#like literally how is that a more baseline personality trait for her than like

[glimblshanks]

The idea that hating bogs and swamps is such an intrinsic and core part of Mariner's personality that it spans the multiverse is absolutely sending me

[chuckeroo777]

Dungeon Meshi Volume 6 Part 2

Continuing chapter 38! As always, spoilers ahoy!

I like how he compliments the picture of Falin. He hasn't even seen the Cerberus yet.

So, before I read Dungeon Meshi, I remember seeing lots of stuff on twitter and tumblr about it, but none of it really stuck in my memory. One thing did. The Chimera. This was the one big thing I was spoiled on. A cool-ass chimera that the elf was gay for. It may have been what finally got me to check it out. Good food? Cool monsters? Lesbians? Sounds good to me. And it was good!

But it took me an embarrassingly long time to realize who the chimera was. I didn't remember the chimera's name, so Falin didn't ring any bells. I should have caught on when Falin was resurrected with dragon flesh, but no. It literally took Thistle saying "Hey Dragon" for me to realize what the chimera was.

The only other spoiler of note was Izutsumi, who, as I mentioned, appeared in chapter 0. She totally blindsided me. I didn't suspect Asebi for a second. Kabru I am not.

Such a good group shot with lots of little characterization. Chilchuck and Mickbell arguing, Kuro fixing his armor, Holm mourning his Undine, Marcille isolated from the rest, Tade taking a nap. Good stuff.

Ah, trauma. Wait a sec. There. In the lower right corner. Did Kabru glimpse the demon itself?

Eh, close enough.

Honestly, I think this might be the one big plothole I've noticed. When Falin teleported them to the surface, they only had what they were holding. Like, they kept the essentials like Marcille's staff and book, and Chilchuck's picking tools, but their backpacks were left behind, right? Yet, once they are in front of the dungeon again, they have packs? Where did they get those? Weren't they broke?

This bit of foreshadowing was a lot more effective in the anime. How am I supposed to remember what everyone's gloves looked like?

Also, I just noticed that Marcille's hood goes on before we see her face in this chapter. So if you're just going off this chapter, you can't get a good read on her current hairstyle. Clever.

Let's go over the fakes character by character. The Laios fakes are kinda obvious, because even though Laios is good friends with all three of his companions, they have trouble understanding him. Thankfully, Laios has the thickest skin, so it doesn't really bother him too much. I also find it funny that Marcille's turns him into a lumbering hulk who epitomizes the differences from Falin, yet Senshi's is just butch Falin. Pretty sure I remember Senshi mentioning in his journal that Falin and Laios are basically the same person.

The Marcilles are a bit better. Senshi's is obviously a elven stereotype, but the other three are all quite close. Curiously, unlike most of the clones, Laio's Marcille emphasizes her good traits, her determination and loyalty to Falin, while most of the other clones emphasize negative or false traits.

Honestly, if not for the scarf, it probably would have been difficult to tell Laio's version from the real one. He's the only one who has a proper grasp on his maturity.

Senshi is easily the hardest to pick out. Senshi has yet to share his deeper secrets, and he is a pretty straightforward guy.

I like how the Chilchuck Marcille is the one to propose the method that outs herself.

An important image.

What the heck guys? My entire job is getting things open.

Hmm... looking it over, it doesn't look to be consistent, but I almost thought for a sec that the fake Marcille has pointier ears. I dunno. Maybe it's just the calmer demeanor, but Marcille A does seem more elf-like than Marcille B. Then again, I'm not sure if Laios ever met an elf before Marcille, so he wouldn't have a baseline.

It's actually soba, if anyone cares.

See, what you want to do here is have all the Senshis take their helmets off. Laio's would be the only one with eyebrows.

And hey! When he later runs into a monster disguised as Marcille, he sees through it almost immediately!

Chilchuck is correct.

Marcille has one line she won't cross. With a long list of stipulations that will make her cross. Like starvation. Or ignorance. Or eating her girlfriend.

The proper term is Black Mage, and that just means I'm good at fireball.

The heck were the gnomes using this for?

The real moral of the story. Marcille is infallible, so you should listen to her.

I think the funniest (and saddest) part of Izutsumi's story is that she has it all wrong. She isn't a person possessed by a cat, she's a cat possessed by a person. She's been conditioned all her life to think the cat part of her is unnatural, when in reality it's her true self. Try to separate the halves, and you'd end up with a braindead tall-man and a very disappointed kitty.

It took two read-throughs, the anime, and two more read-throughs, but I finally can remember how to pronounce/spell your name.

It's kinda sad that as far as I can remember, this one line is the only bit of characterization we get for the Touden mom.

I remember finding this panel odd on my second read. The chimera didn't look right. Turns out this nerd continuously updated it throughout the adventure. Anyway, want to see another of my creatures?

All the best monsters have grenade launchers on their tail.

Oh my god. Even as a child she's still wearing that dang choker 24/7. Her mother also has one. I wonder if it has any significance?

And no lesson was learned by anyone ever.

We'll finish up chapter 42 and the misc monster tales next post!

[vorecommunitywoes]

if tinysuzy didnt block me u guys would have seen this earlier lol

more under the cut

pineapple, the red paste comment was literally on something u posted tht she reblogged. this is violent rhetoric that should never be encouraged. if you have a friend who talks about how they want to harm people who disagree with them, that is dangerous. you know those posts that talk about how you should never talk negatively about yourself because then you become more negative in general and hurt your self worth, especially if youre prone to things like depression and anxiety? thats the same logic here. if you express violent thoughts without any thought or care, or with a tone of genuinely wanting to do it, you are one step closer to being a violent person.

the admitting to reblogging blogs with nsfw on them (THE PERSON TINYSUZY IS TALKING ABOUT PROMOTES THEIR NSFW ON THEIR BLOG WITH MULTIPLE POSTS) because "minors can tell the difference between sfw and nsfw vore" when the line for kinks like vore are blurry. just bcuz theres no dicks in the art or other stuff doesnt mean that its ok for a minor to see. maybe the op intended it to be sexual and just isnt tagging it as nsfw because of the lack of genitals. if you post nsfw fetishes, and then post ab them with no mentions of genitals, that doesnt mean its immediately sfw.

and i am not "accusing things out of your control", suzy. YOU control what you post. YOU control what you reblog. YOU control your ability to do the bare minimum of checking if youre talking to someone who DOESNT WANT YOU TO TALK TO THEM because their content is SEXUAL. and they dont want your CHILDREN FOLLOWING to see their porn. THIS IS INHERENTLY ENDANGERING MINORS YOU SO WISH TO "PROTECT". that should NOT be the baseline of a "well respected person" in a fetish community.

would someone who posts about their feet fetish, or diapers, or pee or masochism/sadism fetishes to minors be ok if it was completely nonsexual? and if they reblog from ppl who post both sexual and nonsexual feet/pee/diaper posts for kids to see be ok? think about it. ppl can experience those kinks nonsexually, would it be ok for them to talk about minors to it? why or why not?

also i literally have evidence of her reblogging from nsfw ppl who didnt want their stuff to be seen to minors, its in my first post. there are screenshots and an archive link. her ignoring these ppls sexual boundaries is DANGEROUS. if you just took a look you would see it , and there are multiple ppl who agree with the ARCHIVED LINKS THAT CANT BE DELETED BY HER. (if u dont know what archiving links are, it means preserving a page forever and even if someone deletes the post it will still be on the internet and searchable). i dont know if you accidentally missed the "read more" part of the post, but you can click on that and it shows:

an archive link of the post (a screenshot that a bot takes and uploads what it sees when the page is loaded. i couldnt archive the page as a webpage for some reason but this is the second best thing)

and a screenshot of the person she reblogged from either saying their content is sexual or they dont want minors seeing it.

also like. cmon. thats an ableist comment, pineapple. dont do that, insulting people based off of characteristics they cant change (like someones intelligence, appearance, gender identity, race, or stuff like calling someone ugly or a slur, etc) hurts your friends more than it will ever hurt the person ur insulting. dont internalize behavior like that, criticize the actions, not the traits a person has.

and to clarify i dont blame anyone for not getting involved in this. i just wanted to spread a message about a very clear example of how easy it can be to expose minors to porn in this community, even if you dont intent it IT STILL HAPPENS.

[istherewifiinhell]

hand on rbing prev post as circling back around on sts thought apparently gave me enough to say it needed to escape the tags and be its own post. um! the emh from voy: my wife is a bitch and i love her so much

i think the emh is like. the exact definition of "the soul first shows itself by a gnashing of teeth" as its all well add good to appreciate the aliveness of nice and polite data who follows all the rules and is like. even MORE real than a flesh and blood person.

(in sense of his tangibility... his mechanical complexity and physical and mental competencies. are MORE than that of a traditionally recognized person. you know? not that that is an accurate summation of how the show acts about him. the only person who thinks that is julian bashir lmao. more often its like the. oh you disrespect him? well disrespect THIS! [he does a feat unmatched by any of the biological life forms around him] which... isnt exactly useful as principled, ideological and philosophic statement, about who gains the right of person-hood. OR RATHER! it is literally and precisely that, its conclusions sucks shit)

[Cam K podcast voice] when someone reaches for abstractions to doubt data's existent, the show throws materialist egg on their face.

The lynchpin in the proof of Data artificiality. Is that he has a PHYSICAL SWITCH, that can turn him OFF. This counters his otherwise uninterrupted verisimilitude of humanity. He looks like a toy. A thing. (Teenage wifi would like to point out if i had a big enough rock i could also turn riker off, but alas)

BUT the thing about the Doc, is that this guy ISNT "REAL". Getting shut down is not grand solemn act to the doc. It happens to him. ALOT. "Computer: End Program"... Hes so much more dependent on those around him. He isnt nearly the same as them. AND HES AN ANNOYING LITTLE BITCH about it. please turn him off when you done! please turn him ON to tell him things, and u could visit sometime... Turn your emergency holographic medical channel! cause this is a SENIOR STAFF MEETING. and hes the God Damn CMO.

