#i need to talk about these stories more. god i love when women are complicated & stuck in a strained community

[jovial-gender-jester]

if there's anything i care about more than magical girls, it's magical women

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

reading update: january 2025

I'm a bit behind on getting this posted, so I'm gonna do it quick and dirty. this is not the most elaborate reading round-up I'm ever going to do, and that's okay!!! january has gotten off to a weird, uneven start in terms of reading, and that is what it is!

The Extinction of Irena Rey (Jennifer Croft, 2024) - this book is great for anyone who likes dark academia but wants to see what those students will be like when they’re adults who have to get by outside of college. in this case, they become translators for an enigmatic woman who makes them gather in a remote Polish forest and then disappears. pure vibes all the way down; truly things just happen in this book. the gimmick of the novel itself being a work by one of the characters, told from her perspective, and then translated by another character that the narrator despises, is soooo rich and interesting, and I deeply wish it had been used much more extensively.

Darknesses (Lachelle Seville, 2022) - is this book good? I couldn’t possibly say. it was very fun to read on vacation with like 12% of my brain operating. the best way I can possible explain it is that by the time the book is over it feels like Seville is running one of those old ask blogs where artists would have their blorbos and their OCs answer questions and hang out and stuff. do you know the kind I’m talking about? it’s like that, it’s dissociative identity disorder Dracula and the descendants of the human Dracula characters and Norse mythology werewolves and a vampire bunny and a dragon and Satan who’s a teenage girl with pink hair and they’re all hanging out in New York City. don’t think too hard about it. 

Become Your Own Matchmaker: 8 Easy Steps to Attracting Your Perfect Mate (Patti Stanger with Lisa Johnson Mandell, 2009) - I’m not proud of this and I can’t really justify it except that my housemates and I have gotten really into watching old episodes of Patti Stanger’s terrible TV show, Millionaire Matchmaker. the show is atrocious and so is the book but in my defense it’s extremely funny.

Queen Takes Rose (Katee Robert, 2020) - guys I can’t stand Katee Robert. I really can’t. I thought it was going to be fun but god this just sucked.

Adam & Evie's Matchmaking Tour (Nora Nguyen, 2024) - after that last one I really needed a good, normal romance novel to get me back on track, and this delivered! I don’t think it’s going to be one of my all-time faves, but the characters are lovably realistic losers and I was really rooting for them—especially Evie, who feels like a messy bitch I would love to hang out with. plus the setting, a romping tour across the sights of Vietnam, was so fun and I’m always willing to award points to a romance novel that supports telling your awful to fuck off right to hell!

Mystery Lights (Lena Valencia, 2024) - here’s the thing. every short story in this collection is a well written, coherent short story. thematically there are really clear throughlines; you’ll get a lot of mileage out of this if you like middle aged women who have complicated relationships with their daughters between the ages of 13 and 23. I really wanted to like this! and yet, I feel like this collection just isn’t going to stick with me very well. there are some cool concepts and ideas (there’s a creepy story involving a little girl who disappears into some underground caves and comes back Weird that actually spooked me pretty good) but overall I feel like it’s just not going to stick with me :/

Is Love the Answer? (Uta Isaki, 2021; trans. Sawa Matsueda Savage, 2023) - huge thanks to the person who sent me an ask to recommend this manga! it’s a very quick, sweet read about a university student coming into her aroace identity with the help of a circle of newfound friends supporting her along the way. I really liked the way it delves into the way anxiety can have you second-guessing and overthinking your sense of self even after embracing an identity. this was my Heartstopper (I say, without having ever read Heartstopper).

The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse (Louise Erdrich, 2001) - I picked this up at Erdrich’s bookstore, Birchbark Books & Native Arts, last summer while I was briefly in Minneapolis, on recommendation by an employee at the store. I was initially hesitant about the novel’s focus on spirituality and religion, given that it follows a Catholic priest working on an Ojibwe reservation throughout the 20th century, but man, this was an incredible introduction to Erdrich’s work. Father Damian Modeste is an incredible character and one of my favorite depictions I’ve ever seen of a woman living long-term in disguise as a man, and how the line between those identities blurred. there’s a scene I don’t think I’ll ever forget, in which Modeste is asked, essentially, “Are you a man or a woman?” and answers firmly “I’m a priest.” and all the while, despite the fact that he’s supposed to be an agent of colonization and the destruction of indigenous culture, more than anything he is changed by the Ojibwe people he works with. it’s a surprising, elegant book, and I was shaken to find myself crying at the end. 

A Magical Girl Retires (Park Seolyeon, 2022; trans. Anton Hur 2024) - this book is a short, rapid-fire read that’s a dry, funny take on the magical girl genre. our protagonist starts the book so mired in credit card debt that she’s considering jumping off a bridge when she’s summoned to be a magical girl, and things will only get weirder for her from there as Korea’s magical girl union recruits her to help them combat climate change. a fun read, easy to polish off in a single sitting at less than 200 pages.

salt slow (Julia Armfield, 2019) -now THIS was the short story collection I was waiting for! it reminded me so much of why I loved Armfield’s novel Our Wives Under the Sea. she has another new novel out this year and I’m really looking forward to reading that as well! she has an incredible way with love and melancholy.

[mapsofnonexistentplaces]

because we got top 5 freddy facts can we get top 5 cuntress facts

OF COURSE

1 she is literally just transgender. like textually. stanley and i have joked about how its kind of written in the "cowards way" in that shes just a reincarnation that is basically a cis woman but considering this show came out in 2016 and the fact that there's like never any weird jokes about her gender i think this is like the best possible outcome. she has a few moments where she brings up like her old life and never really seems to think much of her weird little trans circumstances. casually talks about women she loved and theres never any jokes like "AHAAA but i am a girl nowww" or whatever. someone once wrote an entire article about her and this whole thing much to my surprise (same person picks up on tchaikovsky's trans implications as well but i forget if thats in this article or another one on this site. i digress) its great

for some reason her being trans made her also become blonde. its funny putting the two designs side by side

2 this is my favorite screenshot of her

3 shes got a job as a pianist for a local bar or something of the sort. kind of just implied she does random gigs i think? anyway theres some cute art of her playing the piano about it

theres a few instances where shes shown playing in the show and i think each time they use piano renditions of actual franz liszt pieces so she's literally just playing her own songs for people without them really knowing.... very very cute little detail

tangentially she's also shown to have a bit of a thing for alcohol which is a trait really only shared with schubert (her orange friend) and it never comes up in the show but GOD i wish they had a little scene of them getting blasted together i know they would.

thinking about it this actually comes up with tchaikovsky who's not allowed to drink on account of being like 15 and the way she prevents her from drinking is simply by stealing any drinks from her and chugging them

she rules

4 ive made the comparison before of white woman isel but she literally. just is. she has an entire motif about love and romance and gets excited when people's relationships are weird and complicated in a very like. "oh i am here to observe a story that will entertain me" way. very much has a penchant for the theatrics. and all of this is kind of surface level so the fact i bring to the table is that each time she has a fun little fancy outfit she always corresponds it to like. some kind of stereotypical archetypal fictional setting. her magical girl outfit is pirate themed and there's an entire episode about her literally constructing a fake cowboy au of all her roommates in her mind where she's a badass sheriff who made a pact with the literal devil. charms me A LOT that she kind of terraces around schlocky fiction that's all about drama. it's a cute little parallel to freddy's own dependencies on creating dogshit comics

5 this is not so much a fact as much as it is simply an earnest recommendation but she has an entire episode about challenging a guy to a piano duel where she spends all her prep time just working out. i cannot say any more about it because its genuinely just better experienced outright. if youve got like 20 minutes to waste just dip into season 2 episode 10 its probably the best episode in the show from an objective point of view and its all about her and its all you need to see

[nrilliree]

https://www.tumblr.com/chicken-wayng/752584506882588674/rhaenyra-won-the-dance-bc-her-line-survives-and?source=share

WTF ?

This person lives in a weird alternate universe ?

The dance is not about brother and sister tragedy, nor about the fact that everything falls on the women, children and peasants.

