#i think YOU may also be struggling wrt critical thinking

[mermaidsirennikita]

I'm gonna need people to stop blaming BookTok for the election because of one dumbass outlier's frankly insane comparison of Donald Trump to "morally gray" dark romance heroes (because I'm gonna be honest, anyone seriously comparing any presidential candidate to a romance novel character is just... operating on a very specific level)

and start looking at the rightward swing of Gen Z, the same generation that has a puritanical fascination with censorship and fear of the depiction of sex

(and let's be honest, probably a fear of sex in general)

[miralyk]

wait, even though you draw yourself, you don't want to associate yourself with f/o or selfshipping communities? genuinely curious, and want to be respectful of boundaries drawing gift art for you

had to look up what "f/o" means but yeah i think i get an idea of what you're asking... i have a bit of a nuanced and long-winded answer wrt the Topic, which will be under the cut for convenience, but to start for for Fanart, i'm still very conflicted about my appearance both irl and in art, so i'm cool w something like drawing something like my trainersona or my pokesona/foxsona, but not art Directly Of Me, My IRL Self Showing My Bare Face, hope that makes sense!

(full long-winded answer to this question and broad topic:)

i don't have a problem with selfshipping or self-inserts; any criticisms i have are just core "fandom issues" (out of character writing/art, ignoring serious themes/topics in the source material to flanderize or sanitize fanworks, excessive spam in tags, especially unrelated to the post and/or without proper blockable tagging, etc) that selfshipping/self-inserts can perpetuate like any other fanfics or fanart mediums.

for me personally, i technically do have "self-insert" stuff like trainersona/pokesona art and lore to even a selfship with riley called brilliantaurashipping, but i just try to keep it quiet and not bother anyone tbh. i don't have much confidence with my appearance or overall qualities as a person and the last thing i want to do is be ignorant and pretentious, which i feel like would be hypocritical just. constantly drawing myself. especially in a rose-tinted goggles and mary-sue "oh i'm perfect and nothing's wrong with me i have all the superpowers and plot armor in the world and i'm besties with EVERYONEEEEE" shticks,, it makes me wince for canon-compliance and "oh god i don't want to be someone shitty and ignorant like j*lloapocalypse" reasons.

i also don't want to risk annoying or bothering people... if you're autistic and/or a person of color too you may understand this struggle better, but i've had a lot of ""friendships"" where it turned out people who i thought mutually considered friends actually hated me the whole time and only held their tongue out of societal obligations, laugh behind my back as the "mean girl's autistic pet" thing, fail to communicate properly because of various social cues i couldn't process, and so on. i'd rather have up front, honest communication that doesn't sugarcoat anything or beat around the bush, so here i am doing the same with elaborating my thoughts and hope i'm not misinterpreted or have people make assumptions making things up based on lack of information too. this got a bit long but... yeah, overall i do like drawing, even of "silly" stuff like this, but there's a reason why the word guilty is in "guilty pleasure"

[richmond-rex]

Hello! I've just found your blog and it's lovely, I love your answers for all the WotR/Tudor questions you've received!

I'm more familiar with the previous time period unfortunately, so I wondered if it was okay to ask you ... I was reading up on the women of the War of the Roses and while common perception/propoganda obviously influenced the view history has of them, I think it's very possible to make out hints of their personalities through it all. Particularly with regards to Margaret of Anjou, Margaret Beaufort and Elizabeth of York. (Eg: Elizabeth of York seems to have had an idealized image across history, but it's still pretty evident that she was a very warm, generous and charmismatic person who was a traditional yet very active queen and cared deeply for her family).

I think the one prominent woman I'm really struggling with in this context is Elizabeth Woodville. She seems very fascinating but I guess there's just a huge dichotomy when talking about her that I can't seem to figure it out lmao. She seems to have been very strong-willed, given everything she went through and endured; extremely intelligent given her family's pursuits and how quickly and competently she adapted to being queen, which (unlike virtually all her predecessors) she had not been raised for or trained for at all; and very devoted and protective of her family. And from what I've read, she was very pious as well. I'm not sure not right or wrong I am though, and I'm very confused wrt her ambition, so I thought I'd ask you to see what you think.

Hi! First of all, thank you! I think the problem with Elizabeth Woodville is that she's been vilified way too long in historiography (I talked about it here too), but also during her own lifetime thanks to those who wanted to criticise her husband — queens usually got the brunt of criticism as it was safer to criticise those around the king than the king himself. The same happened to Margaret of Anjou, and in the same sense that Margaret's son needed to be declared a bastard to get out of the way, so did Elizabeth's; that included disqualifying her whole queenship and her status as queen.

Not only she would be accused of witchcraft when her piety seems to have been more than conventional, but her whole queenship was cast as the exercise of a grasping and greedy woman favouring her family. The claim that Elizabeth Woodville was too partial to her family's interests is absurd in many ways, first because not all of them were as advanced as they could be, and second, because it was something expected of her—indeed her daughter as queen would act in the same way towards her family when queen.

We can't say either Elizabeth was more maternal/gentler than the other based on the records of their public acts as queens, though there are some differences. Elizabeth Woodville engaged in much more transactions of land, had a harder stance when it came to charging the money that was due to her (queen's gold etc), and was generally more successful in managing her own finances. That kind of softer grip may have contributed to Elizabeth of York's greater popularity as queen.

Still, there is no contemporary sign that she was 'the hand behind' Edward IV's policies and that she would be the one to rule the kingdom during her son's minority. It was simply something necessary to say to justify Richard III's usurpation, and seems to have been repeated ever since. It seems like centuries later we're still asking for a more balanced approach.

For me, Elizabeth Woodville was a very capable administrator, a genuinely pious person, and a very dutiful maternal figure to her family. The circumstances of her ascension made it impossible for her to charm every Englishman, but she seems to have been a conventional queen that did not outstep her role as consort 🌹x

[lakesbian]

