#queer elf for your straight self
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ask-ethari-anything · 3 years ago
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if you were a part of queer eye, which of the 5 kinds of help would you give? (fashion, cooking, interior decorating, mental health, hairstyling)
I'd have to choose hairstyling. Runaan wore his hair down most of the time before I met him, and despite the practicality of your basic ponytail, he's never truly vibed with them. But his hair is, ah, rather more than a handful now that it's so long, and since he categorically refuses to cut it, we had to find some way to make it safe, practical, and comfortable. Thankfully, he trusted me enough to play with it as gently as I knew how, and he gave me all the honest feedback he could.
Which was sometimes nothing more than a grumpy grumble. But I speak Runaan, so I always managed to work around his unvoiced complaints while we searched for the perfect battle hairstyle. And you have to admit, I did find it! He looks amazing. His hair, I meant his hair! But I'm not wrong either way. *winks*
I made a lot of mistakes trying to help Runaan with his hair, but I learned a lot along the way. I'm sure I could help someone else, too!
Fair warning: there will be at least one braid, every time. It's in my contract.
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extasiswings · 3 years ago
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You Don’t Find It, You Make It: A Buddie Breakdown Hours Essay
On one hand, we’ve all talked to death the fact that Buddie exemplifies you don’t find it, you make it but on the other, I never get tired of it and writing it all out in black and white when I can feel in my bones how close we are to something major on that front seemed like the best way of dealing with my feelings about it.  So, here we are.  The essay on how you don’t find it, you make it is the Buddie love story thesis statement and one of the most brilliant examples of deliberate longform “show-don’t-tell” writing that I have ever watched on television.
“You don’t find it, you make it.”  Wise words on love even out of context, but in context even more powerful.  Advice delivered by an elderly man who has lived a long, full life, and who has shared that life with a truly great love—a love that happens to be with another man. And I would say it’s that aspect that turns this particular statement from something that’s broadly applicable to all 911 romance to something that is specifically queer.  Because while Madney and Bathena are both couples that had varying foundations of friendship before they started dating, Bathena still came as a surprise in the S1 finale and the bulk of the work building that relationship is something we get to see after they’re together.  With Madney, there’s more work put in on the front end before they get together because of everything with Doug, but they also start off with a certain amount of instant attraction—they get to be casually flirty and acknowledge that there’s something there, they get to be obvious enough that other characters tease them and try to push them to just date already.  In many ways, Bathena and Madney “found it and then made it” and it isn’t that surprising that Buck hasn’t been able to wrap his head around why that approach keeps not working for him. 
But there is an added layer of intentionality to queer love from the outset.  You can’t just find queer love because truly allowing love into your life requires so many more choices and actions at the end of the day—the act of being able to see what you want and who you are, the choice to accept yourself fully and live as your whole and true authentic self, the choice to seek and accept love even if that love might be deemed unacceptable by society.
Anyway, I said this was the Buddie thesis so let’s talk about the roadmap.  In my view, they started writing Buddie as a romance in S3 with you don’t find it, you make it as the guiding principle, recognizing that they were writing a queer romance in a way no mainstream show had really done before, and doing it for a primarily straight general audience. And it’s the “frog in boiling water” approach—turn up the heat so slowly and carefully that by the time it’s made explicit, there can’t be a real question that what they have is capital L Love.  So they started with Christopher. 
Yes, Buck and Christopher had some level of relationship in S2—we had little Buckley-Diaz family moments at the end of the earthquake, in Stuck, and of course with the Elf—but as far as we can tell from what little we’re shown, when Eddie let Shannon back into Christopher’s life, that was it.  But S3 came out swinging from the first, with Buck and Christopher at Buck’s party, with Eddie getting Buck out of bed by leaving Christopher with him, and with the tsunami arc in which Buck was intended to respond like a parent and which culminated in Eddie saying there’s no one in the world I trust with my son more than you.  And there was no turning back—that was a sea change.  I know we joke about the “divorced dads” vibes of the grocery store fight during the lawsuit arc, but it’s true—”Do you even know how much Christopher misses you? How could you—you’re not around,” was the extremely effective blow that it was because it wasn’t about the family that is the 118, it was about their family unit as the three of them.  
And it kept going that way for the rest of the season—Christmas Spirit with Christopher asking Buck to spend Christmas with him and Buck arranging a whole party at the station so that Eddie and Christopher could be together for the holiday, Fools with the skateboard and Buck and Eddie talking through Eddie’s parenting challenges and ultimately finding a solution together and building a skateboard for their son together, Eddie Begins with the montage that included a pointed amount of the three of them together, Eddie’s invitation for Buck to come over and help him chaperone Christopher’s sleepover in 3x16, the everything of Helicopter Parent Buck and summer camp in 3x18…all of that was very carefully composed as a flashing neon sign telling us that by the end of S3, the three of them were a family.
I didn’t forget the Kitchen Scene.  I think it deserves to be noted separately from the “Buckley-Diaz Family” of S3 because of its purpose in the arc. Because the Kitchen Scene is very specifically Not About Christopher, although he was there in the background and the whole thing ended in a family moment with the three of them on the couch.  The Kitchen Scene is the “what if” and the “almost” and the “not yet.”  The Kitchen Scene is there, in all of its extremely fucking queer glory, to say that yes, the three of them may be a family, but Buck and Eddie aren’t just totally platonic besties either.  The Kitchen Scene is there to lay some breadcrumbs for the willfully obtuse and beg the question—what if Christopher hadn’t been in the next room?
Eddie Begins and the Buck screaming and clawing at the ground of it all is similar, another trail of breadcrumbs that’s for the two of them alone.  We’re meant to see it, and to clock the rest of the firefam handling Buck with spouse gloves while Eddie is trapped in the well, just as much as Eddie is meant to not know about it. 
Season 4 brought in a new phase.  In S4, the three of them were already firmly established as a family, but the Buddie of it all was still an open question—they’re best friends, sure, but what else?  And the writers turned back to their thesis statement—you don’t find it, you make it.  Because okay, these boys made it, but they (especially Eddie) had been using Christopher as a proxy for their feelings.  They weren’t in a position yet where they were able to acknowledge what they had done and what they had together.  So, what did they do?  Both of them started trying to find it.  By looking in all the wrong places (just like Bobby said in Jinx).  The universe was screaming, but they couldn’t hear it because they were convinced the universe didn’t scream.  Their lives were full of meaningful relationships, but it didn’t feel like the same thing. Buck was confused by the unwritten rules of male friendship (god, S4 was so LOUD).
But the EA and BT of it all was always necessary.  Because the writers have been showing, not telling.  They’ve been showing what happens when you miss what’s right in front of you, what happens when you avoid the hard work and self-discovery and authenticity required by real love.  They showed Eddie turn into a pod person with Ana and the way Buck fell into bad habits with Taylor despite all his work in therapy.  But unlike in S2 when Shannon came back, the narrative didn’t try to convince us that these women belonged.  We got I know there’s been no one in Christopher’s life since his mother followed by Eddie coming home to Buck having put Christopher to bed, followed by Christopher running away to Buck when upset with Eddie.  We got Eddie being snarky about Taylor at every turn and Buck choosing Eddie over her even before the shooting.
And then there was Suspicion.  Suspicion and Ana being introduced to someone important in Eddie and Christopher’s lives for the first time only to be proven to be an outsider.  Suspicion and make sure you’re following your heart, not Christopher’s with the heavy implication that Eddie’s heart already wanted someone else, someone specific—and if not Ana, then?
Suspicion, which followed that up with the shooting.  The shooting that was just the two of them, Buck and Eddie alone, no Christopher anywhere to be found.  On an open street in broad daylight.  It was only them.  And why?
Because when you think you’re dying, it makes things clear.  Make sure you’re following your heart, not Christopher’s.  And in that moment, when Christopher wasn’t in the picture and Eddie thought he was dying, he reached for Buck.
That couldn’t be the end of the story though, because S4 was about trying to find it in the wrong places (when you’ve already made it with someone else), and even though Eddie had whatever realization he had on the street, Buck hadn’t gotten there yet.  Which is why BT got together then, but also why everything about BT was overshadowed by Buck and Christopher and Buck and Eddie.  He’s got the harder job tonight and the will conversation and you act like you’re expendable, but you’re wrong.  It was all about screaming to the rooftops the fact that they had already made a life together, built a love together, but that last piece—the piece that was just them—was something only one of them (only Eddie) had been shaken by, and only for that moment on the street. Which brought us to:
Season 5.  Act 3.  After two seasons of it being hammered home time and again that Buck, Eddie, and Christopher are a family, Eddie started the season still with Ana (having panic attacks over the thought of being a family with her lmao) and Buck…well.  Bless his heart (pun intended).  You have to admire the writers for their commitment to good storytelling because watching Buck be as fucking miserable as he has been with Taylor because he’s trying to make it work not realizing that it never could have because his heart has always been with Eddie…yeah…I can’t.  But, anyway, S5 is about the realization and the active choice.
S3 was the season where they made it as a family.  S4 was trying to find love in the wrong places.  And S5 has been Buck still trying to find love in the wrong places, but Eddie finally being able to open his eyes, see what they’ve made, and choose to go after it. And even more than that, S5 is the two of them building something without Christopher.  There was a reason we didn’t get to see Buck and Christopher together throughout almost all of 5A despite the various references to their relationship—because this season is about not hiding anymore.  About not hiding who you are, not hiding what you want, not hiding how you feel.  And Eddie and Buck have always hidden behind Christopher in their own ways.  So this is the season about them tearing down walls and building up love and acknowledging that love as partners, as lovers, not just as friends, not just as co-parents.  It is the season about hearts and following your heart and broken hearts being healed.  It is the season in which the writers called back to you don’t find it, you make it to point out that Buck literally misunderstood the assignment of his own heart and that’s why he’s trying to stay with Taylor even while he has chosen Eddie and Christopher over her at every opportunity. 
But this season started with a blackout and all of these characters were left shrouded in darkness long after the lights came back on.  The finale is where they all get to start over and step back into the light.  The finale is where they get to choose love.  The finale is where Eddie is going to get to turn to Buck and say look what we made, look what we have, I want that, I love you because they haven’t found it, they made it.
And I fully expect them to still need more time, for Buck especially to need more time.  But they’ll be starting over together in the light with full awareness of the love they share and the life they’ve built and that the options are on the table as soon as they’re ready to take those steps together.  
Queer love, y’all.  They made it.  What a ride.  
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themollyjay · 3 years ago
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Putting the Romance in Romance Novels
(from my Patreon)
I love romance.  I really do.  I live for the tension, the slow burn, the soft “Oh” when one of them finally realizes the other loves them, the first kiss, the cuddling and the softly spoken words and the quiet peace when they finally get a moment alone together to just bask in each other’s company.
Why, then, do I have such a difficult relationship with romance novels?  I think, in a lot of ways, it’s because authors forget to put any actual romance into their romance novels.  They mistake the trappings of romance, fancy dinners, heroic rescues and grand gestures for actual romance, without ever giving the reader any reason the characters love each other, or worse still, showing us that they care about each other.
I remember a book I read once, I won’t give the title because I don’t want this to be about calling out a particular author, but the whole book’s plot hinged on the fact that these two characters were supposed to be in this forbidden romance, and that they were willing to basically rewrite the rules of their worlds just to be together. The problem is, there was never any reason for the characters to actually care about each other.  One of them gets in trouble (the tiny little woman with the big attitude and bigger mouth) and the other, (the big, hunky elf lord) comes along and rescues her.  The elf lord and the tiny woman argue a bit, and then, bam, they’re suddenly supposed to be in love.
Except I didn’t believe it. I couldn’t think of any reason these two characters would want to be in the same room with each other, just less why they would want to twist the laws of reality so they could spend their lives together.  The characters never showed any affection toward each other that wasn’t making out or having sex.  They didn’t sit and talk, they didn’t share any interests, they didn’t even seem to want to spend any time together.
And the thing is, I see this a lot.  It’s usually the forced romantic subplot between the leading guy and leading lady in movies, books, etc., but in creeps into romance novels with alarming regularity. Straight romance, queer romance.   A lot of authors just seem to think if you throw to characters of the appropriate genders into proximity, then you’re written a romance.  And let me tell you, as someone who loves romance, it sucks.
When I sit down and start working on a romance, my first question is, why do these characters fall in love?  What is it about these characters that makes each one appealing to the other.  If you really want to write a romance, that’s the place where you have to start.  And the place where far too many romances fall down is that the appeal for each of the characters begins and ends with ‘their hot’.  
Physical attraction isn’t a recipe for lasting love.  Not in real life.  Not in fiction.  People get old, they gain (or lose) weight, they lose their hair, they get sick, they get a new haircut, they get scars, they wash of their makeup, or the newness wears off.  All sorts of things happen that can make a person less of an incarnation of some arbitrary standard of hotness.  Physical attraction fades.
Lasting love, lasting relationships, are built on emotional and intellectual connections.  They’re built on intimacy and communication and trust. If you, as a writer, want to make your reader believe in a romance, if you want to make them swoon, you have to show them those connections.
