#literally no one else is being that generous though

[joejhang]

my problem with raven!neil

this may be controversial but i've actually found that i don't rlly like raven!neil fics and aus. and here is my thesis. spoilers ahead continue at ur own risk.

crucial distinction here is that i don't actually dislike the concept of "raven!neil" as an individual character concept. i think it's actually very interesting to look into the sort of person neil would be if things had been slightly different. that is, obviously, the point of au fics and headcanons. my actual problem with raven!neil is mostly when fic writers and the fandom in general put him in context and into au fics and then the problems start arising. i'm being purposefully vague but i'm gonna go into all the problems i've come across when it comes to raven!neil.

first off, and this is something i've mentioned before, i think the fandom tends to strip abuse victims (particularly the characters who got out of the nest) of literally any agency or individuality. this happened with jean, when the whole fandom seemed to collectively uwufy him as if he isn't an adult (yes he's young yes he's barely an adult but he IS and i would argue thinking of him as a child still does him no good) with massive amounts of trauma. yes, jean has a learned fear of riko and tetsuji (and coaches by extension bc of the abuse from raven coaches) but he actually doesn't harbour much fear towards anyone else? he has come to expect violent retribution/punishment and does sort of have this problem where he bares his throat for the knife (when he puts the racquet in rhemann's hands and when he expects laila to hit him back) but other than that he actually doesn't demonstrate a lot of fear or panic when engaging with others.

i think the same would go for neil. the neil in current canon quite literally has no fears that do not trace back to his father. he doesn't fear riko, tetsuji, ichirou, andrew, drake or even lola and his father's men. where he does show fear is whenever his father gets involved. he isn't afraid of riko or anything riko has to say until riko brings nathan wesninski into it. the closest thing he comes to fear for anyone else is when he flinches from wymack but i'd call that survival instinct rather than like...fear. he doesn't have much of an emotional response, just an instinctual and physical one.

we obviously have no idea how neil's fear would develop if he had grown up at the nest. i'm not sure how much of a difference it would've made, honestly. obviously, those eight years on the run heavily reinforced his fear, so i don't really know where that fear would go if he was stagnant at the nest and confirmed (?) to be safe from his father. i think one of neil's key personality traits actually is his bravery and fearlessness, so i can't really see neil ever being truly afraid of tetsuji and riko. if you want to compare jean and neil in this aspect, all i'd say is: people have different responses for trauma. neil is not jean 2.0 or vice versa. even if they were put in virtually the same environment with the same treatment, they are still different people with different personalities. thus, they respond in different ways. just like jean and kevin responded in different ways, though their situations are implied to have been very different.

besides the point of fear and object of fear, i don't actually think being afraid of ur abusers means ur a baby that should be coddled and uwufied by the fandom. it's actually completely normal and human, so i actually have no clue why the fandom decided to do this with jean.

as someone in the tags of one of my previous posts so aptly said, autonomy ≠ agency. did kevin and jean have autonomy in the nest? no. but they did have agency. stripping abuse victims of agency and personality is actually so harmful and i think it's way too normalised in fandom culture. but that's a discussion for another day. we've all heard the comparison of the fear responses in relation to andrew (fight), neil (flight), kevin (freeze) and jean (fawn). i actually think these are mostly accurate, but it doesn't do any good to simplify it so completely.

neil having to remain sedentary rather than running away and never stopping or looking back is inevitably going to alter his responses to situations. neil's knee-jerk reaction to traumatic events or news in the og trilogy is literally: go on a run. this might still be the case in the nest, but i doubt it. i've said before that i think neil is the type of person to fight back. u could argue in response to that that jean was also fierce and angry when he got to the nest but developed something akin to learned helplessness where he simply stopped fighting back as a trauma response. but again: neil and jean are not the same person. they may have similar personalities, but everyone is different. you can't boil down all the victims of a particular abusive situation into the same person. this is stripping them of agency and individuality, once again. jean learned to stop fighting back and even ask for violent punishment for "wrongdoing" but i honestly don't think neil would. again, not because he's superior or inferior to jean, he's just a different person entirely. his time at evermore in trk was effectively a trial run for the time that riko intended neil to spend there after the year ended. we don't know exactly, but it's probably safe to assume that riko tried to cram as much of the abuse that kevin and jean received over several years into those two/three weeks. i mean, neil got fucking waterboarded and handcuffed to the bed for fuck's sake. i think at some point neil does say that he bowed his head and played at subservience, but when it really came down to riko and tetsuji trying to force neil to do something he adamantly did not want to do (sign the raven's contract) he literally just refused and didn't relent even under torture. jean even said he thought riko might've killed neil for it. neil was literally ready to die rather than bend to riko's will.

obviously, things would be different with kevin and jean in the equation. i can see neil reining himself in for their sake, but this brings me to another issue i have with raven!neil. and that is the strange need to turn neil into a protector figure. i.e. a human meat shield with a martyr complex for kevin and jean. every time i sense any iteration of this in any fic or hc i literally have to stop reading. it's just so...like random to me. neil has literally not been a "protector" in canon in fact he's almost always the one being "protected" (andrew's deal to literally protect neil from his father, wymack and abby's protectiveness, etc). yes, neil has protective instincts but so does literally every human being. neil is, in my opinion, no more or less protective than anyone else. compare this to say, andrew, who is known for his role as the "protector" (beating up the guys who hurt nicky, killing aaron's mother + getting rid of his addiction, making deals w kevin + neil). i've also written another extensive essay about why neil isn't and will never be the martyr or sacrificial lamb that some ppl seem to want him to be, so i won't go into it here. just please please please read the series back and realise: neil is quite literally the opposite of a martyr. i just have no idea where the idea of neil as a martyr or protective figure came in. especially in regards to kevin and jean.

