Hey by the way if anyone tries to deny Kabru is a judgy bitch I’ll send you the panels of him calling everyone worthless
Respect his duality he’s a good boy who genuinely wants the best for everyone but also thinks he has to do everything himself despite being the Least Qualified Ever because no one else lives up to his standards
He doesn’t even want to look at monsters but oh well every single other person is a piece of shit let’s go get my friends killed over and over again
He’s interesting BECAUSE he’s not one dimensional Good Pure Boy all the time, he’s a judgy manipulative little shit who will eat monsters if it gets him towards his goals, which are “nobody should be killed by monsters actually” and “i want to know what the fuck is going on”
He coulda had ONE honest conversation with Laios and known literally everything about him, Laios has never met a filter
But Kabru was raised for a good chunk of his life (6-18) by Milsiril, and for all he believes elves can never understand short lived people… he picked up the whole “I must be secretive and always conceal my own motivations”
He only breaks under literally the most intense high pressure situation he’s likely to see in his life, which along with being the potential goddamn apocalypse is also a rehashing of All Of His Personal Trauma oh and also Every Suspicion He Ever Had About This One Guy
He’s not more honest because he’s an honest person, he’s more honest because he forgot how sentences work when he finally caught Laios and doesn’t have the bandwidth to play the constant 4D chess in his head that underpins his EVERY INTERACTION WITH EVERYONE EVER until Marcille takes the lion
Kabru’s a pretty good person, with extremely good motivations and goals.
He’s a manipulative son of a bitch who will do anything, anywhere, anytime, to meet those goals, and spends a solid chunk of his time and energy on reading people so he can be someone they like… regardless of his own feelings.
He’s the living The Good Of The Many Outweigh The Needs Of The Few, and solidly puts himself in with “the few” by doing shit he hates because he thinks it’ll help.
Isn’t that more interesting than “oh he would never manipulate anyone, he’s so nice and good all the time”?
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Maybe a hot take, but I don't think the Traveler was being inconsistent or out of character in the last archon quest at all. People are getting upset at their reaction to Lyney and Lynette's behavior from the perspective of players, with meta knowledge of the story that the Traveler, the character, doesn't have.
The players know, for example, that because they're playable characters, Lyney and Lynette are ultimately friendly and on "our" side, and we can also trust that what they told us about their backstory is true. The Traveler does not have that knowledge.
TO BE CLEAR this post is talking about my thoughts on the TRAVELER'S thought process. If we want to talk about how I personally would have reacted to the situation, I'm an overly trusting bleeding-heart who would absolutely get scammed and probably murdered by Fatui in this universe.
(Also characters, even main characters who you normally like, can do things you disagree with and that doesn't mean they're badly written. I mean, sometimes they are, but I don't think that's true in this particular case)
But think about it! Looking at the entire situation from an in-universe, in-character POV, it's a really bad look for Lyney and Lynette overall, because here are the facts as the Traveler is aware of them:
Lyney and Lynette are not only members of the Fatui, the primary antagonistic force in this story, but are specifically members of the House of the Hearth, which is known to specialize in espionage, subterfuge, and sabotage.
Both of them also work in a field that would further require them to be masters of misdirection, audience manipulation, and drama.
They "coincidentally" ran into the Traveler right as they arrived in Fontaine and immediately began to do them favors and be very friendly, including saving them from Furina, bringing them to meet their family, and gifting them VIP tickets to Lyney's show.
During the trial, the twins withheld key information, and not just about their identities (and listen, I get it, I fully empathize with why they did it, I get the reasoning, but it's still a bad look when it gets figured out) but also about what they were doing in the tunnel.
They admitted that the entire magic show was a ruse to do, guess what? espionage! To break into the room with the Oratrice's core and find out how it works. To, through subterfuge, obtain Fontaine's secrets about the nation's most important mechanism and central source of power.
The Traveler has known these people for like, a day total.
So what conclusions might the Traveler draw from these facts? When the evidence shows that Lyney and Lynette have a record of misdirection and obfuscation for their own ends? When the Traveler has no way of knowing if even their initial meeting was orchestrated for an ulterior purpose? How are they supposed to know if the tragic backstory is even true, or if that's just Lyney trying to win back some favor and sympathy? In my opinion, at that moment, they don't. Hence the coldness.
