#i am mentioning so many like examples of like actual things that have happened to me because THATS HOW HE IS HUH

[tinystepsforward]

autocrattic (more matt shenanigans, not tumblr this time)

I am almost definitely not the right person for this writeup, but I'm closer than most people on here, so here goes! This is all open-source tech drama, and I take my time laying out the context, but the short version is: Matt tried to extort another company, who immediately posted receipts, and now he's refusing to log off again. The long version is... long.

If you don't need software context, scroll down/find the "ok tony that's enough. tell me what's actually happening" heading, or just go read the pink sections. Or look at this PDF.

the background

So. Matt's original Good Idea was starting WordPress with fellow developer Mike Little in 2003, which is free and open-source software (FOSS) that was originally just for blogging, but now powers lots of websites that do other things. In particular, Automattic acquired WooCommerce a long time ago, which is free online store software you can run on WordPress.

FOSS is... interesting. It's a world that ultimately is powered by people who believe deeply that information and resources should be free, but often have massive blind spots (for example, Wikipedia's consistently had issues with bias, since no amount of "anyone can edit" will overcome systemic bias in terms of who has time to edit or is not going to be driven away by the existing contributor culture). As with anything else that people spend thousands of hours doing online, there's drama. As with anything else that's technically free but can be monetized, there are:

Heaps of companies and solo developers who profit off WordPress themes, plugins, hosting, and other services;

Conflicts between volunteer contributors and for-profit contributors;

Annoying founders who get way too much credit for everything the project has become.

the WordPress ecosystem

A project as heavily used as WordPress (some double-digit percentage of the Internet uses WP. I refuse to believe it's the 43% that Matt claims it is, but it's a pretty large chunk) can't survive just on the spare hours of volunteers, especially in an increasingly monetised world where its users demand functional software, are less and less tech or FOSS literate, and its contributors have no fucking time to build things for that userbase.

Matt runs Automattic, which is a privately-traded, for-profit company. The free software is run by the WordPress Foundation, which is technically completely separate (wordpress.org). The main products Automattic offers are WordPress-related: WordPress.com, a host which was designed to be beginner-friendly; Jetpack, a suite of plugins which extend WordPress in a whole bunch of ways that may or may not make sense as one big product; WooCommerce, which I've already mentioned. There's also WordPress VIP, which is the fancy bespoke five-digit-plus option for enterprise customers. And there's Tumblr, if Matt ever succeeds in putting it on WordPress. (Every Tumblr or WordPress dev I know thinks that's fucking ridiculous and impossible. Automattic's hiring for it anyway.)

Automattic devotes a chunk of its employees toward developing Core, which is what people in the WordPress space call WordPress.org, the free software. This is part of an initiative called Five for the Future — 5% of your company's profits off WordPress should go back into making the project better. Many other companies don't do this.

There are lots of other companies in the space. GoDaddy, for example, barely gives back in any way (and also sucks). WP Engine is the company this drama is about. They don't really contribute to Core. They offer relatively expensive WordPress hosting, as well as providing a series of other WordPress-related products like LocalWP (local site development software), Advanced Custom Fields (the easiest way to set up advanced taxonomies and other fields when making new types of posts. If you don't know what this means don't worry about it), etc.

Anyway. Lots of strong personalities. Lots of for-profit companies. Lots of them getting invested in, or bought by, private equity firms.

Matt being Matt, tech being tech

As was said repeatedly when Matt was flipping out about Tumblr, all of the stuff happening at Automattic is pretty normal tech company behaviour. Shit gets worse. People get less for their money. WordPress.com used to be a really good place for people starting out with a website who didn't need "real" WordPress — for $48 a year on the Personal plan, you had really limited features (no plugins or other customisable extensions), but you had a simple website with good SEO that was pretty secure, relatively easy to use, and 24-hour access to Happiness Engineers (HEs for short. Bad job title. This was my job) who could walk you through everything no matter how bad at tech you were. Then Personal plan users got moved from chat to emails only. Emails started being responded to by contractors who didn't know as much as HEs did and certainly didn't get paid half as well. Then came AI, and the mandate for HEs to try to upsell everyone things they didn't necessarily need. (This is the point at which I quit.)

But as was said then as well, most tech CEOs don't publicly get into this kind of shitfight with their users. They're horrid tyrants, but they don't do it this publicly.

ok tony that's enough. tell me what's actually happening

WordCamp US, one of the biggest WordPress industry events of the year, is the backdrop for all this. It just finished.

There are.... a lot of posts by Matt across multiple platforms because, as always, he can't log off. But here's the broad strokes.

Sep 17

Matt publishes a wanky blog post about companies that profit off open source without giving back. It targets a specific company, WP Engine.

Compare the Five For the Future pages from Automattic and WP Engine, two companies that are roughly the same size with revenue in the ballpark of half a billion. These pledges are just a proxy and aren’t perfectly accurate, but as I write this, Automattic has 3,786 hours per week (not even counting me!), and WP Engine has 47 hours. WP Engine has good people, some of whom are listed on that page, but the company is controlled by Silver Lake, a private equity firm with $102 billion in assets under management. Silver Lake doesn’t give a dang about your Open Source ideals. It just wants a return on capital. So it’s at this point that I ask everyone in the WordPress community to vote with your wallet. Who are you giving your money to? Someone who’s going to nourish the ecosystem, or someone who’s going to frack every bit of value out of it until it withers?

(It's worth noting here that Automattic is funded in part by BlackRock, who Wikipedia calls "the world's largest asset manager".)

Sep 20 (WCUS final day)

WP Engine puts out a blog post detailing their contributions to WordPress.

Matt devotes his keynote/closing speech to slamming WP Engine.

He also implies people inside WP Engine are sending him information.

For the people sending me stuff from inside companies, please do not do it on your work device. Use a personal phone, Signal with disappearing messages, etc. I have a bunch of journalists happy to connect you with as well. #wcus — Twitter I know private equity and investors can be brutal (read the book Barbarians at the Gate). Please let me know if any employee faces firing or retaliation for speaking up about their company's participation (or lack thereof) in WordPress. We'll make sure it's a big public deal and that you get support. — Tumblr

Matt also puts out an offer live at WordCamp US:

“If anyone of you gets in trouble for speaking up in favor of WordPress and/or open source, reach out to me. I’ll do my best to help you find a new job.” — source tweet, RTed by Matt

He also puts up a poll asking the community if WP Engine should be allowed back at WordCamps.

Sep 21

Matt writes a blog post on the WordPress.org blog (the official project blog!): WP Engine is not WordPress.

He opens this blog post by claiming his mom was confused and thought WP Engine was official.

The blog post goes on about how WP Engine disabled post revisions (which is a pretty normal thing to do when you need to free up some resources), therefore being not "real" WordPress. (As I said earlier, WordPress.com disables most features for Personal and Premium plans. Or whatever those plans are called, they've been renamed like 12 times in the last few years. But that's a different complaint.)

Sep 22: More bullshit on Twitter. Matt makes a Reddit post on r/Wordpress about WP Engine that promptly gets deleted. Writeups start to come out:

Search Engine Journal: WordPress Co-Founder Mullenweg Sparks Backlash

TechCrunch: Matt Mullenweg calls WP Engine a ‘cancer to WordPress’ and urges community to switch providers

Sep 23 onward

Okay, time zones mean I can't effectively sequence the rest of this.

Matt defends himself on Reddit, casually mentioning that WP Engine is now suing him.

Also here's a decent writeup from someone involved with the community that may be of interest.

WP Engine drops the full PDF of their cease and desist, which includes screenshots of Matt apparently threatening them via text.

Twitter link | Direct PDF link

This PDF includes some truly fucked texts where Matt appears to be trying to get WP Engine to pay him money unless they want him to tell his audience at WCUS that they're evil.

Matt, after saying he's been sued and can't talk about it, hosts a Twitter Space and talks about it for a couple hours.

He also continues to post on Reddit, Twitter, and on the Core contributor Slack.

Here's a comment where he says WP Engine could have avoided this by paying Automattic 8% of their revenue.

Another, 20 hours ago, where he says he's being downvoted by "trolls, probably WPE employees"

At some point, Matt updates the WordPress Foundation trademark policy. I am 90% sure this was him — it's not legalese and makes no fucking sense to single out WP Engine.

Old text: The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks and you are free to use it in any way you see fit. New text: The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks, but please don’t use it in a way that confuses people. For example, many people think WP Engine is “WordPress Engine” and officially associated with WordPress, which it’s not. They have never once even donated to the WordPress Foundation, despite making billions of revenue on top of WordPress.

Sep 25: Automattic puts up their own legal response.

anyway this fucking sucks

This is bigger than anything Matt's done before. I'm so worried about my friends who're still there. The internal ramifications have... been not great so far, including that Matt's naturally being extra gung-ho about "you're either for me or against me and if you're against me then don't bother working your two weeks".

Despite everything, I like WordPress. (If you dig into this, you'll see plenty of people commenting about blocks or Gutenberg or React other things they hate. Unlike many of the old FOSSheads, I actually also think Gutenberg/the block editor was a good idea, even if it was poorly implemented.)

I think that the original mission — to make it so anyone can spin up a website that's easy enough to use and blog with — is a good thing. I think, despite all the ways being part of FOSS communities since my early teens has led to all kinds of racist, homophobic and sexual harm for me and for many other people, that free and open-source software is important.

So many people were already burning out of the project. Matt has been doing this for so long that those with long memories can recite all the ways he's wrecked shit back a decade or more. Most of us are exhausted and need to make money to live. The world is worse than it ever was.

Social media sucks worse and worse, and this was a world in which people missed old webrings, old blogs, RSS readers, the world where you curated your own whimsical, unpaid corner of the Internet. I started actually actively using my own WordPress blog this year, and I've really enjoyed it.

