#it’s not really a direct example of the situation i presented in that post but i got this idea right when you sent the ask

[0vergrowngraveyard]

Saw your post about someone dying during the war ha ha hahaha ,,,,, tail .

post in question

no cause like what if

It had been a month since the war ended. A month since Infinite was defeated, since Eggman’s forces were destroyed, and since the process to rebuild the world began.

There were celebrations around the globe. Every citizen of Mobius cheered, voices crying out in pure joy as the empire that nearly gained full control of their planet crumbled out of the sky, pieces of the Death Egg crashing down into the ocean.

In between the parties, however, there were also those in mourning. Many had lost loved ones during the war. Whether they were murdered by the cruel hands of Eggman’s robot army or dying of illnesses and wounds they didn’t have enough supplies to treat, the list of casualties was long. Too long.

And Tails shouldn’t have been on that list.

Tails had been killed on the final day of the war. It was as if the empire had to give them one final punch in the gut. One last victory before it fell apart. And what better victory for Eggman was there? He’d finally gotten rid of the stubborn little fox kit who outsmarted him at nearly every turn.

The fox kit who was only nine years old.

It was hard for Amy and Knuckles— and all of their friends, really— to celebrate without him. They tried to find little ways to include Tails so he would at least be there in spirit. They toasted to him, told stories, and made a small grave for him outside of the Resistance building with plans of making a proper memorial when they got back on their feet.

But even with all that, it was such a noticeable absence that clawed at their hearts. His squeaky little giggle was missing from the choir of other laughs. Computer and machine related tasks were much more challenging without the genius fox kit there to guide them. His seemingly endless optimism and empathic nature weren’t there when things got stressful.

For someone so small, he had such a massive presence in all of their lives. And now that was just gone.

The only one who didn’t seem all that bothered by it was Sonic.

When they broke the news to him, he barely even reacted. He just stared at them with a blank expression, mind seemingly far away. All he said was, “Yeah, okay” and then he left. There was no anger, no sadness. There was only indifference.

It took Amy and Knuckles all of their willpower to not explode, to not scream at him for how he just seemed to shrug off his baby brother’s death so easily. They thought that since he’d just gotten rescued after six months of captivity and being subjected to who knows what, maybe his brain just couldn’t handle it at that moment. Maybe it was too much, maybe he just needed some space to process it.

But that didn't seem to be the case either as they found him only a few hours later just being himself. Joking around and helping where he could like nothing had happened. Like the most important person in his world wasn’t gone forever.

And frankly, it pissed the two of them off.

Where was the protective big brother? The guy who’d move mountains for that kid and flipped out whenever he got hurt. Where was Tails’s best friend? Why didn’t he care? Was Infinite to blame? Had he and Eggman somehow managed to wipe all of the love Sonic had for that little fox kit? They were cruel, but was that even possible?

They thought it wasn’t for the longest time, but maybe they were wrong.

It took a month after the war ended for them to confront him about it. It weighed on them too much to the point it was almost unbearable to be in the same room as the hedgehog.

It started, as most of Sonic’s confrontations over the years did, with a punch to the face.

“What the hell!?” The hedgehog cried out when Knuckles struck him, paw going to his cheek as he held the spot that would definitely bruise, “What’s your problem?!”

“I should be asking you that.” Knuckles responded, shaking out his fist. “I didn’t think you of all people would act as dishonorable as this.”

Sonic blinked at them, “Wha- dishonorable?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, hedgehog!” The echidna shouted, “Did the fox’s life mean so little to you that his death is simply pushed aside as though it were nothing?!”

All Sonic did was stare wordlessly.

“Knuckles, please.” Amy said, stepping in front of him so she could say her piece, “But, he’s right. I just- I don’t understand. Why are you…how can you be so carefree about this? He was your little brother, Sonic! Your best friend! You used to lose your mind whenever Eggman hurt him, but now he’s gone and it just doesn’t matter?”

Her fists clenched, “You gave a halfhearted toast, you didn’t share any stories about him, and you don’t even visit his grave! And I should know, I'm there…all the time.”

Amy’s eyes blurred with tears and she choked on the lump in her throat, “I’m still asking for his advice, still talking to him and complaining about inconsequential things. I sit with him for hours because I miss him. I miss him so much. But you…you just somehow act like nothings wrong. Why, Sonic? Why would you do that to him?”

Knuckles put a firm hand on her shoulder and she sent an appreciative smile. The echidna nodded before looking up at the hedgehog in front of them as Amy scrubbed her eyes, “Tails was part of our tribe. He was family to all of us, but especially to you. And yet you run around and act as though his passing is meaningless.” His frown deepened, “The Sonic I know would’ve made sure the doctor met the same fate as soon as he heard the news.”

Sonic continued to stare blankly at them, which only made Knuckles angrier.

“Do you have anything to say? Or are you just gonna stand there and stare?” No response. The echidna scoffed, “Fine. Come on, Amy. This was a waste of time.”

He gently steered her away from Sonic, Amy looking back at him before facing forward and wiping her tears away with several sniffles.

A snort made them stop in their tracks.

Knuckles’s muzzle curled into a snarl as he spun around and Amy just looked over her shoulder in disbelief.

Sonic was laughing, head thrown back and tears pricking his eyes. The fire in Knuckle’s eyes grew as he went to stomp over to him, but Amy stopped him and shook her head. His laughter didn’t sound joyful or mean spirited. It sounded empty.

Eventually, Sonic’s hands went to his hips and he just shook his head, “Wow, haven’t heard that one before! You almost got me there!”

Amy’s brow furrowed, “What are you talking about?”

“I will admit, you’re getting pretty good at this. But I guess practice does make perfect, amiright?” The hedgehog continued.

“Practice makes…” Knuckles mumbled before growling, “Answer Amy’s question! What are you talking about, hedgehog?”

“Oh please, like you don’t know.”

“We don’t, Sonic! Do you think we’re joking? Why on Mobius would we joke about something like this?”

He looked at the two of them with a half lidded stare, clearly annoyed at something. “What? You need me to spell it out? You’re not just gonna take me back?”

“Take you back where?” Amy asked.

Knuckles growled. “Would you just spit it out already!” he yelled, patience growing thin.

“I know this isn’t real.”

The silence that followed was heavy as Amy's shoulders sagged when she realized what he meant and Knuckles grimaced.

Oh.

They just stared at the hedgehog as he continued rambling on about the conclusion he’d drawn and was so sure about, “I will say, this has been going on for some time. I mean, a month! That may be a record breaker. Gotta hand it to ya, Infinite, you really went all out this time!”

“Oh, Sonic…” Amy clutched the hem of her dress, sadness in her voice, “Infinite…Infinites gone.”

Sonic just scoffed, “Yeah, sure. Like I haven’t heard that one before. Y’know, creativity really isn’t your strong suit, man. You can’t just put me in the same scenarios over and over again and expect me to not catch on sooner or later.”

He continued, “Look, the jigs up. Can you just stop it already?” His voice tapered off into something more somber.

Knuckles turned his gaze away while Amy took a step towards Sonic, stopping when he took a step back. His sharp blue quills were raised and he had an uneasy look in his eyes. It was as if he expected her to hurt him.

It made her heart hurt, “Sonic, I…this is real. The war is over. Infinite is gone.”

Sonic tsked, “Sure.”

“It is!”

“No it’s not!” Sonic snapped, “Because that would mean…” He trailed off, panic flashing in his eyes before he blinked hard and anger replaced it, “Would get this over with already. Make her attack me or something! Just do it! I wanna go back to my cell already.”

“Your cell?” Amy breathed out, “What did they do to you?”

“Like you don’t know.” Sonic growled, “Just cut the crap and get this over with!”

She couldn’t help it. Amy barreled into him, wrapping her arms around his neck and holding on as tightly as she could. He fought against her, trying to pry her off and get away from her. Just like he always did. But this time there was more fight in him. She could feel his panicked breaths, the desperation to get away in his movements, but she held on.

She held on until something clicked.

“You’re warm.” Sonic mumbled, barely audible. His squirming came to a stop.

“I am.” Amy replied, just as quietly, “We all are. We’re real, I promise. The war is over. We won. You’re safe.”

Knuckles huffed out a sigh and walked over to the two hedgehogs, hesitating for a brief moment before wrapping his arms around both of them. Doing what he could to be there for his friends, his tribe.

He could’ve sworn he felt the ghost of someone so much smaller than him wrap his arms around them as well.

It’s okay, you did your best

”I know you don’t believe us, and you probably won’t for a long time especially since…” Amy didn’t have the heart to say it out loud. She felt his breathing pick up again, his heart beating frantically. Tears pricked her eyes.

Suddenly, Sonic pushed away from them, a panicked expression on his face. “N-no. No, this isn’t real! You’re fucking with me! Your stupid ruby got an upgrade or something! I don’t fucking know what you did but this isn’t real! Tails isn’t—!”

He choked as reality seemed to crash down around him. Tears slipped down his cheeks and he failed to get a full breath of air, “Tails isn’t…”

“I’m so sorry, Sonic.” Amy simply said. It was all she could say.

What could only be described as pure despair washed over his features. Sonic took several wobbly steps backwards before turning to run away. Far away. As far as he could go. He needed to get out of this cramped hallway, away from these things. They weren’t real, they weren’t his friends. They were nothing but cruel illusions made to torment him. Made to make him suffer. That’s all this was.

He tripped over his own feet, face planting on the hard ground. An almost animalistic sound tore out of his throat as he heard the memory of a squeaky little giggle making fun of his big bro’s clumsiness. Sonic scrambled to get up, but he couldn’t. He slipped over and over again until he just gave up and curled up right there on the floor.

Amy and Knuckles sat besides him, doing their best to be there for the hero as this tidal wave crashed into him and kept him under. The pressure pushed down on him, pulling him further and further under the waves.

It wasn’t real. None of this was real.

It couldn’t be.

[not-a-space-alien]

I've seen a lot of "You have to communicate directly/don't expect other people to read your mind" posts going around tumblr lately and while I really do appreciate them because it's a skill a LOT of people need to work on, I do want to remind everyone to please meet people halfway sometimes.

I recently read a story on Reddit about a guy's pregnant wife texting him "I'm craving donuts but we don't have any in the house 😔" and he DIDN'T stop to pick up donuts on the way home from work. Everyone was taking his side because "she needs to communicate" and "he's not a mind reader" and "How was he supposed to know she wanted him to get donuts???" People, ffs, why on earth would she text him that while he was at work if not because she wanted him to get donuts? I was flabbergasted everyone was taking his side. "How was he supposed to know??" What? Like yeah it's true she didn't say "I want you to get me donuts" with those exact words in that exact order but the reason why people get upset if they hint they want you to do something and you don't do it is because they feel like you don't care about them and aren't actively thinking about their feelings. Especially in a marriage or LTR they are in a situation where the assumption is you care about filling the other person's needs.

Someone who loves and cares about someone will get the donuts "without being asked" just because their partner expresses a want or need. That's what someone is fishing for when they say "Aaaah I'm craving donuts 🥺🥺🥺" It's less about the donuts and more about feeling cared for. Sometimes straight up asking "Can you get me donuts?" defeats the purpose.

Also, women are typically socialized to communicate this way because they're punished socially for being too direct. I've heard that people of color, especially black people, often do this too because they're likely to be branded as "aggressive" if they're too direct with white people. So it might be a good idea to be a bit intersectional if we're trying to encourage people to be more direct.

Take the stereotypical example of a wife gets a new haircut and then gets upset that the husband doesn't notice. She's not literally mad at him for not saying the exact words "I like your new haircut." She's upset because she feels like he doesn't look at her and appreciate the efforts she's putting in anymore.

Obviously this will vary widely depending on the nature of your relationship with someone, but especially when it comes to intimate partnerships, there are certain things your significant other should not have to tell you directly. It's probably safe to assume your wife or husband wants a birthday present even if they don't ask for it. It's probably safe to assume your bf or gf would appreciate a valentine's day present or a compliment without them having to literally ask for it, unless they explicitly say otherwise.

This is difficult for a lot of neurodivergent people to learn manually if it's not instinctual and they didn't learn it growing up (lord knows I didn't) and yes, it's true that most people (especially NT people) should learn to communicate more directly. But also, your relationships would probably benefit from learning to read indirect cues and just pick up the donuts on the way home because you heard your wife is craving them. Sometimes what someone wants is for you to think about what they're feeling and what they want and do it without them asking directly. It's up to you whether or not you do that, but sometimes that is asking. I think this is what people generally mean when they say their partner is "thoughtful."

[12daysofchristmas]

Join us in the 2024 12 Days of Christmas Challenge as we hope to spread a little ✨holiday joy and cheer✨ through the magic of writing fanfiction & creating art!

