#meta elements meta elements META ELEMENTS im so normal about them....

[circyexistforcontent]

hii!! for the team comp event, my boys (triple crowned kings) are xiao, albedo, kazuha and the wanderer (I named him Aoki btw <3 but u dont have to include this if u dont think its relevant) though sometimes I switch out xiao or the wanderer for cyno because im in love with him too and sometimes i need an element that isnt geo or anemo. all of them are triple crowned not for meta, but because they are my boyfriends (im super normal about them).

sorry if this was too much </3 take care <3

TEAM COMP: XIAO, ALBEDO, KAZUHA, WANDERER (FT. CYNO)

♥ Your team is just a spider web full of conflict. Xiao and Wanderer are always fighting, always trying to 1v1 each other and Albedo and Kazuha had to run away from multiple tornadoes caused by the two Anemo boys. Cyno is just waiting patiently for the two to just kill each other, or maybe weaken each other so he can finish them off himself. Sadly, nobody in the game can fully kill each other (I'll enhance that concept in another post).

♥ Albedo doesn't know if he should be relieved or tense at where he stands in your team, he knew being on your main team has high stakes but he didn't know they were this dangerous. He's glad his element is useful in your eyes and he strives to better his skills and talents to maintain his spot in your main team. He doesn't care about his other members, he may be acquaintances with Cyno but that's it. He wouldn't help him when Cyno has the possibility to replace him as well.

♥ Kazuha can only sigh when he hears the voices of his other two teammates. To be honest, he's worried about his place on your team. Considering your replacing your team members with Anemo visions with Cyno and his Electro vision. He wonders if he will be the next one to sit back and watch all his other teammates be graced by your divine will, it brings an inking sense of dread to his stomach to think about it. He just hopes he's enough for you to continue using him.

♥ Xiao doesn't like this. He doesn't like Wanderer. He doesn't like Cyno. And he doesn't like how his feelings make the situation worse. Is he lacking somehow? Why is he being switched with another spear user? These questions eat away at his brain every time he gets switched with Cyno, he observes from the sidelines and just stares at Cyno's fighting style. Is it the way he fights? Do you want him to fight more like Cyno? He might struggle with fighting his code but he's willing to do just that, so please use him more.

♥ Wanderer, or "Aoki" as you named him, is seething in anger and confusion. The first time you switched him with Cyno he had a full-on tantrum about it off-screen. He thought you abandoned him until he was put back on the team while he was having a mini pity party alone. He was confused, but he quickly snapped out of his confusion and continue doing his best. And then...it happens again. And it just repeats and he doesn't like that! You should keep him by your side permanently! Or maybe just replace that brooding yaksha since you don't need two spear users anyway!

♥ Cyno has been waiting for this moment, this moment where he gets to be one of your mains. When he's on the field he does his best on every kill, every domain, and every ley line challenge you may use him on to show you just how capable he actually is. Aside from that he is a chatterbox when you both are just exploring, he abuses his voice lines just to speak with you for longer. Even though it's a one-sided conversation, he will cherish those moments.

♥ A lot of fights happen, and weapons are always involved in the fights. Sometimes it's Xiao and Cyno, then it's Wanderer and Cyno, also Xiao and Wanderer, and then it becomes Cyno versus Wanderer and Xiao. All Albedo and Kazuha can do is watch from the sidelines and pray to you that they don't get involved in the fights.

[little-red-fool]

Ok, have some basic wf tips with some questions regarding socialization at the bottom:

-Best early game warframes are Rhino and literally every Warframe you can get from the Tenno Lab of a Clan Dojo. You can check guides to see how each frame is built, but i can also give you an overview directly if any warframe specifically catches your eye.

-Level up your damage mods and elemental damage mods. They will get you through with your weapons.

-Each weapon has either a higher crit chance or a higher status chance. Build either a full crit build for a weapon or a status build with elemental mods (best are viral, corrosive against grineer, heat and slash) depending on which stat is higher for your weapon. (Btw, you normally get weapons by buying their blueprints from the market for credits, yes for credits not plat, then building it wih the right materials. Same for Warframes, but you need to craft their components first which drop from their own places before you can craft the blueprint for the warframe itself)

-Experiment, get slots from Nightwave or by buying them with plat (if you still have starter plat remaining), and stick with weapons you enjoy using the most rather than whats meta or good. You can get an Mk-1 strun (a very bad weapon for all but the very early game) to kill level 100+ enemies, so meta is a suggestion. (Also, theres a set of mk-1 weapons you can buy for credits which are slightly worse versions of the same weapon without the mk-1 prefix. They serve as intro weapons and consider buying them, but remember to sell them if you need slots/get their base counterpart or a better weapon)

-Progress through the starchart at your own pace. All Warframe content since 2022 and probably forever will be locked behind the New War quest. Do not fret over this, Warframe is not made to be rushed. Play at your pace, everything can be earned.

-Prime gear is not necessary to do good in Warframe, it is a bonus

-If youre confused by the story, thats normal

-if you ever get stuck, the wiki is your friend (but i am also available, being a veteran of the game)

So, yea, that should be all you need to know to get started. Now, onto questions regarfing your interaction with the community:

1. How much do you usually interact with other fandoms youre in?

2. Do you even wish to be a part of the Waframe fandom?

3. Do you prefer to stay at a distance or would you like to interact a bit more? (Asking cause if its the latter, I can offer to be your training wheels considering the sheer number of people in the warframe community im actively friends with).

Ok, thats about all of the questions i can think of right now, but heres one more thing:

Warframe is a game filled to the brim with customization and fashion. It is an oc creator's wet dream. So just saying, if you like making ocs like your blog suggest you do, you will not wanna miss out on the later content in Warframe, trust me. As a proud owner of a bunch of ocs made over the course of multiple years...I would know

Ahh thank you so much this will probably help me a lot! (genuinely had no clue what I was doing in game lmao) I’ll have a look into these when I next log on because I’ll most likely need to change and upgrade stuff like mods, and I’ll try to acquire more Warframes since Excalibur’s the only one I’ve got right now. Also you’re 100% right about the OCs when I saw the amount of customisation options I was so excited lol

In terms of interacting with fandoms whilst I’d like to be able to be more social in the future I’m mostly just a casual observer at the moment, the extent of my interaction is usually just drawing and reblogging fanart, occasionally coming up with theories if I’m really invested in the story but that’s about as much as I interact most of the time and I’ll probably be like that for a while longer knowing me.

That being said I really appreciate the offer and I’m very grateful for the help you’ve given me, thank you so much! :)

[erose-this-name]

Primer On Stylistic Elements Of Internet Speak (Zoomerese) (from what I've learned by being terminally online)

This is just text, like, normal fucking text. nothing special about this.

Because base English 🥱 only has support for shouting :O (!) questions🤨(?) and statements ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) (.), and we wanted to add new registers of voice :P, (and keyboards limit the ability to add new symbols) :-( a lot of new features to the language have to be made out of other symbols or be made of stylistic elements instead of a dedicated symbol. And since there's no dedicated authority to teach people new abstract symbols, they had to be faces so they could be intuitive. ʕ•́ᴥ•̀ʔっ♡

This isn't sARcaSTIc at all, I mean come on, why would anyone EVER want to indicate SARCASM by OVEREXAGGERATING to compensate for """"English not having a sarcasm punctuation mark""""? Like, c'mon, it's not like "/s" or ".~" can also be used AS a sarcmark.~

Oh, yeah? "RanDOM CaPS mAKeS IT sOunD LIkE mOCkiNG" that's what you sound like.

This is TOTALLY post-irony OR meta-irony, where you just, like, SAY what you actually mean but IN A SARCASTIC WAY??? Uh, what is this, some kinda "gen z exclusive" comedy/slang feature?? Like, wow, I guess you would need to do that to "create some distance" between you and your beliefs by giving you the ability to say you were "JuST KiDDinG", or as a "joke" because ""zoomers"" are so oversaturated with content that normal single level sarcasm doesn't work anymore and they need to layer that shit up two or three times, or some bullshit like that.

I'm finna splain txt messg shorthand, aka sms language. its like faster 2 type & kinda gives u a valley grl vibe. itz actually a bit harder 2 learn than the rest of these and I'm not gud at it. kthnx

This. Is. Putting. A. Period. On. Every. Fucking. Word. This. Shit. Makes. It. Sound. Like. You. Motherfucker. Are. Very. FUCKING. Angry. And. Authoritative. (this prosody is also a new [and relatively rare] feature in spoken English as well.)

UwU, what's this? Nya, thiws iws uwu/owo voice! (UwU)! Iwt iws meant towo sowund wike a baby voice, vewy cute (hazawdouswy cute) (UwU!), awnd iws used excwusivewy by fuwwies awnd femboys awnd fuwwy femboys uwu awnd anyaone who uses iwt "iwonyacawwy" iws secwetewy owne nya of those pwobabwy uwu. use at youw own peril (you will wose bwaincewws awnd become gay) nya! RAWR XD

Dis ar teh LOLCAT, it be VRY OUTDATD MEME, but sum bits ov dis style ov brokd grammar an spellin' still appears on teh interwebs in TINY DOSES 2 mak it seem cutr an dumbr or leik a cat 4 ironic purposez, LIEK ONCE OR TWICE PER POST!!!1!1 DO NOT OVAR USE IT LIEK IM U WILL DYE!!!1!1!

uh all lowercase and without punctuation makes it seem childish/lazy which can be used for irony if what youre saying is actually very important or authoritative but you dont wanna sound that way because you are depressed or just wanna feel cute or maybe some other reason idk im just a boy

Exclamation marks (!) indicate excitement and energy! My Dad (ex-typographer) whose really really cool says that exclamation marks (!) mean you're SHOUTING and not to use them!!! And he's really cool, but that's not right anymore because SHOUTING IS INDICATED BY ALL UPPERCASE!!!!!

