#idk i think this entire route just has a lot of depth. It was really nice to jump into after being a *bit* disappointed with the haruspex

[jyantabear]

been playing pathologic throughout the summer and i've enjoyed it a lot and im currently on the changeling campaign and I heard a lot of people say the changeling route is underwhelming and weak but honestly i think it's been really great so far and I think it has tons of depth and I find Clara very interesting Idk im on day 8 of the campaign I feel like I have more thoughts on this route then the haruspex campaign. Perhaps its partly because Clara's subject matter appeals to me a lot but I think it's amazing It's this tragic story about a little girl who so badly wants to be good and do good. She wants to be love and accepted and find her place in the world with all the anxiety she has over her unsureness on her identity and the strange circumstances of her existence. It's about the Saburovs playing this pretend, toxic, nuclear family structure with her. Where a part of them does care about and love her but for selfish reasons. They project their insecurities on her, both of them. They want her to be their salvation and be their key to finally helping the town as they feel they're failures and frauds in that pursuit. So they pressure, love bomb, and abuse their daughter to fit this mold. And Clara is scared but she follows anyway desperate for love. And even without realizing it she's mimicking their teachings and values because It's all she's been given in this world. The only source of guidance It's about Clara and her relationship to the people around her. How she feels sympathy for her bound because she sees herself in them. Because she sees they're people with dimensions and are complicated. And she wants someone to see and grant her mercy and forgiveness as well. And it's so interesting to compare this to her interactions with Daniil and Artemy. Who she's also very similar with but demonizes them. (which I don't think is unjustified btw as they're very horrible to her. But I want to note that while the healers always had some tension between them this route has definitely cranked it up a ton and in the opening play Clara is the one criticizing them for being heartless, selfish, and "not knowing compassion" right off the bat. And even in the few times Artemy and Daniil can have pleasant exchanges with her it's short lived and never sticks with her) And she goes the extra mile to demonize them and deny and dismiss any complexity they might have as she also sees herself in them but doesn't want to admit it. Because it's what she doesn't want to be. It hurts too personally for her to associate with them and makes her feel pathetic even thinking she could be similar to them because she doesn't want to share their loneliness, their struggles, their failures. It makes her feel more stable in her identity to put them down and go "Well at least I'm not like those bloodthirsty horrible useless doctors" And While Clara also feels dislike towards Maria. Maria is someone Clara wants to be. She wants to be that beloved and powerful mistress. Someone who can guide and help others and use her power for good. Which is why she'll say "Her and Capella will be the only ones to understand my loneliness." Clara wants someone to understand her pain but only if she can protect this idealized image of herself she's painted in her mind because she's been hurt too much. It's a tragic story of the unrealistic and harsh standards placed on young teenage girls. And the idea that perhaps humanity is the problem. But taking that message in a rather conservative and violent way then one that acknowledges the complexity and indoctrination society and people have built. A young girl internalizing beliefs of irredeemable ontologically evil people due to all the abuse she's been put under.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

WIBTA if I restart an argument with a friend?

🌊⚓ <- so I can search for it.

So, a while ago, a friend was over and we talked. She is from South Germany while I am from North Germany, where we are both living (this'll be important in a sec).

I don't really remember why we were talking about the topic, but we started talking about regional dialects and sayings and then she called Low German* a dialect. Which tldr: big no-no. But I don't think she was being malicious, she just didn't know about the topic at all.

So naturally I explained: "You absolutely cannot call Low German a dialect to peoples faces around here. People will take offense to it. I don't really, because I consider the difference between dialect and language is arbitrary to begin with. But you will provoke incredibly unkind reactions from other people."

Her response was "Yeah but like. Doesn't everyone think their own dialect should be a language."

And... Idk why that one hurt but it did. It just felt incredibly dismissive. And I didn't really know how to respond other than "but this is the one case where it is true" which felt weird so I just. Didn't. We kinda moved on to other topics. But in hindsight, I really wish I hadn't?

Because I wish I had explained it in depth to her so she understands why what she said is considered unacceptable. But also for her own sake, because she will piss people off if she says the same thing to other people. And honestly for my sake so I can make peace with the conversation.

So I'm considering either finding a way to restart the argument/ conversation when we are together or go the cowardly route and send her a couple screenshots explaining the topic. But I also feel like restarting a fight we never really had and really doesn't matter is kind of a dick move.

Additionally I tend to be a person that corrects people when they are wrong and starts discussion way too much. Because in my family academic debates are a love language.** So I tend to reaaaaaally overestimate the amount of debating/ arguing people are comfortable with. They tend to perceive me as being upset with them while I am just having fun hashing out a topic from different angles.

So Tumblr. WIBTA?

Footnotes

* Low German is the regional language of North Germany. The definition of North Germany is actually pretty much "wherever they are speaking Low German". There is some controversy if Low German is a dialect or a language. Which like... People often describe it as closer to Dutch and English than Standard German, it's a recognised language in every state it is spoken in, it is recognized as a regional language in the fucking European Union WHY is it still controversial.

It is also very much an endangered language because in the past decades especially it has been looked down on as being "lower class". No that's not where the name comes from, low german is spoken where the terrain is flat/ low and high/ upper german is spoken where the mountains are. This attitude towards Low German is shifting a lot recently but it is entirely possible it's too late to prevent it from dying out.

** I felt like this part needed some clarification too. I can't count how many dinners in my childhood were spent eating while getting into the meat of whatever topic caught our attention. Politics or science or more spiritual stuff. Ask questions about things we were wondering about. Absolutely tear into each other when we had opposing positions, but concede when we were convinced. Oftentimes I'd get up to grab pen and paper, or demonstrate orbital dynamics with the jam container, a bowl and my plate, or use the butter as an impromptu drawing board.

But that doesn't mean we were fighting in the normal sense even if someone got upset occasionally. It was really just communicating with one another. It was connecting. Exercising our debate skills. Play-fighting but make it academia. It was genuinely fun to us and still is. An alternative outlet for sibling rivalry. There is no need to fight over the TV remote when you can just reason it out together.

So yeah. That's how academic debates can be a love language (and simultaneously absolutely destroy your conception of what is considered arguing).

[sun-marie]

Aloth for the character breakdown!

How I feel about this character: Aloth my beloved <3 I love him to pieces, I love how he balances snark with kindness. He's uptight and nervous and just a tad hypocritical at some points, but I find him really compelling in the first game and especially the second game. I appreciate how they handled his backstory, in my experience abusive parents in media often justify a "hardened" character's behavior (when they're really just assholes), but I appreciate how the abuse Aloth went through + the fact he had to hide Iselmyr for most of his life have worn him into more of a nervous wreck than some kind of a "badass", and there are several routes he can take to healing. And I really like how in between games he reconciles with his mom and is straight up like "you don't have to approve and I'm glad I did it" to the Watcher, I appreciate that he has boundaries and it gives depth to his unseen relationship with her. I think he's a flawed and well-rounded character, and even though I went into the games expecting to like him I was still surprised by how much!

There are moments in the second game where I did feel like his... attitude, I guess? was a little much for me. I think in the DLCs especially he suffers from just a little bit of flanderization, where nearly everything the group did he had a comment like "we're not seriously doing this, right?" or "wonderful, another x uncomfortable thing" that give the feeling that he's just being dragged around by the Watcher and doesn't wanna be here. And idk by the end of the Forgotten Sanctum I was kind over it? Like I'm sorry you're not having a good time my dude but nobody is. BUT I try not to hold that against his character bc to me, I more have issue with the quantity of the comments rather than the quality, and I can easily see a situation where the writers wrote his reactions to certain situations in isolation, not realizing that it might be too much when it all came together.

Overall, though, I generally prefer him in the second game and think his second arc was handled even better than his first, both paths are incredibly crunchy.

All the people I ship romantically with this character: ...Is it cheating to say my Watcher? Idk I enjoy his very lowkey Deadfire romance a lot <3 I like how a lot is left up to interpretation re: how far they go in their relationship (with Sabina, at least, I don't think they get very far at all), and it has such sugary sweet vibes for such a dark setting.

My non-romantic OTP for this character: As I mentioned in my answer to this question for Xoti, I feel like the entire Deadfire crew could fit this spot for each other, and I also referenced how much I enjoy her relationship with Aloth. For Aloth specifically, though, I have to go with his bromance with Edér, which really benefits from spanning across two games (and with Matt Mercer having great chemistry with... himself). I also read this great fic a while ago that really sold me on the potential of his relationship with Sagani and Grieving Mother!

My unpopular opinion about this character: I have no idea what ending people prefer for him in Deadfire so idk how popular/unpopular this is, but for me I prefer the ending where he gives up his work dismantling the Leaden Key, mainly because it feels like an immense amount of pressure to place on a guy who seems to be under plenty, and the steps he would have to take take to continue feel eerily similar to how Thaos operated. Plus it means he can stay with my Watcher but as an avid tragedy enjoyer I promise it's not just that it's just a bonus

Also, I'm not a huge fan of the "Elves have a super long lifespan" bc I feel it unnecessarily complicates things and I kinda wish he was just his actual age instead of like 65

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: While I like how lowkey his romance is, I would have appreciated just a few extra crumbs. Also, I would have loved to see more Iselmyr if he didn't suppress her, bc while she's fun and I enjoy her I sometimes forget she's there 😅

GIVE ME A CHARACTER: and I’ll break their ass down:

[dreamstatesims]

hey girlie, hope you're doing well; having a good day/night:

i wanted to ask if you could give any advice with building and landscaping? i've always been a huge fan of your sim style, and i'm currently looking to get into building myself.

was there any videos you watched or accounts that were able to help you jump wholeheartedly into the wonderful world of build/buy mode?

thank you soooo much in advance <3

hi! i could go on and on about this topic so thanks for asking. last year i wrote about building here, if you recall. since that one was more about "vibe" maybe this one should be a little more technical? idk, i'm a dreamy creative so i'm sure this'll get emotional anyway lol.

i suggest picking a world or architectural style and let one inform the other. then research that style, look at floor plans and dive into pinterest for a while before you start building. if you don't already have one, get one and go collecting inspiration that you can reference later. here's mine, if you wanna check it out.