And people don't want to deal with any of this.

The thing is, Matt's right about one thing: capital is ruining free open-source software. What he's wrong about is everything else: the idea that WordPress.com isn't enshittifying (or confusing) at a much higher rate than WP Engine, the idea that WP Engine or Silver Lake are the only big players in the field, the notion that he's part of the solution and not part of the problem.

But he's started a battle where there are no winners but the lawyers who get paid to duke it out, and all the volunteers who've survived this long in an ecosystem increasingly dominated by big money are giving up and leaving.

Anyway if you got this far, consider donating to someone on gazafunds.com. It'll take much less time than reading this did.

[yallthemwitches]

Like a lot of other authors/content creators in the HP fandom, I am feeling a sense of heaviness over the rulings that happened in the UK and feel the need to speak on my (albeit very complicated) feelings.

What JKR is doing is terrible. It will ruin lives. It will end lives.

If you feel like that is being hyperbolic, please go look up the suicide rates for the trans community. It's a staggering number and it only grows as people seeking information, comfort, and support are locked out of proper resources due to heinous legislations like the one passed yesterday.

It saddens me too because I know that so many in the LGBTIQA+ have found characters/stories in the HP universe that have spoken to them and helped to understand their personal journeys---only to have that comfort ripped away by the very person who created them.

If you can permit me to be personal for a second: My brother is trans and before/during his transition (this was early 2010s) he always cited Remus Lupin as one of the foundations for coming to terms with his trans identity because he saw some of his own internal struggle in Lupin's character. He even went so far as to write a letter to JKR (which, thank GOD he never sent...) thanking her for creating a character that aided him with the complicated feelings he had when there were no other resources for him.

My brother is now a psychologist specializing in the young trans community and speaking to him recently, he has said that he comes across this same story constantly and each one ends in tragedy because that little piece of solace and comfort was not just taken from them, but told them that no, actually. You thought wrong to see yourself in this character. You don't matter.

Watching what happened yesterday and knowing the long history of bigotry JKR has spouted for years now weighs heavy on my heart every time I step into this fandom and often I question if I should still contribute to it. I know it's not much, but I would like to share some of the things that keep me going--even when it all looks really fucking bleak:

Fanfiction and fanart are, at their foundation, anticapitalist works--and can be used to fight JKR's agenda. By consuming fanfic/fanart zero money goes towards JKR. None. And further, JKR has no say in how you use her characters in these spaces. So, if you want to use these creative outlets to uplift trans voices, please do! Support trans writers/artists and urge them to PERSIST--because I promise you nothing is going to tick off the ole' bitch more than trans bodies/ trans supporters writing her characters.

Just because the writer is the devil, doesn't mean the art has to be. I won't go into the concept of "death of the author" because I think it can be pockmarked to hell with various examples, but what I DO subscribe to is that once the art is out in the world, it is now owned by the person who consumes it. To put it simply: when I read HP I am POSITIVE I imagine characters/settings differently than the person next to me. It's the beauty of the imagination: the creator can give us the blocks but how it is built is contingent on how WE perceive it.

Did I mention money? DON'T GIVE IT TO HER. Buy the books/movies second hand. Pirate the media you wish to consume around the fandom. Don't give her any reason to give any more hate funding and instead send that money to trans communities and groups who need it (they REALLY need it.)

Maybe I'm naive to say this, but I don't think interacting with the story as an art form is bad. She invented it, sure, but she isn't in charge of what goes on in my brain. If anything, this fandom NEEDS the trans community and supporters within it because not only can they push back, but they can educate those who otherwise are listening to the author. Don't let her win the space even though she's the author. It's no longer hers to have.

If you are someone who wants to leave the fandom because you can't bear to watch her continue to destroy it--I completely understand. But, as someone who has been in this fandom for over 20 years, the one thing I've learned is: besides monetarily she doesn't own shit. Don't let her take what you love from you and don't let her get away with scaring people out of their community spaces. Support and love our trans brothers and sisters and enjoy your HP despite it all. The things you love are worth fighting for.

[songsofadelaide]

"Hey, Platoon Leader, are you guys trying to be the next Shinomiyas?"

You looked up from your plate of food and gave Kafka an incredulous look from across your shared table. "...What?"

The older officer raised his hands in defence when he caught the strange look on your face. "O-Oh, you know! The Director General and his wife, the former Captain of the Second Division. They were a power couple. I just thought you guys were similar is all..."

"Kafka-san, you better clarify whatever it is you're saying," you chuckled at his statement. "Though I definitely do not mind being compared to the Second Division Captain Shinomiya Hikari, the gods rest her soul. She was brilliant, after all! A shining example to so many young women, myself included. We could have stood to learn a thing or two from her..."

It was a tragedy, you thought. The Director General had always been a serious man, but the unexpected death of his wife made him all the more. And now that Kafka mentioned it, the weight of the idea rested even heavier on your mind. The higher you two rise in the ranks, the more will be expected of you. The more numbered Kaiju appear, the more you will have to set out in their field.

The higher the danger risk, the more skilled personnel will have to be deployed. And seeing how the top brass acknowledged your fiancé's most recent accomplishment— subduing and neutralising Kaiju No. 10— the likelihood of him being assigned even more dangerous missions will only increase—

"You think the Vice Captain would consider growing out a beard too when he becomes Director General? Like Director General Shinomiya. I mean you did mention once that his old man was grizzled and all..." Kafka asked aloud as he helped himself to his lunch.

???

His question was so left-field that you couldn't help the laughter that escaped your stomach. "Pfft— What?! Kafka-san, wh— Hahaha!"

"I-I'm serious, though, Platoon Leader?! A beard would make him even more menacing!"

"Haha! N-No, okay, okay! I'm sorry! I'm sorry for bursting out laughing like that! I-It's just— Soshiro grows stubbles at an alarming rate and he always shaves because he hates being told he'd look like his father with a beard," you said, nearly breathless and tears prickling your eyes. You continued to speak as you calmed down, the seriousness of your expression prompting your lunchmate to pause his meal. "I might not be able to achieve Captain Shinomiya's legendary level of coolness or renown, but I think as long as I continue accomplishing orders, that's good enough for me."

Arriving at your table not long after your fit of laughter were the Vice Captain and another recruit— one who happened to hear your conversation right from the start.

"I—" Kikoru started, her plate slightly trembling in her hands as you met her earnest gaze. "I think you're just as cool as Captain Shinomiya, Platoon Leader! More importantly, I'd like f-for you and Vice Captain Hoshina to always be safe while in the battlefield so you can both live long and fulfilling lives! Th..."

The kind her mother never got to live.

Soshiro took his place next to you as Kafka gestured for them to sit at your shared table.

"Thank you, Kikoru-chan. I am honoured you think so highly of me. If there's anyone feels the loss our amazing Captain Shinomiya the most, that would be you," you said as you reached for the younger girl's shaking fist from across the table, giving her a gentle yet reassuring squeeze. "If Soshiro and I ever do become the Defense Force's next power couple, I can only hope we have a child as talented and dedicated as you are."

"That's assumin' we're actually still a couple," Soshiro quipped. "I could hear you laughin' at Kafka's joke from across the building. Whatever did he tell you that was so funny, sweetness?"

"Kafka-san here was just saying how cool you would look grizzled with a beard all over your handsome, handsome mug," you shot back at him as you gently gripped his chin to force him to face you. "But don't worry, sweetness, I like you just the way you are now."

Kikoru's hands flew to her mouth as her face suddenly flushed. H-How lovey-dovey of them!

"You're already plenty menacing with that sly look of yours," you continued, before slapping the table so hard that it surprised both Kafka and Kikoru, who were staring in awe at just how affectionate their superiors were being. "Now eat, eat, eat up, our little fledgelings! Eating right, getting enough sleep, and exercising are key to living long! Let's not miss out on even one of those!"

Soshiro smiled as you ate your fill along with your favourite new recruits, though he'd never hear you say that out loud. Being a power couple never appealed to him because all that mattered to him were saving lives and staying alive— to be able to live in the future you were all so earnestly fighting for.

I suppose having someone to proudly stand next to isn't such a bad idea.

[femmehaljordan]

Something I noticed about every fanfic that has the "Jason for some inexplicable reason decides to take pity on Tim after Damian replaces him as Robin" plot-line is that it always feels like it's less about developing a realistic relationship between the two and more about bashing Dick Grayson. For example, there always seems to be some moment where Jason will mention how Dick was super shitty to him for being Robin, but from what I've read with that storyline, the worst Dick comes across is kinda aloof towards what is essentially a random 13 year old (please note that I've only read Nightwing Year One and that one panel from the RHaTO Annual that shows that Alfred had Jason sleeping in Dick's room, so if there is a version I've missed please let me know)

Meanwhile Tim really was shitty towards Jason and his death but for some reason he gets a free pass.

!!!! THANK YOU

So I am actually a Dick and Jason pre-death relationship enthusiast so this might turn out to be mostly about them because as much as I hate Tim, I love talking about Dick and Jason more.

But it’s the classic case of those fans taking things that were mentioned in passing or were very minor and blowing them way out of proportion.

So pre-crisis Dick and Jason did not interact very much after Jason became Robin but before Jason was Robin some interesting things happened. Precrisis Jason was just blonde/red head (no it’s not the time to get into the semantics of that) Dick Grayson. You have to understand that to get it. He was an acrobat in a family called the flying Todd’s. His parents were actually named Joe and Trina. And they were killed by killer croc after they died we got this

DICK WANTED TO ADOPT JASON!!! HE DIDNT HATE HIM AT ALL. I don’t have a picture of the panel with me, but I have the issue it’s in but the first time they meet Dick says to Jason, that he reminds him of someone he knew a long time ago. (Obviously referring to himself.)