AAAA WHY ARE WE SHOUTING!?

fUCK CAPS LOCK IS ON THIS LOOKS LIKE AN OBVIOUS MISTAKE/UNINTENTIONAL SHOUTING FUNNY JOKE.

This is Capitalizing The First Letter In Every Word, which is done on Tumblr Dot Com but not much elsewhere. It brings to mind how Titles and Headlines also sometimes Capitalizing The First Letter In Every Word, and gives your post an aura of Authority and to Nounify Something.

Most other parts of the internet™®© do this where they spam copyright and trademark symbols®©™®©© to achieve the same effect as capitalizing the first letter in every word©©™.

>be me >go on 4Chan.org >dies immediately.exe >looks into posts >discovers entirely unique and interesting writing style called greentext >ask why its called that >Get called a "newf*g, desu" >it's mostly used by incels to gaslight fa/tg/uys and /b/***** (they wouldn't censor that) into reading stories they made up about themselves where they become a sex haver >literally no one believes that any greentext has ever actually happened >find incest greentext >ew.wav >read it anyways because ******** (utter self-loathing is important for authentic greentext) >it's just the plot of Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back >mfw

I learned 4Channerish so you don't have to. Seriously, don't.

(If I've missed anything please reblog to expand our VALUABLE COLLECTIVE EDUTRAINING ABILITIES)

[cobaltsoulsearcher]

New Pinned Post!

Critter, Linguist, College Student. Same user on AO3. https://soulexplores.neocities.org/

Identity stuff: USAmerican with white privilege and generational wealth. Genderqueer Lesbian. LSN Autistic/Hypermobile/Moderate OCD. I do identify as disabled and prefer identity-first language. Teenager, but more than old enough to be here. Solarpunk-oriented liberal.  English, Spanish, and Indonesian speaker. 

Main Fandoms: Critical Role, Hadestown

Hobbies: TTRPGs, CRPGs, writing/reading, rollerskating, casual cosplay

Favorite writers: Amal el-Mohtar, Sarah Gailey, NK Jemison

Optional before-you-follow: 

 I do not post donation requests because I generally like to keep this to be a space of joy for myself. 

I have a bit of an online persona going on. Call me Soul :) If you know my real name, location, age, or birthday, no you don’t.  I lie about stuff online all the time; don’t trust strangers on the internet, me included.  

I tend to start a lot of monthly challenges without finishing them. My general outlook is that I don’t think it’s doing any harm and I do produce something from it, so why not? I’m very sorry if this bothers you, just let me know and I can amend my relevant behavior/posting.

I come to my fandoms with the perspective that they are flawed and have problematic elements, but are ultimately not currently doing harm. I painfully abandoned HP because it was indefensible, but am under no illusions the things I am into now are perfect, and am in fact very aware of Critical Role/His Dark Materials/Tolkein etc’s issues. That said, while I have an obligation to be aware of these things, I do not want to center my fandom experience on discourse. 

I won’t get mad at you no matter what pronouns you use for me. 

I am too lazy to block all the spam bots etc. 

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Mutuals and friends are more than welcome to ask for my discord. Besides tumblr and A03, that is what I use the most.

I also freely share my Dropout, Beacon access, Hadestown bootlegs I have access to, and so on with folks who’ve interacted with me. 

Tag system I’m going to try to implement in 2025:

General tags:

#solarpunk

#linguistics

#current events

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Identity stuff:

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#transmasc

#genderqueer

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Personal tags:

#my writing- any original poetry/fiction

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#oc: name - for various OCs (including ttrpg characters)

Fandom tags:

#i don’t go here but - for fun/cool things from fandoms im not familiar with

#critical role - also #bells hells #mighty nein #vox Machina #tlovm #de blorbo family and/or #totally normal mortals #downfall.

#hadestown

#musicals - also #htdio or the title of the musical

#stray gods

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#the invisible library

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#tolkien - all Lotr/silm/etc stuff

[cenvast]

hi hi! i stumbled across ur kabru x toshiro stuff when browsing one of their tags and im sooo hooked now after reading ur explanation post that i gave ur fanfic a read too, love it!! ur story and posts about them made me have some questions, i hope its not too much!

the fanfic mentioned kabru in a kurta when toshiro thinks about their hypothetical wedding. is there a certain type of wedding u imagine them having?

on the same note: would they end up having one? or would they rather stick with a close relationship?

would they think about adoption? is their statuses keep them from adopting because they would be busy?

would toshiro notice kabru spiraling over the thought of utaya and what happened?

srry if this is a lot, i just love this pairing now!

Tysm for reading my writing!! I'm so honored that I got you into Kabshiro <3 And dw, I'm more than willing to answer any questions about my kabshiro meta or "debts and delusions" (this fic is 18+/nsfw)! The fic is a capsule of many of my dunmeshi hcs, so I can always expand on it hehe

I'll put my answers under the cut and divide them into sections for readability!

On Marriage

I think since both of Kabru and Toshiro had traumatic upbringings, they'd be less inclined to get married or have kids quickly, but they would eventually get married.

From my understanding, feudal Japan normalized sexual relationships between samurai, but marriage was an arranged political move between a man and a woman, at least for the upper classes. Toshiro understands marriage as potentially romantic, given his interactions with Falin, but since he lacks models of same-sex marriage, pursuing marriage with Kabru would stump him at first. I think Laios and the others would clue him in that marriage can literally be whatever he and Kabru want it to be, and after a while, he'd make his peace with that.

When he becomes more secure in their relationship, he wouldn't feel the need to marry Kabru out of insecurity anymore. He would continue fantasizing about the domesticity and commitment of it all. He'd also have to work through his trauma-based fear that he'll cheat on his spouse before being willing to marry Kabru.

Toshiro would propose at around year five of their relationship. He'd recognize that he can't imagine a life without Kabru and that all the best things in his life are because he took the initiative to hold onto and voice what's (and who's) important to him. Laios would be a large contributor in encouraging their marriage with his constant reassurances of "Yes, I'll marry you two in Melini :D." Because romantic proposals weren't really a thing in feudal Japan, Toshiro's proposal would be a very agonized-over question — but just a question — he poses to Kabru in private.

I like the idea of Kabru and Toshiro attending Marcille and Falin's wedding, and their marriage being the catalyst for Toshiro deciding that he needs to marry Kabru immediately. Kabru would sense what was going on with Toshiro but give him time to approach him on his own. Out of the two of them, Kabru would be more content with not officially recognizing their relationship via marriage, but he'd still be very excited to marry Toshiro and giddy over the fact that Toshiro wants to marry him.

I imagine their wedding would be a combination of customs from Utaya and Wa and elven customs. Kabru would want to honor his mother and his hometown, and Milsiril would probably want some elven elements. The Wa customs are self-explanatory from Toshiro's end. They'd hold it in Melini with Laios officiating. I also think Toshiro would cry at their wedding because he'd be a little more healed from thinking that crying is unmanly and he'd be overwhelmed by Kabru /pos.

Here's the excerpt from the fic that you referenced:

In Toshiro's wedding fantasy, I included elements from both Indian and Japanese wedding customs. According to my quick research (which could definitely be off, so please correct me if needed), silk and/or embroidered kurtas are considered appropriate wedding attire, and Indian weddings generally involve a lot of dancing. The sea bream, red rice, and daifuku are foods traditionally eaten at Japanese weddings. There's more specificity for the Japanese customs since it's from Toshiro's POV, and in this scene, he's drawing the Indian wedding elements from conversations he's had with Kabru. Obligatory moment of silence for how ridiculous they are for discussing their cultural wedding customs while pretending like they aren't down horrendous for each other 😭

On Children

Toshiro

Prior to being with Kabru, Toshiro expected to have children; he thought he'd inherit his father's position and produce an heir. But he's always been terrified by the idea of actually raising a child because all his parental figures — his father, his mother, and Maizuru — failed spectacularly in raising him. Right after canon, he wouldn't be able to articulate where they went wrong because he's still repressing most of it, but he knows that his father's treatment of him as a failed investment or discarded amusement did not benefit him. Likewise, his mother's neglect and Maizuru's overbearing, terrifying parenting style, coupled with her expectations that he'd take his father's position one day, were not ideal.

If pinned down about it, he'd say that he'd want his child to be raised with proper emotional support — for them to feel loved unconditionally rather than valued for any position they may eventually take up, but overall, he feels ill-equipped to raise a child. Since Kabru would never pressure him into having children, Toshiro would realize that having children is an unwanted expectation his family and society placed on him. After realizing this, up until maybe his forties, he wouldn't even consider having children again because he'd fear traumatizing them like his parental figures traumatized him, and more importantly, he'd be content with his life as it is.

Kabru

By the end of canon, I don't think Kabru has had the mental space to consider having children. He'd be of the mindset that bringing a child into an unjust world would be irresponsible, especially if he's yet to accomplish his goals of equality between the races and sealing off the dungeons. But in his position as Laios' advisor, he'd feel more empowered to improve their world and raise a child in it.

However, if someone seriously approached him about having children with Toshiro, Kabru would probably have a traumatic episode. His associations with having children of his own are:

His trauma regarding monsters eating his mother and other children from Utaya

Milsiril as his adoptive mother and her inability to fully understand and meet his emotional needs due to not conceptualizing short-lived races as equals and her career rooted in elven imperialism (Sidenote: Milsiril does push back against the societal position she's been placed in, and she raised Kabru with good intentions, but impact > intent. She was still raised in elven society and an active participant in imperialism for many years)

The elves' horrible, dehumanizing treatment of Rin

The thought of having children would send him into a panic because he'd fear being killed by monsters and unable to care for his children, his children being killed by monsters, his children being mistreated by those more powerful than him, and being an unsatisfactory parent to them. Not all of his fears would be rational since he lives in Melini where Laios is a living monster repellent. But since he hasn't unpacked all of his trauma, these thoughts would come up.

