshi is just slobbering all over himself to brutalize his female characters—and he legit is doing better than a lot of other manga I’ve read.  But then, I’ve read a lot of manga, you know?  “Better at feminism than manga that say straight to the reader’s face that women will never understand a man’s desire to win,” is not a high bar.(8)

Regardless of Hori’s good intentions, though, I think Shounen Jump is not an environment that is challenging him to think more critically about his women, nor one that is pushing him to include them more or give them better material.  He could absolutely do better, though, and yeah, I’m as tired as everyone else of new female characters who show up for a handful of chapters and then get obliterated by a villain or put on a bus to imprisonment and obscurity by the hero who defeats them.

If nothing else, I’ve got to hand that to Mirko.  Down two limbs and that rabbit is still going strong, and not for one single second is there a suggestion that prosthetic limbs are going to slow her down or force her into retirement.

Thanks for the question, Anon, and sorry for taking so long with the reply!

---FOOTNOTES---

1: Not a huge variety, and the adult women have less than the high school cast, but I’ve read plenty of manga across all demographics that are far worse at having female characters you could distinguish by bald silhouette.

2:  For some really clear examples, see e.g. everything the Death Note guy has ever written.

3: I might make an exception for poor Hagakure, who never had a chance to establish a personality because she needed to stay a viable candidate for the Traitor Plot. Definitely the most Generically Peppy of the girls, but at the very least she's balanced out some by male students like Ojiro, Sato and Koda in never getting enough attention to transcend their characterization shorthand.

4:  And speaking as a writer, let me tell you, a critique like the one Rikiya offers in that flashback is absolutely the kind of thing that would leave me red in the face, but definitely not because I was internally swooning.

5: And even that isn't entirely her moment, given that it stems from her being ordered to do it by Midnight and ends with Kirishima getting the final move, a move he gets at Mina's expense.

6: Wow, a Reflect quirk! Neat! Wonder why that hasn't come up anywhere before? Regardless of the three sentence back-and-forth I could get into on that subject, Reflect is the only named quirk New Order destroys, and it was nowhere to be seen at either Kamino or Jakku.

7:  Assuming, of course, that Wash isn’t a washing machine heteromorph.  Jury’s still out on this.

8: See again a lot of Ohba's work, but the same sentiment is why I ragequit Megalobox in the first episode. Likewise, I will love Eyeshield 21 until my dying days, but I super could have done without that late-series swing at, "Mamori will never understand Sena's Man Feelings about Sports because she is A Girl."

[heathneycanon]

td new cast ranking (spoilers)

hiii if you know me at all you know i loveeeee ranking things and i already made a tierlist but i'd love to give my detailed thoughts on the new cast. maybe to get them out of my system maybe to have more thoughts to develop later?? who knows. i've also already shifted around rankings so they're different from my tierlist bc as i wrote this my opinions changed and developed SDJFKD. but anyway. new cast ranking with explanations under the cut!!

16. Chase - I mean. It's Chase. His relationship with Emma is... not good! He is kind of the worst! However this does make him the tiniest bit funny . He's extremely pathetic and a misogynist and a bad boyfriend however. The undeniable fail energy is amusing. When he isn't winning. Like this man is at his best when he is absolutely failing, so Emma needs to break up with him. For her own sake, obviously, but also for Chase's failure energy to remain strong. He cannot get what he wants he needs to remain failing!!!

15. Caleb - There's nothing wrong with Caleb. Unfortunately there is also just. Nothing with Caleb, period. I'm fully expecting this to be rectified next season, but for now like... this man is not even a character. Nowhere else to rank him but here. Although this does go to show how much I like the cast LMAO because everyone above him is someone I have mostly positive feelings towards.

14. Nichelle - She was sooo funny I love how everyone (including the cast!) thought she was gonna be so good but then she turned out to be a girlfailure. We need more girlfailures in Total Drama and this season delivered!! We didn't see too much of her (and honestly?? She didn't stand out too much to me until her girlfailure tendencies were revealed which was right near the end lmao) but I fully believe she's gonna be GREAT next season. Especially with my suspicions that next season is going to be sort of similar to TDA, with fewer generally physical/Survivor-inspired challenges, and more entertainment industry related challenges. Idk she didn't give us very much but I do have hopes for her next season. Also her elimination was sooo Jerry's fault. I wonder if my season 2 predictions are right if Jerry might show up? I hope so. Get your revenge Nichelle!!