And Jason was originally going to form his own identity, which is where this suit comes from. 

But then Bruce gets captured so he dies his hair and steals a robin suit. (TIM HATE SIDEBAR NOT EVEN TIMS ORIGIN IS ORIGINAL LMAO) but he still wasn’t going to become Robin

We have this panel where he’s wearing the original suit trying to come up with a name after he dyed his hair because he got in trouble with Bruce for stealing Dick’s suit because he’s not Robin. 

And then Dick shows up and gives him Robin!! Tells him that he’s allowed to be Robin and that he’s gonna come up with a new identity with the Titans. Pre-crisis Bruce and Dick‘s separation was very amiable. 

(Another sidebar DC give Dick a mole again)

The idea that Dick didn’t like Jason at first comes from post crisis. Specifically Batman the new adventures #416 (this one I’m pulling out because I don’t remember exact details)

You have to take everything in this with a grain of salt because it’s written by Starlin who wanted to make Jason look as bad as possible. He makes Jason break into a possible drug lab and has Dick save him and call him reckless. and that it’s also not a drug lab so that Jason was wrong. What’s interesting about this is we learn that Jason did not know that Dick was Nightwing because Dick’s name drops Bruce and Jason is genuinely concerned about a stranger knowing Bruce’s identity.

And then we get Dick and Bruce fighting about Jason.

(These might be out of order but you get it)

But even with this by the end of the issue, we get this scene 

We’re dick and gives Jason his robin suit and his number (this page is so awful for so many reasons. Jason never grew into that Robin suit. And do you think he tried to call Dick before he went to Ethiopia?)

Then they go bust that drug ring together because it turns out Jason was right because even when Starlin was trying to make him look bad, he was so bad at it.

It ends with Bruce being smug as fuck like “I knew they would work it out” or some shit.

TLDR: Dick never hated Jason. He voluntarily gave him Robin both pre and post crisis, but post crisis Bruce gave it to him first without Dick‘s permission and Dick was upset with Bruce because of it, not Jason. 

Anyway, back to Tim hating. I personally think it’s because there’s no other reason for Jason and Tim to relate to each other. And keep in mind ALL of the “replacement” stuff is blown way out of proportion. From every predecessor to successor. But these people only care about Tim. They use Jason and Dick as vessels to make Tim look as good as possible. I doubt any of them have read any pre Jason death comics let alone ones where Dick and Jason interact. 

Or even modern comics set before he dies!! Because even at nightwing year one they bond and RHATO is probably the only comic they’ve read of Jason‘s. But again they have bonding moments in new 52!! Not as many because it’s new 52 but there are a few.

Anyway, my point is those Tim stans are in a bad game of telephone because they don’t actually read comics. 

(Sorry I just got so fucking excited to talk about Dick and Jason)

[godjustkys]

Omg, I swear it’s impossible to find people who write anything male reader with Friends characters.

Anyway, if possible could you do both sfw and nsfw headcanons for Chandler Bing. Absolutely no rush 🙏

THEME: headcanons!! SFW & NSFW

CHARACTER: male reader x chandler bing

NOTE: i love coming up with headcanons for silly characters such as chandler 😖

p.s. actually short.. my bad D:

WARNING: NSFW THEMES AHEAD.

SFW

- he LOVES physical affection; it is very easy to distract him with it. mention cuddles and my dude drops everything and is immediately clinging onto you.

- because chandler is dating a guy, his sarcasm goes into overdrive. gets snarky with you, mocks you in pure playful banter.

- when you think he is not looking, he is. he absolutely is. he notices things you don't even know, he's so attentive.

- smokes cigarettes in secret. sometimes, significantly less than he used to. usually he forgets to because you have his entire attention.

- chandler was thoroughly convinced that he'll somehow mess everything up with you. he didn't let his worry show. talked about it with joey, actually got useful advice and used it. your relationship has improved since then!

- SUBTLE PDA ONLY. rests his hand on your knee completely absentmindedly, fixes your clothes or hair, whispers little quips in your ear to loosen you up in a serious situation.

- if you two ever got married, he'd cry. So fucking hard. And make self-deprecating jokes about it while saying his vows.

- might've or might've not googled an "am I gay" quiz when he first had a thought about finding you attractive.

- isn't as romantic as he makes himself out to be. dates, surprises, those kinds of things he does, it's just.. he makes them unintentionally awkward or messes something up somehow, even if it's miniscule.

- an absolute klutz. clumsy as HELL. constantly bumping into corners, stubbing his toes, running into doors while trying to open them, dropping things he's holding, accidentally ripping a magazine, etc. etc. After each thing he comes to complain to you, secretly seeking your comfort.

- pretends he hates being babied but it makes him feel so loved. so needed. so fucking worthy.

NSFW

- pathetic during sex. like seriously. he's so desperate and needy for you, practically chanting your name during sex. extremely impatient, too.

- very very big on foreplay. totally not because he's insecure and wants to know that you actually want him..

- loses it and dies laughing if something happens during sex. for example if you fumbled a move, or accidentally lose your balance. though quite easy to get him back on track.

- is extremely open to new things. he's far more adventurous than you had anticipated.

- loves your hand stroking him or your mouth on his cock. especially your mouth.

- somnophilia. wants you to wake him up by shoving your cock inside him or groping him.

- is a switch but he has a thing for feeling weak, losing control. mostly submissive.

- talks too much, until he can't.

- whines, whimpers, moans, groans, grunts, all of the above.

- always keeps his eyes on your hands and what they do. Especially if you're stroking both of your cocks? yeah, he's leaking precum already.

- loves it when you mess with his legs. marking them, gripping them, kissing them.. JUST UGH.

- has post nut clarity. especially if he talked dirty. “why the fuck would I say that?” - his usual reaction, usually grumbling it into the pillow.

- sex cannot be.. vanilla with him. it's always messy, sloppy, hard, filthy.

- totally gets off on being told what to do. you could say “stay still” and dude's a statue.

- CHOKING KINK ALERT!!! he has moved your hand to his throat too many times to count. kinda ashamed when he hears himself gasping, but focuses on you again in a matter of seconds.

[aabluedragon]

Sancho and the Cradle

I am so tickled at the idea that Sancho, after drinking from Oblivion, blearily did some hardblood arts to lock herself into the lighthouse and never thought about it again. So many things happened in the lighthouse that absolutely wouldn’t have made sense to a human’s sense of time or needs, but being a Bloodfiend who doesn’t really know exactly how much time is passing, she never felt the need to bring it up!

For example, watching time pass while writing to decades-old Fixer publications and getting letters back from the very same. I heard somewhere that Sancho was actually aware of the Cinq Association first being founded, which may or may not have come with its own publications. These figures were immortalized in print and Sancho likely continued to see their letters long after the average human would have fallen to obscurity. Not that she knows that.

Logistically, Sancho wouldn’t have been getting food or water deliveries considering that she and “the fixers” have been exchanging letters though a small gap in her hardblood door and her ensuing brainrot would sate her bloodthirst. This, she does not mention to any of the sinners because—

It never came up

Well, they have food now

It’s not like she was hungry (she does this in her Lantern EGO too, commenting that she’s taking her lunch because her suit is hungry)

—and I think that’s comedy gold.

The idea that Sancho, henceforth known as Don Quixote, just casually did hardblood weaving and other immortal behaviors because the habit is just ingrained in her body without ever questioning why nobody else did it and therefore never catching on that no, she’s not normal, actually is the funniest thing.

Speaking of her name — I need to double check how she signed her letters — if I remember correctly, she only “found out” her name was Don Quixote by the writing on Rocinante’s sole. In an alternate universe, we might have been looking at LCB Sinner #3 Rocinante instead…

Now we combine all of that into her being utterly clueless about not being human because she lacked other common Bloodfiend features such as MDDABB (Major Depressive Disorder Abated By Blood) and my favorite ironies are being scratched. Love that soggy beast.

Lastly, to address her sog, my dumb ass finally connected that this sequence is probably Sancho first entering the lighthouse. In short, she deflated over time. Rest in peace. She never did her hair again.

[whateversawesome]

Spy x Family Ch. 111: Anya's Mama

So many things for such a little chapter, don't you think?

We saw baby Anya and we finally caught a glimpse of Anya's biological mother.

Something to notice is that they're both wearing hospital gowns, which makes me think they were in the lab and, because of that, we can solidify the theory about Anya being born there. It could be that her mom was pregnant when captured or that they experimented on her and she got pregnant while in that lab. A secret third option is that Anya's mom actually volunteered for the experiments (maybe she was a scientist herself or a family member coaxed her into doing it), although I find this unlikely due to her comment about the butterfly. Either way, I have a feeling we won't know for a very long time.

Mindreading or no mindreading?

Endo chose not to let us know about that explicitly. However, look at this panel:

I don't think Anya's mom is talking here. I think she's thinking this. Because of that, I do suspect Anya can read her mama's mind. She doesn't fully understand it but those words are inside her memory.

However, as you can see in the panel below, we don't see her classic mindreading sparkles. So, it' could also be that she saw her mom getting sad or nostalgic and she wanted to hug her. Kids are very perceptive of their parent's emotions.

If you ask me, I think she was born with that ability. Either her mom was also a telepath who was being studied during her pregnancy or she was experimented while pregnant and gained and passed her abilities to her daughter.

All this makes me consider that maybe Anya wasn't experimented on like many of us believed for a long time. Maybe those scientists were just studying her/observing her in order to understand and try to replicate her abilities. I'm really hoping Endo will go this route, it's less cruel. In any case, keeping someone so young as a case study is still wrong and I don't think Twilight and Yor will like this.