#and like#I’m following you and I enjoy your thoughts on worm#and want to see more of the animorphs liveblog#but it’s getting harder to care when you’re an ass about it#which is no skin off your back#I’m under no illusions as to how important my one random follow is#but I’m also sure I’m not the only one who would enjoy engaging more if they didn’t want to deal with being called stupid#and I’d imagine the point of a liveblog is for discussing and engagement most times#yeah#that’s my thoughts

yeah that's fair. thinking it over i don't think it's inaccurate to say that there are a lot of subjects i Do outline considerately, even if i think it's obvious--e.g. the ask about fatphobia in wb novels i answered a bit ago--but when it comes to the issue of, as with the other example you raised re butch scorpia, attitudes re gender non-conformity and like. gender and sexuality in general in primarily lgbt spaces (like fandoms). i think i severely overestimate how obviously incorrect or rooted in shitty rationale certain trends or ideas i find to be insidious are, to the point where i struggle to imagine that anyone perpetuating them isn't perfectly capable of looking in the mirror about it and has just, for whatever reason, elected not to. which this chain very much demonstrated to be a stupid ass assumption, because when someone asked questions about what i was assuming was bare-minimum-no-shit stance wrt portraying gender non-conformity and bisexuality, it did in fact take hundreds of words to explain the underlying train of thought to her. & i'm sure it would also take hundreds of words to really delve into the why and how of the scorpia-as-butch issue. i am, for the record, the type of person who would respond fine to 'that's stupid as hell, because' so long as the Because is sensible (i'm extremely consistent yeah) but it's not gonna be productive with 99% of people, no. & what the level of derisiveness i've been directing wrt the subject assumes isn't proportional to how severe the things i'm criticizing are in terms of material impact (microaggressions at worst) nor likelihood of someone believing them (it's more complicated to actually unpick bit by bit than i thought it was before being given cause to lay it out). so yeah, i should stop being an asshole about it, because being an asshole abt something is only justifiable if the thing in question is proportionally morally worse & willful. thanks for pointing it out i will strive to be kinder on the puter and think more carefully about if something is actually as obvious or severe as my first instinct is to assume. also re your tags i think "one (1) follower" applies more to like...actually massive accounts being unfairly scrutinized and monitored, given how conversational i am on here and what a small community it is i think it's both reasonable and relevant for someone following me to say this, because we may as well be at the same extremely book-fixated house party

I love fanon Alec, I don’t remember canon anymore. I’m here for the fics.

[kiefbowl]

Kief, one of my libfem mutuals reblogged a post criticizing radfems who have been saying that American women should stop having sex with men in light of roe being overturned. it said that these radfems sound like conservatives who say that 'if you don't want a baby, don't have sex,' and I honestly completely agree with the anti-radfem OP despite being one myself. Its completely unhelpful & misogynistic to put the onus on women here for so many reasons. Why do so many rfs latch onto this pov?

you sent this a few days ago and I sat on it because I wanted to give it a good think. I don't think I've been very public about my opinions on a sex strike, so I wonder why you assumed I would be in agreement with you completely...but also I am finding it difficult to agree with how some women are handling this subject online. So, I'll dive in, I'm sure I will piss off people left and right and up and down, but so be it.

The idea of a sex strike is, imo, useful (more on that in a bit), but I hate the language. I hate the women are calling it a sex "strike." Some may think this is pedantic, but words also matter. A strike implies sex as some sort of labor, and that the labor will then continue once our demands are met. Surely we as women want to distance ourselves from this imagery? Men are conditioned to believe that sex is a woman's labor, and that he is owed it. I suppose one could argue "sex strike" speaks to a man's idea of sex and therefore is useful in that regard to get the meaning across, but I think that ground isn't worth losing. Sex is not labor, it's not a product, it's not owed to anyone, and the fact that we discuss sex like this wrt to women is proof of our dehumanization.

So what do I think is useful? I think it's useful to empower women to consider their sexual relationships as something they can attempt to safeguard in order to protect themselves, prioritize themselves, and to assume sex with men comes with risks. Celibacy is an amazing political idea, very powerful, very woman centered and actively does not benefit men, in fact it harms their position as the group that controls reproduction. I know some people have trouble understanding that someone, for example me, can understand the significance and power of a political idea without actually living it, because I'm not celibate. I do have a bf, and we do have sex. There are no other details I'm going to give regarding our sexual relationship, but I won't lie about this. Even so, I deeply encourage my straight and bi followers to deeply consider the significance political celibacy can be for your life as a woman, to be that utterly in control of your sexuality when it's assumed you are a resource for men to use.

Even so, it's not easy, and it's understandable why it's not easy. If there are women who say it is easy because it's easy for them, all I can say is that I'm happy it can be an unambiguous choice for them. Many women have fraught lives, it's easy to come online and say one thing and find it very difficult to live through for reasons that will not be obvious to an outside observer. I don't think it proves any lack of character or political motivation to see women struggle with their own sexual agency in a world that is actively demanding sex from them and harming them when they provide it. Feminism is not just political activism, that's one component, but it's also a framework to understand our position in our society. It provide a context to understand the lives we live.

What has angered me is how flippantly women have thrown around the hypothetical "abused woman" to say well of course not them. Who is this silent, obviously marked, hidden abused woman who knows she is abused and therefore exempt from political actions? When women express fear that their relationships will turn abusive if they "with-hold" sex, is she not demonstrating the reality of female sexuality? "Of course not abused women, we mean the un-abused women should not have sex" who are in these clearly delineated groups? How does one woman know she's in one group and not the other? All I'm saying is a little more care is needed when discussing the reality of women who are partnered with men.

[literaphobe]

deez nuts

random but can people ‘criticizing’ dream for not streaming ‘enough’ on twitch after he said he would donate his june twitch earnings to the trevor project like. stop? especially those accusing him of straight up being lazy

like. idk how to break it to you but streaming is Not dream’s full time job. he has other obligations, he runs a youtube channel (which doesn’t just include filming and uploading? behind the scenes he has to train and develop strategies for manhunt, which george literally said is coming back soon, plus he missed uploading in may), he runs a merch company (that includes loads of things he has to deal w that he doesn’t tell us about, adding george and sapnap to it definitely hasn’t made it easier Also He Is Literally Donating $50,000 as a joint effort with them) and he is heavily involved in dream smp lore (and that lore is tied to many other creators who he has to have discussions with and make arrangements with)

on top of that streaming is clearly something that hasn’t been entirely positive for him recently wrt literal antis that hate follow and hate watch and sit there waiting to clip shit out of context so they can continue to paint him as some evil villain (no matter how stupid those people seem)? KEEP IN MIND. that after the literal stream where he promised to stream more he got harassed n clipped to hell and back again? that affects things!! like does the fact that the last few times he ‘streamed’ was through his merch discord not mean anything to you. it’s fucking stressful and terrifying to receive avalanches worth of hate n harassment everytime you so much as breathe on a twitch stream, and it’s gotta hurt every time u go live thinking it’ll be fine this time only for stuff to happen anyway. also streaming live in front of hundreds of thousands of people for an extended period of time has never been inherently EASY and gives you feelings of apprehension, something that is multiplied a hundredfold for dream

besides. dream isn’t the only one who’s barely streamed this month lmao?? george n sapnap have been MIA a lot too n their friend group’s randomly alluded to working on various things that are like secret but also time consuming? and yes we’ve seen dream pop up here and there for like. mcc benchwarming n to like interact w george on jack manifold’s stream etc but. those are a sparse few hours within weeks of time. we don’t know what he does and even if he has been taking time to be free and dick around that is his prerogative? it’s not malicious he hasn’t had a proper break in years and as we have seen he’s been cutting back on twitter Very Recently n also straight up deleted his private that got infested w haters. just Let Him Be man

