#so obviously all I can think of in class is my blorbos

[m4gp13]

Alabaster: Hey Ethan, if I looked in your empty eye socket would I be able to see the optic nerve from your other eye?

Ethan: Do you want to survive until the morning?

Al: Preferably, yes

Ethan: Then shut the fuck up and go to sleep

[cuddlytogas]

So I accidentally almost got into an argument on Twitter, and now I'm thinking about bad historical costuming tropes. Specifically, Action Hero Leather Pants.

See, I was light-heartedly pointing out the inaccuracies of the costumes in Black Sails, and someone came out of the woodwork to defend the show. The misunderstanding was that they thought I was dismissing the show just for its costumes, which I wasn't - I was simply pointing out that it can't entirely care about material history (meaning specifically physical objects/culture) if it treats its clothes like that.

But this person was slightly offended on behalf of their show - especially, quote, "And from a fan of OFMD, no less!" Which got me thinking - it's true! I can abide a lot more historical costuming inaccuracy from Our Flag than I can Black Sails or Vikings. And I don't think it's just because one has my blorbos in it. But really, when it comes down to it...

What is the difference between this and this?

Here's the thing. Leather pants in period dramas isn't new. You've got your Vikings, Tudors, Outlander, Pirates of the Caribbean, Once Upon a Time, Will, The Musketeers, even Shakespeare in Love - they love to shove people in leather and call it a day. But where does this come from?

Obviously we have the modern connotations. Modern leather clothes developed in a few subcultures: cowboys drew on Native American clothing. (Allegedly. This is a little beyond my purview, I haven't seen any solid evidence, and it sounds like the kind of fact that people repeat a lot but is based on an assumption. I wouldn't know, though.) Leather was used in some WWI and II uniforms.

But the big boom came in the mid-C20th in motorcycle, punk/goth, and gay subcultures, all intertwined with each other and the above. Motorcyclists wear leather as practical protective gear, and it gets picked up by rock and punk artists as a symbol of counterculture, and transferred to movie designs. It gets wrapped up in gay and kink communities, with even more countercultural and taboo meanings. By the late C20th, leather has entered mainstream fashion, but it still carries those references to goths, punks, BDSM, and motorbike gangs, to James Dean, Marlon Brando, and Mick Jagger. This is whence we get our Spikes and Dave Listers in 1980s/90s media, bad boys and working-class punks.

And some of the above "historical" design choices clearly build on these meanings. William Shakespeare is dressed in a black leather doublet to evoke the swaggering bad boy artist heartthrob, probably down on his luck. So is Kit Marlowe.

But the associations get a little fuzzier after that. Hook, with his eyeliner and jewellery, sure. King Henry, yeah, I see it. It's hideously ahistorical, but sure. But what about Jamie and Will and Ragnar, in their browns and shabby, battle-ready chic? Well, here we get the other strain of Bad Period Drama Leather.

See, designers like to point to history, but it's just not true. Leather armour, especially in the western/European world, is very, very rare, and not just because it decays faster than metal. (Yes, even in ancient Greece/Rome, despite many articles claiming that as the start of the leather armour trend!) It simply wasn't used a lot, because it's frankly useless at defending the body compared to metal. Leather was used as a backing for some splint armour pieces, and for belts, sheathes, and buckles, but it simply wasn't worn like the costumes above. It's heavy, uncomfortable, and hard to repair - it's simply not practical for a garment when you have perfectly comfortable, insulating, and widely available linen, wool, and cotton!

As far as I can see, the real influence on leather in period dramas is fantasy. Fantasy media has proliferated the idea of leather armour as the lightweight choice for rangers, elves, and rogues, a natural, quiet, flexible material, less flashy or restrictive than metal. And it is cheaper for a costume department to make, and easier for an actor to wear on set. It's in Dungeons and Dragons and Lord of the Rings, King Arthur, Runescape, and World of Warcraft.

And I think this is how we get to characters like Ragnar and Vane. This idea of leather as practical gear and light armour, it's fantasy, but it has this lineage, behind which sits cowboy chaps and bomber/flight jackets. It's usually brown compared to the punk bad boy's black, less shiny, and more often piecemeal or decorated. In fact, there's a great distinction between the two Period Leather Modes within the same piece of media: Robin Hood (2006)! Compare the brooding, fascist-coded villain Guy of Gisborne with the shabby, bow-wielding, forest-dwelling Robin:

So, back to the original question: What's the difference between Charles Vane in Black Sails, and Edward Teach in Our Flag Means Death?

Simply put, it's intention. There is nothing intentional about Vane's leather in Black Sails. It's not the only leather in the show, and it only says what all shabby period leather says, relying on the same tropes as fantasy armour: he's a bad boy and a fighter in workaday leather, poor, flexible, and practical. None of these connotations are based in reality or history, and they've been done countless times before. It's boring design, neither historically accurate nor particularly creative, but much the same as all the other shabby chic fighters on our screens. He has a broad lineage in Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean and such, but that's it.

In Our Flag, however, the lineage is much, much more intentional. Ed is a direct homage to Mad Max, the costuming in which is both practical (Max is an ex-cop and road warrior), and draws on punk and kink designs to evoke a counterculture gone mad to the point of social breakdown, exploiting the thrill of the taboo to frighten and titillate the audience.

In particular, Ed is styled after Max in the second movie, having lost his family, been badly injured, and watched the world turn into an apocalypse. He's a broken man, withdrawn, violent, and deliberately cutting himself off from others to avoid getting hurt again. The plot of Mad Max 2 is him learning to open up and help others, making himself vulnerable to more loss, but more human in the process.

This ties directly into the themes of Our Flag - it's a deliberate intertext. Ed's emotional journey is also one from isolation and pain to vulnerability, community, and love. Mad Max (intentionally and unintentionally) explores themes of masculinity, violence, and power, while Max has become simplified in the popular imagination as a stoic, badass action hero rather than the more complex character he is, struggling with loss and humanity. Similarly, Our Flag explores masculinity, both textually (Stede is trying to build a less abusive pirate culture) and metatextually (the show champions complex, banal, and tender masculinities, especially when we're used to only seeing pirates in either gritty action movies or childish comedies).

Our Flag also draws on the specific countercultures of motorcycles, rockers, and gay/BDSM culture in its design and themes. Naturally, in such a queer show, one can't help but make the connection between leather pirates and leather daddies, and the design certainly nods at this, with its vests and studs. I always think about this guy, with his flat cap so reminiscient of gay leather fashions.

More overtly, though, Blackbeard and his crew are styled as both violent gangsters and countercultural rockstars. They rove the seas like a bikie gang, free and violent, and are seen as icons, bad boys and celebrities. Other pirates revere Blackbeard and wish they could be on his crew, while civilians are awed by his reputation, desperate for juicy, gory details.

This isn't all of why I like the costuming in Our Flag Means Death (especially season 1). Stede's outfits are by no means accurate, but they're a lot more accurate than most pirate media, and they're bright and colourful, with accurate and delightful silks, lace, velvets, and brocades, and lovely, puffy skirts on his jackets. Many of the Revenge crew wear recognisable sailor's trousers, and practical but bright, varied gear that easily conveys personality and flair. There is a surprising dedication to little details, like changing Ed's trousers to fall-fronts for a historical feel, Izzy's puffy sleeves, the handmade fringe on Lucius's red jacket, or the increasing absurdity of navy uniform cuffs between Nigel and Chauncey.

A really big one is the fact that they don't shy away from historical footwear! In almost every example above, we see the period drama's obsession with putting men in skinny jeans and bucket-top boots, but not only does Stede wear his little red-heeled shoes with stockings, but most of his crew, and the ordinary people of Barbados, wear low boots or pumps, and even rough, masculine characters like Pete wear knee breeches and bright colours. It's inaccurate, but at least it's a new kind of inaccuracy, that builds much more on actual historical fashions, and eschews the shortcuts of other, grittier period dramas in favour of colour and personality.

But also. At least it fucking says something with its leather.

[frownyalfred]

Narratively speaking, when should the batkids be able to beat Batman single-handedly? Sure, Cass can do it already and Dick is seen as above or on Batman's level but what are your thoughts on this? It's always hard to do this stupid power level stuff because the character you want to win is obviously gonna win, but you still have to show that Batman is this super ubermensch martial artist who always has a plan and whose goal is to make his kids surpass him but then how do you do that? When can you say, "yeah Batman's cool and all but [enter batkid's name] would totally wipe the floor with the old man if they were to fight 1v1"? This is extremely exaggerated but you get what I mean, right?

