#point is that this is a separate issue

[raylazuko]

Genshin Spoilers

Okay okay lemme cook for a second.

Anyone else find the blood purity and relations shit weird?

Like what we know now is that Caribert died at age 8 in the creation of the loom of fate. So therefore Caribert has no heir and was also regarded as an illegitimate child by Clothar and that his mother is of Mondstandt origin. So he is not pureblood which is why he was turned into a hillichurl.

We can make assumptions that Clothar had no other children with this woman or if he did, they are still monsters and not able to repoduce, so therefore there are no halfblood heirs of Clothar.

Next I have to talk about race and geography since I’m such a nerd about this crap. So many characters should have darker complexions based on how much sun they get (Sumeru desert, Natlan, and Liyue, PLAYABLE character not just NPCs.) Like if Mualani looks dark compared to 90% of the cast, we have a problem.

So let’s assume Teyvat is a globe and it’s laid out on a flat map for us to see. Let’s also assume that the climate is similar to earth. Let’s assume the equator is around the center so like above most of Liyue and Sumeru. Parts of Mondstandt being based on Italy, it should have a medeterranean climate, therefore melanin, but I digress. Okay so the Sumeru deserts and Natlan are close to the equator. Inazuma would be closer to the South Pole and has a harsh climate hence people not getting sun. (This is also ignoring places like Fontaine which is based on France, where yes, Black people exist in real life, but I digress). The only playable characters with dark(er) skin as well as NPCs are from Natlan and Sumeru (and also Xinyan for some reason).

We also know from Dainsleif, Halfdan, and the Sinners, that they use Norse names. Also Khaenri’ah being underground would mean they got little to no natural light. So it’s safe to assume pureblood Khaenriahs are white as fuck.

With this knowledge, wtf is going on with Kaeya?

We also have to examine how this curse works. If all the non pure bloods were turned into monsters, it’s safe to assume they can’t reproduce. Also judging by Kaeya very clearly being a child in the past and growing up with Diluc, it’s safe to assume that the modern Khaenri’ahns have a normal lifespan (unless being halfblood is what dictates that). It may have diminished or weakened over time, throughout the generations. We don’t know the exact mechanics but we can assume that Kaeya has a normal lifespan. I know Hoyo is gonna try to say he’s pureblood and not explain stuff but logically, no. When he sees Dain he comments “you’re a pureblood Khaenri’ahn” implying that, he, Kaeya, is not that. Also there’s the Sumeru trip when he was young. Assuming that his father is the one with the Alberich surname, which makes sense judging by how surnames usually work, we can assume that Kaeya’s mother was the one who isn’t Khaenri’ahn.

We can assume that the only Khaenrians who could reproduce from that original cursed generation were the ones who retained human form (pure bloods). We can also assume that Kaeya is a descendent of one of Clothar’s pure blood children. He probably had an affair with Caribert’s mother out of wedlock. We can also assume that more blood mixing naturally occurred over time. So either Kaeya’s family has been mixed for awhile and it’s no big deal, or more likely, Kaeya’s father had an affair with Kaeya’s mother out of wedlock. Judging by how dark he is compared to the majority of characters, his Indian inspired outfit for his in-game skin, the trade trip to Sumeru, when he was young, and the geographical proximity, it’s safe to assume that Kaeya’s mother is probably Sumerian (and likely from the desert and Eremite affiliated). I could go deeper into what I think may have happened but for sake of brevity, it’s very possible and likely that one reason Kaeya was sent as a spy and to Mondstandt and not made an heir to the clan has to do with the fact that he’s an illegitimate child.

Okay, another additional note. Ragnvindr is a Norse name, make of that information what you will.

[opal-owl-flight]

Parallel Dreaming.

I think its so damning that both 3 and 4 relied on some digital medium to fulfill that mutual desire they have to be close to each other again.

But while 3's main barrier is their self-loathing not allowing themself to seek 4 out again, 4s barrier is the fact that 3 has changed into someone she doesnt recognize -- a person who seems to not want her around anymore.

(More under the cut abt why 4 lets herself get taken over!)

