#i mean this is even under the assumption this was genocide as we know the daleks are in the next episode.. 😅

[beware-the-jabberwock-my-son]

"But Palestinians elected Hamas!"

False. Let's take an analytical look at the reality of the situation and the statistics behind the most recent Palestinian election.

First of all, the most recent parliamentary (and legislative) election in Palestine took place in January of 2006, just over 18 years ago.

At that time, the estimated population of Palestine was about 3,761,904 (reported as of July 2005). Interestingly enough, at this time, just over half of the population of Palestine (52.3%) was under the age of 18. Those numbers alone suggest that Palestinians as a whole could not have voted for Hamas, since the majority of the population was underage.

But of course, there's even more to this story. Of the population that was eligible to vote, only 1,341,671 were registered to vote and only 1,042,424 votes were cast. Of the cast votes, only 990,873 were labeled as "valid" votes. That comes out to approximately 26.3% of the population of Palestine in 2006 having cast valid votes.

However, the plot thickens even further. In 2006, Hamas was under a party called "Change and Reform", which won the election by a slim margin with a majority of 440,409 votes compared to the runner up with 410,554 votes. Doing the math, this means that in the most recent election in 2006, Hamas, under the Change and Reform party, won the election with a vote from approximately 11.7% of the total population of Palestine.

And if those numbers aren't already enough, let's compare that to the current population, seeing as the 2006 election was so long ago. Making the bold assumption that every single person who voted for Hamas in 2006 is still alive, and compared to the current Palestinian population of about 5.4 million people, that comes out to be approximately 8% of the current population having voted for Hamas.

Yes, you heard me right,

Only 8% of the current population of Palestine voted for Hamas

Now I know I hardly have any followers and the chances of this post getting any attention are slim to none, but these numbers are so important. When we talk about Hamas, October 7th, and the ongoing, centuries old Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we have to consider the analytical data behind all this. Those of us supporting Palestine have never said we're in support of Hamas, in fact many of us understand the detrimental impacts Hamas has had on the Palestinian political system.

All we're asking is for you to have even an ounce of compassion and understanding for the fact that tens of thousands of innocent civilians are being killed at the hands of the Israeli military. This is a genocide. Israel is an apartheid state. There's no debating that.

Sources:

https://theloop.ecpr.eu/palestinian-elections-hang-in-the-balance/

https://www.electionguide.org/elections/id/1433/

https://english.wafa.ps/Pages/Details/104279#:~:text=RAMALLAH%2C%20November%2019%2C%202006%2C,of%2018%20years%20in%202006.

https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/state-of-palestine-population/#google_vignette

(please lmk if I've made any errors with links or misinformed sources or if I've made a miscalculation or stated an untrue fact)

[max1461]

Current debate being hosted on @triviallytrue's blog involving @metamatar and @centrally-unplanned is interesting to me on a meta-level. @metamatar, a Marxist, offers what I think would usually be called a "materialist" explanation for US support of Israel: the United States gets strategic benefits out of its relationship with Israel and thus wants to keep them as an ally. @centrally-unplanned, a rationalist-adjacent(?) liberal of some sort, offers what I think would usually be called an "idealist" explanation: the US supports Israel against its own rational self-interest for ideological and domestic political reasons. Triv, a left-liberal, takes an intermediary position.

Using the terms "materialist" and "idealist" in this way has certain Marxist undertones that I don't necessarily endorse, and is maybe not even technically accurate for one reason or another, but I just needed some quick and recognizable terms in which to frame the debate. Forgive me for this.

One way or another, I have some up-my-own-ass and navel-gazatory things to say about the discussion.

I don't know a whole lot about the US's relationship with Israel on an object level. But on the basis of my priors I lean towards the materialist explanation. I think this reflects, ironically, a kind of liberal view of human nature: I model people (and organizations) as basically self-interested and rational agents, at least to a rough approximation. But I have a fairly dim view of where this leads us. I think that rational self-interest often results in murder and plunder and cold-hearted slaughter, and indeed the notion that humans are approximately rational and self-interested agents comports well with the fact that the world today and for all of known history has been characterized by murder and plunder and cold-hearted slaughter. My default assumption is therefore that, again to a first approximation, whatever is going on between the US and Israel is another instance of this.

On the other hand, I think it's interesting that the idealist explanation is here favored by a liberal, although it suggests perhaps a less "liberal" view of human nature. Under this explanation humans are foolish, driven by irrationality, ideology, and superstition, to work against their own material interests. Ok, the putative politicians supporting Israel for domestic political reasons are acting in their own self-interest, but the voters to which they cater are evidently not! Naively this view might seem a bit at odds with a liberal political philosophy, but I don't think it really it. Especially in this case, where the belief that US support of Israel is driven by irrationality and superstition actually serves to rescue the notion of rational self-interest from what otherwise might look like a mark on its good name. It allows one to avoid the conclusion that the rational pursuit of self-interest has lead the US to complicity in a genocide, which is not a very fun conclusion to reach if you endorse a political philosophy that at some level valorizes the rational pursuit of self-interest.

All in all, what is my point? I don't really have a point. I don't think this kind of psychoanalysis of others' political opinions is a very useful endeavor. I suppose I'm saying precisely nothing: the leftists in this discussion have taken up a position that indicts rational self-interest, the liberals have taken up a position that exculpates it, the centrists have taken a middling position—everyone has behaved in exactly the way our cheap psychoanalysis of them suggests they would. Nothing has been learned about the world (in this post, I mean), because although we see that the participants in the discussion are making arguments that suit their ideologies, we cannot tell which direction the causality runs. And nothing has been learned about the participants in the discussion because this kind of psychoanalysis is a crock of shit.

Keep on posting, everybody.

[brotherslayer]

I find it quite strange that you say that Siyeon and Eckles' age difference is creepy, when you shipped them a lot before, even if Siyeon had owner behaviors you didn't care. What happened? Just because they didn't stay together were you able to take off the blindfold? Because, be honest with you, if they had stayed together in that toxic relationship you wouldn't be attacking the characters so much right now.

I shipped Cha Siyeon and Iklies two years ago. Back then I was still young and the implications of abuse were much more subtile and harder to pick up on as not many chapters had been translated. At that time Iklies had been presented as Cha Siyeon's only safe route, ergo everything was much more toned down otherwise the plot twist wouldn't have come as a surprise. Naively I had assumed that Iklies and Penelope would end up together and raise a rebellion together freeing the other slaves. I wasn't familiar with the problematic portrayal of slavery and colonialism that seems to be so widespread in isekai as I had not consumed many manhwas yet.

You seem to be under the assumption that liking a character = endorsing the actions of said characters and shipping a ship = wanting such relationship irl. You are wrong. Even if Callisto committed genocide and Penelope is a groomer I'm not going to come into your ask box and demand you to stop shipping them or start a bullying campaign by writing out a callout post against you. I'm of the opinion that anyone should be allowed to ship whatever they like as long as it's fiction.

But does that mean that no one is allowed to share their criticism of characters with each other? Does that make it okay to shut down the voices of those, especially poc readers, who find the implications of the author chosing to despict the colonizer with aryan features as a hero and the indigenous boy who had witnessed the genocide and enslavement of his nation by said man's hands as a villain deeply uncomfortable? I don't think so. Specifically because it's so frowned down upon to point out the flaws of the fandom faves we have readers who say with their full chest that Iklies betrayed Penelope (slaves cannot betray their master), Delman deserved to be subjected to the genocide because some of them plundered at the borders (did the women and children plunder too?) and the slaves deserved to remain in bondage because they dared to rebel against their masters and it would make Callisto look bad in front of his citizen to free them (uhm what the fuck???).

Let's keep things civil, shall we? If these discussions bother you and you can't contribute without feeling the need to resort to insults and passive-aggressiveness, feel free to block the tag anti Cha Siyeon and anti Callisto Regulus or even block this blog alltogether. I'm surprised that you didn't do this already. I, as an Iklies stan, don't even have the luxury of blocking the anti Iklies tag as such consideration isn't shown by diehard Callisto stans who loved crosstagging their hate into the character tag.

Anyways as for the age gap thing. I'm generally not an age gap kind of gal unless it's under very specific circumstances where the narrative aknowledges the fucked up-ness ⬇️

I bought the physical copy of vadd this summer, saw the ages and went "hey wait". Sometimes you don't notice everything at once. And I'm not all knowing. I didn't know about South Korean laws on statuatory rape when I was younger. It's also not only the age gap that was an issue but the sum of all things together.

Now the last sentence is very funny. "if they had stayed together in that toxic relationship you wouldn't be attacking the characters so much right now." Anyone who follows me knows that this assumption is false. I'm happy to inform you that I ship lots of dark and fucked up ships and I love to point out and analyze in what ways they are toxic to each other. For example Nai and Vash? I literally call Nai an eco fascist and wrote an entire essay how it is doubtful that Nai even loves Vash. I called episode 11 and 12 a rape allegory. It's the Vashwood/Plantcest antis that are in deep denial that Trigun features incestuous abuse and not the Plantcest shippers who will happily explain the layers of trauma caused by Nai that Vash carries within him.

I ship Derrick x og Penelope but do you see me woobyfying him or wishing they had ended up together and being mad that they didn't? Heck no. If anything I'm mad that he got away with everything and Cha Siyeon even lets him hang around her daughter. My ideal ending is Penelope shooting with her crossbow at him and setting the mansion on fire. If it's true that he fell in love with 12 y/o Penelope at first sight that would make him a pedophile. I'm being honest. Someone needs to talk about these things because I don't think that even the author was fully aware of this.

