#so I ask again: what dissonance is your character feeling?

[mikkeneko]

If I can add one tip about how to write characters' emotional journeys over time, based on my experience both in real life and in writing:

The number one cause of emotional conflict is when people feel an emotion that, for whatever social or personal reason, they don't think they are permitted to feel.

There can be a hundred reasons why they feel like they aren't 'permitted' -- maybe it's a gender socialization issue, maybe it runs afoul of a social taboo, maybe they feel like they're in the wrong in whatever the conflict is and so they are obliged to defer to the other party's hurt feelings over their own, maybe this is a maladaptive coping mechanism where in the past they've suffered consequences for feeling and expressing the feeling, so now they don't dare.

This conflict, this dissonance, between what they think they 'should' feel and what they ACTUALLY DO feel can manifest in a hundred different directions, and drives a lot of seemingly irrational behaviors, but if your characters are not doing it, why aren't they? Are they really that perfectly in tune with their emotions? Or have you as a writer just not identified what the underlying emotion really is?

That post that's like "stop writing characters who talk like they're trying to get a good grade in therapy" really blew the door wide open for me about how common it's become for a character's emotional intelligence to not be taken into consideration when writing conflict. I remember the first time I went to therapy I had such a hard time even identifying what I was feeling, let alone had the language to explain it to someone else. Of course there are plenty of people who've never been to therapy a day in their life who are in tune to their emotions. But even they would have some trouble expressing themselves sometimes. You have to take into account there are plenty of people who are uncomfortable expressing themselves and people who think they're not allowed to feel certain ways. It also makes for more interesting conflict to have characters with different levels of understanding.

[syneilesis]

[fic] Impact Factor

Impact Factor

Love and Deepspace | Zayne (Li Shen) x Main-Character!Reader | G | 4k words | ao3 link

god, i'm so lovesick. what have you done to me? You tell Zayne that you're co-authoring a research paper. He finds himself wanting and waiting to read it.

A/N: For @seraphiism 's 2024 writing event. I chose Lovesick by Laufey. I know. Zayne? Lovesick? Lmao I don't know if I pulled it off, but I have to write for Zayne at least once.

I gave this fic a single, cursory proofread. Any mistake is still my fault. Divider by @/saradika

“By the way, a professor of mine in college reached out to me last week and asked me if I was interested in co-authoring an article with her on the phenomenology of vocation of the people working in Hunters Association.”

The clacking of the keyboard is crisp and loud in the silverlined office, accompanied by the low hum of the airconditioner. Zayne's attention remains on the computer, updating your status condition. He makes a brief noise to indicate that he's listening, and when he takes his gaze away from the desktop he finds you watching him with a faint grin on your face.

“Do you want me to guess your reply?”

That faint grin grows wide and whole.

“What do you think?”

Zayne leans back and rolls his chair a little farther, reaching out to turn on the printer. The machine whirls to life, chatters.

“You accepted the offer, of course.” He returns to his laptop and clicks on the print icon. “You don't have the heart to refuse your professor.”

“Dr. Zayne, you know me so well.”

Something in the way you said it compels him to turn to you again. Your expression hasn't changed, but the fall of your hair frames your slightly narrowed eyes that sparkle under the bright fluorescent light, like rare midday stars. It staggers the beats of Zayne's heart for two seconds, seizes his throat, and in that sliver of a moment Zayne forgets to breathe.

“Maybe it's because you're transparent,” he says, after retrieving the prescription from the printer. He hands you the paper, and surprise stretches your features. He clarifies: “Supplements. Undoubtedly you will need it when you begin your research.”

“Nothing less from my doctor.” My. The word is malleable around your mouth. And then: “I'm transparent? Is that a bad thing?”

“It's not a flaw.” He signs the healthcare forms you passed onto him. “But neither is it a virtue.”

“Hmm. Then, I guess I'll watch myself.”

His head jerks at your response, and Zayne has something to say to that—something like your not needing to be conscious of how open you are—but then your watch beeps and you apologize for the sudden departure.

Alone in his office, Zayne sinks into his chair and closes his eyes.

▼

That exchange, brief yet odd, lingers in Zayne's mind, like a stone at the base of his brain, next to the stem and cerebellum. He can feel its weight, its matter, solid and bothersome that at one point Greyson stops and asks him, “Are you okay, Dr. Zayne? You seem to be distracted today.”

A flash of memory; the word transparent, your answer. Were it not for the emergency mission, he would have hastened to add that transparency is closely associated with sincerity—and that is a virtue. He imagines a version of you as secretive as a glacier, as closed-off as a fortress, and the dissonance it invites rings discordant in the history between you—you who have always reached out to him first.

His hands itch for the phone that's secluded in one of his drawers, away from distraction, from memory. Zayne is, after all, duty first, the rest a distant second.

“It's nothing,” he tells Greyson. “I'm fine.”

“Maybe it's time for a vacation? You've been busy—busier than usual—lately.”

“I'll take a vacation at the end of the year. Right now, you're needed in the meeting room for a briefing.”

When Greyson clears the area, Zayne turns and sees Yvonne near the entrance of the lobby, studying him, her face arranged in a way that invites him to defend himself for some reason. But he resists the irrational urge.

He meets her scrutiny with a long and stoic gaze, and she shakes her head, wordless, then continues on with her work.

Left in the hallway, Zayne sighs and goes back to his office.

▼

“Dr. Zayne!”

Shapes of different colors coalesce into your reflection on the glass that displays the myriad cakes Zayne's been deliberating upon for the last fifteen minutes. The figure looms larger and larger, until it sidles up next to him and he straightens up, turning to his side.

“What a coincidence,” you continue with a glancing smile, hand on your chin as you survey the available pastries for purchase. “Are you buying desserts too?”

Earlier, Akso Hospital had a rare moment of slowness that allowed its personnel to indulge in a breather, which afforded Zayne to clock out on time. As a treat—and he will never admit this to anyone—he's stopped by the bakeshop on the way home, and to his surprise, here you are as well.

To your question he can only give a noncommittal sound; then to the cashier he points at the sea salt caramel vanilla slice that he's wanted to try for a while now. Both you and the cashier let out an intrigued Oh! before the purchase is processed at the register.

“Sea salt caramel vanilla,” you say with an evaluatory seriousness, “good choice.”

Zayne pinches the bridge of his nose.

“By the way, I've started on the research project. Been doing some preliminary reading since I don't want to disappoint my former professor. So far I'm doing well—the supplements are a great help!”

The supplements. He had an inkling that, as you are wont to do with every mission, you were rushing into this project with all your mind and body, tunnel-visioned, only the end goal visible in your sights. This unfortunately excludes concerns regarding your health, and Zayne is correct: all nighters and skipped meals, both of which erode the state of a person's health. When you are focused on something, that something takes the highest priority, and he can't always be with you all the time to remind you to take a break, or eat healthy food, or drink water. Which is why: supplements. They're not preventative, but at least they mitigate.

And it seems you're telling the truth: no tightness in your eyes and tautness in the shape of your mouth. In this case—in the case of your aspiration to conceal—you have not changed—or at least attempted to hold yourself back. Something in his chest loosens, smooths the tenseness out of his muscles that Zayne hasn't realized is there.

This is something to ponder, but not at the moment.

“I don't have to remind you that supplements are not substitutes for healthy food and proper sleep, do I?”

“Of course not! Even I know that.” But then your expression turns sheepish. “In practice, that's a little ...”

Zayne pinches the bridge of his nose again.

“But don't worry too much about me, Dr. Zayne! I'm taking care of myself just fine!”

“That doesn't instill much confidence.”

“How about this, then?” And you face him fully, a ready smile brimming with its own confidence and assurance, as radiant as an aurora. “If something happens, you will be the first person I'll turn to.”

At that Zayne pauses. The easy trust you bring between the both of you warms his neck, the back of it, climbing up, up, up to the tips of his ears and to his cheeks. He moves on to the cashier, his back on you.

“Try not to let that 'something' happen, but I know you're too stubborn to listen.”

A chuckle, and then: “I can't make any promises, but I'll try.”

This time, Zayne turns back.

“'Try' implies effort, so I am expecting effort.”

You snap a salute, grinning. “Got it, Doc!”

▼

The day after that, Zayne begins to read up on the subject of phenomenology.

▼

It won't be a couple of weeks until Zayne sees you again—but this time it's under the harsh hospital lights and the din of frantic footsteps and rolling wheels, the mixed scents of blood and antiseptic stinging his nose. A Wanderer surge disrupted the southern part of Linkon, and of the hunters dispatched you had been one of them.

Zayne glides around the moving bodies, steps never faltering until he finds you tucked in a corner, cradling your broken arm.

When his shadow falls upon your involuted frame, you lift your head and a rueful grin greets him. Your glass-sheen gaze doesn't escape his scrutiny.

He's wearing his white coat, and both of his hands retreat into its pockets, where he closes them into tight fists. If Zayne tilts his head a little more to the right, he can see a lengthy gash that lines along your temple and into your scalp, covered by your blood-crusted hair. He is painfully aware that this is part and parcel of your profession, the risk that endangers a hunter during a mission. A part of him is thankful that today it is only a broken arm and a couple of wounds. It could have been much worse, and Zayne refuses to imagine a scenario where you come into the hospital drained of vitality. A frustrated sigh threatens to spill out of him, but he endures, and just pointedly shoots you a disappointed look.

“So this is all the effort that you mentioned just amounted to.”

“To be fair I was doing well for a couple of hours until I had to rescue a civilian trapped in a damaged building.”

“That is commendable.” And he means it. But—“Follow that nurse with the brown clipboard. He's in charge of injuries like yours. Can you walk that far?”

Your uninjured hand braces against the wall and you pull yourself up, the motion not quite fluid but not a slow stagger either. Zayne would have assisted you, but it seems that you can do it on your own.

“It's my arm that's broken, not my legs.” A wincing smile, and you start to make your way forward. “I know that you have to take care of other people, Dr. Zayne, but thanks for checking up on me.”

Behind him, a nurse calls his name, a signal to go back to his work. There are other patients who need his attention more than you do, and overall you seem fine, still put together. A broken arm can heal over time, given proper medical care. And Zayne knows, intimately, that Akso does not lack for anything.

Still. It's not entirely on purpose, but Zayne calls your name.

“I—” he begins, as you slow down to wait for whatever he's going to say. His throat struggles, constricting and opening in subconscious reflex. “I'd still rather not worry about you like this.”

In and around the space between you and him, the hospital remains astir—shadows and silhouettes slipping in and out of Zayne's sight—until they give way to the blossoming smile on your face, eclipsing everything from the back to the fore, a pinpoint mark on the map.

Later, even as he tends to his patients, your smile persists in Zayne's mind, an afterimage that refuses to disappear behind his eyelids.

▼

Exactly one week after that incident, Zayne receives a bouquet of jasmines and a box of banana bread. Attached to it is a pristine white card with a line written: Don't forget to take care of yourself too!

The card stays in his breast pocket well beyond his working hours, right next to his beating heart.

▼

Days pass, weeks, months, and Zayne finds himself browsing through phenomenology journals during his break in the hopes of seeing your name in one of them. He knows that you'll tell him once it's published, but there's a part of him that clamors for the first touch of knowledge, the letters that make up your name woven in the glowing screen of his tablet.