it bears noting the first time neil meets riko with kevin there. at kathy's, neil doesn't hesitate to defend kevin and clock riko's shit. but note: defending ≠ protecting. and even if you do want to call that protecting, neil's way of "protecting" has never been in a martyring, self-sacrificial, human shield way. he is almost always on the offensive (clocking riko rather than directly defending kevin, punching riko, etc etc). neil is a natural instigator, and it would be such a disservice to him to erase that characteristic of his in raven!neil fics.

there are also several times in the series where neil's offensive actions have consequences that directly impact his loved ones and other people. like the first time neil insulted riko, a man literally died. the second time, drake attacked andrew. the third, neil took a trip to hell on earth and spent three weeks at evermore. the fourth, the foxes' and other athletes' cars got trashed. there's probably more that i'm not remembering, but you get the idea. neil feels guilt but never regret for this. he literally says verbatim that he isn't sorry for what he said about riko/the ravens even after the cars get wrecked and the others seem to blame him. so while i can see neil ducking his head and submitting to prevent jean/kevin getting hurt, it's also worth noting that if neil really cared that much about consequences, he probably would've stopped openly and loudly insulting riko in public after seth was murdered the first time. neil knew, or at least had a hunch, that it was his fault. did that stop him from doing it again? hell no. it can be both a character flaw and strength, but it's also just a fact. neil does not think that much about consequence. he sort of just does what he wants when he wants. it's a part of his personality. while there's no telling what about his personality would've changed at the nest, the fact that ten years living with a mob boss serial killer and eight years on the run from said mob boss serial killer didn't seem to kill that mouth of his, idk what would.

my final point is that when the raven!neil fic has andreil in it, it turns into andrew "saving" neil from his situation. words can't explain how much i hate this take on things. especially when it usually comes out of nowhere as well. bfr, andrew is not gonna risk his life to "save" some pretty redhead that comes his way without some pre-established connection. i also just think the idea of a "saviour" in a relationship is actually insane. as someone who is consistently pissed off and triggered by imbalance in relationships, this irritates me to no end. andreil obviously are protective and care for each other. that's a known fact. but i feel like w raven!neil fics they tend to exaggerate this and make it insanely one-sided. like andrew is some superhero type figure that needs to save damsel-in-distress neil who has a penchant for out-of-character martyrdom and is trapped in a horribly abusive situation. it sounds like i'm just hyperbolising no this is actually in all of the raven!neil fics that i've read. this exact dynamic. i hate it oh my god. it's not only entirely out of character i don't even think it works for them. like this should not be what their relationship is about or based off of. this last bit might just be a personal thing but i just hate hate hate it and it feels so wrong to force andreil into this kind of a dynamic. just leave my boys alone i'm BEGGING.

the aftg fandom does have this problem that should be addressed where they tend to coddle and uwufy abuse victims (particularly kevin, neil and jean in the context of the nest) and strip them down to easily digestible stereotypes. but this literally could not be further from the truth in canon. y'all forget how actually bitchy neil, jean and kevin are as individuals. kevin's fear of riko and tetsuji is bone-deep, but that never stopped him from picking fights with the foxes and hitting back whenever they had a problem w him (the only exception being andrew, but kevin already said, he lets andrew walk him like a dog out of sort-of thanks that andrew is letting him stay at psu). jean is also sort of an asshole (affectionate) back in the og trilogy and lowk in tsc too. he has a seemingly endless supply of insults for literally everyone and literally thinks about breaking jeremy's fingers for treating him too warily. he consistently gets annoyed when the trojans are too careful with him and remember when he literally threw jeremy to the floor during practice? yeah. seriously, stop boiling down these very traumatised individuals to their fear and history of abuse and erase any other part of their personality that makes them an interesting, well-rounded individual. it's so irritating to read and have to deal with the gross misinterpretation and mischaracterisation of these very well-loved characters. they deserve better, and these things also bely some very pertinent issues within fandom culture at large that should be talked about and critiqued more. jesus this is long anyway thank you for reading.