About & Rules

The challenge will run from December 13-24, 2024.

The challenge is open to any and all fandoms.

Submissions must include at least one of the prompts for that day but can combine two, three, or all four.

Prompts for the day always include: a word/words, a scenario, a quote, a "famous" quote (taken from songs and movies)

Tag your submissions with #12daysofchristmas2024 and/or mention this blog so that we will be notified to reblog your submissions here. (Also, it would be super cool if you gave this blog a follow!)

Submissions for the day must be posted before midnight YOUR time. We're not super hard-and-fast about this rule, but posting within time is very much appreciated! 

If you’re posting your submission directly on Tumblr (as opposed to linking to an external site such as AO3), you MUST use a “keep reading” cut!

Edit: We're now also allowing ALL KINDS OF ART: drawings, edits, aesthetics, mood boards, videos, podfics, fiber arts... go wild!

!! Absolutely NO AI creations !!

Please format ALL submissions with the following heading:

Title Day/Prompt(s) Fandom/Character(s)/Ship Warnings (if applicable): Word Count/Medium (in case it's art):  Example: Santa, Baby Day 8 - “Prompt(s) for that day” AEW - Adam Page x OC Warnings: Alcohol, cursing, sexual situations (explicit) Word Count: 7,290 or: Medium: fan video

You can also include a summary, gif, edit, whatever you want! Just don’t forget the “keep reading” if you’re posting directly on Tumblr!

If you're posting on AO3, here's our collection: 12 Days of Christmas Collection

2024 Prompts

Day 1 ❄️ First snow ❄️ Getting soaked ❄️ “Your hands are so cold.” ❄️ “I suppose it all started with the snow.” —Frosty the Snowman

Day 2 ❄️ Little lie ❄️ Trapped together in a snowstorm ❄️ “I thought you knew where you were going?!” ❄️ “I don’t know what to say, but it’s Christmas, and we’re all in misery.” —National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation

Day 3 ❄️ Accelerated heartbeat ❄️ Kissing in the snow ❄️ “Here, take my coat.” ❄️ “Let's hope the snow will make this Christmas right.” —Queen

Day 4 ❄️ Mulled wine ❄️ Playing board games ❄️ “I have no regrets.” ❄️ “Cheer up, dude. It's Christmas.” —How the Grinch Stole Christmas, 2000

Day 5 ❄️ Cookies ❄️ Holiday-themed contest ❄️ “That definitely looks… interesting?” ❄️ “That is exactly why you want a high-quality fire extinguisher right in the kitchen.” —The Santa Clause

Day 6 ❄️ Present ❄️ Making a new Christmas tradition ❄️ “Not another Christmas movie!” ❄️ “You say you hate Washington’s birthday or Thanksgiving, and nobody cares, but you say you hate Christmas, and people treat you like you’re a leper.” —Gremlins

Day 7 ❄️ Decorations ❄️ A little accident ❄️ “I was just trying to help!” ❄️ “I want my house to be seen from space.” —Deck The Halls

Day 8 ❄️ Touch starved ❄️ Telling secrets around the fire ❄️ “Sometimes the hardest part is forgiving yourself.” ❄️ “Santa, can't you hear me?” —Ariana Grande & Kelly Clarkson

Day 9 ❄️ Christmas fair/market ❄️ Late shopping (together) ❄️ “Hmm, this is actually not bad.” ❄️ “When you're still waiting for the snow to fall, doesn't really feel like Christmas at all.” —Coldplay

Day 10 ❄️ Surprise visit ❄️ Lighting scented candles ❄️ “I didn’t know you were here.” ❄️ “You’re skipping Christmas! Isn’t that against the law?” —Christmas with the Kranks

Day 11 ❄️ Fairy lights ❄️ Christmas party/ball ❄️ “I never want this night to end.” ❄️ “I won’t even wish for snow. And I’m just gonna keep on waiting, underneath the mistletoe.” —Mariah Carey

Day 12 ❄️ Feast ❄️ Indoor picnic by the tree/fireplace ❄️ “I baked your favourite cookie/pie/cake.” ❄️ “You are all I need tonight underneath the Christmas lights.” —Sia

Extra Challenge

Angst or fluff, romance or platonic - you're unsure in what direction your fic should go? Spin our

Wheel

and let it decide for you! You can spin it once and write all fics with what comes up, you can spin it daily and change course accordingly, you can spin it as often as you need or not at all - it's all up to you.

Please don’t hesitate to contact us with any questions! Also, feel free to share this post and help spread the joy and cheer!

Happy writing, and good luck 🍀

[maintitle]

I want to talk a little bit about the Morrigan/Mythal situation, because I've seen a lot of people talk about how Morrigan chose Mythal and chose that power and therefore this is her life and her ultimate evolution and generally just dismissing what happens to her after Mythal rejoins her as a natural evolution of the character, girlboss, ect. I don't want to be dismissive of that take because it can be one that is easily taken without reflection, but I do think it terribly misunderstands the nature of Flemeth and Morrigan's relationship and the methods by which she was very carefully raised.

So let's talk about Morrigan, how she was groomed and abused, and the training she took great pride in that was ultimately weaponized against her by design. Let's also talk about the great pains the game goes through in order to sidestep these issues, and by doing so leaving a much better story on the cutting room floor in order to make a very tepid story of parental forgiveness that misses the depth of their relationship entirely.

I'd like to say at the jump that the fusion of Morrigan and Mythal isn't a story I'm resistant too. I assumed this was the direction they would go and I truly think there was some fascinating storytelling to be had that expanded upon the themes already present in both. But I also think the Veilguard writers either misunderstand the exact nature of how Morrigan was raised, or needed to ignore it in order for Morrigan to serve as a vessel for Mythal in order to serve Solas' story (an issue I have with her use in this game in general, but that's for another post.)

The most revealing conversation that I think Morrigan has in regards to Flemeth is actually one that occurs very early in Origins. I think it's juxtaposition with other scenes is important;

Morrigan: "My Mother has been hunted from time to time, yes. My Templar fools like Alistair, which should tell you how successful they generally were. Flemeth made a bit of a game of it, in fact. The Templars would come again and she would look at me and smile and say that the fun was to begin once more."

Warden: "You really had no trouble with them?

Morrigan: "I am unsure. I was too young to understand, and perhaps 'twas bravado on Flemeth's part. Or perhaps she was merely amused. I will never know. Flemeth would warn them, once. 'Twas a warning they inevitably failed to heed." Morrigan: "And then the true game began. Often Flemeth would use me as bait." She giggles in amusement. "A little girl to scream, and run, and lure the templars deeper into the wilds and to their doom."

Warden: "Flemeth used you as bait?"

Morrigan: "'Twas a game, and I a young girl. If I didn't get to play, I would have been very upset."

This is a really important example, not just of how callously Morrigan was trained to kill when she was challenged at such a young age, but also because it exemplifies how Flemeth taught her. There's an assumption that Flemeth simply yelled and screamed at Morrigan her entire childhood, and that was true in places, but Flemeth was very crafty in how she presented the lessons that she felt were necessary for Morrigan to have.

A bit further into the conversation;

Warden: "Do you still think it was fun?" Morrigan: "I think that my Mother made it fun so that a child did not learn to fear. And I think it was necessary."

Interestingly, if you don't agree with this assessment, Morrigan ends the conversation very suddenly.

The point of highlighting both of these conversations isn't necessarily to outline the casual and cruel abuse, but instead to show how sinister Flemeth's teaching methods were. She treated a child with kindness and the warmness of a friend or Mother when it suited the needs of Morrigan's lessons, but when she broke out and did something that would endanger those teachings, she violently lashed out, as is evident with the mirror scene.

These juxtapositions are important when you look at who Morrigan becomes as an adult, and why she's sent away during the Blight at all. As we know, it was Flemeth's plan all along for Morrigan to offer the ritual before the battle with the Archdemon, but Morrigan posits that it's now her making those decisions and not her Mother. This is highlighted by the line;

Morrigan: "Some things are worth preserving in this world. Make of that what you will."

If we jump ahead a bit to Inquisition, this thought process is expanded on a lot more, in a lot more detail, highlighting the philosophy in Mythal's temple;

Morrigan: "There is... a danger to the natural order. Legends walked Thedas once, things of might and wonder. Their passing has left us all the lesser. Corypheus would squander the ancient power of the well. I would have it restored"

Inquisitor: "I wasn't expecting your answer to be so... romantic."

Morrigan: "Trust me. Your surprise is matched only by my own." Sigh. "Mankind blunders through the world, crushing what it does not understand: Elves, dragons, magic... the list is endless. We must stem the tide or be left with nothing more than the mundane. This I know to be true."

On a surface level, this can be seen as an evolution of who she was in Origins and what she believed then. I can see how that mistake might be made, and I can see how that thought process can lead to accidentally mistaking Veilguard's reply to it as being that same evolution. But if we look at the Dark Ritual, we see this is an opinion based within the philosphy she was always taught by Flemeth.

In order to expand on that, we can actually look to the comics, in the little-explored character of Yavana, sister of Morrigan.

I want to stress first we don't TRULY know much about Yavana. History implies she's a figure out of Antivan legend going back multiple ages, but it's sort of impossible to know if that's true or if it's even her and not a previous Witch Of The Wilds, or even a previous host of Mythal. I hesitate, therefor, to truly assume what her relationship with her Mother was like, however I will very carefully put forward that, based on what little dialogue we have of her, she may be a 'failed' daughter of Flemeth that Mythal deemed unworthy, as she knows about Mythal inhabiting her daughters, see's it as Flemeth does, and seems somewhere between disapointed and jealous in the fact that Morrigan seems to misunderstand that. (I'm not really here to run back the whole Origins possession versus Inquisition's and now Veilguard's 'a soul is not hefted on the unwilling, because frankly it doesn't really weigh in on the point being made here as much as you'd suspect, as you'll see.) But this assumption is questionable, and might be both wrong and not relevant to the issue, if perhaps fairly telling.

What we DO know about her for certain is that she was raised by Flemeth, and at some point moved to Antiva in order to nurture and preserve the return of Dragons to Thedas. Her actual wording of this point, I think, is so telling of FleMythal as a character that I almost wish it wasn't hidden away in the comics;

This is, nearly verbatim, the same message Morrigan gives both in short in Origins before the Dark Ritual, and in much more detail in the Temple Of Mythal in Inquisition. I also find Alistair's response to this INCREDIBLY telling, as one of Alistair's great talents is seeing through people;

While I think the phrasing is very purposefully dismissive and flippant, I don't think the sentiment is totally off base. It actually leads me into the entire thesis of this post, and an aspect of this relationship that some fans and even writers seem to blatantly miss;

The preservation of the old magic is not Morrigan's dream. The preservation of magic is what Morrigan was raised to value most in the world by her abuser.

To illustrate this, let's look at Morrigan's arc in Inquisition, and what it's actually saying about her and Flemythal; The cycle of abuse.

Mythal's Temple is a story about Morrigan and the folly of pride, certainly, but it's also a character arc of a woman who was very carefully raised to HAVE that pride. This isn't an assumption I have made based on evidence, Flemeth outright says it in DA2;

Hawke: "Is (Morrigan) someone I should know?" Flemeth: "She's a girl who thinks she knows what is what better than I, or anyone." Chuckle. "And why not? I raised her to be as she is. I cannot expect her to be less!"

This is, to be, the smoking gun of Flemeth's entire method of teaching and parenting. She is incredibly adept at training flaws into her daughters, pride being the greatest of them. More than that, she's very talented at imparting just enough knowledge that they think they know everything, while also holding back vast amounts of it in order to stay in control.

The Temple Of Mythal is one of the crowning achievements of that. While you can't exactly expect Mythal to have known that's where Morrigan would end up (although Morrigan certainly questions if she knew it would happen), it really hardly matters if she knew or not. Morrigan was raised from birth in order to make the exact decision she made at the Temple. The preservation of what might be lost is such a core part of her being that she can't escape it... and more than that, she can't fathom it being a negative trait. To her, it's a holy calling.

I'm going to pull out the most direct conversation of abuse Morrigan documents now, not to pile on more evidence, but instead because I think it's a more effective conversation to use as juxtaposition of why she thinks that than I could make myself;

Leliana: They say your mother is Flemeth, a witch of the Korcari Wilds. Morrigan: They also say that washing your feet in winter makes you catch cold in the head, but we all know that is not true. But sometimes they are right and they are right in this. Leliana: You know the stories about-- Morrigan: Of course. You think my mother would let me go without telling me all the stories of her youth? Leliana: My mother told me stories too. She was the one who kindled my love of the old tales and legends. Morrigan: Hmph. my mother's stories curdled my blood and haunted my dreams. No little girl wants to hear about the Wilder men her mother took to her bed, using them till they were spent, then killing them. No little girl wants to be told that this is also expected of her, once she comes of age. Leliana: I... uh... I see. Morrigan: No, you don't. You really don't.

