#the way i want people to refer to me is always entirely dependent on how i. look? 😭

[beneathsilverstars]

Can you pls explain to me the proper way to raise a child gender neutrally, especially in a world that loves to push gender? It’s something I always wanted to do when I have my own kid but I’m scared the world is just not ready for that kind of thing and my child will get bullied by other kids/adults.

Unfortunately the feasibility of this does depend on where you live. I’m lucky to live in a fairly liberal college town — the state as a whole is awful, but in this town we have drag shows and a huge pride parade and rainbow stickers in shop fronts. There are still transphobic people here of course, but they generally know that being too overt about it will have social repercussions.

However! It doesn’t necessarily have to be an all-or-nothing thing! When your kid's a baby it’s up to you how you refer to them while in different situations, so you’re free to adjust your language as seems necessary. And then when they’re old enough to care, well, at that point it’s not up to you anyway! (My kid has decided she’s a nonbinary girl, hence the she/hers in this post.)

So here’s a list of things my partners and I did, and you can decide which things seem safe / worth it to you.

We gave her a name that doesn’t have strong gender connotations.

We shopped in the boys and girls sections equally, aiming for a roughly equal number of fancy little button ups vs fancy little dresses, pink diapers vs blue diapers, etc.

We told friends and family that we were planning to raise her gender neutrally and use they/them pronouns, until/unless she expressed a preference otherwise.

Our explanation to adults was along the lines of “We don't want to assign a gender to our child, because we think gender should be a freely-made choice rather than something that is assumed based on body type. So, we're raising them gender neutrally until they decide what they want to be. We’re not assigning them 'nonbinary', either; we’re using they/them to help avoid gendered bias, so they’ll get to experience feminine, masculine, and ungendered options equally. That way every option will be open to them as they learn their own preferences and decide who they want to be.”

Our explanation to kids was along the lines of “I don’t know yet if they’re a boy or a girl or something else! When babies are born, the doctor guesses what gender they’ll be. But sometimes the doctor guesses wrong, and the kid grows up to be a different gender. We decided not to guess what gender our baby will be, because we want to let them choose.” This usually makes perfect sense to 4-5 year olds! (Younger kids might not entirely understand or care, and older kids might have more questions.) However, you gotta be careful with this, bc even some people who are okay with you explaining your own adult transed gender won’t like you implying to their children that everyone should have that option and the whole system is bs. The less objectionable explanation is “I’m going to wait until they’re older to ask them whether they’re a boy or a girl.” Or even answering "What gender is your baby?" with "What do you think?" and then "Maybe!"

We didn’t announce her agab. When people asked, we refused to answer, more or less politely depending on the vibes. If you really want to make them feel bad you can give them a weird look and say “My child’s body is none of your business??” but there’s also the gentler “I don’t think it really matters!” We did fill out her assigned sex for official paperwork, like doctor's forms and legal government stuff, but for more casual forms we sometimes skipped the question or wrote in "we are raising them gender-neutrally" or "they/them".

We generally didn’t correct strangers or explain it to them unless they asked. Nothing wrong with some people assuming “she” and some people assuming “he”, as long as it’s not always just one or the other. If a stranger asked about their gender, I'd go for a quick "We're raising them gender-neutrally." I did also have to clarify fairly often that I only have one kid, when I talked about them and people assumed the "they" was plural, but that was never a big deal it was just kinda funny.

We did correct friends and family, since if they used gendered pronouns it was an active choice or mistake rather than a clueless assumption. Most of our circles are queer so most people were chill about it, but some family members changed one diaper and immediately assigned a pronoun set. We didn't think it was worth fighting over or limiting access, since it's not like they were disrespecting the baby's preference. But we did keep correcting them / emphasizing the neutral pronoun in our replies.

When she started preschool, we preemptively explained to her teachers that we're raising her gender-neutrally, and to please refer to her using "they/them" unless she said otherwise, and to avoid splitting the class into boys vs girls teams or anything like that. Again, fairly liberal town, and the preschool even has a teacher who uses they/them, so the teachers agreed without issue. iirc, they messed up occasionally but they were making an effort, and again I wasn't too bothered as long as my kid wasn't.

When she started using she/her sometimes, I let her teachers know, and told them to follow her lead. When we talked with friends and family we just used the right pronouns ourselves, and explained if they asked or it came up. And then once she was consistently using just she/her, we made a facebook post about it and started correcting people with a quick "She actually decided to use she/her, now."

And then here's how we talked about gender with her, specifically.

When she was old enough to start wondering who's a boy and who's a girl and what that even means, we explained, "Some people are girls, some people are boys, some people are neither or both or something else. I decided I don't want to be a boy or a girl, I'm nonbinary instead. You can decide if you want to be a boy or a girl or nonbinary or something else, too." and "Well, maybe that person's a boy, but they could be something else; I don't know because I don't know them. I don't know their name or anything either." We decided not to explain how differently most of society treats gender, the stereotypes of gender presentation, etc, until she started noticing that stuff herself. Explaining that it's wrong still involves putting those ideas into her head, which was going to happen pretty soon anyway regardless. Might as well start with a foundation of pure gender anarchy while we can.

When she noticed that every other kid she's met already had a gender, we explained "A lot of parents guess what gender their kid will be, and sometimes they guess right or sometimes they guess wrong. [Friend]'s mom guessed that she was a girl, and [friend] agrees! But when Mama was a kid people guessed she was a boy, and then she grew up and decided she's actually a girl. We didn't want to guess for you and maybe get it wrong, so we decided to wait until you were old enough to decide for yourself what gender you want to be."

Occasionally when the topic came up, we would ask if she felt like she wanted to be a girl or boy or something else, or specifically ask if she liked "they/them" or wanted to use "she/her" or "he/him". When she was ~2, she didn't entirely understand and didn't care. When she was ~3, she occasionally said she wanted to be a girl or use she/her, but immediately changed her mind as soon as we actually referred to her as such. (This is quite in-character for her, because she's generally averse to big changes and doesn't like to do anything she doesn't feel totally confident about.) When she was ~4 she finally stuck with it, and now she's a nonbinary girl who uses she/her, and her feelings about gendered terms like "daughter" still go back and forth a bit.

When she started expressing preferences in clothing, colors, etc, we just got things she liked, which ended up being dresses and sparkles.

As she started noticing gender differences, picking up stereotypes from school and media, etc, we'd address them as they came up. "Yes, a lot of people think dresses are just for girls. But I think that isn't very fair. Some boys love to wear dresses, and some girls don't, and that's just fine! It's not very nice to tell someone else what they're allowed to wear. (Unless they need certain clothes to say safe, like a jacket in the winter.)"

We also had to tell her to stop being sexist, lol. "It's fine that you think girls are awesome, they are! But boys are awesome too. It's not very nice to say you won't play with someone just because of their gender. If someone said they wouldn't play with me because I'm nonbinary, I would be so sad! If you don't want to play with [these three classmates] because they're usually too loud and rough, that's fine, but that's not because they're boys; that's because of what games they like to play. Some girls like to play loud and rough, and some boys like to be more careful and quiet like you. Can you think of any boys in your class who you like to play with sometimes? ... See, boys can like all sorts of different games, just like girls can."

We ended up getting the easiest resolution (at least for now): by the time she reached the age where kids start caring about these things, she'd started caring, and settled into being a classic girly girl (with the occasional splash of nonbinary flavor). If she'd stuck to they/them, she'd probably be starting to have a harder time in school -- definitely not full bullying, given her 12-kid 2-teacher private kindergarten class, but probably some frustration with constantly correcting people.

However... if she was more gnc, she woulda ended up that way sooner or later, anyway. If I was choosing between "she's out and proud trans and gets some shit for it" or "she's unhappy with being cis but doesn't realize she has other options," I'd always choose the former, because in that case she gets a choice. By the time kids are old enough to bully each other over gender, they're old enough to decide whether they want to be out at school, y'know? And I've always been ready to pull her from school if it ever became necessary due to peer bullying or unsupportive teachers, especially since she shares a lot of the traits that my wife got bullied for as a child.

It is possible to go 100% gender-neutral, and cut anyone out of your life who opposes it, including moving schools or even moving house if necessary. There are people who will support this choice, even cishet people who don't really get the trans thing but know that unconscious sexism can have a big effect on babies' development. Maybe more people than you think! But it depends on your local culture. And sometimes it takes a certain amount of privilege to be able to prioritize finding those people, and it's simply not worth, say, paying more to switch daycares to find a teacher who won't gender your baby. Sometimes you do have to balance your priorities, and you can't know how much balancing it will actually take until you get there.

So, overall, my advice is just to do whatever you feel comfortable with! What sounds worse to you: gendering your baby, or fighting against society's attempts to gender them? Obviously when you have a trans child you fight for them, but it's a muddier question when the child doesn't care yet. Most of our queer friends aren't going full they/them gender neutral with their kids like we did, because they don't want to have to constantly explain that on top of all the shit they deal with for being queer. Instead they're just being extra firm about shopping in both sections of the store, not falling to stereotypes, and explaining to their child that they can decide to be something else if they want.

And there's a lot of options in between -- maybe you use they/them at home, but he/him at school, or maybe even she/her at home to balance out the school. Maybe you name and dress them gender-neutrally (or both fem and masc) and don't correct any assumptions. Maybe you tell one side of the family that you're going gender anarchy neutral so they should avoid gendered terms, but you only tell the other side that you're going feminist equality so they should make sure to gift both pretend kitchen toys and pretend power tools. It's the same as deciding in what situations you want to be out vs stay stealth/closeted.