I'm genuinely fascinated by this question and I thought I could just ask you.

Thanks!😀

Yeah, it’s all biased like you pointed out since we all want our special blorbo to be the most special blorbo, even in situations where the logic gets pretty thin.

The thing with Bruce is, in his prime, he’s a god-tier fighter for multiple reasons. He’s got insane training under his belt, he’s at or above peak physical human conditioning, he’s trained to think strategically about combat, he’s fast for his size (despite his size), and he’s BIG.

The last one is so important. He’s anywhere from 6’ to 6’4, 190 to 240 lbs of muscle, etc. He’s not losing to most people in a fair fight! And he’s definitely not losing to someone much shorter and lighter than him when it comes to sheer power.

What’s interesting about the comics is that they largely argue that Bruce losing these 1v1s comes down to skill and experience. Cass trained for years to be a weapon, and her advanced training is what supposedly tips the scales in her favor. Same thing with Damian. Bruce makes the argument that enough training can create conditions for his Robins to surpass him, like you mentioned.

But is that actually a fair determinator of a fight? Can most if not all advantages Bruce might have in a fight with a woman half his size be overcome by volume or rigor of training?

It’s the comics, so the answer changes depending on what’s intriguing and fun. We can oscillate between Bruce being the ultimate overpowered fighter who can’t ever lose and Bruce getting his ass handed to him by his kids because it all comes down to power ranking, which is SO subjective.

Should the Batkids be able to beat him? In my opinion, not when he’s in his prime and it’s a fair fight. That isn’t me saying that they can’t win 1v1 through skill, misdirection, getting lucky, etc.

That’s not me trying to shit on female fighters either. Dick carrying 30-40 lbs less muscle than Bruce puts him at a disadvantage too. Jason being the same weight but not as fast/nimble puts him at a disadvantage to Bruce. Damian being a child fighting an adult will ALWAYS result in an unbalanced fight.

If you’ve ever squared up with a heavier, larger, more skilled opponent — especially if you’re a woman and they’re a man — one of the first things you have to learn is that, when it comes to pure strength, you cannot hope to win. It is an inherent advantage, and why we have weight classes for fighting.

Your goal is to figure out a way to get around that advantage. To be smarter, or faster. We teach women about throws and the benefits of having a lower center of gravity. We teach kids the benefits of being flexible or smaller in certain holds. Things like that.

But comics aren’t real life. The better question is, have we overpowered Bruce in a way that makes taking him down a peg or two somewhat difficult or implausible? How can we better show his flaws and complexity as a character when the stakes get set too high?

[vickyvicarious]

Would any of the Dracula crew have read Frankenstein or would it not suit their literary tastes

Oooh, let's see! I think that's a yes for sure on some of them. Let's just go down the main cast one by one, shall we?

Jonathan - Yes. Hamlet's his blorbo so he obviously isn't averse to tragic stories, and I honestly love the idea of Jonathan being into gothic romances. Not that this is that, but there's enough overlap that when Mina suggested it to him he'd enjoy it. He gets really sad about how it all went wrong.

Mina - Yes. I think science fiction is very much her taste, as is spooky/tragic stories. This is both, it's great! She really enjoys the nuance and complexity of the characters. It's maybe even a favorite of hers.

Lucy - No. She doesn't like spooky stories, necromancy-adjacent anything is too much for her. The tragedy doesn't necessarily bother her too much (she enjoys crying over a good story from time to time) but everything about how the Creature is made creeps her out too much and she doesn't want to read about it or what comes after.

Arthur - No. Rather, it's possible he may have read it but it's generally not the sort of story he likes so if he ever did it would have been because of a class or at the urging of Jack, and he never got into it. He likes funny stories and adventures more.

Quincey - Yes. In large part because my initial impulse was to say no, and Quincey strikes me as the kind of guy who happens to have read all the stuff you assume he never would've read, haha. But also, I think he just really enjoys a good story. Regardless of genre, if it's well-written he'll give it a go and often really enjoy it.

Jack - Yes. I think he read it a sleep-deprived frenzy in school while he was supposed to be studying and ever since has had occasional recurring dreams of trying to give Victor and the Creature therapy.

Renfield - Yes. He's very well-read. His sympathies used to be for Victor but after being in an asylum they tend more towards the Creature since he understands now how dehumanizing it can feel to be looked at as Other or Monstrous.

Dracula - Yes. He considers it a comedy.

van Helsing - No. He doesn't have a lot of time for reading novels what with writing a new doctorate thesis every other weekend; he's typically neck-deep in a bunch of different scholarly articles and such at any given moment. When he does read fiction, it tends to be stuff he's picked up at random because it sounded interesting - or children's stories and fables, he likes those. He might have a copy lying around somewhere maybe but if so he hasn't gotten around to it.

[utilitycaster]

if you're looking for any reason to write and/or procrastinate, i'd love to hear your alluded-to thoughts on people trying to shove already-extant blorbos into a ttrpg space? it's something i've tried to Strongly Discourage (if not outright ban) at my table and i've struggled putting into words why i dislike it so much. like obviously as a dm doing homebrew world stuff it's super discouraging to feel like your players don't want to engage with it, but even beyond that it feels like it doesn't Work and i'd love to hear if you have thoughts on Why That Is

Absolutely! The biggest reason is in fact the one you say: it's really discouraging as a DM, who is doing a lot more work than anyone else, to have someone not want to build a character informed by your world. This is collaborative storytelling, and they are not collaborating. Which isn't to say that player's preferences for the type of story shouldn't be considered, but there is something very different between, for example, Erika Ishii saying "hey Brennan, I would love to play a witch" in a setting everyone in the cast committed to building collaboratively, vs. coming to your table as a DM saying "hey, this is a world I've created, it is inspired by Norse mythology" and saying "cool this is my weird west cowboy OC, why isn't there a cowboy class."

I think the other reason, and here's where I might be guessing, but I think people can get uniquely rigid and protective of pre-existing OCs. I mean...I had a vague set of OCs inspired by a lot of the fantasy stories I read as a kid for literal years, and setting aside that they don't fit in neatly to a D&D system anyway, the thought of playing one and having them die at level 2 against some will-o-the-wisps is really not something I'm open to! When it comes to a lot of the games that have character progression and start relatively weak, like D&D, most people are thinking of a cool powerful mage, not a squishy L1 wizard with 2 spell slots! I think people are precious and impatient and rigid about a lot of their OCs, so they won't take the big swings that you need to make in order to have a good time in a TTRPG because they're too afraid of losing the character before they reach their final form - and, they have a final form in mind that they might be reluctant to deviate from. Sure, some people can get past this; but many people can't. They already have too much of a story in mind and aren't open to the one being told together at the table. They won't kill their darlings and so they're going to freak out every time Darling has to make a death save.

Finally: I personally think character creation is necessarily collaborative, in that party composition is important. To give an example: I have an idea of an Eldritch Knight who learned her magic from the eccentric wizard she guarded, who then died in a locked room mystery, and she was exonerated but considered suspect (and also felt guilty) and so is in need of employment and could easily fall into adventuring. This is a pretty flexible concept in most D&D settings because a lot of the specifics aren't at all filled in. However: let's say my friend says "hey, um, one of our players had a family emergency and needs to leave our game long-term. Do you want to join?" and I say "yes, absolutely" and they say "great, they were playing a bard and were our only healer, though we do have a warlock who can be the party face," I should not play the eldritch knight with no healing! It is in fact my responsibility to roll up with, say, a cleric!

So that's really why: you can and should bring vague concepts you want to explore to a table, but you really shouldn't pick from a fully fleshed out OC because that doesn't engage with the setting nor what the party needs.

[ohwell-itsme-but-danganronpa]

Everybody loves Makoto/ Kokichi's crush (saiou endgame)

Clown_Chaoticz: Everyone once in while I wanna put Ouma in the "had a passing crush on makoto" pile, in like a hopes peak scenario It lasted like 3 days and he was very weird about it. He looks back on it in shame Just cause I think it's really funny

Sini: Makoto seems so boring but is so sweet, cute, and has his interesting moments, making the fact that he’s also so normal fascinating

Clown: He's also just so incredibly empathic. He really does try his best to understand the people around him Makoto pats his back a little too nicely and kokichi starts avoiding him like the plague

Sini: That’s literally how Mukuro falls for him He was the only one who smiled at her and wanted to understand her. Who saw past her So yeah, makes sense the same would apply to Kokichi

Clown: Makoto really do be everyone's first crush/j

Ves: makoto gives him one of his eight jackets on a cold night (shuuichi vc) i'll never be good enough for ouma-kun….i just don't have enough jackets…! cute boy….physical contact….genuine attempts at understanding…..