[onigiri-dorkk]

I feel so bad for Levi during the Marley trip. He has to watch his crush offer ice cream to Eren while all he gets is a lollipop from a clown who mistakes him for a child. And then later he has to discover a drunk Mikasa snuggling next to Eren (though Jean passed out under Eren's crotch and vomiting Sasha kills the "romantic" vibe🤭). Also, is it just me or is Levi more grossed out by the EreMika drunk cuddle than Hange and Onyankopon? Poor guy was also told by Zeke he wasn't popular with women, not knowing Zeke ships his brother with Mikasa (I wonder if those scenes were meant to contrast with each other🤔).

Hi Anon!!! Sorry I'm only getting to this now! Hahaha I really wish we got more Marley content in the series ;-; Would have been fun to see more details and daily life of them, especially amidst so much war and chaos of S4.

In all seriousness, I actually always feel so bad when I watch the clown/Levi scene *sobs* He's just so SMOL and that will always be evidence of his upbringing. ;-; That clown is a major creep tho LMAOOO

Lowkey I always thought the drunk-cuddling of all of them is actually really cute LOL, I always laugh at Eren's leg hanging over Jean's neck HAHA. I read some fun theories about how Eren isn't blushing in that scene, so he might actually not be drunk and is just taking one last moment to have fun w the gang before he heads out to start genocide. I think it's 100% canon that Levi is disgusted w them tho. Partying for HOURS with so many villagers and food and drinks in a single TENT??? I bet that smelled terrible, of booze and vomit and sweat LOL.

In regards to the Zeke line of Levi not being popular, I've always wondered what Levi's answer meant. He always seemed like he had something/people in mind (he looked down to the side), and he also sounded really sad when saying it, which is also significant considering he was allowing Zeke to see a slightly vulnerable moment. SO WHAT DID IT MEAN!?!?!?

"You must've been real popular with the ladies. It's not nice to make assumptions about other people's feelings, you know."

"I know... And I was popular enough."

Curious what y'all think. I feel like it's relevant to how he was popular for being "Humanity's Strongest Soldier" and Captain of the Scouts/for killing Titans, even if he wasn't necessarily ~popular with the ladies~ ???

[gemmabee]

my battlestar galactica thoughts

putting this under a read more because of major spoilers for the entire show.

I don’t even know where to begin. I watched the last episode yesterday and I’ve still not recovered. The thing with binging the entirety of the show in less than a month is you get all of the story at once and not in increments as you would watching it when it aired. Which means, a lot of stuff is sorta blended together in my head and there’s a lot I have forgotten about, simply because the characters change so much during the seasons that looking back on moments in season 1 you can barely recognise these same characters and their motivations. This is a good thing though, character development (or regression) is a vital part of great storytelling. and boy, what a monumentous journey, both literally and figuratively. This story took me places I never expected to go, with mindblowing plottwist i never saw coming. Knowing absolutely nothing about this show and, somehow, having avoided all spoilers that mattered, I came into this fully expecting only two things: 1. There was going to be aliens.

2. The Starbuck and Lee romance. (My initial reason for starting the show. They’re both cute.) 

I did not expect the aliens (or the Cylons) to be manmade AI creation gone rogue, but I loved it. I loved everything regarding the Cylons (except, perhaps, the human genocide. that wasn’t lit); How they came to be, the way they perceived themselves and the humans and the struggle of adhering to your programming or breaking out of it and becoming more than just a machine. It was utterly fascinating. Likewise to see the human aspect, which is of course the main point of focus throughtout the initial seasons. And I think this is what makes this show so good, because everybody, Cylon or not, are so very, very human and I could love a character utterly in one moment and in the next they could fill me with frustration or contempt even. (Tom Zarek i’m eyeing you hard) 

I enjoyed the spirituality of the show as well. This was something I did not expect, at least not to this degree, and this made me grateful that I have waited until now with getting into the show. I don’t believe a younger me would have appreciated the message of the show as well as present me does. Honestly, it’s a bittersweet story but in itself also deeply moving and hopeful. I don’t think I’ve cried so much to a show before, but all the characters really had me going through it.  Especially Lee and Starbuck. The internet somehow had let me to the assumption that the were The Couple. They were Endgame. and I fully expected that, so I was fine with watching their dance around each other, the whole “will they, wont they?” scenario I’ve seen times before. But I enjoyed it, I always found their scenes together interesting and fun (and sometimes frustrating). I just felt really bad for Sam and Dee (best girl, love you), and I would just sit there like “please for the love of galactica, divorce your partners and get together already, why is this dragging out??”  and then... they don’t even end up together??? because starbuck apparently DID die in season 3 and the kara we see is either her angelic form (beautiful) or an angelic being with the memories of kara thrace and not actually her (devastating) and she just disappears when they finally reach our earth and her job is done. The way Lee just stands there alone in the meadow just about broke my heart. Dee dead, Kara dead, Dad gone. Ah, so tragic. But mostly sad for me and my shipper heart I think. I really did love them and wanted them to be together. 

And just as I was trying to recover from that they just timeskipped 150.000 years and essentially killed off everybody hahah. But I did enjoy the last 5 minutes in present time, and I honestly thought (hoped) they would tease us with showing some of the characters reincarnated, but alas no juice. Instead we do get to see the Gaius and Caprica Six “Angels” walk down the street of a present day metropolian city and I thought their short conversation tied up everything quite nicely. And it was all in all a cool bit of foreshadowing for what could truly be in store for the human race, if we are not careful. Very thoughtprovoking conclusion and all in all a stellar note to end the show on. 

There’s so much i could talk about, this is merely the tip of the iceberg and I will probably make another post talking about all the main characters because they deserve to be talked about individually and i love them and i miss them and I am not crying again, nope. 

Regardless, I really think this show sets a precedent for future shows to be inspired by. Though it is by no means without flaws, i still felt the quality of the show was top notch and I’m so grateful to the cast and crew for this considerable accomplishment. What a beast of a story, what amazing characters and attention to details. This show has earned a special place in my heart and I can’t wait to rewatch this show in 10 years time and probably cry just as much as the first time around. 

So say we all.

[afklancelot]

the weekend's ere, so yknow what that means: rambling 'bout The Familiar by MZD! specifically, I wanna talk about the color of the banners under each narrator's tag and their significance

more info under Read More per usual, and pictures for each narrator's tag + banner will be included. of course, heavy spoilers for TF, but if ya haven't read the series but want to be spoilered, be my guest. i will tag HoL mainly because of one or two specific narrator banner(s) but it’s only tangentially related.

ok so as i said, each narrator has their own banner underneath their respective tags, and those banners, like the tags, have their own significance in relation to their narrator. i'll try to summarize each narrator's banner's significance right ere right now.

Xanther:

prolly the easiest banner to gain significance from. Xanther’s banner is black, which brings to mind of Luther, whose tag is black. literally by the end of book 1 we know that the two are pretty much foils to eachother, and as the series progresses we see Xanther acquire characteristics similar to Luther (more rebellious, starts looking people in the eye, killing people (indirectly, using the cat)). not much to say that isn’t already obvious.

Anwar:

Anwar’s banner is probably the second easiest to parse. his banner’s color directly correlates to Cas’/The Wizard’s own tag. this connection is first implied in Cas’ last section in book 1, where she catches a glimpse of Xanther in the Orb, and then explicitly stated when Mefisto, an ally of Cas and Anwar’s friend, show up in books 2 and 3 in their respective sections. again, don’t have much to say bout it.

Luther:

Luther has a yellow banner. it tips the reader off that Luther and Isandorno are connected, and it shows even in the first book (both are hispanics and their sections are probably the most violent and bleakest in portraying their world. again, like Anwar, this is later confirmed in book 2 when The Mayor, Isandorno’s employer, mentions Teyo, the employer of Luther. fun fact. in the orbit piece that Danielewski wrote, it’s mentioned that Isandorno would’ve travelled up north to Cali to meet Luther, which is interesting given Isn’s ‘curse’.

Özgür and Shnorhk:

yknow what forget what i said earlier: Oz’s and Shnorhk’s are the easiest banners to parse, given that Oz’s banner is Shnorhk’s tag and vice versa. in other words, they fuckin mirror each other! this gives anticipation that they will sooner or later encounter each other (and they do- in vol5), and it is amplified by Shnorhk’s own prejudice of Turks, no thanks to the Armenian Genocide.

jingjing:

imma be honest: when i first came up w this post, it was partially bc i thought jingjing’s banner’s color was the same color as text pertaining to the minotaur from HoL. but now that i have the pic up there, i realize it’s more of a pink color. course, there is still significance in that Xanther has tian li’s (an old woman who jingjing assists/lives together with) cat, jingjing’s want for pink balloons, and the two’s confrontation in the last book. that said, i wouldn’t completely disregard my own first assumption given that A) he is described in vol5 in terms related to the minotaur (red-routed eyes), and B) this banner’s color is too dark pink to be explicitly Xanther’s color: maybe a mix between pink and red?

Isandorno:

isandorno’s is simple at first: his banner matches Shnorhk’s tag. thing is, there isn’t that much to connect the two with all the material we got. only thing i have to say they’re connected is that they both seem burnt out/cynical, and their narrations are stated by Narcon 9 to be translated from another language (mostly, in Shnorhk’s case). maybe if the series went on Isandorno would’ve met Shnorhk when the former hails the cab that the latter drives?

Astair:

ok i’ll be honest: i’m not sure what Astair’s banner signifies. if we go by the usual ‘banner color matches another narrator’s tag’ shtick, it would imply Isandorno would play a significant role in Astair’s life (could you imagine) but Astair’s banner isn’t really yellow: it’s more of a lighter shade of orange. well, if Astair’s own tag is orange, then her lighter orange banner might signify how self-absorbed she tends to be in her narration (the seizure alert dog, for example, was more because Astair loves/wanted dogs and less for Xanther’s sake).