Why does character A appeal to character B?  Maybe it’s because character A is kind and considerate and selfless.  Maybe it’s because character A makes them feel like they can let their mask drop and be there true self.  Maybe it’s because character A takes care of them, and no one has ever done that for them before.  Why does character B appeal to character A?  Maybe it’s because character B accepts them for who they are instead of demanding they change.  Maybe it’s because character B makes them laugh.  Maybe it’s because character B protects them from things that have been hurting them for so long, they’ve forgotten what it feels like to not have that pain in their life.
Romance is what happens when two people find out that their lives are better when they’re together than when they’re apart, and they begin to long for their better state.  And if you put that on the page, then the readers will swoon at every near kiss that gets interrupted, they’ll melt when the first kiss comes, and they’ll smile when the two of them finally get their happily ever after.
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snarktheater · 4 years ago
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Hey, d'you have any French book recs? I'm trying to work on my French, and rn I have downloaded one of my favourite book series' French translations, but I figured maybe books already written in French might work better? Also have you read the Ranger's Apprentice series? 1/2
RA's def flawed - the books' narration does like to point bright arrows at the protagonists' intelligence, and the last few books def have the tone of 'old white man trying to write feminism', although at least he's trying? - and it's aimed more to the younger side of YA, but it is still a very fun series, and I can ignore the flaws fairly easily, at least partly due to nostalgia? This rather long lol but I'm wordy.
I'll start with the second question: no, although every time the series is brought up I have to check the French title and go "oh, right, I've seen these books in stores". But I've never purchased or read them. It sounds like something I probably would have enjoyed as a teen but I just missed the mark, and these days I'm trying to drown myself in queer books, so that probably isn't happening.
As for your first question, geez, I haven’t read a French book in years, so this is gonna skew middle grade/YA, though that may not be so bad if the point is to learn the language. I will also say that as a result, these may read a little outdated.
I'll put it under a cut, even if Tumblr has become really bad with correctly displaying read mores. Sorry, mobile crowd.
It's also likely that old readers of the blog will have seen me talk about most of these. I don't feel like going through old posts.
One last thing: while I was curating this list I took the time to make a Goodreads shelf to keep track of those.
The Ewilan books by Pierre Bottero
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(It's a testament to how long ago I read these books that these are not the covers of the edition I own, and I can't even find those on Google. I'm settling for a more recent cover anyway since it'll make it easier to find them, presumably)
There are at least three trilogies (that I know of) set in the same world.
The first trilogy is essentially an isekai (so, French girl lands in parallel fantasy world by accident) with elements of chosen one trope, though I find the execution makes it worth the while anyway.
The second trilogy is a direct sequel, so same protagonist but new threat, and the world gets expanded.
The third one is centered around a supporting characters from the previous books, and the first couple of books in it are more her backstory than a continuation, though the third one concludes both that trilogy and advances the story of the other books as well.
Notably these books have a really fun magic system where the characters "draw" things into existence. It's just stuck with me for some reason.
A bunch of stuff by Erik L'Homme
I have read a lot of this man's books, starting with Le Livre des Etoiles.
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They also skew towards the young end of YA, arguably middle grade, I never bothered to figure out where to draw the line. They're coincidentally also using the premise of a parallel world to our own (and yes, connected to France again, the French are just as susceptible of writing about their homeland), but interestingly are set from the point of view of characters native to the parallel world.
It also has a very unique magic system, this one based on a mix of a runic alphabet and sort-of poetry. I'll also say specifically for these books that the characters stuck with me way more than others on this list, which is worth mentioning.
This trilogy is my favorite by Erik L'Homme, but I'll also mention Les Maîtres des brisants, which is a fantasy space opera with a pirate steampunk(?) vibe. I think it's steampunk. I could be mistaken. But it's in that vein. It's also middle grade, in my opinion not as good, but it could just be that it came out when I was older.
Another one is Phaenomen, which was a deliberate attempt at skewing older (though still YA). This one is set in our (then-)modern world and centers a group of teens who happen to have supernatural powers. I guess the best way to describe it is a superhero thriller? If you take "superhero" in the sense of "people with individualized powers", since they don't really do a lot of heroing.
...I really need to brush up on genre terminology, don't I.
The Ji series by Pierre Grimbert
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This one is actually adult fantasy, though it definitely falls under "probably outdated". It is very straight, for starters, and I'd have to give it another read to give a more critical reading of how it handles race (it attempts to do it, and is well meaning, but I'm not sure it survives the test of time & scrutiny, basically).
If I haven't lost you already, the premise is this: a few generations ago, a weird man named Nol gathered emissaries from each nation of the world and took them to a trip to the titular Ji island. Nobody knows what went down here, but now in the present day, someone is trying to kill off all descendants from those emissaries, who are as a result forced to team up and figure out what's going on.
I'm not going to spoil past that, though I will say it has (surprise) a really unique magic system! I guess you can start to piece together what my younger self was interested in. Which, admittedly, I still am.
Once again, this one also has a strong cast of characters, helped by rich world building and the premise forcing the characters to come from many different cultures (though, again, I can't vouch for the handling of race because it's been too long).
The first series is complete by itself, though it has two sequel series as well, each focusing on the next generation in these families. Because yes, of course they all pair up and have kids. Like I said: very straight.
A whole lot of books by Jean-Louis Fetjaine
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OFetjaine is a historian, and I guess he's really interested in Arthurian mythos especially, because he loves it so much he's written two separate high fantasy retellings of them! I'm not criticizing, mind you, we all need a hobby.
The former, the Elves trilogy (pictures above) is very traditional high fantasy. Elves, dwarves, orcs, a world which is definitely fictionalized with a pan-Celtic vibe to it. The holy grail and excalibur are around, but they're relics possessed by the elves and dwarves with very different powers than usual. Et cetera.
Fetjaine also really loves his elves (as the titles might imply), and while they're not exactly Tolkien elves, there's a similar vibe to them. If you like Tolkien and his elf boner, you'll probably like this too. And conversely, if that turns you off, these books probably also won't work for you.
This series also has a prequel trilogy, centered around the backstory of one of the main characters. I...honestly don't remember too much about it, but I liked it, so, there you go, I guess.
I said Fetjaine did it twice. The other series is the Merlin duology, which, as the title implies, is a retelling of Merlin's story. Note that Merlin is also in the other trilogy, but it's a different Merlin; like I said, completely different continuities and stories.
This one is historical fantasy, so it's set in actual Great Britain, and Fetjaine attempts to connect Arthur to a "real" historical figure...but, you know, Merlin is also half-elf and elves totally exist in Brocéliande, so, you know. History.
Okay, that's probably enough fantasy, let me give some classics too.
L'Arbre des possibles et autres histoires - Bernard Werber
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Bernard Werber is a pretty seminal author of French sci-fi and I should probably be embarrassed that the only book of his that I read was for school, but, it is a really good one, so I'll include it anyway.
It's a novella collection, and when I say "sci-fi" I want to make it clear that it's very old school science fiction. It's more Frankenstein or Black Mirror than Star Trek, what we in French call the anticipation genre of science fiction: you take one piece of technology or cultural norm and project it into the future.
It has a pretty wide range of topics and tones, so it's bound to have some better than others. My personal faves were Du pain et des jeux, where football (non-American) has evolved into basically a wargame, and Tel maître, tel lion, where any animal is considered acceptable as a pet, no matter how absurd it is to keep as a pet. They're both on a comedic end, but there's more heartfelt stuff too.
L'Ecume des Jours - Boris Vian
(no cover because I can't find the one I have, and the ones I find are ugly)
This book is surrealist. Like, literally a part of the surrealist movement. It features things such as a lilypad growing inside a woman's lungs (and, as you well know, lilypads double in size every day, wink wink), the protagonist's apartment becoming larger and smaller to go with his mood and current financial situation, and more that I can't even recall at the moment because remembering this book is like trying to remember having an aneurysm.
It is also really, really fun and touching. Oh, and it has a pretty solid movie adaptation, starring Audrey Tautou, who I think an international audience would probably recognize from Amelie or the Da Vinci Code movie.
I don't really know what else to say. It's a really cool read!
Le Roi se meurt - Eugène Ionesco
Ionesco is somewhat famous worldwide so I wasn't even sure to include him here. He's a playwright who wrote in the "Theater of the Absurd" movement, and this play is part of that.
The premise of this play is that the King (of an unnamed land) is dying, and the land is dying with him. I don't really know what else to say. It's theater of the absurd. It kind of has to be experienced (the published version works fine, btw, no need to track down an actual performance, in my humble opinion).
The Plague - Albert Camus
You've probably heard of this one, and if you haven't, let me tell you about a guy called Carlos Maza
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I'm honestly more including this book out of a sense of duty. The other three are books I genuinely liked and happen to be classics. This book was an awful read. But, um. It's kind of relevant now in a way it wasn't (or didn't feel, anyway) back in 2008 or 2009, when I read it. And I don't just mean because of our own plague, since Camus's plague is pretty famously an allegory for fascism, which my teenage self sneered at, and my adult self really regrets every feeling that way.
Okay, finally, some more lighthearted stuff, we gotta talk about the Belgian and French art of bande dessinée. How is it different from comic books or manga? Functionally, it isn't. It really comes down more to what gets published in the Belgian-French industry compared to the American comics industry, which is dominated by superheroes, or the Japanese manga industry, which, while I'm less familiar with it, I know has some big genre trends as well that are completely separate.
The Lanfeust series - Arleston and Tarquin
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This is a YA mega-series, and I can't recommend all of it because I've lost track of the franchise's growth. Also note that I say "YA", but in this case it means something very different from an American understanding of YA. These books are pretty full of sex.
No, when I say YA I mean it has that level of maturity, for better or worse. The original series (Lanfeust de Troy) is high fantasy in a world where everyone has an individual magical ability but two characters find out they're gifted with an absolute power to make anything happen, and while it gets dark at times, it's still very lighthearted throughout, and the humor is...well, I think it's best described as teen boy humor. And it has a tendency to objectify its female characters, as you'll quickly parse out from the one cover I used here or if you browse more covers.
But still, it holds a special place in my heart, I guess. And on my shelves.
The sequel series, Lanfeust des Etoiles, turns it into a space opera, and goes a little overboard with the pop culture reference at times, though overall still maintains that balance of serious/at times dark story and lighthearted comedy.
After that the franchise is utter chaos to me, and I've lost track. I know there was another sequel series, which I dropped partway through, and a spinoff that retold part of the original series from the PoV of the main love interest (in the period of time she spent away from the main group). There was a comedy spin-off about the troll species unique to this world, a prequel series, probably more I don't even know exist.
Les Démons d'Alexia
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Something I can probably be a little less ashamed of including here.
Some backstory here. The Editions Dupuis are a giant of the Belgian bande dessinée industry, and for many, many years I was subscribed to their weekly magazine. That magazine was (mostly) made up of excerpts from the various books that the éditions were publishing at the time; those that were made of comic strips would usually get a couple pages of individual scripts, while the ongoing narratives got cut into episodes that were a few pages long (out of a typical 48 page count for a single BD album). Among those were this series.
For the first few volumes, I wasn't super into this series, probably because I was a little too young and smack dab in the middle of my "trying to be one of the boys" phase. But around book 3 I got really invested, to the point where I own the second half of the series because I had canceled by subscription by then but still wanted to know more.
Alexia is an exorcist with unusual talents, but little control, who's introduced to a group that specializes in researching paranormal phenomena, solving cases that involve the paranormal, that kinda stuff.
As a result of the premise, the series has a pretty slow start since it has to build up mystery around the source of Alexia's powers, but once it gets going and we get to what is essentially the series' main conflict, it gets really interesting.
Plus, witches. I'm a simple gay who likes strong protagonists and witches.
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Murena
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There was a point where my mtyhology nerdery led me to look for more stuff about the historical cultures that created them, and so I'd be super into stuff set in ancient Rome (I'd say "or Greece or Egypt" but let's face it, it was almost always Rome).
Murena is a series set just before the start of Emperor Nero's rule. You know, the one who was emperor when Rome burned, and according to urban legend either caused the fire or played the fiddle while it did (note: "fiddle" is a very English saying, it's usually the lyre in other languages). He probably didn't, it probably was propaganda, but he was a) a Roman Emperor, none of whom were particularly stellar guys and b) mean to Christians, who eventually got to rewrite history. So he's got a bad rep.
The series goes for a very historical take on events, albeit fictionalized (the protagonist and main PoV, the titular Lucius Murena, is himself fictional) and attempts to humanize the people involved in those events. Each book also includes some of the sources used to justify how events and characters are depicted, which is a nice touch.
It's also divided in subseries called "cycles" (books 1-4, 5-8 and the ongoing one starts at 9). I stopped after 9, though I think it's mostly a case of not going to bookstores often anymore. Plus it took four years between 9 and 10, and again between 10 and 11. But the first eight books made for a pretty solid story that honestly felt somewhat concluded as is, so it's a good place to start.