After processing more of his trauma, Kabru in his thirties would be open to having children if Toshiro wanted them, but since Toshiro doesn't, it likely wouldn't happen.

If we fast forward to their forties or fifties, that's when Kabru and Toshiro might consider raising a kid. Their lives are stable. They've unpacked a lot of their childhood traumas. They have a support network and a reliable method of travel between their homes. They could do it. I still don't think they'd feel the need to have children, but if a child tumbled into their laps (I'm thinking of how Izutsumi appeared for the main party), they'd have a long, serious discussion about it and ultimately decide to raise them. Similar to Izutsumi, I could see them raising an older kid.

TL;DR: I don't think Kabshiro would adopt/have children, but after they hit middle-age, if a child fell into their lives, they would raise them.

On Utaya

I'm so glad you asked about Utaya because I wish I'd been able to explore Kabru's trauma more in "debts and delusions." He deserves an in-depth analysis of his past and to begin healing from it.

The short answer is: yes, Toshiro would definitely notice Kabru's trauma surrounding Utaya. Toshiro is fairly observant, Kabru's already opened up to him about what happened in Utaya, and when Kabru's trauma manifests outwardly, it's actually not very subtle, so it's a little shocking more people haven't tried to support him through it before. Or maybe it's unsurprising since he tries very hard to project being emotionally secure and stable.

The next step in Kabru's arc is beginning to heal from Utaya. Now that he and Toshiro have established what their relationship is and can correspond and visit each other regularly, Toshiro would have the emotional bandwidth to address Kabru's panic and nightmares and aim to support him by talking with him and encouraging him to lean on him. He'd want to return the favor of Kabru supporting him through his difficult times. He'd also feel guilty for complaining about his concerns over Falin, considering everything Kabru has gone through, but that guilt and negative tendency towards comparison could be something Toshiro works out with his other friends.

After learning to depend more on Toshiro and hopefully, on his other friends, Kabru would recognize that he should take his own advice about voicing one's wants and needs. He'd eventually have an honest conversation with Laios about his feelings on eating monsters and where those feelings come from, and that would open Laios up as another person he can be emotionally open with about his past. Because I am a strong believer in Kabru and Marcille as friends post-canon, she'd also be another person for him to lean on. Her perspective as a half-elf would be valuable for both of them. (Unrelated, but I also strongly believe in Kabru helping Marcille let go of her comphet.)

I'd also hope that with time, Kabru would realize how he's taken Rin for granted. They could actually talk about her feelings for him and unpack their traumatic upbringings together. Talking with Rin would probably be the most healing interaction for him, but it'd take a lot of work on his part. He'd have to apologize to her for being sexist, rebuild their trust after years of him shutting her out emotionally, and uncover the most difficult parts of his past with her, a friend who knows it intimately. Realistically, Rin would be willing to support him even without an apology because she suffers more than Jesus, but for the sake of her sanity and mine, he should definitely apologize to her first.

If there was ever to be a sequel to "debts and delusions," it would focus on Kabru and his healing!

₍ᐢ. .ᐢ₎ ₊˚⊹♡

Thank you so much for sending this ask! I'm always willing to yap about DunMeshi and/or my writing. If you have any of other thoughts on the fic, hcs, or more questions, feel free to send them my way <3

[magic-is-something-we-create]

Hey Pax talk more to me about fantasy computers plus 👀

HI HELLO i posted that snippet and that call for discussion and then promptly got distracted, went to bed, and forgot to check tumblr pretty much all day. i wasnt sure id have much to say on the matter but i ended up rambling only half-coherently so <3 no hard feelings if its Too Much to read, let alone comprehend. im not proofreading it myself so good luck and thank u for prompting me to ramble <3<3<3

BUT

FANTASY COMPUTERS

aka normal real-world computers shoved into classic high fantasy land because i like to fuck with genre expectations like that. except like cyber/solarpunk future computers because again. genre is fake

anyways. the goblins of the ehlverse are a) the only people without either a magic source (see: elementalism, human blood runes, dwarven metallurgy, etc) or an inherently magical biology (see: dragonkin being literally made of magma, shara'i being feathered and mammalian and terrestrial and eyeless a la moles, etc) AND B) have been thus excluded from much of the world's politics and power due to magical inability for literally tens of thousands of years

so of course they invented computers and robots and sustainable electricity and gadgets and such that are capable of not only emulating certain commonly useful aspects of magic, but also of doing things no magic can, just to keep up

something that i've had in mind while building out the stories in the ehlverse (mainly TMS but it impacts whispers too) is the like. meta level of How the World Works. and technology like computers and such being a big huge useful innovation in real life!! and how to justify only the goblins and a scattered few other people around the world actively using them. and how politics and superstition and practicality for the majority all intertwine into the situation as it is in TMS and whispers

and like. a lot of the politics on ehl are like normal politics with magic added to the resources/skillsets of certain groups. so like that shit impacts trade and warfare heavily and it's basically useless to ally with another political entity that has nothing to offer you of the most important thing in the world, right? and so when it comes down to it, half of why computers aren't nearly as widespread as they could be is because the people in power in a lot of the world simply don't care to start trade negotiations for things that scribes and scrupulous bookkeeping and massive libraries can do just fine. because outside of the goblins, no one cares about like. the internet. the most enticing things are databases

superstition-wise, there's a lot of thinking in certain communities on ehl that if you spend enough time with goblins and only goblins, you lose your magic. and like there's no proof of it, but people believe it anyway, and oftentimes they extend that belief to anything goblins make, too

and THEN. practically speaking. the vast majority of ehlves (who are the global majority, probably ~70% of the people on ehl have recent ehlven ancestry) are fire, water, earth, or metal Elementalists. and guess what? elementalism means you have fun(!) ambient effects on your environment. like, say, a fire mage immediately overheating any computer they come in contact with. or an earth mage getting upset and causing microshakes that mess up the delicate stability instruments inside robots. or a metal mage's inherent magnetism completely ripping a phone apart from the inside out. or water mages doing some magic nearby and not realizing they made a full cup of water condense out of the air right onto their keyboard. and thats not even getting into light (aka electricity) mages and every way they can make things go wrong, even as a relative minority compared to the above

and until the superstitious (xenophobic) and political aspects get resolved, it's not likely that the practical ones will be solved. purely because you need lots of people to test these things to see if the solutions work

(there is a solution. it will revolutionize all of the ehlverse once it becomes widespread. it is found out in TMS and present in whispers if you think about a very specific detail when you come across it. but it will rely on governments getting their shit together so anything i write using that specific state of the world will require it being much further down the timeline than ive explored so far so)

[autumnbrambleagain]

ultimately i think our real complaint with pathfinder wrath of the righteous is that its "difficulty" isn't so much "the enemies have very clever positioning and tatical advantages--how will you manipulate the situation to overcome it?"

it's not like the incredible oil refinery battle in Divinity Original Sin 2, where it gets WEIRD and you're fighting the environment and a new faction shows up and starts overrunning everything with weird resistances and forces you to outthink it, out-position it,

every single battle in Wrath of the Righteous is already decided long, long before the battle starts.

did you look your build up on metabuilds.quick? did you pick the Correct Feats and spells? did you reload the second combat started and then pre-buffed 30 different spells before combat began?

that's what defines the difficulty. is your build meta enough? did you read enough spreadsheets before this battle started?

i LIKED blackwater, I'll be honest. the super-high ACs meant i had to use spells i'd never used before, didn't NEED to use before, to deprive enemies of their AC bonuses! it felt like i was figuring out a puzzle, it was great, it was an outlier

im' on normal difficulty, which coddles and protects and forgives you. i'm on normal difficulty, and combat is either "i curbstop everything without trying, or i die instantly because i didn't get the gimmick right"

but on higher difficulties, there's no room to play with your build. in divinity you could be a teleporting assassin who dips into an elemental magic for extra fun, or a wizard just go full magic and you'll never be at a loss for things to DO. i put some levels of metamorphosis on my assassin just for the wings and tentacle slap, no problem. want a wizard who casts gun turret and then hits you with sword? that's fine.

in this shitty DnD inherited system you can't go "red mage". you can't casually dip. you can't do something Interesting. a sorcerer who spends a feat or two to use a cool sword? no. spell penetration. spell focus. you can't hit anything in melee after level 3 anyway so don't try. turn into a dragon? too bad, you still don't have the BAB to hit anything. you're a weak-ass nothing of a dragon.

the challenge isn't "here are all these pieces you can use--how will you use them to overcome the challenges before you?"

the challenge is "here are all these pieces. if you put them together in the right way you win. if you try to do anything fun with them you lose."

and for what? for what verisimilitude? ADnD had classes as CLASSES. you were a WIZARD. you had NO TIME to learn how to fight. your spells all had a dozen things to keep track of. you were a FIGHTER. at level 9 you literally get a Castle and a small ARMY as a class feature. as you leveled up you gained titles of nobility as a matter of course. you had to worry about taxes and harvests. of course multiclassing was hard back then--each CLASS was a career path. a druid leveling up had to do druid politics just to be ALLOWED to reach the next level. the fluff and crunch was INEXTRICABLE

but 3.x and 3.P threw that all out for the most part. just look at people talking about builds--they ALL talk about level 20 builds, and they're all ridiculous 3 rogue/1 monk/6 cleric/ 10 asshole builds that mix and match class features at will. i've seen it recommend that everyone take an entire level of monk just for the bonuses--ignore that it makes like, no sense everyone suddenly becomes an ACTUAL MONK. you don't just pick up the skills you pick up a level in the CLASS.

