how about that uhhhhh Fantasy Julie. she gets her sword <3 no one can take it from her <3
rambles:
SIKE you get an extra, lower quality doodle
SIKE AGAIN here's the rambles
yeah... i caved and gave her a tail... I'm Not Sorry! it's cute! i wanted to stick with her sorta flower motif - it's stronger in her princess look, since I imagine that when she was part of the royals she was very blatantly flower power based. it was her Thing!
but a Julie free of her noble shackles... she deserves her big sword. like yeah, she has flower magic, but who needs it when she has a Giant Blade??? on the royalty vein, and if we're classifying "rainbow monster" as a species, i feel like horn size/curve would be a status symbol of some kind. maybe Julie would have kept her horns filed short. but if she ran away from that life... longer horns! i like to imagine that they'll keep growing until she has a pair of Extra Weapons attached to her head! curved forward like mammoth tusks maybe!
i imagine that like Frank, she goes with minimal armor - range of movement over protection, yk? some scale mail over her front, a thick leather flower over her chest w/ scalloped leather pauldrons, wrist armor and metal knuckles! i'd think that the faux-suspenders include a back sheath for her sword... i wish i'd thought of that Before i finished the little ref! i don't feel like going back and editing!
i imagine that she was forced to cut her hair when it got caught in something (a gelatinous cube, mayhaps). it didn't look good! don't let anime and Mulan fool you! cutting your own hair with a blade will not look nice! but someone - Eddie, probably, he's good with scissors i'd assume - cleaned it up for her. and hey, it didn't look bad! plus, Julie probably liked being able to just tuck up her long strands into her hat when she's feeling a bit more like a Julius than a Julie!
it's been a fun challenge transforming their canon outfits into a similar variation with fantasy flavoring and twists! i want them to suit the setting but still maintain Themselves! Julie's was tough i gotta admit. i was messing around with the princess look and the fighter look side-by-side. it worked better when i sat back and thought "fighter Julie is Julie unrestrained. that version would be more aligned with her canon look"
i wanted her princess form to look Restrained! she has to be a ~delicate flower~, a noble woman, pristine and poised and very much a princess. soft colors, poofy clothing, bright white gloves that are not to be sullied. carefully bundled up hair! jewelry! that dress must be Heavy and hard to move in! her tail must be so cramped under there!
but Julie Unleashed? violent pinks! rose gold accents! short skirt so that she can sprint and Kick! fun boots that she can be active in and delight in watching them get dirty! her hair is free to whip in the wind and get caught in things! fun straps and Deadly Accessories! a sword that she stole from the royal armory on her way out the window! she has forearm wraps both to match Frank and to support her wrists!
The reason I keep banging the Jiang Fengmian drum so hard is not that he did nothing wrong--he's definitely in contention for best parenting in this book but that bar is in the ground--but because most of the takes I see about him are so extremely bad.
If you want to slag him off for trying to make choices that would hurt no one, and winding up properly protecting no one as a result, that's valid! That's an interesting and text-based critique, which opens into his parallels with Lan Xichen!
If you want to blame him for being weirdly over-invested in Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng being bffs, that's fair, that definitely contributed to the weirdness between them. If you want to say he was a poor communicator, that he fundamentally misunderstood his son, that he failed to be emotionally available in a way his kids could get much use out of, even that he should have figured out a way to stop Yu Ziyuan from creating such a hostile environment, all of that is fair game!
If you want to tackle how the worst thing he did to his kids was die I am so interested in how Wei Wuxian went on to abandon A-Yuan by going to his death, and how that might be tied to how his primary adult role model tied him to a boat and went off to a fight he knew he was going to lose.
After his parents had already left him like that once before, presumably less intentionally.
But no, instead I keep seeing that Jiang Fengmian didn't care. That he never expressed affection. That he actively participated in Yu Ziyuan's fucky game of forcing proxy conflict onto the boys instead of constantly trying (and failing) to shut it down, or that he ignored her bad behavior because it didn't affect him, or that he fought with her constantly, or that he was too much of an unmanly coward to stand up to her when she wanted something.
