#i just think it could have super interesting narrative implications

[aeoris4lovers]

can i say something about this battle that might make some people hate me

[bababerries]

Can’t sleep bc I’m anxiously anticipating mizu5

I really really want them to explicitly commit to Mizuki’s transness. I’m pretty confident Mizuki being a transgirl is colopales intended purpose but I’m not super confident in colopale being explicit about it I worry they’ll leave it vague to keep both sides happy and that would be very disappointing and such a cowardice move. I’m just exhausted of most of the conversation around Mizuki being around if they’re actually trans.

If colopale wanted to make a GNC/crossdressing character that’s fine but if Mizuki was supposed to be that that would be incredbily malicious, deceitful and transphobic with the way they went about setting Mizuki up. (The idea of having to hide your hobby in GNC fashion by living as the opposite gender is really ridiculous way of going about it and has really bad implications) It sucks that Mizuki is such a great transfem character that people spend more time arguing about it if she’s transfem then discussing how the narrative goes about her trans femininity because what they do with her is very interesting.

And even fans who do respect her transgirl identity I feel like are a bit close minded in some regards. I think it’s gotten better over time. And while I’m not opposed to they/them nonbinary fem presenting Mizuki as an interpretation I really don’t like how people say that Mizuki IS without a doubt nonbinary (they could be, but we don’t technically know the term they use for them self specifically) and got pretty hostile at transgirl and she/her being used for Mizuki. And the arguments for this bother me

“They use they/them for them in the text!” The text of the English translation for sekai and I think people forget that. It’s just a bit Eurocentric and assumes that Japanese pronouns work that same as English ones when they dont. The translation just tried to translate boku as literally as possible. (The story also would just not work if people Mizuki was afraid to come out to was already using they/them pronouns for them) and it neglects a really interesting transfem read for Mizuki where she as a transgirl tries to third gender herself because she still doesn’t fully accept herself for who she is and it makes the use of more feminine pronouns in later stories as she gains confidence in herself really loving to me.

And I want to talk more about Mizuki in this lens…. I find her really powerful and she’s affected me and some of my friends a lot through her exploitation of transness. I think she’s really great rep that deserves to be discussed more in deph. I’m sick of people disrespecting her identity. I honestly do feel a bit pessimistic regarding colopale being explicit and debunking transmasc/gnc male “”reads”” of Mizuki but I really hope I’m proven wrong. I don’t want to hold their hand on this because trans girls really deserve this. They deserve respect. She deserves respect.

[the-storyteller78]

Ok, midterms are officially done and I’m finally getting my Vengeance Saga thoughts together. HERE WE GO.

I will be very frank. This was not my favorite saga. I did really like portions of it, and I was still left gobsmacked and mouth agape by the end of it, but overall, it was not one of the stronger sagas. Of course, I have nothing but respect for Jorge and all the amazing voices who contributed to this musical. Epic is still very dear to me, whatever qualms I may have. And I have the privilege of yapping on Tumblr without having done any of the work in figuring out all the logistics of creating a musical, so just remember: These are my opinions. Just me blabbering cus I like talking about Epic.

(And I know this would be very unconventional, but when the stage production of Epic comes out, I almost want there to be an intermission sort of thing after the Wisdom Saga or something. I don’t know how that would work out, but I feel like it would provide an indication of how much time has passed for Odysseus on the island.)

“Not Sorry For Loving You.” I felt nothing. I understand that Calypso has suffered because of her punishment of isolation, and I sympathize with what she had to go through. But I do not like her at all. I loathe her. Her tragic backstory does not give her permission to keep a man prisoner for seven years and ignore his desperate pleas to be allowed to leave. It does not give her leave to constantly pursue him when he has unequivocally told her that he is married and very much NOT. INTERESTED. And that’s barely even touching on the implications of sexual harassment. I was not happy with the choice to make Odysseus say that he loves her at all, even if it’s not romantic, but I was honestly very satisfied by the absolute stone-cold expression he had in Gigi’s animatic. That is not the face of a man who cares one bit about someone who kept him captive.

Anyhow. Moving on (because I’ll never stop talking about it if I don’t).

I really feel that “Dangerous” and “Charybdis” could’ve been combined in some way. Look, I love Troy Doherty’s voice. Every verse he sings in Epic is such a jam. But I have to say that “Dangerous” is probably one of the less narratively important songs in the entire musical. We know the journey is dangerous; it’s BEEN dangerous the whole time. No reason that would change now, especially with Poseidon still after him. And I know some people think “Charybdis” could be taken out, but I kind of like that the idea of him being dropped into this super scary situation right after leaving Ogygia but rallying himself and declaring that he’s still fighting. He’s not giving up. The way I see it, Odysseus’ lyrics in “Charybdis” are a meaningful specifically because he is returning to himself, he’s not willing to just die anymore like he was seriously considering on Ogygia. He has hope. I think it would be interesting to have “Charybdis” come right after “Not Sorry For Loving You,” have Hermes appear towards the end of the song, then have Odysseus sing his adorable little Penelope I’m coming home my love don’t worry moment. I don’t know how that would work out musically, but I’m sure someone could figure it out.

AND THEN POSEIDON POPS OUT OF THE OCEAN. “Get in the Water” was pretty intense; I don’t really have much to say about it. The voices of his mom, Eurylochus, and Polites echoing around him as he teeters on the brink of death had me teary-eyed. I’ll be real though, I’m not sure why the wind bag was relevant. It was such a lose-lose situation. If he doesn’t open the bag, he gets drowned by Poseidon. If he does open the bag to survive and fight Poseidon, he can’t go home. Either way, he loses. Was it like that on purpose because Zeus was trying to be a jerk even after flash-frying his daughter??

(Also, I don’t know what the physics or whatever of a super powerful storm bag jet pack is, but I somehow doubt it would be a viable option)

“600 Strike.” I wanted to like this song. And I will freely admit, the ending had me breathless and absolutely on the edge of my seat. However, I was definitely struggling not to cringe when he yelled 600 strike. I don’t know why. I was trying so hard to be cool about it, but I just could not. And I don’t get how he beat Poseidon with a regular old sword in the middle of an ocean. AN OCEAN. WHICH POSEIDON CONTROLS. We saw how helpless Odysseus and his crew were against Poseidon in “Ruthlessness,” and now he just goes down after a few blows from Odysseus who, by the way, does not have any divine enhancements or support at the moment. The wind bag doesn’t give him super strength. His sword isn’t magically able to cut a god. How is he suddenly able to beat him? The power of friendship?? At least the trident doing damage makes sense because it’s Poseidon’s own weapon. Which brings me to my final point. Like I said earlier, the end of “600 Strike” was really impactful. However, because I don’t think it makes sense for Poseidon to have been in that position to begin with, I can’t say that it sat entirely well with me from a narrative standpoint. I’m not sure what I would’ve liked to see, but maybe I’ll make a separate post about it once I mull it over some more.