Clown: He can throw him into the wildest situations and Makoto never holds anything against him, he's used to weirdness Unfortunately Makoto sees him as like, one of those neighborhood kids he gets along with

Ves: NOOO HE WOULD hits him with the Brotherly Hair Ruffle and kokichi has violent flashbacks to his crush on rantarou why does this always happen to him

Sini: Wait……..looks at Makoto and Shuichi……He has a type Kokichi when protag energy Man, he and Shuichi are both losers. Falling for people who are nice to them lol

Clown: Shuichi would probably also have a passing crush on Makoto thinking about it ashsbsks

Ves: SNDJBHFG EXACTLY….(1) ounce of compassion and they're FALLING he spends time around him bc of kyouko and is like Oh………..he's so nice……………

Beez: makoto gets every single person in hpa to fall in love with him speedrun any%

Clown: Okay, gotta saiouify this. Shuichi and his genius detective skills catches wind of Ouma chucking himself out windows anytime Makoto so much as steps into the same room and gets roped into the wildest confession scheme Makotos luck fucks them over so much it's almost impossible, then shuichi starts to catch feelings when Ouma explains why he felt anything in the first place. Shenanigans

Sini: Even Junko loves him Especially Junko, actually

Me: real, for Junko he's basically her irl blorbo, she wants to put him in situations

Clown: Okay, so thinking about how Makoto somehow rizzed his way into having half his class fall in love with him. Kokichi ends up on that list. Makoto in his empathic nature is just, easy to get along with, and more so, even with the more unpleasant people in his class, he considers all of them friends and makes an effort to keep this. Not because he lets himself get walked over, but because he thinks everyone he talks to has a part to them worth knowing. He extends this same thing to Ouma, which leads to the budding of ✨️ a crush ✨️. And Ouma does what he does best and explodes. He's a little weirdo about it, peeking at him from around corners and scrambling away on all fours/j when Makoto approaches him. Maybe during one of his escapades ouma climbs out of a window, scaring shuichi who's out there for whatever reason. Shuichi puts 2 and 2 together and Ouma threatens to end his life in the aftermath. Shuichi, also knowing Makoto, decides to encourage Ouma to confess. Which obviously leads to Ouma roping him into helping him, "Thats a great idea my little helper!" "What." Boom shenanigans. With the bonus of Shuichi getting to see the evasive completely human part of Kokichi. All it takes is Ouma offhandly explaining how Makoto makes him feel like he's worth knowing, and he's smiling genuinely. Then shuichi goes "Uh. Oh."

Sini: YES! I LOVE THIS SM! I can’t help but think Kokichi bumps into Mukuro when he’s spying on Makoto, cause she’s doing the same lol

Hina: Is Shuichi now stuck being his wingman

Clown: Shuichi is being forced to sit on his bedroom floor as he presents plan after plan yes

Beez: shuichi wingmanning for kokichi while having a fat crush on him is always so fucking funny

Sini: He has thoughts about sabotage but could never go through with that. He’s not the greatest jealous type

Hina: Wait What happens if he does confess to Makoto Please say he’s talked to Makoto more than like. Once.

Ves: makoto lets him down gently i imagine or mb just. gets with someone else before kokichi can make his move

Clown: Makotos luck nerfs any planning and he walks off obliviously with shuichi and ouma collapsed on the floor in the background

Sini: Bro gets with Kyoko or Byukuya or both and Kokichi and Mukuro cope together lmao

Beez: i mean if its both kyoko and byakuya whos to say he wont just . add kokichi and mukuro to his harem too

Sini: Mukuro maybe. But Kokichi no chance

Hina: Okay but Beez that just gives me the image of Makoto saying yes to everyone He can’t turn someone down

Me: combine them, it's 37th attempt, finally everything goes according to plan, Makoto says he just started seeing someone yesterday

Hina: No Makoto says yes Me: shut up Hina: WDYM I WAS GONNA MAKE IT BETTWR ITLL BE FUNNY I SWEAR Me: no, go to hell, Shuichi is comforting Kokichi now [this is playful. but, reader, ahead of you are two paths]

Hina: Makoto dates everyone. While secretly trying to match make them with other people. He can’t say no but… he can convince them to break up with him for a better partner

Me: that would be fucked up for him to do tho like, as a person

Hina: We are ignoring the fucked up nature This is for comedy purposes

Me: I can't, it's ooc and messing with everyone's feelings, it's gonna hurt people more than rejection

Hina: (Nah but you seriously don’t have to go with it, I just think it’s funny) Alright fine Makoto can reject him I still want him to play matchmaker though

Me: also, with it already being a polycule, his partners getting with other people would not get Makoto out of the mess he made I mean, I guess some of them wouldn't be okay with poly, like, Byakuya probably draws the line at sharing with Kyoko, he won't compromise with 10 peasants

Hina: It was more him trying to get them to understand that the traits they like about him are things they can find in other people and that a puppy crush on him isn’t going to be the fantasy relationship they’re imagining

Clown: There's also the option of Makoto and shuichi friendship. Where Makoto encourages him to confess and shuichi is wracked with guilt lmao "I'll cheer you on!" Shuichi:[grimacing emoji]

Me: man, I just wanted Shuichi to hold a crying Kokichi, pet his back in soothing motions while holding back his own feelings because it's the wrong moment to bring up why Kokichi is wrong in his dramatic woes about love

Hina: I mean that can happen But does Kokichi know Makoto like. At all?

Ves: theyre casual friends not SUPER close but they know each other!! i don't think kokichi gets crushes on strangers

Me: okay, tbh, I imagined it more as a "Makoto saw him seeming upset once and tried to cheer him up" kind of thing but that came from the fact that when it started you said he had the crush for whole 3 days so I imagined that this scenario was just snowballing from that, keeping it alive because Shuichi encouraged him to pursue it, so he got to notice more things and most likely talked to Makoto more times in the process

Sini: Shuichi unintentionally made it worse for both of them

Hina: Does he actually even like Makoto then?

Me: yeah, he ends up liking him more instead of getting over & it's Shuichi's fault, (or you could say he just has rejection sensitive dysphoria and that's why he gets so crushed) or maybe he's overdoing the dramatics so Shuichi comforts him because he's in too deep he was dragging Shuichi along to all those over the top plans for none of them to work out, he has to seem appropriately upset for the level of effort, even if it was just a little crush, he deserves a hug anyway, lets himself have it he has a back list of things to cry about, great opportunity to catch up

Clown: YESS At some point comes the question. Were his feelings even that serious?? Or did he just get fixated on the planning part? Either way it doesn't feel good to have it all in shambles.

Ves: makoto just can't stop being viewed as a symbol instead of a person huh he's just kokichi's idea of Boy Who Is Nice To Me

[Kai brought up issues with Kokichi crying over a 3-day crush] Me: I mean, after all those plans it was way more than three days, and it is likely he would be exaggerating, not even just in the last option I gave, I just agree that he does play up his negative feelings to distance himself from them

[noobsomeexagerjunk]

pentiment review & thoughts

so. i played pentiment. writing this while at my 4th play (with my first and third as same stats, different accusations). bookworm, hedonist, bookworm again, and now businessman. having a lot of fun so far.

was prompted bc 1) this game is a common rec for disco elysium players, 2) i got andreas maler in a blorbo uquiz, so of course i had to see what the fuss was about

spoilers, obviously:

prefacing first that. uh, i got into this game with relatively surface-level understanding of the late middle ages/early renaissance, and like very little of how this impacted germany. god bless the glossary. the only thing really guiding me was being catholic + my familiarity with benedictines (the people who ran the all-girls catholic school i studied in) so uh

given that, my 1st andreas had his wanderjahre in Italy, is a bookworm with skills towards Oratory and Logic, possessing a Master's in Theology. this will be about the first play

act i

what an introduction. i played off my andreas as an intellectual with a love for God but also a concern for people regardless of class, and i just went around being as respectful as possible. emphasis on "as possible," bc i can refuse to be a Lutheran and still criticize the abbey actually <- pissed off both gernot and rothvogel

the DRUCKERS! my best friends :)

spent much of my dinners with the farmer-peasants. had a meal with sebhat as well. tassing is so alive!!!

the implication that andreas fell asleep if you choose to watch matthieu and rüdeger go at it is very funny to me. monk sex is boring ig. also sorry zdena, im too worried about piero to fuck you right now

why did i think the baron was just an intellectual outcast. of course he's an asshole who abuses his power

THE KIDS! THEY ARE SO LOVELY!

none of these suspects feel like the murderers. tbh i probably should've settled on lucky bc he had the most damning evidence in retrospect. but ferenc just had more, and i was able to push him to the archdeacon

i am a coward and did not look at the execution

act ii

this Andreas just came from France!