when landscaping i think about two key things: what style of gardening goes with this build (manicured, overgrown, minimal, etc) and i consider the trees and/or flowers i see in the world around my lot. i'll incorporate some to blend on and off-lot gardening. and i can't emphasize enough how important terrain painting is! in my opinion it really anchors everything down. for example, i paint all around and under landscaped areas, trees, the entire perimeter of the house/buildings, and anything else like pools, decks, driveways. it creates depth and makes it look like these things are really sprouting out of the ground. also paths! even if you don't have stones laid down, think about the routes sims will take to get from one place to another, like from the back porch to the pool, the marks little sneakers leave under the swing set when simmies play, from the mudroom to the trash bins by the garage. grass thins out and you'll see some dirt showing through regularly trodden routes, so paint those on to make the area look lived in.

the simpler the floor plan, the better. even if you pick a floor plan that's complicated, simplify it. you don't need a garage? remove it or convert it into something else. too many little rooms and hallways? open up those spaces or take them out entirely and push the necessary rooms you want to keep into that area. you'll find your builds will be much easier to play in this way and it won't take sims hours to get to the kitchen or up the stairs.

i have general dimensions for rooms that really work for me: kitchen 5x6, 6x6, 6x7 dining 4x5, 5x5, 5x6 living 5x6, 6x6, 6x7 half bath 2x2, 2x3 full bath 3x4, 4x4 owner's suite 5x6, 6x6 bedrooms 4x5, 5x5 hallways 2 spaces wide

maybe a bit tricky, but think about adding rooms in the roof. a play room, guest room, second living room, or office space. hell, even just an attic you can convert later as your family grows. when building attics, i'll lay out the roof design first and then see where i can build rooms inside. for easier gameplay you'll want to then break down the roof into sections so when you lower the walls you can see inside and the camera won't bounce around.

twistedmexi's TOOL mod is an absolute gamechanger and i highly recommend using it to expand your lot outside the lines. EA has decorated the world outside of your lot with fences and other features that suggest you can absolutely push things further. i'll setup whatever i want outside the lot inside my grid first and then move it all out together. i do this for play areas, picnic tables and umbrellas, firepits and seating. i'll put cars parallel parked on the road or in the driveway EA has provided. and don't forget about debug items like electrical poles, post boxes, bus stops, fire hydrants and other stuff you'd see around a neighborhood.

i'm subscribed to a handful builders on youtube that i'll watch from time to time. it's great to see what other folks are doing because this community is so creative and you'd be surprised the little tricks you'll pick up. these are some of my favorite builders: simproved, simsphony, plumbob kingdom, simcubeez, bojana sims.

if you have any more questions on specifics or want an actual tutorial on something, don't hesitate to ask! and that goes for anyone reading this very long-winded post. kudos if you made it this far!

[ravenkinnie]

I can’t even imagine what vi went through in her seven years in prison. The fear of not knowing whether powder is dead or alive or what happened to her. The guilt of what her last interaction with powder was. The grief of losing her entire family. Again. Not knowing if she will ever make it out again. Probably missing and thinking about powder so much she started wondering if she had ever had any other thoughts. The anger at piltover and the cops. Enduring being in there. I wish her trauma was explored a bit more.

vi fr doesn't get enough credit for how nice she is to caitlyn cause if she showed up in my cell acting this smug I would have punched her lights out jdhdhdh idk how they will do enforcer vi if they are going this route cause I just. don't see how there would be any willingness in vi to serve piltover like this, though I do think they set her up well to be this person in-between worlds like she is in league

I love vi sm ik I don't talk about her as much but she's still one of my girls!! I think people overlook how much of her refusal to let go off her ideas of jinx and powder is pure grief and guilt, like of course she doesn't want to lose the idea of the sister she knew. she's been away from her for years, got to grieve her once only to come back with hope and realise she has to grieve her again while she's alive because she's not that person anymore, she's something wholly different. and that's on top of how insanely traumatizing incarceration is by itself. like, if you can explain jinxs actions based on her trauma idk why vi doesn't get tge same understanding within fandom a lot, if I was her I would be worse the depth of her empathy and compassion acc astounds me djhdhdhdn

and like. vi literally has nothing ddhdjdjj she has ekko who grew into his own person with his own community, she has caitlyn but she doesn't really know her that well - they connected emotionally, they have common interest, they are attracted to each other but they JUST met and are still learning each other. and that's literally it, she got out of prison to a world she doesn't know and remains of a family that she also doesn't know anymore. and now she can blame herself for jinxs spiral too, like vi is going through it all the time all at once hshdhsjsj

[lord-of-christmas-lights]

I swear I have normal Narnia headcanons. However, none of them are featured in this post.

So! If you've been following my series of posts about my Inhuman Narnia AU and the couple of oneshots I posted on ao3 under ASkyOfKai, you've probably noticed that in this little universe I've created, Narnia is sort of...sentient. And I've just realized that I've only actually gone into depth about this on Discord with my friends who are probably very tired of hearing about it. So I'm making y'all suffer through it instead. Welcome to Inhuman Narnia 101, please take your seats because this is going to take a while.

Warning for religious themes, theological discussion, and some dark fantasy/inhuman/body horror concepts that involve blood and physical changes.

BEFORE I SAY ANYTHING: Please keep in mind that an AU is meant to be an alternate universe that may not follow canon information. If anything in this post contradicts canon on the creation of Narnia (it undoubtedly will), pay it no mind, this is an AU. It doesn't have to follow canon.

First off, a little explanation of the Inhuman Narnia AU in general. Basically I came up with this AU after seeing some other people on tumblr post about the Pevensies being not quite human after their time in Narnia. Just eerie, cryptid, a bit of dark fantasy kinda stuff. And I was like, "I'm in love, sign me up, I have ideas." I did not sit down and develop this all at once. The worldbuilding I've done for it has come slowly over the past few weeks through posts, fanfics, and discord rambles. The idea of Narnia being a sentient earth deity of sorts is a recent one and there is already so much to it. (Also I call her Narnia because it's convenient, she has other names but I haven't bothered to like, actually make any up so Narnia is what she's called.)

The most important thing to note starting off is that Narnia is not supposed to be a replacement for Aslan, nor is she necessarily "the hero to his villain". Aslan and I have an interesting relationship, as he is literally God/Jesus/The Holy Spirit/etc and I no longer really identify as Christian. While there are times that Aslan definitely takes a more antagonistic route in my writings, I don't actually see him as a bad guy, nor as a good guy. As God, he literally removed from our concepts of good and evil (in my opinion). The same goes for Narnia being an earth deity. I am a Christian-raised pagan, and I definitely subscribe to the idea that gods and deities are not subject to humanity and our rules. Narnia is not a good goddess, she is not a bad goddess, she simply is a goddess. Plain and simple. The dichotomy that exists between Narnia and Aslan in my writing is generally that of opposing deities, but this isn't a hard and fast rule. There were and still are times when they're friends, working towards the same goals. There are times when Narnia's power is stronger than Aslan's and times when Aslan's power is stronger than hers. There is no simple 1:1 comparison between them.

So, getting into motivations and why Narnia as a deity even exists. Essentially, I asked the question, "How do the Pevensies become inhuman?" and voila earth deity Narnia was born. Now, the basic in-universe mythology I've worked out is that Narnia and Aslan are two deities from separate dimensions that came together to create a new world, the world of Narnia. Aslan is the one who oversees things, he's the one who comes up with the ideas, and he's a little less attached to the world as a whole because he's a Creator, not an earth deity. Narnia is, however, and she literally makes up the world, she sort of runs the entire thing on a physical level, and she is much more attached to it. So she's always kinda taken on this role of making the things in her world the way she wants them. For the most part, she and Aslan designed everything together and they're both happy with it blah blah blah. Well, Aslan then decides to bring a few humans from this other world he's created to Narnia. And she affects them a bit (I've got headcanons about Digory and Polly that I haven't posted anywhere yet but I might soon), but it isn't until Aslan brings the Pevensies over that she really gets to experiment. See, there are other deities in the world that kinda rule over the various lands on a surface level (patron gods for Telmar, the Archenlands, etc, they just have less power than Narnia and Aslan) so she has a little less power over the people in those places, but the country of Narnia is both her land and her so when the Pevensies become the Kings and Queens and live there for 15 years, she's very connected to them. And it's through this connection that she starts to affect them. Honestly, I'm not sure if Narnia even knows what she's doing when she starts stripping away their humanity. I think it's that she can feel they're not from her world and she doesn't like that. She wants them to be a part of her, she wants them to belong in her world just the same as everyone else. (Side note—I know Telmar and some other lands in canon are based on people finding portals and coming through and I'd like to say that she does affect them a bit, takes away a bit of their humanity, but it's not to the same extent as the Kings and Queens of her lands).

"So Kai," you might say, "You keep empathizing that she is literally the land and the land is her. What the hell do you mean by that?" Well, essentially, she is...the...land. Basically if you've read Percy Jackson Heroes of Olympus, there's this idea that Gaia and Tartarus are both physically their domains and able to take on a smaller, human shaped physical form because they're gods and not restricted by human ideas of only having one body. Narnia is the same. Her physical form is both the entire world and whatever smaller shape she might appear in to people. However, we have to acknowledge that their world is differently structurally from ours. There's magic, there's talking animals, and in my Inhuman AU, there is a literal Heart of Narnia at the center. Like a physical, beating, human-shaped heart. Except it's a lot bigger than a regular human heart. Also it's golden. And many many many miles underground. So anyways this is where she's centered. It's basically where her soul is. Probably under Cair Paravel because I just came up with that idea and I love it. And radiating out from it are veins of magic and blood, and these stretch all across the world. Now here is where we get into blood magic and some of those fun terrifying concepts I've come up with.

Narnia has her own blood, of course, but also whenever one of her Kings or Queens bleeds in battle, she kinda pulls it down through the earth into her own heart and veins. It doesn't really do anything to her or them in particular, it's just a fun side effect of them having a patron pagan god. Yes this includes Caspian after he becomes King. Also Peter's blood turns golden because he's the High King, and then later Caspian's does too because I just really like imagery of Ben Barnes bleeding gold. (Side note—when Peter returns to England, his blood goes back to red, but it does remain a brighter red than blood generally is).

Diverting for half a second here. Now, in both my regular Narnia writings and my Inhuman AU, Lucy is very very connected to magic. In my regular Narnia fanfic, she studies with the druids, who are sort of like BBC Merlin's druids. They're just like, chill dudes who run around in camps doing magic and making prophecies and shit. However, in the Inhuman AU, they are a lot darker. One of my favorite ideas with the Inhuman druids and Lucy is that they are so connected to Narnia's magic and her Heart that their hands become stained with blood. Is it their blood, is it Narnia's blood, is it someone else's blood? Idk, don't ask questions. But yea, their hands are permanently stained reddish-brown to almost black. In my regular Narnia stuff, I still like the idea of Lucy's hands being stained and go with just earth magic, dirt stuff for the reason why. But yea no, in the Inhuman AU her hands are stained with blood because of blood magic.