OK THAT’S A WRAP. Thanks to everyone who managed to get to the end of this rant. Went waaaay longer than I expected, but what can I say. I’m just a girl.

[one-squash-one-end]

>1.6k words on bi Gansey

Hi! This belongs to my big Raven Cycle analysis, click here for the masterpost.

Today we are diving into all the reasons why I think Gansey is a bi king (and then some more). Enjoy!

(I think there might be mild spoilers up to trk, nothing too bad though, more character interactions than plot)

b) Gansey

Alright hear me out. This man. There is nothing this rich boy can do to beat the fruit allegations. He is a bi king, through and through. Everyone but him knows, including you, because what I have to say is the absolute truth and I am great at convincing. I once saw a tumblr post that said “Gansey has to physically restrain himself from kissing all his friends” and there has never been anything more true.

And it’s important to note that this is really not only reader interpretation. Or, at least, reader interpretation includes other character’s interpretations, which are sometimes incredibly straight(lol)forward.

After doing Adam a big favor, Gansey’s sister Helen (who is aro-ace btw, because I said so) immediately assumes he is sleeping with him, which is a conclusion she jumped to way too quickly if Gansey has never previously shown any interest in Adam or other boys. Like, she seems to know him quite well, and for her to just think he’s in a relationship with Adam says a lot about the homoeroticism prevalent in Gansey’s friendships with both Adam and also Ronan.

Because then we have Kavinsky, another canonically queer character, who thus might arguably have some sort of gaydar, assuming Ronan and Gansey are in a romantic (but most of all, sexual) relationship. Admittedly, this has largely to do with Kavinsky assuming things about Ronan and his sexuality, as is explicitly mentioned in the book. However, you can very easily speculate about someone’s sexuality without knowing their (previous) partners, if there have been any at all, so to correctly believe Ronan is gay does not have to randomly entail relationship speculations. So somewhere, even from not interacting with them so much, Kavinsky must have gotten that idea. That somewhere is the deep affection the two of them share, which is absolutely palpable for everyone around. Yes, I know their relationship is described as brotherly (please note I do not condone incest!), but also somewhere within “they’re bros” lies the implication they are gay. Two bros chilling in a hot tub. They’re having a bromance. Let bros kiss.

Another person who seems to believe in a Gansey romance above bromance is Henry, who at that point of book three had only interacted with him at school very superficially. We can assume the way Gansey behaves with Adam and Ronan at school is very much homoerotic, or elsewise Henry would have no reason to be surprised about seeing Gansey with Blue (“a chick”). He can’t be surprised about Gansey pulling… someone, considering he is apparently super good-looking, he just never had reason to assume Gansey was anything but achillean.

Now this was mostly people who don’t know Gansey that well, or at least people not part of the inner circle, so it can’t mean that much, right? Surely there would not be anyone who truly, deeply knows Gansey, who would assume he is queer. Right? Wrong. I have since forgotten the context of that quote, but Adam, someone who is very close to both of them, thinks that Ronan and Gansey could date. Make of that what you will, but I will it to be homoerotic subtext. (Or text, as what Adam says is what he says, no room for interpretation there.)

Lastly, Adam’s father called him the f-slur. Ok, I will admit that it’s not completely confirmed to be that, but what else would a censored word with f stand for? Again, it’s hard to tell, because my two options would be the slur and just straight-up “fucker”, but both “f*g” and “fuck” are used directly in the following books. The f-slur was used directly in Ronan’s narrative though, in that of a character who talks very obscenely in general, so I have no trouble believing Gansey just wouldn’t have wanted to repeat that word, especially if it’s just a memory.

The line between romantic and platonic interactions is thin enough in this series as it is, but Gansey seems to blur it especially. I am going to touch on that at a later point, but platonic affection is given a very important role, so much that in some parts it carries as much significance as romantic actions do (as it should- relationship anarchy rules), if not more. With Gansey that seems to be especially strong, a lot of the things he does with his friends seeming romantic.

First of all, he is co-parenting with Ronan. Yes, it is a bird, but Ronan loves her like a human daughter so the point stands. The two of them even squabble about it like an old married couple, Gansey’s legendary “this is exactly why I didn’t want to have a baby with you” speaks for itself.

Then there is the insomnia quality time, as I like to call it. We, as the readers, are probably supposed to focus on the late night phone calls and drives with Blue, the fact that “she makes [him] quiet”, and that he can sleep after talking to her. But what I find equally important is the time he spends with Ronan at Monmouth during those sleepless nights, them getting orange juice at three a.m. While it might not be something super comforting that makes them both fall asleep, this routine they seem to have fallen into, just spending time while not expecting anything from the other, is something that means a lot to me; they are very much giving platonic soulmates, but also what if they kissed?

Of course I cannot not mention “While I’m gone, dream me the world. Something new for every night.” That boy is being unnecessarily dramatic about going away for literally one weekend. And why? Because “they had been a two-headed creature for so long, Ronan-and-Gansey. He couldn’t say it, though. There were a thousand reasons why he couldn’t say it.” What are those reasons though? Is it because he is actually in love with Ronan but admitting to that would make the friendship super fucking awkward so he whips out a dramatic, half-romantic metaphor quote? Yeah, that makes total sense.

Staying on my Ronsey bullshit, let’s not forget the glorious, deleted pool table scene. In case you are not familiar with it, or have forgotten the way it sounds (probably the reason it was deleted), I’ll just let two quotes speak for themselves. “There was something suggestive about how [Ronan] wore the suit” Oh yes, of course there was. Sometimes you wear clothing with a certain intention, and in Ronan’s case, that intention is to be bent over the pool table by Gansey. This becomes even clearer here: “Gansey was well aware that Ronan rather fancied the way he looked while he played pool, and the way he reached across the felt now, intentional and elegant and coiled, indicated that he was fancying himself at this very moment.” Once again, everything is super intentional, and Gansey wants to fuck him so badly. Not even kidding at this point, the way Maggie wrote this scene really makes it look like Gansey finds Ronan super hot; even as an aromantic asexual person I have to say, this is a lot more than “bro appreciating his best friend’s glow-up in a completely heterosexual way”. This iconic scene is gay brainrot, which is exactly why we did not get to experience this masterpiece within an actual, published book. The Ronsey shippers would have gone too wild.

[Speaking of which, I’d like to clarify that I do not ship Ronsey in the way some other people do, I do prefer them with their canon love interests, however I clearly see the potential of them having had some kind of mutual attraction in the past, I just think it makes the dynamic a lot more fun and interesting, sort of like how Jesper had a crush on Kaz in Six of Crows.]