Cas:

last but not least: cas’ banner is a blue color. like Isandorno and Shnorhk, there isn’t much to connect Cas to jingjing, who has a blue tag. besides, jingjing’s is more of a lighter/pale blue, which connects him to the pale blues he starts to smoke. in that case, do you know what DOES correlate to Cas’ banner?

The House.

a bit of a stretch, yes, but i can say with 95% certainty that the color of house text is the same as Cas’ own banner. i have no idea myself what it means except Cas’ very last section in the whole series was titled ‘The Labyrinth’.

Yeah.

one last thing i realized halfway thru typing this goddamn post: none of the narrators’ banners are green. yeah Anwar’s own tag is green, but besides that none of the narrators has a green banner. even Xanther’s and jingjing’s tag colors kinda show up in other narrator’s sections (jingjing and cas, respectively), even if they’re not the same color. it’s noted that green tends to signify goodness and benevolence (Anwar being shown as a compassionate stepfather, green being tian li’s (and jingjing’s) thing, etc.).

[beatrice-otter]

Note: Ashkenazi Jews (i.e. Jews from Eastern Europe) are only about 32% of the Israeli population. They are a minority in Israel even when you're only talking about Jews. There are somewhere around 3 million Ashkenazi in Israel, and 7.2 million Jews total. Most Israeli Jews are descended from Jews who have been living there all along, and another large share are from other Middle Eastern countries who were expelled for being Jewish in the early 20th Century.

From the very beginning, I've been watching people talk about Free Palestine in ways that are incredibly damaging to the Land Back movement here in the US for ... all of the reasons a-method-in-it names, because they don't actually know what Land Back means and are envisioning it as a sort of Colonialism But With The Right People Benefitting This Time (i.e. as a violent way of eliminating large groups of people and either killing them, throwing them out, or turning them into third-class citizens, only now it's Good, Actually because they're The Bad People).

I am not Native American, but I know several politically-active Native Americans, and have listened to them talk about Land Back. They are all very articulate about it, because they have to be, because the second they even hint at it any conservative and/or racist in earshot is going to break in with "aha! you just want to expel white people and take our homes and businesses! it's all a part of White Genocide!" and even moderates will say "you mean you want to take my home away???" and they have to be able to counter those basic assumptions. So I've heard them talk about Land Back several times. Here's some of the things they talk about:

Real Rent, where people pay a regular amount to the tribe whose land they're living on, so the tribe has resources for everything from education to healthcare to housing to whatever else they need.

Justice for Native Americans who have been killed or assaulted or otherwise targeted because of their race. (Missing and murdered Indigenous women, boarding school survivors, etc.)

Public acknowledgement of past wrongs. Not sweeping things under the carpet and pretending Everything's Fine Now, so therefore we don't need to deal with all the evils of the past.

Better infrastructure to reservations.

Native American history and culture taught in schools, with focuses on the local tribes.

Treaty rights upheld. (Fishing, hunting, access for ceremonial purposes, all the rest.)

Land that is theirs by treaty but which was taken away after the treaties given back.

Native peoples allowed to take the lead in ecological management and land use planning for the areas their tribe historically lived. This includes urban planning.

You will notice that none of this involves anyone losing their homes, businesses, or having to move. None of it!

What it involves, is justice. It's not about turning the clock back to before white people arrived, it's about changing how we do things now to heal things and build new ways of living and relating for the future.

Now, obviously, a lot of the details I named are specific to Native Americans, and some of them are specific to the Pacific Northwest. Land Back in Palestine would not look the same as it does here. I do not know enough about Palestine and Israel to know what this sort of restorative justice would look like there.

But if your idea of a "solution to the Palestine Question" is "all Israeli Jews are either killed or forced out of the Levant to become refugees" then please DO NOT call that "Land Back" or use terms similar to what Native American activists use, because then not only are you advocating for genocide of Israeli Jews, but you are also feeding into the US Republican propaganda that the Land Back movement is white genocide.

I hope western leftists know that standing for a free Palestine is not the end of decolonization. I've seen far too many white leftists who proudly stand for freeing Palestine which is good but then get nervous and apprehensive at the idea of decolonizing the very land they are on. Norway will recognize Palestine but actively tear down Sámi liberation. Liberation for one people means it for us all. If you support Palestinian liberation but deny it for the Indigenous people of the land you're on then you didn't stand for Palestinians or any of us to begin with.

[ovenproofowl]

I know some people weren’t big fans of seeing the Doctor essentially commit multiple genocides in one fell swoop to save what was remaining of the universe from the Flux, but, honestly, I found it quite interesting.

The Doctor is all about giving enemy species the chance to run before it reaches the point of no return. In fact, we’ve already seen that happen during Flux when the Doctor opts for forcing the Sontaran fleet to retreat instead of blowing their ships up - which she could have done if she’d wanted. This was only made clearer when a human goes against her orders and does it anyway.

That was a chance that the Doctor gave to the Sontarans, but I think Ten said it himself, didn’t he?

‘No second chances, I’m that sort of a man.’

I think we forget that the Doctor’s compassion isn’t endless, and if they’re tested, they will fight back with every part of themselves. The Doctor was put in a situation where an enemy species had already found a solution to stop the Flux, only that solution involved the destruction of two other races to slow the anti-matter down.

So, she stole it. And twisted it. And, most notably, kept the blame pinned on the Sontarans for coming up with it in the first place.

‘This was your strategy. Anti-matter slowed by absorbing army fleets.’

The Doctor had already given her chance to the Sontarans, and she isn’t about offering a second one. In her eyes, the Cybermen and Daleks were already cannon-fodder, no use saving them now. They couldn’t be saved.

(Not that she was ever going to try too hard to save them, anyway.)

It poses a very interesting side of the Doctor, one I wish we got to see more often. The Doctor has always had a habit of contradicting themselves, and one of my favourite contradictions comes in moments where the Doctor can still frame the enemy as the cause for certain destruction even when it was them to enact the final blow.

The Doctor has been in multiple wars, knows strategy like the back of their hand. There wasn’t time to come up with a new plan, so she simply took the one the Sontarans had and workshopped it to fit her purposes. To destroy the Sontarans as well.

She gave Karvanista his revenge, which felt like a rather poingnant apology. We don’t know how close she was to Karvanista, whether she was indeed his person, but we do know that they had an incredibly close bond - one he can’t physically talk about without dying. The Doctor came hurtling back into his world after who knows how much time and, by helping her, he became the last of his species.

The Doctor knows war. Knows loss. Knows how it sits in their hearts. And she gave Karvanista the chance to find some kind of closure by destroying those responsible.

Was it compassion? Eh, maybe a twisted version of it, but that’s a side of the Doctor that I love seeing explored. Because the Doctor isn’t this perfect pacifist. There are flaws in that image. There are whole worlds who believe the Doctor to be a warrior, so much that in some languages Doctor literally translates to warrior.

We’re also seeing this in the way that Yaz is trying to embody the Doctor. How she doesn’t bat an eye at a dead body because she’s trying to desensitize herself because that’s what she thinks the Doctor would do. It’s unfortunate we didn’t get to see more of that explored, but I hope there’s still some time for the Doctor to realise what kind of an impression she’s inadvertantly had on Yaz. Because, unfortunately, it’s not as positive as we want to believe.

All in all, I’m glad we got to see this. The Doctor has been noticably slipping during her journey to discover her stolen memories. We’ve started seeing the darker side that other iterations have also explored, but this time with the added twist that her life before the Doctor was something far more corrupt.

And, when she finally has those memories in her grasp, she throws them into the centre of the TARDIS where she won’t be tempted to discover them.

Because, whoever the Doctor was before those memories were removed, she doesn’t trust them, doesn’t trust the beliefs that were instilled in them. And, worse yet, all that she was, all that she became, enforced the Division’s decision to try and end the Universe she had tainted.

There are so many levels to this. The abuser that Tecteun was revealed to be, one that tried to blame the Doctor simply because they existed outside of her control for all those years.

We don’t know who the Doctor is, not really, and what we do know of the Doctor is imperfect, it’s messy and contradicts itself over and over because it has to. Because the Doctor has been so many people, seen so much death and destruction and has still held onto the care and love they put into everything they do. Everything they try to do, at least.

But, they are also a soldier. One that will force herself to believe she wasn’t killing three species in that moment. Not really. Because it wasn’t technically her plan...

Right?

[isa-ah]

*coughs up blood* i just sent the message to my mom that im cutting contact lol for people who are nosey

I'm about to start a new chapter in my life, so it's time to tie up loose ends with people who will not be turning the page with me.

This begs the question; how patient should you be? How long do you give someone to learn, to make the choice to grow, and to find their respect for the people around them? Days, weeks, months, years? Because I've been waiting for nearly a decade and I'm tired of it.

I thought for a long time that tolerance was the best I could hope for. Gritted teeth and being allowed to sit at the table with everyone else. Not being openly mocked. I thought, when I was a kid with no self worth, that that was the best it could ever be. But I'm older now. I'm an adult, I'm getting married, I have mature peers, and I've started to realize how absolutely bullshit that is.

I deserver unyielding support and love. I deserve respect. And I'm getting it- from Lo's mom, from Lo's family. They've shown up en masse to celebrate with us. Not a single person has questioned my identity, has made me feel disgusting or unwelcomed or decieved. They're ecstatic to be involved in the planning and execution of our union- and it's lead to questions not about me, but about YOU.

They want to know why YOU'RE not involved. They want to know why I cried so hard I nearly threw up when Drew told me he would never support us. They want to know why I don't have a SINGLE family member in attendance. And when I tried to explain it, how it happened, the resurgence of disbelieving disgust I was met with made me realize they're right to feel that way.