So getting a bit more into how Narnia affects the Pevensies now because I love talking about this lol. She doesn't consciously chose how to change them, though she does call them her creations. Generally the way her magic affects them is by connecting them to to the land in some way and bringing out certain traits they have. So for Peter it's his eyes flickering between regular blue and the amber of a lion's, feathers appearing on his back that grow into wings, having a strength greater than that of a giant's. His blood is golden and on clear nights, the Aurora Borealis in the sky is reflected across his skin. For Susan, her skin glints like glass in the sun and she can briefly glimpse the future. Her wounds are sewn shut with golden rays of light, her eyes are cracked but clear, and she seems to glow faintly in the night, a bit of the sun's radiance shining through her. Edmund has a bit of a star's power lodged in his throat, and can manipulate words, uses them to influence people and their actions. His skin is frostbitten in places, a side effect of ruling the Woods where the White Witch once held so much power, and in some spots his bones shine under the ice that spreads across his skin. Lucy has the stained skin from her stronger connection to magic, and when she speaks words from the Old Language (the one Aslan and Narnia used to shape the world itself), her voice echoes and rasps. Her teeth are too sharp, her smile too wide, and when she disappears underwater, she can stay for hours without surfacing. I want to get into Eustace and Caspian now too but this post is already extremely long and I've still got a bit to cover, so we're just sticking with the Pevensies for now. So yea, Narnia doesn't pick what she does to the Pevensies, she just connects herself to them and through that connection, they change. The magic that she is made of, that Narnia the world operates on, that's what changes them. However, as I stated already, she does call them her creations and feels extremely responsible for them.

Wrapping back around up to the beginning, this is the biggest source of conflict between her and Aslan as of the canon timeline. I like to believe that the lamppost incident was an accident, that Aslan didn't actually mean to send them back at the end of LWW and it was pure coincidence, wrong place wrong time stuff. That being said, it did happen and Narnia really didn't like it happening. The Pevensies did return to their (mostly) human selves in this AU in England, so when they came back in Prince Caspian, she felt disconnected from them again. She reacted to this by digging into them even harder on a spiritual level and essentially speedran them back to being inhuman throughout the timeline of PC, which generally takes place over a few months in my mind. I don't remember how long it was in the book, it's been quite a while since I read them, but it's only like a week in the movie and like eff that, overthrowing a kingdom takes a bit longer in my opinion. Now there are a few divergences here. 1. They all stay at the end of PC and yea that's it, they go back to being Kings and Queens and it's like a second Golden Age but with Caspian there as well. 2. Susan and Peter stay, Lucy and Edmund go back and it's a repeat of the human/inhumanity cycle for them + Eustace in VOTDT and then they stay. 3. Everything happens exactly as it does in canon and it's a constant cycle of humanity/inhumanity with the character's various trips and finally ends at The Last Battle. I like all versions and I tend to leave things a little open to the reader on what exactly happens, or I would if I could actually finish some of my drafts and post them. As you can imagine, Narnia likes 1 the best and 3 the least. She really wants her Kings and Queens to stay and rule her lands and like be awesome and stuff. However, Aslan prefers 3 the best and 1 the least. So again, neither of them is really good nor evil, they just have differing opinions on how the world should be run and what the Pevensie's fates should be. I do tend to side with Narnia, I really like exploring these concepts of inhumanity, but I also really like the concept of a cycle. That's very common in mythology.

So anyways, that's a bit of an overview on earth deity Narnia and her role in my Inhuman AU. If you made it this far, congratulations, and I give you explicit permission to use any of my ideas in your own writing/fanart/whatever, as long as you tag either my tumblr or my ao3 (lord-of-christmas-lights and ASkyOfKai) because I need more Narnia+Inhumanity content in my life. Thanks for reading all this and I'll probably be back very soon with elaboration on Eustace and Caspian's inhumanity!

- Kai

[feanorianethicsdepartment]

i ain’t done anything for @tolkienocweek yet, mostly because my covid-induced neet-dom has decoupled me from any association with sidereal time and thus there’s no way i could guarantee getting something out on its specific day. still, i do have one character that could potentially qualify for day 3 (background characters) or day 4 (self-inserts), sorta. i’d like to introduce you all to the proprietor of the fëanorian ethics department, the as-yet-nameless fed elf

fed elf is a... moderately idealised self-insert of mine, though she’s taking on a life of her own

she’s also a noldo. of course she is

her Noldorin Craft™ is, as i’ve said before, arguing. she has very strong opinions about almost everything and will debate them at length

she’s moderately infamous for it in tirion

she’s especially fond of philosophy, in the ancient-greek asking-a-million-rhetorical questions style. what should we do? why do we do the things we do? why do the valar get to tell us what to do?

... you can probably tell which side of the fëanor/fingolfin debate she landed on, if it wasn’t already obvious

she’s not particularly close to any of the future capital-H House, but she is in their rough orbit. one of the miscellaneous guild trolls that form the rank-and-file of their initial expeditionary force

idk if she’s ~devoted to the cause enough to go to formenos, but when the trees get eaten and fëanor rolls up into tirion with the solution to all their spider problems, she is all for it

she’s a passing acquaintance of maedhros from those times when he’d show up in her guild hall for debate night, so she probably ends up with his crew, at least initially

... there’s a very good chance her first attempts at crafting a new noldorin ethical system happen on that horrible night aboard the blood-stained swanships of alqualondë

in any case, she gets good enough at murder to not die before the brothers hellspawn are divvying up east beleriand, and the formerly reasonably undelineated fëanorian host is splitting up into its various garrisons

most people stay with whoever they’re already riding with, but there are exceptions. she is one of them, as soon as she hears about caranthir’s Plans she immediately switches allegiance to the future lord of thargelion

he’s deliberately trying to set up on the trade routes! they’re gonna make contact with the dwarves! there are apparently trails leading over the blue mountains, links to communities of elves unlike she’s ever seen!

so many new people to argue with!!!!!!

so she heads up to lake helevorn, and helps with setting up the city. she winds up filling some middling role in east beleriand’s military bureaucracy, when she’s not on orc-killing duty

but her true passion is *~ethics~*

there is actually a practical component to this. due to Certain Events the noldor (especially the fëanorians) aren’t as-well suited to their pre-darkening moral codes as they might have once been

they need a new one, with contingencies for, like, murder, and all the other new situations they’ll encounter in this new world! the questions of what’s right and wrong have been blown right open, and fed elf is possibly the happiest she’s been in her life. they’re building everything else from first principles, why not this?

and the fëanorian host in aggregate does actually care about morality, even though outsiders never believe that. it’s what separates them from the orcs (in their minds at least); they’re doing everything for a Cause, not for destruction’s sake alone. say what you want about the fëanorians, their problem was never a lack of ideals

she gets people coming in sometimes, wanting to know what the right thing to do in a situation is. either that, or they think she’s wrong about something and want to explain why in depth, which is almost as fun

soon enough, there’s a small shop just off the main streets of lake helevorn called the fëanorian ethics department

(she’s the only one with a shop, but she’s not the only member of the host with Opinions. the guy on the other side of the market district whose system is fairly similar in the broad strokes but completely different in the details is her personal archnemesis)

for most of the first age, fed elf has it pretty good. by her standards, at least, and she’ll happily exposit at length as to why they’re the only ones that matter

the work on the system of ethics never quite stops, but it does slow down. she’s less prescriptivist than most noldor, so she does a lot of observation and interviewing and stuff, and also new things keep happening for her to cover, but she does manage to nail down the basics!

she does consultation, in varying levels of official capacity, but she’ll also just. answer anyone who comes in with a question. or asks one within earshot

it’s mostly noldorin fëanorians she has debates with, the sindar and atani generally prefer to ask her whatever they want to know with minimum fuss, but whenever she gets a real fight going they all join the crowd. watching fed elf argue with people is one of lake helevorn’s municipal spectator sports

she also has conversations with travellers! these usually start when some newcomer is staring in befuddlement at the sign outside her shop and she takes the opportunity to pounce

she asks them detailed questions about their own ethical systems, which she files away for potential future incorporation/argument ammunition. they fairly frequently ask questions of their own, most often variations on ‘you guys seriously have morals?’

sometimes this even turns into a proper ethical debate! these aren’t usually as well-argued or intense as the ones she has with other fëanorians, particularly if she’s not talking to a noldo, but when she meets someone who’s a proper match for her it is the highlight of her year

running the shop does generate a fair bit of paperwork she tends to be too emotionally invested in to deal with properly, so she hires help now and then. one recurring underling is a clumsy perpetually-ill atan who is nevertheless really good with the filing and holds fierce opinions of their own, even if they hide under the table whenever anyone so much as raises their voice

(that atan is me. much less idealised self insert)

like every other elf in the host, fed elf is still under arms. she has a unit, she’s part of the orc patrol rotas, when caranthir needs to do a battle she pulls her broadsword out from under her desk and reports for the muster. east beleriand is just a pretty violent place in general, and her most impassioned arguments frequently shade into all-out duels. east beleriand, where even especially the philosophers will knife you

but just like fëanor promised on tirion upon túna so long ago, she’s built a place where she can be the best version of herself, and she couldn’t be happier (marketplace douche notwithstanding)

like so much of the host, she has big plans for when they topple angband and reclaim the silmarils. it’s just, well

i am not entirely sure what fed elf’s fate is after the fall of thargelion. most likely she died at some point, because so do most of her peers and also because she has an aversion to cutting her losses that’s definitely gonna backfire sooner or later

it’s either that, or she abandons everything she ever worked out to flee over the blue mountains, or she sticks with the host long enough to see all their ideals and dreams burn to ash. out of all of them death is probably her kindest fate

if she does die - she’s definitely a kinslayer at least one time over, she is staying in the halls for a While. the local maiar completely stonewall her every time she tries to argue her way out, she has plenty of time to sit around and think

because yeah, the host’s century-long self-immolation has given her a lot to think about. she was wrong, it turns out, in several important ways, and from the outside she can see how much the ethical system she put her heart and soul into was bent towards destruction

if she ever gets out, it’ll be after a lot of self-reflection, a massive dose of humility, and her accepting her own small-but-not-insignificant role in the nightmare they created

the fëanorians as get let out of the halls of mandos are without fail less violent, more self-aware, and just generally more conscious of their actions than they were when they went in. fed elf is no exception to this

she’s also no exception to the rule that their time in elf afterlife therapy generally fails to lower their volume at all. soon after her rebirth, after some time spent rethinking her personal moral code, fed elf puts out a thesis as to why elwing’s refusal to give up the silmaril was perfectly justifiable under fëanorian ethical mores

this pisses off a measurable proportion of aman’s sapient population. soon the furious letters of rebuke are pouring in nightly

exactly. as. planned

[theradicalace]

here’s some rambling about alex and penny, under the cut (bc it’s long)

i’ve got a lot of thoughts about alex and penny, and their character arcs......