Gansey has received at least one (1) dick pic of Ronan. The circumstances do not say anything about either Gansey or Ronan, but I think it’s funny, it builds character, so I chose to include it in this.

Perhaps the strongest evidence for him running with the lgbtq+ is the fact that he goes to an all-boys school. Come on, what is he supposed to do, surrounded by all those guys rich enough to afford good haircuts and a private trainer? Should he just not have gay thoughts? Impossible.

Now all this was mostly evidence for Gansey swinging that way, somehow, but of course he’s one of those doors that open both ways. Yes, he has a girlfriend, but there is even more proof for him being specifically m-spec, just you wait. To begin with, apart from his friends Gansey has two true loves. Henrietta (the town with a female name, who his sister refers to as his girlfriend- the same sister who assumes Gansey is sleeping with Adam; Helen is a bi Gansey truther) and Glendower, the dead, male king. Obviously, this is totally serious business. Additionally, I have talked through to a very full extent how he is in love with Ronan, but of course he is also in love with Henry, I do not have to elaborate on this. He is also very much jealous when Blue and Adam are dating, as is described multiple times, but we don’t find out exactly who he is jealous of. Yes, he likes Blue, and he is sad that his best friend is sort of being stolen away etc., but what if he also just wanted to hold hands. With both of them. At once.

It’s not only Gansey being in love with all of them, it’s also all of them being in love with Gansey. His bi swagger. It was this: Blue finding him irresistible. It was this: Ronan wanting to smash his fist through a wall because of how hot Gansey is. It was this: Henry saying Gansey is a “Caucasian with great hair”.

Bi Gansey is the truth and I will defend that until the day I die.

However, I will admit that he is absolutely a cis guy, no question. At no point in his life has he had to be afraid to take up space or anything, but that man supports trans rights of course. He would not wear a crop top on his own, but considering how he is in love with them, Blue, Ronan and Henry could bully him into it and he would rock it.

[munchkinmarauder]

So I'm reading What If Wanda Maximoff and Peter Parker were siblings and I find myself disappointed- this book is probably just not for me. Shame I really wanted to like it and I recognise the landmark significance of having a writer of Roma decent finally write Wanda. It's a wonderful thing and I hope it opens more doors for the writer and for Roma and other minority creators to write minority characters. However, reading this I have mixed feelings. I've got some thoughts under the cut (spoilers).

I'll give this book a 4/10 but it's treatment of Pietro and other non American characters has left a bitter taste in my mouth. I'm a massive Pietro fan and a fan of both twins so I may be biased. I hope others can get more out of this book than me. It definitely has it's good points that I can see winning it some fans.

Let's just say this is a YA book that reads very YA. I can definitely see the appeal for fans, especially of Spiderman. Wanda is the main character though little of her lore gets used and her relationships are destroyed. The author does make a genuine and really nice effort to respect and call focus to Wanda's heritage and the disconnect of being an American adoptee.and there are some nice mentions of Django but it all gets undercut by the author harping on about how wonderful Aunt May is for introducing Wanda to him.

I do encourage people to pick this book up and form their own opinions. If you are a fan of the MCU and Spiderman comics you'll probably walk away happy and have mixed feelings as a comic Wanda fan (Quicksilver fans and fans of the twins relationship just save yourself the trouble and not read this book trust me!). Maybe wait till it's cheaper though as it's a lot of money to spend on something you might not like - I'm planning on returning or donating my copy because I walked away feeling cheated.

The book however is very American and Wanda is emphasised to be American. The American characters are largely good and the foreigners with foreign accents largely bad. Other Romani characters are either cameos or evil. If your a fan of Pietro and the twins relationship just don't pick this up.

Basically as long as Wanda has a brother with a similar name to Pietro she'll be fine, her bond with her twin can just be superimposed onto other characters. It negates the importance of one of the most important sibling relationships in comics and reads like Magneto's letter to the twins in Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver (except where the reader believes that Orlando meant for Magneto to be unironically right). It feels a little dirty and like it's there to serve Peter Parker and give him a win rather than Wanda. Anything meaningful that could have been said about the twins relationship is instead given to Peter.

Making Pietro a one dimensional evil twin was a very boaring and very overdone take. Writers love to make Pietro evil despite the characters history and it never has been done well (as has the evil twin trope in general) and has always been immediately walked back in the comics for a reason.

And while I definitely don't think the author intended it this way, having Wanda have zero interest (Pietro is treated terribly by his sister, the other characters and the narrative from the second he appears or is mentioned) and reject her "evil foreign" family in favour of her "wonderful white American" family has some unfortunate implications.

Wanda also rarely accomplishes anything for herself. The 616 Wanda learns magic on her own, immigrates to America with her brother, builds her own community and reclaims a racist name thrown at her. She works hard and everything she accomplished was her own. In this book everything she accomplishes is because of Peter, Ben and May - they find her a Romani community, she doesn't seem it out on her own, they take her to strange who is souly responsible for teaching her magic and tells her everything she needs to do. Wanda is super passive in this book.

No hate to the writer though. I do think their talented and they have acknowledged they know people will be unhappy with some of the takes in the book. I respect what they've created even if I don't personally like it.

https://x.com/MunchkinM17/status/1828490359682298342

[vigilskeep]

Considering DA protags are referred to by either title or surname, got any headcanons about that?

i’m going to be real with you i’m not sure i understand what this ask means or if it’s in reference to something i’ve forgotten but i’m going to give it my best shot anyway? and simply proceed to ramble. it’s late so i’m going to be very rambley

i’ve always taken particular notice of duncan’s codex entry saying it’s commonplace for wardens to drop their family names as a sign of abandoning their ties outside the wardens. so the warden being known by their family name is an act of defiance against warden tradition. it’s a good representation of how many warden codes they had to break to do the job, and what firm ties they tend to still have to their respective origins. reminds you that the warden is very often the ultimate anomaly. it can be something of a rallying cry for those whose names arent the type to ordinarily be heard across thedas

as for the ‘hero of ferelden’ title, there’s a couple great things about that one. firstly, it directly mimics loghain’s title, the hero of river dane, which is delicious. who knows how long yours will outlive the death of his, when the wheel of history turns once more! otherwise, i’m super interested in it tying the warden to ferelden especially if the warden is not from ferelden. if you’re dalish, how do you feel about nationhood being applied to you? if you’re a dwarf, are you paragon or hero first? if you’re a city elf or a circle mage, how do you feel about this being the moment they finally suddenly want to decide you’re ‘of’ the same people, rather than pushing you aside? etc