The main message is misogyny against Rhaenyra. That's all. (I love how they either always ignore that it's the central conflict by pretending it's not the subject at all, or they ignore it more subtly by mixing it in with other things to avoid passing for misogynists)

Also... Viserys didn't start this war. And Viserys never wanted to replace Rhaenyra either. He was very clear about that. What is this person talking about ?!

My god, the Rhaenicent stans are willing to do anything to twist the original message.

Oh and we need to explain to them how a bloodline works. That of Aegon II is indeed dead. That's not the same as Rhaenyra just because they were half brother and sister. It does not work like that ! All the heirs of Aegon II were killed, and not those of Rhaenyra who continued until Daenerys.

It's not very complicated to understand damn it.

Oh lord, why are you showing me this… Then I have to drink a lot of lemon balm to calm down…

No, Viserys did not start the war. Viserys remarried at a time when it was clear that Rhaenyra was his heir. And yes, Viserys had to remarry because he had no family apart from Rhaenyra and Daemon. Rhaenyra was young, Daemon had been married for many years and had no heir, and Viserys had banished him. Viserys was sick. Let's assume he didn't get married. Five years would pass, he would be sick, Rhaenyra would fall from her horse and die - this was the end of House Targaryen. Is it so difficult…? Yes, being a spare kid isn't nice, but that's what it looked like. Viserys also became such a "spare heir" because all of Jaehaerys's children died. Who is to blame for the war? Otto and Alicent. Only.

And no, "no one won" is not true. Whose troops fought to the end? Whose capital did they take? Whose heir sits on the throne? Rhaenyra may have died, but her sons survived and the Black Ones placed them on the throne. End of the story.

And yes, I also love how TGs pretend it's not about sexism.

[lover-of-mine]

You don't have to answer this question at all if it's too personal . I won't feel bad. I'm just trying to get an idea of what to expect. I'm agnostic and wasn't raised in any religion. I don't even know really anyone who practices Catholicism. The only thing I can interpret from my friends who are Christian is its definitely, harsher??? Values ingrained in them. I was wondering if you were raised religious and had to battle being queer vs any pre conceived notions you held or your family may have. I swear you said something once about Nuns crossing themselves when they passed you for having colored hair? Sorry if I'm wrong on that. I just feel like if they are doing this they are really doing it and what a story of deconstructing yourself might look like.

Okay, this is a complicated question. I was raised religious and for all intents and purposes, I still am, but while I am christian, I was never catholic. I was raised with spiritism as a belief and they are a lot more open to stuff than different churches. The experience I had with catholic people telling me stuff like being queer is wrong was in school, because my city is very catholic and because we had a religious study class that was mandatory and the teacher was very Sunday school type vibes even though it wasn't supposed to be a catholic leaning class, but at that point I was old enough to push back, so I was constantly fighting my teacher. I'm not out to my family because while my parents never had a problem with queer people, my dad has made some comments about bisexual people that make me scared even tho they weren't fully bigoted, it's just boomer talk, being ignorant, and, honestly, I think he knows and he's waiting for me to say something because there was a situation with one of my cousins a few years back that got me really heated because her side of the family is very religious, and she's some shade of queer and people kept using religion against her, and my dad suddenly started talking about acceptance and stuff like that while supporting how frustrated I was with my uncle, but honestly, at this point I'm kinda settled into only coming out to them if there's a girl I want them to meet. I did go to university in a very religious city and I had to deal with multiple people commenting on my appearance, specifically colorful hair, the nun thing did happen, I had blue hair and I was wearing a shirt that had a cross made of skulls, they didn't like that, but I've had people tell I'm not getting into heaven and my sin was pink hair. I can't really help with this particular aspect because my struggle with being bi was never about someone telling me that loving women is wrong, it was always I do like men, so I just thought people felt that way about everybody. I fully kissed another girl and didn't accept I was bi until like, 3 years later lol. I will say that catholicism as a whole is very engrained into latino culture, and I did experience that adjacently, the whole being gay is a sin thing, but since in my house I didn't have that, I pushed back, I pushed back enough that my whole school believed I was a lesbian by the time I hit highschool (I grew up in a small town, everyone knows everyone)

Now, applying the whole thing to Eddie, I think with the way that Eddie talks about religious pressure defining some steps he took with his life, deconstructing his relationship with religion and the concept of God would be important for him to fully accept himself if that's where they're going. Mostly because I think he needs to confront the way he views the works and when you grow up religious, it does affect the way you look at things even if you don't believe that religion anymore. But I don't think I can give anything more insightful given the way I don't know how it feels like to experience catholicism the way Eddie does. I do believe that Eddie finding himself does mean Eddie accepting he is some shade of queer, and since they touched on the whole catholic guilt last season, that's a good way to force him to accept that there's nothing wrong with him, but it's more about the way I watched people go through similar stuff, not any personal experience.

[theladysherlock]

6, 7, 8 for Deryn and Alek (and anyone else you want tbh but I am HERE for the Leviathan!!)

Haha I know my audience, we're on a Leviathan Lockdown babeyyyyy

Ask me some Character Questions!

6. What's something you have in common with this character?

Unfortunately I read these books when I was a kid so they managed to significantly influence my personality, and it's tricky to tell what is true and what I glommed onto in my formative years.

Alek and I are.... very similar. I have a lot of knowledge that doesn't have a lot of real-world application, I pick up new skills pretty easily, I hate feeling useless, I'm not super comfortable with animals, I love when my friends start talking in-depth about that thing they like, I love stories, I'm a shit liar, I'm very loyal, I was a very naive teenager (and a slightly less naive adult), etc. This also is probably projecting but I'm asexual and I do headcanon that Alek is also asexual, though that didn't just come out of my ass. (There are some ace headcanons that DO come out of my ass, but that's neither here nor there).

Deryn is way cooler and braver and stronger and more talented than I am, but I think there's a lot of the way we deal with emotions that's very similar. I also think romantic feelings are an inconvenience and unprofessional in my day-to-day life. I also do the deflection thing I've been talking about in the liveblog-- if I get scared I will often start making jokes (usually in the context of watching a scary movie, or I'll start thinking about how the effects team put that shot together so I don't have to be so scared). I don't do it nearly as often as Deryn does, but you know, it's still there.

7. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you like?

I LOVE all the different gender interpretations for Deryn. There's so many different ways you can relate to this character's identity and I think every single one of them is amazing. Dylan as a trans man who discovers himself when in "disguise"? Incredible. Deryn as a gender-nonconforming girl frustrated by the strict societal standards that are imposed on women like her in the early 1900s? Astounding. Deryn realizing they don't really feel like either a boy OR a girl and are figuring out some third option outside the gender binary? Beautiful. Deryn who probably has something going on but the world needs saving so there's no time for that? Terrific. I genuinely love all of the interpretations I've seen because so many of them come from a very personal place, and it's so nice that people across the board can relate to this character.

As for Alek, there's a lot of little things I like that aren't quite widespread enough to call it something "the fandom does," but every time someone gives that boy mental illness I start cheering. He's handling himself pretty well but he's got something going on up there that makes everything harder!! We can all see it! Someone get that boy to therapy I swear to god

8. What's something the fandom does when it comes to this character that you despise?

It's not the end of the world because as I previously mentioned I do really like all the different gender identities that Deryn slips into, but Deryn with long hair always feels.... wrong. I don't know that I would say "despise" fully but it doesn't feel right. Who is this person. Are they in disguise?