Gone were the days when they were so close that the two are frequently found standing so physically close to each other. 3 making slight brushes on 4s arm or shoulder to direct her attention somewhere. 4 holding their hand and dragging them off to someplace interesting or worth investigating.

What happened? A space sits between them now, silence impenetrable. When 3 speaks (beyond duty), its as if their words were even more reserved than before.

Did something so intense happen that they wear this melancholy on their sleeve much more evidently? Why are they clamming up like they did when they first met? Why arent they telling her anything? Are they....trying to push her away? again?

She failed something one time and its like they never believed in her strength anymore.

...is she simply not good enough for them?

So she dreams in the memverse, long and tender, of perfection. Of 3 seeing her, believing in her. Of 3 being warm with her like they were in times past.

Rougher training sessions, 3s constant criticism and disappointed looks, and this new cold distance they maintain with her these days certainly make her believe that thought.

They said they did all this to keep her safe. But it hurts, it hurts so much, shes not sure she wants to take them at their word anymore. Yet she tries to. Clings to the idea that maybe shes in the wrong, that this is for her betterment. That she deserved nothing more than this.

[serpentface]

This was going to be a panel of a little comic but I got too invested in drawing minute background details so, here.

[crystalpallette]

so I finished side order recently

[spitblaze]

I will say this once because I'm tired of seeing stupid discourse: anti-transmasculinity is not about being treated bad because we clock as men, it's about being treated as stupid little girls because transphobes think we've been tricked into this.

It's kind of the opposite of transmisogyny- instead of fear and revulsion, it's constant condescension, the implications that we've been whisked away from femininity by scary bad guys, that we're going to cause 'irreparable damage' because we don't know what's best for ourselves, somehow. People fearmonger a lot about the "ugliness" of transfem people, but for transmasc people that 'ugliness' is used as a warning- you'll look like THIS! You'll go BALD! Your top surgery scars will leave you MUTILATED! A lot of aesthetic concerns. Worry about our 'beauty'. Because it comes from that same stupid reactionary 'we gotta SAVE the WOMEN' shit, but this time they have to save them from getting 'stolen away', as if we're being seduced or pressured into this. As if we can't make our own decisions.

For TERFS specifically, they're losing one of their own. We're 'gender traitors', willingly aligning ourselves with the half of the population they consider unilaterally dangerous and evil.

We aren't REALLY trans, we just want the benefits that men get. You don't actually want to transition, you're just trying to avoid misogyny.

You aren't actually a man, you're just a self-loathing lesbian.

Why can't you just be a butch girl? Why can't you just be a tomboy?

Why can't you just be something that I don't think is icky?

Anyway. Like all things, it boils down to misogyny. Women stupid and gentle, dont know what best for them, evil men trick into taking man juice, must save because lady stupid and dont know what best for them (having babies and being Feminine).

Theres like. Obviously more to this but I'm just a Transmasc Rando explaining this from my perspective, and I'm not the best with words. Anyone is free to hop in and add on to this

[lazylittledragon]

idk why but astarion wearing reading glasses absolutely killed me dead. obliterated my heart. incredible, no notes, you're doing fantastic

he's been in the dark for 200 years of course he needs them!!!

[sacchiri]

Hellsing 2002 calendar illustration.

Ein wunderliche und erschröckliche Hystori von einem großen Wüttrich genant Dracole wayda Der do so ganz unkristenliche marrter hat angelegt die mensche, als mit spissen als auch die leut zu Tod geslyffen

A wondrous and frightening story about a great berserk called Dracula the voivode who inflicted such unchristian tortures such as with stakes and also dragged people to death

[ninkaku]

strange behaviour from the arcane fandom when a woman that has relations with another woman goes down a darker path and people condemn her whereas if she was a man in love with another man this would be lapppped up as “toxic yaoi”. please get a grip

[violent138]

Next time maybe Alfie. Keep up the good work.