[bemusedlybespectacled]

since @sketchy-scribs-n-doods asked why birth certificates are racist:

preface: read this post about eugenics so that I don't have to write that overview again.

anywho! the very very short version is that there was a guy named Walter Ashby Plecker (hereafter "the Plecker fucker") who was a doctor in Virginia in the late 1800s/early 1900s. like he was born right around when the Civil War ended and his family owned slaves, if you want to get an idea of the time and place we're talking about.

the Plecker fucker, along with a couple of his good buddies John Powell and Ernest Sevier Cox(1) from the Anglo-Saxon Club(2), wrote and lobbied for a law called the Racial Integrity Act (incidentally, one of the blueprints the Nazis used for their own laws), which did a couple of things:

it legally categorized every person into either "white" or "colored," with "white" being only people with a completely unbroken and provable white European heritage – with a teeny tiny exception for people who were less than 1/16th Native American that he was bullied into including(3) – and "colored" being literally everything else, with no specificity as to whether it meant Black or Asian or Native American or whatever;

it prohibited white people from marrying colored people (though notably not banning having sex with them: we're talking about a guy whose family owned slaves here, so you can do the math on that)

it allowed for the sterilization of certain undesirable people, such as the mentally ill; and, most importantly for our purpose:

it required all births and marriages to be registered in a big state-wide database, with the races of all parties listed.

and he also set himself up as the first guy in charge of that registry, so that it would be done exactly the way he wanted it.

prior to this, if you could get away with passing as white, you were (generally) treated as white. this was to prevent any white-passing mixed race people from marrying into white society (because their birth certificate records would show that their parents had nonwhite heritage), and eventually eliminate mixed race people, period.

now, obviously birth certificates weren't in common use before this law, so at least the first wave of people affected by the law could still (in theory) lie about their ethnicity and establish themselves as white on their birth certificates, thus allowing them to continue marrying "real" white people.

not a problem! the Plecker fucker fancied himself a bit of a genealogist (meaning he thought everyone with the same last name was related, somehow), so he'd just go in and edit people's records to say "colored," invalidating their marriages in the process, and ordered all of the people under him to do the same. like, there's a letter he sent out to the county-level people that was like, "anyone with the last name Collins [yes, really] is actually mixed race, DO NOT LET THEM GET MARRIED TO WHITE PEOPLE, EDIT ALL THEIR RECORDS."(4)

outside of the obvious negative effects of the law in general not allowing interracial marriages (until it was overturned by Loving v. Virginia in 19-fucking-67) and sterilizing anyone disabled or "feebleminded," him going in and literally erasing Native heritage from records has prevented Virginian Native Americans from being able to claim federal tribal recognition, because it's all just "white" or "colored," which could mean anything nonwhite.

anyway, that's why birth certificates are racist. they were made up by a racist guy to do more racism. and then that racist guy got hit by a car and died.

I stg this is the short version. the longer version was idk how many pages before I melted into a depressed puddle of goo and almost flunked out of my senior year of college.

(1) Ernest Sevier Cox was a weird fucking dude in that he was really good friends with Marcus motherfucking Garvey, to the point that they attended each other's events, dedicated books to each other, and wrote each other a lot of letters even after Garvey was deported to Jamaica (and Cox personally tried to get Garvey released from jail when he was imprisoned for mail fraud). This was partly because white nationalism and black separatism accomplished the same ultimate goals (i.e. Black people leaving the US) from different angles, but I think they just also genuinely liked each other? For some reason??

(2) Basically the KKK but for genteel, refined, upper-class people instead of violent, disorderly peasants (yes, they legit disliked the KKK because it was a poor person thing). Also, I can't find it again, but at one point when I was researching all this in college, I was looking through old school newspapers and either William & Lee or William & Mary had a junior Anglo-Saxon Club, sort of like a Young Republicans, and one of their contributions to the student newspaper was a piece about how they definitely weren't racist and how dare they be accused of racism, they just didn't want blacks or whites mixing! How is that racist? (Yes, they used the word "racist," and I have no idea what their definition of racism was, if it wasn't what they were doing) Anyway, I think about that a lot.

(3) This is informally called the Pocahontas Exception, because a lot of really, really influential, prominent and rich Virginians actually took a lot of pride in claiming to be descended from Pocahontas and John Rolfe (even if they weren't), and without the exception, they'd all be classified as "colored." Plecker didn't want any exceptions at all (he was, at the very least, not a hypocrite about what he thought "white" meant), but given that some of the people the law would make "colored" would potentially be voting on the law, he had to include the exception or risk it not being passed at all.

(4) The reason I even got into this subject in the first place is that one of my family tree names is on that list and we're pretty sure they moved to Kentucky because of it, but it doesn't necessarily mean they're related to us OR that they were white-passing mixed-race people: they could well have been just plain white people who happened to have the same surname.

[calware]

Do you have any advice on how to write Dirk and Hal or know of anyone I could get tips from :0?

okay so first of all i want to say that i don't think that i'm really an 'authority' on the subject, or that anyone else really can be aside from andrew herself. but i do have some thoughts and opinions that i'm willing to share

#1 piece of advice is to reread the comic once in a while. or at least reread bits and pieces if that's too daunting or not feasible. the POV cam extension is really helpful for that because you can specifically reread just the parts where dirk is there (does not work for hal though iirc which is where the dialogue directory is the next best thing) anyway i suggest doing this because it's always better to have their canon depictions fresh in your mind so you aren't accidentally working off of purely fanon ones

i think this is more of just a writing tip in general but try to think about how much you intend to transform the character. and by that i mean how much you want to stick to canon characterization. no matter how far you go with it, your depiction should always be informed by canon, but you can go as far with it as you want as long as it's intentional. so for example, if you want to stay really close to canon characterization, go for it. but if you want to stick them in an AU, ask yourself how that will change their behavior, personalities, etc. and it you specifically want them to act differently than they do in canon, that's okay too as long as you justify it and make it believable to your reader. you don't have to be afraid of changing them as long as something happened to cause that change