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i-did · 4 years ago
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If you dont mind me asking, I'm really curious about your opinion of kevaaron as its growing increasingly popular. From the perspective of pairing a (bi?) guy with someone who is homophobic in canon. Often times it seems like Aaron overcoming his homophobia is rushed so that him and Kevin can get together.
Hey! So this is actually a very interesting ask because it shows how prevalent fanon is, that even you anon have stated that Kevin is bi and aaron is homophobic.
Aaron's homophobia is complicated but in my opinion there, especially considering it is 2006 and he is a straight guy. He definitely shows signs of being the "I'm not homophobic just don't shove it in my face/do stuff like that so public" type of homophobia. He is often HC as ace, sometimes ace/aro to combat this flaw and make him more likeable in a similar way people do with Kevin's homophobia.
Thats right! Kevin is probably homophobic! He never says a slur like seth, but going off of context he is about the level of homophobic as aaron, but in a much more dismissive rather than disgusted way. He says "it would be best for neil to remain heterosexual" (not a direct quote but you get the idea) this line is often used as evidence that kevin is bi in a similar way that Aaron's discomfort is used as evidence for him being ace. This type of dismissal and belief that being queer is a choice, is harmful. I've been told by a family member to stay in the closet because my life would be easier, and thats by someone who doesn't think its a choice.
Ace aaron isn't nearly the level of fanon as Kevin is bi is. But the other common HC of kevin is that he's ace/aro as well.
Again, as always, people can headcanon and interpret and interact with canon however they want. I think its just good to notice the line between fanon and canon. Fanon is inherently self indulgent.
I like to keep Aaron straight and homophobic because I think its important to show, and how people who are homophobic aren't secretly gay/bi the whole time trope. Also, ace people can be homophobic. Anyone can be homophobic. Its mostly straight people, but lesbians, bi non-binary people, ace women, gay men etc can be homophobic. Each group of queer person experiences homophobia uniquely, lesbiphobia is not the same as mlm homophobia, which is often based in femphobia, misdirected trans misogyny, and misogyny. And in fandom/media mlm homophobia takes on a whole entire form of fetishization (which isn't always inherently sexual).
Now! For my opinion on kevaaron.
I dont like it lol.
People can like what they like but personally if I don't like something I filter the tag and I have kevaaron filtered because I don't want to see it.
I think there is over emphasis on mlm ships with no chemistry over wlw ships that are arguably with more chemistry.
Overcoming your internalized homophobia is a real thing a lot of gay men have to face. And its hard, its really hard. And its not a thing to be rushed. A lot of peoples first gay relationship is really unhealthy because of this, dating someone who is closeted or freshly out, or being closeted or freshly out yourself is taxing.
Aaron and Kevin have less chemistry than renee and dan, (nora originally mentioned wanting them to maybe have something between them)
Most ships with aaron in my opinion seem to be based in the fact that it would be so cute for this short grumpy boy to be with someone so much taller, it also seems like a work around a lot of times with andrews trauma because you have his twin there.
Ships with aaron and matt are kind of funny to me because about all they share is a history with drugs. That's about it. Aaron is grumpy and matt is... actually not as sunny as fandom depicts him he's a lot more chill and less bubbly in canon but eh thats not really based in anything bad besides simplifying characters for fics and fandom.
I've never read a kevaaron fic but I wouldn't be surprised if they are rushed feeling like you said.
I still have internalized homophobia lol, and I've been out for 6 years now. its not an easy thing to undo.
Again I will state fandom is inherently self indulgent, I just also think that the core messages of the canon shouldn't be ignored and that people shouldn't say x charcters doesn't even have that flaw in canon. Characters are always multi faceted and complex if they're well written. They don't always have to be likeable. That's what makes them good, makes them foxes.
Its okay to like a character who is homophobic in canon and HC what you want, i have so many ideas for seth who I love, but I also want to make sure I dont fall into the "psych he wasn't a real homophobe-he was queer the whole time!" Trope because it inherently blames gay people for the homophobia they experience by making it a inter community issue where gay people just need to learn to not hate themselves, and "hahaha wouldn't it be so funny if this homophobe was gay, that'll show him" as if being gay and hating yourself and others is... a good thing to wish on others and the gay community. The truth is some, in fact most, homophobes are straight people.
That being said I have a headcanon that kevin is bisexual, aromatic, but is with thea his whole life despite neither of them not being very happy but content enough, he never realizes hes aro or bisexual, and it follows basically Nora's EC after that. And aaron is straight and haloy with kaitlyn but sometimes wonders if he held on so tightly and married her just because he already put in all that effort and not to prove his brother right when breaking up with her, but thats only when he's depressed otherwise he's happy and chillin.
There is a very low number of openly bi men compared to openly bi women "how many men would be bisexual if we let them" is a cool quote from tumblr, and an accurate one.
My headcanon isn't a happy one but in my opinion fits with canon pretty well which is why I like it. A lot of people don't ever fully find out who they are. That's the reality, and my fandoms elf indulgences are me giving myself more realistically canon "content" in my opinion. Thats how I self indulge but not everyone has to.
People who like kevaaron or aaron and matt, do you show the same support for renesion? For dan and renee, dan allison ? If not, why? They have the same level of chemistry, if not more.
Just some questions to wonder why you ship the things you do and why the bar for mlm chemistry is so much lower than it is for wlw chemistry.
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bubbebruja · 4 years ago
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On the Death of Sirius Black and Literary Gay Bashing in Harry Potter
In 2003, I was ten, straight, and positively obsessed with Hermione Granger.
If those last two things sound a little contradictory, it’s because they were. I do not mean I was “obsessed” in the sense that I wanted to dress up like her for Halloween, I mean “obsessed” in the sense that I literally blushed anytime my mom read her name aloud to my sister and I.
Queer. I was queer. I just didn’t know it yet.
Thus, I didn’t notice the Sirius/Remus romantic subtext as a child, drinking hot chocolate propped against my sister’s knees and listening enraptured as my mom read to us from the most recently released Harry Potter book. When Order of the Phoenix came out, I was far more interested in Angsty Harry™ and the evils of Delores Umbridge, and when Sirius died, I was not even all that upset. I didn’t really like him all that much, knew even at that age that he embodied too many of the stereotypically “masculine” traits I had already grown to hate with his pride and brooding and emotional immaturity. I didn’t much care, much less recognize that JK Rowling had done something rather unforgiveable.
But others did.
Seventeen years later, I get it.
By 2003, many older, wiser readers had long since clocked the queer subtext between Sirius and Remus. And, when I picked up the books earlier this year to re-read them for the first time since they were read to me as a child, I saw it too. (Notably, this was prior to JKR’s most recent round of blazing transphobia, after which I stopped reading.) And, okay, yes, I am the type of queer who reads queerness into many things. But y’all, I really didn’t have to try all that hard this time. If I were reading these books for the first time in the context of 2020, I would assume Remus and Sirius were canonically a couple, and JKR just wasn’t bashing us over the head with clear evidence of it. She doesn’t do that most of the time anyway. By Order of the Phoenix, in my opinion, the evidence (as movie Dumbledore says so awkwardly) is incontrovertible. The living together? The joint Christmas present? The “Sirius, sit down” scene early in the book? The confirmed HIV/AIDS metaphor, IN THE 90S?? THEY’RE FUCKING GAY TOGETHER.
And here’s the thing, (and I have no proof of this, so you’re just going to have to roll with it): I think it’s pretty clear that JKR became more conservative as time progressed. Money tends to do that to people, conveniently. What started as a series about the power young people hold to defeat evil and fight injustice eventually devolved into a flaccid epilogue where heterosexual nuclear families abounded and there were (still) no visibly queer characters in sight.
By the time the final book came out, I was a full-fledged teenager, and I, too, had abandoned fantasies of fighting evil and injustice for fantasies of settling down with “my perfect man” (L. O. L.) So, I get it. I get that priorities change for young people. But for adults, especially those recently drunk on the power of infinite amounts of money and fame? Nah. JKR knew what she was doing. JKR laid all the groundwork for a possible relationship between Remus and Sirius and then changed her mind. Or was told to change her mind. Or was forced to change her mind.
I have A Lot Of Feelings™ about Tonks and Remus’s relationship (most of which are about the way their canonical relationship plays into a lot of really awful tropes about disabled people which, no matter how you read him, Remus is). And I have a lot of feelings about Sirius Black as a character. I have a lot of feelings about Dumbledore, some related to his posthumous outing and some not. And, like most of us now, I have a lot of feelings about the entire franchise as a whole. But here’s what I know: It doesn’t actually matter, because JKR didn’t just change the explicit relationship dynamics between Sirius and Remus, she quite literally killed any chances of queer romance.
And she didn’t just kill Sirius. She killed Remus, too. And Tonks (who is a genderqueer butch and I will die on that hill). And Dumbledore. And the cute, squeaky house elf with a love for clothes and an obsession with Harry. And the young Gryffindor boy who followed Harry around, constantly asking for photos and autographs. And – you know what? Fuck it. – the person who lived INSIDE ANOTHER MAN’S BODY before returning to his bodily form, during which time he relied heavily on his male servant who cut off a literal body part to restore his master.
Am I reading too much queer subtext into each of these characters? Maybe. But, as this lovely article states, “close reading is queer culture, always has been.” And I can’t help but notice that the vast majority of the characters JKR didn’t kill off are, well, pretty fucking straight. (Drarry shippers, feel free to come at me. I’m sure there’s plenty of queer subtext there, too). They’re, for the most part, characters with a clear canonical history of heterosexual romance, as if only those with a possible future of a heterosexual, nuclear family are worthy of survival.
And I just don’t think this was an accident. I think it was the intentional plan of someone who started to feel like the world of inclusion she’d created was being read as far too inclusive.
To call this “literary gay bashing” is a pretty serious accusation with a pretty serious use of a very loaded term. But the thing is, I think we too often let people like JKR off the hook without recognizing what her words – both literary and non-literary – have done and can do. We too often dismiss it with statements like, “she’s entitled to her opinion”. Gay bashing is the intentional abuse or assault of someone perceived to be a member of the LGBTQIA2+ community, physically or verbally, that often results in lasting harm or death. And I use this term to describe JKR’s work particularly because it is sensationalizing, because it calls violence what it is: violence. Because, sure, she’s as entitled to her opinion as anyone else. But the second you create a world where anyone, especially children, are going to see themselves, going to feel safe, your “opinion” better do as little violence as possible.
When I saw the first Harry Potter movie, back in 2001, I refused to discuss it for months. I was furious. At the time, I couldn’t quite pinpoint why, but I now realize that I was heartbroken that Hermione Granger didn’t look like me. When JKR described a girl with wild, brown curly hair, I saw me. I saw my hair. And so, as children tend to do, I saw the rest of me, too. I saw tanned skin and dark brown eyes and full lips and high cheekbones (the ones people always told me made me look “Indian”, which I only partially am). I saw the quiet confidence that develops when you’re the brownest kid in your school, ready to strike but only when provoked. The pale, arrogant, racially unambiguous Hermione Granger I saw on the screen made me feel dirty, cast off, unworthy of representation. The self-hatred I felt when White Hermione Granger entered the film alongside White Harry Potter and White Ron Weasley and White Everyone Else was a kind of violence.
And when JKR killed off all of her queer-read characters, she took that violence to another level. Because they were there, we saw them, we did not imagine the romantic undertones between Remus and Sirius, or the way that a shape-shifting young woman with short, spiky hair reads an awful lot like a person uninterested in traditional gender. We saw ourselves in the most beloved franchise of all time. And then, she took away those possibilities, and she took away those characters.
And you know what? People die because they can’t see themselves in media. People die because that’s what they’ve watched everyone like them do on screen and in books. It’s not harmless, and it’s not victimless, and it’s violent.
There’s only one solution to literary gay bashing: To Bash Back. We can and do write ourselves into the stories, into the world, and refuse to settle for explanations that gaslight us into thinking we imagined things that were never there, or ask us to settle for tiny crumbs of useless representation.
I intended to finish my most recent story, “Come Healing”, with an ambiguous ending that left the possibility of Sirius’s death open to reader interpretation. But then, JKR kept going, and talking, and kept creating violence, and I got mad. And so, like so many queers before me, I rewrote the story and changed the ending, and created love and security and peace and life where the canonical author had created hopelessness and death. And in the world we live in right now, that is radical. It is bashing back.
It’s tiny, but it’s something. Every time we write a happy ending for a queer character, we create the possibilities of happy endings for queer people everywhere. And no one – no matter how hard she may try – can take that away.
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erandir · 5 years ago
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30 Days of Queer Reads
A prompt list for Pride Month by queer author @gailcarriger
I gave up posting these daily because reasons, but have my full list of LGBT book recs. And if you’re looking for a list of LGBT Sci-Fi/Fantasy books where being queer is a sidenote to the plot, this has many things for you.
(My definition of “LGBT book” got a little fast and loose a couple times, but if a character isn’t explicitly cis or straight then you can pry the headcanon from my cold dead hands.)
