#this is a very vague question/assumption and I'm mostly stuck on the 'all the way' part.

[fairymint]

It is clear that Felix wants to go all the way through with the current fase he is in. But would be there any feminine traits or features that would remain in him at the end?

....I'm gonna be honest, I'm not sure what you mean by this, anon. You might do well to try rephrasing your question. Clothing and hair wise, he already has his gender-nonconforming points of style- He's more comfortable/confident with things like mid-length hair, makeup, and the occasional thing like dresses.

meanwhile, he doesn't really get dysphoria from not having bottom surgery, nor getting pregnant. the only other thing I can think of are his curves which seem to be natural chubbiness- HRT didn't get rid of everything, fat wise. A year and 4 months sits around the "16-17" mark as far as 2nd puberty goes- quite a bit of work 'done', but cis male puberty is around 5-7 years ish anyways- he's still catching up.

but no, he would have never been comfortable with "she" pronouns, meanwhile feminine terms are only okay for someone close to him in an ironic and 'gay' way.

I doubt much more masculinization is coming besides the things I'm writing him as already having- facial hair and a larger dick...but we don't know to what extent and will not for another, oh i dunno, 4-5 or 8 more years- if something major happens, don't worry I'll keep y'all posted-

as a minor thing, I don't know if we can exactly hold him to white man beauty standards- tbh my assumption is that the bit of native/brownness and japanese in there is gonna keep his phenotype a smidge more androgynous- quite a bit of gender-stereotype is very western/white/eurocentric and doesn't allow wiggle room for traits possessed more often by POC.

and I'm sure being a flaming homosexual doesn't help, but I see Felix as mixed presentation, probably amab 'passing', dwarfism taken into account. smol man.

[saintadeline]

Hey there. I've been doing a lot more lore diving lately and there's one question I have regarding Adella. Do you think she ever learns that the Hunter is not part of the Healing Church? When you meet her, you have to have church clothing to get her to trust you, but it never occurred to me until now that she might think you're a member through out the entire game. I think that assumption changes the context of her feelings towards you getting Arianna's blood, so I was curious of your feelings on it.

You know you're so right I never really thought about it extensively either so now's the time. A while ago I used to assume she'd just figure it out on her own but if you think about it theres actually nothing that could indicate so and if anything, all that happens kind of reinforces that idea anyway? She might see you walking around with another garb yeah but you have brought her to a chapel of all places, and the chapel dweller doesn't really know you either it's not like they'd say anything about you that could signify otherwise. That and she's not really talking to them anyway. I think in her mind authority and hunters are inherently linked to the church so even without definite proof or without you wearing church attire constantly she would've assumed so. She's a Yharnamite, she's not expecting any random person and Especially not an outsider to help her, the church is the face of bravery and kindness in adversity. I think the way I'd see it is that she immediately took you for a higher standing member of the church but figured out you were a church hunter, so still a church member and still "above her" but not as much as she seemed to think in that very first dialogue, which would explain why she never really brings up the church again. Mostly what's worth looking at here is this line: "Oh, brave hunter. You’re alive. Thank you very much. The town is in disarray, but there are still people here. Together, we await the help of the Healing Church. I cannot begin to express my gratitude to you. The only thing that I can offer… Is my own lowly blood. If it would suffice?" It's the only time she ever mentions the church and you at the same time again but it's easy to interprete in several different ways due to the way it's phrased so vaguely. I looked up the literal translation of the japanese text, "together" denotes specifically her and the other people waiting in the chapel and doesnt seem to include the hunter (you) in the "us". Thus it's possible to take the way she says "(we await the help of) the healing church" as encompassing you and being almost a direct question. But i think it's a subtility that's impossible to figure out for sure so that really depends how you want to take it. Unfortunately I'm running into an issue here which is the "you" in "my gratitude to you". I don't know enough about japanese to figure it out myself but I know for sure it is different from the way we have a separate and yet undistinguishable plural and singular You in this scenario. So not being able to look at the grammatical building of the original sentence I can't bring light on anything wrt how this sentence is supposed to be taken, singular and plural You in english are only differenciated with their context but here both would work and bring a different meaning to what we're researching, so I'm a bit stuck. If anyone knows more about it and would like to help me dissect "貴方には、感謝の言���もありません" you're more than welcome to LOL. So this did not help a whole lot or bring many definite answers but I think it's more easily interpretable as her still viewing you as part of the church although not exactly all-powerful like her superiors are. But then again she's kind of the bottom of the ladder anyway so Anything would be "above" her.