‘hawke’ is so great. love how it depersonifies them. love how they’re the one who doesn’t rlly get a nickname from varric; hawke is the nickname, the false persona carrying the story. love that malcolm probably went by ‘hawke’ too and they stepped right into his shoes. love the genderlessness. love the flavour it gives to the names carver hawke and bethany hawke, the twins who can never be the hawke and struggle to get out from under that shadow, but also are in some ways freer in getting to have their own unique names appended, not made into a lifeless symbol

i’m very fond of ‘champion of kirkwall’. there’s a great beautiful confusing dead tradition of referring to nobles simply as their place name, which would be like for example referring to sebastian himself as starkhaven or anora herself as ferelden, and i would love that to apply to hawke in this case. it’s more relevant if they go dark and become viscount but i think all champions should get it as a treat. you don’t even get to be hawke; you are kirkwall. you clawed your way up it and now it’s a part of you, caked under your fingernails. i like how kirkwall claims them as its champion no matter if they were just fighting for their friend. in da2 everything is narrative, decided after the fact

i wish we could get more into herald of andraste because to me it screams end-of-days cult. a herald arrives ahead of someone, a herald announces them. the implication of a herald of andraste is that they have been sent to cry that she is coming

[pocketgalaxies]

hi! seeing you during all this ep95 mess has been a breath of fresh air. you seem to have a really firm grasp of canon so I wanted to ask what you think of the recent discord message from Liam where he says Orym didn't know that Laudna was under Delilah's influence when she killed Bor'dor? I watched the clip from 4SD, & it's pretty clear that Liam says Orym understood Laudna was opening the door for Delilah when he encouraged her to kill Bor'dor & even says "we'll need that." But the Discord message seems to walk that back. It's been super frustrating being accused of vilifying Orym or infantilizing Laudna for repeating what Liam himself said. I just don't really know how to reconcile these two statements from Liam & it has me a bit confused on Orym's character.

hi anon, thank you!

this turned into a much longer one than i was expecting dfksjdkfs

so last week i posted this Really Long Ask about the whole discussion, if you want to take a look. but i intentionally didn't bring up liam's discord message because you're right! it seemed contradictory to something that was stated in the past, which was confusing

honestly i think the most realistic answer is that liam probably didn't mean for what he said on 4SD to be understood as such a strong and maybe even polarizing character choice. i think a lot of us heard it as "orym sees delilah as a useful/necessary asset that outweighs what might happen to laudna afterward." particularly because he framed it as something that made the whole situation "even creepier," and during that same convo, marisha was emphasizing the psychological impact that killing bor'dor had on laudna. it's a strong stance and it reflects what orym is doing to himself (handing his endgame over to the questionably fickle nana morri to increase their chances of success against ludinus)

but i suppose liam's clarification suggests that he meant it in a softer, more practically level-headed way, like "orym knew he couldn't do a whole lot about delilah's return but he also thought it could have benefits," or something along those lines. they're obviously two hugely different interpretations with pretty big implications on how we understand orym's relationship with laudna

i'm not a connoisseur of orym's character by ANY means so i can't confidently tell you what the change might mean from a narrative perspective, but i personally still prefer the former stronger stance. because i think it raises interesting questions about how orym views his own place in this war and whether or not it's valid for him to (intentionally or subconsciously) project that placement onto the other party members. is it okay for orym to expect the same level of personal sacrifice from laudna, or imogen with predathos (a whole separate can of worms), or anyone else? is it safe? etc etc. but maybe liam doesn't want to go in that direction, or maybe he does but just not in the way we expect, i don't know! only time will tell!

also regardless of what he meant, i think it's important to acknowledge that it's really easy and completely understandable to feel like he was walking something back. that episode of 4SD was almost a whole year ago! many of us built that statement into our perception and understanding of orym's character for a long time, so it's totally valid to go "wait what the fuck???" when liam suddenly pops into the discord to say that's not what he meant. those feelings are valid and real! especially when discourse can already make you question your own intelligence and your personal interpretations of a story, having that pillar, as big or small as it might've been in your mind, knocked over can be really jarring. you are very much not alone in that, and it's okay!!

[twothpaste]

What are your thoughts on that weird cutscene with Lucas and the magypsy that awakens his PSI? (I forgot their name)

I don't view it as harshly as some folks do, but I do think the game would be better off without it. Or at least if the scene were framed & written differently. Tryin to figure out how to word my thoughts gently… I'll put it under a readmore, since The Mere Implication Of Sexual Assault is a heavy subject, even if it doesn't actually happen in the game. Content Warning for that, and discussion of transphobic bigotry.

Itoi writes the Magifolk about as sympathetically & endearingly as a clueless old cis man could, and has spoken fondly about them in interviews. He didn't do a great job imo, but I get the gist his heart was in the right place. He clearly didn't intend to demonize Ionia in that scene. The angle I suspect Itoi was going for, is like? He knew older players' minds would drift to the worst possible outcome. So he set it up, and deliberately subverted that expectation. You see that Ionia meant no harm to Lucas, and was only helping him awaken his PSI, and you go "oh." Itoi probably hoped older players would take this moment to reconsider their bigoted biases. And while younger players would be confused, he knew it'd make more sense to them later in retrospect. Maybe he hoped that these kids, upon encountering anti-queer propaganda irl, would be able to consider it more critically after experiencing this scene (and the Magifolk in general) in Mother 3. That's, ah. The most generous interpretation I can offer.

Regardless though, it's handled pretty badly. I think it's definitely framed as a joke. The player's expected to taken aback and bewildered and grossed out, and then expel a relieved laugh when it turns out everything's fine. Misleading the player into being suspicious of a trans coded character - in This Particular Way 😬 - is probably not the best method to go about critiquing bigotry & exposing biases. CSA isn't something to joke about or handle flippantly. Neither is the fact a lot of queer folks end up targeted, hurt, and/or killed as a consequence of "groomer" narratives (which conservatives have been pushing for decades). I see & respect what he was going for - but surely there must've been a better way to accomplish it. Dropping "see, our child protagonist didn't get hurt by the weird trans character" like it's a punchline just sucks no matter how I try to slice it.

There's a lot of clumsy handling when it comes to representation of marginalized groups in the Mother series. This scene and Reggie are by far the worst examples imo. I've seen some fans say this scene almost put them off of Mother 3 entirely, and truthfully I can't blame them. It's actually something I think new players probably deserve to be warned about before getting into the game.

If anyone's never seen it before, [ Here's a page from an interview ] where Itoi talks a little about it. I do think his perspective is super interesting, even though I don't like how he executed it.

[angeldeviloshi]

I'm thinking about Future's contract with Aki again. And the fact that he saw Aki's "worst death" which took place BECAUSE of Aki seeing that vision and going to Angel Devil and then the beach... not to mention the many times he survived up till that point due to Future's contract.

Makes me wonder about the linearity of the future the Future Devil sees. Especially accounting for the contracts he's had with the other devil hunters before Aki.

