#i keep getting stuck on the things that just dont make sense in the context of the previous games

[foxx-queen]

the lore inconsistencies with the blight in this game are actually exhausting. 'the rules have changed the blight has changed' okay but make it make sense within the changes please like

the blight is the titans dreams gone mad with rage okay. red lyrium is lyrium infected with the blight. except that section of red lyrium in harding's quest which is... angry... but somehow not infected with the blight... even though we know what red lyrium is from inquisition

the calling eventually kills you but there's a bunch of super blighted wardens who've been alive for ages underground. isseya has been alive since the 4th blight. these wardens aren't even proper darkspawn they're just Really Corrupted

there's that ominous 'theres something in the blight' quest you do in the wetlands that just turns out to be a giant blight growth. darkspawn appear from blight pools now. also apparently in the wetlands there's just a bunch of flowers happily thriving beneath the blight that are fine once the blight is removed. did we forget the western approach. that the land is barren after it's infected with the blight.

it's super easy to become infected with the blight, except if you're rook and co apparently because that blighted status sure doesn't really have any consequences. spEAKING OF which neve/bellara become super duper infected by the blight to the point they can control it and yet afterwards... they're fine?? they're fine!! there's no cure for the blight except apparently you can just shake it off. the hero of fereldan has been searching for a cure for decades but could've just shrugged it off apparently!

[justjasper]

i love your E rated/smut writing. do you have any tips for writing smut?

most of these are about reality/modern-based sex writing rather than fantasy stuff where all the bets can be off!

there is literally no god word to use for balls/testicles, it's fine

USE CHARACTER NAMES. no "younger/older" woman, "darker/paler" man, just use their names especially during a sex scene

do learn some basic anatomy, please look up where the prostate is, where the g-spot is

but fanfic sex doesn't need to be instructional, you are not teaching people how to have sex. it very much shows when you write like this

fanfic is also not consent 101. it's fine to just let your reader assume they're 100% into what they're doing, and i think "unnegotiated kink" should be reserved for scenarios where the kink is spur of the moment, not just "involves kink but no explicit discussion of it" (unless they're not meant to be, which one assumes would be made clear in tags or descriptions!!)

that said, writing about discussing consent can be really fun, doesn't mean you can never do it. you just have to vibe out whether it's adding to the fic or not

talking really helps break up sex scenes, so write at least one character who's chatty lol

plan out your sex scene so you don't get stuck with what's happening next. remember you can go back to it to flesh it out/work on the pacing. honestly most of my sex scenes start on the page as a list that goes: LICK LICK CIRCLE CHAT SUCK SUCK STROKE LICK SUCK GAG SUCK TALK BIG CUM

speaking of going back to pacing, literally invoking time can help make a sex scene seem longer without saying "they fucked for seven and a half minutes". "a long moment later" "by the time X, the sun had begun to rise/fall", "long into the night"

lube is preferable but optional, even for butt stuff. sex without lube doesn't mean it's painful or dangerous, especially for experienced butt stuff doers.

spit as lube is not a cardinal sin and is miles better than things that are actually dangerous (engine oil? things w sugar like honey? baby dont give your chars a yeast infection)

olive oil is fine but it's messy and it doesn't play w condoms, but fine if you're going historical

speaking of which, from my experience people in established relationships forego condoms way quick. and in general people forget to use them all the time. again, this isn't Safe Sex 101, it's fanfic.

but on the flip side, its sexy/funny when characters have lube and condoms to hand. there is no funnier environmental storytelling than there being a bottle of water based lube in the kitchen cupboard with the peanut butter.

simultanious orgasms are a pain to time and sure they're romantic but there's other fun climax dynamics. maybe one character feels duty/honour bound to always make sure their partner comes first

come/cum? it doesn't matter, just keep it consistant per fic

similar, be consistant with your body part names, even if you use a few. e.g. you use "cunt" in narration, but character A uses "pussy", keep that consistant.

you can still euphamise genitals without it sounding like you're afraid of them - sometimes six instances of "cock" in a row doesn't flow, that's when you should be utilising your "hardness" and "shaft" and "length"

the brain is a sex organ, and all the senses are engaged during sex. you can bulk out yor sex scenes and give great insight into the character experiences by describing what they're experiences with non-touch senses (or the lack of them, e.g. when blindfolds are in the mix)

even in pwp works, you're saying something about the characters who are fucking. you can give context and inferred complexity without plot. are they familiar with each other's bodies? is this new? are they confident, or nervous.

write for you! if you are a person who experiences sexual response to erotic fiction, then a good measure of your own work is if it makes you horny to write/re-read it. there's absolutely no shame about being aroused during the process. there's no harm in taking a wank break.

[fictionfixations]

Hanya: Could it be that the signal from the Shackling Prison is still blocked? Hmm... they proposed maintenance last year, but it's been delayed in the approval process...

i sure hope thats changed now (2.4-2.5 go brr)

OH MY GOD thats a huge wall of text. i was just clicking to speed up the texts and i just get hit with walls upon walls of texts and then it kept going and im like OKAY HOLD ON I CANT READ THAT FAST and trying to speed it up so i can scroll back and read it and theN BRRRR like holy fuck 😭

anyway context: hanya wrote this for her sister (who likes thriller novels). apparently its her first attempt. its called Seawater

Hanya: Judges have forever grappled with the burden of excruciating decisions. Among them, few weigh on their conscience as heavily as the relentless pursuit of the betrayer. Motivated by greed, disdain, or the intoxication of danger, comrades can swiftly transform into enemies. And when the moment arrives to dispense justice upon a former ally in the name of the revered Ten Lords, the torment becomes unbearable. The place I now journey towards bears witness to a heart-rending spectacle. Long ago, I meticulously constructed a trap to ensnare the perpetrator who conspired with the Denizens of Abundance. This elusive criminal, known only as "Seawater," peddled invaluable secrets, unraveling the intricate tapestry of the Alliance within the Ryansnaut Sector. Engaged in an unyielding battle with "Seawater" for an extended duration, I now find myself poised to tighten the noose. As I hasten towards the scene, a vivid tableau unfolds within my mind. A greenhorn Cloud Knight, a spirited street performer, a guileless foxian girl, and one enigmatic Nameless... Which among them could be "Seawater"? And when the truth is ultimately unveiled, how shall I confront the inevitable, merciless denouement...? Without warning, an arrow, launched from the shadows, pierces my heart. I collapse to the ground, I find my gaze locked onto the countenance of the assailant... Trailblazer: Wait, hold on a sec! Are you seriously planning to send me the entire novel through text messages!? Hanya: Sorry. I'm not done yet. "Seawater... It is you!" It ends here. That's all I've managed to write so far. I'm a bit stuck and need some advice.

im so sorry if there are any typos or if i typed the wrong word but thats a lot of text 😭 i usually write the texts together but separating it for each text sent. i dont know if that makes sense, but since she was sending a novel i thought itd be a better idea to actually put space in between the paragraphs so its not just all clumped together in a difficult to read block of text (also its a personal thing because i for the life of me i struggle so bad keeping track of where i am reading SUPER long blocks of text cause i keep accidentally losing my place or reading the wrong sentence in combination with another)

anyways

the reason we are suspects is because xueyi told her its easier to write characters based on familiar faces

Hanya: My sister mentioned that it's easier to write a novel when the characters are based on familiar faces. I've been thinking about it. Maybe it's because you guys are always too kind for me to imagine you doing anything evil. No wonder I'm stuck now. Perhaps I should draw inspiration from the criminals I usually deal with.

also she hasnt decided on who seawater (the criminal) should be

[wolvertooth]

ok so im reading wolverine volume 2 to try to get some context for whatever the fucks going on in uncanny. at somepoint, sabretooth starts hunting wolverine more frequently, saying hes his father(which turns out not to be true, dont worry lol). hes been given this belief and nobody can figure out why.

after being given hallucinogenic poison, sabretooth starts to break free from the need to kill and logan starts to remember something…

at first i thought he was trying to say ‘papa’ or something, but then its revealed he was trying to say ‘partner’(uglyyyyyy panel omg)

im not sure if logan remembers them being partners at this point, but he definitely does later. but the thorazine? not ever brought up again(as far as i saw, maybe it is. its hard to find what comics come next in canon since its not contained in a single series, theyre all over the place).