All of which are directly in contradiction to every scene he's in, and several of which manage to invert or erase the actual conflicts between him and his wife that were the source of all that tension.
And which are really interesting, because some of the most intractable elements are ideological--Yu Ziyuan is fundamentally a conservative and Jiang Fengmian seems to want to be an egalitarian, which ofc matched poorly with his hereditary authority as patriarch of a large sect.
The fact that the bit where we get to actually see him failing to parent Jiang Cheng consists of him gently and firmly trying to correct Jiang Cheng's ethics when what was actually needed in that moment was reassurance for the well-founded insecurities that were causing him to be a little bitch, only for Yu Ziyuan to charge in and make everything fifty times worse, is so much more interesting than literally any version of this family dynamic I have seen in fic. It's to the point I'm relieved when writers kill Jiang Fengmian off, because it means they probably won't feel the need to character-assassinate him too badly.
The number of people I've seen come right out and say some variation of 'men can't be abused' is killing me here. No, Yu Ziyuan wanting to hurt her husband does not constitute sufficient proof that he abused her first and deserved it! That's not how anything works!
Tbh, I'm kind of obsessed with the almost tragedy of Eiland and Caldarus in Fields of Mistria. Eiland's dedicated his life to uncovering the secrets and stories hidden in Mistria's archeology - he's single-mindedly devoted to it, so much so that even his side hobbies are influenced by his love of history and desire to know more about Mistria's but it's that devotion that makes him so blind to the magic right in front of him.
It's Eiland's sharp eye that sees Caldarus' statue behind that tree on the farm. It's Eiland who whacks away at the bark with the axe fruitlessly until he's assisted. It's Eiland who coaxes the player to help repair Caldarus' statue and subtly ropes them into joining his History Society. It's Eiland who is devoted to the steles, who gets so excited at the prospect at uncovering a new piece of old Mistria's puzzle that he cuts his outing short to rush to the museum. It's Eiland who realises that all of the different eras of artefacts dug up in Mistria's soil must mean that Mistria itself was once the cradle of civilisation for Aldaria.
And yet, with all of that knowledge, he's still so, so blind to what's right in front of him. He doesn't realise that Juniper is a witch, he merely knows that she is familiar with all manner of the arcane and assumes it's a scholarly pursuit like his instead of what it actually is - Juniper's lifestyle, Juniper's culture. And ultimately, I think that's why he's blind to Caldarus and the magic right in front of him.
Eiland isn't taking the time to stop and really think about what all these artefacts and armaments mean. He isn't considering that remnants of old Mistria still live, he isn't even able to grapple with the question of whether or not it's right for him to dig up the armour at the stele when it's clearly hidden there for a reason. Eiland is completely detached from the history he's searching for and that's why, even with magic and the truth about Mistria right in front of him, he'll remain blind to it.
anybody else frustated with this constant need of recognition. like I don't enjoy things because I feel like nobody will notice it or recognise me for it. and as a result I feel like I am mediocre at everything and disappointment is my permanent mode of being
'I flirted with the idea that instead of being trans that I was just a cross-dresser (a quirk, I thought, that could be quietly folded into an otherwise average life) and that my dysphoria was sexual in nature, and sexual only. And if my feelings were only sexual, then, I wondered, perhaps I wasn’t actually trans.
I had read about a book called The Man Who Would Be Queen, by a Northwestern University professor who believed that transwomen who were attracted to women were really confused fetishists, they wanted to be women to satisfy an autogynephilia. And though I first read about this book in the context of its debunkment and disparagement, I thought about the electricity of slipping on those tights, zipping up those boots, and a stream of guilt followed. Maybe this professor was right, and maybe I was only a fetishist. Not trans, just a misguided boy.
About a year later, on the Internet, I come across a transwoman who added a unique message to the crowd refuting this professor. Oh, I wish I remember who this woman was, and I wish even more that I could do better than paraphrase her, but I remember her saying something like this: “Well, of course I feel sexy putting on women’s clothing and having a woman’s body. If you feel comfortable in your body for the first time, won’t that probably mean it’ll be the first time you feel comfortable, too, with delighting in your body as a sexual thing?”'