13. Emma - EMMA GET UP!!!!! Chase is not the love of your life he is not even the love of your week!!! Once again though, the loser tendencies are soooo strong in Emma. Idk I liked the haterism it was good. We need more of that and less of her and Chase. Break up with him!! She and Bowie were a fun duo while they lasted, I honestly love the way their designs really complimented each other? Probably my favorite version of Emma was during the pole challenge, like. Yessss get angry that was so fun. She did get back with Chase at the end of that but. Let's ignore all that. Idk she's just silly!! I think I'm getting repetitive at this point but I do want to leave this with the final thought that, once more, she NEEDS to break up with Chase. For his fail energies to remain intact, for her dignity and standards, and for me as the audience... leave that boy!! Kiss Nichelle or Julia instead I'm fully convinced Emma does not know girls are even an option and once she does it is OVER for Chase.

12. MK - I was expecting MK to be one of my favorites preseason and while she was not, I still liked her. I hope her parting words were foreshadowing and next season she makes a friend, because (as I've seen other people mention), she kind of... needs to have some sort of connections to be an interesting character? And the fact that she seems opposed to that makes any potential friendships next season even more interesting. I also love how she just has no respect for the intended rules of the game and Chris just... lets her do her thing. It is so funny. Like yesss hang out and control the shields. Watch all the confessionals with the phone you shouldn't have and also upload a video of Julia bullying a dinosaur. Honestly the lack of care Chris had surrounding phones in general this season (especially considering his initial show of confiscating what turned out to be like. A fraction of Julia's phones) was so funny. Sam and Dakota were watching from their couch fuming I just know it. Or maybe they were happy for the new generation. Who knows.

11. Zee - He's just fun! Like... chill guy. Was definitely high the whole season. I do maybe think he could've benefited from being around an episode or two less? Like he was good, but it wasn't like he was exactly getting any development or anything? He was kind of static character, which is fine, and he was a likable one for sure! But if he'd gone home two episodes sooner we wouldn't have had that . Nose scene. Which kinda makes me gag every time I think about it. Genuinely I don't think Total Drama has ever grossed me out more. Which is a feat. I need more of him and Ripper next season the whole bird scene with them was hilarious. Honestly, his dynamic with Chase was pretty funny too? Idk. Just a good dude! I also thought his different stories about losing his leg were great.

10. Millie - She wasn't really doing anything for me until the very end? I thought the concept of her character was kind of creative but I found her like... initial sort of... self-important deal kind of obnoxious? Her friendship with Priya was sweet but again, for the first half of it I found it kind of one-sided (on Priya's end) and so I wasn't loving her. Of course, at the end she became invested in the friendship, had her previous sort of... bad friend behavior revealed, and then was like... surprisingly vulnerable for Total Drama standards? Not unheard of, but not like... what I expected. And reconciled with Priya with everything out in the open. And that completely changed my feelings on the character (which had already been sort of slowly shifting). Overall, I still feel like she's one of my least favorites on the cast, but I still like her, and honestly, if I were to rewatch, she might be ranked higher. The fact that she admitted that she was only writing about everyone like that because it was easier to judge them than try to fit in was really good and rewatching those earlier scenes with that in mind might make me more sympathetic to her then? I do also really like a friendship between two people who haven't had friends before. So. Honestly I'm liking her more as I'm writing this. I really hope they do something good with this friendship next season. Also okay this is so funny when I wrote all this out she was number 14 and I keep moving her up one rank at a time. She's climbing.

