#meta and character babbling

[soltiana]

i know what tumblr likes and it's obviously 20 slide powerpoints about william conrad. i researched this.

[anghraine]

Speaking of the social context of P&P and Austen in general, and also just literature of that era, I'm always interested in how things like precisely formulated hierarchies of precedence and tables of ranked social classes interact with the more complex and nuanced details of class-based status and consequence on a pragmatic day-to-day level. I remembered reading a social historian discussing the pragmatics of class wrt eighteenth-century English life many years ago and finally tracked down the source:

"In spite of the number of people who got their living from manufacture or trade, fundamentally it was a society in which the ownership of land alone conveyed social prestige and full political rights. ... The apex of this society was the nobility. In the eyes of the Law only members of the House of Lords, the peerage in the strictest use of the word, were a class apart, enjoying special privileges and composing one of the estates of the realm. Their families were commoners: even the eldest sons of peers could sit in the House of Commons. It was therefore in the social rather than in the legal sense of the word that English society was a class society. Before the law all English people except the peers were in theory equal. Legal concept and social practice were, however, very different. When men spoke of the nobility, they meant the sons and daughters, the brothers and sisters, the uncles and aunts and cousins of the peers. They were an extremely influential and wealthy group.

"The peers and their near relations almost monopolized high political office. From these great families came the wealthiest Church dignitaries, the higher ranks in the army and navy. Many of them found a career in law; some even did not disdain the money to be made in trade. What gave this class its particular importance in the political life of the day was the way in which it was organized on a basis of family and connection ... in eighteenth-century politics men rarely acted as isolated individuals. A man came into Parliament supported by his friends and relations who expected, in return for this support, that he would further their interests to the extent of his parliamentary influence.

"Next in both political and social importance came the gentry. Again it is not easy to define exactly who were covered by this term. The Law knew nothing of gentle birth but Society recognized it. Like the nobility this group too was as a class closely connected with land. Indeed, the border line between the two classes is at times almost impossible to define ... Often these men are described as the squirearchy, this term being used to cover the major landowning families in every county who were not connected by birth with the aristocracy. Between them and the local nobility there was often considerable jealousy. The country gentleman considered himself well qualified to manage the affairs of his county without aristocratic interference.

"...The next great layer in society is perhaps best described the contemporary term 'the Middling Sort'. As with all eighteenth-century groups it is difficult to draw a clear line of demarcation between them and their social superiors and inferiors. No economic line is possible, for a man with no pretensions to gentility might well be more prosperous than many a small squire. There was even on the fringe between the two classes some overlapping of activities ... The ambitious upstart who bought an estate and spent his income as a gentleman, might be either cold-shouldered by his better-born neighbours or treated by them with a certain contemptuous politeness. If however his daughters were presentable and well dowered, and if his sons received the education considered suitable for gentlemen, the next generation would see the obliteration of whatever distinction still remained. The solid mass of the middling sort had however no such aspirations, or considered them beyond their reach.

"...This term [the poor] was widely used to designate the great mass of the manual workers. Within their ranks differences of income and of outlook were as varied as those that characterized the middle class. Once again the line of demarcation is hard to draw..."

—Dorothy Marshall, Eighteenth Century England (29-34)

(There's plenty more interesting information in the full chapter, especially regarding "the poor," and the chapter itself is contracted from a lengthier version published earlier.)

[cinnamonanddean]

One of the things I just love so much about the Smallville fandom is that we've all just agreed that regardless of who you're pairing him with, Lex Luthor is a fucking Sex God.

It's particularly interesting because the show barely gives us ANYTHING to support this. We have one (1) Lex sex scene, plus one deleted scene, and while they're both hot, they're not at all spectacular. Zero characters, including Lex himself, discuss his sexual prowess (or lack thereof). And yet somehow, every single fic I've read (and written!) paints him as absolute dynamite in the sack.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not disagreeing or complaining about this! I fully support Sex God Lex Luthor (as evidenced by my inclusion of my own writing). I just find it SO interesting that we've collectively decided it. I feel like it's a competency kink sort of thing: Lex is shown to be someone who is generally very successful at everything he puts his mind to, so it does track that he'd be good at sex too. I don't know what, if anything, the comics have to say about his skills, so I can't draw any conclusions from that side of things.

I just adore the fact that we all looked at Lex Luthor in Smallville canon and went "yup, that guy FUCKS."

[bidokja]

I was joking a while back that the actor they have playing KDJ for the orv movie was too handsome for him and a friend who's read orv was like "KDJ is actually secretly attractive!!" And I just felt my soul leave my body right then

SIGHS...

Okay. Buckle in. I'm gonna finally actually address and explain and theorize about this whole...thing.

I'm not gonna cite any exact chapters cause it's like 11:30 and I've got an 8 hour drive in the morning but I'll at least make an approximate reference to where certain things are mentioned. Also, this post is just my personal interpretation for a good bit of it, but it's an interpretation I feel very solid about, so do with that what you will. Moving on to the meat of things:

There is one (1) instance in the web novel that I know of which describes specific features of Kim Dokja (especially ones other people notice). This takes place when members of KimCom are trying to make Kim Dokja presentable to give his speech at the Industrial Complex (after it's been plopped down on Earth). This is when they start really paying attention and focusing on Kim Dokja's appearance since they're putting makeup on him; I still don't think they can interpret his whole face, but they can accurately pick out and retain more features than usual. If I remember correctly they reference him having long eyelashes, smooth skin, and soft hair. These features can be viewed as (stereotypically) attractive.

Certain parts of the fandom have taken this scene and run with it at a very surface level, without realizing (or without acknowledging at the very least) that this scene is not about how Kim Dokja looks. This is, in part, due to not realizing or acknowledging why Kim Dokja's face is "censored" in the first place, and what that censoring actually means. I think it's also possible that some people are assuming the censorship works like a physical phenomena rather than an altered perception.