it so desperately wants to be a classless system where each level-up you pick what you get, but it can't escape its inheritance. it makes sense, to a degree--if you divide your time poorly in your study, you'll become not great at anything. a mediocre sword-fighter and a mediocre-wizard! but. but we're beyond ADnD aren't we?

why isn't it more gameified? I guess pathfinder 2 is more like that? i haven't played it, and i'm dealing with pathfinder 1 for WotR. taking a level of monk doesn't require you to add being a monk to your story--you don't need to find a cloister and dedicate time to it, you just pick the class to get the bonuses it gives you. why have it tied to classes at all at that point?

just like how multiclassing poorly leaves you unable to do anything well, picking both "classes are a career/lifestyle" and "classes are just a set of bonuses you get for this level" leaves the entire system poorly functional. you really can't do both.

why can't my sorcerer fight in melee when turned into a dragon? i don't have the BAB for it. how do i get the BAB for it? can i spend a few skill points per level to learn how to fight? no, i need to take a fighter class. retroactively all my experience is only into fighting. you can't multitask, you can't learn things outside your class--a sorcerer can't FIGHT with a SWORD! that's silly!

but a sorcerer can take a break for a level and become a knight, and a monk, and an alchemist, and a rogue. you can't be a sorcerer who sacrificed a bit of time mastering their magic to be competitive in a melee--that would make no sense! but you can be a sorcerer who stopped being a sorcerer and joined a convent for a short while and then became a squire for a knight for a week and now they can use a sword, sure. that's the option that makes sense.

just let adventurers be good at shit. let me block out two schools of magic in exchange for being able to fight in melee. let that just be a default fucking thing. you wanna make "classes" just a selection of bonuses you can freely pick from each level up, just let it be a la carte already. untie it from the canon. if everyone can take a level of sorcerer let magic just be something you can pick when you level up.

auroral oceans is a very different beast from a generic fantasy setting and the tabletop system im making for it is far from finished or perfect, but one of the base assumptions it makes is, if you're a player character, you're some kind of adventuring asshole enough that you can both: use a sword, and fire a gun, with enough competency that you can kill a person with it.

like yeah, someone who spends all their points on sword techniques is going to have more dice and way more options in a fight--a wizard with a sword just rolls their dice, a dedicated swordfighter has options to reroll a missed die or turn a point of damage into a disarm or a forced movement--but the wizard with a sword is still a dude with a sword and they can still fuck you up.

altho i guess it helps there's no generic "wizard" in the setting i guess the closest to wizard is worshipper of nirix who gets powers by virtue of emulating its example or like, a hwual channeler which is just a thing you can do it's fine

im off topic

my point is wow DnD fucking sucks and i wish it died from the meme pool already

[murky-tannin]

Oh my God thank you for finally saying it. im gonna be honest, i have begun to hate the fact that politics were even introduced to qsmp at all like. a LOT. It was so just extremely unnecessary and i cannot even understand why they thought it would work on an International Server of all things; politics are such a genuinely serious and touchy part of everybody's day to day life and then combining that with the massive culture clashes in politics of this being an international server is. Bad! Politics do not belong on this silly mc server it just like I just kind of think the whole thing sucks!! I don't think any of the things the political element has introduced to qsmp has been interesting, only mediocre at best and annoying and frustrating at worst.

and it also annoys me, like you said too, about how q!forever is now just introducing all these random things that make no sense and don't need to be on the server and don't serve anything for the story when all the election candidates said that wouldn't happen. I love qsmp but i think this all just sucks. id say id now just wish for a revolution and anarchy arc but. We'll never fucking get that because twitter users and twitch chatters can't behave like normal fucking people. Sigh

The way I see it qsmp already had politics. Good and interesting politics. It had a governing authority with heavy variety in how they would interact with those they governed + the large mystery. It had the Ordo and the developments the organization has gone through in terms of goals, execution of said goals, leadership, and of course it's relationship with the above governing authority.

While the community toxicity is a major strike against it as an idea, I think the elections/post elections as a concept themselves could be interesting If they Actually Remembered Anything They'd Discussed For Months instead of forgetting the minute Forever got elected. Yknow. All that stuff about how it's a supposed distribution of power actually meant to further consolidate the Federation's own? About how they've been perfectly fine as a commune with no figurehead and the governing force + all the laws have been nothing but harmful? YKNOW?????

Having characters mostly aware of these things and engaging with the presidential role through that lens would be unique and interesting. Instead we have "here are laws about furniture and waystones to vote on and also jail for some reason. And no one remembers why this is all stupid as fuck and not the point despite months of heavy discussion and hyper awareness." and it sucks. It just sucks. It's not fun to watch. It's exhaustively boring at best and frustrating at worst.

Also whoever came up with the system shouldn't have combined the meta with the presidential role. That heavily fucks with the roleplay and characters.

I don't even trust the creators to roleplay a revolution because they've forgotten why they don't like the presidential role in the first place. Generally when they talk about it they fall in the same category as ccForever. Just saying and doing tropes with no thought behind it. Which I don't hate the ccs for or anything- I'm pleasantly surprised by their rp in general and I guess it gave me too high expectations of them. It just sucks that it's such a major and central plot.

Anyways my optimism has completely crashed and burned sdfghjk

[always-a-joyful-note]

All right. Time to ramble about a new thing that grabbed me by the neck and didn't let me go until I finished all available episodes.

That new thing, my friends, would be the Mistholme Museum of Mystery, Morbidity, and Mortality. And despite being terrible at writing proper reviews and hardly ever doing it, I'm gonna do my best to give a semi-coherent review of why you should listen to this funky little Australian podcast.

So! I see a lot of people comparing Mistholme to Magnus Archives. ..and while that definitely works, I also want to both compare it to Welcome to Night Vale and Wolf 359 for its at times very cavalier attitude towards the unexplained and its exploration on personhood and humanity.

Seriously, though. What I LOVE about this podcast, asides from the philosophical and discoursey tidbits that make the nerd in me go absolutely bonkers, is the way that while it is very much horror and mystery, it's just not that.

Like...it's a museum about supernatural occurrences and terrors, and while a lot of stories do end in creepy, bone-chilling ways, there's also stories that end ambiguously or happily. It's just people living in a world that happens to have alternatural items in it, and while many of the times things go horribly wrong, a lot of times things also can go right...or leave something good to think about. It's just...the best part about this podcast for me is how it's almost slice of life, but a slice of life that happens in a world of magic through the lens of a museum (literally ;)).

Moving on, though, I also seriously love how sometimes it gives off the feel of those educational shows where the characters talk to the audience. There's definitely some great meta moments (and y'all know how much I am wild over those), some stuff I DEARLY want to say about the second person voice but won't for coherence/spoilers. It blends genres - from sci-fi to horror to fantasy, etc. - and has an amazing meta mystery plot thread that just gets better and better as the show progresses.

More than that, though, I seriously just love the focus on worldbuilding. Ironically, this podcast is a MASTER at the show don't tell rule (with reasonable and very seamlessly woven ways of telling, too), and we gradually get to know of this world similar to our own but noooot quite right as the show progresses in a very organic way. And I'm also gonna seriously express the joy I feel in the ambiguity of the year in which the show is unraveling, as well as the ambiguity of how much the common public is aware of the alternatural and so many other things like that. Enough that you're not toooo curious about it but it still adds just another amazing element of story and FUN to this world.

The characters in this podcast - STARS THE CHARACTERS IN THIS PODCAST!! ATG (what I call the Audio Tour Guide)....well, other people have said it better than me but you WILL want to die for it and treasure it and protect it. The other characters that appear? Phenomenal, complex, just...people. And the VOICE ACTING IN THIS. I am....not a good judge of VAs, I'll admit, but just the voice acting in here. The subtle emotion and RANGE they give to their characters. How I'm able to almost SEE them all just from the way they speak. And the way they all develop, both silent AND speaking characters - I don't know how but Dom somehow made me love the mute or nonspeaking characters...or...just feel certain things for them ;)).

Just....plotwise, characterwise WORLDBUILDINGWISE (I am very much a fan of excellent, incredible worlds), performancewise, the themes and discourse on humanity and nature it invites, everything - solid 1000/10. It's really and seriously ranking up there with W359 as one of my favorite podcasts so far....

Now, of course, there will be some stuff that you may personally not find to taste like I did (what with the diverse stories and so on) but I don't think they belong in this review as they're more subjective opinions those up there were all objectively true despite my gushing I don't take arguments so we don't need that. I think the show really does its best in being respectful to all mythologies, religion, sociopitical issues, etc. that may crop up, and it keeps such an...objective? more hopeful? stance on almost every person narrated about (despite in-show opinions) that's kind of...well, refreshing I suppose? to hear? (Maybe the best way to explain it is that its neutral tone allows people, evil and good, to be people without betraying its show's own ethical code.)

Anyway, yeah....I love Mistholme. I love ATG and co. I love the VA and their voice and all other voices once again I ask why are podcaster voices so nice to hear? I love LOVE the individual stories and their unique way of just...revealing the world of Mistholme. And yes, again, I really love all its themes and the Thoughts(tm) they invite or that invade your brain space.

Anyway, with that, I'm still not forgiving the creator for s4 despite being on s5, how DARE -

And secondly, if I had a nickel for everytime an Aussie creator made an urban fantasy world with some of the best worldbuilding and character arcing and plot twisting I've seen, I'd have 2 nickels which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice...

Comparisons and jokes asides, though, you really WILL love this world on its own. And maybe scream a little in wounded agony. But that's just the fun of visiting a museum of mystery, morbidoty, and mortality right?