i feel like these are the two biggest pitfalls people fall into, usually a combination of the two. either they just don't understand the character well enough to give a believable portrayal of them, they don't give the audience enough reason to believe their portrayal of them, or both. for example there are a lot of hal fics out there where he is evil and kills people for fun, which to me just tells me that the author didn't really get him. but the takeaway isn't that you should never make hal evil and kill people, just that you need to provide basis for the audience to believe that he would be evil and kill people while still feeling in-character for doing so. that's what i mean by intentionality, you need to understand why you make the artistic choices that you are making

i wrote down some common tropes (?) of hal writing i tend to see that are along the lines of "i see these a lot and they wouldn't be bad if the author just made them feel believable" if that's at all helpful. i can do some for dirk as well if anyone wants me to

3. avoid being reactionary. the homestuck is so reactionary with its portrayal of characters, meaning that one mischaracterization will get popular, and people will complain about it and swing the complete opposite direction, leading to a different mischaracterization becoming popular. an example of this is everyone thinking dirk is the coolest ever, and then switching to think he's the lamest ever. just try to focus on your own perceptions of the characters based on what you read from the comic and what you agree with others on, don't form perceptions based on trying to break away from something else

4. this goes more for dirk than hal because hal isn't as popular, but just keep in mind that dirk isn't the main character. i think a lot of people attribute main character energy to him when they don't really have to. obviously if you write a fic about dirk, he's literally going to be the main character, or if he's your favorite character you're going to care about him more than the others. but that doesn't mean he's any more important, more special, more traumatized, more mentally ill, or what have you, than any other character. going back to the example from above, the people who treat him as both the coolest OR the saddest character are both portraying him as the Special Boy. when the reality is that they are all pretty special and he's not an exception

i hope that all made sense... if not feel free to ask and i can explain further if needed

[zvezdacito]

First analysis on Sebek's attitude towards humans that actually takes the human colonization of the Briarlands into account instead of stopping at "its internalized racism because nocturnal fae are just conservatives clearly🤓☝️". I'm genuinely so thankful for this💀😭🙏

I don't blame people for misunderstanding the power dynamics between humans and fae here before Book 7 because there was literally no info/they SEEMED to be leaning on the "biracial kid hates his other half" trope/them leaving it so the initially elf-like fae could be interpreted as elitist snobs to human innovation, so the Briar Valley's history was intentionally set up to be a surprising revelation as to what actually motivates all of the afformentioned. But Book 7 has been out for 2 whole years; 2 whole years worth of time to actually catch up on lore. Twst is literally spoonfeeding its sympathetic stance to how the fae feel about their history the entire time too, its not as if its easy-to-miss subtext😭

Some real world tension Sebek's case is *more* comparable to is probably like Korean, Chinese and SEAsian elders having a strong grudge against Japanese people because of all their warcrimes in our countries, but it technically becoming "less relevant" to the daily lives of succeeding generations (and it seemingly being irrelevant to Japan from the start with the historical revisionism + refusal to acknowledge and apologize for said warcrimes) thus leading to some today seeing that hatred as some sort of reverse racism (even if it isn't)

I don't think it's comparable to the dynamic of racial oppressor and racially oppressed in western countries since its still very structurally relevant/less malleable between positions I'd say? (Even tho this is people's default when thinking about Sebek's "racism")

And Sebek's position is more similar to the mixed children of occupying soldiers/settlers with native women being conflicted about their identity and place (less because the "white" side being a (statistical) minority in the colonized-majority community, but a sense of guilt that their very existence feels like a reminder of the brutality and suffering that community faced). Though I'm not claiming it's a DIRECT parallel or allegory for these, since Mr. Zigvolt is not a soldier and may not even be part of the soldiers' descendants, just bringing it up to illustrate Sebek's actual place in the dynamics implied by Book 7 lore

Ngl I think twst fans have this issue of understanding stories where systemic issues contextualize why characters do what they do based entirely on how "nice" or "polite" that character is as an individual😭 Same reason people think Jamil (a literal modern day slave) is evil and "should've just talked to Kalim", or attempt to downplay the Dawn Knight's accountability in the invasion because he did lip service to wanting peace between species (even though it's likely a white-saviory idea of peace where human ideas take the lead and there's no trust for fae's autonomy. Just the bare minimum that they survive and get along with everyone else at their own cultural expense, if the loss of Fae tongue to Common even in the BV is anything to go by)

Idk I guess this is just my long comment about my pet peeve on people oversimplifying Sebek's attitude to "racism" because historically fae were not the ones with the systemic power and authority to discriminate and control the humans on the basis of them being human (which is what racism is systemically, it's more than just personal feelings of dislike lmao. And either way it was more the other way around for humans vs fae but fanon ignores this because "well, sebek is annoying")

Is sebek racist? Only a fun question, do not take seriously

Hello hello! Thank you so much for this question, I have been so excited to discuss Sebek's speech patterns since Book 7 reached EN~🥳

Silver says outright that Sebek can be prejudiced at times and Lilia states in the beginning of Book 7 that Sebek is the very picture of his grandfather, from the way he talks to the way he thinks.