also. come ON. aside from ad revenue, all the money dream potentially makes from streaming comes from the viewers themselves. if u wanna donate to charity so bad… donate the money yourself? and if the people who were going to donate to dream in the name of Charity decided not to donate because dream didn’t stream. that’s on them??????? & besides that. dream can always just fucking donate money again? it’s not like he said this june thingy is a one time thing n he’ll never give away money to good causes ever again? he’s donated to the trevor project before n other charities when it wasn’t pride month? he doesn’t have to ONLY do stuff in the month of june to make a difference. just accept that you don’t know his life or the state of his mental health and that him not forcing himself to stream doesn’t make him a bad person OR a liar? i don’t care if you’re ‘disappointed’. save your disappointment. he’s already gone above and beyond and there’s other times and ways for him to donate more to the trevor project if he wants to. and if he does, that isn’t knowledge we’re necessarily entitled to. philanthropy is philanthropy whether you’re aware of every single instance of it or not

at the end of the day he’s just some guy. who has to deal with not just haters but his own fans potentially psychoanalyzing or harping on every little thing he does and says. no one can deal with that 24/7 and if he needs to take a step back from that shit it’s not any of our business. have some compassion n remember that he’s just as human as you are. who has unique struggles you cannot fathom. especially if you claim to like him as a person

[equalseleventhirds]

Hey. Re: the Jon having agency argument, I think I might be the person who kickstarted that one, and I want to say my argument was nothing like that other anon framed it. I never brought up him being neurodivergent coded, or disabled, or anything of the sort, because my argument wasn't about whether he was more marginalised than the rest of the cast - it was about whether it makes sense to frame his decisions as the primary driving force of the narrative. And my point about the ending wasn't that he was talked over, it was that what happened still aligned with what everyone else chose, not what he did, so it still doesn't make sense to frame his actions as a driving force of narrative rather than a failed struggle against the conclusion.

there are absolutely moments throughout the series when jon has his agency taken from him, by the narrative at large, the fears, and other people in positions of power (cough cough elias). that isn't negated by the fact that he's not written as a poc, and in fact given that s5 could be read as an exploration and criticism of white privilege, there's room for a reading wrt 'white people who believe the universe itself is giving them control are wrong and no not even you, white person, will be safe', which imo is one of the stronger messages a white person can give to other white ppl, and which some of jonny's writing does touch on

wrt the finale in particular, i think you and the other anon may be having two different conversations? bcos like, listen, i definitely did see some ppl saying that in 199 it was unfair to jon that he was outvoted (altho i did not see anything in the context of his identity, which was absolutely buck wild to me when the other anon brought that up) and that the martin, georgie, melanie, and basira, jon's allies, people who had less power than him and with whom he voluntarily discussed & debated the plan, were somehow stripping him of his agency by not agreeing with him. i avoided most of that, but i do vaguely recall someone actually doing an analysis of 199 and finding that jon spoke more than any other character and thus had his fair say, altho i would not be able to find the post bcos i did avoid... all of that. so if it is about other characters talking over him/taking his agency in the finale, i think that is kinda... not a thing, even putting aside questions of race and other identity stuff.

now, if it is about the narrative and whether or not jon's wishes and decisions controlled the narrative/were a driving force, that is a whole different kettle of meta! how much agency do characters have in narrative, when a writer is controlling them? how much agency do any of our characters in tma have, when the fears and the web in particular were controlling their fates?

realistically, i don't think any character at any point really had their desires as a driving force of the narrative, at least not as like... conscious control/creating the ending they desired? one of the BIG themes of tma in generals is that while we can make the best decision with the information we have, our intentions and wishes for the outcome of our decisions has absolutely no bearing on the actual outcome. in this way, every decision anyone makes is a 'driving force' in that it does in fact push the narrative towards one conclusion or another; but it is not a 'driving force' in that it pushes the narrative towards the conclusion they wanted.

everything jon and the other characters do is a struggle against the narrative, not against an inevitable end that will come for them no matter what, but against an end they cannot foresee and thus cannot reliably influence. jon's choice in mag 200 is a 'driving force' in that it drives the others to speed up their timeline, it drives martin to come find him, it eventually leads to jon getting stabbed and both of them dying in the panopticon. this wouldn't have happened without his choices! but what the others chose in mag 199 was also a driving force, that made jon feel like he could not change their minds and like they did not understand the true horror of what they were unleashing, and so he chose to go up to the panopticon alone.

neither of them really got what they wanted (bcos the others! didn't really want a world where jon and martin died/disappeared!) because neither of them really had full control over the results. but they did, in spite of not having control, influence those results.

...........and that got weirdly philosophical and really does have v little to do with race in tma, but i think i can be forgiven for going on a very long tangent abt narrative and choices and what precisely a 'driving force' is when we talk abt a story, bcos! narrative theory is very much an interest of mine!!

[thedreadvampy]

Can you elaborate on the Hamid stuff you were I comfy with? I’d love to hear your take on it

Ehhhh it was like...between Shoin and Hiroshima I really didn't like the kobold stuff and it seemed to be going kind of unexamined at that time (may have changed since, I dropped off early in the Hiroshima stuff largely bc as I say I have struggled to find time for actual play podcasts lately) how Hamid didn't seem to be feeling any particular compunctions around killing a bunch of kobolds then taking advantage of their loyalty, and in itself that's a very valid character choice because like, Hamid ISN'T a nice person and has always been kind of self-centred, that's sort of his whole deal. but what was making me uncomfortable was the degree to which Alex and the party were building a narrative where this didn't really come up as much as I'd like and where people were treating the kobolds as like, it being cute and funny how they were rushing around after the party and I felt like the threads of the, like, kobold self-actualisation and the character consequences of Hamid Cheerfully Doing A Mass Murder had sort of got dropped (and I imagine they've been picked back up since, and I understand the need for some fluff in the immediate aftermath, but it was just kind of sliding me off that those things felt like they were getting swept to one side)

And also tbh feeding into this is a broader issue that had been building for me for a long time, which is that I really don't actually like Bryn's play style as Hamid at all. By which I don't mean I have issues with Hamid as a character, but with Bryn as a player, so this is gonna rest a lot on My Reading Of Bryn As A Performer and My Reactions To The Show, it's not like a Bryn Is Bad And Problematic As A Person thing.