When they're a baby it doesn't matter much either way (as long as you're not being sexist in your reactions to their behavior) because they're a baby, they could not care less. And then when they're old enough to pick their gender, you're hopefully giving them that choice regardless of what you did when they're a baby. It's true that the starting point you gave them may affect their gender journey, but that's true of gender neutrality as well.

So if you think it'll be too risky in the time and place in which you're raising your child, you really don't have to feel bad about not doing it. It's okay to save your energy for when your child really needs it. But if it's something you're committed to, it is possible! I'm so glad that my family was able to make this choice. I actually loved the conversations that it opened up with all sorts of people about gendering children! Even though I got in trouble one time for explaining gender too well to the children at the daycare I worked at, lol. And I know that gendering my kid as a baby would've made me more uncomfortable than any number of awkward conversations. I love knowing that her pink purple flower unicorn heart dresses are something she freely chose!!

[fruitmouse]

maybe one day he/she will make a comeback. just maybe

[queenaeducan]

In Defense of Spirits

Or, alternatively:

I. Introduction

Spirits are one of my favourite parts of the Dragon Age lore, but they didn't start that way! Initially with Origins the various demons I fought I considered little more than cannon fodder, enemies put in my way to cut down so I could move on with my mission. With the introduction of Justice in Awakening and Dragon Age II coupled with Merrill’s alternate perspective also introduced in the latter, my feelings about them started to change. Solas and Cole crack those feelings wide open come Inquisition, and when replaying the games I found myself questioning the motivations of encounters with people I once considered one-note enemies.

I wanted to compile a list of these alternate readings of the various spirits we meet throughout the series, starting first with Origins. I'll be detailing some common themes and, where it’s appropriate, to defend their actions. This list is not comprehensive as there are some encounters I don’t consider significant or interesting enough to mention, although if someone’s curious about a particular spirit I’m happy to oblige. For the purposes of clarity, if I use the word “spirit” I am still referring to all denizens of the Fade, whether they call themselves Pride or Compassion. I may use the word “demon,” as a treat.

The purpose of this retrospective is to reflect upon the motivations of the spirits we kill through the series and how I think Bioware successfully created a world where, in this instance, we were sucked into their preconceived biases regarding spirits. And hopefully to make you feel as bad as I do when I’m forced to kill spirits who probably are better people than my player characters. I am also not arguing that everything I put forth here was intended by the writers. I have the reach and flexibility to pull out threads they didn’t expect me to.

Finally, this won’t be an exhaustive examination. There are a lot of spirits and some don’t invite discussion on my part.

II. Analytical Lens

There are several recurring themes that will crop up when I’m recontextualising the motivations of the spirits throughout the series. We’ll be going over these in detail as we talk about individual spirits, but for now:

The Veil is a construct. There was initially no barrier stopping them from moving back and forth freely, and in many ways their desire to manifest physically outside the Fade is a natural inclination. The problem being that going there and back again isn’t as easy as it once was.

They don’t understand this world. Again, I think the presence of the Veil exacerbates this. Time and again we see spirits who do have enough will to manifest safely have difficulty adjusting. 

Trying to help hurts. Spirits can’t sicken with Blight or the common cold (that we know of), but intense emotions or cruel intentions can twist them from their purposes. Those who reach out in the honest urge to help may find themselves burned, sometimes through no fault of either party.

Their design encourages dehumanisation. For lack of a better word, considering this is a land of elves, dwarves, qunari, and so on. Many of the spirits we’re asked to empathise with are humanoid, with those we are at odds with being more likely to be monstrous or animal in design, making it easier to justify why we need to choose violence.

III. Dragon Age: Origins

Mouse

Mouse is among the first spirit players will meet in Dragon Age, depending on whether or not they play the Mage origin or not. Narratively he is meant to introduce the player to the role spirits often play in the lives of mages, that is to say: an evil that is not always self-evident. He tells a sympathetic lie, presents himself as someone who was once in a position like the protagonist currently is, and wants to make sure they don’t end up like him, only for it to be revealed that the entire reason he’s there is to possess them. At least, nominally that’s his role. A second pass at Mouse’s actions does raise questions as to his true intentions.

Throughout the test Mouse encourages two things within the protagonist: their self-worth and their questioning of the ritual. The former makes sense, he is ultimately revealed to be a spirit of Pride and so to stoke the protagonist’s own pride may inflate their confidence to a point where they can’t see the potential harm in dealing with him. Still, in a society where magic is feared and mages prisoners, there is something radical in encouraging that in someone. Especially when paired with remarks Mouse makes where he questions the logic of the Harrowing itself:

“It isn’t right they do this, the Templars. Not to you, me, anyone.”

This is one of the first things he says to you, and is one of the first pieces of Circle critical rhetoric in the entire series. From the perspective of the protagonist at the time, it would seem he’s referring only to apprentices, but is he? Spirits are drawn into the Harrowing as much as mages, ostensibly willingly with the promise of a body to possess, but we see in rituals such as the one that drew Wisdom into the world that the Circle isn’t above shackling spirits into doing their bidding, be it as a means of protection or garnering information. Once inside, they’re subject to the will of the apprentice, who have been taught to fear and mistrust the Fade since they were first brought to the Circle. So is Mouse expressing bitterness about the situation of the apprentices, or is he looking at the situation as being equally unfair to all involved?

Furthermore, what’s most interesting about Mouse is he never actually tries to possess you. He makes some requests, which Surana or Amell can’t agree to, but even if you avoid catching onto his game for as long as you can it never goes farther than that. He reveals himself as the final test and before the Harrowing ends he dispenses the to-be Warden a warning:

“Simple killing is a warrior’s job. The real dangers of the Fade are preconceptions, careless trust… pride. Keep your wits about you, mage. True tests never end.”

A piece of wisdom, if you will.

I don’t believe Mouse ever truly intended to possess you, although it’s impossible to tell if he truly would or not without the ability to agree to his bargain. He gives up the game too quickly, with the Warden only needing to vaguely doubt his story before he reveals it. By following the Warden through their Harrowing he helps them successfully bargain with spirits like Valor and Sloth and safely introduces the idea that not everything here is as it seems. Rather than being purely a Pride demon, I think Mouse is a spirit of Wisdom influenced by the Warden’s preconceptions towards what some might call the darker aspect of the values he represents. 

While I don’t think it’s out of the realm of possibility that Mouse was exactly what we’re led to believe, nevertheless I believe it probable that spirits aren’t always gleeful participants in the Harrowing and that the rite is damaging to them as well as the apprentice mages.

Desire

We go now to another spirit from the Circle, specifically the Desire demon we meet in the Broken Circle quest. When we come across her she’s possessed a Templar and letting him live out a fantasy of having a wife and children. When the Warden and their party come across her, she argues that she’s giving him what he wants and doesn’t see the harm in it. Upon my first playthrough I took this as a lie and killed her, although it was difficult not feeling bad, as from the perspective of the enthralled Templar he died defending his family from bandits. To him the Warden was unequivocally the bad guy, and it’s tragic thinking about what his final thoughts might have been.

As for Desire herself, I think there’s an argument to be made that she simply didn’t see a difference between her making a life for herself and the Templar all within his head and a physical, lived life. We see in Inquisition especially, where we talk to more spirits, that the nature of the physical world is as alien to them as the Fade is to mortals. Command wonders out loud why the rocks do not move at her command, and Cole asks Varric to talk to his shoelaces for him because they “don’t listen to him.” They existed in a world where will mattered more and where dreams were real, so it stands to reason that to Desire there is no discernable difference between giving him what he wants for real and dreaming it.

Interestingly, you can choose to let them both go, and we get no indication of where they go from the Circle. Leliana also approves because she thinks what counts is that he’s happy. Personally I don’t feel there’s a right option in this quest as either leaves the Templar in a tragic spot, but I do think the Desire demon’s motivations aren’t as evil or manipulative as they seemed on my first playthrough.

Lady of the Forest

The Lady is perhaps the first spirit in the series given a more complicated character than “spirit good, demon bad.” We have Valor in the mage origin, Wynne’s spirit of Faith, etc, but they aren’t given much characterisation and their benevolent nature is taken as a matter of fact. We have a biased introduction to her, we see the damage she has done to Zathrian’s clan and hear his side of the story. We go into the forest to carve the heart from her chest.

But when the time comes to actually speak with her, his bias and deception is plain. She has all the trappings of a demon: summoned at a point of great tragedy, as a tool of vengeance, enacting a literal curse upon Zathrian’s enemies. Yet now she is an advocate for non-violent solutions, only compelled to violence by desperation (she sent letters but Zathrian left her on read) or by the player’s encouragement (potentially). I do think this was an end she worked towards, and didn’t come by naturally, saying to the Warden at one point:

“Then the time has come to… set our rage aside. I apologise on Swiftrunner’s behalf. He struggles with his nature.”

While she is speaking of Swiftrunnher, given she is the curse’s origin, I think the same could be said of her nature (as it is her curse). Zathrian implies much the same, saying to her:

“Your nature compels it, as does mine.”

I think it’s very likely that had we encountered the Lady those hundred years ago when she was first made, she would have been to our eyes a demon, rather than the semi-benevolent force of nature she appears as in-game. Interestingly, her outward nature doesn’t change if she is compelled to kill the Dalish. She isn’t thrilled, but neither is her nature twisted. She’s pretty quick to move on, afterwards. Of the major spirits in DA:O, I do think she is an outlier in the series. Killing her is the bad option, especially when a mutually beneficial solution is forced upon you. She also has a stronger presence of mind than many of the other spirits, perhaps accounting to her age and the fact that she is tethered to the world through not only Zathrian but her ‘followers.’ It’s fitting that the Dalish quest is the one where a spirit is presented not only sympathetically, but (as far as I can tell) exclusively referred to as a spirit whether they are doing right or wrong.