9. Priya - PRIYA my friend Priya. Girls when they are normal and regular and have no problems whatsoever. You cannot expect me to be normal about someone who has grown up friendless making their first friend and immediately getting very attached. I absolutely loved her defending Millie in front of Chase that was when I knew I was gonna get attached to her character. Like... come on. I mentioned this in the Millie ranking but I kind of love how their friendship played out? Like in the moment as I was watching I wasn't sure I was loving it but after the fact? Yeah it's good. I like the way there was some tension but they actually communicated and resolved things. And of course there is Priya's whole Deal like. There is so much to unpack there. She has been training for Total Drama for her whole life for her parents and now she's done it!!! I hope season two sees her resolve to put her foot down and go to med school because like. I need her to have her happy ending.

8. Ripper - As I said in another post Ripper has unfortunately grown on me. Like mold. When they're not using him for grossout humor, Ripper is actually like... hilarious? The humor this season was honestly surprisingly good (again, barring the grossout jokes) and Ripper was like. Delivering. He is so pathetic and we all know I find that a wonderful trait for a character to have. Like... "So you're not gonna see me cry! I'll wait until I get home." like that is so 😭😭 honestly it's the delivery half the time. As the season went on I liked him more and honestly I liked how he tried to help Millie win back Priya? Idk. I was annoyed with his team for booting people I liked more instead of him like. Three times. But I like him now. He's just a silly loser guy. He's also bi but I'm not sure he knows it yet.

7. Bowie - GUYS. I was never in the camp that thought Fresh was gonna write the gay characters abysmally, I had a little bit of faith, but they really exceeded my expectations. Bowie was SO fun. The perfect reality TV villain honestly- having fun with it! His alliance with Emma was good, but IMO the highlights were obviously the Julia rivalry/fake alliance (rivalliance??) and RAJBOW. I wish we got to see more of Bowie and Julia because that dynamic was amazing, and I hope they continue to interact next season, and then of course his relationship with Raj was just. Really good. If Emchase was the price we had to pay to get Rajbow... then it was worth it. Like they were so good?? Raj's little crush?? The mouth guard??? The poem????? I do think it's a little unfortunate that they had their first kiss in a pool of tapioca pudding but this is Total Drama we're talking about. And they didn't seem to mind. Very excited to see what they do with their relationship next season. Back to Bowie on his own, I was talking about how funny Ripper was at times and Bowie was also one of the absolute funniest characters this season. As I've mentioned before I love haterism and Bowie has it in the most fun ways possible. Sometimes he would say exactly what I was thinking as I watched a scene. Top tier Total Drama confessionalist. The majority of the best confessionals this season had to have come from him. I love his scheming I love his humor I love his strategy and I love his relationships like... that is a good TD character right there!

6. Damien - I feel like he's gonna win next season. I'm not sure whether that's a genuine prediction, or whether I'm simply manifesting, but... come on! He was just fun! He wasn't a standout at first, but pretty quickly he became one of my favorites (and was promptly voted off </3) like. First of all. He was the first one to call Scary Girl Scary Girl so I have him to thank for that amazing name. Second of all, he's just... sweet! I loved the little hints of Damien/Priya we got this season, I'm definitely here for that relationship if they choose to make it canon in the next season. The Damien and Scary Girl dynamic was also absolute gold like yesss chase him around on a jackhammer. Anyway now he's actually gonna try to play the game, and I'd love to see him do well! He's got like... such a fun energy and enthusiasm. He's truly got "just some guy" energy which is wonderful. We need more "just some guy"s. I just think he's neat!

5. Raj - Top 5 time lets go... technically he is tied with the next entry (do not separate) but I didn't want to mess up the format so. Raj! I've talked about Rajbow already but let me reiterate: Rajbow good. Raj's crush was so sweet and I really enjoyed watching those two get together! But talking about something I haven't talked about yet... Raj and Wayne! Their friendship was SO good my god... I loved their incomprehensible (to me) hockey talk. I loved the genuine love and support between the two. I LOVED the joint medevac like SDJFL it would be wrong to send one home without the other... I hope if they're eliminated next season they go out in a double elimination or something... Idk both of their energy this season was just fun!

4. Wayne - Once again, tied with Raj, and I said most of what I wanted to say about Wayne already? But I do think the excitement he had surrounding Raj coming out to him was so good. You may think you're Rajbow's biggest fan, but nobody is a bigger fan of Rajbow than Wayne.