At the same time, Greyson and Yvonne have bitten into their suspicions—whatever they are, Zayne refuses to ask—and swallowed the succulence as if it's a juicy truth. Often he sees Greyson glancing at him with a shadow of a smile, a quick sleight of hand that when Zayne fully faces him his expression is already ironed out and professional. Yvonne is no better: all glimmering eyes and knowing grins and incessant questions about his mood. Once, he asked the reason for the barrage of questions and Yvonne ignored the frost in his voice and tittered, telling him that sometimes in life, they have to combat the monotony with exciting things.

It worries him somewhat that you and Yvonne and even Greyson have been getting along quite well for a time now.

But your name still doesn't appear, and it doesn't seem to be appearing in the foreseeable future. Still Zayne searches, his fingers already making a habit of typing your name in the bar, his heart beating for a yes.

▼

At some point, he's asked about your progress.

“It's been going well,” you answer. “Professor made some comments about the part in my results and discussion, so I'm going to revise that. I think we can submit it by next month if we maintain the pace.”

After a thoughtful pause, you rest your arms on his desk, cushion your chin on them, and angle him a sly look.

“Are you offering to proofread my work, Dr. Zayne?”

“I may need a box of red pens for that.”

That jolts a laugh out of you, and you recover by sending a mock pout his way.

“I’ll have you know that I was a diligent writer in college! I won in essay writing competitions!”

“Is that so? Then I suppose your first foray in academic publishing will be a successful ‘accepted with minor revisions’ reply from the editor.”

“Of course! Oh, fine, fine. I won’t ask you to proofread the manuscript. You can just wait until it’s published.”

A small, genuine smile. “I’m looking forward to it.”

▼

Eventually, he receives a text that says, We finally submitted the article! Now we just have to wait 🫣

He excuses himself from a cluster of medical professionals talking about the latest breakthroughs in oncology and parks himself beside the long table of drinks. He texts back: Watch out for Reviewer #2. They’re always the culprit.

It takes a full ten minutes before you reply, and during that period of anticipation four individuals have come up to him and attempted to pull him into a conversation about his accomplishments and recent research—one even braving to entice him into applying to another hospital.

Zayne shakes them off as politely as he can (and to that one poacher he gives a cold and resolute no). When his phone beeps, he turns away and redirects his undivided attention to the screen. All your latest message contains is a single salute emoji and the single-word sentence Gotcha! A laugh startles out of him, which Yvonne—having developed an eagle eye for Zayne in the recent weeks—notices and she scurries over to Greyson, bowing their heads in hushed whispers, glancing at him every now and then.

He's realized what they'd been talking about whenever he's in their vicinity, and he's tempted to refute their assumptions and retaliate accordingly. But the stone-weight in his mind had transformed into a persistent itch that does not choose when it strikes. In most cases it's merely annoying, but on rare occasions it is, frankly, merciless. A good-night text echoes in his dreams, and Zayne wakes with a thick sweetness coating the inside of his mouth. A fleeting touch from your worried hand burns the skin of his arm, the heat seeping into the layers until it reaches the subcutaneous tissue, where it spreads all over his body through the veins. He has to evade your glare to hide the ruddiness of his cheeks. Capitulation is the only option he had to choose in the end, and the idea of surrendering to this melts away the reflexive inquiry of when and how and why—a trait he had to hone as a doctor and a researcher.

What else is left when all the signs are pointing to this one immutable conclusion? 

▼

On the day and hour your article is published Zayne is in the middle of a delicate surgery that takes him five hours and two hysterical family members of the patient—even with Evol involved. He emerges from the operating room with good news and exhausted-yet-relieved colleagues, Greyson's smile emerging from the doors the first indicator of a successful operation.

The patient's mother clings to him in tearful gratitude.

He orients the family on the next steps, and as he signs the healthcare forms he discovers a new slice of wound on the back of his hand, thin but lengthy. He has long since accepted that his hands, his arms, will forever be spattered with scars, and if that's the price he has to pay for saving lives, then it's of no consequence to him.

(Once, he had caught your gaze glued to his hands, so he snapped his fingers, startling you into looking at his face.

“What was that for?” you demanded.

“You're not paying attention.”

“I was just—” you bit your lip, torn. A pause, then: “Did they hurt—each one of them?”

He glanced down and studied each scar. Too many, you'd probably think. But not once had they bothered him.

“I never even noticed them in the first place, so no.”

“Okay.” Your eyes were crystal glass and the deep breath you took was stuttering in all its inelegance. “Okay.”)

A sliver of a break provides him the opportunity to sink into reprieve, and his hand gropes for his phone on the desk, peeking out under a sheaf of documents that he has to fill out later.

A cursory look at the screen, and then Zayne is leaping for the computer.

The research article you and your professor had written is kept behind a paywall. Zayne spares a moment to shut his eyes in irritation. He's fortunate that his university library account is still active, so he utilizes that privilege to gain access to the article’s full version, made available by the university’s database.

When the file loads, he syncs it to his tablet, after which he leans back on the chair and settles to read. He can locate which parts you had a hand in writing, and the parts where your style comes out. It isn't his field, but he has read enough to venture that the insights of this paper are valuable. Unwittingly, a proud smile surfaces on his lips.

At the end of the article, in the acknowledgment section, something is curiously written:

The co-author is grateful for the moral and medical support of Akso Hospital's Dr. Zayne. Dr. Zayne, would you like to have dinner with me? As a date. Yes, I'm asking you out.

Zayne’s mind blanks out and the itch returns, scrabbling at the walls of his skull, loud and frenetic and overwhelming all his senses. His entire body warms and the sensation of crawling needles prickle at his skin. Everything is white noise; his heart threatens to jump out of his ribcage. He gets the ridiculous thought that he can't perform a surgery on himself.

The next thing he knows, he's driving his car at the same time dialing your number. The car speakers amplify the ringing tone once his phone is attached to the dashboard. Both his hands tightly grip the steering wheel.

When the call connects, he opens with “What would you do if I hadn't read your article?”

He can practically hear the smile in your voice; it resounds around the car interior. “That's not an option, Dr. Zayne. You would have definitely read the article.”

Laughter bubbles up inside him; he tamps it down. “Confident now, are we?”

“Of course!” A pause; a shuffle of feet. You must be heading to another room. “I hear car engine, where are you now?”

“On the way to your apartment.”

“Wait, don't—go to this restaurant instead. I'll text you the address. I have it all reserved and ready.”

He blinks once, twice, surprise slackening the muscles on his face. “... You haven't even heard my answer yet.”

“You can tell me at the restaurant. And then we'll celebrate with excellent food, excellent wine, and scrumptious desserts.”

“You sound so certain about receiving a positive response.”

“I'm optimistic that way, Dr. Zayne. I'm heading out now—I'll see you in a bit!”

You hang up, and the speakers beep into silence. Two seconds later Zayne presses the hazard switch. The car slows down and then comes to a halt on the side of the road. Other vehicles zoom past him. Without the need to drive, Zayne can finally give in to the urge to exhale aloud and let out a brief yet astounded laugh, forehead pressing against the leather smoothness of the steering wheel.

You've always been transparent. But Zayne has made the crucial mistake of neglecting the fact that you are also clever. If this were a competition, you've already won.

▼

You're already at the restaurant when he arrives, sat on the corner facing the floor-to-ceiling windows, the shifting lights outside dancing over your serene profile. Your elbows rest on the table, where everything is already set up except the food. A vase of red roses at the center completes the picturesque scene.

You lift your head and welcome him with a triumphant grin once he's a few steps away. And when he settles on the chair opposite you, you lean forward and stare at him expectantly.

“You could have asked like a normal person,” Zayne begins.

“I could have,” you agree, nodding, “but I like it this way. I like to get closer to you through the things you do.”

Another moment of Zayne getting caught off-center: the warmth flushing outward from the core of his body like vibrant ink on clean, clear water. He has to lower his gaze from the sheer brilliance of your certainty, the way your patience and care have allowed this moment between the two of you, something that he has never imagined culminating like this: two people sitting opposite each other, in this softly lit restaurant while the world bursts into festive lights outside it. The tender way your hand moves across the table, stopping right before the flower vase, as if affording him the liberty to arrive at a decision Zayne has already made, many, many months (years) ago, just buried under the strata of responsibilities, boundaries, and improbabilities.

Never the when, never the how, never the why. It is, only, sublimely, this.

Zayne sighs with a rueful shake of his head. “It's not yet too late—maybe I should answer by publishing my own research article.” But the hand meeting yours belies his words.

Your smile: pleased, pleasure, like the sun emerging from the winter sky.

He's too occupied with the touch of your hand and the radiance of your expression that Zayne misses the throwaway comment that tumbles past his lips:

“If we're talking about getting closer through doing the things the other does, then I suppose I should propose to you when we're in the middle of a Wanderer invasion.”

And then he realizes what he just said.

Zayne whips his head up, heart in throat, and scrambles for an excuse. “What I meant was—”

“Getting ahead of ourselves now, are we?” Your face is pure indulgence, pure bliss. Your hand squeezes his, not letting go. “Don't worry, Dr. Zayne; I'm looking forward to it.”

And that lustrous smile, sustained. Zayne relaxes and you release him to clap your hands together, delighted.

“Now then! Shall we have our dinner?”

▼

(You have, indeed, delivered in all aspects: excellent food, excellent wine, and scrumptious desserts.)

[rhemaji]

Lil rant abt Caine

Caine is just a lil guy, despite it all. From a design standpoint I thought I was gonna absolutely fucking hate looking at him because those chattering teeth toys make my skin crawl- but the art direction really helps make him look more appealing and whimsical than a disembodied pair of talking dentures sounds on paper.

The thing with Caine is I didn't initially like him that much after the pilot. While his interactions with Bubble were quite funny, that one episode left me feeling like he'd just end up being kinda one note or at the very least one note in a way that'd get on my nerves. Then everything changed when Pomni Wake Up Time to Go On an Adventure! attacked

The comedic timing throughout that announcement video was so fucking funny and thanks to his line deliveries and animation/model [?] upgrades- CAINE LOOKED AND SOUNDED SO ADORABLE!!

Legit it wasn't until this came out that I realized I actually could be on board with Caine as a character and it's been uphill from there. Episode 2 was better than the pilot not only comedically and visually but also in terms of showcasing just how actually unsettling Caine can be as an antagonist. Not because he's vengeful or malicious, but because he's so oblivious to how people work. His mind's always buzzing with terrible ideas and he's so so eager about these adventures, but at the end of the day he really really doesn't get the circus crew. Try as he might to include them, keep them engaged [ZOOBLE WAIT!], or even give them what they want [Exit doors] he doesn't realize how traumatic and distressing their current situation can be. The very nature of being trapped in a digital world is bad enough but it's especially rough here bc not only does its god have limited capabilities, you also are very well acquainted with him, and he can't fully understand your pain nor can he truly save you from it. He won't mourn your abstraction. He will not attend your funeral. He will not understand the distress of your arrival, nor the weight of your departure.

This isn't just sad from the pov of the circus gang, it's also very sad for Caine- not because i think he'll ever feel sad about it himself necessarily, but instead because the situation is sad. New members appear over and over, you craft adventures and games and distractions like [i'm assuming] they'd asked you to, but over and over, one by one, they abstract. They stop laughing at your jokes. They don't like you. They want you to leave them alone. It's confusing and maybe even inconvenient.