If we assume that the future is fixed and Future is simply witnessing Aki living out his worst death after they've established his contract, not to mention the fact Future said he determines the terms of the contract based on what he sees in his contractor's future... then he likely agrees to contracts and asks for the according payment he sees based on whether or not he likes what he saw, almost like casting himself in a film he likes.

That Future himself is both the audience and a subtle auteur in Aki's eye... That Aki played his part as an audience surrogate as the "normal guy" while framing the narrative of part 1 to us through his selective lens until the moment of his death when the true nature of the narrative is revealed.

But the future "can't be changed" and I wonder about the futility of it experienced by the Future Devil too, he can provide the means to influence someone's fate with his power and contract, but they ultimately lead down a single outcome, what he sees is one future that he has yet to partake in but nonetheless involves him in the role he plays in determining where it goes.

And the fact that only two devil hunters besides Aki managed to get a contract with him... kinda implies that Future likely saw his involvement in their futures too w this line of thought and that this is a rare occurence for him. That the two other devil hunters would live a future without half their lifespan and the physical sense they sacrificed as payment because of him. That this future exists with him in it.

But if the future isn't fixed, and I kinda talked a bit abt this in my other Future Devil thread, then he may have looked into a plethora of possible futures and settled for the one leading to Aki's "worst death" the power he provides not one that branches his future but one that nips those branches. Aki's "worst death" as his "most interesting, compelling, dramatic death". The death that reverberates into part 2 through Denji. (Side note but Future resembling a tree adds a whole other layer of symbolism to Denji and Aki's arcs in the context of their family and the chainsaw, the pruning of the cycle as narrative inevitability)

This is super fun to think about on a meta level for canon divergence ideas, Future has a lot to dig into with this. But also just how these implications affect part 2 as far as the prophecy is concerned. Cuz I'm currently of the idea that the Church may be enacting a self-fulfilling prophecy in order to combat it.

That the Church represents CSM's fandom and its exploit of youth with passion and arms in exchange for their body and devotion, (what Aki himself was under PS and Makima) that Aki's fate forms the cornerstone of this fandom. That Denji is tangled between this violence and family bc of his ghost of family that he inherited from Aki's. The ouroboros of p2's narrative bled over from p1.

Cosmos's quote to Santa about everything running its course too, much to think about.

But even just the fact that Future and Cosmos are devils, born from human concepts which in turn bring these concepts to life and altering reality, then used by humans...

This is what I think about Death too, and the self-fulfilling prophecy angle of the apocalypse. The tree people could potentially be one of the four fates besides death that Pochita erased, tho that might clash with Pochita's erasure abilities thru his stomach being intact even in Aging's world despite Aging's world disabling devil powers.

[anonymoushouseplantfan]

It's hard to believe but it's clear they wanted the platform W & K from the jump. Any set back they had they blamed on either not having enough support staff or not being able to so by the palace, NOT because of they didn't have the idea fully flushed out. I also think they were sensitive to the fact that they couldn't last and they wanted everyone to know why.

I mean Meghan was only a working royal for 72 days, thats insane. Theres a fair argument to be made that she didn't try and she never wanted to be apart of his family, she just wanted the fame, money and popularity that came with it. In hindsight it looks as though there is a grain of truth to this and they knew it.

They were super sensitive about the general public believing that so they went and tried to explain away every little thing that went wrong and in Meghans case try and jump ahead of some of the rumors that were going around in a subtle way. But they could never tell the truth because the truth implicated them in a way that would lessen their chance of making money and establishing their own court, it made them look bad.

I agree that they wanted the Cambridge’s platform. In hindsight, it’s really weird that they were so keen on being part of the Royal Foundation. Their interests (misinformation, fatherhood, feminist word salad, politics) were not aligned with the Foundation at all. They weren’t interested in the work. They just wanted the status.

And that has been the case throughout their career. They attach themselves to these huge brands (Worldvision, UN, the royals, Netflix, Spotify) and then do nothing but bask in the reflected status and complain that the brand, platform or institution is not giving them enough support. It’s laughable! The “not supported enough” narrative had some traction with brf because of Diana’s experience (although she was a 19 yr old with no career or education so her experience shouldn’t translate to Meghan), but how can you complain that Spotify did not give you enough support? That’s not their job!

But that’s how they operate. WME is working its butt off on their behalf, but we all know they’re going to get thrown under the bus in six months when the pr drive fails and the Sussexes complain they didn’t get enough support.

They don’t seem to understand that they actually have to listen to the advice and do the work.

[bonefall]

Do you have any plans for Moth Flight in your au? I always felt like she had a lot of potential, but her super edition…. Oh it’s bad. God forbid a disabled, young, single mom try to raise children and have a job at the same time. Too bad there was no one to help her when things got stressful, like you know, her clanmates… No women should have a job and children at the same time ever again.

If it wasn’t obvious that was sarcasm, Moth Flight’s story has awful implications. But! In BB Clerics Not being allowed to have kits wasn’t a law until the Ripple Era, it used to just be a personal vow and was a bit taboo. So I’m interested in of Moth Flight still had something to do with the creation of the vow itself? And just in general if you have any plans to fix her story or if you’re just throwing the whole thing out. (Which would be completely understandable.) I just think there IS potential there in her story, especially in BB where the Clerics Vow is actually ACKNOWLEDGED to not make sense and be bad. It could be interesting for the idea to rise from such a hyper specific, awful situation. The Clans having altered her story so much over the years that it went from the truth, “the first Cleric was a young, single mother of four, trying to raise her children while morning her husband and convincing the other Clans that they needed Clerics. The odds were against her.” To the perfect, Cleric’s Vow supporting lie, “the first Cleric had kits. She was unable to balance raising them and caring for her Clanmates. She taught the Clans a valuable lesson, a Clerics first and only duty should be healing and worshiping StarClan. Kits only get in the way of that duty.”

Idk, I just feel like there’s still an interesting story to tell somewhere through all of Moth Flight’s super edition’s bs. In the hands of a better writer who doesn’t ACTUALLY believe that Moth Flight’s genuinely tragic life means that all women who have jobs can never have children or get married again.

There's HUUGE overhauls here. I spoke about it eons ago during the last wave where I was discussing my changes to BB!DOTC, but let me give you the fragments thus far.

It's VERY different. Get ready for Moth Flight to be a completely different character.

MOTH FLIGHT'S VOW

She is no longer the child of Wind Runner. In fact...

She's the daughter of Wind Runner's shitty ex, Branch

Moth's other dad is Cloud Flight (prev. Cloud Spots). Since the Great Battle, Cloud has been wandering between the 5 groups as a sort of traveling doctor. It's a lot of work, there's only him and Dapple and an overwhelming amount of cats who need his skilled paws

So Moth Flight has always been a bit detached from people. I want her to actually have ADHD this time around, instead of it vanishing when it isn't convenient.