I'll address that last point first. The censorship of Kim Dokja's features is not something as simple as a physical phenomena. It's not a bar or scribble or mosaic over his face. If that were true it'd be very obvious to anyone looking at him that his face is hidden. But his face is not hidden to people. They can look at him and see a face. If they concentrate on his eyes, they can see where he's looking. They know when he's frowning or grinning. They see a face loud and clear. But what face are they seeing? Because it's not really his, whatever they're seeing.

No one quite agrees on what he really looks like. And if they try and think about what he looks like, they can't recall. Or if they do, it's vague, or different each time. We notice these little details throughout the series. Basically, Kim Dokja's face is cognitively obscured. Something - likely the Fourth Wall, though I can't recall if this is ever stated outright - is interfering with everyone's ability to perceive him properly. This culminated in him feeling off to others; and since they don't even realize this is happening, they surmise that he is "ugly."

Moving on to the other point about what the censorship means: To be blunt, the censorship of his face is an allegory for his disconnect from the "story" (aka: real life, and the real people at his side). The lifting - however slight - of this censorship represents him becoming more and more a part of the "story" (aka: less disconnected from the life he is living and the people at his side). The censorship's existence and lifting can represent other things - like dissociation or depersonalization or, if you want to get really meta, the fact that he is all of our faces at once - but that's how I'd sum up the main premise of it. (The Fourth Wall is a larger part of the dissociation allegory, but that's for another post).

So you see, them noticing his individual features isn't about the features. It's not about the features! It doesn't matter at all which features got listed. Because they could describe any features whatsoever and it would not change the entire point of the scene. Because the point isn't what he looks like. The point is that they can truly and clearly see these features. For the first time. They are seeing parts of him for the first time. Re-read that sentence multiple times, literally and metaphorically. What does it mean to see someone as they are?

This is an extremely significant turning point dressed up as a dress-up scene.

---

P.S. / Additionally, I'm of the opinion that Kim Dokja is not handsome, and he is not ugly. He is not pretty, and he is not ghastly. Not attractive, nor unattractive. Kim Dokja isn't any of these things. More importantly, Kim Dokja can't be any of these things. The entire point of Kim Dokja is that you cannot pick him out of a crowd; he is the crowd. He's a reader. He's the reader. Why does he need to be handsome? Why must he be pretty? Why is him being attractive necessary or relevant? He doesn't, he doesn't, it's not. He is someone deeply deeply loved and irreplaceable to those around him, and someone who cannot even begin to recognize or accept that unless it's through a love letter masquerading as a story he can read. He is the crowd, a reader, the reader. He's you, he's me. He's every single one of us.

[canayams-art]

Crazy to me that there are people out there who genuinely believe Pei Xiu was/is a social climber cos I’m almost certain any ambitions he had of greatness were ripped to pieces the moment he lost Ban Yue. That man did NOT want to be great anymore and yet he ascended anyway.

Guy whose ascension was built on blood and guilt and shame. Guy who was honestly relieved to be in exile. Guy who only kept up the ruse of being a respectable god to save Pei Ming’s reputation but willingly forfeited that respectability when the vengeful spirits of Banyue Pass had finally been dealt with and the opportunity presented itself on trial.

Pei Ming even brings up the fact that Pei Xiu would rather defend/protect Ban Yue and remain in mortal exile than reach “greatness” again by turning her over to him. It’s a jab at Pei Ming’s pride considering he likely had influence in Pei Xiu’s ascension. Pei Ming is basically saying he stuck his neck out for Pei Xiu and Pei Xiu is throwing it back in his face. Pei Ming saw his own nepotism as a grace bestowed upon a grateful party, but Pei Xiu never forgot the reality of why he was recognized by the heavens.

Pei Xiu ascended as a result of his gruesome actions. He was a god of slaughter and war. His story is one of a man who had the ambition to beat the odds of his estranged heritage (Pei family being in exile), rise in the ranks to become something more than his family’s reputation, and ultimately pay the steepest price, which made all of his efforts no longer worth it when he finally made it to the highest peak.

I think it’s important to remember that his actions are consistently guided by the fact that he has so few choices and every option is bad. I don’t see a social climber—I see a survivalist whose exile was the thing that finally set him free.

[yourhighness6]

A K/A defense against zutara in TSR that I keep coming across is the argument that Zuko "didn't really ask Katara for forgiveness", and although that's clearly bullshit disproved by literally everything canon in that episode, there's often an undertone arguing that the narrative tying Katara's trauma with her mother to her feelings about Zuko discounts everything he did for her in TSR. And although it can be argued that Zuko's clear remorse for his actions discounts this argument, which is a stance that I myself would probably take in any hypothetical debate on the topic, I do think its worth exploring why else this take is shitty.

Katara's trauma is explicitly tied to her mother's death, I don't think that's news to anyone, and she has abandonment issues from both her mother dying suddenly and her father leaving to go fight in the war slightly after. Although this is clearly neither parent's fault, it is worth examining how her trauma and more specifically her abandonment issues later affected her relationships with other characters, and most continuously, Zuko. For me, it seems incredibly obvious that their time in the Ba Sing Se caves together, although formed through an incredibly tenuous connection, undoubtedly excited her feelings of abandonment. This is why those feelings are very clearly examined in the episode just after, when Katara reconnects with her father for the first time in three years (coincidentally at the same time that Zuko does, which is another parallel between the two others have pointed out) and why Zuko's betrayal is shown to have affected her so personally. Not only was she the only one to connect with him, that connection was incredibly personal and therefore left her feeling incredibly betrayed. Katara's character background alone, which also happens to be heavily addressed in this episode, is enough for the narrative to be justified in connecting Zuko's betrayal back to her mother's death. Subconsciously, her mind was probably doing something along the lines of Zuko = Fire Nation + crystal caves = abandonment. Conveniently, this take also chooses, as most K/A takes do, to discount the fact that Katara canonically forgave Zuko.