AND. its not just mistreatment he gets (RIGHTFULLY!) angry about. Its that (as joelle correctly pointed out, ofc) when confused, or when things are wrong, when he has no control, he default right to agression! He is not a sad kicked puppy that goes 'oh' and 'i do not understand the meaning of ur behaviour' like data does. (again that sounds like data slander its NOT! i love data and wish ppl would stop laughing at him for having questions)

Whereas the biggest actual impediment of data's full recognition of personhood is his feelings, and suppose lack there of. He doesn't react to social stimulus the way people expect him too. If you try to goad him into a response he might say he 'is not capable of experiencing emotions such as you do' cause hes lacking the magic part in his brain that will do that. (to which... every neurodivergent person ever said: data, bestie, baby girl, they say that about a lot of people. you have clearly expressed internal experiences that are just... you baselines for emotion)

But to compare. When people say the doc isnt acting socially normal, which is an assholish thing to do, btw. HES READY TO BE AN ASSHOLE RIGHT BACK. His is INFACT, gnashing those holographic teeth! I don't think anyone has ever accused the doc of a LACK OF FEELING. Like, he has horrible beside manner, he "isn't programed for small talk"... but thats cause he's RUDE! He's too obviously prideful, snide, needling and just general, self involved for it to not seem like a DELIBERATE CHOICE that he is making.

And even when these traits are regarded to simple programing (which makes them... less real? 🤨) Examine the moments that are definitively about him claiming autonomy, engaging in recreation and becoming more self actualized. And find that a lot of them are angled to make him LESS likable. His hobbies, which he WILL speak about, AT LENGTH, include being a tropy writer, a photographer who makes hour long presentations, and a uncompromising operatic tenor diva.

(love when opera singer is used as insult, media wise, oh noooo ur TOO good at singing. your voice is TOO powerful, ur vocal control and ability to perform complex pieces in multiple languages is TOO impressive. lol. mr picardo ur so cool and u looked good doing it. frankly)

In the moments that serve to mark specific advancement in control he gains over himself, he gets to make himself MORE OBNOXIOUS! You do not, infact, get to recognize a someones full personhood without running the risk that you, specifically, might not like them! As a person!

And in dramtic turns. His true psyche breaking, foundation shaking experiences are acted to hell! It's uncomfortable to behold someone so emotional. Confusion and denial not expressed quietly, but belligerently. Meeting of sadness fear that can only be expressed as anger. Unlike the picturesq Adam and Eve figures from the end of R.U.R. (spoilers? i suppose). His awareness of the true personal impact and price of mortality is not signaled by a noble self-sacrifice, gentle weeping and pleading to not have someone taken away. It's a choice he made to save a close friend, instead of a distant coworker, when forced to choose between the two.

And then, his complete and total inability to comprehend, internalized and accept that fact. A person would be dead, truly and utterly gone from this world. Cause he wanted to save his friend instead. And the only way to ingrate this horrible fact of reality, the capital A, Absurd, was to do it as any human might.

Have a very public and loud mental breakdown, spend prolonged period of in which you cannot be left alone because your darkest thoughts will loop forever into themselves as you become more and more upset, and yet, neither can you simply avoid thinking about it, has the only way to come to terms with it is though a mire subjects that cause revulsion. The desert of thought the mind shrink from, and the truth that lies in it. Which. Is very inconvenient for all your friends who would really just rather be having a normal one.

In conclusion? The doc shows autonomy and sentience by being loud, opinionated and embarrassing. Rude, precocious, and easily offended. Self obsessed, high-mined, and anguished. Dependent, vulnerable and inconvenient. Which is to say he possible the most real anyone could ever be. That he has a much of a soul as any of us. That he is a bitch and i love him SO MUCH.

[generalluxun]

So, I'm going to agree to your baseline idea, while disagreeing strongly with where you've put the emphasis. Chloé *idolizes* power, it's what she's been taught.

See: Her Mother, and her Father.

There's a distinction there between idolizing it, and craving it.

For example: Lila *Craves* power. Big, small, it doesn't matter. She cannot and will not leave anyone alone. She will plot, and stew, and work the angles to claw every scrap of power she can for herself. She *needs* to feel powerful.

Chloé idolizes power. She pretends to have it, and exerts it to show her worth. It's the only type of worth she was ever brought up to understand. Do you think Audrey, or Andre ever cared if she was kind? Charitable? Smart? Strong? Both are shown to be narcissists repeatedly throughout the series. (Slight salt: André's 11th hour repentance means nothing, since he blames all his failings on his child) However Chloé doesn't really crave power. Throughout the series she rarely grasped for things, and actually took loses in stride that most bully-characters would flip out on. She barely bothered Marinette at all despite taking repeated losses to her (Until S5 Lila shows up and stokes Chloé worst traits for her own gain) All of Chloé's uses of power are performative, momentary. Trying to show she is 'worthy' because self-worth is something she severely lacks (see: Upbringing again, parents that don't give a fig)

Chloé's actual hang up is: Abandonment

From a mother who was across a literal ocean and can't remember her name, to a father who is more concerned with his career than parenting(the only times he ever parents her are when his image is at stake) and who seems to think being left to live alone in a suite with an employee caretaker is a healthy family life for a child.

Let me tackle your bullet points a little with this different paradigm:

She idolizes Ladybug: because everyone loves Ladybug.

She wants a Miraculous: because the only positive feedback she ever received was as Queen Bee

She orders her dad around: mimicking the dynamic she was taught growing up. (This is also why she orders Sabrina around. This is literally how families work to her.)

She misnames the butler: Tough call, is she actually just stupid like they want to pretend half the time, or mimicking her mother again?

She is Cruel to Marinette:... they actually haven't given us a reason. It's Marinette and Marinette only, which is weird. She also *loses* every time she engaged with Marinette, so that doesn't seem to be a path to power. (The real answer is, she's mean because Marinette is the protagonist and Chloe is an antagonist and... that's all)

The Chat Noir one is actually correct, just for the wrong reasons, as above: She's been taught that there is a top dog, and then the rest. LB is the top dog. You're *supposed* to treat minions that way.

You've got the events listed post-bullet points out of order so I'll put them back in order:

Hawkmoth and Mayura directly target the girl who has abandonment issues to tell her she has been abandoned by the person she idolizes(the person who had, temporarily, replaced her mother in her life as an idol) She even rejected their offer once, so the villains craft the perfect storm where:

Chloé's parents are in danger(the time Ladybug always gives people a Miraculous)

She has no way to contact Ladybug(they broke the signal)

They are actively there manipulating her insecurities.

And critically Ladybug makes a mistake, and second guesses herself due to her jealousy at a critical time. (it's an honest mistake! It just happens at a terrible time)

So what happens? She feels the abandonment. Chloé loses hope, hope that Ladybug will ever call on her again, that she will have a chance to prove herself again. Master Fu's voiceover even states that it is about 'losing hope' not power. she takes Hawkmoth's bargain, and trades helping him for him freeing her parents. (it is a bargain, she doesn't switch sides for nothing)

Zoe: This one is very interesting because if you watch Soul Crusher carefully you will notice something: Chloé isn't actually *mean* to Zoé when she first arrives, not in an antagonistic way. She's rude, yeah, but that's her 🤣 But if you look past the rudeness she's ACTUALLY trying to be a big sister to Zoé. She explains the rules as *she* knows them (the rules are bad, but again, this is upbringing, it's still an honest attempt) She also instantly claims Zoé as a sibling, something not all step/half/etc siblings do.

Chloé's outlook is what makes Zoé sad, not her treatment *of* Zoé. Zoé doesn't want the life that Chloé believes is the truth, and André decides to parent this child(she came undamaged so he can get a free ride) and at least tell her there is another way to live. (Though he tells her to lock it away, D- Parenting instead of F)

It's not until Zoé chooses the 'losers' over her that Chloé switches to being mean. Zoé 'abandons' her. (Not intentionally, but she picks the different life, which Zoé is allowed to do! It just interacts poorly with abandonment issues) It never occurs to Chloé that the other life is viable, and honestly, why should she ever expect it is?

Adrien: This one is so weird, they were supposedly friends but, the show does so little to show them being friendly? Still, we'll take it as is. Adrien's 'leaving' Chloé is a scene I kind of ignore, since she already broke things off in Queen Banana(when he picked the class over her, abandonment again) and Derision being a train wreck of an episode with retcons and character assassinations galore(not just chloé) but to take it at value:

This is deep into S5, when Lila has already been stoking Chloé's worst traits. We KNOW Lila does this. How? We see her do it to Kagami of all people; sweet, pure, Kagami, who has friends and who knows that Marinette is Ladybug. what chance does isolated, damaged, Chloé have? So yes, Adrien shows up and demands things of her and she blows him off. Why wouldn't she? He's *already* picked the other kids over her time and time again. He abandoned her long ago. Him coming to yell at her and demand an apology is really just kind of toothless? Oh no, what are you going to do, not hang out with me even harder? 🤣

It does strike to a pattern though. No one ever actually interacts with Chloé unless they want something from her. (To stop being bad, yes, understandable, but they still *want* something) The only exception is of course: The Party that gets thrown for Queen Bee... the last time she was ever allowed to be Queen Bee (So you see why that might... sting) It's a very strange ommission in a kids show. Positive reinforcement is usually a much better approach to change than negative.

So what you're witnessing is a spiral, not of power because she never had any power, her father did and even then all she did was lose. She spirals into bitterness and resentment, stoked by Lila, Gabriel, and Tomoé. It literally takes every villain we've had through the series to drag Chloé down to her worst self. Is she being bad? Oh yes, definitely, but this is not the cruel machinations of a villain, this is the tragic doom of a child who fell through the cracks, and into the clutches of the worst the show has to offer. (Seriously: They cheated for 8 YEARS and not a single teacher or administrator noticed)

She lashes out, because she's not a 'good victim' like Adrien. Petty snipping, little displays that allow others to step on her. Any actual cruelty in S5 is at the behest of Lila literally talking in her ear by the end.