anyway, he then gets xavier and jean to look into his brain, and he finds some memories that dont make sense. (shout out to this bit where creed straight up wants to take him out for a bday date)

(also shout out to whoever put this speech bubble below them LMAO)

logan then goes to the facility in weapon x where the memories were fabricated. in the animated series sabretooth goes too, but i guess he wouldnt need to in the comics since its implied he already has. i think sabretooth found out about it somehow, got captured, and given the new memory of being logans father. this makes sense since after the hallucination thing sobering him up, he drops that belief.

my theory though is that sabretooth got a lot more fucked up by weapon x than logan. i mean, im pretty sure the false memories were all given after they worked together, and they dont seem to have any other reason(outside of using trauma to activate their need to kill) than to make them all want to suddenly turn against eachother. and i think sabretooth specifically was a failsave for if logan ever escaped, to go seek out and kill him.

both big memories(the one with them being partners in suits and the one where silverfox was killed) were based around logans birthday. so thats probably the reason behind sabretooth seeking him out on his birthday every year, being mixed with the ingrained need to kill him, just based on the little amounts of context he has. BUT the reason for him angering logan? for bringing out the animal? for constantly bringing up silverfox? hes trying to get logan to remember. hes trying to help break him from the memory blocks.

and hes trying to break free from his own programming. and its clear that at somepoint, he did. and he just wants logan to be free from it too.

the memory blocks are tied to logans animal side, but even later on when his animal side is finally released by sabretooth, it didnt really do anything for his memory. because at that point logan already remembers, while sabretooth is still under control of it. though, it is mentioned that something in sabretooths brain is unlocked from wolverine stabbing a claw through it? like he became more in control. that his need to kill is now his own choice. so maybe at that point he was just trying to get him to do that(also it kinda sucks that the canon gets passed around to different authors who will just ignore or get rid of established lore, so none of it really sticks for very long and the characters motives keep changing).

its weird though how logan remembers, yet still keeps trying to fight him. he knows its all fake, but still keeps the same opinion….basically sabretooths stuck with a partner whos forced by the narrative to never like him no matter what he does, while being equally doomed by the narrative to never be able to change. no matter how many times they break the spell, as long as the plot keeps going, theyll always be reset to their basic character traits. #peak romantic tragedy.

[autumnbrambleagain]

really playing through Pathfinder WotR really stresses how BAD DnD got and how divorced it was from its original context

in ADnD, being a fighter didn't just mean you Hit Thing With Sword. being a fighter meant you got a castle. you got an army. you became a member of the nobility.

everyone groused at paladins having to keep a certain alignment but it used to be everyone had to do that. the classes were classes. you didn't multiclass very easily without huge penalties because they weren't just some skills they were entire lifestyles.

being a rogue didn't mean you had some experience as a thief it meant You Were a Rogue. you were a robinhooding asshole. being a wizard didn't mean you knew spells it meant You Were Magic.

by the time of PWotR it becomes so telephone-gamed it makes no sense and all that's left are frustrating archetypes

it's gameyfied, but not to the level it NEEDS to be. too many vestigial organs of the time when casting magic literally required you to have bat dung and sulphur in your pocket and wish actually aged you and fighters served a king as a class feature linger on.

you get only So Many Spells a Day. wizards can't wear armor for some reason. fighters can't use magic wands and can't learn to do it without wild investments.

but it's too gameyfied now for that.

compare it to Divinity 2: Original Sin, which accepts openly it's a game and it feels so GOOD. no matter what you pick you're viable all the time, just in different ways. you doing fire? no problem, fire exists at every level. you doing stealthy? cool, we got teleports and invisibles!

but going to PWotR it's like... you wanna be a stealth wizard? sorry... we dont' really do that... guess you can be an eldritch scoundrel sorta... it's like if a wizard wasn't as good and a rogue wasn't as good.

you wanna be a battle wizard? and not a cleric? uhm... okay... you can sorta do this.. it's almost ok...

why is fireball the only elemental explosion spell? why can't i do acid ball without taking earth elemental bloodline? what about being a socrerer precludes me from learning the basics of how to fight with a sword effectively enough instead of being stuck with a BAB of +5?

why is the balance so fuckyducky? why is someone with a bow able to fire like a 50 cal and kill 6 guys with 4 arrows, but with all my arcane mastery i can't... target more than one guy with an attack spell without doing a ton of feats and using the right spells?

games can be asymmetrical if they're well done! this is just... god this is just so sloppy

[nanjokei]

some oc "verses" i have (verses? stories? idk)

too complicated to explain without a decade of context so i wont for now

high school detective story where everyone is stuck in a time loop. they keep repeating the same cases over and over until it gets kinda comfy, and both detectives (both girls btw, and yes there is _something_ there but watch out) are differing degrees of The Joker, but eventually the routine is broken and it becomes apparent that theres Other Stuff is going on and there are a few others who are aware of the looping to their own ends. anyway one of the detectives is actually the one who trapped them there because Reasons. tbh the setting is a bit weak bc i came up with it as a teenager but i like it too much to rework it<-you can ask about this one but im shy

famous people of varying levels of noteriety are kidnapped and made to participate in a reality television show where death is on the table. three characters present are estranged childhood friends with A Past. the two above are linked to this, it shares characters and setting all the way through. most prominently several characters from the bullet point before this are involved. one of the main characters is the younger brother of someone involved also. im not sure what the endgame of this one is but theres timeloop bullshit in this one also<-this ones messy but you can ask probably

everything is linked through the same metaverse (its a long story) but all together there are some stuff that are less loosely connected. also yeah due to it all being a part of the same metaverse thats why sometimes there is time loop bullshit. also um... a lot of higher beings messing with people for no reason

more fantasy premise and a little more gag. kind of? but a hero coming down from a line of chosen heroes is dispatched to the line of duty to vanquish.. some kind of evil (no one is even sure what) but right in the beginning someone sets the convent he was picking up his companion from on fire. theyre seperated and he is accompanied by a different woman instead. from then on he ends up picking up nothing but the "wrong" party members, specifically people who are actually supposed to be bosses. meanwhile the actual proper party members to be become enemies. i really like this one. <-if you ask me about it i will probably tell you more

magical girl thing, idk, to be honest i made this one up when i was 16 so i dont like the concept that much, it was edgy but didnt make sense, i wanna rework it so the characters arent high schoolers anymore. its nothing objectionable just cringe in a way that isnt fun. so i dont have much to say about it, but it also exists as an arcade game in the main timeline thing so im mentioning it

mecha premise, when aliens come down to challenge earth into a fight to extinction FOR FUN, supplying them with all manner of advanced technology and blueprints to build giant mechs to level the playing field. this was kept a secret, kinda like some area 51 shit. decades later in 2011, a number of young adults (18~26) who have specific traits as outlined by the aliens are put into cryonic sleep. they were promised it'd be for 25 years, but the project stalled, and then a world war broke out, and the waiting time ended up actually being nearly a century. they wake up to a delipidated base with very few actual staff, to the point where most of them have to become bridge bunnies, and many of the things promised to them in the future turned out to not be possible (for example one of the candidates was terminally ill and was promised a cure, or even just a proper diagnosis but woke up only to be given a medicine to treat it indefinitely and with no promise of continued effectiveness). there is also a little time loop bullshit here. sorry. also the government also made their own mechs and end up poaching a few from the candidates throughout the story. later on Something secret happens sorry i wont say. <-i might tell you more if you ask about this one because i like it very much also. but also because its the newest

@nanjokei

[hungeringheart]

hi! i was wondering if u did session analysis(es?) and i just wanted to ask if u could do an analysis for muse of void (troll), heir of hope, thief of breath, prince of blood (troll) and maid of doom. if you dont wanna do my request its fine! also love ur classpect analysis :D

It's been a minute! I'm sorry it took so long, I just saw "muse of void" and knew I'd have to give this one a particular level of think because it's such an interesting and uncommon classpect.