I hope this makes sense, and this is not in response to anything any particular K/A shipper posted, it's just a trend in the fandom I wanted to try my hand at debunking. That being said, as with most things, I know it's not going to change any K/As minds, so I hope at least my little babble is entertaining to the zutarians out there. (K/A shippers DNI)

[blueberryfruitbat]

Ideal anime Dedede would have been a "I mean yeah I bully the kid but I don't want him DEAD." And they'd actually keep that trait consistent.

[bitimdrake]

Do you think there could be a compelling and well-written way for Jason to ever start healing from his trauma? I get the tragedy and all is why so many people like his character and all but it’s been over 18 years since he came back and I’ve grown apathetic to the whole “I died boohoohoo” thing. Idk the way DC is written makes it hard to me to feel the same way I did when he first came back as Red Hood because death is so meaningless in that universe, now more than ever. I feel the same way about Bruce and his whole mess of trauma and want to see them do something new, yknow? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

.

Absolutely!!

I think I end up hammering on the tragedy and angst aspect a lot because it's the part I feel gets most lost--certainly in fluffy batfam fics, but also in DC canon just abruptly declaring him totally part of the family now don't worry about it after Flashpoint. I think the legitimate trauma Jason has, the significant differences in principle with the other bats, and the harm he's done them in turn, have gotten worn down and minimized, and it's a bummer!

But I would like to see him heal from his trauma and like. have a real arc.

That's my biggest problem with Jason in canon thus far*. It's not that he is a hero now and aligned with his family. It's that we never got to see how that really happened. He was a villain one second, and then the universe got rebooted, and suddenly we were supposed to just infer this off-screen development.

(*Thus far being up to where I have read, which is through the New 52. Cannot comment beyond that yet.)

In my dream where I get to rewrite the history of DC, we would have spent like five years watching Jason gradually progress from the remorseless antivillain he became by the end of preboot into someone healthier, with more actual morals, a principled antihero. And working out his various relationships with his family along the way.

Unfortunately, because DC skipped to the end of that theoretical arc without ever actually doing the arc, we're sorta...stuck.

The status quo is where it is. DC can't pretend Jason has been an antagonist this whole time and give him the arc now. Red Hood has been a significant part of the batfamily for years. They can't just insert the 'Jason heals' arc because theoretically he's already done that. But also, so long as we never actually see that arc, it's never truly going to feel resolved.

This is the crux of the Jason Todd problem.

Anyway, I feel you on the death thing as well. When Jason died (I'd argue even when he came back), death was a lot more meaningful and significant. His death really meant something, and his return was a huge shake up.

But since then...everyone's died. And now there's this awkward disconnect between (a) in story, all these people having gone through the traumatic event of dying and returning which should probably be significant for them all, and (b) out of universe, Jason's death being considerably more significant than anyone else's and a core part of the character.

Jason's death can't really be a meaningless joke (though he absolutely can recover from the trauma), because we all know it wasn't; it was a huge deal. But we also can't have all the characters act like his death was significant while a bunch of other death's aren't, because then they just seem insane and myopic. But we can't have everyone act like every death is significant, because then we wouldn't be able to do anything else except reflect on the massive amount of death and trauma around here, plus it would be so hollow to most readers who know a lot of these comic books deaths were just cheap shock value that got immediately reversed. And around and around and around--

It's a fucking mess. I have plenty ideas of how I could fix it in a rewrite (whether fanfic or magic time travel where I Fix DC Comics). But I don't have a lot of ideas of how to fix it now, over a decade after the problem started.

Although, to return to your very first question: even if we can't fix everything, yes, I do think a good writer could give a compelling story of Jason healing from his tragedy, without a doubt. I do think that angle can still be explored and developed, because it has not be closed off.

...the biggest problem there would just be that comics are cyclical, and you know some other writer would come in two years later and revert him back to brooding about his death all the time, because that's the version of the character they're used to.

[thepsironyofchokingonalifesaver]

The fun thing about having OCs that are kinda half-baked is that you can be like, “It’s unclear and mysterious what her life was like before she met so-and-so…” (I haven’t thought that far back)

[cafeleningrad]

Of course Coriolanus Snow choose the dark path. This was his first time camping and he has to discuss political theory with theater kids.

[lunarriviera]

the agent starling theory of fanworks: a meta

Hi hey hello, I am here to yell at you once more about random nonsense. This time I shall babble about something I came up with in my first year of extremely online fandom which has been useful to me as I think on these things. Perhaps it will be amusing/useful to you as well. Here we go: the Agent Starling Theory of Fanworks.

To begin with, let's consider a particularly egregious example: She Who Shall Not Be Named. You know, that super obnoxious person who (allegedly) came up with Draco Malfoy. Well, good job, Person! Thanks for that, I guess. However. Did Person ever understand Draco Malfoy? Has Person ever known what Draco Malfoys are for? Arguably no. Otherwise they would not have cut the scene where Draco throws his wand to Harry. Otherwise we might have seen, I don’t know, say, Draco dancing with Hermione at the Yule Ball, for instance. Otherwise Draco might have, at some point, even if just for a single shot, been shown as something besides a bully and sniveling coward and daddy's boy who would sell his own mother for a chocolate humbug. Of course, Draco was all of those things; but that is not all he was. (And Tom Felton did try. Lord knows he tried.)

The point here is not, how do you feel about Draco Malfoy, or even She Who Must Not Be Named. The point is, how do I know with such certainty that she got Draco so very wrong? Easy: because there are approximately eleventy gabillion fanworks addressing this failure.

Enter, then, Clarice Starling. The version important to our fannish situation is from Jonathan Demme’s Silence of the Lambs (1991), in which Starling is played by a luminous young Jodie Foster. Starling is still a Quantico trainee, not even an FBI agent yet, but for reasons known only to her boss Jack Crawford (cough*she's hot*cough) he has decided to involve her in an extremely high-profile case.

In this scene, Starling and an ME need to do an autopsy, but the useless local cops who found the body will not stop hanging uselessly around, talking and drinking coffee and being extremely, as I may have already mentioned, useless. Remember that Starling is still basically a college student, and watch how she handles the situation.