However. Everyone who writes Alek being homophobic towards Lilit owes me $50 per instance. I truly hate that shit. Unless you're saying something interesting about Alek having some complicated feelings around his own attraction towards men, I don't want to see it. And I haven't seen anyone use Alek being shitty as a tool to unpack internalized homophobia so it just pisses me off. (ALSO HE ISNT WEIRD ABOUT IT IN GOLIATH!! LIKE IN CANON HE IS NOT WEIRD ABOUT LILIT KISSING DERYN ONCE HE KNOWS!! WHY WOULD HE BE WEIRD ABOUT IT NOW- sorry im fine i just truly hate this shit so much)

[mymarifae]

hiii its aventurine anon + i play genshin and i did NOT know they were so much more open with their coding in hsr?? hello?? the ratio line... ah ah ah (<- sesame street count laugh). is hsr easy to play casually it honestly looks so fun but the combat system seems so much more complicated ioawejrioa HOWEVER stelle is my pookie and ur posts make it look so interestingggg the cosmic horror... #thank you for your time <3

YEAH like. honkai impact 3rd may as well just be considered a yuri game with how blatant their coding is, and honkai star rail seems to have inherited much of that same energy. for example, *checks notes*

robin inexplicably has the lesbian flag plastered on her cheek and her character trailer features her dancing with butch (as butch as hoyo will let women get anyway...) women and two of her songs reference emily dickinson poems, yukong was quite literally in love with her best friend and harbored jealousy for the man she married and has never managed to overcome her death, there are romantic implications between serval and cocolia, there are ALSO romantic implications between jingliu and baiheng, dan feng and yingxing were implied to have been married (these last two aren't in the main text so much - they require you to really look at some readables and piece together backstory but), bronya and seele was one of the main romantic relationships in hi3 and they're in hsr too, march 7th is literally always gushing about how beautiful and attractive she finds various women, romance is teased between the trailblazer and both kafka and firefly (especially firefly oh my god) and while i hate acknowledging caelus' existence this does tell us that kafka and firefly should be considered bi, acheron is an expy of raiden mei of hi3 lesbian fame and black swan expresses explicit romantic interest in her that she is tentatively reciprocating, herta and ruan mei ALSO have romantic implications, AND THIS IS GETTING VERY LONG SO: ETC.

to answer your question though i think hsr has very easy and flexible gameplay. the playerbase tends to loudly disagree and act like the only viable teams include every single new character, but i genuinely don't know what the fuck anyone's talking about. if you take the time to build up even the oldest 4* characters and you also understand their combat styles they can be used even in the super difficult endgame content...... i think genshin's combat is a lot harder. hsr is just turn-based and offers a lot of opportunities to stack one particular stat on your characters super high so you can do stupid things

oh but the game did recently introduce a casual game mode so you can continue to experience the story without getting stuck on fights. i don't know how it works or when it pops up because i've never needed it (i have a 6k defense aventurine i cannot be killed his shields are genuinely impossible for any enemy in the game to break sorry) but!!!!!! there's that to consider as well if you're intimidated by the combat system

i find the story and characters much more compelling than genshin tbh.... even through all the things that frustrate me. like it's hoyo so obviously they're going to be idiots but when they manage to land their hits by god do they HIT. like i think aventurine is one of the best characters they've EVER made, right up there with kiana. and while it dropped off towards the end 80% of penacony was freaking fantasticcccc and amphoreus is shaping up to be really promising too. if you're going to play hoyo games you might as well check out hsr and hi3 actually it's where their best writing energy goes every time without fail akfdsfkjbffdhb

[alpaca-clouds]

Paganism in medieval Europe

Okay, you know what? Fuck it. I am going to continue rambling about medieval Europe for a while. It is kinda fitting for the season anyways given that I associate winter and the holiday season with Lord of the Rings first and foremost.

So, let me talk about this one myth about the middle ages that exists in two opposite versions... and both are wrong! Paganism in medieval Europe is one of those things that people really love to get wrong and depict in whatever way suits them.

On one hand we have the conservative Christians who will basically ignore how paganism was for a while in the very early medieval period at times suppressed with violence and just go: "Europe is Christian and basically was always Christian, because that is just how it is."

While on the other hand you have the Neo Pagans (especially white women) who will tell you: "Oh, yeah, paganism was so suppressed, but some very curagous women still kept it alive and they were also burned during those medieval witch hunts!!!" (If you want to know why the witch hunts were not medieval, look right over here.)

Both are not right. Because the truth is a lot more complicated. Some of you might have even heard about this one part of it - Christmas.

See, here is the thing: Yes, during the pagan hunts (which mostly happened between the late 4th and the 8th century) paganism was very, very much suppressed within Europe. Again, temples and holy sites were burned down, idols were defaced and so on and so forth. And yes, people were killed during those times for their beliefs. How many died during this time? Frankly, we do not know. There have been some mass graves found in Eastern Europe that we assume are connected to this - but we frankly do not know how many died or were displaced due to this.

But... And you know there is always a "but". Christians realized after a while - just like the Romans did when it came to suppressing Christians - that suppression actually does not work very well in terms of converting people to your religion. So, they tried a different approach: Incorporation.

And this is where the Christmas story comes in. I do not need to tell you that even if Jesus really existed, the entire "travelling so so long for the citizen count" and basically all about the birth story is made up. This is something we can proof. And even if it happened, it would not have happened at midwinter. So, no, December 24th or 25th is not the birthday of Jesus.

No, the reason that midwinter became Christmas is, that basically all of the indigenous European religions celebrated midwinter. So, to convert thema after a while the Christians went: "Oh, we also have this super rad midwinter celebration, because it turns out that our Jesus was tots born on midwinter, you know?" This story is fairly well known. What people do realize less is that it was not just midwinter.

Over the time a lot of indigenous religious festivities were incorporated into the just Christianity. Old gods now became saints, with angels and saints absorbing old pantheons. That way Christians could remain with the "only one God" argument, but also be like: "Oh, yeah, you can totally keep worshipping your gods, because see, they were actually angels!"

Which is also why Christian tradition does differ always a bit between the different countries throughout Europe. Like which of the Christian holidays are celebrated and in what way is not the same. Because they often were mixed up with whatever indigenous holiday happened around the same time.

So, yes. A part of European paganism survived even until the modern day. But not through rebellious women or anything like that, but thanks to Christians just incorporating those holidays into their own religion.

... And also that is why we have an Easter Bunny.

[sapphire-weapon]

Since you talked abt RE's target audience. Do you think these 18-35 yr old guys even care abt the romantic aspect of the games and the ships?

no, i don't.

what was shocking to me was finding out just how many guys in that age range just skip the cutscenes all together. (which is why all the flirting between leon and ashley happens in in-game dialogue and none of it happens in cutscenes. that was a deliberate design choice.) back before neogaf got taken over by neonazis, there was actually a poll, and a whopping 60% of male gamers in that age range skip every single cutscene for every single game they play. and i think about 1500 of them participated. so it's not like it was a small sample size.

and for the remaining 40%...

if you actually go on reddit or resetera or /v/ or even your local game store and talk to these dudes, you'll find that they only care about the ship aspect about as much as they want to fuck the girl in question. some guys get really passionate about aeon, but when you actually sit down and have a conversation with them, you'll find that the only thing they actually talk about wrt the ship is how attracted leon is to ada. because they're projecting.

like, if you were to just randomly ask one of them "what do you think about leon and claire getting together?" the answer you'd probably get would be something along the lines of "ada's hotter."

they care about the power fantasy aspect far more than the romantic aspect. they care way more about being able to do cool shit as leon or as chris than anything else in the series. the criticism against the aeon aspect of RE6 wasn't primarily from people who disliked aeon as a ship -- it was primarily from male gamers who thought that leon was simping too hard over ada, and it made him less cool and seem like kind of a pussy, to them.

that's why leon gets to have an elaborately cool and over the top fight scene in every CGI movie. it's because capcom knows that that's what their target fanbase wants. it's how they sell the product. leon being cool is a feature that they know they have to offer.

of course, hashtag not all men, but. if you look at RE4make through this lens, the game starts to make a lot more sense in terms of its structure.

the leon and ashley romance exists so that guys who project onto leon who want to be seen as cool and fawned over by a hot girl will be catered to. and ada's been removed from that so that she doesn't interfere with it and create a complicated love triangle.

and then, on the flipside, guys who aren't interested in being fawned over and would rather have a hot lady kick their ass have separate ways tailor made to them, while ada is in the driver's seat kicking ass and being put in suggestive positions with luis and wesker.

even the fandom kind of reflects that. most of aeon fandom writes ada as a dommy mommy and leon as a submissive doormat. most of eagleone fandom writes sex god leon taking advantage of a vulnerable ashley.

the fandom was always going to turn out that way with such a stark divide, because that's how the game was designed.

there's a reason why fandom is overwhelmingly dominated by cishet women and queer folk. it's because cishet men just don't care about this shit, by and large. there are some that do, sure. but most of them don't. and that's what we really need to keep in mind when we're discussing RE's story.