Where I'm hoping the series takes Caine is that this dissonance between Caine's intentions and the distress of the circus gang gets worse and worse and worse until something's got to give. I'm hoping that maybe at some point a character will try to sit down and talk with him and for it to either sorta get through to him but completely backfire in some form because he misinterprets what the others want from him OR i'd also be down for him to listen, but not understand any of it and proceed as tho nothing happened. I don't want Caine to come around really, it'd be interesting to see how Goose would go about having him come around to being a better host that empathizes more with humans, but personally I do prefer him to keep on keepin' on being this oblivious and eager antagonist.

My favorite Caine lines/line deliveries so far:

"You, my friend, stumbled into an incredible world of wonders, where anything can happen!…e-except for swearing."

"And here we have THE GROUNDS! Drown yourself in the digital lake, or engage in ridery at the digital carnival!"

"What do you think of XDDCC? You're right, terrible, LET'S TRY THAT AGAIN!"

"Kaufmo abstracted? Why didn't anybody tell me?"

"Bubble you can't say that"

"-ZOOBLE WAIT!"

"Why are you all just standing there?! The- The Canyon- C-Candy Canyon Kingdom needs you now!" [according to his VA, this was an actual line flub but hoo boy am i glad they use it bc it's hilarious]

"I know you guys love your NPCs, but if I start losing track of who's a human and who's an NPC, who knows...what. could. happen..."

That last line there specifically surprised me the most because up until he said that I was under the impression Caine was linked to every single NPC. I even thought he could see through their eyes if he so chose thanks to his "hundreds of all seeing eyes" line in the pilot. Him saying this here implies lots of things. Has Caine forgotten before? Is someone in the circus secretly an NPC ooooooooh~

"Who knows what could happen..."

Honestly, when Caine first said this I did immediately theorize Jax as being an NPC but now that it's been *checks calendar* three months since I watched episode 2, I don't think this is the case anymore. Jax being an NPC would be...something. Jax not knowing he's an NPC would be interesting [i like it when ppl's realities get shattered], but honestly I think this line was a way to telegraph to the audience that no Caine isn't actually all knowing. He didn't know Gummigoo was coming through that portal until he saw him with his own two eyes. My theory is that Caine is only able to teleport, create, censor, transform, and destroy the world around him, but isn't able to see all of it at once unless he tries to. I think Caine's default state is one where he only knows what he sees directly in front of him/what he himself has left waiting for someone else. And rather than implying someone in the gang is an NPC, I think that line in episode 2 was mainly implying Caine can be tricked, that it's possible to hide something from him, to surprise him even. Though I'm not opposed to an NPC we haven't met trying to join under the guise of being human, it'd potentially create some fun tension assuming the audience was given enough reason to care about them.

Jax is actually my favorite character in tadc, but i couldn't fill an entire post with things to say abt him. Caine seems to be- at least as of right now- the easiest of all the characters to try and wrap my head around. I'll probably have a lot more to say about Jax as he exists in canon as the episodes come out [EPISODE 6 MY BELOVED]

but uhhhh yeah, that's all the things i had to say abt Caine. Pls go watch/listen to the fansong Digital Land bye!

[boykingscourt]

Why do so many people in the fandom hate sam? 😭😭

it's difficult to give a single definitive answer. it's sort of like asking yourself "what's the meaning of life?" or something. you can come up with a few solid theories, but in the end we may just never know! however, I will attempt to give you an answer that will satisfy you based on my opinion and those I've seen from other residents of samblr

spn's intended alpha male audience doesn't vibe well with sam's (perceived) exclusive feminine traits: he's "whiny," he inquires how his loved ones are doing or feeling on occasion, he shows kindness and empathy and often questions the morality of the job, he's the salad-eating, book-reading brother. I could go to reddit, which seems to be this part of the audience's preferred internet hangout, and gather more data, but I've seen enough sam hate to last 100 lifetimes at this point

spn's fandom, a large chunk of them you-know-what shippers, give sam the woman getting in the way of the yaoi ship treatment. the spn in their minds is not the one you or I see but one that is solely about The Ship, which exists solely to reinforce The Ship, where The Ship is the reason they began watching spn in the first place (likely having seen The Ship all over tumblr in this case!), so catching glimpses of the real spn, where dean is completely obsessed with sam (romantic, platonic, psychotically-irrationally-erotically codependent <- the exact flavor is up to you and whatever floats your boat) fills them with so much cognitive dissonance that they have no choice but to take that ire out on sam and usually manifests itself in some hate him but also pretend he's not there hybrid

spn's egregious dean bias, which becomes fixed around s8 imo, means the narrative and every potential moral dilemma has to be filtered through dean's perspective first. unfortunately dean's perspective is a terrible one to adopt without further thought, and therefore sam's fighting for a shred of autonomy (for instance) will feel like a personal attack on the audience because it feels like a personal attack to dean. and even before the dean bias became permanent, spn had this habit of beating sam repeatedly with bricks for his "mistakes," while other characters, namely dean, were let off the hook rather easily, and if you're a gullible viewer you can very quickly be led astray. think about how sam's actions and motivations in s4 are still talked about vs. dean's letting sam suffer in the panic room to "die human" if necessary, how in s5 sam gets 100% of the blame for the apocalypse because that is what every person (including sam waaaaahhh) is saying over and over and over again vs. something like dean killing amy, sam in s8 attempting to move on from dean's death in a healthy manner (like they had agreed) vs. dean changing his mind and not liking it

anyway I feel like this is getting away from me a bit, especially because there are like 500 other examples I could use for no. 3, but I hope this helps! if you were more just screaming into the void and didn't want a long answer I apologize but just know it could've been much longer!

[nightlyrequiem]

Omg for the mentally ill girlies out there what would she do with such if we were to not talk about it at all, but it's clear that we're struggling? (If you're okay with this type of request ofc you can deny)

I love this request! As someone who also suffers in silence (But only Irl I think I'm pretty vocal online.) it would be so nice to have someone notice. And that's what fictional characters are for. To project all your feelings and problems onto.

Valeria With a Struggling Partner

Valeria def got some mental illness of her own, no hate but you can’t lead a cartel and have everything be normal inside your brain.

That being said, she’s low on empathy. She can feel it, but it’s sort of distant for her, and she doesn’t feel it for everyone. She can do a lot of what she does because she both doesn’t care, and because of cognitive dissonance. Her first instinct to seeing you struggle would be frustration. She struggles and she’s completely fine. But she also does feel a little bad for you.

We all struggle differently, but I’m going to assume there’s some physical consequences. Maybe you’re not doing great and you’re falling behind on hygiene. Or maybe you’re doing so poorly that one day you just stop getting out of bed. Either way, she won’t let you do that.

She would force you out of bed and into the shower. Maybe even shower with you to help. Ways your hair or body for you. She loves you and as frustrated as she is, she does want to help. Sometimes even the act of standing in the shower is daunting so she’ll let you sit down in the tub while she cleans you. She won’t pry, you get one “what happened, what’s wrong” and it’s up to you to tell her. If you don’t she won’t ask again.

She’d notice if you stopped participating in your hobbies. I feel like she’d try to force you to start doing them again. Ignoring your protests. It doesn’t matter if you’re tired or if it feels like a chore, doing something you like is better than rotting away in bed. She’ll even do them with you if she can.

She might be good at using her words to comfort you. It might not be genuine but the intent is what matters. And at the end of the day, she’ll just lay with you, skin to skin. An easy way of showing support for you in your time of need. She knows it’s not easy to talk about what’s happening inside of your head because sometimes there isn’t any real explanation. She hopes it’s enough for her to just be there for you.

[the-one-who-lambs]

uhh hello!! sorry if this is a tall order LOL but I wanna ask, do you have any narilamb fanfic recs? :D I already read yours and I really like bamsara’s and I’m waiting for epicaandk’s to update (that one is my fav ever <3) but idk what to read now lol

Tall order?? Naaaaah, I'm always happy to give recs. Oh boy, I'm gonna go in reverse chronological order.

If you've read all of my narilamb fics (have you seriously? I'm impressed, that's probably well over half the 150k+ I've written for this damn fandom. Also, to anyone seeing this from a reblog, my stuff is over at onethirdofimpossible!) then here we go!

You already mentioned it, but The Rehabilitation of Death is excellent so far! This one is by @bamsara who is new to the CotL fandom but apparently not new to fanfic writing; they have a really popular FNAF fic and I assume the well-deserved attention this fic's been getting is a byproduct of the popularity they've already gotten in other fandoms. :D Welcome, bamsara! Many of the fic writers in this fandom are friends with each other already, but we don't bite if you wanna say hi.

Feel No Evil and Language Barrier, both by @payasita. I always love how payasita portrays this duo (in both digital art and writing), with so much sass and repressed loneliness, knowing they're stuck together for eternity and making the best of it. (And maybe falling in love, depending on how dense Narinder keeps being.) What makes these come alive for me is how well thought out the setting is outside the Lamb and Narinder. The descriptions and weight of emotions really pop here.

LITERALLY ANYTHING written by pavi / @i-eat-deodorant. Depending on how spicy you want your fics to be he has even more here. Character analysis, diction, pacing, etc. are consistently 10/10. Top-quality banter between a sassy Lamb and tired old man Narinder. We constantly bounce ideas off each other and inspire each other a lot but I promise I'm not hyping him up just because he's my friend oh my god please just go bless your eyes.

It Was For You, O Death by blueberry-muffin-massacre (if they have a tumblr, let me know so I can tag!). An intriguing alternative ending to the final battle wherein the Lamb chooses a secret third option by refusing to give up the Red Crown and still observing Narinder as the God of Death. So many details are so well thought out and duality their relationship is nicely characterized-- both genuine care for each other and also quite unhealthy. A fine line treaded well!

Confessional by jusmove (again, lmk if they have a tumblr). Been a while since I've read it, but I love how the Lamb chips at Narinder's very carefully built emotional walls. Their personalities are very well fleshed out here, especially Narinder's cognitive dissonance at being able to process love.

Confession by @thewitchoftheweed. I didn't expect a part two to this one, but my god I was so thrilled when it did update. Narinder and Lamb with their unique and parallel loneliness and their fucked-up sense of everything. Their relationship is very rocky here, and I love how they navigate it: with tension and eventual, pained acceptance. Mind the rating.

Of Character Development and Being Dense by @calliecature. A short and sweet narilamb classic. They're both mutually pining and one of them is too emotionally repressed to realize it. Guess who.

Not An Offering, But a Gift by @checkplzjuliet. Small confession fic. I especially love how Narinder's descriptions twist the knife of his situation here, and how Lambert is a total foil for him! There are a lot of good things happening in such a short span, which is impressive.

Also, if you think you've read all my narilamb fics... I do have a secret one out there too. Just so you know.

Happy reading!

I'm already friends with many of the people here, but if any of the writers I've tagged have been kinda wanting to reach out for a while but feel a little anxious... Don't be. I've made my best friends in this fandom by literally just waiting for some of my readers to get over whatever assumption they have that I'm cool and say hi. Or being the more confident one first.

[emblemxeno]

I saw that my ask had gotten eaten by this hellsite, so I'll repost it again. Lucky you, I had it saved!

I think the thing that pisses me off the most about FE fans... is how much they often feel like they miss the point of the series.