Rage

We meet many Rage demons in Origins, and throughout the series, but the spirit I’m referring to are the ones we meet in the Alienage’s orphanage. The recent site of a massacre, the orphanage is now home to a spirit of Rage who attacks those who enter. Rage, I thought, was a curious choice, when Despair and Terror exist. Although the fact that they probably didn’t want to make a new spirit model for this one sidequest would probably explain it on a development level, but then I wondered— whose rage?

The spirits don’t seem to embody the rage of the people who massacred the orphanage, or even the rage of the victims. They tell the Warden and Ser Otto that they “do not belong here” and one is furious that the party has killed “my brood.” I think the presence of the spirits here is indicative of how helpful or benevolent spirits can be twisted by the horrors of our world, that they were drawn by the misery of what happened at the orphanage and upon witnessing it they became enraged. They are ultimately protecting nothing, just an empty building that’s probably best torn down or cleared out, or whatever the elves of Denerim’s Alienage decide they need to properly mourn. Yet as we walk through the building the screams of children still play around us, it’s still happening for its current residents.

In the final encounter of the quest, the Rage demon targets and kills Ser Otto (assuming those mabari you encounter like two minutes in don’t get him first, like they do for me every time if I’m not paying attention) first out of your entire party. It makes sense, although his motivation was pure, he is representative of the human justice that allows horrors like this, and what’s more— how many orphans were taken from the orphanage’s midst by people wearing armour just like his, never to return?

The rage demons had every right to be angry, even if their anger manifested in a harmful way. The tragedy is that, outside of Denerim’s Alienage, most people weren’t.

IV. Other

These are spirits whose roles I don’t have much to say about, for one reason or another.

Kitty. I don’t have much to say about Kitty, who as a reminder is the spirit held captive in the basement of Wilhelm, the former master of Shale. Given Kitty can agree to not possess Amalia, content simply to be free of the basement, and then doubles back on that promise once you complete the puzzle, I don’t have the highest opinion of Kitty. However, can I do want to point out that Wilhelm held Kitty captive in his basement for decades for his research. Research which, by the way, was to find ways to prevent mages from becoming possessed. A little ironic that he essentially possessed a spirit to do so. I want to point this out only because I think it highlights how spirits are casually used by people and at no point do we stop and wonder what decades of being locked up in a basement outside of their intended realm of existence might do to someone, even a metaphysical someone.

Herren. The merchant and life partner of the blacksmith Wade, who may have made your Warden some nice armour from all those endangered dragons they killed. In the Darkspawn Chronicles Herren is fought— as a desire demon. Gaider says this is not canon, but he doesn’t even go here anymore, so instead I’d like to put forth the idea that Herren is a desire demon taken physical form who lives out his existence peacefully (if somewhat grumpily) with his eccentric husband. I have no evidence of this being a fact, in fact I have the opposite of evidence, but I like my version better, so.

The Grand Oak. I think everyone with a modicum of taste likes this guy, but I do think he's an interesting lens to look at how spirits in Elvhenan might have lived. I like to think all of them had a period where they just vibed as a tree for a hundred years or so.

[ilikekidsshows]

Have you seen the Sublimation leaks? Pretty much the entire episode has been leaked by now and people have made a 19 minutes super cut xD I'm asking cause I don't want to send an ask about Sublimation if you haven't seen it and don't want to be spoiled

---

The entire episode came out while I was busy answering the ask game and I checked it out to respond to this ask properly . But, for future reference: unless it’s a show I’m liveblogging it’s open to spoil.

Okay, so the episode went just like I predicted with Marinette easily forgiven. Even before I saw the whole thing, I saw the collected clips and I could smell the upcoming Marinette validation in the final scenes. And yet, just like this show does time and time again, it's still worse than even what I prepared for. Of course the episode couldn't just be "Marinette gets forgiven without her having to do anything", of course her saying sorry and making reparations aren't just things she does after being forgiven, like she's the one rewarding her victims for their good behavior of forgiving her. No, they had to go even further and end the episode with Marinette's victim coddling her over her "friendship fears".

This episode is so manipulative in how hard it leans on the audience to pity Marinette throughout. Like, seriously, her Lucky Charm calls her the villain? The amount of self-pity there goes way beyond all the other cases of Marinette acting like this that have come before. Little miss “if I make myself miserable asking me to make up for what I did wrong would be cruel” now has her own superpowers take part in her self-flagellation just to make sure no one with the actual right to be mad at her gets there first.

Marinette always does this. She makes a mistake and rather than think of a way to make up for it, she calls herself the worst and whines. “The Lucky Charm pointed her out as the villain” is not Marinette facing consequences or the episode treating her as in the wrong. It’s once again Marinette being her own worst critic whenever she does something wrong, to make sure the audience feels bad for her first and foremost so that they can instantly forgive her even when she never actually learns. “Marinette loves to learn,” my ass. “The villain was me” is just “I’m the worst Guardian” with a new coat of paint.

The important part is that the person with the right to be mad at Marinette, Sublime, had already forgiven her before Marinette even had her little villain realization. Just because a character says something that’s right on paper doesn’t mean it’s being presented as the correct perspective in the episode. It depends on that framing I’ve been harping on about. So, while Sublimation rightfully chewed Marinette out, all the scenes before her Akumatization have her acting entitled, cold and harsh, calling Sublime’s dad a failure and getting on his case for coddling her when he merely offers her a balancing hand and not taking Sublime’s opinions on things into account. In all these scenes, her husband talks calmly while she’s snapping; the writers intend her to come across as misguided or downright unreasonable. This makes it so that her yelling at Marinette comes across as her just being unreasonable again and like we’re meant to see her as being mean, especially because Marinette also looks the saddest in the episode specifically when Sublimation is yelling at her. To further make Sublimation's points worthless, her power to make people the best version of themselves doesn't work on Marinette because she already "perfect". If she's already so perfect, then why does she keep doing this shit?

The only characters calling Marinette out are herself, in her typical “I’m the worst” fashion, and a “jerk-coded” character whose opinion we aren't supposed to respect. This was already visible in the leaked scenes and made it very clear to me that Marinette wouldn’t be suffering any real consequences for what she did, her feeling guilty is meant to be the consequence and punishment. And I was proven correct. When Sublimation is dealt with, no one is mad at Marinette anymore, because being mad at her is what villains do. It doesn’t matter that Marinette claims she was in the wrong because she does it in an overly exaggerated manner that the viewer won’t take seriously. It doesn’t matter that the other characters have a “this is going to end poorly” attitude about Marinette’s nonsense, when they’re clearly pitying Marinette and not her target. It doesn’t matter that Marinette gets called out when the character doing it is the supervillain in an altered state of mind we’re supposed to see as unreasonable.

This episode is so disrespectful towards Sublime. No one voices concern over whether or not she would need to be protected from the downfall of Marinette’s shenanigans, all Tikki, Alya and Trixx are concerned with are that Marinette will come out of this smelling like roses with that “mistakes are an opportunity to earn and Marinette loves to learn” nonsense. Yeah, Marinette loves mistakes because no one is ever concerned with the people those mistakes hurt! Sublime should not be getting treated as a teaching aid in universe, when she’s supposed to be a person Marinette wants to befriend. Like, it’s clear she only wants to befriend Sublime for control freak reasons to make sure she isn’t talking to Adrien behind her back, considering how obsessed she is with that thought, but that is still the stated end goal.

Speaking of, Sublime should not have wanted to be friends with Marinette no matter if Adrien told her she has difficulties making friends, her reaction to Ladybug shattering her legs should not have been “I’m okay!” She should want to stay away from Marinette’s clearly unbalanced ass. She should have been pissed at Ladybug, it was her right. But, no, she couldn’t possibly be upset about any of that because being upset at Marinette is what bad people do and Sublime is a good person and good people always put Marinette’s feelings before their own. It’s a good thing Marinette’s Miraculous Ladybug can fix any damage caused by anyone on the same day a villain fight happens or otherwise she couldn’t have rewarded Sublime and her family for being such good people who forgave her before she could even apologize or make reparations.

Also, if I got cornered by my new friend’s stalker girlfriend alone in a dressing room, I’d book it, not offer to talk about whatever she wanted to talk about to make her comfortable with me. Everyone in Miraculous is either a master of emotional control, or they get Akumatized, except, of course, for Marinette, who can do whatever messed up thing she comes up when she's having an emotion and she will be instantly forgiven because she was just being emotional. Well, in the real world, sometimes, when you do messed up things because of your emotions, another person's emotions make them yell at you for it, and they'll be right to do so.

The fact that Marinette did all that and is getting rewarded with the friendship she wanted at the start of the episode and more coddling from her victim just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Marinette’s magical powers of super convenience fixed her mistakes as a superhero and her super perfect therapist boyfriend's damage control saved her civilian reputation, not her own actions. And she still dared to be upset when she heard that Sublime had been talking with Adrien behind her back, because god forbid Adrien spend time with people who are not Marinette or a part of Marinette’s posse. What is Marinette teaching kids in this episode? That it’s okay if you fuck up and act like a menace as long as you say “I’m sowwy, I don’t deserve to be our friend”. Still keeping up the trend of teaching kids exactly how to manipulate people into forgiving you, I see.

[mokokone]

Hello!

I want to ask, would you do requests for yandere?

A/n: I honestly didn't know if you were requesting a Yandere!Medicine Seller fanfic or something else entirely. (May I remind you to please be a little more specific when asking me questions. It is important for me to understand exactly what you are looking for in order to give you content. Thanks♡). But I wrote a Yandere!Medicine Seller headcanons just in case.

Enjoy!

⚠Trigger Warning ⚠ dubious content, abusive relationship, implied non-con, yandere.