She tried to reassure herself this was nothing but a display of power, a way for Falke to exert control over her as if she was a piece of property. Maybe that was true to a point, but the reality of it was, Falke had been less than professional around her since they'd met.
no but actually. the parallels to other Twins in different nations of teyvat in relation to the traveler and their desire to reunite with their own sibling makes me a little bit bonkers. like.
diluc and kaeya as what the traveler has and fears, after we will be reunited [separation born from conflict that seemingly cannot be mended; they both care for each other but ultimately their opposing ideals mean they cannot be at each other's side in the same way that they used to, and no longer have the close bond they once did]
ei and makoto as what the abyss sibling experienced [a crushing loss not just of one's twin but the last remaining friend they had and the safety and security of their nation, coming out the other side traumatized, cold and jaded and making decisions that will ultimately hurt the people they claim to want to protect for the sake of an unattainable goal]
and lyney and lynette as what the traveler and the abyss twin used to have before they were separated [never apart for long, home is wherever we are together], what the traveler wants [their separation brief and quickly amended, continuing to be inseparable after they reunite], and also the choice they'll have to make [the twins being together in an organization the traveler inherently doesn't trust - does the traveler want to be by their sibling's side badly enough to throw their lot in with the abyss, and turn their back on everyone else they've met on their journey so far?]
Soulmate aus are so interesting in an iwtv context. Like for humans it's easy, right? They get their soulmate mark, they find their soulmate, or maybe they don't, and they live their life. For vampires though? Do vampiric soulmates even exist? How could they when the soulmate marks are relics of their human life? When the other person who has the mark will be dead before their life as a vampire has even begun? Or were they always fated to become a vampire? Did the universe take that into account? Will they have to wait some hundreds of years for their soulmate to be born? Their soulmate could be anywhere, any time. Hell, their soulmate could be the person they just drained. Who knows. Even if they were somehow able to find them, what are the chances they'd stay together for eternity? It is eternity after all. Not even the universe or fate can guarantee that.
i seriously need more narumi and mina moments because just imagine the relief mina felt when narumi joined, similar age to her and was also considered a prodigy in the force.
to have someone to share the burden of the defence force’s future with must’ve felt so freeing. because before he joined it was just her, age 18, being told that she was going to change kaiju extermination with her exceptional synergy with firearms. and she was so, so scared.
narumi doesn’t have the kind of skills or talent for long range combat like she does, but he’s also a top candidate (despite his behavioural issues- which aren’t much of a hinderance anyway) and mina doesn’t have to carry the burden of the future alone anymore
(although she’d never admit, given she probably views narumi as someone completely shocking i just think it’s so funny how she stood there like O_O when she first saw him)
like i LOVE seeing the contrast. mina who was sent onto the battlefield for the first time and was deathly afraid vs narumi who was sent out and immediately took action because that’s how he always lived (fighting)
and now they’re the top two strongest captains in the force and they will be the ones to lead the new generation..
who would you say would win in a no-holds-barred fight, the gemini twins or draxum's kids? (also, are there any nicknames for draxum's kids in general?)
Oh GOSH what a good question. This is HARD, honestly. It would definitely be close...
Draxum's Kids (which is what I've been calling them in my head as well, lol) are definitely a force to be reckoned with. They've spent years training near every day.
But the Gemini have spent years fighting for their lives near every day.
In terms of raw combat alone? I think the Gemini would be able to win without question, (not to say that it wouldn't be a pretty brutal fight...)
But then you have to take mystics into account, and Draxum's Kids definitely hold the advantage there. Donnie is a very powerful witch, but he can't hold a candle to Mikey, or even to Venus, (though her mystics are much less suited to combat.)
But I think that the Gemini would still be able to win out-- though just barely. To a degree, I think it would come down to mentality. Draxum's Kids are highly trained and highly capable combatants, but they haven't seen very much actual combat before. The Gemini have. The Gemini have long since killed the part of them that hesitates or questions what they're doing, and they are very good at turning that section of their brains off and just focusing on winning and nothing else. Draxum's Kids are highly trained, sure, but the Gemini are a well-oiled machine designed to do exactly this over everything else.