This is the environment Morrigan grew up in. She was exposed to Flemeth taking advantage of men, she was exposed to gruesome murder both as a game and in casual moments. Any attempt she made to take self-possession or grow as a person was aggressively curtailed and broken. This was a girl so afraid of her home life that, for many years, she spent as much time as she could living amongst the animals of the forest, and escaping her home life.

Now, imagine; This same abusive woman gives you positive reinforcement. You're a child, and you crave that attention like any child would of their Mother, and you know that reinforcement comes when you're an attentive and talented student. The closest you ever are with your Mother is when you're taking in everything she has to teach you, so it becomes the center of your life. Soon, it's not just a method by which to be close to your Mother, but a core tenant in your life. They stay with you as a fascination, as something you take pride in, as a holy crusade even as you escape your abuser and move on into a happier version of your life where you've grown and matured, where you've seemingly broken the cycle.

Now, imagine the discovery that those few, core, good memories you have were horribly tainted. The lessons you were taught were cyclical, a method by which to control you and gather that which she needs. Your life goal, your career, your passion was entirely made in order to benefit the abuser you've run from your entire life. Imagine who devastating that would be.

That's what happened at the Temple Of Mythal. That was the pride that Flemeth trained into Morrigan, the path by which she wanted her to evolve. She seized that opportunity, and that opportunity either tied her to her abuser forever, and/or told her abuser where she and her son was after years of protecting him from her.

Everything you know, everything you are, everything you've protected... is based on a lie.

Morrigan's character arc in Inquisition is her breaking that cycle. 'What Pride Had Wrought' is in reference at least partially to Morrigan's personal journey, where that pride, that passion, is something she recklessly seizes on because to her it is good and right and just and hers by nature, and it is that pride that was so ingrained into her by her abuser that she watches tear her son away from her and into the hands of said abuser.

In that moment, when she's faced by everything that her pride could lose her, she is forced to reckon with everything she has ever believed, and in the face of her greatest fear... she chooses to break the cycle of abuse. She chooses to assure that her son is safe.

The most obvious quote to be in this write-up;

Flemythal: "As you wish. Hear my proposal, dear girl. Let me take the lad, and you are free of me forever. I will never interfere with or harm you again. Or, keep the lad with you... and you will never be safe from me. I will have my due." Morrigan: "He returns with me." Flemythal: "Decided so quickly?" Morrigan: "Do whatever you wish. Take over my body now, if you must, but Kieran will be free of your clutches. I am many things, but I will not be the Mother you were to me."

This is obviously Morrigan's most famous line, but I actually am not sure if folks understand the truth depth of it; This is not only breaking the cycle of abuse and freeing her son of it, but she's also going against every natural instinct that was bred into her. This woman, the girl that was raised to lure men to their deaths for fun, who's most crucial life lesson was to do anything in order to survive... accepts she will never be safe again. She accepts the possibility of constant danger just to keep her son safe a day longer, a sacrifice her Mother would have never made for her.

This was a possible full culmination of her story. And Veilguard... sort of ignores the meaning of it by giving undo attention to Flemeth's head tilt.

I want to take a moment to preface this next section by saying that I was in no way resistant to the idea of Morrigan being possessed by Mythal in Veilguard. I in fact expected it and was excited by the possibility. There was a really brilliant way to handle the situation even within the parameters of how the game handled it, but the developers chose instead to dismiss this situation in a few lines so that they could instead focus on Mythal, and her relationship with Solas.

I don't want to outright insult the writers here. Veilguard was a game I greatly enjoyed. But I do want to say this because I find it deeply regressive, and I also find the decisions that were made were a symptom of this issue; Morrigan is not in Veilguard for her own character. Morrigan is in Veilguard because she is a convenient vessel through which to explore a character that has much more importance to the main antagonist. This is already slightly regressive because it's two characters largely only serving the plot of one male character, but I find it most troubling because the character they use her for is her own abuser, and by paying as little attention to that as possible while also barely using Morrigan herself as a character, it creates a very tepid story of parental forgiveness that... doesn't work as presented.

From her scene in the Crossroads after finding all of Solas' regrets;

Morrigan: "When I learned she intended me to become the next receptacle of an ancient god's soul, I feared naught would be left of my own. It inevitably came to pass on a deep night: I was awakened by the presence of a blaze of magic in the shape of a woman who both was, and was not, my Mother."

Rook: "I don't think I'd recover from that."

Morrigan: "Neither did I, at the start. Mythal's memories were both gift and burden, this blazing woman told me, but I must accept them of my own accord. The decision was paralyzing. What would it mean to become such a host? What would be lost if I refused? In the end, 'twas something in my Mother's voice which guided me."

Rook: "What was that?"

Morrigan: "Regret. Not the regret of a God, but of a Mother who knew she would never see me again. And so my mind remains my own. What I gained was knowledge... both Mythal's, and of those who bore her."

I think you can see where the problem lies, but let me reiterate:

Morrigan was a child of abuse. That abuse was calculated, both in how she treated her aggressively and how she gave her affection. Her methods of teaching, of raising a child, were there entirely to teach that child to continue on the legacy of Mythal. The preservation of magic was imbued very carefully into Morrigan and Yavana both in order to gather and save aspects of the ancient elves, and in order to prepare them to carry Mythal's soul. Pride was a weakness trained into them from childhood, and their lofty goal of protecting ancient magic was a weapon to be wielded in order to control them. This was a cycle Morrigan first discovered in Inquisition and began to fight against, because she wanted to break the cycle of abuse for the sake of her son.

In this game, Morrigan took on the memories of Flemythal... in order to preserve ancient magic that must be protected so that it is not lost. An instinct given to her by her Mother... in order to be used as a weapon... so that one day she would take on the soul of Mythal.

I want to be clear, I am not opposed to this storyline. I'm not going to yell 'That's problematic, you can't write that!' or 'That's a regression of her character!' because I think it's a fascinating direction to take both their characters.

The problem to me isn't that they went down this pretty natural path, the problem is they did it by... sidestepping any negative parts of how this would affect Morrigan. They sidestepped the fact that the reason she accepted her was largely because of something that Flemythal trained into her and weaponized against her, and the writing treats it as... a difficult moment that eventually brought her peace.

I think this is most exemplified in the aspect of Mythal's soul that remains in the Crossroads. As a concept some are saying it's arbitrary considering how Flemythal saved herself inside of an amulet in Origins/DA2, but I think that's lacks context. It's clear Mythal couldn't prepare this time, because she didn't expect Solas to murder her. Her soul, while saving itself, fractured into pieces. I'm definitely willing to defend that choice.

The problem, I think, is more that the fracturing is seemingly mostly used as a way to sidestep how Mythal's soul fully joining Morrigan would change this scenario. Morrigan's ultimate fear was becoming one with the soul of Mythal, so in order to avoid that they've attempted to only give Morrigan the memories of Flemythal while also seemingly leaving her unchanged as a character.

My issue with this thought process, first and foremost, is that it prevents them from exploring a much better story that has the chance of presenting a much better payoff as a story of an abused child coming to terms with her Mother. It removes the chance of Morrigan's possession being a major character arc, one that would further what she went through in Inquisition while also offering Flemythal a pathway toward an understanding with her daughter so that that ending could still be explored, in order to get to where they want to truly get to as fast as possible, which is using Morrigan as an agent for Mythal's forgiveness in order to fulfill Solas' character arc.

Imagine a more fleshed out version of this story, one where Morrigan had more of a presence within it. Over time, as you discover more about Mythal out through those flashbacks, you begin to realize something is... off about Morrigan. Her unique way of talking has slowly changed, her more sarcastic and poetic tone drips away in favor of Flemythal's more loose, jovial, sometimes playful but always pointed and aggressive tone. The player is prepared to pick up on that, but Rook isn't. Things eventually come to a head where Mythal has to reveal herself, likely as an aggressor similar to how she's handled in the Crossroads, and Morrigan is actually allowed to exist within this presentation. She sneaks through occasionally. The magic of the crossroads allows her moments of clear headedness. She reflects that she accepted her Mother's soul out of that fear, and that it's begun to change her, that she's scared of what she's losing, and even more frightened of how she's coming to understand her Mother. Conflict occurs and if you've reached Morrigan, she fights against Mythal's influence and regains control enough to fracture them just enough to have to come head-to-head, where you can guide them through decades of conflict to a mutual understanding or forgiveness through this bond they have, help Morrigan fully overcome Mythal, or help Mythal dominate Morrigan. Ideally, you'd have the ability to either remove Mythal's essence from Morrigan forcefully with an 'I reject you!' scene, or you can have your moment of forgiveness where the Flemeth side of Mythal removes herself from Morrigan, perhaps into the idol you use for Solas at the end.

But that's not what they did. What they chose to do, I think, is to sidestep a difficult issue, a problem this game does tend to have. I'm not entirely sure if they didn't quite grasp Morrigan's relationship with her Mother, or felt they were forced to gloss over it either because of the world state issue or their need to use Mythal, but the decision they came to is not an acceptable payoff to that story.

The truth of the matter is, this version of the stories' either inability to explore this issue in full or it's misunderstanding of it greatly hurts the characterization and misses a massive chance at more impactful storytelling. And that, to me, is the most damning creative decision of the entire game.

[vidavalor]

How sure are you that they won't turn human? I'm really worried.

Hi there! 💕 I could always be wrong but I'm *Aziraphale voice* quite sure! that they will not become mortal. I'll show you why & you can see if you agree. 😊 *shares nachos*

This is a spoiler-free post when it comes to Good Omens but be forewarned that I'm going to spoil part of the ending of The Good Place as part of an example in here.

I can see why you might worry because turning immortal characters mortal can be a common storytelling technique. I think that if we look at it from a storytelling perspective, though, you'll see why Good Omens is different and likely won't be going in that direction.

What separates an immortal character from a human one is that an immortal character is immune to one of the paradoxes of human living, which is how death informs living. Our finite amount of time on Earth and eventual death is what drives us to make the choices we do while we're alive.

The most common human experience is that, not only will we eventually die, none of us know for sure what, if anything, comes after that. We have all sorts of belief systems and spiritual ideas about what, if anything, might happen after we die, but they're all speculative. None of us truly know the truth. If we did, it could be argued, we'd lose a lot of our motivation to do much living here on Earth.

It is death which gives us a sense of limited time on Earth and it's that sense of limited time on Earth that drives the experience of being human. Having a concept of mortality is essential to knowing what it is to live as a human. So, on the surface, immortal characters fly in the face of this by design.

When you have immortal characters in a story-- angels, demons, vampires, whatever-- you have characters who, by definition, are capable of living forever. What separates them from humans is their lack of a ticking clock.

Characters who are immortal are really there to discuss the human experience, though...

You don't make a character who lives outside the realm of mortal living unless you're trying to talk about what human life is like by showing what of human life those immortal characters are struggling to experience.

In The Good Place, there's the demon, Michael, whose very excellent ending is that they find a way to make him human. This is basically a textbook example of a story doing what you're worried Good Omens might do but which I'll show you that I don't think they will. In The Good Place story, though, it makes sense and is a perfect ending, where it would not be in Good Omens. There are some key reasons why these stories are different.

In The Good Place, Michael is played by Ted Danson, who is in his 70s, so the idea is that Michael will only get to experience, at best, a couple of decades on Earth as a human before he dies. As is pointed out to him when this option is presented to him, anything can happen to the afterlife system in the years while he's down there on Earth so he has no guarantee what the afterlife situation will be when he dies and goes through it like any other human. What choice does our immortal demon Michael make?

He jumps at the opportunity to become human because, as he explains, there's "nothing more human" than living on Earth and not knowing what comes next. This is all he's ever wanted but it is all he's ever wanted for one reason alone:

because he's never had the opportunity to live on Earth.

This is a perfect ending for this character because he's immortal for the duration of the series with a fondness for human life but he's only ever observed bits of it. He's made some human friends in their afterlife but he's never experienced Earth and human living for himself.

He's lived in Hell for his whole existence and all he knows about humanity is what he's learned from observing humans on Earth from a distance. In the process, though, he's become obsessed with them. He tries to teach himself to play the guitar and, just like Aziraphale, he has a fondness for human magic tricks, even though he's a miraculous being who can perform "real magic."