Revolution comes about because someone shoves a Laptop that controls AI murderbots into her hands(Tomoé just left it laying around?) and points her at the Mayor's office two seconds after the heroes run her father out of office. (yes he left, but do you think any of the villains would let her believe that was the truth?)

All this and her first reaction upon seeing Monarch is *still* to arrest him. She's messed up, but still has that much. It's Lila again who manipulates her into taking the akumatization. Does she know how to be a good Mayor? No. she's 14! and again, She's got a whole caste of villains deliberately stoking her, setting her up because they *want* her to fail. She is the patsy for everyone. (And weirdly it works because no one thinks to ask HOW a 14yr old got control of Tsurugi Brand AI murderbots)

The show even punctuates it: Her father abandons her to her mother, despite knowing her mother is horrible(he's divorcing her after all) and the *only* part of the whole thing that upsets her mother?

That Chloé *failed* and made her look bad. That's it. That explains all of Chloé's morality in a nutshell. That's the priorities she has been given. THAT is what this child is being left to, by everyone in her life. Heroes, family, teachers, everyone is content to let THAT be her sole influence.

Is Chloé actually sweetness an light? No, she's messed up. She acts out. She passes her pain on to others, which is an *extremely common thing when it comes to child abuse* It's called a 'cycle of abuse' for a reason. We see it play out at the very end of Revolution.

Audrey berates Chloé. We see the fear-response. then Chloé goes to contact Marinette, to *pass on* that pain she's feeling.(it's not a good response, but abuse victims rarely have good coping mechanisms) Marinette stands up to her, breaking the cycle, and that is shown to be a good thing... but it seems to forget that the *other* child is still in the clutches of her abuser.

It's a tragedy that plays out in real life all too many times.

Here are some thoughts on why I think Chloe's character arc makes perfect sense.

Chloe has a real bad hangup about power. She needs to feel it desperately.

she idolizes Ladybug, who is powerful

she wants a Miraculous to feel powerful

she orders her dad around to feel powerful

she mis-names her butler to feel powerful

she bosses Sabrina around to feel powerful

she is cruel to Marinette to feel powerful

she is dismissive of Chat Noir because he is subservient to Ladybug and therefore weak

When Adrien stands up to Chloe regarding her treatment of Marinette, she perceives this as him ordering her to reign in her power. To restrict her power.

In response, she re-asserts her power: she cuts him out of her life. Similarly, Ladybug denies her a Miraculous, so she turns on Ladybug, again lashing out at someone who has diminished her power. She then aligns herself with someone who promises it to her.

Then Zoe shows up, and Zoe gets attention and affection (and therfore power) from Andre, who isn't even her real father! She's spent more time with their mother, which is another form of power.

S3 through S5 is a systematic stripping away of the thing Chloe holds most dear: power. In response to this, she exerts power every opportunity she gets: she tries to take over the movie, she bosses Adrien around, she revels in her cruelty toward Marinette, she aligns herself with Lila (who Chloe recognizes has the power to fool everyone around them), she is cruel to her sister, and eventually she "leads" a fascist takeover of Paris (of course, not realizing that she's fourth banana in the takeover after Evil Gandalf, Slightly Less Evil Elon Musk, and Lila.

Her character arc makes perfect sense.

Uhh, umm, in this powerpoint presentation I will

[just-antithings]

Apologies for how long this is But,,

People who are antis about vocaloids are the funniest.

"She's 16" my buddy, she is sounds. She can be whatever you want her to be. She is a disembodied voice making noises that you can string together into a song. Watch me make her say "Hello my name is Miku and I'm 38 years old and I do my taxes. I have two kids". The high school idol girl who loves leeks Guidelines used for marketing and to kickstart producers' creativity are not the same as canon character traits (p sure the leek thing was even added by fans and adopted into official shit??). You can follow it or you can just not according to your will.

"Rin and Len are siblings" they're whatever you want them to be. Every single Vocaloid is whatever the fuck you want them to be. They're not characters. They're instruments. They're ideas. They're a baseline to build your own character on top of.

I've been listening to VOCALOID for 12 years. Miku doesn't have to be depicted with one design, with one character type, with one age. Neither do any of the others. Sometimes Rin and Len are siblings and sometimes they are an unrelated couple. Sometimes Miku is 16 and sometimes she is a grown ass woman with a job, or a housewife. And yeah sometimes they're sexualized in their teens and sometimes Rin and Len are an incestuous couple but that's the individual producer's choice. That's what's cool about VOCALOID ??? people do whatever the hell they want and tell weird and funky stories or even discuss personal traumatic events through the anonymity of a robot voice.

Like I guess I can understand even if I don't agree with people who do this with actual characters with established backstories and canon and reasons one might be squicked out by people using their image to play with taboos. But no VOCALOID is that. Acting like Miku being 16 is a law set in stone is so ridiculous to me. It's, like... do you even listen to VOCALOID? lol. Just went and shuffled a random playlist of songs to get some examples �� I got a song where Miku is literally an actual Child who can't be much older than 12; I got a song where Miku is a doll; I got a song where Miku is a newscaster; and I got a song where Miku is in-universe a VOCALOID.

I'm just. very very tired and also confused and I guess I remain a bit amused but it's so sad and pathetic. I have been arguing in YouTube comment sections about VOCALOID since I was like 11 years old 😭 it never ends but it has become more annoying. Like idk does anyone else remember the era of "*nosebleeds* len is a shota >w< I ship him with kaito omg yaoii". It's probably good in some ways we've moved past that but I would still trade This for that instantly.

yeah it’s ridiculous how people will be like “miku can be anything” but then turn around and say that she has to be 16

[lizmitches]

a moment apart | hacks analysis

i was recently asked what the inspiration for the song choice in my deborah/ava fanvid was, and after waxing poetic for far too long in response, i realized it was probably time for some real, hearty analysis on the subject. long post incoming!

a moment apart by odesza features only two lyrics: i love you most and i love you more now. i've always loved it because of its simplicity; how it puts forth this idea that you can love someone even more now than you did only a second ago. and, as most things do nowadays, it made me think of ava and deborah.

the overarching idea came to me pretty simply: not only are ava and deborah a moment apart from growing closer, understanding each other, falling in love, etc., but they're also a moment apart in their reflections of one another.

in the first shot, ava’s in the hallway on the way to deborah's dressing room. “what’s your favorite joke of mine?” deborah asks in the voiceover. ava doesn’t have an answer.

the music picks up here, and we see one of my favorite things in the entire show: the visual representation of deborah and ava's closeness. at first they're far apart; completely separate. then, as time goes on, close together as one. they sit—proximity wise—a moment apart.

deborah puts forth the idea of the baseline. the idea that you have to be more than good to make it, and even then it's hell. here, her career passes in the blink of an eye, beginning on top of the world before falling into the habit of trying to remain relevant. a very literal take on the idea of a moment apart in time.

then we get to the fun part: the descent. "you think you have nothing in common with deborah vance?" the man in the antique store yells. "you're the same!"

so much of ava and deborah's stories are paralleled. even so, it's important to remember that ava and deborah are not the same person. they're two sides of the same coin; a moment apart in their likeness. while they're alike in many ways, their reflections of one another are just a little off center.

and, even though they're different people, they do share a few similar traits. for one, they both have instances where they surprise each other in different ways—often in grand gestures.

they're both fiercely ambitious, many times doing what others would label as "too much" in order to get what they want/need in any situation.

they both hold each other in the highest regard. they look at each other with a certain reverence, valuing the past, present, and future versions of each other.

"trust me," ava pleads over the phone, and deborah rubs at her brow. "okay, okay," she replies. "i do." and it's clear by the visual difference in her life pre- and post-ava that she really does.

even her home comes to life when ava's in it. a certain warmth exudes not just from the space itself, but from deborah as well. it only takes a moment for the room to fill, the colors to change, the world to brighten.

but just as things get good, they get bad again. what seems to be a recurring pattern for the two of them. fortunately for deborah and ava, 'fight' and 'forgiveness', too, are only a moment apart.

as the video comes to a close, we settle back on where we began. ava exits the hallway, approaching deborah as she sits in front of her mirror. they exist now in the same space.

"you can make anything funny," ava says. because now, only a moment apart from the beginning, she knows the answer to deborah's question; knows which joke of hers is her favorite.

she stands there, hesitantly, as the screen cuts to black. the answer stares back at all of us:

every. single. one.

[staycrazydocrimes]

Literally just saw a tiktok about this person relating to Chrissy and also later make a comment about how they'd trade Chrissy's character for Argyle at any point (as a side note, not just flying in at the top just going like "i hate Argyle", which would have also been ok bc you know, free speech and all) and SOME GENIUS decided to bring race into it.

The person legit captioned the video saying that they were attached to her since the beginning and it's logical that some people would be, she deals with problems many face, like EDs, pressure from family, pressure for maintaining the image and so on.

Argyle on the other hand has been pretty much useless. Ok, it was his car that was used to escape and his wish to leave the sign made Mike realize where the message was but other than that his only personality trait has been that he's the funny stoner bro.

That was just comparing the characters on the baseline, no race included. Some people did complain that the author of the og post hadn't seen the second volume, but let's be real, no one has, so thinking that he might get better is a future probability and when compared to present reality it is not that important, at least in my humble opinion. Most of the comments were more about how he is the only native American representation (and pthers who were correcting them that he was Mexican but agreeing) and by that logic the original posts author was racist by preferring the white girl.

Is diversity important? Yes. But do we want diversity that just exists for just being diverse? Is it fair to say that a bland (at least as far as we have seen this far) character deserves to be there more than a character with actual plot going on just because a show hadn't figured out how to include poc before and just threw one in? Is it fair to be mad at a person for not finding a comic relief character (who some might say isn't even that funny) to be more important than a character with relatable problems and issues instead of directing that anger to the people who created a situation where the only Mexican character of the show is there for easy one liners (also kind of a bad stereotype, you have one Latino character and you make him a stoner?)?