Yandere!Medicine Seller/Kusuriuri x Reader - Headcanons

He is so unpredictable that you must be careful around him. You never know when he will decide to pick on you for small things or mock you for being foolish.

If Kusuriuri didn't jokingly refer to you as his beloved mate, you wouldn't understand why he keeps you by his side.

He shows that he cares about you by being protective and possessive, displaying his affection in his own unique way. Despite his harsh exterior, there are moments when he lets his guard down, revealing a softer side that makes you question his true feelings towards you.

At times, it almost feels like a game to him, teasing you and testing your patience and loyalty. Kusuriuri's complex personality adds an element of mystery to your relationship, making each interaction with him both exhilarating and nerve-wracking.

He'd always say that you hold a special place in his heart and would never let anything or anyone harm you. Once he finds out you're being threatened, mistreated, or cheated, he slays an entire village by striking up deals with malevolent Mononoke, letting them do as they please, and terrorizing innocent civilians in favor of not hunting and exercising them.

There were times he'd even pretend to be oblivious and lazy, refusing to lift a single finger to help those in need just to spite you.

You never asked him to do this, and it's obvious that it bothers you, but that doesn't prevent him. He wanted everyone to treat you with the same level of fear and respect that they would give him.

Kusuriuri's enigmatic nature keeps you on your toes, never quite sure what to expect next. The thrill of his unpredictable behavior makes every moment spent with him a blend of excitement and trepidation. At times, the intensity of his actions can be overwhelming and even frightening. Despite this, he reassures you of his unwavering loyalty and protection. If he senses any threat to you, he reacts swiftly and decisively, leaving a little trail of chaos in his wake.

He always looks at you with this sickening smirk after you witness this. He knows you don't like it—the sight of his true form, the begging for mercy, or the rare moments when people will turn to you and beg for forgiveness as if believing that you had control over him, instead of it being the other way around.

The way you shudder in disgust or turn your head, too scared, maybe even ashamed, pleases him greatly. He just might fuck you afterward or during, depending on his mood.

He'll leave not just one, but several bite marks along your neck, making sure that anyone who catches a glimpse of them will immediately recognize who you are claimed by. These marks are his way of marking his territory, showing the world that you are his and his alone.

Occasionally, he enjoys hurting you just as much as he enjoys keeping you safe. It's something he really enjoys doing! But don't misunderstand him; he does LOVE you... just in his own unique way. If he didn't, you wouldn't be alive.

Outside of his emotions, you don't have much value to him. It's tough to realize this when Kusuriuri uses you like a stress ball. Each time, you end up scratched and bruised from his rough handling. It feels like you're nothing more than a beloved toy to him, far from being his lover.

Funny how you're supposed to be his mate but are scared of his true form. Whenever you get a little bold, you might catch a glimpse of his other self in the mirror. He doesn't show his other self this often, but he just loves to tease you.

There's no point in you parading around your dignity and pride when he has the means to swipe it away in the blink of an eye.

How many times has he made you beg him for mercy now? What about the times he drugged you and pleasured your unconscious body? He'd lost count. Yet, you still remain by his side, trapped in a cycle of dependence and fear. It's a sick game he plays, and you're the helpless pawn in his twisted world. But amidst the darkness, there is a flicker of light.

 In his embrace, you find solace, love, and safety, a brief respite from the torment of his cruelty.

[mad-scientist-enthusiast]

Rant about Jedidiah Martin because I'm getting brain worms...

Jedidiah knows love from his upbringing, which is why his favorite game growing up was "playing house." Jedidiah practiced his mother's example of parenthood on his "children;" that being keeping them close by and admiring them, but neglecting them nonetheless. Sydney's comment about the fruit fly really captures this dynamic.

"It hadn't even occurred to him. He'd gotten up every morning and admired that starving animal, throwing itself against the walls of its container. Hadn't even thought to put a little piece of cantaloupe in there. And his beloved fly died hungry, empty, trapped, and alone."

Jedidiah is very dependent on his mother. He still lives with her, he relies on her protection to handle everything he cannot. Despite this, Lucille always keeps him at arms length and never any closer. She has this weirdly detached style of parenting, where she needs Jedidiah close in proximity, but not close emotionally. And Jedidiah mirrors this in his relationship with Sydney.

I think Jedidiah really does love Sydney, however, the only way he knows how to treat Sydney is the way his mother treated him.

He keeps Sydney close, essentially trapping him at the Camp, and admires him from afar. He does a lot to ensure Sydney's physical safety, sure, but this is done so with minimal interaction with him. Sydney is his fruit fly. He loves Sydney, and ultimately does not want Sydney to die, but he is doing nothing to nourish their relationship. I think he almost views Sydney's state of being "alive" as the physical act of living. He is breathing, his body is functioning. But being alive is much more than that. His clinical approach to their relationship is the reason why he doesn't seem to conceptualize how much he's hurt Sydney. And only when he starts to feel hurt by Lucille's treatment of him does he realize he's put Sydney in the same position.

It's almost as if Lucille and Jedidiah don't entirely view the subject of their "love" as a separate, autonomous human being.

It almost reminds me of the like "Teaching STEM without the humanities" memes. Jedidiah has no reference for an emotional connection with other people, so when he wants to be in a relationship with someone, it results in this dynamic we see between him and Sydney.

[fantomette22]

A little something about the students dress

Alright so I was looking at references (to draw a character) and ended up doing a bit of research on academic dresses & graduations uniforms! I only find a couple of things so if someone have more infos I will be very interest!

So in Bloodborne we got those dear uniforms :

The one with the robes is very classic of what people in old classic university still wear for big events and graduations such as in the U.S.A or UK. A decades/century ago they did wore those uniforms of course way more often. Now we wear mostly casual clothes.

(This image always made me think of Byrgenwerth. With the balcony and all. That remind me of a post I made a while ago I have still no clue what those balcony were use for!!!)

At first, I discovered that between a bachelor/licence degree, master degree and phd/doctorate you aren't going to get the same clothes. Plus, colours can differ depending of : the level of the degree, the school or the field you graduate in (can differ depending the countries as well).

Bachelor outfits are the most simple ones with not a lot of colours for most of them. Sometimes they don't have hoods but depends. Sometimes they seems to have very large selves like the Byrgenwerth one. The master ones have a bit more colours and I read generally long sleeves but that depends? Then the phd/doctorate ones are generally very colourful! And like the last sources below v They even had even more beautiful outfit for very important members (so I guess Willem pope outfit still make sense XD)

As for the colors it really depends the country etc but I read red is often associated with medicine and surgery (what a coincidence!). White / purple or even red is for theology and blue could be for sciences (Byrgenwerth/willem researches seems to be quite a mixt with theology/sciences so make sense).

(@katyspersonal we did talk a while back on colours on clothes meaning but hey it had have academic significations that fit well too! So in the end, drawing Laurence with white & red clothes is even more accurate now! XD) Oh I wanna draw him in an entire red academic dress now...Future drawing idea ).

Also I forgot to mentions that there's the hat/trencher that's part of it as well. It's not part of the set in the game but ennemies have it.

Also little side note: some dress have stripes or ermine bands on the clothes that represents their grades and also "academic curiosity, academic honesty, and academic courage."

So i suppose the garb Micolash, Damian & co have would look more similar to a master degree one? I guess?

But I won't throw any rocks at Fromsoftware even if the ones we got might not be too much detailed/ accurate because they sure did their homeworks to find and design those clothes. They aren't historians and they probably found a lot more things than I here (plus Japan don't have those dresses too). They're not going to design like 5 different outfits in the game too XD. (Yes I want more details for my story bc making things way more complicated is way more accurate I guess...) We don't know how exactly those types of institutions fonctions in Bloodborne universe too. And it's a fantasy world after all. So it's free real estate

I dunno if you guys @pyro-madder @karnaca78 @secteel or others could know more about it 🤔

But for now it's all!

Sources :

PS : I found this piece of medieval scholar dress and it really look like the same as the guy in the cainhurst painting and cut content Beltran!

They are probably wearing a "simarre". Some magistrate/ university professor / religious clothes people would wear. So pretty oblivious and what we thought @heraldofcrow

[scriptlgbt]

I have a deaf trans character who went completely deaf in his teens. He is on T. Is it normal for him to be very conflicted on how he sounds to people? Would he be scared, especially when he starts passing more because the voice in his head will always be his old voice? Would he try to ask people to describe exactly how his voice sounds? Is it okay if he really wants a 'cure' due to this and never cared before he came out? Doesn't actually get the cure though.

I'm hard of hearing so my qualifications for answering this are limited. I can hear my own voice. This is my frame of reference here. I hope that deaf trans people can chime in.

When my voice dropped, I could physically feel the change when I talked. I would go to say something in the way I normally would, but it would feel more strained, or I would feel my voice break. (Hard to explain this feeling... It's like a pressure just gives way and I can feel my voice go softer? I don't know.)

I think in general, it's normal to feel self-conscious when your voice is changing. People who have known you with a higher voice seeing you for the first time in a year might be surprised and comment on your voice. Mine changed over a really short timespan so I had more people notice the change and comment on it and usually people expressed they were a big fan. I had platonic friends say it was hot, even. And I think, at least in my own trans community, there's a lot of celebration when people go through milestone changes.

The voice in my head has never been of any particular range or pitch. Sometimes there's an intonation to it, and if I focus, I can imagine a sound so clearly it nearly becomes hallucination. But my normal inner voice is more of just general language, maybe even closer to text than sound. This is another one of those things that varies with everyone.