3. Julia - She just. She just got better and better as the season went on. She was already kind of funny with her influencer speak but when she got hashtag cancelled for BULLYING A DINOSAUR she became so much better. I've already mentioned how much I love her rivalry with Bowie so I won't talk about that too much. I will say I loved that one moment when they both fully judged Emma and Chase's relationship as well as their joint confessional like the rivalry was good but I need these two actually aligning even more. I also think she and Emma should kiss or something. I hope she sticks around for a while next season even though she went pretty far this season like... I need her to make the merge at least. LOVED her challenge beast tendencies, winning all those clutch immunities... What a character. Top tier TD antagonist, or at least close to it.

2. Axel - Yes I got attached to the second boot. What can I say she's coming to win next season trust! Idk you cannot show me a zombie apocalypse prepper character (who is clearly gay) and not expect her to be my favorite. Loved when she pushed Ripper off the boat. Love when she bit Ripper's hand. Love when she killed a bunch of squirrels and cooked them for her team like that's a team player right there!! Not to peddle the ScaryAxel agenda toooo hard but. I need to see them align next season like girl who is really into horror and girl who is really into survival/zombie apocalypse stuff? And they both bit Ripper and will eat cooked squirrel together? Ummmm that's couple goals. Honestly I want to see more of the Axel and Ripper rivalry too. Honestly just wanna see more Axel she rocks

1. Scary Girl - Surprising nobody. I know she's like... kind of a gimmick character which I've historically not totally loved but... she's so good. The voice acting (as others have mentioned) does a LOT for her like props to the VA, she really makes the character. The animation in general this season was a major improvement but it definitely helps Scary Girl as a character too. She had a great dynamic with Damien for what little time she was there, I've mentioned the potential of ScaryAxel already, and. Tell me you don't see how Scary Ripper could be one of thee funniest dynamics ever. The dynamic is called Scary Ripper and one of their key interactions was her trying to bite him. Do not get me started on Scary Axe Ripper like the name itself is just too much fun and BOTH of them have tried to bite him (one succeeded). She got voted out because she wanted to make sure the skull she needed to bring to Chris looked presentable and she just. Did the skull's hair and makeup to match hers. And then kept the skull when she was voted out and brought it with her to the finale. I hope the skull is also in season two. Scary Girl is the Total Drama character of all time.

[clatoera]

Please tell us your Clato story. Since when do you like Clato? What makes you like them? Thank you :) ....

oh my goodness okay well uh

I have liked Clato for a long long time. Eleven years. I noticed the insinuation in the book, but it was once I saw the actual film and the performance of the characters I could really identify them stronger in the books, and I grew a love from that. Like I said. I have been a fan a long long time. On fanfic . net there are still 5 or 6 clato fics I wrote between the years 2012-2014, that are under a few different usernames, that no i will not claim, but they're still out there as proof of my life long devotion.

I always have taken to the kind of off the cuff ships that don't really have a lot of canon moments in the books, and even fewer on screen (me and gary ross gonna beef). But I always thought the insinuation was there in the moment Clove died. For crazy, violent Clove to scream for him because she is scared and about to die, she had to know he'd come. For Cato, who is described by Katniss as temperamental and brutal and violent, to actually call back to her, run to her, and hold her as she died, I took something from that.

I thought the way it humanized the careers was phenomenal, and especially those two considering they were Katniss's biggest competition. Clove dies a scared girl being held by a heartbroken, sad boy.

Naturally Clato has always been a fanon thing more than canon. I was on facebook RP-ing as Clove, I've written fanfic a LONG time, I've read probably every single Clato fanfic on both fanfic.net and AO3 both in my time. And it was the fan expansions of the characters that I loved.