"you are banned from the abbey, but i need you to come join me for dinner" okay father gernot???

the golden hand inn looks sooo pretty. surprised i could only make conversation with samuel until the troops were like, really close/the drinking quest

things got worse, a revolt is in formation. this was apparently a trend all over germany at the time, and not limited to tassing. weirdly familiar huh

when you want to escape from your problems via involving yourself from the problems others instead

caspar my boy! im glad to have known you

the Sommerfelds are so lovely

these aqueducts are so cool

it was so much easier to pick Guy, as far as the evidence i got on him is concerned. your embezzlement had an effect on the abbey's management of tassing, which is now biting all of you in the ass

i knew Lenhardt was an ass but i didnt think he'd go as far as to protect the accused

that ending holy shit

act iii

haha i opened tumblr before getting here and got spoiled about the mysterious guy following magdalene

my magdalene bg is Vitae Sanctorum, Bookkeeping, Haggle, & Volksbücher

Ötz you are adorable but you do not suit Magda at all

it does not help that the town ships the two

every single theme is coming together. the question... of history!

the letter writing being so prominent here is very felt

the familiar and unfamiliar are so clouded as time progresses, its insane

apparently ill peter can live *that* long

i learned the hard way after my first run that werner will be an outright asshole in act iii if andreas doesnt speak with him well via my second run; see, my major and only interaction with the guy in run 1 is during the drinks quest in act ii. the difference is stark

martha pfieffer i wish i got more time with you <- got her contemplating the monastic life in the 1st run only? i wonder what triggers this

fucked up that i couldnt send sister susanne out. i think i played my magda too nice with the nuns

snitched on the twins immediately whoops. this is fine, i can go down the mines myself

haha i thought baltas was an act iii-only character, i straight up didnt interact with him during act ii and probably forgot he spoke during the discovery of otto's body

the readying for christmas was sooo brain-sctatchy. seeing the direct effects of our choices in the previous acts, it's so!!!

gotta be real, i thought the discussions on historiography and historical revisionism were like, just there? i didn't think it would be the core of the problem but. of course it is. it makes me feel very stupid for not pointing at father thomas sooner

like, if you spend significant amounts of time with the guy enough, his distrust of collective lay men and assertion towards the authority of the church is like, very very obvious. you see it during the dinner with the baron. when he says the words that triggers peter into burning the abbey. when you talk about claus publishing the 12 articles and agreeing upon the suggestion of banning book reading. the story of how he and sister amalie escaped the fire from their old abbey. in my 3rd run, i got strong hints when i (andreas) decided to eat with the albans (fr. thomas is present in the meal), particularly when discussing the strictness of the abbot

also, notably, in my 3rd run, during the conversation with father thomas for the christian tassing quest, a Vitae Sanctorum Magdalene can ask about the veracity of the story regarding the marian apparition, our lady of the labyrinth. when father thomas asks why she's pondering on it, if Magda is also of Volksbücher bg, she can bring up comparisons to a story she read about a man who tricked a town into believing a head he possessed was a relic from a saint. Father Thomas will then outright ask whether Magdalene thinks that it is valid of the guy to lie about that. Whatever you make Magda respond, he clearly values it. that fucked me up upon discovery, especially since i chose not to question the story of the church in my first run. that's outright foreshadowing, especially since that conversation literally takes place inside said church

anyways, i considered for a moment as to how conscious Sister Amalie was about the notes she wrote. to my fury (against thomas) and relief (for her), she was very unaware. fucking hell, i love christian mystics, and i outright ignored the implications of father thomas as her interpreter

like, i knew such interpreters would twist the testimonies of mystics to assert the church's authority, but. i assumed that this, like the obvious real-time historical revisionism in-game, was just shit that happens. not the core. another blow to my observation skills, but what matters to me is that i figured it out eventually

i had an inkling claus would die but not like that D":

like. magda on christmas eve. dad's friend is back from the dead. the town priest has been responsible for the deaths of people who risked the secrets of the town. dad is dead. idk if the devs over there are interested in spin-offs, but the time between christmas 1543 and when magda leaves for prague should be known

the müller kids really take after their parents, and seeing them interact with old man maler really warmed my heart

ugh, what a lovely game. it deserves its praises

[k--havok]

I honestly think writing fanfic is really important for a writing journey.

I used (and still sometimes!) write fanfic. I wrote fanfic for years. From the age of 16-21/22. And yes, obviously writing and posting fanfic can help your writing chops in terms of keeping characters, well, in-character, stretching new ideas, and just help you polish up your writing in general.

But in general? Fanfic helped me get over sharing my writing with others and worrying about negative backlash to what I write.

I was someone usually in "problematic" spaces and ships. And I was there, Gandalf. I was there at the height of "an/tis" vs "pr/oshi/ppers" war here on tumblr.

I had callout posts written and shared about me. I had discord groups trash my writing and personhood. I got all manner of threats imaginable, including being told I was insane and I should kill myself. I got this both in the comment sections of my writing as well as in my ask box.

But I've also had interactions with people in fandom space that were just... weird. And not just people plagiarizing me. People who rewrote my fics in the comment section (why) people who wrote NEW fic in my comment section (okay...) people getting way too personal with me. People justifying to others why they're allowed to read it. People telling other people what my own life story is (they've never talked to me in their entire life?) and everything in between. I've had comments written like GoodReads reviews as if I'd never read it.

I say this because it seems like every day I see authors getting pissy at readers for negative reviews. Throwing fits online and going after said readers in weird and inappropriate ways.

Yeah. It sucks when people assume who you are. It sucks being told you're horrible for writing X, Y, or Z. It sucks when your work is bashed or when people clearly do not have reading comprehension, ironically, and you're wondering how the hell they interpreted your story so wrong. It sucks getting negative comments and reviews.

But that's just life whenever you publish your works for the wider world. Without the risk of putting your writing out there, you also do not get the reward of touching others with your writing and sharing your stories. You cannot have one without the other.

I'm not saying it was acceptable for people to be cruel to me online. I should not have been bullied, harassed, and threatened for writing my blorbos kissing in a Bad TM way. But being told why my writing was bad (whether or not I agreed) or people sharing what they did not like about my writing or why it failed for them (and not being able to delete said comments) was good for me. Sometimes it did help my writing. But honestly more than that it was exposure to what it will be like when I do decide to publish, whether its indie or trad.

The same dynamic happened when I took a creative writing class in college too. Even though the professor told us we had to be nice with our criticisms and also explain things we did like about others works, I still had a classmate tell me they hated everything about my writing and there was nothing redeeming about it. But at that time? I had already gone through all of the above.

So when I got that comment? I laughed. And the other classmates I had who read my story? Got so defensive for me regarding my work, calling that person out. It was nice, but overall not needed. Because I realized at that time that I had the tools to move on from scathing reviews and assumptions.

It's a skill. And an incredibly important skill to have now that its so easy to find spaces with readers talking about your work. And like all skills, its something you have to work on and exercise to get good at it.

Fanfic was the one who helped me develop such a skill. Not writing workshops and not my creative writing class. Because people aren't going to be so nice when they have internet anonymity on their side. That's just the way of the internet and sharing your work, and I do not see the landscape changing anytime soon. Nor should it; readers have the right to review works they do not like. Just as readers have the right to review works that they love.

It's scary. But what I've learned is that the reward I get from sharing my work, from knowing its out there, knowing that I've inspired other people or that many others have enjoyed my work is a far greater reward than any of the risk from negative backlash I've gotten.

[fuck-you-upmusicbracket]

St Bernard (Lincoln)

I said "Make me love myself, so that I might love you"/Don't make me a liar, 'cause I swear to God/When I said it, I thought it was true/Saint Calvin told me not to worry about you/But he's got his own things to deal with/There's really just one thing that we have in common:/Neither of us will be missed

"The beat drop before the last chorus gives me SHIVERS. also it is a blorbo song it makes me think about shiv roy and how she wants to be loved like a dog just for the purpose of receiving affection without any ulterior motive,,,, she wants someone to CARE"

Once Upon A Time (Bare: A Pop Opera)

Standing scared outside a cold church/Soul search, seeking some lost answer/From a God who loves me/Can I turn to You in my need?/Would You take me back or watch me bleed?/Are You there?/There at all?/And as I fall from the person that I tried to be/Could You really love someone like me?