Anyhow, yeah this absolutely ties into her aversion for Arianna, I wouldnt go as far as to say it Changes the context entirely, it just adds some that was, in my opinion, already in the same direction; I do think the church is a prejudiced organization but her distrust of Arianna was always more strongly about bloodline than sex work. Yharnam has such vitriol towards Cainhurst that I think it would be near impossible to have lineage from it and not have it be known by everyone, especially since Arianna just straight up uses a dress from ye olde Cainhurst. So not only is Adella wary of her, and jealous of the attention she has, and considers her existence blasphemy, she also directly sees a church member, higher up than her, interact with her and even partake of her blood which would be Extra forbidden. I think she's too far brainwashed to ever even think about the fact that people in the church might be corrupt, she's too busy looking up to people as saviors and the epitomy of good (as well as herself as lowly and insignificant in their wake) to consider that. So seeing what she would (wrongly) assume as exactly that will be a shock to her and something she just cannot understand no matter how much she thinks about it. And confusion and a lack of understanding make you much more likely to act irrationally especially when you're unknowingly being influenced by something greater than you.

[countlessrealities]

Well, geez, so much for trying to be friendly. Morty is ready to acknowledge that the rhino has tried, even if he hasn't sounded very convincing or convinced, but the other one? He is starting to wonder how many insulting nicknames he will end up hearing during that endless day.

For a moment, he's tempted to react with some hostility, at least verbally. It has sort of worked with Krang at first, so perhaps it might have with the mutants too. However, the teen quickly discards the idea. Rick already has a tendency for picking up unnecessary fights, he really doesn't need to feed into that.

Besides, he's being given a chance...or whatever that question is supposed to be. What he knows is that he feels like he's being test and the mere idea makes his palms a little sweatier. He's never been too good at tests. Not to mention that, in all honesty, he's not even sure he knows the answer to that question.

"Uh, I-I like...rock? I-I don't know many Earthen bands, w-well, not recent ones at least, b-but the older ones are…t-they have a pretty cool sound, you know? An-And so do these alien bands Rick got me to listen to…e-even if I have no idea of what the songs say," he answers after a few moments of hesitation, once he is done collecting ideas. "Also, when I'm feeling…uh…" Absolutely filled with rage. "W-When I'm upset, I-I like listening to metal, 'cause...i-it kind of helps? An-And I kind of got into punk rock a little."

Mostly because of the music Rick's old band used to make, but these are details.

"W-Why do you ask?"

In the meanwhile, Rick is enjoying the little mayhem his pretended assumption has caused. He stops himself from snorting in amusement when Krang pushes Shredder out of the way, but his lips still curl into a smirk that betrays just how entertaining this is in his eyes.

His expression turns a little unimpressed only when the alien brain decides to include Morty in his shouted orders. No one tells his grandson what to do aside from him. Especially not some random screaming organ.

"Y-You're seriously going to send those two," he makes sure to put emphasis on the number, "t-to retrieve something so potentially unstable? W-When said potentially unstable shit is our only way off this 'primitive rock'? D-Damn, I guess you didn't hear what I said about the IQ, d-did you?"

He turns towards the other three in turn, making a gesture with his hand at the teen. He's not letting those brutes touch his energy source. No fucking way.

"L-Let's go, Morty," he called out, showing his intentions to head inside the cave himself. "I-I'm not going to get stuck on this space dump j-just because someone is too lazy to do things by himself. M-Maybe the whole crew need a fuckin' brain boost 'c-cause I'm not seeing any vaguely smart mind around here."

Morty groans a little at Rick's choice of wording, but he doesn't hesitate to do as he's been asked. With one last look at Bebop and Rocksteady, he hurries to go to stand by the scientist's side once again.

"S-So, uh, see you all later, I-I guess?"

{ @technodromes }

The mutants exchange fleeting looks before mustering the teen. Neither of them are well-suited to deal with kids or teens. But this time it is Rocksteady who tries a positive approach.

"You know, Bebop, N'sho-v was just a brat too when we saw him first. And now he's cool and part of the gang. Maybe that one is going to be a cool one, too?" But he can tell right away that his BFF doesn't seem to fully share that thought process.

"He's not a mutant, Rocksteady. He's not even a freakin' dinosaur. What are we supposed to do with a human runt?" Bebop would proceed to bully Morty for fun under other circumstances, but he was with Krang and Shredder and is still unharmed. So the warthog figures it's a case of 'no harm allowed until explicitly told so'. Maybe Rocksteady is not entirely out of his pea brain after all. "Uhh...fine! Let's give this a shot. What music do you like?"

Shredder in the meantime enjoys the given attention. For the most part, anyway. He knows it must annoy Krang just as much as Rick assumes, so there is a mutual understanding as far as that goes. And if there's a given opportunity for him to boast a little? How could he say no to that?