I think that the story you're describing with your questions strikes me as an unusual level of hyperfixation on this. There are definitely people who do fixate on one specific dysphoric trigger, usually either isolated from trans community or whose only trans community are people obsessed with "passing" and coming across as cis enough. This usually speaks to an unhealthy community surroundings and a very big sense of danger in some way, whether founded in reality or not.

But I also don't see why this character wouldn't want to de-prioritize voicing if he has these concerns to this extreme of a degree. We (or me anyway) live in a society which is oralist. Everyone is assumed to communicate via oral language, and this is audist (part of the oppression against deaf and hard of hearing people). This is going to depend extremely on individual access, but, if this character has access to resources to learn the local sign language, this seems like a normal option. It's only really helpful if you know other people to sign with, but that usually comes more easily once you take the step to start learning in the first place. Some d/hh people also use other means of communicating, like typing.

There are some people I know who sometimes go nonspeaking and who carry a notepad for that reason, and will use this to interface with clerks or friends or whoever else they need to. There's also AAC in general.

None of this is to say that these things don't mean facing oppression, harassment, misunderstandings and assumptions from strangers. But I do know that some of the folks I know who use nonspeaking methods of communication are sometimes gendered differently by strangers who do not hear their voice. If this is truly that severe of an anxiety, this is probably the route the character would go.

But I don't think this level of hyperfixation on this is necessarily normal. I think wishing for a cure gets into some really big existentialism, like, what if this extremely core part of me were entirely different? It also assumes that deafness is necessarily a disease that requires cure, rather than something that just happens sometimes, which might or might not be related to some pathology or pathological origin.

I'm sorry to keep bugging them with my tags, but I rec reading work by @cripplecharacters.

But overall I'd just avoid writing this if you haven't experienced it. It's a really specific kind of experience and anxiety. I don't know your identities or anything, but if you are cis and hearing, I would probably just come across this and see it as weird and almost like... making these identities into an unnecessarily traumatizing spectacle. These can be things real people experience that can be represented, but they aren't for every writer to write. Not until people from those experiences write on them and get adequate success from that.

-mod nat

[richeeduvie]

Can someone please explain to me the whole baby thing? And dog bone au? And all these aus im so confused

DOG AND BONE!AU BASICS

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.

This is asked every five months and I'm happy to explain it each time! I'll put it in the pinned post! This is a long one so sorry yall

So Dog and Bone is the title to the AU for a self-insert x Roman Roy fic compilation. There's no actual series yet…sorry, I know! How long has it been? But these fics range from entire one-shots that center around a plot that can lead into another one-shot/drabble, with the content of said piece becoming important to the whole AU, to just cute, fluffy or smutty drabbles and blurbs. Most of them are based on requests. Your request could become a big part of Dog and Bone!

BABY

Baby is the name for the self-insert. Fics will flip from a second person to third person POV, so you'll see her referred to as 'Baby' a lot. I don't consider her an OC because there's no and will never be a physical description of her and to be honest, I only started to referred to her as Baby so I could write third person POV fics when I'm lazy and don't want to go heavy in internal monologue, which is what I do for second person POV fics. I never use 'Y/N' for her or any self-insert. But many see her as other people and not themselves and I love that too!

Personality-wise, you'll find her to Roman's soulmate. Although she is still a victim of being out-of-touch due to her wealth, she's managed to be kind and respectful and just something that Roys don't have outside of her. She's the ultimate nepo baby with Logan just giving her some vague career path at Waystar to keep her around. She mostly works in marketing and spends her days with Tom and Greg. So, the story of DAB (lol). Baby is the childhood best friend of Roman (and Shiv). In the AU, Baby's biological father was Logan's best friend and business associate. She met the Roy family when she was five and when Roman when almost seven. She was meant to be the best friend of Shiv, but Roman stole her one day when Shiv when to get more toys and baby Baby was on the swings. His sister is still pissed about this to this day.

Nothing much has been mentioned of Baby's bio dad just yet, but it was a one-time thing (so understandable is yall don't remember) that we see Logan giving Baby the medal her father gave him after his funeral. He's dead and apparently fought in a war, or maybe just liked collecting medals as much as Logan did.

So, facts about the dead dad:

Maybe was a veteran

Was hinted to have given Baby an eating disorder

Died when she was eight

Possibly kept her away from her mother

Logan's her godfather, but it was Frank to take her in after her dad had passed. Frank ON TOP!!!! PAPA FRANK!!! Baby's mother is very distant and she's really only seen her for a few holidays throughout her childhood. I've always imagined her to be those wealthy hippies feigning spirituality and did maybe try to get Baby in terms of custody, but didn't try a lot - not even after Baby's father died. So, Baby gets to stay with the Roys with Frank being her guardian. With this, it's just co-dependency and possessiveness growing.

Roman and Baby don't really have friends outside of each other. They do everything together and eventually start doing relationship sort of things together. They take each others virginities. Roman gets panicky and painful in the muscles if Baby has to leave him for more than three days. It's great, but nothing's official.

They live this way until Roman gets with Tabitha.

Now, you may be thinking 'Why does he begin a relationship with Tabitha if he's so possessive and seemingly satisfied with the situation he has with Baby?' Well, I have two fics that'll help you to explain Roman's stupidity:

Why Does Rome Still Date Tabitha (They Don’t Have Sex, but Still) Kendall Wins!AU Confession

The latter of the two is a bit more personal and truthful for Roman. It can be noted that as much as I am a GerriRoman supporter, their relationship does not happen in the DogandBone!AU. Only because one, frankly, I don't know how to or have the desire to thread it throughout the story because I already kept Tabitha's plotline…which is Roman's downfall. You will see. And two, you'll find that Roman and all of the Roys, really, have a lot of themselves changed all because they have one genuine friend that's cared and loved them since childhood so that big part of Roman's plotless plot-time in canon is gone here. Grace didn't happen as well because Jesse Armstrong said so lol.

As I said, the genuine friend line applies to all of the Roys (excluding Logan, except for his AU…), but it really applies to Kendall. Going back to the point where Baby and Roman are fourteen/fifteen and fifteen/sixteen, he gets sent away to military school. I made it so he's only there for two years to which Logan just doesn't care to send him there anymore because I want Baby and Roman teenage puppy and needy love for as much as I can get it. During this time, Kendall has this belief, this kindness to take in Baby when she's at her loneliest.

and…so…Kendall and Baby's whole thing?

The link above sums up their whole situation but I'll elaborate a bit more here because there's Tern Haven. Tern Haven happens in the OG!DogandBone!AU and KendallWins!AU, the grooming situation happens in every AU.

Of course, Roman comes back and Baby sobers up for the most part and leaves groomer Kendall's ass in the dust! It's when Roman starts dating Tabitha decades later that Kendall, who never actually made a move on Baby, brings hell and tragedy to the family. Baby's not so keen on continuing to have sex and the weird thing she has with Roman as he is with Tabitha around, so she becomes lonely and thoughtful in the need to reconnect with friends, maybe start dating herself. She's there during Tern Haven and can't go to Roman's room to hang out, Tabitha's there. She doesn't bother Shiv and Tom, she could talk with Frank, maybe? Maybe, but she makes her way to Kendall's room.

And whatever high horse Kendall put himself on for not doing anything with Baby, maybe not being in love with her - or at least having no awareness about it, whatever was starting with Naomi, it's gone when Baby enters that room.

Again, Tern Haven happens in Kendallwins!AU and the OG!AU. The only difference is that after, Roman is either successful in pulling Baby away from Kendall, or he isn't. This is where it can get confusing as it can with all the AUs because there's so many little splices of moments within content that really helps you understand how things happen but I can say that the Kendallwins!AU is just sad, scary, and dark.

But enough of that!

OG!DOGANDBONE!AU

After Roman's successful in getting Kendall away from Baby, he immediately breaks up with Tabitha and they heal from what happened. Kendall declines quickly during this. Logan dies and they get married after the GoJo sale. They have Baby Jr. On occasion, we'll have fun and write them having two more kids, Baby Jr Jr and Roman Jr, but they aren't canon - or they at least would get a canon fic like Baby

FICS TO HELP: Romulus Sneakers | Dad Frank feat. Baby Roman Call Them Brothers Back in Town Bone and Her Heart Roman’s a Friend Stealer While you were sleeping Touch Me (I'm Sick) Date Death | Part One Date Death Part 2 Babied (He Loves It) Violet, Blue, Green, Red To Keep Me Out Phone Call Home Baby Baby in “I went to Market” Baby in ‘Too Much Birthday’ After the GoJo Sale Telling Roman She's Pregnant

BABY JR

Baby Jr is an unrealistically perfect angel of a child that belongs to Roman and Baby in their AU and was born a preemie with a slew of health problems, but because I love her so much, it's becoming a running joke for her to just exist in every AU, somehow. if Baby's there, Baby Jr's there. She's named fittingly. You'll see her a lot in smaller blurbs and fics. Another running joke is that she hates Kendall in every AU, though she's barely mentioned outside of the OG! and Loganwins!AU.

JUST MY FAVORITE BABY JR FICS:

Baby Baby's First and Last Day at School Bear Baby Jr! Baby Jr Doing Something Dangerous Connor Taking Baby Jr Fishing Baby Jr seeing Baby Roman with Glasses

VARIATIONS OF THE OG!AU

They aren't mentioned a lot anymore because we don't get so serious about them and it was more just to have fun with the story, but the OG!AU does have some variations to how the plot goes. You have Baby and Roman having Baby Jr before season one where Tabitha and Tern Haven are things that obviously never happened:

If Roman Knocked Baby Up Logan Bullying Baby Jr YoungBornBabyJr!AU With Roman Forcing Baby to Marry Him Roman Drunk and Loving If Roman Knocked Baby Up in Their 20s If Baby Jr was Little in The Pilot Logan’s Baby Jr Favoritism Where’s Your Daughter?