"Some context for this song (and major spoilers for Bare: A Pop Opera). This song is sung by one of the main characters Jason. His relationship with his roommate Peter has just been outed and simultaneously he’s discovered that he accidentally got Ivy, a girl he slept with, pregnant. All of the mentioned characters are high school students at a Catholic Boarding School. Jason has a public image as like the Golden Boy, he’s teachers’ favorite, valedictorian, top jock, most popular boy, etc., mostly cuz his abusive conservative father has put lots of pressure on him to be this way. He feels the crushing weight of everyone’s expectations for him and so suffice to say, being outed as gay and the father of a teenage pregnancy is very emotionally bad for him. So basically his friends turn their backs on him after all of these reveals, for obvious reasons, so Jason is left distraught and with no one left, he addresses God. In this song he’s essentially asking God if God can really love him because, as far as Jason’s concerned, he’s fucked up and fallen so hard from the ideal of a person he’s supposed to be, that comphet upper middle class white-picket-fence “American Dream” archetype. It’s just. Such a sad song. Very obviously someone at the end of their rope desperately seeking comfort/reassurance from someone. Immediately after this song, Jason goes looking for that reassurance from the school priest, obviously doesn’t receive it cuz the priest is a homophobic cunt of a man, and so as a result overdoses on substance abuse"

St Bernard submitted by @lesbiankarolinanovotney

[scourgefrontiers]

HONESTLY..ive been thinking a lil.

so i started down my path to becoming a professional character designer in 2013, when i designed my very first character who was MEANT to be a character design exercise. i cant exactly remember what prompted me wanting to go into character design--it could have just been that i was passionate about designing characters to the point of where i had looked up if that was a job or not--but it had become such a passion of mine that i would go on to study and practice character design for like 10 years afterward.

in 2018 i started to take this career path more seriously by enrolling in stephen silver's schoolism class, the fundamentals of character design. this was significant for me because stephen was at the time a very recent idol of mine and i admired his abilities--plus this would count as my first "formal" character design learning experience. i didnt feel very good after taking the class; it was critiqued, and i kind of got ripped into lol. but after i recovered, i didnt give up and just worked harder, eventually taking his second class a couple years later. that time i did pretty well and i came out feeling like i was finally ready to apply to jobs in the industry!

unfortunately, erm...the job hunting was not only Not a success, but it only served to kind of kill my passion for character design. every time i applied i was rejected and every critique i asked for gave me something new i had to do differently. one critique in particular hurt me a lot and killed my passion for art overall (obviously not completely, i have the art autism so i could never fully fall out of love for it lol). it got to the point where last year (2023) i made the decision to give up on character design as a career and just do commissions full time.

dont get me wrong, i am very happy doing commissions as my full time job!!! i love drawing people's blorbos :]...but also, its a very inconsistent income, and theres been a couple months where i couldnt make rent without help, and that doesnt feel good at all.

so ive been thinking. i dont rly wanna go back to the industry--it still feels bad to me and right now it seems as though the industry is not in a great environmental situation anyway, so i dont wanna even attempt to try getting a job there again. however........i was honestly reconsidering if i had actually lost the passion for character design because it just genuinely wasnt my true passion, or if i had only lost it because the industry killed it. and i think the conclusion i came to was that yeah it was the industry's fault that made me fall out of love with it because it made me feel like i was doing everything wrong and nobody would like my design style.

so now my thought is like...maybe i dont HAVE to work in the industry to be a professional character designer? sure itd be AMAZING for my work to be on like. cartoon network or something. but i dont think i Have to work at a studio to be happy in that career path?? like..idk. maybe i can be a freelancer or something. if an industry opportunity shows itself i dont think i'll decline, but i wont actively seek them out anymore.

its just that i feel like ive put too much work and time and money and effort and passion into character design yknow? i dont feel right anymore just letting the industry kill that passion. i wanna reignite it and use the knowledge and skills ive gained over the 10 years ive been working at it to make a good living for myself. yeah itd be great to get guild pay lol, but if i can just...figure out how to do freelance character design work, then i think it can be just as good and fulfilling

sorry for the long post i just needed to air some thoughts out as usual <33 i guess this does show that character design still is my passion LOL i talked so fucking much about it after all. if u have any thoughts to share feel free i guess

[banamine-bananime]

opinions on wash? for character bingo ^_^

I do love wash but for me he’s like, blorbo by proxy to soooo much of the fandom that i’m like aight he doesn’t need me there’s other people appreciating him way better than i would anyways. It’s also kind of that “zone of compelling mediocrity vs having nothing to add to a complete concept” thing for me. Like his character arc is arguably executed the best, at least one of the best-executed, in the show, and then any things to elaborate on have been elaborated on so well by so many awesome writers in this fandom that i’m like *thumbs up* tight story I have nothing to say. But since i don’t talk about him much i’ll take this opportunity to just list things i do love about wash:

really funny guy in both intentional dry sarcasm ways and unintentional ways through being so fucking… how to describe it… sort of a Stoic Military Man who Endures Things and represses Unnecessary feelings and denies himself pleasures when he does not need to do that. He does such weird things and he’s like so serious about it, sighing deeply and resignedly at Yet Another Time The Universe Is Testing Him, yet at the same time recognizes the absurdity in these situations but just… doesn’t take that recognition to the point of removing himself from the situation or refusing to engage and instead he just Endures but also wisecracks about it.

obviously all the epsilon stuff. Man. situationship of all time

LOVE the marathon-winning grudgeholding in a way that he’s entirely silent about it until suddenly he is very not silent about it. guy who CANNOT just fucking let it go but you’ll never realize that until it’s too late. reactive dog with growl violently trained out of them “bites out of nowhere!!!”

going along w that, yay repressed anger issues!!! sorry that’s flippant but i have so much love and sadness and anger for ~Troubled Kids~ railroaded into violent professions and places based on being branded with labels of violent/oppositional/defiant/angry/dangerous instead of being helped. “hey you’re struggling with something that’s making you so angry you can’t contain violence or feel so unsafe that the only defence you’re left with is aggression or feel that you need to make people fear you to feel a little less unrespected and powerless or so that they get a taste of it for once. instead of addressing that i think we can use it. you know how people believe you’re Bad and that you’ll never change and lots of doors are shut to you? well, this one’s wide open and it’s what you’re meant for, as a person who is good at violence and not trusting people. come here and we’ll train it into you some more.” i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again: cop-dog-coded motherfucker

really really good juxtaposition of this with being the goofball rookie. i know some people get frustrated with the inconsistency between pfl-recruit-era wash in book-extras vs in the show but to me it really adds something. a guy can both be goofy and have repressed anger. that guy might play up the goofiness trying very hard not to again be railroaded into Being The Crazy Angry Dangerous Kid. he is friendly and wants friends! that guy might also internally chafe at the kind of friendship that exaggerated “i’m not a threat! i’m not a threat! i swear i’m not a threat i’m just a little goofy guy!!” presentation begets. being treated as the dumb hopeless class clown sidekick is demeaning and makes you resentful no matter how hard you’re trying to make yourself think “hey, they’re my friends, this is good, they like me, they’re joking with me so they don’t hate me, this is so much better than being disliked”. and then you’ve got this internal spiral going of fear of your own capacity for anger and resentment -> overcorrect -> more things to resent

YAYYYYYYY JUSTIFIED VILLAIN ARCS MY BELOVED. love s8 washie so much.

as with carolina, really well-executed redemption arc of growing to accept friendship and rest and forgiveness and hanging onto hope that there is something better (frands and luv for them) you can shoot for than just getting revenge. wash: life is just unending cycles of violence forever change my mind. *blues offer him forgiveness and unconditional acceptance* wash: wait. i didn’t know they could do that. brb recalibrating my entire worldview to account for the power of friendship.

i actually don’t like a lot of fandom “wash and cats” content because it often hits kind of a woobification tone i’m not interested in, BUT i love imagery of alleycats, cats with nine lives, cats that always land on their feet (even when they fall off something in the goofiest, most clumsy way possible. wash paradox of dexterity/somehow surviving against all odds and dumb clumsy accidents/bad luck real). cockroach kitty wash : )

otoh my Hot Wash Take is i think sometimes some fans swing the pendulum too far the opposite way from All-Characteristics-Erased-Except-Trauma-And-Protectiveness-And-Cats Woobie Wash. yeah he’s obviously extremely competent but he’s far from the most skilled character in rvb (not his fault the competition is insane) and he is a bit goofy. let him goof up a little i promise it’s okay he’s gonna land on his feet

[kdinjenzen]

I think my reply got eaten up by Tumblr on your golden sun post but I am loving it so much, I absolutely love how I don't care if I don't know which town to go to, I love how my strat has been for Isaac to cure after every battle (I just got water girl I forgot her name but I love her), I love how I don't know the most optimal strats for djinn, because it's been so fun swapping them with each character to see synergy.