I think it's so uncommon and interesting because most rp groups within the fandom would never in a hundred million years let you bring in a Muse -- oh power creep this oh narrative focus that, you know, that type of thing. The usual mechanics measuring you get stuck into with people you don't know well and trust. So usually people make muses for fanventures or small closed things with friends -- and on that account I want to say, thank you as always for letting me at your characters to turn them over and put them in situations!

I don't acknowledge this enough, but when I write these posts I do my best to strike a balance between analysis according to my tastes and respecting the creative intent of the asker. Sometimes I can't obviously see it, and some people like to be vague in their asks because they want to see my take on something they're doing differently anyway -- but the sentiment is there!

I also quite like that you've specified everybody's species. Mind you, I do tend to assume your trolls are Alternian if not given any other context, and I might suggest a few things pertaining to my fanworld if I think it could help you think some things through. But the species context helps enormously!

Now that we've got preliminaries out of the way, let's get cracking.

Dramatis Personae

Trolls

Muse of Void

Prince of Blood

Humans

Heir of Hope

Thief of Breath

Maid of Doom

Lay of the Land

As usual, we're starting off by establishing the general status of our classpects. There's a bit to get through, so I've helpfully made some subheadings.

Hope

In my session analysis I usually say that the presence of an Heir means that their aspect is in a position to nurture them, but also in decline such that it requires an heir, a person to whom it (the aspect, in the sense of a programmed environmental preset or in the sense of a semi sapient force) can legally transfer its power, pass its torch.

In our case, that aspect is Hope.

Now, Hope is often scanned as optimism and literal actual hope and faith, but I would argue it also represents perseverance; one of its consistent symbols in the narrative is this idea of an unstoppable force, like a shonen protagonist or your friend that is somehow capable of ignoring all indications of reality when pursuing a dream. It's associated with angels, heralds and messengers of What Must Be -- you can't go protagonistier than divine approval of your pursuits!

When a hero of Hope is fully realized they can look at the rules and the realistic limits of a situation, say "nah but for real tho" and skip merrily right on through on the strength of their ability to ignore the haters. Aranea at least is of the opinion that Jake's aspect is "unrivaled 8y any other", and it's easy to see why - it's got big damn hero written all over it!

Not to say that you can't weight your aspects anydamnhow you like, of course. That depends on the story you want to tell.

But it's pretty classic storytelling to say that hope and faith and belief and dreams and such is dying, and someone loyal, brave and true is there to help. On some level we could all have used a champion for our childhood gentleness.

Breath

In keeping with our previous discovery that there's very little Hope to go round, we also have an understanding that Breath -- agency, serendipity, room to breathe, narrative, limelight -- is so rare, so precious, that somebody in need might be tempted to steal or usurp it.

Now, it is possible that the lack of Breath is personal for the Thief themself -- but is that more interesting for you than nobody having much agency, and the Thief deciding "screw y'all, I got mine"?

Or let's consider for a moment that maybe they want to help their team, but they need more Breath to do that... in essence, they need to learn to claim the limelight and occupy space? Oh, now we are cooking with gas. Now we're cooking with gas.

Doom

It can mean a lot of things for Doom to have a maid. Obvious among them is that there's a need for maybe tidying up, maybe some introducing and making -- disarray, lawlessness, a general disrespect for the conventions of being. That's not surprising given this Maid's friend group! Good golly, two entire main character syndrome patients. Naturally someone has to rein them in and establish some rules.

Rules in general seem to be relaxed here, and death and decline are quite remote -- is this a good thing? Is this a bad thing? I don't know -- time will tell.

One alternative reading of the Maid of specifically Doom that could be interesting is another digression into traditional narrative -- the figure of the doomed maid.

Let's take the mythohistorical person Berurya, for example, known mainly for being the wife (and therefore in some sense, in the period, also the servant) of the scholar Rabbi Meir. She's a fairly paradigmatic example of a narrative about someone who punches above their weight (she often argued theological opinions and people cited her in formal debate, she was famously very pious, and also she was, horror of horrors, a woman). In response to this her husband's students get jealous and conspire to put her in a position where to protect her dignity, she has to honour kill herself. They then expect him to go on like he's been having a normal one, or at least they never talk about it again except the guys who started a grassroots movement of naming after her.

You see these types of characters and imageries throughout a lot of different cultures, and mostly they boil down to this idea that there are people (reduced to archetypes) who are perfectly fine and even respectable as long as they serve the needs of the powers that be (in Berurya's case, the rabbinical establishment), but the moment that they fly too close to the sun, they have to be cut down. Doom is positively about justice and law and destiny (which is what doom meant to the Anglo-Saxons), but it can also be read as being about death, decay, judicial punishment, and yes, cutting down tall poppies...

Homestuck has an unfortunate (for your Maid) precedent for Maids -- underappreciated, servile, in some way sacrosanct figures -- as scapegoats and sufferers, and Doom is canonically also an aspect of suffering. I sure hope Doom doesn't turn on this poor individual right at the moment when they believe the rules that protect them would be most applicable! I sure hope they don't have their expectations and sense of effifacy built up only to have to resist their being torn down!

Blood

This is a lovely segue into a classpect that works really well thematically with Doom -- Blood represents connection, obligation, comradeship, change, revolution, mutation, connection, inheritance.

We do need to make a note of the fact that our Prince of Blood is a troll. For them, then, Blood is also fundamentally about caste and fitness and predestination in a way it probably isn't for your humans -- unless it is, but you'd know that better than me.

The duality of Princes -- do they destroy their aspect or destroy with its power? -- and their theming, which we can read as monarchic or as judicial (Nasi, the title of the president of the Sanhedrin, can be translated Prince or President), is similarly dualistic. Are they tyrants or mediators? Can you be both?

Regardless of their approach, a Prince in the game means the aspect is at a zenith of relevance -- Dirk's Heart aspect and his callousness with it was sort of a central thing of the alpha session -- and it's in their hands to some extent where their thing goes from there, up or down. They have dominion and they're free to use it as they like, define it, reform it -- like a Sylph, but more selfish, almost.

For the trolls this means a particularly harsh society, and for everyone it means that whatever the nature of their Blood, it's important. Maybe the troll species of your Prince inflects Blood for your human players too; maybe, if you like, your text is fundamentally focused on the implications of heritage in a way that Homestuck very deliberately avoids being.

Void

There is an argument to be made for the idea that Void is irrelevant to your game -- or nearly so, at first. Muses inspire and command (or command through) their Aspect, which is huge, but... it's a muse. It's the dinkiest most passive passive class, and in my particular balance oriented reading a Muse commands the aspect that's initially or eventually weakest and least relevant in the session. Calliope had zero room to learn or grow, and Caliborn blew up most of Space. That's a thing that he definitely actually did.

Put simply, your game is chockablock stuffed full of random pointless shit. No one has the time or desire to stop for a bit and do nothing; there's no mystery, they've all lost the plot of what they're doing and the reverence due to the thing in the background, the fear, the unknown. Minmaxing is expected.

If your troll religion is Horrorterror-oriented, this is a good time to say that's in decline too -- the level of abject don't give a fuck is so profound that the Muse may well believe they're the only person who really looks and sees anything at all in the world. That's a miserable way to be; they're probably not very effective, maybe even maladjusted.

But they don't have to be. After all, there are powers in the abyss, which are there and Ą̴̪̜̤̣̥͍̗̆̈́̏̇̾̅̈́͝ḻ̵̬̱̳̙͈̰̳͙͑́̎̐w̷̟̤͎͎͉͔͑̂̈́á̸̢̳̮̇̈́̽̒̍y̵̹̰̝͇̝̹̺̖̾̊̋̏ͅs̴̨͇͇̰͙͎̯̆̽͌̆͜ ̴̣͙̝͇͍͙̪͍͔́̉̽͗̃̚̕͝ẅ̴͙̼̭̹́̽̽͛̏̉͜i̸̛̖̘̮̤̱̳̖̎̀̔͑̂͘l̵̢̯͈̅͛̅̿̐́̾́̚l̴̜̝̙̪͕̔́̋ ̷̼̓͋͊̒͑́́̔̔b̷̳́̔͊̈̇̀̈́̊͊e̵͇̩͑̓͋̑͝.