[the-golden-ghost]

Who is your fav Lupin the 3rd (if thats what its called) character? I dont know anything about it but im intrested to see your favorite! :3

It IS called Lupin the 3rd (or Lupin III, although the latter tends to get people confused like "what's Lupin 1 and 2 then") and it's about the titular Lupin the 3rd who is the grandson of Maurice Leblanc's Arséne Lupin, who was a gentleman thief. (And his grandson took up the family business hence the show)

The characters in it are all outstanding but my favorite is Daisuke Jigen, Lupin's right hand man, who you've undoubtedly seen if you've been looking at what I've been posting about the show. This asshole:

He's a former hitman for the mob who Lupin found and adopted hired to act as his bodyguard, getaway driver, and general partner in crime.

They're very close, the best of friends, thief husbands, all that nonsense. Where Lupin goes, Jigen goes (a canon quote) and while Lupin's gang is known to backstab each other for Fun and Bonding, Jigen doesn't do that. This man is the definition of ride or die.

That's kind of a general rundown on who he is. I could talk about how he's a fun compilation of noir elements as well as Western elements (a mobster cowboy! You heard it here last) but I won't cause that's a bit meta.

Instead I'll just say some stuff about him that is 100% canon:

In one of his first appearances in Part 2 (the classic series) he accidentally kills an elderly man by letting him drink an entire bottle of scotch (the man was fine; he was faking his death, but even so)

He never takes his hat off even to sleep. He has sleeping hats, but sometimes he just wears his regular one to bed

He is scared of ghosts

He doesn't like kids but is surprisingly good with them

He's set at least one person on fire (in his defense he was left unsupervised) (Goemon was with him but he was ALSO left unsupervised)

He once trained the entire military of a foreign country for reasons that might be explained but I never saw that episode

He loves Lupin to the point of death and risking his own health, sanity and general welfare for him. He also beats Lupin up on the regular

He has kind of a savior complex in general and sometimes just straight decides he likes a person enough to die for them after knowing them for 8 (eight) seconds

He gets betrayed SO FUCKING MUCH literally every time someone from his past shows up (or hell even every time he meets someone who's not part of the gang) he gets betrayed or they just straight-up die

He's also apparently dated every asshole mercenary in the entire world? He's gay btw (or not like canon canon but. let's be real here)

He wears an apron when he cooks to keep his suit clean

HE HAS NEVER SAT NORMALLY EVER

[bellamygateoldblog]

My opinion is that a good amount of the fandom doesn’t see El as her own person and only sees her as an extension of Mike even when they try to deny it, and that not being together romantically would be a lot healthier for both of their character growth.

oh this. ive found in my short bursts of exploring the stranger things fandom that far too many el stans for my liking erase or twist everything that makes her HER, or seem to get defensive over characteristics that el DOES have and things that el DOES do. not everyone loves characters the same way, sorry that you can't appreciate el's hot-headedness, intellectual struggles and probable post-institutional syndrome, and tendancy to mimic other people around her as she learns the world, but that's a you problem shawty <3

i think a lot of people just don't care to engage with her character on any deeper level other than thinking she's a cute badass who kicks monster ass, and that's okay. i do get the impression with how they talk about el and mileven, and the type of content they make, that a group of fans simply use el as a self-insert because they find finn cute. i tend to think el does have her own distinct personality, but for those who don't necessarily engage with her character, i can see how she'd come across to them as a semi-clean slate they can project onto.

and actually ive decided to go on a tangent because this just reminded me of something lol and im using this anon as an excuse to try to collect and organise my thoughts. in the conflict scene between mike, max and nancy regarding mike's concerns of treating el like a weapon, nancy was literally projecting in that scene...she's personally dealing with sexism in her own plot and thus applies her own feelings about her own situation to el's, growing defensive over mike's genuine worry, batting it away with 'el knows her own limits. el is her own person' and she's misguided because even though el does know a great deal more about her power than anyone else, she's been shown to be extremely brave, protective and sacrificial (which mike helplessly WATCHED the first time) for the people she cares about and would absolutely exhaust herself and push herself past her own capabilities if it meant saving them for a little bit longer. that's ALSO who el is at her core. a girl who loves deeply.

to me it's not that mileven is 'unhealthy' like they're kids tbh, tho mike has been paralleled to hopper in s3 numerous times with his possessiveness, talk of others "corrupting" her, and typical 80s teenage boy behaviour, for me it's that i don't really like where that dynamic puts mike's character and by extention how other characters have to kind of...revolve around mileven when it's romantically A Thing, as they literally did in season 3. mike is a group leader but in season 3 he really wasn't, mike loves his friends so much but in season 3 he was really slacking on the whole 'i would literally DIE for my friend' thing and was so obsessively preoccupied with girlfriends (while the girls, on the other hand, were living their best single lives) that he shoved aside 2 out of 3 friends etc.

el on the other hand isn't that much affected as a character by having a boyfriend/love interest as far as we can tell, which I really love, however I find it...odd...that she's this really traumatised child with actual powers, she's WEIRD she's not normal, she's no particularly well-adjusted, she's still learning language, context and behaviours and such, she doesn't know who she is or what she likes, she's barely seen the world, but right away she's just acting like a normal teenage girl with unconventional speech patterns trying on clothes, eating ice cream, skipping through the mall, oogling boys and dealing with angsty teen drama, which isn't bad, I'm just wondering where the rest went and why they can't co-exist. a quick shot of el feeling watched and uneasy while she's in the mall surrounded by all those people. something. that's not really a gripe i have with mileven, but just how it's been fitted in with the other elements of the show and how it was so in our faces all season 3. with that being said im in agreement with the metas discussing how season 3 is supposed to be superficial and goofy and emphasises how mileven doesn't really work and has been moving quickly, i think we were supposed to be uncomfortable with that makeout scene watching through the crack in the door where hopper is, being told the kissing is constant, having joyce ask hopper to clarify it's ONLY kissing these 14 year olds doing, that awkward one-sided kiss with mike's eyes wide open, everyone teasing them or expressing frustration towards them, etc. i have no hard feelings for mileven, i don't actually mind it (or i didn't until all that i just mentioned in s3 plus some), i think it's very sweet in s1 and s2. really i don't take major issue with the relationship itself when you remove it from everything else and look at it, i simply just prefer byler. LOL.

[olderthannetfic]

It's really surprising that you're so well versed in older fandoms and yet participate in new popular ones (that cdrama, kpop) is this by design? Im in my twenties and my interest turnover is already way slower than it used to be

You know, that’s a really interesting question. I wouldn’t say it’s by design exactly in that I do tend to just follow what strikes my fancy, and I can’t force myself to want to write fic for just anything. (I find it easier to like reading fic without serious involuntary emotional investment, but writing takes more. Vidding I can do on command most of the time, but I don’t usually bother unless I have a lot of feels or I’m fulfilling someone’s prompt.)

However, me getting into BTS was 100% due to me wanting to understand BTS enough to explain to people who weren’t very interested but wanted to know what was going on in fandom lately. Under normal circumstances, I run the dance party at Escapade, the oldest extant slash con. We borrowed vividcon’s thing of playing fanvids on the wall--all of them set to dance music--as the soundtrack for the dance party. This means I’m creating a 3-hour mixtape of fannishness, which has amazing potential to make people feel in the know about Fandom Today... and equal potential to make them feel alienated if nothing they care about shows up. Only about 100-150 people attend the con, so it really is possible to make a playlist that feels inclusive yet informative--it just takes a huge amount of work.

Every year, I do a lot of research on which fandoms are getting big and look for vids from vidders people won’t have heard of, so there is an element of consciously trying to keep up with things. Generally, I only get into these fandoms myself if I had no idea what they were and then suddenly, oops, they’re my kryptonite, like the buddy cop android plot in Detroit: Become Human, which sucked me in hard for like 6 months on the basis of a vid.

(So if you’re into cross-fandom meta and associated stuff as one of your fannish interests, you tend to have broader knowledge of different fandoms, old and new, than if you’re just looking for the next place you’ll read fic. It’s also easier to love vids for unfamiliar things than fic.)

But though I was only looking for a basic primer on BTS, BTS has 7 members with multiple names and no clear juggernaut pairing, not to mention that AU that runs through the music videos and lots of other context to explain. The barrier to understanding WTF was going on at all was high enough that to know enough to explain, I had to be thoroughly exposed... And once I was over that hurdle, oops, I had a fandom.

--

In terms of old vs. new, here’s the thing: kpop fandoms in English and c-drama fandoms in English right now feel a lot like anime fandom in English did in the early 00s. I had a Buddy Cops of the 70s phase in the middle, but my current fannishness is actually a return to my older fannishness in many ways.

What do I mean about them being similar?

Yes, I know some wanker will show up to say I think China, Korea, and Japan are indistinguishable, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the way that I used to routinely meet Italian and French and German fans, Argentinian and Mexican, Malaysian and Indonesian and Filipino too. English-language fandom of SPN or MCU may have all those fans from all those countries, but it feels very American most of the time. English-language fandom of a non-English-language canon is more overtly about using English as a lingua franca.

It also tends to attract people who as a sideline to their fannishness are getting into language learning and translation, which are my other passion in life after fanworks fandom. (I speak only English and Spanish and a bit of Japanese, but I’ve studied German, French, Russian, Mandarin, Old English, and now Korean.)

Nerds arguing about methods of language learning and which textbooks are good and why is my jam. This is all over the place in English-language fandoms of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean media. Those fandoms also tend to be full of speakers coming from a Germanic or Romance languages background who face similar hurdles in learning these languages. (In other words, if you’re a native Japanese speaker trying to learn Korean, the parts that will be hard for you are different than if you’re an English speaker, but you’re also usually not doing fandom in English.)

There’s also an element of scarcity and difficulty of access and a communal attempt to construct a canon (in the other sense) of stuff from that country that pertains to one’s fannishness. So, for example, a primer explaining the genre of xianxia is highly relevant to being a n00b Untamed fan, but just any old thing about China is not. A c-drama adapted from a danmei webnovel is perhaps part of the new pantheon of Chinese shit we’re all getting into, but just any old drama from decades ago is probably not... unless it’s a genre precursor to something else we care about. Another aspect here is that while Stuff I Can Access As A N00b Who Doesn’t Speak The Language may be relatively scarce, there’s a vast, vast wealth of stuff that exists.