I think Bryn as a TTRPG player is really self-centred in a way that gets my back up - I think he steps on other player's decisions and space a lot and tries to kind of GM from the back, I think he sometimes struggles to let things develop that don't involve Hamid, and I think in particular Hamid very often talks over Azu and Bryn very often cuts off or interrupts Lydia and Helen (and to a lesser degree Ben) to talk about what Hamid's doing or what Hamid thinks or how Hamid can solve this with magic, and while having a loud/self-centred character is a Good And Fun character decision, there's a delicate line to tread IC vs OOC when it comes to being actively engaged and roleplaying out that steamroller character without actually steamrolling other players and dominating every session. and I can't speak for whether the other players feel steamrolled but as a listener I felt like Bryn had been dominating my experience for a long time to the degree that stuff like the Sasha and Grizzop Rome stuff was like...a huge sigh of relief to listen exclusively to characters who Weren't Hamid.

obviously Bryn isn't the only person who gets overexcited and treads on other people's play (James did it a lot, and that annoyed me even though I started listening to RQG because I like James Ross as a comedian) and this is something I do a LOT as a player even though I try not to - it's totally normal to be very focused on your own character and get really hype and jump in on everything you can get your character involved in. But with Bryn/Hamid it's SO constant, like it's been an issue for me since at least Prague but my irritation was constantly building with it especially as the story started being way more about Hamid even when (to me) it felt like it was initially built around Grizzop, Sasha, Azu, Cel or Zolf.

Like for example, I felt like it made sense for Cairo to be focused mostly on Hamid and Azu, but I felt like Alex in Aleppo, Rome and Japan had built in plots to give Azu, Grizzop/Sasha and Cel/Zolf respectively room to take centre stage (like Aleppo had the orcs and goblins which were pretty clearly set up to expand on Azu and Grizzop's backgrounds; Rome had magic dampening which should have given non-magic characters Sasha and Grizzop room to shine and again, was very much framed via Azu's family as well as Hamid's but I felt like only Hamid ended up getting a complete emotional arc wrt family; the Shoin institute was science-focused and provided a space for us to get to know Cel properly and catch up with Zolf who knows what happened in the time skip) and in all those cases I felt like Hamid kept taking up most discussions, jumping in ahead on dictating the direction, and kept Doing Magic At It until things shaped around him. Like I get that Hamid is insistent on Being The Leader as a character trait but again, that didn't feel as much like a Hamid decision as a Bryn decision (which for me meant Hamid's WELL ZOLF I HAD TO BE THE LEADER BECAUSE YOU LEFT speech kind of got my back up because. it had felt for months like both Bryn and Hamid had been very aggressively taking control of the party without giving anyone else a chance to get a word in)

idk it's like...I like Hamid in theory but he was taking up so much of every episode I was feeling a bit 'oh shut up' even when like...I really liked what Bryn was doing with the character? I was feeling very over-Hamided and so by the time we came around to the kobold stuff I was not feeling very charitable.

A big part of it is the dynamic that I feel like I'm hearing between Bryn and Helen specifically. He interrupts or talks over/for her a LOT with the result that Azu often gets sidelined, and that stresses me for a lot of reasons (mostly that even though she's been in the game for years I don't think the podcast really ever saw Helen getting the space to seem equally confident and authoritative about the direction of the game as the other players who've been in from the start, and she also just seems...generally quieter and less brash than the other 4 so she often gets drowned out) and like. I want to be clear I don't know Bryn or Helen and I don't know how either of them are actually feeling, this is about how it comes across to me personally with a big heap of projection. But I've always been really sensitive to situations where I feel like someone who's a bit shyer or more ready to cede space is getting consistently talked over or struggling to get a word in edgeways, and honestly that's a vibe I'm getting from Bryn's in-game interactions with everyone except Alex and James, to varying degrees, both in the main campaign and in minigames/oneshots.

Tl;dr aside from the kobold issue, Hamid's story makes me uncomfortable because Bryn's storytelling makes me uncomfortable, I don't think he's able to easily share control or cede time in the story to other players, I think he rides over other players and characters a lot, and as a result Hamid's story has (/had) taken centre stage increasingly throughout and so anything I found discomforting in that story was magnified in importance.

I also think Bryn is struggling to not be defensive of Hamid and like. that's a problem because Hamid is an interesting character to exactly the degree the story can make space to engage with the fact that he's kind of headstrong, spoilt and selfish to the detriment of those around him. Like I LIKE that I LIKE a flawed character but I need his player to be doing that with an intentionality and critical view that I just wasn't feeling there during/after Shoin and was starting to suspect might be partially less an intentional choice and more a reflection of the player (especially when Bryn seemed to be really struggling to NOT play those character traits in the Rome sidequest when he was playing a character who was Not Hamid)

and like. while the interrupting/steamrolling was the case with James as well, I think this is why it bothered me less - James HATED Bertie as a person so while both James and Bertie were both loud, domineering and tended to interrupt, it felt like I could separate IC//OOC in a way I was increasingly struggling to with Bryn and Hamid

[curioussubjects]

Journey into the Basement: Loving Yourself and Your Lamp

One of the many reasons to love Supernatural is that even when we get silly fun-filled episodes we always come out of them with some pretty interesting realizations. “Hero’s Journey” wasn’t any different, but the realization wasn’t so much novel as a confirmation of what season 15 (and Dabb’s run as a whole) has been quite loud about: Dean’s increasing embrace of the self. 

I know we’re all hype about the destiel implications of some of the work done in 15x10, and I will absolutely delve into that goodness, but I wanted to talk about the larger impact on Dean’s character beyond romance first. I want to talk about the demise of performing!Dean. 

Despite the risk of preaching to the choir, I want to emphasize that performing!Dean is not Dean living a lie, exactly. What he has actually been doing all these years is neglecting parts of himself he has seen as less valuable, while uplifting the parts that are more acceptable. All of this occurs, too, in an environment of self-effacement: Dean puts himself last. Performing!Dean is a coping mechanism for “social acceptance” as much as it is one for Dean’s continuous disregard of his own needs and wants beyond the trivial. That is, the stuff that would bring fulfillment to the parts of himself he keeps stashed away. Because, sure, part of Dean’s front face is pie, beer, and classic cars....but, my god, Dean gets a lot of joy out of that. They’re just as part of who Dean is as cooking, cowboys, Dr. Sexy, and horror movies. I guess what I’m trying to get at here before jumping into “HJ” is that both parts of Dean (the one he shows and the one he hides) are equally important. The struggle is for Dean to learn to care for all parts of himself regardless of what derision he may or may not get in return. 