Anya's Mama

I'm talking about Yor, of course.

First of all, I think Endo summed up what motherhood is about in this panel:

It's not exactly that a mom can read their kid's mind, but it's something close. As a mom you get to know your child inside and out. When you take care of them, see them grow and love them with all your heart, you simply learn to "read every part of them."

That's how we know that Yor loves Anya and that she is her mom.

I don't know what happened to Anya's biological mom; she could be gone or still be alive. I'm sure we'll find out eventually. However, no matter what happens, I think Anya will always have that unconditional love from Yor.

There's a prevalent theme about motherhood in sxf: a mother as a safe place. Yor has mentioned it several times; she knows her job is to protect Anya and Anya feels safe when her mama is around (even Twilight notices this.)

I think the bond between them will get stronger as the story moves forward. Come on, it's pretty obvious Anya is Yor's baby, she's already head over heels and she decided she wanted to be a good mother since day 1. Also, a big theme in the story are bonds that are forged, and chosen family. In the story, blood ties sometimes are complicated (look at the Desmonds, for example.)

I'm not fluent in Japanese, but I am aware that Anya calls Yor and Twilight, Haha and Chichi, which is an English equivalent of "my mom and my dad", instead of just "mom and dad." In case you are wondering, Anya did call her biological mom, the right way: "mama."

At some point in the story, I think we will see Anya call Yor and Twilight, mama and papa the right way. I suspect this will be the moment when they will realize they're no longer a pretend family, but a real one. And it'll be simply beautiful 💖

A Few Questions

Whenever we learn something about one of the Forger's past, we are usually left with even more questions like:

Where's Anya's mom now?: I think either she's still a prisoner somewhere or she's dead. And if she's alive, does she know Anya lives?

How did Anya escape? She was so little! She must have had help from someone.

Who is Anya's dad? Maybe a scientist? A prisoner of war? Or was artificial insemination possible back then?

Is Anya her real name? I'm wondering if her mom called her differently. Here are some theories about her name. I suspect this will be important and I wouldn't be surprised if Anya is not her real name, almost as a foil of Twilight's name and story.

And also, there's a gap between that scene/memory and when Anya gets adopted by Twilight. We know thanks to Franky that in the year before Twilight adopted her, she was previously adopted by four different families, however, there's still a chunk of time missing.

I estimate she's probably 2 years old in that memory, she was 4 when she was adopted by those other families, and 5 years old when Twilight became her dad. That leaves 2 full years blank. Where was she during that time?

[cripplecharacters]

What exactly defines a token character as a bad representation choice and not as a "background character" who happens to be disabled? And can a disabled character be the only disabled character but still good representation?

I know having relevant disabled characters is important, but when, besides the cast members who influence the plot, you have one of those scenes where a one-off character needs to be there, like when the autistic protagonist needs a ride in the middle of the road and a little person stops to help, or when the wheelchair user main character wants to talk to the magic council about a certain situation and the attendant is a blind person with a cane who checks the information of a braille book, is it safe from tokenism?

Hey!

For this post I will use "representation" to imply good/decent representation, not just the act of XYZ minority technically appearing on the page.

There's definitely a lot to discuss when it comes to tokenism, and there are a lot of different criteria that you can use to define what exactly it is.

So I'm gonna start with the main definition of what would differentiate a "token" from an unimportant character (=one that doesn't influence the actual plot) who just happens to be disabled: how you go about the fact that they are in your book(/comic/etc.).

If you put in the description of your work that it's "disability rep!" because there's this one guy in a wheelchair in one scene, that's tokenism: using a minority to simply boost/promote something as "diverse". That's the most annoying occurrence of it, there's so much media that people recommend as "XYZ rep" and when you look into it, the "rep" is a side character that shows up in two episodes and has like a line of dialogue. Sad!

To use one of your examples, tokenism would be if you claimed that your work has "dwarfism representation" in it because of that one guy who helps the main character in one scene. It's... just not that. That doesn't mean it's bad; if every single background character who wasn't a cisHet white abled Christian man (etc.) was supposed to be deep and thought-provoking then no one would be writing them, because that's not what a background character is supposed to be.

But - you could commit a tokenism with a character even if they are just a background extra who shows up once. Tokenism often goes with the fact that the token character could be swapped out for a non-minority one and nothing would change, since the key here is that the author doesn't really care: it's all just to say "hey, I got XYZ in my book!". So if you were to write a background character that you explicitly mention has disability X, but then they do something that a person with that disability wouldn't be able to do - that's probably a token (if not, it's still a badly made character). It's there to "represent" a group, but it doesn't make sense and there is no point so to speak because the author just doesn't care.

In that way, many disabled characters are just tokens - because the writer is writing an abled character, but keeps calling them disabled. When's the last time anyone has seen a character with albinism who was blind or low vision? What's up with all those deaf characters who read lips and speak orally so well that you literally forget they are even supposed to be deaf? Why is that "tragically unable to walk" character... walking for the entire duration of the book? They're just tokens done with no care nor research, it's all diversity points and quirky aesthetics. Everyone wants to be "inclusive", no one wants to actually have a disabled character who experiences disability.

Another thing with background characters is what role they serve. Most of them are fine - cashier has a skin condition, guy ordering a drink uses a speech generating device, mom of an annoying kid doesn't have a leg, cool. But sometimes it's worth to just ask "why am I making this specific character, whose disability has no impact on the story, disabled?". That is to say that if you need a prodigy piano player and your idea is to make them totally blind who always wears sunglasses, or to make the generic murderer have a big burn scar on half of their face, you're repeating a stereotype. "Role" also encompasses what happens to them. Does the one disabled guy just... die, and that's all? That's a token.

Those are the main things I'd avoid when it comes to background characters. Don't claim that they are what they aren't or represent what they don't, and if you want a disabled character - even just an extra - then either commit or just don't do it, and keep in mind where you're putting them in the first place.

Can a disabled character be the only disabled character but still good representation?

They sure can, but they just aren't, usually at least. The problem with single character representation is that it puts a big burden on this one character: to represent a whole community. That's a lot. I've found myself in this exact spot before: small cast, one character is disabled, and I try to make the whole thing better and more authentic... every single time the result was adding more disabled characters, even if their roles were smaller. It's about the potential contrast.

There are choices that you can do when you have multiple characters of X minority that you should probably avoid if there's just one of them. If I see a work that has three blind characters and one of them wears sunglasses, my reaction will be "oh, cool, they have photophobia like me". If there's one blind character, and they wear sunglasses, my assumption will be that that's what just the writer thinks all blind people wear.

(Even though, that singular character could 100% also be photophobic. My assumption here is based on my experience, because that's how it usually goes.)

In that case you can find yourself in a place where you either need to subvert a bunch of stereotypes (some of which are based in fact!) or address it in one way or another in your work. That character could say "oh, I wear sunglasses indoors because even artificial light really hurts my eyes", but in order to do that, you need to be aware that this is a writing trope in the first place. Not to mention, if you do it too much, it starts reading as some sort of disability PSA. There's a fine line to everything, and the fewer characters of a particular minority you have, the harder it is to navigate it in a way that feels natural to actually read.

Sometimes the occurrence of just a single disabled character also raises some questions. Where's everybody else at? There are some exceptions to that (e.g. stories with a very limited character count) but generally speaking, everyone knows someone who's disabled in one way or another, especially if they're disabled themself. Books tend to make disabled people seem as a rare phenomenon, but that's really not the case.

Sometimes it borders on nonsensical worldbuilding - all those disabled characters who only get their mobility aids/meds because they Know A Guy (or are that guy)... I always ask myself, "what about all those people who don't know this one specific guy? what about everyone who lived before and after this one specific guy?", and I don't think the authors ever consider that. Unless the world population count is in triple digits at most, your character won't be the only disabled person. Writing in a way that subconsciously implies that they are is to me just another form of tokenism, because they're not only the only disabled character in the story, they're also presumably the only one in that universe overall.

This is just a lot of paragraphs to say that you probably aren't ever fully safe from tokenism unless there are multiple disabled characters who have at least somewhat important roles in the story - and even then, they can still be badly written, just in different ways.

Sorry for the long post but I hope this helps,

mod Sasza

[tomatopers]

about the hoyoverse boycott

i just wanted to put my two cents out there, as a South Asian:

We knew, from before anything was out, that Natlan would lack skin tone diversity at bare minimum, so it came as no surprise when these characters showed up; To preface my post, this does not make what happened and what's happening okay.

Why are people mad? Obviously, the skin tones are a big part of it. Yes, lightskinned people exist and live, etc, in these cultures- no, they do not make up 100% of them. What Hoyoverse is doing in Natlan is blatantly profiting off of poc cultures/religion in a disrespectful manner, and they have [once again] failed to acknowledge this. A really obvious example of this is the character "Ororon." I am no expert in Olorun, but as many have said, this character is meant to be based off of the deity.

This is awful- there are NO similarities, "Ororon" looks like my gacha life oc from seventh grade, and the disrespect towards the Yoruba people is insane.

As a twitter user whose tag I forgot mentioned, the majority of the Natlan Characters shown so far have been lighter than Lois Griffin [Family Guy].

Onto the boycott itself- If you are going to boycott Genshin, I recommend also boycotting other Hoyoverse games- being f2p isn't hard either, if you do not want to stop playing completely.

Additionally, I will link a petition to the bottom of this post, as well as some other things you can do to protest this.

I do wish I could have seen more of my and my family's culture in Sumeru, and that this backlash could have also occurred there, but in my honest opinion they did worse with Natlan and I'm glad we as a community are choosing to do something about it.