[fellamarsh]

another thing i've been trying to do recently is read more self-published stuff. "but fell," you say, "you're a self-published author. surely you've been reading self-published stuff all along" and then i laugh for so long in response we both become uncomfortable.

see, the fear (which has for a long time been killing my mind) that i'll read other self-published stuff and find out that it's so much better than mine that i might as well stop writing forever kept me from doing that basically ever. i have a hard time not unfavorably comparing my work to others and had convinced myself i was being smart by withholding an avenue of de-motivation (reader: i was not being smart). it also doesn't help that i'm pretty low income and have a hard time spending money on books i haven't already read, and that self-published stuff isn't always available at the library---but really a lot of it was just me being a coward. which i'm working on. i could talk about how this particular cowardice is Very Silly, but i think enough has been said about it on writeblr and in the Writing Space in general that i don't feel the need to (though i will if anyone wants me to).

instead, i wanna talk about the self-published things i have read in the past few months and ask about the self-published things you love!

so: what happened was i got real sick, and while i was real sick i (naturally) read over 200,000 words of ace attorney fan fiction in the span of a few days. eventually i got bored of it (and also maybe annoyed at how people were characterizing some of my guys), but i still wanted to read something gay and romantic and nice, something i knew was gonna end happily, which isn't my typical fare.

now you may be saying (having gotten over all the uncomfortable laughter from earlier) "fell, you write gay romance. what do you mean that's not your typical fare?" listen. until a couple months ago i hadn't read a cut and dry romance novel since before i finished college. for context: i graduated in 2015. i know it doesn't make sense. i'm a guy who doesn't make sense.

but in this case it worked to my advantage. not the not making sense thing, but the not having read Published Romance in 1000 years thing. I didn't know where to start. I was very skeptical of everything the library had Available Now in the Gay Fantasy Romance category. what if it was all bad and also not good?

and then i scrolled past the familiar cover of our very own @ashen-crest's A Rival Most Vial.

now this was comfortable territory! this was a novel by a very nice writeblr person whose posts i enjoy! i already loosely knew the plot, i was familiar with the characters, i knew the names of things like rosemond street and the griffin's claw and that ambrose had blue hair and that at the end of it all there would definitely be Boyfriends. i didn't have to worry that this would be bad! i only had to worry that it would be really good!

but i wasn't worried about that, because i was officially Not Writing at the time, and because why the hell hadn't i read this book yet Ash literally emailed me some very kind words last year when my cat died??

Y'all, I devoured ARMV. If you haven't read it yet---especially if cozy fantasy is more your thing than it is mine---you should check it out Immediately. It was fun! It was heartwarming! It was sweet and earnest and confident! I was delighted to find it was occasionally hot! Ambrose and Eli snuggled up into my sick exhausted heart and found a permanent little place there. (Especially Ambrose. I have such a thing for Stiff Guys who Kind of Suck for Tragic Backstory Reasons and are So So Lonely They Don't Even Realize It. gawd)

(And a very small part of my brain spent the whole time wondering why I had been so afraid to really engage with the work my community is doing. The community that I'm in. The one I'm a part of. Why?! Maybe more on that later.)

But from there the curse was broken! I immediately devoured @stjohnstarling's What Manner of Man in a similar sort of frenzy (and hooooly shit guys am I excited for the expanded, finalized version to come out at the end of next month!) and started digging into @lurinatftbn's The Flower that Bloomed Nowhere (which I can already tell is going to be an All Time Favorite).

And now I want to ask you what your favorite self-published books are so that I can read them, too, but I think I will in another post that doesn't dedicate so much space to talking about my various and sundry Issues and isn't Terminally Long

[shorthaltsjester]

people talking about how it’s because they didn’t know if they’d get a s4 that they pulled punches in the s3 finale of tlovm…. you get that that’s still shitty right. you get that that’s them openly stating they chose a weaker narrative beat in the story they’d like to create in case it ends up being a story that’s cut short. like. it Is incredibly rough out there for shows on streaming rn don’t get me wrong i know that but. i don’t know that the answer is “let’s write something narratively weaker but more satisfying if we get cancelled”

[animnightmare]

Throwback to the time I made House and Wilson into ponies.