Whoops! Got a little eldritch there for a second.

The big thing about Muses is that when realized, they can affect their aspect as much as it does them -- and in Void's case that means that our Muse here has the potential to seriously course correct the narrative, to restore Void to prominence and force everyone else to take time to reconsider things and reanalyze the space they occupy. For especially the Maid, that might be important...

From the top, now

First things first, no one's breeding any frogs, and no one has any do-overs. You'll also note I didn't do any ominous red text evoking Caliborn, and that's intentional too -- no Time aspect means that it's possible, as I've just realized, for this universe to be outside of the cancerous frog branch of SBURB.

So what does the game look like? How do they play?

I think the human kids start playing first, and they find their game a bit of a mess; hopeless, directionless, and kind of broken down systematically. The trolls play their own two-player game, which as far as they know is thematically about analyzing their society (through blood as caste and void as religion and both as what a person owes to society), and fail -- but the Muse leverages the Terrors and the Prince leverages their sense of decency, and off they go through the Ring and into an adjacent universe. I think they might begin as Exiles for two of the human players.

While the Maid runs around trying to facilitate the Hope player and keep the Breath player on course (their aspects are opposing along the axis of attitude to destiny, it's not easy), the Prince and Muse disagree (and maybe balkanize the human kids) as to what would be the most helpful form of intervention. That could be dangerous, but on the other hand, for now, their universe is coming to be still and quiet... there's a long window between when it becomes noticeable that an end is coming and when an end does come.

And oh, what sorts of things they could all get up to then!

Of course, in your own universe, mileage will vary...

Bonus rambling: a brief aside about an interesting point of mixed species sessions.

In a fundamental way, if there's no time travel and cultural anthropology involved, there's a very limited window of time in which one group of young people can communicate their worldview to another. Culture shock is real and sometimes strikes a long time after you think you've assimilated.

Children handle it better than adults on a lot of levels, but not on all of them. How much worse is a time limit if the people it's imposed on can't communicate about important issues?

Take Alternia: they have a caste system. In a group of human friends who don't have one, informal deference on the basis of social status just doesn't really usually happen. And in caste societies we do have, well, we have all kinds of social movements and changes ongoing.

Even insomuch as we have castes, for the most part, they don't affect our children in the way that trolls' castes do because they're partly morphological. We can infer from the existence of hemoanons that the phenomenon of caste is much like our phenomenon of sex-based gender for trolls -- the biological foundations are murky, but the sociological realia connected to them are attributed to innate traits and not really questioned.

This is a little like caste based politeness and a little like our binary gender in human societies so far, but stay with me -- I think there actually are certain aspects of the hemospectrum that are at some level instinctive. The castes correspond to castes in eusocial insects, and by that analogy we may assume that trolls in person a) can instantly tell what socially constructed caste a troll belongs to by their morph, and b) have some ant-brain level of very broad inborn behaviour about it.

It's always a good idea to consider your caste worldbuilding when you write little guys in opposition to each other and to humans -- how does your system respond to the species having internet? How does your humans' culture interface with it? Is it different by region, by planet?

Well, that's all for now, I think.

Thank you for sticking around this long!

[krystalin3]

I had a nightmare about my flavor of neurospice

my nightmare was a breakup

What triggered the breakup was that i was mad, exhausted because i was pushed and pushed into social situation after social situation. But i stuck around because its part of being with her.

Then, i have to turn on the pick up truck we own, and i accelerate its loud engines a lot. And while it is true that i was trying to accelerate the car to warm it up. I also was mad and taking my anger out on the car.

But i was also on another level aware.. aware that if i accelerated like this, my partner would hear it. And she will be forced by my acceleration, pushed, by the knowledge of my anger to leave. And on some level i revelled on that thought. Cause i wanted to do that.

But i also did not, i wanted to be responsible. I wanted to be kind. It doesnt matter what i feel, i did this to myself by choosing to tolerate as much as i did.

So i go inside and i tell her:

"Hey, i know i reved the car, but it does not mean anything, i was just warming up the car."

Which is true, and also not true, but it doesnt matter, this is the truth i wanted to be true, the one that i wanted reality to be.

My partner, with the help of her friend get mad at me. Emboldenned, the reving is the truth, the other is a lie. "You are being abusive and we wont tolerate any more of it."

I see whats happening very clearly. They saw the patterns of my behaviour, my reasoning, my way of living in multiple realities. And saw it as me being narcisistic, manipulative, a liar who just wants everything to be about myself only. I will never accept i was wrong.

Now my partner creates a boundary. She will not let me in, unless i accept what i did.

On some level, i know i just have to become a sad worm and say im sorry and say the things i did wrong, and promise never to do it again.

But i did not want to, i wanted her to see the truth. To know that while i did say what i said, it doesnt mean what i want is to hurt them. It doesnt mean i am twisting reality to keep her.

And so i dont want to be sad and tell her i was wrong, that minimizes me, minimizes the truth of what i experienced, reduces it to her perspective alone... no, it needs to have everything.

But as soon as i begin to try to argue for this, she stops me, says she is offended that the first thing i thought of was to try to convince her of something instead of asking for her not to leave.

This is big, i can see exactly why she would feel that way, i crossed a line, i did not enphasize her feelings, i did not make it about her and her alone, i did not give everything to be with her. But I keep wanting to have her see everything in me, all its contradictions, i keep believing she will understand.

With me not asking her to stay, she protects herself, she chooses to no longer listen, to push me away, to choke me emotionally by not letting any of my attempts to explain come out.

All my explanations are lies to her, worms trying to manipulate her.

The idea of her leaving, of my words meaning nothing, of me trying to explain things, dissapearing... becoming only what she sees. Makes me deeply sad, a realization i will loose this person i care so much about, care, what can be considered love. Because i care about her being with me. That should be considered something like love.. maybe its not care, maybe its want... i want her here, and tht just hapoens to turn into acts of care. I may not care in the traditional sense... but maybe that is just how i love? it has to... right?...

She sees me sad, about to cry, and she sees my genuine emotion as manipulation. As part of the process im using to trick her into staying, into ignoring what i did.

The truck acceleration being just a microcosm of a much bigger problem long ignored somehow by me. Never addressed because she looked fine, she never complained... or did she?

Its a dream, i have no context of the relationship before now, just a vague sensation of history only in dreams can be so intense and real.

As she sat in her car, what looks like a volkswagon, i run out, my desperate last move that could turn the tides.

"I have @$^^$#"

Surely if she hears that she will listen to me. Ive set the stage, sent videos and talked about what it could mean to be like that. All she needs is to be open to the possibility that my brain is different. We can start over with honesty about how i experience the world. Help each other to underatand why we do what we do. To not ignore each other.

I ask her, i beg her to please let me say just one thing.

And she is self righteous, empowered, obviously sad and furious, but resolved in her truth. She said "no, i will not let you manipulate me." Indignant that even as she drives away i wanted to put a seed of doubt, instead of just admitting i was wrong.

My soul crumbles, it is like the deepest hole in my chest and it pulls in every feeling into its dark abyss. The gravity of which starts to hurt in ways i cant tolerate.

The room of what was our apartment is a montage of a transiense of people sitting in my chair. And i put heroin or some kind of drug in me to try to numb this pain.

And what is my pain?

The existential nightmare that my truth is not real because i dont feel like everyone does. That my affections are too distant and uninvolved to be true.

i AM selfish but my selfishness does not mean i lack the consideration and time i put for the people around me. That i sacrifice what i want to give people what they need to have a good time.

And this, which had meaning before to them, suddenly does not have meaning because i refused to... no.. i did not have the natural ability to feel the same way. To do these things out of "love" in the traditional sense.

What an valuable and intense dream... ive learned a lot from it...

Use dreams to learn about yourself people.

[lunatic-fandom-space]

Das Schicksal derer von Habsburg (1928) [The Fate of those of Habsburg]

This one was very interesting but I kind of struggle to really say anything about it. I can tell you that I had a better time with it than with Elisabeth von Österreich (1931) though.