Michael has never actually gotten to live life on Earth, though. The audience winds up wanting that for him and so sees him finally getting that opportunity as a happy ending. Taking away Michael's immortality and letting him experience life as a human is an ending that leaves most in tears in a good way when it happens. We're happy because we want the character to be happy and we know that this makes him happy.

This type of ending only works as a good ending, though, if it's what the characters want.

The audience will only get behind it if the immortal characters in the story have never had much of a chance to be human, really want that chance, and the ending would give them that opportunity.

If the immortal characters are already having human experiences, though, and would suffer as a result of losing their immortality-- would only have a limited time together, say-- then this is actually a tragic ending.

The only reason why immortal characters in a story would ever have an ending where they were no longer immortal is if those immortal characters were like Michael-- if they'd never gotten to experience human living and wanted to.

That is just not the case with Crowley and Aziraphale in Good Omens.

There's none of us watching Good Omens going wow, if only Crowley and Aziraphale could become mortal in their circa 50-something year old bodies and watch each other slowly die of old age! That surely would be the best ending to this romantic comedy! 😂

Whether you think they're already together or not, that ending would be absolute shit lol. Why? Because the one thing that's clear to all of us is that, whatever Crowley and Aziraphale are, they haven't yet gotten the chance to really be openly together without fear.

For the story to give them 6,000+ years of stress on Earth only to then give them a few decades of watching each other die in the South Downs Cottage would not be a happy ending to a show called Good Omens. It would turn this romance into a tragedy, which it's just not. It is, fundamentally, a romantic fantasy comedy.

What the audience really wants is for all of the millenniums of their story that we've just watched to become the prologue to their story.

We want the story to end with them having a new beginning together and, honestly? That's been baked in from the start. It starts, as The Voice of God promised us, as it shall end. The ending has always been going to also be a new beginning. There's no real, conceivable way where them losing their mortality in the ending could be construed as the start of something. It's just depressing.

Why do we feel this way? Because we intuitively know that Crowley and Aziraphale's story is different from ones like The Good Place's Michael because, unlike him, Crowley and Aziraphale do not need to become mortal to experience human living.

Crowley and Aziraphale might, technically, be immortal but, throughout the story we've watched, they've already been given the ticking clock of human living. They've been dealing with it together for the entirety of the history of Earth.

From both of the starts of their story-- both Before the Beginning and Eden-- the knowledge is present in both of them (and in the audience) that this life that they're making together on Earth isn't meant to last forever.

An approximate lifespan was known to the two of them from the start: about 6,000 years. Yes, this sounds like a ridiculously long amount of time to us but, to two immortal beings, it's far less than the blink of an eye.

And they've known all along that it's very possible that this is all the time they'll ever have together and, depending upon how Armageddon goes, that one or both of them might not live any longer than that. Their immortality has never actually been a sure thing.

This limited amount of time is also a source of conflict and tension, especially as the story progresses and the sand in the hourglass starts to diminish as 6,000 years gets closer and closer.

It's basically the whole root of the 1967 scene, where the central question is whether or not to go for broke and risk getting caught so they can live a more open life or whether to play it safe and maybe hope they can find a way to living together for longer or, maybe even, somehow, forever.

What this does in the story is split the difference between Crowley and Aziraphale being immortal and them living like the humans whose corporations they share.

Even as they're immortal, Crowley and Aziraphale are also human because they have a concept of living a limited lifespan on Earth, the same way that humans do.

It might be way longer than our human lifespans but it's functionally the same, too short thing. They've both found themselves on Earth and been told the longest they can live there is somewhere around 6,000 years, if they're lucky, and they both know that this amount of time might be all the time they have with one another.

There's basically nothing more human than this.

Because of this sense of limited time, Crowley and Aziraphale don't know what is going to happen to them. They might be immortal but they don't actually know for sure if one or both of them is going to really live for all of eternity.

All along, they have a sense of a lifespan-- they know it's about 6,000 years but they do not know exactly when Armageddon is going to start, nor do they know if they both will survive it. It's just like how we might know that, if we're lucky, we'll probably live a certain number of years, but we don't know for sure that we will.

It leaves Crowley and Aziraphale wondering the whole time-- is it 6,000 years from the creation of Earth when Armageddon begins? Is it in Year 5697? Or Year 6102? They would have had no idea. After S1, they were even less sure in S2. When would Armageddon: Round Two kick off? They had no idea and it was weighing on them.

Knowing approximately how long you've got to live, if you're lucky, but not exactly how long, and never knowing when your number is up? Making a life together on Earth with people you care about and not knowing how much time you have together?

That's human living.

For humans who form close relationships, especially a romantic partnership, the question always exists out there as to how it ends. Does one of you die first? Is one of you going to be left alone for a bit? How long will you have together? How does your story end?

It's been the same for Crowley and Aziraphale this whole time, too.

There's also that many humans live to or well-past their average human lifespan... but many do not. Death is unpredictable, which makes life unpredictable.

You can make a life together on Earth with someone and think you have decades still left together but then they could get hit by a truck one night and never make it home. They could be there one minute and not the next. You never know what happens when one of you goes out the door. Humans live with this death-related fear of the unknown daily.

Crowley and Aziraphale? They experience this very human thing, too.

Their relationship is dangerous, especially in their supernatural world. If they were ever discovered, they know that Heaven and Hell would kill them. Every time one of them slipped out a door before dawn for the last however many thousands of years, they've never been completely sure that they'll see one another again.

Aziraphale once even lost Crowley right in front of him, back in 1827, on a night that we're shown in S2 that still affects Aziraphale into the present of the story.

So, even as they're immortal beings who have often been contemplating the possibility of an eventual, terrible-sounding, eternal existence without one another looming on the horizon after Armageddon...

...they've also been living with the same sense of possible death and a ticking clock that the humans with whom they live have been all this time, too.

Giving Crowley and Aziraphale a human concept of time in the story was conscious, deliberate design. Without it, the story could not really explore human living through them in the same way because they would only have their immortality and lack that connection to humans.

Crowley and Aziraphale are not The Good Place's demon Michael. They've not been held back from human living. They live so much like humans that they appear to even occasionally forget at times that they're magical. They drove to the end of the world in S1. Crowley got stuck in traffic. 😂

This is all because, in this story, the point of Crowley and Aziraphale's immortality is to take beings who are capable of understanding what it is to be human-- people who have human corporations and who are, by design of the story, people every bit as much as the humans, and living on Earth like them-- and using them to talk about what it is to be a human being.

When you have characters who have been taught that they are different from people and that they should be above them but then are shown through their experiences to be just like them? You're really making a point about human people who have been taught these same things. You're using the supernatural characters to make that point. The intention is to show that they're not so different.

It also just tends to be extra-entertaining for the audience, as we know, because the supernatural characters are a bit fish-out-of-water in their explorations of Earth. As we watch them come to appreciate aspects of the human world, we're reminded of how magical that world-- our world-- can be.

You can give a human being having a rough time a hot chocolate in a story and it can be a nice moment but maybe not terribly memorable... or, you can give the naked Supreme Archangel of All Heaven his very first ever warm cup of sugar while he's got trauma-induced amnesia in the main characters' antiquarian bookshop/Heavenly embassy/secret love den and have him forget the plot for a moment to have a food orgasm over it.

It's pretty evident which one of those options is more engaging, right? 😂 Let alone which one better delivers the story's point about mindful living.

The point of Good Omens isn't so much that the immortal characters are not human so much as it is how very, very human they really are. Immortal characters in this story exist to show us that the really magical ones are the humans.

This doesn't mean, though, that all the immortal characters in the story need to become mortal to experience humanity. The main four have already shown that it's just coming down to experience Earth and joining the side of the humans that is the point.

Gabriel literally miracled "Everyday" onto the jukebox in The Resurrectionist forever as a way of telling Beez that he plans to be there for them eternally. The song is there if something happens to him but the song is also Gabriel himself in his metaphor. He doesn't plan on anything less than all of time with Beez.

They both, too, learned to understand humanity around the idea of it maybe having an end with Armageddon. Their response to that was not to want to become mortal but to try to stop Armageddon from happening. It was to try to ensure that the Earth survived. It's the same thing as Crowley and Aziraphale's story.

A happy ending for all of these immortal characters is peace and they don't need to give up their immortality to find that. Plenty of time with one another would be a positive, satisfying ending. They don't need to learn what living like a human is like because the entire story has been them doing just that.

They would not take away their immortality unless they wanted a tragic ending. The name of the story is Good Omens, though, and it's not ironic. The story is, at the core, a fantasy romantic comedy. It's about the magic of human living. By definition, you cannot have a tragic ending to a romance or it isn't one. This story will have a good ending. No way on Earth they fought to finish this story just so they could give it a sad ending and I doubt it was ever at risk of one in the first place.

What the audience wants is for Crowley and Aziraphale to be able to live openly together on Earth without all this fear. They don't want them to only get a few years together but all the years they can ever want. That's the happy ending for Crowley and Aziraphale and that will be how it ends.

There is no reason to take their immortality because they do not need to learn what human living is. The story has already shown us that they already know and are every bit as human as the rest of us.

[lacevalentines]

(madoka magica / rebellion spoilers below. TW: suicide and controlling behavior)

I don't know the direction in which walpurgisnacht rising will take homura's character but I can say with confidence that from at least where rebellion left off that I truly believe that homura made the decision that she felt was the most correct one even if it meant she had to become a monster in the eyes of every person that loved her. she felt that if things were left in the way the law of the cycle was currently running things that it was inevitable that kyubey would eventually capture madoka in her goddess form, study her, and use her to as a source for mass amounts of energy at the suffering of herself, the others within the law of the cycle, and magical girls at large again. this is something he explains very clearly when talking to homura before her transformation into homulilly.

I get so exhausted when I see people try characterize homura as an actually evil person with completely selfish desires and no regard for others. all of her actions, while not explicitly explained outright, when looked at closely always indicate that she does things out of her care for the other girls but feels like she bears the burden of having to do it alone because she believes she's the only one who doesn't let her emotions get in the way of protecting madoka and the others from kyubey and sometimes each other.

I will always use the scenes of her interactions with mami and sayaka in rebellion as huge examples of this. she has no reason not to kill them if she's a completely selfish and unemphatic person that only cares about madoka and no one else when given many opportunities to do so. I also don't personally think she keeps them around JUST because of madoka's happiness either. she very easily could have suppressed their roles in madoka's life with the world rewrite and clearly choose not to. I believe her mocking sayaka and acting in a clearly "evil" manner is deliberate acting on her part to frame herself as a villain. she might believe this would her actions more palatable and will create distance between herself and everyone else to protect them as well as allow her to assert more control in this situation. it is further emphasized how she truly feels with imagery displayed in homura's new world around herself (shoes abandoned on the side of a building to potentially indicate suicidal ideation, a half moon alluding to homura feeling unfulfilled and unhappy with this decision, her dancing around happily before stopping and slowly falling off the cliff side with a similar implication as the shoes).

homura's relationship with the others is incredibly complicated but she cares for them deeply too as they are also people she considers friends, she just had a particularly strong attachment to madoka. we don't get to see as many instances of her interacting with them as we do them interacting with each other as we are unfortunately only really privy to homura's life after she began looping for the most part but we can see it in the way she has expresses concern and distress for them in moments where she believes they are in real, tangible danger of being hurt (she's winces and tries to turn away when aiming for mami's leg and screams out when she believes mami is about to be truly harmed after their gun fight, which neither ever had the real intention of hitting one another with any of those bullets in the first place). her entire witch's labyrinth is one where everyone is happy and gets the lives they desire. why would her labyrinth, which is meant to reflect in-part her inner feelings and desires, appear that way if she didn't truly want that for everyone?

rebellion is so compelling to me for all of this and so much more!! (I could write a whole other post on the way it presents it's freedom with danger vs control with safety question at the end of the film) she is a girl who has repeatedly suffered incredibly traumatizing events and longs for a world where the person she loves and the friends she considers dear are safe. homura is not really the devil, but she wants to appear to be because being the devil would be easier than being a human being in these circumstances.

[jq37]

So, that lady FH episode was amazing and all, but...

Hoo boy, I already see the discourse around the Ratgrinders' fates forming and it is going to be painful. Be careful around the fandom space.

(I mean, resurrection is still on the table for them, but that's based on if the players feel like it and right now, we're looking at 50/50 odds at bests)

Yeah, don't worry about me. This isn't my first rodeo and also I post a lot about D20 and respond to asks I get but I don't actually personally engage with any of The Discourse (tm).

And I'm not really surprised at the reaction. I know people have been opinionated all season in two main camps (that have a lot of overlap): people dissatisfied with the narrative direction and people deeply sympathetic to the Rat Grinders to the point of being mad at the Bad Kids.