We as the players do not realize how literally he means this comment until later in Book 7 when we meet Baul Zigvolt and realize that their speech patterns have a lot in common:

While maybe difficult to put across in the English-language adaptation of the game, Sebek has always spoken very old fashioned.

(Ace: "Okay grandpa, you gonna take her for a buggy ride next?")

He will occasionally say "this Sebek" in reference to himself, which Baul also does. (They are also both canonically quite loud, possibly another trait that Sebek adopted from Baul).

Sebek will also infamously refer to others using the 貴様 form of "you," which doesn't really exist outside of fiction and is such a rude form that it is practically a swear word. More here ->

Sebek uses it constantly, in everyday conversation.

And see Baul using it in Book 7 just all the time, with everyone except his superiors such as Lilia and Maleanor (there is even a time he becomes very angry and uses it with the senate).

Also like Baul, Sebek will switch to the extremely old-fashioned and formal "kiden" to refer to people who have impressed him. More here ->

Sebek's battle cry of "I'll swallow you whole" even seems to come from Baul!

And another thing Baul did in Book 7: refer to Sebek as human rather than by his name until Sebek earned his respect, which we have also seen happen between Sebek and Azul.

(In a Nightmare Before Christmas voiceline Sebek refers to Zero as a ghost and then a dog, eventually settling on his name, while he refers to Jack Skellington as "Bones." Is Sebek not just calling out humans, but referring to everyone by what they are rather than who they are?*)

(Does he simply yell human more than "dog," "ghost," etc., because humans are the species we have seen him interact with the most? It was confirmed in the novels that mermaids, beast-people, etc., are all referred to as "human" within the Twst universe, which has yet to be confirmed by the game but also has yet to be disproved.)

Sebek also refers to Grim as "dire beast."

There is a significant moment where he shifts to calling both Grim and the prefect by their names in Book 7, which the prefect even has the option of acknowledging aloud: "Whoa, you called me by my name?"

In a Harveston sub-plot Sebek even refuses to use an honorific with Epel's grandmother Marja until she proves herself worth of his respect.

Silver calls Sebek out on his inappropriate use of "kisama," while both Riddle and Sebek scold him for referring to people as "humans."

Whereas Epel's rude speech patterns can be explained by how it is a part of the dialect he was raised to speak and therefore he doesn't know any better (more here ->) Sebek is consciously and intentionally speaking down to others until they prove themselves worthy--is this something he learned from Baul?

Sebek says that Baul provided him with "an enriching education," but what exactly did that education entail?

Lilia expresses frustration with Sebek's inability to adapt to society, but canonically Sebek has only been outside of Briar Valley for 6 months, while he's been emulating his grandfather for 16 years.

Lilia says that Sebek has always been close to Baul and Jamil has a line of, "When admiration goes too far, the consequences can be dire."

I always assumed this was meant to be about Malleus, and while it still might be, is it also a reference to Sebek's devoted imitation of his beloved grandfather?

And we can go even deeper if we want, though this goes into theoretical territory:

Sebek was born after Briarland had already fallen to its invaders, but he was raised in a community where the war is still living memory.

Baul fought to protect his home against those who overran the land, exploited its resources, labeled him a monster, and drove them all into a fraction of their former territory.

He remembers what Briarland was before it the invasion, he fought to save it, he failed, and he survived to help put what was left of the country back together.

And then his daughter married someone who is potentially a direct descendent of the very invaders who had spent years killing anyone who looked like him and destroying everything he'd known (with even his native language possibly disappearing: Sebek says that speakers are "somewhat rare" in modern day, as the fae have generally adopted Common as their language of choice).

Sebek: "This has been weighing on me ever since we entered Lilia's dream. That my own father's distant ancestors may very well have been involved in all this too..."

And due to the long lifespans of the fae he isn't the only one with trauma and loss that feels both recent and personal.

Sebek and his siblings were not raised amongst the offspring of those who survived the war but the literal survivors themselves, unlike the humans to whom the wars are ancient history.

Sebek: "You must remember: from Lilia, Grandfather, and Malleus's perspectives...the Dawn Knight is not likely someone they consider to belong to the 'distant past.'"

While not confirmed in-game, it is not too wild to imagine that Sebek has chosen to ally himself with the survivors rather the invaders, and especially when he has been raised to idolize Malleus, whose own mother they killed not very long ago by fae standards.

While humans have been reproducing and dying at such a rapid pace that the current generation might not know that dragons are real, the same fae that managed to escape the slaughter are still there, and are now being met with the people born of those who stole their country but to whom there doesn't seem to be much significance to it all beyond a chapter in a history book.

And that might all be very well tied up in Sebek's use of "human"! (Disclaimer: this is all just a personal analysis and one of many possible explanations!)

Not only does it seem to be a speech pattern that Sebek has adopted directly from the grandfather he adores (and from Lilia and Malleus, who are also known to refer to non-fae as "humans" and whom he idolizes), but it may also be a reminder both to himself and to everyone around that while he may be two worlds in one, he does not approve of those that tore apart the community he grew up in, lest someone wrongfully assume that he agrees with the actions of his human ancestors.

Which would make it a form of self-preservation while growing up in a predominantly fae area.

Sebek's speech patterns and behaviors might be serving as a way for him to assert his loyalty to the fae, the people whom he admires, identifies with and was raised by, and distance himself from the humans who tried to eradicate them.