[cinerins]

The thing that pisses me off the most about the inhibitor chip retcon is that they act as if Order 66 is the primary directive while attributing the rest to a vague ✨️Mindcontrol✨️ obedience. The way TCW introduced the whole deal with Tup immediately trying to kill any Jedi in sight when his chip malfunctions was so incredibly stupid to me.

How does a "malfunction" like that even work? Why would it specifically trigger that response and not also any of the other contingency orders, like, I don't know, the one that has them blowing up an entire planet or arresting everyone in the room.

Yes, the clones' main purpose was as an effectively cruel way to kill 99.9% of germs Jedi but that was... hardly all of it. They're an intrinsic part of the imperial machine; there's a reason so many orders exist and that reason is control. If Palpatine only wanted to get rid of the Jedi, he could've just invested in assassins or a nuke, but that wasn't the point.

It's meant to be systematic. It's about how easily a democracy can slip into fascism simply by taking one step after another. That's why I personally preferred the idea of the clones being indoctrinated into following these orders; they were quite literally made and raised to think that way. They serve as the deliberate template that would help shape the galaxy in a way where soon enough willing participants would continue to take their place.

Pushing all of that off on a conventional mindcontrol chip just feels cheap and undermines the whole idea of how anyone could end up thinking that way. How despite all of their individuality and differences, at large, the clones still follow the same orders, the same expectations. And how much more meaningful it is when you question it and consciously choose to break away from it. To fight it.

[your-gracelyn]

I’ve seen a few posts where people have misinterpreted something in HOTD, or have missed a detail in a scene, and are chalking it up to bad writing. Not saying the writing doesn’t have flaws but sometimes there are explanations.

Like Ulf saying he’s Baelon’s son. I know he obviously has some kind of Targ ancestors, but I think in that scene he’s meant to be portrayed as a braggart and untrustworthy. He calls Rhaenyra Queen but changes his tune when Aegon walks in, he talks to multiple people saying “don’t worry you’ll get your money” or something, and in the previous ep he openly steals an apple. I don’t think the writers are trying to rewrite Baelon as a cheater or whatever. I think Ulf just chose Baelon because he liked him and thought it would make him seem cooler. I think it’s meant to show Ulf as someone who is willing lie and is self serving.

Or there being no guards during Blood and Cheese when Larys says he’s had untrustworthy staff removed and replaced with own. Larys says in S1 that children are a hindrance, and he’s the one that just so happens to find Blood. There’s a lot of scenes with close up shots of rats, watching Alicent on multiple occasions. Also, when Larys first talks to Alicent the shot lingers on the weirwood tree’s face even as he is already speaking... I think there’s more going on with Larys than we know yet.

The small folk seeing Meleys’ severed head as a bad omen (despite the s1 dragon pit scene, which I do think was a poor writing choice) makes sense when that guy says “I thought dragons was Gods”. They view Targs and their dragons as “closer to Gods than to men”, but Gods aren’t always all loving, they can be reckless and vengeful. So, parading the head of God killed by the king, who is currently at war, through the streets isn’t a good sign, even if, or especially if, that God is partly responsible for killing innocent people. It also sets up a scene that takes place later on in Fire and Blood. Iykyk.

Random thing that doesn’t really matter but, I’ve seen people say Lucerys is laughing at Aemond in the dinner scene because he’s laughing at his missing eye, but I’m pretty sure he’s laughing about the roast pig that gets served? He’s remembering when they gave Aemond “the pink dread”. IIRC Luke already sees Aemond in the training yard BEFORE the dinner scene, he’s already seen his scar/eye patch. It’d be weird for him to laugh at it at dinner when he’s already seen it. Also, the emphasis put on the pig that is placed in between them would be weird if it wasn’t in reference to anything.

[my-thoughts-and-junk]

thinking about superheroes unfortunately

[theslowpath]

Martha's character arc is about how its possible to sort out your own mental issues and be kind to yourself without blaming others, and how its okay to take yourself out of a situation if you know its not good for you, even if thats no ones fault, real friends will understand that you need to take care of yourself and won't take it personally. the majority of martha fans read series 3 as "ten was SO HORRIBLE to martha and she DUMPED HIS ASS because she learned to become a GIRLBOSS!"