"According to the developers, the Fire Emblem series' central theme revolves around the inherent humanity of the characters, who have more to them than just being chess pieces. The games also encourage a lot of individual growth and players using whoever they like the most, due to the emphasis on the humanity of the cast and the sanctity of each life. This, it seems, is sadly lost on the portion of the fandom that takes the Nintendo Hard difficulty as a reason to rigidly adhere to using characters within the lens of strategic elements based on immediate gains. Add that to how a lot of the series locks behind character potential through supports and the fandom's reluctance to actually learn more and state their opinions on it without adopting an extremely binary morality view (see below), and the community clearly enjoys the game, if for much different reasons than what the devs intended. Can't get more of a dissonance than to have a theme song loudly blare The Power of Friendship and people not understanding that the characters are humans within their own rights. Matters are not helped by virtue of people wanting to validate themselves within their "correct" opinion of the story, not taking into consideration how others may see differently or the fact that there's only losers in war for all sides, a theme that Fire Emblem Fates and Fire Emblem: Three Houses bash you on the head with." Source: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/MisaimedFandom/FireEmblem

Like, FE has always, always been about love, bonds and the power of emotions triumphing all in a simulation RPG. The bonds of who you use, who lives, who dies, who marries who, that has been the heart and soul of the series by treating the various cast members as their own people with their own lives, will to live, and inherently diverse views on how the world works. There being so many ways to play FE and so many strategies that if you make it work, that just shows you overcoming the game's challenges; you can use Seth or Titania to solo most of their games, but just as much use Amelia or Rolf to do that if you so want to. And the difference is that while there's often restrictions for said characters, you can and often do are able to make it work by playing on those inefficiencies and use whatever strategies you can to overcome the challenges in a simulation RPG. It's inherently about subjectivity, and inherently about love, hope, and kickass swords! The broad strokes and worldbuilding of the series yet sheer richness of the story and sheer randomness for how your runs may turn out leave so much to headcanon and worldbuilding, letting YOU play the way you want to play and nobody else. It makes for a truly amazing storytelling experience that isn't rivaled by any other FE game in the series. It's inherently subjective, straight from interviews, no less:

“I think it’s because of the focus we’ve had in recent games on having you develop affinities for the characters,” Maeda says. “You choose the characters you like out of a large stable, you’ve got a lot of freedom to build them the way you like, and each player has their own characters they’re fond of.” [...] “It looks a bit like you’re moving players around in a chess match at first, but in reality, each one of them are human beings, with flesh and blood,” says Intelligent Systems director Kouhei Maeda. “As the player, you don’t want to lose them. You love them as a real person/character, and you want to make them stronger.” Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/plrmlt/i_found_a_really_interesting_interview_on_the/

NOM: So the purpose was to make it simple but fun, but what does that mean, exactly? Narihiro: When it comes to Simulation, it is actually difficult to think that there are too many visible components. Each component alone is simple, but variation increases based on the combination of these components. By combining a multitude of simple components, it means that each person can play in their own way. For example, individuals who say, “I want to fight using only female units” or, “I only want to use bows!” can play according to their own desires. (laughs) Source: https://kantopia.wordpress.com/2020/04/21/fire-emblem-path-of-radiance-staff-interview-highlights-nintendo-dream-june-2005/

FE is truly unique, special and amazing for the sheer empathy, warmth and humanity it exhibits, and it taught me to value the meaning of human life and all it values. And I'd have no problems if people actually realized how geared FE is to inherent subjectivity regardless. But that's not what happened. The FE fandom is reclusive, reactionary and territorially aggressive to even the slightest bit of self-expression or non-curative fanlore, being so utterly obsessed with being "objectively correct" they invented stuff like 'Personal Experience Means Nothing' despite the inherent subjectivity of the series and bashed anyone for having the "wrong opinion" while taking what's fundamentally a simple yet fun gameplay experience and not only tried to outright compare it to chess, but had the shitting temerity to act like they were qualified to "teach" the centralized way of playing FE at college communities. (https://twitter.com/lucky_lunatrick/status/1790562171207696517). This is a fandom that revels in excluding people while continuously gaslighting anyone who dares protest this abusive relationship (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlIOI057L0g) while shitting on anyone for daring to show emotion to the story as "bad taste" (https://youtu.be/DInHAC3FIL4?si=xIWiekGECP_McfLk, https://youtu.be/p2k24l-c13w?si=BGzqZr6eGx5RO3Xa). All while they are so dedicated to "fighting misinformation" in the fandom, while being blind to their own biases in story and spewing open misinformation or misinterpretation of the story or coming up with ideas of what they're like. They take a game series fundamentally about subjectivity with many right ways and tried to make it as objective as possible with there being only "one" right way of playing the series. They took a series that bashes you on the head of the humanity of all sides yet they only see from their perspective and try to act like their side is automatically right while all others is evil. It's cartoonish how much they miss the point of the series. It's like saying My Little Pony supports Nazi beliefs like /mlpol/ tried to argue, when that's just objectively not true. Given it involves openly hacking the game for 0% growth runs or playing in blatantly rushing elements, it feels sincerely like they're playing for factually the wrong reasons, and I don't use that term genuinely. Worse, they actually think this hyper-fixation on being "objectively correct" means they can exclude others!:

>"Players feel excluded when their gameplay doesn't reflect community standards" This is a non-issue. Not everyone needs to be part of every discussion. I keep bringing this example up in these threads, but if I play Smash Bros casually and there's a competitive tier list thread going on, I don't feel the need to participate. I can read it and it's fun to learn how competitive people play and how they see the game, but at no point do I feel like I need to butt in with my uninformed opinion. The problem is people wanting to be included when they have nothing of value to say. Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/16q6tnu/how_efficiency_has_warped_the_fe_community_and/

Like, to give an idea how fucking unhinged this is; Smash Bros. is a metagame that, doubtlessly as you know, has an extremely in-depth and complicated metagame of ways to play the game and the best ways to win a match-up. Everything is usually fiercely defined by usability and with clear winners and losers. This is okay, because there doesn't need to be anything other than that, because Smash Bros. is at a competitive level on a fundamental level that doesn't need that. The skill ceiling is very high and only the best of the best will win you the day. Which is fine... but FE is a single-player strategy RPG. A game that explicitly has it so that you're strongly encouraged to play the way you want to play and emotionally invest in the characters you love, and ultimately use that gameplay to help them change their fate and earn them a happy ending through the amount of emotional investment you provide them. All while still not applying any kind of media analysis on FE or what its story means.

The fandom absolutely hates having to dig for any story context even when it's there in the game and loudly screeching at the player, because if it's not lore dumps or blatantly spoonfeeding context to the player, it's useless. People hated Fates because it so dissatisfied this completionist/"true gamer" mentality because it was emotionally unsatisfying for them because they refused to dig deeper. While 3H gets praise for them removing that fundamental self-discovery and personalization element of the series and spoonfeeding it by forcing it to the player as unsubtly as possible to tell them what they think. In almost any other fandom this would be seen as ridiculous, but the FE community is so ass-backwards they think this is good writing and gobble it up while shitting on Engage for being "back to basics" (which I didn't like like you did OP, but I respect what people love about it so much).

FE is a fandom that willfully and ignorantly twists the series's sentiments to its own self-justifying perspective while having a superiority complex over a fucking anime JRPG. And gets mad when you point out how pointless it is and only exists to be exclusionary! And I'd be fine with it if it was one sector of the fandom, but this shit is fucking everywhere. It's like if Fallout only had No Mutants Allowed as the only place to go for the fandom when you don't think the Bethesda Fallout games are the devil (well, not me and 3 anyways, that game slapped), while the shitting on people's tastes is so omnipresent it makes me wonder how anyone tolerates them IRL because they're the kinds of people who will die alone because nobody would put up with their above-average midwit brainiac egotist Brian Griffin-lookin' ahh.

Point is, while there are fandoms with a reputation as more toxic (e.g. Steven Universe pre-porn exodus, Danganronpa, Undertale, etc.), I cannot think of a fandom that's as exclusionary or downright missing the point of the series on an objective level (and again, I avoid using absolutes as much as possible!) as the FE fandom. The kicker is that people loved Fates and you consistently have luck with people who adore the story and its characters outside of these mainstream communities, but the hardcore fans are so utterly toxic they shame anyone for daring to express it despite the fact it didn't become the second best selling FE ever out of thin air. I think you cannot get more closer to missing the goddamn point of your own series than if you made a mecha show that's fundamentally anti-war and say "Wow! Cool robot!".

this was the long post, guys.

the post where i was frustrated with this website, was applied to this

[the-kingshound]

The serious ask: I'm confused why up until Arthur became a gender select (something I don't really feel one way or another about as it's a toggle, and the characters don't read as "they were always meant to be this "canon" gender but I must pander to the queer masses" you know?), people called them "lesbian"? I get it's a joke, but it felt like...one rooted in mean-spiritedness?

Like hear me out. I understand the joke is basically "they love & respect women" but the rest of the joke is "and men don't". And yes, this could just be me, I'm the outsider that is stepping into an area I don't belong, yes I get that. But it feels like a double standard? For example, if I had a straight trans dude as a buddy, I wouldn't call him "lesbian" unless we were on a tight enough level to know 1000% it wouldn't cause him to feel shitty. So like why is it okay to call a straight dude lesbian? It keeps up the idea that men can't love/respect women or others without being called names. Like "what are you gay bro?" (fellas is it gay to love your wife?) "why are you being such a girl about it?" etc. And then they are expected to not do gay jokes, but are expected to take them?

Is there a problem with incels? yes. Do Boomers make a lot of "I hate my wife" jokes? yes. But maybe we should also stop making that seem normal by perpetuating that myth??? Stop with double-standards just because "Oh they have the privilege so I don't care about their feelings. They can get over it. They are the problem anyway." Is being called lesbian MEANT as an insult? No. But... Straight dudes have feelings, they have boundaries, they can feel uncomfortable when their gender/sexuality isn't acknowledged/made the butt end of a joke they didn't like too.

I also acknowledge that prior Arthur would be closer to enby than a cis-dude, and is as straight as a rainbow, but it still felt weird to me. Like a queer version of the homophobe's "two men can't love each other". And again it could just be me as the outsider feeling a bit too much (never heard that one before jk), but I do think we as a whole need to get better at talking about gender shit as equals, not as us vs them.

Whether or not you post this is up to you. I don't mean anything by it beyond "hey let's maybe welcome everyone? And not make them jokes?" cause honestly the world would be a better place if we never had gender roles or whatever. But this also may not be the space for it, but the weird-historical-phobia anon made me remember the weird dissonance I felt every time I popped in to see Arthur lauded as Queen of the Lesbians.

I shall show myself the door before people rally their pitchforks. I shall return to the other side and just steal IF updates through the crack again.

Hi! First of all, thank you for sending this in. I think the joke of Arthur being a lesbian was born a while ago, but if I remember correctly it was first born because I shared some reference for Arthur + anons sent this headcanons, and the specific clothing, glasses and soft look in general reminded people of a kind of lesbian aesthetic. From there, the joke expanded to Arthur having general lesbian vibes, but honestly, for my part at least, it was never meant as "Arthur treats women well and as such is a lesbian".