"Oh I am indeed their leader. But as far as their evident lack of intellect goes–" He doesn't get to explain himself further than that, though. Krang roughly pushes the Ninja Master aside without a single care, to face their new unlikely companion himself. He is pissed that Bebop and Rocksteady have been overly eager to tell more than they should have, but he will take care of that later. There are certainly more pressing matters at the moment that put him just as much in a foul mood. The disrespect of that strange old man is a part of it. It's time to put his foot down. Literally so, because he just stomps down his mandroid's foot while repositioning himself, to make a point of being the one in charge actually.

"EnOUGH of this idiotic chit-chat! Nothing of this is getting us any closer to leaving this primitive ROCK!" A loud angry burble follows his complaint before turning to face the others. "And what are you three dunderheads standing AROUND for like a bunch of stone pillars? Make yourself useful and bring me the energy source FROM within this cave!"

A little annoyed, Shredder brushes his tunic off as if he got himself dusty somehow. He didn't fall, even though the sudden push caught him a little off-guard. "Krang, you miserable burbling heaps of brain! I was just about to say that before you interrupted me!"

@countlessrealities

[bronyinabottle]

In a recent post on I Dream of Twilight Sparkle I said that I noticed asks that were not in my inbox the last time I decided to read through my entire ask box. So I did the same for my mod blog. And while there were some also that I didn't see before. Most are questions I feel either I feel like I may have already sufficiently answered enough with my thoughts on an episode and/or it'd be weird at this point to answer something that's obviously years after the fact.

But there is two I found that I feel like I may want to respond to. The person who sent it was someone who used to discuss the show with me almost all the time, though obviously they must no longer be on Tumblr as all their blogs are deactivated. But I still want to answer since it is sort of relevant to recent stuff. Particularly in their 2nd ask.

By the way, I'm always open to questions on the show or even non-pony topics here on my modblog. I still do love talking about G4 ponies and I wouldn't mind some questions if any of you would like to know my opinion on anything. Now that the show has been over for nearly 2 years , I can have a perspective on many topics about Friendship is Magic that I wouldn't mind sharing. Maybe some things have changed here and there, though I think I still generally have a positive attitude towards most things for certain. I stuck with the show until the very end, and was satisfied with how it ended. And I still have interest in doing more in G4's world even as G5 approaches. (Though I'm sure perhaps once that movie has aired that may be the focus of any questions sent here)

((My answer and more after the break))

For the most part, I think I still generally agree with what I said in my initial thoughts about the Season 6 finale. It's a solid episode with some great interactions between Starlight, Trixie, Discord, and Thorax. Though the way the ending is executed is a bit of a headscratcher. Maybe somewhat less so since thinking about it now, like even if Chrysalis did keep some things loyal. What would stop them from eventually seeing what Thorax's changelings did shortly after.

But I suppose I wanted to answer this mostly about Starlight. Since while the Season 6 finale made HomerJ get over some remaining feelings about Starlight. I'll admit it took literally until writing Secrets of the Dragon's Tear (A year after the show was over) to realize the sort of potential that Starlight had. The baggage from the Season 5 finale always felt like a cloud above her for the entire rest of the show's run. And I consider Season 6's largest mistake is not trying harder to endear us to Starlight. That's what that season's entire job was, to try to make us feel a little better of how rather rushed Starlight's redemption was by giving us a more expanded look into Starlight's character. And unfortunately, I feel like it failed at that in my opinion. Thus I basically disagree (Though respect the opinion of) with those who would say the Season 6 finale was when Starlight finally won them over.

Don't get me wrong, I like how Starlight is portrayed in the episode. But it would of been stronger if say the season had explained more about Starlight's past. How did Starlight get her cutie mark, and given her opinion on Cutie Marks how did she feel at the time?

Instead, we mostly just got Starlight reuniting with Sunburst that didn't exactly give any more details to her rather vague reasons for turning to darkness from him moving away other then finding out Sunburst's personality and how his side of the story went. And from there we had Starlight befriend Trixie... in an episode I still don't really like to this day.

Ironically, the character in the Hearth's Warming episode that casts Starlight as the story's version of Scrooge (Snowfall Frost) is given more reason to sympathize with then Starlight herself.

Starlight then just about disappears up until the episode that introduces Thorax. Where she doesn't do much other then be among the crowd that Spike has to convince that Thorax is not evil.

The next time we see her is Every Little Thing She Does. Which is something of a controversial ep from what I hear, though ironically despite my skepticism of Starlight at the time. I actually sort of liked that episode since it was basically Starlight's own Lesson Zero. Though I get why Starlight deciding to hypnotize all the Mane 6 besides Twilight against their will would not be approved of. Though it does feel like at the very least Twilight and the rest give her enough of a piece of their mind at the end.