[noblehouseofgay]

Long fuckig ramble about morals and jkr and all that

It's so complicated like- seeing people with the opinion on hp I used to have vs my current opinion

Bc I used to get annoyed when I'd see any hp stuff. Bc to me it equals unsafe. It meant to me that you don't respect me or my life, as well as a lot of other people's.

But like seeing marauders fans, ik it's the opposite. Obviously this doesn't count for all fans, I steer clear of millennial white women fans, shit scares me.

But I saw someone talking about how it's a red flag to like any of it, and from someone who's been on both sides- i disagree

If you are actively speaking up against jkr and what she stands for, I think you're allowed to enjoy what you want. Especially if it's a fan made thing? Dude she gets no money from that go wild

I just think the internet as a whole needs to remember what nuance is. The internet feels likr a black hole so often and it sucks. I'd much rather have a civil discussion on shit rather than get called a slur and blocked

Anyway I'm rambling. Obviously I still feel some guilt for being a fan of hp. It literally freaks me out sometimes bc its so conflicting with who I am. But I think the fans (queer marauders fans especially) make it what it is. We took what that trash bag of a human made, and turned it into something more accepting

We saw the racism and stereotypes and all the bs, and we gave those characters real traits instead. We gave them real personalities and stories. And I think that's beautiful. Taking something gross and making it better

Tho I do absolutely understand that some people don't agree. Like I said, I had that opinion for- probably 10 ish years of my life? Idk time isn't real

Tho the mental battle I have is exhausting sometimes. Bc I'm trans. I'm literally the thing she targets the most now. I've grown up seeing the antisemitism and the racism and the homophobia from her. And it's fucked up. But I think- the whole "Harry potter fans need to grow up" shit needs to stop. Bc we could say that about any fucking fandom. A fuck ton of movies/stories/etc are considered childish. A lot of those things also have villains that people love. I think we need to acknowledge that while it's fictional, it can do harm, but we can enjoy the fiction if we still stand against the harm

God I have so many thoughts and I just needed to get it out ig

Fr tho "those fans need to grow up" yeah ok go tell it to star wars fans. Or disney fans. Or Marvel fans. Or doctor who fans. Or fucking any other fan. Bc you can have your criticisms, but get a better argument

[landslided]

sorry same anon again just returning to briefly add that i think season 1 of cobra kai made me so insane and now i'm trapped in this loop because i see that i could be so good like it could be SO good and then i think okay well there's always samtory future cobrakai arc where sam has dropped out of college and worked dead ends jobs for years and has largely pushed her parents away out of self loathing and like tory meanwhile has found like incredible success and similarly in a situation where tory has to help sam but it compels me SO much in how it would be different than daniel and johnny where tory WOULD be SINCERE in trying to make amends etc and sam would be the more instigator/"daniel" role despite occupying the "johnny" position if that makes sense. anyway that is to say i think top two characters who narratively should have sex that aren't daniel and johnny in my opinion. also that the second most INSANE making thing the show has done that was SO good was tory winning because silver paid off the refs INSANE COMPELLING DEFINING moment of all time for samtory season 5 really dropped the ball on the execution of but INSANE set up INSANE choice for their dynamic SO rich. anyway. sorry my only friend i've managed to get into cobra kai is too busy writing deranged piano teacher aus to/with me so i have no outlet for samtory future cobra kai gay sex moment. hey does anyone else think women should be divorced bums in their forties who fuck raw. anyone else. anyo --

(hope it's okay i replied to your anon like this, i wanted to put all your thoughts on the same ask because i know tumblr just hates us and doesn't let us talk the way we want to in asks)

okay wait okay there is SO MUCH TO UNPACK HERE just so much and i feel like it's christmas already

first thing first don't ever feel the need to apologize for sending me anons like this quite literally the best thing i've ever received in many years of being on this hellsite i feel a little bit like chewing glass with how excited i am.

i totally get what you mean about season 1 because it truly feels like they trap you inside this complicated story of violence, vengeance and expectations and then they just never truly pick it up again and you are left with the bits and pieces of this show that not only has so much wasted potential but that has now infected you and you get visions like the fucking youtube red premium cursed cassandra of what it could have been if they'd just committed to what they were selling.

but the. yes. yes, we could have future samtory, it's the thing holding our heads above the water because GOD anon, i feel like you've managed to read my unfinished stories and my drafts on here because i wrote at least ten posts about how i think sam has the same journey as johnny (rich kid who ruins herself through self-hatred and repression and just this insatiable need of not being her father, of not being larusso 2.0 even though she is very much daniel to the shape of her smile and the marrow of her bones), sam who runs away, sam who has to do so to try and find herself except she can't because she has gotten absolutely no tools to do so, she's shaped herself into this perfect glass ornament for her father to put on display because she LOVES him and he loves her too but nothing she has is her own and she cannot find a single thing in herself that doesn't feel like a lie or a performance once again.

and tory is not like this. tory is very much whole and unwaveringly herself even when it gets her in trouble. tory doesn't have to answer for any expectations, tory just has to survive and rise to the occasion in a way sam never had to. tory has this weight on her shoulders that she cannot shake off but in many ways, through love mostly, she picked that weight up and placed it there herself even if it wasn't fair and even if she didn't have much choice, but she makes conscious decisions that pretty much always put herself at risk but she does what she feels is right and good for herself and for the people she loves in the moment, meanwhile sam is carrying around this burden that was attached to her back long before she first even opened her eyes.

there is something to say about the tragedy of daniel, absolutetly unable to have friends, unable to form meaningful relationships with people he doesn't have a past with (louie is his cousin, anoush is his employee, johnny, chozen and mike are part of his past) and when he does, it's robby he chooses because he doesn't look for an equal or a friend, he looks for a way to reproduce his relationship with mr miyagi but in the opposite because that's when he felt at his safest, that's his ONLY relationship that has brought him nothing but love and understanding and when you add all that (which, like you, i do. i do see all of the show's forgetful little things as proof of daniel's forced repression after tkk3 i literally wrote a whole section about his loneliness in one of my fics but ANYWAY) when you do add all that and translate it to sam who has no friends. it's not even that she doesn't have girl friends, she doesn't and its crazy and it says SO much about her, but she doesn't have any friends who aren't something else at first. miguel is her ex, so is robby, demetri was her sort of student for a while and then a sort of colleague to which she applies a relationship that is more reminiscent of boss/employee than actual friends and she!!! doesn't!!! have friends!!! they took away aisha but even before that sam had almost purposefully fucked up her relationship with aisha to enter a circle of popular kids who were NOT her friends and were not close to her and did not care about her. sam keeps herself locked away from a lot of her peers and that is so very clearly in my head an imitation of what her father does that it becomes unconsciously her own behavior.

and worse than all that, she's fucked up! like genuinely fucked up! she keeps ruining her relationships and she doesn't know what she wants and she is angry and scared and mean when she wants to be and yet, there is such a true real kindness to her, a goodness that comes from her very core that she cannot keep from affecting all her decisions.

sam would grow up estranged from her family, unable to express these monstrous feelings she's kept locked away for song long and she would find tory again and feel this same pull. this same moment of oh, maybe you do get me, maybe you do understand what and who i am and that is totally unbearable because being known is being in danger and i don't know myself how dare you know me more than i do. and tory would be genuine in wanting to help sam, because tory, a kid who did so much to survive and who has now found success and comfort would want to help someone she feels like she might have impacted in her life, someone who deserves the same chance she got (and maybe it's to alleviate some of her guilt too but it's still true and it's still done with this undercurrent of honesty that taints everything tory touches)

i also totally agree that making silver pay for tory's win was a wonderful plot decision that they totally fucked up later on but just, ugh the exquisite bittersweet victory, the defeat in sam's eyes because the win should have been hers, she's the best and she's played every single card in the game and tory knows this, knows that she's undeserving and she has NEVER been undeserving in her life and yet here she is, silver has made a liar out of her and has changed a fundamental part of who she is forever.

older samtory who are pathetic losers in the matters of love and keep pulling the same old tricks with each other that always ends up on the mat, licking old wounds before pouring salt directly onto them.

truly. truly ship of all time. samtory has the potential of a thousand suns.