I'm not saying that Argyle should disappear or something, Chrissy is dead and he is still a very alive character. What I'm trying to bring up with this post is some people's need to bring race into conversations that it does not belong to and not into places it should be. I am also not saying that anyone should be walking around hating on the Duffer brothers for that, I just find it funny how many people go on and attack a random person on tiktok who shares their opinion but can't use their voices in actually important places. When it comes to real fights against racism and just hate against minorities most of the people who find pleasure in anonymously attacking others on the internet won't even bat an eye.

Really what the heck.

Just for future reference as I am not the biggest Argyle fan, I dislike him (at this point, he might change and I might change my opinion of him) because as a character he reminds me too much of some of the dude bros I went to high school with (literally if they were a spice they'd be flour), not because we are of different shades of skin.

[pizzazz-party]

Ring Analysis Part 1: Synchronizing— How It Works and What It Tells Us About Ring

...As well as the world he lives in. Our buddy Ring may explain very little about himself, but he doesn’t need to if you’re paying—obsessive—attention to detail.

(Gameplay spoilers up to World 20 under the cut.)

For a mechanic that’s important enough to merit a cutscene, and then goes on to envelop every part of the game, “synchronizing” gets a handful of lines before it’s never explicitly brought up again.

So let’s go over this scene.

“Synchronizing” is, at first glance, a simple exchange of traits. That’s not entirely wrong. Trainee does physically take on characteristics specific to Ring, like the flaming hair, and Ring does gain access to her heartbeat reading, sort of like a living stethoscope.

But what syncing actually is, is a symbiotic relationship. It’s both participants “recalibrating” themselves to the other as best as each of them are able. For a flesh-and-blood partner that’s not built for syncing, this means physically changing to become something a little closer to Ring. (More on that later.) For Ring, a magical being designed with the extra sensory input in mind, it invisibly grants him access to the other’s most invaluable resource: their exercise energy.

Like synchronizing, “exercise energy” is another lovely concept that was mentioned once and then never again. So much so that I’ve been accidentally calling it “fitness energy” for weeks and am still trying to correct my reflexes.

But exercise energy is everything. If all it takes is a simple read of a heartbeat to jumpstart a sync bond, exercise energy is the glue that cements it together. Because Ring and Trainee don’t stop being synced whenever they’re not physically touching. They separate all the time. They can put a little distance between themselves and still be at the height of synchronization, even. But let’s take a step back for a moment, and talk about that “physically changing to become something a little closer to Ring” aspect.

Say that Trainee is doing a leg move at peak performance. Her hair is flaring up. Her legs are glowing that same yellowish hue—because they’re full of exercise energy. That’s what that is. That’s what it must be. It’s what Ring himself is partially made of, seeing as the same stuff flows through his veinlike tubes. Seriously. Look at this. It’s the same goddamn color.

I can’t understate how incredibly important exercise energy is. To synchronizing, to Ring, and to literally everything else. Exercise energy is a type of life energy. In the world of Ring Fit, it’s in everything, everywhere—in varying levels of purity and concentration. When Trainee is performing a fit skill, she almost seems to absorb a mystical...something... from the open air around her, as she charges up a skill. Thin lines of light streak towards her as she lights up, not away. See for yourself.

Trainee isn’t a normal inhabitant of “Planet Fitness.” She doesn’t know how to manipulate exercise energy very well on her own. It looks like being synced with Ring has made her somewhat biologically closer to being made of exercise energy herself, and with that? The slight ability to absorb it from the air around her. It’s a really small thing, likely just a tiny boost of power she’s drawing in from her surroundings (and returning right back after a move is complete). But it’s there. It’s visibly happening. With one exception, this doesn’t occur outside of a fit battle. And that makes sense. A fit skill taking more energy than an air blast is very reasonable. Those crates littering the place are a lot less hardy than...whatever you would classify Monsters as. 

I mentioned an exception. Here it is:

Victory posing is such an odd little tradition, isn’t it? It’s unskippable; Ring always insists on it. And at first glance, his instructions are weird. “Pull in energy from the ground” sounds a bit like nonsense...except in this shot, Trainee is actually standing on a glowing platform full of Exercise Energy. (Yes, that’s what that is.) The moment she’s done charging her squat power, thin lines of light streak upwards— some into Trainee. And when she raises her arms, she expels all that excess energy into the open air. You can watch the process here.

And that’s where most of the EXP from victory posing comes from—from the well of exercise energy humming beneath her feet.

Exercise energy is life energy in constant motion. It’s created (for a lack of a better word) constantly as the body moves and burns calories. It’s also expelled constantly, and this is most visible when Trainee works out. It is not, under any circumstances, meant to be trapped in the body forever. But the act of having possessed any of it at all gives Trainee EXP, a byproduct, which can be kept forever.

———

Ring says in the initial cutscene, “The more you exercise, the more synchronized we’ll be!” The more Trainee exercises, the more exercise energy her body holds at time. The more exercise energy she holds, the more alike she and Ring are in that very moment. The more alike they are—the more in sync they are.

———

The two way connection created by synchronizing is closer to a metaphysical fusion of both participants than a simple trade off. Ring’s powers are (almost but not quite) Trainee’s powers. Trainee’s body is (almost but not quite) Ring’s body. It’s both easy and hard to see where one’s work stops and the other’s begins. So let’s lay down some quick facts.

One! In terms of powers—everything Ring and Trainee can do together, Ring can do alone. It’ll be weaker. But he can do it. He’s got his own supply of exercise energy and he’s a master at manipulating it. Ring is not helpless; you are.

Two! The glowing limbs you fight with in a fit battle belong to Ring—not Trainee. Here are even some screen caps of Ring vaguely referring to them both. (It’s even in all-important blue text.)

Three! Ring is always actively contributing to your fit battles. He is never just counting reps or giving tips. As Trainee charges up a fit skill, Ring is constantly channeling the resulting energy into powering up his battle constructs. He is actively aiming said constructs for you, always.

In the case of specific fit skills, where Ring’s battle constructs immediately appear as buff as can be—it’s because Trainee is helping. A lot of what these instances have in common is the fact that the fit skills in question are less... involved?

Imagine being Trainee, and trying to keep a good aim on the enemy as you do the Mountain Climber move. (Or even squats. I do too many of those and I start disconnecting from reality.) The Ring Raise move, on the other hand, is gentler and gives Trainee a clear, unobstructed view of the enemy throughout the whole exercise. It gives her the wiggle room to try her hand at manipulating her own exercise energy directly.

With Ring and Trainee working together, the charge-up effect is therefore instantaneous.

Four! Canonically, despite the two of them being synced, Ring can shut off Trainee’s access to his powers at any time. That’s because, for them to work in the first place, Ring must be consciously activating them. In some animations at the start of a course, Trainee stretches by pulling on him at both ends. This should summon a suction vortex. But it doesn’t. Because Ring knows Trainee is just doing a pre-run stretch.

It explains why you can’t summon a Mega Ab Guard whenever you feel like it; only when Ring suggests it. Or why you can’t just suck up tokens in mini games like Dreadmill (Ring is too honest to help you cheat). Yes, it’s a game mechanic thing. But it’s a mechanic that Ring canonically controls. Trainee absolutely cannot use any of his abilities without his explicit consent. And that’s probably why she hasn’t accidentally killed somebody in combat yet—Ring is super careful. (He’s a professional, you know.)

———

Now that we have a better understanding of what exercise energy is and a better grasp on how Ring works—let’s circle back one more time to that “physically changing to become something a little closer to Ring” aspect. Because there’s one last insane thing we skipped over.

Trainee is initially the baseline in our understanding of what exercise energy looks like in a human being. Her yellow-orange flames are our constant companion—and therefore we get misled, because Trainee is an outlier. She is synced to Ring, and Ring is extraordinary. So she’s not a good example of the average person.

But in this case, despite being a literal master, Guru Andma is.

Guru Andma, “the balance master,” is the only other human character we see using attacks consisting of all three muscle groups. Her fight is a wealth of knowledge in of itself. When she flexes her arms, they fill with RED energy. When she flexes her abdomen, it fills with YELLOW energy. When she flexes her leg, it fills with BLUE energy. This is the standard for human beings. This is normal.

What this implies then, is that synchronizing with Ring has overwritten Trainee’s original energy signature. Ring’s energy is decidedly NOT human. It’s not even fit-skill yellow; it looks close, but it’s really something else entirely. Ring of course can convert Trainee’s energy into traditional reds, yellows, and blues for a fight. (Or at least, he can fake it if he doesn’t have his Color Coding ability. He once mimicked the flames of Dark Influence early on in the game; some superficial color editing is not above him.)

But yeah. Trainee’s energy is now definitely abnormal.

And yet the process didn’t seem to put her in any physical pain? I really doubt Ring would have sprung that on her if it did. (I mean, he still should have asked for permission first.) I’d wager the effects of syncing, as deep as are, aren’t permanent once the bond is dissolved. What Ring is doing—“synchronizing”—is somehow, simultaneously, extremely mystical and yet completely natural.

———

Last segment, before I let you go.

For a long time, I wondered: what are the prerequisites, that denote syncing potential? Not impressive muscles, I’m sure; it’s heavily implied Dragaux once synced with Ring, and he was infamously skinny. Could the general attitude of a person play a role, if Ring’s energy is pure positive exercise energy? Or could it be genetic? Maybe even entirely random?

I wasn’t sure until I fought the four masters, and especially after fighting Guru Andma.

I’ll bet you anything that there’s something inherently flexible about Trainee, for a human. Something more malleable, and therefore more amenable to undergoing the dramatic changes of a sync bond. And I’ll bet you further that it has something to do with the fact that Trainee had zero previous experience wielding exercise energy at the start of the game.

Because Ring tells Trainee she has potential right after identifying that she’s new.

(The less developed a person is initially, the easier it could be to sync with Ring. Whereas a person with more intensive training would be incompatible.)