Which leads us to Garth. You know what Garth is? Unabashedly himself. He doesn’t care if it’s weird to hug people or say shit like “Garthed.” He embraced being a werewolf! You know what Garth is? He is the embodiment of what self-love and acceptance can do. Garth is living his best life at all times. Unrepentantly. And damn anyone who dares to stop him. And what did that get him? Everything. The whole goddamn kit and caboodle. He has the dentist job he gave up to be a hunter, he’s an ethical angst-free werewolf, he still does the hunter job and save people, he has a home, a family. He’s happy -- you know, the thing we’ve been hearing was impossible these past 15 years. Garth is really here looking at all that bitter die bloody hunter fatalism and saying rip y’all but I’m different.  What Garth is is a beacon of something else. Something other than pain and suffering without end. 

Y’all wanna know what else Garth is in our fairy tale “Hero’s Journey?” Dean’s tooth fairy godmother and guide. Sure, there are no glass slippers, and pumpkin carriages, but Garth gives Dean the path to happily ever after just the same. It involves a scary journey into the depths and there’s pain and fear and dancing. Garth’s appearance in Dean’s dream serves the purpose of encouragement. Go ahead, Dean, you can dance, too. Don’t be scared, I’ll show you how. When Garth disappears, Dean is confident enough to keep on dancing. And Dean comes alive. He’s scared and shy at first, but eventually he’s his charming adorable self. And he’s on top of the world. Not only that, he’s tap-dancing on top of the world. Carefree, honest, and so so happy. What Garth offered Dean through this particular journey was the promise that Dean can, in fact, lead a fulfilling life if only he would honor who he is. Frees himself from the fear of discomfort, of judgement, and, perhaps most importantly, the fear of vulnerability. 

Dean understands what Garth is telling him. Take the shift from “aand we’re done” to “you smell good, too.” Did Dean sound awkward when he said it? Yes, but it was a gesture, a signal that he could change. Could take a turn for the better. Could embrace even the parts of him that he finds dismissable. Also, take the conversation they have earlier in the episode about Garth’s life being good and Dean watching Garth and Bess dancing at the end saying he always thought he could dance if he tried. IF HE TRIED PEOPLE. Dean knows what he needs and wants to be happy. It was in him all along, he just needed a push. He just needed to be shown the way, and to be open enough to accept what Garth offered and modeled. Incidentally, part of the plot utility of hero!Garth is drawing more similarities wrt him being a model Dean (and Sam) can follow. 

Before moving on to another look at the dream scene, it’s worth noting that while the basement is usually a space for the subversive, the shameful, and the criminal, Garth has completely transformed the space. In true Garth fashion, he shone a light into that basement and turned into a space that is just as integral to his life as everything else his home contains. In fact, since his dentistry practice happens there, it’s not unlikely that the basement is open to a lot of people. 

Alright, then the dream scene is a love yourself routine at large. It encompasses all of Dean’s character and pretty clearly posits that for Dean to be happy he has to accept all parts of himself. @occamshipper and others have touched on the choice of “Let’s Misbehave” as the song Dean’s dancing to, i.e., as another notch in the Dean is queer checklist. I’d also add, though, that the song is an apt choice not only for Dean’s queerness but the entire issue of self-acceptance. “Let’s Misbehave” is essentially a song about behaving outside of norms, and that misbehavior leading to one’s happiness. Yet, while the song operates in being able to misbehave when select people are watching, and not the world, the imagery of the scene defies that restriction. Dean won’t wait for the world to slumber, he’ll tap dance on top of it. Indeed, Garth’s invitation for Dean to misbehave takes a critical view of misbehavior, such as it is, being something to hide. It’s not. The song is clear on our take away, too: “ If you'd be just so sweet / and only meet / Your fate, dear...” Unlike what Chuck means by fate, the show, through Garth, seems to be telling us that fate is the end result of self-knowledge and truth. To misbehave and go against order is the path to self-fulfillment, and misbehavior here requires the discomfort of vulnerability. It’s no wonder either that the scene happens in the bunker. The bunker is a glorified basement, but it’s also a home. Why, then, treat the bunker as something to hide? (here’s some resonance with legacy, with letting others into your life). 

Finally, I want to talk about that lamp. First, though, let’s take a quick moment to remember how a significant portion of the deancas drama has been about absence (you left/you didn’t stop me, the glaring negative space left behind by Cas after “The Rupture”). Fittingly, Cas is not in this episode, which is quickly ~~lampshaded by Sam as well as being characterized as another aspect of their bad day. So Dean has no Cas to dance with, but unlike previous episodes, he has more than just a gap. Say, an empty. He has this lit up lap. This almost right but not quite placeholder. And Dean is charming to that lamp, y’all. It’s not the whole of his character arc, but damn, that lamp is important. It’s a key feature. But maybe I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s move ahead to the end of the episode: Gath and Bess are dancing in their home. They’re happy. Outside, Dean and Sam look on, with that longing in their eye. Dean’s take is that he’d be good at dancing if he tried. So Garth dances with his wife, so Dean dances with a lamp. Dean, of the wanting to experience certain feelings, people, in a way he never has before. Dean who just last episode was very afraid of losing Cas, who was sobbing because of it. The same Dean we saw lose it after burying Cas in the Ma’lak box -- and grief arcs, and Colette, etc etc and so it goes and goes. Last episode we also saw a little version of endgame: Dean, Cas, Sam, and Eileen. And lest we discount it as Chuck nonsense, it’s important to remember Sam was happy with that vision. When Sam thinks happy, he thinks that (the Same Sam whose dream last season was him, Dean, Cas, Jack, and Mary eating pizza and laughing). Long story short, it’s always Dean and Cas. No matter what. So Cas, the lamp. And yeah, all of this destiel deliciousness is heavily draped in romance (even in dancing lamp form) between connections of Saileen and Garth/Bess. It’s SO SO LOUD. 

Dean would be a great dancer, if he tried. Just like Garth is. 

ps.: remember that car convo Sam started with Dean about setting down with someone who understands the life. Yeah. [dies in garth/bess]

[misterbitches]

In my opinion Oh-aew had some sort of crush on Tay (I have to write it this way the dyslexia jumps OUT if I spell it Teh) or like affection whatever even if he didn’t know it which you can see when it manifests now.

(I mean ok I know it’s been one episode but I’m always right)

It’s interesting that he said he can’t handle the pain of losing a friend like that again. I was surprised when he said no to being that close again and that’s when I think it was made clear just how much it meant in retrospect.

The argument was so stupid and I’m not gonna make this explicitly about living in a Society but the idea of choosing and being jealous as if you can’t exist at once. What happens if art is fun? What happens when we realize we all have the lights in us.

When Tay was like I just want him to do poorly there was no basis besides insecurity. It’s such a stupid way of looking at things but human and immature. There’s no explicit guarantee one is better than the other but “nobody can replace anybody else so it would be a shame to make a comparison” (this is a fiona apple lyric) comes to mind. We can’t get to where we’re going together? And obviously that’s not true since they all have their friends that they grew up with.