(i ALSO am a big sam shaves her head believer god im UGH yes yes yes yes)

im sorry i ended up talking so much, but like you i feel a lot of emotions for these girls.

ALSO!!!!!!!! YOUR FRIEND'S DERANGED PIANO TEACHER AU????? I HAVE READ THIS FIC AT LEAST FIVE TIMES SINCE IT WAS POSTED LAST MONTH AND I EVEN COMMENTED ON IT THAT IT HAD MADE ME CRAZY LIKE GENUINELY BITING AT MY FINGERNAILS UNHINGED!!!!!!!!

if you ever feel comfortable being off anon, hit me up i think im in love with your brain and would love to discuss samtory with you

[0xo]

tw abuse & transmisogyny tho

it is kind of nuts that on the flipside of having incredible trans relationships, i've also been treated like dirt by former partners who happened to be transfem, and it like... sucks. hard. to feel a little bit unable to talk about how they treated me for fear of people interpreting that as me not loving or respecting trans women.

like. idk. especially one ex in particular. having my life threatened and being emotionally/physically/financially abused really really really sucked. especially because i loved her a lot and still really, really care about her. it took literally years for me to tell the full story to our mutual close friends because. i didn't want them to cut her out of our community. like "exile abusers" blah blah blah but she NEEDED friends and support, she was also going through a hard time, the last thing she needed was for every local friend she had to drop her or talk shit about her. even if she did really really mean things to me. i still want her to be happy.

it was hard telling k about what actually happened because he was so mad, not at me but at her, asked why i didn't tell the whole story sooner, all that. and all i could say was that i was afraid she would get more hurt. i didn't want her to be isolated. and i asked him, if you knew what she'd done, would you have been so nice that day when she showed up and scared the hell out of me? and he said no, i would've understood why you were so scared, i would've told her to leave. and i said EXACTLY, she wasn't in a state to leave, she needed a soft place to land. even if it meant she broke a promise to me. don't you get it? i didn't want her to end up dead. i still had an obligation to her to try and keep her safe.

i don't know. like. there is no such thing as a perfect abuse victim and you don't have to forgive your abuser or try to make things easier for them or protect their reputation from the truth of what they did. i just. couldn't let it all blow up immediately, right? i could only tell the truth after she was in another place, a better mental state, with more support that wasn't connected to here or our mutual friends.

and it's weird because we're still kind of friends, sort of. and i still care a lot about her. she has so so so many good traits, she's talented and beautiful and smart, and. i didn't want the way she treated me to get in the way of her recovering and having a good life. i want to believe it was all a really really big mistake, that she didn't mean it, that it was just the drugs and the sobriety attempts talking. and pushing and threatening. like yes take responsibility for how you act but also, maybe, that wasn't really her. maybe she's really actually a great person and we were just in a really difficult situation. i know that's not realistic but god i hope maybe she didn't mean it.

idk. abuse makes you feel absolutely insane sometimes. five years later im still grappling with that. the gender layers just make it more complicated because i never wanted to be that asshole who ruins the life of a trans woman over petty stuff. but it. wasn't petty stuff, and i know that and i have witnesses, it was genuinely bad. and i still couldn't/can't bring myself to write her off as a terrible person. because i really and truly don't think she is one. i believe she's changed and i believe she's better and i believe she's got the potential to do amazing things.

and i'm not looking for brownie points by saying all this, i'm not trying to paint myself as a saint for the act of still treating her like a human. i was never perfect. and i don't want to hold it over her head, okay? that's not what this is about. i am not a wonderful person for trying to forgive her. i am just trying to minimize the damage for both of us.

i'm just. still processing. and i think the way i had to handle it kind of complicates things. i've had people accuse me of "protecting abusers" because i don't really publicly talk much about what she did, i don't "warn" people about her. but. it's not necessarily anyone's business? they're not entitled to know the details of one of the worst periods of my life just so they can get some sick glee out of regurgitating it, using it as a reason to alienate her... using my pain as social currency. it's not their business. especially if she's changed her behavior? she doesn't treat her wife like she treated me, thank god. and if i'd gone out to crucify her... i don't think she would've gotten better. she may have hurt me but i don't want to hurt her in return. she doesn't deserve that. i didn't deserve cruelty from her and she doesn't deserve cruelty from me.

i'm not looking for validation that i've done the "right thing." i'm not sure there is a "right thing" to do coming out of all that. i just need to talk about it a little bit. because maybe other people who've survived shit situations need to hear that it's okay to have complicated feelings.

but her changing for the better doesn't. erase. what happened or how it affected me. the flashbacks and nightmares and general fear and anxiety. the added layer onto my pre-existing ptsd. it's difficult to process and talk about. it's affected the way i relate to people and my ability to trust. (i'm forever grateful that my current girlfriend saw what was happening and stepped in to protect me... sometimes i only really feel safe when i'm with her, because i know she's not going to hurt me or let anyone else hurt me. i can actually relax when she's around. she's safe.)

and idk, i guess the thing is, i could've let that experience turn me bitter towards trans women. i could've blasted my ex publicly and tried to ruin her life, and i probably could've succeeded at it. but. i never wanted that. i needed to be away from her, and she shouldn't have done those things, but i was never willing to turn it into a witch hunt. and it was a trans woman who came to protect me when i thought i was going to be murdered! it was my trans fem partners that helped me get out and get safe. i owe them my life. they didn't have to help me but they did.

so it's confusing to me that some people are so transmisogynistic because... what, a trans woman was a little rude to you on the internet? she called you out on your transmisogyny??? you feel personally emotionally attacked or some shit?

like. please get real. you're just hateful. not to be like "oh i got over a horrible experience so you should shut up," but. i lived through hell, i was abused by a trans woman, and i still don't have a nasty attitude about trans women in general. so i think some of you should shut the fuck up. trans women have every right to be angry and snarky when you treat them like shit!!!

i think it's just. difficult. to watch people act like fuckheads. i deeply, deeply love and respect the trans women in my life - including the ones who hurt me. and some of these assholes are throwing hissy fits about jokes and well-deserved criticisms of how they treat/talk about trans women. like. just admit you don't like trans women specifically. don't pretend you're being attacked. i know what being attacked is and, i gotta say, it's NOT that!

wishing people would view other people, especially trans women, as Real Actual Humans and not just a collection of their worst moments. it's so dehumanizing and so blatant and i'm sick of it

[unproduciblesmackdown]

it's Enriching to note ways the second layer of the story that is act ii contrasts with the first to complementarily fill out ideas, like the murdered guy in act i being an uncaring visitor wielding more power than anyone else has, versus act ii's longtime community member motivated by others' wellbeing and challenging the established power because of this....i'm loving how such Juxtaposition / Inversion elements are put upon the player by our having a layer of mystery in exploring who andreas is now after this timeskip. that screenshot i saw where i think gernot can tell andreas that just because he didn't observe something happening doesn't mean it didn't happen; that andreas's focus on any given suspect can be based on his (so, the player's) assessment of surface-level interactions with them, where he can dig into their stories, or not, and either approach still just depends on how he (so, you) choose to judge that Story. bitches love metanarrative