I saw you say Isaac is ground, garet is fire, Ivan (? I think that's his name I feel he's a blorbo) is wind, and water girl is (obviously) water? Does that mean I stack each djinn of the same element on the characters?

I stopped myself from playing it this morning because I knew I would have lost track of time and missed my puzzle day with friends.

I feel like after I've experienced the 2 games I will want to consume any and all media connected to it.

In conclusion: aaaaaaaaaa

I think the fact that Camelot made it so your lead protagonist is a essentially a paladin was super smart.

It makes it so Isaac has a multitude of capabilities and roles you can use him as throughout the games but ALSO showcases that he's a caring person that, while often forced to use his weapon to defend himself, he's equally capable of healing the harm done. It's thematic AND functional!

You do NOT need to give each party member a Djinn of the same type. In fact Golden Sun ENCOURAGES YOU to switch/swap and mix/match them with different elements to give your characters new skills and stats they otherwise wouldn't without.

As you get more Djinn you're able to rank up the classes for each character as they stand in Mono-Element types.

Case in point, Issac goes from Squire > Knight > Gallant > Lord > Slayer as you find more Venus/Earth Djinn.

BUT by adding different Djinn you can unlock Dual-Element classes for him like Dragoon by mixing 3 Mercury/Water Djinn and 3 Venus/Earth Djinn.

And there's a WHOLE BUNCH OF COMBOS! So experiment! And later on in the series you can do Tri-Element combo classes!

Build your characters how you want!

I'm glad you're enjoying it BUT ALSO when it comes to any and all media connected to it... you'll find yourself scraping the bottom of the barrel. Aside from a few little (not-really-canon) comic things, the only real Golden Sun content is just the three games.

[bicraigmanning]

for the Character Asks, how about I give you your pick of any/all of our 3 established Gossip Girl Main Characters bc we're writing a whole show about these 3 rich dysfunctional gays lmao

hello YES! i enjoy our rich disaster gay trio sitcom (/dramedy) headcanon chats! work with for the other two so it would largely be headcanons anyway. i decided to go with jenny since the others don't have much canon to work with.

How I feel about this character: my beloved <3 more seriously, she's the character in gossip girl i find most interesting so this is going to be. long. anyway. she can be flawed and self-righteous and self-destructive and petty and she can be awfully, egregiously cruel, she knows how to take someone's insecurities or mistakes and hit them where it already hurts -- and despite all that, she's so sympathetic. because she's also ambitious and creative and starts off the show so optimistic and relatively happy-go-lucky, even with her parents' separation. she's cutthroat because she HAS to be, because she would never be able to hang in the upper east side if she wasn't, and that's the path she sees towards her dreams and doesn't she deserve her dreams? she knows she can hack it if she can just GET THROUGH THE DOOR. she's funny and charming and witty and SAD, sadder than i think anyone in the show realizes until she's imploded by the end of season three. she develops this armor of black clothes and sharp eyeliner and bitchy witticisms in season two and season three even moreso and so many people see this as character derailment or think it makes her awful or irredeemable somehow but i look at her and see a girl who's been tread on too many times, with chuck and with damien and with agnes and the guys in the club and what they almost did. with her father, even, and his lack of ability or willingness to understand where she's coming from, that she's not just sad or lonely at school, she's in DANGER. (evidence: the reference to the fact that apparently everyone except two girls in her chem class apparently tried to light her hair on fire?) so she builds up walls and she isolates and she makes decisions that maybe aren't great but she doesn't have the support she needs and all of this makes me feel so soft and sad for her and protective OF her and protective, even, of her right to be flawed, of her right to make mistakes. every other character in the show has equally (or even worse) egregious flaws that get excused or hand-waved by not only the fandom, by the narrative. jenny is held to a much different standard. the narrative screws her and casts her aside (and yes, i get that taylor momsen wanted to leave, i respect it, and i even respect that it's a teen drama and her exit was always going to be a little dramatic, but they did not have to do what they did) and if they didn't think all of this was the perfect storm for me to emotionally adopt her into the list of blorbos in constant rotation in my head-oven well. they've got another thing coming. tldr; jenny is the Born To Die trope except it's more like Metaphysical Innocence Born To Be "Corrupted". it's so clear what they're doing even in the pilot. i will go to my grave defending her.

All the people I ship romantically with this character: jenny x therapy LMAO. actually answer is uhhh idk. might be easier to give a list of my DEFINITE NOTPS (easily guessable, i'd assume.) i simultaneously DO headcanon jenny as having had a crush on blair and think they have interesting dynamic (and lots of angst and turmoil and admiration/jealousy psuedo-political warfare that makes me understand why people DO ship it) while also not really wanting it be like. A Thing. (i also think their relationship was too fraught and blair in particular was too awful to jenny for them to ever have a healthy romantic relationship, so.) i have... a soft spot for nate and jenny let's say? i don't think canon was the right time for them to be together, obviously, and i can easily see how some of her feelings could come across as comphet (especially with him being so constantly unavailable). at the same time, i think they have a lot of sweet moments that are rooted in like, affection and genuinely liking who the other person is. he's very gentle with her and i think jenny could have used a lot more gentle moments in the show. at the same time, i'm not sure they're ultimately the right fit for each other, and i don't really imagine that they're "end game", so to speak, but i do like reading the occasional post-canon fic about them. so that's where i land on them, i supposed. in actuality, i think jenny probably realizes she's queer in some capacity eventually, but that's a whole other question lmao.

My non-romantic OTP for this character: jenny and eric! but also jenny and dan! but also jenny and serena!! it's hard to pick lmao. i think the show does a pretty decent job showing the complexities of the friendship between jenny and eric given eric's limited screentime lmao. i think they hit something very grounded and real with eric and jenny's back and forth, which how much they love and need each other and also can't stand each other half the time, how their introduction was a really simple moment of jenny showing him compassion and him meeting her back with that effort full-force, with how they both value each other more than is common in heterosexual romance-based western cultures but also can't or won't or don't know that they need to or how to admit that to one another. it's a very honest depiction of a friendship at this age and of this kind, at least for me.

i was about to say that my feelings about dan and jenny are simpler, but i don't know if that's true? i might be repeating myself here, but if there's one thing gossip girl does well, it's grounded and realistic dynamics. they tease each other lightly and they tease each other too harshly sometimes, they fight, and they try to understand each other but often can't, they secret-keep for each other until that's no longer viable, and they do their best to protect one another and it's all just so balanced. one scene that stands out to me is when jenny steals the dress in season one and dan goes into talk to her and it's so clear he's had to take on somewhat of a parental role with her since their mom has been gone? and i'm sure that's frustrating for both jenny and for dan. but despite taking on this role of care, he doesn't treat her condescendingly or with any ire, he tries to be understanding and careful and thoughtful where rufus couldn't be. and while i'd say the show does a disservice to their relationship as time wears on, i think when dan gets the CHANCE to be a good big brother to her, he always always is. he tries to do right by her and even in her harsher, more isolating days, she still tries to trust him and lets herself be jenny around him moreso than she knows how to do with other people.

with jenny and serena -- i think i love what their dynamic could have been more than what it was? watching the pilot for the first time, i was sure there were going to be more big sisterly moments between them, but they end up going for conflict instead. which is understandable; like i said, it IS a drama. but serena tries so hard to be kind to jenny in the first season and while jenny wants to BE blair, i think serena's kindness lets her hold onto her dream a little longer, imagine that there's a world where she gets in with the in-crowd and someone like serena is there to back her up. i also think there's a really intriguing theme of jenny's arc paralleling what's serena's been through in terms of assault and sexual exploitation. the "the sixteen year old virgin" really exemplifies how serena WANTS to protect jenny from going down a path of self-destruction that could lead to her getting hurt even more. and just. that's an interesting but woefully underexplored dynamic. she also has the best approach (at first) in that episode which is to just like. talk to jenny like a peer. explain her worries over a shared pint of ice cream. it's only when she panics and starts Plotting that it becomes Too Much. anyway. there's a world in which their relationship was meatier and i want to live in it!