Starling’s speech: Excuse me, gentlemen. You officers and gentlemen, listen here now. There's things we need to do for her. I know that y'all brought her this far and her folks would thank you if they could, for your kindness and your sensitivity. But now please go on now and let us take care of her. Go on now. Thank you.

Part of the whole point of Agent Starling is that she's from a rural working-class southern background, so she knows exactly how to handle these hopeless confused nosy yokels, and shoo them out of the way so the rest of them can get down to work. But in addition to her humble background, and her relative youth and inexperience, she’s also brilliant, and she will in the end be the only law enforcement officer who can crack this case wide open and clear it.

Pretty sure you see exactly where I am going with this. So here we are standing here, the fan creators, and we're basically saying: Thank you. Thank you for bringing the character this far. We appreciate that. But now, you can go. Let us handle it from here. We got this. No, really—we do. Your part is done. You did that. And now this character is safe in our capable hands. Let us take care of them. Y’all go on home, now. Go on.

I’m additionally delighted by the fact that, in the film, they’re about to do a postmortem. Because isn’t that what we need everyone out of the way to do? To anatomize a character; figure out what happened to them, what made them be the way they are, what makes them tick. We have to do a forensic examination and frankly whoever initially had their hands all over this character is not the one for the job. We don’t ask parents to do surgery on their children, and that isn’t even a good analogy (so I will give you a better one).

Because it’s also funny to me when people get mad about their characters being “taken.” I’m sorry, are you new here? Do you understand how art works? Did you actually think it was yours? Because that’s kind of adorable. First of all, there exists a mighty rushing current of culture down into which, if you are very lucky, you get to dip your little bucket. It’s like a torrential stream roaring past at very high speeds, and if you are even luckier, you draw up your bucket and there’s something good in it. Something cold and clear and crystalline and thirst-quenching and life-giving. But it’s not yours. It doesn’t belong to you. You just happened to be the one at that particular moment who was holding the goddamn bucket.

Furthermore, can you imagine the heady joy of having met and introduced to the world a character who is so beloved that other people want to make art about them? Absolutely sick. Literally insane for that. Couldn’t be me. Etc. Show me a person who’s hincty and gripped and neurotic about their character being “taken away from them” and I will show you a person with severe attachment issues. Go write about Gilgamesh or Grendel’s mom or Hikaru Genji or Hamlet, if you’re that worried about “your character” being “taken away from” you. They’re right there for you to use instead.

So! That is the Agent Starling Theory of Fanworks. Now go forth and write eleventy million fanworks about your character. They’re your character, now. You know them better than anyone else alive. And don’t let anyone, not even a copyright holder, ever try to tell you otherwise.

[anghraine]

It's a very little bit funny that I used to be mildly notorious in my corner of Austen fandom for disliking Colonel Fitzwilliam, who at the time was extremely idealized in those fandom spaces, particularly by contrast with Darcy having things like "flaws" and "character growth."

I still don't like Colonel Fitzwilliam as this perfect ideal apart from maybe some extremely minor, defensible faults because he's human after all, someone who would have been exactly suited to Elizabeth really and did love her but truly is too poor to choose her (alas!) and totally is handsome, to boot.

But I do like Colonel Fitzwilliam as a man who is fundamentally decent, good-natured, intelligent, and strong-willed, but with a fundamentally aristocratic perception of himself and the world. I like that he's willing to tease and criticize Darcy as part of flirting with a pretty girl, but leaps to Darcy's and Georgiana's defense when he thinks it's important. I think it's interesting that it would be so easy for him to resent Darcy, and instead they seem to be genuine bffs with healthy respect for each other (likely for a very long time given their blood relationship and close ages) as well as co-guardians and amicable relatives.

Darcy is not a man prone to overstatement, so his description of his relationship with Colonel Fitzwilliam as one of "constant intimacy" is really intriguing to me—far more than Fitzwilliam's casual and rather shallow and self-interested flirtation with Elizabeth, tbh. It's doubly interesting because Fitzwilliam seems to only sort of know the Bingleys, and while he approves of Bingley, my impression is that he knows the whole family through Darcy rather than as general social acquaintances. We never see the Bingleys and Fitzwilliam in the same social settings, even ones where they might credibly interact like Pemberley, and Fitzwilliam makes a point of clarifying to Elizabeth that he only slightly knows Bingley's sisters. There are all these gradations to how Darcy interacts with both social sets, his mentorship-type friendship with Bingley and his intimacy with his cousin, that I don't think a simple consultation of the table of precedence fully explains.

I do find Colonel Fitzwilliam deeply boring when he's reduced to Darcy's rival for Elizabeth's affection despite never having any serious interest in Elizabeth—the kind of "so there, Darcy" vibe that underpins Fitzwilliam-as-rival is meh given their own relationship. But for such a minor character, there is genuinely quite a bit going on, I think.

[internetgiraffekid1673]

And we come out swinging! Fascinating first option. While I did read all of Dragonwatch, I am a sacrilegious goblin of a reader who only finished the first book of Fablehaven and got through half of the second. . .a.k.a, the parts where Warren was catatonic.

Fortunately for you, I happen to live with an expert! I have commandeered J-Dog's opinion for this (this required an interesting conversation where I only partially explained how tumblr mutuals work). Here's what he had to say:

"Warren is a very responsible person. Maybe one of the most responsible people in the series. Buuuuuuuut you have to remember that he's part of the magical world, and their perception of consequences are. . . skewed."

He went on to explain that Warren can be trusted with a lot of really dangerous and delicate stuff because, like you said, he isn't stupid. He wins brownie points for being one of the most long-term members of the Knights of the Dawn and literally working there his whole life, which is a level of job stability we both strive to achieve. He's competent enough to actually keep Seth and Kendra safe when faced with a problem. He also is good at keeping the kids out of the most dangerous situations, but still explaining things to them in a way that means they might listen. He also is able to recognize when the kids can actually help and when they're useful.