As a closing piece, I would like to point out the frequency of darker skintones in npcs, specifically enemies; The aggressive POC stereotype is both harmful and obviously incorrect, and people like me do not exist just to be placed constantly in secondary/antagonistic roles. Thanks.

Petition: https://www.change.org/p/stop-cultural-appropriation-and-whitewashing-in-mihoyo-games

Twitter posts about sending a feedback email [and template]: https://x.com/alsoknownasaki/status/1542216133734010881

Update bc I did not research ahead of this like a loser: Sumeru is not any better than Natlan actually!!!! Found out Nahida/Kusanali is likely based off of the Persian goddess Nahid and/or the Hindu goddess Saraswati! Sorry 😭

[galedekarios]

Not sure if you still do Gale meta asks so if you don’t, feel free to ignore me, but after replaying BG3 recently and getting to Gale’s third artifact explanation, I realized I’m actually a bit lost on his character on that slot.

I am of the opinion that Mystra groomed Gale and their relationship was unhealthy (I’m pretty sure you’re on agreement with that.) For a long time I thought Gale sought out to bring her the Netherese orb in an act of love and because he did not feel worthy or equal to her, but when he explained to me again I noticed at first his motives seemed to be based in the fact that Mystra closed veils to him despite how close he was to them while with her. So it leaves me a little lost because he also swore it was to serve her better, which I don’t get how that could be.

My current personal understanding is Gale, being with Mystra, was constantly looking into the “precipice” others could not access, and Mystra restricted that as she did with others. Gale, feeling like he wasn’t enough, desired to instead prove himself worthy in her eyes to access this knowledge. Perhaps it was still an effort to feel equal to someone he could not be? I’d love an explanation, ty!

thank you for your message!

yes, i am still doing them. i apologise for the wait, but they do take a lot of time, with the amount of research and time that goes into them (outlining, writing, putting together quotes and screenshots if needed). i hope you are still seeing this! 🖤

as for your confusion as to gale's motives:

i think the fault doesn't lie with you. i think the fault lies with larian.

the problem with re-writes and purging

i don't think your confusion is down to you not understanding, but rather it's larian's fault for their at times sloppy re-writes of early access in general to re-work it for the full version based on the fan feedback they received, as well as fitting the story they originally had planned within the scope of the possible.

they rewrote characters (gale, wyll, shadowheart, astarion, etc), they rewrote entire plotlines around factions and npcs while cutting others (halsin's and ketheric's relationship and how it pertained to the shadowcurse and isobel, cutting candlekeep and the astral plane, etc).

they softened up a lot of characters -- gale included -- and, important to your question, they sought to largely remove any dialogue that hinted at lingering feelings or had too many mentions of mizora from wyll and mystra from gale to placate players who felt upset by those mentions made -- even though it (imo) harmed the overall narrative for these characters -- both of which larian discussed prior to release and after release in their panels from hell and interviews, for example:

What is, in your folks opinion, is the funniest (and non-spoilery) addition or story that’s occurred because of either fan reception/feedback? Baudelaire Welch: We mercilessly purged any references to Gale or Wyll being hung up on their exes.

the fandom in general has talked many times about larian and their tendency to adopt popular fandom narratives and/or compromise their stories and characters over fan feedback so i won't rehash it at this point once again, although you can be sure i do have some less than charitable thoughts about it all.

however, i'm of the opinion however that these "purges" often left scars in the stories and character, and they left old traces that lead to a poorer characterisation for it, they messed up timelines, motivations or caused inconsistencies in characterisation and lore -- especially because in gale and wyll's cases, these "purges" were not substituted with new scenes.

things were only taken and scrapped, and nothing new was added in its stead.

the "purging" and re-write of gale included not only changing aspects of his personality, but removing scenes that were very much integral to his character and to understand not only what happened to him and mystra, but also the direness of his situation, the sheer loss of power and status he suffered -- from a waterdhavian archwizard able to wield silverfire to a, essentially, level 1 adventurer struggling to hold onto a fraction of the control he once held over the weave.

these two "purged" scenes are the loss scene and the deer stew scene, as well as a rewrite of the first romance scene, which then took place during the tiefling party.

i have detailed many of these scenes and cut dialogues in my series re: early access gale's cut content. if you wish to read it, you can do so here.

early access gale vs full release gale: why did he seek out the orb?

the loss scene and the tiefling party scene revealed early access gale's intentions: he sought the orb to proof his love to mystra and to win her back after she abandoned him.

it was the actions of, as he puts it, a very young and very naive man, who was in love for the first time, lost that love and tried to win it back.

i think it's very important to keep in mind here also that originally, gale's entire story was set on different premise than the full release version storyline. i, and others, have speculated that he was physically even more affected by the netherese orb housed inside of his body to the point of where auntie ethel was able to smell the rot on him. i have written another meta on that original storyline here.

but back to the dialogue explaining why gale sought the orb as it was in early access:

i have written down and edited here a part of the tiefling party scene after the protag and gale spent the night together, which is when he would reveal the full extent of what happened mystra, after having hinted at it in the loss and in other smaller dialogues before:

Gale: Once upon a time, not quite that long ago, there lived a wizard in a tower. The wizard was what one might call a prodigy, who from an early age could not only control the Weave, but compose it, like a musician or a poet. Such was his skill that it earned him the attention of the mother of magic herself. The Lady Of Mysteries, Mystra. Protag: What did Mystra’s attention feel like? Gale: Love.  Gale: Perhaps it was not quite love, but you see, the wizard was but a very young man. It was most certainly love to him. Mystra showed him the secrets behind the veils. The gossamer veils first, draped across the Weave. The delicate veils next, draped across her body. ‘Chosen One’ she whispered, as she slipped them off completely. Protag: The veils draped across the Weave? Gale: Indeed. What most wizards perceive is but the ripple of the Weave’s surface. Untold wonders lie beyond. I enjoyed them for a while, as we enjoyed each other. Gale: Alas it was Mystra’s interest that didn’t last. One day all too soon, the whispers stopped. The goddess spurned the mortal. The veils were drawn once more, and the wizard was left behind heartbroken. Protag: Poor wizard Gale: Poor wizard. Silly wizard too, for he wouldn’t take no for an answer. Protag: What happened next? Gale: Like so many of the heartbroken, he did something infinitely foolish. One has to think big if one seeks to win back a goddess. So the wizard thought big. Protag: Define big. Gale: Here goes; once upon a time, very long ago, a mighty lord lived in a tower. A flying tower to be precise. I’ll save his story for another time, but the gist of it is that he sought to usurp the goddess of magic so that he could become a god himself. He almost managed but not quite, and his entire empire – Netheril – came crashing down around him as he turned to stone. The magic unleashed that day was phenomenal, rolling like the prime chaos that outdates creation. A fragment of it was caught and sealed away in a book. No ordinary book, mind you; a tome of gateways that contained within it a bubble of Astral Plane. It was a fragment of primal Weave locked out of time – locked away from Mystra herself. ‘What if’, the silly wizard thought. ‘What if after all this time, I could return this lost part of herself to the Goddess?” Protag: What was the answer to his question? Gale: The answer was to try, and the outcome was to fail. Here. Place your hand over my heart. Let me show you. Narrator: You feel the tadpole quiver as you realise Gale is letting you in. Into the dark. You see through Gale’s eyes, staring down the corridors of a dread memory. A book, bound, then suddenly opened. Inside there are no pages, only a swirling mass of blackest Weave that pounces. It’s teeth, it’s claws, it’s unstoppable as it digs through you and becomes part of you. And gods, is it ever hungry… Protag: Yank your hand away. Gale: Terrifying isn’t it? And that is only the beginning This Netherese taint... this orb, for lack of a better word, is balled up inside my chest. And it needs to be fed. As long as it absorbs Weave it remains stable – to an extent. The moment it becomes unstable, however... Protag: You will die, obviously.. Gale: Rather worse, actually.  It will erupt. I don’t know the exact magnitude of the eruption, but given my studies of Netherese magic, I’d say even a fragment as small as the one I carry… It’d level a city the size of Waterdeep. Gale: It is my truth, finally revealed. It is this folly that led Mystra to abandon me completely. I can only hope you won’t abandon me as well. After all we’ve been through... After the night we spent together. Surely we can brave even this side by side.

the reason for the full release version of gale is curiosity and thirst for knowledge and wanting to feel equal to mystra:

Gale: Such was my skill that it earned me the attention of the mother of magic herself. The Lady of Mysteries. The goddess Mystra. She revealed herself to me and she became my teacher. In time, she became my muse, and later, even my lover. Protag: Are you telling me you made love to a goddess? Gale: Oh yes. We enjoyed each other's company - body, mind and soul. But even so, I desired more. You see, no matter how powerful a wizard we mortals can become, we never scratch more than the surface of the Weave. Mystra keeps us in check. There are boundaries she doesn't let us cross. Yet every time I was with her, I stood on the precipice, gazing into the wonders that lay beyond. I sought to cross her boundaries. Protag: How exactly did you try to cross those boundaries? Gale: I tried to convince her. I pouted, I pleaded, I swore my ambition was only to serve her better. But she only smiled and told me to be contented. As inconceivable as it seems to me now, I shared a bed with a goddess and yet I wasn't satisfied. So I sought to prove myself worthy to her instead. We come now to the crux of my folly. Shall I share the story behind it, or would you rather head straight to its sordid finale? Protag: I'm intrigued. Tell me all. Gale: Very well. Here goes: Once upon a very long time ago, a mighty lord lived in a tower. A flying tower, to be precise. I'll save his history for another time, but the gist of it is that he sought to usurp the goddess of magic so that he could become a god himself. He almost managed, but not quite, and his entire empire - Netheril - came crashing down around him as he turned to stone. The magic unleashed that day was phenomenal, roiling like the prime chaos that outdates creation. Even the Weave itself could not withstand the onslaught. It fractured, then shattered, and all magic was lost to the mortal realms until the day Mystra returned. She restored the Weave, reuniting all its scattered shards. Or so I thought, until in the course of my studies I learned of a book. A Netherese tome in which a piece of the fractured Weave had been sealed beyond her reach. 'What if', I thought, 'What if after all this time, I could return this lost part of herself to the goddess?' Protag: So your grand plan was akin to emptying a cup of water in the sea. Brilliant. Gale: I certainly thought so. Sometimes there is great strength to be found in symbolism. I was certain that this deed of raw power draped in romance would convince Mystra to take me by the hand and welcome me into her hitherto forbidden domains. I was mistaken. I obtained the fabled book and took it into my study. As for what happened next... Here. Place your hand over my heart. Let me show you. Narrator: *You feel the tadpole quiver as you realise Gale is letting you in.* *Into the dark.* *You see through Gale's eyes, staring down the corridors of a dread memory. A book, bound, then suddenly opened.* *Inside there are no pages, only a swirling mass of blackest Weave that pounces.* *Its teeth, its claws, it's unstoppable as it digs through and becomes part of you. And gods, is it ever-hungry...*

in conclusion, early access gale did it out of love for mystra as a young man, as a chosen, and as a romantic trying to win back his lost first love, however naive and grand (and ultimately doomed) the gesture was, which was then cut to appease those who thought gale was "too hung up" on mystra, and changed around, purging some scenes and dialogue while keeping others.

(on a tangent: this also once again shows, imo, how ultimately it's completely futile to try and appease these sort of demands/complaints since this is still very much a big complaint that is levied against gale's character.)

it's now more about power, curiosity, knowledge and a desire to be equal, while the new narrative of the full release version still to some extent kept the relationship with mystra intact.

with the removal of the deer stew scene, of the loss scene, and all those little dialogues, purging and cutting away to re-write gale's devotion to mystra as the embodiment of weave and his first true love, while still leaving in some of that, with lines from those very conversation, is where your (as well as other's) confusion is coming from.

i'm only rambling now so i will stop and say that i hope this was at least somewhat helpful for you!

[shatcey]

Victor theories (after the trailer)

I just scream a bit… bear with me. I'M SO HAPPY I don't have to buy a tamagotchi and kill it. Thank you, Cybird. Okay… This is my last last theory post. The second last post. I do not know how it happened.

@.kurishiri made a translation of the trailer in case you didn't see it yet. In this post, I will use screenshots from this translation.

The thoughts in my head are jumping from one to another. I tried to structure them, though it doesn't seemed to worked out properly. But… I wanted to write it as soon as possible, before something distracted me. Sorry about it.

His age

The first thing I noticed was that Vivi not only has shorter hair, but he looks younger!!!!!

He looks about 15-16 years old… maybe I'm wrong. But… it looks like that to me…

And the words that we see… repeat the words of our beloved Kate.

I'm going to scream! IT WAS HIM!!!! I KNEW IT!!!!

(clear throat)

I'm back to normal.

So, the younger version of Victor that we see in this video was with Kate. Kate is now 25-26, and it happened in her very young years (she barely remembers it)… for example, 20 years ago. This number was on Jude's route… WTF, why not? So…

So... 20 years ago, Vivi was 15-16 years old… So we're back to 35-36 years old. It fits perfectly.

His origin

Another thing that is very hard to miss is his clothes. Larger version from the announcement of episode 0.

At first I thought maybe it was a school uniform. Because of his age… it's possible. But at that time, boys wore the same clothes they do now. A fairly simple shirt, tie, and black suit. Even if we assume that he just took off his jacket, the shirt is too fancy. And a ribbon… not exactly fitting.

Next I thought about Elbie and Ally's shirts… they have a similar style, but not quite. But the ribbon he wears is too simple for nobility. But at the same time… the quality of the shirt says otherwise. Not to mention the stone brooch… So maybe… He comes from a rich family, that become poor. These clothes can be explained that way. But… church schools were only for orphans, no? Or for family members, as we learned.

But I have a feeling that he looks more like a scholar. It looks like he studied theology, maybe he was preparing to become a priest? Haven't I been thinking too much about Faust lately? Maybe.

Is this even a church?

The statue does not look like a modern God… Yes, we have large windows that let in a lot of light (which often symbolizes closeness to God), chandeliers and benches…. but… It feels a little different. Do you see? The statue is too big… and… architecture… is not quite right. It is somewhat reminiscent of Ancient Greece. What is this place?

Fatalism

I firmly believe in fate, so I am extremely happy to see this part. The fact that Kate was back in his life…

I agree that it's probably very strange to meet someone after so many years and in such strange circumstances. If situations continue to overlap one another, despite the fact that the probability that happen is very low… people usually call it fate.

But he's talking again (this time) about fate as a person. Maybe it's just a figure of speech…

That ribbon of his won't let me go… The simple ribbon was mentioned in the bitter ending of Ellis' story in event "Bound to You".

Kate was extremely fascinated by this ribbon. Considering that Kate met Victor with a simple ribbon a long time ago. Perhaps that's why this symbol seems so attractive to her… Forgotten memories, associations…

And the fact that Kate remembers him… there are already two facts about him… mean that he made a strong impression. What happened back then?

Actually in the Dark IF story (translated by @.reccyls)... she sort of remembered him because of his hair...

Yes, he is a magnificent man and makes a strong impression. Maybe it's just an impression. But I'd like to think it was more than that.

I talked about this in my "last post with the theories". Yeah, right… the last.

So… Maybe they were just meant to be together. And that's why (maybe) Vivi let her go many years ago… to keep her safe. And perhaps that's why he feels sad when he says that "fate is playing her cards".. He doesn't want to involve Kate in his life… but Fate has a different opinion.

On the other hand… all the guys "endings" (I'm not talking about… no, it's an untranslatable joke) usually called grim fate. In the sense of the inevitability of missing it, changing it. This is what will happen no matter what. (But we still won't give up!!!) Maybe that's what Victor was talking about. And, perhaps, this has something to do with his grim fate. His grim fate drew Kate into his life. His grim fate made it happen. His grim fate is... so persistent. Peculiar…

His loyalty

This was one of the versions of what his curse might be. I've talked about it… here. But it is very questionable. Victor constantly calls himself the Grim Reaper, the palace Reaper (which kind of resembles Sariel.. who calls himself the devil). So maybe it's just one of the nicknames and has nothing to do with his real curse.

And the last line… totally different from what we've heard before. On every route, they are told us that Crown "destroys evil with evil". So… they don't deny that they are evil, but they do it with a good purpose. But… here Victor said that he was devoted to evil… Maybe the guys don't know who they really work for? Maybe the Queen, as I assumed earlier, is not human at all? Interesting…

Or maybe… He's just being dramatic. He talked about himself as something dark and bad. Maybe it's the curse that makes him think of himself that way…

And a bit more...

It's just a guess. You can't look him in the eye when he gives an order to his victim, otherwise you'll die as well. It's almost the same as a William's curse. He also must look the victim in the eye. It looks a bit like a snake. Has the thought of Sari stuck in my head???? Maybe… no… he's not Hydra.

So… he sold his freedom to get his curse? This… impossible, the curse doesn't work that way. Maybe… he exchanged? What? And again… who is the Queen? Victor belongs to Victoria. Does he have sort of contract with her? Is she the Death itself??? It would be too good to be true...

The design of the spikelet on the dividers I took from Designed by Freepik

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🔝 𝕊𝕋𝔸ℝ𝕋 ℙ𝔸𝔾𝔼 🔝

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[theoversky]

Why Kittyuri should be endgame?

So let’s see Kitty’s options until now:

1.Dae Heon Kim: a reason

Dae was literally 1/2 main reasons why Kitty applied to KISS. They spend majority of S1 figuring out how to be together and when they’re finally dating Kitty found out she’s actually in love with Yuri.

It’s sad or funny the fact Dae was too perfect for Kitty and maybe for that, no one ships Dae/Kitty.

2.Min Ho: a season

S1 was for Dae/Kitty, S2 will be for Min Ho/Kitty.

I actually shipped 50% Kitty with Min Ho and 50% Kitty with Yuri, but after so many bifobic fanbase I really wish Kittyuri is endgame at the end of the series.

Min Ho fanbase is terrible, they use weak excuses to not validate that fact Kitty is in love with Yuri, even her sexuality. That’s so real that the one and only Jenny Han had to reply a comment on instagram validating Kitty’s bisexuality and her love for Yuri. Also Jenny had to close some comments on instagram because of Min Ho’s fanbase spamming every single “XO Kitty” photo asking for their couple.

Arguments like

A)“but Juliana and Yuri fought so hard to be together” when Juliana did absolutely NOTHING to be with Yuri, but KITTY was the one to give Yuri her girlfriend back

B) “Kittyuri happened because of a dream” bitch didn’t Min Ho/Kitty started the same way?

C) “You guys can’t ship Kittyuri because you don’t support when bisexual people date opposite gender”

D) “Kittyuri isn’t healthy because you don’t want Yuri to be with her black girlfriend, that’s racism”

E) “Kittyuri doesn’t have chemistry and Gia Kim is too old to kiss Anna”

Are some examples of this fandom behaviour and that’s why I am now 100% team Kittyuri. I don’t think Min Ho is the worst but I also don’t think he is the best. And I don’t even mentioned he’s Dae’s best friend but people send hate to Kitty and Yuri as couple or separated in order to prop Min Ho excusing ALL his toxic behaviours.