This was a silent film about the slow death of the austrian imperial family and monarchy, starting with Rudolf's engagement and subsequent suicide all the way through to Emperor Karl's forced departure from Vienna after WWI. Honestly, it kind of had the same issue as Elisabeth von Österreich where I couldnt get emotionally invested at all, but I think I was less bothered by it because I realized pretty quickly that this film was basically just running through the all important events without really trying for emotional investment, if that makes sense. Like, this movie spends most of its time with Rudolf and arguably fleshes his 'fate' out the most, but then obviously it keeps going after his death, and after that was when I really got this feeling that it was essentially just listing a bunch of historical events involving the Habsburgs + the way they died with accompanying visuals, but that feeling was already there during Rudolf's section of the film, it just got more blatant as it went on.

I guess Im maybe a little disappointed because the title of the film made me think it was going to be more about how this family or the whole system of monarchy was doomed from the start, maybe looking at the whole thing with a sense of tragic inevitability kinda like Elisabeth: das Musical sorry I keep bringing it up, but it wasnt that. And that's not the film's fault, I just assumed stuff based on nothing but the title and again, it became clear to me what it was actually doing very quickly, so it wasnt a big deal.

I dont have much to say in the way of pacing and editing which means its pretty alright, but I will say that there was something kind of mesmerizing about it. A lot of it might just be the fact that this was only my second silent movie so my brain still registers it as 'very interesting' by default, but I know a big part of it was definitely the damaged film. When this movie was restored there were bits that had no completely undamaged film available so they had to use film that was already decaying, and now there's parts of the movie that are framed by this white rot on either side, and I just think it looks beautiful. I seriously wonder why decaying film effects arent as common in art as glitch effects or fuzzy vcr effects when theyre so evocative. Also, if Im already talking about technical stuff, the version that I watched was completely silent and didnt have any kind of score, and I thought silent films usually had scores that would then be the audio playing over them whenever they got restored. Is that actually the case and is this film meant to have a score, or am I getting my silent film facts wrong here? I mean, the fact that there wasnt a score didnt bother me too much, it was pretty unusual watching a movie without any kind of sound, but thats about it.

Anyway, I realize that saying "what I like about this movie is that time passed and it was partially destroyed but that partial destruction looks really cool" sounds like a real backhanded compliment, so now Im gonna talk about the other two things that stuck out to me in a positive way. Oh man, that also sounds like a backhanded compliment doesnt it. Listen, these arent the only things that I liked in film I otherwise find bad, these are just the only things I liked in a film that I otherwise dont feel very strongly about. Those things being—

Erna Morena as Elisabeth. I really liked her performance. Unfortunately I cant really articulate why, I think she had a weariness about her that enjoyed and I liked the way she carried herself.

That scene where Rudolf kisses Franz Joseph's hand. The context is, Franz Joseph is telling Rudolf that Mary is gonna leave Vienna so that she cant interfere with him and Stephanie, and that he is to be locked in his room or in the palace until she's gone, but Rudolf begs him to atleast let him see her one last time time so he's like "Fine, but you have to promise me that it really will be the last time you two see each other" and holds out his hand. Rudolf shakes it after a long moment moment of hesitation and then he kisses his hand before laying his cheek against it, and the Franz Joseph puts his hand on the back of his hand in a kindof embrace. oughhhhhhhhh. Its definitely because Ive had a real fascination with masculinity and specifically father-son relationships lately, but that scene is gonna live rent free in my head for a while

So yeah. In conclusion: it was an interesting watch but mostly by virtue of being a very old silent film. It ocurred to me after briefly skimming the wikipedia page that I would have probably found the actual film more interesting (or atleast had more interesting things to say about it) if it didnt deliberately avoid having any kind of political lean, but that doesnt change my opinion of the film so whatever

And now here's three small things that I noticed that I couldnt mention elsewhere before you go:

The makeup and costuming was so 1920s. I have previously said that I am not a history person, and Im not, but I do know some basic stuff about historical fashion and it was honestly really distracting. That was kinda the case with the costuming in Elisabeth von Österreich (1931) as well (although there it was mostly the hair and makeup) but this was a whole other level

There's this scene where Rudolf and Mary first meet and theres this instant chemistry and they start dancing together and then Rudolf just GRIPS her neck and pulls her into a kiss, it was so forceful. I dont think it was supposed to read as aggressive, I'm pretty sure it was just meant to be passionate but idk, it was weird. They dont have any other weird interactions here, for the rest of the film its just pretty standard, old-timey man-woman interactions. And then obviously the suicide, which felt only slightly less sudden than it did in Elisabeth von Österreich

I dont remember at what point in the film this was, I wanna say about a third of the way through, but I was thinking a little about Stephanie and how she was portayed here vs how she was portrayed in Rudolf: Affaire Mayerling, the only other piece of media I have seen so far where she gets focused on quite a bit. I noted that she was a lot more sympathetic whereas the musical portrayed her as a lot more antagonistic, and just as I finished that thought, Stephanie arrives in Mayerling after she heard that Rudolf went there with a certain baroness instead of coming to her, sees Mary sitting outside with Rudolf and some friends of theirs, walks up to her and hits her with either her fan or maybe some kind of stick, I dont remember. so that was kinda funny

[underscorecc]

1.

every time i dump a bunch of shit thats been on my chest it usually starts with all the problems in my life. maybe its because im just shooting from the hip but i find myself stuck in the should-have-beens and the varying levels of "not good enough" but i think ive had enough and for once im putting the shit that runs on the hamster wheel in my head out there where maybe someone can connect and understand and realize they are like me or visa-versa. unfortunately youll have to forgive the lack of proper grammatic structuring and the vagueness, but i dont really care enough beyond stringing my thoughts together in a way that someone can comprehend them, and my lack of specificity is partly to isolate this page from my life, and partly so that those who can possibly connect with some of these topics are able to just a little more.

heres where im at: i've just been through a breakup about a week ago, and even though it was on really good terms, ive opted to keep her out of my life for the time being. im sick of being obsessed and letting someone hold so much power over me (not that she was particularly dysfunctional). we even alluded to getting back together in some undecided amount of time, a time when she can be single for a bit and i can fix the major parts of my dysfunctional life. i dont really care about the breakup. she meant a lot to me but im just sick of her right now and of the apathy. i texted her that i wanted her out of my life so that i can get her out of my head (we originally opted to stay best friends despite the breakup) but that didnt really work.

anyways

off the top of my head i can categorize "dysfunctional" in the context of what im dealing with rn goes like this:

1 - I'm sick of being a beta of sorts. I used to carry myself with a lot of alpha energy that just went out with a bang at the beginning of the last 6 months, which currently, have been the worst 6 months of my life. you might automatically direct your thoughts to me being some andrew-tate-manosphere-15-year-old-incel-cuck at the mention of alpha, but no. It's more in the sense that I had self respect, was much more consistent in the gym and with music, I was way more confident, and all in all I just felt like there was a future on that path that I was taking.

2 - I'm sick of having such a weak internal locus of control. In another perspective one could say I have made leaps and bounds in terms of my level of control and discipline, and they wouldn't be wrong. from where my standards are set, it's nowhere near enough. maybe my goals are "unrealistic" or "too tall" but when you shoot for the moon, even if you miss, youll land amongst the stars. for now, my withered coomer-brain needs a reset, which probably involves some sort of dopamine desensitization, so when i start doing that i'll update on this blog.

3 - I'm sick of my selective pseudo social anxiety. when it comes to social dynamics, once im situated, i find myself more than competent in being engaging, and more often than not im the center of attention, but even so i find there's this level of desperation in the way that i entertain. not to say that im bad at it, no im the fucking best; no one does it like me. at the same time, i find myself feeling that when im joking with a group of friends or just making small talk theres this underlying begging of "please pay attention to me and validate me and dont leave me" that i pick up on, and if i pick up on it others may very well too.

all of these issues tie into eachother in more ways than i can imagine, and for the most part i can trace these issues to their source, the rejection, the shit talking, the anxiety, the deflated sense of self-value/importance/respect, the lack of self control, etc. so right now i guess i need to focus on just fucking doing it or something i dont know.

one of the things i find people (including myself) struggle to do the most is to come to terms with the fact that making significant change involves doing hard shit. for example, if you want to have a nice body and be strong just lift a lot of heavy shit and dont eat like a fatass. It really is that simple (not to imply that simplicity = ease) but so often i find people snorting lines of copium by doing some crazy intricate crash diet or giving in to defeat by saying "oh my basal metabolic rate is too low to lose weight" or "my bicep insertions look weird thats why i dont have good arms" (stay with me here i promise it'll come back to the main topic soon) and you could say that those are good excuses to give up, but you arent going to be any more satisfied with yourself by logically worming yourself out of putting in effort, because it takes effort.