One of Warren's more grey features is how immersed he wants the kids to be in the magical world. Because while it is very responsible of him to want them to know how to use their abilities and understand what they're up against. . .well, maybe we shouldn't let the demonstrably reckless and impulsive middle schooler talk to the wraiths, Warren. He treats kids with a level of respect and maturity. Not as full adults, but certainly trusting them to make their own decisions. And while that's great in almost any other situation, Seth. . . lacks a lot of the maturity needed to have that trust. It's okay though, cuz Warren's still pretty good at explaining things to Seth in a way that gets the gravity of the situation through his thick skull.

J-Dog also explained that, like most adults in the series, living in the magical world for so long has made him forget that even less extreme consequences are still bad. Warren believes that if nobody's dead and if demons aren't taking over the world, then we're doing a pretty dang good job. Which, he says, enables Kendra and Seth to get into some pretty dangerous chaos they wouldn't otherwise be capable of. His example was that Warren and the other adults fully believe that it's fine if the house literally falls apart on top of them as long as nobody got hurt, because the brownies will just fix it anyway. No Warren. That's not actually okay. Maybe let's make it so we don't do the dangerous thing that causes the house to collapse in the first place.

Overall, J-Dog rates Warren as the second most responsible adult in the series (the first being Tanu, who tends to teach them about the magical world in a much safer and more controlled environment than Warren) and the best Seth handler in the series, which is high praise because Seth is something else and most adults are actually REALLY BAD at dealing with him.

We've put his responsibility rating at a 6.5/10. This is the second highest of all Fablehaven characters (Tanu gets a 7) and in general pretty high for middle grade fiction mentors. Warren is the first entry here, so ya'll don't have a frame of reference, but scoring over 5 is quite the honor.

Thanks for playing! You also gave me an excuse to make J-Dog talk about Fablehaven, that's always fun! Bring on the next character (ya'll can give me multiple characters, I don't mind)!

I'm Bored. Let's Play a Game:

If you've been around here for a bit, you'll know that I am an exteme enjoyer of middle grade/children's media. 11-16 year old's saving the world and going on fun adventures is my bread and butter. You'll also know that I discuss this media with my family rather copiously. And I'm going to let you in on one of our longest running discussions ever.

As discussed in this post, there is a genre convention of children's media that removes all responsible adult figures from the story so that the child protagonists get to go on fun but HIGHLY dangerous adventures. This has led to us making a game of spotting the rare responsible adults and debating about how responsible they actually are (and then loosely ranking them).

I'd like to let you all in on this game. Reply, reblog, or tag me with a character from some of your favorite children's media that you think counts as a responsible adult. If you'd like, you can prepare a defense for them, and I'll prep a rebuttal, but I can also argue both sides for them. If I don't know the piece of media, I'll do some spelunking the wiki, and you'll have to be alright with it not being entirely accurate.

After looking at the evidence from both sides, I'll rate them on a scale of 1-10 with 1 being "so irresponsible that they should be in jail multiple times over and shouldn't be allowed to interact with kids" and 10 being "get this person an actual a+ parent/mentor/whatever of the century award."

Also remember that this is all in good fun! I like debating, and I'm not dissing the characters or the story just for rating an adult low!

I'm going to tag some folks to start just so ya'll know I've opened this game, but you are in no way obligated to join! You are also welcome to play even if I didn't tag you and even if we've never interacted!

@ace-of-hats @kerpwow @givemethesleep @mzmuskratism @valid-name @mewuniverse @ellazimmermansblog

[egrets-highish-hunt-loth]

Name: Charlie R. Hopper

Nicknames/Aliases: various randomly generated Internet aliases, often having numbers or codes within them.

Creed/Virtue: Hermit / Vision

Drive: Curiosity

You don’t like to think about the past; you were in law enforcement, briefly, before a car accident smeared as a drunk driving incident rendered you functionally brain dead for six months and your higher-ranked sisters face on every MISSING poster across the UK. You fell into a hole of drinking and passing out on streets when the fallout hit too hard — and you thought you found solace with a drinking buddy until one night you wake up with his teeth around your neck and promises of an eternity of peace babbling from his throat.

It’s not that that does it, though. You wriggled hard enough to escape, and you hid in your house with blood pouring down your neck — and nothing happens. You never see your drinking buddy again, even if you’re sure sometimes you feel his eyes on the back of your neck. You don’t report it to the people that had already shunned you. You don’t have friends to tell; they were all your sisters’, and she’s not turned up either. You’re just the leftovers, the chewed up gristle that would do better to be ground against the pavement and discarded.

So, instead of taking action, you move — far, far away — in the hopes that nothing but the scar tissue would follow you. Like you could swallow down that rage and escape with just a few physical reminders that, in time, would fade.

You didn’t know just how loud the whispers would get.

Merits:

Tolerance (1pt) ; Most hermits can’t be in populated spaces without completely losing it. Charlie has a *slight* tolerance that has allowed him to squat in an abandoned apartment complex, though it still means the endless barrage of garbled messages makes it difficult for him to focus; he finds himself unable to leave despite the urge to get away from it all, his Curiosity driving him to put up with the Babble. || This merit only extends to the presence of 1 Imbued or Supernatural being, if more than that are within a 30 metre radius (patron bg 3) Charlie is rendered unable to focus on anything other than the Messages.||

Patron Background (3pt); Charlie is fed a constant barrage of messages and warnings that come; when in the presence of another Imbued or supernatural being (within a 30 metre radius with current points), Charlie is overwhelmed by the noise and suffers a -2 penalty to any rolls involving focus or concentration; unless it’s to release the messages unto others. I’ll be writing the messages as quite incoherent, as I don’t want to step on or reveal anyones’ meta character information without permission; feel free to dm if you want some details revealed!

Flaws:

— Demophobe (derangement); Charlie is deathly afraid of crowds, and doesn’t even like the idea of fellow squatters in the apartment complex he squats in lest they become too numerous; he regularly installs self made security and ‘’traps’’ to deter any from being too close for fear of a crowd gathering.

— Weak-Willed ; Even when Charlie is aware some-one is trying to sway him, he cannot roll resistance against manipulation attempts.