Then, you have Baby dying and Roman killing himself to leave Baby Jr an orphan: Come Time, Baby Jr Missing Mommy.

Or you have Baby AND Baby Jr dying to leave Roman killing himself after his last moments of suffering…which, I can't find, but do we really want to read that?

If you don't want to suffer, it can end simply as a nightmare Roman had in the night. Here's another Nightmare Blurb.

LOGANWINS!AU

Listen. I CANNOT be the only person who has consistently written for Logan. I CANNOT! But I do and Baby is unfortunately the victim of a joke turned into a horniness for an old, old man.

Logan doesn't actually have a fic establishing the Loganwins!AU. Everything that's longer than a blurb are moments that already take place after they've gotten together. Tern Haven does not take place here because it appears that this…intimate relationship takes place before season one. Roman doesn't get together with Tabitha in this AU because he's really fucked up about his soulmate having sex and marriage with his…Dad. His abusive Dad. Baby Jr does exist here! This started as a joke to get people grossed out over old man Logan cock, I played it so I was DISGUSTED to appease any requests that were sent in. I really was. I don't know what happened. But a lot of what is written expands past Logan x Reader and more about the AU itself, which happens with Kendallwins! and the OG!AU too.

FICS TO HELP: THE OFFICE CONFRONTATION Mondale The Second Baseball Sick Baby Jr Mom(my) Siblings and Baby Jr Buzz off! Sister Shiv Recital Alone Baby Jr How Does The Relationship Begin? How Does Logan Propose? Are Baby and Roman Still Close? Pregnancy Announcement in the AU They Bought a Cat Who's Baby Jr's Godfather? Panty Stealer Roman's Twitter Argument

You guys are lucky I can't find the smut fic I wrote. But it's here on this blog. Somewhere.

Nvm here it is my bad: Reflections.

AFFAIR!AU

There's the Loganwins!AU, then there's the Affair!AU, which was established pretty recently. It's where Baby begins an affair with Roman while she's married to Logan and Baby Jr ends up being Roman's daughter, not his little sister. As much as I have accepted my great enjoyment in indulging the Logan lovers, I do think this is Baby at her most Succession.

She gets the benefits of being Logan's wife and his favorite wife, a cute daughter, Roman at her heel, whining for her to really be with him but knowing he'll never leave her at her denial. She's horrible, a whore. A baddie winning.

FICS TO HELP: Baby Jr being Roman's Daughter Roman and Newborn Baby Jr Baby in the Affair!AU Roman revealing she's his to his siblings "Dada" A Slight Confrontation How does it start? In Dad's Bed

GROOMING SITUATION (OG!AU and KENDALLWINS!AU)

So, I explained most of it above, but these are the fics to help understand just how messed up DogandBone!Kendall is. He's a different man, guys.

(Also Stewy was there. Stewy was her friend. A flawed twenty-something year old who didn't care enough to separate himself from Kendall when noticing the red flags of him and Baby, but he denied, denied, denied. But he also gave Baby some sense of being…ya know, a kid…cause he saw her as a CHILD)

Tern Haven:

Tern Haven EXTENDED TERN HAVEN More of Tern Haven (…Yay…)

Ken's Groomer Era:

Sleepover Drugged Up Heart Does Baby go Clubbing With Kendall? The Birthday (Big One) Kendall being Confused That Baby's Not Jealous More of Ken being Confused That Baby's Not Jealous Sleepover 2 Kendall's Birthday Gifts....

The Aftermath:

Smacktalking During Too Much Birthday Bad Bit

There's more, of course. There's always more.

KENDALLWINS!AU

After Tern Haven, Kendall has Baby. He's won Baby. He gets more addicted to drugs while making her dependent on them. He turns her into nothing - and just for him. He's scary and paranoid when it comes to Roman. A variation of the AU would be the Babydies!AU, where she accidently overdoses after he leaves her alone. It's a lot. This is not a fun AU, guys. But I like to write it!

FICS TO HELP:

Housewife Thing Waystar Press Conference Accusing Baby Jr of Not Being His Roman Trying to Get Baby Back From Kendall A Slight, Brotherly Confrontation Daily Does of Horror (Heroin) Mention of Heroin Handsy Baby and Kendall and Pills Panty Stealer Brother Roman's Dick Pics Saying Roman's Name Flower Delivery

THE OD FICS:

No Time Needled Memories

NOW....

SHIV'S AU

Shiv's AU isn't even a win!AU, technically. We haven't really dabbled in the idea of her winning. Just more of her yearning, but all in all, this woman wants Baby soooo badly. Too sad she has the guilt of being a woman. And her father. And Tom. And the denial hot on her skin.

Calling Shiv Shiv

TOM'S AU

Apparently the man can get obsessed and they haven't even kissed in his AU, yet. Fitting considering the shit he pulls with Greg. It's Baby at her most guilty due to her friendship with Shiv.

KARL'S AU

No.

STEWY'S AU

I give crumbs and only crumbs. But we're getting something started with Wedding Bells (Part One)!

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.

I hope this helps! xoxo

[kerubimcrepin]

LIVEBLOG: Wakfu Season 4, Episode 2 [PART 1]

I miss the grittier, browner Bonta of older seasons...

Agardoes what Jorisn't.

(totally not a joke I've been making for months now)

Moooooom Yugo was MEAN to me. Ngl Qilby was so good in this season, his interactions with Eliatrope are filled to the brim with insane implications.

Even more movie asset reusage. Ughh. The tavern Kerubim talked to Bakara at would NOT still be standing. It's canonically underwater and underground and shit. Like the rest of Dofus era Bonta.

Kettle insulting a pan for being on fire.

Ush will only have the right to insult him if he can stop fucking cats. <3

Both of these are also asset reusages but I'm too lazy to track down from where. The woman is from Aux Tresors, and the man is from Wakfu season 2, is all I can tell without further inspection.

I'm sure there's more stuff I missed, but I'm already annoyed enough that they decided to cut costs at every single corner even without looking further into it...

He's still a catfucker. Sad, oh well.

My beautiful wife.

[start talking shit about Ush as loud as possible the second he is in a hearing distance, in an exaggerated, expository way]

This is some school locker bully behavior, made funnier by the fact that the person actually doing all the bullying is Ush.

The way Atch starts staring here, and Ush immediately says "not here to fight, lol" just confirms the fact that this conversation is 90% all about letting Ush know he is not welcome <3

Something that makes me extremely mentally ill is about to happen, chat.

When it's Wakfu cast, who are Joris's friends whom he wants to impress, it's all "Papa... you're being awfully selfish for not letting us go and fight together with you :))"

But when it's Ush, it's immediately "whether my little Jojo is home or not depends entirely on what the fuck you want from him." as if Joris isn't a 600yo politician and kind of should hear whatever Ush has to tell him, and as if there aren't huge eyes in the sky that he was interested in.

Conspiracy theory: one of the reasons Joris is still single (besides the aromanticism, horrible personality, misantrophy, 20 psychiatric disorders, not wanting to be in relationships—) is that 99% of people who have ever had a crush on Joris were afraid of disappearing under mysterious circumstances.

Kerubim's little mad, unamused look...

I want to point out, once again, that when you actually pay attention to the OVAs and this moment, Atcham and Kerubim always kinda... act like Joris is a child.

Joris expressed that the eyes in the sky concern him? They try to stop Ush from talking to him outright. Because they don't like Ush, because they don't want Joris to investigate this, and because they want him to stay home.

Joris expressed that he doesn't want them to fight Ush together with him because he doesn't want to see them hurt? They don't give a shit, and try to express that in the softest way possible that won't embarrass Joris in front of his friends.

It feels like a mix of holding Joris on a leash, but also trying to wrap him in a cotton wool. Sometimes it helps Joris, sometimes it's just patronizing.

Ngl they do have good reasons to protect their [checks notes] 600-year-old ambassador from this guy.

You have no idea what this moment means to us, Atcham fans. All three of us.

Kerubim's expression..... probably gauging how likely it is that Atcham might start screaming or clawing at something.

Words can't express how much of a Gift this entire scene is.

Atcham looks like he's about to lose his anger management badge. Kerubim looks like he's scared that Ush is going to die or kill Atcham in self-defense.

HE'S SO SCANDALIZED.

The anger management classes + not wanting to be arrested?

KERUBIM SO UNAMUSED.

Kerubim is probably so used to seeing Atcham freak the fuck out about things. It's his brother's special charm.

[wipes tear] He's learned to love the bomb.

...sorry for making references to the band glass animals. it will happen again,. if you dislike that maybe you should learn to love the bomb too.

[nightcolorz]

Unhinged Sybelle and Benji tangent (cw references to abuse csa trauma etc)

yeah so Marius’s turning of Benji and Sybelle isn’t about whether or not that was the right decision to make and isn’t made better by their contentment living as vampires in late canon. Benji and Sybelle’s relatively happy lives as vampires are irrelevant to me. The cruelty of how he did it is made worse by the hypocritical nature of turning a kid into a vampire after so firmly insisting that turning children is morally abhorrent and smth he should’ve never done, yeah, but that’s only a small part of it.

It was so awful and upsetting to me bcus of the deliberate stripping of Armand’s agency. See, we have a whole book where Armand tells the story of how throughout his entire life and childhood he was forced into the role of submissiveness and/or dependency. whether that be his childhood religious devotion that would eventually lead to his being buried alive for God or being sold into sexual slavery or Marius’s mentorship of him that ultimately intended to teach him to stay loyal and dependent on Marius’s authority to Marius’s relationship with him sexual and otherwise to the cult indoctrination, up until Lestat comes along and tilts his own view of submission and devotion as his only way to survive and function in the world onto its head.