These strangers have shown me more compassion and understanding than you ever have. You've had nearly a decade to figure yourself out, to step up and become a better person. To not just tolerate, but to LOVE me. And you haven't. And I've lost any expectation for you to. It's 2022 and you've done nothing to unpack your internalized homophobia.

And the funniest part is, it's not just you! You've made my brothers into bigots as well.

I tried. I fucking tried. I pressed for family dinners. For outings together. For conversations between us, between you and my soon to be husband, so you could understand that we're not monsters. We're just people. We love and support each other, and we were trying to establish something of that with you.

What we got in return was consistent homophobic and racist commentary and jokes over the dinner table. Rape jokes, Holocaust jokes, and your daily usage of the word "gypped"- an anti Romani slur coined as part of the genocide of Lo's ancestors. We tried to grin and bare it, under the assumption that with time you'd learn, but fuck. Why are we the ones left holding the bag?

We put up with your nasty bullshit, and you can't even make an appearance? You can't even say NO? You ignored me when I tried to ask you to come to our wedding. To my FACE, you IGNORED me. You did NOT even RESPECT me enough in that moment to say NO. I gave you THREE chances. And you could not even be bothered to say no.

And so, why am I still trying? Why am I holding the line, keeping communications valid, when after so long you've done nothing but regress? You're a worse person now than you were when my grandparents died. You taught me the foundations of anti racism and that gay people were just normal people. So why are you so unbearably nasty now? What happened?

Well. I don't know how to tell you this, but it's a line you've chosen to cross. You are, and I mean this genuinely from the bottom of my heart, a religious extremist. You've chosen the white person's guide to colonization over your own child- again and again and again and again. And for the last time. I won't keep asking you to pick when I know I'm only going to lose.

I hope that in time you'll find your humanity again. That you'll start to unpack and understand how far beyond any level of tolerance or compassion you've swung. How much you've not only hurt me, but damaged my brothers world views. They're going to struggle to ever settle into any space that isn't unambiguously straight, white and religious. They're going to internalize things deeply- DEEPLY- about their own worth and the worth of people who aren't exactly like them. And it's going to hurt when the day finally comes that they have to confront the knots on knots on knots that you've allowed to be tied up within them.

I know, because I'm nearly twenty-six and I'm still dealing with the fringes of what I was taught as a child.

It's not too late for you to grow and change. I'm not writing you off. But I'm not going to keep channels of communication open for someone who thinks so lowly of me and my husband. I love you. But I'm done.

[historicity-was-already-taken]

Hi, I wanted to ask your perspective as historian on something. Feel free to ignore this if it’s too much or you don’t have time, I get it. I’m a stranger on the internet, no obligations. This is about Russia and Ukraine.

I’m struggling with how to respond to people who keep saying that Ukraine does have Nazis, as if that justifies an unprovoked attack. Yes, there are Nazis in Ukraine. There are also Nazis in Russia, and Russia has a terrible history with how they treat Jewish people. I feel like this is something that is routinely ignored (well, Jewish people in general) when talking of ’denazification’. Would you have any advice on any historical perspective I could try to bring up, regarding this issue? I’m not Jewish myself, but I’m Finnish and we have a long history with Russia, including unprovoked attacks. Which adds an extra layer of anxiety and generational trauma I wasn’t actually aware was affecting me.

A final note I want to add: I don’t tend to take part in online discourse, so this is something that won’t show up on my dash. But I want to be able to discuss this IRL, if need be.

Ok so, I've been mulling over this question for a while, and I think my advice on how to deal with this is two-pronged: 1) extreme pedantry/semantics, 2) socratic questioning. This approach mirrors the one I used in the classroom when I was teaching undergrad history courses, and operates under the assumption that you don't want to demolish these relationships or get into an intense fight. also, i'm american so i'm sure there will be Cultural Things I'm missing/not grasping here.

Semantics and pedantry. These are both obnoxious and often disingenuous, but I think they will serve you well here. Ask these people what they mean when they say "Nazi." Then you hit them in the ACTUALLY: the Nazi Party, or the National Socialist German Worker's Party, was a political group/movement formed during the Weimar Republic. It was a far right, nationalist party which applied strict, ethno-racial definitions to who was and was not a German, and therefore who was allowed to be a beneficiary of state-sponsored benefits and programming. By defining who was and was NOT a German along these--as opposed to legal citizenship and official papers--lines, the electoral victory of the Nazi Party set the rhetorical stage for unchecked expansionism and genocide. FURTHER, the rise of the Nazi Party was, in part, a response to the Treaty of Versailles; the reparations it charged Germany with paying, and the War Guilt Clause. Therefore, Nazism in its purest forms can only be understood in terms of the very specific history and politics of interwar Germany. (NOTE: I wrote this off the cuff without double-checking sources because I'm getting ready for work while typing this, so if any of you would like to correct something in here, have at it). Now, these people who are throwing the term "Nazis" around very clearly are using it as shorthand for "aggressive violently nationalist white-supremacists" and we all know that, which is why this step is pretty openly disingenuous. BUT we need it because it leads us to...

Socratic Questioning. Do not argue with these people; don't waste your time and energy. Instead, use the base definition of Nazism established in Step 1 to try to make them think. After having established its very specific historical context, ask them what they mean by "Nazism." Ask them what they mean when they say Ukraine has them. Ask how those rhetorical Ukrainian's views are different from the views of the Russians who do stuff like harass non-white footballers, wear Confederate Flag clothing, harass non-white exchange students, and made(/make) life such hell for Jews that there was a multi-decade US-based movement pushing for their liberation/right to emigrate. Ask them calm, polite questions which will force them to think deeply about what they're saying. Obviously my above framing is aggressive, but your actual questioning should stay even-toned, curious, and respectful. Not because your conversation partners deserve your respect, but because you don't want to give them shit like YOU WERE BEING MEAN TO ME THEREFORE I QUIT THIS CONVERSATION to latch onto. Ask them for their sources regarding these "Nazis." Ask them what makes Ukrainian white supremacy different from Russian white supremacy; ask them what makes white supremacy in Eastern Europe different from white supremacy in other regions of Europe; ask them why the presence of "Nazis" justifies an invasion, and if, therefore, all countries with violent white supremacist ~movements~ should be invaded. Keep framing everything in terms of "help me understand your thinking." Your goal here isn't to win or even to convince them that they're wrong, because people spouting this kind of rhetoric aren't the types to just change their mind overnight because of your Socratic Questioning [tm]; your goal here is to politely poke holes in their thinking. After that, it's up to them. But I guarantee you, those holes will make an impact that they will, one day, have to acknowledge/deal with on some level.

That's my general advice. If you take it, do your research, have sources quietly ready, and be emotionally prepared for some people to throw some massive cognitive dissonance temper tantrums at you once they decide that they're done with your uncomfortable, probably vaguely condescending (because lbr) questions.

[writingwithcolor]

Blending Mythos Respectfully

@sapphicq submitted:

Hi all! I’m trying to write an urban fantasy that explores oppression in a world that is basically the same as ours, except with magic, while incorporating magical systems and mythologies of multiple cultures. I’ve done an okay amount of research on each one that I’d like to include (still need to do more for sure, especially considering how colonization has effected mythologies). However, I’m struggling a bit on how they should coexist, since in the world I’m writing about they’re present and tangible. One example of this is fox spirits in East Asian mythology. Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and Chinese mythologies each have a nine-tailed fox, and though my research says that the myth originates from Chinese mythology, it also says that each of the fox spirits carry different connotations of malevolence, benevolence, and how widespread they are, depending on which culture’s mythology is being referred to. 

The same sort of thing has been popping up quite a lot in a lot of my research. I started to wonder if I could explain these similarities within world as “different cultures have come up with different names and customs surrounding the ‘same’ thing,” considering mythology in the real world from an anthropological perspective. However I don’t want to overgeneralize, especially considering that these different mythological figures are meant to be present and tangible. If I went that route, I wouldn’t want to say something like ‘actually, benevolent fox spirits do exist, and Korean mythology about fox spirits is wrong since Kumiho are pretty strictly malevolent,’ which would obviously be an implication. All this to say: do you have any tips for multiple mythos coexisting in a way that respects the various cultures they come from?

Avoid Round Pegs in Square Holes

A mistake you sometimes see Western authors make when dealing with mythology in urban fantasy settings is to confine the universe’s worldbuilding to a particular mythology or force the rules of a single culture’s folklore onto other cultures. For instance, here at WWC, we get a lot of questions asking how to represent supernatural creatures from multiple cultures respectfully alongside fae from Western Europe, and it's fairly obvious that the author plans to treat all supernatural creatures as fae. Urban fantasy based on Greek mythology or Christian mythology often falls into the same trap. 

I think a writer can demonstrate greater creativity by embracing these differences. I think a potential way to deal with contradicting mythos between cultures is to come up with compelling reasons why differences exist. What world-building systems, philosophies and real-life phenomena allow for a framework that explains the simultaneous existence of commonalities and differences? As you know, in anthropology, there are theories that emphasize cultural diffusion as a way to explain similar customs within the same region, but there are also theories that hold that multiple cultures can develop the same traditions and principles independent of each other (See: existence of 0, lost-wax bronze casting, astronomical calendars and the use of wheels). The answers I’ve given are mostly technological. However myths and belief systems serve very real social functions as ways to keep people together and cultivate norms and mores. Lesya expands on the utility of intentional cultural diffusion below.

Similarly, within evolution, there are instances of species having common features because of a shared ancestor, but also instances where species without shared ancestors evolve to have similar features because they exist in the same environment. I believe flippers are examples of both types of evolution in marine animals.  Thus, I think you need to question your assumption that “different cultures have come up with different names and customs surrounding the ‘same’ thing.” As the world is daily proof, they sometimes do, but they also sometimes don’t. 