firstly, it’s really interesting to me how different alex and penny’s relationships to alcohol are despite both of them having very rough pasts involving it. both of them have or had an alcoholic parent, with alex’s father being explicitly verbally abusive, while pam seems to be more neglectful than anything, with only brief episodes of verbal abuse. 

that’s not to say that either one of them has it “better” or “worse” than the other, not at all. it just makes it fascinating to me that while penny outright hates every alcoholic beverage the game has, alex likes all of them. 

as a game mechanic, this can probably be written off as just... an oversight. but in universe, it makes me wonder. what kind of work has alex done to process his past? is it the difference between alex’s experience with alcohol mostly being in the past, while penny’s is ongoing? how long did it take for alex to be okay with alcohol after everything?

i think alex is very easy to write off as “haha dumb shallow jock, himbo energy”, but when you’ve seen his heart events, there’s definitely more to him. almost identically, i think penny is very easy to write off as "quiet housewife, let’s save her from her mom”, but if you stop and examine her, there’s more to her too. 

i think alex is very much a testament to the possibility of healing, and the fact that a person’s past doesn’t ever have to define them. like i said earlier, his father was explicitly verbally abusive and alcoholic, which you learn in one of his early heart events. concernedape could have easily written alex as a “cycle of abuse” story and made him just as bad as his father, or sent him down the shane route, but that’s not what happened. despite his past, alex has so much drive in him. sure, he settles once you marry him for game mechanic reasons, but before that, he’s dedicated to going pro, determined to become an expert at what he does, just the same as many of the other characters in the game, it’s just easy to brush it off because it’s sportsball. and like i also mentioned, there’s the fact that he likes all the alcoholic drinks, despite his past with them. his entire character exists in opposition to his past.

on the flipside, i think penny is a testament to the fact that while healing is possible, you can’t do it while you’re still in the environment that traumatized you. penny does her absolute best at all times, of course, but there’s only so much she can do still living at home. she’s kind, she tutors the children, but the bulk of her growth does still happen after she moves out. before you marry her, she has dialogue like “i can’t wait to move out.” and “i wish i could live in a nice house someday”, and she has a LOT of dialogue about taking care of her mother, or just relating to pam in some way or another. after you marry her, though, she only has two lines of dialogue about her mother, and both of them acknowledge that she’s moved on, and she isn’t revolving her life around her mom anymore. she has a few different lines about how she hated the life she had before, and how things are better now. all around, she’s leagues happier after you marry her. while it’s sort of upsetting that the bulk of her growth hinges on the marriage specifically (and i could say that about any of the characters), it does seem like moving out was the catalyst for her healing. once she got away from the environment that was the source of her trauma, she was able to flourish. 

it’s very interesting how different their character arcs and relationships to healing are, despite theoretically having very similar backstories. trouble with alcohol, a parent who left, parental abuse/neglect, the bones of their stories definitely have strong parallels, but they ended up on such different paths regardless. 

idk, this game and its characters just have a lot of depth to them that i think even the fans don’t always see!!

[djemsostylist]

Djem's Legion Thoughts

About three years ago my brother joking suggested I read the Horus Heresy, knowing literally nothing about Warhammer. (Literally nothing. I just thought Space Marines were big dudes in armor and I had never heard of Primarchs and I still know nothing of 40k. Have no idea how the Heresy ends--I'm spoiler free babes.) Anyway, what follows are my feelings on each Legion at the following times:

As of midway through Fulgrim

At the end of First Heretic

At the start of the Master of Mankind

Halfway through the Siege

This is very long. I'm not sorry.

Dark Angels

idk I haven’t met them yet, but their name tells me they are either going to be amazing or fucking awful

Um I still dk

God I fucking love these stupid idiots. Like, they are stupid, for sure, but I dunno, I dig their bizarre sort of pseudosecrecy thing. Plus, aesthetically I’m all about weird monk orders. Also, nothing kills me quite like Farith Redloss having anxiety attacks over trying to figure out Lion.

Corswain showing up like the living embodiment of the dude with the pizza where the apartment is on fire is just so deeply on brand for these chucklefucks like, Lion is all “I’m deeply uncomfortable where Imperial Secundus is concerned so instead I’ll just go ahead and attack home planets because that will demoralize the traitors and then I’m Doing My Part” like fam, pretty much all the traitors sans Perturabo are actual literal demons rn and they all had zero qualms betraying their immediate brothers and also the emperor (and Perturabo already fucked over his own) why in the livid fuck would you think this is in any way helpful, but this is Classic Lion and I love him now on account of that one time when he hugged Roboute because he was proud of him and also because he calls all of his sons “Little Brother” bc he is afraid of being a dad and also because I too am deeply avoidant of issues I don’t want to deal with.

Emperor's Children

mostly wonderful, because they are fabulous and also extremely extra, but they have the most ginourmous fuckwad as a Lord Commander, BUT they have a very good boy as another one, so idk really. Plus the whole betrayal thing and the fucking lodges, but they are purple and fabulous, so, +1?

These are the saddest boys ever in the whole world, and they didn’t deserve what happened to them. I loved them all except for Eidolon and they didn’t deserve anything bad to happen to them ever bc they were precious and I loved them. Also Fabius because he was bugnuts and he hurt my boys.

Jesus, I’m so fucking over them all

Honestly I’m so tired

Iron Warriors

I totally confused them with the Iron Hands. Idk even, boring? But Perturabo (while he has a fucking terrible name) also hates Horus so +15

I still know nothing about them, but I think they are buttholes because of the whole Isstvan V thing. Dick move guys, dick move.

I literally can’t. Like, their entire shtick is besieging and being besieged, and then being pissy bc it is what they are good at???? Like, they are literally traitoring bc their dad got a hair up his ass bc he wasn’t a good independent thinker and didn’t think he was allowed to build castles or whatever? Idk they are exhausting except for the ones that aren’t

I still don’t really get them at all except like 99% of them who aren’t named Barabas Dantioch are asshats and are not independent thinkers who are literally still traitoring for reasons unknown except to stick it to the emperor like?? Get an actual culture??? Just literally stop???

White Scars

I dunno, haven’t met them, but since no one else talks about them, I’m gonna guess, boring?

I dunno but they are worried about them hooking up with the Rout so I guess they are cool?

Oh bless your tiny little souls. They are so sweet, and so, so dumb. But sweet.

They are very, very good boys. They don’t have a ton of range per say but their simplicity is sort of the point I think. They are what space marines are supposed to be, and I love them for that

Space Wolves

ehm, oh, I’m sorry, The Rout. Whateverthefuck, they’re boring, over-the-top fuckheads who are giant fucking hypocrites who suck and probably don’t ever shower. Honestly, they rival the Emperor’s Children in extraness, and not in the loveable way. Fucking awful, 0/10.

Okay, honestly, not as awful as some. I mean, hella extra and I hate what they did at Prospero, but in a world full of awful things, we gotta pick and choose.

They are just so, so...Space Wolfy. Bless them they try, and some of them legit crack me up. I’m just not about their aesthetic, you know?

Much like the other fuckups amongst the Loyalists, they are a blunt instrument used for a specific purpose and do better with like...direct instruction. I’m saying they are not the kind to do well with metaphor and also a lack of like, a dad. They need TE:BBA is what I’m saying.

Imperial Fists

Literally only met them briefly, but they seem a good sort. I like their Primarch? -3 tho cause damn that color scheme.

Still good boys.

Omg I love you all, you precious little bbs. They are just so calm and stoic and honestly even though yellow is a hideous color they are literally like Templars and that is fantastic?????

Listen, the amount of love that I have in my heart for these precious, perfect boys is rivaled only by my love for Rogal Dorn, who might possibly be, and I don’t wanna sound dramatic here, be the love of my life but anyway.

Night Lords

idk but their name sounds sick.

Right, these guys are also dicks. I hate them on principle.

Every time I think of them all I can think of is that one video of the goths dancing under the bridge. They are so. Fucking. Extra. Christ alive, get a hobby that isn’t fucking skinning people.

Yeah idk they still mostly suck and to be perfectly honest I’m still not entirely sure what their point was, even pre-heresy? Like what role did psychopaths play in TE:BBA’s plan for a glorious human empire, someone explain

Blood Angels

I dunno cause I’ve only ever met their First Captain (who was consorting with fuckheads) but Sanguinius is literally Top Tier Fabulous, like Prince Extra, so I hope they don’t let me down

I’m still holding out hope. Don’t let me down boys.

OH. MY. GOD. Honestly, kill me, I love them so, so, so, so, so much, it’s a lot. And I suspect something terrible will happen with them but I don’t care because they are perfect. All of them. Wonderful, perfect, lovely, caring boys who love their dad and I love them. Sweet, loving, precious little bbs who occasionally suffer from tragic vampiric tendencies but I don’t love them any less. They better stay perfect forever. If I could, I would be like Sangy and just take them all everywhere with me so that they could always be safe <3 On a less gushy note, I think one of the most important aspects of the Blood Angels (and of their primarch) is that while they acknowledge their differences from unmodified humans, they also love humanity, deeply. They see them as worth fighting for and protecting, and acknowledge that their abilities allow them to create a universe that is safe for the common man to live in. There is a sort of profound love and tenderness that they have for humanity, and I think it really does make a difference in their legion. (That scene is Master of Mankind with the Blood Angel and the Custodian really highlights what I’m saying here.)