(If Sebek’s mother brought his father to Briar Valley from somewhere else (possibly Sunset Savanna) as has been implied, it’s possible Sebek’s human lineage isn’t tied to the invaders at all, but this is still vague.)

*Sebek refers to Sally as "Sally" throughout the Halloween event, using her name without an honorific but at least using it, much like he did with Marja. He also chastises Trey for failing to offer his hand to Sally and help her to her feet when she falls to the ground. Does Sebek possibly have a chivalrous side, not dissimilar to Leona? Memo: must check.

[professeurm]

house md 1x09

john: ...The reason normal people got wives and kids and hobbies, whatever. That’s because they don’t got that one thing that hits them that hard and that true. I got music, you got this. The thing you think about all the time, the thing that keeps you south of normal. Yeah, makes us great, makes us the best. All we miss out on is everything else

this interest me. now putting this into house and wilson relationship

wilson is far from normal (still a babygirl tho) but he tries to be normal. at least what is standard to be normal. House got his job, the obsession of solving cases. Without it, he would just be a depress addicted with a disability.

in general both are far from normal. house thing makes him a great doctor, but it also pushes people away and he misses out on love and friendships. With House lovers, they eventually leave him for a similar reason. House friends... well he doesn't have any he's a jerk and no one can tolerate him. Wilson doesn't have that thing, not yet at least (in my opinion tbh). He has a wife and hobbies... well at times lol

but the thing is house doesn't miss out on everything. he has wilson and its all he needs. Wilson understands and accepts him like no other

john: ...No woman waiting at home after work with the drink and the kiss, that ain’t gonna happen for us

that's not true though for house. wilson doesn't always come home with him but he's there and when Wilson became his roommates. He had someone to come to, have a drink with and have fun with. Even before being roommates, they still had that. House always had someone waiting for him after work since s1 and after the final season he literally had someone to go home to

[maqui-chan]

wanted to try drawing my favorite (kid) citizens again (along with my height hcs)

bonus

more height hcs under the cut!

Evan - has a steady growth, ends up at a respectable 178 cm. For a Tildrum though, this is actually quite short.

Tani - grows taller faster, before (unfortunately) stopping at 165 cm. She was much taller than Evan at one point.

Mylas - I hc that merfolk are generally tall bc they're predisposed to have long limbs so therefore i think mylas would be tall. He ends up at 185 cm.

Filippos - had a late growth spurt. He was getting a little worried about his height bc he wanted to be at least taller than Evan. He at the very least ends up at 179 cm.

Chip - he's just plain short. It doesn't help that his posture is also bad. He dgaf until someone else brings it up. Ends up at 162 cm.

Lili - also short. And petite. Her diminutive stature occasionally gives her trouble but at least it doesn't stop her from being taken seriously (she's scary). Ends up at 154 cm.

Hoi Den - had an early growth spurt, but she didn't stop growing afterwards. Filippos looked to her for advice on how to get taller. Ends up at 176 cm.

Muriel - another short queen. Some say its because of her literal heavy lifting at a young age is what disrupted her growth. She doesn't mind, most of the time. Ends up at 150 cm.

Speio - she had a one and done growth spurt in the middle of her teens. She really hope she'd be at least 175 like Callianera but she stops just short. She ends up at 172 cm.

[the-architect-of-ferrari]

Being a Carlos Sainz fan means that it’s not enough to watch your favorite driver crash out of a race on the LAST lap right when he was about to podium, but then you have to deal with everyone out for blood and to hear them tell it, Carlos just did 9/11 pt 2.

[philosophicalparadox]

Oh 100% Itachi is a parental figure to Sasuke. And you don’t even have to look at Itachi to see it.

Sasuke treats him more like a father sometimes than a brother. Especially given the overall narrative that this series usually establishes about father-son relationships, which to be fair are also reflected a bit in teacher-student dynamics but nowhere near as much.

And that narrative overall is not unique to Naruto but is a rather typical shonen trope thing about having a goal to supersede your father, to best him at his own game, or to otherwise surpass him. (This is a deeply cultural thing in Japan…but I am not going there today).

And while occasionally brothers do stand in for this as ordinary brothers, usually if a sibling, trope wise, has to step into the “you must live to surpass me” role, it’s because they’re narratively a paternal figure.

And like I said, Sasuke’s got all the clues here. He:

Is always looking for Itachi’s attention, be it positive or negative

Obeys his brother without even thinking about doing otherwise even long after the massacre*

Pre massacre, he’s clingy and needy towards Itachi because his father won’t give him the time of day, but also because canonically that’s just how he’s always been. Sometimes babies really do pick their parents. (I’ve been in that situation, sort of, otherwise I’d of said it seemed unrealistic. But no, sometimes a little baby just says “no, YOU get to be my mom!” And there’s really nothing you can do 🤷‍♀️ this happened twice, with my niece AND grand nephew.)