He gives him a theater and then he gives him Louis. Armand floats around, tries to find purpose without devotion through using Louis and Daniel as tools to understanding the modern age. The modern age to Armand is possibility and independence, things he’s never had so much access to and doesn’t know exactly how to apply to himself until the devils minion chapter when he’s like ah ok I get it, life without devotion is something I’ve always been familiar with—it���s what Marius taught me! I Am The Master now with my excessive indulgence and my Boy and my sea side paradise.

But Armand is a Void™️ with no concept of self besides a collection of concepts and experiences and people he’s been exposed to throughout his existence, so rlly he’s kind of a fraud. Internally he’s still a saint who yearns for a God to follow, he’s no Marius, and this all comes to a head in Memnoch the devil when he throws himself into the sun for Jesus etc. and so TVA Armand is mixed the fuck up, he’s lost everything he’s been building for himself, he’s like an open wound, like red and gold sand art shaken around until it’s sludges of brown.

Armand believes himself to have no coherent narrative of a life, no coherent and consistent sense of self, just a collection of unrelated sequences that he draws from to occasionally preform personhood, and at the beginning of TVA he is very much just that. No thoughts only colors and pain. But he’s trying to rebuild himself as best he can, he has these young humans who he’s caring for, and through caring Armand finds meaning.

These humans are very much reflections of himself, or who he used to be, and seeing a personhood reflected back at him through these two gives him insight into his own value as an individual, as someone who is inherently worthy of having a life. So with Benji and Sybelle he tries to rebuild his own sense of personhood by giving them what he would want in there place. The conclusion he reaches at the end of his story to David is that after everything ultimately he is learning and rebuilding, gaining fulfillment and individuality he’s never had before through his empathy and care for these two people in his life. Benji and Sybelle are representative of Armand’s healing process!!! They mirror him bcus they are him!! He’s literally nurturing his inner child!! And with that there comes self care and self love etc etc. but then the book doesn’t end!!

Then after all that trauma and all that healing everything that Armand was tenderly attempting to build for his new life is stripped away ! When Marius turns Benji and Sybelle it doesn’t matttttter that they like being vampires. What matters is that when Armand finally gained agency and individuality Marius decided to take that from him! Marius decided that he actually knew better then Armand, and if Armand would just allow him to do what’s best for him then everything would be so much better and so much easier. And when Armand starts sobbing and screaming and fighting him that’s just justification to Marius that Armand isn’t capable of independence or self sufficiency, that he’s a child throwing a tantrum who can’t make his own decisions, that he should just be dependent on Marius like he used to be and trust that other people know what’s best for him.

That’s why it’s so tragic! That’s why it’s so frustrating and so sad. Armand was on the road to healing but then Marius stormed in like the symbolic representation of his past telling him that no matter what he does or the progress he makes he’s still Armand in the catacombs, Amadeo on the red sheets, Andrei waiting to be buried alive. So I don’t really give af if ultimately Benji and Sybelle are fine! It’s great that despite being a child vampire Benji is able to function independently and contently as an adult with minimal body dysmorphia and existential dread, but you know who’s not able to do that? Armand 😭😭

[stupidlittlespirit]

what r ur thoughts on fords relationship w his father?

Something something Ford-ian slip......

I'd apologise but you guys know how much I like horrible puns so you do it to yourselves, really.

ANYWAY. It really depends on what you mean by relationship because I think there are lots of answers to that question.

I think it was awful and tumultuous, and I've touched previously on how Stan and Ford both experienced extensive abuse at the hands of their father. They received it very differently but they were absolutely both abused.

I don't think Filbrick loved Ford (or Stan). I think that, unfortunately for Ford, he's been alone for most of his life and his time with his family was no different.

We're told their mother is fond of Stan especially and it's positioned as though Filbrick prefers Ford, but he doesn't. Ford isn't protected by either parent. Where his father was likely more hands on with abuse, his mother was negligent.

Stan had his mother's love (which while it isn't enough to stop him being kicked out, I know, we are told Caryn loved Stan and we know she is the only one who goes to his 'funeral'), whereas Ford isn't referred to as having a parent that 'favours' him. When Stan talks about them loving Ford, he doesn't really use any descriptors that actually inspire the idea of a loving relationship, so much as he describes a parasitic relationship.

Filbrick pushes Ford as a meal ticket. He doesn't love him, he needs him and he needs to profit off of him.

This becomes a very common theme in Ford's life. In fact, the only person (other than Stan) he meets that doesn't want or need anything from him, nor do they intend to use him, is Fiddleford.

I imagine that Ford was pushed around with a very hot-cold attitude with regards to his father and his mom wasn't really as present with him. If she was, I imagine she similarly thought of him as a way out of poverty.

People get really mad at Ford for not 'standing up to Filbrick' when he kicked Stan out, and it always bothers me because I have 0 doubt that Filbrick would have rocked Ford's shit just like he was more than likely pushing Stan (and Caryn) around.

I don't think they were close and I think Ford disliked him as much as Stan did. I think his relationship with both of his parents was strained to non-existent.

Basically, neither Ford nor Stan stood a fucking chance with Filbrick. Their entire lives are one big Saw trap of their father's making.

[nicnevans]

Hey! GW2 fandom!

I'm semi-new here, though (since you guys seem friendly) a few of my screenshots and doodles have done the rounds so my characters might not be entirely unfamiliar to you. Anyway, I want more GW2 on my dash! with some caveats due to being New TM I'm looking for folks to follow who;

post a fair bit of GW2; other games and fandoms in the mix is fine, I myself am pretty multifandom over here (I don't have the braincells to separate everything out lmao)

have a spoiler-tagging system I can reference; I've just finished HoT and I'm absolutely not rushing through GW2's storyline (experience has taught me that the best way to enjoy an MMO is slowly) If you don't have a spoiler tagging system but still wanna chat, that's also great! hmu I wanna interact and meet the fandom! I just don't wanna hit a spoiler for content that, to most other people, is ancient lmao

I'm especially interested in seeing fanworks, whether you're a creator of them or a chronic reblogger. I miss the good old days of tumblr when my dash was 90% peoples' fanart and OCs and everyone hyping each other up 🥺

A bit about me (and my characters)

I'm not a single-fandom blog. My blog runs mostly on a queue, and in that queue goes basically everything I enjoy with anything cool that crosses my dash in between.

I'm a Millennial TM. I make Millennial TM jokes (puns) like my life depends on it. I'm sorry. I can't change.

I post art over on @ilmhist sometimes. Doodles and portraits and such. (That's also the blog I like/follow from.)

I have... a lot of OCs. A lot. My OC page is packed and in a constant state of "oh god I still need to write so-and-so's bio..."

idk how to play GW2 I'm just here for the blorbosis, I'm certifiably Bad At It and I die constantly. This has become a character trait for my comm, it's a running joke at this point that he never walks away from a fight under his own strength, he's always getting carried or dragged out when it's all said and done.

I'm... kind of obsessed with sylvari. I support everyone who has brainrot for the other races and I'd love to hear thoughts on them, I just have none, it's all plant people all time in my one singular braincell.

(pictured above, left to right: Duilliche (main comm), Callainn, Lusanaisig, Dreaghann)

These lil guys are my current pride and joy. Lus and Drea are twins, but all four of them awoke during different times of the same day, and (mostly) had connected Dreams. Cal is the odd one out in this, she never got a Wyld Hunt and her calling in life is much more mundane than the others, but she sort of gets swept along with them anyway. Her running gag is that, for one reason or another, she never seems to make it to the Big Climactic Fight at the end of any given journey. Dill is very much in the wrong genre and should have been a Disney prince. He even sings. He also has a godawful sense of direction and if left in charge of Leading The Group, he will blithely lead the group in circles for hours. As is evident, they're season-coded. Autumn, winter, spring, summer. I thought it was a fun idea for a group of sylvari sharing a plotline :>

This post is getting really long. Okay, so, intro done, like/reblog/comment/something if you post GW2 and I can avoid spoilers if I follow you, if I can't avoid spoilers if i follow you feel free to drop me a message or something if you want?

[heavenlymorals]

How a Modern Perspective Skews Historical Characters: A Mini Rant on the Hatred of Female Characters in RDR2

This isn't that organized cuz it's more a rant than a retrospective but fuck it it's my blog, I do what I want-

There are so many people who have actual hatred, not criticisms, for Abigail, Molly, Grimshaw, Mary, and other female characters in the Red Dead universe.

And honestly? I find it very interesting. Sure, men will probably always find a reason to hate a female character, but what I find interesting is how many women also hate these wonderfully crafted characters.

It could be so many reasons as to why this may be the case but honestly? I think it's because people forget that they CANNOT analyze this game authentically through the modern lens of morals and behaviors. This game takes place in 1899 America. Let me say it again. This game takes place in 1899 America.

One more time, just for good measure- this game takes place in FUCKING 1899 America. Women had to be dependent on men because otherwise? They'll either be in poverty, exploited, killed, or all three. There was also the honor system. When had to be the moral high ground for their family so them messing up has consequences on their fathers, mothers, siblings, cousins, and anyone connected to their family name.

Abigail getting pissy at John for getting in trouble all the time? If course it'd feel annoying if you're looking at it through the modern perspective but when you don't, it's a woman telling her man to act like a man and be careful because if he doesn't, she and her son will be destitute and destroyed.

Mary not getting with Arthur but using him? What's the likely hood that the law would bother to help Mary when the two people she needs help with are her father and brother- two grown men who can make their own choices that she literally can do nothing about because as a woman, it wasn't her place to dictate what they do. Arthur was her only option. "Girl, what her family thinks doesn't matter, she still should've gotten with him" girl no, because it's much harder and difficult than that- it's like tearing away an entire identity that you depend on to fucking survive.