Listen, this may sound dramatic, and I don’t wanna like, go over the top, but I would literally die for them, which would seem counterproductive since that is what they do for humanity but the amount of love of I have for this entire legion and one Angel is too big to contain in my heart okay

Iron Hands

I don’t know them well yet, but they seem like good boys overall. I’m sure one of them is bound to be a crazy fucker tho.

They are good boys. I don’t know them very well, but my favorite moment is when Ferrus had to thank Lorgar for his help so he made him a crozius and then threw it at him because he didn’t want to have to talk awkwardly.

Poor sad bbs

No, but really, poor sad bbs

World Eaters

literally terrible people, but I guess when your Dad is bugnuts….

Definitely should have been put down. As in to death. They should have been killed. Probably.

Still fucking crazy. But I love Kharn, and honestly Lotara (who I know isn’t technically a World Eater but close enough.)

No but they probably should have all been just euthanized? I mean not Kharn bc I love him but also like--they are not viable. Long term? Tbh still not entirely sure what TE:BBA’s plan was here with them and Angron (I’m gonna assume something along the lines of ignore it and hope it goes away, since that is mostly his plan for everything)

Ultramarines

probably enormous squares, but tbh in a galaxy with World Eaters and the Rout, we could do with some squares.

Honestly, I have no issues with them. They do their duty, they are loyal. I hope to love them though. They actually believe in colors.

HOLY FUCK DO I LOVE THEM. ALL 200,000 OF THEM. (Which is probably what Roboute thinks tbh.) Like, I literally haven’t met a single one that I don’t adore and love with my whole soul and entire being. They are precious, soft, beautiful bbs who I adore with my whole heart. And who will make great leaders of the world someday I’m so proud. On a less gushy note, much like the Blood Angels, the Ultramarines really have a sort of profound feeling of protection and duty towards humans. They may not always like dealing with them, but Roboute is of the firm belief that they must understand what they are truly fighting for. Saving humanity is not enough, you have to fight for the humans who live there. (See, the one short story where they find a baby and I died.)

No but what you don’t quite get is that I literally love them. Every single individual solitary one of them, and while some may say “But Djem such a thing is impossible you haven’t met every Ultramarine” I need you to understand that the depth of my love for them and their Primarch is such that I know, in my bones, that I don’t need to meet them all to love them okay bc I already do.

Death Guard

Okay, so honestly I wanted to hate them (because BETRAYAL) but tbh its only the First and Second Captains who suck a lot and idk really the rest are sort of tragically precious??

Seriously, what is Mortarion’s issue?

No, seriously, what the fuck is their problem? Get the fuck over it.

Okay, I do feel bad. For Mortarian. Of all the traitors, him I understand the most. However, that being said, while I can understand his issues, I feel like giving yourself over to demons, turning into actual demons, and also turning on and killing your brothers who refused to become said demons makes you terrible awful people who really need to like, die.

Thousand Sons

okay, I fucking love these lame Warrior Monk Priest Wizards who live in a literal glass city with restaurants and teach random people Tai Chi in the park or whatever. Overall 10/10

I am v. worried that they are going to do something dumb like join the rebellion in order to affect change from the inside and then like, adopt demons or something. Pls don’t be dumb boys.

I don’t even fucking--look, I’m just tired okay?

What the fuck Azhek. No seriously, ⅞ is good enough? What the fuck is wrong with you?

Sons of Horus? Luna Wolves? who the fuck knows

my precious sons. You did not deserve what was done to you. This is why we don’t do frats. I believed in you and you failed me. D:

I love my precious sons. The Sons of Horus however, can go die.

I just--why are you the way you are?

I think the best thing about these absolute morons is that half the legion isn’t even demon fuckers, they just woke up one day and Horus told them to kill their brothers and they went “sure okay” and then just did. They are so fucking pretentious and stupid, fucking speartip, honestly die. I take it back. You all deserved exactly what you got, you dumb fucks.

Word Bearers

look, I haven’t met the rest of these dudes yet, but Erebus is a terrible fucking ambassador. -60/10 for not controlling their boy

HOLY LORD. I cannot--there are not actually words to describe how much I loathe these ignorant dumbasses. Like, seriously. Honestly, the ones who were purged were probably lucky, because the rest of them fucking suck.

God, eat a fucking landmine. Except, that would probably turn them on or something. Fucking assholes.

Just--imagine being such a fuckup that even when you were the first to the “become a demon, save the world” thing you still somehow ended up last. I hope the Ultramarines put down every. Single. One.

Salamanders

idk but this name is dumb. Salamanders are cute and slimy, and while Astartes are fucking adorable, they are not slimy. -1 for the dumb name

They are loyal, which is cool, and they seem like chill bros.

I just, like, they are sweet, but good lord are they simple.

I’m not sure? What they are doing? With their lives? Guys, idk if anyone told you but like, um. There is a war. And I get they’ve had it rough but also the loyalists could use their hope so maybe, idk. Do something? I mean I know there are like, 50 of you left and also you think your dad is dad and I feel you but like-

Raven Guard

idk but I like Ravens and Black, plus their Primarch’s name is Corvus? 11/10 they better not suck.

OMG I love Corvus?? Flies with a giant jetpack and tried to gut Lorgar? Yeah, he’s wonderful. Plus, their Captain seemed cool before he was fucking murdered.

I love them all, bless. They are sweet and simple and kind of stupid, but they make me feel things in my heart, so like, idk, stay precious.

Look, I cried over Branne fucking Nev, I don’t wanna talk about it rn

Alpha Legion

seriously? Lame.

Fuck these guys. What is their deal?

I can’t even really. I really, truly can’t. Nothing has ever satisfied me the way I was satisfied when Alpharius literally lost his head. God, that was beautiful.

Or Omegon? It was actually Omegon? I don’t even know anymore man

[monaownsmyass]

A Rant about Chapter 11 (From a Zoey Stan)

Disclaimer: I talk about the racism in this chapter which might be triggering for some. I’m also not black and don’t intend on talking over black people so if anything I say comes across that way, I apologise in advance and pls feel free to correct me.

PB

Ever since day one, Zoey was treated like crap. We barely had any other interactions with her besides talking about Kingsley and her give us clothes. Zoey, despite being a confirmed LI, didn’t even have her own diamond scene until chapter 10, much later than when even Poppy, who’s not an LI, got a diamond scene.

But this is the breaking point. How tf are you gonna sideline a confirmed LI and then insert her into the bigger picture only to embarrass her, destroy her reputation, make her a laughing stock and make her publicly humiliated and not call it mistreatment??? To top it off, she’s also a black wlw. How anyone can victim blame Zoey here is beyond me.

For the benefit of the doubt, at first I thought PB was just clueless about what they did and didn’t realise it (it comes across that way in multiple books) but then, then they go ahead and put this in...

So you’re telling me, you’re fucking telling me that they knew how racist this sounded and still fucking went along with it??? If they were gonna make a subplot about how she got racially profiled, fine, good job, you know what the sad reality is like for black people. But to get publicly humiliated and embarrassed for it? That’s fucking RACIST! Idk how you’re gonna justify this when it’s clearly unjustifiable. I bet PB added that dialogue to show how woke they are but congrats, somehow you managed to do the complete opposite.

Poppy

Now let’s talk about Poppy. PB honestly never ceases to amaze me. They took a very complex character with depth and a lot of potential and just chucked all of that out of the window. It’s beyond salvageable at this point. And to make matters worse? The way PB wrote Poppy in that animal shelter scene (where we see a more vulnerable side to her) seems to be hinting at a redemption arc for her. I would’ve been all for it if this hadn’t happen. After this, there’s no way to save her character, I’m sorry but I can’t see it.

Going into detail now, I just wanna say, what. the. actual. fuck. I don’t even know where to start. Actually, I do, let’s take a look at how sad and pathetic this sounds:

Regardless of race, this shit is beyond messed up. But the fact that PB actually acknowledges it was about her race (as shown earlier), makes it baffling. I genuinely don’t understand how they didn’t see this as a problem. The way Poppy went after Zoey for absolutely no reason whatsoever makes it obvious that this is no longer a self-defence mechanism she uses for coping, this is cruelty.

And then we have the whole calling Zoey a ‘human sacrifice’. They do not only mention this once but MULTIPLE times. Poppy even labelled her folder as it. This made me the most upset. Getting a little historically literal here, actual human sacrifices were normally slaves, outcasts and criminals. I think it’s pretty self-explanatory why this was very wrong.

Zetas and Alphas

What a bunch of self-entitled, self-absorbed, low-life pricks that put others down to make themselves feel better.

So public humiliation wasn’t enough for poor Zoey apparently. She now has to endure tomatoes and wine thrown at her. Y’know how this entire scene reads and comes across as? A criminal getting stoned for their crimes. She was a young girl who was pressured into shoplifting by her peers and she was the only one that got caught cuz of her race. Need I say more? I will, that’s fucking RACIST!

Mc

MC is a little complicated for me. In my playthrough, I chose the good girl route and so my MC wasn’t as harsh as I’d assume the bad girl MC would be. I’m not excusing what she did because it was still wrong of her. She should’ve immediately gone to save Zoey. I’m just upset in a book called Choices, we couldn’t even choose between exposing Poppy’s credit cards and saving Zoey.

We’re always given the least important choices and we’re always asking for PB to give us choices that actually matter. This would’ve been the perfect opportunity. I’m playing as black!MC and even though I chose the good girl route, it still felt really... off. I can’t imagine how much worse it would be if players were playing the bad girl route with a PoC character especially if they’re playing as black!MC.

Zoey

Zoey. Poor Zoey deserves so much better. Fuck Poppy and the Zetas and even MC. The image of Zoey covered in tomatoes was so heart-breaking. MC’s convo with her... ugh.

If PB did anything right, it was making Zoey mad. She was right to be angry at MC (regardless if we took the good or bad girl route) and leave the posse. MC doesn’t deserve her. And to people saying Zoey should have known, it doesn’t matter! People are literally throwing things and publicly humiliating her so no it doesn’t matter if she should’ve known better. They shouldn’t have done that!!

I’m so fed up with PB sidelining and mistreating her and most female LIs and it’s even more disappointing that this is still happening after PB released their statement saying they’ll improve.

Idk how they messed up this badly after everything that’s happened, after all of our complaints and suggestions on how to improve. I just want to see Zoey thrive after this, with or without MC. It’s the least PB could do for her.

[lochnessies]

Why WOULD Edelgard even consider going "Yeah I'll team up with rhea to crush TWSITD."