I also like how it’s not outright opulence. Rich ppl suck and i dont want that in my eyes. I don’t feel bombarded with wealth and a fairytale. As if this would be the sole key to tbe happy ending that all media proposes is a victory in their laziness to ensure and please capital.

But that’s also clearly because this show was taken with immense care at least on the crew’s side. But for the cast yea that too I mean everyone’s so dramatic but it has its flair, very Thai, and they use the vibrancy and the landscape.

But this is what happens when things aren’t made at a constant rate and you try to churn out many episodes.

I find a lot of these shows to be unbearable and I have a high threshold for “good” acting because I’m overly critical and terrible but it was nice seeing them even if it was so much crying. I really love things that capture youth since a lot of mine wasn’t pleasant. The ups and downs are natural for them and it will be ok. They have friends and their city.

Usually I abhor the editing on most of these dramas (these = overwhelmingly the BL genre tho that recent japanese show...love...something idk they meet walking a line was very pretty and digestible) but, if I remember correctly, it’s really good here. In fact I am positive—it does absolute justice to the story. And the writing underlines the subtlety. So much of the show is about being young and exploration and I love it. Honestly, when he was trying to imitate the instagram picture it was just...wow that’s so teenage. I was so embarrassed.

That brings me to something else wrt editing. So a lot of asian dramas are very dramatic which isn’t my favorite thing but it has a clear cultural place so it means a viewer has to adjust to differences and see the merits within an alternate scope. I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever like the dramatic music they put in. I hate those musical cues like no other. This is just my preference and it will always be. I don’t know why it’s so allurin from a creative standpoint; we know the stakes! But it wasn’t so distracting that I couldn’t continue. I think I found the whole thing extremely cinematic so the hyped up musical cues kinda threw me off.

All in all it was very enjoyable and further critiques are minor and something that time can work out like some acting but seriously thag’s mostly nothing and I saw that they had acting coaches in the credit. I think they may have been on set—I haven’t watched the doc—but that’s something people take for granted and I respect it. Seriously. Or if other shows do these ones actually understand how to get their characters from point a to b.

Acting is such a cool art and comes in different atyles but I feel like our responses to it are so intuitive so the deliveryno matter what method has to embody life qualities. I could go on about this but I won’t cause ambien but even if there’s a political approach to acting (Brecht) it is stil rooted in life. For ONCE the cast and crew fix things accordingly (this isn’t just a BL problem but I also wouldn’t classify this as BL I guess gorl IDK im going thru it)

I’m more critical than usual and I’m going through a major artistic crises lol so it was nice. There’s a lot of unrest in Thailand so I won’t forget that people are struggling. I think something that moght get people to look mght is how beautiful it looks and that brings attention to artists. Artists who represent their country, or believe in something, or care and maybe introducing people to Thai film. Art can give us access to whole radical landscapes.

Even tho i’m in favor of pirating always I feel that contributing monetarily means support and it’s a big thing for me (which is why I so often opt out because I don’t support something but should have access to it bc LIFE) and the point is yo contribut and encourage, right? Which is why I believe in sharing, it isn’t capital that drives us to something, we get attracted to the merits and contribute with capital but that means a level if absolute respect back. This means that while I can’t really pay a bunch for the episodes I think I will buy two. Which never happens.

Lastly this is probably one of the worst yrs in existence. I break down crying when I think of lives lost and black people abd being inside and just the pressure of it all. I wouldn’t say escapism tho that has merit but we get to see a fun youthful world that is just missing. It’s missing. As much as I love contemplating on the absurd, theres solace in watching people go about without external pain cementing them

[markoftheasphodel]

Unfulfilled Dream: An Introduction to Finn and House Leonster

This is intended to assist fans of Three Houses, and specifically Blue Lions fans, in understanding what the hell FE old-timers are talking about when the names “Quan,” “Finn,” and “Leif” come up with regard to Dimitri and his retainers (and Dimitri/Dedue in particular). You may have encountered these characters in FE Heroes, but there’s a lot more stuff out there and it’s not all in one place, or even readily available in translation. So here goes.

So, as a starting point, Azure Moon route of Three Houses is heavily influenced by Thracia 776 (aka FE5) and the more familiar you are with FE5, the more evident the parallels/echoes are. But going backward from Azure Moon to its inspiration, or to Genealogy of the Holy War (FE4) which served as an inspiration for Three Houses itself, can be really confusing.

We have the two games, FE4 and FE5, both of them for the SNES, neither of them ever given a worldwide release. Both have modern, very good patches so if you want to play them, it’s a much better user experience than it used to be. We have two artbooks, Treasure for FE4 and Illustrated Works for FE5, both of them only partially translated via websites and translation blogs. We have developer notes and interviews. We have the appearances of these characters as Einherjar in Awakening. We have their modern appearances in Fire Emblem Heroes.  We have the modern run of Cipher cards as well as much older TCG cards. And finally, we have various manga and light novels, many of which have been fan-translated of late but also rather... dubious as “game canon.”

So, to grasp Quan, or Finn, or Leif, it’s a bit like being told “read 100 support conversations plus some DLC that never got translated,” right?

Here are the basics that might be of interest to Three Houses fans!

Quan is the prince of Leonster, a small but wealthy kingdom on the Thracian Peninsula, which juts eastward from the continent of Jugdral. He carries the Major Holy Blood (so, kind of like a Major Crest) of Njörun, one of the Twelve Crusaders who liberated Jugdral from an evil cult several generations before. His holy weapon is Gae Bolg, aka The Lance of Love and Sorrow, reputed to be cursed. Quan generally at war with his neighbor to the south, King Travant of Thracia (a poor nation), who also has Major Holy Blood and is a descendant of Dáinn, Njörun’s brother. Each of them wants to unite the Thracian peninsula and rule over the whole thing; despite an Irish naming scheme, Leonster was inspired by Italy and is supposed to be an elegant, fashionable place with a thriving middle class. Quan attended a fancy military academy in the center of the continent (the direct inspiration for Garreg Mach!) and has two close friends from other nations, Eldigan and Sigurd, also heirs to holy bloodlines. The three of them swear an oath to always have each others’ backs and Quan marries Sigurd’s sister Ethlyn, who has minor holy blood (like a minor crest but with no holy weapon access). They have two children, Altena and Leif.

Finn starts off as Quan’s page. I say “starts off” because FE4 and FE5 follow him over the course of twenty years. He’s the child of a noble house in Leonster, and when he was orphaned he was sent to the castle to be raised/educated. He’s not skilled at making friends but he does become Quan’s page and grows to think of Ethlyn as a big sister of sorts. When Quan and Ethlyn go to war across the continent to assist Sigurd, Finn wants to come along and they take him, even though he’s maybe fifteen and barely old enough to fight. Quan mentors Finn (which is something we see in FE4 itself), building his confidence up, telling Finn he’s the most promising knight of his generation, bequeathing Finn a special lance of his own, and ultimately entrusting Finn with guardianship of Quan’s son and heir, Leif. Finn in turn becomes utterly devoted to Quan and to Quan’s ambition of ruling all of Thracia.