and here, i've seen people talk about judging andreas for, so much as the player is told up to that point, Just Not writing back to his friend after that friend says his wife and child died. and here, Andreas knows his own story and motivations in a way the player doesn't, and doesn't know they don't know, and the game requires you to find out, but that andreas giving away that Something Happened at all, and his distress surrounding it, can happen before, in some [internal dialogue] when talking with one of the women in tassing about her losing a child. i remember that in the first playthrough i watched, the player just kind of backed out of the conversation after the woman (veronica i think?) got ink-splatter / angry-expression cued Upset, and i kind of misinterpreted this as the game having "wrong" dialogue options, essentially....the way that other characters will tend to react negatively to andreas using his Background Selected Knowledge to comment or clarify, b/c this is interpreted as Pedantic(tm) lol like i also wish any of the playthroughs i'd seen had people talk more to brother volkbert, let's get that "i know he is an autistic character and i know this is on purpose" rep lol....so, that is to say, i was ready for there to just be ways andreas can have said the Wrong Thing like umm obviously how could you, And for this to be meant as "obvious" / not needing explanation. then i see someone show that [here's where you can realize Something Happened with andreas as he talks to this parent about their young child's death] conversation in full, where if you keep at the exchange despite veronica clearly being upset, it also becomes clear she's feeling defensive because she's questioning her own complicated / conflicting feelings about things

it's Enriching to contrast with andreas's investigative efforts with andreas's own secrets from the player here; the way people will discuss how brother guy has a really sympathetic and positive motivation behind his Secret, but it's difficult to get him to explain what it is, though he can hint at the context earlier, and if you spent act i (and presumably act ii) being hostile to him because he's fairly hostile / making things worse for people around him, presumably it there is even less room for the player to convince guy to share the truth. i saw someone's playthrough where they spent act i focusing on ottilia, maybe more obviously sympathetic from the onset but likewise recalcitrant and thorny And more difficult to physically get to, and i was like Oh my god when in act ii andreas can hear secondhand that ottilia always speaks so highly of him even while continuing to be a hater in general, go bitter woman....that with pretty much anyone there's this effort to avoid the idea that this metanarrative is about the "right" or "wrong" judgments and choices; no one is supposed to be A Saint (lol!) so as to "tell" the player the "correct" route. like damn i have to be pissed at guy at least for being a Standout Asshole to volkbert. i enjoy rapscallion andreas being able to win martin's favor; i then am like "oh. i see" as act ii "martin" gets aggressive when drunk and vents this as getting nationalist at a stranger for being italian (not speaking english this is america...)

and like, i love that this also isn't about throwing up your hands like "wow i guess since there's no way of parsing some Absolute Objective Truth and since everyone is as fully human and complex as anyone else, we just say 'it's complicated' and call it a day," because individuals and humanity Don't Do That, and this is about seeking illuminated paths to the truth anyways, because the things that happen even if you didn't see it will keep affecting you anyways. there's people so shitty that everyone's like "oh yeah kill him" and people so sympathetic that everyone's like "do NOT kill" and engrained in it all is ways that andreas can affect storylines, including that you can See the developing results of those storylines as the game progresses even if andreas (and the player) didn't See the threads in the first place (e.g. watched a game where the player didn't investigate matilda at all, and of course still finds her married to wocslav in act ii, rather than the game excising that element if the player has no prior context / didn't knowingly actively "choose" that)

and that a conclusion of "well, if you're trying your best based on [cue a Facet of andreas's mind court] things will turn out as well as can be hoped" is also not supported when like, there's not only all the things andreas can't prevent like the broad events in the first two acts, the unintended repercussions of who of [two people who he must choose from the suspects pools] dying, but that entire subversion of the player's presumed efforts to do what seems Right in the "failure" regarding caspar getting him killed; which you can't amend without being like, cruel to this child while he's alive, even simply by being "uncaring"....that already in act ii, andreas is internally struggling with an overall effort to detach himself from everyone to avoid all the unforeseen, unavoided negative developments / repercussions, the perceived Failures. that for the player to Save caspar requires a redo with insider knowledge, since in the first playthrough all you know is you spent act ii trying to be nice to this kid, or not, and only eventually in act iii do you know that he died (and, otherwise, you don't really know what happened to him / don't Know that if you had been uncaring enough, he would have actually left)

that ofc andreas too is a character to judge / investigate and cannot be A Saint and yet you Will affect this story and you can't just throw up your hands, trying to take the most "neutral" / middle path / compromising route in any situation doesn't extricate anyone from the things happening that they were a part of, and of course andreas is a Central Character and also a Detective figure who has to be actively involved and nosy to an adequate degree anyways lmao.

really what i set out to post here is "it's neat that the 'you can judge this person based on more immediate assumptions without further information, but When You Find Out....' is turned around on the player on a deeper level when you can go 'wow andreas, just being an asshole when i wasn't able to choose the [write back to claus] option much??' and then you can go 'oh. hm' upon finding out the reason for this that won't be shared in full for Some Time b/c andreas isn't sharing it with other characters, who don't quite get his motivations as apparent to them either, even when we can realize in retrospect they've gone through similar things (which, despite andreas being more open (with the player) in kicking himself about "well at least you're more well off / doing less physically arduous labor than these people," extends to their ultimately sharing problems even beyond the infant/child/general mortality ones) like, Something Happened, even when we the player were not there to observe it, and we can play a sad trombone note when we have to realize that maybe we judged andreas negatively for something extremely complicated and sympathetic, or at the very least that something so major and relevant could Be There, and be affecting things, even without our knowing exactly what it was at the time, though hints were there

and that it's also great how the game's thread with caspar is like, seemingly this "hm why not choose the more supportive / kinder dialogue options, right?" after andreas taking even a simply more noncommital approach towards interactions with tassing's children has hardly been a disaster, anyways, And Yet. and wherein like, as pointed out, the greater prevalence of mortality didn't mean "oh life is cheap then, nobody gets invested in their children" (any more than reductions in child mortality means people now Must be invested in their kids / not see them as interchangeable/disposable resources) when like, this plot is one where caspar is made more vulnerable for having more of an emotional connection to andreas, he didn't get sick or hurt or killed by the soldier police. andreas has Been out here making himself more vulnerable by his connections to others. everyone is made more vulnerable for being connected to anyone and everyone else, themselves as inherently vulnerable as everyone is, no matter how much material insulation they have, though obviously factors like impoverishment, anything conferring marginalized status, make people more vulnerable, which makes others more wont to be like "well that's Their problem and we have to look out for ourselves" about it....you can save caspar's life but be this major figure in it who basically just rejects him / withholds emotional support and possibly emotionally undermines him "enough." There Is Unavoidable Cost to being connected to / involved in others' lives, that inherent vulnerability whether tragedy or triumphs manifest, and of course anyone's best intentions and best efforts combined never prevented all tragedy or undesired outcomes from happening, even when you don't anticipate the stakes and think that being nice can't play out badly....you encounter this before even, the "danger" of supporting paul, even just the uncomfortable dinner conflict of backing up veronica (or not) about people not waiting to poach property from an old widow who keeps to herself / isn't charmingly beloved enough such that people aren't intervening to help her, while, of course, they're already vulnerable themselves....you even kind of have it brother piero, where his and andreas's dynamic is presented so efficiently as genuine and supportive, and he's vulnerable due to his age, like jeez andreas he was probably gonna die soon anyways, why'd you have to interfere, he was even willing to take that fall. here's caspar, willing to put himself at risk to help andreas who in turn would risk himself to save some of the inherent value / path to truth in any single manuscript....ensuring caspar doesn't die requiring sabotaging his connection to you; andreas having to work through trying to avoid all connection (but never able to fully do so at any point) of course not just to protect himself but to protect others because the vulnerability of any given connection is, like its potential compounding strength/resilience afforded instead, a two-way street....this just Was a connection wherein the vulnerability of it clearly has some dear cost one way or the other, b/c it's a point in a story given limited outcomes lol like how the abbey Will be burned

as always, tl;dr take two: it's great how the player can judge act ii andreas before they have some extremely relevant facts to then be like "oh. damn" about. it's great how life is happening no matter what whether you try to be detached or desperately involved, and life happening includes what you don't see happen, and it includes death, and it includes something that happened here that you were a part of, and things you tried to write/paint over and the things you tried to write/paint About, and things that didn't go wonderfully but there's nothing that can be done about it now, and that's so much of andreas's whole arc, and you can't stop claus from dying b/c someone accidentally hit him too hard in the dark when they didn't expect him to get there so fast, but you Will be there to hold his daughter in her immediate grief....in years of disappeared retreat, andreas is feeding the cats in the shelter still provided by the ruins and resources still provided by the convent and the town, and really getting as innovative and accurate as he wants with his art, painted Over the preexisting murals....mein gott. who up penting they ment. i think it's great that just being nice to this kid isn't "guaranteed" [and that saved him from life, including his own choices, and death] b/c that's Never guaranteed, as per a game Illustrating the depth and breadth of actual life and actual people via a set story and set characters, you can save him from death, but with the death of other possibilities in life, and whatever may now happen to him that you don't see and really cannot even try to control the outcome of....