That being said I think I have just always identified so strongly with the careers. I wanted to be Katniss, I had a little sister, etc. I've always been the Clove, I've always been the Glimmer. It sounds cocky but it's true in it's own way. I was the smartest, I was the best, I worked the hardest, I was a favorite to win anything I ever did. I wouldn't do something unless I had the best chance at winning. I was the oldest child, with the endless pressure to perform at the top level, to be the best, to make my family, my school, my hometown proud. I wouldn't do something unless I was the best at it, even today I'm called crazy by my classmates regularly because of how much I study, what long days I put in. I still reap the rewards of that. I empathized with these kids who had no choice but to be the best. Who worked really really hard with the intention to make other people happy and proud. I would be lying if I didn't mention this in my explanation as to why I love Clato, because it is definitely part of it. I see myself in these kids, in Clove and Glimmer especially, because I think personality wise I am a direct mix of the two, just depending on which side I turn on at any given moment. I'll use what I call my "pretty girl powers" to get what I want, or otherwise i'm pretty bitchy, cold, calculated, etc. I literally added a line in the most recent chapter of my big Clato fic, in which Clove describes the trafficking and abuse of the victors as the worst thing you could to do someone, violating them like that, which is literally my opinion and belief that I gave to her. So thats definitely part of it, the way I empathize with kids who's worth is placed in the pride they bring home. Pride they are wiling to DIE to bring hime.

Part of what I love is the opportunity with them. To take these kids who are often seen as villains (Which if you see them as villains you miss the author's whole point, that the capitol is the villain, the capitol is the enemy), and flush them out and give them depth. Give them relationships, and favorite colors, and secrets they share between each other. Give them hopes for the future, give them dreams beyond winning. You win by 18, you have to imagine what the future after the games is like, too. I think they have the opportunity to be very normal in what they want after the games. They'd want dogs, and houses, and families of their own. Thats why I love them. They are child soldiers who are still children. They have dreams. They have wants. They have needs. They deserve to have full characterizations and be fleshed out, and thats the opportunity I take with them. You could make brutal bloody Cato an adoring brother, because outside the games he has a really wonderful little family. You could make Clove, with her psychopathic tendencies, a child who lost the mother who loved her, and the drive to prove that her mother and her are not weak girls, and the resultant way she would deeply love and fiercely protect whatever family she has (even found family). They train their whole lives together, who would understand them like each other.

Theres the chance to make them complex, explaining who they are in canon, and expanding on who they are outside of it.

I could wax poetic on Clato for hours, and in fact I do. Thank you for this opportunity though, I am always always down to be a Clato enthusiast on main.

Thank you thank you thank you

@curiousnonny

[maedivae]

What does Katniss mean when she says: “A kind Peeta Mellark is far more dangerous to me than an unkind one”?

Chapter 4 of The Hunger Games novel.

Thank you 😊

@curiousnonny

Well she's admitted to knowing that kind people are quicker to work their way into her heart and break past her initial boundaries, her reservations about them. I also think it's an innocence kind of thing too, as she later doesn't even consider Peeta an actual victor on the same level as herself or Finnick or the rest of them who had made the hard decisions to kill, whereas she believes Peeta won the games out of luck and his natural inclinations were for diplomacy and peace. It's a very rose-tinted view of Peeta in the first games though to me, since he was at least able to manipulate the Careers into letting them join their group and did kill on their behalf. I think he's able to kill if he can morally justify it in his mind.

Anyways, her role is often that of a protector over kind, innocent things, compared to the harsher realities of the world they live in. She wouldn't be able to kill Peeta in good conscience if he was really as kind as he seems. This is a problem, as them being the last two alive in the games would endanger her chances of coming home to Prim. She'd always be mentally stuck in the arena if it came down to that, trying to figure out ways things could've gone differently like the rest of the victors do. Killing in the games is far easier for Katniss than dealing with the aftermath. Also I think she saw any attempts from Peeta to try to be friends with her as stupid since he's going to be dead anyways and she wants to save herself the trauma.

To a greater extent, the quote also shows her aversion to people trying to connect with her on a deeper level, especially in a romantic context. Katniss obviously fears turning into her mother as early as this, as she's not exactly a child anymore. It's said some people in District 12 expected her to marry Gale because they're around each other every weekend, they are from the same economic and social class, boy and girl being friends yadda yadda, and marrying young isn't uncommon in poverty.