Arthur specifically is written, as you said, to be as straight as a rainbow, esplicitly busexual but also exploring their gender identity. They are cis (I mean, M!Arthur is) but they certainly do not abide by the more traditional masculine expectations in the game's setting (which are in some ways different than ours, still).

I agree with you on the way that some banter can come off as othering to people that are not in the queer community, or that aren't very familiar with it, and I know I have been guilty of it on the blog at times. However, I don't think the lesbian jokes about Arthur fall in this category, because there have never been comments about them being the special man who treats women differently, and because I hope he doesn't come off soley like that as a character (I do think the joke can be easily shifted to Arthur Queen of Gays: what would you think of that? Would you feel that was rooted in the same stereotypes too?)

At the end of the day, though, I am not a native english speaker too and I am relatively new to the queer community, so it's possible I may lose some meanings, and write some things in a way that is easy to misinterpret. In any case, you and everyone else are very welcome to the blog and the story, I hope this doesn't take away from it

[poppitron360]

i love epic too! and i think ur super smart so can you share any cool things that you noticed/learned about it?

So I think my favourite song in Epic in terms of the composition is probably Scylla.

Btw this analysis barely scratches the surface of the composition/production of this song alone. I could talk for hours about this.

Also if I use any words you don’t understand, please please please ask me to elaborate and explain further (please). I tried my best to make it as easy to follow as possible but I grew up around this stuff so I tend to under-explain things and assume everyone knows what I’m talking about.

Most of the time when you’re recording vocals, you record the singer singing the melody two or three times (this is called double-tracking, and it makes the voice sound richer and better) and then you record the harmonies in the same fashion.

But with Scylla, they just recorded the singer singing the melody a bunch of times, and then pitch-shifted some of it to the harmonic note. When using any kind of DAW (Digital Audio Workspace (Sidenote but from what I can tell from the vids, Jay uses GarageBand, which I believe is free for most devices)), manipulating a note- changing the tempo, or in this case, changing the pitch- of a naturally-recorded instrument like a singing voice will make it sound really artificial.

(I love this because it’s clear that Jorge doesn’t have the best equipment and he’s using it to his advantage. Something recorded on a crappy four-track tape recorder in your bedroom can sound so much cooler than something recorded at Real World Studios or Abbey Road with the world’s best recording equipment- but only if you know what you’re doing.)

Also, in the context of Epic, the more synthetic, artificial, and electronic sounds are reserved for the mythical characters- the gods and monsters.

Taking a quick re-listen to Scylla’s song, I’ve noticed she’s harmonising on the 3rd and 5th of the note (now, I don’t have perfect pitch (which is when you can tell what note it is just by ear) so I could be wrong).

This is a very simplified explanation, but basically any key has a scale, and most chords are comprised of the root (the first 1st note in the scale) the 3rd note, and the 5th note. You can add or take away extra notes to make it ✨sparklier✨.

So she’s harmonising on the 3rd and the 5th, and her harmonies are mostly moving in parallel motion (in the same way) with the melody. This gives a clean, sweet, consonant feel. (Consonant= not dissonant. Dissonant= “smushy”)

Most of the melody is conjunct (moving in steps- no big leaps) and also descending, like you’re falling down in steps with her. Then, at the end of each line rising back up again.

Except for “Deep down” which is disjunct (big leap), moving downwards. You are plunging into the depths.

This has a chilling simplicity to it. And the fact that it’s repeated over and over and over again makes it almost sickening. I love it.

What I love about this is the duality of simple, beautiful elements, and dark, haunting elements.

So! You have the combination of:

The main vocal melody being sung by a natural voice- imo showing how Scylla was once a beautiful nymph

The harmonies being sung by a pitch-shifted voice, giving it a strange, creepy, artificial, “mythical” sound to it- as established by the other uses of electronic instruments in Epic to show myth

Consonant harmonising on the notes of the chord, which is something we are trained to hear in music and feels very “right” and “natural”

The parallel motion of the harmonies, which give a simple feeling- you’re not being sent out in loads of directions. You’re falling down with her.

The descending nature of the melody taking you “deep down”, then rising back up.

The continuous repetition of this simple melody line

The fact that it’s sung in a minor (sad) key

Ultimately these two factors create a stark contrast- a juxtaposition- which creates a super cool and bone-chilling effect. The only thing I can relate it to is something akin to a creepy children’s nursery rhyme from a horror movie. It’s unlike any other song in Epic just because of how twisted it feels. This beautiful, creepy song being played as you hear Ody’s men screaming as she slaughters them

(While we’re on the topic of the screams, in music production there is this thing called “panning” which (if you’re listening in stereo and not mono) controls how much to the left or right the sound is coming from. This is why I love to listen to Epic, specifically this song, on headphones, because you can hear the men being gruesomely killed all around you.)

Also “Drown in your sorrow and fears/choke on your blood and your tears/bleed ‘til you’ve run out of years” is just a mood and a half (there’s a whole other post I could write for the literary analytics of the lyrics- how she uses imperative verbs. It’s a command. It’s an instruction.)

And so when Odysseus joins in with Scylla singing “We are the same you and I…” it really hits home just how much of a monster he’s become- how unfeeling he was when he sacrificed his men. This is so subtle but in my opinion it’s what really turns him. Jorge is using all of these contrasting techniques to make Scylla seem horrific and creepy as fuck, and Ody is empathising with her. He is relating to her. I just… *shivers* wow.

[the-fandom-finder]

It think my main problem with some Izzy fans is they straight up lie or have extreme cognitive dissonance for stuff. “Izzy is more popular than ed/stede” no you were just around people who like is he more than them? I promise you the average person fandom or not does not like him more than the main characters. Also, just because he’s popular in the fandom doesn’t mean he’s a better character. You how many fandom I’ve been where they sent her around the white male character more than any other character? So often it’s a dime a dozen. He talks about how crazy Ed is before we even meet the character and when we meet him, he’s just a little suicidal at very least at that point. honestly even if he did survive, it would not make sense for him to be the captain of the ship. It’s canon that he’s not good at running anything and only really good at violence. he’s an interesting character meant to represent toxic masculinity at least in season one and how breakable and fragile it is. Honestly, him and Zuko have a lot in common when it comes to fandoms. These characters are both flawed and I’ve done bad things, but for some reason, some fans wanna make them look perfect like they’ve done nothing wrong and excuse everything that comes with the cost of completely miss characterizing everyone else around them. Man called the British, which are basically the cop because he didn’t get what he wants and view himself as knowing Ed more than himself which is messed up, bro. and the story portrays this as bad like it should be. Also, why are all the tags that were created to criticize Izzy taking over by Izzy fans like you asked for a specific tag and then take it over and then get upset when people use it. I also have seen fans on Twitter called themselves Ofmd hater and then spend all their time talking about the show. It’s OK to move on. It is not the Izzy show and never was. I have to rewash the show to remember Izzy‘s and actually interesting character because his fans have changed him so much that I can’t stand him if I don’t watch the show. There is a reason why people were being rude against the phantom for some stupid reason reasons or only a small group of people they named them and that weird little list they had. Now I don’t think any of the Izzy fan should be attacked or doxxed because that’s just weird and wrong. That doesn’t mean you can’t criticize them and how weird they are about this white man. I think it’s time for some of you who just have so much hatred of everything else in the TV show. Make an OC That’s like 2 inches away from that character and leave you’ll be much happier. Another problem I have is how some people treat David he’s not a perfect man nor perfect writer, but to go out of your way to say you understand the story infinitely more than him is crazy. He is shown multiple times he loves the character. This is just how he wanted to take him in the story not out of malice,, not out of homophobia not of hatred for disabled people, but because that’s how his story was always going to end he just got to die slightly less full of hate and may be a little happy. Izzy and ed had no chance of ending up together. The story basically states that pretty early that it was one-sided and not entirely healthy on either side. Also celebrating the show knocking a third season and people losing their jobs even though you were probably going to see Izzy again in some form is crazy.  I promise you your hate did nothing or brothers was just being a cheap ass and canceled other diverse shows so it definitely wasn’t because of you. Either way, I guess I win in the end. I still love the show and not full of anger at least about this. I got a lot of other problems lol. This post is probably way too long about something that doesn’t really matter too much but it feels good to get it out especially with finals coming around. If you read this entire thing and hate me well thanks for reading. I guess. Hope you have a nice day and I mean that genuinely life‘s kind of sucks right now for everyone lol.

[feraliminal]

A TVman and cameraman flirt over the (still developing) ideas about what robots find rude. And maybe a little exploration of why we find orifices, leaks, and unpredictable emotions cute in robot characters. Kind of suggestive.

—

The TVman looked left and right, then loosened their coat and leaned over to one side slightly. The movement compressed the open space inside them and, along with the motion of their fans, dislodged a small cloud of battlefield dust. They hummed with relief, that felt much better.

Somewhere behind them was a tiny whirr. They turned, to see a small black-suited cameraman, watching them with a big, dilated lens. The cameraman looked down shyly, and made another fluttery sound.

“Are you giggling at my vents?” the TVman asked.

The cameraman said vents in sign language, then squealed their servos with the speed and excitedness with which they turned away. There wasn’t anywhere nearby for them to run off behind, so they had to turn back, trembling and fumbling with their hand signs. ‘No. Yes. No, a bit.’

“Don’t you go anywhere. Look me in the screen.” The TVman allowed that to sound menacing, but the ;) emoji they made said otherwise. “Is a little dusty vent rude to you cams or something? I don’t think we’ve decided if it is.”

Curiously, the cameraman angled their lens up. ‘I don’t know. I think…’ They paused, hands still for a moment. ‘…something that comes out of someone by surprise is funny. It’s embarrassing.’ The TVman knew, through downloaded information, that the sign for embarrassing looked a bit like hiding behind your hand, but hadn’t had the experience of seeing it in person. It was endearing, and it was disappointing when the cameraman changed to transmission, probably assuming that it would communicate subtleties that a TVman wouldn’t be able to pick up from sign language. “Funnier if it’s kind of… dirty,” they concluded.

“What, like oil? Dust and air isn’t dirty.”

The cameraman nodded. “Oil, definitely. Like, if we get opened up for a clean, or get something fixed and… oops, some oil comes out!” They made their fluttery whirr again - the TVman was starting to find it quite appealing. “I’m sure you guys are too well-made to leak oil.” Their transmission became a little wavery, and they looked down. “Unless you needed lots of work done.”

The TVman shrugged. “Everyone leaks.”

Cameramen weren’t the most subtle about their body language. Even though this one was keeping their upper body still, the movement of their knees showed that they were squirming. “What about something that’s not as mucky as oil? What about coolant?” they asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“I saw your titan once. After fighting. They looked hot, I mean overheated hot, and they had a little...” With a shaky hand, the cameramen touched their chest, around where a core would be on a titan. “A little… you know, a leak. Is that rude?”

Considerably better at concealing their mood, the TVman tilted their head. “What do you think?”

“They didn’t look surprised. Or embarrassed,” the cameraman transmitted. “The titan looked... they didn’t care about it. They were looking for something else to fight. They were leaking, and dusty, and furious, and they didn’t care that we could see.” They hadn’t moved their hand back down, they were pressing their chest slightly. The TVman wondered if that was just an expression of intense emotion, or if that was where cameramen had their charging ports. “Maybe it’s about intimacy - seeing something that should be inside felt intimate. I’ve thought about what’s inside you guys ever since.”