A word about devotion. This is not “devotion” in the sense we’ve seen from Frederick or Jakob in recent FE games, where it’s performative and kind of amusing, with complicated tea rituals and recruiting slogans and whatnot. This is straight-up utter acceptance of someone else’s dreams and ambition as one’s own purpose in life. Hold that thought.

Anyway, Quan and Ethlyn are ambushed and killed by Travant shortly after Leif is born; every knight in their party is massacred in the Yied Desert. The rest of the continent is falling under the sway of the Grannvale Empire (Eldigan’s already dead, Sigurd dies shortly after Quan&Ethlyn), and Leonster is able to hold out for a couple of years before it falls to a one/two attack by Travant’s Thracian army and the Grannvale Empire. Finn, who’s been caring for Leif as his guard, escapes from the burning castle with Leif in his arms (Leif’s grandmother Queen Alfiona dies in the blaze; his grandfather King Kalf died shortly before on the battlefield, betrayed by allies).

The Yied Massacre and the Fall of Leonster are the Jugdrali psychological horror-show that parallel the Tragedy of Duscur’s impact on House Blaiddyd. Finn is devastated by the fact that his duty to Leif kept him from Quan&Ethlyn’s side during the massacre because dying with them would’ve been preferable to surviving them. He hasn’t recovered from that when Leonster falls in an inferno that traumatizes him for, as far as we can tell, the rest of his life. As Leif tells it, Finn then shut down emotionally to the point where he neither cries nor laughs. Of course, Leif himself is scarred by the memory of the burning castle, and that and the loss of his parents fuels his own rage and desire for revenge. Leif is also bothered by the fact that he only has minor holy blood from his parents, which is much less impressive than having two minor Crests because he can’t use any holy weapons. On the other hand, two types of minor holy blood don’t kill you.

(I think at this point many of y’all can see how these events are echoed in Azure Moon. The atrocity, the survivor’s guilt, the fallout on both a child prince with a heavy burden and his retainer who’s struggling with his own issues.)

After this, Finn has nothing aside from his duty to Leif, and as he sees it his duty to Leif is ultimately to see Leif placed on the throne of a unified Thracian peninsula as its sole king. He raises Leif and Leif’s companion Nanna/Jeanne (Jugdral is complicated) under a variety of harsh & tragic circumstances for the next thirteen years. Sometimes he has to forego meals to feed the kids. The people who assist him usually end up dead. At least once he gets betrayed by the citizens of the town they’re hiding in. And so on. These are not circumstances that really allow one to recover from trauma, and by the time Leif himself is fifteen years old and the game plot of Thracia 776 begins, Finn still doesn’t give a damn as to whether he lives or dies as long as he can see Leif made King of Thracia. This is where the portrayal of Finn in Fire Emblem Heroes comes from-- by this point he’s about thirty-four and he really hasn’t had a good day in his life since he was about nineteen.

One of the Cipher cards probably says it the best: His fallen master protected him, saw him through to adulthood, and entrusted him with an unfulfilled dream, and now Finn leads the way to a new era in his motherland! That complete, utter, unswerving dedication to Quan and his unfulfilled dream is what brings Finn to mind when discussing Dedue (cutscene after Gronder in Verdant Wind, anyone?) It’s not funny. It’s tragic. It’s kind of disturbing. Thracia 776 offers a lot of commentary on knights and knighthood-- not as savage as the discussions Felix has with his Blue Lions comrades, but pointed nonetheless-- and with Finn as the Jugdrali exemplar of A Knight, that criticism rebounds, directly or indirectly, on him. Knighthood is kind of effed up and so is Finn. 

Finn does get the opportunity to get his revenge on Travant in FE4, as both he and Leif have boss-battle conversations with Travant making it 100% clear they’re after revenge (Leif even speaks of killing Travant with his bare hands!). Travant’s death helps clear the way for Leif to take the throne of Thracia after the war... and with the dream at last fulfilled, Finn disappears, apparently into the Yied Desert where Quan and Ethlyn died. (He does come back three years later.) He’s got nothing else in his life. He’s seemingly not equipped to take over the usual veteran-knight role as some kind of advisor or general... or, after all that, he just WANTS to disappear for a while.

(You say, this is pretty TL;DR for “the basics”; I say, “I left a lot of stuff out, especially wrt shipping” because Jugdrali shipping is complicated.)

Anyway, so that’s the outline of the plot stuff. Note again, this takes more than twenty years to play out-- more than double the time elapsed between the Tragedy of Duscur and Dimitri’s final victory in Azure Moon. Jugdral is a long, long, hard slog for the characters that survive it.

Now, here’s where we get to the interpretive part. Finn’s devotion to Quan (and thence to Leif) and his trauma and self-abnegation are not up for debate. Hell, FE Heroes provides a pretty fair encapsulation of it. What Heroes also conveys is the sheer depth of his grief for Quan after fifteen, seventeen, twenty years... a grief that leads a number of fans, including me, to see a romantic subtext there. Maybe Quan, as a happily married man with two kids, wasn’t ever thinking of his page-turned-protege like that, but in between some interesting bits of dialogue in FE5 about Finn being “cold to women” and his current portrayal in Heroes, it does create the impression that at the very least Finn’s feelings for Quan went outside the ordinary bounds of the lord/retainer relationship. As Jugdral by its nature doesn’t lead to the sorts of paired endings we see in Three Houses, that’s really something fans have to experience for themselves. 

If that interests you, hopefully this essay has provided some pointers on where to find material. Have fun!

[inside-aut-blog]

Autistic Beau (Critical Role)

right out the gate the most obvious thing is that fjord explicitly coaches her on social skills. like, several times. several at her own request

the How To Give Compliments lesson in particular stands out, bc she’s like “wait. i sounded rude?? but i was being genuine!”, & she asks for his help practicing doing compliments right (& proceeds to do…badly); perfect example of missing social cues & struggling w/tone + facial expressions

literally the…entire aftermath of the bowl argument tbh:

explicitly asks fjord for help w/the apology bc she isn’t sure how to do it

when fjord goes “you, not good at apologizing??” she has to check if he’s joking; “you’re being facetious, aren’t you?

fjord: a great place to start w/apologies is to mention the stuff you just said beau: that i’m not good at apologies?