Day 1: The first queer book you remember reading: The Fall of the Kings by Ellen Kushner. A scholar and a noble discover Old Magic.
Day 2: Queer book that reminds you of home: Passing Strange by Ellen Klages. Lesbians in 1940 San Francisco.
Day 3: Queer book been on your to-be-read for way to long. The Left Hand of Darkness by Urusla K Le Guin. I’m a bad queer scif-fi fan for not reading this yet.
Day 4: Queer book with a name or number in the title: George by Alex Nino. An elementary-school aged trans girl comes into her own.
Day 5: Queer book where protagonist has a cool job: Flesh & Fire by Laura Anne Gilman. Maker of magical wines. 
Day 6: Favorite queer graphic novel: Nimona by Noelle Stevenson. Everything Noelle touches is gold.
Day 7: Queer book you often re-read: Antique Bakery by Fumi Yoshinaga. This and the Zelda adaptations are the only manga I still own.
Day 8: Queer book with a happy ending: Queen of Ieflaria by Effie Calvin. Princesses fighting dragons.
Day 9: Queer book over 100 pages: Amberlough by Lara Elena Donnelly. Jazz age spies.
Day 10: Favorite queer genre novel: Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir. Lesbian necromancers in space.
Day 11: Queer book you love in a genre you don’t read: Red, White, & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston. I’m pretty staunchly a SFF reader, but this was bomb.
Day 12: Queer book with a strong sense of place: Starless by Jaqueline Carey. Incredible worldbuilding.
Day 13: Queer book that really made you think: Planetfall by Emma Newman. Mass Effect: Andromeda but it’s a cult.
Day 14: Queer book that made you cry: Time Was by Ian McDonald. Two lovers unstuck in time leave messages for each other.
Day 15: Queer book that made you laugh out loud: Good Omens by Neil Gaiman. Ya’ll know this one.
Day 16: Queer book that is really personal to you: Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe. Obvious reasons?
Day 17: Favorite queer book sequel or spin-off:  A Taste of Honey by Kai Ashante Wilson. Set in the same world as Wilson’s previous novel, but a stand alone story.
Day 18: Favorite queer book by a favorite author: Knight of Ghosts and Shadows by Mercedes Lackey. Mercedes Lackey never fails me, love triangle turned polycule.
Day 19: Queer book that changed your life:  The God Eaters by Jesse Hajicek. Still readable on Jesse’s LiveJournal.  My first exposure to self published original queer fiction.
Day 20: Favorite queer book series: The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells. Murderbot is my favorite agender android with PTSD.
Day 21: Queer book that you recommend a lot: The Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers. Space opera with lots of very good aliens, minimal plot.
Day 22: Queer book that made you take action: The Lamb Will Slaughter the Lion by Margaret Killjoy. Fuck the police. By summoning the elder gods.
Day 23: Queer book by an author who is dead: Maurice by E.M. Forster. The OG gay novel (in the west).
Day 24: Queer book you wish you’d read when younger: Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire. Wish I’d had an asexual main character as a teen.
Day 25: Queer book in a historical setting: The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. The Illiad from the pov of Achilles’ boyfriend.
Day 26: Queer superhero book or comic: Hero by Perry Moore. Gay son of a disgraced superhero becomes one himself.
Day 27: Favorite queer children’s picture book: And Tango Makes Three. Classic gay penguins.
Day 28: Queer book that made you feel uncomfortable: Autonomous by Annalee Newitz. Android changes gender just because boyfriend has internalized homophobia? Paladin is bad trans rep.
Day 29: Queer book that made you want to fall in love: Witchmark by C.L. Polk. We all want an elf prince who adores us, right?
Day 30: Queer book with your favorite ending: The Lord of the White Hell by Ginn Hale. 
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obsidianarchives · 6 years ago
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Slavery in Thedas: How BioWare Could Bring Nuance to Dragon Age
The Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), video gaming’s most prominent trade show, has dimmed its lights and shuttered its doors until next June. One game that was conspicuously absent was the highly anticipated fourth installment of the Dragon Age franchise from EA-owned BioWare. This isn’t so surprising since a Kotaku article detailed the turmoil going on at BioWare that led to a truly abysmal reception for its latest game: their first try at an online loot-and-shoot adventure, Anthem.
Still, I must admit that I have thought about Dragon Age every day since The Game Awards of December 2018. That’s when BioWare dropped a 65-second teaser and launched a hashtag that had me hooting triumphantly in my living room, #TheDreadWolfRises. I even wrote an article about who from the past games should appear in the next.  
I have met some of my all-time favorite characters and gone on my most beloved adventures while traversing the carefully crafted world of Thedas (The Dragon Age Setting). A big part of that is due to the broader themes of how theocracy, colonization, and war affect the marginalized and enrich the powerful. 
Creating worlds
of adventure, conflict and companionship
that inspire you to become the hero of your story.
The statement above is only one of the many messages on BioWare’s website that highlight how much they value story and characters in their games. This attitude has served BioWare well. Its last unqualified success, single player RPG Dragon Age Inquisition, earned a whopping 130 Game of the Year Awards in 2015 and had professional critics specifically praising its story. 
Of course, not everyone has been impressed. BioWare frequently gets criticized by what I like to refer to as the “dude bro army” for daring to include PoVs that aren’t in lock step with the dominant culture. Read: “Y’all have too many queers, coloreds, and non-hot ladies in your games!” Back in 2011, the lead writer for the Dragon Age series at the time, David Gaider, wrote a response to one such gamer on their now-defunct message board that was so well crafted it garnered press. Gaider, an out gay man himself, challenged the notion that video games should cater to the fabled  “straight male gamer” that all such close-minded dude bros evoke when complaining about diversity. As a bi Black woman gamer, this endears BioWare to me even more. 
All is not perfect, however. In addition to sex and sexuality, racial oppression and hegemony are two frequently explored themes in Dragon Age games. There is an allegorical connection between the systemic and situational anti-elf sentiment found throughout Thedas and the anti-Black sentiment that runs rampant in our own world. The problem is that many of these experiences are written and crafted by folks who have never been on the receiving end of this kind of oppression. Although talent and empathy carry the stories surprisingly far, the devil is in the details.   
In fact, the usual formula of giving players the freedom to choose how they want to act allows for just as much conquest, haughty disinterest in ethical decision making, and even slave profiteering as opportunities to fight those evils. (I try not to think of how many players across the globe regularly sell elves to slavers for a few in-game bucks while I’m murdering every slaver that the game will allow.) 
This is why when another Kotaku article reported that a Dragon Age project set in Tevinter—the slave trade capital of Thedas—was scrapped, I didn’t share in the disappointment that bubbled throughout fandom. Quite frankly, I was relieved. I unfortunately don’t see BioWare being able to craft a story taking place in Tevinter in a way that won’t be chock full of obliviousness, microaggressions, and straight up triggers for Black players. 
How can I think this way about one of my favorite game franchises of all time, you ask? Well, in Inquisition, it was not only possible, but extremely easy for someone playing as an elf to make a mistake and wipe out their entire clan while assigning missions on the war table. Because this process takes place over multiple in-game decisions and hours of gameplay, there was no way to go back and fix it. What’s more, no one even acknowledges that it happened in the game.  
To be fair, the developers admitted that this was a problem, but saw it more as a design faux pas akin to other similar war table missions that went awry. To me, it resounded particularly loud to see an oppressed people who were frequently set upon by aggressive humans get extinguished like a flame all due to my actions. What’s more is that this is my Inquisitor’s family and the only society she’d known until the beginning of the game. To say it jettisoned me out of the heroic role play fantasy for a while would be an understatement. 
Later in the “Jaws of Hakkon” mission, when it is revealed the first Inquisitor was also an elf but the chantry (church) scrubbed all records of this from history, the game similarly ignores the profound implications this would have for an elven Inquisitor. I have spent my whole adult life trying to sankofa (go back and fetch) all the history of my people that has been deliberately obscured or warped by a western school system. This connected to my life in a way that was never even partially explored in the game. 
Other ways a few high ranking Black developers could have helped BioWare is with Dorian. Sure, he’s one of their most dynamic, fun, and charismatic characters in Inquisition. But he’s also an unrepentant slave owner who, even late in the game, vacillates between vacuously apologizing to Solas for Tevinter’s fabled domination of Elvhenan and encouraging the annoyed elf to enslave spirits to do his bidding.
And then there’s Vivienne, the one character designed as a Black woman. Look, I’m not suggesting that tough as nails, power enthusiast Vivienne should’ve dropped her unfriendly Black hottie status and held hands with everyone. But how much more nuanced and mindful would Vivienne’s characterization have been in the hands of a Black woman who has spent her academic and professional career modulating her voice and carefully curating her demeanor to avoid the scarlet letter of being dubbed “angry” or “difficult”? What made “The Iron Lady” into the cold, calculated defender of the status quo? The horrors and indignities she must have faced in the Ostwick Mage Circle that led her to create her impregnable persona are never even hinted at.
Furthermore, Vivienne is immediately and permanently pit against the most lovable character in the game, Cole. No one in the game seems to understand her position. She is a Circle mage that was taught to mistrust and fear demons before she was able to read. Of course she’s scared to death of Cole! Instead, the game just casts her as an irrational bigot and a danger to ‘innocent’ Cole, a being that even admits he is potentially quite dangerous.
And that's not to mention Sera's internalized elven racism and self-hatred that could have used more nuanced handling from someone of a community that deals with such things.
I just…Hire some Black writers and developers, BioWare. 
That way when you explore these themes common to our experience there will be a level of authenticity Black players can appreciate and identify with immediately while non-Black players get to enjoy a narrative shaped by people with a deeper connection to the subject matter. Having multiple queer writers helped the sexuality content immensely; it’s time to do the same for the racial commentary.
Patrick Weekes, the current lead writer for the Dragon Age series is an immense talent. He wrote my favorite character in the entire franchise, The Iron Bull, and two others in my top 10, Cole and Solas. I have no doubt that he and his team will create an incredible yarn, but if BioWare wants to level up and reclaim their former glory after their last few games have struggled, leaving their brand a bit tarnished, they are going to have to evolve and invest in more diverse, authentic voices.
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feynites · 7 years ago
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Man I have never known straight dude writers to shy away from putting out stuff like ‘my thinly-veiled self-insert goes on a mediocre adventure but more importantly ends up in a love quadrangle with these four female characters who are all incredibly hot to me’, but most of the lady writers I know get nervous if they write one (1) love story where *gasp* two whole dudes compete for the same lady’s love!
So listen.
Listen.
Go out and give your warrior witch lady a magic talking panther that flies and five hot elf boyfriends (or girlfriends, or datemates, whatever) who all happily share her. Or fight over her. Whichever. Make each of them as smoking hot as you please. Indulge yourself. Live.
And this goes absolutely double for WoC and trans ladies and queer ladies and everyone else who has extra troubles with being shamed for your indulgence.
If you’re going to worry about stuff in your story it should be things like ‘is that trope racist?’ or ‘how do I fix this plot hole?’, not ‘am I putting in too many elements that I personally enjoy?’
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les8ean · 5 years ago
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Who are these OCs of yours?
lesse here we got...
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Alliya (picrew used)Gardener, Cryptozoologist, Conspiracy Theorist, Alien Hunter, and all around cutie
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Alyren (picrew used)Master Restoration Mage, Ex-Psijic, Effectively Immortal (through her masterful restoration magic (and some stolen Psijic knowledge)), and your local trans lesbian
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Corvo (picrew used)My first real OC, i made her as a HUGE coping mechanism while i was going through some really tough shit. she’s got the most tragic of tragic backstories and has also been through a lot of trauma but!!!! as i’ve gotten into a better place so has she!!!!! she’s now a happily married lesbian who studies entomology in her spare time and works at the local animal shelter and library
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E-K (picrew used)Homeless Wandered, Friends with Everyone, genuinely one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet, kinda a himbo. He’s Fish’s dad
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Fish (picrew used)Feral Goblin Baby Supreme. jus a littel creachur
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Junnaya (picrew used)Immortal Dark-Brotherhood Assassin. Cicero is the only motherfucker in the Skyrim sanctuary that she has any respect for. has a love-hate relationship with the Night Mother (it’s complicated). she’s actually a khajiit but.......... i haven’t made her in many furry picrews yet sdhfksdjahgfshglhdk
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Ketiit (picrew used)another khajiit OC, Ketiit used to be a child-slave on a small remote island in Summerset, along with @69420coolman‘s OC Har-Kanain (an argonian). the two escaped when they were teens (Ket 14, Har 16) and Junnaya found them and took them in. Ketiit has a lot of pent up anger from her years of being mistreated, and is using adventuring to help her get through it. she’s also a werewolf, and a member of the Companions, and is a pretty damn good alchemist. she killed her bitch-ass master and freed all the other slaves there. She and Har have a really complicated backstory involving Hircine and reincarnation and ancient khajiit and argonians fighting the invading imperials, but i won’t get into it right now skjghksdfhgk
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Llelewyn (picrew used)another of my first real OCs!!! along with Corvo, they were made around the same time and both helped me deal with different stuff. Llel is also Corvo’s wife now!!!!!! the two both went through HELL cause of me so i figured i might as well give them a happy ending UwU
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Magpie (picrew used)Corvo’s older sister, Magpie is a punk-rock rebel girl who doesn’t take shit from anyone. she’s in a rock band that’s just one big happy poly relationship. they have a cat named Titan, he’s a deaf maine-coon they rescued and sometimes he’ll just wander on stage during gigs. all of her bands songs are either: - fuck the government- there can be no ethical consumption under capitalism- yeah i’m queer you wanna fuckin fight about it- i’m gonna scream my emotions out in the car at 3am while doing 90 down the highway
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Marren (picrew used)grumpy hacker who’s always tired because they stayed up for 3 days straight trying to get a program to work. built a robot with a self-aware A.I when they were 8 because they couldn’t make any friends. is dating Alliya and cannot believe she puts up with their bullshit (and is constantly questioning whether Alliya is just dating them out of pity because they had a p difficult childhood (dw, Alliya genuinely loves them, and they love her)). they probably watch Rick and Morty
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Nova (picrew used)ghosty boyyy!!!! he can see ghosts and talk to them! he’s trans and gay and has lesbian mums! he’s Corvo’s cousin and cares for her deeply. his bf (E-K) is the love of his life and he wishes they got to spend more time together (dw, they get married one day ;3)
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Oberonn (picrew used)the middle child in between Corvo and Magpie. he’s a college drop-out who runs an illegal chemist/apothecary out of his garage where he sells people medication that they need but can’t afford to get elsewhere (anti-depressant, adhd meds, etc). there’s a 90% chance at any given time that he hasn’t left the house in a week and hasn’t slept that entire time. insomniac “““doctor””” who just. needs to learn some self-care. please. go take a shower.