My interpretation of events is that the Traveler does like the twins, and wanted to keep liking them, but was struggling to reconcile their initial impression of two friendly magicians with the realization that these two friendly magicians were dishonest with them for most of the time they'd known each other, so they needed to have some space to figure that out.
And for those saying the Traveler is inconsistent, here's the thing: they still helped Lyney. They still acted as his attorney, investigated thoroughly, won the case, and cleared his name. They've done similar for other Fatui members in their acquaintance—they helped Childe with Teucer, they helped Scaramouche/Wanderer with getting his memories back, they helped that other member of the House of the Hearth fake her death and escape the organization—whether or not they fully trusted them, and generally they didn't.
As for the Traveler's supposed hypocrisy, my view of their relationship with Childe is that it's only improved because, despite Childe trying to nuke Liyue in the past, the Traveler knows that
a. They can handle him if it comes down to a fight again;
b. He likes them, regardless of if the feeling is mutual or not, and is indeed aggressively friendly to the point where it's easier to just be civil;
c. Childe is generally upfront and honest about his actions and will strike from the front, not stab them in the back; and
d. He's worked together with them before when they had a common goal (for example, the labyrinth they went through with Xinyan).
They know how his mind works and what motivates him. Childe is a known quantity, the twins are not, and it took in-story time and shared experiences for the Traveler to get to even this point of neutrality; they were openly suspicious of him during his story quest.
As for holding his Vision for him, the Traveler didn't exactly volunteer for the job, Childe literally threw it at them with no warning and peaced out. What do you expect them to do, drop it in the sea? That would be inconsistent with their characterization.
Wanderer's whole situation is even weirder, since the Traveler was able to experience his actual memories and emotions and therefore has good reason to trust that he's had a genuine change of heart. Not to mention that they're not friends, I'd argue they're in that same nebulous "neutral" zone, and that only because Nahida usually functions as a buffer (and also because, again, the Traveler knows that they can handle Wanderer in a fight, and Wanderer also tends to be blunt and honest).
Also, in Lyney's story quest it seems like everyone got over their problems pretty fast and they're all chummy now, so you can all rest easy that the twins' feelings weren't too hurt about it.
Anyways if you disagree go ham, refute my points, whatever, just keep things civil.
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Your post about loving to study the beauty of the human body as well as wanting to love someone male while also be them is something I've been feeling for the past few years tbh but I've never heard someone put it in the exact words I use before. I think it's also because when it comes to topics like that I also feel embarrassed trying to explain a melded and complicated but beautiful emotion that doesn't have a word for it other than imagery in my mind
Sorry for the random soul post in your inbox but I get you! And that makes me happy
Also you're art is very cool and holds the very idea of human warmth and love within keep it up
responding to the compliment first, thank you!!!
as for the rest, yes! In the past I've definitely understood "love someone so much you want to crawl into them because hugging and physical intimacy isn't enough" as well as the usual "do i wanna fuck them or be them 🤪" sentiment floating around,
but it's not until very recently that I pieced together the, "well, what would I do if I literally got my hands on another [human being]. I'm not sure it would be enough to just Behold a [beautiful human being], I also want to be a beautiful [human being], but in the way this [person] is, which is. Unlike the way I am. Different from how I am. (In the many ways that can be interpreted)."
Which is adjacent to the "crawling into them", and adjacent to wishing I could be desired in the same way that I desire, and then directly connected to the way I am being genuine and casual when I say I love looking at and am in awe of the human form, but it's so very easy for that genuine love to slip into that intense and strange enthusiasm to map out, touch, explore, examine, open, crawl, meld, Be. Be!
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Penelope definitely has teeth sharp/strong enough to chew through bone if she wants to.
Telemachus does too but probably not AS strong as he's only like, 37.5% Naiad. And he definitely has to be more careful about it.
Lil thing but as Penelope grew up with a lot of river fish in Sparta, she was kind of sad that Ithaca wasn't as abundant with them. PLENTY of seafood but not a lot of river food, you know?
Telemachus, although Naiad (freshwater) as well, grew up with more seafood because he's ALWAYS been around it and DOES like it quite a bit. And while Penelope eats it, it's not her favorite.
She always let him have whatever he wanted but as he got older he realized, "Oh, Mom really loves sturgeon...but she doesn't get as excited about shrimp/marlin/etc. like I do." and said something about him preferring seafood more. Especially while the suitors were around and they were eating a lot of everything and she couldn't leave the palace as easily. :'D
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