I only said all that because i feel like thats what i do all the fucking time and its probably the crux of all my issues and it makes me fucking crazy. being decently smart doesnt help at all either, because i can logic my way out of fucking everything now, which has probably been the primary contributor to landing me where i am now. It reminds me of the most stand out part of fight club to me, "How's that working out for you?...Being Clever". If i were asked that by a one tyler durden i would say "its the fucking worst".

im all over the place now because my comprehension of this intangible dissatisfaction with myself, which i simultaneously can put into words succinctly, yet also could not describe with all the words of all the languages. i dont want to end abruptly here because it feels like theres more i could go off of, but i cant. tldr; its not over but like shit stinks bad rn :)

[chewaask]

Hi! Sorry to bother you but I'm hoping you could give me some advice. There's this boy in my year and he's not a great person, (for context I guess); he was friends with an ex-friend and I wouldn't have hung out with him otherwise, I'm nice to him but he's pretty racist and homophobic. Were both in transition year though and he doesn't have a lot of friends so we talk quite a bit as I feel bad he's being left out. He sent me friend requests online pretty often but I always acted like I never saw them, but he got kinda pushy one day and I gave him my phone number and added him on instagram, since then he's been texting me asking to play videogames and stuff (just us, noone else) but I almost always pretend I don't see it or make excuses but he hasn't really taken the hint. Additionally around a year ago the same ex-friend was making jokes that he had a crush on me and he'd always get embarrassed and super aggressive. I feel kinda uncomfortable around him and I'm pretty much just asking what to do. I dont wanna make a big song and dance out of it but I'm really stuck on what to do. Sorry for the info-dump and I hope this makes at the very least a bit of sense

Don't worry about bothering me; answering questions is my favourite thing to do :)

If I'm reading this right, there is a person who you don't want to interact with but you feel bad for him.

Telling him to stop would be the right thing to do (bc he's investing energy into interacting even though nothing is going to come from it + you're the only person who dictates who you interact with)

Now I know that's a hard thing to do. If he's the type of person to get aggressive, it might even be a risky thing to do. That's why the best way to tell him to stop interacting with you is to give him a reason that's not entirely his fault. For example: "I feel like our personalities don't align in a way that makes playing video games together exhausting for me. You have good qualities like being assertive and clear about what you want, so I think you'll get way more joy out of playing with someone who's like that too" or "hey I know it's not your fault but for some reason I feel bad after we hang out. I haven't figured out why yet but I want to try to not hang out. Now I know you have good qualities like being persistent, paying attention to things that are important to you and such, so I think there are plenty of other people who do want to hang out with you. I really hope you don't take this personally, I'm just busy with changing some things up and finding out how it changes my life".

(of course it's your conversation, not mine, but I just wanted to show examples of ways that the blame can get turned around. You can pick any reason. Do whatever feels right.) Now, is this entirely honest? Not really. But you can warp it into something that's not dishonest either. If you keep hanging out with him against your will, you're also taking away some time he could have been spending on finding someone who does want to interact with him. (I'm not trying to make you feel bad for doing something wrong & it makes sense that avoiding conflict is something that brains want to do. So it can be hard to fight against that)

Don't feel bad about it. Sometimes people just don't like someone and they don't even need a reason, it's just something that happens. That's nobody's fault

Alternatively, if it's something that you feel comfortable with, you're allowed to just straight-up tell him that you feel uncomfortable around him & that's not something either of you can change

I hope any of this helps. Good luck

[finn-shitposts]

Oki so!! Bonus question, how are things different to the first time I watched it?

I do remember a lot of it. I wouldn't have been able to describe what happened in any of the episodes, but as im watching, i recognise each episode and remember what happened. Like Maddison being a werewolf, recognising who the trickster is(!!!!) and knowing who Ruby is, etc. I think this time around, I'm seeing a lot more of the subtext than the first time. So, seeing how sam fits into his storyline from the beginning and how you start to see the effect of certain choices unfolding. I'm also having fun and seeing it in the tumblrfied* way of like "what if they were trans, how does that effect their brotherhood/relationship to eachother with Dean calling him "Sammy" and Dean having to both fit the older brother AND motherly role (and of course the huge overcompensation of masculinity). Its also fun seeing how they mirror each other quite a lot. Like if it were possible, i definitely think they'd be stuck in a loop of selling their souls for each other. Obviously, the whole premise of the show is how far they'll go to save each other, though. Uhh okay I wrote a lot more than I thought I would and I hope this all makes sense???

*i say this to mean the version of the show I've understood from seeing people talk about it on here and their ideas and thoughts and headcanons

Yeah no yeah i get what you mean with tumblrified supernatural sksjsk but like FR when you look at it in the context of them being queer in different ways it changes the meaning of so mamy scenes!!

And yeah theyre fucked up and codependent theyre a goddamn mess and it just keeps getting worse as the show goes on T.T every time they have one of those heartfelt emotional scenes of "dont die for me again" and you KNOW theyre gonna do some shit to break that promise 2 episodes later. It just gets exponentionally funnier the more it happens

And eheheheeh im excited for when you get to scenes/seasons that you havent seen yet! how many of them have been randomly spoiled by tumblr i wonder,,,, how many do you THINK have been spoiled but then youll get to the episode and realise weve all just been delusionally posting about popular headcanons as if they were actual plot too lol

[koipalm]

IM UP IM UP sorry for hijacking ur post pepsi but since we were talking about family dynamics LETS GET INTO IT

i think the main problem here is that for the gameplay of hades to truly work you need to kind of ignore the underlying context the game is giving you. obviously spoilers for the boss fight, but at the end of it all, hades is literally willing to kill his son to stop him from truly experiencing the surface and finding his mother (AND because its his job. but then again, even if your universe ordained job says kill your kid to stop him from leaving the property, doesnt mean you should do it). not only that, but once he actually does bring his mother back, hades doesnt STOP being the final boss.

furthermore, zagreus has to go up several times to beg his mother to return to the underworld (and keep in mind im not going to be charitable here) and even when he DIES IN FRONT OF HER MULTIPLE TIMES, she still has to hem and haw if she reeeaally does want to go back to her or not.

adding ONTO that, hades doesnt just magically turn into a kind and caring father figure once persephone is back. the first fucking thing he tells zagreus is 'i expect you to respect your mother'. like holy hell man, i think an 'im sorry' on your knees is the only appropriate reaction. sorry im getting a little sick to my stomach bc im going back to rewatch and zagreus literally says, in front of his mother "is it still going to be you [hades] on the surface if i keep this up" and of course it is, and persephone doesn't even comment on it. shes completely unmoved! all she says is "can you check up on my garden when you're up there?"