That was a big and complex thought to come out of a little and cute cam. The TVman thought about how they’d furtively expelled their dust, and shook out their coat to cover it, and the cognitive dissonance of neat and tidy TVs getting grubby. They couldn’t label the feelings, but it did feel interesting and exciting that it meant the cameraman had had an emotional reaction to their intimacies as well. “My titan’s been fighting again today. Should we go and see if they got hot?”

[mapofyourstars]

Recently, one of my gifsets involving Erik reached various sides of tumblr, and rightfully so because of how what he said relates to what's happening in the world right now (looking at you, America). I'd like to share with you some tags on the post because I truly have seen them all, and I'd also like to have a little bit of a discussion behind supporting a character while acknowledging the nuance behind his character. If you wanna talk about any of this with me, my asks are always, always open.

I'm going to start with the supportive tags that's made me laugh.

Now, onto the supportive tags that were a bit more sobering but good to see, nonetheless.

Next type of comment/tag I'd like to discuss are ones like this:

I feel like anyone who recognized the movie in the gifset and also recognized Magneto know that he was/is a Holocaust survivor - it's the biggest part of his characterization, and the films especially do not let you forget that. So comments like these just seem to be missing the mark - the gifset/scene doesn't make any sense unless you know his story, so clearly the 15k people interacting with the post have not forgotten. In fact, I'd say it's a common fact that makes the post even more painful, hence people's guttural reactions to it. And I've seen some comments like these:

I can assure you: There are many, many, many people that state "Magneto was right". And again, 15k people at least interacted with the post to show that, yes, they too believe Magneto is right. Just an odd thing to say.

But primarily, the whole point of me rambling here is draw attention to a smaller group of people who have commented/tagged their opinions. I'll share them below, and then, I'll talk a bit. Some of this conversation might be triggering, as it talks about Erik's character flaws and brings up zionism; so if this isn't your flavor of discussion, I'd part from this post.

These statements are permitted to be correct. In fact, you'll probably find many, many people who believe these statements to be true. I can firmly say that I hated when Erik abandoned Mystique, and the discussion of creating a mutant state sometimes can go the wrong way and sound exactly like what Israel did.

However.

When comments like the above are stated, it feels as if people are not seeing the forest among the trees - there is a bigger picture here. Erik is a character. He has a rich backstory and a very complicated characterization that stretches years back, post WWII. This character has flaws and has undoubtedly done many things that many people will never agree with. That does not - and should not - undermine the importance of his words. You are permitted to like a character, hate what they do from time to time, and also agree wholeheartedly with various things they say. The quote in this gifset is more powerful than Erik's characterization and much more powerful than anything he's ever done. Erik was just the mouthpiece for that quote - there have iterations after iterations of other characters or other people saying quotes exactly like that. Just because his actions may be morally incorrect, that does not make his words less valuable.

There needs to nuance when digesting media and art, and you can both hate the character but also agree with what he says. Especially when the words transcend the character. This is how we think about media from a critical standpoint and resolve some dissonance that we may face from supporting a character who may be all the things listed above while still stating that he is right - right because of the words he stated at a time in a film that exists as an allegory for every political, social, economic, etc. struggle.

I'll let the last round of comments/tags speak for me because these people understand what I discussed above.

You are permitted to say "Magneto is right" and understand the value in that phrase as it relates to past, present, or future issues while simultaneously not agreeing with everything he did. That doesn't undermine the fact that his words are accurate, relatable, transcending, etc.

Lastly, I'll leave you with these comments/tags as thought-provoking bits:

If you've made it this far and you've read everything, I love you. If you want to continue this discussion and talk about Erik or media consumption or nuance or any of the other things I mentioned - or you just wanna yap about anything really without getting too heated - I'd love to talk. The gifset all this came from has really opened my eyes to fandom discourse and media consumption, and it turns out I have a lot to say. And also, feel free to tell me that I'm wrong, that my discussion regarding the different types of comments/tags is shit. As long as you're willing to have an open and understanding conversation, I'll gladly talk about it.

[nutzgunray-lvt]

Alexei "Smirnoff" NSFW Alphabet

Now, here's Alexei's! @charmin-lil-russian has turned me on to how great of a character Alexei is, and tbh, a lot of what I write about him has me shocked at how debauched it can be.

As always, I can't take credit for all of these headcanons.

A = Aftercare (what they’re like after sex)

He gets really cuddly with you, and will stay inside of you as long as possible until he needs to pull out and get you both cleaned up. He’ll gently scratch up and down your back, and he especially loves it when you run your fingers through his hair and tell him how great of a job he did.

B = Body part (their favorite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

Honestly, I think his cheekbones and his hair. He loves how curls really make him look younger, but his cheekbones give him a striking profile, making a really nice dissonance that works really well in his opinion.

While he loves absolutely everything about you, he’s a boob guy. If you wear anything low-cut, he’ll forget your eyes are up there. You’re making out? He’s squeezing your breasts and playing with your nipples? He’s feeling particularly submissive? He’s sucking on your nipples. If your boobs allow for it, he’s fucking your cleavage.

C = Cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

Really likes to cum inside of you, but absolutely loves cumming on your boobs. Every time he does it, he’s seeing stars and will get aroused all over again.

D = Dirty secret (pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

Really really wants you both to do sexual things in public. When you both started dating, it lowkey made him incredibly ashamed how he got off on the idea of you messing with cock under the dinner table, you sucking him off in the car or at the movie theater, or you and him quite literally fucking in the bushes. Once he found out you matched his freak and didn’t think he was a disgusting weirdo for it, he’s had some of his biggest orgasms this way. Overall, though, all of his kinks were his dirty secret before he either shyly asked to try them out or you figured them out.

E = Experience (how experienced are they? do they know what they’re doing?)

Given the long hours and secretive nature of his job and how hard he had to grind to get his degree, he’s not terribly experienced. That isn’t to say he’s an awkward walking disaster when it comes to dating or sex. He’s all about communication, so him asking you if certain things are okay, how gentle he needs to be honestly makes him an incredibly attentive lover.

F = Favorite position (this goes without saying)

Cowgirl. He loves seeing you in control, and he gets a really nice view of your boobs bouncing as you ride him. When things get really intense, he loves pulling you down to hug you close to him.

Spooning. He really loves the intimacy of it, especially when you both make out as he slowly thrusts in and out of you.

G = Goofy (are they more serious in the moment? are they humorous? etc.)

As a sub, he really loves it when you tease him over how needy he’s being, what a pretty little boy he is, or when you make him beg to be able to cum or be inside of you. It riles him up in a way that has him shaking.

As a dom, he loves turning the tables onto you, playing innocent with your reactions. He pulls up your dress or skirt to play with your ass? “Oh, that must have been the wind.” He pulls down the front of your dress to play with your boobs? “I think you need to get a new dress, darling. It just fell out of nowhere!” He’s on top of you and just barely thrusting in and out of you? “I don’t think you’re begging hard enough for me. Why don’t you say please?”

H = Hair (how well groomed are they? does the carpet match the drapes? etc.)

Honestly, he doesn’t have too much hair down there, so he doesn’t see the need to shave or trim it.

I = Intimacy (how are they during the moment? the romantic aspect)

He’s such a sweetheart throughout. Nothing gets him going more than burying his face in your neck or your hair, feeling you up all over, and whispering how much he loves you as you two go at it. He also really loves to just hold your face and touch his forehead to yours as he goes slowly and sensually.

J = Jack off (masturbation headcanon)

My boy was going at least 2-3 times a week before meeting you. The stress of his job and studies had him incredibly sexually frustrated, and even after he met you, he still did it at least 1-2 times a week before he finally told you about all the things he fantasized about doing in the bedroom. Now, he’ll only do it if you’re too tired or sick to have sex, and even then, you’ll usually finish him off via a handjob.

K = Kink (one or more of their kinks)

He may be in denial about it initially, but Alexei is a bit of a freak.

Exhibitionism. He’s more into it when he’s domming, but he absolutely loves doing things in public with you - anything from feeling you up to outright sex. He practically turns into a horny teenager, and he has the cheekiest smile the whole time.

Mommy kink. The idea of calling you Mommy or Mama has him weak in the knees. Having you take the reins for him has him feeling warm and safe, a marked contrast from the stress of his top-secret work and eventual defection.

Panty kink. Wearing your panties has him feeling especially submissive, particularly when you coo to him about how pretty he is in them. If you have him wear a pair on a date, he’ll be all over you like velcro. Give him his own stash, and he’s leaking in his pants (he’s partial to lace or anything red).

Lactation/Breast Play. One of his absolute favorite things to do is bury his face in your breasts and suckle on your nipples while you play with his cock, occasionally surfacing to pull you in for a kiss. It turns his brain into absolute mush and has him cumming so hard it takes his breath away.

L = Location (favorite places to do the do)

Honestly, anywhere and everywhere when he’s horny enough. While subby, he wants to keep the actual sex at home, but he’s not picky about where in the house you do it: the couch, the Lazyboy, the bedroom, the dinner table.

As a dom, pretty much anywhere you both won’t get caught: the backyard, a hidden clearing, the side of the road. He’s also partial to the bed, but only if he’s on top.

M = Motivation (what turns them on, gets them going)

Seeing you in anything that shows off your chest, especially if you tease him and say, “No no, baby. Mama’s eyes are up here.” Along those lines, calling yourself Mama and assuring him that you’ll take care of everything has him being putty in your hands.

As a dom, he loves it when you instigate things in public, letting the tension build up and up until he can’t keep his hands off of you. He loves seeing the surprise on your face when he takes control and your begging is music to his ears.

N = No (something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

He’s really not into any ass play. It’s overstimulating to the point of being painful (not in the enjoyable way) to him.

When he’s in a domming mood, anything that will outright hurt you or leave a mark. He’ll be beside himself if he actually hurts you for real.

Across the board, non-monogamy. The idea of a third person in the bedroom sends him into a jealous, panicking mess.

O = Oral (preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

If he could live with his head in between your legs, he would do so happily. He takes his sweet time with you, kissing down your stomach, softly biting up and down your inner thighs, blowing on your pussy before going for it.

With receiving it, he also loves it being done slowly, with a lot of licking and kissing. A niche kink of his is wearing lace panties and having you mouth all over his cock without actually pulling them down and sucking it off. He loves how the lace rubs against his hypersensitive skin.

P = Pace (are they fast and rough? slow and sensual? etc.)

Slow and sensual all the way. He’s always conscious about accidentally hurting you, and call him a hopeless romantic, but he wants to savor sex with you for as long as he can.

Q = Quickie (their opinions on quickies, how often, etc.)

Not a fan of them. If you both are insatiably horny before work or before you have a place to be, expect to call in sick or have “something urgent” come up so you can spend the next hour or so in the bedroom.

R = Risk (are they game to experiment? do they take risks? etc.)

Yes and no. Even with you helping him to embrace his kinkier side, he prefers to stick with what he likes best. He still feels a little ashamed for getting off to pretty niche things, so he usually remains opposed to trying new things, because it just adds to the whole “I’m such a weirdo” feeling.

S = Stamina (how many rounds can they go for? how long do they last?)

Two rounds max for an hour each. If he’s particularly riled up, only twenty to thirty minutes at most.