Like, girl's got trust issues as do. Most of the lords. As far Edelgard's concerned Rhea's probably the one with "more power" and is thus the bigger threat. Rhea's the pope/saint of an entire religion. TWSITD are a bunch of sneaky mole men who, while they do possess powerful weaponry to an extent she isn't sure, they also need (for some reason) to work in the shadows.

Rather than being able to send armies of their own all over the place an army, they do all sorts of espeonage and rely mostly on the empires army.

There's a reason why its described as an "unseen and silent war".

Then again, TWSITD are in a weird spot. They're simultaneously manipulative and puppeting almost every bad thing they can, and have advanced tech. Yet also they just get their asses kicked and get essentially beaten in every route except arguably Blue lions (though if Dimitri marries Hapi he just straight up hunts down the rest of em.)

Regardless, the church of seiros is more of a threat in the "can actively do shit out in the open and can wreck a lot of shit without needing secrecy". way.

Why WOULD Edelgard even consider going "Yeah I'll team up with rhea to crush TWSITD."

Like, girl's got trust issues as do. Most of the lords.

1.) in what fucking world is it normal to side with the people who have ruined your life and murdered your family and decide that they are more trustworthy than the institution that literally holds orphans

2.) yeah the other lords do have trust issues. dimitri doesn’t tell others about what he went through and suffers alone. claude hides his heritage. rhea also hides her heritage and the existence of it. the difference is that these characters didn’t start a war and side with those who do human experiments and start genocides

Rather than being able to send armies of their own all over the place an army, they do all sorts of espeonage and rely mostly on the empires army.

There's a reason why its described as an "unseen and silent war".

Then again, TWSITD are in a weird spot. They're simultaneously manipulative and puppeting almost every bad thing they can, and have advanced tech. Yet also they just get their asses kicked and get essentially beaten in every route except arguably Blue lions (though if Dimitri marries Hapi he just straight up hunts down the rest of em.)

*sobs* twsitd is so fucking stupid i can’t fathom it why did you do this intsys

twsitd rely on pawns like loog but they still have weapons and an army which we see on am/ss/vw but like edel herself they like to have other people do their dirty work but will

Regardless, the church of seiros is more of a threat in the "can actively do shit out in the open and can wreck a lot of shit without needing secrecy". way.

but they are literally not. i’ve talked about that in depth on this blog that the claims that edelgard brings towards the church are either bigoted, ignorant, missing critical information, or just outright or maliciously wrong.

and this can’t be a case of ‘well she believed them so you can’t fault her’ bc

1.) i can and i will

2.) she has to on some level know she’s taking absolute shit since she’s the only character that brings up these charges against the church. you would think if they were true literally anybody else in the cast would have something to say

As for why TWSITD don't just go hog wild and nuke the shit out everybody and bring out golems and nemesis and what not...Idk. Maybe by there's not enough twsitd to make up an army on the same scale as the kingdom's army and the Knights of Seiros. (They DO seem to be largely inactive in blue lions after their leaders get stomped) Or maybe the nukes take a lot of time to prep, time they wouldn't have if they went hog wild and everyone knew about them? Then again, its not like we really know much about the molemen or their society outside of "their assholes, they've got advanced tech, they make bad shit happen in fodlann, and they really really hate rhea".

Actually wait I forget...do twsitd even have much control over the revived Nemesis? If I recall I think he pretty much went off to fuck shit up on his own after TWITD got wrecked. Maybe they didn't just pop him out in other routes because they don't have much control over him so he'd just go around thrashing shit?

beats me nonnie 🤷🏼‍♀️ i only act like i know everything lol

i honestly think the only reason intsys added twsitd was because of the loptyrian cult the fe4. 3h takes a lot of inspo from that game and i believe that the devs wanted a new shadow organization that aided their new flame emperor™ without considering the consequence it has on the new story.

but at the end of the day twsitd will always be more dangerous than the church of seiros. the empire took out the church in literally one day vs the ‘long’ and ‘bloody’ one waged on twsitd. not to mention the church really doesn’t do much and only tries to help with spiritual guidance/peace keeping. where as twsitd don’t have any positive traits and are literally pure evil that murders children *cough* house ordelia and house hresvelg *cough*

i cannot fathom the amount of mental gymnastics you would have to do to come to the conclusion that you are siding with the least harmful side.

[sssn-neptune-vasilias]

I know you said you've blocked Kob but p sure he read your post anyway and is saying that you all brought this [the toxicity vs differing opinions] on yourselves because you guys were toxic as well. Thoughts?

Tl;Dr: Typical Kob bullshit. Shift the blame and introduce whattaboutism so that no one can ever call him out on his bullshit. Frustrating that people still don’t see how transparent these tactics are. I don’t wanna spend too much of my blog discussing Kob because he frustrates me but I also think it’s important to protect people voicing their opinions and that obviously involves condemning the asshole.

Gonna preface by admitting that RWDE hasn’t been an entirely non-toxic environment. There’ve been its fair share of death threats, creator intimidation, etc. same as any fandom! I think it might’ve been a bit more visible because RT used to really care about its audience back in the day and any toxic hatred and vitriol was really jarring to them and us as fans. This was back before they got bought by AT&T and were still just a “small” company. RWDE has never been a toxic free zone, but no fandom ever has been. The reason the RWDE tag was made was to specifically isolate critical, toxic, shitpost, or angry posts away from people who didn’t wanna see that kind of content. A lot of blogs are critical of the shows they watch- why wouldn’t they be- while a lot of people don’t like seeing any kind of criticism! What do we do? The FNDM created the RWDE tag JUST so that people can STILL follow blogs like mine and hundreds of others and blacklist the RWDE tag if they so desired. It was an accommodation for people. Have people tagged death threats with RWDE? Absolutely. Have people been super toxic and then tagged their toxicity with RWDE? Sure fucking thing. Is any of this okay? NO! All of those individual bloggers who did things like that should be punished! RWDE or not, that’s not okay! Sending death threats to Miles and Kerry and the crew isn’t okay! No one should be doing it in or out of the RWDE tag. The thing is, there’s no RWDE police that go around sniping people for being toxic in RWDE- that doesn’t exist on tumblr. This isn’t Discord. We can’t ban people, or stop them from using a tag.

Now, I wasn’t around when Kob was first starting out. I think I first learned about him after he’d already been around for a few months, and was already making a name for himself doing the kinds of things he’s known to do. I have no idea if someone told him to kill himself once and he’s been on a downward spiral ever since. I don’t know who fired the first shot, and honestly, considering the fact that his original blog got deleted, I don’t think we’ll ever find out. The issue is that even if Kob was reacting in self defense, he then went on to harass dozens- if not hundreds of people- who had nothing to do with it. He’s accused EVERY RWDE blogger of suicide baiting him- something most rwde bloggers obviously have not. He’s been entirely unable to distinguish between individual people, and has just been aiming 100% of his vitriol at ANYONE who uses the RWDE tag, be it people who HAVE told him to go jump off a bridge vs people who he’s literally had zero interaction with. Kob is 100% in control of his own actions, and chooses to attack people for no reason other than he’s bored and wants attention.

Have I seen people tell Kob to drink bleach? Yup. Have I seen people tell Kob to kill himself? Absolutely. Have I seen people tell Kob they hope he dies in a fire? Mhmm. What’s in common between all these events? They were always after multiple replies in a thread where Kob was super gross and incendiary towards the OP and they got tired of dealing with his shit. Does that mean NO ONE has ever told him to go fuck himself out of the blue? Nah, I’m sure a lot of people have. But the pattern remains that Kob starts the fire and then cries to the FNDM at large whenever he gets burned. “GUYS LOOK! THIS RWDER TOLD ME TO GO JUMP OFF A BRIDGE! RWDE IS TERRIBLE!” “Yeah but... you literally called them a terrorist for not liking the show???” Should people be telling others to kill themselves? Probably not. Out of context it’s always a bad look and it’s real easy to take anything you say out of context over the internet when screenshots can be cropped, messages can be altered, etc. Am I surprised that Kob pissed off so many people that MULTIPLE people told him to go kill himself? Nah, and tbh, he kinda deserves it imho. You can’t keep attacking everyone around you and expect the world to have unlimited amounts of patience to deal with your tantrums. Eventually someone’s gonna tell you to piss on the third rail.

I can’t tell you whether Kob made his tumblr day 1 and decided to act like this, or if someone did something that triggered him into it, but honestly, it doesn’t matter. Kob is an adult who’s responsible for his own actions, and these are the kinds of actions he’s responsible for:

I don’t know what Kob’s relationship with @/kaedeichinose was before this. Idk if she told Kob to kill himself, I don’t know if she personally walked into Kob’s house and fucked both of his parents in front of him, I don’t know if she burnt Kob’s pancakes or straight up has never had a single interaction with him in her life. All I know is that Kob knew she’d blocked him, and this is how he responded to her. “Not my fault you willingly excluded yourself from the conversation. I never agreed to stop talking to you and I never have. Ain’t my problem.” This in and of itself should’ve gotten Kob banned from Tumblr and ostracized from any and every fandom circle on the internet. This is entirely unacceptable behavior. It literally doesn’t matter what Kaedichinose did to him- if she did anything at all. Acknowledging the fact that you went behind tumblr’s block system to continue to harass someone who explicitly told you to leave them alone, and affirming that you will continue to do so, is egregious behavior. This in and of itself disqualifies him from any sympathy or leniency. He’s already admitted that he is committing himself to continue harassing her. This is one person. He’s done this to dozens of people, myself included. He did this to me in August and I’ve had him blocked for years.

Kob can say whatever he wants about RWDE being toxic. There are some toxic parts of RWDE, this isn’t debatable. There are some parts of RWDE even I hate looking at. Wanna know how I deal with them? I block and blacklist the OP. Then I never have to see their opinions. Ever. Instead of taking the civil, smart route, Kob takes the route where he purposefully harasses dozens to hundreds of people. He can’t keep blaming ALL OF RWDE- anyone who’s EVER used the RWDE tag to say “I don’t like Crescent Rose’s design” to in depth Jaune analysis and why they don’t like his character- for the actions of the specific people who’ve done what he’s claiming to do. He can’t keep attacking RWDE for this. He can’t say “oh I haven’t done this in a really long time so it doesn’t cound anymore” when I have evidence of him doing it seven months ago. Sure, some members of RWDE are toxic. That doesn’t excuse KOB HIMSELF from being toxic towards people who’d NEVER DONE the things he was angry about. That doesn’t excuse him block evading and harassing people.