And if you’re still convinced that Ring was just impressed with her muscles—please remember that Ring is not human, and does not experience life through the same lens. It’s implied he can “see” energy with more than just his eyes. It’s how you can drop him in a new temple in an unfamiliar land and he’ll still be able to tell Trainee when she’s close to the finish line. (He forgot what static stretching was that one time. He does not have these floor plans memorized.) To him, those glowing wells at the end are like straight up beacons.

He was absolutely examining her energy.

———

To Ring, syncing probably isn’t worth writing an entire essay about. It’s natural to him, instinctive. It’s Ring making a promise to watch over someone, and to have their back as they will have his. And I think that’s beautiful. Frustrating to my curiosity, but beautiful.

———

TLDR; Synchronizing is a metaphysical bond sustained through Exercise Energy, a substance mentioned once in World 1 that encompasses the whole game. It exists everywhere in everything, in different variations of intensity and purity. Ring especially is partially made of exercise energy. It’s the glowing stuff in his tubes. There’s more, but that’s the gist of it. DISCLAIMER: This is for fun! I just wanted to try my hand at explaining how the magical sentient Pilates ring works. I feel pretty strongly about my conclusions, but I’ll go back and edit this if/when/where applicable. Thank you for reading.

———

EDIT (June 20, 2021): Updated header image. Also added a link to Ring mimicking DI.

EDIT (August 12, 2021): Added links to part 2 and 3.

———

RING ANALYSIS

Part 1: Synchronizing— How it Works and What It Tells Us About Ring

Part 2: Ring’s Powers—And What They All Have In Common

Part 3: Ring’s Biology and Possible Origins

[glimblshanks]

Some thoughts on why I like Mariner x Tendi as a pairing:

I feel like baseline what makes Mariner and Tendi a good couple is that they're both intensely loyal people.

Like being a good and loyal friend is literally Tendi's primary personality trait. Mariner doesn't wear her heart quite so on her sleeve but I think it's pretty clear that she's the sort of person who has a couple choice people that she's fiercely loyal and protective of, and often feels betrayed when that loyalty isn't reciprocated.

And I think what's cool about the two of them as a pairing is that they can match each other's expectations in that regard in a way that no one else in the main 5 does.

Boimlers main characters arc the first two seasons is literally learning to prioritize his friendship with Mariner in the same way she does. T'Lyn, similarly, spends season 4 essentially learning how to be a good friend to Tendi and Mariner. Rutherford is certainly loyal to Tendi, but he doesn't really express that sentiment more broadly, and even shows some confusion over Mariner coming after him to help in A Few Badgeys More, like it's not something he would expect from their relationship.

So really, in terms of tit for tat reciprocity they're the only two members of the group who actually manage to match each other's expectations when it comes to being loyal friends.

I think this even helps to contextualize some of the miscommunication between them in We'll Always Have Tom Paris. Why would Tendi and Mariner think they're good friends when they've never been on a mission together and Mariner doesn't even know Tendi's first name?

Because they've both simply *decided* they have friendship loyalties to each other. Doesn't matter if they know anything about each other, Mariner is more than happy to put herself on the line to protect Tendi (as evidenced by the fake shuttle crash) and Tendi has already decide she should prioritize spending one on one time with Mariner. See? friends!

I also think (and I'm sure I've already said this on here somewhere) that they foil each other nicely.

Mariner grew up in cheerful, peppy, everyone be friends and get along Starfleet before fighting in a war and becoming disillusioned and closed off. Tendi grew up as an Orion Pirate who was supposed to scheme and lie and keep things close to her chest and she rejected that upbringing to go be a happy, peppy Starfleet officer.

They are both influenced by their backgrounds in ways that they find inescapable. They both have to find a balance between rejecting the beliefs they grew up and accepting the benefits their backgrounds have given them. And when they're together they can use those similarity in experience to help each other grow.

Idk, they're just so interesting together and I wanted to write an explanation because I think their pairing is under appreciated.

[solivagusdraco]

From the Depths of a Lab: Boundaries Between Nonhumanity and Creativity through the Journey of a Potential Silvally 'kin

I'm a dragon.

That's a fact I've known for over a decade at this point. It was pure chance that I ever even learned of otherkin - somewhere along the line, one of my best friends mentioned being a therian, and so I asked what that was. If I ever had any doubts about my draconity just being something developed because I heard this new fascinating thing… the fact that I still feel my wings and get sense memories when I search for them, even after this long, would eliminate those… we'll call them worries. Perhaps a poor choice of words, but it's what fits in my experience - I'm firmly in the spiritual otherkin camp.

And perhaps that, and my continued journey to understand psychological 'kin, is part of the "problem" that spurred this essay.

Again, perhaps a poor choice in words.

This isn't some discussion about facets of the community, or debate on origins. My experiences aren't another's, just as theirs aren't mine. This is an essay on personal exploration, and the adventure of trying to confirm or deny a kintype whilst sifting through muddy water, years after I've last done any serious introspection on such topics. But if you're still interested in the personal ramblings of this dragon, then I welcome you and will pull up a nice rock for you to sit on. All I ask is patience, for words are hard for me. Talking about myself is even harder.

I awakened as a Dragon in 2010. I found a hearttype in Painted Dogs in 2014. Both of which were… simple.

I found my dragon in meditation and introspection, finding memories of both sense and the more traditional kind. The senses persisted, and still persist. Perhaps one day I'll wake and realize I'm not a dragon, but that doesn't change what I am now, nor how I feel. I am a dragon, and I found that through soul searching.

I found a home in painted dogs during a chance trip to the zoo. They had just recently finished a new exhibit for those fancy canines, and for some reason I just felt so excited to go see these creatures I'd never heard of before that moment. And then I saw them and while I didn't feel like looking in the mirror… It felt like looking through a photo album. I'm not them, yet still they're so familiar.

But this isn't an essay about dragons or canines. Or perhaps it's an essay about them both, just in a different, chimeric form.

Pokémon has always been a part of my life. As of writing this, I'm 27 and the franchise is 25 - the only part of my life without Pokémon are years I don't even remember. I learned the TCG, my first video games ever were Gold and Silver, I had plush and played pretend with my friends. I had favorites… but I never made a character. Not a trainer, not a Pokémon. Rather, it was literal decades before I made a proper Pokémon OC.

Sev the Silvally was made out of a desire to try and run a Pokémon ask blog as a means to improve my art skills through regular practice. I don't even remember the thought process that made me choose a Silvally over any of the other hundreds of Pokémon - I just knew that I'd started drawing and suddenly I had a crime against Arceus with a broken RKS Drive. Granted, Type: Null and Silvally had been my favorite Pokémon of that generation, and my inspiration for the blog was a Type: Null blog.

Later on, Sev would become something of a comfort and coping character for me.

I had been abused by someone I considered one of my best friends in high school, and while I had since recognized it as abuse by the time of Sev's creation… It still bothered me. So I decided to have Sev's escape from the Aether Paradise be that he was stolen by an abusive trainer, and his evolution happened when that trainer turned her abusive hand to a Rockruff pup - an evolution not through love for his trainer, but rather through a desire to protect. Sev escaped his abuse and got the chance to learn how to live without the shadow of his trainer looming over him, just like I hoped to do. Escape that shadow. Let Sev be my guide through the nightmares and hate scrolling that still persisted.

He stopped being just a character.

But what does this all have to do with otherkin?

As I mentioned, Pokémon has been a part of my life for effectively my whole life. Yet despite that… There's never been a Pokémon that gripped me with the intensity that Silvally has. I've hungrily looked for merch, official and unofficial. I'm in the midst of making a fursuit, complete with electronics. One of my Tumblr usernames is multi-attack, and oftentimes now when making an account on a website, the first thing I check is if 'Silvally' is taken as a username. The design I painted on my mailbox is of my dragon and Sev, in a sort of "coat of arms" reminiscent style. This chimeric Pokémon latched on to some part of my mind and refused to let go.

And yet it wasn't until this past year that I even considered that Silvally could be something other than a "mere" favorite character.

Perhaps it's a hearttype. Perhaps it's a kintype. Perhaps it is just a mere favorite character. Introspection is the answer, regardless. My way to find just what Silvally is to me. But then there comes another question. Another problem.

With my dragon, the hunt for memories was clear cut. I had no existing thoughts to sway the hunt, and what memories I eventually found… They had little comparisons to various dragon media I'd consumed. But I start this investigation with Silvally at a disadvantage - I've made a character with crafted backstory, and consumed what little canon information exists on the species. There's no blank slate for me to start from - whatever search I do will always be colored by Sev and his tale.

So then I have to ask myself:

Is Sev his own character, or is he me?

I've never had a character that I was able to just write. Perhaps it's akin to soulbonding, but what I've read on that experience just doesn't quite taste right for the circumstance. I'll create a path for my characters, a baseline for their personality to grow on… but all too frequently, they end up bucking those guidelines and becoming their own person, as it were. They don't keep me company in my mind, but they still make their own minds clear should I try to direct their story or actions in ways they don't agree with.

Where does one find the boundary between self and other, when those "others" make their own decisions yet aren't their own entities?

To say nothing of my tendency to dole out my flaws and traits to each of my characters. Each little facet of myself being the seed from which a character will grow. Sometimes as the simple fact that the familiar makes creation easier. Sometimes as a means to work through a problem. But regardless of reason, it doesn't change the fact that almost every character I've ever made has had some piece of me in their core.

But… When every character you make is a facet of yourself, the moment you consider that they might be more than just a character gets muddy. Is it a hearttype, born from a facet of yourself that your subconscious decided you needed to care for more? Or is that facet just a part of you that recognized what you were, long before your consciousness connected the dots? And if kintype it is, then how do you determine what memories are real? Were the plot points and character biology you designed mere fabrication of the mind? Or were they flashes of another life, fleshed out, recorded, and/or adapted in the name of writing?

As if the discovery and determination of memories wasn't already complicated enough.