WHICH MEANS THAT (again, not that you're supposed to think about it that hard): persephone KNOWS whats going on. she could even stop it! but unfortunately, the game works in such a way that if you actively acknowledge that zagreus's job is literally [fight his way out of his home, die or kill his father, and if he does kill him, die on the surface], then you need to face what that means about zagreus and his family.

im reminded of a tweet i saw a little while back about someone wanting games about having a shitty father/killing a shitty father or something along those lines and they went 'dont bother recommending hades' LOL. because hades not about fixing abuse or getting out of it. hades is about making the best of a bad situation. zagreus is stuck in a house with a father that's made his life hell for as long as he could remember, and later, with a mother who decided she could live with watching her only son die in front of her eyes after he had fought his way out of the underworld itself, died who knows how many times, and died and killed his father, just to see her. maybe she didnt think she could help things! maybe she weighed the pros and cons and decided her only child was just.... not enough incentive to go back. which is really and truly just heartbreaking.

to be fair, its structured this way so that youre able to continue playing after youve wrapped up the story, which makes sense for the dynamics of the game itself. but when it really comes down to it, zagreus cannot escape. hes still stuck in the house of his father, who may never actually show zagreus true affection, and a mother who wont actually step in and try to make his father change his behavior towards him. and this is coming from someone who wrote persephone out to be a really kind and loving mother too! it is so terribly tragic ohh god..

also, as an aside, please contemplate the implications of hypnos being the eldest brother and how that could affect how his family sees/treats him (the useless older brother who never left home? the bad role-model? sighs. sniffles)

Hey I’m just very curious- do you think you could expand on your thought here: “Persephone isn't a good mother and, imo, would have a very strained, tentative relationship with her actual son (and now daughter hahahahah damn....)”? It’s not a common take I’ve seen- at least in the parts of the fandom I frequented- and I’d like to know more about where you’re coming from. Like I know Nyx isn’t a good mom- particularly to Hypnos- but it’s way less common that I see people saying Persephone is a bad mom.

To be clear, I’m not disagreeing or being confrontational or anything- I’m genuinely curious to hear your thoughts. Also what’s all this about the timeline implications? I don’t have a computer to play the early access on and so I have to hear about it second hand. All to say if you could tear yourself away from Hades 2 long enough to formulate a coherent response I’d be eternally grateful.

Sure! I just got to the final boss in hades 2 so I probably need a break. Ignore the shaking and cold temperature of my skin, I'm normal! Long post under the cut!

Okay lets see, first thing: any nyx or Persephone freedom fighters out there who wanna defend their mommies or whatever do it somewhere else, I don't give af. This isn't directed at you, I just gotta cover my bases. Anyway,

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure Persephone (Pers) loves zagreus, I won't say she doesn't. She lost him once and that grief drove her to leave hell entirely, leaving her husband and home behind for solitude of her own creation. You don't get grief like that unless you loved someone, or the thought of someone, deeply. But, having said that— she was gone for (functionally) all of Zagreus' childhood, adolescence and a non-zero portion of his adulthood. A charitable read of their situation was that she wasn't absentee by choice, not knowingly at least, and if she knew she would've never stayed away as another woman raised her child and her husband abused said child because of her toll on his mental. My read is that she left, abandoning her husband and baby and when Zagreus went to find her she wouldn't even come back with him. He reached out, found her, begged her to come back and she wouldn't. The reasoning for WHY is something I've forgotten honestly, I haven't played HADES story mode all the way through in years, but regardless she didn't instantly come back and will herself into her son's life. Any deniability she had was gone by that point, imo.

And let's say, for argument, she came home and instantly was heavenly and kind and loving and everything zagreus needed then— doesn't change the fact she abandoned them.

I don't think you get to be a good parent when you missed all of your child's most formative years. That sort of loss is something you don't get back, time that doesn't get to rewind just because you made a mistake. I think a common fandom take with hades fans is that the family is fractured but whole by the end and everything is okay. That's nice, I guess, but I think it's boring and uninteresting. I much prefer a read that zagreus moved heaven and hell (literally) to get to his mother and he finally got what he wanted and still wasn't satisfied. She wasn't the goddess he expect. Not the. mother he expected. She was .... something else.

Theres a degree of negligence in her actions that just are unavoidable.

Unless I'm completely misremembering the events of the first game, (which is a real possibility, me and my best friend have done so much insane HC talking over the years canon and Fanon get blurry quickly—) I think she's a bad parent. And this isn't even touching on how her absence made Hades a worse parent and abusive figure to his son. I think of that quote from... somewhere, that was something to the effect "an abused child's saddest realization is that they didn't have a normal parent and (1) abusive parent— they had (2)" Zagreus had to have thought that if she hadn't left, abandoned him, he wouldn't have to endure what he does.

As for time line mess: it's too vague. (It's funny you sent this when you did, I actually was just talking about this with my bestie, all of 15 minutes ago. You cursed me, witch)

So assuming I understood hades lore, with only the first game as our point of reference (no myth, no outside media, just the in game text) Hypnos, Zagreus, Than and Meg are around the same age. Thanatos and Hypnos are twins, meaning they're the same age and it's implied that meg grew up around the twins and zagreus as well. Zagreus openly references their shared childhood with nyx and achilles and probably other characters I forgot. But what matters is that if they grew up together that tells us one of two things:

Gods are functionally made like human children are. Not for a purpose or function but just because the parent wanted them (or had an accident) and then a aspect is applied to them at birth/conception OR

Gods are created by their parents to fulfill some sort of need that the parent didn't/couldn't/shouldn't do themselves. This seems to be the more textually supported answer, if Nyx and her fucking high school football team worth of children mean anything.

Neither option is one I like, because they don't make much sense to me in relation to humanity but that's neither here nor there. Personally, I think godhood should work like the concept of storks do in that when humanity needs a new figure to pray to or invoke, a child is 'born' and delivered to the parent. So, by this logic, the base needs of human begins would come before all else right?

So just within Nyx's family, the ages should really go Chaos > Nyx > Fates [?] > Hypnos > Than > Charon > etc etc etc. Because human beings must sleep before they die and then die before they're transported to hades and so on and so on.

But in THIS model, Hypnos and than would be considerably older then humanity and everyone else in the house, hades included. Which means they'd be far too old to have grown up which zagreus. Or maybe zagreus is way too old to be acting so childish? It's hard to say. Neither answer is particularly satisfying. That also doesn't even bring into account the olympians. And don't event get me STARTED on Melione. God. The timeline has major implications for her and her story depending on where she falls on it.

But that's a whole other rant. Like this is already getting long as shit. I hope this made sense and I'm glad you asked! I enjoy going on my senseless rambles.

Well, back to the horrors (hades 2) <3

[thatone-highlighter]

Hello!!! I am here to rant about something random to you!!! Since I want to rant and I figured you might at least slightly relate bc of how you’ve talked ab SU :]

Yknow that when we had that CAWM post and in part of it we talked about how these shows [AT and SU] are important to us? I was just thinking about like why AT specifically connected to me so much [and also how that extends to characters?] like, of course AT was very important to me when I was younger, but I’m just kinda wondering why AT is the thing that extremely stuck with me. There are thing I could argue built more of who I am today then AT [even tho AT did definitely contribute to who I am] Like The Lion King which got me interested in animation and art, and I probably never would have even watched stuff like amphibia without it getting me into animation! Maybe AT was just a right time right place type of thing, maybe my autism was just like “oh yeah that’s OUR thing forever now.” OH that’s another important part of it ! I’m like 99% sure my neurodivergency has contributed to AT becoming as important to me as it did, I call AT my special interest, which definitely has a ton of different definitions depending on the person but for me it’s like, my default, it’s the thing I’m most likely thinking about and the thing I see the world through if that makes sense?

And !!! How this relates to my favorite character/s in AT [for context even tho I’m p sure you know this: my all time fav is PB and Fern is also a top fav] I see myself a lot in my favorite characters, I’ve said that AT is a part of me, and that definitely extends to characters. You can see that easily in how I take characters names actually,,, a little side note, but I’ve considered using heart as a name before, which I feels hammers this point home even more since heart is ofc my wjh fave [tbh I still really want to use heart as a name but idk if it would be weird since their like an oc and not a tv character and I’m too nervous to ask Mal lmaoo] and also, I end up seeing these characters just, as me a lot, like in the same way that AT is such an important part of me that it feels like you couldn’t separate it from me, I also feel like my favorite characters in a way because their so important to me [ofc this type of connection varies between characters, I think I feel this most for PB] and I also definitely feel like the neurodivergency has contributed to this, and I think this happens to others too [I mean how many people named Marcy have you seen around the Amphibia fandom shgdhdhshs] autism is weird [extremely positive] and makes me identify with my silly little blorbos a lot.

Anyways, I wasn’t really going anywhere super specific with this, and I don’t really have like, a question for you to answer to in this or anything, I just wanted to talk about my experiences and thought you’d maybe like to hear about em???