She kind of has Military Base Kid energy, hopping place to place with unresolved mental health issues. She probably bites ppl because I love weird girls

"papas can i bring my leeches" "honey no"

Cloud really wanted to train her to be a Medic the way he is, but... she has to learn how to do it her own way.

Branch doesn't help he's a goof and mostly interested in playing games with his baby.

I want to portray Branch as someone who's flighty, not another example of "before the Tribe cats came we were uncivilized heathens without society"

I also don't like his original narrative purpose to give Wind Runner trust issues that don't matter. If she had trust issues, what exactly was all that "please let me join ur group" about??

BB!Wind Runner is a breakaway from the River Kingdom, and the leader of the loosely united Moor cats. She created the Wind Coalition and is its intense, notoriously ruthless leader

So something eventually calls Cloud to do his work for the Wind Coalition

Branch: *SWEATS*

Cloud Flight: "..............branch. what did you Do"

Branch: "youre not allowed to be mad at me"

Cloud Flight: "tell me what you did and then we'll see if im mad at you"

The take might be controversial, but I do like the way that Windstar has problems with Moth Flight for no reason. I wanted to preserve it while removing it being yet another case of motherly child neglect, and more of a case of Wind Runner holding unfair grudges. I think it's good drama

Moth Flight's love of nature, herbs, and the natural world eventually prompts her to follow a Hairstreak Butterfly to the Moonstone. It leads her through the winding tunnels, a path that only Clerics will know how to navigate in the future, to the shimmering chamber in the middle.

Through her special connection to StarClan, drawing off the early cultural view of their ancestors as nature spirits (the fact that they are star spirits is a Park Cat contribution and all 5 leaders have their lives by this point), Moth Flight is able to come into her own as a holy speaker and healer. She begins to blur the line between holiness and healing, marked by how Clanmew has only one word for both concepts.

Hairstreak Butterflies also become known as a "herald" type of butterfly. I could get into the linguistics of this, but the old Tribemew word for moth/butterfly becomes the Clanmew word for sacred butterflies.

Micah is not supremely important anymore, but he's there. He doesn't become a healer in MFV, he's just Moth's mate.

But things begin to go wrong when her kittens are born.

All four children are born with a high connection to StarClan, just like their mother.

She takes it on herself to train them, as Cloud Flight had done with her, wiser from understanding that they would learn in their own ways.

Dapple and Cloud Flight never have this connection to star spirits, and they're growing old. Cloud is ready to retire, Dapple dies in some way before she's able to train a replacement

It begins to cause panic in the groups. It was bad with only two healers, but now everything is stretched even thinner.

SkyClan, notoriously violent, is the first to make the move. Skystar was not above the practice of Kit Stealing, taking Misty's kittens and giving them to Petal Claw for her loyalty ages ago.

Kit Stealing wouldn't become common until the creation of the Law of Loyalty, which is only a few years away, but it did exist before then.

They want a Mothkin kitten.

The Wind Coalition, of course, moves to fight and protect them. They call on ThunderClan, who can usually be relied upon

ThunderClan's request... they also want a Mothkin kitten. They need doctors too.

The River Kingdom and ShadowClan are also moving to take a kitten

EVERYONE needs a doctor, and they will fight and kill to get one. They all begin to realize... if they don't separate, there will be blood. People they love will die, and they'll be ripped apart anyway

Moth Flight, seeing this, BURNING with sorrow and fury at the violence of the Clans but knowing there is no other option, tells her children to make her a promise.

"That there will be no Mothkin after you. That you will never take a mate, or give your kidnappers more children. That you will remember that they were willing to kill their own families to steal you, and that you will be loyal the pursuit of life, virtue, and your sacred ability to heal above the cruel commands of the treacherous Clans."

Having accepted this, the family calls for an end to the fighting. Each child chooses a Clan to go to, and has their name changed.

ThunderClan: Spider Flight -> Spider Flight (no change)

SkyClan: Honey Flight -> Honey Pelt

RiverClan: Bubble Flight -> Bubbling Stream

ShadowClan: Blue Flight -> Blue Whisker

They're being shuffled based on which Clan they go to because it always bothered me that their names don't match their Clans, and also Spider Paw going to RiverClan when he has a phobia of water is insulting and I said no

So, TL;DR, this is a completely different story because DOTC is the one arc that I don't value "fixing." It needs a complete overhaul, imo.

This one would take place after Thunderstar's Justice, which immediately follows the First Battle. In terms of timeline, first is Hollyleaf's Century, 30 years later BB!DOTC begins and lasts several years, a few months after the First Battle begins Thunderstar's Justice, and then Moth Flight's Vow follows a year later.

[taki118]

I read your post about Kirishima, other women and how he sees Yoshino differently and now I’m interested in what you think about Kirishima’s masochism.

This is honestly hard to say there are a few ways of thinking about it that I have seen other people offer as well as my own organic thoughts. As it stands within the narrative these are the main ways you can look at it.

He is a masochist: It is believable he does seem to enjoy pain to some degree, enjoys being talked down to/mistreated and the act of being bound. The issue is we don't see much of these scenes and he doesn't really talk about it which makes sense, its not the point of the series to talk about kink.

He only thinks he is: Personally this is the idea I subscribe to as everything you can point towards him being a masochist can also be used here, in the sense that he simply does not understand himself. Later in the series we understand that Kirishima was desperate for stimulation for things to "Not be boring" and I can imagine his wires got a little crossed as some of the more unpredictable parts of BDSM probably intrigued him when he was too young to really understand it. (and we know he was exposed to it early for sure in the manga). Evidence that he only thinks he's an M is that he never seems all that into sex even when he's tied up, he seems to like pain in the sense of seeing how far his body can go and later the attention Yoshino gives him when hurt and while he says he likes NTR the second it could be with someone he has actual feelings for he wants to kill the person, which is not the vibe when he talks about it with one of his girls or before Yoshino mentions Shoma. The implication I always got was that he likes NTR with people he doesn't care about because it makes sex more interesting for him seeing how it makes the other people feel it just fun for him, but he's not really getting off on it.

He only says he is: I've seen people say that he uses the kink as means to offset people and keep them at a distance. While this is not some super underground kink it is something that people tend to be put off by and he used this to kinda gauge where they were. Like he didn't actually mean what he said to Yoshino about NTR but rather wanted to see how she would react to the idea to push her. We do see he talks about this less and less as the series goes on and as he doesn't need to goad her as much.

Basically what I'm saying is I dunno haha. Each has it's own merits and evidence within the narrative so like as it stands its Schrodinger's Kink. Kirishima is a very complicated character and you often can't take what he says at face value but also sometimes you can, so it makes thinking about him frustrating and so much fun. It could be one of these or it could be a combination of all three, I don't think it will ever be fully explained so really it's up to your own discretion. Probably not the answer you wanted but it really is subjective at this point.