Sev's name was the only decision I consciously made whilst creating him - shortened from 'severance', as his creation was for the partial purpose of finally separating myself from old memories. Everything else just… happened. There was no rhyme or reason or choice to anything. Not his color, not the reason he and the other Silvally of his world were created. Every plot point, every musing on his biology was a simple moment of "Oh, so that's how it happened".

In what way is that different from how I found my dragon, with her quiet nights of meditation and introspection until the memories and feelings fell into place?

Now don't misunderstand - this isn't me saying that discovering a kintype is nothing more than making a character. That couldn't be farther from what I'm saying! Rather, I'm musing on the question of where the boundary is between the creative process and the discovery process. If Sev (or just Silvally in general) isn't a kintype, then it's still fascinating to me that his creation was so similar to me discovering my dragon. And if he is a kintype? Then is that particular creative process something to be mindful of when contemplating "original character" kintypes?

Perhaps this question would be easier to find an "answer" to if I knew what Silvally was to me… but I don't! That's almost the point of this essay - a vague attempt to knock some solid feeling thought loose from my mind.

It just happened to lead to a fascinating line of thought.

[samrosemodblog]

During the series run, what was your opinion about people finding Sonata Dusk being the “easiest” to redeem due to silly/cute/dumb nature, while Adagio was the “hardest” due to her pride? One thing that I always liked about AA is that you choosed to switch the situations around, with Adagio being the easiest to redeem due to her motherly nature and Sonata the hardest due to her childish and selfish nature. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind Dazzling redemptions, but I like to see different depictions of them too and you did yours very well Sam! Anyways, I guess I went off topic lol! All in all, what is your opinion on Dazzling redemption?

I genuinely don't mind Dazzling redemptions to a certain degree, because I do think they could make for fun antagonists without being villains to the mane 7. Sort of like the Crystal Prep girls, but with a bit more animosity than they have.

But something that annoyed me early on with Dazzling redemption was this notion that Sonata was a sweet innocent babbu who ONLY was evil because the other two were pressuring her into it. They made Adagio and Aria outright abusive towards her and literally all it would take is a single conversation with the heroes for Sonata to ditch her 'evil sisters/friends'

But like... Sonata in the movie was just as into the villainy as the other two? Having watched it so many times its incredibly obvious that Sonata is just as evil, she's just bubbly and happy about it.

And I think it's just the fact that people can't imagine a happy, bubbly, and giggly character as evil, or malicious, or intentionally wanting to do harm. So that really bothered me.

Aria's Archives was a unique case where I inherited the personality traits of the Dazzlings from their brief appearances in SciSet Diaries, which is how we got Motherly Adagio from 'how she dotes on Honeycrisp', and Evil Sonata because 'She tried to feed Honeycrisp a tidepod and hates the child'

(Noticing a pattern of those traits being mostly Carousel's ideas? lol)

Not that I didn't make those traits and ideas my own during the course of AA, but I just sort of evolved the initial traits to be my own. But if I had done AA from scratch completely and raised the Dazzlings up from step 1?

Well, really, Adagio and Aria would mostly be the same, though Adagio might've been a bit more cunning than Motherly, but she still would've had that 'leader role' that I developed for her for the Dazzlings.

But Sonata would've been much more toned down. She still would've been mischievously evil, but she wouldn't have been "I kick puppies with a smile" evil like she ended up being. Again, if you feed a child a tidepod then you're basically just a child abuser so I had to write around those character traits, but a pure 100% Samnata would not be THAT evil.

So yeah, to put a long story short, I don't mind Dazzling redemptions, I just don't like ONLY SONATA redemptions because of her status as fandom Waifu clouding their portrayal of her character.

And its easy for your interpretation of a character to be influenced by others, especially if you're using their version of that character as a baseline lol

[k7l4d4]

Luz SMASH!! (Just Kidding!) An Owl House AU Idea!

Hello all, this here is an AU Crossover Idea for, you guessed it, the Owl House! This idea crosses the Marvel Universe with that of the Owl House, helped by the fact that both are run through Disney, it isn’t a full on crossover, as only specific elements are supposed to be relevant. Now, on to the background information and premise! Everybody clap your hands!!

First off, in the Marvel Universe, Gamma Radiation, the highest known form of radiation and incredibly deadly besides, comes in a third variant that possesses Mutagenic properties, causing Superpower bestowing mutations in those exposed to it, and live that is. This third form is the emissions of an ancient existence known as “The One Below All,” a malevolent mindless monstrosity that sits below all of existence, and is the gestalt of all hate, pain, negativity, and suffering, as well as the physical embodiment of the concept of destruction itself. For all that The One Below All is dangerous, it lacks both a mind and a personality of its own, needing sufficiently malevolent and outright evil individuals to act as hosts for it and give it a mind and personality to work with. 

But I’m getting sidetracked. One of the big themes of The One Below All is that those who wield powers from his Radiation, known as Gamma Mutates, are incapable of truly using their powers for good. I call bull on that. Destruction isn’t evil, it just IS, nor can The One Below All decide how those who wield his power decide to use it, and while certainly some have chosen the path of wickedness, others have counted themselves among the most powerful of heroes, such as the Hulk himself! As I see it, destruction and creation are intrinsically linked; for something to be created, their must be room for it to inhabit, ergo, something must be destroyed. The power of the Gamma Mutates is the power to create Change, whether for good or evil is irrelevant. So, I thought, why not give the power of a Gamma Mutate to someone already known as a harbringer of change, chaos, and destruction of the prior status quo. I’m talking about Luz Noceda ya’ll!!

Luz's Home Earth is a variant of the Marvel Earth, minus the Mutants who are one world down the metaphysical scale, and she's well acquainted with the unusual, the bizarre, and the super, if only due to TV and the Internet filling her in. This version of Luz has always had her head in the clouds, being slightly off-put by how little the Supernatural events going on in the world touch her home town. (After gaining her abilities she gets a little more appreciation of why that sleepiness is usually a good thin) Luz gained her Gamma Mutate abilities due to her mother, Camila, helping with a Gamma Radiation-based clinical trial years prior. For the longest time, Luz's latent abilities lied dormant, only emerging when she enters the Isles, and gradually at that, only becoming noticeable when she tries to free the prisoners in the Conformatorium and actually making slight headway before her arms give out. Luz's Gamma Mutate abilities manifest, at first, as a form of absorption and emission, allowing her to take in energy and emit it as her own, with a Gamma Charging twist. The big issue is two-fold, in that Luz both has very poor control over the ability and cannot reliably absorb or emit at will just yet, and she also personally dislikes her powers, as she feels they undermine her dream, as well as her goal, of being a Witch, often looking for excuses not to use them or practice with them. When she finally manages to get over her hang-ups, Luz also discovers that she has the power to temporarily convert others into Gamma Mutates themselves by emitting raw Mutagenic Gamma Radiation directly into their bodies. By temporarily, I mean it lasts from around a minute to an hour, depending on how strenuous their activity is, and she has no control how their Mutate Status will manifest in the slightest. Her absorption ability only works in the form of directed energy, such as a flame, light, or electricity, things of that nature; she absolutely CANNOT absorb another person's energy directly from their body, and trying to do so causes her body to emit large amounts of Gamma uncontrollably as a result. Her distinctive signature trait that marks her as a Gamma Mutate, that is to say the Green coloration the vast majority of Gammas typically have in some form, manifests in her skin and hair, but does so in an odd way, fluctuating in response to her energy stores, causing her to become more green in color the more overall energy she has absorbed into her body so far, and fading back to normal the less she does. Because she can absorb Light as an energy source, Luz always has a slightly green tint to her skin and hair, even when at her absolute lowest energy store, but most people can't actually tell, only being able to note that something is off about her appearance but can't figure out WHAT it is.

Luz’s powers have a REALLY bad habit of kicking in at literally the worst possible moment, such as releasing a sudden burst of energy out of nowhere when she or her friends need to be stealthy, or accidentally absorbing a very much needed spell cast by Eda or one of the others when they are in a pickle.

Like in Canon, Luz lies to her Mami about going to Camp, but makes a better effort of staying in contact with her in a more meaningful capacity than just passing emojis at her. She also reveals the fact that she is a Gamma Mutate to Camila, in the hopes of gaining an explanation as to HOW she’s one, as well as any advice she can give on keeping herself or others safe.

Other MU elements are most definitely present, for one thing, do to some of the chaotic events resulting in conflict between known heroes, magic is a known force on her Earth, so Luz KNOWS magic is possible, she just doesn't know how, and her mother has been adamant about her not trying to learn on her own, mostly out of concern for her safety. I would say that Eda is familiar with Doctor Strange and other Earth-born Magic users, and may even have some practice with their methods, if only to stick it to Belos and only in the form of Cantrips and the like, as well as being more familiar overall with Earth and Human Culture, as opposed to her just above baseline knowledge that most Boiling Islanders have canonically. She's still not totally savvy, but she's heads and shoulders above her Canon self, in that she genuinely knows what the things she's selling actually are, but still sells them as random garbage anyhow just because the weird and insane explanations she gives are more likely to get her sweet, sweet profits!  Eda, in addition to her Con-Woman gig, was tasked by the Magical Orders of Earth to monitor and intercede with Magical Matters on the Isles as price for allowing to keep her portal and her scams running, as well as charged with keeping the Portal as far from Belos' grubby mitts as she can.

If you all have any questions, comments, or anything, feel free to let me know!

[itsclydebitches]

hey, thank you to responding to my asks abt bkg + mido fics!! i really loved your response. tbh you brought up most of the thoughts i had, but there's one that occurred to me after reading your response. imagine for a moment if bkg's bullying had been about literally anything other than quirklessness, which is like. ableism lite. imagine if mido was harassed to the point of sui-baiting for being fat or gay or trans or anything but fantasy ableism. imo, i don' t think we'd have bkg stans anymore.