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r0bb1e (picrew used)Marren’s robot friend! he’s an asshole. but really, he’s very much like Marren (also an asshole (kinda, they tend to push people away so they can’t get hurt)). will download your favourite show and spoil the ending. had to spend a month as a roomba once when his body broke and Marren had to fix it. 
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Raven (picrew 1 - picrew 2)is she alive, living with witches and also amnesia? is she dead, haunting her twin sister? who knows! it all depends on the AU baby!!! Corvo’s twin sister who may or may not be dead. schroedinger’s Raven
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Urndresi (picrew used)Dark elf mercenary. can and will steal your girl. dating Junnaya. ex-communicated herself from House Telvanni because she can’t fucking stand them, the slavery, the manipulation tactics, the magic (she sucks at magic and is petty about it), the “we’re better than you” attitude. goes around freeing slaves (mostly those owned by Telvanni) in her free team. is immortal, but is a lot less angsty about it than Junnaya (just kidding haha she’s actually internalising enough emotions to kill a dragon)
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motherstone · 6 years ago
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Can you tell us more about your OCs? How are the OG cast their ancestors? Are Gabi and Sandra happy together now? Married yet? Your OCs are so rad and I love their story
!! AaaaAA thank you!! 😄😄😭😭💟💗💞💘💓💕💘💝 that’s is so rad of you op!!! And I’ll try my best to tell them a bit of their story:
Lemlin is born with a birth defect (underdeveloped elf ears), which makes him unable to receive vibrations (I hc the tip of elf ears are used to detect so) and hear things properly. He doesn’t really want implants and is actually perfectly fine with his disability, so he wears hearing aids instead and elf ears prosthetics just in battle. He had a full-blooded elf brother, Jaqes, who was the son of a wealthy nobleman before the Nobility class was dissolved a long time ago. They have a close and amiable relationship with one another, but Jaqes didn’t know he’s a member of the covert Auxiliary, much less a sharpshooter (which is ironic, because he’s the head of the Central Intelligence Division in there, a mix of CIA and FBI). Lemlin has a variety of friend including both humans, elves, and halflings. He’s really interested in theater, which is actually pretty suitable with his disability (deaf people are incredibly expressive while signing so yea!), and often goes on shows (Gigas goes with him on ocassion. They sorta have a father-son relationship haha). He’s the elf equivalent of 16 (no one knows. They thought he’s 22, it also doesn’t help he has his helmet on all the time). Lemlin is pan-ace. He lives in Milre, Gulfen.
Ian has a very strained relationship with his father (hc is that nearly all who is part of the Elf army are abusive fathers because they didn’t get the treatment they needed at the time), who is at odds with his homosexuality. He doesn’t care though, although at first he inherited his racism. That is, until his sister (Mako) had teenage sex with a human (who broke up with her when she got pregnant), and thus giving birth to a halfling, much to his anger. He’s even more furious with humans over this, but eventually realize his anger was bullshit, especially when his nephew was born. Now he has human friends, a human BESTfriend (Sandra), and is now seatching for a boyfriend (he’s working on it. If they can’t handle his personality they gotta go). Ian is passive-aggressive and sarcastic at times, especially on the field, so it causes great friction among the group, he is also prideful and assured with his great skills and technicality. However for all of his ego, he is a good leader when Gabi is not around and gets the job done, and is incredibly competent at what he do (he’s based on a few teachers and a classmate of mine haha). He’s the elf equivalent of 26, with kinfe skills, mechanic skills, pilot skills, and tactic skills, only second to Gabi (but the gap is still wide). He’s gay. He lives in Gorbon, Windsor.
Gigas! Big and friendly Gigas. He used to live in Ganon’s Gate, and had a halfling bestfriend, that is until said friend was lynched, to his great horror. It leads him to killing someone who went after him, which landed him in jail. Thankfully, Gulfen’s prison system is revised thanks to the King (Trellis. It’s similar to how prisoners are treated in Norway), so his actions are recognized as self-defense. While in prison, someone from the Auxiliary sees potential in him (it helps that he’s huuuuge. Like, 6"10’ huge. I decided that 7 feet is too tall), and thus offers to recruit him once his term is finished. By then, he’s a changed man, learning from experience, books, and stories from the inmates helped him develop a kinder and helpful personality (still cheerful tho. He’s always a joyous and passionate man). He gets into the Auxiliary and was assigned to Lufen, Coco, where he met his wife. It was a celebratio for the end of the great war, and the city was holding a huge banquet (similar to the fiesta of the Philippines where the food is laid out on a huuuuge table), and that’s where he met his future wife, whom he loudly comolimented her cooking (he’s a cook himself). There’s a lot more to his story besides this but I’ll cut it off. He’s the elven equivalent of 36, and is an incredibly strong guy, but lacks any sort of outstanding ability besides that. His personality acts as a great mediator amongst the group, and as a guiding and kind voice to all, and is very friendly towards Theorn. He’s straight. He lives in Coco, Lufen with his son and wife.
Sandra! She’s the physical incarnation of Dumb Bitch Energy (aaaa bit of a self-insert ahah). But by God is she agile and fast. She has 4 siblings (a couple are adopted) and she’s the oldest, her family owning a farm in Lufen. She used to be assigned in Gulfen to detect and neutralize landmines with her dog, until her legs got blown off along with her companion. It devastated her so much, she uses sex to cope (she’s hypersexual, but dw she is working on it). Sandra can a bit slow and dim-witted at times, but has a treasure trove of street smarts with instincts to match and is a friendly person to anyone regardless. She is on ocassion sorta oblivious to the atmosphere, which makes her make a situation worse, but if you direct her on the field, she uses her creativity to do her job efficiently. She’s bffs with Ian, often spending time with one another to the point of a qpr (queer-platonic relationship. THAT close). She’s 23. She’s bi/pan. She lives in a developing town of Lufen.
Theorn, an expert swordsman who is the only person left from the Redbeard warrior clan. He’s still using Leon’s sword, still at good shape, at the age of repulsor and stonekeeper tech (which is impractical but he’s still good fighter so they don’t stop him). He was orphaned at a young age, but developed a strong moral code regardless and became a police officer in Kanalis as a result. He got tangled in with the Auxiliary when he gets out during a lockdown (upon which all citizens goes underground for safety) to help people when the city is attacked by a rogue mountain giant, and sees Gabi slaying the thing and encountering Ian (who is in a different squad from Gabi. This is so long ok), which he is not meant to do or see, as the Auxiliary’s existence must be kept secret. He and Ian fights but they were toe to toe when it comes to close combat, they knock him out and takes him to the Hexagon (Auxiliary HQ) with the intent to wipe his memory of the event, to which he simply pleads to join, feeling he’ll be able to contribute more. Now he’s in a squad of the weirdest, egoistic people he’s met, and although looking serious, is absolutely at a loss of words at the Auxiliary’s odd happnings and morbid humor (heard soldiers develop nihilistic and fatalistic sense of humour once), but deep respect at the fights and sacrifices that they do. His lawful, goody-good personality is often at odds with the group (he’s kind of the prim and proper guy while these dudes… Can be wacky at times), to his great frustration, with Gigas the only person taking him seriously. He is at most odds with Ian (haha sexual tension everyone?) and with Gabi’s chaotic neutral/good personality. He is still good friends with them tho and cares about their sakes. Theorn is still a reliable and the most trustworthy guy of the group, and although his skills are nowhere near outstanding outside parkour, hand-to-hand combat and swordplay, he is strong, fast, and agile in his own way. He’s 24. Theorn is bi/pan.He lives in Kanalis, Windsor.
Gabi. Hot-headed, incredibly petty, batshit strong and skilled Gabi. She follows her own moral code, and is often at odds with the authority at Auxiliary and her own squad until she realizes her toxic attitude aint shit and changed. Now she’s the most serious of the group, but at least reasonable. Has a very fucked up sense of humour and hates Theorn’s personality (cop-convict anyone?), but ultimately came to resoect him for insisitng on doing good in a shitty world. Has a serious crush on a developing artist, who was pretty nice and her cheerful and lax personality helps her feel safe and comfortable, helping her develop social awareness and skills. She is in fact, not in a relationship with Sandra (not her type). Her crush used to have a crush on someone, but eventually stops and slowly has a crush on her (not that she knew. She was p much resigned to unreqruited love). But like her, her cursh has a deep set of mental issues, leading her to fall into depression and neglect, making her unable to work on her recruitment piece for Gulfen’s Institution (which offers free tuiton to its students should they oass and it’s a great school). Gabi then often breaks out of the Auxiliary without permission and during vacation months to take care of her recovery (it started when her mother beat her up in her OWN home, an small dilapilating apartment, making her feel paranoid and unsafe. It ignited old self-loathing and unwavering sadness yet again). She eventually gets better, and gets accepted, to the duo’s happiness. At a celebration party, she takes Gabi as her plus one. As they dance, Gabi finally confesses her feelings, which her crush actually reciprocates. They then starts a happy and healthy relationship. She the elven equivalent of 25. She’s a butch lesbian and lives in an unspecified part of Gulfen. Did I mention Gabilan is her pops
Ravis. He, him/they, them. They think idealistically on ocassion, even ny Theorn’s standards so the squad is kind of exasperated with him. It doesn’t help he is more naive and inexperience in comparison to them (yes, even Lemlin), with a good childhood to boot (in comparison to theirs) so it took quite a long while for them to warm up the guy. Ravis used to have a happy and healthy childhood in Lucien with his mother, and his father working abroad in Gulfen, but visits them very feequently. It all changes when the King suddenly (tw: suicide) committed suicide (?) (they never found the body), plunging the Elf nation into chaos and government shutdown affecting their lives outside Gulfen. They continue on regardless, with their mother ending up as a widow, and they studied to become one of the leading pioneers of Alchemy, under their mother’s tutelage. They then studied combat under three teachers during their teen years, and in nearing the end of their third term, theur mother is afflicted with an unprecedented terminal illness, and dies. Even though they are of age, they quietly move into the North East of Gulfen, in a remote village where they work as a healer. Needing his intelligence, the squad was sent over to recruit and escort them, in order to investigate a chemical used when an attack on the Border Guard occurs, leading to a breach and thus ending the 500 years of the Gate being infallible. They nevertheless have a compassionate and empathetic nature, driven to help others especially those in need. He is quite well-spoken and intelligent, and has good social skills. Oddly enough, he doesn’t really have friends until the squad. They’re the elven equivalent of 20, and is a certified doctor.
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thedreadvampy · 6 years ago
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I just remembered the weirdest fucking show
It was on BBC 3 in like 2010, and it was a 2000s makeover show in the mould of What Not To Wear or How To Look Good Naked or 10 Years Younger or Queer Eye or whatever. You know the format - we meet a schlebby sad person who never dresses nice because they are lacking confidence and feel ugly, some glamorous people empower them by finding out what they're scared of and covering it up through the medium of personal styling (you're afraid you're ugly because you're fat? Wear this cut of clothes and you'll look thinner. You're afraid you look old? Dress younger by doing x y z. You're embarrassed about scars you have? Wear this one piece bathing suit to look sexy without showing scars), and then we follow up a month or so later and find the subject happier and more empowered by their new style.