[paragonrobits]

i have some complicated thoughts on the nature of representation and how that applies to my own characters, with me imagining a hypothetical audiences criticizing me for making characters that do not appeal to them specifically

This is honestly inspired by how you see a lot of people who get really negative about robots and nonhumans in general, often with the implication that they are thinking: any character that COULD be human but is not is taking representation away from a human reader and you should feel bad about that

and its like I can only imagine myself going:

"I wrote them like that, because its what I find INTERESTING. I did it for me?? I'm not going to write about ordinary humans, its just not interesting to me. If i wanted to write about them, I'd do, I don't know, coffee shop AUs or whatever it is that people like you write all the time. You're lucky i even allow my characters to take on human form at all, half the time I favor the thought of humans being long extinct just so i can exclusively focus on characters that make me go WOW THAT'S SUPER COOL'

Part of it is that at least for me, representation can SOUND like what people actually want to do is live vicariously through characters. And sometimes, that they want characters who are like them to be positive and cool role models in some way. ITs a weird thought, though, because most characters like that get ignored or dismissed by fandom as being boring, and if they have more complicated characters, they usually get ripped apart for being bad representation and the like

its a weird balance and honestly I don't blame people sometimes for just not even bothering with it

and the fact of it is, I like weird characters. I like self-created abstract personifications of the color purple who just popped up and have been gathering thoughts to craft into a newer, better body. I like uplifted tigers who became some kind of weretiger through sheer force of fighting spirit and have upgraded themselves into a fully cybernetic body in an EXTREMELY literal case of bodybuilding. I like self-aware extinction events who have incarnated into a mortal form and are trying to come to grips with their nature being that of an amoral force of cosmic annihilation, without moral compass but now they have feelings and how do you DEAL with that, knowing what you are?

More mundane stuff just often doesn't appeal to me.

And on some level, i think its because when I think of representation, it SOUNDS to me like a case of a character that you resonate with, that can be read as akin to you, but the idea of actually regarding that character as a vehicle to BE you feels... kind of solipsistic, honestly. And for that matter, kind of pointless. They're not you, and they couldn't be you; they have magic powers, or resurrection stuff, or shoot lasers from the Punch Dimension, and go on fantastic adventures that operate on rules of narrative; none of these are things that could really HAPPEN to someone, and maybe I'm just nitpicking but it feels like the whole idea of representation as vehicle for audience kind of falls apart.

Maybe that's not the way people look at it. I remember being interested in Death Note from afar when i was younger SOLELY because L was a common pick for autistic representation and I thought 'wow thats cool!' i didn'tt think L was LIKE me, or viewed his actions and thoughts as reflective of my own (which is the implication I sometimes get from people here). But all the same, given a choice between a cool robot that turns into a robot t-rex and autistic representation, I would most assuredly choose the former, unless the t-rex was a jerk or the human character was compelling in some way.

(Side note I probably tthink a lot of the more bizarre fanon that surrounds a lot of villain characters is PROBABLY people projecting into them really hard to the point that clinical reference tto their canonical actions is considered hate, but that's another case. But also if you're going to project onto a character so hard you interpret any non-positive comments on them as a personal attack, you probably should not be doing that with villain characters whose ONLY ROLE IN THE STORY is to be roadblocks and obstacles to overcome or avoid)

[bestworstcase]

Summer from Mountain Glen backstory would also fit with Salem's recruitment pattern. Hazel -> Gretchen. Watts -> Penny project chosen. Cinder -> Glass Unicorn. A concrete reason for dissatisfaction with the system, albeit some (Watts) pettier than others. Mountain Glenn which were buried and commute blocked off. Yeah that would definitely qualify.

Small thing - apparently from Grimm Eclipse there's one voice line from Yang that amounts to "It must have been nice here once" - though I can't find the source of that quote. Which if Summer was from Mountain Glenn holds a completely different impact as a statement from a survivor's daughter decades later.

as the resident Watts Defender i feel obliged to trot out watts was from mantle again, ’cause i think greenlighting the penny project was more the thousandth cut in a death-by-a-thousand cuts situation; esp. because i don’t think being pissed about the penny project is all that petty, given the context of ironwood challenging this team to come up with “the next breakthrough in defense technology” and then picked the proposal for [checks notes] a costly prototype robotic child super-soldier that requires the partial surgical removal of someone’s literal soul to function and can therefore never be built more than once, let alone manufactured at scale. like imagine being watts.

ironwood: we need to innovate to remove men from the dangers of the battlefield, so i want all of you to come up with a proposal for the next big breakthrough in defense technology. watts probably: okay well, our combat AI is still too rudimentary to let the synthetic soldiers fight unsupervised, so i’ve designed a heavily-armored walking tank that can run faster than a car and jump dozens of feet into the air in order to keep our living officers safe on the front lines while dramatically improving our offensive capabilities against hordes of grimm. pietro: i think we should carve out a piece of my soul and put it in a robot to create one (1) nigh-indestructible synthetic super-soldier who we’ll design to look like an atlas academy student. ironwood: i pick the robot girl :)

like are you joking.

we don’t know for certain that the paladins were watts’ proposal but that does seem to be the implication and like—if that’s so then ironwood held on to that proposal for years after watts faked his death and eventually put ’em into production as the penny project neared completion, which… tracks with “you just stood atop it and called yourself a giant.” in the face of such egregious favoritism and interest in technological spectacle and novelty over practical solutions i’d probably quit in disgust too!

/tangent

but yeah summer being a mountain glenn survivor is intriguing enough that i’m a little regretful i didn’t think of it before nailing down her backstory for time does this adlscfj—although not enough to scrap my plans for it lmfao—it puts a real face on this historical tragedy that has been kind of looming silently over the story. and the face is the character who’s haunting the narrative from her secret place as salem’s general. very juicy.

oobleck looks at mountain glenn and sees lives that could have been saved—why weren’t they? what motivated the inaction, the choice to cut mountain glenn off, leave people to fend for themselves in the undercity? what kept people there, living in caverns with grimm nesting over their heads, rather than evacuate to vale? (your so-called free world.)

if that was summer’s childhood and she escaped and got taken in by the huntsmen academy system, raised in these values, how might she feel about vale? about beacon? about herself as a huntress? how sharply might she feel the dissonance between what huntsmen are supposed to be and the sacrifice of mountain glenn? is that what drove her to confront salem, a determination to not be complicit through her inaction? is that why she chose to stay? etc.

it also adds some really interesting potential layers to summer holding beacon and presumably participating in the razing of vale. like is this something she has enough moral qualms about to give her pause or is it an act of long-delayed retribution to her. juicy!