-Marika

First, props to you for sending us this ask. You have been thinking about this a lot and have done research into building an urban fantasy that doesn’t do the thing of putting all Asians under one umbrella. 

Second, I’m going to agree with Marika here. Rather than go for the generalization route, revel in everyone's differences. It's a way for you to acknowledge the variations in the mythology, that not all have the same origins though there may be some similarities. Instead, they may have reached the same conclusions. My advice for blending mythologies is to lean into it, and not create a homogeneous umbrella. You can make something amazing with that. 

-Jaya

Hybridity Through Diffusion

So a myth originated in China. This does not mean Chinese tellings have the monopoly on what a telling is. Marika and Jaya have gone into a possible solution, here, but what I’m going to examine here is a mental framework that a lot of people get stuck in that is actually ahistorical.

Cultural appropriation as we know it is shockingly recent when it comes to history. In the modern day, ownership boundaries of myths have become very strict because of primarily European colonialism picking and choosing everything it likes about a mythos, and, this is important: not letting up on the oppression of those peoples. There’s also a strong preference to kill those colonialism deems “wrong”, instead of creating a hybrid culture.

Historically, this got a lot more fluid.

What happened historically was primarily cultural diffusion, wherein open trade, intermarriage, and shared borders made it that myths, customs, and cultural practices were (mostly) freely exchanged without massive power imbalances happening, and then modified to fit local beliefs.

Key word: mostly. Because yes sometimes it happened that one place took over another place and imported all of its customs (see: China, Rome, the Mughals), but… often* the ruling power either backed off, was fought of, or otherwise left the region, leaving the common people to do whatever they wanted with the carcass of what had been imposed on them. Or sometimes, even, the imperial forces would actively create a hybridized culture in order to better rule others.

* in places where the ruling power has NOT backed off on oppression and assimilation, even if the colonialism is very old, then this is invalid and the power dynamics of appropriation are still at play.

Because, historically, there was a lot less incentive to simply genocide the peoples you took over (which is what made armies that did destroy all they took over so noteworthy). People were needed to keep providing food and materials, even if the new person got the resulting taxes. 

This meant there were a lot more common people to play with the stuff imported by the imperial culture. And there was a lot more incentive to hybridize your customs to the common people’s customs, leading to the sometimes-hilarious situations like “Rome assigns an equivalence in their pantheon for literally every mythology they encountered, which was a lot.” 

This also explains early Christianization, because it was a lot safer to simply adapt what you already had to make it better for your own ends than curbstomp everything that was “wrong” to your worldview. Ireland’s mythology survives in huge swaths, because it was either Christianized wholesale, or it was about “historical humans” and not fae. Norse mythology was similarly adapted for Christian worldviews, which means we unfortunately have no idea what the pre-Christian myths were.

So instead of thinking in terms of ownership, think instead in terms of diffusion. 

Myths get imported along with food, cloth, or anything else necessary for life. Myths were, historically, a way for people to explain the world around them, both in place of and alongside science. “Ghost marches” are really common, globally, because if you have wind howling in the forest, it’s going to sound like predators, and predators mean go inside and lock the door. Weaving goddesses are also common, because weaving was so necessary to survive the elements.

Sometimes trade relationships soured, and you get bad associations with the imported stuff. Sometimes the relationship stayed great for long enough it got completely adapted. This doesn’t mean any one myth is “right”, nor does it mean you have to erase historical trade links. It just means you look at the historical context, understand that cultural exchange often used to be a lot more two-way than it is in modern appropriation times, and figure out what that means for your worldbuilding.

~ Mod Lesya

[gffa]

OKAY, I WILL DO MY BEST HERE, but it’s one of those cases where there’s A LOT of information and NOT A LOT of information at the same time!  We have a bunch of details and some good general ideas, but it’s not like it was a set-in-stone process, so there’s plenty of wiggle room if you want it. The Inquisitorius was started in 19 BBY, the same year as the fall of the Republic and the genocide of the Jedi, but seems to have been officially started after the Purge happened.  Sidious had been planning something like the  Inquisitorius for a long time, but this specific version of them wasn’t necessarily always the only version in development. The Inquisitors are all fallen Jedi, presumably ones that were captured by the Empire and tortured into becoming dark siders.  Several of them have mentioned that they were former Jedi, but the only one we’ve seen the process of is Trilla Suduri, who we saw being tortured for a very long time in Jedi: Fallen Order.  (Link of the relevant scenes here.  Warning:  It can be a bit of a tough watch, Trilla is physically tortured and some of it you see from her perspective, as the electricity is jolted into her body, which can be kinda disturbing.)  So, in theory, it’s possible that some of them fell on their own and agreed to join, but the one explicit example we have is where she was tortured into it and, while Cal is walking around their fortress, he talks about how multiple Jedi were broken there. (For another example, Prosset Dibs is a Jedi we saw falling to the dark in the Mace Windu: Jedi of the Republic comic, so he may have willingly joined or he may have healed while he was working in the Jedi Archives but not all the way and still had to be tortured into joining.) The Inquisitors are under the direct supervision of Darth Vader (after he’d discovered the program, he was put in charge of it), who trains them incredibly harshly--in Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith, he’s shown cutting an arm off one of them and basically telling them to suck it up and keep fighting, to remember what loss feels like.

Sometimes they’d work with Darth Vader (the Grand Inquisitor went to the Jedi Temple in 19 BBY with Vader, where they confronted Jocasta Nu, the Ninth Sister went with Vader on a mission to investigate a possible Jedi sighting on Cabarria, Vader took them with when he went to kill Eeth Koth and kidnap his baby daughter, Vader had them with when he went to Mon Cala to confront Lee-Char, etc.), sometimes they operated separately from each other (all the times in Rebels or Jedi: Fallen Order that Kanan, Ezra, or Cal faced them when Vader wasn’t around, etc.), probably based on whatever Vader felt like or whatever Sidious felt like on a given day. The Inquisitorius as a group seem to have some degree of command over Purge Troopers, as they would often be seen leading a group of them (this happened often in Jedi: Fallen Order especially) and they could commandeer military assets (or probably civilian assets as well) if they needed to, so they had a certain amount of leeway when it came to their missions--so long as they didn’t piss off Vader or Sidious. Their main goals were to hunt down any Force-sensitives in the galaxy, whether newly discovered Force-sensitive children, former Jedi (whether they had left the Jedi Order or were Jedi in hiding, it didn’t matter), or even Force-sensitive adults who had never been trained by the Jedi.  They would turn them if they could, but otherwise it was to kill anyone who might possibly be a Force-related threat of any kind.  (What this means for planets like the Bardottens, they’ve never said.) They were greatly successful at their missions, so they wound up killing a great number of Jedi who had made it into hiding, along with Darth Vader being one of the biggest reasons the Jedi were mostly entirely gone by the time of the OT, which was helped along by Vader training the Jedi style out of them.  Part of why he was so harsh to them (including cutting off limbs, etc.) was to force them to be more aggressive and less defensive, to be sharp and quick and fast to overpower Jedi, who were used to a different type of fight. They still had unique talents (as all Force-sensitives are not the same), like Ninth Sister had a great talent for reading emotions (including Vader’s, where she could sense how much he wanted to die),

As well as they weren’t actually Sith.  Only Sidious, Vader, and Maul were Sith, the Inquisitors were dark siders or fallen Jedi or possibly a category unto themselves. They have some sort of headquarters, as seen in Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith, where Vader is seen training them in issue #6 (same scene as above where he cuts off their hands or lightsabers their eye out), which is labelled as being on Coruscant, somewhere in The Works in the Industrial District:

There’s a training arena we see there and at least some sort of communication/strategy rooms that Vader and the Grand Inquisitor walk off into, while they discuss the other Inquisitors. Which means it’s a pretty big complex/building, but (according to Wookieepedia and I’ll trust them on this, instead of digging out my copies of the Complete Vehicles and Complete Locations book), it was a building of Sidious’ that he used as a hideout during the Clone Wars. To what extent Vader and the Inquisitorius took it over (whether they just had a few rooms or the entire skyscraper), I don’t think we know?

Later, in issue #20, we see there’s some sort of break room that Vader storms in on, when he returns to Coruscant, that the Inquisitors were sitting around and hanging out in:

From there, it would be reasonable to extrapolate that this was a base for their operations, the place they returned to after they came back from wherever they’d been sent, possibly even this is where they slept and ate and were sheltered in between missions.  But that’s just reasonable conjecture, not hard canon! There is also Fortress Inquisitorius from Jedi: Fallen Order and it’s primary use was that it was where they took the Jedi they were torturing into becoming Inquisitors.  I wouldn’t say it’s an academy, per se, but it was a place that they likely used as a headquarters. In issue #20 of Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith, two of the Inquisitors rebel against Vader and he winds up chasing them down and cutting a huge swath of destruction in his path (LOL @ ANAKIN), which Sidious is not exactly pleased about.  He says that he’s going to move the Inquisitorious off Coruscant to another world so this won’t happen again:

The comic was written in 2018 and Jedi: Fallen Order came out about 11 months later in 2019, so the above isn’t necessarily directly referring to that the Inquisitorious were moved to Fortress Inquisitorious on the moon Nur, but it’s also a very reasonable (and probably likely) assumption. We don’t have an exact timeline for when this issue takes place, but it’s minimum three years after Revenge of the Sith (the Mon Cala arc earlier in the comic is set three years post-ROTS), so probably around 15 or 14 BBY.   However, Trilla seems to have been kidnapped much closer to Order 66, so it’s likely that Fortress Inquisitorius existed long before Order 66 happened, it was used to torture Jedi once their genocide happened, but it wasn’t the Inquisitor’s HQ until several years later. We don’t see a lot of Fortress Inquisitorious, the limited amount of areas you can play through it in Jedi: Fallen Order don’t tell you a ton about what goes on there, but it’s a pretty huge underwater skyscraper sized building and you do see several prison cells and at least one training dojo.