My unpopular opinion about this character: she deserved way better than the narrative throwing her under the bus to prioritize ch*ck.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: i think i wish dan would have found out somehow about jenny getting drugged by agnes. on the one hand, nate telling him maybe would Kind of Not Be Cool, buuut it's tv the characters are allowed to be flawed and messy. plus! it makes the most sense. i feel genuinely feel that if dan found that out, she would be able to open up to him and they would figure out what was best for her (going to stay with their mom for senior year, lots and lots of therapy) sooner and without the ch*ck of it all.

[hungeringheart]

Hi, Can you do a session analysis of a: Heir of Space

Seer of Breath

Mage of Life

Thief of Mind

Witch of Time

Heir of Blood

Knight of Doom

Rogue of Light

Ooh, hello! Big cast you've got there, it'd be a shame if anything terrible and tormentous happened to them.

(Apologies for the length of time this took, I'm repeating myself like a broken cymbal monkey to my entire ask log but I had a bunch of stuff happen and then a spine injury.)

Let's play in this space, big character sheet anon.

Dramatis Personae

☆ Heir of Space

☆ Seer of Breath

☆ Mage of Life

☆ Thief of Mind

☆ Witch of Time

☆ Heir of Blood

☆ Knight of Doom

☆ Rogue of Light

What Does This Mean For The Session

Looking at the spread here, we can make some suppositions about these good folks' collective problems already.

For starters, let's have a peek at Space and Time --

Space has an Heir (altruistic aspect manipulation class) and Time a Witch (active, slightly more personal aspect change class).

When John's session had an Heir of Breath, there was a wealth of Breath (agency, room to mess around, direction, momentum) in the game. The aspect existed, abounded (no one's parental situations substantially interfered with anything really), and seemed to have a vested interest in giving to/acting through him particularly.

In our case, refreshingly, the Heir of Space is an indicator species for the same type of collective lassitude and happiness. There's a lot of physical space separating your characters, but they also all seem to benefit from this one having more space and room to grow than even most of them, and some non-Breath amount of power over the agency they experience. Maybe the Heir can't actually give people more opportunities, but they help it feel like there are a lot more of them, or create the conditions -- the Space -- for others to grow into their roles in different ways.

The Witch of Time is a good sign too -- whatever the situation actually is with the workings of time for the team, the Witch has the ability to change the conventions of and affect the world through time, rhythm, tradition, cycles and endings. Everyone has room to breathe, and someone in their corner has the ability to refuse the end on their behalf.

You're being nicer to your little guys than a lot of people! I'd give you an award for being decent to your blorbos if I had anything like that to give.

Now, let's examine the two most important aspects for anything to get done, Blood and Breath.

Breath (agency, freedom, will) has a Seer, and Blood (bonds) has... wow, would you look at that, another Heir.

On the surface this looks really good: someone can see the optimal paths to take to preserve agency and follow the narrative, which is a core concern to the session, and someone else inherits, understands and changes for others their close connections and covenants.

BUT WAIT: blood as bonds theory is just one facet of the horrible diamond I'm about to painstakingly show you more of the facets of. And having someone dispensing wise seerly advice about the very topic of your own agency is not as fun as people think. At some point you may want to grab a Breath Seer by the lapels and ask, whose story even is this, dipshit?

Let's briefly digress.

So, the reason people say that blood represents bonds and responsibility ("blood of the covenant" etc) is that for Karkat, his personal arc is about that, it's about taking responsibility for his friends and doing what's right no matter what he has to sacrifice. I think Meenah and Vriska have the same basic journey, but interpreted through their own personal and aspect lenses (and therefore even worse for everyone).

And obviously this holds water, I mean, it does, that's the case. But let's consider something else.

Do you remember how much ... gore there is in that comic? It's mostly technicolor, so as a red-bleeding animal you intellectualize that this is blood but don't feel the same social-animal horror about it. But it's blood. Homestuck is up to the gills in gore (and so is the troll political system, starting from castes, which after all are based on blood and seem to cause tremendous suffering and loss of blood in human societies, and moving further to their war crimes and institutionalized infant cannibalism).

At this point many people hold up Kankri (or Kankri's adult, mangled corpse) like he's Simba and say, aha! Blood is about suffering despite effort! Blood is about sacrifice and futility! Blood is about obligation and the suffering inherent in interdependence!

And this too is true. But not exclusively.

What about all of the biohorror in Homestuck -- Blood as heredity, as genes -- as mutation, as cancer, as eugenics, as suffering therefrom, as the thing that locks you into your destiny? Blood as inevitability, then? Blood as that which is uncertain and feared? Blood as something always under scrutiny, as something vital and struggling? Blood as what is spilled? Blood as something that flows, that changes? Blood as omen on doorframe, both for harm and help?

As a foil and complement not just for Breath (which is in no small part about getting to do what you want, all of this be damned) but also for Doom (law, inevitability) and Time (tradition, rhythm, flow) and Life (the way of things, the struggle)?

Oho! Now we are cooking with the rocket fuel.

Heir of Blood, then... inheritor of and abounder in connections, but also in structural and personal suffering and struggle.

Things are beginning to look a little grimmer.

Well what about the Seer then, why is this a bad thing?

A Seer of Breath sees the optimal course to take about the aspect that doesn't have one, by definition. In a conflict between the nature of the force of existence itself and its representative, obviously the force wins; this Seer then sees possibilities and productive configurations, but they're at least initially flexing authority they don't have a solid basis for, telling everyone how best to be free to make their decisions. Doesn't that sound absurd and restrictive? Isn't this Seer really easy to invert to Doom? Or Rage?

The point of Breath is at least in part the multiplicity of paths; the point of a Seer is to pick one and stick to it. Unfortunately combining the most Rage behaviour with the literal antithesis of the aspect (on the axis of Rage's desperation) produces a guy who applies a very personal type of knowledge to something that approach is wrong for.

Annoying hyperonline friend who keeps trying to get you into discourse, basically, in the same pot as an intersectionally complicated and personally tormented real literal actual flesh and blood person. Ethereal online Thinker(tm) competing with someone Problematic who has nonetheless suffered more than them and has more of a concrete understanding of the things they beef about. Guy who bloviates about ideals because they got robbed by incredibly obvious cops on the way to a protest, in the same place as the organizer.

These people are tugging this game back and forth, Balkanizing the rest of the team; they probably do not get along. Tragically, they had to be doing that yesterday, and now it's everyone's problem.

We're beginning to see the complications.

Surely Life and Doom are set up in a way that hurts and bothers no one here!

Maybe. Mage of Life -- so, motherfucker who doesn't know anything about Life (flourishing, survival, mutation and struggle) and has to learn as they go -- and Knight of Doom, because somebody has to lay down the damn law in here, particularly since the existing people who should do that are too busy writing callout posts about one another and posting them in the group memo to make any decisions.

It's encouraging that at least one pair of these friends has each other.

But are Thief of Mind and Rogue of Light just sitting around on their hands then?

The Thief of Mind finds all this funny and derives fuel for their own thoughts and choices from fucking it up for other people. The Rogue of Light is supernaturally lucky and on the ball and wants to share that with everyone else. I think they're not really even in conflict, though -- I think the Thief is an annoying hanger-on from outside and the Rogue is these people's actual friend, and they undo each other's efforts , but at least they both want to survive and win!

All together now:

Examining all this we can see a narrative taking shape. Two people aren't friends but have mutual friends in common, and rope them into a game together. The group immediately balkanizes under the first available stress, along the lines of what people prefer in a leader. Dealer's choice: Facts and Logic (tm) about extremely personal choices, or decisionmaking by a horribly tormented and jaded person who has no idea how bad anyone else really has it but pontificates about it anyway.

Someone suggests making the game competitive, a bad time is had by all, the Mage and Knight have their own dyadic thing going on, the Heir of Space mitigates all this (or makes it worse, they're too out of touch to tell), and the Witch of Time is ferociously combing through universes to find a normal one to escape into, or maybe at least acknowledges they can't realistically win with the time they have and works behind the scenes to keep it all together. The Knight of Doom helps.

The drama, anon! The power! The presence! If you write this I would actually love to see it.