(a completely logical but also also very literalresponse)

fjord goes, “it takes a big person to apologize for something. little people are the ones that make mistakes and just let them go,” & beau’s all, “oh, like nott? a little person”; behold, another literal response

beau says “oh okay” when fjord tells her she shouldn’t smile while apologizing; seems genuinely surprised + grateful for the advice

fjord: there’s a thing called sarcasm that you ride a line with sometimes beau: okay, that’s good to know

(canonically struggles w/unintentional sarcasm, heyo)

an example of this is when she’s telling the group about what happened when she first met dairon, & they don’t really believe her bc she doesn’t sound entirely serious, even though she rly is

fjord also has to kinda talk her through that first hug w/caleb? she doesn’t know how to do it; unfamiliar & uncomfortable w/comforting folks

oh! fjord jester & nott all coach her through her awkward apology to toya

she’s generally low-empathy. like, she has to be told to apologize to toya, she struggles to understand caleb’s pov whenever they argue, she thinks jester’s genuinely happy & unbothered after the iron shepards stuff, she’s not all broken up by the dragon debacle, she affectionpunches the injured guy in felderwin, etc. etc.

on that note–she outright says that punches & the like are how she shows affection, & uhhh showing affection in unusual ways? that’s autistic.

relatedly. she seems most comfortable doing more traditional affection quietly? like, silently handing jester a tissue, waiting til jester’s asleep to tuck her in, wordlessly putting a hand on caleb’s shoulder, etc. (which isn’t necessarily autistic in itself, but is a mood for this autistic, so on the list it goes)

also like, ppl remark over & over again abt her poor social skills, particularly nott (“you think she was dropped on her head or something? she’s just very sort of…you know…”, “beau is terrible at relationships and social interactions,” [paraphrased] “you shouldn’t talk to yussa you’re abrasive and bad at this sort of thing”) and fjord (“sometimes when you compliment people it sounds like a fuckin insult,” “there’s a thing called sarcasm you ride a line with sometimes,” “[insert various bits of socialing advice here]”)

is the very first person to remark that holding + petting frumpkin, Designated Emotional Support Stim Cat, is therapeutic

on that note, again–beau has that weird characteristically autistic thing of mixing up informal & hyperformal speech? she speaks aggressively casually most of the time, but will still drop in shit like “facetious” instead of “joking,” & “therapeutic” instead of “calming,” & etc.

when she tells the truth, she’s almost invariably blunt, eg “i’m kinda concerned for your well-being–it’s fine, i’m not that concerned,” “i don’t know why i told you [i slept with dairon],” [insert literally any argument here], etc.

uhhhhhh sth abt her reaction to caduceus’s “tell the truth” thing–like, it doesn’t seem to’ve fully occurred to her before then that she could be selectively honest, or just bend the truth rather than outright lying? which strikes me as potentially autismrelated in the sense of. that’s a shade of gray, & black n white thinking is autism thing

anyway.

pocket bacon. a) doesn’t seem to realize it’s weird, & b) samefood…….

voice edges on monotone at times

just the fact she’s still wearing the cobalt vestiges early in the campaign, when she’s left the monks & hasn’t joined back up yet–sticking w/what’s familiar when it’s not necessary or even rly practical? autisti c

undercut + topknot? easy-to-take-care-of hairstyle, tie it n go

her eagerness to Get Into Sneaky Shit & quiet disappointment when she’s left out of said sneaky shit “bc it’s her whole thing” makes me think that like. that sort of espionage junk was maybe an old special interest of hers, in addition to obviously being Her Trade

big emotions that she struggles to regulate, esp. anger/frustration; has openly admitted having anger issues

relatedly she’s canonically gotten so frustrated & upset that she’s just started crying (granted it was at a broadly overwhelming moment–the succubus fight–but none of the others cried so like,)

lowkey has that “connects easier to animals than people” thing going on? is noticeably delighted every time she’s given frumpkin to hold; the very first time she holds him she’s all “he likes me :D!” –is also noticeably upset when the prof thaddeus saga goes down

lifelong struggle to make friends; never rly had them before the m9

asks a dude why he’s afraid of fire, ie why he has dissociative & nonverbal episodes whenever he burns someone to death. is then shocked that the reason is So Heavy

mmmm perseverates; eg in battles she’ll often Keep Trying To Stun over & over despite lack of success, in arguments she’ll keep hammering the same point, in General once she decides she wants to know a thing she digs & digs until she finds it out (file that under adhd as well)

sometimes overshares w/strangers w/out realizing she’s overshared; eg “yeah my parents named me beau because they always wanted a son,” said to bo like 30 seconds after meeting him

is shouty when they first meet keg & then apologizes for it & says “i’m trying to work on the manners thing”

the “long may he rein” bit at molly’s grave was echolalia

ok SO we all know traci is beau’s straightsona yes? but i hereby propose……….she is Also beau’s ntsona (sociable, bubbly, polite, uses more variation wrt tone of voice,,,)

when she touches the little window thing in halas’s study & pulls jester along with her, she’s like “ahhh! my actions have consequences that affect other people!!!” & that. is what we here in this house call an Autistic Mood (specifically a low-empathy autistic mood)

“is it wrong for me to feel okay when everyone else feels really bad” is Also an autistic mood (of the same variety)

she’s a great negotiator in terms of like. tactical shit? but when it comes to fuckin–emotional mediation stuff, she rly struggles. see: when she tries to mediate between nott & caleb in the apothecary basement (trips over her words & trails off, doesn’t seem to know what else to do/say)

canonically hates the color yellow. consider: is bc sensory bad

makes name puns. i’ve not met an autistic yet who didn’t love puns

seems surprised that no one else caught that her name is beau & she fights w/a bo staff–the redundancy is obvious to her, so surely it must be to everyone else aswell?? (what do u mEAN no????)

OH. when beau says to jester “i mean…you could watch if u wanted” re: her hypothetically kissing dairon & then is like “…would that make you uncomfortable? –nevermind” that’s. autism; foot in mouth not realizing how other ppl will feel

misses…..unstated implications. like down in the sewer w/the drow, they decide to just leave the dude & the beacon behind & beau’s like “we’re letting him leave without it?” & the others are like. we’re leaving both we don’t know if he’ll take it [wonk] not our problem, & she’s again like “but he won’t take it?” until fjord translates & goes “yes, he’s taking it”

she’s like “caleb u can just get a new fuckign jacket, god” but does she get herself a new one?? no. she jus adds a new lining to the monk robes she’s already got & calls it good, like a goddamn Dweeb

also when her arm wraps got burned off she immediately went to replace them; i’m betting she just Feels Weird w/out them bc Is Different, + that they provide some nice pressure times

also after the yussa encounter she says “ i could barely speak i could barely get words out,” which like. semiverbal……….

in ep 57 she said the “sensory overload” words, so mark that down for a phrase she is readily familiar with