T = Toys (do they own toys? do they use them? on a partner or themselves?)

Tying in with his mixed feelings about his sexuality, he doesn’t really do toys. At the absolute most, he’ll do some rope and a blindfold, maybe handcuffs, but nothing more risque than that.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

Teasing is his bread and butter, both as a sub and a dom and both physically and verbally. If he’s not touching all over you, he’s whispering to you about all of the things you’ll do once you’re alone. He also particularly loves it when you turn the teasing onto him: showing off your cleavage, flashing him with a nipple, and if he’s wearing panties, gripping his bulge and whispering how he must feel in them.

V = Volume (how loud they are, what sounds they make, etc.)

Pretty loud. He’ll whimper, moan, and the closer he is to finishing, the more dirty talk he does. Mostly, it’s begging you to please let him cum, he’s being so good, Mama please! As a dom, it’s all praises and letting you know that you’re doing so good that he’s going to cum all over you and show everyone that you’re his.

W = Wild card (a random headcanon for the character)

Though he’s mainly a sub, he’s actually a switch! Sometimes, a sort of alter ego that you call Frisky Alexei will take over, and for once, it’s him taking the reins, and he does a pretty damn good job at it too. He definitely is a very gentle dom, all about soft reprimands and gentle redirections. “Baby, you’re over my knee because you need a reminder of how to be a good girl. You’re doing so well, just a few more spankings, okay?”

X = X-ray (let’s see what’s going on under those clothes)

7 inches, circumcised. No matter how many times you both have had penetrative sex, he enters you slowly, asking you if he’s hurting you? Does he need to stop?

Y = Yearning (how high is their sex drive?)

High, high, high. You both at minimum are going at it every other day. After meeting you and having you be so accepting of his desires, his hand and his mind simply won’t cut it anymore. You’re so beautiful and amazing that it has him ready to pounce on you the minute both of you are home from work.

Z = Zzz (how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

He gets pretty sleepy soon afterwards, but he waits until you both have cuddled and had some pillow talk before actually going to sleep. The anxious part of him is secretly terrified that once he wakes up, all of this will have been a dream, and he’ll be all alone again.

[runawaymun]

i'm very obsessed with your depiction of Song in and the stars shine the same. you write it with such a different feel for each character, if that makes sense? especially since it's always been to me such a difficult concept to portray well in fic. i've been wondering, what do you think everyone's Singing is like, if you've thought about it? whether just as like the general feel to it to a bystander/listener, or just purely sound qualities, like i seem to remember glorfindel's baritone singing voice as a thing a lot of people would write.

i'm very sorry if this was asked/discussed before however i am...well not *new* but it's been years since i was active around lotr/silm tumblr. i am rapidly getting pulled back in to fan spaces it would seem. anyways. <3

Ahhhh oh wow! What a cool ask this is! Thank you so much. Playing with Song and Music and Themes in my fics is one of my favorite things to do. Songs of Power are just soooo damn cool I can't help myself. I'm sorry it's taken me so long to respond to this, I've just been trying to compile my thoughts! Buckle up cause this is gonna get kind of long.

Elrond is easiest for me to nail down for obvious reasons. I've dug into his Music the most out of everyone, but it feels different to different people. For a lot of elves it can be very overwhelming because there is just SO much going on in his Theme. A lot of syncopation and dissonance (in the best possible way. Just super fun note combinations). Usually his Music is quite steady and calming. Generally I think of his actual singing voice to sound like Colin O'Malley does in Thomas Bergensen's Sonera. Strong and open-sounding and just....the slight rasp but like it's still so gorgeous and hngggggg. Though, with Rings of Power (or just a younger) Elrond specifically I imagine more like Reeve Carney's voice -- especially as Orpheus in Hadestown. Again you get that bright, open sort of voice but there's a sweetness and a vibrato to Reeve's voice that I just adore for a young Elrond!

Gil-Galad is another character whose music I have thought about a whole bunch (mostly in contrast to Elrond's, due to To Partake), and he has a very even quarter-time beat and just. Idk he sounds and feels so orderly and steady and kind of brassy to me. I don't have headcannons on his singing voice, though.

Celebrimbor also has an even quarter-time beat but his music is more relaxed and there's room in it for play. Like it has a swing beat every once in a while, and in general he just has this very big, open, echoing feeling. Like he is just huge idk. Music that just thunders around your ears in the best possible way. I also don't have a headcannoned sound for his singing voice yet but in general I think it would be pretty low.

Maglor is different for me depending on pre or post Oath, in terms of his actual Theme. Pre Oath there is a lot of interest and complexity, and post Oath that sort of gets drowned out by the overlaying Theme of the Oath (which feels horribly loud, with this plodding sort of beat that gets faster and faster the more Oath-madness is upon the Feanorians). His singing voice is like Joey Batey from The Amazing Devil. The way that Joey is capable of singing with this gorgeous, soulful, sweet voice and then he can turn on a dime to sound like he's about to tear someone to shreds and you're pretty sure that nobody should be able to sing THAT fucking loud without breaking their vocal chords? The RANGE? The way his voice just sends shivers up your spine? Yeah. Maglor.

Galadriel I don't have much on because she is kind of an enigma to me. But I think there would definitely be an aspect of her Theme that would put you on edge. As far as her singing voice go, I actually wrote Convergence I while listening to "Sonera" and yeah the male voice in Sonera I headcannon as Elrond, and the female voice I headcannon as Galadriel for that specific scene. In general though, I tend to hear her voice as sounding like Kate St. Pierre in Hurt by Thomas Bergensen.

Celebrian has a lot of strings and flutes in her theme to me. It's orderly but more like a 3/4 time signature. The kind of thing you want to dance to or listen to while you're taking a long walk. Mostly high notes. Her singing voice sounds like the the female part in Sun and Moon (which I would like to find out who that is but unfortunately I can not seem to find her credited anywhere). Like it's pretty but there's this sort of untamed edge to her voice, just a bit. (Also I am a big fat nerd about Sun and Moon because a) Cel and Elrond are sun and moon coded to me and b) the male voice which is actually the song's composer sounds CLOSE enough to my headcannoned Elrond singing voice that I can sit back and imagine they're singing a duet haha)

Arwen is like a mix between her parents. She's got that 3/4 beat like Cel but there IS a bit of syncopation from Elrond in there, but similar sort of harps/strings vibes. Purple, to me. I do not know how to explain what purple even means or sounds like in this context asdlkgh. But her voice sounds like Eurielle - very much thinking about Luthien's Lament, specifically.

I unfortunately do not have a lot of headcannons for Elladan and Elrohir yet but we'll get there quite shortly with boundless sky.

Luthien has the sort of voice that will just fucking blow your socks off. I know she sang Morgoth to sleep blah blah but girl has power in that voice and the world's most ridiculous range. I am thinking specifically of ghost love score. And yes, her Theme sounds like orchestral metal. Sauron fucking hates it.

Morgoth is jazz. That is all I have to say on that.

That's all of the people I have nailed down as to what they sound like! Thank you SO much for this ask. It was so much fun to respond to!

[meirimerens]

Hiya again, hope you don’t mind if I offered my two cents to points you raised in response to my last ask (wasn’t confident the comment section would fit everything)? So fun to find someone who shares my enthusiasm, though I apologize for the length in advance!

May God rest your grandpa’s soul. Can you believe I have twin uncles with similar noses: the elder a civil engineer & the younger an architect? Though they wouldn’t be any happier to know of the comparison. We develop a special relationship with PathoNPCs who remind us of our IRL loved ones, don’t we, which is the power of this game grounding itself in the wake of its own absurdity <3

It’s as you said; I grew up around Irani girls & most get rhinoplasty as soon as they move back, then chalk it up to respiratory issues—the Turks as well 💔 a common sight in Turkish/Iranian cinema for female characters to walk around with post-op bandages. Sadly, I suspect—at the risk of sounding reductive—it’s a symptom of cognitive dissonance within a society that popularly insists upon whiteness to distinguish itself from its ‘brown’ neighbors, so that even the many women who don’t participate in that campaign still feel the pressure to surrender their angel wings :(

Capella’s 3D model has a big nose in Classic! It takes up quite a portion of her features. Her design in 2, like the Stamatins, doesn’t do it justice—but it’s why I favor her Classic visage over her P2 doll face & think of her as a girl most boys find ‘plain’ despite her prissy, precious femininity. Sad but cute, like her. Of course Khan gets it though🤞solidarity

Oooh, I thought Farkhad was named فرخاد rather than فرهاد—that the “h” in the English dub were simply Anglophone VAs’ inability to pronounce “kh” (without turning it into a hard k, like some do to Khan, poor boy). But I do believe you’re right, فرهاد is more common as a given name. I adore the magnificence of Middle Eastern architects’ works, particularly in religious edifices, and observe such influences on the Classic Stillwater & Cathedral (Eva’s beloveds)! RIP to both in 2, IPL no longer understands. But the Armenian rugs in 3’s Stillwater…hope springs eternal. Actually, Eva’s bellydancer-esque outfit gives me the impression of a yt girl who’d be in love with Orientalist art/archetypes & Farkhad has to hold her hand like “my dear… Listen.” I like to imagine Eva overplucked the Stamatins’ brows on a whim to ‘prettify’ them so they spend 12 days waiting for their angelic wings’ return. Otherwise, seeing them/Dankovsky represented with my features (a simple Arab girl who wants to see herself in these hwite men?) is fun, so IPL should canonize his Classic portrait moles.

How could anyone complain about your herbridery, I’ve been yearning for more Ayan & Vera. Your art of the Brides weeping over a hole in Mother Boddho struck me, since I initially took it for their grief for Isidor, which inspired reflection on his potentially all-blanketing (?) fatherhood to them&whether that relationship is inherited by every Menkhu, and… their very presence can be so revealing of the male characters, by the way. Smoothest segue into the fact that Vera used to play in the Polyhedron—what did Khan know about her we don’t?

Nina is AN AQUILINE NOSE WOMAN many Turkish actresses to take as her face claim. This one doesn’t have an aquiline nose but I’ve chosen Turkan Soray for Nina. As for Khan. I showed an IRL your art of him captioned ‘your dogs and my hounds’ (my first glimpse of Khan) and she said, “This guy looks like Zayn Malik??” I’m blown away. Not my face claim, only letting you know that your art has the intended effect of evoking the Other in a white boy ☺️

Finally, Maria’s chin mole is so perfect for a femme fatale, which creates visual intrigue when I spot it on a male character. Didn’t notice Khan had a chin mole! How sweet 😣💕

smiles hiiii welcome back ^_^

and omg... the twin uncles...... this happened to my buddy khan as well except his twin uncles had a seven billion years age difference [mom was weirder than his] [it can happen #womepower]... life so beautiful when you think about it. blessings upon you twin uncles may their practice and craft be honed and delicious. my grandpa was a profoundly pragmatic man who liked to center the Human in architectural design so he would have beat the Utopians over the head with a cane i'll tell you that much.

and it is so sad..... people Way More Competent To Speak About This Than Me have spoken and written at length about intra-community/intra-ethnicgroup like "pursuit of white[r]ness" to distinguish oneself from neighbors (one of the bigger examples that come to mind is india and it's valuing of paleness in women which cross-references itself with socio-economics and through the caste system but i'm nowhere near well read enough on this to keep talkin) it's not like its a new thing but with more accessible media (social and otherwise) + availability of cosmetic surgery the lengths one can go to are greater. weep and crawling and despairing and all. what did your own bones and cartilages ever do to you.