This is what it felt like to be an anime fan in the US in 2000. As translation got more commercial and more crappy series were licensed and dumped onto an already glutted market, the vibe changed. No longer were fans desperately trying to learn enough of the language to translate or spending their time cataloguing what existed or making fanworks about a show they stuck with for a bit: the overall community focus turned to an endless race of consumption to keep up with all of the latest releases. That’s a perfectly valid way of being fannish, but if I wanted that, I’d binge US television 24/7.

Anime fandom got bigger, but what I liked about anime fandom in English died, and I moved on. (Okay, I first moved on to Onmyouji, which is a live action Japanese thing, but still.)

Hardcore weeaboos and now fans of Chinese and Korean stuff don’t stop at language: people get excited about cooking, my other other great passion. Times a thousand if the canon is something like The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty, which is full of loving shots of food preparation. People get excited about history! Mandarin and Japanese may share almost nothing in terms of grammar or phonology, but all of East Asia has influence from specific Chinese power centers historically, and there are commonalities to historical architecture and clothing that I love.

I fell out of love with the popular anime art styles as they changed, and I’m not that into animation in general these days. (I still own a shitton of manga in art styles I like, like Okano Reiko’s Onmyouji series.) I’ve become a filmmaker over the last decade, and I’m very excited about beautiful cinematography and editing. With one thing and another, I’m probably not going to get back into anime fandom, but it’s lovely to revisit the cultural aspects I enjoyed about it via live-action media.

BTS surprised me too, to be honest. I really dislike that early 90s R&B ballad style that infests idol music (not just Korean--believe me, I resisted many rounds of “But Johnny’s Entertainment though!” back in the day). While I like some of the dance pop, I just don’t care. But OH NO, BTS turn out to be massive conscious hip hop fanboys, and their music sounds different. I have some tl;dr about my reactions in the meta I wrote about one of my fanvids, which you can find on Dreamwidth here.

--

But back to your comment about turnover: I know fans from the 70s who’ve had one great fannish love and that’s it and more who were like that but eventually moved on to a second or third. They’re... really fannishly monogamous in a way I find hard to comprehend. It was the norm long ago, but even by the 90s when far more people were getting into fandom, it was seen as a little weird. By now, with exponentially more people in fandom, it’s almost unheard of. I think those fans still exist, even as new people joining, but we don’t notice them. They were always rare, but in the past, only people like that had the stamina to get over the barriers to entry and actually become the people who made zines or were willing to be visibly into fanfic in eras when that was seen as really weird. On top of that, there’s an element of me, us, judging the past by what’s left: only people with an intense and often single passion are visible because other people either drifted away or have seamlessly disappeared into some modern fandom. They don’t say they’re 80 or 60 or 40 instead of 20, so nobody knows.

In general, I’m a small fandoms and rare ships person. My brain will do its best to thwart me by liking whatever has no fic even in a big fic fandom... (Except BTS because there is literally fic for any combination of them, like even more than for the likes of MCU. Wow. Best fandom evar!) So I have an incentive to not get complacent and just stick with one fandom because I would very soon have no ability to be in fandom at all.

My appetite for Consuming All The Things has slowed way down, but it also goes in waves, and a lot of what I’m consuming is what I did back in 2000: journal articles and the limited range of English-language books on the history of m/m sex and romance in East Asia. It’s not so much that I have a million fandoms as that I’m watching a few shows as an expression of my interest in East Asian costume dramas and East Asian history generally.

I do like to sit with one thing and experience it deeply rather than moving on quickly, but the surface expression of this has changed depending on whether I’m more into writing fic or more into doing research or something else.

But yes, I do do a certain amount of trying to stay current, often as a part of research for fandom meta or to help other people know what’s going on. Having a sense of what’s big doesn’t automatically mean getting into all those things, but I think some fans who are older-in-fandom and/or older-in-years stop being open to even hearing what’s new. And if you’ve never heard of it, you’ll never know if you might have liked it.

[sanchoyo]

ok I’m still rewatching zexal slowly and 1. I forgot how early vector shows up (calling himself BARIAN. that’s like if I walked around introducing myself as american lmao I like to think he was lowkey making fun of astral calling himself after the whole astral world)

2. I did say in a prev post how shitty faker is but my god imagine making contact with aliens and the first one u run into is the shittiest biggest asshole out of all of them. and that’s his first impression of an entire alien species lmaooo like any of the other barians would’ve been better. Any of them… then again the shit faker was willing to do. He’s also an asshole so maybe they met each other and thought oh yeah . Fellow normal person

3. Vector agrees to help cure Haruto and?? How did he know that would work?? Did he just say fuck it and give Haruto a shitload of Chaos? We know that chaos had healing abilities when Yuma used it on the astral ppl but vector not being A Good Egg like Yuma is probably why it made Haruto Like That for a while. But how would vector KNOW it would possibly cure him and not just straight up kill or hurt Haruto?? And did he know about the power side effects like Haruto being able to just teleport and rip holes in trucks with his mind or was that a fun surprise?? What I have decided to believe is that he didn’t know chaos actually had healing elements and was just stringing faker along like ‘oh of COURSE the chaos energy is for SURE helping your son! Ohh can’t you tell, the effects…the symptoms sure are being affected! I know this for Certain, I Promise 😌 Now keep bombing astral world with garbage im sure ur son will be 100% ok and not traumatized or harmed in any way by this 😊’ and if he found out when his horrible influence was removed that Haruto actually Got Cured from it he’d be like 👁👄👁 ⁉️ accidentally helpful…

Also they show him straight up possessing faker which I also forgot about. So the barians can possess people which seems to be a step up from the rank up barians force card brainwashing they do in zexal ii so like. Why don’t they ever do anything else with THAT power. Or show any of the other barians in that kinda energy form vector gets in zexal I!!! (I know the meta answer is they kept vectors design under wraps for the reveal so he kept showing up in that form but. It just makes him seem like he’s got more fun powers than the other barians. Also when he possesses faker faker gets WINGS which is sick)

Btw what’s up with faker looking like a cyborg in that duel. They also just never explain that and?? Why is he a cyborg…I have so many questions and I just don’t think they are making a zexal iii at this point. But I want answers…

[windblooms]

same anon 🤚🏻 I am v interested in your thoughts and opinions on Zhongli’s kits/gameplay

hi hi!  whew i might be typing a lot so i’ll post my thoughts under the cut.

warning: very long my fingers feel like they’re going to fall off

first and foremost: polearm characters have some of the lowest atk multipliers in the game.  

this is because of their high attack speed and reach: its a trade off, so their individual hits/attacks deal less damage than, say, a sword user. similarly to how a claymore user hits slow but hard.

automatically, you’re looking at poor normal/charged attack damage output from zhongli (ignoring his elemental skills for now, they’ll come up next) because of his weapon type.  i recommend comparing his multipliers over on honey impact if you need actual numbers.

okay, so what about 4 star characters like xiangling and fischl?  xiangling, a polearm user, and fischl, an archer, also have lower base normal/charged attack multipliers compared to sword and claymore characters.  what makes them so good?

this is where elemental skills come into play.

xiangling can summon gouba and fischl can summon oz.  both deal continuous/consistent damage over time and can be moved across the field at least by some distance.  fischl’s oz summons are more flexible than xiangling, and this makes her flexible in combat.

consider zhongli: he can summon a stele that also deals consistent damage over pulses.  that’s the same as xiangling and fischl, right?

no.

once more referencing honey impact: at its lowest rank (rank 1), the stele’s pulses deal 32% atk damage towards enemies in the stele’s range.  at talent level 7 (i choose 7 because it’s the most attainable towards most players at this time), its pulse damage multiplier is 48%.

at rank 1, gouba has a 112% atk multiplier per breath.  at rank 7, that multiplier becomes 166.92%.

at rank 1, oz has an 88% multiplier per attack.  at rank 7, it becomes 133%. 

not only does zhongli have lower normal attack multipliers than xiangling, but his other source of dps, his stele, doesn’t even match gouba’s.  yikes king. 

geo is an element that's made to be independent form the others.  it serves a niche role.

this one’s a bit obvious: you can have involved reactions with electro, hydro, pyro, etc, but geo was designed to be solitary.  geo’s only utility is to make or break shields.  it’s a defensive elemental reaction, compared to super-conduct, overload, etc, that deal extra damage. 

shields also don’t have numbers right now.  

super-conduct and overload display numbers when they deal numbers.  with shields, a regular player doesn’t know how much damage they’re being shielded from.  not on the health bar, or on the side of the screen.  

only within characters who can cast shields do these numbers show, and you have to go into their talents to view the numbers. 

what i’m saying: no one knows how good a shield is.  and this is only for characters who can cast shields.  if you pick up an elemental shard that grants a shield, you have no way of knowing how much damage it will absorb.

the community doesn’t place value in numbers they can’t access.  in genshin so far, the goal is to deal as much damage as possible or abandon domain.  inherently, shields are defensive.  but if we can’t compare their value to damage, then we don’t know how effective they are, and can’t determine how worth they are to invest in.

zhongli’s jade shield is advertised as op.  aight, cool.  but in a community that doesn’t know the value of shields, what purpose does it serve?  players immediately look towards his more engaging, aggressive capabilities, which are his normal, charged attacks, and stele resonance pulses, which we’ve already determined are lackluster.

it gets sooooo much better from here.

the issue with zhongli’s elemental burst and how he compares to other 5 star supports. 

the most flashy part of a character’s kit: their elemental burst.

damage go brrrrr.