— Stalker ; Charlie briefly was the target of a planned embrace, but narrowly escaped. His wanna-be sire still lurks, somewhere, keeping an eye on its’ lost quarry; it contributes to his demophobia, as he’s afraid he might not be able to recognise the lurking face in a large crowd.

[[ Hunter PC in the Blood On The Bay campaign set in San Francisco. <3]]

[teaandinanity]

7KPP Week, Day 1: Background (remix)

Fair warning to my followers, it is that time again and I'm gonna be posting Nonsense for the next week (if the executives function and I manage to be productive) or at least a few days of it (if the executives are typically dysfunctional).

Putting this under a cut because just the blather is Long and then the ficlet for Baby Weaver Valya is Longer.

Day 1's prompts were

What is your character's background and why did you pick it? How do they feel about it? If you've talked about this before, you can instead consider the following: Have you considered using an existing MC for one of the secret backgrounds? Is there another background you think might be interesting for your MC? Elements of another background you could incorporate into them for an AU?

Calanthia is a Widow because I wanted a Katyia's Legacy MC and found Widow easiest to min/max. Valeriya came into existence because I did Lyon’s date on Calanthia just to see what it was like and immediately said ‘oh no’ because it is My Exact Jam. Then I went ‘… does he still say you’re a good person if you are Entirely Morally Neutral’ and then the answer was YES and I got brainworms SO bad. Valya hates pretty much everything about being a Widow because everything about her backstory is worse than Calanthia’s. Anthy’s parents are bumbling idiots with no financial or political acumen but she and her siblings figured out how to manage them by the time she was like 13. Valya’s parents are genuinely bad people made infinitely worse by unhappiness with their circumstances and are cruel to each other and their children and the next-oldest of her siblings actively hates her and tries to ruin her life on a regular basis. Anthy’s marriage was of course mercenary but it was also mutually beneficial and she and her husband were friends. Valya’s marriage was a nightmare; she was justifiably terrified going in, she was way too young, she went through with it mostly because she knew she’d outlive him even if she had to get blood on her hands to make sure of it and because otherwise her mother (who hated her a lot for being ‘the reason’ she had to marry her husband and therefore also ‘the reason’ her life has sucked so much since) would have seen her married to less advantage and to someone she really would have been shackled to for the rest of her inevitably-much-shortened life. Anthy is older and well-adjusted. Valya is still in her teens, traumatized, and just DESPERATELY wants to be safe. The main thing they have in common is that they fall in love and go ‘oh no.’

I’ve considered making Valeriya a Weaver, and I really want to try that once the secret backgrounds are in the game! It’s interesting to consider how DIFFERENT her life would have been if her mother had NOT married her father and just gone off to the countryside and then sent her oops baby away to be raised by her sister in Arland. Valya would be so much more well-adjusted under those circumstances, so she’s probably much happier and way less tentative with Lyon.

Probably also less careful in general, and more apt to meddle, so I imagine there’s at least one extra assassination attempt. The rest of her life probably looks very similar, though; after her marriage, even a very traumatized Valya grows into her new life and eventually feels very happy and safe.

I’ve also considered making Anthy a Weaver because I think it would be fun to do Jasper’s romance on a Weaver. I have considered making her a Historian for the same reason and because that would make the ‘you don’t have to act. I will.’ line hit like a TRAIN. We'll see how I feel about all of that once the secret BGs are in; the one I'm sure of is that I'll be trying Weaver Valya.

With that initial meta babbling out of the way:

On to the Fic!

She isn’t in the least Arlish and she is made to know it very young. She doesn’t mind, though; she looks like her aunt, and her uncle looks at both of them like they’re marvelous.

The fifth time she is allowed to attend a dinner party with her guardians, the first time she is permitted to separate from both of them to play with a few of the other children present, one of the other guests says something unkind. Valeriya hardly notices; the lady isn’t very important, and her opinion is so much hot air. But the other children freeze, and look at her, and she realizes she has to respond. Valeriya raises her chin the way she has seen her aunt do and says,

“I see why you’ve come over to play with the children, Lady T--- - you certainly still need a governess to teach you manners.”

It’s not the graceful set-down her aunt might have managed, but she’s nine. And the adults close enough to overhear all seem to feel, nonetheless, that she’s won the bout, especially when the lady flushes and flounders and can’t seem to come up with a rejoinder.

When they leave, her aunt slips her a few dried cranberries, clearly a reward, and her uncle puts a warm hand on the crown of her head with an approving smile.

“Well done, little Valiant.”

Her aunt laughs and asks why he’s never given her an Arlish nickname drawing him into a bantering conversation that means Valeriya doesn't have to respond. Instead, she considers the name. It’s a nice gift. She likes it.

Courage isn’t a virtue often ascribed to Arlish girls, but then--

She’s not Arlish.

--

Aunt Eleonora has been away for a week visiting friends. That’s what she said when she left, at least – that she was going to visit two of her friends. It may or may not be true; it’s entirely possible that she is instead averting an international incident, or perhaps even causing one, but if it’s either of those, she didn’t see fit to mention it to Valeriya prior to her departure, and Valeriya didn’t notice any of the usual signs and appurtenances of an aunt intending to involve herself in something exciting.

Regardless, factually, Aunt Eleonora is presently from home. In her absence, Uncle Earnest is the one who receives the post.

He isn’t the type to open anything addressed specifically to his wife. He’s good like that. Eleonora genuinely loves him because he’s good like that. Also because he doesn’t ask too many questions if someone turns up dead somewhere she’s recently been, even if it’s someone he knows her to have been profoundly annoyed with. Valeriya honestly cannot tell if he deliberately cultivates a certain ignorance or if it has simply never occurred to him – a good man, in the pure and simple manner of a friendly dog – that his wife may occasionally moonlight in murder.