The first camp I mostly understand. I get wishing the cast would explore a certain storyline more. For example, I've been on the Aelwyn redemption arc train since literally the first episode of Fantasy High so I was a little disappointed that when that finally came to a head in Freshman Year, it was a big fight and then very little aftermath/unpacking because Aelwyn was sent to jail right after. And Sophomore Year hadn't been announced so I had no idea that she was gonna get another shot. But I wasn't upset or anything. Adaine at that point still hated her sister. She had no reason to want to reach out. And at the end of the day this is other people playing a game. Brennan presented them all the possible plot threads and they were most interested in self discovery, hanging out with each other, doing Shenanigans, and playing Tomb Raider re: Ankarna. Those are all options they were presented and it's not like they were doing crazy off-roading. It's well within the parameters of what D&D is. If you're gonna watch a show like this (or honestly any show), you have to accept that what's most interesting to you isn't always going to be the most interesting thing to the people in the driver's seat.

So yeah, I feel like this side of things I get (even though I'm fine with how things turned out).

The other camp--people being legit mad at the Bad Kids (and in some cases the actual cast) for treating the Rat Grinders like antagonists instead of victims that they were responsible for empathizing with and redeeming--I find kind of wild.

Like…you're mad at the kids who go to Child Murder School for killing kids who want to end the world and kill them specifically? Literally the first day of school the principal of the school says that adventurers are violent wanderers who engage in shenanigans and enact violence. This is the exact assignment they were given and that's what they're doing.

I think it's wild to at the same time believe that the Rat Grinders (who have killed people) are not responsible for their actions and deserve to be talked down while in the process of causing an apocalypse because they're just kids who were manipulated while at the same time calling the Bad Kids evil lunatics for trying to stop them by killing them (in a world where Revivify and Resurrection exist) even though they are ALSO kids who are doing what they've learned at Child Murder School. The Bad Kids have to be mature enough to thoroughly investigate the situation and have nuance about it but the Rat Grinders don't have any responsibility to not join a shady evil murder plan*? And do the Bad Kids really hate the Rat Grinders to the point where they're doing some overkill in this fight? Absolutely. But it's not like they're killing them because they hate them. They're killing them because they're trying to end the world--and they also happen to hate them. Are we forgetting that Kipperlilly killed Buddy--her own teammate--with a gleeful smile on her face? That was so out of pocket.

They're adventurers! Not guidance counselors! If Jawbone was like, "We need to kill these kids," yeah that would be weird but why would the Bad Kids extend an olive branch to the kids who (1) famously hate them, (2) killed at least one maybe 2 of their own party members, (3) endangered the entire student body population an hour ago, (4) are currently trying to end the world. Hell, Adaine was ready to be mean to her own sister in elf jail literally up until the point Brennan described how rough she looked from the torture and that's when she changed her mind. The Power of Love and Empathy is on the menu but it's a special item you only can get if you know the chef. Everyone else is getting a serving of These Hands. Just because you can find a vegan solution to a problem it doesn't mean you're obligated to.

This all comes down to, "Maybe teenagers shouldn't have godlike powers and the ability to play judge, jury, and executioner" but that's literally the premise of the entire show so you can't get around it without rejecting the show's entire premise. If they were like, "Hmm the systems that underpin our world are questionable and we should change the power structures" instead of, "Let's kill some bad guys!" then that's a totally different thing we're doing here!

And, idk man, this show has always had a Who Framed Roger Rabbit style morality where the normal rules of ethics stop applying when it's funny. They beat the crud out of Ragh and then lied to him that he shit his pants just for the bit. A pirate was rude/kinda racist to Riz so they scared him into killing himself. Riz ate the remains of the sentient (albiet evil) dragon he killed. That's all unhinged behavior but none of that is meant to be serious. Getting upset about Fig sending Ruben to hell to me feels like getting mad that Jerry hit Tom with a cartoonishly large mallet.

None of this is new so I have to assume that people are having a big reaction because they relate to the Rat Grinders or just really like them so it feels bad that the Bad Kids are treating them like fodder rather than beloved NPCs.

But again, this is a world where you can bring people back from the dead and the Rat Grinders have showed intent that is grievously neglectful at best and insanely murderous at worst so I can't muster a lot of sympathy for the fact that the Bad Kids are just taking them down without remorse. I don't think you have to try to empathize with the people who are trying to harm you if you don't want to especially while they are in the process of harming you.

(*And we still don't know how voluntarily they joined this plan. We don't know if they were killed and basically forced into resurrecting with rage or if they just leapt at the chance to join a plan that would let them get one over on their rivals. It literally could be either. We've had kid villains on this show strong armed into being party to evil plans by threat of harm (Aelwyn) as well was kid villains who just had their own selfish motivations and weren't tricked at all (Penelope and Biz). We actually don't have any clear answer on how culpable they are. We don't know if they all have rage crystals (except for Buddy). And we don't know how much having a Rage Crystal effects your actions. The best indicator we got is in this latest ep when Brennan said that there was a mechanic where Porter was going to call anyone with a rage crystal to fight for him but that says to me that he's only directly puppeting them when he uses that action and otherwise they have free will and are just angrier. The Bad Kids don't have a reason to believe definitively that the Rat Grinders are just unwilling puppets even if that is the case so of course they're treating them like enemies. Anyway, this is a whole lot of "I don't knows" but that's only because I've seen a lot of people talking like the Rat Grinders literally aren't in control of their actions but that's not info that we have. It could be true but we don't actually know that so it's not a good argument.)

[awinterrosesstuff]

I have a soft spot for Ino. I've always liked her confidence, her cheerful side, her intelligence and her techniques. The Yamanaka techniques are quite interesting and versatile. And that's literally why I think giving her medical ninjutsu wasn't really needed for her character. I don't hate it, but still. There's no real explanation in the manga. She just uses it for the first time trying to heal Asuma (probably to make his death more tragic) and then later to heal Naruto. And I think that's it ? Ino seems to care deeply for Shizune like they were close and you could argue it's her who taught her the techniques she knows. For an alternative, I think it would have made more sense if Ino learnt about poisons (from Shizune for example). It was teased in her flashback with Sakura, but anyway.

I think Kishimoto did a good job showing how Ino's techniques can be used in various ways. And even better, she does it successfully.

She can take control of people's (& animal) mind.

In the first instance, she takes control of Sakura's mind to get the answers of the written exam and later gives them to Choji and Shikamaru.

In the second one, she uses her technique to spy on the Akatsuki and find Hidan & Kakuzu.

In the third one, she takes control of Obito from distance with the help of Hinata's byakugan and saves the alliance by taking control of Jubi by extension.

So there are many things to note there. She can use that technique for different things (getting info & stopping the enemy) and it's very useful in combat but also in spying/infiltration. She works as a support ninja, but still is the key in those different situations.

Inoichi also uses the Yamanaka's techniques to see other's memories. I don't think Ino ever does it in the Naruto's manga. But I'm pretty sure she could do it too.

She's also a sensor and very important to the Inoshikacho ultimate technique.

So my girl can sense her enemies' signature chakra and "directs" Shikamaru who directs Choji. Oh well, that's a weird way to present it. I know, in Boruto, Ino's sensory skills are more explored. But there's already a great example. Plus, Ino, Shikamaru and Choji are all complementary, you need ALL of them.

Also, she can also take control of someone's mind and communicate with them at the same time.

I will not post the whole interaction. But Ino there is in Choji's mind, directs Choji's movements (showing at the same time her hand to hand combat kills) and also talks to him. I suppose she can do it only when the person isn't resistant, but that's still pretty impressive in my opinion and it goes perfectly with my next point.

Ino can connect many (the whole army apparently) together thanks to her telepathy skills.

And she does it again later :

I love how they are like "Can you do it ?" and she answer with a "Of course" and does it without much problem. The show don't tell is perfect here. Kishimoto tells you she's confident she can do it, then shows you exactly she's able to do it. Especially when you consider how hard it seemed when Inoichi was communicating infos about Naruto to the army with some "tools".

So let's sum up... Ino can take control of people's mind and body and powerful people at that (like Obito or Kinkaku). She uses that succesfully many times for different purposes and I didn't even show all the examples. She's a good sensor and very complementary to Shikamaru & Choji's techniques. And she can communicate someone's thoughts to many people without much problem. And when she takes control of someone's mind, she can also sometimes talk with them. (Can you even imagine the other possibilities to explore ?)

See, Ino was already powerful and versatile without the medical ninjutsu. She doesn't really need it for her character to work and be interesting and successful in what she does. It doesn't even appear in the war arc and you don't miss it.

Ino is a good example about how you write a character techniques and development. You see an evolution in her techniques. You don't need to read the databooks to understand what she's doing and how she's doing it. You just have to read the manga for it. She's not ridiculous and dead weight. She's skilled and talented. We were told at the beginning of the manga by Asuma, she was the girl with the hightest potential. And honestly, is it difficult to believe ?

[kindnessoverperfection]

Feel free to ignore this, but I'm a disabled writer who tends to focus on representation in my works, and I came across your posts about having npd while doing research for a side character in a story of mine. I really appreciate you taking the time to write out a description of npd that shows the roots of the issues and the way they affect the people who have it rather than how outsiders perceive it. I just wanted to ask if there were any traits of npd that you personally would like to see in npd representation/ if you have any thoughts on how you'd like to see characters with npd represented in media? I know at current there's basically no positive npd rep, which sucks for sure, but in a hypothetical situation where there was a character with npd who wasn't villianized for it, what sort of aspects of npd would be comforting for you to see reflected in a story?

Once again, feel free to ignore this ask if I'm overstepping at all, and I hope you have a wonderful day <3

Hi!! ♡ Apologies for the late reply, I wasn't on tumblr for a few days, then my alter was out for the next couple days and I wanted to be the one to respond-

I really appreciate that you're taking the time to research and create thoughtful representation, and I'm glad my posts could offer some help with that!

My first two thoughts are:

Characters whose symptoms present differently than the common portrayal of NPD

It's super common for people to not recognize NPD because they have this very limited view of what it is and how it can present - so it would be nice to see representation that shows variety in the way it can manifest.

For example, it's actually very common for someone with the disorder to primarily "lash in" rather than "lash out", but I never see that represented (intentionally, at least).

There's also a very limited perception of narcissistic characters being blatantly arrogant, grandiose, braggy, selfish, power-hungry, etc. But really, there's an unlimited number of ways someone can present outwardly, because the only thing that's crucial to the diagnosis is the internal experience - how it affects the person who has it. How they appear outwardly to others can vary wildly.

(I'll admit, some of these "stereotypical NPD" characters feel very relatable due to shared symptoms and vibes and power fantasies. To the extent that I have one of them as my pfp on some accounts lol. But if you met me IRL, my vibes are just "confident and bubbly, polite, quiet and distant, fashion-oriented, straight A student, cutesy, braggy, adventurous", and I always make the effort to be kind to people even though I can be somewhat distant and goal-oriented.)

It's also common to think of someone "flying into a rage" when they feel criticized - but anger (whether external or internal) isn't an inherent part of it. The issue is that someone perceives criticism as a threat, so their fight/flight/freeze/fawn response kicks in, and there's a large multitude of ways that can show up.

(Personally, I go into either fight or fawn mode. But the vast majority of the anger I've felt has been entirely self-directed, manifesting in the form of self-criticism, self-hatred, self-destruction, overworking, eating disorders, etc. I will occasionally feel outwards anger, but when I do, I give myself time and space to process it by myself so that I don't upset anyone. And even for those who feel external anger much more often than I do, it doesn't mean they'll express it in an aggressive or harmful way.)

tldr; I'd love to see a variety of outwards presentations, with the NPD being shown via their internal experience, rather than only displayed through stereotypical external behaviors.

2. Humanization for characters with NPD who make mistakes

People with NPD are human just like everyone else, which means that mistakes happen. Everyone accidentally fucks up, hurts someone, lacks self-awareness in certain areas, etc.

The level and type of interpersonal struggles, and the reasons behind these struggles, are all across the board. That's understood with any other disorder (or any sort of identity), but there's so much extra baggage and stigma applied when NPD is involved for some reason.

So for characters with NPD with higher interpersonal conflict, I'd want them to be humanized in the same way that anyone else with any other identity would be humanized. And I'd also want it shown that characters who don't have NPD can have high interpersonal conflict as well, that it's not limited to this disorder.

"what sort of aspects of npd would be comforting for you to see reflected in a story?"

In terms of specific aspects-

Personally, I'd love to see a character who like... tries to be perfect. Is externally very put-together in some way - maybe they're very kind and soft-spoken and sweet, or they're silly and happy and energetic, or they're quiet and serious and protective, or calm and mysterious and self-assured, doesn't matter. But everything seems okay on the surface.