3.Yuri Han: Lifetime

Yuri Han is the series main villain in S1, she’s responsible for Kitty’s unhapiness and the fact that her and Dae can’t be together. Kittyuri are the real enemies to lovers from this tv show. Min Ho was an asshole to Kitty for nothing, Yuri had a reason the whole time.

Plus we can’t forget Kittyuri is the one and only main LGBT ship from Jenny Han’s universe. It was a real plot twist in a very straight universe and as a bisexual girl I really felt the representativeness’ of Kitty falling in love with a girl without even having a relationship with her. Even as friends.

For this season, I expect Yuri in deny to believe Kitty really likes her until find out Kitty is bi and hanging out with other girls. A very jealous Juliana chasing Yuri’s relationship with Kitty and every step about Yuri’s reaction founding out Kitty is bi. The trailer (and S1) was pretty clear that Juliana is jealous of Kitty, even when Kitty was the person to reconnect them again.

Before everything, analyzing the trailer it seems Kitty will write letters to the person she loves (it’s a Covey’s thing apparently) and Yuri’s friends will find them and tell everybody about this. I don’t think she addresses Yuri’s name since Yuri is rolling eyes when Jealous Juliana passes throught the door and Kitty acts like she had been exposed. I don’t think Yuri would react like that because she doesn’t figure Kitty could like her, but Juliana suspects for the whole S1.

Also I guess Peter Kavinsky will be Kitty’s bisexuality’s cheerleader and be the person to push Kitty to explore her sexuality with both genders. Peter and Min Ho promotional is pretty like a straightbait to me, since the fandom is majority Team Min Ho and I can bet Jenny Han will fight for Kittyuri. I’m afraid for Netflix wanting fanservice for Team Min Ho, but I guess Kitty will try to like Min Ho back in S2 and they can work until Yuri finds out Kitty likes her at some point and break up with Juliana.

So S3 will be with about Min Ho/Kitty break up and Kittyuri finally connecting. I HOPE at least.

[andy-wm]

i'm wondering how your thesis of "idols will come out when they want" fits into your insane shadow analysis attempting to prove jimin and jungkook fucked in the middle of their travel show (amongst other things)? like do you get joy out or trying to drag someone out of a closet they might not be in? or is it something else? just curious! 😀

Hey wdcmaxy

Since you have the guts to use your name I'll respond :)

So, you read my thesis?

*Sips whisky*

Cool. And you read my insane shadow analysis too?

Hmmm... do you come here often?

Let me answer your question then.

I think we both know the shadows analysis isn't really insane - it's based on very basic earth science. Shadows grow longer as the day progresses because of the rotation of the earth on its axis. You sound reasonably literate so i assume you know this already.

I guess your description of my shadow analysis ( I think I'll name my next racehorse 'Shadow Analysis') as insane is an attempt to discredit the idea that a fair bit of time passed while Tae was out of the house? But that was kinda silly on your part. Even children know that shadows change as the day passes.

Nothing insane about it.

He was gone for hours, no debate.

Now let's move on to the fucking part, and when and how idols choose to come out.

This is actually worth discussing.

As flattered as i am that you think my tiny insignificant blog could be a game changer for anyone, let's be real.

How many people, besides yourself, do you think read my blog?

Serious question.

I'm estimating maybe 100. Double that on a good day. Maybe 300 if i write something REALLY profound which doesn't happen often.

I am way less excited about my impact on the world than you are, because I'm a realist.

BUT if by some strange twist of fate my blog came to the attention of someone whose opinion mattered (I'm not counting you, don't worry) do you think they would take it seriously? Do you REALLY imagine a random tumblr post about shadows could make someone believe that an idol was gay if they didn't already believe it?

Here's a great example of how that wouldn't happen:

You, dear reader.

You're my example.

You came here to tell me I'm speaking shit and that I should pull my head in, correct? My insane shadow analysis hasn't changed your beliefs at all. You're here, throwing a tantrum on my page, because you don't agree with what I'm saying, not because you suddenly believe it.

Or ...

Perhaps you suspect it's true and that scares you. Maybe you can't be absolutely sure I'm wrong and that's why you need to yell at me? Could that be it? Time for a bit of self reflection?

Either way, it's not going to make an iota of difference in the grand scheme of things.

We are all just dust motes floating through time and space, my friend. You dont need to worry so much. The universe is unfolding exactly as intended.

However... There are a couple of things we should agree on:

The fact is that the shadows grew long and therefore, time passed. And Tae was out for several hours. Maybe he went out for a bit of afternoon delight himself? Maybe Jimin and Jungkook played Pokemon Go all afternoon, or prayed, or practiced their English, or braided each other's hair.

Regardless of whether they did or didn't fuck, or how many times, or on what surfaces, the time still passed.

And whether I write my blog or not, people will believe what they believe. And they will be gay or they won't be gay.

And even though I never mentioned anything about them fucking in that post, whether you like it or not Jimin and Jungkook might be fucking right now, as you read this.

One last thing...

Please bear in mind, through all of this, that fucking is not the be all and end all of life. Sure its a lot of fun if you do it right but the notion that it's more meaningful than sharing your innermost thoughts and feelings, or giving someone your time and energy, is bullshit.

You can have a roots-deep love for someone and never even think of fucking them. Or you can meet someone in a public toilet and have at it, and leave without even knowing their name.

Sex does not equal love. Fucking is not that big of a big deal.

Unless...

Unless you're fucking someone the patriarchy doesn't want you to fuck. Then its a major issue.

Hear me out.

The need to control who we fuck is based a patriarchal need to control material wealth.

To control material wealth, the patriarchy needs to control reproduction (so they can be sure their wealth stays with their bloodline, because wealth is built over many generations) and to do THAT they need to control womens' bodies.... and to do that, of course they need to control who women fuck. And who men fuck too!

Do you know what the ACTUAL issue is with men who like dick? They don't automatically buy into the patriarchal way of life. (where's the solidarity, lads?)

Why don't they?

Because lifelong monogamy and marriage and nuclear families don't matter as much when you're not equating love with sex, and sex with reproduction. When your goal isn't to accumulate wealth and pass it down to your children.

Same thing applies to women who love women. They aren't focused on being demure and pleasing the men in power. They aren't focused on making themselves wife material. They will challenge the status quo and maybe even (shock! horror!) decide not to have children. How the heck do you make sure your money and power stays in the family, how do you build an empire, when the women are perfectly happy having sex with each other and don't want to love, honour and obey??

And whose fault is all this?

Its got to be the damned queers, right? They're making people think there might be other ways to share your life with those you care about! That's why its important to squash down gayness whenever you can, right, wdcmaxy?

Look at them destroying the fabric of society!

If Jimin and Jungkook ARE fucking every chance they get, good for them. I hope they're balls deep and breathless, hitting all those sweet spots for each other having a really good time.

And if they're not fucking, it actually doesn't matter to me because the way they support each other and share their hearts is beautiful. (I do think they are fucking though)

Truthfully, whatever they're doing, as long as they're happy I'm happy.

Can you say the same, wdcmaxy?

Peace.

[dailyrothko]

I'm curious about something you mentioned in the response to an earlier ask. What did you mean when you said that many articles about Rothko use pictures he didn't paint?? Are there other artists painting in his style that people mistake for him??

(Also, I never really understood Rothkos until I learned to appreciate them through your blog!! Thank you for opening up a whole new world to me!! It's really great that you share your love for them with others!!)

Well it's just an Internet thing. The New York Times probably isn't going to have a fake Rothko painting and certainly not a museum although they have been known to have them upside down occasionally. But writers that write about a variety of art things and popular blogs and substacks and so forth often are just googling for images to use and they find images that actually aren't his real paintings they just look like the same style and they don't know any better.

A lot of this is the Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest triangle where dreams go to die. By the time somebody takes it from some website and puts it on Facebook it never has any attribution and the way the search engines work, someone will tag something Rothko that reminds them of Rothko or maybe they painted it themselves as a tribute and then it gets put up in one of those places as the real thing. It's usually in the same style and people do it on Tumblr all the time.

It's really nobody's fault, it used to happen to me sometimes when I started, I was too trusting about the information that people attached to things, just figuring that I was no expert so who was I to say. Sometimes it is puzzling to me because through my eyes some paintings just don't look at all like his paintings and I am surprised they are mistaken for them. There's a Barnett Newman that was regularly credited to Rothko, and I'm not sure why, it doesn't look anything like a Rothko. And there are some famous paintings even or paintings by pretty well-known artists which might be a tribute and get lost in the shuffle.

I'm sure I'm annoying when I'm always trying to correct people, and people never read the comments on their posts anyway it seems (either that or they're ignoring me because I'm a nuisance).

 The thing about all this is that it's very Internet type of behavior like the way that people will Photoshop a painting sometimes. It's a trend I don't like but I would offer as an example that the most popular picture of Rothko on the Internet has been colorized. To me that's insane because he standing in front of the painting which is also colorized asked.

One time on Instagram, when telling somebody that put it up, they told me that they had seen the painting and it was pretty close. It was not pretty close, unless you consider red and orange to be the same color.

Add to this the fact that the most popular picture of Rothkos studio is the set of a play complete with a fake painting at the stage hands probably painted to look like it was in progress and it's constantly passed off as a picture of his working studio.

On Instagram people will tag me in videos they make about Rothko which are very well intentioned like little historical tidbits of some famous part of his life because it's an art account that tries to feature different artists but my heart always sinks when they use one of those pictures because I don't want to be a dick about it but the reason it's this way is no one ever corrects them. There's probably no real harm in it but I'm neurotic.

Thanks for writing and for your nice words

[mar64ds]

Canonically aroace character highlight: Thomas Saggs from Toontown Corporate Clash

When it’s time to name a list of aromantic characters, I feel like most people always mention the same ones and miss out on many aro characters that exist out there. Hell, I feel like most people ignore even some of the best ones, like Sakuko and Takahashi from Koisenu Futari or Tomoko from Konya Sukiyaki Dayo, in order to favor characters that are more “mainstream”.