TL;DR great that the game challenges any player's route to desired / "Correct" outcomes by setting up [something happened even though you didn't see it] about andreas, wherein judging a seemingly uncaring (in)action will readily lead to assumptions that are far from The Truth, and where trying to support Your child figure (through andreas) in caspar, whether during the initial run or in revisiting it differently, you don't have an option to just fully Save him despite all your best intentions and efforts. lord the pentymenty of it all

[mio-nika]

I was rewatching a Lindsay Ellis videos about movie adaptations of musicals and why they usually don't work. Diegetic and Non-Diegetic narratives.

And it organically started this line of thought about Legion and how hard is to recommend it. So I wrote a giant post.

Like, yes. It's a very lose adaptation of marvel comic. The forgotten spin-off of X-Men universe about a powerful but insane mutant. But, let's just say, it took me three seasons to understand that it was a marvel property. I'm quite slow and only when I heard the last name Xavier I started thinking that I heard it somewhere else. It works great as a stand alone story where some characters just has this paranormal abilities and government are kinda not having it. So I don't think that marvel fans would be very interested in watching. Daredevil is not a good show, but at least Daredevil has Daredevil in it (sorry for fans of dardevil, I also like whump but let's be real here).

And for other people... It's extremely weird show? When I was talking about it with my friends and acquaintances I usually compared it to Voices, a 2014 thriller/black comedy film staring Ryan Reynolds who kills women and talks with his cat. But I also don't think that it's a good comparison? Voices is a black comedy and even if it takes some of the parts of living with schizophrenia realistic it downplays it for comedic purposes.

Fuck. I should have started from explaining that Legion is. As I already wrote, Legion is a TV series loosely based on the series of marvel comics by the same name.

It starts with David, our main protagonist, who is living in a mental hospital, because he's a menace of society, hears voices and let's just say. A little unstable. In the course of the first episode he finds himself a GF and finds that the reason why he hears voices is not because he's sick, but because he's a powerful mutant, a telepath, who hears other people and gets tangled in their minds. And he's a god's child and saviour that that will defend mutants from oppressive politics of humans.

So it's a story about telepaths. And showing epic battles between telepaths are kinda hard? I mean, they can throw big blocks of concrete, cars, control other people minds but it's all are happening outside of their minds. To show things inside their heads, you need to go deeper, you need to be creative. And weird. The magical and terrifying world of human psyche.

In the exact first episode we are granted with a complicated choreographic scene of all of the mental patients in the clinic... How else would we understand that the main character is in love with a girl of his dreams?

And it's only the starting point. The show blurres the boundaries between reality and unreality, where every event is both real and theatrical because in the mind of the main character. It is.

And this is the problem. For example. I have a friend. And they told me, that they don't like musicals because it's hard to them to take seriously the moment where everyone just starts singing all of the sudden. And like. Valid. So let's imagine that the people in the show, not only start singing for no reason, they start a complex dance-off to show their mind power? And you don't even know if they're really dancing, or they just. Doing something else, that for the audience looks like a dance? Anyway, yeah, the second season starts with a dramatic dance-off between three powerful mutants and you just. Sitting there. And I refuse to tell you about rap battle. There was a rap battle. I'm an old wizard who lives in the shoe...

Every episode of Legion starts with a retelling of a previous one. And where all the other shows says "previously" Legion says "ostensibly". Ostensibly in Legion. Who knows that is happening? Not me.

So let's get back to the Voices. Why I'm so torn up when I'm comparing Legion to Voices. Because, well. I think that Legion tells a story about mental illness and it impact much more seriously. Yes, it's a quirky show, with dance and songs, but... "может ли бог быть сошедшим с ума?"

Have you ever watched "They Look Like People"? It's an indie horror film from 2014 about a guy who hears voice of God telling him about incoming apocalypse and alien monsters who are taking people's bodies. I don't like horror movies where mental illnesses is a main story point. They are usually tacky and mean. "This person is ill, so he's scary and dangerous!" And all that. But at the same time, illness is dangerous. Not only for people around sick person, but to the person themselves. Main character in They Look Like People is not evil, he's sick and he needs help. He's suffering much more than the suffering that he inflicts. But where the main character in They Look Like People has a way out, the Legion does not. So what will you do? What you could ever do, if you have an insane god in your hands who are untreatable. And even if he was, he would refuse help because of the years of medical abuse. Both he and people around him have no way out. No happy ending.

So. It's hard to recommend Legion. But I would ask you to try. It's a salad of beautiful horror hiding in colourful clothes of the fairy tale.

Милый, имя тебе легион...

[redswaberkez]

ayo whos ur favorite deus ex character btw nice art

ohhhhh GOD my time has come. and so have i (wRONG GAME)

tldr

i love "main" 7-8 of them equally. What is a main to me? ofc Adam, Frank, Megan, Malik, Eliza, JC and Alex D. One special place in my heart is for Vaclav

big text below

Thank for compliment btw 😖

Spoilers alert ? idk

(warning my english is gonna be sometimes sooo rusty i guess)

DOUBLE WARNING I don’t rule out that over the many years of being in dxs fandom, the main concept of game's lore in my head just didnt messed up with my own headcanons. it is alteady messed up. cuz. yk) me n my besties created the full story aND - [GUNSHOT]

yeah i know it is strange to say, that dx has more main characters that just. Adam, JC and Alex D, cuz. They are Literally The Main chars. But back to my seven.

As i said before i love them all equally, for different reasons. One thing abt dx as a game is that characters arent plain and they are multifaceted.(?)

Adam

I love Adam for his complicated story, personality, for his own struggles, motivations and how they are represented in game. These small environment storytelling pieces and music that creates the mood (wait redswa it isnt abt the environment). What im trying to say. Through the gameS - dxhr and dxmd - we can see how Adam is healing from his trauma, and how heavy it was. Also needet to be noted how he interacts w another characters. AND this tension between him and Frank but how at the end of the day (but lit at panchaea) Frank is still cares a lot abt Adam.

Also Adam is just like my bestie. Moral think for yourself. Yeah.

Pritchard

ONE thing i need to say abt frank is HESSS JUST LIKE MEE FRR, and now imagine some kind of cringe sigma phonk playing on the background. Yeah thats it. I relate to him so much but like. in more✨deep infj cringe way✨ Have you evere feel like Pritchard is gonna explode from nerves or even neurotism? Or like from blast of incomperhensible mess of feelings but he hides it? This is what im talking about. Heyy dont judge me i need to project some shit to my faves okay???? Damn how could you tell i have a lot of hc on dx? i have no idea!

I love Pritchard's informality. I mean. BRO WHY YOUR BIKE IS EVEN ON YOUR WORKPLACE???? AND THIS FINAL FANTASY POSTER???? AND THIS TV INSTALLATION??? honestly?understandable.

In Prague, Frank is still reminds Adam abt himself. Yeah i knoe it is for game purposes, but imo in lore perspective: Pritchard is gathered a lot of info for Adam (basically dxhr retelling), and this small detail: Adam keeps Pritchard's book. (i know you can find them anywhere in Prague, but still (methink eidos gaf later abt this texture and put it anywhere jus because lmao))

This ^^^ is Frank btw

Ok enough abt Pritchard cuz then its gonna be endless

Megan and Malik.