The galaxy at large didn’t know about Fortress Inquisitorious on the water moon of Nur or even the majority of the Empire itself didn’t know about it, it was a heavily kept secret. This is where Trilla and the other Jedi were taken, tortured, and forced into becoming Inquisitors and it’s likely that’s where the Inquisitors were based after the shitshow on Coruscant.  It’s a big enough building that it’s likely to have pretty much whatever kind of stuff your clubhouse needs for the Inquisitors!  But we don’t have much hard canon about it, no. As for the Inquisitors themselves, they’re complicated--some of them seemed almost loyal to each other, they would work together at times or even seem to avenge each other, but other times they would sneer at each other or mock each other, it seemed like they had a lot of shifting dynamics and probably a lot of it was fear at trying to survive being around Darth Vader. We don’t know for sure how many there specifically are or if, when one of them dies, they’re replaced by another, but it seems like there were at least twelve Inquisitors and we’ve never seen them be replaced, which I think implies that they were only ever meant to be a temporary measure and would be disposed of, as soon as Sidious knew all the Jedi were dead for sure/he could raise a new group of Force-sensitive children from birth. ANYWAY YOU SEE WHAT I MEAN:  LOTS OF INFO BUT NOT A LOT OF INFO.  😂

[thousand-winters]

Hi quick question! Why isn’t Eberwolf part of the government in your fics? First I’m just going to thank you for giving me good uncle Eber fics but just why isn’t he also in charge? He was Head Witch like Raine and Darius. (Please don’t think I mean this is a negative way I am just extremely curious I love your writing)

Hi, there! 💕 Thank you for the nice words 😄

Okay, short answer is that I'm generally not basing the new integrants of the government on the Coven Heads, because while I do think covens can still be a thing post-Belos (just without the sigils and magic restrictions), I think the distribution of power will reasonably change given the reasons why it was like that in the first place.

Long answer is...

We don't really know a lot about the structure of power with Belos in charge, though we can speculate about how it worked and the role of the Coven Heads in it. In the hierarchy, we have the Emperor first of all, of course, then technically both Kikimora and whoever at the moment is Head Witch of the Emperor's Coven, then just a step below, the rest of the Coven Heads. Given how the EC works, it seems like the government was militaristic in nature, and so members of it with high ranks would also have a considerable amount of power (like Kikimora's captain and other high-ranking scouts).

It would help to know if this structure is based on some real-life equivalent. I haven't heard anything about that, but maybe it is? Anyway, I think this is important to consider to be able to get an idea of the kind of changes they would want to do in the future, but also the changes they would realistically be able to do. 

There’s no doubt in my mind that by the end of the third special, Belos will be gone. That obviously leaves a huge vacuum of power that only now they will have time to worry about (I imagine there’s no time to freak out over that with the Collector causing mayhem) and there are a lot of interesting possibilities on how this could go. Even knowing that Belos tried to kill them all, this is all everyone has known for 50 years, some people will undoubtedly want to cling to the pre-existent government structure, trying to appoint someone as the new Emperor, most likely Hunter if they find out about their “familiar” link... that, if Belos ever bothered to establish something like that as part of his new way to rule when he assumed power. Now, this is something I can see the CATTs shutting down REAL quick because the solution to the mess is not giving someone that amount of power again, let alone a very traumatized teenager. 

Truthfully, I don’t have a completely well-structured and coherent idea about how the government will actually work. In part because it’s a complicated matter (also politics are NOT my forte) and in part because in this kind of situation, I feel like it’s common for a long period of transition to exist between the old government and the new government.What I do have well established is that: this is a period of transition AND they need some provisional form of government because there will be a lot of rebuilding and changes to laws and stuff required right away. 

Now, let’s think of the ideal scenario I’m working with here: at the end, everyone has been told about what exactly happened on the Day of Unity and what led to it, aka, Belos’s plan to commit genocide, the rebellion trying to stop it, and the role of each Coven Head on this, along with their different levels of knowledge. Working with this assumption there’s still trouble: people who will prefer the old reign, who won’t believe this is the truth or will have their own reasons to despise this new attempt of forming a fair government. 

This is why I believe some of the people who were already in power under Belos’s rule will remain on it. Big, active participants on the disaster wouldn’t, of course, like Kikimora, Terra, etc, but I can see high-ranking officials keeping their power, since most of them probably had no idea of what was being planned and are technically “innocent”, plus they probably already took care of some more administrative matters and it would be a pain to replace them at the moment, and unless they want a very violent transition of government, the rebellion might have to accept this in order for the changes they desire to be smoother. 

All of this to say that I tend to think of a council of sorts, conformed by some of these government officials that might still share some of the values of Belos’s government, plus members of the rebellion and other people who might now get the chance to participate in this. But to the point of this long ramble... why wouldn’t Eber be part of it?

Belos’s reign in a sense was a meritocracy of sorts, at least when it comes to the Coven Heads it’s clear they had to prove they were exceptional at their kind of magic. I imagine this kind of “the powerful get ultimate say over others” situation won’t fly after everything that went down, so I don’t see the Coven Heads being automatically drafted into being part of the new government. So what is my criteria for deciding who gets to stay and who doesn’t?

The CATTs were all very committed to doing what’s right, there’s no doubt about that, but I do think there’s differences in the way in which they approached this. People like Darius and Raine seemed to me like the ones who made the plans and took care of a lot of logistic details for the rebellion, whereas people like Eber, Katya, Derwin, and Amber were more the action kind of rebels; still super committed to the cause and willing to give their all for it, but ultimately not that involved on the strategic and bureaucratic part of it. Sure, for Eber it might be that we don’t ever find out what he thinks about anything aside from his expressions and the sounds he makes, and to write Eber one must make a lot of assumptions and develop their own headcanons about him, but this is the impression I get from him. 

That is to say, I think Darius and Raine are so incredibly committed to doing what’s best for the Boiling Isles that I think they both would absolutely want to be part of the new council, while Eberwolf, even if he still wants what’s best, would not necessarily be interested in the administrative part of it. Plus, since he either doesn’t speak a lot or most people don’t understand his language, I feel like they could easily underestimate his value as a government official and think of him simply as someone powerful, but not particularly smart or worthy of having a place. That probably would absolutely infuriate people who care about him, like Darius, but since Eberwolf doesn’t really want to be part of it and doesn’t care a lot about what strangers think of him, he doesn’t really give a fuck. 

This was a very long ramble to say: Eber is not in my tentative version of the new government because he doesn’t have the vibes 🤣 That’s... the simplest way to put it askjfhkjdg 

Apologies for the long answer, but I do hope this satisfies your curiosity!

[the-river-person]