It likely helps that Aunt Eleonora is scarcely taller or broader than Valeriya, who at fourteen is far from finished growing, and has wide, innocent eyes that she can use to great effect. Aunt Eleonora isn’t what people imagine when they picture a murderer. It’s not as if she does the thing with her own hands, but she’s certainly culpable for at least two deaths, and that’s just the ones Valeriya knows about.

Valeriya feels that she probably ought to disapprove of that. Probably.

In principle, certainly, she disapproves of murder.

Duke Adam absolutely deserved it, though; she spoke to the maid who was serving them while they visited and she’d have swung a poker at the back of his head herself if she’d thought a twelve-year-old girl could muster sufficient force to do the thing in a sufficiently decided fashion to effect the desired result. Whoever her aunt arranged to deliver the blow had significantly more arm strength than Valya can ever personally aspire to. Might’ve been one of the stable boys, but in this case, Valeriya elected to cultivate her own willful ignorance so that dropped hints would elicit only the truest blank incomprehension.

Aunt Eleonora approved; it doesn’t do to cause problems for the people willing to do your dirty work.

Cold-blooded murder generally ought to be avoided. Of course it ought. Occasionally, however, someone thinks power will insulate them from the consequences of being a horrible person. Aunt Eleonora does not think that ought to be the case.

Valeriya can't bring herself to disagree, and so she cannot disapprove of her aunt's inclination, in such instances, to be a surgical implement that excises such cancer from the body of their adoptive nation.

Valeriya once overheard one of her aunt’s friends imply it was the Revairan in them, and of course their birth nation has acquired a certain reputation for bloody hands and ruthlessness. It’s a silly conclusion, though.

She’s overheard enough conversations in the halls of power, sheltering in her aunt’s shadow. She knows how cheaply Arlish nobles hold the lives of a hundred, even a thousand, peasants. They pretend to be appalled by the bloody purges in their neighbor, but dressing suffering and sacrifice up in courtly manners and talk of duty doesn’t reduce the resultant suffering. Pretty words don’t make their own victims any less dead.

Valeriya has been informed she is not allowed at court again until she’s better at keeping her face as still as her tongue. She’s good at being quiet. She’s less-skilled, apparently, in keeping her judgmental disapprobation from showing when people are being overtly terrible right in front of her at dinner.

In any case, for reasons benign or otherwise, her aunt is from home, and thus it is Uncle Earnest who receives the post.

Valeriya saw the envelope; the direction was only to this house, not to her aunt specifically. It came from Revaire.

Likely more bad news; the news from Revaire is never really good. The most recent round of purges seems to be over, but the current regime won their throne with blood and have shed significantly more to maintain it. The internal unrest has made them uneasy neighbors, although Valya personally thinks that the turmoil makes them unlikely to actually have the strength to threaten other nations, particularly Arland; with the marriage alliances currently in place, anyone attacking Arland is liable to find themselves facing the combined armies of three nations on the field.

Her aunt has been upset by much of what they’ve heard, although not upset enough to set up reprisals against anyone. Valya sympathizes somewhat, but she doesn’t know anyone in Revaire, not the way her aunt does. Aunt Eleonora grew up there, and does not entirely despise her family. Valeriya wasn’t even born in the ancestral home of their family, and was fetched across the border with a wetnurse before she was two weeks old.

The conviction that it is bad news is borne out by the way her uncle acts when he comes back out of his study. He spends much of lunch very overtly not staring at her, and much of the afternoon passing by the doorway while their governess oversees their history lesson – or rather, while Valeriya is engaged in the process of a takeover, because she’s better-read on Katyia and the first Summit than Miss Henrietta, and she loves this subject, and Merit is asking questions which Henrietta is not equipped to answer without consulting reference materials but which Valeriya knows by heart.

He finally does address her, when Henrietta has taken Merit off to help her dress for dinner – an indignity she, at ten, has not yet escaped, but which Valeriya, at the advanced age of fourteen, has been long-since liberated from.

(Merit likes people helping her dress. Valeriya personally prefers to see to her own affairs. Aunt Eleonora says Merit is well-adapted to life in Arland, but she says it with a certain tone that carefully contains no disappointment; there’s a reason she takes Valeriya with her on some of her visits but almost always leaves Merit at home, and it’s not solely down to their respective ages.)

“Valya, dear,” Uncle Earnest says, sad-eyed as a hound dog, soft-voiced. Yes, assuredly bad news. She finds herself more curious than trepidatious, but holds herself very still and looks up at him. Not so far, though, not anymore.

“I’m so sorry,” he tells her gently. “Your mother is dead.”

For half a heartbeat, all she feels is confused.

She doesn’t have a mother. She has an aunt and an uncle and two cousins. But she takes her cue from her uncle’s expression even before she's really managed to make herself understand the information: She ought to be upset. She pushes her face into something more appropriate than blank incomprehension, wide eyes and raised brows, a soft mouth, and her uncle – a good man to his bones – reaches for her shoulder, offering contact, and then folding her into a comforting hug that she receives with real gratitude when she leans into it.

It lets her hide her face and think.

She has never met her mother. Well, she must have, after a fashion, but not really. Not as a person rather than a squalling larvae full of needs rather than thoughts. Now, she supposes, she never will.

Should that upset her?

She feels very little about the matter. A stranger is dead. Many strangers die every day; she is only moderately bothered about it, in general.

In this case…

Maybe it's awful, but she thinks she may be a little relieved. She can never be made to leave this life, which is comfortable and familiar, and be taken away to a strange place simply because the people there have a claim on her by being her nearest blood kin.

She will have to be careful not to let that show.

--

Aunt Eleonora tries, the year she turns sixteen, to talk to her about boys. About trouble girls can get into, liking boys.

Valeriya realizes, repulsed,

“Is this because Baron Cammus’s son was being stupid at me?”

It’s safe, here, to be so gracelessly blunt; they’re alone in Aunt Eleonora’s private parlor, and she’s allowed to be both honest and overt here, the way she never allows herself in public anymore. She doesn’t bother to hide her absolute revulsion, and Aunt Eleonora laughs.

There’s a note of relief in it.