Another notable thing that i like in dx series is that women in game arent sexualized. They arend "simple and f🤮ckable objescts" Megan is a scientist, on a verge of the greatest innovation. Yes. We dont know much abt her bc she is literally missing. Malik is a pilot. Damn i love her sm. Her chardesign. Strong and powerful charisma and nonconfotmity. Faridah's sidequest in Hengsha???? MY GIRLLLL GO AND GET AND BEAT SHIT OF THIS ASSHOLE. 👊👊👊👊

I remember how sad was i, when Malik was killed in dxhr and how happy was i to find out her little gift in Prague.

Overall kinda sad that there is not much screentime of them.

AND another notable thing. Megan and revolver. Revolver as an inspiration. OK I GOT IT

Eliza

Its 2028 and AI is already taken big steps in development. Questions of self-consciousness of an AI were asked in a lot of sci-fi creations. And deus is not not an exception. Love how Eliza obtains her own conscious during the game and how it leads to project Hyron at the end. I have a lot of thought abt p. Hyron overall. Another topic ngl.

And ofc her design is beyond all praise. Thank you designers for NOT making her oversexualized.

During dxmd Eliza is also questioning a lot of essential questions. I know she does. But cant remember what exactly it was. Need to replay tho

JC

My bad, i still cant play through dx original, so i can only rely on his vibes. His vibes are good and silly. He has big meme potential cuz hes test-tubed. Not sorry tho

bro im laughing and exploding from this meme like 3 yrs but RIGHT NOW DURING ANSWERING YOUR ASK I UNDERSTOOD THAT THIS IS SOYJAK REFERENCE AND NOW IM DYING LIKe x3 TIMES I WAS SO BLIND MY VISION WASNT AUGMENTED TILL NOW

Alex D

When my pc even didnt existed and i was a laptop player, when the grass was greener....... I played dxiw. Yeah it isnt so big, but for its times it is good enough. Alex also radiate vibes of small and silly-stupid-Bi guy, the one who is gonna trip on air.

(meme with pom dog says "I will gnaw out your heart and eat it")

Look at him. Hes got an ears, unlike his brothers, but he has ZERO braincells. JC and Paul at least got some braincells, maybe one, or two and they are belong to Paul. Cost of an ears = cost of brain

Alex tried to fool up an AI. I would venture to say that he even flirted with her, and got rejected. Local bidlow tried to gop-stop (bandits tried to steal) his jacked and he could give it to and be like "better be pissed on than punched😖"

Yes, He is a silly fool (noneg, with love) but hes got a big heart like. At least, i remember so.

And last but not least

Vaclav

Love him for his light distinctive punkie nature, with big heart and ready to help whenever you need it. Vaclav tries his best so much. In library we can find cz-eng vocabulary with medical terms, when ig most of his patiens are czechs... says a lot

I would say that vaclav is silly but not stupid, not even naive. We can find him on Dvali's blacklist, but he is important for them. (but we also remember that otar just dont like him cuz vac knows radich's secret and otar is not (mb that the reason why vaclav is blacklisted))

well how to say it.. he's soul is good and lovely, he is not evil or dark. Idk cant find an eng analogue.

But in srb and ru we have доброћудан [dobrochudan] (literally good-lovely) or добродушный [dobrodushny] (good-souly)

actually this gif sums everything abt him very well

Thank you for ask! I really liked to talk on this topic

[crookedherringcolorclod]

MY OCS’ SEXUALITIES

A/N: Hey y’all! I’m back from school just yesterdayyyy. Also happy pride month to everyone! To celebrate I wanted to make this so you can know my OCs better and learn more mini stories while you read!

Asa (AroAce)

• Asa never had any interest in romance. Even when she was just a kid she had a poker face when her mother, Felicia would tell her and her sisters about how mommy and daddy got together. Meanwhile Amaya was giggling excessively and Akemi was daydreaming about having a Prince as her boyfriend.

• Her father, Vincent was even perplexed when Asa got older and he needed to give her ‘the talk’ regarding that she might have to marry someone one day because she’s technically the eldest and she’ll be the heir to everything he every made one day, but she was like “oh… is this like a requirement?? Ok-”

• In the end it didn’t matter since her parents got killed and the vampire hunters literally stole everything they owned-

•So yeah. It meant that Asa didn’t have to marry a noble anymore. (vampire or human)

• Decades passed and she never tired anything with the staff she worked with when she was a maid, any criminals she associated with, or any targets she had to shoot to get some money-

• it wasn’t until she started listening to Amaya gush about her crushes at school did Asa realize that she may not feel the same. Asa even talked about this with Akemi and one google search later, they found the term ‘aroace’ and Asa was like “OH!” and it has been stuck with her till this very day.

•This also caused a lot of the students in Ryoutei High to mourn the loss of having a chance to date Asa-

Akemi (Bisexual)

• To say Akemi’s journey was more complicated is a bit of an understatement. She literally got sex ed and realized fairytales aren’t real the hard way when she first arrived to the brothels. So yeah.. it left her more distant and got herself trust issues and commitment issues-

• Then there was Irina. Akemi pondered over her for a long time and realized that she might be only attracted to women instead of men. So she usually stuck with having extremely close relationships with women. She never allowed them to touch her too intimately, she was still jumpy if anyone got close to her privates.

•The many women Akemi was emotionally intimate with were super sweet and called her “cutie” while tickling or embracing her. Looks didn’t really matter to her. (This is when she realized she like to be teased by older and more mature partners-)

•Fun fact: Shu realized Akemi was bisexual when they were looking at this one girl who was walking past them at the same time. He also found out they had similar (not exactly the same) tastes in ladies too-

• As for the story when Akemi realized that she also liked men was… really funny if you asked Amaya. It was because her first man crush was a PRIEST, IN EUROPE. He was around his mid-20s, dark hair, about a head taller then her, quite handsome (picture Henry Cavil) and Akemi usually saw him after she fed on some dear in the woods and they would talk with a fence in between them.

• Akemi recalled how kind and gentle he was towards her. He never touched her inappropriately since he was technically not allowed to do so, which Akemi found super comforting. She even remembered how he would blush around her and found it extremely cute. (This is when she realized she like to tease others too-)

•Akemi was thankful that Karlheinz gave her one more day in France so she could see that priest again. One thing lead to another and Akemi was able to score a make out behind the church and away from prying eyes. She can still remember the stubble under her palms when she caressed his face and his big hands stroking her back while his thin chapped lips pressed against hers… god she loved every single moment of that.

• Since then, Akemi realized that her ideal type for men was well built and shy. (*ahem* *ahem* Subaru-) Like she went nuts when she saw Leon Kennedy in Resident Evil 4 with Amaya in the original game.

Amaya (Pansexual)

• The village she was in made her think she only liked the opposite sex for a long time. Like they wouldn’t stop preaching about Adam and Steve is bad, Adam and Eve is good, and they would shoot daggers from their eyes when Amaya is near just because she was an outsider. So it didn’t exactly give Amaya any way to even try romantic pursuits.

•To Amaya it didn’t seem to matter, she’s a social butterfly and she has a energetic and bubbly personality, what could go wrong???

• Amaya was pretty confused for about a few decades until one day she wanted to bar hop like Akemi and drank with other people alongside her. She eventually sneaked out of the manor and when she tried beer after a long time, she found a cute guy sitting by himself and Amaya wanted to approach them. That “cute guy” turned out to go by different pronouns and that encounter got her thinking real hard about whether or not she’s not straight.

•Akemi once again came to Amaya’s room and listened to her sister rant about other people she met and she was like “I just LIKE THEM??!!” Amaya even asked Akemi to round off certain characteristics of all the humans she liked before. Were they kind? Toxic? Attractive to what kind of standard??? It took a while until Akemi just patted Amaya’s shoulder and just said “I guess you just like those people regardless? You don’t exactly think about their gender. All I hear you talk about is how much you like spending time with these people.”

• Then all of a sudden, everything clicked in Amaya’s mind. Akemi got a big hug after that and Akemi still warned her little sister to show any potential partners to her and Asa just to make sure Amaya doesn’t get a bad apple.

•Few months later Amaya wouldn’t stop talking about @ruki--mukami. Her sisters’ reactions were… smth. 😀 They kept questioning between themselves on why Amaya picked him…