Capella Paragraph : SHE DOES it's quite prominent. upturned (very scary) when i draw her i like to base myself on her human portrait.... her little nostrils... her waves.... should've let her have those the fuck. indeed i find her portrait quite doll-like but in a strange and unusual and somewhat unnerving way. reminds me of some portraits in road dahl's books i was reading as a kid there's this one artist who did so many of the illustrations for those that's what she reminds me of. i think her thick eyelids also work in that favor. idk who that model is but a GREAT capella she makes. chapped lips havers stick together also.

Farkhad Paragraph : i'd make sense to me (+need to find The Thesis) as An Architect that he'd have been named after the Far(k)had of Khosrow and Shirin poem, architect maker of "three monumental works" [the cathedral, the stillwater, and.......] whose name as far as i can find is spelled far(k)had فرهاد in the russian text his name is spelled Фархад with that "х" and that х is like. international phonetic alphabet [x] (velar fricative) while ها is IPA [h] (glottal fricative)... russian afaik does not have glottal fricative [h] the closest thing is velar fricative [x] so in the case of farkhad's name i think you are perfectly justified thinking it'd be خا instead of ها and indeed خا is IPA [x] in the same way russian "х" is but i think (or like to think. smiles) they named him after Literary Architect Who Killed Himself In The End [they wishhhh] فرهاد and in russian used the consonants they had. ("so no head?" voice) so no glottal fricative?

Farkhad Paragraph Continuation : first of all #rugsforever i'm so sad P2 stripped all of the town of them. like even notwithstanding the kazakh/tadjik/turkmen/armenian/persian influences of The Rug it's such a russian thing too and they live there like rug to the walls come on now... bring back the rugs 2025 i'm not fucking around anymore. re:Eva I'M ALWAYS SAYING THISSSS okay i'm gonna try to make it short but in p2 her thing is The Herb Brides right she's trying to get into the closed practice of herb bridery because she's desperately looking for MEANING and it's obvious to her the brides have MEANING. there's a sense of appropriation (fueled by a great emptiness and distress, she's a very compelling character i'm not saying 🫵 CULTURALLY APPROPRIATING WHITE GIRL 🫵 just to say it, the game is explicit about it, and Burakh tries to convince her to drop that act (for it is an act) i'm saying Yes She Is and it is very interesting and revealing of her character to understand why she does it [emptiness, meaninglessness, despair, etc]) which matters to her character BUT☝ i'd argue her p1 orientalist/orientalisant outfit fits just as much. Orientalism as an art movement in europe is intertwined with Romantism: the Passions and Turmoils and Emotions of romantism were transposed into an ~oriental~ setting to ~heighten~ such feelings and whatnot. and eva is a deeply Romantic character [as in, the art movement]. i seeee her i seeeee how her orientalisant outfit is just one more way she's trying to put meaning into her life through projecting herself into fantasies, into make-believe worlds tainted of Otherness and Othering. trying to "live in a painting" - literally. funny enough, since she "lives in a game"... which is a painting you can move in, in a way, and that speaks. it's kinda almost funny of IPL's part like Oh we not fuckin wit orientalism anymore we feeling like it's too shaky grounds maybe? but we're gonna double down on the Not That Well Handled make-believe centraleast asian ethnic group? wordddd okay

Dankovsky Paragraph: it is real and IPL should canonize back his portrait's eyebrows that converge towards each other in the middle like feathers they already canonized the scar of his portrait. come on doesn't the gentleman make a great bachelor. you've taken his nose too!

The Herb Brides Paragraph : even if the people complained I Wouldn't Stop... herb brides get behind me etc etc old record by now. i neeeed to get back to my willow mellow (/vera) & ayan grind but for now ☝ i'm makin lore rn i'm makin lore. and 🤫 i didn't say who/what what they were weeping over for a reason...🤫 trust and believe it is all true. what is? yes. vera is so fascinating to me as like... technically a changeling in her own right, yeah... the bride not bride... in my lore she'd still be a "maiden" at her age... trust and believe (believe what? yes)

The Nina Paragraph: we are literally talkinggggg i had one picture (iirc model is Lebanese i forgor her name) in mind i'm vaguely using as faceclaim and just tweaking stuff so i'm kinda #set. giving her darker eyes and stronger nose and bushier brows though it has to be done. funny to me to imagine her black-eyed when her children have these evil blue eyes. this is significant it means they're messed up (you've seen the blue-eyed brunettes of ToG? except lara maybe they're all sickos. there is a moral story to blue eyes in this. i jest.) Turkan Soray gorgeous woman i love how her makeup seems to accentuate her dark eyes now we're cooking with some new and improved flame.

The Khan Paragraph: I GIGGLEDDDD I DID... okay now we fw it... rip kaspar khan victorovich kain i think if one of the doghead girls had known of one direction you would have not heard the end of it [i do not know what malik does these days and i didn't know what he was doing in OD either but i know Of it]

The Kain Children Moles Paragraph: WE LOVE A GOOD CHIN MOLE for a woman especially... also i knew i was not tweaking HER P1 PORTRAIT HAS A NOSE MOLE IT AL COMES TOGETHER ‼️ she has it i've given it to her because of her portrait and it fits with her brother and their mama [in my mind's eye]... and khan does have chin moles two ✌️ of them. some on his forehead too. map incoming eventually. for nina kaina so loved her gay son when he came out of the womb she took a thin paintbrush to his face and dotted black ink on his face. to annoy me looking for them specifically. nina kaina if you were not a black-eyed bushy-browed brunettes i would not have forgiven you. but you are so it's all okay.

^ long my bad sorry.

the people love to discuss and to converse... thank you for your stay on the My Blog podcast... but it's just me

[emblemxeno]

Finished Aria of Sorrow!

-Got 100% map completion, and did a quick boss kill run through Julius mode!

-The story was better than I remembered, though to be fair, what I remembered was very little lol. I think what helps is that I was going back to Mina fairly often for the purpose of getting hints and having easy heals, but she also continually adds more haste to your goal given that she comments on feeling physically ill the longer she stays in the castle. It makes things more personal, especially when getting Soma's internal dialogue.

Soma himself, maaaaan, he's just a lil guy! He never asked to be Dracula reincarnated! He just wanted to wear his anime coat and bell bottom jeans in peace!

Being serious though, I really love Soma as a protagonist. I know some were probably annoyed by how confused and questioning he was when he had conversations, but I remember being 18 and man if only I had the confidence to actually ask what the fuck is going on.

Moreover, his design is just really good, he feels good to play (more than Juste, who I already thought was comfy to use), and he's so cool while also being a huge dork, and I find it really endearing and cute.

Side characters were pretty fun, if underutilized. Mina went up in the rankings, I really liked her as an emotional crutch and the primary force behind Soma finding an escape from the castle. Looking through the script, I found that I actually missed dialogue with her, specifically the one about Arikado being a family friend, the mystery of his identity (I know who he is lol), and his occupation, I wish I had gotten that earlier!

Soma's other allies were nice, I like how active Yoko and Julius are, since they also pretty clearly explore the castle as well, like Maria in Symphony and Maxim in Dissonance. Hammer was pretty cool, but ultimately kind of just became the Merchant Guy, and I was shocked every time he had new dialogue cuz it seemed so infrequent.

I was kind of disappointed with Arikado, because he only shows up again to help Yoko when she gets stabbed, and at times it feels like his presence was a victim of time constraints. Though maybe it's just because he was the main exposition guy at the start and for endings, so I guess I can't be too upset. I just wanted to see his beautiful face more though!

But nothing was more unimpressive than Graham, like this guy was so nothing. Maybe that was the point, because it's ultimately the castle itself and the chaotic power that's the main antagonistic force, however, I still can't help but feel let down by him as a villain. I don't really know his motivation for wanting Dracula's powers at all, besides maybe fanaticism? Idk, at least his boss fight was cool.

-Y'KNOW WHAT WAS A COOLER BOSS FIGHT THOUGH??? MY HUSBAND JULIUS BELMONT, HE IS THE BEST FUCKING BOSS IN THE GAME, BAR NONE! HE PUTS YOU TO THE LIMIT IN THE BEST WAY POSSIBLE, AND IT FEELS JUST LIKE A DRACULA V. BELMONT BATTLE AND IT'S SO FUCKING PEAK!!!

-Again, the game is the perfect balance of spectacle and simplicity. I'm astonished by the areas in the game, through the visuals, sounds, secrets, sprites... Everything in the game was a massive culmination of what came before it, and playing through it is just masterfully crafted.

-Normally, I'd be a bit miffed that the "Normal Best" ending is predicated on two drops that are random, but again, compared the CotM, the drops happen more often, and I learned that both the Succubus and Flame Demon drops are among the higher rate ones, so they're easier to get than like, 95% of the other ones, which I still had a good amount of by the end of the game.

Similarly, the game has hint books that almost explicitly tell you what souls you need to access the better ending, something that Harmony of Dissonance didn't do. Again, Aria improves on the shortcomings of its predecessors, while keeping and improving what works.

-The souls are just extremely fun to use. While I pretty much stuck with the Dracula-esque set by the end, I got use out of most of the ones I found. Mantle was funny, the vacuum was even funnier, the black cat soul was surprisingly pretty useful for grounded enemies, the Balore punch was fun, and the big minotaur Fuck You Axe Swing was satisfying, if really expensive MP wise.

For non offense souls, some are clearly mandatory (undine and skula, as an example), but even then, they feel good to use. I got lucky and got a Tsuchinoko soul to get discounts at the shop, Flying Armor was very useful before I got the mobility upgrades, iron golem was helpful when I was backtracking for 100%, and Headhunter added a nice bump to my stats before I faced against bosses.

Still though, it's more than just the best ending that's beneficial to having the three necessary souls equipped. Succubus helped me stay alive longer when dealing with normal enemies, Flame Demon was strong and cost effective, and the Bat Form ughhhhh I love the freedom that Bat Form gives you in traveling, plus Soma's Bat Form is so cute!!!

Shoutout to the Panther soul too though! Combined with Iron Golem, it made 100% completion near the end a breeze, plus it's just a neat speed boost that's good in the Julius fight.

-Julius Mode was neat, if a little underwhelming. I beat the last boss in like, an hour. The things that Julius can do really break the game in half, which is almost certainly why he doesn't have level ups or access to healing items, he's just that good. It's a fun little romp that's a good bonuse for beating the game, I feel.

-Last, but certainly not least, god if this OST was a person, I'd propose on the spot.

Along with the tracks I pointed out in the last post, I also love "Clock Tower", "The Arena", "Top Floor", "Dracula's Fate", "You Are (Not) Alone", and the Epilogue theme.

And of course, the theme song of my husband Julius Belmont, "Heart of Fire" is such a fucking banger, it's insane that Yamane cooked something like that up for GBA omg.

-I had such a fun time playing this game again. I played it once before because I had it on the Wii U virtual console, but coming back to it was like a fresh new experience and just as fun.

I'm gonna be taking a break from Castlevania for the time being, because Xenoblade X is coming out this next week, so I'll be all in on that lol. But I will be back, and the Dominus Collection will be next. I'm so fucking excited for those games.