Secrets of the Deltarune

Okay so I was taking a closer look at the Deltarune and I started to notice some really weird things. It’s a symbol for the Kingdom of Monsters, right? Wrong. Gerson tells us “That's the Delta Rune, the emblem of our kingdom.The Kingdom...Of Monsters.” Okay so its the same thing, right? Nope. I looked up emblem and its distinction from Symbol. A Symbol represents an idea, a process, or a physical entity. While an Emblem is often an abstract that represents a concept like a moral truth or an allegory. And when it is used for a person, it is usually a King, a saint, or even a deity. An emblem crystallizes in concrete, visual terms some abstraction: a deity, a tribe or nation, or a virtue or vice and can be worn as an identifier if worn as say a patch or on clothing or armor or carried on a flag or banner or shield. So what does it matter? Well Gerson even tells us why. “That emblem actually predates written history.The original meaning has been lost to time...“  Hold up. Predates written history? The beginning of written history is approximately 5500 years ago. Somewhere around 3400 B.C.E. Thats a long time. And the prophecy that goes with the symbol talks about the Underground going empty, so it can only really be as old as The War Between Humans and Monsters. But...when was that? The game doesn’t tell us the exact dates. Well we have a couple clues. At the beginning of the game we have a little cut-scene of the war and then a bit where we see a human going up the mountain only to fall down into the Underground. Most players assume that this is you, beginning your adventure. Except its not. Later in the game, when you SAVE Asriel in the True Pacifist Route, we’re shown another cutscene with the exact same human figure in EXACTLY the same position, being helped by a very  young Asriel and the silhouette of Toriel. It’s Chara, not Frisk. So our date of 201X (2010-2019) takes place long before Frisk even arrives. We don’t know how long before. That really doesn’t help with when they were first thrown down there though. So I took a look at the images before that, of the war. The first image shows a human who is very different from the later pictures. Both the make of the spear and the animal hide-like clothing suggest that it’s probably stone age. The text tells us a very general “Long Ago”when describing how both races ruled the earth together. In the next two images we’re shown the actual war. The crowd of humans have various things like torches and spears. Those diamond type spears are very similar to Roman Pilums. The Human figure with a sword was interesting though. He bore a mantle (cape or cloak) and is sporting a sword. Though there’s not much detail, we can still identify the general time period of the sword. The size isn’t big enough for a proper claymore or longsword, or even a hand and half sword. Since our figure appears to be moving forward, and we can guess that it’s not in a friendly manner given the context, yet still holding the sword in one hand instead of two, it’s probably a one handed broadsword. It also has a cruciform hilt (cross-shaped) that is slightly curved. The blade is quite wide with what appears to be straight edges (based on two images with limited detail). And it has a very narrow Ricasso, an unsharpened length of blade just above the guard or handle. Ricassos were used all throughout history, but they’re pretty notable for the Early Medieval Period in Europe. And the rest of the sword (blade type, length, crossguard, and method of use) is very reminiscent of a Medieval Knightly Arming Sword, the prominent type of sword in that period from the 10th to 13th centuries. So I had to take a closer look at my spears. Turns out, they actually more closely resemble a medieval cavalry lance or javelin. And many Javelins have their root in the style of the Roman Pilums, including the sometimes diamond shaped tips. The sword and mantle of the figure suggest heavily he’s a knight, and backed up by the spear carriers we can guess that its the Early Medieval Period, possibly the beginning of the Romanesque Period. So that would place us all roughly a thousand and at least ten years before Chara fell into the Underground in 201X. Asgore was certainly alive back then. In the Genocide Route Gerson says “Long ago, ASGORE and I agreed that escaping would be pointless...Since once we left, humans would just kill us.“ and in the Post-Pacifist when you go back to talk to everyone he’ll say this when talking about Undyne “I used to be a hero myself, back in the old days. Gerson, the Hammer of Justice.” He even talks about how Undyne would follow him around when he was beating up bad guys, and try to help, by enthusiastically attacking people at random such as the mailman. This tells us that Gerson and Asgore are as old as the original war and both had been part of the battle. And both lived long enough to survive till now. Gerson is quite old looking, while Asgore is not. He explains this by saying that Boss Monsters don’t age unless they have children and then they age as their children grow, otherwise they’ll be the same age forever. But Undyne doesn’t appear to be old. And I started to wonder how long normal monsters lived in comparison to Boss Monsters. A long time for sure. From the Undertale 5th Anniversary Alarm Clock Dialogue we can learn that Asgore once knew a character called Rudy (who also appears in the Deltarune Game), who he met at Hotland University and appeared to be generally the same age as Asgore. Since it takes place in Hotland we know that it was already when they were underground, Asgore was King and was already doing his Santa Clause thing, and that Asgore was trying to find ways to occupy his time aside from actually Ruling. In the dialogue he tells us that Rudy began to look older than him. “I was there for it all. His Youth, his Marriage, his Fatherhood. Then, suddenly, one day... he fell down. ... Rudy... I... was never able to show you the sun.” Monsters can live a long time. But Boss Monsters, as long as they don’t have a child, can live nearly forever as long as they aren’t killed. Based on that, Undyne is probably quite young and Gerson is incredibly old even for a Monster, and yet only recently he’s stopped charging around fighting bad guys. Since Undyne was with him, those bad guys were in the Underground, and his distinction of her attacking not so bad folk like the mailman, means that he was probably in an official capacity to fight crime, such as a guardsman, or maybe captain of the royal guard. So. Even though there’s plenty of time for a prophecy to spring up naturally. We have a number of Monsters who have actually lived that long that would be more than happy to correct mistakes and assumptions. Gerson is quite elderly and is a tad forgetful, but he still knows much. Characters such as Toriel and Asgore are still hale and hearty, and both had witnessed so much. Though we know very little about the character, Elder Puzzler is also implied to be quite aged and knows a great deal about the “Puzzling Roots” of Monster History. You’re probably wondering what all of this is leading to. Well with these characters in place to maintain knowledge of history in the populace, then we have an Underground which created a prophecy AFTER it was trapped there, which leads me to conclude that when the prophecy was created, it must have been referencing something older than the War of Monsters and Humans.

“The original meaning has been lost to time... All we know is that the triangles symbolize us monsters below, and the winged circle above symbolizes... Somethin' else. Most people say it's the 'angel,' from the prophecy...” ‘Angel’. This is when we hear about the angel. We see the Deltarune on Toriel’s clothing and on the Ruins door. As well as behind Gerson himself. The thing he mentions clearly has wings of some kind. Surrounding a ball (note to self: Look into possible connection between mythical ball artifact from the piano room and the Deltarune Emblem). It looks a little like the fairy from the Zelda series. Those “triangles” are the greek letter Delta. That letter has a lot of connections and meanings to it. A river delta is shaped like the letter which is how it got its name. There are a number of maths and science connections. But the two connections you’d be interested in are that a Delta chord is another name for a Major Seventh Chord in music. The soundtrack of Undertale uses these chords to do fantastic things with the tone and aesthetic of its leitmotifs, changing them from a happy or hopeful tune, to a dark and despairing one without actually changing the melody. And in a subfield of Set Theory, a branch of mathematics and philosophical logic, it is used to calculate and examines the conditions under which one or the other player of a game has a winning strategy, and the consequences of the existence of such strategies. The games studied in set theory are usually Gale–Stewart games—two-player games of perfect information (each player, when making any decision, is perfectly informed of all the events that have previously occurred, including the "initialization event" of the game (e.g. the starting hands of each player in a card game)) in which the players make an infinite sequence of moves and there are no draws. But why is one of them turned upside down? I started looking things up again. Turns out there is such a symbol. The Nabla symbol is the Greek Letter Delta only inverted so that it appears upside down. Its name comes from the Phoenician harp shape, though its also called the “Del”. A musical connection is exactly what Toby would do. But its main use is in mathematics, where it is a mathematical notation to represent three different operators which make equations infinitely easier to write. These equations are all concerned with what is called Physical Mathematics. That is... Mathematics that calculate and have to do with measuring the physical world. Why is that relevant? Well the difference between humans and monsters is that humans have physical bodies while monsters are made primarily of magic. Well I also discovered that the Delta symbol for the ancient Greeks was sometimes used to as an abbreviation for the word  δύση , which meant the West in the compass points. West, westerly, sunset, twilight, nightfall, dusk, darkness, decline, end of a day. All this symbolism for a couple of triangles. There’s entire books devoted to them. And he calls the whole symbol, deltas and angel alike, the Delta RUNE. Whats a rune? Well a rune is a letter, but specifically a letter from the writing of one of the Germanic Languages before the adoption of the Latin alphabet. Interestingly... the Greek Letter Delta does NOT qualify as a Rune. In any stretch of the word. I searched for hours. What I DID find was the etymological origins of the word Rune. It comes from a Proto-Germanic word “rūnō“ which means something along the lines of “whisper, mystery, secret,  secret conversation, letter”. Interesting. So since its paired up with the Delta... it could be taken to mean “The Secret of the Delta” or “The Delta’s Secret”. If we make a few assumptions we might even get something like “The Secret of the West” or “The Mystery of the Twilight” or numerous other variations that have different connotations. It’s conjecture, certainly, and possibly a few stretches. But it is certainly there to think about. My thoughts centered around the positioning of the letters. The idea that the one facing up represented Humanity, and the two ordinary Deltas were Monsters. With the Angel above them all. Or rather, SOMETHING above them all. We have no proof that the idea of an Angel existed before the Underground’s prophecy. I like to think it did because usually that sort of thing draws on previously existing beliefs and ideas. For all we know the symbol could represent an abstract idea that governed both monsters and humans. Like “Kill or be killed” or “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you” or other basic idiomatic ideologies of that sort. Other than the realization that the Deltarune is older than the prophecy and the Underground, I didn’t have a concrete idea of what the Emblem actually means. Just a lot of theories and connective ideas. But there’s certainly a lot to be found. I don’t really know how much thought Toby actually put into this, but he’s quite well known for secrets within secrets. So its possible he knew all this going in. If he’s anything like me, and I am notorious for writing this sort of twisting references within references within references into my stories, then he’s probably at least aware of an existing connection. Its quite probably that the Deltarune is exactly what Gerson tells us. An emblematic set of symbols that is used to represent the continuing Kingdom of Monsters and has been since before written history. But as he says... its so old that it might have had a different meaning originally, whatever idea the Monsters wanted to remember, wanted to uphold enough to use it for their royal family and their kingdom, a reminder. Of something, or someone.

[alatismeni-theitsa]

Hi! I've been following your blog & have really enjoyed the discussions you've hosted about the issue of cultural appropriation in Americanized Greek mythology retellings. As someone in the Armenian diaspora, I struggle with what is appropriation due to the cultural mix caused by diaspora and, historically, Armenia's Hellenistic period under Macedonian rule. What would differentiate a Greek-American from an Armenian-American in terms of proximity to Ancient Hellenism?

Same anon with the Armenian cultural heritage question. The character count for these asks is rather restrictive, so I wanted to add here that there are many, many differences between a Greek-American's relationship to Ancient Hellenism and that of an Armenian-American. I was hoping to hear you share a Greek person's thoughts on the issue, but I did not mean to equate the two at all. I hope that came across. Thank you.

================= end of ask ======================

That's a very interesting case and I'll take some paragraphs answering it if you don't mind 😁

By "Hellenism" I understand you mean "Hellenismos"/"Greek culture", as called by the Hellenes today? At least I hope so :P But in any case, the difference between a Greek-American and an Armenian-American to the ancient Greek culture/religion is pretty big. (As you also mentioned in the second part of the ask)

For some who may not be aware, since the Macedonian Kingdom the two peoples have a great connection, continuing to the Byzantine era, united by the Orthodox faith, and the recent co-existence (and genocide) in Anatolia. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that Greeks and Armenians in the US are closer culturally than to their WASP peers. Greeks who know their history see Armenians as brothers.

Still, in my perspective, Armenians have "slices" of Greek culture and connection to Greek culture and history, but still significantly less engagement with Greek culture than ethnic Greeks. This goes vice versa for the Greeks and Armenian culture, as Armenians had a whole bunch of influences during the last two millennia that Greeks didn't have. That's why I said "pretty big difference" in the beginning.