And that's how things stood before the Season 6 finale happened. Even though I do think Starlight has good moments in said finale, nothing earlier in the season really dispelled many of my feelings about the Season 5 finale's ending. So despite a good showing, I could hardly care for it. I wasn't convinced yet we were given a satisfactory answer about the many questions that Starlight's sudden redemption prompted.

Another part of my thoughts I feel still applies is when I mentioned that Starlight's a "Diet Sunset Shimmer" (Which considering what I did to link the two for SOTDT, is a bit funny in hindsight). It took just one movie (Rainbow Rocks) for the fanbase to turn a 180 on Sunset. While an entire season with Starlight as one of the good guys goes by and she remained just as divisive as before if not more so by the end of Season 6.

Come Season 7, and Starlight appears quite a bit more often though under the assumption that the Season 6 finale was enough to warm you up to her. There were many complaints during the first half of Season 7 that she was appearing more then she should (Even in an Equestria Girls special where she got to meet the character she was so often compared to). Though another thing about Starlight in Season 7 in hindsight is besides from her meeting a few more friends like Maud. Starlight isn't actually given much to actually work towards. They dropped the whole student aspect so it's not like she was doing friendship lessons under Twilight anymore (Though I suppose on the bright side for the detractors, it lessened worries about her becoming an Alicorn). Season 8 and 9 does somewhat fix that by having Starlight employed at the school, first as a counselor and ultimately ending with her as the school's Principal as Twilight herself got promoted to sole ruler. Which I'm still unsure about if fans of her character feel that was a proper ending for her. Though probably the best that could of been done in context of not much having been done with her over time.

Still, at least for me personally it felt there was alot missing about Starlight and as time went on it became obvious I wasn't going to get the satisfactory answers about her that I wanted. So as a result, I only had lukewarm reactions when a new Starlight episode was coming up. It also didn't help that there were two episodes that raised my hopes of at least one interesting aspect that would of been cool to see. The first being the episode "All Bottled Up" which I had hoped would mean it would be an episode that's somewhat genie related. And then there was Road to Friendship where Starlight and Trixie try to travel to Saddle Arabia (which is an important location in I Dream of Twilight Sparkle)... and yet never actually get there. So even on the few times that I was hoping to be excited about a Starlight episode, it dropped the ball. Partly my fault for getting so hyped about something that wasn't promised, but I would of loved to at least SEEN canon Saddle Arabia.

I'd never say that I hated Starlight back during the show's run. But she was a frustrating character for certain back then. I couldn't hate Starlight as much as some others did, but at the same time I couldn't like her as much as others. She was in likability limbo. For every fun and or good moment that included her, it's brought right back by either lingering problems that arised from the Season 5 finale or otherwise dropping the ball in some way.

In some ways, she's still a frustrating character. Though that's just how it'll always be with the canon Starlight. It's up entirely now to fanon to give their approach on Starlight that was never done in Canon. With SOTDT, I obviously did a bit of a "Fine, I'll do it myself" when it comes to making Starlight a more satisfactory character for me. Though I'm sure there are many interpretations that are vastly different from how I approached it that can satisfy others and probably be more popular and better written then mine. (My interpretation might be understandably controversial just for Starlight being put back on a path where she'll likely become an Alicorn eventually. Something Starlight detractors feared the most. Though I think I at least try to explain as best I could that makes sense with the story, her cutie mark moment being similar to Twilight's, and the identity of her mother. And I myself sort of feared Starlight becoming an Alicorn might happen, so for me to actually write it so that it might be inevitable. That's just how much of a 180 I've taken on Starlight because of writing SOTDT)

I think I mentioned this before, but I can pretty much say that in a way that I can actually say I like Starlight now. But sort of in a "FiM's biggest missed opportunity" sort of way that it becomes sort of sad to look at how canon Starlight was done. Rather then me simply shrugging her off back when I didn't care so much about her. I also understand it's a bit cheating to say I like Starlight now after doing my own sort of fanfic that had her in a major role since that might be me tooting my own horn a bit.

Though I will say as much as necessary that I am very aware alot of what happens in SOTDT would have been impossible to do in canon and I don't plan on pushing what I did to expand on Starlight's backstory as gospel. It only applies to what I'm doing on the blog, I will not be making a case that my interpretation is the only correct one. I'd actually welcome seeing some different interpretations on things such as who Starlight's mother is, what they feel her past was like outside of the Sunburst leaving incident, and/or especially how Starlight originally got her cutie mark. (I've even said my personal guess is different then how I did it in SOTDT, as my guess is she got it the first time she discovered the cutie mark removal spell). Cause if nothing else, I've realized Starlight is a very interesting character that I think would be fun to explore all the possibilities with. It certainly could be something for those still on the G4 train to talk with one another about.