“Ah, I should have known better. You won’t make your mother’s mistake.”

Her mother sent her away because she’s a bastard. She was lucky that she had family who could easily take her in to raise her up to the same station in life as her kin, rather than dumping her at an orphanage. She’s not ignorant enough not to have some idea what might have happened to her, if she hadn’t been lucky.

“I won’t,” she swears.

--

“I want to go to the Summit,” she tells her aunt.

Eleonora looks at her consideringly.

“You’re a touch young for it,” she muses, “but Arland does prefer to send girls who are young and pretty. In theory at least, Arlish girls who attend are supposed to know they’ve a duty to marry for the benefit of their nation, and it’s easier to persuade them of that if they’re too young to have formed any real opinions on the matter.”

Valeriya keeps her face perfectly still but for the slightest quirk of one brow, and her aunt inclines her head.

“I do think you might do well. Prove it to me, dear.”

She could ensure Valya got a spot on the delegation, but winning her own place is a test of her abilities. A test to see if she truly would do well with the opportunity. She feels a spark of satisfaction; she’d expected as much, and she does like to be correct. She presents the letter – penned by the queen’s secretary, but signed and sealed by her highness’s own hand – and her aunt smiles, bright and broad and ferocious.

--

Her aunt is happy to be seeing her off; she has a few errands for her niece to attend to on Vail Isle, and instructions on the precise wording she should use greeting Wellin’s chaperone, and encouragement to stretch her wings. Her uncle is actually crying a bit.

Well; he’s Arlish. He might actually think she means to make a miserable marriage for herself. It’s what nearly every other girl Arland has ever sent to the Summit does, including their paragon of a princess just seven years past.

He hugs her, and she hugs him back.

“Make us proud, Little Valiant.”

It’s still not at all a girlish Arlish virtue, but it is one she wants to embody. With the political situation so tenuous, with the way she intends to get involved, she will need to be brave.

"I will," she promises.

[ask-prismaknight]

Hi!

Welcome to the askblog! This is where you can ask questions directly to Prisma and her friends. My main is @startistdoodles (where likes/follows come from). I have posts regarding all my headcanons tagged there under #kirby worldbuilding.

A few notes upfront:

Depending on the amount of asks I receive, I may not be able to respond to every one of them. Please understand.

On a similar note, please refrain from repeatedly asking the same/similar question multiple times.

Please keep asks PG-13 at most.

The characters are not omnipotent, so lore-related questions about the world or things they may not know will be moved over to @startistdoodles .

My AU follows both anime and game lore, so characters from either can be asked about. Generally anyone who is not dead is free to talk.

Side modes such as Knightmare and Dededetour are not canon to my AU. However, Soul Bosses and Magolor Epilogue are canon.

That's about it! I'll update this post with anything else if needed.

Under the cut is information on some of the characters of interest.

Prisma Knight

Prisma Knight (she/her) is a Star Warrior turned queen after she got into an accident involving Dark Matter that resulted in her losing her wings. Ashamed, she fled her troop and went into hiding on Planet Permafrost. There she was crowned queen after saving the inhabitants from a terrifying threat.

Many years later, she reunited with her old friend Meta Knight and was brought to Popstar, where she currently lives with her servants and new friends.

Kirby

Kirby (he/him or they/them) is a young Star Warrior that arrived on Planet Popstar a couple years ago. Ever since then, his incredible power has been put to the test as he stands up against terrifying threats. But he is never fazed and goes right back to naptime after every battle.

Kirby is still a child (about 3-5 in human years) and his speech isn't the best. He resorts to communicating with drawings or gestures alongside his babbling. His friends can often help suggest what he might be trying to say.

Meta Knight

Meta Knight (he/him) is a mostly retired Star Warrior who resides on Planet Popstar and serves as a watchful knight who aims to protect the planet alongside his crew, the Meta-Knights, aboard his Battleship Halberd. He serves as a mentor to Kirby, as well as a sort of parental figure (despite him disagreeing with the latter).

Many years ago, he and Prisma Knight along with Sir Falspar, Sir Nonsurat and Sir Dragato were in the same troop in the GSA (Galaxy Soldier Army). He presumed Prisma dead when she went missing, but was reunited with her many years later.

King Dedede

King Dedede (he/him) is the self-proclaimed king of Dreamland. Once a greedy and stubborn king, he has since chilled out quite a bit and now acts as a proud ruler (now with 10% less stubbornness!) that many respect. While he can still be loud and hotheaded at times, he cares deeply for his friends and especially his Waddle Dee family.

He and Kirby are friendly rivals, and he will defend his little buddy with everything he's got.

Bandana Waddle Dee

Bandana Waddle Dee (he/him - Bandee for short) is the king's right-hand Waddle Dee. A soldier in training, he assists in the defense of Castle Dedede and even hangs out in town looking for ways he can help others.

He is also one of Kirby's best friends, and the two are almost always seen hanging out together.

Dark Matter Blade

Dark Matter Blade (he/him or it/its - usually shortened to 'Dark Matter', 'Dark Blade' or simply 'Dark') is the former right-hand of Lord Zero, the incarnation of pure dark energy. While once highly respected among his kind, after failing his first big mission of killing a Star Warrior and then again failing to defeat Kirby in his invasion of Popstar many years later, he was forced to flee the Dark Matter tribe under threat of being killed by his master. So, he returned to Popstar where he was reunited with Gooey.

Nowadays he spends his time with his new friends, though is still distrusted by some. He wishes to lead a life of peace and comfort and as such shys away from conflict and confrontation. His relationship with Prisma is very tense — they don’t speak much.

Mochi

Mochi (he/him or they/them) is a new baby that recently landed on Popstar. There is something strange and somewhat dark about him...but he seems sweet enough so Prisma is raising him.

Sidia Knight

Sidia Knight (he/him) is Prisma Knight's old mentor and father figure. After going MIA during the great war that demolished the GSA, he was stranded on Galacta Star for nearly a century. Eventually, he reunites with Quiver Knight and they settle down and live happily together as a married couple.