Sasuke is always striving to best his brother, even after the massacre, like when he was training with the Kunai, trying to beat Itachi’s record. Yeah that’s a typical sibling thing, but in the bigger context, like after Itachi’s death when Sasuke is once again trying to out-do him, it feels more shonen-trope-fatherly to me. (Though I will concede that I only really watch Shonen that leans in the general direction of Seinen, which is to say more mature themes that twist the typical Shonen narrative; Naruto both is and isn’t an exception to this. Point is I’m biased lol)

* in reference to two:

There is one poignant scene in which Sasuke doesn’t kill Naruto explicitly because he doesn’t want to do what Itachi tells him to anymore. He then semi reneges on this later and decides that severing the bond is more important— he’s still technically not doing it for the reasons Itachi said, but he has changed his mind all the same.

After Itachi dies, Sasuke decides to go counter to his brother’s wishes, but he’s ultimately still doing what he thinks Itachi wants…sort of.

Now, before I go here, I want to say that this is entirely my interpretation, and you’re free to disagree.

But when Itachi tells Sasuke to hate him more, that he’ll only get stronger if he harbors more hate…a lot of Itachi haters take him literally here, and/or are very confused by it. But in my mind, what Itachi is actually saying as a deeply traumatized 18 year old with limited life experience who has just come back to the place that started it all and probably isn’t in a great place is:

I want you to hate me as much as I hate myself.

And, in particular reference to the “you’re weak if you can’t hate with all your heart” thing (I don’t have the panels on hand) :

I want you to throw away or erase everything you ever cared about just like I did.

As someone who has dealt with severely angry and angsty teens before, this is the message I heard. He wasn’t really goading Sasuke on, insofar as he was looking for someone to commiserate with. And nobody else but Sasuke would genuinely understand. I don’t think it was a planned response, personally— Itachi wasn’t looking for Sasuke, and didn’t appear to know that Naruto was his teammate. So my bets are on that being an impulsive reaction to a stressful situation and Itachi trying really hard to put a wall between them while inadvertently pleading for closeness.

But the point is that Sasuke heard what he meant, not what he said. Because he knows his brother. And Sasuke did exactly that — threw away everything, just like Itachi, severed his bonds, just like Itachi, became a rogue, just like Itachi, etc.

You could very well argue that Sasuke just went and did that if his own accord trying to feel closer to Itachi, which I would completely believe. But either way it’s far more son-father than brother-brother in its dynamic. Don’t get me wrong they absolutely have their bro moments, like when Sasuke is chasing Edo tensei Itachi down and calling him a big fat liar essentially, and being a complete child while Itachi basically rolls his eyes at the Drama 🤣 it’s both funny and sad.

But overall there is certainly a sense of paternalism in their relationship. But it’s not solely defined by Itachi, which makes me wonder how anyone ever missed it.

Ever since @shinoposting made a post about Itachi being a more parental figure to Sasuke a couple of months ago, I've seen several angry responses to it, with the sentiment that "Itachi fans want to make Itachi look good and their parents look bad."

Listen.

A five-year-end boy is left alone on the night of the kyuubi attack with his toddler brother.

He doesn't even seem disconcerted, but instead promises "I'll always protect you, no matter what."

Itachi is the one who sits with him, despite his busy schedule, despite grieving Shisui, and despite being burdened with what's more than he could handle, he took time to check on Sasuke's report card.

Itachi was also ready to abandon his first Anbu mission for Sasuke's sake. It was after this their father even recalls he had to go to the Academy.

Itachi "ignored" Sasuke. And, like, what do people even expect from someone who's been this much burdened that isolating himself is the only thing he can do to protect Sasuke and his innocence?

Yet, Itachi doesn't know exactly how not to be distant. That's a sign of how much he was suffering at this point. He was "bad" after the massacre, but before that, he was kind and sweet, who cared about nothing but Sasuke's wellbeing.

[imclou]

can't believe fnaf brought me out of art hibernation man what a turn of events

[lord-squiggletits]

No offense but I feel like among IDW1 Megatron fans you can lowkey tell who's read multiple series of the comics (namely, phase 1 and early phase 2) and who's only read MTMTE by the way they talk about, headcanon, or write Megatron. And like it does genuinely make a huge difference because I feel like MTMTE Megatron in general is a different flavor of Megatron from the rest of the series..... not OOC, that's the wrong word, but like....... more as if JRO had a very specific vision of him and janked the reins of the series to drive Megatron down a specific interpretation of his character, which is still in-character but is very different from the way he was characterized early in the series.

But in terms of Megatron fans, you can really tell the difference between MTMTE-only readers and other-parts-of-IDW readers.

[bitegore]

ngl i think i kind of was a genius for being like 'yeah this character is a scary killyou cannibal scary killer who scary kills you' and then realizing that the way my worldbuilding works out is that there's a nonzero chance that if you leave literally any body parts over they can just come back, depending on what they believe in their heart of hearts can kill them. Of course she'd start eating her kills. She probably tried normal stuff first and then realized it didn't work and she had to try harder if she wanted to actually keep them dead.

[bmpmp3]

for the past couple years ive been slowly. slowly learning beginners japanese and its very fun and im enjoying it a lot but also it has made me painfully aware in ways i wasnt before of how much my specific vaguely ontario accent makes me make out sloppy style with my vowels. i am going at those vowel's tonsils. i am doing things to diphthongs you wouldnt even believe.