[wetcatspellcaster]

Did you see Neil Newbon’s take that Ascended Astarion is the real him free to act on cruelty and violence and the spawn is the one with the mask? Yeesh.

Ooooooh, THAT'S the disk horse that's happening right now!! I knew something was happening (I felt a tremor in the waters) but I had no clue what it was lmao, I don't follow cast stuff.

I will try to respond to this in good faith, but I'm not very good at fandom discourse and so I'm afraid it may not be the answer you want.

I can see why that reading might make people angry, but I dont have strong feelings about it. Obviously, it's not my take on Ascension, but from the beginning I've been very upfront that my take is serving the genre I'm writing in and the ship dynamics I find hot. My Tav is lawful good to an unhealthy extreme, and that was how she was conceived in her Early Access bullying phase. And meanwhile, I wanted to be in a Gothic horror where he's obsessed (morality chains will do that to you) and they beat the shit out of each other. I have to make the Ascendent a monster, for that to work, and for people not to feel guilty every time they enjoy watching him getting stepped on lmao.

But I do feel like there is a morality policing around Astarion's ending that I don't want to partake in. This might seem dumb for me to say, given that my Tav is a veritavle walking moral policeman, but that is bc I fucking love Villain/Heroine ships, so I am literally right there, at the Devil's Sacrament with everyone else.

While I like the good ending and prefer it for many reasons, I would agree with a reading of Newbon's words that it could be read as a mask. This might be bc I mask with the best of them, am doing it right now even as I write and edit this ask 20 times. There's masking as an outright lie, and then there's masking as 'gotta get through day to day life as a functional adult without everyone suddenly deciding they hate me'... I personally think its nice that spawn!Astarion cares about other people, and cares about being a functional member of society at all! It shows he's no longer a lonely outcast.

I could also go deeper (the autism really shining through in this reply) and say it's a mask, in the sense that this has been deemed the 'polite' and morally correct ending, that is acceptable to others and enables the player to feel good about themselves. Which is often a way we derive pleasure from media, and not wrong in and of itself! Making Astarion good makes players feel good - that's not wrong, but if we're comparing endings, we have to acknowledge it. An Ascended Ending doesn't really cater to that impulse... unless the player really likes to be dommed (more power to them).

Unfortunately anon, I can't sit here with my most popular fic being an Ascended!Astarion fic, and pretend that there isn't a bunch of fascination or interest surrounding the Ascended version of his character. People clearly want to explore the implications of his evil ending and indulge in the excess of it, but feel bad doing so. People don't ascend him in-game, but they go to my fic and other people's fic because they want to have some space to enjoy the implications - in the sexiness, in the timeline where Astarion has revenge, in a timeline where he is obsessed with Tav etc. I mean, just look at me, I can't sit through the Ascended scene, but I'm here writing a fic about it!!

The fact that it seems to happen more in fic than in playthroughs tells me, if I was to get super deep in a tumblr ask, that people feel guilt about it. Some kind of mask is being employed, by someone, somewhere, in that mix. So I'm not about to add to any of that kind of policing. It would be pretty disingenuous of me to get my most feedback from an Ascendent fic I am writing, and then judge people for liking Ascendency narratives...

So while I don't have much interest in pretending the evil ending isn't the evil ending, that doesn't sound to me (second hand, through you, with my brain seeing 7 or 8 different implications) to be what Newbon is saying. He's just saying that the Ascendent is the less palatable Astarion to other people and that spawn!Astarion still has some kind of mask or a politeness filter on. Which... yeah. Kinda. In my world, I like that Astarion decides its worthwhile to restrain himself, because he has things to care about potentially ruining. But that's still in many ways employing restraint. People don't just stop masking, they learn to care about what others think in a healthy way. They have friendships, relationships, other ties to the world, that make them want to be something other than a cruel or violent or evil version of themselves. I think that's nice, and far less lonely but um... yeah. I can see Newbon's point, even if I don't want to like, live or die by it.

[ariel-seagull-wings]

@professorlehnsherr-almashy @choster33 @a-roguish-gambit @voxxgrimly @magnetostits @blade-liger-4ever @thealmightyemprex @the-blue-fairie @themousefromfantasyland @thevulturesquadron @countesspetofi

Sometimes I think what could have been ...

I see the comics history of the character Wanda Maximoff, and how much potential it had to be an interesting commentary about assimilation:

This young woman, persecuted both for being romani, and for being a mutant, once accepted alongside her brother Pietro to briefly join the Brotherhood of (Evil) Mutants led by Magneto out of personal gratitude for him saving their lives from an angry mob.

Then, feeling the dept is payed, and wanting to be seen as a legitimate hero by american society, Wanda leaves the Brotherhood, taking Pietro with her to join, not the X-Men, whose public status as heros is under constant scrutiny by society, but the Avengers, a group that is considered more respectable, and focuses mainly in defeating super villains with the batom of the Goverment, but hasn't really a strong, consistent stance about supporting mutant rights (some of its members even spouting anti mutant bigotry).

Wanda and Pietro are "the good ones" who don't demand mutant rights and never get involved in direct activism, but rather "want to pull up themselves by their own booth straps".

The two later learn that Magneto is their biological father, and is trying to come closer to them, while also caring for the fate of mutantkind, Pietro slowly gets more involved by joining mutant team X-Force, but Wanda sees most of that from a distance.

When she falls in love and gets married to Vision, the place the two go to live after retiring from the Avengers are the suburbs, the quintessential simbol of the American Dream Family.

Then, the couple splits bitterly, the two children they had together are said to be an illusion, and this badly affects Wanda's mental health.

The characters who are part of the Avengers and the X-Men debate how to deal with her.

Encouraged by Pietro, Wanda uses her powers to create an alternate reality where the wishes of several characters are real.

But those characters soon learn that this isn't reality, including Magneto, who is among many to question Wanda about trapping people in an illusion of her making, and when she reacts angrily about it, trowing years of bitterly feeling that her father's cause is what made him an absent, flawed father for her and Pietro, she doesn't target him directly: she depowers millions of mutant kind with just saying "No More Mutants", both as a cruel way to respond against her father, but also out of a never worked internalized hatred of being a mutant, who tried to be away of politics regarding mutantkind, desperate to assimilate into a respectable, suburban american, one of the "good ones" that never protests, who, having that dream painfully taken from her, instead of focusing her anger at the sistem (and Mephisto) that caused this to happen to her, targets her own kind in a personal revenge, and will have to slowly work to find where she belongs in the world, and wheter or not she is a good person ...

This could be an interesting, meaningful arc with a logical narrative path if all the writers, editors and artists agreed to sit together in a room and work in a linear continuity since the characters creation, considering the implications of every narrative choice they make, but apparently that is to much to ask.