But internally, they put so much pressure on themself. They hold themself to impossible standards, and feel like they HAVE to be seen a certain way and never show weakness. They have to handle everything perfectly. Just... so many symptoms and struggles that are hurting them internally, and overtime it ends up bubbling out in small ways, or like. Tbh I'd love it if someone would just... notice.

Notice the perfect bubbly happy straight-A student who's always kind and never shares their own opinions. Notice the quiet, highly-skilled protector of the group who somehow always knows the right thing to say and the right way to act.

And give them permission to be imperfect. To be human. Show them that they aren't their reputation or their skills or how impressive they are, they're so much more than that.

They can see the pain they're in, and instead of treating them as this untouchable perfect being, they treat them in a human way.

The super bubbly character seems completely unaffected by recent tragedy? Okay. Their friend doesn't ignore that. They don't push and prod, but they don't ignore it. They sit with them, spend time with them, hold them, they know it affected them.

I'm imagining a scene where the character w/NPD fucks up somehow, and they seem fine, but someone close to them suddenly Realizes and they just. Go to find them. And they're just having a massive breakdown, but the moment they see their friend, they quickly try and shove everything under the surface and act cool and unaffected and "normal", but their friend goes over and just holds them and. Ungh. 10/10

Couple months ago I did actually see an episode of a show like that, and both times I watched it, I bawled my fuckin eyes out lol.

Different people may have different answers in terms of what they'd feel most comforted by, but for me personally, I'd love this so much, because this is how I present and I desperately want to be Seen and Loved and have someone see my self-worth as being inherent and not tied into how "perfect" I am.

Closing thoughts:

Personally, there's not much that I'd feel offended by. To be honest, in addition to characters who fit the above points (various presentations, average-level interpersonal conflict, etc.), I also write characters who have that "stereotypical" presentation. I don't think there's anything wrong with it as long as it's not done maliciously, especially if there's other types of characters shown. (Similar to having both gay villains and gay protagonists or side characters, y'know)

The only thing I'd dislike / that would hurt my feelings is like... seeing a character be heavily demonized for their traits*, or the only characters with NPD being horribly abusive, or the usage of stigmatizing language (aka, if the character is spoken about the way buzzfeed articles speak about us).

*aka, demonized for the symptoms. Totally fine if someone does something shitty and it's pointed out as being shitty / if people dislike them for that lol.

Hopefully this isn't getting too long, but to give an example of what I mean, something I saw that did hurt my feelings was like-

There was an episode of a show where a character got super braggy and confident, and was relishing in the praise and admiration she was getting. Hinging her self-worth on that recognition and success. And her friends got annoyed and pissed off, simply because she was braggy. There were a couple of things here and there she did that were kind of insensitive, but that was never really pointed out or seen as the main issue, it was only her bragging that was being demonized for some reason.

And then her friends all ganged up behind her back and did something to intentionally trigger a crash and make her feel insecure and terrible about herself, all to "knock her down a peg". And the narrative framed that as being justified, framed her friends as being correct in this situation. They never once showed concern for her mental health or the fact that she was hinging her self-worth on other people's opinions of her, they tore her down for her bragging instead of either a) supporting and uplifting her, or b) showing concern for unhealthy mindsets, and they never even tried to approach her or communicate with her about the things she was doing that actually were insensitive.

Hopefully that wasn't too much of a tangent lol, but that's the type of thing I mean by "being demonized for their traits". Hate when all a character is doing is bragging and feeling good about themself and the narrative frames them in an extremely negative light for it :(

Okay I will wrap up the post here as it's already pretty long, but hopefully this helped a bit!! Thank you for the question, and good luck with your writing! ^^

[redjademilktea]

Marisha on 4SD today talking about Laudna (and Marisha herself) leaning into the darkness these last few episodes just brings me back to one of the really fascinating parts of Imogen and Laudna's post kiss conversation.

When talking about Laudna's desire to use Delilah to make herself stronger, Laudna says "maybe it's our destiny to harness it," regarding the powers both women have within them. While she may harbor some guilt over giving in ("I think I'm a bad person, Imogen"), she ultimately thinks embracing it is what she needs to/wants to do.

For Laudna, it gives that feeling of control she is so desperate for. She claims, for example, that they're playing Delilah's game by "her rules." Regardless of how real that control may actually be, she certainly *feels* that she is in control of the situation by utilizing that power. For someone who's been defined for so long by tragic circumstances that she had no agency in, gaining control over those circumstances - harnessing what they have presented her with - gives her just that. Control.

Contrast that with Imogen's "maybe it's our destiny to fight it." Imogen has spent the entire campaign thus far growing more and more comfortable with herself and her powers. To her, the powers are a part of her, but they ultimately don't define her entirely. Yes, being weird and having powers is "what makes [them] right," but that doesn't mean the nature of the source of that power and all its accompanying baggage needs to shape her. Her powers are hers, but *she* decides what they are to her, not myths, not legends, not rumors.

Imogen saying she "knows what's right" is her asserting that those connotations applied to her by other people don't control her. For Imogen, saying "maybe it's our destiny to fight it" reads more like her saying she wants to push back against letting outside forces define that power for her. Yes, Ruidus and Predathos are the source of her powers. Yes, they are a part of her. Yes, she feels a connection to them. But that doesn't mean they get to decide for her what she does with them.

So here, you have two completely different perspectives on how to reckon with the power/darkness both these women have within them, captured beautifully by two simple lines.

This has, of course, led to some interesting tension over the course of the past few episodes. Imogen was disgusted at the idea of Delilah "being here all the time." Laudna didn't want to stop Imogen if she joined the Ruby Vanguard on Ruidus because "what if that's what [she] really wanted to do?" Both of them don't really know how to handle the way the other is approaching this fundamental aspect of both themselves and their relationship.

There is, however, the all-important line after this exchange - Imogen saying, "Together either way."

I am so, so interested in how this is going to manifest as Imogen and Laudna seem to entrench themselves further into different approaches to their innate abilities. If they are going to be each other's tethers, what does it mean for them to be pulling in different directions? How will it shape their dynamic/their relationship?

Whichever direction it leads them though, I very much hope they hold fast to one thing - that they do it together.

[this-is-exorsexism]

Hey, since I saw you speak German (making that assumption based on the fact that you mentioned a exorsexist comment being German in a post. Sorry if that’s a wrong assumption) I really want to talk about instances of exorsexism that I see so often in the feminist German speaking circles and that I’m so so tired off.

The terms “female read” and “male read” to refer to people, both when talking about, you know, just everyday things they saw ex. “I like seeing female read people sporting body hair” (just say you like people who don’t shave their body hair. Cause it’s not just the demographic of people that society pushes to present as “women” that are pressured into body hair removal.) and in context of feminist discussions “Cat calling affects female read individuals more than male read people. And male read people are more often the perpetrator of cat calling”. (This one irkes me so so much, because it’s a sweeping generalisation in general, which is just not okay.)

Another example that also falls into every day things and is even more removed from any “political” statement: “I saw a female read person that reminded me of my mother.” (This quote came from a nonbinary person which made the unnecessary gendering feel even more uncomfortable. There was no forceful gendering of the person necessary. It could have just been “I saw a person that reminded me of my mother” the assumption that it must have been a woman already is a possibility by the association with mother. And you sadly can’t get rid of it. There is no necessity to state it like that.)

One last longer example that is partly feminism related again (that is a near direct translation): “A lot of women and female read people know the feeling of standing in front of the mirror and asking wether or not they want to wear this or if it’s too revealing. Because choice of clothing alone can suggest you want to provoke men.[…] Even if a female read person wears tight clothing, because [she/they] feel sexy in it, is that no reason to insult [her/them] as a slut.” (The “she” could have also been meant in a “they” sense, because this is a translation situation where it isn’t 100% clear. That’s why I wrote it like that.) (This quote is again making assumptions and putting experiences on people and forcefully gendering people who experience these feelings. When these experiences actually can’t be categorised like that. Like even perisex cis men can experience this. It is also very telling here that only the “female read” wording was used when making social commentary, not the “male read”, when men where mentioned.)

(These statements are not always necessarily word for word quotes. They are partly just things I remember seeing in the past. Each example is from a different person.)

The description “female read”/“male read” as you likely know is typically said to be used to “to be more inclusive. Since we don’t know how someone actually identifies and we shouldn’t assume”. Which to me is just very much a “I’m gonna categorise you into man or woman on sight, just as anyone else, but I’ll say ‘male read’/‘female read’ to make it inclusive and not feel bad in case I’m actually misgendering you.”.

The fact that people think it’s more inclusive and isn’t just basically another way to categories man and woman, while claiming to be inclusive, drives me up the wall if I think about it for to long. The idea to be categorised as “female read” is honestly more dysphoria inducing than simply being assumed to be a woman, because it feels even more like failing at being uncategorisable, because the people supposedly not clinging onto the binary are categorising me as something I’m not. And as I hinted at, at the beginning, these two categories virtually ignore any possibility of seeing people who your brain can’t sort into the man/woman categories immediately, and pushes them into one or the other. Which also can ultimately lead to erasure of intersex individuals who could be sorted differently than both their sex and gender. (I hope my wording here is okay and it’s clear what I mean. If not. Please let me know.) The categories of “female read”/“male read” to me are ultimately cissexist, exorsexist and intersexist. This whole concept is just forceful gendering of people wrapped up in a pretty package that says “feminism”.

A big personal pet peeve of mine is people praising people who categorise like that. I’ve recently seen it done by a cis woman, intersectional feminist, who was praising a speaker for using the terms.

There is also the not uncommon occurrence where it’s just not even hidden anymore that “female read” or “male read” is just put in instead of woman or man or used interchangeably.

I just truly deeply dislike how these terms have become a very common thing in feminist circles, even between trans*(= very much meaning nonbinary here as well, hence the trans*) educators, feminists and influencers. It feels like such a gut punch to see even them reinforcing the gender binary in such ways.

(If you disagree with this being exorsexism I’d be very curious as to how. Because to me personally it is a very clear example of exorsexism that I’ve been wishing to talk about since I first encountered it. Also sorry if this is worded a bit confusingly at times. I tried my best.)

this is definitely exorsexism.

i know exactly what you're talking about and i have spoken about the misuse of these terms at length on my personal social media too.

to be honest, i was about to defend ~some~ uses of these terms, but after reading everything you said, i think these terms need to be retired.

i think at least half the time people use "female-read" and "male-read" to just mean women and men, because i don't know, maybe they think nonbinary people think that men and women exist is somehow offensive? a woman is a woman and you can and should just call her a woman, a man is a man and you can and should just call him a man. calling a woman "female-read" is entirely unnecessary and quite disrespectful too, in my opinion. it basically strips her of her identity as a woman and reduces her to how society sees her. the same is true for men.

"male-read people are often the perpetrators of catcalling" is also an interesting one because it proves that "male-read" and "female-read" are just stand-ins for the gender binary and gender oppositionism: "male-read" people have (perisex cisgender) male privilege and the entitlement and attitudes that come with it. they can never be victims of patriarchal violence, only perpetrators. "female-read" people are always more marginalised than "male-read" people. if you want to talk about people who are most likely to catcall, you must talk about perisex cisgender men.

as you've said, this doesn't take into account transgender, nonbinary and intersex people as it doesn't only sort us into a new male-female gender binary but also into a binary of "perpetrator of the patriarchy" and "victim of the patriarchy" in very oversimplified ways. in its attempt at inclusivity, this language completely obscures the experiences of people whom society sees as men or women but aren't. being seen as male when you're nonbinary or female, being seen as female when you're nonbinary or male, i.e. having your gender assumed incorrectly can actually be really dangerous. it also once again reduces us to how society sees us and acts as if our actual genders don't contribute to our experience.

one of the strangest ways people use this language is when they say something like "i saw a male-read person at the shop today". like, what do you mean? you read this person as male. you projected your binary thinking onto this person. using passive voice for this is just a way to try to remove your responsibility in participating in this system of gender assumption. at this point, you might just say that you saw a man at the shop. in this context, they mean the exact same thing.

these terms also don't take into account that there are different ways of being perceived as male or female. some people are perceived as transgender male rather than cisgender male, which are two very different experiences. being seen as transgender female rather than cisgender female is also very much not the same.

people also ignore that a lot the people they're trying to be inclusive of by using this language aren't actually consistently read as either binary gender or are read as something else entirely. "male-read" and "female-read" are pretty much used to be permanent life-long states of being perceived, with the exception of people transitioning and then going from one to the other and will be read as that and only that for the rest of their life. in reality, this looks very different. some of us are called he one day and she another. sometimes it depends on our gender presentation. sometimes it depends on the person perceiving us. for many of us, we actually have no idea how someone's perceiving our gender until they indicate this. also, many of us aren't read as either male or female. a lot of us are just read as "what the fuck are you" or [insert slur here]. none of these experiences can be mapped onto the idea of male-read and female-read.

not to mention how they keep using these terms to refer to body parts. "female-read" is too often just code for "has boobs". it's especially funny when they use this language for internal organs. like, sure, the catcaller on the street totally perceives someone's uterus.