Kob can shift the blame and say “well those guys did this” all he wants. Kob’s actions speak for themselves. Anyone who can look through all those links I posted in my last thread and not see a problem with his behavior probably shouldn’t be on this website either tbh

[zerachielamora]

hi, i’d like to share a possible theory about lof2 with you since you are probably the person who knows the most about this game ahah. the other day i was thinking about the fact that lily died and james was so desperate that with the help of the rat queen he brought her back in his own body. now, james never pretend to be lily since the two siblings shared the same body, so that mean that also lily made a path with the rat queen? like she knows what is happening and she’s also fighting to not “destroying” her “part”, she wants to be alive. i don’t know if i am over analyzing but it just make sense to me if actually lily met the rat queen too. like she wanted to be an actress not james, so i’m starting to think that it was not james who was following her sister steps, but it was actually her. she was the one who was capable of not breaking the character, not james. lily is stronger than him. and also the fact that rat queen met james even before lily died it’s kinda suspicious, right? and we can also understand that she (the rq) doesn’t really have a favorite, like she just want that one sibling take over the other while the director is trying to tell james to get rid of her sister. i wonder why, who is the director. what if he was helping james and testing lily. i feel like it was lily the artist chosen by the queen and not james. also in layers of fear inheritance at the end we can see that the painter painted her daughter with a lily in her hand. it has to mean something. and also the fact that at the beginning of lof2 we see a cabin probably owned by him. idk. i see a lot of people that actually agree with the fact that both lily and james share the same body but then only referring to james and i don’t understand why ahah like lily is alive!!!! i know, i wrote a lot and i’m sorry but i’m going insane trying to understand this game and i don’t have anyone to talk to. i hope it’s understandable ahahha if it’s not clear please let me know!!! i hope you have a nice day :) (my tumblr is giving me problems, i’m sorry if you received this message multiple times)

Thank you for sharing your theory, it’s very fascinating!

My take is that it’s very possible when James took Lily into himself that she learned of the Rat Queen through him. I mostly believe it was James trying to follow in Lily’s steps because it every kind of mention of the Actor, promo and whatnot, they are referred to as a he. Not to mention the existence of the Formless Man, which is a representative of the indecisiveness and improper growth of James from having his sister’s soul within him as well. But you could definitely make the argument that in the Lily route of the game, Lily is slowly overcoming him, guiding his movements and making his choices until she completely takes over. I also get frustrated though in main talks about the game where it’s only mentioned about James - you can be Lily in one ending after all haha - and honestly the Lily ending is my favorite one.

The Director’s identity is an entire can of worms I haven’t been able to decipher yet myself. I’ve considered a ton of theories about him in depth with no meaningful conclusion. One possibility I entertained was the idea that he and the Rat Queen were opposing deities who were fighting over who was going to win in the case of the Actor’s identity. It does seem the Rat Queen doesn’t really have a preference as to which sibling wins, though if she’s such a fan of good art and the like, it could be that she secretly wishes Lily would win. Why the Director wants James to win, I can only guess, but maybe it’s because he seems more easy to manipulate, whereas Lily is a free spirit who does her own thing.

I have wondered if there’s a connection between the Director and the strange man who interviews James a child in those recordings. That guy is also a complete mystery to me.As for the daughter’s portrait in Inheritance holding a lily while there’s a character in the next game called Lily - that is VERY intriguing. Especially because the Actor’s childhood home has the first floor looking just like the first floor of the house from the first game. I wondered if this meant that the two families were neighbors and perhaps knew one another casually, but of course there’s no evidence to back me up on that one.

Is it possible that the Rat Queen, after having dealt with the painter’s family, thus learned of the Actor’s family, and moved onto them? Could be.

[rainbowkittyblossomwings]

So I don’t want to get into a huge retrospective of how 2020 was for me, because it’s personal and I think we can all agree things have been bad. So instead I’d like to talk about great video games I got into in 2020!!! These games didn’t necessarily come out in 2020 just things I discovered and I’d like to talk about my top 10 faves

1.       The first best video game I discovered in 2020 is the entire Trails Series (I played all of them in 2020, cold steel, ao, zero, and Sky). Initially I played Cold Steel 1 because my friend told me it was like “Playing Code Geass the anime”. The story was pretty easy to get into of a guy going to military school and you’re placed in the special class for commoners and nobles when there’s a huge class divide in your country. From there it had some basic anime tropes like a dating simulator like thing and various cliched characters, like the tsundere, the guy who’s trying to get everybody to work, the music kid, and the noble, you know?

But Cold Steel wasn’t cliché in the least bit. I played it after surgery recovery so I was in a lot of pain and out of my mind, but each character had depth, the entire world was fleshed out and after each game more of the story and the villains were revealed, secret robot technologies were given to the main characters and they slowly became more and more powerful after that.

I wanted to know more and more about the world so I played the first series trails in the sky and the Japanese only series, Zero and Ao, and they were even better. Not only that but in this JRPG there were canon gay characters that had traits to their character besides “I’m gay.” There were a lot of lesbians for me to pick and choose between as faves.

Not only that but I find none dating sim video games difficult cuz I get easily frustrated and rage quit. Cold Steel was turn based combat and never made me feel like rage quitting because they had a function called “Retry but easier” where if you died you could start the same battle but make it easier. That made it so I only had to die five or so times on things I was really stuck on and then I could move on with the story. And the game never felt like a grind fest and I could make the game faster in combat.

This series I may have discovered in 2020 but it’s become just as beloved to me as any other series. It’s one of my faves.

2.       My second favorite game in 2020 was 13 sentinels : Aegis Rim. I love time travel so much and everytime a new time travel anime or game comes out I get super excited. Aegis Rim was a game that had all sorts of cool tropes, like time travel, memory loss, androids, different realities, and psychic dreams and it just sounded cool. Not only that but there were 13 different protagonists to play and I had seen it reviewed in LGBT+ articles, saying it had a canon gay character and a canon nonbinary character! It was a very fun game and part of the story followed a point and click formula and the other half followed a kinda strategy blowing up giant robot monsters formula, and I enjoyed it. Also the music and the art was amazing.

3.       The House in Fata Morgana was my third favorite game I discovered in 2020!!! It was a visual novel I had gotten in 2019 but never started because “They didn’t have anime eyes so IDK if it’ll be interesting.” I had seen a lot of horror visual novel people review it though with stellar reviews. I ended up playing it when I was sick and man was it an amazing story. It gave me a lot of respect for people who write short stories that wrap up nicely, and a lot  of the characters were flawed but I really enjoyed reading their stories.  The story was pretty basic in the beginning of a maid telling you several different stories of the previous owners of the mansion she worked in, and the tragedies that befell them throughout her time there, and I really liked the sort of tragedy feel. One of the stories reminded me of Greek tragedies like Oedipus, and as the story got deeper and deeper and connected plot threads of the previous owners it became very cool. Also the game was very LGBT+ friendly with trans and bi characters and possibly an aro character too???

4.       Hades was my fourth favorite game in 2020!!! A lot of people have already talked about Hades before and what it’s about but I’d like to talk about why I liked it. As mentioned before I have a problem with video games that rely on skill. I get so frustrated that I either start yelling or crying because I don’t believe that the muscle memory will ever get into me or that I’ll ever be good enough to get past the hard part. It’s incredibly distressing and it makes me feel bad because I’m like “why can’t I do a simple thing other people can easily do?” Hades is one of the few games that taught me that eventually I will succeed, and the muscle memory will come to me. As you probably know Hades has god mode which increases your damage resistance every time you loose. I got to the max god mode very quickly of 80% and for about 10 runs even that wasn’t enough to beat the first boss and I was incredibly frustrated. I was like “they should have raised it to 90% cuz if even their worst players couldn’t beat the boss on easy mode then they’re missing out.” But as people have probably told you, Hades rewards failure. Each run you learn a bit more and get better skills and friendships with people due to grinding. And eventually I stuck to it and beat the first boss, and then all the other bosses. The muscle memory finally hit and I beat Hades and got the true ending and I’m really glad the developers made it accessible enough that even the worst players could beat it and I’m glad they rewarded failure.

5.       My next favorite is Chaos;Child, which wasn’t made in 2020, but I did discover it in 2020. It’s another horror visual novel but by the people who did Steins;Gate. I absolutely adore Steins;Gate because of the time travel so I was curious about the other games in the series. Everyone said Chaos;Child was the murder mystery of what Steins;Gate did to time travel and they were right. It was a psychic murder mystery story and although it was very gorey it was very fun and I really liked the characters

6.       Sixth favorite was Café Enchante a new otome dating sim released in 2020! You run a coffeshop for monsters basically and I adored it!!! I was a little worried before I got it that it would be boring because what kind of plot can you make in a coffeeshop? But it was very cute and I loved the monsters and the lore. Despite my misunderstanding the entire game did not take place in the coffeeshop and instead went into various monster worlds and expanded on the lore of each world in each route. The art was wonderful and I just love fake monster lore about Fae and beasts and angels and stuff and it was just a wonderful game and is one of my new fave otome titles.

7.       I played Ai: the somnium files in 2020! I knew it would be a favorite of the year because it was made by the same people who did the zero escape series. It had a very different tone of the zero escape series of course, instead of being about psychics it’s about the inner workings of the mind. You play a detective going into people’s psyche’s to try to catch a murderer basically. It reminded me a lot of ID;invaded an anime that I think came out this year? Anyway it was a cool story and I liked the graphics but I did not like the timed missions. Without a guide I would have died.

8.       The dark horse of 2020 was Untitled Goose Game. I did not expect to get it but my friend gifted to me and I hadn’t played it yet. And as everyone can tell you it’s just a fun time harassing people as a goose. It has 2 player mode so my sister and I played it together and it was great. I liked feeling like grand theft robbers and saying “BOOK IT” as we stole people’s stuff.

9.       My ninth favorite game I played in 2020 was Little Busters! It’s by the same people who did Clannad so I knew I would be crying by the end. Clannad’s team is known for their great story telling and heart wrenching characters. It’s about a team of friends who start a baseball team and then it gets sad and time loop-y from there. I played Clannad too in 2020 but it was a little too homophobic for me to let it make it to this list and I don’t remember any homophobia in little busters, so little busters gets its spot.