There are plenty of aro characters that I’d like to discover as well. Today, I’d like to highlight a less known canonically aro character that is ACTUALLY written to be aro IN the story. They are aroace, but I will focus more on their aromanticism here:

Toontown is a MMORPG, I think it needs no introductions. I am a Corporate Clash player specifically, I was very interested by all the different characters this version of the game offered. But I’m not here to talk about the lore now, I’m just here to talk about one particular character: Thomas Saggs, the C.O.O.

All the lore context you need to know is that toons fight corporative machines called “cogs” or “suits”, and the boss of these cogs is called The Chairman, or Robert.

Thomas (he/they) is a quiet and introverted cog, the only cog that you do not fight in the game at all. When you are able to meet up with the character, all you do is stand there for 20 minutes while you listen to them talk about work, family or anecdotes about coworkers. Thomas doesn’t talk a lot in your first meetings, but opens up more each year (it’s an event that happens every April 1st, they’re a recurring character). Thomas is the C.O.O. of the company, due to the fact that he is The Chairman’s brother, they kind of started the company together. Thomas was originally going to inherit their parents’ company, but that was not the kind of life he wanted to live, so he decided to follow his brother instead (who cut off his parents due to mistreatment).

Thomas doesn’t like being the center of attention, they don’t really care much about businesses, Thomas just wants a calm life, with a nice calm job, next to his brother, who they really really care about. They also like taking care of their plants, he is very attached to them.

That's great but where is the aro part? Well, as Thomas starts opening up to the player, from time to time he says some interesting things...

Thomas states from time to time that they have never been in a romantic relationship, they do not wish to be in one and is really confused with how everyone acts when it comes to romance. For example, he doesn't get why people care about romance gossip, because he doesn't judge people on who they like. But again, he states that they don't really know much about romance anyway.

Thomas talks about this topic so many times that it was definitely not meant to be a one time comment. No, the great thing about Thomas is that their aromanticism is actually and genuinely a HUGE part of their character. Being aspec is not just a fun fact you can read about in the wiki or in a random tweet, Thomas IS intended to be written as aspec and their aroace identity impacts their WHOLE life. Even when they're not talking about being aroace, being aroace is STILL something that is a part of him.

Thomas was only truly confirmed to be aroace a few months ago, but the character has ALWAYS been aroace. You know what's more important than just saying a character is aspec? Actually WRITE them as aspec! Even before being 100% confirmed, Thomas was already a way better aroace character than many others who were just 'confirmed' outside of the story

Going back to the game, a big conflict in Thomas's life is his sister in law, Crystaline. Thomas is very kind and finds the positive side in everyone... except Crystaline. And it's not because he hates her for no reason, she's stated again and again to be a pretty selfish terrible person that will probably become a villain later on in the game. But she is married to his brother, and ever since they have been married, his brother spends way less time with them, he talks to them less, etc and this is VERY difficult for Thomas

The topic of being alone vs being isolated is explored so wonderfully with this character. Thomas really DOES like being alone, they find it peaceful and nice. Thomas usually spends their days alone with their plants. They adore talking to his plants and taking care of them, that's honestly all he really needs in his life. It's so awesome to see a non-partering aro character that is genuinely happy being alone, and I even headcanon them as aplatonic too, given the fact that even if he spends time with other cogs from time to time, they dont really have any deep bonds with anyone aside from his family

Which, speaking of, the topic of being isolated BECAUSE of amatonormativity is also so well written. Yes, Thomas likes being alone, but they do NOT like being abandoned by the world, ESPECIALLY by his brother and it's BECAUSE they are aromantic and everyone is 'supposed' to value their romantic relationships more. This really hurts them!

Thomas is all around a very endearing character, even if he works for the bad guys they are constantly portrayed as kind and nice, again literally the only cog that NEVER fights you. Thomas is beloved by the players and constantly portrayed as sympathetic in the story. Their aromanticism and asexuality is never demonized, and if you're worrying about 'ok but they are a robot', ALL the other robots in this game ARE allo (well hopefully not all of them) and they live in an amatonormative society. They are NOT aspec because they are a robot, this trope does NOT apply in this world. PLUS, the game let's you, the player, wear aro and ace outfits, like bows and capes with the aro or ace flags. The game CLEARLY cares about portraying a good aspec character and story cause it CARES about aspec people

Thomas is a character that is VERY very important to me and I am really attached to them. The day he was confirmed to be 100% canonically aroace was the best day of 2024 for me, not even kidding. I even made an unscripted video about this just cause of how happy I was

And I was really hoping that after these news more people would find out about the character! You don't need to care about toontown or play 1000 hours of the game to simply know and appreciate this character, I just wanted people to know and talk about them! But aside from toontown fans I have seen NO ONE care about this. It has been SILENT everywhere else.

The more mainstream characters get celebrated all the time, we need to also celebrate the less mainstream ones, that's what I wanted to do today!

Anyway, if you have read all of this, thanks! And I'm sorry, I'm just normal about this character

[iridescentmirrorsgenshin]

Kaveh is like this close to committing a sin with Mehrak, like he's playing a really dangerous game. It's just a matter of time Mehrak gets even more sentient when it's already this far. I know Kaveh keeps it in check, but man... I hope they'll talk about this one day. Either that or Kaveh will always brush it off, as if he didn't get some ancient core to build it??? Also, I always love your thoughts, thanks for loving these two so much!

hiya! thank you for your ask! i'm so glad you enjoy my posts :") <3 Mehrak’s existence is so ??? funny to me. we have tighnari’s story quest detailing the akademiya’s ban on research into mechanical lifeforms, directly alongside kaveh building his own mechanical lifeform and parading it around, sending it on solo coffee retrieving missions whilst everyone in sumeru looks on smiling <3

Mehrak’s legality hasn’t been mentioned at all in-game as of now, and as it’s been used consistently, both in kaveh’s hangout, a parade of providence, and now nahida’s birthday event, with not one mention of legality or potential trespasses, makes it seem that that’s how things will stay - especially since Cyno has met/is aware of mehrak’s existence during the battle scene during a parade of providence (then again, cyno did meet the wanderer during this event, and yet in nahida’s birthday event it seems he’s only HEARD of the wanderer through sethos??) but even then, since Cyno trusts Tighnari with karkata’s continued existence, it’s likely not a stretch to say that to Cyno, Kaveh can be trusted with Mehrak’s existence (it’s all very iffy)

Mehrak’s existence, overall, has had little focus other than its usage in battle, its official introduction in a parade of providence, where kaveh stipulates it has low intelligence, and was built to assist him, as well as being incapable of talking back and giving him ‘attitude’ (implicitly comparing mehrak to alhaitham), and in kaveh’s hangout when he works on designing a building. It’s only in recent events, such as cyno’s second story quest, and now in nahida’s birthday event, that mehrak has gotten more mentions, and now a spotlight, which is all in relation to coffee, tying back to alhaitham and kaveh’s improved relationship (the coffee analysis will be in the updated essay finally!!). as of right now, overall, mehrak doesn’t appear to be a major focus

It might be strange for the game to mention now that mehrak has been an illegal creation all this time, unless it’s a significant plot point that has to be resolved, but if mehrak is further explored, like in the temple of silence for example (hoyoverse I am once again asking), then perhaps this collective ignoring of a crime occurring will be explained away, if mentioned at all? It’s interesting that tighnari says it might be possible that this ban is reversed in the future, but as for whether that will actually happen, and the implications of this, aren’t clear

Mehrak’s accepted existence in general poses so many questions. I’m interested in the specifics of the ban, like does it depend on the autonomy of the machine in question? Abattouy aimed to make Karkata essentially human, capable of individual thought, processing, emotion, and conversation, which definitively broaches on the intersection of mechanical and biological life which caused the Akademiya to ban this type of research in the first place. So if a machine is able to act on its own, irrespective of human interference, then this is what the akademiya would want to prevent

In mehrak’s case, it’s unclear as to what its limits are, but from what has been shown so far, it seems that mehrak can only act on kaveh’s commands and when held in battle – it’s uncertain rn whether mehrak can act independently of this, but as kaveh invented it to only assist in certain matters, it’s doubtful. But then again, we don’t have a great scope of whether it can experience emotions, as it has shown signs of being distressed in a parade of providence when kaveh states that it can’t talk back, and when being scolded by kaveh in nahida’s birthday event

if mehrak has limited intelligence, it's interesting to compare mehrak with karkata. abattouy was attempting to make karkata understand human language, and be able to respond in order to have conversation, which was proved impossible, whereas although mehrak only speaks in beeps, kaveh is shown to have a thorough understanding of what it’s saying? Mehrak can be programmed to recognise people’s voices, but seemingly also language, as mehrak can obey spoken command, which is what abattouy tried to accomplish but was unable to with modern technology.

Mehrak, on the other hand, understands kaveh’s basic requests – which is made even funnier in kaveh’s old sketchbook, where he says that more than anything he really wants mehrak to understand what he’s saying. he got his wish but at what cost???

Mehrak being made from ancient technology, belonging to that of king deshret’s civilisation, offers many interesting paths that could be explored in future events, as besides the primal constructs roaming around, the puzzles in the desert, and now the temple of silence, no technology really exists from that time. Someone commented that mehrak’s presence in nahida’s birthday event, in conjunction with the event being based around ancient technology with the wedjat eye, could be highlighting mehrak’s irregularity in modern day sumeru – potentially foreshadowing for a future event that could further expand upon mehrak? If this is the case, I am all for it, there are so many questions concerning kaveh’s little light <3