But she doesn't want to let herself have hope of any sort of romantic or familial future like that because her mother completely shut down and neglected her children after her husband died. In District 12, and in Katniss's mind, spouses dying is just an inevitability with the coal mines, like imagine the amount of lung disease and mining accidents. Few people make it to old age, even fewer who are male (although there are women who work in the mines too). Then kids. The amount of diseases that they aren't vaccinated for, extreme hunger and cold, the games. It's an unsafe world for her to have someone she really cares about.

It's easier and more practical for Katniss to remain shut off from any of these possibilities, from her own emotions. So a kind person in these circumstances scares her deeply because she isn't able to control how she feels. She doesn't want to care about another person for what the world could do to them and thus, hurt her by association. Have her shut down completely like her mother, be weak. It's why Snow tortured Peeta. If he has someone she cares deeply for, he has the perfect weapon to hurt her. That's what's dangerous about kindness.

[utilitycaster]

What are your thoughts on the new ua's mechanics, especially the bard? It looks like almost all casters will be preparing spells now. I am not sure if its fits bards flavor-wise, but it makes them more flexible, so I'll take it.

For the most part I like it! I took notes so I can send in my thoughts when they have the survey later this month but my complaints aren't major.

Personally with the exception of sorcerers I think prepared spells makes sense for everyone. The only reason there's a divide between prepared and known-spell casters is because D&D was heavily influenced by Jack Vance's magic systems. And while in older editions there were benefits and drawbacks of each - prepped casters picked new spells each day but they pretty much had to pre-load their spell slots and couldn't use the same spell multiple times unless they prepped it multiple times; spontaneous casters knew fewer spells but they could cast them in whatever configuration they chose provided they had a slot for it - 5e did away with the prepared caster limitations, which means that they have a distinct advantage over known-spell casters. Bards, rangers, and warlocks are in my opinion particularly fucked over by this since they're not only known-spell casters but also high-utility classes that would benefit from a little bit of flexibility; bards also in standard 5e get tons of weird spells that they can't take unless their party has like, another healer AND another arcane caster because how often will you cast guards and wards*, so it's not worth taking up one of your precious known spells to learn.

Anyway getting into the actual details:

Bard: I like the new inspiration mechanics and LOVE that you can use it to heal as a reaction but I do think that even with the improved flexibility of use, it should be CHA modifier still rather than proficiency bonus, and if it's not at the very least Font of Inspiration should remain a L5 feature of the class rather than being pushed to L7. I already covered spell prep and I do like that you can swap cantrips because lbr, if you pick a shitty cantrip you often end up stuck with it unless you beg the DM for mercy. Songs of Restoration are FANTASTIC; I'm not mad at the loss of song of rest because I have played a primary healer bard and it's hard as fuck and this solves literally every problem I had. I also in general like the increased important of schools of magic, and think the options provided to bard are about the same as how the class already works anyway. Most of the rest is roughly comparable to standard 5e. My one question is why Jack of all Trades is so much later; I do wonder, and won't be able to say for sure until more classes come out, if they're trying to make multiclassing a bit more of a commitment.

Ranger: VERY good. Bard was always pretty decent with a few easily fixable flaws but ranger needed a boost and boy did it get it. Rangers should have expertise! They are a knowledge-based class! They should get cantrips! Also, rangers always suffered from having far too many concentration-only spells and making hunter's mark essentially a freebie was the correct call. Roving and Tireless also feel very true to the flavor of ranger as does the high-level blindsense. For what it's worth, I'm sure some people who are more experienced in rangers might not like this but I think nixing favored terrain is a good call because it's so frustrating when a ranger is useless simply because you are in the forest and not the mountains, when their entire thing is "good at tracking in general". Rangers always felt weirdly too specific and this has provided a focus in keeping favored enemy while allowing their wilderness skills to actually shine.

Rogue: fewest changes here, imo. Subtle strike makes far more sense than blindsense (blindsense was always weird for rogues to have and the buff to slippery mind to include charisma balances out any loss) and the thief subclass, always one of the better rogue subclasses, gets some really strong features.

*I am, in case you wondered, at all times, thinking about how much I want to cast guards and wards.