[eviltothecore13]

Is it just me or has fandom overall...changed a lot in how it talks about its favourite characters over the past few years?

It used to be people who really liked a character would be like “this character’s the best at everything, they can do no wrong, they’d win every fight, they have a plan for everything, they’re the coolest cleverest most attractive person in the whole story!!!”, and like...that could go too far, it could be annoying or just really really inaccurate compared to canon (I used to know a Jill fan who insisted that Jill could easily beat every single character in the series in a fight--and look, Jill is very cool, but Chris was canonically the best in hand-to-hand combat at STARS and was also training HER in marksmanship, Jill is of course extremely capable but...she really does not have to be the best at everything to prove why she’s your favourite...for that matter, Wesker fans who were like “Wesker in RE5 has to be a clone/a fake/whatever because the REAL Wesker would never LOSE because Wesker can’t make mistakes!”...always made me go *stop, please, it’s embarrassing*), but it did...make sense why someone who really loved a character would say these things about them?

But now it seems like the kind of comments people make about their favourite characters, and the way they portray them in fics, are...pretty much the opposite of that? People will be like “my blorbo is SO STUPID! they’re so useless they can’t do ANYTHING! they’re a pathetic weak little wet paper bag!”

Like, a few years ago if I’d seen a post saying things like that about a character I’d assume it was written by someone who hated them?

And obviously...sometimes a character you love is kind of a dork, or makes some silly mistakes sometimes. Other times a character you love is a terrible evil person. I’m not saying everyone should equate liking a character with thinking they’re perfect. But...most popular characters AREN’T actually completely stupid and incompetent at absolutely everything, and I can never quite get my head around it when people seem to hold this view of a character and it’s clearly not true, like...if you really think they’re pathetic, stupid, and can’t do anything right...do you really like them that much?

I’ve seen fandom call characters stupid/idiots when they are either science geniuses, or they’re brilliant inventors who build sci-fi gadgets, or they’re scheming chessmaster strategist types who manipulate all the other characters for years and come very close to taking over the world, or maybe they just canonically speak several languages and are well-read, or even if canon doesn’t focus much on their intelligence you’ve got characters like Chris who was a USAF fighter pilot--which means he has a degree, judging by the timeline probably an Air Force Academy one, which means he was likely in the top 3% of his high school classes and DEFINITELY didn’t “barely scrape through” as I often see headcanoned (not just by people who want to bash him but people who are like “I love him! He’s such a big dumb himbo! He’s so stupid!!” like. what.)

Similarly I see characters who are canonically very confident and self-assured, never really doubting themselves for a second, and who canonically react to things going wrong by calmly adapting their plans and moving forwards without ever getting discouraged, get tagged on posts about “pathetic wet paper bag men who’ve never had a good day in their life and an insult from a child would make them cry”.

Or characters who are shown in canon as dangerous, powerful and near-fearless fighters get written in fics, by people who say they’re their favourites, as spending all their time crying and flinching and not even trying to defend themself from whoever’s attacking/trying to hurt them (and not because they went through some major trauma previously in the fic that left them in this state, either--often the fic is set during canon and the character is just...like that rather than something having happened to change them from who they were at that point in their life in canon)... personally, while I enjoy whump, whumping a character who’s ALREADY weak and helpless and spends all their time curled up in a corner crying BEFORE whatever you do to them in the fic can easily just feel like kicking them while they’re down and is honestly boring because it doesn’t show anything NEW about the character, so it’s particularly odd to see fics written that way when the character in canon is exactly the confident powerful type that I do think is fun to whump.

(For a specific example, RE canon is that Wesker and Sergei had a rivalry and Wesker seems to view Sergei mostly with disdain and see him as an annoying obstacle. Wesker never gives any sign of being scared of or intimidated by Sergei, and certainly doesn’t seem to start panicking the instant Sergei enters a room. And even before he had his powers, he had extensive combat training by the time he met Sergei, and Sergei being taller and heavier doesn’t inherently mean that Wesker would be defenceless and go down in one punch in a fight, or even that Wesker would LOSE a fight against him. Canon doesn’t depict Wesker as a helpless victim for Sergei to beat up...hurt him by all means but it’s OOC if Wesker doesn’t give as good as he gets.)

Oh, and characters who are canonically master manipulators who are experts at getting people on their side and gaining their trust being portrayed as so socially awkward and clueless that they’re incapable of holding a conversation without coming across offputtingly weird...

Maybe I’m the odd one out here but I can’t really get why you’d want to present your favourite character as LESS capable, LESS intelligent, LESS brave or confident or powerful or whatever other impressive traits they might have in canon? Like I wouldn’t go so far as to say I ADMIRE all my favourite characters, because some of them are murderous evil monsters, but...I generally do see them as either having some kind of admirable personality trait (courage, integrity, confidence, determination... or maybe just a lot of charisma and a good sense of humour, though I feel like charisma tends to overlap with confidence a fair bit...), or at least as being very good at what they do. I can kind of get the appeal of the “sweet and kind and caring but not that bright ‘golden retriever man’ type”, even though they’re not usually MY type, because I know some people primarily like characters who they think it would be good to be friends with (and most of those types of characters aren’t USELESS, at the very least they tend to be good at listening and being supportive), but when someone’s favourite character is a bad person AND they seem to think they’re stupid, useless, incompetent and pathetic on top of being evil it’s like...so what do you even like about them?

[bringbackmaes14]

Some of my favorite things my Blorbo from University has done in the classes I've had with him

- He has a thing about "I'm not supposed to teach y'all about "radical" topics like, I don't know, how black people have been oppressed in this country since forever, so once I finish this lecture on Jim Crow laws y'all can send me off to the gulag." And regularly references getting sent to the gulag after lectures.

- He and I have a silly little feud because he's a North Carolinian and I'm a South Carolinian and one time the class joked that we'd ship him off to South Carolina instead of the gulag and he literally pulled a knife out of his pocket and put it up to his neck in front of the entire lecture hall and said "You'll have to drag my dead fucking body there! I'M NOT GOING BACK!"

- He's literally actually a comedian so he tells a lot of jokes in his lectures and just does general fuckery and my favorite account of this is on the first day of class with him one kid was late and he turned to the lecture hall before the kid came in and said "Guys I'm gonna fuck with him just let it happen. Play it cool." and then he let the guy in and once said guy was seated my professor just started lecturing in fluent Russian

- I have a T-shirt on it that says "World's Sluttiest Dad" and every time I wear the shirt he comments on how it's his favorite shirt he's ever seen but he could never wear it because I'm obviously a way sluttier dad than he is

- I told him I was looking for something specific on Facebook marketplace with just a screenshot to go off of and couldn't find it and he said to send it to him because "I'm an expert at Facebook marketplace on account of my brother -you know, the one in prison- won't stop selling our mom's shit on there and it's always my job to find it and buy it back. I'll find it for you."

- I'm starting a teaching assistant position under him in the fall so he was like "oh fuck yeah I'm not just your teacher now I'm your mentor!" except I am also mentoring under his wife who is the head of the graduate studies program that I want to pursue at our college, and when he found this out he told me (in front of my entire class, mind you) "Mentorship cancelled. You're family now. It's inescapable. When you stand up on the stage at graduation me and my wife are gonna be standing there next to the president and when he gives you your diploma we're gonna give you adoption papers with it."

- He uses a golf cart to get across campus and he told us "I'd run each of you over to get you free tuition but unfortunately I don't have a big enough golf cart... Also my wife said I'd just get fired which would be fine because this college is barely paying me anything anyway but apparently you guys would be stuck with a less cool history professor so I've decided against it."

- Okay for this bullet point it's important that you know two things. 1. He was diagnosed with rectal cancer back in January and 2. During the second or third week of class he was late because his truck got rear-ended in the parking lot by a student. Anyway he was late again like two or three weeks later, and we asked him if he got rear-ended again and he said "Guys I've got rectal cancer; I'm getting rear-ended three days a week!" And only a couple people laughed and he said "Oh come on lighten up! It's not like I'm actually going to the doctor every day and they're like 'Bend over now; we've got the spoon!'...haha... Anyway so during the depression of 1893..." and The Spoon lives rent free in my head now. What the fuck did he mean by that???? Was he implying they'd scoop the cancer out of his ass?????

These are just things he's done that I can think of off the top of my head but I could honestly probably write a book with all the crazy shit he's said and done as my professor

"Blorbo from my shows" no. Blorbo from my BA. Blorbo from my major. Blorbo from my primary source document.