lowest energy cost in the game, sitting at a flat 40, whereas fischl and xiangling’s energy costs sit at 60 and 80 respectively. 

looking at the numbers, the damage seems pretty solid (referencing the links above).  petrification also does wonders for the rest of your team so you can take your time to deal hits with normal attacks and your sweet stele – 

wait. 

oh, yeah, that’s right.  zhongli’s other damage sucks.

we’ve established that his normal/charged attacks and elemental skill (stele resonance damage) are not offensively reliable.

just now we’ve come to the oh-so pressing dilemma: once zhongli uses his elemental burst, what does he do?

nothing.

you switch him out to a more capable damage dealer before petrification wears off. 

zhongli’s kit steers him into the supportive role.  that’s fine.  5 star supports like venti and qiqi shine in their roles.  you can argue that venti’s usage is similar to how i’m describing zhongli’s: poor normal/charged attack damage, but his elemental burst does wonders.  

so what makes venti “good” or “s tier” whereas zhongli’s being pummeled into the dirt?

utility.

look at their character demos/teasers: venti’s elemental burst is narrated to “deal additional elemental damage.”  damage.  pulling enemies together.  

what about zhongli’s?  keeps them in place.  his elemental burst makes things easier for his team, but is outclassed by venti’s.  take another look at the numbers: the duration that enemies are stuck in venti’s storm is 8 seconds at all ranks.  zhongli’s petrification lasts 4 seconds at max rank.

venti’s utility lasts twice as long as zhongli’s.  TWICE.  the fact that it’s 8 seconds at rank 1 is, honestly, absurd to me.  that much power at rank 1?  god, wow, that’s busted. 

meanwhile, geo god at max rank twiddles his thumbs in the corner.

final thoughts.

anon my fingers hurt from typing i was trying to chug this out as fast as i can orz

quick recap: zhongli, a 5 star character, has lower normal/charged attack and elemental skill damage multipliers than 4 star characters.  his elemental usage is currently unquantifiable in a community that cannot readily measure the value of shields in the meta.  his elemental burst, his most obvious skill, is outclassed by a support that arguably serves the same purpose and deals the same damage as him.

i don’t think zhongli is a bad character.  i was being sarcastic throughout this entire post to relieve the tension in my fingers oh god oh fu

yeah so please ahsdljadsf im not hating on zhongli, just stating my reasoning and community observations.

anyways,

im not talking about constellations because, frankly, that would make this an entire separate post.  what i am comparing is zhongli’s base value when put against other characters who serve the same purpose as him, or fall into the same damage category.

he underperforms.  by all means, if you love his aesthetic, and love him as a character, continue to enjoy playing him.  this isn’t me saying that he’s trash all around.  this is me saying that, in a meta so fine-tuned, his gameplay lacks severely. 

there are probably some builds that can make you tune him however you'd like.  smack two-piece bloodstained chivalry and two-piece gladiator on him and you’ll deal more damage with normal/charged attacks and his stele for sure.  but is that the easiest thing to do for a unit with the lowest multipliers in the game?  no.  it’s much more practical, given his kit, to build him support.

im so tired but feel free to ask more questions orz or if i need to clarify anything

[burnedbyshoto]

i’d like to preface this with this is my opinion and only my opinion. you are free to agree and disagree with what I say and point out my idiot takes too. I also do very much love uraraka though, she’s a cutie.

uraraka ochako is an interesting character. she’s definitely not one of a kind, never seen or done before, but if hori is taking her character in the direction where im assuming it’s going, I think it’ll be fucking sick as hell. after all, I don’t want female characters who are physically strong — that’s easy to write and easier to write off — I want emotionally and internally complex female characters and this added element is definitely a way to get her there.

her biggest character complexes are revealed and can stem off of a single relationship of hers. that with himiko toga.

there are a lot of parallels between uraraka and toga. from the get go, the most obvious one being their feelings towards izuku. their crush, their obsession with him. 

I do apologize now about the frantic scatteredness of this because I am no meta writer, but im trying to piece this together in a logical way.

himiko toga’s background was revealed to us in the war between the LOV and the MLA. she was someone who, most likely due to the influence of her quirk, lusted over the blood of people she liked. now, through the horrors and need to be normal, togas family forced her to be “normal,” to hide her true self and feelings from the rest of the world because it wasn’t accepted. she does not hesitate to speak about how she hated having to keep her true feelings in, how she was deceived by the world into being someone she’s not. so now, she gives into her crushes, her obsessions, her wants, and her needs. himiko toga’s most memorable traits is her admittance to wanting to become the person she loves the most.

how does this parallel to uraraka???

easy.

who does uraraka want to become :)

upon uraraka’s initial introduction she was brought as a character who held nothing back, someone who was to become a hero because of the paycheck, not because she wanted to save people. she didn’t care so much as other people, she cared more about her family. 

now, there’s nothing wrong with this of course! shes 16 -- 15 then -- years old, and possesses the ability to do as she pleases. no one in bnha is quite as ambitious and self-sacrificing and heroic as izuku is (which is a whole other problem but thats for another time), and that’s okay. you’re not supposed to have the integrity to throw your life away for strangers at 15, it’s okay to be selfish.

however, where things start taking the twist with uraraka is the simple question brought forward by aoyama. a simple question if she likes him.

its interesting already that he asks her this, especially given what uraraka is thinking when asked. at this moment, she’s trapped and is thinking of what izuku would do in this situation. this occurs right after the sports festival arc where uraraka denied izuku’s help in facing off bakugou, where she watched izuku break his entire body to save shouto, and where she began to develop some sort of feelings and emotions for izuku during the calvary battle.

now, why does this matter? well, the turn down of izuku’s help and her ability to perform soundly against bakugou tells me that she probably didn’t ever need to wonder just what izuku would do against her battle with thirteen. the beginning of her feelings (whether they are true feelings or just straight up obsession) towards izuku gives her that tie with toga, and just for lols, toga enjoys seeing a beat up, busted izuku and well, uraraka got to see him busted up post shouto fight.

so when aoyama asks his simple question, suddenly uraraka is vividly aware of her feelings towards izuku and loses her concentration and flies straight towards thirteen and etc. while I don’t mean to be like,,,, there’s only one way to do things, but I find it hard to believe a 15/16 yo girl couldn’t tell that her feelings for izuku were romantic at that point... so yeah lol.

I did say true feelings or obsession in a previous paragraph, and I will now dive into them.

as uraraka continues to progress as a character she also changes the reason why she’s a hero. it becomes identical to that of izuku who becomes a hero to save everyone, and similarly, uraraka says the same. but, in order to do so, she must suppress her emotions/feelings/obsession for izuku in the time being because shes not an idiot and knows she doesn’t have time for that relationship and midoriya ‘I-have-a-death-wish’ izuku doesn’t either.

we see from togas experience that suppressing and hiding your true self/form only does you wrong in the end too.

interestingly, uraraka also changes a bit of her hero costume to imitate that of izuku. again, there’s nothing wrong with imitation because izuku’s entire career is based on imitation and making others original moves his own, but uraraka’s is always focal to that of izuku. 

izuku this. izuku that. what about izuku.

he’s a common name to her thoughts, which can be normal to that of a highschool girl with a crush, her suppression of her feelings and desire and clouded judgment for izuku is her undoing, and her crazy parallel to toga.

toga used to suppress her blood lust for the sake of appearing and being normal.

uraraka suppresses her crush on izuku for the sake of appearing and being normal.

toga loves to imitate, replicate, and become her crush.

uraraka imitates, replicates, and wants to be like her crush.

togas use of imitation is seen as a bad thing.

urarakas use of imitation is seen as a good thing.

toga is no longer trying to be someone she’s not (minus her use of her quirk).

uraraka is trying to be someone she’s not (her want to be like izuku).

in chapter 289 we see their interactions, how toga dances and weaves around uraraka as we try to get an answer about why uraraka believes in the things that she does, and while she’s honestly not wrong in her explanations (again she’s 16 and by no means should be perfect. toga’s overall convoluted approach on her entire question wouldve confused me too) she’s emulating and mimicking midoriya izuku. 

urakaka has grown complacent, she has become someone she isn’t and in her daze to be something she’s not, she’s suppressed and frantic. she’s become a character that people are questioning because where on earth did the girl we once knew go?

I can’t say much about her true feelings and whether or not how she feels for izuku are real, but I firmly believe that if hori is doing what im thinking, there’s going to be a lot of self-reflection and possible realizations that uraraka might not truly have a one-sided crush on izuku and for the meantime become someone she wants to be, much like toga is finally someone she wants to be too.

but thats just me lol.

~

twitter thread I read. I don’t agree with all of it, but most of it!!!!

i do apologize if none of this made sense, i’m not quite good at explaining my rationale ;-;

[incorrect-ikevamp-quotes]

[SPOILERS FOR LEO’S ROUTE❗️] okay so i just got to the bit after leo reveals what he is, and mc and comte are talking on the balcony & comte offers to turn her into a vampire if she would like. obviously mc declines but i guess my question is, how do you think leonardo would react if mc DID agree to that offer? i am enjoying his route, but i kinda get the feeling he mostly/only loves mc because she is human :/ im interested abt what might happen if she didn’t say no? thank you v much💖💖ly lots

Aww, ily3 hun tyty 💕💕💕I’ll offer my thoughts below, I hope I can answer your questions to satisfaction! 

Ah yes, the point in Leo's route where I essentially get shot in the leg and limp through my walk of shame

Jk jk, but I think there has been a considerable degree of displeasure associated with Leonardo's line in the proverbial sand. No life with him can be spent as a vampire, MC must remain human. Despite his easygoing nature, he remains stalwart in his opposition no matter what the MC or Comte has to say. To summarize it quickly, Comte’s relieved exasperation at the end of Leo’s MS gets more across than I think any of my analysis can convey “Thank heavens one of you has good sense.” It offers the implication that he has tried to broach the topic with Leonardo out of concern, only to be met by a brick wall--or doesn’t try at all for fear that he’ll only ensconce Leonardo further into rejecting a greater future for him and MC.