Of course! 💜

I do wonder if we’d really lose any Bakugo fans though, if the ableism were 100% truthful to real life as opposed to a metaphor. Because it’s a pretty on the nose metaphor. The entire human population is now born with a particular, physical trait and if you fail to develop that trait “normally” — or don’t develop it at all  — then you’re ostracized from society, either subtly (it’s harder for you to get certain jobs) or much more obviously (the school bully gets your whole class to laugh at you). Insert “quirk” for any physical trait in our real lives  — the ability to walk, the ability to hear, the ability to see, etc.  — and it’s a near 1 to 1 comparison in regards to supposedly “lacking” something. Granted, quirks are a bit more complicated in regards to their breadth, but even that can be read as a metaphor for baseline “normalcy.” Inko’s ability to move small objects doesn’t give her a major advantage in life, but its existence ensures that a lack of a quirk never hurts her either, similar to how my build means I don’t really have a shot at the Olympics, but the fact that I have two working legs means I won’t be discriminated against for not being able to walk. 

So there’s a lot of discussion surrounding how well (or not) the story grapples with this metaphor. Whether, for example, it’s a problem that Izuku’s minority status is instantly “fixed” via All Might’s quirk, or whether we should read the passing of this quirk more like an assistive device. That’s a whole other, complicated conversation though. The takeaway for now is that the conversation exists and I think the majority of the fandom is at least somewhat aware of it. Even if we’re not versed in disability rhetoric, we understand the foundational concept of Izuku as an Other who is pitted against the rest of “normal” society. Our very first line of the series is “People... are not born equal” and Bakugo feeds that distinction in the worst way. Some aspects of how BNHA engages with disability may be subtle, but Bakugo absolutely is not. From beating up on Izuku for being a “quirkless wonder [playing] at hero,” to telling him to jump off the roof, Bakugo’s entire character revolves around how he considers himself not just superior for being “normal,” but also extraordinary due to privileges outside of his control. These issues are front and center... yet fans still love him, defend him, etc. I’m not sure the metaphor is hidden enough to assume that if “quirk” were replaced with a real life minority status, that fans would suddenly view Bakugo differently. Just because his flaw is already so incredibly prominent and its meaning already easy to grasp. It’s meant to be that way. 

As always, I want to re-iterate that there’s nothing wrong with liking a character  — they’re a character, they’re fictional, they exist to entertain us  — but in some respects those who really intensely defend Bakugo represent the very issues BNHA is (at times clumsily) trying to address. We wouldn’t have Bakugo stans if he tormented Izuku for being fat, gay, trans, etc.? Sure we would! Because those people already exist. They’re every privileged bully whose friends laugh along with their “jokes.” They’re the young employee who got there thanks to money and family connections, but who we praise for how talented they are. They’re the criminal who has committed the most heinous deeds, but who is let off with a light sentence because it was just a “mistake” and “they have their whole life ahead of them.” Bakugo represents people who already exist across the world and we excuse, justify, or even uphold them all the time. Though (as said) this is complicated by his existence as an enjoyable, fictional character, I still think there’s something significant in the fandom’s knee-jerk desire to defend the non-black, (so far) non-queer, (fantasy) able-bodied, good looking, talented guy with a bit of a sad backstory. We already have a problem of going out of our way to excuse people with those privileges, so why would that change when the person is fictional? The awful truth is that a situation where one kid terrorizes another for not being “normal,” gets away with that for years, has teachers who never step in, gets into a prestigious school despite their behavior, never has their prospects threatened because of how they treat others... that’s common. I personally think we’d still have plenty of Bakugo stans because the act of excusing that kind of behavior is already something that happens in everyday life.  

[okay-victoria]

Status of Women in The Empire

Summary: LN gives some evidence women have a better status than they did in OTL Germany. It gives little to nothing in the way of evidence that we are in post-sexual-revolution territory. It presents little enough evidence generally that you can use this issue in your own story as you wish; however, using how humans actually work as your baseline, it would be a very definite handwave to think that gender equality is much more than marginally better than OTL would have been at the time, or that Tanya wouldn’t be negatively affected by it in some significant ways in daily life. On the other hand, the original story handwaves an eight year old enrolling in a modern military and getting promoted to a mid-ranking officer by age eleven, so as a reader, I’m obviously pretty down for handwaving some realism for the sake of a good story.

Evidence:

V1/C1

“The armed forces have a practical exception in place for just about everything.” <= I think in fanon the entire Empire as seen as this sort of “everything we do is logical” territory where gender discrimination would have had to be eliminated, but in reality it’s presented as the military, and they are making an exception for a rare and incredibly militarily useful type of person to be able to be put to use by them without gender discrimination stopping it.

V1/C4

“But in the far-from-gender-free world of “ladies first,” Tanya with her outwardly girlish appearance is, albeit only relatively, blessed compared to the other students” <= YMMV, but I would not describe modern society as a world of “ladies first”. Do people do/say it to hark back to pre-1960s chivalry? Sure. Is it really the standard we live by anymore? Not so much. Tanya seems to pretty definitely still be living in those days.

“Basically, apart from the mage branch, the army is a man’s world. Actually, even most of the mages are men.” <= this is notable because it is said when Tanya is in War College, at which point the war has been going on for long enough that available mages have been conscripted, so there is no selection bias that men have simply chosen to pursue a career as a mage more often than women. This is actually weirdly important because it either means:

Magic talent is like, an X chromosome trait and men are thus more likely to have it [in which case, it would probably be taken as natural evidence that men are superior and worsen the gender equality situation]; or

There in fact is a Youjo Konki-esque exception for married women and/or mothers. A nation has to still be relatively in the infancy of gender equality if Female Mage #102 has children with Infantryman #1,000,102 and the military decides that since it can’t leave these children parentless, it has to conscript the dude who is substitutable for literally anyone else and not the human weapon.

Tanya has a long-ish reflection on women in the military. Important points are, the rules have only been overhauled recently to make it practical for women to serve in combat. Women in combat didn’t really exist prior to this war, and women in the military were basically limited to noble/imperial families having their daughters serve out nominal duties. Whatever boost women as a whole get from serving in a capacity that people are used to seeing men in, it has not had time to transform society all that much.

V2/C2

“Women administrators are not uncommon, but in the Empire where gender equality still has a ways to go, their qualifications are always questioned.” <= YMMV as to what degree this is meant to be a statement on something that still troubles women in modern times, or something that indicates gender equality is not particularly close to modern.

V2/C5

“After all, now that I’ve been turned into a girl, I’m faced with this annoying military framework where men are superior. Just the thought of my promotions being blocked by an invisible glass ceiling is enough to dampen any desire I might have to act all girlish for propaganda…apart from that, the Empire’s personnel system has adapted extremely meritocratic principles for the war, in a way, so I’m more or less satisfied with it.” <= sort of same as above, YMMV on whether this is just Tanya realizing what life is like for a woman in modern society or meant as a “no, it was worse” point.

However, I will say this: I highly, highly doubt any men chosen for high military honors were photographed doing anything other than looking ultra manly in uniform. Women serving in modern militaries are not forced to put on showy dresses when they get their photos taken, they are treated, at least in photos, with the same respect as their male colleagues. The fact that anyone found it appropriate to only photograph the recipient of the highest military honor in cute girl clothes speaks to some deep discomfort with anyone outside the military seeing women not doing what they’re supposed to.

V6/C6

“The Imperial Army has already tapped all the population pools that can be mobilized, but it still has two options. One is to begin the general conscription of women. That said, they’ve already been mobilized in the industrial sector.” <= YMMV, again, on how willing a modern country would be to conscript women to fight a world war, but if you are as deep into a world war as the Empire is and no one’s trying it, at the least we can say the Empire is not the bastion of cold logic it fanonically is outside the military. Also, it pretty much seems like women working in large numbers has only become a thing because all the guys are off fighting, which very much sticks us in pre-1950s territory.

V8/C1

Andrew reacts surprised to see a female reporter from the Federation, and reflects that they are quite liberal in some ways <= while this is a non-Imperial guy, given his familiarity with the Empire, it would seem weird that if the Empire was particularly more advanced than his country that he would still be so surprised.

Other Working Knowledge Your Author Has On This Subject:

Women serving in the military, while certainly helpful to the cause of gender equality, by itself is not going to create a broad-based transformation in society. That sounds a bit like saying: As we all know, the US dropped any racist laws or regulations as soon as we started allowing non-white units in the military. After Elizabeth I serving as the Ruler of England, a very manly role that her tiny woman-brain didn’t fuck up too bad, the people who thought women were naturally stupider than men were quickly relegated to the margins and gender discrimination mostly became more of an annoyance than a real hindrance to the average woman’s goals. It just doesn’t work that way. And I’m not here to say that the US is a post-gender paradise, but the US, which has never had a woman president and is pretty slow about expanding military opportunities for women, nonetheless is a lot better on the gender equality front than some countries that have had women leaders and allow women a fuller range of military opportunities. There’s a lot more complexity to it than: My country respects military => military allows women => guess I’m going to stop being sexist

The same goes for something that isn’t about gender equality at large but how it relates to Tanya: The view that while gender equality may be non-advanced, Tanya specifically is exempt from dealing with it because she is “one of the boys”. It Does Not Work Like That. At All. And the further you go back in time, the less it worked like that. Within the military specifically Tanya will probably be alright, but society at large punishes men & women that break gender roles as brazenly as she does more than it rewards them. This is an entire essay unto itself, Google is your friend.

This is going to sound silly and facetious but I’m being dead serious, from what little we know of fashion in the YS world, it matches what would have been the case in the real world in the WW1 era. If society at large was really that different, that wouldn’t be the case.

There is no canon evidence that magic has made any scientific advancements outside the military sphere of influence. Before the advent of things like dishwashers, vacuums, microwaves, especially refrigerators, and especially laundry machines being common household items, the ideal family model was: one person makes money outside home, one person takes care of house. There wasn’t enough time in the day to work and run a household. Many women in poor households had to work, generally at the expense of being able to keep their own household running smoothly, and even then they often worked in capacities that allowed them to be at home or ones that allowed them the flexibility to take care of some of this stuff. It really just isn’t possible to have a society remotely approaching equality when one gender is automatically assigned to home unless necessary.