This show had two gimmicks. One was that instead of a Gok Wan or a Trinny and Suzannah or a Fab 5, its Glamorous Fashion Person was an extremely snide and sarcastic AI, and the makeover sequence was packaged in the style of computer graphics, so instead of seeing a subject get a haircut we'd see haircuts scroll past until they picked one, that sort of thing. The second gimmick was that instead of taking schlebby people who made no effort to dress up and making them look glam, it would take people who expended a LOT of energy on their look and it would "reveal their natural beauty".
So the format was roughly similar - you meet the subject and all their loved ones tell you how messed up they are, except instead of 'Jim bought one t-shirt in 1988 and it's the only shirt he owns' it's more 'Becca takes 30 years to leave the house and she's basically orange and buys the glitteriest skimpiest things imaginable'. Then they'd do the "makeunder" where they'd have to remove all their piercings and hair extensions and so forth on camera, and there was a little bit where the robot lady would order them to "clean that muck off your face" and they'd have to show the camera the dirty makeup wipes and be shamed for how much makeup was on them. Then we'd see them for a while without any makeup or extensions or jewellery, and they'd scroll through and pick from a range of businesslike natural coloured haircuts and neutral outfits in greys or blacks or blues. Then they'd be *~*magically transformed*~* into that outfit, and there was a cursory attempt to do the 'because Becca has a pear shape, we gave her a detailed neckline, and we used blue eyeliner to highlight her brown eyes' thing. Then the robot lady would say 'how does it feel to be a natural beauty' and the subject would be like 'huuuuuh. Um. It's interesting.'
Then of course at the end, they'd revisit the subject a few weeks later and this is what is brilliant about the show. They made I think 2 or 3 seasons of this and I don't remember ONE subject EVER having stuck with anything done in the show. Sometimes they might say 'I decided I liked the blues with my eyes so I dyed my eyebrows blue and did blue facepaint' but not a one of them toned down their look. And like, the show was brutally rude about these people's styles but fucked if every OTT scene kid and cybergoth I knew wasn't dying to be on it.
Why?
Well, I was describing this show to my mum and it hit me that this show is, intentionally or not, perfectly pitched satire. Every element works to highlight the artificiality of the genre, from the robotic host, to the wigs and makeup required to create the """"natural"""" look (and remember, the transition isn't from original look to new look, it's from bare-faced and naked to "natural", so it's REALLY CLEAR how much of what they've changed is makeup and wigs), to the idea that what's "natural" and healthy is to remove individuality from someone forcefully. Like, it's such a weird concept - these are people happy and comfortable in a style they've made an active effort to choose and cultivate to look and feel unique and noticeable, whether that's spray tan and silicone and hair extensions or neon hair and body mods and facepaint, and the overtly artificial robot lady is here to call them fake and demand that they conform to an artificial idea of naturalism which requires dressing in office clothes in neutral tones, wearing lots of makeup but only of the type designed to pretend it isn't there, and putting a wig over the hair style they chose. And then when the robot fails in forcing conformity, and we see they went back to juggling by the roadside while wearing three live rabbits and a neon headdress or whatever, we're like FUCK YEAH. Individuality can't be crushed by the system and "natural beauty" as marketed to us is fake, actually.
I don't actually know if it's intentional. Either someone set out to make a straight gimmicky makeover show and really did not understand how the genre works, or this is one of the greatest pieces of meta commentary disguised as trash that I've ever seen.
This is some rich fucking artwork if it's intentional, and the thing is, it REALLY works in making you get behind the characters. I was a typical 2000s goth teen, pffft, hate chavs, hate preps or w/e, lol tango skin etc, but I was fucking CHEERING for these girls who happily said 'I want to be Barbie, I want everything to be pink and sparkly and I want to look larger than life and I'm not trying to be a natural beauty, I'm trying to look like what I think is fun' and refused to tone it down or blend in, because that was how I started to realise that fake tan and hoop earrings and boob jobs and fake Valley girl accents were just as much about self-expression as the girls who came on the show with Siouxie Sioux hair or mohawks or surgically created elf ears or full-body tattoos.
Like, if it was created as satire, this is some of the most effective pop art I have ever seen. And there's no chance it was played straight wholly, it's very tongue in cheek and most of BBC 3 stuff was satirical to some degree iirc, I'm just not sure how intentionally it was being social commentary. But it's SUPER good at being social commentary. It really effectively highlights the artificial expectation that women face to work really hard to look unremarkable, without ever actually saying it. It glorified nonconformism and individual selfhood by creating an unlikeable character who tried to tear it down. It was SUCH A WEIRD SHOW and SO GOOD and I CANNOT REMEMBER WHAT IT WAS CALLED so if you remember it please tell me, I am going mad.
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veridium · 6 years ago
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Cass x Olivia: Insult to Injury
Author’s note: to cap off my sick day of endlessly producing queer stuff, here’s a scrap I had from one of their short fics that I never posted/included in the main romance arc. I think it’s hella cute even with the angst. 
Summary: Olivia gets injured during a skirmish out in the Exalted Plains. Normally, such a thing would gain little fanfare. But, when your lover is the Seeker of the Inquisition, people find out quick that if anything happens to you, it is quite in fact a big deal. 
Title: Insult to Injury
Word Count: ~1,800
--
It was as if everyone was trying to duck and cover out of an explosive’s direction when the Seeker came stomping down the line of tents in the northeastern Exalted Plains encampment. A curt report from the camp to their south told of a skirmish with neighboring bandits that got out of hand, causing several Scouts and one Mage to be injured in the process of fending off their encroaching violence. Once Cassandra had heard the last part, though, not even the Inquisitor could stop her from mounting a horse and heading off in the direction of the camp.
“Where is she?” she asked as she approached someone who looked to be a Healer, and their face became confused and intimidated to see the Seeker approaching her.
“My Lady, whom are your referring to?”
“The Mage – I mean, Olivia. Where is she being kept?”
“Oh!” the Healer grinned, “Olivia! She is resting in the tent over there, but you can feel free to check on her.”
Cassandra turned to look at the tent the Healer was referring to, before eyeing her once more. “Is she alright? What are her injuries?”
The Healer rested her hands on her hips, watching as several Inquisition personnel cautiously walked on by, seeming to be hesitant to exist around the Seeker’s presence. “She has a couple knife wounds, from a broad blade. But, we were able to cease the bleeding, and stitch her up quickly. She was a most stoic patient, you know.”
Cassandra exhaled sharply, rubbing the back of her head as she felt anxiety brooding in her body. “So, she will be alright?”
“Yes, quite right, actually. No fears except for possible infection, but that comes with the territory.”
“Good. Thank you,” Cassandra breathed, nodding to her in stern gratitude as she withdrew from the Healer’s company. She then hurried in her walking pace to the tent, her body less dexterous underneath her full Seeker’s armor. Coming to the closed tent drape, she wasted no time in opening it, careful not to lead the overbearing sun in too quickly so as to disturb her if she were sleeping.
When she peered inside, she saw Olivia’s body laying lightly on her back, legs curled to the right. She had her hair collected in a loose braid that rested across her pillow, one hand across her abdomen and one tucked up underneath her head. She had her breeches on, but not much else: the bandages wrapped around her torso and her left upper arm clued into where the knife wounds had struck her. Cassandra slipped in through the narrow opening she made for herself, letting the curtain fall back behind her.
Sensing the presence of someone, Olivia’s eyes opened, and a broad grin broke her cover for “sleeping.”
“I thought I heard you hammering nails with your words out there,” Olivia said, her voice hoarse from being through her ordeal.
Cassandra felt her stomach flip, self-conscious now about the way she had entered the camp. She couldn’t help it, though: hearing Olivia had been wounded in combat with her not there, even if it was not life-threatening, filled her with a protective dread. She remembered how the Inquisitor looked when she gave her the report: the face of smug knowing, and empathy. Theia would have ridden a horse across an frozen, endlessly deep lake in order to get to Josephine if the roles were reversed. She would hardly think to get in the way of her friend.
“I…I came as soon as I could. How are you feeling?” Cassandra said softly, coming to her side and crouching down to be level with her gaze.
Olivia didn’t move, her body was sore and she could still feel the resonating pain from the sutures. It wasn’t exactly a dream come true to have to endure cauterization and stitches in the same morning, but, she had proven her grit. The sweetness in her eyes and her grin made up for her lack of animation.
“I am fine. They have me on the good stuff,” she cleared her throat gently, adjusting how her cheek rested on her pillow. “It was a foolish ordeal, I can’t believe I ended up with all this.”
“What happened? The report said little about the actual conflict,” Cassandra lowered herself to sit down on the ground, and she leaned up against the cot alongside her, an arm moving up so she could place her hand on Olivia’s head, gently resting her hold on her head of golden hair.
Olivia took a breath, shallow so as to not disturb the sensitive nature of her stomach.
“Bandits were antagonizing our Scouts, so I went out with a small party to handle them. Everything was going according to plan, but, they had reinforcements we did not expect. Just as I was getting the hang of things, one rushed me. I had to do the most ridiculous flip in order to escape with only these wounds.”
Cassandra smirked, imagining Olivia’s flexible body dodging offensive maneuvers like they were child’s play. The humor was curbed, though, by her imagining that some of them struck home.
“I should not have left you here alone. The region is still overtly hostile,” Cassandra chided herself out loud.
“Cassandra, I am not a small child you must take care of. I am quite capable. You forget that I have sliced my way through half of a Chevalier’s contingent before,” Olivia swallowed a meager amount of spit, her dry mouth a symptom of the medicines she had been given. She took a mental note of it, so as to work on something to remedy the side effect once she was returned to Skyhold.
Cassandra checked herself, hearing Olivia’s words. Her protectiveness couldn’t overbear Olivia’s ability to fend for her own life, something she had proven in spades over the last several years of her life.
“Forgive me – I’m only regretting that you were injured. You know how I am,” Cassandra’s tone ached with adoration, something Olivia was weak to. She could easily forgive such a vice, caring too much for a lover who is in the thick of danger.
“Yes, I do know. Which is why when they asked if I wanted a sleep aid, I said not yet, because my love was most surely going to storm the countryside to see me look like a wounded animal,” Olivia’s self-deprecating humor hinted to her fatigue. Sleep aids weren’t necessary to her, she felt the temptation of rest more than enough. Though, she was stubborn in her anticipation of Cassandra’s arrival enough to hold off.
Cassandra blushed slightly, her hand stroking the side of Olivia’s head, feeling the resonating moisture of sweat in its strands.
“What do you need of me, then? You have my undivided attention for the next hour, surely.” Cassandra’s workload in the Plains was hefty, but it could wait a bit, if it meant ensuring Olivia’s security and comfort.
At that, Olivia smirked. “Even if I asked you to gather every ounce of elf root in the Plains?”
“Yes, though, I will admit it will be a bit arduous. The Inquisitor has an ego for such things; she swears it is she who has gathered the most elf root in all of Thedas.”
Olivia shook her head ever-so-slightly. “You two, always competing for the most arbitrary trophies.” She then tried to adjust her position, but winced when the muscles surrounding her abdominal wound sent a jerk of pain up her back. Her eyes closed as she moved her legs to lay straight. Meanwhile, Cassandra had halfway jumped into action, gesturing too slow for Olivia’s tastes.
“I’m okay, Cassandra, I won’t break,” Olivia huffed, finding a comfortable-enough resting position and quieting her body. This wouldn’t be a recovery from a sore muscle or pulled tendon, and it made her impatient already.
“I know that well enough. Nothing breaks you, that is why you are the only woman for me.”
Olivia tucked her chin against her shoulder, her eyes flickering open again as she gazed at her love. She grinned on one side of her lips, and reached a hand to gently take hold of Cassandra’s; her bare fingers and palm embracing her lover’s thick glove.
“Thank you for coming, my Love. I am honored to have the Seeker of the Inquisition be my recovery bed companion, at least for the time being. I need nothing else.”
Cassandra gave a soft smile, her hand intertwining her fingers with hers and gently squeezing with her grip. As long as Olivia was safe, and her wounds were cared for, that was all that mattered to her in this moment in time. The Inquisition could stand by, surely the affairs of a world-altering organization could carry on for the next hour or two without her.
“How bad did it hurt when they burned the wound?” Cassandra asked, speaking from experience with such unsavory things.
“Ugh, it was awful. I had to bite down on someone’s jacket, the poor thing. I’m sure I will need to send a token of gratitude, or perhaps a new jacket.”
Cassandra chuckled. “You would do well to not use people’s bodies as braces for pain. Try a block of wood next time, perhaps.”
“You seem to like it when I use you for one. Though, it’s when I’m enduring something far more pleasurable than a molten hot blade to my flesh.”
Cassandra scoffed. “Olivia, what medicine do they have you on?”
“Just pure love and wit, my Darling. Those concoctions can smooth over any injury,” Olivia bit down on her lip to prevent herself from laughter, which in any other case would be painless joy, but not now. She eyed Cassandra with a whimsical mischief in her eyes. Clearly, her prognosis was stellar.