10.   Finally we get to Persona 5 Royal. I didn’t play much of the original persona 5 besides at my friends apartment so I was able to finally have a copy of this game on my own!!! I loved the idea of going into mean people’s minds and changing their hearts so they could understand the wrong that they did, it was just a good concept. I also loved that Persona 5 royal added a safety mode so you can loose and yet not die. It was a great game of 2020 and it only makes it so low because I spent way too many hours on it (135) and it was a great amazing game that I loved and enjoy talking about but would not replay because it’s just so long and I’m not quite sure what would be different on  replay. Also I’m sad that you can’t date the boys because I love them. They are good beans. Either way though I’d recommend it if you haven’t played before and it was very fun, and still one of the best games of 2020.

If you want me to talk about any of these games in more depth instead of just a short review tell me!!!

[ardenttheories]

vriskas-8log replied to your photo “@vriskas-8log While I'm not the person who compiled the original post,...”

i mean im gonna be honest here, I'm a transfem vriska kinnie, and while clearly vriska has done a whole lotta shit wrong, i dont find specifically the trans reading of the tavvrissprite scene objectionable? like clearly it wasnt intended as a trans narrative, hussie was not at all thinking about trans stuff when writing homestuck, least of all with vriska, but it is completely fair to read some aspects of her story in-comic as trans coding.

like do not get me wrong i fucking despise homestuck 2, honestly mainly because the way its treating vriska is awful and out of character and uncritically idolising her, but like vriska trans is fine actually. and kate is a piece of shit but like idk, i dont really care that she hates gamzee who very much is a shitty character (though like the way the epilogues treated him as even more of an awful anti-black stereotype is uhh, fucking yikes can we not)

and holy shit that fucking charlotte clymer take holy shit what the fuck news flash: trans women can have bad opinions kate, ~~you do it all the time~~ also like, is blaire white a CIA psyop? no shes just a shitty person who happens to be trans it fucking happens

Sorry about the delay, I had to find an actual, working computer since mine seems to not want to find the internet.

I definitely don’t think transwoman Vriska is an objectionable concept. Reading her as a transwoman in Homestuck is a completely valid potential, and in general I don’t actually object the idea that people pick up things that stick out to them as experiences they share, even if Hussie didn’t code them that way (I mean, for the longest time, that’s the best way we got any gender-based representation, and as a transman you can sure as fuck bet I clung to any vague potential of a person being coded as transmasc). Vriska does share a lot of trans experiences, especially pointed out in her Pesterquest route, and I think in general the idea that she’s being more canonically accepted as transfem is cool as fuck. 

What I do find objectionable, however, is Kate taking a scene where Vriska is clearly uncomfortable being near her abuse victim, thinks so lowly of him that the idea of being fused with him is outright despicable to her, and then says it’s actually about Vriska being trans. Not that it could ALSO be seen as evidence of Vriska being trans, but that it is the ONLY interpretation of that scene. The implications it hosts there, especially ABOUT transwomen, are not great. It inherently associates transwomen with abusive women and their discomfort of facing their victims. It also completely overwrites the fact that Vriska, as a person, still views Tavros as sub-human. It completely overwrites Tavros as an abuse victim and Vriska as his abuser.

While it can definitely be evidence towards Vriska being transfem, the idea that Kate is saying “actually, you CAN’T read it this way, it has to be done THIS way or you’re transmisogynistic” is just. Deeply sickening. It’s just her once again trying to overwrite the fact that Vriska has done some extremely shitty things with something completely unrelated because she refuses to acknowledge that Vriska can actually be a bad person. It’s that sort of rewriting of Homestuck that really rubs me the wrong way, not so much the concept that someone is reading Vriska as a transwoman. 

To be completely honest, I gave up trying to keep up with HS^2 a long time ago. I’ve sort of blanked anything Gamzee did because it made me deeply uncomfortable and just felt like a bald-faced mockery more than anything else. But hm!! I might need to go back over it again since you pointed out he’s used as an anti-black stereotype. I know there was an ask I got once about the inherent racism of HS^2 and its writers, but the person never got back to me with evidence - but that seems like a good fucking place to start.

Yeah I’m! I’m really still sort of reeling from the whole “this woman is a cis woman, actually, and it’s a CIA coverup” thing. I’ve got no idea who she’s talking about, which is partly why I didn’t go over it in depth, but. That’s a pretty bold conspiracy theory for her to be spouting. Also highkey deeply transphobic, which I’m still kind of fucking losing my mind over. She suffers from such deeply mired internalised transphobia it’s not even funny, and then turns around and claims everyone else, actually, has internalised transphobia. Like you can’t just. Devalue an entire person’s gender identity because you don’t agree with them. 

[a-lil-bi-furious]

Scisaac for the ship meme?

thank you for the ask!! Sorry it took a bit, but Scisaac is answered here. So we’ll go with your other request: Sciles 😊

I actually don’t ship them (most of the time). I’m not opposed to them, per se, but I can’t see myself shipping them within canon context as it stands?

1) Why don't you ship it?

It’s actually really weird that I don’t because I’m a huge sucker for the friends to lovers trope. I think mostly it’s that their dynamic has always felt purely familial to me. I can tell that there’s really deep love there, and I can absolutely see how that could be a foundation for a romantic relationship! I just prefer them platonically. I think it’s really important to have deep, meaningful platonic bonds between people presented as close as romantically involved pairs are and there aren’t many relationships like that that don’t eventually go the romantic route in some form. As a friends-to-lovers lover, I am often the one rooting for the dynamic to go that way (😅 my b), but Sciles is one of the few best friend pairs I’ve never felt super inclined to ship? In my mind, they’ve always been brothers (and not in the classic ‘i’m calling you brother to establish no homo’ way), so it’s difficult for me to separate from that to see them romantically? I am partial to queer-platonic relationships, though, and I love the idea of queer-platonic Sciles. They already function as life partners and it’s easy for me to envision them continuing through life that way. I could absolutely see them platonically raising a kid together, too, and we already know how it would go (see: their dynamics with Liam).

Brother vibes aside, I also sometimes have a difficult time with their relationship overall. Especially in earlier seasons, I really liked the Sciles dynamic and it felt like a mostly positive one! As the seasons went on and trauma compounded, it got to a really unhealthy place and I don’t think what we got on screen was sufficient for me to believe it recovered. But I feel like their relationship is unbalanced, mostly because of their respective personal issues and how dependent they are on one another. They saw each other through a lot of trauma, which is a good thing in the sense that they both had support, but also a bad thing in that I think some of their bonding through that makes it difficult to confront their issues and trauma with each other. Stiles can be manipulative and has some bad behaviors that don’t really get corrected by anyone. Everyone has toxic behaviors and that doesn’t make them hopeless or necessarily bad, but it does make relationships difficult when those behaviors manifest there. And I think they get directed as Scott quite a bit. The problem on Scott’s end is that he’s one of the people who won’t ever correct it. Scott doesn’t like that kind of conflict, doesn’t like hurting people he cares about, and quite frankly doesn’t like confronting his own feelings enough to care about himself. He buries his hurt and his anger and focuses so intently on everyone else that he gets lost, and eventually all of that is going to explode. And they have such a hard time communicating, damn it! After so much time with each other, I’d think maybe they’d be better able to?? (I know, I know, communication is complicated and hard). Idk, in some ways, their relationship doesn’t feel entirely healthy to me. But no relationship is perfect, and I absolutely think these issues are things they could work through if addressed. They just kind of trip me up as far as shipping goes, because it seems like those bad patterns would be amplified within the confines of a romantic relationship? This isn’t to say a romantic relationship is necessarily closer or different in dedication, but especially given what we see of their romantic relationships on the show, it just seems like that change would make a difference here.

2) What would have made you like it?

I think I would need one of two things: either some prior establishment of potential romantics or a slight change in their dynamic. As it stands, I just don’t feel a lot of tension (of the longing, pining nature) between them. But I don’t think it would take much to make that happen? It’s all about the way it’s presented for me. We’ve already got, canonically, Stiles hitting on Scott casually a few times. It always felt very platonically playful to me, but if there was some seriousness woven into those propositions, if you added in some more glances and lingering touches and prolonged eye contact, just little things here and there to put more of that tension in their dynamic, then I’d probably be all over it. It feels like the difference between “Do you wanna make out for a second? Just to see how it feels?” as casual, friendly, experimental “I’d make out with you if you asked, but it wouldn’t be a big deal” and testing the waters for genuine interest. (Of course, my interpretation of their interactions and relationship is going to differ, and lots of people might already feel like their relationship is like this! I’ve got a friend who felt that way while watching. I just didn’t get that energy from them, personally.)

I also think if the show spent more time on their relationship’s emotionally heavy moments I’d be more interested. It’s clear in the show that their relationship is intense and really important to the both of them. We also have some moments that are really emotionally heavy and intimate (like the scene in the hospital in 3B) or tumultuous (like in “Lies of Omission”), and I think they (mostly) did a great job with the scenes we got! But I just wish we have more of those, and specifically more communication between them in those scenes. I want more of just Scott and Stiles being together and talking (like what that trip through the desert could have been but kinda wasn’t) to continue to show that intimacy between them. I don’t know, I guess what I’m trying to say is that I would just need to see more of them and some little changes to their dynamic to ship them. And to address some of their issues and work on those. But it probably wouldn’t take too much, ya feel?

3) Despite not shipping it, do you have anything positive to say about it?

Absolutely, I do. I have some troubles with them, but y’all are totally valid in shipping them! I often teeter on the precipice of shipping them myself. I mean, you’ve got alllll the good stuff friends-to-lovers has to offer. You’ve got the meeting in the sandbox idea (which is adorable omg)! You’ve got the lifetime of knowing one another and growing up side by side! You’ve got them treating each others’ houses like their own! You’ve got them casually sharing clothes! You’ve got them watching each other go through crushes and start dating (and maybe experiencing a little jealousy once that starts)! You’ve got secret handshakes and nicknames! You’ve got that complete and total comfort between them where it’s clear they share their whole lives with each other! They’re inseparable and function so naturally in-sync as partners!

You’ve got a relationship with so much depth and complication and all the tangled up tension that comes with them hurting each other and growing apart in later seasons. And you’ve got them working through that (albeit mostly off screen *side-eyes jeff&co*) and getting back to being Scott and Stiles again. There’s just a whole lot of potential and a whole lot to love! And, hey, maybe with some time and thought or convincing, I’ll be shipping along with you. You never know. (Send me ships and I’ll ramble about why I do/don’t ship them!)