Of course, it's possible that most Armenians have quite a clear image of the Greek gods and Greek antiquity because of that shared past. Unfortunately, I don't know the relationship of Armenians to the Greek deities, and you have connections only to Armenia so we can't cross-examine this :/

What I can hypothesize is that Armenians in the homeland understand how to view ancient deities better than the people who are from "the new world" because living in a society that inhabits their ancient home automatically teaches you these things. Or maybe relatives who lived there teach you these things even though you didn't grow up there.

I don't know your exact background so please forgive any assumptions on my part, but I make them in case some of them resonate with you. (So, feel free to correct me!) I think the fact that you mentioned such an ancient event for the Armenian-Greek connection rather than the more recent history of the peoples might be an indicator that you were raised in a quite westernized environment which places a lot of value on antiquity. So there might be some further distance that you'll have to mentally "cross" to come closer to the ancient Greek culture and faith.

Due to the common elements between the Greek and Armenian culture that can be accentuated in the diaspora I understand that the discovery of a silver lining is difficult. So my recommended guide is this:

1) If an element feels foreign to you and you know it was never Armenian, it is indeed outside of your culture.

2) Hooowever, if Armenians at some point had the same fashion, dishes, and beliefs as ancient Greeks of a certain era, then the culture of that particular period is part of your ancient heritage because these elements were adapted by Armenians at the time. I mean, if something Greek was also used by ancient and medieval Armenians I don't see why it's misappropriation if you consider it part of your heritage.

3) It's useful to examine the differences between the "original" Greek cultural element and the Armenian version of it because they might differ slightly. A hypothetical example: Greeks might have worn a specific type of chiton but Armenians adapted this clothing to their own culture, so if you say your ancestors wore the "Hellenic" type and not the "Hellenized Armenian" type, this will be an inaccuracy. From what you told me, it seems to me that you have as your heritage the "Hellenized Armenian" elements and any Hellenic elements that were imported to Armenia. Not the whole of ancient Hellenic culture.

But at the end of the day, cultural proximity to something ancient doesn't matter when calling out disrespectful things. There are Greeks who don't care about misrepresentation and there are xenoi from the edges of the world who do. You were able to understand the Americanization part despite not being sure about your claim to Greek antiquity. You can also learn about the Greek ancient past and engage with modern Greek culture without a care about your ancestry.

I don't know if I covered your concerns or not. If you'd like to ask something more specific on the matter, please do! Thank you for entrusting me with your thoughts and, as I always say, this is just my own opinion on the matter. Other Greeks or Armenians - or other knowledgeable people - feel free to add stuff!

[normal-thoughts-official]

I would have loved to see more interactions with the seelies- people who can’t lie but are crafty and secretive sounds fascinating. Think of the dialog! Alec going to magnus for advice since he has centuries of experience talking to them, Alec playing mental chess while trying to maintain peace. Would have loved getting more- but let’s be real, Cassaundra and the show writers weren’t clever enough to actually make any conversations like that of value.

SAME!!!!! honestly i would have loved to see so much more of the seelies. like bro do you understand that their culture predates the VERY EXISTENCE OF HUMANITY??? they are the ONLY kind of downworlders whose culture is completely detached from any human culture, not only because of predating it, but also because of the relative isolationism - which means human culture barely had any influence on their culture and history AS it developed

so like you can literally go fucking bonkers??????????? you can make ANYTHING. they have a whole ass society that doesn't have to have ANY ties to mundane concepts or history AT ALL. complete creative freedom. you could do ANYTHING! and don't get me started on the potential this has, within storytelling, to contextualize a lot of stuff modern western culture sees as natural or timeless as actually pretty fucking specific - like monogamy, cisheteropatriarchy, the gender binary, racism. all immortals have that potential of course since they can come from an array of different cultural and historical backgrounds but seelies in particular have SO much potential that is NEVER! FUCKING! USED! it all goes to waste and they are just a generic vaguely monarchic society that behaves literally exactly as modern western cultural standards. WHY. i'll never stop being salty, especially within sh where all this potential was there and instead they just villainized the seelies like no tomorrow for nO FUCKING REASON, and included a whole plotline about their ruler being a terrible power-hungry person and then proceeded to act as if that would have no influence on the seelies under her rule? thanks for nothing

like i know the seelie queen was so badly written that her own motivations even as a power-hungry wacko didn't make sense or were consistent (like why give simon the mark of cain for example, and for god's sake what kind of power-hungry crazy bitch gives their main enemy the power to literally kill her and destroy everything she has at the blink of an eye, like??? she literally tried to assist in her own genocide, it makes no fucking sense, i fucking hate it here) but if they are going to make her Terrible the least they could do was show how that impacted the people under her rule, especially if they are going to have meliorn be fucking tortured and either forced to display the marks of said torture or choosing to display them themself, like? please give your plotlines one singular thought

but of course it's easier to villainize seelies and reduce them to their obviously tyrannical ruler so they can go back to focusing on the shadowhunters and their issues. nevermind the fact that seelies are obviously equivalent to native ppls/third world countries resisting colonialism/imperialism in sh's stupid ass racial metaphor, which makes making their ruler a big bad unequivocally evil villain that is ruining everything A Choice. and a particularly choicy Choice considering they cast a middle-eastern man to play the most important seelie character. but if they are going to do that they could at least address how the people under her rule suffer and how that's a direct consequence of shadowhunter colonialism and interference, but why would we fkcnig thdo that!!!! when we can have love triangle drama or whatever

and tHEN there is the whole aspect of being unable to lie which is bound to have such an impact on their culture and history since they have to rely on other forms of communication to protect themselves - and considering the whole "tyrannical rule" plotline, to further the queen's agenda in the first place. and how telling the truth without preamble would probably be considered a huge display of trust in a society that has culturally developed so many ways of talking around things. like again the potential of the cultural and historic background for that society! it makes me go insane!!!

anyway all of that to say #JusticeForSeelies and #SeeliePlotlinesNow 2021 and forever. and YES i would have loved to see more interactions between them and other characters, particularly magnus because 1- admittedly i'm a hoe; and 2- magnus was clearly the one that had the most experience talking to seelies and that others relied on for that communication. he also seemed to be the most comfortable with them, which indicates there is either some sort of history there, or magnus just happens to feel relatively at home with the workings of their culture. which makes sense, because magnus also had to develop pretty similar defense mechanisms due to his, A- work as a warlock representative who has to interact with shadowhunters on the regular; B- history with having to deal with asmodeus, which required him to be very smart about what he disclosed and how, especially considering that he had to have been planning banishing asmodeus for a long time before he got to do it; and C- just history with abuse in general. we've seen the way he closed his heart off to new people; but at the same time, magnus is obviously an extrovert and likes to be around people in general. this meant that, in order to be able to both be in the kind of environment where he thrives and protect himself/his heart/his feelings, he had to learn how to interact with people while putting on a convincing façade, which requires pretty much the same sorts of wordplay and defense mechanisms that seelies use

magnus is good at wordplay, he's good at using talking to his benefit; we've seen that. he is also good at hiding and deflecting. he is notably not good at directly lying - every time he directly said A Lie such as "i am perfectly fine and not bothered by this at all :)" it was way less convincing than it was a clear display that he wouldn't budge. even alec, who has difficulty with social cues, noticed the lying and seemed concerned about it. so like. clearly his defense mechanisms were less lying and more dancing around subjects, directing conversation to safe topics, and guiding people to making certain assumptions and seeing sides of his that were safer and he preferred

so in that way it makes sense that magnus is somewhat in his element when dealing with seelies. i think "comfortable" is a strong word because this whole song and dance takes a huge toll on anyone's mental health and energy (which i think is something that could be very interestingly explored in seelies, their collective psyche, and their culture, the way they build relationships, etc. let meliorn have partners they feel 100% comfortable talking without preamble with 2k21), but it's something he is used to and a dynamic he can fall into without as much effort as others who would be second guessing themselves more and going slower, which clearly gives the seelies, who are used to it, an advantage

and like i know that i'm implying a confrontation or sort of situation where they are on opposing sides to seelies here, which i kind of am because i am thinking mostly about magnus' interactions with the seelie queen specifically, since she was the seelie he had the most meaningful interactions with. his interactions with meliorn were very few and almost never relevant, i barely remember them happening outside of generic downworld cabinet interactions tbh. but i don't just mean that because again, stop villainizing seelies 2k21

i also mean just generally that magnus would be in a more comfortable position talking to seelie strangers and slowly working into building a relationship and mutual trust. and just generally understanding them and the workings of their culture because he can empathize with the way they have built their social defense mechanisms. no one is 100% truthful to strangers, but seelies always seem kind of- analytical. and the cultural difference + anti-seelie racism makes them seem untrustworthy to most people, but magnus Gets It, so the potential for friendships! and the mutual understanding and the relative comfort around each other! and both parts understanding the enormity that is letting their walls down gradually and being more direct as time goes by. like.... aaaaaa

and yes magnus becomes a sort of reference on talking to seelies, mostly because he is good at "playing their game", but also making it a point to humanize seelies and making the other parts understand where they are coming from and how they feel :) and just improving their relations, particularly with other downworlders

im not going to get into alec because 1- the relationship between shadowhunters and seelies is already filled with oppression and a lot of complications, and particularly now that the seelie realm is politically fragile due to the loss of their ruler (however terrible she might have been), it would play into either white savior narratives or just straight up colonialism, especially given how alec as a leader already has a history of trying to build tutelage over downworlders (i don't care what his intentions were, it's still true, and although he's learning... well. he's learning, continuous action); 2- that would be more a relationship of opposition and i'm not that interested in that. but i would love to see seelies rebuilding themselves and their relationships and alliances with other downworlders particularly, and all the better if magnus is playing a part in that :)

in short:

more seelies

more magnus with seelies, especially friendships

more focus on the politics of seelies now that the seelie queen is gone

more seelies

more seelies

more seelies