“Fair enough,” Cassandra held the back of Olivia’s hand to her lips, kissing it lovingly as she gazed back at her. “You might wish to sleep now. It is good for recovery.”
“No,” Olivia sighed lightly, “I know I’ll be bitter when I wake up and you have gone. I can stay awake for a while longer and survive just fine.”
Cassandra blinked, and her smile reappeared. “My Love, it is alright. I will be here when you awake. I would not move from this spot, if you so demanded it.”
Olivia’s eyes flickered open and close, the sleepiness in her body making itself known. “But…how can you promise that?”
“Well, my Love, such advantages are known when you consider the Inquisitor a friend as much as a colleague. I am sure she will forgive such behavior.”
Olivia let her eyes shut gently, her dimpled smile relaxing. “Fine then, Seeker, but you mark my words: if I feel this hand be let go of, I will show you the wrath the man who did this to me had to endure before he died at my hands.”
Cassandra’s heart relaxed as she watched Olivia finally give into sleep.
“I would not dream of such a terror, my Love.”
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therealdragonnerdagain · 7 years ago
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I thought I would explain the reason why I have spent the last few years obsessively ranting about the racism and sexism in Bioware's games. Might prove interesting for the anti-pc fanboy fucks and bitchy Bioware fans who stalk my blog.
Because game developing is a business, most developers, rather than try something new or try to be inclusive, would rather stick to the tried and true formula of Straight White Morally Grey Male Hero who is out to avenge his dead family/ dead wife/ someone's attempted murder on him. Same old pandering to the same old audience.
Bioware was the first game developer to be openly inclusive of minorities. Not only that, but they proved once and for all that minorities really were in the audience and that it was possible to include us and still make a profit.
Once Bioware offered up this evidence, other game developers tentatively fell in line, while at the same time remaining careful to kiss Straight White Male Ass so they wouldn't anger their precious male fans.
I remember the first time I played Origins as the female city elf Kallian. It was amazing to participate in a story with actual content that was FOR ME. Not the straight dude they just assumed was in the audience.  
After fifteen odd years of playing video games that ignored me, suddenly, I was being acknowledged.
It was amazing.
And it's one reason why Dragon Age Origins will always have a special place in my geeky heart.
So to eventually come to the conclusion that the developers at Bioware are just as sexist and racist as every other developer . . . it was pretty crushing.
David Gaider is racist. Yes, he is. The only reason Bioware is inclusive to queer people is because of David Gaider. But the racism is still painfully evident in their games, and the way they treat their female fans and female characters is nothing short of disgusting. (Patrick Weekes' shitty "joke" for Solas fans in Trespasser was the last straw for me.)
I don't care how many people are pissed off by my saying this. I don't care that Gaider is gay -- that doesn't mean he can not possibly be a person who sees other races as inferior. In fact, racism among white gay men is a prevalent problem within the gay community.
Dorian from Dragon Age Inquisition is pretty much David Gaider's self-insert.
Dorian is an innocent bigot.
Yes, he is.
Just because Dorian had elven lovers doesn't make him any less racist. You understand that it's possible to have sex with someone while at the same time not seeing them as an equal, right?
Dorian sees the elves as inferiors. And not out of any hatred or malice, but simply because he's been taught to think that way. He even admits to the Inquisitor that he never bothered to give a shit about racism until he left Tevinter and suddenly had the epiphany that "Slavery bad."
Dorian remains an innocent bigot, a racist who is racist because he doesn't know any better, for the duration of Inquisition. He has a little speech at the Well about cultural appropriation, but the reality is, he still has little empathy toward the elves and their plight.
Dorian is a sheltered child who didn't even notice how fucked up the elves had it until he was forced to leave home. He even assures you that slavery is better than the way Fereldan elves are treated, instead of coming to the realization that both situations are pretty oppressive. The city elves are wage slaves, which are basically slaves without the chains. They are expected to work for next to nothing, and when they wind up stealing to feed their families, they are condemned -- it's slavery, just not chattel slavery.  
Even by Trespasser, Dorian *still* only gives a shit about Tevinter. He never talks about ending the slave trade -- and I know he doesn't because I had a character romance him.
Solas despises Dorian because he's an ignorant bigot who doesn't give a shit about anyone except humans (ironic, I know, coming from someone who doesn't give a shit about anyone but ancient elves).
Solas has several banters where he calls Dorian out on his bigotry, asking him why he doesn't seem to care about freeing the elves. Dorian gets nervous and says something about how it's impossible for him to do that.
Dorian doesn't get it.
The point is not that Dorian isn't able to end slavery. It's that he doesn't even care enough to try.
Solas continues to coldly, tersely force Dorian to realize his own bigotry, each banter more angry than the last. Unfortunately, none of his points ever get through Dorian's brick wall.
Dorian can not be argued with or reasoned with. Just as all racists can not be argued with or reasoned with. I imagine a lot of angry people will respond to this or else complain about it in tumblr groups with their friends, while entirely missing the point . . . which is kinda my point: these people will likely be ignorant racists too.
People who are racist do not live in the same reality as everyone else. And Solas -- who is racist himself and who is just a self-insert of Patrick Weekes and his White Guilt moaning -- can not teach Dorian that he is racist when he himself isn't living in reality (literally if he was actually sleeping during the whole of Inquisition and only just rejoined his body at the end, as I theorized).
In the same way that Dorian is vaguely aware of his own ignorance, David Gaider is vaguely aware of his own ignorance (or else he couldn't have written such a character) and yet he makes no attempt to change.
I remember a couple years ago, this fan tried to talk to David Gaider on twitter about his shitty bigotry. The fan was pretty polite, but Gaider completely shut them down. It's what he always does. He is notorious for not being able to take criticism about any of the games he’s worked on and has no problem insulting fans who try to have a conversation with him. It’s partly the reason why he is so unpopular with many fans.
And just like his creator, Dorian can not be reasoned with. You can not convince Dorian that slavery and "endless cycles of poverty" are both things that should end. Dorian will continue to validate slavery to your face, then he will tell you that you can't *possibly* form an opinion about slavery since you've never been a slave! The Inquisitor is set up to be shot down by him, and he stands there, arms folded, triumphant in having proved his ignorance valid.
The racism in Dragon Age hurt me so much for the reason I stated above: Dragon Age Origins was the first game I played where I felt included. It hurt to realize how bigoted the overall narrative actually was and it hurt to have white fans (more ignorant racists) *mocking* me for being hurt by racism.
But white people always mock people of color for being hurt by racism. What the fuck else is new?
Some times I wonder if Gaider and Weekes realize how hurtful they've been and how they've lost several fans because of Dragon Age -- No, I'm not the only one who sees the racism in the games. I'm just the only one who talks about it all the time.
And I feel this way because Dragon Age saved my life. I was going through a tough time when I found it. So to finally see something I loved so much for what it truly is. . . . it's just awful.
And I know there's no reasoning with any of the developers, so I don't bother addressing them. (I haven't used twitter in several years now, so I wouldn't do that anyway.)
Because much like Patrick Weekes, Gaider will carry on under the belief that there is nothing white people can do to end institutional racism, when in fact there is. Bioware made a great first attempt at not being assholes by including queer people and depicting them as human beings. All they have to do now is show women and people of color the same consideration.
All straight cis gendered white people have to do is treat other people like PEOPLE.
That includes not objectifying female characters in video games. (Miranda's Mass Effect ass shots and unncessesary camel toe come to mind.)
That includes not mocking your female fans for loving the character you created. (Solas, Cullen, and Thane fans were either disregarded completely or treated like shit by the developers.)
That includes not presenting every woman of color like a stereotype Jezebel. (Long-time followers know who I mean here.)
That includes not trashing every religion that's not Christian. (Paganism is not demon worship. Come off it.)
And that includes not depicting indigenous people as inferior savages too “proud” to convert to your “superior” culture.
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wyrmguardsecrets · 7 years ago
Text
To people complaining about Blood Elf RP.
**MOD NOTE: Placing this under a cut because jesus christ dude this shit was fucking long**
Dear players who continually complain about Blood Elves,
I came to Wyrmrest Accord from a dead server, completely alone, no contacts, no friends. I was elated to find a Silvermoon that actually had people in it, I moved my priest over before my main and sat on the edge of the fountain in Silvermoon while alt tabbed finishing my last night of raiding with a guild before transferring my main.
I tabbed back in to jump and noticed there were people roleplaying at me. My first roleplay experience on Wyrmrest Accord. It was a pair of Orcs who had come to Silvermoon specifically to antagonize and hate on Blood Elves. So here my dude was, sitting there minding his own business, gazing at the fountain, and being the recipient of hostility. What made so little sense about it was that they were antagonizing my character because there are too many Blood Elves in Silvermoon. I think my character gave them a look as if they were wearing their pants on their head because that’s like going to France and complaining that too many people are speaking French.
Over the years I’ve witnessed a non-stop bombardment, mostly from Orcs, Trolls, and Undead, but from everyone to a lesser extent, hating me despite not even knowing me simply because when I made a Blood Elf Paladin in Burning Crusade I found I like playing Blood Elves. I like their animations, I like their jokes, I like their voice actor who was also responsible for playing many characters I enjoyed on television when growing up. I liked their background story, being a zombie apocalypse survivor for whom the ends justify the means is really cool. What kind of pain, what kind of suffering must this character have gone through? How has he coped? How does he think, how does his experiences shape him? Who has he lost? How has he survived? That’s some nifty lore.
But this hate has come from all sides and is constant. I see it on Forums, Tumblr, Facebook when I bothered, Discord, OOC in chat channels, IC by people who have decided to come to Silvermoon just to pick on the elves. It’s everywhere and it’s inescapable. I watch as almost daily RPer bashes people for playing elves. Every. Day.
I’ve begun to just see images of indignant children shouting in shrill voices, “STOP LIKING WHAT I DON’T LIKE” and “STOP NOT LIKING WHAT I LIKE” when I read complaints about Blood Elves. And no, it doesn’t matter how you frame it, it’s still complaining.
You can try to frame it as a “diversity” issue but when push comes to shove you aren’t paying for anyone else’s subscription so you don’t really have a say in what they play. You could go to Blizzard and demand that they put a limit on the number of one class you can play but I can tell you right now that they will never enact such a limit. In reality we will probably see further relaxation on race/class choices as time goes on. When Blood Elves can be shamans and druids my Horde roster will consist entirely of Blood Elves.
And before you start questioning why I play Horde if I just want to be pretty, I’m going to point out that I’ve been playing Horde for a long time, probably longer than you, since November of 2003. I remember what it was like before Blood Elves, I remember the massive faction imbalance that Blood Elves helped solve. I remember how much harder it was to do things like Blackwing Lair with Shamans instead of Paladins, how we were stuck with Resto Shamans having to heal while not having the best class set allocations while having priests dispel on Baron Geddon while Alliance had their Paladins cleanse and their priests heal. I remember having to learn to stance dance to get out of fears while tanking Magmadar while Alliance had fear ward. Blood Elves and Paladins coming to the Horde was the absolute best game balancing step Blizzard has EVER taken.
I remember after Majordomo, we’d all kill our characters and corpse run back to the raid to go kill Ragnaros. Everyone would get naked and hop on domo’s hotplate. Everyone but me. I couldn’t stand the look of my main naked, so I ate a repair bill so I didn’t have to look at the shriveled hunched body of a male troll as I ran naked across the Searing Gorge. The shape of the male troll reminded me of haunting photos I had seen of emaciated people (“Muselmänner”, living corpses) rescued from Auschwitz. Even though trolls are buff, their mass compred to their length and their posture was just too uncomfortabe. Have you ever stopped to think that maybe non-blood Elves aren’t everyone’s RP style, and sometimes for very good reasons?
I’ve seen a lot of complaints about Blood Elves that are homophobia driven. The males are too gay. Why yes, their voice actor is an openly gay voice acting legend, problem? Blizard actually made them ‘buffer’ than elves should be because of homophobia. To this day I think that having mildly pretty men by contrast to other men in the game triggers homophobia. Perhaps Blood Elves weren’t made for the straight male eye, perhaps they were made for the female eye. They were made for the queer eye. They were made because the Horde races lacked mass appeal, and their designs made it very hard for the average player to empathize or immerse themselves into these characters.
Do you have any idea how uncomfortable it is being made to think that everyone who doesn’t play a Blood Elf hates you just because you happen to play one? Can you imagine being the recipient of hate being your very first experience on this server? Oh I know you’re going to say, “It’s just IC” except for, it isn’t really. This hatred is a constant bombardment across mediums, this is self-insertion of the author’s opinion into characters in a way that makes no sense. Stop it.
Now here’s my point: You blame Blood Elf roleplayers for there not being enough of other things, you blame Blood Elves for the dearth of good guilds or communities that center around other Horde races. What race people choose to RP on WOW is not zero sum.
If this site had the ability to do pull quotes (where you take a sentence, separate it out with horizontal rules and make the text very big) I’d totally pull quote that. But I can’t so I’m going to repeat it a few times for emphasis.
What race people choose to RP on WOW is not zero sum.