I dont really know what it id about su that got me into it. I think it might have just been a perfect thing at the perfect time. I had the ability to watch it, the autism liked it, i was at an impressionable age. The stars perfectly aligned and then it consumed my entire life for the next 5-8 years and counting. Theres nothing specific about it no specific plotlines or characters that specifically connect to me in a specific way its just. Special to me, its comforting and nice.

I dont really like, consider anything my special interests? I dont really know what counts as one so i dont call anything it. But yeah, to me its just, i dont even know how to put into words what SU is to me. Its what i spent hours upon hours thinking about at school, whenever i had downtime, every week on the way to soccer training i would sing songs to myself to keep myself entertained, to this day every time i get bored and start singing to myself Love Like You is the first song i go to. Its so important to me its such an important part of so much of my life, i truely very much would not be the person i am today without it.

I have a weird relationship with names, if i could i probably wouldnt have a name, every name ive used feels good for a while and then eventually it just, stops. Even duck which is a name i Love and in years of using it online it has never stopped being one i like, the idea of making it my Actually Legal name just, isnt there. The relationship you seem to have with names where you take the names of your favourite characters is very interesting to me, its cool. In concept i get the idea of seeing yourself in a character and relating to them that way, but in practice i think i have too flimsy of a sense of self to really see myself in anyone else. I think it would be cool if you added Heart to your name arsenal. On the server a few people have asked why we have a Heart role if its empty, but me and Mal both agree that it we could never give it to anyone else, theres no way we could ever give the role to anyone who wasn’t you, it would feel too wrong its Your role.

Thank you for talking to me about all this, i love talking to you about each of our fav Cartoon Network shows,,,,,,

[gurkemeie]

i keep thinking about the context of resilience. when things go wrong, you weather the storm, and you have faith that things will be okay again.

my friend can handle any bad situation, but she handles the aftermath bad.

i am the opposite.

i feel like i need hope to stay alive. i need a beacon that i can look to, to make the pain im experiencing okay.

why was i so angry?

the context, is that im generally a very easygoing person. i am not easy to anger. i take the high road, i dont want to dwell on those emotions. theres no point. it’s greasy and sticky and gets everywhere. we’re all gonna die. pass the remote.

i was angry, because there was an inherent expectation that i had room in my life to suffer. that i could endure snark, coldness, hollowness, pointlessness.

its okay, because everyone has a home where you can unclench, loosen your tie and say: oh honey, you wouldnt believe the day i just had.

i dont have that.

i love my family. in every sense of the word. i feel this indescribable, blinding ache whenever i see them take on more than they deserve.

i am barely hanging on at home. i want to be present, but i can barely endure seeing the constant loop of misery, of pain, of trauma.. im so burned out. and im stuck, and i feel the grand finale of all the pain and trauma and suffering fast approaching, and part of me is longing for the other side, because a different type of trauma and pain seems enticing, especially one in solitude. its so, deeply, utterly, disgusting, and selfish, and it eats at me that i desire it so much.

its purposeful solitude i seek though. im not arrogant to believe that i can give my mom the quality care she deserves. i am forced and expected to be a village. and i have to know that im trying my best and i will fall short.

if i could have my solitude, if id know that shes in good hands and being taken care of, i could unclench, and i could heal a little bit, and id return and i could give her more quality.

but i cant

because im always here

i have a home, but not in the sense that everyone else does.

on my way home, i unclench. i sit on the train and i look at the all of the houses peppering a hill, the twinkling lights. i see the idyllic bike road that makes me think i have to go biking there sometime, maybe have a taste of what it would feel like to live in a painting. the trains, then the big trees, and i slowly start to become tense again.

my home is in liminal spaces. the transition from one place to next. the in betweens.

but then, that was taken away from me too.

work from home.

this fucking job was taking more than i was willing to give.

and for what? for nothing. when my mom takes, its okay, because she needs me. and im willing to give more than i should.

but when they take, there is no end in sight. they take and take, because the process of taking has been romanticized, and its so fucking cruel

how are you able to feel this entitled to someone?

of fucking course im angry. and thats the context.

its cruel to take from people who already give for a living.

[mostly-mundane-atla]

The only thing against the idea of Ozai arranging a marriage i can think of is, and i know this topic is fraught, the Search, and what it confirms/elaborates on vis-a-vis Ozai’s marriage to Ursa. If we take those comics as an interpretation of “Bryke” collective intent, Ozai was forced into an arranged marriage with a woman he never met for the purposes of his dad‘s breeding project, and it fuckin sucks. She produces one kid that he thinks is pathetic, taunts him with infidelity, and basically sounds like an extremely stressful situation to live in, knowing you can’t divorce her bcz FatherLord said so. (Not that im callin Ozai the True Victim, just sayin how his POV might look). I dont know how much “empathy” people think Ozai possessed, or his tendency for consistency vs hypocrisy, but i do wonder if Ozai would not *want* to deal with the untrustworthy wildcard of an arranged spouse for his kid- especially given that his wife killed his own father. Does this make sense or am i off base here?

I've actually played with this concept! Specifically the ways Ozai would reconcile his own experience with an unhappy arranged marriage with his right/duty to arrange successful marriages for his child (or children, in the case Zuko became useful to him).

I mainly use the Fire Nation Royal Family as a source of complicated drama because i think that fits the dynamic best, so i'll try to trim this down to only context that completely matters. Everything below is from the headcanon-laden timeline I put together for my fan writings.

When Azula was still quite young, Azulon began to have doubts about the prophecy and after reviewing it and weighing his options, he decided the safest course of action was to keep that Avatar blood in the main bloodline another generation. He arranged for Lu Ten to marry Azula when she came of age (twenty-one years old in the Fire Nation, judging by The Search) unless a more suitable match could be arranged. Everyone was uncomfortable with this, even Ozai, who coped with the news by considering it to be the most favorable match Azula could hope for and that his own grandfather married a young cousin when he couldn't ignore his need for heirs.

Ursa was distraught at the news for the same reasons Ozai was annoyed: they weren't given the choice to refuse to give their daughter to the union, and, even if Ozai didn't want to admit it to himself, that she was going to be given to someone who outranked her, was older than her, and far more favored. You'd think this would make him reconsider the unequal relationship he has with his wife, but he continued to ignore her wishes and didn't stop touching her that night until she slapped him. Probably justifying himself with the idea that princes and princesses exist to make more princes and princesses

The general hope was that Azulon would die before Azula came of age and Iroh could decide what makes up more suitable matches. Naturally, you couldn't actually say that and the only back up was not telling Azula until she was old enough to understand and have Lu Ten be especially nice to her so the idea of being stuck with him until one of them dies wouldn't feel like a punishment.

Lu Ten dies long before Azula ever learns she was betrothed to him. The Firelord himself is found dead the next day and Ursa is nowhere to be found.

It isn't long before Ozai sets Azula up to be the princess her mother was not. It isn't long before she gets to have adult conversations with him; the kind of conversations Iroh would disapprove of if he wasn't in a state of constantly flipping between catatonic and blubbering mess over the death of his son (and father, one right after the other). Azula isn't like that, perhaps in part due to her inexperience with death, but also because her father expects more from her and her duty is fulfilling those expectations.

Ozai resents his father for many things, including the arranged marriage. He words this resentment toward the former Firelord incredibly delicately when discussing it with his daughter, but not his resentment toward his wife and the union that bound him to her. "Dissatisfying," he describes her, as well as "ungrateful, willful to the point of childishness." Rather than suggest to him that marriage is best as a partnership of equals, his experience seems to have taught him that it ought to be that one party is unquestioned and answered to and the other knows its place. He promises his daughter that she will be better off than he was, and the husband he chooses for her will be grateful for her, and he will fear her. Azula, as the ideal daughter and princess her father wants her to be, thanks him for the care he takes with her future and praises his wisdom.

A man presents himself, a smooth-talking social climber whose ambition is best kept in check and loyalty best kept enforced. He plays the simpering yesman well enough, but his reputation betrays him. Azula is still young, and prodigy though she is, she could use a bit of polishing, but in time, she will put fear in him. It's what her father taught her and what her father expects.