[lucalicatteart]

i'm so glad we're going to the castle after all lol. i picked to let the cat choose because 1. the cat is a competent and respectable leader and 2. i hoped it would mean essentially just letting you choose your favourite

The weird animal researcher's abandoned castle ruins aren't the same location as the creepy snowy castle mentioned in the first poll, but I am glad we get to go to some sort of old castle regardless >:3 (assuming he can actually make it there). This one is actually cooler, since old ruins are always more fun than upkept structures anyway. Navigating the decaying property might be an issue though lol

[lycorid]

It’s kind of wild looking at jobs near me.

They all require years of experience and expect you to have things that aren’t even used on the job (drivers license for a job that doesn’t require any form of driving) but they all pay like garbage.

The pay is low enough that you wouldn’t even be able to afford one of the low income housing apartments because they require you to make 3x the rent.

[minakoaiinos]

Animating this season like you can't have the slightest bit of jest and god forbid jesting about yaoi

[ohnoitstbskyen]

asking sincerely. do you see a romance between jayce and viktor? do you think they ended up being something romantic at the end?

With apologies I am going to only half talk about the thing you are asking me, since I have something else on my mind and you happened to hit the button that makes me vomit it into words.

Coming at this from an aromantic perspective, I obviously don't experience the state of absurd obsessive delusion that you bizarre romantic freaks fetishize so feverishly*, but I am often annoyed by the idea that friendship and romance are either opposites or mutually exclusive. From my perspective, the boundary between the two is at best thin, and more realistically not actually a boundary at all except by cultural construction.

*i am taking an excessively hostile, crass tone for my own amusement i do not mean this seriously please be normal at me, weird allo freaks

I won't get into my full feelings about the end of Arcane, but it seems perfectly plain to me that the script, the imagery and the animation presents Jayce and Viktor as two halves of a whole, not opposing forces but alike to yin and yang: opposites which each contain the other. And at the climax of the show, the greatest peril to life and peace in the narrative is resolved by these two men literally joining their bodies and souls together, and going into eternity holding one another for comfort and strength. They are quite literally soulmates, quite literally the most important people in one another's lives.

I don't think that that kind of intimate emotional connection between men must necessarily be either romantic or sexual - I am aromantic, and plenty of ace people exist, and there is nothing in our natures excluding us from intense connections of love with other people of any gender.

I also think it is willfully ignorant (and genuinely homophobic) to act as though these deep connections are mutually exclusive with sex and romance. As though if Viktor and Jayce fucked nasty and made out sloppy style, suddenly their intimacy is less pure or valid, or tainted somehow.

"If these two men who are emotionally close to one another also fuck or get romantically involved, then friendship is dead, murdered on the floor by a dick-shaped knife; vile sexuality corrupts and debases the true, pure and virtuous love of ✨friendship✨" <- This shit is homophobic at a baseline, queerphobic in general, and frankly as an aromantic man I find it pretty fucking insulting as well.

What, are my friendships with other men just inherently more pure and divine, more meaningful and true than a gay man's can ever be, because I will never suffer the vile temptation of adding romance to my affection? Is that how I should think of myself? And is an aroace man more pure than me still, the only source of TRUE male friendship that a man can ever experience, free from the pustulant corruption of sexuality and romantic desire?

You get this pathetic defensiveness (especially from men, but other genders aren't immune) wherein sex and sexuality and romance between men is perceived as a threat to men's right and ability to experience deep connection to each other. But the emotional castration of men comes not from people imagining sex and romance as a component of our relationships - it comes from people who insist that our emotional lives must be ruled by strict binaries. Sex and romance, OR ELSE friendship. Deep romantic connection OR ELSE deep platonic connection. Pick one and do not dare to imagine both, nor act as though the boundary between them is something that we built by cultural fiat, and which can be dismantled just the same.

And yes, yes, yes, I know there are cultural forces literally illuminati-style conspiring to systemically erase the entire existence of explicitly romantic, sexual male love from media, and I know that homophobic puritanism is on the rise and there are material concerns and a real necessity for explicit representation in fiction, yes I know. Everything is more complicated than a tumblr post can cover, I am not trying to Solve Rainbow Capitalism™ over here, I am trying to express frustration as an aromantic man that this stupid fucking binary keeps getting culturally reinforced by both my enemies and my well-meaning allies, when I think the binary is what's fucking killing us in the first place.

So anyway. My position is that Viktor and Jayce can be entirely aromantic no-homo friends, and they can fuck nasty in the throes of mutual need and obsession, and I refuse to entertain the idea that there is an irresolvable contradiction between those things. Each of those can contain the other, or become the other given time and circumstance.

What the imagery, storytelling and script of Arcane makes clear is that Viktor and Jayce love each other more than life itself. To say that that love must be shoved into the box of either "platonic" or "romantic" is to miss out on almost everything that is beautiful about love. It can be both and neither! It can be a secret third, ninth or fifteenth thing that they haven't invented a tag for on Ao3 yet.

They are giving each other whatever the spiritual mind-ghost equivalent of sloppy backshots are on the ethereal plain forever, they are the most romantic lovers in the cosmos, and they are also the most chaste and platonic life-partner friends you have ever seen, effortlessly intimate and unashamedly tender. They are men who love one another, in every way that love matters.

You can pick whichever interpretation brings you joy, and resonates with what your heart needs, the text of the show is eminently and explicity open to it, and anyone who says otherwise either failed to pay attention, or refused to pay attention on purpose.