Same goes for something else - contraception. Women having access to a contraceptive device that they control is a major component of setting a society on a path towards equality. Birth control pills didn’t become widely available until the 1960s. Without being unable to at least kind of balance the outcome of sex (even between married couples) between men and women, women as a class have a hard time escaping from the housewife-mother archetype.

Not to get too political here, but the Empire matches OTL Germanic-Prussianness too much to ignore. Living under a military-worshipping, religiously-inclined traditional monarchy has not, in any real life example I’m aware of, gone hand-in-hand with anything other than a fairly conservative and patriarchal society, and I feel like the burden of proof is on the other side to explain why that isn’t the case in the Empire, and our original author makes approximately zero effort to do this.

Being X turns Tanya into a woman for the purpose of making her life worse. It seems simply illogical [although I guess Being X’s decision-making skills are questionable] that he would then drop her into a world that had undergone broad-based gender reform instead of a world that was just barely tweaked from our own in such a way that it would allow Tanya to serve in the military.

My conclusion: the most likely option is that gender equality is exactly enough better as it needs to be to allow the military to convince the lawmakers that they should be able to use a very rare & dangerous ability to be part of their arsenal without respect to gender, or age, and no more. That difference is not likely to make life for women significantly better than it was in the equivalent OTL time period.

[kingbennyboyyy]

benny’s RWBY rewrite: the white fang

so this is something that’s been on my mind for a while, and i’ve been trying to formulate my thoughts about it. the white fang in RWBY, as it stands now, is a really poorly thought-out approximation of the black panther party, an actual organization that fought for the equal rights and the equal treatment of black people in the united states. the black panther party’s actions have been long pathologized by white society and academia at large, and have been falsely contrasted with the ideals and teachings of MLK. the false dichotomy of violent and non-violent action is reductive at best, and blatantly racist at worst. while there is a whole fuckton to be said about the real-life consequences of these discourses, i’d like to focus on their impact on the writing of RWBY. i’d also like to talk about how i’d change how the white fang looks in order to make things a little less uncomfortable.

content warning for real and fictional racism, antiblackness, violence against marginalized people, and discussions of white supremacy under the cut.

so, the white fang. the RWBY wiki describes the group as “ a Faunus organization in Remnant. Founded following the Faunus Rights Revolution, the White Fang was initially a peaceful activist organization created to improve relations between Humans and Faunus and improve the civil rights of the latter.” more concisely, i would describe the white fang as a faunus rights activist group, whose modes of operation have changed over time. within the story, after the peaceful leader ghira stepped down, the faction as a whole took a notable nose-dive into violence. but why did this happen? why was the white fang written like this?

first of all, all of the following talk comes from the subjective opinion of one black genderqueer writer. i am not the voice of the entirety of my community, and i can bet that there are people who disagree with me. i’m just here to say my piece.

that said, i think that the white fang’s writing grossly misunderstands what oppression looks like to marginalized people. the RWBY writing team obviously wanted to handle racism in some kind of way- they wrote racism into the story. however, it’s incredibly clear that most of the writers don’t really understand how deeply racism runs in given societies. the oppression of the faunus is clearly mirroring the oppression of black people in the united states, and yet there’s little to this oppression other than surface-level discrimitation. ghira’s direction of the white fang doesn’t seem to understand that personal prejudice is a very small aspect of the continued oppression of the faunus. alarmingly, it’s only when “radicals” such as sienna khan and adam taurus take control that actual, structural avenues of racism are acknowledged. this has several issues.

- whether the RWBY writers intended this or not, attributing the acknowledgement of actual systemic issues to violent radicals is inherently a really bad call. the dismantling and destruction of racist structures is the baseline of most avenues of anti-racist thought, but by only assigning these beliefs to people like adam “kill all humans” taurus, you’re telling the audience that only people like adam “i’m gonna kill all my ex’s loved ones b/c she hurt my feelings” taurus think that these things are a reality. make no mistake, institutional racism and structural violence against marginalized people is a thing. by giving these ideas to violent actors, you’re sending a really shitty message. 

- another thing to note is the role of fear in the white fang’s activity. blake is quoted as saying that under adam taurus, people only pretend to respect the faunus because they’re afraid of the white fang. this is also bad. there is an actual line of racist thought that thinks that people who just want equality are a bunch of thugs using intimidation tactics to get special treatment, and by affirming this in-canon, you’re giving credence to these beliefs. in addition, adam’s literal desire to put humans in cages and make them go extinct is also an actual white supremacist talking point. actual fucking white supremacists go on about how the white race is going extinct as a means to manipulate otherwise well-meaning people into committing acts of violence against marginalized people. but RWBY says, “no, the white fang actually wants humans to be wiped off the face of the earth.” i shouldn’t have to tell you how buck fucking wild this is. 

- there’s also the role of violence in activism. the black panther party has long been attributed with senseless and anger-fueled violence against white people, but this assessment of the party is completely false. in truth, the arming of black panthers was a direct response to overpolicing and police violence against black people. the black panther party advocated self-defense, and acted as its own protective force for black americans. they had guns so that they could protect themselves from the cops, who were assaulting and killing them in absurd numbers. if the RWBY writers wanted to draw parallels between the white fang and the black panther party, they could have very easily done so by actually doing their research.

the question becomes, is it at all possible to have members of the white fang as actual villains within the RWBY universe? i’d say that it is possible, but it has to be done very carefully. there’s several things that have to be kept in mind here, and the entire understanding of faunus oppression has be to restructured in order for this to work. i’ll outline what i would change below:

- firstly, there needs to be more evidence of faunus marginalization past the surface level. this could be evident in a phethora of ways, anywhere from the trend of faunus hiding their animal traits being more common (an important thing to note is how accessible passing as a human is to the faunus), to beacon actually having much more bias than humans are aware of. blake highlighting these biases would be extremely helpful in establishing how deeply anti-faunus sentiments run. the only racists being cartoon bullies and shady billionaires rings too closely to the sentiments that white people have about racism. this is also a comparatively minor gripe, but the whole “becoming the monster people think they are” mask thing is just so... dumb. there are legitimate reasons for faunus to hide their identities during protests, and pathologizing this is just such a shitty thing to do.

- next, the white fang as a whole cannot be a terrorist organization in actuality. people can believe that the white fang are a bunch of terrorists, sure, but this can’t be the truth. for example, it would make perfect sense for weiss to think such things. her being the heiress to the schnee dust company, being fed stories about scary faunus with weapons trying to hurt her and her family would make sense. but the stereotypes humans have about faunus activism can’t be true. in addition, there should at the very least be more than one faunus activist party. the fact that there’s only one in the entire continent of remnant is so fucking stupid. you don’t think that some group of people would be dissatisfied and go and do something else?

- adam and sienna cannot be the leaders of the entire white fang. i’m sorry, but it’s just way too fucking easy for racists to say “oh, the entire thing’s just an excuse for (insert minority here) to ransack property and hurt people!” ilia could have been promoted after ghira stepped down. it would be interesting to see how she uses her ability to pass as human to actually make some changes for the people of menagerie, and the power structures that led to its creation. sienna has the potential to be someone disillusioned by strictly pacifist ideals of ghira, but she can act more in accordance to the actual black panther party, advocating for self-defense and knowing one’s rights. the arming and training of faunus, as frightening as it may be to the humans in power, cannot and should not be depicted at the beginnings of terrorism. there’s potential for actual discussion of the effectiveness of pacifism and respectability politics in activism, but all of that was overshadowed by the gross villification and oversimplification of the white fang.

- finally, adam. i think that adam is able to remain mostly the same, with a few adjustments to the environment around him (along with the previously discussed changes). i don’t think that adam should be the only person whose violent oppression is readily visible. the trope of the oppressed person going “mad with vengeance” is just adding fuel to the fire of the belief that those who speak out against their oppression should be put down. as satisfying an arc blake and yang beating the shit out of blake’s abusive ex was, it did just kind of feel like two people being like “yeah! violence wrong! pacifism good!” the unification of faunus SDC workers shouldn’t be attributed to adam. the advocacy for faunus to be able to defend themselves shouldn’t be attributed to adam. adam needs to be labled extremely clearly as an outlier, and even then this is risky. i think that adam’s group should be miniscule in comparison to the other sects of the white fang, and i think it would be interesting for his dealings with roman and company to be based on the distribution of android soldiers. adam shouldn’t come from a good place. yes, he suffered atrociously at the hands of his oppressors, but as a character and as an element of the story, he should be uniquely evil. for the few actual people in his group, he should rule through fear and violence, and defectors should be common. his brand of violence should be unique: rather than actually aiming to make changes to help the faunus, he should be solely focused on revenge. blake’s leaving him makes more sense in this way: rather than her leaving because of the inherent evil of violence, she should leave him because of his twisting the good intentions of the white fang into a self-serving cruelty. this all has to be contrasted against the well-intentioned actions of the actual white fang. the terrorist logo that appears universally on white fang regalia should either be solely adam’s, or his group should have a different name entirely.

so there. there’s my thoughts on the white fang and the stuff that the RWBY writers were trying to do. what should be taken away from this discussion is this: it is possible to write racism into a fantasy story without it being an absolute garbage fire, but it takes work. it takes understanding racism, the fact that it’s not just cruel people, but people complicit in the structures that uphold it. it takes being mindful of actual racist talking points, and making sure that your work doesn’t play into them. finally, if you’re going to make a main antagonist a member of the fucking civil rights movement, please for the love of god make it abundantly clear that they aren’t the villain because they want equal rights.

i’ve read so many stories where this defanged, platitude-ridden form of activism is treated as the only valid form of activism. in reality, it’s the form that people in power are most comfortable with. people approve of the idealized version of MLK because his activism was one that made white people feel good. the MLK we read about in schools is an illusory one. the real man kept a gun on him because he knew that as much as white media would have you believe that people liked him, he knew that people still wanted him dead.