What race people choose to RP on WOW is not zero sum.
What race people choose to RP on WOW is not zero sum.
What race people choose to RP on WOW is not zero sum.
The popularity of Blood Elves is not taking away from the creation of other guilds, groups, and communities. The popularity of Blood Elves is not taking players away from other guilds, groups, and communities.
Blood Elves are not the problem. Would you like to know what the problem is? Take those crooked little fingers you’re pointing and rotate them 180 degrees on the horizontal axis. Where are those fingers pointing? Why they’re pointing at you. YOU are the problem.
There. I said it. You are the problem. Every single person who is blaming people who RP Blood Elves for their problems, every person passive-aggressively screaming “STOP LIKING WHAT I DON’T LIKE,” every person denigrating people who RP Blood Elves as shallow, uncreative, unskilled, bland, superficial, in it for the ERP, boring, or whatever. You are the problem.
One more time. You are the problem. Yes you. If you yourself haven’t engaged in this behavior, then the behavior of others around you. When was the last time you told your Belf bashing friends to shut the fuck up? I bet you don’t like blanket statements being made about you but you sit by quietly while your friends do the same damn thing.
Players of non Blood Elves are to blame for the dearth of non Blood Elf RP, not Blood Elf Roleplayers. All y'all’s actions, your behavior, and your choices are the poison that has stunted your community growth.
When you people sit there and denigtate people who RP Blood Elves, you need to understand that other people are doing it too, and that if we’re listening we find a symphony of hate from theother side. I know why you do it, you’re hoping to discourage, to pressure, to force, to make Blood Elf RPers feel bad so they will decide to stop liking what you don’t like and start liking what you like so you can have more RP partners.
Except it doesn’t actually work that way. What you’re actually doing is painting yourselves as hostile and it makes people who main Blood Elves. It makes us think that if we decide to make an alt and go play with you, that you’re going to be hostile to us the moment you find out we main a Belf. This deters us from wanting to play with you. Why would we subject ourselves to such hostility?
I had a male orc prot warrior that I played as an argent aligned male orc prot paladin, a character with all of the ferocity and strength of an orc combined with a stalwart defender who may or may not actually be able to use the light. It was a fun character. I deleted it because I realized that I could never RP it among other orcs because I main a belf. I made a pair of male blood elf hunters intended to be dark ranger bards. 80s metal wailing manshees in undead elf bodies with red eyes, big hair, and sun lutes. But I realized that while the idea is cool and fun that undead RPers would likely hate my characters for having belf models let alone being male instead of female, even though manshees were added in Legion. I repurposed the characters into something else. While these things are weird and quirky, they’re examples of some of the ideas, possibly fun ideas, that non-Belf RPers lose out on when they constantly bombard other creative people with endless hostility.
The only non-Belf groups that I’ve ever seen try to reach out and engage others has been a group of really nice Tauren. If I was going to RP something other than a Bloof, I’d probably RP a Tauren because I’ve seen that there’s at least some circles of Tauren who likely won’t shit at me for maining a Belf. They’re doing it right. Learn from them.
No one will listen to the Blood Elf RPers’ critiques of what you all need to do and change. Change must come from the inside.
If you want to see things get better you need to start being excellent to each other, you need to be the change you want to see, and you need to quit yer bitchin’. Then you need to tell the people who are being passive aggressive, or outright aggressive, to people playing Blood Elves just because they’re playing Blood Elves, to have a nice glass of shut the fuck up.
Change comes from making a stand. Let me tell you that when these people start getting bombarded by a couple dozen scoldings from their peers for being a jackass they’re going to learn that it’s uncool and stop being a jackass. Then the community healing process can start. 
When hating on players for playing Blood Elves becomes uncool, then players who have decided that all y'all are hostile may consider trying to interact with you, put alts in communities, and help you grow and nurture your own communities.
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argonapricot · 8 years ago
Note
when you REBLOG IT do ALL OF THEM
1: Name - Julia
2: Age - the number of protons in an argon atom! My favorite element! That didn’t even occur to me until just now and I am delighted.
3: 3 Fears -
1. Plane crashes
2. Dementia
3. Bad things happening to pets
4: 3 things I love -
1. elves
2. Dvorak
3. making fun of you
5: 4 turns on
1. Linguistics
2. The end credit music from Attack of the Clones
3. Girls
4. Chord resolutions
6: 4 turns off
1. Sex
2. Existentialism
3. Depression
4. Logistical complications
7: My best friend - three of alex in a trenchcoat
8: Sexual orientation - homosexualism
9: My best first date - I’ve only had one! Unless you count Mackenzie Week which wow I sure don’t yikes
But yeah, the actual first date was cute af we were adorable and drenched
10: How tall am I - not tall enough
11: What do I miss - so much all the time, god. Having it be a normal and socially accessible activity to play pretend when you hang out with friends. Having a girlfriend, lol. Playing outside in the yard, my brother being a tiny little puffball. Being an impressive child. So many childhood things actually I’m an enormous sap. Not being depressed?
12: What time was I born - 7:02 in the evening, I think
13: Favorite color - poorple
14: Do I have a crush - um i have like 7 I’m bad at getting over people
15: Favorite quote - “the answer is six” - alex, that one time the answer wasn’t six
16: Favorite place - it’s a secret!
17: Favorite food - academic vigor
18: Do I use sarcasm - no of course not
19: What am I listening to right now - the clock trying to guilt me from across the room
20: First thing I notice in new person - whether or not they are painted green 
21: Shoe size - 9/12
22: Eye color - Brown! Maybe like ¼ hazel
23: Hair color - also brown! It gets lighter in the summer, the sun bleaches it a bit.
24: Favorite style of clothing - gay
25: Ever done a prank call? - I used to prank call Clarissa every time I called her in like middle school, but it was always super obvious that it was me I think
27: Meaning behind my URL - my favorite element, paired with a handy dandy alliteration fruit that I enjoy
28: Favorite movie - Alex making a fool of herself
jk it’s I guess Lord of the Rings but I’m honestly so bad with favorites especially movies
29: Favorite song - I’ve been listening to Hurt by Johnny Cash a LOT lately, for fictional angst purposes and also it’s just a really good song
30: Favorite band - the Grady Knights Philharmonic
31: How I feel right now - sad that I’m only on number 31
32: Someone I love - Lee Pope
33: My current relationship status - so single you don’t even know
34: My relationship with my parents - good! I have great parents they are great!
35: Favorite holiday - I’ve only actually been to a Tu b’shvat seder once, but it was so incredibly rad and it’s a good holiday I approve of it.
36: Tattoos and piercing i have - none
37: Tattoos and piercing i want - none?
38: The reason I joined Tumblr - to get in on that sweet pjo fandom action
39: Do I and my last ex hate each other? nah bro @alphaj8de hi five
40: Do I ever get “good morning” or “good night ” texts? - I exchange “goodnights” with someone if we end a conversation by going to bed?
41: Have I ever kissed the last person you texted? - quite possibly!
42: When did I last hold hands? - I hold hands with Tolkien every day of my life
43: How long does it take me to get ready in the morning? - Depends on how slowly I get out of bed
44: Have I shaved your legs in the past three days? - yeah
45: Where am I right now? - on a couch
46: If I were drunk & can’t stand, who’s taking care of me? - fanfiction, probably, since all of my good caring friends are Leaving me to go to Party College, or alternatively Very Far Away And Stupidly Cold Stupid College
47: Do I like my music loud or at a reasonable level? - I like my music neurotically soft
48: Do I live with my Mom and Dad? - for the next like two months
49: Am I excited for anything? - college! Hannah’s lake house! garbage on the internet! 
50: Do I have someone of the opposite sex I can tell everything to? - I rarely tell Everything to anyone
51: How often do I wear a fake smile? - I suck at fake smiles, and can only maintain them (when called for) in three-second bursts
52: When was the last time I hugged someone? - I hugged Benjamin earlier today
53: What if the last person I kissed was kissing someone else right in front of me? - I would stand there like a tool.
54: Is there anyone I trust even though I should not? - YEAH @cognitivelyagitated I can’t believe you took advantage of my eighth grade self like that and I can’t believe my eighth grade self was that stupid.
55: What is something I disliked about today? - Discord crashed and my online friend was not online.
56: If I could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be? - *mumblemumble*
57: What do I think about most? - characters doing Things
58: What’s my strangest talent? - I have the power to make sleeping possums knit
59: Do I have any strange phobias? - macaroni and cheese, also certain noises that make me flip out and cringe
60: Do I prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it? - I can go both ways!
61: What was the last lie I told? - the answer to that sarcasm question
62: Do I prefer talking on the phone or video chatting online? - what is communication
63: Do I believe in ghosts? How about aliens? - I don’t devote a lot of energy into having opinions on ghosts or aliens one way or the other.
64: Do I believe in magic? - sometimes
65: Do I believe in luck? - I mean luck is just the concept that sometimes good things happen and sometimes they don’t? So yeah, the experimental probability of good things that happen is a thing.
66: What’s the weather like right now? - hot and humid
67: What was the last book I’ve read? - I’m in the middle of like four books right now, the last one I finished was I think A Conjuring Of Light? In the shades of magic trilogy, which was hype.
68: Do I like the smell of gasoline? - no!
69: Do I have any nicknames? - julesliaia
70: What was the worst injury I’ve ever had? - I broke my arm in seventh grade
71: Do I spend money or save it? - both!
72: Can I touch my nose with a tongue? - no
73: Is there anything pink in 10 feet from me? - there are some pink things visible on the screen where this is being typed?
74: Favorite animal? - I like all kinds of cats
75: What was I doing last night at 12 AM? - watching Episode 3 of IDOL Drama Operation Team
76: What do I think is Satan’s last name is? - why would he have a last name
77: What’s a song that always makes me happy when I hear it? - I can’t think of the best answer right now
78: How can you win my heart? - elf appreciation
79: What would I want to be written on my tombstone? - my name would be nice
80: What is my favorite word? - right now, sepulchral
81: My top 5 blogs on tumblr - I don’t really rate tumblrs!
82:  If the whole world were listening to me right now, what would I say? - stop! being stupid! stop being mean! Help the planet and also other people! I don’t know
83: Do I have any relatives in jail? - no
84: I accidentally eat some radioactive vegetables. They were good, and what’s even cooler is that they endow me with the super-power of my choice! What is that power? - being able to sing well would be nice
85: What would be a question I’d be afraid to tell the truth on? - are you spending your time responsibly?
86: What is my current desktop picture? - Yosemite
87: Had sex? - y
88: Bought condoms? - n
89: Gotten pregnant? - n
90: Failed a class? - n
91: Kissed a boy? - n
92: Kissed a girl? - y
93: Have I ever kissed somebody in the rain? - I think so, yeah
94: Had job? - y
95: Left the house without my wallet? - y
96: Bullied someone on the internet? - n
97: Had sex in public? - nah that’s your gig
98: Played on a sports team? - I was a part of the Lucky Clovers soccer team in like 1st and 2nd grade
99: Smoked weed? - n
100: Did drugs? - n
101: Smoked cigarettes? - n
102: Drank alcohol? - some! on special occasions
103: Am I a vegetarian/vegan? - n
104: Been overweight? - n
105: Been underweight? - n
106: Been to a wedding? - Yeah, a couple!
107: Been on the computer for 5 hours straight? - ………..probably on some late nights, but that’s terrible and I feel ashamed and sad
108: Watched TV for 5 hours straight? - n
109: Been outside my home country? - twice! Once to Spain and once to Mexico
110: Gotten my heart broken? - There have been a couple instances of vague heart breakage idk
111: Been to a professional sports game? - during TIP camps, yes
112: Broken a bone? - y
114: Been to prom? - I was busy Killing It at Carnegie Hall
115: Been in airplane? - y
116: Fly by helicopter? - n
117: What concerts have I been to? - @queer-sighted took me to a Fall Out Boy concert two summers ago, which was lots of fun! I’ve been to a lot of ASO concerts that Mom gets tickets to for producing the show, and a bunch of other classical music occasions, and some concerts that I’ve played!
118: Had a crush on someone of the same sex? - yeah. like. a Lot.
119: Learned another language? - I learned some okay French
120: Wore make up? - y
121: Lost my virginity before I was 18? - y but virginity is dumb
122: Had oral sex? - y
123: Dyed my hair? - n
124: Voted in a presidential election? - I was too young!
125: Rode in an ambulance? - n
126: Had a surgery? - yeah, on my foot in second grade
127: Met someone famous? - my crush met Selena Gomez does that count
128: Stalked someone on a social network? - only a tiny bit
129: Peed outside? - of course
130: Been fishing? - I’ve stood near some people who were fishing sometimes
131: Helped with charity? - I’ve worked on a lot of tikkun olam projects? And volunteered places? And donated tzeddakah? I don’t know what specifically constitutes charity.
132: Been rejected by a crush? - only very indirectly I have the forthcoming romantic initiative of a slug
133: Broken a mirror? - no
134: What do I want for birthday? - ummmm books and mamamoo I guess? Maybe a new tablet
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