"but what about Sadie? She was also living during this time period and she isn't drowned by societal expectations-"

Seriously. Do some research, read a book, expand your knowledge of gender roles and what that entails for people because it explains so many things about these characters in such a human way. They aren't "bitches", they are women of their time and people have to understand that.

No. Sadie isn't a part of this discussion because though she is a fun character and an amazing character, she is a mishmash of historical women who did masculine things to survive at one point but then went back to traditional roles, even if they did occasionally go back to to those old activities for sport sometimes, like Anne Oakley or Calamity Jane. Sadie's entire character is basically "but what if they didn't and committed to the nontraditional lifestyle". There are many inconsistencies that Rockstar did regarding the time period that they established earlier to accommodate Sadie's character better. Sadie is a great character but she doesn't belong in this discussion.

Edit: Ok, since this was a rant, as mentioned previously, I was a bit too rushed with the Sadie aspect of this post and ignored some crucial details. I'm not gonna change the post besides just this though. @hillbillyhipster84 made some great points that Sadie was a reference to Appalachian women and real outlaw women who did run and were accomplices in men's crimes, that I was too ignorant to mention prior beforehand because I didn't do much research. I still don't believe that People should use Sadie to bash the other women though, because those women mentioned above were not the status quo and thus were more trivialized because of it.

So many cultures still operate like this too so if anything, you're just learning something new about another culture.

But I swear, anytime someone talks shit about these characters, y'all got me looking like this-

[shinigami-social]

This is probably going to be massively controversial, but I just feel like it needs to be said at this point. I desperately need people to read this very carefully and approach this in good faith. General blanket warning for intersexism, transphobia, and intersectional misogyny with both of these I just wonder how many people in the intersex community just like… fundamentally don’t understand the way being intersex impacts your gender. I know that sounds fucking wild because obviously being intersex impacts your gender but like… it feels like a lot of people reach for comparisons to the binary over just, like, the label intersex itself. The thing on my mind in particular is the stark difference in what transfemininity seems to mean inside and outside the intersex community. This isn’t to refer to AMAB and/or CTM intersex transfems, but in particular people who were AFAB and/or CTF.

I want to clarify before I get into the main body of this post that I fully believe people can be AFAB and/or CTF and be transfem. This post isn’t to say that this never happens, no one ever experiences the combination of these two* things, or that people who identify this way are wrong for it. I just want to open up a discussion about why people are identifying this way, I guess. It’s not about invalidating anyone or their experiences, on the contrary, I really want to discuss the varied nature of the intersex experience.

I was AFAB, and I would generally consider myself CTF. I have simple virilizing classic CAH. I experienced many of the events which a lot of people talk about as why they relate to the transfem experience or consider themselves to be transfem. I grew up with a tenuous connection to girl/womanhood at best, I had the locker room harassment, I was widely rumored to be a hermaphrodite and transgender (no one could decide in which direction), I was put into situations specifically to attempt to uncover my “real” sex/gender. Even when I was seen as a girl/woman, I was Wrong about it. When I was seen as a boy/man, it was before I had ever come to terms with that identity for myself, and it was instead something thrust on me against my will for being a girl/woman Wrong. I was, for much of my life, locked out of womanhood in various ways.

I can very easily understand why people with experiences such as these would relate to transfemininity (and on a “relation” basis, yes, I would say I relate), and perhaps even identify with it based on how these sorts of things impacted them in particular. That being said… I have never understood why people think this is somehow not just being intersex. I’m not trying to say it can’t possibly be both, but sometimes it feels like people just refuse to acknowledge that this is a very common experience of the intersection of misogyny and intersexism. There are certainly transmisogynistic elements to it, I think transmisogyny and intersexism are deeply intertwined and always have been, but like… to act like this is solely transmisogyny feels like a denial of the intersex experience. For intersex people who were AFAB, are CTF, and/or likely some other types of intersex people depending on their circumstances, this is entirely par for the course because they are intersex. The things I described are, above all else, intersexist in nature. They happen to people for being intersex. There are aspects reminiscent of transmisogyny and perhaps even motivated by transmisogyny in many cases, but this distinct experience that I see many, many intersex people have experienced, it is to me such a classic experience of growing up intersex.

This is to say nothing of the appropriation of the transfem experience (no, I’m not accusing you or anyone else specifically of doing this, if it doesn’t apply to you, it doesn’t apply to you, but yes some people are objectively doing this). I am not focused on that. It is its own separate issue, but the thing I am trying to communicate here is why people struggle to find themselves in the word intersex when the thing that caused them these traumas is being intersex. The denial of intersexness and intersexism as explanations for the experiences directly caused by being intersex. The need to use terms broadly conceived of within perisex communities to describe perisex experiences of sex and gender to describe experiences inherently outside of the perisex view. To me, it seems like there is a very clear difference between using intersex transfem to describe “I have Klinefelter and also I am a trans woman” and “due to my experiences with PCOS, my relationship with femininity is deeply complicated and I use transfem as a sort of code for reclaiming my womanhood that I feel has been denied to me.” And like. I am not saying that these couldn’t possibly both be transfem experiences! I am not the decider of what makes people transfem, and it’s not really my business at the end of the day, but these are still just like, objectively different concepts being described. This is what I meant at the beginning of the post by the inside-outside usage of the term. It feels like transfem, in intersex spaces, is often used as a shorthand to describe a specific relationship to femininity and womanhood and this relationship is not necessarily “transitioning to femininity.” At the same time, it feels like it is being used this way because in some way, perhaps, the community is lacking in language that adequately communicates “my being intersex locked me out of womanhood, even though womanhood is what I was assigned and expected to conform to” which is, to me, a fundamental difference between most (not all, I’m aware we cannot ever make absolute statements when it comes to intersex experiences) AFAB/CTF and AMAB/CTM transfem experiences.

To me, I feel that intersex does adequately express these sentiments. Or, at least, it can if you let it. Intersex people pretty much inherently experience a complicated relationship to their sex and gender, and I wish we were allowed to talk about this without there being an obligatory comparison of how every intersex experience is always analogous to some equivalent transgender experience. Intersexism is intersexism, and intersex people experience it because we are intersex, and maybe we should fucking talk about that sometimes.

[agentrouka-blog]

Do you think Sansa would mind that Robb disinherited her? I haven’t read all the books, but I recently saw a Sansa’ quote that she never thought to have a claim

Well, he didn't disinherit her. He placed Jon ahead of her in the line of succession in order to foil the Lannister plan of claiming Winterfell through her.

Ultimately, I think this move would hurt Sansa far less than the knowledge that he could have traded for her but chose not to. Though I doubt GRRM will take the time to explore that. Sansa connects no personal ambition to her claim, though she grows to connect it to her sense of home and belonging and return.

Sansa always had a place in the line of succession. The quote you refer to highlights how unlikely she considered it to become relevant:

But she had not forgotten his words, either. The heir to Winterfell, she would think as she lay abed at night. It's your claim they mean to wed. Sansa had grown up with three brothers. She never thought to have a claim, but with Bran and Rickon dead . . . It doesn't matter, there's still Robb, he's a man grown now, and soon he'll wed and have a son. Anyway, Willas Tyrell will have Highgarden, what would he want with Winterfell? (ASOS, Sansa II)

Later, she is well aware of what this claim means for her. It makes her a target of other people's ambitions.

Tyrell or Lannister, it makes no matter, it's not me they want, only my claim. (ASOS, Sansa III)

At least I am safe here. Joffrey is dead, he cannot hurt me anymore, and I am only a bastard girl now. Alayne Stone has no husband and no claim. And her aunt would soon be here as well. The long nightmare of King's Landing was behind her, and her mockery of a marriage as well. She could make herself a new home here, just as Petyr said. [...] The thought made Sansa weary. All she knew of Robert Arryn was that he was a little boy, and sickly. It is not me she wants her son to marry, it is my claim. No one will ever marry me for love. But lying came easy to her now.  (ASOS, Sansa VI)

GRRM begins the next chapter by having Sansa rebuild the entire castle from memory using snow. Which is pretty heavy-handed symbolism that depicts - without spelling it out - a growing sense of identification with her claim, with the role of bearing the legacy of House Stark and Winterfell. It is not ambition so much a responsibility and personal attachment that guides her.

The next books culminates with a re-emergance of her claim's importance:

 Jon Arryn's bannermen will never love me, nor our silly, shaking Robert, but they will love their Young Falcon . . . and when they come together for his wedding, and you come out with your long auburn hair, clad in a maiden's cloak of white and grey with a direwolf emblazoned on the back . . . why, every knight in the Vale will pledge his sword to win you back your birthright. So those are your gifts from me, my sweet Sansa . . . Harry, the Eyrie, and Winterfell. That's worth another kiss now, don't you think?" (AFFC, Alayne II)

Regardless of the actual sincerity of this plan on Littlefinger's part, we are painted a credible image of what Sansa's claim means politically, and she accepts this function of her claim.

To find out that this claim is removed from her would always be ambiguous and depend on context. If she is displaced by Bran and Rickon, it means her beloved brothers are alive. She would be jubilant. If she is displaced by Jon Snow, she may feel more conflicted in knowing her brother Robb disposed of her relevance in this way and how her mother would have felt about it. This might also play into initial concerns on her part how Jon will deal with the competiton that her claim presents in a world where bastardy carries social stigma. It may well put her in danger from other people's politics again.

That is IF Robb's will even becomes public knowledge. GRRM may well keep its impact focused on what it means to Jon in tandem with the reveal of his parentage - giving him two optional identities to privately choose from that cancel out each other.