"male-read" and "female-read" are what "women and femmes" or the transmasc/transfem binary will become if we don't stop it. they can always be replaced with other more precise terms that don't reinforce exorsexism, cissexism, intersexism and gender oppositionism.

[wordsandrobots]

I've been catching up after a period of being offline, and I just read your post about how McGillis' backstory is framed as all shades of violence. I fully agree, I think that's one of the biggest strengths with how his backstory is handled.

The point about how it's all shades of violence that’s paralleled with Tekkadan reminded me of my thoughts on Shaddiq Zenelli from when I first watched G-Witch. I frequently call Shaddiq "discount McGillis" because while G-Witch doesn't handle...much of anything as well as IBO does, I loved Shaddiq as a character. His backstory is almost beat-for-beat the same as McGillis', with the only difference being that Sarius wasn't sexually abusing the kids at his schools. The cruelty of what Sarius does, the way he forces children to compete against each other for a decent chance, is no less cruel than what Iznario did.

(Side tangent, I got the read that unlike McGillis, Shaddiq has a bit more class consciousness in that he recognizes that the suffering he and those close to him experienced is as a result of how the system works for the Spacians and hurts Earthians. He has other stuff going on, but he doesn't seem to have fallen for quite the same trap as McGillis)

There's really little space left for McGillis to have ever developed any kind of consciousness or solidarity, is there? The dedication to making him totally isolated means, well, exactly that. Even his peers greet him with violence.

Whereas I can't remember if we see anything of Shaddiq's childhood to tell what it was actually like for him, but clearly he isn't quite as lonely in his saviour complex. I mean, he's *got* a saviour complex rather than his actions being predominantly driven by an effort to define himself. I don't necessarily think McGillis is insincere in wanting to inspire everyone else to rise up against the world - the search for true equals, the desire to be proved right in his own existence, etc - but Shaddiq is clearly the more genuinely invested in improving the world.

I think this is one of those places where the decision to use sexual violence in McGillis' backstory is really interesting to interrogate. Because on the one hand, it might easily be taken as - in this comparison - the writing choice that makes McGillis' situation 'worse' than Shaddiq's, and I do think in terms of 'let's shock the audience' immediate impact, there is some truth to this assessment. However, again, the presentation directs us to the rivalry between the boys and McGillis' angry, violent reaction to their beating him up as the catalyst for his development. A pessimistic read would be saying that precludes the idea of solidarity between people in such a situation, but of course in the wider story, we see that simply isn't true: Tekkadan are a major counter-example to McGillis' entire world-view, banding together rather than tearing each other apart. The flaw is situated in him and his isolation - the fact nobody ever had his back, which taught him nobody ever would.

(To invoke Moon Steel yet again, one of the characters in that manga is the sole survivor of a group of sex workers who rose up against their boss during the Dort arc of the show and were caught in the massacre that followed for trying to demand their rights. I don't think this can be used to assess McGillis backstory per se, but it does show official stuff making room for (admittedly doomed) solidarity in sex work in general.)

I can't really speak about Shaddiq in terms of where he sits in the plot - I genuinely have forgotten much of what the show does with him beyond 'manipulative but ultimately well-intentioned' - but I certainly agree with your assessment of his adoptive father compared to Iznario. Again, this is why the emphasis on the violence in McGillis' backstory *as violence* matters so much: these kinds of actions, the abusive 'elevation' of children beyond their original social positions, is a sadly common power relation and serves a key role in maintaining oppressive structures. You can find racial, class-based and religiously-driven versions of it all over the place, with those categories often overlapping.

The *concept* of Shaddiq's backstory is a better engagement with that at an institutional level, I think, or at least it's less sensationalised, but I think they both ably capture the profound monstrosity of 'helping' those in poverty purely for the benefit of the 'philanthropists' responsible.

If nothing else, both Iznario and Sarius expect their respective charges to be grateful for what they've done. And there are few more clear examples of the human capacity for deluded cruelty than that.

[quidfree]

accidentally deleted this ask but for the anon asking what my gripes were with iwtv’s finale / this season:

look i love this show. ive never read the books* and i thoroughly enjoyed the one time i watched the movie mostly bc of tom cruise and kirsten dunst acting circles around bradd pitt. the show to me really elevates the material, it has phenomenal writing, the acting is obviously stellar, i think it does a great job at being that dark gothic romance that is both deeply tragic and fucked up and funny etc etc.

a key element of the adaptation is evidently that they have recontexualised the characters in ways that both add depth and nuance to them. when we meet him louis is a black gay man in a deeply racist and homophobic setting who hardens himself to survive and rise above as much as he can. claudia is a young black woman who has always faced societal violence and neglect because of this. armand’s whole arc as an exploited and fetishised child whose trauma has become his identity is also encased in colonial violence. i’m not from the communities they are so i can’t speak for everyone, but i think for the most part the show is pretty good at having these changes enrich the show and acknowledge what an impact this has on dynamics and the characters. s1 explicitly addresses how lestat handwaves away the racism louis experiences as something he can just overcome because he’s a vampire now, how lestat himself plays into racist imbalances of power in his patriarchal relationship in their home esp wrt claudia, how he goes to capture claudia on the train being portrayed to echo a slave-catcher, etc. s2 has the trial obviously set up like a lynching (claudia says so much herself), with lestat’s testimony framing the two black people he abused as the aggressors and himself as the victim, and even when lestat is genuinely apologetic and remorseful it’s because he’s allowed his tears and victimhood while louis and claudia are not. all this to say there is obviously lot of conscious thought that goes into the way the characters’ races feed into the show and the story and it oftentimes is very effective, as well as aware of audience perceptions of the characters and how the irl audience’s own biases might need addressing.

unfortunately for me there are two aspects of s2 that i feel are kind of outliers in this regard, and not in a way that makes sense/feels intentionally uncomfortable to me. 1) is madeline’s backstory, and 2) is the change of having armand actually have been plotting to murder both louis and claudia at the trial, and lestat have been the one to save louis.

1) to me is just really… weird. i feel like i know why they wrote her that way. it makes madeline a ~morally grey character~ by default so she fits in with the rest of the cast, and there is an element to the very real misogynistic vitriol and violence post-ww2 directed at french women even falsely accused of having slept with the invading nazi occupiers that feels very in line with the things the show likes to examine and point to as examples of plain old human barbarism and othering. but the way they present it in the show, unquestioned, not as a dubious survival tactic or a multi-faceted situation but an actual love story that madeline has no remorse for, is very off-putting to me. madeline is not louis and claudia who ignore the atrocities of the war because those are human affairs and they are no longer human but supernatural monsters. madeline is a normal person whose peers- jewish people, queer people (surely her own community), political dissidents of any kind- have been put down like dogs throughout the occupation, sent to prison camps at best and death camps at worst, and she never even has a line of dialogue addressing conflicting feelings about this? no one ever challenges her on it? the people painting nazi symbols on her shop are consistently framed as villainous? it just feels weird to me that claudia’s “weird white lady” has this saccharine romance with her, a black woman, without the show ever exploring any friction in that dynamic given madeline’s apparently uncomplicated nazi romance. madeline being a femme tondue is a great idea, but the execution leaves to be desired imo.

2) … oh boy. i feel like i’m wading into discourse here bc i’ve seen really confrontational takes on this, esp a lot of “responses to” people who didn’t like this change, where this is presented as those people being dumb babies who are blinded by their liking of armand and don’t Understand The Show. im sure there are those of which this is true (and ppl have explained better than me how antiblackness feeds into everyone jumping into ship wars and defense of louis’ abusive partners in general) but also it feels very reductive of some valid questions people have. people can argue the change is consistent with armand’s characterisation, which, sure, even though i feel like it feels a little flimsy / contradictory for armand to finally Choose The Coven and allow for them to execute louis but then go feed him blood and allow him to revenge-kill all of them immediately afterwards, etc. i don’t mind characters being More Evil on the Evil Vampire show.

my bigger question is why this change was made. bc my sense is that the change is less about armand than it is about lestat, and specifically setting the stage for the loustat reconciliation, and i do not love that. it’s one thing to make it so armand wanted to kill louis too, just for the extra drama of daniel’s reveal and scale of his betrayal, another push for louis to leave. it’s another to make it so lestat was the heroic captive who not only was forced to be there by armand as per but also bravely exerted the limits of his strength to save louis from execution and then nobly didn’t tell him about this. these are both monstrous vampires who have abused and betrayed louis in their own ways (armand has already orchestrated claudia’s death and kept louis in a purportedly protective mind prison for decades! that’s betrayal enough! you could even have armand originally want to kill louis too and then change his mind!), so why at this juncture choose to have lestat save louis in a move that was originally armand’s? just from the way the audience (fandom and casual watchers) is reacting it makes me wonder if the showrunners were just oblivious to how much this worsens people’s takes of armand (the brown man) being the “real villain” and lestat (the white man) being the redeemed self-sacrificing figure. i’m sure people will say this is placing too much weight on race blah blah blah but it was so jarring to me and the change in viewer attitudes so immediate that it left a really bad taste in my mouth.

inb4 the inevitable: i actually really liked the loustat reunion in the finale! i don’t hate loustat! i like all of the dynamics between all of the characters, albeit my favourite louis ship is louis x therapy (an obvious inference from my favourite character being daniel lmao). this is not a change that i hate because i’m a bitter lestat hater. i have no issue with armand doing bad things, episode 5 was my favourite episode! i just think this particular choice was weird, and felt kind of thoughtless in the service of speedrunning a lestat hero role in advance of his season.

i have other less tangential complaints but overall i think this is a great season of television. these are just two points that stood out to me as being handled with less grace than i expect of iwtv.

*i just started reading the first book today on the airplane so. we’ll see how that goes. book loustat is so funny compared to the show. book 1 louis hates his ass 😭

[notmoreflippingelves]

Hi 😊💞 I've been thinking about EoA lately and after re-reading some of your posts, I've noticed that you said "Mateo as the next Fiero would make more sense, the arc writes itself" and I'd really like to read your version then! 👀 How would you have handled the brat's arc? 😀 (nope, not me being a bit salty and needing some carthasis, why are you asking? 😗🫣)

Oh okay, this is actually gonna take a bit of thoughts as I hadn't really definitively thought through any ideas (I was just flirting with the potential) but this could be really fun brainstorming exercise.)

Before I get into my specific plot -related ideas, there are few general notes that I want to get out there(that apply to multiple approaches one would hypothetically take).

I don't anticipate "Dark Mateo" as being a particularly long arc but it would be one that would require more than a single regular-length episode. The sweet spot would be one of the "special episodes" (45-90 minutes as opposed to 20 minutes) or 2-4 "regular" length episodes.

2. There are essentially two "time-windows" that seem best suited to a Dark Mateo arc: The back half of S2-early S3 (post Shuriki's defeat but pre-crystal well times) OR post-"Coronation Day" (if they ever decide to do a sequel series/movie).

I don't want "dark Mateo" to intersect in any way with the "Shuriki Returns" arc as-is--both because it would make Mateo more important to the wider arc than I feel like he should be AND because it would be much harder for Elena to reconcile with Mateo if Shuriki is involved in any way. (There's a reason that we never see her forgive Cristobal and why Esteban has to essentially "die" to be forgiven.) On a similar note, I don't want to pull focus away from Esteban's own "villain(?)" era and redemption.

I also think that these timeframes are uniquely suited to tie a shorter "Dark Mateo" arc to broader arcs in a thematically appropriate and interesting way by either foreshadowing (in a late S2-early S3 setting) or by referencing Estedemption directly (in a post-canon setting) by including Esteban in the situation/resolution.

3. Ideally, a "Dark Mateo" arc should include callbacks to at least one of the moments I had originally indicated in my "Mateo-lack-of-accountability" vent. (Specifically, 1. him blabbing highly confidential information to Carla-as-Rita despite barely knowing her, 2. his abandoning direct orders (twice!) in "The Scepter of Night" and nearly losing Team Avalor the scepter piece, and 3. him using his magic to attack and then silence Gabe while arguing that he should take over the Royal Guard in "Captain Mateo"). I would either have proper callouts for Mateo immediately follow the incidents in question (which could cause Mateo to feel resentful/ashamed and therefore more susceptible to a slide to the dark side) OR have these incidents brought up in the present as examples of missed opportunities to have "teachable" moments for Mateo that might have prevented this current direction.