As to how he would react I......really don’t think it would go well? Only because I think it would serve to reinforce the rifts that already exist in Leonardo’s self-perception. He would believe it was his own fault for pushing her in that direction, and while I don’t think he would hate Comte, he would definitely become estranged from one of his only close friends in life. (What GUTS ME about Comte offering to turn MC is that he is probably well aware Leo might beat the shit out of him, never talk to him again, or both--and he still fully accepts that he could lose his best friend to guarantee a future for both of them. Excuse me while I bawl in the corner) He probably wouldn’t hold it against Comte for too long, but he wouldn’t be any less aggrieved and hurt. And when Leonardo is vulnerable, he will hide and nurse his wounds until he can behave with some level of calm--or at the very least until he can pretend he’s okay after an initial explosion. He doesn’t feel comfortable troubling people with his own problems, so he tends to fall into silence when personal things come up. This doesn’t necessarily mean he resolves all of his emotional turmoil, or heals that fast; it only means that he wallows in those feelings alone unless they’re tugged out of him and worked through forcibly.

Basically, I see only one of two possibilities coming to fruition. The first is that he and MC would wobble only to completely fall apart if some kind of resolution could never be found. He’d continue to blame himself and start sabotaging his own happiness, and that would likely mean some level of selfishness directed at MC--resulting in anguish for the both of them. If MC takes on too much without complaint or Leonardo goes too far...I get the feeling that relationship would either end in shambles immediately, or result in a kind of twisted union in which both feel responsible for the other’s hurt but neither one can relieve it (until they’d be forced to split up before someone gets seriously hurt). They would be the source of each other’s suffering, so much so that the walls climbing between them might never again lower. 

This might sound odd, but if there’s one thing that Leonardo needs it’s control when it comes to his relationships with others. It is a subtle, but acute trait that might not seem obvious knowing his magnanimous disposition. He decides if MC gets to be a vampire, he bargains with Sebastian because he refuses to be a test subject, he refuses to validate Comte’s conclusions (despite knowing he’s right) because he doesn’t want to cede the power silence/smokescreens offer his emotional vulnerabilities. Even around villains like Shakespeare and the final serial killer, pay close attention. Shakespeare begins revealing deeply personal information and wishes that Leonardo holds close to his heart on purpose, snatching Leonardo’s agency and ability to control how his feelings are being conveyed. How does Leonardo respond? With explosive, forbidding anger--instantaneous and barely contained, nothing at all like his breezy attitude and calm.

If you think about it, it’s a fairly obvious extension of the humiliating powerlessness by which he was raised (he needs to be in control; he needs to be the one who decides who gets to walk away and who doesn’t. He doesn’t come on to MC because he wants to, he does it for the sole purpose of scaring her out of wanting to be a vampire. He doesn’t even attempt to explain where he’s coming from because he falls into whole-scale panic. When he loses control of the trajectory of others--of how they perceive certain things about him--all of his charisma fails him. If he can’t explain or justify where he is mentally, when he’s too afraid they won’t hear him or care, then he needs to redirect the opposing party). Additionally, he feels responsible; that he can better adjust the outcome with his experience--and while that may be true for some things, sometimes he gets ahead of himself. Only an individual can decide their own future and their own happiness, the most others can do is enhance or worsen aspects of life. He doesn’t have enough faith that his presence is positive or worthwhile enough to guarantee his spouse’s happiness ;-;

The other possibility I see is MC coaxing him as best she can into reassurance that she’s happy with her new life. While he may have doubts, there is absolutely room for her to help him approach those fears little by little. If Leonardo has even a hint of doubt in regards to his dismal feelings about her being turned, a potential for acceptance may be nurtured. I don’t think his uncertainty would ever fully vanish; there will always be a lurking fear that a fate tied to his can only mean suffering and disappointment. Prove his worth and compassion with time, and this man will be unable to remember how life was lived before her. It would take a great deal of patience and a sizable obstacle, but it wouldn’t be impossible. His heart is much too big for that, I think.

I don’t think happiness with a turned MC is impossible, only that it would take a lot of work to swing it after a heated moment of decision. I think the way to go with Leonardo is a more enduring effort. He shows much more receptivity after years of being together. I think time, ironically, helps him relax into the possibility of forever as a couple. I think he cannot conceptualize a world in which he is in love, and that this love is not conditional--not dependent on his ability to be the perfect companion, the brilliant inventor, the equanimous mentor. I think he needs to see for himself that love can be gentle and real and whole even when he’s at his worst (by his self-perception). 

Also I put some extra meta under the cut because I have brainworms and just can’t stop thinking about Leonardo rn so read if you like, but it’s more related to why he feels this way abt turning MC than necessarily about the outcome. 

That being said, I'm conflicted because I don't necessarily think Leonardo only loves MC because she's human? (Rather, I think it’s more a result of his history and the values he’s developed in response to that upbringing. But I’ll loop back to this in a bit, so stay tuned)

I say this for two reasons. Firstly, I don't want to say that no person in this period shared his values (I mean look at Comte)--this would be an overstatement, even if it was rare. But it does appear that Comte and Leonardo are acute exceptions within vampire society in elevating human beings to an equal status among vampires (if not a higher status at points or depending on the person). As such, a vampire partner he’d be comfortable living with is unlikely. Human beings are more optimal in some regards (more adaptable and more egalitarian than vampires, most likely), but he also knows that he’s more susceptible to falling in love with a human; so he makes sure to squash his feelings or remove himself when his feelings become too intense. 

Secondly, he's in close quarters with MC by necessity, and reacts to her isolation by virtue of the situation. That's probably half the reason they get together at all; he was fully intending to keep his distance despite his initial curiosity. One thing this signals to me is that even when Leonardo did feel attraction to any person he was in contact with, he would avoid them until they were removed from his presence--or he deflected their romantic approaches enough times for them to give up. With this in mind, it can come as no surprise that Leonardo has kept to himself for nearly five hundred years now. If it was another vampire hitting on him (especially a pureblood), he would be playing into his parents' expectations and would approach the vampire social hierarchy he was working so hard to escape. If they were human, he would deem himself a burden; he could never love them within the normal expectations of a human couple (growing old together, raising a family, etc etc). So ultimately I think it's less her being human, and more their compatibility and context.

As such, I think he just locks himself into a kind of Catch-22? Because in the end I think this is more about his own fears and insecurities--that he can never make someone happy, that he himself will never be enough (hello child of abusive home). Not to oversimplify his character, but one crucial element of his upbringing must be considered if he is to be analyzed properly.

There's something I often think about:

Comte, quoting Leonardo: "‘Not all parents love their children, or even think of them as such.’"  [Though he got away and was able to make a life for himself, he had to do it alone.]

There is. A LOT to unpack here. While we may not have evidence of what his familia is like firsthand, this description tells us...so many heartbreaking things. It tells us that Leonardo never once felt like anything more than a child intended to carry on a legacy. The likelihood that his insights, his feelings, or his entire self-hood were acknowledged is pretty much at a hardcore negative three. While it's been a good number of years since he was the problem child/family disappointment, I feel like so many of those experiences seep into his capacity to properly accept the love of another person. It's a good portion of the reason he struggles so intensely with being loved despite his unfathomable wealth of affection for other people. When a person is diagnosed with unlovable and cringe for having positive feelings for others, it's not really surprising that a person might have trouble accepting a commitment or attraction to another person. There is...a kind of Sisyphus dilemma that surfaces in the wake of that kind of life, a constant push + pull between craving acceptance and either expecting it’s loss and/or fearing it’s disappointment. Though he shows signs of healing from it, there are still portions that linger. (Jean-Paul shakes him from this self-berating in his MS, but after four hundred years he still struggles to overcome those instincts. I wish there were words for the extent to which that knowledge breaks my heart...Many say time heals all wounds, but sometimes I think only others can heal them.)

Keep in mind, I don't think his enduring fallacy that "human beings are the epitome of untainted purpose and vitality" is irrelevant or less problematic here. I just think it's a reflection of a deeper disturbance and loss. It's a reflection of his parents' unilateral rejection of the kinder parts of him; his devotion to patience and understanding. It's a kind of reiteration or what he's already known: he's doing exactly what his parents did in an odd way, he's rejecting vampirism whole-scale despite evidence of both pros and cons (just as it is for humanity). I will always offer that his fear of something going wrong during the change is completely valid--but it does feel more like a fear of admitting that vampires (and eternity for that matter) aren't inherently awful. He ran away from his parents for good reason of course, but for all his running he didn’t escape their black and white logic.

It’s funny too, because his absolutism is kind of reflected in his inability to commit to a single discipline in some ways; while part of it is that he probably exhausts study, I have to wonder how much of him oscillating is a fear of eventual failure. (Think his reaction to MC’s knowledge that he can’t dance, his mortification and utter...shock that she wouldn’t use it as a way to make him feel terrible about himself). He probably prefers to hone his skills helping people because the motivation of providing relief is a much more powerful motivator than knowledge for knowledge’s own sake. He needs the impetus, that drive to move him.

Granted, I won't fault anyone for feeling like Leonardo only loves MC for her humanity. At first glance it really did feel that way! But the more I think about it, the more I feel it has more to do with the weight of his life's experience, and the parts of himself he hasn’t been able to reconcile.

Sometimes, with Leonardo, I urge gentleness. So much of who he is disguises all the ways in which he has been hurt. While his decision is selfish and foolish, it comes from a broken place. My unhappiness will always lie predominantly with the fact that he believes to his core that happiness and self-respect is something he doesn’t deserve.