And now for some specific plot ideas! There are a few different directions that one could hypothetically take a brief "villain era" for Mateo, so I will go through my thoughts regarding each of them. (Of course, there is the possibility for elements of these to be combined).

Option 1-- The Resenter

So, this is probably the most common/standard villain arc option, but personally, I find it the most boring so I am not going to dwell too much upon it. (There's also the potential for a lot of overlap with eithe/both of the other two).

As Mateo grows more powerful in magic, he also grows more arrogant. He also becomes frustrated that he is not being given more power/is still expected to follow orders/ does not receive enough respect, because he clearly "deserves" it. As a result of being "mistreated" or "disrespected" one too many times, he suddenly snaps and turns against one or more of his former friends. (Personally, if a specific personal grudge/jealousy against a regular character is what sets him off, I think it would make the most sense to have it be against Gabe--since they've already established them as being rather competitive--or Olivia--if she seems to be making "quicker" progress in her magic studies than him).

Eventually, things escalate and Mateo realizes that he's made a terrible mistake. He owns up to his actions, works to make amends, and rejoins Team Avalor after having eaten a big wopping serving of humble pie.

Option 2-- The Insecure

So this option has a lot of overlap potential with the other two. Yet again, this would involve Mateo (falsely) believing that he is underappreciated/undervalued by other characters. But what differentiates this from the above is that Mateo's response is rooted primarily in sadness & insecurity rather than anger & entitlement.

While this approach would theoretically still work under other circumstances, I think that it would be more effective in a "post-Coronation Day" timeframe, ideally after Mateo has spent a reasonable amount of time away from Avalor. Perhaps he is offered a guest lecturer position on Avaloran magic at Hexley Hall (the sorcery school from Sofia the First) and/or decides to enroll in a course there to learn about other types/styles of magic-making. Or perhaps, there is a "royal wizard" symposium for a few weeks/months that he attends.

He returns to Avalor and learns that quite a few magical problems popped up in his absence, but that these were quickly and efficiently resolved without him. (Presumably, Olivia, Elena, the Delgados, Esteban, or some combination thereof handle the necessary 'magical' tasks, while Gabe, Isa, Naomi, Paloma, or some combination thereof come up with action plans/strategies that don't require magic).

Perhaps, in his absence, Rafa has also moved on with her life. Perhaps she's started dating again (Rafa/Victor is a not uncommon beta ship from what I've seen) or has embraced a new hobby or career.

As a result, Mateo starts to question whether he is really "needed" or "wanted" after all--if people are so easily able to adapt to an Avalor City without him in it. He starts to wonder if maybe there is somewhere out there where he would be more valued and where he could make more of a difference. And his search for a new "purpose" and meaning makes him vulnerable to manipulation and false flattery. He ends up crossing paths with someone who seems to value his potential and to need his help and is so eager to be "wanted and useful" again that he disregards a lot of "red flags" that his new friend is bad news. As a result, he ends up being used as a pawn against his family and friends and does not realize until it's (almost) too late and a lot of damage has been done.

(Considering how well Carla was able to play him like a fiddle, I think another 'pretty girl/beautiful woman' villain would be the most successful at this. But given his lack of a father figure, an older man--ideally one with a magical background and/or who is an authority figure--might work just as well. You could even tie things back into Sofia the First by having this character be Prisma, Vor, or Mamanu (for the first variant) or Grimtrix or Baron von Rocha (for the second). Or given a good disguise and some rewrites to existing EoA canon, Orizaba, Zopilote, or Chatana might work as well).

(As I am sure you have noticed, this is the "dark" Mateo variation that has the most obvious parallels to Esteban's arc--which could be an advantage or a disadvantage.)

Option 3--The Seeker of Forbidden Power

Saved this for one last, both because it's my personal favorite and because in my opinion, it seems the most plausible. (As mentioned above, there is still potential to overlap with one or more of the above ideas, but that is not necessary for this to work).

In this scenario, Mateo encounters some sort of dangerous magical McGuffin. (Ex: a "forbidden" spell in the Codex Maru, a super secret evil spellbook, a cursed magical artifact, etc. ) Alternatively, Mateo could instead experiment (with or without permission of its owner) with one of the established magical artifacts (ex: Elena's scepter, Esteban's staff, the crystal tamborita, the remnants of Shuriki's scepter or wand, Fire Opals, etc) but without the full knowledge/training/power required to use them.

Despite the very many and very clear warnings that using/interacting with said artifact poses a danger to himself and/or others, Mateo makes the executive decision to do so --justifying his decision by the fact that he is "clever" or "powerful" enough to control the artifact and/or that using the artifact is "necessary"/"worth the risk" to fight off another more-imminent threat to the kingdom.

Using this artifact could be a "one-off" incident (in which Mateo immediately realizes the error of his ways) or a recurring event (where the dangers are gradually revealed), but in any case, BAD THINGS happen as a result. Maybe Mateo is possessed/controlled by an evil spirit, manipulated into raising/releasing an evil cosmic entity, losing more and more of his sanity/free will/lifeforce/power the longer/more often he uses it. Maybe someone else is hurt instead/in the process of Mateo using it.

Things go very very wrong--so wrong in fact that it is difficult to simply write off Mateo's actions as a mere "careless mistake" that anyone might make. People are ANGRY at Mateo, and even Mateo has to admit that they are justifiably so. As such, Mateo has to work twice as hard to make up for the terror that he unleashed and even once he has, people may be slow to forgive/trust him again.

[single-malt-scotch]

Bdubs' speech patterns & quirks

i made a post a while back about Bdubs' typing habits and ya know what. ill be a little stupid obsessed and unhinged again and do this one. might be useful for fics.

been watching this man from day one and im trying to throw together everything i can in my head. he really hasnt changed that much if we arent considering a shift of humor and energy-- but i will regard it at certain points for clarity of how his speech is handled.

General speech pattern

Through time Bdubs has gained more energy in his voice, and more confidence in how he speaks as a person presenting in his videos. But he still has his quirks, quirks that have remained forever.

biggest one. There is a big habit of stuttering in some sense. Either on the same words with the intended phrase:

Example: "You-- you don't- you don't understand!"

or a phrase that is altered during the stutter:

Example: "Yeah but-- you-- I don't think you get it..."

They aren't the stutters people default to in most cases (no "y-yes" "i th-thought.." etc-- in *some* cases you can throw this in but i suggest the bigger ones and never make it too frequent).

Theyre long and very obviously, and make him take longer to get his words out. sometimes it cuts his train of thought and he stops his sentences, maybe even starts over entirely.

in addition to that, bdubs also cuts words in a way i think most people will- goin', gonna, thinkin' etc. however at times he will enunciate the whole word for effect (plays into his "exaggeration" described below)

With his awkward pacing and stumbling, there are times where he fumbles and might say something in a "weird" way. sometimes, it becomes purposeful! he'll keep doing it when its funny, but you can tell its more of a slip than on purpose at first. there are far too many examples of this, but its obvious that he picked up the funny way of saying 'hermitcraft' on purpose at a certain point, for example. this may be hard to get across in writing however and its not as important.

bdubs loves to exaggerate. personality wise, hes like this obviously. and it plays into how he talks. boisterous is the best word. dont be afraid to go hard on the exclamation points or question marks! "!!" and "??" may describe what you want when you need to imply more of his noise.

Exclamations, regarding swearing

Bdubs doesnt swear anymore, but its worth addressing it, in context to what... replaces it, in a sense. or if youre writing something based in the years when he did swear.

Lets get one thing straight. bdubs does not say fuck. like, even back when he swore. there may have been some very light instances of words slipping (the old video where he completely bleeped out his words may have likely had that) but it is not how he spoke on the regular.

bdubs' most used 'bad' words were "damn", not as often "ass". he used a lot of 'safe' words-- shoot, crap (crapper, directed at someone/thing), frick (fricker, directed at someone/thing), dang ('dang man'), freaking (this is exclaimed very strong when it comes up, as if he was saying "fucking". comment phrase "very freaking funny!")....

these are the most frequent choices. id say bdubs has the capability of more swears, but it would be a last resort/under extreme duress.

Other notable phrases

Some of these fall under 'exclamations' at times, but i wanted to address the phrases he says in response to things, one subject is what people like him say in place of things like "oh god". you can see this in some hermits too, but bdubs does not say "oh (my) god". there is no exclamation of "god" when he needs to say something like this.

some are more or less frequent in the overall timeline, but you will likely hear...

"judas priest!" "oh goodness!" "oh jeez/jeezer!" if there is any phrase regarding god its a sorta "dont use the lord's name in vain" situation. none of the "oh god" stuff.

in terms of other frequent phrases,

"Trying my heart out/off" pops up a lot, and it means that he is trying hard at something whilst also saying he is 'putting his whole heart into it'.

Older/less frequent these days:

the good ol 'pet names'. it is/was never a super frequent thing (that bdubs/etho ooge video was surprisingly frequent...) "sweetheart" is most likely, "baby" but not always in a 'pet name' way, just a casual word to throw out at nothing. might get a "darlin'" in there too. the instance of calling someone specific those things is not super common, but still important to note.

a final notable one is "boy", directed at others in a more like. jokingly stern way. "What are you doin' boy?" a direct aim at a person, perhaps in a (joking) accusatory way at times? (wanted to comment there was an early ooge instance where etho picked it up as well lol). and imo i saw this way more in the early days, less so now.

Conclusion

bdubs has a variety of expressions in his speech. generally very relaxed and sometimes even careless, hes not tryin to focus too hard on every word he speaks. which is only natural! imo i think his personality is what affects this more than anything. hes silly, extroverted, and acts first.

his 'loudness' and stutter is important and it can be hard to express through words. outside of the way you describe the way he tackled talking in fics, seriously dont be afraid to double those punctuation marks imo. definitely dont be afraid of those big 'stutters'!! its probably the most defining part of his voice imo. i hope this is useful and feel free to add on or ask about it!

[arrimorr]

Hello! Lately I've gotten a huge inspo boost from your personal projects (especially... birbs....) and fanart

and I started to wonder — what media was the most inspiring for you? How did different fandoms influence you and your art direction?

I simply adore the range of different media that you post and talk about (like starting with scifi and ending with forest whimsy) but I feel like there are still some general trends in your artwork! How would you describe your taste(?) in art direction? Or perhaps it's something not possible to grasp and put into words?

Love your artwork!! Best wishes!!! <3

First of all, THANK YOU for this question, it's really really touching that someone is interested in stuff like this. Also SORRY for not answering for so long, because you are right and this IS a difficult question, partly because I view my art direction and media taste as two separate things. If you want to hear more about...birds...and my thought process behind their development, I made a podcast about them after the second episode released. I'm making a guess that you must follow me somewhere else given that you know about my game, so, if you speak the language I won't name you can listen to my rambling in my vk group.

If we are talking about fandoms I think I was REEEALLY affected by Over the Garden wall and Gravity falls as a kid. As well as a bunch of horror stories, I think "pen pal" was the first horror story that made me fall in love with the genre as well as the concept of kids facing situations that even adults may find difficult to handle. I generally love child adventures that have a darker theme to them. This is present in my...birds...game only in emotional manner, BUT, both of my next games are going to be more direct horror stories, so I hope to play with this a bit more in the future. (Also my friend said that "the left right game" explains a lot about things that I like and write and this IS my favourite horror story of all time so...like, cmon, my next game is literally going to be a creepy roadtrip adventure and this isn't even the first horror roadtrip im going to write)

Tonally I'm really inspired by things made by Davey Wreden (the Stanley parable, The Beginners Guide), One (mp100, opm) and Toby Fox. I just love how these guys manage to create silly light-hearted experiences that are pack full with often times difficult emotions. This is something I REEEALLY want to achieve in my stories. Also the Beginners guide became a really big deal for me as a kid because of the way this game literally spoke with the player. Up until the last couple of years I viewed art solely as a way to reduce loneliness and feel a connection with other people, even through the screen, so my main goal with birdcatchers was to recreate this feeling of personal conversation, even if less direct.

If we're talking about visual style, I'm really inspired by Brecht Evens and Plastiboo, and I got into mixed media because of Чистотел in vk. I won't say that Im anywhere close to these people but they are very inspiring for me. Anyways - my current "philosophy" in art is that I want my pictures to have more air in them and also spend as little time on them as possible. This is easy for me in traditional art (for example these chalk thingies), but still not so much in digital, however you can see that I'm kinda doing the same unfinished line art and blurry colouring thing with it too.